Speaker 1: I put in with you lost, what King's doing with
this person who's no So Bay looks good, you look good,
and every bloody's safe. First off, women a black woman
dagger and a black hat, and just Liven It looked
like she was too slow for school, but she came
out playing the hot mean girl.
Speaker 2: That looks really good. Boy.
Speaker 1: Then Friday put a bit stew boy. Then Friday and
put him in stews boy. Them Friday and put him
in a stew Oh. It's season three, episode eleven of
the Wrestlings. To your official w w LFG review, present
to you by the Wrestling Suit. Today we have the
bodacious belly Boys of LFG and Kin Tanks Hong Kong.
I'm former professional producer, trader graphic designer in the Wrestling
Hall of Famer Lufistow and my go host is lawyer
Shordeneric Gardner of Thought and multimedia pizza eater Jeff Flippman.
How are you, Jeff? Doing?
Speaker 2: Okay? What's going on? Everyone? Thanks for listening?
Speaker 1: Hey, So this one starts with one of her favorite
Serena Liddon, and she's added to the NXT loop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good in Nashville, which is a fun sitting.
Speaker 1: Knoxville and Bringingham as well. She says like it shows
that she's heading in the right direction. She's excited, I mean,
and she even says like I'm meant to be on NXC,
which sucks because she's been released since and with this vignette.
I don't know if you feel the same, but I'm like,
then why was she released? Like I keep asking myself
questions when it comes to her, I don't know what
about you.
Speaker 2: No, I'm still waiting to see what I see on
camera to tell me why she should be released. And
we saw her, you know, she was talking to she
was very excited to be working with PJ Vasa, and
we saw some highlights, but not much more of the match.
I was confused when they were showing us the NXT
Loop Show. I wasn't sure if they just didn't tape
and they were going to show us the Loop show
matches in lieu of matches and the Performance Center. Turns
out that wasn't the case, so we went back to
our our regular format, which in fact we get PJ
and Serena again. But yeah, I was confused. I'm still
waiting to see what it is she did or didn't
do to get there. Remember a few weeks ago, like
you know, she seemed to cry over nowhere, and I
was waiting to see if maybe, you know, maybe there
was emotional issues or something, or at least that they
perceived it. But then next time, no, not at all.
So I'm in the dark. I don't understand it myself.
And she's grinding. She's out there, she's I mean, as
we're as we're recording today July eighteenth, she's at Maryland
Championship Wrestling today.
Speaker 1: Nice, very nice. So okay, back to Serena and actually
PJ Wasasa, which will be the first match. It's the
first match that they discuss at the morning meeting at
the performance center with coaches of course, coaches in charge
Matt Bloom, there's Booker t, there's Bubbaret, and there's Kevin Owins.
Where is Natalia. I don't know, it's been a while
since we haven't seen Natalia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, half the cast is female and the one female
coach is not there.
Speaker 1: Oh well, so anyway, uh, PJ and Serena are gonna
work this time with Kevin Owens. PG has to be
more comfortable as a big body working Linton. She needs
to be able to listen to the people but stay
in the fight. So since they're friends, they're expecting a
physical fight because they explain it really well, like when
you're friends, it's easier to hit harder, which is it
sounds ridiculous, but it really It happened to me, Like
when you're comfortable with someone, it's someone you know, it's
like you get more into it. You're less afraid of
hurting the other person because you know they're gonna they're
gonna hit you as hard and you trust them. So
expecting a physical fight. For the second match, we have
Jamie Garcia Versus Braxton Tole Cole. Cole sorry yes, Boba
raised in charge of this one. For Garcia, Matt Blum
says that he needs to apply residual selling surrender himself,
meaning like he I guess what he means is that
sometimes it looks too much of a like a performance,
it's not natural enough. So he has to let go
and actually make people believe that he's in pain, that
he's looking for help and as a baby face that
he never gives up johns So and Cole. He must
take ownership of using the book and in this whole match.
Everything must mean something anything in this match, and actually
the description of this match that you want to talk
about or did I say pretty much everything?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I think you said everything to this point.
I mean, for whatever reason, they seem to be doing
the stats now, like their heights and weights and telling
us and putting and putting on the screen what their
athletic background was, which it seems to me they should
have been doing at the beginning of the show to
get us to know them. I have no problem with
them doing it every time, but it seemed like it
was a new thing. The only thing I would add
to what and you might have said it is that,
but I'll emphasize it is that Bubba who came up
with the book idea for Braxton Cole really, you know,
he really loves his idea, and you know what, actually
I kind of do as well, you know, but he
really wants Cole to take ownership of the book and
start having ideas and pitching them around how to use
the book better, and you know, you know, incorporate other
people into ideas of how to use the book and
incorporate all of that into the match. And he wants
Jamie simply to find grit to move less and emote more,
which is sort of a consistent theme we hear with
some of the younger wrestlers, but also some of the
wrestlers that come from the indie scenes, especially because you
know they're trying to, you know, do flip flip, flip, move,
move move, you know, and you always move. You know.
The the emotion is the movement, and you know, obviously
we see from the coaches and whatnot that the w
W philosophy is is actually you get the emotion by acting,
by showing on your face, by sometimes the lack of
movement and the selling, and then the moves are sort
of the crescendos, the high points. So you so the
crowd reacts to both, and they will react more to
moves if you just move, move, move, move, move, you know,
they're sort of getting done to it, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they have to do something and be placed at
the right spot in the match. So it actually emphasized
the whole story and whatever you were telling them through
your emotions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do appreciate you taking the the pause here
in this because I know that you're worried that the
next thing is going to cause me to do the
rant that I've done several times before, and I'm not
going to, I promise. I'm just going to say I
continue to look for things like I was looking for
Serena Linton, I'm looking for things out of Apollo Cruise
as to why they would give up on this man,
and spoiler, I don't see any still. I'm done. I'm
done with the Pollo crews.
Speaker 1: Well, he's that TNA right now, so hopefully it means
he's gonna eventually head towards the B to B.
Speaker 2: And he was allowed to sign there before for the
full ninety days, which I have to believe was was
an accommodation for this to a certain extent. I hope
it was anyway, or maybe it was because of us
and and it got back to them. But uh, you know,
as someone who takes full credit for things that I
deserve no credit for, I'm gonna do that again here
and you and you.
Speaker 1: Can a lot of people in wrestling do so it's
nothing new. So for the third match, indeed, we do
have the team again of Apollo Cruise in Elijah Hollywood,
and now they're taking on veterans.
Speaker 2: Feel not Hollywood, Holy Oh my.
Speaker 1: God, Oh sweet.
Speaker 2: Lord Glory predicting his heel turn in twelve years.
Speaker 1: I think he's money already, that's why. That's why. So
they're taking on the veteran team of egg.
Speaker 2: Attack field will be awesome, I know.
Speaker 1: Right, that would be the Tarnity changes his native blonde.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I love it.
Speaker 1: Stop it stop so a can Tanker Actually NXT veterans
and former Tactic champions. Bookert's in g in charge of
this one. And of course when we say Booker t
we say money, chicks and championships. That's when he says
when he talks about Elijah Hollifield. And I just thought
it was really funny that Kevin Owens mentioned, like, hey,
it's twenty twenty six, it's Direk Deposits, no more chicks.
So of course here the goal is to gauge where
Elijah is against people who know what the hell they
are doing in the ring. So they want to see
where he's at in his journey of becoming a WWE superstar.
So let's go back to match one, which is PJ
Vasa versus Serena Linton. PJ says that Serena has all
the tools she will be a big star. She's her
best friend. Of the PC Owens mentioned against that they
want this match to be very physical, and I love
that Jazz is right there in the ring with them
when Kevin says that, because if you want physical, you know,
involving Jazz in your planning is definitely something that can help.
I wish we could hear some of the advice she's
giving them, but obviously they're not letting us have her
little taste and fix of jazz.
Speaker 2: They don't pay a natty money for speaking on camera.
Speaker 1: They should, yes, they should, They should totally com in.
Speaker 3: So there.
Speaker 1: It's also explained that as a babyface, you gotta show defiance,
you gotta swing, you gotta you know, kind of fight back,
and you know Pj's a bigger wrestler, so Serena as
a smaller opponent, she needs to be all over PJ
and show that, like give the energy that we'll kind
of go against the strength that's right in front of her.
And Kevin's actually showing PJ how to sell without going down,
and he wants to be surprised, you know, by Serena meeting.
She needs to be a spitball of fire. Attacking the
bigger opponents, which you don't necessarily expect from a babyface.
But when you have such a big challenge in front
of you, got you gotta kind of surprise the Apoltanes.
You gotta make sure like kind of like to confuse
them or like, oh shit, I didn't expect that, and
then you can try to take over such a bigger opponent.
So that's pretty much what was said before the match.
Anything else you want to pinpoint about the preparation of
this whole thing.
Speaker 2: I mean one, because I'm the institutional memory of LFG
not wrestling itself. Last year, Bailey humphreyes with Serena Linton's
best friend. Now it's PJ. Vas's a best friend, So like,
was there some fallout between Serena and Bailey Humphrey's. I mean,
what's what's the backstory there? But I mean that aside,
Kevin Owen certainly understands the dynamics of best friends being
you know, rivals and working best to go with Sammy Zain.
You know, yes, they wanted Serena showed defiance and she
needs to use every part of her little self to
slay the monster, and Vasa's like acknowledges. I don't need
to look pretty. I just need to look vicious. But
other than that, that's that's pretty much all all. You know.
The only thing about notes I again, Serena came out
as the face, which is good, but she's using like
a metal entrance, which I think she has once before
on Left G. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Yes she did, but with the head banging, and I
actually mentioned that I thought it was kind of weird
because they use her as the spicy and I was like,
metal doesn't really scream spicy. I would I would go
with something more Latina ish or.
Speaker 2: I don't know, especially with Lizzie Rain on NXT, you know,
occupying that lane very comfortably.
Speaker 1: And she's an actual real heavy metal girl with her
uncle was the first drummer for Iron Maiden, and she's
been having that gimmick since almost she started. It's genuine,
it's really who she is. She really listens to metal.
It's not a gimmick. It's her own self boosted to
two hundred percent with the eighties aircut as well. So yeah,
I I don't know spicy to me that I mean,
she had a better babyface entrance because you know, she
was smiling. She was like whatever she was saying was louder.
But yeah, the metal and spicy thing and the splits,
it's it. It doesn't work for me. Yeah, it doesn't fit.
But on the other end Pj's entrance.
Speaker 2: I felt like she had like you do you think
that she actually loves heavy metal and she insisted on
that character instead of the spicy latina and they're like,
it doesn't fit, and she keeps want of things that
don't fit. I mean again, I'm trying to solve this
be a reason, but it seems like.
Speaker 1: Though the way the way NXT works, like for the
names they have, they have to come up with five names,
and through the names that they've given, the coaches go
through them and they kind of pick one or mitched
mixed match or I don't know if it's the same
way it comes to GEAR when it comes to music,
like they kind of give suggestions and then coaches will,
you know, put their little spice on whatever. I'm not
sure I works.
Speaker 2: But well, Serena came up with a spicy crew and
they're like, nah, that's that ain't.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, or maybe they wanted it eavy
metal girl. So they have one and then whoops, Lizzie
Rayne showed up. I don't know exactly what happened, but
but I mean overall with if that was given to her,
I mean, she kind of did the best of it
for this surance because I really saw a babyface when
she came out so right there. As you know, you
got to be loved or you gotta be hated, so
when you see her, you're like, okay, I want to
love her. So at least she did her job. As
I was going to say, PJ. On the other end,
I just thought it was a nonchalant posing entrance. She
does her hands thing, but it's so small. If you're
gonna do a hand gesture, make it big, So it's
like almost intimidating. And I don't get this thing why,
Like again, Chelsea Green is kind of using that. She
was better at talking trash to the crowd when she
was getting in the ring, and when she got in
the ring, like her presence, I was like, my god,
she needs like an entrance, an entrance gear, a jacket, feathers,
something that makes her even bigger than she iss. So yeah,
I didn't like the entrance much.
Speaker 2: I haven't liked her entrance for a while, and I agree.
Everything she does is in slow motion. I get it.
She's supposed to be the methodical monster, but some things
need to be sped up. Her little hand gesture, she
only does it once. Now I think she should do
it three or four times.
Speaker 1: Fast, and it's to It needs to be bigger so
everybody sees it. Like when Undertaker was, you know, would
lift his hand to the sky for the urn. It
was very slow, but it was like from the bottom
to the top like it was big. So you can
be slow and methodical, but it still needs to be big.
So yeah, everything is close to her body and nothing
stands out. And I was like, uh, whatever, I mean.
Speaker 2: So if we go to the match, well, I I
that's I don't mind the shush thing. I like the
shush thing. If you're a mean, nasty heel. However, there
has to be people booing. You are reacting in a
in a negative but that's what the reaction you want
to get way this It was just silent in the room,
so who she shushing? It just seems stupid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean if people were like, Okay, get the
hell out, She's gonna kick your ass. Anyway, blah blah blah,
and then she's like sh like you're disturbing me.
Speaker 2: But as you say, it was silence, and I have
a feeling that during the match. One of the criticisms
is I think the person that listens to her saying
was her.
Speaker 1: Oh well, so the match. The start of the match
was good, just like Kevin asked, like, the heel was
tough and big, the baby face was energetic. There was
a little bit of back and forth thing with a slam,
a missile bow from PJ drop it, you know, from Serena.
She had solid shots in the quarter too, so at
least h PJ was missing moves, so Serena would take over.
PJ then stop Serena with a big egg butt missus
a leg drop again, so Serena could go with a
low cross body. Where PJ was sitting, it was not
in the middle of the ring, so it kind of
looked clunky. I don't know if there could have been
a way where Serena would place. I mean, you can't
place a bigger opponent, but at least if we go
with the missing leg drop, PJ should have kind of
rolled into the middle of the ring selling so She's
in the right position to get that low crossbody from Serena.
I love the Serena was showing her gymnastic background, uh
before she got caught thrown on her feet and then
hit with a clothes line for the cutoff they eat.
That's where I had like a problem with it. Pj's
hits were again so small. She had a good corner
smash splash, but there was not much like emotions like
she got she she had like good arguments with the refs,
but in between and even Kevin Owins mention it, it's
like there's not much emotions going on there. Serena I
felt on the selling was not vocal enough, especially when
she was pulled by her hair and choking. She should
be like screaming and you know, coughing and kind of
and trying to push on the rope or something, selling
that she wants to get out of this situation. But
she just stayed there and there was nothing much going
on for the hop spot. Serena fought back. I thought
she had really good punches. Then it went into a
duck duck into a black hole slam and again like
PJ catches her and there's no sound at all like
once she caught her and started swinging, there should have
been like a or something, or even Serena screaming like
like like I've been I've been caught, But there was nothing.
It was like silent. There was a sunset where PJ
like didn't budge, she jumped. Serena moved out of the way.
Thing god, because she would have been squashed by the other,
uh the opponent's ass. So she sells to a corner.
She moves out of the way when PJ runs towards her.
PJ hits the post and then Serena goes for her
Molly go around, which looks fucking amazing. Once you three,
she Serena rolls out. You know, she's surprised that she won,
which is a good way to sell it because you
just went through a bigger opponent. It was good. It's
good to do that. But when you use your finish,
I mean, you shouldn't be so surprised that you won.
I mean, if you go out of nowhere and there's
a quick one, two, three, then you roll out and
you say, oh my god, oh my god, I did it.
But she literally, you know, won with her finish, so yes,
roll out because you don't want to get attacked by
the bigger opponent again because she's upsessed. She lost, but
I mean, she still has to stay it out for
a wallet. You hit her with her, you're finish. So
that was pretty much the match for me. Anything you
want to go through when it comes to the descript
well the you know, the overall match, anything that bothered you, whatever,
or or we can go with the comments of the
she want to go with the comments of the coaches,
and then give your overall thoughts as you wish, My
dear friend, I.
Speaker 2: Think I think that my comments and those of the
coaches are gonna there's gonna be a lot of overlap there,
so I'm probably not gonna distinguish too much between them.
I mean and and us as in the past, like
we were big proponents of PJ Vasa last season, Uh,
you know, she seemed to be doing everything great and
then this season it's been like she's plateaued. And I
think at this point, I don't I don't feel like
she's plateaued anymore. I feel like she's stagnant.
Speaker 1: Do you think the fact that I felt she was
the winner last last season? Do you think the fact
that they chose Danny Sakowski when I really think PJ
was the winner of the season. Do you think it
bothered her to the point where she's like, I kind
of lost some of her excitement.
Speaker 2: It might be, but since then, I've seen PJ Vasa
on TV more than Danny. I mean, granted it's been
Evolved and not NXT, but Danny's, you know, lately been
showing up a little bit on Evolve, or at least
teased to be. I don't know, maybe, but if that's
the case, I mean, I think sometimes you have to
humble some people as well. I mean, Keanu Carter has
been losing to E K. Prosper on NXT, so I
mean I think partly, you know, Jasper Troy has done
a lot of losing, and then he's hasn't been on
TV in a while. I wonder if they, you know,
I hope he's not injured, but I wonder if they
feel like he's stagnant too. But PJ is, whatever it is,
whether it's stagnant or plateau, I feel like she's very
one note. As you mentioned, she's still not loud at
all during the empty space time, and I do feel
that that I agree that Serena wasn't also, but I
also think that when you're in a when two people
are working together in a relatively small venue and one
part person isn't being loud, the other person being loud
probably feels very weird about it, and maybe it's something
you have to overcome.
Speaker 1: Maybe I can confirm that because I was always very
loud and sometimes I was killing screaming, and it it
feels I wouldn't say ridiculous, but it's it's weird. Yeah,
it's weird, like you Sally scream whatever and the other
person is silent. Yeah, not the best.
Speaker 2: And these are kids, so you know, they're they're learning
and and there's not much crowd to be enough to so.
But mostly the coaches said they didn't feel the intensity,
but actually I typed I didn't feel the intensity, and
then the coaches says, I don't see any intensity. I
didn't either. As far as Linton was concerned, I thought
she was really good and I thought her finisher was perfect.
I agree that she sort of did the Chelsea Green
like heel surprised win look as opposed to sort of
laughing in a little bit of relief, but still confident,
like maybe you know, pointing to her head or or
or going you thought you had me but I never
gave up, or something I don't know, something that's more
facious but confident. I agree, but that that is a
nitpick thing I think, and I think that I think
that she'll get that. But anyway, but you know, most
of this match again, like I said, I'm looking for
things to wonder why they cut Serena. I didn't see any,
but I do see reasons to cut PJ.
Speaker 1: Same. I mean, Kevin explained it really good. He says
the execution was good, but PJ didn't look overwhelmed with anything.
She was going through the motions. She definitely needed more presence.
PJ agrees and says there's there's more work and this
match was kind of a wake up call. But I'm like, girl,
you gotta do something because it's night and day from
what I saw from season two, and you know, Kevin
mentions this Serena as miss spicy, she needs to be
more aggressive like you, I felt there was not really
intensity and emotions. I feel PJ as regressed and Serena
I really love her better as a heel, but as
a babyface she's she's she's close. She needs more fire though,
like she needs fire in between the moves and or comeback.
But just like you, I feel of the two, she's
the one that look better. And even Kevin said like
he was impressed by how Serena handel herself. So I'm like,
damn like you, like, if anything, I would cut PJ
Vassa and keep Serena maybe started as a heel because
I feel she was more comfortable, but even if you
want to use her as a babyface, it's little things
to fix. It's not major. But with PJ, it's just
blah and everything is small. And when you look at
the two big girls from last season and you see Bailey,
like she's everything is big and she takes her time
and and everything makes more sense and and I mean
I always say, like it shows that she's worked with
the Undertaker. Uh you know what, send PJ to Triple
A because she needs to work with the Undertaker as well,
because right now it's it's just not working. So yeah,
so that's pretty much it's for match one for me. Yeah,
I'm I'm disappointed because h.
Speaker 2: Work with Booker more.
Speaker 1: Same, Yeah, she needs she needs to go out there
and get some ring time, and she needs someone to
tell her like not even good execution, like fix this, this, this, this,
or you're out like I there's no urgency probably on
Like maybe she needs to be scared a little bit
because she's just going through the right now.
Speaker 2: And wee to make her intense. Now now you've got
to do it on your own.
Speaker 1: Well, people don't don't use cocaine, but I mean, especially
from a lawyer. But yeah, anyway, let's let's hope things
get better. Speaking of getting better, let's get to the
second match. Uh was it better? You'll know at the
end of this. So this one is, you know the coaches,
Baba Ray, we have Jamie Garcia and Braxton Cole. Bubba
is like, we've seen the book work and not work,
and how about today we see the baby face kind
of expecting like he sees the book coming. He like
he sees the the heel trying to use the book
as a weapon. I also want to mention, yes, I
also want to mention that bif music was there and
we didn't hear anything from him. It sucks, But yeah,
Braxton is the smart one, so he knows all the
reversals but the babyface needs to surprise him with quick
and athletic maneuvers like he has. He can't really surprise
him by being more technical because like the gimmick is
pretty much she knows everything, So you got to surprise
him with your abilities. The cutoff needs to be big.
So Bubba Ray suggests the flare bump, which we haven't
seen on LFG. And I mean, flare bumps always good,
so it always works.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I love how Bubba explains why each things must be
the way they are. It's something we didn't see much
from Bubba, I think the previous season because it was
all I always felt it was more of his character
than the man itself. And now that I see him
with the kids and I you know, he explains also
that reactions, you must have reactions on your face at
all time. So I just love how Bubba explains things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am. I've been very impressed with the coaches
this season in their agency of matches are producing the
matches whatever it's called, the right term is. I've never
really understood the difference between the two, but yeah, I agree.
I mean he's he's obviously a much better coach and
as a shout out to Duke loves Wrestling to the
Devon on the Duke and Devon you know, basically said,
Bubba shows his baby face, you know when he needs to,
when he's coaching with the kids, and and he does.
You know, not everybody is one thing. And you know, Bubba,
who is hardly perfect and you know, has had you know,
but you know, people also change as they get older.
And but yeah, on this, I think we see the
best of him, or at least the good sides of him. Uh.
And we do see in fact that he has a
mind for the business. Whether he should be a head
booker or not, I have no idea. But as far
as working working with the young talent, I think he's
done some really great jobs. I think is one you know,
mistake he probably didn't think was a mistake at the time,
was the over indulgence of Zena. But he's still working
with the company, so hey, yeah, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, go Bubba. I love Bubba. I and I
just feel that when he he's working with people who
are respectful, who are listening and actually want to get better,
you see the best side of Bubba. Because he's he's
going to give them everything he knows and everything he has.
Speaker 2: So you got two guys, the Bubba who used to
fight with people on the internet and you know threaten
fans of Ring of Honor shows like for real is
probably a guy of the past.
Speaker 1: So let's go to the match. So I don't know
if you felt like it, but for brexton entrance, I
felt he had a better entrance, like reading the book,
but he was taking time to look at the crowd,
talk to them and look at them like if they
were like beneath him. And I don't know if you noticed,
but I felt like the start of his song sounded
like I of the Tiger. I don't know why, but
I was like, it really sounds like a survivor and
kind of song. But you know, I felt his entrance
was much better, muck, much better like at giving his character.
You could see it on his face, you could see
it in his body language. And he actually went in
the ring and had a little promo. Then you know what,
he started breathing his favorite path of the book, which
was like really good is that it annoyed people, which
is one of the main thing I heel what must
do And he got caught off by the Babyface song,
which is like always a good way to start things. Jamie,
he has great fire. His song sucks balls though, Oh
my god, like he has so much energy, he needs
like a something more upbeat, and he did a little
dense thing he also did again is what I call
the Spider Man sweep getting in the ring. I'm not
too into it, but the song doesn't help. And if
I would be going out on this song trying to
show energy and fire, oh my god, I would probably
would not feel it either. So for God's sake, please please, for.
Speaker 2: I was thinking to say, for a Braxton, I mean,
you can't use pomp and circumstance like Macho Man did.
But with Gunter there they have a ravel song. I
forget what it's called, but it's like like symphony number
of you know orn crap.
Speaker 1: It works perfectly with him.
Speaker 2: Right, And I think that you could find something that's
snooty from the halls of academia. You can modern it
up if you want to, but you don't even have to.
Was it's public domain and use that for Braxton Coal
and I love the first of all, the book was
called Privilege without Apologies, So the perspect like we were
talking about finding snooty, snooty books and like ones that
are famous from literature. This is even better. Unfortunately it
was it's not that thick. It should have been thicker
and you know, hard bound with like hard black leather
or brown leather.
Speaker 1: But the title they'll makes up for it, and you
according it like I think so.
Speaker 2: And the reading thing reminds me of when Lanni Popo
used to come in and it's just I'm reading a poem,
or like when when Dean Douglas used to come in
and then like insist on so all that was perfect.
I totally agree with you. I'm starting to like Jamie's
sort of Spider Man moves, but I agree with you.
What they should do is they should do a jazzed
up version or or or like a hip hop version
of like like the old Spider Man cartoon that was
on in the you know, the eighties. It was on
like Spider Man, Spider Friendly, Neighborhood Spider. See it I
public domain, but you can you can transform something that
says that somebody should be moving like that, because there
aren't a lot of people that move like that. I mean,
there's you know, there's Fraxium, there's Javon Evans for a
big man. There, there's Jacob Fattu. But but it's they're
not all low to the ground, and and and Jamie
Romeo was low to the ground. So I agree the
music wasn't right, But yeah, I mean braxt and Cole
interacting with the fans great. The face music interrupting was great,
you know.
Speaker 1: Uh, and Gill came out first, and that's why it works.
Hill came out first, did a great job at pissing
off people. So autumn Jamie has nothing to do almost
for people to love him because they hate the other
guy already. It's I don't know.
Speaker 2: And there were nerd chants spontaneously from the crowd. I
mean that's that's great. I don't know that Braxton Cole
was seeking that like on the fore front of his mind,
but that's what you're supposed to elicit. And when it
comes from the crowd spontaneously, that's the kind of thing
that sticks. That's the kind of thing the last that's
the kind of thing that carries over from LFG to
evolve to NX team.
Speaker 1: Yeh, you embrace it and you work with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the start of the Master was like some
great Greco Roman wrestling going on. It was pissing off
the heel and he had to use the hair of
Garcia to take control of the headlock and going to
a takedown, so it was really technique versus speed. Bubba
was like the was really happy about the nerd thing,
but he was like, it should get under his skin
a lot more to be called a nerd. He should
really get pissed in the ring and sell it. And
I completely agreed. Jamie went into a shine fired up
like he was great at selling, like there was great
selling around by Braxton, meaning every time Jamie would give
him something, he would like go around the rig to sell.
So he would show people like the moves mean so
much more when you're selling to the whole crowd, you
show everybody that it freaking hurt. And Garcia has that
nice rolling drop kick as an exclamation point. Great great fire,
so change his freaking song because the guy he's got fire.
The cut off, Garcia went on the top rope Cole
cut him with a gut punch and we went into
the famous Flair bump, and I felt that from there
Braxton should have attacked like aggressively right there, but he
went into a corner a little bit too long, waited
for Garcia to get up, and then went for a
big running boot one two. I just still once the
heel takes over and from the cutoff, there needs to
be an attack or something, so the baby Face like
there's a reason for him to stay down because if
you get hit, take a bump, get up. You still
got hit by one thing. Yes it could be something big,
but it's still the first hit you get in the match,
so there needs to be a little bit something more
so the baby Face could stay down, so we go
into the heat. So that was like not the best
for me. The running book was great though, but maybe
it should have been flair bump right into the big boot,
one two, kick out, then a little bit, you know,
work on him and then you slow down things you
don't do, move wait, and then another one when you're
cut off, it needs to be bam and then it's over.
So yeah, flair bump, take the bump, roll up, walk
towards Cole. Cole comes in with the boot right away,
so it's like two big moves back to back, so
Babyface can stay down. The I love when heels are
attempting more pinfalls, like they go like there's a pinfall,
kick out another pinfall, like back to back. I love
that he did that, but there was like no emotions
in between, like you gotta be pissed offs, like hey,
like count faster, try again something. He grabbed Jamie's hair
to punch him down, looked at the book thinking about
using it, and then we went into a jump. I
mean Jamie's down, Braxton goes up and Jamie lifts his
knees right into the balls. So that's a good way,
Like the heel was really in control. But then when
you hit the balls and I mean knees up is
is not like getting kicked in the balls is not
something the referee is gonna disqualify you for. It's something
a babyface can use. So that was a good way
to completely stop the momentum at the heel knees up
right into the ball. Come back Garcia again with fire
punches shops. He just went a little bit too fast
on those because we could really see them. You know,
you gotta punches. Heel sells around shop punches like, slow
down a little bit. They would have looked a lot
better it's like the opponent is not in the best
position for him to sell and for you to go
through the motion completely so everybody sees it. Uh. There
was a running boot thing with a jump that looked
great again good fire from Jamie who was still you know,
he was still sitting though when he started his fire.
He needs to stand and I think Bubba is something
that he keeps on repeating, don't stay down. I mean
you can kind of hit a move, be down, clinch
your fists and then start the fire, kind of shaking
at the bottom. I think Old Cogan was doing it
this way, like would shake his fist at the bottom,
but he would stand up and then would make you know,
the fire big, big, big, so everybody sees it. Uh.
But you're don't stay down, stay.
Speaker 2: Up a little guy. Not use the ropes to climb
up the.
Speaker 1: God yet use use one hand to pull you up
and use the other end to get you know, your
end up in a fist and and towards the crowd.
It's it's it's telling them you need them, you need them,
clapping screaming without acting really say hey, scream for me,
like just showing that your fists and lifted up your hands.
It's it's a it's like an invitation to hey, I
need your help.
Speaker 2: You're literally fighting from down below to come up.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and you're asking for help without telling them. So
mm hmm. So he grabs Cole for a soup lex.
He cracks his neck, which I felt was I mean,
it could be part of the the stick, but he didn't.
It's it's not like, uh, Cole put pressure on his
neck the whole match. It's it's not like there was
something going on. So it kind of, uh, it looked
kind of weird and out of place for me because
because you know, he took the time to crack his neck,
Cole was able to reverse it an xplex, go for
of the book. But yeah, I would do something else,
especially if you're a babyface. Grab the heel, look at
the crowd and you know, ask them to cheer or
say something like you want him to go up. At
least it gives time for the heel to reverse things.
But the cracking neck is just look weird, especially if
nothing happened to your neck before. If it did, like
you go for the souplex, you try and your neck hurts,
you sell that it hurts you crack it, then you
go for it. It means it tells a story, but
there was no story about a neck being injured or
that Garcia had neck problems or was in pain. So
I just felt it was kind of weird to place
that here. So going back to Cole and the book,
he grabs the book, argues with the ref still selling
his nuts, which is great, still selling the us. He
moves towards Jamie with the book in front of him.
So going back to what Bubba was asking the book work.
It didn't work, but what if the baby face sees
it coming. It's right in front of him, So you know,
I just felt like you got a you got the
heel in front of you with the book in front.
Jamie goes into a spinning kick onto the book that
he that hits that hits cold right on the mush,
which makes sense, but I just feel that it kind
of needed a little bit more urgency. So kick to
the kick to the book on the face, spinning kick
and then grab. Like this whole segment. I don't know
if you feel the same. It could have been more
like you can see Jamie looking at Cole and seeing
the book coming. But I just feel like you should
have been like looking at the crowd, looking at the book,
looking like and then kind of fire up a little
bit just to know, like, oh my god, like I
see you coming, like I'm ready, just sell it a
little bit more and then hit the kick and then
right away one, two, three, because you're literally screwing the
guy that's supposed to be the smartest. So more urgency.
But I love this match.
Speaker 2: It was good.
Speaker 1: So anything you notice that bothered you or maybe.
Speaker 2: That you love, yeah, I'm going to try very hard
not to repeat things that you repeated. I grade these
guys very differently. I grated Braxton Cole as somebody who's
very new to this sport. I know he doesn't come
from an amateur wrestling background, or at least you know,
he's no for being a football player. Maybe he wrestled
in junior high school, highchol I don't know, you know,
So I grade him on I want to see improvement
in all aspects of wrestling, physical and psychological, and emoting
on Romeo, who comes from an indie background. I'm not
I'm grading him based on the quality of his moves,
but I expect them to be good. So I'm grading
him on his improvement in this type of style, and
so I think Braxton Cole needs to work on certain things.
But I think I think Romeo.
Speaker 1: I think in the ring, Romeo is Jamie's other names Jamie.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, he's Romeo. Moreno, now he's he's gotten a formally,
he's got his trademark name, his non government name. But uh,
I think Romeo's brain needs to slow down even while
his body is moving. Uh. And so what something I love?
I love the fact that Braxton Cole's coming in and
he's he's the methodical heel, so you expect him to
move and wrestle slow. But Jamie's coming in with a
high energy thing, so you expect him to start with
you know, drop kicks and and things like that. And
he seems to consistently always start with technical matt wrestling,
which I think is great low key psychology going. You
think you're gonna slow this match down, but I just
slowed it down. I can fight that way too. Don't
don't judge me. I'm not just spider Man. I can.
I've got a little curd angle on me. Also, one
criticism of Jamie, other than everything that you said is
that his strikes are not consistently impactful. Now, nobody in wrestling,
or very there's a lot of people in wrestling where
this is the case. Very few people have the Jeff
Jarrett punch or you know, but like Booker said, if
you punch his stink, do something else, do a chop,
do a form. Do you know, John Moxley does more
elbows than anything else because that's what he knows how
to do.
Speaker 1: Like I was explaining, the thing is, he's going so
fast that he doesn't place himself right and doesn't wait
for his opponent to be in the right position to
give a good punch. So as as long as he's
gonna go super fast instead of being precise and wait
for the right time, it's gonna look like shit, you
slow down, and I mean it's a thing in the
and D's I had it. Most people have it. Yeah,
too fast, like fucking slow down and everything will look better.
Speaker 2: Right, some of them look like a bad slat fight,
you know, like a cartoonist slat fight. So he needs
to work on that. The finish, I think I think
it was great. As you said, it could have been
more dramatic, but I think that it was great, and
I think that they're getting there. So with Braxton Cole,
I see him getting there. Maybe it's slower than some
people want to see, but I see the improvement. I
see him getting it. I see him processing, I see
his computer working with Romeo. I'm not sure that I'm
seeing any move, but I absolutely see the raw time.
I mean, there aren't a lot of people who can
move like a jungle cat. He can't, you know, So
I absolutely see you know why he's advancing. I just
I just need to I just need to see more.
And I also see him on a valve, and I
see him on NXC, so I see him more often then,
and I've got to pay. You know, it's no accent.
They put him with no Amdar, who's you know, not
you know who's been both heel and face. But obviously
at you know, five foot four and one hundred and
twenty three pounds, is always fighting from the underneath, even
as a heel, So definitely a lot of psychology, so
I you know he's he's They have him basically with
a full time coach, which I think is good for I.
Speaker 1: Really love what Bubba explained the Cole. I think it
goes along what you're saying, like there's there's improvement when
it comes to the wrestling, and he gets things that
other people don't like the way as a heel, he's
gonna slow down the pace once he's in the eat
that he takes time to you know, talk trash look.
Speaker 2: At the people.
Speaker 1: Bubba says that there was a good bigoting and the
promo promo was good, but he should really go with
arrogance over being whiny because he's the smart guy, so
he needs to be arrogant about it and not cry
about things. So even like is between trash talking, he
needs to kind of put himself over as I'm smart.
Did you see that? See he can't follow me. He
needs to use like things like that to get himself
over and say like oh, like why don't you shut
up or whatever? Hey stay there or whatever, because he's
he's a smart guy who thinks he's got everything under
control and that's the gimmick. So that's where he needs
to work on. And here's one thing other that Bubba said,
like he he feels like he never felt like Cole
was frustrated at one point and when you got a
babyface like being quicker and you know, sending you to
the mat. You need to be frustrated and pissed off.
He's not selling that enough at the moment. And and
really that's what they were going forward to. And one
other thing he needs to do is use his whole
body to show frustration, to show his emotion, not just
you know, the yapping and the face, but everything, like
fucking like throwing a tantrug like Bubba was like explaining,
like maybe kick the ropes like it always were, kicked
the ropes, slap the top rope, you know, like hit
your chest like you're pissed or whatever, like something something
like use the whole body to show frustration or show
so you gotta sell it all the freaking way. And yeah,
I I mean Bubba was right about it. And just
to finish on Garcia like a lot of indie stars,
and I will include myself in there. For many many
years working for you know, you're working for spots. There's
working for spots or reactions. But sometimes you think the
spot is the reaction because they're gonna go ooh, but no,
it's it's a freaking it's a concept that's hard to
freaking grass. But there's a difference between reacting to a
spot and reacting to the actual story. What's going on?
What are you telling the people? And you gotta stop
going like, oh, they love the match, because when I
did that, they went ooh, you gotta start thinking about Okay.
They were into the match the whole thing. They were
telling me, I'm an asshole. They get if you're the
baby face. They're like, they were behind me, they started
that chance for me or whatever. That's how you need
to see it. And it's really hard to make a difference.
And it's just the way it is. And because you
see so many people doing on indis, you automatically think
it's it should be that way. It's something I wish
I would have learned way earlier in my career. But
as coaches, like if you're teaching in a school, that
is something you got to push on your student. There's
a difference between ah, this move was great, and be
like having the crowd being in the match the whole time,
because whatever you're selling to them they're buying not the
same thing. So that's what Garcia needs to work on
and anything else before we go to our main event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit. I mean I think that, you know,
Bubba told Braxton, you need to work on your arrogance
and frustration. And I'm rewatching the sopranos now, so a
lot of my references.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: He needs to complain less like aj soprano, like the
fifteen sixteen year old Petulan teenager, and more like like
Philly at HARDI complaint like sort of the under boss
or Johnny Sacramoni, you know, the the underbosses of New York.
You know they you know, you need to complain from
a place of entitlement and power and do that. And
as far as with I love his reading the book,
but he holds it underneath his chin. He needs to
memorize whatever the passage is, and he needs to hold
his arm out, extend it out, you know, to his
right side, and look up and raise his chin in
a study way, and his other arm needs to be
there gesticulating and pointing. And I think if he gets
used to using his body in the entrance, he'll get
used to making his body bigger in the whole. And
the kid is six foot four and so he's got
you know, so that means his armspan is six foot
four also, so use use all the space for Jamie.
One thing they told him is don't get nervous about
silence and don't waste movement, which I think are just
different ways of saying what I said earlier on what
you said at length during the breakdown, But that you know,
if there's two sentences for Jamie to write down, type up,
print up big, and post you know, over his bathroom mirror,
those are them and he should read them every day.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the main event. This this is a
big one. This is a huge one. We got Apollo
Cruise and Elijah Hawley Field versus Hank and Tank. So
I first, I'm just gonna say I love that they
called himself the badacious belly buets of the next see.
I just think it's great. Uh you know you don't
have a six pact. That's fine, Embrace what you got.
That's what they're doing. They say, like they're very excited
about this match. The goal. Of course, everybody knows. Everybody
knows who Hank and think are they know who Apollo
Crous is? They have to know who Elijah is with
this match and how far they can get Elijah to reach.
I mean, he can't reach where they're at now, but
as veterans, is their job to make him look so
good that he doesn't feel out of place. They say
one thing that I love ankin Tank. They said they
were honored to be in the ring with Apollo. He's
a real pro. Again, like everybody's putting Apollo over's.
Speaker 2: And they aspire to be like him, is what this said.
And right now, don't pull my strength, don't.
Speaker 1: I'll just say that they they're glad for all holy
feel that he's really under a learning tree at this moment.
And I'm not talking about Chris Jericho's learning tree or
talking about apollow And Booker says, make something out of nothing.
So it goes back a little bit with what we
were saying before, with the moves of the reaction. You're
supposed to make something out of nothing. There's nothing happening.
Makes something, you know, it's I One thing I love, love, love,
love love love is the body slam part you see.
You see ankin Tank war veterans. They've been there for
a while and you still have Booker t give him
them like tips on how to get better. You can
always get better in wrestling. There's somebody it's not that
your coach was bad, but maybe another coach as another
way to do things that's gonna work better for you,
plain and simple. And I loved how Booker t explained
how to shift gravity and getting light using the right toe.
One one thing that I do tell students also is
not everybody does that, but once you go up there,
sometimes I tell the students to shift their hands as
well so they can keep that straight line, you know,
with their legs, so the body slam looks actually look
even better. And I love that they were showing that
because if you're a wrestler, it's it's a free fucking
bookertsy seminar right in front of your face, the way
he explained how to make a slam work even better,
and he's and don't be a shame if you've been
wrestling for years and there's ways to get a basic
move better. And can tink. I've been on TV. They've
been again former nxt Tacting Champion, and they do hate
the criticism and they he's gonna remember remember like forever now,
like his slams are gonna be better. He's gonna go
up higher, lighter, and even if your experience, you always
learn and it was a great, great way to show it.
And uh, I mean it's sinker swim for Elijah, that's
his biggest challenge. And Booker Tista is like, think about
all the new stuff we talked about, what's the new stuff?
It's all the little things in between. And one thing
I'll say again about Elijah. One thing that I always
love about him is when he's practicing going over his match,
he's also putting in the you know, the spots where
he's gonna sell. You'll see him screaming. You'll see him
lift his head pretending he's looking at the crown. He's
planning the in betweens as well, which is great, great, great.
So we're at the match now, anything about the preparation
you enjoyed or I wish you could have seen more
of it.
Speaker 2: There were two things. One I absolutely echo everything you said.
Is then the right toe trick and the shifting gravity
was amazing. I mean that was just I felt like
I was saying magic in front of me. I like
when Booker asked the guys and in this case specifically
Hank in Tank because we never heard Apollo's answer, what
is the what's the goal of this match? And you
know hank In Tank. They both said things, but they
were basically the equivalent of h or giant question marks
over their head, and whatever their answers were were wrong.
And Booker's like to get Elijah over while still looking good.
So and they're like, oh right, right, oh my god.
So it's like, you know, I mean it should be
basic stuff. But also told me a lot about what
they see in Elijah, but I don't know that it
would have been different if you know, it was any
of the other candidates there. Also, they didn't tell us,
i think, purposely, what the story of the match was.
So I was paying a lot more attention to this
match to see what the story is because I'm like,
who's the heels, who's the face? I mean having machinery?
Well they not have hank In Tank. The new having
machinery feel like you know, they're they're you know, they're
always faces and you know, but you know, no one's
gonna boo Eliza or Apollo, So how are they gonna
how they're gonna work this thing? So I was very
interested in seeing that going forward.
Speaker 1: So to the Bats and can Tank were out first,
they are super over, like there's there's nothing to say
about their entrance. They know what they're doing, they know
how to get the people behind them. They got their
shit going.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Next was only fielded cruise and I love the fact
that first of all they came out like one after another,
but Elijah came out not all the way though he
stayed close. See the entrance they started Apollo's music, Apollo
joined him and they had similar looks now both in
black like they both look in tense as again money.
The only thing I felt was missing from their entrance
maybe like at tag team pose something that really tells
me we are a team. But at least, I mean
they look very similar like same again color. We could
see Elija was nervous though we could literally see a
little bit of his face that he was nervous.
Speaker 2: But at they did have They were both wearing long
black pants, which was cool. But they did have a
coordinated handshake, you know, so like what Sam Zaan and
Jimmy Usso used to do. And they did try to
do a coordinating entrance. I just think they started it
too late. Yeah, and you know so it didn't come
out right, but I think next time, should there be
next time, they'll get it right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it's you just could see. Maybe the
difference was more obvious because of how Hank and Tank
were so like coordinated together and they had their own
pos and stuff, and then you see the other team,
you see the difference. Maybe it would have been different
if Apollo and Elijah came out first and then boom,
you got the guys that are used together, and then
they have the tack team boats. Maybe it wouldn't stand
out as much if they did the reverse. But I mean,
it's we're nitpicking right now. I love that they started
the match face to face. They were intense, serious, but
they showed respect. So right away it was telling me, Okay,
we have two baby face tag teams right there. However,
you know they both want to win. They both see that.
You know they have first of all, looking on the
other side of the ring, you got former NXT Tag champions.
And when the former champions are looking on the other side,
they got a veteran and a rookie that is a
machine and that has a punch you have to avoid
because he's already a menace. Even if it's new. It
only takes one punch and you can go down. So
I love the seriousness of it. It started with Cruise
and Tank, great strong lock up. You know, it was
tit for tat. Both looked strong.
Speaker 2: I like how they shook hands in the front to
let us know this is essentially a face versus face
match and it's one that's starting with respect. I thought
that that was good. I also liked that the Hank
and Tank although they're you know, you think they're like,
you know, good time, Charlie. I'm thinking, guys, they they weren't.
They were working the surgically repaired arm and you know,
and then once they finished doing that, they started working
on the right arm. And commentary was right on the
same page, saying smart to work on the surgically repaired arm.
And then they were like, now they're working on that
right arm to take that dangerous upper cut away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was and I love that. You know, there
was a blind tag which we don't see much like
you know, push, Tank pushes, it gets pushed in the rope,
sorry and ank, boom, slash, you know, tags as partner.
Then Elijah comes in. There's a double tackle and it's
like the abs versus bellies, which is great. It sells
the characters Cruise and tag go out the veteran. Just
like you said, they isolate the less experience of the
two and they work the arm that's been repaired. They
cut the ring in half. They keep them away from
Elijah once they whip holly Field. Then there's a black
tag from Cruise. So the Babyface don't look weak like Apaulo,
just has the experience to know to see an opportunity
once it arises. Tags this partner in. So Elijah goes
for the punch ang sells it in a way where
he stops because he knows, no, I can't get hit.
Crews coming hits him behind the head. There's a fly
tackle from Ali Field. Then there's quick tag from Cruise
and Olifield, which shows that even if there's there are
a new team, there's coherence between them. There's good chemistry.
Holy Field is also like putting the ring in half,
they go into tag moves. So even again if there's
a new team, you could see that they've been working
on getting this team together and they have ideas and
they're going they take this seriously. The Face are fighting
back Elijah missus and elbow tank goes to the outside.
Then Punch Outside tries to go to tag Tank, but
Elijah pulls him back. Ank ducks of clotheslines hit crews
on the apron, and then Ank moves out of Allifield's corners,
splash tags in Tank. There's a lot of action going on,
back and forth tags. Everybody's getting involved. It's exciting and
once there's an actual tag the tank boom, big babyface comeback.
Tank fires up. He hits Holly Field on the apron.
There's a bumping feet on Cruise, lots of fire, springboard tackle,
big big, big fire like he's he's hitting his own
head like going like trying to wake himself up, just
to Bigger selling the the crazy kind of tag team
they are like the characters are in the way I
mean they introduce the character into the moves, into the
sequence and to everything they're doing, so people are reacting
to everything in between. The moves are cool, but everything
that they do around it like. The crowd is into
it from start to finish. There's not a dead freaking
spot in this match where you don't hear the crowd.
There's a big fallaway slam on Cruise. He rolls to
the corner where he can tag Elijah, Tanks bumps, Ali
Fiel Crew breaks the tag because there's a big move there.
Then all four men in the ring again, lots of
action back and forth, there's a waterfall. Waterfall is then
when you hit big moves, but there's no actual like pinfall,
and if there's one, there's one of the partner is
breaking the count of the person that is legal. Of course,
both people need to be legal. When you do a waterfall,
it's move, move, moved, it doesn't matter really, Uh, there's
no pins. It's that's where the referee like shows confusion
and he's lost control a little bit of the match,
which is always like a fun spot when it comes
to tag teams. Then everybody following all those moves the waterfall,
they're selling to the outside. So there's this big spinebuster
from Elijah. So after that he's up and you know
it's spinebuster up calls for the punch. Both Hank and
Tank are in the ring. They run towards hollyf Field.
Hollyfield knocks out Aank, but Tank is right behind him
rolls him up one, two three. Tank was the legal men,
but holy Field, which is you know, he's the rookie,
has less experience went for the punch on on the
Hank who wasn't the legal man, so he got surprised.
So not only like both BB Faced team, they look
right even in defeat. They don't look stupid. It's just
a matter of you know, there was a rookie mistake.
The wrong guy got punch. And I love how Elijah,
you know, he was selling that he was surprised, could
not believe it. He was frustrated, and you had Cruise,
which he was the voice of reason, trying to calm
him down, try and explain the mistake. They never went,
you know, towards the babyface celebrating because they're still babyfaces
or they're not gonna attack. They will accept the feat.
And you know, the way they were selling it, it
was like, okay, we need to go back to the
drawing board. Like they did everything right when it comes
to this match anyway, according to me, and I love
that Ank was out. It was like still out while
all this was happening, and it shows the importance of
the knockout punch the commentators. The commentator was also like
selling it like oh my god, he might not wake
up until next week, so everything was like important, Like
I love love, love this match. Anything else you want
to add to this schmase of.
Speaker 2: Of action, I mean, yeah, you know, it's just like
the great philosophers have taught us. And by the great philosophers,
I mean TLC. They've advised don't go chasing waterfalls, sticks,
the rivers and lakes. So you're used to I know
you're gonna have a your away or nothing at all,
but I think you're moving too fast. And I think
and I think that when you're becoming a professional wrestler,
actually you can't take that advice. You have to chase
the waterfalls sometimes, and I think in some cases. Listen,
I absolutely love the sequence where Hank backed away from
the punch faint, but Apollo was not Apollo. Elijah wasn't
going to do the punch. He just fainted or maybe
he saw that Hank was back in the way and
he didn't waste the effort, and that that led to
a kick from the outside from Apollo that it turned
into that great tackle. I thought it was a fantastic sequence.
I love the fact that that Hank shoved Hank out
of the way. He knew that the punch was coming,
but he took it. He took it for his partner,
who's the legal man God, he took the apple. He
gets absolutely knocked out as you put put it protects
the finisher and Tank gets the roll up win. Which
is this was great booking. This was a TV quality match.
The only criticism I have is that there was one
time where I called them the heels, but it was
Apollo and Elijah, not for.
Speaker 1: Who his babyface.
Speaker 2: We usually yeah, the grace of baby faces. That when
they were trying to do a transition to a tag
into the corner, they weren't quite ready for it. It's
I think Elijah got to the corner too soon or
Apollo was crawling up too slowly. I think it was
more the former than the latter, just based on experience level.
I think that Elijah needed to move back more slowly,
maybe fall against the ropes and then work his way
to the corner, and then he could have seen Apollo
out of the corner of his eye or maybe in
this direct vision, and then the tag that it was
a little awkward. It was. It's probably only a second
and a half or two seconds, but it did, you know,
it did? It needed to be sped up a little
bit or kept at the same pace, but more acting.
And I'm not sure that throughout the entirety of the match,
I felt the constant threat of Elijah, and I think
that that was the one thing that was missing that
that I feel like at at all points we could
have thought that Elijah at any time could have done it.
I understand that your faces can't be afraid of their
opponents the entire time, so you know, I might have
been looking too much, but I definitely appreciate the end
that Shawn and Matt were congratulating everyone. We don't see
Sean on the on the camera very much. We certainly
don't see Sean and Matt. We don't see them congratulating everyone.
I know that they're high on Hank and Tank and
and why I don't really want to like those guys.
They're big guys who don't present particularly big. I do
like them, I can't help myself. And I think that
that's the thing.
Speaker 1: They're doing their job then, and.
Speaker 2: They did it here, and I think everyone did their
job here, and the crowd already loves holy Field. They
just do they just they just I know I could
go on holly Field, holy Field. I've had this problem
ever since you bandal, Yeah, it's holy Field, right, I
think I think it is holy Field. And even if
it was Hollyfield, at some point they I'm sure it's
been changed to holy Field. And guess what that family
gets to tell me how to pronounce their name.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you know what, I'm French, so I have
a way out. I feel.
Speaker 2: That's right. And Booker says holy Field passed the test. Yeah,
he absolutely. I don't think it was sink or swim
for holy for you know, holy Field. By the way,
I you know, I think they were trying to make,
you know, drum up a little bit of drama. I
think that I think that he's a made man unless
he does some really bad uh, and he's not going to.
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's his attitude too, because I've
seen people doing great in little matches, and once you
put them in them with somebody who had like a
name or bigger name, they would ship the bed, which
he did not. Like he remembered everything. There was little mistakes,
but as you said, Booker says, like he passed the test,
and I do believe. So, yeah, maybe be more threatening,
like maybe try the punch more often, you try it once,
the other the Babyface ducks, or the second time the
Babyface stops, or one thing they did which was really
cool is I think they did that in another match
where they're outside Babyface moves and Elijah hits the posts,
like there's different ways to duck the move, and maybe
like since it's the move to avoid, maybe if you
tried more than once, it gets more important. And once
he hits it, you absolutely though it's over because he's
been trying to hit that move the whole match. Uh,
you can't do it in every match though, because it
gets redundant. But yeah, I mean I love that. Hank
and Tank were saying like it's you know, not too
long ago. They were the ones at you know, in
Elijah's place, like it's it shows a perspective on how
fast time goes in this business. It's stumbling, it's it's exciting,
and they thought that Elijah kicked ass. And one thing
I love about Hank, he was like, oh man, I
hope I sold good for that punch. Oh I love
the bump. It's just like crumbles like it was a
great cel. So don't worry about that. It was a
great sel. They're still putting over how great Apollo is
and what it honor it is to be in the
ring with him. So hopefully, you know, Apollo is only
in TNA for a short period of time until Elijah
is ready, and there he's actually back. And their team said,
you weren't going.
Speaker 2: To pull my strength. He said, you aren't going to
and now you're pulling my strength.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's my wish. It's my wish. I think
their money. You know, you don't have anything privilege, you
know what, you don't have anything for Apollo right now,
It's fine, you're trying. You're putting other people over. Now
you want to rebuild your tag team division. So here's
a team that's money. So you're letting Apollo do his things.
So he's busy, he has work. Elijah's working on this
stuff on you know, his side, and while you're building
that tag team division, once you feel it's time Apollo
and Elijah bring them back, I mean.
Speaker 2: It's now you're going to get me on entire side
round with the whole bilding enough tag team division. They
absolutely don't want to build their tag ting divisions.
Speaker 3: But I'm going with what was said. I'm not saying
it's but if if that's what's.
Speaker 1: If that's the point, then Apollo and Elijah are a team.
You want to have money? Do you want money? Tko
wants money at the and there's money so many shirts
you could do with a knockout punch or whatever. I mean,
they're like Booker tisays like two twenty six could be
a breakout the year for Elijah Holyfield. Why not? Why not?
There's still time. It's only July. If it's not this year,
I mean it's as time is coming, uh, crossing my finger,
So there's no more injuries. And but the kid is smart,
he knows how to work, he doesn't overdo things. So
overall I love this episode. Like match it really went
from Match one being hand to second being good to
the last one being great for TV. So there was
a nice like evolution of the episode. Good stuff from
the coaches. Yeah, it went by fast, which is a
good I mean, it's a good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I agree, this is a very enjoyable episode and
the quality of the matches while nice, I mean sometimes
there to be things to complain about. Our pick on
makes this show more interesting. But aside from my little nippicks,
I absolutely loved the final match. I thought the other
two matches were okay, they were fine. We talked about it.
But yeah, this episode, I mean, if everyone's doing well,
the coaches has nothing to say. We have not to
say everyone did great. That's a boring show. But I mean,
you and I are both very honest about our opinions
on this show, and and our opinions can change based
on what we've seen, like you know, last year, cheerleaders
for VASA, this year FASA, get your shit together. But yeah,
great show. And spoiler, we both already watched episode twelve
or whatever it is because we're we're a little bit behind.
But you all know that who listened to the show,
Miss actually dropped the our episode on on ten twice,
so you have no excuse for also being current on
this show. We'll try to do better, but anyway, just
you know, it's not too hard to count to twelve
and you'll figure out which show to go to.
Speaker 1: Hey, it's the vacation, so you know we are on
vacations too. But for the upcoming, the upcoming.
Speaker 2: Show, which permanent, I'm talking right over here, I.
Speaker 1: So FORMACL twelve. We're gonna hear from Mike the Ruder,
Arlem Lewis Daily, I'm free Santel Monroe, Nathan Cranton, and
our favorite cowboy at Tat Wilder, So we'll be back
for this episode number twelve. I don't have anything special
going on this week besides the fact that I'm on vacation.
I'm very much needed. I'm going to watch some more wrestling,
and I don't know do you have anything special, oh,
my dear Jeff.
Speaker 2: Well, other than I know that you did a pre
record of our normal socials and things like that. Just
say that tonight, which you won't hear this tonight, but
I'm on Soup d Joor on Rams Fans YouTube channel
that will be nine o'clock Saturday, July eighteenth, if you
happen to be looking for that show so you can
see it or of course hear it. And you'll also
be on Wrestling Super Frindos in audio form. And my
guest this week for Garden Thought, which is Sunday the
nineteenth at one o'clock or thereabout. The guest will be
Alex Coquitoqia from the podcast for the Unappreciated Wrestling Fan.
And they also are kind enough to do the Evolve
Effect podcast for us on the Wrestling super and Frindos.
He also does weak and Reactions. So he's going to
talk about is reality an illusion? But before we do
into that, I'm going I Am going to surprise him
by asking about just to give us some current events,
what's going on in Puerto Rico, like that we need
to know about or should know about here. But looking
forward to that and trying to expand things with the family.
Had rams Fan on Garden and Thought Reason recently the
Minority Report guys have all been on. So yeah, I'm
trying to mix in some friends along with you know,
my scholars and stuff. So you know, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. So if you want to know where to
find us, we're actually going to put everything in the
description now, so it's going to be easier for you
to find us. So just look at the description to
find us on x on Instagram, on YouTube and all
these good freaking places. Of course, follow the Wrestling Suit,
subscribe to the Wrestling Soup YouTube and Patreon, and we
will see you suit for episode twelve. I am Lofisto
and he is the wonderful Jeff Flippman. We will see
you well, see you here you You will hear us
again for episode twelve on Boye Them Friday but Amin
Steve Bite them Friday, but Amin Steve very soon. Thank
you for listening.
Speaker 2: My friends stay Oh my friend