WWE SMACKDOWN POST-SHOW (11/6) - Keller & Lansdell delve into the pros and cons of Owens-Punk finish, Chelsea's promo on self-doubt, Sami

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1:25 slash govip. Now, PW Torch and Spreaker bring you the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show. It's time to talk this week's WWE Friday Night Smackdown. Well, that was a clever finish. I'm not a huge fan of of wrestlers taking a really big finisher and then having enough to hit their own finisher or devastating move that then leads to, um, both wrestlers going down. That said, this was really clever.

2:09 And there was a, um, so, so I'll describe what happened for people watching the show who didn't see it or forgot or whatever. Um, so, uh, Kevin Owens wraps up his fist with a chain. He goes, you piece of shit. And he's going to hit punk punk hits a GTS. Um, instead, um, And then Owens, before falling, he kind of falls backwards into the rope. He's got just enough energy to use that chain to hit Punk.

2:30 And then Punk goes down, and then he stumbles and falls on top of Punk and gets a three count. I thought it was actually a fitting finish. And then Wade Barrett described what happened. It really underlined, very fortuitous of Owens to end up bouncing into the ropes and falling on top of him already knocked out. And I always say, if there's a better way to do something that will help it cross the line from kind of tropey and fake looking to believable make that effort. And I think they did that here because you can imagine a chain wrap fist as you're falling backwards and then you hit the ropes and you rebound and you're like, okay, this is the last thing I've got. And you just swing to knock out your hated, your hated opponent who

3:11 you've been waiting to just knock out for all these years. I actually thought it was clever and well done. And I thought they just checked enough boxes to make something that normally I don't like work. Chris, what'd you think?

3:23 Yeah, it's an easy one to get wrong. And I think, you know, you've got two professionals in there who are the perfect people to carry out something like this. The match itself was really good from beginning to end. And they went with a finish that, you know, I don't think many people would have seen it coming. I think a lot of people would have expected Punk to win this, but to do it in that fashion with Owen's sort of like last gasp, wild swing. And it wasn't like the William Regal big show, hit you with the brass knuckles, and then you fall on top of me and I lose type of slapstick. It actually worked without seeming, like you said, hokey. It made sense. It wasn't far-fetched. And there weren't 15 million kickouts leading up to it. So

4:04 I just thought it was a really smart way to finish a match that never really crossed the line into going too far.

4:11 Praise to Joe Tessitore, too, because there was a near fall late in the match. after GTS or I don't know, I don't even know whose move it was. No, I'm thinking about, but he didn't go, this is it. This is going to be it during the count. He goes, could this be it? And there was a kickout. And so, you know, just, I just applaud dropping bad habits and tropes and, and this, this, the finish of this match.

4:29 Cause I want to underline it. This I think is illustrative of what I wish more wrestlers and producers and bookers went through. These are two really high IQ wrestlers who in putting together the match probably had a conversation going, okay, how are we going to make this work? It's a type of finish I could imagine both guys backstage rolling their eyes at and complaining about at the monitors if other people were doing it in a sloppy or lame way.

4:56 And they're like, let's figure something out where we can make this work. And they did. And I want to give them credit for it. This shows extra thought put into something to make it feel more believable instead of just kind of going through the motions of something that gets us a finish and then we can just go go back to our hotels um and yes match was really good um as you would expect with these two actually before we talk about the match quality and i want to get into also like the crowd response to it and kind of analyze that a little bit um and a little bit of the history with these two um what do you make of the um the actual history between these two and what they pulled from actually yeah i'll do that i've got multiple angles i want

5:43 to take on special we'll do that um did this feel like the culmination of a feud that wwe did a good job conveying to fans even if they're newer and don't know the whole background haven't even don't know what roh stands for um and have never seen a wrestling show with a basketball hoop against a wall in the background with really bad lighting pointed at a camera lens Um, if they've never seen any of that, don't know what they're not. Do you think they did a good job conveying coming into tonight and tonight letting people know, you don't need to know details. These two just don't, you might like both of these guys for similar reasons, but they don't like each other at all in part because they're similar, but in part because of legit stuff too. Um, so, uh, Chris, yeah.

6:30 Talk about that.

6:32 Yeah.

6:32 It's because it's WWE. Yes. It did feel like a good combination of, of a feud that has lasted for decades. Everything I've heard says that these two are never going to be on each other's Christmas card list, but the animosity that was there in the ROH days has largely faded. I think you can thank Sami Zayn and Cody a lot for sort of mending those fences somewhat. But in the terms of how the WWE presented it, they've towed the line well between here's all this shoulder content. You need to go watch to understand what happened and sort of making it clear that, yeah, there is a legit reason these two don't like each other. And, you know, those two guys, some of the best on the mic ever, not just currently, I've been able to sort of thread

7:22 that needle and, and bring that past to the current without ever needing to go into detail on it. It's, it's been a really, well-written and well-worked angle between the two. And if there wasn't already that perpetual feud between Owens and Sami Zayn, this could be another one that they could go to. I don't think you need it, but yeah, it's worked really well for me.

7:44 Standard deviation points are two in the chat. Punk would have won if it was a regular match, but because it wasn't, Kevin Owens won with a chain. So what do you think about the finish, given there's all kinds of elements? One, there's just current day WWE. Um, is punk near the end of his career than Kevin Owens? Perhaps.

8:02 Does it matter? Perhaps not. Who wins this one? Um, I would say it does in the sense that if punk beat Owens, and I think you alluded to this, it would just solidify a preconception, maybe earned that punk is a bigger star by a certain amount. Then Owens. And of course, that's the finish. We're protecting Punk. He's in the world title scene. He can stay there. Kevin Owens visits a world title scene, but he won't stay there.

8:26 There's just this slight difference in terms of kind of the tier that they're on. And that just sort of underlines it, emphasizes it. Instead, it was the other way. But as standard deviation points out, Punk can just go, yeah, okay. You know, it was, you had a chain around. I'm not going to, you didn't prove you're a better wrestler by hitting it with a chain. You lucked out. I would have had you pinned. You know, he's not going to be a sore loser. Well, he might. I think they covered enough bases, but the politics of this I like in the sense that Punk is just at the level he's going to be at. I think Owens is more susceptible to the perception that management sends, the signal they send to the audience that, yeah, Punk's a bigger

9:09 star than KO. We kind of knew it, and we told you in this finish. I think this was the right finish. I don't know the politics that went into the decision, and everyone was cool with it, but I think Everyone should be. And I think it's for the better.

9:20 Chris.

9:22 Yeah, it's I don't know that they should even mention that you had a chain wrapped around your fist because that was the rules of the match that both men agreed to.

9:31 Right.

9:32 Yeah. It's not like there was any cheating or underhandedness involved. It was as legal as a pile driver. So I don't I wouldn't want to go there if I were Punk, unless that's a signal for a heel turn for Punk.

9:43 Well, Punk could say, I admit you beat me in a match where chains are involved. If we strip that away, I'll beat you. I mean, something along those lines. He could slip that in.

9:52 And then Owens could easily come back and say, but you agreed to this. I was the better man, and I'll be the better man. next time. And then each man can keep their ego in check and feel like they came out on the better side of it. But neither of these guys needs protecting. Each one of them can easily recover from a loss at this point. It's not like they've been on losing streaks. Nobody is thinking that either of them is washed as a result of this.

10:19 You had asked earlier on which of them is closer to the end of their career. I think it's arguable either way. I would shade slightly towards Owens because of the injury history, and his neck is probably more of a ticking time bomb than anything that Punk has going on. But I could see Punk just saying, no, that's enough for me. I'm going to go and run NXT now. So, you know, there's an argument each way. But the finish itself... Yeah, it gives each of them a plausible way to build on it. Owens can say he beat Punk, Punk can say it wasn't a wrestling match, it was a fight, and then neither one seems to have lost any face.

11:00 I think the build of this felt personal enough that to a certain extent, even if you say... I agree with you in general that both guys can recover from a loss, but... This felt so personal that I do think there were some bragging rights at stake if you leaned towards one wrestler or the other. And I want to believe, immersed in the story at least, that Punk will lose sleep tonight over this. I want to think that Punk's going to have something to say about it.

11:32 But it does cross my mind... this could be an impetus for a punk heel turn. Like it could be part of the story. Like when you sit here and go, why did they, why did they do this finish? Maybe in the back they're going, well, of course we'd have punk beat on us because we think he's a bigger star than KO. We love KO. He's a big star, but we think punk's bigger, but we did this because it's part of a story we're telling of punk is going to need Paul Heyman's help to, you know, whatever.

11:57 I mean, overcome or I don't know, you know? So I just throw that out there as an aside. Sometimes we try to figure out why they do something in a moment with the information we have. to make sense of it. But in fact, whatever reason we conjure up to explain what they do, isn't actually the reason because there's something unforeseeable or that we don't know is going to happen. We could guess might happen, but it's not a given. And that's actually what drove it. So I just throw that into the conversation too, as a possibility, but all, all in all, no matter what, I mean, and, and okay, I'll even sneak in. They might've just said, you know, Kevin Owens might have more friends in punk backstage.

12:33 Punk can be moody. Kevin Owens is more well-liked, generally speaking, behind the scenes. Over time, Punk's had a good track record here, but he's had moody moments even in WWE. And I mean, well, that's the whole thing. The promo from Kevin Owens saying, you know, I looked at you and got under his skin with a comment about maybe drama follows you everywhere. It's not everybody else.

12:59 It's you.

13:00 I mean, that is a line a lot of people have talked about with him. So it's possible that there was just like, yeah, let's ask punk to do the job and let's see how he feels about it. And people are in power, sort of delighting and letting in as much as it should matter to two guys in their forties with millions and millions in fame and career and a great body of work, but it is resting.

13:17 And sometimes things can be petty and personal. It might be petty and personal. They might've just been testing punk to see, yeah, we know it's going to bug him. We have a rationalization with a straight face. We'll tell him, we know it's going to eat him up inside because he takes it so seriously. So I throw that out there, out there too. Um, uh crofton in the chat says punk has lost to chad gable in a dark match grace and waller on nxt kevin owens tonight roman at mania i feel like he must be heading toward the next chapter of his career and and i as i was reading that crofton i thought you might be going in a couple different directions with that list um i think they're all very different and i think this is

13:51 the one that punk would care the most about losing if he still cares about that kind of thing i think this is the one he'd care the most about i think he knows roman's a bigger star I mean, you know, Pride, he'd like to be the guy booked to beat him. Waller, that was just a roll-up finish because of a distraction, and he's giving back. He can have that, you know, wear the badge of honor and, you know, display that on his trophy case of giving back that he likes to draw attention to, and that's fine.

14:20 And then a dark match, whatever. So I think this is the one where it's like, ah, I could see him being bothered by it. Chris, you want to jump in on that?

14:26 Yeah, it's tough with Punk because you just never know. what he's thinking on any given moment. Someone said to me the other day that the difference between CM Punk and Teddy Hart is that Punk never did drugs, and that's the only reason he's still in wrestling. And honestly, when it comes to backstage attitudes and the way that they have been, he's not far wrong. If you think about some of the stuff that Punk has got away with simply because he never crossed that line into being a complete waste of space, there's a lot of similarities there.

14:59 This might actually bug him, and more to the point, even if the actual result doesn't, because he's not one that has had an issue with losing matches. It's what the result kind of portrays, and that's more likely to get to him than the actual, I lost to Kevin Owens.

15:18 Yeah, yeah. 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 slash govip. Your time is valuable, and that's one of the reasons we offer VIP membership, pwtorch.com slash govip. uh crofton says i think kevin owns needed to win here i struggle to remember a time he came out on top of a feud with a major star yeah yeah yeah um and

16:05 so yeah some of this just depends on what what do they have planned the next year and a half for kale versus punk punk's winding down and it's like i don't want to do this anymore i don't want to get hurt i'm excited to give back and go to nxt and kale's like hey i missed some time the money's great um i want to catch up with some of these other guys who've been full-time and on top And I'm excited to work with three or four guys.

16:24 And Punk's like, I've checked all the boxes. I'm good. I got to wrestle Chad Gable in a dark match. I got to give that, you know, wrestle Grayson Waller and try to give him a boost. I like him and you know, whatever he, if Punk might have checked all the boxes and KO has more left in, this is a way to make those matches mean more. Um, what'd you think of the crowd heat here? Cause we had early on a, um, There was a chant for Punk, which the announcers drew attention to. Then there was a dueling chant of Kevin Owens, CM Punk. But as the match went on, they were into it. And we got to this awesome chant late after the announced death spot.

17:03 But there were times, and I trust more feedback than just my perception. There were times where I thought the crowd was sort of watching because it was two good wrestlers they liked, but they weren't. invested like I was when I was a little kid wanting Mad Dog with Sean to beat Crusher Blackwell in a death match. And I mean, it's still, I still am a little hoarse from that, you know, like I've, I've never recovered from, from how much I yelled during that. And, and at Minnesota North stars games way back in the day, blew up my voice. It's never been the same. Like no one was, there's no kid in the crowd blowing out his voice for this. Like, you know, this was, Oh, I, Oh, a table.

17:35 Yeah.

17:36 Two tables. Oh, four chairs. No six chairs.

17:38 Oh, chain.

17:39 Oh, jumping off stuff. And, and it was, and I'm, it's good it's not the worst thing in the world but it is the continuation of a theme on our show here um which is wb's done a lot of situations where the fans just don't get to get comfortable and root for one side and i i thought there was again crud is into the match and it was a long night and so that plays into it too i mean this was a double taping on monday but i still crave a crowd just being 100% or 95% or 85% behind KO to beat Punk or Punk to beat KO. And I don't think we got that. And I feel kind of bad that when this match happened, we didn't have that.

18:17 Yeah, I'm curious about this one because when you're doing a tape double shot like this, you could have filmed this match first right after Raw finished and then done the rest of SmackDown and we would never have been any the wiser.

18:31 Yep.

18:32 Because I felt like the crowd was Dead all night. It sounded like they were taping in a museum. And early on, I honestly felt like some of those chants were piped in or at least sweetened. It didn't sound natural. But they were definitely into the match by the end of it. And it's the sign of how good a match is when you can resurrect a dead crowd like that.

18:54 I do feel for them, but also... this is, this is what you get yourself into when you do a four hour taping, right? Like you've got to expect that at some point the crowd is going to fall off.

19:06 Yeah.

19:07 I mean, they, I think they probably did it efficiently and we had video packages and, you know, they can speed through commercial breaks. I've been at, you know, old school WBF tapings for syndication and it was just bang, bang, bang. I mean, as a wrestler's leaving and their music fades, the next music queues up immediately and they come out because the producers and they don't want to pay security over time. They know the fans are tired and it is a fast ship. I don't know who's left from that era other than Bruce Prichard and his days are numbered. Oh, Michael Hayes too. But yeah. So anyway, let's see. I was going to, was there something else about this match you wanted to bring up? How did, just how did,

19:43 I mean, it was a good match, but how did Punk and Owens look physically to you in executing the spots that they did. Was there a point where you're like, ah, Punk would have done that better, done that move better, been more graceful, hit a little tighter and harder, not seem tired. Same thing for Owens. Or did you look at this and go, I wasn't even thinking about Punk being, pushing 50 and KO being in his forties.

20:05 I mean, I've been watching these guys for 20, 25 years. So it would be, impossible for them not to look like they've shown their age in that time. I didn't think that they looked old. I thought they just looked like they'd slowed down since I was watching, you know, Kevin Owens in Ring of Honor and Punk when he first left. And, you know, I was watching him in TNA.

20:26 I was watching him at the end of his ROH run. And then when he came up to WWE CW, like that, it just has been his career.

20:34 Yeah.

20:35 He's slower now, but it, The match didn't feel like a Chris Jericho match, for example, where everything is significantly slower than it used to be.

20:47 I didn't watch the match. I mean, I'm, of course, cognizant in the background always that Punk's got the gray hair and Kevin Owens got the gray hair and the beard and they are not at the top, top, top of their game. But man, sometimes... you know, it's like Ovechkin, you know, yeah, you got the gray hair in your beard, but man, you still fear him if you're a goaltender.

21:09 And so I'm trying to do hockey analogies for you, Chris. Is that better than American?

21:13 I mean, basketball would work. All right.

21:16 All right. I'm trying to cater to Canadians and I forget.

21:18 Yeah.

21:18 I mean, I'm mostly English. Don't forget.

21:21 Yeah. No, I know. Well, I mean, can you live in Canada and not end up peripherally picking up on um apparently.

21:30 Um to be fair i was heavily into the to the nhl to start with but i i just i'd rather watch hockey and not fighting if i want to watch fighting i'll watch the ufc and it's just become way too much about the fighting i'll watch olympic hockey though that's way more.

21:42 Fun yeah yeah um okay oh uh there's a little a note here because i was going to get into the little promos that punk and ko did too and then we'll kind of wrap this up but Crofton said it was hilarious how they were pretending that this happened after NXT. I was aware of the way they framed Raw all night. Jimmy was handcuffed by 946 and then confronting Sami a second later. And they talked about after Raw, after Raw for the sake of the live audience. The live audience wasn't saying, hey, way back on Monday this happened.

22:10 They actually changed their phrase and go after Raw and it worked for both the TV audience on a Friday, but also the live crowd that saw something happen a half hour earlier. But yeah, the Kevin Owens... promo talking about showing up to NXT and Shawn Michaels saying you need to leave because it's time for his match. I don't think he got into what he, I don't think he explicitly said in that segment that he attacked or distracted punk and didn't gloat. So I think they could have actually aired that in front of the crowd and it wouldn't have given away the finish, but I wonder if they just, but why air that in front of the crowd, just tape it afterwards and add it later.

22:48 So I'm, I'm, I don't know. I glanced, but I didn't really look at the spoilers. So I don't know if that did air in the building or not. But anyway, so but my question to you is, what do you think of the Punk promo and the Kevin Owens promo? I think Kevin Owens scored more points. But, you know, if you're a fan of Punk, you might have thought he did, too.

23:06 What do you think?

23:07 The Punk promo was fine. I was more distracted by the state his eyes were in. He looked like he had just gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson in his prime. It was the CM Punk promo. There aren't bad ones. There was nothing special about it. Owen's promo. I actually wrote down here that I loved his delivery. I loved his tone. I loved his volume. I loved the threat he made at the end, which was the exact level of threat we need to hear more of. Like, I am going to send you to retirement sooner than you want.

23:37 That is fine. That is something that you should want to do if you're trying to beat somebody you dislike. That is something that you can actually do in a wrestling ring. I did think some of it was a little too inside baseball, though. there were a little too many references to politicking with Shawn Michaels to get a title shot. I don't know if that was necessary.

23:55 I don't know if that's insider. That's just, how'd you get, I mean, it's, it's storyline. How the heck did CM Punk wants to get back to her, but he suddenly, you know, headline a NXT show that got thrashed in the ratings as I reported on PW torch earlier today. And first in the weight color hotline for VIP members before anyone else had the details. Um, as far as I know, um, that Dynamite outdrew NXT by a big margin with Punk in the headline match. And, I mean, that's a whole separate topic, but, you know, Punk and his history with AEW, I think Tony Khan was pretty thrilled that he was able to beat a CM Punk main event on NXT that, of course, from his perspective, was kind of predatory and overdue. You know, it's like, hey,

24:31 just do a regular show. Don't bring out Cody and Cena and a Punk title match.

24:36 It's amazing what Tony Khan will do when he fears for his life. So I guess that was something to do with it.

24:41 Yeah.

24:43 And I actually I think that somewhat ironic that in the week of blood and guts, we had a no holds barred match and you get to compare how the two companies do a no disqualification match. It's probably not a surprise to anyone who's had me on a post show before that I greatly preferred this. But yeah, the.

25:03 White would like to trade spots with you because he doesn't like the blood and guts format either.

25:07 Uh, I mean, listen, we've, we've done a lot of shows together recently on, uh, on worse or better. And, uh, I love chatting with that guy. Also a quick plug. If you haven't heard, can they coexist with him and Adam? So good. They have such good chemistry.

25:23 Yes.

25:24 I don't, I feel like I spent 30 minutes dissecting their different personalities on Wednesday's post show with, with Joshua, um, and why they work so well together. They're like, I, they're both great personalities and just great people. Um, but having them play off each other, it is, it is, it is just a fun, it is the type of show you can just put on, on a car ride or at the gym or on a dog walk or in the background or you're cleaning the house. And it's just like having two buddies who are, know their stuff and they're different. And I, again, I just, I gush about it because they have such a different way of delivering their opinions. You know, Adam Kidd's so blunt, just fearless, but he has opinions and Josh has a lot of opinions,

26:02 but you know, it's like, it's it's more of a layup than a slam dunk but it gets it scores the point so it's it's it's yeah it's a really fun it's a vip exclusive show really fun show newest in the lineup every sunday night or first thing monday it drops and it's you know 90 minutes or two hours just marching through all the shows all the big news stories and all the tv shows and all the big angles and um yeah it's a really cool addition to the lineup.

26:23 It's funny because they like to compare themselves to the fix and i think it's actually closer to when you and eric get on together Just the banter and the back and forth.

26:33 Interesting.

26:34 It's way more of one person being very blunt and direct and one person being a bit more diplomatic, whereas you and Todd just josh at each other constantly. It's great to listen to, and it's worth going VIP for if the fix wasn't already enough.

26:50 PWTorchVIPinfo.com is where you go for information to sign up. We'd love to have you as a member. Been doing weight killer hotlines, news updates. They're run about 15, 20 minutes almost every day for a couple of weeks now. Really enjoyed doing it. Can rearrange some things in my schedule to make it work. I'm going to keep doing that.

27:06 Been breaking news. One of the things I've wanted to do, because I often have information about a story going around. It's like, it's not quite that, but I don't want to be the person who posts a new story going, you might've read yesterday this. Let me tell you why they got it slightly wrong or a lot wrong or whatever.

27:21 I don't want to be that person. So it just slips into my post show. Sometimes it's like, now I can, I like the form. I'm just talking to my VIP members, you know, like, Hey, this, this is a story, but it's being reported, but here's, here's based on my, you know, Intel and sourcing and whatever knowledge that they got a little bit wrong here, a lot wrong here. And I understand why, but this is a real story. So I've been doing that. And just, it's a soup for the listeners, just an efficient way to keep up on what's going on.

27:47 Big stuff, little stuff. You don't have to, you let me be the gatekeeper for what's like actually news and what isn't, you don't have to click a bunch of, you know, a bunch of websites that are just wasting your time. And, and so it's a shorter format, um, than other, than other stuff we're doing. And it's, um, kind of like the locked on podcast series. It's kind of a big deal in, uh, sports podcasting where every team has a, a daily update on their favorite sports team with, and I've subscribed to some of those and I was doing that format. in the two thousands way before, um, locked on was even a twinkle in its dad's eye. But, um, but now, now they have copied me and now I'm, I'm inspired by them to bring that format back. So anyway,

28:26 PW torch VIP info.com. If you're like what we've talked about, jump on board. And yes, the, um, can they get along is like the fix in the sense that it's like, Oh, there's some new stories I want to cover and we're going to march through the shows and just two people giving their opinion. Um, I mean, mostly with a fix, mostly it's me throwing to Todd for the sake of duration and i get to talk all week otherwise uh but this is their centerpiece show each week and they just share you know pretty equally um every once in a while adam has more to say but that's that's fine anyway um got a little ahead of ourselves and off topic which is great because i got a vip plug in here instead of later um i thought punk

29:06 was very punk like when he said ah this whole feud's about something that was a big deal to kevin owens and i barely remember it happened That's so punk. And that's how he'll deal with this finish. Ah, I don't take pride in losing a match where someone gets hit with a shade. What does that do with wrestling skill?

29:21 Like you, he's a person who will care deeply about something until he loses in which. And then at that point, it was never important to him in the first place.

29:29 Who cares?

29:30 Um, with Owens, um, his line as a friend of key people in AW, the young bucks, um, he, you know, they wanted people to think, how is punk going to feel about Kevin Owens referencing the sore spot in punk's career where he lost a lot of points with a lot of people. I mean, people kind of took sides and there's a lot of people on punk side, of course, but, you know, bring it up. the essentially referring to the aw situation but really it's just follows punks every punk everywhere i mean how at some point you know if everyone says you're an asshole maybe are um and and so for kevin to go there you know i i thought i thought it was a good final push and as i said in my original early question to you

30:15 you didn't need to know their history or follow anything but that would be the last five years to go ah i like these two guys but i didn't know they didn't like each other and i want to see him fight this is gonna be cool and i think i think the promo's brought in the video package too just kind of did justice to this match i don't think they're going to do more until one of them turns if they ever wrestle again.

30:35 Yeah and i think that's the key right it's like these two guys aren't going anywhere they need to be able to coexist and it's i they did well like you know we've we've gone over it i'm happy with how it went i think the match was good i think the promos were good storyline building up to it was good And let's move on. And if we need to revisit it, we can.

30:57 Yep. Yep.

31:00 Hey, everyone.

31:00 Greg Parks here. You've probably heard me hosting Wrestling Night in America after pay-per-views and also co-hosting the Tuesday Flagship with Wade Keller. I also host a VIP exclusive podcast every week called Greg Parks Out Loud. In this podcast, I delve into a single topic for around 20 minutes, perfect length for one of your daily commutes or while walking the dog. A couple of my recent episodes included a look at TNA as they moved to AMC and and WWE and AEW injuries for the year 2025. You can listen to VIP Podcasts with a VIP membership on many platforms, including on Patreon, Spotify, the Apple Podcasts native app on iPhone and CarPlay, just about every popular iOS and Android podcast app out there, and even stream right

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31:59 All right, a couple comments on this match, and then we will move on to other topics. We've got Darrell on hold, too. Look forward to talking to him about tonight's show. Mark Paschetti says, Kevin Owens no-selling after the GTS. and hitting Punk with a chain is the closest this match got to AEW's no-sell style. This match is Exhibit 1088 for Why Selling Matters. Mark, I don't know if you were with us at the top of the show, but I addressed that. Chris did, too. This, you know, is a finish I normally don't like, but I give them plenty of points for not only addressing it in the execution, where it did feel fortuitous and fluky, and when you have a chain wrapped around your fist, I want to reiterate this. It's not like Kevin Owens recovered

32:40 enough to execute a move. Kevin Owens recovered enough to have just enough force as he's falling down to punch his top enemy with a chain. So this isn't the same thing as suddenly taking someone's finisher, but popping up and then giving them your finisher. He didn't give a stunner. He didn't, you know, do an elaborate move. He just kind of bounced another out. So he's knocked out and his last thing is a chain that covers it. That's enough for me. You know, like it, it, it wasn't.

33:07 And so I want to, I want to point out, I, it's not a blanket statement against certain things that are tropey and overdone and fake. My philosophy is if you can make it look better, do that.

33:19 Yeah.

33:20 You know, that's what I, that's why like you go, why do you care about breakups of pins and tag matches the safes? I care about it because it's the most glaring example of the most easily fixable thing that is symptomatic of a philosophy that I want to permeate wrestling so we can get back to things making more sense.

33:37 And this is something that just is, oh, yes, Wade's right. This would be so easy to fix. If someone breaks up a pin, actually knock them off the cover and the person underneath should lift their shoulder 100% of the time. And the ref shouldn't stop his count if someone's still on top and the shoulder's still down. But they don't do it because they don't think anyone cares anymore. I want fans to watch with that level of scrutiny. They could watch this finish tonight with scrutiny and go, no, it didn't work for Mark. But I think most fans would go, I can kind of see that happening instead of, oh, eye roll, you know, tropey thing I saw on AEW a thousand times in the last year. So I want to praise them for this, Chris.

34:12 If I'm being super picky, I could argue that it probably shouldn't have come off a GTS, maybe a different move because the GTS is a finisher that normally drops people on their back instead of into the ropes and then rebounding with a punch. Like, sure, I can go for that. Sure. But, like, this isn't like he just, like you said, popped back up, ignored the shot, and took a swing and hit his finisher. He used the momentum of bouncing off the ropes from a move and just did a wild swing and connected.

34:44 Yeah.

34:45 It is. I mean, I might be more against the anti-selling than you are with my diatribes against Darby Allen and Kyle Fletcher recently and how much I hate that. This wasn't that. This was a move and a sequence that made sense.

35:01 Yep. Yep.

35:03 Another comment here. Crofton just said, I agree with Mark. It was a bit too cute of a finish. Either you're knocked out or you aren't. I will just reiterate. You get knocked silly. You bounce against the ropes, that adrenaline, the last swing, and then you fall on top and you don't know what happened. I don't think you can get 100% there, but I think they got 85% of the way there in most situations like that it's zero percent so um i will take that if they want and and i also think too this wasn't like i was watching this match going you know because i i avoided i read something about this far i'm like you know what i'm not even gonna look like i got you know there's spoilers out there and it's like i

35:44 got to that match and it's like oh i'm gonna forget anything i saw and i just want to watch it play out and so i really didn't know what happened um whatever i glanced at i just forgot like intentionally and it worked So I was watching them, genuinely not knowing what the finish was or how they'd get there.

35:59 And to me, this finish works in part because of the conundrum of what finish to do with these two. So, again, I give slack when it's like, it's not, oh, why'd you book this match if you don't do a finish? It's like, it's cool you could do this match, but there isn't a good finish, except for kind of this one, because I don't want interference. I don't want a double countout.

36:20 You know, like, I mean, this was a pin, but it protected... Yeah, you get my point. Yeah, I do.

36:28 We agree on this. I thought the finish was great. It was a perfect no, sure, but this isn't getting tombstoned off the apron through a chair and then coming back into the ring and winning the match.

36:40 Yep, exactly. Piledriver Pete says, I wish he would stop calling him Phil. I'm fine with it. I don't care.

36:48 It's one of those things where it's happened enough now that people know.

36:53 Yeah. Who was....

36:55 Who was calling somebody by their real name like a year or two ago in WWE. And it was just like, it just wasn't working. Um, chat, remind me if, if, if, if it comes up, if you can think of it, there was somebody who was, it was sort of like Bobby, someone's calling Bobby Lashley, Robert, something like that. And it was, but it just, it, it, it was delivered like it was more clever and biting than it was. It just was kind of being a dick. So, um, this is more not Kevin Owens going, I'm going to call you a name. You don't like to be called. to be a jerk, I'm going to call you this name because it's symbolizes that I'm talking about you and not your gimmick. Like, um, I don't know. So I, to me it, it, and

37:38 Kevin also knows like there's a history of that, not of that being something that punk only wants certain people to call him. And so I don't know. I mean, there's, there's history with that. It doesn't just come across as being kind of a jerk by calling somebody by name. They don't want to be called. It's, it is intentionally to get under his skin.

37:56 Yeah, and there's a well-documented history of punk hating being called Phil in public. If fans call him Phil, he won't just ignore him. He will berate them, or he has in the past. And I think doing it, as you said, to refer to this is you, the person, not you, the gimmick, I actually think that makes it worse because that does bring it into the inside baseball level.

38:19 People know this now that his name is Phil There was a time when there were entire websites dedicated to wrestlers' real names, and that was a big deal if you knew who they were.

38:31 My full-page magazine ads during the 90s, which grew the Pursing Torch newsletter in the pre-internet days, is if you subscribe, you know, five issues for $ 10 or whatever it was, if you subscribe, we'll give you the PW Torch Insider, what did we call it? The Insider's Guide or something like that. And it had a list of wrestler real names in it. Um, had a couple other things, so I should see if I can find a copy of that, put it online.

38:56 Um, it was a guy I went to school with who was a subscriber and brought it into school one day. And we were all like, Oh my God, I didn't know this. Wait, Hulk Hogan is on his real name.

39:06 Yeah.

39:06 I don't know if I did ages then, but, and it's funny too, because like now it's, it's hard to fathom not being able to know the real name and age of any famous person. But back then, like I would literally call up wrestlers and go, I know your name, I am going to publish it, but I don't know how to spell it. Do you mind helping me? um billy gunn hung up on me once when i did that um so um you know eddie guerrero was like eddie or eddy i don't care wade okay fine i was hoping you would just tilt me one direction he wouldn't help me he's like either way he's fine he didn't care at all um But yeah, oh, we did that, and then we did the insider wrestling terminology. That was it.

39:49 So it was wrestlers' real names and insider terminology, current ones and sort of antiquated. What's a better word than antiquated?

39:56 Obsolete?

39:57 Yeah, there's even a better word. No, there's even another word I'm trying to think of, but those both work. It means something like it's so old that it isn't used anymore. It's expired as a.

40:11 Oh.

40:13 Antiquated's really close, but it is even a better, better way. As a writer, I like to come up with the best words. I don't always do that, especially on the spot. So anyway, yeah, so that's fun. I should republish, republish. That'd be fun though, because no one knew how to spell Mark Calloway, even his friends. Like no one saw his driver's license. There was contracts. So there's so many different spellings of Calloway over the years. Larry Piffle for Lex Luger. Like what? How do we spell that? So that's cool though, that you did that. Someone else might've, copied me doing magazine ads and copied an insider free free uh free guide um in their quest to gain readers too back in the day um oh kip.

40:52 Sop yes that's really gone.

40:55 Atlas fear says the guy named kip sop didn't want that name out there shocking um yeah i.

41:02 Uh are you thinking maybe archaic or anti-diluvian is.

41:06 Another good word archaic are you just thesaurus no no oh.

41:11 Literally, it's been in the ADHD part of my brain running through. Yep.

41:15 I think Archaic is good. Feel free, chat, to chime in with other theories. Let's see.

41:23 Kipsock was one that blew my mind. And Richard Blood as well was the one that I was like, why would you not just use that?

41:30 I know. I can imagine him just saying Ricky Steamboat is who we're talking about. That Steamboat is a better wrestling name than Blood. But it is there are people with very unfortunate last names and Richard Blood or Rick Blood is a pretty cool. If he had stuck with that, it's pretty good. A lot of people just didn't want people.

41:47 I mean, there used to be phone books where everybody's first and last name and phone number. You could look them up by name like this is blows like the young generation's minds because everything's, you know, like not super private because people are very public in other ways. You know, like they're very personal about their photos that they put out there. But used to be able to get a book, a gigantic thick book in the mail, white pages and yellow pages. Yellow pages were all the businesses and white pages was a chronological list of everybody in your metropolitan area by last name with their phone number and their address.

42:20 And their address.

42:21 You could find anybody if you knew their name and go up to their door and egg their house.

42:25 In school, it used to be if you wanted a girl's phone number, but she wouldn't give it to you.

42:31 Yeah.

42:31 The next best thing was to try and find out her dad's name. So you could find them in the phone book.

42:37 Yep. That's hilarious. So how did we get on? Oh, Phil. Yeah. So it used to be a very much a top secret what wrestlers, that wrestlers even had other names, you know? All right.

42:50 Yeah.

42:50 Let's see. A couple tangential. Oh, Jason D in Australia goes, I hope this is the last we hear about CM Punk and how he was back in the day and who he offended. I'm so over it. I'm fine with that too, but he needs on air. I mean, well, maybe he's podcasting too. I'm fine with both.

43:07 Um, yeah.

43:10 Um, let's see. Uh, Boris J in the chat says, Wade Cameron Hawkins was putting you over today. You know him. He was a torch contributor. He did a podcast with us for years. He's been a co-host on this very show. Um, probably more than a dozen times. He, he, in a current PW torch, we have panelists, rich fan, um, are, are, are really tight. Um, Christopher Maitland too. And, uh, Travis Bryant, um, They all did the PWTorch East Coast cast together or were callers together. So absolutely. Boris says, Wade Kamhocken said Steve Austin used to call you up. Is that true? Yeah, that's well known. I mean, nobody's been a guest on Steve Austin's podcast more than me. I've been on it like 40 times. And yeah, I mean, he's done long

43:52 interviews with me and he's done my show. I've done his show. We've got best of editions up. And I knew him back when he was trying to decide whether he should go to After it got fired from WCW, he's trying to decide should he go to All Japan or ECW?

44:05 Or was it?

44:06 Yeah, I think it was those two, not WWF. But it might have been WWF or All Japan. I mean, one path led to that anyway. But yeah.

44:16 Yeah, yeah.

44:17 Steve and I go way back. All right. Let's see.

44:21 Okay.

44:21 Well, let's super deep in the show. But let's for people just listening and didn't look at the names. Let's introduce who we are and what we are. Did you know that you can enjoy commercial-free versions of all of your favorite Wade Keller podcasts and PWTorch daily casts on Spotify? Just go to patreon.com, search PWTorch, and subscribe to a VIP membership tier. You get a seven-day free trial, by the way, to kick the tires a bit and see if you like the service. And then sync it with Spotify, and you can listen to commercial-free versions of our free shows, like the Wade Keller post shows, the Wade Keller podcast flagship, our flashbacks, and also the PWTorch daily cast lineup. Again, all commercial-free, a nice streamlined listening experience. But with third-tier membership,

45:01 you can also unlock all the VIP podcasts, including Everything with Rich and Wade, The Fix with Todd Martin that I host with Todd every week, the Wade Keller News Bulletin's post-pay-per-view roundtables, and an array of other VIP-exclusive podcasts with different hosts and different themes. Check out the lineup.

45:17 Go to Patreon and search PWTorch and subscribe and sync it up with Spotify or stay within the Patreon ecosystem. Either way works. Go to Patreon and start your seven-day free trial. This is the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Post Show for Friday, November 6, 2026. And I'm Wade Keller, host of the show, editor, publisher, and founder of the long-running Pro Wrestling Torch Weekly newsletter, which if you've listened carefully the first 40-some minutes of the show, you know, it predated the internet. And we used to gain subscribers by advertising and national wrestling magazines. It was controversial when I did that, Chris, there were people in the newsletter community, the insider newsletter community who felt like I was opening

45:57 a door to the world that should only be invite only, you know, it was like, um, you know, in the internet where it's like, Oh, you only get to be in this group, this online group through invite only. Um, it was a secret club and I opened the doors up with national ads and magazines. And then also, um, sports illustrated and USA today. And then, doing a lot of radio shows. So spread the word those ways before the internet. And those back issues, by the way, with VIP membership, did we mention VIP membership? PWTorchVIPinfo.com. That includes access, by the way, to nearly four decades now of Pro Wrestling Torch weekly newsletters dating back to the late 1980s.

46:34 You can read about my match report on every SummerSlam ever. And you can listen to a round table podcast round table audio shows uh we called them audio shows because word podcast wasn't around we first started doing them um after uh wrestling pay-per-views and dating again um back to the uh to 2003 or 2004 and then even some retro shows where we look back at earlier wrestlemania so lots and lots and lots of cool stuff um we had an endorsement um um, uh, earlier in the chat to, uh, standard deviation said the Wade Keller news hotline updates are the best thing about going VIP at the moment. Thank you.

47:14 Standard deviation. Appreciate it. That's always, uh, encouraging and inspiring to, uh, you know, get feedback. So appreciate that. Um, yeah, so go VIP and, uh, if not at least subscribe to all our free podcasts, search Wade Keller, get the blue and red logo show on your podcast feed, wake up the post shows, wake up the podcast. And then also, uh, Oh, speaking of Steve Austin, this weekend, I interviewed with him from 10 years ago. He was evaluating the current WWE product 10 years ago this week. So there's some good stuff in that. In fact, I was going to look at the summary here that will be going up tomorrow night.

47:56 Steve Austin, oh, he addresses the awkward. This is an interview I did with him 10 years ago that everyone can listen to tomorrow night. Steve Austin addresses his awkward Dean Ambrose interview on WWE Network when Steve interviewed him and there was no chemistry. It was just awkward. So he addresses that. He also talks about the prospects of a Shawn Michaels, AJ Styles match, his thoughts on Charlotte Flair.

48:18 Some talk about Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey. There was something else. Oh, Goldberg's return. That was interesting. And evaluating main event programs and main event wrestlers in WWE and what was working and not working. So like an hour and a half with Steve tomorrow. on that show. So check it out. That is on our blue logo show.

48:36 Search Wade Keller to subscribe to that. And while you're at it, search PW Torch and subscribe to the PW Torch Daily Cast. That includes Chris, a show that you are often part of. Talk about it. Chris Lansdell is my co-host, by the way. Chris Lansdell. Haven't said that fully yet. Good to have you.

48:54 Thanks.

48:54 Yeah, it's always fun to get on with you, Wade. I've been doing a lot of guest shots on Worse or Better with Joshua White recently, and it's a lot of fun. I'm not sure how tightly we're sticking to the original format. We just tend to sit there and just nostalgia for an hour and a half, but it's fun. Uh, most recent one was just like, we, we took about 40 wrestling tropes and tore them to shreds. And that was, that was really enjoyable. Uh, and, uh we've got we're looking to uh keep that going until stephanie can come back but i i will always talk wrestling you you throw me in front of a microphone and i'll just i'll turn on ham mode i'm i love.

49:30 It awesome yes so uh search pw torch subscribe it's a different show each day of the week with a different format There's a show focused on TNA, on AEW, on the indie scene. 30 years ago, newsletters were analyzed in the 90s past cast. Worse or better, a nostalgia show comparing to today to yesterday. Some weeks sticking to the format more than others. And yeah, and wrestling that in America after major PLEs. And I'm leaving something out and something out, but whatever. It's great. It's a different Joey today than we check it out.

50:01 All right.

50:03 Join us in the chat. If you are watching us live and you haven't done so yet, if you're not watching us live, you're invited to join us live. Search PWTorch on YouTube. Set an alarm. We go live after Raw, Dynamite, and SmackDown. We also have a show after NXT with a different crew and after most PLEs. And our email is wadekellerpostshow at gmail.com for the post shows and wadekellerpodcast at gmail.com to submit a question for the flagship or our mailbag edition for the Blue Logo Show.

50:29 All right.

50:30 Let's... let's move on. Cause we've got a lot more to talk about. And we have a pay-per-view starting in about 13 hours. Oh, people are talking about the yellow pages. Sadler goes, LOL. Yellow pages was for prank calling as a kid. It was a prank calling hack as a kid. Someone's commented on, they used it to call like get dates, but I can't find that, that comment. So Anyway, some listeners reminiscing about those days. Standard deviation says, I remember seeing the Undertaker's real name on the internet as a kid and it blew my mind, LOL. Yep. Boris says, because of all this stuff that's happened, he'll always be called Phil. I can only think of Phil, says standard deviation.

51:21 Trying to just round out these comments while it's fresh. Oh, Sadler, version three goes, The Austin podcast is how I found out about this podcast. I'd never heard of an analytical breakdown of weekly wrestling shows until this one.

51:33 Um, cool. Yeah, certainly.

51:35 Um, a good number of our listeners came from, from, uh, all those appearances with Austin and Crofton says CM Punk and Cody should do one last feud where it's all about how cranky punk is and how Cody can't look up to his dad. They can blow up both.

51:47 Um, Wait, who is Cody's dad? I don't think it's ever been mentioned on TV. Actually, I'm surprised. I watched Street Fighter last night. My wife and I went out to see it. I'm surprised there wasn't some failed mention to Dusty in the movie. It was the kind of thing I would have expected him to throw in there.

52:08 Very enjoyable flick, by the way. I enjoyed it greatly. Doesn't take itself seriously.

52:13 Cool. Yeah, I think Cody is cognizant, self-aware of it, and Wants to respect his dad and wants to respect the idea that sometimes so many wrestlers on the roster had a history with him. So it makes sense. They'd bring it up. But I, I, I mean, in, in fairness to Cody, I think if they could, if they vowed a 2027 mortatorium on bringing up dusty, except in the dusty classic on NXT, he would vote for that. Like, Like, I just want to be clear. I don't think Cody's going, oh, how can we bring up my dad in another feud I'm having? It's just, it's hard to not do it because Dusty was such a huge figure and so many people worked with him at NXT who are around now.

52:52 But I just want to be clear. I don't think Cody is, it's his choice to always do that. Another Yellow Pages note. Businesses don't start their name with AAA anymore because the Yellow Pages died. Yeah, if you want to know about why it's AAA concrete, AAA plumbers, it's because you wanted to be first in the listings. Because sometimes you'd go to plumbing and there'd be AAA this, AAA that. So, yeah. Good comment.

53:26 Okay.

53:27 So, Sami Zayn. Give me your thoughts on his performance tonight. The build to... the match tomorrow against Roman Reigns and Jimmy playing a role in building this up and pulling a lot from the bloodline history. And then, you know, 9-4-6 getting involved. And speaking of yellow pages and phone numbers, error codes, that's actually more of a zip code takeoff, but nevertheless.

54:00 Yeah.

54:00 And then we have the 9-4-6 getting involved with Sammy having a chance to help Jimmy after talking about, you'll always be family to me. But on the eve, you know, in the timeline, TV timeline eve of defending, or not defending, but facing Roman with the pride on the line, he decides not to help. I don't really blame him. I think it made sense. Jimmy didn't have to come out there.

54:19 You can't expect Sammy to get beat up going into the match. I'm glad he didn't, too, because that would have maybe given away the finish. That Sammy went today to Jimmy. He gets beat up for the 9-4-6. Then he loses to Roman. And then he uses that against Roman. And we don't really, it would have maybe given away the finish. So the fact that he walked away from it makes sense. So yeah, number of things we can go into here. One other thing I'll bring up is the peak for me was when Sammy said, Jimmy, he really said that? Like when Jimmy said, Roman is thinking about you. And he's like, I just want him to take me seriously. I want him to be worried about this.

54:51 He so desperately wants not Roman's approval, but Roman's respect that he is at his level. And I thought that was a real poignant moment in the promo. Chris.

55:01 Yeah, I My first note on Sammy actually was when he had his first heel run, they had to change his music so that people would boo him. And I think this time not changing his music has worked really well because he doesn't think he's changed.

55:18 Yeah, that's a good point.

55:20 The choice in the music has really solidified the difference in the two heel characters. I thought his delivery was good, but I loved, as you said, the part where Jimmy came out to confront him And actually ended up reassuring Sammy in the process. And then I thought it got worse when Sammy just sort of walked away and didn't even pretend that he was going to help or try to talk the 946 down or do anything. I thought that kind of didn't really seem in character for what he just said. Definitely it was in character for him to run away and not get physically involved. But just to sort of stand there and look completely nonplussed, I thought was a bit of a miss from a story beat perspective.

56:06 In a little bit of defense of this, I think he looked torn. He looked conflicted. No, that's not enough for you. But I want it for if he did. I felt he thought I should do the right thing or I should do something because it would be the right thing. And now my actions are going to contradict my words. and I think we're supposed to believe in my inner dialogue on this, my inner plot, what is it called? Inner, um, whatever.

56:35 Well, no.

56:36 And when you're reading a story and there's your, you have, you, you tell yourself a story that, that, that is trick that is kind of prompted in the storytelling. Um, there's a term for that. It might be inner dialogue, um, or inner plot, but, um, chat help out if you know what I'm talking about. And I think we're supposed to look at him and go, yeah, he's thinking, you know what though? That Roman match, I got to be fresh for that. I wish the announcers underlined it. I wish, I wish Wade Barrett had said, what a coward. He says he's family and then he doesn't help. And Barrett's like, he's got a match with Roman Reigns. It's the most important match. You just watched him talk about what an important match it was. It was, it's not Sammy's fault

57:12 that Jimmy decided to come out there and put himself in danger. You could have had the, you could say, well, that's too expository and maybe, but, I told myself the story that I thought made sense, and I think it's what they had in mind, but they could have been more expository about it.

57:29 Yeah, I didn't really see the taunt. He just looked stone-faced to me. And he could have yelled at them, saying, come on, you don't need to do this, or that's enough. And then as Royce Keyes sort of got menacing, he could have just said, all right, I tried, and then left. And I think that would have had the same effect.

57:48 But That is a minor gripe. I think that the whole thing worked well. And the delivery of that line where he said, he really said that, that's all I wanted. I thought that was perfect as a sort of a beat from Sammy.

58:02 We have a vote for the way I saw it. Standard Aviation said, I read it as him being torn. I wrote in my report, just to refresh my memory, Sammy was shown hanging his head and seeming to ponder the situation and then decided to walk to the back and not help out. Um, but it was, you know, it was subtle enough, you know, I didn't hit you over the head with it. Um, Darrell says, uh, Sammy told us he did the attack on Roman cause he wanted Roman to focus on him. So after doing that to him, walking away from that beat, beat down fit because he got what he wanted and he didn't want to mess it up. Uh, Crofton said, I, well, I'll probably repeat for says I yelled coward, LOL, um, at the TV. Crofton says, I did as well. His acting

58:46 throughout was great, and he looked sad in the back. And then Standard Aviation said, the crowd booing when he chose to leave was the result they wanted. Now, they might have piped that in, but I think the crowd booed.

58:57 Yeah.

58:57 Crofton said, I think Sammy does care about Jim and the others. I'm still thinking he's transforming as a character and will become even more selfish and ruthless. He's not done becoming the heel he will be.

59:07 Yeah.

59:11 Fair.

59:11 Derek Mitchell in, more broadly, says, I've said it all week, Sami Zayn and WWE, I remember you saying this, Sami Zayn and WWE and Jon Moxley and AEW are two of the best actors in wrestling, consistently staying true to their characters and effectively conveying their stories. Chris, how good is Sami right now? I mean, I'm watching him in this segment, and I mean, not this more than others necessarily, but it struck me today, tonight watching it, like, man, he's just so good. He is so, he's so, like, he understands his character so much, and I was thinking about how he's doing interviews, contemporaneous mainstream interviews, breaking down his current character choices, which I don't like. Wait three months,

59:52 six months, three years, write a book someday, but while we're enjoying you on air, don't put out there in the, in the guise of publicity, like a breakdown of the choices you're making. I, I like, I want to see the movie and then afterwards have the actor do that. I don't want to watch a movie for the first time when I'm immersed in it and have breaks where the actor tells me why they, or the director tells me why they made the decisions they made. So I'm against that, but that was on my mind. And I was like, yeah, this is, he's really, really good in this role. You know, Sammy, after, after Jimmy goes family, huh?

1:00:26 you know, after what you did, you know, taking Roman down if a nine for six attacks him. And Sammy goes, you're mad. And I understand. Like Al Sayed, like, I understand why you're mad. Now let me tell you why you're also wrong. So anyway, Chris, anything you want to add to that?

1:00:44 I think the biggest thing for me with Sammy is that he's showing his range. We know he can do comedy, but we haven't really seen him in a calm, serious role. Because a lot of his serious stuff up until now has been sort of overloading on the emotion and the sort of highly raw, even sometimes screaming. And this is a more calm, serious Sammy that we haven't seen. And it's really expanded what we've seen from the person portraying the role. Yeah, I think he's been very, very good.

1:01:16 It's refreshing to see somebody actually putting some thought not just into the match, but into what the character would do leading up to the match. It's an underrated part of wrestling, and I'm glad that we're seeing such a good example of it right now.

1:01:54 There's always a place for wrestling's past in the Paradise too, and we've done fun historical shows such as the We Love Liger series, celebrating the glorious career of Jushin Thunder Liger, and our I Was There When shows, where our guests will join me to talk about a classic bout that they were in attendance for. We love variety, and you can expect lots of it at the Pro Wrestling Paradise.

1:02:15 Detailed PWTorch VIP subscription information and a list of all the VIP benefits is available at pwtorchvipinfo.com. And yes, all VIP podcasts are compatible with popular podcast apps on iPhone and Android devices. Or you can stream them directly from our ad-free VIP mobile site. See you in the paradise!

1:02:40 When Jimmy said, I just talked to Roman, because I love the juxtaposition of Jimmy thought he was going to scare Sammy. I talked to Roman, and after what happened Monday, he said he's going to kick your ass at Crown Jewel. And you expect Sammy to go, oh, shit, I went too far.

1:02:54 Oh, no.

1:02:54 And Sammy smiles and goes, he really said that? He really said that? And Jimmy goes, yeah. That's great, because that's all I wanted. I wanted the full attention of the tribal chief. I want him angry at me, because that's the respect I deserve. You tell Roman Reigns. that the WWE Undisputed Champion will see him Saturday. Just fantastic. Like, just fantastic. Conceptually and in execution.

1:03:21 And he didn't say it with anger. He said it with pride and there was emotion in his voice. He was like, I just want the respect. The only thing is, I think now the logical conclusion from that delivery is, Sami doesn't care if he loses because he's already got what he wanted. And Going into a match where you don't care if you lose isn't probably the motivation I would want somebody to have. But other than that, no.

1:03:50 I think you're right, but I think WWE is safe and Sami is safe in thinking the average viewer is thinking Sami got what he wanted, but he also wants more. He still wants to win. Like, there's some, you know, you make it to the World Series. Like, well, no one expected us to be here. If we don't win, it's still been a good season. I don't think Sami's saying that. I think Sammy's not going, well, I got to be a crown jewel against Roman Reigns. I've made it.

1:04:13 Roman took me seriously. I still think Sammy wants to prove he can beat him, but I, but I get what you're saying. And I think that's there, but I don't think it, I don't think it takes away from the average viewer just going, yes. Now the next thing Sammy wants to do is beat him.

1:04:26 Yeah.

1:04:26 Well, he definitely wants to, but I think if he doesn't, he will say, all right, I already won because you took me seriously.

1:04:31 So. Yeah.

1:04:33 All right. If you check comments here on this, um, Yeah, so Jirai says, I think he was torn, but the match with Roman is much more important in him trying to prove his point rather than back up the word he just spoke. Yeah, and I think that's what was going on. I think that's a good way to put it. Crofton said, I was struck in the opening segment how Sami is a main eventer. Sadler says, Sami's recent main event run gives hope to others that it's never too late to become a top guy. Two years ago, I never would have thought he'd be world champ. Now he's the best character in the company. Uh, standard deviation says Sammy feels like the focal point of the show right now.

1:05:08 It's a stark contrast. How AEW presents Osprey.

1:05:10 Yeah.

1:05:11 Yeah. Um, he was dry. Says he was so excited to hear that. And he went off.

1:05:18 Yeah.

1:05:19 Um, Crofton adds, I was struck when Sammy sat there with Jimmy, how my perception or was there with Jimmy, how my perception of him has shifted into that of a main event or when his music hits, I feel different than I did earlier this year. Derek Mitchell says, Sammy's a guy who asked his buddy to tell a girl he likes her. And wants a date. And she says, yes, I love that segment. Now, Standard Deviation said, I see Sammy winning. And Jirai says, me too. And Standard Deviation says, I'd be surprised if Roman wins since we need to establish that Sammy is a worthy champion in order for him to then go on to earn everyone's respect at a later time. I talked about this in the Wade Keller Hotline for VIP members this afternoon, one preview in

1:05:56 Crown Jewel. Kind of the pros and cons in different ways. They could do it, you know, 60%, 70%, 90%. a hundred percent in terms of Sammy winning and what that would mean, and then sort of hedge on the way that they do it and kind of the pros and cons of that. Chris, where are you on the odds of Sammy winning one way or the other?

1:06:18 I don't see it. Roman doesn't have a crown jewel championship and he will want one, but he needs the full set, right? He is the person that the company is fully behind. He's the face of the company for the most part. He's, he's winning. Sammy doesn't, it's not in Sammy's character to win that match. unless the 9-4-6 gets involved. That's the only way I see it happening.

1:06:38 Right.

1:06:39 Yeah.

1:06:39 And I brought, obviously, it's an obvious thing to bring up as a possibility. I brought that up on the hotline when it kind of the nuances of how that could work too. Crofton says, I also like how Sammy still hasn't forgotten about that match for his buddy, Johnny. He's going to talk to Aldis. He's such a good pal.

1:06:54 That's another good thing about Sammy right now. It's not just the in-ring stuff. It's the interaction with Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae. I love Candice just being skeptical in the background, but not wanting to you know, interject her skepticism of Sammy too much. Um, and, and when, when Sammy like says, you know, whatever happens with Roman, we still got to deal with you, Johnny, you have something coming your way. And Johnny just perks up like, yes, we do. You're talking to your talk. I hear what you're saying. Tell me more, Sammy. I know you've got my back. I know you want to do right by me. Um, tell me about it. Like he's so gullible and trusting and, um, has faith in Sammy in a way that Candace is

1:07:35 a little embarrassed by. So Gargano's been good, Candace's been good, and it's a fun other dimension of Sammy because you see Sammy who aspires to have Roman's respect, but you also have Sammy, so he's a beta, but you have Sammy as an alpha relative to Gargano, and you get to see what he's like when he has the power advantage versus what he's like when he doesn't, and that's intentional, and I think that's why Gargano's in this because it makes Sammy more of a heel than if this part of the story didn't exist. Sammy being... The bigger name, he's physically bigger, more successful in WWE's world, more the elf in that dynamic. That is important how he treats Johnny to make you have less sympathy for him, even

1:08:15 when he makes good points against Roman like he did on Monday.

1:08:18 Yeah, it's interesting that that whole thing is, there's all this back and forth. And Roman is just such a big character though, right? He's almost unbeatable in that setting. I just, I can't see a way, even with all the points in favor, unless there's interference, I just, I can't see it. The Johnny Gargano thing, though, I mean, Crofton, if you think that's happening, buddy, I got a bridge to sell you, my friend. It's, I like what they're doing with Johnny now, he's like this sort of gullible little gopher type of character, that's the way it feels to me, but it's, at some point that's going to get old and I hope that they sort of progress it a little bit.

1:09:05 I'm in on it. I think they are, there's times stories take longer than they would like because it's the secondary story to another story that needs to reach a PLE to reach its next chapter before they can tell it. But it does give Sammy something to do after this. And the moment that Johnny figures out that Sammy is bullshitting him and LeRae is like, finally, I think it's going to lead to Johnny having the best main roster run he's had.

1:09:32 Yeah.

1:09:32 I think this has a really good chance to work out. Derek Mitchell says, I hope Sammy wins to help solidify himself and wants to beat Roman at Crown Jewel for breaking rights. Puzzler repeats that Sammy's searching to fill the hole.

1:09:44 In his heart.

1:09:44 Roman's attention isn't it, my friend. Sadler version three says Roman winning does nothing. Sammy winning pushes his character even further and pushes a nine for six bloodline feud for war games. The downside with Roman winning in, yes, in, in short, Sammy winning gives Sammy a boost. Roman beating Sammy is nothing. That's just a really good sports team beating early bad sports team. Well, it's not like that exactly, but you know what I mean? Like that's a not, not newsworthy in sports when it happens, when there's upsets, there's, it's more newsworthy. However, you want to protect Roman for the Obafemi moment. when Oba beats him. And if Roman loses to Sammy, even with some interference, it takes something away.

1:10:22 Roman isn't this, I can't imagine Roman getting pinned. I can't imagine it. You know, if the Bulls, Chicago Bulls win three titles in the 90s and then lose two, but actually have Jordan, it's not as big of a deal to beat them the second or third time. They already lost. It's ending the undefeated championship streak that has the initial impact. Once you show you're not unbeatable. The future losses mean less. So, and Oba is so important to them that even though you can say, yes, Sammy has a gain, Roman doesn't, they really are looking broader than just what's best this month. Chris.

1:10:59 I agree with all of that. I'm just not convinced that Oba beats Roman for his first win. I think that's the next mania. I think his first win is against someone else, and they push the Roman boat down the road to give him even more time to build himself up. But in general, I think, yes, you don't want to spend a Roman loss on Sami Zayn in a match that isn't really relevant outside of Saudi Arabia.

1:11:29 Yeah, yeah, fair point. Sadler says, assuming 9 for 6 interferes, that's the only way Sami would win. Yeah, Sami's not going to win clean with a Huluva kick. I mean, there is going to be an asterisk either way, but even the asterisk isn't enough to protect the idea of I can't imagine Roman losing under any circumstances. And I think they want to build that up for whoever his WrestleMania opponent is. Let's see. Standard Evasion says Gargano is kind of the Sami that Sami was to Roman. Yep.

1:11:58 I mean, I think it's very intentional. It's great to have the Gargano character to do it because no matter how Sami portrays him, how much no matter how much Sammy condemns Roman for how Roman treated him. And you might be sympathetic to Sammy when Sammy then just goes 10 minutes later and treats Johnny the way Roman treated him.

1:12:16 You lose all sympathy for Sammy. And I think that's, that's deliberate. It's, it's why, you know, he's food. So there's this Saudi, the Saudi factor probably boost Sammy's chances to probably helps their sports washing propaganda. Uh, yeah, maybe. I mean, I don't know. Um, Do crowds... Crofton says, do crowds continue to boost Sammy if these performances keep up? Yeah, fans, I don't think cheer... I don't know. I don't think fans are just going to cheer a really effective heel if what you're in wrestling for is to appreciate good matches and good promos, as long as he has the right opponents and the right stories. I think the fans who recognize good promos and good wrestling are... I think they're sort of the fan... The approach fans take to wrestling,

1:13:01 I think is growing out of, let me show how smart I am by cheering for the guy who, who gets a good grade for his performance. And I think they're, they're more willing than they were 15 years ago, give or take to boo a heel out of respect rather than cheer a heel out of respect because they know the heel is trying to get booed and it's disrespectful to cheer them. That's not what they're looking for. You're not showing how smart you are by doing it. You're actually undercutting the person that you're trying to praise.

1:13:28 Yeah, that makes sense.

1:13:29 Yeah.

1:13:30 Okay. Is there another top subject on the show, Chris, you want to bring up before we go to Darrell?

1:13:38 Top subject? The only other one would be the Chelsea Live thing, but I wouldn't call that a top subject.

1:13:43 We'll go to Darrell and we'll get to everything else on the show, at least Rapid Fire, before we sign off here.

1:13:50 Bring him out. Bring him out.

1:13:51 Darrell, welcome.

1:13:53 How you doing today?

1:13:56 Good.

1:13:56 I've it's been nice a couple for a few days here. There's just something different in the air.

1:14:06 Are you riding that wave too? I'm riding the wave.

1:14:11 Of course. Can you adjust your mic a little bit? I think it's up against your cheek again. A little bit.

1:14:15 I'm sorry.

1:14:17 Yeah. No, of course. I've not been shy about that. And I don't, it's not a controversial stance to take. This has been, it's, it's been amazing. And I mean, I, people, you know, in 10 years, people look back and go, well, it was inevitable and it did not, it has not felt like we would inevitably get out of fascism. Um, and it's not done yet, but it's the chances of, of the chances of fascism taking over was diminishing in this term over time. And it was scary with ice a year ago when I was in the heart, you know, heart of it. And I had friends and neighbors who didn't stop guys of Brown, people with brown skin who stopped going to work and are hiding out in basements of friends' houses. I mean, it was just, it was

1:14:57 genuinely awful and we got it worse than anybody. And our protests, I think, inspired the country and the world based on people saying so. And we weren't the only community that got it, but we got it. We had the, you know, the multiple deaths from the ice thugs. And so it does seem like there's a chance that we can try them and imprison them for just awful, awful things.

1:15:20 And we got to just get people out of these out of these detention facilities where it's just, the conditions are awful. So, but, but I feel it's not done yet, but I do feel like the, the, the 18 to 29 year olds just completely flipped from the bro culture and all the, all the podcasters who were being paid by like Putin and stuff. I mean, it sounds so weird to say, it sounds like that's not, can't be the case, but it, it, there's all these people who are spewing propaganda on, on people. And I'll, they see how it affected their lives and that generation just completely flipped.

1:15:52 And now they've got this whole group. I mean, the new Iowa governor, Governor Sand is like the coolest, like dude in the world. Who's like the opposite of cool in some ways. They say he's the darkest kid in class and the coolest kid in school. He's that skateboard video that's gone viral is amazing. And then Trinidad, he was a model back like 20 years ago before I had a family. And, but he's like, if you watch his interview, it's just like, you can just get why he just completely flipped how people think of Iowa now.

1:16:19 And he just wants to do the dirty work. He's not, you know, I don't know. It's just the whole array of personalities is a whole new generation of people. I remember how I felt when Bill Clinton played the saxophone on Arsenio Hall and came out to Can't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. And I was like, this isn't Ronald Reagan anymore.

1:16:35 This is, politics can be exciting and youthful. And that's happening again. And it showed up in the biggest wave of people waking up um, to just the BS and, and the, the cruelty and the billionaire selfishness that was going on that, that some very sophisticated machines are trying to trick people into voting against our better interests. And, uh, now we're seeing what it really means to be a man.

1:17:00 We have a bunch of politicians who are, um, you know, giving, who are much, much, much, much better role models. So it's been a, a thrilling weekend. It's we're just getting started as you said, Darrell, but, um, it's not over, but that is what we, that is what we needed. And I think it's going to make a huge difference.

1:17:19 Crofton says, thank you guys from a Canadian next door. Standard Aviation says, good job, America. Derek Mitchell says, I live in D.C., so I'll be glad when the National Guard goes away. Palo Verde Pizza says, nothing but blue skies.

1:17:33 Yeah.

1:17:34 Anyway, so it's been a good week. Chris, you feeling good about what you're seeing down south?

1:17:38 I'm pretty sure if I talk about American politics, I have to pay a tariff.

1:17:43 Fair enough.

1:17:44 No, I hope there's some way that Abdul El-Sayed becomes the attorney general so he can be the one to prosecute all the impeachment cases against all these people. That would be my idea of comic justice. But yeah, it's a good start. There's some good stuff happening for sure.

1:18:00 Yeah, it was to, I mean, there's like, if the Democrats do their job, there's almost zero chance there can be a Republican president again until the Republicans completely completely overhaul what they are i mean like they can exist but they can't exist as they have in recent years um and to have texas turn blue and have um all but one national polit or all but one statewide office held by a democrat it's just insane if you followed american politics this long and it's it if the electoral college stays in place in texas in california new york stay blue in illinois i mean there's just no way for for republican to win and they're going to win other southern states now they've completely flipped um uh what.

1:18:43 Did lbj yeah kansas mississippi 1932 1932.

1:18:49 Yep lbj said because the civil rights board we're going to lose the south for 50 years he said that 50 years ago it's over they lost the south democrats lost south for 50 years and now they're getting it back it just it does i mean i don't want to be too ahead ahead of things but it does feel like it's over and i think there's a lot of people kind of waking up to the to the propaganda machine. And I mean, it was sophisticated and very, very tuned in to manipulate people who, who wanted to blame other people for the problems that a bunch of Republican policies cause, but let's blame people with brown skin.

1:19:23 and demonize them. And Minnesota had it awful with what they did to the Somalis. I mean, that thing is so blown out of proportion. There's so many people on their high horse about fraud in Minnesota. It was like the seventh biggest fraud case of that year during COVID that was documented. And it was like three Somalis and one white lady was a ringleader. And the Somalis are beloved in this community and valued and a huge contributor.

1:19:43 And they're not. And they just caricaturize them and demonize them in TV ads and just shame on them and go the F away. Get out of our state. Those Republicans pushing those ads. It was awful. And I'm glad I'm glad that they were humiliated and destroyed for the tactics that they used. So anyway, yeah, I'm feeling refreshed and more hopeful.

1:20:05 All right. That's what I wanted to hear right there.

1:20:07 Yeah, I could go on. I could go on, but I'll probably pause there. iPhone users, if you're listening to us on the Native Podcast app on your iPhone, You can unlock our commercial-free versions of our free shows by searching PWTorch in Apple Podcasts. You'll see a charcoal gray logo that says PWTorch VIP on it. Click on that.

1:20:28 There's some free samples of VIP shows, and you can unlock the entire VIP lineup, which includes VIP exclusives plus commercial-free versions of the free shows by searching PWTorch in Apple Podcasts and clicking on the PWTorch VIP logo. and then activate your three-day free trial. And after that, you can become a VIP member using your Apple account. It's that easy. 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. Go on, Darrell.

1:21:08 Okay, to get back, wrestling, I guess.

1:21:11 To talk about what y'all was saying, I liked the moment that Johnny and Sammy had backstage. It was like Johnny coming up to Sammy and trying to convince Sammy from feeling bad that he left Jimmy out there, feeling bad for what he did. He was starting to second guess himself, but then when Johnny came and said what he said to him, it snapped Sammy back into his thought process and him thinking that oh I did this for a reason it was a good thing for what I did and made him get back into that delusional way of thinking all of this came full circle to me and it was like him doing what he did and this whole show tonight let you know how important the bloodline was to Sammy and how it shaped this Sammy that we got today and how he take different

1:22:03 stuff from what he learned from Roman or saw Roman did to him and everybody else And I just appreciated that. And I appreciated what they did back there in that segment with Sammy and Johnny.

1:22:16 Yep.

1:22:17 Your mic's rubbing your cheek again, by the way.

1:22:19 I got you.

1:22:20 Yep.

1:22:21 Yep.

1:22:22 You know, I'm with you, Darrell, on those comments.

1:22:26 Then next would be, I think I was getting into it with Chelsea.

1:22:30 Now they're getting a little bit too into it with that second guessing herself and stuff like that. I guess they wanted to call attention to it today. But that should have happened a week or two ago when they had her stand up for herself finally and get past it. But I guess since it was a throwaway episode, kind of, sort of, they wanted to have her come out there and say that and stuff. I like the things that she said, but I think it was a week too late.

1:22:58 You could have went past it and not had her say anything because we got the gist of it last week.

1:23:05 Yeah, we haven't talked about this yet. I like this segment a lot. I understand. We've been talking about Chelsea for weeks, which is, has she shown too much confidence? Is it a natural progression? The longer she holds a title, the better. But to have Liv say the things that were very biting coming into this week, I think Chelsea confessing, that she can sit there and say, it doesn't bother me, but I need to let everybody know it does. And I'm emotional today because going into Crown Jewel, winning means everything because I need to show that all the things that Liv has said aren't true. But the reason isn't because I know they're not true. It's that I'm fearful they might be true. And beating Liv at Crown Jewel

1:23:51 is the only way to prove to myself, much less others, that it's not. And to me, this whole story with Liv and Chelsea and Chelsea's whole reign was leading to this moment, you can say, well, if they knew they were going to end up at this moment, they could have taken a different journey to get there. And that's fine.

1:24:07 Maybe they didn't really have this exact promo in mind, but I think the journey we've been on with Chelsea has been a mix of, of, oh my God, I can't believe I'm a champion. Isn't this amazing too? I better, I have an imposter syndrome behind this, this facade, but I need to project confidence because that's what champions do.

1:24:26 And then Liv says those things and it breaks the facade. She has self-doubt. She confesses it emotionally. And I thought a good performance convincingly, Nick, all this, his facial expressions were great too. And I, I, to me, it made, it brought the ups and downs that I think they crafted intentionally to a, to a, uh, it culminated in what I crave, which is, yeah, you're, everyone's going to be rooting for Chelsea and they're going to care about the outcome. Not just if the wrestling is good. There was a little bit of that. Like it wasn't fourth wall breaking and meta, but you can look at it that way too. I have a question. I'll probably cover Sunday in the way Keller hotline for VIP members about this,

1:25:07 which is, you know, our live in Chelsea, really the best representation of was Nick Aldis said the deepest women's division WWE's ever had. Do they belong there with all the other choices? And Chris Lansdale to our podcast listeners shaking his head. No, that plays into Chelsea's imposter syndrome. her sense of inferiority. She lucked into it. It was interim.

1:25:30 It's only because Rhea's injured. So for this match, it works. You can think Chelsea and Liv aren't the best WWE has to offer, but still want Chelsea to prove she's better than Liv. So I think it works. Chris, what are your thoughts?

1:25:41 I think Chelsea Green's imposter syndrome is so strong that she's actually convinced that her imposter syndrome is an imposter. And that's where the confidence came from. The problem I had with this segment was twofold. I thought at the start of it, Chelsea was being genuine about mental health struggles.

1:25:59 And I was ready to praise this to high heavens because I need more of that on TV. I think she went a little too far and came across more meek than she did vulnerable. I think it almost made her feel like she had no chance and that she did deserve to feel this way because she wasn't good enough. And that's a tough one to walk. It could have been rescued if the fire up at the end had been stronger. But I don't think she went far enough with the fire and the passion at the end before Liv came out and before she got beaten back down again to show that there was any confidence there that had built. And then when Liv came down and tore her down again, it didn't just undo any of the positives.

1:26:46 It just made it feel worse. Liv, for her part, seems to be getting worse every time I see her. That felt so unnatural from her and so scripted. And the forced all time thing is just, that was not the promo for a catchphrase. If you're going to go with a genuine self-doubt thing, Liv coming out and being catchphrase McGee damages what you're trying to do there because it doesn't feel genuine. I get what they were going for.

1:27:15 I just think one went too far. And then one just didn't put enough genuine feeling into it.

1:27:23 Yeah. Okay.

1:27:24 I mean, I think that's a, you're, you're not critiquing the story as much as the execution of the story.

1:27:30 Exactly.

1:27:30 Yeah. Yeah.

1:27:31 And I, and I can, cause I was mostly defending the story. I can see that. I could see this, that in retrospect, the segment would have benefited from Chelsea having a moment that put a little bit of fear in live or made fear had live go. Oh crap. I have, you know, and then give people a little taste, a little sample. And now I want to go watch Crown Jewel to see Liv get what she knows she has coming. I get that. I'm not as down on Liv's character. I mean, I don't want to be overly generous with this, but being really annoyed by a heel is the job of a heel. And their catchphrase isn't trying to be the next great thing that sells t-shirts and gets people to communally chant it. Sometimes... saying something

1:28:15 is meant to be grating and unentertaining and, and.

1:28:18 And annoying.

1:28:18 And I, I, I feel like there's a self-awareness with that. She's not trying to be cool. And I mean, I was, I've been super hard on, on Liv and the fake laugh. And, you know, I mean, I know they really believe in her and they gave her, you know, multiple gimmick changes and all these things. Cause they just like, we've got to find something. There's something here. And I, I don't think she's, I'm with you. I don't think she's the best that WWE has to offer, but I understand kind of rotating things. So things seem fresh again. But it feels, it does feel like a third from the top feud more than a main event between the two women's champions.

1:28:54 So I concede that. But I don't think the best four women always need to be fighting for the world titles at all times or it gets stale.

1:29:03 I think there's a couple of things that you can give them some grace on. The fact that they've lost Rhea and Stephanie Fakir unexpectedly. They've had more time to adjust to Rhea, of course, but Stephanie they didn't see being gone for this long. But when it comes to Liv... I don't want to see her lose because of this heel.

1:29:21 I just don't want to see her. That's where she's got to. It's got beyond the point where she's the heel I want to see get beaten up. I just don't really want to see her.

1:29:28 At the moment. Yeah.

1:29:29 And I don't feel that way, but I know others do. So, you know, I acknowledge that. A couple of chat comments. I'll throw it back to Darrell. Crofton says Chelsea has to win. Derek Mitchell says, I like Chelsea in this segment as well as heading into tomorrow's match. And her vulnerability is enduring. endearing and she seems like she and then it dropped off um oh he had a follow-up let me do this i like chelsea in this segment as well heading into tomorrow's match and her vulnerability is endearing and she's enduring or endearing and she seems like she's going to win crown jewel as live doesn't need a second crown jewel title yes um okay so check that uh standard aviation said somewhere a little girl out

1:30:09 there connected with chelsea's promo and potentially just became a lifelong wrestling fan wasn't for everyone, but these are the stories that hook certain people. And you were kind of alluding to that, Chris.

1:30:19 Yes, exactly. That's the mental health angle, right? That's the way of making it important.

1:30:24 Yeah. And I think there's a natural healthy self-doubt that can be motivating and just ground you into not being delusional. That isn't a mental health crisis, but there are people, and I think she's entering that territory, Chris, as you see it, which is, It is a mental health issue when you doubt yourself so much that you're just consumed by self-doubt, imposter syndrome. I'm not good enough. And she's, I think, intentionally tapping into that with this arc, which is I wear this mask of confidence, but it takes all my energy to do it. And I just want to prove I don't need the mask. I want to just genuinely be confident.

1:31:03 I highly recommend it for those of you who haven't heard of it to look up rejection sensitive dysphoria. which is literally the worst mental health condition that I suffer from. And a lot of my close friends do. And it just sounds like similar to what Chelsea feels. It is awful. And I would trade an amplification of every other issue I deal with to get rid of that one. So yeah, just that's what it feels like there. But that's a slightly different topic. I don't want to get too tangential on that.

1:31:36 Fair enough.

1:31:37 Yep.

1:31:38 A couple other chat comments. We're back to Darrell. Pallover Pete says, now that Green has confessed her doubts, there needs to be a catalyst to a confident champ. Crofton says, I agree with standard deviation. This promo will mean a lot to some people. And Crofton says, I think that fire Chris is describing will come in the actual match.

1:31:57 I also thought Liz Ketchray's worked in this context to serve as the overconfidence to Chelsea's doubt. And she's not just overconfident. She's doing it to get under the skin of people to just, be, just be like, I'm, I'm just going to annoy you all time. She's not doing it. She thinks she's clever. She's doing it because she knows it's annoying the people she's saying that to. Um, yeah.

1:32:19 All right.

1:32:21 Three things coming out with what you guys said. Okay.

1:32:25 Um, first the live character, I think she had enough good, um, competition or competitors to evolve her character into different things and different levels. So she's been on that same one note and annoying people to get the heat that she needs because she haven't had the characters to push her to evolve her character into different types of things. So this is kind of the first story that she could probably evolve her character, but it's a short story and it's champ versus champ.

1:32:56 So that's one.

1:32:57 Two, I like what Chris said. And you can tell that Chelsea didn't have a lot to talk about. She wanted to get on that mental health type of thing, but she needed a little bit more. If they would have had Liv come out a little bit earlier before she fired up and then allow Liv to break her down like she did and then give Chelsea the point to fire up. Even if you didn't want to give her the last word, you still could have let her fire it up and she could have used that, what Liv said, plus that, what she said earlier. and that probably would have increased the firing up, and she wouldn't have had to stretch it for so long.

1:33:37 So that as a whole.

1:33:40 And the thing that you said, Wade, about these two might not be, like, it's like third to the top or something like that, where you talk about the women facing each other. I feel like this, though, as of right now, Chelsea fits the role of somebody that could be champion because she's different than Rhea Williams, And Bianca, who they can tell more stories with the in-ring ability and the character bravado that they've given them as, you know, megastars, confident, can go out there, kick it in the ring and stuff like that. She fits because you can tell, get in depth with the story that you can tell with her, something that they ain't had in a while. where you can tell multiple stories with the confidence, with the losing

1:34:29 the confidence.

1:34:29 With the faking it till you make it. Because I used to hear that all the time.

1:34:34 Fake it until you make it into the place. And you can tell all these stories with her. That's how she fits along. And it's just something different.

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1:35:36 Going back to your point about both your point about showing fire at the end to get her fans just kind of, you know, riled up and excited. it's possible they just don't think or genuinely she doesn't think she's good at that. Like they might've thought like you're pulling all this off, but when you get fired up, it actually isn't the note we want to end on. It's not your strength. And maybe, I mean, I'm not even, I'm not even, I haven't thought long enough to think, have I seen her do it? Would she be good?

1:36:04 But I'm just thrown out there. Like occasionally they don't do something because it's just not the strength of the rest. Even though they'd ask, most other wrestlers to do that, they might think that actually will seem phony or performative or undercut what the message of the promo was because she won't seem genuine and to be fired up, she actually has to beat Liv first and they could have made that creative decision.

1:36:26 Or to make it so her fans are the ones who fire her up in the match like most of her matches have been. That the people get behind her so much and fire her up and carry her over the finish line and give her the belief And maybe that's part of the story as well. And this is a continuation because we know where the future of her is heading per se is with Tiffany and the betrayal and stuff like that. So you might get to see, we probably finally get to see that fire up when you get to that portion of the story.

1:36:58 So this is just a chapter in the.

1:36:59 Building of, and we call it the book of building Chelsea Green into someone, into a champion we can believe in.

1:37:06 Yeah.

1:37:07 Daryl, let's be kind of fast with the other points just because I got, We're 12 hours away from the start of the show, and I want to actually produce it and give people a chance to listen to it before the match, too.

1:37:16 Oh, we're good.

1:37:19 That was the only two things that really was big for me that I really wanted to talk about was those two things right there.

1:37:26 Yeah, I was aiming to record about 90 minutes and clock out.

1:37:29 We're there.

1:37:31 I mean, I know Chris.

1:37:32 You got the wrong co-host, bro.

1:37:35 And I'm not trying to cut people off. I'm just saying I'm not settling in at this point for– another half hour. I kind of want to do hit our points. I want to cover the points we've got to cover, but do so without it being sort of the long form of them. Um, there's times for that, but this isn't the night with the PLE starting at 12 hours.

1:37:51 So draw, if you got nothing else, we'll let you go and look forward to next time.

1:37:55 All right. Nice talking to you. Great. Yep.

1:37:57 Yep.

1:37:57 Appreciate you, my man.

1:37:59 Glad we saved the, uh, Chelsea live discussion for heaven when I was on. Um, so rapid fire here, anything to say about how Damien Priest, Nathan Frazier was handled the way the match finished. um you know just uh the refs determining he couldn't continue i mean like why is that the rest decision either count him out or let the opponent throw him in the ring and pin him unless you know his arm is you know dislocated or something what how does this work for you.

1:38:25 I don't think did the bell even ring to start the match on that one so i think that was more of a there isn't going to be a match because he's too injured to start you know you're always saying.

1:38:34 I thought it did check and in my note i said the ref called for the bell 20 minutes into the hour after they because frazier leaped on priest at ringside then threw him into the ring um or priest charged into the ring afterwards and i think that's when the ref called for the bell i think it did ring.

1:38:49 Okay I mean, refs should be stopping the match if they think someone is too injured to continue. If there's a health concern, if you're worried that somebody might be seriously injured if you carry on.

1:38:59 Was that enough?

1:39:01 No. We've seen way worse.

1:39:03 That's my point.

1:39:04 Yeah. Yeah.

1:39:05 That's my point. That's why I said if you have a Sid Vicious injury where the leg just snaps, the bone snaps, or someone is paralyzed, obviously, if you tell that story, but you don't really want to tell that story because then people get really worried, you know, about paralysis. So, understandably so. So, anyway.

1:39:19 Yeah.

1:39:20 This is just a small, you know, it's just such a small part of the show anyway. Uh, then, uh, let's see, we had the Meechan and B-Fab against Laney Reed and Fallon Henley that led to a lot of other things, a lot of other things setting up war games with the promo afterwards where, um, Bailey Bliss, Charlotte Pack and Paxley, um, we're talking about, you know, that, uh, we're going to war. Um, is that right? Bailey, Charlotte live in Paxley. Yeah. And they're like, we're ready to go to war, you know, a lesson on a war game thing.

1:39:52 Yeah.

1:39:52 I was going to say maybe some sort of game, but that whole thing from the promo, the fatal influence cut, like did they cut that promo in a posh department store? Like where the heck were they? Is that just a backstage?

1:40:06 I know. I was wondering the same thing.

1:40:09 Like, I'm planning to go to New York City once I'm actually allowed to come to your country again. And I'm like, I was going to go to Madison Square Garden for a ballgame. I think I need to go to the Barclays Center. But that match, like, you had two heel teams. It was never going to come to a finish. I'm surprised it went as long as it did.

1:40:24 But that whole run-in schmoz, it made no sense. And it was such a transparent setup for war games that it's just whatever. I'm sure you could have found a better way to get to this. yeah it was what it.

1:40:39 Was yeah it fell into the category of it was what it was too for me let's see we also had Gunther following up on the Danhausen Finn Balor stuff I thought it was a good performance of Gunther I'm.

1:40:57 Glad they transitioned away from Danhausen I never need to hear Gunther called Gunner again ever and I think this is going to be interesting because they might use Gunther to retire Demon Balor, but keep Finn still active. I'd be okay if they did that. Match is going to be great. Neither one of those is capable of a bad match. And it was a nice use of Dan Housen to transition into that feud. They need to keep him off TV for a little while, though. I love the guy. I think he's got a great niche that he's found. He's just been a little overused. It's just coming off Halloween. Give us a break from him for a few weeks. Let him come back and do a little bit less each week and still be a prominent

1:41:42 part of the show.

1:41:45 We had a super chat. I'll actually do Derek's first here. Thank you, Derek, for the super chat. It's always very much appreciated. For those wondering, the last time Punk lost twice in one week on TV was 2000. Good research here. Was on TV in 2009. Once against Taker on the October 23rd, 2009 SmackDown. And then two days later at bragging rights in a fatal four-way with Taker Batista and Mysterio. Yeah, two losses in one week for CM Punk. That's what you do when you're about to retire.

1:42:11 For the first time anyway.

1:42:14 Yeah, really. There you go. So Zach Barber says, I didn't watch SmackDown, but I had to drop in and say the idea that WWE values Michael Cole's life more than Roman Reigns is mind-boggling. Well, you can do a show without Michael Cole at ringside.

1:42:32 Easily.

1:42:34 And Roman Reigns wants to go there. I mean, he agreed. He has a clout to not he, he, from my understanding, he greenlighted it. So I don't know, Zach, that this is a gotcha moment. I think there's a broader gotcha moment. Um, Chris, how do you feel? I think we'd have heard by now if they were going to not do the show or if there was a, uh, uh, incident that led to the show having to be canceled or delayed. So they're going forward with it. Um, I don't know.

1:42:58 Yeah.

1:42:59 I don't know.

1:42:59 That's what, uh, I don't know when the planes are landing or if they have is my point, but, um, you know, fingers crossed, nothing bad happens to anybody, not just WWE wrestlers. I, everybody, anybody who's landing or taking off at an airport or in a public gathering. I don't, obviously I know the wrestlers more and it would have more of an effect on what we're talking about here.

1:43:22 I don't want the, I don't want to say I value any famous person's life more than every, any regular person's life. So, um, obviously we're just rooting for nothing bad happened to anybody. but it just happens to be we're in the window where the wrestlers are being put in that position and some crew members too. There are reports that they were offering like a few thousand dollars to crew as hazard pay, which to me, once that's done, you're like, wait, you agree it's a hazard? I mean, then don't go. I think the policy should be there is no danger. That's why we're going and paying you extra for a regular everyday non-dangerous situation would be silly because That's what I'd rather hear than we're paying you

1:44:00 to risk your life, which is how it comes across, so that we can make 50 million extra dollars so that our quarter four statement looks proper. And what was all this for if we don't have a quarter four that we can be proud of? I mean, what a just tone deaf, bad optic thing to say if you're a top executive. So this, oh, here's $ 3, 000 so that we can make our tens of millions just is kind of gross too.

1:44:29 The big difference between Michael Cole and Roman Reigns is one of them is an employer and the other is an independent contractor. And WWE is required by law to care about their employees and not about their independent contractors. I think John Panette puts it best when he used to talk about things like roller coasters with safety harnesses and safety bars. They have those because it ain't safe.

1:44:50 So I say, nay, nay, I ain't going. And that's where I would be. I'm surprised at some of the people who will be there. It's just a perfect dichotomy of society these days. Like, no, but there's money, so we're going. And there might be bombs, but there's definitely money. I can't care about it. And it's sad. It really is.

1:45:16 I hope there's nothing that goes wrong.

1:45:18 Of course, yeah. Crofton says, Crown Jewel announcing. Do you think they will promote Saudi Arabia as usual? Perhaps they talk about a delicate situation there. Do they ignore the location entirely? They still haven't said Saudi Arabia or Riyadh. Did they tonight say Riyadh or Saudi Arabia?

1:45:32 I don't remember hearing it, no.

1:45:35 I don't remember hearing it either. They might have during the preview of the show if I tuned it out or something. But it's on the graphic. It'd be weird not to have it on the graphic. It'd be newsworthy and indicative of something that's not true, which is that they were moving it. But in the past, I think they've always said Riyadh season, Saudi Arabia.

1:45:52 Oh, we would have had video packages of how beautiful the city is by now.

1:45:56 I think they've toned down on that except during the actual PLEs. So I'm, and that's what Crofton's asking is, do they do that? I won't rule it out just generically. It's Riyadh season. It's an annual event. Talk generically about what it is, what it means. They might soften the, you should bring your family here for vacation. Not because they don't genuinely believe there'll be a point where it's safe to do so. And that's the business they're in, but that it would come across as, you know, tone deaf to, to say it at this point and inflame, it would create a sense of obliviousness to why if, you know, the United States government's saying all non-essential people should leave that region or that country or that area,

1:46:37 you don't want to tell people fly with your family and kids for fun with the choice of a whole world to go visit.

1:46:43 I will take back all of my criticism if the show is opened by Triple H, Ari Emanuel, and Nick Khan in the middle of the ring, welcoming everybody to crown jewel and beautiful Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. So in other words, I won't.

1:46:57 Yes, and I will add to that, if they do that, I need to know they're on the same plane with the wrestlers and the crew.

1:47:04 And staying in the same hotel.

1:47:06 And staying in the same hotel, yep. I mean, you don't get, oh, look, we went, but you're on some private plane that landed in some private airport when you had military, you know, flights protecting the area and all that. It's so unfortunate. And as I've said, I did this for VIP, I talked about this on the Wake Elder Hotline, I think on the flagship too, I The fact that we don't know if the show would have been canceled if the pay, if the guaranteed money for it wasn't so out of proportion to the actual value of the show.

1:47:34 Because Saudi Arabia is paying for the propaganda that comes from the brand WWE that fans who have bought WrestleMania tickets and supported them for decades, they've built it into something that then is part of, you know, sort of sane-washing this insane situation. They're buying... acceptance instead of earning it.

1:47:57 And they're overpaying for a show. So if they were just getting the ticket revenue from the show, they just move it to Ireland or, you know, Toronto. But there's such a drop off in revenue. Why is there a drop off in revenue? It's the same show, same wrestlers, there's wrestling fans because Saudi Arabia is paying above a premium price, way above its actual market value for the propaganda that it's is in essence so WWE I don't know if they would have moved the show or not if they were just selling tickets for $ 300 and $ 100 I don't think they'd go there right now that's the part they are willing to go somewhere that's dangerous because the money is big enough and they kind of admitted that in that reported town hall meeting for TKL people.

1:48:42 I think it's important to point out that when I talk about the money not being enough, that's speaking as somebody who is not choosing to watch it. If I were a wrestler and they just kept adding zeros to the end of the check until I said yes, I doubt I'd be able to say no for very long. Everybody has a price. It's just a question of what that price is.

1:49:01 But the idea is, do the executives make more money By not going and the wrestlers don't make much more money? Is TKO and the executive bonuses and all that out of proportion going to them and they don't have to go or they don't go or they get special treatment when they go as opposed to the wrestlers being offered an extra zero at the end of their check? So the $ 500, 000 payment goes to $ 5 million or the $ 125, 000 payday turns to $ 1. 25 million and the actual executives are really giving up a lot. But then why would they just cancel the damn show or move it? You know that last segment you're just listening to and the next one that you're waiting to listen to? Those can be one second apart with a VIP membership. You can unlock

1:49:45 our commercial-free versions of our shows. PWTorch.com slash GoVIP tells you how to do it. That's PWTorch.com slash GoVIP. Options exist within the Apple Podcast app using your Apple account, through Patreon, which, by the way, you can sync up with Spotify, or just about any iOS or Android app with a full VIP membership. You can customize the feed for individual shows and clusters of shows and themes. Go to pwtorch.com slash go VIP for full details on all the options to listen commercial free and with upper tier options, unlock our VIP exclusive podcasts that run throughout the week every week.

1:50:23 I think as well, what frustrates me is they've actually done some good work. WWE has made progress with these shows. When they first went, Renee Paquette couldn't even go to the show to do her normal backstage interviewer gig. And now there are women wrestling on these shows regularly. That is progress. And it's something that nobody can stand to give credit to WWE for because of all the other horrible stuff. And I get it. But it's not right to say that nothing good has come of it. It's just still not worth it.

1:50:58 And in Saudi Arabia, there isn't a free media platform that can lead to a blue tsunami that essentially, through legitimate means, ousts or overthrows a fascist-leaning government that was perhaps or perhaps not legitimately elected into power. And we can look at all kinds of what qualifies a billionaire spending $ 500 million, the billionaire owning the main social media that sent out bots and propaganda to trick and deceive people into voting against their better interests and thinking things that aren't true are true and to... suppress real information but we have you can go to other social media outlets you have a choice of all kinds of news outlets that's not the case over there that's not the

1:51:42 case in a lot of countries and so you can go well you know like cory gray's infamously said oh the service is friendly and the restaurants are clean it's like yeah but you work with people who can't be there with their partner without being jailed or or being killed like worse yeah yeah yeah or worse so the idea is whatever shine and gloss they want to put on that. It's different than America because what we just saw happen on Tuesday night, you can vote out a regime and that's, that's that there aren't mechanisms in place in Saudi Arabia and other places for that. And, you know, I do believe in what Canada and America and many other countries have, which is, and we saw it in Hungary and, you know, like there's, there are, and Brazil,

1:52:31 like you can actually overthrow through a legitimate enough election where the people's voice can be determinative. Um, and those are, those are countries you, you don't want to support and go to more.

1:52:48 Yeah.

1:52:48 Yeah.

1:52:48 For sure.

1:52:49 Yeah.

1:52:49 For all the, for all the flaws and imperfections, my God, this is not, it's like, is it perfection is not what anyone's claiming, but you, you need to have a mechanism like we saw Tuesday where a bunch of, individual state run, you know, elections that are independent of the federal government that are not controllable and manipulatable in a way that is able to offset something that massive, the people speaking up. And that seems to be what happened Tuesday.

1:53:15 You know, I mean, it obviously was. So anyway, cool. Uh, Chris, anything else you want to add?

1:53:21 Uh, the only other thing I had written down was the, uh, the match with, uh, Shinsuke and, um, I'm glad they kept Tamatanga around because he can actually go in the ring. Kiyoki, I would not square up to Haku now or ever. I'm surprised Kiyoki did. That was quite amusing to me. But that match was just, it kind of really drove home that Shinsuke is just so checked out. He just did not seem to be trying at all. And I really hope Kiyoki doesn't catch that from Shinsuke. and continues to be the entertaining character he was in New Japan.

1:54:02 I think his character suits the WWE environment really, really well. And if he's allowed to continue showing that, I think he's got a really good future ahead of him. I was reminded while watching the match of an interview I saw with JC Mateo earlier this week, where he said that WWE told him when he got there, oh, you'll be wearing face paint just like you did in Japan. Meanwhile, he never had face paint in Japan. And I don't know who they thought they were hiring, But it wasn't him.

1:54:30 I thought.

1:54:32 Oops.

1:54:34 That whole scenario with bringing in JC Mateo, bringing in Tanga Loa, and then just having the whole thing completely flop, and now they're trying to rescue it by bringing Haku in to manage them. Tala Tonga hasn't been bad. When he was leaving New Japan, he was just starting to show some improvement and being a pretty good big man.

1:54:54 I just wish Shinsuke cared a bit more.

1:55:00 I wrote that, you know, in my report that Shinsuke just feels like he's going through the motions now. It's kind of sad watching it. And I mean, you know, like when he's on the stage afterwards, he's like, yeah, making that facial expression. There was a time when they would give you chills.

1:55:14 Yeah.

1:55:15 And it's just gone. You know, he's just a guy going through the motions. And in a way, maybe he doesn't want that to be the case.

1:55:23 It just is.

1:55:24 He's aged out. You know, there's a language barrier. There's other stars coming up they've you know tried to renew his push a couple times in recent years and gotten something out of him but he isn't the same as he once was in the ring um but when he first showed up in nxt i mean you got chills during when you heard that music and he was you know michael jackson meets david bowie meets mick jagger um when it came to what he brought to his ring entrance in his in his in his character and it was so exciting to see him reach a whole new audience and now he's just kind of that that guy haku is number one paul jones now he's just uh the veteran wrestler who stands at ringside getting a check because he's respected for something he did decades ago when

1:56:01 he's walking around with a cane, that whole match was just sort of like, yeah, just flat mid-card stuff. It wasn't awful to watch. I'm not saying it was embarrassing. It's just kind of sad. It's just like, do we need to dedicate TV time to this? Can we get Ilya Dragunov back, please?

1:56:18 Or even just some of the people that are sitting out back doing nothing, just put him in the ring. Yeah, it wasn't, like you said, it wasn't bad. It's just, I know that it could have been much more. And even in the mid card, something I've been hopping on recently is when you're in the mid card, you need to have a mid card match and you shouldn't be trying to have a main event match in the mid card.

1:56:38 And they did that fine. It's just, it's hard to watch knowing that that is basically peak Shinsuke right now.

1:56:44 Yeah. Derek Mitchell says when Shinsuke debuted in NXT Dallas versus Sami Zayn at such high hopes and 10 years later, I'm saddened. He had a good, he had some good run though. I mean, Shinsuke, I mean, it's not at the top of what people's hopes and expectations were, but he had some good matches and good moments on the main roster.

1:57:00 I think the biggest issue is that he's capable, good matches were his baseline before, and he's never really hit that upper gear. There were high hopes for me when he had the feud with AJ Styles, and then that just evolved into a low blow storyline. But the matches those two had in New Japan would blow people's minds if they hadn't seen him. And then they come and do it on a bigger stage and they don't even try to replicate it in any way.

1:57:25 Do you think there's any, any, there's another rev up in Nakamura so they can rev them up and get one more, one more match that feels like a TV main event where he's motivated and can deliver and it feels worthy.

1:57:37 So you'd have to find the right opponent who brings it out of him. I think physically he can do it. It's just a question of whether he can motivate himself. There's this thing in New Japan, which a lot of people wouldn't realize if you don't watch like people like Kelly Wells and I watch where we watch all the prelim matches as well. Once you pass a certain stage in your career in Japan, it's not like you retire.

1:57:59 You start wrestling on the prelim card as a tag team partner for people who are feuding. I like to call it the angry dad circuit because it's basically these people in the late 40s and 50s who are there as names that people will recognize. They come in, they do their spots, they tag out, and one of them normally takes the fall. And that's kind of where Shinsuke is in his career right now, but he's in a place that doesn't have that. And he's got that sort of weird dichotomy that he needs to have somebody in the ring who can bring something out of him. I'd love to see maybe CM Punk would be an interesting one.

1:58:34 I think that could drag it out of him. Kevin Owens probably could as well. The other option would be if somebody came over from New Japan who he has a history with. There aren't very many of them still active. AJ's retired. Obviously, he's not in New Japan. Another good one would have been if Tanahashi, if they could have figured out something there before Tanahashi retired, that would have been huge. But it's looking increasingly unlikely that it happens.

1:59:01 I could see them sending Nakamura to lose to Grayson Waller in like a return to NXT type thing if they want to give. I'm being neutral in just saying I could see them doing that. I'm not in the same line as you saying this would be what would get them revved up again. The idea of somebody, like I don't think, You watch NXT and go, oh, Shiloh Hill against Shinsuke. That's going to be a great main roster match. It doesn't give that off. Who is in NXT where you would be like, that's something that I would like to see Shinsuke be a gatekeeper and give a rub to them?

1:59:36 Mason Rook.

1:59:38 Okay, yeah.

1:59:40 Or, I mean, Naraku, but they know each other. They sort of were ships in the night in New Japan, but I think that would work. But Mason Rook and Shinsuke, yeah, I'd pay for that.

1:59:53 I think having two Japanese wrestlers against each other is sort of like, here's a showcase of something else. But my idea is, how do you have Shinsuke, regardless of coming from the Japan wrestling scene and making his name there, how does he give a rub based on his Mick Jagger charisma to somebody else with a strong style match that looks like this wrestler has to beat him? And it can be someone who says I look up to you or I've studied your work or whatever, and I, to beat you will mean the world to me. And so I think there's some stories they can tell. It's not main event, but I think that's the type of thing that would get Nakamura excited, you know, to, to turn it up. Uh, Sather says the lack of ability

2:00:36 to cut English promos really hurt Shinsuke. Some of the Japanese stars have been able to do it. Asuka and Io, some haven't, Shin and Kairi. So, um, I feel for them, it's got to be tough cutting English promos for them. For sure, yeah. All right, cool. Chris, anything else you want to sneak in before we sign off here?

2:00:54 No, just keep an eye on the site. My recap of Super Junior Tag League is up. I'm writing a preview right now for the World Tag League, which starts November 23rd in New Japan. Some really interesting teams in there. Monster Sauce is back there, favorites of mine. That's a, it's an interesting, I love tag team wrestling. So I'm looking forward to watching the tournament and that preview should be up in a couple of days.

2:01:18 Awesome.

2:01:18 Chris, thanks. Always great talking to wrestling with you.

2:01:20 Yeah. Pleasure to be here, man.

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