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Speaker 2: Now, PW Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Keller
Speaker 2: Pro Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago.
Speaker 1: This week on the Flagship I was joined by Jasonpollofrompro
Speaker 1: Wrestling Dot Matt. We talked about an excellent episode of
Speaker 1: Raw from the night before and also Newsworthy and explained
Speaker 1: why we thought it was excellent. So we had a
Speaker 1: lot of questions from callers and emailers. We looked ahead
Speaker 1: to smack Down on whether it could deliver a show
Speaker 1: that competed with how good Raw was. Then, in the
Speaker 1: previously VP exclusive after show, we answered more email questions,
Speaker 1: including the new Lowgraffenbalor's potential of winning the Universal title
Speaker 1: at SummerSlam, what was the deal with Sasha Banks beating
Speaker 1: Charlotte for the title so quickly?
Speaker 3: And more.
Speaker 1: So let's get to it again. This originally live stream
Speaker 1: on July twenty six, twenty sixteen. It is today's Wade
Speaker 1: Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast ten years ago flake Ship flashback
Speaker 1: for Sunday, July twenty six, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Here we go.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the p W Torch Live Cast. I am
Speaker 1: Way Keller, editor and publisher of the Pro Wrestling Torch
Speaker 1: week Reeners letter since nineteen eighty seven, and also PW
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Speaker 3: We have a lot to talk about, raw.
Speaker 1: Last night was quite the new beginning, a ton of
Speaker 1: newsworthy things to talk about, and I'm excited to talk
Speaker 1: about them with you, the listeners and the callers. So
Speaker 1: let me see if Jason is here, will bring him
Speaker 1: into the program, and uh, while I do that, I
Speaker 1: just want to let everybody know you can call us
Speaker 1: six four six seven two one nine eight to eight.
Speaker 1: That is six four six seven two one nine eight
Speaker 1: to eight, and let's get some conversations going on raw,
Speaker 1: we have h one of our SummerSlam main events set up.
Speaker 1: It is Finn Balor, who won two matches last night
Speaker 1: in his raw debut, a fatal four way and then
Speaker 1: clean win over Roman Reigns. An interesting story to delve
Speaker 1: into there. I'm very interested in seeing where they go
Speaker 1: from here with both Roman Reigns and Finn Balor. On
Speaker 1: top of that, we have an interesting symme, interesting developments
Speaker 1: on the roster split front intern or the new kind
Speaker 1: of raw format front in terms of new announcer positioning,
Speaker 1: new logo, new opening theme, kind of a new format
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 3: A lot less talking.
Speaker 1: It might have been just a one time I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's a lot less, but I think noticeably
Speaker 1: less talking, but more short interviews in ring interviews, out
Speaker 1: of ring interviews at ringside right before and right after matches.
Speaker 1: And we had the return of basically three squash matches
Speaker 1: that I thought, we're all thoroughly entertaining and helped enhance
Speaker 1: the wrestlers who were winning them and we had a
Speaker 1: major title change with Sasha Banks, surprising I think everybody
Speaker 1: with a win over Charlotte. We have a live SmackDown
Speaker 1: tonight and we'll see what Snackdown has in store for us.
Speaker 1: But I'm excited about what I've seen so far. I'm
Speaker 1: encouraged by what I've seen so far. Let's bring Jason
Speaker 1: Powell from Progressing Dot Need into the conversation.
Speaker 3: Jason, how you doing?
Speaker 4: Hey good? How are you waiting?
Speaker 3: Doing well? It's all you know.
Speaker 1: It's always fun when I go to sit down to
Speaker 1: start the show and end up with munch of technical problems.
Speaker 1: But everything seems to be up and working right now.
Speaker 1: So we just had some ill timed issues. But let's
Speaker 1: focus on what matters most, and that is last night's Raw.
Speaker 1: Pretty universal thumbs up for this show, and fact about
Speaker 1: is strong of a positive response to any wrestling show
Speaker 1: that I can remember. The number of people giving this
Speaker 1: a strong thumbs up and calling it excellent in our
Speaker 1: poll is almost unprecedented.
Speaker 3: Are you in that category, Jason?
Speaker 4: I definitely am. Yeah. This was a show that you
Speaker 4: wanted to see what WWE was going to do that
Speaker 4: was new, fresh, and innovative. They didn't make as many
Speaker 4: big promises for Raw as they did for SmackDown, and
Speaker 4: so my fear going in was that this was going
Speaker 4: to be more of the same, you know, it would
Speaker 4: just be half the crew working the usual three hour
Speaker 4: formatted Raw and SmackDown would kind of get the fresh
Speaker 4: coat of pain. Raw really wowed me, you know, they
Speaker 4: shook things up, and I think the key thing I
Speaker 4: listened to your audio and I said the same thing
Speaker 4: in mind is that they can't do this every week.
Speaker 4: But I also feel like they made enough tweaks and
Speaker 4: enough changes that they have the outline there to make
Speaker 4: this equality show going forward.
Speaker 1: The one concern that I have coming out of this
Speaker 1: program last night, Jason, is sustainability. Is there a way
Speaker 1: for a show to be as newsworthy and refreshing and
Speaker 1: high quality wrestling newsworthy angles I just am concerned that
Speaker 1: this might be setting us up for a letdown in
Speaker 1: future weeks.
Speaker 3: I hope not.
Speaker 1: I haven't had a chance to fully kind of process
Speaker 1: the how I think the show can be paced and
Speaker 1: what the cadence can be going forward. But that's my
Speaker 1: one concern is they got really excited this week, put
Speaker 1: a lot on that show, and we're going to find
Speaker 1: some diminished returns in future weeks because I just don't
Speaker 1: know if you can put this much quality content and
Speaker 1: newsworthy happenings into a show on a weekly basis, or
Speaker 1: even eighty percent of this to keep us at least
Speaker 1: at a seven or eight out of ten instead of
Speaker 1: a nine out of ten score wise.
Speaker 4: No, And again you know the outliner is there, though.
Speaker 4: I think with just the freshness of the show creating
Speaker 4: some new stars, you're not going to I don't see
Speaker 4: them topping this show for a long time. I don't
Speaker 4: think you can give away that much on television on
Speaker 4: a weekly basis. But now you have Sash in a
Speaker 4: position to shine, you have Ben Balor in a position
Speaker 4: to shine. You've given the show that that fresh code
Speaker 4: of pain, you have the broadcast team in a different places,
Speaker 4: you have the new logo, even you're just kind of
Speaker 4: a new look to things. It's week one was great
Speaker 4: and now we kind of wait and see how it
Speaker 4: settles in.
Speaker 1: If you're like me, you got come. We invite your
Speaker 1: calls and we have a bunch of people on hold.
Speaker 1: Let's uh, let's just go to a phone call and
Speaker 1: and try to get some some listener feedback on this.
Speaker 1: Let's go to eight one three. First state your name
Speaker 1: in the city you're calling from.
Speaker 5: Please, Hey, it's Jay from Tampa.
Speaker 6: How y'all doing.
Speaker 3: I'm doing good? Good for me? J has always what
Speaker 3: have you got for us?
Speaker 5: Awesome? First and foremost battleground and Raw was I will
Speaker 5: say excellent. I don't know who would give it anything
Speaker 5: under eight in my opinion, great movement. I guess my
Speaker 5: two questions is UH.
Speaker 6: First, would you say.
Speaker 5: That now separating that the given the UH another championship
Speaker 5: to Raw? It was a necessary evil because it seems like,
Speaker 5: I know we were talking about floating champions before, but
Speaker 5: then we kind of also talked about trying to have
Speaker 5: that division. Having to give a total separation between the
Speaker 5: two brands and to flow the champions seems like you
Speaker 5: then you have to get the writers and created creative
Speaker 5: team in to calibrate, Okay, where's the champion going to
Speaker 5: be this time? And then I don't know how they
Speaker 5: could do a full show and still have to worry
Speaker 5: about who the champion is on the other show, and
Speaker 5: who to send over and who to fuel with. I
Speaker 5: think that part did create a confusion, but even more
Speaker 5: confusion now because then what do you do with the
Speaker 5: tag teams division or the women's division. So it's kind
Speaker 5: of I'm interesting to see how that's going to play out.
Speaker 5: And then my second question is where do you think
Speaker 5: they go from here with Roman Reigns? As far as
Speaker 5: who to feel with next? I think that's one of
Speaker 5: the bigger questions. They bring someone new in with the
Speaker 5: little Samoan comment he made the see Joe come up
Speaker 5: or you know, just in general, what do you see
Speaker 5: them do next with with Roman? And that's all I got.
Speaker 1: Excellent Thanks Jay Good one of the good A topics
Speaker 1: on the program, Roman Reigns. Jason not a great forty
Speaker 1: eight hours for Roman Reigns in a in a if
Speaker 1: in us from a perspective of if wrestling were real
Speaker 1: and Roman has a big match, he loses, he comes
Speaker 1: back as a chance to redeem himself. He uh lose it, wins,
Speaker 1: but then loses again.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: He seemed to take it in stride. He seemed to
Speaker 1: be gracious in losing while looking over his shoulder at
Speaker 1: finn Balor celebrating and you know, just kind of said, hey,
Speaker 1: I hope I get another chance to uh to make
Speaker 1: this to to fix what didn't go right today and yesterday. Jason,
Speaker 1: what what do you think? What do you think they're
Speaker 1: doing with Roman rains at this point?
Speaker 4: Business as usual? Unfortunately, the fact that Stephanie called him
Speaker 4: a loser to start the show and then with him
Speaker 4: being gracious defeat, I mean, hey, I'd like to think
Speaker 4: that these losses are adding up, It's building up the frustration.
Speaker 4: I think you may see that with the USO Brothers.
Speaker 4: I think the Ussos may end up turning heal. And
Speaker 4: part of it is with American Alpha coming in and
Speaker 4: being on the same brand on SmackDown, that can be
Speaker 4: a really good feud. But with Roman, I think it's
Speaker 4: just a little bit of punishment by having him lose
Speaker 4: on some be the one to take the pinfall on Sunday.
Speaker 4: But also, if you look at it, Seth is the
Speaker 4: guy that is in the main event, so that that
Speaker 4: finish makes sense. I mean, yeah, you could have Stephanie
Speaker 4: still put Seth in there, but I think it served
Speaker 4: a purpose to have him lose the triple threat and
Speaker 4: last night it really helps end the message of change
Speaker 4: because had that show ended with Roman beating Balor, even
Speaker 4: in some hard fought match and he endorses Baler afterward,
Speaker 4: it still would have been we would not be talking
Speaker 4: about the show as positively today, and so the losses
Speaker 4: were needed. I think they actually help him more than
Speaker 4: they hurt him.
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea if they keep Roman Array's
Speaker 1: business as usual as a top tier babyface, what who
Speaker 1: will he feud with?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: Who is there for him to if they go to
Speaker 1: Finn Balor and Seth rawlins as a full fledged feud
Speaker 1: and that fills several months of both Seth and Finn.
Speaker 1: Finn is a baby face and Seth is a heel,
Speaker 1: and that's that's presumptuous. There could be a lot of
Speaker 1: things going on with Finn. He came out to a
Speaker 1: Baler club worldwide as a logo in the club, Anderson
Speaker 1: and Gallows might be looking for a new leader.
Speaker 3: I mean, who knows what can happen.
Speaker 1: But if that's what happens, is there somebody who jumps
Speaker 1: out as a good opponent for Roman to kind of
Speaker 1: fill up the rest of summer and fall?
Speaker 4: I think he's a guy right now who does need
Speaker 4: some wins. You know, it was okay to have him
Speaker 4: lose these matches, and so now I'm guessing he starts
Speaker 4: to get some wins back, not just on the House shows,
Speaker 4: but Kevin Owens needs a dance partner. His Fast Program
Speaker 4: with Sammy has concluded. Jericho looks like he's tied up
Speaker 4: with Boaler on the House Show, so I'm guessing we'll
Speaker 4: start to see that play out a little bit. So
Speaker 4: that's just one. I mean, they can't go back to Seamus,
Speaker 4: can they. They can't possibly think Roman Rains and Seamus
Speaker 4: is a good idea. I'll say this, I don't care.
Speaker 4: I enjoy watching Romans matches his bigger matches, like last
Speaker 4: night and on Sunday, but I can't say that. I'm
Speaker 4: just on pins and needles waiting to find out what
Speaker 4: happens next with Roman Rain's character. It's just it's been
Speaker 4: a failure and if they're not going to turn him,
Speaker 4: I just feel like apathy is going to start to
Speaker 4: set in. Evince is just so determined. Boy. When Valor
Speaker 4: made that comment last night about how luck I invented luck,
Speaker 4: I'm irish. And then Roman. I like Romans comeback and all,
Speaker 4: but I was really worried when Finn made that comment
Speaker 4: that it was so cocky and they were going to
Speaker 4: reunite the club. I don't want to see that. You've
Speaker 4: already had aj Styles turnheel. You've had Seth Rawlins turn
Speaker 4: heel directly because they refused to budge on Roman Rain.
Speaker 4: Seth could be in a much better place than he
Speaker 4: is right now. And had they made the same mistake
Speaker 4: with Finn Balor or if they do, I'm just gonna
Speaker 4: throw my hands up.
Speaker 1: The biggest concern I think anybody should have regarding the
Speaker 1: roster split is not the initial phase of it, because
Speaker 1: you can match everybody up once with a dance partner,
Speaker 1: and you know on the roster split, they certainly looked
Speaker 1: at it and planned for Okay, we're gonna split the rosters.
Speaker 1: Here is our first phase, our first chapter of feuds.
Speaker 1: The issue is, once you get past that first phase,
Speaker 1: how do you reshuffle the deck to have fresh matchups
Speaker 1: with everybody. The women's division is thin, the tag team
Speaker 1: division isn't very deep to begin with, so that to me,
Speaker 1: the biggest concern kicks in when we get a little
Speaker 1: deeper into the into the roster split. But the fact
Speaker 1: that we're already struggling to come up with a suitable
Speaker 1: opponent for a babyface Roman reigns is an issue that
Speaker 1: I think needs to be kind of underlined and highlighted.
Speaker 1: What if Roman stays babyface? Who do people want to
Speaker 1: see him against? Do they punish him and make an
Speaker 1: example out of him by having him job twice? Coming
Speaker 1: out of the failure and feud with Bronz Stroman Jason.
Speaker 1: I mean, looking at the lineup, there's not soon, not
Speaker 1: a lot of it. Yeah, yeah, I agree, But I'm
Speaker 1: just I'm looking going, well, maybe it's it's Kevin Owens.
Speaker 3: Then I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's my guess. Is Owens? I mean I'm a
Speaker 4: rocher in front of me?
Speaker 3: Or who Nya Jacks? Does she look good?
Speaker 4: That would be fun well against one another. I don't
Speaker 4: know if that's allowed in WW.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can have a feud for the biggest badass
Speaker 1: simoent On Raw.
Speaker 4: Yeah he'd lose.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Hey everyone, longtime PW George commist Sean radikin here to
Speaker 7: let you know I've rebamped and renewed the Raticant Worldwide
Speaker 7: podcast for twenty twenty six a weekly VIP exclusive. Every week,
Speaker 7: I break down four or five of the biggest trending
Speaker 7: topics in pro wrestling. I also present my analysis, providing
Speaker 7: insight that helps you understand the story better or see
Speaker 7: it another way. Then maybe is the controversial takeout there?
Speaker 7: Then I bring on a special guest for the second
Speaker 7: half the podcast. Sometimes it's a wrestler or someone else
Speaker 7: who works in the business. Other times it's a guest
Speaker 7: analyst who brings their specialized point of view out a
Speaker 7: particular key topic in the news. Recent guests have included
Speaker 7: Bronson Reid from WWE and PCO. One of my areas
Speaker 7: of specialty is the Japan wrestling scene, so I often
Speaker 7: cover a big topic from Japan with PW Torch's own
Speaker 7: Alan Farrell, Kelly Wells, and Chris Lansdell. I don't just
Speaker 7: cover the news. I don't just riff on the news
Speaker 7: or give a standard hot take. I'll bring my decades
Speaker 7: of studying this industry and talking one on one with
Speaker 7: dozens of wrestling promoters to each week's show so you
Speaker 7: understand not just what's happening, but the context of why
Speaker 7: get ahead of the news get ahead of the pack
Speaker 7: with racking Worldwide only at PW Torch vip.
Speaker 1: Jason before we get to another call, what'd you think
Speaker 1: of the presentation of Finn Baller.
Speaker 4: I thought it was good, you know. I mean I
Speaker 4: was worried initially his very first appearance on Raw with
Speaker 4: him just walking out behind a group of other wrestlers
Speaker 4: on the stage, and I'm like, that's not what I
Speaker 4: had in mind. But you know, the key is the
Speaker 4: story they told throughout the night, and by the end
Speaker 4: of the night he came up like a star. I thought,
Speaker 4: I don't know if you noticed this way, but they
Speaker 4: showed the wide arena shot you can see a lot
Speaker 4: of people leaving, like right away, and that worried me
Speaker 4: a little bit that maybe this isn't as hot as
Speaker 4: we think it is. I mean, it sure seemed to
Speaker 4: be with the live crowd. But then when they showed
Speaker 4: that and people are just racing for the exits. I mean,
Speaker 4: usually if it's a guy who's super over like like
Speaker 4: he seemed to be, they stick around for the post
Speaker 4: mac celebration, don't they.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the one of the note notes
Speaker 1: that I made in watching the conclusion of the show
Speaker 1: last night is this is another example of raw at
Speaker 1: three hours and ten minutes is too damn long. And
Speaker 1: remember the crowd gets there even true for that, and
Speaker 1: I don't I mean Daniel Bryan spoke about how nobody
Speaker 1: wants to be in that third hour, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean when he was an active wrestler, he was like,
Speaker 1: when you look at the format sheet, you dread ending
Speaker 1: up in that third hour. Even Daniel Bright at the
Speaker 1: peak of his popularity, he didn't want that. This is
Speaker 1: a problem. It happens constantly that there are wrestlers, feuds, outcomes, matches,
Speaker 1: title changes that should look like it's it's a hot
Speaker 1: territory back in the eighties and the seventies where crowds
Speaker 1: ald go nuts or something, but by the time something
Speaker 1: big happens, they're exhausted. I don't want this to be
Speaker 1: a complaining show because it was one of my favorite
Speaker 1: rods ever last night, but I can't underline enough, and
Speaker 1: I just it's I think it needs to be said
Speaker 1: and not just put on the back burner and accepted.
Speaker 1: Three hours and ten minutes, three hours and five minutes,
Speaker 1: it's too long for a wrestling show. It's a money
Speaker 1: grab in the short run, that is killing a lot
Speaker 1: of things that should come across as really hot and
Speaker 1: or kill damaging. Maybe he's a better word. Finn Balor
Speaker 1: was celebrating in front of a crowd that wasn't reacting
Speaker 1: like a World Series victory. They weren't reacting like a
Speaker 1: Daniel Bryan victory. They're reacting like a tired crowd who
Speaker 1: weren't quite sure exactly what they saw. You know, every
Speaker 1: Aragna is going to be different, but you know that's
Speaker 1: the problem with hot shotting. With a new wrestler and
Speaker 1: a new format and kind of a new era and
Speaker 1: you want to shake things up, that journey isn't there.
Speaker 1: People haven't been along for the ride, so there's not
Speaker 1: that exhilaration.
Speaker 3: Of finally achieving something.
Speaker 1: I'm not again shooting people to the top, though I
Speaker 1: think that you have to do that, and I think
Speaker 1: the sacrifice is sometimes fans aren't on board yet and
Speaker 1: you're just telling them get on board. This guy is good.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what they were going for with this, and.
Speaker 4: I do think it worked. I think people are going
Speaker 4: to be excited if they didn't know if Finn Balor
Speaker 4: coming into this or had little exposure to him. They
Speaker 4: have to come out of this being pretty excited. I
Speaker 4: thought the video packaged did a nice shot. It wasn't
Speaker 4: sure if they would show the Demon, but they basically
Speaker 4: showed every NXT incarnation of I believe, and I think
Speaker 4: people have to be so if you're not familiar with Fin,
Speaker 4: you're like, what is that? And that's going to be
Speaker 4: a fun moment when he builds up to that point
Speaker 4: where he comes out as the Demon, even though he's
Speaker 4: challenging for the WWE Universal Championship at SummerSlam. I hope
Speaker 4: that's not it. I hope they really do save that
Speaker 4: moment for just a key point in the program. He
Speaker 4: builds up to a feud and it's the blow up
Speaker 4: as he's done in n xty when he's brought that out.
Speaker 1: On the other side of our first break here, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the Universal Championship and our thoughts on that.
Speaker 1: Also coverage of not only the draft, the launch of
Speaker 1: the new Raw, the launch of the new SmackDown Live Battleground,
Speaker 1: but also a really fun Hall of Fame weekend that
Speaker 1: Bruce Mitchell, Todd Martin, Travis Bryant and I took part in.
Speaker 3: In Waterloo, Iowa.
Speaker 1: It is a major pro wrestling hall of Fame and museum,
Speaker 1: the Dan Gable Wrestling Museum, the George Tregos luth thes
Speaker 1: Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame had their annual convention and
Speaker 1: awards ceremony. Bob Beckland, Iron Chic, Alex Luger via video screen. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a whole other story, and JJ Dillon getting a
Speaker 1: prestigious award getting emotional on stage, Tully Blanchard and his
Speaker 1: daughter Tessa Blanchard getting emotional and accepting an award on
Speaker 1: behalf of their late father and grandfather respectively.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: It was a really fun weekend and we talked a
Speaker 1: lot about that, including the first ever torch rye along audio.
Speaker 1: On the ride back north from water to Waiowa to
Speaker 1: Minneapolis Saint Paul on Sunday, Bruce Mitchell, Travis Bryant, Todd
Speaker 1: Martin and I talked for nearly an hour on the
Speaker 1: car ride about our weekend and shared our thoughts on it.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. We also almost left
Speaker 1: Todd in a cornfield in Iowa. It's a practical joke
Speaker 1: and then we thought better of it. Lots of fun
Speaker 1: stories from the weekend amazing time. Bruce and I did
Speaker 1: long audio shows like seventy five minutes a second night
Speaker 1: and close to an hour the first night, recapping everything
Speaker 1: that was happening, really taking you behind the scenes on
Speaker 1: our interactions with the wrestlers and you know, little controversies
Speaker 1: here and there, and just great, really fun observations of
Speaker 1: a tremendous weekend. And that all comes instantly when you
Speaker 1: go VIP for a dollar, So we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: also right after the break. But first a word about
Speaker 1: our homepage for this show and the way that you
Speaker 1: access shows on demand and listen to past shows in
Speaker 1: our archives. I'm joined by Jason Powell from Pro Wrestling
Speaker 1: dot Net, and it's always great to have Jason with us,
Speaker 1: and this is a great week to have him with
Speaker 1: us because there's so much going on that is new,
Speaker 1: and one of them is the Universal Championship. Bill Watts
Speaker 1: For people who are familiar with nineteen eighties wrestling, when
Speaker 1: he did what a lot of promoters at the time
Speaker 1: were doing, which is trying to shed the regional name
Speaker 1: of his promotion in the mid eighties, and he was
Speaker 1: the mid South wrestling promoter and he was very proudly
Speaker 1: the promoter of Mid South wrestling until the WWWF started
Speaker 1: expanding and they had the name World Wrestling Federation. They
Speaker 1: were building themselves as a worldwide organization, not just regional.
Speaker 1: The NWA had the name National Wrestling Alliance to work with,
Speaker 1: so they had that national name world Class Championship Wrestling
Speaker 1: regional promotion that was expanding their syndication across the country.
Speaker 3: UH.
Speaker 1: They were based in Dallas, Texas, but their name inherently
Speaker 1: wasn't regional world Class Championship pressing. It didn't say Texas Championshipressing,
Speaker 1: so that that didn't peg them as being overly regional.
Speaker 1: Same with a w A on ESPN and national syndication
Speaker 1: American Wrestling Association. Even though they were mainly a Midwest
Speaker 1: based territory, they had a name that played nationally better.
Speaker 1: Mid South wrestling didn't play nationally very well. So he
Speaker 1: changed the name of his company to the Universal Wrestling
Speaker 1: Federation and his champion was the Universal Champion, not a
Speaker 1: world champion. He didn't overlap the term world with his
Speaker 1: own world title, as everybody else had done a w
Speaker 1: A and w A and heck, even World Class got
Speaker 1: in the game on that he called his champion the
Speaker 1: Universal Champion, Jason Paul, this had been done before.
Speaker 4: Do you like this?
Speaker 1: If there's going to be two major singles champ two
Speaker 1: major singles heavyweight champions, one on raw, one on SmackDown,
Speaker 1: do you like the w W you champion and the
Speaker 1: World Champion better?
Speaker 3: Or does this work for you?
Speaker 1: A Universal champion and a world champion on competing brands
Speaker 1: And for you to answer, I need to turn your
Speaker 1: mic back on, and I just did, so there you go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I do prefer WWE World Heavyweight. But
Speaker 4: I also, I mean, as much fun as I had
Speaker 4: mocking WWE Universal last night, I think it's going to
Speaker 4: be doll Stigler like when the first few times you
Speaker 4: hear it, it's going to sound awkward, and overtime it's
Speaker 4: going to be fine. I mean, the World Wrestling Council,
Speaker 4: that's what they've used for their championship for many years.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's their biggest championship in Puerto Rico, and
Speaker 4: so it's been done before. I guess my question for
Speaker 4: you is do you think that in time that title
Speaker 4: just sounds more significant than the WWE Championship gets SmackDown,
Speaker 4: Even though they have the lineage. Did they long term
Speaker 4: get the shaft? You think they benefit from getting the
Speaker 4: main championship in the long comes the WWE Universal Championship.
Speaker 3: I think it's good.
Speaker 1: I think what's going to matter most to fans is
Speaker 1: how the title is treated and who holds it and
Speaker 1: new challenges for it, and how it's positioned on the cards.
Speaker 1: I think both names work. I think that World Wrestling
Speaker 1: Entertainment or WWE Heavyweight Champion is less wordy than WWWE
Speaker 1: World Heavyweight Champion, And considering world is what the first
Speaker 1: w stands for it, it was always somewhat redundant. I
Speaker 1: think they wanted to give the impression, hey, these are
Speaker 1: two unified titles, and they wanted to run with that
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. I don't mind them shortening it.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that the SmackDown based title has
Speaker 1: the lineage of the history of WWE on its side
Speaker 1: that works in its favor.
Speaker 3: But you know, really, ultimately.
Speaker 1: Stuff like this matters, but what matters more is how
Speaker 1: it's positioned, how it's treated, who the champion is, and
Speaker 1: in what regard it is presented to the fan base.
Speaker 1: So I think this works for me and it also
Speaker 1: just sheds. It's feeling like just a rerun of what
Speaker 1: they did last time. You know, why did you unify
Speaker 1: the titles if you're just going to split them up again.
Speaker 1: Now it's like this whole new championship, And I think
Speaker 1: they started off with nine good contender seth as a
Speaker 1: number one draft pick and the most recent champion who
Speaker 1: never lost his title, and eight more qualified wrestlers, including
Speaker 1: a new hot star and Finn Balor.
Speaker 3: They hope.
Speaker 1: I think that they've set up a foundation for it
Speaker 1: seem like a legitimate title to fans. But again, once
Speaker 1: we get past this phase, it really is just going
Speaker 1: to be do people want to watch the show and
Speaker 1: watch the title matches on the network, The backstory will
Speaker 1: mean a little bit less, sort of like Vince mcmanthought
Speaker 1: of the Monday Night War, the legacy of the Raw
Speaker 1: brand would mean everything, and almost instantly people were willing
Speaker 1: to abandon the legacy of Monday Night Raw for this
Speaker 1: new shiny toy called Monday Nightro. So it really just
Speaker 1: it's it's whatever is. If it's done well, they'll watch.
Speaker 1: Let's go on a Jason.
Speaker 4: Well with you have the universal title on Raw? What
Speaker 4: in God's name. Do they call the what I assume
Speaker 4: will be the SmackDown tag titles and women's title. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't think they're just going to label it SmackDown.
Speaker 4: Is it worth rebranding the women's and tag titles that
Speaker 4: are on Raw Universal as well? Just for consistency.
Speaker 1: If they have two women's titles, then I think they
Speaker 1: probably should be consistent. If they only have one, I'm
Speaker 1: not really I think they can have the w W
Speaker 1: Women right that it's a mood point, yeah, But if
Speaker 1: they have two tag championships then yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think they should probably stay consistent on Raw with the
Speaker 1: Universal Championships, unless they think they're going to be flipping
Speaker 1: the titles around in some sort of you know, weird
Speaker 1: trade or something like that, at which case that will
Speaker 1: get really confusing. If you know, at one point all
Speaker 1: the Universal Championships are on Raw, but then one of
Speaker 1: the championships switches, and now it just becomes a mass.
Speaker 1: So it might be better just keep them identified with
Speaker 1: the division that they're in.
Speaker 4: All right, I've already cast my vote for WWE Intergalactic
Speaker 4: Planetary Tag Team Championships.
Speaker 3: You've always called yourself that.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, going way back. All right, let's go to
Speaker 1: our next call. Let's go to four or four next
Speaker 1: four A four. Please state your name and where you're
Speaker 1: calling from.
Speaker 6: Jam from Atlanta?
Speaker 3: Hey, Jamal, what have you.
Speaker 5: Got for us?
Speaker 6: You know, I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon. It was
Speaker 6: a pretty good show and Monday Night Raw everything mattered
Speaker 6: to kind of remind me of like like late like
Speaker 6: ninety nine, two thousand, like raw, like everything made sense,
Speaker 6: everything slow, you knew why everything was happening. I just
Speaker 6: have two things. First about Roman Rings, how much do
Speaker 6: y'all think that it's like it's more of a punishment
Speaker 6: to him or is it more of like them moving
Speaker 6: Finn Balor and you know, solidify him as a star.
Speaker 6: Do you think it's a little bit of both? Which
Speaker 6: one do y'all think is more about? And do you
Speaker 6: think that like you know, if that didn't happen with
Speaker 6: him getting suspended, with this happened with Finn Balor? And
Speaker 6: also I just wanted to get your thoughts of like
Speaker 6: the people that didn't get drafted, like the injured, the
Speaker 6: injured stars, like like Nikki Bella and like Typhon Kidd
Speaker 6: and go to the two that come to my come
Speaker 6: to my, what do yall think that they're going to do,
Speaker 6: like if when or if they come back. Do you
Speaker 6: think they're going to have like a big deal. Do
Speaker 6: you think they just going to just put them on
Speaker 6: a show or do you think they're gonna have like
Speaker 6: a big like free agent signing thing about it.
Speaker 3: Or yeah, I said something like that, that's all great, yeah, Joe,
Speaker 3: good good topics.
Speaker 1: I think that if if Roman had not been suspended, Jason, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe the ratings would have scared them away anyway. But
Speaker 1: I think we probably would be looking at Roman raigns
Speaker 1: against Seth Rowlins a summer slign for the championship. I
Speaker 1: think this is a change of course, uh, based on
Speaker 1: in part TV ratings, struggling and wanting to create a
Speaker 1: spark for things, but also yeah, sending a message to
Speaker 1: the locker room that you know, and and to Roman
Speaker 1: you know, be careful. We got a wellness policy and
Speaker 1: we want you to adhere to it.
Speaker 3: Jason, your thoughts and here comes brock Leisure.
Speaker 4: But with Roman, I think it's a game chang. He
Speaker 4: probably doesn't drop the championship when he did, certainly, and
Speaker 4: I don't know that he would have dropped it at Battleground.
Speaker 4: That might mean, for all we know, Finn Balor may
Speaker 4: have ended up on the SmackDown side. They may have
Speaker 4: been giving him this push on that side of the
Speaker 4: brand split instead it. I do think it's kind of
Speaker 4: a combo that, hey, we're going aggressively with Balor and
Speaker 4: we're going to use Roman to some extent to help
Speaker 4: get there. It may be a game changers far as
Speaker 4: what they do with Roman's character. I mean, you've talked
Speaker 4: about it. Wait, I've talked about this is a potential
Speaker 4: out for Vince McMahon too. He can say face now
Speaker 4: and now you know. I was gonna it would have worked,
Speaker 4: but now that he got this wellness policy, I needed
Speaker 4: to turn him. I don't think that's going to happen
Speaker 4: based on what we saw last night, but I can't
Speaker 4: say for sure that it won't. So yeah, that's a
Speaker 4: big one.
Speaker 1: I think that the change, the change of course with
Speaker 1: Finn Balor. I just want to slip this in is
Speaker 1: something that WWB needed with a struggling rate. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that creating a new star with the brand
Speaker 1: with a roster split out of the gate is really
Speaker 1: valuable and so I don't think it should and that
Speaker 1: might have been the attitude of Vince mc mann that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not so much punishment for Roman, as
Speaker 1: here's a story that we can tell, but mostly we
Speaker 1: need to get somebody new over and get them over
Speaker 1: fast and create more depth on the raw roster by
Speaker 1: creating a star and making them a star coming right
Speaker 1: out of the gate. And so as we talk about
Speaker 1: you know, Roman and punishment and how that works, I
Speaker 1: think part of it has to just be seen as
Speaker 1: you know, this is just a desire to deepen the
Speaker 1: roster by creating a new star right out of the gate.
Speaker 1: I think that when Shinsky and a Kamura or an
Speaker 1: injured wrestler, and I hope Tyson Kid can come back,
Speaker 1: but I'm not convinced he will, that we will see
Speaker 1: a kind of an announcement by the Commissioner or the
Speaker 1: GM saying, well, we've been in a negotiating battle and
Speaker 1: we are proud to wnen ounce that we have signed
Speaker 1: free jin shins Kan Nakamura.
Speaker 3: Something to that degree. They could also do it where
Speaker 3: wrestlers choose.
Speaker 1: You know, we are thrilled that chins Kannakamura has chosen
Speaker 1: our brand, our show as where he wants to wrestle
Speaker 1: as a new signing who got promoted from XT Jason.
Speaker 3: How do you think they'll handle it? How do you
Speaker 3: hope they handle it well?
Speaker 4: I think it was very smart not to load up
Speaker 4: the draft with a lot of surprises. I don't know
Speaker 4: that it would have gone any differently. I mean, they
Speaker 4: could have peased that there were going to be some
Speaker 4: of that might have helped a little bit. I know
Speaker 4: on the pre shows they had kind of a wild
Speaker 4: card where you could pick someone outside of the established roster,
Speaker 4: and I was wondering if that would carry it over
Speaker 4: to the draft. And I know there's some disappointment that
Speaker 4: they just stuck with the people that were listed as
Speaker 4: eligible that ain't go outside. Save that, you know, you
Speaker 4: have all these weeks of programming. I think it's smart too.
Speaker 4: If there are any big names coming up, to introduce
Speaker 4: them at a later date, I think it's okay that
Speaker 4: you staggered that. So if they do bring in some
Speaker 4: free agents, as it sounds like they're going to, I
Speaker 4: think you do doesn't have to be stars, it can
Speaker 4: just be guys are going to help out. If they're
Speaker 4: a big enough name, if they have a little bit
Speaker 4: of name value from the past, then yeah, you make
Speaker 4: a fuss over them. Either you put it on the
Speaker 4: talent that chose to go to SmackDown over Raw, or
Speaker 4: you'd say that they get a hot free agent signing
Speaker 4: and you make it just kind of a surprise. There's
Speaker 4: different ways of doing it. It depends on the person.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't think they're gonna there's gonna be
Speaker 4: like a I don't think there's gonna be like some
Speaker 4: moreitorium on signing talent. I think if they want to
Speaker 4: introduce a new talent on SmackDown Tonight, even they could
Speaker 4: They could have Shane say that he's been working to
Speaker 4: sign this person do a deal, and they could go
Speaker 4: ahead and do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: How would you like to get all your favorite sports
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Speaker 1: Excellent Jason, Let's go to our next phone call, continued
Speaker 1: talking about mostly predominantly last night's Row.
Speaker 3: I'm excited.
Speaker 1: We're just about six hours away from the debut of SmackDown,
Speaker 1: and that is going to be interesting what they do
Speaker 1: in terms of camrangles presentation, the new logo, the new
Speaker 1: intro song, but also what they do to set up
Speaker 1: some new feuds and how Danny Brian and Shane McMahon
Speaker 1: respond to in excellent Raw. I thought it was interesting, Jason.
Speaker 1: They talked about viewership numbers. Vince McMahon had kind of, well,
Speaker 1: not kind of, he had outright said that the commissioners
Speaker 1: the gms would be judged on ratings and viewership and
Speaker 1: social media and all that stuff. And Michael Cole and
Speaker 1: Corey Grays are breaking about not breaking actually talking about
Speaker 1: how SmackDown beat Raw last week in the ratings, and
Speaker 1: then Corey Grave said, yeah, but that's because all the
Speaker 1: Raw superstars were on SmackDown. That changes this week. Jason,
Speaker 1: He's probably right, it probably does. But do you think
Speaker 1: last night's Raw got people more excited to tune in
Speaker 1: and watch SmackDown Live? And did they do a good
Speaker 1: job with I know three or four commercials throughout the
Speaker 1: show really stressing that SmackDown goals live next, because if
Speaker 1: they're competing, you don't want the announcers on Raw overtly
Speaker 1: promoting SmackDown. So they got a little bit of a
Speaker 1: challenge there in terms of promoting. You know, the show's
Speaker 1: cross promoting each other. They have to kind of stick
Speaker 1: to the pre recorded commercials coming in and out of
Speaker 1: the brakes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there weren't a lot of them last night.
Speaker 4: I didn't like that they didn't give away anything in particular.
Speaker 4: It was just kind of the same I believe, any
Speaker 4: of the same kind of generic video. It was a
Speaker 4: fine commercial, but just pretty random. You know, you could
Speaker 4: run that commercial pretty munch any week, it seemed like.
Speaker 4: But I think, yeah, Raw, I would It left me
Speaker 4: more excited. Battleground left me more excited about seeing Raw,
Speaker 4: left me more excited about being smacked Down. I don't
Speaker 4: know that that's going to be their case every week,
Speaker 4: but yeah, I really want to see what they have
Speaker 4: in mind for SmackDown. I was more excited about SmackDown
Speaker 4: this week than Raw going in again because they didn't
Speaker 4: make a big foss about giving Raw there's big makeover
Speaker 4: as much like Annuel Brian and Shane McMahon. We're spending
Speaker 4: so much time talking about all the changes that we're
Speaker 4: coming to SmackDown and Shane got control and all of that.
Speaker 4: And now that you know, now that we've seen what
Speaker 4: Raj's done, I'm very anxious to see just what they
Speaker 4: can do differently. I mean, it's amazing that Bence mcmahnon
Speaker 4: Kevin Dunn kind of broke from their pattern on Raw,
Speaker 4: and so now you have to think that they've got
Speaker 4: some other ideas for SmackDown too. Wow, what's going on
Speaker 4: with those two ways? This is a This is a shocker.
Speaker 1: I talked on the way Keller Hotline asterday for VP members.
Speaker 1: They hit every checkbox that I had almost for what
Speaker 1: to do to improve and tweak and freshen up Raw.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about the last, you know, six and
Speaker 1: a half years of this live cast. I think it's
Speaker 1: six and a half years now that we've been doing this.
Speaker 1: I've asked for squash matches, a fresh approach in terms
Speaker 1: of the positioning of the announcers, fresh announced teams, squash matches,
Speaker 1: pre match in ring or some ringside promos or backstage rolls,
Speaker 1: leaning into it video.
Speaker 3: I haven't talked about a lot.
Speaker 1: I haven't talked about this as much, but I'm a
Speaker 1: p opponent of having short video packages on the wrestlers
Speaker 1: competing in the main events. USC does this, you know,
Speaker 1: they show you a video package and some so I'd
Speaker 1: like to I'd like to have seen Roman Reigns and
Speaker 1: Fin Baler warming up backstage, kind their boots, you know,
Speaker 1: doing you know, stretching whatever kind of a locker room
Speaker 1: camp type thing like UFC does. But that little interaction
Speaker 1: with them backstage helped. And the the I mean, I
Speaker 1: could go on really. I mean, there's this long list
Speaker 1: of things that they did, and I like just about
Speaker 1: every change that they made. Every one of them lines
Speaker 1: up with things that I've advocated. The squash matches, the
Speaker 1: one sided jobber matches that we saw with Curtis Axel
Speaker 1: and in the women's match too, and the the adorable
Speaker 1: beating that Bronz Stroman's opponent did.
Speaker 3: I can't think of his name right off.
Speaker 4: He was a great James Elsworth wrestling God.
Speaker 3: That was fantastic, Jason.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is what I've been pushing for, and
Speaker 1: I've been pushing back against people going who would ever
Speaker 1: watch a squash match because it's short and you get
Speaker 1: to see the entrance, and you get to see James
Speaker 1: Ellsworth type characters take a beating, and you get to
Speaker 1: see wrestlers do their signature moves. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this will keep up, but I would love to see
Speaker 1: one squash match per hour on Raw every week. It
Speaker 1: gives wrestlers again, this was a case where they're trying
Speaker 1: to debut new wrestlers, or or I don't debut new wrestlers,
Speaker 1: you know, give a fresh start to bron Strowman, debut
Speaker 1: Naya Jacks. To a degree, maybe there's not a reason
Speaker 1: for squashes every week, I'm still for it. I would
Speaker 1: love to see two, if not three squashes per Raw,
Speaker 1: basically one per hour, to kind of break up the
Speaker 1: format of just having even Stephen matches with second tier
Speaker 1: wrestlers wrestling longer matches that nobody cares about.
Speaker 3: Your thoughts on that aspect, Jason, I just.
Speaker 4: Give me more squash matches that involve people other than
Speaker 4: the social outcast. Give me real job ors, you know,
Speaker 4: bring in bringing Ellsworth types. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 4: if you can strict Gold like he did with Ellsworth
Speaker 4: every week I mean that guy was just a a
Speaker 4: complete piece of work with such a great throwback.
Speaker 3: He'll do autographs. We grew up on Jason.
Speaker 1: He can do autograph shows for like a decade based
Speaker 1: on that one appearance.
Speaker 4: I don't want anyone's autograph and wrestling would I would
Speaker 4: stand in line for it.
Speaker 1: Yes, yep, Oh we got an email related so let
Speaker 1: me bring this up Jason. Hugh James of Glasgow, Scotland
Speaker 1: says simple things make a difference. The pre match interview
Speaker 1: with James Elsworth was great, as was the post match
Speaker 1: with Roman. No memorized scripts with stupid phrases. Nobody uses
Speaker 1: real talk with guys who are in the moment. Wade,
Speaker 1: You've been an advocate of enhancement talent matches for a
Speaker 1: long time and I think it appeals to all types
Speaker 1: of fans. Casual fancy talent looking dominant and impressive, whereas
Speaker 1: the smart fans find them fun and intriguing to watch
Speaker 1: because they have these goofy, awkward characters without the great
Speaker 1: physiques and good bodies. Why is it one of the
Speaker 1: only things I remember from Bound? Why is one of
Speaker 1: the only things I remember from Bound for Glory twenty
Speaker 1: thirteen is norv.
Speaker 3: Furnham.
Speaker 1: At the same time, though I didn't enjoy the Naya
Speaker 1: Jacks match. There's something about female size mismatch enhancement matches
Speaker 1: I don't like. Guess I'm more concerned about a green
Speaker 1: woman hurting a female jobber than the male equivalent. Thanks
Speaker 1: and keep up the great work. So anyway, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean su positive feedback on the squash for man, I
Speaker 1: feel wwe did a good job representing what I've been
Speaker 1: advocating about that and I really really hope they continued.
Speaker 3: Jason.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't remember the brit something was the woman's
Speaker 4: name that they used, and I'd look at her as
Speaker 4: an enhancement wrestler. I look at the Great James Elsworth
Speaker 4: as a job or to me, in my mind only
Speaker 4: there's a difference, and I thought it was fine. I
Speaker 4: thought it was an effective showcase for Naya. I love
Speaker 4: that she picked her up in old school heel fashion.
Speaker 4: I'd like to see her even taking a step further
Speaker 4: when she's squashing people initially to ask for a five
Speaker 4: count like King Kong Bundy used to. I think that
Speaker 4: would be a lot of fun. But the difference to
Speaker 4: me between there's not a whole lot of different between
Speaker 4: the Naya and Bronze Stroman matches other than you know,
Speaker 4: Ellsworth just had the amazing charm. But the key to
Speaker 4: me is these were more effective than Neville beating Curtis Axle.
Speaker 4: That doesn't mean anything. Everyone beats Curtis Axel. And yeah,
Speaker 4: you know that, you knew NYA was going to win,
Speaker 4: You knew bron Strowman was going to win, and especially
Speaker 4: with Elsworth in there, you couldn't take your eyes off
Speaker 4: the screen. You know where Curtis Axle comes out. Believe me,
Speaker 4: I can take my eyes off.
Speaker 3: The screen absolutely, all right, I mentioned it earlier.
Speaker 1: Let's get a full plug in here for the lukekrate service,
Speaker 1: who are part of that community that luke crate talks about.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. Check it out luke crate dot com.
Speaker 1: Coupon code pw torch saves you three bucks back to
Speaker 1: the phone lines we go. You can also send us
Speaker 1: an email during the live cast. Pw torch live cast
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com is our email. Tomorrow Pat McNeil
Speaker 1: will be talking SmackDown and more, and then I'll be
Speaker 1: back on Thursday with a new live episode of Interview
Speaker 1: Thursday and then Friday. Bruce Mitchell let Travis Bryant, who
Speaker 1: were with me for nine or ten straight days, let's
Speaker 1: see seven, eight, ten straight days we saw each other
Speaker 1: until drove them to the airport yesterday. They'll be on
Speaker 1: the live cast to talk about a busy weekend wrestling
Speaker 1: and I'm sure share some of their experiences from over
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame weekend. Also really really fun time
Speaker 1: Kyle Klingman and the whole crew over at the Dan
Speaker 1: Gable Museum and the Trego Stays Hall of Fame in Waterthough,
Speaker 1: Iowa just did a spectacular job with a really putting together,
Speaker 1: really fun weekend for wrestling fans. I met so many
Speaker 1: pw torch dot com readers, PW torch live cast listeners,
Speaker 1: people who have heard me on the Steve Austin Show.
Speaker 1: I was as a member of the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: I was inducted last year with the Jim Melby Award
Speaker 1: for Excellence in writing on Professional Wrestling. Dave Melcher, the
Speaker 1: Wrestling Observer, inducted this year. We were next to each
Speaker 1: other sitting in the autograph line and just it was
Speaker 1: great just taking pictures with readers and listeners and getting
Speaker 1: to meet so many of you from around the country
Speaker 1: and Big Ee was there. Had a chance chat with
Speaker 1: him about the New Day gimmick and his connection now
Speaker 1: to the museum and what a pleasure it was to
Speaker 1: have him make the trip to Waterloo to support the
Speaker 1: museum and be part of that. Stan Larry Hanson might
Speaker 1: have been the highlight for me though Jason, of the
Speaker 1: whole weekend. It was bar closing time. We both had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a buzz and he was all
Speaker 1: smiles as I gave him a hard cell. A hard
Speaker 1: sell to appear on the Paw Torch Live cast. He's
Speaker 1: one of the wrestlers I haven't had a chance to
Speaker 1: interview who I would love to have on this show
Speaker 1: or do a torch talk with. He was one of
Speaker 1: my favorite wrestlers in the nineteen eighties. He was one
Speaker 1: of the all time greats overall in the work he
Speaker 1: did in Japan in the nineteen nineties was phenomenal to
Speaker 1: really cool guy. I got to meet him and his son.
Speaker 1: I had some fun giving him the hard cell as
Speaker 1: he was saying goodbye to family and friends and heading
Speaker 1: to the elevator at the hotel. There's pictures up by
Speaker 1: the way of that, on my Twitter feed, you can
Speaker 1: follow me at the Wade and you can also friend
Speaker 1: me on Facebook. It's Facebook dot com slash Wade Keller
Speaker 1: Torch and there's some really cool pictures from the whole weekend. Again,
Speaker 1: that's Facebook dot com slash Wadekeller Torch if you want
Speaker 1: to friend me on Facebook. Some good conversations about the
Speaker 1: weekend are up on the site. Also, Alex Luger received
Speaker 1: a prestigious award at the Hall of Fame, but couldn't
Speaker 1: be bothered to show up because after agreeing to be
Speaker 1: inducted and go to the Hall of Fame, he got
Speaker 1: a better offer to go somewhere else and get paid
Speaker 1: more money, and so he sent in a video. And
Speaker 1: I think it speaks for itself what I think of
Speaker 1: that decision on his part. I think for his reputation,
Speaker 1: for his marketability to the fans who want his autograph,
Speaker 1: I think he would have been better off for going
Speaker 1: a brief a one time payday and fulfilling his commitment
Speaker 1: to a museum that is not a nonprofit that bestowed
Speaker 1: upon him and honor that quite frankly, he didn't deserve,
Speaker 1: as in terms of his accomplishments in the ring, his
Speaker 1: association with Luthes or George Tregos or that museum. I
Speaker 1: kind of tilted my head at from the beginning, but
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know what he's been through some
Speaker 1: tough times and he's rebounded from it, and if he's
Speaker 1: got a story to tell, and it fits the spirit
Speaker 1: of that award, and it's an inspirational story, and he's
Speaker 1: willing to come in and, as a big name from
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties and late eighties, be part of a
Speaker 1: four horseman panel. Because Tully Blanchard, JJ Dillon and Magnum
Speaker 1: Tia were part of a four horseman panel talking about
Speaker 1: the four Horseman days, Lex Luger was supposed to be
Speaker 1: part of that and I thought, well that that makes
Speaker 1: some sense. You don't have him come in as one
Speaker 1: of the horsemen. And nope, he took a bigger pay
Speaker 1: day somewhere else and left the museum hanging. So I
Speaker 1: want to thank Lex Luger for continuing to be the
Speaker 1: class act that he was always say full of sarcasm.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people were really disappointed with
Speaker 1: with his decision, and I think he'll he'll pay a
Speaker 1: price in immeasurable ways, but it was disappointing and if
Speaker 1: I if I'm missing any side of this story, I
Speaker 1: welcome Lex Lucur to explain himself. But he was kind
Speaker 1: enough to send in a one or two minute video
Speaker 1: talking about how much the award meant to him, which
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people just kind of groaned at.
Speaker 1: And we're waiting for everyone to move on.
Speaker 3: So there I go.
Speaker 1: I had to get that off my chest because I
Speaker 1: believe in this museum and I know all hard Clyle
Speaker 1: Klingman and the whole team work there, and I thought
Speaker 1: that was a real lame snub on his part and
Speaker 1: very selfish, and he deserves to take a blow to
Speaker 1: his reputation for the choice that he made. All right, well,
Speaker 1: now go to the phone lines and continue talking about
Speaker 1: whatever it is you want to talk about. I suspect
Speaker 1: it'll be Battleground ron smackedun related.
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Speaker 1: Let's go to ericode nine one two, next nine one two.
Speaker 1: Please state your name and where you're calling from.
Speaker 9: Michael Gorgeous, Hey Michael, thanks for Colin.
Speaker 3: What have you got for Jason to me?
Speaker 6: Roy?
Speaker 9: Last night was a great show. Everything Mattered, which doesn't
Speaker 9: have it in a while, and both the Fatal four
Speaker 9: Ways that were pretty good, except that they did like
Speaker 9: the suicide, eyed out over the rope and just took
Speaker 9: out everybody.
Speaker 4: But I like how the.
Speaker 9: Announced tables weren't there so they couldn't use them and
Speaker 9: had a difference. They're just like you throwing someone's head
Speaker 9: on it. I thought it fine in the crowd. I
Speaker 9: don't know if you saw it, but it's had Biggie
Speaker 9: Stout diving because apparently, like during all his ABBY matches,
Speaker 9: he does something almost hurt himself every time. Yeah, I
Speaker 9: don't know if you've noticed that.
Speaker 1: I was scared for him on Sunday it was looking Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was he doesn't need to do it, you know,
Speaker 1: didn't need to do the moon salt. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: certain he's a power wrestler. He doesn't need to prove
Speaker 1: that he's a high flyer, and he's gonna hurt himself.
Speaker 1: He's going to derail New Day and all their momentum
Speaker 1: for a completely needless spot just to try to prove
Speaker 1: some something that doesn't need to be proven. He should
Speaker 1: be the power wrestler and not the guy who's diving
Speaker 1: over and through ropes. So I actually like that fan sign.
Speaker 1: And by the way, somebody like Biggie doing a big spot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes him look good, but it also diminishes the
Speaker 1: smaller wrestlers and what they do that sets them apart.
Speaker 1: You know, Biggie has power. That's that's his niche, that's
Speaker 1: his forte. That's what should get him over if he
Speaker 1: starts doing you know, crazy dives. It actually, I think
Speaker 1: undercuts a little bit what what wrestlers like Neville and
Speaker 1: Finn Balor and aj Styles do so for for lots
Speaker 1: of reasons, Mostly I just don't want to see Biggie
Speaker 1: get hurt because I'm really enjoying what he's doing right
Speaker 1: now with New Day on the mic and in the ring.
Speaker 1: You know, I hope WWE takes heat of that sign
Speaker 1: and it just says, you know, stop it.
Speaker 3: You don't need to do this.
Speaker 4: But if he wants to buster at once a year Mania, okay,
Speaker 4: we can talk. But yeah, I mean this has become way,
Speaker 4: it's just part of his act now, it's unnecessary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, We'll go ahead. I jumped in while
Speaker 3: you were talking, Michael.
Speaker 9: Another thing is like with like New Days world record
Speaker 9: title reign, it kind of annoys me how they only
Speaker 9: like defend it every other.
Speaker 3: Month, so.
Speaker 9: They would have done it like a week before or
Speaker 9: a couple of days before I defended their titles before
Speaker 9: they would have broke the record. I feel like a
Speaker 9: little bit more, especially if they did break in instead
Speaker 9: of just oh, we're not defending our title for a
Speaker 9: whole month saying we got the record. Who my final
Speaker 9: thing is? The main event was pretty good. I just
Speaker 9: the only thing that annoyed me was hav they not
Speaker 9: forget saying Roman.
Speaker 10: Is so strong?
Speaker 9: Well, of course, since Valor's like have this size. I
Speaker 9: like how they made Valor star. If they made Roman win,
Speaker 9: I would have like quit wrestling or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's all I got, Michael, don't hang up. You got
Speaker 1: a little muffled and said what you didn't like about
Speaker 1: the main event? What was the aspect that you said?
Speaker 10: Oh?
Speaker 9: Was that uh annals? You kept saying, looks how strong
Speaker 9: Roman is, this sheer power, But Valor is half his size,
Speaker 9: so of course you can gotcha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jason, I gotta say I almost started to feel
Speaker 1: bad for Roman almost because they in that four way
Speaker 1: match that he was it was designed for him to
Speaker 1: get over and he couldn't even get cheered against Seamus,
Speaker 1: they were booing him, and he's beating up Shamous. Nobody
Speaker 1: gets booed beating up Shamus. And also when he was
Speaker 1: working with Jericho, Jericho's done an amazing job getting himself
Speaker 1: over as a real heel. I thought his highlight reel
Speaker 1: with Randy Orton was one of the highlights of his career.
Speaker 1: I was such a fan of what he did with
Speaker 1: Randy on Sunday at Battleground and he couldn't get he
Speaker 1: couldn't get any cheers, he couldn't get a break. And
Speaker 1: then of course against Finn Balor, who's a babyface, that's
Speaker 1: probably not gonna happen either. Roman Rans is doing good
Speaker 1: work in the ring. I felt like that post match
Speaker 1: interview with him was the most real that he's come across.
Speaker 1: And I just whether it's as a fac or a heel,
Speaker 1: I want him to find his lane, find his groove,
Speaker 1: have somebody writing for him, who's who's better in tune
Speaker 1: with who he is, or even even more ideally, break
Speaker 1: away completely from scripted promos and just give him bullet
Speaker 1: points and let him be the guy that we see
Speaker 1: when he's hanging out with Rene Young on ww MEAN
Speaker 1: Network Now that said, when he's been let loose on
Speaker 1: media interviews, sometimes he's make some boneheaded statements that undercut
Speaker 1: his character. That's made me convinced that he's going to
Speaker 1: be much better as a heel when that day comes.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, did you have even an inclination Jason
Speaker 1: to feel a little bad for Roman by the end
Speaker 1: of the show.
Speaker 4: No. The only time I really did was Stephanie when
Speaker 4: during her promo when she called him a loser, because I, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's the heel, Stephanie, but it's also like the first
Speaker 4: time that you've seen him on raw since the suspension,
Speaker 4: and it just felt like it was a bit much,
Speaker 4: especially if he's the guy you're mad at. Why are
Speaker 4: you turning around and giving him and yet another chance
Speaker 4: to win the title. You know, it's a new title,
Speaker 4: but it didn't even make sense from his consistency standpoint,
Speaker 4: elevating Seth to the main event and did I didn't
Speaker 4: like it. I was not a fan of it. I
Speaker 4: just say, go ahead and let set to earn his
Speaker 4: way too. But once you saw it, okay, they're going
Speaker 4: with four waves, I kind of understood it, but it's
Speaker 4: I don't I just yet, You're trying to get over
Speaker 4: a new championship, and we're already playing the heel general
Speaker 4: manager games with it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, we got to get our third break
Speaker 1: in our first hour. Here the programmer right around the
Speaker 1: one hour mark, So let's go to our third break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we're going to take more phone calls,
Speaker 1: more emails, and comment more and everything going on in wrestling.
Speaker 1: A very big week so far, with a really fun
Speaker 1: evening to come. I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing what
Speaker 1: they do with SmackDown. As you mentioned, Jason, what are
Speaker 1: they gonna do to make SmackDown seem fresh? Because to me,
Speaker 1: Ross stole all the ideas I had. Have the announcers
Speaker 1: on the stage stand with their back to the ring,
Speaker 1: new camera angles, new music, in ring interviews. It's all
Speaker 1: the stuff that I thought they would do to differentiate SmackDown.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious if they have anything new that will
Speaker 1: look different than the old SmackDown but also different than
Speaker 1: last night's Raw. I hope they do, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: to see what they come up with to differentiate the
Speaker 1: shows and make them seem like the same production team
Speaker 1: didn't come up with changes for both shows. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure we're going to get that back down.
Speaker 4: I think I think their new calling card is going
Speaker 4: to be it's the only weekly television show where you
Speaker 4: can see a wrestler be put through a broadcast table.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 1: With the mounts of the art ring side, that might
Speaker 1: be the case. At least they no one can They
Speaker 1: won't be subject to fans with cameras taking pictures of
Speaker 1: the script over their shoulders anymore.
Speaker 3: But anyway, all right, let's go to our break. When
Speaker 3: we come back, more calls.
Speaker 1: We're back with Jason Powell from Pro Wrestling dot Net,
Speaker 1: and we are taking your phone calls. Let's go to
Speaker 1: our next call on the phone banks, We've got Erico
Speaker 1: three or five, three or five things for calling.
Speaker 3: Please take your name and where you're calling from.
Speaker 10: Hey, guys, DJ from Miami adj.
Speaker 3: What have you got for us?
Speaker 10: I got two things. My first thing is the title.
Speaker 10: I don't know abouue you guys, but I cringed name.
Speaker 10: I don't know how many jokes I saw on Twitter already,
Speaker 10: but why do you think they picked that name? Of
Speaker 10: all names? And my second thing is hold on.
Speaker 1: I don't know what's wrong with it as Jason pointed out,
Speaker 1: if you know your wrestling history, the Universal Championship was
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico's main title. Bill Watts had the Universal Championship
Speaker 1: when he changed his name from Mid South to the WF.
Speaker 3: It's it's just a name for a title. I don't get.
Speaker 1: I don't get I don't understand the resistance to it,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to know what a better option is.
Speaker 10: I just I mean that name. I don't know why,
Speaker 10: but like it just doesn't stick out. Maybe it's SmackDown,
Speaker 10: but now Raw, Like maybe the Raw should be the
Speaker 10: heavyweight champion and then SmackDown should be that, you know
Speaker 10: what I mean, because Raw main show. I guess maybe
Speaker 10: I'm thinking, you know what I mean, I don't think
Speaker 10: that title sounds a good name for Raw compared to
Speaker 10: you know, SmackDown or you know, NXT.
Speaker 11: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, hopefully the wrestlers are the angles
Speaker 1: are good and none of that really matters all that much.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's acceptable.
Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah, And I mean I was really refreshed on
Speaker 10: the announced team. I'll I'll just put that out there.
Speaker 9: I'm I've been watching this for a year.
Speaker 1: Then was great, Hey, j I want to take one
Speaker 1: thing out time here, Jason you quick review for Corey Graves.
Speaker 1: I thought he was really refreshing to hear him for
Speaker 1: three hours.
Speaker 4: Big thumbs up. And I got to say Michael cole'sm
Speaker 4: been better the last couple of nights. I thought he
Speaker 4: had a nice night at Battleground. I thought he was
Speaker 4: better last night. Byron is the problem. And it's not
Speaker 4: even so much what he says during the matches. Always
Speaker 4: it's that weird need they have to make him look
Speaker 4: like a jackass. I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 4: they always have him do something when he's on camera
Speaker 4: that he it's like they think it's endearing, and it's
Speaker 4: just a huge turn off. It kills his credibility. It
Speaker 4: has to stop.
Speaker 1: Yes, I agree, it's it's kind of the push. It's
Speaker 1: it's the Ron Elcer version to push someone into the pool.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's just Evince does just seem like he can't not
Speaker 1: be picking on somebody. And I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: like this Jock Thermmel, We're all getting along and we
Speaker 1: pick on somebody, and friends do that with friends. But
Speaker 1: I think it just undercuts any kind of anything that
Speaker 1: Byron has going for him in terms of people taking
Speaker 1: him seriously.
Speaker 3: It gets a little much. I'll go ahead, DJ.
Speaker 2: Out kept put my comment that I really fee would
Speaker 2: have had Jerry Lawler because I think that Jerry Lawler
Speaker 2: and Graves could have bounced wrestling things off each other
Speaker 2: and then made Michael colemore hype. I think that that
Speaker 2: has been great compared to you know back you know
Speaker 2: that's the same thing. I think the same thing that
Speaker 2: that that you know he's the main one.
Speaker 3: He even needs to leave yep.
Speaker 2: But my second thing is real quick is I just
Speaker 2: don't know where they're gonna go and snack down. I
Speaker 2: feel like right after I don't know, do you guys
Speaker 2: think that they don't know what's gonna go on and
Speaker 2: they're still deciding what's good about Do you think it's
Speaker 2: gonna be a three way uh and SummerSlam or do
Speaker 2: you think that right after Summers it's gonna be a
Speaker 2: j and and.
Speaker 4: And Dean that's it, Jason, what do you think if
Speaker 4: we're talking title mess? They could I mean, I don't
Speaker 4: know what's next for Dean Ambrose. That's one of the
Speaker 4: things that intrigues me about Tonight's show is figuring out
Speaker 4: what that is. Because you look at John c and
Speaker 4: AJ Styles, you would think they would be having their
Speaker 4: rubber match, if you will, because seeing it did beat
Speaker 4: Styles in the six man tag. I didn't like that
Speaker 4: by the way. I thought it was kind of the
Speaker 4: reason you had a six man tag was to avoid
Speaker 4: having John cen to get his win back. And you
Speaker 4: say it for SummerSlam. But maybe the fact that they
Speaker 4: are even now means that somehow they will come up
Speaker 4: with a triple thread with Dean Ambrose defending against both guys.
Speaker 4: I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we gotta wait and see DJ any closing comment,
Speaker 1: We got to get to other callers with the time we.
Speaker 3: Got left here.
Speaker 10: That's pretty much it.
Speaker 2: You just I hope they really, you know, will find
Speaker 2: out tonight if you know if they can.
Speaker 9: Top braw or be Let me ask you did you guys.
Speaker 10: Say, what's what the rating is going to be for SmackDown.
Speaker 1: And for a good, good, good time Jason to predict
Speaker 1: we got two point two ratings for nine second?
Speaker 3: What do you what do you think? What do you
Speaker 3: think this week?
Speaker 4: Two point two? Last week? I will say that and
Speaker 4: I don't think there's as much much interest in the
Speaker 4: early part of the Democratic Convention as there was Republican
Speaker 4: last week. I'll say Raw the night after a pay
Speaker 4: per view, I'm gonna go all the way. I think
Speaker 4: they can get to a two seven. I really do SmackDown.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't have a strong feel for
Speaker 4: that sixty second. I think there's a good chance that
Speaker 4: I think they stay around the same, which I think
Speaker 4: is fine because I last week it was about the draft.
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny what they actually said was true,
Speaker 4: the rating that SmackDown God was actually about that. But
Speaker 4: Battleground was good. Raw was good. Raw left me wanting
Speaker 4: to see SmackDown, and so maybe that carries over and
Speaker 4: they do get that. They do bring up most of
Speaker 4: last week audience back to see what the new SmackDown
Speaker 4: is all about.
Speaker 1: I'll predict two point four something for Raw and a
Speaker 1: two point zero something for SmackDown. That's those all right,
Speaker 1: those are my numbers. We'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 3: How we do.
Speaker 1: You know that last segment you're just listening to and
Speaker 1: the next one that you're waiting to listen to, those
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Speaker 3: All right, Tom, do we know yet?
Speaker 4: And we figured out when they brag about the rating,
Speaker 4: are they bragging about viewership?
Speaker 3: Well, they breaked about both. The viewership is in a
Speaker 3: weird quirk.
Speaker 1: Last week for SmackDown was higher than rob but the
Speaker 1: rating for Raw was higher than SmackDown because they were
Speaker 1: so close and not for I don't want people's eyes
Speaker 1: to glaze over. But my understanding is that viewership includes
Speaker 1: everybody who watches for a few minutes, and the rating
Speaker 1: is the average number of people watching at any given
Speaker 1: time that's translated into a percentage of all people with
Speaker 1: access to the show, So there's a slightly different formula
Speaker 1: for each. So a rating can be lower, but the
Speaker 1: viewership can be up because it means more people watched
Speaker 1: for a short amount of time. So nevertheless, but it
Speaker 1: was basically a tie last week, I mean really within
Speaker 1: the margin of error. So they braked about both, or
Speaker 1: they weren't.
Speaker 3: In brag.
Speaker 1: They acknowledged both last night, most week, most weeks, it
Speaker 1: won't matter. Cole said that SmackDown had a bigger rating
Speaker 1: last or more viewers last week. And then I think
Speaker 1: I think it was Corey who said, yeah, we drew
Speaker 1: a bigger rating than them, and it's just one was true,
Speaker 1: one wasn't. But they essentially tied. So all right, nine,
Speaker 1: thanks for holding. Please state your name and where you're.
Speaker 3: Call it from.
Speaker 11: Guess my name is Casey.
Speaker 3: I'm cutting from Laredo, Casey from where Laredo, Texas?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh cool, excellent what you got for us.
Speaker 11: I just had a few comments on one. Since Raw
Speaker 11: is getting a new championship, do you believe that they're
Speaker 11: going to split up the tag team champions?
Speaker 9: Sorry if we already.
Speaker 12: Spoke about this.
Speaker 11: And two is that, since SmackDown has a small roster,
Speaker 11: do you believe that they will have their pay per
Speaker 11: views on Sunday as like rawwood or do you think
Speaker 11: they'll have their like pay per view themed matches on Tuesdays?
Speaker 11: And those are my two questions.
Speaker 3: All right, thanks?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think smack Down, Jason won't do what Impact
Speaker 1: has done, you know, where they basically have pay per
Speaker 1: views on their TV shor or anything like that. I'm
Speaker 1: not quite sure if I fully understand that that question.
Speaker 1: But what Jason, what's the latest on the pay perview
Speaker 1: schedule and brand or show specific pay per views on
Speaker 1: the schedule.
Speaker 4: There's a schedule that got out a while back that listed,
Speaker 4: you know, other than the big four pay per view
Speaker 4: months so everything. It was just for the remainder of
Speaker 4: the year, but it was a two pay per views
Speaker 4: per month aside from what must be November for Survivor
Speaker 4: series and obviously August with Summer Slam, so starting in September,
Speaker 4: and someone in WWE, I'm under I was told kind
Speaker 4: of yeah, that's pretty close, and so I think you're
Speaker 4: going to get separate Raw and separate SmackDown pay per
Speaker 4: view events. They are both listed for Sundays, nothing saying
Speaker 4: they can't change that going forward if they feel like
Speaker 4: they can do something on a different night. I kind
Speaker 4: of wish they would experiment with another night. It would
Speaker 4: be fun, but they're going to it looks like they'll
Speaker 4: stick with Sundays, and so you'll get a raw pay
Speaker 4: per view on one one Sunday. A couple of weeks
Speaker 4: later you'll get a Smacked Down.
Speaker 1: The tag titles, Stephanie did not say we need to
Speaker 1: have our own Take Team Championship. Well, we're wait a second.
Speaker 4: Are they already have them?
Speaker 1: They already have them, So that's right. So we're going
Speaker 1: to see tonight if Daniel, Brian and Shane say we
Speaker 1: need to have Take Team champions and if they do,
Speaker 1: do you think it'll be Intercalactic tag titles as you mentioned.
Speaker 4: Jason, Intergalactic Planetary Tag Team Champions because they have the
Speaker 4: best boys reunite to come out and introduce these titles.
Speaker 4: I think you will see SmackDown get its own set
Speaker 4: of tag titles.
Speaker 3: I think they.
Speaker 4: I'll lead the door open slightly. I think we're also
Speaker 4: going to get a women's championship. I'll lead the door
Speaker 4: open slightly that Sasha as a babyface wants to be
Speaker 4: a fighting champion and go back and forth if they
Speaker 4: feel like there's a depth issue. But I think you're
Speaker 4: just going to see SmackDown get its own Women's Championship,
Speaker 4: and I guess we'll have to wait and see what
Speaker 4: the name is. That's why if they do this, that's
Speaker 4: why I'm in favor of just rebranding everything on Raw
Speaker 4: Universal as far as the world titles are concerned, and
Speaker 4: if SmackDown has its own Stepper one, just go with
Speaker 4: whatever they're going to call it, rather than well, there's
Speaker 4: the w WE Universal Championship and the w w E
Speaker 4: Tag Team Championship on Raw, but on SmackDown there's the
Speaker 4: WWE Championship and then some weird game for the women's
Speaker 4: and you know, it's just it's too much. They need
Speaker 4: to simplify that.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with that. All right, let's go to
Speaker 1: irego two one o x two one. Oh, thanks for
Speaker 1: calling to state your name and.
Speaker 3: Where you call it from.
Speaker 12: Hey guys, James and Santonio, Hey.
Speaker 3: James could do from you? What have you got for us?
Speaker 7: Hey?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 12: So, I think pretty much everything about the shows it's
Speaker 12: pretty much been said.
Speaker 11: I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4: Of course.
Speaker 12: The easiest thing I could say is is kind of
Speaker 12: what what's old is new again? That's kind of how
Speaker 12: it felt to me. Is they they you know, went
Speaker 12: back in time a little bit by moving the uh moving,
Speaker 12: moving the announcers to where they were, and making it
Speaker 12: more about the entering product. I felt so I feel
Speaker 12: like they were pushing less stuff down our throats like
Speaker 12: than they normally do. I feel like they're always, you know,
Speaker 12: throwing out all these different twitters and and all these
Speaker 12: different things, but like they did less of that.
Speaker 9: One thing it was missing to me was Vince McMahon.
Speaker 9: I felt like this show like he took the week off.
Speaker 12: Or something, and like his fingerprints, I couldnt see him
Speaker 12: on this show at all. It just really seemed like
Speaker 12: it was like, this does not seem like a show
Speaker 12: that he would approve of or put out and just
Speaker 12: want to see your guys take on that.
Speaker 3: See. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I've been an advocate for the roster split because I
Speaker 1: felt that it would give SmackDown a chance to if
Speaker 1: Vince McMahon was willing to let some other ideas that
Speaker 1: same with Kevin Dunn and the normal people with all
Speaker 1: the influence on Ron' SmackDown. You give them a chance
Speaker 1: to step away Jason and let somebody else have a
Speaker 1: vision and tweak some things that Vince just would.
Speaker 3: Think wasn't worth the trouble or why would you do that?
Speaker 1: Or that stupid and be free of that kind of
Speaker 1: criticism or gofying and just instead let someone do it.
Speaker 1: And if SmackDown Jason had been what Raw was last night,
Speaker 1: I would have felt vindigated, vindicated from the criticism or
Speaker 1: the skepticism or the cynicism that this could be possible.
Speaker 1: And then Raw went and stole all the SmackDown's thunder.
Speaker 1: I mean, this really did feel like a show with
Speaker 1: a different vision.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Yes, we had a talking segment at the beginning with
Speaker 1: Stephen Hunt and Foley. I could not believe people were
Speaker 1: complaining we didn't see more of them as a show
Speaker 1: went on. My god, no, thank you that they're I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: we saw them on Battleground, and I mean they're going
Speaker 1: to be a presence, but don't we don't need a
Speaker 1: lot of them.
Speaker 3: This was a show.
Speaker 1: After they did the necessary setup of announcing the championship
Speaker 1: and the Fatal Four Ways and the Summer Slam Step.
Speaker 1: They got out of the way and we let the
Speaker 1: announcers be announcers, and the wrestlers be wrestlers, and the
Speaker 1: interviewers be interviewers, and it worked.
Speaker 3: Jason.
Speaker 1: If this had been SmackDown, I'd have been like, this
Speaker 1: is what I said the day that we talked about
Speaker 1: the roster split. Let somebody with a different vision really
Speaker 1: differentiate the shows. It's why I'm really really intrigued by
Speaker 1: what they do with SmackDown tonight. I don't know what
Speaker 1: goun invincement man in either allowing somebody to change things
Speaker 1: up this much, but I would call that the biggest
Speaker 1: overhaul to Raw in a lot of little ways that
Speaker 1: added up visually and format wise, the biggest change that
Speaker 1: I could remember. I guess since they, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of upped their game up against Nitro when they had
Speaker 1: to after having a pre taped one hour format and
Speaker 1: they went live and really kind of changed things. I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued as we hear more about the behind the
Speaker 1: scenes aspects of what went into Raw, and I hope
Speaker 1: they are, as I said, able to differentiate SmackDown equally exactly.
Speaker 4: This has to be an exciting time in WWE for
Speaker 4: people and creative for people in production, because you know,
Speaker 4: they've had a lot of ideas that have just been
Speaker 4: ignored because they were so set in their ways and
Speaker 4: everything was just so formula. But now all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: apparently Vince Pickman is open to change, and Kevin Dunn,
Speaker 4: whether he wanted to he or not, he has to
Speaker 4: be open to change based on what we saw last night,
Speaker 4: And for all I know both guys are responsible for
Speaker 4: everything we saw, I doubt that's the case. It just
Speaker 4: seemed like they were finally open to a major overhaul.
Speaker 4: It was needed, it worked, and the interesting thing is
Speaker 4: they weren't really promoting that for Raw. Raw was just
Speaker 4: a Stephanie and Mick, and Mick was kind of echoing
Speaker 4: what Daniel Bryan had to say, and so I was
Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, we're going to get a new logo,
Speaker 4: and that's all I really knew. I didn't know we
Speaker 4: were getting this big overhaul like they did, And so
Speaker 4: I went in with my guard down and was came
Speaker 4: away Barry pleased.
Speaker 1: I do want to mention MMA torch dot com as
Speaker 1: our sister brand and there's big news coming out of
Speaker 1: the Fox event over the dot com and pwtorch dot com.
Speaker 1: Jason the enhancement line at Battleground by Randy Orton and
Speaker 1: brock Lesner. Speaking of brock Lesner here, Romeo says, was
Speaker 1: the enhancement line for Morton on Sunday scripted? Will brock
Speaker 1: Lesner care about it? And we'll WWB book Lessner any
Speaker 1: differently against Orton because of the drug tests? Will Randy
Speaker 1: get in more offense than he would have before? Might
Speaker 1: he even win?
Speaker 3: Good email? What do you think of that, Jason?
Speaker 4: Does brock Lesnar know about it? If you think crock
Speaker 4: sitting at home watching the network WWE network, I.
Speaker 1: Think he has a cell phone and self service in Saskatchewan.
Speaker 1: I think they have self service up there. I bet
Speaker 1: he's heard. Paul Hayman probably called him antill.
Speaker 4: He may have heard. I mean, if possible, somebody gets
Speaker 4: some worked up about but he has to know this
Speaker 4: is a possibility. If they didn't talk to him about
Speaker 4: it ahead of time, I mean, it's all over the place.
Speaker 4: He should be thankful that WWE isn't turning him into
Speaker 4: as I feel like they should. They should be suspending
Speaker 4: this guy, and he should be if nothing else, needs
Speaker 4: to be thankful that all right, UFC probably isn't an
Speaker 4: option for a couple of years, and it's probably the
Speaker 4: end of his UFC career, so he has WWE they're
Speaker 4: not turning this into a big spectacle to promote their
Speaker 4: own wellness policies. I mean, I just think they should
Speaker 4: do the right thing on this. But no, I think
Speaker 4: the line was very scripted, and I actually like the
Speaker 4: setup more than the actual line. I know that's the
Speaker 4: one that got everyone going ooh, but I thought it
Speaker 4: was great. They don't take fifteen twenty suits Suplexers to
Speaker 4: get to Supplex City, and it takes one RKO to
Speaker 4: get to Biberville. I thought that was that That was
Speaker 4: the line to remember, not the ooh he said enhancement.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that was a great I said it earlier.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jason, what a great promo from Randy Orton.
Speaker 1: You know, we talk about people with you know, raw
Speaker 1: having a fresh look and introducing new talent. I really
Speaker 1: liked what Randy Orton showed on Sunday. He just felt
Speaker 1: looser and more comfortable, less in that narrow lane. And
Speaker 1: I'm that's one of the reasons I'm eager to see
Speaker 1: where they go with him starting tonight on SmackDown. Good
Speaker 1: good stuff. Thanks to our callers. If we didn't get
Speaker 1: to your call, you can drop us an email right
Speaker 1: now for the VP after show that Jason and I
Speaker 1: will be recording momentarily for not only PW Torch VP
Speaker 1: members but also his Pro Wrestling dot net members. That'll
Speaker 1: go up a little later this afternoon as some bonus
Speaker 1: content beyond this edition of the live cast. The email
Speaker 1: addresses PW Torch Live Cast at gmail dot com. Uh, Jason,
Speaker 1: any any closing words, anything that you want to that's
Speaker 1: on your jetta to talk about in the after show.
Speaker 3: It's a little teaser here.
Speaker 4: Maybe, I mean, I think we'll talk a lot of WWE,
Speaker 4: but one thing I kind of want to talk about,
Speaker 4: whether you think that WWE gets on a roll with
Speaker 4: Rawn SmackDown, if that's going to have a negative effect
Speaker 4: or positive ones on all these shows that air later
Speaker 4: in the week, and just any promotions and everything else.
Speaker 1: Good topic, Very good, All right, thanks everybody. We're gonna
Speaker 1: close with a plug.
Speaker 3: What for VP.
Speaker 1: Don't always good to have you on the show and
Speaker 1: we'll talk to you after the closing music and.
Speaker 4: Commercial Here sounds great. Good to be back with.
Speaker 3: Hey stuff. Do you ever watch WWE and think it
Speaker 3: used to be better?
Speaker 13: I don't know, josh Sometimes I think it used to
Speaker 13: be a whole lot worse.
Speaker 3: I mean, whether it's WrestleMania main.
Speaker 13: Events, old dudes at the top, too many titles, or
Speaker 13: Women's wrestle We're here.
Speaker 3: To answer the big question, is it worse or better?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 13: Join me Joshua White and me Stephanie Cheese for Worse or.
Speaker 3: Better part of the PW Torch Daily castline I'm dropping
Speaker 3: on Monday nights.
Speaker 13: Sech PW torch in your podcast apps such as Apple
Speaker 13: Podcasts or Spotify to subscribe for free or get a
Speaker 13: commercial free version with the PW Torch VIP membership. Check
Speaker 13: out pw torch dot com slash go vip for details
Speaker 13: and going vip Worse.
Speaker 3: Or Better Finally something for wrestling fans to do on
Speaker 3: Monday nights.
Speaker 1: All right, we're here on the VIP after show portion
Speaker 1: of today's PW torch live cast on Tuesday, July twenty six,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Jason, I know we're not you know twenty anymore.
Speaker 1: But I was a little taken aback at how difficult
Speaker 1: it was to get in and out of my car
Speaker 1: that the forty eight hours following our bowling marathon session
Speaker 1: last Thursday.
Speaker 14: Yeah, that was I planned ahead in the sense that
Speaker 14: I knew from a previous bowling outing that you got
Speaker 14: to stretch the hamstrings a little bit. For me, it's
Speaker 14: the plant leg. I once was limping around the house
Speaker 14: for like three days afterward. I was more concerned about
Speaker 14: my back, but yeah, my hamstring once. I don't know
Speaker 14: if I must have just strained it, but yeah, it
Speaker 14: was in incredible pain. This time around, it was the
Speaker 14: back which has been flaring up a little bit. But
Speaker 14: it was a blast, and I am proud to say.
Speaker 14: I don't want to make a big fuss for this way,
Speaker 14: but I did beat you by one pin in four games.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that we put together. Because it was
Speaker 1: Jamie Pennock from mmatorch dot com.
Speaker 4: Doesn't count. What's that doesn't count? He finished higher than I.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm not talking about people to finish. I'm
Speaker 1: just talking about the people who were there, because anybody
Speaker 1: who scored more than we were not talking about exactly.
Speaker 3: Other than which we'll get to.
Speaker 1: But there's Jamie who is doing all kinds of trick shots,
Speaker 1: and then Bruce Mitchell and Todd Martin and Travis Bryant
Speaker 1: from the Torch, and so we had a good three
Speaker 1: on three series of games, going on four games in
Speaker 1: a row, kind of played teams, and in the end
Speaker 1: the grand total of all my games and the grand
Speaker 1: total of all of your games was one pin different.
Speaker 1: That meant you what you You scored on average one
Speaker 1: fourth of a point more than me over the course
Speaker 1: of four games. I did not know that we were
Speaker 1: both equally so awesome at bowling.
Speaker 3: Jason, Oh, it's just it too.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean our one twenty something average I think
Speaker 14: would shock and awe a lot of people there. There's
Speaker 14: I don't know about you. I've I've already received request
Speaker 14: to join the Pro Bowling Tour.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 1: Travis Bryant averaged in games one, two and four, I
Speaker 1: think around he averaged like sixty four.
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't even think I'm exaggerate. He awful.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Travis, Games one, two and four, Game three one
Speaker 1: eight seven, I mean I might be on by a
Speaker 1: fit or two.
Speaker 4: He topped one ninety.
Speaker 3: He was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was. It was insane.
Speaker 14: He had answer full two hundred and the last ball
Speaker 14: just didn't work out.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it was.
Speaker 14: And then I told him the next game because he
Speaker 14: came down to the final frame and I think he
Speaker 14: needed like five six pins to get a hundred. I'm like,
Speaker 14: you have to top one hundred or the last game
Speaker 14: was complete fluke, and he ended up with ninety nine.
Speaker 3: You're right, because he was.
Speaker 1: He was actually aiming at the end there for for
Speaker 1: a two hundred game and came really close.
Speaker 4: He did. Yeah, that was.
Speaker 14: I mean, he just couldn't miss. It was four strikes
Speaker 14: in a row, which I know three strikes as a turkey.
Speaker 14: I don't know what four strikes is, and I think
Speaker 14: we all agreed that it's just four strikes. I don't
Speaker 14: think there's a cool name for like after turkey, you
Speaker 14: think they just move up in the bird world, but
Speaker 14: they don't.
Speaker 3: But yeah, there's nowhere up from Turkey.
Speaker 14: No, apparently not. He just other than perfect. There there's
Speaker 14: nothing in between. There's a Turkey and then there's a
Speaker 14: perfect game. You'd think they'd have some other milestones in there,
Speaker 14: but they don't.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that was. That was awesome. I just was
Speaker 4: cheering them on.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find the uh, the photo of the
Speaker 1: final scorecard here. I took so many photos this weekend.
Speaker 4: What wait was?
Speaker 1: Oh that's not Oh there's bowling u Oh that's confusing.
Speaker 1: Oh there's the scores all right, so let's see here.
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: So my, oh, come on, phone, stop rotating on me.
Speaker 1: So my totals, I did one thirty one, thirty six,
Speaker 1: one on one and one oh four. Really, that's terrible.
Speaker 1: And then you did one twenty seven, one fifteen, one
Speaker 1: twenty four, one oh two worth Travis here ninety nine, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I exaggerated. He did score sixty on game four,
Speaker 1: but it in ninety nine, and oh his second game
Speaker 1: was a good one, one ninety five. So and from
Speaker 1: ninety nine to one ninety five and then ninety six
Speaker 1: and sixty. Although I might have these in reverse order
Speaker 1: because it's just chicken scratches, as somebody else wrote down
Speaker 1: to the score. But yeah, so as low with sixty,
Speaker 1: his high was one ninety five. That's freaking ridiculous.
Speaker 14: It well, I mean he looked like a pro that
Speaker 14: that game that he did so well he I mean,
Speaker 14: the guy could admit, if you just walk in and
Speaker 14: saw that game, you'd think like, Wow, this guy's an
Speaker 14: amazing bowler.
Speaker 4: And he was for one game.
Speaker 1: I know, yes, unbelievable. Yeah he had he had forty
Speaker 1: eight points in game one. Through eight frames he had
Speaker 1: zero and then a spare and yeah he had a
Speaker 1: double double gutter ball in frame six, three on the
Speaker 1: following frame and three another frame player. I mean, just
Speaker 1: an awful game and then one hundred and ninety five
Speaker 1: on the next game. There's It's not like he said,
Speaker 1: oh I need to change my ball or wear my
Speaker 1: glove or stretch like it just happened.
Speaker 4: Well, was he drinking? I mean that helped me.
Speaker 14: I just to get a couple of beers in me
Speaker 14: and then all of a sudden my score went up
Speaker 14: a little.
Speaker 1: Bit, apparently as a very small window to be great.
Speaker 14: Maybe maybe it was like he had just enough beers
Speaker 14: or whatever he was drinking for that game, and then
Speaker 14: he exceeded the limit after that and just went went
Speaker 14: in the tank. I think you should work at it,
Speaker 14: because I've gone I like to go bowling, I don't
Speaker 14: know three four times a year or something like that.
Speaker 14: I don't think I've ever scored as high as he did,
Speaker 14: so he has it in him. Greatness is there, he
Speaker 14: just needs to work at it.
Speaker 3: The very last game.
Speaker 1: I played, Todd and I had a little rivalry going
Speaker 1: at the Todd Martin, and we were really really competitive
Speaker 1: in that last game. I ended with one hundred fourteen
Speaker 1: and he ended with one hundred fourteen. It was like
Speaker 1: it was like it was a we were the last
Speaker 1: bowlers of the whole evening and it was like a
Speaker 1: double count out finish.
Speaker 3: Nobody was happy.
Speaker 1: There was there was no confetti, there was no ring
Speaker 1: music or no no celebration music, there were no high fives.
Speaker 1: It was we kind of looked at each other like,
Speaker 1: all right, that's all nothing. So but a really really
Speaker 1: fun time. So glad even though Verus was there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was fun, absolutely all right. So let's talk some wrestling. Jason,
Speaker 1: you went to asked you brought up an intriguing question,
Speaker 1: which is, no matter what Ron SmackDown do ratings wise,
Speaker 1: will it help or hurt especially? I guess he and
Speaker 1: I impact Moving to Thursday Nights, they had a pretty strong,
Speaker 1: a solid debut last Thursday. Yeah, and now they have
Speaker 1: a replay again, I guess on late Thursday nights. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's going to be. Is that a
Speaker 1: regular thing now? Jason replays on Thursday nights again.
Speaker 4: Oh the first I'm hearing of it. I didn't even know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. I think, let me actually bring
Speaker 1: the ratings up if I can pull them up here quickly,
Speaker 1: because last week, there we go July twenty first, the
Speaker 1: first airing from eight to ten Eastern did three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty two thousand, which is above their average and
Speaker 1: a good number. But they had forty eight thousand on
Speaker 1: a one am to three am replay, so they ended
Speaker 1: up with about four under ten thousand viewers total. But
Speaker 1: three sixty two is a bump from even where they were.
Speaker 1: Well actually for a new night, that's that's nice. It
Speaker 1: was a bump from their average. They were at four
Speaker 1: to ten on their last on the show, right after
Speaker 1: the final deletion episode.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just think three sixty two is encouraging on a
Speaker 1: Thursday night up against the Republican Convention. So yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: eager to see what they do. I think if people
Speaker 1: like wrestling and feel good about it on Monday and Tuesday,
Speaker 1: I think Thursday T and A can benefit from that,
Speaker 1: and it could help. I think ultimately TNA is gonna
Speaker 1: have to earn their own viewership, but I think it helps.
Speaker 14: I think the buffer helps. I think Wednesday night is
Speaker 14: super fan night. If you're not burned out from Ron SmackDown,
Speaker 14: you're watching NXT, you're watching a Cruiserway Classic and Luca
Speaker 14: Underground before its season just ended.
Speaker 4: That to me, you're a super fan, you really. I mean,
Speaker 4: not that you can't pick one to watch or something, but.
Speaker 14: I think the more casual audience, and who knows, maybe
Speaker 14: T and A at this point has made up of
Speaker 14: super fan viewers too. But I think that night in between,
Speaker 14: so even if we're on some backdown stink now, you
Speaker 14: just avoid wrestling on Wednesday, but by Thursday night you
Speaker 14: might be up for it. The big problem, of course,
Speaker 14: is that, well, they're going to be running into some
Speaker 14: serious network competition, they're going to run into NFL competition,
Speaker 14: They're going to run into a lot of NBA competition,
Speaker 14: and so it's kind of enjoy it well last I mean,
Speaker 14: I hope good things come on Thursdays for them. It's
Speaker 14: a good night for television as far as overall, viewership.
Speaker 14: That's been the pattern over the years. But it's also
Speaker 14: a really strong night for competition. And my biggest fear
Speaker 14: weight is that now that they're back on Thursdays, they'll
Speaker 14: think it's a good idea to bring back the damn
Speaker 14: Turkey suit on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4: I am not covering the Turkey suit.
Speaker 3: Oh god, No, just pre empt them. Well, I'll just
Speaker 3: pretend like it didn't exist exactly. Yep. All right.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go to our emails, Chase. We've got some
Speaker 1: good emails. A lot of emails came in today. The
Speaker 1: first question on the email list with Raw pulling out, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is from Gervard m. With Raw pulling out all
Speaker 1: the stops hot shot booking last night, what can SmackDown
Speaker 1: do to one Uproar other than say an IC title change?
Speaker 1: And also, how can Ron SmackDown have floating champions while
Speaker 1: still maintaining a separate feel between the brands. Yeah, Jason,
Speaker 1: they don't have floating champions right. I don't think the
Speaker 1: women's or tech titles will float. I think they would
Speaker 1: have said that by now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 14: And I think if you were gonna have floating champions,
Speaker 14: it would have started with the World champion, and like
Speaker 14: I say, you know, maybe Sasha, that's just because the
Speaker 14: number of women. I don't think that's going to be
Speaker 14: the case. But again, leaving the door open just a
Speaker 14: crack that they'll have the women's champion float, but I
Speaker 14: doubt it if they had. I mean, I was in
Speaker 14: favor of that. I just don't like having a ridiculous
Speaker 14: number of champions in wrestling.
Speaker 4: We're already there.
Speaker 14: I would have merged the US and IC titles and
Speaker 14: just had all champions float even and I think you
Speaker 14: could have kept that separate identity. It's just you have
Speaker 14: the same way that tear ories did back in the day.
Speaker 14: Now they weren't really competing with one another. But I
Speaker 14: still think there was a there's a way to do it,
Speaker 14: and there's a way to make it feel like a
Speaker 14: big deal when your guy is challenging the champion. You
Speaker 14: don't have to have the champion on every single show either,
Speaker 14: So I think they could have done it.
Speaker 1: The hotshot aspect of Raw, as I talked about at
Speaker 1: the top of the live cast that we did earlier Jason,
Speaker 1: does concern me. You know, have they set the bar
Speaker 1: too high? Can they follow up on this that does
Speaker 1: apply to SmackDown tonight and will smackdoone. You know, is
Speaker 1: the writing team and the talent ready to deliver, And
Speaker 1: I think they're probably over at Smackdone right now as
Speaker 1: we speak. There's already a legit competitive vibe going on
Speaker 1: in that locker room that did not exist when SMACKDOWNE
Speaker 1: was just the morning leftovers from Raw. And now you
Speaker 1: have a set of wrestlers who didn't work last night,
Speaker 1: who have one opportunity on national TV this week to
Speaker 1: get themselves over, not a second opportunity to just go
Speaker 1: through the motions. I think there's got to be excitement
Speaker 1: about being live tonight and trying to one up Run
Speaker 1: the ratings and build on the momentum from last week.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not Roversus Nithrol. They're not head
Speaker 1: to head, it's not the same thing. But I think
Speaker 1: this is pretty It's pretty cool that if you imagine
Speaker 1: right now, the wrestlers are sitting there in the locker
Speaker 1: room and the riders trying to think of a way
Speaker 1: that they can break next week about one uping Raw
Speaker 1: on the ratings, which would be a huge upset for them,
Speaker 1: although they have the advantage of only being two hours
Speaker 1: and not three. So I just think we're going to
Speaker 1: see a really good effort on the part of most
Speaker 1: of the wrestlers. Yeah, there'll be somebody cynical rolling their
Speaker 1: eyes at this idea that they're going to be goaded
Speaker 1: into caring, But for the most part, I think there
Speaker 1: will be some brand pride that will make the shows better.
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 14: I just question when their SmackDown has the horses to
Speaker 14: pull this off. I don't think they have a lot
Speaker 14: of depth. It's they're going to have, and it'd be
Speaker 14: different if it was. Well, I see a lot of
Speaker 14: guys that have been underutilized and that they can turn
Speaker 14: into start.
Speaker 4: I don't see a lot of those guys.
Speaker 14: It doesn't mean they can't have a good launch point tonight,
Speaker 14: they can't come out of the gate with a good,
Speaker 14: strong show, but just over the long haul, I think
Speaker 14: they need to bring in some people. I wish SmackDown
Speaker 14: would have been the home for the cruiser weights instead
Speaker 14: of RAW. I think they need it more than Raw does.
Speaker 14: Raw has enough depth. SmackDown is lacking. They did okay later.
Speaker 14: I mean there's a couple of there's an Apollo cruise
Speaker 14: that you can do more with her there. There's some people,
Speaker 14: but I'm just not excited by the SmackDown roster like
Speaker 14: I am, like I thought I would be. I really
Speaker 14: thought we'd see Kevin Owen, Sammy's a you know, it's
Speaker 14: cizarro at least one, if not two of those guys
Speaker 14: over there, and they're on Raw and I kind of
Speaker 14: feel they're going to get lost in the shuffle where
Speaker 14: if they were on SmackDown that they could be doing
Speaker 14: a lot more. And so I still hope I'm holding
Speaker 14: out hope for some trades here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just holding out hope that we're pleasantly surprised
Speaker 1: by what they do with Dean Ambrose, John's Sina, Dolph Siegler,
Speaker 1: Randy Orton, Callisto Apollo Cruise on the baby face side,
Speaker 1: and aj Miz and Bray Wyatt and Alberto de Rio
Speaker 1: and Baron Corbin on the heels side. Not a lot
Speaker 1: of depth as far as the women in Tay teams go.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, I mean I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued by
Speaker 1: all of this, and it's a lot more fun than
Speaker 1: it had been. But SmackDown has something to prove for
Speaker 1: all the reasons you just said, Jason. Let's go to
Speaker 1: the the next email and go to Anna, who says,
Speaker 1: I don't watch NXT, but I've heard about Finn Balor
Speaker 1: from your podcast. I was excited to see him wrestle
Speaker 1: for the first time on RAW last night. See there
Speaker 1: are I think people who watch YouTube and New Japan
Speaker 1: and NXT just assume everybody's seen him. And there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people who saw Finn Balor for the
Speaker 1: first time last night.
Speaker 3: I mean absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean there's people who would assume that I would
Speaker 1: see the star, the star rookie running back on the
Speaker 1: Tennessee Titans by week and nine of the NFL season,
Speaker 1: And I watched the Vikings, And if the Vikings haven't
Speaker 1: played the Titans, and and and I'm busy on Monday
Speaker 1: nights watching Raw and they haven't been on Monday Night
Speaker 1: Orunday Night football, there's a really good chance I haven't
Speaker 1: seen him, and I might not even know his full
Speaker 1: name like that.
Speaker 14: I remember a couple of years ago when Jimmy Graham
Speaker 14: was traded from the Saints. You weren't sure who he was,
Speaker 14: and he was pretty much at his peak at that point.
Speaker 3: I still don't even know who he.
Speaker 4: Is, sure, Well, I think he got injured last year,
Speaker 4: but still.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I mean I'm that kind of NFL fan.
Speaker 1: Like I listened to sports talk radio. I look forward
Speaker 1: to Viking games. When they're doing well, it's destination TV.
Speaker 1: When they're not, you know, I can still keep an
Speaker 1: eye on them, but it's just something I've sacrificed in
Speaker 1: my life, you know, something I just haven't haven't invested
Speaker 1: in a ton of time in over time, I've kind
Speaker 1: of pulled back from following it week by week, and
Speaker 1: you know, because I'm not in fantasy leagues and stuff.
Speaker 1: So my point in that is, you can be a
Speaker 1: wrestling fan who's really into raw and listens to wrestling
Speaker 1: podcasts and not have seen Finn Balor.
Speaker 3: You know, I listened to sports radio.
Speaker 1: I watch the Vikings every week, but I don't know
Speaker 1: a lot else that's going on in the NFL unless
Speaker 1: it's just something I get a quick brush up session
Speaker 1: right before the Vikings play them on a Sunday or Monday.
Speaker 1: So she's that type of fan. So she said he
Speaker 1: lived up to the hype for me, will it be
Speaker 1: difficult for WWW to push someone who isn't known to
Speaker 1: those people who don't watch NXT, and do you think
Speaker 1: Balori will beat Seth for the belt?
Speaker 3: Personally?
Speaker 1: He seems like a breath of fresh air from Seth
Speaker 1: and Roman. Jason, I think that wrestlers entered territories throughout
Speaker 1: all of wrestling history where fans didn't know who they were,
Speaker 1: and within a week or two or three you get
Speaker 1: to know him and it's up to them and the
Speaker 1: bookers to get them over. And I think the Wayfin
Speaker 1: Balor was book last night, I think he got over
Speaker 1: in the ring. I don't know that on the microphone
Speaker 1: he was all that impressive. I didn't really I didn't
Speaker 1: know what they were going for with the Roman interaction
Speaker 1: and so but I think the music video they did
Speaker 1: for him, I hope they keep doing music videos for
Speaker 1: the two main event at the two scheduled main eventers.
Speaker 3: I think that's a cool format.
Speaker 1: But I think Finn's got to show that he's more
Speaker 1: than a cool ring entrance in high spots and a
Speaker 1: good unique look. Overall, we got to know who he
Speaker 1: is and what he's all about, and so there's all
Speaker 1: some work to be done. But after the big week
Speaker 1: he had last week, I'm sure they'll do interviews with
Speaker 1: him on Raw next week.
Speaker 3: Just a reminder you can.
Speaker 1: Reach us at Wade Kellerpost Show at gmail dot com
Speaker 1: if you're interested in contributing to the Flagship or Wadekeller
Speaker 1: Post Show at gmail dot com if you're interested in
Speaker 1: submitting a question or a topic or even a rant
Speaker 1: on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling post shows.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I'm curiously where they go with him because he
Speaker 14: was the humble guy when he kind of emerged from
Speaker 14: the big group on the stage and walked out to
Speaker 14: the front early in the show, and then he was
Speaker 14: very cocky with Roman Reigns and in their segment, So
Speaker 14: I don't think that's been established. But he can work
Speaker 14: as a top player on Raw, whether he has the
Speaker 14: title or not. They may give it to him to
Speaker 14: kind of signify that this is a new error to
Speaker 14: can't kind of continue that theme.
Speaker 4: Seth may need it more.
Speaker 14: I'm kind of torn there because there's part of me
Speaker 14: that wants to see Balor go on that chase, but
Speaker 14: I'm really bored by Seth as a heel right now.
Speaker 14: I liked last week's empty arena promo, but when it's
Speaker 14: just Seth rawlins, they made a mistake. I don't think
Speaker 14: there's much debate. I mean, some people will my donn
Speaker 14: At Stafford will prove it, but I think he's still
Speaker 14: among them who will. He feels like they made the
Speaker 14: right call in bringing him back as a heel, and
Speaker 14: I will just continue to argue it because I feel
Speaker 14: like I'm watching a rerun with Seth Rawlins right now.
Speaker 4: As great as his matches.
Speaker 14: Are, it's different when he's in the ring and he's
Speaker 14: you know, having a pay per view mane event, but
Speaker 14: the act feels tired and repetitive, and now that he's
Speaker 14: back aligned with Stephanie favoring him again, it feels even
Speaker 14: more repetitive. And so I don't know whether you give
Speaker 14: Rawlins the championship and run the risk that we've been
Speaker 14: there and done that before, or if you deprive people
Speaker 14: of Finn Balor's chase. I'm not which which direction do
Speaker 14: you think they go with?
Speaker 3: I think Finn Balor.
Speaker 1: Man I've been I've been hedging on this because if
Speaker 1: he wins, If he if he wins a championship at SummerSlam,
Speaker 1: you've you've cement that you've shot him to the top
Speaker 1: and he's sort of your you know, he's everybody's different,
Speaker 1: but he can be your kind of agent style Sammy's
Speaker 1: and Daniel Bryant ciampunk, the guy with indie cred, respect
Speaker 1: from the fans, and he can go in the ring.
Speaker 1: He can give you good matches and he's a he's
Speaker 1: a fresh act that people would be into. And then
Speaker 1: you don't kind of have him get kind of touch
Speaker 1: the the the main events but then drop back down
Speaker 1: again and get to find down kind of like Kevin
Speaker 1: Owens did, and they do it too many guys. My
Speaker 1: vote is for him to be the centerpiece, lead babyface
Speaker 1: act and that go all in with him for a while.
Speaker 1: I just think every once in a while you got
Speaker 1: to do that, and I don't think they have the
Speaker 1: talent depth to be picky about that. And then it's
Speaker 1: just it also comes down to what kind of rotation
Speaker 1: of heels can then you put against him on that
Speaker 1: raw roster. We saw teasers of a good number of
Speaker 1: them with Kevin Owens, and I mean, the heck you
Speaker 1: can even do a face face matchup with with Czarro.
Speaker 1: But there's also the chance in this kind of why
Speaker 1: aheadge that they could end up turning balor and if
Speaker 1: Balor's a heel, and he came across a little heel
Speaker 1: ish on on raw. He worked a squash match on
Speaker 1: NXT a couple months ago where I thought it was
Speaker 1: a rehearsal to show Vince Hey, I can work heel.
Speaker 1: But he's so undersized and so flashy, and that ring
Speaker 1: entrance with the arm extension going out is so positive,
Speaker 1: is so just. I mean, the fan participation of at
Speaker 1: ring entrance, and that's a big part of what's the
Speaker 1: appeal of WWE and go into live shows and watching
Speaker 1: people is being into the act. I just think even
Speaker 1: though he could be a good heel, I think he's
Speaker 1: in the wrong promotion for that, and they need somebody
Speaker 1: to be that undersized, underdog, athletic guy who has that
Speaker 1: great exciting ring entrance. So yeah, I kind of lean
Speaker 1: towards they should put the belt on him. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that they that they will, and part of that
Speaker 1: has to be. Part of what goes into that calculation
Speaker 1: is where are they with Roman reigns right now? And
Speaker 1: I'm still not one hundred percent sure how committed they
Speaker 1: are to him long term. I do know that Romans
Speaker 1: had a chance to establish himself as a top baby
Speaker 1: face and hasn't worked. So I mean, I'd like to reshuffle,
Speaker 1: as you said, some of the face and heel slots
Speaker 1: that they're in. But I vote for I vote for
Speaker 1: fit going all the way with Finn Balor and keep
Speaker 1: it a babyface.
Speaker 14: Okay, yeah, I mean to me, he has to be
Speaker 14: the top babyface. It's and I think he needs to
Speaker 14: win the championship by the end of the year. I
Speaker 14: think I'm not saying it's wrong to put it on
Speaker 14: him right away because it's not.
Speaker 3: For me.
Speaker 14: It's do you give it back to Seth and have
Speaker 14: Finn chase him for a few months, maybe he wins
Speaker 14: it at Survivor Series or something like that. And I
Speaker 14: bring this up in part because I felt deprived last
Speaker 14: night watching Sasha Bangs win that championship. I don't think
Speaker 14: they've done a good job of telling her story on RAW.
Speaker 14: It's great, she has dreamed of this since she was
Speaker 14: ten years old. She's very cocky and there's an edginess
Speaker 14: to her and it can be a babyface character. But
Speaker 14: I don't think it got over great with the live
Speaker 14: crowd last night. I think had they done a better
Speaker 14: job and they hadn't been so focused on telling everyone
Speaker 14: this is a new era last night, or if they'd
Speaker 14: just done a much better job in the months leading
Speaker 14: up to this of telling her story, it would have
Speaker 14: been even bigger. It's something that people weren't buzzing all
Speaker 14: that much our callers, and it's a small sample size,
Speaker 14: but as well as that came off last night, Waite,
Speaker 14: I do feel a bit cheated that they just raced
Speaker 14: into this. You know, I thought SummerSlam was premature, but
Speaker 14: just because of the job that they the poor job
Speaker 14: they've done here. She I don't know what we're supposed
Speaker 14: to make of her. I guess she's a baby face
Speaker 14: even though she comes off comes across very cocky. Any
Speaker 14: thoughts on her? I mean, I thought it was a
Speaker 14: cool moment that just could have been better had they
Speaker 14: done that, had had they done a better job leading
Speaker 14: up to it.
Speaker 1: Well, we have an email question related to this, and
Speaker 1: let me bring this up as a ticket This is
Speaker 1: from Romeo. He goes as a ticket older for Summer Slam.
Speaker 1: I selfishly feel robbed of the Sasha Banks Championship win.
Speaker 3: Hey man, do you agree with their move.
Speaker 1: To randomly give it away on raw without promoting it
Speaker 1: ahead of time. I suppose it does make the potential
Speaker 1: rematch at SummerSlam more hard to predict. I mean, have
Speaker 1: we heard any news Have you seen anything Jason today
Speaker 1: on IF Charlotte, If there was some reason that behind
Speaker 1: the scenes that led to the kind of out of
Speaker 1: nowhere title change.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 14: I had somebody last night, you know, jokingly, we're gonna
Speaker 14: wake up and find out that she a wellness violation.
Speaker 14: The thought, blieve me, the thought crossed my mind watching
Speaker 14: that play out. I really think they just wanted to
Speaker 14: send a message of change and they got caught up
Speaker 14: in that.
Speaker 12: Ye.
Speaker 14: I mean, it wouldn't if we found out like she
Speaker 14: had to have has to take time away for whatever reason,
Speaker 14: it wouldn't shock me because it did feel that way,
Speaker 14: and whenever you feel that way, it's just it's a
Speaker 14: sign that something was missing. Even though it came off
Speaker 14: very well and the crowd was behind it, I gave
Speaker 14: it a hit today for that reason that you know
Speaker 14: that live crowd loved it. But I still felt like
Speaker 14: this could have been better had they just built up
Speaker 14: to this, And I hope they didn't do some long
Speaker 14: term damage for some short term gain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Bailey at some point is going to
Speaker 1: be brought up and be added to the mix, and
Speaker 1: I just I don't know what's I don't know that
Speaker 1: Sasha is going to be somebody that fans are going
Speaker 1: to be willing to boom. Maybe against Bailey, they will.
Speaker 1: But part of the part of the problem with Sasha
Speaker 1: is she is so even when she's a heel, she
Speaker 1: doesn't stay in heal character, you know, like on Twitter,
Speaker 1: she doesn't after victory, she doesn't. I don't think that
Speaker 1: she's believable and consistent in portraying herself as a heel,
Speaker 1: and fans just see her as somebody who loves the business,
Speaker 1: works really hard, has great matches, and they just are
Speaker 1: naturally drawn to her and her cool factor and her
Speaker 1: appreciation for Eddie Guerrero and all of that. I just
Speaker 1: don't know that you can successfully make her a heel.
Speaker 1: I like Charlotte as a heel. I like Nia Jackson
Speaker 1: as a heel. But I think Bailey and Sasha ideally
Speaker 1: would be on separate brands and the co lead, you know,
Speaker 1: lead babyfaces on separate brands. So there's part of me
Speaker 1: that thinks, Okay, they had their tag match but now
Speaker 1: Bailey should strengthen the SmackDown roster. And maybe that's why
Speaker 1: the SmackDown roster is so weak to begin with with Natty, Becky,
Speaker 1: lynch Me, Alexa Bliss, even Marie and Carmela. That's not
Speaker 1: a loaded women's lineup. Maybe it's weak because they do
Speaker 1: plan to have Bailey good Land there and feud Bailey
Speaker 1: against Natalia, and that works for me. And then at
Speaker 1: least you keep Sasha as a lead face on Raw
Speaker 1: sharing that spotlight with Page and then you have then
Speaker 1: you have Bailey as the lead babyface act on SmackDown.
Speaker 1: I guess that that works for me better, so that
Speaker 1: that's kind of how I'd like things to play out
Speaker 1: as far as that goes.
Speaker 14: I actually wish wish that Sasha and Charlotte were on
Speaker 14: opposite brands because I think that Sasha playing the heel
Speaker 14: role is what brought her to the dance, and I
Speaker 14: think the elements of her not playing into that twenty
Speaker 14: four to seven can be corrected if they want to
Speaker 14: stay on top of that. Charlotte, I mean, Charlotte basically
Speaker 14: came up and played a version of Sasha Banks and
Speaker 14: NXT is the heel in a strange way, and that's
Speaker 14: why I always want, how are they going to slot
Speaker 14: Sasha and if they can, if they can start to
Speaker 14: tell Sasha's story more effectively, she'll be a fine babyface champion,
Speaker 14: she really will. But I just don't know where you
Speaker 14: go with Charlotte from here. They spent what the top
Speaker 14: five draft pick on her and she loses right away,
Speaker 14: and it just it caught me off guard, and I
Speaker 14: think that was by design that they wanted to surprise
Speaker 14: people with this. But again, I feel like there was
Speaker 14: part of the story missing. We talked, You talked about
Speaker 14: Roman Reigns or the emailer who wasn't familiar with Finn Valor.
Speaker 14: Aside from reputation, I think there's a lot of people
Speaker 14: like that. I don't know what the non NXT viewer
Speaker 14: is cheering right now about Sasha Banks, because the story
Speaker 14: has been very generic. She dreamed of this and she
Speaker 14: was ten great. I'm sure a lot of wrestlers did too.
Speaker 14: But beyond that, she again, she's very cocky and we've
Speaker 14: seen her come and go. There was no journey with
Speaker 14: her on the raw end of things. So if you're
Speaker 14: an NXT fan and you're happy, I get it, but
Speaker 14: put yourself in the shoes of somebody who only had
Speaker 14: seen her on the main roster, and I don't know
Speaker 14: what there is to really celebrate other than good someone
Speaker 14: beat Charlotte.
Speaker 3: Right, you know I agree? Okay?
Speaker 1: Next question, Devin from Iowa City says WWB started Bronz
Speaker 1: Stroman's repackaging. If his match last night is any indication
Speaker 1: he still needs some mentoring in the ring, would it
Speaker 1: be beneficial if they were to put him with a
Speaker 1: veteran big man like Big Show. I know that Undertaker
Speaker 1: mentored Big Show early and chose WWW career on screen
Speaker 1: and backstage. It could be very beneficial to Stroman. Jason
Speaker 1: Bronze Stroman is limited. I think there's room for a monster,
Speaker 1: dominant power heel who has a who hits a certain
Speaker 1: threshold of competence in the ring, hopefully somewhere higher than
Speaker 1: you know Jeep Swinson did in World Class in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties or Bill Casmier. Oh, he was some baby
Speaker 1: face powerlifter, but he was green and rough. You know,
Speaker 1: Dad got his autograph on it. But you you want Braun.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna have bron on the roster, you want
Speaker 1: to see him get better, but you know the role
Speaker 1: that he's in. I mean, I don't think it's the
Speaker 1: end of the world if he just squashes a munch
Speaker 1: people and then it ends up in a feud with
Speaker 1: somebody where, you know, you tell a little story arc
Speaker 1: where a finn Balor overcomes somebody much bigger than him
Speaker 1: and you use him as a role player. I Braun
Speaker 1: doesn't strike me as somebody who's gonna be around in
Speaker 1: five years. You know, he strikes me as a big
Speaker 1: guy who comes in for a cup of coffee. You
Speaker 1: get a little bit out of him, and unless he
Speaker 1: improves dramatically, you send him on his way.
Speaker 3: Admit it.
Speaker 1: You love Nick bar Batty when he co hosts with
Speaker 1: me on the Wadekeller Post shows. Well, now you can
Speaker 1: listen to him every week on The Nickys Club, a
Speaker 1: VP exclusive podcast. Here's Nick to tell you more.
Speaker 15: Hey, wrestling fans, It's Nick Barbatty and I'm back with
Speaker 15: the Nickys Club, the place where the family of Nickys
Speaker 15: comes together for big laughs and Shark takes on WWE
Speaker 15: for WrestleMania rumors to surprise returns.
Speaker 3: I got you covered.
Speaker 15: The Nickys Club where the wrestling feels like the coolest
Speaker 15: club in town.
Speaker 1: Nick Barbatty wants to be part of your pro wrestling
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Speaker 4: I'll finish that quick.
Speaker 14: My dad got the autograph at Packers training camp because
Speaker 14: the Bill Kasmi actually tried out for the Green Bay Packers.
Speaker 14: My dad doesn't give Yeah, he doesn't care at all
Speaker 14: about wrestling, but he did meet him there and was
Speaker 14: just in awe of how big this guy was and
Speaker 14: also what a nice.
Speaker 4: Guy he was.
Speaker 14: But anyway, Strohman, I thought the look was much improved,
Speaker 14: you know, now that he's out of the wyat gear.
Speaker 14: He kind of looked like the biggest member of War
Speaker 14: Machine in a way, but it was.
Speaker 4: I liked the change.
Speaker 14: As far as Big Show being the mentor, a lot
Speaker 14: of that depends on where Big Show's head is at,
Speaker 14: because Big Show has been a guy over the years
Speaker 14: who was very protective of his spot as a giant.
Speaker 14: He's made life miserable for some people who had similar size.
Speaker 14: And if he is going, if he's at a place
Speaker 14: in his life now where he knows the end is near,
Speaker 14: he's not nearly as protective, and hopefully.
Speaker 4: They know that.
Speaker 14: And then yeah, I don't want to see the match
Speaker 14: on TV. I have no interest in seeing it. But
Speaker 14: if you want to pair them up on the house
Speaker 14: shows and I don't have to see it, cool, But
Speaker 14: I mean, that's not about Caine's another guy they could
Speaker 14: do that with. Neither match is attractive, and I almost
Speaker 14: I hope that some of this was happening when they
Speaker 14: were having tag matches with the Wyatts, because I don't
Speaker 14: know what you do with Big Show and Kane, but
Speaker 14: I think anytime you put them with somebody like Braun Strowman,
Speaker 14: if you're trying to get Stroman over, I think it's
Speaker 14: going to halt their progress as far as.
Speaker 4: Getting over with the fans.
Speaker 14: It may help them as wrestlers, but it can halt
Speaker 14: It can just bring down any type of interest level
Speaker 14: there is in these guys.
Speaker 1: He also says, do you think WWE might attempt to
Speaker 1: make the club a faction that it's on both Raw
Speaker 1: and SmackDown. It would only take AJA recruiting two to
Speaker 1: three people on SmackDown and one to two people on
Speaker 1: Raw make the cl a bigger deal and could lead
Speaker 1: to some great stories in the future thanks to keep up.
Speaker 3: The good work.
Speaker 1: Just looking at SmackDown, I don't know who would match
Speaker 1: up with with AJ, what what story could they tell?
Speaker 1: Looking at the SmackDown roster, Jason, uh that that would
Speaker 1: make sense to add to AJ to replace Matterson and Gallows.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm pulling it up here.
Speaker 14: Boy, I'd be careful with this, I because I'm with
Speaker 14: you in that I don't really see anyone that fits
Speaker 14: the club feel. I mean, Delf Ziggler needs to be repackaged.
Speaker 14: I don't know if you want to put them with
Speaker 14: AJ styles though, And yeah, just those I mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 14: and I'm hoping they do. But I want that to
Speaker 14: be more about the usos. I want I don't need
Speaker 14: to see them as sidekicks anymore. I want to see
Speaker 14: the usos develop their own personalities. So I'm not really
Speaker 14: being anyone for AJ on the SmackDown side. I've said,
Speaker 14: I'd much rather see and I don't think this is
Speaker 14: going to happen now at the club kind of establish
Speaker 14: their feud with New Day. I was hoping Anderson, Gallows
Speaker 14: and AJ would all just say screw you when it
Speaker 14: came to the brand split and force the trade where
Speaker 14: they they're going to show up when they want to
Speaker 14: show up, and people would complain that you're ignoring the
Speaker 14: rules of the brand split right out of the gate,
Speaker 14: but it would be done for a storyline purpose, and
Speaker 14: it would make them stand out as just defiant. And then,
Speaker 14: like I say, for whatever, if you want to send
Speaker 14: Anderson and Gallows over to SmackDown, they just they get
Speaker 14: their way. They you know, Stephan mcmhon throws her hands up.
Speaker 14: She's tired of them interfering in matches, and she trades
Speaker 14: them to SmackDown.
Speaker 1: What what if Aiden English and Simon Gotch between become
Speaker 1: change their names to Anderson English and Luke Gotch and
Speaker 1: they dress like Anderson and Gallows and they become kind
Speaker 1: of the new the new Cane or the new uh,
Speaker 1: the new fake Diesel and Razor, and AJ just pretends
Speaker 1: that or you know, just brings on two guys to
Speaker 1: be as Lackey's and just try to live up to
Speaker 1: the reputation of Anderson and Gallops.
Speaker 4: Well, Vince Russo, No, I mean that's where you have
Speaker 4: to go to.
Speaker 1: Like fine, I mean when you talk about the SmackDown
Speaker 1: depth chart, there's not a lot to work with where
Speaker 1: you would feel safe. Like you could say, oh, Apolo Cruz,
Speaker 1: turn him heel and have him be with AJ, and
Speaker 1: maybe that gives him an edge. Yeah, but can you
Speaker 1: afford to lose him on the Babyface side, which has
Speaker 1: a part timer in John Cena at best for the
Speaker 1: next several months.
Speaker 3: Uh So you got Dean and.
Speaker 14: You can take the makeoff makeup off the Ascension and
Speaker 14: repackage them. But I mean, I know, I don't think
Speaker 14: it's I don't really nothing grabs me as like, oh,
Speaker 14: this has potential as far as like being in the club.
Speaker 14: If they want to put new people with AJ but
Speaker 14: not have the club on both brands and it's just
Speaker 14: kind of a newer faction, Okay, then then maybe we
Speaker 14: can maybe we can talk, But I'm not seeing like
Speaker 14: anything with real club potential here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: After watching Okay, this comes from Jerry Jerry R. After
Speaker 1: watching Battle Ron and Raw. I saw my favorite sign ever,
Speaker 1: Biggie stop diving. Should the roster be taking big bumps
Speaker 1: like that on Raw SmackDown Network specials? I understand, but
Speaker 1: in the past two nights yet Biggie looked like almost
Speaker 1: broke as a neck, Sammy landhard on the apron, Sasha
Speaker 1: overshooting and almost breaking her neck and not a big bump,
Speaker 1: but the women's title almost overshot. Dana and my wife
Speaker 1: thought it was gonna land in the crowd. I'm not, Jason.
Speaker 1: I don't think like you said. You know, maybe Biggie
Speaker 1: does something big at WrestleMania, and I understand, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to do something big at Mania, but I sort
Speaker 1: of just think wrestle in a way that fits your character.
Speaker 1: And you know, now that the table's away from ringside
Speaker 1: at Raw, it's a good excuse for wrestlers to just
Speaker 1: slow down the risk taking and so that when there
Speaker 1: is a big dive spot, it's the one dive spot
Speaker 1: you remember for the week, as opposed to having multiple
Speaker 1: ones over two nights where it just becomes kind of
Speaker 1: a blur to people. It seems like enough of a risk.
Speaker 1: We've seen people catch their foot on the ropes people
Speaker 1: in a bad position, you take a flight, people aren't
Speaker 1: really expect them to be. To me, it's sort of
Speaker 1: like I think you if you're a wrestler and you
Speaker 1: want to do a big dive, I think you go
Speaker 1: to management and the producers and they make sure that
Speaker 1: nobody's doing more than one per show and it really
Speaker 1: stands out and means something, and then maybe that risk
Speaker 1: is worth the reward.
Speaker 4: Oh for sure.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I want to see them scale back now. Some
Speaker 14: of the examples he gave I don't think were all
Speaker 14: that risky. It just happened to be examples of moves
Speaker 14: gone wrong, you know. And I mean there's a lot
Speaker 14: of risk and wrestling in general, but like the Sami
Speaker 14: spot was just I don't know if he hit it wrong.
Speaker 14: I'm not even to pretend to know what happened there
Speaker 14: with the flip off the top rope. Risky, yeah, but
Speaker 14: it's something we've seen him execute hundreds of times, if
Speaker 14: not thousands of times and be just fine. So things
Speaker 14: like that can happen. Someone overshooting someone on a dive
Speaker 14: can happen. But believe it or not, they've pulled back
Speaker 14: on the suicide dives. That was I mean you could
Speaker 14: sit there and drink every time they'd have one on
Speaker 14: a Monday night and and you'd be hammered by the
Speaker 14: second hour. It just was suicide, die of hell. Now
Speaker 14: it's exploder supplexus. Can can they pull back on those
Speaker 14: a little bit? It seems like every other match now
Speaker 14: someone's hitting two or three exploder sueplexes. They kind of
Speaker 14: go through spurts with this. For a while, they were
Speaker 14: running people into the ring post leading into every commercial break.
Speaker 4: They just go.
Speaker 14: They have these weird patterns where all all of a sudden,
Speaker 14: they'll just run something into the ground, and I think
Speaker 14: that's the agents or producers that need to step in
Speaker 14: and go. We can't have nearly as much of this,
Speaker 14: but I have a bad feeling that like they're actually
Speaker 14: encouraging it for some reason.
Speaker 4: Why.
Speaker 1: One other thing I don't want them to overdo is
Speaker 1: the taking a big move and then popping up and
Speaker 1: delivering their own big move as oh yes, now I
Speaker 1: get every once in a while, you can tell the
Speaker 1: story there's an adrenaline rush, he got hit, he used
Speaker 1: every last verse of energy.
Speaker 3: They're both down. But that to me is sort of like,
Speaker 3: you know, you do that at Wressemania.
Speaker 1: You do it, you know, four times a year, grand
Speaker 1: total in the entire company, and we're seeing it become
Speaker 1: a nightly staple.
Speaker 14: So it seems I get started with Dean Ambrose where
Speaker 14: he would get hit and then he'd stagger into the
Speaker 14: ropes and come back with that clothesline, and now it's
Speaker 14: just starting to spread yep.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of against that trend right now. Okay,
Speaker 1: Steven Taylor from Saint Louis Proud VIP Member of the
Speaker 1: Torch says, Hey, guys, first off, let me say thanks
Speaker 1: for a great value in service you provide. VIP member
Speaker 1: is absolutely worth it. After viewing last night's revamp, New
Speaker 1: Era Rod does it seem as if ensis slowly and
Speaker 1: begrudgingly coming to terms with what the modern fan wants
Speaker 1: from the talent being utilized. The dialing back on backstage content,
Speaker 1: Michael Cole actually saying professional wrestling and referencing other promotions
Speaker 1: to the camera and production revamps. We talked about a
Speaker 1: lot about this, Jason, but I pulled this up because
Speaker 1: the backstage segments and skits were also reduced, and this
Speaker 1: was a show where Okay, opening segment, big match squash
Speaker 1: big match, another segment to talkie segment or something in
Speaker 1: another squash fills a second hour, and then the third
Speaker 1: hour starts with a big match. You have one or
Speaker 1: two segments in the middle of a match or two,
Speaker 1: and then your main event. I can live with that,
Speaker 1: and I would really like it if we every time
Speaker 1: a wrestler talked there was somebody holding a microphone and
Speaker 1: asking them a question. If they went to that, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a downside. And because to me, the
Speaker 1: weakest segment on Raw last night was Finn Balor and
Speaker 1: Roman rains. It felt although Charlotte sounded, you know, the
Speaker 1: puns that she was using, it didn't feel real natural.
Speaker 3: But the.
Speaker 1: Camera happening to be there when wrestlers cross paths, I
Speaker 1: like it better when there's an announcer standing there ready
Speaker 1: to ask a question of Roman, and Finn Baller walks
Speaker 1: up and says, oh, excuse me, sorry, I didn't know
Speaker 1: there's an interview going on, and you have this happened
Speaker 1: instead of happenstance. You have Okay, there was a reason
Speaker 1: the camera was filming that moment and then a wrestler
Speaker 1: interrupted it. I'd like to see them do that but
Speaker 1: cut back on where in the locker room, where in
Speaker 1: the office there's this conversation. They're much better about conversations
Speaker 1: going on when the people pretend they don't even know
Speaker 1: the camera's there. But overall, I do think that there's
Speaker 1: encouraging changes. Again, I don't I mean most people, a
Speaker 1: lot of people will be hearing this after SmackDown tonight.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to see what they do with SmackDown
Speaker 1: and if we see more of some of the same changes.
Speaker 1: But maybe Vince is trying to is willing to go
Speaker 1: with a more sports like approach. I just don't want
Speaker 1: to read too much into one week. Jason and be let.
Speaker 4: Down, Yeah, because it's just launch point. You know, this
Speaker 4: was their statement show.
Speaker 14: They wanted to send a message of change, and once
Speaker 14: you get through that, you know it's going to take
Speaker 14: a month or so to kind of let things settle in.
Speaker 14: Next week is going to be a really telling show.
Speaker 14: I mean, they're already giving you the a the announcement
Speaker 14: of brock Lesner being there, and I like that they're
Speaker 14: following up the next week. It's not Raw related, but
Speaker 14: after Raw you have the Austin Podcast with Dean Ambrose
Speaker 14: and so it looks like they've mapped this out a
Speaker 14: little bit, and that's encouraging, it certainly is. But we
Speaker 14: need to see it, you know, we need to see.
Speaker 14: You can't give away everything they did last night on
Speaker 14: a weekly basis, You just can't. And so what happens
Speaker 14: when you slow down, when you start to settle in,
Speaker 14: when event starts to become a little complacent or just
Speaker 14: you know, does he start to ignore the brand rules?
Speaker 14: Brands flit rules? And so it was a great one night,
Speaker 14: But as I wrote today in the Hitlers, chaerish it
Speaker 14: because you're not going to see this every week.
Speaker 4: You just can't.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: More on the production, Ted from Sacramento emailed and said,
Speaker 1: Wade and Jason, did you notice the new camera angle
Speaker 1: which were used last night, including one where the camera
Speaker 1: seemed to hover over the ring and almost made it
Speaker 1: look like a video game.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not sure. I liked the angle.
Speaker 1: I did like it being new and different and a
Speaker 1: change from the weekly sameness. I'd appreciate your thoughts. Thanks,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate the great commentary. That's the thing about this, Jason,
Speaker 1: it's not every change are we're gonna love, but change
Speaker 1: for the sake of change, just to kind of have
Speaker 1: us kind of take notice. Oh, I haven't seen that
Speaker 1: angle before me. I loved every time they went to
Speaker 1: the announcers and they were standing in front of the
Speaker 1: desk with the ring of the background. It was so
Speaker 1: much better than going to them sitting at ringside and
Speaker 1: you know, slouching JBI with that smile on his face.
Speaker 3: It's just like I was. I mean, that's the best
Speaker 3: part about Raw.
Speaker 1: It was three hours of Corey Grays calling long matches
Speaker 1: and there's potential the worst part of SmackDown is going
Speaker 1: to be JBL undercutting Marrow Ronalo. There's a chance they
Speaker 1: make a good team too, because JBL has some positives
Speaker 1: and I'd like to see him see this as a
Speaker 1: fresh start too for his character. Not just picking on
Speaker 1: Byron and David Atungua is a big X factor to
Speaker 1: production wise tonight. How does he present himself and play
Speaker 1: off Ofmorrow and Jbl. iPhone users, if you're listening to
Speaker 1: us on the Native podcast app on your iPhone, you
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Speaker 4: Hopefully not as the clown.
Speaker 14: I mean that's what byron play is for them on
Speaker 14: raw and that we don't need that, we don't need
Speaker 14: jbl picking on somebody else, and I really fear that's
Speaker 14: how it's going to be. Hopefully they make it a
Speaker 14: point to have a tounguas stand up for himself to
Speaker 14: establish it is some level of equality with with JBL,
Speaker 14: even if it's completely scripted.
Speaker 4: I'd be fine with that.
Speaker 14: JBL's got to I mean, if it's not just about
Speaker 14: JBL and Morrow, and JBL needs to know that. I'm
Speaker 14: not a big believer in three men, but if you're
Speaker 14: going to have one, make sure all three guys serve
Speaker 14: some purpose. And I still don't know what purpose Byron
Speaker 14: serves other than helping Michael Cole out with some live reads.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll wrap up here with just one or
Speaker 1: two more topics here. Craig from Scotland says, do you
Speaker 1: think it's an issue that Finn Balor's being build a
Speaker 1: one undred nine pounds and is going for what is
Speaker 1: essentially the heavyweight title? To me, the only weight class
Speaker 1: based on titles can work is if all wrestlers fight
Speaker 1: for the title within their weight limit, and the divisions
Speaker 1: are pushed based on how over the stars of each
Speaker 1: division are. I personally feel a cruiserweight division is a
Speaker 1: totally outdated concept. See on Punkers heavyweight champ He's about
Speaker 1: to fight in UFC at one hundred and seventy pounds.
Speaker 1: This division is also likely to limit Ibushi's potential in WWE.
Speaker 1: You know, the idea that if you become a big
Speaker 1: enough star, they move to the heavyweight division bugged me
Speaker 1: back when Raymistereo was eager to leave the cruiserweight division
Speaker 1: and go to the heavyweight division. I thought Ricky Steamboat
Speaker 1: should have been This goes way back. I thought when
Speaker 1: ww established a cruiseweight championship, Ricky Steamboat, who had heavyweight
Speaker 1: title credibility, should have gone after that title to establish
Speaker 1: from the beginning that there is prestige in fighting within
Speaker 1: your weight class, no matter no matter how big of
Speaker 1: a star you are. And if you send the message
Speaker 1: that the cruiserweight division is for guys without personality or
Speaker 1: name value or upward potential to be headliners, and it's
Speaker 1: just for small guys who are only there because they're small,
Speaker 1: the division is doomed. And think Craig brings up some
Speaker 1: good points. Is there a chance that that Finn Valor
Speaker 1: ends up Jason being the cruiserweight champion after coming up
Speaker 1: short against Seth No and they just decide to go
Speaker 1: all in with cruiserweights by having a guy of Finn's
Speaker 1: caliber be the the cetter piece of that division. I'm
Speaker 1: eager to hear your answer. Oh wait, I just did.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's going to happen.
Speaker 14: I think they have Balor cast as a top star
Speaker 14: and cruiserweights are going to play a part. Doesn't mean
Speaker 14: there's not gonna be stars that come from it. But
Speaker 14: he is a heavyweight. I don't think there's anything wrong
Speaker 14: if it's handled the right way of a guy who
Speaker 14: is cruiserweight size choosing to go after the heavyweight championship.
Speaker 14: There's a way to make that seem like it's a
Speaker 14: cool thing that he's doing that They don't always, you
Speaker 14: know they. I mean, my biggest fear is that you're
Speaker 14: gonna see big show choke slamming cruiserweights and it's gonna
Speaker 14: be ridiculous. But if they're serious about this, a couple
Speaker 14: of just small things. So I don't think the average
Speaker 14: fan cares about Finn Balor's weight.
Speaker 4: For one.
Speaker 14: I don't you know, maybe some will pick up, oh
Speaker 14: he could be a cruiserweight. It's very simple. List Finn
Speaker 14: Balor as two hundred and ten pounds. I don't care
Speaker 14: if NXT fans or super fans notice that his weight
Speaker 14: magically jumped and make the cruiserweight cut off two hundred pounds.
Speaker 4: Get rid of this stupid weigh in. Why does pro
Speaker 4: wrestling need a frickin weigh in for a make believe tournament.
Speaker 4: They're already you know, they're they're fighting weight cutting. They're
Speaker 4: taking steps to get rid of that or improve it
Speaker 4: in MMA, and now pro wrestling from make believe tournament
Speaker 4: is having freaking weigh ins where you have to have
Speaker 4: guys losing ridiculous amounts of weight to just to make
Speaker 4: this tournament. To me, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Let me let me get in a comment from rich
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh who was at RAW last night, and we'll
Speaker 1: wrap up on this note.
Speaker 3: This is good comments. Here he goes.
Speaker 1: Being at the Arena live for RAW last night was
Speaker 1: quite illuminating the set and pace of the show. Having
Speaker 1: a crane attached to the set itself instead of moving
Speaker 1: I think a crane on wheels for those of them seen,
Speaker 1: it allowed really cool angles quickly without having a run
Speaker 1: over and around the fans on the floor every other
Speaker 1: Raw was an exercise in cattle herding to even get
Speaker 1: the machinery in place. For most of the show, the
Speaker 1: fans were pretty into the matches without tuning out early
Speaker 1: on and the Sasha Charlotte match, there were see on
Speaker 1: punk chance uh and we want angle chance, but they
Speaker 1: quickly died Finn balor Finn's and I to me completely
Speaker 1: undozz the WWE mantroeve it takes six months to make
Speaker 1: a wrestler in one night. Finn went from a guy
Speaker 1: that folks on the floor next to we didn't know
Speaker 1: to someone they wanted to see more of and would
Speaker 1: not root for against seth Rawlins and finally Roman had
Speaker 1: really good matches and I was encouraged by his behavior
Speaker 1: against his smaller opponent Finn and his postmatch reaction. After
Speaker 1: three years of not being pinned in singles or most
Speaker 1: take situations, to lose three main events in a row,
Speaker 1: Money in the bank Battleground Raw gives Hi an opportunity
Speaker 1: to finally appear to be human to the audience. My
Speaker 1: hope is the heel turned, but I won't get my
Speaker 1: hopes up. Thanks as is always and have a great week.
Speaker 1: Richard Pittsburgh, five year peoblete torch VIP member Jason. We
Speaker 1: talked about the crowd reaction for Finn at the end
Speaker 1: not seeming to be what it was but I don't
Speaker 1: think that should mean he's not over. It just means,
Speaker 1: as we talked about, there wasn't this long journey that
Speaker 1: they went on. But I do think next money is
Speaker 1: not make or break for Finn. But they can certainly
Speaker 1: with a really good promo and framing his week his
Speaker 1: debut on RAW really well, can can frame him as
Speaker 1: a big star and give him every chance to get over.
Speaker 1: But the again, I read this mostly for kind of
Speaker 1: the in person reactions from being there any anything that
Speaker 1: jumps out to you. Do you want to reply to
Speaker 1: that Rich brought.
Speaker 14: Up, Well, I'll just repleat it. The Finn Balor promo
Speaker 14: that you mentioned next week. I hope he has it
Speaker 14: in him.
Speaker 4: You know I haven't.
Speaker 14: That's one area of his game and NXT that I
Speaker 14: haven't been wowed by. They need to be careful with that.
Speaker 14: It's asking a lot of him to go out there
Speaker 14: and deliver some big live promo or even to have
Speaker 14: some exchange with someone. I think the more realistic you
Speaker 14: can keep his exchanges where it's more a sports like
Speaker 14: like you see in NXT, like he's had with Samoa Joe,
Speaker 14: the better. He's not the guy who's gonna go out
Speaker 14: there and pull an Endzo or even a John Cena.
Speaker 14: You know that's not his style, but yeah, I mean
Speaker 14: it's gonna I'm looking forward to the next time Raw
Speaker 14: or SmackDown comes to town just to see this whole
Speaker 14: production set up in person and what they're doing and what,
Speaker 14: you know, because everything was so ordinary before, so it
Speaker 14: is kind of cool to hear just you know, some
Speaker 14: of the details.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, yeah, the the in person perspective on on
Speaker 1: SmackDown tonight I'll be interesting too, and in how things
Speaker 1: are are different for the live experience. Jason will wrap
Speaker 1: up on that note. Good to have you on to
Speaker 1: talk about, uh what everything going on on a big
Speaker 1: forty eight hours preceding us and another another big evening tonight.
Speaker 1: And I'm excited to see what what T and A
Speaker 1: Impact does on Thursday and their new time slot and
Speaker 1: a little bit of maybe encouraging momentum as far as
Speaker 1: viewership goes coming out of the final deletion and not
Speaker 1: to mention Cruiserwey Classic and and any thoughts on the
Speaker 1: presentation Cruiserway Classic besides the wig ins that you hate
Speaker 1: with with utter utter passion.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I do well. I mean, just gimmick them work
Speaker 14: the It's fine. You want to make it sports so
Speaker 14: I can show away in but this is pro wrestling.
Speaker 14: If a guy weighs two hundred and six pounds and
Speaker 14: say he weighed two hundred and five pounds, I mean,
Speaker 14: you don't make people cut weight for a make believe tournament.
Speaker 4: It's silly.
Speaker 14: But even though there's a real WCW worldwide look to
Speaker 14: the Cruiserweight Classic, at the same time it works. It
Speaker 14: does feel unique. I've enjoyed the format so far. I've
Speaker 14: enjoyed the matches. I like the commentary. Daniel Bryan adds
Speaker 14: a lot. I think they can get more use out
Speaker 14: of Corey Graves, but I liked it. They're always going
Speaker 14: to the brackets of this thing. It's yeah, it's a
Speaker 14: slick show. I want to sneak in one thing with
Speaker 14: Does anyone care that brock Lesner should not be appearing
Speaker 14: at SummerSlam. It just seems like no one's talking about it.
Speaker 1: I just think there's sort of in a weigh and
Speaker 1: see jaw dropping mode, you know, like wwb's acting like
Speaker 1: it didn't happen. It's like George Constantra's showing up at
Speaker 1: work when he quit the previous Friday. You know, it
Speaker 1: just shows hey everybody and they're like, you quit. It's
Speaker 1: like Brock shows up money and it's like, dude, you
Speaker 1: you failed the drug test. You you you're banned from
Speaker 1: USC or you know. I mean, I don't know, Jason.
Speaker 4: I don't think the average fan gives a Dan Well.
Speaker 3: I think that's the thing.
Speaker 1: I think that that WWE is thinking, well, that was
Speaker 1: a drug testing done for MMA competition.
Speaker 3: Brock is in sports entertainment. He's a performer.
Speaker 1: The substance test at four doesn't really We didn't catch
Speaker 1: him on it in our testing, and if we do,
Speaker 1: if he fails, our testing will apply our punishment. If
Speaker 1: he doesn't and he's allowed to wrestle, then in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: then he'll wrestle. I guess the key question is is
Speaker 1: does the New York State Athletic Commission intervene in Brock
Speaker 1: performing Since that's a regulated state. He might be under
Speaker 1: suspension by the time SummerSlam comes around.
Speaker 4: And that's it sounds like that's not the case. They
Speaker 4: they won't go there with a wrestler.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, all right, well that's that's that's new.
Speaker 1: So if that's the case, then I would say they
Speaker 1: they're going to pretend it didn't have But other than
Speaker 1: the little wink and naw that Randy Orton gave.
Speaker 14: It, you don't think Stephanie McMahon is going to call
Speaker 14: him a loser next week. No, I don't, And I'll say,
Speaker 14: you know, hey, I don't think. I fear this is
Speaker 14: going to come back to haunt them. There's no guarantee
Speaker 14: it will, but this is one of those things that
Speaker 14: if they get away with it now, but if something
Speaker 14: happens down the road and their whole policy comes into question,
Speaker 14: this is going to be something that people are going
Speaker 14: to look back on.
Speaker 4: For sure.
Speaker 14: He's a huge star, and their approach to this is
Speaker 14: very suspect. That said huge deal, but he's appearing on RAW.
Speaker 14: I mean it would have been a big deal to
Speaker 14: get him two nights after he won at UFC two hundred.
Speaker 14: Next to that, though, I mean his first public appearance.
Speaker 14: This is bigger to me than Brock appearing at SummerSlam.
Speaker 14: Because Brock appearing at SummerSlam is a match. He doesn't
Speaker 14: have to address it. Paul Hammond doesn't have to address it.
Speaker 14: Assuming Paul Hamon's with him, and he may not address
Speaker 14: it next week, but we know it's not brock Lesner
Speaker 14: showing up on raw or a match. So there's the
Speaker 14: intrigue of what are they going to say about this?
Speaker 14: How is this going to be handled? That's a pretty
Speaker 14: big deal.
Speaker 1: Do you want to see Rady Orton stay babyface and
Speaker 1: brock Lesnar be just brock or do you want to
Speaker 1: see their Do you want to see them define one
Speaker 1: as someone you should probably be cheering for and the
Speaker 1: other you should probably be doing long term?
Speaker 14: You know, hey, I really liked what I saw from
Speaker 14: Randy on Sunday. I was impressed that Randy Orton. It
Speaker 14: was like the happy, go lucky baby face they wanted
Speaker 14: him to be early in his career and he wasn't
Speaker 14: ready to be that guy. And if he's faking it,
Speaker 14: this is the guy who always wanted to be a
Speaker 14: heel and cringes it thought of being a baby face.
Speaker 14: But maybe he's in a different place in life. He
Speaker 14: just felt natural he is, which is unlike what he
Speaker 14: did early in his career. He just seemed like he
Speaker 14: wanted he was happy to be there. So either he's
Speaker 14: doing a hell of a job of acting and making
Speaker 14: it seem like he's into this character or he's being genuine,
Speaker 14: which is great, but it was just a he was
Speaker 14: not the Randy Orton I expected. I think you have
Speaker 14: to keep him a baby face if they want to
Speaker 14: make this kind of a showdown WrestleMania style match where
Speaker 14: doesn't matter if they have, you know, let the fans choose.
Speaker 14: I'm okay with it, but long term, I'd like to
Speaker 14: see Brocket back to being a heel. I don't know
Speaker 14: if it will, if they're going to go in that direction,
Speaker 14: but I think that's when brock is most effective, even
Speaker 14: though the fans cheer them.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Let's get ready for SmackDown. Jason, Yeah, looking forward
Speaker 1: to it. Always great talking to you, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again probably in three weeks. Sounds great, excellent,
Speaker 1: Thanks everybody, and until next time. I'd be off for
Speaker 1: Jason Powell wad Keller signing off. Your time is valuable.
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