episode 109 starting out with screams and hollers we've been trying to do this thing
now for an hour and 22 minutes i've been saying i'm trying not to blow up our people's by
the riverside you got to figure your life out you got to figure your situation now we
are now doing this on zoom this week so our audio sounds a little different our video
looks a little different our apologies but we had to get this pot out to you guys one
messed up audio and video situation will not stop us bringing you what we do which is talking
wrestling like only we can tfw podcast episode what 109 we are in here i am your host matt
as always joined by two of my favorite people three to harway your co-host eshan your co-host
rodija outside of uh us sitting here for the last hour and 22 minutes trying to get this
thing to work what else is going on that's about it my brain is purged now from everything that
i had in it i was prepared ready to come man i had so many good notes and now i'm just on reset
what my goddamn t is cold you know i'm saying i can't even hit the gunshots
i got you let's keep it real though i mean the the gunshots might not have worked on riverside
anyway see real talk you know what this this this pod may be called riverside get your life together
that may be what we we name this this podcast here justice for tfw there it is anyway let's get to
it then seeing that this is way way way past overdue y'all know where i want to start i'm sure
is where y'all want to start and it is the bloodline segment from smackdown this past friday
it is the return of hill rock the return of forfeit rock the return of hollywood rock maybe all
rolled up into one let's just start because we got some good to talk about we got some bad to talk
about and maybe even a little bit of ugly in there but definitely some good and some bad
good and some bad either one of y'all can take it whoever wants to start with your thoughts on
the rocks promo and how it all went down on friday night first off you said there's some good bad and
it might maybe ugly on the rock promo yes all i all i got was good we know what that is right
there but who knows if you guys talk we're using another platform right now but point is
all i got was good out of that do you understand when he first came out in his vasachi vest i'm
calling a vasachi vest i really felt like this was back to circa 1999 and i popped so hard for
this is the rock that i guess i never really got because when he was a super bad guy whatever he
was called i wasn't watching him that much was it corporate rock is that what he was called
yeah i really wasn't watching that much at that time but this is like a whole nother level of like
yeah you can go and do movies you can go and have a political possible political career
but it comes back down to you are a pro wrestler all i got was good out of that
i think that uh rock is reimagining himself to a brand new audience and showing everybody who's
the greatest talker this industry has ever seen his hands down i don't think there's
i'm i'm i'm standing on 10 toes that rock is the greatest ever best ever you've ever seen in the
industry there's no one that comes close to him like the bloodline was kind of like you know
roman again and roman is like he's like the the biggest star in our business currently
but you put rock there all eyes is on him they had to stand off to the side right and i feel like the
ring still wasn't big enough for him like that's how big his star was man greatest talker in the
business um this is what we grew up on um he showed everybody i i love the old like this
ain't sitting along with the rock that's back i'm here for it so those are all the good things for
me right like if we i saw some think pieces on x on friday night and say all right guys
chill out like we we were able to get the rock that we all hadn't seen for 20 plus years
i always talk about how wrestling is supposed to be fun right how can you not have fun with that
segment it's it's it's like one of those jokes you're all in on together when he came out there
with that vasashi vest it was like all right now okay i know what time it is that also lends me to
the to the bad which we'll get you too but just in terms of the good he gave us what we hadn't seen
in forever so you know you think about like people who weren't watching wrestling back then
hell maybe people who weren't even alive back then they got a little bit of the taste of what we're
used to with heel rock we haven't seen hill rock in a very long time and he was able to tap into
that version of the hill rock of the no sing along with the rock the vasachi the completely going
off on the fans herpes inbred all that kind of stuff you mean it felt like we were transplanted
back into whatever that was you know 20 or three or whatever it was so i love that in terms of
entertainment i talk a lot about aw their shows in a capsule they're always great but for me when
you put them together in totality you start seeing like some of the kinks you start seeing some of
the missed opportunities with storytelling or match setups and things of that nature but when
you watch a show they're majority they're always entertaining for the most part so that was rocks
promo on friday i don't have to go into more what we love of course we loved it right so now i put
the podcast hat on we get into talking deep inside baseball and all that kind of stuff
the bad for me uh-oh was it felt like we went backwards in time and it had nothing to do with
what we've seen so far from them when we had the press conference we got on our emergency pod and
we all loved it we talked about man they haven't done real like that in a long time it felt real
it felt like a sport i said i got text messages talking about man i lost respect for cody rose
or for the rock because he smacked cody rose like that's crazy it's like well no that's part of it
that's what you should feel we get the press conference we get these awesome shoot quote
unquote instagram posts and twitter posts from the rock where he's going in right he's boy you
done messed up you're going against the family you're gonna learn you're gonna find out today
and etc etc with that that edge awesome we see him pull up got on all black whatever we ready to go
then he comes out in a character of hill rock not hill rock and yeah we still got two months to go
into mania but that was the bad of this was i was expecting him to come out and be a harder version
of roman in regards to you'd have messed up now you didn't talk about my family this is what we're
gonna do to you and we didn't get that we got the caricature of the rock so watching it i'm like ah
okay it was entertaining but now even more so i'm like where are we going with this
like what's next because if you if you saw his twitter tweets and you saw his ig post
and then you got that you're like is this the right episode am i am i tuned in chronologically
to the timing of what we're supposed to be getting here or did i miss something and that was kind of
what i felt like watching that promo on friday i'm not gonna discredit anything that you said there
but for me i completely enjoyed what we got because your point of what you expected from him to be
like a harder roman but that's not him rocky hill is rocky hill so i think this was like the line
in the sand to say to clear his day to enie and everybody i am an absolute number one bad guy
right now there is no room for interpretation of if i'm if i'm good but i'm bad when you talk about
the bloodline no i am bad so i don't want you cheering for me i don't want you singing along
with me i'm planning that i guess flag in the sand saying no i'm i'm bad rocky so although i get your
point i completely feel as far as maybe as your common lay fan that absolutely i prefer this way
because the other way we be such more of an advanced thinking you still have some people who
just not quite understanding what's happening sometimes you got to just bring it back down to
basics and rocks basics of being a hill is what we got but edgier now his shirt is cut off yeah
i agree with brodija man that's kind of like me going to chick-fil-a and expecting the gourmet hot
dog man like the rock is the rock like right and like this is the rock this this character even if
it is or maybe it wasn't but this is what we got 25 30 years ago i don't expect anything different
now i know like the rocks like the biggest wrestler in the industry right now too by
looking look at them guns boy them blood is huge like but he's never been that guy like right and
he's never portrayed himself as that guy so i didn't expect that from him here i think that
we're just we're still in the work in progress as far as what he's doing and what's next for him
because obviously you know up until a couple weeks ago we were looking for the rock and roaming i
don't know how what kind of story we're going to get with that but now we're into okay now we need
to show people who rocky is now he's he's reunited with the bloodline and what does that look like
going forward and what does it look like going forward with with cody i think it was a
a great reintroduction to heel rock like right and this is who he is um character and all this
is exactly who he is exactly who we got and i think it was a great showing for himself and for the fans
um yeah i mean i'm a little surprised that you didn't you have so many negative things about it
one quick thing matt before you respond there i can also say that this is probably the most
outlandish that i should see of him meaning i don't expect him to be this um like you said
a caricature of rock after this because you are now a board member um you are now 25 years older
so i do expect you to be probably not as loud and vibrant as you was oh no that's that's what
we're getting real but i would want him to be a little bit more toned i would want him to be in
the all black in a nice black silk shirt or black i i do want to see kind of an evolution because
like you said you're right you look and it's like a time capsule you really don't know where we're
at at time he looks older you know he's bigger but this is the same thing that we got i just know that
for me he just had to do what he knew best and that is him that is the origin of heel rock
so i do agree that i shouldn't see this this flamboyant rock but that's probably the right
let me ask you a question real quick rodija before matt goes why you know me for a long time too
i'm the same e that you knew 25 years ago right i'm probably crazier now than i was 20 years ago
right so you people don't really change like right yeah their situation changed he had mixed
makes more money he has a whole lot uh he has less hair you know he added all the hair that he lost
he went on to his arms right like like that's that's where all his hair went it went on like
the power went to the power of the mana yeah as he talks about people don't really change you know
because of circumstance things of that nature they are always who they are like that's that's the rock
man like so if anything i think we're going to see it turned up a little bit more so then so the
reason why i say that and those are all great bring-ups i'm only going off of what's being
presented to me in totality from don't wane the rock johnson and so i'm going to these ig posts
in these twitter polls so when i'm so what i'm talking about is i'm gonna just read a few of
them real quick the day of the rustlemania press conference okay uh this was after he smacked cody
ig post says i was born into this crazy world and i love every second of it i've been whatever
whatever whatever then he says your hero fucked around and you found out quick what happens when
you talk about our family with disrespect lines crossed and blurred bring it we don't toe the
mark for no one road to rustlemania begins that has a hard edge to it so even if you just take out
him cussing with the four letters because he did that on smackdown just not to that level there's
still a hard edge to that a few days after that he has a ig post where it shows him roman and
and heyman walking out of uh the vegas arena and he goes uh you fucked around and found out quick
didn't you boy you your little friends and all your cry babies have no idea what's coming the
world's on notice people's champ plus tribal chief then the day of smackdown i believe he says so
late city get ready because you already know we're bringing it to you this friday night live
that's the rock we didn't get that's who i was expecting on smackdown once again take the f words
out i'm talking about that real the same the same rock we got at the press conference when he was
talking to triple h fix it or we will you don't talk about our family we didn't get that we got
the the lovable hill rock that we're playing along with you because you're disrespecting everybody
and we think it's fun and we're still popping for you that was what we got it's not a rock
that was what we got it's not a big deal i still enjoyed it way more than i didn't but if we're
talking about stories because i'm all about stories i did when he when it cut off i was like
okay now what would i expect it and now what's next and that's great that we're thinking about
what's next so then also too with with what's next there was a lot of talk on social media
surrounding the line of i'm going to make sure you walk out of wrestlemania which you are a
loser he was allegedly talking to cody rhodes there's a camera angle where he points and the
camera angle looks like he's pointing at roman reigns when he says that i was just gonna bring
that up and there's a ton of conspiracy theory saying hey rocking cody still together they still
align with it because cody did say that he tick council and this is when he said he's gonna not
wrestle at wrestlemania and they're still in cahoots and it's all going to come to fruition
that they're in cahoots at wrestlemania what's your guys thoughts on that i was going to mention
to you that as far as this type of rock that all you mentioned on twitter i don't think necessarily
the wrestling twitter fans are the same exact wrestling fans that would be in salt lake city
at smackdown so i think that that there is a difference and they are kind of maybe not the
same person so when you say we didn't get that rock the edgy or harder rock we got the caricature
of the rock i just think that those are just two totally different maybe groups of fans or segment
of fans now then my second part of it is like well maybe that is done by design because it was
something about how he looked with his glasses on toward roman that you wouldn't been able to
you wouldn't been able to catch it as normal so maybe this is kind of a ruse to try to sabotage
one time the other one time number one roman we'll see but i i think that there's something to it
yeah i'm here for whatever they they want to do i'm just i'm just here for the ride
honestly um i think part of fun for me as a fan is just to watch it happen experience it i don't
need to just for me like i i think i know it's fun for everyone to kind of like predict where it's
going but this is so good and the characters involved are so amazing i just wanted to see it
play out and i just want to enjoy it so whatever they decided to do i'm sure it's going to be great
because if we're looking at this we got one of the biggest stars ever rock i'm like whatever he
wants to do right i'm crying boss roman if that's what you want i'm sure he would have played that
well give me hollywood rock i'm sure he's gonna put whatever rock decides to do is going to be
good because it was good roman is in full he's back doing this thing with it for as long as he's
going to be doing it and cody's on the high right now everyone knows cody all right so i'm here for
whatever they decide to do uh if he turns on them great when we get that match i hope they just don't
microwave it like i said i kind of want to get a i kind of want them to kind of take time to get
to the roman and rock thing and give me a nice little story but whatever they decide to do i'm
here for it you know what's cool is that they built up this type of equity with the fan base
that you can say that no way in the world would you have been able to say that about wwe programming
two years ago nope that hey i'm just along for the ride and whatever they decided to do
that wasn't happening under vince you like man they're gonna mess this up and we're gonna be
sitting here talking about what if and we know that at the end of the day they should make it
right we got a couple of viewer and listen to their comments i want to throw to you guys
surrounding this uh from youtube our guy ryan jamal what's up ryan jamal first time we've heard
from you or rey nail i'm sorry rey nail jamal hey rey now uh this was talking about our last
episode he said i a thousand percent agree with rhodesia i want to see rock somehow be in the chamber
and win to face seth relax rhodesia then i would have rock verse seth 91 rock wins kody verse roman
night two roman retains that will be the boldest coldest and craziest heel faction takeover we've
seen since nwo bloodline 2.0 should then become like the nwo with the difference being that we
actually finished this story unlike the nwo hashtag and still hashtag we won rocky hashtag
finish the bloodline story hashtag kody cry babies let's go i like that um he brought up a couple
things there we've talked about like the night one night two thing we don't have to get into that
again he brought up the nwo for you guys what's the best faction in history who's the greatest
faction in wrestling history for you that's gonna take some time but maybe
greatest faction to you because i have a second follow-up question
after this just because when i started watching wrestling there wasn't really a lot of factions
again until like h got in we knew h when he first got nxt he was a guy of multi men or
multi people groups so i'm feeling undisputed error volume one i really really really enjoyed
and that's what me and i really caring for adam um coal that much you hate adam coal yeah but i
really love undisputed error but factions i felt like this was a little bit before my time just a
little bit before my time
you know i'm gonna probably go back into my childhood and say the four horsemen um volume
two and three so it's hard to go against them volume two and three not uh because the original
uh horseman had only um that was before me uh i started watching when it was rick
it was uh arn and telly and lex luger and then luger was replaced with very windham those those
were those factions were great because rick flair was your was your world champion he was a top dog
unspeakable arn and telly was the best tag team unspeakable and then lex and barry they were both
u.s. champs at the time and they both were like heads of their class so like they were really
dominant charismatic and they were just they're very undisputed error was very similar but
unlike the horseman you know arn and telly can kind of they had a little more charisma than you
know riley and uh and fish and then i think lex or barry had a little bit more charisma star power
than um roddy did so this is for star power i'm gonna go uh four horsemen and then i'm gonna go
uh four horsemen the second and third version but you want horsemen okay religious went kind of
undisputed era now that was what your greatest faction in wrestling history was who do you guys
think is the most influential faction in wrestling history told you i don't know that many factions
geez louise let's go with the four horsemen because everybody talks about the four horsemen
even e just brought up that that's one of his greatest so let's go with the four horsemen
you know the nwo was high right everyone had nwo shorts on shirts on back in the day
um like that logo still stands the test of time like it's still a very cool looking you know uh
logo actually my uh hey versus everyone's shirt that you guys can pick up on uh eshawn.com
um it's very um eshawn.com is nuts it's kind of a take from the nwo shirt actually so
um i kind of want to say the nwo but i feel like they were inspired uh inspired by the horsemen
second or third version but maybe the nwo if you want to go as far as popularity
i ain't mad at it i'm mad at it all uh another comment what was yours for
greatest faction it's hard to go against the horsemen because i think they were so influential
i'm not giving the horsemen both though right so if i was to say greatest faction you say horsemen
influential to me it's got to be nwo but i think bloodline is a faction
and at the end of the day they're going to go down as
top
three greatest faction of all time because they're already the best storyline of all time in wrestling
so there you go that's mine's um and that's one of user slash qm4rv6
tt1q you can go to him he says uh might be the most clueless take when we were talking about
what we didn't want which was the triple threat match which they pivoted from because we know
what we're talking about user qm4 brt tt1q he said also cody isn't winning triple threat would be the
most amazing thing at wrestlemania i would love to hear back from you again user qm4rv6tt1q when you
tell me now if you still think you're right what a piece of crap you know what we're not gonna do
that to you one one six seven um we're not gonna do that to him we're not gonna alien or not him
or her we're not or them we're not gonna alienate them but triple threats to me i just y'all know
how it just boils my my skin like i cannot stand a triple threat and it's only because it takes a
very very like the synergy required i feel for all three people in that match has to be like it was
written in the stars at night to have a great triple threat i've seen some great triple threats
but just overall i cannot stand a triple threat they were triple threats i wouldn't mind it
seeing that we're on zoom we've only got eight minutes left so don't worry we are going to action
pack wednesday's pie because derek i forgot about you we got a question for you he asked about some
portrayal coming with the bloodline teaser there our guy brandon james on twitter gave us a great
one surrounding wrestlemania and how the hype around wve is at an all-time high and kind of
what this compares to in comparison to past wrestlemania build-ups we're gonna do all that
i thought you meant like what it compares to like as far as drinks and drugs all right enough uh enough
isa what uh i know you had a couple things what did you have that you wanted we also had the darby
allen promo set up and we can't play that because uh yeah we don't have the sound board so what do
you have sir well real quick on the uh on the smackdown tip i've really enjoyed uh drew and
la night's little brief segment um i thought that i like the face-to-face because i don't think we've
gotten a lot of la night in the past few months um but i really enjoyed that i don't know what's
going on with drew but i hope they got a figure here they got a fair situation now maybe they're
just keeping the signing yeah you know a secret i don't know what they're doing i they need to sign
that man okay he is doing some great character work right now and i'd love to see more of him
at la night latest news is uh he's got time added on because he was out with his injury
so allegedly he still hadn't resigned but he's not up right after wrestlemania
i don't know how the way he's going you don't put the belt on him at mania i don't care who's in
that match i don't know if it's 101 with him and seth i don't know if you do include
sammy in it or if you pivot sammy to gunther for the ic title i'm still trying to figure out what
they do with sammy um over the next couple weeks but regardless this is drew's title
like if he doesn't get it now i don't know when the right time ever will be
damn i'll see i also wanted to get to you shaking ass at work
work i can't even get to that man yeah it's a hilarious story guys we don't have to move
that to wednesday he's got to tell the story that is hilarious hey real quick since we finishing
up and staying on smackdown naomi's new theme i like that man i think i think i like it i think i like
it i think i like it i had to shake ass to her thing too see yeah you sure he said the text he
was saying yeah it's not to me it's not as good as the ones he used on impact but is it's to that
and then of course naomi and trinity's name sounds a little bit different but i liked it i liked it a
lot and shout out to trendy too you know she knows she follows the pod she follows the the twitter
she uh i'm happy for her i'm happy for her to be in that position of kind of that main event
wrestling match segment on smackdown and like she's just having a blast you know like even for her to
be able to you think about how they were micromanaged for so long in wwe and then think about the end
right she wins and then she fixes her hair before little nate grabs her arm like stuff like that to
be able to have fun in that moment it's just so cool they have fun we have fun watching it it's great
also speaking of uh the bloodline too real quick um there was a clip that somebody had clipped up
on x with naya jacks and she took on maxine dupree at last night's house show it was about a two minute
clip and you know i just want to shout out naya jacks again the work she's done on this run
has been super strong and i think for them to trust we know maxine is not where she wants to
be i'm sure and they keep putting her out there on tv wrestling which i think they need to stop
doing that she's a great personality but keep her on the house shows until she can really get that
bell to bell psychology down but for her to be in a match with naya that shows a lot of trust in naya
too uh to kind of show her the the ropes on on this house show loop so shout out to to naya i
know that we've given her props but she went out we talked about on monday she went out and killed
that promo segment she's done great in every single thing that she's been in so far this is
like what a second run should look like i know a lot of people were down on her in that first run
but she has really made herself valuable to wv since she's been back you know whenever she came
back october november whenever it was yeah she looks good never since the word yep um injury
bug beat nikeeta lions again she's out come on they haven't stated if it's a knee or what but
i've said this before she just came back she has to change her wrestling style she leaves her feet
way too much and yeah we've seen big guys and big girls move but just because you can do it doesn't
mean you need to do it that type of work style is not sustainable for a big girl like her
they need to let her switch to an mma style and if you want to break out maybe one or two moves
where you leave your feet cool but i hate to see that that sucks she just got back
yeah i'm gonna have to re-watch another one of her matches i didn't think she did i didn't think she
did that much she does a bunch of the kicks and you know she ain't popping it enough for me if anything
but that's your job now buddy you're the resident ass popper go ahead twerk twerk twerk um so are
we so we legit we legit only got two minutes and 28 seconds left is that what it is yeah and i have
five quick things but i'll bring that up on wednesday my only thing that i would say but the video
package they show rocky yeah not rock is our we're robin the wise man and he was like perth i gotta go
to perth oh it's fantastic and why does i know i'm the wise man you don't gotta go he was he was
not want to go to australia i gotta go to australia check that out that's on x2 that was a little clip
they did of just promoting elimination chamber and roman's like who's gonna be there and he's
like cody's stuff can be there and heyman's like yeah they are gonna be there and he's like do i
have to go and i was like no no you don't have to be there i can go for you he's okay all right
and everybody go get your tickets so it'll be interesting if they still pop up on that um last
thing to get us out of here and you can take the last word on this damage control story we didn't
get a chance to talk about it two weeks ago dakota kai came to bailey's aid this week she's trying
to align with bailey and bailey like no new friends i don't trust you thoughts on where we are now in
the story of damage control you know it's it's a it's a good uh angle i just had a question for
you guys and we can ask it on the next spot because we literally have a minute and a county left uh
does damage control need a new name it's just i like that right i liked it when she said it
um this is damage control i actually i liked it no one's ready for damage control yeah i liked it
that's a good one all right so then we got some more listener comments and questions to hit on
wednesday i also want to bring up prime breaker to smackdown that's a big deal we got to talk
about the the derby promo on dynamite to see what you guys thought about it we got some comments on
there and then we also have some other things too that that he had and we're gonna have money night
rock and the final testament and we are out of here on that talk to you guys on wednesday
you