Hello listeners, and welcome to a special Wrestle Magic branded nostalgia episode here on
a WWE podcast, a Decade in Review covering the first decade of the twenty
first century. I'm here with my partner Michael Gross. As you know,
it's me Rocky Tea and we are just going to dive right in. Michael,
I know you have something that you want to share with us before we
get into our topic, which I'll get more in depth in a second,
but first say hello, up to everybody and tell us what's on your mind.
Hey, folks, I hope you're rock and roll and have a good
time out there. So you know, my nickname is the Gardener. I
spent all day in the garden. I have the worst farmers tand actually I
should say the worst farmer sunburn in the world. For here in Louisville.
If you put butter on my show or blaze right now, it would melt
and we we can have a nice steak. But I want to talk about
something real quick. Usually at the end of the episodes we talk about a
book or a movie or something that we can reference to make people's lives better.
Okay, and I want to recommend a book to a lot of people
out there. I want you to know that no matter what your worst day
in life is, that is somebody else's best day. So the book I
want to recommend is A Man Search for Meeting by Victor Frankel. And here's
a couple of reasons why. One I'm Jewish. Two it's about a Nazi
Holocaust survivor three you don't know what the power of life is until you can
save someone's or help somebody's. And suggesting this book to the woman I love
is what got the woman I love to start talking to me. And that's
how Jennifer and I fell in love. This book is one of the most
most powerful pieces I've ever seen in my life or read in my life,
and actually have intertwined in my life to say, wow, like this is
a real memoir of a man put in a concentration camp and refuse to go
on a death march because he was a doctor and said, these are his
patients, and he rather die with his patients than die walking to death.
And by that he saved a lot of lives, and by that he saved
a lot of souls, and he felt his true meaning life. And now
I know that's a weird way to start out a wrestling podcast, but folks,
you need to understand something. You need to go out there and reach
out to somebody. I know I sound like Dusty Rhodes on net right now,
but the fact is, life is beautiful. Now Rocky knows this.
A lot of people don't know this, but I've been going through a lot
of counseling myself for a lot of trauma and things that I've had in my
past, and it's okay. It is okay to have these problems in your
life, but it's even better to address them and take care of it.
This is true. If you're out there and you're having problems, it's gonna
be all right. It's going to be all right. You just have to
get help, and it's okay to get help, and it's not embarrassing to
get help. But reading something this powerful and understanding how powerful something like a
book like this is, you'll never realize again in your life, your bad
day is somebody's best day. Times ten. Now, with that being said,
Rocky, how you been, buddy? We are well? Say I'm
good, but my city has been recovering. I had a tornado come through
here all over town, and it tore up the upper north side, northwest
side of town. We're still about two hundred and fifty thousand people without power.
Jeez, we were lucky, I mean, miss rockets here were very
lucky out here on the southeast side of town, you know, on the
outskirts of town. I'm about twenty five minutes from downtown, and we lost
power for like a minute, right. I still don't have any hot water,
but we have running water, so we're very thankful. But a lot
of people my job got shut down for two days without power, so mainly
all of downtown was you know, out for the whole for the whole weekend.
And there's there's still a chunk of downtown that's out, just over a
dozen blocks that are still without power. And we're hearing that a lot of
people in like the Spring area way up north, they they may be without
power for a few months because of some of the sources that were torn down
over there. So we are into recovery mode. Good time. How's mama
to doing? Uh, very well. We're just you know, day by
day, school and working and you know, making the best of everything.
Man. Like, you know, we're in a better place we've ever been.
And uh, we're just we're growing. Just keep on growing, man.
This collection we're growing, are you know, school's growing, work,
everything, client based. It's been really good for us. It's okay if
I call her Mama t because I don't have a mom anymore, so I
need one. Yeah, you know, she's it's a day by day process
really with her. So but you know, so far, so good.
But it's going to get into why we're here real quick. The short answer,
when did you start listening to the podcast? So I got turned on
to wwepodcast dot com probably around twenty eighteen. Honestly my Twitter feed, Matt
had put up that he needed people to write articles for the website, and
I think I've told people the story, but it's a real quick brief story.
I started writing some articles for him. The first one I wrote was
on Lars Sullivan and he thought it was brilliant. And then I said,
if I can get you an article it gets over a thousand views, going
to be on the show, And he was like, sure, try And
the next one I did was on UK wrestling and I was close to twenty
nineteen and we got seventeen hundred views on that I just I marketed all over
and I mean I had so many views it was unreal. And so the
next thing I know, Matt was like, okay, all right, like
we'll work with you. So and then he took a risk on me,
which was really awesome. And so's that's how I got turned on to what
About You, buddy. So it was about four and a half years ago.
I really had a bad car accident and I was recovering and I was
at home and I was just watching the network all day long. I had
watched every documentary, I watched everything. I was tired of watching wrestling for
a second. Didn't have any other friends to talk with about it. So
I was like, let me find a wrestling podcast. Literally went to iHeartRadio,
typed in WWE podcast, saw the first thing that came up, which
was Matt's podcast, opened it up, started listening. I don't remember what
the first show I heard was, but I do remember what I look forward
to was the nice thousand shows because he would, you know, talk from
a certain time period from the past, which with the sound clips and everything
and the way he puts it together, just that's what I look forward to
before he had the mailback. So last week or a week and a half
ago, he reposted the Top ten Moments or what you know, his picks
of the twenty tenths, and I got inspired from that. And then coincidentally,
you and Maverick put out the episode of nineties Wrestling Rabble. Yes,
so that let out all happened within like two days. So I texted Matt
and I go, have you started on it or do you have plans to
do the first you know, the first decade of the twenty first century.
He goes, I thought about it, but I haven't done it, and
I asked him if we could have it, and he gave him the green
light. So here we are. So basically what's gonna happen now is we're
gonna cover two thousand and two thousand and nine, because, like I said,
you Maverick covered the nineties up until you know, the two thousand and
then Matt started with twenty ten. Now, this is not gonna be like
a top ten. This is very objective to our opinions, what we think
and actually basically what I picked, and this episode is actually going to be
inspired by the Samsung Galaxy ultral twenty four for the reason of the AI features.
So instead of asking you or anybody, hey, what was your top
moments of these first ten years of the twenty first century? Or going on
YouTube and looking at the top ten lists, I opened up chat GPT,
the AI app and asked it what are the most significant events year by year?
And it pulled up some and so we're gonna go off of what the
what the AI totals was most significant? By the way, can you hook
me up with one of those ultra twenty fours my friends? I know upgrade?
Yeah? You know, you know I can. You know I can't.
I got I got everybody who's who's ready? So anybody that's in Houston
listening, I'm in downtown just you know. You know. One thing that
we need to do that we've been meaning to do is tell our people where
to find us at the beginning of the show instead of the end of the
show, because we ramble so much, I'm sure they tune out at the
end. So real quick, Rocket teas there zero seven on the X and
then for you it's yeah, right at one, thank you. We always
forget, we always forget. So I was like, let's get that in
the in the beginning, so we all can we also really quickly talk about
some of the irons and the fire that we have with our little private group
for Wrestle Magic. Let's recap and let everybody know what's going to be coming
out the rest of the year, because we're already almost halfway through the year.
Okay, So we have some surprise guest hosts that are going to be
with us, Okay, folks, some retired wrestlers, and we're not going
to spoil their names because things can come up and we don't want to put
a time on on something that could be screwed up. But we do have
a lot of really cool interviews that we're kind of putting through. We also
have a somewhat famous semi retired wrestler that Maverick and I are working on.
Mister Michael Patrick is actually working on a project for little people in wrestling,
a forgotten art of wrestling from yesteryear. So I'm kind of curious to see
what he puts together for that. That's gonna be fun. I think it's
gonna be a really fun episode. To be honest with him. I think
I'm gonna work with him on that one, just because you know, co
hosting is always a lot of fun and just knowing how to really base everything,
you know. Just I think we're gonna have a lot of fun with
that episode. I really really do. And if we can get some of
the people we want from the micro Wrestling Federation to chip in some interviews,
I think this is gonna be awesome. So that's what we got going on.
Guys, we have a lot of irons in the fire. It's we're
all very responsible adults. I'm almost fifty. Rock he's an older man.
You know, my brother's older. Maverick is in the UK defending the country.
You know, we're Memphis. Mark is Memphis Mark, and he's older
than me, and he's he's living a life. We all have lives,
folks, and like a lot of people say that they missed uh you know,
mister and missus casual wrestling fan things. Guess life comes up, So
respect us for that. But we are going to create some content. We're
gonna pump it out. We're gonna pump and pump out content and we're gonna
have fun with it. So let's have some fun. Are you ready?
I am ready. So two things that I want to just bring up real
quick from the year nineteen ninety nine. That was something that was significant for
me when I really saw the change, so we you know, we're already
deep into the Monday Night Wars. And significant enough for me was if somebody
jumped ship right because I was young when Hogan jumped to w CW, and
then when Holler and Nash went for me, I was like, it was
ninety six, so I'm well six, I'm like eight years old, so
it was like whatever to me. By the time ninety nine comes, you
know, I'm already twelve years old. I'm going to thirteen. And the
christ Jericho debut, Oh my gosh. It was significant for me as goofy
as he looked, I mean, and I actually just rewatched his debut a
couple of days ago, and I was I was captivated the way he is
on the mic and how he works the crowd. And I had seen his
work a little bit on WW because I would flip to the Tonight troil during
commercials when I would have watched raw as a young kid, and Monday Monday
Night was the only night I was allowed to stay up to ten, so
I was allowed to watch wrestling if I could stay Away, but the Jericho
jump and actually, uh well, Big Show had jumped first in February earlier
that year. So those two debuts were very significant for me going into the
year two thousand because that's when the sink was you know, I mean the
ship was sinking to the fullest over at ws W And of course you know
we have to buy out, which we're going to cover in a minute.
But when where do you remember where you were when those happened? Because we
know Paul Paul White Big Show debut in February at the Saint Same Valentine's Da
Masacer in Memphis, Tennessee, at the Pyramid, which was located half not
even half a mile from my old house on Mudd Island. Wow, my
old, my old, my old apartment. But I didn't live there at
the time. I lived in San Diego, Okay. So the Gardener's done
a lot growing up. Like I said, I'm almost fifty years old.
If any girl asked him, thirty five, except don't tell that to Jennifer
now. Honestly, what it comes down to was these were big jumps.
Now, Paul White, as far as the Big Show jumping, it didn't
mean as much as Jericho. People knew Jericho was going to go. In
fact, Jericho was off WW television for many months, but he did house
shows and he would say crazy things at house shows without breaking the rules too
much to get sued out. In his book, Jericho talks about he got
ribbed when he made his debut. They told him not to look at the
camera, to always look away. That's why when you watch his day,
he's always looking down or looking at a weird angle. They told him to
be the exact same goofy Chris Jericho, which was I think Pat Patterson and
Jerry Brisco did that to him knowing the events would hate it. Turns out
it's regarded as the best debut of all time. Now as falls, Paul
Whites goes with, you know, Saint Valentine's Day massacre. I mean the
guy's seven foot six or seven foot four. I mean, the guy's a
massive monster, you know, coming out throwing stone cold through a cage and
everything else. I get it. However, his his debut fell flat.
It's just the fact that they had the name, they had who he was.
Now you could tell they were doing the favors on their way getting out
of WW. More Paul White than or The Big Show. I should say
then Chris Jericho, because Jericho was just taking off TV. They didn't see
him as marketable and they didn't see him putting over people as very important because
they didn't see him as the guy who would become the first unified world champion.
As far as Big Sho went, he put over like DDP quite a
bit. He put over Goldberg, he put over I mean, I have
every big name sting you name it, you know, and they just had
him kind of flounder around and uh lose a lot to Kevin Nash. So
his his debut was a lot of rebuild the character. How do we rebuild
this? How do we make this guy monster? How do we make people
reinvest in care? And a real quick note, do you know what his
original nickname was? Because it wasn't The Big Show. I love I've heard
it tens of times. I don't remember the Big Nasty, the Big the
Big Nasty. That's Shane McMahon introduced him as the Big Nasty. But and
this is no this is storied and legend. McDonald's didn't like it because it
sounded too close to the Big Tasty. Oh my good. The thing was
not tasty at all. What did everybody call the Big Tasty the Big Nasty
exactly? So something was worked out and he became the big show. There's
a little bit of history lesson for the day. As far as like WWE,
Vince McMahon turned people into shape. If he told you the sky was
purple, after three weeks, you believe the sky was purple and you never
knew it was blue. That's what Vince McMahon did. And ww fans and
I hate to say it, folks, a lot of you are out there
listening to this. It's true. You believe anything he says. So with
that being said, though, that was you know, the defections were a
big, big thing. And that year Chris Jericho's was rated even though it
was goofy, and if you look back at it, he did everything they
told him to do. He has the best debut of all time. Yeah,
that was great. So moving on to two thousand, A few things
happened there, and again we're asking chat Shept what's most significant, and I'm
going based off of some of my memory as well. A few things happened.
We had the first ever four way elimination match, for the WA title
at Wrestmating in two thousand or also known as Wrestmating sixteen. First time that's
happened, TNA was founded, Nick Foley retired for the first time. But
going back to the debuts, well, it was another significance which I when
I knew WWE or WWF was winning or going to win the Monday Night Wars
because by that time I understood what was going on. Is when the radicals
debuted Chris van Wall, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn and Dean Malinko. When
I saw those four gentlemen sitting in the audience, that's like, that's when
that was. That was the marker for me when I knew it's a matter
of time before the ww is just done right. So I know you that
was significant for you as well because you watch a lot more ww than I
did. I knew the names, I knew there were technical I knew that
could high fly. But I was a WA kid through and through it still
am right. So that was one of the biggest moves I've ever seen to
let four of your workhorses go. And it's funny like they talk about the
whole Eddie Graham or Mike Graham and Crispin Wahs story. First of all,
the following one, Crispin Waugh. That's why I'll always say that he was
one of my favorite performers ever. But what he did is in excuse mele
That's why I'm always going to refer to him as the follow one. Okay,
So with that being said, the follow one goes to Mike Graham.
Mike Graham says, well, something along the lines of, well, we're
gonna give you the title, We're gonna take it away from you. And
if it was me, I put your head on a stick then while played
it up. Okay, and all these people like, oh, Mike Graham
was like fifty, but he could have taken Ben Wah, Yeah, right
right, keep believing that. And so that was a conduit to negotiate ate
the releases of all of them. But they also negotiated Conan's release, Shane
Douglas, Shane Douglas's release, but it didn't work out right, and they
weren't wanted elsewhere. Now, these guys in two Days were in WWF and
I remember there was a site scoops back then, it was called just scoops
dot com, and they gave you all the wrestling information. It was ran
by a man named Al Or the man they call Al Actually this is what
his moniker was, and he knew a lot of people backstage and in the
wrestling business. And he had said that like a hotel was booked with all
their names in it, and legend has it. Brusso read that told it
to Shane Douglas, and Shane Douglas then called Dean Malenko and asked, Malenko,
are you there? Malenko said no, And then he called the hotel
and asked Dean Malenko or asked if Dean Malenko's alter ego name was checked in,
said yes, And that's how Shane Douglas knew that he was left behind.
But the debut was amazing, and of course they did it with ECW
alumni Al snow in the audience or wrestling, I mean, everybody was e
CW. It was a perfect moment. You couldn't have had more perfect moment.
But I've talked about this on the show before, is the fact that
they all showed up. They were all kind of like, you know,
gritty in the audience kind of made their own little rumbling. It was the
next week when they had matches. But the other thing about when they had
those matches is Perry Saturn was a student of Killer Kowalski, who was also
the mentor of Triple Ah, and he looked at him and said, why
are you guys wearing these street clothes. You're professionals. And the very next
show they all showed up in suits. And that was a big thing,
like them coming in wearing suits. And I remember reading that as a backstage
thing like on a dirt sheet, or it was actually on scoops and then
it was actually on Perry Saturn's website. I think Perry Saturn put it on
his website. He had a website. It was funny because he did his
own website and he misspelled stuff all the time. It was really funny,
but he did, he did, and still a lot of respect a man
who you know, took a gunshot to save a woman from getting you know,
hardcore art. Yeah, that's a man. That's a man, Perry
Saturn's man. So h yeah, that was that was a big one.
That was a huge one, and that that really turned the tide because you
had your your people that you wanted to watch as workhorses, so you take
that out. All you had left now was Ray Mysterio, Chavo, a
few other a handful, just a little jello bowl of of wrestlers. But
they had no charisma. They didn't have Crispin Wad wasn't a guy that you
watched interview, but you watched him wrestle. Oh yeah, yeah, so
and and and and Eddie Guerrero had a thing. Perry Saturn, like I
said, not an interview, but you watched him wrestle. Dean Malenko definitely
not a new but my god, could they wrestle. And if they wrestled
each other you got some of the best matches. It left you with basically
the only person holding together the mid card like glue with Steve Regal William Regal
as you know him now, who is an amazing wrestler. And that was
That was it. And when you rob people of the actual wrestling and you
had nothing but talking and goofiness, w W was on the downfall. They
sure were on the downfall, and leading into the year two thousand and one.
At the beginning of the year, the most dig different thing that happened
then the month was a Stone Cale winning the Rum before the third time the
only man to win in three times hits, the rescuing at seventeen and on
one and the Austin Hill turn is what it's even more significant about about that
night in the beginning of that year of April. So he wins the rumble,
it goes on. He does you know, has stated it in the
stunt Go Skull spoke Broken skulls that he's re great at doing it. He
wish he never did. He felt like he lost time doing that character.
We did get some good stuff with Angle and comedy stuff was great, but
you know, I guess it held us over. Where were you? How
do you feel about that when that happened. This is a very interesting question
because I was not a fan of kurd Angle when he first came out,
Okay, but about this time I started realizing this guy could work. And
what I've always been a big detractor for is anybody who gets to the mega
push right out the gate, and anybody it seems that comes up for n
XT is like unbeatable, unbeatable, unbeatable, And finally they could beat kurd
Angle had like a huge unbeatable streak. But if you look at first few
matches, they were sloppy. He got better. Every time he stepped in
the ring, he got better. Please, Kurtin, if you're listening,
this is a lot of a compliment coming to you, But I got to
talk to you about the way you came up. It was just the fact
that when he started, they just gave him this unbeaded streak against people like
Delo Brown, who was doing great in the ring and had charisma, and
he was really building a heat, a different heat, you know, he
went from channel changing heat to you wanted to see him get his ass beat.
But every time he stepped in the ring he got that much better,
and you're like, damn. And after a while you're like, this guy's
really good. And then after a while you're like this guy's really really good.
Then after a while you're like he can talk too. And then when
he split his character from goofy into the psychotic straight kurding, there was nobody
else to go against Austin. There was nobody else you could believe that could
take Austin out. Now they also say that turning Austin heel was the death
of the attitude era. Yeah. Yeah, everything that you built upon,
everything that you had and the one thing that you stood up for was now
dead flat. It was out in the water, laid the pasture, whatever
you want to call it. It's just gone. And so that was it
was a rough moment. But if there was one person to do it,
the son of a gun, it was Kurt Angle. It was it had
to be him. So that was that was. That was a difficult year
because then everything went into what they call was the new generation, the not
the PG era. Deer. Well, that's that's that's good. That's good.
Yeah, well you're a little ahead of yourself. So rounding out two
thousand and one with his rumble wind, he'll turn and running the gimmick for
the better part of two thousand and one. Another significant thing is March twenty
first of two thousand and one was the last night of Monday Night Night tro
and then at Vengeance in December of one is when they unified the titles.
They finally put over Chris Jericho. He beats the Rocks Center for the you
know both in the same night. That closes out one. And then back
to your point about the attitude era dyed with Austin's Hill Turn. Two thousand
and two marks the beginning of the Ruther's Digression era. Yes, right,
So we have the Invasion angle involving the acquisitions from WCW and ECW leading to
the Invasion match and all the subquit matches from both promotions. So that's what
we get, and they all one of the beginning and then going into the
russ Digression era. The first significant thing that popped up for the Rusi Agression
era in two was Wrestlmingia eighteen. The Icon versus the Icon match Rock versus
Hogan essential another passing of the torch. So I don't know if it was
a passing a torch, but something that they definitely just needed to do.
Now the money on the table was Austin versus Hogan, right, Yeah,
Austin did not want to work with Hogan, and when you're you're the one
who calls the shots, you do what you want. He wanted to work
with I believe Scott Hall that night instead, and he wanted to actually have
a good match because he believed Hogan was a sloppy worker, which he is
right. But the Rock and Hogan put on a Hollywood match. They puffed
it up. They made a headlock that should last thirty seconds, be three
minutes and they made a lot of history. Now I believe that was in
Toronto, but am I not correct that one was. Yes, and Jericho
says in his book that he and he put over Triple h that night in
the headliner, but he said after that, he said the locker room was
empty. There was no going on after that match. Now that that was
an iconic match, I was glad the Rock went over because if you put
Hogan over, I probably would have burned the place down. But it was
definitely passing the torch. But the thing is, the fans were hungry because
they thought that they were gonna get Hogan Austin at some point down the road,
which they never got, and that maybe one of the biggest misses,
but that would have been I mean, their styles don't clash. I don't.
And with Hogan being you know, creative control or not wanting to put
guys over, he didn't want to put over some Michaels. There's many guys
he wouldn't want to put over, which he should have. I don't think
he would have wanted to put over Austin. He didn't want to put over
Brock. Actually no, I'm sorry not Brock. He did put over Brock
that somebody else I can't even you don't want to put over Brock. Good
luck? Sorry, yeah so, but that that probably wouldn't have been,
you know, best for business. But uh, speaking of Brock Brock Gay
Beauty. Two thousand and two, and a week after the Hogan and Rock
match, we get the WW brand extension. Now, this is very significant
as WW splits his roster two distinct brands Raw as SmackDown, leading to new
storylines, robberies and championships. Eventually we were start to get drafts and trades
and back and forth and them not given the damn whether we have a draft
or not. But that's when WW first did the brand extension. And what's
most I think what was actually the most significant thing is in two thousand and
two, World Wrestling Federation underwent a rebranding due to legal disputes with Worldwide Fund
for Nature over the initials of WWF. As a result, the company changed
the name to World Wrestling Entertainment WW as we know today, and this marked
the significant shift in the brand. While the company continued to operate it's entertainment
focused under the new ww name, so a lot happened just in those first
two years of twenty fourth century. Okay, so I hate both those movements,
so I'm gonna tell you why. So, first of all, the
World Wildlife Fund was around a long time before WWF, which is now WWE.
It was originally WWWF. That's how they could co exist. What was
you know? And then that n when Vince Junior took over, he got
rid of one of the w's to become WWF. That's fine. The problem
was people were sending money to save pandas and such to Vince McMahon instead of
sending it to the World Wildlife Fund. That's how the big confusion and everything
really got. Everybody says Vince can't be beat in office. Yeah, ask
why it's WWE. Vince can be beat, all right, But that's interesting.
I didn't know about that, about them sitting the money. Yeah,
it's all kinds of goofy stuff that happened like that, And honestly, he
lost He lost that one. He straight up lost that. And so the
whole campaign was Get the f Out. The commercial with a guy getting a
haircut, right, and the first person to wear Get the f Out shirt
on air on Raw was Rob Van Dam and uh so that was it was
just okay entertainment like that, you cheapen the product by saying entertainment. Now,
some people speculate that the original idea was it was going to become World
Championship Wrestling WCW, but Vince burned his bridge so bad with that, with
the invasion and everything he screwed up. So let's talk about that for a
second. So Vince wins the war, WCW goes under all of a sudden,
he brings all these people in, but he only brings in undercard guys
that nobody cared about contract contracts. Nobody. There are so many people who
were under contract that could have wrestled, but they didn't. You didn't go
Goldberg, the nWo sting. No, you're getting undercard guys. The major
people you got were Booker t who is amazing and was amazing, will always
be amazing. Booker if you're listening, don't kick my ass, land Storm,
who's amazing, Mike Austome who's amazing. But people didn't care about names
like that. Booker was the only name they really had. DDP came in
later, which he was a hit and miss kind of guy. Because he
was so old. And that's nothing against him. Once again, DDP,
don't kick my ass. But you had some people came over that were marquee
names, but most of it wasn't. So you have the natural born thrillers,
and there was a lot of people that they were regenerating its new ideas
and they saw a different generation and them that was great, but they used
them as cannon fodder, so that whole thing didn't work. And then they
tried to add the ECW invasion into it, but a lot of the ECW
guys were already in WWE, So it's just turning on on your own people.
It's it's it's like trying to make trying to make stew, but you
use buttermilk as your base. It just doesn't work. So at the end
of it, the whole thing was slopped together and they were left kind of
holding a bag of marbles and there was no one to play a game against.
That's kind of what's screwed. Yeah, real quick, I'm just I'm
looking at the Survivor series poster here and on the WCW's last ECW team,
you have RVD, Seane McMahon, Booker, t Kurt Angle and Stone Coll
Steve Austin Stone Coach, your most w W guy You're ever gonna have for
the world, Kurt Angle's homegrown ww guy, Booker t representing WCW and Robin
That representing ECW on WWF's team, Kane, Undertaker, Big Show, Rock
and Jericho, Kane Wressell as Bruiser Mestino and w CW in the nineties.
Undertaker was me and Mark Challis in WCW in the nineties. Who else the
Big Show? Big Show was of course the Giant in the nineties. Who
else This is hilarious Jericho, who came from who came from w c W
to Rock and sep It makes it makes sense. Well at the time it
made sense for me. I was like, Jericho and Big Show should turn
on WWF and joined the w CW, and then you have Kurt and Austin
on the WFT. You know you would have thought that way, but they
just it was bad. Booking was sloppy writing, you know, like,
you know, me being slightly behind Jim Cornetta's number one podcaster for wrestlingy and
Louisville Smitch by a switch by a Smitch Ladies and gentlemen, Spice Midge,
I will tell you this, much like he's talked about stuff like this,
it was just lazy booking and it was sad. It was just they didn't
know what to do and they were just slopping it together to make WWF stars
w stars wherever you want to call him, go over and look better.
So that was that was a hell of a time for me as a kid.
It was still very exciting having Vince wind the ward little guys start to
jump one by one and then finally we get the nWo when finally we get
Gobergin, you know, all that stuff finally comes out. So it was
it was still very exciting for me, something I thought I would never see.
But moving on towards towards the end of the year two thousand and two,
we would have the debut of the Elimination Chamber. Now, this is
something that was more special back in the day because it wasn't its own pay
per view. It was it was meant to settle number one contender or to
settle a championship match, and this first inaugurl the Animation Chamber match was won
by Shawn Michaels himself, where he captures his one and only world title after
coming back from his back injury, and that something that was special for me
because he came back after, like I said, the four year injury,
and I never expected him to win. You know, it was a surprise.
He didn't hold the bell. He was a tresigtional champion, but I
believe it was necessary to re establish him as that showstopper. And then he
did put over the next talent in line, so that was a big deal
for me. Well, you know, Sean Shawn coming back, he did
the better work of his career on the back half, especially with the new
breed of people and her new breed of wrestler. You're Jericho's, your edges,
your and was the follow one. I mean all this was just so
much for him to work with, like marquee players. Also, I think
people knew at this point, Hey Sean, you're one hundred and eighty pounds.
If you smart off to me, I'll smack the hell out of you,
and I don't care who the hell you think you are. Backstage.
I mean, Triple H still had a lot of in his best friend,
you know, still had a lot of power, but he knew he'd get
his booty whipped if he got into it. So you know, he was
a little bit more. He was eating a little bit more humble pie.
Now, Elimination Chamber is one of my least favorite matches of all time,
and I'm gonna tell you why, because it's too gimmicky. It's too much
technology and goofyness. I remember the person who introduced the match was Eric Bischoff,
Oh somebody else for something that we're gonna talk about him any Byschop.
He did create it, that's right. He was the one who said he
created it. He was like, it's part this, part that, and
part of one of my favorites war games. And everybody went crazy. And
then when he said the whole premise of you're in a pod and then you
get released, I'm like, this is too much goofy tech. I don't
like this. I've never liked elimination Chamber. I've always thought it was a
stupid gimmick. To be honest with you, I've never liked it. It's
just it's not wrestling that I grew up with. And people say you're outdated,
Michael. You know, well, I'll tell you what. Watch war
games from like eighty five, eighty six, and then watch an elimination chamber
and tell me you want to see somebody huffing and puffing behind a piece of
player glass versus two guys bleeding their guts out. More games in eighty seven,
come on. So it just wasn't my thing. I never liked it.
Just too much gimmick, too much gimmick, too much goofiness, too
much tech. So but it was the birth you are right, and it
was introduced by Eric Bischoff. All right, all right, So two thousand
and three, we're, you know, ushering in the regression area more like
I said it was starting oh two, but all three. A few significant
things that were brought up here on this list. Got the rise of Brock
Listener, the evolution Stable, we at, the debut of John Cena,
the brand extension, introduced the draft where we had the first draft between Ron
SmackDown but WrestleMania nineteen, two significant things happened. Now we know that it
was Austin's last match, yes, the third and final match the trilogy with
the Rock. But I had quizzed you on this a while back, a
while back and asked you, who are the only two well, actually the
only two who were the first two wrestlers to headline a WrestleMania match using their
actual real names. Oh, son of a Fish, you always do this
to me, Well it was. It was the same WrestleMania nineteen, sameia
the headline, and they used their real names, Curtain Rock Lester. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, you always get me on that one. Yea.
I always think Ric Flair. I don't know why I always think Ric Flair,
and it's that No, he never headline, so yeah, so yeah,
So I remember reading Austin's book, and I believe this was when he
was on so many payments. He could barely walk, he could barely stay
awake. He was drinking four parts to coffee a day. Uh, he
was fainting and he just he couldn't function without the caffeine and the and and
he was at the hospital of the night before Mania and he was still,
you know, going through the match in his head and just did not literally
did not know if he was going to make it to too many of that
day and it was it was close, like we we as fans. If
he didn't read the book, it's because I don't think he's ever talked about
it. He may have, but I remember reading it and he's I mean,
as fans, we don't know how close do we we were to not
get in that match. Like he literally went out there and put everything left
in the tank for that last match, to put over the Rock and to
say goodbye. It was hard for him. You know, it's really interesting
that he did it for the Rock but not Triple Hitch. Just just just
just a little side note for people, because Triple H's Golden shovel. Shovel
is going to come out here soon within the next couple of years that we're
talking about. So my friend keep leading. So let's see where was I
here? Just jump up to Let's go ahead, gaein to two thousand and
four. Two thousand and four, the return of Goldborg something that not everything
and not everything on this list is gonna be great. The return of gold
Worg was fun for the first speer. For me after that, I never
liked the guy. I never liked to style his enterring. He's not safe
worker. You got the Rise of Randy Orton two thousand and four, John
Cena and John Cena, Right, we're getting to him next, you know
five, What he really takes off John Brachalle Feel becomes champion. He transforms
to his character and has the longest ringing title ring in SmackDown history. And
then we had the evolution of the women's division that saw the beginning of the
shift towards a more serious and competitive women's division in WWE, with talents like
Tristiatis Leda and Mally Holly delivering stuf performances. I don't know if this would
be the actual evolution because it's not, but it's the start of it.
But this is what chat ChiPT brought up as significant events in four. Well,
you're you're forgetting something four. So what WrestleMania years that WrestleMania four,
It's gonna put a rest many a twenty exactly what happened that year Eddie and
Ben Wah exactly the Fallen One and Eddie had the biggest celebration at Madison Square
Garden I've ever seen in my life. I want to say, personally,
that's one of the out of my top five, my mount Rushmore, my
top four, my top four moments in wrestling, that's one of them.
Because I was a huge fan of the Fallen One, because he was the
best inn ring worker in the world at that point, I don't care if
you went to Japan. I don't care if you went to Mexico. I
don't care if you went to Hell. I don't care if you went to
Heaven. There was no one better. And then what happened with him is
something else, but the fact that that match nobody believed he could win it.
And then to add the star power of both Triple H and HPK,
and at this point, Triple H has his golden shovel. So he's burying
everybody left and right. He buried Bubba, Ray Dudley, he buried I
mean, Rob Van Damn, you name it, he buried him, Caine,
Katie Vick. Hey, we talked about that one. Now we can.
Yeah, so let's talk about that was the greatest match of that year.
And then you had the greatest moment. Like I said, I still
I still believe he was one of the greatest workers. But I have no
respect for the man that's tried to leave it with the fallen one. All
right, so let's go ahead and push it on in two thousand and five,
there's more inventions come in two thousand and five. It's Chris Jericho pitched
the idea of the money in the bank. This came to fruition at WrestleMania
twenty one, Edge becomes the first winner of the money in the Bank briefcase
uh winner for that and he goes on to cashing in the beginning of two
thousand and six. But before that happens, the rise of John Cena really
really took off. From five to six, johnsen Is ascent to the top
of we becoming the face of the company during this period. WrestleMania twenty one,
he wins the title from JBL. WrestleMania twenty two, he retains defeats
Triple H with a TapouT WrestleMania twenty three, where I'm like, there's no
way, There's no way in hell he wins. He retains and defeats HBK
via TapouT. That was the moment that HBK tap out was the moment that
I started to hate John Cena because he beat my two favorite wrestlers from my
childhood. He beat d X, he made them tap He blew my fuck,
he blew my mind. Sorry you almost you almost yea he And from
that day on, I was like just no. Then I believe that was
more of the start or early days of the PG area where it really really
came out. But that the PG era, let me let me cut you
off for a second. Okay, the PG era was different because they had
to find people to build around. Now you had to have the ultimate evil
Randy or Randy Orton. And look, people say that, you know,
it's big match John. They don't realize that Orton puts in just as much
work. The difference is Orton doesn't just have a big match, He does
it every damn night. Orton is that And like I was saying on podcasts,
like a couple of years ago, Randy's tired. Randy's old. Remember
before he got injured, how shriveled he was looking, and how tired he
looked. The guy put in twenty years without stopping. He just didn't stop.
Give the guy a break, Let him have a breath. Let go
to catering. You did a couple of twinkies and relax, man, you
need that. I think the eighteen months he was out that that time was
the longest, right. It seemed it seemed like an eternity when Randy was
gone, Because Randy is a utility. He is a utility that you can
build anything around at any time, especially in main event and Marquis matchup,
and they knew that. They knew that when they had him at a young
age, and so you know, there was actually like four guys they wanted
to build around at that point. Okay, so it was Sina Orton,
This next one's gonna surprise you Renee Duprie heah, and Carlito Carlo's debuts.
His his debut on Raw and spack Down. He both beat John Cena for
a title. All those gears going right now in your head, yes they
are, uh, you're sure right, Yeah, you got to realize that
Carlito is incredibly talented and he just but he his dad owns the last territory,
which is something that Memphis Market and I are going to cover. There's
one territory left, guys. It's Puerto Rico's We're Wrestling Console and it's still
down there and it's owned by his father. And so if he didn't like
what w w F was doing or w w he just wouldn't play ball.
He'd just go back down to Puerto Rico and make his money with his dad.
That's why he never got to the main event status because if he didn't
like his booking, he was like, screw you, I can still make
my dad's money down here. It's the only territory left. That's funny.
So yeah, those were the four people. Now Renee dupri First of all,
he wasn't gonna take off. And this is not being a sexist thing
calling even though it's French Canadian. I think it was a play on the
fact that I believe Andre the giants real name was Renee. You couldn't make
this guy believable to fight his way out of a wet paper bag. There's
nothing they knew. He was like twenty. He couldn't even buy a beer.
I think he said some of his shoot interviews, and he was just
he was. I saw nothing in him, to be honest with you,
they just saw a twenty year old. They're like, yeah, he'll be
the future. We can have him around forever now, Carlito, Yes,
he has talent, he had, he hit everything. They just wanted him
to be somebody he wasn't. If they just let him be who he was,
which delved deeper into like the sleeves, like amped up the character that
he was, it could have been better. But they wanted to push Orton
and seenamore. But his big things is everything he debuted on and he's not
funny thing. You know why. You know why his finisher was called the
backstabber m because Bruce of Brody when he got murdered in his father's promotion down
in World Wrestling Council stab and then remember they brought in uh, I can't
remember his bodyguard that was there for one match, and his bodyguard they had
created an angle where he had stabbed se in a nightclub. Go back and
look at it. It's very interesting. They were visiting the Bruiser Brody thing
and that was to help get more heat down to warp wrestling. It was
still hot down there. Yeah, some of those things I might miss because
this was the year of my senior year, so my senior year high school
there, so we're talking about So I might have missed some of these,
But I didn't know that that was That's very interesting. I will check that
out. Hey SEUs, that was the guy, Hey Seuss, and you
wore like goofy ass day glow clothes and everything else, and it was just
it was very it was very stereotypical and very racist, to be honest,
with you and that guy list lasted for that pay per view and then he
dropped the scene and he was out. But it was trying to reinvent the
bruiser brodying or trying to refresh it so they could simulcast it down into Puerto
Rico. Get some refreshed eyes on that. So there's your history lesson for
the today. Who's next? What's up? The next thing is, I
don't want to touch on it too much, but it's the most tragic death
rest in history. Two thousand and five, irp Eddie Guerrero still in our
hearts today. I think everybody has said more than enough about how they feel
about him. All we can do is just is just keep remembering him.
But moving on into two thousand and six, this was my graduation year,
so still being a closeted wrestling fan in my high school years. Specific things
that have brought up here is like, like I just mentioned, you have
to see the National Triple h where he made him tap Rayminsterio wins his first
world title. ECW One Night Stand in two thousand and six brought together the
former ECW stars for a nostalgic and hardcore night of wrestling the return of dejener
she Ex's form in two thousand and six, and Edge establishes himself with his
World World Heavyweight title reign in two thousand and six to solidif im as a
top heel in WWE. So two thousand and six was I think we're,
like I said, really pushing into the PG, out of the rules,
aggression to the PG. I think this is at the point where we have
a supersena. Moving into seven E c W we launched WW. We launched
ECW as a brand, continued throughout two thousand and seven, featuring notable moments
like Bobby Lashley holding the ECW World title and matches involving roding Star like CM
punk. What did you think about the ECW rebirth with that big gold title.
You had champions like Matt Hardy, uh Mark, Henry H. CM
Punk's first title, John Morrison, you know you had these were your champions
with their rebirth. What did you think about that relaunch? Garbage? Absolutely
garbage. I mean, anybody who saw ECW knew what ECW was and what
knew what ECW stood for. I knew that the w W E CW was
just an excuse to bury people or to basically just hopefully see if somebody was
doing something, because there was no XT back then. First of all,
I don't like the term brand, so let's let's start there. When they
started the brand extension, what's a brand? I want you to find a
brand? To me? Tell me is WWE brand? Is so raw brands
a brand? Now it's a show who do their paychecks come from same company,
so they're not brand. There are people who work exactly they're the same
people who work for the same company. I hated this whole brand, like
the two world champion thing. Come on, man, I did that.
That was the latest thing, and we we dusted over that in the early
two thousands. But I have to get this off my chest. The first
draft was, as I think Lord Alfred Hayes would say, a mess carriage
of justice. It was garbage. It was garbage. And if you go
back and you look like some of the people made sense, a lot of
people, you're like, they wrestled. I didn't even know that was a
person. It is shys. That's German. You guys can look that up.
And so for people to like they try to pretend it's too different companies
because once w CW folded. The whole idea is we'll compete against each other.
And at first, well, I still don't believe in the brand.
How's it a brand? You change the color of the ropes and have a
different sign, you're the same goddamn company. Yeah, but it's what side
your repers team, like money where you want, Yes, you can.
It's not a brand. Well back then you couldn't. Now you can.
Back then, at least they gave us reasons why people are on the opposite
show. But it's a brand. It's what you represent. Anything could be
your brand right now. My brand is Dyet food and diet drinks because I'm
changing my diet. So my brand is is healthy stuff. My brand is
working. That's your lifestyle, bro, your lifestyle, bro, don't don't.
My brand is w podcast, My brand is Wrestle Magic, My brand
is the Mobile. Those are my brands. So what I represent, Okay,
I'll get I'll give you that. But like Nike is a brand,
Okay, it's a brand, it's a different Reebok is a different brand.
So if Nike was presenting a show and Reebok was presenting a show, their
adversaries and very much because they are separate companies and corporations. Okay, so
what do you think about that Ron and Nitro or Ron SmackDown are the same
same damn company, same people, and they show up on the same shows.
It's it's always been that way. It's there's no brand, okay,
but it's so big it incorporates both brands. So the Raw is its own
world while SmackDown's its own world. You're within the WW universe. Which brand
are you on? And you flow between brands if you're tag champions and whatnot.
But it's okay. Neil deGrasse Tyson will tell you that we have an
actual universe around us, okay, and that encompasses everything that is all in
life and all things human and inhuman. However, there is no WW universe.
It is Sheep the people man five years ago. If it's McMahon five
years ago told you that Hulkogan could fart plastic, they would believe it,
just like there's a brand. Now here's the reason why it's I believe it's
the WW universe because us as wrestling fans, live in our own world.
Because we are different than other kinds of sports fans. We are in our
own universe because there's so many rabbit holes of wrestling to go down between here
and Japan and Canada and Britain and raw smag nxcaw All Japan, Unlootah Underground.
There's so many rabbit holes that you can go into. That is what
encompasses the w universe. It's all things wrestling. But WWE universe doesn't encompass
all. They'll encompass what they could buy and manipulate that smick Man could manipulate.
And what do you rewrite history? There's no brand. It's a show.
It's a show. Ladies and gentleman, it's a show. They can't
have two champions. Now have two champions with the same company. Tell me
if the UFC, if the UFC shows two pay per views in the month,
do you have two world heavyweight champions ladies and gentlemen? Point made,
thank you, But that's a different show. Sorry, it's it's it's a
different brand, real brand. So all right, let's keep rocking and roll,
okay. Two thousand and seven, two thousand and seven, Well Ben
Water tragedy, rise of scene in punk. We had the Greater the Great
American Bash. Oh seven marked Bobby Lasty's last match when he challenged John Cena
for the ww title and this was the I think this was the first time
I really really believed that Johnsena was gonna lose because he was super Seene at
this time, and I'm like, he's think Bobby's the one right there?
There was only two guys besides h we k And and Triblaze. I thought
could be seen a clean that was Bibi Glashley and Moga, but it never
happened. Yeah, I loved I did to. The formation has also happened
in two thousand and seven. I'm sorry, go ahead, more about Maga.
Well here here's my thing about Omaga, Like they created this monster.
First of all, it was three minute warning and there were you know,
Eric Beeshoff's people. They punished Rosie, then Jamal becomes Umaga, and it's
like, I don't understand why they punished one, I promoted the other.
Use the Simons are always like blessed. But I'll tell you what that year
like Ubag. I had fun watching. I loved everything he did. And
folks, when Jacob Tattoo comes in, you're gonna see the next version of
Omaga. You're gonna see a destroyer. That's what Jacob Fattoo does. Also,
I want to say real quick, so that was the death of the
follow one. So I'm gonna tell you about that day. So that day,
like I said, he was probably at that point my favorite wrestling the
world. And I know this is really bad to say, because I know
people are like, well, what he did, I said, performer wrestler,
favorite person, right, exactly. So my best friend Miguel, he's
he's in Ohio. I'm living in Memphis at the time, and I'm walking
by the TV and I look up and I see WW and I was like,
oh, okay, and I you know when I work, if you
work in a restaurant or nightclub environment, you have TVs, but you have
no sound. You just have like close caption on because you're gonna have music
and everything else. I remember looking up and it says, you know,
Chrispin wad dad And I was like, I got a text mcguil and I
seriously pulled out my phone. There's a text from Miguel and said Ben was
dead. I'm so depressed because we bought he was the best of the best,
and it's just one of those things. It's just one of those things.
It's like, man, how did this have to happen? And like
his match would see him Punk that never happened probably would have been if if
Ben Wah was at the top of his game and Punk was at the top
of his game and that age and that young more than chemistry, it would
have been a mad scientist. Paul Hayman should have been the agent, and
he wasn't with the company, and Paul Hayman could have probably put that together
and said, guys, take twenty five minutes and give me the best product
you could ever have. That they would have had the best damn product of
that year. I guarantee that. But everybody knows the following one was never
good. After Eddie died and he was never the same, and everybody talks
about how he just unplugged himself. It was a hard time for you to
watch wrestling too, because, yeah, like Paul Burschell and all these weird
people, like all these stupid gimmicks coming out was becoming more childish at this
point, and a lot of people were turning the channel because they just didn't
want to watch it. So as you were, sir, keep with the
timeline. I'm with you two thousand and eight, retirement of Ric Flair,
the rise of Jeff Hardy, the formation of Legacy. Okay, let's take
Rick Flair retiring number five right at that point. Yeah, everybody knows.
My favorite wrestler of all time is Rick Flayer. The reason I'm a wrestling
fan is because I wanted to be Rick Flacker. My goal in life is
to meet Rick Clair. If I meet Rick Clair, I will die happy.
Man. I've had a very fruitful life. I think I've sent you
the pictures of me, like kicking it with Drake and stuff like that.
Like I've lived a life. I have lived a life. But to meet
Ric Flair as a whole, whole other thing. So his retirement we get.
I just I have a big disdain for Shawn Michaels for his backstage politics.
It's not as in ring performances as backstage politics. And I have a
huge love for Brett Harp for beating the hell out of my every time he
could, which I think is hilarious and no one stopped it. Hey,
you know the one person I think that would have loved to beat the hell
up Shawn Michaels. I think the best fight would Shawn Michaels and Booker t
because Scott Hall has said before it interviews, it's like Kevin and I would
be working with Harlem people. We were trying to get our ass kicked,
and it's like, you know, those guys were legit, And so I
could imagine Sean just smarting off to Booker and Booker just like giving the heavy
hand and like reaching back and giving the smack of the Gods across his face.
And I just would have smiled. But that's because he needed it to
bury people. Like what he did to Chris Candido was Sonny, you're not
a human being, You're an asshole. Yeah, talking about that on the
Dark Side episode, Yeah, he is. He's a jerk. And you
know, I mean, like I said before, if he was locked in
a room with Chris Candido for fifteen minutes, Chris Candido would walk out and
Sean would be crying in a corner after he got the hell beat out of
him because his friends couldn't save his life. So you know, it's what
was your your highlight of the year, Well, one of it was a
big highlight, but it's when neighbor they two thousand and eight is whenever they
took down the spank down fist. Thank God Jesus Lord. You know,
I get that was cool, or you know, in the beginning, but
yeah, do you remember what Hide and Rake sat on it and did poetry?
Yeah? Okay, so let me tell you my Hide and Rake story.
My friend Steve, he used to run Hustler Hollywood down in New Orleans,
and Hide and Reike came in there all the time. And Steve's a
big wrestling fan. He actually listens to the show and he had talked about
like Hide and Brake would come over and talk to him, and they became
friends, and then they became every time Hide Andrake was in town, he'd
like, is Steve there? And He's like, I gotta avoid this guy.
He's like burning me up. Yeah. Hide and Reik was a pain
in the ass. Yeah. So the formation of Legacy was a big deal
for me. Okay, I have a soft spot for second third generation stars
and Randy I heard it taking a liking to and then all of a sudden
you got the kid of Dusty Roads and the kid of the Million Dollar Man,
and I thought it was perfect. I was like, these guys are
these guys are not big muscular guys, They're not powerhouses. They're gonna they're
gonna be taken to go fast speed, and they're gonna cheat a win,
which I'm gonna heill throw them through. And just when I saw them three,
I was like I saw the past, I saw their dads. I
saw you know, for lack of a better word, bloodline, right,
And for me, just any second generation star, it just I give them
a little bit more credit because they do have to live up to a name,
and yeah they get you know, they get a voucher to get in
the door, but they still have to prove themselves. So anybody who was
able to prove himself and last as long as they did, it just made
them that more of a start to me because they were also carrying on the
legacy of the family. What about man U u Man new Man Whu.
He was the Lost Tongue and that was part of the legacy for like a
month and then they fired him again. Then they also had Domino for a
brief bit, right or they were introduced him. Yeah, yeah, he
might have been part of I can't remember, honestly. At that point,
wrestling was so bad it was hard for me to watch and I was working.
I was working at the Jazz Club where I'd work till five in the
morning, and guys like, seriously, please don't ever do that to yourself.
And so I'd watch it without sound on in my billiards hall, which
was above the jazz club, with my boys Sewn, Boyce, love you,
Sean, and I didn't really know what was going out, but man,
it was part of the man. It was part a period of time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was He was a blip on the
map. And but when I saw Legacy, I saw Randy Orton, and
honestly, I didn't think about Cody, and I knew DBAs was gonna last,
so I just saw basically, you know, it's the idea friends,
Yeah, but the idea of it was just it was a great concept.
No, it could have been great, But if you don't boil it out
in eight months, then it could be great. You have three kids of
literally wrestling legends, Hall of famers exactly. That that's that's those stories should
write themselves. Any anything they did or do, I mean, yeah,
they grab some goal here and there. One thing that kind of took me
off is they never all held gold at the same time, either Randy was
champion or they were tax champs, But I don't think every odd same time.
That's what at that one still eatsy a little bit. But they screwed
the pooch on that one. Yeah, so man, what can you do?
What can you do? So? Uh so let's get going here.
We've got a few more things. We're gonna go ahead and get through.
Just you know, like I said, this is just top things that's coming
up. I'm searching. I did a lot of research. I have a
lot of notes here, but there was a few years that I missed,
so I'm literally typing here seeing what pops up. The most the most significant
thing for me for the year two thousand and nine was WrestleMania twenty five.
Number one. It was in Houston, Texas. Number two, I was
there. And number three it's you know, arguably and said to be one
of the greatest matches of all time in restman history or in wrestling history period.
And it's HBK versus Taker, Light versus the Darkness this one. I
was sitting stage left right, so I was left to the stage. I
could see the walk the I could see the wrestlers walking from from the back
entrance through Gorilla into the stage right because the stage was so big, so
I could actually, like I saw Michaels get into position to be raised up
on that platform for them to bring them down. So that one was special
for me. It was well, you know, the twenty fifth anniversary of
WrestleMania, so significantly enough compared to other WrestleManias. WrestleMania seventeen was was also
regarded as one of the best Wresumanians of all time, which I was also
at. I was very fortunate to be at both and very fortunate to be
a part of a lot of rest in history. I don't mean I was
young, you know, I was early twenties, and then I think seventeen,
I was fish. I've never been to a mania, so you know,
it's it's just, I mean, it's hard to describe. It's hard
to describe. It's just to see if people just maybe one day, one
day, maybe there'll be a restuming nay between us one day. Well look
at it this way. I used to hang out with Drake, so you
know, right place, right time, right. Yeah. So the one
thing you're gonna hate about two thousand and nine is and don't ran all you
want, but no, don't rant too much. But the rise of them
is. The two thousand and nine marked the rise of the Miss WWE,
as he transitioned from reality TV star to a legitimate wrestling talent legitimate wrestling talent,
eventually becoming a top superstar and a multi time champion and the first two
time Grand Slam Champion. May I please listen, gentlemen, there's no worse
performer in the whole world of the company than the Miss. He should have
stuck to do in commentary and you should do nothing more than that because all
he is is an actor. He is mediocre at best in the ring.
We have a Tito Santana rule. The Tito Santana rule is if Santana could
do it better than you in the ring, and he was always a mid
carter, then you should never win a world title. I also put this
as the Rick Martel rule, because Rick Martel is just that damn good and
the Miss is just damn not that good. Now, a waste of a
skin human being like the Miz was blessed to main event WrestleMania when a talent
like see him Punk was not. I want to tell you folks that if
you're a fan of the Miss, you are legally special. You need to
talk to you doctors. You need to go to a learning center because oh
yeah, he's great behind the mic. That's because he's an actor, idiot,
idiot and his wrestling. Please, you have the week the second weakest
finisher because the big ending with Biggie is the first. Yea, it is
the weakest weakest finisher. Miss. If you're listening to me, I will
take a grievance with you at one four four Captain on next, I don't
like you. You suck. You've sucked since the day you were born.
Okay. Blaming his longevity because he had it was n McMahon was stupid.
He saw okay, I could I could tie this into role. Why did
we have all these celebrity matches from before and why did we have the same
year? What is I guess? Noted as the guest host, era WW
introduced a concept of guest hosts from Modday Night Raw and took that line guard
bringing in celebrities and personalities to add a unique dynamic to the show and create
entertainment moments for the fans. They they did such great things for ratings.
As they brought the muppets in and they had them talk to Seamus, who's
the other talent vacuum that they put put in at this point, and they
talked to them upets like they were real people. They had Jared from Subway.
How's he doing, by the way, we've seen that documentary. That's
my recommendation. Yeah, yeah, Jared, Jared, Jared. He booked
a couple of matches. That's that's great PR for you. That's great PR.
Hindsight's a little twenty twenty now, isn't it. Jared from Subway?
And if you people don't know, you will after you talk to me or
hear my voice. They booked a lot of real they booked what was it.
Jeremy Piven was there and he kept calling Summer Slam, Summer Fest,
Oh my god, because that's a genius move. I think they had Barbara
Barbara Billingsley from The Brady Bunch there. These are Einstein moments, and you
wondered why your ratings dropped and dropped and your key demographic that they keep talking
about now went to hell. Yeah, it was bad. It was bad.
I remember tuning out. I remember having the DVRT to fast forward through
you know at that point show, Yeah, that's pretty bad. The only
thing you had was Punk brock Sena for his promos. He wasn't really I
mean, he was wrestling, but he wasn't really wrestling. And then everybody
got tuned into NXT. That was the birth and that's where we segue into
this to what the next generation was. But keep going, my friend,
So we're just like I said we you and Maverick did the nineties, Matt
touched. Matt only did ten ten moments from ten big moments from the twenty
ten, so twenty ten to twenty twenty, right, and he you know,
made a list from other people's list. He mentioned this whenever he reposted
it. So I'm gonna have a couple of things from twenty ten I want
to cover, but we're gonna cut it there and then we might we might
turn this into a two part But twenty ten, so nine you had one
of the greatest resumated matches with Undertaker and HBK. Twenty ten you had the
Career versus the Street and that was that resuming in twenty six Taker retiring shot.
That was a very big signific moment. I believe it was done very
well. The next his debut that we turned that we're trying to bread heart
after over a decade being away from ww you know, after everything that had
happened, let's let's talk about that that complete. It was a puerial idea,
but they didn't execute it with the guys properly. Wait, Wade Barrett
should have been a lot more than what he was and five champion. That
doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. Okay, Wade Barrett should have been a
world champion. Sena and Orton buried them for some reason. And Daniel Brian
broke through the you know, Brian Danielson his real name. You know,
he broke through the glass ceiling. But look at all the rest of those
slags. There was nothing that came out of there. And I mean,
everybody likes Skip Sheffield turning a rye back, the clumsiest special need wrestler who
injured people and had nothing more than four moves. There was nothing in that.
There was nothing in that. It was a good idea on paper,
but look where they all turned out. There's a reason why they all turn
out the way they did. Yeah, No, make a star from there,
I guess, but Brian, Danny, Bryan and and Pray, Yeah
that's it. So like you know, I remember watching that. It didn't
captivate me. It didn't captivate me as much as like the nWo taking over
shows like the first or second show nWo did before it became like pass.
But I was like, I don't know, besides uh, Brian Danilson choking
a guy with the cord and getting fired for it and being the only good
I mean he and he and Wade Barrett were the only people who really had
talent in the group. And people say Heath Slater, yeah, well Heath
Slayer went on to do many jobs. Heath Slayer wasn't a bad guy,
just I could never take him seriously because of that, and nobody else everybody
fizzled. Everybody fizzled. Then Rye Back came in, you know, and
and everybody's like, oh god, he's awesome. My friend Seawan Boyce,
I love this guy. I earlier today, Sean was like, he's gonna
be the next thing. And I looked at him and said he's nothing but
fodder. And he looked at me, He's like, what is like,
Just trust me? He said, he's nothing but fodder. I could always
predict, like the same thing when when when Russev for his Miro Russov came
out, I was like, they're just gonna build him so he could be
fed to Sina and he's like no, no, no. I was like,
trust me, yep, it's just one of those things you can feel
and like, I don't know. So the Nexus did nothing for me.
It was everybody talks about how it was a wasted angle, but I mean
the biggest person out of that they got wasted was probably PJ. Black.
He was, you know, the derewolf, whatever you want to call him
these days. He was probably the only person who had a super amount of
talent but got nothing in return. Everybody else just floundered in at hediocrity,
except for you know, well bouncing off the next is who didn't have a
lot of great come out of that group. Another group uh formed and broke
it out onto the scene the Rise of the Shield. Now that's a whole
that's a horse of a different color it is, And so that was significant
of twenty ten and to round out and to close the show and not to
piggyback too much because Matt did cover it, but twenty ten was the summer
of punk. Summer summer punk was what rejuvenated my love in rustling. And
it's not just because we look alike very un I know, it's kind of
weird that, but what it really comes down to is the guy was super
talented, and I really I was just like watching it casually with my friend
Sean Boyce again in the absence room in Memphis, and he would come on
and I actually found somebody that I was like, this guy is good on
the stick, and then he was good in the ring. But when I
saw the shield, I was like, we have something here. And I
knew who the I knew who seth Rollins was as Tyler Black, and I
knew Moxley, but I didn't know about Yeah, I did not. I
didn't know about Roman. I didn't know about him because I didn't watch NXT
at that point, and so I was they are intrigued. But I remember
the first time they did the triple power bomb, I said, who do
you think is the leader? And I remember Sean was like, it's it's
it's John Moxley. I was like, no, it's not, and he's
like why, I said, because who's in the middle. It's Roman.
So Roman reigns is the leader. He's like, no, no, no,
no, I said, yeah, yeah, oh yeah. So that's
why he's in the middle, not just because he's the strongest and he's the
one who's going to do the power ball. He's the focus. He's the
biggest. I said, but you know the Dean Ambrose character. I said,
it's going to be big. But no one could denies. Seth was
the worker. He was the workhorse. He was the work horse of that
team. So, yeah, that was the twenty tens. There's a lot
of frustration. There was a lot of I mean, you had so many
characters like Paul Burchell and so many goofy characters just come in and come out
and get fired. And then you kept talent vacuums like the Mis and Seamus
who really do nothing for me. They do nothing for me. You can't
tell me Seamus is Bruiser Brody. No. But they represented different they represent
a different demographic that WW was trying to attract. You had Champus as the
representative of Ireland, and you had to miss at the representative of the reality
TV world, So you got to have somebody represent every aspect of life,
whether it's celebrities, you know, dark light, you know, cowboys and
discs and that I get to have everybody, right, so they were they
were representing a certain a certain part of the audience, right, got the
kids, the men, the adults, you got something for everybody. You
got comedy, you got your you know your giants and your small people and
your high flyers, and you know your technical guys and submission guys. You
know these guys. Was reality start and you're you're representative from Ireland? Which
isn't he the first? I'm shamous, the first Irish born WW champion probably,
but who cares? It's in their record books. Have you have you
ever eaten at a cheesecake factory? No? Okay? So their menu is
like twenty pages. Okay, So do you want to eat food and be
happy or do you want to scan through something all day? That's what they
did with the Mis and Seamus. It's a twenty page menu. I rather
eat and be happy as opposed to look through a menu to find a reality
show or Irish champion, because they're not doing it for me, They're doing
it for somebody else. Yeah, those people suck Hey, there's a reason
on my heel. There's a reason on a heel. Well, it's you
know, it's I think may not this might not be the right term for
it, but the mess effect is what we're getting now with Logan Paul.
You got a big celebrity outside who can bring. Paul has talent. There's
a difference. Logan Paul is legitimately tough. Do you think do you think
the miss could win a boxing match against any jobber? No? No,
I don't think he can do that, But I think you did enough.
Do you think you could beat the miss in a boxing match? I think
I can. But the point is he brought and he headline WrestleMania, but
he brought eyeballs, a different part of the world's eyeballs to the product,
and he never made the company look bad. He's been a team player.
He can kind of like the rest of uh well, and he's also helped
w break out into the raality TV world with his successful show Miss and Missus.
So he's done his part to help the company grow into other industries and
beyond. But I've got something to say. I'm a wrestling fan. I
want to watch wrestling. I don't care about reality TV. Well, this
is wrestling entertainment. Yeah, well that he needs to go, which is
all encompassed in the w universe. It's garbage, it's trash, it's pants.
You're trashing somebody else's treasure. Hey, I mean my trash. Yeah,
I wouldn't root through my trash. But now, seriously, I mean,
I just please it. Miss. If you're listening, go away,
take Seamus with you. I'm trying to think who else needs to get in
the car and drive off the planet. But I'm saving for the Yeah,
let's say for the next one. Buddy. We got to get out of
here. It's been a blast. It's been too long since it's just been
me and you. But obviously, you know, just life's going on.
We do got pay per view coming up. King and Queen of the Ring
real quick prediction, Gunther, Do you think the gimm is gonna fit him?
Well? I think it's just a holding pattern for him to not have
him in the title picture yet until later in the year. But I think
it'll be something nice, you know, I guess just for him. I
think he will re legitimize the King of the Ring Moniker like he did with
the Inner cardinal title. But to make the King of the Ring significant again,
you have to have somebody, Like they said, the man makes the
title, not the other way around. I think Gunther will make the crown,
as long as he doesn't do the British accent, which I doubt he
will. I don't think he's no longer the ring general. He's the ring
king, and he's going to come out and he's going to put on the
best matches. He's gonna put on the best. Like seriously, this guy,
I don't know what we have to do to put the world title on
him. I think we are always the dudes wait a little bit longer.
The guy was UK champion for over eight hundred days, Intercontinental champion for over
six hundred days. Do you how many days he had as as inner six
sixty six? I know, Satan, so I mean he's been a champion
for just probably more days than not in his career. Once they finally put
the strap on him, I believe he'll, you know, I don't know
if he's gonna be breaking records, but by that time, the dude might
be full face. Who knows, but I was thinking about that too.
If he does, I think it's gonna be organic though, an organic babyface.
Fans want it versus him pander and r because I love the way he
talks to the crowd still or it's it's amazing, it's subtle. Yes,
yes, I I I I am the biggest. I still call him Walter
Walter Gunther fan. You know, I mean he has something that is intangible,
and I really believe that he's gonna be He's gonna be like their next
really really big breakthrough guy. And you know, you could talk about,
you know, pushing Roman. Roman is past putting a title on him.
Now He's bigger than the title. Roman's gonna work programs with people for feuds
and anger like that. They're building the whole, you know, the whole
blood line versus blood line, and that's gonna be really big. So go
with that and go with that that civil war. But Gunther Walter is going
to be something that transcends that. He's he's gonna be a world champion.
And I don't I will not be surprised they put him over brock Lesner,
if they bring brock Lesner back, but if all the allegations against brock Lesner
is true, I don't want Rock Lesner back. So the only person they
could put him over at this point is Sena or the Rock to really get
that super rub. But at this point he's unstoppable. He is a machine
man. I was watching him ten years ago and and I'm not trying to
brag it. Just you watch these people come up and you're like, this
guy's gonna be amazing. Like the person I think they missed the boat on
honestly is Apollo Cruse. Apollo Cruz is the most multi talented performer as Ooha
Nation, but as Apollo Cruise, he's somebody completely different. He's not who
he is. If they just let him be himself, he'd be amazing.
So anyway, that's that. So you enjoy your life, my friend.
Let's let's give our shout outs and our talkouts. Okay, shout out to
the Western Magic Team, Maverick Scully, Michael Patrick, Mark from Memphis.
Just everybody doing their own thing, doing a team thing, doing a three
way thing, but it just contributing. That was the part that we wanted,
me and you, when I say we mean you wanted was to have
other components of this brand and the brest of Magic umbrella to produce things when
being a life was taken over for us. So I'm so ecstatic with the
work that they're doing, reaching out to these retired wrestlers that were trying to
match states with and this money out for like we are. We are pulling
out of pocket for this because we love this so much. Right, even
if I'm not on one of these episodes, I'm still contributing to get that
superstar here to talk on the rest of Magic Brand for the We podcast.
So shout out to our guys. Shout out to Matt for giving me the
green light to do this episode. He did say that he had been meaning
to do it but just couldn't get around to it, so he gave me
the green light. So shout out to him. Michael Rinard on the SmackDown
at the d on the of the After Dark What Happened to the aw review,
And shout out to you Michael for just getting here. And I know
we've got a late start. We both we both got you know, had
got home late, but we made it happen like we always do. Well.
You know, here here's my thing, ladies and gentlemen, boys and
girls, showing the ballage is my name. Is Michael Gross and I am
your gardener. You can reach me at one Captain on X. And the
fact is I live for this. I live for gardening. I live for
making my life better. I live for my incredibly beautiful girlfriend that I love
named Jennifer. I live for helping Rocky produce and make these shows because Rocky
and I do this for all of you. Rocky and I do this for
all of you. And a shout out to missus Rocky Tea, because Kim
is an amazing human being. And I just want to also say, you
know, obviously shout out to my girlfriend Jennifer, who I love. And
I'm not gonna repeat that as zillion times, but I will say that what
we do here with our team and everything else is try to create content so
you can listen to it timelessly so it's not dated. So what we're talking
about, while it is dated, is not really dated. You can listen
to it any day of the week. It's not like it's spoilers or anything
like that. Rock and I have a lot of fun. We talk.
He takes care of me and I take care of him, and we have
a great team here that are brewing up. So much stuff. I mean,
like I said, Michael Patrick's working on a very important little episode.
And now we have some some nostalgic wrestling members that are going to be on
the show. And it's just guys, it's it's like the absence of mister
and missus casual wrestling fan life comes into it. But we will not get
up, and I know that they'll be back. Everybody does not give up.
Also, shout out to Djkuzmo, because let's call him out. You
need to be on our show. We wrote a show for you. Get
the last year. Last year, we wrote the show for you. Around
this time, it's been over a year. Kuzmo every week with her saying
that you sponsored the location of the SmackDown. You got time to do that,
but you ain't got time to reach out to us. Don't make come
on to New York. Come on, come on. We had an episode.
Everybody all right? All right? With that being said, ladies and
gentlemen, it's time to sound out. Sign out tonight. We've had a
great time. It was a great review. And you know, if you
guys want to work with us, like on X, I'm at one four
four. Captain Rocky at rockies clubs, there was your seven or you know
what, here's my business line seven one three five six two five six eight
nine. That's my team more business line. But I'll answer anybody, and
we can just hook up that way and start workshopping ideas, because that's that's
how it starts. If you want to be part of our team, you
just lovesto man. We are open and we will work with you as long
as you're not goofy. So all right man, so let's call it good
night and until next time. All right, brother, all right, bye
bye. Thanks for listening to the WWE podcast. Don't forget to subscribe on
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