So I wanted to come on here and go off on the man because on episode 61, I was still
talking when you ended the show.
We had to go.
I'm like, hold up.
And then I look in and it said 91% recording complete, downloaded complete.
You were still talking.
I was still talking.
Me and E, we were out.
The software was loading up.
You were still going.
I'm still going.
I was like, I need to end.
What point are you trying to make?
I hope your point is fantastic.
If you went from talking about whatever you was talking about at the end of last episode
and you wanted to start this podcast, by all means, finish your point.
So I was like, yeah, I'm about to come back, start episode 62, hardcore, just to be continued
of what we talked about from episode 61.
And then the big thing happened and I completely forgot what I was about to talk about.
So nonetheless, what do we do here?
We're going to start the show on talking about none other than Phil Brooks.
Take it away, Matt.
Just when you think like it can't really get worse or it can't be any more than what we've
seen already.
We are nine months to the year and this is absolutely the story of the year in wrestling.
Had a lot of them.
This is it.
And then you let the Sports Illustrated state that Punk is going to come out with a statement
that is deemed to be explosive.
We have not seen that statement yet, but if he drops that statement before all out tonight,
maybe coming from an interesting crowd perspective, before we get into all that, let's start with
it is Sunday.
It is Labor Day weekend.
So happy holiday to anybody who celebrates that.
Probably more importantly, happy all out day for anybody that celebrates that.
But probably even more important than that, because we just came off of all in happy last
Sunday before NFL football for some months.
We are back.
NFL, I put my bet down Friday night.
Detroit Lions winning the division.
My bet is locked in the fan duel.
We will see if that was a smart bet or not.
Rudy's just showing off the bobble head right there.
We are back.
I am super excited for it.
But we are here to talk about wrestling.
And Eshaan, boy oh boy.
Let's get the particulars and all that out the way.
This is episode 62 of the TFW podcast.
That's freaking wrestling.
You guys know us three the hard way.
Eshaan is here.
Rhodesia is here.
I am here.
Matt, if you don't know, CM Punk has done it again.
I guess really this time we can't say CM Punk has done it again.
Tony Khan has done it.
Let's real quick.
Everybody knows at this point what happened.
Tony Khan on Saturday releases a tweet that blows up social media.
Last time I checked I think it had like 10 million impressions that he has decided to
fire or terminate CM Punk with cause.
Meaning that there's reasons for it.
He shows up on collision.
If you want to see the entire six minute speech that he had you can check out our Twitter
page at That's FNW.
I put the whole thing up there.
He kind of showed it also or he talked about it beginning of collision.
The crowd response was interesting for sure.
Let's stop there.
I'll just stop there because those are the facts.
Those are the complete facts that we have.
He showed up to collision, told us what was going on in the live crowd.
You guys saw it at home on TV.
Let's stop there and let's just talk.
Thoughts.
I was so incredibly happy that Tony came out.
One, any heat that needed to be dispersed should have been targeted to him.
Right or not, right or wrong, he should have taken it.
I don't think the talent should have been the brunt of this shitting on.
So I was one, very happy that he came out and did that.
Two, I thought just even how he mentioned in his tweet, hey, this was done on an independent
team that I never knew they had.
He said it was made up mainly of lawyers and attorneys, but at the end of the day it was
his decision.
So to me, I was absolutely impressed that one, he made it sound like this was my ultimate
decision.
And then secondly, I love how he talked about how he's like a family businessman, that everything
he's learned was from his father.
And I'm talking about what he said to the live crowd.
I don't know what he said on TV, but to the live crowd, he said this is how pretty much
he operates.
So just overall, him coming out, taking heat for like six minutes.
To me, that says a lot about a leader and that made me feel really good.
And by the end of that monologue, as I would call it, he actually had the majority of the
fans for him and cheering for him.
Yeah, I saw the video you guys posted and I was kind of surprised because I was actually
napping at the time and I woke up and saw the text messages and the tweets that Phil
Brooks was fired and I was really taken aback, but not a hundred percent surprised after
a lot of the details or more information came.
Even after our last conversation, more information was fed out to us.
I think it's sad that it came down like this.
I think it's sad for AEW.
I think it's sad for Phil Brooks.
I think it's sad for wrestling.
I did find it slightly amusing because I'm listening to Tony Khan's message when you
guys posted it.
He was very upset.
He had the microphone and he was like, guys, I had to come out here, I fired Phil Brooks
and as the crowd started booing him and he started speeding up, I had to, with a whole
heart and never in my life have I felt this way.
I felt my security, my safety.
I had to fire Phil Brooks just as I got to go.
Here you go, you got to go right now.
I'm like, go on, Tony.
You're right.
I'm like, go.
Because after all the information was released about how Phil's reaction backstage, it was
quite alarming.
Let's keep going.
I'm really, really interested in you guys' live experience.
What did you guys feel live in the moment as he was talking?
Live in the moment, I give him a lot of credit.
He deserves as much credit as the blame I've given him for not taking a bigger stance on
this for a year plus.
We got to shout him out for that.
I gained a lot of respect for Tony for coming out there and facing that crowd.
He could have easily had this in the tuck and then waited to tweet that out Monday morning.
It would have been like, damn, okay, so you didn't do it while we were in Chicago, but
okay, whatever, and we moved on.
He faced it.
Probably the best thing of it was when the crowd started booing.
I'm not sure if this got on camera or not.
The crowd started booing and he basically was like, nope, I understand.
Give it to me.
I get it.
Yep, I understand.
He just kept saying.
The thing about Tony is we always talk about how everybody says just how nice of a guy
he is, how much of a sweetheart of a guy he is.
I am sure it broke his heart to disappoint the fans, let alone the business decision
that comes with having to fire your number one merch seller, your number one ratings
draw.
You can look at that with maybe him and MJF, the guy that you just gave an entire television
show to.
Take the business part out and just say as him as a wrestling fan, I am sure that had
to be really hard for him to come out there and tell Chicago of all places.
I know a lot of you are probably here for this person, but I had to do what I had to
do and I'm sorry, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I give him much, much, much props on that.
Now, what I will say too though is there could be maybe some legal speak in there.
I can't speak for another man.
It would just be hard for me to believe CM Punk could have done anything back there to
make him feel like his life was in danger.
That's the part where I'm like, damn, that's kind of thick.
You really put that on a little thick, but I can't speak for him.
We don't know exactly what happened.
We heard that there was minors end up on his lap or whatnot, but I can't speak for that.
I do know that they were saying CM Punk lunged at him and I think Dave Meltzer came out last
night or early this morning and said that saying the word lunge was really downplaying
what CM Punk did to Tony Khan.
Now, that's the case.
You got to go.
I think we all know, all right, it's time.
What's going to be interesting though is what led up to this to get so fractured that there
was no coming back from it and what was on that video that the lawyers, just think about
it.
If nothing happened outside of some suspicions, quote unquote, from brawl out last year, and
we know people got injured in brawl out, nothing came out of that really.
This one must've been a doozy because CM Punk has been fired.
We don't know about Jack Perry yet.
They haven't stated if he's reinstated or how long he's going to be out for or anything
like that.
It must've been pretty bad.
It must've been really, really bad.
Then you think to yourself, okay, what does the future of AEW look like?
Once again, Collision was his show.
I just hope me personally, and we can really get into what the future looks like for AEW.
That's not just a 30 second answer.
I hope it still keeps the same flow that I've loved from Collision without Punk.
I guess probably now we'll see really what his influence was on that program.
I think that's a really, really big situation.
I think tonight at all out, because last night there still was only about 5,000 in the crowd.
Tonight they're looking at 10,000.
So you're doubling what was last night.
So it was smart to do it yesterday, give people 24 hours to digest it, et cetera, et cetera.
As I started saying, if Punk comes out with some type of crazy statement that is going
to galvanize his fan base, tonight could get nasty, potentially.
But no, shout out to Tony, man.
I really respected him coming out and doing what he did, but he's got to still own it
because I still feel like a sit down a year ago.
A sit down, he first came back and said, look guys, we got to get this hashed out.
I don't care what needs to happen.
We're not leaving this room until y'all can at least share a locker room together, be cordial,
be respectful.
But this whole last set around these whole last set around the people though, wasn't
the Bucks and Kenny.
It was your Jack Perry and the young boys who don't like these old school G's.
But it's still bubbling is what I'm saying.
I could never became, all right, we can all still work together.
Then there was a report that came out.
There was supposed to be a sit down with Punk, the elite and Tony Khan.
It was scheduled last week, supposed to take place in Atlanta.
So I'm guessing maybe it was supposed to be after Dynamite E, the one you went to and
before they went over to England.
And then the word was at last minute, the elite can't pull it out of the meeting.
So if you take that into consideration, Punk may have been frustrated like, damn, I'm trying
to sit down with these guys.
They don't want to sit down because there has to be much more to this story than what
we know.
So you take that into account.
Okay.
We're supposed to sit down and have a conversation before the biggest weekend of the year for
this company didn't happen.
He didn't get picked up from the airport properly.
Well, yeah, true that.
But yeah, but we add all this, we add all this stuff on top of it.
And he's heated.
Go ahead.
Oh, and then you had mentioned something about Dave Mutzler.
I can't ever say his last name.
Dave said that the lunge is kind of taking it lightly of what really happened from what
he's saying.
Maybe that's what they saw on tape.
Maybe it was something that was much more aggressive than that.
And you do got to go.
If you're ready to attack the boss, you got to go.
I don't care what.
Justin Barrasso had a really good article that he released today and he stated that
the fight with Perry was not the only reason why Punk was terminated.
That was one of the factors.
What he said in his article was the other factor was Tony Khan could not calm down CM
Punk after it was over.
And their verbal back and forth.
You got to remember too, we heard the report of CM Punk saying, I hate this place.
You can't keep somebody there that says that.
Ain't no coming back from that.
You can't because then you look like, I mean, I don't even know what the word would be to
the other wrestlers who aren't pro CM Punk in the bat.
He's not a leader.
Why would I work for this guy outside of them paying, giving me a paycheck?
Why would I want to work for him?
Why would I want to give him anything extra than my minimum if you're going to let this
happen over here?
And the one you just gave a show to is saying that I hate this place.
You know what?
I've kind of defended CM Punk on a lot of these things, but I've always said that as
an older man, that he should be a little more mature and professional way he handles these
situations.
And that's something he has to look in the mirror, he has to answer to.
And I get there's this frustration because we are frustrated with different things in
our workplace and coworkers and bosses, et cetera.
But we don't lunge and almost attack our bosses and think that's cool and we can get away
with it.
Because at the end of the day, he is a leader in that locker room to some, right?
So if he can get away with that, that's setting the precedence for that company.
So number one, first and foremost, before talking about Tony, because I think that Tony
has some blame and leadership in the company overall has some blame in this.
At the end of the day, it comes down to Punk.
And he wasn't professional in the way he handled a lot of these things.
It doesn't matter how frustrated he was in defense.
He got picked up, he didn't get picked up properly.
He got lost and yada, yada, yada.
But he look at the small things, right?
He got his own show.
He was able to go on his show and throw a verbal shot at the young bucks with no repercussion,
right?
After a show, I don't care about if he was concussed or he was loopy or whatever it was,
he threw another shot at hangman, right?
One little shot at him spirals him out of control to the point that he...
To that point too, he didn't say, see, Punk cried me a river.
He just said, real glass cried me a river.
Punk has made an entire career on subliminals.
Subliminals.
And winking and talking to us as the hardcore air net fans that only know what you're talking
about because we are knee deep into this.
That wasn't that much of a situation to where this should have happened.
That would have went over a lot of people's heads, right?
Because actually in the moment, I remember him saying it, but it flew right over my head
to where it didn't really affect me, right?
So one little jab at this man spirals him out of total control.
That's a problem.
That's a CM Punk problem, right?
That's a CM Punk problem.
Now with that being said, now if you know that this man, let's just say what it is.
He has some emotional issues at this point.
He has some trust issues.
There's things going on with CM Punk that he has to answer for, and I hope that he's
getting help that he's necessary.
He may listen to this and say, you're out of your mind, but let me tell you something,
CM Punk, what we've heard about you and your interactions with people and how you handle
adversity is not the correct way that a mature man your age should handle things, period.
So I hope he's starting to get the help that he needs so he can kind of handle these issues
so he can have more productive ways of dealing with things.
But at the end of the day, Tony could have a year or so ago nipped a lot of this in the
bud.
I don't think the original root cause of the issue was ever fully addressed, at least not
fully addressed to CM Punk's perspective, right?
And then at some point he felt like he had to kind of go into business for himself to
kind of make himself feel better about the issue.
When he came back from the injury, that's when TK, CM Punk, the Bucks, whoever should
have said, hey, this is a clean slate.
Let's air everything out.
Let's fully hash out all our problems so we can move forward productively.
And it sounds like this never happened, or maybe it did and CM Punk kept it escalating.
But when he came back from injury, this should have been a clean slate and it sounded like
it just was a continuation from their previous problems, never had to handle properly.
And now we're at this point to where, you know, Collision, which was one of my favorite
shows, right?
I would say probably maybe my favorite show on wrestling right now.
And the leader of that show was no longer there.
He's a big merch seller for that company.
As polarizing as he was, he definitely was a needle moving for the company and now he's
gone.
And now the company has to pick the pieces and move forward.
And it's like I'm sad for that.
I'm just going to say I told you so.
Told y'all so.
He should have never brought CM Punk back.
I was never ever on the bandwagon of bringing him back.
I thought he should have stayed away after everything happened ever all out.
And he showed me his level of pettiness at the scrum.
When he showed it to us, point blank, I don't care.
You have to have some decorum as just as a man.
And how he reacted at the scrum.
I told y'all he lost in my eyes, I lost respect for him.
Again, who am I to punk?
Nothing probably to him.
But for me, to me, he was a lot to me.
I liked him.
I actually did love him.
And him coming back, I got caught up in all the gooseys and stuff like that.
But when he showed his ass out, no thank you.
And AW Tony Khan should have never brought him back.
And I know what y'all said.
He is a needle mover, which he was.
And he the number one selling merch, all that.
But he should have never brought him back.
I felt like now we're one year behind again.
Even hating so much of Ricky Stark's talking about it on Collision.
Not to jump to Collision, but just like, I gotta start all over again.
Gotta do this all over again.
And it was so much passion and advice when he talked about that.
It was interesting too with Stark's promo.
Because if you didn't know, you'd be like, what the hell are you talking about?
What are you talking about?
But you know, if you do know, you know exactly what you're talking about.
I even went back and watched it after Payback last night.
I was like, let me just see if maybe I missed something being in the crowd.
And no, like him, you know, bigging up, big bill, talking about the things you've gone
through.
You will be like, what is this guy talking about?
But I think we all knew what he was talking about was I get a chance out here.
And once again, that chance falls through.
I wasn't on all in.
I suppose the main event all out and now look what happened.
And it's not even because of me.
But he definitely got it ain't it ain't punk in terms of being punk in Chicago.
But boy, he has a pretty damn good consolation prize tonight.
Yeah, Brian coming back so hard.
So that worked out.
So, you know, what punk and it doesn't mean punk's a bad guy, right?
Like we've met punk before.
And it was like one of the coolest conversations I've had with a wrestler.
Yeah.
So I don't think he's a bad guy, but I think something really bad.
I don't know what it was about the hangman promo, but it seemed like they never recovered
from that.
Eat to your point of him throwing those shots at the collision promo, his first promo bag,
which I hate it.
There's just a lot.
You kind of look back now, you say, you know, him showing up to WWE Raw in Chicago.
Remember when he was backstage and the call was made to Vince and they're like, hey, he's
got to leave.
Now looking back at this, was that premeditated?
Because we all know punk is extremely smart.
I'm here.
I don't think he does anything maybe besides what happened at all in that he doesn't really
think through.
Was that a hey, look, I'm trying to get out.
Is there an opportunity here?
Because I because I think there's got to be a conversation had with WWE and punk.
We don't know what does not compete looks like.
We don't know if there even is not compete with this, but there's got to be a conversation.
But how long has he been thinking about this?
Because now knowing this and now that he's fired, we could probably go back.
We want to continue to go back and look and look and look and say, oh, I mean, he may
have been trying to get out right here.
Oh, man.
He knew what that was.
He's planted.
Oh, man.
He knew if he said this here, if he acted this way here, there's a chance that he can
alienate someone else.
It's sad.
It's just sad because we knew it wouldn't work without a sit down and they never got
to the point or place of a sit down.
I see some people online who are like, hey, this is great because now the cancer is gone
from the locker room.
A.W. can get back to being A.W.
And I think that's a loaded statement because the locker room was never perfect.
And no locker room is.
We just don't hear about the stuff that happens in WWE like this.
But let's not forget Thunder Rosa and Brit and all that.
So it's not perfect.
But it wasn't also Skittles and Rainbows either without Punk.
We had a rough patch of A.W. programming after All Out last year.
Punk won on TV.
So it's not like, oh, man, Punk came in and everything just went down and now he's gone
and everything's about to go back up.
Tony's got some really big decisions to make about the future of A.W.
So let me ask you guys, how does this change A.W. as we know it?
I feel like we just, again, just going to rewind a year ago.
I mean, it's just like this whole thing was just a blip and we have to start all over
again.
But you can't say that because now you got collision.
You didn't have collision a year ago.
Well, your favorite saying that you say to me at home is you call up Mercedes and Edge
and say, hey, I got a show for you for Saturdays.
You bring them over.
Saturday night.
It's all yours.
The show's all yours.
I think for what he's just writing, a lot of aspect, it kind of goes back to where they
were a year ago.
I think that Tony Khan is going to put more pressure on himself to do more, to create
more and be more involved, which is sad to see for me on Collision Guy.
I think that Punk was heavily involved in how that show was structured and it showed
it was a very structured and organized show I felt like.
When I listened to Ricky talk, I knew immediately as a fan of Ricky starts, I knew exactly what
he was talking about as far as starting over.
Because one thing about A.W. is that you can start off, you can have a hot program and
then all of a sudden it cools down immediately afterwards.
There's no follow-up, there's no contingency plan for you afterwards.
You kind of go fall back down to pecking order.
And finally, Ricky Stark has some focus.
He's telling me there was a plan in place for him.
And with a lot of those guys on that show, especially on Collision, there was a plan
for those wrestlers and you could see it from week to week.
I don't know if we lose that on Collision because we don't definitely have it on Dynamite.
So I know that Brian Danielson is heavily involved in the creative as well.
Hopefully Tony understands that, hey, he needs some help with all this content that he's
providing and maybe Brian gets a bigger task on some of this creative.
Hopefully he hires some additional creative people to kind of help with these shows just
to kind of get it back to where it needs to be.
And I hope, from a structural standpoint, I hope he hires somebody.
I think Christopher Danielson is head of talent relations or something like that, right?
Yes.
Yep.
Hey, I'm not saying he needs to be fired, but he needs to get some help.
He needs to get another team in place around him.
Somebody they can trust, somebody they respect, they can lay the law down in that locker room
because they definitely don't have it right now.
They haven't had it in quite some time.
All the stuff that's coming out.
We talk about CM Punk so much.
It's not just CM Punk.
There's been things going on in that locker room forever.
You look at these matches, they kind of do whatever they want to do.
You got guys wanting to use real glass and matches for whatever the case for.
I'm not sure why.
They need to get somebody in place.
I don't want to call them a security team.
They need to get some bad guys installed in that locker room and then that leadership
program to kind of ruffle some feathers and get these guys in line.
Because there's a reason why in WWE you don't hear a lot of these things because it's not
allowed.
And if it does happen, they're out of there really, really quickly.
In AEW, everyone got loose mouths.
The mouths is just like water.
Everything happens.
We all hear about it.
We hear all the details.
And it's sad that AEW had their biggest show, arguably the biggest wrestling show in history.
And we're talking about everything other than that big show.
They have done a really good job of keeping that show alive on TV.
They talked a lot about Dynamite, even though in Collision, Kevin Kelly made a couple comments
about All In.
So I do like that, that they're keeping that alive.
Because it was only a week ago today, but it feels like it was fucking months ago.
Because of everything that's been going on with this punk stuff.
For me, when I asked how does this change AEW, you hope the locker room, and you don't
have to like each other.
I don't want a kumbaya.
I'm not saying that.
But you hope that they look at this as an opportunity to elevate the company.
It's a big blow to Miss CM Punk.
He is not somebody outside of, so yes, Radiza did say it.
My thing is, okay, that phone's gotta be ringing for Edge.
We know there's already a Mercedes deal in line.
She's just gotta get healthy.
But maybe that deal looks a little different now.
Maybe before that deal was we'll share you with NJPW, whatever else you want to do.
Hey, we'll still share you, but we need you the majority of Saturdays now.
And this can be your show along with Edge, along with whoever else they can pull.
And then I think you'll be okay.
But this is a massive gap.
This is not just going to be business as normal.
There are people who are watching AEW, I think solely for CM Punk.
I also think there was a lot of people though who watch AEW that hated CM Punk.
I didn't realize how divisive it was.
Until last night.
Well, no, before last night.
I put up one of my jokes on Twitter a few days ago.
And the amount of people under my tweet that was just like, CM Punk can be fired.
I hate CM Punk.
CM Punk needs to go.
I was like, whoa.
He's polarizing.
Yeah.
I didn't know it was to that level.
I thought it was kind of like a gimmick.
But no, people really didn't like him.
It just sucks.
It sucks because man, there was so much they could have done with the heel punk.
There was so much they could have done with the tweener punk.
Yeah.
I mean, it's such a missed opportunity, but it is what it is.
It is what it is at this point.
Now he is officially terminated.
What chances do you guys put him in WWE in the foreseeable future?
Hey, real quick though.
I don't think Edge and Mercedes make up for CM Punk on collision in my personal opinion.
I wonder if Edge can.
I think maybe them combined maybe.
If Mercedes was coming right off of Sasha Banks from WWE, yes, she would.
But we know a lot of times just in life out of sight, out of mind.
And I think the majority of casual fans have not kept up with anything Mercedes has done
since she debuted in New Japan in January.
So for them, they haven't seen Sasha, Mercedes in over a year now probably, right?
Yeah, because her and Naomi walked out in August, I think of last year.
So she's been gone now for officially a year from mainstream nationally televised in the
United States TV.
I think Sasha, Mercedes wrestling talent can make up for Punk and then Edge's mind can
make up for Punk.
Again, we're booking this here saying that both of them would come.
But I do think that the two of them together would make up for Punk.
Because Edge has so much in his mind, even though I hate on him all the time, he's a
great wrestling mind, completely wrestling mind.
And Sasha just still goes and ring.
So I think the two of them could make up for that.
Because for me, it's not the wrestling on air aspect of where it missed for Punk.
I think it's going to be his influence backstage.
And I think his Edge.
But at the same time though, I mean, we'll see, right?
We've never seen Edge in that kind of role.
And it could be too.
It could be too.
Maybe worse than Punk?
I don't think so.
Well, maybe Brian has much more influence than we know on Collision.
He was there last night.
Collision still felt like Collision to me.
E, did you watch the show?
Did.
Did it feel like Collision to you still?
Like format and everything?
I wouldn't say it felt different.
But you know, it felt a little off not with Punk not being there and with everything going
on.
So for me, it's gonna, I'm gonna have to watch it a couple more episodes to kind of fully.
Because I'm still kind of like, you know, I understand Punk had to go, right?
Definitely had to go, but it's still from a, man, we've had so much.
I won't say this is as big as losing Bray and you know, Terry Funk.
You know, the Bray thing really made me say I kind of wanted to detach from wrestling
for a little bit.
I'm a real big fan of his and he was so young.
But this is another thing, man.
Like damn, now we don't see a Punk on Collision.
Like, right?
They couldn't make this thing happen.
You know, it's just, it's just more, I think just more sad news and wrestling.
And you know, I know Rod issue was like, you know, Hey, it should never brought him back.
I think, look, people deserve second chances.
Like that dude spassed out at an interview and they look kind of let it happen.
So I feel like you kind of can learn from patch experiences.
Like Tony, I can't put certain individuals in these situations, right?
Because they're going to hinder themselves and the company.
Note it got that right?
Hey, Punk, when you come back, this is how we have to move.
I was hoping that when that second chance of things could have went better and they
didn't actually got much, much worse.
And I don't think the company is any better for us.
I felt like it's just kind of sad for me.
So like when I watched the show, I was kind of like, ah, you know, yeah.
And then they're promoting this, this show that's coming tonight.
Right.
And I don't really feel that great about it.
I feel much better about all out today after going to Collision yesterday, for sure.
I do too.
Cause you, cause now you got Brian on there.
They had a couple of matches I just saw they have added.
I mean, this isn't going to add any buys, but they just added a over the top battle
royal for zero hour.
And whoever wins gets to donate money to their charity of choice.
I haven't seen, they haven't said yet who's like in it or anything.
But yeah, it's on, although it's this dark, so she got on zero hour.
So yes, I was on the pile with my guys over at OTM and we talked about how is Athena still
locked behind a paywall.
So at least she's on zero hour.
That's great to see.
We still only have one women's proper match on all out.
I think that's a miss, but I'm happy that we still have that.
They did some good things on Collision with Outkast.
Just Outkast, they cracked me up.
Like they're pretty good.
But it is sad, but I'll tell you what though.
I kind of felt like on Saturday when I read that, after I got my jokes off, I kind of
felt like a sigh of relief.
Like all right, we can breathe now.
Like it's over.
Because it felt so burdened.
It felt like way down on Dynamite when we were in the crowd on Wednesday, which that
was the least attended AEW show I've ever been to.
Now Arena holds about 11,000 max for wrestling.
There was probably about 4,000 people in attendance.
Typically they're going to get eight, 9,000 to an AEW show.
And the crowd just wasn't lively at all.
I think a lot of it was punk for sure.
So last night was a little bit better for Collision.
They still probably only had 5,500 people in attendance in United Center.
That's a pretty sizable miss.
They should have 10,000 at all out tonight.
So that'd be fun.
But last night was kind of like, okay, Wednesday felt like a grieving.
We were at like a wake or a funeral.
And then last night was kind of like some anger in the crowd.
But okay, it's time to kind of move on.
Tonight should be interesting to see what exactly the crowd reacts to.
The Bucks, on TV it sounded like more booze than cheers from where we were sitting.
It was more cheers.
They got a nice reaction.
They got a nice reaction when they came out to make the save for FTR at the end of the
main event.
WB was also told last week that the soft split is ended.
That's probably what I'm more worried about.
Exactly.
Take away CM Punk.
Because that's not the question of is Collision going to be the same now that you're saying
that the soft split is done.
That's probably what I'm worried about.
This cannot turn into Rampage Part 2.
I do not want to see Storyline start on Wednesday and then it converts over to Saturday.
Like that of the same week.
Nope.
I really liked how Starks was able to shine.
I liked how Christian was able to get a lot more time.
You know, Punk.
Collision has done some really Jay White, Bullet Club Gold.
You know, Powerhouse got some shine.
You were doing something with them.
So still let's try to keep it separate.
House of Black, you saw them every week pretty much on that show?
Nah, I do think there is a world where this can still work without being a soft split.
Think about all the talent they have and if it's at the disposal for every show.
Then you say, man, like, okay, this could work.
But I just don't want to see Storylines continue and people still not be put on television.
But you know, here's the thing, guys.
Like you talk about that Dynamite show, right?
It was least attended.
Man, they're asking a lot of you guys' market.
Yep.
Right?
We got three shows, right?
Three shows.
And look, the economy the way it is right now, things cost a lot of money right now.
So now you're in the same market for three major shows.
That's asking a lot.
We had Collision here in July.
We had the
Yeah.
Return.
We had Dynamite that Wednesday before.
Yeah.
That so to your point, it's a lot.
It's fatiguing.
It's fatiguing especially.
And you think about the people that was there last night and Wednesday night, at least half
of them probably bought all in.
So that's still another $50 that you're talking about that you're dishing out.
It's a lot of money.
Yeah.
And the fatigue factor is real too, right, because we just had an eight hour event with
all in, right?
Then we had Dynamite.
Then we had Rampage and then we had Collision.
Now we have another pay-per-view we have to focus on.
I mean, there's a lot of...
They're asking for a lot of mental and financial investment into that company right now, right?
And with the all in show, they're asking us to open our wallet again, right?
And then another $50.
Oh, and by the way, 90% of the matches, I'm going to tell you what they are a day or two
before the show.
That's a lot.
And it would be okay if they were dream matches, quote unquote, right?
Which is why Forbidden Door works.
But we'll see what the buy rate is.
The buy rate is going to be low.
I do think they added some things this week that's going to help the buy rate.
The show's going to be great.
The show is going to be great.
But you know what I'm sad about?
You know what I'm sad about?
What's that?
Shane Taylor, man.
I love Shane Taylor, man.
More props, man.
I think he needs to be on TV more.
I think he's legit.
I think he reminds me, I think he has a great match with Samoa Joe.
Because Samoa Joe, man, his promos are so real, man.
I love his promos.
I know we're going to get into collision at some point.
I love his promos.
He just comes across like a legit badass.
He looks like a legit badass.
Shane Taylor, and I hate when people do this to us, right?
Shane Taylor is like the black version of Samoa Joe.
Because he's a big guy who speaks very believable promos, has a very aggressive style.
Can't go, right?
He is like a traditional wrestler, quote unquote, right?
But it seems like he was just kind of thrown out there.
Now, if you watch ROH and you're spending 10 bucks a month or whatever it is to watch
ROH, maybe you're kind of invested in that few, but for the vast majority of us, I don't
think the big audience at A&W knows who this man is for that to be a buying point for the
show.
That's a match that because we're going to be in attendance, I'm really excited for.
And I know Shane Taylor, but that's a match that if I'm on the fence on buying the pay
for you, that ain't going to move the needle for me.
But that's how I feel about a lot of these matches.
The eight man tag, the Bullet Club gold, FTR and bucks.
The match is going to be fantastic.
Well that has high profile guys in it at least.
It does, but that's still not a match where I would say I got to buy the pay for you for
it.
When that bell rings and the match is over, we're going to be like, damn, they did it.
That was great.
But it's not going to be.
No, no, no, no.
I probably would.
If you're talking about FTR and Young Bucks teaming up, I probably would buy that pay
for view.
You can get some guys for that.
Not coming off of all in for me.
Not coming right off of all in.
I'm not saying not for me particularly, but I could see me being somebody who said, oh
my God, Young Bucks and FTR teaming up.
Like last was a dynamite.
They tried to shake his hand and they left off.
And then last night, Young Bucks tried to shake FTR's hand and FTR left out.
That would get me to buy it.
Maybe not Rodizia.
I agree with you, Rodizia.
Somebody would.
I think that's what they're going for too is to dream match quote unquote them teaming
together.
I think that's what they're going for.
But damn, what if they kind of built towards this?
Right?
What if we have like a bill, a proper bill to this team versus something they kind of
threw together the day before the show, right?
Hours before the show, I guess.
Yep.
And we'll talk our Wednesday pod to be a lot of all out review.
I don't want to talk too much of all out now because a lot of times about you guys watch
listening shows already over.
Last thing on punk and then we can move on.
Oh, we didn't answer your question.
I asked the question.
Yeah.
What was your question?
Did you see seeing punk back in WWE?
I'm going to stick to it and say, no, I do want to say one thing because I give him so
much, so much heat.
I think when punk left WWE in the way that he did and how he left, I think when he, however
he rectified that whole situation in his mind, he said to himself, I will never ever let
a company do this to me again.
So that's probably where I felt like maybe he had a chip on his shoulder going into AEW.
It was something that he heard a lot of buzz about.
He heard Tony was a good guy, so he went to go over there.
And then anytime something came up that he didn't like, he's like, nope, I'm going to
nip that shit in the bud right now.
I'm not going to go through what I went through before.
So it kind of calloused him.
So I do want to give him, not props, but I want to give him, let him know or kind of,
I understand maybe why he was a little more hardened, maybe why he probably is a little
more petty, why he's a little bit more, no, I'm going to give him a little bit more of
a, I'm going to give him exactly what I want because I pretty much was in hell and misery
at WWE.
I would never let that happen again.
But to answer your question, no, I do not want to see him in WWE.
I didn't want to see him back in AEW.
Let him find something else that he wants to do.
If you want to create his own company, his own show, do something with his wife in wrestling,
go for, but no, he can't work for somebody else.
He has to be his own, the boss himself.
Oh, you had some, you, I thought you were going to say something.
Yeah, no, I do.
But go ahead and get it off.
Go ahead.
Go ahead and get it off.
He, well, he knows he can't pull this in WWE.
This wouldn't even be a thing.
None of this would be a thing.
That ain't, that ain't happening there.
And he knows that he knows that.
So then he shouldn't go, then he shouldn't go.
No, but I think if you look at it from his perspective, he could be so frustrated with
the immaturity of the company to say to your, to your boss, I hate this place.
And then I'm going to work a match afterwards and a great match.
The disdain you must have.
And we don't have to belabor the point.
We talked about it though.
Even last night when the bucks did come made to save Matt Jackson did like a run around
the ring and you could perceive that as, Oh, that's like a victory lap.
Cause punk's gone.
He did it in Chicago.
There was just so much bubbling under the surface here that you can look at that as
punk and be like, I hate this place, man.
Like they're immature.
They don't know how to do business.
I didn't see that.
Hey, you say your boy cash with the Wakanda, right?
You saw your boy cash.
Will it was like, yeah, I'm going to hit that for you.
Do you say he left too?
Right.
You say he left right afterwards?
Second.
You said cash left right afterwards.
You saw him in the, getting in the car after the show.
That was the beginning of the show.
That was the beginning.
We got to the, we got to the building super late.
We got to the building like six 40.
I built time of course for collision was at seven central time.
And Matt is like, that's cash.
And I'm pulling into like the parking lot.
I was like, whatever dude.
He's like, no, he always thinks somebody looks like somebody like that's like his thing.
Anybody he's ever seen.
He's like, Oh, doesn't he look like Drake?
Oh, doesn't he look like whoever.
So he said, I was like, yeah, I'm like, sure, Matt, the show starts in 20 minutes, but
cash willer is over.
He's like, no, I'm serious.
So we get out the car.
We bark, we walk and I don't know, I don't know if it was an Uber or what, but he gets
in the back seat of this car and they're driving.
I'm like, well, I know he's not booked to work tonight.
He didn't have any bags with them, but it was 100% him.
So I don't know where he went before the show, but he showed up.
Oh, he went to go load up.
He went to go load up.
Oh, we, Oh, y'all fire punk.
Okay.
I'll be right back.
That's crazy.
Um, but no, I think, sorry.
Uh, phone calls will be made from WWE or from CM Punk to WWE and we'll see how that plays
out.
But I do know for a fact, there are people in WWE that does not want him there.
High profile talent that do not want him there.
That's a shoot.
So Triple H always talks about what's best for business.
Is it best for business to keep him away from WWE or is it best for business to have him
come into WWE?
But there will be conversations for sure on that front, but I can guarantee we won't have
to worry about any of this type of stuff happening if he went to WWE.
Last thing on punk and then we can move on.
Uh, Wade Keller had a PW torch update and this is really interesting.
Says here, there's more about the CM Punk situation that has not gotten out yet and
could come up at some points.
Keller talked about the incident between punk and con that Tony only told people about.
He said, my understanding is that there was something behind a closed door also that may
come out or may not, depending on how all this plays out.
When punk quit and shoot out Tony, there was an element of that, that was not in front of
dozens of people that others have said they're trying to get confirmation on, but I'm confident
in based on my sourcing, which I won't get into.
I think there's other elements other than it was just monitors.
The closed door incident is separate from what happened in front of witnesses as was
described on the internet.
So if you let way tell it, there was another piece of this and maybe that is where Tony
con states that he felt like his life was in danger.
See and when he said life is in danger, I thought he meant like death threats of like
fans.
I didn't know he meant like literally.
Oh no, no, no, no.
He was on ball back stage.
Yeah.
Wow.
You know what?
I think there might be some HR terms to that.
Cause I, to be honest with you, I was involved in a situation to where, uh, there was somebody
who left a job, right?
And they had source that, Hey, I feel that they say my life was in danger.
It's just something about my personal securities is risks or something of that nature.
And we're like, what the hell?
Like, ain't nobody going to go beat your ass.
Nothing like that.
What's going on?
Right.
But that's that one phrase allow that team member to leave and not be held accountable.
It's like, it's one of those terms to where you, if you say this, my life is in danger
or my life, you, you have, it gives you liability or it doesn't give you the ability to make
a certain action.
So at the end of the day, who knows, but I'll say the answer to the question about if punk
can go to WWE, I 100% agree with you, Matt.
This stuff would happen in WWE.
Cause they have a strong leadership and support staff there that wouldn't allow him to get
that way.
Right.
Cause we, they have a plenty of people who don't get along there.
Right.
There's a Charlotte and Becky got into an incident.
Right.
That was the, the probably the biggest beef that we knew of in their recent memory.
Right.
But you saw that live on the raw.
Oh yeah.
Real life.
Yeah.
We saw that live and they worked like another match in this week.
Right.
And it was kind of like, all right, it's put the bed.
Right.
So, but I do remember, you know, punk saying that, you know, WWE took his joy of wrestling
from him.
Right.
And he thought that wrestling for WWE was more of a job.
And prior to that, it was fun.
Right.
So that has to be in his back of his mind as well, that this company took so much of
the joy away from a career that he loved.
Right.
And he thought he was going to regain that in AEW.
And he did.
And he did for a short time, right.
Until it hit the fan.
Um, and I think Rodizia is a hundred percent correct that, you know, he felt that, Hey,
in this moment, I took these things from WWE.
I was putting situations that they want to be in.
Never again am I going to have, let somebody put my back against the wall.
And that hardened him to the situation.
But at the end of the day, he should be more professional and more mature to be able to
navigate through those waters.
Period.
And I think if he were to go to WWE, he would have the leadership and structure in place
that would, that would let him, um, splash out like that.
Right.
And if he did, it'd be consequences.
And he would know that firmly before he signed with the company.
And there you go, and you know why he knows it because you ain't top dog here.
Right.
You're one of the top dogs.
Yep.
Roman Reigns, the top dog.
This is Roman's place.
This is Roman's house.
Cody Rhodes.
This is Cody Rhodes' new house.
You know what I'm saying?
Like you can't, you can't get, you ain't getting on no press conference after Royal Rumble
with, with a Triple H sitting there doing anything like you did.
No, Taker, Taker will take him out.
Not Taker, I'm sorry.
Triple H should take him out.
Yeah, that's not good.
He knows it.
Once again, Triple H is totally, and this is no slight to Tony Khan, right?
Um, but if CM Punk was sitting next to Triple H and he was trying to have that same kind
of conversation during that scrum, Triple H would not let that, that fly.
No, that would not happen.
It wouldn't happen.
But to be fair, Triple H has been around the business 30 plus years.
Tony Khan is only now going on his fourth year or fifth year as he'll learn from this,
you know, and hopefully nothing like this ever happens again.
Hopefully for us outside of Wednesday, because we know if let the internet tell it, we're
going to be able to dissect Punk's speech or statement and we can have that conversation
on Wednesday's pod.
Hopefully for us, unless we're talking about after that, oh man, Punk can sign the WWE.
The Punk conversation like this is gone.
This is not.
Hey, I wouldn't mind it though, Matt.
I wouldn't mind, I wouldn't mind seeing them back in WWE.
Cause I kind of, cause I kind of feel like he like, all right.
So he had his last match was at with, with Samoa Joe, which like, I didn't know anything
and anything was going on after watching that match.
Right.
So he had a great match.
He won the match, but as a fan, like he can't go out like that.
Right.
I need him to go out in a positive manner.
Even if he has like a short term contract with WWE, like maybe it's a six month contract,
maybe it's a year contract.
Like they have some parameters.
He gets to work with certain talent, et cetera.
And then he leaves the business in a positive note and maybe he has such a great experience
that he stays around long enough.
Right.
Because at the end of the day, Hogan left the company under extremely bad terms, came
back.
Warrior came back a thousand times.
Like, right.
Sable.
Oh, Brett is the biggest one.
Right.
Sable.
Like Sable.
Like Goldberg.
Oh, I know these guys.
Goldberg.
These guys always, because the only person that didn't come back, you know, Guy Rizzo
as Macho Man Randy Savage.
And we never find out what, we never knew what the real beef was between Vince and he.
Right.
So do y'all think it was because he slept with Stephanie?
I think we know who it was from.
Were they smoking or fire?
What it is or no?
I'm going to say yes.
And there's a big age gap between the two of them.
I mean, that man will be in jail though, because she was a minor at that time.
I'm guessing not, because that never came up.
I don't know how the math would work.
That was a rumor.
Right.
But she was, she was, she, she had been a minor back then.
In 93?
Yeah.
Whatever that was.
A minor?
Under the age of 16?
Yeah, she had been like 15.
Yeah.
She had at least been like maybe 16, maybe.
16 is a consent age.
Depends on the state though.
Hmm.
Interesting.
But that was, that was the big rumor.
That was like, that's why he wouldn't, he never came back.
All right, let's move on.
Let's have some fun with the payback.
So we talked about the show and I, I jokingly called it In Your House because it was one
of those shows that I felt like just from a car perspective, it was a missable show.
We said, Hey, we knew that the work would be good.
It's so WWE, PLL, the work is going to be good in the ring.
Did the show for you earn the name payback or are we still calling it In Your House?
I got to be honest with you guys.
I was really surprised.
I really enjoyed the show.
Okay.
So you said, I got to be honest with you.
So did it mean you've lied for the last 40 minutes on the pod or?
It's been a couple, it's been a couple of caps, a couple of caps.
But a couple of caps, but this was a really great show.
I didn't think I would enjoy it.
I thought it was a great show starting with the Becky and Trish match.
Guys, they put on a nice little match.
Hold on a second.
You know what I got to do.
I just got one question.
Becky Lynch, Trish Stratus.
Where the hell has this been for the last five months?
Oh my God.
They saved it off his match.
Boy, did they kill.
How clean was the match bro?
Super seated expectations.
I knew the match would be okay to good.
I'm like, I didn't, I just the blow off.
It has to be.
I'm like, it just has to be man.
We are talking about a legit match of the year candidate, a legit match of the year
candidate.
Oh my God.
That's the spot where Trish was hanging off the top of the cage and her head's like, oh
my God.
Like, you know, like man, like just as the skill it took for her to hang there and not
fog, you know, if she, someone could have went to ride, she would have fell right on
her head.
And then you're talking, and then you transition that into the superplex.
They did it.
I love the Zoe Starks interference and it didn't cost Becky the match.
And now they made my girl Trish is by herself.
Hey, let me ask you, hold up Matt.
Was that the best superplex you've ever seen?
What's up there?
Was it up there?
Uh, no, I've seen some incredible ones.
Uh, Orton has given some incredible ones.
Sean has given some incredible ones.
I mean, no, it's not one of the best ones, but it was, it was very impressive.
It was very impressive.
Rene's is, I think you may be out on an island.
You say you don't think it was match of the year.
I do not think it was match of the year.
I thought it was an incredible match.
When you say match of the year candidate and the reason, okay, let me take that back.
The reason why I don't think it is for me, just because the first few minutes did start
off very slow and looking back at the entire match, it probably was just their fill in
a mouse, probably Trish's way of telling the story.
Hey, we're going to build up to it.
Cause once they took off, they took off.
I give that match an A plus, but again, I'm not going to say match of the year.
Cause in the beginning few minutes of the match, I was like, Oh, I was a little worried
because a lot of Becky took a lot of beating Trish didn't get any interactive with the,
with the Latin, the ladder, the cage at all.
So I was worried in the beginning that this was going to be just what I thought they were
going to do.
But then when they picked up, it definitely picked up the old Majas they did to Victoria
and to Lita.
I thought it was great storytelling.
So I thought it was a really great match, not match of the year candidate, just because
I was worried in the very beginning.
Yeah.
I don't know about match.
I can't argue with somebody.
I don't know about a match of a match of a year.
I don't know about that, but it was a really good match though.
It was probably one of the better women's matches that I've seen in some time.
Cause I was invested.
And so full disclosure, when he, when this came on, I'm like, all right, this is modding
time for me.
I'm putting on, you know, something pop up.
I'll take a couple of notes here and there.
This is modding time.
It's just kind of background noise, but I literally stopped what I was doing at some
point.
I'm not sure when I did.
I'm not sure what I was doing.
And I had my full attention on this match from start to finish.
I was fully invested in it.
And I haven't been felt that way in a full women's match in quite some time, especially
for these, these gals.
Cause I wanted more out of the show, out of their feud, I should say.
I just felt like no treasure's a hill.
I felt she was doing a great job.
I'm a fan of Becky.
I think Becky looks the best she's ever looked.
I had a lot of high hopes for the few.
Um, and as Matt and I talked about previously, like, look, we're looking forward to this
thing being over.
So for me to get full of investments, this match was really something for me.
Great, great match.
Best women's match by far since Charlotte and Rhea at WrestleMania, night one, we know
that, uh, are we going to assume we're going Zoe Trish next?
I was, I was, I called it.
I was right on Becky and Tiffany and I am so here for that.
So here for that.
Tiffany looks just like a star.
That's going to be really good.
That's going to escalate like her, um, development and being able to come up on the main roster
and actually stay there and be in, just develop more into her role.
Being able to have Becky there with her.
You're driving more reviewers to NXT.
You want to make NXT even better with Becky being there.
I think that that is a beautiful call.
Because this right now, there's nothing really else for Becky to do on the main roster on
Raw.
Uh, so do you think you guys think it's Zoe and Trish?
It gotta be like immediately, or do we see Trish gone for a while and or what?
While I think is relative, but I don't even know the name of Zoe's move.
I don't want to call it the go to sleep, but she made Trish like go to bed bad because
that was nasty at the end of last night.
Um, man, my girl all laid out and I'm just sitting here like, we see Trish for a while.
She could still like when seeing her later, like I was a hold on.
What y'all trying to say?
Yeah, like that, that move was sick.
Like she, Zoe was like, I apologize afterwards, but you about to eat all of this.
All of it.
That's the way you take it.
Everybody, everybody in the locker room, because that move has not really been taken the best
since Zoe's been on the main roster.
That's how you take it.
Yeah.
Cause I'm like, wow.
Like that's, she, I thought it was a whole different move.
Cause I'm like Zoe's saying like the best move I've ever heard.
Like, you just got to get her get back on that for sure.
For sure.
Again, relative as far as soon I within by the end of October.
Yeah.
So within a few weeks, I think so.
Oh, okay.
What do you think is next for Trish?
Do you go on Zoe?
I'm not, I don't know if Zoe is over enough now for a few to be in a few with Trish.
Cause I think that, I think it would be better.
And my hope is more for Trish to kind of go away for a second and come back.
Right.
And maybe getting a few with someone else.
I think, I think they need to kind of get away from the three of them and let them kind
of do their own thing.
Get some momentum back.
I'm not, I'm not really the interest in seeing a face Zoe.
Same.
Yeah.
I don't, I don't want to see a face Zoe.
And actually I don't want to see them few right now.
To me, it felt like her hitting her with her finish last night was the period of that.
Yeah.
Hopefully that's, that's why I was hoping.
You said she ended Trish.
Yeah.
I hope, man, I hope not.
Trish got a lot of, hey, thank you Trish.
Thank you.
Thank you for everything.
Thank you Trish.
You did that.
I was mad.
I was, I was getting mad because I was like, she better not take another move off the top.
But remember last night I was like, Trish, don't do it.
You did it once already.
He's grabbing the pot.
Thank you.
Thank you Trish.
Thank you.
I'm like, don't do it.
Don't do it again, Trish.
Don't do it.
Please.
Do you, you've shown that you can go, you can do a steel cage match.
What's next?
Hey, so let me, real quick, is this yes or no real quick?
Was this the, the best, was this the best women's match of the year?
Again, what Matt said about Rhea, I mean, Charlotte, that was at Mania, that was pretty
epic.
I don't know.
Try between those two.
If they argue, then I can argue.
Outside of...
Bianca had a fantastic match earlier this year.
I can't remember who it was against.
Her and Eel was really fun at backlash.
Yeah, that was a good match.
It's top two or three.
I think it might have been my top.
But speaking of top guys or top guy, Sean Seen is back.
Right. We had him as the host of Payback.
It was funny.
When he came out, I was like, dude, you're like 20 minutes too late, man.
You should have started the show.
You should have started the show as the host, right?
Edie's coming out and I'm the host.
Like, man, look, we already got a match in.
Like, dude, we just...
I didn't think that was weird.
I'm like...
You should have introduced the show, right?
Like in a video package or something, but we didn't get to see him.
But we saw, of course, why, because it led to him referring to Miz.
But when he came out, I was like, dude, uh-uh, this is late.
I'll tell you what was funny, though.
And it like legit popped me.
I laughed pretty hard when he told Miz, you still got it.
Once again, I'm guessing, especially those two guys,
they're not talking over word for word, their promo in the back.
They're gonna go out there, we're gonna set the match up.
And for him just to like laugh and kind of say like, you still got it.
I thought that was really good.
Before we get to, before we get to, before we get to LA Night and Miz
wrestling, let's rewind 48 hours ago to the promo battle of Miz and
LA Night on SmackDown.
LA Night, everybody knows I am a massive LA Night fan.
You're not, you are not disguising anything with me, sir, with your line
to Marissa about if you can't take care of her, she can call me, whatever
that line was, you are not using that line to show the real that Miz gave
it to you and handed you your ass again on the microphone.
But that was all you could do.
And I thought it was even clearer on Friday that Miz smoked him than it was
the first time and I thought Miz smoked him.
And there's nothing wrong with losing a promo battle to the Miz on the
microphone.
Miz is one of the best talkers we've ever seen in wrestling, but he got him again.
And I was like, this is really, really interesting because the Miz is making
him work, man.
He is really, really making him work and he is pushing him.
So I just wanted to bring that up.
What did you guys think about their promo exchange on SmackDown?
You nailed it.
Once you got to talk about somebody's mom or wife, it's usually like you kind
of concede a defeat at that point.
Cause that's the only other thing I can say.
That's the last thing I have my back of dricks to say, okay, well, your wife
can call me if she needs me.
But I think I said this from the gate.
Like I don't know if, well, I haven't seen Eli Knight on this level, right?
But I don't know if he's a battle rapper, right?
Like, like he, like, you know, you got them good, them dudes that can make a
nice song and you know what I'm saying?
They can come out a couple of hits, but then you got them battle rappers.
And I don't think Eli Knight is a battle rapper.
Like Miz is.
Miz been doing this for a long ass time.
So of course he's going to eat him up and he's been doing this for a long time.
He's going to eat them up and he's been doing this at the highest stage for at
least what like Miz has been out here.
Is it 10 years now?
Way longer than that.
Well, I mean, I mean, like in the, like, you know, he, when he won the, I feel
like that run he had to the championship.
The first time is when that's when I count Miz as being like that guy.
So then you're talking at least 13 years because that was Maynia 28
with Ben and Cena.
What year was that?
Rock as the host.
That was 28.
So we're on 40 now this year.
So whatever year that was.
Um, so he came in as a champ.
So you're talking maybe even maybe a year before that.
So to your point, I mean, he's been doing it a decade plus at the highest,
highest level and, um, you can see the gap.
You can see, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it was so funny, me going
on social media and watching everybody just gravitate to the Maurice line.
I'm like, he may have y'all food.
He ain't got me food because the Miz gave it to him.
And then you see last night with Cena and then after Cena told him, like,
you still got it, it was another line that, uh, Miz hit Cena with.
I was like, damn man, like Miz is really good on the microphone.
He's really, really good.
Yeah.
Great.
So what y'all think of the package?
I just want to talk about the end of the match.
So if y'all want to talk about the middle of the match first, go for it.
I thought the match was, uh, was better than I thought it would be.
Cause like, you know, we talk about putting respect on Miz's name.
He doesn't have bad matches.
Um, but I feel like most of the time for me, his matches are just there.
He has that certain style that's okay for me.
Like, right.
I don't, it's, you know, I don't want to say it's borderline skippable at times
for me, and I feel like, I feel like LA night is wrestles that same type of style.
They wrestled this very, I don't know what to call it.
It's a very, very WWE style, slow pace.
You know, it's deliberate is what it is.
Yeah.
I, yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's deliberate.
It's a deliberate methodical style match.
The match was a little bit longer than I thought it needed to be.
Yeah.
Um, not that it drug, I thought the match was good.
I thought it was fine.
Yeah.
I thought it was fine.
It was really solid.
It did what it needed to do.
Um, it was funny because there's a point in the match for watching it.
And you guys may remember, so they're outside the ring.
LA night hits Miz with like a clothesline off the barricade and then he sticks his
poles and he sticks it for like five seconds and Lil Matt's like, man, he must think this
is like a TV match.
That's a go to commercial spot.
And I laughed for like three minutes because it looked just like a commercial, hey, he
hits it and we go to commercial for three minutes.
And then right after that was with him and Cena went face to face.
I was like, oh shit, he's throwing away his entire face run.
Cause he thinks they're not on TV.
Cause he does think this is a TV match.
He's so not used to wrestling on pay-per-view.
He thought it was a TV match.
And then when they come back from TV in his minds, when he started to come back, I just
thought that was hilarious.
Cause he did see he stuck that pose for a very long time.
Like no lie, no lie.
Cause when I came back from the bathroom, you was like, oh, just so you know, we just
came back from commercial break.
You told me the whole story.
That was so funny, man.
But we know, so LA night wins.
I did think the other part that was funny, everything that was not supposed to be entertaining
was entertaining.
Don't steal my thunder, Matt.
Don't steal my thunder.
We know Cena is very loud when it comes to calling spots.
And LA night had to tell Miz a few times from spots.
It was one time Miz was like, huh?
It was the spot where Miz shoots or an LA night shoots Miz into the corner.
And then LA night supposed to go kind of over the top of him.
It was a little, go back and watch it.
You'll see it.
But he tried to call that spot twice.
He said it one time, Miz didn't hear it.
He says it again.
He shoots a man, a little bit of a snafu there, but I die laughing at that too.
I was like, this is hilarious and fantastic for all the wrong reasons.
What would you have done if John Cena had called it for him?
Like, he said it to go over.
We all know Cena's the loudest talker in the history of wrestling.
If you are in the building, you typically can hear the spot that Cena's calling.
Cena is super loud.
And he has no care in front of his face to cover it or anything.
You just hear all of it.
Body drop, stay down.
Shout to Cena, man.
And then the last thing, I don't know where it is if you're going to say it or not.
Yeah, do not steal my thunder.
Take it.
I love, if I could get it out, I loved seeing a damn near killed Miz at the end of the match.
So I don't know if y'all paid attention because the camera worked.
It was a little bit, Cena pushed the shit out of Miz out the ring.
So much so he had to hurry up and get out the ring to apologize to him.
Because he wanted it to be LA Night spot so he can have the limelight.
But when he pushed the shit out of him, little Matthew, or little Matt was like,
wait, what just happened?
Like he tried to kill Miz.
Oh my God.
That was, man, that was so funny.
So yeah, the end of the match.
This is now the time of LA Night to hit the ropes and you get the big pop and you get
the awesome camera shot.
And typically that's a camera shot of just the person in the ring.
Miz didn't get out the ring fast enough.
Cena pushed the shit out of Miz.
And then you see Cena go over to Miz afterwards.
I'm sure he was like, my bad, man.
But this is LA Night's shine.
This is his time.
I had to get you out the ring.
But you would have thought, man, it was a real rumble or something the way he pushed
him out.
Oh my God, man.
That was so funny.
And then Cena, of course, gives him the shout at the end in the ramp where they go face
to face and they shake hands and tells him it's his moment.
I thought that was really cool.
But hey, this is your moment.
And then Cena walks out.
But man, Cena is just so over the top.
Even the way Cena grabs his hand and then points to him.
It's like Cena kill, dude.
Cena is the absolute goat of just putting everything over the top.
And that's why he's where he's at now.
But I could have stopped watching after this match.
Now it would have been a night of entertainment.
You're perfectly fine.
I could have put the bed.
Like for real though, like for real for real.
At the end, right when LA Knight goes into the corner to do his thing after he wins,
that's when the camera went back to the ring and you see Miz laying on the ground.
That was after the fact he got pushed out.
Cena was like, oh shit, let me go check on him.
Now if you go back and watch it, you're going to have a new found laughter about that whole
moment because he literally.
Oh my God, man.
Hey, do you guys think this is over?
What?
He beat him clean.
I don't know why.
Yeah, I don't know why you need to go back to it.
And that's what I was looking at thinking about too.
He beat him clean with his finish.
Time to move on.
Because there's a lot of back and forth with Cena, Miz and Knight they can kind of go back to.
Okay, so let me ask you this then.
Why do you think, what was the point of that?
They went face to face twice, Cena and LA Knight.
Why would you do that when he's arguably your hottest wrestler?
Well, not arguably, he is your hottest wrestler.
Not maybe the most popular, but he's your hottest wrestler right now.
Why have him go face to face with the legend Cena who's a face right now here only back
for a few weeks?
What's the point?
You know, it may not be a Cena versus LA Knight feud they might be going for.
They might be looking for a team up.
Right?
Okay, which I mean, anything that can help.
And I'm sure Cena is probably like, who can I help elevate while I'm here?
Yeah.
Right?
Because like the face to face is what's tripping me out.
Cause I'm like, yeah, face to face who was that will kind of fans like that will hinder
him a little bit.
Right?
But maybe, maybe we get Cena and Knight together versus Miz and somebody else.
Maybe it's Waller, right?
You know, I like that.
Maybe theory comes back because theory has a major beef.
He killed his career.
He didn't even import theory.
Wasn't that the next match?
That's the next match.
I led you right to it, baby.
Man, I'm sure theory was like, dude, you could put LA Knight over like that.
You couldn't put me over.
Anytime down.
Well, this match I didn't care much about.
What y'all think about Ray and LA?
Yeah, like Ray won.
I checked out.
I checked out on this one.
Did you have anything in Rhodesia?
The only thing I have was, which was noticeable, Austin did Russell with a little bit more
intensity to the point where I felt like I was watching a little bit in fast forward,
like a 1.2 fast forward.
There was some time it was just a little bit more tighter, more like his suplex is more
like a snap suplex to Ray.
So I thought he wrestled faster and with more intensity, which I liked.
But overall, again, I really didn't care either.
But I thought it was, I thought it was a good match, actually.
But he just moved faster.
And that's something that I found interesting.
I don't know what, what that means.
If maybe he thought he had to go faster with somebody like Ray, or if he's trying to prove
that I can go something to himself.
I don't know.
But I did notice that.
I don't have anything for this match.
It was what it was.
Just whatever.
I don't know what's next for theory.
Yeah.
You know, there's a couple of different things they can do with Ray.
When LA, when LW came out with Ray, I was like, okay, well, they're not turning it around.
They're not turning it tonight.
Because then that just wouldn't make sense.
But what's next for theory?
He is so miscast, man.
They showed him, well, he actually put it up on Twitter, which maybe he's about to turn
face, but he actually put up a video yesterday, a couple hours before payback, of him meeting
some kids.
He said, meet and greet.
And like, dude, seems like the nicest guy in the world.
That's sweetheart.
Playing with the kids and doing the eight-town down.
That's the guy that evidently you are.
Because that is not translating to a star on television right now.
And you look at him and say, dude, this guy has everything.
He's got the total package.
He's got the looks.
He's got the physicality.
He just, he doesn't come across as who he's supposed to be on TV as being that person.
So maybe a face turn comes.
There was an interesting camera shot of him after the match.
Of like disappointment.
So maybe, maybe we see him turn.
I don't know, but yeah, from a, from match, it was cool.
Was what it was.
We can move on.
If y'all don't have anything else.
Hey, I wouldn't mind seeing him team up with maybe Waller.
They can have a, they have similar characters.
They had an RA chemistry last week.
Yeah.
On Friday, Friday night.
Yeah.
I tweeted.
I was like, look, is a Grayson Waller and a guy that, or no, I was like awesome theory
and the guy that does awesome theory better than awesome theory.
That's what I think about.
That's what I think about Grayson Waller, man.
I think he's a better Austin theory in every, in every way.
Before we leave Austin theory, I think like back when I, when I first met him or was introduced
to Austin theory, it was an involved and he was a bad guy.
And I remember how great of a bad guy he was.
I just think it's time for him to take that next step in his career development.
And I actually will be all there for a face Austin theory.
I think, like you said, he has, he looks great.
He has everything that if you had to make them in the shop, boom, this could be your
face of the company.
Maybe not the number one face, but I can absolutely see him being a big face within the company.
And I'll be there all for it too.
He was, he was with Priscilla Kelly and they were money together.
Yeah.
And Evol.
Yeah.
And I think maybe that's probably why he, Sina probably when he told him at Mania,
you know, you not a heel.
That's probably what he whispered to him.
So that's probably just if we fast forward now.
We don't believe you.
Yeah.
You need to be a face.
You know, you a face stop acting this like this.
He'll you a face it.
And it takes so much more to be a good face than it is to be a bad guy.
We know that it's easy to say, Oh, forget you crowd and get a reaction versus actually
coming another way with it.
It's incredible.
And it's hard to make a good face.
We all know that I don't need to bore y'all with that, but if we can get Austin theory
to be a baby face, I will be there for it.
I had to see it guys.
I'm not necessarily here for that.
But you know what I was here for was that a street fight.
It's still city street fight for the WWE champion, tattoo championships.
What a mess that was guys.
Goodness.
What a match.
Tell me, man.
Well, give me, give me, give me your impressions on this match, man.
So you guys remember I said, I really looking forward.
This is match.
I know the match is going to be great, but I really don't care just because
Bob a block center, et cetera.
They made me care.
And the match also exceeded expectations and I knew it will be good.
That was.
That was the most hardcore match we've seen from WWE in years.
And take out Dom with his shoot elbow to KO and splice them right open.
KO looked like he was in a scary movie from that, that cut open.
Yep.
Yeah.
It was, it was a clean elbow, of course by mistake, but that just shows like with
those elbow strikes, how easy it is to split somebody open because the KO knew it immediately.
As soon as he did, he touched himself to look and crimson mask as they are used to say on KO.
Surprised by the finish.
I was only be, I was surprised only because I thought the chaos Sammy tag team run with
the titles was very underwhelming.
That's why.
And I'm like, okay, they need like a staple win before they dropped the titles.
And that didn't happen.
Judgment day.
We talk about it a lot, man, but imagine where these guys were a year ago, a year and a half ago.
And now they are walking out of a pay-per-view. Everybody has a title.
You gotta love that.
You have to love that.
And they all deserve it too.
They all absolutely deserve it.
But man, that match, I could see somebody saying that that was their match of the year.
Yeah.
Not, not mine.
Cause I still think, yeah, I still think maybe the steel cage match was better than that.
I would have to go back and watch maybe.
Hmm.
And it's like, you know, like, I don't know, but they did that.
Those two were the matches of the card for sure.
Two words from our recap of that match.
Beautiful chaos.
You know what you get what is like, what was it called?
The steel city street fight or whatever it's called.
You know, when those type of gimmick matches, which you're going to get, you're going to
get a lot of chaos, you're going to get a lot of spots, a lot of interference.
Everything was produced so well.
They even had a costume change.
So somebody like me, I love that.
I'm like, hold on, you over here bleeding out for life and you had enough time to switch
into hockey gear, but just overall beautiful chaos.
And this is when it's done right.
Bravo to all of them.
And the, the spear Rhea did.
Love it.
Man, how good does she look last night?
Her old China, she did China well.
She is man.
Yeah.
As I started off great tag team match.
And of course I love the ending, right?
Cause I didn't want to see those guys break up and they got all to go.
We talked about them having all to go before.
Like, yo, this, this, these guys, they need to have all the gold to be as dominant of
a fashion as they seem to be.
Right.
Cause they're all over the place.
Great match.
Um, man, and they had so, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I
felt like it was a great ending because I felt like, man, they had so many runs.
And they were overcoming the run ins one after another, one after another, like,
oh, they're like, this Sammy's going to do this.
Sammy's gonna, gonna win this and fans going to lose again.
Right.
It's about to be over for these guys, man.
Take the L out of, out of love is over baby.
And here comes dirty down out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere.
Right.
Cause I didn't even see them coming.
Boom.
With the money in the money in the bank briefcase.
Right.
The first time that damn thing won, I mean, uh, won the match for him,
cracked him over the head, paint them one, two, three out of there.
Man, I don't know who produced that match.
I forgot who produced the women's match.
Um, so kudos to them, but whoever came up with that finish.
Bravo to your point.
Now it was such a smart, logical.
Finish.
Uh, and then I loved Finn's reaction when he comes to, and he's just like,
what happened?
We won.
It was great.
It was awesome.
Um, definitely, definitely worth.
If we weren't paying, you know, $5 for peacock or 10, whatever it is,
if that was a pay-per-view regular $50, I would say, Hey, order the replay for
that match that that's a match worthy of a, even though you know who won,
you gotta go back and see the entire match and how they did it.
I think it may have been Michael Hayes.
Okay.
I think it was Michael Hayes who, who, who laid out that match.
Get incredible.
Okay.
If you think about up until this point, we had a great opener, right?
I enjoyed the interaction with Sina and Miss, you know, and you know,
we, we, we didn't talk about it briefly, but you know, Sina asking, uh, you know,
Miss for, uh, you know, hosting tips.
I enjoyed that the match was, was, was fine.
It was cool.
I could skip the very mysterious match, right?
But then we get this awesome tag team match.
The match itself was great.
Right.
And then for me as a fan, it was a very satisfying ending by up until this point.
I mean, I'm like, this is a great pay-per-view.
So, um, before we move on, what's next for KO and Sammy and then what's next for Judgment Day?
KO and Sammy can go bye-bye for a little bit.
Um, I don't know.
Uh, y'all want everybody to leave.
Y'all want Trish to leave.
No, I didn't.
I want Trish to go after Zoe.
Just for a little bit.
Come back.
Sammy, KO, they can, um, go away for a month.
I don't want to rematch.
I'll tell you that.
I do not want to rematch.
I mean, again, I don't want to rematch.
I don't want to rematch.
I mean, again, that was the exclamation point.
The probable cause for one.
Yeah, but still.
Because they lost because outside interference, but I don't want to see them again.
No.
Right now.
That was a beautiful, um, writing to the end of the story for them.
Let that be.
That was exclamation point.
JD, uh, with Judgment Day?
Gotta be.
Really, is that maybe Monday?
Yeah, gotta be.
Right?
Has to.
When he showed his allegiance.
Yeah.
He took that table spot.
So terrible.
Not yet.
Not yet?
Not yet.
Because he doesn't have a character yet.
We don't know who he is and what he's about yet.
When we started seeing seeds of who, what kind of character he's going to be.
It has to lead to him joining the group or further fractioning, you know,
Finn away from the group to do something else with him, I'm thinking.
It'll be interesting, but I don't think we know who JD is just yet.
But for KO and Sammy, I wouldn't mind just seeing them go away for maybe like a month
and come back and regroup.
You know, like maybe, maybe the, maybe, you know, the, we were invested in the chase for
the championships.
And then once they got the championships, it was kind of, and this happens to a lot
of baby faces in general.
Sure does.
Like, right.
It's like, Hey, we're invested in the chase.
And then once they accomplished the goal, it seems kind of cooled off.
So maybe we can get reinvested into the chase and if they get the championship again, maybe
we'll be more, uh, invested in the, in the championship title matches, because I thought
we might be getting some kind of a street profits and chaos, Sammy type of deal.
And that's something we had to talk about another show too, because it ain't working
for me just yet.
When I'm seeing them guys yet.
Amen.
But we, that's, that's, that's a long conversation, right?
That's a long conversation.
I think we're 90 minutes in right now.
Put that down on Wednesday because amen.
We got to talk about it.
Amen.
Like, and I thought sitting there Friday, I was like, maybe I'm being overly harsh on
Montez, but amen.
He looked great though.
He looked great.
Looks fantastic.
Figure out who you are and please stick to it.
You, what are you?
Are you a face?
Are you a Hill?
Are you a tweener?
You can't come out here looking like a million bucks and being menacing and Bobby hyping
you up and then now you're back to joking and like over the top.
Like, hey, but he went on a, a, a Dawkins was right there with them, man.
But hey, let's, let's, let's put to the side.
We'll talk about it.
We're big fans of those guys.
Right.
But you did mention he, um, Hey, you know, he got the KO and Sammy got the title.
And then it was like, all right, well, hey, the chase a lot of times is better than
when you become a champ.
Cody was up next on the Grayson Waller effect.
And I think they did him perfectly by not giving him the title, but it's just me.
Us.
Day one is it's just me.
Us.
Let's go, Jay.
Let's go.
Main event.
Let's try to make some sense out of this.
I loved it.
I loved the segment, but, uh, there could be some plot holes.
We don't have to go too deep because of what I want to get deep into is the Jimmy
smack down.
But before we get to the Jimmy on smack down, let's talk about Jay Cody.
What'd you guys think about Cody cashing in his political chips
and bringing Jay Uso back to the raw brand?
Surprised.
Cause I thought that Jay was a quick quit, but I guess he just quit smack down.
So there you go.
Well, he also quit WWE, but I thought it was, I thought he quit everything, but then
whatever.
Us.
It's just me.
Us.
Here's the thing though.
You know, um, you know, when you got a contract, you can't just quit.
So he could say, Hey, I'm quitting smack down.
I'm quitting that will be, but they ain't got to give it to them.
So, I mean, that kind of makes sense, but I thought the segment overall worked out,
worked really well.
Um, you know, Cody came out there and acknowledged the common tropes with these type of shows.
Like, right.
Like you expect me to go down to common trouble with these shows are and what we're going
to do.
Right.
And while I had, I don't want none of that.
He's like, I don't want none of that.
I ain't here to fight.
Right.
And then nice, you know, Cody brings out Jay, right.
You know what I did like?
Is that, you know, it wasn't like this big old hug, you know, and smile between Cody
and Jay, right?
Yeah.
Cody, Cody kind of like, yo, man, you, you know, you put me through it, you know, you
can cross me, you cross me my win.
Right.
It was a perfect acknowledgement of the head nod eye contact of, yeah.
Okay.
We good.
Cause even Cody was like, Hey, this may backfire.
This may be a dumb decision, but this is what I decided to do.
I guess now they are going to try to hold this off until mania, Jimmy and Jay.
Okay.
Because now they're, they're keeping them apart.
If you're going to put Jay on raw by himself and Jay's got a major opportunity to prove
his worth as a single star.
That was the first thing I thought.
And then the music, he had that place rocking.
He did.
He had that place rocking.
I'm like, if he can keep that momentum up, that's a big shot in the arm for raw.
That's a big shot in the arm for them.
It's going to be interesting to see now though, like this is the first time he's ever been
away from all of the bloodline.
Cause even when he was hurt, Jimmy went on a singles run years ago, but that was Jimmy.
I don't think Jay's ever had a singles run.
So to be able to see him interact where there is no Roman, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no Jimmy at all, no Heyman.
He is completely by himself.
I think that's going to be a lot of fun.
So I'm down for it.
I can see somebody saying like, Hey, this didn't make sense.
Okay.
I get that too, but I'm all for that.
What I'm not all for though, was Friday we saw on Smackdown.
I got to get your guys thoughts on, I thought Jimmy did fantastic with everything they gave
him, but in every interaction he had on Smackdown, he was made to look like a chump.
I hated that.
And then are we back at square one with him wanting back in or getting back into the bloodline?
I don't know.
I don't know how to answer that one.
I think what it kind of makes sense for him is in one in one regard.
All right.
So Roman is going to be off TV for some time, but he's still going to be on Smackdown, right?
Solo doesn't have the same Roman contract.
So they have to do something with Solo.
So it's kind of natural that there would be some kind of interaction with Jimmy and the
rest of the old group, right?
It's the, they can't even, so the good thing about getting Jay away from Smackdown is that
it's kind of like what they kind of try to do with Ray.
Like Ray like, Hey man, look, I'm leaving raw.
I'm going to Smackdown.
I don't want no parts of Dominic.
That's my family.
We're not doing this.
I'm gone.
Right?
That's kind of what they're doing with Jay.
Jay like, yo, I don't want none of this family drama anymore.
Y'all can have all this, right?
Bring him to raw, different show.
He doesn't have to intermingle with those guys on a consistent basis.
Right?
But Jimmy has to.
He's on Roman's show.
Like Paul Heyman is going to be there.
Solo is going to be there.
And it wouldn't make, I feel like it would insult my intelligence if he didn't interact
with them in some type of way.
I do have a question though, when that, I believe that was Smackdown.
When Solo had said to Jimmy, you're not out of the bloodline till we say you're out of
the bloodline.
I thought they already kicked him out the bloodline or was that Jay that they kicked
out the bloodline?
So he just said about insulting intelligence.
I think this storyline is starting to insult our intelligence because Jimmy was the one
that fired the first shot at Roman with the super kit.
Why are you throwing the one up now?
I mean, it doesn't make logical sense.
You were the reason why this started.
Jay never wanted to break up the bloodline.
You did this.
And then Jay got down with you and said, if you out, I'm out too.
Has the match.
They beat Roman.
Now he goes one on one with Roman.
He loses because of Jimmy's interference.
Jimmy cuts promo said, this ain't about the bloodline.
It ain't about Roman.
Roman, you can go to hell.
It's about my brother.
I ain't want him turning into you.
Jay super kicks him.
Says I'm out of WWE.
Jimmy comes back and now Jimmy wants to be back down with the bloodline because Solo
says, you're not out the bloodline till we say you're out the bloodline.
That doesn't make sense.
As much as this.
Jimmy doesn't want to be part of him.
He said, no, I'm out.
He did until Friday on Smackdown.
Friday on Smackdown.
Wait, no, he said, no, I'm good.
He walked away from Solo.
No, no, no, no, no.
So what happened was they had the face off with me and Jimmy, which Jimmy was fantastic with that.
Then AJ comes to me as the fence and says, hey, we're going to do this thing.
And then Solo jumps AJ.
Yeah.
And then he, and then Solo tells Jimmy, you're not out the bloodline till we say you're out
the bloodline.
Jimmy then helps Solo beat AJ.
He hugs Solo.
Oh, you know what?
I didn't see the end of it.
Yep.
Solo hugs him and then he's about to hit him with the thumb.
He's about to thumb his own cousin.
That's nasty.
Heyman tells him, no, chill out.
Don't do that.
They walk away and Jimmy's throwing the one up in the ring as the show goes off there.
That's not, that's illogical.
We put this storyline over more than any other storyline in the history of wrestling.
We got to call BS when it's time to call BS.
And it feels like they are running in circles now.
If that's the answer to, let's draw this out until WrestleMania to get to Jimmy and Jay.
That's horrible.
That was rough.
That was, I was like, uh-oh, this ain't, this ain't it.
To me, I was just, I was just confused.
So seeing main event Jay on Raw was a surprise, like a pleasant surprise.
What I remember from SmackDown with Jimmy, that was just a little bit, hmm.
Okay.
Unless you have some master plan behind this that my minuscule mind can't figure out quite yet.
I don't get this.
You know what, man, like that's these, it's so many wrestling shows.
I swear to God, I thought I finished the rest of that damn show.
I was like, there's so much wrestling that's on TV.
That's the thing about watching everything, man.
I can swear to God I watched that.
But now that you guys say that, I didn't see the last, the main event match.
I don't know, man.
Look.
That's all you can say, really?
I can't cry, man.
This is, this is, uh-uh.
But you know what, here's the thing.
When I listen to Jimmy's new music, right, which is a remix of Day One, Jay's music is-
This is me, yous.
Jay's is another remix, right?
I love Jimmy's music, though.
But it has like, it has a little bit of a, of a romance.
A little element of it, right, along with it.
Yeah, it's like a little mix.
Yeah, I watched that.
But like these, I like both songs, actually, but it kind of makes me sad, man, because
that's my favorite tag team.
Broke apart.
I'm like, damn, these guys.
And he says, just me?
I'm like, oh, man, just me, yous.
It's just me, man.
I was thinking, you know, ever since SummerSlam, I thought we were getting
yous in every corner.
At Survivor Series, do they maybe switch that to Cody and Jay versus Jimmy and Solo?
Hold on, let's see.
Cody, Jay, Solo, Jimmy.
At Survivor Series?
So that gives us two months, two full months to get there.
Okay.
Yep.
Because again, because we're landing on, we're staying with Cody going against
Roman and Mania, right?
Is that kind of what we're building to?
So yeah, I can see that.
Yeah.
It's very interesting.
You know, Guy Rizzo, I don't know if Bray was going to be the next challenge for Cody
to overcome, but it doesn't seem like Cody has a storyline currently, right?
He's kind of just floating in the wind a little bit.
It'd be interesting if that's what the next step will be for him.
The bloodline whole few thing here, man, for me, it's kind of unwinded a little bit in
a lot of ways.
Like with Jimmy, he obviously turned heel on the crowd because we fully are behind Jay
being a babyface.
We want to see him do well.
And Jimmy kind of comes in and puts a stop to that.
And in some ways, it's a heel move because he's saying he's doing it to help him.
But that's just really a heel who's kind of like, you know, trying to explain their
heelish deeds, right?
So he's a bad guy, right?
The bloodline, they're still bad guys.
So I guess it will be natural that they will kind of find themselves back together again,
because they're both evildoers.
It's just that, I don't know, it's just not necessarily hitting for me, but maybe they
can bring Cody back into it.
We get some Cody and Jay and Jay versus Solo and Jimmy.
That might be interesting, but I don't know, guys.
I'm just kind of like, I want to wait and see.
I'm not as hype on the bloodline storyline as I was like, say, you know, four months ago.
Hell, you can be.
Because we didn't have plot holes like this before.
And I know there's a segment of fans that feel like the bloodline story has not been
as good as we think it has.
Sammy brought a ton to it.
And when Sammy left, it wasn't.
Bloodline story has been fantastic throughout.
It is now at a point where, all right, it's starting to sputter and it's starting to
sputter a little too much.
Make it make sense, please.
I would appreciate it on Smackdown, but you can't make it make sense.
This can't make sense.
That last thing I'm going to say.
Now that he started this entire thing and now he's cool with being back in.
The only way that I could rectify this right now is that they're purposely trying to keep
Jimmy under Jay as far as character and storyline.
That's the only way that this can make sense.
But if you want to bring them at Mania, they need to be the same.
But right now, that's the only way that I can again balance this equation is that
Jay is meant to be a tier A wrestler and you got to build Jimmy to be a tier B.
And that sucks.
Everything like once again, everything he did on Friday was great for him.
He had a really strong promo segment with Cena.
He was great in the backstage segments, but every single segment he was made to look like
a chump and I didn't like that.
It didn't make sense.
He's a heel.
But you also can say he needs the bloodline because look what happened as soon as he
wasn't around the bloodline.
He gets chumped out by Cena.
He gets chumped out by AJ.
You know what I mean?
You could say that Pierce chumps him out, but that's not...
He's worked too hard.
He's been put in too much of a limelight to be one of the top guys in the company for
two years for that to be his solo segment or the first time of us seeing him by himself
with his new music, who he is and that's what happens.
He's super, super dumbfounded.
But has he been built to be anything other than what we're seeing?
He's never been built to be a chump like that.
He just like, he looked like he came across as a chump.
I don't like that.
Yeah, I don't like that at all.
But winding down, we got two matches left.
For me, these were good matches, but I don't really have a lot for them.
We had the Women's World Championship for KO versus Rhea.
What'd you guys think?
I really didn't get to see a lot of this match, unfortunately.
So I was really excited for this match.
It wasn't, I didn't think it was, it was there.
It was cool.
So Rhea, in theory, Rhea, Raquel, Seth and Shinsuke was in your house.
Everything else was payback.
Everything else was a premium live event, full price show.
The last two matches, two meet.
It was solid.
It was just solid.
I knew, I see what they were going for with Rhea and Raquel.
To me, it just didn't make for a great match.
To your point, E, I don't really have much on it.
Rhea wins, of course, feature clean in the middle.
And that was kind of like it.
I was okay.
All right, I was kind of expecting a little bit more, but whatever, no harm, no foul.
And then we get to the main event and it was the same thing.
And I think even the crowd, the crowd was excited.
It was the same thing and I think even the crowd knew there was no chance of Shinsuke winning
because the crowd didn't get up for some of the spots that I thought they would have.
And it was the same thing to me.
It was, that was a really good Raw main event.
That was it.
I love the promo package they show with the cartoon beforehand.
That was killer.
I think the feud is still going after cameras cut, Shinsuke jumped Seth again.
So I'm guessing maybe the feud continues, which is fine, which is okay.
Maybe we get some type of gimmick match or something like that in-
A rubber band match, right?
No, not yet.
We're only two in, pal.
Okay, okay, okay.
But yeah, I just thought the last two matches were just okay.
Same, unfortunately.
Yeah, I did like the ending spot on the women's championship match.
Dirty Dom comes in there, helps save his woman.
Right then Ra'Kael showed her strength that she was able to power slam a grown man,
but that turned into her taking the riptide.
So that was kind of cool.
And great sale by Dom too.
Dom sold out like he got shot.
Oh yeah.
It's good, man. Dirty Dom does a good job, man.
And the tag team, I mean, as you said about the Seth and Naka, I love the video packages.
If they can continue to do video packages like that for Shinsuke, I think they're definitely
will make him more of a credible heel.
It's just that they didn't have enough time to build him into a credible enough challenger
to make you think that, okay, he can take the championship.
That he had a chance to take a championship, exactly.
I think the street match, Seal Cage or Seal City street match, that's a tongue twister.
And I think the Seal Cage match, they just sold the show.
I really feel that way.
So everything else felt like a letdown because I think if we go back to look at those final
two matches, we probably would have given them a B or maybe an A minus, but it was just
what we saw in those other two matches just so super exceeded anything I would have thought
of. That's why I feel this way about the final two matches.
And I think too, the final two matches, we knew Raquel had no shot.
Right.
And then we knew even more that she had no shot when they won the tag titles, judgment
they won the tag titles.
That was almost like an ending pay-per-view shot when they had them and they had everything.
They had all the gold.
And that shot, I'm like, that would be a way you can end this show.
It would have been great if maybe they would have done Raquel and Rhea before the tag match.
Because I told you, I actually saw the matches out of sequence originally.
I saw the tag team match first because of how they did the replay.
So when I saw Rhea come down and do the spear, well, I assumed she already wrestled her match.
Got you.
Yeah.
Right. Because you wouldn't put her on twice like that.
Right?
You wouldn't want to get that initial reaction for her coming out, for her interest in everything.
I would assume that they already did that when she came out.
When she came out, they were like, oh, I'm going to do this.
I assume they already did that when she came out, when she came out and did that spear.
And so then we got that shot with them holding all the gold.
I'm like, yeah, that looks like a finishing shot.
Right.
Then I'm like, then I actually watched the show back in order.
I'm like, oh, she hasn't had the match yet.
Okay, that's interesting.
It's a good spot for them, right?
Co-main event spot.
I get it.
Maybe you don't want to put, this should never be a thing, but maybe you don't want to put
the women's matches too close together so we don't compare.
I don't know.
But when I just knew like, okay, now we know Damien is not going to cash in or even threaten
to cash in the Money Bank for the main event.
For me, that was the hook.
That was the entire hook of that match.
Because I knew Shinsuke wasn't going to beat Seth.
I'm like, well, maybe something happens with the briefcase.
So when the tag team title match happened for me and then you go to the Grayson Waller
effect and we had Jay, if you would have stopped the show right there, for me, I would have
been like, man, the show was probably like eight and a half, nine out of 10 with the
last two matches.
And once again, they were okay.
They were just okay.
I probably have this show at about, I mean, those two matches are really, really strong.
So I would probably still give it maybe about a seven and a half.
From what I saw, I'd probably say an eight.
Yeah, I would give it an 8.5 because like I said, the opener.
So like we think about it, we joked about this being an in your house card prior to
watching it.
So expectations for the show were already kind of low.
And that's really based on the build and the storylines going into most of these matches.
And I think the opener with the women over delivered, right?
I think that then you have the Cena, LA Knight, Miz, very entertaining.
And then you have the tag team match, which is amazing.
Right.
It is definitely in the conversation for a match of the year, at least for tag team
matches.
It definitely would have had to be.
And then we had Cody and Jay, right?
But the last two matches, we knew going into them that they didn't have much behind those
matches, right?
Because Rhea is heads and shoulders better than everybody in that division outside of
Becky and Trish.
But based on their storyline, we haven't been invested in those two women.
So Rhea is a killer.
There's nobody coming close to her and Naka, you just can't make him credible enough of
a title in that short of a period of time.
So we knew that was it.
So I think the card and show over delivered up until those last two matches.
And for me, I was still enough of a positive high to where I was okay with the rest of
it.
So I'll give it probably an 8.5.
Okay, it was funny because I was so high on the show before the last two matches that
I was like in HP Trust.
I said that to myself.
I was like, I got to stop talking about what may not be worth watching and blah, blah.
And then we got to the last two matches.
I was like, okay, no, it kind of came back down to earth.
It came back down to earth a little bit for me with those last two matches.
But if anybody hasn't seen it, absolutely is worth watching the replay on Peacock.
I don't think it's a show outside of Poty bringing out Jay and Judgment Day winning
the tag titles.
It's not a show that's going to be talked about probably again in WWE.
You know what I mean?
Like there's some shows where you keep harkening back to that show.
I think outside of those two things, there isn't much that they'll go back to and revisit
either on commentary or from a maybe like a storyline perspective.
Which is fine.
Yeah, the show itself can be massive.
But a couple matches, yes, like you said.
Yep.
All right, guys.
So man, almost two hours and almost half of that.
Whoo!
Thank y'all for staying and listening.
Yep.
So we will be back on Wednesday.
You guys know, Rhodesia and I will be, of course, at All Out.
So we'll break that down on Wednesday.
We'll talk about the Street Profits.
And I also got a couple other things I want to talk about with you guys.
Do some fun topics that we can get into.
And I have a fun topic to talk about too.
Give us a teaser.
I guess it's not really that fun.
It's just comparing the top women in wrestling compared to the top men in wrestling.
And are they actually better than the men?
We kind of have like this thing because they're a female.
So I like to get you out and put on that.
And that was from Twitter.
That was a Twitter question.
It's a deeper question than what it may seem like on the surface.
Yep.
That may be something to look at in the E's showing off Trish.
The sign, Trish Pop.
We out of here.
Rhodesia, last time you got mad at me, you started this show off by saying that I cut
you off last time.
And I want to make sure I don't do that again this time because I respect you.
I love you.
I don't want any issues.
Thank you.
Is there anything you need to say to the folks before we get out of here?
Enjoy this Labor Day weekend for those in the U.S.
Peace.
We'll see you guys later.