5 YRS AGO FLAGSHIP: Keller & Heydorn talk early Reigns-Heyman dynamic, Retribution nonsense, New Japan G1, ROH Pure Tourney, more

Episode Transcript
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(01:51):
the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. Five years ago. This
week on the Plagueship, I was joined by PW Coorch's
Zach Haydorn and we talked about the retribution nonsense on
Raw New Japan's G one first two shows of the
tournament roh Is Pure. It was later that year of

(02:12):
covid roh Is Pure tournament and what it does well
that others could learn from the early performances of the
Roman reigns, Paul Haman combo Otis and the stats of
the money in the Bank, briefcase, aw Dynamite Strong show,
the previous week n XD's Big Wednesday Night, determining challengers
for the men's and women's titles at the next takeover,
and more. Just loaded topics on this episode from five

(02:33):
years ago, still in the midst of COVID at the
beginning of that magical Hayman Roman Reigns journey We're going on.
This originally dropped on September twenty second, twenty twenty and
it is today's Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast five years
Ago Flakeship Flashback for Wednesday, September twenty fourth, twenty twenty five.
All Right, Zach, I am so tempted to start with

(02:55):
picking up where we left off last night on the
Raw Post Show, but I'm going to resist. But we
will get to it. We'll talk about what happened with Retribution,
Raw Underground and whatever whatever that was that that we
watched last night on whatever that was that we watched
last night and USA Network. I want to start here
on our special Tuesday flight ship with the Ring of

(03:17):
Honor Peer Title Tournament r H is back in action
right around the same time as A g One is
starting a few weeks after Thunderdome. It's like there's a
lot going on right now in wrestling, but the RH
Peer Title Tournament is the sharpest, the sharpest change in
tone for a company coming out of the pandemic in
terms of their approach. I like what I've seen so far,

(03:40):
and I think that it has a chance to pull
some people into r o H two who weren't quite
sure what Roh's identity was. And with with aw and
heck even impact on access on a lot of people's radars,
plus access to New Japan and so much other content,
ROH had kind of lost its niche, and I think
there was some skepticism going into reviving the Pure tournament
if it was the right approach to take. You're basically

(04:01):
telling people, hey, watch a wrestling show where it pretends
even harder to be real, but we take away the
high spots in the chicanery, and for a lot of
people that's just as qualifying, and so you have to
do it really, really well, and so far I think
they're actually doing this really really well. The whole presentation,

(04:22):
the setting without fans and pure wrestling works well together.
So I think that was a smart call. Because it's
tough having heels do heel tactics and managers and if
you're not a crowd response, So they've taken away that
awkwardness of not having this absence of crowd response be
as obvious, and then they just do a great job
setting things up. So I want to get your take
on what you've seen at the Pure Tournament so far

(04:42):
and kind of my framing of it.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, I think you're spot on.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
I think you're spot on, and it's been I think
an effective presentation thus far, not only in you know,
in the framework.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Of okay, is this a good show?

Speaker 3 (04:55):
But I also think one of the reasons it's so
it is so effective right now in the wrestling space
is because it's it's different than everything else. Like, it
really is totally different than the other pandemic wrestling products
that we're getting. You know, aw nwwe wall different in
terms of their their booking and strategy. You know, the
look feel with the empty arena, but is there you

(05:17):
got thundered home now, So that adds another layer. New
Japan is running their shows now with the g one
with fans in the building, but they're you know, kind
of just clapping and asked not to not to cheer
or anything like that. So you get you kind of
have all those companies coming back with I don't know,
I'd just say differences, but it's the similar overall feel

(05:38):
to their product. Well of Honor, they stick out with this,
they stick out as something very, very different. And so
if you're looking for a palate cleanser or you're looking
to just watch something that isn't the same as those
other companies, this fills that void. The other thing I
think it does in addition to you know, the matches
themselves feeling different because of the the the peer championship rules,

(06:01):
but man, the video packages on each competitor going into
those matches have just been really effective and telling the
audience who those characters are, why you know, why they
love wrestling so much, why the audience should care. And
I think those videos, more than almost even more than
the masses themselves, are a reason to tune in if

(06:23):
you're a current Ring of Honor fan. But if you're
not a current Ring of Honor fan and you're picking
this up, I mean, by the end of this thing,
you're gonna have like an investment in these characters because
of the backstory that they're that they're providing, and I
think the idea for our OAH is to you know,
hopefully have that carryover, you know, all right, I like
this Dalton Castle guy. You know, pure tournament's over, but man,

(06:46):
he's gonna be on TV on a normal.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Ring of Honor show.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
So I think you're really setting the foundation where you
can get some investment from potential new Ring of Honor
fans on some of these guys, because they're doing such
a good job in talking about that and and and
and showcasing why you should want to pay attention. So
I just think between that and then just the overall
tone and the fact that it is something different that

(07:11):
stands out, and I think Ring of Honor needed that
they didn't want to be, you know, the fifth or
sixth company to return to.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
The table and just be more the same.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
I think this, you know, really puts an emphasis on
something different, something new, and you know, I think fans
knowing that would be are excited to tune in every week.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Uh, the the Mets sidel and delirious vignettes. Uh speak
to what you're talking about in terms of the backstory.
I was there for uh there when they faced each
other in their r OH tryout match, and and I
was backstage when gabes Palski, the arch booker at the time,
was so impressed with them that he said, Hey, can
you guys come with us to it was either with

(07:50):
Milwaukee or Chicago the next night and work again. You're hired.
He was so impressed with their tryout match and their
backstory together. Uh, and the in the way that they
capitalized on that with the old photos of them as
kids and that kind of thing. It speaks to what
you're saying. And I don't want to frame everything in
the context of isn't this way better than what WWE's doing,

(08:13):
But this is a perfect opportunity to mention that Keith
Lee's been on TV for a month on the main roster,
He's defeated Randy Orton, He's been screwed over multiple times
by Orton and retribution. He's in the world title picture.
And I don't get the sense that vincick Mann has

(08:33):
any idea who Keith Lee is or what he's about.
And Vince's in charge of presenting Keith Lee, you know,
I mean, Tony Contake's a very different approach with AW
He gets to know his talent. He really puts thought
into who they are at their core, what personality traits
that are legitimate? Can I amplify it? Used to be
how vincick Mann worked and bright about working, you know,

(08:53):
a couple decades ago with his talent, you know, especially
at times when they weren't just cartoon characters, but some
of the more attitude era TI wrestlers and the ones
who really stood out. And so keith Ley's one example,
Retribution another Daboketo another. There's these wrestlers at Pensicaman is
featuring on television and we don't know anything about him,
and then Roh goes out here and gets you to

(09:14):
care about people instantly, Like you're invested in the tournament
even if you don't know half the names in it,
you're pretty sure as you watch it, you're gonna know
enough about each of the wrestlers in the match, their backstory,
their motivation, they're they're just sort of their attitude and
whether it rubs you the right way or the wrong
way that you know whether you're gonna be rooting for them,

(09:37):
and you know, and one other example, like Ja White
comes out in g One. If you had never seen
Jay White before, if not during his ring entrance within
five minutes out of the match. There's no wrestler in
professional wrestling you want to see fail more than you
want to see him fail because he's so good at
portraying what an obnoxious prick that you just want to
see lose. He's so good at that. So again, ro

(09:57):
oh New Japan's some good examples WWE right now, I mean,
what wrestler do we care more about because of WWE
television exactly.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
I mean that it's it's it's really unfortunate, and I think,
you know, WWE thinks to themselves, Hey, it doesn't matter,
like you know, we'll just put Keith Lee out there.
We'll give them a big win and then people will
will care. And I think, you know, initially with Keith Lee,
they set the hook nicely there, Hey big.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Win over Randy Jordon.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
But then you go nowhere with it and it's it's
they might not feel the effects in.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
The short term here, but but long term with these guys.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
By not setting context or or some sort of direction
for these characters to make the audience care, they're just
gonna see them. Like Vince McMahon sees them now, which
is basically just you know, content providers like go out there,
have a match, have a match, cut a promo. But
if you don't have that hook, if you don't have
that investment to give reason to care, why.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
Should anybody come back?

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Why should somebody like make sure that they tune in
to see a Keith Lee match, or hey, Keith Lee's
finally going to get a potential shot at the title
if he beats through McIntyre, if you don't put any
story or character development around that, or just in his case,
just an introduction of any kind to who he is, like,
you know that that's not going to be a ratings

(11:13):
driver on the business side, like Vince McMahon and ww
ree are hoping for it. You have to have that
investment at some point to make people care. And you know,
compared the Ring of Honor, which is of course on
a smaller scale, you know, you watch, you know it's
an hour long, it's an hour long show. You know,
they've got the two matches and then you've got the
the intro videos introducing these characters, and you know at

(11:36):
the end of those and they're not like super long,
they're what probably five six minutes. Maybe you know, they
do a great job of just painting you know, who
they are as a personality, their history, their history with
their opponent, if it exists.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
I mean, it's just.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
It's a it's a stark contrast in terms of how
to present talent. And you know, like I said, it
might be years down the road where WWBC the residual
issues with this significantly, like on the revenue side of things,
but it does matter and WWE needs to keep their
ratings up and in order to do that, you have

(12:11):
to be able to promote matches and promote stars that
people care about.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
And if you just treat them as.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Arbitrary properties that walk out onto your show with the
logo and a catchphrase and that's it, eventually those returns
are gonna go away.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Period.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
I agree. All right, let's pause, let's introduce ourselves and
flip the table for the show.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Here.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
This is the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast Special Tuesday
Flagship Edition for September twenty second, twenty twenty. This Thursday,
normally our flagship day. We're going to be doing a
Clash of Champions preview episodes, so be sure to hit
refresh and check in for that later this week. But
first things first. PW Torch columnist Zach Haynorn is my
co host today on the program, and we're going to

(12:54):
cover up broad range of topics. We've already mixed in
some ROH and WWE talk and we'll continue hit a
bunch of the hot topics of the week as the
show progresses. Here, Zach, welcome to the flagship co host
share gat.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Thanks for having me. Great, great to be here.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Absolutely, how can not people follow you on Twitter?

Speaker 3 (13:11):
By the way, you guys can follow me on Twitter
at z Haydorn torts h y d O r N Torch.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
It sounds good. You can follow me on Twitter at
the Wade Keller. That's at the Wade Keller and follow
our brand at PW Torch on Twitter that includes links
and alerts to our post shows. Just hosted the Raw
post Show last night with Nick Barbati, our PW torch
dot com SmackDown Hits and Missus columnist, and we analyzed

(13:39):
this show or really kind of ranted, invented vented about
last night's Raw with callers and emailers for an hour
and a half or so. So check that out if
you haven't yet, then I'll be by on Wednesday night
with a Dynamite post show and then Friday night following SmackDown.
You can support us on Patreon and get these with

(14:00):
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(14:23):
to other tiers and receive even more benefits through Patreon.
Let's look at the ROH tournament as a talking point
for another subjecture, which is the way that the structure
and the rules of the matches are clearly defined. And

(14:44):
I contrast that with Tom Phillips on Raw last night saying,
because retribution have been signed the five core members, whoever
they are, we didn't know their five core members, but
that's you know, Newslash. They've been signing contracts. They're allowed
to do anything to anybody at any time. And he
says this like, this is I always been the case
as soon as he signed a WW contract. It's in
writing you can do anything to anyone at any time.

(15:09):
As if that was a problem when they weren't under contract,
they were doing anything to anybody. Because Adam Pearce is
incompetent at hiring security who can keep them out of
the building, Adam Pierce is relieved, at least because he
can't get blamed for them doing anything to anybody at
any time anymore. I was starting to get stretched out
just for him, So I'm glad he can just be like,

(15:32):
all right, now that they're in a contract, they can
do anything to anybody at any time. And I'm repeating
this obnoxiously because Phillips did last night, and I'm making
a point in doing that. But now at least Adam
Pierce can go, Hey, they're in a contract, They're allowed
to do all this stuff. But what about all these
other guys who are part of Retribution. They're not under
contract only the five core people are Are they allowed
to attack everybody? Are we going to hear about fines
and suspensions to them? Are they going to Is Adam

(15:54):
Pierce gonna have to keep everybody but the core five
out of the building. There's no structure, there's no logic.
Roh hey, hughes this first rope break. There's a little
symbol on the screen indicating how far along they are
like the structure and adhering to it. It feels like
they're taking what they're doing seriously, and a big thing

(16:16):
for me and I think for a lot of fans
is whatever you do, make sure that the people who
are executing it seem to respect the audience and that
they're taking what's happening in the ring seriously. That there's
a structure or a lack of structure. There can be
a lack of structure, but embrace it. Don't be hypocrites
and say you have it and then don't have structure.
You know, whatever your rules are, whatever the rules of

(16:38):
engagement are for the company, stick to it, but embrace
it and seem proud of it, and then respect the
audience and how you execute it. And again that jumps
out with what Harwich is doing with the pure tournament
compared to the arbitrariness of how DQ's or no contests
and interference and the ramifications of it are all happening
on Raw Raw feels like it's being booked for the

(16:59):
convenient of where they want to get booking wise, without
regard to precedent or established rules, whereas, again by Star contrast,
for the sake of example, r OH has just done
a really good job explaining here's what the pure wrestling
rules are compared to regular rules, and then as the
match is taking place, you see that they're actually adhering
to them. A big thumbs up to rh in that

(17:20):
regard to and I think that'll pull people in because
they're like, all right, now, I know how this is
supposed to work, and I feel like if I invest
myself in it, I'll be rewarded and not discouraged or
frustrated with how arbitrary the execution of it is.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
It really is.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
I mean, the retribution stuff all throughout has kind of
had you know, me wondering, Okay, what's going to happen
with this?

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Well, where is it going?

Speaker 3 (17:45):
It certainly doesn't look like it's going to be an
act that's going to be main event. It certainly looks
like an act that was just kind of cooked up
in a writer's room and then just kind of tossed
out there without any of that direction that you're talking
about out here. We are, you know, a month or
so into it, and last night really just I mean

(18:05):
that was and an abomination like it really it was insulting.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
It wasn't entertaining.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
I think not only does it drag down you know,
the retribution group, but you know, to me, anybody who
touches that from the other side of things, whether it's
the hurt business, which I think is a whole different
topic and a topic that I talked about on my
on my VIP audio show this week, but Drew McIntyre's there.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
I just because there's such.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
A lack of direction and a lack of any sort
of semblance of a you know, tangible story to follow
with these guys, I really think it drags down the
whole show. When you have so many key pieces of
your show and of the raw roster involved in this
in some form or fashion, the inconsistency with them last night,

(18:54):
it's almost like, I don't know what else to say
about it. It's just it's it's blatantly inconsistent. It looks
like no time was put into it at all. It's
as if a you know, a an eight year old
with a with a video game kind of cooked up
this this uh this group and you know, tosses them
out there onto their video game set and playing with it,
and then you know, that's it. Game turns off and

(19:16):
that's that's that's the last of it. Like, why why
would anybody care to watch that? Why would anybody care
to watch this? There's just no sense of there's no
sense of anything behind it. You don't get a mission statement,
you don't really know why they're there. The reason for
being there is confusing at best. And then you tap
onto that like kind of the look, feel and vibe

(19:37):
and and sound of them as a group, and you
just you just have this just albatross of an act
that is going nowhere fast that everyone seems to to
understand it and see that except for the people that
are that are booking the show. And it's it's it's frustrating,
but it's also it kind of just gotta I mean,
I literally found myself last night watching the show just

(19:57):
laughing this off, going I can't believe they're putting this
on TV, getting paid to what they are for the
fees to their to their programming. I thought it was
that embarrassing. And you know, the when you talk about
Ring of Honor compared to that, it's like you set
your rules, set the context, give reason people the care,
put some stakes behind what's going on in the ring,

(20:20):
and and there you have it. It's not a complicated formula,
but you have to, you know, commit to a formula.
And I think that's the part that drives me the
most nuts about w WE is you can make things
however you want if you want to, you know, make
a retribution storyline and and and have this group and
and have them you know, sign contracts or whatever like,

(20:40):
do that, but then tell us that have enough respect
for your audience to tell us what's going on and
why we should care instead of just the disrespect of tossing.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Them out there.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
And then you know, you know, countering a whole handful
of different presentations of those guys, as well as words
on commentary in the same show. I really it's it's tough.
That was a tough goal last night. And I think
it's if if retribution wasn't sunk already, which it probably was,
I mean, come on last night, was I mean that

(21:10):
has to be the end.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Of it, right, It doesn't have to be just in
the sense that you'd assume Vincent Man put that on
the air thinking it was good, and we're putting on
the air, So you got to get inside his head
and think, what what did he think he accomplished last night?
And you know, is the backlash against last night show
strong enough that you know it it kind of shakes

(21:31):
him out of whatever whatever mindset led to such a
poor execution of this concept. I mean, this, this was this.
You know, for weeks people have said, Okay, there's got
to be a goal here, there's got to be a
vision for what this going to be, and and there
was different paths it could take that and some you know,
we didn't know the specific We didn't know specifically anything,
but in our mind we had sort of a spot,

(21:55):
if you're being fair minded, where hey, maybe this pays
off in a big way and it makes sense. Maybe
it's the middle of the road, but it's fine. This
was on the lowest fan like of you know, we
don't And granted there's there's still time to try to
correct course, but I don't think anybody involved in retribution
right now, I'm not more confident in anybody in retribution

(22:15):
getting over because of the retribution gimmick and all the
TV time put into it than I would if they
hadn't debuted yet. But we're going to debut under their prior.
Uh they're they're prior on air persona. I to me,
this this feels like, you know, almost like uh fake
diesel in in in Kane, you know, fake these and

(22:39):
rasor remote excuse me, future future Kane in that. It's
just like, let's just pretend this did happen, you know,
it's it's it's I think it's that bag and Nick
Barbadi brought that up on the Posto last night. You know,
you just wonder if they just want to abandon this
and pretend it never happened and recast me to him
and Dominic died Jakovic especially, you know, after a little
a little time off. I just but they're under contract.

(23:01):
They can do anything they want, So can we really
back out of it?

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah? Right, well exactly. And that's the other part that
I think.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
You know, it's so you know, I don't know, just
the the arrogance to to trot out med am in
that way yesterday and Dominic Dojakhovic too. I mean, you
spend time on your show on raw promoting. You know,
NXT matches and NXT stars and you know, we like
you w W e is you know, assuming that a

(23:28):
portion of their audience has seen those guys before. But
you're really gonna have her stand out there and act
like nobody knows who she is, Like it's just like,
come on, I mean you at the very least you
want to just own own that. But also, you know,
it gives the group a little more. To me, it
gives a group a little more credence, a little more
credibility to know that it's Medim there, to know that

(23:49):
it's Dojakhovic there, you know, like instead they're just these
faceless guys who have no meaning behind them, and it's
you know, they're they're sinking.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts.
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Speaker 1 (24:19):
There's always a.

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Place for wrestlings past in the Paradise too, and We've
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Speaker 1 (25:01):
See you in the Paradise, All right, exactly back to
Oroid for a minute. The way the tournament's set up,
anything jump out in terms of the bracketing, where you think, okay,
they're going to use this to reinvigorate somebody who's been

(25:22):
around for a while, or do you think that they're
more primed to try to establish a new star. And
part of that is, you know, what do you do
to establish just the division itself? You know, the pure
Wrestling tournament if that's something that they want to do
because I mean, keep in mind, this is a championship
with a history that includes Daniel Brian Brian Daniels and

(25:46):
Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe. But it helped establish
Jay Lethal when you're just nineteen years old too, And
they talked about that in week one. Is this a
chance to use an established name to establis title in
the division and the concept already? You use this to
try to establish a new star.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
For me, you know, you want to establish the division
and the concept, and I think you want to find
you know, you find that guy to be, you know,
the face of that division and that concept. And I
think that's what this tournament is about. When you look
at the bracket, and the name that stands out to
me looking at it is Jonathan Gresham.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Like he's he is kind of the.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Embodiment of what this division you know, kind of feels
like and what the vibe of it is here in
twenty twenty. Not that it's you know, infinitely different than
what it was and it's an inception years ago, but
he seems like a guy that, like when you watch
him wrestle, you know, I think you can say to yourself, Yeah,
that's that's a pure wrestling guy right there, pure wrestling champion.
I think him stylistically just fits with the concept and

(26:53):
with that division, with that belt, and he's he's just
so believable in that role. When you watch him in
the ring, he's so smooth with what he does is
just it's it's crisp, and it's authentic, and it looks
like he's he's wrestling you out there. It looks like
he's fighting you out there. And so to me, that's
what that's the direction that I go. You know, just
just go with him, run with him, and may have

(27:14):
him be the face because he identifies with that style.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
So well, yeah, yeah, I'm real curious see what they
do here. I also love, by the way, I was
gonna mention this earlier, that they have alternates. You know,
they've named alternates in case somebody gets injured, like that
attention to detail again somebody, you know, there's people who
involved in wrestling or who watch wrestling, Go, why would
you have alternates? Aren't you in control of it? Why
would you need an alternate if you're not booking an injury.
And it's like the whole idea is to project to viewers,

(27:39):
we this tournament is so important that we're planning for
the possibility that somebody gets injured or you know, sad
to say in the times we live in test positive
for COVID or or is just sick and needs to
be helped taken out due to precaution. And so that's
another nice little touch. So I'm curious to see what
the positive reviews for this so far, what this does

(28:00):
to the right product, and if they utilize this to
try to create have this be part of their identity
going forward. You know, the first time with a pure
wrestling concept, it had mixed reviews, and I don't know
if it was the right time and they had the
right wrestlers to make it work long term. And this
just could be a one off, it could be an
annual tournament, it could be something that's weaved throughout the

(28:22):
product on a regular basis. You have to be careful
when you have a separate set of rules compared to
your main set of rules. And this is to me
kind of the biggest concern I have about this is
when you say, well, if somebody interferes, you know that
there's no tolerance for that and you have a good
reason for it, like you know, it's about who the
best man. Let the best man win and if you go, okay,

(28:45):
but in the regular matches with our major title well interference,
you know, I mean that we have looser rules as
far as that goes, Like I can deal with no
close fists punches for instance, or limited rope brakes. That
stuff makes sense, But you want to make sure that
you don't just end up with a set of rules
that just seems like, well, shouldn't that apply always? So
I'm I'm curious how they finesse that if if the

(29:06):
two kind of divisions or rule structures continue to be
we throughout the show ongoing.

Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, me too.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
And the other thing I'm curious to see is how,
you know, how they evolve or if they evolve from
a you know, in ring perspective from the first show
to the to the last show, because you know, first
go around and you know, I haven't seen all the
second episode yet, but you know, it's it's fresh, it's new,
like I talked about at the top of the show,
like all the reasons why I think it's a it's

(29:33):
a positive, you know, one of the negatives that I
potentially see coming out of it is that by the end,
by the end of the tournament, everyone has seen so
many of these matches that they blend together a bit
and that they you know, aren't there's not enough of
a differentiation between you know, one match to the.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Next because of those rules.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
So it'll be interesting to see how the guys in
the matches really kind of work to change up the
style of the match within the confine of those rules
to make it you know, enticing to watch on a
week to week basis, because it's just as a style
that if it's you know, if it can be very
monotonous if it's the same stuff over.

Speaker 2 (30:09):
And over and over again.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
So you know, well, we'll have to see how that goes,
you know, once we begin in the week three, Week.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
Four, and can a wrestling products survive in twenty twenty
without at least fifteen dives per match?

Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right?

Speaker 1 (30:21):
I mean I like this because I do too. It's cleansing.
I mean, the the over reliance in twenty twenty, and
really the last few years on dives as some sort
of definition of a good wrestling match or an exciting
high spot field match has turned me against dives a
little more sharply than I anticipated. So I don't think
in the rules they don't allow dives, but but they should,

(30:42):
they should have that as a rule. That would win
me over even more. Yes, And as far as I'm
not very pure, no, it isn't. And I should say too,
like when I was talking about outside interference, like if
somebody interferes, the pure rule wrestling tournament rule is you're terminated,
like you're fired right now. Again, I like, the restler
interferes is fired, like they have that power. Every wrestling

(31:06):
promoter has the power to say if you interfere in
a match, like when a world title's at stake or
a world title shot is at stake, especially and you
interfere Randy Orton, you're fired, Like that would stop it
from happening. So this does sort of expose, you know,
structurally that wrestling promoters have the power to do that,
and instead, by contrast, again we have WWE rewarding retribution

(31:31):
without any kind of explanation with contracts. I mean, yes,
I'm still trying to wrap my head around how WWE
leaped from these people are destroying property, interfering in vital
matches and you have ring of honor, saying, oh, yeah,
we have pure tournament. If you interfere, you're fired, You're terminated.
WWE Now you do it long enough and stress out

(31:51):
and a pierce enough, and we're going to give five
of you a contract, which then we're going to pile
on top of it. Then you can do any any
time to anyone because you are now under contract. I
can't get over how stupid this is and how poorly
thought out and how illogical, And I just think people
are watching this going we're supposed to be mad at

(32:12):
retribution for attacking gang, attacking people, wrecking matches, wrecking property,
and they get rewarded with a contract. Harry Loler goes,
I'd like to know who did that, but he just
paid a little lip service to it twice and there's
no follow up. Will there be follow up? Is this
an angle's act? Is it so ridiculous that of course
it's an angle and it's going to be Shane McMahon
turning heel or something like that, Like, is there some

(32:35):
justification that can or not justification but explanation where fans
will go, oh, that's why that group of hoodlums ended
up getting a contract because the idea that WWE would
reward them with one for all their action is so
contradictory to their attitude towards what they were doing. My
head wants to explode with because it's just so stupid.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
It is, it is, And I'd like to be, you know,
the voice of reason who says give it time, like
something will, something will will come of this, But you know,
I just don't believe that at this point. And who knows,
maybe they're sitting down right now saying, wow, that really
was awful. You know, let's call a spade a spade,
and we need to change course and maybe maybe now

(33:17):
we do get some definition. But going into last night,
I you know, you just didn't get the sense that
that was that any of that structural consistency was was
top of mind because it was all over the place,
and it's and it's not even all just all over
the place with the group itself. But you've got I'll
rant about this for a little bit, I guess, but
you've got the hurt business out there as this heel

(33:38):
fashion as one of the one of the shining kind
of acts of you know, the the last three four
months on raw. It's a group that really was born
of nothing. You know, MVP out there just cunning, good promos,
and you know the end result a few months later is,
you know, an elevated group of guys Bobby Lashley, Shelton,

(33:59):
Benjamin In, Cedric Alexander, m VP. I mean like they've
really throughout the throughout the summer have elevated their stock
because of that group. And I thought, you know, their
presentation last week in particular, they got the music, they've
got suits, they've got matching gear, like it really was
just kind of a just a great presentation of a
of a heel act. You had Cedric Alexander out there

(34:22):
cutting the heel promo on on Ricochet and Apollo Cruise,
and then you on the same show last week and
then this week too.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
You you water all of that.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Down by them being kind of the babyface foil for
for this retribution group.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Like that makes no sense to me.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
So it's inconsistent in storyline, but it's also inconsistent with
just how you're booking your entire show. It's just it
makes no sense, and it's you know, I think they're.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Jerking people around, They're jerking people's emotions around because you've
you've built up Oh, I should be mad at Cedric
for turning out Apollo Cruise and Ricochet. That that should
be the goal get of have fans sympathizing with and
rooting for rikasheann Apollo Cruz because Cedric has betrayed them.
And on the same show, Cedric is part of a

(35:08):
faction who have stepped up to be the first group
to fight off this invading faction of Retribution. I mean,
it's it's just it offsets. It's like it's like just
pouring cold water into a hot bath and you want
a hot bath and now it's cold. It's like, why

(35:30):
would you don't even just throw a bucket of water
on the whole build of hurt business and it is
it's just like picking out what to rant about. Having
the everything that branched out from how Retribution portrayed last night.
There's so many talking points, and you know, you can say, oh,
maybe they're you know, sitting back trying to fix it,
but any kind of creative structure that put that show

(35:51):
out there and thought the decisions they made were okay,
I have no faith in their their ability to do anything.
But randomly it's like you know, a monkey typing on
a keyboard will eventually come, you know, will eventually write Shakespeare,
but it might be billions of years, you know. And
I don't know how a crew that put out that
show last night, we should have any faith, would understand

(36:12):
what was wrong and have the ability to correct correct course.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Agreed, Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
I mean it, it was that bad to me, you know,
looking at this now, I really think, you know, you've
got one option to try to save it, to put
over not them, but like another star of some kind,
like you know, to me, maybe it's Dabo Kato or
something that he's just the guy that is going to
get over or try to get him over by just

(36:41):
being the guy that just completely wipes out retribution next week,
you know, that's it. Then they're gone and you don't
see him again for six seven months, and he's the
guy that does it. I don't know what you do
at this point, but he's a guy that needs saving
after last night. So maybe that's maybe that's the direction
they can go.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
That's the problem. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
And you've got some talent workers in that group that
are like severely hurt by this.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
I agree, I agree, we're about to go to a
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listening experience with a VIP or Patreon membership. All right,

(37:46):
let's let's work an email into this. This is a
broader topic, but it covers some of the issues we're
talking about in terms of match structure, booker, the booking
of finishes, the booking of matches, a presentation of rules.
This is Julian from London, England. He says, why does
everyone and hate outside interference? One of the most common
things you'll see in any wrestling review is the reviewer
docking stars because of outside interference. Having grown up on

(38:07):
the wrestling of the late eighties and early nineties. I'm
very used to seeing heels use all sorts of underhanded
tactics to win. It just makes sense to use a
current example from New Japan. Evil was a perennial was
a perennial mid carter until Dick Togo started interfering in
his matches. So why wouldn't it outside interference be a
key part of his g one strategy. Sure the fans
might not like it, but that's heat, isn't it. I
understand that an athletic contest between two guys as a

(38:28):
clear winner can be entertaining, but that's by no means
the only entertaining kind of wrestling match. I've seen plenty
of matches full of cheating, rep bumps, and interference that
were every bit is dramatic as a thirty minute back
and forth contest. Is this just the modern obsession with
work rate or am I missing something? I feel like
we're at a strange point where people complain that there
are no great heels anymore in this post cafab era,

(38:49):
while at the same time getting upset when the heels cheat.
As an old school guy yourself, maybe you can enlighten me.
So zech, isn't it all about balance? I mean, I
shouldn't say it's all about bunce, but that's a primary
thing is with WWE the percentage of matches. Javier has
been tracking this, Todd Martin's been ranting about it, the number,

(39:09):
the percentage and number of matches that are ending without
a semblance of oh, that match served a purpose to
find out who the better wrestler was. If you don't
have a really high percentage of that happening, the whole
structure becomes a farce in the eyes of the fans
and they stop taking anything seriously. And that's guy again.

(39:30):
That's how feel about retribution last night. Why should we
take seriously ww being upset about the destruction of property,
beating up wrestlers, invading, invading, and beating up security. If
they're just going to reward them with a contract, it
becomes a farce. Soe, what Julian's saying is, yes, quote,
even New Japan can have a variety of match finishes,

(39:50):
and they can have a certain tolerance for outside of interference.
But as long as it doesn't get ridiculous, and as
long as they've established a baseline which is, here's what
the whole company is striving for. We want two wrestlers
or two teams to face off, and we want a
set of rules and a referee and a way to

(40:11):
enforce those rules in place enough that the vast majority
of the time we're finding out who the better wrestler is.
And when you do that, then there's actually heel heat
when the heels interfere to win or try to win,
or interfere and try to win even if it doesn't work.
The heat comes from the fact that they're violating the
basic tenant of why we're all here, and not a

(40:31):
full fledged code of honor like with ring of honor,
with a handshake and a really strict structure. But there's
a sense that, hey, we've got things figured out. I mean,
who would watch the NFL if you could have like
players from a team that played on Thursday night join
another team in the middle of a game and put

(40:53):
on the uniform and ran out and started playing, and
then pulled off his jersey and revealed he's actually playing
for the other team, and then ran the wrong way
to get a safety to decide a game, and then
by next Monday he's back on his original team. No
one would take the NFL seriously if the NFL was like, well,
you know, the ref had has back turned, didn't see it,
you know, like, it gets so farcical. So Julian is

(41:17):
right in that you can absolutely have outsid interference get
healed heat, but it only works if you have this baseline,
credible structure that's not a farce, that that gives people
a sense of faith in the system, you know. And
so anyway, that's that's kind of my take on that tech.
You're anything you want to either disagree with or expand
on that.

Speaker 3 (41:35):
No, I I mean I totally agree with that, but
I'll expand and take it one step further and say,
you know, yes, the kind of the as you alluded to,
you have to balance it out and it has to
mean something when you do it, but you also have
to frame it properly. And way way too often on
these shows in WWE, especially, you know, you get you know,

(41:56):
a healed cheating and then literally seconds later the announced
team going, well, he had he had to do what
he had to do to win, and it's like that
just completely you know, throws cold water over the heat
that you know you're supposedly trying to generate the difference between,
you know, the way that happens in WWE and the
way it happens in some place like like New Japan.

(42:17):
You know, when Jay White is out there cheating to win,
I mean, the announcers are appalled by his actions and
that gets over the cheating as as heat, and that
that helps frame j White as a as a heel.

Speaker 2 (42:30):
Same thing, same thing with evil.

Speaker 3 (42:32):
They call attention to it that this is not the
way to win matches, that these guys are, you know,
the scum of the earth pro wrestlers in New Japan,
and it frames them up in a way where you
can actually put heat on them. I mean, I think
everybody would have a similar argument. If j White did
that stuff and the announcer just went out, well, you know,
but he did what he had to do to win.

(42:52):
It's like, no, that's that extinguishes all the heat. You
have to sell it and there has to be some consistency.
And I think a big reason why that can't exist
in WWE is because they're so all.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Over the place.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
One week, it's Drew mcint interfering in a match, and
you know, Keith Lee is getting this help in a match,
and you know Randy Orden's interfering. There's no consistent effort
to actually build heat for any of these guys, and
so they just happen in this vacuum and nobody gets
over because of it.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
When it comes to the announcers, you know, Tony Schimandi
did this a couple of weeks ago on Dynamite, and
I was like, how long has he been announcing? How
could he say that? He's like, oh, you know, you
gotta do what you got to do. When you can't
blame him, I was like, yes you can. The one
of the like, if you're creating sort of a constitution
for how wrestling should present its product, one of the

(43:43):
core things for me is understanding that the viewer ultimately
should be rooting for, whether it's a traditional babyface or not.
They ultimately should be emotionally invested in an outcome, and
that outcome is in PROG wrestling is based around why
you see a wrestler a team win more than the others.
You want to create a reason for that. Just like yes,
there's gonna be people who enjoy a good football game

(44:05):
and they don't care who wins. But in the NFL
without home teams. If all you did is just had
a bunch of teams and a bunch of players who
weren't affiliated with cities having quote good competitive football games
like we saw with Seattle and New England on Sunday night.
Was it Sunday Night?

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
If that's all we had, but there were no cities
attached to them, the NFO would be less popular. There's
too be people go, hey, the pro football is really
fun to watch, but that emotional investment would be there.
So you can have good wrestling with whatever, excellent execution
of certain styles, and there's gonna be a certain base
of people where that'd be enough for them. But it's
incredibly naive and wrong to say that that would be

(44:45):
a booming business at the top level. That progressing could
be where you really make money in this industry. It's
getting people emotionally invested in seeing an outcome, and so
part of that is everything talking about having integrity to
the rules and structures, so it doesn't just something that
stops short of being a farce. That's not a high

(45:06):
bar to achieve because it is prog wrestling. You're gonna
have shenanigans. This isn't about everything needs to be rohpre wrestling,
because by no means do I think that's a case.
I just think it's an example that's so extreme that
it should remind us of how far in the other
directions some products have gone. But part of you can
say baby face and heels, but really it's just create

(45:26):
wrestlers and present them in away where you know fans
have a reason to get behind them and will be
emotionally invested in seeing them win. And then you have
to have announcers who the fans identify with, not because
the announcers are fans themselves, because you want the announcers
to seem like they have their job for a reason.
They're professionals. They it's not They're not just a fan.
They're professional broadcasters and they should come across that way.

(45:48):
But what they should share in common with the fans
is the idea that the best man or woman should win,
that there should be fair play, that we are here again.
You want to mercer your off in that world of
pro wrestling. We're all here to find out. As Drew
McIntyre said, if you're on raw, you should want this
title that's around my waist and everybody should be there

(46:09):
to win a championship and and not just well collect
a paycheck and and quote entertain You want wrestlers, the
top wrestlers who draw money to be aspiring to win
world titles. Of course they get sidetracked by personal grudges
and such, but you need the announcers to be advocates
for sort of will use a political term or something

(46:31):
outseide of wrestling, which is the rule of law. You
need to have laws that we all agree we have
a structure in place to enforce when people start. When
we don't have an enforcement mechanism for subpoenas, they become pointless.
When you don't have, in wrestling an enforcement mechanism for
excessive farcical cheating, people just give up on the system
and it's chaos, and then why would you care? And

(46:53):
the announcing needs to be as invested in that as
the viewer, and in fact, the announcer should be bringing
the viewers into that world when they get introduced to
pro wrestling the first time. And that is just lost
and so many announced teams that the lead announcer needs
to be the alpha and the agitating heel saying ridiculous

(47:16):
things to be controversial, if you even have that needs
to be put down more often than not by the
lead alpha announcer who just points out, almost just dismissively,
that's ridiculous, you know, And Grillamant's going to do that
to Bobby Heenan. The heel should be saying ridiculous things
that people at home know are ridiculous. They shouldn't be
making points that. Then the lead announcer goes, yeah, yeah,

(47:38):
you're right. You know, it should be every man for himself,
or it should be you do what you have to win,
and announcing is so important to establishing that framework for
making everything else matter. And you know that's a lost
art right now. And I don't think anything I just
said is anything in the mindset of how vincick Mann
promotes these days and presents a.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
Promit No, unfortunately not, I mean and by.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
The way, and by the way, in fact, it's not
enough part of aw either. You know that they could
be better about that. You know, Tony Kahan should be
in Tony Shavanni's headset, or there should be a dynamic
with Ross and Excalibur and Shavanni, or you know, somebody
should just it's not I don't mean to just pick
on Tony. It was just one comedy made on one show,
but that should not happen again. That was a glaring

(48:22):
enough that that should be in aw's mission statement to
never even straight slightly in that direction the way WWE
has done over the past twenty years.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
Yeah yeah, I mean, look like in no WGRE right now,
you could have you know, a He'll go to the ring,
you know, and wrestle a match and then just have
himself or herself just an incredible heal performance and walk
out of there feeling like, hey, I yes did the
job that people's people have to hate me after that.
But then you know, you go back and watch like

(48:53):
I don't want to put any numbers behind this because
I don't know them for sure and I'm not tracking it.
But more often than not, you have the announced team
just squash that heat in one way or another, and
it can be just one line sometimes, like you know,
like the line that Shavani said, and it really it
does damage to the work that's being done in the ring.

(49:13):
And even if it's even if it's done successfully, it
can't work if you don't have the announced team selling it.
I'm I'm nine times out of ten, I'm with the
email in that, Hey, I don't mind seeing run ins
or interference or Shnanigan.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Finishes for heels.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
I think it works when it has the proper framework
behind it. I think it works really well in New
Japan because, like you say, wait, it stands out because
it's not done in every match.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
And it doesn't seem like it, but it doesn't feel
like it's being booked to be a cop out finished too.
I thinks are sophisticated as oh, we booked a match,
we wanted you to care about it, but we certainly
don't can't do a finish because neither we can't really
afford to have either guy win or lose. That's different
than a heel getting heat for interference. For that, a

(49:59):
heel is trying to win and his gimmick is to
get heal heat because that other structure is in place
where he actually gets heal heat for doing.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
It exactly bingo, and it just it creates an environment.
And also too, like if you're focused on a couple
guys like, hey, okay, he using Jay White as an example,
but he's a he's a key heel in that company.
He's a key act, he's one of the biggest, biggest stars,
you know, and like, so you save that for him,
and it's not, Oh, we got to get out of

(50:26):
this Tanahashi Nito finish, Let's have him run in. It's no,
We're gonna get heat on him in his match, and
we're gonna sell.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
That heat and he's gonna be able to build on
that for the rest of the tournament.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Like that's a that's a logical formula, but you just
don't have that first word in WWE, which is logical.

Speaker 5 (50:47):
In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
podcast NXT Eight Years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
look look at this page in NXT's early history.

Speaker 6 (51:03):
Join Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout from PWT Talks
NXT every Saturday as we go eight years back to
the day to track NXT's rising talents and why they
did or didn't work out exclusively for PW Torch VIP members.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
All right, let's talk about the g one so far
we've had as of this recording the first two nights
A good start. I wouldn't call it barn burner start
to the tournament, but a really good start to the
tournament in terms of the two shows so far, a
real mix of styles, a real mix of personalities, as
we get in G one. When you look at the

(51:44):
way the shows progress over the course of the two
to two and a half hours that they that they're
running right now, not counting the prelim, it's the way
that wrestling cards should be structured, I would argue, which is,
you know, you've got an opener that you care about,
but it's either two guys who aren't likely to win

(52:05):
the tournament or someone who's heavily favored, you know, sort
of what you would want in the opening match really
of any show, whether it's a tournament or not. And
then you've got, you know, somewhere in there, a comedy
match and a brawling match, and then you have a
main event that feels epic by its very nature of
who's involved in what's at stake, and just the card
structure so far has been a template and a lesson

(52:25):
in how to present shows like this, Zach, what stood
out to you so far in the tournament, either in
terms of performances booking decisions or match outcomes.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
Yeah, I think I'm with you on the fact that
it's been a really great, great start.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
But it's also, you know, hasn't you know, blown the
door off the hinges yet? And I don't.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
I don't think that's a bad stick. No, I really,
I really don't. I think you want to, you know,
you don't want to play all your cards, you know,
the first two nights for a whole handful of different reasons.
You've got a lot of matches left to go, and
these these guys, the wrestlers in particular, have a lot
of matches to go, and so you've got to, you know,
you got to kind of play play the long game here.
So I've I've really liked what they've done. That first

(53:06):
night in the A Bloc, the neuro Suzuki Ehi match
was something else like it's it's almost like sometimes I
find myself going, oh, man, I wish I wish I
didn't like this as much as I do because it's brutal,
But man, I mean it's it was intense, it was stiff.
It felt like those guys were fighting each other, you know,

(53:27):
in a big time way with with big stakes on
the line, but I mean they they took punishment, for sure.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
It was some of it was was hard to.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Watch, but I mean that really was, you know, kind
of the match from the that first A Block night
that that I took away Coodobushi and Okada was was
good for sure. I mean, how can those two guys
have a bad match. But I don't know that it
was on there, you know, Russell Kingdom level of stuff.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
But it was still worth seeing. But yeah, that first.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Night, Suzuki and Ishi, if you're gonna go out of
your way to kind of pick matches here and there
to watch, you know, I would. I would watch that one,
but uh, you know, put the kids to sleep though,
because it's it's it's it's pretty brutal. The other notable
kind of takeaway from the first night was Jeff Cobb.
I thought he had a really nice first match. I

(54:13):
thought he kind of looked the part of of the
kind of the the monster that he is. Taichi was
able to put over his uh, you know, his offense
in a big way. He didn't win, but I thought
he just from a performance standpoint, last year, I thought
there was a little left to be desired, you know,
in terms of the matches that he had and this
this really I thought to set the tone for him

(54:35):
in a good way. As for the As for the
B block, I mean, the big match that night was
a ton of Hashi against Nito. Again, really great psychology
in that match, and not you know, not a five
Star Classic or anything like that, but just a really
solid match between between two top stars. And sometimes like
you forget that that's that's all you need, you know,

(54:56):
if you put two stars in a ring and give
him something to rifle, like, you know, you don't really
need bells and whistles, And I thought that match was
really a really good example of that fact.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
The time limit, you know, being an issue near the
end is something I thought. I thought AW was going
to do more with that. I think they're you know,
it's tough because their pay per views run long, and
as far as the TV show goes, you know, you're
testing people's patience when you go to timeliness. But I
think philosophically they'd like to play with that more often
than they have. New Japan doesn't have to worry about that.

(55:29):
I mean that they just have a fan base and
a structure to their promotion where they absolutely can do that,
and they were, you know, going up against the clock,
just enough to remind people. Again at Gato's approach here
is you do things in the first couple shows. You
do things, you know year after year to build on things,
but in the first couple of shows to just remind
people there's certain things we're going to play around with

(55:49):
that should be on your mind. And by in the
first weekend, having the main event of Night two come
down to the final three minutes is letting people know,
keep in mind there's a time limit here that can
play into it. But from a booking standpoint, Naita winning
puts him in a position of maybe, I mean maybe,
being a guy who wins this tournament, he's not fighting

(56:12):
from underneath to make a comeback. There's a chance that
he ends up winning the tournament. Do you like that?
Having the dual champion win the tournament, and then of
course that leads to an alternate way of determining who
his opponent's going to be at the Tokyo Dome. But
at the same time, this might be the year to
do that because you don't have to worry about drawing

(56:33):
a big crowd. They're gonna sell as many tickets as
you know they have available for this show, So maybe
they go a different direction in terms of what main
event that Nida would then pick to have as his
opponent for that match. Do you like that approach or
do you want to see g One be more of
a starmaker or a boost or actually have somebody quote

(56:54):
earn that that championship shot at the Tokyo Doo.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
I'm much more of a kind of a traditionalist in
that regard, like I think this would be the year
to to do something different. But also I like the
just the tried and true approach of you, you know,
you got this heavyweight star on a roll winning the
tournament and moving on to the to the title match.
I'd like that approach better. I think it's cleaner, and

(57:21):
I just think it helps, you know, it puts over
whoever that winner is, more so than than the n
IDO picking him or something or some other alternative method.
I think there's some there's kind of a definitiveness to hey,
all right, Bushie, you you won this grueling tournament and
now you have this really great prize. You know in
your sights, come Wrussell Kingdom in the Tokyo Dome. So

(57:44):
I just think that's a better story and more enjoyable
story for me personally, And I think it's easier to
tell to uh, you know, from the perspective of hey,
try and trying to book this stuff. So yeah, I
want to I want to see a clear cut winner
come out and then be the opponent for for Nito.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
I think they can play up that drama if nothing
else going deep into the tournament with Nido headlining, just
I think every show that he's on up until the last,
the final stretch, they can play that up as a
possibility before somebody, somebody else wins who ends up being
an opponent. This is not a top line talking point,
but I can't Watching Zach Saber Junior wrestle as essentially

(58:23):
an underdog babyface fighting against Interference was so weird. I'm
like watching and it's like he's he's just one of
the most like one of my favorite heels to watch,
because you know I said about Jay White earlier, just instantly, no,
I want to see this guy loose, just punch him
in the face, and here is against against evil, And
I was like I had to like check myself, Like

(58:46):
he's he's the guy that I'm sympathetic towards who I
want to see when he's fighting from underneath. It was
just like this weird but it but it fit the circumstances.
It wasn't like, you know, bad booking as much as
the circumstances dictated that he would fighting bat style of match,
and you ended up sort of instead of resenting, appreciating
the things that he was good at. And and in

(59:07):
the end he overcame uh, he overcame interference.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
Yeah, And it's part of the part of the fun
of the of the of the g One tournament there, like, yes,
you get to see the different styles collide, but you
get to see these kind of odd.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Character pairings too, and you feel weird. Like I had
that moment last night when I was watching it. I'm like, man,
I cheered for his X, say Virginia, like.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
What what what has retribution done to me?

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Wade?

Speaker 3 (59:29):
I watched it after after raw, and I was like,
what what's happening here?

Speaker 2 (59:33):
But but but it was, it was it was fun
to watch, and it was it.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Kind of added another layer to that that match, and
it made you appreciate your his kind of in ring
style just differently because normally you're you're rooting against it,
but here it was kind of like, man, those those
moves and that kind of the flow that he has.
Can uh, you know, can Papa can Papa babyface response too?
And so yeah, that was a that was a really

(59:57):
interesting little little nugget. And and well, I'll be see it
flipped on his head in a couple days and him
go right back to being a kind of the jerky
Zachy Virginia that we all know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
You don't have to wait for the way Keller Pro
Wrestling post show to find out what I thought of
Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Each week, you can check
out my reports that are updated live throughout Raw and
SmackDown at pwtorch dot com. My written report will tell
you what's happening in detail in case you missed the show,
and it will also analyze key segments and give my
random thoughts quips on what I am watching as it airs.

(01:00:38):
So check it out every Monday night and Tuesday night
at pwtorch dot com. That also applies to wwepayperviews. I
cover those live at PW torch dot com with a
detailed written report with star ratings and of course, you
can find other TV reports from other contributors to PW
Torch such as nxt roh Impact Wrestling, and more. Check
it out pwtorch dot com your first stop for TV

(01:01:01):
and pay per view written records. So we don't seem
like hypocrites in criticizing Hurt Business for you know, seeming
like babyfaces. Circumstantially, you can make the case so Hurt

(01:01:24):
Business weren't going against the grain of their core persona.
And I'm gonna try to make the Devil's advocate defense
for WWE because they snuck in there, and I give
them credit for this. MVP going to Adam Pearce, I'm
not volunteering to help out. This is a business. But
what they didn't do is go far enough in establishing
how did MVP benefit from volunteering to go. Wan's retribution

(01:01:44):
was they didn't have a segment random Pierce said, there's
a big bonus payday if you guys will try to
stop these guys to and even if they tried to
do that this week, in the face of having granted
the five core members contra, it won't make any sense
that then management would be offering essentially like a bounty
payment to these heels in hurt business to try to

(01:02:07):
take out Retribution if Retribution already got contracts, so there
could have been a much more creative way to go
about explaining why her business are fighting on behalf of
WWB management and sort of being the stand up guys
in the locker room there. If you're going to try
to pull that off, you have to do it in
a more sophisticated way, and then you have to also

(01:02:29):
tell the story of Retribution getting contracts under a different situation.
So Zach Saber Junior was himself, but he found himself
circumstantially being in a position where he was fighting against
somebody who's more of a heel, who had outside interference
on his behalf, and so the circumstances led to you
as a viewer having sympathy for him, but it didn't
seem like he was contradicting his core constitution of who

(01:02:51):
he is. Otherwise, it was simply what was surrounding him
that made us look at him differently, not his actions
that made him different. In sort of an arbitrary jarring way.
With her business, it comes across within a bad booking
scheme of contradicting at the core who they are. They
should be sitting back in catering, laughing at the fact
that all this chaos is going on. That's driving, that's

(01:03:13):
that's that's setting off and triggering all these baby faces
who care about law and order because they don't and
and that's not what was happening. Suddenly they were the
ones who were standing up for these thugs. So that's
the difference. And there if you kind of parse it
out there, there are two good examples of how a
heel can be put in a situation where you cheer

(01:03:33):
for them, but it doesn't break up the core reason
that normally you boo them. With her business, it just
contradicted everything we know about it exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
I mean, but that's a I mean, that's a huge
difference though, Like I don't I don't think we're contradicting
ourselves at all.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
Kind of complementing.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
The does actually junior match just because you know, he
wasn't out there, you know, trying to sell himself as
something different, Like you said, he was doing his thing,
and it just was the circumstances that the audience was
reacting to that changed up. You know, the feel of it,
but you know, he wasn't out there trying to pump
himself up in front of the Thunderdome to you know,
getting in the face of the camera talking about defending

(01:04:10):
the turf of Monday night, you know, raw like like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
The hert business was.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
I think it's totally too to treaty in my opinion,
drastic differences in terms of how the hert business thing
is handled and how how that match was handled. I
think one of them is rooted in, you know, the
reaction that the audience is giving a match, and the
other is a totally different character shift from what we saw,
you know, and in Ra's case an hour and a

(01:04:35):
half before him.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Yes, exactly. Are you concerned at all with Sonata losing
to Toriano or does it? Does it work for you,
especially given that it's a count out and it's this
early in the tournament.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm not a fan
of the TORIANU matches. I just it's weird for me
that they that they have a place, you know, in
the g one because it's such a competitive like sport
like tournament and then you have just this one match
every you know, every five matches on in the in
the B block that you're gonna have to kind of
deal with this. However, you know, I think he's got

(01:05:10):
to get wins at some point, and I think if
you're gonna do it over Sonata here, it's early enough
in the tournament you kind of get it out of
the way. Yano's got to win now. And now Sonata
can kind of, you know, climb back up the card
and really talk that up exactly like he sold it,
which was just a you know, a crappy circumstance that
he lost the match.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
So I think they can get past this.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
So I'm not too hung up about it, but I'm just,
you know, just holistically speaking, I'm not not a fan.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Of the Yanu matches day to day in this tournament.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Going back to Night one for a minute, what do
you think about what where Okada is right now? You know,
he loses to a boushie and he isn't putting in
like Wrestler of the Year performance. It is not one
of the tournaments and all that, but the storyline and
the road that he's been on the past couple of

(01:06:03):
years is has it's it's a topic of conversation. There's
people who wonder is this deliberate booking approach to kind
of have him go lower key or is it just
he's kind of like peaked and now he's going to
be this legendary guy who's who's kind of in second
and third year but not trying to hit hit that
that peak, that peak pace. It was a nice match

(01:06:26):
on the first night, a good match, but it wasn't
in terms of setting the tone. It didn't seem like, oh,
God has got his fighting spirit and this is just
going to be he's determined to win this thing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Yeah, no, it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (01:06:38):
I wonder like when you look at the block and
look at the you know, the different talent on this
in this block that will be seeing you know, every
other night for you know, a good month here. To me,
that's kind of his role is kind of set in
prime for maybe he's going to be the guy that
kind of plays from behind and almost you know, makes
the comeback throughout the tournament, but but doesn't. And kind

(01:07:01):
of because I think they kind of are selling here
that he's lost himself a little bit. You're not seeing
all the rain makers, You're seeing him try to get
the submission hold established. He's kind of trying like a
little bit of a new style in that regard he's
not having the you know, the high quality matches. So
I wonder if the story that they're telling is, hey,
you know, as a viewer of the tournament, you're gonna

(01:07:21):
see you know, this big star kind of find find
that rhythm again, like in the flow of the tournament itself,
and I think that'd be a you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Know, a fun story to watch and.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
It builds to you know, a big win later down
the road to get him to the final or something
with you know, he brings the rain maker.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Back or something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
Like, I think there's a psychology there that that people
will we'll get we'll get behind.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
But I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
I don't look at this as oh, he's you know,
he's down and out and he's and he's done. I
think there's a story to be told. And even if
he's not the guy that's gonna gonna win this thing,
you know, I mean, he's still one of the biggest
stars in this tournament period, and so he's gonna have
a focus around in one way or the other.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
So coming out the first two nights, has have you
changed at all? Your your kind of thoughts on who
a dark horse candidate is to win, or have the
odds gone up or down on anyone.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
I don't think so. I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
I'm kind of I think the part of the intrigue
is that the blocks this year is that there isn't
that clear cut there to me anyway, there's not that
clear cut. Okay, they're going here, you know, with the
with the final I really think that's hidden, you know,
more so than other years, and and and and Gato's
pretty good about about hiding that anyway. So to say
that is a you know, it's a really big compliment,

(01:08:34):
and I think it'll add a lot of intrigue.

Speaker 2 (01:08:35):
But yeah, but I don't really know.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
I mean, I think Okada is going to be in
the mix from the A block. I think Jay White
is going to be in the mix for the A
bloc too. I know, you know, there's a story to
be told down the road, jay White and Evil together
at some point facing off. You know, if with the
with the Bullet Club kind of hanging in the balance,
I wonder if that's something that they pull the trigger on.

(01:08:58):
But I don't see this though, as a standout, like
they're definitely going in this direction, And even with the
Sonata loss on a couple of nights ago, I still
think that derails his possibility of getting into the finals either.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
So you know, I still think he's very much up
in the air.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
And I don't know that you can lean too much
on the results of the first two nights to kind
of tell you otherwise at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
And I mean, Aboushi could be on. I mean, this
could be a year where they give him strap a
rocket to him in this tournament too, And and winning
the first night doesn't rule that out, but it doesn't
confirm it either because it's just so early. And that's
that's the thing about this is, you know, there's stories
that are being told. So not losing the way that
he did doesn't doesn't say always being buried. It says

(01:09:41):
he's got to fight from underneath. And now he got
that out of the way, he can, you know, within
a week be a leader, you know. So it's just
it is too too early to tell that. Said, Well,
Osprey got to win. You know, Jay White's in a
strong position. There's you know for people who maybe are
going to have good tournament runs even if they don't
end up winning it. You know, there's some medications that

(01:10:02):
there's some things that could have been ruled out that aren't,
but I don't think anything is for sure been ruled
in if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:10:09):
For sure, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
And I think will Laspray is another interesting one to
kind of maybe discuss real quick. You know that, you know,
not many people get Mike time after they're you know,
opening match or like a you know, a mid card match.
He did, and I think he you know, I think
there's a lot to be said about his involvement in
the tournament in.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
General at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:10:27):
But if you're just taking the show as a as
a talking point, I mean that's pretty significant. I mean
he laid out, hey, I'm back, I'm ready to go,
and this tournament needs to be really, really worried. And
you know, I don't know that you had you give
him that moment to say that if he's not going
to factor in down the stretch. So that opened my
eyes a little bit too.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
No, that's a great point. I mean, he he was
sort of an underdouctuning heavyweight last year, and now he
looks like he's a guy who belongs in this tournament.
He's carrying himself like he belongs. He's put on weight
since we last saw him, he looked like a heavyweight
g one tournament winner and to get that like time
and you know that there's no accidents in New Japan.

(01:11:08):
He's not going to grab the mic and go into
business for himself. That's that's not you know, he's not
going to conduct himself that way, especially given the type
of year he's had so far with some stuff outside
of the ring. He's not gonna go into business for
himself and end up on anyone's bad side. So the
thing is that whether he wins or not, I think
what they've done the first night is told people he
could win any match against anyone ye and take any

(01:11:32):
match he's in seriously, and at least the first half
of the tournament. He might end up playing spoiler too,
be in the spoiler world, not someone who's likely to win.
But they've established early on based on the way he's
carrying himself, in the way that he's been framed and
presented by the company, savvy viewers know, and really casual
viewers would go, oh, I think this guy could win.
Look at how impressive he looks. Looking at impressive wressels,
and unlike some guys who just sort of they win

(01:11:54):
and they leave, he got Mike time and he's carrying
himself like that. So whether he's going to be in
the final mix point wise, or he's just going to
be someone who you absolutely believe could win clean against
anybody to play a spoiler, maybe that's something that got
established this first weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
I mean, man, I mean that a bloc you know,
we'll ospring against all those guys is going to be
you know, can't misviewing. I mean that that block for
him is insane.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
Yep. All right, Well, a lot more fun to come
in the next UH, in the next month, So catch
up if you haven't it. If you're interested, just go
to UH New Japan World Streaming and sign up and
choose the English category. UH you know, click the English
button if you if you want to see the website
in English, and and then sit back and enjoy. The
shows are are palatable at the two to two and

(01:12:40):
a half hour length. You know, there's usually a post
a lot. I mean, it's it's I don't understand what
they're saying, but I love that there's extended analysis at
ringside with the commentators afterwards. They don't have to go,
you know, right to the local news or right to
the Friends rerun or you know whatever follows or Modern
Family rerun, you know whatever follows wrestling these days, I'd
like to see ww more of that on dough to

(01:13:01):
Me network. With pay per view, you know, have have
I know they do, you know, talking smack and all that,
but like after pay per views end, have analysis afterwards
with the announcers where they go into it. You know,
right now, young would have been great for this. Maybe
they should, you know, look into hiring, but you know,
if they feel they have people who who can do that,
or you know, just Exavier Woods for that matter, have him,

(01:13:23):
you know, well he's out, you know, be a guy
who's doing it. I wish I could, you know, talk
about the lead announcers and have confidence they could do that.
But nevertheless, my point is it's funny, but when you
look at like the time clock on the on the
streaming service, just understand there's quite a bit of post
sho stuff too. So when you're planning out your day
and deciding if you can fit all these shows in,

(01:13:44):
you can you know, skip the prelim and watch it
later if you want the one warm up match and
understand there's probably ten to twenty minutes at the end
of that that isn't the actual the end of the match.
That also, by the way, helps you not know when
the main evan is going to end, because you don't
look at the talk and go, oh, there's there's twelve
minutes left, so I know ten of that's going to
be wrestling, and there won't be a finished before then
you have no idea when when it's going to end
if you avoid spoilers.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Yeah, no, the the first two nights were really I
was watching that because I've pretty much just been just
for for time purposes, just watching you know, the block matches,
And so yesterday I started you know the B Block
night one right after Brawling off the air, and just
watch those five matches, and I was I was wrapped
up like a little bit after eleven thirty. So it's
a it's a it's an easy watch if you if

(01:14:27):
you even if you just want to hone into those
block matches, it's not you know, it's not a huge
lift in terms of time.

Speaker 7 (01:14:37):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me
Jason Powell, host of the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast.
Each week you'll hear the latest news and analysis for
me and my team at Pro Wrestling God Need, along
with other pro wrestling media members. Plus, the Pro Wrestling
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(01:14:59):
your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at PW
boom dot com. Once again, that's PW boom dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
Okay, so let's let's let's talk about Roman Reigns for
a moment here, but we'll do it in the context
of an email. This is Jack from Swansea, Wales, Hey Waite.
Ever since Roman Rains returned, I've actually been looking forward
to SmackDown before that SmackDown was poor. I'm loving the
slow Roman Rains, He'll turn and bringing jayus so when
as a first challenger it was a great idea. I'm

(01:15:33):
also loving Sasha Banks and Bailey storyline Biggies Rise, I
love Nikki Cross and the storyline involving Alexa in the
Fiend and in the fact that it's a two hour
show that doesn't drag It's not perfect, but compared to Raw,
we get the same match as every show there with
androde and Guards against the Street profits every week. Keith
Lee has to fight Orton or McIntyre every week. For
some reason, I just don't feel the show flows well
at all. Some thing's hit and some things make no sense.

(01:15:56):
I wish Sane McMahon would tell everyone what the rules
are or just the reasoning why he's art Raw Underground.
Do you think wb' is desperate for this draft coming
up so we get new, fresh matchups. I feel like
this is the biggest problem in WWB at the minute.
It seems ever since Bruce Pritchard assume control over Bill
SmackDown our both shows Smackdowns seemed to get the better
of it. Not sure if more people have more input
on SmackDown now, but ro seemed to drop the ball

(01:16:17):
on people like Alistair Black as soon as Paul Hayman
left Raw. Let's hope and pray we don't get the
stupid war Room draft with a robot like last year.
I know not everyone is a fan of authority figures,
but I want someone to make picks for Raw and
SmackDown and give tactical reasons on why they want to
pick these wrestlers. Is that too much to ask? Would
you be for an authority figure like an Adam Pearce
for each show to explain decisions. I'm losing patience with

(01:16:40):
Raw while getting more excited for SmackDown as the weeks
go on. So this is good email to kind of
set the agenda for a few talking points. But the
first one is just Roman Reigns instantly well, Roman Rains
and Paul Hayman instantly becoming the most intriguing act in WWE.
We'll do a full clash preview on the Way Color
Pro podcast Thursday edition. But Rains going in with Hayman

(01:17:05):
against jay Uso has been a really cool storyline. Rains
returning with Hayman in and of itself is huge. Seeing
a new side of Rains just in terms of on
a meta level, is acting in his presentation has been
has been a real treat to watch. And then the
Jauso family storyline is this guy that you you won't expect,
but under strange circumstances, he got a title shot on

(01:17:25):
short notice. It certainly made more sense explanation wise, sins
Alena Vegas suddenly being thrust into uh, you know, win
one match and become a title challenger, which it made
a little more sense due to the extenuating circumstances with
Big E. But so anyway, yeah, your your thoughts on
on where we are with Roman, Hayman and Jay had
going into Sunday.

Speaker 3 (01:17:45):
I mean, I'm loving it. I'm loving it not just
from a Roman Reigns perspective, but for like, like the
emailer said, from a SmackDown perspective. It's it's amazing what
happens when you, you know, have your stars like lined
up in the right spots and positioned in the right place.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
On the game board. I mean, it makes all the
different world.

Speaker 3 (01:18:05):
And I think you know, Roman Reigns is a is
w w's biggest star outside of brock Lester.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
I mean he just is.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
But no one was really able to to know that
or feel that when you constantly had him booked in
a way that ran counter to how the audience felt
about it, and like that was it just it threw
everything out of whack. And and now you've got that
picture lined up better, and now he can do what
he does and he can kind of have that arrogance

(01:18:34):
about him that doesn't work as a babyface, but that
really is authentic and believable as a heel, and I
just think it really it makes the show fresher and
easier to watch because you know, you know, you're getting
a storyline that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
You don't have to kind of wade through, all right, Roman,
is this this baby face?

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
But man, if you hear this audience right now, they're
all booming them and it doesn't make sense. That's just
it's it's hard. It's hard to get behind that. This
is simple to follow. You You see Roman kind of
you know, yes, he's got his new attitude about him,
but you also see him kind of hiding that from Jay.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
A little bit.

Speaker 3 (01:19:10):
You know, he's in front of him, hugging him and
smiling with him and embracing him to go off as
SmackDown goes off the air. But as soon as Jay
turns his back, you know, you get Roman kind of
back to his old you know, mean aggressive facial expression.
I thought there was a great kind of touch on
their feud where it just shows that Roman's being conniving

(01:19:30):
and he's he's not on the same page with his
cousin and all the history that he has with his family,
and you know, eventually, I got to assume that's going
to boil over at some point we're going to get
kind of heal Roman Reigns two point zero after he
kind of really plays his cousin. But I think it's
just been the best word I can use to describe
it as refreshing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
You got your top star in a position that he's
super comfortable with. He looks the part, he's believable, he's
in control.

Speaker 3 (01:19:58):
And just you know, is himself out there with the
volume turned up. And uh, I think that's the Roman
Reigns we all wanted to see for so long, and
we have it here. And that's the reason why Smack
Downdown is so much easier to watch, because you know,
you got a big star, you know, doing what's what's
what's what's right and for him and from a comfort
point of view, it's it's it's fun to watch, you know,

(01:20:21):
performances like that, and I I think that's part of
the reason why it's so it's so intriguing.

Speaker 1 (01:20:26):
I'm I'm just happy to see Paul Haman seeming to
be excited too, or at least in his He's so
talented and he was so in a rut. It felt
like this last year, give or take with with Lesnar.
To have somebody new playoff of is really interesting. The
choice to have Hayman be this nervous hired assistant instead

(01:20:46):
of the brash I got brought on my side and
we're sort of partnership. I'm an advocate for him, but
it felt like more of a I don't want to
say an even partnership. But the idea was, Brock is
this fighter and I'm the I'm the mastermind. I'm the
one with more of a history and professional wrestling, and
I've attached myself to Brock Lesner. He is the vessel

(01:21:08):
through which I will achieve greatness. That's how Hayman came
across in his approach. Just do I mean Brock was
on board with that, but he wasn't like obviously against
it either. I think Brock used Paul and Paul Uesbrock,
but they each saw themselves I think as the alpha
of that pair with Rains and Haman. Hayman makes no
doesn't present himself at all that he's the alpha.

Speaker 2 (01:21:31):
He is.

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
He is nervous around Roman. He's trying to figure out
how to keep it how to stay in Roman's good graces.
He is and it was It's so not what I expected,
because you know the default mode. I think most people
would go as, oh, if Roone Rains turned healed, it's
because Paul Hayman got into his head and turned him
and it was a very deliberate And I'm still processing

(01:21:53):
the strategy and I want to see more more evidence
of how they're going to present themselves, including study at
the clash. But I'm still processing, like in fascinated by
the decision to have it be No, this was Rain's
decision to be this way and to present himself this way,
and he brought in Hayman to be a special counsel.

(01:22:16):
But Hayman is clearly nervous in Rain's presence, and I
think that makes Rain seem like a bigger star, and
it makes him seem like a bigger jerk when he
is acting as a heel that you don't have any
sympathy for Rains, you know, Oh, why did he fall
under Hayman's control? He's being manipulated Instead, you go, this
is who Rains was all along, and now he's brought
Paul Haman along, made Paul relevant again, and I resent

(01:22:40):
Rains even more for that. So the heat is on Rains,
not Paul. Anytime you're watching ww E Rawers, SmackDown or
AEW Dynamite in particular, send us an email if you've
got thoughts on the show or a topic you want
us to address or a question for us. Wade Keller
Podcast at pwtorch dot com, Waight Keller Podcast at petewtorch

(01:23:02):
dot com. If there's anything else going on in pro
wrestling that you want us to address on our main
podcast during our mailbank segments, that same email applies Wade
Keller Podcast at pw torch dot com. We invite that interaction.
Let us know what you think of what we're saying,
and let us know what you want us to talk
about and ask us specific questions. Wadekeller Podcast at pw
torch dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
It's such a such a great nuance to to kind
of follow and track. The other thing that I think
it does, is it really it It draws a line
in the sand of Paul Hayman with brock Lester, Paul
Hayman with Roman Reigns, like those are two different. Paul
Hayman's at this point, you know, you don't have the
bombastic Paul Hayman who's you know, out there, you know,
talking brock Lester up. But you have a Paul Hayman who's, yeah,

(01:23:48):
he's talking Roman reigns up, but he's also just doing
his Roman reigns as bidding because he's so nervous to
be around him. And I think that's a conscious effort
to present those two duos differently, so a so you're
not comparing them back and forth, but be just so
that they so they stand the loan so like you know,
and I think that's that's important. You don't want to
have Paul Hayman and brock Lesner two point zho. You want,

(01:24:10):
you know, them to have their own relationship reigns at
Hayman together. And this is a kind of a polar
opposite approach to that, and I think it really works.
And it makes Roman seem more heelish too, to know
that he's the one pulling these strings and he's not
being manipulated. It's it's an important nuance and I hopefully
we get to see that kind of grow as as

(01:24:30):
as Roman continues to grow as a heel.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
I want to be sure that Roman talks like I
don't want the percentage anywhere near what it was with
Hayman and Lesner. And Lesner's an unerrated talker, and when
he did talk, I thought it was effective. I get
why they did what they did, but I think the
act would have felt fresher longer if Lesner was asked
and seemed enthusiastic about participating more and playing off of Hayman.

(01:24:55):
I think there was a chemistry there that would have
been awesome to watch verbally play out with them interacting
a setup rock. But Brock was great with his facial expressions.
I mean like I mean, for a guy who didn't
talk much at all, he was tremendous in saying a
lot with very few words. I still would have voted
for him the same more words with rains. He's great
with his facial expressions too. We saw that on Friday,

(01:25:18):
the way that he subtly played Jay Uso with the
past it on smile. I thought he was mgf's assistant
for a minute there, and as soon as Jay got
out of sight, you know, far enough away, he was
willing to show the sinister side, the manipulative side of
what was going on. That basically told you Jay's in
trouble on Sunday because he's going to go in because

(01:25:38):
he obviously won't watch SmackDown back or check his texts,
or he'll be dismissive of family warning him that you know,
Roman isn't isn't who he thinks he is. So he's
going to go in naive and pay a price, and
we get to watch that play out. And I thought
I didn't think this was one of the better Smackdowns lately.
Last Friday, I thought it was a down show for them.
But I think they've done a good enough job. Not great,

(01:26:02):
because I have some issues with it, but they've done
a good enough job having Jay sort of you can
kind of see why Jay has enough history with Roman
that he's willfully blind to what's really going on here.
And I've kind of gone back and forth with whether
I think there should be a more overt there should
be more overt pressure on Jay of how can he

(01:26:23):
not see what's happening. I think that falls more on
the announcers, And going back to my thing about the announcers,
they should be advocates for the obvious. When announcers are
not advocates for the obvious or you know, in asking
the questions that everybody at home is thinking, they seem
like they're part of some propaganda pr campaign and you
lose trust in them as opposed to there with me
and we're both you know, they're like me. They're just

(01:26:43):
in a professional, professional job calling the action, but they
want the same thing I do, and even playing field
to find out who the best is in decry cheating
and tactics that undermine that when they aren't talking about
what is Roman up to? And why is Jay believing him?
Because Vince McMahon doesn't trust them, doesn't trust his viewer
is to to hear announcing like that and he doesn't

(01:27:05):
think that there's that they're sophisticated enough to handle that
type of announcing. It comes across as manipulative to me
and undercutting things that said. Just looking at Jay alone,
you can kind of see why he's willfully in denial
that Roman has changed. And you know, he just has
this smile, this naive smile of no, we go way
back and we been you know, you know he's under pressure,

(01:27:27):
but I'm willing to forgive him. He's like the mom
on the news who says, my kid would never do that.
You're like, yeah, yeah, your kid probably did do that.
And that's kind of who Jay is right now. He's like,
oh my cousin would never do that. You guys, He's
he's just he's ignoring the obvious signs. But I think
I'm willing to grant him that naivete at this point,
given the history he has, and I'm willing to then

(01:27:48):
or I'm looking forward to seeing him have have have
have you know, reality hit him in the face on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
Right, And I mean, I think I am too. I
give him that that leniency.

Speaker 3 (01:28:00):
I don't think it's it's crossed over into you know,
just Jay being a dumb babyface. Yet I think there's
I think there is a sympathy in you know, watch
like the audience is watching this guy who you know,
really believe in his family roots that Yeah, Roman may
have changed, but he you know, he won't do it
to me because I'm you know, I'm family, I'm his brother.

(01:28:21):
And I think that there's a sympathy that Roman and
Jay are going to use in their match on Sunday,
that that plays off that and they're going to try
to manipulate, manipulate that sympathy into.

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
Getting Roman more heat. So I think it's been really effective.

Speaker 3 (01:28:34):
And then the other thing is it's not you know,
it kind of goes back to what we were talking
about earlier, which is providing context. You know, they're not
They've this is a calculated effort to show their connection
with one another, show their history, and it's been thought through.
There's vignettes, there's photos that are shown. They talk about
it like it's all part of the story. And I

(01:28:55):
think that, you know, it gives it more legitimacy, and
you know, people are are being told, hey, look, this
is that they've got history together. So you know, there's
a reason to believe that Jay is potentially naive about
this because hey, it's his it's his brother we're talking
about here. His brother would never do that to him.
But they've shown you that it's not something that they're

(01:29:15):
just kind of floating around out there, and you can
make your own conclusion about it. It's a clear, concise effort
to be a part of the story. So and they're
gonna use it on Sunday to be to be sure.
I think Jay is the best first opponent for for
for heal Roman Reigns, I really do. I think if
you would have put him in there against the Fiend

(01:29:35):
or you know, King Corbin again or not King Cormnin.
Excuse me, I'm that riddle somebody like that. I just
I just don't know that. Yeah, I think Roman Reigns
could get over as a heal with with that opponent
because I think he's He's talented in that regard and
is really, as I said before, comfortable in that in
that skin. But man, the history that they can play
off of is important, and I think Roman's gonna roll

(01:29:59):
right through them. But I still think it's going to
be an emotional emotional match too, So I think they
hit a home run with that choice.

Speaker 1 (01:30:07):
Sticking was back down for a minute. Jack A brought
up the the Bailey and Banks storyline, and he's loving it,
you know. Todd Martin was pushed back pretty hard against
people praising the the way that this turn played out
in the initial Bailey promo. Where where are you on
on on on the w WE SmackDown Women's title situation

(01:30:30):
and how this uh this payoff has played out so far.

Speaker 3 (01:30:35):
Yeah, I'm a little more iffy on this than A
than the emailer for sure. I thought the turn itself
was effective. I thought you really got to see you
vicious Bailey, you know, and you saw heel Bailey before,
but you didn't really get to see you know, vicious
Bailey yet. And I thought they really painted that picture well.
I thought that, you know, they've been building up to

(01:30:55):
this heel turn for for quite some time, and so
it needed to be more than just oh okay, a
chair shots or something like that, like, it had to
be something significant, like a big angle. And I thought
they'd checked that box out of the gate.

Speaker 2 (01:31:08):
What I haven't like.

Speaker 8 (01:31:16):
I'm Kelly Wells, host of p w T Talks NXT,
the longest running NXT podcast Anywhere. Join me along with
Nate Lindberg, Bruce Lee, Hazelwood, and special guests, live every
Tuesday night, just minutes after NXT, where we cover the good,
the bad, and the ugly on the way to becoming
a star in WWE. Check us out live on YouTube
or stream later wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 (01:31:49):
I think both the follow up on on Bailey's behalf
and Sasha's not not that it's been bad, just a
little too just a little too weak can compared to
what the angle was. I thought Bailey, you know, gave
a good promo, but given what she did, I was
hoping for a little more depth, a little more emotion,
you know, a little more telling the story about them,

(01:32:12):
and it just didn't really get into that gear. It
kind of stalled out right at second gear and didn't
get into the third or fourth like I thought it
needed to. And then on the Sasha Banks side of things,
I thought her execution of the promo was good, but
from a content perspective, going down the road of oh,
you know you needed me and I feel betrayed, like

(01:32:33):
I thought they leaned on that just a little too much. Yes,
you want to touch on that, but I thought that
Sasha Banks came off as and I think there's a
difference here.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
She came off.

Speaker 3 (01:32:43):
Looking weak as opposed to looking sympathetic, and I don't
think that's what you want. You want some sympathy on
Sasha Banks. But you want to know though, that that
badass Sasha Banks, when she's ready to return, she's gonna
come back with a vengeance and take that smack down
women's title from Bailey. And she she kind of got,
but she didn't get there with as much oomph as
I as I was hoping she would, and I think

(01:33:04):
she just played around in that you know that week
Woe is Me territory too much, so, uh, you know,
I kind of give it like a I don't know, Wade,
like I give it kind of c level stuff at
this point outside of the turn with the caveat that
both women are talented enough to crank it up a
notch here, you know, before wherever they have the match,

(01:33:25):
I think there's there's time to get it to the
next level.

Speaker 1 (01:33:28):
Still, yeah, and I think the you know, the the
real issue is just Sasha seeming like Bailey was the
one who pulled the trigger on her, and I just
didn't think Bailey delivered the goods in terms of in
terms of framing her motivation in a way that ultimately
made you want to root for Sasha Banks. Bailey explained
her rationale, but it didn't make Sasha any more of

(01:33:51):
a sympathetic babyface for having been turned on by Bailey,
because Bailey was done with her as opposed to Sasha
seeing the light and in the core having viewers going Okay, Sasha, Now,
I forgive Sasha for the sins of the past. She
has seen the light and I now understand why she
did what she did before, and I'm glad that she finally,

(01:34:14):
you know, separated herself from Bailey and everything Bailey stood for.
We're starting to see the real Sasha. That's not what
we got in this turn, you know. And that's that's
what frustrates me, is Sasha. This felt to me they
need Sasha to be come out of this as a
top tier babyface megastar who can lead a division, and

(01:34:36):
this was booked in a way that made Bailey seem
like the priority and Sasha the person who happens to
have been dumped by Bailey as opposed to Bailey being
the person who Sasha happened to turn against. And I
think that that limits and not that fans are thinking
this as overtly and specifically as I'm describing it, but
I think it it does limit Sasha's person the perception

(01:35:00):
people have in Sasha as a real top star, because
she was the one who was being played and manipulated
and turned on as opposed to the other way around.

Speaker 3 (01:35:09):
Yeah, she I mean right now, like everything's kind of
happening to Sasha, and I think, you know, you the
best turns are when it's the other way around.

Speaker 2 (01:35:19):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:35:20):
I think back to a long time ago when Randy
Orton first won his world title the first time, and
you know, you had you had you know, he's this
jerky guy. You had an evolution turn on him, and
then all of a sudden, he's supposed to be a babyface.
But really there was no kind of foundation laid for
that up. You know, until that point, You're just supposed

(01:35:40):
to turn on him, like go with him because you
almost feel bad for him. And I think the same
thing was here with with Sasha Banks. Oh now we
have to like her because Bailey did this thing. But
from a character perspective, you didn't get that journey of
Sasha Banks figuring out that Bailey is manipulating her and
figuring out that yeah, you know, she's been doing Bailey's
bidding for however long, and then get to see kind

(01:36:03):
of the you know, the alpha babyface, make the turn herself.
Everything's kind of happening to Sasha and she's just kind
of rolling around with it. And I don't I think
she could have saved some of that with her promo.
I just I don't think she did. I think she
just kind of continued.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
It on a little bit the I'm trying to not
go super heavy into what qualifies as as previewing the Clash,
since we'll dedicate a whole show to it on Thursday.
But the way that they have built up the women's
matches on the Clash, it it feels like it's it's

(01:36:37):
not and it's not a major pay per view, so
in a sense, I mean, you don't want a level
matchups on this lineup, and I get that, and you
can't have every pay per view feature top top matches,
but I just don't know if Nikki Cross feels like
she's on a wave of a momentum where you think, yeah,
she could win and it doesn't mean she can't or

(01:37:00):
that it won't even be a good decision to surprise
people with it. But just the way WWE books going
into Sunday, I don't think anybody's looking at this going wow.
You know, I know Bailey's worried about Sasha all that,
which You're going to have plenty of time to deal
with that. Because Nicki has momentum. I'm super behind her
right now and this is our chance to finally win
because she doesn't have to worry about Sasha, and I'm
glad Nikki said that. I thought that was one of

(01:37:21):
the highlights of SmackDown, is Nikki telling viewers essentially why
they should take her seriously because Sasha won't be there.
But the rest of the booking of Nicki just doesn't
I think, project the idea that she's right, that she's
writing this crest and this is her time, and it
takes some of the drama away from Sunday that at
least going into the show, they didn't tell this concurrent

(01:37:44):
storyline of Nicki having momentum. She's the one who got
laid out by Alexo Bliss and seemed to not understand
that that was way over the line in the context
of a competitive match to earn a title shot that
told her something about Alexa Bliss that should want that
she should seemingly be a lot more concerned about than
that she should be a lot more concerned about than

(01:38:05):
she seemingly is. And it's fine if she's naive, just
like kind of Jay is when it comes to Roman,
but that doesn't tell me. Yeah, the focus on Nikki
is she might win a world title. This seems like
Nicki's filling a spot they need to fill. She's gonna lose,
and she's going to go back to dealing with Alexa
and what she's going through. I just don't think that's
not every match on a pay per view, when every
title is defended on a September DOT to B pay

(01:38:27):
per view is going to be like peak title opportunity
is going to be a peak match that feels like
pay per view main event worthy. But this falls short
of I think that what the standard should be, and
I think they could have easily achieved it with some
better planning.

Speaker 3 (01:38:41):
Yeah, I agree, I agree, And it almost feels like
Nikki I mean Nikki Cross. Yeah she's got this match,
and yeah she told a promo about it, but I
mean the story right now with.

Speaker 2 (01:38:50):
Her is between her and Alexa Bliss.

Speaker 3 (01:38:52):
Like that's that's kind of to me When I think
in Nikki Cross, Oh what does Niki Cross have going
on right now? You know, the first thing I think
of is, well, she's got this, you know, she's got
this story with Alexa Bliss. And then it's oh, yeah,
wait a minute, she has a she has a title
match on Sunday, and that's you know, I just don't
think you want that for your for your championship matches,
that that championship should be the should be the focal

(01:39:14):
point of of of what you're doing. And it's almost
playing second fiddle for Niki Cross right now. And and
to your point about not, you know, not all matches
on pay per view, being like you know your your
A matches on Raw. You you have Zelena Vega as
the challenger to Oscar right now, but I think before her,
you had like a little mini program there between Oscar

(01:39:37):
and Mickey James that was kind of that b C
level championship match, and I thought that was I thought
that was just fine. You had Mickey James cut a
few promos about how this title match and title opportunity
is is different for her and those opportunities might not
come again. I thought she set the table nicely there
and then they kind of they just blew it off
on Raw like that, to me is something that you
extend out. You get to the pay per view with

(01:39:59):
a match like a two three week build, four week build,
maybe you've got some promos around it, and then you
go with that, Yeah, Oscar wins and that's the end
of it. But at least there's some context there and
a reason for the match to happen. This Selena Vega thing,
I mean, it's out of nowhere. She was a manager
for Androte and Angel Garza just two weeks ago, and

(01:40:20):
it's you know, and now she's in a title match.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
I just think, you yea one where or the other.

Speaker 1 (01:40:25):
And it's not like the announcers spent the last several
months a going. Zelena Vega, formidable wrestler herself, has set
aside her her trajectory to be a top level wrestler
in order to manage these two. Like that backstory wasn't there, Like,
I mean, there's probably people watching who are watched w
B every week who are like what she wrestles, you know,
Like I mean, to go from that to two weeks

(01:40:46):
later having a main event a main event title shot
again seems farcical. It doesn't cause people to respect the
structure and and and the way that that that matches
count for something. You know, when wins and losses and
matches don't collectively consistently and collectively count for something, and
somebody like Selina can just sort of sort of arbitrarily

(01:41:07):
end up in the title picture, it just makes you
less invested. In everything else going.

Speaker 3 (01:41:11):
On, Yeah, right, and in that instance you discarded something
that was a little hotter too, you know. And look,
I'm not out here saying that Mickey James and Oscar
were the you know, the second coming of.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
Rock Austin or anything like that. But it was something.

Speaker 3 (01:41:25):
It was, it was, you know, just it was something
good enough for this pay per view that you kind
of cast aside for as you said, Wade, that kind
of a farcical challenger.

Speaker 1 (01:41:37):
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Let's talk a little bit about what's going on with
OTIS and the Money in the Bank.

Speaker 2 (01:42:41):
Boy.

Speaker 1 (01:42:42):
Yeah, you know, Rain's coming back sort of extinguished my
thoughts of trying to do something you know, fun and
relevant and kind of main event level with Otis. I think,
you know, there's there's wrestlers where in WW misses this.
You know, they add it with missed out ones. I
had it with Titus so Neil at one time. There's
other examples too where you can just go, hey, this

(01:43:02):
isn't a long term thing, but this is a really
fun break from overexposing our top guys fighting each other
all the time. And we got somebody here who I
think fans are into. We have a circumstance with money
in the bank where we could really do something interesting
with it. He's good in the ring, and he's good
on the mic. He knows his character. Well, let's get
something significant out of him and I and now with

(01:43:23):
Rain's coming back, I understand that being the priority with
the Universal Title picture and all that, but it did
make Otis with the money in the bank briefcase, just
sort of seem like he's standing there holding a gimmick
that doesn't really fit any storyline that you can imagine
making any sense at this point Otis and Roman, you know,
doesn't make sense. I don't see Roman being vulnerable enough
at any time soon where Otis would go, here's my chance.

(01:43:47):
And even if he did, no one's gonna believe Otis
are going to pin Rains. I mean, I guess they
could do that. I guess. I mean, if I'm trying again,
I'm trying to think, like what Heel could lay out
Rome or what Babyface could lay out Roman enough that
Otis would then seize the chance win the Universal title
and then they would just have Rains, you know, destroy
him afterwards. I mean, that's about the only path if

(01:44:10):
they keep money in the bank on Otis. So I yeah,
I just I feel like they lost their window, I guess,
is what I'm getting at. And Rain showing up just
made the money in the bank feel like there's this
thing he's carrying around for comedy that no longer really
fits in snugly in anything. Now he can pull it
through through you know, next May. So they don't do
anything fast with it.

Speaker 2 (01:44:28):
Yeah, no, they you know they don't. But I think
I would.

Speaker 3 (01:44:31):
I would use it at this point as a as
a way to just get more heat on Roman reigns,
like I'd love to see, you know, a dark Roman
reigns just kind of just obliterate Otis as he tries
to cash in, you know, and just really just use
that kind of the any sort of semblance of sympathy
that Otis has left and just put it all on

(01:44:53):
Rains that have them just just beat it out of them,
and you know, it's a you know, I think it
has to be right and done, you know, carefully to
make sure that it's serious in nature. But I think
Otis is lovable enough where you can you can use
that to kind of sentuate the point that Rains is
this dark, dark, mean, bad heel. I think that's what

(01:45:17):
I would do, because I just don't see it going
on the other way. I think you don't want to
beat Roman range right now, even if it is h
a babyface kind of coming in and helping notice you
know he's he's on the you know, upward trajectory as
a heel, and you just I just don't want to
see that that derailed for the for the sake of
a kind of a fun title win. So I would

(01:45:39):
go the other way.

Speaker 2 (01:45:39):
I would just I would use it for heat.

Speaker 1 (01:45:42):
So what are they doing with the the threat of
a lawsuit? And also Tucker? I mean, should we be
you know, we read into Ray's daughter and how she
reacted to Murphy and that got paid off this week?
Should we be reading into Tucker going? Is your problem
not our problem?

Speaker 2 (01:45:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:46:00):
I mean, I guess you're supposed to read into anything
they put on TV, but there's no guarantee that they
pay it off.

Speaker 2 (01:46:09):
Yeah. I don't know. This one's interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:46:11):
Well, I don't know that i'd call it interesting, but
it's it's a thing I guess to talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
What I can't get out of.

Speaker 3 (01:46:16):
My head is all right, hey, you have this this
lawsuit thing. Why aren't you cashing it in immediately? You know, like,
if you know this is coming, otis, why are you
casting in the title shot right now? Because you just
who knows if you'll have it, you know in two three,
weeks time, like I can't get that that storyline quirk
out of my out of my head with it.

Speaker 1 (01:46:35):
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's maybe where they're going.
But yeah, I wish I was, I wish I wish.
I felt like SmackDown had momentum and the rating this
last Friday was a big drop off. I was like, hey,
you know, with with Thunderdome, maybe people like the setting more.
And then you got Roman Rains and Paul Hayman back
and Rains as a heel. It felt like this was

(01:46:56):
a show with some momentum, and manned at that that talker.
That mindset on my part extinguished pretty quick with a
drop down to roughly, you know, just barely over two
million viewers again after being over two point three. You know,
it is just one week, so we want to see
a larger trend, but it sure ended the the upward,

(01:47:18):
the upward viewership because keep them on. They were at
one point just under one point nine million on July
thirty first, then they crawled back up to one point nine,
a little over two, about two point two, about two
point one five, two point one three, and then and
then two fridays ago two point three million, over two
point three million, and then they dropped down to barely

(01:47:41):
over two million this past week, So I don't know,
what do you what do you make of that?

Speaker 2 (01:47:46):
Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:47:48):
I was really high on kind of that, like, all right,
they got their big star back and the ratings are
are following. Shoot, I mean, I think it said something
about Roman reigns. I think for right now, you know,
there's a little bit of a trend there, you know,
I kind of take it as as an outlier. I'm
trying to go back in my head and think what
was happening that night. I know there was a basketball game.
I know, you know, the news broke that we lost

(01:48:13):
Supreme Court Justice Skinsburg that same night too, So I
don't know if that drew some attention away or got
people to change the channel. I don't know, but I
think it's that should be cause of concern. But I
don't know that I look at that and go, Okay,
w W needs to blow up everything on SmackDown.

Speaker 2 (01:48:31):
Yet I think they still have a good enough show.

Speaker 3 (01:48:33):
It's an outlier rating that they definitely need to to.

Speaker 2 (01:48:37):
Be aware of and see and see where it goes.

Speaker 3 (01:48:41):
But at the same time, you know again, I think
the show's been good enough where you know, I trust
that it's maybe was outstanding circumstances and not the product itself.

Speaker 1 (01:48:54):
Yep, let's talk what.

Speaker 2 (01:48:56):
What do you think? I mean? Is it? Is it? Ah?
I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:49:00):
Is it cause of concern where you tell yourself, Hey, like, okay,
we got the.

Speaker 2 (01:49:04):
Roman raigns is a heel, isn't working? Let's flip them back?

Speaker 1 (01:49:07):
No? No, I mean I no, I don't. I think
that they're gonna look at that as what happened. We
don't have enough information yet. Let's keep an eye on things.
But if their conclusion is, you know, if the ratings
don't rebound and you know it's critically acclaimed, but it's
it's not producing ratings, I hope they look elsewhere first

(01:49:28):
for the excuse, and you know, then you have a
sup you know, you can have a draft or a
roster shake up and try to freshen things up. There's
a lot of things they can blame before. I think
they should blame Roman reigns. But if the if, if
Roman reigns, fans, the kids and adults who liked Roman
are really turned off by this, and they were intrigued
for two weeks and now they're disheartened. I mean, I

(01:49:51):
couldn't rule loud Vince just going oh god, you know,
we got to completely go a different direction. I you know,
I mean that's why this I mean, I doubt Vince
would pull the plug on his long term plan for
Roman based on two SmackDown viewership numbers, But this Friday,
if it goes even further down, I guess it could
cross his mind to change course. So you know that

(01:50:11):
overnight rating we'll see on Saturday before Class of Champions,
I mean, it could influence the course of Roman Reigns
going forward if Vince were to panic. I mean it's
it's not unheard of for him to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:50:22):
Yeah, no, it's not. I but I hope they stay
the course.

Speaker 3 (01:50:25):
I think, you know, you know, you needed to kind
of go through this step with him to establish him
as a heel. And I you know, jay Uso is
a great opponent from from the story perspective, you know,
but he's certainly not an opponent that you're going to
be like, oh, I gotta watch to I really want
him to be Roman Reigns. I don't think it's he
doesn't serve that purpose, right, now. So I think if

(01:50:45):
you you can stay the course as a company and
just just wait it out, establish Roman as a heel,
get through this feud because I think it's been a
good one, go through the shake up, and then you
have a you just line up, you know, a bunch
of other babyfaces that are a little more upper tier
than Ben jau so is you know, then I think
you have somebody bad. I don't know that you can

(01:51:07):
make any I hope they don't make any calls based
on you know, one or two ratings because he's just
he's not firmly supplanted in that role. He's getting there,
but he's just he's not quite he's not fully there yet. Yeah,
it's still going to take some time.

Speaker 1 (01:51:20):
Yeah, no, no, I agree.

Speaker 9 (01:51:27):
I'm Chris Maitland and I'm Justin McClelland we host.

Speaker 10 (01:51:30):
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Speaker 1 (01:52:44):
I know tonight there's a late night Dynamite Brandy Rhodes Wrestling.
They've got Matt Sidell and Seawan Spears a couple other matches,
but the real headline this week is going to be
a FA a W from an AW standpoint is can
they keep the momentum that they had after what was

(01:53:06):
critically acclaimed and justifiably so episode last week. I just
thought that last week's Dynamite was really encouraging and it
was one of those shows where you know, I got
an hour, hour and a half to do it, and
I'm like, this is really good, you know, like this
just it seems like the characters are in place and
they're clicking, and I'm really looking forward to whether, well,

(01:53:29):
I want to see whether this is something we should
read into as they've kind of figured some things out.
We're past some of the you know, pandemic booking delays
and some of those things they wanted to do and
that they're not sure how long we got to brace
ourselves for this and we're actually going to just see
AW move forward with some key storylines. What right now

(01:53:50):
when I bring up AW, Dynamite jumps out to you
as this is what is what I'm most looking forward
to in a W heading into you know, the fall winter, uh,
the final months of the year.

Speaker 3 (01:54:04):
Yeah, no, I mean this this has been that last
show was was great. I mean it it's and and
you look at it on paper and I don't know
that it had any like you weren't expecting it to
be great. And I think, for one thing, I think
that probably played into it, right, Like you know, your
expectations were down here, and that you know, once they
deliver up above that, you know, that acentuates the point

(01:54:24):
that man.

Speaker 2 (01:54:24):
That's that's this was really good. But what I think,
you know, the biggest takeaway.

Speaker 3 (01:54:28):
That I had from it, outside of it just being
an enjoyable show, is just the diverse amount of talent
that they have to put in those main event positions.
I mean, you can go with just a multitude of
different things right now.

Speaker 2 (01:54:43):
The T and T Championship has been there, the World
title has been there.

Speaker 3 (01:54:46):
You've had Orange Cassidy and Chris Jericho tag matches there,
You've had you've had this this program between the best
Friends and on the Inner Circle that that lived in
the main event. You can they can oh multitude of
the different directions and it's all relatively overstuffed. I think
that's a I mean, that's a huge feather in their

(01:55:07):
cap that they've developed a whole the tag team division two.
I mean that can live in the in the main
event scene. You know, you've got You've got just this
multitude of different levers you can pull to make a
show feel fresh.

Speaker 2 (01:55:19):
It's not always all.

Speaker 3 (01:55:20):
Right, the stame stars in the main event, the stame
stars in the opening segment. You really they can change
it up, and I think that keeps the audience on
their toes, so that's really important. The other thing is,
I mean they use their television time wisely for the
most part. And sure there's outliers where Okay, I roll here,
I roll there, not really sure what's going on with

(01:55:42):
the Young Bucks and Hangman Page right now. Yes that
my criticism for that is still there. However, you know,
you they took you know, the Best Friends Inner Circle
program and they you know, milked it for a good
handful of weeks and got to you know, a big
time in event that they promoted in the show to
make it feel like a big deal. You know, That's

(01:56:02):
that's wrestling promotion. I mean, that's kind of the nuts
and bolts of what you have to do. And I
think they do that so well and can go so
many different directions that it is just a fresh feel.
You don't know what you're gonna get. Can they do?
They have to iron things out? Yes, they have to
clean up some stuff. Their storytelling can get too cute.
I've said that before on.

Speaker 2 (01:56:23):
These shows and others. But for the most part.

Speaker 3 (01:56:25):
You know, it's just a it's just a it's a
it's a fresh feel and it's an easy watch nine
times out of.

Speaker 1 (01:56:31):
Ten mirror, Are you optimistic he can be a top
star in AW? Have you lost all faith? Where are
you on that scale?

Speaker 2 (01:56:41):
I'm not. I've not lost all faith, but.

Speaker 3 (01:56:46):
You know, and the reason is because I think AW
has a track record of you know, yes, even though
you kind of debut here, you're not necessarily stuck there forever,
and so sure, there's definitely a path to see him,
you know, move up the card and get into more
you know, bigger.

Speaker 2 (01:57:04):
Bigger matches.

Speaker 3 (01:57:05):
So it's not I don't have an issue with the
fact that, oh, he debuted down here at this level.
My issue is kind of the character he's played. You know,
he's still that goofball guy, you know, and that, more
than his booking or his person on the card, is
going to be what holds him back. I mean, I
think if if if I was him, I want I

(01:57:26):
would have wanted to kind of turn over the whole character,
you flip it completely, you know around And yes, everybody
knows me as this kind of fun loving guy and
and yeah I am that that's a part of my personality.
But I'm an aw to win. I want to win matches.
I want to fight. I never, you know, you even
go to the down the road if I didn't get
you know, championship opportunities, you know, in my old company.

(01:57:48):
But I'm gonna get him here and I'm gonna, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:57:51):
Prove to the world that I that I deserve him whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:57:53):
But I needed to see somebody that was rooted in
winning championships. And I just think you're still just seeing
that fun loving character who's being goofy. And I think
until he kind of sheds that that is what I
think puts a ceiling on him.

Speaker 1 (01:58:10):
Another topic, do you think when Cody comes back, he's
gonna make a difference or do you think in his
absence there's almost been a sense that AW has moved
on without him. And I'm not proposing that That's how
I feel but aw, you know, has had some good number,
good ratings, good reviews, some of the characters have fallen
into place. They've added some new people, including the just

(01:58:31):
spoken about Mirro Will Hobbs being added. The mix is
like will Cody be like, Wow, Cody's back, we got
to watch he's spent such a big deal for so
long in a w Or do you think he actually
lost some momentum being away?

Speaker 2 (01:58:45):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:58:45):
Man, wow, good good question. I thought about that. I mean,
I guess my my my initial gut answer is no,
you do you want Cody back? You know, he's one
of the he's one of your biggest stars, and like,
you know that that should help you, right. I think
that's just my initial quick take on it is, Hey, yeah,

(01:59:06):
you can get one of your top three stars back.

Speaker 2 (01:59:07):
Yeah, you you take him back.

Speaker 3 (01:59:09):
And you just you make a good show with with
him involved, and hopefully the results are the numbers get better,
the show gets even better. I think that's that's certainly
the you know, the the.

Speaker 2 (01:59:20):
Initial take that I have.

Speaker 3 (01:59:22):
But when you kind of drill drill it down more though,
you know, I I I think you have to if
you're Tony Kahn, leave yourself the out where if any
of these newer acts or these other guys that aren't
you know, the EVPs and that aren't the kind of
the brain trust that forms the company gets more over
than them, Like, you have to be okay pivoting away,

(01:59:45):
Like if someone like Will Hobbs, for example, who had
what I thought was just a wonderful debut on Dynamite
topped with you know, the endorsement of John Moxley, Like,
I mean that was huge. I mean if that's a
guy that ends up getting momentum and getting the audien
behind him, Like if you're Tony Khan, you need to
be able to pivot away from your core pillars like

(02:00:06):
Cody to give him the room that he needs to
get as big as he can get. So that's where
I would start being critical of of Cody and whoever else,
Kenny Omega, Young Bucks, if they're preventing those other stars
from reaching their full potential. I don't think we're at
that point yet. So yes, bring Cody back and feature

(02:00:27):
him in a big way. I think that makes your
show better for now. But but you, as a booker,
you got to leave yourself open to the to the
notion of hey, you know, at some point, you know,
Cody's could easily kind of fade, and we have to
be ready to pivot if needed.

Speaker 1 (02:00:42):
I'm really interested to see how Will Hobbs does in
his spotlight match tomorrow night, too. I'm really curious about that.
I just don't know enough, you know, I haven't seen
enough of him to know if if he's in over
his head or he'll he'll end up being a breakout star.
But I like, I like the cop concept of Moxie
being somebody who helps elevate stars. You know, that's that's

(02:01:04):
been a role that Jericho has been in and and
I think Moxley is embracing up with Darby Allen, and
I'm I'm think people are excited to see the idea
that there's upward mobility and that they're you know, Mac
shouldn't be endorsing every you know, somebody different every month.
But the way Hobbs came to his defense and the
way that he had that showing in the Battle Royal,

(02:01:25):
I think one of the reasons people are dressing is
to watch stars rise. And so whether it works out
or not, aw has I think a responsibility to not
do uh with Will Hobbs what they did with Scorpio Sky,
which get people excited and then just forget about him,
you know, two weeks from now.

Speaker 3 (02:01:42):
Absolutely I thought that was a really I mean, I'm
trying to think of all the kind of on the
spot six man tags that have been booked in a
vast array of companies for the last, you know, however
many years, and I don't know that I can find
a better one in terms of how it came together
than last week. I mean, it was just I thought
it was the baby faces looked like badasses, they look cool,

(02:02:04):
They looked like a group that you wanted to get behind,
led by the world champion talking in a way that
a human would talk and not through kind of cliched catchphrases.

Speaker 2 (02:02:14):
It was really it was kind of just a real moment.

Speaker 3 (02:02:16):
Between Hobbs and and Moxley with with Al Darby Allen
as kind of the Cheerry on top. So I'm really
intrigued as to how this goes too. I'm I think
they did a great job of, you know, building anticipation
for in the what what was it two minute promo?
Maybe their three minute segment, you know, so really curious.

Speaker 1 (02:02:35):
A lot of tickets have been a lot of tickets
have been sold historically with a two minute promo. Well right,
you know, I mean the idea that oh it can't
it can't count les someone talks for eight to twelve
minutes in the ring. It's like that. There's been a
lot Terry Funk sold a lot of tickets and I
don't know how many promos went over two minutes with him,
you know. I mean it's just that wrestling doesn't have

(02:02:56):
to go by the you know, the amount of quantity
of time it's given.

Speaker 3 (02:03:01):
Nothing says that it has to be complicated, you know,
it can just I mean, it's like part of wrestling
is just that that human nature of it and that
a lot of times is enough and you keep it
simple like like Moxley did.

Speaker 2 (02:03:13):
Like it works.

Speaker 3 (02:03:15):
And I think it's a big moment for Hobbs. You know,
that's a bit you know, you're with some some some
decent star power. You're with the world champion. I you know,
I hope he uh, I hope he uh, I hope
he does well. You know, I think that's a that'd
be a really nice act for aw to cultivate and
to see, as you said, Wade like kind of go
on that mission and have the audience get behind him

(02:03:36):
really from the very very beginning, because there's no history
with him.

Speaker 1 (02:03:41):
Thanks for downloading today's show. Take it to the next
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(02:04:01):
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and the ad free listening experience. Pw torch dot com
slash go vip. Let's take a moment to talk about

(02:04:26):
NXT Tomorrow night. They've got their Gauntlet Eliminator match. Every
four minutes, a new wrestler enters after starting with two
winner gets a shot at the next takeover next month
against Finn Balor. It's an eclectic mix of wrestlers who
suddenly are one long match away from becoming number one

(02:04:48):
contender and getting a title shot headlining Takeover. Who seems
most positioned to be an opponent on a B level
Takeover event? I mean Bronson Reid added he has momentum lately.
I'm not quite sure. It's like I think Finn Balor

(02:05:08):
can be a tweener champion where you don't really eliminate
either heels or faces as challengers for him at this point.
So I think you can, you know, make the case
he could go. He could go against the heel or face,
so everybody's on the table in that way. It seems
like Kyler Riley might be engaged in something with Tomascow
champion going a different direction. Timothy Thatcher's been on the rise.
Cameron Grimes seems more like a upper second tier role player.

(02:05:31):
You're not quite ready to headline a pay per view
with which you know brings you to Kusheta as a possibility.
Where where where are you when you kind of talk
through this and think through the match in terms of
who us slotted as the most the most likely or
top picks to maybe be the choice they'll make or
a good choice and hopefully those are the same thing.

Speaker 2 (02:05:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:05:51):
Yeah, So there's three guys that I take out of
the equation kind of right away, given what what they
have going on, and kind of given their their their
place in the company and on the card, and their history,
the recent history with what they've done on television. So,
you know, Kyle Riley, I think you hit the nail
on the head, like he's appears to have something else
going on with Tamaso Champa. I can see, you know,

(02:06:15):
that playing out in this match. Maybe it costs him
the opportunity to kind of further that story, but I
think it appears as if he's tied up there. Bronson Reid,
He's a guy that I'm discarding in this situation just
because I think he has and I'm discarding him because
he has a high ceiling, because I think they've done
a good job building him up slowly, and I think

(02:06:38):
vaulting him into you know, main event title match with
Finn Balor almost out of nowhere and presumably just to
go and get beat is not the best use for
a guy that I think they've got some equity, and
I think you can clearly see about how they've they've
booked him that hey, they see him, that hey, maybe
he could be maybe he could be a player for
us in the near future. And and I don't think

(02:06:58):
you want to kind of derail any momentum that you
have there by putting him in a position that he's
not ready for yet, which I think this would be uh.
And then Casida nothing wrong with him. I think him
and Finn Balor could have a good match, But he
just doesn't scream world title challenger to me at this point,
Like we've just seen him. He's down there with Drake

(02:07:19):
Maverick doing some stuff he's been in the cruiser Way tournament.
I just don't I just don't view him as a
as a viable even at a B level pay per
view or a B level takeover for for for Finn
Balor in the NSC Championship. So that leaves Timothy Thatcher
and and Cameron Grimes. And if I'm picking from those two,
I think I'm going going faster. We've seen Balor and

(02:07:42):
Grimes have a match. It's been good. But Grimes is
another one that like if you if you think he
can be more than he is, I don't know that
you want him to do the to do a job
to Finn Baler right out of the out of the gate,
and that leaves you know, he's been a bit protected.
I think he's you know, he's just lost the match
to Damian Priest, but I still think he's protected enough

(02:08:05):
as a heel and the way he works his matches
stylistically to be a guy that can seem credible against
Hinn Balor on a on a.

Speaker 2 (02:08:14):
B level show.

Speaker 3 (02:08:15):
So that's that's my that's my pick. But I can
see him going with Grimes too.

Speaker 1 (02:08:20):
I think everybody's on the table. I mean, I you could,
you could, you can tell me that three people are eliminated.
I can come up with a set of three and
we might only overlap once and then he might ask
me tomorrow before the show airs, and I might have
different people I'd roll out and and I like that.
I think you could have Kyler Riley go against Balor
with the effort, with the idea being let's elevate him,

(02:08:40):
let's have people look at him differently, and then you know,
the CHAMPI can cost him to win and that propels
him into a few that that you know, Riley goes
off and goes in a new direction. Uh with him,
but now he's headlined a takeover, so people look at
him differently. I could see NXT rationalizing that, you know,
you can make the case uh that you know, the
way to get people excited about Kusheita and take him

(02:09:02):
seriously is kind of you know, put paddles to his
chest booking wise, just you know, move him into a
spot people don't expect and see if he can just
shine and open people's eyes and you go, hey, this
takeovers not make a break. It's not part of a
huge weekend. We're not trying to sell tickets to it.
We just want a good show and we wanted to
accomplish some things. And the pandemic era does change the

(02:09:23):
booking formulation, which is your book to tell long term
stories and get people excited about buying things on pay
per view or subscribing to the network. But you're not
actually trying to sell wrestling tickets. There's not that pressure.
It's a different kind of pressure with different parameters. So anyway,
I mean, I could go through all of them and
make my case orn against I'm I'm I'm intrigued by

(02:09:44):
the booking decision they make. I mean, Timothy Thatcher losing
the priest but then winning the next week and so
he's not going to Yeah, and then you know, Cameron
Grimes just seems like a big mileth you can't win
the big One, and now why should we believe he can?
So Yeah, I like this mix of five because I
don't think it's obvious, at least not to me.

Speaker 3 (02:10:04):
So well, yeah, I think I mean if that's the
if that's the goal too, like hey, we're going to
use this to elevate someone up, you know, then I
think then it really does kind of open up the possibilities.
I you know, my when I my approach for the
analysis was right, who makes the most sense for for
Finn Balor, right, like, like, what's gonna I think, for

(02:10:25):
as good of a champion as I think he is,
right now, you want him to kind of I don't know,
I want him to get some sort of some sort
of direction. I mean, I think I like the kind
of rogue Finn Balor in terms of like, yeah, he
kind of is a is a tweener in the middle.
But I think for him to have a long successful
run with matches that people care about, I think people
need to care about him definitively too. And he just

(02:10:47):
to me right now is a little a little wishy
washy as far as that goes. So and my my
thought is that they can use this match to kind
of definitively place him in.

Speaker 1 (02:10:55):
A role anything else jump out from NXT right now
that that you think they're doing especially well.

Speaker 3 (02:11:04):
Yes, I mean Io Sharai. I think has had a
heck of a run as as women's champion. I mean,
I think right now, you know, she's really clicking on
all cylinders and every time she steps in that ring,
regardless of who her opponent is, it it's a good match,
I mean it, and it's a it's a really good
match nine times out of ten. So I hope that

(02:11:26):
like she's done her end of the deal right, She's
got good matches. She's a viable, credible champion, and so
I hope that they can continue to book opponents in
a way that aessentuates that that point with her, like
give just keep feeding her good heels, and I think
that will continue to be you know, a prime part
of the NXT show and NFT takeover pay per views

(02:11:49):
for the months to come if they can keep her,
keep her hot with fresh uh with fresh opponents because
he's been she's been knocking out of the park.

Speaker 1 (02:12:05):
Are you a fan of AW looking to sit back,
relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
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Speaker 11 (02:12:11):
Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
they thinking?

Speaker 6 (02:12:16):
Do you want to join a discussion on what AW
is doing right and what they could do to improve?

Speaker 1 (02:12:22):
Then join me Joel and me Greg.

Speaker 11 (02:12:24):
For the All Elee Conversation Club every Friday on the
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Speaker 1 (02:12:55):
How long is the shortlist of possible winners for About
a World one Night?

Speaker 2 (02:13:00):
How long is the short list? Well?

Speaker 1 (02:13:02):
Do you do you look at the lineup and go, oh,
there's obviously one person who's gonna win, or can you
make a case or two or three? Or do you
think there is just a bunch of people? You know,
it's it's a long list.

Speaker 3 (02:13:13):
Well, let me pull up the I want to pull
up the list here. Sorry, I'm refreshed, refreshed on who
it is.

Speaker 2 (02:13:19):
Do you have the list?

Speaker 1 (02:13:20):
Well, that would be highlighted on their Twitter page. And
if this is telling it all, you've got Rear Ripley,
to Coda, Kai, Canniel Ray, Teagan Knocks, and Shatzi Blackhart.
They frame that as those are who are highlighting the
battle royal Field. That doesn't mean they won't have someone
else win, but it would be hard to imagine Shatzi
losing and then winning and then being pushed into a
title shot. That'd be kind of weird. So then, you know,

(02:13:45):
is it do you think, oh, candisl Ray, they're they're
prime for that, even even though she's got her her
storyline going on that really isn't world title focused. Do
you move into Ripley? Does that seem like the wrong
type of takeover for her to headline or is this
the type of takeover where she can be in the
final match and and it establishes her character in sort
of an unexpected way. Yeah, so I'm talking through it.

(02:14:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:14:09):
Yeah, well, I I think it's intriguing to to I mean,
I think, yes, you kind of have taking Knox and
Cannae Larray kind of embroiled in their own things, so
this could I'm not assure necessarily they could win, but
I think that they're kind of tied up together, and
I wouldn't be surprised to see that match as a
as a takeover match and not one of them, you know,
in the in the title picture. But given given kind

(02:14:32):
of the state of the the NST Championship division right now,
with you know, those contenders that we just talked through,
and you know, seemingly not kind of of the the
standard NFT Championship main event level match that we've seen
in the past, maybe this is an opportunity to try
to repair Ria Ripley. You know, she's lost a ton

(02:14:54):
of momentum this year since WrestleMania dealing with the Robert
Stone brands. She's had some good matches, but it's just
her momentum from a popularity standpoint and and kind of
booking standpoint, really has has stagnated. This could launch her
right back into into position. I think that's a true,
you know, main event that you can put on the

(02:15:15):
top of a takeover card, and it's a suitable opponent
for for Eosherai too. Not to mention like uh Ripley
winning a battle oil in a dominant fashion will will
help kind of repair that momentum as well. So I
don't know, I kind of out of those, out of
those mentioned acts, I think that might be the smart choice,

(02:15:36):
even if it is probably a little bit of a
hot shot effort.

Speaker 1 (02:15:40):
Well, check out the p W t tox NXT podcast
because Kelly Wells and Tom and Nate will be doing
their post show taking calls and emails and reacting and
to what happens on NXT on USA tomorrow night. Good
to have the shows back head to head. Oh, that's
on the I should mention that's on the PW Towards
Daily Cast podcast, a different show on a different with

(02:16:02):
a different theme or topic or focus every day of
the week. So if you haven't subscribed to that yet,
search PW Torch in your podcast app or check out
PW torch dot com for a list of all the
latest podcasts. But they'll be that you'll be available late
Wednesday night early am hours Thursday, and you can hear
their analysis of everything that took place and you can

(02:16:22):
get yourself primed for it by listening to their show
from last Wednesday night. Zach will wrap up there. We're
up against the clock, but we went long. We had
a lot to talk about. We could probably do another
two hours and not run out of stuff to talk about.
It's a lot going on right now at MLW's coming
back with fresh content. We didn't even touch on Impact wrestling.
There's just a lot of fresh wrestling content out there

(02:16:43):
right now, and it's fun to see it coming back.
And everybody's trying to make the best of a bad
situation with pro wrestling and the different promoters trying to
get back on their feet. The ones with a way
to present themselves on TV and the internet or streaming
services have an advantage over those who are trying to
you know, serve I on selling tickets. But there's a
lot going on right now, and I think we covered

(02:17:05):
a good bit of the hopefully a high percentage of
the top talking points.

Speaker 3 (02:17:09):
We sure did a lot of stuff to get into,
and yeah, I mean there's just it seems like, yeah,
there's a global pandemic, but you know, there's just an
infinite amount of stuff to talk about on the wrestling
side of things. So yeah, really really fun show. Thanks
thanks very much for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:17:24):
And everybody check out if you're registered to vote and
what your deadline is, and make a plan on how
to vote. And if you're in Pennsylvania, be sure to
use that security envelope inside the other envelope because you
don't want your ballot rejected. There's a lot of forces
at work trying to stop certain people from voting, and
wherever you are in the political spectrum, just be hurt
and make that effort now, plan ahead and be sure

(02:17:47):
your vote is cast and counted. Zach, thank you so much.
You by the way, it's going to get into this
with you and we're not This was on my list
is talk about the winners and losers of the pandemic era,
speaking of which you know, and when we were talking
about Alista Black a little bit, I was thinking of
bringing that up in terms of where he's landed. It
came up in the context of Paul Hyman not not

(02:18:08):
booking Raw that coinciding with Black loose and some momentum
as a character. But encourage people to check out your
columns looking at the winners and losers of the pandemic
era at on the pw Torch VIP website in the
a couple recent proverssing Torch newsletters. We look forward to
your next column and your next podcast, So just wrap
up by just telling people a little bit about your
contributions to the to the Torch and a little bit

(02:18:29):
about your recent both podcasts and columns.

Speaker 3 (02:18:33):
Yeah yeah, thanks Wade, Nick, go vi IP and you
can check out my weekly VIP audio show on the Canvas.
It's a show rooted in analyzing the art of wrestling,
So we take a current event from that week and
just kind of hone on the artistry of whatever that
current event is, or whether it's a looking at a match,
or looking at a promo or looking at a present

(02:18:53):
presentation of a character, presentation of a show. We kind
of just leave some of the booking discussion that we
had today aside and just kind of honeing on the
the artistry of of that segment.

Speaker 2 (02:19:05):
Last week or this the past show. The most recent.

Speaker 3 (02:19:07):
Show that that posted over the weekend is a deep
dive into the Hurt business and kind of the artistry
of their act and how the act became established and
also how it became kind of watered down with uh
with the inconsistency of them going up against retribution. So
you can check that out. That dropped on Friday or no,

(02:19:28):
Saturday of last week.

Speaker 1 (02:19:31):
What do you speak the average what do you think
the average prices of of shelt menagement and Bobby Lashley suits?
That's what I would know.

Speaker 2 (02:19:39):
Well, apparently it's in the thousands way.

Speaker 1 (02:19:41):
Yeah. Yeah, when I hear a thousand dollars suit, I
think that's probably on the low end of the dapper
high end. Look that those two are sporting, especially not
that m VP or Cedric are are you know, looking
looking like they they shop off off the off an
old sears rack and the clearance section either.

Speaker 3 (02:19:57):
But well, I was gonna say, like you, I'm certainly
not wearing suits to you know, my basement now where
I'm working. But if if what they're wearing is a
thousand bucks, I need to know where they got where
they got yeah, for sure. But yeah, we break that
all down, We break that presentation down just from the
artistic side. So if you're interested in checking that out,

(02:20:18):
go VI I P. And usually those shows drop, uh,
you know, Thursday or Friday every week, depending on kind
of how the schedule goes. But but yeah, I think you'll.

Speaker 2 (02:20:26):
You'll enjoy it.

Speaker 3 (02:20:27):
And then and then yeah, weekly, I also have an
editorial take on PW tours dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:20:31):
Right, just take a just a topic and there you
have just my take on it. So that drops usually
on Wednesdays.

Speaker 1 (02:20:38):
Excellent, Thanks tax so much. We'll hear from you and
talk to you soon.

Speaker 2 (02:20:42):
Absolutely, thanks for having me much take.

Speaker 1 (02:21:03):
Invite you to email the show with feedback or questions
or comments. That email address is Wadekeller Podcast at petewtorch
dot com. That's Wadekeller Podcast at PW toorch dot com.
Also welcome your feedback on Twitter. Even follow us on
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That's at PW Torch and at the Wadekeller.

Speaker 7 (02:21:25):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me
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Each week you'll hear the latest news and analysis from
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(02:21:47):
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Speaker 1 (02:21:56):
Thanks for listening to our podcast. Did you know we
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Create a tab or bookmark make it a daily stop.
Visit us throughout the day every day to keep up
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Speaker 4 (02:22:20):
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