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Speaker 3: Now, PW Torch and Speaker bring you the Wade Keller
Speaker 3: Pro Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 2: Five years ago.
Speaker 1: This week on the Way Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast, the
Speaker 1: special Roundtable episode I hosted with three guests who all
Speaker 1: attended aw Revolution, the pay per view in Chicago in person.
Speaker 1: PW torches Travis Bryant, Joel Dennell, and former Progressing Torch
Speaker 1: columnist Eric Croull all gave their thoughts on attending. They've
Speaker 1: shared stories and observations. They all had different opinions and
Speaker 1: different experiences at the event, and they all have a
Speaker 1: different backstory, Travis was not a regular AW viewer, Eric
Speaker 1: Crowe lapsed being a fan and then returned because of
Speaker 1: New Japan and AW and Joel had watched all of
Speaker 1: AW from the beginning. It's a fun, informative show discussing
Speaker 1: the pros and cons of certain booking decisions, What's next
Speaker 1: Orange Cassidy, whether the time was right for John Moxley,
Speaker 1: what AW has on their hands with Hangman Page, and
Speaker 1: so much more, plus some brushes with fame, comparisons to
Speaker 1: crowds and past eras, and much more. Real fun discussion
Speaker 1: over an hour and a half in length, and it
Speaker 1: is Today's Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. Five Years Ago
Speaker 1: Roundtable Flashback four Wednesday, March fifth, twenty twenty five. This
Speaker 1: originally dropped on March third, twenty twenty way. This is
Speaker 1: the last AW pay per view before COVID shut down
Speaker 1: live attendance and traveling shows.
Speaker 3: Now, PW Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Keller
Speaker 3: Pro Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 1: All right, so my first topic is to you Travis
Speaker 1: Bryant as a infrequent AW viewer, and you can put
Speaker 1: more context on that, talk about the reasons that you
Speaker 1: have chosen not to watch AW because different people different
Speaker 1: reasons for what they watching to watch. And then also
Speaker 1: what drew you to going to the show Saturday night
Speaker 1: AW Revolution And we'll kind of go from there and
Speaker 1: build on that because we're going to have an interesting
Speaker 1: discussion with different perpective here.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll answer the last question first, and the ticket
Speaker 4: was free. My buddy broke up with his girlfriend and
Speaker 4: they were going to drive from Cincinnati and he had
Speaker 4: a ticket asked if I wanted to go, all I
Speaker 4: had to do was get there.
Speaker 5: So I board a plane ticket and didn't know we
Speaker 5: did a hotel.
Speaker 4: I wasn't an America's guest this time, but.
Speaker 5: But I did get to go to Chicago for the
Speaker 5: first time, so that was cool.
Speaker 2: Oh wow cool?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah, but but yeah, so I got there
Speaker 4: because there was a there was a ticket for me.
Speaker 4: But I haven't watched AW since the big December eighteenth show.
Speaker 4: I think that was the show that had the you know,
Speaker 4: the twenty minute Jericho party with Virgil and Fixed Bake,
Speaker 4: Vapor Rub and you know, it was a sports entertainee
Speaker 4: as as as anything Vince has ever done, and kind
Speaker 4: of worse because it was a derivative, and you know
Speaker 4: they at least they I don't say they do it good,
Speaker 4: but they were used to doing it.
Speaker 5: This was just so I was turned off completely.
Speaker 4: I just stopped watching and all dud was focused on
Speaker 4: NXT and at the time I wasn't watching Rawer SmackDown
Speaker 4: in NXT. From pretty much from November to just a
Speaker 4: few weeks ago, was it. I still haven't watched an
Speaker 4: aw TV. I did see some of the promo stuff
Speaker 4: literally and figure tive.
Speaker 5: I saw the actual.
Speaker 4: Promos from the Bucks and that sit down interviewed they
Speaker 4: had with Page and Omega, and.
Speaker 5: That was interesting.
Speaker 4: It made me think, well, now I want to see
Speaker 4: the Bucks lose and lose very badly. They were always okay.
Speaker 4: I didn't hate them and like the way they wrestled,
Speaker 4: and but I didn't hate them. But yeah, maybe I'll
Speaker 4: come back. As far as like the Wednesday, we'll see tomorrow,
Speaker 4: I probably will watch because I probably set up TV
Speaker 4: with n XT sound down, lap Chap with aw with
Speaker 4: the sound with the sound up. That's probably how I'll
Speaker 4: do it tomorrow, like I used to, just to see
Speaker 4: the follow up from the show, which was a fairly
Speaker 4: enjoyable show.
Speaker 2: I got over it, like yeah and well yeah.
Speaker 1: So we'll kind of explore kind of the micro take
Speaker 1: on everything as we move forward. Another panelist here is
Speaker 1: Eric Crowl, who was a Pro Wrestling Torture newsletter columnist
Speaker 1: almost thirty years ago.
Speaker 2: Eric, you're also a journalist by.
Speaker 1: Trade, and I would say that you have qualified as
Speaker 1: a lapsed fan at times over the last thirty years.
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about your your journey to AEW.
Speaker 1: I know you're a Chicago NATA, so that had a
Speaker 1: lot to do with it, but also where you stand
Speaker 1: as far as your viewing of aw Okay.
Speaker 6: So I started raise a family and bailed right around three,
Speaker 6: and I had about a fifteen year gap, so I
Speaker 6: missed all of the bad WWE years and the Wasteland years,
Speaker 6: the years in the Wilderness. Came back in twenty eighteen
Speaker 6: because of Jericho Omega and New Japan. Watched New Japan
Speaker 6: fairly religiously, got into being the elite. Has been at
Speaker 6: both All In and All Out and then Saturday Show
Speaker 6: and throw in some NXT and ROH over the years.
Speaker 6: Even I went to Dallas for g One. So that's
Speaker 6: my kind of perspective and experience on how I came
Speaker 6: back to watch. I watched AW Dark every week, I
Speaker 6: watched Dynamite, I watch Being the Elite, Right, So I
Speaker 6: am about as diehard aw as you could get these days,
Speaker 6: I guess in terms of consuming the content and the
Speaker 6: TV shows and.
Speaker 1: What other content of prog wrestling are you watching if
Speaker 1: anything regularly?
Speaker 6: No New Japan and NXT. I even watched NXT UK
Speaker 6: last week. Ask forward to a lot of it. But
Speaker 6: I do like EDXC. I really can't watch main roster
Speaker 6: w w E. It just it's just not my thing.
Speaker 2: And why and why not? I mean just kind of
Speaker 2: short answer on that. I could do an hour.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, the time commitment is five hours. It's not
Speaker 6: It's not the Monday Night Wars when I was single
Speaker 6: and didn't have kids, I could watch five you know,
Speaker 6: all that, All of that, all of those hours of
Speaker 6: wrestling not anymore. And RAW is just such a slog
Speaker 6: most weeks, and I just I don't find the act,
Speaker 6: the in ring action to be all that compelling. They
Speaker 6: drop storylines, I mean, all the common reasons, all the
Speaker 6: common complaints people have about w w E. If I'm
Speaker 6: born on a Sunday night and I've got all my
Speaker 6: work done, I'll pop on the pay per views since
Speaker 6: you're paying for the network anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: And then Joeldenel who people whose sort of this to
Speaker 1: the WAKEL Defrosing post show familiar with his voice now
Speaker 1: as a regular co host on the AW Dynamite post show. Joel,
Speaker 1: we know that you watch AW every week, you write
Speaker 1: the hits and missus columns for pw toorch dot com.
Speaker 2: But you you made it out to Chicago for this show,
Speaker 2: So just talk.
Speaker 1: About why you, uh, because I know there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a story we covered it, uh in yours
Speaker 1: the last time you were co hosts, but a little
Speaker 1: bit about you attending live AW shows.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So it all started with just going to All In
Speaker 7: and that was a show where it had all these
Speaker 7: stars that I'd always wanted to see because, as you know,
Speaker 7: we in Minnesota, we don't get a whole lot of
Speaker 7: great wrestling shows that come here.
Speaker 8: Every once in a while, they'll throw us a B.
Speaker 7: Show WWE pay per view, but mostly it's you know,
Speaker 7: house shows and kind of not great WWE stuff. Every
Speaker 7: once in a while we'll get those NXD house shows,
Speaker 7: which are which are kind of fun. But yeah, it
Speaker 7: goes back to All In and it was within driving
Speaker 7: distance of Minneapolis, only about a six hour drive or so,
Speaker 7: and yeah, just going there and you know, really getting
Speaker 7: behind a lot of these stars and seeing that you know,
Speaker 7: there are some legs to what these guys are doing here,
Speaker 7: and getting behind this idea that Cody wanted to start
Speaker 7: something that was a totally new, different kind of wrestling
Speaker 7: show that you know, goes back to the basics of wrestling.
Speaker 7: It's wrestling, booking one oh one, telling these simple stories,
Speaker 7: not over complicating stuff.
Speaker 8: And since then, I've.
Speaker 7: Wanted to go to pretty much all of their major shows,
Speaker 7: or at least their pay per views. I missed Full Gear,
Speaker 7: which was in Baltimore, just the logistics of that one
Speaker 7: didn't work out. But I'd been to All In, Double
Speaker 7: or Nothing, all Out Revolution, and then I will be
Speaker 7: at Double or Nothing this coming May, and then I'll be.
Speaker 8: Going to All Out again for Labor Day weekend.
Speaker 7: So just trying to follow all their major shows and
Speaker 7: just being a part of it, experiencing it and learning
Speaker 7: about why this wrestling is different from what's been presented
Speaker 7: with WWE for so long.
Speaker 1: So Joe, I'm going to ask a follow up to
Speaker 1: you on this first, which is it being to as
Speaker 1: many big AEW events as you've been to now, the
Speaker 1: standalone shows, not the weekly TV series. Have you noticed
Speaker 1: in evolution in the fan in the type of fan demographically,
Speaker 1: their enthusiasm, who they're responding to, and the way that
Speaker 1: AW caters to them.
Speaker 2: Just kind of tackle that.
Speaker 1: As you look at the I guess the last almost
Speaker 1: I guess a year and a half now that you've
Speaker 1: been going to AW shows or such as All In,
Speaker 1: was it counts.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's yeah, definitely, And that's a really good question
Speaker 7: because I was actually thinking about that while I was
Speaker 7: at the show, that going back to All In and
Speaker 7: Double or Nothing. So All In was that special, you know,
Speaker 7: built as the biggest independent wrestling show of all time.
Speaker 7: So it got all these hardcore fans from all across
Speaker 7: the world who came to this one event who really
Speaker 7: wanted to make everything success.
Speaker 8: They were cheering for everything.
Speaker 7: They weren't going to poo poo, you know, anything that
Speaker 7: was perceived as bad. And it was the same thing
Speaker 7: for Double or Nothing, where everyone wanted to be.
Speaker 8: At the first pay per view.
Speaker 7: And now what I've seen at revel was it almost
Speaker 7: felt like there was two different.
Speaker 8: Kinds of fans at this show.
Speaker 5: That it was the.
Speaker 7: Younger, you know, I would say probably you know, twenties
Speaker 7: to mid thirties, you know, fan who's into AW.
Speaker 8: They liked being the elite, they liked New Japan stuff.
Speaker 7: And then I also saw a lot of kind of
Speaker 7: older fans who I can't think of a better way
Speaker 7: to describe them than I think it was on your
Speaker 7: pay per view roundtable where it was kind of like
Speaker 7: almost those older wrestling fans who.
Speaker 8: You know, would chant things like like.
Speaker 7: You fed up and kind of you know, derogatory stuff
Speaker 7: like that. And I noticed this a lot too during
Speaker 7: the Nila Rose and Chris stat Lander match, where there
Speaker 7: was a lot of just very negative, negative things being
Speaker 7: shouted at the ring. And that was not my experience
Speaker 7: at all from All In or Double or Nothing, and
Speaker 7: even All Out was kind of more of those hardcore fans.
Speaker 7: But now it seems like that there's a lot of
Speaker 7: different people who are now coming to these AW shows
Speaker 7: and you're getting the different mix of the two different
Speaker 7: kinds of fans.
Speaker 6: I'd make this observation the other shows you mentioned, I
Speaker 6: think we're all fly in shows, all in and all
Speaker 6: out where I know Vegas for sure? Was this one
Speaker 6: was I think there was no star cast. I get
Speaker 6: the sense that it was probably a bigger mix of
Speaker 6: local Chicago ins and fewer travel people would be my guests.
Speaker 6: And this one was in a different building and attached
Speaker 6: to a comic convention I think fantasy cosplay type of thing,
Speaker 6: so that might have had something to do with that.
Speaker 6: Have you, Joe, have you noticed if you've noticed it
Speaker 6: just at Revolution.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that this was the first time that that really
Speaker 7: kind of stood out to me that it seemed like
Speaker 7: a lot of the people who I would see at
Speaker 7: kind of WWE shows, We're now finally going to these
Speaker 7: aew events.
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Speaker 1: or Patreon membership. All right, well, I'll pause for a
Speaker 1: moment and set the table and introduce the show. This
Speaker 1: is the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast, recorded Tuesday, March third,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. It's a wildcard Tuesday edition once again where
Speaker 1: we vary up the format on Tuesdays. And this is
Speaker 1: a first fun roundtable panel discussion on a particular single
Speaker 1: topic on the Weadkiller Person post show. We have on
Speaker 1: site correspondence on just about every show after Raw Dynamite
Speaker 1: and SmackDown every Monday, Wednesday and fri And today we've
Speaker 1: got three special onseite correspondents from Chicago on Saturday night
Speaker 1: who attended AW Revolution. The voices you hear are Travis
Speaker 1: Bryant from the PW Torch East Coast Cast, a frequent
Speaker 1: co host of the Wayde Keller Person post shows over
Speaker 1: the years, and he is a infrequent aw viewer, but
Speaker 1: attended in Chicago all Another perspective comes from Joel Denell,
Speaker 1: who is a regular co host on the Dynamite post
Speaker 1: shows and has watched pretty much every minute of AW
Speaker 1: and has attended almost all their major shows and writes
Speaker 1: the AW Hits and Missus column for PW torch dot com.
Speaker 1: So he gives his perspective on attendaning in Chicago. And
Speaker 1: then Eric Kroll, longtime Progressing torchuing newsletter subscribers know his name.
Speaker 1: He was a columnist for Progressing Torch in the early
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. He is now an investigative reporter at the
Speaker 1: Chicago's Tribune. And he was a lapsed fan for about
Speaker 1: fifteen years and he was pulled back in by New
Speaker 1: Pro Wrestling and now AW and watches almost primarily but
Speaker 1: not exclusively, a w on a weekly basis now. And
Speaker 1: he gives his perspective from attending the show on Saturday night.
Speaker 1: So different ages and different perspectives and different backgrounds, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the on site perspective, brushes
Speaker 1: with fame, thoughts on production, how the fans are different,
Speaker 1: all kinds of topics boct that plus also the booking,
Speaker 1: the decision to have Christ Jericho drop the title, John
Speaker 1: Moxley win the title. Hangman page Orange Cassidy Jurassic Express,
Speaker 1: Cody Rhodes, so a lot coming up on the show.
Speaker 1: It's a fun group to have for this kind of
Speaker 1: discussion and I think you're going to really enjoy it.
Speaker 2: So let's get back to it. Let's jump back into
Speaker 2: the discussion.
Speaker 9: Need an extra dose of positivity in your wrestling podcasts?
Speaker 9: Will come join me Alan fourrel Over in the Progress
Speaker 9: Paradise at phorch VIP as we ask on the bright
Speaker 9: side of wrestling and focus on some of the great
Speaker 9: matches and shows from around the world, be it the US, Japan,
Speaker 9: Europe or Mexico. There's always a place for wrestlings past
Speaker 9: in the Paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows
Speaker 9: such as the We Love Liger series celebrating the glorious
Speaker 9: career of Jusian Thunderliger and our eye was there when
Speaker 9: shows where our guests will join me to talk about
Speaker 9: a classic bout that they were in attendance for. We
Speaker 9: love variety and you can expect lots of it at
Speaker 9: the Progress Paradise. Detailed pwof Torch VIP subscription information and
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Speaker 9: ad free VIP mobile site. See you in the Paradise, Eric,
Speaker 9: What struck you?
Speaker 1: What has struck you about aw compared to wrestling that
Speaker 1: you attended in the eighties and wrestling that you attended
Speaker 1: during the Attitude era? Does it seem like a revival
Speaker 1: of some of that or different in some notable ways?
Speaker 6: I mean, there were packed houses during the Attitude era,
Speaker 6: and there were pack houses for a lot of the eighties.
Speaker 6: Probably the biggest, the loudest I've ever heard a building
Speaker 6: was for a Hogan Orndorff cage match. I think it
Speaker 6: was the ugly big blue cage where you know orangeor
Speaker 6: is almost over the cage and Hogan's trying to pick
Speaker 6: him and the hair on the back of my neck
Speaker 6: as a teenager was standing up. That strikes me as
Speaker 6: the loudest I've ever heard. The second loudest I've ever
Speaker 6: heard a building was Nick Aldest and Cody Rhodes at
Speaker 6: all in, Joel, what was your was your experience that
Speaker 6: that was the loudest match at all in I mean,
Speaker 6: I just I have a vivid memory of just the
Speaker 6: level of heat. Molten gets thrown around a lot these
Speaker 6: days as the hip word to use about when describing crowd.
Speaker 6: He but man, that actually that actually lived up to it.
Speaker 6: The fans are a lot more into it than they
Speaker 6: were in the eighties when you know you're going to
Speaker 6: WWE and the action is mostly terrible. They're a lot smarter.
Speaker 6: They seem to be more you know, the difference between
Speaker 6: now and the eighties is we had to subscribe to
Speaker 6: Wade Kellish Pro Wrestling Torch that was just starting out
Speaker 6: back then to find out what was going on behind
Speaker 6: the scenes, and today it's all over the internet everywhere.
Speaker 6: So fans are better educated, I would say, than they
Speaker 6: were in the eighties and even the nineties when the
Speaker 6: Internet was just sort of getting started during the Attitude era.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm going to add on to that too, Eric.
Speaker 7: That another thing that I noticed, especially going to these
Speaker 7: aw shows, and I can't speak for Dynamite. I haven't
Speaker 7: been to these some of these smaller market shows, but
Speaker 7: there's a lot. First of all, there's a lot more
Speaker 7: women at these shows, a tons more of guys who
Speaker 7: are taking their girlfriends or people taking their wives and
Speaker 7: even taking their kids to these shows. And when you
Speaker 7: go to a WWE show. I'm speaking particularly about the
Speaker 7: TLC pay per view.
Speaker 8: That was in Minneapolis last December.
Speaker 7: Where most of them are just kind of, you know,
Speaker 7: the last remaining people who are still watching the watching WWE.
Speaker 7: It's not people bringing families. It was just kind of
Speaker 7: people who are like, yeah, wrestling's in town, it's the
Speaker 7: pay per view, so I'm going to go to the show.
Speaker 7: Whereas here it's kind of more of an event. It's
Speaker 7: like it's okay to take the kids, It's okay to
Speaker 7: take my girlfriend. I'm not afraid of you know, something
Speaker 7: that's going to be totally embarrassing where we're like I
Speaker 7: took for this was the first AEW event that I
Speaker 7: took my girlfriend to, and you know, she had a
Speaker 7: blast obviously sit in ringside, how could you not, but
Speaker 7: the same thing too where she was able to understand
Speaker 7: a lot of the characters.
Speaker 8: She just had a good time.
Speaker 7: There was nothing that was, you know, insulting your intelligence.
Speaker 7: There was some things that you know, are just kind
Speaker 7: of weird. I mean, like the whole Dustin Rhodes thing
Speaker 7: where He's kissing Jake's wife was kind of weird. But
Speaker 7: you know, for the most part there there's nothing that's
Speaker 7: you know, that's totally embarrassing, UH that that you're gonna
Speaker 7: experience there.
Speaker 1: So Travis saving the UH the one that I might
Speaker 1: be most curious about for last No Offense. Joel and Eric,
Speaker 1: your your impression of ae W as an event, because
Speaker 1: you're not watching the TV show every week, but you are,
Speaker 1: so you're kind of walking in not as an avid
Speaker 1: UH one over fan, but actually almost an outsider, you know,
Speaker 1: stepping into not as a wrestling fan, but an outside
Speaker 1: because you're not just sold on this product.
Speaker 2: You're not sold on certain wrestlers.
Speaker 1: You're not even there for like specific matches that you
Speaker 1: have been invested in emotionally.
Speaker 2: Talk about what feels different.
Speaker 1: About AW compared to all the other live events that
Speaker 1: you've got to over the years, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: you and I went to w B Extreme Rules in
Speaker 1: UH in Newark in New Jersey and there was that
Speaker 1: huge pop for seth Rawlins Make and It's come back
Speaker 1: at the end and all that.
Speaker 2: So just compare that a W vibe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, go ahead, I mean it was a big it
Speaker 4: was the same as double or nothing in Vegas.
Speaker 5: It was a big time building.
Speaker 4: It's a you know, packed crowd. I mean every seat
Speaker 4: was was filled. I didn't see one empty seat and
Speaker 4: everybody was enthusiastic.
Speaker 5: So they were the audience involved involved for a w
Speaker 5: is big time.
Speaker 4: They're set, they're the visuals, all the whole production is
Speaker 4: is big time. It's not WWE big time because that's
Speaker 4: just you know, tip of the top of the you know,
Speaker 4: as far as it's hard to catch up to that
Speaker 4: putting on a road show for for for you know,
Speaker 4: fifty plus years, you kind of know what you're doing
Speaker 4: and you have the infrastructure and the budget and all that.
Speaker 2: But it was the booking. But that's another topic.
Speaker 4: But it was a big but it was a big
Speaker 4: time set, big time feel. They had their gimmick with
Speaker 4: the with the risk wrist bands.
Speaker 5: That that lit up.
Speaker 4: That was I said, so they're gonna I when before
Speaker 4: Justin Roberts announced that, I was like, they're just gonna
Speaker 4: use us as props. This is a way to make
Speaker 4: people raise their hands and like woop, woop woop, you know,
Speaker 4: do things. And I was like, what a great idea,
Speaker 4: what a fantastic thing I had the show. Wristbands are
Speaker 4: not people were been going nuts, but it just gives
Speaker 4: an extra incentive to you know, to make yourself seen
Speaker 4: or whatever. But I would disagree a little bit with
Speaker 4: like one of the things that struck me was that
Speaker 4: there weren't as many kids.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: There were a few in my section older like twelve
Speaker 4: and thirteen, and then I saw like a few like
Speaker 4: eight year old, you know looking kid. It's but not
Speaker 4: as many as a WW show. I didn't expect there
Speaker 4: to be that kind of family ro vibe. It was friendly,
Speaker 4: it wasn't off putting in any way, but there just
Speaker 4: wasn't a ton of a ton of kids and not
Speaker 4: as many women.
Speaker 5: I think either, I don't.
Speaker 4: I haven't been to a WW show probably since that
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen Extreme Rules show with You Wade, but for
Speaker 4: two decades leading up to that, I was pretty much
Speaker 4: sure a regular all over Philadelphia. When they care in Philly,
Speaker 4: when they came every year or you know, a couple
Speaker 4: times a year.
Speaker 5: It's a big time.
Speaker 4: I don't want to I don't want to sound like
Speaker 4: I'm being negative, because I'm not. It's just felt it
Speaker 4: just wasn't as a family thing, and ww goes out
Speaker 4: of their way to a detriment sort of to the
Speaker 4: family fund entertainment and bring everybody no matter even And
Speaker 4: yes I'm babbling, but big time go ahead.
Speaker 2: Yeah what No, that's okay?
Speaker 1: What what what jumps out about a w Do you
Speaker 1: that that that I should say jumps out? Does it
Speaker 1: seem like it's a positive or negative spin on the
Speaker 1: vibe of the fans and their attitude towards the product
Speaker 1: compared to WWE? Do you because and you, like I say,
Speaker 1: of this outsider perspective, do you kind of it's almost
Speaker 1: like you're kind of you're part of the show and
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're hopefully enjoying itside. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of you kind of sitting in the
Speaker 1: in the balcony just observing the dispassionately as a as
Speaker 1: an outsider a little bit. What strikes you about the
Speaker 1: fans positive or negative? Are you rolling your eyes at
Speaker 1: them being lap dogs?
Speaker 4: Or are just they just they're very enthusiastic, overly enthusiastic,
Speaker 4: Like I don't understand, Wow, you as a wrestling fan
Speaker 4: that takes that once a product that's serious, that wants
Speaker 4: not to be embarrassed.
Speaker 5: But let me tell you.
Speaker 4: When I was in it at double or nothing, I
Speaker 4: saw I look that it was a Battle Royal. Because
Speaker 4: I didn't know anybody, I turned to the guy or
Speaker 4: in the ring or in my surroundings, I think, But anyway,
Speaker 4: I asked the guy next to me, I said, why
Speaker 4: is there a little kid in the wing?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 4: Is this like some kind of like Because he wasn't
Speaker 4: taking a bunch of bumps getting bumped. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 4: is this somebody's like cousin that they're doing in this
Speaker 4: wacky Battle Royal?
Speaker 5: And it turns out to be that was Marco Stunt.
Speaker 4: And then he's featured on TV and he's not a
Speaker 4: serious wrestler, because how can you take a guy that
Speaker 4: I thought was a kid from one hundred yards away serious?
Speaker 5: Like he shouldn't be on anybody's national TV. But there
Speaker 5: he is.
Speaker 4: I don't care how over he is, but it's it's
Speaker 4: hard to take get past that. And Joey Janella a
Speaker 4: guy like that, and Rich and we had these arguments
Speaker 4: on VIP and you know how hard working a guy
Speaker 4: is and this that and the other and I and
Speaker 4: it works and I have to give him all all
Speaker 4: all involved, the talent and the company. But then I'll
Speaker 4: turn around and absolutely love Orange Cassidy like I have
Speaker 4: no real consistency and what it's what you like, it's
Speaker 4: it's and what you don't.
Speaker 1: And sometimes certain things can be done well and certain
Speaker 1: things can be done poorly. There's some Orange things.
Speaker 5: There's a welleway.
Speaker 4: There's a good way to present a four to eight
Speaker 4: guy that's, you know, one hundred and two pounds in
Speaker 4: there bumping around.
Speaker 5: Your world champion.
Speaker 4: It's absurd and it makes me I like Darby Allen
Speaker 4: when he was going at Jericho with his arms tied
Speaker 4: behind his back, Like why is Jericho's just punch him
Speaker 4: in a face and pend on one, two, three going on.
Speaker 5: It's that time.
Speaker 2: But Travis, I watched it.
Speaker 4: So so forgiving or I don't want to say forgiving
Speaker 4: because that's yeah.
Speaker 1: But the the goodwill is there, It's very much there, Travis.
Speaker 1: I watched Faulk Cogan and Gene Okerland team together once
Speaker 1: against mister Fuji George the Animal Steel, and and it
Speaker 1: was it's and again, yes, I'm comparing gen Oaker, Linda
Speaker 1: Marco Stutt, but there's a way that you can do
Speaker 1: a mismatch type situation where the opportunistic take comes in.
Speaker 1: Gene punches Georgia Animal Steel, the crowd goes completely crazy
Speaker 1: and and then he takes out quickly, And it's you
Speaker 1: have to figure that out with Marco to make sure
Speaker 1: that somebody like you, the type of fan that that
Speaker 1: really they're trying to win over somebody who isn't just
Speaker 1: already just sold on it and gonna be forgiving, and
Speaker 1: watch that they that they make sure that their booking
Speaker 1: makes as much sense as possible. And I think there's
Speaker 1: been sometimes Marco's been used well and sometimes not in
Speaker 1: that In that perspective.
Speaker 5: He's just an easy target for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You can support us on Patreon and get these shows
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Speaker 1: there anything you want to bring up on your own,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to just be the only one
Speaker 1: bringing up topics here as we kind of talk about
Speaker 1: the the live experience and in particular, but not exclusively,
Speaker 1: Saturday Night.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I guess, just adding on to that conversation,
Speaker 7: I mean, I guess I probably had a perception of
Speaker 7: more kids there because I was in next to Jurassic Express,
Speaker 7: who were a complete hit with all the kids. I mean,
Speaker 7: there was a lot of kids who wanted to come
Speaker 7: up to them. I mean, there was tons of kids
Speaker 7: in the section by the ramp, and one of in
Speaker 7: particular was wearing a Lucasaurus mask and so they got their.
Speaker 8: Picture with Jurassic Express.
Speaker 7: Otherwise, other kids were just thrilled to walk just walk
Speaker 7: by that section and see and see Marco Stunt and
Speaker 7: Jungle Boy.
Speaker 8: So yeah, I thought that those people were hit with
Speaker 8: the kids.
Speaker 7: I don't know if there were just they were, you know,
Speaker 7: just kind of in one area or whatever, But yeah,
Speaker 7: that that was just my person I think.
Speaker 4: I think at w W shows, it's just annoying and like,
Speaker 4: where why.
Speaker 5: Are these kids here?
Speaker 4: Like I just want to watch them wrestling with grown
Speaker 4: ups and watch grown up product And it's just like
Speaker 4: it's hard to do.
Speaker 5: Or it's hard to uh have that perspective.
Speaker 4: When you look around and be like, I'm enjoying the
Speaker 4: same thing I don't on different levels.
Speaker 5: But is this you know, eight year old next to me?
Speaker 4: Granted, where we like different things and stuff and I
Speaker 4: read Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. I can't talk about
Speaker 4: liking things that kids like. But but it is just
Speaker 4: a little, it's a little it's it's annoying at w
Speaker 4: W con shows as as how many at how many
Speaker 4: kids and families? Not really annoying, but just but I
Speaker 4: think that's what it is. Get not Yeah, I just
Speaker 4: feel I do feel like an old man sometimes.
Speaker 5: But I don't think it wasn't that there weren't any kids.
Speaker 5: It's just w W just has packed.
Speaker 4: They count on, uh families bringing don't go to a
Speaker 4: house show.
Speaker 5: It's like where are your powers? They are just kids here.
Speaker 5: It's no girl.
Speaker 7: Lips but yeah, yeah, and then when you go to
Speaker 7: the WWE shows, I mean so much of it is
Speaker 7: aimed at the kids, just whereas as an adult it's like, man,
Speaker 7: that this stuff is just not for me. Whereas when
Speaker 7: you go to the aw show, it's aimed at adults,
Speaker 7: but then the kids come along because it's the cool
Speaker 7: thing to watch.
Speaker 5: Uh Joe.
Speaker 1: Actually, so we don't forget talk about what it was
Speaker 1: like sitting extra Jurassic Express, just like talk about the
Speaker 1: context of when they arrived, how long they were there.
Speaker 1: I know you mentioned to me they like never talked
Speaker 1: to each other.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so that that was kind of weird.
Speaker 7: So they came out before the Darby Allen Sammy Guvara match.
Speaker 7: That was after they I believe they had some promo
Speaker 7: on the big screen that's saying they were going to
Speaker 7: watch that match closely. And then they came out and
Speaker 7: people were all excited around us, and Marco Stunt just
Speaker 7: looked thrilled. He was thrilled to be a ringside and
Speaker 7: he was taking pictures of the ring, he was taking.
Speaker 8: Pictures with fans. But then they were just kind of
Speaker 8: sitting there.
Speaker 7: For God, I'm trying to think at least through the
Speaker 7: Nila Rose and christat Lander match, because Marco caught the
Speaker 7: mask from Nyla Rose. But they were just kind of
Speaker 7: sitting there and they weren't super engaged with the rest
Speaker 7: of the show, and they just kind of looked confused
Speaker 7: as to why they were there, and they didn't talk
Speaker 7: to each other really. It seemed like they just wasn't
Speaker 7: communicated to them that like, hey guys, it's time to
Speaker 7: come back, go to the backstage area. So it was
Speaker 7: just it was just kind of bizarre after a while
Speaker 7: because they were still there after that, after the Darby
Speaker 7: Allen match.
Speaker 1: That's that's weird that they're not like interacting or even
Speaker 1: putting on any kind of just like the optics the
Speaker 1: visual of getting along and reacting.
Speaker 2: To the to what was happening, Like what was the point?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean like when first when they came out,
Speaker 7: there was a bunch of kids who came up and
Speaker 7: they wanted to get pictures and all that stuff. But
Speaker 7: after a while, I mean, like not to pick too
Speaker 7: hard on him, but I mean like Jungle Boys just
Speaker 7: kind of like looking around and he's just kind of
Speaker 7: looking like why am I even here? And same with Lucasaurus,
Speaker 7: and Marco's just on his phone for a lot of
Speaker 7: the time too, and so it just kind of created
Speaker 7: this awkward thing because lots of people were walking by
Speaker 7: kind of like, oh my.
Speaker 8: Gosh, it's Jurassic Express.
Speaker 7: They're sitting in the crowd, but nothing was really happening
Speaker 7: with them, and it was clear that they weren't going
Speaker 7: to do anything with them after this Darby Allen match. Yeah,
Speaker 7: So they were just sitting there for a long time.
Speaker 1: And do you have any guess what the point I mean,
Speaker 1: they showed him on camera, I think just once like,
Speaker 1: do you have any idea what like if there was
Speaker 1: a larger purpose that they didn't fulfill or are you
Speaker 1: just sort of perplexed?
Speaker 7: I to be honest, I was perplexed because, you know,
Speaker 7: they One of the things I'm sitting so close to
Speaker 7: the ring is that there is so much going on
Speaker 7: around the show where you're hearing, you know, aw crew,
Speaker 7: their security, all sorts of people are talking and communicating
Speaker 7: about all the different moving parts, and that was one
Speaker 7: of the things where I just never saw, you know,
Speaker 7: anyone really communicating to them about what they were supposed
Speaker 7: to do. Whereas when Jake Hager's wife came out, you know,
Speaker 7: they had an aw you know, representative somebody with them
Speaker 7: who was kind of explaining to her like all right,
Speaker 7: so you're gonna stand here, you know, this is what's
Speaker 7: going to go on. And she seemed like she was
Speaker 7: pretty confident in, you know that she was going to
Speaker 7: play up kind of that that Heel character with Hager,
Speaker 7: that the whole point was to get.
Speaker 8: Booze and stuff like that.
Speaker 7: So most people who were there were kind of briefed
Speaker 7: if they were sitting in that area. But yeah, I
Speaker 7: mean they just kind of came out there and they
Speaker 7: got they pulled up their seats there and they were
Speaker 7: just sitting there for a while and nothing happened, and
Speaker 7: then all of a sudden they just left.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were, they were they were like running lines basically,
Speaker 4: like after the crowd had started coming in. What do
Speaker 4: you mean, Like they're going through like you're going to
Speaker 4: do this, so he's going to kiss you and blah
Speaker 4: blah blah and like fans that people are there.
Speaker 5: Oh, so like they were. Yeah.
Speaker 7: So they just had one aw official who was talking
Speaker 7: to Hey, your's wife and he was just saying like,
Speaker 7: all right, so you're gonna be here in this area
Speaker 7: and then and then he's gonna come out, and they
Speaker 7: didn't like say like oh and then the whole kissing
Speaker 7: spot and all just direct.
Speaker 5: I mean to specific, but they're they're man means okay,
Speaker 5: that's yeah. That bothers me. Maybe I should yeah.
Speaker 7: Well, And then there was another part too, where Cody there.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, yeah, to add to that too, Travis. At
Speaker 7: one point, I don't know if they showed Cody's mom
Speaker 7: too much on the screen, but she she also came
Speaker 7: up like right next to me and was asking the
Speaker 7: security guard like where am I supposed to go?
Speaker 5: Again?
Speaker 7: He's like, all right, so you're supposed to go there.
Speaker 7: The seat's not ready yet, but just just wait, wait
Speaker 7: a few minutes here and then you can go over
Speaker 7: there in that section. So that was the only other
Speaker 7: kind of direction that I saw with the a W staff.
Speaker 6: You got a produce the show, right, you're producing a
Speaker 6: live wrestling show that I think that kind of stuff
Speaker 6: is going to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, absolutely did did.
Speaker 1: Was how long was Hagar's j Hager's girlfriend there or
Speaker 1: what was a wife or girlfriend?
Speaker 2: I should don't even know.
Speaker 8: I believe it's his wife. Yeah, and she just came out.
Speaker 7: It was just right before the the right before h
Speaker 7: the What am I trying to say?
Speaker 6: The whole, like.
Speaker 7: The entrance not entrance video, the promo to start the
Speaker 7: pay per view.
Speaker 8: I guess that the video package.
Speaker 5: Oh so she came out.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so the for the opening of the show, So
Speaker 8: she came.
Speaker 7: Out right before then. And then yeah, it was just
Speaker 7: a staff members like all right, here's the seat right here.
Speaker 7: So then he's he's gonna come out and just kind
Speaker 7: of gave the run through there and then I believe
Speaker 7: she exited with him, So he she hopped over the
Speaker 7: barricade and just exited with Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 10: In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
Speaker 10: ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
Speaker 10: podcast NXT Eight Years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
Speaker 10: look at this page in NXT's early history.
Speaker 11: Join Kelly Wells and me Tom Stout from PWT Talks
Speaker 11: NXT every Saturday as we go eight years back to
Speaker 11: the day to track NXT's rising talents and why they
Speaker 11: did or didn't work out, exclusively for PW Torch VIP members.
Speaker 2: So Eric, let's uh, let's pivot to in overall.
Speaker 1: If you had anything like that, you would drop in
Speaker 1: the suggestion box for aew overall as as an engaged
Speaker 1: fan that you are of that product.
Speaker 2: Is there anything about the lead up to.
Speaker 1: The show, get before the show starts, as the show progresses,
Speaker 1: is there anything from you know, decades of go into
Speaker 1: different wrestling promoter shows that jumped out to you as
Speaker 1: needing perhaps needing some work or improvement. And then also,
Speaker 1: is there anything that just jumped out as like this
Speaker 1: is I didn't seen this before? Or this this that
Speaker 1: worked really well.
Speaker 6: Well? The I mean, the TIV leading up to this
Speaker 6: pay per view since January first was some of the best,
Speaker 6: one of the best two month runs of American TV
Speaker 6: since the heyday of the Monday Night Wars.
Speaker 2: I would think you missed the Heiden right era obviously.
Speaker 6: Yes, I miss I had a fifteen year yap from
Speaker 6: what I remember, right, so, they you know that December
Speaker 6: eighteenth show that turned Travis off. It turned off a
Speaker 6: lot of people when the creepyzoids from the Dark Order
Speaker 6: were killing all the elite members, right, you're killing off
Speaker 6: all your baby faces. It was reminiscent of the nWo
Speaker 6: and and so they reset came Balls of Fire from
Speaker 6: January first through now so did a good job with
Speaker 6: that as the cart itself. I thought, I mean, the
Speaker 6: crowd heat was nowhere near the level of all in
Speaker 6: or all out. I didn't think building. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 6: different building. There might be different acoustics. I don't know.
Speaker 6: But maybe it was a flying crowd who's naturally going
Speaker 6: to be more enthusiastic at all in and all out.
Speaker 6: Then they're gonna be enthusiastic one hundred percent of the
Speaker 6: time because they paid good money to fly and all that.
Speaker 6: I don't know, but part of it was the pacing
Speaker 6: issues of how the order of the matches were put together.
Speaker 6: So they should have flipped the first two matches because
Speaker 6: the Darby Allen Sami match was short, but it was
Speaker 6: the hot match that you would traditionally start a pay
Speaker 6: per view card with, and instead they started with these
Speaker 6: two big guys who kind of lumbered around the ring
Speaker 6: and the kind of what I would view as a
Speaker 6: two star match. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't light
Speaker 6: in the world on fire. And then obviously the third
Speaker 6: match was the tag team match, and that was the
Speaker 6: high point in the evening as far as crowd heat.
Speaker 6: The crowd was super into that, and then the crowd
Speaker 6: kind of died for a long while after that and
Speaker 6: not died like Monday Night Raw crowd died last night,
Speaker 6: but you know, it had a hard time getting back
Speaker 6: up to that level Cody. As a result, Cody's match
Speaker 6: didn't have as much heat as I thought it would.
Speaker 6: The crowd Orange Cassidy Park had way more heat in
Speaker 6: the building, I thought, than than the Cody match, or
Speaker 6: slightly more maybe, and then you know, the main event
Speaker 6: at a good level of heat, especially with the unexpected
Speaker 6: title change there, it probably could have had a I
Speaker 6: don't know where you stick that tag title match, right,
Speaker 6: it was always going to be the kind of match
Speaker 6: if it lived up to expectations, that was going to
Speaker 6: burn out the crowd for a few matches. And I
Speaker 6: assumed Cody and Jericho both wanted that match as far
Speaker 6: the hell away from their bouts as they could, because
Speaker 6: if that was the if that was the semi main,
Speaker 6: or if it was third from the top, you know that,
Speaker 6: then then they really would have had problems. I mean,
Speaker 6: I guess they tried to. They they put it as
Speaker 6: far away as they could, but it had it. It
Speaker 6: had an impact, and the crowd probably was was noticeably
Speaker 6: on TV. I would think because happened. I mean, you're
Speaker 6: really not as loud as a typical aw sometimes Dynamite
Speaker 6: and certainly the pay per view shows, So I would
Speaker 6: have I don't know what the solution is, right, It's
Speaker 6: easy to pick out a problem. Do you make the
Speaker 6: you know, you put the tag title match later in
Speaker 6: the show. I don't know, what do you guys think?
Speaker 7: Well, I I was very very surprised at the lack
Speaker 7: of heat for MJF.
Speaker 8: I mean, it was shocking how there.
Speaker 7: Was little as many little booze as there was for
Speaker 7: MJF when he came out there. But yeah, the crowd
Speaker 7: just died after that tag match.
Speaker 8: I mean that was it was.
Speaker 7: It was a long, amazing match, but you know, going
Speaker 7: they had that, the women's match had the unfortunate spot
Speaker 7: of trying to follow that, and you know, there's a
Speaker 7: lot of people who got up, they chose that match
Speaker 7: in the long show to get up and go to
Speaker 7: the bathroom or do whatever else they needed to do.
Speaker 7: And then it kind of seems like as that coding
Speaker 7: match was just starting, was when people were just settling
Speaker 7: in there, and I just think that that really hurt
Speaker 7: it from the in arena perspective because the other matches
Speaker 7: that Cody's had live, I mean that gets some of
Speaker 7: the best crowd reactions. And so it just started off
Speaker 7: bad with the MJF where it didn't hardly get nearly
Speaker 7: as many booze as I thought it would be. And
Speaker 7: then you know, people are always excited to sing along
Speaker 7: with Cody's song, and then it had that live performance
Speaker 7: from downstate and I don't know what you guys thought,
Speaker 7: but I did not think that I was good at all.
Speaker 8: I meant the vocals were wretchet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the vocals it was. It was bad karaoke and.
Speaker 6: You couldn't I was. I was sitting on the floor,
Speaker 6: but in the side opposite the ramp, and you couldn't
Speaker 6: make it out on our side of the arena. And
Speaker 6: I'm told that people in the upper deck had a
Speaker 6: hard tang hearing any of the ring announcements or anything.
Speaker 6: So I don't know if it was just poorly miked
Speaker 6: for inside the building or what, but yeah, that was
Speaker 6: a problem.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and so that just that took away from people's excitement.
Speaker 8: For that match, because that that's a highlight of the show.
Speaker 7: People love singing along to that, and a lot of
Speaker 7: the chatter around me was you know that that Cody tattoo.
Speaker 8: On his neck.
Speaker 7: I mean people were focused on that thing and being like,
Speaker 7: what is that? And of course it's the Nightmare logo,
Speaker 7: but man, it just kind of felt like all these
Speaker 7: other things were just going on to distract people from
Speaker 7: the beginning of it. But I feel like they got
Speaker 7: people back towards the end, but it just had a
Speaker 7: rough start.
Speaker 6: I had high expectations for that Cody match. The feud
Speaker 6: was pretty well done and it was a great story
Speaker 6: Cody going through all the obstacles, taking the whipping on
Speaker 6: TV and the year twenty twenty somehow, and that, you know,
Speaker 6: I had the match at three stars. I just maybe
Speaker 6: it came across better on TV, but it was just
Speaker 6: it was the It could also suffered from my high expectations, right.
Speaker 6: I was hoping for something in the four stars plus area,
Speaker 6: and they never really hit that gear.
Speaker 1: So anytime you're watching ww E Raw or SmackDown, or
Speaker 1: AEW Dynamite in particular, send us an email if you've
Speaker 1: got thoughts on the show or a topic you want
Speaker 1: us to address or a question for us. Wade Keller
Speaker 1: podcast at PW torch dot com, Wadekeller podcast at petwtorch
Speaker 1: dot com. If there's anything else going on in pro
Speaker 1: wrestling that you want us to address on our main
Speaker 1: podcast during our mailbank segments, that same email applies Wade
Speaker 1: Keller podcast at PW torch dot com. We invite that interaction.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think of what we're saying,
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Speaker 1: PW torch dot com. I wonder if Cody triumphing over
Speaker 1: wardlow in a cage with that huge spot and then
Speaker 1: the show ending with him, you know, sitting on you know,
Speaker 1: the last scene is him sitting on top of the
Speaker 1: cage celebrating, if it just felt like MGF was like
Speaker 1: it's out of order, Like that felt such like such
Speaker 1: a big moment and so triumphant, and it's a cage
Speaker 1: and now it's just like, oh it's MGF. It feels
Speaker 1: almost like I wonder if that it almost felt like
Speaker 1: he had accomplished a mission and this didn't count as
Speaker 1: much because so much of the the excitement and payoff
Speaker 1: had already taken place. Is that a possibility Joel in air. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm blamed for that. I threw to two people at once.
Speaker 1: Of course, you guys will talk. Go ahead, Eric, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 6: I think it's I think it was all it was,
Speaker 6: if you might be honest something there. It was about
Speaker 6: the journey, and then when he finally got to the destination,
Speaker 6: it fell a little flat. How much of it was that?
Speaker 6: How much of it was the tag title match? The
Speaker 6: crowd still was was sort of spent from How much
Speaker 6: of it the fact that you know, neither MJF is
Speaker 6: I wouldn't call him green, but he's not like a
Speaker 6: ten fifteen year ring veteran. How much of it was
Speaker 6: the finish. I don't have a problem with the finish
Speaker 6: if they're going to keep this feud going on, I mean,
Speaker 6: the satisfaction, the traditional storytelling. Would you know, it's fine,
Speaker 6: In fact, you want the heel to win the first
Speaker 6: match so that you you know, you build for the rematch.
Speaker 6: And if this was a one off, if they're one
Speaker 6: and done, which would be really stupid because they have
Speaker 6: so many hours of TV to fill, and they've got
Speaker 6: pay per view slots to fill, and you could do
Speaker 6: all sorts of gimmick matches. If it came to it,
Speaker 6: then that was not super Then that's not super great.
Speaker 6: I mean, what you want at the end of all
Speaker 6: this is to see Cody beating MJF and getting his
Speaker 6: revenge for all the hell he put him through.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Joel.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 8: And especially the ending of that match.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we had to watch the replay there to see
Speaker 7: that he took the ring because it just it came
Speaker 7: off weird in person, the way that ended, where Cody's
Speaker 7: just all of a sudden, he hits he hits all
Speaker 7: these crossroads and you're thinking, man, he's building up to
Speaker 7: the finish, and then just all of a sudden, MJF
Speaker 7: hits him in the head and that's done.
Speaker 8: And that just felt super weird to me.
Speaker 7: And also MJF getting busted open so early in the match.
Speaker 7: It's like, man, I could understand later on if Mjf's
Speaker 7: taking this huge beating from Cody, but that also just
Speaker 7: felt really out of place for me.
Speaker 8: How early he bladed himself. Yeah, that it was just weird.
Speaker 1: Travis, You're your thoughts on Cody jat too cute?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 5: The finish was.
Speaker 4: I didn't I don't know how it showed on TV.
Speaker 4: But I didn't notice the international object until he was
Speaker 4: like shoving it back in his tights, and I was like,
Speaker 4: what happened to me?
Speaker 5: I know that it was a boom boom boom.
Speaker 4: Kind of thing, but you know the how they're saying
Speaker 4: how Lawler could pull a ten chain out of his
Speaker 4: wrap it around his hand and punch a guy in
Speaker 4: the face, put it, sneak it back in his trunks
Speaker 4: and the crowd would go nuts, and he could literally
Speaker 4: pantomime the whole thing and not have a chain like
Speaker 4: there was no show of again, it was a it
Speaker 4: was a bang bang play, so to speak. So I
Speaker 4: guess maybe MJF didn't have a just didn't have the opportunity.
Speaker 4: But I think you book it differently to show that
Speaker 4: MJF get that crowd to go, you know, Oh no,
Speaker 4: because I didn't. I saw the punch, and then I
Speaker 4: saw him shoving something. I was like, wait, did he
Speaker 4: hit him with something? And then when he like does
Speaker 4: the corny like ooh, I'm so tired, I'm so beat
Speaker 4: down and falls on him, and I'm like, oh, he
Speaker 4: did hit him with something, and I'm not as tied
Speaker 4: end so I didn't the ring.
Speaker 5: I'm like, it didn't hit me like, oh, it was
Speaker 5: probably his diamond ring.
Speaker 4: That is that he wouldn't but it was just a
Speaker 4: little bit too cute at the end. If they would
Speaker 4: have did that a little differently, I think it comes
Speaker 4: off a little better.
Speaker 5: The match as a whole I thought was fine.
Speaker 4: I didn't think about it until you just bought it
Speaker 4: up about the cage match and Wardlow headed into that match,
Speaker 4: I said, this is I said, Wardlow has to show.
Speaker 5: I say, how's the guy get his first TV?
Speaker 4: How's his first match is the main event of a
Speaker 4: major show, major storyline arc, and it's in the cage.
Speaker 4: He's got to perform. And then he did, And I
Speaker 4: think that might have been the problem. That match probably
Speaker 4: should have been a six minute kind of just not dud,
Speaker 4: but not as great as it was.
Speaker 5: To lead in two weeks later it too a big match.
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Speaker 1: Travis, I'm curious your thoughts on Cody, your impression of
Speaker 1: Cody as a as a top centerpiece star and attraction
Speaker 1: for ae.
Speaker 2: W, like does does your cause?
Speaker 3: Again, you're not.
Speaker 2: Watching his journey every week.
Speaker 1: You're not, you know, like Eric watching being the an
Speaker 1: AW dark and all in on the a W product
Speaker 1: and along for the journey. You're more representative of somebody
Speaker 1: that AW needs to win over to grow. When you
Speaker 1: get dropped into the eight W world like you happen
Speaker 1: a couple of times. What do you think of Cody
Speaker 1: in this role? Do you buy it or do you
Speaker 1: have skepticism? Do you look around going what do you
Speaker 1: guys see? Or do you feel there's some magic here?
Speaker 5: I buy it? In until he wrestles.
Speaker 4: Yeah, him in the suit, cutting promos and being passionate,
Speaker 4: and it'd be nice if you didn't cut you know.
Speaker 4: I'm you know, thanks for coming to the show. All
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. Again, just immediately after this emotional thing,
Speaker 4: he's like, you know, thinks and he's doing his executive
Speaker 4: producer thing.
Speaker 5: It's like, let Tony Kahan do that, like you just
Speaker 5: had this. But no.
Speaker 4: But so I buy the character of Cody Roose. I
Speaker 4: buy the swag I uh uh, you know, Brandy, that.
Speaker 5: Whole package, that whole his whole look and aesthetic.
Speaker 4: It's just when he when it's time to wrestle, it's
Speaker 4: just like, well, you're not as good as like an athlete,
Speaker 4: as like a like a ricochet or maybe not even
Speaker 4: somebody that's so you know, dynamic, but and but you're
Speaker 4: not as big as even like a Randy Orton to
Speaker 4: to do certain to make certain things look legitimate. So
Speaker 4: he's to me, he's a little stuck in between as
Speaker 4: a as a wrestler, strictly as a wrestler, but as
Speaker 4: a character, as a as a just outside of the ring.
Speaker 5: I do buy.
Speaker 4: It, and I think I think, if you have to
Speaker 4: have one or the other, I will go with character
Speaker 4: and personality every time. I think one hundred years of
Speaker 4: pro wrestling has taught us that that dynamic personalities and
Speaker 4: micability draws a whole lot more money. Then this is awesome.
Speaker 4: This is awesome. Work great, that's awesome.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 4: I love a good, you know, five star match like
Speaker 4: the next person. But if I if you're going to
Speaker 4: have one over the other, having some personality is probably
Speaker 4: you know what, you what you'd want your.
Speaker 5: Attributes to be a little little bumped up and and
Speaker 5: Cody's got that.
Speaker 4: It's just I don't buy him the physicality and and
Speaker 4: the n ring stuff.
Speaker 5: But he makes up for it by with his psychology.
Speaker 4: He's one of the few wrestlers in a w that
Speaker 4: I that I when I watched his matches. No matter
Speaker 4: what I think of his punches or suplex he knows
Speaker 4: when to do certain things and how to draw you in.
Speaker 5: So that takes talent.
Speaker 4: So that's that's I'm kind of tearing down my own
Speaker 4: own argument because that's certainly is an in ring charisma.
Speaker 5: That I that I just talked about that he maybe
Speaker 5: didn't have as much of.
Speaker 7: I think that too, is like is uh. One of
Speaker 7: the things that people really do like about Cody is
Speaker 7: that his matches are not like you know Cody or
Speaker 7: not like Cody, like Kenny Mega and the Young Bucks,
Speaker 7: where those guys are going I mean, obviously there's psychology
Speaker 7: to theirs matches, but they're these high athletic contests, where
Speaker 7: as a Cody match is more about these you know,
Speaker 7: plotting out these stories that borrow things from wrestling of yesteryear,
Speaker 7: of things that people remember from you know, more than
Speaker 7: just twenty plus years ago, from thirty plus from forty
Speaker 7: plus years ago, and people still like that stuff, and
Speaker 7: Cody borrows from it and gets these really good matches
Speaker 7: out of people who are not thought of as these
Speaker 7: top workers.
Speaker 8: I mean, you think of Nick.
Speaker 7: All this, he had a fantastic match with him at
Speaker 7: all in That was the first time where I heard
Speaker 7: the crowd and I wasn't sold on Cody before that,
Speaker 7: but hearing that crowd in Chicago for that Nick All
Speaker 7: this match, I mean, Cody got the biggest reaction. And
Speaker 7: we're talking about Kenny Omega in the middle of the
Speaker 7: IWGP Heavyweight Championship rain. We're talking about Kazuchko, Kada, Cody Abushi,
Speaker 7: all those people were on the same show. But the
Speaker 7: people believed in Cody because they believe in the message
Speaker 7: of you know, trying to change wrestling and the way
Speaker 7: that he plots out these matches, and so yeah, I mean,
Speaker 7: he's not going to give you these five star matches,
Speaker 7: but he's always a treat for something to look forward
Speaker 7: to because the way that he does wrestle is something
Speaker 7: that's different.
Speaker 2: Uh, Eric, what do you, Yeah, what do you think
Speaker 2: of Cody?
Speaker 6: Cody? So I'm going to a somewhat different respective in
Speaker 6: that I never saw Cody wrestle in WWE because I
Speaker 6: wasn't paunching wrestling at the time.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating.
Speaker 6: Is he's a lot Is he a lot have a
Speaker 6: lot more weight and muscle on him than when he
Speaker 6: started out in WWE?
Speaker 5: Is that group?
Speaker 6: So that's I mean, but.
Speaker 2: He was never Eric.
Speaker 1: He was never the super athletic guy like Cody wasn't.
Speaker 1: The issue with Cody was I would say it was
Speaker 1: an issue, but like he wasn't looked at as oh,
Speaker 1: this young kid who's just advancing the style. He's always
Speaker 1: had an old school, deliberate kind of pace and vibe,
Speaker 1: even when he was you know, early mid twenties.
Speaker 6: So he's so I think what it was his nickname,
Speaker 6: three Star Cody. I seem to.
Speaker 2: Remember that a time or two.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and and so uh, so for me, he like
Speaker 6: he just looks like he has too much muscle for
Speaker 6: his frame. Maybe and that caught might cause him to
Speaker 6: be a little clumsy. But as Travis said, it's it's
Speaker 6: it's more you know, it's a hell of a lot
Speaker 6: more important how you are in the mic and how
Speaker 6: you put your majesty together in your psychology. That's going
Speaker 6: to put more butts in seats than than being a
Speaker 6: five star worker. And so, uh, Cody is just to me.
Speaker 6: I saw him in New Japan, and so my question
Speaker 6: was when AW started, could Cody transition from sort of
Speaker 6: top of the mid card of New Japan. I mean
Speaker 6: he had a main event or two to you know,
Speaker 6: helping headline a promotion. And I say the answer is
Speaker 6: a resounding yes. The the Cody Dustin post match promo,
Speaker 6: I was in tears. I mean that was just amazing.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I'm getting soft in my old age,
Speaker 6: but just the emotion. And I know that Cody's playing
Speaker 6: from his dad's greatest hits and he's entitled to he
Speaker 6: inherited them as his son. I just hope that he
Speaker 6: doesn't get to the to the end of that book.
Speaker 6: In WCW when Dusty was doing stuff like the Midnight
Speaker 6: Writer angle that they think was voted the worst angle
Speaker 6: of the year for eighty eight.
Speaker 4: Maybe so I didn't just to go back six months
Speaker 4: or eight months. I didn't get that in the match
Speaker 4: the guy like bashed him in the head with a
Speaker 4: with a implement, kicked him in the balls, his wife,
Speaker 4: I think his wife. I kicked him in the balls,
Speaker 4: slapped him, didn't beat him in the match.
Speaker 5: And then after he's like, brother, I love you, I
Speaker 5: can't do it.
Speaker 4: I was just and then people were like you said
Speaker 4: you were in tears, and I'm looking around, like, what's happening?
Speaker 4: We did we what about the twenty minutes that just
Speaker 4: that we just saw, like the blood he'd.
Speaker 5: Like tried to end that man's life.
Speaker 4: We're like, oh, look at the brothers there, and yeah,
Speaker 4: I just remember being super frustrated back then. And that's
Speaker 4: I'll come and come back to me because of the
Speaker 4: because of your comment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, give yourself a reason to look forward to going
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Speaker 1: Let's look away from Cody for a second because I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the the final story of the night,
Speaker 1: which was John Moxley beating Jericho.
Speaker 2: And it's fascinating.
Speaker 5: Eric.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to your first on this because you
Speaker 1: haven't seen much of Moxley in the Shield, and you
Speaker 1: haven't seen much of Chris Jericho post Monday Night War,
Speaker 1: and here they are headlining and and sent, you know,
Speaker 1: in a centerpiece feud in aw talk. I don't want
Speaker 1: to add too much to you in one question here,
Speaker 1: but talk about Jericho first of all, in what you've
Speaker 1: thought of him as champion, not having like fifteen years
Speaker 1: of goodwill built up during this time that you haven't
Speaker 1: been following him during his athletic prime, and what you've
Speaker 1: what you think of him having seen some of his
Speaker 1: New Japan and now a w work as a nearly
Speaker 1: fifty year old.
Speaker 2: He's he's the same age as you, You and you
Speaker 2: and me?
Speaker 1: Uh, what you think of him being the guy chosen
Speaker 1: and how he's performing as a top act in.
Speaker 6: Eight lu oh, He's he's been great. He's been fantastic.
Speaker 6: So I you know, tracked him through w CW and
Speaker 6: then even his ww E tenyure like the Y two
Speaker 6: j tenure, and he was great then, but he had
Speaker 6: a lot of good will built up with me from
Speaker 6: his New Japan appearances, so uh, you know. Travis mentioned
Speaker 6: that cutting promos is a is a big part of
Speaker 6: drawing wrestling well in New Japan. It's you know, it
Speaker 6: it's it can be a little flavorless from time to time,
Speaker 6: or it's a it's a different kind of way they
Speaker 6: draw fans. It's a work, great based promotion. And so
Speaker 6: Jericho came in and just you know, shook up the
Speaker 6: apple cart in and in New Japan, and he kept
Speaker 6: reinventing himself. And did I think he could carry a
Speaker 6: national promotion the way he did? Not to the extent
Speaker 6: that he had thought. I thought he'd succeed, But I mean,
Speaker 6: he got over the whole inner circle in that one
Speaker 6: interview he did on an early Dynamite. It was just
Speaker 6: like he gave everybody a backstory, a persona, a nickname
Speaker 6: even and everybody he you know, he's worked with. It's
Speaker 6: He's had good matches, although the all out match within
Speaker 6: age was a little disappointing. I don't know if the
Speaker 6: crowd was burnt out by then or it just wasn't
Speaker 6: wasn't as good of a match. But yeah, he's I
Speaker 6: would say, you have to say he exceeded expectations, at
Speaker 6: least from my perspective, and maybe it's because I didn't
Speaker 6: have my expectations high enough.
Speaker 2: So, Travis, what do you think about Jericho?
Speaker 1: Not watching him week by week, but having seen so
Speaker 1: much of his career, what do you think of what
Speaker 1: you saw Saturday night?
Speaker 2: In particular.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think Jericho from two thousand to probably till
Speaker 4: Diana Ambrose showed up on WW was probably my favorite wrestler,
Speaker 4: like just absolute gotta have one two tapes that I
Speaker 4: bought at like indie shows, and it was Jericho and
Speaker 4: Mysterio Bring the O to Japan on VHS that I
Speaker 4: got in like two thousand and one or something. So
Speaker 4: he's he's been my guy. This has been the best.
Speaker 4: He was the best that I've seen him in a
Speaker 4: long time, in a long time, probably since like the
Speaker 4: Axiomatic Gelatinous, you know that Jericho with the suits and
Speaker 4: not giving you anything entertaining and punching Rebecca Michael's in
Speaker 4: the face by accident like that was probably the last
Speaker 4: time he was just absolutely I got to see him.
Speaker 4: Now that said, I haven't been watching him week the week,
Speaker 4: but I've been, you know, Rich keeps me, keeps me
Speaker 4: up and I got you guys. But everything I've seen
Speaker 4: him in since he's been a part of a w
Speaker 4: has been great. He was the only reson that might
Speaker 4: have been why I was so disappointed on that June,
Speaker 4: that December eighteenth show, like why is he's so good?
Speaker 5: Why? And he's been so good up to this point,
Speaker 5: Like why are they.
Speaker 4: Doing this this silly, silly stuff.
Speaker 5: But yeah, Jericho's is really good.
Speaker 4: I thought he was the obvious pick when when they're
Speaker 4: talking about an AW you know who's going to be
Speaker 4: the inaugural champion. But but like I think Eric said,
Speaker 4: I didn't expect it to work out as as well
Speaker 4: as as well as it didn't. I expected him to
Speaker 4: retain somehow tonight or or Saturday night.
Speaker 5: So that was a bit of a good surprise. I guess, yeah,
Speaker 5: he's not. He's not like, no, I'm only I can carry.
Speaker 4: This company kind of you know, he's not doing that thing,
Speaker 4: at least not yet.
Speaker 13: I'm Kelly Wells, host of the seven Star podcast, the
Speaker 13: new Ongoing Torch show covering the world of New Japan
Speaker 13: pro wrestling. We'll drop new episodes as major shows and
Speaker 13: noteworthy events dictate and I'm.
Speaker 12: Chris Lansdow join us as we covered the ever changing
Speaker 12: landscape of New Japan as they navigate an era with
Speaker 12: no lack of talent.
Speaker 5: But I really need to create some new staves.
Speaker 4: You can stream the new seven Stop podcasts now from
Speaker 4: Pro Wrestling Talk.
Speaker 1: Well Joel where were you on Chris Jericho as of
Speaker 1: last summer heading in or you know, heading into October,
Speaker 1: actually heading into the tournament finals, actually be hanging that page, and.
Speaker 2: Then and then where are you now?
Speaker 1: And and then I want to shift and kind of
Speaker 1: pivot into a discussion you kind of lead the way
Speaker 1: in this regard on the decision actually shift the title
Speaker 1: off of him, and your thoughts on that now a
Speaker 1: couple days remote, a few days remote.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So I'll actually go back a little bit further
Speaker 7: to when he was in WWE for his last run,
Speaker 7: when he was doing the list, and I thought that
Speaker 7: that was just kind of a one note gimmick where
Speaker 7: it's like, man, Jericho is capable of doing so much
Speaker 7: more than this, and I understand it's getting over with
Speaker 7: the audience, but it's just another cartoonish WWE thing. And
Speaker 7: thus far with Jericho, he has found like this nice
Speaker 7: blend of where he's able to do some of those
Speaker 7: kind of fun things that he does enjoy.
Speaker 8: He enjoys doing some.
Speaker 7: Of those kind of outlandish, funny things, but also being
Speaker 7: able to reel it in and get serious. The way
Speaker 7: that he was building up that match against Hangman, where
Speaker 7: he justs this crazy madman and he's like.
Speaker 5: I have to beat the hangman.
Speaker 8: I have to be the hangman.
Speaker 7: You know, going in there and then saying, you know
Speaker 7: that he's the top guy.
Speaker 8: Everyone thought that it was gonna be a Kenny Omega,
Speaker 8: but now I'm the top guy.
Speaker 7: So he's just found this great blend where everything he
Speaker 7: does is so entertaining. He pulls so much from these
Speaker 7: rock stars that he enjoys, like Paul Stanley, where he
Speaker 7: tries to say all these different things that gets the
Speaker 7: crowd going, where he does different inflections, and where it
Speaker 7: just has this certain kind of charisma because he's the
Speaker 7: only one who talks that way. But again, yeah, he's
Speaker 7: able to be very serious at the same time. And yeah,
Speaker 7: before this match, I thought that there was a chance
Speaker 7: that John Moxley could win, but by no means I
Speaker 7: think it was a lock. But as the booking of
Speaker 7: the show went on, it started to become pretty clear
Speaker 7: to me that, man, they gotta do something that's gonna
Speaker 7: send this crowd home happy. So I just thought it
Speaker 7: was thinking, like, man, they're gonna do something thing where
Speaker 7: Moxley's gonna win this match, because I just couldn't see
Speaker 7: at this point with how many of the faces were losing,
Speaker 7: that they were gonna then have Chris Jericho retain and
Speaker 7: whether that's the best decision going forward with AEW, I
Speaker 7: don't know at this point. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 7: off the top of my head, how many great challengers
Speaker 7: are set up for John Moxley. Clearly they don't want
Speaker 7: to just they've said before, they don't want to just
Speaker 7: do everything where it's face versus heel. So John Moxley
Speaker 7: does have some other options where he could face Kenny
Speaker 7: Omega again, he could face Cody because he said he's
Speaker 7: waiving that stipulation. But yeah, I think it's going to
Speaker 7: be interesting to see whether or not this was the
Speaker 7: right decision.
Speaker 4: Wait, can he just do that? I mean, I get
Speaker 4: he's the chant, but like stip's got to mean something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I assure Cody, Yeah, can't challenge.
Speaker 7: Well, I don't know if it's clear not whether it's
Speaker 7: just Cody you know, his own word, or if it's
Speaker 7: something in writing or not where they're Cody or not.
Speaker 7: Can just say yeah, I guess I will challenge for
Speaker 7: the title. So it seemed to me like that was
Speaker 7: just a line that Moxley in the moment was saying,
Speaker 7: I don't know if it's leading into any program or not.
Speaker 4: And one other thing before you jump up in Joe, sorry,
Speaker 4: but the crowd I could not believe. I could believe it,
Speaker 4: but I was just looking around like that entire audience
Speaker 4: knew every word to Jericho's song.
Speaker 5: I was like, Oh, that's what that meme means.
Speaker 4: I am becoming. I didn't understand. I kept seeing in
Speaker 4: the wrestling group the meme and they let me know,
Speaker 4: like what that meant. So, yeah, that was That was
Speaker 4: awesome to watch.
Speaker 6: I think it's hard for us to know in a
Speaker 6: vacuum without knowing what aw has both planned in the
Speaker 6: future and whether you know there wasn't there a rumor
Speaker 6: that Jericho's band is going on a tour this summer
Speaker 6: and it's going to be overseas and maybe, uh, he's
Speaker 6: not going to be around week to week for part
Speaker 6: of the summer, so they wanted to get the belt
Speaker 6: off of him. It felt a little premature to me.
Speaker 6: I would have liked to see him get at least
Speaker 6: till the next to the Vegas pay per view with it,
Speaker 6: or or especially that Yeah, Labor Day would have been
Speaker 6: great too, because we'd have been back in Chicago and
Speaker 6: we would have probably we would have well with.
Speaker 5: Moxley, it's a full circle. It's his hometown.
Speaker 4: I just so, Yeah, like Vegas were just thinking it
Speaker 4: was it was just set not his hometown originally from Sency,
Speaker 4: but his current hometown is residential home.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But but I think you had a point that that
Speaker 4: I think they they thought they had to pull the trigger.
Speaker 6: So are they So are they doing that? Because so
Speaker 6: one of the things that's been a little off on
Speaker 6: with Dynamite this is true for NXT two, uh, is
Speaker 6: the pacing of the weekly television shows. It's when you
Speaker 6: have three months between pay per views. Man, that is
Speaker 6: a long time and it's hard to fill. Sometimes you can't.
Speaker 6: You can't set up a match on Wednesday and then
Speaker 6: save it all the way till Vegas. The it would
Speaker 6: have peaked, the feud would have peaked, the angle would
Speaker 6: have peaked way way before then. And I wonder if
Speaker 6: they change the champion because they are primarily a television promotion.
Speaker 6: They don't do house shows, they don't do monthly pay
Speaker 6: per views. I mean, they're primarily a weekly TV program.
Speaker 6: Just to freshen things up so that they have something
Speaker 6: new for the viewers on TV. They're heading in a
Speaker 6: different direction, whereas WWE doesn't necessarily have the same pressure
Speaker 6: because they've got a lot of weekly television, but they've
Speaker 6: also got monthly pay per view shows and house shows.
Speaker 6: They always have an anchoring point. Once a month, you're
Speaker 6: going to have it. You could you potentially could have
Speaker 6: a big blowoff to feud and then move on to
Speaker 6: the next thing, Whereas aw's got three months to fill
Speaker 6: between shows, and it's it kind of messes with the
Speaker 6: pacing a little bit.
Speaker 7: I think WWE, I mean, they're all they're world champions,
Speaker 7: you know, only show up a couple times a year.
Speaker 7: Brock Lesnar, you know, is only there for you know,
Speaker 7: when he's building up a pay per view for the
Speaker 7: big shows. Otherwise he's gone. And now that they have
Speaker 7: Goldberg there, he's not going to be there every week.
Speaker 7: Who knows if he'll you know, hold it past WrestleMania.
Speaker 7: But yeah, whereas Jericho is pretty much on AW, you
Speaker 7: know every week. I think there was one exception where
Speaker 7: he was, you know, had some pre taped thing. But yeah,
Speaker 7: to me, we'll never know what the original plan was
Speaker 7: because there was so many things that change where you know,
Speaker 7: Pat Pack was supposed to face Keny Omega at all out,
Speaker 7: you know.
Speaker 8: Going all the way back to to win.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so he was supposed to face Hangman Page at
Speaker 7: double or nothing. Then the plan was for Pack to
Speaker 7: face Kenny Omega.
Speaker 2: There was a cascating effect of changes that really, yeah.
Speaker 8: And so who knows.
Speaker 7: Who knows what their original plan was that they had
Speaker 7: in place, And to me, it seems like there was
Speaker 7: almost there was a lot of things that were shifting around.
Speaker 7: But then going to this show and there were so
Speaker 7: many heels that were winning, it just seemed like, man,
Speaker 7: they got to do something and that's going to send
Speaker 7: the crowd home happy. So yeah, that that also I
Speaker 7: think played a played a factor into John Moxley winning,
Speaker 7: but it very much felt premature to me. I mean,
Speaker 7: when he it was it was surprising. But as I'm
Speaker 7: watching this, I'm like, man, is this the right move?
Speaker 7: Was this the right time for Chris Jericho to win?
Speaker 7: Because John Moxley did get a really good reaction from
Speaker 7: the crowd, but it was kind of like.
Speaker 8: Oh, yeah, he did win, this is great, this is cool.
Speaker 8: Instead instead of like the culmination of something. Does that
Speaker 8: make sense?
Speaker 1: Yes, you don't have to wait for the way Keller
Speaker 1: prog Wrestling post show to find out what I thought
Speaker 1: of Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Each week, you can
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Speaker 1: pay per view written reports, so tryvis I want to
Speaker 1: ask you this, how is AW doing in terms of
Speaker 1: presenting Moxley differently or how is Moxley presenting himself differently?
Speaker 1: What stands out to you compared to all the matches
Speaker 1: and promos that you've seen Moxley do in WWE, not
Speaker 1: seeing them every week again, I keep underlining that gives
Speaker 1: you kind of a fresher perspective because it's like you're
Speaker 1: not watching the plant grow. You just left for two
Speaker 1: weeks and came back, and now it looks it might
Speaker 1: look different to you in a way that it doesn't
Speaker 1: for someone watching every week.
Speaker 2: What I thought about Boxley.
Speaker 4: Well, I was there to see the you know when
Speaker 4: when he showed up in Vegas Lash and in May,
Speaker 4: and I watched the first seven.
Speaker 2: Don't undercut my question, Travis.
Speaker 5: On me. No, I saw the de germination of that
Speaker 5: and then I saw so.
Speaker 4: But like I said earlier about a w or maybe
Speaker 4: I didn't, Moxley has They've taken all my interests in
Speaker 4: him away.
Speaker 5: I don't care about John Moxley anymore.
Speaker 4: And I guess it's champion now and seeing seeing them
Speaker 4: win the win the title. But that first two months
Speaker 4: of TV, I was just like, we're.
Speaker 2: All we're all questioning that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7: So that's that's a great point that you bring up, Travis,
Speaker 7: because that way and I talked about too was that, Like,
Speaker 7: why did he not? Because I thought the first segment
Speaker 7: that happened on aw Dynamite should have been job Ocxuley
Speaker 7: coming out there and stating his claim, you know, with
Speaker 7: all that intensity, and he did it several weeks later.
Speaker 8: But I'm like, man, you had that. You had the
Speaker 8: chance where all these new people.
Speaker 7: Were watching, people who had watched WWE, some people you
Speaker 7: know who aren't watching being the late followed them in
Speaker 7: New Japan, but they could. They had that chance to
Speaker 7: see this guy and really ride that momentum, and they
Speaker 7: just didn't do it.
Speaker 6: Didn't have Japan commitments. And then he got a staff
Speaker 6: in section. I don't remember the timing of that. I
Speaker 6: know he missed the match.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of the beginning of the cascading effects
Speaker 1: of probably changing some of the layout of the timing
Speaker 1: of some of the big matches.
Speaker 2: So tries.
Speaker 1: I want I want to ask a follow up on
Speaker 1: Moxley and where you are now watching Saturday Night in
Speaker 1: terms of your your belief in the idea that maybe
Speaker 1: he's the lead babyface that they're going to build around
Speaker 1: for a while, Moving away from the discuss the timing
Speaker 1: of it and whether Jericho deserve to have about more
Speaker 1: if if, if circumstances allowed for it. Just what do
Speaker 1: you think of Moxley what you saw Saturday Night as
Speaker 1: a guy that would intrigue you as a lead centerpiece
Speaker 1: Babyface world champion character?
Speaker 5: Ask?
Speaker 1: Sorry as yeah, so where where are you on Moxley now?
Speaker 1: Is the lead centerpiece Babyface compared to and setting aside?
Speaker 1: You know, the the timing of it, or Jericho might
Speaker 1: have been better or whatever.
Speaker 4: I'm fine, I'm I'm interested because now if he's the champion,
Speaker 4: I can't imagine they're going to have him. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be bored with him or uninterested like I was the
Speaker 4: first few months of Dynamite.
Speaker 5: Uh so, so him is him is champ.
Speaker 4: He's he's going to get be featured, and you would
Speaker 4: think he's gonna get the best stuff and the focus
Speaker 4: and the attention.
Speaker 5: So I'm I'm okay with it.
Speaker 4: It's maybe it's my maybe it's some of my personal
Speaker 4: comeback story for for for as a Dina sorry, but
Speaker 4: as a as a Moxley fan, former Deena Ambrose fan.
Speaker 5: A lot of it had to.
Speaker 4: Do with how hard I defended on every platform I
Speaker 4: was on that match with Lesner and how Lesner was
Speaker 4: a big old diva and didn't want to give Moxley anything.
Speaker 4: And everybody's like, yeah, but he probably wanted to go
Speaker 4: in there and do garbage craft. I was like, no,
Speaker 4: he's not dumb enough to go in there and do
Speaker 4: that to himself. And then he has the blood bath
Speaker 4: nonsense with and and I think that more than anything,
Speaker 4: was the uh this this kind of Camel's back straw
Speaker 4: thing with with Moxley as a character in a w
Speaker 4: uh but he's but he's a champion. I can't help
Speaker 4: but be interested. I'm gonna I'm going to watch tomorrow night.
Speaker 5: Yes, I don't think.
Speaker 1: It's portraying Moxley in a good way as a centerpiece
Speaker 1: a positive for you to get you to watch beyond
Speaker 1: just you know you're feeling a little invested right now
Speaker 1: because of attending Saturday, Like, does Moxley as champion make
Speaker 1: you more likely to watch him?
Speaker 2: When Jericho was I wasn't there.
Speaker 4: And I heard like it in the group chat or
Speaker 4: the wrestling group of reps like, oh, Moxley just won
Speaker 4: the title. I probably had the same reactionly, Oh, I
Speaker 4: guess I gotta watch Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Eric, what do you think of of John Moxley,
Speaker 1: what's your impression of him, having not seen the whole
Speaker 1: Shield journey and and where are you on.
Speaker 2: The decision for him to win Saturday.
Speaker 6: I saw the end of this Shield journey when he
Speaker 6: was wearing the gas mask fire. I sometimes catch parts
Speaker 6: of Yeah, yeah, he looked miserable. The angles was terrible.
Speaker 6: It just you know, it was it was not good.
Speaker 6: I've heard him talk in interviews about how happy he is.
Speaker 6: He's a the whole you know, how he like moves
Speaker 6: his He's loosey goosey with his shoulders. He kind of
Speaker 6: does you know, kind of does the standard. He's always
Speaker 6: done that. But it's just I liked him in New Japan.
Speaker 6: His match against Suzuki was great, like super entertaining and
Speaker 6: different than what he's doing in AEW. I think he's good.
Speaker 6: I see he really in all of his interviews I've heard,
Speaker 6: he seems to be a huge fan of the business,
Speaker 6: committed to the business. It's kind of on he ever
Speaker 6: wanted to do, and it shows in his approach. It's
Speaker 6: very well thought out. My fear going forward is they
Speaker 6: don't seem to have anything set up for him. Who
Speaker 6: is in position to challenge him? I mean, I guess
Speaker 6: in some ways MJF won the second biggest singles match
Speaker 6: on the card, right, but I think he MGS is
Speaker 6: probably still with Cody for a while, I would think,
Speaker 6: I don't so who's Omega is still embroiled. He's presumably
Speaker 6: headed for some kind of feud with Page eventually, and
Speaker 6: when they get there, who's going to step up and
Speaker 6: challenge Mosley? I have no idea at this point. I'm
Speaker 6: curious to see, but I have trepidation that the next
Speaker 6: three months of TV will not be as good as
Speaker 6: the last two months of TV.
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Speaker 2: Joel, what do you think about that aspect of Moxley?
Speaker 2: Just is the.
Speaker 1: Ground fertile for him to because remember going way back
Speaker 1: to like when Sting beat Rick Flair back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety I was in Baltimore For that event, it felt
Speaker 1: like the crowning moment of this new era, and then
Speaker 1: the next few months were flat because they didn't have
Speaker 1: not Sting was very limited once he wasn't in the
Speaker 1: ring with Flayer, who made him look twice as good.
Speaker 2: As he was at that point.
Speaker 1: But also they just didn't have good challenges for him,
Speaker 1: and it's stalled WSW and it just took the wind
Speaker 1: out of sting sales. Is there a risk of that
Speaker 1: with Moxley based on the lay of the land or
Speaker 1: are there one or two challengers you think they can
Speaker 1: get that fit storyline wise given the lay of the
Speaker 1: land that you're excited about.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean that that was my immediate reaction to
Speaker 7: Moxle witting the title is where do they go from here?
Speaker 7: Because aw has done a really good job where you
Speaker 7: can kind of see where them laying the groundwork for
Speaker 7: their next pay per view.
Speaker 8: You know where's it going to go next.
Speaker 7: Especially when Moxley made his debut last year at Doubler Nothing,
Speaker 7: you knew that that match was going to be against Omega,
Speaker 7: and that was something to get really excited about.
Speaker 8: But for Moxley, I mean, I just.
Speaker 7: I can't imagine, you know, him headlining against MJF at
Speaker 7: double or nothing.
Speaker 8: I just don't see that.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's a lot more that they can do
Speaker 7: with MJF to elevate him to that point, but I
Speaker 7: I just can't see that being there. And he's already
Speaker 7: face Pack, you know several times on TV already. You know,
Speaker 7: Kenny Omega's not there, hey man Page, you know, they're
Speaker 7: already kind of tied up in their own things. So really,
Speaker 7: the only thing I can see from Oxley at this
Speaker 7: point is doing some sort of rematch against Jericho. I mean,
Speaker 7: Jericho's is the antagonist. I mean, yeah, I mean, Jericho's
Speaker 7: the best antagonist that AW has. So I could see
Speaker 7: them doing some sort of stipulation match between the two.
Speaker 7: Maybe they go the hardcore route and you know, Jericho
Speaker 7: proves that he can also you know, hang and do the.
Speaker 8: Super hardcore stuff like Moxley.
Speaker 7: But yeah, that's it's a questionable decision for me because
Speaker 7: I just don't see what else they can do at
Speaker 7: this point where other people aren't tied up in their
Speaker 7: own feuds.
Speaker 1: As we keep talking here, any of you want to
Speaker 1: jump in with a topic or discussion from having attended
Speaker 1: Saturday Night in person in particular about being at the show,
Speaker 1: or brought her about booking, you.
Speaker 2: Know, just someone jump in and take over at the topic.
Speaker 4: Well this I'm going against your thing, but this isn't
Speaker 4: about but being in the house. But there was a
Speaker 4: clickbaity ad or click baby headline about major w W
Speaker 4: personality uh seen backstage revolution and it was Renee Young
Speaker 4: and I thought, wait, so she wasn't even at or
Speaker 4: she she probably she wasn't at the show. At the
Speaker 4: Baltimore show, I guess was with the bloodbath with Omega
Speaker 4: and she she was at home tweeting like god, no,
Speaker 4: please stop. And I said, oh, that's why she's backstage.
Speaker 4: She's not letting that happen again. She's not going to
Speaker 4: sit through you know, she's going to make sure she's there,
Speaker 4: like you know.
Speaker 1: Run to the ring, throwing the towel, or she wants
Speaker 1: to make medical decisions at the hospital in person maybe.
Speaker 5: And she was.
Speaker 8: She was at the Tokyo Dom too.
Speaker 7: I actually saw her in the hallway, you know, I
Speaker 7: got up during one of the matches and she was
Speaker 7: just walking around and people wanted to take pictures with
Speaker 7: her and stuff.
Speaker 5: There too.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 6: Wait, I'll attempt to answer your question. Yeah, Orange Cassidy
Speaker 6: was so way more over than I thought he would
Speaker 6: be in a match. Yeah, you know, to Travis's point
Speaker 6: from a while back to me, you either get a
Speaker 6: Marco Stone or you get an Orange Cassidy on your
Speaker 6: weekly TV show. But you don't get both right. One
Speaker 6: act like that, you can you can, you can, you
Speaker 6: can sit through, but two it gets it gets to
Speaker 6: be a little corny. I bought exactly I went to
Speaker 6: to star Cast for all out. I bought exactly one
Speaker 6: meet and greet because I'm not an autograph guy and
Speaker 6: I'm not going to post a selfie with the talent
Speaker 6: on social media. Not my thing. But I bought the
Speaker 6: Orange Cassidy one sale for ten bucks, and I just
Speaker 6: wanted to I had a question I wanted to ask him.
Speaker 6: And you know, he said, how you know your your
Speaker 6: act is different? And how do you have any fear
Speaker 6: that you're going to be booked well and not over
Speaker 6: exposed week to week because yet the time, you know,
Speaker 6: a little bit of Orange Cassidy went a long way,
Speaker 6: And he just said, I'm not worried about it. They
Speaker 6: have a plan that of how to how to make
Speaker 6: this work, and I think we're seeing the fruits to
Speaker 6: that plan, right manager, manager, Manager gets his high spot
Speaker 6: of the week, and I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 6: if that works on TV as a wrestler week after week,
Speaker 6: but man, he probably got the second. I mean, he
Speaker 6: and Hangman Page probably have some of the biggest pops
Speaker 6: of the night there and we're the most over. And
Speaker 6: the Orange Cassidy thing just defies defies logic. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's like this avant garde kind of post wrestling, you know,
Speaker 6: ironic kind of thing, but it gets over and it
Speaker 6: also gives people like Jim Cornett an aneurysm. But it
Speaker 6: worked and he had to. I have I've seen maybe
Speaker 6: a half dozen Orange Cassidy matches on YouTube. But did
Speaker 6: he do more Saturday Night than he's ever done before?
Speaker 6: Do you guys know?
Speaker 4: No, that's that's kind of a standard. Yeah, maybe the
Speaker 4: intensity because of you know, it's and he's in there
Speaker 4: with pack and I'm not any None of the matches
Speaker 4: I've seen on YouTube have been with the caliber wrestler
Speaker 4: that Pock is so so so maybe that had something
Speaker 4: to do with it and being on a pay per view,
Speaker 4: you know, and not just some indie show with you know,
Speaker 4: a hundred people there.
Speaker 5: But it is the base of how he works.
Speaker 4: The build up to to him, you know, he's, oh
Speaker 4: he might care or whatever the chance is.
Speaker 5: And and that's kind of standard again with some deviations.
Speaker 7: And this match too, was a little bit longer, I
Speaker 7: thought than his typical indie matches. But I mean the
Speaker 7: amount of merchandise that this guy sells at these at
Speaker 7: these events, I mean is unbelievable. I mean, we had
Speaker 7: heard from a lot of people in the arenas at
Speaker 7: Dynamites that you know, Orange Cassidy sells a lot of
Speaker 7: these shirts. But the amount of those freshly squeezed orange
Speaker 7: shirts with the thumb on it, I mean that that
Speaker 7: was crazy to me. I mean, there are so many
Speaker 7: people wearing those shirts around there.
Speaker 4: We took a trip to Pro Wrest some tees and he,
Speaker 4: you know, outside of the Bucks in Jericho, he's, uh,
Speaker 4: he has.
Speaker 5: The most stuff. I think he has two T shirts.
Speaker 4: He's got a foam some he's got all kinds of
Speaker 4: other nick knacks that you can.
Speaker 5: That you can buy.
Speaker 4: So yeah, he's he's doing all right as far as
Speaker 4: that goes.
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Speaker 1: for details. To Covis point your toes West. One thing
Speaker 1: that jumps about it jumps out about aw Is is
Speaker 1: in it's what watching it evolve, kind of like Orange
Speaker 1: Cassidy is their use of wrestlers and unconventional wrestlers in
Speaker 1: unconventional ways, but also trying to put them in the
Speaker 1: mix in conventional ways.
Speaker 2: Marco Stunt.
Speaker 1: We talked about at the beginning Darby Allen, an undersized
Speaker 1: guy who you want to utilize against money, top tier
Speaker 1: money guys because there's just something about him. And and
Speaker 1: now Orange Cassidy with maybe a breakout moment for the
Speaker 1: national audience against a super credible opponent in Pac who
Speaker 1: people would have thought should destroy him. And yet the
Speaker 1: way that was booked, it didn't come across as if
Speaker 1: it was like, well, PAC was being charitabled Orange Cassidy.
Speaker 1: It's sort of a one off. It wasn't really credible.
Speaker 1: They actually booked it in a way. And this is
Speaker 1: a big credit to Pack in Cassidy and the booking
Speaker 1: and the producers and the agents and all that, who
Speaker 1: I don't think have always been great in some of
Speaker 1: their presentations. I think Orge Cassidy was helped and Pack
Speaker 1: wasn't hurt and might have even been helped even though
Speaker 1: he went that long in a competitive match against somebody
Speaker 1: who was seen as a bit of a sideshow act.
Speaker 1: I just thought that was a We talked about the
Speaker 1: crowd heat, but the crowd heat was earned in part.
Speaker 1: It was inherited as a match began, but it was
Speaker 1: earned as a match continued. And I was really impressed
Speaker 1: by that.
Speaker 6: What do you do with him going forward? Though? Is
Speaker 6: he a special attraction six times a year? I mean,
Speaker 6: credibly speaking, who can he be? Seativity? You know, what
Speaker 6: are your Peter Avalons of the world. You're Brandon Cutler's.
Speaker 6: But who beyond that?
Speaker 5: I mean, you keep.
Speaker 4: Doing what you're doing. You don't have until it stops working.
Speaker 4: I don't see why you need. There's no need to
Speaker 4: go get away for if the best friends, if they're
Speaker 4: going to still have them on TV, and he doesn't
Speaker 4: have to be out there wrestling every week. Just come
Speaker 4: out there and his outfit and his hands in his
Speaker 4: pockets and his and his thumbs in the middle, and
Speaker 4: and that's like he might have another match.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can add like Seawan Spears to the mix,
Speaker 2: like he's somebody who you.
Speaker 4: Go he could certainly could be and probably should be
Speaker 4: Seawan Spears type.
Speaker 1: And I think you could do something effective with Jake
Speaker 1: Hager for instance, like I just you don't have to work.
Speaker 2: Don't put him in against the.
Speaker 1: Top three heel in a top three pay per view match,
Speaker 1: But I think you can get away with having moment
Speaker 1: heels who fans would just delight in seeing showing up
Speaker 1: by him.
Speaker 2: And it's okay to kind.
Speaker 1: Of run with it if it's working in the slot
Speaker 1: that it's in, Joel, what do you think?
Speaker 7: Yeah, and also just not doing the same thing every week.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think that he should go back to
Speaker 7: kind of doing that role of being with the best
Speaker 7: friends you know, on you know, outside at ringside there,
Speaker 7: but also then just got they can build that to
Speaker 7: be you know, a special at track action for Dynamite shows.
Speaker 7: I mean, that is something that I think would draw
Speaker 7: people in to watch. I mean, like we just talked
Speaker 7: about with all the merchandise, the reaction that he gets
Speaker 7: in the arena, you know, you could build up those
Speaker 7: matches against Sean Spears or whomever, you know, other heel
Speaker 7: he can go against, and I think that can be
Speaker 7: a really draw, a big draw on TV.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in six months, have they looped the country yet?
Speaker 4: Like, there's no reason that they should take this thing
Speaker 4: all around until it until they've realized, Okay, it's time
Speaker 4: to evolve the character, move on with or move.
Speaker 5: In a different direction or whatever.
Speaker 4: But but as long as it's working, I don't think
Speaker 4: there's and it's working, so there's no reason to deviate
Speaker 4: this early.
Speaker 1: Definitely, anyone else want to jump in with the topic,
Speaker 1: We're kind of well, we'll get to the wrap up
Speaker 1: stage here with the next you know, one or two quickies.
Speaker 8: I had two things to say pretty quickly.
Speaker 7: The thing about Jake Hager, I didn't see anything from
Speaker 7: him that that makes me think that this.
Speaker 8: Is a new guy, you know. I mean I still
Speaker 8: thought this is just a WWE guy. Jack Swagger. He's
Speaker 8: back out here.
Speaker 7: He's doing a little different with an MMA sort of gimmick,
Speaker 7: but there's really nothing reinvigorated that I saw with this guy.
Speaker 7: And then the other thing is that the crowd wants
Speaker 7: to see young Bucks, Page, Omega, those elite guys.
Speaker 8: They want to see them in the main event.
Speaker 7: I mean, I think that at some point or another
Speaker 7: they got to get to having those guys main eventing consistently.
Speaker 8: Are you a fan of AW looking to sit back,
Speaker 8: relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
Speaker 8: your passion.
Speaker 7: Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
Speaker 7: a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
Speaker 7: they thinking?
Speaker 16: Do you want to join a discussion on what AW
Speaker 16: is doing right and what they could do to improve?
Speaker 5: Then join me Joel and me Greg for.
Speaker 7: The All Elite Conversation Club every Friday on the PW
Speaker 7: Torch Live Cast.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't talk a lot about Hangman Page, and
Speaker 1: I did kind of want to get into them so
Speaker 1: let me, uh, let me just ask you Eric, your
Speaker 1: thoughts on what what they should do next with Hangman Page,
Speaker 1: even if it's sort of inconvenient the way in which
Speaker 1: he's getting over given what seemed like the direction of
Speaker 1: the story, and and what do you think about the
Speaker 1: prospects of just the Bucks going all out here?
Speaker 5: Is that?
Speaker 2: Is that maybe a good move as they tell the story.
Speaker 6: Real quickly, the Bucks, the fans aren't going to boo them.
Speaker 6: I don't know what they would have to do to
Speaker 6: get booed. I mean, they're just so such.
Speaker 5: They did a little bit in Chicago, a little bit.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well they were working. They were working heel, but
Speaker 6: they were also working. They were we're going to heal
Speaker 6: style against Page. I don't know what. I don't know
Speaker 6: how they were handling that on the announcing, if they
Speaker 6: were noting that or if they were just saying the
Speaker 6: Bucks were being aggressive. But Hangman Page, Man, he really
Speaker 6: came the one G one. He had what would that
Speaker 6: be twenty eighteen, He sort of had his coming out
Speaker 6: party in New Japan and he was great. He didn't win,
Speaker 6: you know, he probably maybe half his matches, but he
Speaker 6: had a really good performance against a lot of top
Speaker 6: workers and sort of you know, you look at him
Speaker 6: as a as a maybe a foundation piece to build
Speaker 6: aw around. But boy, he he was not super over
Speaker 6: against Jericho. I didn't think at all out when he
Speaker 6: lost the belt. The match was okay, but not like
Speaker 6: a five star classic. And who who who would have
Speaker 6: thought that drinking beer with the fans would be would
Speaker 6: be the key to success? Boy when has the and
Speaker 6: and being.
Speaker 1: Before and being surrounded by people who judge you for
Speaker 1: drinking you know, who would have expected wrestling fans to
Speaker 1: rally around that guy?
Speaker 6: Yeah? And uh so you know, I mean it worked
Speaker 6: for Sandman too, right on that micro level with E
Speaker 6: c W or a stone hold obviously, But but I
Speaker 6: think I get the sense Hangman is kind of a
Speaker 6: thoughtful person, Like he's not a dumb you know, a
Speaker 6: dumb jock type, not a dumb meathead. But it seemed
Speaker 6: like they had a hard time figuring out a way
Speaker 6: to get him over, and and now they have. And uh,
Speaker 6: you could try and turn him heel all you want,
Speaker 6: but all you're gonna do is get the fans too too.
Speaker 6: Kenny Omega and Kenny Yeah, but Kenny can actually play
Speaker 6: play the heel role. I don't think that's where they
Speaker 6: want him. But when do they pull the trigger? Right?
Speaker 6: I Mean, I think the problem with you know, having
Speaker 6: weekly TV and having them band TV every week and
Speaker 6: furthering the story every week is, you know, you burn
Speaker 6: through this this stuff quicker. And that's been one of
Speaker 6: my fears of AEW since the beginning, is they're just
Speaker 6: gonna burn through too many top matches. They're gonna, you know,
Speaker 6: burn through too many storylines because they have to go
Speaker 6: week to week and it's only been going on since
Speaker 6: what when did they win the tag titles? Was it?
Speaker 6: Was it in January?
Speaker 8: It was the Jericho Cruise.
Speaker 6: Okay, on the cruise, so that was middle of January.
Speaker 6: The storyline is only two months old, but it feels
Speaker 6: like in TV time, it's been going on for four
Speaker 6: or five, you know, And so are they really gonna
Speaker 6: they have to pull the trigger on this before the
Speaker 6: Las Vegas pay per view and Memorial Day? Right? I
Speaker 6: mean they got to have some sort of turn at
Speaker 6: some point. Does he turn on them in the War Games?
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, Blood and Guts match in at the end
Speaker 6: of March in New Jersey? I I don't know but
Speaker 6: I mean, I think Paige in Omega will draw intratings
Speaker 6: and potentially money.
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking how long you guys will be quiet? Travis?
Speaker 2: What do you think of Hangman?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 1: Great, now Joel talks and now I have to I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go to Travis. Travis, what do you think of
Speaker 1: of Hangman page as a as as an emerging act
Speaker 1: that they could do something big with, Like or do
Speaker 1: you look at him and be like what's all this about?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Did not care for the guy heading into it into
Speaker 4: double or nothing right?
Speaker 5: And then he's in the he wins.
Speaker 4: The Battle Royal to get a title shot that the
Speaker 4: twelve year old kid and the legless guy had also
Speaker 4: had a chance to get a World Championship title match.
Speaker 5: So so that's staying that stink.
Speaker 4: I was like just whatever, I don't get it that, okay,
Speaker 4: he's got the the the lariat.
Speaker 5: Cool.
Speaker 4: Then I saw the bromo and I got Then then
Speaker 4: Rich would tell me, give me recaps on VIP what
Speaker 4: happened on Dynamite, and like, okay, I don't get the
Speaker 4: drinking stuff. I wouldn't want to be around him, Like
Speaker 4: why are they playing up that he's it's one thing
Speaker 4: to be the ass kicking, beer drinking guy. It's another
Speaker 4: thing to be the guy portrayed as the jerk because
Speaker 4: he's always drunk like that. So I just didn't get
Speaker 4: where they were going. And then I saw the sit
Speaker 4: down interview with JR. And the Bucks, and I got
Speaker 4: just one hundred percent more interested in Hangman. I was like,
Speaker 4: one the Bucks can't win, because I assumed it was
Speaker 4: gonna be Hangman. Either turns this past Saturday in the match.
Speaker 5: Leading to them losing the titles and in him.
Speaker 4: And Omega feud, or they lose the titles which leads
Speaker 4: to bitterness and then he turns and him and Omega
Speaker 4: have their thing and it maybe culminates Vegas. But after
Speaker 4: I saw the promo, I said, they have to retain
Speaker 4: because the way that the story is way more interesting
Speaker 4: with after they don't put out how they feel about
Speaker 4: the guy, Like I thought they were friends, and then
Speaker 4: they come on TV like nobody liked you, you were
Speaker 4: a jobber, We got you a job, completely undercutting the fact, like, well,
Speaker 4: he's in your group that you call elite, and now
Speaker 4: you're telling me he's a no one liked him and
Speaker 4: he's a Jobber, So I complete, I turned I'm a
Speaker 4: big bucks fan by any stretch, but I was like,
Speaker 4: I'm all behind this guy now a Page and then
Speaker 4: and then in that atmosphere and then him responding the
Speaker 4: way he did in the match with the physicality and
Speaker 4: how he ended up winning and he got the pen
Speaker 4: the pen fall, and it was just it was just
Speaker 4: booked fantastically specifically to get him over and I just couldn't.
Speaker 5: Believe how you know, that cowboy ish chant.
Speaker 4: Was was was was really awesome. I think for me,
Speaker 4: Page was probably the best part of that show. And
Speaker 4: I was not a fan of his, say a month ago,
Speaker 4: even two weeks ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they're.
Speaker 5: Very indifferent that I wasn't a fan.
Speaker 1: I was just said, yeah, yeah, that's it's it's that
Speaker 1: that's what's so fun about somebody with with money and
Speaker 1: ideas like Tony Connan, really the whole group, that how
Speaker 1: they deal with things that that are unexpected I won't
Speaker 1: say gifts, but like unexpected pleasant surprises, and and how
Speaker 1: they deal with it and how nimble they are and
Speaker 1: do they take advantage of it. Vince Wickmann doesn't do
Speaker 1: that very well. You know, when when Daniel Brian falls
Speaker 1: into his lap. Red hot, let's go on television and
Speaker 1: start pointing out why he shouldn't be our top star
Speaker 1: by having the authority talk about Stephan McMahon and Triple
Speaker 1: Age talk about how we can't have this guy in posters,
Speaker 1: and they basically book him in a way that that
Speaker 1: tries to confirm that that that that preconception.
Speaker 5: And then you end up getting to put him on
Speaker 5: the poster for your biggest show.
Speaker 1: You have to because the fans still it's damaged and
Speaker 1: they resent you for it, but they're not going to
Speaker 1: they're not going to give in. And here you have
Speaker 1: have Hangman Page and the fans are are speakings.
Speaker 2: So Joel, I know you're gonna Joe in a minute ago,
Speaker 2: So go ahead.
Speaker 7: Now, yeah, I mean, I mean with Hangman Page, I
Speaker 7: mean we're talking about so many things that happened on
Speaker 7: the show. But I would say after seeing Hayman Pag
Speaker 7: Hangman Page, you know from all In where he was
Speaker 7: looking pretty good there, but then you know Double or Nothing,
Speaker 7: where he was in kind of the Battle Royal there
Speaker 7: and it was just kind of a weird thing where
Speaker 7: he wins the Battle Royal, then he's in the main
Speaker 7: event of All Out, and that didn't really connect with
Speaker 7: the crowd, and Hangman was just he was so over
Speaker 7: with the crowd and people are so into him, and
Speaker 7: he looked so good in this match that he came
Speaker 7: out of this as a made man. I really thought
Speaker 7: that he this was the turning point where this guy
Speaker 7: is a star after this match.
Speaker 8: But my question with him is just where do they
Speaker 8: go with this?
Speaker 7: As I point out before in some of our podcast
Speaker 7: way where there's so many directions. And that's what makes
Speaker 7: this whole feud with the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega
Speaker 7: is so interesting because there are so many paths that
Speaker 7: they can go down, and I'm just not sure which
Speaker 7: one is the right one. You know, if Hangman does
Speaker 7: all of a sudden turn on Kenny Omega, you know,
Speaker 7: how do the fans react to that? Does that you
Speaker 7: know turn do this whole big heel turn for Hangman Page?
Speaker 8: Does that work for him?
Speaker 7: Or you know, are the Young Bucks all of a
Speaker 7: sudden going to become you know, full time heels or
Speaker 7: do you do something where you know, Hangman Page, you know,
Speaker 7: starts a bond with Kenny Omega that no longer that
Speaker 7: there's a turn there they start to have a bond
Speaker 7: and then maybe something like Kenny Omega turns heel on
Speaker 7: Hangman Page. There's so many different directions they can go,
Speaker 7: and just I think it's a very just fragile situation
Speaker 7: as to what they do with that.
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Speaker 1: ip anyone else want to jump in with final topic?
Speaker 5: Yeah, real quick, I saw in the hall.
Speaker 4: We stayed in the same hotel as the wrestlers at
Speaker 4: the Marquis Mariott.
Speaker 5: So we saw Hagar and his wife in the hallway.
Speaker 5: I told him, well, good luck, Moxley.
Speaker 4: They saw him around like on Michigan Michigan or Michigan Street,
Speaker 4: acrossing the street, just in some sunglasses in the jacket
Speaker 4: with a bag of you know, maybe some Harold's Fried
Speaker 4: chicken or something, or maybe it's just some snacks. I
Speaker 4: don't know, but he had a bag of some food.
Speaker 4: And at the at the hotel bar Friday night, Tony
Speaker 4: Kahan was there at the security. Just a bunch of
Speaker 4: folks that you guys certainly would I would know who
Speaker 4: they are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's actually it was crocus like it was.
Speaker 4: It was, uh, you know, it wasn't like I don't
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody who was, you know, streaking across
Speaker 4: the bar or anything.
Speaker 5: But you know, from like as soon as you.
Speaker 4: Got off the elevator, you would hear like, oh there,
Speaker 4: oh there's a happening going on.
Speaker 5: So yeah, everybody's having a good time.
Speaker 8: I'm glad you a hotel. Go ahead, way, No, no, Joe,
Speaker 8: I was kind of shifting on. Was that where was
Speaker 8: that hotel?
Speaker 5: Travis?
Speaker 8: Was that right across from the arena or was that close?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, the arena is connected to wind truss,
Speaker 4: which is connected to the con.
Speaker 5: It's all all three of those.
Speaker 4: Buildings are connected by like bridges, air brigs or whatever.
Speaker 5: So I didn't I didn't even sky, but yeah, sky bridges.
Speaker 5: I never had to take take twenty degrees. I was like,
Speaker 5: we're gonna are reconnected? Do I have to bring my jacket?
Speaker 4: Nope, go right down the hall and make a left
Speaker 4: and the right and the left and you're there. Same
Speaker 4: with the con Sunday night when or Sunday when. When
Speaker 4: I went to C two E two, I.
Speaker 6: Thought the merchandise at the event kind of sucked. I
Speaker 6: didn't think the T shirts were very good. I got
Speaker 6: I got there right before maybe it's six six fifteen,
Speaker 6: because the traffic was so bad with the with the
Speaker 6: con and the wrestling of been going on. But I
Speaker 6: was willing to, you know, part with a whole lot
Speaker 6: of money and I ended up not buying anything. So
Speaker 6: I thought their T shirt game was supposed to be
Speaker 6: the part that was on point being a T shirt
Speaker 6: promotion before they got their weekly to me, of course.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they don't have the best designs. I'm not.
Speaker 4: I'm not a fan of that first run when they
Speaker 4: when they dropped all those about two months ago, all
Speaker 4: the logos and stuff that you were going to be
Speaker 4: able to get on the merge. As you're saying, eh,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's just kind of typical wrestler logo stuff.
Speaker 5: None of it jumped out to.
Speaker 4: Me as this is a cool shared I'd wear, but
Speaker 4: I don't wear wrestling shirts.
Speaker 7: Felt like they had a lot less merchandise too, you know,
Speaker 7: compared to the last previous events. Maybe I'm wrong, but
Speaker 7: it seemed like they had a smaller selection, and they
Speaker 7: certainly have a much smaller selection than when you go
Speaker 7: to WWE shows.
Speaker 4: I lied, I do wear wrestling shirts. My wrestling shirt
Speaker 4: that I wore said outlaw much show, so I was
Speaker 4: I was very popular at an aw share show with
Speaker 4: the shirt on.
Speaker 17: Longing for some nostalgia or maybe you want to learn
Speaker 17: some wrestling history, don't miss the nineties Past cast Every
Speaker 17: Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast feed. Alex and
Speaker 17: Patrick will transport you thirty years into the past by
Speaker 17: taking you through the Torch issue from that very weak
Speaker 17: follow news from the WWF and WCW and all the
Speaker 17: happenings from across the wrestling industry in real time, as
Speaker 17: The Torch reported it thirty years ago. That's the nineties
Speaker 17: pass cast every Friday on the PW Torch Daily Cast feed.
Speaker 1: So it's so Eric just any brushes with fame or
Speaker 1: observations from being there, and also a little perspective on
Speaker 1: how kind of the buzz coming in and out of
Speaker 1: the building differs from other big wrestling events in Chicago market.
Speaker 6: You know, well, the All In and All Out shows
Speaker 6: were fly in shows fans across the country who were
Speaker 6: gonna have a good time whether the card was great
Speaker 6: or the card sucked, because they had too much invested
Speaker 6: to let it fail. And unfortunately both of those cards
Speaker 6: cards delivered it a big way. This show probably had
Speaker 6: fewer traveling people, but and and there wasn't as much
Speaker 6: heat as All In and All Out, but it was
Speaker 6: still a good crowd. There was a I think Joel
Speaker 6: mentioned earlier that there was a little bit more of
Speaker 6: that old school kind of rude chance going on.
Speaker 8: There was punk chance at one point too.
Speaker 1: There was especially ironically, yeah, are we to that stage
Speaker 1: yet we're channing?
Speaker 2: See them? Punk is ironic instead of sincere.
Speaker 4: If you saw his line at c T E two
Speaker 4: Sunday Sunday at noon, the fact that m j s
Speaker 4: line was around the corner, and later when he left
Speaker 4: Darby Allen's line was around the corner. And then Mike
Speaker 4: and my man Hammertail went right up to see him
Speaker 4: punk and was oh and literally just walked right up
Speaker 4: and got yeh okay.
Speaker 5: It was such so scarce.
Speaker 4: Mike told me he a guy in front of him
Speaker 4: because it was a friend of punks, like a local
Speaker 4: pal of his, and they talked.
Speaker 5: For like two or three minutes.
Speaker 8: Wow, his line at all was super long.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're not going to get ironic CM punk chance
Speaker 6: in Chicago of all places, it's his, you know, it's.
Speaker 4: Worth Also Also, the Pro Wrestling Tea's booth where he
Speaker 4: was was not in the prime location compared to the
Speaker 4: AW booth that.
Speaker 5: Was pretty much right when you walked in.
Speaker 4: You know, they had a big old a w and
Speaker 4: plus they were giving out tote bags and you know,
Speaker 4: backpacks and stuff. So I think a lot of the
Speaker 4: attention attention just went to who had to you know,
Speaker 4: it was their weekend.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, Eric, anything else saw just observations, So
Speaker 1: the running.
Speaker 6: You know, this venue was in the just south of
Speaker 6: downtown Chicago. It's a lot easier for people to get
Speaker 6: to public transportation wise. The Seer Center way out in
Speaker 6: the burbs. You you got to drive there, Yeah, can't
Speaker 6: take public transportations. So I don't I'm not sure I would.
Speaker 6: I feel like that should mean that the crowd might
Speaker 6: be a little more diverse when they're running this. Uh
Speaker 6: to Paul University Boondogle Arena. I'm sorry, it's a local
Speaker 6: experience thing we trust. Yeah, As opposed to the Seers Center,
Speaker 6: I don't. I don't necessarily know. I mean, it's just
Speaker 6: a feeling. I don't know that an anecdote or actual
Speaker 6: evidence would would bear that out. I'd probably like the
Speaker 6: Seers Center better because you know, the parking is not
Speaker 6: a hassle, even though it's further away from me. I
Speaker 6: would imagine we'll still they could probably sell out the
Speaker 6: United Center at this point.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 6: Which tends not to sell out for wrestling. It did
Speaker 6: for w c W during the Monday Night Wars era.
Speaker 6: But I think they're Chicago was definitely a home base
Speaker 6: when you're having I don't know if this is going
Speaker 6: to be a continuing thing going forward to out of
Speaker 6: the four pay per views a year in Chicago. But
Speaker 6: it's clearly a home base for them, and selfishly, because
Speaker 6: I'm local, I'm all on board with that they.
Speaker 4: Should pull back on doing so many Chicago shows and
Speaker 4: I I just said, do until do stuff till it
Speaker 4: till it stops working well. But when it comes to
Speaker 4: comes to towns, that's not a chance. I think you should,
Speaker 4: you should, you should take.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they didn't sell out the Dynamite show the night
Speaker 6: before Thanksgiving at Cear Center. I mean, I can't remember
Speaker 6: what the crowd was. Was it six thousand, five thousand?
Speaker 6: It wasn't full.
Speaker 1: So so, Joel, we kind of touched on your brushes
Speaker 1: of fame at ringside, but anything else from before or
Speaker 1: after the show, that's kind of a fun anecdote to
Speaker 1: share from being there.
Speaker 8: Let's see here. Yeah, no, not, it was.
Speaker 7: It was a different experience because all the other e
Speaker 7: W shows I had been to had that star cast
Speaker 7: convention component with it, and so a lot of the
Speaker 7: fans were staying at the same hotels. You'd see the
Speaker 7: wrestlers kind of walking around. There was also a lot
Speaker 7: of you know, I guess you'd call them legend wrestlers,
Speaker 7: you know, alum, And you know, there just wasn't that
Speaker 7: this time, because I wasn't staying at the hotel for
Speaker 7: the convention. It was just kind of I stayed downtown.
Speaker 7: I you know, took a took a lift to the
Speaker 7: wind Trust Arena. There was a bunch of people in
Speaker 7: wrestling shirts there, and then I took a lift back
Speaker 7: downtown and throughout the throughout the weekend that I was there,
Speaker 7: I only stayed Saturday through Sunday, but I only saw
Speaker 7: a couple of wrestling shirts, you know, through the downtown area.
Speaker 7: And of course it's much larger than Las Vegas. But
Speaker 7: when they had double or nothing going on, I mean
Speaker 7: you could tell that there was a huge wrestling show
Speaker 7: going on. You could see wrestling shirts all up and
Speaker 7: down the strip the whole way. So yeah, it was
Speaker 7: just it was a different experience. But you know, being
Speaker 7: ringside for a show that it was one of the
Speaker 7: most unique shows and seeing you know, how they produce
Speaker 7: that and listening to you know, different different wrestlers getting communication, security,
Speaker 7: different producers for the show. So yeah, just being able
Speaker 7: to be a part of that aspect of a wrestling
Speaker 7: show instead of just kind of sitting in the standard
Speaker 7: seat and just what you see is what's happening in
Speaker 7: the ring, provided for a really cool experience.
Speaker 2: Very cool. Hey guys, thanks, This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I haven't done this before, just talking to three people
Speaker 1: who attended a pay per view with such three different
Speaker 1: kind of approaches and backgrounds, and I think it worked
Speaker 1: out into a really fascinating discussion, at least from from
Speaker 1: my chair. So Travis, thank you, absolutely, thanks. Give give
Speaker 1: a quick plug Travis for for your your podcast and
Speaker 1: your Twitter.
Speaker 4: Sure check us out Wednesday nights every Wednesday night live,
Speaker 4: six thirty Eastern the East Coast Cast. Find us on
Speaker 4: the East Coastcast dot com for all.
Speaker 5: You know, time.
Speaker 4: And all those things, and that you can follow me
Speaker 4: on Twitter at travelord and.
Speaker 5: You can follow the show at East Coast Cast.
Speaker 2: Awesome. Joel, thank you. How about plugs from you?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 7: So I do the hit some missus columns for aw
Speaker 7: Dynamite every week and you can also find me on
Speaker 7: Twitter at Joel to Noel.
Speaker 2: Awesome and Eric, thank you.
Speaker 1: Fun catching up with you here on a podcast and
Speaker 1: getting your perspective.
Speaker 2: Is there anything you would like to plug.
Speaker 6: If you're in the Chicago area, you could subscribe to
Speaker 6: Chicago Tribune dot com. It probably would have lost you
Speaker 6: diety nine cents for three months. You know, print journalism
Speaker 6: is going the way of the dinosaurs and record stores
Speaker 6: and video stores and so diddie. You know, just trying
Speaker 6: to stay afloat and employed in journalism after twenty five years.
Speaker 6: But thanks again for having me. It was nice to
Speaker 6: be associated with PW. Torch once again.
Speaker 5: Eric.
Speaker 2: What's your beat right now?
Speaker 6: I'm a deputy investigations editor, so I run a team
Speaker 6: of reporters that looks into political corruption. Fortunately in Illinois,
Speaker 6: there's a place full employment in Illinois prison.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh, his post prison interviews were just amazing. What
Speaker 1: what Anderson Cooper did to him was was quite compelling.
Speaker 2: Television.
Speaker 1: Yes, uh, and hey, I want to take this opportunity everybody,
Speaker 1: subscribe to your local paper. It's journalism is important. The
Speaker 1: truth is important in journalist.
Speaker 5: Especially investigative.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's huge and in you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just as journalists get maligned in certain circles,
Speaker 1: those same people who am align them are out there,
Speaker 1: you know, claiming a crowd of eighty six hundred is
Speaker 1: thirty thousand and and there's things when you can fact
Speaker 1: check facts, you realize that people are saying the media
Speaker 1: lies all the time. Are the liars? And and so
Speaker 1: it's it just subscribed to your local paper. Support journalism.
Speaker 1: It is some of the best money you'll spend.
Speaker 5: Chip in.
Speaker 1: Do your part in some form or fashion, because it's
Speaker 1: important for city hall to get covered and local politics,
Speaker 1: including what you do.
Speaker 2: Eric, So you know, thank you for what you do.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, I try to.
Speaker 7: Verify, uh yeah, that there was thirty thousand people in
Speaker 7: attendance for revolution.
Speaker 2: Yes, cool, I just got it.
Speaker 5: Air's got to investigate.
Speaker 2: Man, Yes, yes, thank you exactly. Thanks so much, guys.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Invite you to email the show with feedback or questions
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Speaker 10: In twenty twelve, NXT transitioned into the developmental system and
Speaker 10: ultimately the brand you see today. On the Torch VIP
Speaker 10: podcast NXT eight Years Back, we'll be taking a weekly
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