10 YRS AGO FLAGSHIP: Keller & Parks talk Finn Balor’s push, Roman’s new look, Enzo-Jericho, Rusev’s upside, Squash matches, Smackdown
In this week's Flagship Flashback episode of the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast from ten years ago (8-9-2016), PWTorch editor Wade Keller was joined by PWTorch senior columnist Bruce Mitchell. They discussed the previous night’s Raw in detail including the Demon/Finn Balor teasers, Seth Rollins’ promo, the Randy Orton-Brock Lesnar segment, Mick Foley and Daniel Bryan, Enzo, and much more with live callers and email topics.
Also, a bonus podcast from that night with PWTorch columnist Greg Parks hosting the WWE Smackdown Post-Game Show discussing Week 3 of the New Era for Smackdown with live callers, plus Summerslam build-up, should there be Smackdown roster moves, and more.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/wade-keller-pro-wrestling-podcast--3076978/support.
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Speaker 1: PW Torch and Speaker bring you the Wade Keller Pro
Wrestling Podcast. On today's Wade Color Prowling Podcast, we jump
back ten years to our Playship episode. PW Torch columnist
Bruce Mitchell joined me on the August ninth, twenty sixteen
show and we had live callers and we talked about
the previous nights raw in detail, including the Demon Finn
Balor teasers, Seth Rollins promo, the Randy Orton brock Lesners segment,
Mick Foley and Daniel Bryan Enzo, and more. We also
answered some emails from listeners in a bonus podcast from
later that night. It was Greg Parks hosting the w
SmackDown postgame show, Week three of the New Era for
SmackDown with live callers, plus he talked about whether there
should be SmackDown roster moves and more. So let's get
to it. Back to back episodes here from ten years ago.
This week it is a wey Keller Pro Wrestling podcast
for Sunday, August ninth, twenty twenty six Welcome to the
p W Torch Live Cast. I am way Keller, editor
and publisher of the Pro Wrestling Torch weekly newsletter since
nineteen eighty seven, and also pwtorch dot com covering the
world of pro wrestling every day and mmatorch dot com
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It is Tuesday, August ninth, two thouy sixteen and on Tuesdays,
I am joined by a rotation of different co hosts,
and our co host today. My co host today will
be Bruce Mitchell, who is fashionably late, even though I
just called him moments ago and asked him be sure
to be on. So I'm gonna call Bruce on the air,
and we're gonna see why Bruce hasn't called into the
show yet. See this is his ring tone, everybody, Let's
see what he says. Maybe he won't even pick up. Bruce,
You're on the air, we're calling you. We're wondering why
you're late. He hung up on me, all right, So
he'll be calling the show now. I just you know,
Bruce and I have worked together long enough I can
call him out on the air when he's when he's
when he's needlessly late to the show. Well, last night
on Raw, it was week three of the post draft era.
I am sensing a little bit of the excitement from
two weeks ago dissipating. Now, this is not unfixable, but
I thought that last night's show was the least compelling
of the three shows so far. I think each episode
of Raw has gone down hill. I thought the the
inclusion of Micfoley and Daniel Bryan added some star power
to the program, but I didn't think that mcfoley's segments
were necessarily all that good. He came across as kind
of a bumbling, make everybody happy regardless of logic GM,
and I think that we need to have babyface gms
who seemed to know what they're doing. I thought the
segment was Sasha Banks in particular, was weak because Sasha
came in and inexplicably, unless I misinterpreted, what I thought
was kind of a jumbled segment. She wanted a two
on one match so she could keep an eye on
day in a Brook, and Mickfoley instead gave her a
singles match where if she lost, she ended up with
the match that she wanted in the first place. Just
didn't think that made a lot of sense. But there
were bigger things going on on the episode last night,
hype for Summer Slam, and a lot of the star
power was in video features. Vinn Balor big part of
the show the last two weeks, a video feature Randy
Orton and Brock Lesner hype for SummerSlam. They were part
of a video feature. I thought both video features were
very well done, but I wonder if that route is
the best way after a draft, after a roster split,
to fill a program and keep people happy with how
things are going. So we're gonna bring Bruce Mitchell out
of the program after our first message from our sponsors.
So we're gonna go to our first break at that
out of the way, come back, introduce Bruce, and also
introduce your phone calls. You can give us a call
six four six seven nine A two eight. We love
to hear from new voices. This is not an exclusive
club where there's six favorite callers and they get priority
over everybody else. We like to mix in our favorite
regular callers with new callers. Even if you won't become
a regular, but you happen to be able to listen
live today, we'd love to hear from you. If it
is one oh five Eastern your time, live right now,
give us a call join the conversation six four six
seven two one nine A two eight. On the other
side of this message, we'll be back with Torch Senior
columnist Bruce Mitchell. But first, here's a word about mmatorch
dot com PW Torch to say three dollars all right,
Bruce Mitchell, Torch Senior columnist for over twenty five years,
joined me as co host on today's program. Bruce, we
talk every week for VIP members on the Bruce Mitchell
Audio Show. It's not often, and on the post pay
per view roundtables, it's not often. You're on the live
cast with me. It's been a while. Welcome to the
Tuesday live cast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a big show. This is the one.
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, you're happy to be here A little bit late.
Speaker 2: Though, yeah, I am. It was more like it was
more like untangling something and where's this and where's that?
Speaker 1: And wait, you're not organized, that's all?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, No, I've really gotten organized after the time
I spent with you. You were an inspiration to me.
So everything is like laid out, but everything's laid out
perfectly now I've become I've become like you. And Travis.
Speaker 1: Was good, Bruce, A real quick assessment last night's raw.
Did you think it was the weakest of the three
post draft raws? Or were you a little higher on
it than I was.
Speaker 2: I think I don't know if it suffered from Vincent
Man not being there. I know he vetted the show
in detail, but he was not there. But I thought
it was purposeless. You know, I almost got in a
Twitter war with the nicest person in America, James Caldwell,
because I was kind of playing with him. They hadn't said,
they never said what the main event was, and as
you watched the show, you kind of figured out why
it was the main event they wouldn't have any faith in.
But it was a mess. I didn't like the detail work.
I didn't like much of anything except for brock Lesler
and Randy Orton's video. But everything else, but everything else
just even Seth wrongins to me was like came came
off flat.
Speaker 1: And I agree. I think that you know, in this
new era of Ron SmackDown, things are going to be different.
I would have liked to have seen the long solo
promos go away at least for a while, so that
or if they don't go away, like maybe once a
month or once every six weeks, there's a big, a
big moment where there's a featured promo and it's newsworthy
and people have a reason to watch somebody stand in
the ring and talk for ten minutes. Last night wasn't
one of those nights. And Seth is really good. He
can pull it off better than most, Bruce, but I
did by the end, I thought he lost the crowd
and it just felt again like it was one of
those segments that would not have happened or been that
long if Raw weren't three hours and ten minutes. And
I think it overexposes Seth and I think it slows
down the pace of the show. And I think it's
gonna show in the ratings. I don't think last night's
show has much hope to keep the rating in that
two point four range, two point three range that they've
been in. I think when the ratings come out later,
we'll see a drop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would think, so always say that last hour
dropping again to name drop James Caldwell. I thought he
had had a funny comment about Michael Cole bragging about
third third hour ratings. There's no way this one, I mean,
and the usually it drops and he's bragging about it. Yeah,
there's because people are tired. I mean, as simple as that,
it's a long show to watch, and this one was
a long show to watch and I didn't have much
to look forward to, so I can't imagine that we're
not going to see that. You know, it held the
rating for two weeks. I imagine we're going to see
something that was dropped this week.
Speaker 1: I agree. Our phone number six four six seven nine
A two eight. We're looking to hear from some new
one first time.
Speaker 2: By the way, I appreciated you comparing the Tuesday show
and it's callers to Travis Bryant and I show on
on Friday. So that was that was nice.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that meant, and I'm really glad
you interrupted me to say it.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're being partastic.
Speaker 1: If you if you'd like to join us, our number
is six four six seven nine A two eight. And
you know, people listen to me on Tuesdays and then
and they think, you know, way, it's pretty nice guy.
You know everyone. Every once in a while maybe he
gets a little kurt with a caller, but for the
most part, nice guy, you know, and he works with
his co host. Will you come on? And this whole
other side comes out. You know, I'm calling you out
for being late. You're interrupting me, and it's you know,
it's kind of throwing me off my game, and it's
I'm a little irksome from that. It's just you bring
out this whole other side of me, Bruce, I hope
you can be proud.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been ever since you got some backup on
the trip we made together, hanging out in Minnesota and
then going to Iowa, there's definitely been a change. I
think you enjoy the You enjoyed the dig more than
you used to, so I you know that's you're getting
confident in it. So you know I'm gonna have to
do something about that sooner or later, but right now.
Speaker 1: Sorry, as I was saying ten minutes ago, if if
you are a first time caller, we'd love to hear
from you in addition to some of our regulars. Let's
let's I got a lot more to talk about with
Bruce about raw and other things, but let's bring our
first caller into the show. Aera code five four zero.
Please state your name in the city you're calling from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is Michael from northwest Virginia.
Speaker 1: Hey Michael, thanks for Colin. What have you got for
Bruce and me?
Speaker 2: I agree with.
Speaker 3: Everything you said about one and at Raw. I watched
it after the fact and it was painful to go
through one thing. I want to I don't know if
anybody nobody brought this up on the live cast last
night or the postgame show.
Speaker 4: But did you all notice that?
Speaker 3: Uh? They pointed out the statistic on the New Day's
tag team title Ragin being three hundred some days. They
titled it because they've been saying for the longest time,
they're the longest raining you know, or they were about
to be the longest raining tag team champs. But then
they said, Demolition is the World Tag Team champ rain
and they called New Day the longest raining WWE tag
team title reign.
Speaker 1: I didn't pick up on that, but I'm glad they
acknowledge Demolition because people have been wondering why they haven't
been acknowledging that. I think the lineage of the different
titles in pretending that they're separate when they're when really
when it comes to the Take Team Championships, I think
people see the lineage as connected to the nineteen eighties.
I don't think you want christ you should WWEB officially
acting like the current take team titles. The one tag
team championship that they have for now is disconnected from
the eighties and nineties tag team titles. I mean, isn't
it the same organization and there's a connected lineage between them.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I don't think it's a major point, but I
think it's the thing about the records, like holding a
title for the longest length of time. When you bring
that up, you're appealing to the people who care about that,
and people do care about that, and when you get
it wrong, you know, the other people don't care, and
the people who do care get angry about it, or
you can get irritated with it. And so I would
just you know, I would just make a correction and
anyone to kill them. I mean, that's a convoluted way
of getting around it. And I would just say, you know,
Demolition has the record, a New Day has its eye
on the record at some point, and then stop talking
about it, because I doubt that they would be able to.
I doubt that they're not going to change that title
before they reach whatever Demolution's time was. But yeah, particularly
something one of the things they're selling on the w
network is the history of WWE and the history of wrestling,
and so they pay more attention to it. They care
about it much more than they used to. So they
should try to get it right as much as possible.
Speaker 1: That would be nice. Your time is valuable go VIP
and listen to our show's commercial free a nice streamline
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go v i P. Your time is valuable, and that's
one of the reasons we offer v I P membership.
Pw torch dot com slash go v i P. Michael,
what else do you have for us?
Speaker 3: That's that's pretty much about it. I did notice that
we're all seemed to be actually centered around building Finn Balor,
and that's what I think Rollin's promo was, and it
was it seemed like.
Speaker 5: They put a very.
Speaker 3: Large effort into let's let us tell you who he
is because we're we're getting behind him and I think,
I honestly think he's gonna win at SummerSlam, and they're
putting this big effort into we we need to build
this guy. We all want to show you who he
is and Matt came across in Rollins promo and then
with the video package with Finn himself and his promo
gave off a very I'm not a fan of it,
but I was like, what is that thing? Oh, it's Twilight.
They gave off a very like he comes across like
as a Twilight character almost. I think that's maybe what
they're you know, they're they're getting uh, they're rallying around.
Speaker 4: I'm not, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, thanks Michael, Yeah, Bruce. The vignette with a
fog machine, the the kind of the smoke filled room,
Finn sitting there looking at the camera. I like featuring
wrestlers in settings that plays to their strength, and I
think with Finn Balor, he's not a guy who's going
to be best doing what Seth Rollins did last night,
which Seth did well, but it's it's still not a
good segment. He did it. He filled nine minutes better
than most people would. Finn Balor, you can't stand up.
He can't stand up in the ring for nine minutes
and expect fans to stay tuned. It's it's not his strength,
but a post produced sit down segment like that talking
about the history of the Demon with all the kind
of bells and whistles and graphics. I think worked and
I liked that as a teaser for the Demon side
of his character. They for newer fans who don't know
who he is yet, I'm not sure they fully even
grasp what any of that means. But Corey Graves said,
you know, he and Byron are familiar with this, They've
seen it, and they're kind of doing, I guess a
slow reveal, which will they'll tease even more or reveal
somewhat on Raw next week and then of course the
full fledged entrance at SummerSlam. Breuce talk about the job
they did building intrigue and and as Michael said, just
Finn Balor's promo style. What did you think of the progress?
I don't know progress is a word, but the way
that he's been featured the last couple of weeks since
his debut on the microphone, well.
Speaker 2: I think they're still trying to find that that niche
where he can do things. And he is not as
far as promos go, and he's not fit for nine
minute promo. He's not fit to stand there and go
back and forth, back and forth. With someone and was
Seth Rollins or anybody else. Some guys aren't, and there's
a way he's not gonna you know, and you can't.
I don't think he's a guy to use clever pop
culture references or anything like that. What they're trying to do,
I guess, is to is to show you the demon
balor part and to lay the groundwork for where that
comes from. So as a first chapter, I thought it
was smart to produce it, to have him in the
studio where they could do takes with him and that
kind of thing and try to build the mythology of
what his character is about, and hopefully hopefully they've got
an idea. Hopefully there's depth to this, because if it's
the first chapter or something with depth to it, in
other words, when he turns into the demon, he's really
hard to beat or I mean, I don't know, and
it is. I'm sorry to say. I'm a Scottish heritage
and I didn't recognize very much of that stuff. But
it was almost like, you know, Seth Rolind said he
was a phony, and he was out there being a phony.
I mean, you know, just because you can, just because
you can recite mythology from the past doesn't make you
anything except for someone who can recite mythology for the
from the past. So I thought, if it's the first
chapter and it gets better on for it, if they
don't follow through on it strongly, I'm not sure about
it at all.
Speaker 1: Bruce, we have an email question from Romeo from New
York City. He says, hypothetically, and if an agreement could
ever be reached for Connor McGregor to work a WrestleMania match,
which of these four offered names would be the best?
John Cena, Roman Rains the Rock or Brock Lesner. It
takes that question, however you want Connor, I don't. It
took some digs at WWB Wrestlers, Roman Reigns fired back,
Kurt Angle chimed in, Sasha Banks even said bring it.
We talked about this on the VIP side of things
on the Bruce Mitchellatio Show this weekend at length. But
what is as Romeo brings up, is there a realistic
and ideal way for ww to feature Connor mac gregor
if they were able to get him for a WrestleMania.
Speaker 2: First In the words of in the words of the
late Great mcgrilla monsoon highly unlikely, and I can you
know so. But but just as hypothetical, I would take
Brock Lesner off the list immediately. The last thing that
UFC or Connor Bregor wants is the visual of Brock
in there, you know, jacked up on steroids, as I
think was the phrase Connor used, being compared to you know,
the huge Brock. Even at this point, he's smaller than
I think I've ever seen him since since college. And anyway,
I'm against that. That would be ridiculous and and and
also you know, obviously Brock has real skill, so that's
not what you're looking for. I'm at all you know
the logistics of it. Who wins? That's the problem. So
I don't think you want it. I don't think you
there's a lot of problem. But when I started thinking
about who matches up, it's like, who can they match
up with him? Who's as biggest star as possible and
would be able to talk back to him? He's he's
a better talker than an He's a better pro wrestling
promo guy than anybody they have. And and then you know,
could you do a finish where both sides come out
of it? Undamaged or even either gaining. So I don't
think Roman Rains is too big. I don't think that's it.
Who are the other two?
Speaker 1: He's got that Johnson and Roman Rains, the Rock and
brock Lesner. To me, Bruce, none of those makes sense.
None of those make any sense.
Speaker 2: For the reason they really don't. I'd say the Rock,
but none of them makes none of them.
Speaker 1: You don't pick the biggest names to take on Connor McGregor.
You pick out the best name if, and again this
is a big if, you would pick out somebody who
is who is not gonna make Connor look tiny, because
as weird as it is, some some non MMA fans
may look at that and go, well, what's this all about?
Sadly you know this guy's this guy's small, which seemed
to be the the insult of choice for for like
Roman Reigns and Curt Angle. I do with Kevin Owens
because Kevin Owens can do the job and end up
a bigger star from it, and Kevin and Connor aren't
that different height wise, and Kevin Owens can battle Connor
McGregor on the microphone. And when you say Connor does
a better pros and promo than anyone. I think Kevin
Owens can hold his own with Connor McGregor. I think
that that is a battle that I'd want to see.
I don't even care that much about the fight, I.
Speaker 2: True, I think, yeah, I think that would be that
would be really interesting. Yeah, So he's not a big
enough star on this there's not a big enough star
on on WWE yet, and maybe he'll never be. And
then he's certainly not in the mainstream, so I don't
see that happening either. But ye as far as like
someone who could talk back, he could talk that.
Speaker 1: But it is it's sort of like Steve sort of
like but not entirely. It's sort of like Steve Austin.
Steve Austin wasn't the biggest box office traction of all
time when he got involved with Mike Tyson, nor was
Sheawn Michaels, although Shawn Michaels was more of a featured
main event player than Kevin Owens. But that's a few
that can get Kevin Owens to that next level if
there's a commitment within WWE and a belief Withine that
he is a top five star for the next five years,
and they want to promote him that way, he can
still lose to Connor McGregor and come out of it fine.
That Kevin Owens is a type of wrestler who can
But today you said the dilemma is what finish well.
Part of the one of the benefits of matching Connor
against Kevin is he fits that sweet spot in between
being too big to do the job but not a
big enough name to be worthy of fighting Connor. To me,
Kevin's in that sweet spot. He's a big enough name
and fit size wise and talking wise, but he can
do the job, and I think that would just make
sense for that to happen. But that can also, you know,
be parlayed into Kevin Owens being elevated as a bigger
star if you book his reaction to losing correctly. By
the way, we have a follow up on the demon
discussion that we had. Jonathan vip Members says on last
night's episode of Raw, the commentators type seth Rowlins inviting
the Demon King to Raw next week? Is it a
mistake to unveil Finn Balor as the demon gimmick on Raw?
Should they save that for a pay per view network
event like SummerSlam. Hello, birsts all right, let's uh, let
me see if I'm still on the air here, Ken.
Let's well, let's let's just go to air. Quote five
one six, five one six, you're on there. Please state
your name of the city you're calling from.
Speaker 6: How you doing, man?
Speaker 7: This is now from New York.
Speaker 1: Hey, Darnell, thanks for colling. We'll try to get Bruce
back on in a moment. Meanwhile, what have you got
for us?
Speaker 8: I wanted to know what you thought about.
Speaker 7: I live in New York and.
Speaker 6: Some of the like promos they put out for like,
I know, after Summer Slam, I think they're gonna do
Raw at the Barclay Center. I noticed that in some
of their promos they I feel like they kind of
tell they kind of show their hands some of their promos.
And I said, maybe I'm thinking too deep into it. Yeah,
but like they'll do something like say SummerSlam is to
next Sunday, It's coming Sunday, and they'll promote something for
next Thursday, and it'll be like.
Speaker 4: Seth Rollins versus Finn Balor.
Speaker 7: For the Universal title, but they'll promote Seth Robins as
the champion, or they'll promote or say he's defending on Sunday,
they'll promote him as the champion, or they'll promote him
you know, or they'll promote the other persons instead of
just saying Seth Rollins versus finn balor instead of giving
I feel like sometimes they give away what they're gonna
do ahead of time. Yeah, I just want to know
what you thought about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they should be more careful about their wording. But
I will say this, I don't have a problem with
WWE announcing matches that fit the current landscape and then
things can change between now and then, because then they
change the lineup. What they shouldn't do, for instance, is
if Demolition and Strike Force are battling for the tag
team titles, and Demolition are the champs and they're defending
on Sunday against Strikeforce on pay per view, they should
never announce on Raw this week, strike Force next Monday
on Raw defend their newly won tag team titles against
Demolition if the title change hasn't happened yet. But we
get this a lot people reading into advertising, they say, oh, well,
they're advertising this guy for a post draft Raw, that
must mean he's on the Raw roster, or they're advertising
Seth defending the championship at a house show against Sammy's ain.
Let's say that means Seth is good, or if Seth
were the reigning champion, then that would mean Seth is
retaining at the pay per view between now and then.
Not really, It's more they got to put a lineup
out there, and one department just looks at the you know,
looks at the lineup or looks at the roster, puts
together a lineup, They send it to the arena, the
arena advertises it, and if the car in the card
is subject to change, and so if there's a title change,
then they change the lineup. I think that there's been
mistakes over the years where they will announce someone who's
not champion as champion, and that they should never do.
But announcing someone who is champion as still defending the title,
well that's fine. I think you should assume they will
be the champion until they lose when you're advertising future lineup.
So that's not something that concerns me all that much.
On that note, let's go to our second break of
the program. When we come back, more phone calls, more emails,
more Bruce Mitchell, and I'm Wad Keller and this is
PW Torch Live cast on Tuesday, August ninth, twenty sixteen.
We'll be back with more raw talk after this.
Speaker 9: Searching for more great pro wrestling talk, then join me.
Jason Powell host them the three weekly Pro Wrestling Boom Podcast.
Each week he'll hear the latest news and analysis for
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Speaker 1: All right, we are back here on PW Torch Live
Cast Tuesday, August nine, twenty sixteen. We are live on
the air at one thirty Eastern. Bruce Mitchell, Towart Senior Columnist,
is my guest. Well, let's go back to the Finnbaler
question that I asked. Did you hear my Finn Balor
email question?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I did, Okay, did do you think that it's a
mistake to introduce Finn on the on raw next week
or should they kind of tease it but make you
be a network subscriber to see it.
Speaker 2: I would think you would want the demon at the
pay per view or at the Sunday night show and
continue to tease it and to hint and give a
taste of it and make it seem like it's a
big deal and it's a big deal and that seth
Rollins is reacting is starting to get worried about it too,
and then have some sort of production I'm not saying
Undertaker style, but something that's a big deal and the
first big thin balor entrance, you know, you know, for
the w network, not not you know, for WWE and
w Network, not for the next day. That's That's what
I'd like to see them do, not just okay, next
week you get to see them on television and try
to get a rating at it. I'd like to build
a little better than that, and if they did it right,
hopefully what the interest would would build during during the
build and would help the ratings too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I didn't answer the question yet either.
I read the question, but I was I think teasing it,
giving people, you know, giving people a glimpse of it
through a nicely produced video makes more sense than having
the full fledged ring entrance. That that's kind of something
I think that you should pay for, But I don't
feel super strongly about it. I guess I got to
see how they execute it before I judge it too much.
As far as announcing matches ahead of time, Bruce, WWE
has been sloppy over the years. They could be better
about that. But as long as they're announcing the current
champion as still the champion after a title match, I
don't think anybody should read into that they're for sure
retaining the title, especially because not only does it just
make sense to announce the champions whoever the champion is
and announce them as the champion for future dates until
they lose and then you change the lineup. That that's
one reason, but second of all, plans change. I mean,
you can plan one thing a title change or not
a title change, and by the time you get around
to the pay per view itself that that plan can change.
So we had a caller ask about that, and I mean,
as long as WWE is just consistent in that way,
I'm fine with it.
Speaker 2: You know, the only time people will remember that is
if it comes to fruition, so in other words, that
they change their minds and no one really puts it
in the and w another ruffing comans have been known
to try to sor fans by letting something like that
accidentally on purpose flip out and let them make guesses
based on it. But yeah, I you know, I don't know.
I think that's I think they should curtail all of that.
And if they and if someone let it slip, that's
that's dumb, but it does. I certainly wouldn't put any
money on anything. I certainly, you know, if if we
were told today, if this man called up right now
and said, said, Dean Ambrose is retaining the title, you
can guarantee it, I'm not sure that I would go
for that, and he was sincere. I'm not sure I
would go for them, because he and they changed their minds,
and there's plenty of time to do that. And there's
also things that can come up that can reactions to
reactions to wrestlers and storylines that can change plans too.
Speaker 1: Yep, all right, our number here six four six nine
two eight. We'd love to hear from you if you're
listening live, especially if you're a first time or infrequent caller,
like to hear new voices, new opinions, new points of view.
Let's go next to Eric code two oh two two
o two. Please state your name and where you're calling from.
Speaker 8: Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: Yep? You can't.
Speaker 5: All right, I'm Sam, I'm from watching DC and I
just have like one comment and like a question that's
of course, yeah, I just watching last night to raw.
I really didn't understand like the booking aspect of the
whole show. Like I give props to the video packages
that they did, since they tried to fill out three
hours of that show and sometimes difficult, Like I really
enjoyed like the Finn Balor vignette because you know it's
basically like you know, try to like you know, give
more character depth to you know, Finn ballad. And in
addition to the whole like Randy Orton versus the brock
Lesner video, that one, my thought was pretty cool. But
the entire booking of the show, especially with like Daniel
Bryan at the end and eventually just interrupted what they
needed to talk about and then just happened with like
Czarro and russa routine child. I didn't really like get
what's going on, and I just like wanted to hear
your thoughts about that. And Mark's my question is that
do you think The New Day will drop the title
at Summer's left? And that's all I got.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks Sam. I thought last night, Brus. One
of my rants on the Keller Hotline last night was
the way that the New Day and Anderson and Gallows
feud played out. If you crutch somebody, if you ring
post croutch somebody to the point that they're not on
the show, you're selling an injury. You're making a big
deal out of it. Koffee and Xavier need to drop
the dancing and happy, smiley, gimmicky stuff for a week
and show a more serious side and not be all
jokey about it and and act like this is this
takes it. You know, we're normally here to have fun
and then when the bell rings, we compete. But we
can't even pretend to be having fun right now because
of what you did to Biggie and cut a serious
promo on that incident, and then to have Koffee and
Gallows in a match that lasts less than two minutes.
They don't hype it ahead of time. We don't get
a serious promo building up the match hyping it. They
totally underutilized, under hyped. They did not take advantage of
the situation in any way. They Sports entertainment booked instead
of pro wrestling booked that feud, and they pay a
price for it, and having Koffee lose under those circumstances
diminishes him greatly and makes the whole feud a joke
because the match itself, one on one, should have been
competitive and longer and felt more epic and felt like
a grudge match with Kofee defending trying to defend the
honor of Big Ee after what Anderson A. Gallows did
to him, and instead the match was just sort of
this thing we got to get over with in ninety
seconds so that Anderson de Gallows can try to crotch
another member of New Day, and so it was just
it was a match that was just a necessary evil
to get to an angle in the angle wasn't very good,
and by the time we were done with it, Koffee
seemed like a jobber, and it seemed like New Day
didn't really take seriously what happened, and we got a
comedy segment with Anderson and Gallows that made light of
the situation. Suation. I just I give them a D
minus for everything they did with New Day and Anderson
and Gallows last night. And I'm curious what you think, Bruce.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I think they have they have
two different tones going on. One of them is the
comedy stuff and the you know, the buck dancing and
the things that people want to see because that's what
they've established for New Day but now, but they also
have them in a grudge match for the titles and now,
you know, for the dirtiest injury you can inflict person,
you know, purposely on a man. And they've been laughing
about you know, it's one thing for the heels to
laugh about it and not care. But they've done their
jokes too. And then there was a bunch of the
commentators aren't outraged just to add that to your list,
and they're making they're making, you know, jokes about about
it too, and that's you know, what are you supposed
to think of that? And it really you know, you know,
Anderson and Gallas do not work because comedians they need
to be like we're going after these titles. We're gonna
beat up these clowns and take them from them. They
don't deserve it. And then New Day needs to be
you misunderstand us. We're positive and like to have fun,
but when you pull our punk card, you're gonna get it.
And yeah, there should have been It should have been
Kobe Kingston swearing revenge for his part for his friend
and Xavier Woods backing him up, and instead you've got that. No,
I this stuff is a mess. And then then I
guess they really are dropping whatever is going on with
the Wyatt family and the New Day So and why
would they just drop? Why would New Day? Would New
Day be as heroes be mad enough to like, we
haven't finished this this fight, brand extension or not. And
so you know, I'm just saying, I mean, yeah, it's
a mess, and I didn't like it, and anything it
was that entertaining, it screws. It screws with the entertaining part,
and then the entertaining part screws with the money part.
So it's it's a mess.
Speaker 1: You know, people give the writers a hard too hard
of a time sometimes, and you know, one of the
main reasons they get too much heat is because it's
vinsac Mann Show, and vincick Mann is ultimately responsible for
almost everything on that program. That said that Anderson and
Gallows segment was written, it wasn't booked. It was written
so that a writer could say, hey, look we came
up with some puns about balls that will make people
giggle and make Vincent Man may be amused, but it
was it didn't have its eye ultimately on being part
of an actual building up of a match that when
it happened and the bell rang, there'd be this sense of,
oh boy, now Gallows is going to get it from Koffee.
Gallows made light of it, and the missing ingredient was
Koffee reacting as if this is not funny and you're
going to pay a serious price, and then having a
match that reflects that, and so they just there's writers
who write segments to try to get their one liners
on TV, and we see that with Enzo also in
his segments. But it has that's not the ends. That's
a means to an ends, and the writing of promos
and the writing of one liners has to be a
A five. It's an okay step, maybe even a necessary step.
Towards the end goal, which is to get people worked
up about wanting to see a fight between a wrestler
they want to see win and a wrestler they want
to see lose that feels like it matters, and then
when the bell rings, it's booked and executed like a
payoff to a few that people care about. Everything was
missing last night. Everything was missing last night from that
equation after the Anderson and Gallows funny doctor skit, and
it is it costs WWE viewers if people don't get
invested in seeing the fight and care about who wins
and loses, and if the fights when they happen a
grudge match between Colfie and Gallows takes a minute and
a half and kofee jobs out. Nobody's gonna care about
this match at house shows, nobody's gonna care about it.
At Zummerslam, nobody's going to care about it like they should.
Nobody's gonna care about New Day like they should anymore.
And by the way, they already heard Anderson and Gallows
by having Anderson job out to scene in two minutes
a handful of weeks back too. They're sloppy, inefficient booking
that makes everything more difficult, Bruce, And that's one of
the frustrations. It wasn't just the entertainment value of Raw
last night that was a letdown. I was really let
down by the booking. I think it was really critical
to booking. In our online poll, sixty one percent are
saying it was below average or terrible, only sixteen percent
saying above average or excellent. Twenty two percent called it average.
That's a reversal of what the numbers were the last
two weeks. But it isn't just the enjoyment value, Bruce,
stepping back and evaluating it on another level, this was
a show that was booked terribly. It wasn't just not
a thoroughly entertaining show, but it was booked poorly and inefficiently.
It's next level coverage did you come to expect from
the PW Torch brand. No AI, no rookie perspectives, no
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Speaker 2: Well those things all go together. Yeah, they got in
their own way a ton of times. There was a
lot of holes and plots. There was this New Day
Club thing is a great example. It just seemed like,
like I said, I know, you know, I know that
this man betted this show detail about detail, but and
he wasn't there. But this just seemed like really was
thrown together or really was whatever they had in mind
got torn apart or something, and you know, not only
the big picture booking, but all the small details and
just you know, you looking at it going where's this
supposed to go? And yeah, it was a mess. This
was a really disappointing show and very much seemed like
a show from before the reset in that disappointment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree. All right, let's go another call.
Let's go to five oh three. Next five oh three.
Please state your name and where you're going.
Speaker 10: Alex from Portland.
Speaker 1: Hey, Alex, thanks for Colin. What have you got for us?
Speaker 10: Are Paorland?
Speaker 3: Oregon?
Speaker 1: Gotcha?
Speaker 10: Yeah, first time caller, so okay with me?
Speaker 1: Thanks for calling.
Speaker 3: I actually liked the show last night.
Speaker 10: While not disagreeing with what you guys are saying, I
still feel like the overall feel of the show is
actually getting better. It kind of feels me like an
oil tanker turning around, Like like they spent ten years
building this Vincent man's vision of you know, whatever the
hell it has been, and they're just slowly trying to
turn it around and do something different. And he's still
there and still trying to you know, get his rocks
off or whatever. But there was a lot to like,
you know, I think like there seems to be more
interaction between wrestlers just being themselves in a way like
it's still written, obviously still scripted, but they seem to
be given.
Speaker 4: A little bit more freedom.
Speaker 10: I don't know, maybe I'm imagining it, but I really
like them having Jericho go out there with I liked
it last week with the girls because they need someone
out there to like guide them what they're doing. And
I liked it with the end Zone cast as well.
I think Jericho is just tremendous right now. I don't
know if I have a question or anything, but I'm
just I just felt like calling and kind of drunk
something in there.
Speaker 1: What else did you like about last night's show? Jericho
was outstanding. I thought there's more to like than not
like about that segment. What else did you in particular
like about the shower?
Speaker 10: I like Ruce a lot and Lana. I thought that
segment and Roman reign is Actually I liked what he did.
I thought that was probably his best segment that he's
ever had. Maybe it's the most authentic from him, Like
I actually laughed at something he said which never happened. Yeah,
rucef is just gold. I think that they need to
go with him and Lana as a pair. They just
like they cut them off at the knees like two
years ago or whatever, which is crazy because they were
great and they still are. So I was happy to
see them back in like a program that sort of
means something. You know, there's a lot of stupid comedy,
but it wasn't quite on the terrible level of that
we've seen like even a year ago.
Speaker 1: Just like I don't know I would put this. How
about Scooby Doo though?
Speaker 10: That was Yeah, that was I mean, but in the
blood in the bigger picture, it was just like, you know,
two minutes of filler in a three and a half
hour shows that whatever. So I kind of forgive them
for having like Stiller, because three hours it's just too
long for anyone to sit through. Well, there's plenty of.
Speaker 1: Bad stuff, but and it's not like nobody liked the show.
I mean, twelve percent call it love, average, four percent
call it excellent. You know you're you're in that mix
of people who enjoyed the show. Let me throw to
Bruce Alex. I appreciate you call it. I hope you'll
call back again. Always looking for a different perspective than
the one that we established on the show too. We
certainly welcome that, Brucey. Throughout three topics Scooby Doo, Goldrust
and all our truth Why I brought that up. And
then we also have Russev and Lana and how they
were utilized, and then Jericho, Enzo, Kevin Owens and Cass
take any of those that you have something to say about.
Speaker 2: Well, first, I want to say the turning around the
old tanker metaphors, it's really app that's a tremendous metaphor
for you know, happens when you've got a company this
large and and you've got someone who's been running it
for that long, trying to make this kind of change,
you know, running it creatively. The other thing I thought
Jericho Enzo casts and and Owen's was really good. It's like,
I really think that that's and I think that we
haven't seen the best of it yet. But I like
the dynamic between everybody. I like the idea. You've got
two veterans who can talk and you know, you know,
it's like Jericho is almost a player coach now, and
Owens is really good. And then you've got the new
act that's learning. Who better to learn from out of
that locker room than those two, And there's a lot
of different dynamics there. I hope though that this isn't
and it didn't seem to be, but I hope though
that this isn't. Well, they're gonna, you know, they're going
to talk casts into joining them, you know, the cast
is going to cast is going to think that Enzo
is a weak link, and really I don't want that.
And the only thing I didn't like about that was
enso has been a week link. What Jericho said was true,
which it shouldn't be true. It should be a distortion
of the truth for him to be to him to be,
for him to be more helish. So I wasn't crazy
about that, but I liked the idea, and I like
the idea that they turned this into a singles match
between Enzo and Jericho, and then and you know, and
then there was there was cheating and there was interference.
So you can lead, you have a stipulation for the
next next match. But Enso needs Enso's got a great personality,
he's he's rough, but very good on promos, and he
needs work in the ring. So again, who better to
work with and to learn from than Jericho. And I'm
willing to watch some more than willing to watch Enso.
Maybe not be at the standard of all the top
wrestlers in we yet, but work with them and see
whether he can learn to be that. So I was,
you know, I was for that. As far as Scooby
Do goes, it would be the thing I didn't like
about it. I'm fine with our truth and gold Dust
doing the Scooby Doo segment. I mean, that's that's okay.
They've got this, they've got this thing to market, they've
got this thing to sell, and you use the silly
act to you know, the silly opening match act to
do it that that's fine. It didn't. I just couldn't
follow the even storyline and that what you know, what
exactly was that? I mean? And they backed off the
teaching Our.
Speaker 1: Truth thought when he saw Scooby Doo that gold Dust
had dropped him as his partner and was gonna make Scooby.
Speaker 2: I didn't ask you to do that. Yeah, okay, I
guess that's true. I guess I followed it. I don't know.
It's can cut screwed there. I'm just trying to remember
and you know, the cheaching Shong reference. They didn't go
strong enough to really to really sell it at the
beginning when Our Truth came out of the came out
of the van kind of coughing like they're just smoking
open there. But I wait a minute, I'm not supposed
to say dope anymore. I'm suposed to say weed. Is
that right? That's what Travis said. So anyway, So but still,
my favorite part of that wasn't the skit. It was
Michael Cole looking get into the camera and talking about
what an honor it was to be in the Scooby
Doo movie. The Scooby Doo straight to DVD movie. I
just got a big kick out of that. You know
that was that was funny, and I don't think it
was meant to be funny, but I enjoyed that. The
other one, let's see what I thought it should have
been that, you know who I didn't like. I think
Russelp is really good. I think Landa is really good.
But I wish they'd get away from have it be
an element of it. But the only but the only
person who gets to sleep with Lana is rusive. Is
the heat is all the heat. It's too much of
the heat right now. And frankly, I really didn't think
I had a chance to sleep with Lana, whether she
was exclusive to Rusp or not. So I mean, how
much heat is that going to have? So they need
to get it back on the xenophobic stuff a little
bit more, that they're foreigners, that he disrespects the United States,
that he's got the United States championship, and that she's
like that too, And and I didn't see Royland Rains
was very good in this. I know there's people that
like praised him, but I except for when he drank
the champagne, he was almost they're telling him to be
not exactly helish, but so tough guy that it wasn't
he wasn't pulling the rug out from under them enough.
And I would bet that that, I mean, everybody, they
haven't done it in a long time. They haven't had
the wedding on television in a long time. This was
this was the act of the celebration and you know
when he when? And I did like that that Roman
didn't throw her into the into the cake. It was
a well choreographed accident, and you still had the you know,
you had the haughty, way too arrogant, blonde bombshell, you know,
you know, screaming about screaming back cake all over. And
I enjoyed her just rubbing her face into the take
to make sure she got enough cream, you know, cream
and sugar on her. So I wasn't crazy about that.
I don't know. I mean, I thought the first week
was fine and I was like, Okay, what's the chemistry
going to be. And it seemed like Ruseph was bigger
and better than Rains was. It doesn't seem like something
that Rains was very good at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought Rains felt more comfortable than at his worst,
But I didn't see a Roman reigns that had made
this huge leap forward to landing in a new comfort
zone where people who were critics of his are now
going to go, oh, okay, now he's not being overwritten
and overscripted. Now I kind of see, you know, here's
a guy I can get behind. I think he gives people.
I think that type of segment Bruce gives people fewer
reasons to dislike him, But I don't think it gave
people more reasons to like him. I don't think he
was likable, but I think there was an absence of
dislikability also, And I think, you know, I mean, that's
I guess an important step. You could say, all right,
when we come back from our third break of the
we're here, we're gonna take more calls. So get in
line on the phone bank six four, six, nine, eight
two eight right now on the VIP website. We are
running well. We always do this. Twenty years ago back
issues of the Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter, and the last
three issues were the week before, the week of, and
the week after Hulk Hogan joining the Outsiders and forming
the nWo. That was twenty years ago, and we have
in depth coverage of that. The other headline in the
issue we are I think we just put it up yesterday.
Speaker 11: Was Are you a fan of AW looking to sit back,
relax and listen to some like minded podcasters who share
your passion.
Speaker 12: Do you want to be topped off the ledge after
a segment that has you wondering what the heck are
they thinking?
Speaker 11: Do you want to join a discussion on what AW
is doing right and what they could do to improve?
Then join me Joel for the all of.
Speaker 12: The Conversation Club every Friday on the pw torch Live
cast feed. Search pw torch in your podcast app and
subscribe to pw torch Daily Cast our streamer shows directly
from pw torch dot com. Find full details on the
PW Torchdailycast lineup at pwtorchdailycast dot com.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back live. Thanks for considering a VIP
membership or for being a VIP member. Of course, if
you're a VIP member, you didn't have to listen to
the last few minutes of VIP plugs. We edit those
out when we put them on the VIP feed right
after the show concludes. Bruce Mitchell is my co host
on today's program and in our remaining minutes we'll take
some more phone calls. So if you are interested in
talking to Bruce Mitchell and me, call right now six four, six, seven, two,
one nine, eight to eight Tomorrow. Pat McNeil is back
Thursday will be interview Thursday at one eastern. Last Thursday,
we played an interview, a pre taped interview. I did
a live introduction, but then through to a pre tape
of the interview we conducted a week earlier with Bob
Backland and Iron Cheek in person at the Dan Gable
National Wrestling Museum in Waterloo, Iowa, the first time Bob
Beckland and Ironcheek had ever done a podcast together. And
you can hear Bruce Mitchell and I interview the chic
in Backland on last Thursday's PW Torch live cast. If
it's not on your RSS feed, on iTunes or your phone,
if you scroll through it, you can simply go to
PW torchlivecast dot com and stream it or download it
from there. That was a fun experience Bruce doing a
live in produce.
Speaker 2: You know, my right arm still hurts from those I
had the privilege of having Bob Beckland slap my hand
twice that week and including at the end of that
at the end of that interview, and he was not playing,
I could still I still can't feel two of my fingers,
so but it was definitely a fun I think it
would be a fun wissen. I do want to as
long as you're plugging stuff, I do want to say
that I will be on the Katie Vick is a
live show for the first time ever, and it ought
to be downloaded tomorrow, but we're taping it tonight, so
who knows, we'll see, but that I'll be from Britt
with my you know, it gave us a lot of
help this weekend Midlanic fan Fest, and so we'll be
on with him on his poorly named show.
Speaker 1: Yes I'm with you on that one. All right, let's
let's go to our next phone call. Go to six
one seven, six one seven. Please state your name and
where you're calling from.
Speaker 13: Hey, we embrouced.
Speaker 4: This is b A. P. Walter from Boston.
Speaker 1: Thanks for callin, Walter. What do you got for?
Speaker 3: I just want to actually your point to new or
in frequent callers. Please keep calling in. It's great to
hear a wide variety of takes and opinions, and I'll
leave that alone. Well, if you talked about how Sasha
hasn't gotten over to the point you did inn XT,
so I had a two parade question kind of about that,
where specifically do you think they've made missteps in getting
her over? And part two to that is it's going
to affect someone like Bailey, who is so ober at
n XT when she comes up. That's all I got
to thank the guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bruce, good, good topic. What do you say to that?
Speaker 2: Well, she was injured and that took her off a
television for a while, and she wasn't really clearly focused.
Her character wasn't really clearly focused. And then they held
her back so that Natalia could have her feud with Sharlotte.
And then the idea was that, you know, it was
a build a Summer Slam and probably have her win
the title there. But those plans changed because of you know,
wanting to have something big happen at the first raw
of the of the brand split and have a major
title change hands. And I thought that show really worked.
That show was fine, but you know, Dana, Dana Brooke
just having to wrestled Dana Brooks over and over again,
and who's not that good and doesn't bring out the
best in Sasha. And then we except for the promo
she did after winning the title, which I thought was great,
we really haven't seen what makes Sasha Banks Sasha Banks.
And I think there's some I think there's some things.
I think there's some mixed feelings going on with pushing her.
Clearly Triple H is a big proponent of her, but
I also think that her sighs might hurt her as
far as the creative effort goes. And then, yeah, I
don't know. It doesn't seem like you're seeing the same thing.
And of course raw is not the same thing as NXT,
and that is that is different. But I was hoping
for a little more personality, and she has the personality,
a little more personality and grip between her and Charlotte
instead of that was another angle I didn't like. Why
would why would Foley put put her in jeopardy because
she couldn't beat somebody else that's not even in the
I don't know, No.
Speaker 1: That was a dumbest segment. Let me say that was
a dumbest segment. And I've seen in a long time
Sasha comes up to McK foley and says, hey, book
me in a two on one match, And McK foley says,
I have a better idea. I'm going to book you
in a one on one match and if you lose,
I'll give you what you want, a two on one match. Yeah, so, fully,
well that's true.
Speaker 2: And I was waiting. I said he had a better idea,
and I thought he was going to have he was
gonna say, well, we've got Bailey. Bailey's here and we'll
we'll sign her and you can have that team again
and they'll have a team match, you know, because he's
supposed to be Yes, he's supposed to commission looking out
for both. I mean, but you can not do Bailey,
but if someone else, and so it would be a
tag match between them, because you know, she's hot, hated,
she wants them both. But he's supposed to be the
voice of reason, you know, because she's gutsy. He's supposed
to be the voice of reason to make the fair
match in this situation. And instead, I think it goes
a lot. I don't. I think it's given it too
much of a credit to say it was an unfair match.
Speaker 12: It was.
Speaker 2: It was a matchup that made no sense.
Speaker 1: The whole segment made no sense. Your babyface GM has
to be the smartest guy in the room, or should be,
and foley is acting like he's smart, has the best
interest to people in mind, but his decision. I mean,
if I'm McK foley and I read over that, I'm
sorry with a clout that mc foley has, he should
be able to look at somebody and go, this makes
no sense. Why would I take what Sasha Banks wants
and say you get it if you lose. First of all,
Sasha Banks, what she said was dumb. The babyface should
be saying I'm tired of Dana Brook interfering in my matches,
ban her from ringside, or even better yet, McK foley
should be the one to bring it up so it
doesn't seem like the babyface is, you know, quote winding
and crying, even though they shouldn't be accused of that
if they just want a one on one match, but
have mcfoley should say should be the one saying I'm
banning Dana Brook from ringside at Summer Slide because I
want to find out who the best wrestler is. And
Dana Brook has obviously shown that you can't be trusted
at ringside to be an advisor for Charlotte. They need
to have a foundational reason for why Data Brook is
even allowed at ringside, And if you're gonna have a
match stipulation that my ban Data from ringside, the only
way to have that makes sense is if the narrative
structure has something built in where Dana Brook has a
right to be at ringside contractually. Bobby Heenan would always
say that about Nick Bockwinkle. I'm a licensed manager, Wally
Carr Bill, you can't ban me from ringside, and then
you would have to create a temptation for it. So
what the storyline to me, obviously is better. It makes
sense if one you establish Sasha comes in and says, Mick,
is there anything you can do? I want a fair
one on one match against Charlotte. I'm sure I can
beat her, but Dana keeps interfering. I can't be two
people as good as I am. And then mcfoley says, well,
Dana Brook is a licensed assistant to Charlotte. Contractually, she's
allowed at ringside, but I have an idea, And then
an hour later, Mick Foley or Twenty minutes later on
the show, Mick Foley goes to Charlotte and says, do
you think you can beat Dana Brook one on one?
And Charlotte goes, of course I can, and then Mick goes, well,
then let's ban Dana Brook from ringside, and Charlotte goes, no, no, no, no, no,
She's important. I'm she's got to observe my matches up close.
I'm training her. She's contractually licensed to be at ringside
for me. And Mick then can, in a resign sense, go, well,
you're right, she has a right to be there. But
I tell you what, how about I offer you this
a match tonight, Dana versus Sasha. If Sasha loses, Dana
doesn't just get to be at ringside for your title match.
She gets to be in the match. But if Dana loses,
then she's banned from ringside. And then Charlotte thinks about
it and says, yeah, I'll take that gamble. I think
Dana can beat Sasha Banks as long as I get
to be at ringside. And I mean, you can tweak
that however you want, but there's some logic to it.
It's we throughout the show and then Sasha Banks get
something logical, which is a chance to fight for a
one on one match as opposed to stupidly volunteering to
have a one on two match so she can quote
keep a better eye on data. It just makes no sense.
WWETV should make sense when you break it down, and
they're just too worried about baby burps and one liners
like that to think about why the narrative structure matters
and that logic matters. That that segment drill me nuts.
And I thought it made make look bad and it
made a farce of even the championship itself. Us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, it was terrible. And I also I
I I endorse what you said about the baby book comment.
There is no duller more overplayed line than I just
threw up in my mouth a little. Yeah, I mean
it's just yeah, it's just it's just been used too often.
It's just that's what someone says who's trying to you know,
just doesn't have a sense of humor to me. But
and he Enzo does. But that was a dud line. Yeah, Yeah,
there was too many. There were too many segments on
the show like this, And you're right, the smartest person
in the room, and the most fair, not the most objective,
even more than fair should be you know, Mick Foley
or Stephanie ritt Mann. And particularly if Stephanie Mann is
trying to play good girl for a while, I mean,
that's that should be. You know, something should happen and
then they should make sense of where the fans go.
That's that's better than what's about to happen, and that
makes sense instead of And I don't think you should
have title matches where it's two on one. That's ridiculous.
I don't think you have two on one matches in
the first place. Expo. To me, it takes you out
of your disbelief. It's too it's too goofy. So yeah,
I don't, you know, I don't and I don't. I
don't like it makes you know, it makes the baby
face seem stupid, and it makes the heels look weak
because they have a they have an even Stephen match
with two of them against one of the up you know,
against one of the good girls.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. How would you like to get all your
favorite sports teams merchandise delivered straight to your doors? But
wopping thirty off the already great price all right, We're
back for a final segment with Bruce Mitchell Torch senior columnist,
and we are taking phone calls and talking about mostly
last night's Ross SmackDown Tonight Live once again, and I'm
looking forward to seeing what they do with week three
on SmackDown. Let's let's go next to air co to
three to one zero, three one zero. Thanks for holding.
Please state your name and where you're calling from.
Speaker 4: Hi. This is Josh, and I'm from Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 1: Hey, Josh, thanks for Colin. What have you got for us?
Speaker 13: You know?
Speaker 3: And I was looking at Raw last night, and I
was thinking about several things, you know, watching a lot
of wrestlings over the years.
Speaker 8: You know, do you think.
Speaker 3: That My first question would be, do you believe that
a woman's match can go along last at this Summer
Slam or any future pay per view coming up?
Speaker 1: Not this Summer Slam, but yes, And in fact, had
WWB done their job, Sasha versus Charlotte should be worthy
of going on last even at this Summer Slam. That said,
and so many Bruce emailed and asked about this, what
match we thought would go on last at SummerSlam? We
have a pull up right now in pw torch dot
Com asking people what match they think should go on last. Yeah,
I mean it's probably, you know, the women's match, even
though they're the best of circumstances. It is unlikely to
go on after a brock Lesnar Randy Orton match or
a match for the Universal Championship.
Speaker 2: Bruce your thoughts, Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 14: I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so but someday, but
do what what are the odds, Bruce, in the next
three years that a women's match, a women's title match
headlines a WWE Live Sunday event on the network.
Speaker 2: I think it's gonna happen, and this is where I
see it happening. I don't know that they're going to
build up get They've made real progress in the women's
division with with Charlotte's title reign, but it hasn't gotten
the point where it has the interest to supersede what
they do on the rest of the car. However, we've
got two pay per views a month, so one of
these be pay per views. Sooner or later, they're going
to put a w W Women's title defense on the show.
I mean as the main event, as the last match.
On the card. It'll be a strong when I suspect
it'll be something where it's you know, anx somewhat two
wrestlers who've done excellent matches in n X T and
they'll be given the time to do it, and then
they will, you know, and and then they'll pat themselves
on the back for for headlining with a woman and
that you'll never hear the words around the rousy, but they'll, they'll.
It won't be it won't be organically that the women
are so much more, are popular enough where they can,
popular enough in numbers where they can where they can
main event them. It'll be a it'll be a political move,
but they'll do it, surely they will, and Stephie McMahon
will be very happy in public about it.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, let's go to seven three to two. Next,
seven three to two. Things are calling? Please state your
name and where are you calling from?
Speaker 4: Hey, guys, stop VIP Membrginisburg, New Jersey. What's happening in today?
Speaker 1: Not too much? How you doing, Scott? Thanks for being
a VP member.
Speaker 4: I'm doing Wade, I'm doing great. Hearing you and Bruce
taking live calls is awesome. To supplement the great audio
show that you and you did this week, and especially
enjoyed the mail bag guys.
Speaker 1: Cool. Thank you. Yeah, it's always fun when you have
time for the mail bank.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, guys, I have two questions, one current Day one
h h past question based on something I was listening
to this week. First Current Day, guys, do you put
any stock into the top ten free agent list WWE
put up on WWE dot com.
Speaker 1: Bruce, you familiar with that?
Speaker 4: Did you see that?
Speaker 2: I've seen it and I've never clicked on it.
Speaker 15: No.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of those. I think it's one
of the spaceholder things that looks like there's content on it,
and there's really it doesn't have any effect on anything.
I mean, that's what I'm guessing. I'm would being very unfair.
But on the other hand, you know, that's kind of
they have to me. They have a lot of fluff,
you know, but of like the not the roundtables for
whatever they call what do they call with Renee Young
and Booker K and Jerry Lawler.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder, you can reach us at Wade Keller
Post Show at gmail dot com if you're interested in
contributing to the Flagship or Wade Keller post show at
gmail dot com if you're interested in submitting a question
or a topic or even a rant on the Wade
Keller Pro Wrestling post shows. Yeah, do you have anything specific,
Scott on that list you want to ask us about?
I saw all this, you know.
Speaker 4: What, Carle Parlito is the main guy, you know, like
they put the list if you saw Willie, did you
see it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm there, Yep, Yeah, I think the one.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I commented on it on a Wade Keller hotline for
VFP members over the last few days if I remember.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, I gotta go back and listen. Yeah, but yeah,
I think Carlito is the one way that to me, like,
I just wonder, you know, I had heard rumors that
they were looking to bring him in a while back,
and I think he'd fit in with the current crop
of the kind of talent of trying to bring back.
Speaker 2: I will say this, I've seen pictures of him recently
on indie shows and he is larger and more defined
than I can ever remember seeing him, which makes me
think he might be getting ready for a w W wrong.
But but you know, there's also reports of MVP and
other people getting you know, getting offers that were so
low that they just they made more money doing whatever
it was. All the things they are doing now and
Carlito may or may not sit into that category too.
Speaker 4: Makes sense, guys, and guys, My history question is I
can ask is based on listening to Rick Clair with
kempe Terra this week. I did not see much of
the terror until after the prison, his time in prison
leading Bruce and I want to know when he went away,
was there a chance that he could have gotten like
how big of a run could he have gotten? What
could have been his out? Like how far could he
have gone? You know, just listening to it, you know,
him and player had a great rasport you could tell
their close friends and it was an interesting listen. But
I was wondering what you guys thought about that. And
the last thing is this, Wait, well I have you
both on. Bruce has done such great work this summer.
I think he deserves a raise. Wait, Scott, you.
Speaker 1: Were the caller of the day until then. I think
the uh. I think the top ten list was just
a mishmash of of of names. You know, yeah, you
think Carlito Okay, and Mickey James. That's interesting that should
be on that list, But listing Undertaker or Bailey as
free agents, I mean, come on, you know, it's just
it's just silliness. I mean, I didn't it wasn't like
this true free agent list. It didn't, you know, calling
Rock a free agent on the same list as Carlito.
It's like, there's such completely different circumstances. My interpretation of it,
since I didn't really see any kind of internal logic
or theme to it, is clickbait and it was just
someone going, yeah, you know whatever, you know, it's just,
you know, keep the dot com numbers up. Let's play
off with this idea that Foley and Brian and even
maybe William Reegal are pushing for, are you know, for
for deepening their roster? Will play play that up in
the post brand split era, post roster split era of
w w B t V, So play that up. But
I mean, I I think I could come up with
a better KFAB list than they did. So yeah, it
didn't didn't blow me away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as far as like doing that kind of KFA deal,
there there are ways and sometimes you read them and
you go, okay, I didn't learn anything, but that was clever.
They played by the they played by the storyline rules
and made something extra out of it. And yeah, that
doesn't sound like that was it.
Speaker 1: No, it wasn't all right nine as far as okay, yep, yep, good,
thank you, yep, hold on nine one six, yeah, covers, Oh.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, ye ken ta Terra. I think by the
you know, you saw him as one of chik had
nine l KC's a w A tagting champions with Jerry
Blackwell and while he still had some of the.
Speaker 1: Boy and Bobby Duncan in the Black and Blue Express
that was actually like the first a w A show
I watched. I think they were on that.
Speaker 2: Right, and I think you probably saw that Awa run
to me was where physically for whatever reason, I mean,
he looked the same and he had the great bully.
I mean he's to me, he's one of the great
believable bullies because he is one. And as far as
the promo and R went, yeah.
Speaker 1: The gravelly voice, yeah, yeah, it's just really interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And so but physically in the ring, from what
I've saw then and I've seen, you know, in the
years past, I think he was kind of losing what
he had. He peaked right before that in both the
middlelanc area and in and particularly in the WWF where
he had you know, he was the intercontinental champion that
beat Pat Patterson, the first intercontinental champion, and he was
the and he was a great opponent for both Bruno.
It was a very good opponent for Bruno, Saint Martinez
the strong man versus the strong man, but dynamic in
the ring. And then he was very good, probably had
one of back One's best ever matches the Texas Death Match,
as far as being w a champion in Texas Death
Match in at Massive Square Garden, which is which is
you know, a great match for his time. And then
he was losing, he was losing it. And then the
you know, the the years in prison took a lot
of career of amendument way. So by the time he
got back out, he wasn't gonna he wasn't that much.
But I think he was already on the downward slide
as far as uh as far as being a performer
before before before they threw that boulder through the window
and and and the McDonald's and injured the police officers
in the fight. So yeah, I don't think it changed
wrestling that much. I'm sure he's frustrated and and you know,
he doesn't take responsibility for He's never taken responsibility for
what his part in the and and going to jail,
so he feels he's screwed. And you know, wrestling, if
you're not as I hate comparing it this way, but
those years of Muhammad Ali missed as heavyweight champion cost
him a lot. And you know, I'm sure I'm sure
Kemp pe Tera feels like he missed money making years
because he was in you know, he was in jail.
Speaker 1: Let's go to three or five, three or five, please
take your name where you call?
Speaker 16: Hey, guys, you did from Miami, HEYDJ.
Speaker 1: What have you got for us?
Speaker 16: I got one comment and two questions that I didn't
if that's okay, yep, okay. My first comment is, you
guys never mentioned I was talking to James yesterday and
we were I was telling I was We're kicking around saying,
you guys never mentioned Olympics. I'm thinking Vince said, you
know what, Brady is gonna not gon be good because
the Olympics. So we're just gonna have, you know, a
DMAs show like you said Wade, and I don't know
that's my that's my comment. But my two questions work
quick as this Dane O'Brien thing, like like you were
saying Wade earlier, like Nick Foley, that's not McK foley.
I mean Dane O'Brien's good and he's bad and it's good.
It's like when he was gonna take this doll hug
it took the zarrow and then Mix said no, no, no no,
and then he should have won the belt and then
Big should have won, like you know, something else did something,
but it just made the Tzarro look bad. And I
don't know what they're doing with the writing. It just like, OK,
be good. It doesn't make any sense. And my second
thing is is the Broun Strowman. Do you guys ever
see him after WrestleMania, maybe getting a Mike a piece
and maybe they'll give him the title sooner later because
he is gonna be the next biggest guy because Big
Show and Kane arguing to retire with Taker and that's it.
Speaker 1: All right, Bruce Vince has a tends to favor big guys.
Broun is a big guy. Split him off from the
Wide family. Give him squash match dominant victories. Is he
possibly a future world champion even if it's just a
transition to try to, you know, give him that history
of being a champion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the on how this goes. In other words,
this is the beginning, I mean, and what came before
he really wasn't all that effective. So now they've recalibrated
and the squad. If these squash matches get him over,
and if he's learning how to take that size and
move like a vicious big man with it, an intimidating
big man, and he's you know, kind of you know,
learning how to do something besides that moon faced expression
to quote quote the late Bill Kunkle on One Man Gang.
If he can, you know, if he can get his
act together better, if he can improve, then he'll get
the chance to be at least a main event contender
for some world champ for some world champion. But if
he doesn't, you know, he, I mean, he's gonna he's
gonna flame out. I mean, this is like a guy
like that, I think a Rye Back who recently you
know who just left and probably left and made him
mad as in the way that he did it. But
you know, I don't think bron Stroman can really apart
unless he's a big man contender, and so this is
just the beginning of trying to get him to that point.
I don't know that I bet on it, but I
wouldn't be there. The other thing is Olympics on television.
If if it's something where it doesn't man makes makes
a call that this isn't a show We've got too
much competition. This is a show where we want to
use a lot of strong things. You can still do
a show that makes sense and as a solid show
that saves ratings, drawing main events for later, or saves
debuts for later, angles for later. You don't have to
have the mess that we saw last night.
Speaker 1: Very well said, and I was going to go in
the same direction. Is even if you don't have Randy
Orton and bruck Lesnar and Finn Balor on television, and
you know your main event is Russ of Czarro and
you're giving us another Cizarro shamous match, and you're gonna
do Kolfie against Gallows, make all those matches mean more.
Have the Sasha mik Fuley segment means something. Make sure
that there aren't holes in what you're doing. And you know,
WWE hasn't been one to run from comp petition.
Speaker 17: Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, there are two weeks away from SummerSlam. This
is kind of that that one the week that you
can let lighten up the load a little bit in
terms of big angles and big matches because you've got
next week's show to give a final push. But the
Olympics will be on next week two. You know, I
just think you WW has been kind of good about
just going about their business now. I suspect that Shane
and Stephanie, if the Olympics were not this year, maybe
would have been on RAM and Smacked, or would have
been on or Stephaniet least would have been on Raw
last night. We'll see about Shane and SmackDown. You know,
they have a tendency to not be on shows that
they think are going to do poorly in the ratings.
But it also is time to kind of take them
out of being there every week. I think one of
the reasons they have both a commissioner and a GM
is so that Shane and steph aren't there every week.
I don't think they should be there every week. Mick
Foley and Daniel Bryan are better at what they do
if they're written well they Mick wasn't last night. But
they're They're bigger names in a lot of ways than
Chefanie and Stephanie and Chaine, or they should be at least, Bruce,
because they're actually wrestlers who wrestled, and they're also personalities
who have enduring popularity. The Daniel Brian mcfoley segment, Bruce,
your your thoughts on on the dynamic between them, and
you know, I see it two ways. I see it
as one. They were trying to establish the idea that hey,
when when one wrestler crosses to the other show, it's
a big deal and we need to talk about it,
and invited Daniel Brian over to make peace. It's also
just to promote SmackDown and to let row viewers know, hey,
remember this guy, you love him. You can see him
on SmackDown every week. But at the same time, you
got to have good material and you got to make
sure they don't overstay their welcome. And so I had
mixed feelings about this segment. How about you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that it was it was a make
good too for Stephanie McMahon not being there, Okay, we'll
bring in Daniel Brian For whatever reason she wasn't there.
We know she's not going to be there and that.
But yeah, I agree. I liked that they I liked
that they treated him like he was a big deal.
You know, you know, you can tell it's a you know,
the symbolism of so and so has arrived in the arena.
You know, goes back to Monday Nitro and and and
Wrestling has been using that for wrestling television has been
using that for years. And the material wasn't that great.
And I have thought that, I had thought before that
that Mick Foley was really doing a good job and
his material was well thought out and what he was doing,
and this was just like once they got him together,
it didn't seem.
Speaker 18: Like they knew what ninety seconds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, Bruce. It was great having you on
the program. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Great to great to be here. Appreciate all the callers
and and good stuff.
Speaker 1: Now you'll be on Friday with Travis.
Speaker 2: I'll be on you know a good point. I mean,
I'll be on Friday with Travis Bryant and the same
in the same location from at seven o'clock East her
Standard Time, Travis Bryant the East Coast Cast audio show
that you can also hear PW Torch Live Cast. Also,
I'll be on Katie zig Is Alive Alive tomorrow and
taping it tonight. And Bruce Mitchell audio shows for v
I T members will be taping. They're pretty new because
you know, they're just a couple of days old. We tape.
We taped later on Sunday because I was at the
n w A, n w A Legends, Stanfest and Charlotte
all weekend with Jim Valley, so lots to listen to.
And and then well we'll be taping a new set
for this weekend. Forward to all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Excellent And uh, if you're an m m A fan,
be sure to check out mm A torch dot com
New Writers, new features. We've got column from Nick Grinnops
who's talking about the pending return of Nick Diaz and
the top five opponents USC should consider for him headed
into his his return. Also and news quote maug Gregor
hyping USC two O two analyzing why he lost to
Nate Diaz and he predicts how he thinks the rematch
will go. Plus Jenie pens you.
Speaker 2: Bring up Connor McGregor. Way do you bring up Conor McGregor.
I'm just really shocked that you're plugging in an n A
torch after Connor McGregor disrespected WWE and professional wrestling and
that controversial quote. I mean, just like, how could you
aren't you loyal to the professional wrestling side after he
said those terrible things about professional wrestlers trying to trying
to stir up some press and controversy as he promotes
his fight at two thousand and two and two thousand
and two be about five years from now.
Speaker 1: You know when it's got to be good, Bruce, it's
got to be good. How do you grade yourself?
Speaker 2: I thought the concept was good, but the execution probably
wasn't that great, so I could give it a B mile.
Speaker 1: All right? And the Daily Top five Top five fights
to make in UFC's welterweight division. That's Jamie Pennock's top
five list, plus some news and some flashbacks too. Twenty
years ago I did a UFC ten report, Mark Coleman
winning USC ten beating Gary good Rich and Don Fry
in a one night tournament. The always interesting Tank Abbott
was a big part of that show my full report
from twenty years ago. USC ten just posted yesterday at
MMA torch dot com. Well, so I have a pull
up asking you to predict the finish of the cmpunk
Mickey golfight coming up next month at USC two O three, Bruce,
we might actually see cmpunk enter the octagon. Are you
eager for that moment when Cmpunk if it happens, no
injuries or anything like that, if he makes his walk
down to the octagon, I'll have an adrenaline rush for
that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's gonna be interesting. I don't know which way
I mean, I got an idea which way it's gonna
be asue, But that's going to be interesting. And I
would say, you know, it's one of those deals where
we have we have trek is, like we have trecked
a thousand miles with this and so finally will be
we and siam Punk will be at our destination of
the octagon. So it's taken some time.
Speaker 1: Yes, it has. I'm very interested in that. So lots
of good stuff we're at mmatorch dot com. Keep it
in mind and bookmark it and visit it. It's a
mobile site and a desktop site. MMA Torch dot com,
but I hope you'll check it out. Bruce Mitchell Toward
Senior called us my guest check him out on Friday,
and we thank all of our callers for joining us
today as always, Pat Nick excuse me. Pat McNeil joins
UH hosts again tomorrow after being on vacation last week,
and then I'll be back on Thursday. Thanks everybody, and
until next time. Wade Keller signing off. Admit it, you
love Nick bar Batty when he co hosts with me
on the Way Keller Post. Well, now you can listen
to him every week on The Nickys Club, a VIP
exclusive podcast. Here's Nick to tell you more.
Speaker 19: Hey, wrestling fans, It's Nick Barbatty and I'm back with
the Nicky's Club, the place where the family of Nicky's
comes together for big laughs and sharp takes on WWE
for WrestleMania rumors to surprise returns. I got you covered,
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Speaker 18: Welcome one and all to the Pro Wrestling Torch Live
Ask Post SmackDown edition here on Tuesday, August ninth, twenty sixteen.
I am your host pter W Torch columnist Greg Parks
also SmackDown recaper for going on ten years at pter
B torch dot com. I recap SmackDown in real time
each week and uh again you can catch it on
PTERW torch dot com. We welcome you here to week
three of the Post SmackDown live cast. We'll be taking
your calls for as long as we have ammunition for calls.
You can call in and talk Tonight's episode of SmackDown
with me. Six four, six, nine eight two eight is
the number to dial Tonight's SmackDown. Doing a little more
hype for SummerSlam, which is less than two weeks away.
Hype for Randy Orton versus brock Lesner. Of course they
have to do that without the presence of Brock Lesner
or Paul Hayman. Plus, of course, the WWE World Heavyweight
Championship will be on the line at SummerSlam when Dean
Ambrose the Lunatic Fringe takes on his latest challenge Dolph Ziggler,
and those two were in a tag match main event,
teaming up with each other taking on Bray Wyatt and
Eric Rowan based off of not only what happened at
the end of the show last week, but also what
happened in the opening segment this week, where Bray Wyatt
came out and talked about what happened last week. In
the end, Dean Ambrose steamed ready to take on Wyatt
and Rowan in a two to on one situation, and
as he was kind of getting ready and thinking about
doing so, Dolph Ziggler came out and showed Ambrose up
a little bit by getting into the ring before him
and being willing to go into a two on one
situation with Wyatt and Rowan, sort of showing off a
little a little Dean Ambrose in the I guess you
could say where what he's doing may not make sense
to the outsider, but to him being at a number's
disadvantage as a way to prove himself. As Ziggler said
later on in the show, we also had American Alpha
in a squash match get a victory in a segment
that featured almost all the tag teams on the SmackDown roster,
somewhat conspicuous by their absence. The usos Tyler, Breeze, and
Fondango also not involved, but to all the other teams,
including the Hype Bros, Zach Ryder and Mojo Rawleigh brawling
after the match, American Alpha getting the advantage. There another
tease for an Eva Marie match, this time she had
a wardrobe malfunction that prevented her from taking on Becky Lynch.
Lynch demanded a match anyway, and that brought out Alexa
Bliss for her SmackDown debut, in which a distraction by
Eva Marie led to Bliss defeating Becky Lynch. Eva teas
that next week she'll have her first match, so we'll
see how they get out of it next week. Randy
Orton versus Alberto del Rio was one of the two
big matches on this show. Orton picking up the victory
by disqualification when del Rio introduced a cheer into the match,
RKO by Orton after the match further cemented the idea
that Orton can hit that RKO out of nowhere on
brock Lessner, despite how deadly Lesner can be from bell
to bell. We also had He's Slater taking on Rhino.
This is another match built up last week. If Slater won,
he would earn a SmackDown contract. As of right now,
he is the hottest free agent according to himself in
sports entertainment, and after this match he's still a free agent.
Because Rhino won. Brian and McMahon were ready to offer
him a contract anyway because of the heart he showed. Instead,
Slater stormed into their office angry about the loss and
vented going off on the SmackDown brand as well as
those two in charge, and stormed off before they could
offer him a contract. So who knows where the odyssey
of Heath Flater will take him next. Carmela versus Natalia,
Carmela getting the victory with a submission the Code of Silence.
It was a match in which Natalia dominated, Carmelo got
very little offense in and was able to still pick
up the victory. Baron Corbin attacked Callisto backstage in the
locker room. Remember those two were involved last week in
the triple threat match that Apollo Cruz ended up winning.
That made Cruise the number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship.
So Corbin not happy that he felt Callisto cost him
a shot at the Intercontinental title. And then we had
the main event of Ziggler and Ambrose against bray Wide
and Eric Growin and Aaron Superkick found Dean Ambrose in
the opening segment. So after the baby Faces won in
the main event, as payback, Dean Ambrose delivered dirty Deeds
two Dolphs and that was tonight's show once again. If
you want to bring me up and talk SmackDown here tonight,
six four six eight is the number to do that.
We've got a couple calls on hold, but if you
call in now, we will certainly get to you in
a matter of moments. So let's get to the first
call here. It is the eighty six to two area
code eight six two. You're on the live cast. Please
stay your name and where you're calling from.
Speaker 17: Kyle Linn from North New Jersey.
Speaker 18: Kylin, good to talk to you again. What do you
have about tonight's SmackDown.
Speaker 17: Okay, nice to talk to you. My first question for you,
Freg is with with al Fito.
Speaker 2: Del Real.
Speaker 15: Rumors to be leaving w w WA, was this lost
to Rain?
Speaker 17: Was this lost to Rain? And your possibly h his
final match?
Speaker 18: Okay?
Speaker 17: Question number two is let's tell your worst fear of
being quote unquote fas out coming true.
Speaker 15: With our loss to car Miller tonight.
Speaker 17: And question number three despite his unbeknownst to us somewhat
special relationship with.
Speaker 15: Vince McMahon, well Dean Ambrose.
Speaker 17: Drop the World Everyway title as summer slam us to
his somewhat in laboratory comments regarding w Creative Tea and
rock listener on last night's Stone Call podcast.
Speaker 18: All right, Kylon, a good three pack of questions as
usual from you. Del Rio. Yeah, there's talk about him
being unhappy with his push. There's almost it seems like
since he's returned, there's been that either he's been unhappy
or that you know, he's close to leaving or something
like that. So I don't know how much stock to
put into that. If I was a betting man, I
would probably not put money on del Rio being in WWE.
This time next year. That's just I have no inside
information on that. That's just kind of the feeling that
I get. I don't think his loss necessarily tonight was
his final match. I don't think his loss tonight necessarily
had anything to do with the possibility of him walking,
either when his contract comes up or asking for his
release or what have you. They sort of protected him here.
It was a disqualification loss. I think if he was
on his way out or had one foot out the door,
as it were, I think he would have seen Orton
win cleanly to further put him over in preparation for
his match with brock Lesner at some time. The fact
that del Rio lost only by disqualification tells me this
isn't his last match, or if it is, WW doesn't
know about it, or doesn't feel that way, doesn't see
it that way. Otherwise I would definitely see them jobbing
him out pretty straightforward fashion to Orton tonight. But they
didn't do that, And I tell you, being phased out,
I don't get that sense. I think it's going to
be harder to phase her out with the roster split,
just by virtue of the need for capable women to
carry the in ring segments, in particular SmackDown, where you
have Alexa Bliss just being called up from NXT. She's
still green in some ways. Carmela also very green in
a lot of ways in the ring. So you need
somebody like Natalia who you know there are. Okay, I
think we're back on here. Sorry about that. My Internet
decided it was a good time to reset itself, So
hopefully I am back on the air. We'll see when
we take the next call talking about Natalia again. To
have someone be able to lead the Carmelos of the
world through for minute TV match on live television, you
need people like that. And you look at the SmackDown
Women's division. You have Eva Marie, you have Alexa Bliss,
you have Carmela, you have Naomi, and you have Becky Lynch.
So other than Becky Lynch, I wouldn't really put Naomi
in the ring general conversation yet, I think she's got
potential to be there, but I think I need to
see a little more from her first. Natalia is someone
I think you need as the anchor of that SmackDown
division to wrestle the Alexis, the Carmelos, and the Eva Marie,
That's just my opinion. However, finally, question from Kylon was
will Deane Ambrose dropped the WWE world title the Dolph
Zigler based on comments made on the Stone Cold podcast.
Admit I have not listened yet to that Stone Cold podcast.
I think Ambrose, you know, can get away with saying
certain things because it fits in with his lunatic fringe personality.
Even if the Stone Cold Podcast for the most part,
has abandoned all storylines, so you know, he may have
some explaining to do.
Speaker 17: I don't know.
Speaker 18: I he strikes me, you know, as the type of
guy who just kind of says what he wants and
doesn't necessarily care about repercussions, which is pretty close to
I guess his character that he portrays in WWE in
the ww universe. But you know, I think, all things
being equal, I don't think there's any way Ambrose would
should or would drop the title the Ziggler at SummerSlam.
If he does, I think that's a strong sign to me,
unless there are machinations known behind the scenes, that's a
strong sign to me that the Stone Cold podcast did
to ruffle some feathers. He's certainly not the first person
to complain about the creative process even while under contract
to WWE and guys haven't been taken to the woodshed
necessarily for that, and if Ambrose has a pretty clean
slate up to this point, he may be able to
skirt that. So I would say no as of right
now if he does, if we're sitting here SummerSlam Night,
James Caldwell and I on the post SummerSlam live cast,
as I will be joining him for that after the show.
If we're sitting here talking about Dolls Ziggler winning, that's
certainly something we've got to bring up as a possible reason,
because Ziggler kind of feels like a placeholder challenger until
you know, maybe in aj Styles gets done with the
John Cena feud at SummerSlam and ends up facing Ambrose
going forward, that would make a lot more sense. But
on that front, we will see again. Kyland, thank you
for the call.
Speaker 1: iPhone users, If you're listening to us on the Native
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Speaker 18: Next call is from the four to seven eight area
code four seven eight. You're on the live PAS. Please
state your name and where a You're calling from.
Speaker 8: Deria from Georgia. How you doing today? Great?
Speaker 18: Doing well?
Speaker 1: Darrell?
Speaker 18: How are you?
Speaker 8: I'm doing Quice Well, I'm pretty okay, SmackDown in my eyes.
Speaker 2: Just have free stage.
Speaker 8: My first thing would have was, I wish they would
have gave more of an outside bill to the WWE
World Title, some type of package or something like they
were given a lot of the other Big Five matches
this the past two days, like they did for Sina,
the IP titles and all the other ones. I wish
they would have gave that more of a bill because
it was onto something last week. Just wanted them to
play off of it a little bit more. Two, I
wish they're so if they're gonna bring a woman's title,
I wish they would start building at least one or
two of these women up so we can know who
maybe could possibly be the two top contenders in the
whole brand. I know they want to do something with
Evil Marie, but I feel like that's holding them back
from building up one of the two real women who
once they getting the ring, they can have some payoffs
because so she getting the ring, all that what they're
trying to do, but to kind of diminish her a
little bit. And my third thing is I hate when
they bring out those guys like that, like they did
the tag teams, how they did the women in the
first week. I just it just I don't see the
point of making them come out there like that and
just do all of that. It just seems pointless, especially
if you're trying to make the tag team divisionals back now.
Seeing serious though, those are my three things. I want
to see what you think about it.
Speaker 20: You know it all right, Charrel?
Speaker 18: Yeah, thanks for the thanks for the call. I'll hit
the last point first.
Speaker 17: Uh.
Speaker 18: You know the tag team thing, when it first happened,
it did strike me as too similar to what they
did with the women on the first Roster Split SmackDown,
where they had all the women follow each other and
say their little piece and sort of it as an introduct,
a way to introduce all the women, especially the new ones,
even Marie and Alexa Bliss to the smack On audience.
The difference tonight, because again that was my first thought too.
I thought they're doing this for the tag teams. They
just did this for the women. The difference is how
the announcers framed it. And I'll give the announcers credit
because their push was that these tag teams wanted to
get an up close view of American Alpha to see
if they were really worth the hype. And I thought
that put over American Alpha nicely. You don't see you know,
you used to see it a lot more. Now it's
always they come out for the distraction, but you used
to see it a lot more of guys kind of
scouting their opponents. They'd come out on the stage where
they'd come out from behind the curtain and watch from
a distance, you know, almost like they didn't want to
distract the guy. They wanted to see them in the
natural element and that sort of thing. So for I thought,
having these tag teams come out and want to get
an up close look at American Alpha because they've heard
so much about them, because of the hype surrounding American Alpha,
I thought that made the story make a little more
sense to me, and it was more palatable for me
that they would do that. Now, of course you had
to have the big brawl at the end of the segment,
which which poured water onto it a little bit. But again,
American Alpha stands tall. They are the Alpha of this
tag division so far, and you look at the division
on the heel side, there's not much. It's a very
barren heel side. So I'm kind of wondering if they
don't necessarily turn the USO's heel but maybe do an
American Alpha USO's feud. Maybe build up to that, Maybe
do American Alpha the Ascension in a quickie feud and
have that at Backlash in September or something like that,
because once you do American Alpha versus the usso's, where
do you go from there? Unless you bring in more
tag teams, unless you form tag teams out of undercard
guys on SmackDown who aren't doing anything American Alpha, and
the use is of the clear class of the SmackDown
tag division. So if you do have them feued together,
once that's done, it's almost like where do you go
from there? Before I get on to the other parts
that Darrell brought up, I do want to mention that
the number to call if you want to talk SmackDown
with me, Peter W. Torch, columnist Greg Parks, the number
to call is six four six eight, and you've got
to press one to get into the queue to talk.
If you're just calling up to listen, you can stay
on the line and listen, but if you do want
to talk, you to press one on your touchstone phone.
I don't know if you know touchdown phones even are
a thing anymore, but I've always heard that on TV
and I always wanted to say it, so I said
it because this is my show right now. I guess
the other points brought up by Durrell building the women
for the eventual creation of the SmackDown Women's Championship, Yeah, that,
you know. I think you've got Becky Lynch on the
on the babyface side. I think she's got to be
involved in the match to crown a SmackDown Women's champion.
And again another week has gone by, and despite hinting
at it in media interviews and things of that nature,
there was no mention of a SmackDown tag title. There
is no mention of a SmackDown Women's title. So I
would assume Becky Lynch on the babyface side, would get
the first crack at the vacant, yet to be determined
name of the SmackDown Women's title. You know, Natalia sticks
out on the heel side as as someone who is
deserving of representing the heel side in such a match.
But we've seen Becky Lynch in Italia, and uh, you know,
I think with what they set up tonight, Becky Lynch
and Alexa Bliss now is a conceivable match. I think
Becky Lynch eva Marie could be a match now you
I would assume you would have to have evn Mrie
win a few matches to earn that SmackDown Women's title match.
But they're sort of building Eva Marie versus Becky Lynch
to where when it eventually happened, it's gonna feel like
a big deal because Eva has done everything she's she
could to get out of it the first two weeks.
So you know, with with Alexa beating Becky this week,
Becky's out for revenge there, and of course her history
was Natalia, so you've really got Becky set up pretty
nicely with all three heels on the SmackDown roster. On Naomi,
we don't know if she's going to be a healer
of face. You know on on pter B Torch dot Com,
James Caldwell when he put together put together the depth
chart on SmackDown, he put her on the babyface side
just because that would even things out at three on
each side. If you put Naomi as a heel, it's
four heels, two babyfaces, and that's a little more lopsided
than I think they want. So there is potential there
for building up the women for the title more build
to the world title. Yeah, I see that video package
might come next week. You know the problem is video
package for lesnar Orton works because they have fifteen years
of history to draw from. They started together. They could
draw from that. Rollins Balor works because you could do
the video package with Balor that they did this past week,
which is really neat, talking about how he got his
name and things like that, and really using it as
a real introductory piece to Finn Balor with Ziggler Ambrose.
The way this match came together doesn't necessarily lend itself
well to dramatic video packages or build ups in that
in the of that nature, Now, if you really wanted
to go deep and you were wwe this feud last week, anyway,
it was less about it this week. You know, Ziggler
trying to prove himself against the Why it's in that
opening segment. I guess you could. You could draw comparisons
to last week, but it was about Ziggler needing to
do more than steal the show. And you could show
highlights from Ziggler's career. You could show low lights from
Ziggler's career, maybe matches where he had really good matches
and ended up losing. You know, you could intersperse them
into this video package, it would take a lot of work,
a lot more than and it would have to draw
from a lot more history that WWE generally does for
these types of matches. But it could be on to
give Ziggler a little more oom heading into this match.
But other than that, unless you go that deep, I
don't think this feud, the way it's set up, is
really conducive to having that type of video package or
that build involving the wyots here. You know, it's it's
the basic storytelling that WWE uses, where you've got a
babyface babyface match at the pay per view, and how
do you build that while you put them in a
tag team situation or a situation where there's a miscommunication
and one guy hits the other. So I was a
little disappointed, and I wrote in my report on PW
torch dot com that I was a little disappointed that
they went to that sort of hackneyed booking after last
week's was so well done and so I don't want
to say imaginative, but it was. It was not the
part for the course for w booking. It was something
outside of what they usually give us and sound like
a real jump start for Zigler. This week they went
back into the tried and true tropes of WWE booking,
and I was hoping to kind of avoid those proverbial
landmines in the build up to Ambrose Ziggler.
Speaker 1: Hey, stuff, do you ever watch a WWE and think
it used to be better?
Speaker 21: I don't know, josh Sometimes I think it used to
be a whole lot worse.
Speaker 1: I mean, whether it's WrestleMania main.
Speaker 21: Events, old dudes at the.
Speaker 1: Top, too many titles.
Speaker 21: Or women's wrestling.
Speaker 10: We're here to answer the big question, is it worse
or better?
Speaker 2: Now? Join me Joshua.
Speaker 21: White and me Stephanie Cheese.
Speaker 1: For Worse or Better part of the pw torch Daily
cast line I'm dropping on Monday nights.
Speaker 21: Search pw Torch in your podcast apps such as Apple
Podcasts or Spotify to subscribe for free or get a
commercial free version with the pw Torch VIP membership. Check
out pw torch dot com slash go vip for details
of going vip.
Speaker 1: Worse or Better. Finally, something for wrestling fans to do
on Monday nights.
Speaker 18: So Durell, thanks for your call. Nine one five is
next on the phone lines nine one five. You're on
the live cast. Please state your name where you're calling from.
Speaker 22: Hey, it's christ Foher, Maryland.
Speaker 18: Hey Chris, what's on in your mind tonight?
Speaker 22: I actually thought that SmackDown was pretty good this week,
definitely better than Raw, and you know, I feel like
Raw ever since they changed the set and everything, you know,
Row has been decreasing equality while SmackDown has been getting
a little better each week. I agree with you about
that tacking seventh. I thought that that worked really well
into getting American Alpha over. I thought they will looked
really strong. But I think the problem was that pretty
much every other team other than American Alpha is kind of.
Speaker 3: Week, you know, so.
Speaker 22: There's gonna be a lot of work the gonna have
to do to build them up, or at least, you know,
built maybe two extra one of them, the Hussos.
Speaker 3: And American Alpha.
Speaker 22: And uh I got other two things if you don't mind,
What are your thoughts on Alexa Bliss? And I don't
know if you've heard the rumors about supposedly they're thinking
about trading Orton back to Raw and Sorrow and Ko
back to SmackDown. So what are your thoughts on those
two things.
Speaker 18: Thanks for the call, Uh, Chris, appreciate it. The the
what you know Chris said the outset as I'm I'm
trying to take notes on what he said so I
can touch on it here. Raw Yeah, Raw was back
to pre roster split feel this past week, I thought,
and I think that seemed to be the consensus, at
least for the people I follow on Twitter. During the show,
it sort of lost that fresh feel, even with Cesaro
or your seven the main event. I wouldn't put this
week's episode of SmackDown above last week's. I thought last
week's SmackDown was better than this week's. I didn't dislike
this this episode of SmackDown. It was just sort of there.
I think I certainly loved the Ziggler Ambrose stuff last
week a lot better than I liked it this week,
So I'll give that to But Yeah, Raw is is
not has not been able to sustain the buzz that
it had after that first week. It's really struggled and
that man, and I cannot tell you how much I
think that three hours is hurting it. You can't. I
hate to say you can't, because I feel like that's
giving to WW too easy of an out. But it's
so difficult to produce three hours of consistently quality wrestling
fifty two times a year. And that's just Monday Night Raw.
Forget about SmackDown, forget about pay per views all that
kind of stuff. You know, it's it's so difficult. And yeah,
this week's Raw was sort of back to pre roster
split days. Feel hopefully that doesn't continue. You know, there's
always there's always next week in wrestling, and next week
can always brighten the horizon, it can always make it
seem like there's all this potential, you know, and and
there's always a feeling that next week's could be pretty good.
You know, there's there's no reason because there's really no
connection as far as because this week's episode was bad,
that means next week's episode is going to be bad.
That's not the case. So there's always hope this episode
is snacked down again. I didn't think it was as
strong as last week's, but it was. It was decent.
It was decent. The tag team problem Chris mentioned, it's
almost as if American Alpha in two weeks has already
leapfrogged every other tag team, and I think that's true.
WWE has to find this balance because they have to
continue to hype up American Alpha for their main roster
audience who doesn't know them from their days in NXT,
who sees them as a big deal just by the
way WWE has portrayed them. But WWE needs to continue
to portray them that way. They have to balance that
with also creating a situation where the Ascension and maybe
the Breeze Angles of the World are competent opponents for
American Alpha. You can't just build American Alpha as this
top babyface team and then say, okay, where do we
go from here? We have no one to feed them to.
We have, you know, the Ascension, no one takes them seriously.
Same with Brizango, same with the Vaude villains. You've got
to somehow work on building those teams up too, so
that American Alpha has a nemesis. So they've done a
nice job with American Alpha so far, but they've they
can't just stop there. They have to raise the profile
of all the tag teams. Finally, my thoughts on Alexi Bliss.
I think that you know, when she first debuted in
n XT as this sort of Pixie babyface. I thought, Wow,
that is perfect for her, and she's doing a great
job with that gimmick. That's something like Bailey that will
appeal to small girls, and it's a winning gimmick. And
they turned her heel and I'm like, what are you doing.
That's a terrible move. I did not know that she
had this tremendous heel personality that she's been able to
show an NXT as the valet for Blake and Murphy
as well as on her own. She has that great
sneer look, that look on her face. It's all about
between the ropes and it's all about can she with
her size be a serious threat. Now it's a it's
a little different for the women because you don't have
a lot of women, despite Bliss being short of stature,
you don't have a lot of women towering over her.
It's not like you're asked. You're being asked to put
her in a match with Oscar or Naya Jax or
anyone like that. So she should be okay on that front,
but you know, she's got to continue to prove she
She certainly is not peaked, I don't think as an
entering performer. So that's something she's got to continue to
work on. Randy Orton de Raw. I don't know about that.
With John Cena, probably not gonna be on every episode
of SmackDown. He wasn't on this episode tonight. You'd like
Orton's star power, uh to draw from on SmackDown. But man,
if you were to say Orton de Raw for Cesorrow
and Kevin Owens, That'd be hard for me to pass up.
I'm a big fan of both Owens and and Csorrow,
But I think to draw the casual fan who recognizes
the name value of Randy Orton, who sees him as
this legacy star, I think you've I think you've got
to keep him on SmackDown long enough to where the
aj styles as. You've given these guys time, the Dean Ambroses,
maybe even the Doll Zigglers. You've given them time to
establish themselves as SmackDown brand wrestlers. And when people think
of smack Down, they think of those guys, and then
you can move ortond Raw. But until then, I think
you need that star power that Orton, that Orton provides.
So Chris, thank you for that call. We'll move on
to seven seven three seven seven three. You're on the
live cast, Please stage name where.
Speaker 20: You're calling from Chicago?
Speaker 18: Hey, boris what's going on tonight?
Speaker 20: Just by listening to the show, it's almost feeling like
I didn't miss nothing, which because I'm out. As far
as smack now, I don't like.
Speaker 8: The direction they're going with Ziggler.
Speaker 4: And dave An Bros.
Speaker 20: I know some people are up on it and stuff
like that, but I think it's too late. You know,
it's what they call you know, how they what's the
old saying about something too late? It's too little, too late.
I think that's what it is. Yeah, exactly, and when
you I think my first question is this calmer for
ww because they walked over talent and now when they
really need to step up, you know, to the plate
and actually be a quality product for wrestling fans, it's
really biting them in the in to be high.
Speaker 13: It's this.
Speaker 20: It's this calmer for w W That's my.
Speaker 18: First question for WWE two to do what now?
Speaker 20: It's this karma coming back on WWE because they walked
over their talent. You know, they pick and choose, Oh
you want to push out now now they don't have
now they have good talent to even you know, just
like you said about American APA just came up and
you know they the top talent. But you see what
happened to extint is the stints you or whatever they
call themself. They came in, you know, bolstering like they
bootleg version. The lesions are doomed, and people didn't accept it,
and they just push these people eas anyway, like it
was a joke. So now I was asking the question,
it's just Karmer coming back on WWE.
Speaker 18: You're specifically talking about Dolph Ziggler and Dean Ambrose as
far as the.
Speaker 20: Product is the product is how now they're trying to
push people that they just they pretty much ruined gone.
Speaker 2: It's just no, it's right.
Speaker 18: You're saying, you're staying there. You're saying you don't buy
Ziggler as a world title contender because of what w
W has done to him before. And you're saying, you know,
is that is that the inability for you to buy
into him as a worthy challenger? Is that karma from
coming back to buy w W. I I don't know
if it's karma.
Speaker 20: There are just as a whole, well as a whole,
you can just say it as a whole because you
really can't the tag teams that you need to push.
You know, the tag teams were pretty much as a joke.
You know what I'm saying. The single competitors is a joke.
And then you got new guys coming up, and of
course they're going to be better because they haven't been
burned yet, you know what I'm saying. And then look,
where is it. I just think it's better. It's just
better challenges right now with the new guys that you're
supposed to be changing with. That's what I'm saying. It's
just it's just you.
Speaker 18: I I think the good news is the roster split
is going to force them to not do what you're
what you're accusing them of doing, you know, putting down
the Ascension upon their debut, putting down the Ziggler for
so many years. I think the roster split is going
to force them to, if not try to rehab the
image of some of these guys that they've buried into
the ground. I think the chances of guys getting called
up and treated like the Ascension, or getting called up
and treated like even an Apollo Cruz where he was
lost in the shuffle almost immediately I think. I think
you're gonna see guys treated more like Finn Valor and
American Alpha, where they're pushed hard out of the gate,
rather than guys like the Ascension, who who by you know,
the third week of their debut were doa.
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Speaker 2: I hate to use the term that we always use.
We just leak. I guess we'll have.
Speaker 20: This just shidden weight and yeah, I'm always I'm just
I'm just really trying hard because, like I said, with
Doc and Doc Anderson crap. I mean, it's I think
it hurts me the most because I haven't seen them
wrestle and really put on a really good show somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Same with AJ.
Speaker 20: To see them come here and the best thing they
did that really, you know, I was entertained is them
showing that they can actually work this style and do
the comedy bitch, which is you know, the doctor, the doctors,
you know, but you know, you see they can do
all of this, but they don't get they don't utilize
them to their fullest, you know.
Speaker 13: I mean, I just.
Speaker 18: They're fighting New Day SummerSlam for the for the tag titles.
Speaker 20: That's a pretty good push, right listen. Okay, the thing
with New Day that really turns me off. I'm a
black guy to see to see those three people, this
is what this what we amount to. You know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 13: You know you got.
Speaker 20: Exactly what your fr your you're feeding my shoes, you know.
Kobe was Kofe was in a Top A Top program
with Randy Orton at one time, and almost it was
just you know, Biggie was you know, you see what
I'm saying, they was they was treated serious for a
minute and then you mean telling me, got you gotta do?
This is what we we we was, we are, This
is how we are represented. I get offinished. I know
people like that, but it's I just look at it
from me. This is how I get represented. You know,
we got Luke Cage coming up from Marble. That's I'm
looking forward to that Luke Cage. You know, we're getting
a whole program, uh, a superhero called Luke Cage on Netflix.
I'm looking forward to that because it's a character.
Speaker 2: That's being taken serious.
Speaker 20: You know what I'm saying. So that's how I look
at that part. And that's all I have.
Speaker 18: All Right, Thanks Boris. I think that's a I think
that's a fair criticism, you know, as Tag Champions though
that you know, Anderson Gallows in a good position. I
like where Anderson Gallows are. I think they probably could
have faced New Day for the titles earlier, but they
were you know, they were embroiled with aj Styles and
the deal with John Cena, so you know that they
had to kind of hold off on that, but uh,
we'll see. It's you know, I've said this for the
last few weeks, it's shaped out to be a stacked
SummerSlam card and they're gonna try and fit as many
hours into that show as they can again, So we'll
see how that turns out, and we'll see we'll see
if the show does feel like it drags even with
the big matches, just because of how long it's going
to be. And Boris saying that he was listening to
this and felt like he didn't miss anything tonight. I
will take that as a compliment to my capping skills
and my conversational skills about SmackDown as opposed to a
dig at smacked Down the show itself. So thank you
Boris for that compliment. We are here on the post
SmackDown PW Torch Live cast, and I am PW Torch
columnist Greg Parks with you for at least a little
while longer you've got any points on SmackDown conversation you
want to make. Six four six is the number to
talk to me as of right now, looks like we've
got one more on hold. It is the two to
eight to one area code, so let's go to that
person now to eight one. You are on, Please state
your name where you're calling, Greg.
Speaker 13: Distant James from Houston. How you doing today on this fine.
Speaker 18: Tuesday, Doing well, James? How are you?
Speaker 13: I'm doing good? So I have a couple of things
I wanted to get across. First of all, you do
an excellent job of recapping because sometimes I'm at work
and stuff like that, and you and James do awesome
job of recapping stuff on pew Toys dot Com. So
of course you're doing it.
Speaker 18: Appreciate it, Thank you.
Speaker 13: There's no problem. There's no problem. So the first thing
I have is I'm kind of bummed out that Shelton
Benjamin didn't debut well, didn't make his return. My first
question is, Uh, do you think that they have some
type of backup plan for another call, another return that
they might have had since Shelton went down, Whether it
is an MVP I heard that that rumor got shot
down again, or anybody else returning or each other. That's
my first question.
Speaker 18: Yeah, with it with Shelton Benjamin's shoulder injury putting him
on the shelf, he's gonna have surgery, uh, And it's
not gonna debut or return in the near future. You know,
I think WWE probably if they're like you know, NFL
teams or anything like that, that'd probably keep a short
list of free agents or or veterans who they can
call and who'll be willing to come in. They brought
back gender mahal on Raw, they brought back Ryano here.
There's reported to be other names who they've contacted and
and have even agreed to, although I don't think those
names have really leaked uh much, if anywhere, So they
may just want to kind of stagger those returns and
not bring them all back at once, but let let
the roster as it is right now breathe a little
bit before they bring some of these guys back.
Speaker 8: Cool.
Speaker 13: So I have sort of points. One point is that
I want to ask you who do you see on
the SmackDown side of things being the uh the the
top of the women's division, on whether it's a Becky
Lynz or in Natalia or even Marie. They're giving even
Marie a lot of time. I like the stuff that
they're doing with her, but it's gardener gets the point,
you know, we need to see what she can do
in the rain on a weekly basis. That's my that's
mouth for a second thing, and then my last thing
is a little bit of a loaded thing. I hear
you and James and Wade and Jason always talk about
fifty to fifty booking, about how fifty fifty to fifty
booking is kind of, you know, kind of is a
really bad thing. But with the case of Ziggler, who's based,
you know, with the fifty to fifty booking with Baron
Corbin and and and stuff like that that's happened in
the past, all of a sudden, you know, he's up
in the main event, well the man event portion of
the program with Dean Ambrose and a lot of people
are you know, it seems like it's a very polarizing
reaction to Ziggler all of a sudden getting his wins,
getting some wins and trying to become a valuable continuer
so contender. So the question, the third the sorry, the
third question that I have is do you think there's
a happy medium between fifty to fifty booking and the
superstar that'll you know, that'll take lost after lost after lost,
and then all of a sudden gets thrusted into you know,
the main event picture, or to be a legitimate threat
as an upper mid carter or a main eventor because
it seems like that, it just seems like it kind
of gets lost in translation. And I guess that's all
I have to ex kicking my call.
Speaker 18: Green all right, thank you, James. I think it's a
little ironic that we're talking about a happy medium for
fifty to fifty booking. That just seems so appropriate. I guess,
you know, with Ziggler and Corbin. I think that's an
interesting example. I guess the crux of the complaint against
fifty to fifty booking is and I see your point, James,
that you know, if you if you prescribe to the
theory of fifty to fifty booking, everybody is one or
two big wins away from being able to vault into
that main event scene. If an injury happens, if a
roster split happens, if guys get suspended or released or
whatever like that, and you need made event talent, you
can pull up a doll Ziggler, because you know he's
gotten enough wins interspersed in with losses to where you
can call it whe where you can, you know, raise
his profile unless you're Boris, you can kind of take
him seriously as a as a main eventor whereas you know,
if he had lost all of his matches to Corbyn,
if Corbyn had beaten him handily, if he'd lost maybe
another feud, you wouldn't be able to pull him up
and really get fans to take him seriously as as
a contender. I guess the answer to that is, well,
you don't take the guy who you've been giving losses to.
You take the guys who've been winning. Those are the
guys you promote and continue to funnel up the card.
I certainly don't think Ziggler is a guy who should
be losing out there every week. But the fifty to
fifty booking sort of it prevents guys from getting too low,
but it also prevents guys from getting too high. And
if you didn't do fifty to fifty booking, you'd have
guys banging the head on the upper mid card. And
if you did the roster split, you could take a
couple guys and Dean Ambrose for the title and it
would just seem like the logical next step in their
career progression. But because of fifty to fifty booking of
everybody's equal. You've got a Dolph Ziegler where it's like, yeah,
he's won some matches, but he's lost a lot too,
and it really feels like he's a mid carter at
the stage in his career, and now you're plucking him
up to the main events where it's kind of like
a shoulder shrug. Yeah you'll you'll go along with it,
but you don't really buy him as a serious threat.
And it'll be a good match probably and Ambrose will
probably win, but it won't feel like WHOA This title
could change or WHOA. The career trajectory of this guy
might just put him in a place where, even if
he doesn't win the title, he stays in the main
event scene. And I think that's the argument against that
fifty to fifty bookie. Top of the women's division. You know,
we talked a lot about the women's division on SmackDown tonight.
I think it's despite her losses, it's Becky Lynch, and
I say that looking at it from a credibility point
of view. I look at it from an entering in
a character point of view. My personal opinion. Now, WWE's
depth chart may differ. They may have again despite her
loss to Night. They may have to tell you at
number one. They may have even Marie at number one,
based on you know, whatever criteria they use. And that's
that's what you don't know is I'm using different criteria
to rank them than wwe might. But I would say
if Becky Lynch, I think she had a strong run
with Charlotte. I've been puzzled a little bit by her
booking sense. She challenged Charlotte for the women's title, So
I'd like to see her take on a more prominent
role in not losing these flukey type ways. To Alexa
Bliss on SmackDown, I do almost go the same room
with Naya Jackson, feed her some jobb or it's just
to re establish herself and re establish her credibility and
her her move set, because I think she has lost
a lot since the feud with Natalia, which was really
cool and I don't mean awesome, I mean like the
opposite of hot feud, so and you know, she never
got she had a good feud with Charlotte, but she
never got over on Charlotte and she was made to
look dumb every time out because of Rick Flair's involvement.
So I think fans like her and they want to
get into her as a character, but WWE's booking isn't
always allowing that with her. I think, yeah, that's that's
where we are on the Women, and that's where we
are tonight on SmackDown. And that wraps up. It looks
like our calls for this evening. So it's been a
good fifty minutes here on the post SmackDown Live cast.
Thank you all for listening to that post SmackDown live cast.
Pat Mathneil will be taking over as permanent host of
this show next week. Pat's on vacation this week, so
so this ends my run of three weeks of hosting
the post Backdown live cast. I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed
talking to people getting their opinions on SmackDown. As I
plugged earlier on the show, joined James Caldwell and I
on the post Summer Slam live cast. We're gonna have
a lot to talk about for a big card, WWE's
biggest party of the summer coming up, so that'll be
a good time, I'm sure. So once again I am
Peter B. Torch. Columnist Greg parks. Thank you for listening,
and thank you for your support the Pro Wrestling Tors
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