[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is a member of the Voices of Wrestling Podcasting Network.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And kids do like pro wrestling, or we like pro wrestling too.
[SPEAKER_02]: This week on Shake Them Rubs in the news.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not a damn thing has happened this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a late see river of wrestling, grinuses of ice cool tanks on night at champions in AEW decides to do their three hundredth episode and invader club a first for us from MLW.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob Fat two versus LA Park.
[SPEAKER_02]: My choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Jeff Hawkins.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's Chris November, right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, Chris, there is no news this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I could open up a little banner yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: I played my second and final gig with one of the strangest human beings I've ever played with.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had taken this gig.
[SPEAKER_01]: First gig, months go.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's at a trailer park retirement home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, all right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first time we were set up outside, and it was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it did result in one of these strangest blues jams that I've ever participated in, where
[SPEAKER_01]: I was the end of the set and it was definitely what killed the set too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we were all done after that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because the drummer just refused to find the downbeat so the entire time we have like, buff, but but but but but but but like the base is not agreeing with where the kick in the snare are and they're never on one and like it was the strangest thing in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just started taking a solo and even that I was having a hard time anchoring down to any sort of
[SPEAKER_01]: notes or time, I was just sort of like doing like an Eddie Van Halen freewheeling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if there's no timing here, I'm just going to go for Dazzle and we'll just see if any of the shit lands sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, when the Dazzle mode, which is not my preferred move, it's the like desperation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what the hell else is going to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just going to play fashion and see if any of it lands.
[SPEAKER_01]: sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yesterday, I get call back to do the Fourth of July here once again at the beautiful trailer park slash retirement community here in Albuquerque.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this time they stages inside, which the second I hear this, the second I hear this, I know that this is going to be
[SPEAKER_01]: bad, because they're old people, they have hearing aids.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm looking at this stage, and this stage is kind of shot gunny.
[SPEAKER_01]: So lots of outward projection, which would be cool, except that all of these people are gonna complain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I should mention, what type of songs do we play here at this show, Chris?
[SPEAKER_01]: Other than that, we are blues gym.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's where this gets real fun, Jeffrey yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our first song was, he five minutes, twenty five minutes of four chords that this gentleman plays.
[SPEAKER_01]: That I have to try to make it make sense to the bass player and our saxophone player who's inexplicably bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this first one, this first twenty five minute jam goes, okay, you know, we make it make it about as much sense as we can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Weirdly, the four courts he plays sounds like the section of one of my own songs if it had been beaten mercilessly with a shovel in the dead of night by two people who were very angry at it because it owed it money.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was able to make it make sense based on that fact, but then we get told for the first time, but not for the last time to turn down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the volume, I do, I'm in an old folks home.
[SPEAKER_01]: I already know that like we can't be rocking there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the volume's already low, like I may, essentially we're already staging to the volume of this drummer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're even a little bit quieter than him because I already kind of, you know, I've played shows before.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know how old people like to complain about the lead guitar, whether or not it's actually a problem, just the presence of lead guitar is subversive to their old ways, too much sewing.
[SPEAKER_01]: two freewheeling, two liberal in its nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we get to our second song, which was again for indeterminate chords for about twenty minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get to what to turn down a second time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We then play our third song again for more indeterminate chords from Bob who like wanders around aimlessly as like the band has to hold down the fort because he doesn't really do anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Were you playing with the string cheese incident?
[SPEAKER_02]: What was that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, this man, you know, he, he is in his mid to late seventies, dresses up like New Mexico Cowboy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and his wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his wife
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Zia on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Turquoise in lace.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like massive oversized bridge.
[SPEAKER_01]: May can't play at a lick.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just just feeble feeble playing on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: A two thousand dollar guitar and a twenty dollar player.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have, you know, we get to our separate here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've now turned down to the point where my amp is my master on my amp is sitting below one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, which is to say like I am subordable like I actually laugh a blue low and and then the guy comes up to me and he goes, so for this next this next song we go up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to rock out, but I also need you to turn down and I look at him and I go which one would you like, Bob?
[SPEAKER_01]: to a Minoraka, to a Minoraka, to a Minoraka.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he goes, I want both.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want both.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at this point, my amp is now at point two, five, of ten.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, he looks at me, he goes, go for it, Chris.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, somebody, I look at him with this, like, my desk stair of, like, Bob, if we weren't on a stage right now, and I wasn't wearing my guitar right now,
[SPEAKER_01]: against a bowl and go, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, I go, yep, it's the last time I'm doing this Bob, I literally say that to him as I take the solo and I start doing the most like, like, boredom, you make fly, whaling solo with no volume.
[SPEAKER_01]: None, none at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just can't hear me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I am just, I have my, I even rolled out the volume by my guitar and I'm just like, spooten out random notes on the instrument, like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, is this what you want?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we happy now?
[SPEAKER_01]: We get told to turn down again after that song.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we get told to turn down yet again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you can see where this show is going.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get told to turn down for the seventh time, seven I was counting.
[SPEAKER_01]: To this point where like everyone on the stage after you know like four or five is just staring at each other like can we please leave?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like can this show possibly be over?
[SPEAKER_01]: Our drummer, as I mentioned, was the shakyest part of the span, all the other musicians to not to impune the innocent.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're competent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our drummer decides that he is going to, Jeffrey, you've heard the Beatles song, the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll bring you a start.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever imagined what a be, like if
[SPEAKER_01]: That solo was mangled by a grain thresher with John Bonham somehow thrown into the mix.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was listening to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: My eyes went wide as this drummer proceeded to play so loud that the and this guy's like in his like fifty sixties like this is the oldest member of the band of the.
[SPEAKER_02]: How hard kind of baby because the lead singer Maroon five knows how to play it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw that on the voice dude dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was brutal as I said it was it was the solo from the end with none of the finesse and all of the volume of John Bond.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just a gorilla with two clubs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be a little me and the base player myself and the saxophone player.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and now we were like after we got shut down and all of us kind of had this like dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're shutting us down.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made the comment to leave.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, if I had known that we could have had this drummer do the drum solo from the end and it would have ended the gig.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so obvious.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the obvious cheat code right there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got shut down forty minutes early at the old folks home.
[SPEAKER_01]: which she came up I was actually here's the thing that was killer I was actually getting ready to walk the show and she shut us down before I have the pleasure of actually just unwiring myself and leave you the stage which I had already disconnected cords and I was like well I've done for the day because I had
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I had devolved to on the last song, literally play my guitar upside down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Make it like, see if I can play chord shapes with like my hand upside down.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can apparently.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, folks were killed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it really a gig at a retirement home?
[UNKNOWN]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, it was a shame.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a shame.
[SPEAKER_01]: No deaths to report.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, we have a light show today, Jeffrey, and you and I both know it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I do want to do when you're ready?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to circle back, and now you mentioned that a tampon is cold takes.
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing we didn't get to really talk about in the last episode was sort of like, and now we have some hindsight on it, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: The deployment of Saudi Arabia as like the weird
[SPEAKER_01]: He'll motivate her thing for let's see him punk.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the whole see him punk is a hypocrite.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, especially did we not talk about that last week?
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought we did.
[SPEAKER_01]: We mentioned that we wanted a circle back to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think we actually did.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, but basically my, I mean, my thought was sort of maybe we did.
[SPEAKER_02]: We could just go into it now because it's a lazy to have a wrestling criticism because the only news that happened were two speculative things that aren't probably true.
[SPEAKER_02]: One is Jonathan Coachman saying, Britt Baker wants to go to WWE where nobody talks to Jonathan Coachman and Britt Baker ain't talking to anybody because she wants to keep her leverage.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they, she may want to go to WWE.
[SPEAKER_02]: They may, that may be true.
[SPEAKER_01]: She ain't telling anybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, so I but like want to go to WWE is a statement that's probably true for you know
[SPEAKER_01]: seventy-five percent of the unsigned talent to work not currently with WWE even if they have other contracts I mean and most of them probably would want to go to WWE if the money was right the other story is Dave Meltzer and and uh... brand and thursday both of whom i love the death but they're both on this kick of trying to figure out
[SPEAKER_02]: how much WWE is lying about their Netflix numbers and if the streaming numbers are really that high for max is are more people actually watching AEW than raw every week and I'm here to tell you it doesn't matter because both have big time deals with their respective distributors and
[SPEAKER_02]: One company is still selling out raw and smack down every week and two nights worth of paper views at stadiums so any kind of narrative you're trying to get in there that saying well there's a there's a significant downturn in WWE's business secret inversion in the numbers will be well
[SPEAKER_02]: go that far, but it's one of those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's your argument, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, for years when we were watching all of this stuff under different metrics, we were seeing WWE do somewhere between three to one or four to one numbers relative to Dynamite on any given week.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm supposed to believe
[SPEAKER_01]: that secretly these numbers have inverted a despite no apparent increased buzz around AEW product in the real world and WWE's numbers seeming to be fine across the board and those sort of like clear, erosive pattern.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would need to observe both in a rows of pattern by WWE and a growth pattern by AEW and I don't see either of those anywhere near the rate I would need to see them at to believe that there's an inversion narrative here and I think good journalists sitting in their arm chairs absent their Excel spreadsheets
[SPEAKER_01]: could put that one together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't think going to some submetrics is actually the secret reveal here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a priori Sherlock Holmes style, you know that that's effing bullshit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will defend it up until this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think as many people are watching raw Netflix is a used to because it's not on broadcast TV and yes sure the broadcast numbers are there and yes there there was some report that said in May that more people are watching shows on streaming than they are over broadcast slash cable TV I will
[SPEAKER_02]: I will grant you that there are probably a ton of court cutters out there that are watching the max app and are watching AEW on max.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will grant you that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am just saying it doesn't matter if AEW beats raw in the ratings because all those people who aren't watching WWE on Netflix are getting it through YouTube or through social media or however they want to follow and they're still piloting it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes or they're still but and they're still buying tickets to events.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the moment you'll know there's a downturn in business is when they can't sell out of paperview.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would see that in the real world that that attrition was really.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is, again, where I think the Excel spreadsheets are failing some people who believe that all truth can be found in the numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that might be true, but if you don't have all the numbers, one really important number that I can't imagine how you get good measurements on is
[SPEAKER_01]: How many people are watching wrestling every week on watch wrestling.com or some other various website like that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And a move to Netflix, because you've now moved the platform to the internet, might nudge more people, especially if people have already been, you know, pirating and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like most people know how to find free stuff on the internet these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can't do it, well, gumptions always out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and Google.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think you don't have these great, maybe you don't have complete metrics.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then go back to your armchair, switch this idea around in your mouth and does it taste right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it does it because you just don't see
[SPEAKER_01]: AEW stepping up into that next tier of arena, they're not going into the basketball stadium, they're not going into the football stadium.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't see AEW, or you don't see WWE moving down to the Civic Center.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if anything, WWE's their numbers, they feel are strong enough that they can run smaller B-Mark.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like Albuquerque and stuff like that with some confidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and AEW does that as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying they don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad that everyone runs an Albuquerque.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has only to do with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just I hear something like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And before I ever need to poke around
[SPEAKER_01]: And look at numbers on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just go to that fuel like my lived experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it doesn't, then, you know, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not a champions look.
[SPEAKER_02]: First two matches.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought we're very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cody and beating Randy and Rhea Ripley and Raquel Rodriguez in the street fight.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought those were really good matches.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sammy and Kirin cross solo and Jacob Fattu where we we finally got the debut of Hickaleo slash Talatanga were met.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jake Oscar got Jake cargo over the finish line in that match, but wasn't anything to write home about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this John Cena CM Punk match, which just left a bad taste about the entire show in my mouth because it was just overbooked.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's this stunk.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I did like the thought of Seth caching in on John Cena and and what that would portray and stuff, but then it just went right back to John Cena putting on all stone face trying to kick.
[SPEAKER_02]: Punk in the balls as opposed to any, any connection to, oh, I might be an actual danger from Seth Rollins.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, and it's been talked about as if, okay, that was CM Punk's last chance to beat John Cena.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, well, hold on here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait, wait, we're just gonna dis, I mean in the narrative it's like, well, that's one shot and that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, why isn't punk demanding a rematch for some reason or another?
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you want to go into the bigger picture of CM Punk as a hypocrite and I'm hypocrite, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll listen to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not something that keeps me up, and now let's be clear about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think people have gone too hard into it a little bit, as if, as if, you know, and these are mostly people who front AEW a lot without saying, oh, just because it failed, I kind of want to say, hey, you remember when AEW was recording the government of China real hard?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, you want to know my problem is the hypocrite storyline.
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it was lame?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the storyline was lame.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like so like there's there's there's one problem of it's really hard to make a heel out of your business partner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now now now now I'm focused in on what you're saying because I thought there's was more of the overall
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, he was Saudi Arabia versus the storyline.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm not dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so you need to make a heel out of your business partner.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's be clear for Chris of a British beat for himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Saudi Arabia is a heel.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're a bad actor.
[SPEAKER_01]: MBS are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're, you know, monarchic bloodline regime that, you know, endorses the impression of women and other things.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're bad actors.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, by the way, that I mentioned that they killed a journalist with a phone saw, which is the exact thing that CM Punk is referencing here when he's talking about the blood money with Saudi Arabia and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, no, they are a bad actor.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, your WWE, you've signed a contract in blood with this bad actor.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can't really
[SPEAKER_01]: explain on your own programming why it might be that people think Saudi Arabia is a bad actor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, hell, Saudi Arabia is so touchy about advertisement on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they don't even allow you to do all the mats in the prime energy drinks and the other stuff, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't advertise great American beer for obvious reasons.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm Jimmy, I also, I'm, you know, so any number of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then you get stuck in this Nether region of like, we have this CM Punk storyline of, oh, he insults them is, and this is now a storyline on your show.
[SPEAKER_01]: He insults them is on Twitter about this thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You brought this up on your show, this blood soaked regime of Saudi Arabia, begging the obvious question for the viewer, why would see a punk think they are blood soaked?
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, the introduces on your TV, so they either now have to Google it,
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that Saudi Arabia wants that, or you've got to somehow explain it and explain that see a punk was wrong, that these, that the Kingdom, so you had to move basically into profound, disgusting levels of chillery for Saudi Arabia, whitewashing the blood off of this regime, which, to WWE's credit, I will say, they did not go that route, leaving us into a nebulous realm of incoherence.
[SPEAKER_01]: where we do not know why CM Punk thought that Saudi Arabia was so bad this business partner of WWE and we do not know why it makes sense that John Cena is now calling him a hypocrite
[SPEAKER_01]: for wanting to go over there and do this show and chase Jad Cid all the way over, even into Saudi Arabia, to have this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: And John Cena's the one who baited CM Punk into all of this stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So ultimately, you get to this very unsatisfying in between where Saudi Arabia is in your k-fable, sort of this like bad actor that clearly
[SPEAKER_01]: Like at least the American audience are like the reason why CM Punk, the baby facing this storyline, it is even open up to the criticism of hypocrisy because he said someone was bad and now he's walking back on that belief that they're bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like our understanding of the hypocrisy, this is very important.
[SPEAKER_01]: is not that CM Punk falsely maligned Saudi Arabia, this good, wonderful bastion of freedom and liberty in the Middle East.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he slandered them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, he slandered them.
[SPEAKER_01]: What a monstrous CM Punk was.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the vernacular understanding of what happened here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it said?
[SPEAKER_01]: CM Punk called
[SPEAKER_01]: called the shot, said, you know, bad is bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spades of Spain.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm calling my cards right here on the table.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said that Saudi Arabia's got blood on their hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now he's being a whimp.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he's being assists.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now he's being this guy who used to be rock hard on his values.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stand on your values no matter what.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's waffling.
[SPEAKER_01]: The hypocrisy is the hypocrisy of waffling.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we all understand that implicitly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is the other kind of flaw here in choosing to deploy Saudi Arabia in the heels.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you're not willing to say why they're bad, everyone's substantially understands that the hypocrisy is your calling a bad person, a good person in a self-serving way because it's strategically advantageous.
[SPEAKER_01]: not that you call that you falsely slandered a good person as a bad person to serve yourself three, four years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: While you were talking, I had a thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, my thought wasn't interesting enough for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just a comparison.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I realized what this is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in terms of storytelling, this is an AEW story telling trope where this is almost what they did with hangman and punk, where it's, oh, everybody knows the background
[SPEAKER_02]: But we're never going to mention it on TV.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we're going to put them in a match because everybody knows the background and there's going to be the future.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody knows what's going on, etc.
[SPEAKER_02]: etc.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the same problem as brawler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, to point brawler.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the same problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems at first blush completely different because of the Saudi Arabia social political thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like that's not where I'm choosing to go here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I know where you were going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: The going is they don't want to tell us the story on TV because the backstage politics of it are far too difficult and actually on the water.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now you're stuck with like, uh, well, we can still make money off of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's all that matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just need we just need John Cena and CM Punk in the building who cares about the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're in the building and that's all these dumb Saudi fans want his stars and for it to feel like a big WrestleMania type of moment type thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, it's much like the AEW fans who make up the story in their head that they've actually told it on the TV.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we'll put Hangman and see a punk back in there for the world title, et cetera, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's it's right there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it's it's we want to tell a story and punk is the problem here because punk doesn't have a filter, but we still want to use that to make some money.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we want to use, yes, we like we want to use a hypocrisy angle.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but we would not want to tell you why is a hypocrite.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, we can't.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's not that only not only do we not want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we really think about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually a terrible idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is actually a bad idea, but we still want to make the money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, we're already going to be into this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I mean, you almost wonder after week one.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what that is?
[SPEAKER_01]: They walked back and they're like, damn, this is dumb.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the third trilogy for Star Wars is what it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's this story absolutely stinks.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what he used the fan service and the money off of it, and we still have two movies to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this absolutely sucks in everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the wreckage of Ryan Johnson's episode eight, you're looking at going like, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we make this make sense?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Jonathan Major's is a bad person, but we still want to do all these crossovers for the Avengers, and we have more super movies here on movies ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: How can we fix this somehow?
[SPEAKER_02]: I know, let's just retcon the fact that Jonathan Major's was in any of these movies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to this point, the whole need to pivot off to Seth Rollins and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's never going like, no, I think it's never going like this storyline sucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to hit that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to hit the abort button as fast as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think there's a lot of money, potentially, in John Cena and CM Punk as a subversal that made a VED.
[SPEAKER_01]: And running away from this,
[SPEAKER_01]: The right move is what they have to do now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: The moment Seth Rollins came out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here it comes.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to turn John Cena baby face in this foreign country where they want something important to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're completely right that they would completely
[SPEAKER_01]: They would, one hundred percent give Cena the full baby face.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they were doing it all the time during this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: They wanted to all ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like so, yes, I would have done the rocks backstab.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then have this open question for Sina, who now has no friends, and is now wondering if Rocky was out to screw him in, you have Hayman kind of out there alluding to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the cash in, the cash in was actually maybe coming from someone else other than Rollins and Hayman entirely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, and I said this last week, that's also how you fix the CM Punk as a hypocrite problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that you make him the hypocrite?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's the guy in with Rocky right now, because he's completely sold out to be Mr. T. Heo, just like John Cena said he was.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it all comes full circle.
[SPEAKER_02]: But instead, I think they're going to go with Cody is going to be the heo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's
[SPEAKER_02]: I, I am not as I think they have a good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is your super, your super right here on the hypocrisy storyline.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you, this is it's always that checkoff's gun sort of thing that we like to argue, but it's important.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to introduce the hypocrite, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to pay that off somehow.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to make that make sense somehow.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we discussed Saturday, I'm not going to bring a rehash.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'd be weird if you needed that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it didn't make sense that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a way of kicking out of this is proving that punk is a hypocrite in a different way, which is that he's so desperate.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can now sort of roll in
[SPEAKER_01]: willing to appear in Saudi Arabia as part of this grander.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look dude, I just want the epic title so bad that I'm gonna do what a rock says.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll go to Saudi right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I am that you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: I want it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm old.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want it one last time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can connect this back to the elimination chamber story where apparently Rockhead, Sina, as his guy going into this, when he should have been making offers to Logan Paul just to Seth Rollins.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he need to be the guy making deals with everybody, but like whoever the good guy was going to end up being in this whole thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, to, to, I mean, that he let's put this like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He had multiple irons in the fire in case plan A didn't go well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he could do plan B. That's where you get the inner, that's where you get people coming in and going, okay, this story rules because it has layers to it and things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why when the bloodline started to fall apart, we loved it because like Drew McIntyre never, never lost his
[SPEAKER_02]: his, his one.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was always telling the truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, fortunately, the truth is, you know, like out of the seed right now, because he was great as the dick, like almost like like this, like met a commentary guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The dick who was always telling the truth and he didn't like him, but he was always telling the truth, you know, he was right about people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, Sammy never really changed his stripes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jimmy, you so never did either.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's still in the shadow of his big brother and still feels it every time he's out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I mean, you had all those moving parts, but yeah, I mean, as for the other matches, I think my summer slam is going to be interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all I'm going to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all I'm going to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like for me, beyond that, these Saudi shows
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, if you don't want to watch them for the politics reasons, I get that, but if you don't want to watch them, because they're kind of boring, boy, I get that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is just a level of by the numbers, you know, we are just here to basically glorify how show for a kingdom.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a palace show.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might call it.
[SPEAKER_02]: What happened was, like, they got mad that it wasn't a wrestle, they wanted a WrestleMania style event.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they wanted big things to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: First they wanted big stars.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they wanted big things to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they made up this king and queen of the ring, finals in here where you get something for summer slam.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to amp it up for Royal Rumble.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Royal Rumble will be what the Saudis really want, which is, you know, a mainstream.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want something that's like not basically just a house show that can be sort of written.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because right now they
[SPEAKER_01]: And I understand why WWE's done this, and WWE's been really clever with how they navigate.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been keeping their- They've been a little too clever.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've been half, I think, at times, too, about it, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, no, look, they kind of, they like the deal, but they also like the idea of the deal a little bit behind the curtain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they don't want you paying too much attention to the fact that they have a business partner that is a blood-soaked regime.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they're very aware that the politics of this can go south at any time.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, and that's the other things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, you only need to open up the newspaper periodically over the last five years to see any number of different headlines that might shake up a WWE executive as you check it out the politics of the Middle East and how this might affect their business partner Saudi Arabia.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they want to be WWE.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to be world wrestling entertainment, but there are lots of other countries in the world that are peaceful and do not run the potential of going to war in a region any given moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And while WWE loves this money, they also, I think, are aware that this money does come with a non-zero risk.
[SPEAKER_02]: So follow-up Raw was in the afternoon on Monday.
[SPEAKER_02]: They tape both that and smack down to get through the week to give guys a week off because next week
[SPEAKER_02]: You like wrestling.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be great for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're like me in your podcast, it's going to be kind of unbearable at times.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have the great American Bash.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have Saturday nights main event.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have evolution on Sunday.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we have a W's all in on Saturday.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now from the role I liked judgment day and new day, even though it was heel versus heel, it was obvious.
[SPEAKER_02]: One group was kind of playing baby face a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a banger of a match.
[SPEAKER_02]: I liked Rousseff and Sheamus.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought Sheamus is getting into that LA park style.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just here to have hard hitting
[SPEAKER_02]: bad ass matches occasionally.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not here for the world title, but I'm going to give you a a a a a a a a a slobber knocker type thing on a Monday night.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, and I found Lyra versus Bailey somewhat disappointing, but it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was a Lyra just Lyra just Lyra just continues to not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Get there in terms of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Attachment in terms of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Storytelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think her promo is kind of stink.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bailey being put in there makes it a kind of a big match.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the problem is Lyra is kind of like Lyra is getting there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like she's getting better on her promos.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think her work in ring is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I think she's a great one.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just one of those things where it's like, yeah, it's like
[SPEAKER_02]: Larry, you're really good, but man, Bailey and Becky, that's something.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we want to see that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're just kind of here right now in the way of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand you were screwed by Becky.
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand you have a thing of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Bailey was screwed before you decided to be Becky's tag team partner type of a thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's just kind of backtrack and go to that story and see this one-on-one thing before we get you and back involved in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think fans have kind of moved ahead of the feud, so to speak.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think judgment day and new day?
[SPEAKER_02]: What did you think of it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I liked that because I liked it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like the way that the judgment day post priest has been handled.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the judgment day as, look, this is, let's not forget that this was Edges crappy faction that got turned into
[SPEAKER_01]: that got turned into one of the premium factions on raw like through just an unbelievable redemption or crappy name crappy music I it all got a song generic black crap you know as their clothing was terrible by the way that the kind of like that that that nasally
[SPEAKER_02]: metal core dude singing whatever and you're just like, oh, this is terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate this so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another issue with wrestling theme songs right now where they have felt like AI music anticipating AI music.
[SPEAKER_01]: for a minute here where they don't necessarily feel they're not wrestlers are just getting handed a theme song rather than theme songs being written to fit that gimmick and it shows it absolutely shows the sometimes I will have my back turned and hear a theme song and I have no idea who it attaches to I'm a musician
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know what I mean, Jeff?
[SPEAKER_01]: My brain can't not process music if it's kind of happening in the background even.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got to be quiet for me to focus it on speech.
[SPEAKER_01]: My brain gets into core changes and stuff and memorizes the dumb core changes from commercials and shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot tell.
[SPEAKER_01]: W-W-E theme songs in eight W-S-S-T, where like, on my back turn as it's same AI music effect, where I do not, I could tell you chords that are happening, but it's not, no memory is formed.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like it's like, well, remember that time you heard G-to-E minor, Chris?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: When?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know there's nothing every single time that they've shit look I know people hated CEO or CFO whatever the name of that that duo was I was doing yeah shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean look see a phone
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm telling you that it's an upgrade to whatever they they evolve to because there is no bigger upgrade in the past year and a half other than CM Punk doing cult of personality, which is a real recognizable song, then them going back to Oscars original theme from you can't hide to the future.
[SPEAKER_02]: That, that, everything about Oscar's first theme from the Brown, you know, the, the first chord that that signal doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then that next thing where it's like, like, everything about that just screams, death is coming to the ring.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm so glad they went back to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, pay those people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I hated, I hated when they remixed Sasha Banks' theme.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was a downgrade too.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, you know, another option here, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: is rather than just retaining one team to write all of the theme songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that's part of the problem here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an in-house type thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It owes any more in the, what was the name of the, the thrill building, I think, in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the thrill of the thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but like even in the nineties, he had Jim Johnston in there and he was basically just churning these bad boys out or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: It look.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't even have to get name bands, but get different bands to write different songs for different wrestlers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you have one mastering service so they all can be mastered for the arena volume and everything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But getting different flavors of bands and there will help get these wrestlers to have more personality too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do this happen so badly I think for
[SPEAKER_01]: the midcard women wrestlers in WWE.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are theme songs are the most interchangeable pieces of crap.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
[SPEAKER_01]: And it might be a different high thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not always.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that just is it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hold on, is it worse for WWE midcard women or midcard men in AEW?
[SPEAKER_01]: mid-carbon A.W.
[SPEAKER_01]: will have generic rock theme four, you know, like early early two thousand's rock theme like it makes sure it's A.W.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's like
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they need Dale Oliver from TNA?
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't, I don't know if they were paired him, but they should just pay that guy because that's kind of the music they want.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dale Oliver wrote better theme songs for TNA than AEW's getting.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has a few good ones, but then he has, like, there are moments, there are moments like, I think,
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Heybids theme is a good piece of music, but it's a strange piece of music for whatever the character is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, when the character that Adam Page is doing right now does not fit that music, that music is for a cowboy who, for a guy who is completely lost his soul in a desperate case for a title.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, I want to stop that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the bouncy one where you came out because he's still kind of coming out from the heel tunnel, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: So does that still matter?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the tunnel.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still pay attention to it, but nobody else does NXT or a W's three hundredth, which do you want to go to?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll let you start because I'm
[SPEAKER_01]: because this NXT was nothing but I know I know but like I mean if you're asking me
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go,
[SPEAKER_02]: We did the main roster first.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go with our weakest point second and go with the second strongest last and then we can go through it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's let's just get NXT out of the way here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to start?
[SPEAKER_02]: I offered it to you, but I mean, I have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing I like on NXT right now is
[SPEAKER_01]: Tatum Paxley, she's a very, very talented wrestler, they need to get her out of this stupid gimmick, but God, she's, she, here's a question for you Jeff.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you had to look at the women's roster on NXT right now,
[SPEAKER_01]: Does Tatum Paxley fall before top five?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I couldn't get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't put five wrestlers in front of her.
[SPEAKER_02]: I might have her top two.
[SPEAKER_02]: She is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she's so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wrote you this this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was the week where I'm all in on Tatum Paxley.
[SPEAKER_02]: Watch her in that match and also not just the wrestling stuff, but the acting stuff as we like to call it.
[SPEAKER_02]: She is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are two women I'm going to talk about this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: Her and the a hail because I thought the a hail had a hell of a week even though she lost that match in a stupid way on NXT and she kind of lost the match on speed which was better than I should have been but she was in there with someone who was really good but Tatum packs me this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm watching her cell
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm watching her, her how she's interacting with Izzy Dame.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm watching how crisp she is.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like coming off the top with that cross body.
[SPEAKER_02]: She is so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she is such a selling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, a motion generally throughout the ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's all at a very, very high level.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we, you and I both kind of, I've been heavy.
[SPEAKER_01]: She, you were, you were on it before me.
[SPEAKER_01]: She always shown these flashes of talent that have been just like a
[SPEAKER_01]: a kind of bother, especially for me, it's always been the locomotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: She, she, some people, last legends, a good example of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always very down in her apartments.
[SPEAKER_01]: Last legends, locomotion in the ring is lousy and has always been.
[SPEAKER_01]: She takes too many steps going off the ropes.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ring does, she does not seem to know how to fit in the ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ring does not, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tatum Paxley,
[SPEAKER_01]: She looks like she knows how to move in that room perfectly.
[SPEAKER_01]: She knows the width of steps, the amount of everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's never like an extra step or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's always been there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, man, like I've wanted to get out of this gimmick, I, I, I wanted to get, like, we need to get back to JC Jane versus Tatum Paxley with the whole, like, yes, when JC hated Tatum thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would even, boy, I know they're doing a tag team for evolution, but it's too late for it, because this, but I would make Tate and Pacely and Thia Hale a team.
[SPEAKER_02]: That first brush of offense where Thia Hale comes out like the friggin ultimate warrior and is, and just her engine is, I forget the name of the red head who's doing the Alabama Southern gimmick.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a lady read lady read.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's not bad at all, but the a hail just just continuing with the motor running doing all that offense with her as a base.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've watched that go how how are they lost the thread with the a friggin hail and then I watch her versus Kaylee Ray on speed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was, you know, three minutes of just going at a high clip between the two of them and Kaylee Ray or Alba Fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hate that name.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go back to Kaylee.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, especially now that she's
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the secret herb is also like that that jokes lame now like I still love it was a better joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are so good at it though.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are so good at it at the suit thing and playing secret service and crap like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the a hell man.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just watching her and just she just has
[SPEAKER_02]: She has everything you want if WWE wasn't that territory that always tells those types of wrestlers to slow down.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, because that's what they do with all the flyers and all the speedy people, hey, slow down kid, make every move mean something.
[SPEAKER_02]: But with the a hail, that's the whole point of the frenetic offense is that it's frenetic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you're like, what the hell happened?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I wasn't expecting that type of thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like in the NCAA that
[SPEAKER_02]: that that that that that really good defensive team that gets caught by the running gun crew and all of a sudden they're down like by thirty points and you're like what the hell have you said they were good lockdown stuff yeah the jimmer for debt all we do is take ridiculous amounts of threes team or whatever from back in the day yeah the uh... Gonzaga team from jimmer Gonzaga yeah right uh... yeah so no like uh... i think
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, cadence remains an issue, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a certain wrestlers need to have a match style that fits.
[SPEAKER_01]: their character, otherwise the match cadence begins to undermine the quality of the gimmick.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you're going to have the a hell explosive house of fire, she cannot get stuck into a slow down in the mirror sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: With Jay Parker type of thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it's, it's got, I mean, and her matches sort of have to be like in all or nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: They should always be great.
[SPEAKER_01]: That would be great.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: They should always be sprints where it's either Thea Hill goes out there and like the explosion of Thea Hill absolutely wipes out their opponent or her opponent or the explosion of Thea Hill, like the opponent's able to whether the storm and get the pin because, you know, Thea is gonna,
[SPEAKER_01]: do eight moves and if you can hang on that knife move, she's gonna make a fatal error.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you can't make that many moves without making mistakes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that sucks too, by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm a grown ass woman.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the other thing I wanted to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so sick of the WWE trope of guy or girl says ridiculous non-sequitor line that's supposed to establish some degree of characterization, but the line's not even like something you could put on a t-shirt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm a grown-ass woman, Theahail, or my life, my rules, Lexus King.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are not even t-shirt slogans.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then why the hell are we saying them?
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time this guy comes out the curtain before we hear the first notes of their song.
[SPEAKER_01]: My life, my rules really stronger than whatever the first note that song is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the answer is yes, but that's only because it's a shitty song.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, oh, yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, no, and it doesn't, honestly, it doesn't help when graves constantly craps on his appearance that, you know, I will say I continue to enjoy NXT's commentary team.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if you're asking me, NXT's commentary versus AEW Dynamite's commentary.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I know, NXT's is great because the Vic and Corey Haydig Booker thing
[SPEAKER_01]: is entertaining.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, like, like, hating, hating bookers, extreme incompetency.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they kind of moment, like, in the first three minutes, where he's like, pace yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have another hour, two hours to go or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Though there were a couple of really funny lines directed in a public place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That becomes a match within a match, which, like, is not great commentary, but I'm entertained.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that works for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but that's hate watching in a way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but that's Jeff.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a B show.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to remember this.
[SPEAKER_01]: The commentary standards are different on the B show.
[SPEAKER_01]: The A show I need called really, really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: The B show, I do the commentary team to be entertaining.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will say this.
[SPEAKER_01]: NXT, if I was rating them on a raw rating, they stink.
[SPEAKER_01]: on a B show WCW Saturday night, rating, dusty roads.
[SPEAKER_01]: He got a bicycle daddy, like no, he got a bicycle daddy, a good on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on,
[SPEAKER_02]: I have two quick ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: Number one, Joe Henry is entirely mid to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't I don't see it anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think his gimmick is great but then the bell rings and I just go he's he has some size to him he has a little bit of power
[SPEAKER_01]: but he's purely- I don't see him so undermining because it's like he does it and it feels goofy and comic book yes and like narrative shattering for me because it's like dude I guess professional wrestling but like
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like close to like Sid Tino Morella doing a choke slam on like six foot five guys or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and yeah, you know, like he's got the we will rock you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that also Emmys occura does much better in my opinion, even though I found Emmys occura coming out in a mustache weird But yeah, and that's how she's done that, but it's still weird, but in a mirror is awesome
[SPEAKER_01]: I love him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought, look.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought this match had problems and I'm gonna get to those, but yeah, it's mostly jazz for Troy and in a more, I think when it was working it was working, I thought I liked the physicality.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, again, when now we get back to kind of a classic Chris trope of like, wrong type of match man, in a more I needed to really come in here and have jazz for Troy
[SPEAKER_01]: on its heels, flakes, oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Flomics, right, you know, like that Troy has been running through other people, but now all of a sudden when he tries to do that and he thinks he's gonna do this on this little or guy, but here is in Amora who is a Japanese brick shit house and you're trying to like club her on him and he's just like no warrior spirit, you know, let's get a little bit of this and then
[SPEAKER_01]: He starts laying into Jasper Troy, who is a big tough rookie.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now Jasper Troy's in there against a seasoned veteran adult man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And right, and that's ultimately what prevails here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the difference between a tough, pretty rookie and a man
[SPEAKER_01]: in his prime who has ten years under his belts.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not old, it's not young.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a true veteran and he is seasoned and tough and has a seasoning and toughness that only comes with ten years of working in the ring.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it never comes to fruition in WWE.
[SPEAKER_01]: That happens because we don't have to tell that story.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to protect our big guy who's going to be a future star because we made him the winner of LFG or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: And instead of just getting them and also because there's always that weird thing about them, they still remember the
[SPEAKER_02]: I was in that cap of telly was at the name when we're about the way they did yes when Bob Holly and and the other guys just just took advantage of him and they never want to kind of put that on screen even a k-fade sense type of thing but
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so that I mean, that might very well be true and then that fundamentally misunderstood stands the problem with the back capatelli Bob Holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was not even not because then there were some other ones too where they had a capatelli have the
[SPEAKER_01]: get get the shit get that he experienced been walk a railroad in Bob Holy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, that also happened, but there was a husky Harris in a rumble, I think, too, before we begin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: There have been a few of these.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was the guy who was the guy who tried to do that on a angle, who tried to tap angle.
[SPEAKER_01]: That guy, that guy, they, uh, they put it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I know who you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't remember that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The, uh, Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, you'll do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dude, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter,
[SPEAKER_01]: Where, dude, you come in, this is just the truth of talented young people at any level.
[SPEAKER_01]: You come in, you're very talented.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like every young talented person, there's a lot that you know, but to borrow some terms from a former secretary of defense style, Robbsfeld, there are things that you don't know that you don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have these experiences that show you
[SPEAKER_01]: what you don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now you know what you don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you have to have the only way you can go from not knowing what you don't know to knowing what you don't know is by having an experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not, you know, that's the act of discovery.
[SPEAKER_01]: is going to be through experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it is completely coherent to me that a guy like Jasper Troy would have this moment of, oh, I didn't know that could happen because he's new.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's out, he's downed, but he goes for a big shoulder block and runs his ass into a pole and realizes, oops, maybe you don't fully commit to a big move on the outside otherwise you dislocate your shoulder.
[SPEAKER_02]: lesson learned you know the new mistakes like it's a story that can be told yeah in the NBA it's the college defensive player the year coming in first first game that necessarily against Michael Jordan but against a guy
[SPEAKER_02]: Michael's a season veteran and could put up some points and you realize oh it's a different level of play up here as opposed to oh I was a big fish in a small pond down there type thing and there's nothing wrong with telling that story it's just they always want to protect their big men
[SPEAKER_02]: because again remember Vince Vince that David and Glyath was booked in property.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this so much of this then circles back to commentary just needs to get this over.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to one.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the ageeting of this match have a couple of rookie mistake beats prescripted.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like you know, obviously, you know, at the script every suplex, but like you have a couple of
[SPEAKER_01]: set pieces in this match to exhibits that Jasper Troy makes some rook mistakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Miss calculation, you know, underestimating your opponents early on in the match, and then over commitment on a big move, maybe a go for a big close line off the top ropes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what's really important is commentary highlights, points us out, and then explains at the end of the match.
[SPEAKER_01]: that you have three key pieces a mistake in the beginning of mistake in the middle of the imagine a mistake to lose the match finally and commentary puts over those three most three key beats in the recap.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, yes, AEW decided to celebrate their three hundredth episode of Dynamite by not saying anything about the past two hundred and ninety nine episodes, which is always nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is very tough to do a recap package when a lot of it just serves as an advertisement for the other kids to do your bigger stars are now big stars in the other company.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, uh, but I hate that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hate, okay, we're going to celebrate this metric, but we're not going to
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it serves as a nice reset period at times.
[SPEAKER_02]: I tell you what this company is all about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And oddly enough, the show itself kind of told you what it's all about.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a little bit about snowflake hunting as I like to call it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's put on some bangers and get high number of star ratings that the sickos will then be able to put in their spreadsheets and do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I liked the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought there was some good building for the angles, but at the same time,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you have two angles.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the good that you did in the hangman stuff with Moxley, which I thought was good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I won't call it great, but it was good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hold on.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to give you that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to give you time to give you your thought out here, because I want to know what you thought of the Marina Shafir taking the buck shot, because oddly enough, I was uncomfortable with it, and I'd usually not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I'm going to run down.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: The problem is you're doing you're going to have to kill me for that program.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you do Kevin night and speedball Mike Bailey trying to get into this tag title feud with the same you're going to have to kill us to beat us when they just come in the kill them every freaking time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Death and wrestling does not belong there, and I get the cool hand Luke versus drag line build of, get beat down, get beat down, keep getting back up and show the people that you can do it, but the same time Mike Bailey and Kevin Knight, if they pull it upset in this tag title match, who cares?
[SPEAKER_02]: because they've got their ass beat for four weeks now straight and it looks like we're adding Nick Wayne and Christian into this few two based on the spoilers from collision by the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's how the Kevin night versus Shelton Benjamin one on one is going to go down tonight.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Nick Wayne inserts himself and Kevin night pins Nick Wayne.
[SPEAKER_02]: The phrase yours sir.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so
[SPEAKER_01]: Maria Chiffier.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've discussed like the narrative problems around here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to discuss my issue with her in this particular, so I have no problem with a female heel figure getting come up in professional wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Professional wrestling has a long legacy of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Baby doll gets hers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Woman with a full horse been
[SPEAKER_01]: yet's hers and I think that we can still do these moments in twenty twenty five really Chris yes yes I do actually have a moment kind of an invader club
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but, but there are rules around this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, there are.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are, there are rules around this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of them center around the idea that the female heel manager figure needs to be hoisted by her own petart.
[SPEAKER_01]: that one, everything happens, kind of as a reactive, defensive, very bang bang sort of series of plays, that the series of plays that results in the female getting her come up ends are initiated by her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give you an example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Marina Schaffier, whoever it is, slides in a steel chair to the heel talent that she is managing,
[SPEAKER_01]: Heel Town has the steel chair.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is going for the cabong and the baby faced ducks because who's going to take a steel chair that doesn't even realize that the woman is behind her and boom, she gets cabonged.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, that sort of moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to have things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem with this, for me, was multiple.
[SPEAKER_01]: One, we have Adam Page, the babyface, really taking advantage of like dying fish marina shafir who has to like fish flop sell in the ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, where's the water?
[SPEAKER_01]: What am I going to do?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it reminded me a little bit of the time that the claims got sprayed in the shaving cream and they couldn't stand up to save their lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like Marisha Fierre's fish flopping around in the ring, like completely discombubulated.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no help coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Adam Page is staring at her like a sickle, like the sickle in that meme cartoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Buck, shot, buck, shot, buck, shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now meanwhile, as we are watching Adam Page and all of us are getting to know what this sicko is fantasizing about doing, we have the four members of the Death Riders, all of whom I might add.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or men!
[SPEAKER_01]: who pertinent, purport to be, you know, tough, manly men, who are tough, standing around, watching this defenseless woman in the ring who is supposedly their friend, and they're like, oh, God, she's gonna get close like, ah, ah, ah, the humanity, ah, no!
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, she's going to get clothes lined.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can this be?
[SPEAKER_01]: None of them move an inch.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot measure it with a ruler.
[SPEAKER_01]: How close quality of casting, newly or John Moxley get to the ring to save this person.
[SPEAKER_01]: Making them all seem like profound
[SPEAKER_01]: cowards as she gets, they, it's not even like they went to make the save and couldn't get there in the nick of time because it all happened so fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, they had time to fully process this.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, the lingering in the agony was the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was the knife we were twisting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm about to hit her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna hit her in the face.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so about to hit your friend who's a woman in the face and they're all like, oh no, don't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, if you, ah, ah, ah, ah.
[SPEAKER_01]: If only I could do anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: If only I, Claudio Castigoli stood six foot four inches tall, it had raging biceps and abs.
[SPEAKER_01]: If only I was strong enough, not a small, feeble man standing five foot two, barely able to walk or move like dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: It made them
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk often about like they're supposed to be the big tough faction.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that AMP page pulled one over on these four tough guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: These four tough guys look like feckless, spineless cowards.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: And especially after what looked like a pretty good kick and punch beat down of Adam Page, he just kind of gets back up without feeling anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it, it once again kind of gets to do the fact that Claudio Casinoly looks like Tarzan but hits like Jane and then runs like Cheetah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the point possibly Chris and this is me.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is me thinking about the AEW fan who's just seeing at this podcast right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a possibility that the whole point is that the death of writers are hypocrites and cowards like that, and that the ops were just so intimidating, that they dare not try and fight Shabbata, Joe, and Hobbs, to get to their friend.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact is that they're not friends, really, that they're just kind of in a mutual criminal enterprise where there is no honor among thieves.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've never sold that with anything other than Wheeler Uda.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're exactly correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's not what that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's Wheeler Uda in the ring, and then you can pivot back to John Moxley saying something like, I'm toughening you up kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, you know, all the acid he said after the day.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, Moxley should be throwing Uda to the wolves trying to grieve.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, baby.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: Go.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have people as henchmen if you won't be a henchmen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's your go get in there right exactly like no if anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: The obvious move here was yeah first thing you do is you send wheel or you did it try to save her and then when that does it work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Claudio and Pack roll their eyes and they all go down there and try to make the safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like maybe you have them do bad strategy or something like that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they have never sold that the Death Riders is a disingenuous collective built out of circumstances that they've always sold that the Death Riders are ideologically aligned guys who really share convictions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're forged in fire in the do drive William Regal or whatever right share convictions is no share convictions is always been the thing with the death writer sets it's
[SPEAKER_01]: That works with the callous family, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, the dog callous family you completely believe that, you know, okay, these are all guys who are aligned based on contracts as they look like, you know, dog calluses just signing anyone from the free agency been that he can find.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Lance Archer and Takashka, and here's some guy with a helmet, you know, like.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just San Jose in there, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, here's a luchador.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a helmet guy now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have a luchador now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need a tall guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's casting for type.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that none of these people are truly friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that none of these people are ideologically aligned, other than we said, a contract.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not what you're doing with the death writers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the death writers has, insofar as it's ever made a sense of factions, been a faction motivated by ideology.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are cleaning up the week, and we have a common goal of purging this company of the week.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we all agree on who the weak people are.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, look, I guess if they had sort of laid any rail that Marina Schiffier was maybe a weak link after the blood and guts match, or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And especially after the Chris Stablander, vineyards had been teasing that Moxley as trying to recruit her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, if they had laid some rail that she was a weak link, okay, but they haven't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't screw things up for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: She hasn't cost him any tiles.
[SPEAKER_01]: She hasn't cost any key matches.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is kind of like I look for heat in my build up for.
[SPEAKER_02]: for matches, and it satisfied that I still, it's one of those things that I'm watching.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is another problem, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is a come-up in some moment, and so this is actually a pressure release beat in a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Baby doll, getting hers at the paper view, the big pie in the face releases the pressure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Marina should have gotten the buckshot at the paper view.
[SPEAKER_02]: Paper view.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a pressure release.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a build.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's one of those things where it's like, we are trying to do a hangman's going to become a baby face redemption story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And him just kind of went, and the moment he started talking on the apron, I go, he's not going to buck shut the woman is he?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he did.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're just like, all right, there's the guy, the guy who burned down a house.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, he burned down a house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now he's like, okay, he's the guy we cheer for.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, like this, this has this like,
[SPEAKER_01]: nine this mid nineties.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, we just went there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yo, sort of like, it was very easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was very easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just went there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't think we'd go there and we went there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, yeah, okay, but like going back to my criticism.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's beyond all that other stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: You went with the pressure release valve on a heat building week.
[SPEAKER_01]: So explain to me how that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you take out the baby faces beloved wife two weeks before the paper view, now he's fighting like a house a fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you take out the heels, he'll manage your two weeks before what John Mox is coming in there to avenge Marina and that's how we're building heat for this paper view.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's gonna put butts and seats.
[SPEAKER_01]: The quote, Tony.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, do you have anything else for this dynamite?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's mostly good matches.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, yeah, these meant like, don't get me wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: I liked, I didn't love as much as other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like, the mean to share a calmer, Mercedes, Mercedes is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Watching Tony storm kind of be catatonic after doing the whole thing with Rachel Brasnahan was kind of weird for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, and Mike Tony was like weird.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that little beat afterwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, this is super minor.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do when having a cake and no one's getting the cake in the face?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, but like check off's gone here again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just put the cake in Luther's face.
[SPEAKER_01]: You brought the cake out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a pallet cake.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like they threw champagne in his face because they didn't want to do the cake again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, we just went there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, you really subverted expectations, but like, okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good job, guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the four way, the four way was to chance to get subvert expectations and they just went right with chalk in terms of M.J.
[SPEAKER_02]: F being numbered.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this would have been a great opportunity for M.J.
[SPEAKER_01]: F to screw up and start the M.J.
[SPEAKER_01]: F screwing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That like this whole, this whole him,
[SPEAKER_01]: trying it like essentially he's a pertent to the throne of the her business.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the much more intriguing story now is that he wants to be one of them but he's got his goodness step.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the point.
[SPEAKER_01]: by Okada TV standards.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was like a three and three quarter star match.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like I have to bet the question why are we doing Okada Abushi as just like a TV, buildy sort of match.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, he beat, he will see.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just the thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, he beats Abushi.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clean as a sheet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the whole point is to then get to the post match beat down so that Kenny can make the save.
[SPEAKER_02]: but what you should really be doing is having a caught a try and hurt a boochie just send the message to Kenny Omega and instead they're just having a really good match because we liked that mid teens new Japan stuff and it's it's a shooting the story it's so important that's so important and I mean it's the same thing we were talking about with NXT you
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell the right story for the angles that you're telling.
[SPEAKER_01]: If anything, these kind of class of pairings are a great opportunity to invert expectations.
[SPEAKER_01]: People come in thinking, oh, we're going to get like an Okada Abushi mid last decade sort of made a van flashback ten years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it said, Okada does something really dastardly right at the beginning of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our that you build the whole show like we're gonna be kind of like you know flashing it back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the second the match begins.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just start destroying the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know how much good will AEW would lose by doing something like that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we we'd love it because it'd be like, yes, we're gonna have a you know what that is.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the that's the AJ Styles Nakamura WrestleMania build.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly what that is where it's like, we're gonna get the dream match.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the dream match.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're gonna get the dream match and then Nakamura kicks him in the balls or AJ Styles kicks Nakamura in the balls.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I wouldn't, I mean, I wouldn't go that, you know, like, but I spent being the other big difference there too.
[SPEAKER_01]: this is the dream match and then like knock amore doesn't just like go heel during them it's not it's not even like we get a turn mid match we just that you know the dumbest possible version of a heel turn you know like yeah if you ask the seven year old like how does it would go heel it goes will they keep the other guy the balls will you like the right but I mean the point of this I mean we we had we had the countless family out there
[SPEAKER_02]: And they waited until after the match to attack a bushy, which was dumb.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, look, this whole point is we're trying to send a message to Kenny Omega, kind of a thing that, yeah, you know, the Cal's family is once again, coming after you, it's enter, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look what we did to your friend, you know, whereas every single time this happens, it's usually Michael Nakazawa, who nobody gives a crap about, getting beat up.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's still, it's like, oh, how we got the hug from the golden lovers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and Trent, this is the other thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a great choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Trent with the crowding waiting for him to turn around.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, and Marina did the same thing with the briefcase.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, why are you just hitting him in the back?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hit him in the back.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then that'll start the beat.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we got to wait for the turnaround so that people can block it and it's just fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do Trent's incapacity with the weapon is actually making a war killing because at least Sean Spears, when he was the chairman, would actually deliver big meaningful chair shots.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: like they got that over by making some of his chair shots devastating like trip or at a can't it named after a weapon can't use one.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the second week in a row, we're Trent Barrett is promising violence and he doesn't deliver because remember to tell you the young boxes like, hey, watch this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go make an example of him and then he gets beaten up like a three and a half four star match and you're like, oh, that boy, that showed him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to start to go fun me to buy Kenny Omega a pair of not bizarre mom jeans.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like just a pair, just a pair of average basic normal fitting Levi's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come out in a t-shirt and reasonable fitting jeans and we're good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so glad to see you're good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just need them to not be this weird mom gene.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bend divorced.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm getting back out on the town.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ladies, I'm single and ready to mingle.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm forty eight.
[SPEAKER_02]: As opposed to say shorts and crocks that he's usually coming out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's shorts, cracks, or mom jeans.
[SPEAKER_02]: His wardrobe is the worst.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the worst.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, his gimmick is just, it's such a, if he wasn't Kenny Omega, and all of this shit was just decided to any other normal wrestler.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'd be like the book, we would be making fun of it constantly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he comes out with this techno dance song.
[SPEAKER_01]: He dresses like it idiots.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so... This goes wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, everybody yells at Ocada for coasting on reputation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'd like to say that Omega has been caching checks without doing, putting much effort into anything except the occasional paper view match for a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, don't want me wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: On paper view day, can he clocks into work?
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't give me wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: He does.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's great.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he never fails to disappoint.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's one of those things where it's out when he's absent from the show, you don't notice him, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like practice, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the big thing with Omega, right, is there was just long gap where he wasn't on the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't like the show.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're an Omega fan, of course you missed him, you want him to come back.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear you Trisha yelling at your podcast right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if
[SPEAKER_01]: You actually just watched this show week to week.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like you're like, oh man, I really missed the Omega segment because it's selling it comes out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And delivers the lidspin promos as either a healer or a baby face that really got it over.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even when he was a heal, so much of the reason the heal stuff worked was Don Callis.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was able to really kind of coast his callis as second in a lot of those scenes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, being, you know, like, yeah, Don's managing me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Don Callis just most of the talking and Omega comes in there as Don's buddy occasionally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and then as a baby face here, it's basically nothing until we get to his thirty second tag line of goodbye.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good night for score at seven years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: Farewell.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good bye forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So long.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Checkmate games at match.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh yeah um one last thing we're actually going longer than I thought we would but uh
[SPEAKER_01]: Hang in there, not hang in there, but I feel like on the weeks where we don't love the shows, it's like a little circle back and now turns into this decompress and digest, the last four to six weeks of the general energy of all of this crap we big could super get them like, let's take stock, where are we emotionally at right now, having watched raw and dynamite for the last six weeks?
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like this is emotionally taking stock of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Osprey and Swerver totally losing this match to the young books.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who, by the way, that was a waste.
[SPEAKER_02]: That, that felt like a rib on all of us about the about videos and recaps and doing those types of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's felt like everything about the, the books and Osprey.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's where strictly it felt what I was watching that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think this, but it felt as though they had listened to you and me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Creed about how there were no stakes and none of this made sense and like how it would really make sense if That the the Osprey and Strickland came out here and wanted to hand things over to an impartial board of directors.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh fan, so sure of a semi fan of proved board of directors to everything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like they heard that they're like Chris and Jeff and Joe and They're like and Tony caught in particulars like
[SPEAKER_01]: or directors, everyone loves me.
[SPEAKER_01]: To teach us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, everyone loves me.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I just heard the snorting noise.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went, okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we saying something about Tony Condon?
[SPEAKER_02]: We probably shouldn't be, but let's just continue and move on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, maybe it does take a little puff, a little tribonusky, a weekend ski vacation might inspire you to think that the one thing that the fans have been clamoring for.
[SPEAKER_01]: is the idea that you Tony Khan are the savior, because the last time the bucks beat the shit out of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: The crowd was emotionally really battered by that, and they haven't ever fully recovered from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now Osprey, it's Strickland, and it's an effort to be cool, are gonna come out here and be the Knights of Tony Khan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tony needs his little toys to come out here and fight for his honor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he...
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I hope they do because this idea that like we're gonna set it back to the fans and you know who the fans really love Tony Conn is one of the lamest most corporate feel-t pieces of crap.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you thought the sea of punk shit was tedious and annoying and you don't find this Osprey it's worth trick-good stuff tedious and annoying.
[SPEAKER_01]: I might suggest to you your problem
[SPEAKER_01]: is not corporate fealty story lights, it's something else, but I hate corporate fealty story lights.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this was just nails on a chalk, but all I love my boss, all I love my boss is a guy with hearing loss, thanks to shitty bosses, this just for what I can still hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Chris, they won't get to fight for the World Title for a whole year.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a whole year who can fight for the World Title while Osprey and Swerv have their three month feud over arguing whose fault it was that they lost.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we get like to cash to and Ocata and Omega and maybe even Jericho and rematch with Moxley.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I think that it probably gonna lose.
[SPEAKER_01]: But boy, Osprey.
[SPEAKER_01]: to the side is so ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and he was your major signing last year.
[SPEAKER_01]: It shouldn't kill us now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the idea that you're even entertaining pulling him out of title contention is brain dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brain neutral is what that I like too.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not putting any blood flow into the cerebellum.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's Chris.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to get the Cody storyline right this time when he took himself out of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was such a, that was such a draw.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, I know that you know, I know that that was a big money moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw it at the beginning of this episode of Dynamite when they were recapping all of the great moments in the AEW history.
[SPEAKER_02]: And on that note, we'll go to Vader Club, my pick from MLW, which we've never really dove into before, but I was in the mood to watch.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was in the mood to watch an L.A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Park match in a La Park a match.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I went to Cage match.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this, this, and it said, oh, Jacob Fat two versus L.A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Park.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, I'm here for this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm good with this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this,
[SPEAKER_02]: all my bloody horse fight hardcore match expectations were met by this because and then I read up on LA parks run in MLW and how it ended.
[SPEAKER_02]: LA park was a jerk at this time taking liberties with guys being a little bit too stiff and also making sure that both of his sons were also booked for whatever cards they could get on for MLW.
[SPEAKER_02]: This felt like it was a struggle of wheels, but man, Jacob Fattu's awesome in this.
[SPEAKER_02]: The fuzzberry flop dive three quarters away through the match on bare feet on the concrete.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mad respect for that because that looks like it sucks if you do it over and over again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both are bloody LA Park has half his mask on by the end of this because they're just tearing and ripping each other's foreheads.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, I believe this is heel on heel.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think because I think both managers are heel have heel factions.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know the intricacies of the storytelling during this time of the contrast stable versus versus, uh, serena de la renta's stable at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know anything for a fact.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a little bit too much manager interference for my liking, but overall a nice bloody brawl.
[SPEAKER_02]: Grizzled L.A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Park, not as fun as W.C.W.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chairman L.A.
[SPEAKER_02]: Park, but still.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, yeah, yeah, decidedly not.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's, he is large here.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have not said it, yeah, like, I mean,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, he was Paul and W. Subbarca.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, like he had the partner for lunch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: I really liked like early on in this matches.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some some good dash to the heel spots.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That park does I like
[SPEAKER_01]: the off the ropes tossing the referee into fought to and using that like you know malfunction at the junction to set up his own clothes line I dug that I dug that I actually dug the fireball to the face of the of the ref because it's a no-dq match so it's like well screw it we're gonna go all the way with it
[SPEAKER_02]: And then a second luckily I mean they had competency and the second ref came down and things like that but like when they fireballed the ref I was like well that's that's impressive you know and that's a step above you know just putting like the ref through a table or doing a spot where they're made of
[SPEAKER_01]: paper mache, but yeah, no, but it also does feel like, like, especially if you mentioned that and I'm looking at having on as we're talking about it, I've seen some spots here, um, we just feel like LA Park is kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: Not going to cooperate.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not going to cooperate.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a few of those corner spots in particular.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that and he won't do.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just won't give far to the cells.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you hear it almost towards there's one towards the end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I think it's when he does the summer salt.
[SPEAKER_02]: shoulder block they call it but I think it's more like he hits him with his leg or whatever where they're in that corner kind of they're kind of tearing at each other's foreheads a little bit but you can tell there's a conversation going on and you can hear from a two finally say okay where they're almost negotiating having to do a spot in this felt like and and I listen to Conan talk about why did the parks have such a short run
[SPEAKER_02]: And there and he goes because every time he'd come in for a match, he'd go into business for himself here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I believe that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That feels like LA Park at times was doing the bare minimum of having to get Jacob fat too over by the same time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get my stuff in and I'm also going to take a lot of liberties.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like wanting to look, it's the weird obsession with needing to look good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, okay, but they do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not even like,
[SPEAKER_01]: take care of yourself right now so like what is this like why are we you know like every one thing if he look you know in his fifties he looked like Tim storm right okay I I get that like I get how I got like that where I'm like no I'm still a great shape here guys I can't just like I can't just be blown over by a ceiling fan
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not that!
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, I'm not saying, don't have any resistance, but I'll also sit here and go like, dude, this idea that you need to protect the image, you protect the image by hitting a treadmill at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, let worry less about not taking that extra suplex and worry more about maybe doing some crunches.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he's big in this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just do it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I, my thought here is not, oh, body shape.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like from a physicality standpoint, dude, imagine being that age, that weight and taking those bumps.
[SPEAKER_02]: And trying to do it all, yeah, because he was as well as he did.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I, I, I'd be look.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I have lost weights since I was younger as his facial mouth, but if I when I fall now, God damn, I feel it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know what, I mean, yeah, like, so like I couldn't imagine putting on weights.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bruised him getting, yeah, I'm getting putting on weight, putting on twenty years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, then still be and then have the twenty years of wear and tear all by the way in between.
[SPEAKER_02]: Still a fun watch on YouTube if you want to look for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, and totally a fun time capsule of Fatu clearly shows all of the extreme flashes of talent that we're now seeing coming to fruition now and it's just a reminder again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, you might not love the over gimmicking, the big dogging of Fatu, but he's really talented.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's very talented.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's it there.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's been Shake the Mercy and Follow me on X at Crap Game Thirteen.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just follow the show at Shake them ropes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also do a show for fight game media on Wednesdays about twenty minutes after Dynamite goes off the air with Paul Fontaine, thoroughly deconstructing that show, which is why I don't go into as much detail on it here.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's on YouTube for free and it drops in your podcast here's on the fight game media or just the Dynamite show feed for free the next morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chris would like to get his plugs in now and he'd like you to purchase some music lessons from him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, get music lessons from me, Instagram.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first single from the album I have been told is going to be arriving on my desk in the not so distant future, which means it will be arriving on your Spotify in the not so distant future, like probably within the month.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now is an excellent time to go and subscribe to my Spotify, which is under Chris November now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've not renamed the project or anything at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even if I do it, it'll still just all update.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just go ahead, sum up to my Spotify, go check out some of the demos.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of those have been improved enhanced, remixed for this album, but the album, it's ultimately going with your total.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seventeen songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am not trying to make pet sounds, but it's going to be close to an hour in length.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm proud of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you guys like it when it comes out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am excited for the finished product.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want less and tip me up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And always remember.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, don't big pop a pop.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, give your handle on Instagram.
[SPEAKER_02]: You haven't yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: DOC, TOR, underscore, N.O.V.
[SPEAKER_01]: And remember, big pop a pump is your hookup.
[SPEAKER_01]: Holder if you hear him.