15 YRS AGO LIVECASTS: Keller & Powell & Mitchell on Cena's apology to Rock, MITB fallout, Bryan to break a streak, CM Punk and TNA, Sin Cara
Today we jump back 15 years to two back-to-back episodes of the PWTorch Livecast from August 6 and 7, 2011.
On the Aug. 6, 2011 episode, PWTorch Livecast, host PWTorch editor Wade Keller and PWTorch columnist Bruce Mitchell discussed the fallout from Sunday night's Money in the Bank and the news of the day including Sin Cara's suspension and John Cena's apology to The Rock. Live callers bring up subjects ranging from whether C.M. Punk could show up in TNA to whether Daniel Bryan will end the MITB streak or the injuries on the PPV and much more.
Then on the Aug. 7, 2011 episode, PWTorch editor Wade Keller and Jason Powell of Prowrestling.net discussed with live callers the fall-out from Money in the Bank on Raw, how McMahon, Punk, Hunter, and Cena all fit into the picture, some early predictions on where the top angle on Raw could go with Hunter in power and McMahon perhaps taking a reduced role, Raw ratings and what it says about the impact of the angle, Sin Cara's WWE status following his suspension, Keller & Powell preview the big Smackdown taping following MITB they attended right after the Livecast, and much more.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wade-keller-pro-wrestling-podcast--3076978/support.
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Speaker 2: Now, PW Torch and Speaker bring you the Wade Keller
Pro Wrestling Podcast.
Speaker 1: On today's Way Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast, we jump back
fifteen years to back to back episodes from twenty eleven.
First Up is My Show with Bruce Mitchell, and we
talked about breaking news, including fallout from Sunday Night's Money
of the Bank and news of the day including Seine
Kara's suspension and John Cena's storyline apology to the Rock Live.
Callers brought up subjects related to CM Punk and TNA,
Daniel Bryan, the Money of the Bank, streak, injuries, and more.
Then on the August seventh, twenty eleven episode. The next day,
Jason Paul joined me on the flag Ship and we
talked more about Money of the Bank, seem Punk, Triple H,
John Cena, some early predictions on where the top Anglon
rock could go with Triple H and Power and McMahon
perhaps taking a reduced role. Rale ratings, and what it
said about the impact of the Big Angle Sinkar is
do to be status following his suspension, plus a preview
of the Big SmackDown tapings following Money in the Bank
that they attended right after the live cast, and more
so here we go these again originally live streamed on
August six and seventh, twenty eleven, and it is today's
Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. Fifteen years ago Flashback four
August sixth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look all right, brus, welcome to the show. Thanks
for joining us again. How's how's it going today? If
you recovered from the adrenale in the rush of last night?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean a great show. What you said, that's
what you watched wrestling for? Is that really see that
kind of emotion, see people get drawn into something and
and play into that and also really nice to see
something where they just they just played it out in
a very smart fashion. And I was you know, the
potential of this genre for really being entertaining always there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I mean the Torch staff sending in
the roundtable reviews for the newsletter with scores. And we've
been doing this for over twenty years, where the columnists and
editors write and write a review for the newsletter and
also give it a score. And I mean everybody is,
you know, in that eight plus range. I think almost
everybody's in the nine eight and a half to nine
and a half range. So really positive reviews for last
for last night's show. Now people are saying they're not
hearing me, let me jump out. Can can you still
hear me? Bruce?
Speaker 4: I can hear you, yes.
Speaker 3: And can everybody in the radio show hear me? All right?
I think I think we saw that little glitch. Sorry
about that, everybody. Yeah, very good show last night, Very
deserved positive reviews, the roundtable reviews for the newsletters. As
I was saying, come in, are all coming in at
eight and a half or nine or even more at
this point, So very good show. Bruce James called on
on and Greg Parks took calls for an hour plus
last night after the show. Half hour after the show
concluded at eleven thirty Eastern, So thanks to James and
Greg for doing that. We blew away live listenership for
WrestleMania three and a half months later, tons more listeners
for wanting to react and listen to this than WrestleMania.
Some of that is our show is growing, but some
of it isn't. Hang on? Can people still not hear us?
All right?
Speaker 5: Bruce?
Speaker 3: Can you hear us?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 5: Good.
Speaker 3: We had a little technical problem there. Not sure if
it was my fault or not or I got a
little message on the blog talk studio page saying that
we got disconnected. So anyway, I hope we're back if
somebody in the chat room, monts just confirm that we
are on. Okay, we got somebody saying we'ren so good.
Sorry about that, folks. Let me give the phone numbers out.
I would just a little bit out of order here
on doing things because of the technical problems. But we're
gonna have a lot of phone calls. As I was saying,
you can give us a call at six four, six, seven,
nine to two weight and we're gonna try to get
through as many calls as we can. Bruce, you and
I were joined by Pat McNeil last night, right after
the pay per view ended, we did an hour of
analysis on this show for VIP members. We are running
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for the first month, so check that out at PW
torch dot com. So we're going to take a lot
of phone calls, Bruce, I do want to remind people
besides the VIP audio show, which is available as soon
as you sign up for a VIP membership, the one
hour show from last night, we also have seven hours
of the Diamond Dallas Page Torch Talk that I've been
conducting this year with Dallas Page in several sessions. The
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to you instantly, along with a ton, ton a ton
of other stuff. Full details on that list. Last night,
if you did not know it because you listening to us,
but you just didn't know it, James and Greg James
Caldell and Greg Parks hosted a special post pay per
view edition of the PW Torch Live cast last night
at eleven thirty Easter until twelve thirty, and then they
went beyond that for the Archives show. If you didn't
listen and you want to get more more analysis of
the show from those two, get their opinion of things,
and also a lot of phone calls. I encourage you
to check that out at blog talk radio dot com,
slash Prodash Wrestling, dash Torch, or just subscribe to the
PW torch live cast in iTunes. Just do a search
for PW Torch or pro Wrestling. We'll get the calls
in a second. A couple headlines since last night show.
Bruce to talk about seeing Kara suspended for a wellness
policy violation. I don't know any more details, but he's
out for thirty days. They coincided that with an injury angle.
Are you okay with with wrestlers doing injury angles and
having a last match after failing a wellness test? That
is that not a huge deal? Or do you think
when you fail a test you should be pulled from
the shows immediately?
Speaker 4: You know, honestly, I think they should if you really
want to send the message, if you really want to
make sure that that yeah, the biggest to terment popul
to use in the drugs. The truth is you pull
you pull them a medium because it embarrasses the show.
It embarrasses you know, the rest of you know, the
rest of the people there, there's pure pressure armed you
not to do it. It's it just makes it worse.
And I think that's any think honestly that that would
do more good. So I thought about it for a
while and I kind of figured, you're gonna ask you
this question, and to me, the rest of the context,
the rest of the story needs to be straight. But
but yeah, right before it and and you know, was
this two or three weeks ago? What you know, what
was the details of it. I've heard a little bit
of it, but I haven't heard it all confirms. So no, no,
I think I think you just you know, you don't
get to play in the last game, you're out. That's
how That's how it works in the rest of the world.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: The other big story came out today. John Cena apologized
to The Rock for the things he said about him
last week, and he also encouraged fans to uh lobby
w to get him back in the company now that
he has been fired as of last night. Because see
him punk walked out of the arena with the belt.
Although maybe he didn't walk out of the arena, no,
he did. We know he did because he put a
picture up of the title and his refrigerator. But punk
could have really screwed a physic man if he wanted
to and just be camping out in the arena and
not leave the building with the belt and then seen
it would still be hired. But anyway, what do you
think about those few things? First of all, playing up
the storyline that he's fired and trying to rally the
fans to try to get him rehired. Obviously that's all storyline.
But the comments about the rock I thought, were, you know,
kind of interesting. I wasn't sure quite what to make
of that.
Speaker 4: Uh, that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 4: What he was apologized for, which was tearing down the act,
I thought it was really.
Speaker 5: Kind of interesting.
Speaker 4: I don't know where that came from or what that's about,
but and apologize, And I still w he would be
mad at him, because this is all storyline, so I'm
still he'd be he'd be mad.
Speaker 5: There.
Speaker 4: I'm interested to see how many people actually email or
twitter or text or whatever the hell do is they
want him to do to reinstate John Cena or just
people or do people just go that's a bunch of
But because I think to the people that use the
social media as far as wrestling goes, probably a little
more smarter what's going on than say, people just watching
on television. So that'll be that part will be interesting.
You can get it. You can get a little suit
cute with this stuff. I did like the guy on
w W dot com who got in trouble for calling
John Laura and iis stooge, because I thought that might
be a little bit of a storyline too, where he's
not just a stooge for VisiC Man, but he's kind
of a bully too that he you know that he
gets mad and you know who can he bully? But
people on you know, how can you show evidence to
that of people on the web site? So I thought
that might be what's going on there.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, I liked if you've got to if you've
got the television straight, then you can use the ancilliary
social media to add little details instead of I see
them trying to do. We'll see how it works out.
Speaker 3: And and you know, somebody in the tap room just said,
that's all it's lunachrous or seen a Toclaiany's fire, And
I think we kind of have to keep in mind
that that now, like you just said, Bru, social media
is an extension of TV, and John Cena saying he's
fired is not ludicrous. It's John Cena in character playing
up the world that they've created, and they're extending it
beyond the TV show, beyond the pay per view into
social media. I know people think, hey, the rest of
are supposed to shoot with me, be upfront, not not
lie to me when they're talking to me on Twitter
or talking to me on Facebook or wherever. But no,
I mean, there's no rule for that. John john sena
should be playing up the storyline as long as he's
consistent in how he uses Twitter or Facebook. You know,
if if one if one second he's trying to get
people to believe he's serious about something, in the next
second he's talking about storylines that I think is jerking
people around and they get confused, and so what do
you think about that?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it depends on how people take it.
I mean, if they if a lot of people do
you know they're trying to try to position WW to
get him back, then it's something that works. If a
lot of people get you know, give it a big
fart noise, then it didn't work. So if I slay
and see, they're going to have to be careful how
they do it. But I think there's little things that
you can do and then I think you can't mix
it to You've got to be you've got to be
either in character all the time or non characters. And
really John Cena doing you know, tweeting, he's got to
be in character. So that's that's fine that people and
if he's consistent with that, people will catch on to,
you know, a little job crazy.
Speaker 5: I don't think.
Speaker 3: Well, I could ask you a ton more questions. We
covered a lot of basses last night in the VITP
audio show after the pay per view, which we do
after all pay per views. So rather than rehash that
or cover territory James and Greg did with our own comments,
let's just dive into phone calls. Let them lead the way.
We've got about fifty minutes left before Raw starts tonight,
a highly anticipated edition of Raw. We're approaching a record
number of people in the chat room tonight. Like I said,
the live cast last night did record live listenership blew
Away WrestleMania well over fifty percent more listeners than we
had for our post WrestleMania show, a lot of it
in this very curious about the raw ratings and whether
they can pop a mainstream rating or whether this passion
that we're experiencing for this Punk Sena Angle and have
all along is really just getting a small segment of
the audience, a relatively small segment. Whether that's two percent
or twenty percent doesn't really we don't know. But are
they getting a small segment the hardcore fans really excited,
but maybe turning off the eighty to ninety eight percent
who just want a good wrestling story told that doesn't
get into We're going to fire your favorite wrestler and
you know who's am I supposed to cheer for Punk
or Boom because McMahon's against him, you know, the lack
of kind of more black and white defined line. So
Ro's rating is going to be interesting, as will and
we won't get instant numbers on this, but as will
the buy rate for last night's pay per view Verus.
My last question of you before we jump into phone
calls is do you predict a much bigger, a much
larger than average buy rate for the July pay per view.
When those numbers come.
Speaker 4: In, I special it'd be larger, much larger. I'm not
sure about it'll be larger, and if it is, that
means they did the right thing here.
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Speaker 3: All right, well, let's go to phone calls and see
where the calls take us. And let's begin with area
code six o eight. Thanks for holding. Please state you
name and where you're from.
Speaker 8: Hey guys, it's Matt from Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: Hey, Matt, good dear from you. What's going on?
Speaker 9: Well, it's really hot here. I'm sure how I'm going
to go to too. It's like crazy, you're using ridiculous.
Good thing you don't have to leave the house.
Speaker 3: I was I've been all over town today, so and
I was watching people walk from the comfort of my
air conditioned car across streets looking like they were about
to pass out from this. I mean, the car thermometer
was up to like one o eight or one ten
and then it's humid on top of it. So yeah,
it's it's crazy, but I wouldn't want to work outside
full time right now if I was in this heat.
I am amazed people can.
Speaker 9: Yeah, a little warm day.
Speaker 3: Bruce doesn't care. But nobody cares.
Speaker 5: I of course nobody.
Speaker 9: Nobody, Yeah, just me and you with the hole stin
car thing. It's I think it's ridiculous. It's like w
W East into Ohio State letting the guys play in
the last game and then defended them. But that's yeah, yeah, yeah,
Kay would never let that fly.
Speaker 3: If that's true.
Speaker 9: Is it does that like put a hole in the
wellness policy that it actually matters? Or is it just
going to be for people like at the Torch and
the Observer and was the Herb or Phil Mushnick the
one who always writing in the mean articles Like is
anybody else really going to care?
Speaker 7: I guess?
Speaker 9: And is that and is that gonna be a problem?
Like are they just kind of kind of going to
abort this? Maybe he gets fired?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 3: Is this get for him?
Speaker 9: And he's you know, just kind of been botching his matches?
Speaker 10: You know?
Speaker 4: No, I don't know that anybody cares. But there's more
issues to this, like are you going to send a
mess that to keep people from taking drugs that are
that are bad for their health or a are you
going to or are you said a strong enough is
just possible or not? And that's you know, that's why
you have it. That's why you have that drug policy. Now,
I know there's some answers for for rely because I
think in this whole and of art sees as some
things they need it. But you know, this is the
world they live in, and that's you know, that's that's
part of it. But there's, like I said, there's just
more to things than than whether who cares about it?
Who does who cares about whether these counts ruin their
help or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I reserve the right to change my opinion
on this because I am open minded on it. But
I don't have a huge, huge problem on my list
of problems with wellness policy the fact that if somebody
fails a test, they don't say, well, if it's within
ten days, we're going to have you finish working your
advertised dates or your advertised pay per view. And they
have that policy across the board. You know, it's not
just for quote important wrestlers who get exceptions. I don't
know that it's a huge deal. I mean, I totally
understand Matt's analogy, and I think it's a very legitimate point.
That's why I say I reserve the right to kind
of be convinced otherwise. But I don't see it as
like a really big deal if they get suspended within
a short period of time and they work one final match,
I don't know. It's not like USC where oh, you
tested positive for steroids and we know it, but now
go beat the hell out of your opponent and have
that unfair advantage. That's not really what's happening here. And
so it's to me, it's not being in a feel
to put up a fight about. I would much rather
have the attention to be put on who's getting tested
and how often, how random is it is it is
everybody at every income level being tested? How independent is
the drug testing laboratory? From Vince McMahon, does he have
any say so over which results are released in which Like,
I want more transparency in how the policy is run,
and really I don't. If they gave me that, I'd go, fine,
let guys work within ten days after failing. If they
have a big match coming up and you can't book TV,
you can't you know, write TV around it, And I
don't know, it's just not something to me worth putting
a lot of energy fighting fair enough first, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Mean fair enough. I mean, I don't think you have
to choose between two things. And I don't think it's
at the top of a list of priorities or things
I'd like to see, and transparencies be the number one thing.
Do you think if you're trying to be effective, that
that that this is this is another part of it
that would be effective.
Speaker 5: That's just like.
Speaker 4: They're not here because they they did not pass their
drug test. And this is why this change. Fans would
know about it. It's public transparency. Fans would know about it,
and I get here about it, and there'd be a
lot of there'd be more pressure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get your I get to your point that
peer pressure to not fail a test because you'd be
letting down the roster if it was right before a
big pay per view could help give teeth to the policy.
And I and I and I do see that point.
But you know, yeah, well, anyway, let me go back
to Matt. We're getting some uh in sillerby noise while
he was on hold, Matt, do you have any call
up for us?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I guess the only thing was I heard that
heard that it like the test was failed three weeks ago,
so it wasn't a you know, just lately thing like
oh that they just found out after the last tv
T thing. But I get the last thing. I'm just
wondering why John Seena had to apologize to the Rock
in the first place, with Rock kind of firing the
last shot, and you know, with Bruce being a teacher,
I would say that John Cena tattling was more like, Hey,
I'm get in trouble for this stuff all the time,
and now Rock does it because he's the teacher's past.
You know, Glad's gonna love it fly. So uh, that's
all guys, looking forward to Row.
Speaker 8: Tonight, and I will talk to you guys the other
time and think great, thanks Live.
Speaker 3: I appreciate want to take that.
Speaker 4: There's a little bit of that, but the truth is
they should. Everybody should be held to the same standards.
If they're working for w W, and w has a
corporate standard about our policies, then everybody should be held
to it. And Rock didn't need to do it. I mean,
it was one part of eleven minute Front.
Speaker 5: But but Rock just didn't need to do it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean I'd.
Speaker 5: Bring it up.
Speaker 4: There's there's something to that. Adults act that way, just
like just like kids do I act that way sometimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. My problem The problem with Scena bringing it up
is that when he said, well, I wonder ifled's going
to go after Rock click, they came after me. I
think he needs to, as the leader of that company
and an adult, understand. That comes across as I'm more
concerned with even punishment than I am about sharing regret
for saying something in a really bone headed way and
then making it even worse. Apology, you know, I mean
Seampunk just I thought gave the model apology. I mean
it really it felt sincere. It was humble, it was gracious,
It was acknowledging, specifically with the language and understanding that
he knew why what he said was wrong and not
a good thing to do and not something he wants
to do again, as opposed to you know, John Cena,
which as well, if anybody was offended, I'm sorry, meaning
if anybody out there's you know, too thin skin to
handle a little joke, you know, screw you. But I'll
apologize under protest. So when Sina says, oh, I want
to rock if gladok him after Rock too, that came
across a negative to me about sena to me, it's like,
that's not your issue to fight, that's for somebody else
to fight, and and because you kind of lost your
credibility on that anyway, let's go ahead and jump to
our next call here, area code nine three one. Thanks
for holding. Please state your name and where you're from.
Speaker 5: Hey, it's the end, he's gonna see.
Speaker 3: Hey, Ian, what's going on? What's any matter really have
I don't we have a whole lot to say.
Speaker 8: Well, yeah, I know right.
Speaker 10: I just wanted to thank you guys for your good
work the last couple of days. And it's nice to
be able to hear the positives of wrestling instead of
the negatives. And even though I really looked forward to
Bruce and his forty five minute rant about why he
doesn't like the money in the bank matches this weekend.
Speaker 6: But.
Speaker 10: That's about it that you guys have.
Speaker 8: A good day.
Speaker 3: Thanks team for calling. Let's just jump to the next
call then and go to eight one seven. Thanks for calling.
Please state your name and where you're from.
Speaker 11: Heywords and Bruce's Joshua, Texas.
Speaker 10: I have.
Speaker 11: One question and then, you know, like a comment question.
This afternoon, after my doctor appointment, I was watching The
Hardy Boys DVD from two thousand and eight on my
p S three because it was streaming through Netflix, and
I was thinking about the wellness policy. Why won't the
w w E and or not WV but TNA release
just release Shift already just firing because of his violation
and the WV and that CNA and then he's even
in court for it.
Speaker 3: From the w W Sure, And that's the question, Josh,
that's your question. What's your comment?
Speaker 11: My comment would be, wouldn't it be kind of cool
for seeing him come to entertain the idea of going
to TENN and working on match in DNA because Aaron
Bischoff is back in control of the company, And then
he could say, well, I got Vince's belt, twife, because
Sam came to t and A.
Speaker 3: When did when else did he get his belt.
Speaker 11: When he was in when when he was in VCW
and the built in the trash angle?
Speaker 3: Well, that was MEDUSA. I don't know if it's yeah,
it was a it was a women's title. But okay, yeah,
fair enough. I mean that's two questions, but fair enough. Bruce,
do you want to take the softball about cmpunk going
to TNA?
Speaker 4: I don't expect that's going to happen in this lifetime.
Speaker 3: Okay, let me say that that would be entirely stupid,
totally stupid. Why would w I mean, that's not you
don't give a call reasonable answer, veruse you've got to
rant on that one. You don't if you're WWE, take
one of the hottest angles that you have, at least
with a core group of your fans, and we'll see
what happens from there, this really hot angle, and give
the rub to your competitor TNA. Why would you give
bishop breaking points? Why would you, under any circumstance want
to give a boost to the competitor that is struggling
so much they're not even on your radar. I'm not
saying that's right or not, but no, there would absolutely
be zero, zero zero reason to give TNA dot rub.
You don't need to have Cmpunk show up on TNA
Impact in order to get this storyline over. There's other
ways to go about it. That's not to say it
won't create a sense of legitimacy that Punk left with
the Belts, and it would be like whoa WWE fans
would say, first of all, what's TNA wrestling. Oh thanks
for telling me. Now I'm paying attention again. That would
be the negative.
Speaker 4: Why wait, Ran Tillman did it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Roan Tillman did it. Yeah. Well anyway, so there's
my answer. No, that'd be stupid. It's not worth giving
any benefit to TNA, even if there would be a
little benefit to making this hot angle seem a little
bit more legit. All they would do is make people
think WW ME and TNA were working together, and then
people would start watching TNA to see when the next
ww guy showed up, including perhaps John Cena. So no,
if you've got WWE stock, hope WWE doesn't do that.
If you have an ownership stake in TNA, start hoping
that they do. So, No, they won't do that. Jeff Hardy,
why doesn't TNA release them? Their answer is they're going
to let the legal system play itself out.
Speaker 5: Bruce.
Speaker 3: Should they have fired him by now or or released
him pending the outcome of everything, or is at this
point just keeping them off TV and out of the
picture kind of meeting at least halfway and that sends
enough of a message.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't be sprassed if they can't fire him, you know,
I wouldn't be surprised if that's not something that he's
the specificities in this contract that he can't be fired
for that kind of thing. So, I mean, you're looking
at you're looking at those those two in Rick Flair
with and for different reasons where things are things are bad,
and and they're you know that they're you know that
they're they're waiting. I mean, you would hope to take
continue to use whatever leverage they have to encourage both
Hardies to go into rehab. We'll we'll see how it
is and and and we may even maybe even in
a day or two or how whenever this court case
comes up that I think that the outcome that of course,
the outcome I think that that Jeff Hardy is looking
for is to be put into some sort of core
ord rehab programs. So I I don't know. I mean,
they really got burned with the Hardys, and they really
did a bad job of taking advantage of them when
they had them. You know, I wouldn't be for us
not to see him come back.
Speaker 3: And and if Jeff Hardy got into his contract a
clause that would say if I show up in no
condition to perform, we're entering the ring could cause me
to injure my opponent, or injure myself, or injure a fan,
because management believes for good reason that I'm in no
condition to work that, and I blow completely ruined a
pay per view main event and destroy the credibility of
the company and their ability to make decisions on who
to push in the main events and who not to
and who's reliable and who's not. If I do that,
you can't fire me. That guy's lawyer of the Year.
I mean that that's just that's insane. I know. But
that's not put it onto Bruce. I'm not criticizing you.
I'm just saying, well, I guess the way. I'm just saying,
don't don't think that if TNA put that in the
contract somehow, I mean, it's just ludicrous and it would
make them literally maybe the dumbest corporate move of the century,
because who would do that? Who would say you can?
I mean, that's just so no. I mean TNA didn't
get that into the contract or.
Speaker 4: That could change, that could change, that could change the
landscape and make them players. And he said that he
could handle himself, and he looked fond to me. And
you know, this is his chance. He was really frustrated
in WWA and now he's positive about things and we
can encourage him and give him structure and give him
something to do, and he and he can do just fine.
So let's just go ahead and find this contract.
Speaker 3: Well that's what happened, but that that doesn't that doesn't
mean Jeff Hardy got a clause put in there that
said you can't be fired under any circumstances.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't know, No, I don't know. I would
wonder if if there's no lever for you know, there's
no level for performance or whatever. But I mean they
may have to send him home and not paid him.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't you know, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, we don't know. It seems like a mess,
you know. You hear these vague things that they wanted
to go to rehab, which which is a lot better
than what they It took him a long time to
get to that point.
Speaker 3: Our phone number is six four six seven one nine
eight two eight six four six seven ninety two eight.
We've got four people on hold in line. You can
be fifth in line. We'll certainly get to at least
five calls. Uh, during our remaining time. We're approaching the
midway point. I just want to want to remind people.
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Speaker 12: Hey everyone, Greg Parks here. You've probably heard me hosting
Wrestling Night in America after pay per views and also
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Speaker 3: Let's go to our next call area code to zero two.
Thanks so much for holding. Please state your name and
where you're from.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, guys doing this. Anthony from Washington.
Speaker 6: D C.
Speaker 3: Hey Anthony from DC. What's on your mind today?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 13: Not so much, Just about two topics right here. One,
I have talked to you before, and I've talked about
how then you know they should like take these titles
more seriously than they do with this angle that's going
on right now where seam Puck is who knows where
with the title and everything? Would this give you know,
you know a little credibility to the theory I brought
up about them, you know, taking titles more seriously because
this can like you know, trickle down to like the
United States title on off and you know, saying even
maybe even give the tag team tied a little bit
more credibility because the angle I see that could play
out is gonna you know, thiss manpost to come on
a little bit, don't through the first person's coming up
speaking all row to night and uh he probably wrote,
you know, break down, you know, you know, seeing his
position in the company and uh what's up with.
Speaker 5: The title and everything?
Speaker 13: And some kind of way it's going to give a
title a little bit more credibility, credibility it's well, you know,
deserving you know, supposed to be going down to it,
and uh it will be a dream of minds that
they disrespect the titles a little bit more. What do
you say about that?
Speaker 3: Bruce? Want to think that.
Speaker 4: I think that I don't know that it goes down
to the mid card titles or anything, but I think
what it can do is make it seem like the
w W title itself is really important because this man
is so upset about getting it back John Cena. The
job is in jeopardy, and there's a lot and there's
something different going on with it that a guy a
guy has it that's not in the company and so,
and it's not being descended and traded back and forth
like a trading card during the time that he's not
that he's not in the company. So that part, I
think that back could if they play it just right.
It sounds silly, and it is kind of silly because
they play it just right. I think that the WWE
title could once again become instead of the two world titles,
the big title and something that would be worth than
you could make money defending it become againwick that would
work again.
Speaker 3: We talked about this last night person on the VP
after on the VP round table, Well, I threw out
the idea that maybe Vin took my man, hands a
fake title to somebody on Raw tonight and declares it
the new title and goes the other approach. Instead of
fighting to get John Cena back, he puts up a
big fuss about I don't want John Cena back Punks
got the title. It's dead to me, like there's some
dangers in doing that, but if they thought it through,
maybe there's a way around it. They've done it before.
You know, Triple H got handed the world title from
Eric Bishoff. If I remember my history, what right? And
they could you know, bring Chris Jericho in. He could
become the corporate champion. Triple Ah could you know, break
away from whatever he's been busy doing and at least
on an interim basis, become the corporate guy because you know,
Punk was taking shots at him. Then eventually, when Punk
does come back, be it three weeks, three months, eight months,
he can bring the real world title back and they
can have a big match on pay per view, whichever
one they choose, unifying it with the so called interim
or replacement belt. Is there any chance something like that
might happen?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's adress that could definitely go on.
I could I could see that and potentially kind of
having some complaints of that that's not right, that's not
the real one, and putting it on a heel, like
you know it says in the chat rap but I
agree with it, But putting in you know, that's that's
the way to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, anything else for us, Anthony, Yes, get an
update all the big shows injury? What is a I'm
not sure what the story is on that, uh in
terms of the latest on the legitimacy. But Bruce, are
you do you think this injury is as serious as
they're making it out to be or the total story either.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know I just read on wrestling serverer
dot com that they're that there that he's out for
six weeks or more. And it may it may be
a pretty existing injury, or it may be some sort
of some sort of you know, role in a movie
or a TV.
Speaker 5: Show or something.
Speaker 4: But well I sure looked that way. I sure had
that feeling watching it that he's going to be out
for a while. So and he's he's older, and you
did guys get this injury, so it wouldn't.
Speaker 3: S proestan And you know, when I looked at it
as it made sense. Get Mark Henry over as a
monster heel. You know, Big Shows selling of the injury
wasn't any more less believable than Missus selling of the
injury or seeing car is selling of the injury. And
there were a lot of injury angles, so it seems
logical that some of them were for reasons other than
we just want to do a bunch of injury angles
on TV, Seeing Car due to wellness issues Big Show,
perhaps due to pre existing issues where they had to
write them off at TV for a while. The PW
torch dot com story that was posted about six hours
ago said that he'll be out of action six to
eight weeks, and the WWE injury report says that Big
Show suffered a distal fracture of the fibula following Mark
Henry's postmatch attack, and to enhance Henry WW noted that
the injury had been more serious than originally thought, less
than if it had been more injury serious than originally thought,
he would have been out of action up to four months,
but instead they're just thinking six to eight weeks. So
that's our report, Bruce on our site on what we
had to say about it. Let's go to the next
call and go to Eric code five to five to nine.
Thanks for calling and OLDINGK. Please state your name and
where you're from.
Speaker 14: Hey guys, it's Valible here.
Speaker 3: Hey Steve, how's it going. That's pretty good?
Speaker 14: Two quick things each about the money in the bank matches,
and so Daniel Bryant winning, do you think he's being
set up as the guy who the first to lose
the money in the bank match or do you think
they're gonna actually go with him?
Speaker 3: You know, it's ridiculous that everybody who's ever won the
money in the NANC match wins the title. I mean,
what are the odds of that. I mean, I know
that the others are stacked in their favor if they're
opportunistic about it, But shouldn't a babyface have one money
in the bank and not tried to win opportunistically but
instead just said I want a title match, and I
want to give the champions some notice. So it's an
honorable win. And it just worked out that they didn't win,
but it did give them breaking rights. I thought they
overplayed the hand a little bit, you know, where they're
just like this guarantees that Daniel Brian will be world champion,
and it's like once announcers start over selling things, then
Steve that crossed my mind. I'm thinking, Okay, this is
the end of the line. They oversold it, so now
this will be the opposite. It's like when the announcer
during a pin cover, and it drives me nuts. It's
aistic man's policy, and I wish he had changed it
because it ruins it for me because I know when
they're let me say what I'm talking about, when a
wrestler covers another wrestler and the announcer says he's gone him,
it's over, title change, you know whatever, and the ref
has just begun their account. I know nine hundred and
ninety nine times out of a thousand times that that
has happened, and there's one exception in the last ten
years I can remember it happening. The wrestler kicked out.
Because the policy is if they're going to kick out,
over sell the idea that the match is over. And
if they're not kickout and it is the end, we
don't want to give that away, so they just count
along with a pin. So there there you have it.
I have now ruined near faults for you, and that
is mean, but you probably figured out out anyway. And
I want ww to change that policy because it's insulting
to always have the announcer screen it's over, it's over
during kickouts, but not say that during actual pins. Thus,
ruining every big near fault for me in years and
years of watching WWE, it's a stupid policy. Somebody in
ww ME needs to tell vinsic Man to change it.
All right, that's my quick rant on that I forgot
the question now that I did the rant, Steve, what's
what's your question about anyway? Oh, Daniel Brian Bruce, what
do you think is Daniel Brian gonna be the first
guy to fail?
Speaker 4: Well, the other thing is it's tough to do only
the bank with baby faces because by by definition, unless
you're paying you know, like I think Edge did it
one time, Unless you're paying somebody I had it done
to them, Unless you're paying somebody back for doing it
to you, it's not a fair way to win the titles.
You know, you get somebody when they're down and you
just run out there and beat him up and take
it and take it from them. So or it could
be that he makes the challenge and says he does
what you know, he does what Rob and Dan did
to John Cena. I want it on this specific show.
I'm always why don't they just hold onto it to
WrestleMania season and then say I want I want to
you know, I want the title masts at WrestleMania.
Speaker 5: That's the one that the most lucrative.
Speaker 4: But uh, he could be the one to lose, he
could be the one to win. I just don't want
to see him do something like Dulfziga was really getting
under my skin. So I want to use it to
get the US title or something like that. So that
that kind of that that worris me a little bit.
But I wonder what they have in mind for him.
Speaker 5: We'll see.
Speaker 4: I wonder if they have a plan for him yet.
So I think they've got more. I think that he's
just gonna hold on to it until whatever they do
with del Rio gets done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, good point. All right, let's le quote
on call. Well, actually, let me see he's got follow
up here, Steve and he follow up to that.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I had one more. Uh yeah, the credibility of
ringing serial decaying to his face as opposed as getting
the two Kates thats right there at his fingertips. Let's
not really say about Raymonsterio and his drive to be championed.
Speaker 3: I didn't like that was one of the things I
didn't like last night, and I'm glad he brought that up.
I didn't bring it up last night during the roundtable
on the VPP side. Yeah, you know, I mean I
get that the mask is you know, honorable, but this
is somebody who you google. You can google it and
his face shows up. He's done, He's done DVD interviews
without his mask. He was wrestled on w W. However,
many matches, dozens hundreds of matches without the masks. So
to give up the chance to win the money in
the banks and be quote guaranteed that you'll become champion,
I thought was you know, I could see some people
looking at Ray is kinda I mean, you know, you
can you can claim that Orton overreacted. In fact, you
can claim John Cena was stupid for going into the
plane to the crowd and the whole you can't see
me bit when he had a chance to win the
world title far and square by not playing to the
crowd and not taking this time and giving his opponent
a chance to recover. I mean there's there's moments where
baby faces look like they're not actually trying to win
at olcas and they don't have their head on straight.
But Ray not covering his face, I mean they're selling
the idea of the mask is that important to him.
But I don't know. I don't know, Bruce, what do
you think.
Speaker 4: I didn't like that del Rio, that Alberta the Rio
tricked him or how smart him. I don't think that
should be going on with that. But I will say this,
I mean, that mask, that gimmick is huge, and he's
right to protect it. I don't mind that. I really don't.
Even with the world tied, I would like to see
something unfairly done to him where he had to he
had to cover himself up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4: I mean, it doesn't take a lot of effort to
go find out what Oscar looks like. But it's you
know that there's a whole mistique, There's a whole and
it adds to that mistique. So I'm okay. I'm okay
with him doing that. I just wish that they had
they had done that. He had gotten cheated at him
and so just had it ripped off his face right,
you know, right straight up and the guy out smart him.
Speaker 3: It's a question worth asking, And because we're asking it,
I think at least wwe owes it to themselves and
rails it to himself to say, can we tell this
story the same story as well or almost as well,
without the downside of Ray essentially giving up a guaranteed
world title run, which is how they were selling it.
Can we tell the same story in a different way,
doesn't have to be don't unmask him versus unmask him
when he's about to grab the briefcase. Maybe there's a
middle ground where there's no doubt that it was just
guaranteed he'd win it, and it was almost guaranteed he
could win it. There have a very very good chance
at it. But I mean, well, you know.
Speaker 4: What I'd say that, you know when I'd say this,
I think this was an opportunity for him to go
on raw and give a speech about how important.
Speaker 3: An ask is to that's true, and explain.
Speaker 4: And explain why he does that, and really put and
again put, you know, put some emphasis on his gimmick
is so unique and so important to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. By the way, it does drive me
nuts and and t and a. There was one pay
per view where like six baby Faces did it in
a three hour period. Where when you have a chance
to win a match and then you decide to posture
and egg on the crowd or go into some sort
of little dance routine or whatever, and you're losing a
chance to win a big match. I just think it
makes a mockery out of the moment that you want
fans to be in, which is your babyface. Dis match
matters and winning is the most important thing. And when
you take that away and say, what's really more important
is dancing for the fans or waving your arms or
you know, spinning your arms around, Well, here's what.
Speaker 4: Thinking about that, here's what's thinking about that way. I
think that if the babyface celebrates, he shouldn't get smacked
down for it. I mean I think that if you
do that, then you can take the crowd and they
can celebrate with him. But when he does that and
he looks like he's playing to the crowd and that
he will get some advantage because of it, then it
looks like he's stupid or he right, you know, he
does not priorities straight.
Speaker 3: So well that's what I mean, he does.
Speaker 4: That, it really should be and that's part to me.
That's the agency agent should be talking to him and going, no,
you don't come back on him with that. You let
him have his time. Should get some more offense, then
you can reverse something or you're jab him in the
I or you know whatever it is to get the hell.
Speaker 3: That's exactly like co you know. And Booker t even
called out Kobe Kingston for this a little bit. And
I think Booker has been, you know, ninety five percent
wrong and just weird on this kofe thing. But if
you are going up to the top rope and you
stop there and play to the crowd and then you
jump off and the heel moves, knew, quite a complete idiot,
and who wants to what? What fan wants to cheer
for an idiot? You know what I mean? And look
like a big show off too.
Speaker 4: You look like yeah, I mean it's like it's like
a guy shows off and then take care of business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's like the foot the running back or
the wide receiver who breaks away from the defender and
is fifteen years away from the end zone and starts
celebrating and holds a ball in the air and a
really fast defender runs up behind him and knocks the
ball out of his hand. You you are a you
look like an idiot and that and so that. But
there's times where they're bad about it. There's other times
where again I just think a little harder. Is am
I gonna look stupid doing this? Do fans want a
cheer for somebody who looks like they're more worried about
being stupid then they're about winning. So you know, there's
a thousand rules like that that make wrestling work, and
if you violate all of them, the whole thing falls apart.
If you violate some of them, you know, it becomes
more difficult. And I just say be detail oriented and
think about if this were real, if this is if
somebody in the crowd is buying into it and it
looks real to them and they're watching with a discerning eye,
are we taking away from their reason to admire this
baby face? And if so, find a different way to
tell that same story. Anyway, Thanks Steve for the question.
I think it got an interesting conversation going.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to us on the Apple podcast app,
on Spotify or any other app that allows you to
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Just look for a place to rate the show on Spotify,
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thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 3: Let's go to our next call, Eric Code seven owaight
please stay to name and.
Speaker 5: Where you're from.
Speaker 15: Jobs from Chicago.
Speaker 3: Hey Josh, what's going on?
Speaker 6: Hey?
Speaker 16: I was at the show last night, and uh, I
just want to see it was really good, especially if
the live crowd and everything.
Speaker 6: But and uh, my question was uh.
Speaker 16: Like joining the match like the ram jorton in a
Christian match, the crowd like turned spunnies doing uh like
late the uh the attack on the side answered the
match and stuff. It just the whole crowd turned and
I just said it was really great. And then uh
and then for the punk see the match, Uh Cole
Cabanos in Front Road he says, don't even do anything
with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good question, Bruce, Well you can you can start
with col Cobatta. Do you think you'll end up doing
anything with w W A or is this just a friend,
you know, just showing up to try to add a
little a little wink in and no odds to the
audience who knows who cult is and then if you
want to comment, I comment on the crowd reaction of
Orton and Christian last night.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know I talked about from the audio, I
just thought that it's not the greatest foot in the world.
But then Orton at the end of the match really
got the crowd into what had happened. I mean, I
just thought his acting was really was really well done.
As far as Cold Cabana co Coban is told it
has told the different independent promotions he works for not
to book him out after a month ashen So does
that mean he's going to w W? Does that mean
he said that to get that started?
Speaker 5: Does that? Does that?
Speaker 4: What does it mean? Well, we'll see. I liked that
a Steel and Cold Cabana were right there and on camera.
Speaker 3: And they weren't.
Speaker 4: They didn't overdo it. They didn't go that's their friends
and he didn't. They didn't run out and jump on
John Larnaida. So they didn't they didn't attack, you know,
they didn't attack John Cena or any of that kind
of stuff. They acted like they were there enjoying what
their friend was doing. And it's a it's a good
way to set the stage for bringing one or both
of them into the promotion to be with Seeing Punk
when the time comes. And I just I liked that
they didn't go over board last night on a lot
of different things. They got most of the details right,
and they and they left the wrestlers and they let
see Them Punk and they let John Cena tell the story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all right. We got a long line of
people on hold. Now a lot of people join in,
so stay on hold, everybody, and we'll get to as
many of you as you can. Let's go to our
next caller, another seven oaight caller. I hope I didn't
do the same seven O eight is this new color?
Please state your name and where you're from from Chicago? Hey, Boris,
were you at the show last night?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, how much can you say? I mean,
I watched this one start to finish, and like you say,
I read, I read, you know, I went online and
read some stuff about it, did see what went down,
just to see how people felt about it, and and
I agreed it was better than WrestleMania from start to finish.
Speaker 6: And like any actually.
Speaker 4: Enjoyed Randy Orton, yep, in history.
Speaker 6: I actually enjoy Randy Orton.
Speaker 3: And Mark Mark Henry against people.
Speaker 6: They won't be himself.
Speaker 3: Mark Henry against Big show was good.
Speaker 6: Oh man, all from start actually and there is not
one to play. Everything fell the way it should. They
had it planned out. I mean, if they could in
any scenario better than this, I would love to see her.
But tonight, I mean, yesterday night was it was an
excell hunt. And this is my birthday weekend, so this
was yesterday was my birthday president. I mean to see
us all fall out and Sina, I actually enjoyed Sena yesterday,
to actually enjoyed.
Speaker 17: Sena and this is history.
Speaker 7: I actually enjoyed Sena. And you know, I don't know,
you know what what happened tonight.
Speaker 14: Was awesome.
Speaker 6: I feel like I got my money's work. I mean, cm
pot playing into the crowd. You knew when you came
here Chicago actually blew him out of the building. But
it was actually done. Everybody worked together. Actually look like
they enjoy working tonight.
Speaker 3: Yeahs, I'm I'm gonna put you on hold because I
want to comment a couple of things before you mentioned
three dozen other things. And I completely forget John Cena.
Bruce last night put in a type of performance and
I said this last night in the roundtable, and we
have people who still don't like him, and you don't
have to like him, and there's reasons not to even,
you know, to lose some respect for him along the way,
in different ways that he handles things, or the way
that he wered, you know, as certain traits that he
has and how he works and sells and all that.
Last night's match, and people who read the website know
this five stars, five star match. I've done that. I
don't people ask you know what matches given five stars to.
It's somewhere between four and eight. In twenty plus years
of giving star ratings to every single pay per view
in pay per view history since nineteen eighty seven, I
have given star ratings to well, I won't say everyone.
I probably missed one along the way or somebody, but
I've been giving star ratings out. Almost never give five
star ratings out. I gave five stars for last night's match.
If you didn't see it, it was as good as
pro wrestling gets in enough ways to be a five
star match, was it? Have I seen better matches in
certain ways? Yeah? I mean there was a tag match
in the early two thousand's Edge was in it Ben
was it that I thought, from a technical standpoint, absolutely better.
But this had so many ingredients that were just over
the top good, including the crowd, heat, the sense that
something was on the line, just the performance and giving
credit to scene in Punk, not not trying to downplay it.
They just were brilliant, and how they paced that crowd
and how they worked from the mat a little bit slower.
It's sort of like Hokogan an Ultimate Warrior or Warrior
against Savage, or if you go back and watch it,
or even you could say Flare Michaels if you go
back and watch it afterwards, doesn't have the same necessarily
the same feeling. And I don't know yet because I
haven't rewatched it how seen a punk will feel in
a week or say six months. But in that moment
in time, not knowing what was going to happen and
knowing how into it the crowd was, and then the
story that they told in that ring and their effective
building of the match over time to those believable near falls.
I mean, I was going back and forth on whether
I thought each guy was gonna win I five star match,
and literally I say that once every three years on
average at most so, and I've probably gotten eight years
not saying that. So really good, really good match, Bruce,
and any comments on that match itself before we jump
back into the phone calls.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know that I had five stars. So
I thought it was an excellent match. And I thought
that I really liked John Cena. I just thought that
John Cena didn't play to the crowd, didn't try to
do a heel things that he doesn't normally do, and
just stayed strong and within himself. And he really I
said this last night, but he reminded me of a
good player on you know, in the rival on the
rivals home court, just trying to stay with it. And
I thought that that he I don't see. I think
for a lot of people it's way past him earning
any respect back. But I think he should have earned
some respect back last night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very good, Boris. Thanks for your enthusiastic call. We've
got five six five people on hold and ten minutes left,
so we're gonna go to New Collar, but I'm sure
we'll hear from you later in the week. Let's go
to Erico two five one. Thanks for calling. Please state
your name and where you're from.
Speaker 18: This is Brian from Fairhart. I've got two. I got
one big question, one I guess comment one just kind
of question that please don't dignify with more than one sense. Okay, okay, First,
I do want to say I did subscribe to your
VP offer last night. I'm looking forward to reading the
Torch the Torch Talks, were listening to the Torch Talks,
really looking forward to like some of those some interviews
you've done. My my, my big comment, I guess is
this is the first match since probably Hunter Foley, that
Hell and the Cell where you just you had no
idea what was going to happen and and you really
couldn't come up with what was the most likely scenario
that was going to happen because there's just too much
on the line either way. And they did a good
jobs playing the cards the best so that you know,
I mean, that's just made the tension that makes all
those circumstances that build you a five star match because
you don't know what's going to happen, rather than there's
gonna be a really predictable great outcome of.
Speaker 3: So my question is.
Speaker 18: With Punk MVP, UH, Chris Jericho and Chavo just kind
of getting getting the point where they said, you know what,
I could keep working, but enough, who do you think
at this point is ready to step up? And in
a perfect world where nobody's opinion of anybody matters beyond
their ring performance and they're factor on promos and stuff,
who do you think is in the best position position
to be in the next mid upper carter upper carter
including possible defections from T and A women, if that
ever happened, and if that's even amost serious possibility.
Speaker 3: That the question you don't want us to dignify with
more than one sentence. No, I figured not go ahead.
Speaker 18: The little question is just because it's been turning around
in my mind, is what what's the possibility that, say,
the US Olympic teams wouldn't even give Kurt Angle a
second thought based on the fact that he's an admitted
therapeutic human growth hormone music.
Speaker 3: Good question, Bruce, want to take Angle first and you
can comment on on who the next big thing could
be or who might be ready in a perfect world.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think I think Kurd Angle, you know,
saying he's going to try for the Olympics. I hadn't
got a lot of response from the Olympic Committee of
the Olympic team and hasn't gotten a lot of Have
you got a lot of listing? I think that I
think the Olympic team and the Olympic Committee probably gonna
that's the way it's going to stay. They don't want
to embarrass him because of what he's done in the past,
but I think they know what the score is and
he's in no he's in no shape for a lot
of reasons to be doing this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's what i'd say, that's your one thing.
How about Brian's first question, you know, m v P. Chopwell, Chavo,
I mean, you know he's he's saying a lot of
things right now that are look like they're if if
that's what he was like behind the scenes, I want
to have trusted him with a big push either given
the way he's kind of started talking a lot.
Speaker 4: You know what, he had a long career and pretty
much was used the way he should have been used.
He didn't he didn't have the passion and fire that
that he had, but he was He made a good living,
working in different places and doing different types of matches
with a whole lot of different people, and they tried
things to do more with him, but it just wasn't there.
Speaker 3: So and now but now he's out there complaining about
not getting a big enough push and I'm sorry. Being
the guy who helps get seen Kara over is a
good push for Chavo Guerrero. Like it just seems like
he doesn't really have a grasp on you know, as
someone in the you know, at the.
Speaker 4: End of the end of the Wrestling Company for ten
straight years and be featured on television for for that
Tom is Anthian and w CW for years before that. Well,
that's your career. That's the way it worked out. If
you know, if you were going to break loose, you
would have broken loose. So you know, particularly during the
time that Eddie that you had Eddie as a hell
of a tip poll to, like, you know, to get
you to get you really.
Speaker 3: And so how about is is there somebody out there
who you think can fill in and really rise up
brus It's kind of a generic question. We cover that
semi regularly, but you know, if you had to pick
one or two guys right now that you think are
worth elevating anywhere out there to fill some of these
empty spots. This obvious right now.
Speaker 4: I don't think they're great Canada. So the two obviously
wants to be away Barrett and Shamous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, good, let's let's keep going to cals. Hey, Brian,
thanks for signing up for the VP membership. Seriously, I
appreciate it very much, and give me feedback on what
you think is you have a chance to dive into that.
I know we've got twenty plus years of archives and
it is uh, there's there's a ton of stuff. And
by the way, since probably a lot of people listening
are signing up for this street free trial, there's a
link at the top of the main listing and I
don't want you to just look past it when you're
looking at the headline stories. Right above the main listing,
there's a link that's called VIP Orientation. Click on that
because it's a single page that takes you all over
the site to all the different areas of the VIP site.
Some hidden gems in there a list of some of
the great Bruce Mitchell audio shows with specific themes over
the years. Ten or twelve suggestions right off the bat
to get give you an idea of a really good
diverse selection of things that we offer as VIP membership,
and again it's right at the top of the main listing. Yeah,
what do we have like, Yeah, twelve twelve different recommendations
right off the bat, just to give you an idea
of what's going on. Some of the great Bruce Mitchell columns,
our WrestleMania round tables, our audio round tables on WrestleManias
one through ten that Bruce Patt and I have done recently.
A list of dozens and dozens of Bruce Mitchell audio
shows from over the years where we tackle a single subject,
a DVD, a wrestler dying, Hall of Fame discussion, a
lot of great single subject audio shows and Bruce really
shines in this format talking about history and putting things
in perspective with the modern day with knowledge of what's
going on today. Our audio talk listings with a lot
of the audio interviews that we have back issues dating
back to nineteen eighty eight, in nineteen eighty nine plus
my coverage are all our coverage group. You were there
too for the nineteen ninety four vincc Man Steroid trials.
A link right to the double issue with the verdict
the results of the trial that almost sent ensic Man
to prison on a on felony steroid related charges. That
double issue is available as soon as you sign up.
It's right there on the VIP orientation page. Plus the
Chris Benoit murder murder suicide coverage link taking your right
to that PW Torch newsletter number one thousand when we
celebrated one thousand, we give you link to that, plus
our torch Talk transcript listings, a Rick Flair special section
with a cool selection of Rick Flair related articles. That's
the dozen recommendations right off the bat, but there's also
in two other columns one click references to all kinds
of archives and all kinds of great stuff. So I
just want to remind people to do that again. Go
to PW torch dot com or the PW Torch app
At the top of the list is a link that
will take you to details on this offer to get
seventy percent off our regular ten dollars monthly rate. It's
only three bucks to get in the door for a
full month. That offer will be pulled in a matter
of hours, so please act quickly, don't put it off.
And this is the deepest first month discount that I
think we've ever given. It certainly will be giving for
a long time. So now the time to act. If
you've ever thought about getting a VAP membership.
Speaker 19: On Tuesday nights, the conversation doesn't stop when nxtnds, it's
just getting started. I'm Nate Lindberg and alongside my co
host Kelly Wells, we bring you PWT Talks NXT. We
go live on the pw torch YouTube channel about fifteen
minutes after the show to break down matches, storylines, and surprises,
and we take your questions and comments from the live chat.
Miss us live. But you still want to be part
of the show, send your thoughts to PW Torch nxdatgmail
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on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. And of
course you can always stream the latest show a pwtorch
dot com.
Speaker 3: All right, let's go back to the full lines and
Eric code nine one zero, Thanks for holding. Please stay
to you name it where you're from?
Speaker 20: Hey guys Jonathan from North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Hey Jonathan, give us a quick question or comment since
we are pretty long time.
Speaker 20: Well, I had a couple of questions, but since it
shows them USA over, I'll just make a couple of
quick comments. The past few years, I've only really ordered
Wrestlemanny on pay per view. I used to order all
of them, but I figured i'd give money in the
Bank of Chance last night with real low expectations. But
I got to say, WW came to and it'll make
me more likely to want to order something I'm on
the fence about in the future.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 20: And secondly, for three dollars the entry offer. If you
don't sign up for that, if you're not a Torch member,
you're crazy because that's highway robbery Wade.
Speaker 3: Thanks Jonathan. I'm glad, glad you said that. Appreciate it,
and I know we meet it. I'm you guys do
a great.
Speaker 4: Job, and I'm gonna get off the line.
Speaker 8: I'll talk to you guys later.
Speaker 3: Great, thanks so much. Let's go ahead and take another call.
We might go up. For those listening live, we might
go off the air as we're talking. If you want
to finish up and hear what we're saying here with
please just listen to the archive, which would be available
probably within about fifteen minutes at blog talk radio or
in iTunes. Bruce can stay with me for just a
couple of seconds. We have somebody who's been on hold
for so they don't hang up. We'll get to them.
Eric gob seven to one four, Thanks for holding for
half hour. Please stay your name and where you're from.
Speaker 11: That I got through.
Speaker 17: I have one of those tough names to prance. I
just go by tough times from Berkeley, California.
Speaker 3: All right, good, Oh, go ahead to my question comments.
Speaker 17: Well, I'll make a quick comment. I wanted to disagree
with you guys about the Ravens sterios. That'll real finish,
but we don't have enough time watching the show. It
just kept remind me of events that I've watched, and
I know I've heard a ECDLB one night Stand brought
up a bunch of times. That environment really felt like that.
I'm not only Canadian Stampede, but the two rows that
were in Canada that year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was just a unique.
Speaker 17: Environment with the heels getting all the face heat and
vice versa. I thought that was just a great element
to the show.
Speaker 3: You're right, I mean the crowd heat was amazing, Bruce
if are you able to stick with us for a
second and positive? Dr Sure, okay, cool, Yeah. I didn't
want to assume that you were able to. I didn't
want you to miss opening a raw if you had to,
and we're kind of up against that now. Yeah, Bruce,
this last night's crowd was one of the last night
show was one of the great crowds for a pay
per view, and it is up there with some of
those great Canadian shows and some of the obviously some
of the the ECW One Night Stand. Trying to think
of other examples, I mean, they know they've been there
out they've been out there. It's also one of the testaments, Bruce,
to a smaller arena show like All State Arena compared
to the Dome shows. I think that really helped last
night's show compared to stay the WrestleMania setting. And I'm
not against big stadium shows because I think Undertaker versus
Triple H seemed like a bigger deal because of the setting,
but that crowd heat being right on top of the ring,
I thought added to the show quite a bit.
Speaker 4: You know, it did. The only my only caveat about
this I talked about a lot, but my only caveat
about this is this is a unique set of circumstances
and it went against they It went against what they
do week to week the week the week, and you
know it really and that they need to figure out
a way to get it back to where it was
when Steve Austin and rock work. I'm not saying that
you know, have it at that Monday night warpeak, but
where your crowd is with you, where your crowd follows
stories and cares about what what stories you're telling in
the ring, instead of someone retires someone as you know,
it's quitty for a while and went out and ran
down your company and that got that that rallied people
around him against your company. I mean, it should be
the other way. So it should be the other way around.
And so I enjoyed it, and I think it's a
great comparison to the Calgary stampage. I mean, that was
that was something special and there was there was really there.
But you know, I wonder as people start realizing the
skim punk doesn't coming back for a little while and
things go back to quote unquote normal, and particularly if
it's if it's viscent man, I guess John Cena, then
you know, I also wonder whether there's gonna be some
disappointment there and there's some you know, there's gonna.
Speaker 5: Be that hangover.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, good, good point.
Speaker 17: Oh, I just want I wanted to ask to what
Rus said.
Speaker 3: You wanted to ask what Bruce said?
Speaker 17: Oh no, no, sound sorry to add what Oh of.
Speaker 3: Course, yeah, yeah, definitely definitely go ahead.
Speaker 17: Just the fact that we're going to go back to
normal now on a bi week basis. And I think
what was unique over the last four weeks, and even
maybe going back to the attitude as the amount of
influence the wrestlers had on their storylines and their characters.
It seems, you know, over the last ten or eleven years,
the TV writers have definitely got more involved and that
the wrestlers are more in touch with their own characters.
And Vince doesn't want to trust anybody, seems like over
the years to have that much influence and for some reason,
and maybe he just sees it in seem punk. He
seems to believe in punking, and I think a.
Speaker 5: Lot of it is the influence.
Speaker 17: That punk has had in the storyline. Of course I'm
not one hundred percent sure of that, but as a long,
long time wrestling fan. I really feel that Punk was
very involved in specific aspects of angles and things that
we've noticed in the last three weeks that we've touched
on and said, oh, this is what I really liked
about it.
Speaker 5: The Yankees bo.
Speaker 17: I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I really believe
that Dampunk came up with the whole Boston New York analogy,
and I thought that was just great. I just don't
think Vince will go will go back to letting the
wrestlers have that much influence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, if you're gonna have good influence,
he should let him have it. But not everybody's going
to be that dedicated or or have a grasp of
what they need to say and what they don't need
to say. I mean it is each wrestler is different
and they need to be handled differently, and I think
them Punk shows there's a benefit of having flexibility in
that policy and when somebody does have something to bring
to the table to it. I'm watching in the background here.
Not this won't be news by the time people listen
to the archives, probably, but they vincc Mann has announced
a tournament for the w W retitle. Alex Riley against
the Miss Raymond Stereo against Dulf Siegler. A couple other
matches announced, So Bruce, any any initial quick reaction before
we wrap up the show on h on the decision
to hold the tournament.
Speaker 4: They do it all the nights, and I'm not crazy
about it at all, yeat, I mean, I don't know.
I mean I just I got it on without without Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in essence, what they're doing, it's crowding an interim champion.
You know, It's what YOC does an interim title with
the idea. Of course, I haven't heard vinc Man's language
because I got an on in the background like you,
but not hearing. You know, does does Punk eventually return?
But to me, you got you want to have a
perfect opponent to take on CM Punk when uh, when,
under whatever circumstances, Punk shows up with the real belt
and you want to have a Punk versus somebody else match?
And so you know, is that Alberto del Rio? You know,
do do play to that or does that? Is that
not good chemistry? We'll left to see, but I think
it's Punk's got to be a baby face when he returns,
based on everything that's happened.
Speaker 21: Certainly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, hey, all right, thanks everybody for joining us.
We are here all week, as stand ups say, we're
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It is worth it, Bruce, just for the Bruce Mitchell
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future columns going back twenty plus years. Wouldn't you agree?
Speaker 4: You know, it's what a special. I mean, it's good
to the point where you're giving them money.
Speaker 3: To listen to it. Are you offended that I'm actually
giving away the entire body of your entire history of
work for three dollars?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think you should be raising the price at these
At these times when people are jacked up to read
wrestling them to get into it. That's when you gallop.
I mean, what is given a special? You know, we
need to talk about this off the year.
Speaker 3: Well, I I was talking to somebody who's going to
Comic Con in San Diego coming up this week, and
he was talking about how can it be legal for
hotels to charge so much money, so much more money
during comic con versus any other time. That's that's wrong.
And yeah, I'm kind of doing the opposite instead of
being the hotel. But see the difference is I don't
have limited rooms. We will welcome all. If I had
only well.
Speaker 4: You know, well there is there is another there's another
type of marketer who you know, the crack deal The
crack dealer will give you free cricks.
Speaker 3: That's sure, That's what I am to Yeah, I mean,
what I'm doing i'd like to acknowledge is legal. But nevertheless, yeah,
I mean there is something I really not good. I really,
I really do believe that if you get a taste
of our wrestling crack, that you will be so addicted
that we will be able to charge you full price,
which is extremely reasonable too, especially with you know, we're
no network. But we're not going to jack up our
price out of nowhere on you ten bucks a month
to get everything that you get, I think is a
great price. But yeah, three dollars gets you in the door.
It's essentially a free sample, because really three dollars come on.
So Peter Withdetorch dot Com, jump over there right now.
I do not think you'll regret it. I seriously don't.
It's worth the effort, all right, Bruce, Thanks so much, Bruce.
You and I will be next talking together for the
Bruce Mitchell Audio Show coming up this weekend as part
of the VIP package. We talk for two hours every
weekend and post part one usually on Fridays, and part
two on Saturdays, and cover curt events and wrestling and
also a ton of a ton of history and you
know history as well as just about anybody out there.
I think it's very to say, so I will talk
to you then and we'll be here all week. I'll
be up bye tomorrow on the Love Cast with Jason
Powell of Pro Wrestling dot Net, and then Wednesday, I
think I'll be hosting with Pat McNeil, and then Thursday,
James Caldwell will be hosting probably with Greg Parks. We'll
see and then Friday's up in the air, So that's
the scheduled. The rest of the week, Bruce, you and
I have to go watch Ross. So thanks for joining
me and staying here for a little bit of overtime.
Cool all right, Thanks everybody, until next time on behalf
Bruce Mitchell. Wade Keller signing off.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder you can reach us at Wade Kellerpost
Show at gmail dot com if you're interested in contributing
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if you're interested in submitting a question or a topic
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Speaker 15: Welcome Judy BW Coors Live past.
Speaker 8: It is Tuesday, You'll.
Speaker 3: Lie nineteenth, twenty eleven. I am Wade Keller, editor and
publisher of the Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter since nineteen eighty
seven and also PW Torch dot com sint nineteen ninety
nine and PW Torch apps on iPhone, Android, Amazon, iPad
and more for the last several years. Also, and we
have lots to talk about and as always on Tuesdays,
I'm pleased to introduce the cost to the show. Jason
Powell of the website pro Wrestling dot Net. Jason, how's
it going good.
Speaker 5: We've got a mixed che tonight.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Yeah. I was trying to think, how do
we sarcastically introduce the show, and You've got it perfect,
So I'll scratch all my worst ideas. We got a
lot to talk about. Oh, I mean, let's just dive
into it. First of all, Triple H announces on television
a storyline imitating reality type or a storyline imitating reality
type of storyline that the board has voted no confidence
to the head of the board of directors or the
the leader of the board. He wasn't at the meeting,
but he's the leader of the board. Hysic man. They
all with private meeting. I've seen that plot line in
movies before, where you know, all the other people with
power and influence get together and say this guy in
controls crazy, let's houst him, and Triple H regretfully informed
him that that he he Triple H, had been deemed
his replacements and an interesting storyline and just let me
get out of the way. It's not real life, I mean,
like imitating real life, but it didn't happen. There's there's
no board meeting, Vis sick Man, didn't have his power
reduced against his will or anything like that. Where this
imitates reality is that Triple H is shadowing vincick Mann.
He's he's learning how to be an executive. He's, you know,
tri Place spent his whole life trying to be a wrestler,
and now he really has shifted his focus the last
couple of years, increasingly so in recent months, towards learning
how to run WWE. And so I think Vince McMahon
last night, you know, some real emotions from McMahon, and
I think there was a little bit of you know,
we got to see Vincent man Jason almost come to
terms on live television with his mortality, with the fact
that this amazing ride since the mid eighties will come
to an end someday, and that this is kind of
an on air foreshadowing of that day coming. It will
come in a different way. But he was looking at
his replacement, his heir parents, the one that McMahon in
real life wants to be the guy who replaces him.
Speaker 5: Your thoughts on that, Yeah, I mean, it's hard to
say what was going through his mind. It could also
be in Vince his mind. This is the most recent
attempt to write himself off television, and I just wonder
if there's something going on there where he's you know,
got a little sentimental thinking this shit. And I mean, yeah, man,
they've talked about this before. I mean, Brett Hart at
WrestleMania twenty six, I think was supposed to be his
swan song, and we see how that played out, and
there's certainly a storyline that you can come up with
to bring Vince back. So I'm not quite sure what
I was going through his mind. But it was a
really strong performance by Vince.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I didn't really care for the Hunter performance. It's just
it wasn't it wasn't in his wheelhouse. It's just not
something he's good at doing. Right that line at the end,
I love you Pops. Oh, I just was trying not
to laugh. It was so stupid.
Speaker 3: And that's the problem. I mean, we see it with
Triple A's, who see it with John Cena. Sometimes they
just say one or two things that if they didn't
say it, everything would have been fine. And you know,
I love you Pops. With Triple H going for the
laugh line, you know, and I don't know if you'd
say overtly it's the laugh line, but the chuckle line.
Oh see, he's still a funny guy. And he's having
a little, you know, that light punch on the shoulder
moment with his father in law. I still love you, Pops.
And he just couldn't pull it off, and I'm not
sure anybody could. Yeah, it just it was an inappropriate
line for the circumstances. It again, it's like John Cena's
saying about, you know, stepping in dog poop and rubbing
it on the mat and then throwing in the toilet,
flushing the toilet and toilet and it's like, where are
you going with this? Just self edit, get that out
of there. So that was the downside. I thought Hunter
was okay. The rest okay the rest of the time,
you know, in a wrestling context, vincick Mann, You're right,
was really good. I'm less convinced than you, and I
don't want to say you're convinced, but I'm less inclined
to believe that this is necessarily the end of vinsick
Man the character, in the sense that you know, I
could see Vince putting up a fight, you know. I
could see Vince being the antagonist to Triple H as
the babyface leader in the company. I could also see
Triple H, and I talked about this in the VIP
coler ondline last night right after the show. I could
see Triple H seeming like a good guy, but over
the next few weeks or months, getting a big head
doing some things that maybe he shouldn't be doing. And
this is actually a way to try to turn Vincent
Man into the lead babyface character on the show, the
one who in his younger days used to be power
hungry and crazy. But who would be the guy we
always wondered, who would be the guy who would turn
Vincent Mann babyface? Perhaps Triple H, who it turns out,
actually manipulated the board and didn't represent what happened accurately,
and it was actually kind of a power play on
Triple Ah's part, and that comes out. I could see
Vince being the sympathetic old old guy who built this
empire on Triple H being the nasty son in law
who's who have been so I could actually see a
Triple A physic man more dominating television for the next
year and a half too, Oh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's really possible. It's just you don't I mean,
Vince has talked about leaving TV as a character before,
and so that's what kind of makes me wonder. But yeah,
I mean there's plenty of storyline scenarios. You could even
flip the roles where Vince's an evil guy desperately trying
to get his power back and they don't want to
go with Hunters the evil you know, general manager type
of evil authority figure and he's the baby fish. There's
a lot of different ways you can play this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an interesting start line. I didn't have a
problem with the way that they did the tournament. I mean,
they knew where they wanted to go, and they wanted
to go. They needed to fill a whole show, and
they want to address the world title situation, so they
built up the tournament. I don't know what they're doing
next week, but they're really going to have the finals,
or now that Triple in power, he's gonna say sorry, folks,
but we're just throwing that out. Or if Triple Ah's
gonna rehire spem Punk next week and say we want
the lineage of the title intact. And I'm negotiating with
Punk now and we think we can get him back.
Until we figure that out, we're not gonna have the
finals because we don't want to have two champions. That
kind of thing, the idea of Vince coming out in
saying we're not gonna have the finals. I have something
more important. There's definitely a downside of that. What's more
important than having the finals of the world title? So
it was somewhat flippant, but I kind of the idea
was I think to draw to fill two hours with
some wrestling matches and drive home the idea that Punk
is really gone and we're just going to create another champion.
One of the downsides is why did Vince care about
CM punk leaving so much when he could have said, hey,
I I is Punk. If you leave, no big deal.
I'll just create a new belt and we'll hold a
tournament next week and we'll declare a new champion. We've
done it before, we'll do it again. He could happened
twenty years agoing WW they fired Ric Flair, and twenty
years ago, almost to the day, Jim hur book Lex
Luger against Barry Wyndham at the Great American Bash and
Luger won and was a new champion. Nobody took him
seriously because Claire was actually had the real gold belts
and was showing up at WWETV with it. But you know,
Vince could have played that card. So if he was
going to play this card, it kind of took away
the whole selling point of Vince being desperate about pay
per views. So but at the same time, they wanted
to get to that final segment, and so I was
kind of okay with it because I think by the
end that final segment just overshadowed the fact that there
wasn't a World Champion crown that night because Triplets just
replaced Vince McMahon. That's huge a from a lineage WWE
on air storyline standpoint, it is it's.
Speaker 5: Just watching even before they got to that point, I'm
watching this tournament play out, and it felt like it
did when I watched Very Windham and Lex Luger fight
for that championship on pay per view. It didn't matter.
This tournament was filled with I mean, it really showed
the depth issue with WWE, I thought, and I just
had a hard time watching it caring about who's gonna win. Essentially,
the replacement title, and I thought all the baby faces
looked really bad because you know, if you watch him
in a UFC has interim championships, and the guys will
talk that are fighting for those interim titles. They certainly
want to win that they want to win that interim championship,
but the real championship means more to them. And not
one of these guys seem to have any issue going
for this, you know, basically made up title. I mean,
they never really stripped Punk of the title. It was
just really strange to watch it play out. I never
got into the tournament, and when Vince announced that he
wasn't going to hold the finals, I thought, you know, okay,
you can't go back to this because you just made
it seem like whatever you were doing this tournament meant nothing.
But I was okay with it because I didn't want
to see them go in that direction with the crown
another champion and eventually we have, you know, real champion
versus Vince's champion.
Speaker 6: Bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, no, that's that's a good point. You know.
Kobe Kingston, I think about his promo last night, and
Kofe's out there really excited about his win. And I'm
going to become world champion, and there is something you know,
they kind of skip that chapter where the baby face.
You know, I imagine what it would have done for
Kofe's character, for instance, to say, you know, this is bittersweet.
You know, I believe that, you know, the way that
Cmpunk won the title wasn't on the up and up.
I don't but he didn't win the title. This isn't
gonna feel real if I win it, you know, but
they didn't go that way. I mean, I think there
would be would have been a way to cover that
base and not have all the baby faces just seem like, Yay,
you know, I've got this opportunity to become a fake champion,
and I hope the fans don't care. So there are
you know, there are some parallels to the Lugers, you know,
the Luger windhom situation in that respect.
Speaker 5: Yeah and yeah, I mean I got emails from people going,
how did you not like the show? There was no
comedy and it's.
Speaker 3: Like what wait, wait, wait, hold on say that again, Jason.
Speaker 5: People or people were asking me why I didn't like
the show because their point was that, you know, you
complain when there's too much comedy here. They give you
a straightforward show and you still don't like it. It's like, well,
it just because there's no comedy doesn't mean it's automatically
a good show.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's ridiculous. Yeah, that's like, I don't remember you
ever declaring a horrible show that has no comedy. I
will praise because I don't like bad comedy.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, I get where people were satisfied getting
more wrestling, but to me, it's just I didn't feel
like any of those matches mattered. I wasn't into the tournament,
and therefore I just didn't enjoy the show until the
final segment. And I even have, you know, mixed feelings
on the final segment.
Speaker 3: And you know what this is where having that Jim
Ross Gordon solely Lance Russell, even Tony Shavani somebody or
Mike Toiney when he was good, you know, or when
he had when he had a soul and wasn't just
crushed by years and years of bad announcing and throwing
his arms up or bad product and throwing his arms up.
You needed to lead announcer to voice some of these
things that we're talking about. And it would make the
show so much better, you know, and you know there
needed to be announcer to go, Wait, Vincent Mann is
going to just pretend that we're supposed to forget about
what happened, that there's a real world title with a
real lineage, and because he screwed up and you know,
came out and distracted Senat and his plan backfire. Now
you're gonna have this break in the lineage or we're
supposed to buy that this guy, you know, the winner
of this is a real champion that's gonna take some time.
And you know we feel bad about like I don't
I mean, there's you know if you use every line
I just said, but like that that that feeling that
there's somebody there as the conscious, uh the conscious of
the conscience of the wwe speaking on our behalf saying
the things that I think are going through through people's
minds is really missing from the show. And Jerry Lawler's
just kind of going through the motions.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know when Michael Cole is this absolutely horrible character
in the sense that yes there's since he says that
are entertaining, and yes he has his moments where he
can get over an angle, but there's that cloud of
the guy's a heel and he's a goof, and I
can't take anything he said seriously, and that totally undercuts
his ability ultimately to really sell what's happening in the
big picture. Plus, I don't like having first round title tournament,
or first round of a tournament with four matches that
I'll go roughly forty five minutes, you know, Vincent Mann
said later, you know in his promo, Jason, I do
things sometimes that people don't understand, but they make sense
in the long run down the line, I think in
the big picture, well, to me, and this isn't midpicking
big picture. You want matches between potential world title contenders
to feel.
Speaker 5: Like a big deal.
Speaker 3: And when two people who have been deemed the top
eight candidates to win a world title, when they just
beat each other in less than five minutes, four times
in a row, it just undercuts the whole notion that
a wrestling match matters, or that these guys are really
top level competition. It just it made it seem like
four mismatches because we just got done with what how
long was seam punkin seen at thirty eight minutes or
something like that, yeah, something like that. I mean, you know,
a half ur plus match and just fantastic match and
all of a sudden, you know, equally evenly match. Russers
go out there and just restle these quick, little, forgettable
TV matches, So that aspect of it was broken too,
And I think it was one of the things we
talked about with TNA. They Vince knew where he wanted
to get to in the end, and he booked backwards
from there. He wanted Ray in the ring and for
him to come out and cancel that match because had
something quote bigger to talk about, which was firing John Cena,
you know, and that was storyline. Lives his plans, so
Roy and.
Speaker 5: She is bigger than everything there. I mean, he's bigger
than the title apparently. If if Vinch wants to come out,
I mean you can say some of its Vince's ego
getting off on firing Sena. But you know, I thought
Sheena had a pretty good night. But I didn't like
that he was the one guy that the only guy
that was you know, that was bold enough to say
she in Punk's name. It makes all the other baby
faces just like puppets.
Speaker 3: Yep. Yeah, And that is the problem is if you
want to get Kofi or Ray or Alex Riley or
who's who's the fourth.
Speaker 5: Bait face, they didn't have one in that tournament, or
that they had the heel versus heel first round match.
Speaker 3: Yeah you're right, you're right, yeah, because yeah, so yeah,
none of them, none of them really spoke up and
and took that leadership role. And when people, you know,
talk about what is what makes somebody have that in factor,
a lot of times it's just taking command of a
situation like the unpunkd in two weeks ago, where people
who are and this isn't a bad thing, but people
who are inherently followers will cling cling to and pay
to see somebody they perceive as a leader, and people
who are leaders want to see somebody who's a good leader.
People aren't going to pay money to see somebody who
like used to just kind of a puppet or very
passive and just kind of go out and do their
thing but don't want to ruffle any feathers or think independently.
And a lot of that, you know a lot of
what happened to us, I kin kind of did do that,
admit it.
Speaker 1: You love Nick Barbatty when he co hosts with me
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Speaker 3: Jason, do you want to cover any other subject? Before
we get the phone calls?
Speaker 5: We can drive right in if you're ready.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why don't we do one?
Speaker 4: Two?
Speaker 3: Three four eight. People on hold who want to talk
will If you want to be nine in line, the
phone number is uh six four six one nine A
two eight. That's six four six seven two one nine
eight to eight. We appreciate, by the way, everybody support
for the show. We continue to do record listenership with
everything going on right now, right now on iTunes and sports,
we're the twentieth biggest podcast and I'm proud to say
that the only brands ahead of us in that top
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right now, PW Torch Live Cast is at number twenty.
Only ESPM, the NFL, and Don Patrick ahead of us
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So thanks everybody for spreading the word. If you listen
to us live, you can always sign up on iTunes,
and you listened to us in iTunes, we invite you
to listen to us live and participate in the show.
We also, by the way, have a live chat that
goes on during the show and you can participate in
that assume we'll probably break one hundred people to day
we did yesterday in the chat room. Yeah, we've got
ninety six people in there right now. So anyway, let's
go ahead and dive into the phone calls and begin
with Eric O three four seven. Thanks for hoping. Please
state your name and where you're from.
Speaker 23: Hello, on, My name is Christian, New York. I have
actually a comment in a question. I want to say,
like Vince wanted to leave TV as a character because
since season is sixties, he really can't take Bumps and
Liliene anymore. But my question is, doesn't you see that
dedib is shortsighted in terms of trying to end Triple
intious career at a time where you can still draw money,
because if he's been sort of thought it figure role,
how can you ever wrestle again because he'd be the
employer of the people he's stating in the.
Speaker 3: Ring, you know, I mean, Triple h doesn't want to
wrestle full time. I mean he's past that, he's paid
his dues, he's done that. I think he thinks he's
kind of you know, that would almost be beneath him
at this point, and that's not even taking any consideration
the physical toll as a guy in his early forties
who's been wrestling full time for a long time and
taking a lot of bumps. You know this isn't Vincent Man,
you know, in Vincent Mann being able to take bumps
and not take bumps. Honestly, you can work around that
if Vince is a strong enough character, bumps aren't a
big factor. But this Triple H is getting promoted. This
is not a demotion if your character is the first
person since the mid eighties to take over as the
person running WWE on a TV show that is built
a lot of times around people running the shows, and
Triple H is not a GM. He is, storyline wise,
at least for now, the guy the first person ever
to replace Vincent Man.
Speaker 5: Jason's Yeah, And you know, if they want Hunter to
wrestle wrestle, I mean that's the thing bench wrestle. You know,
there's I still totally expect we're gonna get Undertaker versus
Triple H two three, I guess if you're really counting
at WrestleMania. So, I mean there's there's easy storyline ways
to get to that. He has the power, if you know,
I mean from that samplet you just he can decide
that he wants another crack and undertaker. He's taking it.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep. All right, let's go to our next call.
I assume we're gonna have calls lined up for the
whole hour, so let's go to our next call area
code seven to one for thanks holding. Please get your
name and where you're from.
Speaker 8: This is Ron from Orange County.
Speaker 3: Hey, Ron, what's on your mind?
Speaker 8: Wade Keller my nemesis. I email you just about every week,
probably about your negativity over the the wrestling brand.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 8: I'm sure you get tons of emails, but I'm one
of them. But I do have a few questions for you.
Speaker 3: Okay, we'll get to them.
Speaker 8: Okay, Well, first, you give WW a hard time about,
you know, being having more friends on Facebook. I just
found it funny that you're bragging about being the top
of the radio listening chip or whatever. But the Rock,
I believe this is like one hundred percent work. I
believe him and John Cena, you know, worked as and
it kind of looks like Rock is going the heel
route by dismissing the apology as pony. I don't know
what your guys. Thoughts on on that are but I
do believe Rock is tending to be more the heel thing.
I think they're going for the whole Cogan Rock effect
where Whole Cogan went in as the heel and then
it turned around and they started getting the cheers and
then it kind of made it like awesome, and I
think their goal with that is is to go that way. Also,
Jason Poll, I think you're awesome, but that's not the point.
But I just I just wonder have you soured on
the business wait, because it's see it seems like it
just gets you just get real negative. And I don't
know if you've you've just got tired of it because
you've covered a lot of years and I don't know
if it's just finally like hit the tipping point where
like it just it just aggravates you, or I just
want to know, like where where your feelings are like
about the business. And maybe it's big enough, too big
of a question to answer right now. But it's just
kind of sad because I was a Tord subscriber for
you know, times of years back when you get the
little newsletters in the in the mail and uh, yeah,
it's a. It's about all I got for you guys.
Speaker 3: All right, well, I want to let you talk because
I didn't want you to feel like I was cutting
off because you were negative at the beginning.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: First of all, No, I love wrestling. I mean, I
don't think people tune into the show in record numbers
ron because they think that I hate wrestling. My god,
I mean I get five stars to punk and and Sina.
I love Sunday's pay per view. When there's a good
show that I think really hits on all cylinders, I'm
all over it with positive comments. But I'm not going
to create a false fifty to fifty you know thing
where I like, I have two jars on my desk
in a bunch of marbles, and every time I say
something positive, I put a red marvel, and so then
I have to say something negative. And if it's anything
with negative and I got to equal it out with positive,
that's false equivocation. I mean that's if there's stuff that's
frustrating me or that I that I find. You know,
if somebody saying if somebody's being a bully or a
jerk and or lying, I'm going to call them out
on it. But when there's good TV. I'm as excited
as anybody. And I spent way too much time on
this job to not like wrestling. And I mean, I
was kind of surprised to say you've been you've been
familiar with a torch dating back to the early days,
because I don't think the tone in the newsletter is
all that different than it was twenty years ago. I mean,
we've I've been, you know, evaluating the good and the
bad about wrestling, and there's stretches the time that are
better than others. But no, my gosh, somebody in the
chatman said pw schuch dot com is responsible for my
loss and interest, and I'm like, of what of the
PWI five hundred? So anyway, I thought that's funny. But anyway,
well let me Ron, let's about me, because we've got
a bunch of people on hold. I'm sorry. I feel
the way that you do, and I spend you know,
tons and tons of time watching wrestling, and honestly, I
wish I had more time to watch more wrestling. So
so no, I'm not soured on the business, and I
would think most people listen to the show kind of
gets that since I talk about it so much and
have done four hundred and fifty practically straight days of
talking about it on the vip Keller hotline, and how
many years in a row spending two hours with Bruce
Mitchell every weekend talking about wrestling. And I think I've missed,
you know, two smackdowns and maybe one pay per view
in twenty years of covering wrestling, and I watched every Rock.
So no, no, I mean, I think you're reading me wrong,
and but I do appreciate your feedback, and I certainly
don't resent you first stating your opinion. As for Jason,
as we add Jason. As for the Rock, Jason, I
am intrigued by the what they're doing with the apology
by Sena and Rock not accepting it. So much of
what they seem to be doing recently seems to be
trying to set up John Cena as like gaining credibility
with the fans. You know, I'm anti corporate. He punches
John Laurnidis, which by the way, he didn't he didn't
work that punch. I mean, it's it's sort of like
Michael Cole and Jim Ross. You know, you wonder if
the accidental contact was really accidental, But Seena is the
hero behind the scenes right now because Lauren Iidas's face
has swelled up legit from what I understand, But you know,
they're trying to set up Johnsena with the fans too,
as not the corporate guy, as the babyface. And are
they kind of on some sort of covert attempt to
to try to get the Miami credible people to turn
against Rock in Miami or what do you think is
going on with the latest twist.
Speaker 5: You know, I wasn't sure that was the interesting thing
about Sena and his announcing that he'd been a future endeavored.
I mean, I was laughing at that part because it's
just so absurd. I don't think that it's gotta be
tough for even the biggest John Cena fan to really
buy into that as a real threat that he's going
to be gone, and even his tease for Tena, which
I'm sure we'll talk about last night. The interesting part
to me was that apology, and I wonder how much
of it was somebody got to Sina and you know,
the Glad comment that he made trying to get Glad
on the Rock. I mean that to me was outside
the realm of Hey we're you know, let's have this
friendly Twitter exchange and we can we can hit hard,
but you know, we're still friends at the end of
the day. I think he crossed the line there, and
I wonder if that's something that he was ordered to do.
And you know, I we know Rock called in once
before to complain about Randy Orton being too tough on
an interview, and I wonder if it's just Rock, you know,
trying to keep the story alive. I mean, what are
you supposed to do in that situation. You're not going
to go the apology accepted that we're friends now.
Speaker 3: But we'll see it wrestling in And by the way,
Tina was wrong to bring up lad from a business standpoint.
I mean, that's that's something you had to privately and
it came up Cross like, you know, he's a baby,
you know, like I got caught in Ross's But Rock
needs to stop that too, you know. I mean, Rock
really needs to understand he can't be gay baiting as
one of his approaches to insulting John Cena on a
PG show that's publicly held with a bunch of corporate sponsors.
I mean, it's just it's just it's it's it's you
don't need to go there. Rock is way too ready
to do it. It's twenty eleven, it's not nineteen seventy
nine where you're making fun of the crazy people on
the gay Parade every year. I mean, it's just it's
like it's a different world and Rock just seems it's
one of those weird things where it's it's like when
Roddy Piper was doing it on TNATV five or so
years ago, all the time he just wondered, where was
this coming from?
Speaker 6: Like what?
Speaker 3: I don't know? So anyway, So yeah, I think Rock
sena thing's been weird. Bruce Mitchell wrote a really good
column on in the last week's Progressing Torch newsletter, just talking
about how an adult Vinci Man or somebody needs to
sit them down and kind of, you know, get them
out of this little he gets, this this little battle
of egos or this this measuring contest to use the
euphemism and get back to promoting a match. And and
John Cena especially needs to talk about Rock as the
special attraction that he is and what it would mean
to his career to boost what a boosting would be
to his image and his career to beat somebody the
statue of Rock instead of beating down Rock. He needs
to be building up Rock and put the the little
measuring contest aside for the time being. That's my approach
to it. Anything Ron, any any follow up before we
let you go?
Speaker 8: Yes, I do like the what what you said about
still loving the business, du It did makes sense that
you would still be covering. Yeah, for the for the Rock.
I believe he's just tired of like CM Punk bashing him, Randy.
Speaker 5: Ordan bashing him.
Speaker 8: And this all started when John Cena was nice to
his face and then trashed him like in the in
the Sun, the newspaper.
Speaker 5: And then the Rock.
Speaker 8: It just seemed like Rock, you know, he's he's the senses,
but I think he has a right to be because,
first of all, I don't believe Randy Orton when he
says that Rock called the office and said that the
Rock called them, brought up Triple AHS's name. It just
doesn't seem like something in the Rock would do.
Speaker 5: It seems like the office.
Speaker 8: Would have found out what he said and maybe told
him to cut the craft.
Speaker 3: But I don't think the Rock made the call.
Speaker 8: He may have just assumed the Rock made the call,
but I just can't foresee that happening, especially when you
said he dropped in Triple Hs's name. That just seemed
kind of kind of out there. But I think the
Rock has just been defensive because everywhere you turn you're
just getting trased. Even CM Punk, who streating with Sina
at a house show, sides with Sena to bash the Rock.
Speaker 3: So no, no, no, a good point round on anything. Sure, Sure,
I appreciate the call, and please call again, and Jason
one more thing on the Rock. I mean, it does
seem like, you know, Sena Punch and lawn I Sena
to be trying to give an anti corporate image, Sena
and Punk kind of together ganging up on Rock a
little bit. It does seem like Rock is being treated
as a bit of an outsider. And I think a
lot of what Sena's been saying about Rock is what
kind of channeling what Vincent Man thinks. Since Sena's tearting
what he thinks Vince wants to hear, or what Vince
is ordering him to say, or something in between, it
does seem like Rock's being treated as kind of a
guy who walks in and thinks that he's above it
now and there's something going on besides trying to draw
money at WrestleMania.
Speaker 5: Wait, what else do you go after the Rock for?
I mean, he's just so good at what he does.
If you're Sena, you're gonna have to go after the obvious,
which is that he's not here. I don't. I mean, yeah,
they're building up Sena in this way, but we've got
a long time between now in WrestleMania. It could just
be they want to build him up this way because
he's the elite babyface and it really doesn't have much
to do with Rock. The only way I see Rock
turning heel at Mania, I think it's a really really
long shot, is if that was something he wanted to
do from the start. He took that as a challenge
that watching watch we turney heel in front of seventy
thousand of my hometown fans in Miami and see it work.
And I just don't think it would. And I'd be
really surprised if thing with that direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that last segment you're just listening to
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Speaker 3: All right, well, let's go to our next caller, and
that would be Eric so nine three one. I think
they're olding Please teach your name and where you're from.
Speaker 5: Hey, it's Ians in Tennessee.
Speaker 3: Hey Ian, what's going on? Or friendly voice? Yeah, I'm
sorry about yesterday.
Speaker 21: I didn't even realize that I've pressed.
Speaker 8: The button to talk.
Speaker 3: So okay, But.
Speaker 21: As as good as as this angle is, and I
just have to think that they have backed themselves into
a corner that they can't get out. Of it if
they changed their mind, and if they do, it's gonna
look an awful lot like the horribly botched invasion angle
that you know now they have.
Speaker 10: They have no way out.
Speaker 3: Of this essentially.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, exactly, I'm kind of lost.
Speaker 21: The Triple H and vents and scene and.
Speaker 8: Punk and all that.
Speaker 6: It.
Speaker 3: We'll go ahead in and uh or let's see, someone's
to ask you schools a question, but what what's your
question for us?
Speaker 21: Well, I mean as far as making the whole show
essentially this workshoot type thing with you know, introducing Triple
H is the lead authority figure you know, and and
blending in so many real or not real scenarios with
you know, CM Funk and John CNN, the Rock and
all that. They will look to go back to a
traditional real show.
Speaker 3: Now good, okay, well let me join me, because I
think it's worth clarifying and choosing. It's if you're griefs
and I have no problem with storylines paralleling what's going
on in real life. That's fine, but it shouldn't be
done because it's real, and it shouldn't be done in
a way where you're trying to convince people it's more
real than something else. It should simply be the best
of available storylines and whatever inspires a great storyline on TV,
whether it's completely fictional or completely real. If Jarrett and
Karen Angle or Karen Jarrett being together on TV and
doing a storyline about how Karen is Kurt Angle's X,
if that's the best storyline you can possibly come up
with that's real or made up, then do it. But
don't do it even less. Midgen of reason for doing
it should not be that it's actually real, because that
doesn't matter to the audience. They're not going to watch
bad television just because it's real, or confusing television, or
a storyline full of storyline holes because you trying to
fit a square peg of real life into a round
hole of work wrestling. So if you're going to do
something that's real that happens to be real planned as
long as it's a good storyline and it's well told
and everyone's playing their parts well and it leads somewhere
that draws money more power to them. So I have
no problem with Triple H being the chosen one. I
think Triple H is a good person to play that
role and or potentially good person to play that role.
Let's see all this plays out the most appropriate person
to play that role, and yet it happens to parallel
real life. But if Triple H was the guy being
groomed to run WWE, but he had the charisma of
Kevin Dunn, you know three, or marm Johnny As for
that matter, they'd have to completely alter the portrayal of it,
or not do it at all and hire somebody to
play the part. And that'd be fine too. What Punk
was doing three weeks ago was playing to a small
segment of fans who know who Cocabana was. I've heard
of Ring of Honor, no New japan Is and get
that he was saying things that are taboo and not
on WWE's approved lexicon of language. But it's a small
audience that got everything or most of what he was saying.
That's the stuff that I'm not so sure everybody watching
law whether they know that Triple H is really being
groomed for that job or not, it's irrelevant. It makes
sense on air that Triple H might be the person
who would be groomed to take over for Vincent Mann,
and they did the best job they could trying to
create a story that would make it believable on air
that there are other powers in this publicly held corporation
that can determine whether Vince has control or not. So
the fact that it happens parallel life doesn't bother me.
As long as it makes sense on the air, and
everybody watched who only watches that show, they're not reading
the torch, they're not pretty to inside info. As long
as it makes sense to them, then I'm fine with it.
Then it's not a pseudo shoot. It's not trying to
incorporate a small fraction of fans who knows something and
assume everybody knows it. That's when it falls apart. That's
when it doesn't work. But this, to me, and that's
why I disagree with you in a little bit, This
doesn't seem like they back themselves into a corner in
the sense that, oh, nothing will seem real. This just
is a kind of a logical storyline. It may be good,
it may be bad, but I don't think it necessarily
feels more or less real than what they might do
next week or what they did two months ago. So anyway, Jason,
what do you.
Speaker 5: Think this could turn out to be a very exciting time.
If I'm in WW and I'm making this move to
put Hunter in charge, this is when I make some
real changes across the board, you know, I start pushing
different people, I make production changes. I really try to
emphasize that this is a major change of direction with
Hunter in his vision, just from a storyline standpoint, because
it should change otherwise he feels like another general manager change,
and that's the last thing you want to see them do,
because you can only do this once. With Hunter taking
power like this in such a huge way. I hope
that's what they have in mind. I hope it's not
something that's been done to fly, But I don't have
tremendous faith in them to go that widespread with it,
just because I think they're so set in their ways
when it comes to production and things like that. I'm
just not seen any signs that, oh, yeah, now they've
got this guy and they've just been waiting to push
this guy. They're really going to unleash them now. I
don't see any of that.
Speaker 3: I think it hurts too be Vincic Man got well.
I mean, I can't blame them for this, but it
doesn't change the fact that it hurts the whole Limo angle,
you know, is vin the live or dead and then
he appears the next weekend. It was because of Chris
been one thing, and I get that, but even Vincent
Mann and a coma and then they do. I mean,
just this worst moment of the year for me on
TV was him in the dream sequence in the coma.
It just was it wasn't funny, and even if it
was funny, it wasn't worth the damage that it did
to the idea. You know, it was just, oh, it
just when they go there, I don't let so so
there's no payoff to that, you know, they just write
it off as well. That was just comedy. We wanted
to draw money with it at one point and wanted
you to take it seriously, but enough time went by.
I just forget about all that stuff because Vince is
back now and wink wink, no nod. We're just moving
on and forgett about the past like that all hurts
us taking this seriously as viewers, as trying to get
absorbed in the product. I don't think you do. Vince
McMahon has been replaced running Monday Night Raw, which is
their explanation. He's vincmcmann has been replaced in running the
TV shows. That's what they're trying to tell Wall Street
to clarify. No, he's still in charge of the company,
which is funny. This is a big angle, and if
you're going to do a big angle like this, first
time anybody's ever taken over for McMahon at this level
in you know, however, many years, however many wrestle many
as there are, that's how long it's been. You don't
do that unless you have a big plan. And I'm worried,
like you are, Jason, that next week there won't be
enough or it'll look like, you know, it's just a
hot shot angle that they hadn't thought through. And I
think that is a reason for concern. And they've got
a week to figure out how to do it, or
maybe tonight, I mean we'll both be at the SmackDown
taping the night. I'm curious that they address it all
at all on SmackDown tonight or they just kind of
pass it off with you know, the announcers just going, well,
you know, a lot happened on Raw, let's throw it
to video package. I can't wait to see what happens Monday.
On Raw, which is what I kind of simill happen.
Speaker 5: This needs to be a company wide thing. It can't
just be he's only on raw. You guys don't have
to appear on SmackDown weekend and week out. But he
should be there tonight and on raw. It can't just
be he's there because he's feuding with Vince, or he's
vuting with Sena, or he's vuting with Punk. It has
to affect everyone and has to be portrayed. Has this
major shift in order for it to work and not
just come across like that general manager change it we've
seen so many times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, let's jump back to the phone lines
and go to Eric O two oh two. Thanks for
holding so long. Please stay your name and where you're from.
Speaker 13: Oh hi, this my athlete Washington d C.
Speaker 3: Anthony Frondt. What's in your mind?
Speaker 13: As as much I like the way to angle like
kind of work yourself out the way with Triple H
and vincentman, like you know, basically you know, taking over.
Speaker 5: The authority of WWE.
Speaker 13: But I could see this thing growing in so many
different ways and stuff. I mean almost like a back
to the future type thing. Just check out this scenario,
what will be Like Evince m was saying, you know,
it is lose you know, you know authority with w
DOE and kind of like brings back like w w
w S back, you know, Worldwide Restling Federation and like
try to go against the WWE. You know what I'm saying, Oh,
against the new type of situation. What do you think
about that scenario? I mean, you can't bring back to
VF Obviously w W S E was just a corporate
name that was never used on TV. Because if we
part lay this into something that I think might be
more realistic, I could see McMahon pushing really hard to
try to take over one of the two shows maybe,
and Jason, there's you know, we could figure and come
up with fifty different directions as could go, and forty
of them might sound pretty lousy and ten might be
all right, you know, decent to good. But it's possible
that you know, Triple As controls Rob but McMahon leverages
enough power to control SmackDown or something and tries to
recreate a sense of competition. But they're not going to
bring back the mold initials.
Speaker 5: No, I can't see him doing that. I think it
would be a mistake. And I don't even want to
see Vince in charge of one show and Hunter in
charge of the other, because then then it becomes Rick
Flair versus Jace McMahon again.
Speaker 3: That's true, Yeah, yeah, and it is it becomes too
much like something we've seen before. Before we run out
of time here. I want to sneak in a quick
plug for the sale that we're running through tonight. I
expended it today. I usually do, but people keep ordering
it and I feel bad pulling the offer, so I'm
gonna leave it up through today, and it's a great
out for seventy percent off your first month subscriptions. You
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Any wrestling fan that listens to the podcast or blog
talk radio show should definitely spend the three bucks to
go VIP. It's definitely worth it. Too bad I didn't
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feedback I'm getting for this, and I appreciate Jerald doing that,
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It's a chance to get it for three bucks instead
of ten for your first full months, and then you
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great insight. I was just transcribing part of it today
for this week's Torch newsletter, where he talks about his
battle bull wins and the different games and politically that
we're being played between the bookers and the agents and himself,
and how he was told come up with a finish,
and then he did, and the agent made him go
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and tell them here, I'm beating you and here's how,
when he thought that was kind of cowardly of the
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and then a tense situation with Ian Barbarian when he
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and here's how. And so it's like that kind of
cool backstage insight into what went on and in those
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two thousand and nine and twenty ten for almost two
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Those are just two reasons. Right now, with three bucks,
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instead of ten, get seventy percent off. Act quickly because
we will be pulling that off for very soon. All right,
let's get back to the phone lines and go to
our next call. Anthony from DP the last caller. Thanks
for your call. Let's go to Eric, go to eighty
one to four. Thanks calling, Please stay you name and
where you're from. Oh yeah, this is Tony and for Puttilvadia.
Hey Tony, what's on your mind?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 24: I just had some comments about raw and I know,
I know, listen to you guys talking about it, and
you know, you guys seem real optimistic about everything, and
I'm trying to stay optimistic myself. But I don't know,
I don't know how you guys feel about it, but
I get the feeling that the whole thing with basically
everything that's going down. I almost feel like it has
the sense of it was all kind of done on
a whim, like a last second thing. And I get
that feeling because I almost feel like this whole thing
was done for one purpose, and that was because they
backed themselves in a little corner with the John Cena
being fired thing, and I almost feel like there's this
feeling I have where I don't know if that was
the original plan, because it was like they announced the
stipulation where Sena's getting fired if he loses, and then
after that week they like started kind of downplaying that
a little bit where it was like, right, yeah, and
they even went as far as to say, like, you know, oh, well,
we know you will be back next week anyways, almost
as if to say, don't get too invested in that,
because you know, I almost feel like they said it,
and then they had a switch of plans, and I'm
not sure if this whole Triple H Vince thing is
just a way to get out of that and if
they have a follow up, I don't know what do
you guys think about that?
Speaker 3: No, it's actually a great point, Tony. I mean, I
sit here during the show and we're forty one minutes
into it, and I think every time somebody calls it
makes us a new point. I just think there's we
could do four hours kind of dissecting this and talking
about it. And I mean, Jason, you did a post
for audio, and I did one last night and covered
a lot of bass too for our subscribers are members.
And there's so many things about this that are fascinating,
and one of them is exactly what Tony just brought up.
Did they come up with Triple H McMahon now instead
of maybe doing that storyline that crossed their mind to
do at a later time, because they decided to give
Sampunk the title and have them leave with it. I
don't know, and I haven't heard from anybody who knows,
And I mean it's something I'd like to find out
now that everything is played out. Did Vince McMahon at
one point have the more obvious finished Johnsina beat cmpunk?
You know, he does what he says he's gonna do,
Sena Dusts doesn't get fired. What did they have a
change of plan because of how the cmpunk thing really
blew up? Because remember the stipulation that aired on July
fourth was taped an hour or so after the cmpunk
Live speech because they taped the following week's show because
of the July fourth holiday, so they had no Vincent
Mann may not have had any idea how big Cmpunk's
speech would blow up, and so he may have thought,
let's make this into something bigger. Let's have Sampunk actually win.
Let's do something with that. But oh shoot, I said
last week, you know I already recorded, and it already
it's gonna air, or it already aired. You know, Johnson
gets tired if he doesn't win. So then seam Punk
the following week Live last week said scene has been
fired before and he never went away. Then that's kind
of what Tony's setting as they kind of started downplaying it.
And then this week Seena's pretending he got fired, but
Vince didn't really get around to doing it, and then
right when he's about to do it, they kind of
have the swerve or triple Ah comes out and makes
it kind of a moot point because Vince doesn't even
have the power to fire Sena, So so would that
kind of drawn out Jason, do you think it's possible that, Yeah,
they actually tried to figure out a way to get
out of firing Sena and that caused them to fast
forward Triple H into this role.
Speaker 5: On TV God. I hope not. I mean, this is,
like I said, this is a move you make when
you when you really have things in place that you
can follow up with to make it seem like it's
a big event. It could be. I don't know for sure,
but I mean there'show of those changes. I mean, if
you're ever going to change the rows set, this would
be the perfect time. Change the theme music, change for
the World of God, leave, change the play by play voice. Yeah,
to the anonymous general manager. Yeah, result, there's a lot
of things you can do right now to really make
you just to put Hunter's character stamp on this and
shake things up, freshen up the show. And I think
it'd be great if they did it, But yeah, I
do fear, like the caller says that it's something that
they just came up with and it's related to punk,
Sina Vince more than anything.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm Chris Maitland. I'm justin McClelland we host Wrestling Coast
to Coast, a podcast on independent wrestling.
Speaker 25: Every week Chris and I review a different show. We're
talking about important topics from around the indie wrestling world.
Speaker 2: Learn about the hot underground stars and the future main eventors.
For anyone else, you can reach us at Torchcoast to
Coast at gmail dot com and me on Blue Sky
at Mind of Maitland.
Speaker 25: You can reach me at Blue Sky at Justin McClelland.
Speaker 2: Find the show on your PW Torch daily Cast podcast feed,
search PW Torch on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you
listen to podcasts.
Speaker 25: AWESO stream the latest shows on PW towards dot com.
Speaker 3: Tony Normally I go back here for follow up, but
we've got a lot of people on hold and limited time,
so I'm gonna be a little quicker on this if
people want to have longer conversations about these topics. Where
you're all week and usually Tuesdays are the busiest, so
I want to get into people who have been on hold,
including Eric co two on five. It's been on hold
for almost forty two minutes two on five. Thanks for
holding so long, and please state your name and where
you're from.
Speaker 6: Big guys.
Speaker 7: Travis Bryan here repend Philly in the East Coast.
Speaker 3: Cass Travis Bryant from the East Coast cast. How you
doing what's up?
Speaker 6: Guys? A negative way?
Speaker 4: You do it?
Speaker 7: Just like Sena for the money.
Speaker 3: There's all you do.
Speaker 7: Not love it or at least not even more.
Speaker 6: You know, just just like just like.
Speaker 7: Sena the poser, he is. No who's happening in Jason?
I just wanted to call in. I'm a little behind
in audio waves, but I heard your the live cast
with many that meant fanatics favorite wrestling writer up here
in Marini. Well, Friday, and do you really still believe
that like John Cena is like literally like getting under
the rock skin and then just said, as him rattled
days later, it was Friday.
Speaker 3: I'm not betting my house on it, but I think
it's a possibility. I mean I think it's I know,
I know from various reasons with Rock that he's very, very,
very image conscious. I mean, Jery the most the most
image conscious person I've ever interviewed. I mean the stuff
that he went over with me before we went before
we did our torch talk back in nineteen ninety nine,
nobody's gone over that kind of taking this detail about
how protecting his image and how he wanted to be
presented and that I mean, it was just I mean,
it didn't change the fact that I got to ask
any questions I wanted to, but it was just stuffed before.
That was kind of weird. And I've heard other stories
and and uh, I mean it's just there's I knowing
what I know about Rock, reading his book, talking to
people who know. I think Sena is out to challenge
Rock's ability to absorb quote hype for their fight, and
I think Seene is doing another guy's of Hey, we're
all friends and we're just trying to build interest in
the fight. But do I think that I don't disagree
with Yeah, do I think he's irritating Rock, Yeah, I
think Rocket shy, Yeah, I think eating But I think
he's succeed him, I.
Speaker 7: Mean, because that entails that he's actually like like winning,
like he actually got a shot. And then to me,
it's just absolutely so one sided and it has been
since February and it's not even funny. It's I mean,
it's it's still funny because I'd like to la laugh
at scene it all day every day, kind of a
hobby of mine. But it's like for anybody to like
actually kind of just to kind of give him any
anything like No, it's like watching the guy.
Speaker 3: He put up a fourteen minute He went to the
Trouble the Rock with all his money and all his
fame and Oscar this in movies. He did a fifteen
minute promo that was the five point when after seeing
you know, I'm sorry people, I'm out in my own way.
I'm out there publicly. I get people take shots at me.
I don't have time in my day to sit here
and do a fifteen minute video point by point trying
to shoot them out. Of course, I'm not trying to
promote a big wrestlem like home either. Thanks, thanks Travis.
That'd be fun. You probably you have in the forum
before in a sense, but with different things. So no,
I will well, we'll have to. I will take your
opinions under under advisement, since I you respect your perspective.
Speaker 7: All right, Well that's you know, eleven minutes left. Uh,
Jason Woods up. I don't have anything for you, but
you're all.
Speaker 6: Well, you're out of here our way.
Speaker 3: Don't talk to other people, all right? Thank thanks Travis.
Speaker 5: Everybody listen to Jason.
Speaker 3: Oh I cut them off. There's a little delay, trapp
It so you started talking after I already sliped off,
so it will that's true, it's fair enough.
Speaker 5: But I just going to say that I think it's
more than mutual because uh, you know, rock or scene
is going off in Australia because Rock fans got under
his skin. Scene is you know, the one uh dropping
on Twitter that line about you know is glad to
go after rock? And so I think, yeah, if there's
if this isn't just an entirely worked situation and that
they're laughing about it, which after some of this stuff,
I don't think that's the case. I think they're getting
under each other's skin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I I really do think so too.
And and but I you know, I wrote a cover
story on this and last week's Broke the second newsletter
last week, though I published because I took the previous
week off. I did a cover story on this and
Bruce Mitchelroade's call him on it. But in my cover story,
I mean, you read those words and you kind of
look at it. It's you know, yes, it's possible. They
get on the phone and they plan all this out,
and SCENEA says, hey, is it okay, Dwayne? If I
say this and Duayne's like, oh, yeah, I guess so,
because we want people to believe this is real, all right,
And then and Rocos but then I'm gonna want to
say this back, and John's like, oh, you want to
make fun of my shorts again, or you know you're
gonna you're gonna call me corporate again. I'm trying to
break away from But yeah, if we wanted to seem real,
I guess you got to. It's possible that's going on.
I don't think so, though, And especially knowing the history
of Rock's relationship with WWE and the up and down
feelings within that company with different people who feel like,
once you're in the family, you stay in the family
and you don't abandon us, and I mean the whole angle.
And I understand Scene has got to talk about something
with Rock, but I think building them up is a
better way than trying to tear them down into almost
you know, this anti WWE, you know, betrayed the fan character.
I think you want to build them up to make
the match seem like a big deal, not have fans
resents Rock so much they don't even care about him anymore.
And it seems like that's kind of seen as motivation
through some of this. So I don't agree with the approach,
but yeah, just knowing the history, I think I think
there's I think it's a it's a it's an attempt
for seeing it to show that he can hold his
own with Orton, and I think, you know, we got
inside Jason with Randy Orton's interview into the kind of
cheerleading that's Scene is getting behind the scenes from various
people to keep going after the Rock. And you know,
we consider and say Scene is not really upset at
Rock or Rocks aren't at atena. We can tell with
Randy Orton, Randy Orton's cheerleading scena against Rock in a
more than a worked way.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, going back to something that was said
about Rock and I just go back to the Brock
Lesner book and how you were talking about how image
conscious he is, think of how just obsessed with wrestling
he was, at least he was made out to be
in that book where he was the guy keellen Brock,
you've got to be on this when you're champion every day.
And I mean he really was in constant contact with
Vince McMahon and I assume some others but primarily Vince
McMahon and I mean, so yeah, this does mean a
lot to whom he is extremely image conscious, and I
don't think it's necessarily negative. I think you have to
be to to make it to where he has a
Hollywood this far.
Speaker 3: Let me give a shout out and a plug to
Travis Bryant. Travison Dre hosts the East Coast Audio Show.
It is one of the top sports shows on the
blog talk radio network PW Torch or the Torch brand.
It's four of the top hundred hun fifty shows in
blog talk radio, and one of them is the PW
Torch East Coast Audio Casts. You can listen to that
Wednesdays immediately following this show or anytime in the archives
at blogtalk radio dot com slash East Coast Cast, and
they not only do the live show at blogtalk, but
then they do a VIP after show portion exclusively for
VIP members. While I'm in plug mode, two quick things.
Brian Hoops and George Shy are hosting the PW Torch
Nostalgia Casts immediately following this show. They always try to
talk about current events and put a historical perspective on
it and also talk about different events coming up that
are nostalgia related, Hall of Fame related, wrestling conventions and
that kind of thing. Good show, definitely worth tuning in
for those listening live immediately following this one. That's available
at blogtalk radio dot com slash Torch Dash Nostalgia, and
you can listen to their archives too. If you're listening
to a fond delay, you can go to that URL
and listen to them on delay. Jason, you have a website,
you have a membership, and this is a great time.
People are passionate about what's going on, and you are.
You're covering these events from a lot of other angles. Also,
I don't have to talk about how people can become
a member of Pro Wrestling dot Net and how to
do though.
Speaker 5: Yeah, tonight we'll be at the WWE SmackDown taping, So
if you're looking for the spoilers as they happen, I
will be updating the site from the building, probably save
a lot of the big details for letter. You'll get
the gist of it, all the major points, and that'll
be tonight on Pro Wrestling dot Net. If you want
to add free access to the site and you want
to hear tons of audio. We just did a couple
hours over the weekend alone with her. I guess over
the last forty eight hours alone with Money in the
Bank and WWE Raw and coming up Thursday going to
be a loaded dot netweekly show, a lot of first
run news in there. Those shows run at least ninety
minutes in length and then generally include some inside information
that hasn't made it out there yet, and this Thursday
that will definitely be the case. Head on over to
pro wrestling dot Net. Look for the sign up area
right there on the right side of the page. You
can't miss it. And if you take Daniel lobsch it
for as little as five fifty a month, you can
have access to all those perks, including the net members
form as well. And if you want to just give
it a try, give it a wing, see if it's
something you dig or not. It's seven dollars and fifty
cents for a one month subscription. Again pro Wrestling dot Net.
Speaker 3: And our second caller of the day, Ron Indorses endorses
Jason Powell and his website.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Ron, Yeah, he should up watching. We kind
of breezed over that too quickly for my life.
Speaker 3: Well, I invited him to call back, so hopefully he's
the regular on Tuesdays, and I'll uh if he wants,
I'll just throw to you and not not address his
questions if he doesn't like me. But I'm not bitter
or anything. But it's fine, it's fine, all right. Let's
let's go to our next call here and go to
I'll shoot Travis hung up. So now I'm confused about
the order of calls and I need a little I'm
not going to complain about black talks because things are fine,
all right. So we had anyone for did we to
tulo two? We did two of two? Did we do
seven ola? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Seven weight?
Speaker 3: Let's do that, all right? Seven o weight? You've been
out the whole the longestuff. Please state your name and
where you're from?
Speaker 6: What Chicago?
Speaker 3: Hey, Bort's what have you got for us today?
Speaker 4: It's my better tell you.
Speaker 3: Wait, I thought it was yesterday.
Speaker 6: No, it's today.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, Well happy with me, Peo.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this has been a This has been the best
birthday ever for me. I could test this much because
I just realized how it was with wrestling. I actually
paid to see seehim Pump. I spent that forty four
dollars to see see them punk and before see him punk.
I paid to see Burt Hart. You see what I'm saying,
So wrestle Mania, I'm paying. I'm paying to see Undertake
maybe his final match. You see what I'm saying what
we did with this. I never paid to see singer.
You just come along with a ride. But when you
going out now, they got to building. They got to
build somebody that you want to come. You know, you
want to come out and see you want to spend money.
I want to see this guy winna lose or something.
I realized that Dady Russell was you all said about
over thirty minutes, and it was good. It was it
was I can't even explain how good that felt in
this whole build up, and to see at the end
of this, I didn't even care, like you said, I
didn't even care about the tournament. You know what I'm saying.
I felt this whole storyline was complete with see him
Plump doing what he did he said he was gonna do,
and he did it. You know what I'm saying, I'm
taking it tight and I'm leaving, so I didn't care
about nothing else. And to end it the way they
did with physic Man. I'm just feeling now that the
guard is changing and these guys is me. I'm hoping
they are serious about whatever they're gonna do after this point.
I don't care how. I don't really want to speculate
on it, you know what I'm saying. I don't care.
I just I felt there's gonna be a change, and
I hope it's a good one, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And remember just because through the so short on time
that I got to just do while you're happy, ahead, happy,
you got to question grade.
Speaker 6: Not I want to get to some waiting waiting.
Speaker 8: All right, Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, go go ahead, go ahead, Bork, do you have
a question.
Speaker 6: For say de know how you guys feel about this?
Speaker 5: We got us?
Speaker 6: How are we talking? Everybody's been brother name, I've been
talking wrestling is hot again this for this whole past month,
which he implied, wrestler is high. It's really all us
and we really haven't been talking about today high out
for the buck there?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 24: How hot, Burs.
Speaker 3: You've transitioned well for us, and uh, enjoy your birthday
and we have three other people have been on hold
for thirty and forty minutes, and so I don't want
to miss out on them either. But news is just
in for raw ratings. So this is how hot pro
wrestling is. Three point two to two. That's how hot
Steampunk in this whole storyline is now. That is up
from two point nine to one last week, which was disastrous,
but and it is up from three point one to
three on June twenty seventh, and three point oh eight
and three point oh five, but it's right in line
with three point two one on June six and if
you go back to May twenty third, it was a
three point four to two. So this this is not
by any definition really right now with hot angle this,
I mean it's it's Jason, your action was right you.
I mean that's pretty. That's not the type of pop
that I think they were looking for. And I don't know.
Speaker 24: We're gonna have to.
Speaker 3: Take some time to digest this and think about it.
All right, we have three people who have been a
Holt for a long time. We're gonna go off the
air in about a minute for those listening live, But
don't hang up if you're on hold, because I want
to get to your calls. And we'll do a little
bit of an after show here, which will be available
to everybody, not just BEFP members, everybody if you go
head into the archives in about ten minutes fifteen minutes,
and you can listen and fast forward to this part
of the show if you've already heard everything. So I
want the callers to hold on and bear with us
as we go into the after show portion. Jason, you
can stay with us or not. I know you've got
to head out to the show, so if you want
to leave early, you can. If you can stay around
for another few calls, that's fine too. But I'll do
a sign off on the live portion here and think
you're ready for joining us, and encourage you to tune
in tomorrow. I think I'll be hosting with Pat McNeil tomorrow,
so we'll certainly have no shortage of things to talk
about as we continue to discuss these subjects.
Speaker 1: iPhone users, if you're listening to us on the name
of podcast app on your iPhone, you can unlock our
commercial free versions of our free shows by searching PW
Torch in Apple Podcasts. You'll see a charcoal grade logo
that says PW Torch VIP on it. Click on that
there's some free samples of VIP shows, and you can
unlock the entire VIP lineup, which includes VIP exclusives plus
commercial free versions of the free shows, by searching pw
Torch in Apple Podcasts and clicking on the pw Torch
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and after that you can become a VIP member using
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experience to our free shows and unlock all the VIP exclusives,
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I host with Todd Martin, and a variety of other
VIP exclusives. Just search pw Torch in your Apple podcast app.
Speaker 3: So taking a stick around or do you want to
head out?
Speaker 5: I will stick around for the callers and then maybe
you and I can do the rest of YEP.
Speaker 3: Sound good? So thanks be listening live and we are
now transitioning into the bonus coverage here at blog talk
Radio flesh Pro. That's wrestling desh Torch and let's begin
by going to our college has been on hold the
longest here, Eric Code two O three, thanks for holding
clea state your name and where you're from.
Speaker 26: Yay, guys, it's Mark out of Connecticut.
Speaker 3: Hey, Mark, how you doing?
Speaker 8: Not too bad?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 26: I totally disagree with that last car and I agree
with what you just said primarily, you know what, We've
had two good weeks of CM Punk, you know, and
we've had a great pay per view. To me, that
doesn't mean wrestling is hot again, you know. I mean,
I think they made some great decisions at the pay
per view and Daniel Bryan going over and CM Punk
and whatnot, But I don't think it's hot again. I mean,
you know, let's see how the next give it to
me for another eight weeks and make me have a
real good feeling in my stomach rather than just okay,
they're throwing us a phone.
Speaker 3: But well, let me jump in out right back to Mark.
I think what we're seeing is wrestling in the last
few weeks has gotten some fans who have been bored
with the product vocally enthusiastically excited. But I think these
ratings are showing that they've appealed to an audience that
isn't big enough to lead to a big boom period,
a big pop in the ratings. They've appealed to a
relatively small sliver the audience by catering very specifically to them,
and they have not, however, captured I hate the frame,
but capture the imagination of the masses, whether it's ninety
percent or ninety eight percent or whomever, that something isn't
clicking right now that makes them come back and droves
or them stay tuned for the whole show. And therefore
three point two rating is very mediocre. You know, it's
it's normal, but it's not an indication of a big
boom period. So I think a small sliver of fans
have a reason, you know, two to ten percent feel
like they've been paid attention to and they got a
great pay per view and the Daniel Bryan bone was
thrown to them, and we got to see what they
do with that tonight, and I'm looking forward to seeing
that and Christian getting the win and being centered. There's
a lot of things that people have been waiting for,
but it isn't yet in the category of actually helping
business at all. We don't have y rate numbers and
won't for a while, but TV ratings wise, this is
not a hot angle. This is an overrated angle when
you look at just the hard numbers. Anyway, Mark, go.
Speaker 26: Ahead, Yeah, I totally agree with you. You know, it's
like you said, you know, it's been a couple of
good weeks in a great pay per view. But forgot
what I was gonna say that caller, Travis. I'm telling
you he's got one hell of a beer.
Speaker 11: That guy.
Speaker 26: I'm telling you he could grow a nest in that thing.
But hey, what's up, Travis. But yeah, let me ask you.
I mean with Sinkara, they don't they do not tell
you what chemical they failed for.
Speaker 3: Is that correct?
Speaker 26: It could be a viking in or it could be
to stop thrown.
Speaker 3: Right right, Yeah, yeah, that's not specified.
Speaker 26: Yeah, I mean that's crazy. I know you've talked about
the transparency of that for a long time, but you know,
I mean, I think it's you know, they could just
say person be failed for this, it failed for that.
It's just you know, I just find it very sad
that no one on the top tier ever fails anything
unless they're in the doghouse. But you know, Sinkara obviously fails,
and it could be a Viking in because the guy's
got knee trouble. I don't know, but I'm not descending him.
I'm just saying, you know, you'd like to see transparency
all the way across the board. But yeah, uh, that's
pretty much it. Great job on the site. Everything's been
very enjoyable.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Mar appreciate it. Let's go to a next
call Erico eight one seven, Thanks for holding thirty seven
minute stuff. Please seat your name and where you're from anyway,
and Bruce this Jashman, Texas. But I have a few
questions and two of them are about mister mc mann. Yeah,
and one of them is about the drug.
Speaker 11: Policy and things like that. But my mister mc mann
questions are one, how did you guys feel about him
looking like a walking grape with his jacket yesterday? And yeah,
that purple jacket.
Speaker 3: Is just He's always been a weird dresser, I mean,
and a lot of people are making a big deal
lot of it. He's always wearn weird weird outfits. Jase,
And I don't know if there's anything to read into
last night's in particular, I mean, you probably chose hot,
you know, kind of this weird pink color because he
was going to be dressed down and fired and I don't,
I don't know, I don't. I can't psychomandalyze the color.
Speaker 5: But suit I thought it was purple and he was
in Green Bay, so he was showing some support for
the Vikings. Well there you go, yeah, yeah, which Storian
was chicking to it.
Speaker 3: That's as good as any explanation, All right, Josh, what's
next on your chuckle?
Speaker 11: And then my other Vincent Man question is I had
to watch the end of it on YouTube because my
dv ar didn't catch it, and somebody posted it on YouTube,
and I was reading a comment from one that one
of the other ones that hadn't acount posted and he
said that either it's the either one or two things.
It's either the end of Vincent Man's character on TV
or he he's legitimately thinking about retiring but doesn't really
know how to do it because he's been wrestling so long,
and maybe somebody bankstage was like, Okay, let's just do
a storyline about it, because that was kind of the
feeling that I got from watching him.
Speaker 3: Well, Jason, I mean, I think we've all heard that
Vince has kept incredible ridiculous, inhumane hours, never took vacations,
works all the time. Certainly, that's the image he gives off,
always high energy. If he's sick, he doesn't show it.
He doesn't want other people showing that they're sick because
he doesn't. But he's getting to his mid sixties, you know,
he can't keep this pace up like he did when
he was thirty five or forty five. And there's clearly
a sense that he's getting to that point because of
what they're doing with Triple H. Where he's preparing WWE
not for life after him, because he doesn't want to retire.
He's not going to go do something else. He's made
that really clear in recent interviews, and I believe him,
and there's no conflicting piece of evidence, but he is
preparing other people to take some of the duties and
start doing them well he can oversee them and and
make sure that there is a point if his energy
level isn't at the point where he can do the
job of three people, that he can cut back to
doing the job of two people and oversee Triple H
doing some of those other duties. That's how I look
at it, and I think it just kind of matched
up storyline wise, with Triple H being a ratings draw.
Ratings are down, we need star power. Well, this is
a bonus. Triple H is going to wrestle every week.
He's not at that point in his career. He literally
is going to help behind the scenes. Let's use the
asset of Triple Ah's personality to add some star power
to the show that's struggling in the ratings. That's my
take on it. I don't I don't think we should
read into it that Vince is really trying to retire
anytime soon. I just think in real life he's cutting
back and Triple HS couldn't be at the shows anyway.
So if we can use him on TV the boost ratings,
let's do it.
Speaker 5: You know, the thing people in the company says he's
slowing down, you know, I mean, he certainly doesn't want
to give that perception, but he is. And I wouldn't
be surprised if that's why they're adding so many layers
between a lot of the writing staff and Vince right now,
is to kind of maximize his time with the staff,
not you know, have him in there with so many
people at People look at it as a move by
Stephanie and Hunter to isolate him, but it might be
with his blessing. You know that this might be what
he wants. I mean, he is in his mid sixties now,
and I mean he said in that Bloomberg piece that
he'll die in the chair. Unless the guy knows something
we don't about his health, then I don't think there's
any reason to think that he's making an abrupt change
behind the scenes and had to control the Hunter. But
he is grooming him for the future, which I mean
it's I'm surprised this didn't happen sooner because I mean,
especially being a publicly traded company, you think he'd get
a little more pressure to prepare for the inevitable. You
never want to face your immortality. But I mean when
you own a fortunate or just a big company like this,
you have to prepare for that time. And I think
we're legitimately seeing that behind the scenes. Some people feel
like a you know, he's getting them ready just in
case it could be years. And I thought to someone
today is pretty plugged into a company, and they really
feel like it could happen sooner rather than later where
he does make more you know, it pushes more onto
Hunter's plate.
Speaker 13: Uh.
Speaker 5: The hunter has been shadowing him for a year. He's
learning every aspect of what the bench's job entails. And
I think it's a good thing regardless of when that
transition occurs.
Speaker 3: Good an Elegancy. So now, Josh, do you have a
final question for us?
Speaker 11: Yeah, and my last question was on the drug policy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I think that they need to do to add.
Speaker 11: Kind of one kind of I guess humility, you could say.
And incentive for a person not to go out and
do river and get suspended is for them to come
on TV. It's like the sind Car deal for for instance,
like come on, come on TV and say, wrestler Sinkara
failed for this drug and he's suspended for this long
and you come out and you say it live on
TV or tape, if the thuns, mcdun or whatever it is.
Because I'm sitting here thinking if somebody come out and
in front of all the people that watch me, in
front of all of my peers, that would may not
want to go out and feel that I'm indestructible and
go out and digrect it because they're available to me.
So what do you think about that?
Speaker 7: Uh?
Speaker 3: Jathan, how about that idea.
Speaker 5: Well, I think what happens then is what you see
in Major League Baseball and an others or just you
know sports, where there's testing and guys get popped. They
all come up with the same convenient excuses. Very rarely
do you hear, hey, I made a mistake and I
regret it, but I did it. You know it's you
would hear well, I took an over the counter substance.
Everybody would have the same excuse. And I mean, I'm
all for accountability, but there I still feel like there
are different things that you know, there's just some things
that you may test constiate for that I personally don't
find as harmful as others, and so I wish they
would clarify that on the company website. What exactly these
people tested for. I don't know if they ever will,
but I taking it on television and actually doing it,
I don't think it's necessary. I don't think you want
to alert the casual fan out there to it. And
that's just looking at it from a company and the
company selfish standpoint. But if it's your money, are you
going to make that move that? I think Ray ma
Asterial is a guy who's who's been popped before and
he's a popular guy. If this is your company and
you're making money on Rayma Serial Master, are you really
going to send him out on TV to make that announcement.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, it's I don't think. Yeah, I don't
think you have to do that, you know, I think
I think you can get that policy teeth without creating
a circumstance that it seems like you're trying to, you know,
humiliate people or show people up in that way, especially
because then it does come down to if you're going
to do that, then you got to get the context
of what what do they get tested for? And then
it just turns into a story that takes on a
life of its own. I think you're going to have
a better policy than they have that's more transparent without
including it on the TV show itself.
Speaker 27: Hey everyone, longtime PW Torch commist Sean radikin here to
let you know I've rebamped and renewed the Raticant Worldwide
podcast for twenty twenty six, a weekly VIP exclusive. Every week,
I break down four or five of the biggest trending
topics in pro wrestling. I also present my analysis, providing
insight that helps you understand the story better or see
it another way. Then maybe is the controversial takeout there?
Then I bring on a special guest for the second
half of the podcast. Sometimes it's a wrestler or someone
else who works in the business. Other times it's a
guest analyst who brings their specialized point of view out
a particular key topic in the news. Recent guests have
included Bronson Reid from WWE and PCO. One of my
areas of specialty is the japan wrestling scene, so I
often cover a big topic from Japan with PW Torch,
his own, Alan Farrell, Kelly Wells, and Chris Lansdell. I
don't just cover the news. I don't just riff on
the news or give a standard hot take. OP bring
my decades of studying this industry and talking one on
one with dozens of wrestling promoters to each week's show
so you understand not just what's happening, but the context
of why. Get ahead of the news, get ahead of
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Speaker 3: Let's go to our last collar of the show. We've
been on Old fifty three minutes from now area code
four oh two. Thanks so much for your patients. Please
take your name and where you're from.
Speaker 15: Oh, sewing them from?
Speaker 3: Omah. How's it going, guyn good? Okay? In your mind?
Speaker 15: I have a question about them. Punk could have a this,
could have a Triple H is Stephanie maybe encourage like
the boring directors to kick out uh, this and man
and however you know it listen to cm Punk as
their chosen one. You know, maybe you know there might
be a hill turn in the future for Triple H
and Stephanie and you know, maybe start a faction. I
mean to uh, I don't know. I guess, yeah, that's
that's my question. But could that could that be the case?
I mean, could that be a few sure? You know
Storry wanted that co occur. Maybe they could run that
all with a Survivor series.
Speaker 6: Maybe.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, Jason, it's created.
Speaker 5: I don't want to see it happen. We've seen the
McMahon helms Lee era before and I'd rather not go
down that road again. I think there's more money in
making those wholesale changes I've been talking about and just
kind of making it seem like it's because of Hunter's
storyline regime change that these changes are occurring. I mean
we've just seen heal authority figures so many times. They
may very well do that, especially if you know they
want to bring back punk as a face and he's
feuding with you know, the dufus as he calls him.
They may do that, but personally, I hope they don't.
I'm tired of heal authority figures, but I want a
lot of heal authority figures. I'll watch Impact on Thursday nights.
Speaker 3: Anything else for us? Oh oh, Sean, Sorry about that, Sean, Yeah,
tell us anything else? Anything else in your mind before
let's you because I know you held a long time.
Speaker 15: Oh yeah, the money at the bank snackdown version, I
know this, you know, but they accepted, they change, you
know everyone. I mean it's pretty much future at a company.
You know, how where they go from here? You know,
after they're playing on such a good match.
Speaker 3: You know that money in the bank, where do they
go with?
Speaker 6: What?
Speaker 3: After money in the bank?
Speaker 6: They go from here?
Speaker 15: You know, their young talent, I mean to have a
lot to build on. You know, Cody Rose having such
a great match, you know, it's such a great Army
and Daniel Bryant almost obviously you know where they go
from here, you know, the Smack the Snackdown brand.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a good transition for Sewan because Jason and
I are both we both live in the Twin City
here in Minnesota, so we're both going to the Smackgound show.
They're taping the night and and we'll see. I mean,
you know, we got a new writer and at Cosky
in charge. I don't know how big of a difference
that will make, given the machinery that's in place and
the rosters and the power that a writer actually has.
But between that and Daniel Briant winning Money in the
Bank and now Christian being world champion, they're shaking some
things up. But you know, smacked down at the place
where j and I think it's really important that they
credibly build up a lot of those wrestlers in that
Money in the Bank match, and a lot of them
have talent. And you know, Kine isn't a younger guy. Obviously,
he's the most tenured guy, full time active on the roster.
But but you know, there's there's some potential upside of
those characters and they need to make sure they protect
them and build them up to make sure that that
they have an upside, they take advantage of it, and
then eventually become a hot new character on Raw, assuming
they don't merge the rosters. You know, it's I think Smackdom's,
in a weird way, a very important feeder system for Raw,
so one or two or three of those guys can
eventually be moved to Raw and be a hot act
to take on a John Cenasite.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, we know Cody's challenging for the Interconmental
title tonight. It's possibly gets it, but I don't know
that you're going to see major pushes because of that
particular match, because we've seen some great Money in the
Bank ladder matches before that didn't really lead to anything
storyline wise aside from whoever won the match, And so
we know Daniel Bryan's getting a title match at some
point and that day everyone else probably just goes back
to doing what they were doing before, or whatever story
you want, whatever few they had come up with for
after Money in the Bank. You know, maybe we see
more with Slater and Gabriel against one another, but I
think that's it. I would be surprised if they had
this big storyline built around who did what in money
in the bank?
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I think so too. I mean it's great
that it was a good match. They showed what they
can do, but you know, whatever they do with Daniel
Brian will be interesting. I think a lot of people
are rightfully worried that Daniel Brian's going to be the
guy who breaks the street and doesn't win a world
title after winning money in the bank, which, by the way,
not everybody who wins money that makes me win the title.
I think that's crazy that that's been the case so far.
Even though you know you have a lot on your
side in terms of the stipulations, it still shouldn't happen
every time.
Speaker 5: But Internet fans are like I am, as a Viking fan,
pessimistic because anytime one of their guys wins his money
in the bank, yeah, oh, he's gonna be the first
one that's not going to cash it. And I just
know it. I mean every time it happened with Swagger,
and I think the guy won the title like two
weeks later. I can say that because I was right
there with him wondering if he was gonna be that guy.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, all right, Jason, We're gonna not be able
to do a VIP after show this week just because
we're both headed to SmackDown now and the bell rings
in forty five minutes, so we both have a lot
of things to do. So we went fifteen and a
sextual with callers, but I just don't think we're gonna
have time to do an after show, so hopefully are
extremely long after shows in recent weeks. Who make up
for that? I encourage everybody listening on blog, doc radio,
or iTunes or wherever to check out Jason Paul's website
Pro Wrestling dot Net. You hear every Tuesday on the
live cast, and you can hear a lot more Jason
if you become a member at his website. Information is
at pro Wrestling dot net and once again, the final
hours of our sale here at PW Torch is now,
so please if you're thought about becoming a VIP member,
now is a great time for three bucks. You can
check us out for a full month and see everything
that we deliver for just three dollars for a full month,
including tons of archives dating back twenty plus years of
back issues and audio and great audio shows. And we
have a link that'll just orient you towards all kinds
of content that comes with a VPP membership. It's on
the sign in page when you sign in the main
page you see with all the articles and links. Right
at the top of the main listing is a link
that's a VPP orientation page, So right above the latest headline,
click on that and that will take you, when you're
a new member, to a page that kind of gives
you an orientation of all the content that's deep in
our in our twenty plus year archives. So if you
do sign up, that's a place, a great place to go.
And we even have a top twelve list of things
to occupy you some of the highlights in our archives
on that page, so I encourage you to check that out.
The link is at PW torch dot com or top
article on our app and there's a link there with
a coupon code so you can get the discount. Jason,
thanks so much. I'm sure I'll see you at the
Smackdout show tonight.
Speaker 5: And see live and is a living colored Baby.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right, it's coming up too, and I'm
so excited. So thanks everybody for joining us. Thanks again
for your growing support for this show, and until tomorrow
on behalf of Jason Poulos is of pw Torch signing off.
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