NEW FLAGSHIP: Keller & Powell talk impact of WWE ownership change, AEW post-Punk problems, Joe vs. Strong, Jey Uso on Raw, more

Episode Transcript
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Wad fifty to get fifty percent off. Now, PW Torchens Freaker bring you
the Wade Killer Pro Wrestling Podcast.It's time for the weekly flagship talking current

(02:37):
events in pro wrestling. Okay,we have been podcasting and covering wrestling for
a long time. This is thefirst time that we have talked Win.
Vince kmah is not the majority ownerof WW eight WWW share shareholders own forty
nine percent of TKO and Devor Groupowns fifty one percent. Sent McMahon has

(03:00):
a fancy title that actually gives himcontrol of TKO, but Endeavor Group is
a majority owner of TKO. Sothe power dynamic is going to evolve and
probably turn into a story of somekind as we continue to cover this,
but this is the first time thatwe've ever covered a story in pro wrestling

(03:20):
or podcast it where vinccman was nottechnically in control of ww E at the
highest level. How does it feeldifferent? Yeah, it's nothing's officially happened
yet as far as like any changesor anything are concerned. But it is
still very strange to be seeing mainstreamheadlines with people not named McMahon that are

(03:44):
talking about their ownership of WWE.Yeah, it's it's a kind of a
wait and see now. I mean, we all knew this day was coming,
and so in some ways it doesn'tfeel all that eventful, but it's
I mean, it certainly is amilestone day. Yeah, yeah it is.
And you know, people are youknow, emailing and asking, you
know, what does this mean?Even going back to when this the the

(04:06):
new TKO group was announced and thedetails came out, and I've asked around
two and I mean, nobody reallyknows, you know, what what this
ultimately will mean for Vince McMahon orfor WWE. My kind of answer is,
I don't think a lot is goingto change because endeavor is taking I

(04:29):
mean, it's it's weird because ofphrasing is, you know, I have
to figure out how to phrase thisendeavor is taking majority ownership of a new
company that encompasses WWW and UFC ata time that WWE is doing really well
and they're gonna want to show thatthey can improve business that you know,

(04:49):
they talk about it in the pressrelease, you know, with with fancy
corporate speak, but that they believethat they're gonna be able to take WWE
and USC to new heights and youknow, stock than the stock value of
TKO will go up, and certainlythat's their goal. But they're not trying
to take over like this isn't likea takeover of a company that just needed
an influx of money and new,new, fresh, new fresh vision.

(05:12):
This is as as good as WWEhas been in a lot of ways ever
in terms of revenues and and kindof the connection with their audience and and
they're they've got a strong roster andand good business. And now we have
a way to compare them to aW and w B has had a much
better you know, last twelve toeighteen months than than a W as relative

(05:33):
to where they were. So thisis, you know, it's sort of
like take it over, don't messit up, but amplify the things that
are good. But in terms oflike how things change, I mean,
you know, it's it's been init. It's weird too because for a
year, you know, over ayear, it's sort of been like,
welvinct man isn't really in control,but sometimes he's influencing things. Sometimes he's

(05:55):
not. You know, he'd madea powerplay that gave him control back.
It's like we've covered a w WWthat isn't just Vince McMahon running Creative every
week, super hands on. It'sbeen a moving, a changing situation for
over a year, so this feelsless of a big change, is my

(06:15):
point, you know what I mean, Like, what was Vince gonna have
as much power, well power comparedto last week or a month ago or
a year ago. His power andinfluence has been influx for a while already,
so and there's no big changes.He's still around, Paul Eck's still
around, u Nick CON's still around. So yeah, I just I don't

(06:35):
quite know how to quantify where we'regoing to be tomorrow or in six months
based on this TKO change other thanwhat I'm hearing is you know, don't
expect, you know, immediate majoroverhauls or anything like that, because,
like I said, things are goingwell. Jason, what's your what's your
take in framing on it? Well, first of I'm a little bit concerned
it may be a bad shot.As soon as we started talking about this,

(06:56):
this guy started crying in my area. I think it's lightning up now.
But if you're hearing background noways,yeah, that was a little bit
of rain shower in my mind,neighborhood. I think the most interesting thing
I keep hearing from people in multiplecircles is that they believe that Paul Avec
is truly going to be the headof Creative. I mean, he has

(07:18):
that title, but like he hasfinals say, like Vince is not going
to be the guy stepping in andinserting himself and making those decisions any longer.
Doesn't mean Leavec won't go to himif he wants input or something like
that. We'll see if that comesto fruition. You know, this is
more talk amongst people within the companythat don't go that wouldn't have firsthand knowledge

(07:42):
from dealing with Endeavor, and soit may just be something that a rumor
started and it's kind of spread.We know Vince was involved ontely on day
but both the last night that technicallyEndeavor didn't own the company. And as
far as what do expect now,just reading the various news interviews or just

(08:03):
interviews it to some folks from Endeavorhave done so far, it seems like
I think we all this isn't reallystemming from that, but I think we
all expect the redundancies, the differentdepartments that kind of overlap. There's surely
going to be some cuts there.I mean, unfortunate, but there,
that's the way these things work.So you know, you only you don't
need two different departments doing the samething if it's all one big company now,

(08:26):
So that's going to happen. Butgetting back to the interviews, the
idea that they want to expand liveevents, that's got to be depending on
the wrestler. I mean, thereare some wrestlers that will probably love that,
but they've had a pretty nice schedulefor a while now, and just
the idea that you know, theyknow the market is hot and I'm totally

(08:48):
paraphrasing here, but they want tokind of strike while it's hot and start
doing more live events. That's kindof got to raise as some eyebrows with
the talent crew. And I guessthe thing that kind of ump out I
made it might just be a corporatespeed. But one of the endeavor folks
said that they want every UFC fanto be a WWE fan and every WWW
fan to be a UFC fan.Not gonna happen. Good luck. I'm

(09:11):
sorry, it's just not you know. It flies in the face of what
Nick Com said in one of theWWE financial calls. I think he said
eleven twelve percent overlap only there reallyisn't much. And I was reminded of
that just hanging out with some friendsand one of them was a wrestling fan
and now he's a UFC fan.We're talking about my schedule and stuff.
He's like, they your readers doknow it's fake, right? I'm like,

(09:35):
oh my god, this is stilla thing. Yeah, it's somebody,
you know. I'll tell you offair. I couldn't believe, Like,
really, you know what I do, dude? How old is that
person? Let's just say his initialsare r z waity, so nobody that
the listeners would know, but youcertainly do. Oh wow, okay,
yeah, I got a double takeand then he said it again later I
was like, okay, rob Oh, I said his name, But yeah,

(09:58):
it was strange to me, andI just I mean, I know
that that there's that attitude and noteven if if somebody doesn't have something against
one or the other, like Igot nothing against UFC. I've enjoyed it
over the years. For me,it's a timing issue and my schedule is
different where you know, you andI are trying to cover as many different

(10:18):
companies as we can. But Istill think for the average fan, if
you're a fan of just WW,we like, but that's all you watch,
You're not watching AW what have you? It's still a lot. You
know, it's still five hours withRaun' SmackDown. Maybe you're watching NXT the
pl e's man, I mean,where do they think people are gonna find

(10:39):
the time? And then if it'sa big f because there's still time left
on the Peacock deal. If thisthing ends up reverting to pay per view,
who the hell is going to havethe money to order both UFC WWE
pay per view events? Come on? Yeah, I invite you to email
the show with feedback or questions orcomments. That email address is Wade Keller
Podcast at peaktorch dot com. That'sWade Keller Podcast at pwtorch dot com.

(11:03):
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 Wade Keller. If there's anarea of danger, it's that things are
going really well. I think ifwe did you know, they do like

(11:26):
you know, uh polls of youknow, presidents and their approval rating.
If you did an approval rating rightnow for WWE, and it would be
actually I wish we had been doingit like every every three months for the
last twenty years online because it'd benicely charted. But like, what's your
just you know, it's a verygeneric question, and you know, like
sometimes with the president it's like,oh, it's approve of rating is only
forty percent. Well that's because it'syou know, there's fourteen percent of Democrats

(11:48):
who want him to be more liberal, but they're gonna they're gonna certainly vote
for him if if it's a choicebetween him and a Republican. You know,
approve of ratings and other words canbe deceptive. In that sense,
it's not like they're all everybody hateshim. It's sometimes or they think he's
too liberal. Some people it's becausehe's not liberal enough. Same thing on
the other side of the Republicans.So with out it be if you go
do you approve of the product?And people go no, you know,
you don't really know why. Butin general, if you have a pattern

(12:11):
over time and you ask that somewhatsimple dumb down question, do you know,
do you approve or disapprove of theway W's going right now? Do
you disagree with me that that inmy hunch that it would be among the
highest approval ratings W's had with theirfan base ever. Definitely. I think
you could go back a month,even coming out of Summer Slam, I

(12:31):
think it would have been a littlebit higher. Not that they've lost a
lot, but I think that,yes, payback was just kind of you
know there, and I kind offeel like we're heading towards something similar with
fash Lane. But yeah, Imean off the stretch they had with the
Summer Slam and just a WRESTLEMANI andall of that, I wouldn't you know,
probably right up there with the attitudeera, just in terms of how
I think fans would react. AndI'm not saying I'm not comparing the two

(12:54):
rors as much as I am justsaying that I think the fan approval would
be similar. And so there's arisk with a product that people right now
I think largely like and they're lessirritated by than they used to be like.
I think there's an absence of irritansINWS product right now compared to many
other times, whether it was youknow, Diva Search, and you know,

(13:15):
it just felt like a bunch ofmiddle aged white men getting off on
watching a bunch of twenty something womengo through obstacle courses in scantily clad outfits.
And it was like the last gaspof that generation being completely sexist in
a position of power. And Iknow there were a bunch of people who
enjoyed that visually, but there's otherplaces people can go for that type of
thing, and it's sort of ayou know, I think it's it's not

(13:35):
a proud moment to debe history thatthey that they treated the women wrestlers like
that. They've moved on from that. There's less dumb, bad humor,
there's less bullying without ramifications in itbeing framed as a negative like whatever.
There's just lots of things that justused to be irritants and sort of shameful
about wows honor product that isn't thereanymore. Heck, they're they're not patting

(13:56):
themselves on the back, throwing theirshoulders out of joint doing charity work like
they used to Connor's Cure. It'sgreat they're raising awareness for it and in
dedicating time to it, but it'snot like themed shows like Under George and
Michelle, when it was just lookat us and what a great corporation we
are, which of course was unraveledwith the Saudi Arabia deal, and then
it just became you know, howrich of you to claim that you're a

(14:20):
good company when you're taking that kindof money and and at at times promoting
that regime with propaganda on your showto your fan base. All that stuff
is less than it used to be. Your absent, you know, I
mean the you know, so thefan base likes what the average. So
suddenly people are aware that endeavors controllingthings they're linked with USC and now we

(14:41):
start seeing co promotion time taken upon Ron SmackDown for USC fighters to come
and talk about the next pay perview, or kind of you know,
cheesy, tone deaf incorporation of UFCfighters in roles on WW events like a
special referee or something, or specialguest commentator. Wrestling fans aren't going to

(15:03):
push back. I think they are. I mean, they probably have their
own internal polling on this, butI think there's a wide, wide swath
of WW fans who do not wantUSC in their product. There's obviously an
overlap, and there's people like both. I think some will enjoy it,
but I think there's a majority whowill be irritated by it, and that
will be a step back for acompany that I think has not only added

(15:26):
good things but subtracted irritants from theproduct compared to five, ten, fifteen
years ago. I think there's amajor disconnect there. I think that for
whatever reason, and maybe it's justme, Maybe I'm using myself as too
much of a barometer here, butI get the sense that for fans who
don't pay close attention to UFC,there is some overlap. But like I

(15:48):
said, based on new what Nickcon said, not much you get outside
of that group. I mean I'msomebody that used to really enjoy watching UFC
and stomped, and I couldn't tellyou a lot of the names of the
fighters from the current generation unless theywere around or you know, for the
tail end of when I was watching. I mean, I could tell you,

(16:10):
you know, I'll recognize names,but I don't think I could pick
these people out of lineups. AndI think it's going to be that way
with a lot of people. Andso yeah, you know, if you
you know, they kind of talkedabout bringing if somebody you could prolong somebody's
MMA career basically not in MMA,but if you know things wind down there,
maybe you bring him over to WWE. That can work depending on the
person. You know, We've alreadyseen that happen and sometimes it's successful,

(16:33):
sometimes it's not. I think fanswill embrace that. But yeah, the
example you get bringing in a specialreferee the fans don't care about. I
mean, I already kind of feltthat way when they brought in Tyson Fury
because I stopped being a boxing fana long time ago. But you know,
I think to some fans it mattered. To a lot of fans,
we're just kind of an eye Roller. Same with Paul, like you know,
you can get you can actually gettheir life and barely know who he

(16:55):
is, and then he shows upon WTV and they're treating him like a
big deal. And if you're notof a demographic or you know, spend
your free time following people like him, he's got to earn your respect.
I think he has with his performances, but the sense of like if there's
a YOC fighter, it's just gota knack for this. I'm I'm fine
with that, but don't, asyou're saying, don't put them on TV

(17:15):
and expect a everyone to know whothey are and be everyone to want to
have them spending you know, integratingtheir personality into w w E. And
look at the reaction that Punk gotfrom them world. It was not pretty.
You know, they saw him asan outsider. There was some that
embraced him, but there were alot of people that did not. And

(17:36):
boy, you know what's going tohappen if w if you know and everything.
Such a great idea to start havingWWE personalities at ringside before they might
have got a respectful round of applauseor something. I don't know that they
would right now. Because I thinkthere's going to be some fear within the
on the MMA side. You knowthey better, you know, hey,
keep the dish, Keep some dishesbetween these two. You know, we

(17:56):
like we like our product the way, just the way it is. Let's
pause and introduce ourselves. This isthe Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast, the
Tuesday flagship for September twelve, twentytwenty three. I'm Wade Keller, the
editor, publisher, and founder ofthe Pro Wrestling Toward newsletter and Pwtorch dot
com and the host of various podcasts, including this, the Waight Keller Prosling
Podcast, our Blue Logo Show.We also have our Red logo show,

(18:18):
the wad Killer Pro Wrestling post Shows. Those shows are available if you subscribe
to our Red Feet Just search WadeKeller in your podcast stapp. You can
also live stream the shows at WadeKeller Post show dot com if you join
us about five minutes after Rod DynamiteSmackDown and Collision every Monday, Wednesday,
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(18:42):
at pwtorch dot com slash Go VIP. V IP membership includes, by the
way, AD free versions of thisshow, so the digital ad inserts in
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(19:06):
So lots of good benefits with VAPmembership. Our thirty five year library
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dot com slash Go VIP. Theother voice you here on the show is
Jason Powell from his website pro Wrestlingdot Net. He is a longtime co
host here on the Flakeship and everythree weeks he joins me now to talk

(19:27):
current events and wrestling. We catchup on the big happenings, and as
the show progresses here, we're goingto get into the post CM punk a
e W landscape, how the elitehave handled things, and we're gonna get
into TV show content too, likethe tournament going on for the shot at
MGF at Grand Slam, and alsothe key items coming out of Raw last

(19:49):
night, including the seth Rowlentinskanakamura feud, continuing the Judgment day being a centerpiece
of Raw. What's going on withthe return to Naya Jacks attacking both Racal
Rodriguez and Maria Ripley, and andjust Jaswan Ron who might get traded or
moved to SmackDown and exchange. Allthat and much more coming up here on
the flagship. So let's get backto my discussion with Jason. V IP

(20:15):
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(20:38):
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(21:00):
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(21:22):
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(21:45):
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slash go vip and then enter couponcode MJF. If you think he's
turning heel, Cole if you thinkhe's turning heel, or friends, if
you think they stay friends. I'mcurious starting Friday, if we see a

(22:06):
t KO logo right at the beginningof SmackDown or on the corner with a
you know, notice at the end, you know, think you know whatever
I mean, if there's if ifif that starts becoming a brand, a
brand logo that w W wen UFCfans are familiar with, or if it's
going to be kept more kind ofon the corporate side, you know,

(22:27):
I mean, but and you say, well doesn't matter or not well,
not much, but it sends asignal to ww fans something is a little
bit different than it than it happened. But I mean, you think back
twenty years ago when it was likeVince and Shane and Stephanie. It was
such a big family you know,family presentation, and that's just you know,

(22:48):
almost gone now, you know,I mean, the the you know,
Paula Beck the in law, hashas a presence at times, but
certainly is not putting you know whatcredit by the way, credits Paul Back,
who I don't know if it's hischoice or not, but who would
have thought he would be in thehave the level of control and influence he
has in twenty twenty three in hismid fifties and not put himself on TV
constantly given how he was. That'sgreat. So, you know, it

(23:11):
sounds like a backhanded compliment in away it is, But you know,
it's for my observation that WWE reallyis about the wrestlers more than ever.
It's not about a GM standing inthe middle of the ring talking about,
you know, matchmaking and what's comingup. It's not about the McMahons or
people who married in in the mcfamily. It really is about the wrestlers
and the action and titles and connectionwith the fans. So, you know,

(23:33):
you just don't want t KO tomess that up by suddenly making the
product look different in a way thatjust isn't necessary in order to try to,
you know, promote that this issome you know, new company and
it's a new era. Like Idon't think WB fans want to hear about
a new era or a new company. It's setting even sending aside the USC
crossover potential. I think they justwant w B to be what it is.
I agree, but I would aboutfall out of my share if we

(23:57):
get the opening WWE then now togetherforever Endeavor, There we go, There
we go. So I said therewas corporate speak. Let me just read
Ari Emmanuel's quote. The creation ofTKO marks an exciting new chapter for UFCN
ww A interesting put UC first,it is alphabetical X Y Z yes.

(24:21):
As leaders in global sports and entertainment, Given their continued connectivity to the Endeavor
network, we are confident in ourability to accelerate their respective growth and unlock
long term sustainable value for shareholders.With USC and W under one Wolf,
we will provide unrivaled experiences for morethan a billion passionate fans worldwide. If
you asked AI to write a corporatestatement with a bunch of buzzwords, that

(24:45):
basically be it. There's nothing wrongwith what he's said, but my god,
it's so corporate speak. So yeah, with USC ANDWW under one roof,
we will provide unrivaled experiences. Soit's a lot of just whatever,
you know what I mean, Likeyou're reading like that says, I love
that. And then you go fromthat too, here's brash Dana White in

(25:08):
what sense I didn't get that well, just in general, like the idea.
Okay, here's an Endeavor and youget the corporate speak and all of
that, and then they're also theUFC side is run by Dana White.
There's gonna drop f bombs. Ohright, yes, a little something in
the middle would be kind of nice. Just yeah. I mean, like
our we're confider ability to accelerate theirrespective growth and unlock long term sustainable value
for share olders. I know peoplewho are you know, when Wall Street

(25:30):
are used to that kind of talk, and there's you know, some value
in telling people we're gonna grow,but it doesn't really there's nothing specific there
that we can latch onto as analysts. Vincent Man said, this is the
culmination of a decades long partnership betweenEndeavor and WWE across strategic initiatives including talent
representation and media rights. Given ourcollaborative, trusted relationship and endeavors incredible track

(25:55):
ck or of success growing USC,we believe that would be is uptimally positioned
for future growth and success. Aspart of t KO, our focus remains
in delivering for our fans across theclub as we take the business to the
next level alongside UFC and Endeavor.By the way, you can imagine when
someone called the ensctman said we needa statement for the press release, all
those words came out of man's mouth. Of course, yes, yeah,

(26:15):
it would not be you know,some person just typing those words and getting
menched to go. Yeah, itlooks good. That would not happen.
It's bench So let's just I knowit can be a little confusing and some
people don't care, so we'll keepthis brief. But Endeavor own, Endeavor
is a company, WWE is acompany, was a company. Now Endeavor

(26:37):
is still a company, and WWEis not a company in the way that
it used to be, but thereis. But there is a new company
called t KO, which Endeavor ownsfifty one percent of and WWW shareholders own
forty nine percent of. So tKO is a company with two organizations USC

(27:02):
and WWE that will be in acorporate way, one organization with two separate
products, and WWW shareholders own fortynine percent of it and Endeavor owns fifty
one percent. Ari Emmanuel runs EndeavorVince McMahon is the biggest shareholder of WWE.

(27:26):
Vince McMahon has a title as theboard of directors of TKO's led by
Vince mcmah he's executive chairman of theboard. So well, and this is
a complicated part. There was aclaim to a few months ago and from
someone in w who's kind of tryingto make sense of it. While w
w E is a minority shareholder ofTKL, Vince McMahon is the head of

(27:52):
TKL. So it's when I say, like people might not care about this,
it is important in the sense thatMcMahon was given a title that gives
him control, makes him the boss, even though he's not the majority shareholder
of the new company that is theparent company of UFC and WWE. So

(28:15):
vincec man not only is the bossof w to B, he's not the
boss of USC. However, hehas a boss for the first time in
our Emmanuel and and Mark Shapiro,So he's actually answering to them. And
then the question is what kind ofwhat kind of decision making could Vince McMahon

(28:38):
undertake that would lead to a shakeup in the people that he answers to.
Trying to reposition the power structure sothat vincec Man was no longer in
control of TKO with either a changeof title or something like that. So
it's complicated because Endeavor is a majorityowner of TKO, but innsct Man has

(29:00):
the top title. So that's whythis isn't just cutting dry in terms of
talking about's happening. And I knowfrom talking to people in WWE who are
fascinated by this and connected are like, we don't know what's going to happen
in terms of Ari and Mark Spearerin terms of how they relate to innsect
Matt, you know, does Arimight be telling mist Man one thing but
thinking another. And if inncct Manfigures out now that the deal's done,

(29:23):
I'm getting over overridden or I'm gettingyou know, patronizingly steered away from certain
things that I thought were in mycontrol. It could blow up quickly or
eventually. But it also could workout really well because Ari knows inensct Manuel
and they find a way to finesseand give him, you know, the
sense of power and control, butlet him know who's boss and steer him

(29:44):
away from some of the danger zonesand that's just some of that. We'll
hear about. Some of it wewon't. But right now, what I'm
hearing you're hearing is indicative of PaulAvec being in a very good position today,
not a worse position today, right. Yes, And he was also
in a unique position sitting right nextto Jeff Bezos at that fashioned thing over

(30:07):
the weekend too, which you know, I mean, was it possible they
just ended up seated next to oneanother shore But with television negotiations going on,
you do have to wonder, like, oh, anything going on with
ww and Amazon when it comes toSmackDown and raw rights, keep an eye
on that one. But yeah,I think Paul Evec is in a good
place. I would be surprised ifthe Endeavor crew didn't kind of assess things,

(30:33):
get a feel for things. Maybethey came into this thinking that,
you know, Vince is the WaltDisney of wrestling and all of that,
But the guy lost his fastball whenit comes to the creative side of things
a long time ago. And I'dlike to think that by now they're fully
aware that, hey, there's alot of positive feedback about the way that
things have gone. Business is heldsteady without Vince. It's improved without Vince.

(30:56):
Nick Kahn has certainly been there longenough, and he confidant of theirs.
Anyway, he's going to be ableto tell them, Hey, you
know this is the real creative forceright now, stick with this guy,
and I would be surprised if thatdoesn't happen. When it comes to Vince,
I guess the thing that scares meis what happens if he is kind

(31:17):
of nudged aside. I don't sayscared in terms of how I feel as
a wrestling viewer, but for him, I mean, I don't know what
he does now they've crossed the finishline on the sale that obviously occupied a
lot of his time, and ifhe doesn't have anything major to do on
the business side of things, whatdoes he do? His first fallback would

(31:38):
usually be two, has hurt himselfand creative and I wouldn't be surprised if
we are getting to that point,Like if there, if they don't want
him involved, we may see someheadbuttings sooner rather than later. If he's
bored and tries to meddle yes andnot. Everything bensick Man does has been
negative when it comes to the wordmeddling sort of has a negative connotation.

(32:00):
The night after wrestle Nan, that'sfor sure, but it's been all right,
yeah, And I mean he was, you know, riding high on
this, you know, crossing thefinish line of something he had been you
know, working towards for a longtime, and it you know, yeah,
that got a little out of hand. But and everybody was on edge,
but it did subside. And youknow, we don't know did Ari
call him and go, hey,I don't like these headlines. You know,

(32:20):
Vince, I know, you knowwhatever, you know, whatever is
going on to finescencic man behind thescenes, but he's you know, he
was a lot better. And Ifrankly heard from wrestlers and others in to
b that you know, Vince wasgiving more good ideas than bad in terms
of like he'd look at the script, look at the final product and go,
well, wait Onced, it makessense because of this since to move
this here instead of that there,and here's why, And people go,

(32:43):
oh, yeah, you know thatthat's a good It's like why when you
you know, as a writer,you want a separate set of eyes to
look at something if it's a reallyimportant piece and go, hey, this
paragraph is actually much lower in thestory than it should be. It should
go higher. You're so close youkind of lose track of that. That's
the kind of thing Vince was doingin a good way. But then there's
also thinks he's you know, doingto irritate people because people liked not everything

(33:04):
being slightly better, but not havingto scramble at the last second to do
things that are slightly better. Like, yes, sometimes Vint had an idea
to make something most people agree better, but the chaos had caused, the
disruption had caused it wasn't really worthit. And it's like, oh,
was he just trying to show off, like hey, look I see this
and you didn't, and try toseem like he he had still had value,

(33:25):
but not realizing or not caring thatit gave people a reminder of the
stress of what was like when hewould erratically change things so often. You
know, we've heard of that foryou know, more than fifteen years.
Writers talked about, Oh, weworked out all weekend and then my Davens
shows up and just blows it up. Don't you know. I'm sensing that

(33:47):
type of thing will have h they'llbe they'll be only so much of that
tolerated before it will be dealt with. But again, that remains to be
seen. You know, there's it'slargely speculative. It's largely speculative, and
frankly, you know, uh Ariand Mark might not know yet how they're

(34:08):
going to deal with it, youknow, I mean, they might be
feeling it out as like, oh, they might have an idea of what
they want to do, but they'vegot different people they trust and are going
to talk to, and you know, some of this stuff they probably don't
have a master plan because who knowshow ncc man is going to act about
all this stuff. Yeah, it'sa fascinating chapter of Vince's life when it
comes to this whole Okay, you'renot truly the guy anymore and how but

(34:31):
he sort of is that, buthe isn't. That's the complicated He sort
of is, but he isn't.Yeah, he has a boss. I
mean, that's just that's a goodthing. Vince McMahon and she just late
late seventies now finally has a bossfor the first time since at Lee took
over the company. Yeah, firsttime since his dad was you know,
telling him where to stand and whoto interview. So all right, well,

(34:54):
stay tuned, you know, continuefollowing. It's gonna be a fun
ride, it is, Yes,okay, Jason, tell people how they
can hear more from you, readmore from you when you're not here every
three weeks. Yeah, you gotit. The Pro Wrestling Boom podcast is
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(35:15):
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(35:36):
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(35:58):
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(36:21):
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(36:44):
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(37:07):
Net. In twenty twelve, NXTtransitioned into the developmental system and ultimately the
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(37:28):
Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout fromPWT Talks NXT every Saturday as we go
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or didn't work out exclusively for PWTorch Vip members. All right, let's
let's appears to a e W i'llapproval disapproval. We talked about that with

(37:52):
WWE. Ceampunk is gone, Collisionis going to be in search of an
identity. It was, you know, it had a somewhat clear identity as
the show that you know was morecup Punk's vision and to keep him happy
and separate from the people who hedidn't want to be around. That's gone.
Now we're seeing Brian Danielson and JohnMoxley on Collision when we really hadn't

(38:15):
before A Jade Cargill is back justkind of. I mean, we haven't
talked since the Cupunk firing, sowe could do a lot on this,
but you and I both talked alot about it independently, but just focused
on on the landscape of a Wand having this Collision show that has less
of a purpose now than it didas a vehicle for CM punk. How

(38:36):
are you feeling about where a Wstands post Sumpunk? Not good? The
idea that okay, that the Softbrand split is over. Now you're asking
your audience to, you know,keep an eye on both shows, which
they ideally wanted anyway. But Ithink it was easier for people before to
pick and choose when it wasn't entirelyseparate, but it was separate enough where

(38:59):
if you want to watch your regularWednesday crew, Saturday's busy for you,
you can get by. You know, you can read recap or watch video
recap whatever. Now, if you'regoing to have those storylines playing out in
both shows, you not just separatestorylines, but actually they cover both shows.
Now you're asking people to give upthe Saturdays and to keep an eye

(39:21):
on everything. I could see somebodywho was content watching Dynamite feeling a little
burden now, like I've got towatch this show to keep up on this
too. So I'm not really crazyabout the idea of ending the Soft brand
split. We'll see how they doit, but I mean, it's everything
we knew it was going to bewhen it came to college football seasons here
and okay, you know they didokay this week. I bounced back a

(39:44):
little bit. You know, SummerSlam obviously was the big factor of the
week before, but it's still youknow, roughly under five hundred thousand.
I think it was for total viewership, and if the network's happy with that,
so be it. But we're justgetting into college football season. The
NFL, or I'm sorry, theNHL and NBA especially are right around the
corner. I just think this wasa really lousy night, and I know

(40:08):
they didn't have alternatives. If theydon't, I think Thursday they'd probably love
to do, even though it's againstthe NFL, but you know, with
their NBA commitments with Warner Brothers Discovery, I don't think it was feasible.
So the idea of starting this separateshow to keep Punk in the elite separate
and all. I just ultimately thinkit was too much, too soon.

(40:29):
I just feel like there's too muchAW programming right now. Almost seems like
a Sunday six to eight, youknow, like a pre NFL time slot
or five to seven or something,you know, the lead into the NFL,
and Sunday nights would be a betterfit than Saturday nights up against college
football. But then you're going upagainst the second game of the NFL,
you know, a good Punk ofthe year two. So I don't know,

(40:50):
I don't I mean, there's onlyso many eyes a week doing back
to back nights Wednesday and Thursday.I don't know about that. I mean
logistically, you know, it'd benice for the crew. They could you
know, a lot of guys couldwork both shows. That can be bad
too, if everyone's getting worked twice, having to work twice and over exposed.
We know how that happed, youknow how that was a case without
pre brand split. How they justyou know, use some people up because

(41:10):
they were willing bodies and they youknow, liked their work and they could
fill TV time. Well, theyou know, the Collision. Viewership this
past Saturdays four hundred seventy six thousandviewers, which was a rebound after the
three hundred and forty five thousand theweek before. But that was up against
college football and Payback on on Peacock. The three episodes between Summer Slam and

(41:32):
Payback, it was payback, right, not fascilating, not backlash. I
mean, I'd say that somewhat facetiously, but I know, I just I
interchange them. So the three episodesthat did not go against wwpl E between
Summer Slim and Payback averaged five hundredthree thousand viewers. So we have one
sample right now of a drop oftwenty seven thousand viewers, So that's about

(41:58):
five percent. Now, if yousaid you're gonna go against college football and
you're gonna lose cumpunk and you're onlygonna lose five percent in your viewership from
what the average was during that threeweek span without college football and w SAMPUNK,
I think AW would count that asa victory. I think Warner Mediac
counts that as a victory. Aw's number three on Saturday Night. I'm

(42:19):
on Saturday Night. In terms ofthe eighteen to forty nine demo. You
know, they're only college to collegefootball games. ESPN and Fox Sports win
did better, and they did waybetter, you know, point seven four
and ESPN a point two two onFox Sports one well above you know,
a W's demo rating a point onefive, but there's still number three like
it. I think, you know, I think if Tony Kahn spoke bluntly,

(42:44):
he would say, we are performingreally well in a really bad time
slot, and everybody knows it's notgonna draw the way Wednesday Night does.
But we're going to treat it asas much of an a show, so
we don't have a self fulfilling prophecyof making a tough situation even more difficult.
And if that's his approach, I'mfine with that, I really am.

(43:05):
You know, just put on thebest show you can, treat it
like an a show, Ignore thefact that the viewership is going to be
lower because of the bad times aloot, especially during college football season,
and move forward without Seampunk. Now, maybe some viewers don't realize Sampunk is
gone. I don't know how manyaw fans are watching and are that disconnected
from the news, but I meanthere might be some people who trail off
once they realize, hey, whathappened to that guy? Would it's got

(43:29):
to be less than like two percentof viewers like that to be the ultra
casual of viewers who would be like, wait, where's that guy? Sampunk?
But they're out there, Jason,those people are on there, so
I don't know. I don't thinkit's that bad. I mean, I'm
okay with I'm okay with Collision onSaturday night because nothing else on cable is
going to draw on Saturday night.That you know, people sometimes say,

(43:52):
well a rerun of something would doas well. Yes, but reruns aren't
going to get you carriage fees.You know, cable companies charge subscribers money,
and some of that money isn't atSome of that money that consumers pay
is for the carriage fee for thechannel, And if you're TNT and TBS,
you need things that people can't getelsewhere to justify high carriage fees.

(44:15):
No one's going to complain if there'snot a rerun of a nineteen nineteen ninety
nine action flick that does comparable towhat Collision does, But that doesn't give
T and T or TBS any valueor leverage of cable companies so as far
as carriage fees. So they wantto have original programming to stay relevant.
So there's value beyond the rating,is my point for T and T and

(44:36):
TBS. And they now have twohours fifty two weeks out of the year
of original programming that even against collegefootball, is finishing in the top three
in the core demographic. That's notawful. And I think when I saw
four seventy six, I was like, they've got to be breathing aside relief
in a w It's one week,and you know, we're not going to
draw an conclusions until we see abigger sample size, but early indications are

(44:58):
not a disaster. Not great,but not a disaster. This first Saturday
without Punk and against college football,and I think that's fair. And it
did have more going on with thosetournament matches. I think that helps to
some extent. Granted they have waytoo many tournaments, but there are snakes
on the show. Yeah, yes, I hope that they can kind of
settle in with a more regular crew. That that's just my wish again,

(45:22):
not like I'm watching everything. Soif you want to do storylines that overlap
between the shows, great, that'sfine, but I just think they're going
to have more success keeping their viewersengaged if they're more than just a hardcore
base. If they do kind ofhave a little bit of separation there more
often than not, something big likeMGF and Adam Cole. Okay, but
yeah, I just wouldn't want tosee it's basically Collision becomes a continuation of

(45:45):
Dynamite every week. I think thatwould be a mistake, just because of
the unique Saturday night setup. Ithink one of the issues we need to
keep an eye on addition to Collisionis the attendance that aw is doing.
It did very well in London amazinglywell away. That was an awesome number
that they did, but domestically they'restruggling outside of pay per view events to

(46:07):
draw quality numbers. It's been sincethe seven since Wressell Ticks updated on their
Twitter page for this particular show,and I would assume they've moved more ticket
since in but the Cincinnati show andI just tried to scroll up to the
new days, so now I've lostwhere I was. But it was like
seventeen hundred as of the seventh thatthey've sold for tickets for a dynamite in

(46:30):
Tom Moxley's hometown. That's not good. And they did over I want to
say it was again, I knowthe numbers in front of I want to
say it was like forty seven hundredthe last time they were there. They're
struggling right now to move these tickets, and they got to look at ways
to change some things. And Iknow one of the obvious things is that
you don't know what the hell you'regetting dynamite and collision from week to week.

(46:53):
You don't know who's going to bethere and who's not, and they
need to address that. And Idon't know that that's going to solve everything,
but it can only help if youstart telling people who's going to be
there and get these stars on televisionmore often. And I still, you
know, I never hear this broughtup with or at least maybe not often
enough. They're gonna kill these towns. I know. I'm sorry, but

(47:16):
when you do twelve additional Ring ofHonor matches, and that's even on the
light side, I think most weeks, and then you're doing the rampage tap,
it's just you know, rampage ispretty simple, but they just do
too much Tony has to realize thatthe average fan is not wired like he
is. Like he is. Hehas those fans who are. They are

(47:37):
the hardcore base. That's great,but there is an audience out there that
wants to show up and enjoy theshow and go home in a reasonable time
and not be like, well whatam I missing? I'm leaving during a
match and I can't believe that Ringof Honor is even still a thing.
To be honest with you, Idon't we can get the guilt trip.
Oh, it's providing jobs that Tonylikes to give, but it's not helping

(47:58):
the company long term. Another twoseparate things supposed look, but it's just
too much, no one, Whoare these people going? You know,
in order for me to continue todriving down our club, I need nineteen
matches. You know. That wasan extreme case, because there was one
show they did have nineteen matches.Usually still it's you know, sometimes in

(48:19):
the teen twelve, anywhere from twelveto fifteen matches. I would guess is
the average I don't know for sure. It's too much to ask a crowd
to sit through that came to seesomething other than Ring of Honor. We
don't need that many squash matches onthat show. We don't need to be
guilted into Oh, it's providing jobs. No, if it's not helping the

(48:39):
overall product that you're putting out therefor people, then it doesn't need to
exist and they if you want tokeep it around, great, make it
a one hour show, make itsimple, don't just have more respect for
people's time. Totally great. Thanksfor downloading today's show. Take it to
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(49:01):
Prosing Podcast, Wait Killer Prosing Postshow, and the Pwtorch daily casts on
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vi ip now. The ideal forme, The ideal business model for a

(49:43):
e W would be roughly one toour show every week, no ring of
honor, and pay previews every twomonths to help the pace of booking where
there's a climax a world title matchevery two months and one two hour show
you could, you know, there'sa little flexibility to go, well,

(50:04):
okay, we'll take rampage beforehand everyweek, you know, or half you
know, half of it before,half of it after or something like that,
and so we can give you know, a third hour of content to
TBS or TNT, and I thinkthat's where should be there. Yes,
obviously there's positive it's just like rawthird hour. Hey, more revenue,
we'll ride, But at what cost? At what intangible, unmeasurable cost,

(50:24):
burning out your audience at home,making people less positive about the product because
it feels too long, which makesthem less likely to watch SmackDown or less
likely to order a p l E. And so just sticking a W to
me the thing. And I talkeda lot about this when they announced collision.
I thought one of the biggest issueseveryone was focused on, and rightfully

(50:45):
so college football season Saturday is abad night. Well, that just means
the bar is lower in terms ofhow met success will be measured. What
was going to be the problem isspreading your ticket buying fans thinner, and
you, I mean you bring upthe other point, which is do you
know what you're buying when you buyan able ticket for Collision versus Dynamite,

(51:06):
And a lot of people are goingSaturday nights not thinking, oh, I
don't get to see John Moxley orChris Jericho or Brian Danielson or the Young
Bucks or Kenny Omega and a handfulof others, but I'm getting Miro and
Androide and for a while Punk andFTR instead, Like that wasn't clear,

(51:28):
and it wasn't clear with the ideabeing well, we don't want to be
overt about it because that will hurtsales, but then you lose goodwill with
fans, so the and just evenif even if the full crew was there
every Saturday and every Wednesday, let'sjust say every all the starts were there
all the time, that doesn't eliminatethe problem that you're now going to cities
by definition twice as often, oryou're going to cities are that are smaller

(51:50):
markets and less likely to draw wellfor you, which then takes away the
intangible vibe of being a hot productin a major league, which AW lost
in the Canadian tour when attendance waswas flat in some of those cities and
the crowds were not enthusiastic. Itwas older buildings, it wasn't well lit.
Those things matter, you know,whether people are consciously thinking it or
not. If there's a darkly litarena and it's echoe in the building and

(52:14):
the facility kind of has an oldvibe to it, and then you go
watch WWE and they're in these NHLand NBA stadium arenas with full houses,
well lit, wide angle camera shots. It just changes the perception of how
big of a star a John Moxleyis when he's in an atmosphere that feels
more minor leagues. So if AWjust stuck with a tour, dynamite an

(52:35):
appendage at the tapings on Wednesdays forrampage and maybe increase pay per views to
every two months instead of every three, which I think would help kind of
the cadence of booking and committed tothat for a few years. Yes,
your TV partners might think you're leavingmoney on the table, but they don't
understand the wrestling business. They don'tunderstand this is not about churning out hours
of a TV series. This isabout having the props that the audience are,

(52:59):
The fans are in big enough numbersshowing enthusiasm to give the idea that
this is a hot product. Plusyou've got wrestlers who don't want to travel
each Wednesday and Saturday, so they'regonna be upset or you're gonna have to
pay them more. I mean,there's just all kinds of ramifications for Collision
and losing, you know, creatingan atmosphere there seem punk to exist.
You can say, well, thatoverrides the other negatives enough to make it

(53:19):
worth a gamble. But without him, now, Jason, I don't know
if it wouldn't be up I mean, as much as I defend Collision in
the sense of, hey, it'sa it finished number three and the key
devil this past Saturday, and thebar is lower to measure success, and
it gives you know, TNT twohours of virtual programming that's valuable to them.
From an a w health standpoint,I think the best thing for AW
over the next three years would beto scale back and make every dynamite,

(53:43):
a mussy show with every star youhave, and go to Citi's half as
often as a result, and buildup that that that pent up desire to
see the product. I mean,they're going to burn out. Chicago,
Arthur Ash is down. You knowthis year they've got just over six thousand
tickets distributed according to Wrestle Ticks,and the current setup is only twelve thousand,
and they they've drawn you know,thirteen thousand and twenty thousand before they're

(54:07):
down and all these you know,almost every city they're down of the numbers
that I'm seeing substantially and buy onegets or the rash in some cases yep.
And that's the other thing is peopleare going to catch on to the
idea you don't need to rush toget the expensive tickets, so they're gonna
wait. And now the gates aregonna go down. You know that the
total ticket run is going to godown because they're savvy. Fan base is

(54:29):
gonna go I can wait till thelast second to buy them. So I
just I really do. I mean, I understand the rationale for doing everything.
Tony is done. I think you'rebetter off running, having a smaller
roster and fewer hours of TV andmaking the product feel hot and leaving fans

(54:49):
wanting more, and that's not happeningright now with a w and it,
you know, and if the bookingwas a plus or a or a minus
booking, you know, they couldmake up for some of this, but
it's not. You know, thebooking is is is CC minus lately overall,
you know, with some high pointsand some lower points, but it's
it's not it's not a red hot, you know. It feels like a
product being booked by a matchmaker,not a booker. Yep. And wrestlers

(55:15):
who are kind of doing their ownthing, but there's not a big vision
for the product anymore. It isstrayed from whatever the initial mission statement was,
which was always kind of a messbecause you had the Bucks, the
Bucks in Kenny with their ID andCody with their idea and Tony with his
idea. And yeah, I mean, I mean I still enjoy watching and
still enjoy covering it. And there'sa lot of good performances in good matches,
and Moxley's cutting great promos and youknow, there's people who are getting

(55:36):
better, and there's wrestlers on journeysand Darby spend this pleasant surprise and it's
fun to see Mirrow and C.J. Perry could a good promo.
There's all kinds of like isolated thingsall over the place that are good.
But if you step back and gois this sustainable or is this ideal?
It might not be sustainable. It'scertainly not ideal in terms of how many
live events and how much TV they'rehaving to produce, especially having lost c

(55:57):
on Punk, who I don't evendone punks like this breakout make a star
who was responsible for ratings being doubleyou know, or you know, fifty
percent higher than they would otherwise.But he was, you know, he
was still a star, and hegave that that show an identity that it
now lacks. It definitely doesn't havean identity. I mean, to be
fair, they've had one show sincethen, so I totally understand why I

(56:19):
wouldn't have one. But they doneed to figure out what that is quickly.
And you know what makes Collision different. The worst thing they can do
is make it a carbon copy ofDynamite. I think they were onto something
with the Collision format, and Iwas hoping they would start to incorporate some
of those changes they made into Dynamite, because as much as I like to
have two separate shows, I wouldlike to have two more watchable shows on

(56:43):
a weekly basis, and I thinkCollision at its best is more watchable than
Dynamite, where it's just too chaoticand there's just too much going on,
and man, it's there's some weekswhere it's been better lately, but it's
still an ongoing issue of them tryingto cram in too many things. From
make creative standpoint, I just seetoo many of the same crunches. You

(57:04):
know, every title match feels likeit's determined by a Battle Royal or a
tournament or a four way number onecontenders match for the women, or you
know, just or an open challengeor yes that's the new one and now
FTR has their own special Open Challenge. It's just lazy. I'm sorry.
That is not good booking. Thatis lousy booking. To do that all
the time. It makes when youjust take that approach with all these different

(57:28):
titles they have, it really startsto feel like all the matches you see
don't matter because they're not leading tothis person's climbing the ladder. And they're
going to get a title shot thoughthey won this match, maybe they'll be
in that tournament. And then whenyou look at the people they put in
their most recent tournament, Oh,I mean they had Nick Wayne in there

(57:49):
getting an opportunity at an AW WorldChampionship when he's never won an AW singles
match or the best of my knowledge, or at least not on dynamiters.
You know, I don't even maybeI don't know if you ever has.
And there were like two people maybethree in that whole tournament that you could
make an honest case for they deservea spot in this tournament. It's just
thrown together for all of the tournamentsthis company is done. Can anyone point

(58:13):
to a truly great one. Ican't give me eight great wrestlers in a
great tournament. I want to lookat the bracket and go, damn,
I don't know who's gonna win this. And I don't know who's gonna win
in the quarterfinals, let alone thefinals. They never do that. This
one's a little better, or atleast going into the there was a little
bit of question I think going intothe semi finals, and I think the

(58:35):
finals. I mean I assume Joeis going to win, but I don't
know, so at least we havethat. But there's just too many times
they do these tournaments and you justlook and go, oh, so and
so's winning, and it's just tooeasy and it's lazy to begin with.
It has to get better. Searchingfor more great pro wrestling talk, then
join me Jason Powell host them thethree weekly Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast. Each

(58:59):
week, you're the latest news andanalysis for me and my team at pro
wrestling dot Net along with other prowrestling media members. Plus, the Pro
Wrestling Boom Podcast features long form interviewswith notable names in the pro wrestling industry.
Subscribe and Iune and Stitcher, downcastand all your favorite secondary apps,
or visit us directly at pwboom dotcom. Once again, that's pwboom dot

(59:21):
com. This current tournament, it'sdown to we'll talk a little product here,
unless well we're talking sort of productin generalities in the business side.
But Roderick Strong and SMO Joe.I would have thought they'd put these two
against each other in the finals,but they were my two, the two
people in the conversation to win thetournament. Right, What do you think

(59:44):
they're going to do here? Andare you as big of a fan of
very Strong as I become in hiscurrent his current MOPy MOPy persona. Yeah,
I get a big kick out ofwhat he's It's it's the best Roderick
Strong we've seen as far as aperformer over the year's in rings. You
know, he's always been a verygood in ring performer, but just everything
from the Adam I'm just crying outthree times. I'm getting a kick out

(01:00:06):
of that, putting the neck braceon after his matches and just all of
it. It is comical. Idon't know that it's main event because he's
a sidekick essentially to Adam Cole.When the time is right, if Cole
turns or whatever his role is,he doesn't feel big time to me.
So I mean it's a little trickierbecause you do have the pay per view

(01:00:29):
right around the corner too, andso I would maybe both of these guys
are gonna end up getting title shots. I don't know how they're gonna do.
Wanted to the stadium and then comeback and have another at the pay
per view. I just hope theydon't make the mistake of not having another
AW title match on pay per view. I thought that was foolish. They
can tell me how great that payper view wasn't It was much better than
I think a lot of us anticipatedat being. But how do you do

(01:00:52):
by wise and apparently not good?And it's because, well, the lineup
looked poor, So it doesn't matterhow many AW wrestlers that like they've never
been there before. By going onTwitter and basically chastising fans were mocking the
quality of the card on paper.It was a bad card on paper,
and it just the wrestlers because they'reall the credit in the world for going

(01:01:14):
out there and putting on a greatshow. It was my favorite show of
the three of the Stadium show,w w E, Payback and then All
Out. But it doesn't mean thatyou've sold the great number of pay per
views. Had you put together abetter lineup, it would have been a
great show with. Had you donea better build with and had a more
attractive lineup, you would have soldmore pay per views. I don't know

(01:01:37):
if you saw just how much ofthat victory lapping crap they were doing.
It's like, guys, come on, just act like you've been there,
don't insult your fan base. Yeah, I didn't pay a lot of attention
to it, but I did hearthat was going on. It's part of
the risk of the goodwill being spentby Tony Kahn. We had a question

(01:01:59):
on that the Fix last week inthe mail bag. You know, what
kind of goodwill does AW have builtup with fans and is it diminishing?
And you know, you want peoplewant to root for a company that they
like, and they want it todo well if they're fans, and you
know, it's it's good for thefor the industry to have a healthy alternative
to WWE for all kinds of reasons. But you want the guy operating it

(01:02:22):
to seem like he's being genuine andfair in his assessment of his decision making.
And when you see him go,oh, yeah, we're gonna do
all in and all out next yearback to back again because of X,
Y and Z, and it's like, well, there's X, Y and
Z, but there's also a B, C, D, E, F,
G H J, K, ElimentoP, which is good reasons not

(01:02:44):
to do it, and well,but of the holiday and this and that,
and we drew well tradition and asthe next words out of my mouth.
Then Chicago, it's a tradition.It's like, yes, but it
is also not it's not fan friendly, for the budget, for time for
it was a booking disaster. Iknow they've got thrown a curveball with seam
punk and that might be their excuse, and maybe Tony's like, oh,

(01:03:06):
you know, I've learned from this, and I'm going to do a better
job next year, you know,making sure that looked like a fastball right
down the middle to me. Theycould claim it was a curveball, but
you had to know that one wascoming. Well, there is that,
yeah, So you know, Imean, if they do it next year
and they have two robust lineups,no injuries or firings that that lead to
cast, it'll be better. Butit's still it's still not good. It's

(01:03:28):
just it's not a good idea torun back to. It'd be one thing
if one show was free on commercialcable and or you know, maybe it
will be. We can't roll outa streaming deal exactly, and that is
different, but you still don't wantto offer a b show on streaming and
have it be an infomercial for apay per view if you're running in a
big stadium, you know you wantthat stadium show to feel like a big

(01:03:50):
deal. And then they just didn'tdifferentiate the two shows well enough. And
I think there was room to dothat and they didn't. So so Joe
were strong. Let's get back tothat. Fans are more trusted in MJF
and Adam Cole and at Roddick strongestpart of it. That's why I've been
thinking maybe they will headline a Dynamite. Let's yes, it's an outdoor stadium
and it's cool and it has afunny it has a good name, it

(01:04:11):
has a title to a Grand Slam, and it's in New York, great
laudia to all that, but it'sstill it's still a Wednesday night Dynamite,
So you don't need to give awaya top level world title match on Dynamite.
It's just one TV rating out offifty two Wednesdays this year. Sure,
so you can do Roderick Strong andtell a story with Adam Cole and

(01:04:32):
MJFF and who cares. If peopleknow who's gonna win, people are gonna
want to tune in to see howRoderick reacts to Adam Cole at ringside,
and does Adam Cole get involved ina way that causes you know, a
MJFF question, Cole sail through whatever. There's all kinds of things you can
do. If you do Joe versusMJFF. You got no story. There's
no story right now with them,so you can you can build one up

(01:04:54):
and tell one, sure, butthey don't have it. I just don't
think by definition of mid forty ora guide his mid forties who nobody thinks
is gonna win the world title andhave a major long title reign, is
a way better choice than a midcard wrestler like Roderick Strong, who happens
to be really entertaining right now andis connected to the biggest storyline in AW
right now. So I think I'mfine with Strong winning. I just don't

(01:05:16):
know how Strong beats Joe if theydo that, and if Joe beats Strong,
I don't know what that accomplishes,because I guess Joe's a heel,
but fans like him and mgs aface, but sometimes he acts like a
heel. It's just the lines seemlike they'd be kind of blurred, and
I'm not sure that they have timeto really firmly establish it. It is
a tricky one because I mean,they have been telling the story of MGF

(01:05:36):
and Joe from the NXT thing.But yeah, obviously Strong is more connected
to what they're doing with Cole andMGF. I again, I just go
back to where they're going to bothend up somehow getting title shots. Just
Strong beat Joe because of interference byTaven and Bennett perhaps and then to justify

(01:05:58):
things, Tony Shamanni can let usknow that Tony khn just informed me because
we have to hear that at leasttwice every episode. But yeah, I
wonder if that's the thing, Likesomehow somewhere maybe the pay per view matches
Joe instead because I get a kickout of Roddy's Strong. I don't know
that Roderick Strong headlining a pay perview screams money to me. I don't

(01:06:19):
know that Joe does either at thispoint because you've taken a lot of losses.
But I think he says more it'smore money to me Joe and MGF
than I think Strong and MGF isat the moment. What do you think
about MGFF Cole just in a larger, larger picture, are they are they
managing the swell. It seems itseems to me that this was something that
was going to be concluded or notconcluded, but a major shift to a

(01:06:43):
new chapter of this dynamic at allout and they decided to extend it with
an entertaining maybe borderline convoluted, youknow, final few minutes of that match,
maybe the whole match had you know, it was a little interc overly
intricately booked, with swerves and allthat, but you know, I mean
it didn't fail. I mean,the crowd was into it and all that.

(01:07:04):
You can't do that very often.But they extended it because they had
a good thing going. Is ita good thing? And do you even
think they know where they're going withit? Because I watched this and I
just kind of look at them bookingsomething where they're like, let's keep selling
T shirts and drawing ratings and crowdpops, and we're gonna just sort of

(01:07:27):
wing it and we're going to keepall our options open. And I don't
know, whenever they do the payoffto this, if keeping all your options
open means it's going to be aparticularly satisfying payoff because those clues will not
have been dropped in a deliberate waywhere it all comes together in the end,
right. I think it was clearlyextended and what they had planned,

(01:07:48):
And hopefully it's because somebody had agood outline of Hey, if we do
extend it, here's what we cando for the next however many months,
however long they want this to goon, weeks even, And I don't
know if that happened. It's justtoo soon to tell because we've only had
a week of television since the lastpay per view, and I have we

(01:08:08):
even seen them together. If wehave, it was brief and so yeah,
and so I'm hoping that they hadeverything outlined and something ready to go.
If not, you know, thismay be regrouping time. I was
in favor of just taking care ofit at the at the two pay per
views, letting a play out.Then. I know it's been really successful

(01:08:28):
for them. I guess I justdon't have great confidence that they're going to
be able to extend this. Ihope I'm wrong. I hope they can,
but yeah, the first week waskind of uneventful and left me going,
Yeah, they didn't plan for this, and I hope they can figure
out where they're going to go nextwith it because I hate to see this
end poorly. I was using thecomparison what you'll remember this because you were

(01:08:49):
actually watching the show before I was. I compared it to The Killing,
where you had that whole build upof it was an AMC show about there
was a murder and the big buildup to the end of the season finale
of season one, You're gonna findout who the killer is, and then
you didn't and they extended it toseason two and people were pissed, and

(01:09:11):
rightfully so there wasn't the backlash becausethey ever promised you was going to play
out that way, but it didkind of have that field to me like,
if you don't do it here,you're milking this out longer and I
don't know, but hopefully they canswing it. Yes, you don't want
them to go this is going well, let's extend it and then not have

(01:09:33):
a really intricate plan to you know, really worked out. And there's times
a Bloodline kind of feels that waytoo. I mean, fair is fair.
There's been times where I'm like,oh, they're trying to figure out
a way to extend this for youknow, another another season, another chapter,
but I don't know. I justto me, MJF has been all
over the place so often over thelast couple of years, and I just

(01:09:56):
want him to pick a lane andkind of simplify, which, you know,
I think the way his mind racescreatively, he's always looking to revolutionize
this and have an impact here andcreate a buzz there. But sometimes the
best role is you're either clearly aface, clearly heal. People know who
you are, you are consistently that, and then you just bring different people

(01:10:16):
in for you to react to.And that's what creates the novelty. Not
that you're changing or you're keeping peopleon edge about who you really are,
but you are who you are,and all people want to do is see
you against a different person every monthor two in a program. And MGF
is talented enough. That's what I'dadvised Tony Khan to do in terms of
steering the booking of MJFF is justfigure out who he is, keep it

(01:10:38):
simple, and make the novelty whohis opponents are and how he plays off
of them. I agree. Andone other thing I'll add is that the
thing that gets it scares me aboutthis from a storytelling standpoint is, you
know, I don't know how itwas supposed to play out, but my
suspicion was that this was an Adamcole con job every step of the way,
and he was going to reunite wasstrong and Tavan and Bennett and reformed

(01:11:00):
the Kingdom, and they can stillreform, but it's no longer a master
plan. They can't claim that oneof these characters had this master plan no
matter who turns on who, becauseit's gone on too long now. You
would have your master plan would havebeen acculminated with you winning or retaining that
championship based on whatever you were goingto do to the other person, And

(01:11:23):
now you can't really do that.I mean, I guess you can shit
well MJ have one anyway, Idon't know. But for Cole, yes,
it's no longer like he was heoutsmarted the Devil. It can't be
that anymore. I agree. Youcan support us on Patreon and get these
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(01:11:45):
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(01:12:09):
Okay, as far as we talkedabout Sam Punk, but you know,
and I haven't talked about this justwell you and I have separately.
What's your just assessment for people,you know, fans of the flakeship here
who tune in when we talk,what's your take on the decision to Firepunk,
the suspense indefinite suspension of Jack Perryand what we've learned you know since

(01:12:30):
or what's at least been reported indifferent different you know, accounts of what
happened. Just what's your overall assessmentof of of what happened and whether it
was dealt with well by Tony Connultimately, I was so well, there's a
lot there. It's I think itwas time for these two sides to part
ways, obviously, and if theywere you know, if they reports said

(01:12:54):
Punk Laune day Tony, it wason the verge of getting physical with Tony.
What have you are? True?And yeah, something had to be
done. Punk had to go atthat point, and you know, the
Jack Perry thing. I wish that'sthe one area where I feel like Tony
came up short as well. Hesuspended indefinitely, okay, well with pay
without pay? You know what isthis? And there hasn't There wasn't even

(01:13:15):
any Tony doesn't really do this,but I wish in this case he would
have expressed a little frustration with Perryover what he did to make it clear
that that's not acceptable. But he'snot going to really do that with the
media. But I do have toget tell people publicly no, and I
think there's times where he should justto let people know who the boss is
and also just to have that connectionwith the fan base that yeah, I

(01:13:39):
feel what you do. I'm disappointedby this too, but I do feel
like the Tony khn we saw atthe all out media session was the best
Tony Khan. I felt like hewas down to earth. He wasn't cutting
off reporters to answer their questions.Maybe it was because he was ridiculously tired
after the crazy schedule that they've hadto keep but everything going on. What

(01:14:00):
he did, he just seemed calm. I thought he handled the situation pretty
well as far as just his answersthat night. I always wish you'd be
a little more forthcoming, but I'mmedia he's not. You're going to get
that. But I did feel like, hey, this is a better Tony
Khn than we usually get during thesemedia scrumbs. Do you think wwe should
bring sem Punk in because it's goodfor business and they have a more structured

(01:14:24):
environment, and he'll be out toprove that it was the Bucks and Kenny
and Hangman who were the problem andbad leadership from Tony Khn perhaps will be
his take and so they might geta really good version to see h Punk
at least long enough to make somemoney. Or do you just think nah?
I mean seriously, if you payattention to what Punk went through,
Yes, he was triggered and andimmaturely poked and prodded into overreacting. But

(01:14:47):
he overreacts and he can't let anythinggo. And there's just something going on
there that makes him a risky acquisitionto add to the mix of something that's
going well. Otherwise, where areyou on his value to w W A.
I have a conversation with him.I feel the situation now if I'm
Paul Devec or Emmanuel and I intentionallytry to push buttons to see how he's

(01:15:12):
going to react during that conversation.You know, I mean to me,
it's just a no brand. That'swhat you do. You know, you
don't have to be rude about it, but you say some things that you
feel like may trigger him and seeif he can even keep his composure in
that setting when millions of dollars areon the line, and if he can't,
well, then you know you can'tdo business with the guy. But
if he says all the right things, I you know, I think Jake

(01:15:34):
Bournett put it pretty well in dona Weekly. I believe it was Jake
that you bring him in for oneoff type situations to start with, and
then if he proves himself and thingsgo well, you can expand from there.
But I don't think I would bringthis guy in on a week to
week basis right now, until untilhe proves that he can just acclimate with

(01:15:58):
the rest of the locker room thatthere's not going to be a bunch of
drama. There's not going to befights. It's gonna go smoothly. And
yet let him prove that. Ithink that it's something that you have to
lay out to Punk. You needto prove this. And if he pushes
back on that again, hey sorry, you know, but we're good here,
we don't need you. Yeah.I mean there's there's something to that.

(01:16:20):
You can just add arm's length,no big investment, feel him out,
keep it short, don't put yourselfin a position where he has leverage.
There's a lot but I mean,I'll step back for a second.
A little bit is punk based onwhat we saw in a w Worth it.

(01:16:42):
I know there's a lot of AaronRodgers comparisons to see I'm punk,
Jason. I think there's something tothose comparisons. And Aaron Rodgers four plays
in out for the season with injury, Punk twice out with a you know,
out for lengthy injuries, prickly personality. You know, a leader in
certain ways, the opposite of aleader in other ways. There's a lot
of a lot of similarities there,but it, you know, Aaron Rodgers,

(01:17:04):
I don't know what capacity he'll bearound the Jets to help the team
if he's not the guy taken theSnaps. I just you know that that'll
be a story to watch. Butwith Punk, like is he even that
valuable anymore? Or and we didn'tsee enough of Aaron Rodgers, who know,
you know where his game is atwith with you know, with the
Jets in twenty twenty three, there'sgoing to be diminishing returns to the quarterbacks

(01:17:25):
age and you know there's a reasonTom Brady's retired now. But I just
I wonder if Punk hasn't diminished enoughwhere he isn't worth the trouble. And
it's not to say he's not valuableif he was just didn't care if there
wasn't just star Cloud that followed himeverywhere. But in terms of his in
ring work, it's it's good,but it's not like WHOA, this guy's

(01:17:47):
great on the microphone. I thinkI think John Moxey, for instance,
like was one hundred times better promothan Punk lately. You know, like
I don't, I don't, justdon't. But Punk was always it was
just it felt like there was alwaysjust something going on in his head that
was screwing up him just being focusedon telling a story. Including you can
blame some of the bookings so maybesome of that would just all be better

(01:18:09):
in ww A. But I justpart of me is just like, this
isn't the Punk of ten years ago. Either. It's not. And I
think another reason to kind of bringhim in for limited dates where you just
build up to one one match andsee what happens. Maybe you have him
contractually signed so you've got a holdon him if things go well for another

(01:18:33):
date or two whatever. But yeah, I just don't do the full time
commitment. I you know, theinjury again, if it's a one off,
okay, if he gets hurt andI matched and you're protected. I
think there is value in Punk returningto WWA. I think just the hearing

(01:18:54):
the song on WWE television out ofnowhere or even with a build up,
it would pack a punch and Ithink it would do good business for them
all the Even with the negativity ofall the drama with Punk, vans can't
stop talking about him. I thinka lot of us have reached a point
of fatigue where it's like, ohmy god again. But I do feel

(01:19:16):
like there would be tremendous interest inhim going back, and if they set
the table right, it could bea really compelling program that he has for
his return. I don't you know, you can pick a different variety of
different opponents that he could have.It would be interesting. Chicago Survivor Series
is certainly an option. You know, you make the NFL comparison. If

(01:19:39):
this were the NFL see him,Punk would have been signed by another team.
The difference is there's thirty two NFLteams and there's only two major wrestling
companies that realistically Punk's going to workfor, and he has baggage with the
other one, the one he getsbaggage with both, but the one that
he would be most likely to goto. There's there's history there, and

(01:20:00):
I think if this were Vince McMahonand his true call, I think we
would see Punk. That's kind ofa test of LOVEK but also Punk has
that positive history with endeavor. That'skind of the weird thing when you think
about it, is that we're notas plug in obviously, and at least
I'm not in MMA and certainly notin the acting world. But we don't
hear horror stories about Punk on likethe set of Heels or from his time

(01:20:25):
in MMA. It was all verypositive and people didn't like him other fighters
tried to push buttons and whatever,but we didn't hear those things there.
So is it he's not a goodfit in wrestling. Is it just it's
for whatever reason he in pro wrestlingcan no longer co exist. I don't
know, but it just seems strangeto me that everything about Yeah, he

(01:20:48):
lost those fights, but he wasthe first guy to the gym. He
was the one cleaning up and notafraid to do all that. And where
is that punk when it comes topro wrestling? Well, and as he
worse now than he was then justbecause of aging and circumstances and who knows
what. So there's there's that.You know, it's on him personally,
whatever issues he had before, notbeing able to let anything go and just

(01:21:11):
having things just build up. Youknow, he's just he just feels like
a pressure cooker. And internally,I mean I look back at the All
outpressor human A last last year,and I mean they look on his face,
it just it looked like his eyeballsare going to pop out of his
head. It was just like it'sjust like you just get the sense he
just doesn't let anything go when it'sjust white knuckling his way through all the
all the all the grievances he haswith everybody who's in affront to how he

(01:21:33):
thinks people should act. And hecan be right and I've said it multiple
times, he can be right andyou can still end up presenting him for
it because because he makes anyone whodoesn't see things his way feel like a
complete fool for not having done thingsthe way that he is correct they should
have been done. But you canbe right and also build a resentment.

(01:21:53):
And that's how it's been framed tome with him is yeah, he canna
be right about it, but nobodylikes him. And by the time he's
not explaining himself because he's so righteousabout it or condemn somebody, and it
feels personal and heavy handed. Soif you put him in down to b
where he has no creative power,he's not tight with the boss in the
way that you know Tony was like, oh, punk, this is great,
tell me what you want to do. Maybe that that pressure is gone,

(01:22:16):
then it just goes back to andwhy it's on Kenny in the box
and hang that page and the passiveaggressiveness, and you know the conduct of
Kenny with oh I'm going to drinkthis pepsi looking product but cover up the
label and then claim of the straightface it wasn't pepsi, and you people
are conspiracy theorists, and the Bucksare going to do their victory lap,

(01:22:36):
and you know their passive aggressiveness.It's just they had a chance to come
out of this going we grew up, we learned our lesson, and we're
going to represent a and Tony Khanwell and we're going to try to dissipate
some of some of the blame thatthat not. We're not dissipate the black
We're going to learn from what wentwrong and step up. And instead it
seemed like they couldn't help themselves fora little bit. I'm just waiting for

(01:22:59):
them to have six straight great weeksof television character development. Not a week
here, a promo there, inangle here, but just give me six
weeks of the Bucks and Kenny beingtrue national cable center piece acts on a
TV show, and we just Idon't know if we've ever gotten six weeks
straight of either of them or hangthat in these days either doing that,
and I don't think that's a bigask in six weeks as a starting point,

(01:23:23):
it's just it's it's a small askfor people at their pay scale in
the in the their position in thiscompany, and they can't put together six
weeks where you're just like, allright, this is what we've been waiting
for out of them. No,No, I don't think they have it
in them. Unfortunately. I thinkthat if any of them did, it
might be Kenny. I don't thinkthe Bucks really, I just don't think

(01:23:43):
they think that way. And Idon't know why. It's not that they're
camera shy. They have no problemdoing the being the elite show. But
yeah, there's just something about thoseguys that, I mean, you talk
about it on a regular basis,they just apparently don't have that desire to
become even good promos. It's justnot part of their game. They think
going out there and having their styleof matches the key, and it's gotten

(01:24:06):
them this far. I think they'rescared to not be great at what they
do, and so they don't eventry to be good at what they what
they're not great at, and itfeels like they're and again it's just you
know, long distance psychoanalysis. Ijust think they don't want to try at
something that they won't be heralded foras being the best at and that's just

(01:24:26):
not contributing to your company for yourpay the way you should. If you're
not great at promos, be betterand then get better and dedicate yourself to
it. Don't just run from it. Figure out who your character is.
If you're like, oh, well, we were really good doing any matches
and having big matches at PWG andand and you know, being called the
best tag team in the world bypeople who we care about their opinions.
Right, but now you're on Nowyou are centerpiece, top paid stars on

(01:24:49):
a weekly television series that happens tobe pro wrestling. You have to adapt.
That's a different list of things youneed to be good at. And
it's okay if you're not the bestin your mid thirties at something that other
people are great at, you shouldstill be working to be better and get
better. I mean, look atwhat Darby Allen has done. Look at

(01:25:09):
what Edge and Christian have done.They didn't talk for the first several years
in a tag team, or barelydid, and now they're two of the
best, you know. I mean, Christians just great right now and Edge
just turned into one of the reallygood promos of his generation, and now
on no on the Dudley's they didn'ttalk a lot, and Bubba Ray had
it in him. I mean,just whatever, you know, Tad's inn
ecw they he didn't talk, sebudn'ttalk, and suddenly Test started talking.
He was a great promo. Soyou can get really good really quickly,

(01:25:33):
but you gotta work at it anyway, I interrupted you, ja, So
why is it when you say that, some certain people seem to think you're
picking on the bus for stating somethingso damn obvious. I don't know,
but go ahead and name names,Jason, I'll behave myself. I was
intrigued by the sort of strictland promoon Hangman Page. If that were in

(01:25:54):
a WWE ring, we'd be likedamn, Bencha said in a message to
Page. I know, I don'tthink they send those messages in AW.
I really don't, And so I'mkind of expecting it may be a completely
legitimate thing, but kind of aSOB story response why things had fallen off
for Hangman Page because I gotta thinkthat he knew it was coming. It

(01:26:16):
would be appropriate if he didn't,considering that he's the one who started all
this with punk back in the dayby going off script. But I don't
think that's the case, and soI am curious to see where it goes.
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(01:26:36):
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(01:27:24):
stream them directly from our ad freeVIP mobile site. See you in the
Paradise. Yes, I part,you know, going back to our discuss
about Tony Con and all the TVand burning out ticket sales and all that.
I just don't think the product ofAW looks like there's a master planner

(01:27:45):
who's dedicating the proper amount of mentalenergy and has the team around him to
create a really well planned, coherent, balanced product. And I think that's
a problem. You know, Iused to add vacate for the notion.
This was in the two thousands whenB was, you know, being run
by script, right, you know, not run by but the script.

(01:28:06):
There were the writing team and theywere just doing things that we're just nonsense
and counterproductive and not I think instep with with what pro wresting fans wanted.
And I was like, you knowwhat, strip all this away and
just on a three and a halfby five note card that you hold up
for speech class, you know,with note just write a two R TV

(01:28:27):
show on that and then tell thewrestlers to go do their thing. And
I used to advocate for that,and that's essentially what Tony does. You
know, he just goes, here'sthe card, here's our five matches,
here's our three talking segments. Here'ssome stuff bounce, you know, here's
some bumper stuff going in out ofcommercials. And then just he lets the
wrestlers do their thing, and helets the highly paid, name value wrestlers

(01:28:47):
and the people who we trust kindof write their own stuff. But you
don't get the sense, you know, that there's any meddling afterwards, you
know, to use the term that'sused with insect man, there's not that
that that person who in the endgoes, Okay, it's Wednesday at one
pm, or it's Monday or Tuesday, and I've got this TV script.

(01:29:10):
Now, let's go over it andquestion everything, and let's make sure we're
not doing the same finish two orthree times in a row. Let's make
sure that what these wrestlers want tosay matches the vision and the story that
we've been telling so far. Andif not, we need to actually delay
this promo till next week and havea bridge this week that helps us transition
to what you guys want to say. But this isn't the week to do

(01:29:32):
it. Look whatever, Like,I don't get a sense any of that
is happening. When you watch awit's just a bunch of segments like an
SNL TV show where everyone just sortof has their own skit, their own
little island, and they just theycome up one after the other. And
I think that hurts the product alsothat there isn't but Tony doesn't have time
for that. He barely had timeif he only had dynamite, but when

(01:29:55):
he got five hours instead of two, and he's juggling all these other things
progressing related on the business side,and then you know the other sports.
It's a product that needs more refining, it needs more attention, and it
probably needs some better, more empoweredstaff people to do that. If Tony
Camp, yes, but I Idon't know who those people are that are

(01:30:20):
within that company. He seems togravitate toward the Brian Danielson types. And
I'm not saying Danielson couldn't do itif it were like a full time thing
for him, But I don't know. He has he has some quirky tish
and he is not. Based onwhat I've seen, Jason, I'm with
you based on your tone and implicationthere, I don't I don't trust Brian

(01:30:45):
Danielson's booking vision for his own charactermuch less the product. I just don't
say, I mean, quirky isa nice way to put it, you
know. I mean, I goback to the guy who was trying to
get booed for saying there should belike standards for emissions and cars and I
mean no sense, and his defenseas well. People don't like preachy people,
well right, but you're asking peopleto boo a cause that you personally

(01:31:08):
are in favor of, and thatmost of your audience statistics show w b's
audience. I don't want to boo, you know, like it just made
no sense. Oh but those youknow, but they're preachy, well right,
but it's not something people want toboot. And he didn't get that.
It just was a mat and there'snot Oh BCC, what are they?
Oh it's a complete man. Yougot Claudio being a jerk to Eddie

(01:31:29):
Kingston in one segment and Wheeler Utadoing all these dastardly things. But then
you got Bryan Danielson being a standup guy defending Ricky the Dragon. You
got John Moxley out there being JohnMoxley and the fans are cheering him like,
what are they how are we supposedto feel queen? You just don't
get it. Yeah, I meanyou gotta have some leadership who goes,
well, how do we want peopleto feel about these people when you have

(01:31:53):
a faction with that much diversity inhow they're acting and how person would naturally
react to that. It's a mess. It absolutely is. And you know,
I when Danielson had that quote thathe hopes they never and the bccis
just rolled my eyes, like whyyou are not a good fit in this

(01:32:15):
You're an m a camp right,And I just have a bigger issue with
Danielson still trying to force himself asa heel. It's not working. It
doesn't work. Listen. Just lookat the way the crowd reacted when they
had to put him in that positionwhere he did have to be a baby
face for the night and go outthere and face Rookie Starks. People loved
it. That's what people want.Quit fighting against the tide. There's no

(01:32:40):
reason to. But he wants toplay MMA club and it's just I'm sorry,
it's not working. Yes, peoplestand up and cheer when they hear
wild thing. Should they be though? I mean, don't you actually want
to go for heat and said,well, this week we're baby faces and
next week we're gonna be heal.It's just it's a hot mess. And
these are some you know, Imean, ud As Utah, I'm not

(01:33:02):
trying to diminish him, but hedoesn't mean as much as the others.
Quietly, yeah, but I meanseriously, Moxley and Danielson especially, those
are two major acts for this company. And I think I said it last
time was on I had two friendscome over for the last at WWVPLI recently
that I haven't seen. I hadn'tbeen over since the pandemic, and both
of them were big Moxley fans,and they both asked, what's happened to

(01:33:24):
this guy? They they're just notinto it anymore. And I think within
that aw bubble he's still cool mocks, but I think if you get outside
of it, I think there's alot of people going basically ask him the
same thing, what happened. Ijust think Tony's got to pick, you
know, who is Top three facesand top three heels are on dynamite.
Top three Faces, top three Heelson collision and have a constitution that guides

(01:33:50):
their actions and elicits un natural andunited reaction from the crowd because people want
to cheer for one team and bootfor another team. Sports, sometimes you
just do an end to see abig game. I get that, But
the ratings are big when you gotthe hometown favorite against the bad guys from

(01:34:10):
out of town, and Progressing getsto gets to manage that, and it's
it's just it's Aw's doing a prettypretty bad job with that right now.
And then they just have too many, you know, similar storylines too.
You know, Oh, Sammy andJericho are they friends? Aren't they?
Oh? A misunderstanding? And Imean W's doing it too, you know
which auso, but more artfully andless redundantly. But there's just too many
situations going on at once that thatagain a visionary to use a term that's

(01:34:34):
been used in that video for Tony. You know, somebody who's overseeing the
product, who go, we can'thave two of these things going on at
once, and it shouldn't have gottenstarted in the first place. And too
many people are turning too often too. I mean, it just there's too
many tournaments to any open challenges andtoo many turns. And again that that
comes from not pausing, deep breath, step back, look at the big

(01:34:55):
picture, plan things out more,and it's just not happening in a w
So he is he is relying andagain like wrestl Tree and other example,
Oh, we're just going to haveyou know, we're gonna book great matches
and the action is great, ourstar rating average is up. It's like,
none of that, None of thatmatters compared to the things that I'm
saying. Otherwise, No, andthey should have learned their last pay per

(01:35:15):
view showed them. You know.I guess it was a great pay per
view because the wrestlers came through,But it was very much like those WWE
pay per views when Vince's booking wasatrocious, the lineupould look mediocre and the
talent would come through. It waslike, oh cool, this was fun.
My expectations were low. Y'all camethrough. Good for you. And
that's what this pay per view was. It wasn't the culmination of good booking

(01:35:38):
by any means. It just wasa collection of matches. Aw can always
do that, And if they wantto keep patting themselves on the back for
all you know, it's great,but you gotta actually get people to order
your shows in order to do that. And I know they've had success.
I don't get me wrong, they'vebeen a successful pay per view company.
But my big thing with Tony isthat he's already just setting his ways this

(01:36:01):
defense of his two week just buildfor pay per views. Now, he's
not going to listen to any criticismbecause their shows are still good. What
Tony, you've only tried one way. Yes, you've been successful when it
comes to selling pay per views,But did you ever stop to think that
maybe if you tried a different way, you might even be more successful.

(01:36:21):
I don't think it crosses his mind. In his mind, it's a two
week build and that's it. WhyWhy what is it? He's never done
anything else? Why can't he stopand go There's a lot of people saying
that I should try something new,maybe I should try something new, but
it's like it just doesn't register withhim. I know, I know,

(01:36:44):
Okay. Well, one other awtopic for sure that we'll bring up,
and that is just how Ricky Startsis doing and kind of looking at the
lay of the land a little bitbroader. In collision, Ricky starks without
see him, punk becomes more important. He was going to be important anyway.
He was supposed to have prom withPunk, now he gets one with
Danielson. We got we had tosuffer through him complaining about that for five
minutes in a complete break from storylinea week and a half ago on Collision,

(01:37:05):
which should not have been on television. But since then, you know
it's been better. I still amhigh and Ricky Starks. I still think
he's someone that can be a topthree face or a top three heel for
Collision and should be. And he'sgood enough in the ring and has a
good look, and he has aconnection with the fans. How are you
feeling about him right now? Andhow much do you lean on him?

(01:37:27):
Is he your number three heel,number three face? Do you try to
make him a number one or twoheel or face or neither? Do you
think he's more of a four orfive guy? And should he be a
face or should it be a hell? Like just talk about Starks a little
bit. I give it a goand try to make him the face of
Collision, But again I would alsokeep things more of a more split than
I think they're going to. Idon't think you should have been a heel

(01:37:48):
against Punk. I just feel likethey were again fighting the tide there.
I think that you know, theaudience had kind of spoken and at best
you were going to get mixed reactions, where if you gave people incentive actually
get behind Ricky Stark's I think itwould have been much more easier than getting
people behind see him punk completely.And I think they took the Steve Austin

(01:38:09):
approach at the pay per view wherehe took the beating and passed out.
And so hopefully that's a sign thatnot that they expect him to be the
next Stone Coal, but that theydo think that they were protecting him.
They think he can be a babyface, and so maybe this whole thing
with Big Bill wasn't going to lastlong. Yeah. Quick thoughts on Miro

(01:38:29):
and the return of Lana c.J. Perry, who was nameless so
far. It makes sense to themthat he doesn't think she exists. I
mean, I'm waiting to see itplay out. It's goofy. Did he
sit down with Allister Black to comeup with this one? I don't know,
Alkai Black, I don't know.I mean, kind of fun to

(01:38:54):
see her. He's made so manyreferences to her that I can't believe it
took as long as it did tofinally get her on the show. I
just want to see Mirror kicks somemass. That's it. I want to
see Mirror be a badass and ifthey can do their little storyline and they's
still that great, but he's justa guy who doesn't really seem to gain
much momentum, Like he gets toa certain point and then they don't really

(01:39:16):
do anything with it. And Iknow there's been some stops and starts there,
but Powerhouse Hobbs is another one whereoh, they're finally getting behind Hobbs
and no, no they're not.There's just too many people like that in
aw where you want to get investedand start too and then they just pull
the rug out from under you.Yes, exactly. You don't have to

(01:39:43):
wait for the weight Keller Progressling postshow to find out what I thought of
Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Eachweek, you can check out my reports
that are updated live throughout Raw andSmackDown at pwtorch dot com. My written
report we'll tell you what's happening indetail in case you missed the show,
and it will also analyze segments andgive my random thoughts end quips on what
I'm watching as it airs, Socheck it out every Monday night and Tuesday

(01:40:06):
night at pewtorch dot com. Thatalso applies to WWE pay per views.
I covered those live at pwtorch dotcom with a detailed written report with star
ratings, and of course you canfind other TV reports from other contributors to
PW trks such as n xt roh, Impact Wrestling, and more. Check
it out pwtorch dot com your firststop for TV and pay per view written

(01:40:29):
reports. Okay, I want toswitch over to uh WWE and we have
jus thanks to Cody be moved toRaw. They didn't talk about it last

(01:40:49):
night on Raw, which is kindof weird and a forgetting the idea that
there has to be an equal No, they took the cop out that was
so weak. Cody was gonna speakand he's immediately interrupted him Lord, and
we don't know if he was goingto even talk about like the trade so
to speak, or the what's theterm future considerations and so I mean,

(01:41:11):
but that was a big plot pointa week ago and people talked all week
about it. Oh, is itgonna be Cody? Who could it be,
Is it gonna be Drew, Isit gonna be Becky Lynn? Sure?
Whatever, and it didn't. Theydidn't really address it. Yeah,
and you can say, well,Cody was if not for the interruption,
although I loved Wade Bear going gonnahear from Cody. Now after the thing
was over, it's like, yeah, that's we're all thinking, well,

(01:41:32):
you're not supposed to bring that up, because yes, Cody wasn't beat done
so much he couldn't just pick upwhere he left off before the interruption.
But nevertheless, I'm I'm really interestedin what they're doing. I don't I
hope they've got it more figured outthan I do, because I don't know
if Jay's gonna, you know,kind of consider joining Judgment day and sort

(01:41:55):
of prove all the people in thelocker room right that he isn't trustworthy and
makes bad decisions and he's ultimately afollower who doesn't really can't be made event
single star Jay, or are theygoing to kind of tease us that he's
considering it bit deep down in theend, he's gonna, you know,
it's gonna be real. He reallydidn't consider it seriously and he is going
to be made event Jay, andthen you have the whole thing of Judgment

(01:42:15):
Day, and now is take champsget to be on SmackDown. The bloodline
is diminished, but still there asa major faction, and they're talking who
is the major faction? It seemswe're headed towards a match between them.
If that's a case, who arefans supposed to cheer? Have they figured
that out yet? Is that goingto get in the way of other big,
bigger, more important storylines for romanreigns that are coming up As we

(01:42:35):
enter Rumble in Wressomania season, howare you feeling about Jusso and Judgment Day
and the mentions of the shield allis kind of a broader storyline right now,
mixed with where Cody fits in andthen where this, uh, this
this trade so to speak from RadaSmackDown fits it. I think that Cody

(01:42:56):
is going to be the compensation thatgoes to SmackDown. They easily could have
had John seen to be the oneto announce that. Hey, I saw
this situation and I went and talkingmanagement and ju said I was going to
Rome because he was the host ofthat show. There has to be a
reason that Cody was the one who, as he put it, you know,
used his political chips to make thishappen. And I think it's to
get himself over to SmackDown so hecan make a run at that championship.

(01:43:19):
And the big question I have iswas this planned or is this something that
they're doing sooner than they anticipated,because maybe they have a different plan for
WrestleMania. They feel like that writersstrike might go on for a while.
Maybe The Rock is suddenly interested indoing something with Roman reigns at Mania,

(01:43:41):
and they figured, well, wecan get to Cody and Roman sooner and
not save that for Mania. Justshot in the dark on that with Jay,
Yeah, I don't think he's joiningthe judgment day. I think it's
very much there. I thought itwas creative the way they used Dom's run
with you know, him turning themdown multiple times to explain why they're not
just doing the typical pro wrestling.Oh we fought so therefore there's no way

(01:44:04):
we're done courting this guy. Nowwe're mortal enemies instead. It's Tay,
you know, like how many timeswe had to ask Tom and so they
can keep going at him even thoughhe's fighting them. And I'm sure there'll
be some twists where they leave youthinking maybe, just maybe, but ultimately
no. And I think Jay isgonna end up being the number two baby
face on this brand behind seth ifCody does go to SmackDown, and interesting

(01:44:27):
that he's in that position. Ithink he's been very well received so far.
I like the story they're telling.I like that Drew doesn't trust him
and Ko doesn't and then he gavein. I was a little worried about
that. I'm like, oh,really, they're already teaming, but then
they fell apart quickly, and soyeah, it's It's made for some interesting
television already, and I look forwardto seeing where it goes. Did I
hit on everything you asked there?Yeah? You did? I do?

(01:44:49):
I asked multi prong question and youyou hit it all. Yeah. I
want Jay to be the number twobaby face. You know, if if
Cody moves SmackDown, then that willlikely be the case. Obviously Drew would
have been the guy. Go oh. If Cody goes to SmackDown, Drew
will be the number one or twobaby face on Raw. But he is
on the path to going heel,which I'm glad and by the way,

(01:45:10):
I've been impressed with this version ofDrew McIntire. It. It's just been
litle little glimpses here and there,But I see somebody with maybe a little
chip on a shoulder about the factthat Cody basically came in and got his
spot. You know. I mean, Cody is doing what Drew did during
the pandemic, the wholesome, fanfriendly baby face who speaks on behalf of

(01:45:31):
the company, almost kind of likeJohn Cena. Cody came in, shiny
new toy, took off in abig way. No, I have no
problem that would be did that,and I don't think he's like mad about
it, like, oh, thatwas my spot. But there's a chip
on a shoulder, which is Iam versatile and now I'm going to become
a better heel. Then Cody hasbecome a great baby face, Like I

(01:45:53):
almost see that in what he's doingin terms of his tone, his body
language. I think is acting inreponse to some things that are going on
with Riddle and h and Jay hasbeen really good. There's an edge to
him that wasn't there that I thinkhurt him when he was just let me
tell you a story, well,he wasn't quite doing shamous and the you
know stories about folks back home.But you know, there were some directions

(01:46:16):
his character went that were kind ofcorny. This feels like Drew with an
edge. And I if they withinthe next you know, a couple of
weeks or a couple of months,go full fletch deal with him. There's
a whole array of good possibilities there. And I like that they're telling the
story the way that they are.The announcer's going, oh, yeah,
he does have a temper and hedoes overreact to things. Maybe they'll base
his character on seem punk behind thescenes. I don't know, Jason,

(01:46:39):
what do you think of what they'redoing it? Drew, are you with
me on this? If they're basinghis character and see hpunk take that sort
away from him. But either way, I take that damn short away for
god, I hate that then.But yeah, I do agree. I
think he's off to a good start. I thought one of my doting members
raised an interesting question in my Qand A show yesterday though, would it

(01:47:00):
be too risky to have the actualturn be on New Day or Matt Riddle?
And the thought was that, youknow, those are annoying acts,
and did the fans start cheering backand if he attacks them and so,
Yeah, I think that was areally good observation. I would make it
someone higher on the card. Theymay be tempted to do it. Well,

(01:47:21):
if we turn him on a midcarter and we can really build him
up and give him some wins,rather than just doing what we've done with
Battler and knock Himer by thrusting himright into a title match. I get
it, but I still think yougot to be careful. Maybe you're better
off. Are they going with aJay Husso or if Cody's leaving, then
certainly seth one of the two,rather than just taking the risk that people

(01:47:42):
aren't going to stand up and cheerwhen he boots Matt Riddle on the faces.
I think many of us would atthis point, what do you make
of the Matt Riddle story, theairports story. I don't know, you
know, I don't want to justsit here and go well, I mean
they said they're basically claiming he wasbombed and then he was bombed drunk,

(01:48:03):
gotcha? I think you said bonglike a bong, and I'm like,
I haven't held Maybe I just assumethat all the time right yet, But
yeah, I think that I wantto it's one you just let play out.
He doesn't have a great reputation behindthe scenes, and obviously he's had
some issues, but it doesn't meanthat on this particular day he wasn't mistreated.

(01:48:26):
So yeah, we'll just kind oflet the information come out. Yeah,
I'm with you on that. Butyou know they weren't scared to mention
his name on RAW last night.You know, they didn't completely just you
know, KO did Did the announcersever mentioned it? Yeah? Yeah,
I hired his name mentioned a fewtimes, not you know, not excessively,
but I mean it wasn't like he'sdead to us. And now we're
going to never talk about him again, which I think is sort of the
seem punk mode right now in aW. But yeah, I think they're

(01:48:50):
just kind of gonna look into it. By the way, so quick Sideberk,
I was sure brought this up earlier. What do you And then we'll
go right back to W because acouple of things I want to bring up.
But what do you think Jack Perry'ssuspension should be? Should this?
Should that lapse in judgments? Andyou and I think agree it was a
lapse in judgment that was reflective ofthe culture of a w and you know,

(01:49:11):
everyone who's you know, in theirtwenties wanting to impress the veterans in
their thirties to show whose team they'reon. Even the you know, Ryan
Nemeth did it too, you know, oh the Twitter things bag move Yeah.
Yeah. It's just say, theseare so bad decisions are being made,
and it's it's a reflective of theculture that Tony conn has creative,
but it's also reflective of sometimes peopledo make mistakes and make dumb decisions,

(01:49:33):
especially with Jack Perry being you know, relatively new to the business in terms
of how it works and all that. But I like, I don't think
he should be cut. I don'tthink his career should be over. But
if he doesn't get a push forsix months, and it's like, I
don't think that's too much punishment.I think you you step back. You

(01:49:55):
got so many other people who canearn their TV time. It's not like
he's great on the microphone or hischaracter with Fantastic I say, you know,
whenever a suspensions up, he comesback in a reduced role and you
feel him out and send a messageand you kind of reassess, you know,
next February or March, whether youreally want to give him a push
or not, and then at thatpoint should be on his merits, not

(01:50:15):
punishing him more. That's my take. How about you? Yeah, I
you know, Tony's in the positionwhere you can obviously talk to Jack Perry,
and if I were in his position, that's what I would do.
And the moment I heard yeah,but I would make up my mind that
Okay, not yet, you're stillsuspended, because I mean, my god,
this is the company's biggest day.And as much as I can be

(01:50:36):
critical of Tony Khan from a bookingstandpoint and a leadership standpoint, yes,
you know he and fostered this environmentthat allowed this to happen. But my
god, if there was ever aday for everybody to be singing Kumbaya and
be celebratory, it was that daywhen you have eighty plus thousand people in
Wembley Stadium and you're so caught upin your own bs that you go out

(01:50:59):
there and you do this. Screwyou. That was just a petty move.
Tony Khn didn't deserve it. Ithink that locker room should shun Jack
Perry and Kelly actually apologizes that wasbash because look at the drama that unfolded.
This was their biggest day. TonyKhan deserved to have his celebratory day
not have to deal with that crazinessthat went on because Jack Perry was bitter

(01:51:21):
he couldn't use real glass. Sorry, Jack, I mean, seriously,
grow up. Yeah, and thisis the guy who who you know,
made fun of cauliflower years like,yeah, you know, I mean it's
just and he's said some other dumbthings where you're just like, man,
this guy thinks he's Yeah, there'sthere's a sort of a a arrogant privilege
to some of the things that hesays that are just so ill informed and

(01:51:43):
immature. You know, it's it'sthe totality of it. It's not just
looking at the camera and doing thatthing. But I mean, if he
doesn't feel genuinely bad and understand howoutline that was, you know, that's
if there isn't yes, but tothe discussion, yeah, I I pull
back longer and more on pushing up. I mean, there's just he's he's

(01:52:05):
not a generational talent, you know. I mean, it's not like,
oh my god, you know,it's gonna hurt. He's a pillar because
they called him a pillar. He'sa pillar in name only, and you
know, and there's since he doesthat are good. But I don't think
he's like excellent and a needle moveror a difference maker relative to others who
are available to them. You know, I enjoy Jack Perry's work. I
do, but yeah, this isjust an excuse table. He needs to

(01:52:28):
apologize and mean it wholeheartedly. Heneeds to see what he did wrong,
because it never should have gone downon that day, of all days,
that was just ridiculous. Yep.Longing for some nostalgia or maybe you want
to learn some wrestling history, don'tmiss the Nineties Past, cast every Friday

(01:52:49):
on the PW Towards Daily Cast feed. Alex and Patrick will transport you thirty
years into the past by taking youthrough the Torch issue from that very weak
all the news from the WWF andWCW, and all the happenings from across
the wrestling industry in real time asThe Torch reported it thirty years ago.
That's the nineties Pass cast every Fridayon the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed.

(01:53:24):
But this is a larger problem withTonicon getting the respect of his locker room,
you know, and the main adventures, I mean, not firing seem
Punk a year ago cost him somerespect. Letting the young bucks just act
the way that they do cost costTK some respect in that locker room.
And those young guys who are youknow, trying to fly under the radar
of TK but trying to impress thepeople in power. That goes back to

(01:53:45):
Cody. You know, Cody hadhis locker room and oh, it's an
open door and you know, webuy cupcakes for people, so we're really
friendly with them, and it wasjust like very weird his defense of it.
But he had his click. Youknow, we had the young people
who hung out with him, andthat would totally work on by the way,
Cupcake, Yes, I mean Isaw it. I was backstage at
the first all in, and Imean I went back in sock Cody and

(01:54:09):
and the people who were hanging outwith them backstage, and it's the people
who I heard, and it wasyou could just tell it was this this,
you know, and it's fine,everybody's got their friends and all that,
but it's that was happening with Cody'sIt was also happening with the Bucks
and Kenny. It's also happening withyou know, the black Pool Combat Club
people. It's just there's all theselittle clicks here and there, and it's

(01:54:30):
it's fine, you know, andpeople people eat lunch at the cafeteria and
school and work with their friends,and that's fine. You're gonna hang out
all afternoon with your friends. Butwhat you don't want is those the veterans
influencing the younger guys in a waythat undercuts the larger issue. And you
need to have locker room leaders inthat sense. And you know, you
know we I talked about yo.I brought up Kevin Nash as sort of

(01:54:51):
a not a joke, but like, you know, somebody like him getting
in sync with Tony Khan and beingsort of you gotta talk to You got
to make your case to Nash beforeit gets to TK or if you're doing
something out of line. Kevin Nashis super smart, super articulate. He's
going to come up to you andgo, here's why this is counterproductive and

(01:55:13):
you need to stop. And he'sthe type of person who could deliver that
message in a way that Tony justdoesn't want to and might not be capable
of with his personality and his jobposition. So if you know, if,
but when you have Kenny in thebox and Hangman being the locker room
leaders doing their so called blocker roomleaders, not having that personality to lead,
you do end up with the youngerguys making mistakes and bone headed moves

(01:55:34):
that cost Tony Kahn. See I'mpunk Now. It probably would have blown
up anyway. It was just amatter of who was going to say the
wrong thing when to set off PunkAnd that's unfortunate, But it's also I
think likely true that there. Ifit wasn't this, it would have been
something else. But boy, thetiming was bad. Oh awful. Yeah,

(01:55:56):
I mean to the point that Iwas like, is this a work?
Are they just trying to get himlast minute attention? Is this pay
per view is about to start?When I first heard it, I'm like,
because the info came to me,I'm like, really, yes,
I know, I know, yep. But as soon as I didn't believe
it. As soon as Jack Perrylooked in the camera the pre show and
said that, I said, Iwas thinking to myself, Oh that's oh,

(01:56:16):
that's helpful. Great job, Jack. I mean, it was like
and then I'm thinking to myself,they better keep Punk away from him,
and nobody did. That still blowsmy mind, like it's soon. Even
then I was hoping, like,oh, maybe him and Punk at a
talk and now they're just you know, see of an angle or something,
and which would be dumb, butit'd be better than what, you know,
being real, right, I meanall days. I mean like this

(01:56:39):
locker room needs to figure out thatTony Khan is the best thing that's ever
happened to most of them, andmany of them would not be employed full
time in the wrestling industry if itwasn't for this man starting a w and
it's that simple. Some of themmay may have found their way to w
w E, Others would be workingfor fraction the pay, probably an impact

(01:57:00):
wrestling. Others would be work inthe indies. And I just don't sense
real gratitude. I see some asskissing on social media and interviews, but
you know, I'm not saying theyneed to go out there and publicly kiss
this man's ass, but some ofthem need to just stop and figure out
like, Okay, I've got itreally good here, yes, and I
need to you know, get fallin line and do what's right for this

(01:57:25):
company. And I don't see enoughof that. You want the veteran wrestlers
want to be hardwired to be goodlocker room leaders, and you also want
them not thinking I'm here to collecta paycheck and improve my brand, have
good matches, good promos, butI'm not going to help out otherwise.
And speaking of Kevin ash Ye,Kevin Asha's goot all both told me independently
and long torch talks like fifteen yearsago. Yeah, when Eric Bishaw fired

(01:57:46):
Sean Waltman to get back at usover something that he was upset about.
We went from going above and beyondhelp the company to being in it just
for ourselves. And and you know, you don't want to reach that point.
If you don't want to reach thatpoint where the veteran wrestlers are just
out for themselves. No, No, And it just I mean it's not
just punk in his bubble. Imean think back to Brandon Cutler molting off

(01:58:11):
online about something Jim Ross said toit. Really you're Brandon Cutler man,
I mean, wow, that justwent unpunished, apparently, And there's just
been too many things like this whereyou just yeah, you want that leadership
to step up, and they needa bad cop if Tony he just doesn't
have it in him, clearly,And I'm open up said, you know,
hey, maybe you know Tony atfifty's going to be different than the

(01:58:34):
Tony at forty. That's certainly possible. But the Tony at forty doesn't have
it in him, you know.And we all have our personality of pros
and cons, and when it comesto his leadership, he just seems like
he wants to be friends with everybody. And it's admirable that he wants to
to be a nice guy. Butthere needs to be strong leadership in this

(01:58:55):
company that he's not providing, andhe's not in. He's never enabled the
producers slash coaches to really have asay, I've just heard too many horror
stories about how they get walked allover and because there's no repercussions, and
so yeah, there's changes behind thescenes, fundamental changes that really need to
be made, whether it's the rightwrestlers stepping up or the right bad cop

(01:59:18):
being hired. And you know,Tony Sevanni was supposed to be like,
not the bad cop, but sortof the intermediary. You know, we're
hearing about that last fall after they'reall out thing. But Tony Fanny's is
like really nice guy, like TonyKhn like, oh, come on,
guys, let's not let's not bethat way. You know, that's not
you know, like you can saythat, but that that's just that's not

(01:59:39):
enough. Like you kind of needto have some somebody with a different marketly
different personality than Tony Kahn. Andthat doesn't mean bullying people and and being
like a jerk and a John Lorenitistype way. That's or you know,
like that's not what you need.Somebody who can look these guys in the
I when it's called for and say, grow the f up exactly he's Shang

(02:00:00):
and or she's Shang and they andthey not along. Go Okay, yeah,
you're right, and ideally, butnot necessarily, somebody who drew money
and had you know, drew goodmoney, got and had a good career,
like the wrestlers are going to respectthat more than somebody, you know,
just a writer or an announcer.You know, I mean Jim Ross,
did I mean Jim Ross had whenhe was you know, talent relations

(02:00:23):
guy in w B you know.I mean he had the respect of the
wrestlers because he had been in alot of places, done a lot of
things, and one was a greatannouncer. So you don't have to have
taken a ton of bumps and beena top draw, but it helps.
And that's where you know, theKevin Nash example as an example, not
necessarily advocating for him specifically, butthat type of person if he exists,
somebody who's smart and like you said, I look some of the eye and
sake, grow the f up andcall people on their bullshit and know what

(02:00:45):
the vision is and and and youknow, yeah, put up, put
a little bit of fear in theyounger guys and the middle age, the
middle middle aged guys, everybody soand Tony has to have their back as
soon as he undercatched them. Okay, well never mind, forget what he
said. It's over, yep,yep. One way that you can help

(02:01:09):
us sustain our schedule of putting outpodcasts throughout the week is by giving us
a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. Just go to Apple podcast and look
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(02:01:31):
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you like about the programs in thecomments section. Thank you so much.
So back to Data Beat. Seethe raw numbers. Yikes, yeah,

(02:01:54):
I mean not chocked up against AaronRodgers on Monday Night Football. You know,
viewership go down, but yeah,a point nine one rating. You
know, people don't talk about thecable, the overall cable rating much anymore.
It's all about the demo and thetotal viewership. We've been covering long
enough when there was just a rating, you know, that's what we talked
about, right. But yeah,I mean they've been well below one point

(02:02:14):
zero to a point nine one,down from the one point one one and
one point one two cable ratings ofprior two weeks. They were number two
beyond Modnaight Football in the key demoMoney Football at eleven point six million.
So I've think the data came inwhile we were recording here, so I
haven't I haven't parsed it too much. But by the way, the game
was simulcast on ABC, so atanother e eleven million viewers. Oh god,

(02:02:35):
wow, that's crazy. And onPeacock right or no, no Peacock.
No Peacock had other games they wereYouTube. Yeah, probably on the
ESPN plus that I would guess.Yeah, yeah, there's just I mean,
obviously, you know bundled cable isis you know, the clock's running
out on that in the form thatit's in the dominant form that it's been
in. I don't know if it'sgoing the way a blockbuster and I don't

(02:02:59):
know. I just keep here frommore people going man, streaming is more
expensive than cable. I'm thinking aboutgoing back. I told people that all
the time. I told you're good. I've tried. Yeah, I've tried
to explain that to certain people,like the bundling is a discount because everybody's
subs All the people who don't wantESPN when they buy cable so they can
get Lifetime Network or CNN are subsidizingESPN for you. And if you actually
have to pay just for ESPN.You're gonna be shocked at how much it

(02:03:23):
is per month to get everything thatESPN offers. You know. Yeah,
it's just everybody was subsidizing everybody elsefor a long time, and now,
yeah, you add them all up. But the good part is if you
kind of pick and choose. Oh, I'm gonna this is my two months
to Binge Netflix, this is mytwo months to Binge Disney, this is
my two months to Binge Paramount plus, and then you a month of showtime.

(02:03:44):
You can pick and choose and thenget a bunch of discounts too.
But it's a hassle, you knowwhat I mean. It's it's a hassle.
But you can manage that. Butyeah, I mean, you know,
paying one hundred bucks a month foryou know, or lass for you
know, slang or direct TV streamingor YouTube TV, you know, and
getting a bunch of stuff is good, and you can record stuff, but
you're still i mean Netflix, youstill need Netflix and Max to get the

(02:04:08):
stuff that is, you know,part of the conversation out there, and
even Peacock and Apple TV plus.I wish I could watch more of this
stuff that's there, because there's intriguingshows. But but that's the good,
you know, the very selfish goodpart about the strike is there's not I
have a chance to catch up alittle bit on all the content I'm behind
on. That's a very selfish outlookthough. Right. So last year,

(02:04:30):
so ROW did one point three fivethree million viewers average over the three hours.
Last year they did one point sevenoh nine. Is that further than
you expected? I mean, youknow, last year they're also up against
first Monday night football game. Werethey up against Aaron Rodgers get and playing
for a New York football team onnine to eleven? No? Yeah,

(02:04:53):
so I need to make your samplesize to figure out what this means I
really do. And again, likeI said, the numbers came in while
we're recording this. I'm I'm notgonna it's not a good number. But
it's Aaron Rodgers and the Jets andit's trending and everyone's telling her, oh
my god, Aaron Rodgers got herand he's gonna come. I mean,
it's just that was a big,you know, a big game to go

(02:05:14):
up against. So it's it's gonnaget ugly the next two weeks though.
Now it's hard to say, butwhat the number will be. I don't
know why the NFL is doing thisas somebody who just will be happily recorded
the games and launch after RAW.They're making you choose because they're starting one
game at sixth Central and they haveanother game at seven Central the next two
weeks. They're not spreading them out. So RAW is gonna be going against

(02:05:39):
two different football games on Monday Nightfor the next two weeks, and that
is that's gonna change. You know, how we how we judge. You
know what the numbers, what thenumbers mean in terms of of cable.
So all right, Nijacks is back, and I thought I knew what was
going on. Oh, Quel's notgonna win the title. She's a baby
face. Nijacks is a heel.She attacks Rakel, Raquel's you know,

(02:06:01):
Rie's gonna move on to defend thetag on someone else, and Raquel's gonna
fight Ni. Jack's Rakel baby faceni heel and then Nai goes int attacks
Ria Ripley and blows everything up.And now I don't know what to think.
Are they going to break off RiaRipley from Judgment Day Our Judgment taken
a morphined up a baby face factionto take on a heel bloodline, and
this is a start of it.Is where you're gonna be a face while

(02:06:23):
Finn Balor and Jady mcdonnard heels andpriest as a tweeter and damas eel.
What's going on, Jason, Idid Ni Jack's thing just I don't know
what to make them triple threat.I have a feeling that's where this is
going. And boy they I knowshe's one of the LaVette showsen ones,
but it's not working with Rackel RonReaguez even a little bit. It's been

(02:06:44):
rough. She's not a good babyface and maybe if they gave her more
to work with, then hey,go out there and smile awkwardly. Force
that smile and by the way,flex your back twice. That's really gonna
get over and come out to themost generic entrance theme for Oh yeah,
And she could be a good heelThat's why it was shame. Boy,
you could do a double turn.She could be Dom's new mommy. But

(02:07:08):
now the Jacks is back Waite,can you imagine the heat if leg Dom
is shitting on his lap back stageand she's the new mommy? Oh my
god, totally so I want toread an email from Zach who says Wade
made it seem like I might havebeen a little too overly concerned with Naia's
history of seriously entering women which shegets in the ring with them. This
is on the Raw POS Show lastnight. Let's go through the list.

(02:07:29):
She separated Bailey shoulder on a boxshoulder breaker. She can cusse Selena Vegga
throwing her out of a battle row. She can cus Becky Lynch. She
injured vermove. She injured Mandy Brosejust tossing her out of the ring.
She split Kyrie Saints had wide open, throwing her into stairs, and then
came back a week after she camewith an inches of breaking Kyrie's neck on
a buck obomb. Both Charlotte andDana Brook narrowly escaped injury when with Botch
moves on them. These are notisolated incidents. This is a pattern of

(02:07:51):
unsafe behavior. I don't feel likebeing hyperbolic when I say that this woman
is a danger to the health andsafety If any woman she gets in the
ring with Rare Ripley's having a greatyear, I'd hate to see it jeopardize.
But I'm legitimately worried she could seriouslyinjure someone in the ring, or
that Ria could get seriously injured inthe ring with this woman, Waite talked
about her presence in Star Power andexpress concern about how she's being presented,

(02:08:11):
but not about the safety of heropponents. So, Jason, I ask
you, am I overly concerned aboutthe danger niah Jack's poses or is Wade
not concerned enough? I think it'sa very fair question. I never like
commenting on in ring safety without hearingfrom others involved, you know, hearing

(02:08:35):
from the parties involved. So isthere because I know Naya has defended some
of this in the past and triedto point to things that you know,
so and so was supposedly injured butnot really or just I don't even remember
what it was. So I'm justsure if it is, If all those
things are legit and there's no defensefor it, the other wrestler wouldn't to

(02:08:56):
come forward and go, no,you know, hey, I took this
bomb wrong. It's not her.If it's all legit, very valid concern,
and I think everybody has that rightnow that's been paying attention. So
yeah, wait, I mean,what do you hear when it comes to
I know, as she just gotback, but I mean, do you
think there are wrestlers in that divisionconcern? A lot of this seemed to

(02:09:16):
start with, oh, it isthe husband of one of the wrestlers going
on social media and calling her outfor and I don't even remember which one,
and it was quite a while ago. It is a concern. I
think that I've heard she's gotten betterabout understanding her strength and her size and

(02:09:39):
needing to rein that in. ButI like, I just don't think Paul
Levac would bring her back with awrestler's eye that Hunter has. And last
Dwayne Johnson said it's the only wayI'm coming back. Brother. Oh even
so, I mean, imagine thelast suits if that was the case.

(02:10:01):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, yes, that's that's
a problem. I mean, I'mnot saying it's not a problem, but
I I've I've heard she's gotten betterabout it, So I don't know.
I mean, I hope I'm notI hope I'm not wrong in saying that.
I think Zach is overly concerned.But I mean, I wouldn't want

(02:10:24):
to send a loved one into thering with a Nai Jack's if you know,
to to work with her, who'syou know, with the idea of
there being a serious injury if ifit seemed like Nai Jack's wasn't aware that
that was a problem and that shewas, you know, gonna reign in
her recklessness. But I've heard thatshe has matured in that way. I
don't have a timeline on all ofthese injuries and if she has a streak

(02:10:45):
of of being better, but youknow, I was on an impression that
she was getting that she was augmentinguh to to to fit in better and
not be a risk of injuring people. Every Sunday night, catch Wrestling Night
in America on Pwtorch Dailycast dot Com, hosted by me Pwtrch columnist Greg Parks.

(02:11:09):
Each week, I'll welcome a cohost from the Torch family to discuss
the big shows in pro wrestling,taking your calls and emails. You can
listen live most week's beginning at eightpm Eastern. On Sunday nights with a
WWE or Impact pay per view,we go on the air at the conclusion
of that pay per view. Youcan listen live, but of course the
full show is available for download ondemand anytime shortly after it airs. Visit
pwtorch dailycast dot com and click thelive stream link to find the next scheduled

(02:11:33):
live show link. Search pwtorch andApple Podcasts or your podcast app to subscribe
Wrestling Night in America every Sunday,pwtorch Dailycast dot com. I hope it

(02:11:54):
goes well. I do think sheadds something. Yeah, I've been having
safety first, if she is goingto be safe. I know there's a
lot of backlash and she said somethings that I just roll my eyes at
two over the years with different beliefsand things. But if you put all
that aside, there's charisma there.There is. You know, fans have

(02:12:15):
a strong reaction to her, maybenot for the best reasons, but they
do. And I think she canadd something. You know, b W
in the women's division, they needmore and hopefully she can fill that void
for a while on the raw side. But you know, everybody, obviously
your safety is number one concerned.There is there. She brings some things

(02:12:37):
that are distinct in terms of herher presentation, but yes, there's absolutely
some eye rolling aspects about things shesays and her attitude and stuff like that,
and you know, but I'm inthis case, I'm putting some faith
in Paul Effeck knowing what he's doingin endorsing bringing her back, or Vincent

(02:12:58):
Man for that matter. Maybe Averagersteps and she's gone, oh that's possible
too. Yeah, that's it's it'sjust it just happened. So yeah,
maybe that's their first big move andthen Zach can can be very happy and
content. All right, So Shinsk, Jason, I think putting him in
a position with captions where he cannot worry about speaking English but have the

(02:13:18):
charisma, the inflection, the bodylanguage, that smarmy he illness has been
delightful to watch the last few weeks, and it's been fun to see shinske
I have new life breathed into themand be in a major program. I
think they're getting a lot out ofsomeone that I didn't think they were even
going to try, much less succeed, getting a lot out of what do
you think of of Shinsky? Andthen also your thoughts on cesspromo last night,

(02:13:41):
sort of doing an inventory on hischaracter over the years and finally finding
his voice. Yeah. So,I don't know if it's a vine thing
that he didn't want to do thesubtitles, but it's just been so beneficial
for knock him around. I thinkthere's a number of foreign talente English isn't
their native tongue that it would reallybenefit and assisted working like a charm for

(02:14:05):
Sin's gay and it's really fun tosee him in a meaningful position. I
think he's another person you can pointto and go, yeah, Paulavec is
really you know, the creative leadat this point when you're seeing so many
of his NXT favorites being put inhigh profile positions. Not Kamura Balor Damian
priest Ria Ripley. I mean,I'm not you know. I know it's

(02:14:26):
three of the Judgment Day members,but there are others and Io Sky over
on the SmackDown side, there's manyand it's cool to see. And the
Seth promo, though, lost mea bit. It was fine until he
tried to tell me that's who hereally is. I'm not minding it after
he called that a facade. Yeah, I just like, Okay, open

(02:14:48):
your closet at home, Seth,and I have a feeling that you're tired
and your wardrobe is going to bevery different. I just didn't think anyone
really. There was just a momentof disconnect for me, Like a character
is great. You know, it'sfine, it's over the top, it's
not for everybody, but it's seemedto before the mashes, you know,
I know that there's detractors, butthe people seem to love it and it's

(02:15:09):
working. But yeah, I don'ttry to tell me that it's it's the
real you, because it's clearly not. And that's okay. I like the
idea of Seth, you know,going on a journey and trying to say,
hey, I've done some things I'mnot proud of. You know,
it's maybe a little too much jauSo and Kevin Owens on the same show.
You know, I give a whard time for quality control. I
don't know if I want Seth ina completely separate situation saying yeah, I'm

(02:15:30):
I'm I'm similar in that way,but if you're gonna do it well,
you know, in isolation, I'mI'm okay with a heel going or a
baby face going, Hey, thisis my journey to try to find myself
and I'm trying to make amends orto kind of explain myself. But I
want you to know this is authenticallywho I am now. But yeah,
I don't think he I don't thinkhe's he hit the landing, you know.

(02:15:50):
I mean, so I put up. I decided to have this facade
of of being this bombastic, charismatic, over the top guy, and I
have a catchy song and you guysare all singing the song, and so
now I found out who I reallyam, and I just it feels like
a non sequard. It's like theopposite. Actually, I have a catchy
song in outlandish outfits that aren't me. It's a facade, But now I

(02:16:13):
know that who I am, andI yeah, I didn't quite hit it,
just didn't hit the landing. No, No, Jason, thank you.
Always a pleasure having you on.We'll talk to you in three weeks
when the Vikings are three and one. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath
on that. But like I say, I think they're gonna be a better
team, but they're not gonna haveas good of a record this year.

(02:16:33):
I boy that that first one wasa tough one way. Yeah, it's
not the one you want to lose. And then what it's the Eagles.
Yeah, that's that's what makes itso tough. Like, Okay, you
know, the Bucks have a reallygood defense. I was not going into
this going oh slam dun click.So many Viking fans seemed to be I
just know that's a really good defenseand our defense isn't very good. They're

(02:16:54):
kind of the big question mark.And they looked a little better than I
anticipated. But I wasn't to seethem lose, but just it was like,
man, you gotta win this becausechances are you're starting knowing too if
you don't, because you got togo to Philadelphia on Thursday night? Can
we ever get the Eagles at home? I'm not even saying it would make
a difference, but it sure wouldbe nice. Well, then the Philadelphiagles
fans come to Minneapolis and just ruinedour city. Hey, we survived the

(02:17:16):
Super Bowl with those people. That'strue with us? Yeah, all right,
well it's been fun watching some football. What okay, quick, what
is your reaction Aaron Rodgers couldn't happenedto a nicer guy? Or it's a
bomber because it takes away a bigdramatic storyline for the NFL this season.
The latter for sure. Yeah.As much as I think Aaron Rodgers has

(02:17:39):
been a d bag over in thecourse of the last I don't know handful,
if not a set of seasons toa decade. I mean, it
really has kind of peak for along time. It was just really good
quarterback, but you know, playedfor the rival. You didn't like him,
and then he just started to saystupid things are like what And believe
me, I have Packer fans onboth sides of my family and they felt
the same way about him. ButI would not wish that on him or

(02:18:01):
anybody else. And so yeah,it was actually I felt I was hoping
it was like, Okay, letit be you know, when it was
obviously wasn't coming back. Let itbe the high ankle spraining. He's gonna
miss a few weeks, we'll beback, and and instead it's the Achilles
and that's a bummer. I mean, one of Don Murphy, who's been
reviewing Rampage, is a long timemember and he's a big Jets fan,

(02:18:22):
and we've been going back and forthabout this for a while now, and
I'm sure he's disappointed. And youknow, that conference is so loaded.
It wasn't like a slam dunk.They were going to the Super Bowl by
any means, but it was stillthe most excitement I think that Jets fans
have had in a long time.And you know, you and I can
relate. We were here when FARVcame and just the hype and the hoopla

(02:18:43):
with that. It was a lotof fun. And the Jets do have
a hell of a defense. Andunfortunately, you know, there was no
guarantees with Rogers, but the kidthey have playing behind him, even though
he's a former number two overall pick, you can tell they don't trust him.
Just watching last night, he's thinkingDuncan and then whenever he would throw
downfield, you just held your breathbecause he's thrown across his body, speaking

(02:19:05):
it far and just making bone headplays. And I hope he gets it
together for their sake. But yeah, you know, I wasn't rooting for
Rodgers, but I wasn't rooting againsthim for this to happen either, So
that that sucks. Yeah, youdo you watch Peyton Manning ract to the
injury last night? No, youknow, I never see that, and
I'd love to, but you know, I always just recorded the main feed.

(02:19:26):
Yeah, I don't even I didn'teven know, Like, I don't
even know how that feed works.I just went went during a rock commercial.
It's like, oh, let mesee what's happening. So I went
to the DVR and just fast forwardedto the injury and then they had Peyton
and Eli on the side, youknow, commenting, and Peyton's like,
oh, I know a lot aboutAaron Rodgers. I've studying him. I
don't know who the backup quarterback is. I know nothing. I got nothing

(02:19:48):
to add for the rest of thisbroadcast. And elies you don't know their
backup he was one of the toppicks and yeah, blah blah blah.
Yeah, and Peyton was like,nope, I know nothing about anything other
than in Rodgers. I've been studyinga packer footage and I came prepared for
three hours. I got nothing aboutI got nothing at now. It was
just like, Wow, he wasjust admitting this gig was up as soon

(02:20:11):
as Rogers went down. Yeah.God bless him for being so honest.
I'll give him that. Yeah.Eli was like, really, you don't
know anything else. He's like nope, So I think you are recording the
ESPN two I think is what theman in cash desigt. I just whatever
direct stream automatically recorded. When Isay record NFL games, oh gotcha?
Sure, yeah, yeah, Ispeed through the games. And because it's,

(02:20:33):
you know, it so late afterraw and doing audio by the time
I get to it, did I'mlike, if I record that, I'm
gonna want to listen to the wholething. And I'm actually it's gonna take
me three and a half hours toget through the game. Or if I
just speed through it, I canbe done in about an hour and a
half. Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah, all right, thanks Jason,
Hey my pleasure you bet VP saleAlert. We're running a sale going

(02:21:11):
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(02:22:41):
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