Speaker 1: It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monsters
Speaker 1: sounds off. It's such good shit. Monster, conclude all fighting
Speaker 1: a woman. You got grown ass wrestlers in the back
Speaker 1: going on Twitter. Come over here, we'll speak, bitch. Come
Speaker 1: on now you have legs. They've made Solo a monster.
Speaker 1: I was ninety nine percent positive it was just chessed up.
Speaker 1: Now I want out of my contract if I don't
Speaker 1: care what I want. Welcome to episode eight seventy nine
Speaker 1: that the Solo Monster Sounds Off for Sunday, September fifteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty and twenty four. I am the Solemn Monster. Very
Speaker 1: sorry to hear about the death of James Earl Jones
Speaker 1: earlier this week at the age of ninety three. He
Speaker 1: lived a lot longer than most wrestlers do. The greatest
Speaker 1: voice in the history of cinema. I had the chance
Speaker 1: to meet him many years ago backstage at an awards ceremony.
Speaker 1: He was presenting an award that night to Harry Belafonte,
Speaker 1: and you just know, when you're in the presence of
Speaker 1: someone who's larger than life. That was him, you know,
Speaker 1: to meet Darth Vader himself, I mean, come on, how
Speaker 1: cool is that? But we have a lot of news
Speaker 1: to get to here this week, wwe AW and the
Speaker 1: annual PWI five hundred, which everybody loves talking about. I'm
Speaker 1: going to run down some of the key spots on
Speaker 1: that list as well, and then get to your mailbag questions.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it here. If you would like
Speaker 1: to support the podcast and what I do here each
Speaker 1: and every week, you may do so on thesolomonster dot com.
Speaker 1: You'll see the PayPal link at the top of the page.
Speaker 1: Ten dollars for more, we'll get you a nickname and
Speaker 1: a shout out. I want to say thank you to
Speaker 1: Big B Bryant Bessera, the Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton,
Speaker 1: the Diamond, Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison's Soep, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray,
Speaker 1: the Chicago Slayer, Willie Iichord, night Stalker, nif Alstafar, NIF,
Speaker 1: I hope Turkey is doing well, kel Shot, Keith Hart,
Speaker 1: Simon Costello shout out to Simon and No. Even with
Speaker 1: the benefit of hindsight, I think Roman losing the title
Speaker 1: to Cody and not Drew McIntyre at the first clash
Speaker 1: at the Castle was the right move. To make action.
Speaker 1: Nick Jackson, Holy crap, thank you man. He wanted to
Speaker 1: wish a happy sixth wedding anniversary to his wife Leanna Panda.
Speaker 1: Happy anniversary to you both. How old is THEO now?
Speaker 1: Is he three? Shout out to THEO as well, show
Speaker 1: your role. Chris lu Deck. Check out his YouTube series
Speaker 1: What Could Have Been in Wrestling? Just search for Chris
Speaker 1: lu Deck that's l U d. E c Ke on
Speaker 1: YouTube and type in what Could Have Been in Wrestling?
Speaker 1: You could find his web series on there. And also
Speaker 1: just a shout out to everybody who joined me and
Speaker 1: supported on the SmackDown post show on Friday night on YouTube.
Speaker 1: What a night. Holy shit. The bombs were dropping to
Speaker 1: the point where I had to keep the stream going
Speaker 1: almost three hours. You guys crushed it. So thank you
Speaker 1: to everybody who was a part of that that blew
Speaker 1: me away. WWE made a surprise announcement during the season
Speaker 1: premiere of Raw on Monday night, effective October seventh, So
Speaker 1: that's the Monday after Bad Blood. Raw will be moving
Speaker 1: back to two hours every week from eight to ten
Speaker 1: pm Eastern. And if you stopped it right there, I'd
Speaker 1: be throwing a party right now. But the move is
Speaker 1: only temporary their deal with Netflix, it doesn't take effect
Speaker 1: until January. That would have left Raw with no home
Speaker 1: for the months of October, November, and December. So they
Speaker 1: struck a deal a while back with NBC Universal to
Speaker 1: keep Raw on USA for an extra three months for
Speaker 1: a reported sum of twenty five million. It's not bad
Speaker 1: twenty five mil for ninety days. But as part of
Speaker 1: that deal, the show will be two hours instead of
Speaker 1: the usual three. My guess is USA wants new programming
Speaker 1: at ten PM that they can use Raw as the
Speaker 1: lead in for. You know, they need to look ahead.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have SmackDown now on Fridays, but as
Speaker 1: far as Monday nights go, they're done with Raw, so
Speaker 1: they have to look to their future. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: have it Raw anymore in a few months, so why
Speaker 1: not try to use it as a way to get
Speaker 1: eyeballs on their own programming from ten to eleven. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that programming would be. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it'll be a success, you know, For all I know,
Speaker 1: they may just run reruns, fucking Law and Order reruns.
Speaker 1: But whatever it is, I think they're gonna want to
Speaker 1: use Raw as the lead in for that and It's
Speaker 1: Smart a per pw Insider. But those who have asked
Speaker 1: whether Raw will revert back to three hours, Mike Johnson says,
Speaker 1: we have not been able to lock down a definitive
Speaker 1: yes or no know on that. As far as when
Speaker 1: Raw goes to Netflix in January, some in the company
Speaker 1: have played koy when asked, while others have suggested that
Speaker 1: they will have the flexibility to make the show whatever
Speaker 1: they want it to be as far as the length
Speaker 1: of the show, depending on what is needed that specific week.
Speaker 1: Dave Meltzer said that he got it confirmed that Raw
Speaker 1: will still be a three hour show when they moved
Speaker 1: back to Netflix, or not moved back, but when they
Speaker 1: moved to Netflix, and that the move to two hours
Speaker 1: was a USA call, it was not a WWE call,
Speaker 1: which is ironic because the move to three hours was
Speaker 1: a USA call in the first place. We have them
Speaker 1: to blame for that that they reportedly had the option
Speaker 1: of putting the show on Peacock for those three months
Speaker 1: so it would still be under NBC Universal, but got
Speaker 1: more money to keep it on US. Say, had they
Speaker 1: moved it to Peacock, they probably could have kept it
Speaker 1: at three hours, but they go where the money is,
Speaker 1: and it's going to have a lot more visibility being
Speaker 1: on USA anyway than it would on Peacock. I think
Speaker 1: Peacock has somewhere around thirty million paid subscribers. USA network
Speaker 1: is in somewhere around seventy million homes, so I mean
Speaker 1: that's that's quite a few more households. We still have
Speaker 1: no clarity on what the situation will be on Netflix
Speaker 1: as far as commercials go, other than there will be commercials,
Speaker 1: but the ad breaks may not be as long, they
Speaker 1: may not be as frequent or as disruptive as they
Speaker 1: are now, or my guess is that the breaks will
Speaker 1: be different depending on which tier of Netflix you pay for.
Speaker 1: So Netflix has a standard plan with ads for six
Speaker 1: ninety nine a month, They have a standard plan which
Speaker 1: is ad free for fourteen ninety nine a month, and
Speaker 1: they have a Premium plan with four K streaming and
Speaker 1: no ads for twenty two to ninety nine a month.
Speaker 1: If you pay for a plan with no ads at
Speaker 1: the very least, I still think you'll get those WWE
Speaker 1: profile packages that you see on the plees when they
Speaker 1: take a break between matches. You'll get these long profile videos.
Speaker 1: If nothing else, you're definitely going to get something like that.
Speaker 1: But anybody thinking that, oh it's Netflix now, no more commercials,
Speaker 1: not quite. Not quite now. I prefer RAW go back
Speaker 1: to two hours on a permanent basis. You know, for years,
Speaker 1: the two hour format was standard for WWE programming. It
Speaker 1: still is. It's still standard. Raw is the only three
Speaker 1: hour weekly show they have. SmackDown thankfully is staying at
Speaker 1: two hours, even with the move back to USA. They
Speaker 1: gave the show an overrun by the Way on Friday
Speaker 1: for the season premiere, so SmackDown may have overruns again.
Speaker 1: They couldn't do that on Fox because of the ten
Speaker 1: pm newscast in most markets, but SmackDown's two hours. NXT
Speaker 1: is two hours every week, also with an overrun, but
Speaker 1: only for a few more weeks. Once NXT debuts on
Speaker 1: the CW network, you can kiss those overruns goodbye, because
Speaker 1: like Fox, CW has a ten pm local newscast lot
Speaker 1: of markets, so they're going to have a hard stop
Speaker 1: at the top of the hour. But my point is,
Speaker 1: you know, they've been producing two hour programs for years
Speaker 1: and years and years and years. I don't care how
Speaker 1: big the RAW roster may be they can make a
Speaker 1: two hour show work simply by doing a good job
Speaker 1: of rotating talent in and out week to week. If
Speaker 1: there are people on the show every week right now,
Speaker 1: then they can be on the show every other week
Speaker 1: and still get FaceTime. They can make it work. I
Speaker 1: don't want to hear well, they can't go back to
Speaker 1: two hours. Look how big the roster is. They can't
Speaker 1: do it. Yes they can't. They're not going to, But
Speaker 1: don't give me that shit that they can't. What it
Speaker 1: sounds like we may end up with on Netflix is
Speaker 1: a show that is not any one set length of
Speaker 1: time every week. I don't know how that would play
Speaker 1: in certain international markets. I can see that being a problem,
Speaker 1: But I like the idea of them having flexibility. If
Speaker 1: the show's not going to be two hours on the dot,
Speaker 1: that's fine. If they have the flexibility to make the
Speaker 1: show whatever they want it to be week to week,
Speaker 1: I think that's okay. Maybe one week the show goes
Speaker 1: two and a half hours, Maybe the next week it's three.
Speaker 1: The week after that it's two hours and forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: Maybe main event finishes will be a little less predictable.
Speaker 1: If we can't look at the clock and know exactly
Speaker 1: when the match is going to end. How many times
Speaker 1: has that happened? Where you see it's ten fifty eight
Speaker 1: or ten fifty nine and they have to rush. The
Speaker 1: match is not over yet. They have to rush the
Speaker 1: finish of the match before they go off the air.
Speaker 1: That may not happen anymore on Netflix. That's a good thing.
Speaker 1: And then there's the issue of the content itself. Anybody
Speaker 1: thinking the move to Netflix means unlimited swearing and a
Speaker 1: return to the attitude era, That's not what it means
Speaker 1: at all. Unless your name is Dwayne Johnson, then it'll
Speaker 1: be f BOM's galore. But they're not going to have
Speaker 1: the same constraints that they have now on cable. They
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to mute the audio anymore when people chance
Speaker 1: holy shit. That would be a welcome change because it's annoying.
Speaker 1: Is sh shit in something that we knew was coming
Speaker 1: for months because TKO talked about this very thing shortly
Speaker 1: after the Endeavor sale. Mark Shapiro, the president of TKO,
Speaker 1: talked about trimming down the number of live events or
Speaker 1: how shows that WWE does, with the focus increasingly shifting
Speaker 1: to their live television shows, which is where the real
Speaker 1: money is. I mean, just look at the billions of
Speaker 1: dollars they're raking in every year between NBC, Universal and Fox, Now,
Speaker 1: Netflix and the CW network. Television is their main priority.
Speaker 1: Streaming is their priority. House shows are not because they
Speaker 1: make the company very little money relative to TV. During
Speaker 1: an appearance at Goldman Sachs Technology Conference, Shapiro explained that
Speaker 1: he feels there is less of a need for what
Speaker 1: he calls the marginally profitable shows. He said, we're cutting
Speaker 1: events at WWE. We're taking our low margin, marginally profitable events,
Speaker 1: untelevised events that Vince put in place to grow the brand.
Speaker 1: You're taking the show on the road and we got
Speaker 1: to go to every city that we can to grow
Speaker 1: the WWE brand. Well, the WWE brand, while we still
Speaker 1: have to grow it, it's on fire right now. We
Speaker 1: don't need to carry these marginally profitable events. What was
Speaker 1: three hundred events last year will be roughly two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty this year, and next year we will be
Speaker 1: close to two hundred. They've already cut back on the
Speaker 1: number of house shows. I mean, if you look at
Speaker 1: how many they have left between now and the end
Speaker 1: of the year, it's only around ten or so. I
Speaker 1: think he calls them marginally profitable. A few years ago,
Speaker 1: WWE house shows were not profitable. They were actually losing
Speaker 1: money on them. But because the product is so hot
Speaker 1: right now and they're running fewer of them, but at
Speaker 1: higher ticket prices, they do make money. But it's not
Speaker 1: a lot. Now. There are pros and cons to this.
Speaker 1: It's not a surefi thing one way or the other.
Speaker 1: This is great or this is terrible. It really is
Speaker 1: a mixed bag, you know. For the fans, house shows
Speaker 1: tend to be more fun. And I say that as
Speaker 1: somebody who has been to house shows before, as I'm
Speaker 1: sure most people listening to this have at least been
Speaker 1: to a few house shows in their day. They tend
Speaker 1: to be more fun because you don't have all the
Speaker 1: downtime that you get with the commercial breaks on TV,
Speaker 1: so you're constantly sitting there in the dark, you're watching
Speaker 1: video packages, you're watching ads, you got a wait to
Speaker 1: come back from break. You also get more in ring action,
Speaker 1: you get more matches, you get longer matches. The wrestlers
Speaker 1: tend to have more fun out there. They have the
Speaker 1: freedom to be a little looser. They can try new things,
Speaker 1: see what works, see what doesn't work. They try something
Speaker 1: that works, they can bring it to TV. If it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, then the only people who need to know
Speaker 1: are the people in the building that night. It's also
Speaker 1: a negative for the newer talents that are still learning.
Speaker 1: You can only learn so much at the PC. You
Speaker 1: need to be able to get out in front of
Speaker 1: an arena full of fans and work matches night after
Speaker 1: night to improve your craft and get better. That's one
Speaker 1: of the biggest benefits to house shows. It's not just
Speaker 1: working in the ring, but you know, it's getting that
Speaker 1: fan feedback as far as what works and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: But I was curious. I took Vaccine Dupree as an example.
Speaker 1: She was someone who was called up way too soon,
Speaker 1: you know, and she has made some noticeable improvements of late,
Speaker 1: but she's still very green. She's the kind of person
Speaker 1: that NXT was created for. That's why they have a
Speaker 1: developmental system, that's why they have a performance center. And
Speaker 1: they never gave her a chance to fully develop because
Speaker 1: they just took her and threw her right into the
Speaker 1: frying pan way too quickly. And then people mocked her
Speaker 1: for which I'm sure was just, you know, even harder
Speaker 1: for her. I looked up the matches though, that she's
Speaker 1: had this year, because you would think, like this is
Speaker 1: where she's getting her reps in, right at the house shows.
Speaker 1: She's hardly worked any house shows. You would think that
Speaker 1: they would have her in the ring on these shows
Speaker 1: every week, But she's worked less than half a dozen
Speaker 1: matches on the live events. So that just goes to
Speaker 1: show you how much they've already scaled back on them.
Speaker 1: So those are all negatives to doing fewer of them.
Speaker 1: They might be making them a little bit of money,
Speaker 1: but I look at them as something of a loss
Speaker 1: leader for the company. So you might take in little
Speaker 1: to no money from them, but you're betting that they're
Speaker 1: going to pay off for you in other ways, whether
Speaker 1: that's increasing overall interest in the product, maintaining your current
Speaker 1: level of interest in the product. You know, if they
Speaker 1: don't run some of these markets anymore, or they run
Speaker 1: them a lot less, interest in the product might wane,
Speaker 1: it might start to go down. Eventually, this bubble is
Speaker 1: going to burst. They cannot maintain this hot streak they're
Speaker 1: on for another two, three, four years. There will come
Speaker 1: a time where things are going to cool, and you
Speaker 1: hope that by scaling back so significantly on these shows,
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen a lot sooner than not. Right, But
Speaker 1: that's one potential risk they run. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: one of the knocks on WWE for years, and rightfully so,
Speaker 1: was its road schedule. Vince McMahon used to work these
Speaker 1: people like dogs. Okay, it was worse in the eighties.
Speaker 1: In the early nineties, he'd be running ABC crews in
Speaker 1: different cities, all in the same night, and then expect
Speaker 1: them to drive hundreds of miles just to do it
Speaker 1: all over again the very next He would have them
Speaker 1: running hard for three weeks before they would even see
Speaker 1: the inside of their home. They'd go home and have
Speaker 1: just enough time to check their mail and pay their bills,
Speaker 1: and then head back out to the airport to go
Speaker 1: do it all over again. The international tours. You would
Speaker 1: hear these horror stories if you listen to these shoot
Speaker 1: interviews from guys that were running that schedule back then.
Speaker 1: They'd run two weeks straight internationally. They'd be in a
Speaker 1: different city every night. They wouldn't even know where they
Speaker 1: were half the time. Combine that with the harder rings
Speaker 1: that they were bumping on for all those years, which
Speaker 1: is something I'm going to talk about in the mailbag later.
Speaker 1: And it's no wonder so many of them ended up
Speaker 1: addicted to pills and booze, among other reasons, but I'm
Speaker 1: sure that definitely played a role. Natalia, she just returned
Speaker 1: on raw Monday. Now. They were in Calgary. She was
Speaker 1: doing a podcast interview this week. She said, TRIPLEH is
Speaker 1: just a cool boss. She just got eye surgery, she
Speaker 1: needed some time off. He told her, go get your
Speaker 1: eyes fixed, take care of yourself, don't even worry about it.
Speaker 1: And she said, it's cool to have a boss that's human.
Speaker 1: I don't think i've heard anybody else on the active
Speaker 1: roster put it that way and say that out loud,
Speaker 1: like we have a boss now that's actually a human being.
Speaker 1: Because that's how Vince treated his talent for so many years,
Speaker 1: that he treated them like circus animals. I mean, he
Speaker 1: may have made them a lot of money. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that didn't make a good living working for him.
Speaker 1: They say these things with a lot of money in
Speaker 1: their bank account and a nice house to show for it,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that they should be on the
Speaker 1: road taking bumps three hundred days a year, or can
Speaker 1: that kind of schedule. Fewer house shows means fewer bumps,
Speaker 1: it might mean fewer injuries. Yeah, I'm actually I question that.
Speaker 1: I questioned that last point. I was thinking about that
Speaker 1: you would think that running fewer shows removes the potential
Speaker 1: for injury. But I've heard it talked about in other
Speaker 1: ways too. When AW was just racking up injuries left
Speaker 1: and right, and even now and they have so many
Speaker 1: people on their injured list, but there were people and
Speaker 1: even some wrestlers talking about the fact that one of
Speaker 1: the things you might be able to attribute that to
Speaker 1: is the fact that AW does not run house shows.
Speaker 1: And there's just something to be said for being in
Speaker 1: the ring and taking bumps on a regular basis, where
Speaker 1: I guess maybe it just gets your body acclimated to it,
Speaker 1: and if you're not doing that, it could actually result
Speaker 1: in more injuries. So I don't know that any scientific
Speaker 1: study has been done about this, but I'm not necessarily
Speaker 1: sure that that does. Carlate, But fewer house shows mean
Speaker 1: fewer bumps, It means more time at home with their family,
Speaker 1: and it might even help them when it comes to
Speaker 1: recruiting new talent and free agents that might ordinarily be
Speaker 1: drawn to AW. For the same reason, Tony Kahn doesn't
Speaker 1: do house shows. You know. He lets a lot of
Speaker 1: his talent book their own independent dates if they want
Speaker 1: to work, but he himself does not maintain any sort
Speaker 1: of regular live event schedule. Some wrestlers that are drawn
Speaker 1: to that they don't want to be on the road constantly.
Speaker 1: That was one of the reasons Brian Danielson left WWE
Speaker 1: for AW among other reasons, was he could not work
Speaker 1: that schedule anymore. He needed to work fewer matches. So
Speaker 1: it may be to their benefit not to completely eliminate,
Speaker 1: but just cut down on the number of shows to
Speaker 1: make the schedule more attractive to people who might be
Speaker 1: interested in signing with one company or the other. So again,
Speaker 1: there are pluses and minuses to both. I think scaling
Speaker 1: back is a good thing. I think scaling back too
Speaker 1: much would be a bad thing, And based on what
Speaker 1: Shapiro is saying, they seem to be headed in that direction.
Speaker 1: According to a story in the Milwaukee Business Journal, the
Speaker 1: city is making a bid to host Money in the
Speaker 1: Bank next year. The story revealed that their tourism group
Speaker 1: Sports Milwaukee is putting together a bid right now, and
Speaker 1: if they get it, the plee would be held at
Speaker 1: the Forum, home of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. It was
Speaker 1: reported earlier this year that Milwaukee is hoping to host
Speaker 1: a future Royal Rumble at American Family Field, home of
Speaker 1: the Milwaukee Brewers. The earliest the Rumble could take place
Speaker 1: there would be twenty twenty six, which is when renovations
Speaker 1: to allow American Family Field to be used in the
Speaker 1: winter would be completed. The field has a retractable roof,
Speaker 1: and their winterization project will allow the venue to maintain
Speaker 1: a seventy degree temperature year round. Sports Milwaukee director Marissa
Speaker 1: Werner believes that bringing money in the bank to the
Speaker 1: city could help Milwauke Hockey land a bigger WWE show
Speaker 1: in the future, like the Royal Rumble or SummerSlam. Fast
Speaker 1: Lane in twenty seventeen was the most recent wwepl to
Speaker 1: make or to take place rather from Milwaukee. You all
Speaker 1: remember fast Lane, don't you. That was the night that
Speaker 1: Bill Goldberg beat Kevin Owens in twenty two seconds, ending
Speaker 1: his run as Universal Champion. I haven't forgotten. Speaking of Goldberg,
Speaker 1: Goldberg's name was invoked by our world heavyweight champion Gunther
Speaker 1: on Monday Night. One of the best lines uttered on
Speaker 1: that show all year in a year with promos between
Speaker 1: Drew McIntyre and cmpunk. This one's up there. They had
Speaker 1: Brett the Hitman Heart back on Raw for the first
Speaker 1: time in forever. I can't even remember the last time
Speaker 1: we saw him come out and get an entrance on
Speaker 1: this show, but they were in Calgary, so of course
Speaker 1: he got a hero's welcome, always love Brett gets from
Speaker 1: the other talent on TV. Sammy's name came out after
Speaker 1: Goother was in the ring with Brett, and then Sammy
Speaker 1: eventually came out and he was putting Bread over and
Speaker 1: he was talking about all the guys in the back
Speaker 1: who idolize him and they watch his old matches as
Speaker 1: they should, so that was cool. But before Sammy even
Speaker 1: came to the ring, we had Brett and then we
Speaker 1: had Goother interrupt and Gunther at first was putting him over,
Speaker 1: he was buttering him up, but it was all for
Speaker 1: the big line where he said, you will always be
Speaker 1: second to my actual all time favorite. And what I
Speaker 1: love about it is if you go around you look
Speaker 1: at the reactions that a lot of people have. They
Speaker 1: actually have reaction videos on YouTube from people who were
Speaker 1: watching the show, and almost to a tea, I saw
Speaker 1: maybe one person who said, oh, don't say Goldberg. Everybody
Speaker 1: else thought he was gonna say Shawn Michaels. So it
Speaker 1: was even sweeter because it was like you would I
Speaker 1: think that people would expect it, but they weren't. And
Speaker 1: then he laid the Goldberg line down. He goes, and
Speaker 1: my all time favorite is none other than Bill Goldberg,
Speaker 1: Which what makes it funnier to me is just when
Speaker 1: you look at the kind of wrestler that Gunther is
Speaker 1: just the polar opposite of Bill Goldberg. And for him
Speaker 1: to say that with such a fucking shit eating grin
Speaker 1: on his face was just perfection. Even Brett couldn't help
Speaker 1: himself with smirk at that line. Said he just he
Speaker 1: said like he knew before the words even came out,
Speaker 1: he was smiling because he knew he had a winner
Speaker 1: of a line. So whoever came up with that, it
Speaker 1: might not have been Gunther, but whoever came up with that,
Speaker 1: thumbs up because that was perfect. But I enjoyed seeing
Speaker 1: Brett and they had a whole segment there were again
Speaker 1: they pushed things forward for a future match between Goother
Speaker 1: and Sammy, which is not yet official. I'll get to
Speaker 1: that in a second, but let me talk about CM
Speaker 1: punk first. Seampunk was not on Row Monday night. He
Speaker 1: will be back on the show tomorrow night. He had
Speaker 1: to stay out for at least a week to sell
Speaker 1: the beatdown from Drew McIntyre, and there was a little
Speaker 1: bit of controversy involving CM Punk and Drew McIntyre, and
Speaker 1: in particular the bracelet that was at the center of
Speaker 1: their storyline has been at the center of their storyline
Speaker 1: now for at least the last couple of months. I
Speaker 1: want to read to you from this one story. The
Speaker 1: aj Lee Larry bracelet became the center of the feud
Speaker 1: between Punk and McIntyre leading into Summer Slam and Bash
Speaker 1: and Berlin. McIntyre stole the bracelet before SummerSlam and held
Speaker 1: onto it until Bash and Berlin. When Punk was able
Speaker 1: to get it back. On the September second episode of Raw,
Speaker 1: McIntyre broke the bracelet and sent Punk to the hospital.
Speaker 1: On September ninth, WWE Shop began selling the bracelet for
Speaker 1: nine to ninety nine. Victoria, the fan who originally made
Speaker 1: the bracelet for CM punk, issued the following statement on
Speaker 1: social media on not being given a heads up about
Speaker 1: WWE selling the bracelet. She said, Hi, everyone, thanks again
Speaker 1: for all the nice words and support. I won't be
Speaker 1: asking for compensation from WWE, since they have every right
Speaker 1: to make bracelets. All I kind of was hoping for
Speaker 1: was maybe a mention in the description of the product.
Speaker 1: I e inspired by a fan. Throughout this whole thing,
Speaker 1: I never expected to be given anything from WWE. All
Speaker 1: I wanted was for people to put a name in
Speaker 1: a face to where the bracelet came from. I completely
Speaker 1: understand why some of you guys are upset at WWE,
Speaker 1: and it means a lot to me that people care
Speaker 1: so much. For those replying to my initial post about
Speaker 1: me not getting a heads up and saying the WWE
Speaker 1: did know me one, I one hundred percent agree they
Speaker 1: did not need to. Legally, they had no obligation to
Speaker 1: reach out to me regarding this, but it just would
Speaker 1: have been nice to have heard it from them beforehand.
Speaker 1: If they reached out to me about it, I would
Speaker 1: have mentioned them, or I would have mentioned putting CM
Speaker 1: punk on the bracelets instead of AJ and Larry. I
Speaker 1: think more people would have been interested in that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me stop there, not to mention the fact that
Speaker 1: it's fucking weird to have fans walking around with bracelets
Speaker 1: that have the names of the man's wife and dog
Speaker 1: on it. Like, if you're a CM punk fan and
Speaker 1: you want to wear a bracelet that has CM Punk's
Speaker 1: name on it, cool, I get that, But don't you
Speaker 1: think it's a little fucking weird to be walking around
Speaker 1: with an item on your wrist that has the man's
Speaker 1: wife and dog on it. She says, if they reached
Speaker 1: out to me about it, I would have mentioned putting
Speaker 1: Punk on the bracelets instead of AJ and Larry, since
Speaker 1: now it kind of diminishes the whole storyline purpose of
Speaker 1: the bracelet. Wwe did reach out to me last week
Speaker 1: as a thank you from Punk and invited me to
Speaker 1: a show next month, but to my knowledge, that invitation
Speaker 1: had no correlation to them selling bracelets and wasn't offered
Speaker 1: as compensation. But I am still grateful for them contacting
Speaker 1: me at all. See, and this is why they don't
Speaker 1: accept unsolicited creative pitches from fans. If you ever wanted
Speaker 1: to know why. This is why. Now, after seeing her tweets,
Speaker 1: WWE shop took the item down from the website, but
Speaker 1: then they later put the item back up. Only now
Speaker 1: the bracelet does in fact have CM Punk's name on
Speaker 1: it instead of AJ and Larry. This is clearly Nick
Speaker 1: con not wanting to pay Larry any royalties. This was
Speaker 1: the big drama of the week online. This is what
Speaker 1: had people in an uproar on social media. When the
Speaker 1: big drama of the week involves a bracelet, you know,
Speaker 1: it's been a slow news week. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, WWE saw her tweets and her suggestion
Speaker 1: to put Punk's name on the bracelet instead, and that's
Speaker 1: what they ended up doing. So all's well, that ends well.
Speaker 1: I mean, after all, you can't be shocked that they
Speaker 1: would start selling these fucking fifty cent bracelets for ten bucks.
Speaker 1: This is WWE. They would slap a bar code on
Speaker 1: their mother's ass if they thought they could make money
Speaker 1: off of it. WWE took some major steps towards solidifying
Speaker 1: the card for Bad Blood this week. Four new matches
Speaker 1: have been made official, with a fifth match pending for
Speaker 1: the WWE Women's Championship Naya Jacks is going to be
Speaker 1: defending her title against either Bailey or Naomi. We're going
Speaker 1: to find out this Friday, because there's going to be
Speaker 1: a tag team match Bailey and Naomi against Nya and
Speaker 1: Tiffity Stratton. If the Babyfaces win, the one who scores
Speaker 1: the winning fall gets to challenge Naya for the title,
Speaker 1: but if they lose, the one who eats the pin
Speaker 1: must leave SmackDown forever. I think Bailey gets her rematch. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Adam Pierce made it official CM Punk will wrestle Drew
Speaker 1: MacIntyre inside Helen is Cel on that show. This was
Speaker 1: the entire point of bringing Bad Blood back in the
Speaker 1: first place, to commemorate the anniversary of the very first
Speaker 1: Helen is Cell match of Bad Blood. I think that
Speaker 1: match should close the show. I think that this feud
Speaker 1: has been going on long enough and has been a
Speaker 1: big enough deal on this show to where the blowoff
Speaker 1: being inside the Cell. I think it would be an
Speaker 1: appropriate close to the show. But wwe can make a
Speaker 1: strong case for the other big match that was confirmed
Speaker 1: for Bad Blood after Cody Rhodes beat Solo's Socoa in
Speaker 1: their steel cage match on Friday Night, Roman Rains returned
Speaker 1: to come to Cody's aid again from a Bloodline beatdown
Speaker 1: solo later in the show, issued the challenge to a
Speaker 1: tag team match with he and Jacob Fought Too, taking
Speaker 1: on Cody Roads and Roman Reigns. Cody at first refused.
Speaker 1: He said that he was done with the Bloodline. He
Speaker 1: told Nick All this, They're Roman's problem, They're not my problem.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be in this match. But by
Speaker 1: the end of the night he signed the contract, which
Speaker 1: was a strange way for them to get from point
Speaker 1: A to point B because nothing really happened to change
Speaker 1: Cody's mind. He was attacked by the blood Line after
Speaker 1: the cage match at the beginning of the show. He
Speaker 1: got attacked by them again at the end of the
Speaker 1: show when he came out to confront Roman, and then
Speaker 1: they fought the blood Line off and then he signed
Speaker 1: the contract, so that was kind of goofy. That's a
Speaker 1: huge match though, having Roman and Cody on the same
Speaker 1: side tagging for the first time. It's also Roman's first
Speaker 1: match Backsin's WrestleMania, and it will be the first taste
Speaker 1: that we're going to be able to get of Roman
Speaker 1: Reigns against Jacob Fati, which, unless they're doing Rock against
Speaker 1: Roman at forty one, that needs to be the WrestleMania
Speaker 1: match next year in Las Vegas, Roman Reigns against Jacob Fatu.
Speaker 1: Did you hear those fans on Friday when they teased it?
Speaker 1: They wanted to see it, so do I. But I
Speaker 1: can't imagine Rock is going to be too thrilled to
Speaker 1: see Roman teaming with Cody. So that's something to keep
Speaker 1: in mind for down the road. As far as potential
Speaker 1: issues between Rock and Roman, and in that same vein,
Speaker 1: how are Rand Orton and Kevin Owens going to feel
Speaker 1: about Cody Rhodes teaming with Roman Reins. You know, I
Speaker 1: made this comment on Friday's post show. Why is Cody
Speaker 1: even still involved in this Bloodline business? Right? He needs
Speaker 1: to move on from them? Obviously. The match people want
Speaker 1: to see when it comes to Cody Rhodes is him
Speaker 1: against Randy Orton. They can use this as a way
Speaker 1: to get there. With everything that Kevin Owens has been
Speaker 1: through with Roman Reigns, look how upset he got when
Speaker 1: Nick all Is teased giving Roman a rematch with Cody
Speaker 1: for the title for Bash and Berlin. Owens went on
Speaker 1: a tirade. He's been screwed over by the Bloodline multiple
Speaker 1: times over the last four years. Randy Orton had eighteen
Speaker 1: months of his career taken away from him because of
Speaker 1: the Bloodline. They can't be happy about Cody agreeing to
Speaker 1: stand side by side with Roman Reigns. They have given
Speaker 1: their bodies for this man. How many times is Randy
Speaker 1: Orton and Kevin Owens and Orton in particular put himself
Speaker 1: in harm's way to come to Cody's eight and now
Speaker 1: Cody is going to stand shoulder to shoulders side by
Speaker 1: side with Roman Reigns. So they could use this match
Speaker 1: to trigger Cody's next storyline and finally get him away
Speaker 1: from this coming out of Bad Blood. I hope that's
Speaker 1: what they have in mind. We better hear from Morton
Speaker 1: and Owens this Friday. They need to confront Cody about
Speaker 1: this and they can plant the seeds for what's to come.
Speaker 1: I still think they should close the show with the
Speaker 1: Hell in a Cell match, which means they probably would
Speaker 1: open the show with this tag team match. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it. Really, it just depends on the finish.
Speaker 1: If they have something major planned for the finish of
Speaker 1: that tag team match, then they might close with it. Plus,
Speaker 1: you know, Cody is sort of the hometown boy. He
Speaker 1: was raised in Marietta, which is like twenty miles out
Speaker 1: of Atlanta. It could go either way. Rhea Ripley against
Speaker 1: liv Morgan for the women's world title has been added
Speaker 1: to the card. Damian Priest will take on Finn Balor,
Speaker 1: and they're teasing Gunther against Sammy's Ny for the World
Speaker 1: heavyweight title. I cannot imagine they put that on TV.
Speaker 1: That needs to happen in Bad Blood. But if they added,
Speaker 1: that would make six matches instead of the usual five
Speaker 1: for these shows. Even Money in the Bank only had
Speaker 1: five matches, Summer Slim had seven. I think six would
Speaker 1: be fine. Jay Usso won a fatal four way on
Speaker 1: Monday to earn a shot at bron Breaker and the
Speaker 1: Intercontinental title. There's no way that ends up on the
Speaker 1: Bad Blood card. That's gonna be a raw main event.
Speaker 1: If they already have five, and that's without Gunther and Sammy,
Speaker 1: believe me, bron Breaker and jay Uso. I'd be shocked
Speaker 1: if they end up on that Bad Blood card. That's
Speaker 1: gonna be a raw main event. Julia had her debut
Speaker 1: match against Chelsea Green on NXT last Tuesday in a
Speaker 1: winning effort. She won with a snowplow. I look, I
Speaker 1: know it's a move that she has used before, but
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, so now she moves on to
Speaker 1: Roxane Perez for the NX Women's Championship on that first
Speaker 1: CW show coming up in Chicago on October first, CM
Speaker 1: Punk will be on that show. With it being in Chicago,
Speaker 1: CM Punk will be on NXT this Tuesday, and we
Speaker 1: should find out what he'll be doing on that first
Speaker 1: CW show. Is he going to be wrestling? Is he
Speaker 1: going to be a special referee? He might be the
Speaker 1: referee for Julia and Rock Saane. We know how fond
Speaker 1: Punk is for all the women down there in NXT.
Speaker 1: He's constantly being photographed with them and hanging out with them.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't shock me to see him as the referee for
Speaker 1: that match that's four days before Bad Blood. Is Drew
Speaker 1: McIntyre going to show up and attack him after the match?
Speaker 1: I think that's probably a safe bet. I think whatever
Speaker 1: Punk is doing on that show, it's a safe bet
Speaker 1: that McIntyre might show up that night. They also have
Speaker 1: Ethan Page defending the NXT Championship against Trick Williams, who
Speaker 1: beat Pete Dunn in a last man standing match to
Speaker 1: earn the shot. I don't think that match really warranted
Speaker 1: a last man standing stipulation. I think the two of
Speaker 1: them were feuding for months, but that's what they did.
Speaker 1: Wesley and Zach Wentz of The Rascals are going to
Speaker 1: have a street fight. Bianca Bellair and Jade Cargill will
Speaker 1: be there, possibly defending their women's tag team titles, which
Speaker 1: can be defended across brands, and the belief is that
Speaker 1: the Motor City Machine Guns might be debuting on the
Speaker 1: show that night in Chicago. Her pw Insider they have
Speaker 1: signed their deals with WWE and they will be starting
Speaker 1: with the NXT brand, I kind of. I mean, we
Speaker 1: already knew the rumors going around about them signing with WWE,
Speaker 1: but the fact that they were not a surprise in
Speaker 1: that tag team Gauntlet on Dynamite Wednesday night, that was
Speaker 1: the confirmat Like, I didn't need to see Mike Johnson's
Speaker 1: report to me them not being in the Gauntlet on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: that was all the confirmation I needed that they were
Speaker 1: not going to aw and the belief is they will
Speaker 1: be starting with the NXT brand, if not on that
Speaker 1: first CW show, possibly even before. I guess maybe the
Speaker 1: idea there would be that they come in before and
Speaker 1: they set up a big match for that show. I
Speaker 1: would just save them as a surprise for that show.
Speaker 1: I would do some kind of a you know, some
Speaker 1: kind of a match. I don't know if it would
Speaker 1: be a gauntlet or a tag team battle royal or something,
Speaker 1: but come up with a way to get them on
Speaker 1: that show as a surprise. That's what I would do.
Speaker 1: I have no problem, by the way, with them starting
Speaker 1: out in NXT, and for all we know, they may
Speaker 1: have requested it. Because there was some negative reaction to
Speaker 1: it online. I saw one dumb tweet from someone who
Speaker 1: should know better frankly at fight Full making fun of it.
Speaker 1: Some people just aren't very bright. Look, the brand is
Speaker 1: moving to broadcast television and they're loading up the show.
Speaker 1: They've got over five thousand tickets sold so far for
Speaker 1: that first show. It's going to be a big deal.
Speaker 1: I don't see the shame in them being some of
Speaker 1: the faces of that brand for the next six months
Speaker 1: and then drafting them to Raw or smack Down because
Speaker 1: they are old. They are in their early forties. It's
Speaker 1: not like they have fucking three or four years to
Speaker 1: just spend hanging around NXT. I don't think it would
Speaker 1: be that long though, you know. My only critique would
Speaker 1: be that the main roster could use the help right
Speaker 1: now in the tag team division. Same thing with the
Speaker 1: Lucha Bros when they come in. But as long as
Speaker 1: they end up there and they don't just keep them
Speaker 1: on NXT for the next two years, I don't have
Speaker 1: an issue with it. The move to CW is a
Speaker 1: big deal to this company, and they need some star
Speaker 1: power on that show. Having a couple of veterans like
Speaker 1: Sabin and Shelley on there working with the younger talents
Speaker 1: that does not sound like a bad idea to me.
Speaker 1: The rumor going around is that they will keep their
Speaker 1: name but not their TNA music, which is a little
Speaker 1: surprising given that NXT is working with TNA right now,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure it wouldn't be an issue, But if
Speaker 1: given the choice, I would rather they keep their name
Speaker 1: over their music. Unfortunately, that means they're getting a Deaf
Speaker 1: Rebel special, and that's not good. We may be done
Speaker 1: with Deaf Rebels soon. Their deal may not be renewed
Speaker 1: when it's up. I just don't know when it's actually up.
Speaker 1: But that's another rumor going around this week. And WWE
Speaker 1: may be parting way soon with Deaf Rebel, and they
Speaker 1: plan to use more mainstream music beyond just their use
Speaker 1: of the new Megan Dee Stallion song for SmackDown, which
Speaker 1: I hate as an intro for the show. I don't
Speaker 1: hate the song, I just hate it as an intro
Speaker 1: for the show. I think it just doesn't fit, but
Speaker 1: it is what it is. Their second CW show is
Speaker 1: not doing as well as their Chicago show. They have
Speaker 1: moved the show from Saint Louis to Chesterfield, Missouri, to
Speaker 1: a much smaller a much smaller venue. It's not just
Speaker 1: a smaller venue, it's a much smaller venue. After the
Speaker 1: Saint Louis show, which was booked for an NBA arena,
Speaker 1: so we're talking anywhere from probably I guess eighteen to
Speaker 1: twenty thousand, sold less than three thousand tickets, and that's
Speaker 1: even with advertising hometown boy Randy Orton for the show.
Speaker 1: CM Punk more of a draw in Chicago than Randy
Speaker 1: Orton is in Saint Louis. So now the show will
Speaker 1: emanate from the Factory, which has a capacity of three thousand,
Speaker 1: but only twenty three hundred for it seated shows, so
Speaker 1: they should have no issue filling that up. And one
Speaker 1: more I guess it would be a WWE note kind
Speaker 1: of sort of. Kevin Nash on his Click This podcast
Speaker 1: had a little something to say about Logan Paul and
Speaker 1: I watched the clip he was saying it. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like he was going on a rant per se,
Speaker 1: but you know he did go off on Logan Paul
Speaker 1: as him not being one of the boys. This is
Speaker 1: what he said, and I'm gonna just read it to
Speaker 1: you exactly as it's transcribed here. Because Kevin Nash, he
Speaker 1: loves the word fuck. He says it a lot. Maybe
Speaker 1: he does it a lot. Hey, good for him, But
Speaker 1: this is what he had to say. He's not one
Speaker 1: of the boys. Where would he learn that shit at?
Speaker 1: Where's he fucking going up and down the road, fucking
Speaker 1: talking about our fucking jargon in the building. Everybody's in
Speaker 1: their own fucking motor coach. There's no fucking interaction, there's
Speaker 1: no socialization. You don't become one of the boys just
Speaker 1: because you're around them. That motherfucker. From what I heard,
Speaker 1: he's making like five million bucks for a limited fucking schedule,
Speaker 1: and those other motherfuckers are out there making house shows.
Speaker 1: Fuck you, I don't give a fuck. How many people
Speaker 1: are following you? Wow? He says, fuck the way Russo says,
Speaker 1: bro So that's what Kevin Nash said. Logan Paul then
Speaker 1: posted a video on social media reacting to this. He said,
Speaker 1: I got people messaging me. They're like, yo, Kevin Nash
Speaker 1: is talking shit about you. I said, damn, who's Kevin Nash?
Speaker 1: And I mean that I'm unfamiliar with this guy, which
Speaker 1: I think is his problem. I'm not as versed in
Speaker 1: the WWE in wrestling as maybe I should be, as
Speaker 1: my peers are. But then how am I so much
Speaker 1: better than all of them? You know, I don't have
Speaker 1: the answers to these questions. I don't know how I
Speaker 1: could be the best in the WWE, or at least
Speaker 1: one of the best, Like I'm surely a top fiver
Speaker 1: and I don't even do it full time. Now, imagine
Speaker 1: if I did learn a little bit, Imagine if I devoted,
Speaker 1: if I became one of the boys, if I learned
Speaker 1: what the difference was between a shoot and a work.
Speaker 1: Will that make me a champion? Fuck me? Fuck you.
Speaker 1: You're one of the old guys who's bitter that I'm
Speaker 1: better at your job than you ever were, and that
Speaker 1: makes you pathetic. This will be my sport and I
Speaker 1: will continue to make guys like you eat your words
Speaker 1: when I devote a little bit of time to it.
Speaker 1: So fuck me, fuck you. Nothing better than two idiots
Speaker 1: ranting at each other building to a match that won't
Speaker 1: ever happen and that nobody has any interest in see.
Speaker 1: But they say it so many times, I mean they
Speaker 1: should just go ahead and fuck already and get it
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Speaker 1: and Drew McIntyre drives by and dog naps him because
Speaker 1: That's really all that's left in their feud is to
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Speaker 1: slash solo Monster. Another week and still no announcement of
Speaker 1: a new media rights deal for AW. Sunday, at the
Speaker 1: All Out Media Scrum, Tony Kahn said that he was
Speaker 1: one hundred percent confident there would be a deal with
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers Discovery that would keep AW on TBSNTNT for
Speaker 1: years to come, and when he was asked how confident
Speaker 1: he was that something would be announced in the next
Speaker 1: thirty days, he put the number at ninety percent. So
Speaker 1: it's likely either the deal is done and they're just
Speaker 1: waiting for the right time to announce it, like maybe
Speaker 1: the five year anniversary of Dynamite coming up next month,
Speaker 1: or Tony Khan actually has not put pen to paper yet,
Speaker 1: but it's just a formality and they're just working out
Speaker 1: the finer details. Dave Meltzer claims that the deal is
Speaker 1: done and that pay per view shows on Max are
Speaker 1: believed to in some form be a part of the deal.
Speaker 1: There's also been talk of the deal not having exclusivity
Speaker 1: like their current one has with Warner Brothers Discovery, which
Speaker 1: is why Dark and Dark Elevation disappear from YouTube. AW
Speaker 1: did trademark the name Shockwave this past week, which is
Speaker 1: thought to be for a new sh show that could
Speaker 1: air on one of the Fox networks, and that AAW
Speaker 1: may be working out a deal with Fox for a
Speaker 1: new hour long show to air possibly on FS one.
Speaker 1: Fox just drops smack Down off of its main broadcast network.
Speaker 1: They're not going to put AW on Fox, but FS
Speaker 1: one or the two B streaming service which Fox owns,
Speaker 1: that could be a landing spot for them adding another
Speaker 1: hour of AW television. It feels like overkill when the
Speaker 1: product is cold. But if Tony Khan can get a
Speaker 1: deal done with Fox and can get eyeballs on the
Speaker 1: product on a station other than just TNT and TBS,
Speaker 1: and if he can get paid for it, which is
Speaker 1: the key, so it's not a time buy, but he
Speaker 1: can actually bring more media rights money in from another partner.
Speaker 1: I don't see the downside in that. That's a deal
Speaker 1: that you make. If he can make a deal with
Speaker 1: Fox and get paid for it, you make that deal.
Speaker 1: And the more partners they have, the more potential options
Speaker 1: they have in the future, right, and more eyeballs they
Speaker 1: can get on their product. So, while nothing is confirmed yet,
Speaker 1: one report that dropped this week that is not to
Speaker 1: be taken seriously was this report from a writer at
Speaker 1: The Blaze, which is owned by Glenn Beck. This guy,
Speaker 1: Andrew Chapados, who has never covered AW before. I don't
Speaker 1: know that he's ever covered wrestling before, but he's never
Speaker 1: covered AW before, didn't even realize that Nyla Rose worked
Speaker 1: for the company, and when he did, he immediately attacked
Speaker 1: Nyla for being transgender, like this was some big revelation,
Speaker 1: you know, when Nylo has only been with the company
Speaker 1: for the last five fucking years. Let's talk about it
Speaker 1: like it's breaking news. So all of a sudden, this
Speaker 1: guy is reporting on AW after being fed some inside information. Gee,
Speaker 1: I wonder by who who would have fed this information
Speaker 1: to this random individual who supposedly has had contacts in
Speaker 1: the world of UFC and TKO, the same KO that
Speaker 1: happens to own WWE, who benefits from such a thing
Speaker 1: by putting out potentially false information that is intended to
Speaker 1: harm AW in the middle of its media rights negotiations.
Speaker 1: He claimed that sources close to the AW Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: discovery deal tell him that AW was on its back foot,
Speaker 1: and that, on top of Warners already having about twenty
Speaker 1: five percent from the original deal. Now what he's referring
Speaker 1: to there as an ownership stake in the company, which
Speaker 1: that may well be true, that they have an ownership stake.
Speaker 1: It's always been rumored that WBD has a stake in
Speaker 1: the company, it's never been confirmed, but I've never heard
Speaker 1: the twenty five percent figure mentioned before. But he says
Speaker 1: in addition to that AW likely had to give up
Speaker 1: more equity to get the new deal done, and that
Speaker 1: AW apparently did not receive any other third party offers,
Speaker 1: which hurt their negotiations as far as anybody knows. Up
Speaker 1: until just recently, AW was still in its ex exclusive
Speaker 1: negotiating window with Warner Brothers Discovery, So I'm not sure
Speaker 1: Tony Kahn even attempted to shop AW around or entertain
Speaker 1: any other offers. But we'll find out soon enough, and
Speaker 1: also see if they make that deal with Fox. But again,
Speaker 1: just be wary of where you get some of this
Speaker 1: information from, and some of these Twitter personalities that you've
Speaker 1: never heard of before. There's a lot of this going
Speaker 1: around now, rumors about this and that when it comes
Speaker 1: to AW and WWE, and just be a little leary
Speaker 1: when you hear from some of these people. But with
Speaker 1: all of this talk of AW getting a fourth show,
Speaker 1: possibly getting a fourth show if that's what Shockwave turns
Speaker 1: out to be. I got a question emailed to me
Speaker 1: from Kyle in Liverpool, England, so I'll mention it here,
Speaker 1: and he said that he was watching Collision recently and
Speaker 1: could not help but think that Dynamite and Collision could
Speaker 1: benefit from a roster split. He says, for example, I
Speaker 1: would split the titles, keeping the World, Tag International and
Speaker 1: TBS championships on Dynamite and have TNT Trios and Women's
Speaker 1: World titles on Collision. Personally, I don't think the Continental
Speaker 1: title should be a physical championship, but a title bestowed
Speaker 1: upon the yearly tournament winner. But for argument's sake, I
Speaker 1: would have that championship float between shows. Considering Rampage is
Speaker 1: an extension of Dynamite, I would keep Dynamite talent exclusive
Speaker 1: to that show. If a split was to come into effect,
Speaker 1: how would you split the roster and who would you
Speaker 1: build each show around. I have been resistant to the
Speaker 1: idea of AW doing a brand split, largely because I've
Speaker 1: seen how the brand split has played out in WWE
Speaker 1: over the last twenty years and how badly they've bungled it.
Speaker 1: And I have no interest in seeing Tony Khan try
Speaker 1: to do the same. Plus, I also like having the
Speaker 1: freedom to be able to use like if I'm Tony Kahan.
Speaker 1: I like having the freedom to be able to use
Speaker 1: talents on both s shows when the story calls for it,
Speaker 1: and not being handcuffed by a brand split, like, oh, gee,
Speaker 1: I guess we can't do it because we've got a
Speaker 1: brand split. We can't use this guy on Wednesdays. You know,
Speaker 1: we're stuck with Saturdays. AW has some glaring attendance issues
Speaker 1: right now, Okay, it's bad. I mean there are certain
Speaker 1: events where they'll post a certain attendance number and it's
Speaker 1: it's impressive, but on a lot of weeks it's not good.
Speaker 1: And you want to split the brands at a time
Speaker 1: when even with their biggest stars on all on the
Speaker 1: same show. You can have Will Osprey and MJF and
Speaker 1: Ricochet debuts and has his first Dynamite match, and you've
Speaker 1: got Brian Danielson, and you've got John Moxley and you've
Speaker 1: got Mariah May, like all of their top names can
Speaker 1: be on one show and they can still barely put
Speaker 1: three or four thousand people in the building. On most
Speaker 1: weeks and you want to split the brands. Rampage is
Speaker 1: not even worth the hour every week, and I barely
Speaker 1: have the interest to even bother with Collision anymore. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's an effort. It's an effort for me to do it.
Speaker 1: Something has to change, But I don't think a brand
Speaker 1: split is going to do much to change that. I
Speaker 1: really don't now if they were to do one, I
Speaker 1: think what Kyle has proposed here is not a bad
Speaker 1: idea at all. You know, having one roster dedicated to
Speaker 1: Dynamite and Rampage, having the other roster dedicated to Collision
Speaker 1: in Shockwave. I mean that would make sense. Divvying up
Speaker 1: the titles the way that Kyle laid out here is
Speaker 1: fine except for one very important thing, which is that
Speaker 1: one roster would have a world championship and the other
Speaker 1: one would not. And the last thing I want them
Speaker 1: to do is make another fucking title. So that's a problem.
Speaker 1: The TNT title is not the aw world title, no
Speaker 1: matter how hard you try to make it so. The
Speaker 1: TNT title is not, and will not be your world championship.
Speaker 1: It will never be perceived that way. It's like when
Speaker 1: brock lesnar champion on Raw and he was never around
Speaker 1: Raw had an absentee champion, So what happened the Intercontinental title.
Speaker 1: I think seth Rollins had it the Intercontinental title would
Speaker 1: headline the show a lot, and it did help elevate
Speaker 1: the value of that title a little bit, but it
Speaker 1: still wasn't a world title. The Intercontinental title was not
Speaker 1: looked at the same way. You're gonna have a bitch
Speaker 1: of a time selling tickets to a show that has
Speaker 1: no world champion, even if the title floats. If the
Speaker 1: champion is in the middle of feuding with somebody on
Speaker 1: Dynamite for the next two months, you're not gonna have
Speaker 1: them on Collision. Brian dangleson Darby All and John Moxley.
Speaker 1: They're all involved right now in a story surrounding the
Speaker 1: aw world title. So what are you gonna do. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have fucking Jack Perry as the face of Collision
Speaker 1: in Shockwave as TNT champion. You may as well cancel
Speaker 1: the shows now. None of this even matters if Tony
Speaker 1: Kahn is still the primary booker for all four shows.
Speaker 1: If you are going to have a brand split, then
Speaker 1: you need to split everything, including the creative duties. Have
Speaker 1: Tony oversee one roster, have somebody else or a group
Speaker 1: of other people oversee the other one. The other two shows.
Speaker 1: Brian Danielson, he's scaling back his in ring work soon.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he might have an interest in
Speaker 1: helping out on a regular basis. On the creative end.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he contributes now, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is something he would be interested in. Maybe he
Speaker 1: really does just want to go home and have more
Speaker 1: time at home. But I know they have people behind
Speaker 1: the scenes who contribute ideas or try to help Tony
Speaker 1: out right. We've heard our j City for example, he
Speaker 1: helped out with the Tony Storm and Mariah May storyline.
Speaker 1: A lot of ideas came from him. They hire Jennifer
Speaker 1: Pepperman from WWE. She works with Mercedes, but also other
Speaker 1: talents there. Maybe give people like that more say in
Speaker 1: those shows. Shane McMahon maybe coming in soon, God help me.
Speaker 1: I have no idea if this would be a good
Speaker 1: thing or not. But if he's coming in, if he's
Speaker 1: going to come in anyway, maybe give him a shot
Speaker 1: at helping book one of the two. If this is
Speaker 1: what they were going to do, whatever it is, it
Speaker 1: cannot all be left in Tony's hands. He needs help
Speaker 1: and none of this is going to matter without it.
Speaker 1: A brand split will not matter unless the ideas are there.
Speaker 1: You can split the brands and have two of the
Speaker 1: best brands that wrestling fans have ever seen. Without the ideas,
Speaker 1: it means nothing. Without the stories, it means nothing. You
Speaker 1: need to have interesting ideas and stories that help draw
Speaker 1: people to the show on TV and into the buildings.
Speaker 1: I don't care how you carve up the roster. Without that,
Speaker 1: you have the same issues that you have right now
Speaker 1: and the same apathy towards the product that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have. If those are the people that you
Speaker 1: are trying to appeal to and bring back into the fold,
Speaker 1: I don't see how this helps without addressing all of
Speaker 1: the other issues first that I just mentioned on Dynamite.
Speaker 1: This week, Tony Kahan made major changes to the Grand
Speaker 1: Slam card at Our Stadium coming up on September twenty fifth.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be Darby Allen challenging Brian Danielson
Speaker 1: for the aw World Championship. John Moxley, he's been looking
Speaker 1: for Darby now the past few weeks. We didn't know why,
Speaker 1: and then Danielson got kicked out of the Blackpool Combat
Speaker 1: Club at all out after his win over Jack Perry,
Speaker 1: Moxley put a plastic bag over his head tried to
Speaker 1: smother him to death later on, explaining that they tried
Speaker 1: things Danielson's way, but diplomacy has failed. Now he chooses war.
Speaker 1: When Moxley finally confronted Darby in the ring, he said,
Speaker 1: Darby's match with Danielson a Grand Slam is not going
Speaker 1: to happen now because the champion is indisposed. But he
Speaker 1: doesn't think that Darby is ready for the opportunity anyway,
Speaker 1: So he's going to need Darby to hand over that
Speaker 1: title shot to him. And Darby said no and told
Speaker 1: him that if he wants it, then do something about it,
Speaker 1: and Moxley proposed the match between the two of them
Speaker 1: for Grand Slam, with Darby putting his world title shot
Speaker 1: on the line. He said, Darby will never be aw
Speaker 1: world champion. He doesn't have time to explain right now,
Speaker 1: but he has never lied to Darby. He said, trust me, Darby,
Speaker 1: you have no idea what's going on. And then Darby
Speaker 1: accepted his challenge, proving that he does In fact have
Speaker 1: more guts than brains. So that was the first big
Speaker 1: change to the Grand Slam car. We went from getting
Speaker 1: an AW Championship match to a match for a shot
Speaker 1: at the AW Championship, and that meant that Brian Danielson
Speaker 1: was off the show, right or most normal people when
Speaker 1: you see this would logically conclude that that must have
Speaker 1: been Brian Danielson is off the show? Or was he?
Speaker 1: Because later in the night, Nigel McGuinness was in the
Speaker 1: ring and he said that now that there won't be
Speaker 1: an AW Championship match at Grand Slam, as himself being
Speaker 1: a former world champion in the business, he believed the
Speaker 1: champion should at least be competing on that show. And
Speaker 1: then he pulled out a contract approved by Tony Kahn
Speaker 1: for a match at Grand Slam. It will be Brian Danielson.
Speaker 1: That this is pending Danielson accepting it and I guess
Speaker 1: being cleared. But the match will be Brian Danielson one
Speaker 1: on one with Nigel McGinnis, who guaranteed that Oasis would
Speaker 1: play him to the ring. But will Danielson join him
Speaker 1: for the final countdown or will it be the final
Speaker 1: match of the American Coward by the way, I don't
Speaker 1: think he meant that Oasis will actually be their live
Speaker 1: to play him to the ring. I don't think Oasis, frankly,
Speaker 1: is going to show up and perform in front of
Speaker 1: four thousand people in a building that fits twenty. But
Speaker 1: that's up to them. But the way he said it,
Speaker 1: I could see people being very confused. He is going
Speaker 1: to be using his old fucking in the Bushes song
Speaker 1: by Oasis that he came out to at Wembley Stadium.
Speaker 1: But no, I don't believe Oasis is going to be
Speaker 1: there for the first time in fifteen years. Since they're
Speaker 1: fine match and Ring of honor. Both men were supposed
Speaker 1: to be gone off to WWE. They were leaving at
Speaker 1: the same time. They were gonna go and they were
Speaker 1: gonna take their careers to the next level. And Brian
Speaker 1: made it and Nigel never did. He never got past
Speaker 1: his medicals. He had previously torn both of his biceps.
Speaker 1: He never got them surgically repaired because he couldn't afford it.
Speaker 1: He didn't have the money and they told him, look,
Speaker 1: get your arms fixed and then we'll talk, and he
Speaker 1: just he couldn't do it. So he ended up in
Speaker 1: TNA instead, as Desmond Wolf never got that run in WWE.
Speaker 1: The closest thing with WWE that he ever got was
Speaker 1: he was an announcer for them. I think it's great
Speaker 1: that we're finally going to see it. Nigel's been healing
Speaker 1: on Brian on commentary for over a year now every
Speaker 1: chance he gets, We're finally going to get a payoff
Speaker 1: to it. So I like that. The logic gap here, though,
Speaker 1: is completely preposterous. Darby Allen had a guaranteed World Championship
Speaker 1: match already schedule for Grand Slam. He earned it by
Speaker 1: winning the Royal Rampage Match, then Danielson was nearly killed
Speaker 1: at All Out. Moxley tells Darby the champion is indisposed
Speaker 1: and there will not be a championship match, so just
Speaker 1: give me your shot, and Darby says, okay. Now, if
Speaker 1: Brian Danielson is too injured to defend his title and
Speaker 1: Darby is too much of a babyface to turn down
Speaker 1: Moxley's challenge, that's one thing. But to have Nigel McGinnis
Speaker 1: walk out there on the same night where Moxley just
Speaker 1: told us the champion will be unable to defend his
Speaker 1: title and have Nigel bust out a contract already approved
Speaker 1: by Tony Kahn, who just lost his championship match on
Speaker 1: his big Arthur Ash show, already approved the contract for
Speaker 1: a match with Brian Danielson. It just makes absolutely no sense.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't. It's stupid. If Brian is healthy enough
Speaker 1: to compete, then he's healthy enough to defend the time.
Speaker 1: This reads to me like Tony knows he needs an
Speaker 1: attraction to sell tickets for the show. This is going
Speaker 1: to be their fourth time at Arthur Ash Stadium. Their
Speaker 1: first time in the venue, they had twenty thousand people.
Speaker 1: Their second time they were down to thirteen thousand. Then
Speaker 1: they were down to eleven thousand, which is still a
Speaker 1: very healthy number. But now with less than two weeks
Speaker 1: to go, they've only sold forty five hundred tickets. Forty
Speaker 1: five hundred, I mean these days. If this was any
Speaker 1: other dynamite in any other building, that would be a
Speaker 1: hell of a number. Here, it's embarrassing. And we'll see
Speaker 1: how much of a draw Brian Danglson against Nigel McGinnis
Speaker 1: ends up being. Maybe by the next update they'll be
Speaker 1: up over five thousand. In fact, I expect that they
Speaker 1: may already be at five thousand. We just haven't gotten
Speaker 1: an update yet from Wrestle tex So I am expecting
Speaker 1: that by this time next week they will have in
Speaker 1: excess of five thousand tickets sold. They're not there yet,
Speaker 1: but I think they realized that they needed something big
Speaker 1: for this show and this is what they decided to
Speaker 1: do that and with Brian's career winding down, they may
Speaker 1: have felt like it was now or never to do
Speaker 1: this match. I just hate that we may not even
Speaker 1: get a contract signing or a promo battle between these
Speaker 1: two before we see it. We've only got one Dynamite
Speaker 1: left before Grand Slam. There's been no announcement about Brian
Speaker 1: being on the show this coming Wednesday. I hope we
Speaker 1: get something in the ring with the two of them
Speaker 1: before we get to Grand Slam. It all just feels
Speaker 1: so rushed. But now they'll get two matches out of
Speaker 1: it instead of one, and with Danielson and Moxley wrestling
Speaker 1: on the same show, I guess we'll find out how
Speaker 1: that story progresses, because I can't imagine them being in
Speaker 1: the same building at the same time and not doing
Speaker 1: something with the two of them. We'll see if we
Speaker 1: get a Shane McMahon appearance, and where this Blackpool Combat
Speaker 1: Club stuff goes next. Clearly Hangman Page is not getting
Speaker 1: a shot at the AW World Championship at Wrestle Dream
Speaker 1: or any time soon. It seems they still have him
Speaker 1: doing segments with Jeff Jarrett. Maybe that'll be another Grand
Speaker 1: Slam match. I'm sure that'll sell some tickets now. The
Speaker 1: annual PWI Pro Wrestling Illustrated five hundred rankings dropped this week.
Speaker 1: It is worth reminding people, as I do every year,
Speaker 1: this is a worked list based solely on kfabe. It
Speaker 1: is not something worth getting two worked up about, but
Speaker 1: it is always interesting to see who they ranked and
Speaker 1: where they ranked. The evaluation period for this year was
Speaker 1: August first, twenty twenty three through July thirty first, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, and it weighs the following criteria win loss record, championships, one,
Speaker 1: quality of competition, major feuds, prominence within a wrestler's promotion,
Speaker 1: and overall wrestling ability. So here's the top ten. Number
Speaker 1: one on the list. Topping this year's list Cody Rhodes,
Speaker 1: who moves from number ten last year to the top
Speaker 1: spot this year. Now, this would include his win over
Speaker 1: brock Lesnar at SummerSlam last year. It would include leading
Speaker 1: his team to victory in Wargames, winning his second straight
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble match, which had not been done in twenty
Speaker 1: six years. He feuded with the Rock, he got not
Speaker 1: one but two wrestle many of main events, including Night
Speaker 1: two where he ended the run that Roman Reigns had
Speaker 1: been on since twenty twenty and won the championship. And
Speaker 1: it would include the two title defenses he had against
Speaker 1: aj Styles. All of that would be included, and he
Speaker 1: now is the face of WWE. I mean it would
Speaker 1: be Roman Reigns, but Roman isn't around enough to be
Speaker 1: considered the face anymore. Cody's the one who's full time.
Speaker 1: Cody's the one who's been putting in the work. Now
Speaker 1: the creative has not been great. Some people may scoff
Speaker 1: at this and say, oh, this run has been boring,
Speaker 1: this run has been terrible, has not been great. The
Speaker 1: last few months of his run have left a lot
Speaker 1: to be desired through no fault of his own. But
Speaker 1: I have no issue with Cody taking the top spot.
Speaker 1: That's exactly where I would have him, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a tough argument against him being number one, So
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Number two was Swerve Strickland. Can you
Speaker 1: believe Swerve Strickland, especially after the year that he's had
Speaker 1: ranked at number one twelve Last year he shot up
Speaker 1: from one to twelve all the way to number two. Now,
Speaker 1: this period covers his first two matches with Hangman Page,
Speaker 1: which is what cemented him as a top tier talent.
Speaker 1: It cemented him as a main event player in aaw
Speaker 1: It would include his World Championship win at Dynasty and
Speaker 1: that incredible match that he had with will Osprey at
Speaker 1: Forbidden Door, which he won by the way. So Swerve
Speaker 1: being number two again, that makes sense to me. Also,
Speaker 1: I think so far, so good with what I I
Speaker 1: see ranked here. I have no issue would Swerve being
Speaker 1: number two. I would not have him at number one.
Speaker 1: I know that might bother some people, but it shouldn't.
Speaker 1: I think so far they got it right. Number three
Speaker 1: will Ospray, which is up from number seventeen last year.
Speaker 1: He is now in the top three. It's will Ospray,
Speaker 1: So I mean, you're not gonna get an argument out
Speaker 1: of me having him in the top three of your
Speaker 1: top five hundred list. I think bell to bell when
Speaker 1: it comes to just matches and in ringability, will Ospray
Speaker 1: would be number one. So when you take all of
Speaker 1: the other criteria into consideration, him at number three. I
Speaker 1: don't have an issue with that. Number four. Seth Rollins,
Speaker 1: who ranked number one on last year's list, Now he
Speaker 1: comes in at number four. Tetsuya Nito at number five,
Speaker 1: the current IWGP World Heavyweight Champion. Now here is a
Speaker 1: man in Nito who did not even rank in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, which sounds preposterous, even if he had a
Speaker 1: down year. How does Tetsuya Nito not make a list
Speaker 1: for the top five hundred wrestlers in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you see some of the names on this list?
Speaker 1: But as it turned out, it was an oversight on
Speaker 1: the part of the editors, and they admitted that they
Speaker 1: made a mistake. So he goes from not even being
Speaker 1: on the list to ranking in the top five. Nito
Speaker 1: would not be in my top five. This is the
Speaker 1: first one where I looked at it and said I
Speaker 1: have an issue with this. Nito would not be in
Speaker 1: my top five. But for a k FAB list that
Speaker 1: weighs accomplishments, he won the G one Climax, he won
Speaker 1: the IWGP belt from Sonata at the Tokyo Dome. Then
Speaker 1: he lost the title to John Moxley, but he won
Speaker 1: it back in June at Forbidden Door. So that's a
Speaker 1: g one win and two world titles. By the criteria
Speaker 1: of this list, it's hard to argue Number six Damian Priest,
Speaker 1: who moves up sixty five spot from where he ranked
Speaker 1: last year. I mean, inarguably, he just had the best
Speaker 1: year of his career. I mean that cannot You could
Speaker 1: dispute his spot on the list, but you cannot dispute
Speaker 1: that the man just had his best year in the business.
Speaker 1: He's been part of what are the top heel factions
Speaker 1: in that company and in all of wrestling, just I mean,
Speaker 1: based purely on the amount of TV time they get
Speaker 1: and all the different storylines they've been involved in, all
Speaker 1: the segments they get every week. I mean, he's certainly
Speaker 1: been getting a lot of FaceTime. He won the World
Speaker 1: Championship of WrestleMania, He's had a few pl main events.
Speaker 1: Number seven MJF who was down one spot from number
Speaker 1: six last year. You know, it's debatable that I would
Speaker 1: even have him this high up on the list, considering
Speaker 1: he missed over five months due to injury. Five months
Speaker 1: out of this evaluation period he was gone. But it
Speaker 1: would include a chunk of his run as the aw
Speaker 1: World Champion, including the Wembley Stadium match with Adam Cole
Speaker 1: and their whole storyline together. It would include that great
Speaker 1: collision match that he had with Kenny Omega, and it
Speaker 1: would include and also, you know, he had the matches
Speaker 1: with Jay White and with Samoa Joe at World's End,
Speaker 1: whatever you thought of the matches themselves, he did headline
Speaker 1: those pay per views. And it would also include the
Speaker 1: hour long match on Dynamite that he had with Will Ospury.
Speaker 1: So it's debatable having him at number seven, but you
Speaker 1: could argue for it for sure. You could definitely make
Speaker 1: the argument number eight, John Moxley, number nine goother. So
Speaker 1: that would include most of it would be from his
Speaker 1: run as the Intercontinental Champion, and Gunther was having great
Speaker 1: matches on TV with so many different people, not just
Speaker 1: Chad Gable, but just a bunch of different people. Obviously
Speaker 1: the match of WrestleMania with Sammy Zain. So it would
Speaker 1: not include any of like him winning the World Championship
Speaker 1: like that, but Gunther being in the top ten absolutely
Speaker 1: number ten Mystico. Uh, we'll go through the top twenty five,
Speaker 1: number eleven, Samoa Joe, number twelve, Sammy's Ain. Number thirteen
Speaker 1: Drew McIntyre. He should be higher up on this ledge.
Speaker 1: Drew McIntyre as top ten easily for this past year.
Speaker 1: Number fourteen Brian Danielson, who should be much higher than
Speaker 1: he is here. I don't know why these two are
Speaker 1: ranked so low. Number fifteen, Moose number sixteen, Sonata number seventeen,
Speaker 1: jay Usso Rakishi is going to be furious. Number eighteen,
Speaker 1: Elie heldel Vi Kingo, number nineteen, Mostafa Ali number twenty,
Speaker 1: Eddie Kingston, number twenty one, Kazuchka Okada, number twenty two,
Speaker 1: Nick Nemeth, number twenty three, Alex Shelley, number twenty four,
Speaker 1: Orange Cassidy, and number twenty five Alex Kine, who works
Speaker 1: for MLW and had won the MLW World Championship during
Speaker 1: that time. In other spots, I was just perusing the
Speaker 1: list here and had a few interesting observations here. Logan
Speaker 1: Paul came in at number thirty seven. EC three came
Speaker 1: in at number forty as the NWA World's Heavyweight Champion
Speaker 1: for much of that period. Hangman Adam Page actually ranked
Speaker 1: below EC three at number forty two. Joe Hendry was
Speaker 1: number fifty one. Jacob Fought too was down at number
Speaker 1: ninety four. I want you to bookmark this and come
Speaker 1: back at a year he's going to be a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot higher than ninety four. Wardlow ranked at
Speaker 1: number two hundred and forty six, which was eleven spots
Speaker 1: higher than Austin Theory, and Ricky Starks was all the
Speaker 1: way down at number three hundred and fifty two. This
Speaker 1: is despite having matches with Cmpunk and Brian Danielson and
Speaker 1: winning the aw Tag team titles. He was ranked below
Speaker 1: Wardlow for the year. I don't fucking understand that at all.
Speaker 1: But how about this. For the first time since twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: Roman Reigns did not rank in the top one hundred
Speaker 1: of the PWI five hundred. Not only did he not
Speaker 1: rank in the top one hundred, he didn't rank in
Speaker 1: the top five hundred. He was not on the list
Speaker 1: at all. And that's not an oversight. Those are just
Speaker 1: the rules. The rules are that a wrestler needs to
Speaker 1: have at least ten matches for six matches in six
Speaker 1: unique months, within the review period in order to qualify.
Speaker 1: Roman only had six matches total, two of which came
Speaker 1: on back to back days in the month of April,
Speaker 1: so therefore he did not meet the criteria. Therefore, Roman
Speaker 1: Reigns is not in the PWI five hundred. As far
Speaker 1: as who my top five would have been, I would
Speaker 1: have had Cody Rhodes, will Osprey, Swerve Strickland, Brian Danielson
Speaker 1: and Gunther That would have been my top five. Let's
Speaker 1: take some mailbag questions. If you want to send in
Speaker 1: a question, you may do so at the Solo Monster
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Please include your name and where
Speaker 1: you are from. I say it every week and still
Speaker 1: some people don't do it. Zach from Cincinnati. In the past,
Speaker 1: sports talk radio goon Colin Cowherd got a lot of
Speaker 1: heat for calling all pro wrestling fans booger eaters and
Speaker 1: generally making a massive ass out of himself by crapping
Speaker 1: on people like Eddie Guerrero and The Ultimate Warrior when
Speaker 1: they died. He conveniently stopped doing that type of trolling
Speaker 1: when his corporate masters at Fox started carrying WWE programming.
Speaker 1: Now that the relationship is over, how long do you
Speaker 1: think it'll be before he starts being a total dick
Speaker 1: towards pro wrestling again, Well, if AW is going to
Speaker 1: make a deal with Fox, he may have to wait
Speaker 1: a little while. Well, so it may not happen as
Speaker 1: quickly as you think. But if they were to completely
Speaker 1: divorce themselves from wrestling and they don't make a deal
Speaker 1: with AW, it probably won't take very long. Because Colin
Speaker 1: Cowherd as a dick, so nothing would shock be coming
Speaker 1: out of his mouth. I don't really give a shit
Speaker 1: one way or the other what he does because I
Speaker 1: don't pay any attention to him. Matt from New Zealand
Speaker 1: do you think the Darby and Brian match not happening
Speaker 1: would have worked better if you had Darby be the
Speaker 1: one to say that he doesn't want to wrestle Brian
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to win the AW title from
Speaker 1: an injured man? And would you like to see AW? Well, actually,
Speaker 1: before I even get into this, yes, to answer your question, yes,
Speaker 1: almost anything would have been better than doing it the
Speaker 1: way that they did. And would you like to see
Speaker 1: AW use the Continental Championship like the TNA Option C
Speaker 1: and whoever is champion when the Continental Classic starts hands
Speaker 1: in the title and becomes number one contender for the
Speaker 1: world title at world's end. You know, I like that idea,
Speaker 1: I actually do, because to me, the Continental Classic should
Speaker 1: have been for a shot at the aw World Championship
Speaker 1: in the first place. It just bugs me that you
Speaker 1: have a Royal Rampage match, like a random fucking match
Speaker 1: on rampage that is determinative of who the number one
Speaker 1: contender is going to be for your top championship in
Speaker 1: the company. But you have their version of a g
Speaker 1: one this exhausting ruling tournament over a period of four
Speaker 1: or five weeks, and you just get another belt out
Speaker 1: of it. Like, it just bothered me that you didn't
Speaker 1: have a world title shot up for grabs in the
Speaker 1: Continental Classic. This would be something that I think would
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense because everybody would want to
Speaker 1: be Continental Champion. The competition for that title would be
Speaker 1: fierce because everybody would want to be champion. When that time,
Speaker 1: whatever that deadline date is, they know that, Hey, if
Speaker 1: you've got that title, you've got a world championship match
Speaker 1: in your back pocket. I mean, who wouldn't want that?
Speaker 1: So I think that would make things interesting, more interesting
Speaker 1: than they are now Scott in Arizona, been listening since
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. In the se Scoop stays, Wow,
Speaker 1: with all the TNA cross promotion, do you think there
Speaker 1: will be a match or a cameo at next year's
Speaker 1: WrestleMania featuring a TNA talent? If so, who do you think? No?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think we get a Joe
Speaker 1: Henry's surprise cameo in the Royal Rumble match, but otherwise
Speaker 1: I think they're going to keep the TNA stuff to NXT,
Speaker 1: so you might see TNA crossover that weekend at Stand
Speaker 1: and Deliver and someone like Jordan Grace. If she ends
Speaker 1: up with a spot on the WrestleMania card, it's going
Speaker 1: to be because she's officially signed to WWE because her
Speaker 1: TNA deal is up early next year, I think in January,
Speaker 1: and I have every expectation that WWE is going to
Speaker 1: scoop her up as soon as she becomes a free agent.
Speaker 1: Jack from London. Of the ten year anniversary WrestleMania is ten,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty and forty. All of them have had a
Speaker 1: major world title change to end the show with a
Speaker 1: new babyface champion crown in your opinion, which of these
Speaker 1: wins had or will have the more significant effect on
Speaker 1: the wrestling business. Brett Hart, Chris Benoit, Daniel Bryan or
Speaker 1: Cody Rhoades. Well, you know, there's an argument to be
Speaker 1: made for Brett Hart. I'm inclined to go with Cody
Speaker 1: because they use that championship win at WrestleMania to really
Speaker 1: cement him as the face of the brand, and that's
Speaker 1: how they've used him, that's how they portray him. I
Speaker 1: think Cody may end up down the road being someone
Speaker 1: who has even more responsibilities in ww I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know what he wants to do in his future,
Speaker 1: if he wants to get into politics or whatever else
Speaker 1: he has aspirations of doing. Cody is somebody who I
Speaker 1: can see being in the Triple hc or being somebody
Speaker 1: in that corporate role behind the scene. I mean, he
Speaker 1: has EVP experience. I could see him going on to
Speaker 1: even bigger things in the company. But that title win
Speaker 1: a WrestleMania this year is ultimately what really cemented him
Speaker 1: in the spot that he's in now, and I think
Speaker 1: that he will be that guy that they look to
Speaker 1: and that they have in that position for many years.
Speaker 1: To come and it might be him and someone else,
Speaker 1: it might be him in Roman, but that's that I
Speaker 1: think is going to end up being the significance of
Speaker 1: that title win at forty. The argument that you can
Speaker 1: make with Brett is that Brett Hart was already WWF
Speaker 1: champion before WrestleMania ten. Okay, he had already held the
Speaker 1: title once before WRESTLEMANI A ten. It was like this
Speaker 1: bridge that they were about to cross over to the
Speaker 1: New Generation era and it was either going to be
Speaker 1: built around Brett Hart or it was going to be
Speaker 1: built around Lex Luger, and I think Vince wanted Lex,
Speaker 1: but they had that royal rumble that year. They did
Speaker 1: that finish for a reason. They did that finish because
Speaker 1: they wanted to gauge the fan reaction, and the fan
Speaker 1: reaction was overwhelmingly in favor of Brett Hart. That helped
Speaker 1: color their decision. They went with Brett instead of Lex,
Speaker 1: and Brett became the face of the new Generation era.
Speaker 1: That cemented Brett as I feel like this WrestleMania win
Speaker 1: this year cemented Cody in that spot. It cemented Brett
Speaker 1: as a full fledged, you know, main event star. I
Speaker 1: know he had been a main event player before for them,
Speaker 1: But I feel like that WrestleMania win really cemented it
Speaker 1: for him, And you could maybe it's not a straight
Speaker 1: line that you can draw, but if that win is
Speaker 1: what cemented Brett as a full time, full fledged main
Speaker 1: eventor in this company, and you see where he ended up,
Speaker 1: and you see everything that went down with the Montreal
Speaker 1: screwjob and what that ultimately fed into with the Attitude
Speaker 1: era and the rise of the Mister McMahon character, it
Speaker 1: might seem like a bit of a stretch, but not really,
Speaker 1: because if they go at Lex over Brett, who knows
Speaker 1: if Brett ends up back on top in a main
Speaker 1: event spot in that company, and then all these other
Speaker 1: things that happened in ninety six and ninety seven they
Speaker 1: don't happen, and who knows the impact that could have
Speaker 1: had on this whole wrestling timeline here. It's one of
Speaker 1: those great what if questions. So I do think there's
Speaker 1: an argument to be made as far as the overall
Speaker 1: significance of that Brett hartwin relative to all the other
Speaker 1: names you mentioned here, that maybe Brett was frankly the
Speaker 1: most important one. But it's either Brett or Cody's I
Speaker 1: don't think it's Danielson and it's not Ben wah Y
Speaker 1: Jean from Head Over Germany. You've mentioned many times in
Speaker 1: the past that John Cena is for you, mister Royal Rumble,
Speaker 1: But I think Randy Orton would also fit in that conversation.
Speaker 1: In six, seven, nine, eleven, twelve, thirteen, seventeen, and eighteen,
Speaker 1: he was in the final four plus e one two
Speaker 1: of them. What say you? You know he may be
Speaker 1: in the conversation, but he doesn't get ranked over John Cena.
Speaker 1: First of all, they're tied with two Royal Rumble wins
Speaker 1: a piece. Sena, though, has more memorable matches overall on
Speaker 1: those Rumble pay per views. So when I call him
Speaker 1: mister Royal Rumble, I don't mean as far as the
Speaker 1: Rumble match, like just the Rumble match itself. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the Royal Rumble event. He beat Edge for the
Speaker 1: WWE title in two thousand and six. On that show.
Speaker 1: He had that great last man Standing match with Umaga.
Speaker 1: The following year, we had the surprise MSG return in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, Right to Win the Rumble, one
Speaker 1: of the great Rumble moments. He had that classic triple
Speaker 1: Threat match in twenty fifteen with Lesnar and Seth Rollins,
Speaker 1: and then he had the match with aj Styles in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen where he won title number sixteen, and that
Speaker 1: was a great match. The only championship match Orton was
Speaker 1: involved in at the Rumble that's truly memorable was the
Speaker 1: one that he had with Sena in twenty fourteen, and
Speaker 1: it was memorable for all the wrong reasons because it
Speaker 1: just wasn't very good and the crowd didn't care. That's
Speaker 1: not mister Royal Rumble. King Razor from Jackson, Mississippi is
Speaker 1: the Ria Ripley and Live Morgan rivalry, the modern version
Speaker 1: of Trish Stratus against Leda. I've got news for you,
Speaker 1: King Razor. There were a lot of women on the
Speaker 1: current roster, or in the last few years if you
Speaker 1: throw Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch in there, who far
Speaker 1: surpassed Trish and Leda. Now, Trish worked hard to become
Speaker 1: a good wrestler at a time when there just was
Speaker 1: hardly any focus on that with the women in WWE.
Speaker 1: I mean, Vince McMahon made sure of that. Then Trish
Speaker 1: and Leda they headlined one episode of Raw together and
Speaker 1: they made it out to be some big achievement. They
Speaker 1: were fucking Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat
Speaker 1: on the bus. It was this monumental thing in WWE
Speaker 1: Ria and Live, ain't it. I would say Ria and
Speaker 1: Charlotte is probably a more apt comparison, or Charlotte and Becky,
Speaker 1: So I think that would maybe be a more appropriate analogity.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate doing these comparisons because I don't
Speaker 1: look at it that way. It's not that's just generally
Speaker 1: not how my brain works. I don't look at Ria
Speaker 1: and Live or Ria and Charlotte and go, oh, you
Speaker 1: know what this reminds me of. It reminds me of
Speaker 1: trition Leada. People do this a lot with Austin and Rock,
Speaker 1: and I just think it's so it's so unfair to
Speaker 1: anybody to be compared to Stone Cold in the Rock, Like,
Speaker 1: why would you even make that comparison? I mean, there
Speaker 1: are people who have said that about Cody and Roman.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like one A and one B. As
Speaker 1: far as top babyfaces in the company. The only comparison
Speaker 1: like that I would make is that, Okay, at one time,
Speaker 1: Austin and Rock were the two top baby faces in
Speaker 1: the business and in the company. And yes, right now,
Speaker 1: Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns are the two top baby
Speaker 1: faces in the company. Ceempunk would be number three. That's
Speaker 1: about the only comparison I can make, you know. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: Cody and Roman or Cody and Roman, They're not Austin,
Speaker 1: They're not rock and nobody ever will be. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of a similar thing here with Trician Leda. I
Speaker 1: do think that Trician Leda, I mean they were super
Speaker 1: over not taken away from the fact that they were
Speaker 1: major stars for their time. Do I think that they
Speaker 1: get overrated as wrestlers. Absolutely absolutely, And you want to
Speaker 1: compare as far as in ring, there is no compare.
Speaker 1: Attrician Leeda cannot compare to the women of today in
Speaker 1: the ring, bell to bell, and Trisha has gone out there.
Speaker 1: Even last year in the feud with Becky, they had
Speaker 1: that great cage match. Like Trisha, she showed up and
Speaker 1: she was very impressive. But if you want to start
Speaker 1: ranking these women by match quality, if you look at
Speaker 1: their resume and in ring ability, I'm sorry, I mean
Speaker 1: they may have been bigger stars to a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and bigger names, you know, for that era, but they
Speaker 1: can't hold a candle to the women of today. But
Speaker 1: his second question was, knowing what you know about Hulk Hogan,
Speaker 1: would you persuade the kid version of yourself not to
Speaker 1: be a Hogan fan if you went back in time. No,
Speaker 1: I mean that that's I just think that would be stupid.
Speaker 1: What difference does it make, Like when you're a kid,
Speaker 1: you'd be a fan of whoever you want to be
Speaker 1: a fan of. You know, Hogan was the hot commodity
Speaker 1: at that time. He was very charismatic. Some people didn't
Speaker 1: like Hogan even at that age. I had friends who
Speaker 1: didn't like Hogan. They like macho Man more. Some people
Speaker 1: like the Ultimate Warrior more. I was a Hogan guy
Speaker 1: and a Macho Man guy, and I guess an Ultimate
Speaker 1: Warrior guy too for a while because I still have
Speaker 1: that fucking wrestling buddy here somewhere. But no, No, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just that's just ridiculous. Roderick from Baltimore, Maryland, What
Speaker 1: is your twenty twenty four wrestling feud of the year
Speaker 1: so far? For twenty twenty four, I think it has
Speaker 1: to be CM Punk and Drew McIntyre. On that same note,
Speaker 1: I got a question from David in Chicago. It's death Blow.
Speaker 1: David Floyd. We finally got to meet at the House
Speaker 1: of Glory show a few weeks ago. It was good
Speaker 1: seeing you, David. Buy or sell the Swerve Strickland Hangman
Speaker 1: Page feud where the CM Punk Drew McIntyre feud, Swerve
Speaker 1: Strickland and Hangman Page. Definitely going to buy on that,
Speaker 1: gonna sell on punkin McIntyre. I can't say that I've
Speaker 1: I've liked the super hardcore elements of some of the
Speaker 1: matches they've had, like the Texas Death Match or some
Speaker 1: of the stuff in the unsanctioned match from last weekend,
Speaker 1: but as a story and as a feud overall, and
Speaker 1: the matches they've had Swerve and Hangman, I mean, I
Speaker 1: didn't even really have to think about it when I
Speaker 1: got this question. It's Swerve and Hangmen for me. Armand
Speaker 1: h from Puerto Rico been a fan of the podcast
Speaker 1: for almost ten years. Happy birthday, Armando. I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy it. What was up with Mick Foley's shoot promos
Speaker 1: At the end of his WWF run in two thousand
Speaker 1: and one. In one of his final promos, he straight
Speaker 1: up buries the invasion storyline, puts over William Regal, a
Speaker 1: heel and a traitor to the WWF, and puts down
Speaker 1: Vince McMahon, who was technically a babyface at the time.
Speaker 1: How is this allowed? And how isn't this talked about more?
Speaker 1: Foley was not happy with the direction of the company,
Speaker 1: and he knew that he was on his way out,
Speaker 1: so a lot of what he said was more I mean,
Speaker 1: he was trying to weave it into storyline, but it
Speaker 1: was more shoot than KFAE. It wasn't so egregious that
Speaker 1: they were going to cut his mic or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But you know, he said what he said, and after
Speaker 1: that they parted ways and we didn't see him again
Speaker 1: for another couple of years. I think he also, if
Speaker 1: I remember, I think he also wanted the freedom to
Speaker 1: do more outside projects, and his contractors didn't allow him
Speaker 1: to do that. Vince wouldn't allow it. So he just
Speaker 1: wasn't happy, you know, and that was his way of venting.
Speaker 1: And maybe if it was anybody else, I mean, he was,
Speaker 1: he was a legend even by that point. If it
Speaker 1: was anybody else, I'm sure they wouldn't have tolerated it.
Speaker 1: But if he already knew he was on his way out,
Speaker 1: he got nothing to lose. Why not, Camden from the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom. I've been listening to your podcast for well
Speaker 1: over a decade now, since I was sixteen years old.
Speaker 1: I have a buyer sell question for you on the
Speaker 1: better Butterfly effect in WWE Cmpunk walking out the night
Speaker 1: after the Royal Rumble in twenty fourteen leading to Daniel
Speaker 1: Bryant defeating the Authority and main eventing WrestleMania thirty or
Speaker 1: Roman Reigns getting COVID before his Day one match with
Speaker 1: brock Lesner leading to their title unification match at WrestleMania
Speaker 1: thirty eight and Roman's historic four year reign to then
Speaker 1: lose it to Cody Rhodes it wrest forty and finish
Speaker 1: his story. That's a good question the way I look
Speaker 1: at this, If Roman never got COVID, he very likely
Speaker 1: will lose the title that night to brock Lesner at
Speaker 1: Day one, and the rumor going around at that time
Speaker 1: was that Seth Rollins was going to win the WWE
Speaker 1: Championship from Bigie on that show. Now I could also
Speaker 1: see Biggie retaining and then dropping it a WrestleMania. But
Speaker 1: in any event, if Roman loses, he would have gotten
Speaker 1: that belt back from Broga WrestleMania anyway, and things would
Speaker 1: have more or less ended up in the same spot
Speaker 1: with Roman holding that title hostage for the next two years. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe he wouldn't have had them unified and he couldn't
Speaker 1: call himself the undisputed champion, but I think he would have.
Speaker 1: It may not have happened to WrestleMania, but I do
Speaker 1: think they wanted Roman to end up with all the
Speaker 1: gold and Cody ends up finishing his story the same way.
Speaker 1: Cody was going to be the guy. He was going
Speaker 1: to be the babyface to replace Roman. When Roman finally lost,
Speaker 1: they would have found a way to get that WWE
Speaker 1: Championship on him because that's the only belt that really
Speaker 1: mattered to his story, and I think that he would
Speaker 1: have beaten Roman to do it. Daniel Brian, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, despite the groundswell of support that he got
Speaker 1: in the summer of twenty thirteen and then into twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: by his own admission in his book, was still only
Speaker 1: slotted sixth from the top on the preliminary card for
Speaker 1: WrestleMania thirty he was going to wrestle Seamus. They probably
Speaker 1: would have opened the show with it like they did
Speaker 1: at twenty eight. If Brian doesn't give the run that
Speaker 1: he did, he's not as big of a deal as
Speaker 1: he ended up becoming. You know, the Yes Movement stuff
Speaker 1: was their best story from that time period, and they
Speaker 1: had to be drag kicking and screaming to do it.
Speaker 1: But if Punk never leaves, he's wrestling Triple h on
Speaker 1: that show and Randy Orton is wrestling Batista as planned,
Speaker 1: maybe the anger is still strong enough that they turn
Speaker 1: it into a triple threat with Brian. But I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure. B So I'm going to buy on Punk
Speaker 1: walking Out, and I'm going to sell on Roman getting
Speaker 1: COVID because I think Punk Walking Out ended up having
Speaker 1: the bigger effect. William from Calgary. I was watching the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine steel cage match between hul Cogan and
Speaker 1: the Big Boss Man, and I don't ever remember seeing
Speaker 1: Hogan do a top rope supplex before and it got
Speaker 1: me thinking that the rings were hard as concrete back then.
Speaker 1: Do you know how long those rings were hard like that?
Speaker 1: And when did they get changed? That's a famous spot
Speaker 1: and they did that on the house shows too. They
Speaker 1: worked a lot of house shows on those loops back
Speaker 1: in eighty nine. And I mean maybe there were some
Speaker 1: nights they weren't doing it, but they were doing that
Speaker 1: probably almost every night, so on those rings too, So
Speaker 1: think about that. But those rings they were they were
Speaker 1: like concrete. They had no give Brett Hart. Knowing Hart,
Speaker 1: they did the same spot in their cage match at SummerSlam, right,
Speaker 1: go watch the super plex that Brett gave Owen. There
Speaker 1: was no bounce nothing. The rings that wwe use, going
Speaker 1: back to the WWWF days were primarily boxing rings, which
Speaker 1: are naturally very stiff. And it makes sense when you
Speaker 1: think about it, because if you're a boxer, you're not
Speaker 1: taking bumps on the mat, right. You want to have
Speaker 1: solid footing to maintain your balance. What you don't want
Speaker 1: to be doing is constantly falling on it and taking bumps,
Speaker 1: because that's how you end up injured. And that's what
Speaker 1: wrestlers do. What happened is that when Vince got on
Speaker 1: NBC with Saturday Nights made event, Dick Eversoll who and
Speaker 1: this is how the story goes. He was the president
Speaker 1: of NBC Sports Eversoll wanted rings that didn't seem so bouncy,
Speaker 1: because when Vince Junior took over from his dad, it
Speaker 1: wasn't just the boxing rings. It was kind of a
Speaker 1: mix of different types of rings and there was more
Speaker 1: of a bounce. Eversoll didn't think the bouncy rings look
Speaker 1: good on TV. I mean, I'm just assuming he thought
Speaker 1: maybe it made them look too soft or too phony.
Speaker 1: So Vince started using some of the stiffest rings anywhere
Speaker 1: in the business, which are the types of rings that
Speaker 1: I grew up seeing on TV, you know, the ones
Speaker 1: that had no give. So because Dick Eversall didn't like
Speaker 1: the way the old rings looked, you had a generation
Speaker 1: of guys destroying their bodies every single night, especially with
Speaker 1: that ridiculous schedule they kept on the road back then.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until Vince McMahon started taking bumps in the
Speaker 1: ring in the late nineties that I'm sure by mere
Speaker 1: coincidence they suddenly switched to the suspension rings that they
Speaker 1: use now, because before it was just it was an
Speaker 1: elevated ring. You had wood underneath and you had a
Speaker 1: layer of canvas on top. Now they have springs underneath
Speaker 1: that they did not have that years ago. Mick Foley
Speaker 1: said the same thing in his first book. Undertaker has
Speaker 1: said it. Bruce Pritchard has said it that you know,
Speaker 1: the rings got softer once Vince started bumping in them.
Speaker 1: And Gary from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada the home of Marrow,
Speaker 1: Ronalo and akam of aop which is quite the random Pairy.
Speaker 1: I was listening to another podcast recapping the Raw Bowl
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety six, but they didn't go do a
Speaker 1: great job of it, so I was wondering if you
Speaker 1: could shed some light on it. I think it's fitting
Speaker 1: with the start of the football season. Your first problem
Speaker 1: was listening to another podcast, but that's okay. We all
Speaker 1: make mistakes. Raw was head to head that night with
Speaker 1: the Orange Bowl, so Vince McMahon decided to host the
Speaker 1: first ever and last ever Raw Bowl, which was a
Speaker 1: football themed four way match. I think this actually may
Speaker 1: have been the very first four way match ever in WWE,
Speaker 1: at least on television. But it was a four team
Speaker 1: elimination rules match with the Smoking Guns Owen Hart and
Speaker 1: Yoko Zuna, Razor Ramon and Savio Vega Psycho sid in
Speaker 1: the one two three kid. They all wrestled wearing uniforms.
Speaker 1: Earl Hebner was dressed as an NFL referee. They even
Speaker 1: gave him a whistle. Each team was allowed one time out.
Speaker 1: Canvas was green, had hash marks on it to look
Speaker 1: like a football field. They went all in on the presentation.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're gonna do something like this, that's
Speaker 1: the way you do it. I mean, there were so
Speaker 1: many football puns on commentary with McMahon Lawler I lost count,
Speaker 1: and the Smoking Guns received the Steve Lombardi Trophy for
Speaker 1: winning the entire thing. I mean, it was cheesy as
Speaker 1: all hell. But I'll tell you what I would still
Speaker 1: take that. I would take the Raw Bowl over a
Speaker 1: lot of the three hour bore fests that we got
Speaker 1: on that show in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, which
Speaker 1: is one of the worst eras in the history of
Speaker 1: the show. Give me the Raw Bowl. Inject that into
Speaker 1: my veins. I'd rather sit and watch that over and
Speaker 1: over again than watch those episodes of Raw. Thank you
Speaker 1: for all the questions, some good stuff here. Appreciate all
Speaker 1: of the feedback. I like an engaged audience. I am
Speaker 1: engaged to all of you now. I just have to
Speaker 1: figure out where we're registered. You can email me at
Speaker 1: the Soolo Monster at gmail dot com. You can send
Speaker 1: in questions and comments there. You could follow me on
Speaker 1: X For those of you still left on the platform,
Speaker 1: I can't blame you if you're not on there anymore.
Speaker 1: It's a fucking cesspool. But if you are at solo
Speaker 1: Monster is my handle on X. You could, of course
Speaker 1: subscribe to the YouTube channel solo Monster Sounds Off. I'm
Speaker 1: live every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you can catch
Speaker 1: me with JD every Tuesday night for Tuesday Night Titan. See,
Speaker 1: you get a lot of me each week. You probably
Speaker 1: get too much of me, if we're being honest, But
Speaker 1: I know you love me for it, and I love
Speaker 1: each and every single one of you, especially for all
Speaker 1: the support you guys gave me this week and on
Speaker 1: Friday night again, it blew me away. I thank you.
Speaker 1: Let's have a great week coming up. I'm going to
Speaker 1: be live after Raw tomorrow night, not quite two hours yet.
Speaker 1: That starts October seven. See, I'm looking forward to the
Speaker 1: fact that I get to go live an hour earlier
Speaker 1: on YouTube. Once Raw moves to two hours, I mean
Speaker 1: it may only be three but I'm gonna make the
Speaker 1: most of those three months. So anyway, I will see
Speaker 1: you guys this week and next Sunday, I will be
Speaker 1: back here for episode eight eighty of The Solon Monster
Speaker 1: Sounds Up. So until then, be well, stay safe yourselves
Speaker 1: a great week. I almost said to hit the like
Speaker 1: button on the way out because my brain is mush.
Speaker 1: But I will see you back here next Sunday for
Speaker 1: eight eighty. Until then, take care of guys. The Solemn
Speaker 1: Monster Sounds Off. Shannon Sharp was bumping uglies with someone
Speaker 1: and evidently did not realize that it was being streamed live,
Speaker 1: so we couldn't see it. We saw like the floor,
Speaker 1: We saw like a wood floor, but you could hear
Speaker 1: the mony. You imagine me. I'm getting ready to come
Speaker 1: on the stream and I wrap up a great show
Speaker 1: and I think I'm done, but I forgot to hit
Speaker 1: the stop button or whatever, and I pushed the camera aside,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, everyone's in the chat going Solomonster,
Speaker 1: You're still live. And you hear these moans and these
Speaker 1: guttural noises in the background, like, oh, Soli Monster, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could happen to the Solo Monster sounds off, bringing
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