My god, it's still tots as list in the same Tom Sino versus the
show stop on Oh covid and the lock in the same way you would never
take my place, and the head of would take the Brass Games said,
Oh my god, God, Michaels, he's tip stain us down. All
it'll be It'll be Austin. Still you believe in Marable. Hey, what's
up, guys, And welcome back to the final retro ever here on the
WWW podcast on this Friday, September eighth. As I'm not sure exactly what
I was planning to do tonight, I was eventually well, I was originally
rather going to kind of cap this off, this whole retro rivalry's thing with
something that was very fitting, something surrounding the Rock, his return and to
save Eugene and all that. And I was gonna do my typical show where
I play you audio, I walk back through the time period back then where
the Rock stood, where everyone stood at that point in time, everyone involved.
Rather but seeing as how this is my final show on speaker by myself
or on the free feed, whether you listen to Apple Podcasts or Spotify wherever,
I kind of want to give you maybe a bit of a preview as
to what my after dart show that will be going up on Patreon starting next
Friday at the SmackDown tier or higher, What is in store and maybe why
you guys should consider checking it out. And I'm gonna cover two things tonight.
And first off, I'm gonna kind of put a bowl on rivalries in
retro and explain to you what it kind of meant for me. And you
know, I started doing this podcast with Matt about four years ago. A
little over four years ago, May of twenty nineteen, I believe, was
when I joined the podcast. I was in a three person rotation with Ashley
Mann and Mary Grader. I remember it like yesterday and every third Wednesday we
would do the weekend review because remember back then, SmackDown Live was aired on
Tuesdays and all that. And you know, I can't really believe how far
we've come in more than four years now, right through the pandemic era,
right through my change of careers. I'm sure, as some of you may
have known or maybe not have, I keep my private life pretty private,
but I had I have a very h not demanding job, but it's blue
collar, right, so shift work, So at the beginning there's a lot
of night shift and weekend work and all that, and the the first two
years or so was pretty brutal, So I would say from spring of two
twenty until you know what, even right up until this winter this past winter
was almost the first three years. There was a bit of a period where
it did improve a decent amount, but the lion share of me doing this
podcast for you has been during a very difficult yet rewarding time of my life
career wise. And I also have a part time job covering the NHL as
a reporter slash very very very new and junior insider. So I mean I
I have a very very busy life. So there were times where I couldn't
come on here and get retro to you or rivalries to you. But most
of the time I really did try and carve out a half an hour to
forty five minutes. And I guess, first of all, I'll tell you
what that meant to me, because, as you guys know, growing up
predominantly in the ruthless aggression era, getting the last little bit of the attitude
era the past wrestling really means a lot to me. It was a massive
part of my childhood. It was a massive part of friendships I still have
to this day, specifically with my best friend, and how I still relate
to everyday life. And it was a part of my life from when I
was four or five years old on. That was really a cornerstone of who
I became. And it even made me like other types of theater, like
a live action theater. I took drama in high school. I like to
go to plays with my girlfriend, like wrestling at a young age really shaped
a lot of me. So being able to come on here the last three
years I started rivalries, I believe my first one was August or September two
thousand and twenty one, So the last two years rather being able to come
on here the past two years or oh no, no, it was twenty
twenty. I've been doing this since two twenty, my god, when I
started rivalries. So yeah, the last three years, being able to come
on here and share some of my favorite rivalries or retro moments with you has
been a blast. And I hope that I have been able to, you
know, convey what some of these events meant to me properly to you guys,
and maybe I helped you go back and look at some of these moments
that I didn't that you guys had never thought of before, or you had
never even lot of going back to think about because it was just so long
ago. But then when you heard me cover it or played a certain bit
of audio, you'd be like, oh my god, I remember when that
happened. And you know that that was kind of my goal here, and
it also allowed me to relive a lot of these great moments of yesterday year
in WWE, And I really thank you guys for that of giving me that
opportunity to play these clips for you and go over these timetables for you and
kind of tell you what it meant for me and my recollection of it,
whether it was ten years ago, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago and
all that. But lately I found that I've kind of been hitting a wall
as opposed to not only coming up with ideas. Right. That's the main
reason why I stopped doing rivalries and rebranded it as Retro was because I was
just running out rivalries. I think I got up to man, I think
I was well over well. I did it for about a year and a
half, so I think I was getting close to a hun rivalries. I
remember I wrote it down and I was doing all different types of all different
types of combinations, and I just remember thinking, like, you know what,
this is literally running its course and running its coores fast, and I
really got thinking about maybe doing something different after my Cody Rhodes rant, which
a lot of you guys seemed to like. I'm sure there are some of
you guys who hated it, but it got a reaction right, whether it
be negative or positive. It was a polarizing segment that I had. And
obviously you guys like my current day of WWE with Matt that I do every
Monday, and I think Matt and I have great chemistry on air. We've
been doing this for over four years at this point, you know, we've
never met face to face, although we don't live all that far away,
like he lives in Albany, I live in Montreal. I believe it's like
a two three hour drive. But he has become a very good friend of
mine, and I am proud to say that, and I'm honored to say
rather that I've been able to become a staple of this podcast for the last
four plus years. But I just felt like maybe I wanted to give you
guys more of a real version of myself, and not to say that I'm
going to come on here and tell you what I have for lunch, or
how good or bad my day was, or what if my cat died like
stuff like that. But I'm not going to spill like all my personal guts
on here. But I just felt like maybe you guys wanted more of a
real version of me. And that's kind of what we're going to tackle and
explore on after Dark. And it's not going to be like a set timeline
of thirty minutes of forty five minutes some episodes, maybe fifteen minutes, some
maybe an hour. Maybe I'll have a guest on here and there. It's
just going to be wherever the wind blows. And that's kind of my goal
going forward. And I hope that most of you will be able to come
out on over and check it out, and hopefully it's exactly maybe but the
doctor ordered in terms of what you guys were looking for in terms of a
listening experience, And obviously it's gonna be mostly wrestling heavy, but I'm not
going to make it exclusive to wrestling, and I think that's the point of
After Dark, is that we could take this wherever we want. And obviously
right now it's still PG. But when we move over to Patreon next week,
the next time you hear my lovely voice without Matt by my side,
it will be you know, an R rated show. Not to say that
I'm gonna swear just for the sake of it or be vulgar just for the
sake of it, but it will be something that obviously if your discretion is
advised. So before I get into the main topic or the second topic of
what I want to get to tonight, I just want to say thank you
so much for allowing me to take you back in time with me. Whether
it was rivalries or retro. I know it was very rock heavy. I
know it was very ruthless aggression heavy. But at the same time, it
was really cool the last three years to go back in time and really just
explore all these different moments of yesteryear and go back on the WW network and
look at things that I hadn't watched for over a decade, and go back
and watch you know, weekly episodes of SmackDown in you know, in Line
and you know, get lost in stories so I could come on here and
properly articulate what was going on for specific rivalry or specific pay per view that
I came on here to cover. So thank you so much. So the
first thing I want to get to, and this will be very fast,
was I heard on Matt's mailbag. Was someone asked, as a massive Rock
fan myself, that is what was my favorite moment or moments of the Rock.
And that is a crazy, crazy question. You know, when I
was really old enough to track it weekly and no week to week and pay
per view to pay per view, what was going on the Rock was no
longer a full time wrestler. When I kind of, you know, for
lack of better terms, fell in love with The Rock as a performer,
obviously a wrestler, I was about five or six, so two thousand,
two thousand and one, but that's you know, I wasn't really keeping track
of the storylines and why he was fighting Austin or Taker or Triple H.
By the time I actually was able to grasp why every show was following each
other and why stories were happening, he was out. I would say it
was around two thousand and three when I really started to catch on in that
capacity, so it may come as a shock, but it's not him,
you know, winning the WWF Championship against Triple H or you know, well,
yeah, okay, So I guess my favorite Rock moment ever is Wrestling
at nineteen against Stone Cold Steve Auston, because I was old enough to remember
why that match was happening, the ramifications of that match happening, the build
to it right after it being known as Austin's last match for the next nineteen
years or whatever it ended up being. So that is probably my favorite rock
moment just because as soon as the count hit three or all him and they're
counted the three count, the rock brow character and you saw him have his
moment with stone Cold Steve Auston in the middle of the ring, and obviously
he was full blown Hollywood heal at that time, but you just saw him
completely come out character as soon as he got the final pinfall and stone Cold
Steve Austin, and you know it was the right thing to do. Austin
had won the first two encounters at Wrestling at fifteen and seventeen, respectively,
and with the raw on his way out, you know, a short month
later from a full time capacity, putting over Bill Goldberg in the process,
and Steve Auston wrestling his last match. It just made so much sense,
and it aged like a fine wine, and you know, even in retrospect,
it looks even better than it did in real time. And some of
the other moments were his returns in two thousand and four, which was kind
of like the last year where he was even like a semi regular wrestler and
kind of showed up like in two thousand and four. Obviously, he shows
up ahead of wrestling a twenty two team with mcfoley against Evolution. Then he
comes back to save Eugene, which is something that I was going to originally
cover. Tonight comes back and has an encounter with Randy Orton, has an
encounter with Coach and Lar Resistles, and then those returns in two thousand and
four felt so special because, you know, the Ruthless Aggressionaire was going on
its way and doing a pretty good job all things considered, and when the
Rock would come back, it was kind of like, man like, imagine
if the Rock was still here in the Ruthless Aggression, And I think that's
such a fascinating question, so to answer the question from the listener who I
forget your name, I'm very sorry. The rock winning at Rescuing in nineteen
followed by his returns in two thousand and four. We're probably my favorite rock
moments. So now to give you a sneak peek on what we may be
catching on the after Dart show. So someone asked on the mail bag if
I think college is a scam, and this is very interesting. It's a
very interesting question because not only do I have a lot to say on the
matter, but me living in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, I'd probably have
a unique scope on the matter as well. So I'll give you my background.
First off, So I graduated from a thing that we have in Quebec
called say Jepp. It doesn't exist anywhere else in Canada and certainly not in
the United States. It's exclusive to the province of Quebec. And what say
Jep is is kind of like a buffer between high school and university slash college.
So in say Jepp, you go in for more or less two years
two and a half, depend on how many courses you take, and then
that gets you set for university, or you go in for three or four
years in a career program, police tech, paramedic, computer science or some
of the courses they offer at the stage up that I went to, and
you come out and you have a career right away. My brother is in
the process of trying. My brother's much younger than me. He's twelve years
younger than me, and he's in the process of just starting sage up and
trying to get into computer tech. So good luck to him. Great age
to be seventeen. I remember it like yesterday. So in Quebec, university
and college is also much cheaper. So if you're in the United States,
I would imagine you're paying somewhere in the neighborhood of what twenty to thirty thousand
dollars a semester. I think obviously I don't want to speak out a turn
here, but it is I think that's generally what it is. In Ontario.
It's about and I'm basing it off of when I was going to college,
university, whatever, So we're going back nine years or so. Makes
me feel old, I know, or maybe eight years. Whatever it was
it was about in Ontario four to five thousand dollars to go to university slash
college a semester. In Quebec. It was two thou So Quebec is very
renowned for its cheap schooling, and we also have very renowned schools, most
notably McGill for their medicine program. People come to McGill from all over the
world. They also have a very good law program. So I would say
in terms of college slash education slash university being a scam in Quebec, maybe
not, because it's not that expensive and we have the option of say Jeff
and I. Maybe I guess it's the same concept as community college. Maybe
that's a kind of a decent comparison, although you can go into this straight
out of high school. But and say Jeppe, I believe is like two
to three hundred bucks a semester. So I mean, even if you go
in and you bleep around, and next week when I do this show,
I won't even have to say bleep. But even if you go in there
and you bleep around and bleep the dog and kind of waste your time and
your money or your parents time and your parents money and you just have fun,
it really isn't that big of a scam. And I'll use myself as
an example. I went to sage from seventeen years old to nineteen years old
took me two and a half years. I graduated in media arts. I
wanted to become a sports journalist. And you know, I bleeped around a
lot. I had fun. I got decent grades. I think my grades
were usually somewhere in the c's or seventy fives. I think that's a C.
Seventy five. Seventy five to eighty is usually where I fell in with
my grades. What letter that is can tell you. I think it's about
a C, maybe C plus. I don't know. So I was a
very average student. I didn't try a lot, very lazy, very lazy
student. And I would venture, yes that my girlfriend would tell you that
I'm very lazy man now as well. Just generally hated studying, could not
stand it. I could wing stuff pretty well. But that caught up to
me in university. When I got into university, I went to the winter
semester of twenty fourteen. I flunked out in real quickly. So you know,
I guess it costed my parents between sage up and university to semi to
school, like I want to say, maybe three to four thousand dollars I
came away with a degree from sage up that means a whole lot of nothing,
and flunked out of university after one semester. So obviously, media arts
was something I somewhat explored between doing this and my media gig part time in
hockey. But my main job is blue collar. I you know, it's
something that just requires a high school degree, make a good living, but
nothing astronomical, you know, benefits pension, all that, And I worked
for the City of Montreal. And you know, I think after I went
to university, I realized maybe that that wasn't a scam, but I realized
that you had to have the right frame of mind to go through it.
And you know, I have a lot of friends who went to university and
made good on it. But I also have a lot of friends who went
to university and did absolutely nothing with it. Have a friend who went there
and graduated in English literature or something, and now he is a roofer with
his dad's company. I have another friend who graduated as a teacher and now
he just got a job with the Government of Canada, which is a very
very very good job. I have another buddy who graduated in finance, and
he's working with the government. So I think Matt touched on that as well,
that you get degrees in one thing, but you work in a different
field. But it's just about having that degree and separating yourself from the pack
of everyone else. So in Quebec, I would say it isn't a scam
just because of the financial part of things, because it even for me,
like even if you go through university, I think like if you get out
in and out there in three years, let's say that's the average you get
in and out of university, I think your debt is probably going to be
no more than twenty thousand dollars, maybe into the twenty five I mean that
twenty five thirty range, which is a lot of money, don't get me
wrong, But it's nothing like you see sometimes maybe in the States or even
elsewhere in Canada, when you're into like north of fifty thousand dollars and even
the six figures sometimes. So I would say that there is a certain element
that is a scam because you don't need to go to university to make a
good living. You don't have to go to school to feel like a success,
which I will say when I was in high school. Felt like that
was how it was supposed to be. You were supposed to go to college
and university and do whatever you worked in the field of whatever you studied.
But that's not the case. And look give myself as an example. Right
out of university after I flunked out, I did landscaping for twelve bucks an
hour and it was horrible. It was really really brutal work. When I
was nineteen twenty years old, summer twenty fourteen, and you know, I'm
a twelve bucks an hour work sixty five hours a week, and I did
that for about six years. I worked my way up of the company,
I mean as much as you can in a twenty person landscaping company. You
know. I got my license to drive heavy vehicles, I became a truck
driver, I learned how to drive equipment. I got pretty good at excavation,
made my way into you know, like the twenty dollars an hour.
But even doing that, you know, like not working the winter, you
know, having very like long, stressful hours, brutal work into I was
getting into my mid twenties at that point in time, was starting to settle
down with my girlfriend that we've now been together for over five years, and
it wasn't really conducive with the life that I wanted to live. But I
stalked away a lot of money doing that, and I stalked away a lot
of experience doing that, and I was able to buy my first property at
a very young age doing that, And especially with inflation and the housing markets
and interest rates, I'm very, very happy and thankful that I took that
path, because without taking the path I did, I wouldn't have been able
to save the money that I did and bought the property that I did and
turned that into the property I now have, which is obviously a bigger and
more luxurious property. And I'm not even thirty years old yet. So there
is a certain part of university education college that is a scan. That being
said, I will never ever discourage someone from going to university. I will
just say, know what the bleep you are doing if you are going to
university, If you're going in there just to go wherever the wind takes you,
and you know, have a good time, which is important. You
know, it is about having fun and drinking and beer pong and have you
guys ever, if anyone out there has seen the show Blue Mountain State.
First of all, funny show and really sets the tone for maybe a stereotypical
university life. And second of all, it was filmed at the college I
went to in Montreal, the suburb Saint and de Bellevue. So if anyone
out there is a Blue Mountain State fan, I went to that school that
it was filmed that so a little I guess gloating moment for me. So
it is about having fun as well, especially if you played a sport football,
hockey, rugby, soccer, whatever. There is an experienced element to
going to school when the grand scheme of things. If you're there and you
don't really know what you want to do, get the hell out, go
work something blue collar And that's another thing. Blue collar isn't bad. They're
really I think maybe it's starting to shift now a bit, you know,
with the need of electricians and plumbers and HVAC workers. Well there's all that.
When I was in high school, it was kind of like looked downly
on. But all I'll say about college and university is like, if you're
going in there to be a lawyer or a doctor or a dentist or something
super badass, you know, you know, an accountant and actuary, any
of that stuff. Go for it, man, because you're going to have
a hell of a life at the end of the tunnel. It may take
you ten to fifteen years to get there, but you will love the result.
But if you're just going in there in a major in history or philosophy,
or English literature, or even communications or journalism, which was my field,
which is a dying, dying profession, I would just ask you to
think long and hard about what you're doing, because there is a part of
it that can feel like a scam, and it will be a scam,
especially if you're paying twenty thirty forty thousand dollars a semester slash year for this
schooling. So I mean, I can't really say one way or another if
it's a scam. I think it's all relative to where you live, how
much financial backing you have from your parents, how driven you are and passionate
you are about any specific topic or subject or course that you look at exploring
educationally, and like, look, I'll use my brother in law, who
I think is a very good example as well. You know he was it
took him a bit longer to get the university but now he has a super
badass job and he has a super badass life and he makes good money.
And like, I think that's it really is all relative and not one situation
is the same as another one. So is it a scam? I think
it can be a lot of the times. Is it always a scam?
Is it always the same answer? No, it isn't in my mind.
If it were meat or not my mind in my situation, had I continued
in university, maybe not a scam because I benefit from living in Quebec where
education is fairly cheap. But it would have been a waste of time because
of where I ended up. So I mean, definitely an interesting conversation and
I hope you guys enjoyed it. But anyway, that's all I got for
you. But this is kind of preview as to what we are going to
be doing on after Dark. I wanted to give you that opportunity to listen
before you go into Patreon blind and get into that SmackDown Tier. Remember it
is the SmackDown Tier, not the NXT tire. We'll be behind the SmackDown
paywall, but we'll also be talking wrestling. I could guarantee you're gonna hear
some Cody Roads rants. You're probably gonna hear some other rants too. I'll
tell you some of my other funny moments of my life. I won't get
too too personal, but this is kind of the format what we're going to
look for. So anyway, guys, I hope I have you tune in
next week, have an awesome weekend, and I'll be talking to you next
time. Thanks for listening to the WWE podcast. Don't forget to subscribe on
your favorite podcast app so you don't miss a show, or head to WWE
podcast dot com. And for all of these shows ad free, head over
to Patreon dot com slash WWE podcast. Until then, we'll see you next time.