15 YRS AGO LIVECASTS: WWE Wellness Policy changes, TNA or ROH better off than 5 years earlier, Jeff Hardy, Nash, Miz-Bryan, more

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 Today.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
On the Way Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast, we jump back
fifteen years to two back to back episodes of the
PW Torch Live Cast First Up, James Caldwell and p
W Torch Nostalgia columnist Brian Hoops discussed with live callers
Tuesday Nights NXT episode Michael Cole conspiracy theories on why
he could be the raw GM and or the Nexus leader,

(01:36):
why the logic could fall apart on colol So, the
future of NXT, the NXT Gong, Chris Jericho's future, Matt
Hardy situation, whether TNA would put the TNA title on
Jeff Hardy with his legal issue, a theory on YTNA
might have stretched out the TNA title tournament, Kevin Ash's
TNA future independent contractor versus employee status, the Miz versus
Daniel Bryan being the top feud going into Night of

(01:57):
Champions and how one pay per view could affect the
booking of another and how, and then in the previously
VP exclusive after show portion of the show, they talk
about NXT's future and whether it would continue past the
final week on sci Fi, it will gain versus undertakers,
build and likely outcomes at Night of Champions and Helen
us sell bio review of Mike Shaw, the nineties WF
characters plus the Weekly Twenty Years ago Tortu news at

(02:19):
our flashback review with potential WWF Fox TV deal, uswa
Her Babram's UWF and some fun stories from Beach Browl
ninety one. Then the next episode I hosted with Greg Parks,
including a discussion with the live callers on TNA Impact
and the TNA Title Tournament and rvd's first promo on
Impact since the storyline right off. Also changes in wwwe's

(02:41):
wellness policy with an in depth discussion on whether it
addresses the real issue. Also the Night of Champions pay
per view and more topics. And then in the previously
VP exclusive after show, we talked in depth about whether
WWETNA and Rohr better off or worse off compared to
five years earlier, and also how to rebuild the WWE
tag team divisions. So lots of topics covered here and

(03:01):
back to back episodes, nearly three hours of content from
fifteen years ago this week and it is our Waight
Teller Promising podcast Fifteen years Ago Flashback four. Monday September
twenty second, twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
You're listening to the pew tors live cast. This is
pw torch Assistant editor James Caldwell hosting Today for Wednesday,
September the fifteenth, twoenty ten, and I'm joined by Torch
Nostalgia columnist Brian Oops. Brian, how are you doing today?

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Hey, I'm doing good. Just come out yourself today.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
James all a little bum ed ow. The Ashtro's just
lost literally ten seconds ago as we're counting down to
the show, So I'm started off on a on a
trying to get over that note. We have obviously have
lots of wrestling to talk about today, with twenty of
up in the news, wrestlers investigations, an xteen Raw a

(04:05):
pay per view on Sunday, but we talked a lot
about the independent contractor U situation, the independent contractor versus
employee classification in WWE. Talk a lot about that on Friday,
and since then had some relatively major news with the
news coming out yesterday that the Connecticut I believe this

(04:26):
Department of Labor will be investigating or at least have
started an audit of WWE and their their classification. Don't
know the scope, don't know, you know, how far back
they're going with this or if it's just kind of
a current overview, But what's kind of your your impression
of this story. We talked a lot about this on Friday,

(04:46):
so I want to get your thoughts on kind of
what we've heard and what we've known since Friday, especially
with yesterday's news.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
Yeah, I think it's a you know, a real.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Big issue that could be.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
When the biggest stories of the entire decade, you know,
this is this is something I think we'll be talking
about ten years from now because this is potentially anyway
this is you know, this type of news could could
really change the face of the way ww treats its
employees or slash wrestlers, you know, as far as reclassifying them.
So it's it's something that I think if it's really

(05:24):
indulged in by the government and they take a true
hard look at this, we could see a lot of
changes being made, and I think those changes would be
for the benefit of the wrestlers and the majority of cases,
and you know, they could go back. I think you
and I talked last Friday all the way back to
when Vince McMahon started his national expansion in about eighty
three and started to sign in some big name talent

(05:45):
and sign those guys to exclusive contracts, and about that
timeframe is when the WW shifted, in my opinion anyway,
from treating their performers as independent contractors versus employees. And
you know, by finding those guys is long term contracts,
guarantee contracts are really controlling every aspect of how they

(06:06):
earn an income, where they are able to work, how
long they're able to work. It really changes that balance
of power. And it's something that hasn't been investigated yet
and it, as I said, could have a real long
term effect on the wrestling industry.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
And it's one of those unintended consequences of lindav a
Man's campaign. I mean, this probably would never have come
to the surface barring another perhaps another high profile wrestler death.
This never would have come to the surface unless there's
been a year's worth of Senate coverage looking at ww's
business practices, McMahon's role as the CEO of the company

(06:47):
that's your qualification run percentator, and so obviously people and
reporters in the media rightfully are going to investigate what
is her background, you know, what were her business practices,
what could she potentially a brain into a Senate position.
And this has come up and I don't know if
we'd been talking about this without that Senate campaign, since

(07:08):
one of the one of the unintended uh you know,
consequences of that campaign is bringing a lot of these
issues to light. I mean, here the torch and and
Wade Keller specifically, We've been writing about this for you know,
a couple of decades now, and it's just it just
hasn't got that attention to where someone is gonna look
into a formal body, a formal governing body is going

(07:30):
to look into and evaluate and maybe we'll actually get
a realistic answer, a legit answer from w on their classification.
I mean, they that statement that they put out on
Tuesday yesterday again full of holes. I mean, it's just
I don't know that they really truly have an answer

(07:50):
for the classification. At least they have not shown one.
They have not released one, they have not stated one.
So I'm very interested to see. And then and then
again on last night, that's all, an article came across,
an article from lind Ma man Or. I'm not buyer,
but she was quoted in an article gonna respond to this,
but she didn't say anything. I mean, I couldn't even

(08:11):
do a story on it because I don't even know
what she said. You know, I came across as I
don't know that WW understands. And then they claim that
they keep up with the latest employee employment I guess
in this case independent contract or classification. The legal side
of it, the employment law side of it. They claim

(08:32):
they came up with this. I don't know that they
really understand it that. I mean, maybe that's just kind
of the impression I've got. But Brian, what do you
think is gonna be the result of this probe? Can
we make an early prediction you what are your your
thoughts on the sort of a formal audit slash investigation?

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Well, I think they will, hopefully they will anyway make
a determination of how WW classified some of the wrestlers. Now,
not every wrestler, as we talked on Friday, is going
to be classified as a as a employee of a company,
certainly especially at the independent levels, but the majority of
performers under WWE and TNA contracts could easily be classified

(09:13):
as employees. Are there may be some instances and if
we throw a name out like maybe Rob Van Dam
who is contracted just for a certain amount of dates,
he may fall into the purview of being an independent contractor.
But some of these guys, you know, you look at
maybe a John Morrison, just to throw a name out
there for WWE who has a downside guarantee also has

(09:34):
different levels of income from a standpoint of generating pay
per view, buy rates or percentage of the buy rates,
and bonuses and merchandise and his appearance fees, that sort
of thing that is going to more likely tie him
to an employee type status, and performers like that will

(09:54):
most likely be entitled to benefits of the company. Now,
if you have a CEO or vice president that you
get stock options, gets health insurance, or retirement plan, all
other employees are subject to the same retirement plans and benefits.
So it really opens the door for a lot of
these wrestlers to receive some benefits that they're not receiving now.

(10:17):
And you know, the stats are pretty staggering. I was
working on a story for next week's newsletter and my
part of the newsletter anyway, and you know, they going
back and there's a lot of studies that go back
into the nineteen nineties and just within the last couple
of years of how much money is withheld from the

(10:39):
government as far as not being classified properly. In fact,
you go back to last year, they estimate that independent
contractor misclassification costs federal government two point seven billion dollars
in two thousand and six was last year's report, and
you know, most likely that's increasing each year. So there's
a vested financial interest the government to go back in

(11:01):
and reclassify a lot of the workers, as that was
one of President Obama's key issues. And certainly WW is
a big place to start because that they're you know,
they're a big employer and have a huge payroll.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Good good segue into plugging this week's p t B
Torch newsletter that is currently up for Torch VIP members
just posted this afternoon. Uh, it covers a lot of
what we're talking about. And white color is the Torch
cover story, Uh, the Connecticut review in w's classification of
wrestlers as in the contractors. That is this week's cover
story in the Torch newsletter number one, one six eight.

(11:38):
Torch VAP members can access the PDF version right now.
If you're not a Torch VP member, you can find
out how to access the Torch VP membership site at
a pretty well rate the number, the not the number.
We'll give up the number, Moe Taily. The website, of
course is PW Torch dot com slash go vip. Also, uh,
we have Brian you have your your column and to

(11:59):
style to call him in this week's newsletter, as well
as Greg Parks with a column Page two Buzz with
Jason Powell and Bade Keller's end notes looking at the
WW and Matt Hardy situation. Before we go into phone calls.
We have plenty to talk about, so we're gonna get
into phone calls pretty early in the show. But Bro,
I'm kind of speaking on the Matt Hardy subject. I

(12:20):
want to get your thoughts on that. Sort of a
a very interesting seventy two hour period for Matt Hardy
sent home from the last show on Sunday on the
UK tour and not at yesterday SmackDown TV taping, came
out on Twitter last night and seemed to talk about
WW in the past tense a little bit in his

(12:42):
his his PR statement on Twitter, and then he's kind
of been quiet today, a little bit of yeah, I
think I believe he had one post today sort of
reflective on his future. Not much newsworthy there. But Brian,
what what is your impression of this Matt Hardy store
and what do you think his future is in WW.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
Well, you wonder if his days aren't being numbered here
in WW and there must be some sort of a
problem with him and the company. And I haven't heard
exactly what issues there are, but for them to pull
him off of the scheduled shows and sending back to
his hotel room and then fly back with the company,
you know, obviously there's some disciplinary problem coming down here

(13:26):
on Matt Hardy. He's not at the SmackDown tapings, and
you just have to wonder if they're not at the
point where they're going to end up releasing him, whether
this is you know, some sort of a wellness violation,
disciplinary violation, or something that has happened. But apparently there
is some issues going on that we'll find out in time,

(13:47):
I believe. But you know, I think they at one
point they were a little scared to release Matt Hardy, say,
but about the same time that Jeff was released, in
fear that TNA maybe would sign both those guys and
catch fire with the Hardy Boys reuniting. I think they're
very less concerned about that right now that CNA would
bring anybody in that's going to help their ratings, because

(14:09):
they've you know, they've virtually brought everybody in already, as
we've discussed in previous live pasts to help their ratings
and then hasn't really improved anything. So maybe WWE is
not quite so concerned about that anymore and they're just ready.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
To cut ties with with Matt.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
But it certainly seems like we're getting closer to that point.
He's he've made, you know, some comments about that, and
there's certainly something going on that we aren't proving to
the analogy aet. At this point, we're.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
About to go to a commercial break. Why let's send
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Speaker 2 (15:09):
I'm very interested to see how this plays out this
week and is there some sort of resolution. Is there
a statement on the website on Friday?

Speaker 5 (15:23):
I don't know, you know, this.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Has been such an interesting at times, you know, wait, wait,
can I put it like this yesterdays? It's a fascinating
but also a very sad story at the same time.
I mean, there are issues there. You know, you can't
wait go into what they are without sort of having
that official word from anyone, whether you know, Matt keeps saying,

(15:45):
you know, the real story will come out, and WW
has yet to address anythings. So I'm not going to
sit there and speculate. But I mean it's obvious if
you watch the video of the YouTube video what the
issue is. So I'm fascinated to see what happens here.
I don't know that he going to to TNA would
make much of a difference, not not a knock on him,
just in a knock on TNA and how they incorporate

(16:08):
new talent. It just it doesn't make a difference. It
really doesn't make a difference who they bring in. They
brought in whole Cogan and they have not realized any
sustainable growth this year. And they can claim out it's
our best year ever. But you look at the market research,
you look at the ratings. They failed on Monday nights,
they went back to Thursdays. They're barely cracking at one point,

(16:29):
oh some weeks. You know, that was four years, three
or four years ago. It's when they were at that level.
So I, like you said, I think that he's probably
not concerned about the you know, potential Hardy Boys reunion
and TNA if that was the reason to to not
cut him. I think the real reason why they probably
didn't want to cut him is because maybe they were
they were afraid of losing contact and losing touch with

(16:51):
him and kind of losing that that that that contact
and and maybe not hearing from him for a couple
of days, you know what I mean. So it's kine
of those things, you know, keep them around, keep them
on the road, just so you can keep monitoring in
That's kind of how I've analyzed this whole situation. But
did you have something you're going to add on that brunt?

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Well, I'll not necessarily add to that, but I think
you're right now, maybe there's there's a real health issue
that they need to monitor. They've been trying to monitor
best they can, and they're at the point where, you know,
it just may be tying to cut their losses at
this point. But one thing about TNA and their TV
ratings that you mentioned is you had it on the
on the website earlier today that they are losing one

(17:33):
of their TV stations in the UK, and that is
where you know they've been hanging a lot of their
financial resources this year is from TV, especially overseas. It's
been a pretty lucrative market forman. To lose this TV station,
which has big clearance in the UK, right before they
have a tour coming up in January, I think is
a real big deal to them from a long term standpoint.

(17:56):
They really can't afford to have. But you know, they
don't have any real income coming into that company from
pay per view revenues or house show business. For most
of their revenues coming from TV rights and sales, and
if they lose one of those, that's it's a big
blow to their financial structure.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah. I spent a lot of time on the phone
this afternoon, just trying to get sort of the background
and in the context of the UK TV market, it's
very there's one person said, it's just a very funny market.
It's it's not there's it's sort of fragmented and it's
constantly changing, uh with you know, not a whole lot

(18:34):
of people have sort of that access to the cable
slash satellite programming. Like you know, a lot of Americans,
it's kind of standard to have cable TV. So it's
kind of a different market. And that's my impression is
that this is a big deal for teenage that they
have to find a way, not only for that tour.
I mean, if you don't have TV to promote that

(18:55):
tour in January, you're gonna be in trouble. Of course,
they already they already have kind of advanta ticket sales.
That's that's a good thing. But to promote the tour,
to promote your product, to build on the momentum that
you have had in twenty ten in the UK market,
they needed they need to solve that issue. And you know,
the indication I have is TNA is confident that they

(19:17):
will be able to find a way to stay on
TV in the UK, it might not be on a
on a better channel. I highly doubt it will be.
I mean, you only the only really available options are
you're the equivalent of network TV, which you know what
person said, there's no way that they would put any
sort of variety slash wrestling show on sort of the
equivalent of network TV and a lower tier cable channel.

(19:40):
That's not going to reach as many people as Bravo did.
But I think they just got to find a way
to see on TV. I mean, that is their second
biggest market, Like you said, it's a lucrative market. They
tour there. I imagine they're going to continue to tour
there in the long term, maybe even add a second tour.
Nothing confirmed there, but just my guess is that they
I want to add a second tour during the year,

(20:02):
not just through January, and they need that TV. So
that's definitely a big story for TENA to keep falling.
I'm glad you brought that up. Let's go in and
give up the phone number if you want to join
us live on Live capt today and bring up your
questions on w T and A, uh, the indefinite contractor situation,
any other topic in the news of course, we'll take

(20:22):
your calls on that and nostalgia. Today is a great
day with Brian Hoops on the line today talking nostalgia.
Bring up your question if you want to join us
at six four, six, seven, nine, eight eight. Let's go
ahead and go to our first color. This is the
two eight one area code. So I believe this is
Jay from Houston. Jay, let us know how you're doing

(20:44):
it and what do you have for said?

Speaker 6 (20:47):
I'm doing fine, And my question is about Kevin Nash
all right, as you are the Red Ones could and
he's living in the glasshouse throwing the stones talking about
r v D and Jeff Harty. Now I agree with
him to a certain extent. You know the rv B
we're saying now in TNA, and you know the whole

(21:10):
braggadocia thing. It's kind of telling.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
Now.

Speaker 6 (21:13):
Now I can see why devere didn't push him as
hard as we all thought that he should have been pushed,
because it's totally gond to his head. His matching that
was very formulate. He I don't really see him selling
and making the other guy look good. All the Matt
team to let me get my spot teen, let me

(21:33):
look good. But My question is this whole Kevin Nash
thing and getting at.

Speaker 4 (21:39):
RVB and Jeff Harty on Twitter.

Speaker 6 (21:41):
Is this just his way of kind of sucking up
or trying to put himself over so he can get
a better contract from TNH. And what's your take on good.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Question, Brian, I'll throw it to you first. What do
you what do you think about the nav situation.

Speaker 3 (21:59):
I think there's a combination of things going on here
with Nash. You know, one thing, obviously, is he's always
going to be out for himself and trying to get
the best contract he can and if he can stir
up some news, make some noise when his contract is
set to come due in the middle of October, about
a month away from now, he's going to do that
so that he puts himself in a position of bargaining
power that you know, he's relevant, he's on top of

(22:21):
his game, he has fan support, people are talking about him,
and he can go back and try and to negotiate
his contract with that. And I also think to an
certain extent, he was upset and with the comments that
Van Dam made, and I don't think he was probably
the only one, but he is one that has spoken
out as a critic about it, and you know, there
maybe was some validity to it. I can see he

(22:42):
dash the standpoint. Some of the points he made I
thought were a little off the wall. You know, him
headlining in front of thirty thousand people didn't you know,
didn't happen when he was Champions.

Speaker 7 (22:53):
Of WWE and he was in his.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Big run in ninety five. But you know, I think
there's enough going on here. You can make the case
that there's two things happening with with Nash trained negotiate
his contract and really he's not in a position where
he has any bargaining power. I don't think WW is
interested in bringing him back at this point for a run.
There's nowhere else for him to go and make the
kind of money he's making under TNA contract while also

(23:18):
being able to book some independent dates.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
I I, you know, look at those tweets and asking
around a lot. He was angry a lot of different things.
I have to kind of just fill around this, but
I've sold a lot of stuff. Kind of most of
what I was told was off the record, so I
have to kind of still around it. But let's just
say he was angry a lot of different things in

(23:43):
TNA at the time, and then he mixed in the
alcohol and that's gonna you know, you're just gonna he
kind of cast a wide net of criticism at pretty
much everyone and everything in TNA. And I think it
was just kind of the RVD and and Jeff party
and kind of you know, kind of response to what
Rvady blogged about before, which is that you know, he

(24:06):
was you know, these guys came to draw a thousands
on the road. Well, I mean that's kind of to me,
that's the TNA brand. You know that it's so hard
unlessure John Cena or Randy Orton and or Raymond Cerio
or the Undertaker to really individually draw in this era,
it's so much emphasis on the brand that you know,
I really I don't fault Rvedy in Hardy for being

(24:28):
able to throw it, you know, only being able to
draw a thousand. First of all, that's the size arena
that TNA is running. So I mean, it's not it's
not like they're they're going to a ten thousand see
a building and only a thousand people are showing up
like it's w W in the in the mid nineties,
you know, so it's it's a situation where I think
Nash is upset and a lot of stuff you probably

(24:48):
wouldn't even I wouldn't say he wouldn't agree with, but
he probably would have found a different way to word it. Uh,
if you had to kind of go back and do
it without the alcohol involved, you know, have a part
of his contract negotiations, and that's definitely part of it.
It is that time. I agree with you, Brian. I
don't see him going back to w D. I don't

(25:09):
see ww offering him much more than you know, what
they would offer somebody like Christian coming back from tn A,
you know, going leaving DNA and coming back to w D.
That's kind of what I think that they would offer him,
just because he has the value. But you know, how
much does he have left? How much can he how
much does he have left to bring? And I just

(25:31):
I don't see that much. But yeah, so Jake, good question.
And did you have another question or fall up on that?

Speaker 6 (25:40):
Yes? I well, I just think it's great that now
writing the stereo could probably draw more at an autograph
finding than a Kevin Nash match. Could you know, I
thought everything that happened in w C W and I
think he has a lot of salar grades because if
he was getting paid an inkling of what he used
to make, he would have no opinion on anything. And

(26:04):
my my follow up question is about Chris Jericho and
his Twitter thing. What's got his what's got his panties
in a bunch? And do you think he's staying or
do you think he's gonna take another sabbatical? Personally, I
think a sabbatical is good for him, you know, six
months to a year, come back, have one last run
and I would be cool with that. And do you

(26:26):
think Nash is staying in CNA? Well leave, please leave,
Maash please.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
I'll take the Nash question and I I don't see
him staying, but I wouldn't be surprised. Me. I'm gonna
cough out and just say I wouldn't be surprised if
he does stay. It's just it seems like national situation.
It's just it's an interesting situation. And I can't say
one word or the other. But Brian, your thoughts on

(26:58):
that as well as Jericho and his future in WW.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Sure you know I think that the TNA situation with
Nash is he's probably gonna end up staying there. You know,
I think with the people in power, Dixie Carter, Vince Russol,
they're stuck back in that nineties mentality that if you
were in WW or WCW, you're a star and they're
going to try and sign you, similar to what they're
doing with Sting, even though you know, in all respect

(27:23):
to Sting, neither guy means anything to the company right
now in terms of by rates, house show business, or
even TV ratings.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
They really could get by without.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
Having Kevin Nash in their TV. He just doesn't add
anything to the program, So I mean from a cost
study measure, unless they're really going to start pinching their
pennies here, they're probably gonna end up signing him to
some sort of a contract where he still is with
the company on a limited type dates schedule, still can
work as independent dates.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
As far as.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Chris Jericho goes, you know, I'm looking for him actually
to stay with the company here for a while. I
think he had that chance to go with Dancing with
the Stars, which would have been huge notoriety for him
and open up a lot of doors outside of WWE.
If he was serious about leaving WWE and pursuing a
lot of other interests right now. I think he would

(28:13):
have taken that as an opportunity and ran with it.
And the fact that he turned it down because his
schedule conflicts probably you know, it tells me that he's
got something else going on on Monday nights, and that
means he's staying with the Wwe.

Speaker 8 (28:28):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts.
Will come join me Alan fourrel Over in the Progress
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(28:49):
and the paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows
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(29:12):
A list of all the VIP benefits is available at
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Speaker 2 (29:36):
Guess, he stays, I really do think he's going to stay.
I would still be in favor, like what Jay said,
I'd be in favor of a sabbatical, just some time away,
maybe freshen up that character. I mean, he's kind of
he hasn't been featured in a while in terms of
the top level guy like he was on SmackDown. Granted,

(29:56):
SmackDown it's a much smaller platform than Raw, at least
in W's world, so you know, and it's kind of
been going back and forth between Heal and Face. It's
a little bit it's been a little bit overdone. Even
in that promo. I mean, I mean, it showed how
much of a great performer he is on that promo
on on Raw where he's sitting in the chair and

(30:18):
he's getting that baby face pop, just ripping Cole during
the the Raw GM and you know, I don't remember
the catchphrase now, but and I quote, there you go,
thank you the end I quote and he just he
got that baby face pop. But then he turned the
audience against him just moments later. It just shows so
much range. Miss showed a lot of great range on

(30:40):
the opening segment and the match with Brian and the
opening segment of the show as well. So that said,
Jericho is doing some great, great performances right now, and
he's involved. I mean, it seems like he's involved in
a new program in Morrison that's going to make Morrison
a much bigger deal than he has ever since being drafted.

(31:00):
I guess he was drafted over from back down from
Raw too Raw. So there's there. I mean, there's so
much potential for Jericho right now in the immediate future.
And I mean Brian was looking at Sunday. He's reinserted
into the United Champions pay per view match now making
a six pack challenge again, does he win that title? Uh?

Speaker 9 (31:23):
Or?

Speaker 2 (31:24):
You know, they didn't really explain whether that that stipulation
is back gone, which is that if Jericho doesn't win
and he's gone, So you know, kind of taking those
two factors into consideration, how do you see that that
main event matched and the pay per views kind of
playing out.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Yeah, you know, they they ran through that stipulation which
with Jericho will not be on on Raw or retire
or whatever so many times. I don't think anybody's buying
into it anyway, So I'm sure that that's will be
a non issue. You know, I thought Jericho's run when
he was the champion was a great run. He was
on top of his game as far as the promos,

(32:00):
his interviews were great, and his character was really really good.
And I don't know that they're going back into that
route once again, but you know, I think I could.
I could definitely see a run with him again as
a champion with someone trying to knock him off. It
seems to be their their motive is to give the
heel a run with the belt and some challenger trying

(32:22):
to come along and knock him off. And you know,
Jericho's as good as anybody outside the ring, inside the ring,
on the mic, so he's a great choice. If he
signed a new contract, him winning the title would be
pretty obvious. A statement to that if if that happens
Sunday night, yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Yeah, I wanted to turn around on Monday and have
him drop in a Shamus. It's kind of what they
did with it wasn't Batista, Maybe it was Batista where yeah,
it was Batista, where everybody knew he was leaving. He
had to put the belt on him and then he
just kind of quickly re dropped it. That will switch
road to do with Sina. So, I mean, they could

(33:00):
have Jericho win and they can seem like he's there
long term, and he could turn around and lose on
Raw the next night. Back to Seamus. So I don't know,
and there's a lot of you know, you make a
great point that if he does win, likely it means
that he's there long term. I just wouldn't be surprised
if they do a quick switch rear the next ten
or all that would not be That would not be

(33:22):
surpriseding me. Based on how W books those titles changes
quite often. Good call, Jay, appreciate that that call on
topics on National Jericho. Let's going to go to the
nine and one four eerie code nine one four. Welcome
to the show. Please stay you name and where you're from.

Speaker 6 (33:37):
Hi, this is Johnny from New York.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Hey Johnny, what's going on today?

Speaker 10 (33:41):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Joe, not much.

Speaker 6 (33:42):
How you guys doing good good have a question.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
I don't know if there's a rumor, if this is.

Speaker 7 (33:46):
True, but he any guys heard about anything about the
WWE changing their logo.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
That one was kind of floated around I guess a
month and a half, two months ago. I haven't seen
anything official. I haven't heard anything official. Brian. Have you
heard anything more about that rumored logo switch.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
You know, I've I've seen the rumored logo on a
web forum, but you know, it was just someone's speculation.
It's definitely nothing official. Haven't heard anything about it from
anybody in WWE or anybody that would know. It was
just more of a fan speculation, I think at this point,
and if there was.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
A time to do it, Johnny, it would have been
you know, the quote unquote season for Mayor on RAW.
I mean, if you're going to have a season premiere, well,
I mean there's no off season, so there's really no ever.
There's never really a start to a new season. But
if they wanted to use that, Monday's show would have
been the time to do it, you know, if they're
gonna uveail it. But I don't, you know, I haven't
heard it. I mean, there's kind of talk of that

(34:43):
has kind of died down a little bit since about
a month and a half ago, two months ago. But
maybe they're just by designs trying to keep it quiet
and then unveiling it at whatever show pay per viewer
raw they want to unvail it. So but no, we
have not heard anything official or sea anything official yet
on that.

Speaker 6 (35:03):
Okay, I have one more question than you guys can
put me back on hold.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
What do you think they're gonna go with with this
Michael Cole thing, because you.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
Know, yesterday he left NXT and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
What do you think they're going to take it from that?
Good question? Brian wizards take on that.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah, that is a good question one than you know,
a lot of thoughts and speculation on that. I think
it's very possible that they're setting Coal up to be
the raw GM. You know, they've hinted at that in
the past, and a lot of speculation has also focused
on that. Taking him off the air as far as
a commentator on ECW and putting him in the face

(35:39):
of a position where he could be the rod GM
I think makes a lot of sense. He's certainly better
as a heel commentator. He's got a lot of charisma
and it gets a lot of heat from the from
the crowd. It's similar to what like Vicky Guerrero gets
and that's I think would be a better position for
him than trying to be this this babyface type announcer
that he's sailed with for more than ten years. He's

(35:59):
really found a niche I think as that he'll commentarer,
healed GM, leader.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Of the Nexus group.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
They've really kind of died down here and so maybe
it's time for to elev a coal or take the
next step anyway and reveal the raw GM. And uh,
you know, I could hear it being Michael Cole.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
And I bet Cole's got that promo, you know, ready
to go, and they've kind of, you kind of fall
up with what you're saying, Ryan, They've kind of been
planting scenes for him to step away from the announced
position unraw. I mean the one that comes to mind is,
you know John Morrison's backstage doing the doing the PARKRPS training,

(36:37):
you know, kind of running off of everything, doing some
crazy stunts and flips, and I mean it looks amazing
and it makes your eyes pop out and then uh,
Cole's just kind of monotonously describing it, and Jerry Lawler
just kind of equips that him, like, man just really
know how to make something fun sound really boring, and
and I imagine that that, you know, I'm sure it

(36:58):
was fed to Laura to say that, but I'm sure
they could use that when Cole kind of had, you know,
going along with your Sam Bryan. When Cole has that
big promo where he kind of just rips everything, He
kind of quits the Raw announced position, he rips Tree Lawler,
he rips having it to call these silly things and
you know, sort of the silly stunts and that we

(37:20):
see on Raw. Who knows, maybe it's a whole conspiracy
theory is that this is all leading to eliminating the
dB Hoy dancing, the Santino and couslof dancing, eliminating those things.
Maybe that's just my wishful thinking on that part. But anyways,
I imagine Cole's got that promo ready and I think
it would be a very I mean, they've tested the
waters on this heel run with him as a commentator

(37:42):
on NXC, and it kind of shades of a heel
run on Raw as the announcer, So you know, you
make a really good point, Brian, and perhaps that's where
they're going, is that he'll be revealed as the Nexus leader,
the higher power, if you will able to They really
haven't brought up Nexus the tease of there's a bigger picture,

(38:03):
there's a bigger purpose to this than just you know,
beating up John Cen and raany Orton. So they've cooled
off the group. Now be the time to really restart
them with Cole. And I would be in favor of that.
I never thought i'd say that, you know, three months ago,
but I would kind of be in favor of merging

(38:23):
those two things, being the higher power in the raw
GM and making that sort of the the leader of NXT.
If you're kind of or Nexus and if you kind
of go back to the very very very beginning of
this and it's become very inconsistent along the way. I mean,
the GM has favored heels and faces and consistently throughout this.

(38:44):
But at the very beginning, McMahon trusted the GM with
anonymous power, and the Nexus Group beat down McMahon and
that kind of, you know, without trying to figure out
the logic in between there, and then that could be
Michael Cole and you know, perhaps they have a way
to explain it makes some sort of sense. Yeah, yeah,

(39:07):
I don't know. That's just kind of thinking out a
lot of what they could do with that. So I
like your idea of playing That's one I woul established
nexus because they have really really been cooled off and
it's unfortunate and we kind of sell that on Monday's wrong.
Any of the thoughts on that topic.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Brian before we move on, No, I don't think so.
I'm looking at the chat line a little bit there,
you know, talking about maybe j jbl as a GM
or Jim Ross being back to take Cole's commentary spot.
I don't see. I don't see Jim Ross coming back
at this point.

Speaker 4 (39:40):
You know, we I think we.

Speaker 3 (39:41):
Talked Friday a little bit about Ross and his Oklahoma
Sooner football broadcasting job. You know, I'm sure at this
point he would take that job over anything else, and
if that's an opportunity for him to take, he would
certainly want to do that rather than doing the traveling
every week again and being on RAW. But sure, this
is I'm sure miss Raw I could see, you know,

(40:03):
Joey styles being brought back to be that lead commentator
with with Jerry Lawler in JBL as a he he'll GM.
I don't see that as as you know, being realistic,
I think JBL is pretty happy doing what he's doing
and unlikely to come back, but certainly would make an
interesting candidate.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Agreed. Agreed. You're listening to the P to B Torch
Live cast. This is P t B Torch Assistant Editor
James Caldwell oatsing today with Torch Nostalgic Call MS Brian Hoops.
Let's go back to the phone lines. Let's go to
the three one four area code three one four. Welcome
to the show. Please take you, Jamie where you're from?

Speaker 11 (40:42):
Hey, thanks for checking the call to stand from Saint Louis.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Hey, Dan, what's going on today?

Speaker 4 (40:48):
Not a whole lot.

Speaker 11 (40:49):
I got two questions. I'll go ahead and get to
the first one. Sure, regarding the TNA title tournament that's
going on right now, and just a lot of watches
thing going on about how it seems weird they're having
it span two pay per views and you know, eight
weeks and all this stuff when there's only basically sixteen participants.
I believe and I think part of the reason, and

(41:10):
this is just a theory, but I think that the
main reason why Day would be doing that would have
to do with intentions to possibly give Jeff Hardy the belt.
And the reason why I'm saying that is because, you know,
with the whole court thing, I think that he and
A might be trying to stall for time and what
this whole court thing possibly blow over and then give
him the belt afterwards. So I guess my first question

(41:30):
to ask you about is what are your thoughts on
if he and A does decide to give Jeff Hardy
the world title in this tournament.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
I personally don't like it.

Speaker 11 (41:38):
I was kind of offended when Angle held the title
around the time last year when he was being an
investigated on drug charges, and I just think it's kind
of a distraction. It kind of hurts your company when
you have a guy that's being investigated, you know, as
the phase of your company. I think they should kind
of let things blow over a little more.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
That's a very good point, and that very well could
be the reason. I don't know for sure, but you
bring up really good theory. Brian Witzer take on the
potential theory as well as should they put the belts
on Jeff Harty.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
I'm agreeing with you, caller. I don't like the idea
of putting it on Jeff Hardy at this point in
time because of his legal issues. I think there's other
guys that are that would be better to go along
with the belt here and have a run with it.
You know, at one point in time, Jeff already would
have been.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
A great choice. But right now he's pretty much cooled off.

Speaker 3 (42:31):
His in ring work isn't there, His interviews are terrible.
He's not the best choice for that company any longer.
And you know, I think there's just better guys out there.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
And then pluck.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
You have these legal issues always hit clouding over your head,
and you certainly don't want anything to come up and
tarnish your company any further. Of course, T and A
flies so far under the radar that nobody would even notice,
I'm sure, because as The Color pointed out, Kurt Angle
had his legal problems when he was running with the belt,
and nobody even paid any attention to it. But it's

(43:02):
just better for everyone I involved. I think to find
somebody else, somebody fresh, somebody new, to carry that belt.
That hasn't had a chance for quite some time.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Dan, did you have another question or follow up?

Speaker 11 (43:15):
I'm sure one more regarding the stuff song and dance
segment that was going on Raw, which was rightful to
watch the other day. What are your thoughts on Our
Truth having new theme music?

Speaker 12 (43:28):
I to be honest, it's his old theme.

Speaker 11 (43:31):
Music was one of the few things that I marked
out for wrestling still, uh, And I just wonder if it,
you know, maybe some sort of way, you know, if
you think that they may be wanting to put more
time into Our Truth by getting him a new team,
or you know, maybe it could possibly be a thing
where they're trying to maybe pull them off a little bit,
because it seems like, you know, the theme music really
is one of the biggest reasons for his overness, and

(43:52):
when he you know, when his entrance comes, the crowd
does seem to pop pretty loud for him.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
I like the I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say,
I like the new themes. I like the upgrade. I
think it's an upgrade. Like you said, kind of his
entire act is having that catchy theme and it did
seem like the crowd in Cincinnati on Monday really did
catch on to the new theme and I mean this
was the first time he introduced it, and they did
seem to catch on. I wonder kind of funnel with

(44:20):
Brian's theory on perhaps Michael Cole being the GM and
perhaps the next leader. Michael Cole isn't ripping that theme song.
The What's Up themes done for a long time, so
I wonder if that's a potential clue that he is
a raw GM and that he ordered Our Truth to
get into theme song and that was a new theme song,
and that's maybe why I was ready on Monday. I

(44:41):
don't know. I'm just throwing out the potential conspiracy theories.
But uh, Brian, what's your taken on Our Truth as
an act and whether you think's gonna feature him or
just kind of keep him on the sidelines.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Well, I'm agreeing with the caller here again that that
was one of the most over things that Art Truth
at going for him here is that theme music, and
everybody was pretty used to it. People popped for it,
and that was the best part of his act. You know,
once he got in the ring, he was okay, but
nothing really that they were able to get behind. I
think they should have just left it the way it
was and people identified to our Truth with that, I

(45:17):
don't know that they're really going to push him any
more or any less than if he has new theme
music or not. You know, they had a real chant
that thought this Monday to really put a couple guys
in a position where they were looking like the breakout
type stars. And that was with John Morrison on Monday night,
and it was, you know, it's the same old glass

(45:37):
ceiling type booking mentality. He had the you know, the
the athletic warm up or whatever you want to call
it prior to his matter of Seamus. He looked good
in that he looked really good in this match, and
then they ended.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
Up beating him.

Speaker 3 (45:50):
And I think they, you know, they had a chance
to make a guy elevate him to the next level,
and they really blew that by by not going with
John Morrison. I just don't see them elevating our Truth
above the level that he's at now, whether he has
new music or not.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Agreed, Yeah, agreed on that point. Dan, A good call.
We appreciate, Uh, appreciate that call. We do some good
topics you brought up.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
You can support us on Patreon and get these shows
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(46:37):
dot com slash PW torch vip and you can also
upgrade to other tiers and receive even more benefits through Patreon.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
Let's go ahead and go to the next color. Let's
go to the four seven eight area code. Four seven eight.
Welcome to the show. Please state your name where you're from,
christ and Georgia. Hey, Chris, what do you have for
us today? Actually? I was gonna ask you guys about.

Speaker 5 (46:58):
The what you think would be out of the NIZ
and Daniel Bryan that because that intrigues me more than
anything on the card that the left. This expection was
probably two because it could be like part of me
is porn, whether or not I want Brian to win
it at night a champions or extended out maybe two
more weeks to Hills the tell, you know, just really

(47:19):
get to keep it going, because they really got the
crowd going Monday night and getting white with Miss's tactics, like,
you know, getting behind Brian. I just want to see
where you got to think your possibly go.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Very good question, Brian, what's your take on the outcome
of Miss and Brian on Sunday?

Speaker 3 (47:37):
You know, I think it's a little too early to
blow off this feud. You know, if they have the
uh Danielson go over Miz and win the belt, it
almost sneeze signals an end rather than the beginning of
a feud. I got to think that they're going to
have some way to screw Danielson over here and that
Miss retains the belt. You know, this is a few
that has a big money potential on I really cringed

(47:59):
Monday night when they announced they were going to have
that match on Raw, seven or six days ahead of
their pay per view match, because this is to me,
this is one of the few matches that has a
fresh legs. It's got intrigue, it's got interest, it really
has it all that you could build a pay per
view around. In fact, instead of the same old, stale
type matches. So I think it's gonna be a little

(48:21):
too early to give the belt to Brian Danielson. There's
a good story here with him chasing the miss and
chasing the belt, and I'd love to see him extended
a little bit longer. And because these two are both
doing real well on the mic and good enough in
the ring that you should make people's interest.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
I thought the exact same thing you did, Brian, about
why are they giving away this match? You know, why
are they giving this the record with a pay per view?
And that was my concern. I think that the Missus
overall performance and Brian looking like a real tough guy,
you know, a guy who's gonna just gonna take Miss
School on Sunday, I think that theme helped overcome them

(49:04):
giveaway that match. And uh so I didn't. I mean,
I in principle I had an issue with it an execution.
I thought miss and Brian were so strong that I
thought that it had actually enhances the sales pitch for
that match that I'm kind of looking at the torch
pole we have up and I think, you know, part
of this is kind of the the quote unquote Internet vote,

(49:26):
but fifty percent of Torch readers are picking Miss Danielson
as their match they're most looking forward to on Sunday.
It's fifty percent for Miss Danielson, It's twenty five percent
into the six Pack Challenge, sixteen percent for kanaan Undertaker
right now on the PDB Torch dot Com pole. And
I think it gets to your point, Brian, which is
that it's a fresh matchup. It feels different, It has

(49:49):
a good story. It has a long story too. It
has a long backstory. What four months now and has
it been not long since the NXC season one, So
it has a long, long backstory to it, and it's
gonna play out pretty nicely. And Chris, you can up
a great point. Held in the Cell is literally two
weeks away from the pay per view, this upcoming pay

(50:09):
per view, So to me, the finish would be Miss
wins by help you know, kind of alis rally helps
him win, and that leads to Hell in the Cell
pay per view where Alex Reley cannot get inside the cage,
the Hell in the Cell, and that's where they pulled
the trigger and have Daniel's gonna win that metal. So
that's why I would book it so so Chris, you're

(50:31):
bringing a really good point on having that pay per view.
You kind of have to have that pay per view
in the back of your mind for how some of
these finishes might play out. Brian, you didn't have that,
and that might be how they played up with a
non finish, perhaps with this match one the official match
one of the with the title on the line, and
then build it to the Hell in the Cell pay

(50:51):
per view.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
Well, I certainly think they could. And somebody in the
chat room mirror suggesting that maybe Danielson wins the title
MS cash is in the money in the bank and
wins the back right away, Well that's you know, that's
certainly a possibility or route they could go. I don't
see them cashing in that money in the bank already.
I think that that's a good That's another story that
they could build towards WrestleMania Royal Rumble and extend that

(51:16):
a little bit longer. But yeah, they they I think
they can go to Hell in a Cell with this.
They could go a couple of different ways with this.
You know, in fact, if you wanted to go back
to the Survivor series, Captain's concept that they used to
have back in the old old days. Uh, you know,
miz and Danielson would both be strong enough to be
captains of a Survivor Series team where they had, you know,

(51:37):
the old elimination style if you you know, if they
decided to go with that direction. So there's a lot
of different ways they could go. And mainly it's because
this is a fresh match up with guys that are
good in the mic and good in the ring and
that people have an interest in. And see, Chris, did
you have another question or follow up?

Speaker 5 (51:55):
I did actually when the call of Call of four
had ideas maybe Call don't have something to do with
the interference that costs Brian because the thing is, like,
you know, he has a main crush on the miss
And the thing is is that if he's the leader
in Nexus, remember the clash ideals thinks that Nexus had
with him, what he's the leader. If he's the leader
of Nexus, what happens that he kicked out Brian. But

(52:16):
the only loophole you have to figure out is why
didn't Brian say anything that Cole was the leader of
Nexus and the general manager.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
The only thing you have to figure out that's the
that's getting into that into that territory where it all
does fall apart. You know, you make a really great
point if you think about it. It's like, okay, well
Brian was part of Nexus, so you would think that
he would be proving to who was leading the group
if there was a leader in higher power before he
was kicked out. So yeah, you make you make her

(52:43):
a good point. Yeah, that's just kinda yeah, it does
kind of fall apart from me there. Uh, I don't
think know what dressed that does, but it's real good point.
It's ro good point, Chris, so good addition there. Yeah, yeah, Brian,
is that kind of your theory fall part?

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Well, you know, there there's some logicals he could shoot
in that theory, no doubt about it.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
You know.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
And and necessarily the healed GM right now is not
perceived as as a leader of Nexus only he's you know,
the heel GM of raw uh and and has ruled
against other guys in the organization or and and interacted
with other people, probably enough people that you know that
you could you could overlook that logic plaw.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
At this point, another thought came to mind, which is
that the raw GM has been picking on Edge in
Jericho two heels in the last couple of weeks, and
Nexus was targeting them too, you know, when we had
the Summer Slam, there was that's kind of that that
that baby face turn or as at least they are presented
as baby faces for a moment and then they kind

(53:49):
of walked out on the group whatever. So Nexus, you know,
did attack them, and there was that you know, that
Jericho promo where he said that you know, he basically
staked to claim the leadership of Nexus as just came
back with that promos and no, I should be a
leader of Nexus.

Speaker 9 (54:04):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
And they're kind of going back and forth and now
they're being picked on by the raw GM. So more
potential theories to throw into the mix on Theory Wednesday
with some maybe some clues coming together or maybe we're
just overthinking that. Who knows. Any event, good call, Chris, great,
great points you made. Let's go ahead and go on
to the seven oh six area code seven oh six.

(54:24):
Welcome to the show. Please get your name where you're from.
Hey guys, this is a tie from Agusta, Georgia. How
are y'all do? Good salt? What do you have for
a say?

Speaker 13 (54:34):
Well, it was actually a perfect lead in from everything
that you were just talking about with MS and Daniel
Bryan and possibly headlining a pay per view with that,
since it seems like about the precious.

Speaker 12 (54:44):
Thing on roall.

Speaker 13 (54:46):
My thing is the pay per views, the fact that
there are still twelve pay per views on both WW
and TNA in twenty ten and nobody's buying any of them.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Thirteen but yeah, he's even worse. Yeah, exactly, Wristlemania.

Speaker 13 (55:05):
I understand, roll rumble, I understand, SummerSlam, I understand. I
don't understand the purpose of all these other pay per
views where you have the world defended, differing.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
Kind of losing your connection top. But we I definitely
got your your your point there, which is that you know, yeah,
it kind of waters down, Brian, you have talking about
this a lot. When you have so many pay per
views and the same headliners, it waters down your product,
The waters down the value of a title match. I mean,
the reason why they keep these pay per views around
it is for the business reason, which is that they

(55:43):
need to report that income, that revenue on those quarterly
statements and the yearly statement. And perhaps you know their
their their thought is that perhaps the the shareholders would
not understand if all of a sudden they dropped the
six pay per views and the first time they do that,
they lose you know, half of the pay per view revenue.
I think over time, when you make this pay per

(56:05):
view is more important. Eventually you're going to see that
go up. You're gonna see Summer set go up because
it's going to feel special. You're going to see Survivors
series go up because it's special. Right. What's your take
on what's Todd had to say that before we lost
them on the pay per views and trying to make
those those feel more special and not just so here's
another pay per view.

Speaker 14 (56:25):
You know.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
I think it's something that they're going to have to
look at very closely. You know, USC is running more
pay per view events than what WW is and they're
not having a problem selling theirs or people buying their product.
I think it's more of a perception of do people
see this as a hot product or is it a
good buy or a good value something that they really

(56:46):
want to see. If WWE, T and A were able
to produce a product that people really want to see,
there would not be a problem running you know. Ten
twelve thirteen fourteen pay per view events per year. But
right now, wrestling is not the product that people want
to spend money on. You know, if you're asked to
spend forty five or fifty dollars on a wrestling event

(57:08):
a month for one of the one of the promotions,
it may be hard to justify that if you're the
only one buying that pay per view event because you
don't have any friends that watch wrestling anymore, that they're
not interested in it, and there's so much free TV.
So I think it gets back to ww and TNA
for that man are both presenting a product that has
interest from the fans that they will be interested enough

(57:32):
in purchasing it and watching it and getting together with
friends like they do for UFC events. And because wrestling
is not dead yet, pay per view events are certainly
not dead. When you have such big buy rates going
on in the UFC, it's just a matter of what
product is being presented out there by both wrestling companies.
You know, it used to be a situation where you

(57:53):
would use the TV to build towards your feuds and
your culmination the big matches on pay per view, and
they've really gone away from that as they're trying to
get hotshot all these angles on TV and present so
much on free TV. And you know, you go back
to Dixie Carter's comments, she doesn't see anything wrong with that.
Pay per view is kind of a dying revenue source,

(58:15):
and it really could be a huge revenue source for
T and A if they were presenting the proper product.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
In WWE's case, if they had those top stars to
rotate and put in those main event slots. I mean
you could add, you could have built an entire pay
per view this month around Miz and dang O Bryan
with that backstory US title, Brian's coming back, some good
promo work from MS, some good in ring from Brian

(58:42):
setting up that match. If you really could have sold
this entire pay per view on that as your headline match.
And it goes to having those those talents to rotate
where you don't get John c versus rand Yorke for
the eight hundred straight pay per view just added under stipulation,
And like you said, it's the product isn't hot in
terms of people buying it, and they don't have those

(59:04):
ready made pay per view headliners they can rotate into
those slots. They depend on this the same guys. The
it's the equivalent of having brought lesser in four st
rate pay per views and pay per view main events.
It doesn't feel special. It feels kind of old hat
after a while, and that's kind of where w W
has been, uh for ten years now, since the end

(59:24):
of the attitude era. So, uh, Todd, did you have
h We'll see if it gets you back on the
line it with a better connection. Did you ever another
question or follow up? Real quick? Well?

Speaker 13 (59:34):
Yeah, I mean that you pretty much summed it up
with the you know, whether the pig you feel special
when you have the same guys at the top of
the car and every single month, I mean, you know,
it's kind of.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
The same thing.

Speaker 13 (59:46):
I don't know if anybody really remembers this, but back,
you know, a long time ago in DNA when they
actually headlined the pay per view with Samoa, Joe, Christopher.

Speaker 6 (59:54):
Daniels and A J.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Styles, right, I thought that was awesome.

Speaker 13 (59:57):
That was completely different from anything that he's ever done.
They've never headlined a pay per view with anything that
was in the world title match.

Speaker 10 (01:00:04):
And you know, if you.

Speaker 13 (01:00:06):
Do thirteen times and thirteen world title matches over and
over and over every year. I mean, personally, I don't
buy it because I don't want to buy you know,
I don't want to spend my money there. It doesn't
make sense to me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Yeah, that's you're speaking for a lot of consumers who say, yeah,
it's not not worth my money, not worth forty five
bucks plus tax. When I can get Randy Orten vers
Johnson on free TV, that's just you know, and you'll
probably get a And you know they had a w
title match on free TV a couple of months ago. Yeah, TNA,
they I mean that was that was the middle that

(01:00:39):
Jeff Jared era, when Jared headlined every single TNA pay
per view was the latest n w A title defense,
trying to get himself over as a top star on
the promotion. And then finally one month there, you know,
Jared was not headlined in the pay per view and
it was Joe Styles and Daniels. And that's partly why
that match has stood out as one of the top
not only for the entering work, but just for the

(01:01:00):
way it was positioned as the headline match of that
pay per view. That's one reason why it had stood out.
Sam with Samoa Joe Kurdingo from Lockdown the League, Todd,
good call, appreciate that. We're gonna keep on. Get a
couple more calls in the end of the show. Let's
go to the four to one area code four one O.
Welcome to the show. Please seech your name and where
you're from.

Speaker 12 (01:01:22):
Four.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Oh, you're on the air. All right, let's get four
and oh let's go. This is zero zero zero, So
I believe this is the international or online caller. So
international or online pat skype. Let us know where you're
calling from and what do you have for say? Yeah,
we got a poor connection there. We'll try you again.

(01:01:45):
Say say again, what was your name and where you're
calling from. That's a that's a tough connection, so please
try again if you want to call back on tomorrow.
We just we sounds like a robot the connection. We
so uh sorry about that. Let's go ahead and get
another phone call. Let's go to the five five nine
ere you code five five night. Welcome to the show.

(01:02:07):
Please stay shaw where you're from.

Speaker 15 (01:02:10):
Hey guys, this is Steve from California.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Hey Steve, what's going on today?

Speaker 15 (01:02:16):
I was just wondering if anybody else picked up on
Alex Riley and what he was yelling at uh at
the miz that after the end of that little melee.

Speaker 16 (01:02:26):
Oh gosh, I.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Remember it too. I remember, I know, hey, what we were
talking about. I don't know what he said, Brian, do
you remember?

Speaker 3 (01:02:33):
No, I have no idea what he what he was saying,
he was he was yelling.

Speaker 9 (01:02:39):
H Yeah, the pay review was at you know, the
big reviews this Sunday. Was he trying to possibly talk
about telling the tell or is he just that knucklehead
and mis where he just didn't realize when the pay
per view was.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
I think he was probably nervous and and maybe it's
just slipped out. But yeah, I I didn't put on
that report because it was just a lot was happening
in that segment. I just didn't think it was I
didn't feel like calling that out. But yeah, I agree
that that did stand out. I didn't under study. You know.
He basically told him basically that if you didn't catch it,

(01:03:15):
if you watched raw, Uh, it was on the outside, miss,
and Brian, I'm sorry, Miss and Riley were talking and
and Brian and I'm sorry and Riley basically Miss two
weeks you know, wake two weeks, then you get then
you get Brian again, and it was so audible. I
mean the sound picked that up very audibly. I didn't.

(01:03:36):
I did just laugh when when he said that, because
the paper view obviously wasn't a weak so so I
couldn't catch Steve. I did catch it as well. Did
you ever another thought or follow up on that?

Speaker 15 (01:03:49):
Uh, I'm kind of but said that he laughed at.
I was starting to get used to that gong. I
thought that was funny at that one. Every time, uh
more of those competitions happened, he just gong them all
out at the end. I thought affected went on.

Speaker 7 (01:04:00):
For a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Brian, what's your take on Colon is Gone? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
I think it was one of the more entertaining things.
And maybe that's just because that show is so awful,
but yeah, I could have lived with it for a
little bit longer. But you know, they don't have a
lot of time.

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
They canceled one.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
Of their programs already. I think they the last one
has been taking off the air, so only have a
couple more weeks. I gotta quick and their storylines and
get this season wrapped up. So I think that's where
they're they're going with it here.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Yeah, I get the sense that this is leading to
them just canceling it, you know, and not kind of
taking their ball and going into the online for to
run the show. Just the tone that I got in
some of the tweets that I've seen kind of that
that work shoot of okay, go on Twitter and it
really just bashed the show. You know, it's a really
terrible show. It's okay to go bash it, you know

(01:04:54):
that that's kind of that that work shoot. Will Internet
kind of played that audience type thing that I keep seeing.
So my inclination is that they might just cancel it
and not even take it to the website. It just might.
They just might end it in Cole's walkout being the
first time of that. So thanks everyone for joining us
in livecast towards VMP members. Stick around for the after

(01:05:15):
show coming next. Thank you for using blog talk radio.

Speaker 4 (01:05:27):
Goodbye.

Speaker 17 (01:05:33):
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 14 (01:05:48):
Join Kelly Wells and me. Tom Stout from PWT talks
NXT every Saturday as we go eight years back to
the day to track NXT's rising talents and why they
did or didn't work out exclusively for you Torture b
IP members.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
All right, Brian, we're now in the VIP after show
portion of the show. We cover a lot of topics
in the news today. Did you have any of the
thoughts on NXT or perhaps what do you think the
future of that show well be? Do you think it's
going to make it to online or do you think
it's gonna be canceled all together? I guess so they
have next week and the week after, so in two weeks,

(01:06:24):
do you think it's done.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
I think it's probably gonna be done. You know, I
think they tried it as a way to elevate their talent.
It's it's probably at the point where they've done as
much as they're gonna do with this concept. Three seasons
they've right, they've gone to two men, two women, and
I think it's it's at the point where it could be.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
An online product.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
But what's the point, you know, nobody's really gonna watch
another hour of online wrestling product?

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:06:49):
They can they can find something else to do with
their time and the space that they have. And I
just got a feeling that this show has run its
course and it's time to retire.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Yeah, that's pretty clear. Well, I mean last night the
show was a was a mess. I mean it was
as I kind of put in the hits and Missus
filling in for John's air this week. It's the only
reason to watch is for the potition for chaos. I
mean that's really the only reason now to why there's
no emphasis on the nd ring. You're not watching the

(01:07:22):
uh this bash of rookie Diva's advanced in the ring,
and it's just the emphasis is done on wrestling. I mean,
look at the competition. You get points if you win
a contest, not if you win a match. I don't
know how much more clear they could be that wrestling
does not matter on this show, so there's no real
purpose to it. You get a point earning immunity, particilarly

(01:07:44):
earning immunity if you totally funny joke. Last night, this
show is a mess. They pretty much acknowledge it, but
in a way where they're trying to be sort of
let's work the internet with these comments type deal and
it's just it's so annoying. It doesn't get anybody over,
It doesn't get the talent over. I don't know Vicky
Gerunro she benefiting from this get up perhaps, but it's

(01:08:08):
such a limited audience. Anyways, I'm very curious to see
what uh the ratings come in for the show. And
I'll just I'll get a quick peek. I don't have
an email. I'll check another source and see it. Maybe,
just maybe we have some some ratings information on NXT
and going to hold and pause and fill time as
I check STA. Oh, here we go. No, that's broadcast.

(01:08:35):
Let's see there's cable. Okay, we're gonna have cable viewership.
One point two million viewers for NXT last night. So
let's compare that to last week. Last week did one
point it went up in viewerships. I don't know. Maybe
people are tuned in for the potential for chaos. Bryan,

(01:08:56):
what what are you chalking up to? A? Oh, a
very slight increase in viewership, you know, within the sort
of within the margin of error.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
You know, what the fat part is is that viewership
is almost the same as what TNA impact draws each
and every week, and you know, on the far on
the far weaker channel with you know, fraction.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
Of the budget.

Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
Here you've got.

Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
Developmental, talented women on a program compared to Hulk Hogan
and Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam and everybody else
that's on on TNA Impact. So you know, it's a
real sad statement that of how many people are interested
in TNA versus uh, you know, the c show from
from WWE.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
At at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
But as far as the uptick and ratings, just probably
this viewing habits of fans, you know, that's that's a
real minuscule uptick. I don't know if there's any major
reason for it or you know, you I don't think
you were going against any real level of competition from
anything at this point, but uh, you know, it's probably
probably not a sign that that things are on an

(01:09:57):
upswing in ww viewership. A lot of people did not
watch the raw on Monday. You know, maybe they turned
into NXT to find out what they missed.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
That's a good point, and that there might be something
to that they didn't really I don't think. I mean,
there were thousands of video packages on that show, but
I don't remember a raw rebound, and that actually might
have been the weak to have a raw rebound. They
had a long Cane versus Undertaker video package. Paul BarreR
incorporated into that with some old equips Jim Ross's boys,

(01:10:30):
Kine with the mask Undertaker kind of that mid nineteen
nineties looked that he had or I guess late nineteen
nineties look so that the Administry of Darkness looked and
incorporated that into that video. But yeah, the raw rebound
that would have been the week to do it was
last night's show, but kind of kind of transition into
the Kine Undertaker feud, and obviously we kind of get

(01:10:53):
the sense that this is going to lead to a
Hell in the Cell match at the Hell in the
Cell pay per view in two weeks. What is your
prediction for this Sunday's pay per view with that match
and how do you do it's going to lead to
the Hell of the Cell pay per view?

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
You know, I didn't think they did a very good
job of promoting this upcoming pay per view. I thought
they could have done a much better job focusing on that,
and so I was disappointing. I think your buy rate
may be a little bit disappointing as well. The good
news is there is not a usc event the night before.

(01:11:30):
In fact, there is one tonight, a Fight Night special,
but no nothing that would compete with it this weekend,
So I don't think the buy rate's going to do
all that well. You know, it's mainly the strength here
of Undertaker versus Kane. It seems a little early to
me to have Undertaker win the title and and go
over Kane. I think they will extend it to Hell

(01:11:51):
and the Cell. You know, there'd be some sort of
a finish, some sort of a gimmick finish. I think
it is how they're going to portray this. But this
is really the the feud that is the strength of
this pay per view event. It's always hard to sell
a six man as a main event. That's a real
tough sell. The Fatal Four Way that they ran earlier

(01:12:12):
this summer was another one of those really low bye
rates that they put out on pay per views. In fact,
the last eight I think four have been among the
lowest that they've ever done. So when you have a
six pack challenge versus the Four Way, it doesn't get
better as far as ratings, and maybe Undertaker and Kane
is enough to improve it. But I don't think it's

(01:12:34):
enough here that they were going to blow off this
few completely. I think it has to extend to the
Hell and the Cell where the Undertaker will have his
ultimate revenge.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
Yeah, we've talked about this before. I imagine they'll probably
do it two out of three. I imagine Kane wins,
I've got a champions and like you said, and then
under Tier gets to thosemate revenge in the Hell of
the Cell pay per view, he gets the title, and
I imagine they they'll probably skip bragging rights and maybe

(01:13:04):
go all the way to Survivor Series and have that
be the third match in the series. And I know
we've talked about maybe they can stretch in the Rumble,
uh and have maybe the blowoff with the Rumble. I
don't know if they can really stretch it all the
way to there and maybe have that third match, But yeah,
I'm gonna be very interested to know how this plays out.
I mean, Kane retains on Sunday, I'm pretty sure about that.

(01:13:28):
I don't think gets a rematch, and there's some sorttion
in against with the finish and on finish, uh, maybe
even Paul Barrack comes back and sides with Kane, who
knows who knows about that? But and then that kind
of sets up the rematch where you know, Taker gets
a fair fair shot and then in the Hell of
the Cell. I imagine the Hell in the Self pay

(01:13:49):
per view might be sold just on the fact that
you're gonna get rematches of matches where the Heels go
over at night a champions like what we talk about
Miss and Brian. I imagine Miss win that and they
do the rematch a Hell in the Cell. So we
might get a lot of those that the selling point
for Hell in the Cell might be nowhere to run,
nowhere to hide. Maybe Phoeases get their wins, you know,

(01:14:11):
the Heels finally get their come uppins for whatever program.
So we'll see you know what, we might see see
him Punk go over big show with straight as Society
getting the advantage or helping Punk win that match, and
then they put it in the Hell. I mean, I
don't know if it's gonna a lockdown deal where every
match is in Hell in the Cell, maybe just the
top couple of matches. But you know, there's a way

(01:14:33):
that there's a way to launch a book. It to
where Okay, we're gonna keep SCS out of a Punk
Big Show rematch. Okay, we're gonna keep Alex Riley or
Michael Cole out of a MSS Brian rematch. Okay, we're
gonna keep whoever interferes in Kane Undertaker out of that match.
We're gonna have the Hell in the Cell rematch. So
there's some potential next as well. I mean Nexus, Wade

(01:14:57):
Barrett is in the w W title match, a six
pack check all as you might get, uh Nexus involved
and Hell in the Cell. Maybe there's some sort of
match where they keep Nexus out of whatever way Barrett's doing.
So there's a way to pull off an all Hell
and the Sell pay per view pay per view next.
I guess you know two and a half weeks now.
So just some just some thoughts there, some foods for thought.

(01:15:21):
That's potential, Brian. Let's talk about some nostalgia news and notes.
Mike Shaw, you had a write up on him former
Bash and booger. Uh maccon saw sing I almost got
it so close. Uh mccon sing from from Calgary, worked
with Owen Hart and watched a lot of YouTube clips

(01:15:43):
of that. Last night I had seen a lot of
Owenhart and seeing DVD. Uh sort of sort of some
some matches on DVDs in the past. I hadn't seen
it in a long time. Uh, So he was gonna
kind of watch some of that stuff on YouTube last night.
Talk about Mike Shaw and his incarnations and kend of
what you wrote about and what he brought to the

(01:16:04):
table as a big man wrestler in the late eighties
and nineteen nineties.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
Well, Shaw was, you know, a guy who wrestled in
the smaller promotions. You know, he started wrestling right after
high school. He took a year where he's actually playing
professional softball for a team out of Florida, and after
that league folded, he got into wrestling. It was trained
by Killer Kowalski, and from there he ended up working

(01:16:32):
for promoter Al Tomco and Vancouver and then moved on
to Calgary and then Calgary is where at that time
they had some really great workers and he kind of
fell in with some of those guys and was able
to develop himself as a character. He was there for
a while, left and went to Puerto Rico, came back
and that's where he developed the Makhan Singh gimmick and

(01:16:56):
had some really good matches with guys like Owen Hart.
Brian Pillman was also there. Chris beIN Las was there
at the time, and this was, you know, kind of
the reincarnation of Calgary wrestling in the eighty eight eighty
nine time frame. Jim Ross, who was on the booking
committee for WCW in that time, was looking for new talent.
Brian Pillman was recommended to him and at that time

(01:17:19):
he signed Tilman. He also signed Shaw to come in
and wrestle for WCW. So Shaw debuted as Norman the
Lunatic at the Classic Champions show in June of nineteen
eighty nine I Believe and had a quick win over
a guy named Mike Justice, and pretty quickly the gimmick

(01:17:41):
got a little old.

Speaker 4 (01:17:42):
He was kind of.

Speaker 3 (01:17:45):
Gimmick was he was kind of a lunatic. That's wled
the Norman the Lunatic name. He was managed by Teddy
Long and lost in September at a Class show to Pillman,
who they were starting to get behind as well, and
he didn't do a whole lot in w CB. He
wrestled another match and defeated Kevin Sulvan in falls count
Anywhere match that it was kind of his turn from

(01:18:07):
a heel persona to more of a face persona, and
then he wrestled for a couple of months as a
face at Norman the Trucker, I think was his gimmick
and really fell out of a favor from the booking
committee who was at that time. Ross was replaced and
Jim Cornett and Rick Flair both quit and Pollie Anderson
was doing a lot of the booking for WCW and

(01:18:27):
he went in a little bit different route, so he
was let go, ended up working in Mexico and lost
the Hair versus Hair match, and ended up being signed
while in Mexico to WWE and made his debut in
nineteen ninety three on Raw. After a debut and his
first gimmick was that of a monk called Friar Ferguson.

(01:18:50):
There was some backlash from the Catholic community against using
a monk, and so he ended up changing the name
and the gimmick to bash and Booger and he didn't
last very long. But that was an era where it
was a heavily gimmick territory. They were bringing guys in
like Mantar and and Duke Dorozi and a lot of

(01:19:11):
gimmick characters because they're getting away from more of the
steroid era, Ultimate Warrior, Davy Boy Smith Hulkging type guys
because of the McMahon steroid trial. So he was short
lived and ended up, you know, getting out of the
company and eventually got out of wrestling altogether and worked
as a SERI security guard in a casino. He also

(01:19:33):
ran his own wrestling school for a period of time
and and was married had a couple children.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
You don't have to wait for the weight keller for
wrestling post show to find out what I thought of
Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Each week, you can check
out my reports that are updated live throughout Raw and
SmackDown at pw torch dot com. I written report we'll
tell you what's happening in detail in case you missed
the show, and it'll also analyze key segments and give
my random thoughts quips on what I am watching as

(01:20:08):
it airs. So check it out every Monday night and
Tuesday night at pewtorch dot com. That also applies to
WWE pay perviews. I cover those live at pw torch
dot com with a detailed written report with star ratings,
and of course you can find other TV reports from
other contributors to PW Torch such as nxt roh, Impact Wrestling,
and more. Check it out pw torch dot com, your

(01:20:30):
first stop for TV and pay per view written reports.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
He also how long of a program did you have
what Nick Foley did? And Nick kind of had a
bit of a program in WCW. Did does that have
any significance or was that just kind of a brief
run they had with each other?

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
Yeah, it was just more of a brief run with
each other. I think that you can know they had
some matches on TV, they didn't really do.

Speaker 2 (01:21:02):
A whole lot.

Speaker 3 (01:21:03):
Neither guy at that time was was pushed very heavily,
uh and both were fairly young into the business, so
they really didn't get behind them. And with the change
in the booking philosophy of the booking committees, especially with
Jim Hurd being in charge of w c W, everything
was then in the constant state of flux.

Speaker 2 (01:21:21):
Yeah, and in w w A at the time, I
mean he was kind of part of that. Uh I
called the the Todd Pettengill era, which was, you know,
he basically had joint and uh Kamala got I guess
getting Kamala as Papa Shanga h Skinner and uh uh oh,
my goodness, I forget who else with the other Taker

(01:21:43):
in his first match? Uh, the very the very first
raw main event was Undertaker and uh uh wow, I'm
I can't remember Dementia rants uh they mean Demando there
you go, give me a second, how to go to
the YouTube and then it remind me the name. Yeah,

(01:22:05):
it was in that whole era Y had Knuckleball Schwartz
and they would have that. I still remember this. I
mean it was the twenty man Battle Royal with you know,
Giant Gonzalez was basically the big show where everybody tried
to gang up on him and try to get him
out of the match, and then you had, you know,
all the characters would do their thing, and yeah, Booger
was Rick Martel. It's kind of when he was more

(01:22:28):
gimmick eyed too well was part of that. So those
are those are unfortunately those are my Those were some
of my earliest wrestling watching days. I mean I started
watching eighty nine and eighty eight, eighty nine when I
was alert to what was going on in TV. But
you know, I mean I remember all that era and

(01:22:50):
I had no idea why they were doing that, and so,
you know, kind of as I got into covering wrestling
in the nineties in the late nineties, it was kind
of fascinating to go back to that steroid era. Uh
I'm sorry, the steroids trial era and to find out
why as a as a as an elementary kid, why
were all these crazy characters on my TV? And you know,
like you said, it was because the whole cartoon era

(01:23:12):
post steroid trying to appeel the kids. So I mean
I saw right through her at the time, I was
alerted enough to see right through all this crap. But
it's just kind of fascinating at that time. It's just
a fascinating era. And uh, Booger Jaw was a part
of that. Uh you know, it's kind of just kind
of fascinating. Look back at the group that he had. Yeah,

(01:23:37):
he did the thoughts on Shaw or a and in
a Nostalgia News and Notes to cover today.

Speaker 3 (01:23:42):
You know, we talked about Shaw on our Nostalgia podcast
at George Shire. Uh yesterday or well it was yesterday
and I posted it this morning. So I did give
a chance to talk about him, and we covered a
few other subjects as far as nostalgia, I didn't we
didn't get chance to talk about the twenty years back issue,
but maybe we can do that next week.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
Oh well, let's actually, Wade just posted that during the
live cast, so let's go. I haven't even got a
look at it, but I did see that it was
posted during the live cast. We want to pull this up.
I've got some time, and I'm just gonna read the
summary and let me know what kind of jumps out
at you. So this is a basis. This is two

(01:24:25):
thousand and five, let me find me.

Speaker 4 (01:24:26):
Twenty years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Here we go. Uh, this is from September twenty is
nineteen ninety cover story looks at a possible WWF Fox
Network deal, World Class Championship, Rustling Resurrected and er Abram
uwf AP and post part I want to get you
to talk about herb Abram Bryan because randomly at night,

(01:24:47):
sometimes I'll either watch YouTube. So it's like last night
I watched christ Jarco's debut. I raw in nineteen ninety nine,
I watched Chris Erco's return and I believe I was
six h seven, I watched Triumph and Scott Center's promo
on raw I'm sure that they're feud with a lot
of promos on raw O two oh three era, and

(01:25:10):
a couple of months ago, I just kind of stumbled
on irb Abrams and kind of relived those UWS days
with Steve Williams and some of the the the crazy
irb Abrams antics and and UH read up on that.
So I've been I've been waiting with baited breast for
these twenty years ago to come up with the herb
Abrams story. I've just been I'm fascinated with the man
just because he's something a complete nut that would have

(01:25:33):
been fascinating interview at the time. So I want to
get you to talk about that, and then also reading
the rest of the summary UH news analysis on the
territories UH ringside b with Blet Keller in Minneapolis with
Jerry Lynn and Sean Waltman UH, as well as the
Veris Mitchell one of his early columns in the Torch Newsletters. So, Brian,

(01:25:58):
I mean Fox World Class Championship, Russian Resurrected, I know
you want to talk about that as well, and er
Ravens and yeah, those three items, what kind of jumped
out of you from me twenty years ago?

Speaker 3 (01:26:10):
All right, a lot of stuff jumps out there. First
of all, the Jeff jar or Jerry Jars story pulling
out of USWA. You know, back in eighty eight eighty nine,
he had purchased a territory from the Van Erks and
unified the Memphis area that he was promoting with the

(01:26:31):
Dallas office. And that's where the term USWA came from,
is the United States Wrestling Alliance. At that point, the
Dallas office, the territory was really dead, and he was
making money in Memphis, not a lot, but he was
making enough money to sustain that territory, but not for
both of them, and so he ended up pulling out

(01:26:51):
of the Dallas era area. And you know, there was
some fringe promotions that tried to spring up in that
in that area because it was at one time such
a hot area that Von Erics tried to promote themselves,
which had limited success, and then we ended up having
Global Wrestling come about it in about nineteen ninety three.
They didn't last very long either. But you know, Jarrett

(01:27:15):
was very tight with his money, and that was his
reputation he saw he was losing money in that area
area and just what basically went back to his roots
in Memphis and tried to make a goal of it
was really the last regional territory to hold out well
into the mid nineties. So it was a cost cutting
move on his partner, Doubt, and he talked about WWE

(01:27:37):
or WWF at the time, getting a deal with Fox.
You know, that was a way to replace the Saturday
night's main events, and they had started back in nineteen
eighty five.

Speaker 2 (01:27:46):
They had a lot of success.

Speaker 3 (01:27:47):
Running in the old Saturday night the live time slot,
but as the years progressed and pay per view became
more important to Vince McMahon, he put less effort into
promoting those Saturday night made events and the ratings continue
to decline and pretty soon they were dropped by NBC.
And it was a situation where Fox was trying to

(01:28:08):
gain a fold of the market share. You know, they
had some TV shows certain, but no sports like they
do today. You know, there was an old Fox Sports
Network or Fex network. You know, I think maybe nine
O two and oh was their top rated show and
maybe their only one that they really had, And this
was a way that Fox was trying to build themselves up,
was attaching to WW and get some national recognition and

(01:28:30):
some prominence for some of their other shows, and that
was met with limited success as well. So you know,
it was it was an era of transition a certainly
at that point, wwe needed a place to go to
have their Saturday night made event shows WN. Fox needed
them to try and and gain a foothold in the market,
which you know, in hindsight they were smart and doing

(01:28:51):
because they've been very successful since then.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
Yeah, and there was yeah, exactually the Fox of twenty
years ago is not the Fox said today, which you
know airs football and the Super Bowl and NASCAR and
had the BCS Championship, and it was Fox was just
trying to I mean, they had they had the Simpsons
and that was you know, like you said, they had
the Simpsons, they did the programming now to one O.

(01:29:18):
That was you know, like you said, they were trying
to find a foothold to compete with ABC, CBS, NBC,
the established networks. So you know, nowadays, if we said, oh,
WB and Fox are working on a TV though, that
was a huge deal.

Speaker 4 (01:29:32):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
I guess, you know, kind of been on the time
slot in one day of the week. But you know,
back then it was sort of it was sort of
a Fox was desperate, like you said, for programming, and
especially some program would name value and brand value coming
off of the seven at Man event run like you said.
So it's fascinating to look back at that and where

(01:29:53):
Fox was twenty years ago. Uh much less WWF so
irb abrams Brian.

Speaker 3 (01:30:00):
Well, from what I remember about herb is, you know,
he actually ran a pay per view event I think
in nineteen ninety one in the summer, and the pay
per view bombed and he ended up not paying the
arena and some of the wrestlers that because it went
so bad. He had really banked a lot of his
revenue coming in from this event to make his financial

(01:30:22):
obligations and wasn't able to do so. So he had
a real bad reputation in wrestling from a lot of
the wrestlers because of that. But if he goes back
to this nineteen ninety era, he was looking to make
his name for himself as a promoter, and he used
the old UWF name that Bill Watts had used at
one point before, just spanning his promotion. So he was

(01:30:46):
known as the Universal Wrestling Federation as well, but certainly
shouldn't be confused with Bill Watt had nothing to do
with it other than sharing the same letters. But he
at one point had a television program on ESPN. Uh
he took over a slot that aw A was unable
to commit to an hour, so he got a half

(01:31:06):
hour program slot. In fact, you'll see a lot of
those shows re airing on ESPN Classics from time to time.

Speaker 2 (01:31:13):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:31:14):
Interesting, I think if you if you listened real closely
to some of the squash matches. He had a couple
jobbers on there at times, and one I think was
called eight Yeah, Bruce Mitchell. He had one called Davy
Boy Meltzer in reference to The Wrestling Observer, and I
think he made a comment about or some wrestler named
Wade Teller or something, you know, some offshoot of Wade

(01:31:34):
Keller's name, I think as well, so kind it kind
of interesting to her was taking shot at some of
those guys back in that era as well. And uh,
you know, his matches, he didn't have really a big
name attractions, but he took some guys that had some
national appeal from you know, from w CW or nw

(01:31:55):
A at that time, or ww F who weren't being
used on a regular basis like Paul range Work and
Danny Spivey and Brian Blair, Steve Williams you can see
from time to time as well. So you know, some
of these guys had an opportunity to work on national
television and keep themselves relevant that you know, her Baburams
would be list of those guys who failed as a

(01:32:16):
promoter from you know, lack of money, lack of revenue
and trying to compete on a national basis.

Speaker 2 (01:32:21):
Yeah, I wave was Cornett who did the Bruce Mitchell
jobb er like you said, Yeah, Davey, I found that
clip on YouTube and I was kind of just relieving,
reliving their b Abrahams days and there was that Davy Yeah,
I guess it was Davy boy Meltzer or yeah, something
like that. And Herb was a nutt, I mean from
every everything that I've read, and I'm sure what we'll

(01:32:44):
find out more about that in the back issue series.
Right before we go, I'm gonna pay a lot trivia
with you, Okay, the first ever and the only UWF
her b Abram's pay per view, I do remember researching this.
I found it about on Wikipedia.

Speaker 10 (01:33:00):
It drew a zero point one by rate.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
It was the beat Sprawl was the name of the
pay per view through five hundred and fifty people in Florida. Uh,
the main event ran Can you name the main event
of the very first and the only UWF pay per
view Beat Sprawl ninety one?

Speaker 3 (01:33:18):
Without looking, I would say involved Paul Orndorf, Steve Williams
would be like Yuess or maybe even Van dam Blee Bigelow,
which other which is I'm gonna say Orf against Williams.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
It was Williams and Bigelow and very close, very good.
And Orndorf was the fifth match against Colonel the Beers,
so he was in a match with the Beers, but
definitely very good. Fixed it was a Williams and Bigelow
was the singles match for the inaugural UWF Sports Channel
Television Championship on pay per view. So h the other

(01:33:58):
notable names on the the card the first ever in
the only Beat Brawl ninety one presented by JAF Uh,
your main event was Williams and big Loew. Your semi
main event was Steve ray Us. Cactus Jackal was on
that teaming with Bob Orton Jr. Uh, you had Bob
Ackland defeated Ivan Kloloff, Paul Warrendorf over Colonel Beers Rock

(01:34:19):
and Robin over Candy Divine. You had uh, Brian Blair
and Jim Brunzell working as masked confusion, not to be
confused with the Killer Bees.

Speaker 4 (01:34:29):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:34:29):
They defeated the the Towered Twins, that being Larry and
David Power. On your undercard, you had Terry Gordy over
Johnny Ace and the actually, I'm sorry to say double
counts out so there was no finish.

Speaker 15 (01:34:45):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
And in the opening match the Black Hearts managed by
Leona Vashon against they would have a Firecat and Jim Cooper.
That was your your opening match with Luna Vashon in
the corner of the Black Hearts.

Speaker 3 (01:34:58):
So Una Vashan married both of those Black Hearts.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
That that's true. That's true.

Speaker 3 (01:35:06):
She married one of them and then they and she
had an affair with the other one and they ended
up finding out and one of them got divorced and she.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
Married David Heath.

Speaker 3 (01:35:15):
So more useless trivia.

Speaker 2 (01:35:17):
There you go.

Speaker 12 (01:35:18):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
Beach Braun ninety one presented by Hers certainly right for
useless trivia. So fat Nadia look at herb Abrams an
interesting character, Nutt. Yeah, so I'm sure were gonna talk
a little bit more about him than twenty years ago.
A kind of flashback is he's gonna pop up over

(01:35:38):
the next several months as you have got that that
TV time slot. So good talk there, Brian. Always good
to mix at a herb. Hey. Any of the final
thoughts for a wrap up tonight?

Speaker 12 (01:35:51):
Yeah, no, I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:35:53):
We covered a lot of round tonight, James.

Speaker 2 (01:35:56):
We did. We started off with independent contractors, ended with Meats,
Brault ninety one, UWF and Florida. So good times, Brian,
appreciate it. I think we're gonna, you know it, kind
of depending on how Pat's schedule shakes out. I imagine
that you'll be a regular on Wednesday nights or Wednesday

(01:36:16):
afternoons going forward. So I'll look forward to that in
the in the weeks to come. So thanks again. In
any final word before I wrap up.

Speaker 12 (01:36:25):
No, sound good.

Speaker 4 (01:36:26):
Well we'll talk to you again and you have a
good nice week, James.

Speaker 2 (01:36:30):
All right, you two Brian Torch nostalgic callmast Brian hoops
This is Torch Assistant editor James Caldwell signing.

Speaker 18 (01:36:37):
Off searching for more great pro wrestling talk. Then join
me Jason Powell, host of the three weekly Pro Wrestling
Boom Podcast. Each week you'll hear the latest news and
analysis from me and my team at Pro Wrestling God Need,
along with other pro wrestling media members. Plus, the Pro
Wrestling Boom podcast features long form interviews with notable names

(01:36:59):
and the pro wrestling industry. Subscribe and iTunes stitch your
downcast and all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us
directly at PW boom dot com. Once again, that's PW
boom dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:37:16):
Welcome to the PW Torch live cast. This is Progressing
Torch newsletter and PW Torch dot Com editor Wade Keller
joining you today Thursday, September.

Speaker 4 (01:37:26):
Was it the fifteenth sixteen?

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
November fifteenth sixteenth, whatever, sixteenth doesn't matter. Check your calendar,
don't rely on me to tell you what data is
and twenty ten the last part of that sense. I'm
joined today by Greg Parks, Progressing Torch columnists.

Speaker 4 (01:37:39):
How you doing, Greg, I'm doing well? A wait, thanks, well,
I know we.

Speaker 2 (01:37:44):
Were going through withdrawal after missing Impact last week. It's uh,
it's tough to not go through, you know, a whole
whole two hours of impact every week just to kind
of satiate our our ability to let out frustration, build
up frustration, and then let it out. But we get
a good show to or an eventful show tonight, as
they continued to march toward their super Show of the

(01:38:04):
Yearbound for Glory was a big main event Kurt Angle
against Jeff Party, a rematch of one of the leading
contenders for Match of the Year, certainly leading contenter for
match You're at DNA, along with probably a couple of
the of the big tag matches with your Money and
the machine guns. Yeah, I was just wondering if there's
any other match in TNA that jumps down at you
as a Match of Year contender besides the Angle Hardy

(01:38:26):
singles match, and then perhaps a couple of the tag
matches of the Best of seventh series.

Speaker 4 (01:38:30):
Yeah, those are the first ones that come to my mind.
I don't know, you know, if you would include rv
D versus AJ Styles for the title on the Monday
night episode of Belie it was a Monday night episode
or RVD won the title that it was a hot match,
hot crowd, But I don't know if it was Match

(01:38:51):
of the Year candidate. I think maybe the fans and
the way the crowd reacted it was more of a
product of making a seam like it would would be
falling under that category. So yeah, those are there, really,
I mean, there's a couple of machine guns. Beer money
matches don't qualify, I was saying, But definitely, Jeff Hardy
at Angle, that one is the one. You know, when

(01:39:13):
it comes to have a voting from matches the year,
that's the one that's gonna stick out in my mind,
at least, not only for the match, but for the finish.
I mean that was a news earthy finish as well.

Speaker 2 (01:39:21):
Yeah. Well, I haven't looked at the spoilers from the taping,
so I don't know how long they go tonight or
how could the matches. I'm looking forward to seeing that. Also,
Rob Bandam speaks for the first time. I'm curious how
TNA handles this. They've I think they've done a below
average job so far of making it seem like Rob
Bandam is still with the company. I just know, for

(01:39:42):
my years of watching wrestling, when they do an injury
angle with a wrestler who holds the title, and he
disappears and you don't hear from him on the phone,
you don't get a hospital visit, and the announcers don't
talk all that much about him. You start wondering, is
there a contract dispute? You know, did Stan Hanson run
away with an AWA title to Japan and not return
it and run it over with his car? Are you
know what the heck's going on here? But that's for

(01:40:02):
being a fan back in the eighties when this kind
of thing happened a little more often.

Speaker 4 (01:40:06):
So I think.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
How they have to Night's first word from Rob bandam,
It's gonna be pretty interesting. I hope they find a
way to to make this seem like the big deal.
That's certainly the angle itself was.

Speaker 4 (01:40:21):
Yeah, And I don't know if they plan to, you know,
keep him in the background for this long, or if
they switch plans in midstream kind of when his comments
came out on his website and maybe the punishment they
you know, said, you know, we had some things planned
that we were gonna do, and we're gonna talk about
you more and kind of hype you up more. But
now we're just gonna kind of sit back and and

(01:40:42):
not not do that and just have you come on
later on and uh and do an interview or something
like that. So I don't know if that came and
the player or what. But what's interesting is I think
if he scheduled to wrestle at Bound for Glory, is
that supposed to be his comeback match against a bisch
or something like that, you know, the latest, or that

(01:41:02):
he's something.

Speaker 2 (01:41:03):
That was announced at the tapings. That's a spoiler for me.

Speaker 4 (01:41:07):
That's I I haven't looked at the tapings either, the spoilers,
so I just know I don't think so okay because
I thought that, you know, depending on his condition of
the interview tonight, you know, he want to be back
before they crown a new champion, which would be really
strange if he's tripped to the championship because he couldn't
defend it, you know. So that's what I was wondering.

(01:41:28):
And he had a match it at Bombs the Glory
and he'd think it was the biggest, the biggest show
of the year. You wouldn't want one of your biggest
stars selling an injury angle, you know. So if he
does somehow come back at that. That's that's kind of
odd timing.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
I thought it was odd timing overall to have, Yeah,
the guy you're pushing at your top star to an
injury angle where he you know, they say he won't
be there. I found for glory, but at the same
time he just plays into the ludicrocy of this the
whole taste thing of this tournament. On yesterday's show, I
don't know if it was a caller or James or Bright,
but you were. You know, they're discussing the tournament as
an ongoing tournament, and I'm like, well, I guess in

(01:42:05):
the most you know, kicked in a sense, it's an
ongoing tournament. But really, what I look at it as
is is the first round took place really quickly in
one show. They managed with four matches into one show
they added up in grand total to about fifteen minutes,
which I thought was just so stupid with two o's
in the middle, to just have four fst s roung
matches last three four minutes each.

Speaker 4 (01:42:25):
I just hate.

Speaker 2 (01:42:26):
I mean, I really I don't use the word hate
a lot, but I just hate when they take the
cup contenders out of you know, two of the top
eight contenders, put them in the ring and then just
make define down to the lowest level what it means
for those who to face each other by having all
four matches go three, four or five minutes. Well maybe
one way.

Speaker 4 (01:42:43):
And that's kind of the sand thing that what happened
on in all of this past week when you know
they the GM for uh ROB book, the body Slam
challenge was as in Mark Henry and Mark Henry what
a minute into the match gave at a body slam
which was actually his world's strongest slam. So are we
to assume that if this was a regular match, that
Mark Henry would have been able to give him his

(01:43:04):
finisher a minute into the match?

Speaker 2 (01:43:06):
I mean, that's yep, that's unrealistic.

Speaker 4 (01:43:08):
In the same vein, I think it totally is.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
I mean, it's it's the same little we're straying off
and ripping on a couple of aspects of RAW that
I think are we're touching on too, But there's some
relation here. It's the other thing I was gonna mention
is on Raw they had the sing and dance competition
and our Truth just happened to have a new song
ready to dabut. You know, it came across like, well, gee,
you know, out of the fifty things that can come

(01:43:33):
up on the wheel, our truth was nerdy enough to
prepare for all fifty.

Speaker 11 (01:43:37):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:43:37):
I thought that was a little weird thing too, that
just seemed to orchestrated. And sometimes I think that bookers,
the TV writers and bookers, they look at where they
want to go, what's what I've accomplished, and then they say,
how do we get there? And I've used this analogy before,
but they just get there no matter how many cones
in the road they knock over, well try to get there.
They just knock over cones of logic left and right

(01:43:59):
to get where they want to go. And I just
think as as a booker and a TV writer, you
should work within a certain structure. You know, if you're
writing a paperback novel, you don't get to incorporate on
page eighty nine music video with three D three D
music video with glasses like three D glasses like, you
don't get to do that. That's not part of a novel.
And so in pro wrestling, my argument is, dude, don't

(01:44:22):
get to do a random wheel spin and have the
result look completely orchestrated. You don't get to do a
body slam challenge where a top contender against another even
higher contender gets in this minute because you're running short
on time. That's not a good enough excuse to just
blow up any sense of logic or consistency to how
top stars face each other. So going full stream back,

(01:44:44):
that's my problem with the short first round matches. But
even adding on top of what was ludicrous about it is,
if you can get four first round matches out of
the way in one two hour show, why are you
then waiting seven weeks before the finals? Oh, because we
want to feature the finals on confort bar. Well, that's
not a good enough reason. A promotion should have a
sense of urgency to try to have a champion, and

(01:45:05):
to arbitrarily space it out seven weeks. When you're able
to get the first four out of seven matches in
the tournament in one show, what's stopping you from having
the semi finals the next week in the finals at
the previous pay per view.

Speaker 5 (01:45:16):
So that bugged me too.

Speaker 2 (01:45:18):
And you know, people in the TNA towers are sitting
there going, oh, you know, nobody cares about this stuff.
They just want tours good wrestling, and if we give
them some good action and some good moves, you guys
are overthinking it. It's like, tell me you're overthinking it
when your ratings go up to one point five with
the type of money you're spending. Don't tell me I'm
overthinking it when week after week on the show we
get people calling up frustrated about this lack of attention
to detail. And no, we're not just picking on TNA.

(01:45:40):
We're picking on both major companies using lazy crutches as
booking and not go to that little extra effort to
make sure that what they book makes sense from week
to week with the internal logic and the world that
they create on their own shows.

Speaker 4 (01:45:53):
Yeah. And another example from Raw this last week without
Harfee so much on that, it was the submission match
with Daniel, Bryan and the Miz when Dan and Bryan
just happens to be getting over this new fishing move
Billa Bellotto. So that was kind of falling into the
same category as you know, all the rest of us
do a song and dance just happens to be archers
whose things and dances that related their ring every week,

(01:46:14):
you know. So yeah, I think it would have helped
the last pay per view had they put the title
match in it. But then again, you look at the
hype that went into this last pay per view and
they just really did not care, and to put a
title match on there, I don't think even probably occurred
to them because it was so low on the list
of priorities at the time that you know, they the

(01:46:36):
hype was so low that just slapping a title match
on there when they weren't prepared for it wasn't going
to help it at all.

Speaker 2 (01:46:42):
The y rats hard and they could have done the
semi finals on TV and the Final Impact and then
they could have had rob Ben Dam making his triumphant
return at Donald for Glory at Your Top Star on
Your Top Show and have him fighting for the world
title that he was scripted of. Of course, the other
alternat of his old stript the guy at the title
Unless you have a consistent rule that established and you follow,
and they should, I mean they should have their own

(01:47:03):
set of rules and their own role. But written on
a chalkboard or on posted notes plastered to their wall
whatever that says, this is one of our rules. And
then this plays into the whole the whole reason, the
whole time limit thing bomb because because you had Smojoe
having one set of rules, if he thought it happened,
and then he blew a gasket when different people had
a different set of rules. Do we announce it, do
we not to announce it at a time? Do we

(01:47:23):
do a countdown? And then when they brought that into
last month's semi comin event with Angle Hardy, the fans
weren't used to timeline draws, so instead of just telling
your story distraction free, you have this whole distraction of well,
is that really a rule? Is that really when?

Speaker 12 (01:47:38):
Since?

Speaker 10 (01:47:38):
When?

Speaker 12 (01:47:39):
Since when do no.

Speaker 2 (01:47:40):
Matches on pay per view last twenty minutes without hitting
a time limit? I've never heard of that in DNA,
And suddenly they created that. Why for the sake of
telling their story. That's not professional writing, that's amateur writing.
That's that slap. You should hold yourself to a higher
standard and in book around the structure, you should be.

Speaker 11 (01:47:58):
Capable of that.

Speaker 2 (01:47:59):
And they want to fancy themselves TV writers and drama
writers and the type of floppiness that they apply to
what they do, it's just it's not acceptable in television,
certainly not on the top half of TV shows out there,
and probably not in any of them in any TV industry.
So tonight we got we got the Hardy Angle rematch,
and then we've got the rock bandem return speech and
more Bound for Glory.

Speaker 4 (01:48:20):
Heights on the UH.

Speaker 2 (01:48:22):
On the WWE side, we've got Nine of the Champions
coming up on Sunday. Uh, Greg, what do you think
of the heights that they've done on Raw for that
pay per view? Do you think with especially with the
Christ Jericho twist, that you censored a decent buzz for
this or do you think this is kind of an
off brand show that's likely to bomb? Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:48:40):
It's tough to say. You know, I would paint to
the Night of Champions as a good selling UH point
for a pay per view, and I think it's done
well in the past. But you look at the virates
that came in from the Money in the Bank pay
per view, which a lot of people expected to break
that UH streak of off brand y rates that were
terrible and it hasn't appeared to do so. So I

(01:49:00):
don't know that Niers Champions is gonna be the one
to break that. They, you know, hyping these these mull
time end matches is tough, especially this last week when
the go home show is built around raw roulette and
that gimmick for the season premiere. You know, Seamus Onen
ra he looked relatively strong against John Morrison, though he

(01:49:21):
did need Jericho's help to win it. This whole thing
with Chris Jericho, I feel like WWE doesn't really know
what they want to do with him the last couple
of weeks. I feel like they don't really know.

Speaker 3 (01:49:30):
It almost feels like.

Speaker 4 (01:49:31):
It's changing week to week based on maybe the negotiations
with him. I haven't heard that he's been able to
re up with them yet. But you know, it also
had the stink of one of those things where there
were so many weeks in between the two pay per
views that they had to do something to get stands
talking and get fans interested. So they put Jericho in

(01:49:52):
the match, then one week they take him out of
the match, and the next week they put him back
into the match. So ultimately nothing really changes, but it
looks like something is going on in those they're building
for the pay per view. So that's my take on
the Championship match. A leads on our own side.

Speaker 1 (01:50:08):
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Speaker 2 (01:50:48):
Yeah. And the Jericho situation was really was really interesting
because it seemed within the context of the show they
were teasing us with the idea of hope jerichoj inside
of contract's being out, and at other times it seemed like,
oh nope, he must have resigned. They set up the
feud with Morrison, so it's pretty it's it was interesting

(01:51:09):
kind of the little journey in twist and turns they
took us on with Jericho.

Speaker 4 (01:51:13):
Yeah, and like I said, I don't know what that means.
I don't know if there's anything you can read into
it as far as from a backstage standpoint, from a
contract negotiation standpoint.

Speaker 14 (01:51:22):
But.

Speaker 4 (01:51:24):
Or or maybe like I said, they were just they
had nothing really to do with him leading up to
the pay per view and just kind of wanted to
tease the fans a little and get them thinking that
maybe he's not going to be in the title match.
But you know, we haven't seen a lot of wayde Barrett.
I mean, he's been one of the guys that's almost
been an afterthought in that in that six tight challenge

(01:51:45):
the last few weeks. I don't think we saw him
this week until the main event segment. So it really
is tossed to get six guys over in a way
that makes them all like credible possibilities to win the championship.
It's suffer up flu with three What are you doing?

(01:52:07):
A multima mass level of sick?

Speaker 2 (01:52:09):
And I wonder what I mean.

Speaker 19 (01:52:10):
I kind of look at the leading up to the
show and it's like, are they just try to find
an excuse to fit all these top guys on a
pay per view? Because when you do Knight of the Champions,
what you're saying is we're gonna put some title matches
on a show, on a pay per view, We're gonna
jam a lot of title matches onto a show. And
the reason that the IC title US side of women's
title take titles aren't defended on every show is because

(01:52:31):
they really only care about two. I mean ninety five
percent of their energy goes into promoting the world and
the WWE title. So when they have to fit on
a US title, an icy title of take team or
a women's or at least two or three of those
to have, you know, have it live up to the
Night of the cha Night of Champions name, all of
a sudden, what happens is all these preliminary wrestlers who
normally wouldn't make pay per view all at once are

(01:52:53):
filling out your undercard, and so in order to have
all these main eventors also on the show in a
meaningful way that fits the theme of Had of Champions,
they went with the six way match, and so I
get the logic of it, but to me it shows
one of the bad sides of theme structured pay per views,
where you kind of instead of just booking organically months
to month with generic pay per view names. They've deliberately

(01:53:16):
gone the direction of having theme pay per views, and
it creates a booking structure for them, but it also
boxes them into a corner a little bit, and I
think that's where they ended up, peer boxed into.

Speaker 2 (01:53:25):
A corner definitely.

Speaker 4 (01:53:27):
I mean, come up the last pay per view, I
was looking ahead already to Nighter Champions and I was seeing,
you know, with Chamus's champion, and he had a deal
of Randy Orton going on, and I'm thinking, Okay, where
did John Cena fit into this? You know, because at
the time, we assumed that Night Champions would be all
championship matches. Somehow Sam Punk was the big shows nut
Don in there without having title on the line, which

(01:53:50):
is nothing else. I think a thumbs up from management
about big shows Sam Punk that they wanted to get
them on the show so bad. Just threw a non
title match on a on a if you called Night
of Champions. So it's got to be a good sign
for them if they wanted to get them on the show.
But going back to my original point was, you know,

(01:54:11):
you saw Seamus as the champion and thinking answer they
set up with Andy Horton. Well, you know they're not
gonna leave jobs seen off the pay per view, and
you know they're not gonna stick them in the US
title match. So the wheel began to turn even at
that time that Okay, there's gonna be some kind of
multiman match here for the championship. There have to be,
because these guys are gonna be left off of pay
per view and you're not going to have the room

(01:54:32):
on the undercard that you would normally have for these
guys in regular matches.

Speaker 19 (01:54:36):
Yeah, yep, we can talk more about nither the champions
with collegs. I want to give out the phone numbers.
We'll get the calls in just a second. I have
one more subject I want to touch on before we
do briefly, the number is six four six seight A
six four six eight. Only two people on hold, so
you can be third and fourth in line if you
get on the phone banks right now. I also want

(01:54:57):
to talk about the banning by w WE of Soma
pills there there. That's the brand name for the muscle
relaxers that have been very popular with wrestlers, very popular
going back to the days and the click Uh, speaking
of which, you know Sean Sean Waltman arrested in New
Jersey with getting caught with drugs. Don't have a lot
of details on that yet, We're waiting details. And uh,

(01:55:18):
you know, Sean Michaels went through a lot of a
lot of pill issues, obviously, Scott Hall, It's it's been
an issue for a long time. I just wonder if
WWE has the power to wave a magic wand and
ban a problem drug, why did.

Speaker 2 (01:55:31):
They do it sooner?

Speaker 19 (01:55:33):
This is a very big, a very big deal to
wrestlers who are hooked on them, and it is a
popular item. Uh, it is a popular item with bookers.
And I mean I had one WWE wrestler tell me today,
I personally think it's the big problem and and he
and he points out too, Uh, he pointed out too
that muscle relaxers don't just you know, they relax your

(01:55:55):
muscles and help you sleep, they relieve pain, but the
heart is a muscle too, And I mean his thought
was it's the main evil. And he's glad that they're
banned now, and it's step in the right direction. Again,
this is one of those instances where you want to
applaud WWE for doing the right thing, but also criticize
them a little bit for why wait fifteen years to
do this if it's possible to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:56:17):
Yeah, you hear so much nowadays about how you know,
steroids get all the press, But it's the prescription pills.
It's the pain pills that are really causing the problems.
And how long have we heard that. I mean, it's been,
like it says in the same song and dance for
ten years. It's not more now, and now ww is

(01:56:37):
getting around and doing something about it. I applause them
for doing that, but like you said, it's been a
long time coming, and all of these deaths piling up,
with all of these prescription pills being found, you know,
in the house besides the body, and WWE didn't think
to do that, to ban this stuff before that. I
just I wonder why now other than lend them at

(01:57:00):
man running and they can point to this saying, I
see how we're improving the wellness policy, you know. Other
than that, I don't know why now this is getting
any attention.

Speaker 19 (01:57:09):
And it's going to be interesting if they make any
shift or change in the enforcement of the marijuana policy.
I have put a lot of thought into it, and
I've written about it, and my official stand on this
for years has been, don't fan marijuana if there is
a cause, because wrestlers are clearly high when they show

(01:57:30):
up at the tapings, if they're smoking at the tapings,
if they're putting at risk the schedule because they're off
in a corner eating a bag of Doritos instead of
paying attention to when their cue is to a pre production,
you know, to do an interview.

Speaker 2 (01:57:43):
A pre tape.

Speaker 19 (01:57:44):
Well, that's a problem, but you can discipline that because
of the problem with them not being where they need
to be at the right time, in the right state
of mind. You definitely don't want anyone going into the
ring with alcohol or pot or drugs at all. So obviously,
for the safety of wrestlers, it has to be verry understood. No,
not at the show, not before the show. But nobody

(01:58:05):
is ever going to die in the wrestling industry from
smoking pot to relax themselves before.

Speaker 2 (01:58:11):
They go to bed. Ideally, you don't need it. Ideally
you don't go that route.

Speaker 19 (01:58:14):
You know, you stretch, you meditate, you do breathing exercises,
all that great stuff. I'm all for all that, but
realistically speaking, wrestlers are often going to choose something to do.
And when you ban pot, this was a problem back
in the nineties when they started testing for POD, that's
when guys started drinking heavily, and that's when the pills
became a problem. I know pot's illegal, but I'm an

(01:58:35):
advocate of not as a wrestling company policing it if
at all possible, And I truly believe WWE feels the
same way, and they put it on the band substance
list as a pr move because with Soma's band, you
have a great transition for guys who feel they need
something because their whole sleep schedule, their whole everything's discombobulated.
Smoking Pot's going to relax your muscles, it's going to

(01:58:56):
bring you down, and it's going to let you get
some sleep, but you're gonna wake up without an addiction.
You might have a habit, but you don't have a
physiological addiction to it, and you wake up the next
day and you can go on with your life without
needing an up or to get you off of what
the Somas did you. So this is an issue with
the Soma's I'm very glad they did it. Like I said,
I talked to a WWE veteran today who communicated to

(01:59:18):
me he's happy for this. He's watched this evolution of
what's gone on in WW the last fifteen years, and
you know, give or take, it's been an issue for
that long, and it is it is being met by
the veterans who aren't addicted to soma's as a good thing,
especially the ones who care for their friends.

Speaker 2 (01:59:34):
So interesting story.

Speaker 19 (01:59:36):
They're definitely worth watching, and we'll be talking more and
writing more about it.

Speaker 2 (01:59:39):
Let's go to the fall lands and.

Speaker 19 (01:59:40):
Begin with four point five. Thanks for calling, Please stay tour,
name and where you're from.

Speaker 7 (01:59:45):
What's going on, guys is Jonathan Frans Francisco.

Speaker 2 (01:59:48):
Hey, Jonathan, video for me? What's up today?

Speaker 20 (01:59:51):
I just want to talk about the wellness policy and
how it will affect the wrestling fans who go to
the you know events and order the pay per views,
because I see Vince McMahon, like, you know, raising raising
all the you know prices because he's gonna need the
extra money to pay off, you know, for the insurance

(02:00:11):
policies and you know, stuff like that. If they get
into the uh, you know, if they're gonna make it
more prevalent, uh whole well, yeah, whatever, But I just
see Vince McMahon, you know, just pretty much instead of
and I see the roster going like kind of cutting

(02:00:33):
in half because he's not gonna want to, you know,
pay all these wrestlers like all this like huge amounts
of money because everything is gonna go up because once
you get into that insurance claims.

Speaker 2 (02:00:45):
Everybody knows.

Speaker 20 (02:00:45):
That's why a lot of small, small time businesses trying
to go out of business.

Speaker 7 (02:00:51):
So what you guys take on that?

Speaker 19 (02:00:53):
Do you think that he should and this isn't I'm
genuinely curious. Do you think that it's not a good
idea for this kind of pressure to be on him
to have to go to the expensive testing or because
it could affect the fans and it could affect pricing.
Is that kind of what you're getting at or are
you just saying what, well, the side effects is something
that's good and necessary to be Yeah, it's pretty much.

Speaker 20 (02:01:15):
What is the side effects of the good because the
fans aren't going to pick the hard court line?

Speaker 2 (02:01:20):
Is that all of it? Eventually?

Speaker 19 (02:01:22):
I would say, Jonathan, I'd say this, I think the
most expensive thing that happened to WWE in the last
five years. The most expensive thing wasn't wellness testing. It
wasn't a health claim. It hasn't been setting people to
rehab It was the death of Chris Benwan. The number
one is the number one most expensive thing that happened
to them, the type of damage that did to their
standing as a company. They had to interrupt the vincent

(02:01:44):
man Limo's storyline, completely abandoned it. They had a lull
and ratings for a while. They devastated the company. They
had morales drop, They had incredible media scrutiny on a
level that they had never had before, and it lingers.
It is something that keeps sponsors and licenses of associating
with WWE. The fact that it wasn't isolated now it's
isolated in the sense that nobody else has gone on

(02:02:05):
a murder murder suicide spreed type situation. But what happened
to ben waff in eighty percent of the ways is
similar to what happens to a number of other current
and past WWE talent. So I would say expense wise
by testing for SOMA as well, I think he was
testing for prescription pills before it's just if you had
a doctor's prescription for them, then it was okay. The

(02:02:27):
problem is there's a wide range of what doctors will
prescribe and not prescribe, especially those who are starstruck by
celebrity wrestlers. And once word gets out that there's a
doctor who's willing to make wrestlers happy, all the wrestlers
will go to him, and so the prescription thing has
always been a loophole.

Speaker 2 (02:02:45):
It sounds good for PR reasons. We would not allow someone.

Speaker 19 (02:02:47):
To take prescription pills ull less they produce a prescription
from a doctor. How can you possibly you know ww stensis,
how can anyone's second guess a doctor patient relationship and
the decisions made there?

Speaker 2 (02:02:57):
And it was pr spin.

Speaker 19 (02:02:58):
Everybody knows there's Mark doctor out there, So I would
say saying it's almost show up in your system on
our tests, which we've been doing. Anyway, that's a violation
that doesn't cost any more money other than.

Speaker 2 (02:03:09):
It pull somebody from the road.

Speaker 19 (02:03:10):
But it really is at the point now, I truly
believe for wwe needs to say and I think we
all need to step back occasionally and say, yeah, we're
in a capitalistic society, and we are motivated by what
we can buy with money, including early retirement or a
roofover a secure roof overhead, and a good neighborhood for
our kids to go to school, or when we get

(02:03:31):
on the high end, a great vacation home or a
nicer car, whatever, whatever it is that we seek. In
a capitalistic society, we're motivated by, oftentimes by the money
it brings in. And a big business like wwe answering
the shareholders as a public company. Obviously they have to,
but there comes a point where you have to think,
as a human being on this planet. Am I willing

(02:03:52):
to take a scolding and even a financial bath from
my bottom line oriented stockholders at a meeting and stand
up and look them in the eye, look the board
in the eye, and go I will not have blood
on my hands from running a company that is worried
strictly about profit and not about the safety of its competitors.
And I truly believe in the long run, will be
a healthier, more solvent company by putting the wrestler's health first.

(02:04:16):
And I think if you can't stand up and say that,
and you're willing to compromise the safety and health of
your wrestlers because you need another penthouse condo that you
spend almost no time in, or you need even more private,
private and upgraded private jet, or or you know whatever
luxuries that you live and in doing that, and all
the dividends and all the money that you're sending multiple
generations of mcman's up for. It's one guy. If one

(02:04:39):
wrestlers who's giving his body and his time for you
ends up suffering because you wouldn't go to the extra
expense to test or deal with the ramifications and fallout
of somebody inconveniently being suspended in the middle of a storyline.
So it hurts business, well, so what if it saves
the life, that's fine. If you're in a business where
people have to die for you to make money and
stay in business, you should FSESSI didn't exist. So the

(02:05:01):
idea is, let's get pro wrestling in a position where
none of us are ashamed to be fans of been
in supporting and financially because they do the right thing.
And if that means the main event gets changed at
the last second because they test before pay per view
and a match gets.

Speaker 2 (02:05:11):
Thrown out, so be it.

Speaker 19 (02:05:12):
We're talking about human lives here. So I will deal
with whatever the ramifications are, price ticket wise or card
changing at the last second wise if I think it's
the result of a move that's going to help make
life better for wrestlers, because wrestling's been a big part
of my life. It's been a big form of entertainment
and the biggest black mark, biggest black mark by far

(02:05:33):
for all the time I've spent invested in wrestling, are
all the deaths of the people that I grew up
watching and watch even to this day. I mean, the
first time that they announced David von Eric had died
on World Class Championship Wrestling on five o'clock on Channel
twenty nine in my area, it changed the way I
looked at wrestling. It's a first time a young wrestler
when I was a fan, died and they announced on TV.
And I don't think any other wrestlings fan who's, you know,

(02:05:56):
eleven twelve years old like I was at that time,
should have to deal with that. So why don't we
take care of that problem and then we'll be able
to deal with whatever the fallout is from there.

Speaker 21 (02:06:10):
Longing for some nostalgia or maybe you want to learn
some wrestling history. Don't miss the nineties Past cast Every
Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed. Alex and
Patrick will transport you thirty years into the past by
taking you through the Torch issue from that very week.
Follow news from the WWF and WCW and all the

(02:06:30):
happenings from across the wrestling industry in real time as
the Torch reported it thirty years ago. That's the nineties
Past cast every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed.

Speaker 2 (02:06:49):
Greg any thoughts on that.

Speaker 4 (02:06:52):
First of all, great Ramt. I agree with everything. I
mean that was beautifully put into words to answer the question.
I feel like there's no way right now with the
buyers coming in and Vince flood raised prices. I don't
think no. I hope too, that he's finally got the
realization that, you know, with virus plunging, raising prices is

(02:07:16):
not the answer, you know, and hopefully I don't really
see it going down, But I do not see it
going off for the first vole future. And the other
thing is as far as testing costing ww more money
and then having to raise the prices. I'm an economics
major buying stretch, but I assume that these are would
be too unrelated and you wouldn't be covering one for

(02:07:37):
the other. They I'm sure they have something set aside
in some capacity for testing under some umbrella of the
corporate side of WWE that doesn't affect the wrestling side
or that kind of side of w W. I think
they would get that money from elsewhere, and I don't
think it would be by raising prices.

Speaker 2 (02:07:58):
I think, you know, I mean, even if I did, so,
you know, so be it. And I know you're gris
me on that too, Greg.

Speaker 19 (02:08:02):
And I think the idea that they're going to ban
Soma's it doesn't really add any expense. I mean, they've
got the testing agency hired and they're testing them for
it anyway, all they're saying now, And I think it's
important to be clear unless and maybe I'll be informed,
But I don't think this is the case that testing
for Soma's quadruples the price of the testing. I mean,
testing is expensive as it is, no doubt about it.
But they've already been testing for prescription pills. I think

(02:08:24):
the only thing that changed is now when Soma's show up,
When the drug that makes up somas, that muscle relaxance
shows up, you are in violation of wellness policy and
that was not the case before. So I don't think
there's any more expense. I think the main concern now
is how many wrestlers now are going to get suspended
and what kind of grace periods are going to be
for wrestlers who are.

Speaker 2 (02:08:43):
Addicted to it.

Speaker 19 (02:08:43):
Will they've be given time off to get off of them,
to go through whatever treatment.

Speaker 2 (02:08:46):
They need to get fixed up.

Speaker 19 (02:08:48):
We may see, you know, some wrestlers disappearing from the
roster and replaced with others. But I again, my argument is,
give guys six weeks or twice a year mandatory cross
the board. Don't wait for them to ask. Sometimes it's
too and and if and then if that means everybody's
pay drops by twenty percent, will so be it?

Speaker 2 (02:09:06):
You know, I mean, I'm sorry.

Speaker 19 (02:09:07):
If you make four hundred fifty thousand instead of six
hundred thousand, that's still a good living. And if it
means you get twelve weeks off a year, you know,
twice a year, six weeks twice a year total for
twelve weeks, roughly speaking, if that's what they give you,
you're gonna live a more enriched life, you're gonna have
a chance to connect to the world outside of WWE.
What people are saying about Matt Hardy is that he
doesn't have a life outside of WWE in the wrestling lifestyle.

(02:09:28):
He hasn't had a systematic, extended time off to ground
himself in life outside of WWE.

Speaker 2 (02:09:33):
It's all he.

Speaker 19 (02:09:34):
Knows, and he's getting to the point in the late
thirties where he's looking at people like Dolf Ziegler and
Cody Rhoades and these younger guys who were coming up,
and there he's seeing him five, eight, twelve years ago
and he's peaked, you know, his time, and he sees
it in coming to grips with the fact that he's
approaching forty is harder to stay in shape, and there's

(02:09:56):
a lot of mileage on that body from those TLC matches.
Of course, there's gonna be a level of a meltdown,
and it can manifest in many different ways. I think
it's Matt Hardy for his entire WWE career, had six
weeks off twice a year, he'd be he'd be a
different person mentally. Right now, I'm physically and that's where
I think the biggest benefit will come. But I'll in
the downside of that is, oh, gee, twice a year

(02:10:16):
we have a pay per view without John Cena. Well, gee,
is that really the end of the world? Eleven times
a year USC has a pay per view without brock Lesner.
You know, I think WWE will be fine and frankly,
it'll freshen things up and make the times he's on
paper you seem more special. And they have to have
a deeper roster. So by giving six weeks off twice
a year to everybody, guess what happens. You get to
expand your roster. More guys get to be on payroll,

(02:10:38):
more wrestlers get to get to make a good living
because they're in that rotation. So anyway, we got a
lot of people on hold right now, Greg, So why
don't we go back to the phone lines, Jonathan, do
you have any quick follow up before we moved to
the next collar?

Speaker 6 (02:10:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 20 (02:10:51):
What was you guys thoughts on the tag team situation
with WW Because they want to you want to leave
it to the fans to pay aampions opponent. At a
Night of Champions and one of the groups one of
the teams was MVP and H who is that guy
that's never on TV ever. I can't think of his name.
It's the bub guy that got canceled or whatever. They're

(02:11:13):
just like literally randomly throwing people together like it's no louse,
it's just weird.

Speaker 2 (02:11:19):
It's like, why would I want to pick that guy?
I talked about the on there.

Speaker 19 (02:11:24):
I think actually yesterday's VP Keller Hotline, I talked about
how one of the things wdwe can do and on
my wish list would be to have a much stronger
taking division. And I mean it's people who have listened
to me and read me for years. No, I'm a
broken record on this, but we always have new people
and it's always a new day and there's a new
case to be made. I think when you look at

(02:11:45):
raw right now, it's there's there's a level, there's a
sense that the mid card is in a bit of
a rut. You know, you've got a few top top.

Speaker 2 (02:11:51):
Guys, and then you've got the obviously the uh the.

Speaker 19 (02:11:54):
NXT group, but there's not a there's not a lot
of real intrigue over the mid cart. You know, we're
kinda we're kind oft with if you guys who just
seem kind of stuck in a rut, and some people
who don't you know, who feel like they're kind of
past their prime, the gold dust in William Regal types.
I'd like to see a vibrant tag team division with
established tag teams, where we get contenders matches almost every

(02:12:14):
week on television that go eight to fifteen minutes. You know,
give us some really good mid at Express, rock and
Roll Express, British Bulldogs, Dream Team, Hardy Boys, Edgend Christian
Motor City machine Guns against Beer Money. That level of
take team wrestling can be something that's a staple of
raw and SmackDown every single week.

Speaker 2 (02:12:31):
The wrestlers are out there. Benjamin and Charlie.

Speaker 19 (02:12:34):
Hass shouldn't be working for ROH, no offense to ROH
and its fans. They should be a top take team
in WWE, a legendary take team.

Speaker 2 (02:12:41):
We're having good.

Speaker 19 (02:12:41):
Matches on television every week, and you can put some
teams together with guys who aren't single stars on their own,
but collectively mean a lot more.

Speaker 2 (02:12:49):
That's what I would do.

Speaker 19 (02:12:51):
I would revamp that take team division so that you're
not just putting people together randomly.

Speaker 2 (02:12:55):
Greg your thoughts, Yeah, I'm all for.

Speaker 4 (02:12:59):
Z up taking divisions, and you know, for a while
it looks like they were voting that direction at least
on SmackDown, and then they kind of pulled back from it.
You know, as far as the fans voting for the opponents,
clearly the taxing division and taking match and either champions
is such an afterthought that the booking team doesn't even
want anything to do with it, so they leave me

(02:13:21):
to the fans.

Speaker 3 (02:13:22):
That makes it.

Speaker 4 (02:13:23):
Easier on them. You know who I would choose, You know,
you've got our Truth and John Morrison sitting there. It
would be a babyface baby face matchup. But you know,
Morrison is one of the biggest stars on that list
who isn't on the pay per view and he had
a really good showing against Shamuth on Raw, so that
might sway some people.

Speaker 2 (02:13:41):
But you've also got.

Speaker 4 (02:13:43):
Nexus who could possibly be be in that match, and
you know, if you're really serious about continuing this NEXTUS
thing for a while, and you kind of do need
to build them back up because there are such an
afterthought on this week's show, and even Wade Berrag has
gotten such a little hype into the WWE title match,
and that a champions put together, you know, David Oton

(02:14:05):
and Justin Gabriel team to face the Hard Dynasty.

Speaker 3 (02:14:08):
And have him win.

Speaker 4 (02:14:08):
I mean, if you're not gonna do anything with the
Hard Dynasty as champions, which clearly you're not. You know,
did Brett's still around, but they're not really even to
con much with Brett. He presented them with the titles
and that was about it. So you know, put it
up nextus in with Nexus is in the main events
of Raw, they're getting a lot of screen time. Have
the Otungua and Gabriel or some combination, have them come

(02:14:30):
down with the title. Just having a title in those
segments make them more prestigious. And you know, you don't
have to not to not to your your idea because
if all things were considered, that would be my idea too,
But clearly WW is not going in that direction. But
if they want an easy way to step up the
prestige of the tag team titles without having to spend

(02:14:52):
tenre eight to ten minutes having matches on a raw,
just have a tund and Gabriel come out with the
titles during any segments during a beatdown of John's or
a beatdown of a main event player. Because that will
make the belt more prestigious as well because it's seen
in a main event type segment with main event type players.

Speaker 19 (02:15:10):
Yeah, I think WWE sometimes underestimates how much just being
in the final spot on raw can make someone seem.

Speaker 2 (02:15:16):
Like a star.

Speaker 19 (02:15:17):
If you put a tag team title match, for instance,
in a main event spot, that makes someone a start.
If you have someone interact with main events, that can
help elevate them and they need to, you know, maybe
loosen up their rules on what qualifies someone to be ready,
because if you push somebody hard when they get hot,
like Kope Kingston a year ago was pretty hot and emerging,
and then you just define him down, or what they've
done with Jack Swagger with a nice hot run midsummer

(02:15:37):
and then he gets defined down as a mid carter again,
it puts it just puts the screeching.

Speaker 2 (02:15:41):
Halt on their momentum. So instead, if you.

Speaker 19 (02:15:44):
Have a bigger rotation of talent, back to the time
off thing, you can move KOFE into a program where
he's in the top mix for a few months and
if you think by then he's not ready, well he
can main event. Some matches on wrong can main event
even a pay per view and then he has a
big loss and it sends him down. That's part of
the story that you can tell is a couple of losses.
And also they fall out the title contention, and one

(02:16:04):
of the stories you tell is, hey, they got to
work their way back up. All right, let's go back
to the phone lines and go to Eric code four
four three. Please stay your name and where you're from.

Speaker 7 (02:16:13):
My name is Kevin and I'm from Baltimore.

Speaker 2 (02:16:15):
Hey, Kevin, good hear from you. Welcome you to for today.

Speaker 7 (02:16:19):
I was listening to What's the song of the point
that she had made previously about the paper v the
vial rates and not having the same people on the
paper view it's consistent each a month, and I was
just going across some thoughts and thinking that some of
the reasons that I mean a lot of I feel
like the WW is in a kind of a rut

(02:16:41):
ratings loses is because it's really predictable. I mean, you
watch the shows and see you can really tell what's
gonna happen before it happens. And I mean, who wants
to watch something and you know what's gonna happen before
it happens.

Speaker 2 (02:16:52):
I mean, back in unless I know what's gonna happen.
I love Lucy Kevin, but I still love watching it.
But I know what you mean.

Speaker 7 (02:17:00):
But I mean, just basically, just an instance, I would
say the match between Evan Bourne and Age. He knew
once the GM chimed in with the email that he
was going to face someone that he possibly couldn't fly in,
which you had to lead to two people, which would
be Evan Bourne, I mean, not Evan March. Camber a
great college. So I mean, it just seems like it's

(02:17:21):
really predictable. The things that that drew me to wrestling,
I mean years ago was watching the Monday Night Wards.
You never knew what was going to happen, who was
going to show up, And that left the Bowery from
pay per views because you would want to see the
pay per view because you wanted to see interesting characters.
You never knew what was going to happen. You didn't
know what the outcome was going to be, and that
led me to want to spend money to watch something,

(02:17:42):
or spend thirty dollars on upwards of forty dollars for
wrestling here because you don't know what's going to happen.
You don't know who's going to win the match, you
don't know what's gonna what could be the possible outcoming
that The thing that I thought that they could do
to improve that would be to I mean just just
just to have a pay per view. You have only
first time individuals for fighting for a title. Fans fings

(02:18:04):
like you have WW title. You only could have individuals
who have never had a title shot compete in the
match and let the fans vote for and that would
only be like maybe one.

Speaker 2 (02:18:14):
Or two tighters.

Speaker 7 (02:18:15):
We need the world titles or like the intercon man
or not every title, but just one or two tighters
where you don't know what's going to happen and just
get some leave blood. And then with people who haven't
had an opportunity and who you're willing to pay to
see win. Yeah, better fantasy, Sean Michael. I may grow
Edge and Randy Wild fight for the twenty or thirtieth
time and foc them at ten times times, and I
saw if they wanted what's the big deal?

Speaker 19 (02:18:36):
Sure, Kevin, great, great points and thanks for those comments.
I think we don't want to say there's a lot
of differences and a lot of similarities between MMA and
pro wrestling. But one of the cool things about MMA
is that thought that a couple of big wins in
a row can elevate somebody quickly to be a top
star on pay per view.

Speaker 2 (02:18:52):
And you don't have that sense in WWE.

Speaker 19 (02:18:55):
You don't have that sense that that somebody can just
show up on the scene in WWE and be good
enough to earn their way to the very top of
the card in a short amount of time. Kobe Kingston
and Jack Sweger seem like maybe they were going to be,
you know, relatively speaking, rise quickly to the top.

Speaker 2 (02:19:11):
But unless there's a.

Speaker 19 (02:19:12):
Huge mass exodus the main event talent or a huge well,
I mean, there's not a lot or a lot of injuries,
you know, and that's something you're just not going to
get that. And I think people would look at that
even Monday, you know, Nextus hadn't been on the show yet,
so you knew they were going to get involved in
Seena Orton. There's that level of predictability. It's good solid
logical booking one oh one. You want to promote a
pay per view with six wrestlers in it, you have

(02:19:32):
those wrestlers involved in the main event, of the final
Raw leading up to the pay per view, But there
is a level of predictability to it.

Speaker 2 (02:19:38):
And while I watched Raw and thought.

Speaker 19 (02:19:40):
Okay, that made sense, I can't poke holes in it
logically that you know, in promoting a pay per view
and want all those guys out there doing what they did.
It did sort of feel like I'd been there before
with different players in it, And I don't mind that.
If the rest of the show feels a little more original,
then I think we can put up with that. But
when the arrest of the show felt kind of stagnated,
you're looking for a little something that steels, like you say, Kevin,

(02:20:02):
a little more surprising. Give us something a little more unexpected.
Unexpected that doesn't make sense is not good. A surprise
for the sake of a surprise is not good. But
always following the same formula constantly, that's wrong, I think,
do it. And that's what made the Nexus attack on
John Cena and the ring announcers and all that. That's
what made that work because it felt surprising at outside

(02:20:23):
of the pattern that WWE sticks to so closely.

Speaker 1 (02:20:28):
Anytime you're watching WWE Raw or SmackDown or AEW Dynamite
in particular. Send us an email if you've got thoughts
on the show or a topic you want us to
address or a question for us. Wadekellor podcast at pwtorch
dot com. Wadkeller Podcast at pewtorch dot com. If there's
anything else going on in pro wrestling that you want
us to address on our main podcast during our mailbank segments,

(02:20:51):
that same email applies Wadekeller podcast at pwtorch 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.
Wadekellor podcast at PW tours dot com.

Speaker 19 (02:21:07):
All right, let's keep going through culture. In the final
fifteen sixteen minutes of the show. Let's go to Airy
Code seven o eight. Thanks for calling, Thanks for holding.
Please state to your name and where you're from. Seven
o eight bro Yep, you're on seven eight oh, I
said seven oaight.

Speaker 12 (02:21:20):
Sorry seven six zero and I'm in San Diego.

Speaker 2 (02:21:23):
All right, cool? What's your first name?

Speaker 3 (02:21:26):
Jim?

Speaker 12 (02:21:27):
Question? How long do you think they're going to keep
milking this angle with the GM and do you think
that they're doing this mystery GM so long because they
don't have a clue who they want to use.

Speaker 2 (02:21:38):
What do you think, Greg?

Speaker 19 (02:21:38):
We get asked this once a week, and it's a
good question. It deserves to be asked and readdressed after
every episode. Based on what we've seen on RAW this week.

Speaker 2 (02:21:45):
In the last couple of weeks, it seems like the
GM is changing his personality a little bit.

Speaker 19 (02:21:50):
He's a little less cleverly pro heel and just seems
kind of ornery.

Speaker 4 (02:21:55):
Yeah. I tend to and and I've done this since
the beginning, tend to air on the side of they
don't know who they want to be at yet, or
they don't know who it's going to be yet. You
try to follow clues and who they're favoring and who
they're not favoring, and it isn't clear. And while that's
a good thing, it also kind of gives you the
sense of they're not foreshadowing it being someone, which means

(02:22:18):
that they don't really they aren't sure who it's going
to be. So there is the good in the bad
It come with that Because it's not obvious, you can't
obviously tell who it's going to be, which is good,
but you can't alpo pick up on the foreshadowing, and
you can't. It's not gonna be a situation I don't
think where it's revealed and we look back and say, oh,
here were all these clues that led to this person

(02:22:40):
being outed as GM, Now I get it. I don't
think it's going to be one of those situations. It's
going to be one of those situations where oh, this
is the GM, well why did he do this? And
if he's the GM, why did he favor this guy?
You know, I think it's going to be one of
those situations, kind of similar to Vince Rickman kind of
firing Brett Hard as GM or the excuse me, the

(02:23:01):
the GM uh saying how he didn't like Brett Harts,
so he's going to take a lot of a match
with the Undertaker, yet allowing him to come down and
present the tag title belt to the Heart Dynasty.

Speaker 2 (02:23:11):
Now one of those.

Speaker 4 (02:23:12):
Situations where the lot it just didn't match up. And
I think that's what's gonna, unfortunately end up being.

Speaker 2 (02:23:18):
Jim, what are you any follow with us?

Speaker 14 (02:23:21):
Well?

Speaker 12 (02:23:22):
I was kind of thinking the same thing that they
don't really have a clue who it is, and I
think they were trying a bunch of different ideas to
see what gets the crowd most into it and then
they can kind of go from there. I was, you know,
always thinking along was going to be like Triple H
or somebody who used to wrestle. It has been gone
a while, but now I'm beginning to think it's going
to be an outsider.

Speaker 19 (02:23:41):
Yeah, it's when McMahon said on the phone, don't screw
up this time. I hope they don't abandon that as
a clue.

Speaker 2 (02:23:48):
I would be disappointed if they just said.

Speaker 19 (02:23:50):
Ah, I know already paid attention to that kind of thing,
or you know, the whole thing I'm saying earlier about
why are all your first round matches in the TEENA
tournament three to six minutes? And I expect us to
watch on pay per view to see two big matches
or the semifinals? What about those two matches in the semifinals?
Should should what should convince us that there's a reason
that the match would be more than three to six
minutes in that case? And if there isn't a reason

(02:24:11):
other than well, let's pay per view and matches are longer.
You're as a booker not thinking hard enough, You're not
respecting your audience well enough. That's how I feel about
this GM thing. Have something in mind.

Speaker 2 (02:24:21):
If you have two ideas and you're not sure which
one you're gonna do, make sure whatever you go with
when we look back, reward the fans who pay close attention.

Speaker 19 (02:24:28):
Reward the fans who were looking for clues. If you
want to turn people away from getting really emotionally invested
in your drama, in what you're producing for television, cheat
them out of cheat them out of a reward for
paying close attention to detail. If you want to have
pride in what you do, and with the money WWE makes,
with the money that that company has and is holding

(02:24:49):
on to, there's no reason they can't hire enough writing
staff to make sure that there's full attention to detail.

Speaker 2 (02:24:55):
And if then so many sides us that's not important
at this point in his life, then he has to
just obviously also absorbed the criticism and the consequences, which
is fans like you Jim, being frustrated and maybe not
paying as much attention and maybe therefore not watching as often.
I think it's a mistake and it's it and they
should pay close attention to detail.

Speaker 19 (02:25:13):
We'll see where this goes. I hope they've got a
good idea in mind. We've speculated about a lot of
different options, you know, and a lot of different possibilities,
and I don't relieve it at this point. Know who
the leading contenter is. I don't think any person we
speculated about makes a lot of like makes all the
sense in the world, you know, Triple H or Michael
Cole or Brett Hard himself, or Linna McMahon or Shame

(02:25:33):
McMahon or Vince mcmack. None of them make enough sense
where all the clues fit. So I hope they surprise
us with something that does make sense.

Speaker 4 (02:25:42):
And the thing I just want to throw this in
here real quick then with Triple Ah is you know
he's got he was taken out by Shamans in a
vicious way. Shamans has been bragging about it ever since,
and for Triple H to make his triumphant return to
get ultimate revenge on Shamus as Rodger GM just doesn't
this doesn't have that same ring to it.

Speaker 2 (02:26:04):
You know, yep, yep? I agree, all right, Jim. Any
closing comments before we move on, just real.

Speaker 12 (02:26:11):
Quick, I'm gonna bring it back a little bit to
whatever became of Do you ever know whatever happened to
two West Coast wrestlers. They used to follows a kid,
Victor Rivera or Black Gordman, But I haven't heard anything
in years about them.

Speaker 2 (02:26:26):
I don't right off, what year? Give me a circa,
give me an era.

Speaker 12 (02:26:30):
Of though mid to late seventies to mid eighties.

Speaker 2 (02:26:34):
Okay, I'm keeping my eyes Doim eighteen champions Jim.

Speaker 19 (02:26:37):
I'm keeping him eye on the chat room. Bruce Mitchell
and I believe Brian Hoops are both there, and I
will keep an eye out to see if they have
an answer for your question on that, because I don't.
Thanks for recall, We're gonna move on in the final
ten minutes here.

Speaker 2 (02:26:50):
We've got four people on hold. If you want to
be fifth in line, we might get to you the
number six four, six, nine two eight.

Speaker 19 (02:26:56):
You're listening to the PW Torch live cast. We're here
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(02:27:16):
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(02:27:38):
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Speaker 2 (02:28:15):
Also one quick feature to plug.

Speaker 19 (02:28:17):
We've got a new feature we've been doing for a
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at about five o'clock Eastern, half hour before the live
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(02:28:38):
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Speaker 2 (02:28:57):
Let's get to the phone lines now and go to
a Rayco ninety three one. Thanks for calling. Please stage
your name and where you're from.

Speaker 16 (02:29:04):
Hey, guys, it's Dylan from Clarksville.

Speaker 2 (02:29:06):
To the season i'd say your name in hometown again. Sorry,
Dylan from Clarksville to the Sea. Okay, great, Thanks about
what's on your mind today?

Speaker 16 (02:29:15):
Yeah, good show, guys. I have a couple of quick
questions about a couple of wrestlers from Broad SmackDown. And
I was watching Raw Moe Day and I was over
the last couple of weeks what they've been doing with
Age and they've been kind of showing a comedic side
to his personality.

Speaker 2 (02:29:30):
And while I was watching this, I was thinking, where
was this at WrestleMania.

Speaker 16 (02:29:34):
Time where he turned face and season now he's getting
page reactions for his you know, they're more comedic side.
And what do you guys think of Edges?

Speaker 11 (02:29:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:29:46):
I think Edge.

Speaker 19 (02:29:47):
You know when he when he came back as a babyface.
I don't know why he didn't use the humor more.
It might have just been the writers in the situations
that he was in.

Speaker 2 (02:29:56):
I don't think he had a real hot.

Speaker 19 (02:29:57):
Runnerly this year obviously not. We were really critical of
him as a top babyface, including at WrestleMania. Just was
a really disappointing stint for him on his return. I
think he's better as a heel, but there is that
side of him Greg that I think is in entertaining
babyface type personality, And I just don't know that either
he or WWB collectively have found a way have found

(02:30:19):
a way to chime into that and make it something
that either as a heel gets him heat or even
perhaps would have been better six months ago as a babyface,
get him that kind of cheers that The Rock got
when he would use that kind of sense of humor
against his opponents, or Chris Jericho when he's been a
babyface he uses that sense of humor Greg that specifically
and in general. Where do you think of Edge now

(02:30:40):
in his career, because it seems physically he's winding down
a little bit and trying to stay injury free and
kind of catch in on his tenure a little bit,
getting by a little bit more on the star power
that he's earned for the last fifteen years.

Speaker 4 (02:30:55):
Yeah, Edge is one of those guys whose mash quality
you can tell over the last few months of the year.
It's just down from what we've expected. The humor is something,
I mean, we've seen back in the Edgine Christian days,
So this shouldn't surprise anyone that he's got the sense
of humor. I guess it's more surprising that WWE is
deciding to utilize it at this point. And like you said,
why didn't it happen when he came back to the

(02:31:17):
baby face of the Royal Rumble. Something to keep in
mind was I believe he was still on SmackDown at
the time. Different tern So it's different writers, correct, and
you know that could be something that's that takes it
into account. We haven't had the comedic stylings of Santio
Morella very often lately on Raw, so maybe they felt

(02:31:38):
that they needed somebody else to carry that comedy load
on Raw and kind of turns it over to Edge
and his the butt of his Joe Slately Zach Ryder,
who do have an history together, so it's smart to
fire those up. I don't know that they've emphasized it
up exactly, but yeah, I don't know where it's going
but with those two, or if this is just a
you know, a cheap way to get Edged some last

(02:31:59):
pace that's an undercardrets player they don't have any plans for,
but it certainly has them entertaining because Edge can he's
got the timing, he's got the that sense of comedy
that a lot of the guys don't have.

Speaker 2 (02:32:13):
Good points, not Bill and follow up.

Speaker 16 (02:32:16):
Yeah, I was just wondering because the wrestlem at they
kind of did this kind of spears spears spears thing,
and it really, you know, it kind of missed the mark.

Speaker 19 (02:32:24):
I think that one Bill, it was painful to watch
Edge try to get the crowd to get into the
cheer spear spear spirarit thing because they're just looking at him, going,
we know what you're doing and we're not going to
do it. They're like, enough, but we're just not going
to get behind this thing you're trying to get us
to do.

Speaker 2 (02:32:38):
And it wasn't it was. I mean, it was kind
of embarrassing.

Speaker 7 (02:32:40):
You know.

Speaker 19 (02:32:40):
I'm sure every time Edge went went backstage he kind
of shrugged his shoulders and kind of rolled his eyes like,
well that didn't work out.

Speaker 2 (02:32:47):
You know.

Speaker 19 (02:32:47):
Yeah, I hope that sense of humor about it, because
you know, he's just doing what the writing team came
up with him for. And yeah, they tried to turn Edge,
you know, into a character that I don't think it's
his personality as much as what he's doing now. If
he morphs into a babyface through this rider stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:33:00):
Well, that's fine, you know what I mean.

Speaker 19 (02:33:01):
We've talked about take team wrestling, and one thing I
want to talk about with with you Greg in the
after show is it's constructing a cool take team division
for WWE. And you know, it's one of those things
where you could take somebody like Edge when he's not
in the pay per view main event world title mix,
which is gonna happen occasionally with guys like him, put
him in a take team with Zach Ryder. Is you
know this odd couple pairing and just get have some
fun with it and see if you can't turn Zach

(02:33:22):
Ryder into something a little more serious by having Edge
kind of be his his coach, player coach. He's kind
of frustrated by him. Anyway, Bill, thanks for called. Please
call again.

Speaker 2 (02:33:30):
I want to get to a couple more calls here
in our final few minutes. We've got some people on hold.
Let's go to Eric Code six seven eighth police station.
You name and where you're from. Hey, guys, it's Chris
from Atlanta. Hey, Chris, what's up?

Speaker 10 (02:33:42):
I just not too much actually, just wanted to ask
a quick question and if you guys can put me
back on a hold.

Speaker 2 (02:33:48):
That'd be cool.

Speaker 10 (02:33:48):
YEP, was wondering what each of you guys, you who
your favorite all time in ring worker is just in rings,
and was wondering if like that person is still working
and that's it, Greg.

Speaker 2 (02:34:02):
Do you want to start with that? Do you have
anyone who comes to mind? Oh? Wow, I mean I.

Speaker 19 (02:34:07):
Don't have a singular, but I can name you know,
half a dozen that are all in a group.

Speaker 4 (02:34:11):
Yeah, I would say, you know one that immediately comes
to mind obviously Sean Michaels, who you know, when I
was growing up in the early the mid nineties, I mean,
he was just kind of hitting his stride as a
single star. You's got guys like Chris Jericho, who is
not going to put on the fourth star, the four
or five star match, but he's doing consistently in the

(02:34:32):
threes and be entertaining while he does it. You've got
a guy like ray Masterio who brings a different kind
of energy to the match, and you know, even in
his state today, with his bad knees and everything like that,
he still can put on athletically entertaining matches that you
don't see anywhere else on WWE. So those are the

(02:34:52):
ones really immediately to come to mind.

Speaker 19 (02:34:55):
I my list will be different if you ask me again,
and I challenge, I invite people to try me. In
three weeks, ask me the same question again, I'll have
forgotten this list, and I'll give you six different names,
but in no particular order. I just jotted down six
names that span my time watching that I think hold
up historically. Also, I mean, there was a time where
I really liked watching the vine Erxon the Freebirds, but
I'm not quite sure i'd pick out any one of

(02:35:17):
those wrestlers as one of my all time favorite workers.
But I loved the dynamic and the energy that they had,
and the personality conflicting and the crowd reaction of the sportatorium.

Speaker 2 (02:35:26):
So there's things I can really.

Speaker 19 (02:35:27):
Like at a high level, but it doesn't hold up historically.
But I would say Stan Hansen as work in Japan
and some of his better work in the States, I.

Speaker 2 (02:35:34):
Liked him a lot. He's not on everybody's list, but
there's a lot that I liked about his personality, how
we delivered and lived his gimmick in the ring and
had a credible style. Sean Michaels No doubt on the list.
Nick Bockwinkle as a great bump taking heel with a
great arrogant attitude. I love talking to Brian Hoops a
few weeks a couple of weeks back when we did
the VIP after show Talkers Winkle Stone Cold Steve Austin

(02:35:55):
at his peak was fantastic. Rick Flair has to be
on the list and kind of my dark horse candidate
Crusher Jerry Blackwell one of the most underrated big men workers,
so effective at his gimmick. Those are just six names
that came to mind. Let's try to fit in another
call here in our final final min of the show.
Let's go to Eric code four h two. Are you
there in sin you ask us a quick question or comment, Hey,

(02:36:17):
it's real from Lincoln, Nebraska.

Speaker 4 (02:36:19):
You can address this in the after show sixty second,
five year or the five year.

Speaker 2 (02:36:25):
Ago seork your splash back. Do you think he may
ring of Honor and dot of b are in a
better place now than they were five years ago? Okay,
good question. We will address that in the after show
real and try to get to our Oh wait, you
know what I think we did use it?

Speaker 19 (02:36:43):
We actually lots just lost of color, so we can
actually address this and very quickly, Greg your short answer
before we wrap up, and then we can expand on
it in the after show.

Speaker 4 (02:36:53):
I do think both are probably better R probably WW.
I'm not sure because the quarter money stuff came in
and it wasn't really good the last quarter. But you
can't really basic quarter to the quarter sometimes.

Speaker 2 (02:37:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (02:37:09):
Okay, well we'll wrap up the show on that note.
Thanks everyone, pulls today, Join us tomorrow for another edition
of the PW Torch Live cast, and keep following us
at PW torch dot com.

Speaker 4 (02:37:28):
Thank you for using blog talk radio. Goodbye.

Speaker 22 (02:37:36):
Are you a nostalgic wrestling fan. Do you want to
hear about shows you haven't seen in ten, twenty, maybe
even thirty years.

Speaker 18 (02:37:42):
Well I have the show for you.

Speaker 22 (02:37:44):
I'm pwtorch dot com contributor Frank petty Ani, and since
December of twenty twenty, I've hosted Pro Wrestling Then and Now.
Together with a rotating chair of co hosts. We go
back and review old shows from top to bottom, talk
about where the wrestlers were at the time, and compare
it's taking place now to what took place. Then you
can hear this so along with other shows as part

(02:38:05):
of your PW Shorts VIP membership with exclusive podcasts just
for members compatible with the Apple Podcasts app. Visit pwsworts
dot com slash go VIP for details and sign up form.

Speaker 2 (02:38:22):
All right, Greg, we are here in the VP after
show portion of the program. Real clast question was our
companies in a better off for works off position.

Speaker 19 (02:38:31):
Let's break this down a little bit. Some of it
is kind of you know where exactly where they five
years ago? I mean kind of in a general sense
without all the numbers and data in front of us.
I want to talk in generalities. But T and A
I think it's it's pretty it's pretty straightforward. They debuted
on a Spike TV with I think it was a

(02:38:51):
point eight rating, and they grew from there and now
here we are and they're at what at one point
oh one point one? I mean they have a lot more,
but they spent a lot more money on talent than
then five years ago, and when they weren't even on TV,
they spent and they're at a disappointing place ratings wise,
but they have an established.

Speaker 2 (02:39:09):
Partnership with Spike TV. Is it going to survive for
another contract? Renewal.

Speaker 19 (02:39:15):
Maybe maybe not Spike TV. Maybe would look outside of
TNA and say, you know what, a lot of mistakes
have been made, and maybe we want to have a
different wrestling company on this network.

Speaker 2 (02:39:24):
Not TNA. Who knows.

Speaker 19 (02:39:26):
I mean so, but right now, that's you know, hugely speculative.
Right now, TNA has a solid relationship with Spike TV.
They're on pay review with monthly pay p review. It's
not doing very good business, but they got better house
show business. I think their name brand is a little
more well established. But I think a lot of people
have written them off too. I think in the last
five years they spent they've spent a lot of energy
not only creating a fan base, but turning off a

(02:39:46):
fan base that sees a lot of faults. So, in
a sense, so much more money has been spent with
with minimal gain compared to what the time, money and
exposure that they've had that you can make a case
that they're worse off. It just depends in your criteria. Overall, though,
no major strikes forward. But they're still on Spike. They're
on Spike TV, they're on pay per view, they're runing

(02:40:06):
house shows. They got a strong talent roster, so it's
not like they've taken tons of steps back. So it's
almost a wash when you kind of see all the
conflicting pieces of information, kind of agree with that Greg
Or does something stand out that changes that.

Speaker 4 (02:40:19):
I guess it all depends on what criteria. Way more
heavily than others. As far as being better off, I
think they're worse off. I think the fact that the
ratings are stagnant despite the fact that they've added so
much payroll and so much star power. The five years ago,
you could say, look at where we are today, and

(02:40:39):
you know, we can still add this guy and this
guy and this guy that are free agents out there,
and they will help build us up to this certain point. Well,
now it's five years later, they've added this guy, this guy,
and this guy, and they're two tenths of a ratings
point higher. There was a lot more hope back then
for a promise in future than there is today. And
I think, really for me, that's the night exactor. I

(02:41:01):
think they're just sitting there right now and there's just
I don't know that there's any hope for There's not
this grand answer that's going to be around the corner
anymore unless you still hold out hope for Paul Hayman
coming aboard. I just five years ago there was a
lot of possibilities. I just think a lot of those
possibilities have been either burned through or have the bridges
has been burned. And I just don't think right now,

(02:41:23):
while they do have they're on pay per view, they
do have by TV, I just don't look into the
future and see things getting better even over the long
term at this point, because I don't know how they
would be doing it.

Speaker 19 (02:41:36):
You know, no good points, and I mean I can't
argue with them. It is the case to be made
that they're worse off, and there's there's a heck of
a case, a heck of a case to be made
when when you lay out those details, and it really
does depend on the criteria ring of honor, I mean
they've lost. I think five years ago they were in
a better position because there was such hope, such great upside.

(02:41:56):
They had I think a talent roster that had more
buzz and and and maybe a less firmly firmly entrenched
TNA to kind of stealing Roh's attention with the internet crowd.
I really think the internet crowd is enough to sustain
Ring of Honor at a small level. And Carrie silkn
has some interesting comments just this week talking about you

(02:42:19):
know how there's only so far and they've kind of
hit a wall with the people who are real fanatics
on the internet and will support pro wrestling, and that
they've got to try to find a way to get
people through a live show on hd net that they're
talking about doing or planning and trying to get word
out to a different audience than the internet, you know.
And I think TNA sucks up a lot of the
attention that ro OH would get by default if they

(02:42:40):
were the number two Darling promotion. But TNA eats up
a lot of the talent, and they just eat up
a lot of the time that people have to watch wrestling.
Two hours of Impact every week and a three hour
pay per view that you know, most people don't watch.
But it's there too that it's certainly more than buy
ROAH pay per views, although maybe not by a ton.
That eats up a lot of that energy too. And
I think Ring of Honor would benefit from TENA going

(02:43:00):
out of business, more talent available and more of their
target audience having time to think about something other than WWE.

Speaker 2 (02:43:07):
ROH would be a down, would be the default. But
with dragons with dragon.

Speaker 19 (02:43:11):
Gate out there even evolve on a lesser scale, there's
some competition out there too for that kind of dollar.
The other thing that makes it hard for ROH is
the DVD world has really dried up. Part the economy, part,
the availability of footlegs on the Internet, and in a
variety of factors DVD. The DVD business five years ago

(02:43:31):
was thriving, and now I would say the technology has
has has caught up and made DVDs more not obsolete,
but certainly less less of a real staple of a
long term business plan. The good part is they have
the ipay per view option. You know, the technology is
there and has carried Silkin said not doesn't take a
huge budget to run a live pay per view on
the Internet.

Speaker 2 (02:43:52):
And they're on hd net.

Speaker 19 (02:43:53):
So while I think there's a little bit less Internet buzz,
I think there's a little bit more Internet buzz today
than maybe a year or two ago about them. And
I think with hd net clearance is as inconsequential as
that is for most people.

Speaker 2 (02:44:03):
It's something that gets them out there and the IPA perview,
So it's you know, I can talk to myself either
direction with them too. It depends on the criteria, but
I would say they're probably a little worse off because
of that DVD factor.

Speaker 4 (02:44:15):
How about you, Greg, Yeah, the first thing that came
to my mind when we mentioned the ROAH five from
five years ago and today, The first thing that stuck
out in my mind was the fact that they're on
HD at now, and like you said, that doesn't reach
a whole lot of people, but the fact that they're
even attempting that avenue of television when they first came
out and were strictly you know, DVD kind of business,

(02:44:40):
that's the acknowledgement that, you know, something in their business
plan has to change and it has changed. The other
thing is you mentioned the talent roster. You know, five
years ago, I think there was more buzzer on the
talent roster. They had some bigger independent names, some bigger
internet names than they do now. And the other thing

(02:45:01):
is TNA. As far as TNA kind of usurping the
the buzz or the viewers that would be taking time
out of their schedule to watch r OH. Just think
if TNA wasn't around when I do the live cast,
if you were, James, I feel like seventy five percent
of the questions are T and A related and that's

(02:45:22):
mostly now granted that's mostly people complaining and how PNA,
but that that time if TNA was not there, would
not all go to WWE, right it would It would
have to go to ro o H and the independence
almost and whether it's you know, what is ROH going
to be on TV? When are they gonna get the
big DV deal? That buzz would be there if TNA
wasn't there. I think you made a good point about

(02:45:44):
how the time spent even something on message forward or
you know, news being posted on copy and paste website.

Speaker 19 (02:45:54):
Inters, on inter interviews on internet radio shows, interviews in
the torch.

Speaker 4 (02:45:59):
Absolutely, Ahis would be getting a bigger presence if.

Speaker 2 (02:46:01):
It were not for t NA.

Speaker 4 (02:46:03):
Uh So, yeah, I agree with you on that point
too as well.

Speaker 2 (02:46:07):
And WWE, I mean, that's that's tough. I don't know
that they're ratings wise. I think they're a little bit lower.

Speaker 19 (02:46:14):
I should pull up Teams Caldwell's uh compilation of the
Monday the early September ratings, which I thought was a great,
a great story that I suggested to him, and he
ran with it and took it even further than I suggested.
All of the uh, all of the ratings from from
the Labor Day Raw on the day after up against
Monday Night Football RAW, lots of lots of cool numbers

(02:46:35):
in there to kind of digest. I think from a
pay per view standpoint, certainly, the pay per view industry
is in rough shape. I think UFC has emerged in
a big way. It was five years ago that they
had the Big Monday Battle on Spike TV, with Spike
TV going with a big USC special up against RAW
and and and I think USC didn't have nearly the
stranglehold that it does now on the pay per view industry.

(02:46:57):
And I think so in that respect of Lywe's and Worshapes,
and because MMA has got such a foothold now with
so many people, I think it's it's just hold. There's
a whole generation growing up deciding between those two to
follow and and not necessarily splitting their money. Evenly, I
think a little more money's going to USC on pay
per view, and people still watch wrestling, I just think
they're less likely they spend money on paper bee because

(02:47:18):
they're saving it up for USC on their cable bill.

Speaker 4 (02:47:21):
Yeah, and I think they are a little worse out too,
but not a ton, not really even noticeable if you
were just watching TV and didn't pay attention to the business.
But the one thing to remember is mister and is WW.
And ww's instant man mistess man today is five years
older than he was five years ago, so you know

(02:47:42):
he is human.

Speaker 2 (02:47:42):
Are you too great?

Speaker 19 (02:47:44):
Because I am fortunately unfortunately yes, incident. Oh yeah, see
how unfortunate You're almost You're you know, around thirty, you're
getting so.

Speaker 4 (02:47:53):
A little less than that.

Speaker 2 (02:47:54):
Still you're getting there though, you're getting closed.

Speaker 4 (02:47:57):
Yeah, I know. It's I'm on the wrong side of
my twenties now, which is which has made me, uh
take stock of my life since my birthday less than
a month ago.

Speaker 2 (02:48:08):
But it never it never stops. You know, you're gonna
get You're gonna get her thirty five like I didn't.
You gonna think about that eighteen to thirty four year
old demographic that you're no longer in and you're saying,
what does that mean? And then you're gonna get to
thirty nine and you gonna think I never thought I'd
be forty. Oh my god, this is sold and then
you start thinking about how people in their fifties go
to be forty again. So you know there's a great
sided downside.

Speaker 4 (02:48:28):
Oh wow, that's that's something I hope is put off
for what seems like a while, even though the year.
But yeah, so, I mean, Vince's human. He will slow down.
He probably is slowing down from five years ago, and
at some point he's not going to be around, and
it's getting closer with every year that passes. So you know,

(02:48:49):
WWE how they react to Vince not being there is
going to be definitely one of the biggest stories.

Speaker 2 (02:48:59):
Of our life.

Speaker 4 (02:49:00):
I'm sure in progress.

Speaker 19 (02:49:01):
Yeah, no, no, no question about it, no question about it.
If we look at the ratings, So I pulled them
up here five years ago during the three week stretch
the Monday before Labor Day, on Labor Day and the
Monday after up against Monday Night Football. In two thousand
and five, that three week period was three point nine
three point six three point three. This year three point five,
three point oh, three point zero. It's not the bon

(02:49:23):
doll because more people have cable, more people are watching.
I'm not sure the total viewership numbers, but ratings are
indicative of your relative popularity.

Speaker 2 (02:49:32):
That's a bat that that's not a good sign. That
along with paper your numbers being down. And that's just
a slice of WWE's business.

Speaker 19 (02:49:40):
But you could say they're in worse shape, but I
don't know that they're in tremendously different shape. I mean,
Rio asked it is a good question. But I think
the fact that we're able to have a discussion and
debate it and probably reasonable people could disagree or you could.
You know, you'd have to formulate some you'd have conflicting
data and some subjectivity with no matter how you came
up with the conclusion. It's pretty interesting in that respect

(02:50:03):
that in five years we're not remarkably different than we
were then. I would say ww's probably in the has dropped.
That's tough to say, But I didn't say maybe I've
dropped the most only because pay per view has suffered
so much and that was such an integral part of
what they do. But the international expansion might be making
up for that to a certain degree. They've made real
inroads internationally and that can't be, you know, completely written

(02:50:26):
off as not important. They've made some strides internationally, and
it's tough to.

Speaker 4 (02:50:30):
Do this sitting here, and you know, on us further moment,
you know, if we were to sit down with the
business figures that relates, it would certainly be a lot
easier and we make a lot better educated guests at it,
whether they are better than they are five years ago
or not. But you know, with TNA and ROH, who
don't reveal that kind of information, that's almost purely guess wers.

Speaker 1 (02:50:52):
I agree, we're about to go to a commercial break.
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Speaker 2 (02:51:26):
I agree, Well, let's wrap up with what I said
I wanted to do before it got real question, that is,
looking at how we might assemble on the fly with
a talent that we have now that's being underutilized, a
cool taking division.

Speaker 19 (02:51:37):
Let's look at and mostly I want to look at
talent on the ww roster, but we can get kind
of creative too, Greg and say well, this free agent's available,
or I bet they could get that person from wherever
and bring them in. And certainly one of my teams
from the outside that would be great, assuming there aren't
logistical issues outside of it, would be the Briskos. I

(02:51:57):
think they're just an amazing anchor take team and it
saddens me that for a wide variety of reasons that
they haven't become a mainstay on TNA or WWETV, probably
ideally TNA. But looking at the raw roster, you got
Heart David Art Smith and Tyson Kids Heart Dynasty. Then
you can put almost any two guys from NXT together

(02:52:17):
and have a semi serious tag team that people would have,
you know, would take seriously. Looking at other people on
the roster, I mean you could try to get a
little more serious with Vladimir Kaslov and William Regal. They've
been such comedy figures lad and Regal and Goldust. It
would it would take an adjustment period, but you might
be able to pull that off. You've got, you know,
a Premo Carlito type, totally underutilized, not not tremendously underutilized,

(02:52:43):
but certainly somewhat underutilized. He's somebody who you could put
in a tag team situation to make work.

Speaker 2 (02:52:49):
The ussos have just disappeared. They're they're not getting much
TV time. When Zekiel Jackson comes back, you can do
something with him.

Speaker 19 (02:52:56):
John Morrison is one of those guys. They seem like
they're ready to maybe feud him with Jericho, but he's
been kind of floating around and they weren't quite sure
what to do with him. He's one of those guys
you put him with our Truth and if you have
a serious take team division, those two could really produce
something for a while that that would seem like, oh,
this was a full fledged serious tag team issue. So

(02:53:16):
so anyway those jump out at me from the raw
roster on the I'll go ahead and as the smackgown roster,
and then I'll let you comment. Looking just having the
SmackDown roster right in front of me. People who are
being underutilized, like we just saw the other day Chavo
Guerrero and Chris Masters. We kind of look at them
as jobbers now or you know, jobbers to the stars.

(02:53:37):
But you put them together, if you had a serious
take division, they probably wouldn't have cast them off into
this kind of you know, not even comedy zone like Goldust,
regaland lad but just kind of, oh, there they are,
I forgot they're around. Oh they're gonna lose this match,
and that's a bad spot. Caval is somebody who you
could put him together with somebody a JTG and a
Caval tag team. You could establish those two and give

(02:53:58):
them something worth doing.

Speaker 2 (02:54:01):
They've got Vance Archer and who's his partners? Thank you? Yep.
Those two are obviously on roster not being utilized. So
there's something that jumps out right there. If Matt Hardy
is still on the w W web page, you could
do something, you know, get him with a regular taking
partner on the roster. No other baby face is jumping

(02:54:23):
out at me right now. Maybe Christian if he wasn't
in the main event mix and then h oh, and
then Joey Joey Mercury and thank you Luke allap yef
I was thinking of his old name. That would make
sense too. They could be in a take division, and
then you can go outside of the company and bring

(02:54:43):
in some indie wrestlers and make them the classic term
bookend tag teams where they kind of look alike, you know,
they're kind of the the the rock and Roll Express,
the Midnight Express, the Rockers, that type of takeing, the
Kendrick in London, Edgin Christians, get it to find the
next guys like that on the indy scene and bring
them in.

Speaker 19 (02:55:01):
Get them in the take team, makes give them a
six month contract. So you got to earn your place.
We're going to push it for six months and if
you don't work out, you don't you don't show the
right you know, attitude and and all that, or we
just run out of room.

Speaker 2 (02:55:11):
We'll send you out your way.

Speaker 19 (02:55:12):
But you'll be able to make money on the indy
scene because of it. But hopefully you earn a spot
and you can do that on a regular basis with
indy guys, and in a taking situation, you're not putting
a lot at risk. So anyway, I'm just throwing it
out there saying, we say, well, where will they go
with p take teams? Well, you can put some take
teams together like that, and I think utilize some underutilized
wrestlers who, if they're not considered take team contenders, greg,
people aren't going to watch their matches. But if you

(02:55:34):
emphasize the taking wrestling matters, and you make sure it
main events raw periodically, and you make sure that it's
on pay per views almost all the time, and you
really make it seem important, maybe build superstars around taking
title matches now, and then all of a sudden, some
of these wrestlers who seem like mid carters that are
channel changers are actually part of a division that matters.

Speaker 6 (02:55:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:55:53):
Right, I'll try to smack down on one of the
teams you.

Speaker 2 (02:55:59):
Left out with the Dude.

Speaker 4 (02:56:00):
Busters Trent Burrett and Kaleen Croft. Maybe they're legit tag
team now on apparently baby faces who knew. But so
there's another team there. You talked about JPG and CAVAL.
I could see Caval and m VT. I think that
that would be a bit of a better pairing. And
if you're gonna go all the way with tag teams,
just bring back Shad and put JTG and Shadd back together.

(02:56:20):
I mean that tag team worked, and I understand that
they wanted to try out Shadd as a heel singles wrestler.
Didn't work out. JTG is not really doing anything, so
put them together back together again.

Speaker 2 (02:56:35):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:56:35):
Looking over the roster, Travl Guerrero definitely, I think he
should be utilized in a tag team. You mentioned Matt Hardy.
I think Matt Hardy right now the best thing for
him would be to be in the tag team. Let
him work with the younger guy. Matt Hardy still gets
the reactions to the fans he's still over, and let
that younger guy kind of get their rub from Matt
Hardy and eventually break off into a single singles wrestler.

(02:56:59):
If if they're ready over to row, you could talk
about Nexus. Those are guys who, like I mentioned the
live cast, oh yeah, probably should be the ones in
the tag team title match this Sunday. Darren Young is
now a baby face and with nothing to do unless
he's gonna continue his fight with Nexus. You know, if
you put him with somebody like an Evan Booren or

(02:57:20):
something like that, I think I could see that tag
team are Truth in John Morrison. I would prefer to
have John Morrison as a singles wrestler in the US
title hunt, a little higher up than the than the
tag team division is right now. But Morrison and Truth
was fit together. You got Yoshi Tatsu and gold Dust
to the tag team that's been on a Superstars quite
a bit, so that's kind of a semi established tag team.

(02:57:41):
And you know, you mentioned Primoh, who's way underutilized. He's
on NXP season three now, but that's really not much.
They don't really seem to know what to do with
Teddy Vassi, and I feel like that would be a
step backwards putting him back in the tag team after
he and Kode Road broke up. But if he's not
doing anything and not accomplishing anything, why not you know,
him for a month team with somebody and put him

(02:58:02):
in a tag title match to pay per view.

Speaker 3 (02:58:04):
Even if he is going backwards.

Speaker 4 (02:58:05):
To being tag title matches, He's back in the title
haunk in a title hank and on pay per view,
and I just don't see a downside in that. So
those are the things in the field. Jackson's on the
injured left and when he comes back. He's a guy
who I know WW is gonna want to push as
a singles wrestler because he's got the look, he's got
the muscle. But he's another guy who might be just

(02:58:27):
best served to, you know, if he's a heel. There's
kind of clean house every once in a while on
the tag match, so he doesn't get overexploded too quickly.

Speaker 19 (02:58:35):
I think really good points, and I agree with and
I think, you know, when you say someone like Teddy
BASTI I agree with the step back, and that's why
I left him off. But I think when you look
at a Dolph Siggler, when you look at even a Cane,
there's main eventors who or even Dolph Sigler types or
Drew McIntyre types, who you don't want them perennially perennially
at that IC or US title level. You want to
shake things up so they're not just treading water in

(02:58:57):
the exact same situation, maybe with the title, maybe fighting for,
maybe not. But if they're not ready to be in
the world title mix, you're not quite ready to go
there yet with them, it's great to put them on
a sidetrack with tag team titles, and I think it's
fascinating if you have a taking specialist. Let's say caval
and MVP tear Down, SmackDown, take on all comers. They

(02:59:18):
really have an interesting chemistry and a dynamic. Fans get
into them and they go on a hot streak for four, six,
eight months, and then all of a sudden, Drew McIntyre
and Teddy Biassi decide, let's form an alliance. Let's try
to get these tag team titles from and you also
some people like well diviass And and Drew, they've been
in the kind of in the ICUs title level, you know,
kind of a notch below the world title spot. Now

(02:59:39):
they're combining forces.

Speaker 2 (02:59:40):
People would be intrigued to see them together. What kind
of chemistry will they have and their top guys Kane,
when he's done with the world title situation, he's not
going to be there forever, and if he doesn't retire,
you can put Kin in a in kind of you know,
an odd couple pairing with another heel and find a
different body type from the NXD cast or STW and
bring them in and have the kind of intriguing odd

(03:00:02):
couple tag team with him where you take a guy
with the world, So I don't you let him give
a little credibility to the tag division. And so I
think there's so many tools you can use to.

Speaker 4 (03:00:11):
Keep to really try to interrupt. But really, a guy
like Keane, if he wants to extended staying WWE any longer,
I mean, wrestling in a tag team where you're doing
only half the work is the way to go. I
mean there's been talk of Kane retiring and such, and
you know, being worn down after not having a lot
of time off, and they you know, more than ten
years he's been wrestling. But you know, if you kind

(03:00:32):
of just wants to scale it down, of it but
not fully retire. I mean, it's him in a tag
team that can help so many, so many wrestlers, his partners, opponents,
and it helps him because you're not suffering to wear
and tear of wrestling a ten minute singles match every night.

Speaker 19 (03:00:45):
I agree, Greg, has been a pleasure. It's been great
having you out again. We will wrap up the VP
after show there and I want to thank all the listeners,
all the VP members for joining us today. Also good
talk on take teams, Greg, and now is to send
the tapes to Double we and next week we can
look forward to great A division.

Speaker 2 (03:01:02):
I hope, so, I hope to.

Speaker 4 (03:01:04):
Get some kicks back out of that. If that happens,
I won't hold my breath.

Speaker 19 (03:01:09):
I don't get royalties every time they say four hundred
and fifty degree as a four hundred fifty splash, even
though I came up with that. So I've given up on.

Speaker 2 (03:01:16):
A royal pies.

Speaker 4 (03:01:17):
Oh darn yeah, but you know you can.

Speaker 2 (03:01:19):
You can hold out hope yourself. You're younger, as you
pointed out.

Speaker 4 (03:01:22):
True, that's true. I have many more years ahead of
me to hold out.

Speaker 19 (03:01:27):
Yes, all right, great, Thanks until Mike time on behalf
of Greg Park's Wade Keller signing Off.

Speaker 1 (03:01:49):
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Speaker 18 (03:02:12):
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