5 YRS AGO FLAGSHIP: All In and Starrcast Roundtable Special looking at business & artistic side, long-term impact, futures of Cody and Bucks

Episode Transcript
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Wade fifty to get fifty percent offnow. Pw Dorgan Spreaker bring you the
Wade Killer Pro Wrestling podcast five yearsago this week on the flank Ship.

(02:38):
That was a special episode from AllIn and Starcast with Zach Hadorn and Chris
Harrington joining me for a special roundtableanalysis a business in artistic point of view.
On All In and Starcast, wetalked about what was next four Cody
Rhodes after this success story, howabout the Young Bucks? Also? Is

(03:00):
the w gannerating a good sign ornot? Did the production values send a
certain message, what did the crowdsay about pro wrestling at that time outside
of WWE, and more. We'realso bringing you the previously VIP exclusive portion
of this conversation with Zach and Chris, where we looked at the business side
of things and even more depth,including what did Starcast do well and what

(03:22):
could they improve on, how Rohnthe n WA could take advantage of their
participation in the weekend events, whothe biggest winners and losers were, and
more. This episode originally dropped onSeptember six, twenty eighteen, and it
is today. Is Waight Keller ProWrestling Podcast Five years Ago Flakeship Flashback for
Tuesday, September fifth, twenty twentythree. Later this week, Todd Martin

(03:43):
will be joining me for the newedition of the Waight Keller prosing Podcast Flakeship,
So keep pitting refresh in look forthat later this week. Thanks everybody,
and here we go. All right? Do we have a special roundtable
edition of the Weight Keller Pro WrestlingPodcast Thursday Flakeship edition for September six,

(04:03):
twenty eighteen. It's a new conceptwe haven't done, which is just a
multiperson kind of panel discussion focused ona particular event. It's a little bit
off our normal flagship format, butI'm very excited to welcome back to the
show as one of the participants inthis roundtable Zach Hadorn, who is a
Pwtorch dot com contributor and Pwtorch VIPpodcaster. Zach, welcome back to the

(04:29):
Weight Keller podcast. Thanks very muchfor having wait always, glad to be
here. Excellent and we're also joinedfor the first time ever and I'm excited
we got to meet over the weekendin Chicago. He is local here in
Minnesota, but we had yet tocross paths, which is insane. Chris
Harrington from Wrestlenomics Radio, Chris,welcome, Thank you very much. We
missed the State Fair, but wegot to go to even better show.

(04:49):
I went on day one of theState Fair, but yeahs I missed the
closing weekend, but yeah, itwas it was worth it. It was
worth it. Yeah. I wasable to avoid cheese curds in Chicago too,
so it was a win. Allright. Well, we're focusing on
all in and also the Starcast podcastconvention and trying to put in perspective what

(05:11):
this really meets. We're all thoseof us who went experienced a lot and
experienced something different than I've ever experiencedbefore. The what started as a podcast
a podcast convention turned into something larger, vendor tables, meet and greets,
and in some things tied in withall In, such as the wag In,

(05:33):
so a satellite event ended up kindof blending with it a little more
than I think even Conrad intended initially. And then all In Saturday Night,
of course, was the reason thatthis all happened. I'm going to start
with a really big macro question andI'll throw to Chris first on this one,
and that is two years from now. This is a tough question to

(05:53):
answer because there's so many variables,but I have two years from now.
Do you think we look at thispast weekend as sparking something that has happened
several other times in several other waysof some of the same players or other
players, or do you think,yeah, this was probably a unique set
of circumstances and its influence over thenext two years might at this point be

(06:15):
being overrated by some people. Ithink what's exciting is over the last fifteen
years or so, we've seen WrestleManiagrow from being just a one day event
and you know, maybe some fanx but with it to this entire experience
and the big learning there was,Wow, people have money people will travel,
people want good packages, and we'reseeing other companies around the world kind

(06:36):
of struggle to get in line andunderstand that. New Japan comes to mind
a lot with their Wrestle Kingdom eventand just the fact that there's a great
desire from Western fans to go toit, but there's a great fear of
just all the logistics involved in doingthat. And so I think all In
is really an exceptional display that peoplewould like to take a trip, would

(06:58):
like to see an event, andthey would like to be excited about what
they're doing, and they're willing tointeract in a lot of different ways.
Because the Starcast event, like youmentioned, was a podcast meetup, meaning
all these peripheral other employees of wrestlingthat have nothing to do with the wrestlers
themselves. It was a merchandise venuekind of cash grab. It was a
meet and greed. It was aold timey convention, and it was everything

(07:20):
else under the sun. And Ithink that was really remarkable to see both
kind of a convention culture of Hey, we're all on the internet, we're
talking to each other, but let'sactually get together and see each other in
person, and the importance that wesee with YouTube growing and doing YouTube conventions
of the same sort of ilk.I just see that this is more in
that direction where wrestling is finally takingone of these five or ten year steps

(07:43):
where it moves in the direction ofthe rest of culture and starts catching up
to, you know, what's happeningwith e gaming and what's happening with YouTube
conventions. So it was really positivein that way, and I do think
it's going to be remarkable for that. It's just gonna be a question of
whether is it this same core groupof people that's going to be directing that
in America we're going to see itto be bigger in Europe, or are
we going to see a different groupof people who maybe are going to be

(08:03):
taking the reins in two or threeyears from now. Zach, we were
talking in our production meeting before thepodcast about how much disposable income moved from
fans pockets to the pockets of wrestlersduring this event, and you were doing
some of the math on the braceletsto travel the hotel for those who came
from outside of Chicago, which wasa lot of people. I don't have

(08:26):
a handle on the percentages and whatyour take kind of initially as you're talking
about it as well. That showsthat wrestling fans want to spend money if
you give them something to spend moneyon. One thing Bruce Mitchell had said
multiple times leading into this and especiallyover the weekend, is this is an
affluent wrestling crowd. Now, affluentdoesn't mean that this wasn't put on a

(08:48):
credit card that people will be payingoff for four years. In a lot
of cases, I know people whodid not have full time jobs when they
bought tickets to star cast and allin. But are you happy with it
and dealing you know, dealing withwith the situation. So I don't want
to generalize too much, but thiswas a group of ten thousand wrestling fans
who had money to spend. Now, I put a cautionary note on the

(09:09):
success of this weekend, and we'lltalk about putting in perspective too, in
terms of how much of a successthat it is in the big picture versus
just as a kind of a oneoff special weekend. But I wonder if
this group of fans has a certainthere's a certain finite number and they're not
going to spend this kind of money. Again, like, is that a

(09:31):
concern also on the flip side.Yeah, fans want to spend all this
money, but will they do itmore than once? Or was this a
novelty and they've gotten the money outof their pockets that they're going to at
least for quite a while. Well, I think that's an incredibly valid point
and one that I think the folkswho put on Star Cast and the guys
who did all In will have toautomatically consider, especially turning something around,

(09:56):
you know, quicker than at leasta year, Because you're right, My
experience at Starcast, being at thehotel and being at all In was people
were people for punned definitely intended here, but people people were all in on
this trip for themselves. So youknow what a lot of opinions that I
saw was you know, they addedthis signing, so yeah, yeah I'm

(10:16):
gonna be there, so I'll forkout the door for this, or yeah
let's have that extra drink at thebar, or you know what, that's
a really cool shirt. I spenta lot of money on some other stuff,
but hey, you know, it'sall in. It's once in a
lifetime, like, Okay, I'llgo ahead and get it. And so
you know, I think the promotersfor something like this Round two next year
or down the road, or they'regonna have to take that into account.

(10:39):
I wonder if it's gonna change itsform a little bit and instead of just
being one major major event for thefor the whole wrestling world, that it
starts getting splintered a little bit,and they do, you know, different
shows in different places where you know, you don't have to travel across the
country to go see this this typeof wrestling. You know, you just

(11:01):
wait for it to come to yourtown. You know it's coming, almost
like almost like a nostalgia act rockband that just tours. You know they're
coming. You plan for that weekend, you go see the show, you
have a good time, and thenand then you move on. It's less
money out of your pocket. Pleasestill get to support and go see the
kind of professional wrestling that you like. I think in that regard, in

(11:22):
two years, I wonder what thatlooks like moving forward, whether it's Cody
and the Young Bucks permonium or not, it could be a more feasible way
to get regular dollars out of thesefans that clearly have an incredible passion for
the kind of product that was puton Saturday night. I mean to put
it also with the number Thompson.Conrad Thompson said an article over at the

(11:43):
Ring or written by Mike Plucci,that he sold eight thousand tickets for the
star cast. I don't know whetherhe was being exaggerating or not, but
that's hadn't heard him save four thousandgoing into the weekend, so so I
don't know if he's saying individual people, or maybe that's the total of different
tickets he sold at different events.Maybe like well, he also said I
thought I'd sell eight hundred, Isold eight thousand, So maybe he was

(12:05):
just trying to do the multiplicative factoron it. But yeah, four thousand
in number. Yeah, well soso Chris. Yeah, the you mentioned
d gaming and YouTube and that thisis maybe indie wrestling catching up. Talk
about that a little more and alsokind of frame it around my question of
his outside of professional wrestling with otherevents. Does this feel to you to

(12:28):
be the start of something that canrepeat itself with more, with equal or
more success or reasonably close success ordoes history show in other areas, non
pro wrestling genres, that the firstone is the biggest and then it kind
of changes after that. Well,I'll take the second question first. When
we look at other wrestling groups thathave drawn big, big numbers that maybe

(12:52):
historically did not have that drawing power. You look at Triple A in ninety
three and ninety four going to LaYou look at you know, all japan
Women bringing together all the women's promotionsin Japan in ninety three and doing the
Dream Slams and the Big ed Domein ninety four, they drew thirty two
thousand, or even like the Memphisevents where they're drawing seven eight thousand people
in ninety four, or FMW drawingyou know, fifty thousand for Kawasaka Stadium

(13:18):
for Onita's retirement. Each one ofthose was using a different path. Either
a charismatic star is going to retire, We're gonna bring you the best promotions
around the world, and we're gonnaput them all together on one card.
We're going to target a certain youknow, cultural group that has a wrestling
affinity. In the case of TripleA. Those are all different models that
have been used over time, andall those ones I gave kind of got

(13:41):
hot and went away. You know. The hardest one to replicate is the
nostalgia draw, because all you dois you go and you think, oh,
this is how much I used tolike it, and that's not something
that is sustainable. So it's certainlynot as a nostalgia draw, but I
don't feel that's what all in wasin this case. I feel like it's
a little bit more like the dreamSlam model. You're saying, Okay,
let me take all the best promotions, all the best indie talent, let

(14:03):
me put them all on one show, and then try to really push up
those merch numbers because you're gonna wantto support many of these people. You're
not supporting one fed, you're supportingall these different rivalries. So I do
think that there's some legs to it. The challenge is it's really easy to
do something that is quarterly or twicea year. It is really tough to
do something that happens, or it'seasy to do something that's maybe seventy or

(14:24):
eighty times a year, or onehundred or one hundred and twenty or one
hundred and fifty. What's really toughis that middle group where they're where you're
saying twelve times a year or maybesix times a year, because that's not
enough to put people under exclusive contract, and it's not enough to necessarily be
able to sustain yourself for the wholeyear on that. So they're in this
funny place where, yeah, it'sa great once a year, maybe twice

(14:46):
a year if you want to makeit somewhere in the US, maybe somewhere
in Europe type event, maybe evenfour times a year. But you're still
competing with the big dogs. You'restill competing with Russell Kingdom, you're still
competing with Russellmania. And at thesame time, there's just going to be
this fact that, you know,ten thousands a good number, but people
might forget that WWE has already doneten thousand fifty times in the last year.

(15:09):
According to the numbers I was justcalculating today, they've already done that
fifty different times this year, Soten thousand, that's one out of fifty
for them, which is, youknow, kind of another day in the
park, almost once a week ifyou really were to parade it out there.
So that's kind of just an interestingperspective to say, you know,
there's a lot going on here,and I don't know whether the next time
will be quite as successful because alsothey did have roh and New Japan and

(15:33):
all these indie stars kind of willingto work together. Now to the first
question about what was the value ofYouTube and whatnot think about the being the
lead. They were able to basicallyprove that you can draw, you can
create a storyline, you can createa compelling connection with your fans, not
using television but rather using social mediaand using digital media. And I think
that's the hugest lesson of all this. If WWE doesn't pick up on that

(15:56):
tomorrow, they're fools. You cansupport us on Patreon and get these shows
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(16:17):
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you can also upgrade two other tiersand receive even more benefits through Patreon zec.
What's your sense of the viability ofthis working if and it's not answered

(16:41):
yet, although I'm we don't knowwhat ww's gonna offer Cody and Kenny in
the box, and if it's crazymoney, I think they'll get them,
because you know, money talks ata certain point. But maybe that's maybe
WWP can't realistically offer that group acontract offer. That is that maybe the

(17:02):
amount that they have to offer themto sign them is so big with such
perks that it would disrupt everything elsewith the existing crew. It might create
more headaches than all In happening oncea year does, and that could be
part of the calculation of how muchWWE offers even though they have tons of
money. So we don't really knowwhat direction this is gonna go, or
I certainly don't. I have someleanings, But can all In happen again

(17:26):
or something like it without what Chrisjust talked about the being the elite videos
and Kenny's new Japan credentials and Cody'sa bravado and motivation and name value and
leadership. I mean, was thisa coming together of those things that's only

(17:49):
going to happen once and the nextbest thing is not going to be even
close to good enough to have anevent of this magnitude. Yes, I
think I think they'll have a problemreplicating in this style of show without Cody
and Young Bucks. Now I'm gonnahedge a little bit on that. Here's

(18:10):
why. For one thing, Codyand the Young Bucks. I mean,
clearly they were the driving force behindthis entire concept, and I think on
that side of things, the starsaligned well and almost perfectly for this to
to come off. You had aguy in Cody who had been to the
WWE. He has made a lotof money there and he had the money

(18:30):
to help finance this this type ofshow and promote it the way that they
did. On the flip side ofthat, he had a group in the
Young Bucks that he could lean onwhen he left WWE, and kind of,
as as the Bucks said in theirin their post events, kind of
celebration in the ring that they theyyou know, attached to Cody right out

(18:52):
of the gate and kind of broughtthem in, brought him into their circle.
And I think that right there iskind of the stars aligning perfectly.
You had the past and the visionand the experience on the indies that the
Young Bucks had, and then youhad Cody who had a lot of name
recognition was one of the first guysto you know, voluntarily jump from WWE
and go into that world and hasmade some money there too. And you

(19:14):
put put those two things together,and the passion and the drive and the
confidence that they had to put putthis thing on and to pull it off,
I'm not sure you can you canassume that's out there amongst anybody else
to do from a resources standpoint orfrom just the sure sheer work ethic and

(19:34):
promotional marketing standpoint, I'm not surethat's out there. It's like saying,
hey, could somebody else have promoteduh and and and conceptualized WrestleMania if if
Vince McMahon did it, I'm youknow, it's tough to say, just
because it didn't. It didn't godown that way. What I do think,
though, is that this weekend,if nothing else Bock Cody, even

(19:55):
if they go to WWE, Ithink that there is a palpable passion out
there for the kind of wrestling thatthe Bucks and Cody said that day in
Vision happening in twenty eighteen, andwhether they stick around long enough to realize
that further or whether they jump ship, I think that audience and the buzz
that All In got proved that they'renot wrong in their vision, and then

(20:18):
their vision is more mainstream than peoplemay think. It's not mainstream from on
a WWE level, but I thinkthere are people out there that are right
there with Cody and the Bucks andhow they see wrestling, and I think
that there's a re re engaged marketfor that. So I'm not sure the
scale can happen with All In withoutthose guys, but I think the wrestling

(20:41):
the product is there with or withoutthem. Can I just dovetail on one
thing that Zack said said I thinkon the show the most poignant moment for
me was the Cody match, followeddirectly by the Janella Page match, because
you had, in my mind,two different schools of thought of what wrestling

(21:02):
is. We had Cody Rhodes visionin the NWA match with you know,
the the entourage comes down to thering and we do a blade job and
we it's kind of slow moving andyou know, we do a fake injury
angle and all that, and thenyou had the the absurdest version of wrestling
mixed with kind of a hardcore styleof these insane spots and this you know,
talking boots and these callbacks and videopackages and ending up with what was

(21:26):
you know, referred to as PenisDruids, you know, carrying off a
page at the end and enjoy Ryanmaking his return from from the dead.
And that to me was like whatamazed me was the crowd was able to
take both of those visions and makeit work. Because that's the biggest challenge
in professional wrestling is that while wecall it professional wrestling, that's like saying

(21:47):
I read books. You know,there's different types of books. There's difference
genres, Like maybe you like Juanayou don't like another. Yeah, And
to think that you would say,oh, I have a compilation here.
It's two different authors. They're goingto put these chapters right next to each
other, and you're gonna like it. That's a big stretch, that's a
big thing. And they actually gotthe audience. As far as I could
tell from the reception of the crowdI was with and from the people I

(22:07):
talked to, they were invested inthese two different visions. And I think
that's what's remarkable about it is thatnot just that it's two different people's visions,
but the crowd was willing to acceptboth of those together and think about
it as a modern conglomeration. Butat the same time, I would say
they were very separate in the twomatches. So the juxtaposition not killing the
crowd. That's huge and that's somethingthat might be lacking in some promotions.

(22:30):
But at the same times, youdo want continuity and clarity to what your
fans are getting, and that Ithink is the hardest thing to define around
all in is exactly what would youget in a non Bucks Cody vision of
this. And I thought they dida good job of branding it in the
end because we did not know whetherwe would like it or not when they
actually put it all together on acard. Well, let me ask you

(22:51):
a follow Chris, and then andthen Zach, you can speak on of
two. The figuring out what itwas that made this a success is part
of what you just said. Likewith WW eight, there's there's Roman Rains
fans who love Roman Rains and theirkids and their women and their families,
and they're more casual fans who eatwith WWW feeds them and don't even know
that there's this pushback or they hearit, but they're not you know,

(23:11):
that's not their circle of friends,and that's not the lens through which they
watch wrestling. They just think,well, Roman's a top guy. I
like him. He school like cheerum. And then he had this whole other
group that show up especially at TVtapings and pay per views and NFL cities
as I call them. Uh,it seems to be a high correlation,
Chris, you can you can probablyconfirm or correct that through some metrics.

(23:32):
And there's booing over Roman rains that'sreally strong. And if you go to
one of those shows, like they'retwo separate groups of fans and they really
are having dueling chants and at alld you had fans who probably like Cody's
vision more, you had other fanswho liked the As Cody told me when
I interviewed him on the show acouple months a month or so back,
he's not a fan of ironic wrestling. He doesn't like it's not his it's

(23:55):
like not his thing, Like hejust admits it. They're not hiding it.
They acknowledge there's two different school athought and creative visions. That's not
his thing. So but they founda group of fans who accept and embrace
both. Some might like one stylea little more than the other. Some
might have liked that, Like Ididn't get consistent answers on the best match
of the night, and I wassurprised at how many people like Cody and

(24:17):
Nikola's best. But yeah, yeah, it's it's like Saturday Night Live in
my opinion, where you're gonna havea creative vision of a Lauren Michaels and
then you're gonna have a team ofwriters, and within that team of writers,
you oftentimes have factions where there's theabsurdist faction, there's the political faction,
there's the character driven faction, there'sthe narrative faction. It's just like
improv, like other forms of comedy, where you have these really different voices

(24:41):
fighting it out. And as acreative director, you know, the one
thing you'll read when you go reada book like Life from New York or
other things about Lauren Michaels, isyou'll see sometimes he'll say things like I
don't get it, it's not forme, but the people seem to like
it. And that's what matters tome, and that's why I'm giving it
airtime. Is that he doesn't alwaysget it up front, but he starts

(25:02):
recognizing when it clicks with the people, and ultimately that's what a good creative
decision maker needs to have, isthat instinct. And so it's really good
in this case where you had bothyou know, you had actor directors here
writers where they were participating in matches, they were directing the show, and
they were they were promoting it themselves, which is the hardest thing to do
is to kind of be that editor. And so this would be the one

(25:23):
where it'll be very interesting to seeover time, is there going to be
some names from this show that willbecome more in the director role with you
know, Christopher Daniels or someone whohe's kind of done it all from a
curryman all the way up to kindof a real straight wrestling to say,
is this is the overarching vision andI can help kind of make sure that
I directed and push and pull atthe right levers here as I'm becoming older.

(25:45):
And so I think we were justexcited because this was a form of
wrestling that that suggested that it wasa big house. It was a big
tent. And at the same time, it's spent a little bit of time,
a little bit of capital to tryto introduce people to wrestlers they did
not know. The guy sitting rightnext to me was my friend from high
school. He went to the firstRing of Honor show with me. I

(26:07):
drove all the way down to Phillyto see it. So we were one
of the few hundred people there andwe were joking, you know, how
many of those people are here atall in right now. But what was
cool about it was he was like, I don't know who Joe Janelle is.
I don't know who this guy is, but he got into it from
the storylines, from the video packageand from the wrestling. And that's what
matters, is that if you cansell yourself quick enough to people, that's

(26:29):
what they're going to connect with.And if the audience is receptive, everyone's
going to be receptive. And sothat was great. They you know,
they really lucked out. Had therebeen bad weather, had there been you
know, long lines, had itbeen you know, the show not started
on time or run over. Ithink there's a lot of potential for people
to really just kind of turn onthis thing. And what was exciting was
wrestling. Twitter has seen as sotoxic, but in some ways it was

(26:51):
such an amplifier for wrestling in thiscase, Zach Guy, I want to
go to you in a minute forfollow up on what we just talked about,
including what is the the comnality orwhat theme bound together the Cody vision
and the Box vision and the juxtapositionas Chris pointed out. But Chris,
I want to give a chance beforeI get too much deeper into this to
talk about what you do and howpeople can hear more of you and find
more of your work. Oh well, I am the co host of Rustlamics

(27:15):
Radio along with Brandon Howard Thurston,and what we specialize in is kind of
what I'll call the business of wrestling. And when I say business, I
truly mean the numbers. We gothrough all the financials. I recently was
going through all of the new japanfinancials which we're publishing Japanese and their balance
sheets and I was able to translatethose and put them up. So wrestlamics
dot com you can hear our ourpremium show or we do a free show

(27:37):
every week, so we just talkabout the business of wrestling. We have
a good time doing it. What'sthe key search terms for people to find
your website Wrestlomics Radio or you cango to Wrestlamics dot com are the probably
the best two things to look at. And I'm on Twitter at muki Ghana
is how most people know me.And spell that out, okay, I
E G H A n A andthat's been my name for a very long

(28:00):
time. So people just think,you know, they're going to meet a
guy who looks and acts very differentlythan I do. But I prom with
you, I am I'm the samemookie gun. I've got the little hat.
I wore it all weekend and Iwas surprised the few times people walked
up to me and recognized me justfrom my Twitter avatar. So branding,
guys, that's what I learned fromall in Brand Brand Brand. There you
go a VP sale alert. We'rerunning a sale going into all in and

(28:26):
all Out as we conclude the summer, and you can get nine dollars off
any v IP subscription, which bringsa one month subscription down to just ninety
nine cents. Just go to Pwtorchdot com, slash go vi Ip choose
a traditional VFP membership, So don'tdo a patren membership because a coupon code
does not work on Patreon, andyou have a choice between three coupon codes.
If you think MJF is going tocome out of All In as a

(28:48):
heel, use coupon code m JF. If you think Adam Cole is going
to come out of the all Inevent as a heel, choose coupon code
Cole Cli. But if you thinkthey're going to remain friends coming out of
all then use coupon code Friends.So the choices are MJFF, Friends or
Cole And when you enter that couponcode, it'll activate nine dollars off one

(29:11):
month, three month, or oneyear subscription. Again, it's a grand
total of nine dollars off, soit'll bring a year subscription down to ninety
dollars or a one months up downto ninety nine cents. Pwtorch dot Com
slash Go VIP that will include areAll In Post Event VIP exclusive Roundtable on
Sunday. It'll include the All OutPost Event Roundtable a week from this weekend,

(29:33):
and you can also catch up onour VP exclusive Summer Slim round Table.
Plus you get all our free showswith the ads and plugs removed and
a ton of other content. Andthat also includes my forty minute Keller conversation
VAP exclusive with Sean Waltman this weektalking about Terry Funk, who he wrestled
ten years ago, by the way, at an indie show and also was
on shows with him early in hiscareer and grew up a fan of his.

(29:56):
So again, that's Pwtorch dot com, slash go VIP and then enter
coupon code m JFF if you thinkhe's turning heel, Cole if you think
he's turning heel, or friends ifyou think they stay friends all exact.
So what do you think was thetheme that caused fans too? It seemed,

(30:17):
in great synchronicity embrace very diverse visionsof professional wrestling. So yeah,
yeah, your thoughts on that?Yeah, I think the common denominator there,
I think is not is kind ofnot in the camp of like,
well, Cody wants this and theyoung Bucks want this, let's make a
will compromise and get here. Ithink what brought them together and the common

(30:41):
denominator for the success of this showwas Cody and the Bucks being able to
embrace the fact that the fans arecalling for a product here and it's not
necessarily exactly what Cody wants. Orwhat he appreciates and wrestling, And it's
not exactly what the Bucks want whatthey're appreciate, but they appreciate and wrestling,
and we know that those two aren'taren't together always. You know,

(31:04):
Cody has said that he wouldn't leantowards a Young Bucks match all the time
because he's got a different appreciation ofwhat wrestling is. But I think their
ability to as a group collectively listento the fans and listen to what they
want and then provide that back tothem, that that is one of the
biggest takeaways from the weekend, justbeing able to listen to that audience and

(31:27):
then engage them with a product thatthat they're that they're happy with. And
I think you kind of it hitin the right time with WWE when that's
not really going on. So notonly do this this group of vocal fans
get to experience the kind of wrestlingthat they want, they can also kind
of wink and nod to WWE andsay, you know, almost kind of

(31:48):
under their breath, like ha ha, I'm getting I'm getting this over here.
And there's a little bit of arebellious attitude to that, and I
think the Bucks and Cody tapped intothat psyche really really well, not just
this weekend for the show, butin the marketing and the promotion all the
way up to it. Chris Todd, Martin PW George v IP analyst talks
often about the war on fans.That's that Vince Wikmah. You know.

(32:13):
It's not a Lauren Michaels sing wherehe's like, well I don't get it,
but it's working, so let's embraceit. It's more a war on
what fans like, if fnce doesn'tthink that's what they should be liking,
or if it doesn't And sometimes he'sright in this regard, Well, yeah,
the ones we're hearing from are notare not liking this, But we
have a larger a larger master we'reserving. You know, TV executives who
who mark out, for lack ofbetter term when they see Ron Rowse and

(32:34):
brock lesnerre on that on our shows, and Roman Reins looks much more poster
friendly than Daniel Bryan or Kevin Owens. So you know, in the big
picture, I do need to havea little bit of a war on fans.
How much of what the fans thefan support for all in was was
more forgiving than maybe it would belater on or under other circumstances. If

(32:59):
a big part of this wasn't abit of a middle finger at WWE for
seeming to not listen to them andactually push back against their wishes so much,
well, I think that was broughtup well where I know Dave Meltzer
responded to someone on Twitter saying,well, what if Cody and the Bucks
signed with WWE, but ww letshim run an all in show? And
his response was, people will notbuy it if they think WWE endorses it

(33:22):
in some way, nor will theylet some other show show off their show.
That's why Paul Hayman was insulting WWFon ECWTV. Well, WWF was
funding ECW exactly. You have toyou have to create this image in the
minds of all these people that thatsomehow the stakes matter and that your brand

(33:43):
is separate from their brand. Andyou know, when you're when you're the
top person, you don't want toacknowledge the competition because all it does is
kind of put them in your leagueand put them there. And that's I
think what Vince would probably you know, the thinking that's gone behind it in
terms of Vince's creative you know,vision about you know, am I bracing
what the fans are doing? Oram I against them? There's so many

(34:04):
levels to it when you're in amulti when you're you know, he's the
chairman of the board, he's theCEO, and he has creative responsibilities and
you know, all these other kindof long term initiative planning type things.
Plus he's trying to run a footballleague and get that run started, and
all the other things that Vince isdoing that we don't even know about in
terms of, you know, havinga family life of some sort or anything
else. So it's so hard forus sometimes to boil it down to a

(34:28):
single point. But what I meanby that is that WWE has expanded a
lot in their analytics department. They'veexpanded a lot in terms of all the
talent that they've hired for the UKexpansion, for the talent that they brought
it into the developmental system, andPaul Avex's vision of what he calls global
localization. So I do think thatthere's a lot of things going on that
sometimes we boil down to this isabout television right now, When we could

(34:49):
say one of the reasons WWE isso big on social media is supposedly Vince
McMahon told them several years ago,I want you to go out there and
do a land gram. I wantyou to get more than your fair share.
And that's always be and his visionis get more than your fair share.
And sometimes that means telling people whatthey should be doing to consume their
part of the fair share. ButI just think that that that's Vince's mindset.

(35:10):
But what I think is great aboutsomeone like Vince is at least he
cares. And what frightens me aboutthe future of wrestling is when you have
people in there that are just mindlessbureaucrats or executives that don't care, they
don't have a passion, they don'thave an interest in professional wrestling. Because
at least Vince chooses Roman reigns.If you are just completely agnostic and you
don't care who you choose next thing, you know, nzamor's your champ or

(35:30):
something like that, where you wouldsay, oh my gosh, maybe I
shouldn't have gone down this road somuch in this direction at this moment,
Zach, any follow up I heard, I thought, I heard, Yeah,
Yeah, I was just gonna saytoo that I think, you know,
it's a really good, really goodpoint. And I think you know
NXT and NXT Takeover in particular,like that that show, it wasn't exactly

(35:52):
the same feels as All In.But I think that's to me, that's
Vince's kind of uh, here's theolive branch to you guys. You know,
I may not constantly be thinking andacting on on your behalfs, but
but there it is. And Itake NXC takeover, here's a n SC
takeover Brooklyn. I think that that'sthere. I'll have branched a little bit

(36:13):
because frankly, yeah, I mean, the the audience for and the people
that Cody and the Bucks had tosatisfy was the fans, and and with
Vince, like Chris brought up,it's not it's not always that way.
So it's it is a complicated picturewhen when you when you boil it down
and it's it's pretty interesting. Chris, what is the difference between the NXT
Takeover crowd and the All In crowdon Saturday Night or do you think there's

(36:37):
actually a pretty big crossover. Ithink there's a portion of a crossover,
for sure. I think anyone whogoes to NXT is familiar with WWE and
and actually gets it, Whereas youcould say there is a portion of lapsed
fans that probably were brought or interestedin the all In product because what they're
searching for is something that connects withthem in way that's different than what they

(37:00):
see today, so that they're turnedoff already by WWE so so much so
that maybe NXT is is not somethingthat they're going to attend, but this
they do feel the interest in kindof that. The second one is I
think it's a young crowd, rightthis is a super you know that the
demographics of the TV show would probablysuggest to us that they did quite well

(37:21):
in the younger viewership section compared toWWE's median age. Right now, I
think it's forty eight years old andhas gone up twenty six years over the
last sixteen years here since twenty twentysixteen. And the reason it goes up
so much is because more and moreof these older fans can't be run off.
And so what this is exciting aboutall In is that we're actually seeing
an injection of younger fans, ofnewer fans, and fans that consume media

(37:45):
in a different way, and Iwould say NXT, Yeah, it's on
the network, but it's still nota purely digital product, and so it
is a big question mark to meabout whether it is exactly the same group.
But yeah, I'm positive that thestars of NXT are still you know,
these are the people that supported Ricochetbefore and so of course you know
they're interested in Ricochet and NXT.So kudos did to NXT really for figuring

(38:07):
out a way to kind of leveragepeople to get back into getting a WW
network subscription and becoming invested in theirproduct through the acquisition of their stars.
Chris talk about the parallels between NXTdrawing at Takeover for Takeover weekends linked up
at WWE pay per view weekends oftenbig WWW pay per view weekends when a
lot of fans travel, and thenhow show attendance and viewership on the network

(38:30):
and compare that to all in asa kind of one off, first time
ever whatever turns out to be specialin a market that is has a big
wrestling fan base, but there werea lot of people from the outside but
made up of a lot of wrestlerswho in this country at least are used
for wrestling in r Away ORINDI showsin front of much smaller crowds, and

(38:52):
so there are still some parallels therewhere there are a lot of people will
congregate for the big show, butthey don't have the fifty fifty ten seat
sellouts. NXT house shows don't dohuge numbers and ROH house shows don't do
huge numbers relative to either takeover orall in absolutely, I was just looking
at all the ww attendants over thelast year here today, and I was

(39:14):
seeing, you know, what washouse shows, what was NXT, And
so you know, your your averageRaw house show probably draws maybe forty six
hundred in the US, your averageSmackDown house show probably draws a little under
four thousand. Your average Monday NightSmackDown house show only draws probably twenty eight
thousand. So you know, thousandpeople up, Yeah, twenty eight hundreds.

(39:34):
We got some big news here.And then for TV, you know
raws drawing eight thousand to nine thousand, SmackDown is drawing on average six thousand
to seven thousand. And then youget to NXT. Now, an NXT
Takeover special averages ten thousand because theyonly do four of them a year,
But an NXT House Show averages sixhundred, you know, and even their

(39:55):
biggest times is a thousand to twelvehundred people when they maybe go to the
Midwest and just run one loop andit's kind of successful. So there's the
big difference there is WWE on theirlowest, you know, Monday Night House
Show can draw twenty eight hundred people. Almost no one else in the world
is able to do that sustained.Even New Japan. When you look at

(40:19):
New Japan outside of Russell Kingdom,they're only doing probably twenty five hundred on
their one hundred and fifty shows thatthey do in Japan a year on average,
And so you know, there's ahuge difference there. And that's always
been the big question is why aresome stars stars when you put them in
a different environment versus what they have. Why is aj Styles draw more on
the Indies than he did when hewas on TNA. Why did the Bucks

(40:39):
do the similar things? It's thatthat's the intangible for me, and it
had something to do some would saywith validity or the feeling that a fan
is going to be rewarded for thetime investment that they have, and then
also just you know, consequence youknow, people made all In seemed like
it had stakes that would matter thatyou wanted to be there. You wanted

(40:59):
to see it an xt house show. Couldn't you know if I told you
they didn't tour for two months,you wouldn't you'd believe me. We're in
election season, and I think voterturnout is higher when there's a unified feeling
that you're part of something, youknow that that's been there for different things.
There was a contract with America duringthe Clinton era that brought out the
Conservatives or with Obama feeling. Iwant to say I was there and voted

(41:22):
for this historic moment. And Ithink all In and n XD Takeover specials
are have that feeling where people cometogether and feel that they're part of something
and they're part of making a statement. Obviously, the product and enjoyment has
to be there also, you don'tjust do it to sacrifice to you know,
ad add to the statistics. Butthere is something like, yeah,

(41:42):
why does AJ draw more on theIndies than he does in TNA? Because
TNA had a stench to the brandand AJ and the Indies feels like you're
you're part of something that you identifywith more as Zach talk about that a
little bit and what Chris has talkedabout. Yeah, well, I think
I think you guys are read onthe money and the thing that I think
of when about subject, it's likethe seeing that the big next big thing

(42:04):
as far as a musical act goesin the small bar. You know,
with with one hundred and fifty people, you know, you don't know when
they're going to come back to avent and you're like that, you don't
know if they're even gonna, youknow, make it out of those venues
and last, and so seeing themin that environment for the first time where
no one else has, that's abig thing. You know, aj Styles
comeing to Chicago on an Indy card. You know, you never know how

(42:25):
often that's going to happen because youcould get snatched up by TNA WWE.
So seeing him in that environment thatthat's a big thing. Same thing with
the musical act once they get ontobigger and better things, like you know,
they're on MTV, they're touring stadiumswhere you can pay twenty bucks and
get in, and you're dating yourselfby mentioning MTV a product of the nineties.

(42:50):
My fret a product of the nineties. But but I think you know
what I mean, it's just whenthey're more accessible in that way, there's
less of there's less of a demandon them, and I think that that's
was at play here this past weekend. Unquestionably searching for more great pro wrestling
talk, then join me Jason Powellhost him the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom

(43:13):
Podcast. Each week he'll hear thelatest news and analysis for me and my
team at pro Wrestling dot Net alongwith other pro wrestling media members. Plus,
the Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast features longform interviews with notable names in the
pro wrestling industry. Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Downcast, and all your
favorite secondary apps, or visit usdirectly at pwboom dot com. Once again,

(43:34):
that's pwboom dot com, Chris.The ratings are in earlier in the
day for the WGN the Free Hour, the All in Wrestling Zero Hour,
and they did about on hundred ninetysix thousand viewers, which is actually below
the two hundred twenty seven thousand thatWG and drew one week earlier in the

(43:59):
same hour for an airing of BlueBloods. However, and This gets into
the younger aspect of what you justtalked about. The demographic was eighteen to
forty nine year olds. That's whatadvertisers care about, and all In drew
one hundred and seven thousand of thoseviewers compared to forty nine thousand, less
than half for Blue Bloods in thesame times a lot of a week earlier
in the male eighteen to forty ninedemo, seventy two thousand compared to twenty

(44:22):
five thousand the week before for BlueBloods. If we look at YouTube and
being the elite, two hundred tothree hundred thousand is a pretty typical number
for the young bucks and being theelite some above three hundred thousand on a
rare occasion. I think under twohundred thousand, but that's a good range.
What is So, there's a coupleof ways to look at this.

(44:45):
Wow, the demographics are sending apositive signal to WGN and advertisers and TV
executives. Or on the flip side, we know exactly how many fans there
are of these wrestlers, and it'snot even at you know, it's right
around the numbers TENA. So what'syour take on these numbers? Chris Well.
First of all, when you cantriple your male demo and double your

(45:07):
female demo, and yeah, youmight lose about fifty percent and that really
old demo. That's okay in aworld where we're seeing a five percent slide
year over year with chord cutting onthe cable side and just kind of general
nutrition. People love the idea thata cable program would be able to triple
and double in the key demos ofeighteen to forty nine year old. So

(45:30):
I think this is incredibly lucrative tothe people that would be looking at this
right now and be very exciting forthem. And it suggests a you can
address your eighteen to forty nine demothat the fact that WWE has seen some
attrition in this group over the lastfifteen years here suggests that it's not because
people have given up on wrestling,but they've given up on the form of

(45:51):
wrestling that they're presenting there in thatparticular aspect. So that's huge. I
think it's really big that you know, the two hundred thousand number, that's
a worldwide YouTube number, and sothere is that aspect of saying, you
know, this is two hundred thousandpeople in the United States, meaning worldwide,
it would have been even bigger.You know, when we think about

(46:12):
the fact that in for WWE,seventy five percent of the revenue comes from
North America, twenty five percent fromoutside of North America, and yet they
say for YouTube views for them,seventy five percent is from outside of North
America, twenty five percent is fromAmerica and Canada, and that, you
know, it's that inverted social mediatype thing. So it's really interesting to
me because it actually tells me thatthey punched way above their weight in terms

(46:35):
of getting an audience on television thathad WGM, that had a cable package
and was able to watch, especiallyin the younger group. So that's a
really good sign for them in termsof what could be the future of a
product like this. And I thinkthat's the thing about all In. If
you want to be cynical, youcan call this all big infomercial, because
what they just did is basically raisethe stock value of some really particular players

(46:57):
on here. And then they said, hey, by the way, we're
for sale, and you know,if you order in the next six months
here, you don't just get onebuck, you can get the Kenny Omega
package and we'll even throw in aCody Roads. You know, it's you
know, it's everything there. Andso you can be cynical and say that
there's that aspect of it, andyou know people would say, no,
they would never betray us. Theynever do that. And I just say,

(47:20):
everyone is a business person. Everyoneis interested in making the best for
their life and for their family andfor their situation, in being able to
apply their art in the way thatis most meaningful and fulfilling to them.
And so what's going to be achallenge is if they have to go into
a model that says, hey,you're an independent contractor, pay for your
own hotels, pay for your ownflights, and we're going to work you
an unlimited number of days the year. That's not going to be very appealing.

(47:44):
But if there's other stipulations put outthere, you never know what's going
to happen on the other side forthese wrestlers. And I don't think it
ever means anything about them betraying thefans that supported them as much as they
are truly independent contractors today, andso it's really important to them that they,
you know, strike while the iron'shot. It's like being a startup.
You're willing to lose a lot ofmoney. And if you really look

(48:05):
at the economics of all in youknow, when you're selling tickets for as
cheaply as you do, and youonly do half a million dollars on gate,
and then you're reselling those tickets atseven to eight times face value on
the secondary market, it says tome that is a little bit like a
startup where you're willing to lose alot of money to get a lot of
hype, and then you're wanting tosell out big to get that big buyer
to come in. That's one cynicalway of looking at all of this too.

(48:27):
Yeah, I wonder if that enteredtheir mindset, because I did not
sense from talking to a lot ofpeople at the time in this weekend,
that there was a high level ofconfidence that they would get to ten thousand
seats quickly, or that they wouldget to ten thousand seats if they overpriced
tickets. Now, what is overpricing, Well, that you don't know till
you try, but I don't.I would say that it would be overly

(48:47):
cynical to say they underpriced tickets tointentionally short change themselves on money to boost
the perception of their popularity, toget a fast sell out, or just
to sell up period. I thinkthey would absolutely for all in two unless
there were some indications that they can'treplicate this again, Ray stick a price
is because of what that secondary markettold them. Yeah, and also just

(49:07):
now that they know the true expenseof running a show like this, I'm
sure when they saw how expensive itis to get you know, World Stage
Entertainment or whoever it was, comeand do those those custom screens, and
the fact that you have to actuallypay for the concessions yourself and everything else.
You know, I'm sure there's alot of lessons there. And at
the same time, there's that bigquestion mark of around star cast to say,

(49:29):
this was a really interesting kind ofBolton event, and in a certain
way, it was a great wayof subsidizing everyone who came in for the
show, because now you're not justcoming into wrestle, You're also coming in
to do a meet and greet,You're also coming in to sell your T
shirt, You're also going to beon a panel, and we can find
other ways to pay you and kindof subsidize your time there. It will
be very interesting to see. Isthat stay independent? Does that move along?

(49:50):
Is there going to be a battlearound someone like Conrad who either does
want to do it or absolutely doesn'twant to do it the next time around?
Who else would want to step upand really take that very difficult role
of being a promoter, even thoughknowing being a promoter means you get picked
on the most or your code.If Cody and the Bucks and are still
available and not in wwe do theysay we want to run the convention around

(50:13):
it and not just be part ofit, but actually run it and push
Conrad out or hire him to help, or do they go, God,
our hands are so full, Conrad, do your thing again. The synergy
was great, and you know,you're welcome to run a convention the same
weekend and we'll be there to providetalent and support it and work work in
synergy with you. I don't knowhow I haven't gotten a sense of their
feelings on all of that yet,other than I didn't get any sense Conrad

(50:35):
and Cody and the Bucks had anyissues with each other, any negative issues
with each other, even going throughthe end of the weekend. Zach,
go ahead, anything you want toyou want to say about what we've been
talking about here. Yeah, Ijust I thought the numbers for the w
GM show are a portion of theshow, were really interesting, especially that
growth in those key demos like youguys spoke about. And the first thing
that I thought of when I sawthose and love your guys take on this

(50:59):
too, was you know, thematches on that portion of the show were
really almost almost throwaway matches compared towhat else was on was on the cart
and I know that it was setup to promote the pay per view,
but the first my first thought ofseeing that and seeing what was on that
show and how it did in termsof boosting the ratings in those key demos

(51:19):
was there's got to be someone outthere that's thinking, Man, I wonder
what those numbers, how they wouldhave multiplied if if the Omega match was
was on TV, or if youknow, the box were on TV.
And I got to think somebody outthere recognizes that, and it could be
just a new avenue and another potentialtype bidder for their services or for this
type of show, because they reallyhad kind of some low hanging fruit matches

(51:45):
and it caused an uptick in thosenumbers, and that tells me something.
Well when you think of yeah,go ahead, that's just a good point.
This that the rating they drew wasnot what you know, like T
and A saying whole Cogen and JeffHardy and Rob Van Dan like this was
yeah, this was the kickoff show. Yeah. And at the same time,
think about all the different feds thatwe're working together on this. New

(52:06):
Japan had to give their blessing,and Ring of Honor had to give their
blessing, and then kind of thisall in conglomerate had to give up their
blessing and giving the impact and youknow, I joked that this was actually
a giant ad for Lucha Undergrounds.You could see all the talent that came
through their their their ranks over theyears here and they still somehow did not
become the biggest thing on earth,even though they had Phoenix and Pentagon and

(52:30):
Ramus Stereo and Matt Cross and soon and so forth. But it's intriguing
to me because every one of themhad a little different reason that it was
going to help them out. Thinkabout New Japan. You know, New
Japan owns the Bullet Club and thatis their trademark that is their IP,
and they are getting a licensing feeand they're getting probably a royalty on every

(52:52):
T shirt that was there. Andif there was less than nine thousand Bullet
Club T shirts at that arena,I would be flabbergast, because you know
there was. There wasn't a lotfor sale, for sure, but there
was a ton already there when youwalked to walk the aisles, and so
you know, New Japan's going tobenefit on merchandise and on branding. But
at the same time, they ultimatelyprobably got burned a little bit by the

(53:15):
all In experience because their long beachshow probably underdrew what it could have done.
I'm sorry the cow Palace show becausepeople had already bought their tickets in
their packages to go here. Andthat's why you can't run all In twelve
times a year, is because peopleare sort of like to say, here's
my WrestleMania date, and within youknow, six months or so from that,
Yeah, I'm interested in doing atrip again, but I don't want

(53:35):
to do it a month later,and I certainly don't want to do one
in between or one every month.And that's going to be the challenge for
these brands, so they got alot Ring of Honor. That was a
really weird example of them kind ofnot only putting all this talent out there,
possibly as a capitulation to try tomake this talent want to resign with
them, possibly to say, hey, everybody, what if Ring of Honor
had television on WGN America and whatif it looked a little bit like this?

(54:00):
And that was really interesting to mein that aspect of it too.
So I don't mean to interrupted it, but I think that's one of the
most fascinating stories coming out of this, because, you know, watching what
Cody did with the NWA title andwatching the match that was for the Ring
of Honor World Championship, you'd thinkthat if, like in a perfect world,

(54:21):
knowing that Cody's signed the Ring ofHonor, He's got an incredible presence
there, that his focus would beon that brand and within that story,
and it really wasn't. And ifI'm Ring of Honor, I'm sitting back
and I'm going, okay, look, look, look look at what the
stars of our company did here.And if, just like WWE, if
they're not looking at what the Bucksand Cody did in the digital space to

(54:45):
to promote this event and to tellstories. Ring of Honor is making the
same mistake by not looking at thoseguys and saying, all right, look,
there's a marketability here, there's alevel of star power here, and
we own them and now it's onus to figure out the best way for
us to make the most money offof them. If they don't, they're
making a huge mistake. And watchingthose two matches not far apart from each

(55:07):
other on the card, there aresome pretty stark differences between the two that
I don't think the Ring of Honorcame on the other side looking better than
the NWA, and that's that's prettyhard to do in twenty eighteen. It's
shocking that that for sure, thatI think the NWA was, you know,
with the vision that that Dave Leghanaand Billy Corgan have really put against

(55:28):
it. They exceptionally raised the stakeof their brand over the last year here
and you know, being able toget it on the card. I think
at first, I wouldn't say therewas groans when when people talked about this
being an angle, but I don'tthink there was necessarily a ton of excitement
at first, and I think themcoming along for the ride and then becoming
a pivotal part, you know,arguably one of the biggest memories, memories

(55:51):
of the entire show, especially becausethe main event being so short that it's
really intriguing to see how much stakesthat the the NWA and has really grown
with all of this. And thatis also another person who has kind of
said, hey, we'll work withRing of Honor, We'll work with whoever
wants to work with us to makethis a successful partnership. And I think,
you know, kudos to them,and I think people are legitimately intrigued

(56:14):
by the idea of Cody Roads inhis position he is. I always say
Cody is like a five out offive on presentation, his promos, his
posture. Everything's great when the bellrings. It's been a little bit.
It doesn't quite have that same characteristicof maybe what they really exciting Omega style
or the young Buck style has beenBut as as a quantity that you can

(56:35):
sell, I think it's really interestingthat they've been able to partner with Cody.
But at the same time it says, hey, you just put your
belt on somebody else who you don'tknow what their future looks. Like,
so it's it's again you raise thestake of these key players and the good
news is that the audience is notresenting it. The audience seems to be
encouraging it. I invite you toemail the show with feedback or questions or
comments. That email address is WadeKeller Podcast at peteutorch dot com. That's

(57:00):
Wade Keller Podcast at pwtorch dot com. Also welcome your feedback on Twitter.
You can follow us on Twitter atPW torch and follow me at the Wade
Keller. That's at PW Torch andat the Wade Keller. I want to
ask both of you. We justtalked about a lot of different brands.

(57:21):
Who who was the We've already kindof answered, you know, who did
well and who benefit all that?But who did brand wise or wrestler wise?
Talk about the top tier of whobenefited? And then did anybody loose?
Like do you think you know,Chris, you mentioned Newtspan maybe didn't
get as much all they could havegot, took a hit. Are there
some losers in this too who absolutelythere's a net loss? And Christ will

(57:43):
start with you and then go toZack. I think Joey Janella definitely continues
to raise his caliber every time he'sout there that more and more people know
who he is. And for aguy who's who's not, you know,
necessarily connected to anything and also inhimself, could take on some of the
spiritual legs I see of all inwith the shows that he's already doing,
kind of the crazy booking that's one. And then of course Ben Dido.

(58:06):
There's there's no doubt in my mindthat anyone watching the show wouldn't just say,
oh my gosh, who is thisBandido? And is is he signed?
Can I get him from my company? He is just an incredible,
incredible wrestler in terms of who's who'syou know, Steak might have gone down
a little bit. Maybe maybe peoplewill disagree, but I don't think Stephen
Emel necessarily made himself a champion inall of this. Ultimately, it seemed

(58:30):
a little bit like a side showto me to put it in there.
I understood why they did it.I understand the friendship aspect of it,
but at a certain point, youknow, I do think there's that you
really risk that resentment from wrestling fansevery time you bring in a celebrity and
then you put them in a legitimatematch setting, and you know that's always
a struggle for me personally. Andthen you know, even like ROH,

(58:51):
if are the Briscoes the champions rightnow in ROH, Yeah, they're currently
yeah there ROH tag champions, andyou know you have them on the opener
on the card losing U and againSEU was obviously going to be you know,
positioned in a way to be winners. But I don't know, just
if I'm ROH and this whole thing, I don't know necessarily that my brand
came off as the hot, coolthing in any way. Zach, Yeah,

(59:15):
to me, I'll say the samething. As far as the loser
in this, I thought I thoughtRing of Honor didn't. It didn't look
great, especially like I said,mainly in that that Cody winning the NWA
Championship story. I just felt likethat program with their big star winning that
belt and then having in the Ringof Honor World title kind of in the

(59:36):
match on the slotted match on thecard, that kind of brought everybody down
a little bit, just because ithad to at some point. I just
don't think they came out looking verypositive on the flip side, though.
I thought Marty Skirrel looked like astar this this entire weekend. You know
from his segments at Starcast when hewas he did on I think it was
Thursday night, he did a karaokesegment with with the just a room full

(01:00:00):
of fans, They were going nuts. Scroll was funny. He looked the
part with the sunglasses on and reallywas genuinely connecting with the audience. The
next day, I thought he wasthe ultimate winner of the All and Way
in press conference, he owned theroom. He cut just a tremendous promo
where everybody else was out there beingentertaining and in a great way, but

(01:00:24):
he just spun it a different way, and he put the emphasis and the
focus on his match, why hewas gonna beat Okada. He took it
back to the roots of the villaincharacter, and I thought he gave that
audience just a real sense of whohe was, where he comes from,
and what he wants to do,kind of just the classic mission statement.

(01:00:45):
And I thought he came off asa star in doing so. And then
on top of that, on Saturdaynight he delivered in the ring. It
was probably I go back and forthon which match was my favorite that one
or the Cody nwh Championship match.But either way, Squirrel looked like a
million bucks in that ring. Bythe end of it, he looked like
a viable threat to Okada. Idon't think anybody actually thought he should or

(01:01:08):
would win, but just the sheernotion, the fact that at the end
he was breaking Okada's fingers and couldstand toe to toe with them in there.
Uh, it just was a starmakingmoment for him, and I was
really impressed, not just in thematch, but throughout his presence the whole
weekend. I think Cody had themost to lose and the most to gain
too. I think that this,you know, we can't take for granted

(01:01:30):
that this could have gone wrong inthe weeks leading up to this or logistically,
I mean, and nothing was goingto go perfect. The merch lines
were too long, and I meanthere was you know, there were just
little things here and there. ButI would say there were relatively little things.
And you know, to run ashow for the first time, even
though they had helped from Gary Justerand some you know, experienced people helping

(01:01:52):
them out and can't And by theway, that that's a credit to them
too, that they had the goodwillto work with so many people with experience
to help them do this. ButCody came out of this not only as
a businessman but as the n WAchampion and a featured wrestler, having that
that emotional moment and have it playout and work as a winning a championship

(01:02:14):
that has meant relatively little, relativelylittle for a long time, and to
take the elevation that's occurred over thelast year with what Billy Corgan and Dave
Laghana have done and Nick Aldis andthe way he carries himself, and to
amplify that by adding to it thehistory of his father and the era,

(01:02:35):
the glory era of the n WAtitle in the nineteen eighties that people who
are at that show are aware ofand in some cases attended. I just
think Cody came out of this thebig winner in that the emotional reaction to
his winning, the reception he gotas a wrestler, tying the nostalgia in
the family history, it worked,and it's all the more impressive because he

(01:03:00):
isn't the athlete that some of theother wrestlers are in terms of the dazzling
matches that people pay to see.I gotta see a Cody match. I
gotta see a Cody match. Butthere was no sense that there was any
No one was being polite to him, that that match meant something to them,
told a story, and it didn'tmatter that he wasn't doing the moves
that some of the other guys wereable to do. And so to me,

(01:03:21):
Cody turned out to be a bigwinner and then he had to it.
I mean, he just raised hisvalue to WWE. This did not
blow up in his face at all. Chris any follow up, Yeah,
this is just exciting to see allthese wrestlers benefit from this. And you
know, ultimately, they really seemedlike they were proud of what they did.
They were excited about what they did. And I even think having a

(01:03:43):
match like Matt Cross versus MJF,you know, that's the sort of thing
that normally you would expect would getcut and they decided to go out there
and still do that. And what'sthe biggest thing that I was stressed to
people is that we already know Bucksand Cody R Star. Well, what
if you really care about any wrestling, what you need to be thinking about
now is who is the next starthat's down the line that should be getting

(01:04:04):
in on the bottom of this stuffso that we can start seeing them and
you can start exposing them and createa business that's going to keep perpetuating.
So, you know, seeing funSize Marco Stunt that was great because you
know, he was fantastic. Andon the flip side, Bully Ray was
a tremendous pure heel. Almost nobodywas a pure heel on the show,
but Bully Ray was and you know, he got his come uppets and that's

(01:04:26):
what you want to see. Andso I love that. You know,
there's still that that fundamental storytelling goingon and wrestling, whether it's ridiculous or
not, we're still following these tropesthat are make it make it so the
crowd is popping at the right timesfor the right things. Let's look ahead
to the MSG show WrestleMania weekend andhow that relates to all in from a

(01:04:47):
where the business is going standpoint,it's not Cody in the Bucks, it's
Roah and New Japan. It's noton its own in Chicago. It's on
the same weekend as WrestleMania, whichMuddy's water. I was talking to b
J Whitmer about that a little bitand the different levels of confidence that people
have within r H, whether thatwould have sold out if it weren't on
WrestleMania weekend, and if they couldsell out MSG again later without it being

(01:05:11):
part of WrestleMania Weekend. I thinkthey Meltzer said it for sherwould, and
I think BJ Whitmer was was hedgingand more nervous about not knowing how much
of that instant sell up was.People were already traveling from around the world.
Zach, what's your thought on that. How much was the success of
the MSG sellout for Arch New JapanResomnia weekend because it was WrestleMania weekend?

(01:05:32):
I think, Well, my instantreaction is to say, obviously, I
think WW being there for WrestleMania hasa lot to do with that show selling
out. I think it's It wouldbe a tough concrete argument to make the
other way, because you have justthe entire world watching that weekend, the
biggest product on the on the planet, So I think it'd be silly to

(01:05:55):
just dismiss that notion out right.At the same time, though, I
think people seeing the All In showsell out and seeing the fact that Cody
and the Young Bucks were at thehead of that. That had to cross
people's minds too to be like,all right, wait, maybe I didn't
get all in tickets, but I'mgonna go I'm gonna see those guys,
or maybe I won't wink wink atat the MSG show. So I think

(01:06:18):
it's kind of both. I thinkit's a perfect storm of the w W
being in town and Cody, theBucks and that alternative style of wrestling kind
of converging into one spot. Ilook at it more stars aligning perfectly than
roh and New Japan drawing that audienceas just strict brands themselves. I mean,

(01:06:40):
when you think about it, NewYork City has a metro population over
twenty million people. Chicago has ametro population over nine and a half million
people. And the indexing, youknow, when you look at Google Trends
or something, Bull the Club NewJapan, can you make a Bucks?
They all do pretty decently in theNew York area. So I do think
what part of this is is justthe fact that there's a captive New York

(01:07:02):
market. You know, WWF.WWWF has run you know, Madison Square
Garden for fifty plus years and sothere's a lot of people that are just
used to going to see wrestling inthis sort of area and they're able to
capitalize on that. And that's whyyou hear a lot about Dave talking Dave
Meltzer talking about the idea that thepercentage of people that bought tickets that were

(01:07:23):
in the Tri State area were veryhigh for this show. At the same
time, I agree very much thatWrestleMania is a big component of this,
just in the sense that people liketo have options, and they like to
do things, and they like tobe in the state of mind of wrestling.
And what people I think are overthey're forgetting is that by doing it
at the WrestleMania weekend is you're notcompeting with football, and you're not competing

(01:07:45):
with other sports that might be happeningif you were to try to do this
at a different point in the year. So the other element of it is
that people are in a wrestling stateof mind during WrestleMania weekend. And because
also WrestleMania weekend has become its ownlittle niche, so that's competing with all
these other things. It's a bigquestion mark about what that show is going
to look like and what lessons theymight learn. I think it's going to

(01:08:06):
be a little bit like the parrotingthat you see, where you know NXT
crowds parrot the way that they mighthave thought a ROH crowd or a teena
crowd that was cool way back inthe day might have acted. And so
I almost see that this show isprobably going to feel a little bit like
people trying to recapture the energy ofwhat all In was like, mixed with

(01:08:28):
people that you know, really arethose big NXT fans. I think that's
going to be the very interesting dynamicthere is. Are we going to see
the really old fans coming back tosee wrestling for the first time in years
and years, or are we goingto be seeing the real young fans that
are interested in kind of these new, upstart things. Or is it just
your generic ww fan who also followsall these hardcore promotions, including New Japan

(01:08:49):
and ROH. I think too there'sgoing to be an element and there probably
was an element in terms of thesetickets an MST show is you're going to
have that group of undild WWB fansin that market that would like nothing more
than to turn turn their back tosomething else right in WWW's face. I
mean, that's the ultimate rebel move, and I think Borrow Waits was smart

(01:09:11):
to kind of capitalize on on thatpsychology when they did coming off of all
in so I think that's in playtoo. In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned
into the developmental system and ultimately thebrand you see today. On the Torch
VIP podcast NXT Eight Years Back,we'll be taking a weekly look at this

(01:09:32):
page in NXT's early history. JoinKelly Wells and me Tom Stout from PWT
Talks NXT every Saturday as we goeight years back to the day to track
NXT's rising talents and why they didor didn't work out exclusively for PW Torch
VIP members. Zach, when you'reat the Fourth Star summit, were you?

(01:09:56):
Were you there? I guess itwere on the midpoint when I,
or maybe it was earlier, whenI asked the audience how many of them
were pro or considered themselves WWW fansor anti wwe did do you remember that
moment? I sure do, yes, so Dave Malt and I have a
different memory of this and watching itback on video, the camera was not
enough of a wide shot. Itwent to a close up at the key
time that might have solved this.What was your take on that? How

(01:10:18):
many people when? When? Whenthe most when almost everybody raised their hand,
what was it? What were theyindicating? So when you asked that
question? What well? What questiondid ask when all the hands went up?
You asked, how many of youin the audience are fans of w
w E. That's what I thought, I remembered, Yeah, Dave put
their hand up. Yeah, that'sthat's what I remember too. Thank you.

(01:10:40):
I feel a little validated. Davewas like, no, Dave.
Dave had kind of interrupted and thenlike looked at me and Bruce I think
at that moment and didn't see didn'tsync up when the hands went up,
because Brian over As had said that, you know, he thought this event
that everybody in that crowd, youknow where everyone at starcasting all on weekend,
it was this, I think termyyears later, it was like a
middle finger or maybe that's what hesaid. Cody's and wa title celebration was

(01:11:03):
but that this is kind of arebellion against ww E and in the audience
later and Dave asked them questions,you know about fandom of New Japan and
particular wrestlers, and they just shottheir hands up too. But what I
thought was interesting about that is thefour Star Summit crowd, small sample size
of hundreds of people. They werethere and passionately there in spending money and

(01:11:26):
knew the New Japan product well.But almost everybody and correct me if I'm
wrong, Zach considered themselves a WWEfan and they had the chance to raise
their hand to say that they wereanti WWE, and they weren't. And
I don't. I'm still not quitesure what that tells me either, But
unless everybody in the crowd misunderstood,and I don't, but I don't think
that ambiguity was there. No,I don't think. I think everybody knew

(01:11:50):
exactly what you're asking and responded thatway. But to piggyback off that too,
you know, I really I'm startcast weekend. I really enjoyed my
time just hanging at the bar andtalking with fans from all around the country,
And it was interesting because as muchas I think in a way,
you know, these fans came togetherto kind of point the finger back at

(01:12:13):
WWE and support something that ww isnot producing, right, now you know,
conversations didn't like just strictly surround onall Roman reigns is the worst or
I can't believe you know Seth Rowlinsis in Champion. I mean, it
was a collective notion of like,hey, you know, ww's this and
it's got its problems. It's notterrible, but it's just not what this

(01:12:33):
weekend is about. It's just notwhat this weekend is. And I thought
that was an interesting distinction because youdidn't have just this WW bashing going on,
but you did have the recognition ofwhat we're seeing this weekend and what
we're a part of this weekend isdifferent from that, and I thought that
was really interesting. That's absolutely impressionI had. Chris, What impression did

(01:12:53):
you get from your experiences at Starcastand all in as it relates to the
attitude towards WWE, I'm excited andsurprised to hear that so many people were
willing to raise their hands. Andpart of it is there's so many stars
that have come through the independent sceneand through a rival promotions, New Japan,
Ring of Honor and everything else thathave graduated or culminated or resigned themselves

(01:13:18):
to work in WWE at some pointthat it's very hard to imagine how people
could be resentful of the fact thatthe company does have Samoa Joe and Daniel
Bryan and aj Styles and you know, the hardies and so many other people
who have punched their ticket in many, many different places. And so it's

(01:13:38):
I think at least the people arebeing honest with themselves to say that that's
what they're seeing. At the sametime, you know, I think people
are just genuinely big fans of professionalwrestling when they are interested in the people
that cover professional wrestling. And sowhat was really exciting to me about the
star Cast weekend was that it wassuch a big opportunity not just to see

(01:14:00):
wrestlers and talk to them and meetthem, but for the personalities that were
peripherally associated with professional wrestling, thepodcasters, the writers, the analysts,
the video montage batchamania makers, thatthey had an opportunity to, you know,
interact with fans, and you knowwhat, more times than not,

(01:14:20):
I've never had a conversation with MartySkurrell, but I've had a lot of
conversations with Dave Meltzer and or BrianAlvarez or Wade Keller or Waiting or someone
else. You know that I havethis opportunity to go to them and say,
hey, let me talk to youabout that subject there. And so
I just think it's really exciting that, you know, we were in a
place where not only did we havea chance for wrestlers to be kind of

(01:14:43):
given given an opportunity to laud whatthey do and put ten thousand people that
all enjoy the same hobby together,which kind of makes you feel like you're
less alone in this world, butalso the fact that you know, people
then were really getting into the factthat they could meet and talk and gather
together. And whenever you have aconfluence of really smart and interesting people in
a place, they're going to tellreally smart, interesting stories, and they're

(01:15:06):
at the same time also going tocome up with new ideas about how to
look at things. And so forme, it was like a whole weekend
of just business meetings because the wholetime I was talking to creative people that
were spurring me on. And whenyou're a podcaster, you're talk into a
microphone in your bedroom and you're neverreally sure as anyone out there listening.
And when you can actually meet aperson shake their hand and talk to them

(01:15:28):
about what they thought about a subject. It inspires and invigorates you. And
so I feel that even the energythat the wrestlers felt, I feel like
other people that are in the wrestlingindustry on the purple edges like I am,
it's exciting for us, and Ithink it's exciting for the fans too,
because they feed off the energy ofeveryone that's creating around them. So
I love it when I see goodenergy, positive energy. And I don't

(01:15:49):
think people hate WWE. I thinkpeople just have inspiration and aspirations that it
could be something more at times,and they just get oversatuated with the parts
of it that they find numbing.I did not sense at all. And
it's it's remarkably sitt you're talking aboutit, because it hadn't really sunk in
till just now, how much thisweekend was not about WWE at all for

(01:16:15):
anybody. Like I'm not saying thatit didn't that there weren't aspects of WWB
that made this possible or that thatmade it more successful in the aggregate,
and in terms of you know,the Roman Reigns polltion, the Daniel Bryan
uh, you know, controversy andall that, even the Becky Lynch stuff
recently, But this was There wereno Roman reign sucks chants at all in
that I did anybody hear those?No? No, there was no anti

(01:16:36):
anything. It was all pro Cody, pro Bucks, pro all in this.
And I didn't see WWB T shirts, but I don't think if somebody
wore one that they would have beenmocked like that wasn't the tone of the
weekend. It just was, well, if I'm going all in, of
course, I'm not gonna wear evenI don't even know if I saw it
like a KO T shirt, youknow, like the cool the cool guys,

(01:16:58):
like everybody's going to wear the Tshirt representing somebody that might bump into
in the hallway or see on Saturday. But I think WWE might even be
disappointed that this wasn't They shouldn't be, but they might be that this wasn't
about them. This wasn't about antithem. It was a bunch of WWE
fans who loved professional wrestling and loveanother brand more. In another way,
it's presented more, but it wasn't. It wasn't the big protest that I

(01:17:24):
think some people thought it was andI think that jumped out to me at
the four Star Summit when it wasn't, and I think there was a little
heads It was sort of like,am I going to raise my hand?
And then once people did, everybodydid like it's okay to admit it.
It was okay to admit it,even if that wasn't the central focus of
the weekend. So that was interesting. Yeah. I was like, if
you asked a bunch of Chicago fans, hey, do you like the Bears?

(01:17:45):
You know, everybody would be like, uh, yeah, I guess
I do. I am a fan, Yes I am. But that's you
know, let's talk about something different, and that's kind of what the week
I was about. Yeah, andI saw like a couple of people wearing
the Luchen Spired WrestleMania T shirt andthings like that where you know, kind
of the peripheral edges. I thinkI did see a couple of people with
KO shirts or especially because they're blackand white, so it works out well.

(01:18:11):
I remember Rustlemania Weekend. I thisyear for Russellmania Weekend, I got
down on I want to say aThursday and Thursday and Friday where what I
called Bullet Club weekend because everywhere Iwent it was just Bullet Club shirts.
And then there was this changeover onSaturday where then it was all WWE T
shirts we with a couple of BulletClub shirts in there. And it really
was striking to me because it waslike, Oh, the hardcore fans that

(01:18:34):
show up to Rustlemania weekend want touse Bullet Club as their leading edge.
But they're at Rustlemania Weekend. Theyweren't all there for russell Con shows and
spring Break shows and uh blood Sportsshows. You know, a lot of
them were there, most of them. All of them were there for either
an x T or WWE in someway. And so, you know,
there's such a huge crossover that whenyou think about the millions and millions of

(01:18:57):
people that are watching WWE, youknow, two to three million people a
week, you know, two hundredthousand people wanted to watch this WGN programming
and that's just in America. Andso I think we've realized how big the
bucket is of people that are lapsedfans, casual fans, disaffected fans,
or don't know that they're fans ofprofessional wrestling yet. And that's why it's

(01:19:20):
it's going to keep repopulating. It'sgoing to live on for so long.
And that's exciting, is that youwant events like this to make people think
that. But at the same time, ten thousand people once a year is
not a movement. That is justa marker in the longer journey and the
longer discussion and the longer evolution.As we were saying about WW I'm sorry
about about wrestling becoming modern, movingto the year twenty eighteen, and then

(01:19:43):
figuring out what it means to moveonwards so that you're not presenting just the
same old thing that we saw inthe Attitude era, which was twenty years
ago, which would be like whenyou twenty years ago showing people footage from
nineteen eighty and yeah, maybe there'sa couple of good boot Cut boot Camp
matches, but it was a differ, diferent way of presenting media at the
time, and I'd like to seethings evolve and keep moving on. All

(01:20:04):
right, So I'm gonna break inhere. We have good news and bad
news. We have good news forVIP members because the three of us continue
talking for another hour, and wetalked about Starcast in depth, the highs
and the lows, what they needto improve upon what grade they deserve for
the overall fan experience. We've talkedabout the NWA and Ring of Honor and

(01:20:27):
who stands to gain the most asa brand going forward from what happened at
all, and so much more.It's just it's a continuation of this conversation
going into all kinds of other areas, and so if you're not a VIP
member, you don't get to hearthat part. So this is another good
reason to become a PW Torch VIPmember. There's so many just find out
all details. Some of the showsare live with color interaction, including Wrestling

(01:20:51):
Night in America with Right Parks everySunday night. All right, that'll do
it for me for today. Thankyou everybody for your continued support and until
next time. Wait Keller signing up. Thanks for downloading today's show. Take
it to the next level with aVIP membership. Get shows like this the

(01:21:12):
Waight Keller Prosing podcast, Wait KillerProsing post show, and the Pwtorch daily
casts on our Pwtorch VIP podcast feedwith ads and plugs removed from the shows
for a streamlined listening experience, andalso hear the VP exclusive shows that I
host with Rich Fan and Todd Martin. Everything with Rich Fan and The Fix
with Todd Martin signature v IP seriesthat you're missing out without a VIP membership,

(01:21:32):
So go vi ip here in twentytwenty two and enjoy all the benefits,
all the bonus content and the adfree listening experience. Pwtorch dot com
slash go vi ip. This isPwtorch b IP editor Wade Keller with an
introduction to a special v IP extra. Following the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast,

(01:21:56):
we have a special edition this weekcalled the Thursday Roundtable, a break
from our Thursday flagship format. Inthis episode, I'm joined by pww Torch's
own Zach Haydorn and Wrestlenomics Radio's ChrisHarrington for the very first time. We
had never podcasted together before. Ithink this is a start of something.
I really enjoyed this episode of bothZack and Chris. In this episode,

(01:22:17):
we focus on all In and Starcast, and we approach it from two different
angles. Zach Hadorn is the authorof Artistry of Wrestling and looks at the
artistic, the aesthetic, the presentationaspects of professional wrestling, and Chris Harrington
is known for his analysis of theeconomic side of wrestling, thus Wrestlenomics radio,

(01:22:41):
and we looked at those aspects ofthis, the business side of all
In and Starcast. What did itconvey not only to fans but perhaps future
business partners. What was the presentationlike, the artistry of it, How
did it live up to expectations everythingfrom the signage at Starcast to the brand
of all In. When it comesto where they are production value wise,

(01:23:04):
are they TV ready and so manyother things. So this is a really
fun conversation. Now this is theVIP extra, So I encourage you to
begin with part one, the firstseventy minutes or so of the Way Keller
Progressing Podcast Thursday Roundtable, and thenthis just picks up right in the flow
of the conversation with our next topicwith sixty minutes exclusively for VIP members on

(01:23:28):
this topic. So be sure tolisten to the first installment first and then
come back if you haven't yet,And if you did listen to the first
installment already, then you are readyto keep listening. And here we go.
So, Chris, what is theevolution the roadmap for this to be
a movement that is the most likelypath that you see this taking. I
think one is about the digital videoelement of this, where the being the
lead really proved that they had theability to captivate and pull people together and

(01:23:53):
tell storylines using this digital media elementin a meaningful way. And I think
we saw a little bit of itback when when the Hardies were doing their
compound stuff and just you know,broken Matt Hardy was another good example of
this, and to a much earlierdegree, of course, the whole Zach
Ryder phenomenon. So it's a littlebit of it is capitalizing on the idea
of what is new media, whatis digital video storytelling, and how can

(01:24:15):
you create this intimate connection with peopleeven if you're winking at them a little
bit or telling stories in a certainway that you can bring the story straight
to them and you don't need tonecessarily put on your television this way,
and that's what connects with young peoples. That's number one. Number two is
the fact that we're getting to aworld where we're going to have to decide
what's going to be bigger merchandise gateor live gate. Because this show,

(01:24:36):
this whole time was about merchandise.To me was that when you think about
it, they only made about halfmillion dollars on the live gate, and
if ten thousand people spend fifty bucksa piece, that's five hundred thousand dollars.
That's an equal amount. And I'msure that people were spending a heck
of a lot more than fifty bucksif they were going to starcast. I
will say too, like Steve Austinat his peak, it was pretty close

(01:24:57):
to fifty fifty. If you usemake an eight million, it was four
million his checks from matches, fourmillion from merch not Apple's taples. Because
we're talking about the totality of apromotion, but those two things can be
in sync and pretty close to eachother when things are going well. Yes,
exactly, So I think that's goingto be the big one. And
the fact that it's still about consumables. You know, it's funny to me
that we always think everything is goingto be digitized and everything is going to

(01:25:18):
be separated, But at the sametime, people like to go to conferences,
they like to see professional wrestling andsit in an arena, They like
to shake the hand of somebody,and they like to get together and go
on vacation and so it's still abouttravel and I think that's something that we
can all figure out better ways todo. So to me, the future
of this revolution is always going tobe make your conference, make your wrestling

(01:25:41):
event, make your event accessible topeople from around the world. And so
for New Japan, you better belistening. And it's not about just bringing
your brand to the US. It'sabout letting people be able to go to
Wrestle Kingdom and feel safe and notconfused about how to get there. It's
about letting people go to Triple Aor CML and to go see those big
matches and actually have that experience ofbeing in the arena there. And it's

(01:26:03):
about, you know, kind ofbeing able to give people that confidence that
you know, as we become interconnected, we can both understand what each other
are doing. We can present thingsin a localized form that is meaningful to
us. So that's everything from makingsure language is available, making sure websites
are available, making sure that thevideo is able for you to buy and
stream and view in other countries ofthe world, but also the fact that

(01:26:24):
people have disposable income have this interestin consuming and right now we're going to
an Ola car world where we're tryingto say, I don't want to buy
a cable package. I want tobuy fifty different OTT services over the top
streaming services SPoD where I can,I can you choose, pick and choose
what I want. And I thinkthere will be some bundling down the line,
and so the key thing for thisrevolution is going to be figure out

(01:26:45):
how you can be part of thebundles that are going to win here.
So you know, flow Slam didn'twork out, but at some point somebody's
going to invent kind of the counterto the wrestling bundle. And whether it's
gonna be New Japan World, orwhether it's gonna be the global force offering,
or whether it's gonna be something elsein this universe, someone's got to
figure that out and start offering itbecause there's money to be made, and
the people that made it right noware Pro Wrestling Teas and Pivot Share and

(01:27:08):
all these other niche people in thisworld who are beginning to figure out how
to monopolize certain areas of the professionalwrestling universe outside of WWE. And if
you want to be part of thatrevolution, you should be thinking about that
today zact same view. Might bigjust takeaway from from the weekend as far
as the future is is the matchesthemselves and the different the different kind of

(01:27:30):
pro wrestling matches that we saw onthe same card. And I'm big on
the art of the business and andyou know, the performance aspect, and
what you saw on Saturday night wasjust all across the gamut of what pro
wrestling is. You had the comedicside, you had some hardcore stuff,
you had some guys just telling storesin the ring, you had the high

(01:27:51):
flyers, you had you had everything, and in an outlaws fashion, those
everything converged onto one show. Andin the future, I'm looking at,
you know, somebody out there thatsays, hey, you know, this
is kind of the rogue, therogue professionally professional wrestling art and artists right

(01:28:12):
now. You know, how doI how can I monetize them? How
can I monetize that style? Andand that start, you know, you
had in comparison to the you know, punk rock days of music. You
had punk rock and then someone said, hey, you know what I could
I could make a lot of moneyoff that style of music. And you
know, then Green Day showed upand the pop punk phenomenon was born,

(01:28:33):
and I have to just imagine thatsomewhere down the line, somebody is going
to make a lot of money offof the style of show or pieces of
the show that came together to makeit such a success. I just thought
it was a fascinating insight into intoall that pro wrestling has to offer on
one show. And that might notbe a good thing in terms of putting

(01:28:55):
on multiple shows of the same way, because it does speak to a large
audience. But for one night andonly in that arena on that night,
it worked and was a really gooddisplay of what professional wrestling is in twenty
eighteen. You might have had atrademark violation they're saying for one night only,
but we'll letally get away with that. Uh. Speaking of the artistry
of wrestling, I want to acouple notes here. I want to bring

(01:29:17):
up to WGM and and they're ractionwe talked about their ratings, but part
of the expense, Chris, thatyou talked about of the staging and the
atmosphere, and even though the productionvalues for the w GM show in the
pay per view was it was abit of a show horse like, look
at what we can do and howmajor league we can look? That was

(01:29:40):
a more major league looking I haven'tseen the paper yet, so i'm I'm
or the w GM special for thatmatter, but being in the building and
then getting a sense of things,this was as polished in an alternate product
to WWE. Since whatever ww didwell, I think this looked more major
well. Obviously Wressell King is adifferent situation with Tokyoto, but it's culturally

(01:30:01):
different in some of its presentation.So how much of the investment in making
the show look major league paid off? Chris? Was that a WGN ready
product? As we talk about allthe ways to do things digitally and the
niche things, there's also the possibilitythat the roadmap coming out of all In
is something that is similar to acompeting national promotion with a TV deal.

(01:30:26):
Is that in the cards and didall In take a step towards opening that
door? I think all In tooka step. I think the bigger step
was actually WWE's TV right steal,just because it convinces everybody that this is
the value of pro wrestling. Andthen if Smackdowns with two hundred and five
million dollars a year, then ifyou're walking in the door and you're saying,

(01:30:48):
well, I just want ten percentof that. You don't sound like
a madman, when in fact,impact getting probably twenty million a year was
probably the high water mark for anynon WWE promotion ever getting a TV deal
in the United States. So that'sone element of it. Another element about
the cost. You know, iftwenty thousand people bought a forty dollars pay
per view, maybe my math isoff, but you know that's that's another

(01:31:12):
eight hundred thousand dollars. So theyprobably made you know, a million dollars
on this, this pay per viewif they were selling it for forty bucks,
even though the challenge there being thatyou know, they kind of told
everybody in advance, oh, it'sonly worth ten dollars, and you can
get it for even cheaper if you'reon on our Club or if you're on
New Japan World some day or soforth. But that's another great way of
kind of subsidizing the cost of abig event like this. About the only

(01:31:35):
thing it lacked was a ramp,and it just says, you know,
how expensive ramps really are to installand keep up. And that was the
only thing that I was terrified of, is you know, Brandy Rhodes taking
a tumble on her head, slippingon Okata bucks and dying before her third
costume change of the night. Sothat was you know, I thought it
looked beautiful. I thought it lookedgreat. It looked very major league.

(01:31:58):
You know. I joked about goingto the first Ring of Honor show,
and the one thing I was tellingsomebody is that it's so rare that the
birth of a big event it actuallyis recognized at the time, is the
birth that it is. It's sooften people kind of look back and say,
oh, my gosh, you rememberwhen we used to do that.
That was the birth of the catalystof this big event here, you know,

(01:32:18):
it's King of the Indies. Weall looked around and we said,
oh, we could start a promotionwith this and Ring of Honors born,
you know, that sort of thinkingand that sort of of drive. And
it was so interesting to be thereand be like, no, ten thousand
people, eleven thousand people got toshow up to this thing and see it,
and it looked great. It waswell run and it you know,
if anything, it was shocking thata bunch of indie promoters and people that

(01:32:40):
are spending so much time on theindies, actually started a show on time
and actually got it done on time. Cody, I don't think it would
mind me mentioning a couple of bulletpoints. I was texting him a week
and a half before the show andhe was talking about how it's silly.
It's silly as the amount of chairsin the non union catering room or bike
racks. He he said it wasfun, but very thorough, and he

(01:33:02):
took every aspect of production into hiscontrol. And he said, I even
built some trons today. So Cody'ssaying it's fun, but there's this checklist
of things he had never dealt withbefore, and he's having to deal with,
like things that fans aren't thinking ofthe number of chairs in a non
union catering room. I don't evenknow what that means, and I have
a feeling. Cody never thought he'dutter that sentence in attacks, but he

(01:33:24):
learned by running the show those arethings you have to think about and you
have to you have to be willingto emotionally realize that that's what your world
is going to become. Yes,yes, absolutely so is is what we
saw at all in a sustainable productas something other than a something like a

(01:33:44):
takeover special once to four times ayear, either in the same market or
if it's four times, you're probablydifferent markets. And then it's just a
showcase in a centerpiece and an augmentationof your otherwise full time career where you're
piecing things together other almost like astand up comedian. Who's who's still doing,
you know, a bigger name doingVegas, a smaller name doing doing

(01:34:05):
clubs, but they might have aNetflix special or an Amazon Prime special like
Taylor Williamson who was at the showthis weekend. You piece together, you
your true independent contractor, and you'redoing your thing, but you have this
big showcase. Can that be sustainable? And kind of part two to that,
can it be sustainable without Cody Kennyin the bucks but with others who

(01:34:28):
were on that show or others whowere not on that show Ye had Neville
or an Austin Airies or somebody wholeaves w W E or Trevor Lee who
for instance, wasn't on the showbut could be added to the mix.
So it's sort of a long complicatedquestion, But Zach, your thoughts on
that, Is this a sustainable productor a one off with or without the

(01:34:51):
key talent. Well, I thinkI think the show and the product and
the Brandon idea needs key talent insome fashion, needs somebody like Cody and
like the Young Bucks to not onlyhave the vision and passion to be in
the emotional state about talking about thenumber of cheers in the non union food
room, you have to have thewillingness to take that on in addition to

(01:35:14):
being a big draw. So Ithink it has to have a key star
in that role or else I thinka lot of the pieces around it fall
apart. Now, like I said, I don't think it has to be
Cody. I don't think it hasto be the Young Bucks. But it
has to be somebody at that timeand in that position that's regarded, as
they were this weekend, as theguy who, if he's going to walk

(01:35:35):
through the hotel lobby during the firsttwo hours of the star cast, gets
gets cheered and made by everybody inthe room. I mean, I think
that figurehead needs to be on theshow so that it can pick up the
pieces and it can own all thosedifferent elements that we don't see happen,
but that inevitably do happen, notto mention the fact that these guys they

(01:35:59):
put up their own money, soyou have to have somebody on the show
that has the level of stardom thathas made them financially viable to take responsibility
of a show like this. Sothere's a lot of pieces, but ultimately
they need a star of some kindthat can draw the same attention as Cody
did. If they have that,I think it's clear and this weekend shows

(01:36:20):
that your needs for the product theypresented is out there. The passion for
its out there, but you haveto have that star figure to make it
happen. They make it all cometogether. Need an extra dose of positivity
in your wrestling podcasts. Will comejoin me Alan fell Over in the Progress
Paradise at peutorch vip as we baskon the bright side of wrestling and focus

(01:36:44):
on some of the great matches andshows from around the world, be at
the US, Japan, Europe orMexico. There's always a place for wrestling's
past and the paradise too, andwe've done fun historical shows such as the
We Love Liger series celebrating the gloriouscareer of Juician thunder Lighter and our I
Was there when shows where our guestswill join me to talk about a classic

(01:37:05):
bout that they were in attendance for. We love variety and you can expect
lots of it at the pro RestParadise. Detailed PWEF Torch VIP subscription information
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(01:37:26):
iPhone and Android devices, or youcan stream them directly from our ad free
VIP mobile site. See You inthe Paradise video is on Turned Territory Chris
and but we don't know you metyou Christopher Daniels earlier. You know it
could be Christopher Daniels, MJF andTrevor Lee hit it off, and Joy

(01:37:46):
Janella joins in, and they getthe social media, the business aspect and
the star power and they regenerate thiseven if Kenny and Cody and the Bucks
are gone. And I just randomlychose names are just for illustration, but
go ahead, exactly what one elementis. The Bucks have a company called
Killing the Business LLC. And Ibelieve this show was actually promoted through the

(01:38:08):
Bucks LLC. In doing it all, which which says a lot actually about
the trust that's going on between thethe Cody and them to you know,
almost say let me just use yourbusiness. Let's just run it that way.
This is a business, and soyou could in theory take the people
that are responsible for all the differentelements, break it down and turn it

(01:38:28):
into a business. And what's fascinatingto me is is you can see the
explosion of fan conventions and other conventionsthat have happened over the last ten years
here, but also the horror storiesof the conventions that have imploded upon themselves,
that have been poorly managed to poorlyrun. The the personality driven conventions
where you know, the star isalmost in fear of their life at the

(01:38:51):
end, the form where you onlyget the old bidder, you know,
people that want to show up orthe people that are doing all the same
conventions. This was really interesting andunique because it didn't feel like the old
wrestling convention and wrestling show. Itfelt like something that was still very focused
on the modern thing. At thesame time, there's plenty of weird surprises.
Who knew doctor David D. Schultzwas going to be there? Who

(01:39:13):
knew a guy selling a book aboutcigars was going to be there. You
know, it was a lot ofthings, were a lot of different people
Cody and Cody and Kaz did atthe cigar session to close out the whole
star Cast weekend. I visited thaton my way out right before buff Bagel
try to run off with everyone's money. You know, pun of me is
glad that this show had that storyof like, you know, the old
days of wrestlers trying to get theirmoney in it. At the at the

(01:39:36):
very very end, they almost meltthe whole time, but there still was
that story. I appreciated that thedusta position of Cody out and the outdoors
and the cigar. They had thisreally cool thing set up a patio area
and and the fans are getting aline to take pictures with Cody and Kaz
was there but had to leave alittle bit early. And guy fans are
sitting around just relaxing, taking youknow, just kind of reflecting on the
weekend with cigars, and it's justcigar smoke everywhere. And then I walk

(01:39:59):
away and head down the hallway.Not two minutes later, a whole crowd
of security guards are charging to thefront entrance. And bus trying to get
away in his black suv and jamhis bangs into the car with a bag
of money that he grabbed and ranwith because he was misunderstanding how the payoff
system worked here, and then Bufftrying to explain and justify his action.
It was just like such a greatit's just one end of the one end
of the one end of the hyatt. You got Cigar smoking Cody on one

(01:40:21):
side of the business young the worldis his, and then he got Buff
from the relic from the nineties,just you know, confused and perhaps well
whatever, I don't know what wordto describe. Well, you know,
it's a carnie business. And ifthat ever goes away, you don't have
professional wrestling in some way. Idon't know what a completely sanitized version of

(01:40:44):
pro wrestling would end up looking like, maybe maybe those church camp shows where
then you know, uh, Godwrestles the devil at the end in the
main event. Yeah, typically doesthe job, not always so, so
when it comes down to it,I want to make sure we round out
that. I feel like I understandwere you guys, how you guys feel
on this can if Cody and Kennyin the Bucks leave can this magic happen

(01:41:10):
again? Or like percentage why,I don't know. That's putting a number.
You put numbers on stuff, butmore concrete numbers. Chris, What
are the odds that this magic couldbe recreated again? Or how much of
this is so unique to years ofbuilding up being the elite Cody being a
WWW product and a product of DustyRhodes and having his ambition and star power

(01:41:31):
and hitting it off with a BucksLike is this just something that a confluence
of things that is so unlikely towork again? Sort of like all the
ECW knockoffs that came around that everquite had that magic moment in time.
Well, I would say, I'llflip it around and just say what would
I do if I was in theirshoes? And the thing I'd say is
I'd promote a show in Europe.And the reason I do it there is

(01:41:51):
a I think you have a captiveaudience where there's a lot of European fans.
We've seen a huge explosion of Europeanwrestling, so it index as well.
Two, I think that you don'tget the direct comparisons because if I
went to you and I said,oh, they drew six thousand, four
hundred people in Dublin. You're notgoing to say, oh, well Chicago
is bigger. It doesn't really compare. You just say, oh, that's

(01:42:14):
a different number, it's a differentcrowd, it's a different time. Plus
there's a little bit more of there'sa little bit more price inflation that I
think has been going on in theEuropean marketplace. You can probably price your
ticket a little bit higher. Andthere's a whole other group of talent that
you could sort of begin to swoopin and kind of circle around and be
able to highlight in a different way. So I would do something like that

(01:42:34):
would would be one element of thelearnings here. The other part of the
learnings from this whole thing is justthat it has to continue to feel like
there's a point to while you're havingthe show. I didn't really feel like
very much came out of the showwhere I was like, Oh, I
want to see what's going to happennext month with this. Now I'm intrigued

(01:42:55):
as a person to say, what'sgoing to happen with the NWA title,
what's going to happen with other things, But there wasn't a lot of finality
to the consequences. I guess therewas a lot of finality in that it
just was over and I didn't endup thinking, oh, I need to
see these guys wrestle forty more times, like a payoff too, a couple
of years of being the elite videos. Yeah, in a lot of ways,

(01:43:15):
and the last last one is Iwill say there was one big winner
in the ECW revival game, andthat was ECW One night Stand, and
so WWE ultimately did create a knockoffECW nostalgia moment that it did explode.
And at the same time, everyoneoverstated the importance of that event because everyone
was convinced that they were going tosee a million person a million buy pay

(01:43:38):
per view because the web crashed andTwitter was huge or not. I don't
think it was even Twitter at thetime, but the board traffic was huge
and everybody was so excited, andwhen the pay per view number came in,
it was okay, it was acouple hundred thousand buys. It wasn't
a blow away number, it wasn'thalf a million. It wasn't like the
Invasion. Pay per view wasn't likea WrestleMania. In fact, I think

(01:43:59):
Summers probably beat it that year,as it normally would, and it was
just one of those where in ourbubble it felt so big. Now,
I think the shock waves of ithave been felt for a long time,
where it was kind of the validationof what ECW was. Plus it was
the validation of the idea that therewas something outside of WWE that people want
to embrace and that they want tolove, and they enjoyed seeing a different
style and a different idea at thetime, and so that's that's always the

(01:44:23):
one bouncing around in my head isto say ECW One night Stand was really
exciting. Money in the Bank withSam punkin Sina that was really exciting,
And there's those moments that you cancapitalize on, you can build and it
feels like a moment at the time, but it is always possible to overstate
the economic value of it, butthe cultural value can be through the roof
and Zack, Yeah, I'm goingwith I think this type of show and

(01:44:47):
I think all in I think itneeds it needs Cody and the Bucks.
Like you're throwing out like as you'rethrowing out Christopher Daniels, I mean,
gosh, I have loved watching thatguy. He's putting on some great MA
matches, but he just doesn't havethe flare, the look, the star
power that those other guys have.So if if they're at the Helm and

(01:45:08):
they're out there and they decide,hey, we're going to do this show
again, I think absolutely it canbe successful. But you take those guys
out and it loses, it losessome of its luster. I think what
will remain if if WWE signs themand all into never happens. I think
what remains from this show is numberone, just the environment that happened over

(01:45:31):
the weekend and the just all thesewrestling fantasies to sending on Chicago and having
a good time and appreciating what prowrestling is. And then you also get
different business elements like new media,promoting storylines digitally. I mean, I
think a lot of people there's alot of parts of what Cody and the
Young Bucks did to promote this showthat will last forever in the analysm of

(01:45:55):
pro wrestling. But as far asjust somebody else running all in, I
just if I have to pick,I'm gonna say nope, because it just
was so synonymous with the Cody andthe Young Bucks brand that I'm not sure
it could stand or anybody would wantit to stand on something else. Yeah,
And I don't want to get tootied down on just Christopher Daniels,

(01:46:15):
like I would see him more asa behind the scenes guy running things.
Yeah. But but at the sametime, even if you qualify that is
he's been around forever and he wouldbe just going, Okay, here's something
that I've done. I've been aroundfor all this stuff. The first star
waits and show and I know howthis has done, and he gets something,
but he'd need to link up withand all ego Ethan Page, somebody's
really social media driven or a TrevorLee who is you know yet to really

(01:46:39):
manifest uh with with the larger YouTubeand social media audience what he could be
and MJF if I just said himor like Joey Janelle, a couple of
people who are satellite characters on beingthe elite and fans go, okay,
this is like a second season ofwhat Manifested at all in And I'm for
that because for people who thank canyou mentioned this like an hour ago,

(01:47:00):
Chris, this idea that Cody andKenny in the Bucks would be like a
sellout or they would never go toWWE. I did interview with Jerry Lawler
back in the day before he evercollected a paycheck from a physic man,
and there's nobody who was more criticalof vincec Man and seemed less likely to
ever want to even be in thesame room with him than Jerry Lawler.
Fast forward a year or two later, same with Jim Cornett, and Jim

(01:47:23):
Cornett ran Smokey Mount Wrestling as ananti ww A pro WWF product, and
then he ended up bringing in WWFFtalent to try to pop crowds, and
then he ended up working for them. And Jerry Lawler, of course we
know him, he's one of thelongest tenured employees of that company. And
Paul Hayman collecting getting paid by WWEwhile he was disparaging WWE or WWF at
the time on his TV. Ithappens, and the reason it happens is

(01:47:45):
usually a lack of success with whatthey're doing at that time. Over time,
especially that was a case of Cornettor Jerry Lawler, the other options
kind of falling apart and also raisingyour value to the point, which was
sort of the case with Paul Haymanwhere they just want your talent and they
want to utilize you in front ona larger platform, in front of a

(01:48:05):
larger audience. So this it isnot unlikely that Cody Kenny in the Bucks
will sign with WWE, or Ishould say it's not unfathomable. Of course,
I don't know percentage wise where weput it. I think the speech
at the end of all in Chrisit ended on a positive note for fans
without going so far as promising anything. Yeah, and I think it's heartfelt.

(01:48:28):
I absolutely think it's heartfelt that theseguys want to create a different vision
of professional wrestling. And there's alwaysthat element of you know, if you're
called upon to do public service,what is your choice going to be?
Would you rather be in it orout of it? If you believe that
you can transform something, and everybodytakes that kind of responsibility different and so

(01:48:48):
you could see people thinking if Iwent to WWE, I could transform it,
I could influence it, could Icould be on a bigger stage.
Plus I get to work with allthese people. The one thing I've always
said over and over again is oneof the reasons WWE wants Brian Daniels and
is so that every other promotion inthe world says, Wow, I wish
I could work with Brian Danielson.I better make a deal with WWE.

(01:49:10):
You know, I want to gothere and want to work with there.
And so there's a value too thatyou put those people in a room and
other smart, interesting people want tocome there, and sometimes those smart and
interesting people are not going to beavailable outside of that system, and so
at a certain point, the Bucksmight really say, I want to work
with some of the best tech teamsin the world, and you know what,
WWE is going to be the onethat's going to be able to get

(01:49:30):
all the resources together to put themin the ring with me in the future.
You don't have to wait for theweight Keller pro Wressling post show to
find out what I thought of MondayNight Raw and SmackDown. Each week,
you can check out my reports thatare updated live throughout Raw and SmackDown at
pewtorch dot com. My written reportwe'll tell you what's happening in detail in

(01:49:53):
case you missed the show, andit will also analyze key segments and give
my random thoughts end quips on whatI'm wat chain as it airs, so
check it out every Monday night andTuesday night at pewtorch dot com. That
also applies to WWE pay per views. I cover those live at pwtorch dot
com with a detailed written report withstar ratings, and of course you can

(01:50:13):
find other TV reports from other contributorsto PW trks such as NXT, ROAH,
Impact Wrestling, and more. Checkit out pwtorch dot com your first
stop four TV and pay per viewwritten reports. Okay, I've got to

(01:50:40):
pick up. I've got four thingsI want to talk about here on my
notes from just what we talked about. What do you think wwwe's response to
this is going to be, ifanything, I'll Chris on this one.
I'll start with you. I thinkif there becomes a true version of global
localization, where you have NXT beingdriven by different territories around the world,

(01:51:00):
one in South America, one inIndia, one in North America, one
in Europe, probably in the UnitedKingdom, there's a possibility we would actually
see differing wrestling visions being evolved ineach of these areas, and I could
see, you know, the embracingof the idea that there's a different wrestling
culture and identity that can be ina region and being expressed through a quote

(01:51:25):
unquote WWE product, but really throughthe wrestlers that are there, and also
through the trainers and things. Andin some ways, a group of two
people cannot control five territories, andso just by the fact it would spread
out, there's different visions that willstart to come out. And my hope
would be that the success of somethinglike an all in would say this is
a highbred wrestling style. It isexciting, and just in the same way

(01:51:46):
that we saw a shoot fighting crazekind of ripped through ripped through all of
pro wrestling in the nineties, Icould see that this kind of highbred spot
fest style rips through wrestling and involved. So that's one of the big legacies
of it. In terms of whatis a lesson for WWE. I think
for them it's going to be lockup those ten thousand seat buildings every time

(01:52:09):
you go to a major area justthe way you have been unless you're willing
to take it. And then alsorealize that some of your competitors are getting
these big corporate backers that aren't goingto blink and they're not as scared of
your legal threats. The last oneis I really do think at some point
WWE is going to have to reevaluatetheir independent contract or situation where they're gonna

(01:52:30):
have to say we're going to payfor hotels, we're going to pay for
your food, we're gonna pay foryour travel, so that we're able to
get the best talent and lure themto us. Is that we can no
longer operate in this idea of sayingwe'll just take it if you want it,
otherwise it is the best we're goingto give, where they're actually gonna
have to elevate what they're giving themto make a better quality of life because

(01:52:50):
there is a surprising amount of competitionright now for this talent. So all
in kind of proved to people,hey, we are marquee talent. If
you want us, you've got tomake our quality of life better. And
that is something that ww has alwaysstruggled with when they started handing out the
first one million dollars downside contracts,when they started handing out the limited dates
contracts. But what we've seen overand over again from the Brons, from

(01:53:11):
the Goldbirds, from the Rhonda Rouseys, from from all these people is that
if ww wants you, they'll goout and spend for it, and at
the same time they'll make they'll makecapitulations, they'll make terms that normally you
think they never would make. Soanything is possible really in this new world,
as long as someone, hopefully inthe upper echelons of WWE, is
actually paying attention and trying to readinto this. What I fear it's going

(01:53:32):
to turn into is that they're goingto just start launching their own terrible conferences
for wrestling and the next thing youknow, Buff Bagwell is running away with
mcmanbuck somewhere. One more w tB item for you, Chris, and
then Zach you cover all that too. Does ww WE have to be careful
about not looking like they're against thatthey're the enemy of the fans who embrace

(01:53:56):
that, embraced all in and beingthe elite or is that not their DNA
to worry about that, And maybethey're too big to have to worry about
that, because if it looks likethey're the bad guys, I think the
through social media and YouTube and digitalmedia, there's that's going to hurt them.
Like I don't think there's an economicreason for them to seem like the
bad guy in this situation. Yourthoughts, No, No, I think

(01:54:18):
I think they'll just tell their talent. It will be most interesting to see
if they ever put a muzzle onthe talent when they say, you know,
I don't want you tweeting about this, I don't want you talking about
this. That's that's usually the bestsign about what is WWE really signaling to
their guys. The flip of it'sgoing to be also, they're going to
try to launch a tiered network atsome point, and it's going to be
aimed towards getting more dollars of thehardcore ww the hardcore wrestling fan, and

(01:54:42):
that's going to put a more indirect competition with the people that are supporting
Ring of Honors and New Japan andother pro wrestling streaming services. And so
that's going to be the really interestingthing to me is what are they going
to put on that tier and whatare the specials that they're going to do
with that kind of tier where they'regoing to say, basically, this is
the subsection of the subsection of thesubsection of the super fan that we're trying

(01:55:03):
to target the hardcore wrestling fan thatwhat are they going to do to compete
for that person's money, And willwe see them bring out the clause at
that point or not? Or willwe see them kind of trying to cheaply
imitate what they're seeing on the indyscene here. Will they have their own
kind of knockoff being the elite,you know, uh having the premier or
something like that as a YouTube series. Zack, Yeah. I think the

(01:55:29):
one big takeaway and I think thekey place that WWE is going to move
in response for the success of AllIn is if I'm them, and I
think they might just be they're headingthis way anyway, But if I'm then
I increase my efforts in terms ofinquiring new talent. I mean, nobody
has the reach and the depth ofresources that WWE does to go out and

(01:55:51):
find and acquire the best talent that'sthat's on the plant. If they do
that, they nip the young cominginto prominent fashion as stars in the butt
and they have them under their umbrellawhere they have control over them and they
can you know, teach them theirstyle, they can give them uh some

(01:56:12):
bigger money earlier in their careers sothey don't have to worry about, you
know, going from indie show toindie show in front of a couple hundred
people and collecting envelopes of cash.I think a big an important answer for
them to this is, Okay,we have the ability now to reach out
and find the best out there,and if we do that, that that's

(01:56:32):
gonna make it difficult for something likeall In to take place because it was
built on the backs of talented independentstars and if those stars are under the
control of WWE, whether it's onRaw, on SmackDown or just in h
WW developmental, that's gonna be abig feather in their cap to say,

(01:56:54):
yeah, Okay, good luck outthere. You know, we've we've got
the talent here. As far asbeing the bad guy, that's that's really
interesting to think about because there's uhvast majority of of WWW fans I think
really didn't know that that Allen washappening this weekend. And I think that's
important to remember too that to alot of people, w w E isn't

(01:57:14):
necessarily the bad guy. Like Iwatch the Sunday pay per views with a
batch of casual friends and family,and none of them had any idea that
that that Allen was a thing thathad no idea what I was talking about,
and they just asked, you know, hey, is John seen is
going to be there? You know, there's there's there's that part of the
audience out there that's just not gonnalook at w w G the way that

(01:57:40):
all in audience did. And soI'm not sure that they'll be seen as
as bad guys at all outside ofthe fans that already do. And and
I just want to say I've Imade this prediction before people thought I was
ridiculous for it, But I thinkthey will come a day where we're going
to see a John Cena on ashow like this, maybe not necessarily rest
but maybe doing more like a Jerichotype appearance, just because I think that's

(01:58:03):
the way that WWE will try tokind of suck a little bit of that
cache into themselves. And at thesame time, I think it hits right
at the root of it is asmany people stay, you know, those
people raise their hand to say they'rea WWE fan, and you will see
people badmouth WWE until those lights gooff and the Undertaker's music hits, and
then they mark out like everyone else. So you know, I do think

(01:58:25):
that at some point we're going tosee that weird confluence of like a John
Cena at an all in type event. I was wondering, and I wasn't
willing to put any money down onit, but of Kevin Owens showing up
because he quit Raw, you know, he quit on Raw, and I
was like, well, you know, that's kind of out of nowhere,
but maybe they want WC is alittle synergy, a little tip of the
hat to the fans, going,hey, we're not the enemy here.

(01:58:45):
We sent Ko in for a runin or an appearance. It fits their
storyline. It helps It's kind ofthe pilmanesque thing. It helps sell the
idea that he really did quit,and so it was a little one handwashing
the other. It didn't happen,and most people kind of scoffed at the
notion that wwwe would be big enoughfor been minded enough to think in that
way. But yeah, I don'tthink you can can rule that out.
I thought it was noteworthy. Therewere no CM punk chants and it was

(01:59:08):
in chicag Or were there that Imissed? Yeah, do you remember any
Zachar Chris? I don't remember any, but that is that is a good
point, and it's it's an interestingthat I didn't even I've been in so
many arenas in Chicago and were inwhich that chant is chanted, and it
didn't cross my mind that you wouldeven happen. I think that that says
something about the event. Every Sundaynight, catch Wrestling Night in America on

(01:59:32):
pwtorch Dailycast dot Com, hosted byme pwtrch columnist Gregg Parks. Each week,
I'll welcome a co host from theTorch family to discuss the big shows
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(01:59:54):
is available for download on demand anytimeshortly after it airs. Visit pwtrch dailycast
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Night in America every Sunday PW torchDailycast dot Com. It isn't. I

(02:00:23):
don't. Yeah, well, Idon't know if it was because they got
his Phil they people actually got tosee Phil for once, you know,
or what it was, but afew hundred exactly, I don't know.
I think they at least played veryheavily into the idea of saying, this
is not going to happen, Pleasedo not expect this to happen. And
you know, to a very smallamount. Again, this is the one

(02:00:43):
percent of the one percent of theone percent who understand that that CM Punk
and Cult Cabana and quite a lawsuitwith each other right now. So the
idea that both of them would beon this card would seem like, you
know, the Midi's PiZZ Summit wouldbe simpler. Absolutely did did seem Punk's
Pipe Bomber. Is that the genesisof what we saw this weekend or not
at all, Chris, It's it'san element in it, for sure.

(02:01:08):
You heard from a lot of people. They said to me, I got
back into wrestling because CM punk wason my television screen. I heard that
at the Observer Q and A somebodystraight up just said that. And you
know the fact that we were ata in Chicago. It was not lost
that Colt Cabana and CM punk areChicago guys, and you know, to
a long time ago. I thinkDaniels was a Chicago guy, even with

(02:01:31):
Windy City and whatnot. So Ithink there was those elements of yeah,
it's certainly a thread of this wholething. But even still, once you're
getting five years out from something,people are coming along and experiencing this and
they don't know that history, theydon't have that connection necessarily. So I
do think there was a lot offans there that were not connected to a
CM punk type storyline, because thepipe bomb promo, as big as it

(02:01:55):
was to me, was the culminationof the last ten years that came before
it, of everyoneizing his career,going all the way through the Indies,
all the way through Ring of Honor, all the way into WWE, and
then getting to the top of themountain, whereas you know, there's a
new group of people they're seeing it. This is this is that ascent right
now for the young Bucks type peoplewhere they're watching it, they're in the
middle of it, and so itis. You know, there's always going

(02:02:16):
to be some element of it,But yeah, you can't be in a
crowd this big. If you wereif you were to ask how many of
your WWE fans put up their hands, how many of you owned see them
punk gear of some sort, ninetypercent of those people probably would have kept
their hands up. I think ifyou would have said two three years ago,
there's going to be an independent eventin Chicago that dress ten thousand people,
and you would have said, seethem punk isn't on the show,
nobody would believe you. And ifyou would say, no one will even

(02:02:39):
chant see them punk, even fewerwould you know, Well, I don't
know if you could be fewer thanno one, but fewer than no one
would believe you it is. Andit hit me. I think it was
the next day on Sunday, Iwas like, I can't believe it.
Like I was even more surprised bythat, as way more surprised by that
than like there weren't Roman sucks chantsbecause that's sort of the universal, you
know, anti debit TOV thing rightnow. And the families played they played

(02:03:00):
punk music before the show, andyou have to think that they said to
them, do not turn on LivingColor. You will you will cause a
riot in this arena if you turnit on, then the crowd will turn
on us. So if they ifthey played it and then Billy Ray came
out, I think he he mightget shot. Yes, Okay, what's
We've touched on it a little bit, but I want to just take a

(02:03:21):
moment for each of us focus onROH and and what they have. The
Sinclair money and syndicated television, payper view, a pay streaming network,
all the infrastructure. Is there.A lot of the talent on the show
was there, Matt, the producersagents for the matches were ROH guys.

(02:03:44):
The take Champs opened up the show. The ROH World title was defended.
Why are we talking? Why arewe talking about all in and oh,
maybe you know I'm fabricating a magicconnecting Joey Janella and Christopher Daniels and Trevor
Lee just making stuff up. ROHis right there with a brand and in
the hist story and you go allthe way back to the first show,
Chris, why are we talking moreabout? This? Should be inspiration for
them to take things finally to thenext level. I remember talking to Joe

(02:04:08):
Coff a few years ago in OurWay show and He's like, now we're
happy running our you know, fiftyfive events a year or whatever the number
was he said, And you knowit will vary a little bit from that,
but you know, we're just we'dlike being at this level. And
doesn't this show that if you dothings right, you can get to another
level, or doesn't it is allin Actually the success of it quite separate,
and it shouldn't our weight shouldn't lookat that as a sign that they

(02:04:31):
should have grown faster. Well,I think I think there's three faces there,
right. There's the face they showpublicly, in the face they show
privately, in the face they showonly to themselves when they're they're in their
room. And so they're gonna actvery differently. I you know, we
say they have Sinclair's money. Whatthey have is they have Sinclair's budget,
which means Sinclair is not opening upthe first strings and saying spend what you

(02:04:53):
need to spend to be big.They're saying, this is how much I
want you to spend a year,and this is the level at which I
expect you to operate, and youhave to make that work. And when
they lost their their merger bid here, I think it took some wind out
of the sales because I think alot of people thought, Oh, when
we get Tribune and Sinclaire together,we're gonna have no problem getting this TV
deal done. And now I thinkthere's just a little bit of confusion with

(02:05:15):
the Sinclair people realizing like, Wow, how did they mess it up so
bad? And if you really gointo the mock nations of that lawsuit,
you see that there was unbelievable justconfidence and false confidence on their part that
they could do whatever they wanted andthey would still get approved by the FCC,
and ultimately it burned them. Andso I think a ring of honor
just kind of feels like they're they'relike a kid with mommy and daddy fighting,

(02:05:39):
where they don't really know how topacify the big corporate behemoth that they're
part of, and the corporate behemithis not really paying them a lot of
attention or giving them direction in acertain way, so all they know to
do is just kind of keeping on, keeping on, And so they're really
they're they're they're in a real identitycrisis when you really think about it.
And I think that's what this showreally highlighted to people is the very best

(02:06:00):
they could do is bring out theirworld champion who did the impression of somebody
else from the WWF from thirty yearsago. Yeah, Yeah, I think
this is a pivotal, pivotal momentfor for for ring of honor, because
right now, on a on asilver platter, they have essentially a proof
of concept of what of what couldbe. You know, you have access

(02:06:21):
to this talent, You have accessto code, do you have access to
the bucks, You have access totheir brains in terms of their their creative
and their ideas and their vision.And I think to keep them and to
keep them not only from a monetarystandpoint, but from a being satisfied creatively
standpoint. You know, now isthe time to put their tips on the

(02:06:43):
table and decide what kind of whatkind of company they want to be moving
forward, because they're going to haveto if they're if they truly want to
to keep their access and their relationshipwith mainly those those three stars, and
and that proof of concept is notgoing to be more in the lights and

(02:07:04):
with singing more praise than it isright now. And if they're not looking
at that and deciding right now whatkind of company they want to be and
how they want to to monetize thatand how they want to move forward based
off of the success of the show. They're doing themselves a huge disservice and
one that could in fact eliminate therelationship with Cody in the Bucks and that
that's something that I'm not sure theywant to do at this point. Zach,

(02:07:28):
what is the What did this dofor the n WA brand and the
nw A title and Billy Corgan andDave Lagana they're also I didn't see Billy
Corgan this weekend, but I sawDave Laghana and the n WA title was
overshadow the ROH Championship. Is thismore about the end of THEA title than
the n WA organization or DC Then WA maybe parlaying this or using this

(02:07:50):
as a launching point to do somethingthat's the next phase of their vision,
But definitely, I definitely think it'sIt's a lot like my commentary, Ring
of Honor applies here, just ina more favorable way. I mean,
you have the NWA title this weekendand on Saturday Night was more prevalent and
more talked about it than has beenin years, even though it's still been

(02:08:13):
out there and being defended in variousways. And I think this storyline,
in particular Cody getting that belt andCody winning the championship, like, that's
the kind of story that it neededto kind of pull it out of out
of the asses and into the intothe light again. And Alice is the
matter of do they have a planin place to capitalize on that? You

(02:08:35):
know, where where do they gofrom here? Because they told this story
already, you know, they havethe belt, everybody, everybody's like,
oh, yeah, there's there's theNWA championship. That's that's interesting. But
now they have to be ready withwith with the follow up because the follow
up is bad. I think it'llfade quickly. But if they So,
that's that's the October twenty feet showat the Nashville Fairgrounds, right is that?

(02:08:56):
Is that the next? Is thatthe next one? I'm not sure?
Yeah, that's there's seventieth anniversary showthere yet, so yeah, so
yeah, I mean you go andexactly, I think that's the biggest question
is do you even leave the belton on Cody with that kind of uncertainty
there, or do you move itto your next person after Nick? Or
do you go back to Nick?Or or what? Right? Right?

(02:09:16):
And I just I just I justthink that, yeah, that that follow
up and that having that show comingoff the heels of this is I'm sure
not a happy accident. I'm surethat that's been thought through, but but
yeah, I just think from thishere just NWA Championship perspective and just looking
at it like that, that beingable to walk around star Cast and see

(02:09:37):
see the belt and talk to somepeople who were who had had a history
books in front of them, andthen to then see the belt kind of
like be reborn with Cody on theshow. It really they hit a home
run this weekend. Not to mentionthe video content that they put out not
just over the weekend, but inthe week's leading up to the match,
it's been really on points emotion anown, dramatic and interesting to watch.

(02:10:01):
So I thought they hit a homerun, and I thought it's it's it's
they're hot, and hopefully they canthey can take advantage of that hotness and
then continue to move forward. Oneway that you can help us sustain our
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(02:10:24):
rating. We hope you think we'veearned that score with our fast turnaround times
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And if you want, you canadd a few comments about what you like
about the programs in the comments section. Thank you so much, Chris.

(02:10:52):
Yeah, I considered dave A afriend and so it was really exciting for
me to see someone who I knowhas really poured himself into getting success for
this project and see it culminate.And I think, you know, just
like like any good you know storythat you tell and you finally get to
tell it for a big crowd.It's cathartic and at the same time it's

(02:11:15):
draining. And so what is goingto be the big question is you know,
I like I just said the NWAthing. I think it was a
great footnote for this and they needto figure out the way to capitalize on
it because I know there's the seventiethanniversary show that's going to be on Fight
on October twenty one, but Idon't know if a lot of people do.
And so we got to figure outhow do you calibrate it. And
just like Vince's model was always,I don't want to promote three different things

(02:11:37):
because I'm just promoting the next thing. So that's going to be the one
I want to focus on. Youdon't want to overhype your big thing.
But now we're about six weeks away, and that's going to be a real
turning point here because there is anunholy alliance between the NWA side of things
and the all inside of things isone is the oldest of the old wrestling
brand and one is the newest ofthe new spotfest And so you know when

(02:12:00):
you're when you're gonna say, I'mgonna cut this in half and then I'm
going to take this half over.Here, you are trying to appeal to
a slightly different group of people.And so hopefully this exposed people and interest
people. But the biggest thing aboutmarketing is can you contact those people again?
I came home from Starcast and therewas a pause Chicago Magazine with Billy
Corgan at my house. I haveno idea how that happens because I didn't

(02:12:24):
buy a sarcast ticket. I guessthe hotel had my address, but I
didn't buy even my all in ticketdirectly from them, so I have no
clue how they got my address andsend it to me. But I thought
that was really interesting, so tome, marketing, marketing, marketing,
that's the big lesson of this.And I'll tell you this, a lot
of wrestlers are terrible marketers, anda lot of people who think they're good
marketers aren't, And so there's alwayssomething more we can learn from marketing.

(02:12:46):
And the best thing to do isnot just look at your own domain,
but it spent a lot of timethinking about how are people marketing themselves on
Twitch, how are they doing iton YouTube? How are they doing it
on traditional CpG marketing, whatever itis. There's a lot of marketing lessons
left to be learned for all thesepromoters here in my final topic, and
you let into it, well,Chris is just starcast, and we focused

(02:13:07):
so much more on all In thanStarcast in the convention, But how does
this fit in now? Going forwardto the wrestling landscape, everything that you
said about marketing the synergy between thetwo events, the overlap and the separation,
is there inevitably going to be astarcast type event. And how do
you Chris grade the job that Conraddid based on what it started out as

(02:13:31):
and what it became and how itwas executed well? And I give a
lot of credit to the wrestle conpeople who I think, really we're pioneering
this whole model for years and years. WrestleMania is here of kind of proving
that you can draw money, Youcan make people, you know, excited
by giving them a hotel, givingthem access in that hotel to conference space,

(02:13:52):
and then you can fill that withsome kind of wrestling nostalgia, and
on top of that, you cangive us some kind of wrestling indie wrestling
component. I think for a Carneyevent, which is what any wrestling convention
is, it did quite well.I would give it a be I was
really confused by some of the stuffthat was going on. I tried to
go to a vendor room so Icould literally buy something, and I was
told I need a wrist band togo into a vendor room. And that

(02:14:15):
made no sense to me. WhyI should have to buy something to go
buy something. So there's elements likethat that were a little weird to me,
but overall, it was exciting tobe. It was the place to
be. I don't think you'd beable to have created as much buzz for
this entire event had you not hada centralized point for people to hang out
for for several days, I thinkI saw people overwhelmed left and right,

(02:14:37):
and that's just indicative of anything,you know. I was over at the
Podcast Movement stage talking to one ofthe corners there and Dan told me,
he's like, Oh, they're gonnabring a table over. I went to
lunch. I came back and there'sfour tables that had been set up,
one next to another. I've neverordered a table, but they keep bringing
them to me, and it wasjust that was indicative, and honestly,
if that's the worst thing that happens, that's a wonderful playing. I went

(02:15:00):
to the Starcasse Hotel on Sunday night, and I joked you could have renamed
it the Overlook because it was soempty. It was eerie just because it
was. It was frightening to bethere, just because it was just so
dead so quickly, and so Iwas amazed at being there at the time,
and I think it's really cool becausewe need that kind of centralized point

(02:15:22):
for people to get excited and kindof feed off each other and give themselves
something to do when there's not awrestling event happening. I do worry though
about you know, sometimes there's alittle bit too much of a marriage between
someone who's promoting their gimmick, promotingtheir podcasts, promoting their stars from their
podcasts, who you know are goingto be working everybody in that room,
and then also being the promoter therebecause you're wearing a lot of different hats,

(02:15:43):
and it's very hard to take someonelike that seriously always when they're in
that that sort of situation. SoI do think some of that independence may
someday even be embraced more than evenresented. We could do a whole show.
I could do a whole show talkingabout the history of wrestling conventions,
you know, even predating Johanna Rezziand what John A. Rezzi did.
He was on Twitter going I wasthe first come on, you know,

(02:16:05):
somebody mentioned He's like, yes,I didn't make I didn't make money,
but I was very ambitious and heneeded an incredible job and it's we're going
on thirty years ago that that happenedalmost more than twenty five. And even
before that, the WFIA, theWrestling Fan International Association, I think it's
what was called a w FA,and you know, there was a wrestling
fan club running events, but therewere informal gatherings during the early pay per

(02:16:28):
view years I had. I traveledthe country for a few years and it
was like Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, and there was always a meeting place
with a hardcore fans, the preinternet newsletter reading fans. We'd all coordinate,
figure out, this is the hotelwe're staying at at the Omni in
Atlanta or where you know, whereverwhere at the Omni and Baltimore, I
should say the Omni Hotel, andthat's what we're going to meet. And

(02:16:50):
there were really cool conventions of fansthere and then it just grew and became
at a scale that I've never seenbefore. Was starcast, So it was
pretty good. Zach, you're you'reyou're great in your evaluation, uh good
and bad? What critique do youhave for it? And and what what
stood out as a positive for howthat went? The positives for me were
in two things. One the justthe access to to the various wrestlers and

(02:17:16):
asks that they had booked there.Like I I said on Twitter and commented
to you when when when we metover the weekend that when I opened the
door to the hotel, I didn'teven open it. Adam Page opened it
for me. He had no shoeson, and he said, hey,
welcome to Star Cast. Like,that's awesome. It was. It was
awesome and and and and it didn'tend there, you know it. You

(02:17:37):
walked on through and there's there's BillyGunn, and there's Cody, and there's
there's the Young Bucks. So Ifelt that's just that the accessibility to those
guys and everybody else who was therewas really was really something else and and
and impressive in a lot of ways. The other positive that I took away
was I thought they had some reallycreative seminars. You know, the four

(02:17:58):
Star Stummit obviously, but they thethe the TV show premiere that they did
was with Bruiser Brody. That wasa really cool segment. I thought,
Uh, the Vice documentary, Yeah, the Vice Documentary, I'm sorry,
yeah, not that it is atelevin show, but yes, the Vice
documentary, not contradicting, just brandingcorrect correct. Yes, the Vice documentary

(02:18:22):
that that was really cool and beingable to sit through a Q and A
with with the creators was was wasinsightful And and then then you know that
it's a more serious end of thespectrum. But then you know later that
night you got a bunch of peoplejust drinking beer, roasting Bruce Pritchard,
and that was what it was,but entertaining in its own way. So
I thought they really had a good, uh you know, range of different

(02:18:46):
genres and different topics of of ofpanels and stuff that you could go to.
I don't think they could have priced. But what did you hear anybody
giving feedback about the price that theywere charging online for people to watch.
I haven't heard feedback on ida.It was quite a lot. It was
like a hundred bucks or four daysof content. I think their kind of

(02:19:09):
pitch was, you know, twentyfive dollars a day. I think is
sort of the idea of it.I mean, I'm not defending, I'm
just saying I know in the market, I remember hearing it's like because I
saw something on Twitter, someone said, God, that's a lot it's like,
well, this isn't just three hours, this is four days. Yeah,
absolutely, it's It's just it's oneof those worlds where you know,
everyone's been taught all information should befree, and it should be on YouTube,
and you know, maybe it'll betwo ninety nine, or maybe it'll

(02:19:31):
be the Logan Paul fight, it'llbe nine in a box or whatever.
But like one hundred bucks is ais a big nut for people to swallow,
which is ironic since we're so usedto buying pay per views, and
pay per views were still being sold. But it's just that's the one element
that I think that that I feellike was still a little creaky. That's
that seemed less friendly than the tone. I mean, this was obviously a
money making venture, and Conrad isIs is not at all ashamed of of

(02:19:52):
being a businessman who's who's seeking profitand and distributing it to people who need
to make money in order to flyout there and be there. And obviously
having branded having every hotel employee anda different colored Starcast t sher to indicate
their role in making your weekend better, and having hotel keys branded with star
Cast, and the restaurant menu changedto all wrestler names on the menu,

(02:20:16):
and I mean it was just everywhereyou turned the wrestling video games so old
ladies wrestling video games were brought intothe elevator lobby, the hotel. I
thought people were exaggerating when they said, oh, the hotel is gonna be
taken over by Starcast. But itwas a lot of those aspects you would
have picked up on from one hundreddollar pay per view fee. That's something
you had to kind of be thereto experience. So I think, yeah,

(02:20:37):
that fee looks a little less fanfriendly and as Shocks were doing it
for the people than probably some ofthe other even the wristband prices. I
think we would be considered a lotmore reasonable because you're getting it in person,
longing for some nostalgia, or maybeyou want to learn some wrestling history.

(02:21:01):
They'll miss the nineties Past cast.Every Friday on the PW Torch Daily
Cast feed, Alex and Patrick willtransport you thirty years into the past by
taking you through the Torch issue fromthat very week. Follow news from the
WWF and WCW and all the happeningsfrom across the wrestling industry in real time
as the Torch reported it thirty yearsago, that's the nineties past cast every

(02:21:24):
Friday on the PW Torch Daily Castfeed. Yeah, and that was that
was going to comment on the wristbandstoo, is uh. There was some
and this is really the only negativefeedback that I that I heard, was

(02:21:48):
like, right before the ways,there was some uh disagreement, let's say,
over like what the what the clausesaid for the wristbands, because there
was a handful of people in thein the hallway that were that were not
allowed in even though they had platinumand gold wristbands because the building or the

(02:22:09):
room in which the winds were takingplace was at capacity and there you know,
they went back and forth. Whenwe were saying, hey, like
I thought, we had, youknow, guaranteed access to these, they
went back and forth and they weretold, well, you had, you
know, first the first access notguaranteed, but you had to be in
line and not show up twenty fivethirty minutes late, which hard to argue

(02:22:30):
with that. But that was theonly negative that I heard walking through was
was just was just that and forbig events like that, some folks not
being able to get in even thoughtheir ticket I think we said that they
should. Yeah, I think thosefans felt like they were bumped from an
airline where it was implied guaranteed seating. Uh. And I can totally sympathize
with that. If they oversold braceletsand one of the selling points was to

(02:22:52):
be at the way end, that'sthe centerpiece of the weekend for people,
not the Bruce Richard roast for Iprobably most people. And if you bought
a wristband for that and you gotturned away, but you paid a premium
price for that, I think that'ssomething that you wouldn't conrad. If he
does a skin, we'll want toclean up and make sure that is clear.
And I agree, and they werenice about it. But though in
terms of talking to him, Ithink they talked to everybody through it.

(02:23:15):
I think there's a lot of recognitionthat huh, yeah, this was probably
a little muddy, but and somethingto clean up next time. But it
wasn't a fight by any means,but just people voicing there they're concerned about,
Hey, I want to be inthere and I paid for it and
I'm out here, and just always, always the uneasy relationship between media analyst,
journalist, pundit personality and what itis means when you lend your brand

(02:23:43):
to be part of someone else's largerstructure. And so there was always I
did hear from people saying, well, you know, I was approached to
come and be at Starcast, butthen they wanted money from me. And
I thought, well, I'm bringingmy fan base and you're you know,
I'm giving you something by coming here, and you still want something from me.
And I can understand both sides ofwhy you choose to do it that

(02:24:05):
way, but it's just always veryuneasy when then, you know, you
get into this thing of oh,well, I'm a media organization. Well
I'm a podcast, I'm a website, I'm a whatever. And that's still
a very uneasy place for all ofwrestling right now. Is that we struggle
a lot with those definitions of whatdoes it mean to be a media type
organization in a professional wrestling setting thatwe're covering things but injecting our own opinions

(02:24:30):
and at the same time trying tomake a business or make a life out
of it for many people here.Yeah, and when you think about the
launching point for star Cast, itwas the word cast is podcast. I
mean, this was supposed to bea podcast convention, and it just got
so successful so fast, and therewas so much interest and vendors wanted to
be part of it, and thenall ins like what can we do our

(02:24:50):
way in there or vice versa.Conrad invited them. I'm not sure who
said who initiated it, so itturned into more than that. But initially
it's like, let's I don't thinkConrad and visioned at being anything near what
it turned out to be. Whenthe initial you know, the biggest podcast
brands were like, yeah, let'sall come together and invite and invite people
who listen to our show to seeus do our podcasts in person. And

(02:25:13):
then it ended up evolving into somethingmore than that, and then there was
so much demand for so many podcastswanted to be part of it. Then
you had podcast row. You know, I don't know, ten twelve tables
in a row with all kinds ofwrestling podcasters sitting at tables and being able
to record and say they were there. But the logistics of letting that all
happen or making that possible led towell, yeah, you know, we're

(02:25:35):
opening this up to everybody, butyou have to pay a fee in order
to have this spot, so it'snot cast. I can understand someone going,
but I'm going to advertise it.You know, let me have that
table for free. And that's thestuff that Conrad on a first event has
to kind of work through. Ihaven't talked to him yet about it what
he would do differently, but I'mcurious if if there is another one and
he has not opened it up selfup to saying there will be, then

(02:25:56):
you know, what would you dodifferent based on me through this the first
time food I think ODB was thewinner of the marketing aspect of people might
not know this. She opened afood truck up front in front of the
hotel. Was that was incredibly popular, and I think that was probably the
only other thing that I thought isthat there was probably more demand for for

(02:26:16):
things to eat or ways to getfood, oh beyond the hotel staffing there.
For Fortunately, right across the streetwas I'm told the second largest mall
in America with satellite, uh youknow, strip malls with a really good
selection of restaurants and so so thathelped, and that helped me because the
food selection at Odb's truck does notmatch up with my diet, so that

(02:26:39):
was not a customer there, butbut Odb's great and it was great that
she was there and there was alwaysa line there. Yeah, there was
a little snack bar basically with rest. Well I should's there was a buffet.
It was like twenty bucks or somethinglike that. But there was a
buffet during meal time that was availablefor patrons of the hotel at all times,
and then a snack a snack barthat where there was always a line,
so it wasn't desolate. I wouldsay my top complaint was bartime.

(02:27:03):
The afterparty ended. The band stoppedat one am, and when you think
about when all in ended and thetraffic jam, and then that it's a
pretty good drive, well, youknow, decent drive fifteen twenty minutes from
the building. By the time theafterparty people got to the afterparty, it
was almost time to shut down.So that should have been open until two
or three, assuming regulations allow forit. And the bar, just the

(02:27:24):
hotel bar, just the stools wereturned upside on on the bar at like
eleven pm or something every night.It just was crazy that you want to
hang out at the hotel bar.So I wanted to thank them for a
drink and I got to them likemaybe ten thirty or something, and they
were trying to basically no one wasthere, and I was just like,
can I get a beer? Andthey're like, well, jeez. So

(02:27:45):
yeah. I mean there's a fewthings that could have led to this,
you know, being an AA plusexperience across the board, and there were
some things that might have been outof his control and out and within it
Conrad's control, in the hotel's control, that could have been done differently.
But yeah, I'm curious if there'san All in two and a star cast
too. Final, final, justshort answer question for you guys. Is
there an All in two? Isthere a star cast? To Chris,

(02:28:07):
Yes, and I predict it happensin Europe. Ah interesting, Zack,
I'm gonna say yes too, anduh, just for the sake of argument,
I'll say it happens somewhere in theStates, and I'm going to be
more specific. I think Chicago.I was talking to people with this.
I think Chicago's a perfect place forit. Of course, because it's driving
distance. For me, that's notthe only reason. It's a it's a

(02:28:28):
great city, and it's a hardcorewrestling fans city. It's centrally located,
and it doesn't have It's not likeOrlando, LA and New York where it's
had as many of these. SoI think from a logistical standpoint and a
proven market standpoint, they come backnow, whether they come back here before
they do something lucrative in Europe thatI can't speak to, but I think
if there's another all in and anotherstart last weekend, it just makes sense

(02:28:52):
to go back to Chicago. It'sa great traffic hub. It totally is,
yes, and and it's just it'sit's it's a wrestling town. I'm
and it's just when you think what'sa wrestling town, Chicago is maybe the
first n city mentioned by a lotof people, and for a good reason,
especially for the crowd, that anall in star cast event attracts plus
pro wrestling teases here and they've corneredthat market absolutely, Zach, Chris,

(02:29:16):
we went along and the anticipated althoughI can't say I'm shocked because there was
so much to dig into, andI think we could do another two hours
and not run out of stuff totalk about. But we will end on
that note. Chris, it wasa huge pleasure finally podcasting with you.
I've admired your work from afar acrosslike Highway ninety four or whatever for for
for quite a few years, andI'm so glad that we were able to

(02:29:39):
say to meet up at the hotel. Then you introduced yourself and we could
make this happen. Zach, itwas great meeting you in person for the
first time, going to TGI Fridaysthe first night and hanging out and being
able to just sit here and converseabout a really special weekend for me.
I've been doing this a long timeand there's I don't know that many weekends
will compete with the total of thispast weekend to Chicago, so to explore

(02:30:01):
it with the artistry of wrestling ZachHaydorn and Wrestlenomics Chris Harrington, it has
been an absolute pleasure. Thanks verymuch. We appreciate it, indeed,
so Wrestlenomics, Wrestlenomics Radio. What'sthe web you orel wrestlenomics dot com or
if you go to the Voices ofWrestling website you can check us out as

(02:30:22):
one of the podcasts there and seethe free show. Awesome. Thank you
Chris, thank you, Zack,Thank you WA thank you. VP sale
Alert. We're running a sale goinginto all in and All out as we
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(02:30:45):
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(02:31:07):
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(02:32:13):
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