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Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: PW Torch and Speaker bring you the Wade Keller Pro
Speaker 1: Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago.
Speaker 1: This week on the flagship, Jason Powell from Progrestling dot
Speaker 1: Net joined me and we talked about John Cenas comeback promo,
Speaker 1: the Nikky Breeze segments, pros and cons, evaluating the progress
Speaker 1: of Roman Reigns, the future of TNA, our weekly Global
Speaker 1: Force Wrestling Update that was Jeff Jarrett's startup group that
Speaker 1: amounted to a website with faces of free agents added
Speaker 1: on a semi regular basis. We also want to mix
Speaker 1: of calls and emails as usual on the show. This
Speaker 1: originally live streamed on August twenty six, twenty fourteen, and
Speaker 1: it is today's Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast ten years ago.
Speaker 1: Flakes flashback for Wednesday, August twenty eighth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: This is the PW Torch live cast. It is Tuesday,
Speaker 3: August twenty sixth, twenty fourteen. I'm Wade Keller, editor and
Speaker 3: publisher of the Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter going on twenty
Speaker 3: seven years. I started the newsletter back in nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: seven and it's evolved from there into website, phone apps, podcasts,
Speaker 3: audio shows, and we are here five days a week
Speaker 3: fourth the PW Torch Live Cast, and we've been on
Speaker 3: the air almost five years and we appreciate you joining
Speaker 3: us today. I host on Tuesdays and Fridays most weeks.
Speaker 3: This week I'll be hosting on Thursday instead of Friday.
Speaker 3: My guest will be Mick carsh, former AWA announcer, longtime
Speaker 3: indie wresting announcer, and he'll be on to talk about
Speaker 3: Paul hayman early years. Paul Hayman's spent some of his
Speaker 3: early years in the business in the late a he's
Speaker 3: in the AWA, mccarsh was around him. Then we'll talk
Speaker 3: about Paul and how far Paul has come and just
Speaker 3: the amazing interviews he has produced lately, and that will
Speaker 3: Kaian nicey with people learning a lot about Paul with
Speaker 3: that DVD that came out this month. And also McK
Speaker 3: carsh was at a big indie show on Saturday night
Speaker 3: just outside of d Luth, Minnesota, with a lot of
Speaker 3: big names on the show, we'll talk about that and
Speaker 3: just the evolution of and the changes in the indie
Speaker 3: wrestling scene over the years as Mick has experienced it.
Speaker 3: He also follows the current wrestling scene and has strong
Speaker 3: opinions on what goes on in wrestling. He's been following
Speaker 3: wrestling for decades and decades used to run the Nick
Speaker 3: Bockwinkle Fan Club. Nick Bockwinkle because of the AWA kind
Speaker 3: of fading out of common history references because WWWWF history
Speaker 3: kind of dominates, doesn't get the acclaim he deserves. One
Speaker 3: of the best workers of all time. Mick was also
Speaker 3: a former Torch columnist, So that'd be a good show
Speaker 3: on Thursday. I hope you can join us live at
Speaker 3: five point thirty Eastern tomorrow. Just get a couple plugs
Speaker 3: out of the way right away. Tomorrow Pat McNeil will
Speaker 3: be hosting the Live care and his guest will be
Speaker 3: Kamala the Ugandan Giants. So join Pat for that. That
Speaker 3: should be fun. And if you did not hear it
Speaker 3: last Friday, Stone called Steve Austin was back on the show.
Speaker 3: Over two hours with Steve Austin. I was on with
Speaker 3: him one on one doing a long, pretty long form
Speaker 3: interview talking about today's wrestling scene and getting his thoughts
Speaker 3: on how wrestling main event wrestlers today are different than
Speaker 3: main event wrestlers in his day, and his opinions on
Speaker 3: Roman reigns and seth rollins and many other things going
Speaker 3: on at WWE, and also so candid in depth outs
Speaker 3: on his possible return. I got a ton of plugs
Speaker 3: out of the way at the beginning and set the
Speaker 3: stage Kamala tomorrow too. Remember that send in your questions
Speaker 3: for Kamala and Pat McNeil for tomorrow's show. PW Torchlive
Speaker 3: Cast at gmail dot com. That is p W Torchlive
Speaker 3: Cast at gmail dot com. You can also send in
Speaker 3: right now if you're listening to us live topics you
Speaker 3: want to discuss on today's show. So now shifting to
Speaker 3: today's show, Jason Powell from prog Wrestling dot Net joins me. Jason,
Speaker 3: Welcome to the show. Hey, good to be here, Wade,
Speaker 3: excellent to have you. I'm sure a little bit later
Speaker 3: we'll talk about the Kevin Love trade that became official
Speaker 3: over the weekend and has been a subject on my
Speaker 3: Twitter feed at the Wade Keller this afternoon as press
Speaker 3: conferences were held. Jason, your casual Wolves fan. I know
Speaker 3: you talked about it on your Q and A for
Speaker 3: dot net members, but you called me the most optimistic
Speaker 3: Kimberes fan ever and I should have a jersey, a
Speaker 3: number retired or something like that. What as a casual
Speaker 3: observer the Wolves? Real quick? What is your thought on
Speaker 3: the I love trade? And maybe we'll get more into
Speaker 3: it later on.
Speaker 4: Sure i'man knowing nothing about these guys because I'm just
Speaker 4: not a basketball guy as far as like the younger
Speaker 4: talent is concerned. It just it sounds like the like
Speaker 4: Flip Saunders the Wolves GM and coach, and I don't
Speaker 4: have whatever else other positions.
Speaker 3: Heis everything.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he played his cards right, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean? Because there was so much pressure to make
Speaker 4: the deal on Draft Day and there just wasn't a
Speaker 4: good deal on the table. And then obviously everything kind
Speaker 4: of fell into place when Lebron went back to Cleveland
Speaker 4: and they wanted to become an instant contender and so
Speaker 4: that opened the door. And it looks like he's I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, if things go great, this is gonna be
Speaker 4: remembered as a gem of a move. And even if
Speaker 4: things go poorly, I still think he made the best
Speaker 4: move he could possibly make for this team right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think any Wills fan would have imagined something.
Speaker 3: I don't. Actually, I think the two happiest basketball cities
Speaker 3: right now should be Minnesota or Minneapolis and Cleveland, because
Speaker 3: I mean, you couldn't think of a better case scenario
Speaker 3: for Cleveland to get Vin Love, a perfect compliment to
Speaker 3: Kyrie Irving and Lebron James, and then Minnesota getting what
Speaker 3: they got instead of just being burned a year from
Speaker 3: now when Love left for nothing or you know, a
Speaker 3: Lane trade, which often happens when a superstar force is
Speaker 3: a trade. This could set the Woz over the future.
Speaker 3: So it's fun anyway, had some fun with that. Press
Speaker 3: conference has just ended an hour or two ago, so
Speaker 3: it's fresh on my mind and fresh on the Twitter feed.
Speaker 3: I think Love and anybody who's a Cleveland fan or
Speaker 3: a Lebron fan who doesn't isn't excited about Love being
Speaker 3: traded there hasn't watched much Kevin Love because he's gonna
Speaker 3: be They're gonna win some titles. He's an amazing and
Speaker 3: cool player. All right, Let's shift the wrestling here and
Speaker 3: talk some content from Raw last night. The top item,
Speaker 3: Jason is John Cena speaking for the first time on
Speaker 3: TV since the brock lesnar defeat, the crushing defeat. Your
Speaker 3: thoughts on the job that John Cena did in selling
Speaker 3: the rematch and responding to what happened at Summer Slide.
Speaker 4: Yikes, do we go back to talking about the Wolves?
Speaker 3: Oh, there's a reason I did so much at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the show because I didn't exactly have things
Speaker 3: I was excited to talk about as usual in terms
Speaker 3: of positives.
Speaker 4: This week, Yeah, it was just kind of everything's back
Speaker 4: to normal with John Cena already. I mean, you don't
Speaker 4: even It's like they give him the big beat down
Speaker 4: and then they erase it, you know, eight days later.
Speaker 4: We didn't get to see him struggling on last week's
Speaker 4: Rat thought it was a good move that he was
Speaker 4: off that show, and I thought he still should have
Speaker 4: been selling a little bit here, and instead he comes
Speaker 4: out and he's just more dominant than he's ever been.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know they have a pay per view
Speaker 4: to sell quickly, and I get that, and you have
Speaker 4: to do something to make people who saw the SummerSlam
Speaker 4: match think there's a reason John Scene is going to win.
Speaker 4: But give me a week, you know, give me a
Speaker 4: week of John Cena doubting himself a little bit something. Instead,
Speaker 4: they just everything's back to normal and super Scene is
Speaker 4: back better than ever.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, absolutely, And I mean I could have I
Speaker 3: expect I was sort of like the Nicky Brie segment.
Speaker 3: I thought it could have been. I expected it to be.
Speaker 3: I shouldn't say I expected was seen it to be worse.
Speaker 3: It could have been worse. Nicki and Brie expected it
Speaker 3: to be worse, and it turned out better than I thought.
Speaker 3: The Scena thing, I talked all week on Keller Hotline
Speaker 3: for VIP members and various formats. I was really excited
Speaker 3: to see what Sena would do. I thought this was
Speaker 3: a unique circumstance for him to take a beating like that,
Speaker 3: a guy who normally doesn't take that kind of a beating,
Speaker 3: to come out and do a different type of promo.
Speaker 3: And I think they just skipped the whole chapter. And
Speaker 3: I think that's what you're getting at, Jason. I'm fine
Speaker 3: with Sena giving himself a pep talk and saying, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I've got a strategy I know, I think
Speaker 3: I know what I did wrong. Lesler's gonna go win
Speaker 3: over confidence. I'm going to take advantage of that, like
Speaker 3: really give us some subst but do that in a
Speaker 3: week or two right before the pay per view. This
Speaker 3: I think was a week for him to almost seem
Speaker 3: like he was in a funk, like he was in
Speaker 3: a daze, like he was that it really affected him
Speaker 3: greatly mentally, that he lost the way that he did
Speaker 3: and sell that match. I do think there's that disappointment,
Speaker 3: I guess among people who look for Sena to just
Speaker 3: be Supersiena, that he was Superscena again. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: standing on the ring apron and that six man take
Speaker 3: in the main event, and there's absolutely no sense as
Speaker 3: he's riling up the crowd and cheering him on and
Speaker 3: reaching for a hot tag. There's just no sense. Jason,
Speaker 3: he took a beating of a lifetime that properly sold
Speaker 3: should have. I mean, if I had my pick, would
Speaker 3: have led to him skipping Night of Champions and not
Speaker 3: even being in the ring for you know, a month
Speaker 3: or six weeks and really selling it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm not even crazy about them going right
Speaker 4: back to this match. I just know there's just no
Speaker 4: reason to I think this is if things don't work
Speaker 4: out with Roman Reigns for whatever reason, that's a match
Speaker 4: you consider going back to a Mania. That's a match
Speaker 4: you consider going back to it next year SummerSlam if
Speaker 4: you still have access to brock Lesner, and I assume
Speaker 4: they will. But yet last night, it's just why, why
Speaker 4: do they always have to position him so strong? I
Speaker 4: just think that's part of the reason he stalled out.
Speaker 4: And it's not like he's in a horrible position and
Speaker 4: everyone hates him. He obviously has a big fan base
Speaker 4: and he sells a lot of merchandise. But I just
Speaker 4: think even his even like his fans, would like to
Speaker 4: see some more ups and downs, even if they're not
Speaker 4: consciously thinking of it. It just makes the character so
Speaker 4: much more compelling when it's not just the same thing
Speaker 4: week in and week out. And we just took a
Speaker 4: break for one week and we're right back to the
Speaker 4: same thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was disappointed of that real quol. We'll
Speaker 3: talk more about that as show goes on. I'm sure
Speaker 3: Brion Nicky one of the other big segments of the show,
Speaker 3: were you with me that this was better than you
Speaker 3: feared or anticipated.
Speaker 4: One half of it was I thought Nicky was really good.
Speaker 4: I was pleasantly surprised by her performance because the only thing,
Speaker 4: only a bit, what she's shown is to pout. I mean, yes,
Speaker 4: in any situation, she pouts, and it's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 4: So last night it kind of felt like a little
Speaker 4: bit of Steph light maybe, but I'll take that because,
Speaker 4: I mean, if you're going to emulate someone, Stephanie is
Speaker 4: a pretty good person too, right now, if you're a diva.
Speaker 4: So I thought she she did really well. On the
Speaker 4: flip side, oh man, Brie Vella is a terrible actress.
Speaker 4: We're talking like bad porn level acting here.
Speaker 3: She's terrible, she is, and and they just shouldn't ask
Speaker 3: people to do things they can't do. Big Show can
Speaker 3: cry on Q, Rick Flair can cry on Q, but
Speaker 3: you know Bree can't. I mean, it just it's just
Speaker 3: not in it's not on her skill set, and they
Speaker 3: shouldn't be putting her in that position. I didn't love
Speaker 3: the segment by any means. It's just I was expecting
Speaker 3: it to be just awful. I mean, just really a disaster,
Speaker 3: and only Brie was was close to awful, arguably awful.
Speaker 3: Nikki was a pleasant surprise, and the interplay was good.
Speaker 3: During a lot of it, I really did not like
Speaker 3: and I thought I'd actually just showed a complete lack
Speaker 3: of like maturity and discipline on the part of the
Speaker 3: writing team. Assuming it wasn't improvised when Nikki said I
Speaker 3: wish you died in the womb, it doesn't that that
Speaker 3: line just didn't need to be there. For one, it's
Speaker 3: going too far, just takes people to a whole place
Speaker 3: that you don't watch wrestling for, you know, thinking of
Speaker 3: babies dying in the womb is just come on, really,
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's part of selling a match. But
Speaker 3: for one sister to say it to another, what it
Speaker 3: did is it took a believable sibling conflict with Breeze
Speaker 3: at bad acting aside. And you know, because siblings fight,
Speaker 3: but grown up siblings in their twenties and beyond don't
Speaker 3: say I wish you died in the womb in the
Speaker 3: heat of a moment. You don't need to go there.
Speaker 3: It's like Scott Hall told me on a torch truck
Speaker 3: that I did with him back.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: However, many years ago. It was like seven eight hours
Speaker 3: of a marathon session with Scott Hall back about seven
Speaker 3: eight years ago, and he was one of the things
Speaker 3: that I stood out the most from that interview is
Speaker 3: how much he hates when wrestlers say I'm going to
Speaker 3: kill you, because nobody watching really believes the wrestlers going
Speaker 3: to kill somebody, and so when you take it out
Speaker 3: of the realm of possibility, you break that suspension to
Speaker 3: disbelief and take people out of the moment. That just
Speaker 3: I didn't like that at all, Json, I just don't.
Speaker 3: It just felt like a step too far, And I
Speaker 3: thought Nicky was good enough, she didn't need to go there.
Speaker 4: No, I don't know if Yeah, if that was scripted,
Speaker 4: I can't believe that made it through the process. If
Speaker 4: it was her just kind of going off script, then
Speaker 4: I hope they sat her down afterward and had a
Speaker 4: talk with her about that line. That was really bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You can support us on Patreon and get these shows
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Speaker 3: All right, Well, let's go to the phone lines here,
Speaker 3: and we got some people on the VIP Express line
Speaker 3: on hold. Our phone number is six four six seven
Speaker 3: to one nine A two eight. This is the PW
Speaker 3: Torch Live Cast. I am Wade Keller, editor and founder
Speaker 3: of Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter and PW torch dot Com,
Speaker 3: joined by Jason Powell of Pro Wrestling dot Net. Well,
Speaker 3: go to our first call. We'll go to VIP member Scott,
Speaker 3: and following him will be John and Matt. Let's click
Speaker 3: on the switchboard here to Scott. Welcome to the show. Uh,
Speaker 3: let's know what city you're calling from and what you
Speaker 3: want to talk about today.
Speaker 2: Hey wait, hey, Jason, it's Scott from James Berg, New Jersey.
Speaker 2: VIP member. How are you today?
Speaker 3: Doing great? Thanks for thanks for being a VIP member
Speaker 3: first and foremost, and for calling today.
Speaker 2: Of course, guys i've called in the past. When first,
Speaker 2: before I get going, Jason, I want to say it's
Speaker 2: pretty cool hearing you on the ten year audio flashbacks
Speaker 2: with the VIPA. It's been interesting hearing your some world
Speaker 2: reports and stuff be interesting and pretty cool.
Speaker 4: One of these days I have to actually go back
Speaker 4: and listen to that. I cringe when I see them
Speaker 4: because I'm always afraid of what I said. I still
Speaker 4: haven't been able to bring myself to push play, but
Speaker 4: one of these days I will.
Speaker 3: But thank you well you you and Steve Austin alike.
Speaker 3: He's like I did ever go back and listen to
Speaker 3: my own podcasts. Although Jason, you were ten years ago
Speaker 3: you were ripping on John Cena for a poopy joke
Speaker 3: that we had completely forgotten all of us. I think
Speaker 3: I had completely forgotten about so that you got that
Speaker 3: on your going for you another one there was There
Speaker 3: was actually at least a second time he did introduce
Speaker 3: the word poopy and it was just it was a
Speaker 3: review of SmackDown. It was just awful. This is for
Speaker 3: those who don't know. When Jason was working for the Torch,
Speaker 3: he did audio shows back in the day and we
Speaker 3: put up via vintage VIP audio shows from ten years
Speaker 3: ago throughout the week, and some of Jason's reviews are there,
Speaker 3: and yeah, yeah you were. You were all over John
Speaker 3: Cena for poopy Just like, why would he say that word?
Speaker 3: This is so lame, it's it's going to hurt his growth.
Speaker 3: It's been a broken record with him for ten years since.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: I know, Well, go ahead, Scott, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, one of the comment and then I have a question.
Speaker 2: First is my comment. Guys, I've called before and talked
Speaker 2: about the network with some of the struggles, and we
Speaker 2: talked about the ideas and Wade Jason. I'm not I
Speaker 2: want to get my hopes up. I don't want to
Speaker 2: get my hopes up, but I really feel hopefully it
Speaker 2: looks like they're starting to do some interesting things. I
Speaker 2: enjoyed the Shield the Shield documentary last week on the
Speaker 2: network and the Monday Night wars War thing on Friday night.
Speaker 2: And I liked the idea of the nitros, like you
Speaker 2: were talking about Waite on the hotline this morning, the
Speaker 2: nitros one hundred hours of Nitro coming next week, and
Speaker 2: with the Attitude hour week, it looks like, hopefully from
Speaker 2: the fall, they're trying to make some good moves, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to hear what you guys thought about that first.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff there out in Jason. I
Speaker 3: think they maybe they've been saving it up for the
Speaker 3: renewal time, you know, when a lot of the six
Speaker 3: month deals were coming up. We got Nitro coming back.
Speaker 3: We just got an email today from WWE touting the
Speaker 3: Monday Night War series they're pushing. But it'll be airing
Speaker 3: the Monday Net wore tonight, by the way, at nine
Speaker 3: to eighth Central, and it's a twenty episode original series
Speaker 3: documenting the epic television ratings battle. That's going to be fun. Jason,
Speaker 3: you were talking over the weekend about the on dot net.
Speaker 3: I guess it was ondott net weekly about the Shield
Speaker 3: documentary on the network. I mean, they really have been
Speaker 3: adding some content, and I think, you know, just in time.
Speaker 3: It's almost like they almost intentionally kind of went soft
Speaker 3: in the summer to kind of save it up for
Speaker 3: late Aufust early September.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, the strategy makes sense. I still there's
Speaker 4: not nearly enough now, but at least they're starting to
Speaker 4: add some of the things that in some cases people
Speaker 4: would convince themselves. They were promised like those old nitros,
Speaker 4: and I mean it was always thrown out there that
Speaker 4: it was going to be eventually those would be part
Speaker 4: of it. But I think some people just kind of
Speaker 4: convince themselves every raw and every Nitro was going to
Speaker 4: be there as soon as the thing launched. But they
Speaker 4: took a different approach, and yeah, it looks like they're
Speaker 4: starting to do a little bit more with it. I
Speaker 4: just hope that it's going to be a little more
Speaker 4: staggered now with different launch points, with the Europe still
Speaker 4: coming on board, because I don't want to feel like, Okay,
Speaker 4: nothing is going to happen for six months and then
Speaker 4: all of a sudden they'll drop new stuff on it.
Speaker 4: So at least this way, with Europe coming in a
Speaker 4: little I guess the United Kingdom coming in a little
Speaker 4: bit late, that should help with that a little bit,
Speaker 4: I would think, because they're going to still want to
Speaker 4: make a push to try to keep those subscribers as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm excited about the content they're adding and instead
Speaker 3: of thinking, well, you know, what should I watch from
Speaker 3: the archives kind of randomly, there's now more content there
Speaker 3: when I turn it on that I'm like, hey, this
Speaker 3: is new, this is worth watching and talking about and
Speaker 3: reviewing on the torch. So that's a positive. And I
Speaker 3: mean the nine nine nine thing to Jason, they cut
Speaker 3: back on that. I wish they had in because you know,
Speaker 3: my whole three through three VIP special strategies built around
Speaker 3: playing off the obnoxiousness of nine nine nine. But if
Speaker 3: they're not really obnoxious, then how can I be obnoxious? Ironically?
Speaker 3: Then I'm just going to be obnoxious without the irony
Speaker 3: And that's well.
Speaker 4: You could have T shirts made and give them the
Speaker 4: people in the front row that it looks like they did.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is true. Yes, it's amazing. They're selling nine
Speaker 3: ninety nine T shirts. So I'd like to know if
Speaker 3: anybody do.
Speaker 4: You think there are they actually do we know they're
Speaker 4: selling them? I mean, are people actually buying these or
Speaker 4: is just just hey, where are this? You're gonna be
Speaker 4: on camera?
Speaker 3: You know what? I'm not sure. Let's see WWE shop zone.
Speaker 4: They sell everything else. I guess it wouldn't shock me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's let's see if there's a nine nine
Speaker 3: nine T shirt featured right up front. Okay, at least
Speaker 3: it's not on the.
Speaker 4: Front page ninety nine, I'm guessing is how it's gonna go.
Speaker 3: Yep. Okay, so we got authentic T shirts. Let's go
Speaker 3: to the authentic T shirts category. Ooh, bad news is
Speaker 3: the first one. I guess they do this alphabetically. I
Speaker 3: don't look at this page very often. Sammy Zan T
Speaker 3: shirt is right there stealing the show no sign of
Speaker 3: nine nine to nine As I scroll down though, Op,
Speaker 3: we got three pages of T shirts. Well, I'll keep
Speaker 3: scrolling through and see believe Yeah, Hulk rules.
Speaker 4: Are you gonna do live commentary on all three pages?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I am, because I'm awesome. I'm almost done here.
Speaker 3: I'm there's Danny Bryant, Ultimate Warrior, Goldust and Kobe Rhads,
Speaker 3: Oh my god. And yes, yes that's No. Nine nine nine.
Speaker 3: So they're not for sale on shops owned as best
Speaker 3: I can tell right now. So that was that. By
Speaker 3: the way, that was what everybody got at Glens Into
Speaker 3: is live investigative reporting right there, live vestcative reporting. I
Speaker 3: was spout here a lot. That's why we are the
Speaker 3: live cast but not the pre tape cast, because he
Speaker 3: just right that live experience anyway, I you know, that's
Speaker 3: just derailed everything. I don't even know we're talking about
Speaker 3: oh yeah, nine nine nine, And then Networked they were
Speaker 3: less obnoxious about pushing nine nine nine. It's kind of
Speaker 3: become JBL's thing other than yeah, the merchandise and signs
Speaker 3: in the crowd.
Speaker 4: Do they want us to forget about the net Well,
Speaker 4: I mean, I guess not completely. For gigs, they're pushing
Speaker 4: all the new content, but I don't know if they
Speaker 4: want to push nine to ninety nine right now, because
Speaker 4: I know we've been looking at it, like, you know,
Speaker 4: August twenty fourth was kind of D day, but I
Speaker 4: looked at my account just to make sure it was
Speaker 4: going to roll over, and for me, it's September third,
Speaker 4: and I signed up on day one and I did
Speaker 4: I must have taken the free preview, but somehow they
Speaker 4: I think they added a little bit of time to
Speaker 4: it on top of that. Yeah, I don't know if
Speaker 4: they just figured, well, we gave some people five free days,
Speaker 4: so we're gonna give everybody five free days, because you know,
Speaker 4: there's obnoxious people out there who are like.
Speaker 3: Wait a second, somebody else got five three days. I
Speaker 3: want five three days. So I shouldn't call them anox.
Speaker 3: It's just you know, frugal people who want to be
Speaker 3: treated fairly all right anyway, take a pick, Yeah, whiners,
Speaker 3: you know, And in a way it's D Day, But
Speaker 3: I mean, ww ME never gave the impression that the
Speaker 3: big sign up day was a first day they won
Speaker 3: on sale. I think I think the big sign up
Speaker 3: day was probably five days before Mania and three days
Speaker 3: after Mania, and so I think we're probably at a
Speaker 3: position where we're gonna be looking at six weeks of
Speaker 3: D days because there's gonna there was a stretch of
Speaker 3: time where the first six hundred fifty some thousand subscribers
Speaker 3: were over a six week period, and I think they
Speaker 3: were pretty spread out. So the D Day for them
Speaker 3: is more like a D six weeks. It doesn't have
Speaker 3: quite the ring to it. But yeah, I mean the
Speaker 3: Nitral thing I think is big, and I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people are going to really enjoy reliving Nitro
Speaker 3: and the Moday Night Wars series is a good companionship
Speaker 3: and adding some more raw attitude eras shows to it
Speaker 3: is good. You know, this would be a good time
Speaker 3: to maybe call it Steve Boston and see if he can,
Speaker 3: you know, hype the network a little bit for you.
Speaker 3: But he's busy with a lot of other things, and
Speaker 3: you can find out what those things are by listening
Speaker 3: to my interview is Steve Boston for over two hours
Speaker 3: on Friday's webcast on the People with You Torch live
Speaker 3: cast feed. All right, let's go back to Scott s
Speaker 3: if he has anything else you wants to add. Scott
Speaker 3: anything else?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, guys, then thanks very much. And I'm gonna
Speaker 2: ask you, guys, while I have the two of you
Speaker 2: listening to the ten years ago audio, this question. I've
Speaker 2: always WANDEREDWSFL at the time. I always thought that they
Speaker 2: pushed the turn of Randy Orton ten years ago with Evolution,
Speaker 2: and I want to know, was there any reason why
Speaker 2: they did that whole thing? They gave him a one
Speaker 2: month title reign and then that was it with that annual,
Speaker 2: because I remember when the demise of Evolution, like I remember,
Speaker 2: I thought that Orton was at least like looking back
Speaker 2: at some of the old newsletters, lad, yeah, you could
Speaker 2: see that the original plan was to hold out to
Speaker 2: do Orton versus Triple eighth ch at WrestleMania twenty one,
Speaker 2: and I always wondered why they, you know, rushed to
Speaker 2: it and I know Batista got, you know, looking now
Speaker 2: looking like a comparison to twenty fourteen, you would hope
Speaker 2: that Roman reigns can organically get the kind of crowd
Speaker 2: response that Batista got, that that you know Rode from
Speaker 2: Survivor series till about you know till WrestleMania where he
Speaker 2: wanted the belt from helmstuff from Triple H. But you know,
Speaker 2: why did they do it the way they did and
Speaker 2: why was Orton only getting that one month rain. I
Speaker 2: will be listening to your response, guys. I enjoy all
Speaker 2: your works. Thank you for everything. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 2: And wait, I'm really looking forward to Nick Carr.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Scott. Sorry about that. I I prematurely cut
Speaker 3: you off what he was saying, I'm looking forward to mccarr. So, Scott,
Speaker 3: thank you for v if you membership again. And ten
Speaker 3: year old question, Jason Randy aren't ten years ago. I
Speaker 3: think they kind of rushed to give Hi the belt
Speaker 3: because they were a mattat rock Lesner and they wanted
Speaker 3: Randy to be a younger champion than Brock. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure they held the exact same version of the world title,
Speaker 3: but still Randy gets the claim of being the youngest
Speaker 3: world champion ever, and I know my thought at the
Speaker 3: time was this seems a little premature. We're all high
Speaker 3: on Randy in a lot of ways, but giving him
Speaker 3: the world title at times felt like they just did
Speaker 3: it just despite lesnar So Lesnard didn't hold that record anymore,
Speaker 3: but they weren't necessarily long term committed to him. And
Speaker 3: then Randy has had issues all along with being having
Speaker 3: issues with authority going back. I don't know all the
Speaker 3: details of his military situation, but he's got a rep
Speaker 3: for kind of having issues with authority. Sometimes it's good
Speaker 3: because he's outspoken in a way that I think the
Speaker 3: wrestling industry needs more of. Booker T and I talked
Speaker 3: about that on the Live cast a month or so
Speaker 3: back when he was a guest, how Booker was kind
Speaker 3: of the guy who would always peak up in the
Speaker 3: locker room and people would look to him when there
Speaker 3: was a controversial issue and see what he was going
Speaker 3: to say to kind of shake things up. And I
Speaker 3: hear through the grape vine a lot that Randy expresses
Speaker 3: himself to at least a certain inner circle of people,
Speaker 3: his frustrations with how things go sometimes. And then there's
Speaker 3: maturity issues, especially ten years ago with Randy and uttering
Speaker 3: stuff that upset management, that caused him to lose faith
Speaker 3: that he would be the model citizen and a model
Speaker 3: employed that John Cena began to emerge as being So
Speaker 3: I don't have a specific memory, Jason. Do you of
Speaker 3: that timeline though, and that exact situation with Orton?
Speaker 4: I don't recall, if memory serves, I think it was.
Speaker 4: It did feel it felt premature to put the title
Speaker 4: on Orton and premature to take the title off Orton.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of people were looking at
Speaker 4: as well. Triple H got it right. It was at
Speaker 4: one of the deals where everyone was kind of pointing
Speaker 4: fingers at Triple H and him dominating everything at that time.
Speaker 3: The timeline is right, sure, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And I mean if that's I don't know if it
Speaker 4: was something behind the scene, I don't believe there was.
Speaker 4: I think they just thought they could they could break
Speaker 4: Orton away and he'd be this hot baby face and
Speaker 4: Chase Mote or something. But it really other. Everyone remembers
Speaker 4: the thumbs down when Batista h when when Evolution turned
Speaker 4: on him. But aside from that, I mean, I it
Speaker 4: must not have gone well because I have a very
Speaker 4: faint recollection of all of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I think in a general sense, I
Speaker 3: think we kind of covered the you know, the politics
Speaker 3: and the disappointments at times with Orton that made them
Speaker 3: a little hesitant to just go all the way right
Speaker 3: with them on top.
Speaker 5: Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me
Speaker 5: Jason Powell host him the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast.
Speaker 5: Each week, he'll hear the latest news and analysis for
Speaker 5: me and my team at pro wrestling dot Net along
Speaker 5: with other pro wrestling media members. Plus, the Pro Wrestling
Speaker 5: Boom Podcast features long form interviews with notable names in
Speaker 5: the pro wrestling industry. Subscribe an iTunes, Stitcher, Downcast, and
Speaker 5: all your favorite secondary apps, or visit us directly at
Speaker 5: PW boom dot com. Once again, that's PW boom dot com.
Speaker 3: All right, let's let's keep her on the calls here
Speaker 3: the BP Express line in particular, and we'll go next
Speaker 3: to VIP member John and Erico three three six, John Knock,
Speaker 3: Let's know what city you're calling from and what you
Speaker 3: want to talk about today.
Speaker 6: Hey Wade, Hey Jason, this is John Collin from Greensboro,
Speaker 6: North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Hey, John, have you bumped into Bruce Mitchell at all recently?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I work at UNC Greensboro and I
Speaker 6: have seen him walking around campus here and there, but
Speaker 6: I haven't bumped into him in person for a while.
Speaker 3: So yeah, one day he takes his walkst.
Speaker 6: Got a couple of quick comments and then a question
Speaker 6: for you both. I wanted to give the let you
Speaker 6: guys know the reason why I am not subscribing to
Speaker 6: the ww network, and I thought, I don't know if
Speaker 6: others feel the same way, but you've talked a little
Speaker 6: bit in the past about the lack of programming and
Speaker 6: the original programming that I want to watch. It's more
Speaker 6: a vintage wrestling that I'm interested in seeing, and I
Speaker 6: would definitely be in favor of subscribing if they had,
Speaker 6: perhaps like a show that would feature a certain feud
Speaker 6: from different territories where I could catch up and see
Speaker 6: the promos and the matches. Every territory has memorable feuds,
Speaker 6: and some of them I never got to see. I
Speaker 6: never got to watch the AWA, never got to watch
Speaker 6: Mid South, and those are things that I would love
Speaker 6: to see if they had a program, But they don't
Speaker 6: really monetize or show us those old territory tapes yet
Speaker 6: and when they do, then perhaps I'll become a customer.
Speaker 6: But that's one thing, even as a longtime wrestling fan,
Speaker 6: that's what I want to see and they're not showing it,
Speaker 6: so I'm not going to be, as of yet a subscriber.
Speaker 6: So I just thought that was a point where they
Speaker 6: haven't heard me in the live past before.
Speaker 3: No, I think it's great that you say that. I
Speaker 3: hope it's heard, because you know, there's that there's the
Speaker 3: subscribers who are going to join up because they want
Speaker 3: the pay per views and WWE, and they're technologically savvy
Speaker 3: and ready to take on the latest technology, and that's
Speaker 3: the the big chunk of subscribers are going to get
Speaker 3: up front. But there's this long tail, you know, they
Speaker 3: call it the long tail in marketing and that kind
Speaker 3: of thing where there's a people who are not part
Speaker 3: of that initial group, but they need a lot of
Speaker 3: little things to get them excited about the product. And
Speaker 3: so there's gonna be like this long there's gonna be
Speaker 3: a lot of niches basically, and you're one of the
Speaker 3: niche people WWE. It seems Jason will throw to you
Speaker 3: on this it seems like they've not disregarded the niche people,
Speaker 3: but they haven't worked, I think, as hard as it's
Speaker 3: called for in order to make the niche people feel
Speaker 3: like what they want is a priority for WWE. It's
Speaker 3: like WWE wants the first eighty percent and they don't
Speaker 3: want to work particularly hard to get the other group.
Speaker 3: And maybe they think because they've maybe they think they've
Speaker 3: gotten ninety nine percent already, Jason, and it's not worth
Speaker 3: the effort. But I think maybe the long tail represents
Speaker 3: it's another forty percent of growth, But it doesn't come
Speaker 3: just as easy as flip in a switch and saying,
Speaker 3: watch our new pay per views.
Speaker 4: Right, I don't know what the hold up is and
Speaker 4: putting up some of the archive content other than you know,
Speaker 4: certain things like nitro raw. If it really was the
Speaker 4: strategy to wait until you know, the six month period,
Speaker 4: that that makes sense. But some of the older stuff,
Speaker 4: you know, they're not going to like have some big
Speaker 4: promotional package wrapped around all the AWA content now available.
Speaker 4: They'll just be kind of mentioned in passing along with
Speaker 4: something else they're doing that's going to that's going to
Speaker 4: appeal to a bigger audience. So why not get that
Speaker 4: material out there if if you're hoping for them to
Speaker 4: put kind of a modern spin on things, take a
Speaker 4: WrestleMania rewind approach to something from an old territory that
Speaker 4: that might be wishful thinking. I mean, I would enjoy
Speaker 4: it too, but I think there's probably a smaller audience.
Speaker 4: I mean, maybe you can reach out to some fans
Speaker 4: that way and get them to start checking out some
Speaker 4: of the older content. I don't know that they're going
Speaker 4: to see it as as time and money well spent
Speaker 4: to start repackaging some of the I don't like to
Speaker 4: take something from the UWF and turning it turn it
Speaker 4: into like a one hour, one hour piece of content
Speaker 4: with like comments from Jim Ross and Bill Watson, that
Speaker 4: kind of thing. I just don't know that we'll get
Speaker 4: that ever, but at least get that, at least get
Speaker 4: that the old television shows out there. There's no reason,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, for the whole But I don't know
Speaker 4: what they're waiting for.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've heard that it's tougher. It's tougher, more
Speaker 3: expensive and more time consuming than we realized to take
Speaker 3: this old footage and get it ready to air. And
Speaker 3: screen it to make sure that you know that the
Speaker 3: content is acceptable, the quality of the the quality of
Speaker 3: the content is what it needs to be in terms
Speaker 3: of picture quality and sound and all that. I if
Speaker 3: people got their hopes stuff that they were going to get,
Speaker 3: you know, a wrap around every episode of Mid South.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, that those expectations are too high, especially
Speaker 3: given the current subscriber levels, but I do think that
Speaker 3: they could have done more, if nothing else, just to
Speaker 3: communicate to people subscribers somehow, some way that there is
Speaker 3: a that there's going to be a method to this
Speaker 3: and that they will be catering to people who do
Speaker 3: want to see that history and are interested in that.
Speaker 3: And I just think they've left people kind of not
Speaker 3: sure when that's going to happen. There's some people want
Speaker 3: something so niche, so specialized that they just have to
Speaker 3: kind of be patient in WWE's deciding they're going to
Speaker 3: go after the bigger audience first and work their way
Speaker 3: to the niche audience. And if that's the case, well
Speaker 3: then it's going to be a slower climb. But eventually
Speaker 3: they're going to get the people who are part of
Speaker 3: that long tail with niche desires eventually they'll get them
Speaker 3: on board, and in a way, it might be good
Speaker 3: news for WWE that there's still people out there like you, John,
Speaker 3: who are waiting and will subscribe because they've got all
Speaker 3: they can handle right now. They feel they're doing things
Speaker 3: in the right order of priority, and it's just going
Speaker 3: to take them a little time to get to the
Speaker 3: long tail content instead of the big stuff that's going
Speaker 3: to get you one hundreds of thousands of people right
Speaker 3: out of the gate.
Speaker 6: Sure, and that would be happy simply with being able
Speaker 6: to watch the shows. Yeah, an order like Hey Camp.
Speaker 6: With Netflix, I can watch a show from season one,
Speaker 6: episode one, or whatever they have rights to and then
Speaker 6: watch them in order. If I could watch AWA in order,
Speaker 6: you're gonna because I got to watch a wa on ESPN,
Speaker 6: So that tells you, you know, I didn't see the
Speaker 6: good stuff, and I'd love to just see them in
Speaker 6: the original package. I don't need to wrap a rounds,
Speaker 6: I don't need a commentary, although that would be fun,
Speaker 6: but just putting him out there would be something that
Speaker 6: I would be interested in and I would maybe spend
Speaker 6: the money at that point. But until then, way do
Speaker 6: you get my money for a VIP members.
Speaker 3: So thank you, John, I appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Hi, You're welcome. I have one other quick comment and
Speaker 6: in a question that I can take off the air,
Speaker 6: but I just wanted to say that at first I
Speaker 6: didn't really care for Bo Dallas and but I watched
Speaker 6: him as many weeks ago now, but he rested I
Speaker 6: think it was Xavier Woods, and he won the match,
Speaker 6: and he got back in the ring and consoled him
Speaker 6: and told him that he was going to be a
Speaker 6: winner someday soon, and that to me was just so
Speaker 6: hilarious and that really, to me told the story of
Speaker 6: the character better than anything he had done so far.
Speaker 6: And since that time, I'm a fan of the Bo
Speaker 6: Dallas characters. So hopefully get continue to get some more airtime.
Speaker 6: But my question is, as you can tell, I'm a
Speaker 6: big fan of the old time territory wrestling what I
Speaker 6: grew up watching, and there are some things that you
Speaker 6: and Jason will often talk about that are missing now
Speaker 6: that maybe could be brought back, and I just wanted
Speaker 6: to bring up for them and see if you could
Speaker 6: only pick one, if you were in charge and you
Speaker 6: could make one happen, what would it be? And the
Speaker 6: things that I wrote down, were you know more use
Speaker 6: of managers, although that's happening a little bit. The after
Speaker 6: match interview oftentimes in the territory shows the person win
Speaker 6: the match, come down, talk to Gordon Soli or Bob
Speaker 6: Kyle or someone. But after the match. In other words,
Speaker 6: winning the match was your key to an interview, which
Speaker 6: I thought was always interesting. Time limits on the matches,
Speaker 6: and also squash matches, and just so you know, my
Speaker 6: pick would be squash matches. But i'll take your answer Offty.
Speaker 6: I appreciate everything you guys do. I love the show.
Speaker 6: Thanks a lot, Thank you very much. John, really appreciate it. Jason,
Speaker 6: I'll let you start managers, postmatch interviews, time limits on
Speaker 6: matches or squash matches.
Speaker 4: I think I know where you're going to go with this,
Speaker 4: and I lean that way as well. But it needs
Speaker 4: with squash matches, it would need to be limited. But
Speaker 4: I think there's certainly room for them. But I'll say
Speaker 4: managers just because so I don't just steal your thunder
Speaker 4: on this one. You know, I mean, Paul Haman's doing
Speaker 4: a great job. Not everyone can be Paul Hamon, but
Speaker 4: still I think there are various examples of wrestlers who
Speaker 4: would benefit from having a mouthpiece, and not just in WWE,
Speaker 4: I mean T and A. Maybe it might just be
Speaker 4: kind of the feeling is that they don't have a
Speaker 4: lot of money to spend and they're not going to
Speaker 4: spend it on mouthpieces right now. But I think they
Speaker 4: would really benefit. I think if they brought in the
Speaker 4: right manager or managers. Ideally, there are guys that really
Speaker 4: struggle on the mic in that company that I think
Speaker 4: would be over so much more if they had someone
Speaker 4: else doing the talking for them. So I'm a big
Speaker 4: believer in managers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know what, I'm god postmatch interviews is
Speaker 3: right there. I know. Prediction is I'm going to say
Speaker 3: squash matches because I think they're a real valuable tool.
Speaker 3: For reasons I've explained. It goes against kind of conventionalism.
Speaker 3: Who's gonna watch the squash match this era? And I've
Speaker 3: explained that many many times, so I won't now, but
Speaker 3: I strongly believe they're good. There's something that could be reintroduced,
Speaker 3: and I think people would actually enjoy them. I think
Speaker 3: if if WWE Network were to put Superstars back on
Speaker 3: the air, the nineteen eighty Superstars show or the AWA
Speaker 3: shows back when it was just squash match interview squash
Speaker 3: match interview. I think people who never really experienced it
Speaker 3: in a way that in a setting where it was
Speaker 3: really well featured would gain an appreciation for it, you know,
Speaker 3: just having a focus on one guy, his ring entrance,
Speaker 3: his key moves, his finisher, and the jobbers who are
Speaker 3: just these you know, pathetic whimps of people taking these
Speaker 3: great bumps and selling the hell out of these signature spots.
Speaker 3: It's part of the formula that I think makes pro
Speaker 3: wrestling work, which is building anticipation for guys who win
Speaker 3: squash matches finally facing each other. I get the realities
Speaker 3: of the different era we're in, but I think there's
Speaker 3: a way to make it work. But I love postmatch
Speaker 3: interviews and in WWE does it now, and then I
Speaker 3: wish they did it more. I think it's good to
Speaker 3: ask wrestlers to be in character and in the moment
Speaker 3: after they win a match or peck get a reaction
Speaker 3: sometimes after they lose, because I think it challenges them
Speaker 3: to break from script and not be superscripted when they
Speaker 3: talk and just react as if they're not just going
Speaker 3: through the motions of something they were told to do,
Speaker 3: but are kind of believing their own their own act,
Speaker 3: and they feel like what they did really was a
Speaker 3: loss or really was a win. I think a big
Speaker 3: part of what sells wrestling is the thrill of victory
Speaker 3: and the agony of defeat, and sometimes that is missing.
Speaker 3: So all your suggestions are good. I guess time Lewis
Speaker 3: on matches would be my least the fourth on the list.
Speaker 3: But post match interviews, managers and squashes I think would
Speaker 3: all be good things to add back to the mix.
Speaker 3: All right, let's go next here on PW Torch Live
Speaker 3: cast to Matt VIP member Matt, thanks for colin. Let
Speaker 3: us know the city or Collins from today and what
Speaker 3: you want to talk about, Matt, Go ahead, Matt. I
Speaker 3: didn't go to Matt already, did I?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: I don't think so, because it's Scott, Scott and John.
Speaker 3: So all right, let me try one more time here, Matt.
Speaker 3: Are you there?
Speaker 4: I'm on, Matt, put them put the controller down. I
Speaker 4: know it's Madden Day, but talk to us.
Speaker 3: What is Madden Day? I know, but go ahead, Jason.
Speaker 4: It is the release of the annual Madden Football Game
Speaker 4: from EA. Sports, and I personally have to hold out
Speaker 4: because I have my last fantasy draft on Saturday and
Speaker 4: it's my biggest one and if I go get Madden today,
Speaker 4: there's no way I'm going to get any kind of
Speaker 4: studying done for my draft. So Sunday is Madden Day
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 3: All right, very good. By the way, do you have
Speaker 3: a Super Bowl winner? Pick Jason? You want to go
Speaker 3: on record yet?
Speaker 4: Ask me next week. You know what, I've been so
Speaker 4: caught up in fantasy i haven't really thought about real football.
Speaker 3: That is a testament against fantasy football in a way
Speaker 3: that it's you are an NFL fan who has been
Speaker 3: too busy thinking about one aspect of the sport to
Speaker 3: think about what really the sport is all about.
Speaker 4: Yeah it is, But you know what, I think the
Speaker 4: NFL will take that because it's people like me who
Speaker 4: will suffer through like a Browns and Jaguars game if
Speaker 4: there's some fantasy interest, and you're right, non fantasy owners
Speaker 4: will do I'm not watching that nonsense.
Speaker 3: No, No, you're totally right. I'm just giving you a
Speaker 3: hard time, but it is. It is kind of funny
Speaker 3: where the fans have kind of been away taken the
Speaker 3: game and added over the last you know, however, many
Speaker 3: years now, ten fifteen years when it got really really popular,
Speaker 3: they've added this whole other dimension to the game, and
Speaker 3: it doesn't have to replace and enjoying the games. It
Speaker 3: might delay you studying the actual teams instead of the
Speaker 3: fantasy teams, but in the end you're gonna be watching
Speaker 3: more games because of it. So I mean, that's absolutely good.
Speaker 4: Definitely yeah.
Speaker 3: All right, let's let's go ahead and shift Chase into
Speaker 3: your your website and your membership and let people know
Speaker 3: why they should visit your website and why they should
Speaker 3: become members.
Speaker 4: Absolutely on the site right now.
Speaker 1: Thanks for downloading today's show. Take it to the next
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Speaker 3: Excellent. Let's go back to our discussion here on raw
Speaker 3: and phone calls and all that good stuff. Just a
Speaker 3: reminder Kamala tomorrow mickcarsh on Thursday. So keep listening every
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Speaker 3: and a nice review for what we do here. It
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Speaker 3: as a show that we have a lot of listeners
Speaker 3: maybe three four years ago reviewed things at iTunes. But
Speaker 3: it can go when and if you're a newer listener
Speaker 3: or you just never got around to it'd be great
Speaker 3: if you did that. It does. It does actually help
Speaker 3: our exposure and help us grow when when you take
Speaker 3: time to do that. The iTunes formula recognizes when when
Speaker 3: we get good ratings and additional reviews. All right, let's
Speaker 3: let's shift gears now back to the full min So
Speaker 3: let's see what Eric codes six to six one has
Speaker 3: in store for us. Six six one. I don't think
Speaker 3: i've seen this aer code before. State your name in
Speaker 3: the city you're calling from.
Speaker 8: Hey, it's Dave from Columbus.
Speaker 3: Hey, Dave, thanks for Colin. What have you got for
Speaker 3: us today?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Hey, how was reading back in some more and some
Speaker 8: torches and this one? You said, the person who changed
Speaker 8: the Wikipedia page on the Chrispin Wah thing. You said
Speaker 8: it was most likely someone who who had a connection
Speaker 8: to a WWE employee privy to early info that pointed
Speaker 8: to the direction of the tragedy that might have involved
Speaker 8: Nancy's death. Then you go on to imply more or
Speaker 8: that since this person was known for vandalizing web pages,
Speaker 8: he also fixed Chavo Guerrero's web page with which had
Speaker 8: a bunch of Slanders stuff on it. So you even
Speaker 8: implied more. You said it's one in a hundred that
Speaker 8: it's a coincidence. So you agreed with me last time
Speaker 8: I called. Even in your newsletter you agreed with me.
Speaker 8: But then when I called last time, you were telling
Speaker 8: me it was conspiracy theories. You brought up the moon landing,
Speaker 8: you brought up JFK, and then you lied and said
Speaker 8: it didn't even happen, And here you are agreeing with me.
Speaker 8: You're caught.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, replied, all right, thanks, Dave. I appreciate your
Speaker 3: calling the show again. I don't I don't even know
Speaker 3: what Jason you want anything. No, go ahead with I Honestly,
Speaker 3: I don't even I don't even know what Dave is asking.
Speaker 3: He calls up angry time every every once in a while,
Speaker 3: and I'm glad he's reading back issues of The Torch,
Speaker 3: I guess, and reading up on the Benwa situation.
Speaker 4: Way he took you up on that because you know
Speaker 4: you did tell him, you know, hey, yeah, well you
Speaker 4: can discuss this once you've gone back and read what
Speaker 4: was written at that time. So I'll give him credit
Speaker 4: for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I give Dave credit for that, I guess, Dave.
Speaker 3: I'm just I'm not quite sure what your specific question
Speaker 3: for me is or what you think that I owe
Speaker 3: you in terms of a further explanation. You've from the beginning,
Speaker 3: it seems like you've got something in your mind that
Speaker 3: you think has been underreported or that you think has
Speaker 3: been through some motivation that I don't understand, covered up
Speaker 3: or forgotten about. So yeah, let me know what.
Speaker 8: Maybe if you would mute me, we could talk about it.
Speaker 3: You're not mute to Dave, So I just threw back
Speaker 3: to you after Jason and I talked. But honestly, it's
Speaker 3: that kind of approach that just I don't have interest
Speaker 3: in talking to you. I'm sorry, We'll just move on.
Speaker 3: Erico do two oh two. Welcome to the show. Please
Speaker 3: state your name and where you're calling from.
Speaker 10: Hey, how's it going on?
Speaker 3: Brothers?
Speaker 10: This is Anthony from Washington, DC.
Speaker 3: Anthony, you go. You talk about long time listeners, you
Speaker 3: are one of them. Thanks for calling back.
Speaker 10: Not a problem. So I'm looking at an article of Day.
Speaker 10: I'm sorry the source of the article, but they're basically
Speaker 10: comparing how today's TV watcher likes to use the DVR
Speaker 10: you know system a lot, and they you know, I'm
Speaker 10: down from drama.
Speaker 3: The sports and you know, oh yeah, it's.
Speaker 10: The sports thing. And they was talking about how like
Speaker 10: it's been like an uptake you people like you know,
Speaker 10: DVR and like we wrestling, it's like up like somewhere
Speaker 10: like around seven or eight percent. So I was wondering
Speaker 10: how much does that play the role into the to
Speaker 10: the network itself and also the TV deal that the
Speaker 10: devil has right now?
Speaker 3: Uh, Jason, I saw that. I saw a chart that represented,
Speaker 3: you know, sports is like a last bashood of people
Speaker 3: watching live. We're just talking about fantasy football being a
Speaker 3: big deal, Anthony, don't be offended. I will be putting
Speaker 3: you on whole briefly. Well, Jason, then I talked to
Speaker 3: avoid background noise. I do that with just about a recaller, Jason.
Speaker 3: Fantasy football is and sports in general, one of the
Speaker 3: reasons that people watch the NFL live, and that means
Speaker 3: fitting through commercials. WWE has tried a lot of different
Speaker 3: things to try to be live programming, you know, or
Speaker 3: come across with live programming. It didn't result in a
Speaker 3: big the big uptick or as big of an uptick
Speaker 3: in TV rights fees as they wanted. But we are,
Speaker 3: I mean, we are in a changing landscape in WWB
Speaker 3: network with programming on demand where you can watch it
Speaker 3: live or on delay, does seem to be the formula
Speaker 3: for the future. And pro wrestling is kind of in
Speaker 3: this middle zone of you need to watch it live,
Speaker 3: but you could also get away with watching it on delay.
Speaker 4: Well, and that's I think that's one of the big
Speaker 4: issues with the three hour format. I mean, SmackDown is
Speaker 4: definitely not muscy live material.
Speaker 3: Raw it.
Speaker 4: There's times when it feels like it, you know, to
Speaker 4: a certain audience. I'm sure there are some people that
Speaker 4: consider themselves diehard fans that just record the show every week,
Speaker 4: even if it is two hours. But by and large,
Speaker 4: I think when it's three hours, you just make it
Speaker 4: easier for people to make the decision to go ahead,
Speaker 4: hit the DVR, start watching it an hour in even skipboard,
Speaker 4: you know, fast forward through some of the stuff you
Speaker 4: don't want to see, or even the next day where
Speaker 4: you just kind of cherry pick, Okay, I read this
Speaker 4: was good whatever. So I mean it's, yeah, it's live,
Speaker 4: but I think they need to do more just that.
Speaker 4: When the product is clicking, I think then it feels
Speaker 4: like it's must see live material. When it's a show
Speaker 4: like Last Night, I mean, you never know what you're
Speaker 4: gonna get. But still it's just when they're when there's
Speaker 4: shows like that, if you're kind of in a slump,
Speaker 4: then I think for a lot of people they just
Speaker 4: start to feel like, eh, I can catch this on
Speaker 4: the DVR and we'll probably see a lot of that
Speaker 4: coming up now with football season.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh definitely, I mean that's it's a great thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, we grew up without that, Jason, you had
Speaker 3: to kind of pick and choose or try to figure
Speaker 3: out how to get your VDR hooked up to record
Speaker 3: one thing to watch another. And it's a it's a
Speaker 3: better era now, Anthony, do you want to follow up
Speaker 3: on that or ask any kind of specific questions?
Speaker 10: Yeah, on one more thing about last night's show, I
Speaker 10: it was kind of ironic to see Hawk Cogan out there,
Speaker 10: and you know it's not saying it. The reason that
Speaker 10: is ironic because if you look at that must control
Speaker 10: as the fact that they does Johnson have a similar
Speaker 10: type of control? Reason I expect could you also blame
Speaker 10: him or like you know this the pleasant ship him
Speaker 10: coming back to Superman as you know, prepared to being
Speaker 10: beaten down after brock Less.
Speaker 4: What do you think, Jason, No, I don't clearly last
Speaker 4: night was he was scripted to be that way, and
Speaker 4: until I hear John Cena was they wanted him to
Speaker 4: show all this weakness and he refused and I'm just
Speaker 4: not gonna buy it. I mean, he was clearly scripted
Speaker 4: in both of the matches that he was in to
Speaker 4: be dominant, and it's not. It's not like he walked
Speaker 4: up there with the legends sitting there and just went
Speaker 4: off script. So now, I mean that's just the whoever
Speaker 4: made the decision, how much influence he had on that,
Speaker 4: you know, who knows. But I don't think you can
Speaker 4: just say it's all John Cena's fault that. I don't
Speaker 4: look at it that way at all. I just think
Speaker 4: this is the way he was written on Monday Night.
Speaker 3: Now, another interesting note on that is is last week
Speaker 3: Paul Hayman announced in quarter Hour number five with a
Speaker 3: live ring promo, Johnsen is not here. I don't know
Speaker 3: if I'm supposed to reveal it, but Johnsen is not
Speaker 3: here today. And the rating never got back to that
Speaker 3: level that was the peak rating of the show, and
Speaker 3: maybe wwe just kind of panicked, going well, yeah, there's
Speaker 3: the right story to tell to make money, you know,
Speaker 3: to sell the rematch. But there's the story that we're
Speaker 3: desperate to tell, which is, don't worry John Cena fans.
Speaker 3: Johnsen is okay, He's here. He's happy. It's a feel
Speaker 3: good show. Please tune in and watch us. And John
Speaker 3: Cen is still okay. Like I wonder if Jason, if
Speaker 3: they didn't kind of know that. Yeah, if it was
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight, they would have done things differently. But
Speaker 3: in this TV ratings driven era, they the John Cena
Speaker 3: fans just want to see John Cena happy and healthy,
Speaker 3: and maybe they just kind of fast forward past that
Speaker 3: chapter for that reason.
Speaker 4: Man, that could be. I don't know what the motivation
Speaker 4: was last week, and that Paul Hammon and Lesner segment
Speaker 4: even say that, I don't are they worried? It's the
Speaker 4: people are going to be bitter if they go through
Speaker 4: a whole show and he's not there. Why tell people
Speaker 4: at that point? I think you said the fifth quarter hours,
Speaker 4: so just you know, just into the second hour of
Speaker 4: the show. What per does that serve?
Speaker 3: I know, yeah, I was kind of surprised by that,
Speaker 3: and I don't have an answer to it. Let's uh, Anthony,
Speaker 3: thanks for the calls. Oh it's good hear from you.
Speaker 3: Let's go to an email question here. This is Alan
Speaker 3: g who says, is there any room for a new
Speaker 3: or existing promotion to focus on shoot style wrestling. The
Speaker 3: matches I enjoyed most looked like real competition, such as
Speaker 3: what we just talked about Jason Lesnard against Sena, not
Speaker 3: gymnastic spotfests. Is there a room, Jason for a promotion
Speaker 3: to have a niche that isn't, as we as Alan
Speaker 3: put it, gymnastics spotfest, but rather something that feels and
Speaker 3: looks more real. I wrote a column about this a
Speaker 3: few years ago at the peak of USB, saying, you know,
Speaker 3: there's room here for promotion to present itself like a
Speaker 3: real sport with a straight face. You don't have to
Speaker 3: pretend after you're off the air, you know, when if
Speaker 3: you're doing a media interview with you know, multi channel
Speaker 3: news or something or variety, that it's not a work,
Speaker 3: you know. I remember TAZ and a variety of wrestles
Speaker 3: in ECW when they went on pay per view. I
Speaker 3: wanted people to think their wrestling was real, and I
Speaker 3: was just like, that's an uphill that You've got a
Speaker 3: strong headwind trying to do that for so many reasons,
Speaker 3: but when they're trying to get on pay per vi
Speaker 3: they wanted people to think they were actually real. Unlike
Speaker 3: the two big promotions in the midst of the Monday
Speaker 3: Night War. I don't think that'll work, but I think
Speaker 3: in the context of the show Jason, there's maybe room
Speaker 3: for a niche promotion that goes much more straightforward sport.
Speaker 3: I mean some would say Ring of von or hit
Speaker 3: some of that, although that has a lot of the
Speaker 3: quote gymnastics spots as as part of it. Two.
Speaker 4: I would love to see TNA take that approach. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's some of the more memorable matches just in the
Speaker 4: United States in recent years. You have the scene of
Speaker 4: Lesner matches you have and this goes back a little
Speaker 4: ways now, but Samoa Joe and Kern Angle was very
Speaker 4: well received their first match as well, and those are
Speaker 4: those kind of hard hitting matches with I guess minus
Speaker 4: the gymnastics. I don't know that TNA has the roster
Speaker 4: for it right now, and it may take some time
Speaker 4: for if a promotion were to do this, to find
Speaker 4: that roster, because it's just I don't know that you
Speaker 4: really see that taught in too many school I think
Speaker 4: it would take some time, but I think people could.
Speaker 4: I think they could, they could at least make the
Speaker 4: shift to that right now. I would prefer that over
Speaker 4: kind of the WWE Light Slash ECW throwback, whatever it
Speaker 4: is they're going for right now. I'd really like to
Speaker 4: see someone try this and just take yeah, a good
Speaker 4: physical approach to pro wrestling, and especially you know, not
Speaker 4: the tongue in cheek and everything. You know, you know,
Speaker 4: we got to remind you that we know it's all
Speaker 4: sports entertainment silliness. Now, I just actually play it straight
Speaker 4: for the two hours you're on the air each week.
Speaker 4: I think it would be great, and I think they'd
Speaker 4: be shocked at at how well it would be received.
Speaker 3: The A lot of people think the peak moment in
Speaker 3: TNA was the Samo Joe Kurt angle match. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: it did well for for t and an pay per.
Speaker 3: It did well, and then they moved away from it.
Speaker 3: And I just think TNA's been kind of the victim,
Speaker 3: and this is the case in WW sometimes too. It's
Speaker 3: been the victim of whoever was most interested in gaining
Speaker 3: political favor with whoever was in charge, especially Dixie Carter
Speaker 3: in recent years. Whatever their specialty was is what they
Speaker 3: would convince her was the right direction to go in,
Speaker 3: because nobody's going to tell their boss the best thing
Speaker 3: for you to do is something I'm incapable of doing
Speaker 3: if you're a wrestler. So the people who had the
Speaker 3: power have always kind of pushed Dixie to promote a
Speaker 3: wrestling in a way that made them the most valuable.
Speaker 3: And nobody with power is going to have I shouldn't
Speaker 3: say never ever, but people with power generally are not
Speaker 3: going to present a whole new approach to wrestling because
Speaker 3: the reason that they have power is they've done they're
Speaker 3: good at something that has been done before, and that's
Speaker 3: been the catch of not having a visionary student of
Speaker 3: history with a vision for where it could go that's new.
Speaker 3: When you don't have that in the number two or
Speaker 3: number three promotion, then you don't end up getting a
Speaker 3: fresh outlook. You don't get a fresh approach that maybe
Speaker 3: has a chance to really explode in a new way.
Speaker 3: What you get is what TNA Jason has always been.
Speaker 3: It's been WW Light or WW nostalgia trying to go
Speaker 3: back in time and relive Nitro, or it's been WWE
Speaker 3: Light trying to get Christian and the Dudley's and Kurt
Speaker 3: Angle and Hulkoge and Eric Bischoff, and it's it's always
Speaker 3: like Wow, you know, if we can just come across
Speaker 3: like we're either you know, old WW or we're just
Speaker 3: another WWE show and you just stumbled upon another WW
Speaker 3: show you didn't know existed. Because look, here's all these
Speaker 3: ex WWE stars that you wondered where they went. Just
Speaker 3: tune in and watch us. They never just established that
Speaker 3: identity like Paul Hayman talked about. So I do think
Speaker 3: there's room for it, but I think there's also room
Speaker 3: for the gymnastics spotfest style too, you know, as a
Speaker 3: niche of a promotion that has an identity. Jason, I
Speaker 3: was really intrigued with Paul Hayman's comments a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks back where he talked in more detail about the
Speaker 3: idea he presented to TNA about doing a very youth
Speaker 3: oriented product. And I don't know if that included a
Speaker 3: very strict, narrow style that would stand out, or if
Speaker 3: you want to do something youth oriented, but that had
Speaker 3: a wide array of styles. But you know, Paul's one
Speaker 3: of those guys who would have shaken things up, and
Speaker 3: he would be the guy probably with a vision for change,
Speaker 3: because as you've talked a lot about too on your
Speaker 3: Members Show audio shows, Paul doesn't. He's not a guy
Speaker 3: likes to look back and just you know, relive ECW.
Speaker 3: It's not something he likes to talk a lot about,
Speaker 3: or think about or analyze. He likes to move forward
Speaker 3: and come up with the next big thing.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, and I know at the time when we was
Speaker 4: talking with Dixie, the idea was basically they had all
Speaker 4: those legends there at the time, and the idea was
Speaker 4: to keep one. And I don't know who the one is,
Speaker 4: but it was to keep one with the idea that
Speaker 4: that way the person stands out and means something rather
Speaker 4: than having all these guys that when you say every
Speaker 4: week and there's just one after another, it's just like,
Speaker 4: how how many old guys do you need? Talking? And Yeah,
Speaker 4: and getting back to the whole like the X division style,
Speaker 4: I'm convinced that it's not even so much that it
Speaker 4: has to be MMA style straight up. You know, every
Speaker 4: match is like that, Like you're saying, I also think
Speaker 4: there's room. It's just the concept of going two hours
Speaker 4: every Thursday night or Wednesday night now, I guess for
Speaker 4: impact and just treating it like it's a sport, not
Speaker 4: abandoned the silliness. And hey, I get a kick out
Speaker 4: of Rockstar Spud too, And it doesn't mean there can't
Speaker 4: be a place for him to be funny and in
Speaker 4: different ways, but just some of the skits and the
Speaker 4: backstage cameras and just take a different approach, and I
Speaker 4: really think it would pay off.
Speaker 3: Allen also wants to know why does Page do headbutts terribly?
Speaker 3: Her head butt her head barely moves downward, and her
Speaker 3: hair can't hide the huge space between her head and
Speaker 3: her opponents. She's a good wrestler and she should know better,
Speaker 3: as should WWWE personnel.
Speaker 4: You know, I didn't notice that last night. The one
Speaker 4: that the ones that jumped out to me were the
Speaker 4: Russet kicks. Those were awful.
Speaker 3: What filled out to me is is the well, the
Speaker 3: oh what was it? The sweat Roman reigns being swunk
Speaker 3: into the ring post and there was one other move that, Oh,
Speaker 3: the Superman punch at the end too, didn't look good.
Speaker 3: The Superman punch is tough because you know, WWE puts
Speaker 3: a lot of thought into the camera angles they use
Speaker 3: for different moves. I mean, there's a lot more that
Speaker 3: goes into that than I think the average viewer realizes
Speaker 3: they really placed the camera in the right spot to
Speaker 3: hide things, and then if it looks good, they'll show
Speaker 3: her replay from a new angle and rains of Superman punches,
Speaker 3: and they're coming from all different directions. A lot of
Speaker 3: times can look weak if they don't get quite the
Speaker 3: right direction. Although, speaking of which, Jason, the thing that
Speaker 3: kind of scared me the most was the cinder block.
Speaker 3: Have we seen the last cinder block being thrown into
Speaker 3: a ring post and shattering? I hope?
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Why did they I mean, why didn't they just when
Speaker 4: they had when they did that angle with Ambrose? Why
Speaker 4: didn't they just use a real cinder block? Do we
Speaker 4: need to see it break? Wouldn't it be more impressive
Speaker 4: if they didn't break?
Speaker 3: I guess people know center blocks break when thrown hard
Speaker 3: by a really strong muscular wrestler into a You know
Speaker 3: Metal post. I it was sort of like the Nikki
Speaker 3: Bella comment about I wish you died in the womb.
Speaker 3: I'm just wondering if that was even I guess it
Speaker 3: had to have been meant to happen. I don't think
Speaker 3: rains would be thrown that stuff around. But I just
Speaker 3: regardless of whether they should have done it or not
Speaker 3: in terms of showing that it shatters upon impact on metal,
Speaker 3: I just who didn't see the possibility that maybe this
Speaker 3: is a safety concern. I mean, Cole seemed genuinely concerned
Speaker 3: for Lawler when he asked if he was okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean well, I just when I first saw
Speaker 4: the ambush thing, it didn't really even bother me that much.
Speaker 4: But there were just so many people that were mocking
Speaker 4: the thing. They had to be aware that people were
Speaker 4: looked at the cinder blocks from a week from the
Speaker 4: first angle and just thought these are silly and they
Speaker 4: look weak, and don't go there again, and they just
Speaker 4: felt the need to come out and show you one
Speaker 4: more time, all right.
Speaker 3: VFP member Matt called back on the VFP Express Line. Matt,
Speaker 3: welcome back to the show or welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: What have you got for us today and can you
Speaker 3: hear me again?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: We can though, yep.
Speaker 7: Oh cool, I don't know what that was about. Damn
Speaker 7: com from Charcotte Today.
Speaker 3: Oh okay cool?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: What have you got from?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Yeah, I agree with you guys. I thought Nicki
Speaker 7: was great last night, like Breeze still terrible, but when
Speaker 7: they gave Nicky some time because she was out there
Speaker 7: for a while, I thought she really lit it up
Speaker 7: and did a good job. And I thought amber smissing
Speaker 7: was was definitely felt on that show like I don't
Speaker 7: have any I don't feel like they have that Daniel
Speaker 7: Briant seen Ambrose m punk type of guy that the
Speaker 7: crowd is like really cheering right now. But anyhow, on
Speaker 7: on Brain, how do you think it's going to pan
Speaker 7: out between now and Wrestlemandi if they try and follow
Speaker 7: through with uh, you know every week we see rock
Speaker 7: Lestern and giving these off and interviews and rock Lesters
Speaker 7: pusing these off the matches and brains is kind of
Speaker 7: like floundering on the mic and like working really hard
Speaker 7: to have a two star match and if things keep me,
Speaker 7: I just feel like five time Wrestleman he comes around, Uh,
Speaker 7: he's just gonna get food hard, especially with the King
Speaker 7: of Bryan comes back. The neighbors keeps continuing with the
Speaker 7: following level work because I just I don't know. I
Speaker 7: just think when Rains gets that point, if they they
Speaker 7: follow through it, they brock Lesards just doing these awesome
Speaker 7: performance as a team, and he's that crowd get a
Speaker 7: turn off and I want to get your guy on that.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, I mean, Jason, are you any more or
Speaker 3: less confident and rains his ability to be the guy
Speaker 3: that fans want to see win the Rumble If if
Speaker 3: it comes to that.
Speaker 4: They're gonna have to book that very carefully, or I mean,
Speaker 4: if if that match for coming up next month, but
Speaker 4: obviously that's the key is well, let's see how they
Speaker 4: they move him along between now and then. I think
Speaker 4: there's out there are already some hardcore fans who've decided
Speaker 4: that that's not who they want to see it WrestleMania.
Speaker 4: I don't see it with the masses just yet, though.
Speaker 4: I mean, the masses seem like they're still behind Roman reigns,
Speaker 4: so it's it's not like gets just a complete lost cause.
Speaker 4: That said, the progression has been slow enough that I
Speaker 4: would have a fallback plan as I talked about with
Speaker 4: Bruce Mitchell last week on this show. I wouldn't I
Speaker 4: wouldn't scrap the plan for Rains right now, but I
Speaker 4: wouldn't be afraid to call an audible in January either.
Speaker 4: If it just he's not ready, We're worried about this.
Speaker 4: We think the fans like you know this guy or
Speaker 4: that guy more, I would at least be open to
Speaker 4: the idea of sitting down and discussing is this the
Speaker 4: best move right now for us in January? If I
Speaker 4: were in their shoes, Matt, you had to follow up.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't know if she was last night. I
Speaker 7: was actually surprised. But after he did the whole cerebal
Speaker 7: facina as I talked about, Rains played his arms up
Speaker 7: and there is that. There was definitely some audible too
Speaker 7: at that moment.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, celebration. I'm not saying Rains isn't. I'm not
Speaker 3: saying Rains is in trouble, but he's because Sason said,
Speaker 3: there's plenty of time left, but he's not at a
Speaker 3: rapid rate. Eating the inherent and understandable concern anybody would
Speaker 3: have when someone has chosen this early in his career
Speaker 3: in this early in his establishing a rapport with fans,
Speaker 3: that he's been chosen to be the top guy before
Speaker 3: the fans choose him, there's gonna be a reason for
Speaker 3: worry and concern. And that's that's I just he's not
Speaker 3: I write I talked about on the Keller Hotline in
Speaker 3: more detail, and I talked with Steve Austin about it
Speaker 3: last Friday. It there's things he needs to do to
Speaker 3: connect with the crowd more, and he The good news is,
Speaker 3: as Austin said last Friday here on the live cast there,
Speaker 3: he spent time with Roman Reigns off camera, and Roman
Speaker 3: has it in him. You know that he's a funny
Speaker 3: guy and he's got charisma. I pointed out a very
Speaker 3: specific situation on TV recently with Steve where I thought
Speaker 3: Roman showed a side of himself for not seeing enough
Speaker 3: of that. If he shows more that, I think he'll
Speaker 3: connect with the fans. But it's it could be a
Speaker 3: bumpy road and it's going to be a learning experience.
Speaker 3: It'll be fascinating to watch. Anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I know you guys probably want to say it,
Speaker 7: but I think that I think if they need to
Speaker 7: pull the plug on having him defeat Pleasure at Mane.
Speaker 7: I don't think he's gonna get there in time. I think, like,
Speaker 7: if you think there guys got it and you want
Speaker 7: to protect him, give him another year to develop and
Speaker 7: lets the crowd really next to him and you know,
Speaker 7: follow in love with who he is as a character
Speaker 7: and make them want it, because right now I think
Speaker 7: people feel like I see what's coming and I'm not
Speaker 7: like it. But if they didn't pull the plugs on it,
Speaker 7: which I just don't, I just don't see him get there.
Speaker 7: If he has something special, save it, you know, like
Speaker 7: they used it. You only have one shot. If he
Speaker 7: goes to Wrestlemani and that kind boos them, he's gonna
Speaker 7: have a tough tough time covering from that rest of
Speaker 7: his career, you know, to get back and get back.
Speaker 3: In the saddles.
Speaker 7: But I did just pull on it. Uh, who would
Speaker 7: you guys? Who do you think this might be able
Speaker 7: to fill that spot? The Ambrose Daniel Bryan, who do
Speaker 7: you think might be they might be able to push
Speaker 7: in there. Maybe if you want to pull back on
Speaker 7: Breens give another year to develop, I think they could.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean those are the guys that come
Speaker 3: to mind right away, Jason, you know, Dean Ambrose and
Speaker 3: Daniel Bryan. I mean that's part of the conundrum with
Speaker 3: Roman Reins is if not him, who you know, do
Speaker 3: you just do Sina versus Lesnar in a third match
Speaker 3: at Mania?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: What what options do they have? I just wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Was it last Tuesday, Jason, you and Bruce kind of
Speaker 3: talked about the pros and cons of either going all
Speaker 3: out with Rains or pulling back a little. We did.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, and I'll add not that I want to
Speaker 4: see it, and I don't think you can now that
Speaker 4: they're going to it already. You had it not you
Speaker 4: could have built Sena Lesner up. And the only reason
Speaker 4: I bring that up is that we all know that's
Speaker 4: a bench McMahon fallback plan, you know, win and doubt,
Speaker 4: go with John Cena, and the other one that jumps
Speaker 4: out at me is a possibility. It was kind of
Speaker 4: there was. There were some rumors about it, and I
Speaker 4: don't know that anything ever, I don't know how valid
Speaker 4: the rumors turned out to be. But if they do
Speaker 4: have access to the rock, I mean, it doesn't set
Speaker 4: you up, obviously with your next next big Star, but
Speaker 4: if they feel like the WrestleMania Network subscription push is
Speaker 4: more important at that point, Rock versus Legendar is a
Speaker 4: pretty marquee matchup, and we know they wanted to go
Speaker 4: there with Wressele Nanny already.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's true. I've been told and I just my
Speaker 3: gut also would tell me lean against Rock coming back
Speaker 3: to the ring for thirty one, and it sounds like
Speaker 3: that's not likely. I wouldn't say it's impossible. I think
Speaker 3: there's I mean, if Rains doesn't get over Jason, then
Speaker 3: we might see an acceleration of trying to do some
Speaker 3: of the ideas that I talked about over the weekend
Speaker 3: on the VP Weight Teller Hotline in terms of how
Speaker 3: to incorporate Sting and Hulk Hogan and John Cena and
Speaker 3: Steve Austin and I think had some other legend in
Speaker 3: the mix. You know, there's these kind of wild cards
Speaker 3: that you can play, and I went over a bunch
Speaker 3: of scenarios for VFP members about that. I mean, they
Speaker 3: could end up with a week's show relatively speaking for
Speaker 3: us Mania among their core, main full time guys, and
Speaker 3: they might have to, you know, sweeten it up with
Speaker 3: some legends and kind of legacy stars to try to
Speaker 3: create some novel matchups to sell it. But their go
Speaker 3: right now is to go with Rains, and I think
Speaker 3: they just see him there. It's not a slow build
Speaker 3: in the sense that they're giving him three years. But
Speaker 3: I think they're not panicking yet and there is time
Speaker 3: to make adjustments. And I'm not quite as pessimistic as
Speaker 3: Matt that they can't correct I won't say correct course,
Speaker 3: but just you know, have him find his way in
Speaker 3: his connection with the crowd, because there is something there
Speaker 3: that I also, you know, I agree is worth looking
Speaker 3: at and investing in. What do you think they're react
Speaker 3: What do you think the thoughts on Rains would be
Speaker 3: right now if word hadn't kind of gotten out that
Speaker 3: he was the guy, would there be more of a
Speaker 3: push what I think, my personal guess would be less skepticision.
Speaker 3: But do you think some of the people, the hardcore
Speaker 3: fan would be rallying behind him more ago and they
Speaker 3: got to do more with Rains Randy Orton, But we
Speaker 3: need to see more with Rains.
Speaker 4: What are they doing?
Speaker 3: You know, I go back to this all the time.
Speaker 3: I don't think when you're in a building with eight twelve,
Speaker 3: fifteen thousand people that if you pulled those people that
Speaker 3: they are not real that they're even aware that Rains
Speaker 3: is the chosen one. I just don't think more than
Speaker 3: three four, five, six, seven eight percent of the audience
Speaker 3: is because as a lot of people who attend WW shows,
Speaker 3: a lot of people millions and millions and millions watch
Speaker 3: raw and the percentage wise they're just not studying websites
Speaker 3: and listening to podcasts at a number that I think
Speaker 3: would be noticeable if so. My point is, if Rains
Speaker 3: was connecting with the crowd, he has had every chance
Speaker 3: to do it, regardless of whether word got out or not.
Speaker 3: Like I just I think when you live in the
Speaker 3: insider wrestling information bubble, in a sense, you think everybody
Speaker 3: is privy to that or it's everyone's processing it, Like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'd be more into Rains, but I didn't think he's
Speaker 3: being you know, pushed hard at us and we're being
Speaker 3: told to cheer him. I just think that stuff happens
Speaker 3: more organically and out out of the realm of podcasts,
Speaker 3: newsletters and websites and apps. So my thinking is, regardless
Speaker 3: of word getting out, that Rains is a guy. His
Speaker 3: reaction that he gets in live buildings has to do
Speaker 3: with his connection with the crowd that night and on
Speaker 3: television in previous weeks, a lot more than information leaking
Speaker 3: from behind the scenes, way way more so, it's up
Speaker 3: to Rains to go on TV and get that crowd reaction.
Speaker 1: Anytime you're watching WWE Raw or SmackDown or aw Dynamite
Speaker 1: in particular, send us an email if you've got thoughts
Speaker 1: on the show or a topic you want us to
Speaker 1: address or a question for us. Wadekellor Podcast at pwtorch
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Speaker 1: us to address on our main podcast during our mailbank segments,
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Speaker 1: Wadekeller Podcast at pw torch dot com.
Speaker 4: So it does, and you know, I can speak to
Speaker 4: that a little bit because just last night at the
Speaker 4: Fantasy Draft that I was at a friend of mine
Speaker 4: who's a casual WWE fan. He you know, he was
Speaker 4: just kind of catching up on things he watches. He's
Speaker 4: a fan of Brock lessoners. He'll watch there and then
Speaker 4: certain guys, but he's just been kind of on and
Speaker 4: off with the product lately. He had no idea. Rains was,
Speaker 4: you know, the Mania guy where he was wondering, I
Speaker 4: can't remember what match he threw out and was like, no,
Speaker 4: the plan is you know, Rains and Brock, and his
Speaker 4: eyes lit up like, oh, I like that. So I mean,
Speaker 4: there's one casual viewer right there, and I'm with you.
Speaker 4: I believe there are many more that don't know he's
Speaker 4: the guy and just are enjoying watching him right now,
Speaker 4: wondering what happens next with him. They may not even
Speaker 4: be looking at him challenging Brock right now. But if
Speaker 4: the build is good enough, you know, obviously that's the key,
Speaker 4: is if the build is good enough. As far as
Speaker 4: the rumble, it last year was tricky. They were in
Speaker 4: Pittsburgh and my first thought on it was, oh, it's
Speaker 4: you know, it's the crowd there. It was just a
Speaker 4: Pittsburgh crowd. But it wasn't you know, after talking with
Speaker 4: people who attended to show, we would hear from some
Speaker 4: people that said no, it was a lot of people
Speaker 4: traveled for the Rumble. And the reason I bring that
Speaker 4: up is because it felt it had kind of a
Speaker 4: mania feel to it. I don't know exactly if we'll
Speaker 4: get that this year. If you're going to have that,
Speaker 4: I can't even remember off the time my head where
Speaker 4: the Royal Rumble is at, but I don't know that
Speaker 4: you're going to get that hardcore fan traveling all over
Speaker 4: the place. I mean East Coast is a little more
Speaker 4: convenient for those fans. And without remembering off the top
Speaker 4: of my head where the Rumble is this year, I
Speaker 4: don't know that you'll get it. But if they are
Speaker 4: worried about it, I want to approach it. I came
Speaker 4: up with if they want Rains to be the guy,
Speaker 4: but they're worried about the backlash, make the last two guys,
Speaker 4: Roman Reigns and John Cena. I mean, you run, you know,
Speaker 4: and you do run the risk of the fans just
Speaker 4: boo the hell out of both of them. But I
Speaker 4: really don't think so.
Speaker 3: Yes, and you know what, and it's by the way,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4: Ooh, God, forget everything I just said. Oh, that's even worse.
Speaker 3: What are they thinking? I know, I know, it's gonna
Speaker 3: be fascinating how they manage, how they manage things. I
Speaker 3: the Roman reigns is going to well. The reason I'm
Speaker 3: so many of the three things I want to say
Speaker 3: at once, and I've just got to pick one. Daniel Bryan.
Speaker 3: The thought behind the scenes in WWE is, Oh, he's
Speaker 3: popular because of the Internet. But it's just these Apparently
Speaker 3: they think Internet fans can scream ten times louder than
Speaker 3: anybody else can, and that they're populate the crowds enough
Speaker 3: that this isn't real. It's a mirage. He's not over
Speaker 3: with the actual fan base. It's just this group of
Speaker 3: people starting. Yes, Chance, and it's fun to chance. Yes.
Speaker 3: So the internet fans who love him but aren't big
Speaker 3: enough to really support our company are huge company. They're
Speaker 3: starting the s Chance, and then the mainstream fans that
Speaker 3: make up ninety percent of our audience. They don't really
Speaker 3: like Daniel Brian and see him as a top guy,
Speaker 3: but they're all chanting along because it's fun. And that's
Speaker 3: why they tried to prove that when they tried to glone.
Speaker 3: The shifted the yes chance to Daniel to Big Show,
Speaker 3: and it flopped people that are like, I'm not chanting
Speaker 3: yes for Big Show last fall. And then you know,
Speaker 3: even Stephanie's kind of doing it with her things Steph'
Speaker 3: best Steph. And they've been other instances of it. It
Speaker 3: just wrestlers get over in crowds of five, ten, fifteen
Speaker 3: thousand people, not because of anything the Internet says. And
Speaker 3: I'm saying that as somebody who's made a living off
Speaker 3: of quote the Internet, so to speak, and before that,
Speaker 3: you know, dirt sheets, going back to the late eighties.
Speaker 3: That's been my career, and I've consistently downplayed our influence
Speaker 3: on crowds of ten or fifteen thousand people. I think
Speaker 3: sometimes we're the canary and the coal mine. I think
Speaker 3: sometimes people who study the industry really closely and aren't
Speaker 3: in the wrestling bubble where the people in power say
Speaker 3: things that everybody nods along and says yes. I don't
Speaker 3: dare disagree with you, because that would be bad for
Speaker 3: my career. I think people get in that or insulate
Speaker 3: themselves from any different opinions. We're not in there, Jason.
Speaker 3: We get differing opinions. We get, you know, yelled at
Speaker 3: and called out a lot for our opinions, and people
Speaker 3: don't fear doing so. And so I just I think
Speaker 3: if Roman Reigns is ready to be the headliner at
Speaker 3: WrestleMania wwe should have nothing to fear about the Philadelphia crowd.
Speaker 3: And it has nothing to do with Internet fans. It
Speaker 3: has to do with the way they promote them and
Speaker 3: present them and what Roman Reigns is able to do
Speaker 3: to connect to the crowd. And again, I'll just I'll
Speaker 3: point to you and Bruce last week on the live
Speaker 3: cast if you want to hear more on it, and
Speaker 3: I'll point you to my discussion with Steve Austin, who's
Speaker 3: around Roman Reigns last week in LA And I just
Speaker 3: encourage you to check out those two conversations two from
Speaker 3: more on it. Trust me, we're gonna have a lot
Speaker 3: more to say every week, probably about Roman Rags as
Speaker 3: we go forward. Let's try to get in a couple
Speaker 3: more calls here. We'll go to Eric go two five six.
Speaker 3: This is Alabama, I believe, Please state your name in
Speaker 3: the city you're calling from.
Speaker 10: All right, this is Shawn from gas and Alabama.
Speaker 3: From where I'm sorry.
Speaker 13: Gas in Alabama.
Speaker 3: Oh cool, Yeah, what have you got for us?
Speaker 4: I'll just joined in. What'd y'all think.
Speaker 3: About the Jeff Hardy.
Speaker 7: Promo this show? They have to find that he's gonna
Speaker 7: final with him again.
Speaker 3: That is an intriguing question, Jason. I was like, I've
Speaker 3: been an advocate for WWW bringing Jeff Hardy back if
Speaker 3: they do their due diligence and everything's fine in terms
Speaker 3: of if you want to spark business. And I talked
Speaker 3: about this on the Keller headline last night for VFT
Speaker 3: members after Raw. Jeff Hardy's a guy one of the
Speaker 3: very few people at WWE could sign who would make
Speaker 3: a difference, who can also work house shows and make
Speaker 3: a difference in ticket sales, and he can sell merchandise,
Speaker 3: and he can work pay per views, and you can
Speaker 3: do a money match with him. I think Jeff Hardy
Speaker 3: against bray Wider, Jeff Hardy against Seth Rollins even feels
Speaker 3: WrestleMania worthy to me if they did the right thing
Speaker 3: with Jeff Hardy, and so I was intrigued by that.
Speaker 3: It felt a little random. What's your take on promoting
Speaker 3: the Jeff Hardy thing on the network.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it does feel rang. I think this
Speaker 4: is going to come up anytime they do something like that.
Speaker 4: His deal, don't. I can't even tell you what year
Speaker 4: it expires. It probably this year, but I don't know.
Speaker 4: And it's either he either debuted with them. It was
Speaker 4: either the January or the Mark Show when they tried
Speaker 4: to go head to head with WWE. I was talking
Speaker 4: with the January. Yeah, then that was what somebody else
Speaker 4: guessed earlier today when I was talking with him about it.
Speaker 4: So if the contract comes up and he already knows
Speaker 4: okay T and I's not gonna be able to afford me,
Speaker 4: or he just wants to change of pace a little
Speaker 4: more security, whatever, they should jump all over it. Absolutely.
Speaker 4: I know he'll probably. I don't know how the strike
Speaker 4: system works. Does he lose a strike now because enough
Speaker 4: time has passed? And in his case, I mean, I
Speaker 4: think Jeff Hardy's in a much better place, clearly, and
Speaker 4: that's awesome, but he's been gone from the company. That's
Speaker 4: one where I would disagree with taking a strike away.
Speaker 4: If you're active with the company and you're passing all
Speaker 4: their drug tests and all that, great, but if you
Speaker 4: just disappear and go somewhere else. Should you really have
Speaker 4: a strike taken off?
Speaker 3: Well, you should have a strike taken off if they
Speaker 3: want to invest in him and not feel like total hypocrites.
Speaker 3: If he fails a test and he's in a big
Speaker 3: Brestlemania match and they don't want to take him off
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 4: Well that's just it from their perspective.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm being pragmatic on their sake. Of course they're
Speaker 3: going to rationalize taking a strike away. Should they know,
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of things that their wellness policy
Speaker 3: should include that it doesn't, which is more transparency. And
Speaker 3: I mean seriously, I mean, what, when's the last time
Speaker 3: there was any kind of wellness news. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: it's been the pattern. You you covered WWE long enough,
Speaker 3: and you realize they pay attention to that kind of
Speaker 3: thing when there's media scrutiny and when there isn't, they don't,
Speaker 3: or government scrutiny or congressional scrutiny, and when there isn't,
Speaker 3: they don't. And it's been a pattern in WAVES for
Speaker 3: twenty five years, and that we're in that pattern right now.
Speaker 3: So I honestly don't even know that it would cross
Speaker 3: their minds when bringing him in to even be worried
Speaker 3: about hypocrisy and taking a strike away because that policy
Speaker 3: is is they have a lot of latitude on how
Speaker 3: they execute and interpret it.
Speaker 4: And quite frankly, if I were them and they brought
Speaker 4: him in, they put him in a high position and
Speaker 4: he failed again, I'd want to be doing with them anyway.
Speaker 4: I mean it's just oh right, oh true, Yeah, but
Speaker 4: you'd want to be done with him the day after Mania,
Speaker 4: not not on long week before Mania, you know. And
Speaker 4: I'm not particularly worried about that with yeah, I mean,
Speaker 4: of course, well I am. If they put him back
Speaker 4: on the road full time, I don't even know if
Speaker 4: that he would agree to that. I'd be surprised if
Speaker 4: he would. I think he's got the taste of kind
Speaker 4: of the good life, just with a little bit more
Speaker 4: of a reduce schedule in TNA. And there have been
Speaker 4: times where I know he's you know, people who were
Speaker 4: on the road with him were saying he's doing as
Speaker 4: much as ever. You know that people had worked for
Speaker 4: both companies said he was out there constantly. But this
Speaker 4: is back what he was having a lot of issues too,
Speaker 4: And it seems obviously nowadays they're just not running as
Speaker 4: many shows. But you know, with the young daughter, and
Speaker 4: who knows what he would be interested in. But he's
Speaker 4: a guy where you know, obviously you push to get
Speaker 4: him on the road, you push to get what you
Speaker 4: can if you're WWE. But if he wants to reduce schedule,
Speaker 4: he's a guy.
Speaker 3: Give it to and and you know, if you could
Speaker 3: give him the Jericho schedule where he works full time
Speaker 3: but in stretches and then there's time off, and that's
Speaker 3: I've always advocated to.
Speaker 2: So I like it.
Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure to make of it. He's a
Speaker 3: top star for TNA. WWB clearly doesn't hear TNA at
Speaker 3: this point. I can talk more about TNA and the
Speaker 3: VFP after show, but yeah, I mean I've.
Speaker 4: Heard, and Kurt Angle is just on their website, you know,
Speaker 4: and there have been all sorts of I've heard it
Speaker 4: and others have as well that you know, they he
Speaker 4: was told they're not interested at this time. Now that
Speaker 4: obviously could change, and it might even be because he's
Speaker 4: still under TNA contract and they're not interested in this time.
Speaker 4: But I think anytime something like this happens, people are
Speaker 4: gonna automatically wonder just mean he's coming back and you
Speaker 4: know it's part of the fun, but I don't think
Speaker 4: it always does. All right, let's go to Eric code
Speaker 4: eighth five, California. Whoa eight o five A lot of background,
Speaker 4: nooids are sorry, Please state your name in the city
Speaker 4: you're calling from.
Speaker 14: Oh guy, my name is so zao Coniff, California.
Speaker 3: Hey, Jose, what have you got for Jason to me today?
Speaker 14: I think it's fine that the WWE goes back to
Speaker 14: the attitude with Dan as What do you guys think
Speaker 14: about that?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: What do you think the attitude era consists of?
Speaker 4: That?
Speaker 3: It that they don't do now?
Speaker 14: Well, a little Dean Ambrose has that attitude in on,
Speaker 14: you know, and that's that's right.
Speaker 3: But but he's but but Hose he is. You're you're
Speaker 3: citing something that is on TV now, So what do
Speaker 3: you want that isn't on TV now? Because you're kind
Speaker 3: of I'm not I'm not trying to give you a
Speaker 3: hard time. I'm just trying to hone in on what
Speaker 3: you mean because you're saying I like Dean Ambrose because
Speaker 3: it reminds me of the Attitude era. They should go
Speaker 3: back to it. But they have gone back to it
Speaker 3: because Dean Ambrose is part of the product right now.
Speaker 14: Yeah, No, yes, a little bit there. No, I'm not
Speaker 14: not Gina a little bit more X rated like Operative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you're They're on USA Network and they have
Speaker 3: they have John Cena merchandise and kmarts and toys, r
Speaker 3: US displays. You're not going to see Sable, it's not
Speaker 3: gonna happen. You're not going to see Uh, You're not
Speaker 3: going to see X. You're not gonna see a live
Speaker 3: sex show with Edgendleda. You're not going to see X
Speaker 3: Pac and Tory and kne And I mean, it's just
Speaker 3: that's literally not going to happen and so not worth
Speaker 3: the trade off of losing all their mainstream corporate sponsors
Speaker 3: that they've worked ten years to earn. The trust of it.
Speaker 3: What you're going to see cinderblocks, and you're going to
Speaker 3: see innuendo, and you're going to see crazy characters that
Speaker 3: you like, like Dean Ambrose, but you're not You're just
Speaker 3: you're not going to see pasties on breasts and simulated
Speaker 3: sex acts. That's not going to happen. And frankly, I
Speaker 3: think the reason people miss the Attitude era is because
Speaker 3: Stone Cold, Steve Austin and the Rock and DX were
Speaker 3: awesome at what they did. And the way to bring
Speaker 3: that back to the Attitude Era or the part of
Speaker 3: it that made the most the part of the Attitude
Speaker 3: Era that I think was was the main reason people
Speaker 3: really really liked that era is because of the top
Speaker 3: stars and the moment in time in the Monday Night War. Jason,
Speaker 3: your thoughts that you nailed it.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just it's not going to happen. It's
Speaker 4: just not worth spending too much time to discuss because
Speaker 4: they're not going to while they're a publicly traded company
Speaker 4: and they have corporate sponsors that want them to do
Speaker 4: business a certain way, and you're not going to run
Speaker 4: the risk of losing all these high paying sponsors and
Speaker 4: hoping you can replace them, because it quite frankly, you're
Speaker 4: just not going to. I mean, they're the most you
Speaker 4: can hope for is when they every year around Wrestle
Speaker 4: Anya time, it seems like they push the envelope. E.
Speaker 4: Bench has even talked about going into PG thirteen territory,
Speaker 4: and I'm fine with that. I Mean, I enjoyed the
Speaker 4: Attitude Air as much as anybody but to see a
Speaker 4: shift like that today, the world has changed too. When
Speaker 4: you and maybe some of it just it's T and a.
Speaker 4: But when you see T and A kind of do
Speaker 4: some risk ay things more often than not. As somebody
Speaker 4: who lived through the Attitude era, when I see it now,
Speaker 4: it feels trashy. And maybe it was back then a
Speaker 4: little bit, but culture was different. Jerry Springer was red hot.
Speaker 4: It's just things have changed so much since then.
Speaker 3: No great point. I mean it there when I go
Speaker 3: back and watch some old ros now and then from
Speaker 3: the Attitude era, there are parts of it that are awesome,
Speaker 3: and there are art of it, like you said, that
Speaker 3: are trashy, tawdry, low class, muddy. I feel dirty afterwards.
Speaker 3: It's not a you know, I mean, that's the worst
Speaker 3: of it. But that was there. You're not gonna see
Speaker 3: ww is just not gonna go there now. They're gonna
Speaker 3: have Nikki saying I wish you died in the womb.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, it's like you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't think that's not the start of PG. That
Speaker 3: kind of language and cinderblocks being thrown at people. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's something maybe they wouldn't have done when Linda was
Speaker 3: running for office and WWE was trying to erase the
Speaker 3: image that they had. If you if you go back
Speaker 3: and read back issues of the Pros and Torture newsweutter.
Speaker 3: I put on the cover and I rang the felt
Speaker 3: multiple times. But during the Attitude air, they started pushing
Speaker 3: things more than I thought was beneficial for them, and
Speaker 3: on the cover I wrote a sidebar cover story saying
Speaker 3: it's time to pull back. They're now just being extreme
Speaker 3: out of petulance, out of just the desire to see
Speaker 3: how far they can push. It was bad for business,
Speaker 3: and it was a very short time later they started
Speaker 3: paying a big price for it, with sponsors dropping out,
Speaker 3: bad publicity and that kind of thing. So it's just
Speaker 3: even the attitude are a ran its course, That's not
Speaker 3: what makes wrestling work. I would say for almost everybody.
Speaker 3: Is cool baby faces that you are excited to see,
Speaker 3: when you want to see, when you have a reason
Speaker 3: to root for them, whatever that reason is, you have
Speaker 3: a reason to root from in heels that you take
Speaker 3: satisfaction and seeing get shown up, get what they have
Speaker 3: coming and lose and doing it in an athletic, bombastic way.
Speaker 3: But you don't need the r rated content for progrestling
Speaker 3: to work on a large level. Dean Ambrose, as Jose said,
Speaker 3: and I give him, I mean, I give Dean Ambrose
Speaker 3: credit for being attitude like in an era where there's
Speaker 3: a little bit less that he can get away with.
Speaker 3: That said Jason. We've been critical of seth rollins and
Speaker 3: mean Ambrosen some of the kind of childish, almost Benny
Speaker 3: Hill like gits that they've done. I don't know where
Speaker 3: I pulled that out of, but you know, to promote
Speaker 3: their feud. You know, they did go a little Benny
Speaker 3: Hill on us. I expected some of the Benny Hill
Speaker 3: music in the background during a couple of their skits,
Speaker 3: you know where it got kind of slapsticky, and so,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, he's been hurt a little bit
Speaker 3: by that. I say two, although it doesn't really matter
Speaker 3: because he's going away and he'll come back and be strong.
Speaker 9: I'm Kelly Wells, host of the seven Star podcast, the
Speaker 9: new Ongoing Torch show covering the world of New Japan
Speaker 9: pro wrestling. We'll drop new episodes as major shows and
Speaker 9: noteworthy events dictate and I'm.
Speaker 5: Chris Lansdell join us as we covered the ever changing
Speaker 5: landscape of New Japan as they navigate an era with
Speaker 5: no lack of talent.
Speaker 4: But I really need to create some new stars.
Speaker 5: You can stream the new seven Stop podcast now from
Speaker 5: Pro Wrestling Talk.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just with Dean Ambrose. It's a cool factor.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's what's getting him over. It's not like
Speaker 4: he's getting to do attitude araror material right now. I
Speaker 4: mean he walks the line, but others do as well,
Speaker 4: and it's just clicking for him because of the personality.
Speaker 4: What I want to see if it's not even so
Speaker 4: much the attitude er, it's just pro wrestling in general
Speaker 4: over the years. Give me some babyface characters that do
Speaker 4: have a little bit of attitude, if you will, that
Speaker 4: don't just stand on the stage and watch as the
Speaker 4: authority tears everyone down. Bring back the cool factor to
Speaker 4: the babyfaces, and not just one or two guys, you know,
Speaker 4: have them stand up for themselves a little bit, not
Speaker 4: just be corporate pushovers. Who are you know, just more
Speaker 4: concerned with having a job than doing the right thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and sounding like they are reading the script that
Speaker 3: they were given by the corporate writing team. That's the
Speaker 3: new man hired from Hollywood like, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's not pro wrestling. Pro wrestling is Stan Hansen, pro
Speaker 3: wrestling is you know. It's it's that sense of anything
Speaker 3: going to happen, and these are Outlaws, and WWUE has
Speaker 3: pushed back against that so much and the desire to
Speaker 3: be something else other than the winners of the pro
Speaker 3: wrestling battle, the pro wrestling war, and they want to
Speaker 3: be something different, and they want to be higher brow
Speaker 3: and Linda Run you know, Linda is going to be
Speaker 3: a senator in WWE's publicly traded and we're on USA
Speaker 3: Network and on and on and on. They want all
Speaker 3: these things and it's I'm not saying that it hasn't
Speaker 3: in some ways worked really well for them, but they
Speaker 3: have to keep their eye on the fact that the
Speaker 3: biggest boom period happened when they had Stone Cold Steve
Speaker 3: Austin as their top guy. And he was a throwback
Speaker 3: to the Outlaws, the guys who you didn't know what
Speaker 3: they were going to say next, and they were anti
Speaker 3: corporate and they didn't Yes he had the T shirts
Speaker 3: and yes there were you know, announcers, but it was
Speaker 3: Jim Ross, you know, counting his catchphrases and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: but Steve didn't feel corporate. I just transcribed for this
Speaker 3: week's Progressing Torture Newsletter Steve Austin from Friday's interview that
Speaker 3: I did with him talking about how he sat down
Speaker 3: with physic man once and they were going over their promo,
Speaker 3: and it's great how Steve relays it. He's like, Vince McMahon,
Speaker 3: I am going to give you the stutter, you know,
Speaker 3: whatever the quote was, and Vince like, I want your
Speaker 3: a promo, Steve, and Steve said to him, I'll give
Speaker 3: you my a promo when I'm in front of ten
Speaker 3: fifteen thousand people and the adrenaline is slowing, you know.
Speaker 3: And too often wrestlers feel like they on air that
Speaker 3: they're just reciting lines they memorized and they're scared to
Speaker 3: screw up because they'll be chewed out afterwards. God forbid,
Speaker 3: somebody put a face up, put their hand in the face,
Speaker 3: as Stephanie McMahon like Dusty Rhodes did to say, talk
Speaker 3: to the hand as a way to show up Stephanie.
Speaker 3: And now Dusty hasn't been seen since on TV because
Speaker 3: that wasn't scripted, and that was against the unwritten rule
Speaker 3: that you do exactly what you're told, exactly when you're told,
Speaker 3: you do not use your instinct or improvise, even if
Speaker 3: you're a guy who's drawn more money than all but
Speaker 3: a dozen wrestlers in the past twelve you know, during
Speaker 3: his twenty year round, which was Dusty Rhoades. His instincts
Speaker 3: aren't always great, but you don't want to because you're
Speaker 3: worried about one thing that doesn't work. Take away the
Speaker 3: seven or eight things that on instinct when you're winging
Speaker 3: it do work. And that's frustrating. And I think a
Speaker 3: lot of fans sense that, and I think with Dean Ambrose,
Speaker 3: that's what Jose identifies with, is that stone cold Steve Austin.
Speaker 3: Anything can happen at this moment. Feeling that used to
Speaker 3: be and still could be and should be a dominant
Speaker 3: feeling you have when watching wrestling. How much of this too, waight?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 4: It's hard for guys to portray an outlaw when they
Speaker 4: live under this microscope in WWE and any little thing
Speaker 4: could get them heat. Oh oh, I think it's a
Speaker 4: huge part of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean WWE wants a corporate of just their control
Speaker 3: freaks as far as that corporate thing goes, and they
Speaker 3: just want business runs smoothly. They don't want anyone to
Speaker 3: get too big so that they can't handle them. They
Speaker 3: just want a headache free existence. But everything gets kind
Speaker 3: of the edges get softened and rounded off. There's not
Speaker 3: sharp edges to the product and to the talent, and
Speaker 3: they pay a price for that. And I think they've
Speaker 3: gone too far in one direction. I understand wanting that.
Speaker 3: You know, who wants to worry about the phone call
Speaker 3: ring ringing because you know your top star is upset
Speaker 3: with you, or who worries about somebody saying the wrong
Speaker 3: thing because you've loosened up the scripting of matches and promos.
Speaker 3: I mean, I get that, but I think you're in
Speaker 3: the pro wrestling business and it's beneficial to you to
Speaker 3: accept some of that that that's some of that comes
Speaker 3: with the territory.
Speaker 4: Definitely all right.
Speaker 3: I don't think we went to this. We're going back
Speaker 3: to Georgia for seven eight. Please state your name of
Speaker 3: the city you're calling from.
Speaker 13: Hey, how's it going, guys? This is manual calling from
Speaker 13: making Georgia.
Speaker 3: Hey, Manuel, thanks for calling. What have you got for us?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 13: Just kind of I guess the almost tiggybags off the
Speaker 13: whole of kind of the attitude their thing, and of
Speaker 13: Roman reigns and how he may or may not be
Speaker 13: being groomed to be the next top guy. Yeah, I
Speaker 13: remember a time and it was my favorite time in
Speaker 13: professional wrestling in w W was after Stone Cold on
Speaker 13: the Rock kind of made their exit, but before John
Speaker 13: Cena became the guy where I just remember like just
Speaker 13: really good wrestling and if there was no there was
Speaker 13: no top one guy that I can remember, but they
Speaker 13: were always like top heel champions and then you always
Speaker 13: had like all the baby faces chasing them, and maybe
Speaker 13: they didn't get great decisive wins as far as the
Speaker 13: heels go, but they always kept the feuds going to
Speaker 13: where you get at least three months out of a
Speaker 13: feud and then they move on to the next babyface,
Speaker 13: next baby For one guy that got that opportunity at
Speaker 13: the Rumble and he took out the heel, then another
Speaker 13: hill would come along and take the title from him
Speaker 13: and you could kind of start all over, and I
Speaker 13: just remember getting great matches.
Speaker 2: Out of that.
Speaker 13: So I guess my question is, why does there have
Speaker 13: to be a top baby face like, why does Romeanraines
Speaker 13: have to be the next after Johnsen? Why can't they
Speaker 13: just have top stars or top heels and top faces
Speaker 13: may or are they content on having won?
Speaker 3: Sure? No, we know your question will cover it out.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you what matches or heels did
Speaker 3: you like in that zone between the attitude era and
Speaker 3: sena emerging, Like what, give me a couple of specifics
Speaker 3: tw or three specifics of what you remember liking.
Speaker 13: I remember always waiting to see who would finally beat
Speaker 13: Triple H when they had the old WCW belt, the
Speaker 13: world title, it's like the top title, and I think
Speaker 13: W champion who I would always be hoping that somebody
Speaker 13: would take him out. And I mean they weren't the
Speaker 13: top people in the company, but they had the titles
Speaker 13: and the people who went after them, I mean they
Speaker 13: made they made the storylines make sense to where whatever
Speaker 13: baby faces they were facing at that pay per view,
Speaker 13: he wanted to see that baby face win. You know,
Speaker 13: there were two guys who you wanted to see them
Speaker 13: dot down and they would win by usually cheating. It
Speaker 13: would hardly ever clean, but it made you feel good
Speaker 13: about seeing two or three pay per views with the
Speaker 13: same opponent because you wanted the baby face to get
Speaker 13: that comeback.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I've got something to say, and I'll throw
Speaker 3: it to Jason first and get his thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are there's two classic formulas, Jason, A
Speaker 3: bunch of baby faces chasing a top heel and a
Speaker 3: bunch of heels chasing a top baby face. And those
Speaker 3: are two formulas that promoters have used over the years.
Speaker 4: And one of them Bench Leans heavily toured and had
Speaker 4: you asked me which who I thought he was talking about,
Speaker 4: I would have said Triple H because he really has
Speaker 4: been the exception. I mean it's you go back to
Speaker 4: the key champions in WWE, the ones that have staying
Speaker 4: power and that people talk about. It really is the
Speaker 4: baby faces by and large, and the Bench is he's
Speaker 4: just he sees it that way and he's been very
Speaker 4: successful with that approach, having that top baby face star,
Speaker 4: whether it's been Hogan or Austin or Rock or Savage,
Speaker 4: And I mean some guys have been more successful and
Speaker 4: obviously seen. And now you want to have that poster
Speaker 4: boy for your company, the guy that's going to sell
Speaker 4: a lot of merchandise. I wish they would shake up
Speaker 4: the formula a little bit more than they do. But
Speaker 4: at least right now you have Rock Lesner. We'll see
Speaker 4: how far they go with it. But it does feel
Speaker 4: it does start to feel a little bit too predictable
Speaker 4: when they when they take that approach way. But it's
Speaker 4: hard to argue with the with the track record of success.
Speaker 3: And the thing is is if Roman Reigns doesn't catch fire,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that it was the wrong goal to have, right,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, I you know, I think about this.
Speaker 3: Going back to the NBA for a second. It's so
Speaker 3: easy for people to jump all over gms for not
Speaker 3: making finding that GEM in the mid first round. You
Speaker 3: can they have about the NFL too, but the mid
Speaker 3: first round or that second round pick. And to me,
Speaker 3: when you have a GM who does it over and
Speaker 3: over again, that GM should get a lot of credit.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't mean every other GM is an idiot.
Speaker 3: And there are busts. And what you have to do
Speaker 3: is you have to go back and look at that
Speaker 3: moment in time on Draft night, What did you, as
Speaker 3: an NBA reporter or an NBA fan say about the
Speaker 3: draft order at that moment in time. You don't get
Speaker 3: to go two years later and go, I'm blaming this
Speaker 3: GM because this guy was a bust and this guy
Speaker 3: picked two spots later turned into a superstar. This GM
Speaker 3: is horrible because there's a lot of gms. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of GMS who pass up these guys who are
Speaker 3: late round picks. That's what makes them late first round
Speaker 3: or early second round picks, because almost every GM in
Speaker 3: the league passes them by picking other people who end
Speaker 3: up flaming out. So it doesn't mean that with the
Speaker 3: information you have at the moment, you didn't make a
Speaker 3: reasonably a reasonable call that a lot of people thought, yeah,
Speaker 3: that might work out, but there's gonna be one out
Speaker 3: of twelve people in the mid to late first round,
Speaker 3: you know, late in the first roun, but one out
Speaker 3: of twelve it's going to turn into a rotation player
Speaker 3: and occasionally a star. That's going to happen. And if
Speaker 3: one GM does it over and over again, then they
Speaker 3: deserve credit, But not every other GM should be called
Speaker 3: an utter failure because they didn't get that one out
Speaker 3: of twelve pick that ten other gms missed out on either.
Speaker 3: With Roman Reigns bringing it back to wrestling, he was
Speaker 3: a good first round draft pick. He was a good
Speaker 3: guy to pick. I don't disagree with looking at him
Speaker 3: and apparently knowing him outside of the ring. People who
Speaker 3: know him outside of the ring they go this guy
Speaker 3: has that in factor. I trust Sean Waltman's judgment when
Speaker 3: it comes to evaluating talent, and he was somebody who
Speaker 3: he says he was one of the first people, maybe
Speaker 3: the first person to say to Hunter this, keep your
Speaker 3: eye on this guy. You know, protect him, build him up.
Speaker 3: So if Roman Rags doesn't work out, it doesn't mean
Speaker 3: it was a wrong choice to go with him. It
Speaker 3: just means there was a chance it might not work out,
Speaker 3: and that happened to occur. And it may not even
Speaker 3: be Roman Raine's fault. It could now be the fault
Speaker 3: of the promoters for not featuring him in the right way,
Speaker 3: not giving him the slack or giving him the confidence
Speaker 3: to go do his own thing, instead of following this
Speaker 3: really tight script of saying very little and only doing
Speaker 3: a few signature moves and underestimating the audience's ability to
Speaker 3: deal with a real person, instead of this kind of
Speaker 3: cardboard cutout of a superstar. So I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 3: there's a long winding road back to the original question,
Speaker 3: I guess, but with Roman and Reins, he's I think
Speaker 3: he's a good guy to be pushing. And the fact
Speaker 3: that we're pointing out that he's not catching fire right
Speaker 3: now and the crowds aren't going completely crazy for him
Speaker 3: like they have they did see him Punk a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago and Daniel Bryant one year ago. That
Speaker 3: doesn't mean he's a failure. It just means right now
Speaker 3: in the process, Jason, he's not where WWE ideally would
Speaker 3: want him to be.
Speaker 4: But there's like you say, there's still time, and you
Speaker 4: wouldn't want him to be peaking now either. You want
Speaker 4: that peak to come during Wrestle Nani a season, ideally
Speaker 4: at Wrestle Nania, you know you and extended beyond that
Speaker 4: of course, but you wouldn't want this guy to be
Speaker 4: on fire right now. And then we're rely like is
Speaker 4: it gonna last until me? So maybe that's part of
Speaker 4: their mindset too. Is taking the slower approach now doesn't
Speaker 4: doesn't mean there's not deficiencies in his game, but they're
Speaker 4: they're they're booking approach to this might be okay, let
Speaker 4: him get that first win over Randy Orton, And you know,
Speaker 4: and I have no idea what's coming next for him,
Speaker 4: which is a big question mark because they're so light
Speaker 4: on meaningful heels that other than brock Lesner, it's gonna
Speaker 4: that's gonna be kind of the tricky part for him
Speaker 4: way is finding those opponents so that he can just
Speaker 4: keep taking that step forward. Randy Orton felt, I mean,
Speaker 4: they were able to rebuild Randy enough that it felt
Speaker 4: like something, But who's what do you do next?
Speaker 3: And and you know, speaking of peaking, you what you
Speaker 3: would like to have as a peak like Steve Austin
Speaker 3: that last years, you know, like I mean, of course,
Speaker 3: WW would like him not not so much to peak,
Speaker 3: but to get hot. And and that's yeah, I think
Speaker 3: what you're saying is there. They may think, relax, everybody,
Speaker 3: this is part of a slow build. We're not. I
Speaker 3: know you think we're shoving them down people's throats, but
Speaker 3: really not. But we're just dropping clues that you're much
Speaker 3: more acutely aware of than the average viewer, that we're
Speaker 3: positioning him to be a top guy. But trust us,
Speaker 3: we're dropping these hints and you're making way too much
Speaker 3: out of it. But we plan to peek him at
Speaker 3: the right time, and that's going to be in the
Speaker 3: six weeks leading up to the Rumble, and until then
Speaker 3: we need to kind of hold back a little bit
Speaker 3: and give him a few spots, but not have him
Speaker 3: be cutting these long promos before it's time. So we're
Speaker 3: planning the seeds in the summer here, late summer that
Speaker 3: he's going to be a top guy, crosses paths with
Speaker 3: Seen A, teams up with Scena, Main Events Raw and
Speaker 3: you know, kind of is being protected in a way,
Speaker 3: but it's part of a long term plan that they
Speaker 3: believe will work. There might be a cadence in the
Speaker 3: game plan and they might not be worried at all.
Speaker 3: I'm a little worried Jason, because I think with a
Speaker 3: type of push that they have given him, the crowd
Speaker 3: reaction should be stronger right now. I think that the
Speaker 3: tour in Australia, we got correspondent reports saying the pop
Speaker 3: he's getting right now is nothing like what Seampunk got
Speaker 3: two years ago, nothing like what Daniel Brian got a
Speaker 3: year ago, and that makes me worried. But Rains has
Speaker 3: a great look, great charisma, He's a really good athlete,
Speaker 3: and apparently there's more behind that than deer that he
Speaker 3: hasn't shown yet that people who are around him when
Speaker 3: the red light of the camera isn't on have seen.
Speaker 3: And that gives me more confidence too. But I talked
Speaker 3: about the Keller hotline last night for VIP members. He
Speaker 3: needs there's specific things that I talked about and he
Speaker 3: needs to do to connect with the crowd more. And
Speaker 3: there's those things can come in time. I just would
Speaker 3: be getting to them a little sooner. Not well, shit, yep,
Speaker 3: very good.
Speaker 1: You don't have to wait for the way Keller Pro
Speaker 1: Wrestling post show to find out what I thought of
Speaker 1: Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. Each week, you can check
Speaker 1: out my reports that are updated live throughout Raw and
Speaker 1: SmackDown at pwtorch dot com. My written report will tell
Speaker 1: you what's happening in detail in case you missed the show,
Speaker 1: and it'll also analyze key segments and give my random
Speaker 1: thoughts equips on what I'm watching as a airs, So
Speaker 1: check it out every Monday night and Tuesday night at
Speaker 1: pewtorch dot com. That also applies to WWE payperviews. I
Speaker 1: cover those live at pw torch dot com with a
Speaker 1: detailed written report with star ratings, and of course you
Speaker 1: can find other TV reports from other contributors to pw
Speaker 1: Torch such as nxt roh, Impact Wrestling, and more. Check
Speaker 1: it out pw torch dot com, your first stop for
Speaker 1: TV and pay per views written reports.
Speaker 3: I actually was gonna go back to Believe it or
Speaker 3: Not Dave, the Chris Badwock conspiracy theorist guy, because he
Speaker 3: like and then he hung up a minute ago, and
Speaker 3: I'm frustrated because I wanted to bring him back on
Speaker 3: he Jason. It's so weird. He like calls up like
Speaker 3: we we ran over his dog and a hit run accident,
Speaker 3: like he's angry at me. I think he was quoting
Speaker 3: more you than me in terms of, you know, talking
Speaker 3: about the moonlighting and stuff, because I don't think i'd
Speaker 3: said that, but maybe I did. I'll go back and
Speaker 3: review the tape, but I probably did. Yeah, I just
Speaker 3: I remember you saying something like that, and now he's
Speaker 3: playing me for saying it. It's just like I told
Speaker 3: him go read the back issues. He did, but I
Speaker 3: put him on hold because I do that for almost
Speaker 3: all the colors because when I don't, I pay the
Speaker 3: price there's all kinds of babies crying like earlier in
Speaker 3: the show, and then he gets and then he's just
Speaker 3: kind of he just seems kind of nasty in his disposition,
Speaker 3: and it's just not the tone of the show that
Speaker 3: we have.
Speaker 4: He's decided he's right, and whatever evidence that points to
Speaker 4: something else actually being the case, he's going to ignore
Speaker 4: and tell you that he's right. And in this case,
Speaker 4: I mean, I haven't gone back and read all that
Speaker 4: stuff and sometime either, so you can correct me if
Speaker 4: I'm wrong your way, but I'm guessing he's picking out
Speaker 4: one thing when there was some uncertainty to the situation
Speaker 4: and ignoring what came after it when more facts started
Speaker 4: coming in.
Speaker 3: Right, you know, that's actually much more concisely well put
Speaker 3: than I would have been able to as I was
Speaker 3: processing what he was saying and how to address him
Speaker 3: when he had some time to take a deep breath
Speaker 3: and not be mad at me for daring to put
Speaker 3: him on hold while you and I talked. But yes,
Speaker 3: I mean, and I've just I've lost sight of and
Speaker 3: this is why I wanted to bring him back on
Speaker 3: of what the original premise was when he initially called us,
Speaker 3: because it's like I think he's and again I want
Speaker 3: to put words of his mouse, but it seems like
Speaker 3: he's angry that we don't now sick what is it
Speaker 3: six years later now talk about the fact that the
Speaker 3: official story is different than what really happened. And that's fine,
Speaker 3: but that's probably something you know, when I'm glad he
Speaker 3: went he's reading an old issue with the Torch, I
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, I guess I'm glad about that.
Speaker 3: I asked him to do that. I guess maybe the
Speaker 3: best thing to do if if he does listen back
Speaker 3: to the show is without the the emotions that come
Speaker 3: up when he calls the show. Send an email and
Speaker 3: and to PW Torch Livecasts at gmail dot com. Just
Speaker 3: put in the subject line questions about benwas situation and
Speaker 3: link to what I said and ask me for my response,
Speaker 3: you know, and lay out what what what it is
Speaker 3: that I want to know what he wants from us
Speaker 3: in this situation, because, as I told him when he called, initially,
Speaker 3: nobody covered the Benla story in more depth than we
Speaker 3: did on that than we did on Torch VIP that
Speaker 3: predated the live cast, but and in the Torch newsletter
Speaker 3: and and it was. I mean, that was all I
Speaker 3: did for a couple of months. It's sent at my
Speaker 3: computer eighteen hours a day, practically talking to media members
Speaker 3: and people involved in law enforcement. And we went through
Speaker 3: that whole process of yeah, like you said, Jason, this
Speaker 3: is suspicious. How did somebody apparently know this on Wikipedia?
Speaker 3: Why did it get scrubbed? And we dealt with all
Speaker 3: of that, but there were some questions that were left unanswered,
Speaker 3: and there were some questions that they didn't all not
Speaker 3: everything ended up as clean and crisp as we'd like
Speaker 3: in the end, but the fact that there was something
Speaker 3: on the Wikipedia page that got scrubbed turned out to,
Speaker 3: like I think you said, better than I am here
Speaker 3: in this orelonguitd way, not seeming particularly relevant by the end,
Speaker 3: because there was all this other overwhelming evidence that made
Speaker 3: that seem like either a coincidence or somebody who got
Speaker 3: some information and made some guesses about what might be
Speaker 3: going on and then realized, oh crap, I'm right, and
Speaker 3: then they scrubbed it because it went from a prank
Speaker 3: to kind of scary and it's something that could get
Speaker 3: them in trouble. And I just in the end, I
Speaker 3: haven't ruled it out one hundred percent that there could
Speaker 3: be some real, big twists in the story that we
Speaker 3: just glossed over and didn't give enough time. But in
Speaker 3: the end I felt pretty satisfied from talking to a
Speaker 3: lot of people you know, involved in the story with
Speaker 3: a stake in finding out the truth in wrestling and
Speaker 3: out of it. In the end, I felt pretty comfortable
Speaker 3: with the notion that two volatile personalities got into a
Speaker 3: domestic situation the stronger of the two snapped and went
Speaker 3: too far in dangerous unique hoefully never revisited. Cocktail of
Speaker 3: a lot of things that were that were mentally wrong
Speaker 3: with Chris Benwall at that point in his life, and
Speaker 3: a predisposition that not every human being has to have
Speaker 3: those things affect him in that way, and it led
Speaker 3: to a despondent situation on his part that led to
Speaker 3: his rationalizing in his at that point probably clinically insane
Speaker 3: way of thinking that killing his son was the humane
Speaker 3: thing to do, as opposed to having him grow up
Speaker 3: with a father spending his life in jail for murdering
Speaker 3: his mother with you know, whether he had special any
Speaker 3: special leads or not is kind of irrelevant to discussion
Speaker 3: although that certainly was in the media at some point,
Speaker 3: so I just felt satisfied with that. I didn't feel
Speaker 3: that the fact that somebody might have suspected something was
Speaker 3: up first before it became fully official, and put something
Speaker 3: on a Wikipedia page that later got scrubbed, was it.
Speaker 3: I explored those things and talked to people about him,
Speaker 3: but it just never led anywhere, and so I didn't
Speaker 3: spend a lot time since then thinking about it. I mean,
Speaker 3: does that seem to match with your recollection, Jason?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just don't know where his anger comes, right,
Speaker 4: It's been like distance. The first time he called in,
Speaker 4: he called in off aull of piss and vinegar all
Speaker 4: bent out of shape, and it was.
Speaker 3: Like it was a year or so ago.
Speaker 4: It feels like, yeah, And it wasn't even about anything
Speaker 4: that you or I had written. It was he read
Speaker 4: a book or something someone had written, and yeah, and
Speaker 4: he decided that was true, and for some reason he
Speaker 4: felt the need to challenge us on it.
Speaker 3: And well, I think he got mad because I didn't
Speaker 3: immediately go, oh, really, this is new information, or yes,
Speaker 3: you're right, I'm one hundred percent with you. I think
Speaker 3: he got upset because I did say if you haven't
Speaker 3: read the Torch, you don't really know what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: And I think he took offense at that because he
Speaker 3: had felt like he had done his research on the
Speaker 3: internet sufficiently and could come to us and start telling
Speaker 3: us about a situation. And I just think from the
Speaker 3: position that I was in speaking for me, and how
Speaker 3: much time in my life I spent that year, that
Speaker 3: summer invested in covering this story with no dog in
Speaker 3: the fight. And I mean, I've the I mean it
Speaker 3: just I didn't have any reason to side one way
Speaker 3: or the other. I just wanted to find out the truth.
Speaker 3: And and so to come at me like because he
Speaker 3: had done some internet investigation that he was now providing
Speaker 3: this information to us that we had never heard of
Speaker 3: and we should just agree with him on when he
Speaker 3: hadn't even read my coverage. Just I'm the wrong person
Speaker 3: to call. If you haven't read my coverage of one
Speaker 3: of the biggest stories, probably the biggest story I've ever covered,
Speaker 3: and you haven't read my coverage or listen to my
Speaker 3: audio shows that are all on the VIP website, then
Speaker 3: then go talk to somebody else about it. You know,
Speaker 3: I did my I did my work on this, and
Speaker 3: it's out there, and before we have a conversation about it,
Speaker 3: you got to catch yourself up on on that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: He may have done that, and I probably pulled the
Speaker 3: trigger on him a little fast, but I could just
Speaker 3: tell he was coming at me, like, you know, just
Speaker 3: being kind of nasty, and I just don't want that
Speaker 3: on the show.
Speaker 4: Nah. He's been confrontational since since Call one, you know,
Speaker 4: and it's just it doesn't make for it doesn't make
Speaker 4: for good radio. And it's just like, well, where is
Speaker 4: this com for him? Why are you so obsessed with this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And you know what, if he wants to be this,
Speaker 3: you know, if he wants Sometimes people, you know, people
Speaker 3: are fascinate with the JFK situation, and I've there's a
Speaker 3: lot of JFK theories out there and this might be
Speaker 3: his thing. I just might answer to him if he's
Speaker 3: listening to this. I'm sure he's I shouldn't say I'm
Speaker 3: sure of anything. He's probably really mad at us right
Speaker 3: now for misinterpreting or whatever. He's mad at us for
Speaker 3: quite so long, You're right, And I'm worried. He's been
Speaker 3: mad at us every single day, even when he doesn't
Speaker 3: call the show, you know, like he's really worked up
Speaker 3: about it, because I'm not. I don't want him to
Speaker 3: be upset at us, and I don't want him to
Speaker 3: be all that angry or feel like he's been disrespected,
Speaker 3: and I think he does, But I just encourage him
Speaker 3: to send me an email where we don't have tone
Speaker 3: and voice and interruptions, and I'll have that send me
Speaker 3: an email, point to a link, and type up what
Speaker 3: he wants from us as far as the story goes.
Speaker 3: And if he sends me an email and presents that,
Speaker 3: he'll probak call the show and I'll put him on
Speaker 3: and forget what his phone number is and maybe we'll
Speaker 3: have another back and forth. But if he's listening, I
Speaker 3: encourage him send me an email PW Torch live cast
Speaker 3: at Gmail, ask me what his question is, tell me
Speaker 3: what he wants from us, and point me to some links,
Speaker 3: and I will refresh my memory and read his links.
Speaker 3: And I'm telling you, I'm saying, if he's listening, I
Speaker 3: will do some research on the points that he's making
Speaker 3: and come ata and come back with my opinion on
Speaker 3: whatever he presents to me. It's not going to happen.
Speaker 3: In a productive way on the live cast. When he's
Speaker 3: talking about things that I said when I don't know
Speaker 3: the context of the things that I said, and then
Speaker 3: he's quoting me when he's really quoting you, that's not
Speaker 3: going to be really productive. So anyway wanted to establish
Speaker 3: that or just call in and.
Speaker 4: Be civil and be open minded rather than you know
Speaker 4: everything and we're idiots.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, but I think that's one hundred percent true.
Speaker 3: I'm saying to even help, though, I want to have
Speaker 3: time before he calls to read what he's referencing, whether
Speaker 3: it's something I've written or something that he's found on
Speaker 3: the internet that intrigued him. I'm interested in this story.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I don't want to ever revisit it
Speaker 3: or learn something new or find out maybe that there
Speaker 3: was something we overlooked and now with some distance in time,
Speaker 3: there's either a new piece of information or an overlooked
Speaker 3: piece of information. I'm I'm I am all for that.
Speaker 3: It's not gonna happen productively when I'm doing a show
Speaker 3: that's predominantly talking about current events and wrestling. That's what
Speaker 3: this show generally is. We talk about the network and
Speaker 3: Raw and Roman reigns and wrestle, any speculation and Summer
Speaker 3: Slim and John Cena and TNA and even at the
Speaker 3: very end of the BFP after show traditionally we talk
Speaker 3: about the Global Force wrestling. Yeah baby, But if you
Speaker 3: want to talk history, then give us a chance to
Speaker 3: do a little bit of research and refresh our memories
Speaker 3: and spend the time that maybe the time he puts
Speaker 3: in deserts, and give us a heads up. Here's an email.
Speaker 3: Here's what I want you to look at. I'm gonna call.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about this, but here's a chance
Speaker 3: for you to look over the materials. And I'm just saying,
Speaker 3: despite the tone he takes and the consternation that I
Speaker 3: think he feels dealing with us, and I don't know
Speaker 3: why torches himself with it, but email us first and
Speaker 3: give us a chance and we'll take a look at
Speaker 3: the material and then and then he can come on
Speaker 3: the show and we can talk about it all right.
Speaker 3: The sale right now pw torch dot com, slash go vip.
Speaker 3: You can go back and read and listen to. By
Speaker 3: the way, it's not just reading the back issues of
Speaker 3: the prosing Torch newsletter that covered the Chris benwas situation,
Speaker 3: and we're putting out double issues almost every week for
Speaker 3: a stretch there, with tons and tons and tons of coverage,
Speaker 3: documenting for history, a lot of things that just went poof,
Speaker 3: you know, away on you know, the interview on CNN
Speaker 3: or one of the other news channels. You know, it's airs,
Speaker 3: and then it's gone and it's not there anymore. It's
Speaker 3: it's not something that even somebody bothered to put on
Speaker 3: YouTube and the newspaper articles and the press conferences, and
Speaker 3: I'm first hand reporting that I did in terms of
Speaker 3: working the phone lines and talking to different people involved
Speaker 3: in interviews. Kevin Nash, I did a torch talk with
Speaker 3: talking about the situation and others. That's all in the
Speaker 3: back issues of the Torture Newsletter. And just as fascinating,
Speaker 3: let's go back to the Wake Keller hotline at that
Speaker 3: point and the Bruce mitchelladio show and listen to our
Speaker 3: in depth analysis in real time of that Chris ben
Speaker 3: wa situation from that the night it happened, and we
Speaker 3: talked about it every single day for weeks and weeks.
Speaker 3: I don't remember how much time went by. I was
Speaker 3: waiting for the day that would come where I went
Speaker 3: a full day not talking about it on audio. I
Speaker 3: mean it was, it was, And so all the coverage
Speaker 3: that we did is documented in those back issues and
Speaker 3: in those audio shows. If it's story you're interested in,
Speaker 3: that's one of the reasons you know, the go VIP
Speaker 3: is that the Benoa story, the death of Owen Hart,
Speaker 3: the Montreal screw Job with Brett Hart, the Monday Night Wore,
Speaker 3: the jump of Haul and nash On, and on and on,
Speaker 3: the biggest stories in wrestling history. If you're a student
Speaker 3: of the game and you want to immerse yourself in them,
Speaker 3: whether it's good news or bad news, grim and awful
Speaker 3: like Owen or like ben Wa, or just exciting but
Speaker 3: controversy seal like the Monday Night War. That stuff is
Speaker 3: all there as part of the VIP membership, and we
Speaker 3: got the three thirty three sale going on. When you
Speaker 3: become a member, you instantly gain access to virtually our
Speaker 3: entire library at back issues going back twenty five plus
Speaker 3: years to the late eighties, including all the red.
Speaker 15: Are you a fan of aw looking to sit back,
Speaker 15: relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
Speaker 15: your passion. Do you want to be topped off the
Speaker 15: ledge after a segment that has you wondering what the
Speaker 15: heck are they thinking? Do you want to join a
Speaker 15: discussion on what AW is doing right and what they
Speaker 15: could do to improve?
Speaker 4: Then join me, Joel and.
Speaker 15: Me Greg for the all of the conversation Club every
Speaker 15: Friday on the pw torch Live Cast. Fee search pw
Speaker 15: torch in your podcast app and subscribe to pw torch
Speaker 15: Daily Cast or stream our shows directly from pw torch
Speaker 15: dot com. Find full details on the pw Torchdailycast lineup
Speaker 15: at pw torchdailycast dot com.
Speaker 3: Call you on and how about on Twitter at pro
Speaker 3: wrestling Net leave the dot out of that one at
Speaker 3: pro wrestling Net sounds good. And Sean Waltman and Johnny
Speaker 3: Fairplay have an audio show that people can find that's
Speaker 3: affiliated with prosing dot net. How do they find that show?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? Blog Talk Radio dot com, slash pro wrestling dot
Speaker 4: anyt and you can also find all of our audio
Speaker 4: are all access audio there and if you enjoy that,
Speaker 4: obviously considered membership and for all the details on that,
Speaker 4: visit the main page of Pro wrestling dot net.
Speaker 3: Very good, Thank you everybody for joining us once again,
Speaker 3: and we'll go by. Jason. I'll be by probably next Tuesday,
Speaker 3: Pat mctneil tomorrow with Kamala. Thursday, I'll be by with
Speaker 3: Mick Karsh. Friday, James Called will be hosting talking about
Speaker 3: Impact and other things in the wrestling world, wrapping up
Speaker 3: the week in wrestling. And yeah, so I think that's
Speaker 3: about it. So thank you everybody once again for joining us,
Speaker 3: and until next time. Wait Keller signing off. All Right,
Speaker 3: we're now in the VI I P After show portion
Speaker 3: of program and Jason Paul is still with me here.
Speaker 3: We've got some email questions to answer and some other
Speaker 3: topics to cover, including uh uh TNA. In fact, Jason,
Speaker 3: let's let's start with TNA for a second. The announcement
Speaker 3: that they're moving to Wednesdays and that they were renewed
Speaker 3: through the end of the year with Spike TV, is
Speaker 3: is there's still more questions than answers. Obviously, it just
Speaker 3: delayed the answers. So we know Wednesday that they will
Speaker 3: that they're gonna be on Wednesdays now through the end
Speaker 3: of the year, barring a cancelation before that. We know
Speaker 3: the first Wednesday rating it was awful, but not unexpected.
Speaker 3: I sense from your tone talking about it on your
Speaker 3: audio that you're kind of like me, thinking, hey, everybody
Speaker 3: calmed down.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like, of course the rating was going to collapse
Speaker 3: because Mike Today was saying it's joined us next Thursday
Speaker 3: throughout the whole show. They didn't have time to promote it,
Speaker 3: and it's a new night. You're going to lose people
Speaker 3: and we don't know where they're going to be. But
Speaker 3: the real test is really you know, one, two, three
Speaker 3: weeks from now.
Speaker 4: Definitely, that's the thing. I mean, it was an ugly
Speaker 4: rating and it was kind of even when you're expecting
Speaker 4: it to be low, it was still kind of a
Speaker 4: oh boy, maybe not that low, but still that was
Speaker 4: so clunky. I mean, that's a sadly what I think
Speaker 4: that's what you get when you put the masterminds of
Speaker 4: TNA and Spike TV together is a switch a change
Speaker 4: of nights where you have two advertisements that air during
Speaker 4: Impact and then on the same show you have Mike
Speaker 4: Today telling everyone tune in next Thursday. I mean, it
Speaker 4: was just unreal. This would be a fitting end to
Speaker 4: TNA on Spike TV.
Speaker 3: Well, I yes, and I mean that's just the problem
Speaker 3: with the short notice. I mean, they were just given
Speaker 3: really short notice and they didn't weren't able to go
Speaker 3: in and redub the show, and it led to some confusion.
Speaker 3: And in a way, if I'm CNA, I kind of
Speaker 3: like that because now they can say, it's not our fault,
Speaker 3: it's your fault, Spike. We need some more support.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: Spike might not care at the stage of things, but
Speaker 3: what's your best take and best information on the relationship
Speaker 3: right now between T and An and Spike.
Speaker 4: It's I mean, again, it's always the same. It depends
Speaker 4: who's telling the story. I mean, I've just heard so
Speaker 4: many different theories, so many different statements from people about
Speaker 4: what they think is happening and or just what they
Speaker 4: claim is happening. And then you'll hear something conflicting from
Speaker 4: somebody else who claims they have the inside word the
Speaker 4: new stuff that I'm hearing a couple of different things.
Speaker 4: Discovery Network came up, and I believe the observers reporting
Speaker 4: its velocity as the actual network, and that would make
Speaker 4: sense that I believe that's part of Discoveries group. You know,
Speaker 4: they're there group of channels. So I just heard Discovery
Speaker 4: but Velocity, I guess would which would be kind of
Speaker 4: a low end network. Something that I have that I
Speaker 4: didn't know I had held the name came out there.
Speaker 4: One of those that's scary just because of how how
Speaker 4: small the network is. Last week I was hearing from someone,
Speaker 4: and I want to stress again rumor that WGN, presumably
Speaker 4: WG in America was also had some interest in TNA.
Speaker 4: I you know, I mean, this happens though this is
Speaker 4: both may be valid, one of them might not be.
Speaker 4: Both of them might not be. There might be nothing
Speaker 4: to it. It's just this is what when when there's
Speaker 4: a desperation kicking in, as I really believe there is,
Speaker 4: there's going to be a lot of rumors. I mean
Speaker 4: these you know yet people depending on jobs, and so
Speaker 4: one guy hears something from somebody that may not even
Speaker 4: have any validity to it. Well, he's going to call
Speaker 4: a friend. He's gonna call a friend, and everybody gets
Speaker 4: their hopes up and you know, hopefully they have something.
Speaker 4: But I tell you, if it's a move to Velocity,
Speaker 4: I mean instead of if they were to not be
Speaker 4: able to strike a deal with Spike and that was
Speaker 4: the best out there, might keep the lights on but
Speaker 4: long term, I don't see that being a viable option less.
Speaker 4: It's just that Velocity, for whatever reason, has a lot
Speaker 4: of money to throw around.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's the thing is the options that I'm
Speaker 3: hearing are not an improvement for TNA. It would be
Speaker 3: a step back. And I mean, yes, they've been preparing
Speaker 3: in a way for like a year for a step back.
Speaker 3: They have been you know, flashing the budget. But I
Speaker 3: think ultimately the best option for them is going to
Speaker 3: be to try to find a way to stay on Spike.
Speaker 4: I think it is at this point. I just because
Speaker 4: I don't know who you're going to do business with
Speaker 4: that January first, there's going to be this opening. They're
Speaker 4: going to create an opening for you. I mean that
Speaker 4: was kind of the concern when they brought in Uta.
Speaker 4: You know, people kind of going back in time, going
Speaker 4: that would be around the time that most networks would
Speaker 4: kind of have their fall schedule in place. They'd want
Speaker 4: to be able to take these things to the upfronts
Speaker 4: and start lining up advertisers and.
Speaker 3: Things like that.
Speaker 4: And so, I mean there are people who really believe
Speaker 4: that TNA was told back at that probably March April,
Speaker 4: somewhere in there whenever they announced that partnership with UTA
Speaker 4: that there was a pretty strong indication at that time
Speaker 4: that they weren't that Spike wasn't interested in bringing them back.
Speaker 4: I mean, but at the same time, you know, Spike
Speaker 4: can change their minds. The fact that they're still carrying
Speaker 4: impact says something I don't put a lot of tremendous
Speaker 4: faith in. It's a sign that they're still negotiating and
Speaker 4: there's still a strong chance. But I can't rule it
Speaker 4: out either.
Speaker 3: What's your I mean, it's I know, it's not a
Speaker 3: high confidence pick. So like picking a super Bowl winner
Speaker 3: at this stage, asked me in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: So this is like ask me in a couple months.
Speaker 3: But do you think they're on Spike in January and February?
Speaker 3: Do you think they're in business in January and February?
Speaker 3: Where would you put your ten bucks?
Speaker 4: I think they're in business because I mean, another more
Speaker 4: chpancier was telling the story. But I mean, the most
Speaker 4: consistent thing I've heard is they have like eight to
Speaker 4: ten months they can get by with no Spike TV,
Speaker 4: no network in the United States. They have overseas television deals,
Speaker 4: But I mean it just becomes so tricky. Then you
Speaker 4: have to you know, you have to have tapings for
Speaker 4: these shows that aren't airing here. So how do you
Speaker 4: get the word out to people about these shows? And
Speaker 4: I mean you can do it, and it really slashed
Speaker 4: the budget and everything and just go really low end
Speaker 4: with things. I know they signed the overseas television deals,
Speaker 4: but I just wait, I just kind of look at
Speaker 4: those as if the company goes under, then they go under.
Speaker 4: And I mean, what when I hear multi year agreement,
Speaker 4: it doesn't make me think automatically, hey, t Anda is
Speaker 4: going to be around for all those years. It's just
Speaker 4: I would assume that if there's they wouldn't be the
Speaker 4: first company providing programming to go under, and then the
Speaker 4: network is just kind of left without with some programming
Speaker 4: slot to fill.
Speaker 3: Basically, that's right, they just air three Cops instead of
Speaker 3: just Won in Malaysia, right, you know, I mean they
Speaker 3: can they can manage to work around that if they
Speaker 3: need to. So yeah, I'm not quite sure what to
Speaker 3: what to make of that. You know, the international deals
Speaker 3: don't really add a ton of confidence, but I mean
Speaker 3: it's better than if it's just complete silence. Other than
Speaker 3: Spike and you.
Speaker 4: Know, as far as Spike, I hate to dodge it.
Speaker 4: I just I don't have a great feel for this.
Speaker 4: I mean, when when they're extended, I mean, yeah, they
Speaker 4: may still be negotiating for all we know. I just
Speaker 4: don't know what you're negotiating at this point. What it
Speaker 4: could be a sign that it's been tough negotiations and
Speaker 4: they've just put their close enough that they extended it
Speaker 4: and hopefully they'll be able to strike a new deal,
Speaker 4: you know, before it ends or something like that. That's
Speaker 4: one way of looking at it. The other, I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just that, well, TNA and Spike have had a
Speaker 4: you know, decent relationship over the years, and Spike TV
Speaker 4: might be doing them as solid. It's not like they
Speaker 4: have a lot of programming they put on there.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: The tough part for TNA too, is that because they
Speaker 4: have this situation, this partnership with UTA, they old em
Speaker 4: a chunk. You know, it's either ten or fifteen percent
Speaker 4: that they're in whatever deal they get. So they obviously
Speaker 4: have a partner who's motivated to get them the best
Speaker 4: possible deal. That that part's great. But from TNA's perspective,
Speaker 4: whatever the whatever the going rate was last time. It's
Speaker 4: like we're to match that. Well, they actually lose money
Speaker 4: because they owe you know, ten to fifteen percent of
Speaker 4: that to UTA.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, all right. Well, I mean I the TNA products,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not they're not producing a product where
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of people. I mean, there's
Speaker 3: some people who are as you call them, TNA fanboys,
Speaker 3: you know, the ones who just jump on Twitter at
Speaker 3: any mention of TNA and anything other than positive light.
Speaker 3: But TNA is not rallying a lot of truths, you know.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's a lot of wrestling fans who
Speaker 3: are who we mix with, who are just like, we've
Speaker 3: got to make this work. We've got to find a
Speaker 3: home for TENNA. They have to survive it. They just
Speaker 3: don't have that kind of passion for their product. I
Speaker 3: think they have a soft fan base, and that worries
Speaker 3: me when it comes to the night, the change in
Speaker 3: which day of the week they're on. I think almost
Speaker 3: everybody will come back to Wednesdays. But I do think
Speaker 3: there's some people who are just look at TNA the
Speaker 3: way that I look at you know, some reality TV
Speaker 3: show or sitcom. If I bump into it. I'll watch it,
Speaker 3: you know, I remember liking this show. I'll watch it.
Speaker 3: I've got time here after dinner and to watch. But
Speaker 3: I don't know how many of those people who missed
Speaker 3: out last Thursday are gonna be like, oh, oh no,
Speaker 3: I missed impact. How do I find it and reset
Speaker 3: my DVR and go back to watching it live every week?
Speaker 3: I worry for TNA that those people won't come back
Speaker 3: because I just don't sense that of the one point
Speaker 3: some you know, the one plus million people who watch
Speaker 3: on the peak weeks, that they're super passionate and they're
Speaker 3: just going to follow TNA to any network.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm with you on that. I want to
Speaker 4: clarify too. There's there's PNA fan boys and then there's
Speaker 4: just there's TNA fans. There is a big difference there.
Speaker 4: I mean there's To me, I've just never understood the
Speaker 4: concept of this is my wrestling organization, like it's a
Speaker 4: football team. You know, It's it's wrestling. It's not a
Speaker 4: team sport. You don't have to choose, and some people
Speaker 4: just do. WWE has them too, But obviously, or any
Speaker 4: any group, there's gonna be ring of honor fans like that.
Speaker 4: It just there's this there, there's a select few out
Speaker 4: there that, in TNA's case, everything they do is the greatest.
Speaker 4: Everything that everyone else does it pales by comparison to TNA.
Speaker 4: They make a creative change and suddenly the person that
Speaker 4: they were defending is the worst thing ever and this
Speaker 4: new guy's the best. And I mean, to me, it's
Speaker 4: just like I just zone those people out. I mean,
Speaker 4: they don't map, they're they're just there's they're fanboys. I mean,
Speaker 4: that's they've chosen. They've decided that TNA's is. I mean,
Speaker 4: they're like the worst delusional Homer football fan out there,
Speaker 4: you know. I Mean, it's just they've decided that their
Speaker 4: team is the greatest, even if they're one and fifteen
Speaker 4: and everyone else sucks, and they don't deal in reality.
Speaker 4: When you confront like in with a football fan, you
Speaker 4: can point to but your team went one in fifteen.
Speaker 4: In TNA's case, you can point to a number of
Speaker 4: things too, but they don't want to hear it. It's
Speaker 4: just whatever whatever logic you give them, they're just going
Speaker 4: to ignore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, no, well put all right, let's go, let's
Speaker 3: go to our next an email question here, let's be
Speaker 3: ifpmember Tony from Las Vegas. He said, I'm kicking myself.
Speaker 3: I knew I had a question for Steve Bustin but
Speaker 3: didn't write it down or forgot to ask him on Friday.
Speaker 3: But I'm gonna ask you and Jason.
Speaker 4: So why not exactly?
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, you're ready to stand in for Steve?
Speaker 3: I know the time he does that add up? But
Speaker 3: if Bradshaw were in his JBL character prime in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight or nineteen ninety nine, could he or could
Speaker 3: he might have had an interesting rivalry with Stone Cold.
Speaker 3: I like the idea of the beer swell in Texas
Speaker 3: redneck against the big rich Texan douchebag. Plus the JBL
Speaker 3: gimmick would have worked well with Vince at the time
Speaker 3: in my opinion. Thanks for your hard work, guys, Ambrose
Speaker 3: for usum A thirty two, that's a whole other issue.
Speaker 3: What do you think Jason JBL against Don't Cold?
Speaker 4: Oh hell yeah, that's the best I can do. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: that would have absolutely. I mean it's just I guess
Speaker 4: the tough part there. Does it become a little too
Speaker 4: close to a Vince? You know? That's the only thing
Speaker 4: just because JBL's character was the rich guy and so
Speaker 4: maybe wouldn't have been perfect, but there certainly were points
Speaker 4: where you could have done something with Jblan Steve Auston
Speaker 4: made some money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I like the idea of contrasting Texas personalities,
Speaker 3: and the promos would have been phenomenal. It'ld have been Well,
Speaker 3: we'll try to remember to ask that to Steve next
Speaker 3: time he's on the show. But yeah, I think it
Speaker 3: could have worked and they could have made money, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't see anything wrong with that.
Speaker 1: Give yourself a reason to look forward to going to
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Speaker 3: All right, Oh, what about Dean Ambrose RESTMENTA thirty two
Speaker 3: is there? I think we sort of touched on it,
Speaker 3: but is there a chance Dean Ambrose is the guy
Speaker 3: who they decide to win the Rumble and face brock
Speaker 3: as this You know, can you imagine Dean Ambrose selling
Speaker 3: tickets from media thirty two and you know, you go
Speaker 3: into his personality and his and his voice and you
Speaker 3: just don't overscript him and let him sell the match
Speaker 3: and sell him as the crazy guy who's just crazy
Speaker 3: enough to to take out to take out brock Lesnar
Speaker 3: when nobody else could if.
Speaker 4: He really really catches fire. And you know, that's what
Speaker 4: I think is going to have to happen. I really
Speaker 4: do think they're held meant on Roman range right now,
Speaker 4: and it's going to take something big in order for
Speaker 4: them to stray from that, and if it's Ambrose just
Speaker 4: getting over like at Austin levels, well then they're not
Speaker 4: probably not gonna have a choice. But Daniel Bryan got
Speaker 4: over to a ridiculous degree and they just fought that
Speaker 4: every step of the way. It seems so with Ambrose,
Speaker 4: I think they probably have him pegged as being the
Speaker 4: cool guy for now. Long term, they've probably seen him
Speaker 4: as a guy who turns on Roman Reigns and I've
Speaker 4: said for a while, not a bad spot to be,
Speaker 4: you know, this era's Roddy Piper to you know, to
Speaker 4: Roman rains Hogan. I guess, I mean it's it's not
Speaker 4: the perfect comparison, but if that can you know, between
Speaker 4: him and Rawlins that I think could be a good
Speaker 4: spot for Ambrose. It's not going to be base of
Speaker 4: the company, top guy that people want unless something really clicked.
Speaker 4: You don't hear the negative grumbling from people about Ambrose
Speaker 4: that you do that we did Daniel Bryan. But we're
Speaker 4: also not at that point where it's just like people
Speaker 4: are really against the idea and really you know, just
Speaker 4: demanding that Dean Ambrose become the guy in WWE We're
Speaker 4: hearing it from a certain portion of the fan base.
Speaker 4: But like you said earlier, I really think it's kind
Speaker 4: of the the hardcore fan doesn't mean the casual fans
Speaker 4: aren't into Ambrose, but I don't know that there's this
Speaker 4: demand for him like there was Daniel Bryant.
Speaker 3: Global Force Wrestling Jason.
Speaker 4: Yeah, finally you brought it up.
Speaker 3: It math did well. We're at the end here. We
Speaker 3: went long on the lifecast parts, so you know we're
Speaker 3: past to our mark here. But I mean we got
Speaker 3: to mention Global Force Wrestling. It's becoming it's kind of
Speaker 3: becoming a tradition. I'm not sure it'll be every week.
Speaker 3: We don't have a streak. I think we did miss
Speaker 3: one week recently. But they announced another international signing. Do
Speaker 3: you remember the country?
Speaker 13: Oh?
Speaker 3: Do you bet?
Speaker 15: I do.
Speaker 4: I've got it right here in front of me. P
Speaker 4: WA Australia out of Sydney, Wrestle Clash out of Melbourne,
Speaker 4: Riot City Wrestling out of Adelaide, Explosive Wrestling out of Perth,
Speaker 4: and Impact Pro out of Auckland, New Zealand. See it's
Speaker 4: not just Australia, it's also New Zealand. They now have
Speaker 4: partnerships in Mexico, Japan. England, Ireland, In Germany, Australia and
Speaker 4: New Zealand. The only thing missing from like the old
Speaker 4: AWA intro seems to be Canada and Poland.
Speaker 3: Oh the Awa intro that Oh, I just I think
Speaker 3: I want that played at my funeral.
Speaker 4: Mexico, Poland, Japan the greatest professional wrestling all right anyway.
Speaker 3: And and the music it just gives me the chills,
Speaker 3: you know. And it was so low fi. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like they had played the same tape over and
Speaker 3: over again every week, or it was like you know,
Speaker 3: an old uh you know, multi dubbed wrestling tape, you
Speaker 3: know where it was, you know, so fuzzy and and
Speaker 3: you know, just it's just I don't know, it just
Speaker 3: sounded authentic and gritty and legendary and scary and Twilight
Speaker 3: zony and like this is a big deal. I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's just all those emotions as an eight year old
Speaker 3: hearing it for the first time.
Speaker 4: Did they really go with Poland? Or am I just
Speaker 4: making that up? I don't even remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Poland was there, Okay, Yeah, definitely, yeah.
Speaker 4: They must have. I had Ivan Putski at one time,
Speaker 4: because I don't know how many other wrestlers have been
Speaker 4: built from poland that's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, so anyway, I mean, I don't know, we
Speaker 3: kind of mock them. And as you were talking about
Speaker 3: on your Memoradio, Jason, you know, it's not just running
Speaker 3: a show that's going to make them legit. It's a
Speaker 3: good step forward, you know, if they actually write a
Speaker 3: paycheck to a wrestler, which they have yet to do
Speaker 3: to the best of my knowledge. It I do think
Speaker 3: there's still a chance that Jeff Jarrett's filming a reality
Speaker 3: series and it's actually going to end up being a
Speaker 3: mockumentary about doing a fake wrestling company. And again, there'll
Speaker 3: be a lot of people out to strangle him, you know,
Speaker 3: because he you know, he'd be creating these alliances with
Speaker 3: all these wrestling companies worldwide with no intention of actually running.
Speaker 3: But like, there's nothing inconsistent with him doing a mockumentary
Speaker 3: about a globe trotting wrestling promoter with no money and
Speaker 3: no chance in hell of doing anything, just creating a
Speaker 3: buzz through creating paper alliances with a bunch of companies
Speaker 3: nobody's ever heard of internationally.
Speaker 4: You'd be a hell of a final f you to
Speaker 4: the wrestling business.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I don't know. I mean I think the
Speaker 3: odds that are very, very, very slim. But in any
Speaker 3: time I say something ridiculous, Bruce is always like I
Speaker 3: can always kind of Bruce Man should be like to
Speaker 3: you know when I'm not with him on audio, to
Speaker 3: be like And this is not one of the it's
Speaker 3: not a mocumentary like Wade Keller dared to bring up.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying it like I seriously think it is,
Speaker 3: but it's it's that ridiculous that it could be.
Speaker 4: But hey, international TV star Robe McManus is behind the
Speaker 4: project now, I mean not financially, but but he's endorsing
Speaker 4: it because Lord knows, Robe McManus has never endorsed a
Speaker 4: losing wrestling promotion that went to Australia.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, So anyway, I mean, any anything else you
Speaker 3: want to cover or should we end on the Global
Speaker 3: Force Wrestling note.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, I'm trying to think if there's a So
Speaker 4: you really didn't think Brie was just one of the
Speaker 4: worst acting performances of all time?
Speaker 3: Did I think that?
Speaker 4: You really you didn't think it was?
Speaker 3: Oh no, I think she's awful every week. It just
Speaker 3: wasn't new information for me. No, No, she was. She
Speaker 3: was terrible. I mean she should be asked to cry.
Speaker 3: I thought the whole segment was going to be awful,
Speaker 3: and I don't think the segment was awful. I thought
Speaker 3: NICKI through eighty percent of it was pretty good. And
Speaker 3: I think what I liked about it in contrast to
Speaker 3: what Bruce talked about on Monday's Life cast leading into
Speaker 3: Raw is I think they really differentiated the two characters. Well.
Speaker 3: I think they had differentiating themselves more than Bruce gave
Speaker 3: them credit for on Monday. But I think they really
Speaker 3: differentiate in themselves now where you don't think of them
Speaker 3: as identical twins. They have two distinct personalities, and I
Speaker 3: like the idea that they went down that road of Brie.
Speaker 3: You're seen as a sweet one and I'm the manipulative,
Speaker 3: gold digging, you know one, and yet the truth is
Speaker 3: is your phony and I get a bad rap. And
Speaker 3: I just think that's good because I think Keels should,
Speaker 3: in their mind feel like they're right, and it's the
Speaker 3: fans resent them for the fact that they aren't seeing
Speaker 3: things clearly, They're not seeing reality for what it is,
Speaker 3: and they handle their own truth really poorly, and that's
Speaker 3: what's happening with NICKI. She has her own version of
Speaker 3: the truth, and I think people are going to be
Speaker 3: skeptical that it is actually real, well, that it's actually
Speaker 3: They're gonna think she's disconnected from reality. But even more so,
Speaker 3: they're going to think, even if what you're saying is true,
Speaker 3: the things you've done and said don't aren't justified by
Speaker 3: what you think that reality is. So I like the
Speaker 3: construction of it, and I thought, wow, they've actually, you know,
Speaker 3: that segment did a pretty good job with it. It's
Speaker 3: just yeah, I mean, Bria's awful. I mean, I don't
Speaker 3: even know that. I don't think when people are putting
Speaker 3: in a position to act, to act when they can act,
Speaker 3: I don't even think they come across as particularly likable
Speaker 3: at that point. I think people start just thinking you're
Speaker 3: trying to pretend to be something or feeling something you're
Speaker 3: not feeling. And I actually think people resent phoniness, and
Speaker 3: I think Brice started to come across as actually kind
Speaker 3: of phony in a way that could backfire.
Speaker 4: Oh shay, yeah, that's for sure. And then the other thing,
Speaker 4: I guess you shot out to me about Rob that
Speaker 4: we haven't touched on is See. You know, we talked
Speaker 4: about John Cena and how much they put him over
Speaker 4: and how he's indestructible. Again, what are they doing to
Speaker 4: the Wyatt family? I mean, I was able to kind
Speaker 4: of get over. Okay, they didn't go with Harper and
Speaker 4: rowing his tag jamps and I guess they want to
Speaker 4: go long term with usso's whatever. But now they just
Speaker 4: lose all the time, and bray Wyatt, I mean, Chris
Speaker 4: Eric goes back seemingly to elevate bray Wyatt all of
Speaker 4: a sudden. I don't even know if the match is
Speaker 4: happening at this point, the third match at night of Champions,
Speaker 4: and maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But in the
Speaker 4: middle of this they trade wins and it looks like, Okay,
Speaker 4: they're finally gonna start building up bray Wyatt. He's the
Speaker 4: guy who takes the ass kicking from Scena.
Speaker 3: I don't know. No, you're right, and I mean that
Speaker 3: that could have been our headline on the show to
Speaker 3: talk about the Whyatts. You know, Harper not Rowan did
Speaker 3: the job, maybe just to shake up the predictability of
Speaker 3: Rona Is being the designated job or but yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 3: bray Wyatt got sacrificed in a way that I don't
Speaker 3: think was worth it. But even so, even more so,
Speaker 3: if you're gonna sacrifice bray Wyatt, then make a really
Speaker 3: big deal out of the match, and make a really
Speaker 3: big deal out of the outcome, because if you're like
Speaker 3: I don't like the idea of well, Bray's gonna do
Speaker 3: the job because we need a main event, so we're
Speaker 3: gonna have Bray do the job, and we need to
Speaker 3: get over the fact that scene as a maniac. Now
Speaker 3: who's all determined, So you know, Brad's the only guy
Speaker 3: who can draw rating. We can rebuild him up later
Speaker 3: because he's so good on the mic. If that's all
Speaker 3: your rational if you're rationalizing all of that, don't then
Speaker 3: be meek in how you promote it. Promote the hell
Speaker 3: out of it, get a rating. If you're going to
Speaker 3: have Braid do a job, get everything there is to
Speaker 3: get out of Braid doing the job, and so have more,
Speaker 3: have the announcers act more excited about being able to
Speaker 3: see that match, and have the uh the outcome be
Speaker 3: a much bigger deal, like we've never seen brailews like this.
Speaker 3: This is a new This is a new John Scena
Speaker 3: and really get something out of it, make people remember it,
Speaker 3: so that then people are wondering, how's Bray going to
Speaker 3: respond to this? And if you can't do that, and
Speaker 3: you're just going to kind of try to slip the
Speaker 3: match in the finish in I don't think it's worth
Speaker 3: doing in the first place. So I think you get
Speaker 3: a lot less of the positive, but you still have
Speaker 3: all the negative.
Speaker 4: Why. I mean, what's happened though at Brickwayad what it's
Speaker 4: not even has he just never recovered from the John
Speaker 4: Cenic program. I mean I I assumed they had. I
Speaker 4: didn't overreact to it. It's like, yeah, I wish he
Speaker 4: would have wanted Greg Wrestlemaney, but he didn't. It's nothing
Speaker 4: he can't bounce back from him. And then sure enough
Speaker 4: the next nine on Raw, he cuts the promo and
Speaker 4: gets some of his heat back, and it's like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is fine. But then they've just lost their way.
Speaker 4: I mean, I hate to think that that was the
Speaker 4: fond Dongo like Shiny Toys and Jazz. I mean, because
Speaker 4: they're just missing out here. I really worry they're doing
Speaker 4: long term damage. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, they absolutely could be and I don't break
Speaker 3: the solace. I take is enough people in power speak
Speaker 3: very very highly of Bray a lot more than Fondango
Speaker 3: and Seamus, and so I think that in their mind
Speaker 3: they're not burying him, they just aren't focused on him
Speaker 3: at the moment. And I think they believe in an
Speaker 3: in an environment where they need to come up with
Speaker 3: six hours of original programming every week counting main event.
Speaker 3: They need to put top guys against the top guys.
Speaker 3: And you know, the Vinsic man of the late nineties
Speaker 3: mid nineties would roll his eyes at the Vincic man
Speaker 3: of today. The destuct Mata today would say, the world
Speaker 3: has changed and I've learned a lot since then. But
Speaker 3: just giving away these main event matchups over and over
Speaker 3: it means you water down the novelty of seeing main
Speaker 3: event matchups. And then you're also put in a tough
Speaker 3: situation where do you do all non finishes or do
Speaker 3: you just do finishes and own them? And they did
Speaker 3: that finish, but I don't think they fully owned it.
Speaker 3: They did a decisive finish and then they just forgot
Speaker 3: about it, went to a six man and forgot about that,
Speaker 3: you know. So I don't know I mean, I think
Speaker 3: Bray is good enough that he'll be fine, but I
Speaker 3: don't know that he'll be what he could have been
Speaker 3: in the short run and maybe the mid term, because
Speaker 3: I do think it's a setback the way that they're
Speaker 3: booking him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I do too. And final question of the day
Speaker 4: ats a quick one thumbs up thumbs down to the
Speaker 4: Midge having a stunt double.
Speaker 3: That thumbs up?
Speaker 4: Yeah, me too. I hate what they're doing with Sandow,
Speaker 4: but that was actually very good use of that character.
Speaker 3: And I joked on Twitter that Sandel, if he's really
Speaker 3: committed to his job, would shave his beard.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think Santo showed a lack of commitment to
Speaker 3: being a stunt double, because what stunt double has a
Speaker 3: really big, bushy beard when the person he's stunt doubling
Speaker 3: for is clean shaven. So you know, miss says he
Speaker 3: picks good stunt doubles. But not only did Sant I'll lose,
Speaker 3: but he didn't really look like a double. All right,
Speaker 3: very good, Thank you, Jason. Good to be back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, and we'll talk.
Speaker 3: To you next week. Thanks to Torch, we havep members
Speaker 3: and of course, Jason, your dot need members are joining
Speaker 3: us today and on that note, don't be after Jason
Speaker 3: Powell Wade Keller signing off.
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