Speaker 1: A PW Torch VIP membership doesn't just give you add
Speaker 1: free access to these shows and a ton of other
Speaker 1: VIP exclusive podcasts throughout the week, but you also gain
Speaker 1: access to our unmatched vast library of wrestling history, our
Speaker 1: contemporaneous week to week coverage through our progressing Torch weekly
Speaker 1: newsletters dating back to the late nineteen eighties, along with
Speaker 1: streaming and download access to hundreds of retro radio shows
Speaker 1: from the nineteen nineties, including some of my interviews with
Speaker 1: wrestling's top newsmakers in the nineties, and also our podcast
Speaker 1: library dating back to the year two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: There's no larger, longer spanning pro wrestling podcast library than
Speaker 1: that that comes with a PW Torch VIP membership. Now
Speaker 1: we're approaching twenty years of podcasting, Go vip and dive
Speaker 1: into our post pay per view roundtables, our coverage of
Speaker 1: some of your favorite eras of wrestling, top name long
Speaker 1: form interviews, and special format podcasts that we've done throughout
Speaker 1: the years. Pwtorch dot com slash go vip. We have
Speaker 1: a streamline sign up for me and you can pay
Speaker 1: with PayPal or directly with your credit card or debit
Speaker 1: card in one or two minutes from right now, you
Speaker 1: can be a VIP member and diving into our library.
Speaker 1: PW Torch dot com, Slash Go VIP.
Speaker 2: Now, PW Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Killer
Speaker 2: Pro Wrestling Podcast. It's time for this week's Interview Classic,
Speaker 2: where Wade Killer interviews one of pro wrestling's newsmakers.
Speaker 1: Ten years ago. This week I interviewed PJ. Pilaco, better
Speaker 1: known as Just Incredible, former ECW champion and a take
Speaker 1: team with land Storm, among mating other accomplishments in pro wrestling,
Speaker 1: an honorary member of the Clique for a little while
Speaker 1: in the nineties, and we talked about a wide array
Speaker 1: of topics with live callers and emails coming in, including
Speaker 1: what had gone wrong with WWB lately, is Sadao a
Speaker 1: Tommy slash Kenta, doomed Yes pros and cons of Roman
Speaker 1: reigns as push first Tan, comparisons between being e WWE wrestler,
Speaker 1: the language barrier between wrestlers in the ring, and how
Speaker 1: wrestlers work through that when they're working with each other.
Speaker 1: Also thoughts on brock Lesner's conditioning Rybeck is Samizane too
Speaker 1: much like Daniel Bryan and much more. There is a
Speaker 1: VIP previously VIP exclusive after show that is included for
Speaker 1: free on this flashback. This show originally live streamed ten
Speaker 1: years ago this week on September twenty fifth, twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: and it is today's Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast Interview
Speaker 1: Classic for Thursday, September twenty six, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Now, Welcome to the p W Torch Live Cast. I
Speaker 3: am Wade Keller, not James Caldwell. I'm editor and publisher
Speaker 3: with the Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter since nineteen eighty seven
Speaker 3: and also pwtorch dot com since nineteen ninety nine and
Speaker 3: host of this the PW Torch Live Cast, approaching its
Speaker 3: five year anniversary here at blog talk radio dot com,
Speaker 3: the only live five days a week, Monday through Friday,
Speaker 3: pro wrestling talk show that invites your calls and emails
Speaker 3: with special guests and a rotation of hosts, and we
Speaker 3: thank you for joining us today Thursday September twenty fifth,
Speaker 3: two thousand fourteen. James Caldwell and Greg Parks will be
Speaker 3: hosting tomorrow and we are flipping days and Interview Friday
Speaker 3: once again has moved to Thursday, so it is Interview Thursday,
Speaker 3: and today's guest is a returning guest, and we're very pleased.
Speaker 3: I'm very pleased. I don't know who we is. I
Speaker 3: am very pleased to welcome former ECW World Heavyweight Champion,
Speaker 3: former longtime WWE wrestler Just Incredible, also known as PJ
Speaker 3: Bilocko by most people these days. PJ. Welcome to the.
Speaker 4: Show HALLAI wait, nice to be here, man, It's.
Speaker 3: Great to have you back on the program. You follow
Speaker 3: WWE closely, an eye on what's going on in the
Speaker 3: wrestling industry, and I want to focus on that on
Speaker 3: today's show, and I want to get to phone calls
Speaker 3: quickly also, so if you're wanted to get on the
Speaker 3: phone lines, I'm anticipating a short wait before we start
Speaker 3: hearing you either vent a little bit or or expressed
Speaker 3: concern or look on the bright side of what is
Speaker 3: going on in WWB today. One of the topics I'm
Speaker 3: curious to hear from callers on Justin and we'll delve
Speaker 3: into this is the pros and cons of WWE having
Speaker 3: a choice this January about and this might simplify their options.
Speaker 3: Things could change. But if brock Lesner is still the
Speaker 3: champion undefeated in WWE, has a choice of a returning
Speaker 3: healthy Daniel Bryan, of returning healthy a Roman Reigns or
Speaker 3: Dean Ambrose maybe gaining some momentum hopefully not being hurt
Speaker 3: by being on TV more. Now, which of those three
Speaker 3: do you go with to win the World Rumble in
Speaker 3: face brock Lessner ort WrestleMania And if you have a
Speaker 3: fourth option that you think is a dark horse candidate,
Speaker 3: give us a call and tell us that too. And
Speaker 3: our phone number here is six four, six seven two one,
Speaker 3: nine to eight to eight. Peage your thoughts on that
Speaker 3: starting question. I'm curious what you think now that Roman
Speaker 3: Reigns is out with hernia surgery, out for one to
Speaker 3: three months estimated.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you know, I would love to see
Speaker 4: Daniel Brian come back healthy. I'm sure he's lost, you know,
Speaker 4: just naturally being off his television. I'm sure he's lost
Speaker 4: a little bit of momentum. But uh, you know that
Speaker 4: would certainly that'd be a hell of a matchup brock Lessener,
Speaker 4: Daniel Brian, or just to throw a name out, although
Speaker 4: I doubt you know this would never happen. Probably but
Speaker 4: you know, just to see him punk card you always,
Speaker 4: you know, just just from well, you know how it
Speaker 4: is we all are as fans and what we would
Speaker 4: like to see. Not saying that that's going to be
Speaker 4: a possibility, but you could throw that out there. And
Speaker 4: of course the natural one would be Roman Reigns, because
Speaker 4: that's what we've all been hearing is where the ww
Speaker 4: wants to go. So, I mean, those would be my
Speaker 4: but I honestly think it'll probably be Roman Reigns realistically,
Speaker 4: with the choice that they're going to go with if
Speaker 4: he's healthy.
Speaker 3: And from what you've seen of Romans so far when
Speaker 3: he's been getting a singles push since the breakup of
Speaker 3: the Shield, you've observed a lot of talent. You were
Speaker 3: in the WWF during the rise of some really big
Speaker 3: stars and you've seen that that that process up close
Speaker 3: of other wrestlers evaluating their peers, and you've seen management
Speaker 3: evaluate rising stars. Where does Roman Reigns fall where? Where?
Speaker 3: Where do you think his strengths and weaknesses are in
Speaker 3: terms of showing that he is on pace to be
Speaker 3: at the level that WWE hopes and expects he will.
Speaker 4: Be sure, I mean right away, just his look I mean,
Speaker 4: he's a good looking young man, the long hair, handsome guy, jacked,
Speaker 4: you know, great physical conditioning. That's that's one. But two,
Speaker 4: he's pretty talented in ring guy. You know, I've seen
Speaker 4: I've seen him come, you know, leaps and bounds from
Speaker 4: where he was when he started with the Shield. You know,
Speaker 4: his probability. A lot of people not but you know
Speaker 4: what it is, what it is, and I'm sure with time,
Speaker 4: like anything else, you get better. I mean, it's just
Speaker 4: not a natural thing, especially the way they do it
Speaker 4: today where they force feed you lines and you pretty
Speaker 4: much have to do them verbatim, so it's a little
Speaker 4: more difficult. But I like what I see from him.
Speaker 4: You know, my biggest concern with the way they're handling
Speaker 4: him is they're so in pushing him down the fans
Speaker 4: throats mode. He went from being cool to not. So,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know, man, because it's just that
Speaker 4: we the fans, the real smart fans, and the males,
Speaker 4: you know, the young males, would drive that conversation of well,
Speaker 4: now he's getting pushed down our throats, we're gonna rebel
Speaker 4: against him, and he'd be the next John Cena where
Speaker 4: he's just you know, he's going to be the WWE's
Speaker 4: flag bearer for X amount of time. So I mean,
Speaker 4: I think he's doing a great job. I like what.
Speaker 4: You know, he still has a ways to go. Now,
Speaker 4: we got to see if people be able to carry
Speaker 4: you know, fifteen twenty thirty minute main event matches on
Speaker 4: big time cards. So but I do like what I see,
Speaker 4: and I think he's got he's got a good move
Speaker 4: set and he could work. So I mean, I think
Speaker 4: it is it's certainly a big up.
Speaker 3: Such uh we I've got in this week's Progressing Torture newsletter,
Speaker 3: which I just put online earlier today for VAT members
Speaker 3: in all text and PDF formats. It looks great on
Speaker 3: a tablet if you own an iPad or Android tablet,
Speaker 3: and we just uh, I just put up this week's
Speaker 3: issue when it includes a page and a half of
Speaker 3: Steve Austin mostly evaluating Roman reigns and giving his thoughts
Speaker 3: on the pros and what he sees in Roman reigns
Speaker 3: and also seth throw it. So was he talked about
Speaker 3: both guys first sets, and then the bulk of it
Speaker 3: was Roman reigns. Uh, the strengths and weaknesses of both
Speaker 3: guys and what they need to do to get to
Speaker 3: that next level. And with Roman reigns, you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe he ends up being the guy who John Cena
Speaker 3: gets the John Cena reaction. My react. I've thought of
Speaker 3: that before, and certainly we've seen a little bit of
Speaker 3: that page the you know that he's not getting the
Speaker 3: reaction that's expected, but I haven't seen a rebellion yet.
Speaker 3: And the reason I don't think we're as likely to
Speaker 3: see the you know, let's go Roman Roman sucks phenomenon
Speaker 3: that we've seen with Sena is because I think Sena
Speaker 3: brings on some of that himself. You know, I think
Speaker 3: Sena is And actually, just last Friday on this live cast,
Speaker 3: I interviewed Chris to Joseph, who was part of the
Speaker 3: rise of John Cena on the WWE creative team from
Speaker 3: two thousand and five through I think twenty eleven. He
Speaker 3: was around a lot at John Cena's rise, and I
Speaker 3: asked some point blank, is John Cena a cooler guy
Speaker 3: off air? Then he comes across on air and the
Speaker 3: Joseph who's been around scene a lot, like I said,
Speaker 3: you know, was in ww during scene his rise, said
Speaker 3: oh yeah, he's a cooler guy. Then he comes across
Speaker 3: on air. Roman Reigns is from what I've heard from
Speaker 3: talking to people, Peage is a more witty, personable, intelligent
Speaker 3: personality off camera, then he's coming across on television. But
Speaker 3: what he but when he is on TV? Unlike Sena,
Speaker 3: I don't think Rains comes across is uncool or dorky.
Speaker 3: He just comes across as a little too careful.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: That was one of the Steve Austin criticisms that they're
Speaker 3: telling Roman don't make mistakes instead of letting them go
Speaker 3: out there and kind of be a natural way. So
Speaker 3: I think Roman has less of a chance to get
Speaker 3: that mail fan base against him because I think you'll
Speaker 3: come across as a cooler guy than Sena.
Speaker 1: We're about to go to a commercial break. Why listen
Speaker 1: to commercial breaks when you can go vip and experience
Speaker 1: our shows with the ads and plugs removed. Pw torch
Speaker 1: dot com slash go vip. That's PW torch dot com
Speaker 1: slash go vip for full details, or go to Patreon
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com slash pw Torch vip rate start as
Speaker 1: low as four dollars in ninety nine cents to remove
Speaker 1: the ads and plugs through Patreon. Full VIP membership starts
Speaker 1: at nine dollars in ninety nine cents. Treat yourself to
Speaker 1: a streamlined, ad and plug free listening experience with a
Speaker 1: VIP or Patreon membership.
Speaker 4: Sure, well, I mean, you know, I agree with you
Speaker 4: a little bit, plas. I just worry so much about
Speaker 4: how they just present their guys. I mean, they're really
Speaker 4: you know, I listened to Steve Austin's podcast, and I've
Speaker 4: listened to you, you know, the interviews and stuff that
Speaker 4: you guys have done, and just one of the main
Speaker 4: problems that I see from you know, with organic things happening,
Speaker 4: and we really hadn't seen much of it since you know,
Speaker 4: maybe Daniel Brian, because I don't know how much exactly
Speaker 4: he got interfered with. I just thought, because I know
Speaker 4: him personally, that you know, that was a pretty authentic
Speaker 4: version of who he is. So I just worry with
Speaker 4: with them trying to make such a you know, uh,
Speaker 4: this this guy to carry this banner of this huge
Speaker 4: you know company that they're just going to eventually. You know,
Speaker 4: I just wish and I know this is never going
Speaker 4: to happen. They would just allow guys to go out
Speaker 4: there to some degree and find themselves, because that's where
Speaker 4: the real magic is. I mean, hell, you know, when
Speaker 4: I did Austin's podcast not too long ago, you know,
Speaker 4: just by being in the ring with although Montoya and
Speaker 4: being able to kind of shoot on me that he
Speaker 4: discovered some of the some of the funnier sides or
Speaker 4: some the win your side. Because if that stuff was scripted,
Speaker 4: or you were trying to find that lightning in a bottle,
Speaker 4: it wouldn't happen off a piece of paper. Sometimes it's
Speaker 4: just you know, you're feeding off of that that moment.
Speaker 4: I just wish that's something, you know, for them to
Speaker 4: really break business open again, they're going to really have
Speaker 4: to start relying on on some veteran talents to to
Speaker 4: step in and maybe help them. I don't know, find
Speaker 4: that again, because I think that's what's you know, Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: we're just getting. You know, when you have to read
Speaker 4: a promo and I've been there before, it's your memorizing
Speaker 4: lines instead of being able to hit bullet points and
Speaker 4: bring yourself in there. He seems he seems very capable,
Speaker 4: but also very robotic at times. What I think a
Speaker 4: lot of those guys, do you know, So even Triple H,
Speaker 4: who I know, follows the script from what I've been
Speaker 4: told that the writers write, or even he has a
Speaker 4: hand in writing whatever, even even he at times stumble
Speaker 4: bubbles through words, you know, and that's not that's not
Speaker 4: likely of somebody of his caliber, because I think you know,
Speaker 4: you're it's a one take show, you know, to one
Speaker 4: take business. But you're trying to replicate a movie script
Speaker 4: instead of what we've done in professional wrestling, which is
Speaker 4: just to go out there and steal it and do
Speaker 4: it so we'll see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think when you're reading a this goes back
Speaker 3: to fourth grade or seventh grade speech class. You're not
Speaker 3: you know, when you have a speech the teachers and
Speaker 3: maybe it's a little bit later when they insist on it.
Speaker 3: But you work from notes, You work from bullet points.
Speaker 3: You don't read from a script, because when you read
Speaker 3: from a script, it what happens is a different part
Speaker 3: of your brain is working. And what you're doing is
Speaker 3: you're looking at words and it's traveling right to your mouth,
Speaker 3: right and when you send bullet points, you're seeing ideas
Speaker 3: and the words that come out of your mouth have
Speaker 3: to travel through your brain first, and when words travel
Speaker 3: through your brain, they come out sounding extemporaneous, They sound natural,
Speaker 3: they sound like their thoughts you have now that you're speaking,
Speaker 3: instead of words that were written down that you're reciting.
Speaker 3: And it's a big frustration with WWB that they go
Speaker 3: to the extent to that in a kind of a
Speaker 3: control freakish way to know everything that everybody's going to
Speaker 3: say before they say it. And I really do think
Speaker 3: pro wrestling draws fans based on fans feeling a connection
Speaker 3: emotionally with the babyfaces that they admire, and feel a
Speaker 3: different kind of connection of friction with heels that you're
Speaker 3: supposed to pay to see get beat up. You want
Speaker 3: to see them get what they've got coming. And when
Speaker 3: everybody's reading scripts PJ, you don't really feel that connection
Speaker 3: because they're just trying to recite memorized words.
Speaker 4: And if I may real quick, you know just from
Speaker 4: even this translates to the wrestling. When I would wrestle
Speaker 4: certain guys both in WWE and DCW, when I wrestled
Speaker 4: guys that were more spot orientated, where I had to
Speaker 4: remember a lot of material, you could tell that character
Speaker 4: wise or my aggression or I didn't sell properly, or
Speaker 4: I was looked like I was second guessing because you're
Speaker 4: thinking instead of when I was out there with other
Speaker 4: you know, other times where we were more ad libbing
Speaker 4: or improving, I was more natural and it was just
Speaker 4: it flowed better. So, you know, it's a big part
Speaker 4: of I think, in my opinion, just maybe I'm a
Speaker 4: little too old school now and I know things have
Speaker 4: changed dramatically, but I just think they need to trust
Speaker 4: their their wrestlers a little more and give them a
Speaker 4: little bit more of a leash to to, you know,
Speaker 4: help help them, help them, help the wwe.
Speaker 3: How much percentage wise in E c W where your
Speaker 3: promos coached meticulously by Paul Paul Hayman to the point
Speaker 3: where he almost had everything mymrize or did you work
Speaker 3: out scripts or did you just get kind of bullet
Speaker 3: points and speak them.
Speaker 4: Well, they were meticulously you know produced, let's say, but
Speaker 4: you know, not if they were bullet points. If there
Speaker 4: was an important part of the promo that Paul felt,
Speaker 4: you know, it had to go in a certain direction,
Speaker 4: then he would, you know, make sure you went in
Speaker 4: that direction. But there was no words, weren't put into
Speaker 4: our mouths, or you know, he'd have suggestions if there's
Speaker 4: something very important. But like I said, we had really
Speaker 4: free reign. He said, look, you know you're wrestling, you know,
Speaker 4: saboo and anarchy rules you know in Chicago, and this
Speaker 4: is you know, he's you know, you've been running from him.
Speaker 4: But you know, give you whatever kind of things he
Speaker 4: wanted to really accentuate. And that's why you went. And
Speaker 4: then of course after a couple of cakes, he might
Speaker 4: say bring it down, you know, reel it in a
Speaker 4: little bit, or I need more of this. But really
Speaker 4: it was that marriage of that creative put you know,
Speaker 4: that a little bit of bancher where it's pulled. You know,
Speaker 4: you're both kind of in there trying to figure out
Speaker 4: what that natural progression is. And that's that's a little
Speaker 4: more you know, I get why they do what they
Speaker 4: do because it's a little more time consuming to do
Speaker 4: it the way you know Paul did it, or you
Speaker 4: know w W E traditionally did it. You know, sometimes
Speaker 4: back in the early nineties to mid nineties when I
Speaker 4: was there as Aldo, you know, sometimes we'd be in
Speaker 4: the promo rooms till one two in the morning doing
Speaker 4: all kinds of market specifics and trying to nail down
Speaker 4: because of course, back then a lot more was pre
Speaker 4: taped than is today, so of course it becomes more
Speaker 4: time consuming. But again we were allowed a lot more
Speaker 4: for your rain to develop who we were, you know,
Speaker 4: And and Paul was great at that. If he saw
Speaker 4: something that he liked, sometimes, you know, stuff we came
Speaker 4: up with stuff that you know, he like, you know, whatever.
Speaker 4: It was, just there were more ideas being thrown into
Speaker 4: the pot than being he handed a piece of paper.
Speaker 4: And I feel when the writers write for these guys,
Speaker 4: it's the writer's interpretation of who this guy should be,
Speaker 4: and they're not letting them be who he is. And
Speaker 4: I think that's being big, you know, thing that needs
Speaker 4: to change.
Speaker 6: That's question I.
Speaker 3: Would think when Paul is talking to you and coaching
Speaker 3: you on promos and saying what your emotions are, what's happened,
Speaker 3: what's going on with your character, what are his motivations,
Speaker 3: his frustrations, his aspirations, it gets you in in a
Speaker 3: certain place, and and and so it's less important to
Speaker 3: then have all the words scripted when you go out there,
Speaker 3: because you're feeling what you're saying and you know your
Speaker 3: character through and through, and it does come across that
Speaker 3: Roman reigns being so heavily scripted and and wwes and
Speaker 3: I mean there's good and bad in it. And I've
Speaker 3: had ex creative team members on and they defend it
Speaker 3: and they talk about us. Some guys just aren't they
Speaker 3: They need that scripting in order to survive in a
Speaker 3: three hour TV environment where you have to cut long
Speaker 3: promos and so you can adapt each situation. And John
Speaker 3: Pymerine was on a few weeks ago kind of explaining, Hey,
Speaker 3: when you see words in a script, a lot of
Speaker 3: times those are the words that a wrestler came up
Speaker 3: with that he already spoke and feels, and someone just
Speaker 3: transcribed it. And it's just a guy both. So it's
Speaker 3: not like guys are handed a script they had nothing
Speaker 3: to do with it, and then they sit and memorize it.
Speaker 3: That's not the case with most guys. But I would
Speaker 3: think you when Paul Hayman is getting you kind of
Speaker 3: in character and repped up, it makes it a lot
Speaker 3: easier to give a true emotional based promo instead of
Speaker 3: just reciting memorized words that you're nervous, you're gonna get wrong.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, And Paul the way he did it was I
Speaker 4: mean he worked with he was the guy behind the
Speaker 4: all those promos, you know, when we would shoot long hours.
Speaker 4: I mean there was stories of you know, the talent
Speaker 4: being in the buildings till four in the morning after
Speaker 4: the show had you know, wrapped up to eleven. And
Speaker 4: you know, he did everyone individually. It's not like he
Speaker 4: sent a camera crew and there were no writers. There
Speaker 4: was Tommy Dreamer and Paul, you know, and Paul did
Speaker 4: most of them and uh, you know, and Dreamers sometimes
Speaker 4: did the lesser guys. But you know, it's just it
Speaker 4: was I guess it's it's I don't know, man, for me,
Speaker 4: in what I think professional wrestling is. I know they
Speaker 4: don't like the I mean, wrestling is a bad word
Speaker 4: in the WWE.
Speaker 3: But we use it on the show because that's what
Speaker 3: they are.
Speaker 4: Well that's what they are and that's what I am.
Speaker 4: But you know, it's just it provides a different spark.
Speaker 4: It provides emotion and frustrations also in the characters. Sometimes
Speaker 4: sometimes would you know there's things going on in your
Speaker 4: life or in the locker room that you know that
Speaker 4: writers may not be in tune to and sometimes those
Speaker 4: are real emotions that could spark a real thing with
Speaker 4: the real, you know, organic thing with the audience. And
Speaker 4: and you know, I just I'm I just you know,
Speaker 4: I know, I know things are a certain way for
Speaker 4: a reason. I just don't particularly love the style that
Speaker 4: they did today as far as the promos. And also,
Speaker 4: like you said, I think it should be handled with
Speaker 4: you know, a guy like you know whomever, a guy
Speaker 4: like John Cen or some of the guys that don't
Speaker 4: need to be as a coach shouldn't have as much
Speaker 4: or sure to have a hell of a lot more input.
Speaker 4: And they shouldn't have to hit every single line. I mean,
Speaker 4: because when you're sitting here wondering if you're supposed to
Speaker 4: stay in this or an end, you know, it's really
Speaker 4: you know, it's I don't know, man, it's just weird.
Speaker 4: It's just weird to me. And I you know, I've
Speaker 4: never had the opportunity to do long promos, I believe
Speaker 4: me and X Puck. When I was up there, I
Speaker 4: had one or two in ring promo segments, and you know,
Speaker 4: I could tell you they weren't probably very good. That
Speaker 4: being said, I could just you know, I couldn't imagine
Speaker 4: Steve Austin capturing the attention of the entire world the
Speaker 4: way he did if he was out. They're reading for
Speaker 4: a school and maybe that's just an isolated guy, but
Speaker 4: I don't think so for the Rick Flairs back in
Speaker 4: the you know, the Ages or the other or the
Speaker 4: other greats, you know what I'm saying. So, I mean
Speaker 4: that's a that's an argument for the Ages, I guess,
Speaker 4: but that's my opinion.
Speaker 7: You know, need an extra dose of positivity in your
Speaker 7: wrestling podcasts. Will come join me Alan frel Over in
Speaker 7: the Progress Paradise at Peterboo Torch vip as we mask
Speaker 7: on the bright side of wrestling and focus on some
Speaker 7: of the great matches and shows from around the world,
Speaker 7: be it the US, Japan, Europe or Mexico. There's always
Speaker 7: a place for wrestlings past in the Paradise too, and
Speaker 7: we've done fun historical shows such as the We Love
Speaker 7: Liger series celebrating the glorious career of Jusian thunder Lighter
Speaker 7: and Our Eye was there When shows where our guests
Speaker 7: will join me to talk about a classic bout that
Speaker 7: they were in attendance for. We Love variety and you
Speaker 7: can expect lots of it at the Pro wrest Paradise.
Speaker 7: Detailed PW tors VIP subscription information on a list of
Speaker 7: all the VIP benefits is available at PWW torch vip
Speaker 7: info dot com. And yes, all VIP podcasts are compatible
Speaker 7: with popular podcast apps on iPhone and Android devices, or
Speaker 7: you can stream them directly from our ad free VIP
Speaker 7: mobile site. See you in the Paradise.
Speaker 3: Nathan A just emailed this that you guys are talking
Speaker 3: about the scripting and having to go work for word
Speaker 3: off the script for the talent in WWE. Does PJA
Speaker 3: feel that guys are afraid to step on toes or
Speaker 3: that they will get buried if they do not go
Speaker 3: word for word off the script and take take a
Speaker 3: chance on their promos.
Speaker 4: Oh, I believe absolutely. I know for a fact. I
Speaker 4: mean I have a couple of ears in there that
Speaker 4: I still talk to, and I know for a fact
Speaker 4: that it's an unpleasant working environment, big time, big time.
Speaker 4: I mean guys are scared to death. I mean because realistically,
Speaker 4: if you're if you're a pro wrestler, where else are
Speaker 4: you going to go to make a living? You know,
Speaker 4: it's not it's you know, it's not it's not easy
Speaker 4: on the indie change. And it's not like TNA is
Speaker 4: in very good shape or even you know, Ring of Honors,
Speaker 4: ring of Honor, but they're you know, they have a
Speaker 4: very small piece of the pie. You know. Yeah, guys
Speaker 4: are on eggshells. Guys are trying not to make mistakes,
Speaker 4: and you know, trying to be everything to everyone. And
Speaker 4: you know, and I could tell you, man, the times
Speaker 4: I was there, you know, I started to happen in
Speaker 4: two thousand and six when I Will was last there,
Speaker 4: But in the in the nineties it was nothing like that.
Speaker 4: And when I was there two thousand and one with
Speaker 4: the invasion angles all the way up until January two
Speaker 4: thousand and three, it wasn't like that at all either.
Speaker 4: And I think when you have that thing where you're
Speaker 4: so scared that you're going to miss a spot or
Speaker 4: god forbid, you mess something up in a promo and
Speaker 4: you're going to lose your job, or not to mention
Speaker 4: the locker room politics, which is off the hook, you know,
Speaker 4: just ridiculous. You know, Yeah, everybody's walking on xshlls twenty
Speaker 4: four to seven.
Speaker 3: What are you hearing? That's different about the locker room
Speaker 3: politics today versus mid two thousands in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 4: Well, it's just, you know, it's just you're expected to
Speaker 4: be a perfect employee. You're expected to be on time,
Speaker 4: You're expected to you know, to to train to you know,
Speaker 4: not even I'm not saying in the gym to keep
Speaker 4: your body, but just to be in the ring, to
Speaker 4: be that consummate professional of what they feel that WWE
Speaker 4: is it's not this business. I mean when it was
Speaker 4: making the most money was fun. We had a good time.
Speaker 4: And I'm not talking about partying. I'm not talking about
Speaker 4: drugs or alcohol. That's fine. I'm glad that the business
Speaker 4: has shifted from what it was, you know, to what
Speaker 4: it is today. In that aspect, I'm not talking about that,
Speaker 4: but I'm talking about just having fun, whether it's in
Speaker 4: the ring or whether it's you know, in the back,
Speaker 4: or whether it's you know, when you're talking. This business
Speaker 4: was about being loose and having fun and creating. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you see somebody, you know, even like when you
Speaker 4: watch the old d X stuff, they're out there having
Speaker 4: a good time, you know. And I'm not a huge
Speaker 4: fan of DX believe it or not of you know,
Speaker 4: some of the over the top skit that thought some
Speaker 4: of them were actually quite vulgar, and I wouldn't want
Speaker 4: my kids watch it that stuff today. But nonetheless, they're
Speaker 4: out there having fun, and you know, it's just a
Speaker 4: looser atmosphere. You weren't so worried about if I go
Speaker 4: in this direction, am I going to get a call
Speaker 4: from Talent Relations saying I'm done? Or am I just
Speaker 4: gonna not be on the booking sheet the next time
Speaker 4: something comes out? Or if I take this chance in
Speaker 4: the match and sell a certain way or do a
Speaker 4: certain thing, is it going to mean that I'm gonna
Speaker 4: have heat with the locker room leaders of the boys,
Speaker 4: whereas Hunter are gonna be mad at me if I
Speaker 4: did this? Or that it's too much thinking about kissing
Speaker 4: people off, excuse my language, then to just go out
Speaker 4: there and be able to create, you know, and that
Speaker 4: really causes a you know, a damper on things. I mean,
Speaker 4: this business, we used to get in the cars and
Speaker 4: just learn. So we talk from you know, sometimes four
Speaker 4: or five hour car rides from you know, from the
Speaker 4: beginning of the ride till the end about what we
Speaker 4: did right, what we did wrong, how we think this
Speaker 4: could be better, and you know, just trying to really
Speaker 4: sharpen up our characters and ourselves to be better because
Speaker 4: you know, the guys I now would loved this business,
Speaker 4: and you know it was just times were fun, It
Speaker 4: was a good time. You were able to feel like
Speaker 4: a part of something. And when you take that out
Speaker 4: of the equation, it just becomes about showing up, being
Speaker 4: a robots and doing it for the money. Quite frankly,
Speaker 4: if you.
Speaker 3: Are if you're joining, go go ahead, peach.
Speaker 4: Yep, no, no, I'm done with it. You know, it's
Speaker 4: kind of world zones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good good if you're just joining us midstream. PJ
Speaker 3: Palaco no one best says, just incredible is my guest
Speaker 3: here on Interview Thursday especial Thursday episode of Interview Friday,
Speaker 3: PW Torch Live Cast Tomorrow, James called on the Greg
Speaker 3: Parks and be by to talk about t and A Impact,
Speaker 3: nxt WWE happenings and much more. So join us tomorrow
Speaker 3: live here at PW torch livecast dot com. We are
Speaker 3: on the air Monday through Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and
Speaker 3: Friday we're on at five thirty Eastern and on Mondays,
Speaker 3: we're on in the hour before Raw. Yesterday, Pat McNeil
Speaker 3: was joined by Disco Inferno for a one of Disco's
Speaker 3: semi frequent appearances with Pat McNeil. And last Friday, Chris
Speaker 3: to Joseph was on with me, former WWE creative team
Speaker 3: member for many years in the two thousands, and he
Speaker 3: was on to talk about l RAIN Network's new Lucha
Speaker 3: Underground program, which premieres October twenty ninth. I believe they
Speaker 3: moved to date now two hour premiere on the l
Speaker 3: RAIN Network. It is a Luca based promotion, but English
Speaker 3: speaking announcers and promos. Mark Burnett of Survivor Fame and
Speaker 3: many other reality shows is backing it. And if you
Speaker 3: want to learn more about this exciting new chapter, a
Speaker 3: new venture, a new way to present professional wrestling, a
Speaker 3: fascinating interview with Chris to Joseph, I learned a lot
Speaker 3: about the new product. They just did their first set
Speaker 3: of TV tapings a couple of weeks back, and they
Speaker 3: are in production hot and heavy to get those shows ready.
Speaker 3: And the first season of Luca Underground begins October twenty ninth,
Speaker 3: and that Inner You is available in at PW torchlivecast
Speaker 3: dot com. The PW Torch Live Cast is brought to
Speaker 3: you by Audible, a leading provider of spoken audio PG.
Speaker 3: We got an email from somebody else. Oh, you know,
Speaker 3: let me give about the phone umbers two because I
Speaker 3: didn't want to take phone calls. We asked that question
Speaker 3: at the top of the show, Dean Ambrose, Roman Rains
Speaker 3: or Daniel Bryan, who would you go with? In why
Speaker 3: to win the Royal Rumble this year? To face brock
Speaker 3: Lesner at WrestleMania WWB. Yesterday, Peach had to issue a
Speaker 3: denial of rumors that brock Lesner was having some health issues.
Speaker 3: People compared Lesner's performance at Night of Champions on Sunday
Speaker 3: to what Ultimate Warrior looked like at his Hall of
Speaker 3: Fame speech and during his WrestleMania speech, which is a
Speaker 3: scary comparison to make. Lesner was sweating and red faced
Speaker 3: and all of that. I just saw it as typical
Speaker 3: brock Lesnar to have a red face, that's kind of
Speaker 3: his coloring. And I expected he would be sweating because
Speaker 3: he was wrestling a match, unlike Ultimate Warrior, who wasn't
Speaker 3: rushing a match. So I see some key differences, but
Speaker 3: I did comment before any of this came out that
Speaker 3: I thought Brock, to my eyes, did not look like
Speaker 3: he was in the greatest of physical shape compared to
Speaker 3: other appearances he's had for WWE. On this run, I
Speaker 3: thought he looked a little flabbier and got winded a
Speaker 3: little sooner and seemed half a step slower. And that
Speaker 3: could be so many things that played into it. Maybe
Speaker 3: an injury cousme to not you know, a minor injury
Speaker 3: cousum to not be able to train his hard, or
Speaker 3: it could have been some stress or who knows what.
Speaker 3: But did you notice anything like that Peach on a
Speaker 3: Night of Champions on Sunday in I I.
Speaker 4: Did a little bit. I don't think there. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know we're not doctors, but I mean he looked
Speaker 4: a little in wrestling terms, he looked a little blown up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: And for me, I mean, you know, he doesn't wrestle
Speaker 4: all the time. And you know, when you when you
Speaker 4: when your guy like Brock Lesner, you know, I can
Speaker 4: imagine you know, it's easy to you know, your your
Speaker 4: big guy, or you've looked good all your life. It's
Speaker 4: believe me, I know. I mean, I mean, I'm there
Speaker 4: right now. I mean, I'm not the best wrestling shape.
Speaker 4: So it gets very easy too when you're making sporadic
Speaker 4: appearances to not take it as seriously and say, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm going to get in shape for this pay per
Speaker 4: view and that's fine. You can do all kinds of training,
Speaker 4: which I'm sure he does. I'm not saying he didn't train,
Speaker 4: but there's nothing like being in a ring full time,
Speaker 4: and then of course you got a factor in, you know,
Speaker 4: did he You know, when you have that kind of coloration,
Speaker 4: you're sweating like that, you know. For me, I used
Speaker 4: to always take fat burners sometimes for caffeine, Like I
Speaker 4: hated drinking too much coffee, but I take a couple
Speaker 4: of hydroxy cuts, for example, to try to give you
Speaker 4: the caffeine. Sometimes that has that first effect where you know,
Speaker 4: you could start sweating and it, you know, raises your heart.
Speaker 4: So I mean, there could be a whole host of things,
Speaker 4: but I wouldn't think, you know, I would hope certainly,
Speaker 4: not that you know, it's it's anything like that. But no,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, he did look a little bit
Speaker 4: more blown up, even a little more blown up. But
Speaker 4: I mean that could simply just be not working all
Speaker 4: the time. I mean, that really does it to you,
Speaker 4: you know, to have somebody, to have somebody, even though
Speaker 4: he's a tremendous, tremendous athlete in brock Lesnar, you're still
Speaker 4: you know, you're doing it. You're in a worked environment,
Speaker 4: and he understands that. You know, it's possible to say, hey,
Speaker 4: maybe I'm just gonna you know.
Speaker 3: Not train this.
Speaker 4: You know, I'll be able to get by this, and
Speaker 4: then hey, your body just says, oh no, you won't,
Speaker 4: you know, So I wouldn't read too much into it.
Speaker 4: I mean obviously there was no you know, nothing came
Speaker 4: out of it, which I'm glad and I think you'll
Speaker 4: be fine. But that's what you get when you don't
Speaker 4: have a champion who's wrestling on a nightly basis, because
Speaker 4: that's where you know, I do a lot of cardio,
Speaker 4: I do DT yoga, but not being in the you know,
Speaker 4: I wrestle sometimes only once once a week, you know,
Speaker 4: sometimes you know, every every other week, you know, so
Speaker 4: it's it's rare that I get more than you know,
Speaker 4: two matches per week. And that's what you kind of
Speaker 4: really need to put on, you know, wrestling matches whereas
Speaker 4: the other guys out there wrestling and every house show
Speaker 4: every night, you know is in is in ring shape,
Speaker 4: and I'm sure you've heard of that ring shape and
Speaker 4: just being in shape. So it's a totally different thing.
Speaker 4: And you know, I think that's the case of him
Speaker 4: blowing up a little bit too early.
Speaker 1: You don't have to wait for the way Keller Pro
Speaker 1: Wrestling post show to find out what I thought of
Speaker 1: Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Each week, you can check
Speaker 1: out my reports that are updated live throughout Raw and
Speaker 1: SmackDown at pwtorch dot com. My written report will tell
Speaker 1: you what's happening in detail in case you missed the show,
Speaker 1: and it will also analyze key segments and give my
Speaker 1: random thoughts quips on what I'm watching as it airs.
Speaker 1: So check it out every Monday night and Tuesday night
Speaker 1: at pwtorch dot com. That also applies to wwepayperviews. I
Speaker 1: cover those live at PW torch dot com with a
Speaker 1: detailed written report with star ratings, and of course you
Speaker 1: can find other TV reports from other contributors to PW
Speaker 1: Torch such as nxt roh, Impact Wrestling and more. Check
Speaker 1: it out Pwtorch dot com, your first stop for TV
Speaker 1: and pay per view written reports.
Speaker 3: Four six is the phone number if you want to
Speaker 3: chime in on this conversation. We can talk about anything
Speaker 3: you want, including our discussion. I'm going to discussion Aboutrain's
Speaker 3: Daniel Brian or Dean Ambrose I want. We've got an
Speaker 3: email too from a listener about wild card pick that
Speaker 3: I'll bring up in a moment. However, Uh, Dean Ambros.
Speaker 3: Roman Range goes down with a hernia an injury related
Speaker 3: to hernia surgery. He's out for a while. Dean Ambrose
Speaker 3: is ready to come back, and does come back. The
Speaker 3: timing was good in that regard. Is I talked about
Speaker 3: this for VP members on the Wade Keller hotline yesterday
Speaker 3: when I was answering VIP member email questions. Dean Embros
Speaker 3: to me, feels less like Steve Austin and more like
Speaker 3: Randy Savage Roddy Piper. That that type of of of
Speaker 3: role in a promotion. In other words, even when Randy
Speaker 3: Savage Peach was the top guy, I don't think anybody
Speaker 3: ever exhaled like, oh, we got our guys. This is
Speaker 3: we're gonna build around. Same with Roddy Piper. He was
Speaker 3: never meant to be that top guy. He was that unhinged,
Speaker 3: crazy guy who was too uncontrollable to really be relied
Speaker 3: upon to be the face of the company. He's not
Speaker 3: to me, Dean Ambrose fits the role of that guy
Speaker 3: who just can't be that lead guy and shouldn't be
Speaker 3: that lead guy. Not that he's a sidekick, but he's
Speaker 3: he's somebody who's most valuable, like a Roddy Piper was,
Speaker 3: and maybe less of a perfect analogy, but I'm still
Speaker 3: using it Randy Savage, where in a pinch you can
Speaker 3: go with him for a short time, but he's most
Speaker 3: valuable when he's not the starter and the headliner in
Speaker 3: the face of the company. Your your thoughts on that
Speaker 3: take on Dean Ambrose.
Speaker 4: I agree one hundred percent. You know, I think he's
Speaker 4: immensely talented. I really like what he's doing. I'm a
Speaker 4: fan of his work. I have been even before he
Speaker 4: was with the WWE. You know, but you know, you're
Speaker 4: absolutely right. I don't think, you know, just from a
Speaker 4: physical standpoint, he's a little bit, you know, smaller than
Speaker 4: what you would think of as a WW guy. The
Speaker 4: looks all coming to play. I mean, you know, to me,
Speaker 4: a guy, you know, I just he just looks like something,
Speaker 4: you know. He he like I said, his perfect analogy
Speaker 4: was the Rainy Savage when he had his title. And
Speaker 4: it's not like he's underneath the title. But he's certainly
Speaker 4: not He's not the guy that you could count on
Speaker 4: to build. He's not the next John seen that sort
Speaker 4: of thing. And I totally agree with you, and you know,
Speaker 4: I certainly and that's not a bad spot to be
Speaker 4: and because sometimes there's more longevity in that spot than
Speaker 4: there is in the top spot. So yeah, you know, so,
Speaker 4: uh no, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 3: Would you when Roman Range comes back, teach, would you
Speaker 3: change his gear to reveal more skin, to put it flat?
Speaker 3: I mean, Roman Range just all covered up. You can
Speaker 3: see the biceps in a little bit. But would you
Speaker 3: just put him in wrestling trunks and and and and
Speaker 3: have him go out there and look less like he
Speaker 3: did in the Shield and more like most top guys
Speaker 3: have looked, which is wearing some sort of wrestling outfit
Speaker 3: but not covering their chest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they should make that move. Slowly. I
Speaker 4: don't know how you go about it, you know, because
Speaker 4: there's a lot of big you know, these are the
Speaker 4: fans really loved the shield. But I think you know,
Speaker 4: when you got somebody that that's in that greatest shape,
Speaker 4: you'll want to show it. You know, at least I
Speaker 4: would think in classic form you would. And yeah, I absolutely,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, from the from the pants all
Speaker 4: the way down to that thing he wears over his chest.
Speaker 4: I mean it doesn't have to say it has to
Speaker 4: go into like you know, the little skivvies, you know,
Speaker 4: a little skimpy shorts, but some kind of wrestling tight
Speaker 4: and I don't know how you get there. You know,
Speaker 4: maybe when he comes back, just come back with a
Speaker 4: whole new look, you know, something cool and something that
Speaker 4: fits his style. But yeah, absolutely, just something It's something
Speaker 4: more along of an MMA fighter, you know, something just
Speaker 4: intense and you know that says I'm going to kick
Speaker 4: your ass and I mean business now, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Yeah, yeah, and I'm not I mean, if there's
Speaker 3: some reason they don't want to do it, fine, I
Speaker 3: would think could be harder to perform that covered up too,
Speaker 3: you know, like just in terms of just airing your
Speaker 3: body out, it just seems like it would be kind
Speaker 3: of a burden to be wearing what looked like layers
Speaker 3: of clothing, you know, from neck to ankle.
Speaker 4: Sure, it just really does. It looks very uncomfortable. And
Speaker 4: I know for a fact, you know, even with the
Speaker 4: pants and stuff, it it's very uncomfortable. I mean, myself
Speaker 4: wearing jean shorts. I loved when I went back to
Speaker 4: you know, for an early point on WW wearing wrestling
Speaker 4: tights and boots actually was very refreshing and you could
Speaker 4: just move better and it allows more flexibility. But you know,
Speaker 4: I just and and I think it's you know, at
Speaker 4: least for me, because I would like to see it
Speaker 4: seem more sports orientated these days, at least as a
Speaker 4: fan of the major company in you know, in the world.
Speaker 4: Quite frankly, I'd like to see it mirror a sport.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: It's funny. I was listening to Colin Colvert on the
Speaker 4: you know, ESPN this morning, and he was he was
Speaker 4: comparing you know, pro wrestling to NASCAR are and you know,
Speaker 4: just just but how you know, how he felt, you know,
Speaker 4: and he's kind of dising boded, but how you know,
Speaker 4: along the lines of it, they were smart. They would
Speaker 4: make it more of a you know, go back to
Speaker 4: making it more of a sports field because it's still
Speaker 4: you know, so extremely popular, so especially with the USC
Speaker 4: and comparison, So I would, you know, as a stand
Speaker 4: I would just like to see that in a more
Speaker 4: sports oriented and base instead of the way it is
Speaker 4: being presented so much today.
Speaker 3: Just talking on Twitter, standing back and forth with somebody
Speaker 3: on Twitter. You can follow me by the way at
Speaker 3: the Wade Keller and justin plug your Twitter. Well, go
Speaker 3: ahead and plug your Twitter at your sort talking.
Speaker 4: Oh I'm so yes, I'm I'm on Twitter at PJ
Speaker 4: Pollocko p O l A c O.
Speaker 3: That's p J. P O l A c O. And
Speaker 3: again mine is at the Wade Keller. Somebody had commented
Speaker 3: about Impact last night and whether wrestlers should acknowledge the
Speaker 3: cameras or not when they're on them, and my answer
Speaker 3: is yes, they should ignowl them always. I even asked
Speaker 3: christ to Joseph last Friday about the narrative rules, the
Speaker 3: internal logic to how they're filming their promotion. I think
Speaker 3: there should be a set of rules for every show,
Speaker 3: and it doesn't mean only one way works, but you
Speaker 3: have to pick away and stick with it and defend
Speaker 3: it and make sure that it makes sense. And what
Speaker 3: I mean by that is, if it's a sports like presentation,
Speaker 3: you could never imagine turning it tuning into a NASCAR
Speaker 3: television show presented as real competition and have drivers and
Speaker 3: trainers just chatting about like top secret things about strategy
Speaker 3: and ignoring that a camera and microphone we're filming them.
Speaker 3: It's just absurd on the face of it. It would totally
Speaker 3: take you out of it. That said, if I go
Speaker 3: to a movie theater, I pay a ticket, I sit
Speaker 3: down on a share, the film starts running, and it's
Speaker 3: something I know with film months ago, and it's seen
Speaker 3: the same movie scene over and over again, all over theaters,
Speaker 3: all over the place at different times. I'm expecting that
Speaker 3: to be more of a movie production where you kind
Speaker 3: of stuck me into that world. You draw me into
Speaker 3: that world, and I buy into it. But of course
Speaker 3: the characters aren't acknowledging the cameras because that's the narrative
Speaker 3: rules of movies and you got to pick one and
Speaker 3: go with it and have a reason for it. With wrestling,
Speaker 3: I think you want to have that sports like feel,
Speaker 3: which is if a camera's there, the athletes know that
Speaker 3: the camera is there because you're an athlete, but cameras
Speaker 3: have been given access to what's going on behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: and they're roaming around filming you. I like TNA's roving
Speaker 3: cameraman that sometimes ask questions off camera. Jason Hervey did
Speaker 3: that for a while. I like that approach because it
Speaker 3: seems more happenstance. What I do not like is WWE
Speaker 3: And just when I think of this, I just think
Speaker 3: a Hunter and steph because it's always a way that
Speaker 3: they do it. They're always on the phone and then
Speaker 3: they are either interrupted or wrap up a phone call
Speaker 3: at just the right time for the cameras to be
Speaker 3: filming them when someone else walked in the room to
Speaker 3: talk to them about something really important for striving storylines
Speaker 3: on the show. And it's just too convenient. What if
Speaker 3: Kane didn't walk in the room and interrupt Hunter, or
Speaker 3: what if John Cena didn't walk in and interrupt Stephanie
Speaker 3: on the phone? Would they have just shown us ten
Speaker 3: seconds of Stephanie talking on the phone and then they
Speaker 3: would have cut to a break, Like it's just stupid,
Speaker 3: It's just stupid or too old. What are they thinking?
Speaker 3: Just have a camera roaming backstage and it catches up
Speaker 3: the Triple Agent and there's somebody asking them a question
Speaker 3: off camera. Make there be a good reason for that,
Speaker 3: and so I agree with that. I just think WWE
Speaker 3: is kind of suffering right now from a lack of
Speaker 3: taking a step back. Then we can talk about this
Speaker 3: as a larger issue with Raw. It's just taking a
Speaker 3: step back and having a meeting and deciding what is
Speaker 3: our narrative structure right now? Why do we make the
Speaker 3: choices we make? Like, to me, Miss Anddelfzigler had an
Speaker 3: icy title rematch on Monday at the top at the
Speaker 3: first match on Raw, second segment, and there were no
Speaker 3: promos to set it up, almost no backstory to it.
Speaker 3: And to me, if you're gonna have an icy title
Speaker 3: match and you want people to care about championships, peg,
Speaker 3: don't you have to have the wrestlers do what they're
Speaker 3: good at and Miss and Dolph are both good at
Speaker 3: it and maybe very good draw us into what's set
Speaker 3: stake in the match and what their feelings are going
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 4: I mean, it would be a logical thing. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, just it's amazing what one short set even
Speaker 4: a half a segment of of you know, backstage interviews,
Speaker 4: even if it's pre taped to set up. Hey, look,
Speaker 4: you know this is we've been I've been given this opportunity.
Speaker 4: I've you know, I lost the title at the pay
Speaker 4: per view. I want to gain it back, you know,
Speaker 4: and get a retort somewhere down the line, and you
Speaker 4: play it at the you know, at the top of
Speaker 4: the hour or something. Because sometimes it's the little things
Speaker 4: that make all the difference in the world in my opinions.
Speaker 4: And you know, unfortunately, I know Vince gets a lot
Speaker 4: of criticism for this is that you know, there's now
Speaker 4: when you're filling three hours of show. I mean, I
Speaker 4: hate to say this, you know, but I'm going to
Speaker 4: be bold about it. I mean, it's painful to watch
Speaker 4: three hours.
Speaker 3: It's for me.
Speaker 4: I love that. I love pro wrestling, That's the thing.
Speaker 4: I love pro wrestling, but it rarely excites me today.
Speaker 4: And believe me, when it's right, I still get very
Speaker 4: excited and I love to to tune in. It's just unfortunately,
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes you just feel like it's you're getting
Speaker 4: given a lot of filler and you could really, you know,
Speaker 4: with all of this time, you could really set up
Speaker 4: an undercard or a mid card and do it properly.
Speaker 4: That was one of the beauty the beauty things of
Speaker 4: the Attitude era, and even with Nitro and stuff, you know,
Speaker 4: when it was really both were really hot that period
Speaker 4: of time. There is that you know, everybody sort of
Speaker 4: mattered on the show. You know, everybody kind of mattered.
Speaker 4: And now it's like when you see certain guys, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't want to I'm not throwing any names out
Speaker 4: there to be rude, but when you see certain guys,
Speaker 4: you just know what it's going to be, and you
Speaker 4: know it's you know, back in the day, when you
Speaker 4: saw a job guy, you knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 4: You knew the guy was gonna go out there and
Speaker 4: get squashed. You know, when you saw PJ. Walker and
Speaker 4: the very early days of Raw against Razor Ramone, you
Speaker 4: knew what was going to happen. But quite frankly, haven't
Speaker 4: these guys who supposedly have entrances and in the tron video,
Speaker 4: really they're just jobbers anyways, I know at the same extent,
Speaker 4: So really, if the WWE wants to regain the spark,
Speaker 4: I think they're going to really need to focus on
Speaker 4: the mid card. Yeah, they're quite Frankly, I think they're
Speaker 4: really going to need to to turn this whole thing
Speaker 4: around it and just to start because Hunter's done a
Speaker 4: great job with with NXT. NXT to me is my
Speaker 4: favorite program, my favorite wrestling program. I watch it every
Speaker 4: every Thursday. It's perfect as far as it's one hour.
Speaker 4: You get a couple of good matches to kind of
Speaker 4: see what's good. It's it's easy wrestling viewing raw. It's
Speaker 4: like all over the map and it's so it's a marathon,
Speaker 4: and believe me, with Monday night football, it's hard to
Speaker 4: get my attention. So I think these are things they
Speaker 4: really need to to to, you know, ask the questions
Speaker 4: of how are we going to present this? And uh,
Speaker 4: you know just and two just how you know you
Speaker 4: handle that third wall there that dimension of the camera
Speaker 4: and you know that's those are unanswered questions. Those are
Speaker 4: little things that could be fixed that would change a
Speaker 4: lot a lot of the logic that goes on.
Speaker 8: So I'm Chris Maitland and I'm Justin McClelland we host.
Speaker 9: Wrestling Coast to Coast where we scour the wrestling scene
Speaker 9: to find the best wrestling from the smallest places.
Speaker 8: There are thousands of matches happening every week, so Wrestling
Speaker 8: coast to coast is here to discover the men and
Speaker 8: women who could be big time stars in a few years.
Speaker 9: There are plenty of podcasts to voters at WW and AW,
Speaker 9: but what's happening in the armories and gymnasiums local wrestling
Speaker 9: hotspots around the country.
Speaker 8: We can't wait to help you find the true hidden
Speaker 8: gems of the wrestling world. Plus, you can hear Chris
Speaker 8: complain about bad referees.
Speaker 9: And justin bemoaning dogpole fins.
Speaker 8: Don't forget my feudal search to see a blue Thunderbomb
Speaker 8: win a match.
Speaker 9: How can I like? The name says we cover the
Speaker 9: hottest independent promotions from around the country, so such as
Speaker 9: Prestige Action, West Coast, Pro, Revolver, and Beyond Wrestling.
Speaker 8: Actually, Chris, I think we sick pretty much too wrestling.
Speaker 9: No, I mean Beyond Wrestling out of Wooster, Oh right.
Speaker 9: Our show's part of the PW Torch Daily Cast lineup
Speaker 9: and typically drops on Thursdays. Search PW Torch in your
Speaker 9: podcast app, as subscribed to the pw Torch Daily Cast
Speaker 9: or stream shows directly from PW touch dot com. Find
Speaker 9: full details on the PW Torch Dailycast lineup at pwtorchdailycast
Speaker 9: dot com.
Speaker 3: And it seems like they don't do that, then they
Speaker 3: haven't stepped back and done it. And Monday show just
Speaker 3: felt like almost a burden for them to produce, you
Speaker 3: know you, and if it's a burden for them to
Speaker 3: fill three hours, it's a burden for us to watch
Speaker 3: three hours watch.
Speaker 10: Ye.
Speaker 3: The thing is this three hours is too long, not
Speaker 3: because you can't produce a really good three hour show
Speaker 3: once in a while, and really not because you couldn't
Speaker 3: produce a great three hour show every week. I actually
Speaker 3: think there's a way to do a great three hour
Speaker 3: show every week. But I would argue even if you
Speaker 3: did a great three hour show every week and really
Speaker 3: made every segment count and had more guys over and
Speaker 3: had people just salivating at what's the next segment? And boy,
Speaker 3: that last segment was good, but I can't wait to
Speaker 3: see the next one and the next one. And they've
Speaker 3: really set it up and they've built my anticipation. They've
Speaker 3: they've they've made me want to see every single segment.
Speaker 3: Even if they did all that I'd still vote for
Speaker 3: two hours because I think two hours in the long
Speaker 3: run is better for the booking team. It's better to
Speaker 3: not overexpose your top talent. It's better to not throw
Speaker 3: an icy title match out there the day after a
Speaker 3: pay per view, cheapening the pay per view and the
Speaker 3: icy title at the same time, just because you don't
Speaker 3: know what else to do, because you don't have enough
Speaker 3: guys over and so you just throw that rematch out there.
Speaker 3: Same thing with russav Mark Henry So I would still
Speaker 3: be for to our show. Even if the three hour
Speaker 3: show is going well. Despite the advertising revenue, I think
Speaker 3: there's long term damage. I think it hurts the network.
Speaker 3: I think it hurts pay per views. I think it
Speaker 3: hurts SmackDown, and I think it hurts howse show ticket sales.
Speaker 3: You want people left wanting more, and three hours just
Speaker 3: doesn't do that. And people say, well, baseball games are
Speaker 3: three hours, or football games are three hours, but you're
Speaker 3: not watching the Colts against the Texans every single Monday
Speaker 3: for three hours. You're seeing Roman Reigns and John Cena
Speaker 3: and Dean Ambrose every single week for three hours. It's
Speaker 3: the same team. So if the same two teams played
Speaker 3: every three or every week for three hours, that would
Speaker 3: get old. And that's where that analogy just doesn't hold up.
Speaker 3: And if you watch your team for three hours every
Speaker 3: week in the NFL, it's your team against a different
Speaker 3: team every week, and that creates novelty. But WWB doesn't
Speaker 3: do that. So I'm with you as often as a case,
Speaker 3: almost always justin You and I are on the same
Speaker 3: page on this stuff, and it is frustrating, but I
Speaker 3: know they can do better. I know that there is
Speaker 3: stale on this there. I know, as you talked about that,
Speaker 3: there's some frustration there and it do do you remember
Speaker 3: September traditionally being the worst month in wrestling annually?
Speaker 10: Was that?
Speaker 3: And I was just putting up a ten years ago
Speaker 3: Pat McNeil show because throughout the week we run our
Speaker 3: audio shows that we originally published ten years ago because
Speaker 3: we have a lot of new members and those audio
Speaker 3: shows haven't been available for since they originally aired because
Speaker 3: we ended up being going poof on a server move
Speaker 3: one time. So I recovered them and I'm putting them
Speaker 3: up and it's really fun to go back in time
Speaker 3: and listen to you know, this last week we've been
Speaker 3: talking about Randy Orton becoming the youngest champion of all
Speaker 3: time and all the backstage politics of the decision to
Speaker 3: do that. And one thing Pat McNeil said in an
Speaker 3: audio update that we just put up is why he
Speaker 3: was writing about on the newsletter too, why September is
Speaker 3: the worst month to be a wrestling fan. Do you
Speaker 3: remember that being the case? Because it's people are just
Speaker 3: feeling post Summer Slam doldrums right now, and I'm wondering
Speaker 3: if that's more seasonal or if it's just kind of
Speaker 3: just a random bad time for phisic Man and company.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think it has to do with a little bit
Speaker 4: of everything. I mean, for I think it's a little
Speaker 4: bit of overload, and you know, at post SummerSlam there
Speaker 4: was you know again, I just think it's over The
Speaker 4: business is so overexposed, and it's not like they have
Speaker 4: an extremely hot product. So I think, yeah, we all
Speaker 4: feel that way. Plus, you know, just from a human
Speaker 4: being standpoint, you know, when you always have that thing
Speaker 4: in September where you're a little bummed out, summer's over
Speaker 4: back to you know, and that effects everybody's in some way.
Speaker 4: Plus football, the excitement of football returning, at least to
Speaker 4: me as a sports fan, it's always and as the
Speaker 4: case as many Americans, so wrestling gets to be a
Speaker 4: little bit forgotten, you know, even if you're a wrestling fan.
Speaker 4: So I think it all has something to do with it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I always kind of did remember it. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's not bad for me, as you know it with
Speaker 4: indie bookings it seems to be the opposite. But from
Speaker 4: a major league standpoint, I totally catch it. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 4: and then it really doesn't recover until around the Survivors
Speaker 4: series quite frankly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And as Michael Cole told us less than six
Speaker 3: months after WrestleMania thirty and more than six months until
Speaker 3: WrestleMania thirty one, WrestleMania season season is almost here. He
Speaker 3: told us that it last week.
Speaker 4: I was like, God, it almost seems like that's the
Speaker 4: only thing they have, you.
Speaker 3: Know, you know, they have almost a seasonal sport. They
Speaker 3: make most of their money from January to April.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that was always the best for God, I
Speaker 4: used to I mean, the difference in paydays from the
Speaker 4: summertime till you know, the January period where after Royal
Speaker 4: Rumble was red like it was almost double pay, you know,
Speaker 4: when you were on the house, you know, just doing
Speaker 4: the loop and the checks, you know, the difference in
Speaker 4: checks were ridiculous. The summers were always tough, and this
Speaker 4: this period we're especially tough. Started to pick up after
Speaker 4: Survivor's series. So I think it's I think it's just
Speaker 4: always been that way for whatever reason, I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: But anyways, good promoters, though, don't make excuses. They make
Speaker 3: things happen. You know, and and and you know you
Speaker 3: can get and there's no doubt there's an ebb and flow.
Speaker 3: And I'm not somebody who just thinks if business is down,
Speaker 3: it's it's the fault of people in charge that business
Speaker 3: is down. There's definitely seasonal trends, but you can use
Speaker 3: that as an excuse. You know. It's like people in
Speaker 3: the people are on holidays just resign themselves to gaining
Speaker 3: fifteen twenty pounds, but it's not inevitable. You actually can
Speaker 3: stop after one cookie. You can decide the stress isn't
Speaker 3: going to cause you to break your your no pop
Speaker 3: habit and start drinking sixty four ounces of coke every day.
Speaker 3: It's like, there's other ways to deal with things. And
Speaker 3: ww ME needs to find new ways to deal with
Speaker 3: the post Summer Slam transition right now. In granted they've
Speaker 3: had some some kurkfall thrown at them. They injury to
Speaker 3: Daniel Bryn right after Mania, and the injury to Roman Reigns.
Speaker 3: Now that just the kind of the mad timing, Rob
Speaker 3: Van Dam and Jericho being you know, kind of legacy
Speaker 3: special attractions who have gone away. All at the same time,
Speaker 3: it's it's tough and now you're world champion. And I
Speaker 3: don't disagree with them making him world champion, but this
Speaker 3: all happens when brock Lesner, a very part time guy,
Speaker 3: is your centerpiece world champion. And I thought it was
Speaker 3: strange Peach on Monday that they didn't talk much about
Speaker 3: brock Lesner.
Speaker 4: They didn't know about the title, No, they didn't. They
Speaker 4: didn't talk about the title, which is which is you
Speaker 4: know it's not Yeah, I know, it's crazy, which is
Speaker 4: you know the reason that is that is their focal
Speaker 4: point and should be the focal point is the title
Speaker 4: in some respect, And I don't know if they mentioned
Speaker 4: it more than a handful of times if ever. So, Yeah, look,
Speaker 4: I think the WWE, unfortunately, I think the I listened
Speaker 4: to a podcast, The Ross Report with Bill Watts, and
Speaker 4: it was very educational for me. And you know, just
Speaker 4: when you think you know it all or you know
Speaker 4: it all, you hear some stuff and well, you know,
Speaker 4: the business in some ways has in very dire straits.
Speaker 4: And I mean, I know, I'm not, you know, trying
Speaker 4: to be all doom and gloom, but if the WWE
Speaker 4: doesn't kind of start to figure out what's going on
Speaker 4: and how to present their thing and how to to
Speaker 4: hopefully get a good should I say, you know, a
Speaker 4: good a good road, you know, get on a good
Speaker 4: role where things are starting to feel things were feeling
Speaker 4: good with Daniel Bryan and injuries happened. They happened in sports,
Speaker 4: that happen everywhere. You can't and that's the thing, you know, Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: they just don't have a whole a whole hell of
Speaker 4: a lot of veterans to kind of That's why I
Speaker 4: always thought, you know, because back in in in you know,
Speaker 4: the eighties or even in the early nineties to mid nineties,
Speaker 4: there was always a core group of veterans that could
Speaker 4: come in and save that saved the day, whether it
Speaker 4: was from a rival promotion, were right in house. And
Speaker 4: I think now that you know, the business has eliminated
Speaker 4: you know, not territories, but the other company or you know,
Speaker 4: other major stars that have been built elsewhere. Really Steing
Speaker 4: is the only other guy that we're clamoring for to
Speaker 4: be in a WWE ring. But other than that, it's
Speaker 4: there's not going to be anybody to come here and
Speaker 4: save the day from another you know, company or whatever.
Speaker 4: So WW has to really start thinking of long term,
Speaker 4: like how is this going to you know, are we
Speaker 4: going to be able to Is this what WW is
Speaker 4: going to be like for the next ten, fifteen, twenty years.
Speaker 4: And it's not very exciting if it is. You know,
Speaker 4: are we relying on you know, we thought the whyans
Speaker 4: we're going to be a big thing, and they've kind
Speaker 4: of fizzled out. I don't know by who are what's faught?
Speaker 4: So it's like, you know, it's just a lot of uncertainty.
Speaker 4: And in the fans, I think, you know, I think
Speaker 4: fans are frustrated. I think they're frustrated quite frankly, and
Speaker 4: I think, you know, a lot of things are going
Speaker 4: to have to be retooled and restructured or else. Wrestling
Speaker 4: is in a very you know bleak out, you know
Speaker 4: as a bleak outlook as far as the what it
Speaker 4: is or how we know it today, you know.
Speaker 1: Anytime you're watching WWE Raw or SmackDown or AEW Dynamite
Speaker 1: in particular, send us an email if you've got thoughts
Speaker 1: on the show or a topic you want us to
Speaker 1: address or a question for us. Wadekeller Podcast at pwtorch
Speaker 1: dot com. Wadkeller Podcast at pewtorch dot com. If there's
Speaker 1: anything else going on in pro wrestling that you want
Speaker 1: us to address on our main podcast during our mailbank segments,
Speaker 1: that same email applies Wade Keller Podcast at pwtorch dot com.
Speaker 1: We invite that interaction. Let us know what you think
Speaker 1: of what we're saying, and let us know what you
Speaker 1: want us to talk about and ask us specific questions.
Speaker 1: Wadekeller Podcast at pw torch dot com.
Speaker 3: Let's go to our first phone call here, and it's
Speaker 3: a perfectly comment to that, but seven one eight, I've
Speaker 3: been on hold a while here, seven one eight. Please
Speaker 3: stake your name in the city you're calling from. Seven
Speaker 3: one eight. You are on hello, seven one eight. You
Speaker 3: can't have fallen asleep. All right, all right, maybe it
Speaker 3: is going once in seven one eight. I'm gonna read
Speaker 3: your phone number on there if you don't talk six nine, No,
Speaker 3: I'm kidding up. All right, Well get the call back
Speaker 3: if you can. All right, let's die. Let's go now
Speaker 3: to seven seven three. Please state your name and where
Speaker 3: you're calling from. Boris, Boris? What have you got for?
Speaker 3: P J Walker, PJ Pilaco, although Montoya or just incredible?
Speaker 3: We have four guests today.
Speaker 4: Yes, I heard.
Speaker 5: Lost podcast too and it was excellent and I just
Speaker 5: got a really good thoughts.
Speaker 4: But it's problem sports.
Speaker 3: We can't hear you back connection. Help us out here,
Speaker 3: speak up? You got kent a right, excuse me, we
Speaker 3: can barely hear you. But go ahead and make it quick.
Speaker 5: If they were to be an athlete, I mean as
Speaker 5: a as a wouldn't that better than to change his
Speaker 5: name and conformance to W, then you build these new veterans.
Speaker 5: Chris is not from the you know W, you know
Speaker 5: from the promotion. Wouldn't that be better?
Speaker 3: Okay, thanks for a time. I'd let you talk longer.
Speaker 3: I want you to get right to it because your connection
Speaker 3: was really bad today on characteristically bad. Uh get a
Speaker 3: line on the phone. Bakes by the way six four
Speaker 3: six seven nine eight two eight PG. I think the
Speaker 3: whole thing about Kent's name change is blown away out
Speaker 3: of proportion. I don't I want him to have a
Speaker 3: good name. On principle, I'm against guys capitalizing every letter
Speaker 3: in their name. I just think that's stupid. I didn't
Speaker 3: like impact with a small I and capital mpact explanation point.
Speaker 3: I just I think you can have a logo, but
Speaker 3: just use regular English when you do stuff. But that's
Speaker 3: just a pet people mind, it's not a big deal.
Speaker 3: But to me, if Kent is going to be successful,
Speaker 3: he's going to be successful. His success is going to
Speaker 3: have nothing to do with the thousands or tens of
Speaker 3: thousands of people in the United States who know him
Speaker 3: by Kenta, and so to me, it's just it's a
Speaker 3: non issue. I don't see it as disrespectful. I understand
Speaker 3: WWE deciding to have a fresh start with it in
Speaker 3: the United States. The flip side is WWE wants to
Speaker 3: make inroads in Japan, and I think what the concern
Speaker 3: is not so much about getting over in the US,
Speaker 3: because that just doesn't matter. Almost nobody knows who he
Speaker 3: is in the US relatively speaking, But in Japan, will
Speaker 3: they see a new name as disrespecting the history and
Speaker 3: heritage that he's built up in Japan and what the
Speaker 3: Kenta name means and why he chose it. It's more
Speaker 3: of a risk in Japan, but come on, it's not
Speaker 3: He's gonna get over and not as long as he
Speaker 3: doesn't have an awful name, even if they change it
Speaker 3: from Kenta.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I agree, it's almost like that, you know,
Speaker 4: Brian Daniels and Daniel Brian. You know, a lot of
Speaker 4: people were up in arms about that, you know, and look,
Speaker 4: it's just the way they do business, and it's a way,
Speaker 4: quite frankly, for them to own the name, on the trademark,
Speaker 4: the copyright, whatever it is. So I don't think it's
Speaker 4: a big deal. And you know, and I get it
Speaker 4: in Japan, but you know what, as long as he
Speaker 4: gets over on WWE TV, it'll translate on you know,
Speaker 4: when it's when they broadcast it over there, and uh,
Speaker 4: et cetera. So I don't see it being a huge deal,
Speaker 4: although I do, you know, in a perfect world, I
Speaker 4: don't see this, you know. The reason to you know,
Speaker 4: I don't know. I was always a traditionalist. I liked
Speaker 4: when when people came in with their names and they
Speaker 4: brought their names over. You wouldn't change Ric Flair's name.
Speaker 4: And I'm not saying Kenjas Ricclair, of course, but you know,
Speaker 4: I just I always liked you know that. You know
Speaker 4: it's a UFC doesn't make people change their names. So
Speaker 4: you know, again where we model, you know, we always
Speaker 4: talk about USC unfortunately, but uh, they seem to have
Speaker 4: gotten it right on a lot of way, in a
Speaker 4: lot of ways, and there their business just like the WWE,
Speaker 4: and uh, you know, I don't know, but it's not
Speaker 4: a big deal.
Speaker 3: H What do you think of uh? Head day out?
Speaker 3: I taught Tommy's I'm Gonna struggle a little b until
Speaker 3: like it rolls off my tongue. I would you think
Speaker 3: A Kent his debut on NXT last week?
Speaker 4: I thought it was okay, and that's you know, I
Speaker 4: think it was a little, uh you know, a little
Speaker 4: less impressive than I think he would have liked, or
Speaker 4: they would have liked, just from seeing his matches. But
Speaker 4: then again, he's out there just in a very quick
Speaker 4: time to show what four minutes? Yeah, you know, he's trying.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a w w WE get overmatch, and
Speaker 4: you know, I'm not quite sure he's used to that.
Speaker 4: You know too, you know because sometimes like I never
Speaker 4: you know, if you put me out there for three
Speaker 4: or four minutes, I you know, you would probably think
Speaker 4: I was the shits. But you know, guys like like myself,
Speaker 4: I went out there for twenty minutes and that's where
Speaker 4: my strengths were. And uh, you know, I wasn't a
Speaker 4: flashy guy. So and I know he hasked like you know,
Speaker 4: he has great move of move sets, but I think
Speaker 4: it's just you know, what I'm saying is I think
Speaker 4: he's more used to going out there and being judged
Speaker 4: on performance rather than a couple of moves and maybe
Speaker 4: you know, a signature little you know whatever he does
Speaker 4: like a little you know, that that moment where you're
Speaker 4: on TV. So I think he'll figure he's a very
Speaker 4: smart guy. He will figure it out. I think he'll
Speaker 4: be more than okay, you know, but I wasn't super impressed.
Speaker 4: But that's not I wouldn't judge him by that, absolutely not.
Speaker 3: It's tough because you've talked about it in others have
Speaker 3: the WWE style and it's a little bit difficult to explain,
Speaker 3: but you know, and I explained it quite differently every
Speaker 3: time because there are some variations in it, But what
Speaker 3: it means is you're not it's different than any style.
Speaker 3: Indie style is you're there to reward fans who are
Speaker 3: sitting up close wanted to see something that stands out
Speaker 3: athletically from what they watch on national TV. And indie
Speaker 3: guys are not always but typically the standout indie guys
Speaker 3: are smaller, more athletic, and it's all about just whoa,
Speaker 3: I got to see this cool dive in this high spot,
Speaker 3: non stop rapid fire. That's that's typically indie style, and
Speaker 3: there's absolutely variations to it. But in WWE, they're smart
Speaker 3: enough to know that is not sustainable, and they also
Speaker 3: know the formula of WWE is you make the most
Speaker 3: money in that last You know that second half of
Speaker 3: your career. You know that that's when you've established who
Speaker 3: you are and the fans have a bond with you,
Speaker 3: and you're not gonna be able to keep up with
Speaker 3: guys who are a lot more athletic than you and
Speaker 3: younger and kind of burning out, using up all the
Speaker 3: bump cards, all their bump card points. So what they
Speaker 3: want is they don't want undercard guys to come out
Speaker 3: there and do all their moves on the undercard. And then,
Speaker 3: and this goes back to Hulk Hogan. You know, there
Speaker 3: was pressure in the eighties on guys who were really
Speaker 3: good workers in the territories, their spirits were kind of broken,
Speaker 3: and then eventually they're like, well, maybe my spirit isn't broken.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's just an easier way to make a living.
Speaker 3: But guys who were great on the indie scene toned
Speaker 3: down their style because Hogan didn't want to be showing up.
Speaker 3: He didn't want the crowd burned out. So I understand
Speaker 3: the rationale for that. I'm curious Page what you think
Speaker 3: of finding that balance between breaking the breaking the spirit
Speaker 3: a little bit of Kanta or restricting him like Gray Mysterio, Okay,
Speaker 3: pick your four of your favorite forty moves and only
Speaker 3: do those. You know, like, where do you stand on that?
Speaker 3: And it's kent of an exception where he should be
Speaker 3: allowed to go at a different speed because that is
Speaker 3: what's going to get him over.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, I think he's going to be
Speaker 4: He's going to have to be able to do what
Speaker 4: he does to a degree. I mean, you know, that's
Speaker 4: who he is. That's what made a movie is that's
Speaker 4: what I brought him in. Absolutely, of course he's going
Speaker 4: to have to adjust it and kind of figure it out.
Speaker 4: But you know, at the same extent, I think a
Speaker 4: lot of that also. You know, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: say it. I I don't want to say it, but
Speaker 4: it's true. A lot of it is jealousy. You know,
Speaker 4: I wos to say that he can you know, he can't,
Speaker 4: you know, continue a certain style. You know, I think guys,
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes guys do get lazy up top, and
Speaker 4: you know everybody's always shunning you know, change up there.
Speaker 4: You know, it's very hard. It was very hard for
Speaker 4: a guy like me. I mean, you know, I didn't
Speaker 4: have a very impressive run into ever in w w E,
Speaker 4: you know, quite frankly, and you know it's like you
Speaker 4: get in there, it's like, oh, by the way, you
Speaker 4: can't do your tombstone piles driver. Somebody's always already doing that,
Speaker 4: can't you, superkick? You can't do all this, you can't
Speaker 4: use it. You know, the things that basically made you popular.
Speaker 4: I couldn't do, you know. And it's not like I
Speaker 4: was able to go out there for thirty minutes and
Speaker 4: put on a match with you know, guys that could go. So,
Speaker 4: you know, you got to be very careful. If you
Speaker 4: want him to succeed, you're going to have to let
Speaker 4: him be him. Of course, he's going to have to
Speaker 4: also tone it down a bit and get it down
Speaker 4: to that four realize how how could I do that
Speaker 4: in four or five minutes in a TV match? You know,
Speaker 4: And that's on him. But they're certainly going to have
Speaker 4: to let him be him or else he's just going
Speaker 4: to be a glorified you know whatever mid cart guy
Speaker 4: or you know, he's not going to be able to
Speaker 4: do the things that made him impress it, you know.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing is is I think unfortunately guys
Speaker 4: always feel when they go there that they have to
Speaker 4: become something that they're not. And you know, the reason
Speaker 4: I got picked up, the reason you know, he gets
Speaker 4: picked up, or you know the other slew of guys
Speaker 4: that get picked up is for their work prior to
Speaker 4: getting there, you know. And we can all adapt. But again,
Speaker 4: when you adapt, are you necessarily oh you know, are
Speaker 4: you changing because you have to or they want you to.
Speaker 4: So I don't know. It's a sticky situation, but I
Speaker 4: think he's going to have to be him to a
Speaker 4: certain degree.
Speaker 11: Longing for some nostalgia or maybe you want to learn
Speaker 11: some wrestling history, don't miss the nineties Past Cast Every
Speaker 11: Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed. Alex and
Speaker 11: Patrick will transport you thirty years into the past by
Speaker 11: taking you through the Torch issue from that very week.
Speaker 11: Follow news from the WWF and WCW and all the
Speaker 11: happenings from across the wrestling industry in real time as
Speaker 11: The Torch reported it thirty years ago. That's the nineties
Speaker 11: Past Cast every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast Feed.
Speaker 3: Let's go to another phone call here right here, quote
Speaker 3: three five to two is up? Next three five two
Speaker 3: pase state to name in the city are calling from it?
Speaker 6: Right's the Eric in Gainesville, Florida.
Speaker 3: Think I don't I'm doing good? Thanks going, Eric? What
Speaker 3: have you got for Justin?
Speaker 6: I had two questions, uh, two questions. Uh. First, I remember,
Speaker 6: I don't know a few months ago you were talking
Speaker 6: to somebody about the h the language barrier when Americans
Speaker 6: go over to Japan and how it's not really that
Speaker 6: big of a deal. Uh, Is the language barrier for
Speaker 6: Kenta is gonna be a big deal in the fact
Speaker 6: that he's gonna be working with all Americans all the time,
Speaker 6: and you know he just doesn't cut a big promo.
Speaker 6: Is that can really keep thinking getting over?
Speaker 4: I don't think so. I I've been, you know, I
Speaker 4: I've been to Japan, I've been to Mexico where guys
Speaker 4: have spoken zero to no English. The funny thing is,
Speaker 4: and I don't I don't think fans even understand is
Speaker 4: wrestling is such a universal language that guys will as
Speaker 4: far as from a work great standpoint, that will not
Speaker 4: will not hurt him one bit now from cutting that
Speaker 4: big money promo will have hurt him. Possibly. I mean,
Speaker 4: I know he's taken strides to learn the language, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure you know, if WW wants him to get over,
Speaker 4: they'll also think of ways of getting him over through
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. They'll find clever ways of
Speaker 4: you know, having him you know, maybe not as much
Speaker 4: Mike time, but cool little ways, like even something as
Speaker 4: corny as the you know, little you know, little skits
Speaker 4: that they did to tie and tie back in the day.
Speaker 4: There's just I'm not saying to do that, but there's
Speaker 4: just certain ways that they could assist you, regardless of
Speaker 4: what it is through gimmickry that it wouldn't hurt him
Speaker 4: as much. And I think he's trying to learn the language,
Speaker 4: and you know, he's doing good from what I hear,
Speaker 4: so I don't think it's going to be an issue
Speaker 4: at all for him. And believe me, man, it's amazing.
Speaker 4: Everybody in wrestling from Japan to Mexico knows you know, clothesline,
Speaker 4: body slam, tackle, drop down, hip took, Yeah, they know
Speaker 4: all that stuff. Yeah, wrestling is a very it really is.
Speaker 4: It's very and it's it was made that way that
Speaker 4: it's a very universal language as far as entering performance.
Speaker 3: So Eric anything else for us?
Speaker 6: And yeah, one more question, I was just making deep
Speaker 6: as Simmon Daniel Brian does doesn't make it back. Do
Speaker 6: you think that the him and Sammy's ain are too
Speaker 6: much alike for Sammy to really get over when he
Speaker 6: does get called up. May mean if there's a look
Speaker 6: and they're kind of their attitude towards the crowd and
Speaker 6: the way they you know, get themselves psyched out with
Speaker 6: the crowd, phykeed up. Everything seems really similar, and it
Speaker 6: seems like maybe that could be a reason why he
Speaker 6: doesn't make it whenever it gets.
Speaker 3: Called up uge. I wouldn't complain about having too Daniel
Speaker 3: Brown's and my roster, but I know where Eric's coming from.
Speaker 4: I do too, and I wouldn't complain either. But I
Speaker 4: you know, and this is a greater Uh. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: throw this at you real quick and I'll get to
Speaker 4: your question with an answer. But you know, that's kind
Speaker 4: of the indie scene, and that's kind of that whole.
Speaker 4: You know. If you see most of the successful indie
Speaker 4: wrestlers that do get signed, like you know Sammy's ame
Speaker 4: in NXT, you know, that's kind of they all. A
Speaker 4: lot of them look very similar, perform very similar moves,
Speaker 4: and act and react very similarly to the crowd. Now,
Speaker 4: I think it's going to be up to Sammy to well, yeah,
Speaker 4: and in partnership with the w W two to kind
Speaker 4: of find something that makes him stand out. I'm sure
Speaker 4: he's not going to be coming up to the main
Speaker 4: roster just as we see him today. I'm sure there
Speaker 4: might be a little twist or a little something extra
Speaker 4: that you could put on him. I mean, I know
Speaker 4: traditionally they try to keep it the same, but yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, I don't think it's the worst thing
Speaker 4: in the world, but it might be harder to to
Speaker 4: identify who he is and what he would what he
Speaker 4: he would bring to the w W roster. But like
Speaker 4: like Wade said, man Hew, you know, you know, you
Speaker 4: could have as many of them around as as you want,
Speaker 4: it would never be enough because they could always provide
Speaker 4: you know, great great restlance.
Speaker 3: So I do think WWE might say, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: he's too much like somebody else, so that's not fair
Speaker 3: to that somebody else. You know, if if somebody on
Speaker 3: the end scene was just like or i mean in developmental,
Speaker 3: was just like Dean Ambrose, I would understand ww is saying, well,
Speaker 3: you know, that would actually kind of take away from
Speaker 3: Dean Ambrose if we get a clone of his almost
Speaker 3: up here. Not sobody imitating I'm just someone who happens
Speaker 3: to have a similar slot. I get that, And I
Speaker 3: mean I think they probably will give Sam He's saying
Speaker 3: something to differentiate himself, and that could be the hold up.
Speaker 3: You know that they're trying to find that right moment
Speaker 3: in time. You know, people complain about NXT and oh,
Speaker 3: why don't they call this guy up? He's so ready,
Speaker 3: so much better than people I watch on Raw, and
Speaker 3: and part of that is just, you know, sometimes there's
Speaker 3: just disagreement over who's a good fit as the main
Speaker 3: roster and who can protect a personality. And sometimes it's
Speaker 3: behind the scenes issues where they're worried about discipline or
Speaker 3: maturity and all that. But sometimes it's just they that
Speaker 3: top management in WWE loves them too, and they don't
Speaker 3: want to bring them up when they're going to be
Speaker 3: overshadowed by Resumania season or when there's not a good
Speaker 3: spot for them where they can really dedicate time to
Speaker 3: pushing them. I think they probably do that they lean
Speaker 3: on those excuses too much. But sometimes a guy got
Speaker 3: not getting called up like Samy's aint isn't because the
Speaker 3: don't think he's ready. It's because they're not ready for him, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I totally agree, you know. And it's also man,
Speaker 4: it's apples and oranges. I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 4: a lot of times we you know, what we think
Speaker 4: they are unfortunately up there. It is very It really
Speaker 4: only matters to a couple of guys. You know, maybe
Speaker 4: you know it's funny, but all of us in the
Speaker 4: wrestling business, our lives get decided by only a handful
Speaker 4: of people, you know that really matter. And the rest is,
Speaker 4: you know, there's a lot of yes men in the WWE.
Speaker 4: That's just the reality of it. And you know, that's
Speaker 4: the way people keep their jobs up there is by
Speaker 4: saying yes, yes, yes, and really you can't argue much.
Speaker 4: So if somebody doesn't you know, somebody in the right
Speaker 4: place doesn't believe that they're ready or you know, this
Speaker 4: is this, this is that they're going to agree with it.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's a very h is a really
Speaker 4: hard situation. And unfortunately we will never just see who
Speaker 4: who are the best workers, the best athletes, and we
Speaker 4: really you know, what's the funny thing. They always talk
Speaker 4: about what's best for business. We rarely see what's best
Speaker 4: for business in.
Speaker 3: The ww and that is that ironic.
Speaker 4: It's just a cold, hard fact.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: It sucks. You know.
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier in the show the Progressing Torch newsletter.
Speaker 3: I've been publishing it weekly and it has been around
Speaker 3: since nineteen eighty seven. We just put out issue number
Speaker 3: thirteen hundred and seventy three, and this issue includes part
Speaker 3: three of the undressing fans have been paying for progressing
Speaker 3: Torch going on twenty five plus years, and we're headed
Speaker 3: towards thirty in twenty seventeen. All right, let's got another
Speaker 3: phone call here. Our guest is just incredible and area
Speaker 3: code four seven eight is up next four seven eight.
Speaker 3: Please state to name in the city or calling from.
Speaker 3: Hey guess.
Speaker 12: This is a manual call him from making Georgia.
Speaker 3: Hey, Manuel, thanks for calling. What do you got for
Speaker 3: us to that?
Speaker 12: Just one of the three things first, you know, just incredible.
Speaker 12: I always thought that was an awesome name for wrestler.
Speaker 3: Just off top.
Speaker 12: And the group X Factor I thought was kind of
Speaker 12: underrated U with him, X Pok and Albert at the time.
Speaker 12: I actually I don't. I don't have any favorite matches
Speaker 12: of theirs, but I always enjoyed seeing them come out,
Speaker 12: and I always feel like I saw him on smack
Speaker 12: Down more than Raw. But I thought they were a
Speaker 12: pretty good faction as far as sactions go. andX Topic
Speaker 12: just oh, no problem at all, but I mean it,
Speaker 12: And uh, all right, Dean Ambrose Seth Rollins Roman Reigns
Speaker 12: with you know, Rains being out due to a you know,
Speaker 12: unfortunate injury, so that kind of pushing back his few
Speaker 12: with Rollins. He thinks there's a chance that they could
Speaker 12: look at doing maybe a three way Shield match heading
Speaker 12: toward WrestleMania, rather than pushing Roman Reigns into the main event.
Speaker 12: And then, just one more comment before you tackle that one.
Speaker 12: I definitely agree one hundred percent that since the Shield
Speaker 12: broke up, I've been hoping that Roman Reigns is a
Speaker 12: tire would change. I just feel like he every time
Speaker 12: he comes out, he reminds you of the Shield and
Speaker 12: reminds you of a great group. They were awesome, but
Speaker 12: they're gone. So I just don't think anybody should hold
Speaker 12: that look because they just remind you of the great
Speaker 12: matches they had, every raw, every SmackDown that just won't
Speaker 12: see anymore.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, there was there was a real there was
Speaker 3: a real magical chemistry page with with the Shield, and
Speaker 3: I'm disappointed. I mean, I understand it. It's not a
Speaker 3: bad thing for their careers in a lot of respects,
Speaker 3: but I kind of wanted to see them stay as
Speaker 3: a team for another year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I agree, with the caller, you know,
Speaker 4: and I think you know sometimes man, and this is
Speaker 4: my biggest complaint with the w W WEE. You know,
Speaker 4: you they just try to run through things so quickly.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, would you try I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: like the fabulous Freebirds. Would you have broken them up
Speaker 4: after a couple of you know, a year together? You know,
Speaker 4: how were you you know in wrestling back in the day.
Speaker 4: You ran that stuff until until you had as much
Speaker 4: as you could get out of it. If something was
Speaker 4: clicking to that degree. Hell, you know, go with every possibility.
Speaker 4: And I just feel like they jumped the gun trying
Speaker 4: to find that that next big thing, whether when that
Speaker 4: next big thing might have been right under their nose
Speaker 4: to begin with, you know, go go to the left
Speaker 4: field a little bit, go left a little bit. Who's
Speaker 4: to say that they couldn't have really run things for
Speaker 4: a while as maybe not that you know they're they're
Speaker 4: not the top babyface, but the top entity where you know,
Speaker 4: another horseman, faction of that nature, something of that, you know,
Speaker 4: think outside the box, not just all right, we're gonna
Speaker 4: split them all up and try to you know, send
Speaker 4: this guy to the top, and this one will be
Speaker 4: over here to the right, and this one'll be over
Speaker 4: here to the left. I mean, yes, they could have
Speaker 4: gone so much further with that whole thing, so it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's the shame. I really liked the intriguing idea. Quite frankly,
Speaker 4: I didn't think about this. I'm surprised is that, you know,
Speaker 4: hell somewhere down the line put him putting them all
Speaker 4: in the match together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, be pretty cool.
Speaker 4: And I bet you they'd show a lot of pay
Speaker 4: per views if they did, you.
Speaker 3: Know, or maybe we've given them an idea.
Speaker 4: Inscriptions a lot of subscriptions to the network.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, Well, my fear is now we said it,
Speaker 3: and now they're just going to throw it out there
Speaker 3: on Raw next Monday and not even give any build
Speaker 3: up to it. It'll just be the opening match. Yeah, probably,
Speaker 3: I mean, the first time Brie and Nicky fought each
Speaker 3: other was just the throwaway match in the middle of
Speaker 3: a show. And oh yeah, by the way, they've never
Speaker 3: fought each other before. Oh yeah, great. Thanks for getting
Speaker 3: us excited about it ahead of time, you know, thanks
Speaker 3: for the four player, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1: Thanks for downloading today's show. Take it to the next
Speaker 1: level with a VIP membership, get shows like this, the
Speaker 1: Way Killer Prosing Podcast, Weight Killer Prosing Post Show, and
Speaker 1: the PW Torch daily casts on our PW Torch VIP
Speaker 1: podcast feed with ads and plugs removed from the shows
Speaker 1: for a streamlined listening experience, and also hear the VIP
Speaker 1: exclusive shows that I host with Rich Fan and Todd Martin,
Speaker 1: Everything with Rich Fan and The Fix with Todd Martin
Speaker 1: signature VIP series that you're missing out without a VIP membership,
Speaker 1: So go va ip here in twenty twenty two and
Speaker 1: enjoy all the benefits, all the bonus content, and the
Speaker 1: ad free listening experience. PW toors dot com slash go VIIP.
Speaker 3: All right, let's go to prior final callum the dayfore
Speaker 3: we moved to be at the after show. Erry code
Speaker 3: eight one five. Please state your name in the city
Speaker 3: you're calling from.
Speaker 13: This is CJ from Rockbert, Illinois.
Speaker 3: CJ, thanks for Colin. What have you got for PJ today?
Speaker 13: I would like to talk a little bit about I
Speaker 13: guess discrimination in wrestling.
Speaker 3: Yep, go ahead, Hello, yep. We don't need to prove
Speaker 3: the stuff.
Speaker 4: Go for it, okay.
Speaker 13: So something that I noticed in wrestling is there's kind
Speaker 13: of three areas in wrestling that tend to get really
Speaker 13: bad pressed. One is is racism, the other is sexism,
Speaker 13: and then there is ableism, which is discrimination again non
Speaker 13: normative bodies. And I'm wondering if you see that changing
Speaker 13: in the coming future of the wrestling products. C. J.
Speaker 3: Hil Clarkfright, you you think that wrestling discriminates against non
Speaker 3: normative bodies? Are you talking mainly about women or all everybody?
Speaker 13: Everyone? So like, uh, for instance with j R. S
Speaker 13: Thought with Devil's Polsi, or uh, the ways that they
Speaker 13: treated uh Zach Gowin.
Speaker 4: Or even.
Speaker 3: Or Josh Matthews with his spray on ten.
Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah, that was really terrible. I think he should
Speaker 13: have been fired for that. And I mean, I guess
Speaker 13: for interesting like full quoture. I'm a person who whistled
Speaker 13: a mild form of three wal polsy, So it's some
Speaker 13: that I I guess I noticed more as someone who
Speaker 13: sees it throughout all of society.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll just say I think the way that they
Speaker 3: treated Jim Ross and Bell's palsy was awful. Ed Ferrara
Speaker 3: has been on this show and or has done interviews
Speaker 3: with me and just you know, apologize profusely for participating
Speaker 3: in mocking you know, Jim Ross and the Bell's palsy.
Speaker 3: I think ww we brought it on in certain ways
Speaker 3: and then exacerbated in certain ways, and uh and then
Speaker 3: made made it. It just seem like way bigger, made
Speaker 3: way bigger of a deal out of it than it
Speaker 3: was because I don't think any viewers cared what the
Speaker 3: announcer looked like as long as long as the announcer
Speaker 3: did a great job calling the action. And nobody's been
Speaker 3: better than Jim Ross at that, So I agree with
Speaker 3: that specifically, Uh, Zach Gowan, it's very tough to have
Speaker 3: a one legged wrestler and not make an issue of it.
Speaker 3: Though he you know, he's he was on the show
Speaker 3: right backtally back the weekend before Somnia this year, great guest,
Speaker 3: and he he knows he's going to be on the
Speaker 3: show as a novelty to a certain extent because it's
Speaker 3: a wrestling show and realistically, a one legged wrestler is
Speaker 3: not going to be treated the same as a two
Speaker 3: legged wrestler. But peech, what what do you think about
Speaker 3: the point CJ brings up? I guess my short my
Speaker 3: short take on it is it has to be situational.
Speaker 3: Case by case it is.
Speaker 4: And I just you know, just to say this too, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, full disclosure. Jim ross is as a friend
Speaker 4: of mine, and it was absolutely disgusting, quite frankly, after
Speaker 4: all the great years of service as being the best
Speaker 4: in the business, uh, the way they treated him throughout
Speaker 4: his years. But you know, I just wanting to get
Speaker 4: that out here because you deserved way better than that
Speaker 4: just as human being. But two, I mean also, you know,
Speaker 4: I agree, I think it is situational, very situational. Look,
Speaker 4: the bottom line is this, and you know, we hate
Speaker 4: to say it, but it's you know, it's about uh,
Speaker 4: you know, we live in a very in a society
Speaker 4: where what's pleasing to the eye is what sells. Whether
Speaker 4: it's that you know, tip go blonde hair, you know, whatever,
Speaker 4: the you know, whatever kids like, you know, whatever, the
Speaker 4: you know, thee whatever's considered sexy is what they're gonna think.
Speaker 4: You know, what we they think the American public is
Speaker 4: going to find sexy is what they're gonna put out
Speaker 4: there as far as well with the men whatever whatever
Speaker 4: they think that men and women will will will dig
Speaker 4: in a wrestler. Yeah, I think it's it's very it's
Speaker 4: it's you know, they're they're out there trying to I
Speaker 4: don't know, but you know, even just even saying with Vince,
Speaker 4: like how he's always liked and preferred bigger athletes, bigger wrestlers,
Speaker 4: the giants, the the guys that are six seven, you know,
Speaker 4: two hundred and eighty three hundred pounds, you know, muscle
Speaker 4: bound guys. So yeah, I mean it's unfortunately, we live
Speaker 4: in a world, in the confines of Pro wrestling world,
Speaker 4: I should say, we're in a world that everything is
Speaker 4: again relies on the opinions of a couple of people,
Speaker 4: and it doesn't necessarily reflect, you know, react because it's
Speaker 4: it's a worked business. It's they pretend to the world.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's it's very situational and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I think from a responsibility standpoint of WWE, which they
Speaker 4: do now because everything in the world is so politically correct,
Speaker 4: you know, in that PC environment where things that we
Speaker 4: said ten fifteen years ago we would never say or
Speaker 4: do today. So you know, but you know, but I don't. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: I also know that the ww does that because they
Speaker 4: have to now, because they necessarily feel like they should.
Speaker 3: And I think there's a lot of things that were
Speaker 3: said in the past that probably shouldn't be said today.
Speaker 3: I don't think the absolutely, you know, the bush I
Speaker 3: went to outse shows in the late eighties and the
Speaker 3: Bushwhackers are channing fag fag g o t getting fans
Speaker 3: to chant that. And I was sat next to kids
Speaker 3: who were chanting that at the Beverly Brothers and I'm
Speaker 3: just like that then it was little cool. So I mean,
Speaker 3: when we say, oh, there two PC, it's it again,
Speaker 3: it's sort of like the you have to do it
Speaker 3: on a case, my case fasis. Sometimes people are overreacting.
Speaker 3: Ted Robinson, an announcer is suspended for some for from
Speaker 3: what I've heard of it, I didn't hear the exact
Speaker 3: comment or I didn't hear the actual comments in context,
Speaker 3: but it seems like he got suspended for a ridiculous reason,
Speaker 3: and other people are getting suspended for pretty good reasons.
Speaker 3: And so it is case by case. But what it
Speaker 3: comes down to is being decent. You know, like you
Speaker 3: don't have to be on you know, on eggshells, but
Speaker 3: are you a decent person? You know, are you somebody?
Speaker 3: Are you being empathetic or are you picking on the
Speaker 3: week or or going after somebody in a position of
Speaker 3: power who needs truth spoken to them. And that's kind
Speaker 3: of my guideline, you know, it's if you're if you're
Speaker 3: picking on somebody weak or discriminated against. You know, maybe
Speaker 3: it's not you shouldn't be proud to be to be
Speaker 3: anti PC. But if you're just outlooking for somebody to
Speaker 3: make a mistake and blow it out of proportion, then
Speaker 3: you're the one with you is You're not the person
Speaker 3: you're policing. So it is so case so case by case, yes,
Speaker 3: it is is yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's just
Speaker 3: but the thing is wrestling is a cosmetic business, and
Speaker 3: it's there's a little bit more freedom CJ in wrestling
Speaker 3: to put wrestlers in the ring who have one like.
Speaker 3: You'd never see that in the NFL, you know, I
Speaker 3: mean there's but you would see ugly announcers in the
Speaker 3: NFL and baseball, and there's plenty of quote ugly announcers
Speaker 3: based on you know, model standards, but they're really good
Speaker 3: at what they do and their FaceTime is limited because
Speaker 3: it's about the athletes and the networks value what they're
Speaker 3: play by play, and I think sometimes wrestling has gone
Speaker 3: too far in that direction. But CJ, did we do
Speaker 3: a decent job addressing your your points? You do you
Speaker 3: want to add follow up?
Speaker 13: If I could add fall up, and I'll try to
Speaker 13: be as quick as possible. Sure, I I'm not advocating
Speaker 13: that like that Carwin should have been, you know, bigger
Speaker 13: than what he was, because to be honest, I don't
Speaker 13: even think that he should have been in the ring
Speaker 13: at that point in time in his career anyways. And
Speaker 13: I get the whole idea of case by case basis,
Speaker 13: and I agree with it to a certain extent. I
Speaker 13: guess what I see is that wrestling from a sociological
Speaker 13: standpoint is so fascinating and then at the same time
Speaker 13: it has such potential to be a force of good
Speaker 13: in kind of addressing these issues that are society. And
Speaker 13: it's totally since so much of it is scripted and predetermined,
Speaker 13: it's not exactly hard to do to undo racism or
Speaker 13: undo a bit of peptism.
Speaker 4: And so like with like Zach Gollan.
Speaker 13: Like sure like he should have been taking off TV
Speaker 13: because I think he ran his course. But you didn't
Speaker 13: have to have like brock Lesner like bully him and
Speaker 13: like throw down the stairs.
Speaker 3: But why not? Why not because there's bullies CJ who
Speaker 3: pick on people and wrestle, and they portrayed him not
Speaker 3: as a hero but as a complete jerk for doing it,
Speaker 3: a horrible human being, and Zach gollen was was representing
Speaker 3: people who are picked on And to me, as long
Speaker 3: as you've got as long as the tone of the
Speaker 3: angle is correct, you should have the latitude to portray
Speaker 3: that there are bullies out there who do awful things
Speaker 3: to weaker people, which which.
Speaker 13: I completely agree with. I'm not disagreeing with that from
Speaker 13: us at all. But yeah, However, as a person who
Speaker 13: like lived with disability and also the person who sees
Speaker 13: media portrayal of of people with non normative bodies, that
Speaker 13: was a misstep in the sense of WW very rarely
Speaker 13: ever talks about disability outside of like the inspiration narrative.
Speaker 13: So to have a so to have a person with
Speaker 13: a non omative body to be like thrown down and
Speaker 13: bullied in that way, like, I agree, it's a great storyline.
Speaker 13: It makes black lizards look like a jerk. However, they
Speaker 13: did really ever show a person that outside of disability
Speaker 13: with Zach Allen, and then for that to become is
Speaker 13: like down and fall of well.
Speaker 4: You know, you're good, but you're not as good.
Speaker 13: As a smnster and he's just gonna throw you down
Speaker 13: the stairs. And then, you know, I just felt like
Speaker 13: it was a fig misstep, right.
Speaker 4: I hear what you're saying, And just so you know too, dude,
Speaker 4: and I agree with you in premise. My youngest son,
Speaker 4: my seven year old son, Christian, he's also he's physically disabled.
Speaker 4: He he has a hard time walking, He's had several surgeries,
Speaker 4: he's missing two discs in his lower back. So I mean,
Speaker 4: I get it, you know, and I believe me as
Speaker 4: as raising a special needs son. I get it, and
Speaker 4: and you're right, and we unfortunately in wrestling, we tend
Speaker 4: to marginalize things like that, and we kind of, you know,
Speaker 4: we do the you know, we take the easy way out.
Speaker 4: So I would like to see, you know, i'd almost
Speaker 4: like to see it be portrayed in a better light,
Speaker 4: or at least dig a little deeper if you're going
Speaker 4: to go that route. So I do understand what you're saying.
Speaker 4: CJ is one hundred percent. I do hear you.
Speaker 1: Are you a fan of AW looking to sit back,
Speaker 1: relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
Speaker 1: your passion.
Speaker 10: Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
Speaker 10: a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
Speaker 10: they thinking? Do you want to join a discussion on
Speaker 10: what AW is doing right and what they could do
Speaker 10: to improve? Then join me Joel and me Greg for
Speaker 10: the All of the Conversation Club every Friday on the
Speaker 10: PW Torch Live Cast. Fee search pw torch in your
Speaker 10: podcast app and subscribe to pw Torchdaily Cast or stream
Speaker 10: our shows directly from pw torch dot com. Find full
Speaker 10: details on the pw Torchdailycast lineup at pw torchdailycast dot com.
Speaker 3: DJ appreciate you, Frida coverstation. Go ahead and I'll give
Speaker 3: you the funal word here if you want to add.
Speaker 13: Up, Yeah, you know, I just want to thank you
Speaker 13: guys for everything conversation and and like I said, like,
Speaker 13: this isn't just about disability. This is about kind of
Speaker 13: and the opportunity for wrestling to undo racism or undo sexism.
Speaker 13: And uh, I think they've missed it a lot because
Speaker 13: you know, they get more focused on the little things
Speaker 13: that they do, but they don't look at the bigger picture.
Speaker 13: That's all I'm really saying.
Speaker 3: Cool, Gay, appreciate you call and hope you'll call again.
Speaker 4: Thanks brother, Absolutely all right.
Speaker 3: You know I remember Molly Holly, you know that her
Speaker 3: that she was seen as quote too fat by some
Speaker 3: management when she was just what do they say crevacous
Speaker 3: and she was a lot of guys type.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she was perfect. I mean, I I mean not
Speaker 4: like that. I mean I travel I actually traveled with
Speaker 4: her a little bit. She was a cool chick, really
Speaker 4: down to earth and me, I mean, you know, she
Speaker 4: was perfect. But you know, we're looking for that diamond dozen.
Speaker 12: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know those girls that they'll stick figure.
Speaker 3: Girls, and that's Michelle McCool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's to me, that's for me. That's not
Speaker 4: my type, but for you know, maybe stereotypical, you know.
Speaker 4: And it's not just a wrestlings thing. I think it's
Speaker 4: in an America thing where with celebrities and you know,
Speaker 4: you know, E news and you know the you know,
Speaker 4: the car the Kardashian generation of what we think is
Speaker 4: you know, I don't know, that's a whole nother shit.
Speaker 3: We can do oh, I know, and then you know,
Speaker 3: Mickey James became Piggy James, and I interviewed Mickey James
Speaker 3: last year about that very subject. And you know that
Speaker 3: the idea that if management sees a woman gaining a
Speaker 3: little bit of weight, that now we're gonna punish her
Speaker 3: by humiliating her, by making fun of her and calling
Speaker 3: out a pig.
Speaker 4: That's that's so not right. I know, first of all,
Speaker 4: I know her as well ver I know Mike you
Speaker 4: very well, and she's a new mother and everything.
Speaker 3: Congrat o, congrats go out here too, by the way.
Speaker 4: And I thought she was absolutely gorgeous. I mean, I'm
Speaker 4: a married man, you know, for seventeen years, but I
Speaker 4: thought she was a gorgeous lady. And she had nothing
Speaker 4: to be ashamed of on them for doing that, you know,
Speaker 4: to be honest, because there's believe me, there's all types.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I as ladies trying to make
Speaker 4: a name in this business. It's hard enough, and a
Speaker 4: shame on them for that kind of stuff. But that's
Speaker 4: you know what that's again that in my opinion, that
Speaker 4: that for fraternity style alpha male environment, that WW is
Speaker 4: whether male or female. You know, it's like that, you know, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm better because I have less body fat and bigger
Speaker 4: muscles and whatever.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, I do. I do want a note,
Speaker 3: and then we'll shift to the VP after show for
Speaker 3: a few minutes here, and I want to read that
Speaker 3: email with that wild card that's laying in the weeds
Speaker 3: that WWE could take advantage of if they needed some
Speaker 3: talent right now or ninety second, and talk a little
Speaker 3: bit more about NXT because justin been watching it. But
Speaker 3: I do want to say, as far as wrestling being seasonal,
Speaker 3: our our traffic, our listenership for the p W Torch
Speaker 3: live cast since WrestleMania, and we've had four complete months May, June, July,
Speaker 3: and August since WrestleMania season those four months beat January, February,
Speaker 3: March in April. And I say that one because it's
Speaker 3: great that, you know, the show has been successful and
Speaker 3: we continue to grow. But part of it too is
Speaker 3: WWE doesn't have to resign themselves to this big drop
Speaker 3: in ratings and business at different times of the year.
Speaker 3: There's there's a real I mean, there's a I mean,
Speaker 3: there's a there's ups and downs week to week, but
Speaker 3: overall month to month, we just consistently grow and so
Speaker 3: there's not a big drop off right after WrestleMania. On
Speaker 3: this show, we have a really loyal listenership, and we
Speaker 3: actually did more listens in May than we did in April,
Speaker 3: which and we did more in April than we did
Speaker 3: in March. So I'm just saying, I'm looking right at
Speaker 3: the chart, you know, and it's just I'm not seeing
Speaker 3: that seasonal drop that WW finds inevitable and I wanted
Speaker 3: to bring that just go back to that conversation or
Speaker 3: reference it page, you know, we talked about, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: designing the film to it, and it's just I mean,
Speaker 3: people who listen to the show and download the show
Speaker 3: do it year round consistently, and I think wwe should
Speaker 3: not have the self fulfillment prophecy of that. Anyway, We're
Speaker 3: almost out of time here or at the ninety minute mark.
Speaker 3: Thank you everybody for your support. PW torch dot com,
Speaker 3: slash go v ip it's a place to go to
Speaker 3: sign up and hear the rest of my conversation in
Speaker 3: interview with PJ Polacko. Just incredible and also PW torch
Speaker 3: dot com. Visit it every day on your phone or
Speaker 3: on your laptop or your tablet and get the latest
Speaker 3: news and also read just incredibles answers to your questions
Speaker 3: on a regular basis on the PW Torch All Star Panel.
Speaker 3: It's one of the exclusive features you'll find at PW
Speaker 3: torch dot com. You can download our app to in
Speaker 3: the iPhone store or the Apple App Store, i should say,
Speaker 3: or the Google play Store and MMA torch dot com
Speaker 3: if you're an MMA UFC fan, and you can also
Speaker 3: download the MMA Torch app on phones also. All right,
Speaker 3: thank you so much. Justin on the other side of
Speaker 3: the music, we'll continue our conversation.
Speaker 4: All right, yes, sir, absolutely sounds.
Speaker 3: Good and don't forget tomorrow James called well and Greg
Speaker 3: Parks talking Tonight's an XT, last Night's Impact and much more.
Speaker 3: Listen to us every day. Subscribe and for the links
Speaker 3: to subscribe and iTunes and the RSS feed for your
Speaker 3: phone podcast apps, go to PW Torch livecast dot com.
Speaker 3: I'm Wade Keller at Vwade Keller and until next time,
Speaker 3: signing off, all right, we're now in the v IP
Speaker 3: after show portion of the program exclusively for our paid members.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much to our VIP subscribers who make
Speaker 3: it possible with your individual paid membership, make it possible
Speaker 3: for us to do everything that we do day after day,
Speaker 3: year after year, and really decade after decade, with our
Speaker 3: coverage of professional wrestling with I think an unmatched team
Speaker 3: of contributors and staff members. Let's I want to shift
Speaker 3: to that email with that X factor wrestler who is
Speaker 3: out there, Peage and get your thoughts on on whether
Speaker 3: there's a way thank you for.
Speaker 14: Using blog talk radio goodbye.
Speaker 3: And whether there's a way to rehab rye back into
Speaker 3: being a relevant player once again. And the question comes
Speaker 3: from Jose from ox Nerd who says, with Rains and
Speaker 3: Brian out, nobody's talking about Rye Back. Maybe wwe could
Speaker 3: repackage Ryback and give him another push at the top.
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on Rye Back and an all
Speaker 3: new repackaged image. And I'll add to that question, Peag.
Speaker 3: In brock Lesner's title reign, I was really disappointed they
Speaker 3: went to a rematch Withsina. I thought the story they
Speaker 3: needed to tell to get Roman reigns over at or
Speaker 3: so Many thirty one or who met beats Lesner at
Speaker 3: Mania thirty one? If they even go with Lesner losing
Speaker 3: that soon. The way to build that storyline up is
Speaker 3: become promoters, not presenters, and promote the hell out of
Speaker 3: somebody for a month and give fans something to believe
Speaker 3: in that this is the guy who has what the
Speaker 3: last guy didn't have. Not everybody's not every MMA fighter
Speaker 3: who beats another fighter is going to beat the guy
Speaker 3: that that guy beats. There's so many reasons that there's
Speaker 3: a tangled web of traits that lead to somebody maybe
Speaker 3: having a physical or mental or strategic advantage. So my
Speaker 3: thinking was line and I wrote this in end notes
Speaker 3: in the newsletter a couple months back. Line up opponents
Speaker 3: for Lesnar and have him go through a new next
Speaker 3: big hope every month. And Ryebek was one of my guys.
Speaker 3: I thought, rye Beeck is a guy that they could
Speaker 3: build up in time for November December to be a guy.
Speaker 3: And Rybek comes out there and says, I've got the
Speaker 3: I've got more power than all of these guys who
Speaker 3: have been out here who have tried to take him down.
Speaker 3: And you know, give have three or four talking points
Speaker 3: where you give fans that story to believe even that
Speaker 3: Ryeback can do it. And I'm not saying fans believe
Speaker 3: he would do it, but you'd give them enough to
Speaker 3: get invested in the possibility of it may be happening.
Speaker 3: That's what they did with Hogan. Hogan went through new
Speaker 3: opponents during his late eighties early nineties title reign in
Speaker 3: the WWF, and it was a new guy every month
Speaker 3: or every couple months, and they built him up and
Speaker 3: made you believe whether it's Hercules, or whether it was earthquake,
Speaker 3: or whether it was Randy Savage, I mean, the whole race,
Speaker 3: big boss man, like, I don't see I don't, I
Speaker 3: don't they haven't done that, and I don't know who's
Speaker 3: next for Brock, and I'm disappointed, And so Ryback seems
Speaker 3: like somebody who you know, he was out with an injury.
Speaker 3: We don't know his return date, but if he were available,
Speaker 3: I kind of liked that idea.
Speaker 4: I did too. And then if you if you recall
Speaker 4: quite frankly the WWF or he did that quite they
Speaker 4: did that a lot with Doctor Dean, David Schultz, Terry Funk,
Speaker 4: Harley Race. I mean, they threw everybody at Hogan. Hogan
Speaker 4: beat everybody. So yeah, I love that idea, and quite frankly,
Speaker 4: I love Ryeback as far as somebody that they should
Speaker 4: have never let go that far. I mean, obviously they must,
Speaker 4: you know, Unfortunately the political system there. You know, he
Speaker 4: does a couple of things wrong or something that they
Speaker 4: might see that's a flood of his character or his ability,
Speaker 4: then you know, everybody gangs up on that. So you know,
Speaker 4: I can, I could see how that could gets spiraled
Speaker 4: out of control. But from a pure athletics standpoint and
Speaker 4: what he brings, you know, he's a charismatic guy, and
Speaker 4: I honestly think that it was a little bit of
Speaker 4: work that he could he could be somebody still regardless
Speaker 4: of of the path he's gone down. You know that
Speaker 4: they put him down with, you know, with Curtis Axel.
Speaker 4: So yeah, absolutely, dude, I'm right there with you. I mean,
Speaker 4: you can't wait. I mean, he's not that many guys
Speaker 4: look like that, and you know, quite frankly, he doesn't
Speaker 4: have to do a whole hell of a lot. But
Speaker 4: he's a pretty talented guy, you know, all things considered.
Speaker 3: And I think WWE has sort of one and this
Speaker 3: might be slightly over simplifying it, but that one standard
Speaker 3: for pushing somebody to a main event, and that is,
Speaker 3: if we push somebody at a main event, they have
Speaker 3: to be perfect employee, on time, never get in trouble,
Speaker 3: never show any signs of immaturity, always defer to management,
Speaker 3: always know the mcmhons are great and worship at our altar.
Speaker 3: But also if we push someone to the main event,
Speaker 3: they better be somebody who can be a main event
Speaker 3: for eight years. And I don't believe in that. I
Speaker 3: think somebody can be valuable at freshening up, giving yourself
Speaker 3: a break from the same guys incestuously fighting each other
Speaker 3: by building somebody up to be a main eventor for
Speaker 3: maybe three to six months, and that might be all
Speaker 3: they have in them. But if you do it, you'll
Speaker 3: make money with them, and you have no pre you
Speaker 3: have no you're not reliant on their ability to then
Speaker 3: be a main event full time for the next thirteen years.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and I'd think, but how I would look at
Speaker 4: it too, those could be some those that could be
Speaker 4: a hell of a three to six months periods, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean sometimes I would love, oh man, I would
Speaker 4: love to see wwly take more risks and not be
Speaker 4: so systematic. Yes, it's almost like really, it's almost like
Speaker 4: a computer where you know kind of what you know,
Speaker 4: you type something into a search engine and you kind
Speaker 4: of know what you're gonna get. That's the problem. They're
Speaker 4: no surprises. Fans know like, oh, Rum and Rams, he's
Speaker 4: the next guy, this is what it's going to be,
Speaker 4: and that's it. And I think wrestling could be so
Speaker 4: much more than that. You got to come from the
Speaker 4: left a little bit because, like I said earlier in
Speaker 4: the other part of the broadcast that you know, we
Speaker 4: don't have the privilege of getting guys that were already established,
Speaker 4: huge stars to jump on over. So now you're gonna
Speaker 4: have to think in house and you're gonna have to
Speaker 4: shock the people once in a while. And you know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot I mean, they have a hell of
Speaker 4: a talent pool. It's not a lack of talent, it's
Speaker 4: just the lack of imagination and a lack of guts.
Speaker 4: Quite frankly, I hate to say it, but you know,
Speaker 4: it's a lack of guts to what you can do.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you're gonna have to take a chance and if
Speaker 4: it bombs, it bombs. But you know, hell, there's there's
Speaker 4: there's a lot of people you can play with on
Speaker 4: that roster. You know a lot of them, and he's
Speaker 4: one of them.
Speaker 1: Give yourself a reason to look forward to going into
Speaker 1: the mailbox each week with a PW Torch Newsletter paper copy.
Speaker 1: Subscription details at PW torch dot com slash paper Copy.
Speaker 1: It's twelve pages every week packed with my TV reports,
Speaker 1: along with exclusive features such as my cover story on
Speaker 1: the top story of the week, our pay per view
Speaker 1: roundtable reviews from the Torch staff, exclusive feature length columns
Speaker 1: from Greg Parks, Rich Fan, Sean Radikin, Alan Coonahan, and
Speaker 1: Zach Haydorn, Torch Talk transcripts, the latest news and more.
Speaker 1: PW torch dot com slash paper Copy. Take a break
Speaker 1: from screen time and settle in every week with the
Speaker 1: Megadosa wrestling news and analysis with a Pro Wrestling Torch
Speaker 1: Newsletter paper copy edition in the year twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: You can get a full year of home delivery for
Speaker 1: just ninety nine dollars, or try us for an eight
Speaker 1: week trial subscription. PW Torch dot Com slash paper Copy.
Speaker 3: Left gen NXT Titus O'Neil and he did retake you
Speaker 3: the events against Adrian Nevo and Sammy Zain and O'Neill
Speaker 3: is somebody who I thought had that there was a window.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was a year, year and
Speaker 3: a half, two years ago, whatever it was, there was
Speaker 3: a window of opportunity with him to move him to
Speaker 3: the top. He's older, he's got all kinds of green
Speaker 3: aspects to it, you know. I mean, no, I am
Speaker 3: not doubting that. But Paul Haman and you were around
Speaker 3: for it. Took guys who were in seven out of
Speaker 3: eight ways, and I'm exaggerating slightly, had no business being
Speaker 3: in the ring, no business being featured on TV, and
Speaker 3: he took that one thing and he made money with them.
Speaker 3: Even if it wasn't for five years and it didn't,
Speaker 3: he found a way to make money and rotate guys in.
Speaker 3: To me, Titus O'Neil, there are absolutely disqualifying reasons to
Speaker 3: say this guy doesn't deserve a push. I had a
Speaker 3: bunch of other guys, but there was a window there
Speaker 3: where he seemed to be connecting with the crowd in
Speaker 3: a way that was special, and I think you could
Speaker 3: have done something with him and made some money for
Speaker 3: three to eighteen months, and that's the window with him,
Speaker 3: and I think it passed. He's been defined down and
Speaker 3: we now there's no way.
Speaker 4: I don't know who to do that now we know
Speaker 4: we know what he is. But you're absolutely right. That's
Speaker 4: the thing about Hayman is he had to make chicken
Speaker 4: salad out of chicken. You know what chicken shit, you know.
Speaker 4: And but that's the thing that the genius of Paul Hayman.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to blow his horn too much,
Speaker 4: but all seriousness, if he was a great self motivator,
Speaker 4: and that's what that was the brilliance of ECW was
Speaker 4: Paul's ability to to would I would even go as
Speaker 4: far as to manipulate the talent to believe that they
Speaker 4: were something he made. Although Montoya believe he was somebody.
Speaker 4: Therefore he acted on his dream because my ultimate dream
Speaker 4: was to be a world champion, or to be somebody,
Speaker 4: to be an event, a paper view or two, or
Speaker 4: whatever the case may be. And I think if the
Speaker 4: wwe did a better job of possibly instead of having
Speaker 4: it being at alpha male you get it or you don't,
Speaker 4: or if you don't, you know, if you can't kind
Speaker 4: of follow the leader, you're going to fall behind. If
Speaker 4: they would take certain guys who they felt that potential
Speaker 4: and nurture them a little more. Then they'd be in
Speaker 4: better shape. I mean, sometimes it just takes a little
Speaker 4: bit of a mental switch to click off in that
Speaker 4: athlete and then they act differently. Believe me, I acted
Speaker 4: much differently as just incredible getting a push in ECW
Speaker 4: or being the ECW World Champion than I ever did
Speaker 4: as a member of the X Factor, because I had
Speaker 4: Paul there to kind of say, hey, you are this guy,
Speaker 4: you are that good. You just got to believe it,
Speaker 4: and I did so Therefore I went out and performed,
Speaker 4: whereas in the WWE, I was just one of the million,
Speaker 4: believing that I probably wasn't even deserving to be here,
Speaker 4: you know, And that's that's dealing with but that's dealing
Speaker 4: with individual psyche. But you know, you know, as an athlete,
Speaker 4: the psyche is is half the battle, if not more,
Speaker 4: because if you believe you're that guy, you will perform
Speaker 4: as that guy, and you'll go above and beyond to
Speaker 4: be that guy. And that was the brilliance of Hayman,
Speaker 4: not even to get on a Hayman kick, but just
Speaker 4: to get on a where wand could change their approach
Speaker 4: to guys like Titus or ride Back or whomever to
Speaker 4: step up and catch that window of that three to
Speaker 4: six months of using them out on top.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, and it they just sell they they
Speaker 3: they what's we're going for? Inefficient They're inefficient at their
Speaker 3: use of talent, you know, and I mean the icy
Speaker 3: title we talked about a Monday. They could have made
Speaker 3: such a bigger deal out of that. There's there's a
Speaker 3: way to get a boost out of that. I want
Speaker 3: to stick with NXT, though, I don't get off track.
Speaker 3: What uh from what what you see on NXT? Who
Speaker 3: do you think is potential money in the future. Who
Speaker 3: are two or three guys that you look at when
Speaker 3: you're watching XT and go, yeah, they're they're going to
Speaker 3: be main roster They're either ready now or will be
Speaker 3: soon to be money guys for w W and be
Speaker 3: long term guys.
Speaker 4: Sure, I like, of course every he's gonna say Sammy's Zaine,
Speaker 4: you know, he just he was in my opinion, I
Speaker 4: thought he was a you know, pretty close to being
Speaker 4: a main event player a while ago. You know, even
Speaker 4: if you you know, just bring it back to his
Speaker 4: what he's done in on the indie level. I mean,
Speaker 4: he's a world class guy in my opinion, you know,
Speaker 4: one of the guys I really like, and you're gonna,
Speaker 4: I don't know if you'll snark at me, but I
Speaker 4: think will eventually. He's not ready right now. But Who's
Speaker 4: somebody I watch and really enjoy is Tyler Brees. I really,
Speaker 4: I really enjoy his work and he's definitely somebody that
Speaker 4: that you know, I follow.
Speaker 3: So I'm intrigued by Tyler Breese joining Damian Sandow and Miss.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like, I think the dynamic there of Tyler Brees' starting
Speaker 3: office or not just growing up being kind of a
Speaker 3: lackey who's going, Who's who just dry fans nuts because
Speaker 3: he reinforces Miss's self image as a big shot and
Speaker 3: even eventually long term in this case, you know, six
Speaker 3: twelve months down the line, I think it could be
Speaker 3: a key for Damian sandal breaking away because because the
Speaker 3: worship of Miss Is just ends up being too much
Speaker 3: for him, and he ends up breaking away and actually
Speaker 3: can become something more significant. Having the fans been on
Speaker 3: the journey with Damien just you know, being over kind
Speaker 3: of just grossed out at at Tyler Breeze's worship of
Speaker 3: miss To me, that's like that that fits well. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think there's other things Tyler Brees can do, but
Speaker 3: I'm not sure you bring them in and make them
Speaker 3: a giant killer. You know, that's not his.
Speaker 4: Act, sure, and you know what I mean, I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I liked what I saw, but we did we say.
Speaker 4: In my opinion, I didn't see enough from them I liked.
Speaker 4: I'm curious to see if, if, and when the ascension
Speaker 4: and that they even come to. Yeah, you know, the
Speaker 4: WW is a tag team if they are going to be,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd love to see more more tag teams,
Speaker 4: like traditional tag teams in the WW. And I think
Speaker 4: that would be somebody, you know, somewhere to start. I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, we have the USOS, we have obviously Goldbust
Speaker 4: and his brother and you know, you know other teams.
Speaker 4: But it's just I would love to see a really
Speaker 4: healthy tag division because to me, I still love to
Speaker 4: see a great tag team match, and I think sometimes
Speaker 4: those could be the best matches on the card if
Speaker 4: you have the right guys to do it. So I'd
Speaker 4: love to see them, you know, really produce a great
Speaker 4: tag division, which I think they're very capable of. And also,
Speaker 4: you know, I like to you know, and I think
Speaker 4: he has a lot of work though still to go.
Speaker 13: But C J.
Speaker 4: Parker, you know, I don't know, maybe it's the character
Speaker 4: or whatever, but I think he can eventually in six
Speaker 4: months to a year, you know, be called up. You know,
Speaker 4: he still has some work to do, but I think,
Speaker 4: you know, I like it's certainly like his stuff as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cool, cool, All right, Peach. Anything else on your
Speaker 3: mind you want to talk about before a wrap up?
Speaker 4: I mean, not too much, man, Yeah, I just you know,
Speaker 4: I would just like to see, Like I said, Man,
Speaker 4: I want to get excited about pro wrestling. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: just feel right now we're in a bit of a
Speaker 4: rut in the industry, uh, you know, and there's not
Speaker 4: just there's just a lot not to not get excited about.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of there, you know. And for just
Speaker 4: for me as a still active wrestler, you know, I
Speaker 4: wish there was more. Unfortunately, I think we're in a
Speaker 4: very telling age of where the business is going to
Speaker 4: go in the next five years. I think we're going
Speaker 4: to kind of know if it's going to be you know,
Speaker 4: a solely you know, solely a WWE entity as pro
Speaker 4: wrestling or sports entertainment or if there's going to be
Speaker 4: a healthy business of independent you know, places to work
Speaker 4: and and you know, bring of honor and hopefully TNA
Speaker 4: and stuff. So it's h we're at the crossroads right now,
Speaker 4: I think in this business, so h you know, and
Speaker 4: and uh and otherwise, just to promote the stuff I'm doing, dude, I'm.
Speaker 3: Gonna be uh. Mypology is not getting that on the life. Tom.
Speaker 4: I don't bront I don't mind. You're my friend. I'm
Speaker 4: going to be in your neck of the woods October
Speaker 4: eleventh in Minneapolis. I'm doing one of the I don't
Speaker 4: know exactly we're gonna do it. I guess it's a
Speaker 4: zombie crawl. It's in conjunction with the AMC network, the
Speaker 4: people that present The Walking Dead, that will be doing
Speaker 4: a taping of Billy Corgan's untitled wrestling project in Minneapolis
Speaker 4: on October eleventh. I hope you come out and see me.
Speaker 3: That day, wage I love to. That's great.
Speaker 4: At least take me for lunch. God damn it. Yes,
Speaker 4: just I'm just joking. But no, I'm doing that, and
Speaker 4: I'm actually the funniest thing. I'm friends with a celebrity chef,
Speaker 4: and I'm actually in the final stages of audition to
Speaker 4: co host the Food Network show where me and the
Speaker 4: chef Plumb, who's a local celebrity chef in Connecticut, where
Speaker 4: we get to travel the country and go to different
Speaker 4: you know, fresh organic food places and try their foods
Speaker 4: and act fools, and you know, hopefully I get that,
Speaker 4: but it's in the works. And I'm you know, so
Speaker 4: I've got a lot of stuff. I'm wrestling every weekend,
Speaker 4: still still hitting the you know, hitting the road, hitting
Speaker 4: every shore i can, and you know, and doing these things.
Speaker 4: I'm part of the All Star Chanel, and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I'm still doing my pro wrestling one on ones as well.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I have a whole whole season of one
Speaker 4: on ones coming out. And that's it, man. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm just trying to stay busy and the keeping honest living,
Speaker 4: my friends.
Speaker 3: Sounds like you are staying busy, and it is. It's
Speaker 3: great that there is work for you every week on
Speaker 3: that indie scene and and we love having you on
Speaker 3: the show, and the time flies by when you're on,
Speaker 3: and thank you so much. You've done so much and
Speaker 3: been so many places. It's it's great that we can
Speaker 3: talk about today's wrestling scene with you and have it
Speaker 3: connect to different things, whether it was hanging out with
Speaker 3: a click on long car rides, being part of Paul
Speaker 3: Hayman's production of promos, being part of the WWE locker
Speaker 3: room during different eras and seeing changes in it, and
Speaker 3: watching the product today, picking out you know, future stars.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's great to be on and get your insight.
Speaker 4: I'm just part of I'm happy to be part of
Speaker 4: the Torch family with the All Star pace and just
Speaker 4: doing these things with you. So I thank you guys.
Speaker 3: You bet all right so well. Thank you VIP members
Speaker 3: for supporting us. Your individual paid membership is what makes
Speaker 3: the possibars to do everything that we do here at VIP.
Speaker 3: So thank you very very much for a membership. Now
Speaker 3: a day goes by, I'm not appreciative of the support
Speaker 3: that has shown for what we do here, and we
Speaker 3: appreciate all our guests on Interview Friday and in this
Speaker 3: week's case Interview Thursday, PJA. Thanks. We'll hopefully see you
Speaker 3: October eleventh, which will be great, and hopefully we'll get
Speaker 3: you back on the show again too, because it's great.
Speaker 3: Like I said, having since you watch wrestling consistently but
Speaker 3: have so much history in it, it's a great combination
Speaker 3: for the style of show we do well.
Speaker 4: I enjoyed it always well. Thank you so much, Lad,
Speaker 4: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: You bet all right. Until next time, be having just incredible.
Speaker 3: This is Wade Keller signing off.
Speaker 1: Invite you to email the show with feedback or questions
Speaker 1: or comments. That email address is Wadekeller Podcast at petwtorch
Speaker 1: dot com. That's Wadekeller Podcast at PW torch dot com.
Speaker 1: Also welcome your feedback on Twitter. Even follow us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at PW torch and follow me at the Wadekeller
Speaker 1: That's at PW Torch and at the Wadekeller.
Speaker 14: Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me.
Speaker 14: Jason Powell host them the free weekly Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast.
Speaker 14: Each week, he'll hear the latest news and analysis from
Speaker 14: me and my team at Pro Wrestling dot need along
Speaker 14: with other pro wrestling media members. Plus the Pro Wrestling
Speaker 14: Boom Podcast features long form interviews with notable names in
Speaker 14: the pro wrestling industry. Subscribe and iTunes, Stitcher, downcast and
Speaker 14: all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at
Speaker 14: pw boom dot com. Once again, that's PW boom dot com.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to our podcast. Did you know we
Speaker 1: also have a website pw toorch dot com. Daily news updates, editorials,
Speaker 1: and my live TV coverage covering Raw, Dynamite and SmackDown
Speaker 1: and my live pay per view coverage for WWE and AEW.
Speaker 1: Create a tab or bookmark make it a daily stop.
Speaker 1: Visit us throughout the day every day to keep up
Speaker 1: on breaking news and more. That's pw torch dot com.
Speaker 1: Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts,
Speaker 1: will come join me Alan forel Over in the Progress
Speaker 1: Paradise at pterweow Torch VIP as we mask on the
Speaker 1: bright side of wrestling and focus on some of the
Speaker 1: great matches and shows from around the world, be it US, Japan,
Speaker 1: Europe or Mexico. There's always a place for restlings past
Speaker 1: and the paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows
Speaker 1: such as the We Love Liger series celebrating the glorious
Speaker 1: career of Jusian thunder Lighter and our I was there
Speaker 1: when shows where our guests will join me to talk
Speaker 1: about a classic bout that they were.
Speaker 7: In attendance for. We love variety and you can expect
Speaker 7: lots of it at the Progress Paradise. Detailed PW tors
Speaker 7: VIP subscription information on a list of all the VIP
Speaker 7: benefits is available at PW Torch vipinfo dot com. And yes,
Speaker 7: all VIP podcasts are compatible with popular podcast apps on
Speaker 7: iPhone and Android devices, or you can stream them directly
Speaker 7: from our ad free VIP mobile site. See you in
Speaker 7: the Paradise.
Speaker 1: One way that you can help us sustain our schedule
Speaker 1: of putting out podcasts throughout the week is by giving
Speaker 1: us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. Just go
Speaker 1: to Apple Podcasts and look for our Weightkeller Pressing podcast
Speaker 1: and Weightkeller Prossing post show and give us a five
Speaker 1: star rating. We hope you think we've earned that score
Speaker 1: with our fast turnaround times and our quantity and quality
Speaker 1: of wrestling analysis throughout the week. So take a moment
Speaker 1: out for us and do us favor and give us
Speaker 1: a five star rating at Apple Podcasts. That helps us
Speaker 1: on search returns and helps us grow. And if you want,
Speaker 1: you can add a few comments. About what you like
Speaker 1: about the programs in the comments section. Thank you so much.
Speaker 15: In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
Speaker 15: ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
Speaker 15: podcast NXT Eight Years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
Speaker 15: look at this page in NXT's early history.
Speaker 16: Join Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout from PWT talks
Speaker 16: NXT every Saturday as we go eight years back to
Speaker 16: the day to track NXT's rising talents and why they
Speaker 16: did or didn't work out exclusively for PW Torch VIP members.
Speaker 1: A PW Torch VIP membership doesn't just give you add
Speaker 1: free access to these shows and a ton of other
Speaker 1: VIP exclusive podcasts throughout the week, but you also gain
Speaker 1: access to our unmatched vast library of wrestling history, our
Speaker 1: contemporaneous week to week coverage through our progressing Torch Weekly
Speaker 1: newsletters dating back to the late nineteen eighties, along with
Speaker 1: streaming and download access to hundreds of retro radio shows
Speaker 1: from the nineteen nineties, including some of my interviews with
Speaker 1: wrestling's top newsmakers in the nineties, and also our podcast
Speaker 1: library dating back to the year two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: There's no larger, longer spanning pro wrestling podcast library than
Speaker 1: that that comes with a pw Torch VIP membership. Now
Speaker 1: we're approaching twenty years of podcasting. Go VIP and dive
Speaker 1: into our post pay per view roundtables are covered with
Speaker 1: some of your favorite eras of wrestling, top name, long
Speaker 1: form interviews, and special format podcasts that we've done throughout
Speaker 1: the years. Pw torch dot com slash go VIP. We
Speaker 1: have a streamline sign up for me and you can
Speaker 1: pay with PayPal or directly with your credit card or
Speaker 1: debit card. In one or two minutes from right now,
Speaker 1: you can be a VIP member and diving into our library.
Speaker 1: Pw torch dot com slash go vip