THIS BOOK IS ALL XENU or THE COST OF BEING A FAN )Wrestling Soup 11.6.25)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, there you are. Don't don't worry, Mitch. We got
me and you. We gotta fucking get the show DOWNE
get out of here. We gotta go pick up some
extra shifts to fund Ridge. Holland.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Oh, I thought you were gonna talk about Hangman Page.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I don't know what that show did. I'm thinking about
what this show did. What did that show do?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Oh just chowed in around.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
For all the people that be chowing it up and saying, what, no,
what is that? Really? He did something?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I mean, he's I don't know he's been getting. He
sent that fan that says like ice fears Hangman Page
or some shit like that, a bunch of like merchandise
and autographs, autographs. And then there was somebody else that
went to a w Dynamitic guests last night and they
had a big sign up that the gays love Hangman Page.

(00:51):
But I guess the sign was confiscated or I don't know.
He's just all over the place lately.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well, this is you know what, I think. He's got
to get his he's got to get his attention where
he can get it.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well as sure as non dynamite.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Right, Well, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Four hundred four hundred thousand, four hundred and forty thousand
or some shit like that. Come on, man, well that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
It's like, that's how like not important any of that
AW shit is to me or present. It is in
my mind at all that I know about this Ridge
Holland stuff because like three people sent it to me.
But anything with like anything with like Hangman Page or
it's just like Hangman Page doesn't like ICE and I'm like, yeah,

(01:42):
the majority of the country doesn't, But I don't know
what that has to do with your wrestling company. That
sucks balls.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, that means that if you don't follow AW, you're
clearly a Nazi.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
So yeah, well I can tell you this too much.
I don't think that anybody should feel like a Nazi
for not watching a w you, but I think they
should probably feel like a Nazi for being a Nazi
at this point, you know what I mean, Like that
that's fine. You know, like if you're sitting around and
you're like, hey about them Jews, it's like, yeah, you

(02:13):
should probably probably reflect ever so lightly on that. But
I feel like, yeah, man, I think that this a
redundant wrestling show that's been terrible for a fucking six
bus years sucks. Yeah, I don't think that. I don't
think you should take that as anything personal.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
They disagree with you, so well, yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
That's an interesting and by the way, that has nothing
to do with the fact that people are not interested
in the show either, I'm sure to some extent. And
you know, we said that what half a decade ago,
that the fans are actively ruining it for people that
are just kind of half assed regular people, if there's
such thing as a wrestling fan that's regular at this point.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
You know, Joey, you would have said that if you
did not read the first twenty pages of eight e
w's new book.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Oh no, you already got into that. You've already already
twenty already. Yeah, you've already got your dip stick in
there to give it a look.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
See, I am Anthony Thomas, is Joe Numbers your excellency.
Uh well, man.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Well, I'm I might be excellent, but you, sir, you
are already, like you said, you're reading Rainbow over there,
already checking out the ae W book. I would I
don't know if I've got it in me, sir, it
is I gotta leave that one up at you.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
I will put it this way, Keg Keith Elliott Greensburg.
He likes to go by the name Keg.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Oh, that's very just very cool. He's a cool gag.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
His parents knew that they were just going to shorten
his name to Keg.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Well, yeah, Keg. Well wait a second, So that's the
guy that wrote the book. He said, right, Keg, Keg,
and he goes my keg? Does he at least loop
a dude that drinks beers?

Speaker 2 (04:02):
He looks like a guy who SIPs I p a
s with his pinky up and his beard cream thoroughly,
thoroughly in his mustache.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Oh that's kind of a bummer. Yeah, that's kind of
a that's kind of a shame. At least, if you're
like a big fat party animal and your name's Keg,
that's pretty cool, you know, yeah, right, yes, right, well,
I mean yeah, it'd be cool with that. But I mean, like,
you're not You're not just like Burt Kreischer fat, You're
like man titties hanging out of the side of a

(04:32):
tank top. Fat.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
You're gonna have to let me take a picture of
his personal photo in this book, because you know, as
a writer and as an esteemed writer writing about a
w what has to make sure that they put their
identification in the book for everyone to see.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Is that him? Is that him who Eric just put
in the chat? All right? Respectfully? He looks like Jesus
mixed with one of the guys from System of a Down. Yeah,
I mean, doesn't he He looks like one of the
dudes in System. I don't know which guy, But I
don't know if he should be writing books about AAW.

(05:12):
I think he should be telling me about the Armenian
genocide and making like yo ya ya ya ya ya
ya yach noises at me over metal riffs. But hey,
I mean, I guess good for him, right, I just so,
how long has the book been out?

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Now?

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Has it been out for a full week?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
It's been out for a full twenty four hours.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Oh okay. I was going to say, when are we
going to get the When are we going to get
the New York Bestseller Times lists on that? Because those
melts are going to have to cook those books too,
No pun intended.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
This is this is okay. So, like I said, I'm
only twenty minutes in. I mean I could just read
the first twenty pages because first off, I guess first
impressions of the book, it's a coffee table type of book,
but it's not a coffee table type of book. I
made a joke tweet earlier saying that my my coffee

(06:03):
table book collection is finally complete, and I put that
on top of the dark History of Roman Emperors, a
book about the Vietnam War, and something something else that
was just as you know, qualified to be in the
presence of an aw book.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
But uh, yeah, boy, I'm a little concerned by what
you meant by that one.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
But My Life by Bill Clinton didn't make the cut,
So I'm sorry. Guys.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
You know, well, you know what that's you got to
get the director out of that book, and that's that's
where all the real interesting shit is. So it's finally
out there. It's been out for twenty four hours. So
what do you think is going to happen here? Is
there going to be no discussion of sales? Or do

(06:49):
you think Tony Kahan is going to pull the oldest
trick in the book, which is you buy a book,
you buy a bunch of them, and then it goes
on the New York Times bestseller list. So then you
had to sit there and go a w you know,
history went on the New York Times bestseller list, because
that's a that's a fucking long seated scam.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
At this, it'll it'll, it'll, it'll make it'll make the news,
It'll make the headlines. For what it's worth, and clearly
the way that the book is written and the way
the book is going to be distributed, I think that
this was very calculated to do it around now, November
Black Friday's coming up. Time to buy shopping gifts for
your AW fan base, your household, all the households I

(07:30):
watch AW. So I think it's of course, it'll do
fine for itself. I'm not even worried about it in
that scenario. I think, for for what it for what
it's presented as, it'll be fine. Nobody's expecting this book
to be a history lesson. Albeit this book is a
history lesson of AW. And God, how do I put this?

(07:52):
If wrestling, if AEW wrestling was scientology, this would be
your Thetan's Manual, this would be how you get the
front seat on Kuzu's spaceship up in the sky.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
So so, needless to say, it's kind of a glowing analysis.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Oh no, no, it's it's it's already revisionist from the
first page, starting off with Tony Shiavani. We kind of
joked about that playing the audible reading, but you start
getting into the actual book and it starts off immediately
by sucking off Tony Khan. Tony Khan had thought of

(08:39):
a e W before Cody Rhodes, before the Young Bucks.
It was an idea that Tony Khan was pursuing when
he enjoyed a game of an MS Doss game called
Rampage Wrestling. And this MS Dows game was so powerful
to him that in the nine he thought to himself,

(09:01):
I'm going to buy and make a wrestling company. And
from that, from those ashes, right, he grew and he
went to school with some of these people, and and
he became He made his own newsletter before Dave Meltzer did.
He made his own newsletter about AEW before anybody else did,

(09:22):
and he shared it with just him and his friend.
So there's only two people that were ever witnessed to
these newsletters. Because he likes to play for a small crowd, clearly,
and you get to that point and he starts going forward.
They it's and and the words the vernacular that Keg
uses really makes you feel like wrestling was completely dead,

(09:48):
with the exception of WWE, Like there was CML, well
there was New Japan, but these guys weren't doing anything.
Aubrey Edwards was quoted in there talking about how bland
boring wrestling wise, and then they shoot over to Kenny Omega,
who kind of nods his hat. It's like, oh, I'm
just an NJPW champion, boy, I wish there was a

(10:10):
better company for me to compete at.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Which, by the way, that was around the time I
believe when Kenny Omega was charging if I remember correctly
from I was told personally that he was making roughly
around thirty grand per match on the indies, so clearly
to him, he's like, yeah, this is dead. You know,
business is into toilet for old ko over here. You know,

(10:33):
I'm not making a dollar or whatever it is it
squiggle money they get in Canada.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Well yeah, at those times.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, I'm sure, But dude, I'm sure that you've read
twenty pages of this now. That's because they would love
to have just made an autobiography, of course, written by
somebody else about Tony and put it out there because duh,
this is so fine.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
That's what this feels like so far, that's this feels like.
This is this book is an all glory of Tony Khan.
This book is dedicated towards the genius that is Tony Khan.
Wrestling Pro Wrestling. Look, if you guys enjoyed anything but
WWE in the last thirty years, you're a liar. There

(11:17):
was nothing except for a w Actually, there was r
o H. And they do say that r O H
kind of existed just so AW could put its boot
on its back and climb up. So I am like,
tell that.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
You're right, So they could so they could clot out
of obscurity.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Right and PWT.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yes, yeah, so they could clot out of obscurity and
then swiftly put it right back into obscurity exactly.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
But there's already shots he did. There's already there's already
shots at the NWA National Wrestling Alliance. Just words again,
vernacular that's used the fledgling, the remnants of the NWA
is what created AW. The the death knell, the death
rattle of the NWA. And it's like, all right, I

(12:03):
get it, Jesus, you guys don't like Billy right, I
got it, got it.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Which, by the way, you know what all of this
banter right, or all of this whatever it is that
they have written down, if this all led to and
now part two, the fucking rapid decline, then that would
be totally worth it. You know. Like it's like when
you watch a documentary and they start telling you about

(12:29):
you know, then this was everything was wonderful and everybody
was successful in making money, and then it's like and
then and the screen goes to black title card.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
I kind of just read like a page or two,
and I know that sounds like a lot, but it
really isn't. Guys. About two pages is about three paragraphs
of writing because they fill every page with so much
blank space and pictures that even though this book is
technically two hundred pages, it's probably forty actual pages of writing.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
So it's like one of those. So it is literally
a coffee table book, like when people get a giant
thing and it's just like a pictures of cats of
dogs or something, you.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Know what it was.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
There's like a little write up about them.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
I know, I was joking with Dan when we were
in the private chat and stuff like that, and I'm like,
do you remember those WWE encyclopedias done by DK now DK,
and I'm sure you know this, but most people might not.
DK is like a youth oriented publication company, so a
lot of their books are like why fourteen and stuff
like that. They're a little bit edgier than you're just

(13:37):
general stuff. But this book that Keg made absolutely feels
like a DK type coffee table book. It does not
feel like an adults geared combat based coffee table book.
It's it's but I am only twenty pages in. Maybe
it'll surprise Well.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
It's for adults with the mind of children, I assume, right,
well kind of, Well.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Then that wouldn't be AW fans anyways, because, like Dave
Meltzer said, AW fans are the smartest wrestling fans on
the planet.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
So that's that's a good point, right, that is true?
He did say that was it her Tony Kahan calling
him on the phone in the middle of a show?
Probably how did he get that information? Yeah, let me
let me read. I assume though, yes, yeah, we can
get to that one. But yes, I need to hear.
Please tell me some of this, some of the story.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
After after Tony Shivani's forward after his introduction and preliminary
butt kissing. It starts off in the mid nineteen nineties,
before Tony Khan was even in high school, he was
envisioning the uprising that would redefine professional wrestling. I'd been

(14:56):
watching wrestling since I was seven years old, he said.
When when I was twelve, I went online. They didn't
have Google yet, and I started asking questions about how
professional wrestling really worked. It was the first time that
he learned about the entertainment aspects of the art form,

(15:19):
receiving a glossary of insider terminology and a list of
popular performers' actual names. I'd never had anything explained to
me like that, he continued. Then, on the dial up Internet,
I found a group of fans who loved wrestling as
much as I did, and we became friends, and some

(15:43):
of them I'm still in contact with to this day.
Tony Kahn had reached a point of.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
It and some of them asked for pictures of my feet.
It was very now, mind you, this was the mid nineties,
so that was a rarity.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Of course. It's all we were all asl back then,
bro Like there was no feet pack.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
True, these people were getting right into it. You know
what I mean. They were trailblazers. They blazed trails with
their feet.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
Tony Kahan had reached a point of no return. I
started writing a newsletter that only my friend and myself
had read, and we finally found a game called Rampage
Wrestling that we played on ms DASS. There was no video,
not even pictures, but we had ratings for agility, size, skill,

(16:39):
even for people who fought dirty. There was a singles
class and a tag team class. A tag team specialist
would have a higher rating in that class than a
singles specialist. In the back of the classroom, he'd compile
lists of all the competitors he'd seen on Extreme Championship Wrestling,

(17:03):
Jim Cornett's Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and other edgy promotions, booking
them into fantasy matches, allegiances, and long term storylines. He
even invented an episodic TV show, its name Dynamite.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Oh God, this is yeah, So this is just like
a billionaire child Neppo baby smut. At this point, you know,
like this is the equivalent of when you were in
middle school. Maybe you sat around and drew comic books
or something, or try to like make stories or songs

(17:46):
or something. You're fucking around with your friends, But your
dad invented fucking car pumpers or some shit, right, and
you could just do that twenty five years later?

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well he was, That's all it is. He was enamored
by this, this video game. He was enamored by his
deep love of ECW. But I continue. I'm still only
a paragraph in. While others outgrew their childhood obsessions, cons
became more intense. After graduating from the University of Illinois

(18:17):
or Bono Champagne. In two thousand and seven, Tony Khan
realized that he was uniquely qualified to fulfill his dream
of starting a wrestling promotion.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
Uniquely qualified. Yes, that's an interesting way to put it.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Huh, lots of money?

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Yes, yeah right, I was uniquely qualified to buy a ferrari.
Oh how'd you do that? My dad was in the
Mafia's uniquely qualified. Get the fuck out of here, my god.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
The son of Shad Khan, owner of the NFL's Jacksonville
Jaguars and London's Fulham Football Club, Tony became an integral
part of the family business. As a sports executive, he'd
work with both the Jags and Fulham FC in operations

(19:18):
and recruiting. Using his unique vantage point to assess the
pro wrestling landscape, I built a good reputation as an
expert in sports analytics and team management, he said, as
well as working with sports media partners all around the world.

(19:38):
As he busied himself with his responsibilities for Fulham and
the Jaguars, Cohn watched the already growth. I'm sorry the
steady growth of indie wrestling. Smaller promotions generally perceived as
an alternative to the commercial fair most fans saw each
week on World Wrestling Entertainment broadcasts. Wrestling had a sort

(20:02):
of become monotonous, said referee Aubrey Edwards. There was only
one major company in North America. They were doing their thing,
and that was it. And she wasn't alone. Kenny Omega,
who held the prestigious IWGP Heavyweight Championship in Japan for

(20:24):
the latter part of twenty eighteen, had also been a
childhood fan, but became disenchanted with the product widely viewed
in North America. I felt that with all the varieties
of wrestling throughout the world, something new and diverse could
be created and universally enjoyed. He said, something that would

(20:46):
combine all types of stories and styles like the techniques
of the Mexican Lucha libre and the British strong style,
and what was available in Japan where the strike.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Well, my girlfriend.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Lost you there all right?

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Oh my goodness, I said, did you hear what I said?
By the chance?

Speaker 2 (21:10):
No, it censored you out. I think, aw censorah.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
I know, I said, Oh, and his girlfriend who looked twelve. Yes,
at the time. That was all of the important things
that came along with you.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Just you just had to take the journey. Unbeknownst to
Kenny Omega, Tony Kahan was already on that path, strongly
relating to those fans who regularly packed arenas for pro
wrestling Gorilla and Los Angeles DeFi and Seattle and Revolution

(21:46):
Pro in the United Kingdom, among other leagues, while closely
following the industry across the Pacific, particularly Japan's largest pro
wrestling organization. Knew Japan Pro Wrestling. I'd use the word
starved to describe how the fan base felt about an alternative,

(22:07):
said future AW Hall of Famer and World Champion Maxwell
Jacob Friedman or MJF. But ae W would end up
doing it at a much higher level than I think
anyone could have anticipated. I think it's share to say.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
That Jesus Christ can start it's up future a w
Hall of Famer. Yeah, oh thank god. Okay, yeah, that's
a relief. But by the way, you notice that though
you could have been serious, like that could have been

(22:41):
in there. I almost want.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
To read this book the way they really wanted it read,
you know what I mean, Like, I think this book
holds back. I think we need more. I think KEG
could have done a better job of just laying it
on thicker. Wasn't thick enough. But that's what the first
twenty pages are, like, it really is a lot of this.

(23:06):
It's it's this self aggrandizing vision of wrestling just barely
existed in the United States. Everywhere else it was it
was thriving, but in the US there was no point
to wrestling unless you were in WWE. And that's that's it.
That's it. That's all that happened.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
So you know, and and you know what's the craziest
about this is that at that time around when AW
took off, this is the nuggative truth in what was
written there other than them being like some random the
fucking Indian like Seattle that like probably drew two hundred people.
I don't know what the what the fuck defy or

(23:49):
what is that shit? I don't know. Yeah, get the
fuck out of here. That is at the point where
GCW was actually getting really, really fucking popular and they
were drawing like one hundred and eight hundred and nine
hundred people every single weekend sure to watch guys get
like hit with light bulbs. So that was going on
at the time. What the fuck? Obviously New Japan was

(24:11):
hot because of the bullet cut bullshit.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
But then so they didn't knock they didn't knock international stuff.
But I mean, if even if you look.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
At no, yes, of course not, how could you ever
say anything bad about international?

Speaker 2 (24:21):
PNA was clearly number two for many years, and they
went up and they went down, and there were points
where there was fat and there was points where there
were famine. But TNA was a steady part of the
wrestling fans diet. Even if you didn't like NWAT and ATNA,
et cetera. There was still ROH that was pretty fucking

(24:42):
popular for a lot of Indie fans. And then never
mind all the other smaller promotions that happened to exist
around too. It was just a weird thing that nothing else.
And once again, if you're reading this knowing the truth,
then all of this is just subjective. It's like clearly
just self you.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
Know exactly what this is.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
But I'm trying to read this from the perspective of
a WWE fan that just discovered aw and it is awful.
It is fucking awful.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
I find it really funny stale this whole thing. Yeah,
you know, like they came on.

Speaker 2 (25:18):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
If anything, a w put a fucking steak in the
heart of the indies. I mean, truly tout the indies
down a crazy fucking level, if not by taking most
of the guys that were performing, that were even in
the even had the ability to draw four five hundred

(25:39):
people or two hundred and fifty people, like an Orange
Cassidy before he got millions of dollars invested in them
anywhere they went. They took that and put it on
the road and killed it dead.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
So yeah, no, for sure, not even just that too.
But you have to also look at the other TV shows.
They even had lucer Lee or I'm sorry, Luja Underground
that was really popular at the time too, went on
for many seasons, like there's a lot of things that
they gloss over. And my favorite part though is and
later on once again comes down to, you know, the
words used in the vernacular, but it's the it's the

(26:15):
context of the way that they promote themselves. Right. So
when they're talking about how the young Bucks and Cody
Rhoades and Tony Kahan were scouting all this talent from
Mexico and from Japan, it was almost done in a way,
after following the other paragraphs, that we grabbed everyone talented
and left this shit behind. And that is how they

(26:40):
view themselves. They view themselves as the all star game,
that the best wrestlers exist in aw because we hired
them all with tons of money and left everybody else
to just fucking drown, like New Japan.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Some extent. Yeah, it's just some extent. That is what happened.
They didn't even know and by the way, not even
necessarily the best. They just took a bunch of fucking people,
many of which were fucking bombs, truly and let the
shit sink. That is what happened. I mean, it's subjective,

(27:19):
Like you said, New Japan there. Oh they took Okatta
and whomever, Kenny Omega and blah blah blah, and it's like,
all right, sure, and I'm sure that hurt the business
of New Japan, but not at all. I mean, well,
and in hindsight, New Japan was gonna fucking dip either
WET because they had their huge up you know, they

(27:43):
had their huge resurgence with the Bullet Club thing, right,
and you were gonna lose those guys by hook or
by crook, whether they went to WWE, whether they just
fucking went back to whatever home country they were from
because they had a bunch of dudes who were British
and right, or they aged out like aj. If aj
Styles didn't go to WWE, he probably couldn't have stayed

(28:08):
in Japan for another half dozen years work in that style. No.
I mean, let's be real, like that's what it is.
It's like, okay, people can say, oh they want, well,
the guys in Japan work till they're this age or
blah blah blah blah, and it's like, yeah, look at
them physically, right, they're all broken dolls to there.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Of course, let me let me read a little bit more,
because now we get to the inception of aw hell yeah.
The process began in Earnest Earnest in twenty eighteen, when
Tony Kahan began turning the fantasy booking of his youth
into a viable business plan. By this stage, he was

(28:46):
enough of a student of the game to understand why
passed upstar promotions failed. By contrast, the organization he hoped
to create would not be a sorry fucking sticky as
lost Pages. Would not be a vanity project launched by
a quote money mark end quote.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Oh, if you gotta say it, there's a reason.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
This derogatory term for a fan who falls into money
and throws it away on a league that instantly flings out,
but a serious revenue generating venture. I built connections and friendships,
so when the opportunity crystallized, I was in a position
to capitalize on my idea. As Tony Kahn said.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
That that rules. That that's in the book. That fucking rules.
I love it. Oh, this is like if this is
like if some fucking trophy wife to an athlete wrote
a thing where it's just like, yeah, you know, it's
not like I'm some trophy life as no real talent, right,

(29:56):
other than being pretty. It's like, if you guys see it,
you don't and you don't mean it, Like we know
why you're pointing that out. Good God Jesus. It's one
of those attempting self awareness while also self dunking. Right,
you know, just put no own boot on your own

(30:18):
fucking neck. What a dumbassy.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
The business model for pro wrestling had really changed when
TV rights fees increased. You could sell a show for
tens of millions of dollars, sign a roster of wrestlers,
and air fifty two weeks per year. There was a
new opportunity to launch a promotion profitably and internationally that
hadn't really existed until then. The idea was to build

(30:44):
a TV show and develop a franchise of pay per views,
and by sheer circumstance, Joey in April of twenty and eighteen,
he happened to attend a party in Beverly Hills where
he ran He ran into a friend, Kevin Riley, an
important executive at WarnerMedia, the company overseeing such networks as CNN, TBS,

(31:10):
TNT and Max. TBS and TNT had already been the
home of World Championship Wrestling WCW, the last company to
attempt to make a run at an industry leader in
North America. Yeah, not TNA. TNA didn't try that at all.
Prior to its demise and absorption by WWE in two
thousand and one, a new wrestling group was needed. Tony

(31:33):
Kahn and Riley agreed something tailored to the desires of
current fans and on a scale that few had ever
tried before. Perhaps they might create one together. And as
we were talking, a light bulb went off. Con said,
once I saw his interest, I started working on my project. Meanwhile, Rhodes, Meanwhile,

(32:06):
Cody late to the game, Roads, a ten year WWE
veteran who bet on himself by leaving the company in
twenty sixteen and quickly rising to prominence on the indie scene,
and other indie stars like Matt and Nick Jackson of
the Young Bucks were methodically putting.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Use they're comparable, they're comparable, so, you.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
Know, methodically putting the bricks in place to stage the
first all in in September one, twenty eighteen. This card
would feature a conglomeration of stars not regularly highlighted on
North American television. Indie wrestling was really booming at the time,

(32:47):
Kenny Omega said, And when indie wrestling is booming, it's
almost a sign, not necessarily that you don't like what
you're getting from the big cat in town, but you
also want something else you're not getting. I'm there, and
the goal was to draw on attendance of ten thousand
or more, a benchmark that the pundits at the time

(33:08):
Dave Meltzers said was impossible for any group but WWE.
And then here's the fun part for Joey's validation. Although
Ring of Honor, arguably North America's most respected smaller promotion
during that period, would provide logistical and production support, it
was Cody Rhoads that it was. Yeah, it wasn't them

(33:33):
though they were just they were just funding it and
recording it and providing the ring and providing the television
and doing the deal with WG. That that wasn't important.
What was important was the young Bucks as well as
their families were involved in organizing the historic card.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Wait a second, so if I remember correctly, it wasn't
I called a lot of horrible things by people, and
we're in a w and the talent and the little
succophant fans because I pointed out that very obvious fact,

(34:20):
because I said, gee, I really don't think the young
bucks are sitting around calling and booking ring rentals and
getting building insurance and shit, and people like, yes, that's crazy. Ye,
clearly Matt and Nick Jackson are handling all this. Yeah, no,
that's cool. I really appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
That's great. Tag validated Joey numbers today.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Thanks system of a down bassist or whatever. I appreciate.
I owe you some chop Suey.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, I don't get the vibe of what I mean, like,
I mean, we're only a few peoples.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's a complete fucking suckfest. I
mean it's it is funny to at this point because
this book. Had this been released three years ago, probably
would have done really well, maybe give or take maybe
six months time, like right around probably like when Punk

(35:14):
actually showed up. If if they were like the history
of aw up until you know, CM Punk and the
disintegration of the fucking company, you know, after he started
having problems and left. This would be interesting now knowing
for the majority of its existence it's been a fucking
clown show. It's quite literally watching like I said a

(35:35):
documentary about something that failed, except for pretending that it's
not right.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Oh, no, for sure, and that's there is cm Punk
in the book. There is Cody Rhodes in the book.
They do highlight them. I've seen the pictures. I recorded
myself scanning through the book for everyone on Patreon. I
don't know if they do a lot, though, because it
seems like there's only a couple of pages of cempunk
pictures and then it's like, and forget about himlet's keep

(36:03):
going on.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
So yeah, yeah, never mind the bullocks. Yeah, nothing happened there. Yeah.
It my god, My fucking god. So this thing you
said is what two hundred pages?

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Two hundred pages? And I'm mockingly saying it's about forty
pages of writing. But I would say out of two
hundred pages, you could easily cut off one hundred pages,
because every single page is maybe half a page of
writing or a third page of writing, and then the
other half is either blank space or pictures. The blank
space really bothers me because clearly they have enough pictures

(36:41):
and these aren't even new pictures, right, So, like, if
you're one of these people thinking, oh well, then this
might be cool because you're gonna see like a lot
of behind the scenes photos. No, no, this was stuff
was taken right off of TV. A lot of it
was just photographs of the events that you already saw.
But they do nice little AI things like making the

(37:02):
images a little purple, or they'll throw a quote in
it or underneath it from somebody that may have or
may not have ever said it.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
So well, all right, so in terms of what's the
use of space, quality of story, and maybe just like
even realism, is it better or worse than a Berenstein
Bear's book.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
I'm telling you, if Scientology was a wrestling promotion, this
would be aw.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Marshall. What was that guy, say, Marshall Applegate? Was that
his name Apple or something? Yeah, just him? And then
Tony Khan. He used to write on the internet and
he was a special boy who could write on the internet.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
He is al Ron Hubbard. Tony Kahan is fucking l
Ron Hubbard.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Jesus, what a fucking mess. But you know what told
dude like this is one of those just another item
made you know, even though like once again, if it
needs to be said, there's a reason it's vanity project
shit it is.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
I think That's the sad thing too, because look, I've
read some of Keg's stuff before, right, I'm not a
complete stranger to old Keg. But I would go and
make a bet, a safe bet, and say that he
was commissioned to write this book. Of course, this is not.

(38:34):
This book does not feel like a love affair with
aw This is not the way that I don't know
if you remember Scott Keith, one of my favorite I
guess authors columnists from over the years. This is not
wrestling's one ring circus. This is not the impassioned project
of somebody with real enjoyments and criticisms of the product

(38:59):
that he's watching. This feels like an instructional video how
to get to aew heaven. That's what this is. And
in the end you're all drinking kool aid.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Well, do you know what this also kind of feels
like in a way is you know, all right, say
you had a friend that did tattoos and you're not
a tattoo guy, but you know, say you had a
friend that did tattoos and you were like, yeah, I'm
gonna get some work done, and you went to just
about anybody other than your friend. Let's call that friend

(39:33):
Dave Meltzer, All right, how would that make your friend
Dave Meltzer feels if you went and got attato from
somebody else after you know, they themselves are supposedly an
amazing artist.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
Oh, I would break Dave's heart. I think it would
break Dave's heart.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Wouldn't you think in the situation right, Like, he's supposedly
the smartest, most intuitive on top of the ball.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
Has so much knowledge. Well, two wrestling people forget this. Besides,
why didn't he write this book?

Speaker 1 (40:04):
I know this.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
He wrote books called the Pro Wrestling's Top Wrestlers. He
also wrote like Tributes one and Tributes two and very
Much coffee table books, all of them. And I remember
getting them on high Spots back in the day for
a dollar each. Matter of fact, I bought one and
they sent me too, so I knew they were best sellers.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
They're like, hey, was you like a bogo? You're like,
so that's hotly unnecessary, Like no, no, no, take marek.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, High Spots used to have this deal, Joe there
for twenty bucks, they would send you twenty books. And yeah,
I loved books, and I was like, oh back in
the day, I was like, fuck, it, Yeah, send me
three boxes. Here's sixty dollars, send me three boxes. Every
single box came with doubles of all of Dave Meltzer's books.

(40:51):
I just knew that nine of those books were going
to be exactly the same every box.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Do you know what's funny about that? This is like
the opposite of like, have you ever had one of
those things where you walked into like a I don't know,
like a bagel shop or a donut shop or something,
and they're closing down and they're like, yeah, I'm gonna
get a dozen and they're like here, just take some more.
You're like, oh, okay, yeah, like yeah, we're gonna throw
them out Anyways, it's like that, and except Dave Meltzer books.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
That's yeah exactly. It's like, you know what there's unfortunately, it's.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
What you don't want.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
Well, you know what the problem is is if there
was an expiration date on books, then they would have
had a reason to throw them in the trash. But
they had to keep them for some reason for years
and years and years. I think by the time, like
the last time I looked, when they still had the
twenty dollars for you know, the twenty books or whatever.
I think they got to the point where all the

(41:44):
books in the box were just Dave Meltzer books, and
they realized, we just we can't keep doing this to people.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
They just sending twenty copies of the same Dave meltzerhilarias.
By the way, could you picture like you go into
your local whatever Savers, Salvation Army, whatever it is you
got around you, and there's just a whole show and
it's just te Meltzer's like history of the NWA in

(42:16):
the nineteen seventies. You're like, oh, high spots, there it is.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
I did see I did see some AW posters at Goodwill.
I don't know if that counts, but yeah, there was
a Young Bucks poster. It was a little stained and
it looked like it was coffee stains. Not not gross stains,
it was just coffee. But still there was a coffee
stain on it. And I'm like, man, I should buy
this and really send it to somebody as a a

(42:42):
real gift for Christmases. Here, real pick me up.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
But that's a happy holiday.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
By the way, speaking of a speaking of AW related joke,
is this real Mercedes is going to Malaysia?

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Yeah, yeah, no, this is real. Absolutely. I mean her goal,
I think what was her goal? Her actual numbers. She
wants one hundred titles. I don't know if that was
in character quote or if it was a real moment
where Mercedes was speaking on behalf, but she wants one
hundred titles.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
So that's yeah, that's rough, man. I I don't know.
At this point, seeing her win these titles and this
shit continue on, I could see why people would want
to go with the glass half a version of it, right.
They want to go with the idea of like, look,
she's trying to do something historic. It's like, I don't

(43:38):
think she's proven herself in any capacity to be a
well intended person to have it come from any level,
you know, I'm trying to do historically significant. It's like
just an ego maniacal ass wipe.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Well, here's what it is. I'll read it off. And
who was it that sent to Alonzo? Thank you Alonzo.
The quote is Mercedes Monette challenges a PAC champion nor
Phoenix Diana at the Hog super Clash November fifteenth and
Long Island. Phoenix defends her title on the US soil
for the first time. Can Monette capture her thirteenth championship.

(44:14):
Now here's the thing, Joe, here's where you really have
to break this down and look at it. She is
not believable to wear any of these championships. And I
think that's the problem. I think the idea is great,
a woman going around and collecting fucking skill, I mean titles.
I think that's great. But I think that the problem

(44:38):
is it's Sasha Banks, it's Mercedes Monet, It's someone who
doesn't command the amount of respect to do that. You
know who should have been doing that right now in
the wake of her book tour, Natty fucking Knightheart Natty
would have been a believable person to go around and
collect these championships, especially with her lineage of the Heart Foundation,

(45:01):
Heart Family. I don't understand why people are behind this
because it's just so paper thin.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Well, she's got she's not a huge fucking mark for herself,
and it's not going to get on a plane for
thirty hours to go somewhere to win a belt that
nobody's heard of. That's that's kind of also what it
comes down to.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Well, here's the other thing, too, is the Heart name
is known everywhere in the world, everywhere. Everybody knows the
Brett Hart Family's too hard to dungeon, like all this stuff.
It is synonymous with professional wrestling. If Natty Hart did this,
do you think do you think that it would have

(45:46):
actually worked.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Better than whatever the fuck this this with Sasha Dude?
I mean, yeah, there really is a point look at
this and I think of like somebody old Indie Darling
at this point, now a middle aged fella on the
late end of his career. But do you remember the
early two thousand Samoa Joe remember this, remember the aura? Yeah,

(46:15):
wherever the fuck he was gonna go. It was like,
oh shit, Samoa show is going there. You know, brit
he's ever been on some mainstream television show. But he
was still this like imposing force. Yeah that's not her. No,
this is not an imposing force. This is a slight,

(46:35):
tiny woman with a huge ego and what ten plus
years to come up with a gimmick that actually makes
anything resembling sense and we're still not there. We can't talk.
I don't I don't get it. I don't get it.
It's a nice.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Doesn't check any of the boxes. That's I think that's
the weirdest thing for me. Is she the prettiest girl
in wrestling? No, not even close. Is she the most
talented in the ring?

Speaker 1 (47:03):
No?

Speaker 2 (47:04):
Is she the best talker? No? What is it that
Mercedes Monet has more than anyone else? Entitlement? Oh, I
think you're on something.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
I think that's about I think that's about right. And
there's obviously a nice idea that surrounds like she fought
against WWE, she defeated the machine or whatever the fuck
that means anymore, which to me, Yes, I was just
complaining with you the other day that they're putting failts

(47:36):
on like Jade Cargole and some of these women that
I'm just like, why you have women that are really
good fucking workers. But the point there is also these
women are really fucking good workers. Yeah, all right, So
at this point you would have to be smoking fucking
crack to tell me that Eosky is not a bit

(48:00):
wrestler by a lot right than Mercedes Monet. You would
have to be smoking the crack of like a human
centipede of crack to not tell me that real Ripley
is a better fucking wrestler, character, more imposing figure than
Sasha fucking banks. So we're getting to this point where

(48:21):
it was like, you know what ten years ago, when
the landscape was real fucking when it was real thin,
you know, and Bailey at this point, at this point,
Bailey's fucking so much better than her. I thought Bailey
was always better than Sasha, unquestionably, and now at this
point I would say resolutely, absolutely Bailly's better than her.

(48:46):
So we're not even talking about somebody that's so far
and above and beyond or like you said, are we
the biggest? Are we intimidating? Are we really strong? Are
we scary? Like? Does that music hit and the people go?

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Right? This would have been a thing that you would
have expected Amazing Kong and her Heyday to have done.
Who could have taken out Amazing Kong or Awesome Kong
or right like, it just never would happen.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Coming me out that you were even making me think
of that now, because God, that would have been so
fucking cool.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
I mean, that would have been an unsolable gimmick because
she knew how to wrestle, she could actually talk, she
was she was kind of cute, especially when she was
doing this stuff with Aza. I thought the hustle stuff
was hilarious. But she was also so imposing too, like
she could do both. It was just she was so talented.

(49:40):
She is so talented that if they would have given
her this ten fifteen years ago, who would have fucking
stopped her? Who? Right? Right?

Speaker 1 (49:51):
If it was some bullshit fucking the Irish Federation where
it was like, you know, potato mctits or whatever and
that awesome.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Music, that's no way to talking about Becky Lynch.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Well, that was her original gimmick too. I'm a long
way yeah, but no, like that's like you, like I said,
ten fifteen years ago or whatever, it's some you know,
chicken fucking whatever part of the world. No one can
beat me. I'm the scariest blah blah blah my belt
and then that fucking Kong music hit and she walked
out and just whooked ascid. Yeah, it's like, okay, now

(50:27):
we're talking. This is real fucking talk. It's not a
one hundred pound girl in hot pants. You can't talk
with the fucking most rotten personality, horrible fucking attitude, openly,
openly a mark for herself, like with us.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Are you still talking about Sasha Banks or are you
talking about Ronda Rousey because.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
I mean, well, it's birds of a feather, I guess,
you know, Like there's by the way, and that's like
another thing too, Like there's no shortage throughout the years
of people that have this type shitty, fucking rotten ass attitude.
It's men, it's women, it's all shapes and sizes, right,
it's a to the Z. There's people that have this
shitty type of attitude in pro wrestling that probably shouldn't

(51:11):
be rewarded. Ever, the only time that they should even
be rewarded is when it's tolerated, like when people tolerate
gold Bird being a piece of shit, right, because they
believe you could draw money, but she's not gonna draw
you a fucking nickel. No awful fucking attitude, size of
somebody's the size of my fucking pinky finger, not believable.

(51:33):
Like it's just why this is still going on. We're
still like Oha, which by the way, it's like she's
going to Malaysia to win a title with great fucking
I don't want to see her have fun stay over there,
see get a fucking apartment there, get an airbnb, stay
for a couple of years, Like it's just enough, enough
of this, and there's a part of me that can't

(51:55):
help but feel this whole like cornball, ass fucking collector gimmick.
It's all the way of trying to add legitimacy to somebody,
because what's going on in WWE with the women is
so much exponentially better than anything she's ever done, that
this is her way of still pretending like she's relevant
and important in the wrestling world.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
It's a great idea, it's a great idea of actually
doing something like this in order to unify the indies
underneath one person. The problem is she's not the person
for that. Maybe she came up with the idea, and
maybe this is another one of Tony Khan's brilliant light
bulbs going off, But I don't think they should have

(52:37):
done that with her. I think, honestly, if anything, it's
a little sad that if this was a Tony Khan
idea that he waited till he secured somebody like Sasha
Banks in order to give her this, as opposed to
backing up somebody that was considered their own, like a
Britt Baker. Look, and I'm not going to bat for
a Britt Baker or even sure right or any of

(53:01):
the other girls directly. I'm not saying that. I'm just
saying that it's amazing that he immediately strapped it to
her instead of weighing out the potential of what it
could have meant for AW if it was somebody that
people immediately associate with AW. I'm sorry, but to this
day there's more people that still call her Sasha Banks

(53:21):
to Mercedes Monet. And there's a reason for that. Her
name value was made in WWE. Her name value in
AW is worthless, no matter how many titles do you
want to put on her.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
Right. Well, there's also this too, where now, like I said,
you look at it and you go when she was
rumored to go and get signed to AW and become something,
there were a lot of people on the internet that
were looking and going, this is going to be our
saving grace, right. They were comparing getting her on the

(53:57):
TV show to getting like Staying or POW or any
of those like coat. Like they were like, this is
like getting our fucking the greatest available free agent in
the world or whatever. And by the way, don't don't
ever let somebody forget this. And that person is none
other than than JD. Don't let JD ever forget this

(54:18):
whenever he has these moments, And like, I'm not trying
to be a fucking asshole, but I remember when all
of that shit was happening. Height they're gonna get Sasha Banks.
I remember him going, this is the greatest wrestler. She's
the greatest wrestler in the world. She's gonna go to
AW and completely change the game. Could you believe if
AW gets her, they're just gonna pack buildings? And it's like,

(54:42):
you want to talk about a hilarious turn of events
where that dude was absolutely positively burying his entire face
mouth fucking goateee in her fucking ass. And then shoot
ahead three years later and she's such a contemptuous, fucking
ass wipe that she gets him screwed out of his gig.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Of course, kind of fucking crazy.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Ain't it. Ain't it funny how that worked out?

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Anym You're telling me that the person that you know
doesn't like to deal with people, didn't like what her
boss was asking her to do openly as has despised
pro wrestling fans, has openly gotten in people's faces that
ask her questions, refuses to sign autographs. You're telling me
that person is not is socially unwell. I mean, yeah,

(55:30):
believe it or not.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Yeah, no, but but but dude, she had a good
match with Bailey fucking ten years ago. She's gonna save
the whole wrestling world. And they say, like, obviously, I
don't like to kick the guy because for whatever reason,
the whole thing with House Glory, which I've said this
a million times those to some extent, I feel like

(55:53):
both of those guys, she teld them to fuck off
because of this whole like they're going to suck up
to a w as if that's helping them draw or something.
The fucking company's a joke. But for him to not
put together how fucking funny it is that he was
carrying water for her like crazy, like just straight up

(56:15):
to it everything he could. Oh, you're Tony Kahan, you
gotta do everything you can. You gotta get her on
your TV show where it's gonna be the fucking and
then she shows up there and it fucking it's yeah,
don't don't let that dude fucking forget that, because now
anytime I see it with him and he's mentioned in her,

(56:39):
that's like this shit sucks and she sucks, and it's like, Bro,
you you're the one that was telling you that this
woman was gonna be thet she was the best wrestler
in the world. I remember him saying, Angelia, this is
the best wrestler on the planet. All right, let me
know that works out for you, bro, let me know
that works out way. It's it's just incredibly fucking funny.

(57:00):
The fucking God.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
So the other big point of news, I mean, I
guess we'll hit up AW. There's some definite WWE stuff
and some some corporate Oh yeah, there's some corporate ship
we got to talk about too. And actually it's one
thing that the news sites haven't really hit yet, which
is kind of funny. But for AW, there's been a
little bit of contention about AW adding the new championship

(57:25):
to its growing collection. Tommy Dreamer reacted to the announcement
of the new ae W National Championship, which was revealed
on the last broadcast and quickly became the subject of
debate amongst the fans and the insiders alike. According to
no DQ or ring site, sorry and at first I

(57:48):
also thought the NWA had the national title. I mean,
they do. But this is going to be aw's version
of the national title, and it's you know on TBS.
Do you I think that adding another title helps or hurts. Really,
it's just about the credibility of the title. If everybody
has a title, then what am I really fighting for.

(58:11):
Dreamer also pointed out that promotions used to have clear
structure world titled, mid card, title tag titles, and those
distinctions made every division feel important. But aw's title pictures
already stacked world t and T tag trios, Undisputed Continental
and now the new National Championship. The more the belts are,

(58:31):
the Dreamer argues, the less each one means. If the
person that makes the title, if it's the person that
makes the title, not the title that makes the person.
If this belt's going to mean something, they better get
the right guy. And I saw Dave Meltzer make a
response to people's backlash about the AW title, and to

(58:55):
summarize what he said was WWE still has more titles,
but he started counting like Triple A's titles. He started
counting like the LFG and Evolve or the Volve titles,
and it's like, I mean.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Well, considering he's referencing what like you just said four
different brands, right with a nxt TNA, Like these are
all separate brand, they all operate independently of each other.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Right, But he doesn't because if he did, then he
would have had to have added the CMLL titles and
the new Japan titles. But he didn't do that because
it doesn't fit as narrative.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
So I mean, he's just a fucking complete mongoloid. I mean,
I don't know what, but there is this hilarious There
is this hilarious that you just said there where It's
like I can't even what is it. It's the inter
it's not intercontinental. It's like almost a US title. What's
the name of it again?

Speaker 2 (59:58):
It is the undisputed Continental title?

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Con disputed? Is he just putting the ship into fucking
shock TBT at this point?

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Oh yeah, give me, give me a.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
List of fifty fucking wrestling belt names.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
And just these are all belt names that he got
from Rampage Wrestling, Joe, That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
Oh but by the way, and I'm like almost serious
kidding at the same time at this point, why not
just make regional belts at this point? You know, like
be like this is the Midwest Championship. Why this is
the Southern Ship? Why why would you don't know if
we're gonna have seventy I don't like it either, but

(01:00:48):
it's better than what is undisputed inter continent, the disputed continental?
What the fuck does that even mean?

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
You're looking at this wrong, Joe. You got to look
at it from the eyes of Tony Kahan. Why make
any more regional titles when you can just send your
individual talents to a promotion and just take theirs.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
That's a good pin. You can just send them to
fucking instanbul and they haven't bring back a fucking belt.
Sasha Banks comes out, She's just like, I have a
belt from I don't even know how I said. I know,

(01:01:32):
I got off a plan, I went to one. Wait,
you don't even know where you went. She's like, na,
and yeah, like I'm disputed continental. What the fuck? What
the fuck does that even mean?

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Well, that nobody's going to dispute that this belt belongs
on a continent. That's what I took it out, So
I like.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Yeah, yeah, somebody just poking their head and they're like, hey,
is that a fucking continent? No, don't you even dare
dispute it. Someone pokes the head just above the table
looks at Tony Conney just like, I don't think that's
a continent, sir, I told you this belt is an

(01:02:25):
undisputed continental fucking title.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
How about that?

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
You know what? Like? How about this? All right? If
we don't want to do a regional belt, why don't
we just do a continent belt just for everybody in Arctica, Africa,
maybe EuroAsia. We can do that, like just and by
the way, they don't have to be from there at all.
We'll just name it that, right, And then I think
we could What we could do is we could also
and this is cool too, we could make a Pangaea title,

(01:02:53):
which the Pangea but it gets better, but it gets
better than the Pangaea title. Can only can only be
competed for by people to do twenty three in me
and their genetic makeup everybody from multiple continent.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Yes, you have to have intoit blood in you in
order to make a competition for the title. Yes, right, right, Well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Then if they get twenty three and me updates that,
he'll give them different things they have to.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Can we can we get like a Mars title and
maybe like a Venus title, right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Men are from Marry Belt.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
Yeah, like Mars. It's like the violence title, the Mars
violence title, and the Venus Vagina title. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Yeah, it's sucking. Meet John Maxley, wait to compete with
the fucking range title.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
I gotta say this too, there are way too many
John Moxley photos in this fucking book. Holy shit, he's
so photogetic, dude. He looks great. To the three, two
out of them looks so good. Now, two out of
three photos in this book are John Moxley or John
Moxley adjacent. I swear do you think do you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Think Tony was just just said to it a He's
just send me a bunch of John pictures And she
was like, yeah, sure, it's like just put the.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
He's even at the beginning of the book, right, Like
they have pictures of him at in the front of
the book, and I'm like, dude, he's not even a
part of this company for at least halfway through it,
Like whatever, Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Do you know what I'm just I'm just trying to
think up more, more and more belts that I could
come up with. I wonder if that's a job that.
I mean, silly me. I've been making fun of aw
for so long now I'll never get the opportunity to
Maybe I could be like a consultant for coming up
with titles.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Sure, but then you Tony kan.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
Dole, that's a good point claim my ideas. Sure, like
a good rich kid he could take. I could give
him the idea and he could say that was all mine,
and then I go cool, and then I just get
money from him.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
It's kind of funny though, that Billy Billy responded to
the national title nonsense and he went online or you know, yeah,
he went on Twitter. I think it was maybe Blue
Sky who knows, and he says and new it's time.
Mondo defeated Big Strong Mims this week on NWA Power
on Roku to capture the prestigious and in quotations and

(01:05:34):
bold and italics NWA National Heavyweight Title. Mondo continues the
iconic Straps lineage, which extends back to its inception on
January twelfth, nineteen eighty. Through the years, the NWA National
Heavyweight Title has been won by legends like Dusty Rhodes,
Tully Blancher, Tommy Rich, Ted DiBiase, Paul Orendorff, Wahu McDaniels,

(01:05:58):
Nikita Koloff in others. So that was that was Billy.
Billy's nice way of saying, go fuck yourself really was.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Well, my god, It's just I have to say at
this point with all these belts, the thing that makes
me if I had to feel any sort of way
about it, like if I allowed myself to even be
somewhat frustrated all of these belts do is unfortunately prove
Boomer's right when they make fun of millennials with their

(01:06:30):
everybody bullshit I hate I like, everyone go, oh the
god damn millennials, Everyone get your trophy. And then Tony
CON's like, yeah, that sounds great. It's like, fuck, shut
the fuck up, Tony. You see how bad you're making
us look horrible with this. It's just like, well, I
could afford the trophies, so why doesn't everyone? I'll give

(01:06:51):
them out everybody. God all right? So it once again,
was it the undisputed continent title? Are there any sort
of rules to it? Fining chance, like some sort of
attachment to.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
It to uh, well, I'm sure it has to be
said defended in a nation. It's not really sure which
one but as long as there's a nation, that's where
the belt can be defended.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Oh so it has to be in a country.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Yeah, wanted to hit up a couple of things. One
of them that we were talking about was Draft Kings
the other day during the fucking event, how they fucked
everything up. But it's funny that Disney has officially partnered
with Draft Kings. So Disney and ESPN because they used
to have ESPN sports Book. But ESPN sports Book has

(01:07:43):
apparently been ultimately just a huge failure, and according to
the people at LinkedIn and Lisa Scherzer, who works for
I guess ESPN or Front Office Sports, She said ESPN
Bet is ceasing to exist roughly two years after its
high profile debut they branded sports book, never making anything

(01:08:04):
close to the intended impact on the US sports betting market.
ESPN and Pen Entertainment said early Thursday that they're winding
down their ten year, two billion dollar deal, one announced
to a great fanfare in August of twenty twenty three. Instead,
ESPN is returning to a large scale, multi year partnership

(01:08:25):
with DraftKings, and DraftKings will now become the exclusive sports
book and odds provider of ESPN. So there you go, now, Disney,
and I'm sure WWE, because you gotta fucking attach them
all together, are going to have DraftKings as part of
the major sports book for WWE.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
Two, which, by the way, like right in time for
all of these athletes to get caught for fucking up
you know what I mean. We're not long for and
by we, I mean just people that will sit around
and watch sports, But we're not long for these leagues
getting by pretending like their shit's completely on the level

(01:09:06):
for that much longer. I mean, the the NBA just
had their scandal, We're not far off, I think from NFL.
I mean, come on, if you don't think that that
NFL story is breaking in the next being generous year,
you think probably a year or so.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
I'm surprising, be honest.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Yeah, that's true. But probably the only reason why the
NBA would get popped for that before the NFL is
because the NBA has more eyes on it, because they've
been caught more times openly fucking doing that shit, right,
you know, like there's been way more of like talk
of referees and guys just completely cooking and you know,

(01:09:52):
doing everything they can to to fucking whatever, get out
of money with even a bookie. This was before Draft
Kings and shit, we're working with Disney. I mean, come on, dude,
this is a little much, don't you think. Like and
by the way, like when all the but the betting
apps happened, I was for it just because as far

(01:10:12):
as I was concerned. At some point I'm looking at it,
I'm going, okay, So we've now reached this point with
our money where you're allowed to just, hey, you know what,
you want to go fucking get shit hammered and buy
a fucking gun and you know, whatever the fuck you
want to do with you. It's like, but you can't
put ten bucks down on the fucking Celtics game. That's

(01:10:34):
a little ridiculous, you know. Like I just saw it
as a like a just a rights thing, a freedom thing,
like you know. Okay, So we're at this point where
for fifty plus years in this country, it's like, hey,
if you wanted to put twenty bucks down on the
on the Red Sox, you had to put it with
the Tony Gamboni. And if you don't give him the

(01:10:55):
twenty dollars, he's gonna come and rip your baby's arms off,
it's like, okay, let's try to make get a little
bit more reasonable.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
Well, I'm also looking at it too, and I know
you're highlighting the sports aspect of it, but I was
highlighting in the sense that this might end up being
another revenue for WWE, because if WWE, and I'm sure
it is with the UFC as well, but I'm sure
WWE would get a kickback, right, don't they get a
kickback from all these of course sports agencies. Now you

(01:11:22):
have DraftKings, it's partnered up with Disney. Of course they're
going to use that and expect to see more and
more Draft Kings commercials and sponsorships in WWE, And then
maybe there's even going to be because I don't know
if you remember, but WWE used to do that back
in the day too, the little betting ticker from back
in the day, Like it only happened for like a

(01:11:42):
smidgeon of a moment, but I mean you might start
seeing that again too, Like, oh, Michael Cole and Wade
Barrett are making jokes about who they're betting on this week,
and oh you can bet too, and say five dollars
blah blah blah. You know, it's just yeah, yeah, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:59):
As far as the w BWE thing is concerned. I
find it fucking hilarious that if that was ever to
somehow even be an option to bet on wrestling, whatever
it would be, you would see finally some real crazy
reil finishes in wrestling, Like you want to talk about

(01:12:21):
them breaking up some like, oh, Roman reigns wins again. Well,
if people start putting a thousand bucks down on Roman
negative fucking two hundred and fifty thousand, because they want
to make a dollar off of him obviously winning a match, Yeah,
they're gonna start putting Graceton Waller the fuck over.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
Oh yeah, that would be hilarious.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
Wait then cleaning the fuck up. Well no, but that's it.
It's like it's it's just so it's already getting done
to death, the sporting apps and shit, and like obviously
the ESPN one. Hearing that that one didn't take off,
it's like, because now there's fifteen of them, did you know?
Did you even know this? And I found this out

(01:13:04):
like maybe I don't know. I think it was like
a year ago and now I don't even know if
this app exists for a while, fanatics the people that
make all the jerseys and hats and shit, and obviously.

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Also partner Yeah, yeah, go on.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
Yeah. They had a betting app too, to where like
for whatever amount of dollars you spent, you got like
some fraction of a cash back. So it's like, hey,
if you bet a bunch of money and lose it
on your team to win, you could get twenty dollars
in fanatics money and buy a hat and you know,
take a shit in it or punch a hole through
it because you host all your money. And I don't know,

(01:13:40):
but like they were doing that even for a bit,
and I'm like, Jesus, everybody's gonna have one of these
betting apps and they're not going to all take off.
And for whatever reason, DraftKings has and still to some extent,
like MGM and all those other people that do those
betting apps, they're giving you cash to the extent of

(01:14:01):
if you wanted to go to Vegas or to stay
in a casino, Okay, that's worth it. DraftKings, from what
I've seen at any time that I've used it in
the past, it's like they give you like a fifth
of a fucking penny. Oh yes, it's like, you don't
get anything. There's no benefit to it. It's like getting
when people get a credit card and well, the credit

(01:14:22):
card gives me cash back. They give you nothing. Yet
somehow they're the most successful. I don't know, it doesn't
make sense to me. That's just a branding thing, I
feel like, you know, but yeah, that's just good. I'm
glad that Disney is now in the gambling business, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
So there was news they had the financials call this
week the other day, and Nick Kahn actually opened up
about the soaring ticket prices in WWE when they were
talking during the third the third quarter financials call. He said,
it's both capacity can used to be very high. We've

(01:15:02):
increased prices appropriately with the marketplace. That's for the Plees,
Raw SmackDown, Saturday Night's main event, and every other ticketed
program that WWE has. We remained bullish on it. Con
also then pointed out the shift in WWE's touring model.

(01:15:23):
A couple of years ago when TKO was put up.
One of the first things that we collectively did was
reduce the non televised live events, which created more scarcity
in the marketplace for our televised events and our continued
international expansion only further that in January you'll see us
on a European tour for rad SmackDown leading into the

(01:15:45):
Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia. Tickets are already on fire
for that event, and it creates more scarcity in the US,
which is a good thing in terms of our overall gauge.
So when we were talking back in the day about
them removing house shows, I think the immediate thought bubble
for us was that, oh, this is going to be

(01:16:07):
good because then the guys won't be you know, as
they won't get injured as much, they'll be more arrested
to have better shows. Well, now we're going on months
of this and it's proven that it really hasn't done that.
I mean, Bianca Blair is still out with a finger injury,
lots of people are getting injured still left and right.
The shows themselves haven't improved. If this is the best

(01:16:30):
that this talent can give us, it's definitely being marred
by a lack of creative and for whatever it's done
in that sense of the scarcity of the fans, I
guess it's kind of the idea that less shows means
that you'll pay more for when we do show up.

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
Yeah, sense of urgency. Yeah, they're trying to operate under
like once again the UFC, you'll show kind of model, ye, fear.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
Of missing out, yolo, fomo, yolo, whatever the fuck you
want to call it. It's really that it's this idea
that if you don't see Raw, now, well they'll just
come back for a house show. Oh well they don't
do house shows anymore. Oh well, then they'll be back
for a pl Well not anytime soon. They're doing international pls.
So when's the next time I'm going to see him?
I mean, unless you're in a major city. Maybe next year.

Speaker 1 (01:17:23):
You see, this is this is where we end up
with all Right, Vince McMahon, For all of his faults,
for all of the craziness, for all of the headshitting,
he at least feigned to understand what the average consumer

(01:17:44):
was Like, this is where we're going to get into
these fucking problems. And I've said it before. I don't
know who I'm quoting, but I love the quote where
it's like people talk about late stage capitalism, but what
we're actually also seeing is late stage nepotism, where where
you had Vince McMahon, who for what it worth, Oh
he's a rich daddy's bow or whatever the fuck it

(01:18:06):
was my fucking butt cheeks compared to what a Tony Khan, Right,
I'm assuming a nick con. I'm assuming eighty percent of
the people that are running these billion dollar companies. These
aren't just like my dad owned a boat in a
second house, motherfuckers. These are like my dad owns the sky,
like he owns all the water in fucking you know, Venezuela.

(01:18:27):
Like these are people that have disgusting fucking money and
have no comprehension of what real life is like at all.
So in their minds they're going to ww wet tickets.
This is like just when this is like when Pop
Paul wants to buy another rolex. The scarcity for Pop
Paul when he gets a rolex because it's made in Italy,

(01:18:48):
you know, it's like, no, motherfucker, people are poor. They're poor.
They're eating cheerios on fucking hand eighty six milk, motherfucker.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
So if you think you mean sixty year.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
Well, I'm just saying, dude, it's hilarious to me that
that's just what happens when your companies are ran pretty
much exclusively by nepple babies and rich kids and people
that don't understand that don't understand, and they're trying to
sell shit to regular people, right, they are going to
miss the mark on this shit all of the time.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
You're right. I think there is something to be said
about that, because it's funny when people try to paint,
especially like your aw fans or whatever else like that,
but they try to paint Vince McMahon as a NEPO baby,
as as this kid who just lived on daddy's wallet.
It's like, man, tell me, you really don't know where
Vince McMahon came from. He had dirty fingernails till he

(01:19:49):
was a teenager, and even after that, he had to
basically finagle his way around his father in order to
get the WWF.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
Like.

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
It wasn't like, oh Dad, can I have the company?

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Sure, son, here you go. It didn't happen that way
at all. He had to find fucking investors, people that
he had to swindle into believing him well enough that
he could do something different and take the company from
his dad, to which even his dad's closest confidence and
the other promoters are like, yeah, your son's gonna fail.
What are you doing? Your son's an idiot. All these

(01:20:23):
ideas won't work. So I mean it was more good
on Vince McMahon for sticking through it, but even his
own dad didn't believe in him.

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):
You know, well, this, well, this is this is the difference.
Vince McMahon was closer to Julia robertson Pretty Woman, and
now a lot of people that are running these companies
are closer to fucking Adam Sandler and Billy Madison, right,
you know where it's like we're just like, oh, daddy,
I woke up and I have a million dollars today,
Like those are the people that are doing this shit.

(01:20:55):
And then they're like, man, we just we thought that
these people were just gonna give us a zillion dollars.
It's like, yeah, the same thing with the ww ESPN deal.
They thought that they were just gonna get everybody to
just fucking drop trou and paying extra thirty dollars a month, right,
and they're finding out real quick that that ain't happening.

(01:21:16):
And once again not to like, you know, to sniff
my own fucking farts or nothing but a year ago
or whenever six months ago when this was announced, I
remember saying that they're in for a rude surprise.

Speaker 2 (01:21:30):
Oh hold on, hold on, yeah, because there's the other
part of this that I wanted to talk about that
you haven't gotten to yet. So before we start putting
shoes in mouth. Last year, WWE averaged eleven five hundred
tickets through distribution for episodes of Raw and SmackDown. This year,
the average sales have increased to twelve two hundred per show.

(01:21:54):
It's working, in the grossness of things, and I don't
know if this is short term, because we're only talking
about a one year a one year marker here. I
don't know if this will work down the road, But
right now, Joe, it's working. The fear of missing out,
the scarcity, the emergency feeling that fans have that they're

(01:22:16):
not going to see WWE. It's working.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
And for tickets, though right to some degree the live
of answer.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
Yeah, no, no, for the tickets. And so it's not
just it's not just that they sold another thousand tickets.
It's that they sold another thousand tickets on top of
what they normally do at a sixty percent increase on
all prices. So not only did they sell more tickets
than last year? They sold more tickets at a gross

(01:22:47):
average of sixty percent more per ticket.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
All right, so let's let's take this. Let's take us
from a glass half empty perspective. And I'm sure this
doesn't matter to a lot of the people that work
in the types of companies.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
So WWE comes around once a year in your city,
let's say, or even twice a year. Okay, maybe they'll
get you once, maybe they'll get you for six hundred bucks, right,
But what happened when they used to come six times
a year and they could get you for two hundred
bucks six times?

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
No, that's the difference, Like it's like, what do you want?
Do you want somebody? Do you want to price the
shit in your Let me.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
Throw out all right, hold on, yeah, let me throw
out the rebuttal to this too, because it goes back
to what me and you used to talk about when
we were talking about the house shows. With WWE, there's
no longer saturation. So in that sense where WWE used
to come to your city three, four, maybe even five
times a year, granted four of them are house shows

(01:23:51):
and one of them's TV, you still had those opportunities
to go to WWE almost at your leisure. You didn't
have to go to all five of them, but maybe
you definitely wanted to go to one or two. Now
WWE only shows up once a year. And even though
it's hard for you to price it for your family,
now you have to do it. You have to all.

(01:24:14):
They want six hundred dollars a ticket. I got a
family of five, son of a bitch. But if I
don't do this, I'm not going to see WWE at all.
They're literally look at it and you go, can't kids?
We got WWET. I agree, and it's too expensive. I
agree with you, but you're talking about that's the divide

(01:24:36):
is The divide is do we quit being wrestling fans
and going to these events? And don't get me wrong,
I would probably have been that with my family when
it came because ww came Chicago all the time. I
would have rather have been like, hey, honey, I'll buy
you ten Santino socks. Okay, just we're not going to
this fucking event. But the reality is is at most family,

(01:25:00):
especially if the kids are really into it, that dad
is going to fork that fucking money over and bitch
and gripe and grumble, but he's gonna do it Joe
once and never'll do it probably every year if they're
only coming back once a year versus five times a year,
because the house shows and shit, I don't know man.

(01:25:21):
And obviously obviously storylines matter to right, Let's not fucking
forget that. Creative storylines and great feuds also add to
the I need to see this shit or I'll never
see it again kind of deal. So I think WWE
is kind of tapering off what we are getting into
Mania season, so that changes.

Speaker 1 (01:25:42):
But also WWE has to be able to create that
feeling of I'm never going to see this person again,
and that's simply just not what that's not their business
model at all.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Well that's tkos though. That's the difference. We're not in
the Vince McMahon era. So now it's like everybody I
think is shell shocked, right, And that's why I said
when we when I first prefaced this before, I said, hey,
let's not go too far with what you're saying. I
think that this is just one year. Let's come back
to this next year in next November and tell me

(01:26:13):
if it's more than twelve two hundred per event.

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Yeah, so let me ask you this, So is this
going to be their avenging hero ark when they make
their own problem and then fix it. Oh you know,
well no geat tickets. Well guess what. Yeah, they're only
like they're not controlling the whole They're not controlling the market.
Like they're like, look at Esby and super cute and

(01:26:39):
only fucking charging.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
You were Well, honestly, you know, I know you're joking
about that, But of the good will that they would
get and then more people would go to their events, I.

Speaker 1 (01:26:51):
Mean, they go, Wow, how nice of them just to
only stick two fingers in us. That's great, right, we
won't pull one out.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
Guys don't want.

Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
Hey, there's there is something too though, and this you know,
I know people love when I use my dunkin Donuts analogies,
but you can relate a lot of simple business to
a lot of big business.

Speaker 2 (01:27:11):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
So there are people, for sure in my area they
go to dunkin Donuts four or five days a week.
Maybe seems a little excessive, but little accessory.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
But you know what, it's not Starbucks. Okay, it's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:27:27):
Right, but that's where I was going, Right, So they
go to they go to Dunkin Donuts and every day
they get a coffee for three bucks. Let's say, you know,
but they're not gonna go to Starbucks. That coffee is
fucking sick. It's six dollars for one of those fucking coffees.
They're not gonna go They're gonna go to dunks for
three bucks, right, But they'll go there five days a week.
Maybe they go to Starbucks once a week or twice

(01:27:50):
a week, but they're not. So they're spending what twelve
dollars Starbucks for two coffees or they getting five cops.
They're still spending more money. At the end of the day,
they're still spending more because of the preceide value of it.
In the same way as oh wwe is a house
show coming around? Also, dude, another old one tale, as

(01:28:13):
old as time. The PlayStation is two hundred and ninety
nine dollars. Well, it's less than three hundred dirt like, right, Well,
there's these tricks. These these are marketing tricks that have
been played on people and have worked forever. When fast
food was ninety nine cents, it's because it was less
than a dollar dirt, right, and people fell free.

Speaker 2 (01:28:36):
Well that's what they did now too, which is even
funnier because they skyrocketed all the prices of fast food, right,
all of the fast food. Now it's like for a
fucking burger meal, it's twenty bucks a McDonald's. But now
all these places are doing like the Bento box with
like a hamburger and a couple of fries and a
drink and an apple pie shoved in there for five

(01:28:57):
ninety nine. Well, this is all the shit they used
to get for a dollar anyways, And now they're still
up charging you, but you're willing to take it because
it's not the twenty dollars big mac meal anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
You know, we fucked you and now we're fixing the
fucking But we're not again because we're still making more
money than if we just stuck to our guns.

Speaker 2 (01:29:17):
So we're not we're not fixing anything. We're just getting
you used to a different kind of fucking. Like we
started with anal dry and then we're like, you know what,
we can just do vaginal intercourse. Guys, It's fine, And
you're like, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
I like the idea of being groomed by a fucking
by a fast Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:29:41):
Just getting raw dogged by a fucking voice through the
walkie talkie machine.

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
Jesus, there's Dave Thomas holding his spatula, looking on non imposing.
He's like, man, get yourself a biggie bag, you know
what I mean? Get the biggie bag for five It's
five dollars and I'm like, yeah, pikie bag is good
for five dollars. She's like, yeah, you're gonna need some
more of than nuggets though, and it's like, shit, twelve
dollars again, already, you fucked me.

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
Dave's LS one says, who are talking about Alfred Corduroy?
My fat has got a chicken sandwich, soda, four piece
nuggets and small fry for nine dollars. Who fucking you?
You got that? You got that Wendy's deal, didn't you?
Because that ain't made your bag alert?

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):
Yeah, you know what, No, Wendy's. Wendy's is just that
that's like an abusive person in my life that I
just I really I can't no, I can't not love Wendy's. Dude,
Wendy's fucking great.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
Yeah, I'm all set with Wendy's around here. Wendy's around
here is no no WESTPOINTO. Did I say that? Right?
Mad Max? It's just awful.

Speaker 1 (01:30:50):
I gotta say. The suckiest thing though about Wendy's is
that it truly is a chain that peaked when there
was a once again a false scarcity to it, where
back in the day it was like, oh man, there's
no there's no Wendy's around, But when you ran into them,
oh I finely, there was a fine wine.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
As far as the burger joins go, there's a lot
of mom and pop places I'll go to. I mean,
I'll go to like a Rams or something like that. First,
I'll go to a Blue Dog or a Blue Demon
or a Maxwell Street polish down there, Like, I'll go
there for actual like hot dogs and hamburgers and shit
before I go to McDonald's or a Wendy's. I'd rather
because not only are supporting locally, it's better and the

(01:31:32):
prices are now competitive, which is even more funny.

Speaker 1 (01:31:36):
You know, Yeah, remember when people used to be like
fucking five guys is so expansive. I'm like, it's literally
the same prices.

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
Yeah, no, it's all the same.

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
You're right, it's not even like well I said this
a while ago too, It's like when I when I
went to fucking Gillette Stadium and it was like, you know,
oh the stadium prices it was like a burger and
fries or fifteen dollars. I'm like, eah, it's about right,
all right, I got everywhere now like I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:32:01):
Oh, yeah, not sports the sports fed is now competitive
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:32:06):
Oh like yeah, it's the same price. Like I like
laughed when I saw it where I'm like, you know,
people used to be like, dear Treasure's Christ, seventeen dollars
for a hot dog and fries, and now I'm like, yeah,
that's it's about right, unless you're going to seven to
eleven and taking a risk on eating the rats, asshole,
Like that's that's what you're spending. Why how much money
it is?

Speaker 2 (01:32:27):
Atomic Chocolate wanted me to look up Cafe one hundred,
and I'm looking it up in a kale and butternut
squash salad for eleven seventy five, Okay, okay, Classic State
Burrito thirteen ninety five, Like that's these are kind of
average prices. I mean that's average fast food prices. Now,
fourteen dollars for a burrito, that's pretty average. I mean,

(01:32:51):
that's Chicago.

Speaker 1 (01:32:52):
So what is this he's saying it's Is it in
fucking Hawaii?

Speaker 2 (01:32:56):
Oh, it's in Hawaii. It's in Heilo.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
Oh, it's gotta be.

Speaker 2 (01:33:00):
That's it isn't It's just it's the same price as
the ship you see aroun Chicago. Chicago is gross as
far as prices go. Yeah, people don't understand that. I
I am. I am kind of you know what. I'm
not going to make any political talk, but man, oh man,
I'm happy New York elected the mayor that they did
because I hear that there's a lot of Chicago people

(01:33:20):
looking to move. So that's fine by.

Speaker 1 (01:33:23):
Me, so to move to New York.

Speaker 2 (01:33:26):
Yeah. Yeah, you're going to be cheaper. Oh my gosh,
I heard. I heard. It's going to be wonderful. There's
not going to be any rent, and all the supermarkets
are going to be run by the government. Now it's great.
Damn nobody free shit, that's right, tons of free shit,
free rent, free food for everything. It's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
Godkiding. Well, I mean, I'm not getting into it. I'm
just saying it sounds well. There's also this point where,
at this point that you just got a root for
anybody that has an idea other than let's continue to
make shit fucking worse. Like that's that's kind of it,
where like you see people like why would they, why
would anybody be chirmed by such an idea? And I'm like, well,

(01:34:09):
we could keep doing this.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
Well, I'm just floored that a guy who hasn't even
been in this country for more than ten years can
get elected to such a prestigious office and thought, you
know what this you know what this city needs, This
city needs everything for free, and nobody ever thought of
that before. And I'm like, wow, this guy's a genius.
I hope he runs for president someday.

Speaker 1 (01:34:34):
Yeah, I could, Yeah, I could have a conversation about that.

Speaker 2 (01:34:38):
But that's not.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
Because, like I said, I mean, I guess we could
just keep doing the same exact shit. Yeah, that's the problem,
is it. Yeah, I mean, we could just keep doing
the same thing until everybody has absolutely fucking nothing right.
That's sort of the path. It's funny to me because

(01:35:03):
it's not working for ninety five percent of people at
this point. And I think I'm being generous when I
say like ninety five percent of people, But people at
the same time are like well, if we try something new,
what if it gets worse? So I'm like, it's it's
gotten continuously worse for a quarter of a century. Like
my entire adult life, I've watched shit get worse and

(01:35:25):
worse and worse. Well, people do the same thing and
then tell them. I goes, well, what if we try
something different? They're like, well, then what if it gets worse?
It's getting worse either way, motherfucker. So might as well.
You know, it's like I'm gonna put peanut butter on
the burner. What if society collapses? It's like or maybe
it's different. I don't know what the fuck to tell you.

(01:35:46):
I mean, it's it's dog shit either way. At least
this way, we might try a different flavor of ice
cream before we keel over. You know, sure, But I
mean well, I mean, I guess we could just keep
giving money to Elon Musk. That's really helping.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
Oh is he running from mayor too?

Speaker 1 (01:36:05):
No? But I'm just saying that we could just keep
giving money to autistic trillionaires with no human spirit or
light behind their eyes at all. Maybe eventually they'll fix
the problems. I think that'd be good. I think maybe
we give it to that Peter Thiel guy too, that'd
be good.

Speaker 2 (01:36:22):
I think they're all right, JD. Van's has good ideas, right, Joe.
I mean they all have good ideas. I think that'll
all work in the end, right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:32):
That's good idea. Yeah, you go. He seems like a
real good guy.

Speaker 2 (01:36:39):
They all do. They all do.

Speaker 1 (01:36:42):
I like, you know, I personally think my favorite thing
about him is when he immediately throws his wife and
kids under the bus all the time. I think that's cool.
I think that's real commendable. When a guy gets asked
about his family and he's like, you know what, I
wish today could just be white man.

Speaker 2 (01:37:02):
I cannot wait to delete all the comments this week.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
Ah fuck them in the face, mouth and ass. Hopefully
they enjoy their lives.

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):
So one last piece before we get off off the show.
Off the air. Even Marie did an interview talking about
coming back to WWE. She did the Unwrapped podcast with
Sonya Deville and she got real about her relationship with WWE, saying,

(01:37:30):
I mean always, I always keep the door open because
I'd be silly not to, you know, And I love performing.
There's nothing like it. If you want to talk about
drugs and alcohol. That's the biggest high. You see it
too in Superstars. They can't let it go. Sometimes it's like, Okay,
you should retire, but like you can't find that high

(01:37:53):
anywhere else because it's not. The WWE universe is the
best fan base. They're crazier than ever, but they're loyal too,
So to be able to walk out to one hundred
thousand people arena in Saudi Arabia, where are you going
to get that? So?

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
I don't know, she's just mean free money, dude, Yeah,
free money. But if anything, at least she's smart enough
to know that that's free money, you know, like to
some extent. You know, some of the people that are
adjacent to WWE or may have been fired recently and
you know, made hundreds of thousands of dollars and didn't

(01:38:31):
save it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):
Come on, we're not gonna go off on Ridge Holland,
are we. I was going to say that for tomorrow.
But yeah, we can hit.

Speaker 1 (01:38:38):
Well, I mean we could, but I mean, like that's
just I saw that, and I guess there are people
that are adjacent to WWE in the company, Like I
saw Chelsea Green is like I'm gonna give him a
thousand bucks a month or whatever, and it's like, lady,
it's your money, do whatever the fuck you want with it.

(01:38:58):
But I guess once again. And you know, going back
to how well everything's going and the brilliant minds that
are handling everything in the country when we got like
millions of kids that can't get food because the country
is being ran by a pedophile death cult who's using
it as leverage. And a guy who makes hundreds of

(01:39:21):
thousands of dollars over the past half dozen years is
like me, poor, I can't figure out how to meet
where my money go. It's like, listen, are people defending him?

Speaker 2 (01:39:35):
Yes, oh, I don't know. I didn't see any so
my death on this all right. So the whole thing
to summarize the short story for most people that don't
even know who the fuck Ridge Holland is, right real quick.
Ridge Holland is the guy that hurt Biggie if you forgot,
he was the one that was with Shamus's crew and
he accidentally hurt Biggie and he went online and he said,

(01:39:59):
once he found out that his contract was up, I
feel like I've just been hung out to dry after
getting injured for working for another company on behalf of WWE.
And add to that my contract not being renewed, knowing
that I wouldn't be able to wrestle for seven months
is brutal. Yes, they are taking care of the surgery
and the physical therapy, but let's be honest, that's the
bare minimum after what we sacrificed for the company, plus

(01:40:23):
the possibility of having to get my next views to
talk about totally fucked. They wanted to send a message.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
Talk about karma.

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
Huh, whoops, right, I mean big he can't really work
every I mean I guess he's talking, so he's there,
all right. Well, WWE basically responded and they fired the
dude early. He was supposed to be sticking around till
November fourteenth, that's when his contract was officially up up,
and they just didn't want to fucking deal with them,

(01:40:51):
and they just cut his contract. Now, kind of, as
Dave Meltzer put it, as a message, they're sending a message.
Ww' sending a message to people.

Speaker 1 (01:41:01):
So how about this if you're a person that works
for WWE. And I said this, I remember, I mean
this was back in the old Country where I was
arguing with old fucking weirdo. PREMI looking fucking goofball baron
Corbin where he would post the pictures of his cars

(01:41:22):
and his watches and shit, and I remember having an
interaction with him where I was just like, dude, you
shouldn't be save your fucking money, man, because you don't
know how many years you're gonna get with this money.
Fuck you, man, I'm brilliant, I'm smart with my money.
All this other shit. All right, maybe it worked out
for you because you stayed there for a dozen years

(01:41:43):
or whatever. Right, is that what Ridge Holland thought was
gonna happen to That he was going to become fucking
batista to make millions of dollars. That's not what most
wrestlers do. And once again, I have sympathy, and I
have empathy for a lot of fucking people that are
working really hard, trying to make ends meet and get

(01:42:03):
by and have the shit they need. But it's really
fucking hard for me to see a dude open up
a go fund me when people are fucking they got cancer,
they can't get a fucking job where they make more
than eight dollars an hour. And this dude's made hundreds
of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
I am really surprised that his GoFundMe nineties nine o
Lass put it on there. Chelsea donated a thousand, Kyle
Fletcher donated a thousand. I'm really surprised that this guy
has an active GoFundMe and he's making money from it,
and she's doing a month month, which is crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:42:41):
Well, like I said, there's no group of people outside
of you know a lot of people in this country
who will make excuses for people that make it one
hundred times more than they've ever made in their lives
and be like, will you please, will you please sympathize
with the pro wrestler. Meanwhile, like, you know someone in
the chat road I make fucking ten thousand dollars a year.

(01:43:02):
I'm like, no, dude, you should give that money to
Ridge Holland. Don't you know. Don't you know he has
a family and he has kids in a mortgage you
should give you should give him your money. I don't know.
I see that and I think to myself, he's like,
I won't be able to wrestle for seven months. Door
to Ash fucking is hiring. If I remember it correctly,

(01:43:25):
you can go Bartend it's like this annoying, fucking entitled
attitude to some degree. When I see that, I'm like,
you think you think you're too good? Do you think
you're too good to bounce bartend or fucking deliver food? Buddy?
Go do that be a fucking grown up, Be a
grown man.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
I mean, if it's the same contract that Andrade has,
maybe he's not able to. Maybe it's considered part of
the entertainment. Don't that's me fucking drive on.

Speaker 1 (01:43:58):
He's like he's taking a picture as he leaves, because
he leaves your fucking Popeyes in front of.

Speaker 2 (01:44:04):
Your street street Fighter asks well, why didn't file for unemployment?
Chances are somebody who's making six figures probably can't.

Speaker 1 (01:44:13):
Well, yeah, I wonder why. It's almost like we make
more money than most people, right, I'm sorry, Sorri. Like
I said, I maybe feel bad for people.

Speaker 2 (01:44:24):
I've never made six figures, so I don't know how
that works with your snap benefits.

Speaker 1 (01:44:28):
But yeah, yeah, but dude, you should give that. But
still then you should still give money to Ridge fucking Island.
That's what you should do. And by the way, him
posting a thing being like they're taking care of my
surgery and taking care of my It's like, well, that
must be nice.

Speaker 2 (01:44:44):
Oh no, those are the surgeries. Are really cheaping more
of those, like twenty bucks, thirty bucks for a surgery.

Speaker 1 (01:44:49):
Yes, I can't. Oh god, just the delusion that it
is just.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):
It's fun crazy, Yeah, it's probably. I don't know rich
Holland's history. I don't know his standing with his family,
when he how he was raised, but chances are I
think he probably came from a well to do place.
Probably came from a well to do place, because you'd
almost have to come from a well to do place
to think that your paycheck making six figures and more

(01:45:23):
is just barely making it through life, barely making.

Speaker 1 (01:45:28):
Or guaranteed forever right that too, which, by the way,
somebody I saw mentioned it to me where they were like, well,
he's also like British or something, and I'm just like,
all right, I get it, Like maybe, yeah, you're from
a country where they have universal health care and shit
like that, but like you knew what, you know what
this country is, right, Like you knew when you came

(01:45:49):
here that the healthcare is not guaranteed. You're kind of
left out to fucking dangle if something bad happens to you,
and then you went for a job where something bad
it's going to more than likely.

Speaker 2 (01:46:01):
Happen to you, right, you know, it's like.

Speaker 1 (01:46:06):
What did you think, dude? Like what does one believe
is going to happen? I don't know. Like I said,
I try to keep it positive, especially with health shit,
because in my mind, I'm like, this shouldn't even be
a fucking conversation if you're paying shit tons of money
into your fucking health insurance every single year and you're like, oh,

(01:46:28):
I hurt my knee and they're like, oh, well fuck you. Like,
to me, there's there's no bigger Like, some of the
insurance shit is such a scam on a level that's
insane that if I tried to explain to people from
other countries where it's like, hey, in America, you can
get health insurance, but it doesn't include your eyes or
your teeth. So two parts of your fucking head aren't

(01:46:51):
included in the health insurance that you pay whatever twenty
percent of your fucking yearly income to. But they don't
count your eyes your teeth.

Speaker 2 (01:47:01):
Makes sense of that, right, But who needs eyes or teeth?

Speaker 1 (01:47:04):
I mean, yeah, luxury items like your eyes are your teeth,
you know what I mean. That's dark slok drops row wrecks.

Speaker 2 (01:47:12):
But making sure your triple D breasted augmentation is covered,
that's what's important. Shoe well, I mean that's for ww W.

Speaker 1 (01:47:20):
Yeah, I mean that's a good point. No. I mean,
like I said, no.

Speaker 2 (01:47:25):
It's fine. I feel bad, but it's weird to literally
look at the company and go, oh, well, they're covering
my medical bills and just kind of blow it off.
Like the way that it was presented that he presented that,
it was so flippant. It's almost as if you don't
realize like maybe he doesn't maybe he doesn't realize how

(01:47:47):
big those bills must be.

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
That's so lucky. You're so fucking lucky to get that, right,
You're so lucky to get that. And by the way, still,
this isn't me being like, oh nice guy, w W.
I'm saying like the system is such a fucking disaster
that you don't understand like those bills that would be
coming into you. Dude, you would you would shit your

(01:48:10):
pants if you saw these bills. And even like if
somebody sent me to go fundme. I looked at it
and he said it at like sixty thousand dollars, and
it's like fuck this guy, right, Like my immediate reaction
was like fuck this guy, because once again, these these
go fund me, these sites, this type of shit. There's

(01:48:32):
if you go and click on the main page of this.
I don't think they have like a best of or nothing,
but I have a feeling that if you like gofundmees
that are active, that are going on right now, it's
quite literally like kid needs wheelchairs.

Speaker 2 (01:48:43):
Yeah, I was gonna say, have you ever done that?
Have you ever done the death scroll? No pun intended
on fucking GoFundMe, because it is just a place to
get depressed real quick.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
Really, Yeah, if you're feeling too good about your life,
you want to go on there.

Speaker 2 (01:48:56):
It's not it's not what it was presented as like
GoFundMe used to be present. I want to say, back
in the heyday, it's like, oh, you do you have
a great idea? Do you want to do something important
with your life? Yeah, well, go fundmes your opportunity. Yeah,
it's not that go fundmes are now I'm going to
die if I don't get enough money to survive.

Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
I'm oh, yeah, yeah, did you see that quote from
the CEO of the fucking GoFundMe that owns it, where
they asked them there's something like they were like, oh,
you know, he's like, well, am I not supposed to
feel depressed every day? To some extent? When I run
a website that's a popularity contest and if you don't win, you.

Speaker 2 (01:49:34):
Die, right Yeah, it's like, oh, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:49:39):
That's a kick directly in the nuts.

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
So that's not how it started. It started off as
this place of like I got a great idea for
a video game or for an invention, and hey, I
need money to you know, like and then people and
the worst part that must really make him feel good
is that you know that at least a third of
those are just money grifts.

Speaker 1 (01:50:00):
Just scams, scamns. Yeah, you know, like a guy that
makes hundreds of thousands of dollars. But you know, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:50:08):
Even mean on that.

Speaker 1 (01:50:09):
I don't even mean on that. Oh I know what
I'm saying. Like for me, that's even so it's sketchy,
Like there's people that you're right, like they'll be like,
here's my nephew and he's dying, and right.

Speaker 2 (01:50:19):
You don't even have a nephew all got me. Thanks
for the money.

Speaker 1 (01:50:23):
Gotta go, you know, Yeah, I'm buying a used Honda Civic.
Oh I had to do was defraud is six hundred people? Yeah,
it's it's a fucking shame, but it is.

Speaker 2 (01:50:36):
It is gross. And then you have people like this
who are clearly much better off than the majority of
people in this country, using it for I don't know,
for a month for him to get by, depending on
how much he spends. But anyways, let's get ready to
wrap it up. Much love to everybody live in the chat.
Much love to the people listening to this at home.
You guys, You guys keep us floating. Patreon dot com,

(01:50:58):
Forward slash Wrestling Soup. Make sure to go buy there,
donate to the show. Check out her YouTube page. Much
love to Dan. Also check out Nash Corey. He did
an animation of me and you have one of us
talking about Tony the toddler and that was actually a
lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:51:12):
What oh I didn't see that by the way, Yeah,
make sure to go to Patreon. We need to make
sixty thousand dollars this year.

Speaker 2 (01:51:19):
Jesus Christ, Well, we need sixty thousand people to donate
a dollar.

Speaker 1 (01:51:25):
Yeah, I'm setting a reasonable stat I think that's I mean,
come on, guys, how else am I going to be
able to get a new PC in the next two
to five years if you don't make if I don't
make sixty thousand dollars this month off Patreon.

Speaker 2 (01:51:38):
And money, money is king is right. Make sure to
donate to LuFisto. She's still up there. She has her
donation links on Wrestling soup dot com. Feel free to
drop something in there. There was no more LFG. Obviously
we're at the end of the season. New season is incoming,
and of course LuFisto as well as Jeff Lippman will
be continuing those seasons within Wrestling Soup. But yeah, check

(01:51:59):
out her YouTube page. Should check out Jeff's stuff. He's
got a new Garden of Thought up or I'm sorry,
a Gospel of Thomas with Brick Savage, Brick Savage, an
actual shiit house, a brick shitth house of a guy.
But yeah, new stuff there. Of course check out too.
He talked wrestling much loved to those guys over there
Spitball Media with John Draper and the boys, and we

(01:52:22):
will be back to mirow Tomiro to we'll talk a
little bit more on Frank and gos So

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Ruthie's Table 4

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}THIS BOOK IS ALL XENU or THE COST OF BEING A FAN )Wrestling Soup 11.6.25)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Ruthie's Table 4

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

THIS BOOK IS ALL XENU or THE COST OF BEING A FAN )Wrestling Soup 11.6.25)

Stuff You Should Know