TNA Moves to AMC Along with WWE/NXT Crossover

​TNA Wrestling has secured a significant multi-year media rights agreement that will see its flagship weekly show, Thursday Night iMPACT!, move to AMC and AMC+ starting January 15, 2026. 

This monumental move represents a major strategic shift for TNA, aiming to capitalize on AMC Networks' reputation for catering to passionate, engaged fan bases and substantially increasing TNA's household reach. The two-hour broadcast will air live every Thursday from 9-11 p.m. ET, kicking off with a live event in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. 

This new television home marks the latest chapter in TNA’s nomadic history, which began when Total Nonstop Action Wrestling was founded in 2002. Since its inception, TNA has relied on various networks for distribution. 

Its first national television exposure for TNA Impact! came in 2004 on Fox Sports Net (FSN), a deal that lasted about a year. After a brief period where the show was distributed online, TNA found its most stable and successful home on Spike TV (now Paramount Network), where it aired from 2005 until 2014, including its period of peak viewership. 

Following the departure from Spike, the program bounced across several networks, including Destination America (2015), Pop (2016-2019), and the Pursuit Channel (briefly in 2019) before settling at AXS TV (a network owned by parent company Anthem Sports & Entertainment) until this newly announced move to AMC.

​The move to AMC comes at a time when TNA is experiencing a surge in momentum, driven largely by its groundbreaking, multi-year partnership with WWE and its developmental brand, NXT, announced in 2025. This historic collaboration has seen TNA and NXT talent routinely cross between both promotions' programming and premium live events, with TNA stars like Nic Nemeth, Matt Cardona, Léi Yǐng Lee, and Leon Slater recently appearing on WWE/NXT shows, and vice versa. 

The partnership is framed by both companies as a way to create unprecedented crossover opportunities, provide additional exposure, and bolster in-ring development for both rosters. From a business and creative perspective, the alliance has been highly successful, driving up TNA's social media engagement, live event attendance, and brand visibility by leveraging WWE's massive platforms. 

The continued involvement of top TNA champions like Knockouts World Champion Léi Yǐng Lee and X Division Champion Leon Slater in NXT storylines highlights the deepening trust and collaborative nature between the two organizations.
​Looking ahead, the partnership is expected to become even more aggressive and creatively intertwined as TNA gains significantly larger mainstream exposure on AMC. 

With TNA now on a higher-profile cable network, the stakes of the crossover storylines increase exponentially for both parties. The key analysis revolves around whether the current arrangement—which primarily involves NXT talent and titles—will escalate to include direct involvement with WWE's main roster titles (Raw and SmackDown championships). 

While the partnership has so far successfully avoided blurring the lines of WWE's primary brands, the success of TNA talent like Jordynne Grace appearing at the Women's Royal Rumble in the past suggests that high-profile, non-title appearances on WWE main roster programming are already on the table.

However, it is less likely that WWE will immediately allow main roster championships (like the World Heavyweight Championship or Women's World Championship) to be directly weighed in or defended on Thursday Night iMPACT! The current model—focusing on NXT talent exchange and NXT title challenges—serves WWE by giving their developmental stars valuable exposure while lending credibility to TNA. 

Future involvement of TNA wrestlers is expected to continue to focus heavily on their association with NXT titles and talent, but the new AMC visibility could pressure the partnership to feature more compelling, main roster-adjacent storylines, potentially leading to TNA wrestlers appearing in non-title matches or high-stakes segments on Raw or SmackDown to promote the new AMC show.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Podcasting since two thousand and five.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is the King of Podcasts Radio Network, King of
Podcasts dot.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Com AMC is looking to TNA for an adrenaline rush.

Speaker 4 (00:13):
WHOA, this is the name your request and believe it
or not, whether you're like it or no, I can
learn to love it because you have to listen to
rust it and really it is the best day going
two day well.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
A worldwide leader of podcasting excellence. The King of Podcasts
Radio Network probably presents the rest of games real podcast
because of wrestling name zocs.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Welcome to episode nine hundred and seventy six of the
rest of is are podcast King of Podcasts. Here with you,
King of Podcasts dot com. We are two weeks away
from the thirteenth anniversary of the program started this again.
It'll be on the day of December eighteen, twenty twelve.
We'll be doing it thirteen years after, so I guess

(01:04):
that'll be what nine seventy eight something like that. And
when you thought wrestling would be a little bit dying
down right now, because we're well passed the pay per
views Survivor series. This past weekend, we'll touch on that
a little bit and we have Saturday night's been event
coming up where we're set up right now with goonth

(01:26):
they're probably gonna be the odds on favorite to go
ahead and win over Jus all right to take on
John Cena and the last time it's now tournament. I
haven't paid attention to it. I could just say that,
but I will see that everything else that's going on
in wrestling has been superseded by a major news story

(01:47):
that happened yesterday. Amsy Networks, the makers of Breaking Bad,
Better Call Saul Walking Dead, Hell on Wheels, mad Men,
among other shows. They officially have announced that TNA will

(02:08):
be moving their Thursday night Impact program to their channel
on January fifteenth, nine to eleven PM, a two hour slot.
They're getting the Spike time slot. They're back to where
they were with Spike TV. And who'd have thought we're
going to get back to that when you look at

(02:29):
the history of TNA where they would have been, it
was twenty years ago that they were on Spike TV
Thursday nights nine to eleven and there we go. Now
we are full circle once again. It's kind of kiss
meant for TNA, the company that you know, if if

(02:53):
WW was not involved of course, not many people would
care about this, but because of the involvement of NXT
embed it into TNA via WRIE for the purpose of
what this partnership they've had for the last two years
has been. The ultimate goal that Carlos Silva and TNA

(03:15):
and Anthem Entertainment had wanted has been granted. They got
their wish to work with we like they did allow
their championships to be taken hostage by the likes of
Trick Williams or Klonnie Jordan or j C. Jane and
whoever else leaving Lee. Now they did it, and now

(03:37):
we're the point where you can say what you want.
Carlos Silva can go ahead and talk about the fact
that he worked on this and w is not involved
in the process, but we know how it really worked out.
Let's just go into a couple of things that I've
been talking about here. Carlo Silva has been very vocal

(03:58):
regarding this announcement, so let's get into that real quick.
They're going to be emanating from the Curtis Cole In
the Center, Dallas, Texas for their first night on television.
It will be live. The word is that they will
be doing live or taped, which is kind of like
where they were with Spike where they would do live

(04:18):
episodes as they're doing tapings, which is the original format
they had before three years. Thirty million dollars total, so
ten million dollars towards production. Let's look into it right now,
and a couple of things that have been talked about.
So Carlo Silva says that the partnership with NXT is

(04:42):
going to continue, saying, quote, it's a big part of
helping us get this deal. It's not being part of
being able to give almost back a little bit and
provide a big platform for some of those superstars as well.
The storylines of things are going to do together. They're
just going to continue to grow into twenty twenty six.
So it's obvious that this deal was dependent on the

(05:06):
fact that NXT or to Be Superstars will be available
on AMC for Thursday nights. So regardless of what Teena's
going to get, TNA got the deal, the TV deal
Anthem as a corporate company, they're happy with this to
take this show off of Access TV. If they want
to put a show on Access maybe they could put
Explosion there, whatever else they want to do. They're gonna

(05:27):
do something else with that channel, but now they get
twice the audience possibly on this cable network. AMC is
a network right now that doesn't have a whole lot
of original programming anymore. I haven't even looked at what
they have as of late. But they're not doing so
much in their own sense right now because they are

(05:50):
like FX or others. They have been known for various
things that they've done for themselves. So the moment the
series that they they have at the moment, they have
Nautilus and Risis, Tellamasca, The Secret Order, other shows that
are like The Red King or The Assassin, but those
are AMC Plus shows. There's not a lot of shows

(06:11):
they have that are necessarily on AMC networks and what
they're going to be doing. So they have Walking Dead
spin offs. Walking Dell was there first. They have Dark Winds,
They have Sanctuary which is Taill. They have scrub Lands.
So they have some shows on the here, but nothing
that compares to the impact that Breaking Bad or Mad

(06:35):
Men or Walking Dead have done before them. AMC is
a smaller end of the cable network spectrum because they
don't have as many channels that are together. AMC Networks
is a smaller brand in the whole sense of things.
They're not set up to be and those other big

(06:56):
companies that are out there much like let's just say
there almost like the same kind of comparison to as
Next Star owning CW. And they have never really been
that much into sports programming as far as I know.
In terms of the sports portfolio that AMC has, they
have an international division that does operate sports channels in Europe,

(07:22):
and they also have fast channels that are along channels
on you know, platforms like two B or Pluto TV
and things like that. And in terms of live sports,
they do docu series, the original series, but they don't
have any licensed programming where they're actually carrying live sports programming.
They haven't done anything like that before. They have done

(07:43):
scripted unscripted programming for Hulu, they have done stuff for
AMC Plus, and if they do it with any international programming,
it's the rights to carry soccer leagues like UFL Europe
and Conference League or Formula One racing things like that.
So in America, nothing like this has ever really been

(08:05):
brought up before. Anything is sports that they do right now.
They haven't really had much of that. Now, do you
have a division called Skydance Sports that they have put
together which was a joint venture between NFL and sky Dance,
the network that Paramount owns, and a bunch of other
networks on top of that. But they've also just basically

(08:26):
done NFL docu series but again nothing to do with
live sports. So, however they're going to be doing this,
we don't know what TENA is going to get for
their portfolio, what they're going to get for their programming,
but they're getting a prime time slot on AMC every
Thursday night. What kind of ratings they'll get, I don't know,

(08:48):
but it is TEENA going to even have their own
individual identity, No, with this deal they made with Debris.
And let me just make this clear. We're gonna go
into what Carlos Silva said, because he talked a lot
in the last twenty four hours about this. So let
me make a point about the TV deal and what

(09:09):
he has said on Busted Open. He said, quote, it
was a team effort. There was ups and downs. Any
deal that you do, there's moments where you see, oh
my goodness, is that something through our fingers or not?
But I think AMC was really excited about it too.
They're getting into the live sports entertainment business. They've always
built great characters. We know that, and now I think together,
we're going to give them something every Thursday night, fifty

(09:29):
two weeks a year. Yeah, blah blah blah blah blah.
AMC was given programming. I don't know how much of
their own shows that they really did themselves, but the
kind of show owners that AMC had for their programming,
those people are not there anymore. We're not going to
get Vince Gilligan or Matthew Weiner. We're not getting those people. Okay,
we're not getting Glenn Mazzara. Okay, we're not getting showrunners.

(09:52):
And all these writers are going to be coming in
to write for TNA. That's not happening. So you can
spend that all the way you want, Carlos, but not
happening either. Now I understand you have to going to
be there, be the ambassador in the fact that you
got TNA to go and get this to be made possible.
I get that part, and that's fine. To go and
give this story about oh, there's a little bit of
drama about the fact that they're going to get this

(10:12):
here got it. Aria Hawani puts a good point about this.
When he saw the announcement for AMCTV, they seemingly have
had fifteen lives during their run and it looked grim
not that long ago. The score deal like this and
the current media climate is huge for the brand. But
TNA couldn't have done it by themselves. Anthem Entertainment could
not have put this together if not for the help

(10:35):
of Nick Kahn. Let me just explain all this real quickly.
He spoke with John Albert a Sports Illustrated, and he
says that quote that, first of all, no, we did
all the negotiations ourselves, with me leading the charge on
the TNA side, and then CAAA Creative Artists Agency leading
the charge as our representative and our partner on the deal. Okay,

(11:00):
to be clear about what he's saying right there, Nick
Khn originally worked and did sports representation and led the
sports division at Creative Artists Agency. Of course, they represent
talent represent companies. And remember Nick con has been responsible
with him with his other people that he brought from CAA,
that he brought in when he became CEO. Okay, when

(11:22):
he became president of we he was responsible for bringing
certain people from CAAA from his fold where he worked
at a CAA and brought them into WV. And there
are still people within CAA obviously he has ties with.
Those are the people that are working with Carlos Silva
on the deal. So CAA which Michael Ovid's created it,

(11:45):
you know, thirty years ago, an amazing powerful talent agency,
an entertainment company working with alongside Endeavor and now TKO
and being able to go and do the deals. He's done, okay,
because there have been c AA type representatives working in
the TKO fold, under Endeavor, under TKO or under Deree,

(12:10):
and they are the ones that are able to go
and make the deals. So Carlos Look can be in
the room heaving the deal. He has to be the
one that's saying yes or no. He's not a negotiator.
CIA was under the behest of Nick Khn because Nick
Con gave the green light for those CAAA representatives to
even take on TNA or Anthem Entertainment as a client.

(12:32):
Without Nick Con, TNA doesn't get a deal. That's how
powerful Nick Con is. He goes on to say, quote, look,
w and NXT are very important partners to us, so
we kept them in the loop. They knew what was coming.
They knew what the deal before you knew about the deal.
But no, they've got their own deals. They're very busy
with their deals. So let us go out and cut
a deal and get on a major network. And I

(12:53):
think they're happy for us, and we were happy for
the way with the way it went. They knew everything
was going. ONA would have completely stayed transparent and communication
with where things were going with the deal because the
parameters were already put in place. Here is what the
expectations are. So the CIA folks went ahead and tried
to make the best deal possible for TNA. But no

(13:14):
matter what, the CEA folks were pretty clear they got
the AMC. You're telling me that Carlos Silva would have
been able to get the AMC networks and convinced them
and persuade them to go ahead and buy TNA for
a TV deal to buy programming from TNA. Are you
telling me that they're gonna do that? No, it's AA.

(13:37):
So he can go ahead and take the credit all
he wants, or you know, kind of spread the credit around.
That's fine, but it still comes down to the fact
that it wasn't just him. Let's just make that point. Now.
What we have to talk about as well is that
there have been concessions made as a result of all this. Okay,

(14:00):
the title changes that have been done. Now we're seeing
the same with the talent because there was announcement made
earlier today on the Area Hajwane show. Carlo Silvia was
on with him. Let me just let him say it.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
You did mention Joe Hendry? Could you tell us officially?
What is his status? Has he signed with WW? Is
he leaving TNA?

Speaker 6 (14:20):
Joe is is now? Is now part you know, you'll
see him on NXT all the time as part of
our partnership. You may see Joe come back and be
on TNA shows because that's just part of what we
do with uh, you know, with WW and NXT. Is
is share wrestlers.

Speaker 5 (14:37):
Okay, but he's he's a w W wrestler, now, that's right.
How do you feel correct?

Speaker 6 (14:42):
I'm super happy for Joe, super happy for WWE. We
we kind of all worked on it together, and you know,
Joe's a great talent and a and a super a
super good guy.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
Okay, that was the one thing that I think some
people thought might be inevitable with him being featured so
much on WW that eventually he might move over. And
that's maybe the gift and the curse, for lack of
a better term of the relationship, because now there's a
chance to get to know some of your talent, not
implying at all that they're going to try to poach guys,
but you know what I'm you know, we kind of

(15:15):
talked about this the last time you were there. You
were in here.

Speaker 6 (15:19):
Yeah, look, I mean the partnership is going well, and
you know we've talked about it. There's going to be
there's you know, we hope that TNA creates talent that
WWE wants. That means that we're also doing a great
job in building talent.

Speaker 3 (15:36):
Okay, Yeah. T and A is also basically submitting to
the fact that they are being treated like a developmental
territory of which the w can also poach talent from there.
They'll get their TV exposure on that channel they wanted

(15:57):
to people over to going work over there. They can
do that too. And the real question is is that
will TNA be able to go ahead and do anything
of their own accord? What kind of programming they're going
to be allowed to go and do once to go
to ANC and how much involvement is going to be
having because they might not control so much of the

(16:19):
booking over there in terms of the creative storytelling that
might be going on there. What Tommy Tremver, where else
is they're doing the work. Carlosilva doesn't have any involvement
with the creative for him as the representative for TNA
Wrestling as president, he's a suit for Anthem Entertainment. He

(16:39):
cared about the relationship that was being made here. Okay,
once Scott the More did not want to play ball
with de Wree and any partnership, Carlo Silva was having
to go ahead and give Debrie the five hundred pound gorilla.
Whatever they want and they have, Oh you want, Joe
Henry absolutely, thank you for the TV deal. Oh this

(17:00):
was so wonderful for me to do. Can we give
you anybody else? Can we give you the Osclator? Can
we give you Mike Santana? Well whatever you want? You know,
I mean, you just took care of me for life.
You got this TV deal for three years, and now
I can go ahead and relax and you know, keep
wearing my t and a hat and just act like
I'm doing something. He was the suit involved to be

(17:23):
in the room. They're in the persuasion, droughing negotiation of
this contract, of this TV deal. And because of this deal,
you know, Joe Henry can go ahead and go on
a basic contract over there. Who knows what they're going
to do with him, will least stay on a NXT.
Would he ever be a main roster start? Probably not.

(17:46):
I mean triple h you know, to get past that filter,
that glass ceiling of his to get and be on
that main roster. Do you want to be on that
main roster? Probably not. If I were Joe Henry, I
want to want to be up there to go and
start that over again and try to do the whole
I believe in Joe Henry kind of thing and do
that again. People are gonna remember, Okay, maybe he'll get

(18:07):
another run of the Royal Rombo, maybe he'll get another
WrestleMania moment where you can also get squashed by Randy Orton.
Who knows. But yeah, that is surprising. And the way
that Arion Hawanne asked the question Carlo Silva wasn't directly
saying yes. He just says we like the partnership we
have with him, and then after a second nudge, Arion

(18:28):
Hawane got him to confirm that Joe Henry has moved
on so he could be on TNA shows. You may
see him come back, but the truth is he's not.
TENA is going to have certain stars that if nobody
wants to go ahead and have them, Hey, we got
you your TV deal, buddy. We can have what we want.
We can do whatever we want. So in essence, what

(18:53):
TNA has become as a result of this TV deal
is they are what Ringan is to AW and actually
what Ring of Honor was to the W. You know,
in the mid twenty tens when the talent they had
that was either Ohio Valley or from SEW they weren't

(19:14):
panning out as much and they had some instant talent.
Remember with the NXT going on Triple H. He didn't
want to go through the whole trouble of having stars
were being created with that creative team down there, only
for them to be taken up for Vince to go
and make of a Seekert swim with more of them
swimming and sinking, or more of them singing in the
swimming So he said, well, I'm gonna just find these

(19:36):
other stars to being on. They're gonna be good wrestlers,
because the one thing was you can build gimmicks all
you want, which is what Trible h was made to
do down there. Don't wonder his direction under Vince's direction,
but he rather had the wrestlers, so he didn't have
to worry about the part of having to go and
train wrestlers. Let's just polish them. We don't want to
go through and create new wrestlers overnight. So the NIL

(19:58):
program I don't think was ever his back in the
first place. We've had a couple of stars that have
made their way through and it's a little bit green,
but they're working their way. But nevertheless, what Nil star
has come through the rankings that has really stood out
onto the main roster. None. They haven't let Trick Williams
go up there. Carmela Hayes is floundering over there. Triviady Stratton, Yeah,

(20:20):
you can say it somewhat. We never saw the Cavendar twins.
There were all these other stars we kept hearing about
with Nil never made up to that main roster. I
don't know if they've made it in an NXT or not.
There are just some folks in TNA that still have
a good eye for talent, are eyble. They're going to
bring their people into the company. And what will happen

(20:40):
now with the TV deal is that because of the
association with a WRIE, with the association with a new
TV deail and better exposure, Yeah, there might be some
AW stars that are going to be poached, some GCW stars,
some MLW stars and wa. You can see all the
independents lining up for its chance to go and get

(21:01):
noticed here and see if someone from TNA is going
to pick them up. But since Tony Kahan bought Ring
of Honor, he's used it for what he's done it
with as kind of that pseudo territorial maybe not even
so much minor league system, but just like that next

(21:21):
step away from the top, TNA is being positioned as
the Ring of Honor that Triple Age was able to
tap into and pillage whenever he wanted, from what twenty
ten to twenty sixteen, pretty much what he did, not
even farther than that. But think of all the stars

(21:43):
he had, he wants to think that, well, this is
the answer to all my prayers. Here, I can start
tape taking from TNA and I can find my Adam
Cole or Sammy Zain or Kevin Owens or Seth Ron's
or all that kind of stuff. I could find those
guys and bring them over. Maybe we can turn them
over into talent. So that's what they're thinking. And there's

(22:08):
also a point where I think with TKO, they considered themselves, well,
you know what, we gave TNA this deal, and you know,
we can cut them overhead again once we get to
the next quarter. You know, right before WrestleMania, we could
do another purge and really get rid of some talent
and really cut our bottom line down to the bare bone.

(22:30):
And then these Johnny Gargano, Tomaso Champion types, whatever, Oh,
we can let them go to TNA on some cheap deal.
They're gonna be on television. Why doesn't matter how much
they're gonna get paid. It doesn't make a difference. There's
a lot of things that TNA gets the TV deal
and that's all they're getting. But I think they are
in bed with the devil right now, because is the

(22:54):
beast that is going to be able to control as
this TV deal goes on this partnership, will you because
TNA owes a huge debt of gratitude, but more importantly,
they owe plenty of favors to WE for the duration,

(23:16):
and there's nothing you can do about that. More from
Carlos Silva. He spoke with Denis al Sado earlier tonight
and asking about TNA or AW being the number two promotion,
Carlos Silva saying, quote, we hear about it all the time,
and we talk about it all the time. We're competing
with ourselves to be the best promotion we can be.
Right now, there is a big, big number one, and

(23:38):
that's WE and TKO's their parent company. Both w and
USC are number one in both their categories. We're lucky
to have a partnership with them. Are We're going to
continue to make TNA great as a result of that.
Whether all talk around you know we are bigger than
AW or SAW bigger than us, it doesn't really matter.
What matters is that you like TNA and you want
to watch TNA. And by the way, if you like AW,

(23:59):
you watch AW. It's okay. You're allowed to watch all
the different shows and be wrestling fan as part of
the competitive nature and it's part of the wrestling sort
of undercurrent that happens on social But I think a
lot of it is just a little bunch of clickbait
that people are just trying to get people to click.
We're gonna try to keep trying to do the best
we can. Everybody everyone's already seen the difference and they're
telling us what we're doing better, We're going to grow,

(24:21):
and now we've got AMC to do it. In twenty
twenty six, I don't think there was that much of
a difference. I don't think that TNA has had that
much of a growth spurt since got the more left.
I mean, they've been in some bigger venues for events.
You know, they're going to more of the three to
five thousand type of ratio. They're not going to Canada

(24:42):
or Mexico like they were before. You know, they got
a few things like that are going on for them.
That's fine.

Speaker 7 (24:47):
But like.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
The one thing is that I think for TNA you
have to look at it like this too, is that
they don't want to be on their own again because
this kind of deal that happened when TNA has held
on to their TV contract on their own They've gone
through a roller coaster. Let's just look back at what
they've done. They made the initial deal two thousand and

(25:10):
four on Fox Sports Net. That was a one year deal.
Then there were shows online remember their own paper Reason
as well, and then they found their home on Spike TV,
which is down Paymount network. Of course, it's ancient history
right now, but don't forget the fact that with Spike
TV they were on until twenty fourteen, and then ratings

(25:39):
were suffering on there. There was a change because Dixie
Carter just did not do a good job running that company,
and letting Eric Bischoff and Hohokogan take over for a
good two years basically buried the company because you just
let those people just run rough shot at least with
You're not going to get that, at least I don't
think so. But then we had the departure room Spike,

(26:04):
and then you saw where they were just trying to
hang on and every network they went on got consistently
smaller destination America Pop TV for four years, and then
they went to Pursuit Channel, where they were barely a
blip on the radar and the company was just falling apart.

(26:24):
But then you know, yeah, that was under. That was
after Billy Corgan had his run in the company there
and was partially owner along with with a minority ownership
along with Dixie Carter. But then Anthem Entertainment took over,
which of course they had Fight Network and they have
had other properties themselves, Bill Tour for combat sports. And
then what happened is that Access TV, which Anthem owned.

(26:48):
Access TV became their new home the last five years
or so. And remember T and A almost went under
because COVID was Mike, like many companies, was on life support.
But even on pursuits, you know, they were already on
life support as it was. They were going back to
the sound stage Universal Studios, and they were just trying

(27:09):
to hold on and just do shows as they could,
just to keep going. But again remember they had such
a limited roster and we're just not going too much
of anywhere, and they had their pay per views, but
Tina was not talked about at all. Teena's been talking
about right now because of the association with w that's it.
Otherwise TENA would just be another punchline, as there always are.

(27:31):
They would just be the step over. Now again, I'm
the person that loves underdogs, and I always kept an
eye on TNA because I enjoyed the programming for all
these years. It's this year that has been very It's
been very mired in my thinking because I feel I

(27:52):
feel indifferent to what w has done in terms of
their influence on the product. On Scott the more Left.
I can already tell you I knew it was gonna
be making changes and there was not gonna be the
same kind of fuel to that product as it was.
And you know, for TEENA they have given home to
a lot of good stars that are much veterans that

(28:13):
have been around for a long time. When you look
at Nick Neammoth or Brian Myers or Eddie Edwards Moose,
They've always given me a good knockouts division, even though
all that was going on there, like the main roster
part of the men's it's whatever was X division. The

(28:36):
knockouts division I've enjoyed. But then when you started seeing
the stars, they decided to go ahead and put the
belts on. Chick Williams takes over, becomes the World Heavyweight Champion,
and then you get to the knockouts title, going on
to NXT Stars. Then you kind of lost me and
that was upsetting, but they were gonna do it because

(29:00):
we're part of the company. And when we heard about
W and the fact that they were in this partnership
was again and it was so lockstep. And what Carlos
Silva was getting hoping to get out of this whole
deal was television, which is what he got. So now
this multi year partnership is in play. They are strictly

(29:20):
the new ring of honor for we. They want to
be that placeholder for some of the stars that they
don't want to take the main roster. They can't put
them on NXT so much. Or maybe they's just some

(29:41):
stars that they're gonna hope to bring on board that
after some years of seasoning down as a work in TNAS,
they'll build to get themselves to a certain point where
they're TV ready to go and be taken over by
W to be put on NXT or to the main roster.
I guess, but I don't see anybody from TNA making
the jump directly to the domain roster. Will not happen. Now,

(30:05):
let's put it to you like this as well. If
you want to talk about who's in the hierarchy, of
promotions right now. Underneath the well aw still is what
w is gonna try to do with TNA will not
allow them to be a number two promotion. It's just
not gonna happen because no matter what, TNA is only

(30:30):
gonna have so much resources from that ten million dollars
in production they're gonna be able to have. They're not
gonna be able to pull a lot of people on
the contract. They're gonna rely on the contracts of the
talent that they have from their partnership. Maybe there's gonna
be a little more money or contracts, Maybe there's gonna
be some room to acquire some talent, which is where
there's some people out there are already putting out their

(30:52):
dream lists of who TNA should go after, which is
honestly a bit delusional. Plus yes, it's more of wishful thinking.
It's all the fantasy booking that's already starting right now.
So there's already the pontifications of the of my fellow
podcast wrestling brethren, of the publications out there, the Dirt

(31:14):
Sheets one. There's a call that came out saying that
the new deal with the AMC that first of all,
big influx of money which allow them to run more
live shows on Thursdays. We know it's only once in
a while, not all the time, and having a live
weekly show is pivotal in today's ransky landscape. If you
want to grow your audience, that's not true because nobody's
really pay sentence into television. Again, you're getting a million

(31:37):
viewers are spack down on average, you could say two
point three to two point eight million viewers on Netflix,
a global audience. But they're not going to grow anything
out out of that. And I think there's a lot
of people that you can say out of those hours,
they're probably not watching it live, they're probably watching it
on tape. They're just you know, going back when they

(31:57):
want to go to it. They also say that'll make
they'll be able to make more money to pay more talent,
keep some other key players or sign a few names
away from other competitors, and also enough money to book
bigger arenas, especially for pay per views, which will help
me go to the brand and pot just you're an
even better TV deal when this current wants to expires.
Well as some wishful thinking right there, they don't necessarily

(32:18):
have a streaming deal. That's gonna be in place yet.
I don't know if AMC TV, AMC Plus is going
to be doing any kind of deal to stream their
pay per views or TNA plus is what they're gonna
be doing with it. I don't know. For TNA. I'll
take the article here from the DQ columnist's cycle Hurricane.
I'll take a little bit of what he says here
and put a spin on it. I think the money

(32:40):
is gonna be used for bigger arenas, the pay reviews,
the setup for those pay per views, and I think that,
you know, they'll be able to use some more significant
shows to get some bigger gates obviously, put some more
merchandise out there, get to and sell some of that.
But this is a corporate company, Anthem Entertainment. They're gonna
use this and they're gonna basically they're gonna kind of

(33:01):
go in the smaller version, the smaller scale of what
TKO does. Yeah, make the TV show look good, get
the paper views up, get those ticket prices up, kind
of go on that route. In terms of the talent,
in terms of the creative, it depends on who's in
there under the umbrella of TNA that is gonna be
able to go ahead and be able to go to

(33:25):
do something with the storytelling that they can. So it's
really a matter about how long Tommy dreamers there for
that job and what they're gonna be able to do.
They have broadcast partners now that they have to answer
to because Access TV for the last five years, the
company owns them. The company owns that channel like they
own Pursuit Channel, so it doesn't matter what they do.

(33:47):
It didn't really matter what they were doing on that
channel anyway, but they have to answer to the WRIE
because they have the partnership right now, especially with those
that are holding titles in there or their stars being
used in that product. So create a control think Whole
Cogan times ten. Okay, w is going to have a
significant amount of creative control on this new TV show. Now,

(34:11):
maybe they could do something where those stars will be
better used and better utilized unlike how they would be
using the main roster. That might be something that will happen,
but for the most part, the buggeing decisions are gonna
be under control of the creative control that w has
for their contract to talent. That's not gonna change. So

(34:36):
on this corporate end, they're gonna be able to make
more money, and they're gonna have more money coming in
which they can work with. So that's all they're getting
from that. That's good for them. Listen, it's all gonna
be a good thing for them anyway. As a corporation.
They're happy. They are so happy about this that they
can take us off Access TV and make it a

(34:57):
valuable intellectual property that's going to grow now because it
now has this setup. So good for them. Good on
them for that. I appreciate that Frankie Gazarian has chimed them.
He's the current world heavyweight champion. Didn't talk about the
fact that he won the belt over Mike Santana's Yes,

(35:18):
Mike Santana did win at Slammiversary, and then faster than
you could say, Bob's your mother, Becky's your uncle. That's
a bad cliche. Don't ask me about it, just go
look it up. Kazaria says that on this deal quote,
I'm saying, right now the work begins. A lot of
work has gone into this, but it's time to put
up a shutup. It's time to put our foot in

(35:38):
the gas and really show the world, to show much
bigger audience what TEENA is all about and what we've
been about for the past twenty years. AMC is a big,
big player and this is their first venture to live
of sports. But when you look at their rescript of dramas,
they've already had some of the biggest shows a decade,
two decades, the bar is already pretty high for us.
But I have full confidence in our team that we
can give them something very very special. I will say
this too when we get to TNA Thursday Night Impact

(36:04):
on AMC. Let's make a point of this here that
coming up for them. I just need to figure out
when is hard to Kill coming up? It's gonna be
TEENA Genesis. No hard to Kill. We're gonna do TEENA Genesis.

(36:25):
Now we know this Friday, they have final resolution, their
last paper through the year, and they're going to stay
in Dallas for Thursday Night Impact for their debut, and
it looks like Genesis. I don't know when the exact

(36:46):
date is gonna be with the it's also gonna be
in Dallas. They have not given the exact date of it,
but it can very well be that next Sunday that
it comes out. And with that said, I would not
be and I'm going to predict that Frankie Gazieria will
not be holding that belt on the debut of Impact
on TNA or on the AMC. Frankie Gazerreion will not

(37:09):
be their champion, and I think that w will be
influential as to who they want holding their World Haveweight
title come that Thursday night. Impact now in terms of
their pay per view coming up this weekend, currently the

(37:34):
matches they have scheduled and we should keep an eye
on this and see what happens. So the TEENA Knockout
World Title will be Lee Lee versus the Brookside Zion
Brookside Inspiration versus Disestiplation of Victoria Crawford for the teen
A Knockouts World Tag team titles, Leon Slater versus A. J.
Francis is the Exhivision title. Frankie Gazieria versus JDC for

(37:58):
the TEENA Wildavweight title. JDC will be having his last
match at this show. Okay, either which way, Cazarian will
win that and then JDC will move along into the Sunset.
Mike contender is Charlie Dempseeen in a singles match Hardy
versus high Rise. That's Tyson DuPont and Tyra Tyrek Igway

(38:21):
for the TV World Tag Team titles. Mance Warner will
take on Matt Cardon and a street fight Steve mcinversus
Channing Stacks Lorenzo for the TEENA International Championship, and a
man Tag with the Rascals tre Miguel, Myron Reed, Zachary
Wentz as this Vin Xavier versus Ordered Fours, most stuff
I'll lead, John Scaler, Jason Hodge and special Agent in zero.

(38:43):
Not much to go and say too really in terms
of this particular pay per view and who they have
on the roster. But I imagine that if this is
what you're gonna put out for a TEENA paper view,
to go and close out what they're gonna be putting
on AMC will be significantly different. And I believe also
the fact is that there probably be some contracts that
are going to be expiring pretty soon depending on what

(39:04):
they had set up. I know there were some that
were probably set up after Bound for Glority go and expire,
But we have to look and see what their contracts
are and what they're set up on, because then TNA
could also go and overhaul the talent that they have
we don't know yet, So we're gonna talk about the
falloff from Survivor series and where W is right now,

(39:26):
Also about the fact that Freddie Prinz has started being
a little bit vocal about the fact that ESPN is
not necessarily happy with what W has already provided so
far in terms of content for their new proprietary direct
to consumer app. So Tony Kahan spoke with the battle
Ground podcast leading up to the Dynamite show, which I
forgot to go and watch the night from Fitchers in Indiana,

(39:48):
and he thinks that twenty twenty five has been a
lamark year for twenty for AW and this competition with
industry leader W. Now what he's saying, let me just
gon't summarize here. He's highlighting business gains from explaining to
the HBO Max the pivotrees being launched live in September

(40:09):
at thirty thirty nine ninety nine weekly shows arriving Junior
first public viewership shows AW Dynamite narenteen five hundred and
four thousand viewers in quarter four, down seventeen percent from
last year and SmackDown driving over a million con praises wrestlers,
staff and fans for a strong live support events like
full gear pulling on one hundred thirty five thousand, one

(40:31):
hundred and forty thousand buys and con points to streaming
growth narrowing gaps. Ahead of twenty twenty six, he feels
that as the Challenger brand and the pressure of wrestling landscape,
they've successfully narrowed the distance between itself and the market leader.
It's been an opposite the mir He says, well, the
Challenger brand and pro wrestling, and I think we've really

(40:51):
closed the lamp in a very meaningful way in twenty
twenty five. A number of key metrics. Now, we could
talk about the fact that the ratings have taken a
tumble and it's just been like that, but that's across
wrestling in general. We know it is. WREE and AW
are not prone to they're both susceptible to ratings erosion

(41:16):
because they're on cable or network television. The fact that
CW and NXC has taken a bit of a tumble,
that's not even because of the fact that the Nielsen's
Plus Big Data rating system that came in in October.
As regardless of that, CW was already getting a little
bit of erosion on their ratings already, because there is
this consistency of the fact that streaming still is holding

(41:41):
over cable and network because cable network is still trying
to do sympthy to keep themselves relevant. And when you
look at what network television is doing right now, they
are just piling on more live sports briggling as they can.
And for Cable they want to be able in that

(42:01):
live prigramming aspect as well, which they can't do it
necessarily with large franchises like Cable, but with USA or Netflix. Yeah,
they picked up the WRIE because that was something they
could value with. They also were getting weekly content as
result from it, and that's the point, live content weekly.
That's where they're getting all these wrestling shows. But none

(42:25):
of these shows are growing a mainstream audience outside of
their bubble of fans. That's all these wrestling promotions, every
one of them. So that doesn't help either. Now, Nick Con,
for the most part, I must say this going back
to w now because we can talk about them, their

(42:48):
deal with ESPN and what they've been doing. Nick Con
went on the Pat McAfee show today and made some
comments that got me a little bit don't because I'm
like Nick Con just came off a bit pretentious and
a bit ignorant at the same time with what he

(43:10):
said to Pat mcavee about what they're doing with their
deal with ESPN and putting together live event programming. Here's
what he said.

Speaker 7 (43:18):
We think we have a promotional machine. That's what we
are at our core. You have UFC and Dana promotional muscle,
in my opinion, the greatest fight promoter in the history
of the fight game. Dana, you have the WWE's promotional muscle,
which you guys have lived through it. We know how
strong that can be promoted. What you can't do is
just put together a fight, do a couple of boxing

(43:40):
interviews and say, hey, please watch my fight on a
network that people have not heard of. You've got to
have some promotional muscle behind it. We think we'll provide that,
and we think we can develop more stars with week.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Okay, with Nick Con the UFC, you can absolutely go
with the promotional muscle because UFC has already had a
self standing system of there's always gonna be new stars.
People are gonna be looking forward to Saturday nights and
going to the bar or going to watch on pay
per view. What are they gonna do to watch their content? Now,
for USC, they're in a great position because they're gonna

(44:15):
have all their programming on Payamount Plus. The CBS programming
is gonna have a number of major UFC fight night
pay per views that would be pay per views, but
they're gonna be on CBS on Friday nights or Saturday nights.
I forget which one. And then you still have to
deal with Payamount Plus where all those pay per views.
USC is not even gonna be charged for it. You're

(44:36):
gonna get it just for the paymount Plus subscription. That's
an incredible deal. So UFC was already built and they
can absolutely do combat sports better. But with w you
can't run it the same way, and you can't run
boxing boxing at USC you can run the same way.
Those are live sports. We don't have predetermination on those outcomes.

(45:01):
Those are just sports franchises. So regardless of who you
have out there, the appeal of UFC or for boxing
is there. For boxing, they just got to give fine
some people to can draw. They got to be able
to build some predicatar fighters. If they can get some
heavyweights out there to gohead and get in front of
zoof of boxing. Good on them because they have to
do get boxing backup on board or whatever they got

(45:22):
to do with Debrie. You cannot treat it like UFC
or boxing. That's been made clear for a long time.
No one, no other wrestling promotion is they're will they'll
do that at all. They can't do it. You can't
treat it like a regular professional sport. It's gonna be
run differently. Sports entertainment is a different business. But the

(45:44):
entertainment side, there's no entertainment to what's being done on
W right now. I think to TNA to some of
the extent as well, and you get glimpses. You get
a couple of splash of entertainment on AW and that's it.
There's not much else. The entertainment side's missing altogether. And

(46:11):
with that you might have gotten the deal with ESPN.
But is ESPN really happy with it? Okay, the promotional
muscle that W is getting righty from a ESPN. Absolutely
they're getting it. Okay. What ESPN is doing right now
for their side of the bargain is effective. They are
making sure that people know about these paper reviews. The

(46:33):
difference is is that meaningstree money is even going to
be interested in going to watch these pay per views,
That's the question. Awful Announcing put out a story about this,
about the fact that ESPN has been putting out NonStop
promotional ads during college football. You see it where they're
featuring stars up leading it to the pay per views

(46:53):
for all their shows. First take Pat McAfee whatever. They're
doing what they can to get the word out about
their partner on this deal to keep people to watch
these shows. Yeah, I mean even the fact that I see,
like during sub college football game at Survivor Service is
already underway, but then you're seeing the promos for it. The
I'm like, all right, well, let's go Florida Florida State

(47:14):
and I see it like eight o'clock at night, Survivor
Streets is on right now, go flip over watch it. Okay,
a bit cannibalistic, but all right, we can go with that.
So Dmitre, Revenue's rights historian says that didn't pay a
lot of money for the TV rights That goes on
in the SAC and Oklahoma Best at LSU on ABC,

(47:36):
the secure spot in the College Fault Play College Football Playoff,
ESPN Also they were focusing on the Heisman Trophy. ABC
had Alabama surviving another unpredictable Iron Bowl to advance the
SEC Championship game over Auburn. They also have their investment
in the ACZ California being a SMU on ESPN two

(47:58):
where SMU is basically knocked out of the College Football Playoff.
College Football stickles could watch a thriller between wake Forest
and Duke, and also NC State humiliating Bill Belichick once
again and North Carolina in the final game.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Of the year.

Speaker 3 (48:11):
All that was AC Network. That's all Disney ESPN that
you can all watch on the ESPN app. But as
someone who spends all day watching on Saturdays, neglecting my
family and watching college football, the messager gover from ESPN
all day long was that none of it matters because
wrestling's on tonight. Every quarter every studio segment, I was
reminded that football is fine, but which you should be

(48:32):
really watch against Survivor series war games. Talking about Marty
Smith and him being in the conference room of the
old miss football facility waiting to hear if Lane Kiffin
was going to go ahead and become the next coach
at LSU and leave Oxford. We were told that we
should really drop everything and go to the app to
watch some asterio that isn't raym Asterio. That's a dig

(48:56):
right there. Wow. Now, just like the the sec he
Disney paid a lot of money to be in the
bed with Debrie. By the way, people are complaining about
the fact that Peacock is going to be dropping the
library that w has right and not even the whole
library went up there on Peacock. But that deals about
the end, and that library is not gonna be accessible
to anybody to watch coming up. It's not on the ESPN,

(49:19):
it's not on a Netflix. We don't know where it's going.
We're not aware about that. So if you want to
watch classic content, you don't have a library to go
for it, unless it's going to Netflix or somewhere else
we don't know yet. That hasn't been dealt with. Now,
Dmitor says, I get why is bigger event programming for
the company's new app brings over a large little audience.

(49:42):
It's also just good TV. I'm not going to sit
here and tell you that just because the outcomes are predetermined,
that resting is fake. To those men and women, it's
real athletes who really endure, wear and tear. To quote
him corner, it ain't nothing think about that. But because
professional involves great athletic skill, it does not mean it's
a sport. The debate comes to a screeching hal at

(50:06):
that predetermined outcome quote unquote, and that's what makes de
wree fundamentally different from anything else that ESPN carries. So
the emphasis points on ESPN promoting the the we fundamentally
changes ESPN right. They're trying to say that their programming
is expanded. Before this, wrestling was on ESPN as a buffer,

(50:28):
just to put the thing on at four o'clock in
the afternoon when there's no sports to go and cover,
no live sports for that matter. ESPN had to put
something on the air, so they put them being sports related.
That's where they had World Class Ship if you're wrestling
or AWA and things like that, or OSSI Rules football
for that matter. Even before officially partnering with the w

(50:52):
esp was in the midst of the real restification of
his programming. Because Joe Juste Tour spends Saturdays in the
fall at a power for ball game and then goes
to Raw on Netflix. Pat McAfee brings the swagger of
Mike skills he learned from watching and performing Three to
everything he does on ESPN. First Take is not a
sports show anymore. Es for Steven A. Smith develops and

(51:12):
for this is the storyline as surprised celebrity run ins happened.
I may have never rolled my eyes harder than I
did back in September when Pat McAfee gave an earnest
breakdown of John's Universu's brock Lester on College Game Day.
Times change networks and shows have to change with them.
I get that, but this isn't even the same network
as it was when it got its hooks on so
many of us. I'm not saying everything to be outside Alliance,

(51:34):
but ESPN used to be where sports was taken seriously.
Now every minute of programming is just inventory, especially during
the week of a what are we calling them that
premium live event? For all the handwringing about ESPN's gambling
partnerships and the inclusion of lines and spreads into everything
else coverage, where is the concern about the three? Because
that's the other part ESPN is not so much on sports.
They're plugging away. Was ESPN BET now it's what FanDuel

(51:58):
or is it DraftKings? I forget, and then of course
we like that's something where you're like, you are forcing
this down sports fans throats. Are they really going to
switch over and watch? That's the question. That's the buye
that ESPN was banking on. That's a big gamble for them.

(52:21):
He goes it on the right that it's not WV
on ESPN as a platform. I have a problem with
all of it is not what I want from ESPN,
But I'm smart enough to know that I don't speak
with the whole audience. My problem is the way that
network has completely sold out to the we the biggest football, basketball,
and hockey games are treating like an appetizer when there's
a w event on the app. Right, I hate to

(52:43):
break into all of you out there, but WE on
ESPN is minuscule in magnitude to the SEC or any
college football for that matter, with the NBA, with the NHL. Okay,
they don't have anything that even compares w is not

(53:04):
at that level. They're just not They're not the level
of these big sports franchises. They're making the kind of
money that those franchises are starting to make now they're
starting to do that the level of NASCAR and the
level of almost like Major League Baseball, but still.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Now.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
In the other part of this, besides what Nick Con
was saying, Freddy Prince commented about the fact that someone
at ESPN told him that they were unhappy with the deal.
Freddy Prince at work to the creative team for a while.

(53:46):
You know former actor, we know him very well. Sean
Ross sapp digging into this and here's what we got
from this so far. Russell Blues of Crown, Jewel and
Saviser's War games have aired on the ESPN and Freddie

(54:07):
Prince Junior recapped this on his Wrestling with Freddy podcast.
He mentioned that ESPN is unhappy with how the deal
was played out. The Walt Disney company owns the ESPN,
and Prince Junior said he spoke with her friend who
works for Disney. That friend realated to him that ESPN
is not happy, and Prince said this about John Senior quote,
it's his final paper view on ESPN est p by

(54:28):
the way, so unhappy with the deal. I was talking
to a friend of mine who works for Disney. He
was just like, yo, they better make their money back.
On this deal. He just said they're hot. Burke Madness
made a media appearance in late November ESPN president Burt
Magnus saying the partnership has been great so far, and
then Seaun ross Hap of course he had to go

(54:49):
into the defensive wrestling and was said about ESPN and
what is being thrown into the mud about ESPN and
Shawn Ross Sapp reported saying the ass sources and a
w higher up says that quote no one in w
upper management is where Freddie Prince's role and wrestling or
otherwise end quote. See they just threw one of the bus.

(55:12):
An ESPN rep claimed that they haven't even heard that
chatter and have enjoyed working with w Another story that
also came out this week is from Wrestling the Votes
is that community Andrew Schultz, he hosts a flagrant podcast.
You know he's been out there and you know he's
pretty popular comedian out there. There have been sources that

(55:35):
are being said right now from wrestle folks that there
is the fact that Andrew Schultz has made a strong
impression with many people in the company. Schultz has appeared
on several Netflix specials, made two appearances on Raw in
twenty twenty five, and what's being said on that respect
is that Andrew Schultz might get more involved with things.
So far, we don't know what that's going to be.

(55:57):
So let's get on some of the fallout from Surviars
War Games and what happened from that. First of all,
Dave Meltzer giving comments about this, saying that the paper
if you didn't feel special at all. If you want
my comments on it, I did thirty minutes about it
and recapped it over on the channel here King of
Podcasts dot com. You're going to listen to that got
quite a bit of audience that actually caught upon it.
There's what Dave Meltzer said on Wrestling Server Radio.

Speaker 8 (56:20):
I think that they're just losing the essence of war
games completely. Even with blood and Guts. I think that
which I thought was was, you know, those two butt
and guts matches were tremendous, but it's just that the aura,
the whole aura of it is just not there. It
was no different than anything else. It didn't feel special
at all, you know. I mean, like I said, the

(56:41):
men's match was pretty good, but it just didn't have that.
It didn't have that Blowaway feel or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
We still haven't heard anything about Awesome theory and any
reveal about who was going to be the person that
was underneath the mask and was disguised to help the
Heels get over in War Games on Saturday. We don't
even know about that yet, and they didn't address it

(57:10):
at all with what this was said. One thing they
were trying to say was that there were things that
we saw from the pay per view at the end
of the Men's War Games match that were supposed to
be what we're supposed to go and see, like those
very clear thing. Dave Melzer reported this that the current
player for the two World Championship matches at Rust winning
forty two, Cody Roads and Roman Reigns seeing Punk versus

(57:32):
bron Breaker. So we're gonna get Cody and Roman again
for the undisputed w Championship seeing Punk would defend the
world heavilyight title against bron Breaker. Now, Dave Melser says,
quote Punk getting pinned that finished, preserved to tell the story.
Like I said the other day, the whole thing when
we came out of this match. The idea is we're
supposed to do Wantrust Wan yet, which is Cody and

(57:54):
Roman and Punk and bron Breaker are the championship matches
end quote. As a result, there were a number of
people that were feeding back of the do you wan
a delusional phantom that they're saying they don't want war
games next year as part of Survira series. And then
somebody put out there on X a part about Triple

(58:16):
H and what he does and how he talks about
these pay per views and his whole set up for
all these So here's a montage that thought was pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
We want to do what we do, what we do,
what we do, what we do, and what we do?

Speaker 2 (58:29):
What we do. That's what we do.

Speaker 1 (58:32):
What we do, what we do, what we do, It's
what we do, what we do, it's why we do it.
We do what we do, what we do, what we do,
what we do? What we do? What we do? What
we do and what we do and what.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
We We're only halfway into the clip.

Speaker 1 (58:44):
We do what we do, what we do, what we do,
what we do? What we do? What we do? What
we do? What we do, what we do, what we do?
What we do? We do? What we do and what
we do? What we do? What we do, what we
do and what we do, what we do, what we do.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
I can't eve blither us the clip, but it's pretty funny,
tible h. It's kind of stuck at its own spot. Now.
Another story from Dave Meltzere. He says that Austin Theory
was originally supposed to be the Wargames match, but Jacob
Vatu's injury made W move the Cody Rose Drew macuitar
feud up a month, freeing up both Cody and Drew
for war Games, and Cody will replaced five two and

(59:22):
W feeling Drew fit better in the match than Austin Theory.
There's that. Aaron Hawani, for his credit talking about the
whole thing with TEENA and a positive direction, was a
bit critical of W and he said this on the show.

Speaker 5 (59:40):
It's just these little things. It's like, and I know
that some people are like, all right, take a chill,
pill man, just enjoy the fights.

Speaker 3 (59:46):
I get it.

Speaker 5 (59:46):
But these things matter, Like there's there's been this video
being posted everywhere, like we used to get announcements like this,
and it's Connor and jose Aldo walking in like this
elaborate video and now we get the in PA Lives
like all these things, like it just feels so uninspired.
The matchmaking feels uninspired, the promotion feels uninspired, the announcements

(01:00:07):
feel uninspired. Everything feels uninspired. And I'm sorry if I
care so much. I'm sorry if I care this much
about the product this much. Like I get accused of
being a hater. No, it's because I care. I love
it so much, and all of it just feels so
ho hum. All of it feels so like, Uh, we
just need to put this out there and the people
will eat it up, and they'll make the videos and
they'll make the content, and they'll do the interviews and

(01:00:28):
they'll do all the promotion for us. I want you
guys to care as much as we care.

Speaker 3 (01:00:32):
And it doesn't feel Now that's the UFC part he's
talking about. But remember I said this last week. I
got to go and play the clip. Did you you
remember what I said? I think I said this on
the recap that wants to go and just do their
shows and they want to live it up to the
fans to go and make their comments about this. That's

(01:00:53):
how they feel more about this than anything else. That
doesn't really matter what they're doing themselves. They're just like, well,
we're just gonna build up what we're doing with Surviroer
series just to do what they want to do with it,
create their own storyline. Here's what I said. These people
that are facing each other and all these matches tonight,
especially in the wargames matches, they're existing feuds, they're ongoing,

(01:01:16):
and the company does nothing to heat them up, very little.
They rely on the wrestlers to do all the work.
Oh too much for us to go and pick up
a pencil or pen and actually write a little something
different to create a new arc in the ongoing feud
between these wrestlers. No, we can't do that. No, we

(01:01:38):
have to continue with the same old, same old, and
just go back to recent history. That's all we can do.
And it's not the history that they created, it's the
history that Vince created. Remember that, Oh see m punk
your macutar, Well that was one of the few things.
But we're gonna go back to that again, Cutty road ruminaries,
We're gonna go back to that again. We don't need

(01:02:00):
need to worry about what's in the match, because what
the match is doesn't matter if there's no storyline to
build from. It, you want to try to go ahead
and interpret it the way you want to interpret as
a storyline. Go right ahead, you know, create a storyline.
Go right ahead. That's how it makes you feel better. Okay,
the juvenile delusional fandom will go ahead and continue to
just create a storyline, and they will be the ones

(01:02:23):
that will be the creators. I said that on the
recap of Survivor series, and that actually holds more truth
when I think about it a couple of days later,
because what Ariel Hawane said just confirms my point about
this that it doesn't matter about the creative that w

(01:02:45):
creates or what UOC creates to build up for the
matches they have, because what they're going to do doesn't matter,
because the fans will make the videos. The fans will
create the hyph the fans will create the storylines and
the build up to build themselves up and to motivate

(01:03:06):
themselves to watch something that they're already going to watch.
But then we're not worrying about the bubble of people
that are out or people that are outside the bubble
that are not part of this juvenile delusional fandom that
don't have their disciples telling them what they should be
thinking about and how the story should be planned out. Okay,
you've got podcasters out there that will do the fantasy booking,

(01:03:29):
twitch streamers, TikTokers, whatever, you got people out there, content
creators that will do the storyline and the booking, and
they will act as the creative for Debrie because they think, well,
we don't have to do anything about that. Social media
will do everything for us. We don't have to create

(01:03:51):
a storyline. We let the fans create the storyline. They
have the pencil. Remember what Triple H actually said, Maybe
we should have paid attention to that. Again, We're gonna
empower our superstars and empower all of you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
And more importantly, we're gonna give you what you want.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
Okay, Triple H and what Stephanie and Shane we're saying
right there altogether, empower the superstars, empower the fans. We're
gonna give you what you want. And I think, more
than anything, and this will be a focus of what
we're gonna talk about when we go into the Best
of Content, when we go into the Year and Review,

(01:04:44):
is that that's what your Blade was giving us. He
doesn't want to be in charge of the storylines. We
know he likes, which wrestlers on the roster he wants
to empower. He is empowering the fans. He's giving you
what he wants, of which wrestlers he wants to push

(01:05:04):
out there, what matches he's going to put out there
himself with the team. So they're gonna put out the
content they want, and then they're empowering the fans. Make
what you want with what we're giving you. And that
worked for a couple of years, and now it's not
working anymore. So we're going to bookmark this right here,

(01:05:29):
come back to this later, because I think seven years
after we hear this, we're kind to come back to
this and say, you know what, I think there is
something about that particular thing that's going to happen with
this content, with this product that we should have been
aware of a long time ago. And look at where

(01:05:52):
we are now. When will I get to the year
review and we start going into that, I'm going to
go back to what I said in twenty eighteen after
the McMahon family did that announcement on Money Night wrong.
We're going to go back to that and apply to
how it works today because I think there's a lot
of me said, just to make my point real clear

(01:06:12):
right now and summarize it, what I said on the
Recap and Survivors series was that w is not trying
to create storylines that are gonna make us care about
the characters or the superstars or the matches. They're leading
it up to creating the matches and letting the fans

(01:06:36):
on social media hype up those matches, get excited about
those wrestlers of whichever ones they like or don't like,
who they would boo, who they would cheer, and they
will make up the storylines they want based on what's
happened in recent history or past history, and they'll create
the storyline for themselves to motivate them to watch and

(01:06:59):
get other friends to watch and talk about other podcasts
or video clips or whatever they want. That's how they're
gonna do it. So we're gonna get into all that
very soon. We'll do a recap of the year and review,
and we'll specifically talk about that point here that we
have come full circle to what was being said at
that time. So look forward to that and look forward

(01:07:21):
to another rest Or podcast. Remember, in two weeks we'll
do the thirteenth anniversary I don't know what.

Speaker 4 (01:07:26):
We'll do with it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
We'll just put another show, I guess right, another rescue run,
another rescues your podcast, because wrestling needs us