It's Tuesday night. You know what that means. It's time for Ignition with
aw Fanhab I'm your host Kelson, and we're here with a very small panel.
On Thanksgiving week. We have Andre with us tonight, whose house I
don't know, and we have Achi with us tonight h oh swears house.
Of course. See there, you can't get much past me. It may
take me a while, but I'll get there, you know it. I
tell you what. After the busy week we had last week in a w
I just you know, I'm happy that I have any facilities left because that
was a busy week of course, culminating with full gear on Saturday Night.
Tonight's show, we're going to be doing a little bit different because we normally
do a little bit of a preview for Dynamite, but as of recording this,
we really don't know what the heck is going on on Dynamite, so
there's no sense in talking about it. So we're gonna talk about a few
things. We're gonna talk about. At the very end of the show,
we're gonna try to talk about who do we think that aw should sign next.
We've got a lot of signings recently, so we're gonna talk about that.
Uh, We're gonna talk about some spicy predictions for the Continental Championship.
We're gonna talk about what's going on with the with the Young Bucks, and
we're going to talk about the title changes in Forbid Door. But we're gonna
start with what we thought were the best and worst moments of Forbid Door.
And boy, that's kind of a loaded question. What do you say,
Andre? Yeah, well, you guys know me. I don't like being
too negative, so but if you don't mind, I'm gonna start with the
bad and I'm gonna end with a good and with me, the best and
worst of Full Gear are kind of connected, actually, so the worst for
me and I'm gonna probably get a lot of hate for this, the swerve
and hand Man Hangman, just the barbaric violence. I love a good hardcore
match. I enjoyed the hell out of the ladder match because there were crazy
spots, showed a lot of athleticism, it looked cool. I don't like
hardcore matches when it comes to stabbing people with forks and barbed wires and putting
thumbtacks in people's mouths and staple guns. I don't like that stuff. It's
just I don't know, Like I'm trying not to ramble, but yeah,
I think you get the point. You know. It's just at the end
of the day, I know that these guys are basically actors. They don't
really hate each other, but they're mutilating each other and someone who has a
lot of health problems and I've I'm literally like three million into like health bill
that I've paid in my life. I just see them hurting each other and
it just it makes me feel uncomfortable. I get why they do it.
It makes for a great story, but not my cup of tea. But
on the flip side, the positive, I am so happy that Swerve one.
I love that his momentum is on a roll. He's like red hot.
He's like the hottest right now besides maybe MJF and I'm just super excited.
I hope they can keep it going with him all the way to the
finish line. Ah, that was so much. I'm sorry, ACKI Well,
the thing is is, I didn't watch full Gear, so I can
only talk about the small clips that I saw, and the small clips I
saw was I guess not much, so I can't really say much. So
pass it on to kill some So so the worst was that you didn't see
the show. Yeah, basically, well that's just not good. I mean,
you missed out on something. You know, we're gonna keep this going.
I should be thinking about something else that you Andrea especially, I mean,
Aki, I know you're kind of out of the loop on this,
but because you didn't see the show, and I think you'll be able to
talk about, you know, the other two other segments we're going to talk
about. But Andre, you know, I want to hear some more from
you about the show, you know, but my best and worst at a
night, and I guess Andre, I'll just address with what you said when
we were in the Reddit live chat during the swerve and and Hagman added page
match. There were a lot of exclamations there that I can't say here.
I mean, it was just it was just and it was rightfully so because
I said some of them. But I do love seeing people punctured. It's
just the thing of mine. You know. I love the horror films because
I was like, oh, that looks cool, you know, the knife
going through the side of people's heads and stuff like that. Very morbid stuff.
But I don't mind the side of blood, but this it was a
little bit weird. I'll tell you what I thought. When I was describing
the batch to somebody, I said, and then they brought bob barbed wire
out, they ail to a board, and everybody was like, Oh,
thank God, back to normalcy now, you know, is that's what it
was. I'm going to agree with you because I love horror movies. I
love saws like they're some of my favorite movies. There's plenty of blood and
gore in that. But to me, I know that it's it's fake.
But like these people are literally just doing it, hurting themselves legit and it's
just I don't know, it's just different to me. Yeah, But you
know, overall on the show. One of the things that I found really
really strange going through our YouTube channel and the comments onto YouTube and the comments
on Blue Sky and even on Twitter and on of course read it. People
either loved full gear or the or they hated it. There was no in
between. There was no middle ground. It was either people gave it a
two or they gave it an eight, you know what I mean. There
was no fives on a scale of one to ten. That's the way,
And that's kind of mind blowing because I personally gave it an eight out of
ten. I did find it. There was a couple of week spots in
the show, you know that was not perfect, but it wasn't that bad.
For example, I didn't really and I know a lot of people didn't.
It's not that they didn't care. I think they were just too exhausted
after watching the Swerve an Hangman match to really pay attention and get invested in
the Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks match. Anything go ahead.
Yeah. I made a funny comment in the chat. I said,
I cannot believe I'm seeing the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, and Chris Jericho
in the piss break match of a pay per view. That's just that does
sound right, And it wasn't a mean thing to say. It was the
truth, you know. It was like, it wasn't that it was Kenny
Omega and the Young Bucks and Chris Jericho. It could have been anybody.
Anybody could have been MGF and Jay White. It could have been any match
on the card. They could have brought the rock in and that you're not
kidding me. They could have had the will Osprey segment where they signed will
Osprey. They could have done that and it wouldn't have gone over because that
haeg Man, Adam Page and Square Strickland match literally just sucked the wind out
of everybody in a good way in most ways, I think, but it
just was. Yeah, people needed like ten minutes of you know, maybe
a silent movie from Tony Storm just to recover from it, you know what
I mean. That would have been the perfect thing. And now Tony Storm's
latest blockbuster played on the screen to get it over with. I do think
that this match, which will go down in history as one of the most
memorable matches ever, unless they do these every year, you know, then
we're gonna get the sensitized. But to me, this might not age well.
But this is like the modern day Undertaker and Mankind Hell in the Cell.
Like it had that shock value in my opinion. Yeah, I did
add the shock value. You know. We spent a lot of time talking
about this particular match, the Texas Death Match, but there were a lot
of other things in this match, so I did want to just run through
my best and worst on that. I actually really like Zero Hour for the
most part, you know, I'm not an Eddie Kingston fan. I didn't
really care for that match because that was the only match during Zero Hour they
kind of had some had no seed of doubt, you know what I mean.
There was no way that Eddie Kingston was going to lose that match.
It was nice to see Eddie Kingston out there defending, but there was no
way was to lose it. But when it came to the MGSMO and Joe
you know against you know, against the Guns, you never knew what was
gonna happen. And something happened, you know, during that match and the
quaudio match. Oh god, who did he fight? I can't I have
Matthews? Oh god, Buddy Matthews. That was an excellent match. And
I'm sorry, Buddy, but I forgot I forgot who you were for a
second there. But that was a really good match. And again, you
didn't know if the House of Black was going to come out and interfere and
things like that, you know what I mean. So, Oki, did
you get to see Zero Hour? Were you just not available to watch even
the free part? Okay? Well, you know, ultimately, you know,
again, if I had to say the worst of the night, I
would have to go with the Eddie Kingston match simply because, and again this
is nothing against Eddie Kingston at all, there just wasn't a seated out in
it for me. And the match with Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho against the
Bucks. I mean, I was too exhausted to pay attention. I was
still kind of reeling when MGF and j White fought now MJF and J White.
That match got a lot of shit online. I mean, people were
like, that is the worst pay per view main event ever? Do I
agree with it? It wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't the worst.
There's no way it was the worst. People who were saying just being stupid.
I thought the match was great. I thought the whole storyline throughout that
I was a little bit convoluted because it just we kind of got to where
we were advertising in the first place, which just took like a really weird
detour to get there. But the match was amazing. I liked it a
lot. And that cutter that MJF did over the top rope or RKO for
some of you who may not know what a cutter is, that was that
elbow drop off. I hope he's Okay, that was I would have made
it. I would have called an audible on that. When the when the
desk that had too many screws taken out of it just simply collapsed when they
laid when laid J White on top of it, you know, yeah,
that was you know what. But here I'm gonna say something. There are
a lot of people in the community that absolutely hated that match. And I'm
gonna say that the matches of what they hated, they hated all the bs
that led up to it. I mean, think about it. So you
had you had MJF get injured during zero hour after he got attacked by the
guns. Okay, he's taken out in an ambulance. Then he gets Adam
Cole the sub in for him, fighting for the World Championship, AW World
Championship. Okay, so we're talking about AW. You who uses Doc Samson
and the doctors you know have not cleared so and so you know for no
chipping a toenail. You know, yeah, we got a guy with steel
plates and an ankle broken, it had two surgeries two weeks ago. You're
gonna let him go? You got mean? Okay? And then at then
you had MJF come into the arena by the ambulance right in the nick of
time, timed it perfectly, what doctor's cleared him. You know, it
just I need logic, a little bit of logic. I understand that it's
a you know, it's a show and whatnot, but don't make me feel
stupid. While watching you, I thought it was hilarious that Adam Cole came
out on one leg to fight in this main event, and everybody seems to
be okay with it. But then when MJF came, all the security try
to stop him because he was too quote unquote injured to perform, and that
was just ridiculously stupid that moment. Yeah, and if you saw the media
scrum, MGF did make a little snaff foo a little, but it was
a big staf foo in the media scrub where he said that he was standing
in the back watching the swerve Strickland and the hangman had him page match and
he was like, you know, wow, you know, but he was
standing in the back so well, in the back of his emergency room,
be at the back of his emergency room on a big monitor, because you
know they emergency rooms these days, do you know have. You know,
they do have pay per views on in the emergency room, because God knows,
the people with charge of glass stuck in their eyeballs and you know,
hatchets in their head and broken legs and broken arms and you know, shattered
shattered knees, they deserve to be entertained when they're in the emergency room for
the free amount of money it costs. Or yeah, you said you had
you said you You just said that you had medical problems. So I assume
that you've been in the emergency room at the hospital emergency rooms, and I
will say there are TV is in there with working cable, but I don't
think they have Bleacher Report. They don't have Bleacher Report. Did they show
in theater movies too? They at University of Washington Medical Center. They do
have an on demand movie channel, but not in theater. But you know
what I'm saying, Yeah, let's move on. I think we pretty much
covered the best of the worst of the night, I think, But I
want to talk about the Young Bucks for a second here, because the Young
Bucks lost to Kenny Obega and Chris Jericho. Kenny Obga went to shake hands
and Young Bucks literally through a tantrum like a couple of three year olds,
you know, and and that was that, and so you know, I
don't know. So now they come out with reports and probably k because Brandon
Cutler, you know, did it? You know, did the report say
that you know a dog that being the elite is done and they're taking a
break from AAW which they very may well be taking a break from AAW or
they're just using this as a vehicle. But Aki, I mean, do
you have any ideas about this, uh whatever is going on with the Young
Bucks? They're taking a break from wrestling, but there's no hidden conspiracy.
Yeah, I agree with you, But do you let me ask you a
question, Aki. People have been saying that they haven't been getting excited about
Young Buck Young Bucks matches as much as they used to be. Do you
think that they were a little maybe a little overexposed or you know, you
know what I mean. Do you think they needed a break and Ad needed
a break from the Young Bucks as well, or do you think it's just
you know, it is what it is. I mean, me personally,
I'm never I'm never not excited to see the Young Bucks because they're pretty cool.
But you know, if other people say that then maybe it is a
good idea to like give people a break from the Young Bucks because last or
it wasn't last year, I don't know, but like when they got suspended
and they had a very long time out of the out, like away from
wrestling, people were very hyped up to see them again. So maybe that's
just what they need. They just need like a good like a couple months
break, be with family, do whatever you got to do. Fill out,
you'll up if you're injured or something, and think of cool story ideas
and then you know, when you come back, show those cool story ideas
and then boom, people are excited again. Right, we're air just came
into the room. We're talking about the Young Bucks said their break that they're
taking. We're to go to Andre next and there I get your thoughts on
this right after Andre's done. If that's all right, Andre? What do
you think I mean? Is what I said and what Aki said? Does
that ring true with you? Do you have your own opinions about this?
I'm sure you do. I feel like the Bucks have been taking a break
from aw for the past six months or so because they were suspended and then
they signed that big new contract dem and Omega and I guess all of the
Elite, and then they haven't really done much. I like the Young Bocks
a lot. I think they're exciting team, but at the same time,
they're exclusively a tag team, and I feel like they're almost like hit a
ceiling or something, because how much can you really do with the tag team.
They've gone for the Trio's belts, they've gone for the Ring of Honor
Trios belts, they've gone for the regular tag titles, and now it feels
like they're just spinning the wheels, like fighting with their old friends again,
and then they're going to make up with them again, then they're going to
fight with them again. I feel like they need something drastically different, and
they need some kind of maybe like a blood feud, kind of similar to
what Hangman and Swerve are having, but with maybe like I want to say,
Luca Brows, but that's kind of like a tired rivalry too. Maybe
someone new I don't know, I don't know exactly who would be great opponents
for them, but they need something different. I don't know if they're actually
going to be gone for a while. I hope not, because I mean,
they're exciting. So I want to see them, but I just want
to see them do something different. What do you think, er, I
mean, you know, do the Bucks need to recharge? Do you think
they've lost some of the fans. I think as a whole, the elite
has taken a back seat in twenty twenty three, like they returned at full
gear twenty twenty two. They win the Trios or they don't win the Trios
Championship, but then they have like that best of seven series with that triangle
amazing wrestling, amazing matches. Crazy to think that six guys can have seven
different matches and it doesn't get boring or repetitive. And then Hangman kind of
goes missing for two months until the mock feud kicks off and he happens to
get injured. Kenny has arguably his slowest year in his pro wrestling career since
coming to AW besides twenty twenty two, because of like the suspension, and
the Bucks kind of get lost in the shuffle because, like Andre said,
they're exclusively a tag team, and the tag division as a whole, I
think it kind of got disrupted with the Trio with the introduction of the Trios
division, because it split the two. You had a lot of tag teams
that got converted into trios and they fell off, like you look at the
acclaimed Hottest Tag Act and then now they're in the trio's division and it's hurting
the Tag division because FTR, while they had the belt, they weren't doing
much with them as a result. So Young Bucks, I feel like whatever
reason, whatever plans shifted because I guess like everybody expected that once they won
that tag title shot, they would win at home in Los Angeles and then
you'd see the Tag division go back to like what it once was, which
was like the best tag division in the world, Like if there was that,
like aw really distinguished itself from others early on, was that Tag division,
Luca Bros. Private Party, Young Books, FTR, you name it
right. So I think, like I think, as a whole the least
probably just taking a back seat in twenty twenty three, and then next year
you see them really kick things off. You see them turning heel they brought
back like the bar they brought back the Young Bucks, like the dollars,
so all their little heel anctics, even the storyline wise, you see them
leaning into like things like brawl out with like mention of like stop being children,
that oh, that's not the first time I've heard of that, all
those kind of things. So they're leaning heavily into all of those tropes that
get talked about them in social media. And that's when the bucks are the
best. So I think, like, we probably don't see them at World
end, but then definitely as twenty twenty four kicks off, then I think
like, that's when like they're really back in the fold. The elite as
a whole will be back in the fold. You know. I want to
I want to give an opinion, and I then I want to give everybody
a chance to express their thoughts on the opinion that I'm gonna give. I've
always for the longest, not always, but for the longest time. I'd
say for more than a year, at least more than a year, probably
closer to two years. I've bet a big proponent of a AW Women's Tag
Team Championship belt, and whenever I bring it up, we I get the
response saying AW already has too many belts, And my response to that is,
yes, I agree they should get rid of the Trios Championship and put
and give the women a tag team championship because for the same reason that Air
you know, just expressed, the trios Championship is taken away from the men's
tag team and tag team is always going to be more important to trios.
And the trios champions right now are tag team wrestlers, you know, They're
not a trios team, you know, And where do you go from here?
The acclaim that we're not even in They were not in Zero Hour,
they were not in the pay per view Full Gear. Of course they were
quote unquote injured, you know, but it's probably because they just didn't have
a place for them. There was nobody, There was nobody in line to
challenge them. Really. I mean, you can argue maybe House of Black,
but I think they made the right call putting House of Black in the
tag teams ladder match, you know kind of thing. So that's my question.
I want to I want to throw it to Andre do you think that
we need a women's tag title and and do you think that if we do
have to give up one, would you give up the the Trios Championship or
something else. I do think that there should be a women's tag team division
with a championship. That would be really good because it would give a lot
of women something to do, and a lot of them are kind of buddies
and sort of unofficial tag teams, so this would give them something to fight
over. But I don't think we should take away the Trios championship. I
don't think I wouldn't take away any championship unless you want to talk about Ring
of Honor titles. I'll get rid of all of those, and I'll get
rid of the FTW title that's worthless, and I'll keep the rest. I
do like the Trio's Division. I do think they acclaimed and Billy Gunn they
could have defended against the Kingdom at the paper view, I think that would
have made sense because they were kind of fighting for Max Mjf's attention, so
that kind of wrote itself. I don't know why they didn't do that,
but maybe they didn't want either team to lose, So I don't know,
but yeah, I'm a big supporter of women's Tag team division. What about
you, HOCKI or sorry, go ahead, I just want I just want
to piggyback on something you said. Okay, so we keep the Tree's Division.
People are still saying that we have too many belts at AW. No,
we don't, because if you took away all the time TV time that
the roh belts are being used, are defended and fought for or whatever you
want to call it on AWTV, then you've got plenty of time, plenty
of time for the the AW Women's World Tag Team title. OKI, what
are your feelings about women's tag team title? Do you think that it's feasible
and viable? I've been saying for a long time, or I mean I
haven't physically say it, but like I've been thinking that the trio belts didn't
have been introduced yet. I mean eventually they should have, but just not
at the time that it was introduced because I because like there wasn't a lot
of trios in my opinion. And yeah, I think they should make a
uh oh my god, the tag team for the women's and don't go ahead,
go ahead hockey notes about it. Okay, I want to ask you
another question to add on to this, give you an opportunity to say something
new. One of the things that we also get. I told you I
get a response when I bring up the women's tag team belts that there's too
many belts. The other response is there's no women's tag teams. Do you
agree with that? I think they're I think Tony Kin's kind of building a
tag division. If you look at what's been going on in AW, so
throw to you, do you think a women's tag team title is viable in
AW and do you think there are women tag teams out there? Yeah?
So I had just happened to open up the AW roster and I was looking
through it and currently there are thirty four women signed and a lot of them
aren't featured regularly summer in like, uh, you have Jamie Hayter off TV.
You have thunder Rosa who's injured. Then you have others who are missing
for different reasons such as uh Ty Melo and the others, Rijo Yokosakazaki,
Serenadeve, we don't know where she is, Peneloe, Penelope hasn't wrestled.
Bunny got released recently. So yeah, there's a lot of women who are
signed, but we all we always see those same seven or eight women who
are featured on TV. And in terms of tag teams, if you just
look back I think like H TJ and A J and Tymelo that would be
one, Madison rain Sky Blue that was kind of one. Uh who else
do you have a deal? Yeah? You have those, but yeah,
I don't think there's like natural tag teams like you would see with the men's
division or or let's let's look through like the other example of the Women's Tag
Team Championships that do exist, which existing WW they tried to have two sets
one inn NXT one on the main roster, and for whatever reason, those
titles just ended up being cursed because whoever held them ended up getting injured or
something else happened. And they're also struggling running into the same problems where like
you don't have natural tag teams who are coming up from like the INDI's or
from the grassroots levels and then migrating up in AW. We're having a lot
of makeshift tag teams that you're putting together. And to twenty CON's credit,
even a tag team like the Acclaim they started from darkent Elevation just got randomly
put together and ended up being something good. So the potential is there for
a tag team, but like as the current roster stands, I don't think
there are enough natural tag teams in place for a title, like perhaps you
start building tag team feuds, you start doing those things, and then maybe
like twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five, you can see like, oh,
there's enough people and pieces in place that we can do this and give
it a belt and give it some more legitimacy, you know. Let me
let me bring up a point here. So when you look at the men's
tag teams, what's the most popular men's tag team right now? Which one
is selling the most murk? No, it's MGF and Adam Colebaby. And
how did that tag team even come about? The blind eliminator tag team tournament?
Why could it's a makeshift tag team that they got together quickly. I'm
sure they put thought into it. It wasn't a blind draw, you know,
so. I think it would be interesting if they did that for the
women's I said that right when they were doing it for the men. Why
aren't they doing this for the women? You could pull Sky Blue and Julia
Hart put them together. You could pull like Chris Statlander and somebody like Tya
Valkyrie have two towers the Willow Nightingale. Absolutely, there's so many things that
you can do. We've been looking at like when Jamie Hater comes back.
We've been everybody was talking about Britt Baker turning on JM. Hater or JB.
Hater turning on Brick Baker. If you put them on opposite ends of
a tag team, you know, through a blind draw, that could be
the catalyst for that happening, you know. So we're talking about the women,
and I want to just kind of segue into the next little segment here
at full Gear, we had six championship matches. Two titles changed hands,
and those two titles were the TBS title in the aw Women's World title,
the two women's matches. The titles change hands in those matches, but the
other four matches they didn't change hands. Do you is this a good thing,
andre or a bad thing? Do you think we should have had?
Well? Of course, do you think that one of the female women's title
should have stay put both of them or do you think that maybe one or
two more of the men's titles. K I'm gonna say this right now,
and I said it before. Out of all those six tag teams, out
of those six titles matches, all of them, all of them were kind
of in questioned a little bit so there was a possibility of losses. So
what do you think, well, as someone who won the predictions game,
my humble, My humble opinion is that pretty much every match outcome made sense.
You know, that's why I predicted, But you know that's besides the
point. So I'm happy with these title changes, to be honest. The
Women's World title match, I didn't really care that much for uh, we'll
see what Tony Storm does with it. There's some interesting potential for her with
a belt. Somebody suggested I think it might have been air, but please
correct me if I'm wrong, but somebody suggested that she should get really obsessed
with it and like sleep with it, take it in the shower, and
just like guarded with her life because she's crazy. That could be interesting.
As far as the TBS Championship goes on, I'm happy Julia Hart won and
that was a great match. I want to say, because we discussed last
week how all three of these women are not very experienced, so it's going
to be interesting to see if their three way match is going to be sloppy
or not. And it was not sloppy at least not that I noticed.
I thought it was. They did a really good job, and I'm excited
to see what Julia does. I hope she has a great ring. The
one thing I hope is that AW does this a lot. It seems like
they build someone up to win the title, and then once the person wins
the title, they just have random open challenges while they're building the next challenger,
and the champion just kind of gets forgotten, like their character arc just
stops. And I hope that doesn't happen with the women here, right and
Aki, I know that you are a huge proponent of women's wrestling. Are
you pleased with the title changes? And also, I'm sure even though you've
already said you didn't get the Sea full gear, you probably know the results
and do you see something you know and the results that the titles didn't change
that you're like, I wish this may have changed. I'm so happy that
Julia won that champion. I've been saying that since the since TVs Champion,
since Jade was here. I'm so happy she won that. I'm also excited
to see what Tony Storm does that. I hope that she does the angle
where if she where she becomes kind of obsessed with the thing that would be
pretty cool. I'm so happy that the ladies won, and I kind of
forgot my prediction. I think I said four or three some of that,
so I guess both kind of close. What no, you're no, you're
pretty much everybody said three or four titles change hands. Yeah, I was
kind of close. But I'm so happy that the lady is that the ladies
that I wanted to win one because it just made it just made too much
sense. That's fair enough. I mean, did you think that maybe some
of the others, you know, the men's titles which none change hands,
you know, were you a little upset maybe or thinking that one of them
would have changed hands at least one of them. Are you okay with the
four titles staying where they were? I'm fine with the World Champion staying where
it is because I don't like j White and uh I have to look at
the matches and UH like the list of matches to say, like, who
else has I forgot a lot of matches? That's that's fair enough. What
about you, Air, I mean, what is your take on this weet?
Are you okay with the two women's matches title state changeing hands? Or
did you think that maybe we could have used one, at least one title
change in the men's side. So I'll just start at the top first.
Hikarushida when she won back her title at Dynamite two hundred from Soirea, she
held that or no, no, she would she be. She beat Tony
Storm that night. She held the title twenty five days before losing to Sreya.
Her third title reign was only for thirty nine days, So two times
now she's been a transitional champion for someone else to give someone else their moment
because Tony Kahn felt that they were hotter Sreya in England like, oh,
we got the vice to queen, got to give it to her hometown crowd.
Let's get that pop because we don't have Jamie Hayter to give that pop
too this time around. It's it's so clear that Tony Storm is Tony Hahn's
favorite female wrestler on the roster because of the amount of amount of TV time
that he's given her. You could tell that. You could see it with
Britt two years ago. Even though when she was injured in a wheelchair,
had a broken nose, she was still constantly on TV. She was still
being wheeled out, she was still cutting promos backstage segments. It was very
easy to see Tony Kahan's favorites when you see how the TV time is designated
to these people. Tony Storm, I felt like her story would have been
better had she lost, because it would allow her character to unravel a little
bit more, get a little bit crazier, all those sorts of things.
But now that she's one, let's see where it goes. I'm interested to
see where the story with Mariah May goes. Who's like kind of like her
understudy and girl, and eventually I guess we'll see her the student becomes a
teacher tries to take out this teacher. That's probably the direction that goes.
So I'm okay with that. The TVs title, Like Aki, like Andre,
I'm super pleased for Julia hart Urn Skyblue are two of like the women
who are making the fastest progress in AW They're wrestling a lot more compared to
a lot of the other women the work is being put in. And then
Julia, where she distinguishes herself from everybody else on the roster is that her
character work has gone up so many levels. And I mean the credit to
that has to go to, like just her being around Malachi Brody Buddy,
three veterans of the game. Malachi is such a cerebral lore guy, and
just spending time with them, watching them wrestle, listening to them cut promos.
Julia has taken that like and I'm just run with it. So I'm
happy for her as well, But I feel bad for Chris dat Lander,
who didn't get a single feud really of her whole TBS title reign. So
I'm just looking now when she had seventeen title matches, and I think she
gave some of the women that she wrestled against some of the best matches that
they had. Her matches against Jade Cargo were excellent. Her matches against Willow
Skyblue, Marina Shafir, Lady Frost, Taya Anna j some of the better
women's matches that we've seen this year. So she definitely elevated the title,
not just in ring, but like on a work rate basis, And I
really hope that she moves up a level now. And isn't that aw Women's
Championship contendership because she's amazing Hue there and from the men's side, I thought
we should have seen another title change, any one in particular that you were
thinking about. I thought Max should have won. You and I are sharing
the same brain cell again, Yeah yeah, Like I thought in my heart
of hearts, I wanted j White to win because he's one of my favorite
wrestlers. But like I knew, with like a Long Island pay per view
and the MANJFS hometown, there was no chance in hell that he was gonna
lose. But Mocks, I felt should have won. Nothing against Orange Cassidy,
but I felt like you built him up for a year as this undefeated
guy forty title defenses whatever he had, and it took John Moxley to beat
him. Who's gonna be the next guy to beat him? It kind of
like devalues that next victory. Well, they did kind of back themselves into
the aw did back themselves into a corner, because you're exactly right, who
are they gonna get to beat John to get to beat Orange Cassidy. Now
I can tell you who it's gonna be. It's gonna be John Moxley at
Winter is Coming. It's gonna be a tiebreaker match because they're one on one
and they're gonna have a tiebreaker. And that's gonna be John Moxley's way of
winning the belt. Yeah, that's probably the direction that goes, yeah,
because otherwise you look at the guys that Orange Cassidy beat, like look a
look at look at where Serve is now. And Swerve has taken two losses
to Orange Cassidy. Oh I didn't. I forgot about that. Yeah too,
And this is like a when was that Battle Royale? And then a
match on Dynamite And so those are like two big wins that Orange Cassidy has
for a guy who's like the biggest black wrestler wrestling today. He's elevated himself
to like that upper a a st or echelon of wrestlers now in the span
of like two three months. But Orange Cassidy has a couple of wins over
him. So like so yeah, it'll be interesting to see who takes it
off him, Like you have guys like I really want to see, like
an international guy be the one to take take off take the title off him,
a rouge a Taqueshta, somebody like that. I agree. One title
change that I forgot to mention that I would like to see was I wanted
the guns to take the belts off of MJF because I feel like those belts
just need to be off of MJF. The Ring of Honored tag team belts
that I'm talking about because like, okay, I was thinking about this today.
So Samoa Joe, he was the Ring of Honor TV champion and he
gave that belt up. He just straight up put it on the floor said
I don't want it anymore. I want to do bigger and better things.
Bigger and better things is what MJF has, which is the World Championship,
but he also has the Ring of Honor championships that he is defending with his
life. Like the Ring of Honor belts are like the most important tag belts
in the history of the industry. He is sacrificing his world title defense by
defending these Ring of Honor belts, And both of these guys are like in
the same storyline, and it's just so inconsistent, and it just it's kind
of laughable when I dig deep about it, you know, And I just
want MJF to get rid of those Ring of Honor belts and just let's just
stick with the world title. I get you. I mean, as I
said earlier, I am a big proponent of AW having AW belts fought for,
defended, and battled for on AWTV Ring of Honor. People are saying
Ring of Honor is dying. Why is the Ring of Honor dying? Samoa
Joe didn't defend the Ring of Honor TV championship on Ring of Honor TV since
like August, It's been months. You know, if you're going to have
a promotion with belts, but have those belts defended on on that you know?
So yeah? So, uh you know what, Air do you want
to do your rant about Saboa Joe? You can do it if you want
to take the time. Air is going to kill you. Yeah. So
when he dropped the title the way that he did it, I like,
what about it? And then once the time of my finished, I just
like, yeah, I couldn't process it. I couldn't process it at all.
Uh but like yeah, I'll just I'll just read off my rent one.
Samoa Joe held the title five hundred and seventy five days and didn't put
a single person over in defeat. Uh. Second, he says he wanted
to be more than a TV champion, But what rule says you can't be
a TV champion or a double champ, especially when you've already been a double
champ. So we remember the king of Television, Samoa Joe with the ROH
and TNT championship. What would affect him from being rh TV champion and the
AW World Champion. He could have put over Keithley and losing could have could
have made him a star, could have made him the singles wrestler that we
all thought that we were getting when he signed to AW. You could have
easily had Samojo losing in a multiman match. Final battle is coming up in
three weeks time, four weeks time, whatever it is, right, hung
Bucks don't have the belt, Samoa Joe lost the belt, You've already devalued
your pay per view. Why the ticket sales are in the absolute gutter for
that show? No chance in hell do I think I'm seeing mgf so on
an ROH pay per view? No, I don't see him defending those belts
either. So you already have three title belts that won't be there because you're
held by people that are predominantly on AW television. And yeah, because you
didn't do any of those things above. Whoever holds the title belt next will
be holding a belt that the previous champ didn't feel was worth holding. Yeah,
and so whether it's Ethan Page, whether it's Mark Brisco, whether it's
whoever, you're holding a title that the previous champ told you is not as
important as other belts, and so it just devalues the whole thing. Well,
you know, here, one of the things that I've constantly said on
these podcasts is that I am not a proponent. I am not a fan
of any wrestler holding two belts. With the amount of wrestlers in the on
the roster, it just aw alone, not even taken into consideration the rig
of honor specific roster, there's no reason whatsoever for more than one bell to
be held by any single wrestler. Which brings us to our next point,
the new Continental Championship. Now, Eddie Kingston full gear cut a really confusing
promo. Take that promo, wrap it up into a ball and throw it
out the window. Because during this scrum, the media scrum afterward, the
Boss, Tony Kann himself explained the Continental Championship. And if you try to
think what Eddie Kingston said and Tony Kahn said together, you're just gonna get
confused. So the way I understand the Continental Championship, and again don't even
think about what Eddie Kingston said, because it doesn't it has no pertinence.
The Continental Championship is basically the Ring of Honor World Championship, the Continental Championship
in the duo Japan Pro Wrestling Strong open Weight Championship all rolled into one.
It's a unified championship to whoever wins this twelve man tournament, which is being
announced in full from what I understand tomorrow probably I think it's on a YouTube
thing tomorrow, like at at one o'clock. I don't even know, but
it is going to be announced tomorrow. The bracket, the winner at this
tournament will be, for lack of better words, the Ring of Honor World
champion and the New Japan for a Wrestling Open Strong open Weight Championship champion,
and it'll be under the Continental Championship belt. And that's what it means.
So with the Continental Championship again, this is one that's going to be defended
a Ring of Honor aw and in New Japan. Keeping that in consideration,
who do you think should win this final? You know you don't even have
to narrow down the one you can narrow up down to two or three,
even Andre putting you on the spot here. Yes, you're asking the question
who should win this? My question is who is Brian Danielson going to beat
in the finals for this or or who is going to upset Brian Danielson in
the finals, because I think that's the only thing that matters, because we've
kind of seen this before with these tournaments where a certain wrestler is kind of
like the centerpiece of it and you kind of know they're going to go in
the finals. We saw that, we see him punk in the recent tournament
in which Ricky Starks went over in the owen Hart Tournament. So I feel
like this is leading up to something similar, and it's hard to tell because
no matter what I say right now, it's gonna probably be outdated tomorrow when
we find out the actual participants. But I would like to see, first
of all, from storyline perspective. If I'm Don Kallis, I want my
guys in this tournament. This is a brand new tournament. We got to
put our name on it. I have the hottest guy right here, Takeshta.
He needs to be in it. He needs to win it. He
needs to be synonymous with the championship. That's what makes sense, So I
hope that's what happens. I want Don Kallas to put not only Takeshta,
but I want him to put Maybe it would be too much to put all
three of his guys with Kyle Fletcher and Powerhouse Hobbs, but I want him
to put at least Takeshta in and maybe Powerhouse Hobbs for you know, a
big guy in the tournament. But I want Takeshta to go at least to
the finals, to lose to Danielson or even win it. I think that
would be cool. What do you think, Oki? That's basically my reaction
to hearing that. So it's a champion that's for a Ring of Honor that's
all three which one belt. The person who holds the belt is going to
be the Ring of Honor Championship, the Continental aw Continental Champion, and the
new Japan Strong Open Weight Championship all at the same time. It's like the
universal championship belt that the company that I don't like saying's name has has yes,
So it's like holding three different championships, but it's one championship. Okay,
I think it's gonna be uh well aspray that wins it because he just
signed, or maybe that wins it, but like he'll go on to the
he'll he'll definitely be probably in the running for it down the line. But
keep in mind that he just signed, but he's not going to be coming
in for a couple of months. Yeah, and uh so here he is.
He did say, you know, give me a chance. I'm gonna
I'm gonna complete my my commitment to New Japan and I'll be here as soon
as that's done. Now that's not to say he may go in there,
and I do have a point to make about that too, but for all
ten purposes, he's he's AW signed with AW, but he's not really with
AW yet. Yeah, in a couple more months. Yeah, okay,
never mind, my plans have been foiled. No, you may not have
been, because I'm gonna throw it to air now. But I have a
question for air. This is this championship belt does represent New Japan Pro Wrestling
as well, and to Aki's point, will Osprey is still in New Japan
Pro Wrestling. Do you think that New Japan Pro Wrestling will Osprey could win
this thing. He could be in this tournament because who better to represent the
tournament than the you know, the championship belt than Will Osprey for New Japan,
a New Japan wrestler, Kurt New Japan wrestler. What do you think?
Who? What is your answer on this air? I think well Ostrey
would have been a first great candidate, but I don't think he will be
in the tournament. But whoever does win, they have to be a made
guy. Like if Brian Danielson, I don't think he wants to hold any
kind of accolade in aw He's happy just wrestling great matches. He books himself
to lose, So like a guy like Takeushta, somebody who can get elevated,
Like if you saw yesterday the list of wrestlers that I put out.
In terms of who I think should be in the tournament, it should be
your upper echelon of guys, your tippy top. In Brian Danielson's own words,
he looked us dead in the eyeball and said this will be the greatest
tournament in professional wrestling history. And you can't say that and then have guys
in the tournament like like Jay Lethal, like like Jeff Jarrett, like Matt
Hardy, like Jeff Hardy, like like people we've seen in eliminator eliminator tournaments
or the owen Hart Tournament. It needs to be the upper echelon of guys.
It needs to be your Keny Omega's, You're Jay white'es, your your
Rouchees, your takeshta is, your Malachi's, people of that caliber who have
held championship singles titles at the highest level. That's how you put over this
tournament as a great accolade. In terms of the partnership, and like the
Triple Crown situation, I don't understand why New Japan would agree to this as
a whole. I've never felt like New Japan has benefited or any of aw's
partners have benefited from the partnership as much as adw has. I saw an
interesting point today online. They're they're making these New Japan is like kind of
building these stars who are obviously going to be worth more money, and New
Japan doesn't want to pay them the top dollars, so they go to a
company like AW, where AW pays them a lot but also allows them to
come back to New Japan to perform on their big Show. So that's the
theory that I saw. I don't know if that's actually the case. It
will be interesting to see whether or not when these brackets are revealed tomorrow,
how many New Japan wrestlers in the bracket itself. And I think New Japan
can benefit from this because if a New Japan signed wrestler wins the tournament,
or wins the tournament, or you know, a couple of months from now,
actually wins the belt, they can bring it back to Japan and work
with it. The AW Continental title will be in Japan and then they can
wrestle for defended in Japan. They can come back and defend it in a
ring of honor, they can defend it at AW. You know. I
think it's a good time sharing thing. But to Air's point, they have
to get somebody from a New Japan does have to get the title in order
to do this, and that's the only way it'll be beneficial for New Japan.
Yeah, and Under's point, like, so far, even in terms
of like signings, it's been Aw's benefit. They've gotten Ossie Open, they've
got in j White, They've got in now will Ospray, They've got into
Kesha from DDT. So even in just in terms of signing, like sure,
money matters, all these kind of things, but the relationship it's been
very one sided. It would be great for a new Japan guy to win
or for someone to hold the title. But even if you just look at
like the two Forbidden Door shows, how many new Japan guys have gotten and
put over in big matches or in the title matches, no one really even
in terms of the opponents that we have them in the matches that they do
go over, like this year we had Sanata beat Jungle Boy. Jungle Boy
was never gonna win that match. Well, we had Jay White go over
and then we had will Osprey go over. But now they're over here.
So but at the time they were part of the Japan Yeah, yeah,
fair point, you know. So we we talked. We talked a little
bit about will Osprey. We talked about Jay why do you still fairly new
signing in AWE after getting absolutely booked into the dirt like he like if six
feet is buried, he's he's at five feet right now underground? Yeah,
who's that? JH. Yeah, I don't know. Well, if you
look at it this way though, you know, a W has released more
wrestlers lately than they've ever had in the penmast I want to make a collection.
They didn't release the guys the contracts expired. I just want to clarify
that because there's a big difference and people will get upset. I think they
did release lave Bates though I think she requested her release. Yeah, and
Jane Cargill I think requested her release as well. But anyway, we just
AW just signed Will Osprey. They had Ronda Rousey Wressell for Ring of Honor
on Friday night. We had Dolph Ziggler at it backstage at Full Gear.
We had Mercelle these Bonett shown in the crowd at all In, And there
are other names that are you know, pasta round, Mustaf al Lee,
Julia from New Japan, Spicy Prediction Time, Who's next, Who's next?
Who's coming in? And who? Yeah, who's next? Do you?
I say you got that right? Seriously, though, where are we going
here? I mean, if we're going to I mean, obviously wrestling is
a very dynamic thing. We're going to. AW is going to sign some
other people. Are any of these people that I mentioned or maybe somebody that
I didn't mention are day next on the block to be signed by AW?
Who is it? Who would you like to see? More importantly, maybe
who would you not like to see signed by aw Andre I would like to
see the obvious Mercedes Monette. I apologize my cat is interfering. I would
like to see Mercedes Mona. I would like to see the King Goo become
official. H this one is gonna be very unpopular actually, these two,
and you know this is gonna be controversial, but this is spicy, right.
I would like to see Elias given a chance in a w because I
really like his character work. I've never seen a single match from him,
so I don't know if he can wrestle, but I really enjoyed his character
work. And the same exact thing thing can be said about Enzo Amori or
whatever his name is these days. Yeah, I think we're definitely gonna get
Dolf Ziggler. And uh so you basically mentioned everybody that's alive, just just
just five, Well you did. You didn't mention who's next though? That
was gonna be my fifth person. I I'm gonna get crap for this,
but I want to see what they can do with Goldberg. I don't know
if that's going to be possible because I've heard backstage he thinks really highly of
himself, unlike Sting, who's really humble. Uh but you know, I
don't know, give me a chance of I'm gold break right, OCKI Who
do you think is up next on the block for a W to sign?
And who would you like it to be? And who do you definitely want
a W to stay away from? So for one for dudes and one for
ladies. For the dudes, I kind of want to Dozuki because he's pretty
cool. And for Grandpa yeah, okay, okay, And for the ladies,
I kind of want to see Ronda Rousey. I don't know why,
because you know, apparently not many people like her, but you know,
it would a conversation. She definitely would be a point of conversation. I
don't have a problem with her. I don't really either. Air Let's go
to you. What do you what is your answer? I'd like to see
Mustafa Ali Okay, like he's probably the best in ring guy of the recently
released batch of wrestlers and free agents that are available. He was always one
of those guys that never got to fully express himself and wrestle how he wanted
to in the previous company that he was on, and he fits like that
niche demographic. He's South Asian, speaks good English, so he's able to
tap into a different demographic that others in AW currently cannot. So him from
the men's side, from would be Matt Riddle. Recently, with the signings
of like Rick Flair and others, aw has kind of like or Tony Han
at least has been a bit of a hypocrite in terms of his uh,
his logic, his his tweets, his uh shot said w W in terms
of like Vince mc mann's s A allegations and the people that he's gone on
to sign. But matt Ril is definitely when I stay away from great in
ring, great character, but yeah, it comes with a lot of baggage.
Yeah, yeah, allegedly a lot of baggage. And from the women's
side, I've seen Ronda Rowsey wrestle against Athena and Billy Starks at that at
that indie show PW Revolver, and I was like, where was this Roonda
Rowsi for the last two years of her career. She's not half bad,
really, Okay, that's interesting, Like she intrigues me and I'd like to
see I guess like the and she wrestled on R O H against Athena and
Billy Strucks as well. So I wonder if that match airs this Thursday or
if it's like it was just for like the the crowd that was there.
But if it is, they are going to air it. Tony Connes said,
okay, okay, good and then so then it will be interesting to
see, like how is she doesn't that element because if she's good in rings,
she's arguably like the biggest name in combat sports as so far as women
go. So she's someone who's like who's a draw? Right? Is that?
Would you if they announced that the next Honor Club telecast? I don't
know if they're doing one on Thursday because it's Thanksgiving. It would be kind
of stupid for them to do one on Thanksgiving, right, Not a lot
of people would be watching. But they'd say that a week from now.
Uh, they said, Ronda Rousey is going to her match is going to
be on the Honor Club. Would you be you're not subscribed to? Would
you be more willing to subscribe? Oh? No, that's all gonna chee
my mind. No, okay, fair enough, that's going to get me
to pay ten dollars, twelve dollars whatever it does these days, right,
probably get a free trial. Well, you know, I guess it's my
turn. Aw signed will Osprey. And one of the things that is cool
about the will Osprey signing is that it was widely publicized, whether it's true
or not, that it was publicized that WWE wanted will Osprey and Aw Gottam,
which is a coup or will Osprey and also considering to will Osprey is
one of, if not the best professional wrestlers in the world. Tony Kahn
did not say that, you know, Chicile, He was telling the truth.
It's plain and simple. He is. He's good on the mic,
he's fantastic in the ring, and that is something that's good. So who
should they sign next? You know, the men's side is a little bit
convoluted, you know, because there's really not that quote unquote superstar. I
agree with what Air said about Mustaf al Alie. An argument be made being
that he's Ryan Nema's brother, that doll Ziggler would be a great signing.
You know, Goldberg coming in and doing you know, a part of his
retirement tour or his entire retirement tour with AW would be probably beneficial. I
think people would tune in to see Goldberg on there. So I really can't
come up with definitely no Matt Riddle, no, allegedly. But on the
women's side, there's two women. There's obviously the Mercedes Monet, who AW
would be foolish if it was possible not to grab. The other woman that
they have is Julia, who is in my estimation a far better wrestler than
Mercedes Monett. She's a little bit younger, not by much, but a
little bit younger. Uh, And guess what WWE wants her. If AW
could swoop in and get Julia and get her out from under, I think
Julia's contract is up in March, if I'm not mistaken with stardom, if
AW could swoop in and get Julia and get will Osprey from w keep will
Osprey away from WWE and Julia from WWE. Perfect And I watched several Julia
matches today as a matter of fact, and she's too damn good for AW.
To be honest with you, she's too dad good for any American.
I really do believe her. Believe that. But the only drawback with Julia
is that she is, you know, she's English born, She's Japanese and
Italian. She doesn't speak hardly any English. Even though she looks like she
could, she can't. So there's that communication barrier, which I really wouldn't
want to see something like Julia be booked like Ebbie Saker or her Karlshidi,
even Rijo even you know something like that. Julia doesn't speak English. He
said, no, well, she's definitely gonna struggle in WWE. Then,
yeah, so, because I think they've done justice to their Japanese and stardom
wrestlers Oscar Kyrie Deo is your champion currently they don't speak English that much.
I guess you're right. Yeah, women, Yeah, but you know what
Kyrie and Eo have in common. They all got their asses kicked by Julia.
You know, I mean, Julia is just if you've not if the
listeners listening today are not familiar with Julia, just go watch a Julia match.
I explained this to one of our pillars of the community earlier today.
We were talking about Julia. Julia wrestles like she's the size of Jade Cargill.
And she's pretty much the size of she's smaller than she's about the size
of I don't know a I can tell you all size red velvet. She's
the size of red velvet. Red velvet is tiny. Well, Julia is
I believe five five five four or five five. But what she's in the
ring, she looks like she's six to one. She's just so much.
She just her statures is. She's five four pounds and she looks and she
looks like an amazon when she's in the ring. It's from London, but
doesn't speak English. She's was born in London, but she's of Italian and
Japanese descent. Interesting, and so she's she speaks Japanese and I've heard her
roll from r so I'm assuming she speaks Italian too, But she does not
speak English. I mean she can talk, you know, she can say,
you know, hello, how are you the thing? You know?
My name is Julia, you know, But she's not you know, she
well, she's nowhere near as a fluid as a Carlshida. I mean not
even close to to as a fluid that we met a car cut any promos
in a w Yeah, I don't understand it because I mean, if you
ever watched her on YouTube, but Karlshida does English speaking YouTube videos where she's
speaking English for like an hour and she's totally fine. You can understand every
single word she says. Yeah, Luca bros. Are not bad on English
either. It's just I don't know why they don't set Jose the assistant coming
out with every Mexican wrestler. He takes away attention from them. Phoenix and
Penta, whenever they spoke in English on TV, They've done fine English.
I don't need especially Phoenix, well Peta, for you know, Peta doesn't
speak as much English as as Ray Phoenix does. That's clear. But I've
always felt that the emotion you can communicate through your own voice, even if
it's broken English language is it's it's a feeling type thing. You don't need
to understand every word of guys saying, but when you get the emotion across,
Like when Takesha is speaking in Japanese, I don't understand a word he's
saying, but I feel it. I get the emotion it hits right now.
It's a very very very good point. Even the crow. I mean,
when you listen to the crowd reaction. You know that a crowd in
you know, scuttle, but Indiana is not knowing fluent in Japanese. But
if Takeshta is out in that crowd, in front of that crowd talking to
Japanese, they get the gist of what he's saying. You're absolutely right,
think you meant Alex abrahand Is and I like Alex. My apologies to Hosey
the assistant, who's excellent. He's the second best manager in ab behind Prince
Nanna. My apologies to jose Oh God. Anyway, and on that note,
I think it's time to end the show. We'll see you again tomorrow
night for all the talk at ten point fifteen pm right after Dynamite, join
us on Reddit for our live chat and Air. Are we going to be
doing a live chat tomorrow night on YouTube or is that being put off?
We'll do our first aw Dynamite. Watch along for andre Aki and Air.
This is Kelson and you've been listening to Ignition. Good night everybody. We're
at a time