NEW FLAGSHIP: Keller & Heydorn talk new TKO media deals, Hangman-MJF, WWE Unreal, Lesnar's return, Brodido-Bucks, more

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (01:06):
Now PW Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Keller
Pro Wrestling Podcast. It's time for the weekly Flagship talking
current events in pro wrestling.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Zach a big week first the KO since the flag
Ship last week with Jason Powell. Both B and USC,
both part of TKO, announced their deals with USC excuse me,
with new new TV partners WWE, a deal with e SPN,
and USC moving to Paramount Plus, which has been in

(01:45):
the news because of the Stephen Colbert situation and South Park,
you know, the obviously it comes across as USC going
even more maga in their affiliation. I know, I saw headline.
I think on social media some more that you know,
there's a plan of UOC. Dana White says we're gonna
do UC in the White House, uh soon, So that

(02:05):
continues more more relevantly. I think is the the that
you I mean, it's broad wrestling show, but they're both
on the t KO banner and they're both in the
news this week. It's kind of the end of pay
per view as we know it for UFC, which is interesting.
I'm curious how they handle it. What what have we

(02:26):
seen since the move, the two big moves and the
I think the paramount es excuse me, the Peacock ESPN
move is small relative to pay per view to ww
network and w w ME network to Peacock. I think
those are bigger deals than this. This is just a
logo change in the corner, and you got to kind
of change what your subscription services, which is either good,

(02:47):
slightly good, or slightly bad depending on your your your setup.
But we have seen a change in WWE's way of
promoting events. They still have you know, big events like
Summerslimon and Wrestlemani and you see, we'll still do that,
but the sort of the numbered systems as a fight
night system, I'm kind of curious how how it adjusts
these shows and if they kind of follow a similar

(03:09):
pattern that WWB did, where yeah, there's a couple of
big shows here, but the rest are to sort of
interchangeable depending on available fighters. So I know that's one
aspect of it. We can cover that briefly and then
I kind of want to get focused on on WWE
and you know what you think about the ESPN alliance,
but start with kind of that UFC topic based on
what we learned from how w B hale things.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, well the UFC topic is really interesting because I
mean it's almost like there they've decided to, you know,
follow the WWE model in that regard, like UFC was
still a business somewhat predicated on pay per view buys

(03:51):
and selling big fights, and in order to do that,
you need to have big stars, and you need to
put those big starts against one another and you know,
promote out and sell and sell fights. And you know,
now with this deal kind of being something where they're
just going to put their content all on on a

(04:12):
certain platform and if you have that platform, you can
watch it. You know, it's very much the UFC brand
selling itself and not necessarily you know, Connor McGregor against
X fighter or another fighter against another fighter. It's hey,
if you want to watch UFC, you know, you can
come here. So it's more like I think it's kind
of it's more like you know, Major League Baseball or

(04:36):
the NBA in that regard and in terms of just
you just go to where you have to go and
you can watch that sport. And now you know, the
UFC is like that. And I think, you know, in
some ways, just like anything you know that has pros
and also has cons like you know, it doesn't it
doesn't incentivize the UFC to make sure they have huge stars,

(05:01):
because you know, they could just put whoever they need
to wherever they need to ensure. You want to have
a couple of big events here and there. But if
you don't like like, no big deal, people are going
to watch anyway. And and I think you know that
has diminishing, diminishing returns. Of course, on the other side
of it, you know, you know, I'm a I consider

(05:24):
myself an m M A fan or UFC you know
fan at least you know, before some of the political
connections that the company has aligned with. But like you know,
it was it costs an arm and a leg to
to really follow that that sport. And now you know, if,
if and when they do have a compelling fight, it's

(05:45):
you know, essentially going to be for me, you know,
quote unquote free. I already have paramount plus we pay
for it for other things, and you know we'll have
we'll have this now too. So like you know, that
will benefit the consumer. It should open up the door
to have more people you know, watch, But I just think,
you know it, it increases accessibility to the UFC and

(06:06):
to this board. And this holds true for for w
W as well. But in return for that, I think
you get more of a watered down, flat product. And
I think that's that's the trade off for for fans.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
And I think as we bring up the uh, the
MAGA connection to UFC, and they're just very We're not
bringing up a secret subtle thing. I mean, they're very
upfront with that. I mean they you know, sometimes UFC
events look like MAGA rallies at times, and this deal
on two fronts. If people were being more uh making
decisions about who to support financially because of alignments with

(06:46):
autocratic you know whatever. I mean, like, if if they
look at what's happening and they're disgusted, like I I
got to make a choice with my money, they could
abstain from ordering pay per views. Then you had that
Stephen Colbert incident come up. And also on Paramount Plus
as a new owner, it looks like they bribe the
president to approve this merger, and so now they're seen
as sort of the Fox News of entertainment streaming channels,

(07:08):
and of course US see lands there and so now
you know, you look at the Paramount Plus lineup, and
if that's a type of approach that you're taking to
spending your dollars, you're like, oh, well, now I went
from not buying their pay per views to feeling like
do I really want to support paramount. Plus if if
there's a show I really want to watch, maybe I'll
get the free trial and canceled and then wait five

(07:29):
months and then binge for a month. But I'm not
going to give them my money every month. I know
there's people I talk to who kind of have that
approach to a lot of things. You know, I can't
never go to Target after what they did this year,
but I'm definitely going less often only for that, you know,
like you kind of rationalize stuff what on the USC.
So that's kind of the consumer side for and a
lot of people are like, you know what, they shoot
their hands up. They're like, I'm just going to consume

(07:50):
what I want. I don't make that big of a difference.
And you'll teach them. I mean, I adhire people who
take a stand. I do not judge people who you know,
within reason, are just like, oh, it's too much to
keep trapping.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
And everybody has their own line on that too, Like
it's different for everybody where it's like I can accommodate this,
this and this, but not that exactly. It's going to
be different for for for for.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Everybody, it's it's it's the environmentalist who does a lot
of things, but they also air condition their home to
seventy degrees, you know, like you know, I mean, yeah,
you do what you can and and but you try
out to be a martyr when you know there's whatever.
So anyway, then you also if you have see now
who have have a seven year like quadrillion dollar deal
now in there, seven point seven million, and so they

(08:34):
have no incentive to worry about that anymore. The only
thing is they really didn't care otherwise. But if you
could look at it this way, if they were thinking
promoting the MAGA affiliation was good for business, maybe they
now think we don't need to because we just are
promoting our events and we are we are so set

(08:56):
for the next seven years. We don't really need to
worry about any of that stuff because we have our
money and I haven't I don't know if there's an
escape or an out or any or you know, from
a performance standpoint, but things are really leveled out sech
where they just don't have to think about like much
of I mean, like you said, paying big stars big

(09:16):
money to try to pop something. However, I'll throw in
ww's in that same position essentially, except for like ticket sales.
That's still something. And they still brought Lessner back.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah yeah, well, I mean I mean that that's the
thing I mean, and I think we'll see soon, you know, like, now,
what's a star worth? What's a star like brock lesnar
worth to w W? Well, okay, he can he can
move some tickets maybe for episode of Raw or episode
of SmackDown. But we seem like in the ratings, like

(09:52):
the TV ratings, you know, you don't get drastic swings
when swings in terms of viewership and John Cena is
on or when you know, see him Punk is on
as opposed to what he's not on or or or
Black Lessard like we'll see with him. But you know,
it makes me wonder, now, you know, like the value
in bringing somebody like CM punk back, right, I'll start

(10:15):
with him. You know, Yes, it's in what he does
for the product on a weekly basis, but it's also like, well,
how much content can we get out of me? Can
we do an episode about him for A and E?
And can we put him unreal? And can we feature
him in these ways? And so it's like you just
are leveraging these stars in different ways and so they're

(10:36):
worth money to you for different reasons than they were before.
It's why I think wrestlers like you know, Kevin Owens,
Sammy Zain, Cody Rhodes like are so valuable because they
can do so much for the company. You need to
do this, They can do it. You need to do that,
They can do it. And are they popping by rates?

(10:56):
Not really? Are they popping you know, are they big stars?
Are they over in terms of you know, drawing a house?
Not really? But do they have value elsewhere in the company.
And I think the answer to that is yes. With
brock Lesner, I think it's kind of the same way.
I'm not expecting brock Lesner to you know, lead a
you know, increase in viewership by by forty percent when

(11:19):
he's when he's on when he's on TV. But you know,
can they leverage him coming back into a storyline for Unreal?
Can they do an episode about him on some other
thing that they can sell a different show to a
different platform to get some licensee money. It's like that
is what I think WWE sees the value in him

(11:41):
for at this point. And you know, they're getting paid
billions for content, so they're kind of right.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
By about a two to one margin in our online
pull at PW Torch. People are against brock Lesner coming back.
So when you talk about the boost in viewership, I
think there's people who are curious about what what leisure
is going to do and see him as a big
store are But it does chip away a little bit
more at people's impression of WWE and it's decision making,

(12:10):
And I mean there is a wide spectrum of strong
opinion on bringing Lessener back. You know, from there's people
who just you know, throw him into a bucket with
it'sick man and don't differentiate between what they're accused of credibly,
and that's not fair for Lesner frankly. But then there's
people go but there's more going on with Lesner and
the you know there there's just an issue of it

(12:31):
does WB really one need him? Uh, with the way
that their business model is set up, Like what kind
of spark is he going to have that justifies bringing
somebody back who has been part of controversy, especially when
it comes to if you're a female talent in that
company or female worker, what message does it send that
he's coming back? And there's no from what I've heard, public. Well,

(12:55):
there's no public statement, and I haven't heard of a
private statement letting you know, drawing attention. Okay, here, you know,
if anyone's concerns, here's here's the precautions we're taking with
with this. Given the allegations and past conduct. It's just
sort of like, we're gonna do what we're gonna do
because you're not gonna cancel this guy. Haha, we got you.
You know, you're not gonna tell us what to do.
He's a big star and he's been you know, unfairly maligned,

(13:17):
and so from a from an image standpoint, it's it's weird.
And I don't mean to cheapen the severity of that
compared to other things, but along with non finishes for
main event matches, this we'll get to it. This kind
of predatory, overly aggressive going after a e W. There's
sort of a sense of it's a bully culture and

(13:40):
we can do what we want arrogance to some of
the way w W is operating right now that within
the corporate culture. I've had a little window into it
over the last year, which is, you know, we're just
we are gonna be aggressive in every way we can
because it's fun, you know. It's just like we're we're
at war. It's cut through and we don't we're not

(14:02):
going to check ourselves in any way. We're just doing
what we want to do. And I do think with
these these flat feed deals guaranteed money, it's so it's
so different than you know, twenty years ago, when you'll
see inw we're we're going, Okay, what can we do
to try to get the buy rate up a little
bit so our quarterly statements better. Everything is so flattened
out and guaranteed that you do sort of have an

(14:26):
approach to business that fundamentally has different incentives and a
real lack of checks, some checks on decision making that
might not happen if they were more worried month to month,
quarter to quarter than they have to be at this point.
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(15:09):
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Speaker 3 (15:13):
There's no question about it. There's no question about it.
I mean again, I point to you know, I I
think that w Unreal show was fascinating in that it
you know, yes, you got to take it for what
it's worth, which is, you know, it's a programmed thing.
It's I would say, I would argue it's almost it's
almost written television, but not really. But what Triple H

(15:38):
opens up to on that show willingly and transparently about hey,
I forget which episode this was, but he's talking about
the idea of surprise, you know, in in the in
the in the product, and like if things get too predictable,
well then we gotta then we gotta then we gotta
put us throw a surprise out there. And it's like

(15:58):
hearing that, I'm like, man, yeah, like all sorts of
priorities change if that, if that is your benchmark, like
is this too predictable? And if it is, we need
to we need to you know, throw a surprise in there,
Like it is sustainable because you know you're getting money
from here, there and everywhere to produce this product for

(16:22):
the next for the next five, six, seven years, whatever
it is for for WWE. So it's sustainable in that regard.
But when you run out of surprises, you inevitably have
to turn places where maybe you don't even want to turn. Like, yeah,
on paper, like brock Lesnar doesn't make that much sense,
like he's a big star, yes, but we've seen brock

(16:44):
Leasure versus John Cena multiple times. It's not like that's
like a new and exciting feud. But it's Summer Slam,
and we don't want the show to just predictably end
with Cody Rhodes and beating John Cena and going off
the air. We're not confident in that for some reason.
So well, let's just let's just bring back rock Like
it'll be a big pop. It'll it'll get you know,

(17:06):
millions of views on social media and and and that,
you know, and so I think you can, like you
can justify certain things that you couldn't justify before when
your priority is fill content, fill time, and you know,
make people surprised by it. Like that's a that's a
different that's a totally different presentation. Then let's let's you know,

(17:30):
let's create stories that people care about, with characters that
people care about, and and pay them off because a
lot of the payoff is is predictable, you know. And
I think when I look at some of this, it's
like I feel like there's you know, a misunderstanding of
like where these moments and surprises that people remember came from.

(17:54):
Like it's like the you know, the the Ricky Steamboat
and and a Macho Man match, Like that's a match
that everybody remembers, and that's a moment that everybody members.
Same thing with you know, Andre and Hogan. But it's
it's a moment that happened because of all the work
that's put in ahead of time. It's because it's because

(18:17):
that Hogan and Andrea match made sense. It's because that
they've they've made you care about Hull Coogan so that
when you get to the moment of him slamming him
in front of you know, ninety thousand give or take.
You know, it's a moment, yes, but it's not just
a moment. It's a moment that has roots, it has moments.
It's a moment that that is a payoff and not

(18:38):
just a moment for the sake of having one. And
I think that there's a misunderstanding of that, and I
think like that goes I think that goes pretty deep
into like the kind of the intricacies of w W
as a company now because you don't have like people
at the top like Vince McMahon, for all his faults,

(19:00):
he was, you know, a wrestling promoter at heart, and
he ran the company and he ran the whole company,
all of it. And now you've got you know, Mark Shapiro,
and it's like he does he he doesn't really care
what the content is that he's putting out. He just
wants to get paid a lot for it. And and
that's that. And he remembers a couple of the big
surprises and when he was watching w W and whatnot,

(19:21):
and Okay, it's cool, let's do let's do more of
that that that pops And it's just it's just not
a sound, fundamental like recognition of where these historical big
moments come from. And I think because they're chasing those
moments in the wrong way, it it's gonna make less

(19:42):
of them happen, and the ones that do are gonna feel,
you know, really really watered down. And I think you've
already started to to uh to see that.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, well put and I'm just nodding along. I think one,
I think Paula Veck is impressing me less and less
this year than I thought possible given his track record.
And and is that due to some of the things

(20:14):
you're saying, which is he's just sort of responding to
corporate types looking for X y Z. I mean in
order to I've interviewed Guy Evans, the author of Nitro
and and the follow up sequel Nitro book that he
just put out this year, for three out almost three
hours yesterday, and I was prepping for the interview and
reading over the over the Nitro years again, which was

(20:34):
so fun. In the second half. It's just it's just
incredibly awful. Anyone who defends anything that happened like during
that time period, it doesn't is forgetting how how truly
objectively indisputably awful some of the decision making was and
part of what went into it. And and this alarms
me because I'm seeing parallels you had, you know, with

(20:55):
a ole time Warner a company that was that was
making decisions that had nothing that were not rooted in
an understanding of the wrestling industry. They saw the wrestling
as a product to to sell to advertisers in field
TV time. And the differentiation they're distinguishing, you know, Vinc
wick Mann and Tony Kahan are wrestling people. They're wrestling
promoters who are distributing a product to make money. And

(21:18):
t KO is a entertainment product distributor and WWE happens
to be the entertainment that they're distributing. But they approach
it the same way that you would approach distributing any
kind of entertainment product that you can monetize. And they're
they're they're not showing the type of knowledge and attention

(21:41):
needed to what makes pro wrestling different than other things.
And like during the latter the last couple of years
of BLEW, the executives were not familiar with how pro
wrestling worked and they just said, we need a faster
in a run. We need a faster in a run
Mania see profits and the the metrics on which Eric
Bischoff Vince Russo were judged was, you know, there's a

(22:01):
lot of bad decisions they made, and they could have
made better decisions with the parameters they had, but the
parameters they were given from people up above was maddening
to read about, and I'm sure maddening for Bischoff and
Russo and that I don't know that Russo understood honestly,
like why it was so bad when it was happening,
because he just sort of had his gimmick. But I
like Bishoff was savvy enough. It's smart enough to know

(22:22):
and the idea you know, and I c w B
now like they're not promoting to tell these coherent storylines
with long term build up and a payoff that's built
around the outcome of a match and the legacy of
being a champion. They pay lip service to some of that,
but they don't They don't walk the walk. They talk
the top, but they don't walk the walk when it
comes to that. They are about viral moments. There's very

(22:43):
little instant feedback they can get now that that gives
them kind of that dopamine rush other than oh, we've
got social media views who can brag about and sadly,
there's a superficialness I think in evaluating the popularity of
a product outside of TKO to their partners where that metric,
to advertisers and to you know, when they're when they're
making TV deals. So you have them booking now for

(23:06):
an augmenting holiday book in order to create a buzz
online in social media, which is the new version of
minute by minute or or quarter hour rating stunts when
Ronn going head to head and so you now you have, yeah,
you have a similar dynamic. And and with Levek he
might be a victim of that, and he's like, oh god,
I gonna do this in order to create a buzz
because our social media engagement is down twelve percent at

(23:29):
this pace this quarter compared to the last two quarters.
So I'm gonna bring Lesner back. Or he might be going,
this is exciting. You know. I love the social media
engagement metric and that's what driving my booking. And once
that goes up, everything else follows. And I mean, I
don't philosophically, I don't know, because you know he doesn't
get that deep. But I'm just I'm not. I mean,

(23:49):
I look at all these like you brought up, all
the all the fit, all the lack of finishes. Now
in you know, main event matches and in others percentage wise,
and then throwing you know, a bunch of title matches
and matches on night to a summer Slam. There's there's
just things that are being done that you know, that
feel late W CW in some of their their execution
and framework, and it's it's alarming and I don't you know,

(24:13):
history repeats itself in certain ways, but there's all theyse differences,
so you can't just you know, blindly go They're they're
gonna go downhill. And obviously with the the ESPN deal,
they're just bulletproof and insulated financially. So where where things
are going to show up is do they have the
lower ticket prices and do crowd it? Does attendance drop?
That's kind of what we're left with because I almost
care nothing about social media engagement because I see it

(24:35):
as so ephemeral and fleeting and and not meaningless. But
like if you're up, if you have a surge of
fifty percent of people who flip past their phone and
see something, it's like, I just don't think that that
should be a validation that you did something well.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
For sure, And and and let me just jump in
on that, like the if you if that was really
like you're defining you know, And and again I'm surmising here,
I haven't done the math on this, but I know
that there are like big time ww videos that have
done great on social media that feature the Miz or

(25:10):
our truth and you're not building your company around those guys.
So they know it too, you know. It's like they
know that Miz Okay, yeah, maybe he does, maybe he
pulls some great social numbers, but we're not you know,
we're not putting like the world title on him because
of that. So it's you know, it's only important in
certain areas, which needs me to think that there is

(25:32):
a recognition of Okay, this is not the be all
end all, because if it were, you'd take your hottest
you know, social stars and they would be the stars
of your show. And they're not. Necessarily sometimes they are,
but collectively, you know, there's all sorts of weird. We
all know, there's all sorts of weird stuff that pops
on social media and there's no real answer for necessarily

(25:54):
why it just does and it goes viral and there
you have it. And so you know, they like they
recognize that too. And I and On one hand, that's
good because you're like, Okay, you need to have like
that recognition. But on the other hand, it's like, but
you're still you're still booking in this kind of hot, shoddy,

(26:15):
none of this matters kind of way, and you know
that is going to hurt the product in the end.
And I it's just yeah, it's really it's really interesting.
And I the more that I hear like some of
the upper level leadership of KO group talk, I think
it was MSNBC yesterday, maybe you're seeing it CNBC. He

(26:36):
was CNBC yesterday where Mark Shapiro and Ari Emanuel were
on the show, and they're like they're talking about WWE,
and it's like they're talking about narrative and they're talking
about you know, all these like corporate buzzwords on you know,
content creation and content consumption, and it's just like you, like,
you guys own a pro wrestling company. So yes, what

(27:02):
you're saying is true in a lot of ways. You
want to certainly measure that kind of thing. You want
to measure social activity, and you want to you know,
measure X, Y and Z, and you want your data
on that. You want people to watch for a long time.
All that stuff is true, but it really felt to
me watching that like there's no how do I say this,

(27:22):
There's no passion for the WWE business in that in
that type of like talk, it's just the passion for
the content business and making a lot of money. And
you can plug anything into that spot. And as you said,
like and I think they would be excited about it
because they get to play with it and they get

(27:43):
to make a lot of money with it. But you know,
you don't have that like rooted this is our pro
wrestling company, baby, that we've grown from infancy through generations
to now. You just don't have that. You've got just
a bunch of corporate people that steemingly just want to

(28:04):
make a lot of money off this and the product
be damned because they don't really understand what, yeah, what
the product is.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
And you know, there's a local donut shop that opened
with a you know, entrepreneur with one location and it
talked to him and he was just like, oh, you know,
I s about his business. I was just walking my
dog and he was hanging out and I was like, yeah,
it's good, welcome to the neighborhood. And he's like yeah,
and need to start talking about his pride and how
he makes doughnuts and like the ingredients and the process.
And he goes the chains and he mentioned a couple

(28:33):
of chains. They get the big bags of pre made
everything and they just scoop and they scoop it into
a machine and it just pumps out donuts. And it
was then they're good because but I won't do that.
I could make more money, but I know that that
and he just went into the detail. I can listen
to someone talk about something they have a passion for,
know about and just be fascinated with anything. And so
he's like, yeah, yeah, if if, But he've had this

(28:54):
ingredient at this stage. It leads to this texture and
that leads to a type of donut that these chains
can't really create. Well, and I know and in wwe
is that doughnut shade? They're just like, what are the numbers?
How we doing? What's the bottom line? Is the labor
expense down? Is the is the price of ingredients down?
Is there some country that may or may not be

(29:14):
exploiting there their they're workers and claiming it's organic and
it's not. But we don't care. We just want like
there's sort of that that that vibe when you're just
when there's same with like house building, Like you can
tell if you go in a house from a mass
like a mass massive builder, you just walk in and
just tell, Like I can tell if I walk into
new construction house that they put in cheap carpet padding.

(29:35):
Most people don't think about that, but that's the tell
that they cut every corner, because that's one of the
most important things that makes this so random, but it
makes carpet lasts longer, and it's just the quality of
life is not going to super cheap padding. And if
a builder does, you know they cut every other corner too,
because every builder knows carpet padding you shouldn't cheap out
on that. And if they do, everything is cheap and
it's just all gonna fall apart. They got the cheapest

(29:56):
appliances that just are trendy and all that. You go
into a builder who only builds like you know, the
tenthouses a year and it's like, oh, okay, this is
pride of They walk out of the house when they
hand the keys over the new owner and there's a
pride in it. And so with wwe say what you
will that pensic man, and there's plenty to say, and
oh my god, is there plenty to say about about

(30:18):
his eccentricities over the years and then the just the awful,
you know, kind of final chapter for all intensive purposes
in public life. But he was a pro wrestling guy.
There was a pride in that he knew the history,
and he didn't like when like Ted Turner and these
other Aol Time Warner executives came in and you know,
he looked down on them for not really being pressing promoters,
but trying to exploit the pro wrestling brand just to

(30:39):
make money. And so we are there's a concern for that.
The don't analogy, the house builder analogy, it applies. I mean,
people in their lives, I'm sure have examples that they're
thinking of. Oh yeah, I know what we'd saying. There's
there's there's people who really care about the detail work,
and then there's people who just pump pump out content
for profit. And what I what I think fans are

(31:00):
I think they're underestimating the savviness of fans. And granted,
Debty is so good at making themselves feel like this
big pop culture phenomenon and it is absolutely generating inertia
in momentum for them. That's going to be hard to
completely offset with some of the things we're talking about,
But fans are going to get a kind of a vibe.
I think that this is just a product being pumped

(31:21):
out to me as opposed to a passion project. For
the people involved, it's going to feel more that way.
And I don't know, you know, we're we're at a
relatively early stage of it, but when all incentives are
gone or the incentive structure is so different for ww
ME now compared to AW and there is that breathing

(31:42):
example until that would be snuff them out. With other
head to headshows, there's a living, breathing example of somebody
who's a pro wrestling fan in wrestlers who love wrestling,
and there has to be a certain level of competence,
and obviously there's deep pockets there to compete with WWE,
but it is increasingly a competitive advantage for a if
they can avoid feeling like they are a corporate product

(32:05):
being turned out with an eye on the bottom line
rather than the art form.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch Vip
podcast NXT Eight years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
look at this page in NXT's early history.

Speaker 5 (32:28):
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 3 (32:44):
Yeah, one hundred percent, I agree. And then, like you
mentioned something earlier about like the checks and balances of
being gone, and I, you know, I think that being
gone because of you know, the revenue they're securing on
all these these upfront kind of content license deals.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
That's how hard are you gonna work at your job
today if you're guaranteed fifty thousand dollars today and fifty
thousand dollars tomorrow in every work day for the next
seven years, and all you have to do is kind
of show up and sort of do something that's very
different than working for a promotion, working for a raise,
or working for commission. And they're going to be used
to work for commission and now they've just got this
guaranteed flat fee for years it's human nature, you know what,

(33:22):
it's just human nature to treat your day to day
operations differently well for sure.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
And and like going back to like Lesner, it's like
you don't have to tie the expensive rock Lesner back
to any kind of you know, relevant fan or audience
generated data point, like because it doesn't matter. Like it
doesn't matter if he draws an extra forty percent in

(33:50):
viewership or if he draws an extra two percent, because
you're still getting seven billion or or whatever one billion
for those fees, Like if you have him on Wresia,
like that WrestleMania doesn't have to be a WrestleMania that
that draws twenty percent more than the year prior because
it didn't have Bracklester on it. Because you're getting paid

(34:11):
for anyway. So I think you know, as a company,
they're able to make some of these kind of riskier
decisions because it doesn't matter if people say, Hey, I
can't believe they've bought Bracklesner back. I'm not watching anymore.
It's like, okay, Like I think they know that they
do not care.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
They don't it's because it won't make it. It will
until they can't fill buildings, and they have a sharp
decline in what they can charge for tickets. That's going
to be the metric that is seen as a canary
in the coal mine that they're doing something wrong. But
there is a level of a inertial momentum where they
are sort of unchecked and not held accountable for bad

(34:51):
decisions because and we learned from WW, the product was
with shoddy mistakes were being made. They were repeating storylines,
repeating big matches, not only for the future, but they
had that momentum of moving forward and people buying tickets
based on the idea of going to this thing that
was red hot, and there was a delayed they there

(35:14):
was a delayed reaction to the bad decisions. And by
the way, this is w' is not the product is
so much better. The rest of are so much better
than late stage w c W And so again it's
not it's just like not all surprises are the same,
not all you know, mistakes that are being made have
the same effect that would be has done an amazing
number of smart things in a lot of different categories

(35:35):
where they are insulated from some of this, but it
doesn't mean that they're beyond reproach that they're there that
can't point out, yeah, there's some things here that is
gonna hurt the fan experience. And I still ultimately think
if you if you treat the fans well in a
way that actually matters in terms of coherent storylines, characters

(35:55):
of constitutions, logic, incentivizing the talent work hard, you know,
where they're not just sort of phoning it in because
they have an attitude of our recorporation. They don't care
about me. All that stuff ends up paying for itself
if you have if you do competent things otherwise, And
I just don't think they have their their eye on
that because I think they're they're about it's all about dealmaking.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Though, right, And I think there's an element of this
too where it's like the the fan, like as a fan,
you know, as a fan, like I I hope that
there's you know, eventually because like I think a new

(36:35):
wrestling fan, I could see you're watching SummerSlam for the
first time and you get this big you know, you
get this big broad pleasure in return, and it's exciting
and it's moment and they're gonna pop, right, But like
I hope that you know that that fan, you know,
in a year from now or two years from now,
expects more from the product than than just than just

(36:57):
that because a it can be so much more and
is so much like you can get so much more
invested in, so much more interested in pro wrestling as
a as a product when when it matters more and
you know, so it's not I'm not saying here that
it's the fans job to like hold the company responsible.

(37:19):
It's like, it's not that, but I think that you know,
you the fan base is going to be fed. They
what they what they want, I think at this point,
and I think they've got feedback right now that's a surprise, surprise, surprise,
and big moment, big moment, big moment, And I just
and I think that you know that only goes so far.

(37:42):
You know, you can only do so many big moments
before the moments aren't big anymore. And so it's like
you gotta you gotta pick and choose and and and
and force them to make this stuff seem like it
matters on it on a day to day basis, and
they'll they'll have to.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
And a thing about surprises and and like there was
a stretch of time in late w W or three
papers in or they turned three people heel because they
were just they were they were out, They had they
had not properly built long term storylines. There was a
level of profound incompetence in the storytelling booking aspect of
things that that was completely oblivious to the keys that

(38:20):
made other things that they did in the past work,
and they're completely unaware of that foundational need to to
adhere to those tenets of proposing storytelling and long term planning,
and so it just became hot shot, hot shot, and
you know, the Third Man was such a big thing
that then it's like, oh, there's the big surprisech Off
lives to California and then it turns out as a

(38:42):
Golber heel turn and he's already feeling mad about it
because there was a kid who you know, he's made
charity appearance with the kid earlier and the kid was devastated.
It's like all kinds of just random stuff was done.
And that's why I think the term surprise it doesn't
really isn't really sufficient anymore, because there are surprises that work,

(39:02):
like called Cogain baby face and then he turns heel
and nobody knows up until the moment that it's gonna happen,
that that was gonna happen, which meant there wasn't a
lot of foreshadowing. There wasn't a lot of There weren't
a lot of tells because they were hedging. They weren't
even you know, like legitimately, they didn't know till the
last second whether it was going to be Hogan or
somebody else. And Guy evans that I get into that,

(39:23):
by the way, it's on the VIP side of things. People,
if you are interested in what will be now a
twelve part ho Cogan Waight Teller hotline series with a
whole whole array of guests and topics delving into different
chapters and aspects of Hogan's life and career. Pw torch
dot Com, slash co VP. We have a a RSS
feed set up specifically for the Hogan series, so you
can sign up for that on your podcast stapp including

(39:44):
Apple podcasts and and catch up on it. But the
walkthrough nitros me thinking in those terms obviously, you know,
immersing reimmersing myself kind of in that era and in
their idea of surprises became the surprise in late stage
of the stuff. He was very different than the Hogan
turn because the hog in turn was shocking. But you also,
as we've learned of Sina, have to have somebody who's

(40:05):
all in on it and good at it and the
and willing to effectively be a heel and not go
on talk shows and still be a babyface and not
sort of be half hearted about it in a wink
and non type of way as Sena was. And also
it's part of retirement to our so so it's like,

(40:25):
we don't want you as a heel to retire, we
know you're gonna turn babyface. And so that's different than Hogan,
which is like it's a whole new chapter of his
career and he's linking up with Hall and Nash, like
just so many things about it are different. But that's
an example of two surprises, the Sena surprise that WW
threw their shoulder up patting themselves on the back floor
and the whole Cogan surprise, which which was a complete
revolution of ww's business and the industry and led to

(40:48):
this really hot period for the NWUO. So my point
here in bringing up that those specifics is not all
surprises are created equal, and I think there are superficial
book game minds and I'm starting to wonder where Paula
Beck fits on this scale. To be honest, who think
a surprise is a surprise and they don't actually break

(41:09):
down what constitutes an effective surprise versus an ineffective surprise
or a productive surprise versus a counterproductive surprise. That in
understanding what makes one effective and make what makes one
ineffective beyond the initial crowd pop, and there is such
a superficialness to hope to be is grading their week
to week efforts, which is ooh, the crowd pop. We

(41:32):
had said crowd, the crowd popped. It's like, well, the
sellout was from ticket spot months and months ago based
on the product being perceived as hot, and the pop
is because people like to be part of history. Take
the cameras out and go I was there when that
should not be the definition of whether this is a coherent,
effective storyline in the works, and you burn you'll end
up burning out on it. The same way if you
throw a birthday party for somebody every week when their

(41:53):
birthday's only once a year, pretty soon the surprise birthday
party seems kind of farcical and stupid and excessive rather
than special and thought.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
I mean, and that's why I was like so taken
aback by Paul Avec saying what he said about surprises,
like in the framework of his booking like it really
to me was like was really really jarring because so
much of like the big moments in in w w

(42:24):
E history, even recent ones, even recent ones like Cody
uh finishing his story right, that's as recent as as
a year and a half ago, Like that's a moment
because it was a well thought out story with characters
that people cared about and a title reign that very
much mattered, like it had all the pro wrestling elements

(42:49):
to it. And if you just would have like said, uh,
everybody knows that Cody's gonna win the title here, so
we're gonna do something else, It's like what then, then
you're you're you're chasing your sale forever because the product
never it never ends, it keeps going over and over
and over. So like the idea is you have to
you can't just I was just it made me worry

(43:12):
for the fraud of the product because it's like I
don't I don't want to watch a product where I
get invested in something and just because I'm invested in it,
like they're gonna go completely other other way. It's like, no,
you should be happy that people kind of know where
things are going, but that they care enough anyway to
keep watching and to stay engaged and to stay interested.

(43:34):
Like that's the job. Anybody can swerve, right, if you
could just swerve this way, swerve that way. Anybody can
do that. But can you make people care about your
stories week in and week out so that when there's
a big payoff, they buy it and they remember that
moment because they cared so much, Like that's that's the mission.

(43:55):
And so to hear like Paul Eveck just go yeah, yeah, no, no, no,
like if people if we get the sense that people
know where this thing's going, then you know we're going
a different way. It's like that is It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
It was. It's one of the dumbest things Vincruso ever
said in defense of his own booking. And now you
have Levex sounding like Russo. I'm just going to say it,
he's starting to sound like Vince Russo. And you know,
I don't I don't like bring up Vizruzo's name because
I feel like he got over talked about for his
contributions to the industry and then over hired based on uh,
you know, the clear track record have been competence. But
he's a good salesman and and you know, charismatic and passionate,

(44:31):
but I mean just disqualifyingly ill equipped to be a
wrestling booker. You do not want to sound like him.
And the idea, this, this notion that like the story
you're telling, is Cody beating John Cena, and John Cena
is now a babyface. Say what you will about the
way that you know that felt rushed and came about,
but it is Cody getting the title back. And I'm

(44:53):
still dismayed at the decision. And I understand the rationale
and I can hear the defense now for people behind it,
and I don't buy it at all, which is having
John Cena come out on last week and be the
lead the lead promo talking about himself and going on

(45:15):
some weird Trump like tangent about we don't usually come
here because w does't want a TV here because they
Montreal screw job and I think you're gonna take over
the show, It's like, how is that at all freaking
relevant to what is going on right now? He's in
this weird, you know, like thing that it's like this
metaverse or backstage. No, it's cool. We come to Montrell No,

(45:37):
and it's like, why is that in your promo? You
should be putting over Cody Roads and selling dismayant losing
the championship that you sold everybody going into restu me
is the most important thing for you and the type
he didn't bring up Cody until the little pat on
the head, Hey do you want a team with me? Moment,
and he didn't bring up losing the championship. And that's
a pattern with Sena, which is, you know, the most

(45:57):
important thing in the world until after it afterwards, and
then it's just like, oh, I don't want to dwell
on it, so we're gonna move on to something else.
But I just thought it was it was an absolute
horrible choice of focus and a telling choice of focus.
And why I have said more recently since he's been
back in the news that I think seen is and
easily the lower third of wrestling IQ for top guys

(46:21):
doesn't mean I'm not he's superior A buff bagel. Okay,
you know, like I mean, I'm not like, you know,
like not to pick on it, but and I always
going through, must go through a lot, so I probably
should pick somebody else's my like go to example on that.
But he's he's obviously like a smart guy and very
successful and effective, but absolutely lower lower third for top tier,
true top top guys. And if he wants to leave

(46:42):
that would be in a better place. He should come
out there and make that championship feel like the most
important thing in the world. And he's devastated by losing it.
And number two put Cody Freakin' Roads over and it
seemed like he forgot who he wrestled, and and so
we have this, and you know, it's what you bring up, Zach,
which is it's about moments, it's about surprises, and it's
about as Leveka is saying, essentially, Cody Rhodes beating John

(47:08):
Cena in their first face versus face matchup at SummerSlam
on nine two, in front of seventy thousand plus people
in a stadium, winning our main championship, our top current
era start getting a belt back after a detour with
a heil John Cena who just turned back Babyface and

(47:30):
Cody celebrating their ring holding the championship up isn't enough right,
Like I don't swear on the show, but I want
you right now, Like how is how are you in
the wrestling promoting, wrestling booking world. That's your job and
you don't think that's enough that you've got to do
something else because they're so driven, kind of like like

(47:50):
popping a rating with Hot Shot Booking. They're so driven
by what's the social media numbers? What's the social media numbers?
It's pathetic and it's embarrassing and it's disqualified, no respect
as a wrestling mind at this point that John Cena
went out and cut that promo and didn't make it
really in the arrestler text me and said, wait, you're
right out of it, and you said she didn't go far enough.

(48:11):
It should not. It should have been Cody coming up
to celebrate his title win. John Cena was the bet story,
and you can make him the eight story next week
and the week after, But that first show after Summer
Slam with Cody on it and scene on it, it should
have been about Cody. He regained the title in twenty
twenty six, Cody is the champion and he's going to

(48:32):
be headlining WrestleMania almost for sure. And you have just
told fans, John Cena talking about the Montreal fricking screw
job and meandering in a promo is more important than
the title changing hands. Cody Roads beating you fair and
square and by the way, a classic that exceeded expectations.
You don't want to get all met and talk about
the star ratings and all that, but there's a way

(48:53):
in coded language to say how proud you are of
the back and forth classic effort that you both put
forward and left it all out there. And he didn't
do any of that, and it pissed me off, and
it made me resent John Cena right now for how
self centered and meandering and unfocused he is right now
in terms of leaving w B in a better place,

(49:13):
and for everything we say about how corporatized w B
is under TKO, there's still this everlasting art form that's
such a part of our lives. And you want to
see Cody Rhodes be given his just due as a
character for the sake of the fans, and they've just
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Speaker 3 (50:03):
Yeah, and I and honestly, like, I know, you know,
look that match was was it was good, and I
think it did exceed expectations. But I had a really
hard time, like fully getting into it because of the
context around it, because of the weird babyface thing with
Sina beforehand. I was just like, wait, what, like this
doesn't make any sense, like I I and I'm not.

(50:24):
I'm not even necessarily faulting him for doing it because
the heel turn was was such you know, a disappointment
and such a disaster that sometimes you just sometimes the
right call is just say, Okay, we're pulling the plug
on this and it'll be what it'll be. But that
doesn't mean that you're gonna like hook every fan with it.
And and I couldn't get fully like invested in that

(50:44):
match because the whole time I'm watching it going, Sena
has just been this hated guy for all this time,
and after one day he's now just a different John Cena.
Like it just it just that took me out of it.
I get that that not every fans like that. And
the post match, the suff that you just mentioned, say
exact thing like maybe if you've seen it, comes out
there and cuts a better promo and frames you know,

(51:05):
the loss and and and puts over Cody Rose and
gives more uh context and a narrative behind like why
he all of a sudden turned turned back good, Like okay,
maybe I can get behind that, but when you just
completely discarded it's like, okay, well then you don't care,
so I don't care. And the thing the thing that

(51:26):
I that I want, I want to make sure that
we cover this part of this too, which is t
k O owns w W and they own UFC, and
like they own those companies to make money, Like the
WWE exists to make money. It always has That's the point.
It's the business. And I think the the what I

(51:48):
want to make sure to call out is that I
really believe that you can do the pro wrestling business
the right way and still get lots and lots of
social view. You can still get lots and lots of
of of moments. You could still have all this corporate fun,
watch time and all this stuff around the product. You

(52:11):
don't have to sacrifice the essence of it in order
to in order to have those things. And it's like,
you know, knowing that Triple H has been a guy
that's in the business and that has been a wrestler,
has been a part of it at the highest at
the highest level, and should know better, it's like you
you know, again, I go back to the Cody and

(52:31):
Roman thing, like I'm sure that did gamebuster numbers all
over the place, biggest you know, WrestleMania Gate at the time,
two nights sold out, So like you know, you just
run down the run down the gamut of like you know,
corporate bean counter metrics, and that one checked them all
and it still was a storyline that was important and

(52:53):
that played and that mattered to to pro wrestling fans.
So it's like they don't have to exist independ It's
not like if you're if you say, hey, we're gonna
tell cohesive stories with characters that matter, that all of
a sudden, like these social numbers that everybody cares about
are gonna plummet fifty percent. You know that's not gonna happen. So,
you know, I just think there has to just be

(53:14):
more of a willingness to do it because it's harder,
and it's especially harder when you've got you know, seven
seven shows or seven hours worth of programming to to
to to program every single week. I get that that's
a tough task, but you can't sacrifice that because if
you sacrifice that, then you lose, you lose what brings
everybody to the to the to the dance.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
You're you're, yeah, the builder's analogy. You're building a house
with with a foundation that's gonna crumble, but it looks
good for the photos when people you know, yeah, are
we You know it has a good curve appeal, but foundationally,
it's structurally unsound and it's not gonna last. And there
that is that they're definite signs of that. Also, I

(53:57):
know I was thinking last night on rob when they're
promoting trip Amain in there's a Matt you know take
match in there that's kind of meant to, you know,
be a backdrop for talking about it. Dotate is promoting
a lot of shows, yes, and and you know you
talk about the amount of hours they have to fill
and you're like, well, I understand there's always all these
orders to fill. Well maybe out to fill fewer of them,
you know. Is it's it's the restaurant that that in

(54:19):
that neighborhood that everybody loves because the owner is there,
it's a it's a great chef, and they know the
front desk, you know, the people who greet you out
the door, what they called the greeters at restaurant. Yeah, yeah,
the hosts and hostage and uh and then the servers
are But then they're like, oh, let's let's let's let's
open another location. And they do, but it's like two

(54:41):
miles down the road and the owner splits his time
and it's great and they're like, oh, someone comes and
let's invest in you. Let's open six more locations all
over the play all over town, and a couple in
and out of town, and pretty soon that brand means
less because people are going there expecting the same experience
and it's some derivative cook and staff with high overturn,
and the owners are not there to make sure that
the tables are cleaned and a whatever. It's just like,

(55:03):
eventually you just fread yourself so thin and the brand
means less. And with ww ME, it's like you can
tell at the corporate level they're like, oh, not only
are we going to get have a chance to sell
more rights, get more rights fees for more events if
we can produce raw data that shows all these weekend

(55:23):
events and all the viewership numbers. But you're also they're
also doing adding events such as likely as Spember twentieth
coording to reports. I think bad Blood going head to head,
perhaps Lesnar Sina going head to head with Aw's all out,
which is not fan friendly. It's predatory, it's aggressive, it's
hyper competitive. It's kind of dick dickish to the industry

(55:46):
at all and wrestling fans making them choose. I also
have a little sympathy for the idea of Hey, you know,
there's you know, I've grew up with the gas station
in one corner and on the other corner opposite there's
another gas station. They compete, and you know, gas prices
are essentially the same, so they have to compete in
other ways. You know, it's a winchell washer fluid available
and free and clear, and is the service when you

(56:08):
go in and get a snack?

Speaker 5 (56:10):
Is that like?

Speaker 1 (56:10):
You compete in other ways? And I'm fine. Same with
coffee shops, you know, the Starbucks, and there's any plan
independent one or the other chain brand across the street.
Of course, home depot and lows. You want that competition,
but at what point does it look like it's going
too far and that you're actually because you have this

(56:31):
revenue and this lack of accountability, you just get to
do things that are counterproductive for your own fan base
and for your own product in an attempt to the
veneer of being hyper competitive, but in reality it's just
sort of personal and dickish and you're just being a bully.
And how does that affect how people look at the brand?

(56:52):
How does that affect people looking at God? This is
there's no way this is a coincidence. There's no way
this is anything other than you know, and it's a
man did the Joom Crockett with for Barbery series up
against ArKade eighty seven, and so I don't know, you know,
I I and maybe fans don't care. They're not looking
at it that way. I mean, there's elements of you know,

(57:12):
of this where I just think people look at it
as you know, healthy competition. And I'm an aw fan.
I don't care Ifody's running a show, and I'll watch
it under lay if I have to, and maybe maybe
I'm making more of it. So an you know, what
do you think about that sack?

Speaker 3 (57:24):
I don't know. I don't. I don't think so. I mean,
I think it matters. I mean, look, I'm I've been
a pretty staunch defender of these competitive tactics by WWE
in recent as recently as just the other weekend with
with All with All in, I've i've up until this
news broke. It was kind of like, well, you know, yeah,

(57:45):
like that's you know, big deal, you know, like, hey,
they have they have a company to run. They're gonna
run it. They're not gonna worry about what their competition
is doing or they are and they're just gonna they're
gonna compete. Fine, great, like that's part of it, part
of part of it. But this makes no sense to
me running running this that event against like head to

(58:08):
head against the all out event. It's like you're before
you had some plausible deniability. Well, Great American Bash is
going to be on it early in the afternoon, and
NXT we want to do NXT special events, so like
they we got to put them somewhere and we can't
dodge aw all the time because they've got you know,

(58:28):
they've got uh, they run pay per views on weekends
as well, and if we're if we're running you know,
h one weekend and they're running another weekend a month
and you know, another weekend there's a big sporting event,
and like there's only so many weekends that you can
run a pay per view in a month. And so
there's a plus some plausible deniability that I don't think
is really there, but that's there on paper for like, well,

(58:49):
so we're just gonna run this and that's you know,
that's the only time we have to do it, and
that's when we want to do it. So we're not competing,
but like, yeah, sorry, and this is just so not
that like they're there. It's not like this event was
on the calendar. It's it's it seems to me, it's
like it's added in to be predatory, like and that's

(59:10):
and that's it. And I think that you know, that
feeds some of the fan tribalism that that you see
these days. It doesn't, it doesn't, you know, help pull
back on that. It very much creates us versus us
versus them, and and WWE is is much bigger, so
they can they can do that. They can pull that
off right now. But you know, you may get some

(59:35):
fans who watch WWE and watch AW both who go,
you know what, like they brought brock Lesner back and
now they're running the show on this day and I
already can't keep up with the product because it's it's
you know, it's four days a week. So just forget it,
like I'm I'm done, you know, like it may not
be one thing that like drives a fan away, but
like you start adding some things up, you know, and

(59:58):
then you know, you you you can lose.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Yeah, and you can also just burn out your booking.
I mean again going back to WHW and you had
you had Thunder being added and then the third hour
of Nitro right around the same time, and it was
corporate people, you know, it was it was Ted Turner going, hey,
we we we want to reward TBS with this, you know,
with prime time content that can make them money. They've

(01:00:22):
been the loyal wrestling partner along. There's kind of an
inner inner Turner back, you know, a rivalry between T
and T and TBS. It was kind of healthy and
TBS was you know, more like comedy and T and
T was more prestigious, high hypro programming and TBS felt
left out. There are all kinds of you know, rationale
on the corporate side, and it was just sort of
like make it happen. And that's why rusm farrer left
the do w EF. A big part of it is

(01:00:43):
is you know, oh, we're gonna do back down now,
and we're not gonna even have a conversation about your
workload going up. It's just expected you'll make it work.
And you know, obviously made that work. W W didn't
make Thunder work and it became a B show. We've
seen that to a degree with with a w T
to with with Collision and the lack of identity for
that show. Adding those shows can be that you add

(01:01:06):
more and more more content because you're a hot product
and you are accelerating the pace of a decline in
taking away the wigger room you have when things when
things don't aren't going as well as as they have been.
But I still I mean between the oversaturation, the overly

(01:01:27):
aggressive you know, uh, predatory competitiveness, which I don't think
means a ton, but it means something you know to
to to hurting a W. And and frankly, it's self
destructive for debate because there's obviously gonna be few people
watching their Plpico's head to head with a W pay
per view, because some people are going to choose a

(01:01:48):
W who otherwise watch tot B. So it's sort of
a mutual destruction in that way too. But to me,
you can survive all this a lot better if John
Cena comes out and laments losing the world title and
puts Cuddy Ropes over and because and he does it
on week two or in the second hour, but you
lead with Cody giving talking about I mean, John Cena

(01:02:08):
is working in front of sellout stadium crowds because of
Cody Roads's journey in that story, not because it's freaking
John Cena. You know, John Cena was not selling out
two stadium shows back to back nights. The booking and
the storytelling and the framework of WWE creatively was built
around Cody Rohadse's journey and the blood line, and John

(01:02:32):
Cena is benefiting from that, and he shows zero freaking
respect and recognition for Cody Roads. I mean, he spent
weeks in built to WrestleMania not acknowledging who that Cody
Rose's partner, and it pissed me off. I don't Cody's
not my best friend. But it's like, you know, it's
not like it's some personal thing. It's just, are you
kidding me? Have some class? You walked into a red
hot company and you're not actually focused on who your

(01:02:57):
opponent is in his journey. It's almost like there was
an obliviousness or disregard for the fact that the product
it was it was it was condescend it it was
it was condescending, or maybe it was more patronizing, like
to just be like, oh, look at what's going on
over here, let me give it a boost. And Rock
kind of had that and fans pushed back on that

(01:03:17):
last year. So I don't know this idea of of
you know, this inferiority complex over your top stars, who
are the ones who are drawing, and we need to
bring lesser back and need to bring Scena back, and
we need to do whatever Rock says. I granted a
lot of people don't want to do it, Rock says,
But this idea of it's all about big returning stars
in like the first Netflix episode this year was like that.
It's like, hey, you know, look at all the big
stars of the past. It's like, no, you know what,

(01:03:38):
it's gotta the biggest pop on your shows. Read Freak
and Ripley. Make the show more about her, make it
more about goother, talk about Cody's journey. This big audience
you have in the Netflix debut, Let this audience know
you're not living in the past. This is in a
nostalgia show. This isn't a Hall of Fame ceremony with
people who are going to come with special appearances. Make
the star the current stars of the show who today's
wrestling fans care about the stars and think Paula Beck

(01:04:00):
would understand that because he and Rock and he and
Dax along with Rock and especially Steve Austin with some
sable and some other things. But they were new stars
who took over the Monday Night War and rode a wave.
It wasn't leaning on Roddy Piper anymore, and whole Covid
and Rick Flair. It was this whole new generation. And
by is ruining that ruining is overstating it. But they

(01:04:25):
seem to have a disregard for the fact that it
was this new fresh crew. And there's this and I
did not expect Lebec to be a guy who would
be a victim to it, who were enamored with the
people of the past, the Brooklesser and John Cena types.
I'm not saying Seena shouldn't be on the show, Zach,
but you need to make sure he knows his place
in this environment. He is not there to save a company,
and he is there to give a boost to a

(01:04:46):
red hot company, but not get in the way and
damage it. And he is.

Speaker 6 (01:04:52):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me
Jason Powell host him 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 dot net along
with other pro wrestling media members, Plus the Pro Wrestling
Boom podcast features long form interviews with notable names in
the pro wrestling industry. Subscribe and iTunes, Stitcher, Downcast, and

(01:05:14):
all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at
PW boom dot com. Once again, that's PW boom dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
Right, And and that's why I think becoming increasingly reliant
on feeding the content beast surprises and moments like if
that is your focus, you're gonna you're gonna turn to
the wrong things because like regular Cody Rhodes you see

(01:05:47):
every week, who is a big star. Yes, you know,
he's not a surprise. That's and that should be enough.
And like you said about the scene of scene of
promo and the big moment that they actually had on SummerSlam,
that wasn't that isn't good enough. Like if you train
your audience to think that that's not good enough, then
you're gonna get moments like John Cena coming back and

(01:06:10):
thinking he's bigger, He's bigger than he really is because
they treat him that way, because they elevate the notion
that that surprise is more important than you know, the
regular happening. So it's like you're you gotta I think
WNWUNI is at a point where you know, there, I
think they're like, company's not gonna go under tomorrow or

(01:06:33):
ten years. But you're at the point where like you're
I think you're turning over slowly here, like fans that
are gonna just care less about what you do and
it's gonna make it real easy to drop you when
those moments aren't as good anymore and those surprises aren't
there anymore. And if you have what's left over, a

(01:06:55):
fan base is just like, oh, man, like that thinks
we love that stuff and now it's not here, but
we don't really care about anything else because you've cultivated
an ecosystem where that's the that's the message. It's like
you're you're you're left with not with not a lot,
and you have you'll have to at that point go
back and and and do it the to do it

(01:07:17):
the old, the old fashion way. So it's it's it's
it's you know, it's too dramatic to say that they're
at a crossroads here, but it's like, you know, you
start seeing this weekend and week out show in and
show out, you know, raw main events. I mean, when's
the last time you've felt kind of satisfied after a
after a raw main event, a main event match, not

(01:07:39):
an angle a match. It's been it's been a while.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
It's a thing that's so much of Doughby's thinking and fans.
Some fans buy into it, but they're the ones who
are gonna stick around, and they're not part of the
crowd that's going to tune out or lose their passion
and their engagement in the product as easily if they're
if they have the the engagement in the moment to
rationalize it. The idea of why people tell me this,
Oh don't I don't expect to clean finish on TV.

(01:08:04):
That's just for the plees. And I shake my head
at that because I'm like, well, right, you have been
trained to believe that, But that should that is not
a peak experience for it, for that is not a
peak fan experience to be thinking about how two wrestlers
going into a ring are going to act differently and
there's going to be a different type of likelihood of
an outcome versus a run in or a DQ or

(01:08:24):
a cop out or account or whatever based on the
fact that it's it's in front of your largest audience
on Netflix rather than a smaller audience on Peacock on
a weekend. Like, there's no logic to that, and you
have to have the fundamentals of the structure, of the
logical structure for everything to work, which is it should

(01:08:44):
be random. I mean like this. I it won't be,
but you want to protect the notion that it is
in the way you present the product. So yes, you're
not going to end WrestleMania with somebody jumping over a
barricade and attacking somebody in the ref calling for DQ
and WrestleMania ends on a DQ, the like Seth stopping
La Night with Seth rollins last week. That's not going

(01:09:06):
to be all Wrestumenians. We all know it intellectually, but
you can't flaunt that formula in the sense that there's
nothing about a WrestleMania main event that is any more
more or less likely to make to lead to that
situation than there is on Netflix in front of two
and a half million people. There's nothing about the way
the product is presented where that's different. So the only
way you would rationalize that is if you're thinking in

(01:09:28):
a meta sense about how ww tell stories and the
pattern of doing an angle and booking versus payoffs. You
that is true, but it should be camouflaged in the
way that you present the product, not thrown in the
face of everybody and flaunted as just something you have
to live with. And so when you have the announcers
going very exciting main event Bron's and Red and bron

(01:09:49):
Breaker are are in this main event, You're like, well, okay,
that's kind of you know, see if Seth and La
and I get along, okay, great, but I mean I'm
not going to get a finish. Like you're training your
audience to not be in in the outcome mattering. And
then that has that ripple effect, which is are they
going to care about the moves and the match in
the near falls or do they know it's not going
to end yet because it's all about a run in

(01:10:12):
or a distraction. And this is not a new thing,
it's just the latest thing. Is this. It used to
be distraction finishes and then it was fifty to fifty
booking with mid carters. There's all kinds. Yeah, all of
them are bad in excess, all of them are are
not ideal but justifiable and tolerable if you do a
variety of them, but you need to have a majority

(01:10:35):
of clean finishes in your main events spots for main
events to still meet anything. And we saw with WW
with how they went out the show with Big Brawl,
staying in their own stands and they didn't pay off
main events, and it was sort of just a running
you know, almost a running joke in WW that they
could get away with it, but they really weren't. It
just was a delayed reaction.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
Well exactly. And like I don't know, I don't know
if you want to get into raw or not, but
I thought Michael Cole was awful yesterday. I really thought
he was just off his game. And when I heard him, like,
I don't know why, it stood out to me more
this time around, because it's not the first time that
he that he says stuff like this. It's all over

(01:11:16):
the broadcast, but for some reason, like this caught my
eye when he was like, huh, Dominic Mysterio out smart
in AJ styles again, It's like, no, he didn't out
smart him. He cheated. Like the whole essence of that,
if you're gonna do it, is the cheating that's the
whole point. That's the whole everything. And if you if

(01:11:37):
you don't sell that right, or you choose not to,
or you're just whatever ineffective on that day, Like it
totally neutralizes not just that, but everything on the show.
Any other moment like that on the show where you're
trying to get heat on heels the main event is
a good example. It's like, well, why should you care
that seth Rollins beat up? You know, I'll see him

(01:12:01):
punk and jay us at the end of the in
l A and A at the end, it's like, he's
not a bad guy. He just I was smarter him.
And it's like that, no, that can't that can't work.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
And it's one of the reasons that I that I
abhorr the triple threat rules when anything goes yes it
because it just it undercuts any notion that babyfaces are savvy,
because the heels are the only ones who take advantage
of the legal parameters of being able to do anything,
so the heels look like they're smarter, and it undercuts

(01:12:34):
one baby Faces, it undercuts heels trying to get heal
heat because I mean, it's not about likes and retweets
and Crown Pops. Being a heel is about more than anything,
but not only, but more than anything, making the baby
face stronger by the end of your matteryunder your feet.
You have to be credible, You have to be you know,
in some cases brutal and vicious and whatever. There's all

(01:12:55):
these negative traits you have to have. But in the end,
your job is to get booed, and everything you do
is to help the baby face get cheered and have
fans be either related they win or disappointed they lose.
And I don't think that is a thought that crosses
the minds of seventy five percent of wrestlers who are
who are come up through the WWE system today. And
it's it's just it's not something you can't do without.
You need to know that, and you need to live

(01:13:16):
it as a wrestler, and you also need to live
it in Gorilla when you're feeding the announcers what to say.
And if you're Michael Cole, my god, how do you
not know that by now? How do you not know
how damaging that is? But he's not alone, But you know,
don't testator gets it more than coal, you know, in
terms of in terms of you know, just being in
dismay at the heels cheating.

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
You have to have that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
It's it's it's not about every babyface has to be pure.
It's actually sort of the opposite babyface. Well, I should
say opposite. But when you have a terrible threat match,
if you're gonna have the stupid unnecessary rule that absolutely
anything goes, you can't have the babyfaces constantly following the
traditional rules and having those heels outsmart them, and you
can't have announcers reinforcing how savvy and smart. Eddie Garrow

(01:14:01):
was wonderful, incredibly talented, but man did the light cheat
steel lesson get learned the wrong way? And man it
sort of did he did that not do great damage
to how announcers think you're supposed to talk about, Like
if you have a heel gimmick and then people love
you and you sort of lean into like, oh, the

(01:14:23):
whole point of Eddie Garrow's light cheat still working is
kind of what I'm talking about here. He was a
wrestler who outsmart the heels at their own game, but
you had that foundation of decades of heels cheating in babyfaces.
Not always Holko can raked eyes. He would you know,
like Matt Dog Vshan and when he turned baby Face
was ricking people's back with his with his fingernails, and

(01:14:44):
it was like, it's not all about like wrestling a
pure backline style, but there is a core constitution to
what guys their actions. And with Eddie it was like,
I'm gonna fight fire with fire. But the reason it
worked is he was playing off of in a ste
ablished code that Babyfaces followed and fans were related to
finally see a Babyface fight fire with fire, and it

(01:15:06):
was framed as such, that's not a me that that
that whole background that led to it working, isn't there
the only thing they took from it. It's sort of like, oh,
like like when w Shoe Corporate got the survey that
said fans like surprises and no levec is like you know,
speaking that you know why they liked surprises because surprises

(01:15:26):
were well done and they were infrequent and there was
a discipline to how they were done. They liked good surprises.
They didn't know why they liked them, but the booker
and the wrestler should know. But the next generation or
the next you know bookers go, oh, people like surprises,
let's more surprises with no idea of the ingredients that
went into it to make it something that fans would say,

(01:15:46):
they look for and they like. And I fear that's
where Lebec is now, and we get that with Michael
Colon commentary. They don't know what made Eddi Garrill work.
They're just sort of repeating some dumb down derivative shell
of its xerox of the xerox of a xerox of that,
and doing it in a way where they think they're cute.
They're pretting cute about it, and really it's undercutting the
whole core structure of what makes a peak fan experience.

(01:16:09):
And again, Cody Roads on his journey was a peak
fan experience. The blood lines of peak fan experience. It's
not like, w it's a foreign thing from the past.
We're talking about it. But you have Rock and Sina
and Brock and the stuff happening and the announcers and
it's like they don't get that stuff worked. That is
what gave you the boom period. It was a traditional
babyface against the traditional heel group. And now Paula Beck

(01:16:31):
is enamored with all these babyfaces bickering to the point
where you don't like any of them, and that's his
other go to thing, Let's just have cwo likable people
become completely unlikable, because that's our forward leaning, modern way
of saying. It's not just pure baby faces and stereotypical
grunting heels. It's like there is a vast array of
other options that they can have. And again it's why

(01:16:51):
I'm you know, not real high on le Beck right
now based on what he says and how we books.

Speaker 3 (01:16:56):
Well, yeah, and it's just frankly, it's just wrong, even
even in the current landscape. Like some of the best
stuff on Raw the last month has been the Russev
Seamous feud. And why because there's a clear they're clear characters,
they're lined up against each other. I think people care about,

(01:17:17):
you know, Shamous winning. Russev's a bad guy. They have
entertaining matches as a byproduct of the story being good.
And so you can trot that out two or three
times in a three month period because you've done a
nice job setting setting that table. On the flip side,
you know, last night I was complimentary. I was like, ah,

(01:17:37):
that's really interesting, Like see a punk in La Knight
to start the show like we're pretty likable but alpha
almost budding head babyfaces. But I didn't. I wasn't like
annoyed by that. And then by the end they're just
brawling and I'm just like, you guys are just children,
Like what what? What? What's happening here? You guess you
got your title match? Why why are you fighting each other?

(01:17:59):
And I had to completely unravel the analysis of that.
That was a good showing for them, because by the
end of the night, it was just like, this is
this is this is stupid.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
Anytime you're watching WWE Raw or SmackDown or aw 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. Wadekeller Podcast at pwtorch
dot com, Wadkeller Podcast at pewtorch dot com. If there's
anything else going on in pro wrestling that you want
us to address on our main podcast during our Mailbank segments,

(01:18:35):
that same email applies Wadekeller 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.
Wadkeller Podcast at pw Torch dot com. Zach, let's actually
pause record distance into the show and actually introduce ourselves

(01:18:59):
here we got on a roll and tell people a
little bit more about what you're doing too. This is
the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast, our flagship edition on Tuesday,
August twelfth, twenty twenty five, and I'm Way Keller, hosts
the show. You've been listening to us for well over
an hour if you made it this far, unless you
fast forward it, in which case you haven't been listening
to us that long, but you miss some good stuff.

(01:19:19):
And I'm the editor, publisher and founder of the Pro
Wrestling Torch newsletter and the website pete w toorch dot com.
I host a variety of podcasts, including the aforementioned series
on Hulk Hogan. We have posted ten podcasts dedicated to Hogan,
including part one of three of my conversation with Guy Evans,
the author of the definitive book on the Nitro arab

(01:19:40):
ww appley titled Nitro, and he has a follow up
book available on that call Beyond Nitro that just came
out this year. So we spent nearly three hours talking
about just marching through relatively chronologically Hulk Hogan's run on Nitro.
That the first episode, about an hour long, is available

(01:20:01):
for everybody for free via the pw Torch VIP free
sample feed, and all you have to do to listen
to that is search pw torch in your podcast app.
If you search it on the native Apple podcast app,
which most of you do, are a huge percentage of
you do. You can upgrade and unlock all the VP shows,
including Part two and three of that conversation when you

(01:20:23):
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there's many ways to get a free sample of that
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You can also sign up with full VIP membership and

(01:20:45):
unlock all our archives and customizable podcast feed where you
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people on different platforms in different ecosystems at PW torch
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the show, this is our flagship, the Blue Logo Show.

(01:21:06):
You can also search weaight Keller and your podcast app
and subscribe to The Red Logo Show. That is our
post shows, which includes my live post shows after Rod
dynam I SmackDown, along with some flashbacks and other content.
But we're talking big picture and perhaps some smaller things
too as the show progresses here, although we're deep into
it already here on the flag Ship. And the other
voice you hear is Zach Haydorn, former PW Torch assistant

(01:21:29):
editor and now doing his own thing. Zach, Welcome back
to the coast here.

Speaker 3 (01:21:35):
It is awesome to be here, Wade. Thanks for having me.
I'm glad, glad we were able to do this. I
always love love joining the show because of the just
the vast array of stuff that we that we can
hit on here. So thanks so much for having me.
I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:21:50):
It's great having me on. I always gain insight and
enjoy our conversations. Tell people how they can hear more
from you when you're not co hosting with me.

Speaker 3 (01:21:59):
Yeah, thank you. So yeah, you guys could check me
out in a couple different places, one of which is
Sports illustrateds Pro Wrestling, Arm, the Takedown on as I
I write there every single day, all sorts of different
different types of stories, news, stories, features, some editorials. I
also cover raw and Dynamite for Sports Illustrated, so you

(01:22:23):
can check those reports out with analysis on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Also have our own thing going at brass Ring Media.
That is a kind of where you can hear the
majority of my podcasting work, and you can check that
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(01:22:45):
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(01:23:10):
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(01:23:32):
just kind of odds and ends stuff that pop up
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to do that. Hopefully you guys give us a go.
First week is free, so you can try us out.
And now's a good time to do that with the
two Summer Slam shows that are back there to listen
to and everything that we're planning moving forward with all

(01:23:52):
out and as we head into the fall here, so
a good a good time to do that. Also talk
about this more than I do, but you can read
my Steve Austin book that Wade graciously wrote the forward
on and you can get that right now on Amazon.
It's called Stunning the Wrestling Artistry of Steve Austin. It's
a an in depth walkthrough of kind of the art

(01:24:14):
behind Steve Austin as a wrestler in all in all
the shapes and forms that he's that he took as
stone Cold but as Stunning Steve and as the Hollywood Blondes.
And so it's an independently published book and we're proud
of it. And so hopefully you check that out. It's
on Amazon right now.

Speaker 1 (01:24:34):
All right, fantastic. Let's let's shift in this chapter, Zach
to aw how are they doing competing with this behemoth
of WWE. They've got a good TV deal, they are
financially secure. Readings up last week two out of three
weeks above seven ordree thousand. You know, some little indicators.

(01:24:55):
I think you should have extrapolated too much positive from,
you know, a three week stretch, any more than you
should extract too big of a negative out of three
week stretch. You want to look at larger trends. And
you know we're without reliable apples taples data on HBO Max,
but you know TVs and t A T viewership is
down from a couple of years ago sharply. But there

(01:25:16):
is a little bit of a positive trend line, and
I think the product itself deserves it in terms of
being a little bit more focused Tomorrow night on Daynamite,
there's a base to face of Hangman Page and MJF.
So you know, Hangman the clear top guy in the
company right now, it's a baby face MGFF getting back
into a position at least visiting the main the top

(01:25:38):
main event heel spot. And then you got John Moxley
against Kevin Knight Moxley in his post world title reign role,
and you have a kind of a gimmicky match with
Adam Colpland against Stokely Hathaway or big Stoke is calling
himself he tries to hide himself up, so kind of
broadly speaking, and then any specifics, how do you think

(01:26:01):
is is doing right now?

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
I think collectively they're doing they're doing well. Like as
a as a company. I think crowning Adam Page as
the world champion it all In was, you know, obviously
the right move in that moment, but also the follow
up on that was really important too, and not just
having the world title on him, but freading him as

(01:26:25):
the top guy in your company on a week to
week basis. And I think that's probably the biggest takeaway
that I have so far on the positive side for
kind of this post all In world, is that they've
really done a nice job to define that like Adam
Page is on TV every week. He's in the biggest segments,
whether it's opening or closing. He's got you know, little

(01:26:48):
angles and narratives that we throughout the show. Everybody's chasing
him like he's the guy. He is the guy, and
I think, you know, for whether that guy was gonna be,
Tony Khin had some options. He could have gone with
Will Osprey, I think, could have gone with Strickland, could
have gone with with Adam Paige, and that's a that's
a nice problem to have, you picked one. And now

(01:27:09):
it seems like Tony Kaink's chips are in on that,
and I think that's the right move. It establishes like
a proper hierarchy for the show. Everybody's chasing down the
top guy, which is Page, and he's not just the
top guy and how you talk about him, but you
see him in all the important spots, and I think
that goes a long way in kind of you know,

(01:27:31):
re you know, just kind of retraining your audience like
what matters, why it matters. Same thing with when Roman
Reigns was kind of cast as this heel dominant champion.
It's like, yes, finally, finally, like you know, the Roman
reigns push is going to line up with people booing
him and they're going to get something out of this
and the whole company is going to be angled that way.

(01:27:53):
That did good business for that and so I think,
you know, AW is reaping some of the benefits here
as well. I do you know, there's some other things
on the show that I just I don't think are
clicking that well, like including like the Cope Christian cage,
you know, FTR whatever that's going to be. I think
that's the psychology on that is very much backwards, especially

(01:28:17):
regarding regarding Christian. Same thing with MJF. I mean, I
think they have him now in the right spot in
terms of just he's a heel on his own, like
that's that's what I think MJF should be. But in
order to get there, they really had to drop something.
They put a ton of television time into, and different

(01:28:37):
characters into, and a lot of you know, angles and
storyline into that they just kind of dropped it with
with Hurt Syndicate and again one of those things where
maybe you're better off just pulling the plug and just
taking it on the chin for not having a buttoned
up reason as to why I understand that, but you
still have to suffer with well it didn't make any sense.

(01:29:00):
So I think they're in that spot. So I think
like they're collectively in a good spot because they have
the top of the card ironed out well, both in
the men's and women's division. With with Tony Storm. Some
of the undercard stuff is still very you know quote
aw in nature that I think can be cleaned up.
But it just shows to show you how important it

(01:29:22):
is to have your top guys right because it can
change the whole perception of your show.

Speaker 1 (01:29:29):
The I'm you know, totally with you in terms off,
you want your identity to be built when you can
around a when it makes sense, it is a better
way to put it around a singular top star usually
a babyface but not always definitely exceptions, and you want
a strong support and cast and AW for a lot
of their existence has been more of an ensemble. You know, Hey,

(01:29:50):
you could be for this person or that person or
tune in for them, and that's great, but at some
point I think it can look like you're hedging, you're
not leaning in the company that's and have an identity
it doesn't know what it wants to be and just
having a clear cut, a bit a lead babyface in
his prime who fans chose who fits the aesthetic and
then the vibe of your of your company, who can

(01:30:11):
deliver big main event matches and de live around the
microphone is kind of a good way to settle into
a effective routine. And it also shows they're not just
trying to hot shot right, you know, title changes and
all that. And frankly, when you look at the options,
I mean, well, Ospray, he's based overseas. There's injuries stacking

(01:30:32):
up due to his ringstyle, which you should tone down on,
you know, cut down two thirds of the big spots,
do things safer and and tell your story in a
more artistic efficient way. But try tell them that to
somebody who's just you know, pedals of the metal and
that's their identity. But you know, you end up paying
a price when you're when you build a roster on
guys who don't know how to like pace themselves, you
are investing in people who are going to miss time

(01:30:53):
and have shorten careers. Kenny Omega is one of them
two and you know hang Man is more uh strategic
and in the physical risk he take. He's also less
athletically gifted than than Omega and Osprey. But that's so
it's you know, maybe not also just a choice, but
there is something about him perhaps being more reliable and

(01:31:14):
staying healthier by telling stories in the Ring that aren't
based upon a density of dangerous high spots that gets
you pops and and and ephemeral needless star rating uh averages.
So I think they made a good choice, and I
also think Jeff is a good choice. But m Jeff
kind of could just use like a six month stretch

(01:31:35):
of not being part of something that makes no sense. Yes, yes,
he's just he's he always finds himself, and sometimes I
think it's you know, perhaps with hurt Syndicate, there's some
stuff going on behind the scenes that that extent that
that accelerated that storyline kind of going in a different way.
But just be a heal who doesn't Again, I think

(01:31:58):
he's of a generation who's so esteem is based on
and his sense of accomplishing his job is based upon
instant feedback online from sources that don't matter, and it
should not be the primary way you gauge how you're
getting over. For him, I think he should gauge how
he gets over based on how over his baby face
opponent is when he's done feuding with them, and in

(01:32:20):
how over he is as a heel, and how angry
people are win he wins, and how he laid it
there when he loses, not what kind of buzz generating
likes and views something he did to Hotshot on TV.
And he is an example of that because I feel
like a lot of stuff he does is showy for
purposes that aren't grounded and just selling tickets to shows
and drawing a peak pay per view by rate. But

(01:32:43):
he has enough. You know, sometimes wrestlers with immense talent
want to show that off in different ways, and I
think sometimes he does lean too heavily into I need
to be super creative, I need to reinvent things or
do something over the top. And to me, the most
effective MGF is an MGF that you could drop into
nineteen seventy seven WWF as a heel or nineteen eighty
one eighty three Georgia Championship Wrestling like just a guy,

(01:33:06):
you know, a Roddy Piper SQ guy who just agitates
and irritates. He does it efficiently in a straightforward way,
and it's not about how many minutes of TV time
you fill. And we got a little bit I think
it was last week's show. We're just pretty straight before
it maybe two weeks ago, but a pretty straightforward MGF promo.
And I actually was at the start of the show
last week, you know, and it was just like it

(01:33:26):
was just a spot on to the point promo from
MGF and it should be what he does not at
at ten times and feeding MGF to Hangman Page is
I think a good stage to be at and it's
something you can just when you think about AW. I
think you want to be thinking about Tony Storm, you
want to be thinking about Hangman Page. You want to be
thinking about whoever their opponent is, and if AW can,

(01:33:48):
if Tony Khan can build around that formula, and you
can have an identity. It's like WW during its speak
was about the nWo and staying, but you had this
top level athleticism in the other card that had never
been seen before national cable on a regular basis with
the Lucha Doors primarily, but also you know eventually Chris
ban Wan, Chris Jericho and such. So I just think
this is a good foundation you know, to build on

(01:34:11):
and they're in a good spot. But MJF, I think
grows impatient with just showing up and doing a good
job and being effective and is just too creatively. His
mind is racing creatively to think of the next thing,
and then we end up with kind of this hurt
syndicate thing, which maybe it didn't got rushed or didn't

(01:34:31):
land in the way that I was supposed to, but
even along the way it was just like, how is
this going to work? And sort of like with Adam Cole,
we might never know if this did get accelerated. What's
your take zech on the state of MGFF. You're kind
of not along to my initial law framing of what
is the most effective m Jeff.

Speaker 7 (01:34:54):
Be longing for some nostalgia or maybe you want to
learn some wrestling history. Don't miss the nineties pass cast
Every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast feed.

Speaker 1 (01:35:04):
Alex and Patrick.

Speaker 7 (01:35:04):
Will transport you thirty years into the past by taking
you through the Torch issue from that very week. Follow
news from the WWF and WCW and all the happenings
from across the wrestling industry in real time. As The
Torch reported it thirty years ago. That's the nineties pass
cast every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast feed.

Speaker 3 (01:35:34):
I just completely agree and and it's and the reason
I agree so wholeheartedly is just it's because he's so
good at at at doing that one thing well, like
that guy can. I mean, what impresses me most about
him is when he has really great wrestling matches and

(01:35:58):
is a heel throughout them because he's he is able
to go out there and wrestle with the best of
them Daniel Brian Danielson and Osprey and Paige and Omega
and all those guys. He he is right there, but
the crowd hates him for it by the end. And
like in twenty twenty five, that's that's tough, especially because
the audience now, I mean, you know that that having

(01:36:20):
good matches is a part of the part of it.
It's a part of it should be, it should be
just a byproduct of everything. But people want to expect
that the matches aren't going to be you know, nineteen
eighties house show style matches, and so you know, when
you find I feel like nowadays, when fans find like
an in ring person that they love, it's like, well,
they're you know, we love them, so like you got

(01:36:42):
I'm gonna cheer them. And MJF is able to to
hold that away. And he's just so good at being condescending,
an arriant and a jerk but also vicious at the
same time, and like it's not a skill that heel has.
I think he's really special in that regard. So when

(01:37:04):
he deviates from that and tries to get silly with
the Hurt Syndicate and tries to join that group, it's like, no, man,
like you just do do what you do, do what
you do best and be You could be a top
heel on the show for a decade and you can
have really great storylines either at the top of the

(01:37:25):
card or near the top of the card with if
it's not Adam Page, maybe it's for Strickling or maybe
it's will of Spray, right, you know, like there's always
going to be room for a top level heel. And
you know, and then when the time comes and you
put your time in there, okay, yeah, fine, maybe maybe
in ten years you turn babyface or do something funny
like you know, Hurt Syndicate wise, But the majority of

(01:37:48):
his time has to should be spent just being the
best bad guy in professional wrestling, and I think he
has the ability to do that, and he does that
a lot out of the time, but then he deviates,
and I think that's where people start rolling their eyes
and going, all right, does this does this guy really
care about that? Or does he want to just you know,
get get funny pops and laughs and chuckles, and he's

(01:38:13):
does he want to show his range? And it's like,
sometimes it's not about showing your range. Sometimes it's just
about playing your role to the best that you can.
And I don't think he does that enough. And if
he did it more, I think he'd be more over,
and I think more Babyfaces would be over. I think
the show would be better on a on a week
tw week basis. That's why I'm happy that they went
to page and m JF so quickly. Like in previous

(01:38:37):
Babyface title reigns for and even heal title rains, you'd
have him get the big win and then drop down
like three or four levels for their first you know,
title defense. Brian Danielson with with Jungle Boy, right Jack
Perry like just just like okay, like that works, but
there's no there's no drama here with with that with
MJF and Adam Paige. And if MJF stays in his

(01:38:59):
lane and turns it on, like, that's gonna be a
big match by the time that comes in the ring,
and you're not gonna know who's gonna win because MGF
is is a really strong character and a really strong
personality and and so I think that's really good for
for the product. But you have to have a William
m JF that's ready to play that play that part.
And it seems like he is right now, and now

(01:39:20):
that he's out for it syndicate. For as little as
that made sense, I think it's it is the right
move overall, just to get him out of that, and
it's better for everything. But it doesn't mean it didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:39:31):
Happen, right right. I still yeah, I'm curious how that
all ends up resolving itself. Have you heard more yourself
on what went on to to to lead to what
felt like a hasty, rushed It's sort of like the
scene a baby Face turn. It's like, what what what?

Speaker 3 (01:39:49):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:39:49):
What what happened?

Speaker 3 (01:39:50):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:39:50):
You signed lets far and you decided it wasn't working,
you know, have you heard more about that.

Speaker 3 (01:39:56):
I haven't heard any more than I think is that's
out there and that and our reporting is is pretty similar,
and that someone in that group just didn't wanted wanted out,
And like I think to this point that's unclear as
to who that is. I think you can make some
assumptions potentially on that. But yeah, it sounded like it

(01:40:17):
just was something where, hey, this isn't working for me.
I'm not.

Speaker 1 (01:40:23):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, talk about MG UP being a
top hell, what do you feel about the Don Kallis
family with Kyle Fletcher, especially t T Champion I liked
on last week's dynam My entering promo with most of
his crew gathered a declarative mission statement promo with Fletcher
being arrogant. They might did they did? Was it distracting? Uh?

(01:40:49):
With the sexual innuendo and the the uh you know,
I don't todder is probably not the right word for
the for the photo because or the painting excuse me
of of all that. But it was like it was,
it was cute, it was entertaining, it was fun, and
I'm not against it, but there's sometimes be said for
kind of just again keeping things a little bit more

(01:41:10):
simple more often than not. So with Don Kallis, like
I just want him to It's sort of like with
MGF and I think this about the interring style of
AW or the promo style and the character presentation kind
of simplify it and and just do the fundamentals. I mean,
we just need a little bit more of like offensive
line blocking for the cornerback instead of super creative routes

(01:41:33):
for the wide receivers. Like there's just at times you
just need the fundamental foundation being built by a heel group.
So let Don Kallis go out there and make a
case for being the manager of the year by really
getting the TV time and then bringing the ideas and
bringing character and don't try to pop people in the
back with an insider snide cute comment or get you
know reaction on the internet. So much of that is

(01:41:54):
just derailing things. Just be a heel manager who fans
can't wait to see get shown up and humiliated, and
have Fletcher be credible and cocky but also someone that
you want to see get not down a peg. The
elements were there and I think they have something with it,
and if they stay the course, I think you can
headline a pay per view with Hangman against Fletcher, and

(01:42:16):
I think last week's segment had elements that back that argument,
but they are not there yet, and it does take,
you know, some consistency of presenting them in a way
where it seems like there's this you know, kind of
gun through with the icy title, this long term TNT
champion who really has to find this era of collision
T and T title defenses and Hangman's on this other

(01:42:38):
path as a world champion. What would happen if they wrestled,
And that's one of the most effective promoting tools. One
of the peak fan experiences is having two wrestlers on
parallel paths and just going what happens when they wrestle.
I want to see those two clash and you delay
the gratification and then you eventually pay it off. And

(01:43:00):
you know, in another way is friends who break up,
you know, orren RF and Hogan, you know, like they're
in but some of it is is, you know, just
Rodnie Piper. They always heel against the lead babyface. I
want to see that matchup and I think there's potential
for that here. And they have something with Fletcher and
he's a home he's a relatively homegrown guy. You know,
it's not like a Bobby Lashley type or you're you know,
just taking or with other respect Chris Jericho, John Moxley,

(01:43:23):
people who came from WWE, you aw needs to have
their own identity and not look like they're just using
cast offs. And Fletcher is an opportunity that presents itself
to take advantage of and treat him like a big
free agent signing from WWE. If you have to trick
yourself into giving him that kind of attention and.

Speaker 3 (01:43:40):
Push this being successful at this is the next Like
if you want to say that Tony Kahan is kind
of level up a level, you know in his booking
because whatever experience he's doing it long, you know, he's
got some lot many years under his belt at this
point and finally figured out, okay, got to get the

(01:44:01):
top of the card right, and that makes sense and
I'm good there. The next level up for him is
is the guys like Kyle Fletcher, the guys that you
want to see occupying those spots that Adam Page occupies
now in two three four years, Like you know, the

(01:44:22):
I don't think he's been able to do a good
job with Kyle Fletcher or like the don Kl's family
in general, because they're so on again, off again, on again,
off again, like they're a big part of the show,
and then you don't see him again for five weeks
and then they're you know, they're getting a new member,
and then Josh Alexander is not even really in the
is he in the group? I don't know. Lance Archer's

(01:44:43):
around sometimes but not always. It's like they're just not
you hit the nail head. There's not enough consistency in
the presentation of that faction. It's like they're on when
Tony Kain needs him to be on, and that to
me like they come across as more of like Alpha
Academy on Raw. Then they do you know, uh, you

(01:45:05):
know division faction for Raw right now because they're so
hit her, they're so hit or miss. And with Fletcher,
it's like, you know, just like you decided like, hey,
Anam Page is going to be our guy, like you
should have five guys where you're like, these guys might
be the next the next guy that I'm that I'm

(01:45:26):
looking at, and start presenting them that way, which means yeah,
maybe like he's not on equal level with Kenoskate to
catch it because he's the top guy and you hear
from him most and he wins most of his matches
and he's on TV regularly, and Don Kallis talks about
it like, I think there's just just a couple like
tweaks here and there from taking Kyle Fletcher to this

(01:45:47):
pretty interesting character that it can have good matches, but
just we don't know because we don't see him enough.
And I think just a couple of tweaks and he
can be like a main upper tier player for you
in the future. And it takes time, and you got
to like be willing to put in the elbow grease
to make that work over time. You don't want to

(01:46:08):
just snap your fingers because you want it to be
this thing that marinates with with fans. But identifying those
guys and putting those guys in positions to be that
I think is the next kind of step up for
for Tony Conne and maybe this is it with with
Kyle Fletcher. I liked the promo. I thought, yeah, Teeter
on the edge of being a little too haha funny,

(01:46:31):
but you know, I think you don't you know he's
you don't want him to be mjf Right, you already
have one of those, so you got to you gotta
find it a little bit of a different lane. So
I thought he walked up to that line but didn't
but didn't cross it. More So, I was happy with
it because it was just a clear definition of Kyle
Fletcher as like, he's he's the Don Kallis guy. Yes,
there's people in the background, but he's the he's the guy.

(01:46:54):
He's the guy, he's the focus. Defining that last week was.

Speaker 1 (01:46:58):
Important, Yes, again nodding along. When you have a faction
and you want fans to care about it, you have
to be in the use the term for a while.
You have to be in the don Kalla's family business,
just like Doobe is in the in the seth Hayman faction.
And we're calling it the Vision now, right, is it
the Vision?

Speaker 3 (01:47:19):
I think it's the Vision. I think that's I think, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
Yeah, I'll believe when I see it on a T
shirt or on a graphic instead of just Adoe dot
com headline and and you know, the Vision set along
with three other things that also could be your faction name.
It just feels kind of like we're not quite quite
locked in on it. Yet it feels like they're still
hedging a little bit and testing it. But yeah, the
don Kallis family being the don Kall's family business, you

(01:47:42):
basically tune in the dynam and every week and expect
something with them. It can be in the ring every
you know, every three weeks. It can then be a
backstage promo. I think they should always be gathered and
I think you should look at it every opportunity to
to get across to the viewer the dynamic, the interpersonal
dynamic of everybody and who has which spot in that group.
It was really clear with the Pourhorsemen. It was really

(01:48:03):
clear with the nWo in the early stages, a peak level.
Clear with with the bloodline, in the way that they
told the story with Rains and the usos and the
sami Ze storyline. So really, like I say this all
the time, it was don Kallis and I say with
aw Broadley, I want to see a sense that they
didn't show up and go what are we going to

(01:48:23):
do today? And then they put ten minutes of thought
into it and then they just josh around with their
buddies and then go out and wing it Like I'm
not for like scripting every word out, but I want
to see the end product of a promo on national
television in front of seven hundred plus thousand people. I
want to make I want it to seem like you
put a whole weeks worth a thought into it. I mean,
you are getting paid for three to thirteen minutes basically

(01:48:45):
of talking, and that's your job. And there's a lot
of people who work very hard forty hours a week
and get judged on the totality at forty hours, they
only have, you know, five ten minutes to be judged.
But there should be a lot of time that gets
into every minute of that TV time. Ilse Snow used
to talk about how you tell wrestlers, you know, the
every minute of TV time is worth this much because

(01:49:08):
of the sponsorship, and it has this value, and you
need to bring that level. You need to feel the
pressure that every minute is precious and valuable and and
it's it's a burden for you, or not a burden,
but it it should be. You should aspire to value
your TV time. And I want to see Don Kallis
be more more of a professional and put more time

(01:49:30):
into it. And he did that, by the way, last Wednesday,
you know, but that meting was showed effort, there was thought,
and they were having fun with it, but they were
doing so in a way where you're just like, I
just want to see these guys get their ass kicked right,
and so do more of that. But every week and
not every you know, like and I don't. I saw
like I'm saying the opposite of what I said. With MGF,
like V you have to just do basic stuff most weeks,

(01:49:50):
and with with the don Kallis Fan, it's like something new,
have something. I have a message that you're driving home
with the TNT title and your group and obviously other
people in the group have and other aspirations that are
happening concurrently. But have something new that you're trying to
get across in that promo. So it's eighty percent reinforcing points,
but there's twenty percent Hey, here's how lands Art or

(01:50:12):
Brian Cage or Josh Alexander fit into things. Or here's
a story about o'cod and what's going on with him,
so he stays in the mix, introduce something new in
addition to reinforcing the points, and be a constant presence.
You just want to conjure up emotions that make people
want to go paid to see you get beat up.
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Speaking of which, the young Bucks are criticized by me
and others for resting on the laurels of having a

(01:51:16):
PWG style Roh style gooch pan style banger of a
tag match every couple months and that's their job and
that's enough. And there were times where they look like
they just were jet legged, didn't want to be there, uninspired,
They're over it. They have money to retire on, they
live frugally. Things aren't going as well as we wanted
retired to people criticizing us. They were all this weird

(01:51:39):
baggage when they appeared on TV, especially Matt although Nicketime
just seemed like not even there and my god, had
they turned it around. That's not for everybody, you know,
there's a little bit of a zaniness to this. But
I love that there is a follow up to them
losing their EVP status. I love that they're selling it,
that they kick the young bucks, care more about their

(01:52:00):
ring entrance music and the ring introductions, and John Cena
gave they cared about like I'm not kidding, like not
even close. I saw like Joe Biden there, I'm not kidding,
I'm serious. What was his was his phrase? I'm not
kidding you anyway, And like they did, they genuinely cared
more about about their entrance then and the John cy

(01:52:20):
favor about losing the world title, and I like that.
I want storylines to be followed up on. And they
are selling their you know the old terms selling showing
ass they are humiliated and frustrated with losing the VP
status and losing their their stature, you know, they don't
have They don't get to go to the cool places
in the building anymore and and tell people what to

(01:52:40):
do and get get their ass kiss by by everybody
underneath them, and that is working. They seem to be
having fun again, but in a way where I think
fans at the point that they are in their career
and on the card where they're gonna have good matches,
but fans are gonna also want to see them get
their ass kicked. And then you get Brodido, you know,
which is a second chance to get jet speed, you know,
where you have this team that kind of catches fire

(01:53:04):
with fans, Although maybe that's overstating it because it's very new,
but there's something there in that odd couple mismatched tag
team that even AW seems to be acknowledging is catching
on because it gave them a big win in a
twenty plus minute match against the Bucks last week. I
think AW fans are itching for a tag division that
has focused that seems to matter with baby faces they

(01:53:25):
want to see win and Heels who they delighted seeing
lose and get humiliated. They have the foundation right now,
something good, Zach, and now, well this is going on
if they roll with it, and you know they have
this tournament and a lot of things going on, but
you want to have you want to be planning long
term for a team four months from now that you're
going to push in the top spot. So I want
to see that undercurrent developing things for four months from

(01:53:46):
now also, and you want to see that that product
long term planning. But sometimes something just sort of clicks
and you want to go with it. So your thoughts
on Young Bucks as it relates to kind of the
larger discussion we're happened with heels in that company, and
then also Brodido you know, I'm going to say the
name even though this merging of two names is getting
a little little crazy, but Vandito and Brodie Kinge.

Speaker 3 (01:54:07):
Yeah, it's really it's really nice to see the Young
Bucks matter on on television on a week to week basis.
I mean, I just I just think for a while
they're a good long while there. Too long they were
just kind of this act that was synonymous with the
company but just really had no impact on it. And

(01:54:29):
you know, you can't, you know, if you go out
there and have a Young Buck style tag team match
every week. You know, they don't they stop mattering, they
stop meaning anything, And so this gives them another another
layer to playoff of from from their character perspective. They
can they can sell, they can show ass, they can

(01:54:49):
you know, get into it with the crowd. They can
get into it with other stars. You have all different
stars of the company like kind of semi involved in
this storyline because they're all kind of needling the Bucks
for not having those EVP titles anymore. Like it's just
it's working. It's working, and I don't know, I don't
know that it's like a main event thing yet, but

(01:55:10):
it's working. And for me, I want to see them
continue to use it to get heat because I think
if you and I do the show again in two months,
hopefully it's before that, but if it's two months, like
there could be an easy chance that the Young Bucks
are now hugely over as babyfaces because they've made this

(01:55:34):
kind of shtick enjoyable for fans and it then gets cheered,
and I hope that they cut that off. I hope
that they recognize that and look, the Young Bucks are
likable guys. They can get I feel like they're like
Chris Jericho in some ways where they can get anything over,
Like they just they have a special charisma in that
way they can get anything over. And I think some

(01:55:56):
of the worst instincts that they've had have been in
an effort to kind of like not be black and
white babyface heels. They kind of muddy the waters with
how they present, and I think they're getting booed right now,
and they should recognize that, Hey, if we go too
far with this, it's going to get over in the

(01:56:18):
wrong way, and we should pull back or go in
this direction instead, or go in that direction instead, stay heels.
I think it's better for them at this point to
be a team that people genuinely dislike and want to
see get beat than kind of these raw rah haha
tears that they can sometimes get because if they go
down that path, they're just right. You know, in six

(01:56:40):
months time, they're right back where they started again, because
that kind of pop, that kind of over, it's waning,
it's not something that stays around. And so I hope
that they take this and use it as a foundation
to build a strong heel act and use this as
a piece of that instead of a becoming that's what

(01:57:03):
they do, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:57:05):
Yeah, yes, but very very much so, Tag division wise,
Brodido and in other things going on, even jet speed
like there's there's some ftr uh. There's a simple tay
teams where where are where are they in terms of
the state now and the rightness to turn it into
something that is a point of pride for AW fans

(01:57:28):
by because they have a strong women's division. I think
there's still some work to do in terms of doing
a better job establishing new stars and not changing every
couple of weeks. People have been around a while. You know,
christat Lander, I don't think well of Nightingale's character is
lning really well right now. But they have some new
talent coming in to a wrap built around Mercedes and

(01:57:51):
Tony Storms. So you've you've got something there. You've got
the heavyweight division with some semblance of order right now
to it, and now the Tag division if they can,
if they can take some pieces here and build on that.
Those are kind of the three key elements to me
for AEW to have, for AW to generate kind of
a momentum amongst fans who are sampling the product. But

(01:58:12):
necessarily religiously watching every show to start going, ah, this
is I'm latching onto this right now. I'm feeling engaged
and pulled in again. And I think the tag team
is a sort of a secret weapon that if I'm
Tony con I give some attention to and don't treat
it like that would be does where it's just a
bunch of tag teams and they're all interchangeable, like have
that two top teams for a while and an undercurrent

(01:58:34):
of you know, three teams who are kind of in
line to be next for the main events seen and
always be telling multiple stories.

Speaker 3 (01:58:41):
I'm with you, and I think they're I would say
that they're probably maybe like and this is not a
it sounds like a bad grade because it's not a
great grade, but it's a lot better than it was
two months ago, three months ago. I think they're probably
like fifty percent of the way there. I think that
they've started on the right path again, like and they're

(01:59:04):
still you know now that you know they need to
work really hard to establish those those other teams. I mean,
you've got the Hurt Syndicate at the top, and that's
a good start. I think they're an over team that
can now just be babyfaces, because that's what they always were,
That's what they always seemed like they're interested in being anyway,
So just let them be that. And now you can

(01:59:25):
have some heel teams chase them, like the Young Bucks
like FTR, and in the meantime, in order to build
up those heel teams, they can beat these new established
babyface teams like Jet Speed, like Brodido, some of these
you know these uh like brand new teams that have
kind of been thrown together, and see if they and

(01:59:46):
see if they stick. But I think you've got a
core now. And if I'm if I'm Tony Kahan, like
you don't want to. You don't want to be in
a position where you're sessing about the competition, sessing about WWE.
But I would, but I would pay it ten to
what they do, because like you want to, I would
think if it were me, you'd want to present something

(02:00:09):
a little bit different inside of like being pro wrestling.
So like if they have a bad tag division, well man,
here's a lot of people out there that like tag
team wrestling. I can get And even if you're just
thinking about it from a content perspective, right, I could
get a lot of mileage out of a really strong
tag division. That's you know, if I have to do
four pay per view or four main events a week

(02:00:31):
on TV, and two of them can come from this
tag team division, and one of them can come from
the women's division, one of them can come from the
men's division. Singles like that, you spread the welfare pretty good,
you know, and you're not burning out one one division.
So it's healthy for the whole product and the whole
company to have like different angles like that to play,

(02:00:52):
and especially when the competition really is paying no focus
to it whatsoever. And so I think it's a big
I think it's been a missed opportunity for AW. It
continues to be, but they've started to turn that ship around.

Speaker 1 (02:01:05):
And by the way, I don't know that I would
feed Brudido to anyone. I might build around them for
a while like or that sure, sure, yeah, yeah, Like
I just I mean just stood out to me like
they might. And I felt that way about Jess b too,
like sometimes you just have to take somebody new and
if the crowd is into them, tell the story that
they are suddenly and it's believable with those two that

(02:01:27):
there's suddenly the class of the taking division that they
are clicking and tell the story. Style wise, you can't
plan for these two because brody King has some high
flying and Brodido has some brawling, so there's some overlap.
But they are two specialists and you have to it's
like training for two matches every time you face them.
Like give us one of those stories where you just
dig into it and then there's an enthusiasm and there's

(02:01:47):
a and talk about the fan support booing them and
giving them momentum, and it's it's really shaking up the division.
And you have FTR and you have the Young Bucks.
You can you know, there's other heels teams. You can
even assemble to go after them. You can even do
Shelton and and Bobby if you want. I don't know
if their faces or heels or if they care or
if they know and but anyway, yeah, I like, I'm

(02:02:10):
I'm kind of like what do you got to lose?
You know, I mean in a sense like take take
a gamble on it and don't use them as the
flavor of the want to get fed to somebody else
who's been around for a while. But that's not to
diminish what the young Bucks and FDR can be as anchors,
but sometimes you want to show that somebody else is bigger.

Speaker 3 (02:02:26):
On the Uh.

Speaker 1 (02:02:27):
If I wrap up on this on the women's side,
I kind of you know, glossed over it. But if
Tony Storm Orcedes Moone, what what what are the strengths
and weaknesses right now the state of a w's women's division,
because that you know, they with Tony Storm, they have
something really special. Mercedes, although she's like this like kind
of embarrassing big mark for belts, it's I mean, it's

(02:02:48):
just like you just shake your head. It's like, I
mean you kind of understand why. I mean, I think
it's I'll qualify it a little bit. I think it's
potentially enlightening the frustration in the headshaking that took place
over what led to the departure of Sasha Banks initially,
where it's just like you're serious, like you're you're making

(02:03:08):
a big deal out of this. I mean you're sort
of right, but you're also like really really overreacting, and
it's it's sort of telling and so but I still
think she's in a better place now that she has
been in a while. So you have, like these two
top established stars, but how are they doing in terms
of Alex Windsor and and some of the people are
sort of hovering around the christat Leonards and all the
Nightingales in terms of feeling like there's this well rounded,

(02:03:31):
clear cut depth chart in the women's division with character
development where you can tell deliberately they want you to
feel a certain way about someone and view them a
certain way because there's still, to me, definite room for
improvement in that regard. But I'm more i would say,
more frustrated by because I'm more optimistic probably, but there's

(02:03:51):
some frustration because you need to feed get opponents ready
for Tony and Mercedes.

Speaker 8 (02:04:04):
Are you a fan of AW looking to sit back,
relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
your passion.

Speaker 3 (02:04:11):
Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
they thinking?

Speaker 8 (02:04:16):
Do you want to join a discussion on what AW
is doing right and what they could do to improve?
Then join me Joel and me Greg for the All
of the Conversation Club every Friday on the PW Torch
live cast. Fee search PW Torch in your podcast app
and subscribe to PW torch Daily Cast or stream our
shows directly from pw torch dot com. Find full details

(02:04:38):
on the PW Torchdailycast lineup at PW torchdailycast dot com.

Speaker 3 (02:04:52):
That's just it. I think, you know, you've got really
good talent in that division right now, but not very
good depth. And I and I think those are two
different things. Like Tony Storm should be and is and
needs to continue to be a regular part of the
show at a very very high level, just like just

(02:05:13):
like Adam Page, just like MJF. I mean, she she
essentially she's a homegrown talent for them too, and is
just has turned this bizarre gimmick into something really likable
and believable and valuable. And so you definitely want to
run with that. But you know, after Tony Storm, you

(02:05:35):
have kind of Mercedes Monet who's like right up there
with her, and it's a pretty steep drop, like it's
you're down to like Athena at that point, and nothing
against Athena, but she's not she's not on like a
Tony Storm level or a Mercedes Monet level, and she's
more down there with you know, with Chris stat Lander
with Alex Windsor and with.

Speaker 1 (02:05:57):
We have to tell the story with her that she
is a big deal from ro o H and make
people believe that she's a top three right right. And
I don't think they're committed to doing that for whatever reason,
or at least if they are, they're not effectively telling
that story. I think she should be seen as a
top three and has shown enough in our wage to
be given that kind of push.

Speaker 3 (02:06:15):
Yeah, right, exactly, And so you know, they need to
whether it's Athena I think it could be, or whether
it's somebody else, like whether it's I don't know, Megan
Baine or somebody like that. Like, you got to heat
some people up, because you're gonna want you want to
keep Tony Storm at the forefront of this division for
a long time. And if she's wrestled pretty much everybody

(02:06:36):
right now, at least that way, everybody's kind of defined today,
and so how do you get her more opponents like that?
That's the mission, And that's where I think there's a
pretty steep drop off in terms of in terms of depth,
because really, like after Athena at this point, and even Athena,
I think is only super credible in certain circles because

(02:06:58):
they haven't told a really good story about what she's
been been doing and just how dominant she's been. So
it's only a handful of people that I think view
Athena as a credible challenger after her, you know, it's
Mercedes Monet and then you know, it falls off cliff
at that point. You don't have britt Baker there. You
don't have thunder Rosa at a level where where she's uh,
you know, looked at in a credible way. You don't

(02:07:20):
have that from you know, even former champions like Chetah
or anybody like that. Like that's just it's not there.
And so that's that's the weakness of that of that division.
But just like anything else, they got the top right,
and I think that goes that goes a long way.
And uh and Tony Storm is a highlight of the
show every week.

Speaker 1 (02:07:40):
Yes, all right, O, Zach, is there anything else you
want to bring up that that we haven't had any
additional thought? Sand that would be unreal. I mean, give
me her a little give me a little summary of
of how you feel about the presentation and in the
existence of that show and the purpose for it and

(02:08:00):
how it in the end, in the end, what the
end product was like in terms of serving whatever purpose
it was intended to have.

Speaker 3 (02:08:07):
Honestly, you know, I just kind of I don't have
any problem with it existing because I think mainly because
it's just like a for me, it's like a losing
battle at this point. Like, I think it's probably detrimental
to the product long term. It gives you know, people
the wrong insight, and it forces people and fans, new

(02:08:30):
fans especially to think about the wrong stuff. You know,
you're thinking about how is this going to play out
on them in real rather than just investing by the story.

Speaker 1 (02:08:40):
I'm worried that Seth Rowlins storyline, which you know, everyone's
twisting themselves into Prenzels to try to make seem like
it was a strategy that fits any kind of logical storyline,
because Seth's gained no advantage from it. But that's the
whole premise of doing it. I mean, he gained an
advantage in terms of surprising the fans except that even
got blown. But he didn't gain any advantage of a
pump that could have been gained, you know that that gif,

(02:09:02):
there's nothing gained from the idea of of Punk. Oh
he's not. He's not injured, and I thought he was.
It's like that meant nothing to getting his head stumped
and get defeated. So but I worry with that said,
I almost made it through a show without bringing that up. Lately,
they they they almost It almost comes across like they
did it just because they were trying to film season

(02:09:23):
or two of Unreal and they wanted to have something
to be celebrate themselves over, like the scene.

Speaker 3 (02:09:27):
Of heel Turn. So that that's I think the only
reasonable way to view the seth Ronins thing. It's like
it made no sense otherwise, Like you can try to
spin it any kind of which way or that it's
it's a this or that, and it's a it's a
ruse of the century or whatever. But when you break

(02:09:48):
it down, it doesn't take long to go, wait a minute,
this made no sense. He didn't. It wasn't a ruse.
He Punk was already beaten up. It wouldn't have mattered
if he would have came down there with a bad knee.
He's so could have probably been see them Punk with,
you know, for the for the title like and cash Dan,
So I would be. I would not be surprised at

(02:10:08):
all if like this is the lead storyline for like
next season of Unreal and I and I think that
is not good for for WWE. You are all backwards
and focusing on the wrong things at that point in time.
It'd be like, you know, they like to like compare
this Unreal show to like the Formula one Drive to

(02:10:31):
Survive series that kind of takes everything behind the scenes.
And it's like if you found out that the races
that you were watching were impacted and predicated on what
happened on the Drive to Survive show and not the
other way around, like that whole business falls apart, and
it falls apart and crumbles to pieces because it's backwards.

(02:10:54):
It's got to be the other way. It has to
be the show has to be about what's actually happening
and they and if you want it to be this
real behind the scenes documentary, great, have it be that.
But if it starts going the other way, I think
that's a that's a real tough genie to put back
in the bottle. If if, if ever it just it
just wouldn't happen in any other entertainment. You know, it

(02:11:18):
is it is it is. It's it's that to me
is like that's inexcusable. Like I can see doing the show.
I again, I get it. It was entertaining for what
it was, but you know, I certainly wouldn't put any
like I didn't watch that show and get like any
kind of groundbreaking major like wow, this is how they
do that? Like that's crazy, Like no, you see what

(02:11:40):
they want you to see and you don't see what
they don't want you to see, and all that's you know,
all that's there. It's not you know, a documentary in
that in that regard. So it is what it is,
and you know whatever, you know, you got to make
your money. They want to be with Netflix. There's a
time and a place for a show like this, and
as long as it knows its place and time, and

(02:12:01):
if it starts to not and I think this seth
Rollins thing is a bad sign, then I don't know
what happened. I really don't know what happens after that,
because neither show will be fun to watch in that record.

Speaker 1 (02:12:12):
And that's part of my issue with this is I
worry what the motivations are for doing it. Is it
Paula Back wanting to be the center of attention again,
Is it the booking team production team wanting yeah, want
there's a lot of US's coming up here. Is it
the booking team and production team wanting to show off
how good they are at what they do so people
don't take for granted and see the intricacies of the

(02:12:33):
brilliance of how they produce this unique form of sports
slash entertainment. Yes, and that goes back to Kevin Donn
when you'd be like, watch Monday Night Football and tell
vincuc Matt on the head said, oh, we're so much
better than that. We do that better, we do that better.
Then they were head to head like there's a pride
in what they do and I get that, and they
want to show it off and they hope that some
people in the sports production world will look and appreciate

(02:12:53):
them more. None of that has to do a serving
wrestling fans. And then if you end up with the
tailway and the dog or or in another motivation is
you know, oh, why does everybody else get to tell
our story about how things work? We want to well,
because mystique is an asset that you have that these
third parties that talk about you know, the dark side
of the ring or insider podcasts or the sheets, like,

(02:13:18):
there's no we don't have an equity and mystique. WWE
has has equity in preserving the mystique, and their job
should be to do that. That is something fans often
talk about wanting this sounds there are there are anecdotes.
There's anecdotal evidence of fans and frankly rest of like
Brandy or lamenting this where there's a mistique that you

(02:13:39):
can't get back when you pull that curtain back, and
then you end up having fans when something there's sort
of a place that lands in your brain when it's
sort of part of cannon and you start watching the
product through the lens of oh was a rest are
just told to do that through the referee earpiece exactly?

Speaker 3 (02:13:56):
Yeah, you know you're exposing.

Speaker 1 (02:13:58):
To a larger audience what happens, but you're also in
a way sort of giving not giving a permission to
the viewer to think about that as part of cannon.
And I do think there's some smart people in WWW
who are losing their way and forgetting the value or
discarding for no good reason, the value of a mystique

(02:14:22):
and throwing their hands up and going there's no point
in it anymore because everybody knows and missing the point
that there's a lot of willful distancing that people do
when they watch a show. They willfully distance themselves from
the knowledge that it's a work. And I think you
do that in all kinds of instances. When I watch
a heck what I and I know it's not like
as popular as it once was, but like late night

(02:14:43):
talk show interviews, I know there's a producer who sat
down and said, hey, let's figure out what we're going
to talk about, and then there's some talking points the
host gets and then the host says, so here you
want on a vacation And it seems like this random question,
but it's all a setup for the guests to go, oh,
I did, and boy do I have a story to
tell you. And it's like a happy coincidence that you
asked about my vacation. You know it's planned, but you
willfully distance yourself from that because you just want to

(02:15:05):
kind of go with the flow. And w w A
with this unrail series. And granted give them credit because
they're not doing anything on wrong SmackDown that is pulling
the curtain back. It's actually terrible commercials for the show,
don't I don't need to see someone signing autographs and
I don't want to hear about I mean, it's nice
that Biancle bell Air makes her own stuff, but that's
not exactly behind the scenes on precedented stuff. That's just

(02:15:26):
you know, silly entertainment tonight going back to that syndicated show,
you know, profile Little puff Pieces, So I give them
credit for that. But yeah, I mean the Randy Orton
is not wrong and shouldn't resign himself. And it isn't
about being behind the times. It's about the timeless benefit
of leaving a little bit of a mistique to how

(02:15:48):
things work. And no, no, well that's my phone. So
when you when you believe the motivations are what they
are and the price that they're paying is what they're paying, it,
it feels like a mistake to do it. I just
don't think it's a needle mover in any positive way
or a huge revenue generator. I think there's other ways
to produce content to Netflix for Netflix that doesn't feel

(02:16:10):
like it's still compromised.

Speaker 3 (02:16:13):
You took the words out of my mouth. I just
don't think, you know, to your point about the late
night talk show. No one would want to watch a
show about that producer's conversation with that star, like you
don't want to Who cares about that? You don't want
to see that like I don't, or maybe there's some
people that do. But generally people just want to see
the interview. They want to see the interview with the

(02:16:33):
host and the star, and that's that, like, and so
there's a reason why those things don't get don't get shown.
There's I just I think that the value in you know,
creating new fans with the Unreal Show is a little
is just overstated on the part of of WWE. I
think if you're watching it and you're into it, you know,
there's parts that you can be entertained by on that show.

(02:16:55):
But I don't. I don't view that show as like
an entry point of pro wrestling, like Drive to Survive
was to Formula one. It's just the two totally different things, and.

Speaker 1 (02:17:08):
It can ultimately be counter productive to your core audience.
And it's also just again simplematic of kind of losing
sight of what what really counts and the way that
you tell stories. Zach anything else, I said, anything else
and then I brought up though to we unreal but
anything else did you want to bring up before? Yes,
I don't here.

Speaker 3 (02:17:25):
No, I'm good, I'm good. This was a great way. Thanks,
thanks so much for having me. Awesome, awesome conversation as usual.
Hopefully hopefully have listeners hopefully enjoyed it as much as
I did.

Speaker 1 (02:17:35):
Prespering Media check it out on patron and thank you everybody.
Support what ZECH does and support we do, and we'll
talk to y'all next time. Invite you to email the

(02:18:01):
show with feedback or questions or comments. That email address
is Wadekeller Podcast at petwtorch dot com. That's Wadekeller Podcast
at PW toorch dot com. Also welcome your feedback on Twitter.
You can follow us on Twitter at PW torch and
follow me at the Wadekeller That's at PW Torch and
at the Wadekeller.

Speaker 6 (02:18:23):
Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me
Jason Powell host them the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom podcast.
Each week you'll hear the latest news and analysis from
me and my team at Pro Wrestling dot need, along
with other pro wrestling media members, plus the Pro Wrestling
Boom podcast features long form interviews with notable names in
the pro wrestling industry. Subscribe and iTunes, Stitcher, Downcast, and

(02:18:45):
all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at
PW boom dot com. Once again, that's PW boom dot com.

Speaker 1 (02:18:54):
Thanks for listening to our podcast. Did you know we
also have a website, PW torch dot com daily news updates,
its editorials, and my live TV coverage covering Raw, Dynamite
and SmackDown and my live pay per view coverage for
WWE and AEW. Create a tab or bookmark make it
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to keep up on breaking news and more. That's PW

(02:19:16):
torch dot com.

Speaker 9 (02:19:18):
Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts,
will come join me Alan fourrel Over in the Progress
Paradise at pterwboo Torch vip as we mask on the
bright side of wrestling and focus on some of the
great matches and shows from around the world, be it US, Japan,
Europe or Mexico.

Speaker 3 (02:19:37):
There's always a.

Speaker 9 (02:19:38):
Place for wrestlings past in the Paradise too, and we've
done fun historical shows such as The We Love Liger
series celebrating the glorious career of Jusian Thunderliger and our
eye was there when shows where our guests will join
me to talk about a classic bout that they were
in attendance for. We love variety and you can expect
lots of it at the Progress Paradise. Detailed PW course

(02:20:00):
VIP subscription information on a list of all the VIP
benefits is available at PWW torch vip info dot com.
And yes, all VIP podcasts are compatible with popular podcast
apps on iPhone and Android devices, or you can stream
them directly from our ad free VIP mobile site. See
you in the Paradise.

Speaker 1 (02:20:21):
One way that you can help us sustain our schedule
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us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. Just go
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(02:20:43):
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Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (02:20:58):
In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
ultimately the brand you see today.

Speaker 3 (02:21:05):
On the Torch.

Speaker 4 (02:21:06):
VIP podcast NXT Eight Years Back, we'll be taking a
weekly look at this page in NXT's early history.

Speaker 5 (02:21:14):
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 (02:21:28):
PW Torch VIP membership doesn't just give you add free
access to these shows and a ton of other VIP
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(02:21:51):
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(02:22:14):
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