WWE Counterprogramming Fumbles WrestlePalooza and Put Partners in Peril

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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This is the King of Podcasts Radio Network, KINGO Podcasts
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Tonic's podcast is brought to you by the letter C.
Use it in a word means counterprogramming. WHOA, Hey, this
is the name.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
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Speaker 2 (00:31):
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Podcasts Radio Network probably presents the Wrestling Is Real podcast
because Wrestling Dave's us.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I honestly believe that WWE just needs to go ahead
and healed the wound they put on their foot. They
shot themselves in the foot. Counterprogramming AW and I am
not gonna talk about the fact of what if is
going to do anything to AW at all. We don't
need to talk about that part. What we need to
make a point of is that the idea that you

(01:11):
want to go ahead and start off your deal with
ESPN rushing a pay per view up to no real fanfare,
to a little bit of hype that you created off of,
no storylines, no real tangible created storylines, nothing scripted, whose
line it is? Anyway? Type improv on the promos and

(01:35):
match match match And you thought this was a good
idea on how to start your relationship with ESPN, because
there's a number of things that backfired this weekend. Now,
of course everyone wants to talk about Andreas Hale and
his article in ESPN grading rest of Paloser. I will

(01:57):
talk about that shortly. Well, what people are not talking
about is what I said last week on the program.
So let's not talk about the ratings. Let's not talk
about the buy rates, all that stuff, right, disc going
for a noise says the matter about that? What about
social media? Okay, we gonna talk about that. We canna

(02:18):
talk about that. So on X that's a pretty good
place to go and find out real time analytics and
impressions on what people are actually talking about or watching
on Saturday this past Saturday night. You want to guess
how many impressions college football had versus Wresselpalosa, I'll give

(02:41):
you a minute to guess. So if you had to
go and guess how many impressions you got from Wressell Palooza,
four hundred thousand, mostly from hardcore fans, no mainstream. Nothing
mainstream picked up on it. College football twenty five million

(03:02):
impressions on Saturday, twenty five million dempressions, and what actually
happened was ESPN and we pissed off their respective audience
as a result of this. So from Propoball Network, it

(03:24):
reports on this. The confluence of sports and sports enertiment
has been a hot topic, so w promos have been
going on ESPN broadcasts of the traditional sports. Fans have
noticed during college football coverage have been numerous promos and
teasers for Russell Palooza, with some fans of commentators wondering
if they're going overboard or retrink saturation. Now, as we

(03:46):
talked about for a while, now, ESPN has this five
year deal with we with this first big event part
of a crossover with Russell Perluza. Seven o'clock start time
for those those that could watch it on the ESPN's
live stream on its new directed consumer app. Consumers could
subscribe it at the ESPN a limited plan, either directly

(04:08):
or as a PATV subscriber can access it. Well. I
talked about that part on Wednesday. People were gonna get
a little confused about what was gonna be able to
be watched because people are gonna complain about a couple
things of this broadcast. Number one, if they could get it,
you have to have an ESPN a limited plan thirty
bucks a month. You have to automatically have that. It's

(04:30):
a big ask from those that you were paying what
eight to eleven dollars maybe thirteen dollars a month for peacock.
Now those prices have just gone jacked right up. That's
a big ask. And how many of those fans are
W fans that are actually buying ESPN and their app.

(04:53):
So college football fans have been vocal about the heavy
cross promotional tie ins with partnerships like this. Wrestledoll is
a promos splashing across ESPN's college football games all day listen.
Same thing that Fox did for W with SmackDown. You
saw SmackDown promos all over the place on football, NFL

(05:14):
games down to ESPN here with this, they probably put
it on a Monday night football, but I'm talking about college football,
pro football. Fox always push W to the moon and
then where we are here, right? I Mean, there was
one thing that had a unique comparison posting saying that

(05:36):
all these w W promos gave me Aaron Judge at
batcut in vibes. Another person says that don't like that
wrestling producers being crammed down our throats during game day
and SEC nation broadcasts keep the main thing, the main thing.
These are college football shows. Let's keep it that way.
We only have four or five months of college football.
They can absorbed everytime the other seven months of the year.

(05:57):
Those are the sports people out there not liking this.
One wrestling fan comes out and says, as much as
a fan, I am a pro wrestling it feels really
strange seeing WWE get the live ESPN coverage, count Don
Truman through college football broadcasts. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
There's no there's been nothing that really kind of gives

(06:18):
the blending. Hey man, TKO doesn't really care about where
they're getting coverage trouma ESPN and w I guess they'll
figure it out. The deal got done. They don't care.
The checks in the mail, they don't care. Another person writing, hey,
ESPN's college Football Saturday, nobody gives a crap about your

(06:41):
w wrestling BS, so you're pissing off sports fans. Another
person count me in the official hate category of a
w promo every commercial break and during gains of a
college football Saturday. Because the problem is ESPN when they
do their coverage, you know, they have their own promos
of stuff they're going to run if you're watching it
on streaming as opposed when you're watching on cable. So

(07:05):
if you're watching it like you used watch ESPN Plus
like I would watch, you would get their promos. So
that means they would get blasted with Wressell Baluza promos
because ESPN's running it all the time. John Cena promoting
the app all the time, but ESPN's going to getee you.
This as quoted by SVG The News, ESPN's John Lasker,

(07:31):
who was on the conference call last week. He's the
cerior vice president of Director Consumer at ESPN, said fans
are gonna be sitting there on Saturday night and watching
Wressel Baluza and Mind versus Florida at the same time
and get sort of super in and super out as
they wish. I mean, they're not making a difference about
the fact that you think there's this devoted fan base
that's going to be watching WREE. Now here's what John

(07:52):
Lasker goes on to say that our hope is that
it's going to drive more interest and engagement in the
WREE and vice versa, and the w fans are going
to come and get to us, to experience and become
fans and the other sports content we're be able to
present to them cross promotion for sports and professional wrestling
or sports entertainment. The problem is a good chunk of

(08:15):
that audience is not into sports. They're into professional wrestling,
some of them are more into combat sports so that
kind of ties in, and some are just sports fans
that were fans before. But I mean, look, I'll give
you this as an example. I got about twelve other

(08:35):
football fans I watch football with on Sundays for NFL,
we go to our local Twin Peaks, and if I
bring up wrestling, there's two or three guys that know
who I'm talking about. There's one guy who is an
avid W and AW fan, another one who is more
or less a fan of before added Toderra, Rock and

(08:59):
Wrestling Era, NWA, World Class, all the other resting promotions
back in the day, eighties, nineties fan Okay, and that's it.
Some of the other fans, well, all know if I
bring up a couple of names, or if I bring
up Roman Reignings of the Rock, oh, they know who
it is. If I bring up bron Breaker, Bronson Reid,
you know La Knight who There is no mainstream crowd

(09:23):
for this. The fact they brought back brock Lesner and
it got nothing out of that, and John Cena working
with each other on a match didn't work out well either.
And as for the ratings for college football, we don't
know what we got for in terms of the viewership

(09:45):
on ESPN Plus or ESPN Unlimited in general, but of
the cable lineup what the niels are ratings said, they
were released good twenty million viewers watching college football live
on Saturday night, Ring wrestled Balza the mind before the game,
six point four to six million viewers on ESPN. Ver

(10:07):
sure was this ABC Aubern Oklahoma six point one two million,
and as I mentioned before, what happened with the Indiana
Illinois game two point seven million viewers, But they probably
dropped pretty quick when Illinois got blasted. So you know,

(10:30):
all I want is for WW to just give me
good programming. The initial reason for this program from the
onset has always been that this company does well that
they are the beacon of professional wrestling, that is the
mainstream of professional wrestling, which draws attention to every other

(10:52):
wrestling outlet there is. Are they really doing a service
right now the way they're operating when they have the
best broadcast deals they've ever had in their life. Okay,
let's give the credit where credit is due. This Bigmahon
never got the broadcast deals that TKO Group Holdings gets.

(11:14):
That's TKO Group Holdings. That has nothing to do with
Triple H. That is Nick con That's Ari Emmanuel Mark Shapiro.
That's that team. They're the ones that broke in the deals.
That is the mind, that's the brain trust of TKO
Group Holdings, that is operating w for the shareholders, the

(11:38):
content management, the content creators, the people that are in
charge of the day to day product. They're doing an
inferior job of it because they want to go with
improvisational promos, no scripting, just let it go on the
fly and match spresh match. It's a different story. And

(12:02):
it's as simple as this. The logic says, people will
hear about the matches if it is not a predetermined outcome.
If the matches are not predetermined finishes, but we already
know what the onus is on that this is not
based on real competition. They're still basically on these stars

(12:23):
they have out there and who they decide to have
go over. That's it, with no rhyme or reason. Really,
some of it we have based on previous storylines of
the previous regime. What Vince started off with, that's your
Blake just decided to go ahead and carry along with
the help of a couple other names in there trying
to go ahead and do something with this, Paul Hayman's

(12:44):
for one. But there is no direction whatsoever. And what
is the fan base doing now? The juvenile, delusional, loyal
fandom right now, they're pissed. All I saw this weekend
was outrage across the board. Leading up to Russa Palooza,

(13:09):
we had Triple H doing the pregame saying this, I
have these talent.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
There isn't a day goes by that I don't get
a text or voicemail from somebody saying I either want
to come home or I've never been. There is there
an opportunity for me there. I'm overseas right now, I
have this time left on my deal. Hey, I would
love to explore WWE and come into the performance center,
NXT whatever. That is the opportunity right now where we sit.

(13:38):
Opportunities like Netflix, like the CW, like USA, like ESPN
especially open that door for talent to say, Man, I'm
in this place in my life, but I either want
to go back to the top of the mountain or
I want to be on the top of the mountain.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I mean, that's what the perception has been always h
I mean, to be honest, you're not giving the top
of the mountain right now. What you have isn't there. Now,
let's talk about what was leading before Recipalooza and where
everybody was at. First of all, there was questions being

(14:16):
asked in the post media scrum for a to b
all out, and Adam Page was asked about the response
to the counterprogramming.

Speaker 5 (14:23):
You know, I that's a great question, and I because
I think that the assumption would be it's what we're
talking about, it's what we're worried about. But the truth,
the honest truth, is that it's not remotely you know,
it's something that we we see coming. When it does happen,
it's like okay, yeah, yeah, I figured and it's not
something we're thinking. We're so focused on what we do here.

(14:45):
You know, we've got how many people here today, ten
to over thirteen thousand people in the building today who
came to see us. We've got god knows hundred, two hundred,
three hundred. I don't know how many people by pay
per view. I don't know these the stuff. All those
people buy those pay per views. They're they're here to
watch us. That's what we're focused on. And I know
that might not be like what you would assume is happening,

(15:06):
what the talk is, but that's like the honest truth.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
And the thing is, it's just a different world for
aw It doesn't make a difference what w is trying
to do because they're the ones that are instigating this
kind of programming. Aw has not tried to play into it.
And of course there's people out there that can try

(15:31):
to say that, you know, Tony kN might have played
into a little bit because of what was allowed on
AWD in the right away Cody and the Throne, or
Tony Kahan using saying the real con man, you know,
all those kind of things. But really, if that's all
you're gonna say, is enough ammunition to create this vitriol
for the product. Remember that some of the fan base

(15:56):
out there, they're projecting, they're gas slighting AW fans for
their love of the product because of the fact that
their product is not doing as well, and they could
try to put a nice happy face around all of it.
But it's not someone else putting out online here saying
quote only prediction' making today is at AW exposes W.

(16:17):
He writes, All Out has thirteen matches versus w restl
loses five matches. It costs three dollars and eight cents
per match to watch AW. All Out six dollars a
match to watch W You had thirty minute matches versus
thirty minute entrances professional wrestling versus sports entertainment. Another person writes,

(16:38):
this is what fed boys love, This is what turns
them on. Effing ads. During the John Cena Brockleazer match,
the actual match time eight minutes, commercial ad break time
fifteen minutes. You actually had ads during Wrestlepaloozer. I brought
that up party in the program, and I'm saying to myself,

(16:58):
you know, you all feel good about what they came
out with on all this. I'm like damn, let me
just play back while I put up on the ads
part that I said on TikTok and I put them
on TikTok feed a highlight from my post show on
Sunday night. So hope they appreciate that they got the

(17:24):
Netflix type deal where you're paying thirty dollars to watch
on ESPN and you were consumed with how many ads
out there? Ads during the program. If you're paying thirty
dollars a month, why are you getting so many ads?
Not just promos, but you're getting actual ads here, even
on a thirty dollars a month buy. But then you

(17:47):
see the mat and I was completely distracted the whole
night by that stupid mat. It's one thing how they
do it in boxing, where you kind of everything set
up okay on the ring ropes and you know, on
the turnbuckles, things like that. Great, but all that crap
on the mat like they have it Papa John's chime
Re Odd Season, Fireball, Whiskey, Xfinity, Slim Jim Old Spice

(18:07):
Men and made Aviator Cricket five G the better. Really,
So a lot comments on a TikTok feed about it.
One from Tropical says they need to get rid of
the ads because people are actually paying the monthly membership.
I understand wants the money from these sponsors, but you
can't have it both ways. You can't either honor the
ESPN contract with membership or continue with sponsors. But you

(18:29):
can't be an ESPN. You can't. They're doing what the
Netflix deal is. I'm actually kind of surprised where ESPN
thought it was okay to include the ads as they
do now on this program. But I guess maybe that
was what ESPN required them to do, is that the
deal had to come with advertising. Samway, Fox got advertising

(18:51):
as part of their plan, say they with Netflix, if
you're gonna be in ESPN, the mats need to stay
the esp and nothing else. Well, I mean you want
to put stuff on there, it's fine, whatever. And then
King Medanov says that getting me a midica wrestler, mediocre wrestlers,
you're not getting a sting ddp lex, luger, Hogan, macho man,

(19:14):
ready savage. You're getting secondhand wrestlers that want to control
their character. And half of the stadiums the AW puts
out there are empty. They're completely completely empty. That's what
he says. Now As for the comments that came up
on my YouTube feed, I only got a couple of them,
one from Robert Decker. They need more fans access very

(19:38):
angry with ESPN. We isn't even the sport and then
gainnible rights all out rules. It's not even close fan boys,
and that's it. I see another person on X that
came up during the coverag drestible Lozo. This was absolutely garbage.

(19:59):
One of the the larger loyal fans podcasters in the
base says quote, can't believe the ww wasted one of
Johnson's last matches on that. What the earth did you expect?
Did you expect anything else? The best they could have
done is give you the John seen to struggle and
him getting destroyed. He doesn't make it another date until
Crown Jewel. He'll get his win back there. Then he'll

(20:22):
win enterr war Games in a line of the Avengers
to take down seth Throngs and the division. If you're
disappointed is because you cause it yourself. I don't even
know what that all means. I guess it what he's
trying to say that he thinks we're going to create
some Marvel universe with some super team that's gonna take
down seth throngs of division. There's three people there anyways,

(20:43):
because now we're fantasy booking Survivor series. That's all we
got left. Now let's move along into the infamous article
the reviews from ESPN about said pay perview, So where
is Hell? Makes all his remarks about what's happening here

(21:04):
and off the bat talks about the singles match with
John Cena and Brock Lizard to start off the night.
But here's what he says about the moments of everything
that was going on in terms of the whole card.
He loved the women's world title e Sky versus Stem
to do a care. I agree with him, gave the

(21:28):
match a B plus. He also wrote this down as
a sports critic, so he's not going to take into
account storylines or anything else. He's only grading the match quality,
says was exceptional work from two of the best women's

(21:49):
wrestlers in the use was in a vision, says the
first half of the matchress sluggish. Focus primarily was on
what Liberty's La nine, especially gust for Free extending to
both teams. A slow early pace of Brier to be
heading towards a strong finish before Jay Ussol got busted open,

(22:09):
leading to this jointed finishing stretch. Wasn't a bad match,
but the users have certainly had better outings. I mean, listen,
the way the match ended was not right, So yeah,
it could have been much better. But also, you know,
that's just about the match quality, and people were complaining
about that. The mixed tag team match he refers to

(22:32):
a g Lee Seampunk versus Becky Lynch seth rawls. Mixed
tag team matches are incredibly difficult to from a pure
ristic standpoint, more about entertainment than anything else. We had
everything from stereo finishing attempts to Lynch and Punk exchanging sharpshooters.
The match is nearly thirty minute run was a bit

(22:53):
too long. It was great to say a g Lee
back in action, punkin Rolls did what they had to
do to keep things chugging along, and looks like Le's
gonna be challenging Becky Lnch for the intercind of no title. Yeah,
and listen, Yeah, there's some orchestration to what the match was.
It was completely choreographed. We can say that part for sure.
This match with a Jle was choreographed. Pretty obvious and

(23:16):
a g lee. I didn't mention during the post show,
but yeah, swinging back at Becky linchit a couple of
points was awful. Awful and so obvious. Cody Rose, Drew
mccutitarre surprisingly short made event in just over fifteen minutes.
Didn't have time to get out of first gear. Agreed,

(23:37):
felt want like a main event of SmackDown in the
headliner of a pl He's absolutely right, fifteen minutes for
the world title was not a world time match, just
a match. Well, it was a world title match, universal
title match, nothing, so they should have switched the match card.
I mean, listen, you know, if you're gonna go and
do anything with this, you know, don't put Johnson and

(23:59):
brock Less at the beginning. That was a bad start
in the beginning. First of all, put Cody Roads Drew
McIntyre to start off the night. If you're gonna do something, yeah,
I mean, I'm so common in here and see sometimes
they see world title matches at the beginning. If you
want to do that, like, why not Johnson and brock Lester,
It's not an opener. I would have absolutely thought, Drew McIntyre,

(24:23):
Cody Roads, could have absolutely opened. Then you got Johnson
to brock Lester eight minutes in the match or nine
in a match rather actually six moves and pretty much
what you expect out of Lessner and Johnsena just taking
F five's like crazy. And how much did that crowd

(24:43):
really enjoy seeing Johnsena continuously hit with F five. Well,
let's go back to that through yet Santa check protect
himself under the right of five through yet right And
so we saw that over and over. Kids trying to
the audience as they saw Gina john Cena getting taken
down crazy and the same person I just referenced to

(25:08):
before about the grade of Russell Balooza, he says, this
is nothing unbelievable. Do Toby's own partner ESPN greater res
a sea setting. It fell short of expectations and Andreas
Hair would also kind of put out in the caption.
It was a phenomenal display inside the square circle. Everything
else was under either underwhelming, the short roads backutary match

(25:30):
or a set up for a future match. Lezard Dominique
Sina for Card promised to have epic moments if they're
a little short of expectations, He's not wrong Andreas Hill
just said the real part out loud. Somebody was just
looking in from an objective eye. He's not a fan,
he's not a proper fan. He probably is familiar with

(25:50):
wrestling and how it's done, but he's probably not like
a fan that falls along with his products, which is
the way it is now. No, so he did it
from an objective sports critic lens on match quality, nothing
about the lead up of the matches, nothing about the
lead up to the actual of these stars and what
they mean. Because if you're watching an ESPN, you just

(26:10):
to assume you're watching the product wherever you have to
find it, whether it's over here on Netflix or over
here on USA, or over here on CW, and prior
to ESPN on Peacock or NBC, like, there's a lot
of places you expect that people are gonna be watching
the lead. So I guess they think the social media

(26:32):
is supposed to go ahead and take care of that
and cover any confusion or anything to try to get
a mainstream crowd interested, just saying I don't think they
got that all set up. So a lot of people
went after address hell after that, Okay, Well, I mean
that's what's gonna happen. And this is what the ESPN
fan base, you know, this is what ESPN is getting
to see, is that this jugital, delusional, toxic fandom is

(26:55):
out here bashing away at what ESPN provided in terms
of the product, and that someone from their team would
actually go ahead and tarnish and shame their most heralded product.
And that's what happened, and people got really pissed off.

(27:17):
But the TKO machine continues. We now have the ticket
prices now have been set up for wrestlmen you and
forty two coming up in Las Vegas, back to the
Allegiance Stadium next year. So here's your top tickets right now. Amazing.

(27:37):
So on the floor tickets ring side nine thousand dollars
a seat, you still be on the floor with your
secondary thirty eight hundred dollars a seat. One hundred level seats,
we're taking between eleven hundred and fifteen hundred dollars a ticket.

(28:00):
Two days ticket prices, by the way, I'll get I'll
say that, okay, two day ticket prices now three hundred
Section two hunter Section thirteen eleven hundred to thirteen hundred dollars,
the three intersection eleven hundred dollars and the four inter section,
the the Bleeder seats eight hundred and fifty bucks for

(28:22):
both nights, four hundred bucks for the cheap seats. That's
not counting how much you have to go and pay
when you're in Vegas for itself, for WrestleMania, merch, all
the other stuff. Like I said, if you're gonna go
through on the cheap, you're gonna spend a few thousand dollars,
not one or two, a few thousand dollars. That's coming
from P to B Insider. Another thing that I also got

(28:47):
people pissed off this week was the PWI five hundred,
so they put out their top ten for twenty twenty five.
Cody Rhodes makes a toital top of the list, John
Moxley number two, Gunther hey Man out of page HEROKEI
go to go to j Usso swer Strickland, seth Wrong's

(29:10):
Mystico and Will Osprey. Yes you got it for AW
names on the list and AW has has four and
I'm sure there's some names up on that list that
people were not happy to go and see. Hump there right,

(29:32):
no bron breaker and also there's just the men I
guess there's another Obviously there's a women's list, but that's
where the five hundred here on. This is another person
rights after the rest of the loose event. With the
recent backlash from Russell at ESPNS feedback on the pled
Event event, the creators even has to do a major

(29:53):
overhaul decisions and really start taking the constructive criticism seriously.
This upcoming Ross backed down to the most important episodes
of the the ones that you're already having right now.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
But for Raw.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Prior to the Netflix broadcast, nothing was advertised, nothing was set.
Now the floor, ring side, second row, here's the other part,
the ringside Rose and the tickets for that. I didn't
even get that part yet. Andrew Baydall puts this out
here before fees, by the way, second row, ring side

(30:32):
on the floor thirty two thousand dollars a ticket, two
day combo tickets thirty two thousand per ticket, ringside Rose
five and six, eleven thousand, five hundred dollars a ticket

(30:53):
Rose seventy eight and nine, ring side nine thousand dollars
ticket two day tickets, but nine thousand dollars You know
those kind of tickets, ticket prices, Yeah, they're gonna go
and make mother money up in no time, and then
a couple hundred you know, a couple of million dollars,
one hundred million dollars on Saudi Arabia shows. So yeah,
they're gonna make some money off of it. Incredible. Another

(31:15):
comment from the real voice of the juvenile delusional fandom.
I should just say that from now on, crowd Jewel
needs to me to make good from how lazy reciplues
are six matches minimum? You want to go seven? I
wouldn't complain. He's saying you should have aj styles, John Cena,
so dive a care Versusativity, Stratton, Rhea, Ripley, and Eosky

(31:36):
versus Oscar and Kyrie Sane Seth versus Cody. I know
they can find it in themselves to make this show
feel substantial. This show so far, it looks like a
banger show. The entire plee structure for the main roster
is awful. It needs a radical change. That's a contradiction
right there. So you have those stars right there that
could be a banger show, but the pl structure for

(31:59):
the main roster awful. Okay, So it's not just the
stars they want to put in the matches. It's the
matches to get put in, which again is all creative
and there are people that are going to defend and
run cover for this company as it's going on like this.
And by the way, if you want official platinum seats

(32:21):
for US of many forty two first row, it's thirty
eight thousand dollars for two day tickets. Do you understand
that's a new car, that's a reasonably good new car.

(32:41):
That's a down payment on a house. I'd love to
know who are the people that have the money for this.
And a couple of things I should make mention of
as well, when you have certain products that are out
there that fail and do not do well. How about NXT. Okay,

(33:03):
we had WWE that you said their Speed program that
was over on X exclusively on X. It was a
deal they made with them. Well guess what when the
Speed series got canceled after one season. Yeah, NXT is
now using speed for contenders Matt Tournament to find who

(33:26):
goes to No Mercy the nxd PA perview coming up.
A couple of things want to take away from X
that I just saw that just continue to give me
the pulse of what happened for this counter programming Row
September fifteen pulled two point six million viewers five point
three million hours watched over to our run time. That's it.
So who was just watching that night, was just watching

(33:48):
that night two point six million viewers. That just means
that they watched a show your loyal fan base around
the world. That's all you got. Now, remember earlier on
when Triple H talked about the interests of people that
are wanting to join w or come back or say, hey,

(34:09):
you know how so much time letting their deal with
contract they want to go and come on back or whatever. Okay,
let's talk about Jasmin Nicks formerly Jasmin Kicks. Her real
name is Jade Arianna Genteel A formerly a professional soccer
player or she was a collegiate soccer player, and she

(34:34):
was part of that Next in Line program announced to
the Performance Center's Fall twenty twenty two rookie class. Began
appearing as a student at Chase University and would be
friend fellow student jac Jane. And of course we know
that she then became part of the group that would

(34:55):
come after fatal attraction Fatal Influence. So she's been the
third person in the group. You've seen her with a
mask because she had had her nose broken previously, twenty
seven years old, trained at the performance Center. I mean,
you look at her and you say, Okay, in the
time that she was in here, she was moving along, right.

(35:19):
We don't know if she was ever going to make
a call up to the main roster, but when you
look at her, she looks like a million bucks. Like
I mean, if she wanted to go and continue working
somewhere else, I could just say, you know what I mean.
I think if she wanted to go back at the wrestling,
if another company wanted to look at her, she's got bookings.
She can find whatever she wants. But she's out completely.

(35:43):
She was offered a new contract as her current ones's expiring,
and she's declining what they're offering her. And this is
her talking about it after the fact, and let's just
play back what she says in her own words.

Speaker 6 (35:55):
As you know, there's been things circulating and I kind
of want to just set the record straight that I
am not re signing with we. This was a personal
decision I had to make for myself and for my
future personally. The contract that they were offering me for
the next three years just wasn't going to cut it
for me financially, and that's okay. I kind of just
wanted to give a backstory of everything. I was playing

(36:17):
professional soccer in Iceland and then I got recruited obviously
to we which I left everything out there to come
here for this opportunity, which I'm very, very grateful for.
I was kind of held back a little in the beginning.
I had for knee surgeries, so I had to recover
and rebuild my knees in order to step in the ring.
And as some of you know, I broke my nose

(36:39):
That's why I was wearing the mask. I had other
injuries concussions that kind of held me out of TV
for a little bit. We'll say that there has been
a lot of opportunities that I've had to turn down
and pass up. But now that I am out of
the job, I can kind of explore these opportunities more
and take them more. Seriously. Love my jazzmin Nicks fans.

(37:00):
Thank you guys so much for supporting me.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
And having now for her, I mean as far as
I know. I mean, she was featured a lot on
XT and aside from the fact that she did have
injuries back and forth didn't help much. And now we

(37:23):
have in the recent NXT episode she was found attacked
backstage and Fatal Influence kicked her out of the group
Chasea Jane and Fall Henley abandoned her done, just kind
of thrown out. But it is something that went through
the entire run here of Fatal Influence, and the bottom

(37:47):
line was is that in three years she's not even
considering to go and stay and take the rest of
the course. She has other things she could do with
her life at twenty seven years old. It's so great,
but she took herself away from professional soccer so she
could work European and you know, still working women's soccer

(38:07):
and all. And who knows what she could have been
doing as well. How good of a soccer place she
could be, where she could buy me, you know, compete
for the women's Olympic you know, the Olympic team, or
for the World Cup, the Women's World Cup. Who knows.
But she put herself into wrestling, gave it a very
good cause try and I think from the training that

(38:30):
she got, if she wanted to go into wrestling somewhere else,
she could probably still go back to that and find
income and probably get paid more than she was gonna
get from NXT. But that dream that was given before
to some of these athletes out there doesn't look so
good when you see someone like her, because people are
gonna ask themselves. Like I said, I was like, wait
a minute, why are they gonna be up on her already?

(38:51):
Why are they not trying to hold on to her?
That's one thing. But the other thing is she's not
going somewhere else. She's getting out of wrestling all together.
How is it as somebody in three years comes into
is given as much time as she has given, they
put her out there and she's no longer interested. I

(39:12):
don't think has anything to do with her that she
didn't want to do this, as far as I saw,
looked like she put the effort out there and now
she you know, she's gonna do something else with her life.
No plan of wrestling. Bry not well. I wish her

(39:36):
all the best. That's amazing that's going on with her
and that she's out, because I'm asking myself, you know,
of the other stars they have down there, why is
she's not going to make her way up there and
do something you know, it's just saying saying is she
wasn't there yet. He obviously felt faith in her to
get and put her on television as much as he did.

(39:58):
And there's an audience that actually were able to all
along with her what she was doing. She had a
great look. She was part of a faction that was
recognizes an NXT that they gave a lot of time to.
I don't know, but it's very interesting the fact that
if you have somebody coming to do we it's the

(40:20):
fact that they're not even looking at like say, oh, no,
let's see if aw will pick me up. No, nothing
like that. That people can come in fresh into the performance
center and completely like lose interest in wrestling altogether and say, no,
there's something else better for me. Wow, when you get

(40:41):
the chance to come into wrestling and you dedicate yourself
to the craft for three years and you're doing something
with it, and yeah, the contract was probably being cut,
probably weren't offering as much or that for another three
years to stay at the same kind of pay or
something similar. Yeah, why if she's gonna be stuck down

(41:02):
at NXT with no chance of her moving to the
main roster, no chance of a promotion, then yeah, what
is she gonna do down there? This company has not
been good about bringing new stars up to the main roster.
We talked about a couple of stories that got in
the draft, and look what he's done with them? And
what about starts to come into their free agents? What
are they do with them? We have examples right now

(41:25):
with people that have been here coming back to the
company Andrede and he's back out again. And I look
at Alistair Black and I look at russev and you
know when you talk about the stars that came from
NXT with you know, Ricky Saints, and I'm like, he's
in a background on the NXT invasion angle. They're starting
up right now to think that TNA is now going

(41:47):
to go into an evasion angle with NXT, and it's
gonna probably be showcased that Bow for Glory, because we
already know that something's gonna happen at No Mercy and
Bound for Glories we come across and here we go,
TNA and NXD are gonna go two thousand and one,
We're gonna go back to invasion. How good was that angle?

(42:10):
I'm glad I missed it. I wasn't even watching the
Invasion angle and how bad it was, and I would
not fared to guess they're gonna do any better. There's
no way it's gonna be anywhere. The Innesian Angle is
not gonna work. TNA's not gonna benefit from this, by
the way. I didn't talk about the fact of what TNA.

(42:31):
You know, and they're leading up to their pay per
view coming up in a couple of weeks, by the way,
it's just you're right now, right around the corner. Bound
for Glory is coming up with a lot of NXT
stars on the brand coming into work. We only have

(42:51):
four matches officially announced. By this point, we would have
gotten a whole lot more booked, and we don't know.
I mean, listen Abound for Glory. You would think it
would be like a seven eight, ten match show, but
with the involved in NXT, probably not gonna be as much.

(43:14):
Currently still scheduled for the Night System versus Order four
in the ten percent Intergineer Hardcore War, that's all TEENA
Stars knockouts, World Title ash by Elegance versus Indie Heartworld. Really,
why I know, Masi Slamas just got some domestic violence
crap going on right now. It looks like she's gonna
be the next Joey Ryan. She's gonna be, like you know,

(43:35):
persa persona non grata, so we're not gonna hear from
her anymore. So anything with her right now is like
kind of out of the mix. She's got a storyline.
And you think with the what we used to have
with the Knockouts World title, okay, with Jordan Grace or
Diana Prasso. And I'm saying to myself, now we're at

(43:58):
the point where ash By Elegance and in Heartwell is
your Knockouts World title match. That's a bit concerning. I'm
surprised by that. Honestly, those are two stars that I
don't think if you would have had the Knockouts Division
without any w influence, these two stars would not be Knockouts,
would not be vying for the Knockouts World title, let

(44:20):
alone one of them be champion. One to be a
contender or challenger. No Harty's versus Team three D for
the World Tag Team titles and a tables match, Okay,
I'll enjoy that. That'll be fun. Trick Williams Mike Santana
for the TNA World Heavyweight title at Trick Williams is
also actually was gonna defend against'll be Femi. They had

(44:42):
that on the next t only to create a DQ
finish crap and Trick Williams could very well come out.
I listen, you think Mike Santana is gonna win the
DNA Worldayweight title? Do you honeste that they're gonna pull
that off that night? No, Trick Williams continues, They'll have
somebody else ready for him to go and take on

(45:05):
soon enough. I don't expect Mike Sattana. I'm sorry, I
just don't Mike Santana. I don't see him as world
have weight champion. Has Mike Santana won any belts since
he's coming to TNA. No, since he's coming to TNA,
not Impact Wrestling. I'm talking about it as a single star.

(45:30):
It's a different story his singles career in TNA. He
joined April of last year, so again, roughly what will
be eighteen months he'll have been in the company. Had
a few with the system because he qualified for the
Teenage World Championship match at Summiversary, then dealt with the

(45:53):
system heading up to Bound for Glory against Moose, and
then he was in the four way match for the
TEENA World heaweight title at Final Resolution and lost where
Joe Henry would win. Then Santanna had a feud with

(46:13):
Josh Alexander, then a few of the Mom's off Our
Lee again no titles here, keep that in mind. And
then you had at Slimmiversary another three away match for
the Teenage w heayway title with Trick Williams and Joe
Henry and Trick Williams won. So he's had a couple

(46:37):
of chances of the world title, nothing, and he's had
some feuds, but I mean even with Mike Santanna not
even going after the Exhibion title, not even that part.
And then remember the NXT partnership, Santana starts in a

(46:57):
feud with a no Quarter Catch crew after that short
little run after Battleground, he challenges Trick Williams of the
TEENA will have a title. They have a title match
on NXT at First Class Interferes and that's it. This

(47:22):
is everything that's been done with him right now in
TNA in the last eighteen months, and after all this,
we're just gonna book him the championship and it's not
against Mike Santana's you know ability in the ring. I'm
not talking about that either, but I said, over and over,
what have you done to really get this guy over

(47:43):
as a single star. I mean, it's a different booking
committee over there. It's not Scott the Moore. Scott the
Moore port would have had a different deal with it.
But remember Scott the Moore was out of all this,
and the thing is even Scott the Moore, I believe.
I don't think he had a play. And before the
TNA change of the branding, that was gonna say okay,

(48:05):
we're Santae's gonna be heading towards that world title. I
don't know that was gonna happen because all last year
it was all about Joe Henry and then the bee
comes in here and they put your glaves of the belt.
I'm just saying, there's not much more to it. Just

(48:29):
feels a bit off putting. So I haven't talked much
about TNA and any of that for a while because
I already can tell that the nxtification of this whole
thing here, there's so much w influence here. Anyway, of course,
I'm gonna cover Bound for glory. Of course, I'm gonna
do the paper view. I will do the post show

(48:50):
for it, and we'll see how it pans out. But
I believe the invasion's gonna go ahead and succumb into
bound for glory, and it's gonna take up a lot
of the a lot of the oxygen out of everything else,
because towards this part of the year, TNA is nothing
like it was. Let's not mention the fact of how

(49:11):
Triple A has changed. Where down the line the next
paper view for them, I could very well see the
Triple A by the way, now that they're getting the
experience of the w Ok. Let's just put it like
this here. The Triple A make a chimney might take
on John Cena at one of the last four matches

(49:32):
for John Cena coming up in his retirement tour. And
I don't mind that. I've actually I actually do like
that as a matter of fact, I believe it or not,
And it could be a crown jewel in Perth. I
actually like that a lot. Why not? I mean, what
else would work? Triple A is expected to go ahead

(49:53):
and pay the talent the same cellars as NXD star Skinting,
so they get being paid like developmental talent. Luta Libri
Onlines vice president Michael Morales report that Triple A is
expected to match basic NXT salaries to help cover living costs,
and Morales noticed that's Spanish office in Mexico already paid

(50:16):
strong wages to both all on their talent and production staff.
There are significant funding available and that Triple A pays
to cover hotel, meals and other expenses when talent travels
in the United States. Now it's said to be a
bumping salary for talent, but the problem is that Triple
A talent is now restricted on working on in these

(50:37):
shows in the US. So yeah, they might getting me
paid more, but they're also not gonna be exclusives to
Triple A. And that's it. I don't know if that's
good or not. But for those I guess the extra
pay doesn't matter, but the extra exposure and gonna be
set into the bubble of Triple A. What it is
under this new w regime is set to be seen.

(50:59):
I don't know if it works well. Cone and keeps saying, Oh,
it's not gonna get changed, nothing's gonna change about the product.
We'll leave it at that. We got Crown Jewel Curd
coming up in two weeks and the Crown Jewel titles
will be defended. Fine, today, We'll leave it there. Come
back to the rest of your podcast because wrestling needs us.

(51:39):
H

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