Speaker 1: Mike from The Bronx. Just a crazy theory that nobody
Speaker 1: is talking about. It seems New Day or going to
Speaker 1: break up. But what if the swerve is that KOFE
Speaker 1: and Woods turn on Big E at the tenth anniversary
Speaker 1: so they can get major heat. Because, like you said,
Speaker 1: tag teams are thins, so why split up? Just imagine
Speaker 1: Heel New Day blaming Big E for the rut that
Speaker 1: they are in since he got hurt. That would be
Speaker 1: the ultimate swerve. It would be the ultimate swarm. It
Speaker 1: would take some balls too to put some real heat
Speaker 1: on them and turn them Heel that way. It would
Speaker 1: definitely be a swerve. It's business time, baby you. I'm
Speaker 1: listening to Solo Monsters Sounds Up. I love you Monster.
Speaker 2: Concude, you got grown ass wrustlers in the back going
Speaker 2: on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Come oh speak bitch, Come on now you have legs.
Speaker 1: They've made Solo a monster. I was ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: positive it was just chested up. Now what out of
Speaker 1: my contract if I don't get what I want? Welcome
Speaker 1: to episode eight ninety one of the Solemn Monster Sounds Off.
Speaker 1: It is Sunday, December eighth, twenty twenty four. I am
Speaker 1: the Solemn Monster. We have a lot of news to
Speaker 1: get into this week. We're going to talk about Saturday
Speaker 1: night's main event. We're going to talk about the possibility
Speaker 1: of a WWE draft, which I'm hoping we do not get.
Speaker 1: Got to talk about the New Day, I gotta talk
Speaker 1: about aw got to talk about a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure all of you have heard about this
Speaker 1: story about the execution of the healthcare ceo here in
Speaker 1: New York City, the CEO of I think the largest
Speaker 1: health insurance company in the country, United Healthcare, and he
Speaker 1: was gunned down in cold blood early in the morning
Speaker 1: this week in midtown Manhattan. What's crazy about that is
Speaker 1: I worked in that area up until a few years ago,
Speaker 1: when we still had an office within a couple of
Speaker 1: blocks of where this took place. In fact, that very street,
Speaker 1: on that very sidewalk, I would walk down that block
Speaker 1: every single day to get to the train to go home.
Speaker 1: And what's crazy about it also is you know, the
Speaker 1: healthcare company put up a post on its Facebook page
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of what happened earlier this week, and
Speaker 1: the post had gotten sixty two thousand reactions, and out
Speaker 1: of those sixty two and it's probably a lot more
Speaker 1: than that now. But out of those sixty two thousand reactions,
Speaker 1: fifty seven thousand of those emojis were laughing emojis. What
Speaker 1: does that tell you about the state of healthcare in
Speaker 1: this country? Anyway, let's get into this. If you would
Speaker 1: like to make a PayPal donation, of course, as you know,
Speaker 1: you can always do so on thesolomonster dot com. You
Speaker 1: could be part of the roll call here show your support.
Speaker 1: If you would like to do so, ten dollars in
Speaker 1: WORL will get you a nickname. Any shout out here
Speaker 1: on the show like Big B, Brian Bessera, the Diamond
Speaker 1: Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison's Soep, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, the
Speaker 1: Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, the Chicago Slayer, Willie Aikert,
Speaker 1: night Stalker, n f Alsaphar, Simon Costello. I also want
Speaker 1: to give a very special shout out to a very
Speaker 1: happy sound off couple, Michael and Leanne. Michael has been
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast from the very beginning, religiously every
Speaker 1: week since two thousand and seven, and the two of
Speaker 1: them have known each other for a very long time.
Speaker 1: They've only grown closer once they realize they both shared
Speaker 1: a love for wrestling, and not only with each other,
Speaker 1: which is always the sign of a healthy relationship. I'm
Speaker 1: talking pro wrestling. They're even attending their first WrestleMania next
Speaker 1: year in Las Vegas, so I hope I get to
Speaker 1: meet you guys one day. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: going to be in Vegas for Mania, but if not,
Speaker 1: hopefully one day we'll make that happen. But I want
Speaker 1: to shout them out as they celebrate their one year
Speaker 1: anniversary together. I know they're on a getaway together this weekend,
Speaker 1: and when they hear this, oh boy, are they gonna
Speaker 1: hit the roof. But enjoy it. I'm there with you
Speaker 1: in spirit, or at least my voices. And House of
Speaker 1: Glory returns to the NYC Arena on Friday, December twentieth
Speaker 1: for our final show of the year, Live for the
Speaker 1: Moment with the return of Matt and Jeff Hardy, and
Speaker 1: they'll also be doing a meet and greet. Guess who
Speaker 1: else is going to be there doing a meet and greet?
Speaker 1: Ray Phoenix, He's made some headlines this week. Not only
Speaker 1: will he be in attendance doing a meet and greet,
Speaker 1: but he is also promising great news and surprises. I
Speaker 1: wonder what that could be. Zillifa two defends his Crown
Speaker 1: Jewel Championship against Jake Something that's gonna be a hell
Speaker 1: of a match. Meghan Bain the Megasist defends her Hog
Speaker 1: Women's Championship against Ali Catch and Matt Riddle returns the
Speaker 1: take on the day viewing Turbo Whomi Nakuda. And if
Speaker 1: you don't know who Phomy Nakuta is, it's understandable. He
Speaker 1: hasn't made his debut yet, but you are about to
Speaker 1: find out. Back in March, I introduced him to the
Speaker 1: ring and he signed his Hog contract on my back.
Speaker 1: We put pen to paper and we made it official.
Speaker 1: And with an undefeated eight to no record in MMA,
Speaker 1: he is the best flyweight in the world, never been
Speaker 1: knocked out, never been tapped out. And Riddle, of course
Speaker 1: has his own background in MMA, so to see them
Speaker 1: in the ring wrestling together is going to be very interesting.
Speaker 1: The show is sold out from front row to stage seating,
Speaker 1: but general admission tickets are still available. You can get
Speaker 1: them all you can at Hog Wrestling dot Net, as
Speaker 1: well as the tickets to any of the meet and greets,
Speaker 1: and while you're there, you can also buy tickets to
Speaker 1: our Chicago return on January seventeenth, with Ricky Starks making
Speaker 1: his Hog debut against Mike Santana and just announced the
Speaker 1: other day eight days later, Ricky Starr's returns for his
Speaker 1: New York City debut because Hog is running its first
Speaker 1: show of the new year at home on January twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: called Final Warning, and tickets for that event just went
Speaker 1: on sale on Friday. So it's going to be a
Speaker 1: very busy start to twenty twenty five. Hopefully you guys
Speaker 1: can be part of it now. I mentioned Ray Phoenix.
Speaker 1: His AW deal was reportedly extended after Tony Kahn added
Speaker 1: injury time to his deal with no plans to actually
Speaker 1: use him seemingly. His brother Penta is officially a free
Speaker 1: agent as of last week, and he's free and clear
Speaker 1: to sign anywhere he wants or nowhere at all. A
Speaker 1: lot of speculation that he may be the mystery opponent
Speaker 1: that Nick Aldis said he has lined up for Carmelo
Speaker 1: Hayes on SmackDown this Friday. All this never actually used
Speaker 1: the word new to describe this person, but on WWE's
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, they describe his opponent as a new superstar,
Speaker 1: and Penta would fit that. Bill I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: I could see it being Trick Williams if he lost
Speaker 1: the NXT Championship last night to Rich Holland did dead line,
Speaker 1: but he retained and Oba Femi won the Men's Iron
Speaker 1: Survivor Challenge, which makes him the number one contenders. So
Speaker 1: Pento would have to be the favorite right now, I
Speaker 1: would say. Even after last night, he made a surprise
Speaker 1: appearance at the Triple A show and according to Lucha Blog,
Speaker 1: who translated his promo, he basically cut a farewell speech
Speaker 1: and said that he was taking time away to make
Speaker 1: a career decision, and he said that he was saying
Speaker 1: goodbye to Mexican wrestling for now, but this would not
Speaker 1: be the last that we would see of him, and
Speaker 1: he would return to Triple A again someday, So that
Speaker 1: certainly could mean a WWE debut is coming very soon now.
Speaker 1: For his part, Phoenix has not publicly said anything negative
Speaker 1: about AAW He has not tweeted asking for his release
Speaker 1: or anything like that. He hasn't been retweeting other people saying,
Speaker 1: you know, hashtag free Phoenix or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: he has been dropping some cryptic tweets, and one person
Speaker 1: tweeted about how wrong it is that AAW isn't using him,
Speaker 1: and Phoenix replied to that person's tweet saying, I will
Speaker 1: have my chance to speak the truth. And then yesterday
Speaker 1: at four point fifty in the afternoon, he tweeted, no
Speaker 1: one stays in a place where they received inhumane treatment. Now,
Speaker 1: if we end up finding out that none of these
Speaker 1: tweets had anything to do with AAW and it's about
Speaker 1: something unrelated like his work, visa or something, and everybody
Speaker 1: is going to end up looking stupid, it would be
Speaker 1: pretty fucked up for him not to specify that, not
Speaker 1: to specify that this is not in reference to AAW,
Speaker 1: because he has to know. The first thing people are
Speaker 1: going to do is assume that it has to do
Speaker 1: with something horrible that AAW is doing to him. As
Speaker 1: far as we know, the only horrible thing that they're
Speaker 1: doing is paying him to sit at home and do nothing.
Speaker 1: So unless there's more to it that we don't know,
Speaker 1: and if there was, I would think Knah probably would
Speaker 1: have said something about it on his podcast, inhumane sounds
Speaker 1: very dramatic. That's a very strong word to use, and
Speaker 1: it just has me wondering what the hell is going
Speaker 1: on here? If it is in reference to AW, this
Speaker 1: could get very ugly, very fast. In due time, he's
Speaker 1: gonna have his chance to say what he wants to say.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's just you know, feels like
Speaker 1: he's not able to say anything right now. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but this could get very messy before all is said
Speaker 1: and done. I just I just don't think I could
Speaker 1: handle another ra ra speech on Dynamite like the one
Speaker 1: Adam Copeland gave. If my eyes rolled back in my
Speaker 1: head any further, I would look like the Undertaker that
Speaker 1: will go down as one of the low points in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. And you know, a lot of time
Speaker 1: and a lot of energy gets devoted every single week
Speaker 1: to the AW ratings and how low they've gotten, and
Speaker 1: understandably so, even when you see how much their audience
Speaker 1: has declined over the last five years, it's depressing. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the only word for it. It's depressing. You look
Speaker 1: at their Thanksgiving Eve episode. Their Thanksgiving Eve show three
Speaker 1: years ago brought in nine hundred thousand viewers, and then
Speaker 1: it was eight hundred and eighty thousand, and last year
Speaker 1: it was eight hundred and forty five thousand. This year
Speaker 1: five hundred and thirty six thousand, by far the lowest
Speaker 1: they've ever done on that date, the third lowest total
Speaker 1: they've ever done on a Wednesday night in the history
Speaker 1: of the show, and the lowest eighteen to forty nine
Speaker 1: number in the history of the show. Never seemed to
Speaker 1: have an impact on them before on Thanksgiving Eve, but
Speaker 1: this year it did. And this week wasn't much of
Speaker 1: an improvement at five hundred and eighty six thousand. You know,
Speaker 1: the Continental Classic may give us some great wrestling matches,
Speaker 1: but it has proven to be poisoned as any kind
Speaker 1: of real draw for this company. But I bring this
Speaker 1: up because this was not a great week for WWE
Speaker 1: in the ratings department either. Now, Rod did well, Raw
Speaker 1: actually did really well. On Monday, they got that sweet
Speaker 1: post Survivor series bump one point seven million overnight viewers.
Speaker 1: That's up twelve percent from the week prior. The same
Speaker 1: cannot be said for the SmackDown before Survivor series, which
Speaker 1: averaged one point three four million viewers on the USA network.
Speaker 1: They're lowest total since leaving Fox. That was back in September,
Speaker 1: and that show on Friday, not this past Friday, but
Speaker 1: the friday before included the Roman reigned Sea on Punk
Speaker 1: sit down, which was hyped up all week. Then on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: they randomly trotted Eric Bischoff out on NXT and the
Speaker 1: show proceeded to do its worst ratings in more than
Speaker 1: a year. Speaking of ratings, Poison five hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: three thousand viewers, their second lowest total since moving to
Speaker 1: the CW network, and they did their worst eighteen to
Speaker 1: forty nine numbers since July fourth of last year, and
Speaker 1: there was no major competition to point to you that
Speaker 1: night either. I guess Eaze just isn't the draw they
Speaker 1: thought he would be. Yeah, Now, for Raw, they're moving
Speaker 1: to Netflix, so there's not going to be any more
Speaker 1: raw ratings talk. And for Dynamite, I mean for Dynamite,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there will always be ratings talk, but they're
Speaker 1: going to be simulcasting the show live on Max starting
Speaker 1: New Year's Day, so it's not going to exactly be
Speaker 1: fair to just cite the Nielsen numbers anymore for that
Speaker 1: shows any kind of evidence about how the show is doing.
Speaker 1: And I doubt Max is going to be reporting those numbers,
Speaker 1: So in many ways, this is the end of an era.
Speaker 1: But I only bring this up. I don't do ratings
Speaker 1: reports really hardly ever anymore, because I mean, there's just
Speaker 1: no point. But I just thought, you know, fair is
Speaker 1: fair for all to talk about AW ratings. And yes,
Speaker 1: the WWE numbers are still much higher than AAW but
Speaker 1: not exactly a great week for WWE either. Now I'm
Speaker 1: going to get back to AW in a bit. I'm
Speaker 1: not finished with them yet. Only four more episodes though,
Speaker 1: of on USA before the show moves to Netflix and
Speaker 1: moves back to three hours. I'm already in an early
Speaker 1: period of morning here. I'm enjoying two hour raws. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could say what you want to about it. This
Speaker 1: past week's episode is evidence that, yes, you can do
Speaker 1: a great two hour show. The show does not need
Speaker 1: to be three hours just to be great. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying these final few weeks of two hours because
Speaker 1: I know it's never coming back again. And SmackDown, by
Speaker 1: the Way, is also expected to be moving to three
Speaker 1: hours as well come January, not just RAW, and according
Speaker 1: to a story from Front Office Sports, Netflix believes it
Speaker 1: has pinned down the buffering issues that plagued its fight
Speaker 1: between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul just in time for
Speaker 1: its Christmas Day NFL games and the debut of Raw
Speaker 1: the following week. We'll find out soon enough. On Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Netflix held a special WWE event at its headquarters in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles with executives as they were mingling with management
Speaker 1: type it's like Paul Leavek and Nick Cohn, and there
Speaker 1: was some talent there. Cody Rhoades, Cmpunk, Seth Rollins. Becky
Speaker 1: Lynch was there, which all but confirmed that she's going
Speaker 1: to be back soon, possibly on that January sixth show.
Speaker 1: At the event, Nick con he dashed the hopes of
Speaker 1: all the fans hoping that this move to Netflix might
Speaker 1: mean a move away from a PG show to something
Speaker 1: more adult oriented. I don't know why people thought that
Speaker 1: was going to be the case to begin with. I mean,
Speaker 1: they may not have to edit out the crowd chance
Speaker 1: the way they did on Fox and the way they
Speaker 1: do on USA. Now, I mean, that'll be nice. And
Speaker 1: you know, they may allow a naughty word or to
Speaker 1: hear or there that you normally wouldn't hear on TV,
Speaker 1: but it's not like this is going to be a
Speaker 1: weekly thing. Some people were talking about this like it
Speaker 1: was going to be a return to the Attitude era
Speaker 1: or something. By the way, the edginess of the Attitude
Speaker 1: era it cut both ways. Okay, it gave us some
Speaker 1: amazing content and it also gave us a lot of
Speaker 1: dogshit content that has not aged one wealth. And even
Speaker 1: when it first aired it wasn't very good. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of good and a lot of bad that
Speaker 1: came with that era. But really, I don't know what
Speaker 1: people were expecting. I mean, do they want blooding guts
Speaker 1: every week. They're already allowing selective blood as it is,
Speaker 1: you know, when the match calls for it, or when
Speaker 1: the angle calls for it. That's the way it should be. Cussing.
Speaker 1: We already have some of that. We don't need f
Speaker 1: bombs being dropped every week to make the show edgier
Speaker 1: tits an ass evening gown matches. I mean, they're not
Speaker 1: going back to that. I mean, my god, Shane McMahon
Speaker 1: had women dancing in skimpy outfits on Raw Underground and
Speaker 1: there was an entire discourse over how inappropriate and unnecessary
Speaker 1: that was in today's culture. I mean, you think people
Speaker 1: are really going to be able to handle an edgier
Speaker 1: product without erupting into some kind of fake outrage every week.
Speaker 1: Their heads would explode. But this is what Nick con said.
Speaker 1: He said, we're not changing the rating of our program.
Speaker 1: So there's some online chatter about, oh, it's going to
Speaker 1: be R rated or for us old folks X rated.
Speaker 1: That's definitely not happening. It's family friendly, multi generational, advertiser
Speaker 1: friendly programming. It's going to stay that way. I would
Speaker 1: look for more global flair, especially as the relationship continues
Speaker 1: to develop. Countries outside of the United States are as
Speaker 1: important to us as the United States is, so we
Speaker 1: have certain targeted countries that are priorities for Netflix, their
Speaker 1: priorities for us. You're going to see more of that.
Speaker 1: I think that's the way you'll see a bit of
Speaker 1: a difference. I don't know exactly what he means by that,
Speaker 1: but it could mean more international tapings. It could mean
Speaker 1: featuring more international talent on the show from countries you know,
Speaker 1: or from regions that are important to them. So think
Speaker 1: Tony Kahn, for example, what he's doing now with their
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Mexico deal. Right he wants to feature more
Speaker 1: lucidors like Hologram and the Beast mor TOAs right, I
Speaker 1: think if the Beast mor TOAs ever makes the jump
Speaker 1: to WWA, Tony's gonna need therapy. He's gonna be so upset,
Speaker 1: and then they'll just shorten his name to Morty. That's
Speaker 1: what he'll be in WWE. Pw Insider also reported a
Speaker 1: major change to the way RAW airs going forward. According
Speaker 1: to sources in WWE, the show will air live no
Speaker 1: matter what, regardless of where in the world they may
Speaker 1: be taping any given week. So think of some of
Speaker 1: those European shows, right, those UK raws that air in
Speaker 1: its normal time slot, but the spoilers are around all
Speaker 1: day because it was taped six hours ahead. That will
Speaker 1: no longer be the case. I mean it will be
Speaker 1: if you still wait until eight o'clock at night to
Speaker 1: watch the show, you'll have to avoid spoilers. But the
Speaker 1: show will stream live as it happens on Netflix, and
Speaker 1: then they'll have a video on demand replay going up
Speaker 1: asap after the show ends, so no more tape delays.
Speaker 1: If you want to watch the show live, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to watch the show live, whether it's one o'clock
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, two o'clock in the afternoon, five o'clock,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. So I mean, think about that huge
Speaker 1: European tour they have coming up in March. This is
Speaker 1: probably their most ambitious international tour they've ever done pre WrestleMania.
Speaker 1: Normally they go on international tours after WrestleMania. This one's
Speaker 1: the month before WrestleMania, and they're doing an eleven city tour.
Speaker 1: They're going to start in Barcelona for SmackDown, which would
Speaker 1: be unaffected by all this, so that'll still be tape delayed.
Speaker 1: Then they're going to move to Germany, then they're going
Speaker 1: to Belgium, and that Belgium show is a live raw
Speaker 1: and then the next week the show is in Glasgow, Scotland,
Speaker 1: and then London, England after that. So those three shows
Speaker 1: are going to air live in the afternoon over here.
Speaker 1: But what I'm really interested in is where the raw
Speaker 1: archives are going to end up, because I noticed on Peacock.
Speaker 1: You may have noticed this too. It says the entire
Speaker 1: library of raw episodes from nineteen ninety three all the
Speaker 1: way to the modern day are leaving Peacock at the
Speaker 1: end of this month. The same exact thing happened when
Speaker 1: nxteam moved from USA to the CW network, the entire
Speaker 1: library just disappeared. Now, the belief was that they were
Speaker 1: moving into the CW app and you could stream it
Speaker 1: from there, but last I checked, the only thing they
Speaker 1: had available for streaming were the current episodes that they
Speaker 1: archive after they air on the CW. You cannot just
Speaker 1: go ahead right now and find old episodes of NXT
Speaker 1: from before that. We still have no access to that,
Speaker 1: and there's been no clarification on why. There's been no
Speaker 1: clarification on if we're going to get access to them
Speaker 1: again anytime soon, and I'm worried about that. With RAW now,
Speaker 1: I would think they would be shifting over to Netflix,
Speaker 1: because Raw itself is moving over to Netflix, but there's
Speaker 1: still been no clarification from WWE about that. The only
Speaker 1: thing we've heard is Netflix saying that select programming from
Speaker 1: the archives will be available in January. What the hell
Speaker 1: does that mean? Nobody knows. Are they moving to Netflix?
Speaker 1: Are they moving all the episodes to their vault channel
Speaker 1: on YouTube Tube? Is that why the vault channel was
Speaker 1: conceived of in the first place, because they knew this
Speaker 1: was coming and they're just gonna put the episodes there.
Speaker 1: I mean, they've been posting a lot of full shows
Speaker 1: on there recently, but they're completely random. It's not like
Speaker 1: they're organized in any way at least. I mean, I
Speaker 1: hope if they do this, they could at least create
Speaker 1: some kind of playlist. You know, they're just random uploads.
Speaker 1: We even got a full episode of Shotguns Saturday Night
Speaker 1: from Penn Station. That's the best quality you'll find that
Speaker 1: episode in anywhere. They don't even have those episodes of
Speaker 1: Shotgun on Peacock. Yesterday, I think it was in the
Speaker 1: afternoon yesterday, they streamed an entire episode of Saturday Night's
Speaker 1: main event from nineteen eighty eight. Now they've started posting
Speaker 1: full documentaries. They uploaded the CMPUNG Best in the World documentary.
Speaker 1: They uploaded the Ladies and Gentlemen My Name Is Paul
Speaker 1: Hayman documentary from ten years ago. If they end up
Speaker 1: on YouTube, I mean, it's better than nothing, but I
Speaker 1: doubt they're all going up at once. It would probably
Speaker 1: be uploaded piecemeal over time. You know what really sucks
Speaker 1: is not having everything in one centralized place. It's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: you know, having to bounce back and forth between Netflix
Speaker 1: and Hulu and Peacock and YouTube just to watch their stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have subscriptions to a bunch of different
Speaker 1: streaming services, but it's all different types of content. It's
Speaker 1: not like, you know, I'm watching a particular television show
Speaker 1: and you got two seasons on this service, you got
Speaker 1: one season on that service, you got four seasons on that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that would be ridiculous. That's basically what this
Speaker 1: is like. And so that sucks. Makes me miss the
Speaker 1: old networks. So I missed the old WWE network so much,
Speaker 1: I really did it. It's one of the things that
Speaker 1: Vince McMahon got right in the last decade was the
Speaker 1: creation of the WWE network, the interface, the search function.
Speaker 1: It was so much better than it is on Peacock.
Speaker 1: You really you don't know what you have until it's gone.
Speaker 1: That's how I feel about the network. WWE is also
Speaker 1: getting back into reality TV with what sounds like a
Speaker 1: new version of Tough Enough that they are calling LFG,
Speaker 1: which does not stand for what you think it stands for.
Speaker 1: It stands for Legends and Future Greats, and the show
Speaker 1: will begin airing on A and E sometime early next year.
Speaker 1: According to a story from the rap. The primary goal
Speaker 1: of LFG will be mentoring the next generation of athletes
Speaker 1: and will include Triple H, Shawn Michaels, The Undertaker, Booker
Speaker 1: t Bubba Ray, Dudley, and Mickey James, all mentoring and
Speaker 1: guiding aspiring wrestlers as they compete in the ring with
Speaker 1: WWE contracts on the line. The series will also feature
Speaker 1: behind the scenes content of their training process, and it
Speaker 1: is not clear if this will focus on Performance Center talents,
Speaker 1: which I would assume not since they would already be
Speaker 1: under contract they're not fighting for a contract, or if
Speaker 1: it might involve any of the talents under those new
Speaker 1: WWEID deals. They didn't specify that. I guess Bubba Ray
Speaker 1: is about to play the role of Bill Mott or
Speaker 1: Bob Holly on the old Tough Enough Shows. We have
Speaker 1: two new championship matches announced for Saturday night's main event.
Speaker 1: That is in addition to the already announced WWE title
Speaker 1: match between Cody Rhoads and Kevin Owens in the finals
Speaker 1: of the Women's United States Title Tournament. We now have
Speaker 1: goother who either has signed or is in the final
Speaker 1: stages of signing a new multi year deal with WWE.
Speaker 1: He will defend the World Heavyweight Championship against Finn Ballor,
Speaker 1: and liv Morgan will defend her Women's World Championship against
Speaker 1: EO Sky. Rihea Ripley is going to be wrestling Riquel
Speaker 1: Rodriguez on Raw Tomorrow night. They paired Raquel off with
Speaker 1: Lives so that Rio would have to first go through
Speaker 1: her to get to the champion. And after she does
Speaker 1: that tomorrow and Live, I'm sure is going to retain
Speaker 1: over EO Sky. That should pave the way for a
Speaker 1: Women's World title match on January sixth on Netflix. That
Speaker 1: feels like the right time for a title change. Balor
Speaker 1: attacked Gunther on Raw Monday Night. He placed Goother in
Speaker 1: something of a babyface role by doing that, which feels
Speaker 1: a little weird. We're gonna have two heels clashing for
Speaker 1: the title, but there's no reason to think that Damian
Speaker 1: Priest is not going to get involved there. I mean,
Speaker 1: why would he not. I mean Balor cost him the
Speaker 1: title twice, so why the hell would Damian Prize not
Speaker 1: get involved? And then I think we get a triple
Speaker 1: threat match for the championship with the two of them
Speaker 1: and goonth thrown in there. Years ago, we were supposed
Speaker 1: to get Walter against Finn Balor at Takeover Dublin, remember that,
Speaker 1: and then COVID canceled everything. And now almost five years later,
Speaker 1: we're getting it on Saturday Night's main event and the
Speaker 1: two of them are going to have a wrestling match
Speaker 1: airing live on NBC. Who could have predicted that scenario
Speaker 1: and it's actually happening. WWE has announced, and he's announced
Speaker 1: it himself that Jesse the body of Ventura, who was
Speaker 1: in the crowd. He was in the front row. They
Speaker 1: were in Minnesota for Down on Friday Night, and there
Speaker 1: he was. He will be part of the broadcast team
Speaker 1: for Saturday Night's Main Event, not only next weekend, but
Speaker 1: for all four annual specials on NBC. He has been
Speaker 1: a part of twenty five Saturday Night's Main event specials
Speaker 1: in his career. This will be number twenty six. The
Speaker 1: news was announced on Friday's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast,
Speaker 1: where Jesse did an interview for about an hour. He said,
Speaker 1: it's ironic because it means my career has gone full circle.
Speaker 1: And here's the part I don't understand. They couldn't control
Speaker 1: me before. Why do they think they can control me.
Speaker 1: Now that he also confirmed I think I've talked about
Speaker 1: this in the last few weeks. He confirmed that the
Speaker 1: show will be a throwback to the classic look and
Speaker 1: feel of the nineteen eighties. He's claiming no entrance ramped,
Speaker 1: none of the usual lighting, but that wrestlers instead are
Speaker 1: going to enter and exit through the crowd. I think
Speaker 1: if you look at the seating map on Ticketmaster, you
Speaker 1: can get to look at what the seating chart looks like.
Speaker 1: It's possible it may be is set up similar to
Speaker 1: what we've seen with some of these international shows, but
Speaker 1: I'm hoping it is something along the lines of what
Speaker 1: it used to be like. I remember those early Saturday
Speaker 1: nights made event shows and how it was almost like
Speaker 1: a tunnel. Maybe isn't the right word for it. It's
Speaker 1: not like an aw tunnel, but they come out of
Speaker 1: the crowd. There's this one sort of entrance way and
Speaker 1: they come out and there's nothing fancy about it. It's very,
Speaker 1: you know, pared down, very minimalist. But it also allows
Speaker 1: for you to put more people in the building. And
Speaker 1: I don't think the show is completely sold out yet,
Speaker 1: but by showtime it might be. It might be, it
Speaker 1: should be mostly sold out, if not completely sold out,
Speaker 1: And I'm all for fitting as many people into these
Speaker 1: buildings as possible. If you can move those tickets and
Speaker 1: sell those tickets, why not? Why not? I mean, it
Speaker 1: just doesn't make any sense to have some big, elaborate
Speaker 1: stage and set up, you know, very similar to what
Speaker 1: you do every single week for it just all looks
Speaker 1: the same anyway, and then you limit yourself by cutting
Speaker 1: off a few thousand seats that you could sell. You know,
Speaker 1: with TKO, it's all about sell, sell, sell, They're gonna
Speaker 1: fill as many of those seats and make as much
Speaker 1: money as they possibly can, And honestly, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what makes sense. But he says it's gonna be that way,
Speaker 1: just like it was for the first show at the
Speaker 1: Nasau Coliseum in May of nineteen eighty five. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's the exact same venue where they're going to be
Speaker 1: next weekend. And this is what I was hoping for.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're gonna do nostalgia, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and do a throwback, you've got to go
Speaker 1: all the way with it. You know, what's old is
Speaker 1: new again. Nostalgia sells you can get away with it
Speaker 1: for at least this first show. You know, give it,
Speaker 1: give it, Give it all to me, Give me the
Speaker 1: backstage promos to open the show, give me the old
Speaker 1: match graphics for each wrestler. Give it all to me.
Speaker 1: And to anybody who says, well, you know, Jesse's older
Speaker 1: now and he might not know who everyone is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, no shit. Since when did Jesse ever prepare
Speaker 1: for these shows? It's the one thing that Jim Ross
Speaker 1: hated about working with Jesse venture in WCW. He would
Speaker 1: do all the prep for each show and Jesse would
Speaker 1: just show up. He's like, I'm putting all the work
Speaker 1: in here. You know when Jesse came back and he
Speaker 1: called that one Battle Royal on Raw in two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine with Vince McMahon. Remember that one Vince walked
Speaker 1: out to Obsession and he was wearing a tux and
Speaker 1: he had the bow tie, the red bow tie. Jesse
Speaker 1: did find they probably made giant flashcards for him with
Speaker 1: people's names and faces on them so he could identify
Speaker 1: who was who. I think Seamus won that Battle Royal
Speaker 1: if I if I remember, actually he won the Battle Royal,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what earned him that match with
Speaker 1: John Cena where he won the title for the first time.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that was it. But you know, they
Speaker 1: could do the same thing for Jesse here. If they
Speaker 1: have to do it's fine. You know, he still got
Speaker 1: that voice. You know, he may be older, he may
Speaker 1: be a little bit slower, but he's still got that voice.
Speaker 1: He still sounds like Jesse. His voice is forever linked
Speaker 1: with that show, so is Vince McMahon's. But he's a
Speaker 1: little preoccupied right now. And frankly, even if he wasn't,
Speaker 1: have you heard Vince McMahon in the last five years.
Speaker 1: He sounds like shit. I wouldn't even want him back
Speaker 1: on commentary. He sounds like he swallowed a thousand nails
Speaker 1: and tacks every time he opens his mouth. So we
Speaker 1: won't have Jesse mocking McMahon's to pay. But the minute
Speaker 1: he signed that Legends deal with them a few months ago,
Speaker 1: I said he's got to be back on Saturday Night's
Speaker 1: made event, even if it's only for one match, And
Speaker 1: just because he's on the show doesn't mean he's going
Speaker 1: to be doing the entire two hours. I would actually
Speaker 1: be surprised if he did the entire show. He may
Speaker 1: only do the main event. He may do two matches.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really all he needs to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jesse was one half of two of my all time
Speaker 1: favorite announced teams in wrestling, Vince McMann and Jesse Ventura
Speaker 1: and Guerrilla mon Soon and Jesse Ventur Gerrilla mons Soon
Speaker 1: and Bobby Heenan being my number one. So this is
Speaker 1: great news. I'm looking forward more to this show than
Speaker 1: I was Survivor series. And how about this, The first
Speaker 1: one hasn't even taken place yet. We already have a
Speaker 1: second Saturday Night's Made event announced for January twenty fifth
Speaker 1: in San Antonio, Texas. That's one week before the Royal Rumble,
Speaker 1: and the dates are chosen by NBC. WWE has no
Speaker 1: control over them. It's not the best time for a show,
Speaker 1: but they'll have to make the most of it because
Speaker 1: that's the date they were given. And that would only
Speaker 1: leave two more to spread out over the remainder of
Speaker 1: the year because they're contracted to four annual specials. So
Speaker 1: we're getting one next weekend, we have one next month,
Speaker 1: and then i mean I'm thinking maybe one in May, maybe,
Speaker 1: and then another one in September. Probably something like that
Speaker 1: is what we're looking at. Speaking of the Royal rumble,
Speaker 1: wwe has confirmed that the show will have a start
Speaker 1: time of six pm Eastern, just like Bad Blood and
Speaker 1: just like Survivor series. So it looks like the earlier
Speaker 1: start time maybe the new norm going forward, so just
Speaker 1: be aware of that. On SmackDown Friday night, we got
Speaker 1: an important announcement for Michael Cole who alerted us about
Speaker 1: a trade window. This is the first time we heard
Speaker 1: anything about this. We heard nothing about this on Monday,
Speaker 1: only on Friday. But from what it sounds like, we
Speaker 1: are in the midst of a basically an open period
Speaker 1: where we may be seeing brand trades in the coming
Speaker 1: weeks leading into the new year. The first smack Down
Speaker 1: of the new year on January third, in the first
Speaker 1: Netflix raw on January sixth, this transfer window has been
Speaker 1: opened up between all three brands, so NXT is included,
Speaker 1: and all three general managers are going to be discussing.
Speaker 1: They're in the process of discussing potential moves ahead of
Speaker 1: those first shows of twenty twenty five. This is basically
Speaker 1: a way for them to shake up the rosters without
Speaker 1: an actual draft, is what it sounds like now. Mike
Speaker 1: Johnson on PW Insider had a note the other day
Speaker 1: saying that rumblings among talents for about a month now
Speaker 1: was that there could be a draft sometime in early
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. But we have not heard that it
Speaker 1: is one hundred percent the direction they will go as
Speaker 1: a way to move talents. So that's what he's been hearing,
Speaker 1: and that's what talents have been talking about, apparently behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. But from what we heard and saw on
Speaker 1: Friday night, it sounds like maybe there won't be a draft,
Speaker 1: although again they haven't confirmed that. Here's the reality on
Speaker 1: the WWE draft. Okay, the draft sucks. If you're being
Speaker 1: honest with yourself, the draft sucks. Okay, the draft shows
Speaker 1: that they do. They suck. Case in point, look at
Speaker 1: this year's draft. I said it back in April. Triple
Speaker 1: H needs to seriously reevaluate doing these drafts at all
Speaker 1: in the future. Once they appointed Adam Pierce and Nick
Speaker 1: all This as the general managers, they should have just
Speaker 1: had the two and the negotiate a series of trades
Speaker 1: because doing a draft where seventy five percent of the
Speaker 1: rosters stay exactly the same, so you come and you say, okay,
Speaker 1: the first pick in the first round and the third
Speaker 1: pick of the second and seventy five percent of the
Speaker 1: people end up staying exactly where they are. It's completely pointless.
Speaker 1: And what it does is it makes for two nights
Speaker 1: of very boring television. If both shows are going to
Speaker 1: be three hours come January, which is the plan, they're
Speaker 1: definitely going to need new talent from NXT, So including
Speaker 1: NXT talent in this makes total sense, and we should
Speaker 1: see a handful of NXT call ups. Okay, Deadline. Last night,
Speaker 1: Julia won the Iron Survivor Challenge. She is now the
Speaker 1: number one contender for the NXT Women's Championship. She's going
Speaker 1: to be wrestling Roxanne Perez on their New Year's Evil
Speaker 1: Show on January seventh, and to me, that has to
Speaker 1: be where Julia wins the NXT Women's Championship, and at
Speaker 1: that point, Roxanne could be called up to Raw, she
Speaker 1: could be called up to SmackDown, had been called up
Speaker 1: a year ago, so it's not like she isn't ready
Speaker 1: for that. So that's how I see that working out,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna see other moves like that as well.
Speaker 1: But if you have the gms doing trades, those trades,
Speaker 1: and you couple that with some NXT call ups that
Speaker 1: would accomplish the exact same thing without all of the
Speaker 1: draft nonsense. I know they like the idea of doing
Speaker 1: a draft. All the big sports do ones, so we
Speaker 1: have to do one and maybe we'll pop a rating
Speaker 1: out of it. But again, if they do it the
Speaker 1: same way they did it this year, and this was
Speaker 1: like the first real, true, full blown triple H draft.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what, if anything, they did last year,
Speaker 1: but I kind of look at this year because they
Speaker 1: were talking about maybe new ideas, and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this could be interesting, let's see what they have in store.
Speaker 1: And it actually dragged down the shows. It bogged the
Speaker 1: shows down. So if that's what they're gonna do, I
Speaker 1: don't want to see it. This is much better. I mean, frankly,
Speaker 1: the idea of even having a draft is nonsensical because
Speaker 1: people just move back and forth anyway, So what the
Speaker 1: fuck is the difference? What does it even matter. It's
Speaker 1: not like they're they're they're true to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: any any type of rules they set up for this,
Speaker 1: So it's just it's nonsensical to begin with. But the
Speaker 1: idea that you just leave it open. So if you
Speaker 1: have a need on one show, let's say somebody gets hurt,
Speaker 1: somebody leave, well, whatever the case may be, and you
Speaker 1: need a woman in the woman's division on smackd you
Speaker 1: need an extra body there. You need some new tag teams, right,
Speaker 1: so let's call up this person from NX team. We
Speaker 1: have a need on Raw. Great, we'll fill that need
Speaker 1: as needs arise during the year. You can shuffle talent around.
Speaker 1: Or if one program ends like CM Punk and Drew
Speaker 1: McIntyre after their Hell and is Cell match, that would
Speaker 1: have been the perfect time to move Drew over to SmackDown,
Speaker 1: and then he ends up back on Raw the other
Speaker 1: the other night, So so much for that, although I guess
Speaker 1: it's still possible he can move. Yeah, just because he
Speaker 1: came back on Raw doesn't mean that he may not
Speaker 1: end up on SmackDown, and I would think that probably
Speaker 1: is the best move for him. But we'll see how
Speaker 1: all the other moves shake out. But honestly, this is
Speaker 1: the way to go. If you're gonna do something like this,
Speaker 1: I'd much rather they do something like this. Just have
Speaker 1: this open period and you could do it even twice
Speaker 1: a year. You could have an open period at the
Speaker 1: very end of the year. You could have an open
Speaker 1: period in the middle of the year and then have
Speaker 1: like a trade deadline. To me, that just works a
Speaker 1: lot better. You saw goother by the way in the
Speaker 1: bag meeting with Nick Aldos on SmackDown Friday night about
Speaker 1: what we don't know, but you know, you're led to
Speaker 1: believe that they were discussing the possibility of Guther coming
Speaker 1: to spack Down. So might we see champions swapping brands?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say probably not, because they went through the
Speaker 1: trouble of changing all the belts for brand consistency. So
Speaker 1: to me, that just doesn't make a whole lot of
Speaker 1: sense unless you're gonna move all the champions. But I
Speaker 1: don't think they're gonna do that, so I don't think
Speaker 1: that's very likely. I do think that it's very likely
Speaker 1: we will see a big name like Roman Reigns being
Speaker 1: shifted over to RAW. I don't even know what his
Speaker 1: status is these days, to be perfectly honest with you,
Speaker 1: I think he is listed on the SmackDown roster on
Speaker 1: WWE dot com. But I view Roman kind of like
Speaker 1: a brock lesnar even though they may not consider him
Speaker 1: a free agent, that's basically what he is, and they're
Speaker 1: gonna want him on that first Netflix Raw. He's definitely
Speaker 1: gonna be there, and there's been chatter that he may
Speaker 1: be on Raw more often, at least in the first
Speaker 1: few months of the new year, because they really are
Speaker 1: going with the all hands on deck approach with this
Speaker 1: Netflix move. They want as many big names as possible,
Speaker 1: especially on that first show. So I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: see Cody, You're gonna see Roman, You're gonna see John Cena,
Speaker 1: who I think has already been announced to The Rock.
Speaker 1: For all we know, The Rock may show up as
Speaker 1: a surprise. Becky Lynch may come back on that show.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a lot of star power on January sixth,
Speaker 1: and I do think we'll see Roman reigns. I don't
Speaker 1: want to say more on Raw than SmackDown, but more
Speaker 1: often on Raw. And whether that's a permanent move or
Speaker 1: that's only in the beginning of the year just to
Speaker 1: get things going on Netflix, I don't know, but we
Speaker 1: should see some big name shift around. I could see
Speaker 1: Roman to Raw, maybe Rollins in Punk end up moving
Speaker 1: to SmackDown, right you got to keep them on the
Speaker 1: same brand for them to have their match of WrestleMania.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be very interesting to see who
Speaker 1: moves where. But if this is what they're planning in
Speaker 1: lieu of a draft, I'm all for it. If they're
Speaker 1: still planning on doing a draft, honestly, I just don't
Speaker 1: think that's the way to go. I think that's a mistake.
Speaker 1: But on Raw Monday Night, got to talk about this
Speaker 1: because we had the ten year anniversary of the New Day.
Speaker 1: Not very often that you see a faction in wrestling
Speaker 1: that has been together consistently for this law. That alone
Speaker 1: should get them a Hall of Fame induction, because this
Speaker 1: just never happens. And of course Big E showed up,
Speaker 1: and I think everybody figured, how can you do a
Speaker 1: New Day reunion or a New Day anniversary and not
Speaker 1: have Big E there? But I got to give a
Speaker 1: shout out. I got to give credit words due because
Speaker 1: I included a question in the mail bank on last
Speaker 1: week's podcast and you heard it. I played it at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the show from Mike in the Bronx,
Speaker 1: and he sent in a question and said, it's just
Speaker 1: a crazy theory that nobody is talking about it seems
Speaker 1: like the New Day are going to break up. But
Speaker 1: what if that's what the swerve is? And he said,
Speaker 1: meaning kofee in Woods turn on big Ee at the
Speaker 1: tenth anniversary so they can get major heat, because, like
Speaker 1: you said, tag teams are thins, so why split them up?
Speaker 1: Not sure if Biggie can take a bump, but just
Speaker 1: imagine Heel New Day blaming Biggie for the rut that
Speaker 1: they find themselves in since he got injured. That would
Speaker 1: be the ultimate swerve. And indeed it was the ultimate swerve,
Speaker 1: unless you listen to this podcast, of course, and then
Speaker 1: you would have already had the idea planted in your
Speaker 1: head for Mike in the Bronx. So a hat tip
Speaker 1: to Mike. I said last week, how are they going
Speaker 1: to get around on Kofe Kingston telling Xavier Woods on
Speaker 1: Raw last week that the reason you aren't a world champion,
Speaker 1: that you've never been a world champion before like me,
Speaker 1: that you've never been a world champion like Bigie is
Speaker 1: because you're not good enough. Because the two of them
Speaker 1: were throwing bombs at each other. They were going back
Speaker 1: and forth, right, Woods told Kofe we handed you the
Speaker 1: championship on a platter, and you pissed it away in
Speaker 1: six seconds to brock Lesner, and you're wrestling like garbage lately.
Speaker 1: And then you know, Kofe said, look, I was a
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer when you met me. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1: You're too irrational. That's why me and he wouldn't let
Speaker 1: you make decisions. And just all these horrible things they
Speaker 1: were saying about each other, but that was the one
Speaker 1: that stood out to me. How are they going to
Speaker 1: get around that? How could Woods just forgive and forget
Speaker 1: a comment like that? And I feel like they found
Speaker 1: a way. If you watch the segment, they come out
Speaker 1: and they look kind of sullen. They don't look like
Speaker 1: they're in a very happy mood, even though it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be a festive occasion, and they're about to
Speaker 1: break up, like clearly, they're about to announce that they're
Speaker 1: about to break up the new day, and that's when
Speaker 1: Biggie came out, and Biggie was there to let them
Speaker 1: know he's been watching and paying attention to what's been
Speaker 1: going on, and he's going to be their manager. He's
Speaker 1: going to be at ringside in their corner every single
Speaker 1: week going forward, and that led to Xavier Woods saying, now,
Speaker 1: now you come out. All this time we've been going with.
Speaker 1: Me and Kofe have been at each other's throats now
Speaker 1: for months, going up to the edge of the cliff,
Speaker 1: and right before we're about to fall off, you show
Speaker 1: up and say, hey, I'm back, right you left us,
Speaker 1: and Biggie is like, dude, I broke my neck, and
Speaker 1: then Kofee pipes up. This is where the swerve came in,
Speaker 1: because you didn't think Kofee would agree with him. But
Speaker 1: Kofe agrees with Woods and says, you left us, you
Speaker 1: broke your neck, So what Stone Cold Steve Ost broke
Speaker 1: his neck and he came back. Kurt Angle broke his
Speaker 1: neck and he came back. Edge broke his neck and
Speaker 1: he came back, even though he came back nine years later.
Speaker 1: But we'll ignore that Biggie has not been gone for
Speaker 1: nine years. But yeah, all these people broke their neck
Speaker 1: and they came back, and they didn't even have people
Speaker 1: here waiting for them like you did. You had the
Speaker 1: two of us. We basically put our careers on hold.
Speaker 1: We didn't evolve, We stayed the same. We were waiting
Speaker 1: for you, and you left us. You left us for
Speaker 1: your desk job, you left us for your other projects,
Speaker 1: you left us for your new girlfriend. And if you
Speaker 1: don't know, Biggie's girlfriend is Mia Yim's sister, and she
Speaker 1: has been just smoking the two on social media all week.
Speaker 1: They've been really leaning into this angle here, and she's
Speaker 1: been healing on Woods and healing on Kofee and just
Speaker 1: absolutely eviscerating them on social media. But Kofee had to
Speaker 1: pull the girlfriend card and said, yeah, you're more interest
Speaker 1: sitting hanging out with her than you are us, and
Speaker 1: just on and on and on, and Big Eie is
Speaker 1: standing there and he looks like he's about to cry,
Speaker 1: like he can't believe what he's hearing, and he's saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying. I've been getting scans and I've
Speaker 1: been going to doctors and I've been getting X rays.
Speaker 1: And Woods says, look, let's stop teasing people and beating
Speaker 1: around the bush here and just let them know the truth.
Speaker 1: You will never be medically cleared, So why don't you
Speaker 1: go and sit at your desk and we'll call you
Speaker 1: if we need you. And Biggie just looks devastated. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: we can't, you can't throw this away. Ten years We're family,
Speaker 1: come on right, and he ends up walking off. He's heartbroken.
Speaker 1: Kofe looks at Woods. Woods looks at Kofee. They're like,
Speaker 1: it's just you and me now, and they grip hands
Speaker 1: and they stand there and the crowd showers them and
Speaker 1: booze in the new day officially, now are heels? I said,
Speaker 1: Instead of the new day, it's the new way. It's
Speaker 1: a new way forward now for Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods.
Speaker 1: And it was genius using Biggie as a way to
Speaker 1: get heat. And the reason that I'm okay with the
Speaker 1: way they did it, even though I was wondering, how
Speaker 1: are they going to get around, you know, these awful
Speaker 1: things they said to each other. The way I look
Speaker 1: at it is this, and maybe wwhe'll explain it this way.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe I'm coming up with a better explanation for
Speaker 1: it than they will. But this is kind of how
Speaker 1: I look at it and justify it. These two are
Speaker 1: directing all of their hate at Biggie, and it's completely
Speaker 1: unfair because Biggie did nothing wrong. Biggie didn't you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't expect to get his neck broken. It's not
Speaker 1: his fault that he got his neck broken. It happened,
Speaker 1: and it ended his career, at least temporarily, and he's
Speaker 1: been trying very hard to get his checkups, and you know,
Speaker 1: he wants to come back, and he doesn't know if
Speaker 1: he'll ever be able to come back. But again, it
Speaker 1: wasn't anything that he sought. He didn't. No one seeks
Speaker 1: to break their neck, right, So it's completely unf and
Speaker 1: totally unwarranted for them to resent him for it or
Speaker 1: hate him in any way for it. But they're directing
Speaker 1: all of their hated him to avoid taking responsibility for
Speaker 1: the very real criticisms that they had about each other
Speaker 1: the week before. Right, everything they said in that promo
Speaker 1: segment the week before was one hundred percent true. KOFE
Speaker 1: did piss away the title to brock Lesner. Xavier Woods
Speaker 1: is reckless. He does take chances that he shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to take. He has demonstrated that he is not good
Speaker 1: enough so far to be world champion, or else he
Speaker 1: would have been the world champion. So what's the easiest
Speaker 1: response to all this? Just blame somebody else? All how
Speaker 1: people are. I'm sure a lot of people listening to
Speaker 1: this right now, probably no people in their lives in
Speaker 1: real life who were like that, blame everybody else for
Speaker 1: their problems and avoid taking responsibility for their own faults.
Speaker 1: That's how I look at the logic in the psychology here.
Speaker 1: The two of them, they came together because they were
Speaker 1: able to deflect away from the very real criticisms that
Speaker 1: they don't want to They don't want to accept that
Speaker 1: what they said about each other is true. So what's
Speaker 1: the easiest thing to do. We'll blame Biggie And that's
Speaker 1: and that works for me as an explanation if you
Speaker 1: look at it that way, I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: good way to look at it now. Meltzer had an
Speaker 1: eed him in The Observer this week about Odyssey Jones,
Speaker 1: who honestly I had forgotten about. You have not heard
Speaker 1: a word about Odyssey Jones since they cut him, and
Speaker 1: he said that when Odyssey Jones came in, the plan
Speaker 1: was they were going to tease issues with them not
Speaker 1: getting along, but it would end with Kofe and Woods
Speaker 1: going heel by choosing Jones and having him publicly replace Biggie.
Speaker 1: In the New Day but then he got fired and
Speaker 1: then the whole thing got put on hold. So in
Speaker 1: the end we end up in the same place, only
Speaker 1: instead of three of them with Odissey Jones, it's the
Speaker 1: two of them. And had they done it that way,
Speaker 1: it probably would have been more about getting Odyssey Jones
Speaker 1: over than getting kofe In Woods over in any meaningful way.
Speaker 1: But in the end we basically get to the same
Speaker 1: place anyway here, so it's not like the whole thing
Speaker 1: had to be thrown away. But the key here, also,
Speaker 1: I think is that I don't I don't think in
Speaker 1: the promo that Xavier Woods would have come right out
Speaker 1: and said, let's just be honest with people, Biggie, you're
Speaker 1: never going to be medically clear, so go sit behind
Speaker 1: your desk. I don't think that that line is in
Speaker 1: that promo unless they have some sense that either he's
Speaker 1: secretly cleared and they're not telling us, and maybe they're
Speaker 1: going to save him as a surprise entrant in the
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble, because what a fucking reaction he would get
Speaker 1: if they hit his music and he came out there,
Speaker 1: or they think that there's been progress and he might
Speaker 1: actually get cleared in the near future, right. I could
Speaker 1: be wrong. It could just be a case where they're like, look,
Speaker 1: this is the reality of the situation. But if you're
Speaker 1: cool with it, let's just let's just say it, because
Speaker 1: it'll get great heat on Xavier Woods, it'll great heat
Speaker 1: on the New Day, and so we'll just say the line.
Speaker 1: But I just I feel like that doesn't get said
Speaker 1: unless they know that he's either coming back or there's
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance he's going to be back soon.
Speaker 1: And look, I hope he gets cleared. I would hate
Speaker 1: for his career to end the way that it ended,
Speaker 1: even if he can't be full time and he can't
Speaker 1: wrestle the same way, he can't work a full time
Speaker 1: schedule anymore. If he's able to get cleared and come back,
Speaker 1: even just to have a handful of matches, just we're
Speaker 1: just to have like a WrestleMania match against the other
Speaker 1: members of the New Day, they all get to work together.
Speaker 1: He can get the kind of closure on his in
Speaker 1: ring career that he probably wants. So I hope for
Speaker 1: his sake he can get cleared. And before this week
Speaker 1: I would have said, no, I don't think he's ever
Speaker 1: going to be cleared, But now, I just hear that
Speaker 1: line and I'm like, eh, I think he's getting cleared,
Speaker 1: And what a moment it would be. Imagine the Royal Rumble.
Speaker 1: He comes out as a surprise, he dumps out both
Speaker 1: KOFE and Xavier Woods. And then they build to a
Speaker 1: triple threat match, right, triple thread, handicap, you know whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But they build to a New Day match
Speaker 1: of WrestleMania. Eventually they're all gonna reunite. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be a big reunion at some point, it's gonna get
Speaker 1: a great reaction. It'll be this big emotional thing. But
Speaker 1: for now, they have me interested in where things are
Speaker 1: gonna go with Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods. I'm more
Speaker 1: interested now in the New Day than I probably have
Speaker 1: ever been. So it worked with me. And I thought
Speaker 1: that the segment of the Angle was great. I thought
Speaker 1: the opening segment on Monday was also great. Those were
Speaker 1: really the two highlights of the show. There was an
Speaker 1: in ring segment with CM Punk and Seth Rollins and
Speaker 1: they came to blows and they had to be separated
Speaker 1: by Jay Uso and Sammy Zay, and then Seth made
Speaker 1: a comment that pissed off Sammy, and then it turned
Speaker 1: from Punk and Rollins and Punk had left he got
Speaker 1: taken away by jay Uso. It turned from that to
Speaker 1: Seth and Sammy basically cutting promos on each other in
Speaker 1: the ring and dropping a lot of truth on each other,
Speaker 1: and I thought that segment was great. It did lead
Speaker 1: to the main event, which was Sammy's Ain against Seth
Speaker 1: Rawlins one on one, and it built to the show
Speaker 1: closing angle with Drew McIntyre making his return. He dropped
Speaker 1: Samy's Ain. After the match was over, Seth beat him.
Speaker 1: He dropped Sammy with a Claymore kick and there was
Speaker 1: an angle they shot before the main event in the
Speaker 1: back where jay Usso got attacked from behind. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like the Jade Car Gill thing where he was attacked
Speaker 1: and left for dead and you know they're writing him
Speaker 1: off television. But he got hit in the back of
Speaker 1: the head and they found him and he he didn't
Speaker 1: seem to know who hit him in the back of
Speaker 1: the head, So it's like another who done it right?
Speaker 1: Who attacked jay Uso? And clearly Samy's Ain thought that
Speaker 1: it was Seth Rawlins, And there was this dramatic story
Speaker 1: playing out in the main event where you know Sammy
Speaker 1: accused him it was you. I know it was you,
Speaker 1: and Rollins insisted it was in him. So then after
Speaker 1: the match is over, we see Drew McIntyre returns and
Speaker 1: he dropped Sammy with a Claymick And that gives you
Speaker 1: the impression that, well, of course he would be the
Speaker 1: person who attacked Jay usso earlier. But that's only what
Speaker 1: they want you to think, right, it could just as
Speaker 1: easily be a red herring to throw us off the
Speaker 1: scent from the real culprit. And the name that I
Speaker 1: dropped was Kevin Owens. Maybe it was actually Kevin Owens.
Speaker 1: You know when Michael Cole name drops Sammy's ain in
Speaker 1: his interview with Kevin Owens on SmackDown. He interviewed him
Speaker 1: in Kevin's rental car Owen said that when the time
Speaker 1: is right, he'll address Sammy's ain. So this was finally
Speaker 1: he acknowledged the elephant in the room because he's so
Speaker 1: upset with Cody Rhodes, but how does he feel about Sammy,
Speaker 1: his best friend teaming with Roman Reigns and wargames Right,
Speaker 1: he hasn't said a word about it. This was the
Speaker 1: first mention by Kevin Owens of Sammy's ain in this
Speaker 1: entire thing, and he said basically, he'll address him when
Speaker 1: the time is right. So planting the seed clearly for
Speaker 1: something that is coming down the line, and it could
Speaker 1: be at WrestleMania. It may not even be at WrestleMania.
Speaker 1: We have Elimination Chamber coming up. The Chamber is in
Speaker 1: Toronto next year. You get two Canadians in Canada. Remember
Speaker 1: Sammy headlined the Elimination Chamber last year in Montreal and
Speaker 1: he got this amazing reaction. Imagine those two going at
Speaker 1: it in Canada. So either one of those shows would
Speaker 1: be the perfect setting I think for a Kevin oh
Speaker 1: and Sammy's Ain match. Even though it's been done before,
Speaker 1: it's been a few years, right, so enough time has
Speaker 1: gone by, I think where they can build a good
Speaker 1: story around it and they can do the match next
Speaker 1: year if they want to. McIntyre was due to be
Speaker 1: back soon anyway, not this soon though, according to PW Insider,
Speaker 1: which leads them to believe that the injury to Bronson
Speaker 1: Red at Survivor Series may have resulted in them moving
Speaker 1: up the timeline on Drew McIntyre's return. If you missed
Speaker 1: the update read broke his foot diving off the top
Speaker 1: of that cage in Wargames. He is set to have
Speaker 1: surgery this week. They showed his x ray on SmackDown.
Speaker 1: I'm no doctor, I'm no surgeon. I looked at the
Speaker 1: X ray and I said, Okay, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm looking at, but I guess it's bad and he's
Speaker 1: going to be out indefinitely. And it sucks. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no two ways about it. It sucks. In the
Speaker 1: middle of the biggest push of his life. He became
Speaker 1: one of the musty attractions on Monday Nights, and he
Speaker 1: was in a great spot main event of war Games
Speaker 1: on the Bloodline, right, the new Bloodline side had the
Speaker 1: big highlight of the entire match. Unfortunately, he got hurt
Speaker 1: and now he's going to miss the Royal Rumble. He's
Speaker 1: probably gonna miss WrestleMania, and that fucking sucks. Had Punk
Speaker 1: pulled Roman Reins off that table a couple of seconds earlier,
Speaker 1: just a couple of seconds, I think Reid may have
Speaker 1: landed more flat on that table instead of, you know,
Speaker 1: pulling an Adam Copeland and coming almost straight down the
Speaker 1: way he did on his feet. It just looked to
Speaker 1: me like he may have come down that way because
Speaker 1: I mean they waited until the very last second to
Speaker 1: get out of the way. And yeah, obviously he didn't
Speaker 1: want to crash down and kill anybody, so I think
Speaker 1: he may have come down that way just to avoid
Speaker 1: injuring somebody else. And in the end he injured himself,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't the only casualty of that War Games match. Tongaloa,
Speaker 1: the Great Tongaloa. Yeah, we have in the live chat
Speaker 1: on the YouTube streams, we have Tongaloa superfan. He was
Speaker 1: very upset by this news. Tongaloa tore his bicep. He
Speaker 1: got hit in the arm a few times by a
Speaker 1: toolbox by cmpunk and so apparently on that spot he
Speaker 1: tore his byseep. He underwent surgery already. They showed the
Speaker 1: not footage, but they showed these still images of his
Speaker 1: X ray and then his post surgery scar, and they
Speaker 1: showed him in a sling. So he's going to be
Speaker 1: out indefinitely. And Jimmy Usso broke his toe diving off
Speaker 1: the top of the cage. Boy wore as hell. I
Speaker 1: think it might be time to put a top on
Speaker 1: those cages WCW used to do. Maybe it's time to
Speaker 1: let the dives go, put a top on that cage
Speaker 1: and just let them beat each other up inside the cage.
Speaker 1: We have the brackets for the Women's Intercontinental Title tournament
Speaker 1: on raw. Dakota Kai won the first opening round match
Speaker 1: on Monday night. She pinned Katana Chance in a match
Speaker 1: that also featured Shane of Basler. So Dakota Kai moves
Speaker 1: on to the next round. She will now face the
Speaker 1: winner of a three way match between Zoe Stark, Caden Carter,
Speaker 1: and Raquel Rodriguez. The other side of the bracket will
Speaker 1: see Lyra Valkeria against Zelina Vega against Ivy Nile and
Speaker 1: Alba Fire against Kyrie Saine against Nataliate, and they will
Speaker 1: determine the other two spots in the semifinal. So I
Speaker 1: look at this bracket here and I see Dakota going
Speaker 1: all the way to the finals. And on the other
Speaker 1: side of the bracket, now who she faces in the semifinal,
Speaker 1: right owned, It's gonna be either Zoe, Raquel or Cayden.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's Zoe or Raquel. Cayden is not moving on.
Speaker 1: Raquel I could see being eliminated because Rhea Ripley gets involved.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go Zoe Stark. I'm gonna go Zoe Stark
Speaker 1: if for no other reason because Shana Basler lost her match,
Speaker 1: and it would be really embarrassing if both members of
Speaker 1: the Pure Fusion Garbage collective here in this tournament, if
Speaker 1: they both get bounced in the opening round. I think,
Speaker 1: if you, if you want to salvage this group, and
Speaker 1: I don't even know why you would want to, but
Speaker 1: if you want to salvage this group, you have to
Speaker 1: at least have one of them win a match. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on. So I'm gonna say Dakota and Zoe in
Speaker 1: the semi finals and Dakota goes to the finals. On
Speaker 1: the other side of the bracket, I'm gonna say that
Speaker 1: we have Lyra winning her match, and then between Alba
Speaker 1: Kyrie and Natalia. Humhm, it's a little bit harder. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say Kyrie or Natalia. I'll say Kyrie, and then
Speaker 1: I think Lyra beats her and we get Dakota and
Speaker 1: Lyra in the final. I hope it is Dakota and Lyra,
Speaker 1: because to me, that's the most unpredictable of the matches
Speaker 1: they can do. I think either one of those women
Speaker 1: are going to walk away the intercontinental champion. My vote
Speaker 1: goes to Lyra. I think it's going to be her,
Speaker 1: but it's one of the other. So if you do
Speaker 1: Dakota against Lyra, then you got fifty to fifty. You
Speaker 1: could go either way. But then again, I also said
Speaker 1: that Bailey would be wrestling Naomi in the finals of
Speaker 1: the US title tournament, and Naomi got bounced out of
Speaker 1: the first round on Friday by Tiffany Stratton. Tiffany busted
Speaker 1: my bracket. There was some controversy this week involving former
Speaker 1: aw star Ryan Nemeth and allegations of abuse and neglect
Speaker 1: during his time in the company. Much of it centered
Speaker 1: around one Cmpunk. This company just cannot seem to quit
Speaker 1: this guy. Whether it's Tony Kahn airing brawl in footage
Speaker 1: on his television show earlier this year, or other people
Speaker 1: bringing his name up. You know, you could argue the
Speaker 1: best and the worst thing that Tony Kahn ever did
Speaker 1: was hiring Cmpunk. He reaped the business rewards of his
Speaker 1: hiring and he did his first million dollar gate with
Speaker 1: him in the main event, but his company has never
Speaker 1: been the same since that brawl Out scrum in Chicago.
Speaker 1: A piece of that company's soul died that night. The
Speaker 1: reason he's back in the news is because Fightful obtained
Speaker 1: a copy of a formal complaint sent to AW executives
Speaker 1: on September twelfth of this year. Whether it was Nemeth
Speaker 1: himself who leaked it to them or somebody in the company,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but in the complaint, Nemth laid out
Speaker 1: a detailed timeline of events, supported by emails, text messages,
Speaker 1: and call logs that paint a terrible picture of how
Speaker 1: things are handled behind the scenes in AAW, or at
Speaker 1: least how they were handled back then. One would hope
Speaker 1: that changes have been made since then. Sean ross sapp
Speaker 1: says there have been. I would hope so, but time
Speaker 1: will tell. According to the report, Nemet's issues allegedly began
Speaker 1: in April of twenty twenty three, when he contacted then
Speaker 1: AW legal representative Mega Perek to express concerns about being
Speaker 1: targeted by CM Punk. This was two months before Punk
Speaker 1: returned on Collision Okay to say his first appearance since
Speaker 1: brawl Out. This is two months before that now Nemoth
Speaker 1: was tight with the Young Bucks, he might still be.
Speaker 1: He was tight with that whole crew, and he feared
Speaker 1: potentially being targeted in some way by Punk, you know,
Speaker 1: if and when he came back, And he claims that
Speaker 1: he went to management about it, and he claims that
Speaker 1: these fears were realized on June twenty first, two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, when Punk threatened him in a locker room incident.
Speaker 1: And while Nemitz says people like Perek and Tony Schavanni
Speaker 1: and John Moxley and the Young Bucks all expressed support
Speaker 1: for him, he felt the company failed to respond appropriately.
Speaker 1: So just to put a pause on this for a
Speaker 1: second and just refresh everyone's memory, because I talked about
Speaker 1: this at length after it happened. The night that Punk
Speaker 1: came back, he made a comment in his promo about
Speaker 1: people being soft, all right. That was the promo where
Speaker 1: he said, David Zaslov calls him one bill Phil And
Speaker 1: he made that counterfeit Buck's comment in reference to the
Speaker 1: Young Bucks without actually naming them. But that comment about
Speaker 1: other people being soft is what's set off Nemath in
Speaker 1: his mind. He felt, you know, Punk just missed nine
Speaker 1: months with the torn triceps, and his first night back,
Speaker 1: he's calling other people soft, and he just thought that
Speaker 1: was incredibly hypocritical, and so he famously tweeted out literally
Speaker 1: the softest man alive, without ever mentioning Punk by name,
Speaker 1: although it was very clear who he was referring to. Now,
Speaker 1: he claims he's under a gaggle of some kind over
Speaker 1: what happened next. But when he's been interviewed about this previously,
Speaker 1: he's claimed that he tweeted that out as a heel.
Speaker 1: He says he was in character. Punk is the returning Babyface.
Speaker 1: He was a heel. They both worked for the same company.
Speaker 1: This guy gets injured more than anybody else alive, and
Speaker 1: his first night back, he calls someone soft. That was
Speaker 1: his logic. But he tweeted what he did in character.
Speaker 1: That's what he claims. Okay, I think he's full of shit.
Speaker 1: I think he knew exactly what he was doing when
Speaker 1: he tweeted that and what the reaction would probably be.
Speaker 1: And it's not like Nemeth was ever gonna work with Punk.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was barely ever on television. The popcorn
Speaker 1: guy in the stands that night got more airtime on
Speaker 1: TBS than Ryan Nemth, ever, did so. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he was trying to work a program out of
Speaker 1: it for himself for what he was trying to do,
Speaker 1: but he was a heel, and in his mind, he
Speaker 1: felt that he had no choice but to call him
Speaker 1: out for being a hypocrite. So that tweet is what
Speaker 1: led to the incident backstage at Dynamite the following week,
Speaker 1: where Punk angrily confronted him and Wade Keller reported in
Speaker 1: The Torch at the time that according to several eyewitnesses
Speaker 1: in the locker room, Punk cornered Nemeth and got up
Speaker 1: in his face, asking if they had a problem and
Speaker 1: if they needed to step outside to settle things. Now,
Speaker 1: mind you, this man just came back after being suspended
Speaker 1: for a giant backstage brawl, and his second week back,
Speaker 1: he's ready to throw down with somebody. So they move
Speaker 1: things out into the hallway and Punk is still berating
Speaker 1: him and Nemeth is trying to defend himself verbally, and
Speaker 1: Punk said he thought the timing of the tweet was
Speaker 1: bad because it went against the image that they were
Speaker 1: trying to portray that everybody was back on the same
Speaker 1: page and or at least nobody was doing anything to
Speaker 1: make an already bad situation even worse. Again, he says
Speaker 1: that after going out on TV and taking a not
Speaker 1: so subtle dig at the young Bucks, Okay, whether you'd
Speaker 1: think it was deserved or not, that's not really the point,
Speaker 1: but the idea that he would have been upset about
Speaker 1: Nemath exacerbating the situation from a tweet after he just
Speaker 1: went out on live television and said what he said.
Speaker 1: I just find that hilarious. So Nemeth asks Punk if
Speaker 1: he shouldn't react to things that Punk says on TV anymore,
Speaker 1: and Punk says, yeah, you know, that would probably be
Speaker 1: for the best. And supposedly they shook hands and they
Speaker 1: parted ways and that was the end of it, or
Speaker 1: so he thought, because what followed was him being kept
Speaker 1: off AW programming for the next two months after that incident,
Speaker 1: during which time, he claims John Moxley reached out to him,
Speaker 1: expressing his discomfort with the situation and offering his support. Nemth, though,
Speaker 1: feared that what was happening is that he was being
Speaker 1: silently fired. Then on August twelve, twenty twenty three, Nemth
Speaker 1: was booked for an AW show in Greensboro, but claims
Speaker 1: that he was asked to leave upon arrival at the venue,
Speaker 1: reportedly at the insistence of Cmpunk Pat Buck, who worked
Speaker 1: for AW. He initially cited travel confusion as the cause,
Speaker 1: but then later on he confirmed that Punk he was
Speaker 1: the reason he was involved, and Nemitt says that he
Speaker 1: has an audio recording of the interactions from that day.
Speaker 1: He's got the receipts. This next part, though, is not
Speaker 1: getting enough attention. This is the part of this report
Speaker 1: that really just jumped out at me, and I just
Speaker 1: feel like it's not getting enough attention. Nemith returned to
Speaker 1: AW on August sixteenth, where he says that he was
Speaker 1: ordered to verbally antagonize Punk in a live promo. He
Speaker 1: expressed concerns to Legal and HR, but felt no action
Speaker 1: was taken. This coincided with the departure of Megaperek from
Speaker 1: AW Legal, leaving Nemth to deal with Chris Peck and
Speaker 1: Margaret Stalvee, whom he accuses of stonewalling his concerns. If
Speaker 1: that is true that he was ordered, in his words,
Speaker 1: to antagonize CM Punk on live TI television, first of all,
Speaker 1: you know, Punk doesn't exactly need a lot of antagonizing
Speaker 1: to begin with. Right, he's been on his best behavior
Speaker 1: this year with WWE, although for a lot of it
Speaker 1: he was injured, he wasn't even at the shows. But
Speaker 1: he's been a model citizen by all accounts so far. Right,
Speaker 1: he's already a year in now to this WWE run
Speaker 1: and it's just been kumbaya. Everything's been great, and look,
Speaker 1: I hope that continues. He's a big draw for the company.
Speaker 1: They can make lots of money together. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of big matches, including him against Roman Reigns, him against
Speaker 1: Seth Rollins, him against Kevin Owens, a lot of big
Speaker 1: money matches they could do. I wish that was the
Speaker 1: case with him and aw still and all this shit
Speaker 1: never happened. But let's not pretend like this is a
Speaker 1: guy who needs a lot of antagonizing. Okay, he's got
Speaker 1: a hair trigger. He's easily set off by words, and
Speaker 1: he has a history of then later apologizing to people.
Speaker 1: He apologized to Tony Kahn after brawl out. He apologized
Speaker 1: to the Miz years later for telling him to go
Speaker 1: suck a blood covered dick. In Saudi Arabia. He supposedly
Speaker 1: apologized to Hangman page by text message after calling him
Speaker 1: a pegwarmer because there was either a sign in the
Speaker 1: crowd that he saw or there was a fan who
Speaker 1: shouted something. I think it may have been a sign
Speaker 1: that said this is Hangman country or something. And then
Speaker 1: he said what he said. So much for not wanting
Speaker 1: to exacerbate things, by the way, so he apologized to
Speaker 1: him for that, like you don't apologize constantly to people
Speaker 1: unless there's some recognition that maybe things were said that
Speaker 1: should not have been said. But in any event, I
Speaker 1: have to defend Punk on this because if there are
Speaker 1: people in that company telling Ryan Nemmeth to go out
Speaker 1: and poke the bear, those people need to lose their
Speaker 1: fucking jobs. And it just proves what I said from
Speaker 1: the start of all this two years ago, which is
Speaker 1: that there are no innocent parties here, not CM Punk,
Speaker 1: not Tony Kahan, not anybody. It's no wonder Punk lost
Speaker 1: his mind working for these people. Following Punk's physical altercation
Speaker 1: with Jack Perry at All Out twenty twenty three, The
Speaker 1: report says Nemeth claims he was asked to participate in
Speaker 1: an external investigation. Befelt that aw was more focused on
Speaker 1: determining Punk's future than addressing any of his grievances. Nemet's
Speaker 1: timeline notes repeated pitches for his creative return from Sanjay Dutt,
Speaker 1: all of which he says went ignored. By November eighteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, Nemoth worked his final AW match. He
Speaker 1: believes that AW management held him responsible for the fallout
Speaker 1: involving Punk, whose firing came shortly before Nemets's last appearance.
Speaker 1: Nemeth alleges that AW legal offered him a settlement equal
Speaker 1: to three years of salary contingent on signing an NDA.
Speaker 1: He says he wanted to negotiate the offer with his
Speaker 1: legal team, but it was abruptly withdrawn. Peck allegedly warned
Speaker 1: Nemath he would be placed in an antagonistic position against
Speaker 1: Perek if the the matter escalated to arbitration, despite Nemath
Speaker 1: maintaining a positive relationship with her. And that's a whole
Speaker 1: other weird situation the way that Mega Perek was just
Speaker 1: removed from her position in AW. She was basically moved
Speaker 1: elsewhere within the Jaguars organization. She works with Jaguars, but
Speaker 1: she has no connection at all anymore to AAW we
Speaker 1: still don't know why, we don't know what that was
Speaker 1: all about. That's a whole weird situation. Nemath claims Peck
Speaker 1: also threatened legal action over his formal complaint and timeline submission.
Speaker 1: Despite this, Nemath remains steadfast in his call for policy
Speaker 1: changes within AAW, seeking a safer working environment for the roster.
Speaker 1: Toll of the experience led Nemath to seek help from
Speaker 1: mental health professionals. While Tony Kahn reportedly entertained the idea
Speaker 1: of Nemath returning, the former AW star has no intention
Speaker 1: of going back. Instead, Nemeth hopes his case sparks meaningful
Speaker 1: change within AAW, stating the roster deserves a safe environment.
Speaker 1: Did Kevin Kelly have to seek like a therapist or
Speaker 1: something after his time working? What is going on in
Speaker 1: this company that all these people have to have to
Speaker 1: seek out the mental health professionals after working there? Well,
Speaker 1: what is going on here? Look? If Nemath has audio
Speaker 1: recordings and documentation and text messages, apparently he does to
Speaker 1: back up his claims, I'm sure that helps his case,
Speaker 1: and that's that paints a pretty damning picture. But it's
Speaker 1: the part about being told to intentionally antagonize Punk on TV.
Speaker 1: That just I can't get away from that. That just
Speaker 1: raises a huge red flag if it's true about the
Speaker 1: people who work there and how they handle things behind
Speaker 1: the scenes. Like imagine somebody backstage in WWE telling Giovanni
Speaker 1: Vinci to go out on television. I could have stopped
Speaker 1: right there. The idea of Vinci even being on TV
Speaker 1: is too unbelievable. But just pretend for a second somebody
Speaker 1: tells Vincy to go out on TV and antagonize Roman reigns. Like,
Speaker 1: never in a million years would you see something like that,
Speaker 1: And if it did happen, everybody involved would be looking
Speaker 1: for a job, Like why would you want to provoke
Speaker 1: the man unless you wanted him to go off the
Speaker 1: deep end and get himself fired? Like what other conclusion
Speaker 1: can be drawn from that? I mean, this goes back
Speaker 1: to the spring of twenty twenty three when Punk was
Speaker 1: still out after Brawl Out, and this is what he
Speaker 1: talked about with the Ariel Hellwani interview, and he told
Speaker 1: Tony Kahan, look, they don't want me here, people don't
Speaker 1: want me here. This is never gonna work. Just release me,
Speaker 1: and Tony stood his ground. And he said no, because
Speaker 1: he knew that he needed Punk for Collision. He needed
Speaker 1: him for Collision to be a success. Collision was contingent
Speaker 1: on Punk being the star of the show. It was
Speaker 1: built around him, and Tony thought that he could keep
Speaker 1: the peace by just separating everybody. Like children, you go
Speaker 1: to your room and you go to your room boom.
Speaker 1: You can't run a daycare center that way, let alone
Speaker 1: a wrestling company. You know, when Punk went on Ariel's
Speaker 1: show earlier this year and he said that he told
Speaker 1: Tony release me, this isn't a real business. It's not
Speaker 1: a real business predicated on making money and selling tickets, right,
Speaker 1: this is not what you sold it to me. As
Speaker 1: I saw that as him largely being upset that the
Speaker 1: Young Bucks did not want to turn the whole brawl
Speaker 1: out situation into an angle and make money off of it.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't even sit down in a room with him
Speaker 1: to take a meeting. And I said, you can't say
Speaker 1: that aw is not a real business when they just
Speaker 1: signed a six hundred million dollar media rights deal, or
Speaker 1: when they put seventy thousand fans in Wembley Stadium. But
Speaker 1: even after everything that went down, if you had people
Speaker 1: backstage in positions of power trying to provoke him into something.
Speaker 1: You know what, Punk wasn't completely wrong. That doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like the way you run a real business. And that's
Speaker 1: a good segue into this. This made headlines this week
Speaker 1: Eric Bischoff's comments on Ariel Helwani Show where he said
Speaker 1: that there is no hope for AW when he was
Speaker 1: asked about the company and if he watches the product,
Speaker 1: this is what Bischoff had to say. They're horrible. I've
Speaker 1: given up, you know what. I used to get really
Speaker 1: frustrated with them because I actually hate seeing people screw
Speaker 1: up good opportunities. I know what that feels like, and
Speaker 1: I don't want that to happen again. I know how
Speaker 1: hard good opportunities are to come by. So when you
Speaker 1: see somebody shooting themselves in the foot day after day,
Speaker 1: week after week, in every possible way, it's frustrating for me,
Speaker 1: and I would vent that frustration. Now it's just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, what it is. There's no hope for them.
Speaker 1: Nothing is going to turn their company around. There's no
Speaker 1: light bulb that's going to go off in anybody's head
Speaker 1: and realize, oh, this is actually getting people to watch TV,
Speaker 1: no idea about what they're doing, and they're too stubborn
Speaker 1: to learn now. Eric has also talked about how nobody
Speaker 1: there knows how to tell a good story. He says
Speaker 1: this when he was praising their hiring of Jennifer Pepperman
Speaker 1: from WWE earlier this year. So evidently they do have
Speaker 1: people who know how to tell stories. He just doesn't
Speaker 1: think the stories they're telling are any good. And that's
Speaker 1: a fair point. But to say things like they don't
Speaker 1: tell stories, they don't know how to tell stories, I
Speaker 1: always call that shit out and I have to defend
Speaker 1: AW on this because it is just demonstrably false. The
Speaker 1: issue with AW is not that they don't know how
Speaker 1: to tell stories. It is that Tony Kahan chooses not
Speaker 1: to tell enough of them. They can do it. It's
Speaker 1: just a lot of the ones they tell it's very
Speaker 1: surface level stuff that just isn't very interesting. You look
Speaker 1: at what they're doing now with the death Rider's Angle, right,
Speaker 1: it's not making a dent in their audience. Their numbers
Speaker 1: are continuing to decline as they did with the Elite Angle.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's that the death Rider's stuff is
Speaker 1: actively chasing people away. I think there was already a
Speaker 1: decline that it simply has not been able to reverse.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like the house was already being flooded,
Speaker 1: so you grab a bunch of sand bags and you
Speaker 1: build a barrier to try to stop the water from
Speaker 1: getting in, and the water just rises and goes over
Speaker 1: the sandbags. The house was already being flooded. What they're
Speaker 1: doing just isn't working. But they're at least taking steps
Speaker 1: now to involve bigger names and the Death Rider's stuff,
Speaker 1: which hopefully will make things a little bit more interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, going into full gear. They were telling the
Speaker 1: story of Orange Cassidy not believing in himself as a leader.
Speaker 1: I'm no leader, right, I can't be the leader of
Speaker 1: aw I'm no leader. And ultimately he did, and he
Speaker 1: started to shed some of the less serious aspects of
Speaker 1: his character. He hasn't completely abandoned it, but he was
Speaker 1: like showing his angrier side. He's out there cutting actual
Speaker 1: promos and stringing sentences together instead of just shrugging his
Speaker 1: shoulders and saying, whatever, that's the story arc for his character, right.
Speaker 1: They tried to evolve the character and tell a story
Speaker 1: with Orange Cassidy. You look at what they've been doing
Speaker 1: with will Ospray and the Don Kallis family to try
Speaker 1: to build Kyle Fletcher into a top player. I think
Speaker 1: they've been doing actually a really good job with him.
Speaker 1: You go back further the Swerve Strickland Hangman page rivalry,
Speaker 1: which dates back more than a year. That program turned
Speaker 1: Swerve into a main event player for them. You cannot
Speaker 1: argue that Swerve is not a bigger star for them
Speaker 1: now than he was before he met Hangman for the
Speaker 1: first time. And then he beat him too straight and
Speaker 1: that led directly to the shift that we see now
Speaker 1: in Hangman's character. His entire character arc has been the
Speaker 1: best story that Tony Kahan has ever told in the
Speaker 1: five years that AW has been in existence. The very
Speaker 1: best story that they have ever told was Hangman's journey
Speaker 1: to the AW World Championship and him finally beating Kenny
Speaker 1: Omega after drinking himself half to death and being betrayed
Speaker 1: by the elite, and you know, he finally wins the
Speaker 1: title that he failed to win against Chris Jericho when
Speaker 1: the company first started. That's still their best story. The
Speaker 1: Tony Storm and Mariah May relationship leading to Mariah winning
Speaker 1: the Owen Hart Tournament and then laying that savage beatdown
Speaker 1: on Tony Storm and then taking her title. That was brilliant.
Speaker 1: MJF and Adam Cole they fell asked backwards into that
Speaker 1: bro Chaco stuff. It was one of those odd couple
Speaker 1: pairings that you would sometimes see on WWE television that
Speaker 1: shouldn't work, but the fans just get behind it and
Speaker 1: they turned it into a Wembley Stadium main event. MJF
Speaker 1: and CM Punk their rivalry and MJF referring to how
Speaker 1: Punk let him down when he was still a kid.
Speaker 1: He was like a teenager and you know, showing old
Speaker 1: photos like that was great stuff. They brought the best
Speaker 1: out of each other. I mean, fuck Cody Rhodes and
Speaker 1: Darby Allen. In the early days of AW people forget,
Speaker 1: but you know, Cody beat Darby a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: times before Darby finally beat him to win the TNT
Speaker 1: Championship for the first time. They had a time limit
Speaker 1: draw on their very first match, and then Cody beat
Speaker 1: him a couple of times and then finally it was
Speaker 1: like a year later, maybe longer, Darby got that big
Speaker 1: win and as I recall Darby was actually a draw
Speaker 1: there for a little while with that TNT title, like
Speaker 1: his segments were doing really well. Like believe me, I
Speaker 1: want them to get back to that stuff as much
Speaker 1: as anybody. But the idea that they don't know how
Speaker 1: to tell a proper story or they don't tell stories,
Speaker 1: it's just pure nonsense, and it's spoken only by people
Speaker 1: that haven't actually watched the product over the last five years.
Speaker 1: It's not that they can't, it's that they don't. There's
Speaker 1: a difference, not as often as they should, and that's
Speaker 1: what's so frustrating. You know. Bischoff is also not exactly
Speaker 1: an unbiased source on this. He's had a hate boner
Speaker 1: for AW ever since Tony Kah made that comment about
Speaker 1: Ted Turner not knowing one percent of what he knows
Speaker 1: about pro wrestling, or else WCW would still be on
Speaker 1: TNT and TBS. Of course, Ted Turner never ran WCW.
Speaker 1: He owned it, but he didn't actually run anything, so
Speaker 1: it's a stupid comment to even make. But Eric took
Speaker 1: that as a personal shot at Ted Turner, and ever
Speaker 1: since then his entire tone change whenever he's talked about AW.
Speaker 1: I will say though that you know Eric, Hey, kudos
Speaker 1: to him. Eric has managed to take eighty three weeks
Speaker 1: of success that he had in his life thirty years
Speaker 1: ago and parlay that into a new career for himself now.
Speaker 1: It's very impressive. But when he says there's no hope
Speaker 1: for aaw he's not totally wrong. I mean, look, it's
Speaker 1: a little over the top to say that when the
Speaker 1: company the company just got a six hundred million dollar
Speaker 1: endorsement from Warner Brothers Discovery, that there's no hope. Okay,
Speaker 1: their future for now is secure and that's a big
Speaker 1: feather in Tony's cat, But it does feel like nothing
Speaker 1: is hitting right now. They're trying things that aren't working,
Speaker 1: and the show is the vision of one man, right
Speaker 1: that man is Tony Khan. He doesn't think there are
Speaker 1: any problems with the product. Just ask him, he'll tell you.
Speaker 1: He doesn't think there are any problems with the creative
Speaker 1: Everything is great. And if he does feel that way,
Speaker 1: he clearly doesn't care because he's content to just put
Speaker 1: on banger matches every week. Eric doesn't like the product.
Speaker 1: A lot of other people no longer enjoy the product,
Speaker 1: and there's also a lot of other people who do
Speaker 1: like the product. Tony likes it, and so long as
Speaker 1: he likes it, nothing is going to change. Hence him
Speaker 1: saying Bischoff, that is that there's no hope for aw
Speaker 1: That's why I say he's not completely wrong. Change will
Speaker 1: only come from the top. We all said the same
Speaker 1: thing about Vince McMahon. It was one man's vision. Nobody
Speaker 1: else's ideas mattered. A whole army of writers. He had
Speaker 1: people flanking him, and he had Bruce Pritchard, he had
Speaker 1: Michael Hayes, and he had all these people. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: None of it mattered, no matter how many bright, creative
Speaker 1: people you surround yourself with. If everything is being filtered
Speaker 1: through one man, and that one man sees things a
Speaker 1: certain way and you see things another way, your way
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. The blame should go squarely on the person
Speaker 1: at the top. This happens in sports all the time.
Speaker 1: Fans call for the owner of their favorite team to
Speaker 1: sell the team because the team plays like shit. The
Speaker 1: owners he doesn't hire the right people, or they don't
Speaker 1: spend money on the best players, sell the team. I
Speaker 1: mean hell, I said the same thing about the Mets
Speaker 1: for years and then it actually happened the Willponds sold
Speaker 1: the team to Steve Cohen. Tony is more than willing
Speaker 1: to spend money on the best available players. But you
Speaker 1: can sign all the big names you want. It's about
Speaker 1: how the manager or the head coach uses those players.
Speaker 1: In this case, the owner is the head coach. He's
Speaker 1: the owner, the head coach and the manager all rolled
Speaker 1: into one. And he's not selling the team, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't need to sell the team. But there's going to
Speaker 1: come a reckoning suit if these numbers continue to drop
Speaker 1: lower and lower and lower. And I'm not just talking
Speaker 1: about ratings either. There's ratings, there's attendance. As things go
Speaker 1: lower and lower, there's going to come a reckoning where
Speaker 1: he's going to have to come to terms with what
Speaker 1: needs to be done to turn things around. Dynamite on
Speaker 1: Wednesday was a better show than a lot of their
Speaker 1: recent ones, even if the numbers on Wednesday didn't reflect it.
Speaker 1: The Continental Classic, it may not be a draw for them,
Speaker 1: but we do get some great wrestling out of it.
Speaker 1: Shelton Benjamin and Kyle Fletcher. If you didn't see it,
Speaker 1: they had a great one with Kyle stealing a win
Speaker 1: same with Brody king and Claudio, and Claudio cheating to
Speaker 1: avenge his loss to Brody in last year's tournament. I
Speaker 1: understand Kyle and Claudia are both heels. Heels cheat, but
Speaker 1: in a tournament like this, I don't think we need
Speaker 1: too many finishes like that, especially on the same show.
Speaker 1: Jus Robinson is out of the Continental Classic and he
Speaker 1: is off television for the foreseeable future after missing seven
Speaker 1: months following back surgery last November. Now he's going to
Speaker 1: be out with a broken leg. The injury happened during
Speaker 1: his match with Will Osprey on Collision last weekend. Three
Speaker 1: minutes into the match, on a simple sunset flip spot,
Speaker 1: his foot got bent at a disgusting angle, and he
Speaker 1: continued the match like nothing had happened, and nobody even
Speaker 1: noticed because he wasn't visibly in pain. He wasn't moving,
Speaker 1: you know, much differently than normal. It's not like he
Speaker 1: was limping around. I don't know if he was just
Speaker 1: no selling it or if he just didn't realize how
Speaker 1: badly he was hurt. But if you watch the spot back,
Speaker 1: you can hear a crack or like a snap at
Speaker 1: the moment that he snapped his fibula. So Tony Kahn
Speaker 1: has substituted Commander in his place for the remainder of
Speaker 1: the Continental Classic because Commander can eat losses like Juice
Speaker 1: was going to. It's the only reason he was even
Speaker 1: in the tournament to begin with. Yes, there were much
Speaker 1: better names he could have put in that spot. I
Speaker 1: don't personally care for Commander being in this tournament. He
Speaker 1: can go in there and have great flippy matches with
Speaker 1: people like Ricochet. It won't make a lick of difference.
Speaker 1: Any stories they might want to tell in this tournament,
Speaker 1: absolutely none of them will revolve around Commander, I guarantee it.
Speaker 1: But he's in there to take losses, nothing more, nothing less.
Speaker 1: Also on Dynamite, they teased they four away for the
Speaker 1: aw World Championship at World's End, with John Moxley defending
Speaker 1: against Orange Cassidy, Jay White and Hangman Page and Bendido.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna be in the match, but Bandido has
Speaker 1: not wrestled the match since June of last year. He
Speaker 1: underwent risk surgery and then he had to have a
Speaker 1: second surgery on his wrist because the risks did not
Speaker 1: heal properly from the first surgery well. He is on
Speaker 1: his way back, and it had been so long on
Speaker 1: forgot he was even on the roster, and he was
Speaker 1: somebody who at the time when he was wrestling for
Speaker 1: AW his matches were getting over pretty good. He's just
Speaker 1: one of those guys that has a certain charisma, like
Speaker 1: a certain physical charisma about him because a lot of
Speaker 1: the moves and stuff that he does. I mean, again,
Speaker 1: they have a million guys on this roster who could
Speaker 1: do the same thing. But he was getting over and
Speaker 1: I think he'll get over again when he comes back.
Speaker 1: But I forgot he was even on the roster. Same
Speaker 1: thing with Keith Lee, and who knows if we're ever
Speaker 1: going to see him again. But I'm happy for a
Speaker 1: Bandido at least that he was able to make it back.
Speaker 1: Hopefully no lingering issues with the injury, and we'll see
Speaker 1: him back on TV suit. They held their annual Dynamite
Speaker 1: dozen Battle Royal for the right to challenge MJF for
Speaker 1: his Dynamite Diamond ring at World's End. This was easily
Speaker 1: the worst thing on the entire show. A dog shit
Speaker 1: Battle Royal for the right to a useless proce who
Speaker 1: cares about who holds the dynamite diamond ring. It is
Speaker 1: a prop for MJF. It means absolutely nothing, It holds
Speaker 1: no real value to one standing in the company. And
Speaker 1: if Adam Cole gets his match with MJF at World's End,
Speaker 1: which he should, what the hell do we need to
Speaker 1: see MJF wrestle Kyle O'Reilly for So, if it's gonna
Speaker 1: be MJF and Adam Cole, it's not about the diamond ring.
Speaker 1: The ring is not needed. It's a grudge match. The
Speaker 1: ring being on the line changes absolutely nothing. So on
Speaker 1: the Winter Is Coming episode this week, because the last
Speaker 1: two men in the Battle Royal were Adam Cole and
Speaker 1: Kyle O'Reilly, the two of them are going to have
Speaker 1: a match and the winner will then get MJF on
Speaker 1: December twenty eighth at World's End. World's End, of course,
Speaker 1: being the one year anniversary of the Devil Reveal, the
Speaker 1: night that MJF lost the aw World Championship. It should
Speaker 1: be Adam Cole against MG on the show. And if
Speaker 1: MJF loses the ring between now and then, which I
Speaker 1: guess he's already lost it once before, whether it was
Speaker 1: a legitimate loss or a storyline loss, I guess he's
Speaker 1: not going to lose it again, but I wish he
Speaker 1: would because it just doesn't serve any purpose and has
Speaker 1: about some TNA news. You don't get too much of
Speaker 1: that here. TNA announced this week that they will be
Speaker 1: bringing two pay per views, one to New York and
Speaker 1: one to Los Angeles next year, after holding a fan
Speaker 1: poll to decide which of the two cities would host
Speaker 1: a pay per view now, they claimed more than a
Speaker 1: million votes were cast, which produced no overwhelming winner, so
Speaker 1: they decided both cities would host events. Now, some people
Speaker 1: are calling shenanigans because these announcements came awfully quickly after
Speaker 1: the poll was done, that they're going to be coming
Speaker 1: to this arena, They're going to be coming to that arena.
Speaker 1: It's not like these deals come together overnight. They probably
Speaker 1: were planning two shows all along, and it was all
Speaker 1: just a marketing ploy, and honestly not a bad one. Now,
Speaker 1: if these were the days of the hotlines and they
Speaker 1: made japay ninety nine cents a minute to call a
Speaker 1: nine hundred number to cast your vote and you found
Speaker 1: out later on that the vote was fixed, I could
Speaker 1: understand being pissed off, But an online poll like who
Speaker 1: gives a shit, It's fine. Rebellion twenty twenty five is
Speaker 1: going to be taking place from the Galen Center in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles on the University of Southern California campus. That'll
Speaker 1: be on Sunday, April twenty seventh, while Slammiversary twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five will take place at the UBS Arena on Long Island,
Speaker 1: New York, on Sunday, July twentieth, and tickets for both
Speaker 1: shows go on sale Friday, December twentieth at ten am
Speaker 1: local time. WWE and AW they've run the UBS Arena
Speaker 1: for events there before, so TNA running there is very
Speaker 1: ambitious considering it is a twenty thousand seat venue and
Speaker 1: TNA has never in more than twenty years of its
Speaker 1: existence had a crowd anywhere close to that, not even
Speaker 1: half that. Their biggest crowd in their history was almost
Speaker 1: eight thousand people, and that was over a decade ago.
Speaker 1: Now the Galen Center is a little bit smaller. It
Speaker 1: fits over ten thousand figure for a wrestling event. It
Speaker 1: would be a little bit less than that, so I
Speaker 1: mean that's a little bit better. But they've got their
Speaker 1: work cutout for them. I don't see how they make
Speaker 1: money on those shows, but hey, go big or go home?
Speaker 1: I guess stake some mailbag questions. If you have a
Speaker 1: question for me, you could email me the solom Monster
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. Please include your name and where
Speaker 1: you are from. Roderick from Baltimore, Maryland. You gave your
Speaker 1: top five Survivor series moments after SmackDown a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago, and it was a great list. Thank you,
Speaker 1: roder With that said, given that there are still so
Speaker 1: many other memorable Survivor series moments which were not included,
Speaker 1: which ones would you rank from number six to number
Speaker 1: ten to complete a top ten? Well, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to rank them, but I can give you five more
Speaker 1: to give you a top ten. Now, if you missed
Speaker 1: the original list, I did rank that one and number
Speaker 1: one was obviously the Montreal Screwjob. Number two was CM
Speaker 1: Punk's return at last year's Survivor series. Number three was
Speaker 1: Shawn Michaels winning the first elimination Chamber in two thousand
Speaker 1: and two. Number four was Sting's debut The Visual Ante
Speaker 1: that Lives Rent Free in My Head Michael Cole screaming
Speaker 1: the Visual Anti. Yes, it was Sting's debut in twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen where he laid out Triple H and he helped
Speaker 1: Dolf Ziggler beat the Authority. And number five was the
Speaker 1: Undertaker winning his first World Championship from Hulkogan. So here's
Speaker 1: five more that I would rank pretty high on my list,
Speaker 1: but the are not ranked per se. Gotta have Brett
Speaker 1: Hart beating Diesel in nineteen ninety five on there, and
Speaker 1: Diesel's heel turn after the match. The best damn powerbomb
Speaker 1: that I ever saw him give was that first power
Speaker 1: bomb to Brett Hart when the match was over. Also
Speaker 1: the match Kevin Nash considers the best of his career.
Speaker 1: It's funny how Brett gave Nash the best match of
Speaker 1: his career at the Survivor Series in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: and Seawn Michaels gave Sid the best match of his
Speaker 1: career at Survivor Series in nineteen ninety six. And that's
Speaker 1: another moment, by the way, SID beating Sean for the
Speaker 1: title of Madison Square Garden and really just that whole
Speaker 1: reaction that night in New York City. They love Sid
Speaker 1: and they hated Sean. Undertaker's debut in nineteen ninety is
Speaker 1: Ted d Biassi's mystery partner. That would be another one.
Speaker 1: Paul Hayman turning on Brock Lesner and Big Show handing
Speaker 1: Brock his first loss, that would be another one. And
Speaker 1: Rock winning the title and going core break in ninety
Speaker 1: eight as moments go, that would be my top ten.
Speaker 1: Mohammad from Belgium, Mohammad, are you going to raw in March?
Speaker 1: They're coming to Belgium, They're coming to your backyard. I
Speaker 1: had a thought about some of my favorite wrestlers like Gunther,
Speaker 1: J White, FTR, etc. Who have a safer style and
Speaker 1: are having success in aw and wweight. Is it possible
Speaker 1: that those old school styles, especially Gunther, can influence younger
Speaker 1: wrestlers to adopt a safer style and have a longer career.
Speaker 1: I'm also a huge Will Osprey fan. His athleticism you
Speaker 1: can't teach that. It's God given. Plus compared to Ricochet,
Speaker 1: he has the personality to be a top guy. But
Speaker 1: I'm scared for his health just watching the bumps that
Speaker 1: he takes. What are your thoughts? Can you know can
Speaker 1: their style be influential to other wrestlers? Absolutely? Is it
Speaker 1: going to be where they adopt a safer style? Nope,
Speaker 1: not gonna have unfortunately not enough of them. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just it's one of these things where you keep
Speaker 1: upping the ante and you keep upping the risks, and
Speaker 1: when you do ladder matches, for example, right, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: what can we do that's never been done before? How
Speaker 1: high can I jump off this ladder? Look at the
Speaker 1: War Games match. We just had two people injured on
Speaker 1: dives from the top of the cage. Is if Gunther
Speaker 1: was in War Games, do you think he's climbing to
Speaker 1: the top of the cage and diving off? Does he
Speaker 1: need to do that? No? And if you feel like
Speaker 1: you need to do that to get over, then you're
Speaker 1: obviously doing something wrong. I'm sorry. You shouldn't feel like
Speaker 1: you have to do that. You can choose to do that.
Speaker 1: You might want to do that, but if you feel
Speaker 1: like it's something you have to do, then you're doing
Speaker 1: something wrong and people get hurt. That's why you're going
Speaker 1: to see more and more people are going to get
Speaker 1: hurt as they continue to, you know, up the risk
Speaker 1: factor and they do dives and they do all sorts
Speaker 1: of flips and moon salts and stuff. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with doing a moon salt but like some
Speaker 1: of the moves that these people do, it's amazing to
Speaker 1: me that they don't get hurt more often. It really is.
Speaker 1: So I would love to sit here and say that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Gunther and FTR and Jay White and all
Speaker 1: these people are going to influence a whole generation of
Speaker 1: talent to wrestle the way they do. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen. People are still gonna go out
Speaker 1: there and try to wrestle, you know, flashy, you know,
Speaker 1: a flashy style and try to get over with spectacular moves.
Speaker 1: Some of them will, some of them won't. Some of
Speaker 1: them are gonna get hurt. I mean, you can get
Speaker 1: hurt doing anything. Look what happened to Chris Bay. I
Speaker 1: mean that's a scary situation. People are still raising money
Speaker 1: for him. We still have not gotten any further clarity
Speaker 1: and exactly, like specifically what the injury. Obviously it's a
Speaker 1: broken neck, and I guess that's all we need to know.
Speaker 1: But it's just so dire, It sounds so dire, and
Speaker 1: we have no further information on it that you just
Speaker 1: you worry, like what's his quality of life going to be?
Speaker 1: Like what are we talking about here. He may never
Speaker 1: wrestle again, but like, is he at least going to
Speaker 1: be able to have a quality of life. We haven't
Speaker 1: even gotten any kind of update on that. I just
Speaker 1: hope the guy's okay. But you know, supposedly that happened.
Speaker 1: It wasn't any type of super flashy move. It was
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, it wasn't like a ground based move,
Speaker 1: but it was just a move that you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: expected something like this would happen, and it did. You know,
Speaker 1: Wrestling in and of itself is a dangerous game, It's
Speaker 1: a dangerous sport. Injuries are always going to happen. Injuries
Speaker 1: are always going to be a part of it. But
Speaker 1: as you keep uping the risk factor and doing stuff
Speaker 1: that's just not meant to be done. Frankly, it's the
Speaker 1: sort of thing that's just inevitable and it's not even
Speaker 1: necessarily you're going to break your neck or kill yourself,
Speaker 1: but you'll you'll shorten your career for sure, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: it sucks, but it's a choice and people have to
Speaker 1: live with their choices. Simon from Penrith, Australia, just wondering
Speaker 1: if you have a return or a debut that you
Speaker 1: go back and watch often. For me, it is Brackelesner's
Speaker 1: return and The Rocks return in twenty eleven, also by
Speaker 1: Rent and sell On double returns, Slash Debuts, Cmpunk, Randy
Speaker 1: Orton last year at Survivor series, Adam Colebrian Danielson at
Speaker 1: All In, We're all at, I'm sorry, all Out, and
Speaker 1: Undertaker Triple H from twenty eleven. Ah, Yes, that was
Speaker 1: the night on Raw where Undertaker returned and said nothing.
Speaker 1: I think that was when they did the whole countdown
Speaker 1: teas for weeks and people thought it was sting and
Speaker 1: it turned out just to be the Undertaker. It's like,
Speaker 1: that's it. And then Triple H immediately during the same set,
Speaker 1: Undertaker was still in the ring like doing his entrance,
Speaker 1: and then Triple H's music interrupted and we hadn't seen
Speaker 1: Triple H in many months, and then they proceeded to
Speaker 1: stand in the ring and stare at each other and
Speaker 1: then look up at the WrestleMania sign. They didn't say
Speaker 1: a single word during that entire segment. As far as
Speaker 1: that goes, I'm gonna buy on the Orton Punk double
Speaker 1: return last year. I'm gonna rent on Cole and Danielson
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna sell on Undertaker and Triple H for
Speaker 1: me though, As far as like a return or debut,
Speaker 1: I go back and I watch It's Austin's Return of
Speaker 1: Backlash in two thousand. Every now and then, I gotta
Speaker 1: go back to that video, Like from the moment the
Speaker 1: glass shattered right up until the end of the match
Speaker 1: when Rock won. I mean, it was just one sustain
Speaker 1: Can you even call it a pop? Like a pop?
Speaker 1: A pop is not really a sustained reaction. A pop
Speaker 1: is what it sounds like. It's a pop. It's it's temporary,
Speaker 1: it's brief. This wasn't brief. This was just like a sustained,
Speaker 1: five minute, just loud ovation. So I go back to
Speaker 1: that one, and you know what the other one is,
Speaker 1: I go back to It was a month later. It
Speaker 1: was the Undertaker's return. His his debut is the American
Speaker 1: Badass a Judgment Day when he came out at the
Speaker 1: end of the Ironman match between Rock and Triple H.
Speaker 1: That's another one where the crowd just lost their frigging
Speaker 1: minds and he just rolls on up in a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: He gets in the ring and he just mows him
Speaker 1: down one by one. Road Dog goes down, Triple H
Speaker 1: goes down. Gave Shane McMahon this big ass choke slam.
Speaker 1: Punched Vince McMahon the he actually got him. He got
Speaker 1: him good, punched him right in the face. Looked like
Speaker 1: he broke his nose. Vince had blood coming down his nose.
Speaker 1: He gave x Pot this brutal choke slam. Almost gave
Speaker 1: Stephanie a choke slam, then a triple H saved her.
Speaker 1: People were losing their minds. You don't a reaction like
Speaker 1: that very often anymore. Jerry from San Antonio, Texas. I
Speaker 1: recently saw a video of an old British TV show
Speaker 1: where Giant Haystacks slammed the host to the ground that
Speaker 1: apparently broke his ribs. The host supposedly called wrestling fake
Speaker 1: and Haystacks obviously showed him what feels real. Now do
Speaker 1: you know anything of this story? All I know is
Speaker 1: that the belief was always that the host had said
Speaker 1: something about wrestling being fake, and he may not have
Speaker 1: used that word, but it was basically what he was saying.
Speaker 1: I think prior to the show, like maybe prior to
Speaker 1: them coming out and either it got back to Haystacks
Speaker 1: or maybe he was standing there and he heard it
Speaker 1: and this was his receipt. I don't think he said
Speaker 1: anything during the segment about wrestling being fake, but I
Speaker 1: remember he slammed him hard, and it was like a
Speaker 1: hard floor. It wasn't like there was a mat there
Speaker 1: or anything. He just picked him up. He didn't even
Speaker 1: hold him up there. He just picked him up and
Speaker 1: just fucking slim lamb the guy. I mean, he definitely
Speaker 1: didn't lay him down gently, and you could tell instantly
Speaker 1: the guy was hurt. Whether he broke his ribs or not,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I wouldn't be shocked at all
Speaker 1: if he did. You know, Haystacks was a huge man.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was gigantic. He had to be every
Speaker 1: bit of five hundred pounds. He was even bigger when
Speaker 1: he ended up in WCW years later. Is Lockness, Yeah,
Speaker 1: giant Haystacks was Lockness in WCW. By that point, he
Speaker 1: was probably closer to like seven hundred pounds. Legit, legit.
Speaker 1: It's like Yoko Zuna near the end of his life,
Speaker 1: like at his heaviest, at his heaviest supposedly Yoko Zuna
Speaker 1: was around eight oh four, and even if that's exaggerated,
Speaker 1: he was easily seven hundred plus pounds and so giant.
Speaker 1: Haystacks was at his peak of as far as his size,
Speaker 1: probably around that and he was so horrible. He was
Speaker 1: just I mean, I hate to say it because he
Speaker 1: probably here's the thing, he passed away from cancer in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight. I think it might have been stomach cancer.
Speaker 1: And I hate to say it because he probably had
Speaker 1: cancer at the time and didn't even know it. Either
Speaker 1: that or he kept it quiet because he passed away
Speaker 1: a couple of years later. He probably already had cancer
Speaker 1: when he was in WCW. But he was god awful.
Speaker 1: In WCW. He was just he was so big. He
Speaker 1: just couldn't do anything. I mean, they actually brought him
Speaker 1: in for a program with Hulk Cogan. That's why they
Speaker 1: brought him in. Someone there must have thought he was
Speaker 1: the second coming of fucking Vader or something, I guess,
Speaker 1: And when he debuted boy, they realized that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1: He said. They realized this isn't gonna work. Either that
Speaker 1: or Hogan said that don't work for me. Brother, because
Speaker 1: we never did get Hogan against Lochness. Not a single
Speaker 1: one of his matches there ever went longer than two
Speaker 1: and a half minutes. There's a reason for that. But
Speaker 1: in his heyday in the UK, you know he before
Speaker 1: he became a Scottish Sea Monster. He and Big Daddy,
Speaker 1: they were the biggest names in British wrestling. They had
Speaker 1: millions of people watching them on TV at their peak.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's why WCW brought him in. Who knows. And
Speaker 1: finally David from Sacramento, he put together another one of
Speaker 1: his be the Booker super poles earlier in the week
Speaker 1: and he he went through all of the matches that
Speaker 1: I have booked on the streams over the past few months. David,
Speaker 1: I wish I had the free time that you had.
Speaker 1: I really do. So the poll results are in and
Speaker 1: here it is what he has done here. I mean
Speaker 1: there's no percentages or anything like that, but what he
Speaker 1: did is he put together his latest Solemn Monster supercard.
Speaker 1: He's calling it Solo Supercard nine. It's a two night
Speaker 1: extra aviganza as voted on by you the fans. Night one. Now,
Speaker 1: these were all matches that I actually booked randomly in
Speaker 1: My Be the Booker Segment. Night one. The main event,
Speaker 1: as voted on by you for the Be the Booker Championship,
Speaker 1: Al Bundy against Dave Meltzer. Tell me that's a match
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to see. Okay, If you say no,
Speaker 1: you're a fucking liar. Be the Booker Tag Team Championship,
Speaker 1: Bullet Club Gold, Jay White and Juice Robinson against Den
Speaker 1: Boys Jay and Mark Briscoe. That'd be a hell of
Speaker 1: a match. We have Angry Beth Phoenix against Stephanie Viquaire,
Speaker 1: Nature Boy, Rick Flair against Bruno Sam Martino. There's a
Speaker 1: match the Monster Abyss against Big Bronson Reed. And in
Speaker 1: the Women's War Games, aj Lee, Osca, Dakota Kai, Timeless,
Speaker 1: Tony Storm and Mae Young against Nikki Bella, Kanna, Nya, Jacks,
Speaker 1: Julia and Medusa. Now Night two, the main event is
Speaker 1: the Men's War Games. Get a load of this. Nigel McGinnis,
Speaker 1: The Solo Monster, David Arquette, Big Bronson Reid and Man
Speaker 1: Tar against Hiroshi Tanahashi, Sammy Zay, Booker, t Yoko Zuna
Speaker 1: and Eddie Guerrero. Let me repeat that. First team. Nigel McGuinness,
Speaker 1: Bronson reid Man, tar Me and David Arquette. I mean,
Speaker 1: if ever there was a winning team Al Snow against
Speaker 1: Stone Cold Steve Austin, Trish Gratis against Lyra Valkyria, we
Speaker 1: have and this is cute what he did here, the
Speaker 1: Hardy the Workhorse Championship, Keith Lee from his NXT run
Speaker 1: against nineteen ninety eight Cain Jacob fought to against Pentagon Junior,
Speaker 1: which could very well be a match coming soon to SmackDown,
Speaker 1: and the Women's Kennel from Hell. But the Mama Monster title,
Speaker 1: Mina Shirakawa against Awesome con It's not a bad card.
Speaker 1: I'd pay for a ticket to go see that show.
Speaker 1: He also has a question, wants to know who wins
Speaker 1: with eighties Hart Foundation Brett and Jim against the ninety
Speaker 1: three to ninety four Heart Foundation team of Brett and
Speaker 1: owen Hart. You know, that's that's a tough one. That's
Speaker 1: a tough one. Obviously Brett and Jim had the longer
Speaker 1: run and they were Attack Team champions together, but Brett,
Speaker 1: noen Man, that's a tough t team to beat. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go ninety three ninety four Brett, also because I
Speaker 1: feel like ninety three ninety four, Brett was like Brett
Speaker 1: at his at his like in Ring at his Peak.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite version of Brett nineteen ninety three, nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four Brett. So I gotta go Brett know it.
Speaker 1: David the thank you man. He puts a lot of
Speaker 1: time and effort into this, and I'm glad that you
Speaker 1: guys enjoy the segments. It's become a favorite, I know
Speaker 1: for many of you on the live streams, one of
Speaker 1: the things that differentiates those streams from everybody else's streams.
Speaker 1: And who knows, there could be some more fun coming
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. You never know what idea I
Speaker 1: might come up with next. Anyway, keep emailing me to
Speaker 1: Solomonster at gmail dot com, and you can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter, where I'm still most active at solo Monster
Speaker 1: is my handle on there. Of course, you can subscribe
Speaker 1: to the YouTube channel and I am live usually three
Speaker 1: times each and every single week Monday, Wednesday and Friday
Speaker 1: after Raw Dynamite and SmackDown and most pay per views,
Speaker 1: and I will be live after Saturday Night's Made event
Speaker 1: next weekend as well, and we'll wait until a little
Speaker 1: bit later in the week. I can do my Saturday
Speaker 1: Night's made event predictions. Maybe I'll wait until Friday. Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll do them on the SmackDown stream. But it also
Speaker 1: catch me on Tuesday nights on JD's channel for Tuesday
Speaker 1: Night Titans. We're lighting it up over there, having some
Speaker 1: good discussions, so a lot of Solemn Monster content for you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for all of the support. I greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I will see you guys back here next Sunday for
Speaker 1: a new episode, episode eight ninety two of the SoundOff.
Speaker 1: So until then, be well, stay safe, have yourselves a
Speaker 1: great week, and we'll do it all over again next
Speaker 1: Sunday for eight ninety two. Until then, take care, guys
Speaker 1: the Solemn Monster Sounds Off. I'll be having my own
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving the faith tomorrow as some families out. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have some noodle pudding. I'm I'm gonna be eating good tomorrow,
Speaker 1: and I'll put in some extra work at the gym
Speaker 1: to work it all off. You know, this is the
Speaker 1: time of year, by the way, where people eat like pigs.
Speaker 1: And then I have to go to the gym and
Speaker 1: all the machines are taken up by all the people
Speaker 1: who decide. Oh you know what, it's a good time
Speaker 1: to go to the gym, and then they go, and
Speaker 1: it's a couple of weeks, and then you don't see
Speaker 1: these people anymore. For like two weeks, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to fight over machines because these people decided, oh, you
Speaker 1: know what, maybe maybe I should join the gym. After
Speaker 1: two weeks, it's gonna be right back to the way
Speaker 1: things are. Always works out though way New Year knew me,
Speaker 1: No New Year, same you.
Speaker 2: The Solo Monsters sounds off bringing you the good, the bad,
Speaker 2: and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
Speaker 2: content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 2: and X the Solo Monster.
Speaker 1: I Love you so Young,