5 YRS AGO DYNAMITE POST-SHOW: Keller & Fann & Krol: Two on-site reports, analysis of Full Gear developments including stellar Hangman promo

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1:35 Now, PW Torch brings you the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show.

1:44 On today's Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show for Sunday, October 11th, 2026. We jump back five years to a special Saturday night episode of AW Dynamite. It got moved nice as it typically does when the baseball playoffs are going on. And I was joined by Rich Phan and Eric Kroll. We had two on-site correspondents who talked about what it was like in the building that night. We analyzed several developments for the Full Gear pay-per-view. A standout babyface promo from Hangman Page. A Cody Rhodes, Arn Anderson cinematic video. Brian Danielson against Bobby Fish. CM Punk on commentary throughout. Dan Lambert and Chris Jericho going.

2:16 At it on the mic.

2:17 Much more.

2:18 The on-site reports included some notes on the tapings after Dynamite for AW Rampage 2.

2:23 So let's get to it.

2:24 Over two hours of analysis of Dynamite from five years ago this week. Rich, I thought that was just one hell of a babyface promo for a world title challenger that we got from Hangman Adam Page. that has been a long time coming and it was worth the wait. I just, I loved it in so many ways. I just did a Wade Keller hotline a few days ago where somebody asked, you know, what's wrong with Vince McMahon and his inability to promote baby faces. And so many of the bullet points that I think Vince McMahon is missing out on in terms of how he presents or scripts baby faces to be, I thought Hangman Page epitomized.

3:04 I thought it was a mix of old school and meaning 60s, 70s, 80s. It skipped the 90s and 2000s and then jumped to modern day. Because I think a lot of things that were old are new again. We see that with how crowds are reacting to wrestlers, especially in AEW, but some of that's surfacing in WWE in terms of their preferences. I thought Hangman was super likable, but also determined to win a world title. Just very focused on what his goals are. And then also pulled...

3:37 tied together the history of his two, three year journey here at AEW and tied it all together. So I'm kind of gushing about it. I thought the material was great, the content and also the delivery.

3:47 How about you?

3:49 I thought it was really fun and it clearly looked like the guy spent his time off thinking about who he is. And you talk a lot about the idea of the journey and the destination. He wasn't muddled with the idea of, At full gear, I'm going to be champion. I like that in particular because he's such a vulnerable baby face in this company. And I think that's such a rare thing to have where usually we're so used to the last couple of years, the main baby face or one of the top challenging faces always being someone who doesn't have, you know, breaking their armor. And for him...

4:32 talking about his vulnerabilities and talking about even mentioning the, the trepidation and leaving ring of honor. And then culminating that with, I knew I was confident when I took the time off to be there for my wife, when my son was born and that helped further his journey of he's where he needs to be. He's who he needs to be. He's where he needs to, he's in, where he needs to do what he needs to do.

4:58 And that is something that you mentioned, you know, the different decades. I think that's a very 2020 mindset, especially post pandemic or in pandemic. Let's, let's be real here in terms of people reevaluating life choices, uh, values and things like that. And I, I just really was not in awe. Cause I think that might be a little too much, but I was, I, you know, I was with you as far as the amount of praise and, uh, well-earned praise he brought from that.

5:29 Yeah. Yeah.

5:30 There were so many things to like about that. I want to hopefully talk more about it as the show progresses here. The thing that I think a lot of baby faces miss, and I thought Drew McIntyre was going to be better at it, and I'm not necessarily blaming Drew McIntyre because he's in a culture that Vince McMahon has fostered from a product standpoint where I don't think it has a real chance to grow or thrive. But But I thought he might have it coming out of the pandemic. As they say through their euphemism, he led WWE through uncertain times. That's the phrase that they're using as their word for pandemic. And it's fine. And I thought he'd be the one coming out of the pandemic to be like, hey, it's great to have you people back.

6:14 But he had those rough few weeks beforehand of story time and Ward, I don't know, whatever he was referencing, his historical stuff. And It was just sort of like Sheamus talking about his past and people were kind of groaning. And then they just went a different direction because Bobby Lashley got hot. I thought Drew would be the guy who would be giving this type of promo that we got from Hangman tonight. For those who didn't hear it, I mean, he said that when AEW started, he left New Japan, which was his home, and the goal was to become the first AEW champion. And when he didn't and he came up short, He lost his confidence. He lost his friends. And he said he lost himself. But he said one thing that didn't seem to lose momentum

6:56 is the fans' support for him and the Cowboy Shit chants in particular. He said they got louder week after week. And then he talked about what Cowboy Shit stands for, including learning to welcome some new friends into his life.

7:08 Again, tying that history of Dark Order into that promo.

7:12 He said it was having the balls during his hottest run of his career to be at home with the birth of his baby boy.

7:16 That got cheered. I'm sorry. 20 years ago, people would have.

7:19 Booed any baby face who talked about putting family and becoming a father first. You know, it was just sort of, it was a different time and it was fine for that time, but it was, you know, we've moved past it and every era is different. And this, I think tapped into that era. And he goes, that's cowboy shit regarding being there for his wife, for the birth of their baby. And, um, he said, when you fall off a horse, you get back on and keep riding. That to me is cowboy shit. And then he said, he, He doesn't know if he's going to win. He believes in himself, but he's not going to call it ahead of time. Rich, as you're talking about, he said what he can promise is he'll give the fans everything. I'll

7:55 give you my heart. I will give you my soul. Every fiber of my being. I will give you my blood. I will give you my sweat. In one way or another, I feel I may give you my tears. And he said he's 100% sure he'll give them cowboy shit.

8:10 I just love that.

8:10 I mean, that kind of closing line of one way or another, I'll give you my tears. shows the stakes. He's either going to cry in joy for winning the title and fulfilling the goal he had two years ago, or he's going to cry in agony over coming up short again. And everybody's there with him. He's relatable. He feels authentic and real. What he said, there wasn't, like, he wasn't trying to tell corny jokes. He wasn't making meta comments. It wasn't like insider comments. He didn't talk about catering. He didn't talk about the other guys. He didn't talk about being too short or too tall or, or too plain or too care. It wasn't any of that.

8:46 It was pure unadulterated storyline, old school, but in the framework of modern AEW. And it wasn't even about Kenny Omega that we've got time for that. This was about him. I, again, I just, I just love this promo. Um, Rich, if that's not clear, um.

9:05 Yeah, it's standing out. And like you said, it was him pointing to himself and that continued story of, can I do it? I really like the fact that he mentioned putting himself in that match and the tears because it's clear. I mean, I even got to interview him after the first pay-per-view when he lost. He's maintained that one character trait of the fear of failure. Because after that match, it was, I don't know what's next. They're losing the pack out of nowhere. And it's, you know, this seems like this is another issue for me. And then now you're at the point where he has now sold it, which is something that people probably don't think a lot about when it comes to pro wrestling. But you mentioned meta. It's not necessarily meta, but it's so

9:57 in character that we probably don't pay attention to. He threw his name in the hat in a ladder match for a shot at the title, knowing he might not necessarily win that. He's won it. And now he's used that as an impetus to say, I might not win the title, but I'm going to try. And we remember right before him leaving how much he absolutely avoided that at all costs. The drinking, the turning on the dark order as they tried to support him. And it wasn't until he got to support himself and even noted in this promo how they were helpful to him. And even in his darkest time, that is, again, a level of vulnerability we do not see with top baby faces. And I think, like you said, in this era, that was something.

10:40 And with this fan base, very endearing and continued his, not necessarily love affair, but continued the mutual appreciation that both the fan base and he have for each other.

10:54 Absolutely. All right.

10:56 I'm going to read an email before we get to kind of introducing ourselves. and to the caller portion, because it's just perfect. Christopher emailed, Chris from Reading, PA, says, Did you love that Hangman Page promo, or did you, all caps, love that page promo? That promo was two years in the making. I'm legitimately excited. This is how wrestling, all caps, should be. I just totally agree. The word that you said, too, vulnerable, was such a big part.

11:28 of what made that work so well.

11:32 All right, let's pause. Let's introduce ourselves.

11:34 This is the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show for Saturday. Yeah, Saturday, October 16th, 2021. It's a weird night to be doing this. It just has thrown me off all week having a Wednesday without Dynamite and doing a post show on Saturday. It's happened before where Dynamite hasn't aired on Wednesday, but I just can't wrap my head around it.

11:58 I'm a creature of habit and patterns here.

12:00 So it feels weird, even though it's just another evening following Dynamite.

12:05 So welcome.

12:07 Thank you for listening live or downloading the show. We've got a lot to talk about in this whirlwind two-hour episode of the show. And if you can, peel yourself away, Rich, from dynamite. Cody and Brandy and the Roads to the Top saga in the background. I had to peel you away from it. You had to mute the TV when I called you for the show here to patch you in.

12:31 The other voice you hear besides mine, Wade Keller, is Rich Phan, a Pro Wrestling Torch columnist and the star of everything with Rich and Wade, a PW Torch VIP exclusive show. He also joined me on the flagship earlier this week.

12:45 Rich, welcome.

12:48 Thank you for having me. And yeah, I, I am so focused and wanting to make sure I am not in any way besmirching or in any way undermining my duties as co-host. I've now turned to the other guys in the background to prevent me from even from absorbing a minute more of roads to the top.

13:08 I can't promise I've done that rich.

13:10 Um, so on occasion I might be distracted, but you know, if I can experience it with the, with the volume down in the background, um, And it can just whet my appetite, increase my curiosity for what did Brandy just say? What did Cody just say as he's pumping his fists on the couch in his living room about, you know, Brock Anderson and that saga and what's going on in the inter-family drama with Brandy and Cody's sister. And so I'm excited to watch this later. There's nothing more fun than watching Brandy react to watching Cody's matches on TV while pregnant. So fun times here as we... as we broadcast live, live stream our Dynamite Post Show. But I'm going to stay focused or try. I promise to try.

13:55 I promise to try.

13:58 Rich.

13:58 That's fair.

13:59 That's very fair.

14:00 Yes.

14:01 So just, Rich, overall, before we move on to calls and emails. Oh, actually, before I do that, let me give out the phone number. Because if you're listening to us live on our live stream, you are invited to call us. You are encouraged to call us. The number is 347-215- That's 347-215-8558. When you call, push 1 on your keypad. We'd love to hear from you and hear your thoughts on the show. You can also email us, wadekellerpodcast at pwtorch.com. You can follow me on Twitter, by the way, at the Wade Keller. That's at the Wade Keller.

14:43 You can follow my co-host, Rich Phan, at rich underscore phan.

14:48 F-A-N-N. And you can follow our brand at PWTorch. All right.

14:55 Oh, by the way, one other note before I get to our first call. Yesterday on the SmackDown post show, Javier Machado joined us. And that was the last segment on the show. And he was an on-site correspondent for Rampage. They were back-to-back in Miami. He's also going to talk to us later in the show. They are right now taping next Friday's Rampage. And so Javier will join us to talk about Dynamite. We'll stay spoiler-free on Rampage, or at least warn you ahead of time, give you a chance to hit mute or fast-forward late in the show if Javier does give some details on Rampage. So that is expected to be coming up in a matter of minutes once they finish that Rampage taping, which usually they do pretty swiftly. But you can hear what Javier had

15:39 to say about the Rampage experience. He had a great night at the end of yesterday's SmackDown Poe Show. So Even if you're here for AEW and not here for SmackDown podcasts, you might want to download yesterday's SmackDown post show here on this red feed and fast forward to maybe the last 15, 20 minutes, and you can hear some on-site reports on Rampage. Your time is valuable. Go VIP and listen to our shows commercial-free. A nice streamlined listening experience. pwtorch.com slash govip. For full details on a commercial-free listening experience and with a full VIP membership, you can create custom feeds for individual shows or groups of shows by theme and also unlock nearly four decades of archives and access our ad-free website with VIP-exclusive content, pwtorch.com

16:30 slash govip. Your time is valuable, and that's one of the reasons we offer VIP membership, pwtorch.com slash govip.

16:42 All right.

16:43 Let's go to our first call. We're going to somebody in Chicago here. I just don't recognize the number. This could go well or not go well, Rich.

16:53 Go ahead.

16:53 If you heard a tone, introduce yourself, please.

16:56 Hey there, my friend. It's Eric Kroll, former pro wrestling torch columnist. How are you guys?

17:01 Excellent.

17:02 Doing great. I love the, yeah, what you just did there.

17:08 The affected put on super fan accent.

17:11 Yes, exactly.

17:12 Um, Eric, I was going to tell you to call. I was going to say, I was going to message you and say, you better call, uh, after, after that show. And then there you are right at the top of the, uh, of the caller, uh, switchboard. Um, yeah, go ahead.

17:24 What'd you think of what stood out to you on dynamite, Eric?

17:28 Well, I really, I was calling to talk about hangman pages promo, but you both did such a great job and the emailer did such a great job of, uh, of breaking it down and what made it so great. Um, I think I was on like maybe last week's within the last two weeks, um, post-show on Dynamite, and I said, man, you know what we need now from Hangman Page? A really fiery babyface promo. Boy, did we get it tonight.

17:53 I was really ecstatic. I was also I had spent a couple hours last night, and I was thinking about noodling around writing something for The Torch on Hangman Page and the different type of babyface that he is from the previous babyfaces that have been on top since the 60s. And then, uh, page kind of stole my thunder with the promo. And then you guys hit all the points I was going to hit in the, in the piece afterwards.

18:18 So I'm not, I'm on the fence now about whether I'm going to finish it. Uh, I have a lot of transcribed tape from hangman page interviews, but I don't know what to do with it.

18:26 Well, Eric, at the risk, I know you've got a planner, um, but at the risk of, of, of derailing where you were heading, um, go talk about hangman page. Don't, I mean, just cause Rich and I talked about him for a few minutes. Um, You know, you were the one who said that's, I mean, maybe Tony Khan or Hangman listened to the show and they're like, that Eric Curl, smart fella.

18:46 He's right. Because, I mean, honestly, that.

18:50 Promo, you know, is a great minds think alike type situation because it is, I agreed with what you said, but boy, it is what you said. And maybe it just, you know, was a long time coming and it was inevitable. that this is the culmination of everything, but it really delivered on that culmination, even if it felt like, yes, when they announced his title match, that's the promo he was always going to give. Are you with me that this was at the high end of expectations in terms of content and delivery?

19:16 Yeah, the content was really great. He didn't really get super fiery until the end, and you'll notice he didn't say he's going to win the title, as you pointed out, which was So tonight, he moved the ball forward in his character arc in a big way. He said, one, he's got his confidence back, but he also did not say he was going to win. I think one of you hit on that point earlier. And so it leaves just enough doubt. I assume the time is right. Page is going over at full gear, but there such good storytellers, and they've been telling the story since the promotion started, that I still have a little bit of nagging doubt in the back of my head that if I'm able to drive up to the Twin Cities from Chicago on

20:01 November 13th, that I'm going to get what I've been waiting for for the better part of a year now.

20:08 Rich, let me ask you, because Eric just brought up a good point, a pertinent point, which is.

20:13 Is Paige.

20:16 Perhaps lowering fans' hopes or expectations that they're going to, that they should drive a long distance to attend and see history in the making? When Sting, in the summer of 1990, was taking on Ric Flair in Baltimore for the WCW world title, I mean, that was an era where when you, when you had a hunch or heard that there might be a title change, you wanted to travel to go see it. Cause we hadn't gone through the, the mid, mid nineties and on era where the world title changed way more often due to irresponsible, shameful hotshotting.

20:51 And you would travel to go see a title change. And I went to Baltimore.

20:53 I wanted to be there for sting beating Ric Flair. And, and I was, and, and I absolutely am glad I was there for that. Um, Was Page confident enough or did he actually make it seem like he's not confident enough where it might dissuade some people from attending? Or was that promo the opposite? It was a relatable babyface, but it actually did make you think, yeah, they're building up to this being his moment.

21:18 There's no other way they could tell this story.

21:20 I took it as him building up to the moment and showing I am climbing this mountain. Climb with me. And challenging you as the viewer to go on the journey with him, as opposed to, uh, we've heard so many years, the Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman spoiler, or the Vince McMahon guarantee. I think this is a lot more, uh, humble though. It's just as proud or just as, uh, you know, just as appealing for me as a viewer.

21:51 So I think it's there. I think he, if he had sold that with less vigor, I would have seen it as like a, Let's tone it down, guys. I'm just trying here. Even if he took the character he had been prior to leaving for paternity leave, but I think now that he's kind of evolved and he's given himself a little bit of that maturity, I'm in on it, and I think it's fine.

22:13 All right, Eric, back to you.

22:16 The other theme I've noticed on the two days here back-to-back in Miami is I know Tony Khan was photographed by an Associated Press photographer at the Jacksonville Jaguars game last weekend. And people enhanced that photo of his notebook, and it looked like he had 11 matches, potential matches for full gear. And I think after this weekend, that's pretty close to what the card's going to be. They definitely took the next steps in setting up Inner Circle and America's Top Team. They definitely set up the Bucks and the Jurassic Express with the backstage attack on Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy coming out later in the show to run off the Super Click. They definitely set up Lucha Brothers versus FTR tonight. And looking at that TD bracket

23:07 that they, I think right at the end there, they gave, if you blinked, you missed it. It sure as heck looks like Mox and Danielson, also listed on Tony Khan's notebook page, are um is uh are the two people emerging in the finals there and so uh one thing uh we didn't get brit versus question mark i thought hey maybe it's going to be anna jay but uh and they set up a match but i guess that's they're going to burn that one next weekend her next next rampage is it dynamite one of those two shows so maybe it's uh ty conti that's going to that's going to come out and make the save after a beat down. And, uh, and that'll be the match, uh, matches.

23:45 They did not, uh, set up yet. Cole versus Christian that, that were on his notebook page, uh, punk versus Wardlow. Although you could see, you could see punk coming to make the save. If MJF is attacking, um, Darby Allen, you know, in an angle within the next couple of weeks and then Cody versus question mark. Uh, it's probably not going to be, uh, uh, Aleister black Malakai black, because they're burning that match off next week on TV as well. The third one. So, uh, very interesting. Uh, did you, did you guys pick up on that? Did you, uh, is it refreshing? Maybe that Tony is going to make a bunch of changes to the card just because we all know he's not going to try and swerve the marks.

24:28 Oh yeah.

24:29 Tony's not going to change because somebody, you know, zoomed in on, on a, on a match sheet. That's not, that's not, he's smarter than that. Um, He knows his mark. I mean, the fact is there's nothing particularly shocking in that lineup. I mean, it's not that everyone could predict every one of the matches, but there's not a big, it's not like he, you know, it's like he said Cody versus Kevin Owens, you know, like where it's like, whoa, that totally spoiled something. And it should be this way.

24:55 I mean, the matches are, the card is going to be a really good version of where things appear to be headed for, Anyway, or where the people who are going to make the pay-per-view, who they most logically would be matched against. Rich, is there anything that surprised you in that lineup? And then I guess, you know what, Eric, are you at all surprised Tony doesn't appear to be swerving in a different direction just to avoid proving that the sheet of paper he was holding was like Eckerd or something?

25:24 I can't even imagine why he would run from it.

25:27 I think... With all of this, it's been clear the only time Tony has really relatively taken umbrage on things were when the results weren't necessarily to plan. So we think about the beginning chair with Cody. You think about the exploding ring death match. You think about some of the pushback on the mousetrap death match stuff. Those were the things he kind of really bowed his back and said, hey, this is the plan. did you want the ring to really explode? You know, we thought this was safe, et cetera.

26:03 In terms of match arrangement, I think if anything, much like when he previewed, I don't know, I said previewed, previewed Brian Danielson and CM Punk and Cole in terms of how they were coming and doing it without doing it. I think with this, just full steam ahead makes total sense because he is very confident in himself as a poker and in what he's going to present just because you read a couple of chapters and a preview of a book that's coming out doesn't mean you get the entire plot and i think as we see the twists and turns what comes from this is going to be more important than necessarily having the list of the matches and if anything to his point the fact that it's an aew pay-per-view the 13 matches made.

26:46 Sense yeah And, I mean, we're at a point, too, where it's like, if you watch Rose to the Top, it's like, hey, you know, here's the behind-the-scenes machinations of how the matches are made.

26:57 And the angles. Oh, that's a cute baby. Okay.

27:01 I should have turned this off. And the... It's like, I'm surprised they don't just... Tony doesn't just, like, intentionally release the lineup, like, three weeks before all the storylines kick into high gear, going, tune in, because these are the stories we're going to be telling you.

27:14 Because you're right, Rich. It's not about who's wrestling whom. It's about.

27:19 the story that's told and seeing it play out. You don't want to know finishes. If there's a surprise, you know, we don't want spoilers. Don't just flippantly, you know, give away surprises. You know, that's just selfish and dumb. But the lineup, if it's logical, I mean, I don't see any harm in getting out there. And yeah, I mean, everything is just going in the direction like you noted, Eric, towards that sheet. Now, you know, I used to make fun of coaches for covering their mouse on the sidelines when they would like, you know, call in plays with their like laminated play card.

27:50 Like, oh, come on, that's a little paranoid.

27:52 Are people really zooming in with binoculars, hearing what you're saying, and then quickly relaying it to the defense? And now with this, you know, zooming in on the AP sheet or the photograph, now I kind of get, you know, I guess I need to be a little bit more paranoid or more cynical about things like that.

28:08 But, you know, good job for high def cameras.

28:13 Hey, everyone. Longtime PWTorch columnist Sean Radican here to let you know I've revamped and renewed the Radican Worldwide Podcast for 2026. a weekly VIP exclusive. Every week, I break down four or five of the biggest trending topics in pro wrestling. I also present my analysis, providing insight that helps you understand the story better or see it another way than maybe is the controversial take out there. Then I bring on a special guest for the second half of the podcast. Sometimes it's a wrestler or someone else who works in the business. Other times it's a guest analyst who brings their specialized point of view on a particular key topic in the news. Recent guests have included Bronson Reed from WWE and PCO. One of my areas

28:55 of specialty is the Japan wrestling scene, so I often cover a big topic from Japan with PW Torch's own Alan Farrell, Kelly Wells, and Chris Lansdell. I don't just cover the news. I don't just riff on the news or give a standard hot take. I'll bring my decades of studying this industry and talking one-on-one with dozens of wrestling promoters to each week's show so you understand not just what's happening, but the context of why. Get ahead of the news. Get ahead of the pack with Radican Worldwide only at PWTorch VIP.

29:32 Erica, back to you for any follow-up.

29:35 Well, I would point out that in the NFL, the cheating New England Patriots are … always afoot, so you do have to watch your play cards because they've been penalized numerous times for cheating over the years.

29:46 Absolutely.

29:47 I would have said spoiler alert on the baby, except I think that didn't the Rhodes' sell their pictures to People magazine, so we do know that there.

29:55 Is a baby.

29:56 Well, we know there was a baby, and spoiler alert, the baby's cute, but I think you could probably assume that with Cody and Brandy, although babies sometimes are ugly when they're born and then become cute, like, you know, after three or four days.

30:07 But this baby was cute right away.

30:10 Was the shot right after, like, in the delivery room, or was this, like, post?

30:15 Oh, yeah, it was in the, I mean, I don't know if it was a minute after the birth, but, you know, baby was cleaned up. But, yeah, Brandy was lying in the hospital bed with the baby, and the baby was quite newborn.

30:29 Great.

30:30 I will move on and let you guys get to it. No, no, no. Eric, Eric.

30:34 Are you still there?

30:36 Do you want to stay with it? We have no callers. It's Saturday night. Nobody else has chimed in.

30:41 Oh, okay.

30:41 Yeah, that's fine.

30:42 So stick with us.

30:43 I didn't want to be rude and mess up all of your time. Or make it go– or– here, I'll take the shot. make this go as long as the fixed mailbag did this week oh god that's crazy which was raw like and it's uh and it's like.

30:56 Yeah wait a second that is not nice it was a it was a good mailbag though.

31:00 Right yeah yeah it wasn't like raw i don't watch because uh i have three other things to do with those three hours of my life the uh the fixed mailbag.

31:11 Was great thanks i'm looking for it.

31:14 Eight part question of, of the sliding doors of what would happen if there was no Wade Keller or Dave Meltzer. Right. Yes.

31:20 Yes.

31:22 So go VIP.

31:24 I will say, I will say every, the everything show, it's been a nice 45 minutes an hour. It's a nice in and out there. I really appreciate that.

31:32 And that's just because our schedules aren't matching up. We, Rich and I can go long. If we, if it's open-ended, Eric, we can, we can just talk and talk and talk, but you know, between football practices and, you know, it's like, It's been, uh, it's been a little tougher to schedule. We got to get a little more, uh, a little more strategic about it, but no, no. I mean, honestly, I think 45 to an hour, um, hitting, hitting the high points is not, is not inherently a bad thing either, but the, the, the, the email questions we get for the fix are so good. And I know, you know, it sounds like I'm just grumpy. He away the whole time with these email questions. It's, it's, you know, a little bit of a bit, but, um, or quite a bit,

32:07 you know, a bit every once in a while, I'm serious about some of them, but, um, They're so good, and Todd put so much thought into them, unless they come in late, and then it's the fault of the emailers.

32:18 It's just they're great topics.

32:19 I'm an audience to that mailbag more than I'm a participant sometimes, and it's good stuff. Anyway, I don't want to rave too much about our VIP content, and Todd Martin in particular.

32:33 I will say about, uh, everything I do miss when you and Rich would make each other watch bizarre matches that you hadn't seen before and react to it. Uh, that was a really fun, uh, segment. You, even if Wade tortured you with some AWA match that nobody besides Wade remembers or, uh, or likes probably.

32:49 Eric, I'm wrong.

32:50 We got to go.

32:53 How dare you just despair. I didn't make Rich, I did not make Rich watch any AWA matches. I watched, I made him, I, I suggested he watch a couple of great, uh, great well there i guess there wasn't there one match rich but that was.

33:05 A classic yeah it was a it was a couple of match series yeah with with home because it was the one the hogan series and then there was also the other um what was the gentleman's name uh it was mad dog it was the death match the.

33:19 Mad dog or two out of three falls crusher blackwell and building the casket oh just a classic yeah classic babyface promo that.

33:27 Was prefacing arn anderson because people lost their minds and how crazy I was like, that dude made a casket for his opponent. Like, I don't know.

33:34 That was so good. That was so good. All right. Um, so yeah, Eric, stick around. My, my short, we'll boot you when we're sick of you, but go ahead.

33:43 One of my big shortcomings.

33:44 Yeah.

33:46 One of my big shortcomings as a wrestling fan is I didn't, I am old enough that I saw the AWA like first run, but I think it was the later era when it was bad and on ESPN and, like all the stars had left so like bockwinkle wasn't there anymore he retired and so yeah um i only saw the bad stuff and it really colored my uh perception negatively i'm sure it was a very good promotion yeah it was one.

34:10 Of the absolute great territories and historians acknowledge it as a top top tier um territory in the 60s especially the 70s and into the early 80s although some people who were you know early to mid 70s awa snobs would would would look at the late 70s and early 80s as the roster aging out a little bit. And while they're factually true, that is an era that hooked me.

34:34 So I am, and there was some, just some such great, you know, I'm raving about Hangman Page's promo, but I mean, there's some great promos. Like Greg Gagne got a lot of heat because he was a son of the promoter and was scrawny and.

34:48 All kinds of things.

34:49 But his earnestness in his promos is still a model to this day. And as I talked about Steve Austin on his podcast multiple times, Greg showed fire and milked hot tags in tag matches and then showed fire when he'd get the hot tag like no one else. Like, Steve Austin admires Greg Gagne's work, you know, traits of his work. And then Jesse Venturinator and Adonis and The Crusher, Matt Dockvishon, Nick Bockwinkle. You know, just the best of Bobby Heenan by far. I don't care if you saw every minute of him at WWE. If you didn't see his AWA work, you missed the best 70% of the body of his work.

35:23 So you pulled that string. You got me started.

35:26 Thanks, Eric.

35:27 It's out there.

35:28 It's out there in the archives, a lot of it, although unfortunately a lot of the stuff in the 70s is lost to dubbing over the tapes.

35:35 How could they have done that?

35:37 Anyway.

35:39 It's next-level coverage that you come to expect from the PW Torch brand. No AI, no rookie perspectives, no unfounded rumors, no clickbait, no deceptive headlines, just high-quality writing, breaking news, and fascinating flashbacks every day at pwtorch.com. Pull yourself away from the vacuous social media experience that I know many of you regret once you get lost in it for minutes, if not hours at a time, and settle in for high-quality PW Torch-branded wrestling coverage.

36:13 Back to Dynamite. Yeah, go ahead, Eric.

36:18 Steering it back on track, what did you two think of the opening match with Balakalp and Mr. Martin?

36:25 Yeah, Rich, you go first on that.

36:27 Yeah, I loved it. I thought that they did a great job on several levels. One, continuing the development of Dynamite. The relationship between Dante and Leo Rush to showing the continued showcasing of Dante Martin as a great young wrestler. And I even mentioned on Twitter, this is the start of his, when you look at his best of 2021 in AEW, the matches he'll have are so varied, but so good. And he's not winning any of them, but he's still coming out looking like a million bucks. And he's getting talked about as a person you need to pay attention to because he's on his way. I think Malachi selling it. And I, I, again, I mentioned this on Twitter as well. He, with that nod after the match to Dante, he's shown more respect to Dante Martin

37:20 than he has Cody Rhodes and his tenure in AEW. I.

37:24 I, I liked it a lot.

37:26 Um, And it, in a more generic sense, if we take away kind of the specifics of the journey Malachi's Black is on and the Leo Rush Dante Martin storyline, it's the, the AW, and they were criticized early on that, you know, why are these top tier wrestlers taking, why is it taking so long for them to beat mid tier wrestlers? And cause we're used to the WWE thing of just, you know, don't give anything your, your mid, your mid card for life.

37:52 And, and I got it into a degree.

37:53 I mean, to a degree, I think it, to a great degree, it made sense, but I think some of it was influenced on kind of what we're used to. And AEW has stuck with it long enough that I think now we're used to that, the culture of the presentation of top tier versus mid-carder, which is it's not as big of a gap as it has been drilled into us in other companies, especially WWE, for years that it has seemed to be, which is there's no hope or it's rare that somebody will ever rise above.

38:21 And You know, Dante is super talented, but he's not the only one. Even Alex Reynolds tonight.

38:27 You know, there's wrestlers who you don't think of as top-tier guys, or even necessarily future main eventers in some cases, who get moments in their matches. And they go 8 or 12 minutes, and you're like, why does it take so long to beat them? And eventually you stop looking at it as, well, that brings down, that defines down the top-tier guy. And you start to realize, in AEW, the gap between a mid-carder and a top guy is significant.

38:50 But that doesn't mean that mid-card wrestlers... who have no hope of winning, aren't going to put up a long fight, a spirited fight, and get in some spots and show signs that they are potentially going to work their way up to main event level. And so this was another example of that, where Dante and even Alex Reynolds getting moments before getting pinned later. You watch these matches and you care more about these mid-carders. There's a depth to the roster because they don't discard and define down to irrelevance Everybody who's not in that top six or top 12, you know, kind of top tier, top of the second tier.

39:27 So just more of it in a generic sense. i really like how much dante got and it's part of a pattern um but i also like the post-match interview where they're trying to figure out you know dante's reacting to the loss and reacting to what um how the storyline is is playing out with Leo and whether he's going to be a bad influence and Dante's going to be along for the ride. Mostly it's about Malachi, but it can be about two things at once. And AEW has managed to do that consistently, make one match about two things that are otherwise on a separate plane. So you don't have the WWE problem of the only people who ever wrestle each other are people who are involved in a feud that's going to culminate at the next pay-per-view.

40:09 So those are some of my thoughts. Eric, you brought that up. What made you bring that up and what are your thoughts on it?

40:13 Yeah, I thought the match was pretty good. They had a few style clash moments, but I was really excited when they went backstage at some point later in the show, which was nice because they reminded you, hey, this was the opening match that you liked. But they had Lio Rush advance the storyline and say he's going to form a tag team with Dante, who looked very reluctant to be part of this team, kind of gave him a half-hearted fist bump. But I mean, what a great tag team that'll be. Oh, gosh, yeah, yeah. But push them, push them, you know, have them go through the tag division and just beat everybody with their speed and amazing flying ability and give them a title match somewhere. I mean, they're just one of the exciting tag team that's.

40:57 Going to be.

40:58 Yeah, it's going to be a great tag team for however long they last. And then the question is, does Dante kind of, does Leo change him? Does he break away from Leo first? Does Dante change Leo? Rich, do you have any idea where you'd like to see it go and if that's the same as where you think it's going to.

41:17 Go?

41:17 I think it's going to go where ultimate and I think it should go. Leo tries to corrupt him and much like with the Lucha Brothers with Eddie Kingston, the return of his brother will then lead to him pushing back and then eventually wrestling Leo and maybe chasing after him. I think that would be very good for him. And I also think Dante is at the point in his career, especially this young, where all of this experience is good.

41:49 And the fact that he's getting it on television and acquitting himself well is just like with Wardlow. It's amazing to me. So that's where I think it's going. I think it's going to be Leo eventually pushes it a little too far. Dante asserts himself and we start to see a little bit more of him talking to And kind of going from there as his own person with either his brother and them reuniting their tag team or them being, you know, as brothers, just like with Cody and Dustin. You know, they have each other's backs, but they go their own way.

42:21 Eric, I want to bring up anything else.

42:24 Oh, that was my my topic list. But happy to hang out or not as needed.

42:29 Yeah.

42:30 Well, what do you what do you guys think of where they're going with Jon Moxley and his character right now?

42:35 You know, A.W.

42:36 Has a deep enough roster of top-tier star wrestlers who could be world title, world title match level, that they can rotate them in and out, as we're seeing with Cody, Moxley, even Hangman Page for a long stretch.

42:52 I can name others, too.

42:54 Like, even Lance Archer's sort of been downgraded, and now maybe he'll be moved up a little bit again. Miro in the TNT title picture, and there's certainly... I think in Tony Khan's head, there's a long-term trajectory for him that he's on. But with Moxley, it's been an interesting journey. And he just destroyed Wheeler Yuta in an interesting matchup.

43:10 Because Moxley's not a heel. Yuta's with Orange Cassidy. That's a babyface act. And Moxley just plowed through him. And then they stayed on Yuta afterwards. I don't know if he's legitimately shaken up or not. But great selling, if not. And now we're looking at where they're headed at full gear. Rich, your thoughts on... what they're doing with Moxley and, and his books coming out. Uh, and he's had some of these just significant, historically significant matches, um, in some of his own kind of dream matches, I guess, you know, he's gotten to kind of, um, play in the playground that he wants to play in that he told me he was going to play in no matter what, whether AW existed or not, he wanted to do the hardcore

43:51 style one way or the other, even if it was small crowds and small paydays. Um, what do you think about where he is and, and the, what tonight meant in terms of, revealing where his direction is going.

44:03 I thought this was a good reflection and they didn't go into too much detail about his time in GCW and the other stuff he's doing, which I get it, but it's reflecting the moxley we see outside of AEW and how much he has kind of leveled up in terms of his violence or sadism as Brian Danielson aptly coined when he was talking about his match with Suzuki and, I think this is just a reflection of that. He came in. One person was looking for a wrestling match.

44:32 One person was looking for a fight, and the fighter won. And as they get into the title eliminator tournament, especially if that's going to be the final, as the sheet Tony had at the Jags game may have revealed, this is a great way to kind of get him heated up and put to the fore because they really did.

44:51 I like the fact that him and Eddie– hung back a little bit and they were the tag team. And then he was handling other feuds. And now he's kind of getting back to, you know, he alluded to it when he first set up his match with Suzuki with, you know, Hey, I, you know, I wanted these guys when I was champion and then I couldn't get them.

45:11 And then it was, you know people forget this is the same guy i was when i was here so i i like that he's trying to remind people this is who he's always been as opposed to like this is the new john moxley.

45:25 Eric same topic to you.

45:28 Yeah i think moxley doesn't really change his character it's just a matter of who he's wrestling uh when he came in into aew he was the surprise guy coming in after uh May 2019, Double or Nothing, that first Jericho-Omega match. You know, he came in and he attacked both Kenny and Jericho. So you kind of didn't know whether to cheer him or boo him. I mean, the fans were obviously cheering him because his debut in Vegas was a big surprise. And fans love big surprises and pop for such things. I'll tell you where I'd go.

46:00 I mean, I'm looking at this bracket and, as Rich mentioned, the notebook page. It certainly looks like Moxley Danielson. I'd have Moxley win, and he can be Hangman Page's first challenger. The other way that could go is Danielson wins, and he could be Page's first challenger. I really don't think that's the way to go. That would really kneecap Hangman Page if he's the champion. If it doesn't, you're faced with Danielson Omega, and you're running that back right away, too, which is a good position to be in, but I'm not sure you want to do that on TV again.

46:34 I think they would prefer a pay-per-view audience where they could go longer without commercial breaks. Good position to be in. I also don't think Danielson necessarily needs to be undefeated, right? He doesn't need to never lose a match in the AEW, and Moxley could use a win, so... Moxley was an edge.

46:51 We did see at the end of that ladder match last week where it was Page and Moxley on the ladder, the last two, and Page won the striking battle and got the big giant comedy-sized poker chip. And so was that foreshadowing because Tony Khan already knew that's where he was headed with this title eliminator tournament. He did have Page's name circled, I believe, on that notebook page when I was a kid. and I was keeping score on my program at WWE house shows at the Rosemont Horizon.

47:25 I circled the winners.

47:26 Yeah, I did too. Who knows?

47:29 The paper cards that you'd get in the program, customized for your city, and jotting down who won.

47:35 Those were fun times.

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48:15 So Eric, you're first and then Rich. Would you have Moxley as a heel or have Moxley and Page just as pick-em?

48:21 It's okay.

48:22 Cheer for both. Cheer for one or the other. Whoever you like better, it's okay. And if they were to take that approach, is there danger that it undercuts what's working with Hangman Page? Why not put him against a more traditional, straightforward heel and just let Page have in his first major world title feud 100% of the cheers or 98% of the cheers? Or is there a greater risk in turning Moxley heel in that if the fans really like him, now you have fans cheering somebody who the company's trying to frame as a heel, and that can make that AW look like they're not in touch with their fans. So it's interesting. I'm sure Tony Khan's thought this stuff through and has something in mind. So Eric, your thoughts on that, and then Rich, you can just

49:03 jump in when he's done.

49:06 I don't think you need to turn Moxley heel. I think he can just shade his character. He could shade his character in a more violent way. And, it doesn't need to be him tag-teaming with Page and then turning his back on him in your sort of traditional heel angle. I have a lot more fear if it's Danielson, that Danielson would get cheered over Page and that would really undercut him. I think we already saw the crowd... in the ladder match when Moxley was attacking Page and going after him. They were booing Moxley.

49:43 So, I mean, I think we already.

49:44 Kind of saw how that's going to go. And that's fine. That's good. Which is crazy that Hangman Page would get less cheers than Jon Moxley. If you would have told me that two years ago, I would have said you're insane. But here we are.

50:01 But you get it.

50:02 I mean, having watched the journey of Hangman– and the bond he's forged with AEW fans, now that you've seen it with your own eyes, you're not shocked by the crowd reaction, but the old you wouldn't have predicted it.

50:16 Nope. Can't go wrong drinking beer with the fans, right?

50:23 People get over that way in pro wrestling.

50:26 Rich, your thoughts?

50:29 I wasn't necessarily surprised by it, but given that we've now seen it if it's moxley and danielson just lean into it moxley's gonna do what he's gonna do anyway he's gonna if he sees he's colored more as a heel he'll just be more aggressive he won't necessarily have to be um what's the right word he won't have to be the the mustache twirling scene eating heel let's say uh at times an mjf is in in the case of danielson he's a big boy he'll take care of himself i mean we just saw the match with uh Nick Jackson a few weeks ago where he essentially Nick Jackson had to play the baby face from underneath his Daniels and tore him apart. And we saw similar today with him and the viciousness, especially at the end

51:15 with Bobby fish. So if you just let them be themselves, I think the fans will find that balance. And it's not necessarily like Cody where there is this weird, subculture that wants to see him turn or wants him to turn. And he's just like, I'll be a face no matter what, despite logic kind of dictating otherwise. And with those two, I think for one match, it'll be fine, especially if it's a tournament final.

51:43 Um, what'd you guys think of the, uh, I referenced it earlier, Alex Reynolds in particular shining, um, as you'd expect in a match. Well, I mean, John Silver's got his own personality and evil. And I've got certain spots in there. Um, but the presentation of that six man tag with Cole and the bucks, and then, um, you know, the angle afterwards, jungle boy and where that's heading. But the, uh, I thought this was, uh, I thought that this match was a good use of dark order and was a case for continuing to have them have a presence, even if some of the segments seem sometimes low rent. Um, I thought this was a good use of them, and a lot of that goes to the Bucks and Cole being so good at being despicable, cocky heels. But I

52:33 thought Dark Order carried their end of things, too. So, Rich, just your thoughts on that match, and kind of my takeaway of, you know what? I've sort of just, not grit my teeth, but I've sort of been just, I don't know, maybe more agnostic about an arc order, you know, it's like not enthusiastic, but not like get them off my screen. Most of the time, this was a little more, I was a little more enthusiastic about this as this, as their role, again, kind of a landing place for, for the, for the story that they've been telling.

53:03 And I think they're in a good place. How about you?

53:07 I I'm in the same, especially they've, they've been hammering the reunion in Rochester. And so since then, they've been very animated when they're together. They've been very, You can see Silver has no hair, but his hair is down, so to speak, in terms of how relaxed all of them are in the ring. They are clearly beloved by the fan base, and they have evolved past the goons that ended 2019-2020 as just, why are they in the main event, to... a group that's really accepted within AEW.

53:39 They have their own little niche. And so I thought it was great to see them doing it, especially Evil. I know you mentioned John Su, but Evil Uno, even when I was watching the, what was it? I can't remember if it was the buy-in or Rampage yesterday, but watching Evil Uno, it might even have been Dark. Evil Uno really has had some fun now in the last few weeks with his matches. And so seeing all of them get to shine, that's been really cool.

54:04 Eric, your thoughts on Dark Order and how they're framed and presented here?

54:09 I liked the match a lot. I felt like what limited PWG I've been able to catch over the years, in recent years, some of the old stuff. It had that kind of feel to me, kind of a loose, maybe they're not selling as long as Wade Keller or Jim Cornette or traditional fans might like, but I enjoyed it. The I still watch BTE because I need something to watch at lunch on Mondays. It comes out right around the time of meeting or maybe an hour before. And so it's nowhere near as good of a show as it used to be when they were coming up in the world before EW started. But the kiss spot where they kissed Adam Cole on the cheeks and he opened his eyes, he thought it was the boxing. He used to say it's horror that it wasn't the boxing. That's

54:57 a payoff to something that they've been doing the last couple weeks on BTE as Silver and Reynolds try to recruit Adam Cole. I already have friends. Why would I hang out with you losers?

55:08 So I like it.

55:10 It worked if you'd seen BTE. It also worked if you didn't, which is important because you don't want to have to rely on a show that maybe 200,000 people a week watch on YouTube to carry such a thing. Um, I'm curious where the dark order goes from here. They did the sort of, uh, they tease the dissension breakup deal before Rochester. And do they reconnect with hangman page and have his back, uh, against the elite and the super click, the super elite, all the various names, um, as he goes for the world title, do they just come to the ring to celebrate with him? Uh, should he win the belt? I mean, what, They don't have a leader at this point. They've settled on a democracy.

55:57 So I'm curious where it goes going forward. And I don't really have an answer. I guess it's different if Page is involved than if he's not involved. Yeah.

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57:04 Either way works, go to Patreon and start your seven-day free trial. By the way, I hear from Javier that Pacan Andrade is just starting. So as we're talking, Javier is watching a match we get to experience next Friday on TNT. So we'll get, again, some early glimpse into spoiler-free and then perhaps, with warning, some spoilers on what to expect in terms of match quality and length the next week. He just let me know that that's what's going on now. So he'll be joining us in a little bit after that match ends.

57:40 Okay.

57:41 Bobby Fish.

57:42 I want to talk about him. He was in the main event against Brian Danielson. You know, anything that Brian Danielson does in the ring, you know, if you're a fan of Brian Danielson, which is just anybody who's going to listen to a show like this, you're going to appreciate what he does and his style.

57:57 It's fun. You know, we talk about Moxley.

57:59 Being on sort of a, self-indulgent playground tour of him doing what he wants to do. And it just resonates and connects with fans and serves AEW well. And that's a good thing to take wrestlers who are super talented like Moxley or Danielson. And if you're Tony Kongo, what do you want to do? And what gets you excited?

58:21 And what motivates you? And who do you want to wrestle? And how do you want to wrestle them? And in what context? And let's try to find a way to make that happen. And if the fans seem to dig it, we'll just lean into it more. what a novel way to approach being a pro wrestling promoter. And I get that sense with Danielson that this was another example of that.

58:38 I mean, just there's a level of respect for Bobby Fish. This is a Saturday night show. It's not, you know, one of their theme shows. It's not a show that's like, it's not a match that they would likely have main event, a big episode of Dynamite, you know, Fish already lost coming back right away, but does it work, you know, or, or is it, at some point you go, all right, this is nice, but Brian, we want, you know, to, we want to use you a little more judiciously against bigger names. It's kind of like with, with punk too.

59:05 So I'm just, uh, Rich, you first, any, any thoughts on how they've used fish so far and, obviously weave in uh some thoughts on on the match tonight.

59:13 I thought fish so far has been used really well and fish has been on a rehabilitation tour without it being the i hate wwe part of it and so that's been very helpful his actions. You see he's rejuvenated in the ring. You see he's wrestling a style that's more comfortable to him. And it's been really good. And I figured as much as I thought Lee Moriarty as a young guy could afford a loss, I thought the way the fans reacted, I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have lost sleep if Lee had gotten the win. But setting up this match with Danielson, he needed a win just as much as Danielson needed the win against Suzuki to kind of set up for this. I thought he was fine. I think he's been fine. I think he'll

59:58 be another great hand. And if, you know, maybe his buddy decides that he wants to join, perhaps we get Red Dragon and they already officially have their team legally ready and willing and able to be used. So I think this is a good fertile ground for him to plow because it's not like they're throwing him in the main event scene. He's a solid worker. That is much like most people who have been signed by AEW, respected for their ability and then given their age, respected to not just waste their time. And I think that's been really good for them in terms of the match itself.

1:00:34 I thought it was really good. The heel hook finish was really, really, really strong. And I love the fact that CM Punk was on commentary to accentuate that. And the biggest reason why that's such a, he's like, that's almost a heel move because it was your tap or snap. And, you know, that's not really something we tried to do in wrestling. And I, I just, I really, I just love the whole presentation of it. And, you know, even, even AEW doing it as much as I hate a three man booth, the three man booth of Shivani actually was a four man.

1:01:03 I knew as you started counting, I knew as you started counting, you'd get to Ford, correct yourself.

1:01:09 I was just waiting for that because yeah, it's.

1:01:11 A four man.

1:01:12 The one thing that helped them was Tony Shivani got to be the backstage patrolman and running into the chaos. And I loved how CM Punk again, there were so many things and we'll get to that eventually. CM Punk, It was a breath of fresh air in terms of commentary, not taking yourself serious, but taking the product serious. Because he had, I think in this one show, he had probably as many gaffes as Jim Ross had in like a year. And he just kept running. And I think there was just such a, you know, that's where Happy Punk helps him. Because he said, Brian Danielson, he said, Daniel Bryan, he said, you know what, I'm going to call him American Dragon. And, you know, things like that just in theory, because it's not like someone at home

1:01:55 is listening to me screwed up. Well, got the old man again. You know, it's not that it's it's very. But again, I'm rambling. So I'm going to shut up.

1:02:04 Eric, over to you. Yeah, it's an OSHA hazard standing next to me backstage at AEW. It is not a safe place to be. Someone's attacking you. You're not going to get that much interview time, and then they're going to cut away just as the fighting's getting good. We saw it tonight. I mean, the couple of women's things, they cut away really quickly. I wasn't too high on the signing of Bobby Fish. It doesn't offend me in any way. I think he's like 45 years old and– is I think the observer newsletter within the last couple of weeks, uh, it was reported that the bucks helped yet fish signed. And I guess as long as he's sort of a jobber to the stars, as Rich said, a good hand, um, at some point, if, if, if

1:02:49 they don't bring back red dragon, uh, which would be another fine addition to the tag team division, if they don't, I mean, maybe Bobby fish works with some of these younger guys in the ring. It starts, you know, putting them over, um, and that would be an appropriate use of him. He's on the, not even the back nine.

1:03:07 He's on the back two or three holes here, so maybe time to give back. Still looks like he's got something left in the tank, though.

1:03:14 Yeah, I think he's kind of five years ago, Brian Daniel. Excuse me, how quickly we forget. I can't, who's Kaz at Christopher Daniels? I just totally blanked out on how to get a different Daniel out of my mouth here. It kind of feels like that, like a good veteran hand. You're not going to push him to the top. Christopher Daniels was just kind of a guy who accomplished a lot, but was never a top, top guy, but was universally respected and admired on camera and behind the scenes. And Fish kind of feels like he's got a little more in the tank than Christopher Daniels does now. And yeah, they can use him in that way. Speaking of CM Punk, We got an email here, and I'll read this, and then I'll have you guys comment a little bit more

1:04:05 on his commentary, too. Joe from New York said, I think CM Punk needs to make some changes. Step one, he needs a new finisher. The fact is, Punk can't do the GTS anymore. For whatever reason, he can't lift his leg high enough. Plus, the move doesn't look like it should be able to finish anyone off. He needs to come up with a submission hold for a finish that would help him at his older age. Punk's not that far off, by the way, Eric. You're talking about Bobby Fish being up there and near the end. I know Punk had seven years off, but that included taking some beatings in MMA training and in the Octagon on camera.

1:04:35 He's only a few years away from Fish's age. And then step two, Joe says, hair club for men to color in that beard. Actually, hair club for men is to, what's he thinking of? Just for men. Hair club for men is for balding. Yeah, just for men is the hair color. The one thing I like is AW is getting Punk in the ring. That's a good thing. The only way he is going to get in ring shape is by wrestling. I'd spend the next six to eight weeks getting Punk matches between Dynamite and Rampage. If Punk starts to show better and look stronger in the ring, I'd start to move him up the card in 2022.

1:05:07 It's funny, Joe's writing about him like, he's a prospect who might make it.

1:05:10 You know, like Dante.

1:05:11 We'll see how he looks and then we'll move him up the card. I guarantee you with what they're paying Punk and his name value, regardless of how we break down, whether it's on the lower end of the positive influence he's been on business, in terms of how many categories he's checked boxes and been on and made a noticeable difference. Nevertheless, he is going to get a big push and be moved up the card, barring an injury or some unforeseen complete bottom falling out of his ring style, which it's not that. But yeah, so I guess, Eric, your thoughts first here on Punk and commentary, and then if there's any changes that you think after you're seeing Punk in the ring and as a wrestling act so far, as

1:05:58 we head into his role at full gear. And then eventually he's going to move away from, you know, sort of the upper mid card role he's been in and get in the mix with, with the top tier guys.

1:06:09 Um, as for, uh, punk having a gray beard, I take no position on that, uh, is for the GTS. So that moves heyday was what, maybe 10 years ago. And was Kenta the originator of the GTS to go to sleep? Yes. The one who popularized in Japan.

1:06:29 Yeah.

1:06:30 I do. I was hoping Rich would step in there. He probably knew the answer to that. And so, yeah, I mean, it, maybe it's, it's a little long in the tooth. I think one of the things I like about AEW is that many of the top guys seem to have different ways to finish you off. Like Brian Danielson tonight, you went to that heel hook. We don't normally, you know, it wasn't the cattle mutilator or any of the other finishers he uses. So, good to add finishers to your arsenal. If you worked in New Japan, you certainly would have more than one way to end a match.

1:07:03 I like Punk on commentary because he seems, I don't like, when Tony Schiavone, who doesn't say two words the entire show, and then all of a sudden just starts yelling something, because clearly Tony Khan said it to him in that set, it's usually to fill in some storyline thing, and obviously Tony Khan wants the point hit. uh, punk seems to do that naturally. Um, I think, you know, rich, rich struck upon, uh, the, the, the heel hook Danielson finish explained why that, uh, move, uh, is, is devastating and important. Um, cause it was somewhat of a surprise finish. So he adds those things and he has these little sort of cultural references and, um, and, uh, so, so I enjoy punk on commentary, um, as to where he's headed. Um,

1:07:52 He's already helped AEW get an extra 50,000-plus pay-per-view buys from his all-out appearance, even if he didn't necessarily boost TV ratings as much as some would have hoped. I'm finally conceding that point to Wade now that we have all the data in. If the Tony Khan notebook page is correct at full gear, or there's a lot of matches, I think you'd want to punk out a pay-per-view, though.

1:08:19 We'd get Punk and Wardlow, and you could easily see how you get there because MJF is going to wrestle Darby Allin, and so Punk is sort of loosely aligned with Darby and Sting, has had their backs against the attacks by 2.0 and Daniel Garcia. So you could see Punk finally moving in. He beats Wardlow at full gear, and then he moves into an actual feud with MJF.

1:08:45 And that's Punk finally moving up the card. They've got a few years with Punk's contract. He doesn't need to be thrusting the world title picture, especially when they may be about to change the title to Hangman Page.

1:09:00 Rich, your thoughts?

1:09:01 First, I will vociferously defend the GTS. Anyone who can get someone under their shoulders... throw them onto a knee to the face. I don't care how long old it is. It's like the DDT. Jake Roberts said it. Once you hit it, it's the end. In terms of the secondary finish that the emailer brought up, he actually has. He's used the Anaconda device, one of my favorite moves Hiroshi Tenzan used to use that Punk added when he was in WWE, but he has since used, I want to say it was the last match he just did in AEW, which is another good, solid, you know, nice hold you can put on someone and uh similar what eric mentioned with with the idea of new japan i've always been a fan of the japanese model of making a finisher

1:09:48 modifying it and then using the modification within your psychology to have it as just another ace in the hole so You know, if you look at Tanzania, the Anaconda Vice, and then for the folks who were a little less willing to tap out just to the Vice, he threw the Anaconda Buster, which would be the slam version, into it.

1:10:07 And so you either knock him out or you tap him out. So, yeah, I think he could go to another finish. He can add that one. And then he also did, if either of you guys remember, he also used the Koji Clutch when he was in WWE toward the end. And so that would be another one he could go to. But again, to Eric's point, if the flexibility isn't necessarily there to pull that one off, maybe that's something he saves in the, in the toolbox, so to speak.

1:10:35 Yep.

1:10:36 Yep. Hey everyone, Greg Parks here.

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1:11:45 All right.

1:11:45 Uh, Eric, you brought up a page fence and we got an email on her tonight. Uh, this is, uh, uh, from ST, who says, I don't know much of anything about Paige Van Zandt's MMA career since I'm not an MMA fan. She seems to be having a lot of fun on camera. Do you think she has an update in wrestling, an upside in wrestling, excuse me? And if so, who could she possibly be matched up with on AEW's female roster? He also says, and we already covered this, what do you think of Moxley tonight and his past few weeks in general? To me, he seemed to be more heelish by not interacting with the crowd like normal.

1:12:19 and was extremely brutal against Yuta. I wouldn't mind seeing a heel version of Moxley, your thoughts. So kind of on the same page as us, but leaning towards Moxley being tilting more heel, more deliberately, perhaps in an effort to alleviate the risk of Hangman Page having a split crowd instead of a crowd just really behind him. So I'm interested in that journey. But as far as Paige Van Zandt goes, Rich, what have you seen in her?

1:12:44 I know other people have mentioned this too. that she does seem to be really into into this in ways that maybe some of the other people in American Top Team aren't.

1:12:54 Yeah, this today and even in particular with each appearance, she's kind of moving closer and closer to the foreground instead of the background. And it seems like her personality is naturally leading to it. The one thing I think that stunk tonight was just from a direction standpoint, they kept cutting to her. And she isn't a pro wrestler yet, so she doesn't know when not to kind of smile and kind of laugh at the silliness of some of the things Jericho's saying. She was angry, but then she'd laugh it off, but they would cut to the part where she's laughing it off. Again, going back to CM Punk being ridiculously on point, when Jericho said he wouldn't have sex with her with her husband's genitalia, Punk waited

1:13:43 for like a half second. He's like, I don't believe that. And I almost did a spit take down in my basement.

1:13:52 That's spit take worthy.

1:13:53 Because I was like, that is just so good. Because her husband's like angry he's doing this, that hop and heel thing, spinning around in circles. And she's like, how dare you? And then Punk's like, I don't believe it. And, you know, I just I cackled. I cackled at the thought of Punk just being the the the Mr. The Mr.

1:14:13 Roper of the AEW as he's doing these commentary. But in terms of Paige Van Zandt, she is a. She was a decent fighter in UFC. I think she was one of the folks that were tied in, and she was very honest about that during the wage issues. She made more on OnlyFans and doing calendars and doing her own appearances than she did as a fighter, but she was in this onerous contract. Since then, she's been fighting outside of the UFC system, still MMA. She's hit or miss.

1:14:43 But I think, again, the biggest thing for her is she's built a strong fan base for herself and only fans. She has done her social media work and kind of has a following, and it seems like wrestling is coming to her. I think avoid putting her in with the Team Cody or the Codyverse. Don't do that. I think doing what they're doing right now with American Top Team, she fits perfect. She could feud. They don't have a female member of the– the inner circle. So there isn't really someone that could be a corollary there, but if she wants to start working her way up, I think she'd do well choking out some folks like the bunny or some of the other folks.

1:15:23 I like that. And then let's match her with, with Brandy. I think that's, that's the best.

1:15:29 Wait, wait, clearly from Rose to the top, she has to work her way up. You can't, you can't second match.

1:15:33 Well, that's, but yeah. Yeah, no, I do. I mean that.

1:15:37 Yeah.

1:15:37 Like let's, let's lead to that as a culmination. Like, like that, brandy on one path page on another and it culminates in a pay-per-view match with those two.

1:15:45 I'm oh no no no you're misunderstanding brandy's already at the top she's at the mountain uh.

1:15:51 Well you know brandy can you know then do her other work as chief brand officer while page proves herself and page can aspire to someday main event main event with brandy.

1:15:59 And we could see her on roads to the top she can pop.

1:16:02 In season two it's been renewed already Yeah.

1:16:05 Season two. She can be the person that gets Teal off of Brandi's back and then she stabs her in the back. They'll have the secret recorded phone call of her and Teal gabbing about how the baby didn't have the right colors on at the first birthday party and off we pop.

1:16:20 You know what?

1:16:22 I'm getting all kinds of ideas. I get to go to a baby shower tomorrow. Did I say I have to? I get to. And I'm getting all kinds of devious ideas here. I like the idea of Teal and Brandy, you know, getting into it. And then Teal challenges Brandy to a match. But like Sonya Deville producing Shayna Baszler, at the last second, Teal's like, oh, you didn't let me finish. It's you against me and Paige Van Zandt.

1:16:48 So now we've written the storyline for... Double or nothing or something.

1:16:53 Now we're just going to be going. I am so sorry. I think the big issue would be her brothers would demand that the family not fight family after their match. And so she's like, okay, I promise I will not fight Brandi. And then Paige Van Zandt sucker punches Brandi. I didn't say she would.

1:17:11 There we go. Eric, are you on board for this? Or have you stepped away from even listening to us?

1:17:17 You know, Wade, do you know what Kevin Kelly says on New Japan broadcasts when Yano cheats? Are you familiar with what he says?

1:17:24 What does he say, Eric?

1:17:25 He says, my monitor went out. Yeah, yeah, there we go.

1:17:31 Well, we're not on video, so that's no excuse. What do you think of what you heard? Your earpiece thing.

1:17:36 I started dreaming about Hangman Page hoisting the belt in the Target Center. I went to a happy place. By happy place, yeah.

1:17:43 Yep, yep. All right.

1:17:46 Nicely played speaking of that segment Dan Lambert this was I thought it's a different promo from him and some people who are like what it's just out there ranting raving the crowds booing against him booing him and all that but he didn't go after like you wrestling fans in your mom's basement he didn't rip on AEW and little guys doing flip-flop stuff who wouldn't get to ride on the big rides at the fair like It was just a heel manager promo. Like, you know, he ripped on the city, but that's standard. But this was a more standard heel promo instead of some sort of, you know, meta spoof on AEW critics. And I liked it. I don't think it lost anything. And I'm not saying, you know, you want to take away the foundation he built, but

1:18:33 this seemed to kind of morph more just to a traditional kind of, you know, quote, heel manager type thing. Rich, did that, does that strike you at the time or as I talk about it? um seem seem accurate.

1:18:46 Yeah he went old school manager and less curd mudgeon yeah and that's always good i i think he is an acquired taste i think to be fair.

1:18:59 Well todd martin acquired his taste a long time ago um.

1:19:05 It sounds like prison lingo, but I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to let that go.

1:19:10 We'll be quite sure how to phrase that.

1:19:11 Yeah.

1:19:12 I was just thinking maybe Rich will let it just, just, you know, I was going to say phrasing, but I was.

1:19:18 Like, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's 1122 Eastern. It's after dark. I'll say prison lingo. I've been watching HBO.

1:19:24 Um, You know, someone's playing this on their way to church Sunday morning, Rich, just so you know.

1:19:28 Well, just give me a couple apologies to the man upstairs for me, whomever's listening. I apologize profusely. Just like Miro today.

1:19:37 Yes.

1:19:38 You can't see his beautiful wife. If his savior's forsaken. Okay. As an aside, I'll get back to it. I absolutely love. broken Miro, not, not the broken universe, but a broken man who has this crisis of faith because he lost the title. Like the, the amount of respect this belt hasn't been around for like more than a year and a half. And Miro's treating it like he just lost the world title and Memphis, you know, to Bachwinkle. I think I just mixed eight different territories there, but it's okay.

1:20:12 We're gonna make it work. But yeah, I love it. And I love the agony of defeat. We haven't seen him on television. He's just been gone. And this is such a great look into how Tony Khan is going to book heels that lose that aren't yet in the main event scene. Because I think we haven't seen that yet. I think, unfortunately, with Brodie Lee's passing, we were going to see more of that. But we kind of lost that opportunity. And so... I love that with Miro, but back to American Top Team, I think the people that are talking need to talk. Jorge Masvidal, great, Lambert, he's kind of found that flow, and if he sticks with this, I don't think he will, though, so I will hold my breath, but I won't hold my breath because I

1:20:59 don't trust him. That's a long time between episodes. And I really like bringing Van Zandt, bringing her husband, bringing I think the BMF championship, if they got permission from Dana, would be a great addition on the show. Not that they would fight for it on Dynamite, obviously, or NAEW. But just to illustrate, yeah, he even mentioned it. Like, you guys, I brought so many championships to Miami. You won't give me the respect I deserve. I just really liked what he did there.

1:21:35 If you're listening to us on the Apple Podcast app, on Spotify, or any other app that allows you to rate our podcast, please take a moment to give us a five-star rating. It really helps us in the algorithm and helps them know that you recommend us to others. Just look for a place to rate the show on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to our shows, and please click that five-star rating. And of course, thank you so much for listening.

1:22:00 Eric, anything you want to follow.

1:22:01 Up on there? Yeah, I'm waiting to hear Todd Martin issue a receipt for the prison comment there. I'm wondering what form that will take maybe after the next pay-per-view show.

1:22:10 I just like to go on record.

1:22:11 I meant nothing by it, and Rich is the one who framed it the way that it did not need to be framed.

1:22:16 He did it, not me.

1:22:18 Yeah, I will go back to the thing I usually use whenever I have the East Coast cast. Travis, the views of Rich Van do not reflect Wade Keller, TDH Communications for Wrestling Sports. All rights reserved.

1:22:30 Thank you, Rich.

1:22:33 I think I'm glad the Lambert thing finally went somewhere. I mean, for weeks and weeks, it was just him saying the same old parents' basement line. I mean, while he's always been good throughout, it just really wasn't resulting in a match. Now we've had some matches. And he was a little bit overshadowed tonight by Jericho. Jericho just kind of dominated. Lambert did get a nice line. I think he called, it would have had to have been Sammy, Tiny Tim. which was like a very very not a reference i would have seen.

1:23:09 We got jim ross talking about brute bernard we got don john jim ross apologizing for mentioning don johnson and we got i don't know i guess tiny tim might go back as far as brute bernard or or we'd have to look that up i don't know who was who was famous older or later they just both feel like really old references don johnson is a you know vintage 80s reference so we're good with that Yeah.

1:23:31 It was as though Bobby, he didn't wear on the show.

1:23:33 Yeah.

1:23:34 Um, uh, I think, you know, Lambert, I enjoy him because he reminds me of an eighties trash talking really quick witted heel manager, except with a more modern spiel, right. Making fun of millennials and, uh, neckbeards in their parent basements. And, you know, some of the, some of the elements of the wrestling fan base. So, um, I'm curious to see, uh, next week, if it's next week that he's going to tell, uh, The inner circle, his terms. What are his terms to grant them their five-on-five match, presumably at full gear? Is it a title shot for Ethan Page against Sammy Guevara or maybe Scorpio Sky?

1:24:10 I don't know.

1:24:10 That would be my guess. What do you guys think the terms will be?

1:24:14 Yeah, I didn't put a ton of thought into it, but I remember not being sure as it played out. The whole thing felt like we want to be tag champs, so now we want to be a TNT champ and we only want to wrestle you on our terms.

1:24:25 I wasn't quite sure how those dots.

1:24:28 all you know connect and lead logically from one step to the other rich did you get a a sense of where exactly that's heading and how.

1:24:36 I think the only thing i can see is that maybe jericho is going to get a win back against scorpio because he mentioned he's got two wins against the goat and the you know that that was kind of a thing i i think that might be another like if you beat jericho you beat x member of the inner circle you get a shot at sammy.

1:24:57 I can imagine, Rich, I can imagine Lambert saying if you lose Jericho, you don't get to play your song anymore, ever. You know, just because that song irritates him.

1:25:06 That would be great, but then it wouldn't work. It would just be a trap because everyone knows Judas is going to get played. And didn't we just have that as the labors of Jericho?

1:25:16 Yeah, yeah, it was a one-time only thing. That's true, yeah. Yeah, I guess it would be a little, not derivative, what's the word I'm looking for? No, maybe derivative.

1:25:28 A replay.

1:25:31 Warmed over, redone.

1:25:32 Yeah, so anyway, I mean, it's turned into, I think, probably more than Tony Khan probably expected initially when it comes to Lambert and Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky 2, who are doing a great job being heels you want to see get beat up. I mean, every company needs a bunch of heels that fans want to pay to see get beat up, and AW is producing them. and in a way that kind of fits the tone and tenor of what's going on. One other major segment we didn't talk about, so let me throw this out there.

1:26:01 The Super Frogs against the Lucha Bros, a AAA tag team title match, and a title change on Saturday Night Dynamite. Rich, what did you think of this presentation? Did you enjoy the Frogs outfits? It looked sort of like the Ding Dongs back in the day, but green instead of orange.

1:26:23 Yeah, I liked it a lot. It was reminiscent of all of the generic mass tag teams, and then you also had the Conquistadors, etc., etc. So that was great. I, as is my tradition, overthought this way too much, looking at the images of the silhouettes. I was like, okay, so clearly it can't be Roosh and his brother... Maybe it's maybe it's Karistico and someone. And then I was like, oh, no, maybe it's the former Lucha Dragons because they are both free agents and they could be together. And no, the revival in mass. And. what should have tipped me off and my overthinking prevented it from even being read. The fact that it was luchadors who Andrade is very familiar with.

1:27:18 It's like, that is such a red herring of like, clearly it's not going to be someone he knows because why would you need to say that is like the, the two mystery people are people I'm very, very close with. It was like, but I thought that was great. And I also love the aftermath. Very, again, very old school wrestling of, Both men thinking they got the better, both men being MJF and Andrade, thinking they got the advantage in a situation. Andrade knocking down the Lucha Brothers a peg or two for not joining him. MJF getting a chance to get his guy as a championship. And, you know, honor amongst thieves. He's like, do you want cash or check? Both.

1:28:01 He's like, give him the envelope. I like that. The fact that it's like, why would you want cash and a check? There's a paper– again, I overthink things. So that was way– I was really just staring at my TV. I was like, why would you want a check? That's a paper trail. You're an independent contractor.

1:28:17 That's reportable, bro.

1:28:18 What are you doing?

1:28:20 But I get Max is super rich, and that's the thing. He's still super rich, but he's such a scumbag. He wants to be able to flaunt that he paid this or was paid to rent his stablemates out. So that was that was really good.

1:28:36 Uh, Eric, what'd you think?

1:28:37 Um, I liked the, uh, the payoff at the end with the literal payoff at the end with, uh, that Rich was talking about. It reminded me of something from the eighties, right? Mercenary bounty hunter type type thing. Um, I, uh, before I figured out fairly quickly that, Oh, this is FTR.

1:28:54 Um, No, did you figure it out before Punk or in between Punk and Shivani acknowledging it?

1:29:01 Yes, I figured it out. I figured it out before Punk, but not like, you know, I mean, they were in the ring for a little bit before I did figure it out. I thought I had flashbacks to the Thunderfeet.

1:29:14 Yes.

1:29:15 Cruel Connection and all of those math tag teams from the NWA on TBS back in the day. Except these guys were like, really built and really bulky.

1:29:25 Um, I haven't thought of the Thunderfeet ever.

1:29:27 Oh my God.

1:29:28 That's awesome.

1:29:29 Yeah.

1:29:30 Or not.

1:29:30 They weren't the Thunderfeet. They were Thunderfoot.

1:29:32 They were Thunderfoot one and two. I don't think they were actually the Thunderfeet if we're to be technical.

1:29:38 And then sometimes it was Thunderfoot two and three. And they were, there were many Thunderfoot masked wrestlers. Um, I think, and usually they would lose to the road warriors and like, you know, 30 seconds, which is about as much as the road warriors could go back then.

1:29:54 Maybe.

1:29:55 Um, I thought it was a little goofy and I, I have some fear going forward that the, the actual match they do not the kind of comedy gimmick match they do. We'll have, uh, you know, styles clash there. Um, and, but you know, then again, the young bucks kind of, you know, they're not quite a hundred percent Lucha, but they have, you know, Lucha type, uh, approach to some of their offense and, And the Young Bucks FTR tag match was phenomenal. So I'm crossing my fingers that the match won't be a clash of styles at full gear. Yeah, yeah.

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1:31:36 See you in the Paradise!

1:31:44 Okay, I said there was only one major segment left we hadn't covered, but how could I leave out Cody at the Rose Wrestling Academy, Arne Anderson.

1:31:52 You've mentioned old school.

1:31:53 We had Cody going, Arne, you got your camera crew here? I think I got that right. Acknowledging why is this being filmed as we're getting out of the car, classic J.J. Dillon-esque thing of acknowledge that the camera's here and we hired a camera guy.

1:32:06 So I'm like, Oh, this is going to be gritty.

1:32:07 One handheld, you know, you're no, then we get the multi-camera angle music in the background, cinematic experience that apparently someone edited from Arne's camera crews, raw footage. I, it, my thought on that just stylistically was Cody can't help himself, but to make everything 20 or 30% more grandiose than it ought to be, um, with, with the, the, you know, melodramatic music and, and cutaways and, and all that, that all said, um, I enjoyed it. I'm curious how much of this they would have done if the crowd hadn't turned on Cody seemingly prematurely. I'm kind of I'm definitely interested in your guys' take on this chapter and Cody.

1:32:49 And is this more unselfawareness or is this actually a self-aware sort of acknowledgement of of what's gone wrong? And they're building a storyline around it. So, Rich, what do you what do you think where do you think they were headed compared to where they are?

1:33:02 Is it different? And what do you think of the execution tonight?

1:33:06 Well, one of the things I thought about this prior to the– actually before the Arsene Anderson showed up. Now we're in– I don't even know which Arne Anderson we got today because actually he likes– I'll let someone else more creative come up with the alliterative name. But I thought he tied a lot of things together that I had issues with, namely why is Cody still alive with a man who spent most of his life trying to kill his dad? And, you know, he's like, hey, listen, I got to admit it. I was wrong. I tried to murder your dad a few times. He didn't deserve it.

1:33:44 And when he tried to, you know, blind me and, you know, cut me and I had it coming. I didn't think I'd admit it, but I had it coming. Like Parn said, I had it coming.

1:33:52 And that's great because, again, if Dusty was still alive and this, you know, sliding doors moment and AEW still formed, Cody leaves WWE, et cetera, et cetera. Dusty would have had a come-to-Jesus moment with Cody. I think he'd be involved in this. He'd probably slap him in the face and be like, come on, baby. What are you doing?

1:34:12 You had red freaking velvet slapping you in the face saying, get your head out of your rear end. The entire Nightmare Collective is punking this dude. And it, to me, on one level, is the very definition of what Arn was talking about. Because if this was Arn, he would not take this crap. And Cody is. And for his sake, I hope he beats Malachi Black, because if he doesn't, I don't know what Brandy's going to do to.

1:34:41 Him.

1:34:41 Eric, your take on that segment.

1:34:46 So, I mean, I think, you know, the last couple of weeks before this week, we were seeing the deconstruction of Cody Rhodes with the throw your pink tie in the fire. Arne Anderson, why are you in the backyard? And why are you lighting? Why did you light up? A fire like a hobo. I still laugh about that a week later. I think– so now we're seeing the reconstruction of Cody Rhodes, right? And so that's why he was back in Arns at the gym and learning how to wrestle again. And so I was– I'm like, oh, well, this is going to be a bit that plays out over the next few weeks, and the big payoff will be at full gear, right? Is Cody reconstructed or is he not reconstructed? And then here we are before the Daniels and Bobby fish match. And it's next, next week

1:35:33 on dynamite on the 23rd, Cody Rhodes and Malachi black. And it's like, you know, I mean, he's not reconstructed really yet. He hasn't really had the, um, the George Bailey moment at the end of, uh, it's a wonderful life. They're just like get the fast war button and they're getting to the payoff. And I assume he beats Malachi black just because he's lost twice to him. And I, I, you know, the logical storytelling of that, the ending is, uh, is the baby face wins. Um, I don't know.

1:36:02 But as Malachi black, do you have, does that work for Malachi black too?

1:36:06 I mean, the way they're building, I mean.

1:36:08 I think he seems, he seems to be bulletproof because he's being cheered. And I think you might, I don't know where, I don't know where they're taping from, um, next Saturday, but I mean, there's a, depending on where they're at, there's a decent chance. Uh, Cody gets booed again. And I don't know how they mesh that in the storyline.

1:36:24 Cause this is redemption storyline, right? It's Cody finding his mojo again.

1:36:29 It doesn't really.

1:36:30 Work as a baby face when you're getting booed.

1:36:32 They're in Orlando next Saturday.

1:36:35 Okay.

1:36:36 Yeah.

1:36:38 I guess there's still time to do another vignette on Rampage next Friday night.

1:36:43 What if.

1:36:44 They've got something in the can.

1:36:45 What if this... Eric, sorry.

1:36:46 What if it's leading to Mal... Because Malachi gave that nod to Dante. And what if Cody and Andrade... Andrade. What if Cody and Malachi... wrestle to whatever the finish is, perhaps a time limit draw or something, and it's respect. Respect is earned. And then heels come out, and it turns into Cody teaming with Malachi. It's a Cesaro, Sheamus, we wrestled each other until we respected each other and needed to team together. Would fans reject that, or would that be actually a fitting way to kind of have everyone meet halfway?

1:37:20 Yeah.

1:37:21 Well, it would be Cody taking a page out of his old man's book because whenever, you know, the thing with Dusty had to be the centerpiece babyface of the promotion. And whenever any other babyface got hot, Dusty would make that guy team with him.

1:37:34 Or a heel. Yeah, all those photos.

1:37:37 All those photos of Dusty with the Road Warriors with face paint. And then you had Dusty with Nikita.

1:37:41 Yeah, yeah. Keep going.

1:37:47 Everybody in the show should be talking about dusty at all times. That's what it was like for a while when he had the book there in the eighties. And, um, you know, so I mean, I suppose the, uh, clearly what was on Tony Tom's, um, notebook, it was Cody Rhodes versus Malachi black or under Andrade or Miro. And it's, it just, you know, I, I guess there's a few weeks left to set up that kind of match and maybe they could do it the way you're talking about, which would be, I would laugh. I would laugh all day and night if Cody tried this. Just to glom on to Malachi Black and rehab himself. That would be very Rhodes-like.

1:38:20 Father like son.

1:38:23 Yeah, I guess.

1:38:24 And so who are those heels who are coming out? Is it Miro and Andrade? That would be a... of an odd couple. I don't know. Rich, what do you think?

1:38:36 I think Cody with the outfit, again, way too on the nose. He's wearing white. Malachi's wearing black. I think he's going to fail again. And He's going to they're going to do a handshake and he's like, I respect you. And congratulations on doing, you know, doing what you needed to in order to earn my respect or something silly like that. Now, if he does beat him and Cody uses dirty moves, I think that would be interesting because Malachi can do what they failed to do with John Cena himself. when they had that stupid cane feud where he's like, I'm going to bring out your dark side and all that. He's like, I'm not bringing out my dark side. And he didn't. I think if Malachi at the end of this, the goal is to get Cody

1:39:25 to break himself. I I'm in, I'm in on that. Um, but Cody has to be honest because that means at some point people have to intentionally.

1:39:33 All right.

1:39:35 Very good. Uh, Eric, uh, anything else you, any parting words from you?

1:39:41 No. I'm going to go ponder whether I'm going to continue writing this Amen page, different type of babyface piece or not.

1:39:50 Did he just jump the gun? Did you wish that you had written it before tonight so it could seem more prophetic?

1:39:57 Yeah, I kind of felt like, oh, this happened two weeks sooner than I thought it would. Oh, well, maybe my window is closed. I don't know.

1:40:05 I'll see if I can do it again.

1:40:08 Thanks for the extended guest call.

1:40:13 It was a good conversation. Appreciate it, Eric. We'll talk to you very soon.

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1:40:51 Enjoy a streamlined listening experience to our free shows and unlock all the VIP exclusives, including our post-pay-per-view roundtables, the Wade Keller news bulletins, everything with Rich and Wade, the fix that I host with Todd Martin, and a variety of other VIP exclusives. Just search PWTorch in your Apple Podcast app. All right, let's bring Javier in, who attended in Miami tonight. Valentino also calling from Miami, so hang on, Valentino, if you want. But Javier, you are up first to tell us about what it was like in the building tonight.

1:41:27 Javier Machado, a PW Torch VIP contributor, and we usually give him a couple beats of music to make.

1:41:34 It formal, to make it official. Javier, welcome.

1:41:37 Hey, Wade. How's it going? Good, good.

1:41:40 So are you just tired of AEW and you've had enough or are you planning your trip to Orlando after two nights?

1:41:47 Well, I'm going to check the hotel rates and see what it's like.

1:41:50 I'm strongly, strongly considering it because I'm too old to go back on the same day.

1:41:57 Yeah, yeah.

1:41:58 But I am strongly considering it. I mean, exhausted does not describe after two nights of wrestling. Uh, I still want to talk about spoilers, but I'm not, um, unless.

1:42:12 You want to, you know, talk about it later.

1:42:15 Yeah, no, Javier, let's, let's just make a pact with listeners here because I don't want them to worry.

1:42:19 Um, we were pretty good.

1:42:22 I mean, like very good about just, if we're going to do spoilers with anybody calling about anything, especially on site correspondence, we'll give you a warning and we're going to save it to the end.

1:42:30 But, I think it happened in front of a live crowd.

1:42:33 We're not revealing a script that some source told us about of a big surprise.

1:42:37 It happened in front of a crowd. So it's not, in that sense, a secret.

1:42:41 So we'll give people a heads up if they want to wait six days to find out what happens on Rampage next Friday. But I'm not going to be able to avoid it for six days. And so we'll have you be a reporter. It happened in front of thousands of fans. It is public record in that sense. And we'll get to that. But first, we'll stick with non-spoiler things.

1:43:00 Yeah, with the exception of Dark, I don't think anyone watches Dark.

1:43:04 Yeah, well, I mean, we can see the numbers on YouTube. People watch, but it's not, you know, I don't know if anything's ever happened on Dark that would be considered a spoiler, even for people who watch Dark. I mean, it's about the experience of seeing it and hearing the commentary and all that, but you can hear a result that doesn't change, you know, the scouting aspect or the execution aspect that still is, should be.

1:43:21 Seen and heard. But anyway, yeah, so how was the crowd tonight compared to last night?

1:43:26 There was more people in the audience last night. I think it was about 75 to 80 percent. Now I would say it was about 90 percent. And it was pretty much like all the way at the top and.

1:43:39 The wings, which were empty.

1:43:43 The crowd was different makeup, a lot of kids.

1:43:48 And I mean a lot on the younger side, too.

1:43:51 They zoomed in on one kid chanting cowboy shit, which was pretty funny. An eight or nine or 10 year old.

1:43:56 Yeah.

1:43:57 I mean, there was, there was one behind us that like, couldn't really speak, but was like making the noise with the chance, which was like adorable.

1:44:08 Uh, you know, like, you know, you suck. You know, so, uh, but yeah, I'm.

1:44:15 A smaller, you know, smaller kid, uh, which was surprising. Um, yeah the uh uh go ahead i'm exhausted i can't even say.

1:44:27 No that's that's fine yeah we won't we won't keep you long and and uh if valentino holds on we can um you know uh lean on him a little bit too um what do you by the way just bring up the kids like did who who did they react did you notice who they might have been there to see or who they reacted to or any kind of theories on on the rise in that aspect of the crowd or just because it's not a non-school night i guess yeah Yeah.

1:44:49 Well, I forgot to mention my brother's here. Do you want to say something, George? George, Jorge from Miami.

1:44:58 Or so you claim.

1:45:03 As far as kids are concerned, a lot of kids wearing CM Punk shirts. I know that when we were paying for our parking, that there was a kid that I talked to with.

1:45:14 The permission of the adult.

1:45:16 Uh yeah that you know that he was excited he had the ccm punk and you know uh for the most part that was like.

1:45:23 The number one for most of them.

1:45:26 Oh cool okay makes sense um so uh what uh what stood out to you about uh about tonight's live experience in terms of crowd reaction um or anything maybe off camera just you know the usual kind of on-site reporter uh side of things.

1:45:44 It was really hard to know what was going on off camera because it all felt like it flowed together. And there were moments where there was obviously a commercial break.

1:45:55 So I'm not sure what you guys had seen.

1:45:57 I mean, you were talking about the Cody.

1:46:00 There was a Cody.

1:46:01 Rhodes– almost like a vignette.

1:46:04 When did that play? That– When did that play?

1:46:08 Because that– It happened before MJF came out and after Cole and the Bucks beat Dark Order.

1:46:19 Yeah, because they didn't play that for us until while they were changing the ring between Dynamite and Rampage.

1:46:28 Weird.

1:46:29 I think like three vignettes. So, yeah.

1:46:35 So, it was hard to really tell. There was a moment where Santana and Ortiz were cutting out like a miami promo and i'm at i thought that we were did that come.

1:46:45 Out or no.

1:46:47 Rich do you do you remember that a little.

1:46:49 Bit yeah they think was it just santana ortiz or was it the entire inner circle yeah.

1:46:56 Yeah well it was the entire inner circle and they were saying that you know uh miami is here hot for two nights you know that only miami do we do uh back to matt you know something along.

1:47:06 The lines of no i don't know that part nope that part did not air Okay.

1:47:11 So, um, yeah, so, so that's what I'm saying.

1:47:13 It was hard to tell what air and whatnot. So it really.

1:47:17 Felt like it was a really smooth experience when it came to that. Um, the, I mean, the, as far as like the, the audience reactions, pretty much what you would expect. The only one that was a little bit like, well, the two that were underwhelming. And I think it was, uh, for two reasons, because it was also already like an hour three of the show, which was, uh, the hangman page was now on the same level as when, uh, he appeared in rock and rager.

1:47:45 Cause that was, that was, uh, sorry, the road rager.

1:47:49 Cause that, that was like, you know, he was like super over, he was over here, but it wasn't like on the.

1:47:55 CM punk, Adam Cole or, um, or, uh, Daniel Bryant, uh, Brian Danielson from the, uh, first, uh, From a rampage.

1:48:06 Yeah, I feel that the Hangman page was more kind of like, it felt like.

1:48:10 The crowd was trying really hard, but at that point.

1:48:13 We were already kind of tired.

1:48:16 Yeah.

1:48:17 And the same thing with the.

1:48:20 The crowd being tired after most of them probably went to both nights is a little bit of a warning with full gear.

1:48:27 And they were hyping on commentary.

1:48:30 A group ticket to Friday Night Rampage and then the pay-per-view the next night. You wonder if AEW is going to want to rethink the Friday-Saturday in the same city.

1:48:38 I know logistically... It makes sense, but.

1:48:41 I mean, Rampage, if you're running a pay-per-view on a Saturday night in Minneapolis, you can run Rampage in.

1:48:47 Madison, Wisconsin, or Des Moines, Iowa, or Duluth, and have a car ride.

1:48:53 It's a five-hour car ride any of those directions, and maybe then you get a fresher crowd for the pay-per-view.

1:49:00 Yeah, and the person who cut the go-home happy promo at the end of the night uh mentioned that you know we were we were popping for everybody uh you know so we were like you know into every single character they made a joke saying we don't know how to book because miami was just cheering everybody uh.

1:49:22 We don't know who's over oh wow we don't know who we don't know who to pipe in cheers for louder oh wait that's wrong company.

1:49:32 Except for Dan Lambert.

1:49:34 Well, I mean, and Dan Lambert, because, I mean, let me grab my notes for a sec, because I broke them into tiers, and tier one was CM Punk, Adam Cole, Jericho with Inner Circle, and Dan Lambert, Dan Lambert being Gears.

1:49:49 Yeah.

1:49:49 Those were the, you know, those were, like, superstar level. Then on, and Tony Khan was, like, in between, and then, like, the next level down where there were still stars, was Adam Page, Danielson, but I think we've already, we had, we, there was a big pop when they showed him on the screen when they put, you know, the match coming up. Plus, we had seen him the previous night, you know, in that, like, crazy match. So, I think people were like, you know, okay, we already got Daniel Bryan. Then Sting, Sting, Thunder Rosa, Britt Baker, Thunder Rosa was on dark.

1:50:31 Moxley, Malakai Black, the Young Bucks, the Lucha Brothers, and the, um, the, uh, the Mick Foley spot with Dark Order when, uh, when Evil Uno put on the, uh, the glove, the hat, and the, uh, when they, uh, do the kiss spot during that match, uh, those, those were, like, that.

1:50:54 Was all, like, tier one, sorry, tier two reactions. And then pretty much a lot of people were in tier three.

1:51:00 Um, Trout was kind of dead for Fish, which was probably the most, you.

1:51:10 Know, that was like the one that most stood out, considering the fact that this time was, you know, with, oh my God.

1:51:19 Undisputed Era and stuff like that.

1:51:21 Yeah.

1:51:22 So, and he was in the main event, that would be the other thing. You know, but again, that might also be attributed to, you know, Hour 3 at that point.

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1:52:21 Right, yeah. Rich, do you want to ask Javier anything?

1:52:25 Yeah, what was the reaction to Dan Lambert? Because you mentioned it was kind of, you know, the WWE joke. But how was Dan Lambert? Did you hear anyone in the area talking about Paige Van Zandt or any member of American Top Team in particular?

1:52:40 I thought you broke up there a little bit.

1:52:42 Oh, if anyone talked about either Paige Van Zandt or any member of American Top Team... as like, hey, oh, they're pretty cool, or oh, these guys are geeks. What was the feel of American Top Team and Lambert and company when, not just when they were interacting, but even when they came out?

1:53:02 It was just a wall of booze. You couldn't hear what was going on.

1:53:06 It was just booze, some people trying to.

1:53:09 Start a, which happened on the previous night, Rampage, a shut the bleep up, you know, an a-hole chant. They were trying to basically just totally disrupt that whole thing. When Jericho was cutting, you know, doing his comedy bit, people were, you know, listening and, you know, laughing along.

1:53:35 With the laugh lines and stuff like that.

1:53:39 But in terms of, like, you know, no one was really discussing, like, you know, where, you know, oh, these guys, you know, anything about these guys. I mean, they were getting the desired reaction of the booze and stuff, but no one was saying like, you know, these guys are cool with.

1:53:51 With on the first night when, uh, on, on the, on the rampage one, there was like a group of women sitting in the front row that were cheering everything that the Santos did.

1:54:02 Um, uh, but that was on rampage. And this one, it was more, you know, just like everybody going the whole thing.

1:54:09 Got it. Um, uh, cool.

1:54:13 Uh, yeah.

1:54:14 Yeah.

1:54:16 Just remember, a surprising reaction. When MJF appeared, there's this initial moment with a lot of people cheering, and he's definitely getting what used to be the Roman Reigns reaction, where it's a bunch of women cheering MJF, and then.

1:54:35 You can hear the men take over and boo.

1:54:37 Interesting.

1:54:38 So I think Miami may need this. Miami may need some therapy, I think.

1:54:44 Yeah, that was probably, that's what I was thinking, yeah. I'm sure MJF, I'm sure Max is as surprised as anyone. I bet Max is as surprised as anyone.

1:54:57 Yeah, but yeah, so I don't know how much of his stuff showed up, because I think some of his stuff.

1:55:05 Might have been like not, might not have aired some of the shtick that he was doing.

1:55:12 Very good.

1:55:12 Well, unless there's anything else, Javier, you want to convey, let's give our spoiler warning and go ahead and give a rundown of key bullet points on Rampage and results.

1:55:26 Let me look through.

1:55:26 My notes real quick and see if there was anything.

1:55:29 Let me scroll up.

1:55:32 Lots of kids converted tonight. Okay.

1:55:37 And Big Popper JR, Big Popper Tony Khan, and yeah, I think there's nothing else.

1:55:47 Anything of note that Tony... Anything of note Tony had to say?

1:55:51 Huh?

1:55:52 Anything noteworthy Tony had to say?

1:55:55 Oh, well, we... What did you want to say? Well, Tony Khan, I mean, at the beginning of the show, he was just basically... You know, the usual, you know, we love, you know, that Florida's very important to film, and that he loves coming to Miami.

1:56:14 So it was just basically, like, appreciative between, was it, yeah, it was between shows when they were switching over to Rampage.

1:56:23 I think it was the same, he started the same thing, that we love Miami, all this stuff, and that's when Max Castor, right? Yeah, well, Acclaim came out. The Acclaim.

1:56:30 Oh, okay.

1:56:31 The Acclaim came out.

1:56:33 Yeah, they did a wrap. where they basically took shots at NXT. They took shots at Top Dollar. And they also, you know, were basically took shots at Tony Khan saying that, you know, oh, we had, you know, he's not booking us and, you know, and, and that we're going to, you know, we're going to beat you up.

1:56:53 And then Tony Khan called. Yeah. Tony Khan said, stop the music. And the music just immediately stopped.

1:57:01 I love it.

1:57:01 And he said, you know, that's not a good idea.

1:57:06 I have a couple friends and he called Dante Martin and Seidel and then they.

1:57:10 Came out and beat up and beat up the acclaimed. So that was the, so that was like in between shows.

1:57:17 What was the dig at NXT? Give details on that.

1:57:20 Well, Something about AEW beating NXT in the ratings. Yeah, we beat them in the ratings. It was pretty box standard. It wasn't like anything like, you know, it was just a little like, ooh, but that's about it.

1:57:33 Yeah, okay, good, yeah.

1:57:34 And then I, like, shot at top dollar because, you know, they're kind of, I guess they're supposed to be rapping.

1:57:40 I haven't watched, I haven't been watching NXT in a while, so.

1:57:43 Hit row, yeah.

1:57:44 Yeah.

1:57:45 All right, cool. So, yeah, let's talk about Rampage.

1:57:49 Well, I mean, the reason I want to mention, OK, spoiler, five, four, three, two, one. The reason I was out of talk, you were talking about the whole Cody thing. So somehow Cody became super over at the end of Rampage. He would also have been on the first top tier cheers when he came out because. after the Andrade pack match, lights went out and Malakai Black showed up and together Malakai Black and Andrade beat up pack. Then Arn Anderson came out and he got a huge pop. Well, he got a huge pop.

1:58:27 And he waited at the rampway. He put out his fingers like a block. The crowd went nuts. And then Cody attacked from behind. And the crowd went nuts for Cody.

1:58:41 Interesting.

1:58:43 Yeah.

1:58:44 Yeah, so... And he....

1:58:48 Together, they.

1:58:50 I'm assuming that that part is going to air. And then afterwards... Andrade, I forgot the guy that he's with, he opened the ring for him to get into.

1:59:07 Alex. The guy Andrade's with.

1:59:11 So yeah, he let him in to basically attack Cody and Pac, and then they basically took turns beating him up, Pac and Cody. So I'm assuming that's, you know, send the crowd home happy. And then Pac left and then Cody cut the, he was the one who said, you know, we.

1:59:33 Can't tell how to book because you guys were popping for everything. It was Cody who said that.

1:59:39 He did then say that, you know, for reactions like that is why I'll never turn heel.

1:59:44 And then everybody started.

1:59:46 Booing him at that point.

1:59:48 Oh my God. That's just, I don't even know how to process that. I mean, it's news. It's news. Cody's saying he's never turning heel. That's news. Whether, however you want to take it. Oh, but then to have the crowd respond that way is hilarious.

2:00:05 Yeah.

2:00:05 So, uh, it, that was, it was definitely fun, uh, in terms of the rest of the stuff that went on there. Um, uh, uh, uh, orange Cassidy beat, uh, Hobbs to, um, to, uh, proceed on the, on the tournament.

2:00:23 And, uh, Obviously, there we go. Uh, English failing me.

2:00:27 I'm here for you.

2:00:27 Late.

2:00:28 Uh, thank you.

2:00:31 .

2:00:42 And after winning the match and then take on the camera came in and made the save that that's what they do a lot.

2:00:54 So, uh, that's how that ended.

2:00:56 And then, um, the, uh, the pack, um, uh, Andrade match was really good.

2:01:03 And, uh, uh, probably I would say that that one in the Suzuki match was two best matches, George.

2:01:11 Yeah. Yeah.

2:01:12 I think those two were top of the last night.

2:01:14 Yeah.

2:01:14 So, uh, wrestling wise, those were the two best matches probably, uh, and uh and i was you know how it ended you know uh pack one right um was it back that one yeah yeah pack one and i think but it was like on a.

2:01:28 Roll-up right yeah yeah like all three matches uh rampage were like a surprise roll-up pretty much.

2:01:34 Yeah did we get at least one distraction please tell me please tell me there's at least one distraction involved yeah good we did good.

2:01:42 Yeah all right We did.

2:01:45 That's actually how the Orange-Cassidy-Hobbs match ended. Hobbs got into it with the referee because the referee kept trying to– I don't know what he was doing because he was far from us. So then he set the referee aside and started jawjacking with the referee, and then Orange-Cassidy got basically a roll-up and won. All right.

2:02:09 Awesome.

2:02:09 Awesome.

2:02:12 Javier, I know you're exhausted.

2:02:14 You can wrap up if you want, and we'll get Valentino's thoughts if you want to add more.

2:02:20 Certainly feel free.

2:02:21 I think that's about it. Basically, the merchandise stand, when we went to the.

2:02:28 Show back in July, they had this system where they sent you an email where you could pre-order the shirts and whatnot, and basically all you had to do was just go to the stand and.

2:02:40 They got rid of that.

2:02:41 So now it's back to the traditional, you know, just buy the stuff right then and there.

2:02:45 Yeah.

2:02:45 Which I think, I personally thought was very disappointing because I actually did like that system of just go and pick up your shirt. But basically the shirts that they had there on display were pretty much standard. The CM Punk, a bunch of AEW ones.

2:03:04 The Bebe one was also there as well.

2:03:07 And also the The Dark Order one was also pretty popular there as well, since that was the only one that wasn't a black shirt.

2:03:14 Oh, sure.

2:03:16 That's funny. Cool.

2:03:19 All right.

2:03:19 Well, Javier, thank you so much for the last two nights and throwing your voice and pretending that you're with someone else, too.

2:03:24 It's really interesting. Interesting spin on ours, that correspondent gimmick.

2:03:31 Yeah, it's a very difficult task.

2:03:33 Yeah, especially when we have to end up talking over each other.

2:03:36 I was just going to say that. That was especially impressive, what just happened there.

2:03:42 Yeah.

2:03:44 And Rich, good talking to you, man.

2:03:47 Same. I'm happy to talk to both of you, and I have to accept much like with, you know, any of those Nolan movies. There are both of you there, or my entire universe crashes into itself, so.

2:04:07 I don't know. The name George just sounds really suspicious to me. I'm not quite one over by it.

2:04:12 I'm spinning a top right now, Wade. It's still spinning. It's still spinning. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I can't remember.

2:04:18 All right. Thanks, Javier. Thanks, quote, George. All right. Take care.

2:04:24 All right.

2:04:27 Have a good night.

2:04:28 Yep. You too.

2:04:29 Yep.

2:04:29 Have a good night.

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2:05:20 All right.

2:05:21 I believe Valentino called us out, so we'll spend a couple minutes with Valentino.

2:05:25 Welcome.

2:05:26 I'm assuming you attended tonight also?

2:05:29 Hey, yes, I did, Wade.

2:05:30 Thanks so much.

2:05:31 Yeah, cool.

2:05:32 Not yesterday.

2:05:34 Not yesterday, but tonight.

2:05:35 Yeah, so we won't keep you for too long because our show's running along too, but definitely want to get your perspective on things. You got to hear Javier and his alleged brother talk about what they experienced. Anything you want to add or contradict or some details to fill in?

2:05:50 Anything like that? Just kind of take it away.

2:05:52 Sure.

2:05:53 I mean, I will say that it was a very feel-good vibe. because, you know, sometimes, you know, going to, like, WWE shows, it feels like it's just for, like, you know, the casual fan or, like, the everyone. You know, they say that they try to, like, cater to, like, everyone, so they end up catering to no one. Whereas this, I feel like they wanted to, like, guarantee that, like, we all had, like, a really great time, like, from start to finish. Yeah, like, it was a really feel-good show.

2:06:22 Cody closed the show, and he brought out Sammy Guevara and Fuego. um and they sung happy birthday to fuego in spanish uh it was a very like hispanic vibe i don't know if they told you that like from yesterday and today but oh man like we were we were counting to like 10 when uh the referee was doing a count out like he would count to 10 in spanish it was it was a lot of spanish stuff well speaking of cool it was nice and um.

2:06:48 Speaking of cody before you continue valentino talk about the the crowd response to him and how you your take on things corresponds to what.

2:06:56 Javier said Yeah, I caught what he said about Cody. I don't think it was, like, a very negative response. I think it was just like a, boo, like, come on, come on. Like, you know we want you to turn heel.

2:07:06 Ah, that makes sense.

2:07:08 But that was it. I didn't take it, like, very seriously at all. You know, because people have been booing Cody for the last couple weeks, especially in his matches. But, like, he was a complete baby face tonight. Like, he was super over. One of the big– yeah. Did you guys talk about who, like, the biggest pops of the night were?

2:07:26 Javier kind of gave his list.

2:07:27 Give us your take, because obviously different people can interpret different reactions from different parts.

2:07:32 Of the building.

2:07:35 Sure.

2:07:36 So from start to finish, I got to take some notes down. So from start to finish, we got on Dark, we got Britt Baker, Thunder Rosa. Thunder Rosa was super over. Murderhawk was pretty over. Frankie Kazarian got some nice pop. Tony Khan got a lot of pop. He got a standing ovation, um which was really cool um malachi got pretty big pop especially um at the end of rampage like i don't know you know i know you guys are talking about not saying spoilers but he makes a little bit of an appearance and his his second appearance you know was you know it came after a blackout so it was really cool so that was a pretty big big response moxley it was really cool because uh everybody everybody wanted to go to where he he was

2:08:18 at like everybody wanted to see him come out from like the other side so it was really awesome to see everybody kind of just like crowd around like wanting to see moxley that was like a really like a feel feel the moment it sucks that his match was super short um mjf got like pop and then you know big heat just because you know people respect him uh hangman page got some pretty decent pop but but the The first time they were ever in Miami, he got, like, the biggest pop of the night, in my opinion. This was, like, a couple of years ago, like, their very first Bash at the Beach show. Tonight, it was just a little bit less than that. Bryan Danielson got big pop, and CM Punk obviously got, like, really big pop.

2:08:53 Lucha Brothers got big pop, yeah.

2:08:56 And then the Dante versus... The Dante versus... Who did he fight again?

2:09:01 It was.

2:09:03 It was Alex.

2:09:03 Dante versus Bobby Fish. Oh, I'm sorry.

2:09:05 Malachi Black.

2:09:07 Malachi.

2:09:07 Malachi Black, yep.

2:09:09 Yeah.

2:09:10 That was a really good match and it uh and it like like people were really behind Dante in that like it was it was just he put on a good showing like that match like in general like it really just kind of like it woke people up even not that we were like you know sleeping but it was just like a nail biter almost like we knew he wasn't gonna win obviously but it was still like you know edgy or steep type of match absolutely yeah I'll note one more thing. The arena is very small. Super, super small arena. I'm not good with being able to guess the numbers. I'd say, man, if you told me it was more than 2,000 people, I'd be surprised. Seriously, I'm very bad at guessing numbers, but.

2:09:50 It was a small arena.

2:09:52 It was packed, though. I did not see the NPCs that I saw were one-offs.

2:09:57 Yeah.

2:09:58 But it's a very big contrast from a WWE show. That's for sure.

2:10:04 Did the women's match hold the attention of the fans? And did the Kira Hogan-Penelope Ford match?

2:10:11 Any thoughts on that? Because we didn't talk to Javier about that.

2:10:13 Yeah, it did.

2:10:15 It did.

2:10:16 All the women's matches were super over. When Thunder Rosa came out, I'm telling you, she was one of the bigger pops of the night.

2:10:23 It was in the.

2:10:23 Beginning of the show, so people had a lot of excitement. Um, but Thunder Rosa was super over. Um, and, uh, yeah, you know, Britt Baker and, um, um, Anna Jay had a match. That match was good too. Um, I think we were a little bit tired by that match because we were super excited to see, uh, Britt Baker in the beginning of the show, but later on, like it was just a little bit more tame, but man, none of the women's matches were, uh, none of the women's matches were, were popcorn matches. It was, it was even Kira Hogan versus, uh, penelope ford um i think like you know here again is is you know i think they're both pretty good to look at so i feel like people were like all right i'll stay for this

2:11:05 one i'll just you know at least watch them walk out and it wasn't a bad match at.

2:11:08 All cool cool um anything else uh valentino it's been a long night for you guys and we're running along here but uh any anything else you want to throw in and rich um after he talks if you have anything you want to ask we can uh wrap up on that too uh valentino anything else first.

2:11:23 On your notes no man i i appreciate Oh, no, nothing at all, Reid. I appreciate it. Rich, thanks so much also. Thanks for having me on. I know it's super late.

2:11:33 Yep.

2:11:33 Rich, is there anything you want to sneak in as far as the question goes or are you good to?

2:11:37 Yeah, I just had a quick one. I know this was flag night. Did you see a lot of heritage flags or clothing? Because I know they said that was part of like the sales for tonight's show.

2:11:47 You know, I didn't necessarily, I didn't know that I'm going into it. So I wasn't being observant of it. I only really caught the, the one that, the one that they shouted out at the end of the night when Cody was out, like I saw, like they, they shouted out an X and flag, but sincerely, it wasn't something that I had my eyes open for. So I can't, I can't really speak to that.

2:12:06 Oh, no, I appreciate it. Cool.

2:12:08 Valentino. Thanks so much.

2:12:09 Let us know next time you're headed to a show. I was good to talk to you. Call in any week. Appreciate it.

2:12:13 Likewise.

2:12:14 Thanks.

2:12:14 Thanks to both of you.

2:12:15 Yep.

2:12:15 You bet. Good night.

2:12:17 Good night.

2:12:17 All right, Rich, we will wrap up there. Thank you so much, Rich, for, Joining me here for the Dynamite Post Show, it's good to get your extended perspective on how that was a newsworthy show for a show on an off night. You know, that Hangman page roll that we led with was big, but I just think, you know, the developments we saw take shape for Full Gear, even though it's kind of a weird scheduling time for Dynamite, made it a newsworthy show. And then it was obviously fun hearing about the stuff afterwards that we won't spoil here, but that won't get into spoilers with the Rampage happenings.

2:12:54 Yeah, I had a ball thanks to our callers and the emailers and thanks, Wade, as always. And this has been another fun. I really like the fact that they didn't treat this as an off week. I thought this felt like a Wednesday show. They just had to deal with a time shift.

2:13:12 Yep, absolutely.

2:13:14 Thanks, Derek Kroll, for an unexpected and extended in-depth conversation on a lot of things. I was thinking of him as Hangman Page gave that promo because I know Eric was very much hoping to see Hangman win the AW World title in person and had made the pitch for exactly, almost exactly the promo he gave tonight. So glad that he had time to call in and spend time with us.

2:13:34 All right.

2:13:34 Thanks, everybody.

2:13:35 Thanks, Rich.

2:13:36 Thanks, Eric.

2:13:37 Thanks, our callers, our emailers, and, of course, of course, our listeners. I'll be back Monday night after Raw. And for VFB members, you'll certainly hear from me between.

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