Sound Off 879 - BRACELET GATE Hits WWE, Why A Brand Split WON'T Help AEW And PWI 500 Drops!

care what I want. Welcome to episode eight seventy nine that the Solo Monster Sounds Off for Sunday, September fifteenth, twenty and twenty four. I am the Solemn Monster. Very sorry to hear about the death of James Earl Jones earlier this week at the age of ninety three. He lived a lot longer than most wrestlers do. The greatest voice in the history of cinema. I had the chance to meet him many years ago backstage at an awards ceremony.

He was presenting an award that night to Harry Belafonte, and you just know, when you're in the presence of someone who's larger than life. That was him, you know, to meet Darth Vader himself, I mean, come on, how cool is that? But we have a lot of news to get to here this week, wwe AW and the annual PWI five hundred, which everybody loves talking about. I'm going to run down some of the key spots on that list as well, and then get to your mailbag questions.

So let's get into it here. If you would like to support the podcast and what I do here each and every week, you may do so on thesolomonster dot com. You'll see the PayPal link at the top of the page. Ten dollars for more, we'll get you a nickname and

a shout out. I want to say thank you to Big B Bryant Bessera, the Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, the Diamond, Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison's Soep, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, the Chicago Slayer, Willie Iichord, night Stalker, nif Alstafar, NIF, I hope Turkey is doing well, kel Shot, Keith Hart, Simon Costello shout out to Simon and No. Even with the benefit of hindsight, I think Roman losing the title to Cody and not Drew McIntyre at the first clash

at the Castle was the right move. To make action. Nick Jackson, Holy crap, thank you man. He wanted to wish a happy sixth wedding anniversary to his wife Leanna Panda. Happy anniversary to you both. How old is THEO now? Is he three? Shout out to THEO as well, show your role. Chris lu Deck. Check out his YouTube series What Could Have Been in Wrestling? Just search for Chris lu Deck that's l U d. E c Ke on YouTube and type in what Could Have Been in Wrestling?

You could find his web series on there. And also just a shout out to everybody who joined me and supported on the SmackDown post show on Friday night on YouTube. What a night. Holy shit. The bombs were dropping to the point where I had to keep the stream going almost three hours. You guys crushed it. So thank you to everybody who was a part of that that blew me away. WWE made a surprise announcement during the season premiere of Raw on Monday night, effective October seventh, So

that's the Monday after Bad Blood. Raw will be moving back to two hours every week from eight to ten pm Eastern. And if you stopped it right there, I'd be throwing a party right now. But the move is only temporary their deal with Netflix, it doesn't take effect until January. That would have left Raw with no home for the months of October, November, and December. So they struck a deal a while back with NBC Universal to keep Raw on USA for an extra three months for

a reported sum of twenty five million. It's not bad twenty five mil for ninety days. But as part of that deal, the show will be two hours instead of the usual three. My guess is USA wants new programming at ten PM that they can use Raw as the lead in for. You know, they need to look ahead. I mean, I have SmackDown now on Fridays, but as far as Monday nights go, they're done with Raw, so

they have to look to their future. They're not gonna have it Raw anymore in a few months, so why not try to use it as a way to get eyeballs on their own programming from ten to eleven. I don't know what that programming would be. I don't know if it'll be a success, you know, For all I know, they may just run reruns, fucking Law and Order reruns. But whatever it is, I think they're gonna want to use Raw as the lead in for that and It's

Smart a per pw Insider. But those who have asked whether Raw will revert back to three hours, Mike Johnson says, we have not been able to lock down a definitive yes or no know on that. As far as when Raw goes to Netflix in January, some in the company have played koy when asked, while others have suggested that they will have the flexibility to make the show whatever they want it to be as far as the length of the show, depending on what is needed that specific week.

Dave Meltzer said that he got it confirmed that Raw will still be a three hour show when they moved back to Netflix, or not moved back, but when they moved to Netflix, and that the move to two hours was a USA call, it was not a WWE call, which is ironic because the move to three hours was a USA call in the first place. We have them to blame for that that they reportedly had the option of putting the show on Peacock for those three months so it would still be under NBC Universal, but got

more money to keep it on US. Say, had they moved it to Peacock, they probably could have kept it at three hours, but they go where the money is, and it's going to have a lot more visibility being on USA anyway than it would on Peacock. I think Peacock has somewhere around thirty million paid subscribers. USA network is in somewhere around seventy million homes, so I mean

that's that's quite a few more households. We still have no clarity on what the situation will be on Netflix as far as commercials go, other than there will be commercials, but the ad breaks may not be as long, they may not be as frequent or as disruptive as they are now, or my guess is that the breaks will be different depending on which tier of Netflix you pay for.

So Netflix has a standard plan with ads for six ninety nine a month, They have a standard plan which is ad free for fourteen ninety nine a month, and they have a Premium plan with four K streaming and no ads for twenty two to ninety nine a month. If you pay for a plan with no ads at the very least, I still think you'll get those WWE profile packages that you see on the plees when they take a break between matches. You'll get these long profile videos.

If nothing else, you're definitely going to get something like that. But anybody thinking that, oh it's Netflix now, no more commercials, not quite. Not quite now. I prefer RAW go back to two hours on a permanent basis. You know, for years, the two hour format was standard for WWE programming. It still is. It's still standard. Raw is the only three hour weekly show they have. SmackDown thankfully is staying at

two hours, even with the move back to USA. They gave the show an overrun by the Way on Friday for the season premiere, so SmackDown may have overruns again. They couldn't do that on Fox because of the ten pm newscast in most markets, but SmackDown's two hours. NXT is two hours every week, also with an overrun, but

only for a few more weeks. Once NXT debuts on the CW network, you can kiss those overruns goodbye, because like Fox, CW has a ten pm local newscast lot of markets, so they're going to have a hard stop at the top of the hour. But my point is, you know, they've been producing two hour programs for years and years and years and years. I don't care how big the RAW roster may be they can make a two hour show work simply by doing a good job

of rotating talent in and out week to week. If there are people on the show every week right now, then they can be on the show every other week and still get FaceTime. They can make it work. I don't want to hear well, they can't go back to two hours. Look how big the roster is. They can't do it. Yes they can't. They're not going to, But don't give me that shit that they can't. What it sounds like we may end up with on Netflix is a show that is not any one set length of

time every week. I don't know how that would play in certain international markets. I can see that being a problem, But I like the idea of them having flexibility. If the show's not going to be two hours on the dot, that's fine. If they have the flexibility to make the show whatever they want it to be week to week, I think that's okay. Maybe one week the show goes two and a half hours, Maybe the next week it's three. The week after that it's two hours and forty five minutes.

Maybe main event finishes will be a little less predictable. If we can't look at the clock and know exactly when the match is going to end. How many times has that happened? Where you see it's ten fifty eight or ten fifty nine and they have to rush. The match is not over yet. They have to rush the finish of the match before they go off the air. That may not happen anymore on Netflix. That's a good thing.

And then there's the issue of the content itself. Anybody thinking the move to Netflix means unlimited swearing and a return to the attitude era, That's not what it means at all. Unless your name is Dwayne Johnson, then it'll be f BOM's galore. But they're not going to have the same constraints that they have now on cable. They shouldn't have to mute the audio anymore when people chance holy shit. That would be a welcome change because it's annoying.

Is sh shit in something that we knew was coming for months because TKO talked about this very thing shortly after the Endeavor sale. Mark Shapiro, the president of TKO, talked about trimming down the number of live events or how shows that WWE does, with the focus increasingly shifting to their live television shows, which is where the real money is. I mean, just look at the billions of dollars they're raking in every year between NBC, Universal and Fox, Now,

Netflix and the CW network. Television is their main priority. Streaming is their priority. House shows are not because they make the company very little money relative to TV. During an appearance at Goldman Sachs Technology Conference, Shapiro explained that he feels there is less of a need for what he calls the marginally profitable shows. He said, we're cutting

events at WWE. We're taking our low margin, marginally profitable events, untelevised events that Vince put in place to grow the brand. You're taking the show on the road and we got to go to every city that we can to grow the WWE brand. Well, the WWE brand, while we still have to grow it, it's on fire right now. We don't need to carry these marginally profitable events. What was three hundred events last year will be roughly two hundred and fifty this year, and next year we will be

close to two hundred. They've already cut back on the number of house shows. I mean, if you look at how many they have left between now and the end of the year, it's only around ten or so. I think he calls them marginally profitable. A few years ago, WWE house shows were not profitable. They were actually losing money on them. But because the product is so hot right now and they're running fewer of them, but at higher ticket prices, they do make money. But it's not

a lot. Now. There are pros and cons to this. It's not a surefi thing one way or the other. This is great or this is terrible. It really is a mixed bag, you know. For the fans, house shows tend to be more fun. And I say that as somebody who has been to house shows before, as I'm sure most people listening to this have at least been

to a few house shows in their day. They tend to be more fun because you don't have all the downtime that you get with the commercial breaks on TV, so you're constantly sitting there in the dark, you're watching video packages, you're watching ads, you got a wait to come back from break. You also get more in ring action, you get more matches, you get longer matches. The wrestlers tend to have more fun out there. They have the freedom to be a little looser. They can try new things,

see what works, see what doesn't work. They try something that works, they can bring it to TV. If it doesn't work, then the only people who need to know are the people in the building that night. It's also a negative for the newer talents that are still learning. You can only learn so much at the PC. You need to be able to get out in front of an arena full of fans and work matches night after night to improve your craft and get better. That's one

of the biggest benefits to house shows. It's not just working in the ring, but you know, it's getting that fan feedback as far as what works and what doesn't. But I was curious. I took Vaccine Dupree as an example. She was someone who was called up way too soon, you know, and she has made some noticeable improvements of late, but she's still very green. She's the kind of person that NXT was created for. That's why they have a

developmental system, that's why they have a performance center. And they never gave her a chance to fully develop because they just took her and threw her right into the frying pan way too quickly. And then people mocked her for which I'm sure was just, you know, even harder for her. I looked up the matches though, that she's had this year, because you would think, like this is where she's getting her reps in, right at the house shows.

She's hardly worked any house shows. You would think that they would have her in the ring on these shows every week, But she's worked less than half a dozen matches on the live events. So that just goes to show you how much they've already scaled back on them. So those are all negatives to doing fewer of them. They might be making them a little bit of money, but I look at them as something of a loss

leader for the company. So you might take in little to no money from them, but you're betting that they're going to pay off for you in other ways, whether that's increasing overall interest in the product, maintaining your current level of interest in the product. You know, if they don't run some of these markets anymore, or they run them a lot less, interest in the product might wane, it might start to go down. Eventually, this bubble is

going to burst. They cannot maintain this hot streak they're on for another two, three, four years. There will come a time where things are going to cool, and you hope that by scaling back so significantly on these shows, it doesn't happen a lot sooner than not. Right, But that's one potential risk they run. On the other hand, one of the knocks on WWE for years, and rightfully so, was its road schedule. Vince McMahon used to work these people like dogs. Okay, it was worse in the eighties.

In the early nineties, he'd be running ABC crews in different cities, all in the same night, and then expect them to drive hundreds of miles just to do it all over again the very next He would have them running hard for three weeks before they would even see the inside of their home. They'd go home and have just enough time to check their mail and pay their bills, and then head back out to the airport to go

do it all over again. The international tours. You would hear these horror stories if you listen to these shoot interviews from guys that were running that schedule back then. They'd run two weeks straight internationally. They'd be in a different city every night. They wouldn't even know where they were half the time. Combine that with the harder rings that they were bumping on for all those years, which is something I'm going to talk about in the mailbag later.

And it's no wonder so many of them ended up addicted to pills and booze, among other reasons, but I'm sure that definitely played a role. Natalia, she just returned on raw Monday. Now. They were in Calgary. She was doing a podcast interview this week. She said, TRIPLEH is just a cool boss. She just got eye surgery, she needed some time off. He told her, go get your eyes fixed, take care of yourself, don't even worry about it. And she said, it's cool to have a boss that's human.

I don't think i've heard anybody else on the active roster put it that way and say that out loud, like we have a boss now that's actually a human being. Because that's how Vince treated his talent for so many years, that he treated them like circus animals. I mean, he may have made them a lot of money. I'm not saying that didn't make a good living working for him.

They say these things with a lot of money in their bank account and a nice house to show for it, But that doesn't mean that they should be on the road taking bumps three hundred days a year, or can that kind of schedule. Fewer house shows means fewer bumps, it might mean fewer injuries. Yeah, I'm actually I question that. I questioned that last point. I was thinking about that you would think that running fewer shows removes the potential for injury. But I've heard it talked about in other

ways too. When AW was just racking up injuries left and right, and even now and they have so many people on their injured list, but there were people and even some wrestlers talking about the fact that one of the things you might be able to attribute that to is the fact that AW does not run house shows.

And there's just something to be said for being in the ring and taking bumps on a regular basis, where I guess maybe it just gets your body acclimated to it, and if you're not doing that, it could actually result in more injuries. So I don't know that any scientific study has been done about this, but I'm not necessarily

sure that that does. Carlate, But fewer house shows mean fewer bumps, It means more time at home with their family, and it might even help them when it comes to recruiting new talent and free agents that might ordinarily be drawn to AW. For the same reason, Tony Kahn doesn't do house shows. You know. He lets a lot of his talent book their own independent dates if they want to work, but he himself does not maintain any sort

of regular live event schedule. Some wrestlers that are drawn to that they don't want to be on the road constantly. That was one of the reasons Brian Danielson left WWE for AW among other reasons, was he could not work that schedule anymore. He needed to work fewer matches. So it may be to their benefit not to completely eliminate, but just cut down on the number of shows to make the schedule more attractive to people who might be interested in signing with one company or the other. So again,

there are pluses and minuses to both. I think scaling back is a good thing. I think scaling back too much would be a bad thing, And based on what Shapiro is saying, they seem to be headed in that direction. According to a story in the Milwaukee Business Journal, the city is making a bid to host Money in the Bank next year. The story revealed that their tourism group Sports Milwaukee is putting together a bid right now, and if they get it, the plee would be held at

the Forum, home of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks. It was reported earlier this year that Milwaukee is hoping to host a future Royal Rumble at American Family Field, home of the Milwaukee Brewers. The earliest the Rumble could take place there would be twenty twenty six, which is when renovations to allow American Family Field to be used in the winter would be completed. The field has a retractable roof, and their winterization project will allow the venue to maintain

a seventy degree temperature year round. Sports Milwaukee director Marissa Werner believes that bringing money in the bank to the city could help Milwauke Hockey land a bigger WWE show in the future, like the Royal Rumble or SummerSlam. Fast Lane in twenty seventeen was the most recent wwepl to make or to take place rather from Milwaukee. You all remember fast Lane, don't you. That was the night that Bill Goldberg beat Kevin Owens in twenty two seconds, ending

his run as Universal Champion. I haven't forgotten. Speaking of Goldberg, Goldberg's name was invoked by our world heavyweight champion Gunther on Monday Night. One of the best lines uttered on that show all year in a year with promos between Drew McIntyre and cmpunk. This one's up there. They had Brett the Hitman Heart back on Raw for the first

time in forever. I can't even remember the last time we saw him come out and get an entrance on this show, but they were in Calgary, so of course he got a hero's welcome, always love Brett gets from the other talent on TV. Sammy's name came out after Goother was in the ring with Brett, and then Sammy eventually came out and he was putting Bread over and he was talking about all the guys in the back who idolize him and they watch his old matches as

they should, so that was cool. But before Sammy even came to the ring, we had Brett and then we had Goother interrupt and Gunther at first was putting him over, he was buttering him up, but it was all for the big line where he said, you will always be second to my actual all time favorite. And what I love about it is if you go around you look

at the reactions that a lot of people have. They actually have reaction videos on YouTube from people who were watching the show, and almost to a tea, I saw maybe one person who said, oh, don't say Goldberg. Everybody else thought he was gonna say Shawn Michaels. So it was even sweeter because it was like you would I think that people would expect it, but they weren't. And

then he laid the Goldberg line down. He goes, and my all time favorite is none other than Bill Goldberg, Which what makes it funnier to me is just when you look at the kind of wrestler that Gunther is just the polar opposite of Bill Goldberg. And for him to say that with such a fucking shit eating grin on his face was just perfection. Even Brett couldn't help

himself with smirk at that line. Said he just he said like he knew before the words even came out, he was smiling because he knew he had a winner of a line. So whoever came up with that, it might not have been Gunther, but whoever came up with that, thumbs up because that was perfect. But I enjoyed seeing Brett and they had a whole segment there were again they pushed things forward for a future match between Goother

and Sammy, which is not yet official. I'll get to that in a second, but let me talk about CM punk first. Seampunk was not on Row Monday night. He will be back on the show tomorrow night. He had to stay out for at least a week to sell the beatdown from Drew McIntyre, and there was a little bit of controversy involving CM Punk and Drew McIntyre, and in particular the bracelet that was at the center of their storyline has been at the center of their storyline

now for at least the last couple of months. I want to read to you from this one story. The aj Lee Larry bracelet became the center of the feud between Punk and McIntyre leading into Summer Slam and Bash and Berlin. McIntyre stole the bracelet before SummerSlam and held onto it until Bash and Berlin. When Punk was able to get it back. On the September second episode of Raw, McIntyre broke the bracelet and sent Punk to the hospital. On September ninth, WWE Shop began selling the bracelet for

nine to ninety nine. Victoria, the fan who originally made the bracelet for CM punk, issued the following statement on social media on not being given a heads up about WWE selling the bracelet. She said, Hi, everyone, thanks again for all the nice words and support. I won't be asking for compensation from WWE, since they have every right to make bracelets. All I kind of was hoping for was maybe a mention in the description of the product. I e inspired by a fan. Throughout this whole thing,

I never expected to be given anything from WWE. All I wanted was for people to put a name in a face to where the bracelet came from. I completely understand why some of you guys are upset at WWE, and it means a lot to me that people care so much. For those replying to my initial post about me not getting a heads up and saying the WWE did know me one, I one hundred percent agree they

did not need to. Legally, they had no obligation to reach out to me regarding this, but it just would have been nice to have heard it from them beforehand. If they reached out to me about it, I would have mentioned them, or I would have mentioned putting CM punk on the bracelets instead of AJ and Larry. I

think more people would have been interested in that. Yeah, let me stop there, not to mention the fact that it's fucking weird to have fans walking around with bracelets that have the names of the man's wife and dog on it. Like, if you're a CM punk fan and you want to wear a bracelet that has CM Punk's name on it, cool, I get that, But don't you think it's a little fucking weird to be walking around with an item on your wrist that has the man's

wife and dog on it. She says, if they reached out to me about it, I would have mentioned putting Punk on the bracelets instead of AJ and Larry, since now it kind of diminishes the whole storyline purpose of the bracelet. Wwe did reach out to me last week as a thank you from Punk and invited me to a show next month, but to my knowledge, that invitation had no correlation to them selling bracelets and wasn't offered as compensation. But I am still grateful for them contacting

me at all. See, and this is why they don't accept unsolicited creative pitches from fans. If you ever wanted to know why. This is why. Now, after seeing her tweets, WWE shop took the item down from the website, but then they later put the item back up. Only now the bracelet does in fact have CM Punk's name on it instead of AJ and Larry. This is clearly Nick con not wanting to pay Larry any royalties. This was the big drama of the week online. This is what

had people in an uproar on social media. When the big drama of the week involves a bracelet, you know, it's been a slow news week. But at the end of the day, WWE saw her tweets and her suggestion to put Punk's name on the bracelet instead, and that's what they ended up doing. So all's well, that ends well. I mean, after all, you can't be shocked that they would start selling these fucking fifty cent bracelets for ten bucks.

This is WWE. They would slap a bar code on their mother's ass if they thought they could make money off of it. WWE took some major steps towards solidifying the card for Bad Blood this week. Four new matches have been made official, with a fifth match pending for the WWE Women's Championship Naya Jacks is going to be defending her title against either Bailey or Naomi. We're going to find out this Friday, because there's going to be a tag team match Bailey and Naomi against Nya and

Tiffity Stratton. If the Babyfaces win, the one who scores the winning fall gets to challenge Naya for the title, but if they lose, the one who eats the pin must leave SmackDown forever. I think Bailey gets her rematch. Meanwhile, Adam Pierce made it official CM Punk will wrestle Drew MacIntyre inside Helen is Cel on that show. This was the entire point of bringing Bad Blood back in the first place, to commemorate the anniversary of the very first Helen is Cell match of Bad Blood. I think that

match should close the show. I think that this feud has been going on long enough and has been a big enough deal on this show to where the blowoff being inside the Cell. I think it would be an

appropriate close to the show. But wwe can make a strong case for the other big match that was confirmed for Bad Blood after Cody Rhodes beat Solo's Socoa in their steel cage match on Friday Night, Roman Rains returned to come to Cody's aid again from a Bloodline beatdown solo later in the show, issued the challenge to a tag team match with he and Jacob Fought Too, taking on Cody Roads and Roman Reigns. Cody at first refused.

He said that he was done with the Bloodline. He told Nick All this, They're Roman's problem, They're not my problem. I'm not going to be in this match. But by the end of the night he signed the contract, which was a strange way for them to get from point A to point B because nothing really happened to change Cody's mind. He was attacked by the blood Line after

the cage match at the beginning of the show. He got attacked by them again at the end of the show when he came out to confront Roman, and then they fought the blood Line off and then he signed the contract, so that was kind of goofy. That's a huge match though, having Roman and Cody on the same

side tagging for the first time. It's also Roman's first match Backsin's WrestleMania, and it will be the first taste that we're going to be able to get of Roman Reigns against Jacob Fati, which, unless they're doing Rock against Roman at forty one, that needs to be the WrestleMania match next year in Las Vegas, Roman Reigns against Jacob Fatu. Did you hear those fans on Friday when they teased it? They wanted to see it, so do I. But I can't imagine Rock is going to be too thrilled to

see Roman teaming with Cody. So that's something to keep in mind for down the road. As far as potential issues between Rock and Roman, and in that same vein, how are Rand Orton and Kevin Owens going to feel about Cody Rhodes teaming with Roman Reins. You know, I made this comment on Friday's post show. Why is Cody even still involved in this Bloodline business? Right? He needs to move on from them? Obviously. The match people want to see when it comes to Cody Rhodes is him

against Randy Orton. They can use this as a way to get there. With everything that Kevin Owens has been through with Roman Reigns, look how upset he got when Nick all Is teased giving Roman a rematch with Cody for the title for Bash and Berlin. Owens went on a tirade. He's been screwed over by the Bloodline multiple times over the last four years. Randy Orton had eighteen months of his career taken away from him because of the Bloodline. They can't be happy about Cody agreeing to

stand side by side with Roman Reigns. They have given their bodies for this man. How many times is Randy Orton and Kevin Owens and Orton in particular put himself in harm's way to come to Cody's eight and now Cody is going to stand shoulder to shoulders side by side with Roman Reigns. So they could use this match to trigger Cody's next storyline and finally get him away from this coming out of Bad Blood. I hope that's what they have in mind. We better hear from Morton

and Owens this Friday. They need to confront Cody about this and they can plant the seeds for what's to come. I still think they should close the show with the Hell in a Cell match, which means they probably would open the show with this tag team match. I mean, I guess it. Really, it just depends on the finish. If they have something major planned for the finish of that tag team match, then they might close with it. Plus,

you know, Cody is sort of the hometown boy. He was raised in Marietta, which is like twenty miles out of Atlanta. It could go either way. Rhea Ripley against liv Morgan for the women's world title has been added to the card. Damian Priest will take on Finn Balor, and they're teasing Gunther against Sammy's Ny for the World heavyweight title. I cannot imagine they put that on TV. That needs to happen in Bad Blood. But if they added, that would make six matches instead of the usual five

for these shows. Even Money in the Bank only had five matches, Summer Slim had seven. I think six would be fine. Jay Usso won a fatal four way on Monday to earn a shot at bron Breaker and the Intercontinental title. There's no way that ends up on the Bad Blood card. That's gonna be a raw main event. If they already have five, and that's without Gunther and Sammy, believe me, bron Breaker and jay Uso. I'd be shocked if they end up on that Bad Blood card. That's

gonna be a raw main event. Julia had her debut match against Chelsea Green on NXT last Tuesday in a winning effort. She won with a snowplow. I look, I know it's a move that she has used before, but I mean, come on, so now she moves on to Roxane Perez for the NX Women's Championship on that first CW show coming up in Chicago on October first, CM Punk will be on that show. With it being in Chicago, CM Punk will be on NXT this Tuesday, and we should find out what he'll be doing on that first

CW show. Is he going to be wrestling? Is he going to be a special referee? He might be the referee for Julia and Rock Saane. We know how fond Punk is for all the women down there in NXT. He's constantly being photographed with them and hanging out with them. Wouldn't shock me to see him as the referee for that match that's four days before Bad Blood. Is Drew McIntyre going to show up and attack him after the match?

I think that's probably a safe bet. I think whatever Punk is doing on that show, it's a safe bet that McIntyre might show up that night. They also have Ethan Page defending the NXT Championship against Trick Williams, who beat Pete Dunn in a last man standing match to earn the shot. I don't think that match really warranted a last man standing stipulation. I think the two of them were feuding for months, but that's what they did. Wesley and Zach Wentz of The Rascals are going to

have a street fight. Bianca Bellair and Jade Cargill will be there, possibly defending their women's tag team titles, which can be defended across brands, and the belief is that the Motor City Machine Guns might be debuting on the show that night in Chicago. Her pw Insider they have signed their deals with WWE and they will be starting

with the NXT brand, I kind of. I mean, we already knew the rumors going around about them signing with WWE, but the fact that they were not a surprise in that tag team Gauntlet on Dynamite Wednesday night, that was the confirmat Like, I didn't need to see Mike Johnson's report to me them not being in the Gauntlet on Wednesday, that was all the confirmation I needed that they were not going to aw and the belief is they will be starting with the NXT brand, if not on that

first CW show, possibly even before. I guess maybe the idea there would be that they come in before and they set up a big match for that show. I would just save them as a surprise for that show. I would do some kind of a you know, some kind of a match. I don't know if it would be a gauntlet or a tag team battle royal or something, but come up with a way to get them on that show as a surprise. That's what I would do.

I have no problem, by the way, with them starting out in NXT, and for all we know, they may have requested it. Because there was some negative reaction to it online. I saw one dumb tweet from someone who should know better frankly at fight Full making fun of it. Some people just aren't very bright. Look, the brand is moving to broadcast television and they're loading up the show. They've got over five thousand tickets sold so far for that first show. It's going to be a big deal.

I don't see the shame in them being some of the faces of that brand for the next six months and then drafting them to Raw or smack Down because they are old. They are in their early forties. It's not like they have fucking three or four years to just spend hanging around NXT. I don't think it would be that long though, you know. My only critique would be that the main roster could use the help right now in the tag team division. Same thing with the

Lucha Bros when they come in. But as long as they end up there and they don't just keep them on NXT for the next two years, I don't have an issue with it. The move to CW is a big deal to this company, and they need some star power on that show. Having a couple of veterans like Sabin and Shelley on there working with the younger talents that does not sound like a bad idea to me.

The rumor going around is that they will keep their name but not their TNA music, which is a little surprising given that NXT is working with TNA right now, so I'm sure it wouldn't be an issue, But if given the choice, I would rather they keep their name over their music. Unfortunately, that means they're getting a Deaf Rebel special, and that's not good. We may be done with Deaf Rebels soon. Their deal may not be renewed when it's up. I just don't know when it's actually up.

But that's another rumor going around this week. And WWE may be parting way soon with Deaf Rebel, and they plan to use more mainstream music beyond just their use of the new Megan Dee Stallion song for SmackDown, which I hate as an intro for the show. I don't hate the song, I just hate it as an intro for the show. I think it just doesn't fit, but it is what it is. Their second CW show is

not doing as well as their Chicago show. They have moved the show from Saint Louis to Chesterfield, Missouri, to a much smaller a much smaller venue. It's not just a smaller venue, it's a much smaller venue. After the Saint Louis show, which was booked for an NBA arena, so we're talking anywhere from probably I guess eighteen to twenty thousand, sold less than three thousand tickets, and that's even with advertising hometown boy Randy Orton for the show.

CM Punk more of a draw in Chicago than Randy Orton is in Saint Louis. So now the show will emanate from the Factory, which has a capacity of three thousand, but only twenty three hundred for it seated shows, so they should have no issue filling that up. And one more I guess it would be a WWE note kind of sort of. Kevin Nash on his Click This podcast had a little something to say about Logan Paul and

I watched the clip he was saying it. You know, it wasn't like he was going on a rant per se, but you know he did go off on Logan Paul as him not being one of the boys. This is what he said, and I'm gonna just read it to you exactly as it's transcribed here. Because Kevin Nash, he loves the word fuck. He says it a lot. Maybe he does it a lot. Hey, good for him, But this is what he had to say. He's not one of the boys. Where would he learn that shit at?

Where's he fucking going up and down the road, fucking talking about our fucking jargon in the building. Everybody's in their own fucking motor coach. There's no fucking interaction, there's no socialization. You don't become one of the boys just because you're around them. That motherfucker. From what I heard, he's making like five million bucks for a limited fucking schedule, and those other motherfuckers are out there making house shows. Fuck you, I don't give a fuck. How many people

are following you? Wow? He says, fuck the way Russo says, bro So that's what Kevin Nash said. Logan Paul then posted a video on social media reacting to this. He said, I got people messaging me. They're like, yo, Kevin Nash is talking shit about you. I said, damn, who's Kevin Nash? And I mean that I'm unfamiliar with this guy, which I think is his problem. I'm not as versed in the WWE in wrestling as maybe I should be, as my peers are. But then how am I so much

better than all of them? You know, I don't have the answers to these questions. I don't know how I could be the best in the WWE, or at least one of the best, Like I'm surely a top fiver and I don't even do it full time. Now, imagine if I did learn a little bit, Imagine if I devoted, if I became one of the boys, if I learned what the difference was between a shoot and a work. Will that make me a champion? Fuck me? Fuck you.

You're one of the old guys who's bitter that I'm better at your job than you ever were, and that makes you pathetic. This will be my sport and I will continue to make guys like you eat your words when I devote a little bit of time to it. So fuck me, fuck you. Nothing better than two idiots ranting at each other building to a match that won't ever happen and that nobody has any interest in see. But they say it so many times, I mean they should just go ahead and fuck already and get it

over with. This week's episode is sponsored by Express VPN. If any of you have a dog, then you know what it's like to have to walk the dog. And if you walk your dog, you probably walk them with a leash. Now imagine going online with that Express VPN. It would be like walking your dog in public without a leash. Most of the time, you'll probably be fine,

But what if one day your dog wanders off? What if CM punk is walking Larry one day no leash and Drew McIntyre drives by and dog naps him because That's really all that's left in their feud is to have McIntyre dog naped Larry, chain him to the radiator and make him watch Jack Perry matches. That's what it's like. Using the Internet with that Express VPS. It would be like being chained to a radiator watching Jack Perry matches all day long. You don't want that. Nobody wants that.

Every time you connect to a network that has no encryption, which really could be anywhere public, your online data is not secure, which means any hacker on that network can easily access and steal your personal data. They could do it with their eyes closed. It doesn't take much technical know how, especially when you assume they probably do this sort of thing every day. Those same hackers can make up to one thousand dollars per person selling their personal

data on the dark web. Scary, isn't it. ExpressVPN stops hackers from stealing your data by creating a secure tunnel between your device and the Internet. What makes ExpressVPN the best VPN is that it's easy to use. Just pull up the app, you click one button, and you're protected. It also works on all of your devices, including phones, laptops, tablets, and smart TVs. There's a reason why ExpressVPN is rated number one by top tech reviewers like cnet and The Verge.

You know, when I was in Tampa earlier this year for the Royal Rumble at our Airbnb, I'm away from home, I made sure that I had my ExpressVPN app on my phone on my laptop because I wanted that peace of mind knowing that I was protected. I don't just have podcast related files saved on there. I have a lot of personal information. Also. I do my online banking on there. I needed to know that my devices were safe, and they were. It's a safety issue again. You may

be fine without it, but why take the chance. Why put yourself in a situation that you don't want to be in, and when it happens to you, you'll be left kicking yourself that you didn't take that extra step to avoid a catastrophe like that. It's just not worth the risk. Secure your online data today by visiting ExpressVPN dot com slash solo monster. That's e xp R e s s vpn dot com slash solo monster, and you can get an extra three months free ExpressVPN dot com

slash solo Monster. Another week and still no announcement of a new media rights deal for AW. Sunday, at the All Out Media Scrum, Tony Kahn said that he was one hundred percent confident there would be a deal with Warner Brothers Discovery that would keep AW on TBSNTNT for years to come, and when he was asked how confident he was that something would be announced in the next

thirty days, he put the number at ninety percent. So it's likely either the deal is done and they're just waiting for the right time to announce it, like maybe the five year anniversary of Dynamite coming up next month, or Tony Khan actually has not put pen to paper yet, but it's just a formality and they're just working out the finer details. Dave Meltzer claims that the deal is done and that pay per view shows on Max are believed to in some form be a part of the deal.

There's also been talk of the deal not having exclusivity like their current one has with Warner Brothers Discovery, which is why Dark and Dark Elevation disappear from YouTube. AW did trademark the name Shockwave this past week, which is thought to be for a new sh show that could air on one of the Fox networks, and that AAW may be working out a deal with Fox for a new hour long show to air possibly on FS one. Fox just drops smack Down off of its main broadcast network.

They're not going to put AW on Fox, but FS one or the two B streaming service which Fox owns, that could be a landing spot for them adding another hour of AW television. It feels like overkill when the product is cold. But if Tony Khan can get a deal done with Fox and can get eyeballs on the product on a station other than just TNT and TBS, and if he can get paid for it, which is the key, so it's not a time buy, but he can actually bring more media rights money in from another partner.

I don't see the downside in that. That's a deal that you make. If he can make a deal with Fox and get paid for it, you make that deal. And the more partners they have, the more potential options they have in the future, right, and more eyeballs they can get on their product. So, while nothing is confirmed yet, one report that dropped this week that is not to be taken seriously was this report from a writer at The Blaze, which is owned by Glenn Beck. This guy,

Andrew Chapados, who has never covered AW before. I don't know that he's ever covered wrestling before, but he's never covered AW before, didn't even realize that Nyla Rose worked for the company, and when he did, he immediately attacked Nyla for being transgender, like this was some big revelation, you know, when Nylo has only been with the company for the last five fucking years. Let's talk about it like it's breaking news. So all of a sudden, this

guy is reporting on AW after being fed some inside information. Gee, I wonder by who who would have fed this information to this random individual who supposedly has had contacts in the world of UFC and TKO, the same KO that happens to own WWE, who benefits from such a thing by putting out potentially false information that is intended to harm AW in the middle of its media rights negotiations.

He claimed that sources close to the AW Warner Brothers discovery deal tell him that AW was on its back foot, and that, on top of Warners already having about twenty five percent from the original deal. Now what he's referring to there as an ownership stake in the company, which that may well be true, that they have an ownership stake. It's always been rumored that WBD has a stake in the company, it's never been confirmed, but I've never heard

the twenty five percent figure mentioned before. But he says in addition to that AW likely had to give up more equity to get the new deal done, and that AW apparently did not receive any other third party offers, which hurt their negotiations as far as anybody knows. Up until just recently, AW was still in its ex exclusive negotiating window with Warner Brothers Discovery, So I'm not sure Tony Kahn even attempted to shop AW around or entertain

any other offers. But we'll find out soon enough, and also see if they make that deal with Fox. But again, just be wary of where you get some of this information from, and some of these Twitter personalities that you've never heard of before. There's a lot of this going around now, rumors about this and that when it comes to AW and WWE, and just be a little leary

when you hear from some of these people. But with all of this talk of AW getting a fourth show, possibly getting a fourth show if that's what Shockwave turns out to be. I got a question emailed to me from Kyle in Liverpool, England, so I'll mention it here, and he said that he was watching Collision recently and could not help but think that Dynamite and Collision could

benefit from a roster split. He says, for example, I would split the titles, keeping the World, Tag International and TBS championships on Dynamite and have TNT Trios and Women's World titles on Collision. Personally, I don't think the Continental title should be a physical championship, but a title bestowed upon the yearly tournament winner. But for argument's sake, I

would have that championship float between shows. Considering Rampage is an extension of Dynamite, I would keep Dynamite talent exclusive to that show. If a split was to come into effect, how would you split the roster and who would you build each show around. I have been resistant to the idea of AW doing a brand split, largely because I've seen how the brand split has played out in WWE over the last twenty years and how badly they've bungled it. And I have no interest in seeing Tony Khan try

to do the same. Plus, I also like having the freedom to be able to use like if I'm Tony Kahan. I like having the freedom to be able to use talents on both s shows when the story calls for it, and not being handcuffed by a brand split, like, oh, gee, I guess we can't do it because we've got a brand split. We can't use this guy on Wednesdays. You know, we're stuck with Saturdays. AW has some glaring attendance issues

right now, Okay, it's bad. I mean there are certain events where they'll post a certain attendance number and it's it's impressive, but on a lot of weeks it's not good. And you want to split the brands at a time when even with their biggest stars on all on the

same show. You can have Will Osprey and MJF and Ricochet debuts and has his first Dynamite match, and you've got Brian Danielson, and you've got John Moxley and you've got Mariah May, like all of their top names can be on one show and they can still barely put three or four thousand people in the building. On most weeks and you want to split the brands. Rampage is not even worth the hour every week, and I barely have the interest to even bother with Collision anymore. I mean,

it's an effort. It's an effort for me to do it. Something has to change, But I don't think a brand split is going to do much to change that. I really don't now if they were to do one, I think what Kyle has proposed here is not a bad idea at all. You know, having one roster dedicated to Dynamite and Rampage, having the other roster dedicated to Collision

in Shockwave. I mean that would make sense. Divvying up the titles the way that Kyle laid out here is fine except for one very important thing, which is that one roster would have a world championship and the other one would not. And the last thing I want them to do is make another fucking title. So that's a problem. The TNT title is not the aw world title, no matter how hard you try to make it so. The TNT title is not, and will not be your world championship.

It will never be perceived that way. It's like when brock lesnar champion on Raw and he was never around Raw had an absentee champion, So what happened the Intercontinental title. I think seth Rollins had it the Intercontinental title would headline the show a lot, and it did help elevate the value of that title a little bit, but it still wasn't a world title. The Intercontinental title was not looked at the same way. You're gonna have a bitch of a time selling tickets to a show that has

no world champion, even if the title floats. If the champion is in the middle of feuding with somebody on Dynamite for the next two months, you're not gonna have them on Collision. Brian dangleson Darby All and John Moxley. They're all involved right now in a story surrounding the aw world title. So what are you gonna do. You're gonna have fucking Jack Perry as the face of Collision in Shockwave as TNT champion. You may as well cancel

the shows now. None of this even matters if Tony Kahn is still the primary booker for all four shows. If you are going to have a brand split, then you need to split everything, including the creative duties. Have Tony oversee one roster, have somebody else or a group of other people oversee the other one. The other two shows. Brian Danielson, he's scaling back his in ring work soon. I don't know if he might have an interest in helping out on a regular basis. On the creative end.

I'm sure he contributes now, but I don't know if this is something he would be interested in. Maybe he really does just want to go home and have more time at home. But I know they have people behind the scenes who contribute ideas or try to help Tony out right. We've heard our j City for example, he helped out with the Tony Storm and Mariah May storyline. A lot of ideas came from him. They hire Jennifer Pepperman from WWE. She works with Mercedes, but also other

talents there. Maybe give people like that more say in those shows. Shane McMahon maybe coming in soon, God help me. I have no idea if this would be a good thing or not. But if he's coming in, if he's going to come in anyway, maybe give him a shot at helping book one of the two. If this is what they were going to do, whatever it is, it cannot all be left in Tony's hands. He needs help and none of this is going to matter without it. A brand split will not matter unless the ideas are there.

You can split the brands and have two of the best brands that wrestling fans have ever seen. Without the ideas, it means nothing. Without the stories, it means nothing. You need to have interesting ideas and stories that help draw people to the show on TV and into the buildings. I don't care how you carve up the roster. Without that, you have the same issues that you have right now and the same apathy towards the product that a lot

of people have. If those are the people that you are trying to appeal to and bring back into the fold, I don't see how this helps without addressing all of the other issues first that I just mentioned on Dynamite. This week, Tony Kahan made major changes to the Grand Slam card at Our Stadium coming up on September twenty fifth. It was supposed to be Darby Allen challenging Brian Danielson for the aw World Championship. John Moxley, he's been looking

for Darby now the past few weeks. We didn't know why, and then Danielson got kicked out of the Blackpool Combat Club at all out after his win over Jack Perry, Moxley put a plastic bag over his head tried to smother him to death later on, explaining that they tried things Danielson's way, but diplomacy has failed. Now he chooses war. When Moxley finally confronted Darby in the ring, he said, Darby's match with Danielson a Grand Slam is not going

to happen now because the champion is indisposed. But he doesn't think that Darby is ready for the opportunity anyway, So he's going to need Darby to hand over that title shot to him. And Darby said no and told him that if he wants it, then do something about it, and Moxley proposed the match between the two of them for Grand Slam, with Darby putting his world title shot on the line. He said, Darby will never be aw world champion. He doesn't have time to explain right now,

but he has never lied to Darby. He said, trust me, Darby, you have no idea what's going on. And then Darby accepted his challenge, proving that he does In fact have more guts than brains. So that was the first big change to the Grand Slam car. We went from getting an AW Championship match to a match for a shot at the AW Championship, and that meant that Brian Danielson was off the show, right or most normal people when you see this would logically conclude that that must have

been Brian Danielson is off the show? Or was he? Because later in the night, Nigel McGuinness was in the ring and he said that now that there won't be an AW Championship match at Grand Slam, as himself being a former world champion in the business, he believed the champion should at least be competing on that show. And then he pulled out a contract approved by Tony Kahn for a match at Grand Slam. It will be Brian Danielson. That this is pending Danielson accepting it and I guess

being cleared. But the match will be Brian Danielson one on one with Nigel McGinnis, who guaranteed that Oasis would play him to the ring. But will Danielson join him for the final countdown or will it be the final match of the American Coward by the way, I don't think he meant that Oasis will actually be their live to play him to the ring. I don't think Oasis, frankly, is going to show up and perform in front of four thousand people in a building that fits twenty. But

that's up to them. But the way he said it, I could see people being very confused. He is going to be using his old fucking in the Bushes song by Oasis that he came out to at Wembley Stadium. But no, I don't believe Oasis is going to be there for the first time in fifteen years. Since they're fine match and Ring of honor. Both men were supposed to be gone off to WWE. They were leaving at the same time. They were gonna go and they were gonna take their careers to the next level. And Brian

made it and Nigel never did. He never got past his medicals. He had previously torn both of his biceps. He never got them surgically repaired because he couldn't afford it. He didn't have the money and they told him, look, get your arms fixed and then we'll talk, and he just he couldn't do it. So he ended up in TNA instead, as Desmond Wolf never got that run in WWE. The closest thing with WWE that he ever got was he was an announcer for them. I think it's great

that we're finally going to see it. Nigel's been healing on Brian on commentary for over a year now every chance he gets, We're finally going to get a payoff to it. So I like that. The logic gap here, though, is completely preposterous. Darby Allen had a guaranteed World Championship match already schedule for Grand Slam. He earned it by winning the Royal Rampage Match, then Danielson was nearly killed

at All Out. Moxley tells Darby the champion is indisposed and there will not be a championship match, so just give me your shot, and Darby says, okay. Now, if Brian Danielson is too injured to defend his title and Darby is too much of a babyface to turn down

Moxley's challenge, that's one thing. But to have Nigel McGinnis walk out there on the same night where Moxley just told us the champion will be unable to defend his title and have Nigel bust out a contract already approved by Tony Kahn, who just lost his championship match on his big Arthur Ash show, already approved the contract for a match with Brian Danielson. It just makes absolutely no sense.

It just doesn't. It's stupid. If Brian is healthy enough to compete, then he's healthy enough to defend the time. This reads to me like Tony knows he needs an attraction to sell tickets for the show. This is going to be their fourth time at Arthur Ash Stadium. Their first time in the venue, they had twenty thousand people. Their second time they were down to thirteen thousand. Then they were down to eleven thousand, which is still a very healthy number. But now with less than two weeks

to go, they've only sold forty five hundred tickets. Forty five hundred, I mean these days. If this was any other dynamite in any other building, that would be a hell of a number. Here, it's embarrassing. And we'll see how much of a draw Brian Danglson against Nigel McGinnis ends up being. Maybe by the next update they'll be up over five thousand. In fact, I expect that they

may already be at five thousand. We just haven't gotten an update yet from Wrestle tex So I am expecting that by this time next week they will have in excess of five thousand tickets sold. They're not there yet, but I think they realized that they needed something big for this show and this is what they decided to do that and with Brian's career winding down, they may have felt like it was now or never to do

this match. I just hate that we may not even get a contract signing or a promo battle between these two before we see it. We've only got one Dynamite left before Grand Slam. There's been no announcement about Brian being on the show this coming Wednesday. I hope we get something in the ring with the two of them before we get to Grand Slam. It all just feels

so rushed. But now they'll get two matches out of it instead of one, and with Danielson and Moxley wrestling on the same show, I guess we'll find out how that story progresses, because I can't imagine them being in the same building at the same time and not doing something with the two of them. We'll see if we get a Shane McMahon appearance, and where this Blackpool Combat Club stuff goes next. Clearly Hangman Page is not getting a shot at the AW World Championship at Wrestle Dream

or any time soon. It seems they still have him doing segments with Jeff Jarrett. Maybe that'll be another Grand Slam match. I'm sure that'll sell some tickets now. The annual PWI Pro Wrestling Illustrated five hundred rankings dropped this week. It is worth reminding people, as I do every year, this is a worked list based solely on kfabe. It is not something worth getting two worked up about, but it is always interesting to see who they ranked and

where they ranked. The evaluation period for this year was August first, twenty twenty three through July thirty first, twenty twenty four, and it weighs the following criteria win loss record, championships, one, quality of competition, major feuds, prominence within a wrestler's promotion, and overall wrestling ability. So here's the top ten. Number one on the list. Topping this year's list Cody Rhodes, who moves from number ten last year to the top

spot this year. Now, this would include his win over brock Lesnar at SummerSlam last year. It would include leading his team to victory in Wargames, winning his second straight Royal Rumble match, which had not been done in twenty six years. He feuded with the Rock, he got not one but two wrestle many of main events, including Night two where he ended the run that Roman Reigns had been on since twenty twenty and won the championship. And it would include the two title defenses he had against

aj Styles. All of that would be included, and he now is the face of WWE. I mean it would be Roman Reigns, but Roman isn't around enough to be considered the face anymore. Cody's the one who's full time. Cody's the one who's been putting in the work. Now the creative has not been great. Some people may scoff at this and say, oh, this run has been boring, this run has been terrible, has not been great. The last few months of his run have left a lot

to be desired through no fault of his own. But I have no issue with Cody taking the top spot. That's exactly where I would have him, and I think it's a tough argument against him being number one, So that makes sense. Number two was Swerve Strickland. Can you believe Swerve Strickland, especially after the year that he's had ranked at number one twelve Last year he shot up

from one to twelve all the way to number two. Now, this period covers his first two matches with Hangman Page, which is what cemented him as a top tier talent. It cemented him as a main event player in aaw It would include his World Championship win at Dynasty and that incredible match that he had with will Osprey at Forbidden Door, which he won by the way. So Swerve being number two again, that makes sense to me. Also, I think so far, so good with what I I

see ranked here. I have no issue would Swerve being number two. I would not have him at number one. I know that might bother some people, but it shouldn't. I think so far they got it right. Number three will Ospray, which is up from number seventeen last year. He is now in the top three. It's will Ospray, So I mean, you're not gonna get an argument out of me having him in the top three of your

top five hundred list. I think bell to bell when it comes to just matches and in ringability, will Ospray would be number one. So when you take all of the other criteria into consideration, him at number three. I don't have an issue with that. Number four. Seth Rollins, who ranked number one on last year's list, Now he comes in at number four. Tetsuya Nito at number five,

the current IWGP World Heavyweight Champion. Now here is a man in Nito who did not even rank in twenty twenty three, which sounds preposterous, even if he had a down year. How does Tetsuya Nito not make a list for the top five hundred wrestlers in the world. I mean, do you see some of the names on this list? But as it turned out, it was an oversight on the part of the editors, and they admitted that they made a mistake. So he goes from not even being on the list to ranking in the top five. Nito

would not be in my top five. This is the first one where I looked at it and said I have an issue with this. Nito would not be in my top five. But for a k FAB list that weighs accomplishments, he won the G one Climax, he won the IWGP belt from Sonata at the Tokyo Dome. Then he lost the title to John Moxley, but he won it back in June at Forbidden Door. So that's a

g one win and two world titles. By the criteria of this list, it's hard to argue Number six Damian Priest, who moves up sixty five spot from where he ranked last year. I mean, inarguably, he just had the best year of his career. I mean that cannot You could dispute his spot on the list, but you cannot dispute that the man just had his best year in the business.

He's been part of what are the top heel factions in that company and in all of wrestling, just I mean, based purely on the amount of TV time they get and all the different storylines they've been involved in, all the segments they get every week. I mean, he's certainly been getting a lot of FaceTime. He won the World Championship of WrestleMania, He's had a few pl main events. Number seven MJF who was down one spot from number

six last year. You know, it's debatable that I would even have him this high up on the list, considering he missed over five months due to injury. Five months out of this evaluation period he was gone. But it would include a chunk of his run as the aw World Champion, including the Wembley Stadium match with Adam Cole

and their whole storyline together. It would include that great collision match that he had with Kenny Omega, and it would include and also, you know, he had the matches with Jay White and with Samoa Joe at World's End, whatever you thought of the matches themselves, he did headline those pay per views. And it would also include the hour long match on Dynamite that he had with Will Ospury. So it's debatable having him at number seven, but you

could argue for it for sure. You could definitely make the argument number eight, John Moxley, number nine goother. So that would include most of it would be from his run as the Intercontinental Champion, and Gunther was having great matches on TV with so many different people, not just Chad Gable, but just a bunch of different people. Obviously

the match of WrestleMania with Sammy Zain. So it would not include any of like him winning the World Championship like that, but Gunther being in the top ten absolutely number ten Mystico. Uh, we'll go through the top twenty five, number eleven, Samoa Joe, number twelve, Sammy's Ain. Number thirteen Drew McIntyre. He should be higher up on this ledge. Drew McIntyre as top ten easily for this past year. Number fourteen Brian Danielson, who should be much higher than

he is here. I don't know why these two are ranked so low. Number fifteen, Moose number sixteen, Sonata number seventeen, jay Usso Rakishi is going to be furious. Number eighteen, Elie heldel Vi Kingo, number nineteen, Mostafa Ali number twenty, Eddie Kingston, number twenty one, Kazuchka Okada, number twenty two, Nick Nemeth, number twenty three, Alex Shelley, number twenty four, Orange Cassidy, and number twenty five Alex Kine, who works for MLW and had won the MLW World Championship during

that time. In other spots, I was just perusing the list here and had a few interesting observations here. Logan Paul came in at number thirty seven. EC three came in at number forty as the NWA World's Heavyweight Champion for much of that period. Hangman Adam Page actually ranked below EC three at number forty two. Joe Hendry was number fifty one. Jacob Fought too was down at number ninety four. I want you to bookmark this and come back at a year he's going to be a hell

of a lot higher than ninety four. Wardlow ranked at number two hundred and forty six, which was eleven spots higher than Austin Theory, and Ricky Starks was all the way down at number three hundred and fifty two. This is despite having matches with Cmpunk and Brian Danielson and winning the aw Tag team titles. He was ranked below Wardlow for the year. I don't fucking understand that at all.

But how about this. For the first time since twenty twelve, Roman Reigns did not rank in the top one hundred of the PWI five hundred. Not only did he not rank in the top one hundred, he didn't rank in the top five hundred. He was not on the list at all. And that's not an oversight. Those are just the rules. The rules are that a wrestler needs to have at least ten matches for six matches in six unique months, within the review period in order to qualify.

Roman only had six matches total, two of which came on back to back days in the month of April, so therefore he did not meet the criteria. Therefore, Roman Reigns is not in the PWI five hundred. As far as who my top five would have been, I would have had Cody Rhodes, will Osprey, Swerve Strickland, Brian Danielson and Gunther That would have been my top five. Let's take some mailbag questions. If you want to send in a question, you may do so at the Solo Monster

at gmail dot com. Please include your name and where you are from. I say it every week and still some people don't do it. Zach from Cincinnati. In the past, sports talk radio goon Colin Cowherd got a lot of heat for calling all pro wrestling fans booger eaters and generally making a massive ass out of himself by crapping on people like Eddie Guerrero and The Ultimate Warrior when

they died. He conveniently stopped doing that type of trolling when his corporate masters at Fox started carrying WWE programming. Now that the relationship is over, how long do you think it'll be before he starts being a total dick towards pro wrestling again, Well, if AW is going to make a deal with Fox, he may have to wait a little while. Well, so it may not happen as quickly as you think. But if they were to completely divorce themselves from wrestling and they don't make a deal

with AW, it probably won't take very long. Because Colin Cowherd as a dick, so nothing would shock be coming out of his mouth. I don't really give a shit one way or the other what he does because I don't pay any attention to him. Matt from New Zealand do you think the Darby and Brian match not happening would have worked better if you had Darby be the one to say that he doesn't want to wrestle Brian because he doesn't want to win the AW title from

an injured man? And would you like to see AW? Well, actually, before I even get into this, yes, to answer your question, yes, almost anything would have been better than doing it the way that they did. And would you like to see AW use the Continental Championship like the TNA Option C and whoever is champion when the Continental Classic starts hands in the title and becomes number one contender for the

world title at world's end. You know, I like that idea, I actually do, because to me, the Continental Classic should have been for a shot at the aw World Championship in the first place. It just bugs me that you have a Royal Rampage match, like a random fucking match on rampage that is determinative of who the number one contender is going to be for your top championship in

the company. But you have their version of a g one this exhausting ruling tournament over a period of four or five weeks, and you just get another belt out of it. Like, it just bothered me that you didn't have a world title shot up for grabs in the Continental Classic. This would be something that I think would make a lot of sense because everybody would want to be Continental Champion. The competition for that title would be

fierce because everybody would want to be champion. When that time, whatever that deadline date is, they know that, Hey, if you've got that title, you've got a world championship match in your back pocket. I mean, who wouldn't want that? So I think that would make things interesting, more interesting than they are now Scott in Arizona, been listening since

two thousand and seven. In the se Scoop stays, Wow, with all the TNA cross promotion, do you think there will be a match or a cameo at next year's WrestleMania featuring a TNA talent? If so, who do you think? No? I don't think so. I think we get a Joe Henry's surprise cameo in the Royal Rumble match, but otherwise I think they're going to keep the TNA stuff to NXT, so you might see TNA crossover that weekend at Stand

and Deliver and someone like Jordan Grace. If she ends up with a spot on the WrestleMania card, it's going to be because she's officially signed to WWE because her TNA deal is up early next year, I think in January, and I have every expectation that WWE is going to scoop her up as soon as she becomes a free agent. Jack from London. Of the ten year anniversary WrestleMania is ten,

twenty thirty and forty. All of them have had a major world title change to end the show with a new babyface champion crown in your opinion, which of these wins had or will have the more significant effect on the wrestling business. Brett Hart, Chris Benoit, Daniel Bryan or Cody Rhoades. Well, you know, there's an argument to be made for Brett Hart. I'm inclined to go with Cody because they use that championship win at WrestleMania to really cement him as the face of the brand, and that's

how they've used him, that's how they portray him. I think Cody may end up down the road being someone who has even more responsibilities in ww I mean, I don't know what he wants to do in his future, if he wants to get into politics or whatever else he has aspirations of doing. Cody is somebody who I can see being in the Triple hc or being somebody in that corporate role behind the scene. I mean, he has EVP experience. I could see him going on to

even bigger things in the company. But that title win a WrestleMania this year is ultimately what really cemented him in the spot that he's in now, and I think that he will be that guy that they look to and that they have in that position for many years. To come and it might be him and someone else, it might be him in Roman, but that's that I think is going to end up being the significance of that title win at forty. The argument that you can make with Brett is that Brett Hart was already WWF

champion before WrestleMania ten. Okay, he had already held the title once before WRESTLEMANI A ten. It was like this bridge that they were about to cross over to the New Generation era and it was either going to be built around Brett Hart or it was going to be built around Lex Luger, and I think Vince wanted Lex, but they had that royal rumble that year. They did that finish for a reason. They did that finish because they wanted to gauge the fan reaction, and the fan

reaction was overwhelmingly in favor of Brett Hart. That helped color their decision. They went with Brett instead of Lex, and Brett became the face of the new Generation era. That cemented Brett as I feel like this WrestleMania win this year cemented Cody in that spot. It cemented Brett

as a full fledged, you know, main event star. I know he had been a main event player before for them, But I feel like that WrestleMania win really cemented it for him, And you could maybe it's not a straight line that you can draw, but if that win is what cemented Brett as a full time, full fledged main eventor in this company, and you see where he ended up, and you see everything that went down with the Montreal screwjob and what that ultimately fed into with the Attitude

era and the rise of the Mister McMahon character, it might seem like a bit of a stretch, but not really, because if they go at Lex over Brett, who knows if Brett ends up back on top in a main event spot in that company, and then all these other things that happened in ninety six and ninety seven they don't happen, and who knows the impact that could have had on this whole wrestling timeline here. It's one of

those great what if questions. So I do think there's an argument to be made as far as the overall significance of that Brett hartwin relative to all the other names you mentioned here, that maybe Brett was frankly the most important one. But it's either Brett or Cody's I don't think it's Danielson and it's not Ben wah Y Jean from Head Over Germany. You've mentioned many times in the past that John Cena is for you, mister Royal Rumble, But I think Randy Orton would also fit in that conversation.

In six, seven, nine, eleven, twelve, thirteen, seventeen, and eighteen, he was in the final four plus e one two of them. What say you? You know he may be in the conversation, but he doesn't get ranked over John Cena. First of all, they're tied with two Royal Rumble wins a piece. Sena, though, has more memorable matches overall on those Rumble pay per views. So when I call him mister Royal Rumble, I don't mean as far as the Rumble match, like just the Rumble match itself. I'm talking

about the Royal Rumble event. He beat Edge for the WWE title in two thousand and six. On that show. He had that great last man Standing match with Umaga. The following year, we had the surprise MSG return in two thousand and eight, Right to Win the Rumble, one of the great Rumble moments. He had that classic triple Threat match in twenty fifteen with Lesnar and Seth Rollins, and then he had the match with aj Styles in twenty seventeen where he won title number sixteen, and that

was a great match. The only championship match Orton was involved in at the Rumble that's truly memorable was the one that he had with Sena in twenty fourteen, and it was memorable for all the wrong reasons because it just wasn't very good and the crowd didn't care. That's not mister Royal Rumble. King Razor from Jackson, Mississippi is the Ria Ripley and Live Morgan rivalry, the modern version of Trish Stratus against Leda. I've got news for you,

King Razor. There were a lot of women on the current roster, or in the last few years if you throw Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch in there, who far surpassed Trish and Leda. Now, Trish worked hard to become a good wrestler at a time when there just was hardly any focus on that with the women in WWE. I mean, Vince McMahon made sure of that. Then Trish and Leda they headlined one episode of Raw together and

they made it out to be some big achievement. They were fucking Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus. It was this monumental thing in WWE Ria and Live, ain't it. I would say Ria and Charlotte is probably a more apt comparison, or Charlotte and Becky, So I think that would maybe be a more appropriate analogity. I mean, I hate doing these comparisons because I don't look at it that way. It's not that's just generally

not how my brain works. I don't look at Ria and Live or Ria and Charlotte and go, oh, you know what this reminds me of. It reminds me of trition Leada. People do this a lot with Austin and Rock, and I just think it's so it's so unfair to anybody to be compared to Stone Cold in the Rock, Like, why would you even make that comparison? I mean, there are people who have said that about Cody and Roman. You know, it's like one A and one B. As

far as top babyfaces in the company. The only comparison like that I would make is that, Okay, at one time, Austin and Rock were the two top baby faces in the business and in the company. And yes, right now, Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns are the two top baby faces in the company. Ceempunk would be number three. That's about the only comparison I can make, you know. Otherwise, Cody and Roman or Cody and Roman, They're not Austin, They're not rock and nobody ever will be. So it's

kind of a similar thing here with Trician Leda. I do think that Trician Leda, I mean they were super over not taken away from the fact that they were major stars for their time. Do I think that they get overrated as wrestlers. Absolutely absolutely, And you want to compare as far as in ring, there is no compare. Attrician Leeda cannot compare to the women of today in the ring, bell to bell, and Trisha has gone out there. Even last year in the feud with Becky, they had

that great cage match. Like Trisha, she showed up and she was very impressive. But if you want to start ranking these women by match quality, if you look at their resume and in ring ability, I'm sorry, I mean they may have been bigger stars to a lot of people, and bigger names, you know, for that era, but they can't hold a candle to the women of today. But his second question was, knowing what you know about Hulk Hogan, would you persuade the kid version of yourself not to

be a Hogan fan if you went back in time. No, I mean that that's I just think that would be stupid. What difference does it make, Like when you're a kid, you'd be a fan of whoever you want to be a fan of. You know, Hogan was the hot commodity at that time. He was very charismatic. Some people didn't like Hogan even at that age. I had friends who didn't like Hogan. They like macho Man more. Some people

like the Ultimate Warrior more. I was a Hogan guy and a Macho Man guy, and I guess an Ultimate Warrior guy too for a while because I still have that fucking wrestling buddy here somewhere. But no, No, I mean, that's just that's just ridiculous. Roderick from Baltimore, Maryland, What is your twenty twenty four wrestling feud of the year so far? For twenty twenty four, I think it has to be CM Punk and Drew McIntyre. On that same note, I got a question from David in Chicago. It's death Blow.

David Floyd. We finally got to meet at the House of Glory show a few weeks ago. It was good seeing you, David. Buy or sell the Swerve Strickland Hangman Page feud where the CM Punk Drew McIntyre feud, Swerve Strickland and Hangman Page. Definitely going to buy on that,

gonna sell on punkin McIntyre. I can't say that I've I've liked the super hardcore elements of some of the matches they've had, like the Texas Death Match or some of the stuff in the unsanctioned match from last weekend, but as a story and as a feud overall, and the matches they've had Swerve and Hangman, I mean, I didn't even really have to think about it when I got this question. It's Swerve and Hangmen for me. Armand h from Puerto Rico been a fan of the podcast

for almost ten years. Happy birthday, Armando. I hope you enjoy it. What was up with Mick Foley's shoot promos At the end of his WWF run in two thousand and one. In one of his final promos, he straight up buries the invasion storyline, puts over William Regal, a heel and a traitor to the WWF, and puts down Vince McMahon, who was technically a babyface at the time. How is this allowed? And how isn't this talked about more?

Foley was not happy with the direction of the company, and he knew that he was on his way out, so a lot of what he said was more I mean, he was trying to weave it into storyline, but it was more shoot than KFAE. It wasn't so egregious that they were going to cut his mic or anything like that. But you know, he said what he said, and after that they parted ways and we didn't see him again

for another couple of years. I think he also, if I remember, I think he also wanted the freedom to do more outside projects, and his contractors didn't allow him to do that. Vince wouldn't allow it. So he just wasn't happy, you know, and that was his way of venting. And maybe if it was anybody else, I mean, he was, he was a legend even by that point. If it was anybody else, I'm sure they wouldn't have tolerated it. But if he already knew he was on his way out,

he got nothing to lose. Why not, Camden from the United Kingdom. I've been listening to your podcast for well over a decade now, since I was sixteen years old.

I have a buyer sell question for you on the better Butterfly effect in WWE Cmpunk walking out the night after the Royal Rumble in twenty fourteen leading to Daniel Bryant defeating the Authority and main eventing WrestleMania thirty or Roman Reigns getting COVID before his Day one match with brock Lesner leading to their title unification match at WrestleMania thirty eight and Roman's historic four year reign to then lose it to Cody Rhodes it wrest forty and finish

his story. That's a good question the way I look at this, If Roman never got COVID, he very likely will lose the title that night to brock Lesner at Day one, and the rumor going around at that time was that Seth Rollins was going to win the WWE Championship from Bigie on that show. Now I could also

see Biggie retaining and then dropping it a WrestleMania. But in any event, if Roman loses, he would have gotten that belt back from Broga WrestleMania anyway, and things would have more or less ended up in the same spot with Roman holding that title hostage for the next two years. Now, maybe he wouldn't have had them unified and he couldn't call himself the undisputed champion, but I think he would have.

It may not have happened to WrestleMania, but I do think they wanted Roman to end up with all the gold and Cody ends up finishing his story the same way. Cody was going to be the guy. He was going to be the babyface to replace Roman. When Roman finally lost, they would have found a way to get that WWE Championship on him because that's the only belt that really mattered to his story, and I think that he would

have beaten Roman to do it. Daniel Brian, on the other hand, despite the groundswell of support that he got in the summer of twenty thirteen and then into twenty fourteen, by his own admission in his book, was still only slotted sixth from the top on the preliminary card for WrestleMania thirty he was going to wrestle Seamus. They probably would have opened the show with it like they did at twenty eight. If Brian doesn't give the run that he did, he's not as big of a deal as

he ended up becoming. You know, the Yes Movement stuff was their best story from that time period, and they had to be drag kicking and screaming to do it. But if Punk never leaves, he's wrestling Triple h on that show and Randy Orton is wrestling Batista as planned, maybe the anger is still strong enough that they turn it into a triple threat with Brian. But I'm not

so sure. B So I'm going to buy on Punk walking Out, and I'm going to sell on Roman getting COVID because I think Punk Walking Out ended up having the bigger effect. William from Calgary. I was watching the nineteen eighty nine steel cage match between hul Cogan and the Big Boss Man, and I don't ever remember seeing Hogan do a top rope supplex before and it got me thinking that the rings were hard as concrete back then. Do you know how long those rings were hard like that?

And when did they get changed? That's a famous spot and they did that on the house shows too. They worked a lot of house shows on those loops back in eighty nine. And I mean maybe there were some nights they weren't doing it, but they were doing that probably almost every night, so on those rings too, So think about that. But those rings they were they were like concrete. They had no give Brett Hart. Knowing Hart, they did the same spot in their cage match at SummerSlam, right,

go watch the super plex that Brett gave Owen. There was no bounce nothing. The rings that wwe use, going back to the WWWF days were primarily boxing rings, which are naturally very stiff. And it makes sense when you think about it, because if you're a boxer, you're not taking bumps on the mat, right. You want to have solid footing to maintain your balance. What you don't want to be doing is constantly falling on it and taking bumps, because that's how you end up injured. And that's what

wrestlers do. What happened is that when Vince got on NBC with Saturday Nights made event, Dick Eversoll who and this is how the story goes. He was the president of NBC Sports Eversoll wanted rings that didn't seem so bouncy, because when Vince Junior took over from his dad, it wasn't just the boxing rings. It was kind of a mix of different types of rings and there was more of a bounce. Eversoll didn't think the bouncy rings look

good on TV. I mean, I'm just assuming he thought maybe it made them look too soft or too phony. So Vince started using some of the stiffest rings anywhere in the business, which are the types of rings that I grew up seeing on TV, you know, the ones that had no give. So because Dick Eversall didn't like the way the old rings looked, you had a generation of guys destroying their bodies every single night, especially with that ridiculous schedule they kept on the road back then.

It wasn't until Vince McMahon started taking bumps in the ring in the late nineties that I'm sure by mere coincidence they suddenly switched to the suspension rings that they use now, because before it was just it was an elevated ring. You had wood underneath and you had a layer of canvas on top. Now they have springs underneath that they did not have that years ago. Mick Foley said the same thing in his first book. Undertaker has

said it. Bruce Pritchard has said it that you know, the rings got softer once Vince started bumping in them. And Gary from Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada the home of Marrow, Ronalo and akam of aop which is quite the random Pairy. I was listening to another podcast recapping the Raw Bowl from nineteen ninety six, but they didn't go do a great job of it, so I was wondering if you could shed some light on it. I think it's fitting with the start of the football season. Your first problem

was listening to another podcast, but that's okay. We all make mistakes. Raw was head to head that night with the Orange Bowl, so Vince McMahon decided to host the first ever and last ever Raw Bowl, which was a football themed four way match. I think this actually may have been the very first four way match ever in WWE, at least on television. But it was a four team elimination rules match with the Smoking Guns Owen Hart and Yoko Zuna, Razor Ramon and Savio Vega Psycho sid in

the one two three kid. They all wrestled wearing uniforms. Earl Hebner was dressed as an NFL referee. They even gave him a whistle. Each team was allowed one time out. Canvas was green, had hash marks on it to look like a football field. They went all in on the presentation. I mean, if you're gonna do something like this, that's the way you do it. I mean, there were so many football puns on commentary with McMahon Lawler I lost count, and the Smoking Guns received the Steve Lombardi Trophy for

winning the entire thing. I mean, it was cheesy as all hell. But I'll tell you what I would still take that. I would take the Raw Bowl over a lot of the three hour bore fests that we got on that show in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, which is one of the worst eras in the history of the show. Give me the Raw Bowl. Inject that into my veins. I'd rather sit and watch that over and over again than watch those episodes of Raw. Thank you

for all the questions, some good stuff here. Appreciate all of the feedback. I like an engaged audience. I am engaged to all of you now. I just have to figure out where we're registered. You can email me at the Soolo Monster at gmail dot com. You can send in questions and comments there. You could follow me on X For those of you still left on the platform, I can't blame you if you're not on there anymore.

It's a fucking cesspool. But if you are at solo Monster is my handle on X. You could, of course subscribe to the YouTube channel solo Monster Sounds Off. I'm live every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and you can catch me with JD every Tuesday night for Tuesday Night Titan. See,

you get a lot of me each week. You probably get too much of me, if we're being honest, But I know you love me for it, and I love each and every single one of you, especially for all the support you guys gave me this week and on Friday night again, it blew me away. I thank you. Let's have a great week coming up. I'm going to be live after Raw tomorrow night, not quite two hours yet. That starts October seven. See, I'm looking forward to the fact that I get to go live an hour earlier

on YouTube. Once Raw moves to two hours, I mean it may only be three but I'm gonna make the most of those three months. So anyway, I will see you guys this week and next Sunday, I will be back here for episode eight eighty of The Solon Monster Sounds Up. So until then, be well, stay safe yourselves a great week. I almost said to hit the like button on the way out because my brain is mush. But I will see you back here next Sunday for eight eighty. Until then, take care of guys. The Solemn

Monster Sounds Off. Shannon Sharp was bumping uglies with someone and evidently did not realize that it was being streamed live, so we couldn't see it. We saw like the floor, We saw like a wood floor, but you could hear the mony. You imagine me. I'm getting ready to come on the stream and I wrap up a great show and I think I'm done, but I forgot to hit the stop button or whatever, and I pushed the camera aside, and all of a sudden, everyone's in the chat going Solomonster,

You're still live. And you hear these moans and these guttural noises in the background, like, oh, Soli Monster, Yeah, it could happen to the Solo Monster sounds off, bringing you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram, and X the Solo Monster, I love you so long.