Sound Off 887 - Dave Meltzer Has Another REALLY BAD WEEK And Why THIS AEW Match Made Me SAD

it was just chessed up. Now I want out of my contract if I don't care what I want my Thanks to Steve Mellow for getting that legendary shout out from one of the best damn tag teams of all time. Acts and Smash Demolition future WWE Hall of Famers. They appear to the Petersborough Comic Con this weekend. That was a nice surprise. And this is episode eight eighty seven of the Solo Mon Sounds Off apparently for Sunday, November tenth, twenty twenty four, celebrating seventeen years of the Sound of

All through the month of November. I also got to give a shout out to Sarah, who I know is listening right now. Sarah the Songbird. She was the one who had the sign on SmackDown Friday Night. At the beginning of the show, I sang the Solomonster jingle. That was Sarah. You've heard her voice before for many many years on the show. This little ditty right here, the Solomonster sounds off. That was the Solomonster jingle. And she was there in Buffalo on Friday night. So very cool

to hear from her and get that on TV. I had some minor surgery a few days ago. I still have stitches in my mouth. I'm not supposed to be doing a lot of speaking, I was told, which is kind of what I do. So if this show ends up a little light, you'll know why. But I think we've got enough meat to get into this week. Meat being something I can can't chew for the next ten days, so I'm living on yogurt and applesauce. If you would like to make a PayPal donation, you may do so

on thesolo monster dot com ten dollars or more. We'll get you a nifty little wrestling nickname and a shout out here on this worldwide podcast. I want to say thank you first and foremost to Peb. You know who

you are. Peeb. Thank you very much, Big B. Brian Pisera, The Diamond, Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison Soap, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, the Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, Knight Stalker and if Alsafar the Chicago Slayer, Willie Eichord Best in the Game, Trey Porter, Killshot, Keith Hart Ironman, Joshua stark Weather, Welcome to the PayPal family. Same to mean, Mark Dodson, shout out to Jake the Snake who wants to give a shout out to his grandfather JB for always supporting and

helping him when life gets toughen. Jarrett, I just sent you an email back, Jarrett. He bought a copy of Hardy the Horse to read to his daughter who has not even been born yet. Daughter is coming into the world this April. So again, Jarrett, congrats to you and your wife. And if my mother was still here, she

would be saying the same. It is that time of year where we are getting very close to the Tokyo Dome show for New Japan Pro Wrestling, and boy it does not feel like a Big Wrestle Kingdom show, but the company is basically in reset mode right now. Zach Saber Junior is the IWGP World Champion for the first time, and they are trying to build new stars. One of those new stars is show To Umino, who will be challenging Saber for that title in the main event on

January fourth. You look at the main event for the past few years. Last year was Sonata against Nito. Before that, it was Jay White against Okada, Shingo against Okata, Nito against Kode Bushi, and so on. Saber against Umio doesn't scream big match, main event for the Dome, but you got to start somewhere. They have to rebuild. This is what that looks like. It's like a baseball team that fails to make the postseason after all these years of success.

Got to rebuild, got to rebuild and think long term, think for the future. Umio Pinsaber and the g One Climax back in July. So to that end, it makes sense for them to do the match. But yeah, that is the weakest Tokyo Domain event that they have booked since Wressell Kingdom four maybe five. This is Wressell Kingdom nineteen,

just to put some context to that. But Ricochet made a surprise appearance that their power Struggle show this week and laid out Saber with a springboard clothes line before saying that he wanted a title shot, and the match has been made for Wressell Dynasty, also with the Tokyo Dome, but that is taking place the next night on January fifth. That is a joint show with talent from New Japan aw Ring of Honor CMLL Stardom. Honestly, that show is shaping up to be bigger than the actual main Tokyo

Dome show on January fourth. He've got Ricochet challenging Saber for the IWGP title, assuming that Saber retains the night before, the Young Bucks have already been announced for the show. They're going to make their return to Japan for the first time in five years, and Kenny Omega, who has been out for nearly a year, he might be making his in ring return, not in an aw ring but

for New Japan on that January fifth show. He too made an appearance of Power Struggle this week, and he said that he would be able to wrestle again soon. He called New Japan the king of pro wrestling, the home of the best pro wrestling on the planet, and that even though he's an AW wrestler, New Japan is his home, and then later there was a confrontation backstage between him and Gabe Kid. So while nothing is official yet, it looks like Omega's first match back is going to

be against Gabe Kid at the Tokyo Dome. Now, it is a joint show with AW Talent, so you could argue Omega is wrestling on behalf of AW on that show, but it's still wild that. You know, he's an AW star, he's been out for so long and he's here putting over in New Japan is the best wrestling on the planet and probably making his comeback there and not here, that is certainly a choice. The good news though for Tony Khan is that Kenny Omega is on his way back.

He has been missed and Kode and Bushi has said that he won't come back until Kenny comes back, So if Omega is going to be back soon, that probably means Abushi is too. We know The Royal Rumble is coming to Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis next year and WrestleMania is coming back to Las Vegas, but there's another

show in between those two called Elimination Chamber. WWE is bringing Elimination Chamber to an old WrestleMania venue, the Rogers Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, formerly the SkyDome on Saturday March first, twenty twenty five. They held WrestleMania six and eighteen there. This will be the fourth straight year that the Chamber ple is held from an international venue, with Saudi Arabia, then Montreal, then Perth, Australia, and now Toronto.

The ticket on sale for the general public is Friday, December sixth. The website on location already has some ticket packages listed for the show, including their Champion Package, which includes two front row seats on a non hard cam side for as much as nine thousand dollars per ticket. That's eighteen thousand dollars for both. I would imagine hardcam side tickets are a lot more than that. And you know, my one time that I ever attended I never went

to a wrestling event at the SkyDome. But by one time I ever attended an event at the SkyDome, I went to a Toronto Argonauts football game. It was the Argonauts against the BC Lions. It was August fourteenth, nineteen ninety five. And I know this because I still have my ticket stuff. I dug it out. You know what I paid for that game. I paid a cool five dollars for my seat that was in Aisle one, forty as far away from the field as I was. I don't think it's going to matter how high up you

are for this show. You're going to be paying a hell of a lot more than five dollars. WWE also released more tickets this week for Saturday Night's main event at the Nasau Coliseum on December fourteenth. In the email that WWE sent out announcing the ticket dump, they noted that they were bringing back that quote old school look and feel for the show, and per Mike Johnson, a PW insider, that's not just hype. They really are going old school with the presentation of the show, not just

on NBC. Yeah, Like they might have Obsession, which was the original theme song. I'm hoping they do. Even the second theme, which was I think was a Jim Johnston theme the second Saturday Night's main event theme. I might like that more than Obsession. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if they used either one of those, so as old school of the presentation on TV might be in the building, the setup of the coliseum itself. Apparently they're going old school,

you know whatever that means. But the show is going to feature full arena seating as opposed to the portion of the arena typically that's closed off for Titan tron staging. Normally you would see that kind of thing. For our SmackDown, they're going to be utilizing full arena seating. See, it's not old school to me unless they have Nasau County State Police escorting the wrestlers to the ring while holding

the fans back from touching them. See if that's old school when people are trying to put their hands on the wrestlers and the cops have to get in between them and the fans, that's old school. But that's awesome. They don't need a fancy setup for this, you know, just pack the building in with as many fans as you can and just use one of the regular entrance ways as the aisleway. Keep it simple, less is more.

And you know what else they need. They need Jesse Ventur on this show, if only to do commentary for one match or interview somebody, you know, like he did a wrestle maybea twenty whatever. You gotta have him on the show. He just signed a Legends deal. He was on the very first episode of Saturday Nights made event in that very same building. He has to be part of the show in some way. I think that's where

we get the Randy Orton Kevin Owens match. They shot an angle on SmackDown on Friday Night, a big injury angle to take Orton off television for a while, probably through Survivor series, with Owens giving him a pile driver, not a very good one. The Undertaker's tombstone on Hulkogan at Survivor series, where his head was like six inches up off the ground. That was better than this. He protected him well, but it just did not look good, to the point where they didn't actually show the moment

of impact on the replays. They cut it out. They just showed. They showed you from like the stomach up because they knew it was bad. But it was a great angle. It was a great angle because of the way that everybody sold it, from Orton to Owens, who sold it like he had blacked out for a minute and regretted what he had done to Cody Rhodes coming out to check on Randy stretching him out of the building into the ambulance. Michael Cole and Corey Graves on commentary.

I mean, they really put this over in a big way because we don't see pile drivers on WWE television unless you were Kane or the Undertaker. You know, the tombstone was the closest thing that we got banned the move in the early two thousands, and very, very seldomly did we see one. The last time was twenty thirteen. It's a great match between CM Punk and John Cena Raw and Punk gave sena pile driver in that match,

and they got a lot of heat for that. But you know, when you don't do something, or you don't abuse it, and then you finally do it, it means more. It's far more effective. That goes for anything, that could go for blood, that could go for cussing, that could go for weapons. You know, we see that stuff all the time everywhere else, to the point where you're just

numb to it. So a simple pile driver here, they can turn it into a serious injury angle and that should lead to Cody Rhoades now defending the WWE Championship at Survivor Series against Kevin Owens coming out of that show, you could do Orton against Owens on Saturday Night's Main Events, since we never actually got the match at Crown Jewel, but the official storyline diagnosis for Orton is cervical cord neuropraxia.

I wonder which one of the writers looked that up in the dictionary when they were figuring out what to call it. One day after TKO announced it's quarterly earnings, Endeavor President and COO Mark Shapiro, in an interview with CNBC's Alex Sherman, was asked about Vince McMahon, who was still under federal investigation for now, not likely for much longer, and Shapiro revealed that he actually had breakfast with McMahon recently, just to check in, coming off the Netflix docu saries

on him that dropped. He said he had not heard from Vince in a while and he wanted to see where he was with everything. That makes me nervous. No, no, stay away, keep away, He said. McMahon has some litigation that he is working through. Well, isn't that the understatement of the century. Yeah, he's got a little bit of litigation that he's working like, he's been sued for copyright infringement.

He's got a couple of parking tickets, he's got some litigation that he's working through, and frankly, he said he wants the privacy and the time to work through it, which is great because in the meantime we're going to keep building TKO and WWA. He could not have been more cooperative, He could not have been nicer. I mean, he was a total pro at breakfast if you will, Yes, he is the world breakfast eating champion, total pro. He

reiterated that Vince is out of the business. He does not make decisions, he's not on the board, he does not opine. They don't consult him for anything. Let's keep it that way. I'll just say this, if the government plans to indict this man, or if they planned to indict him sometime next year, I think that's pretty much out the window now. The US Attorney in the Southern District of New York is a presidential appointee, so I assume the new president can replace him with somebody else,

should he choose to do so. The Janelle Grant lawsuit, though that's a separate issue. I'm talking about any charges that the Justice Department might want a file because remember they serve Vince with a federal grand jury subpoena. They executed a search warrant on this man's home, they took his phone, and then they went to Janelle Grant's lawyers and they asked her to pause her lawsuit until December eleventh, which is coming up quick. We'll see if they ask

her to extend that pause. But Janelle Grant is free to do whatever she wants. She wants to pursue this case. You know, her lawsuit against Vince McMahon, she can continue to do that. That's a civil suit, that's not anything criminal or federal. But if I'm Vince McMahon, I'm breathing a lot easier today than I would have been a week ago. Now. Shapiro, in that same interview, also revealed that the advertising slots for Raw on Netflix. A lot of people have been asking about ads on Netflix. Are

they going to have ads? Are they're not going to have ads? He said, starting in January, all the ad slots are already filled up. So for anybody wondering the answer to that, the answer is yes. But I think some people were holding out hope that that might not be the case, they've already sold their spots and the ads are ready to roll, according to Shapiro, he did say starting in year two, they're going to be able to use personalized advertising, so focusing basically on users based

on data as opposed to just more general ads. They don't have the ability to do that right now, but starting in year two they plan to have a much more targeted way to deliver ads to people that are relevant to each user. Dave Meltzer broke the news this week that two of Paul Levek's right hand men behind the scenes in WWE have been sidelin, Bruce Pritchard and Michael Hayes. They are both said to be on temporary leave,

he says. According to the company, Pritchard's absence is due to a family emergency, while Hayes is said to be out due to personal reasons. He's apparently been missing for weeks only now it got out. He's usually the point person as agents go for all of Roman Reigns' matches, a lot of the bloodline stuff, and obviously Paul Hayman is heavily involved in the bloodline stuff as well. He was not on the trip though, of Saudi Arabia Michael Hayes,

but again he's been missing for a while now. Mike Johnson, a PW insider, added to this and said that both are still with the company. The Hayes absence is believed to be medical in nature, which also caused him to pull out of this weekend's big event convention on Long Island, and with Pritchard, there has been no change in his status with the company other than he is not expected back at least until the end of November, if not longer.

Because when the new this first broke that Prichard and Hayes were gone, you know, some people were immediately just assuming that that meant that they were gone gone, you know, like the acts had fallen on two more members of the old regime. If the new regime didn't want anybody from the old regime around, then they would have been gone after Vince left, like Kevin done. Now, he didn't

get fired. Kevin Dunn opted to leave, but he saw the writing on the wall and he got the hell out of there, and the shows had been better off for it. The Triple H likes Bruce, that's why he keeps him around. He's like a comfortable old shoe. So really, there's nothing to see here. If you hear about this and again, you're gonna hear people who were, oh, this means they're gone, and you know, what's the real story here. That's the real story. There's nothing to see here. And

Meltzer did break the news first. But this was not a good week for Dave Meltzer. We got to talk about this. This has not been a good year for day Meltzer, let alone a good week, but this was one of his more embarrassing weeks. He started the week on Monday by tweeting twenty twenty five Backlash will be at the Tokyo Dome. Now, I'm sure the minute that he saw Tokyo Dome he did a happy dance and

he couldn't wait to break the news. The problem is what he saw was a fan made fake logo for Backlash Japan, which was posted by a spoof Twitter account called wessel Votes. Evidently he thought it was Wrestle Votes.

It was not Wrestle Votes, it was wessel Votes. I'm not sure what's worse the fact that he fell for a fake Wrestle Votes account, the fact that he posted without giving credit to the original source, which made it seem like he was breaking the news himself, or the fact that he didn't bother to verify the news before he tweeted that out to his three hundred thousand followers. He clearly he doesn't have the sources that he used

to have in that company. But you mean to tell me something as big as that, if you're gullible enough to fall forward in the first place, that you can't pick up the phone and call somebody or text somebody who works there to verify that. Nine minutes later after he posted that, he posted a follow up tweet, and both tweets have been deleted as far as I could tell, But he said backlash tweet apparently was a fake. Yeah, no shit, Dave. Apparently he never linked to or quote

tweeted the original tweet anyway. So someone who follows him and not wessel votes, I sound like fucking Elmer Fudd every time I say that. Somebody who follows him and not wessel votes would not even have any idea what he's talking about in that follow up tweet, Like what tweet are you referring to your own? The one tweet that is still up. He posted a third tweet to tell us that he confirmed with WWE that the Tokyo Dome thing was a fake. It was your tweet. Oh,

I gotta be careful. I can't laugh. I can't laugh or the stitches might come out. You tweeted it. Of course it was fake. What has happened to this man? He should have put his phone down for the rest of the week for that alone. But a few days later, the ratings came out on Thursday for the NXT Dynamite head to head. Both shows went head to head on Wednesday night. Okay, so NXT got bumped out of its usual time slot and they were head to head from eight to ten pm. And as I predicted, and I'm

sure I wasn't the only one. NXT, even though it was not in its regular night, they invaded aw's turf on Wednesday, and they actually beat them. Remember when Dynamite ran on Tuesday last month, they got absolutely shell ackt NXT runs on their night and they still get shrounched AW does, although not as badly as they did last month. Last month was just an annihilation. This wasn't an annihilation per se, but they got beat on their own night.

NXT averaged six hundred and nineteen thousand viewers on the CW network and an zero point one seven rating in the coveted eighteen to forty nine demo, as compared to Dynamite in its regular timeslot, which averaged five hundred and twenty three thousand viewers on TBS with an zero point one six rating as opposed to an zero point one seven rating in eighteen to forty nine. Now, neither number

is anything to saying home about that. That goes for NXT. Also, okay, it's like fighting over the ugliest girl in the class. But that AW rating it ties the second lowest eighteen to forty nine number in the history of the show. Overall, it was the lowest rating in the history of the show. Five years of Dynamite. That is the low point. There's no two ways about it. That is embarrassing for AAW. It's like having home field advantage in getting beat by

the visiting team. Don't tell that to Dave Meltzer. He felt compelled to defend AW against some random person on Twitter, and I swear this is what he said. If I worked at TBS, I would say that AW one Warner Brothers Discovery when it does internal ratings. It's based on eighteen to forty nine as a percentage of homes that get the station. I've seen copies in the standings how they would have it, which is the statistically fair way to look at it, It would be zero point three

nine to zero point three eight. But I don't work at TBS. No you don't. And I wish I could believe him when he says something like I've seen copies a few years ago, I wouldn't have even questioned it. If he said that he had seen something, Okay, then

he must have seen something. But after the internal memo debacle a couple of months back, where he claimed to have seen an internal Warner Brothers memo on the total value of aw programming, which turned out to be an Excel spreadsheet some fan drafted and shared on a discord which he saw. After that, I have to question everything the man says, even when he claims to have seen copies. What did he see? What did he see a PowerPoint presentation put together by at my Harry Ball's itch me

on Blue Sky? What did he see? By the way that internal memo gaff it happened the same week that he tweeted that Afa of the Wild Samoans was dead while he was actually still alive. But it doesn't help his cause with those people who think he's in the tank for aw when they get their ass kicked, and his first response is to say, but if I were TBS, I would say they actually want But it gets even

worse then. In this week's newsletter, he wrote about Dutch Mantel. Now, for those who don't know, Dutch has not been doing very well. He's been in and out of the hospital for much of the past year. Although he's back home right now, he has not been able to do his podcast, although I think he's supposed to be getting back to that. That's really all he's been able to do. His wife is also very sick. She's been hospitalized eleven times since May. She's maxed out her days in the hospital that her

insurance will cover. Their daughter, Amanda, has exhausted her own savings trying to keep the bills paid. It's just a really bad situation for that family all around. Right now, there's a GoFundMe set up for them that has so far raised over ninety five thousand dollars on a goal of one hundred k. So people have really responded, They've really come out in the wrestling community to support them.

So Dave posted about it in the Observer. Great brings more attention to what's going on, and it is newsworthy. And if that's all he would have posted, then nobody would have said a word. But after mentioning all of that and the GoFundMe, Melter continued. He singled out Tony Khan and Chris Jericho as the top donors to the campaign, which is fine. Tony Kahn donated five grand, so did Jim Cornett and his wife. Jericho donated fifteen hundred bucks.

Jericho is a name that you see constantly in these wrestler gofundmees. He's always, you know, donating to wrestlers who are in need of one thing or another. So, I mean, there's nothing wrong with mentioning who the top donors were, but it's very interesting that he singled out Tony Khan and Chris Jericho but not Jim Cornett and Stacy Coronett, since I know Coronett hates Dave's guts now and constantly

bashes him. But he mentioned con and Jericho, and he can tell with this with con, Many have pointed out that Mantel as a podcaster was brutal to con. First of all, many have pointed out, who is this many that he speaks of. It's like when someone says, you know, many people are saying about something, when in reality, absolutely nobody is saying that. The voices in your fucking head

are saying it anyway, he says. Many have pointed out that Mantel as a podcaster was brutal to con even being critical of him when the promotion was at its popularity peak, and recently criticized him for the contract term

swerve Strickland got in his recent deal. It is something when a former wrestler gets mad at a promoter who clearly can afford it for what he pays the top talent, and he was doing it after he knew the new deal was put together that was going to make the company exceedingly profitable wrestlers using the old old school he doesn't draw money and not understanding that this is not a mom and pop week to week business based on live event numbers, but one that in a worst case

scenario year would generate two hundred and fifty million dollars next year and that most of that revenue is guaranteed ahead of time. How did he go for mentioning Dutch Mantel almost died twice, his wife is sick and there's a GoFundMe to help them to kicking the man when he's down for saying something negative about AW and Tony Kahan and rambling on in defense of their new television deal. How did we get from point A to point B

like that? This is what I'm talking about. He does not do himself any favors when it comes to people talking about him being on the payroll there, and for the record, I don't think he is, but he sure acts like it sometimes, doesn't he. I also thought it was tacky as fuck for him to tack that on, and there was no reason for him to even go into that whole diatribe there at the end of the paragraph. What was the point in even bringing that up to show what a great guy Tony Khan is? What is

he is? Pr person? Because Dutch has had criticisms at times of AW on his podcast, so is everybody else. What does that have to do with anything? It's just fucking weird. Today's episode is sponsored by Betterhelp I have to take a moment here at the top to shout out a member of my family, my aunt Barbara. She has sent over some vegetable soup. It has been a godsend. It is one of the only things I can eat right now. But every November when Thanksgiving rolls around, her

food is just off the charts. Everybody loves her food. This month is all about gratitude, and along with my aunt, there's someone else that we don't get to think enough ourselves. It's sometimes hard to remind our that we're trying our best to make sense of everything and in a very uncertain world. Trust me, that is not easy. So here's a reminder to send some thanks to the people in your life, including yourself. Therapy can help improve your life

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com slash Solo Monster. We're still three weeks away from Survivor series, but we have the wargame's main event already set. It will be og Bloodline against the New Bloodline. As we saw on TV this week, we had Roman Reins, Sammy's Ain, Jimmy, and Jay Uso all in the ring together on SmackDown on Friday Night, and Sammy's ain made it clear that what happened to Crown Jewel when he kicked Roman Reigns in the face that was an accident and he was willing to let the past stay in

the past. He was ready to get the band back together on one condition. He wanted one thing out of Roman Reigns. He wanted him to apologize, not to him, but to Jay Uso. We're all a crap that he put j through because Jay is a friend of Sammy's. So Roman would apologize to Jay, he'd throw the ones up and we can get the band back together. Roman Reigns could not even bring himself to do that, and he ranted about how he's not family. Why do you care about him? I don't care about him. I want Solo,

Solo Socoa, get your ass out here. I want Solo and Sammy walked off and it looked like Roman was going to alienate every single member of his family because Sammy walked away from him, Jay walked away from him, Jimmy walked away from him in the back. Later, Roman was all by himself and that led to a ceremony in the main event. It was Solo Sokoa bringing out his boys and he was going to have some kind of tribal chief acknowledgment ceremony. Roman Reigns came out. He

was all by himself. Roman issued a challenge to Solo. Solo said, no, we're not going to do that, but he mentioned war and Roman said, way are you talking war games? And he was a little confused because he only got four guys out here. Normally it's five on five. Solo said, well you got me, you got Jacob, you got Tomatonga, you got Tongaloa and my fifth guy, my boy, Sammy's ain walked out on stage. And then when Roman had to go it alone against the Solo and his crew,

here comes Jimmy and Jay. They blow right past Sammy. They come out try to make the save. This all led to Sammy being summoned into the ring by Solo Sokoa to kick Roman in the face again, only Sammy kicked Solo in the face instead, And when we got to the end of the show, it was Roman and Sammy and Jimmy and Jay alone in the ring. Jay, Jimmy, they put their fingers up in the air. Sammy puts his finger up in the air. It all comes down

to Roman reigns. What is he going to do? He throws up the ones and we got the original bloodline minus the Wise Man back together. Wargames is set four on four. It doesn't have to be five on five. It doesn't make any sense for it to be five on five. You add anybody else to this match, it is going to be tacked on for the sake of tacking and on all the players are accounted for. You don't need to add anybody else. Four on four is

absolutely fine. We've had war games matches in this company before, going back to the NXT days that were three on three on three. It doesn't matter what format you come up with. You got your eight guys, that's all you need. But I will say this, now that we have reached this point finally where we have the bloodline reunited, that doesn't mean that everything is going to be rock solid between them because we still have many more weeks of TV.

There could still be some trouble in Paradise with the Ogs. But we got to this point, it still felt rushed. Even though you had to get here right in advance of Survivor series, you had to figure out a way to get to this point. I still think you could have dragged it out another couple of weeks, which is what I thought they were gonna do, you know, based

on what they did in the opening segment. I thought, but this is a perfect way to reintroduce Paul Hayman to television and try and have Paul Hayman be the one that tries to bring all four of these guys back together and then you can have this big dramatic segment where it finally happens and you only have two weeks left, let's say before Survivor series. They didn't do that. It's like they condensed two or three weeks worth of

television into one episode. But to me, that has been the story of this Bloodline reunion over the last couple of months. This is something I think that they could even should have started a little bit earlier than they did. Right, the blood Line was always episodic in nature. You know, some of the best blood Line segments involved these guys you know, in the back and in the ring, and you know, that's what made the Bloodline so much fun,

the chemistry that they had. So I think it would have been fun taking the time to see, Okay, we know where we're going here. It is predictable, but how are you going to get there? Right? That's the fun part. The fun part is getting there, And I feel like they kind of blew through some segments that they could have done. But we're here now. That's all that matters. We're here now, and how they're going to introduce Paul Hayman. Now, I don't know. Maybe he'll pop up before a Survivor series,

you know, we'll see. Could Sammy Zain end up turning against Roman Reigns at War Games? Could there be a big heel turn in the works. I don't think so, but yeah it's possible. I mean, this could go a million different ways. They could introduce a new bloodline member like a Hicculeo. You could have somebody turning. You could have Roman's cruse straight up win. And then maybe a Solo gets kicked out of his own bloodline by Jacob fought too. I mean, again, any number of ways that

this can go. One of the other issues I had with this, and again, this is something that from a story perspective just kind of annoys me. Look at what they did on Friday as an example. Okay, we'll use that since that was the most recent episode. Roman Reigns since he came back, has been wildly cheered by the audience. They chant OTC every week and he's selling OTC T shirts. Right, he's a big babyface, But is he really? Because what is different about Roman Reigns now as opposed to the

Roman Reigns that we saw in April at WrestleMania. Nothing outside of the fact that he doesn't have the title anymore. He's still the same arrogant, you know, kind of stubborn, bullheaded guy that he was before, who thinks the world revolves around him and he doesn't have to apologize or

answer for anything. He's never taken responsibility for treating people around him like shit, his own family, and the one time that somebody says to him, I want you to apologize, which is what Sammy z Ain told him, That's all I need you to do. Apologize to Jay, he couldn't

even bring himself to do that. And yet by the end of the night, it didn't matter because Sammy and Jay clearly they didn't have any problem with standing side by side with Roman reigns because there they were putting their fingers up in the air at the end of the show. So what did it all mean if they were steadfast and their convictions and this is really how they felt, right, Jay's like, I'm not gonna do this. If you don't treat me as an equal, you're not

going to disrespect me. I'm going to be out. Sammy making it clear what he wants out of this they never got any of that from Roman. In the end, they just caved or they just decided, well, we hate Solo more than we hate Romans, So the enemy of my enemy is my friend, you know that kind of thing. But I just think it's lazy storytelling. And lazy is not a word that I would use too often to describe the Bloodline stuff. I think that they have taken great care to plan a lot of this stuff out.

You could say lazy and that you know, there have definitely been times this year where the Bloodline stuff has felt recycled. A lot of the stuff, a lot of the beatdown angles with Solo's crew. It's like the same thing over and over again. But again, they take greater care creatively with this than any other storyline, any other super anything else in the company. It's all about the Bloodline. The Bloodline has been their golden goose now for the

last four years. They're gonna drag this stuff out for another four years if they can. They certainly have enough family members to pull it off. They're gonna ride this into the wheels fall off. But I just thought that was lazy. Why was it so easy for Sammy and Jay to stand down and just stand with Roman, why

did you have to do that on Friday. So again I'm not trying to be overly you know, critical of what they did, because it was a good segment and it got to where it needed to go, and at the end everybody was very happy to see everybody together. But it's okay to sit here and say, look, I enjoy this, but I can still pick apart this, this and this, this I thought could have been done better. This was lazy, This was that, Like, there's nothing wrong

with that. Not everything with the Bloodline stuff cooks. There is some things that are that are still uncooked. There's still some raw elements here to this story that you really shouldn't be eating unless you want to get salmonella. Okay, And maybe over these next few weeks on TV, maybe they'll answer some of those questions. Maybe we'll see a shift in Roman's attitude. Maybe there'll still be some drama

behind the scenes, you know that'll play out. But we have our war game's main event for a Survivor series. The other big news coming at a SmackDown on Friday. Outside of the Randy Orton Kevin Owens angle that I already talked about, earlier, Nick all this the general manager announced a brand new women's championship. This has been rumored for some time now. A brand new mid card women's

United States Championship is being introduced. And they showed the time title and it is as uncreative and unimaginative a design as you would expect. It is the same US title design that the men have. It's a smaller belt with a white strap and it says Women's on it. Look. I wish that they would be more creative with these designs, but you got to remember to them, it's all about brand consistency. We see it on raw. Look at the World heavyweight title for the men. What do the women have?

A smaller version of the World Heavyweight Championship but on a white strap, and I assume the word women or women's is on there somewhere. It's about consistency. I don't like it either, but that's why they do it. But this has been rumored for some time now, and we've

talked about this on the show. I've gotten questions about the introduction of a women's mid card title, and I kind of it's not just that I expected it, but I thought, if ever there was a time for them to introduce one that would make sense if they wanted to try it on the main roster. They tried it in NXT. We have the Women's North American Championship that

was only introduced in June. Hasn't been that long, but I almost feel like it was sort of a testing ground for what was to come with the main roster and now here we are. If anything, I'm a little surprised they're going with a US title and not a women's Intercontinental title, although that could still potentially happen, But that also goes to how is this going to work? Is this SmackDown exclusive? It was Nick Aldis who made the announcement. There was no Adam Pierce. There was no

mention in his speech about Monday Night Raw. I did go back, as I missed it the first time. I went back. When the segment was over, they cut to the announcers and Michael Cole did say raw and SmackDown. He specifically mentioned this as again I didn't write down the exact verbiage, but he did mention raw and SmackDown being a part of this. So based on that, it does sound like the title will float, and I like that I think that's the way to go. I said

that the other night. I said, I'm not sure which way they're going with it. I wish it would float. I wish it would be like the women's tag team titles, where you are allowed to defend it across different shows and it's not brand exclusive. Sounds like that's going to be the case now. If they were going to go the other way and have one title for each show, then it would be better to wait until the beginning of the year because Raw and SmackDown are expected to

both be going three hours. God help me, but it sounds like they're both going three hours in January, and when they do that, they're going to have to call up more women from NXT. If they don't call them up in January, they're gonna have to call them up shortly thereafter. They're going to need more faces. And if there is one thing that NXT has a lot of,

it is a surplus of female talent. Then it might make more sense to have an Intercontinental title on Raw and a US title on smack But one of the reasons I'm okay with them trying this, and I'm generally speaking, I'm not a fan of oversaturating these shows with championships. Right, We've seen this in WWE before. We see this right now in AW. Too many titles. The thing with AW is you have titles from fucking everywhere have AW titles, you have Ring of Honor titles, you have New Japan titles.

So there's so many belts and it's just ridiculous. One of the reasons I'm okay with them trying this, it might help them focus more on story when it comes to the women who are not involved directly with the World Championship. Right now, in Naya Jackson's orbit, she has lived. Morgan was just the wrestling her at Crown Jewel for

the Crown Jewel Championship. Right, that's over with now. So now Naya she still has Tiffany Stratton as her BFF, shadowing her and threatening to cash in everywhere she goes. Nya wrapped up a feud with Bailey, and now she's got this going. Oh she's gonna be wrestling Naomi coming up on SmackDown this week. All this stuff revolves around Nya and the Women's World Championship on SmackDown. Very few

times can you find a women's angle. Let's just stick with SmackDown here that does not revolve around the World Championship where they put any sort of real effort into it to make it interesting in any way. We just had a program with Chelsea Green and Michen I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it lit the world on fire, but it was nice to see them put effort into something that didn't involve Naya Jacks. Right. They paid it off in a dumpster match, made a

whole big deal about it. Chelsea walked around for weeks, you know, smelling like shit. It was something. But you have to come up with something for these other women to do, because not everybody is going to be challenging Nya Jacks. So what does everybody else do? Not much? Maybe this will help in that regard. Maybe this will force them into a situation where, okay, we have to come up with other things now for these other women

to do. If that means we have to give somebody else another title in order to do it, then so be it. Because you can add up all the championships you want. You could have a women's Intercontinental title, a women's US title, you can anything you want to. If you don't have good creative to back it up. It doesn't mean anything. Nobody cares, So who wins it? On Friday, when I thought it was going to be brand exclusive, I ran down the SmackDown Women's roster, which we'll do

again here real quick. Naya Jacks take her out because she's the world champion. Tiffany Stratton has the briefcase to cash in for a world title shot. I mean, there's no point in her cashing in for any other title. Charlotte Flair is going to be back any month now. She's writ in that timeframe where she should be all healed up. If she's not medically cleared, she will be soon. Just a matter of whether or not they're going to hold off on her for the Royal Rumble, because I

guarantee you she'll be back by then. So does Charlotte Flair go after this brand new US title? Oh you bet your ash will go after it at some point. Do I think you need to put the US title on her right now and have her as the first champion? Absolutely not, But she's still out right now. We'll put her on the side. You've got Bailey, You've got Naomi who is challenging for the world Championship this Friday. Bianca Bellair, Jade Cargill, Chelsea Green, Blair Davenport, who I assume is

still employed. I can't remember the last time I saw her, Candice Leray, Piper Niven, Mechen. You've got Beefab and you've got Electro Lopez. They don't wrestle, though I'm the main roster, at least not yet, so we'll put them on the side. I look at this roster, and if we're talking SmackDown only, you know who are the best options from the SmackDown side? I think to be a good first pick for US champion, I come up with three names, Naomi, Chelsea, and Metchen.

I like Chelsea. Chelsea Green for US champion would be my pick. If we're sticking to SmackDown only. If we're going to expand that out to raw, well now you have more options on the raw women's roster. Live Morgan is the women's World champion. Take her out, put her on the side. Raquel Rodriguez is her heavy right, her bodyguard, her backup, her insurance policy. Riquel. You got to consider Raquel as a very real possibility. Rhea Ripley is injured and even if she wasn't she's not wrestling for a

mid card title. Put her on the side. Eo Sky, I love Eo Sky. Eo Sky though is going to be challenging very soon for the women's world title, so we'll put her on the side. Kyrie saying Lyra Valkyria, Alba fire Isla, Dawn, Shana Basler, Zoe Stark, Sonya Deville, who I don't think has looked great at all since coming back, although we haven't seen much of her lately, Kayden Carter, Katana Chance, Zelina Vega, Natalia, Ivy Nile, Maxine Dupree. Scarlett doesn't wrestle for them, so we'll put her on

the side. Osca is injured, Dakota Kai is injured, and Keana James is injured. I think with the ACL that's the women's roster on Raw from Raw. If I had to pick three that stand out, I think you're looking at Raquel, Lyra, or Ivy Nile, and of those three, Lyra Valkeria would be my pick. They've toned down her push these last few months because she she got a little push there coming out of the gate. Becky Lynch before she left kind of tried to give her a

little bit of the rub they were doing segments together. Uh, but I think Lyra would be my pick from the raw side. I think also it would be better to go with the babyface to balance things out. You got two Heel Women's champions right now. You know, for how much longer I don't know, But right now you have two Heel Women's champions. So if you're going to crown a US champion, let's say in the next thirty days,

I think you want it to be a babyface. So that's why I would give the edge to Lyra over Chelsea. But those are the two names, one for each show. If I had to really kind of look at these rosters and say, who do I think would make a good first candidate for this, those are the two names that I come up with. But then there's another question here, how do you do it? They didn't announce anything as

far as how they're going to crown the champion. Is there going to be a tournament, Is there going to be a battle royal, Is there going to be a lottery? We don't know. Let's assume that the title floats. We're not going to get Adam Pearce showing up on Monday Night right tomorrow, and I to introduce an intercontinental title. If they have a title that floats, then I think a co branded tournament like the one they did for the World Heavyweight title last year would make sense where

they had talent from Raw and SmackDown. That that one actually did not make sense because that was exclusively a Raw title and they had SmackDown people wrestling for a Raw title with the idea that if they won, they would be forced to switch brands. I mean, it was weird, like that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Here, it would make more sense to do something like that.

Or I was thinking of a way to tie Survivor Series into this, and I would really love for them to do one traditional Survivor Series elimination match every year instead of just you know, doing away with the entire concept. This year. You can have each GM, and again this is just one idea. You can have each GM choose five ladies, or you can even make them qualify for

spots representing Raw and SmackDown. And I can't even believe I'm sitting here pitching brand warfare, which is funny coming from me, I know, but at least here there would be actual stakes, right, It wouldn't just be Raw versus SmackDown for brand loyalty, like who gives a fuck. At Least here there's something, there's something tangible at stake. So you get five women from Raw, five women from SmackDown, and whichever team wins those women in the match, it

doesn't even matter if all but one are eliminated. If their team wins. Let's say Raw wins, right, and Sonia Deville is the sole survivor. Raw would get to decide the first US champion among those five women, maybe in a five way match. Let's say a five way is Saturday Night's main event two weeks later. Maybe you could come up with something better, But I just I like the idea of tying Survivor Series into this in some way. I think that would be one way to do it.

Sewn Michaels. This week welcome Pro Wrestling Noah star Shiki in Amora to the Performance Center. As part of their working relationship with Noah, they sent aj Styles to Japan if you remember, for a match in July against Naomichi Marafuji. They also sent Tavian Heights of the No Quarter Catch Crew and Josh Briggs to Noah to compete in their N one tournament. They let Shinsky Nakamura work a match with the Great Mooda two years ago and their New

Year's Show. In fact, they're sending Knakamura back to Noah again for their New Year's Show against Lka Sasaki. It's not like Nakamura has been doing anything on WWE television. He's just waiting for the New Year so he can go back to Japan. So there's been a lot going on between the two companies. A little bit of background here in Amora. He is thirty two years old, he's been pro for six years. He is considered a powerhouse type of wrestler. He's also competed for Progress Wrestling this year.

This is not a situation where he's signing with NXT and joining full time. It's more like an excursion where he's coming to the US to works a little bit with NXT. I would assume he'll work with NXT for a little bit and then go back to Pro Wrestling Noah. Michael's tweeted, I'm excited to welcome Pro Wrestling Noah star Yoshiki Inamora to NXT. This hard hitting young man is going to be a problem for anyone he steps in the ring with. I look forward to growing NXT's partnership

with Noah in the future. I just love the fact that in the last few years WWE has had more of an open borders policy. They have been more open to working with other promotions, even ones with TV, which they never were before. They were very isolationists in a lot of ways. Now that their business is booming the way that it is, they have even less incentive to work with other people if they don't want to. But the fact that they're doing it anyway, I think is

a great thing. NXT held its show at the ECW Arena this week. If you missed it, I did a rare live review. Since the show is on a Wednesday, I opt for that over Dynamite. You could find the full review, the videos up on YouTube, the audios up here on the feed where you're listening to this right now. I enjoyed the show for what it was. I know it got a very mixed reaction. I think it was mostly positive, but kind of a mixed reaction. I think if you were watching it strictly as an ECW tribute show.

It missed the mark. It was pretty lame. But that's not what this was. That's not what this was really meant to be. This was, you know what this was. This was an attempt to profit off the corpse of ECW by drawing an audience for a road show in Philadelphia. First and foremost, that's number one. What this was Number two. They wanted to also use the ECW name and use some ECW alumni to endorse certain hand picked NXT stars like Trick Williams, like Javon Evans. You have raised somebody's

hand or help put somebody through a table. That was the purpose. That was the whole. It wasn't to hey, you know, for two hours, we're gonna shine a spotlight on how great ECW was. It's like, all right, look, we want to take the show on the road. We're going to run this venue. This venue is known, you know for all those old classic ECW shows. How can we use this to our advantage. So we'll do the most basic, bare bones type of tribute that we can

think of. We'll call in Bubba Rat and Devon and RVD and Nunzio and Francine and we'll have them wave and everybody will be happy. And that's what it was. But it wasn't even about them. It was about the NXT stars that they're trying to build. RVD didn't even do anything physical. I do wonder if he was hurt and he just wasn't allowed to because even in the back they did a segment where he got laid out

by Wes Lee, they wouldn't show it. You heard share shots off camera when they showed him he was laying on the ground. He never he never did anything physical, even when he came out to the ring later. So I don't know what was going on with RVD. But again, the focus was not meant to be on those guys. But my big takeaway from that show on Wednesday was there is absolutely no reason that they cannot run smaller

venues like this on the road once a month. I love the show they did in Saint Louis last month. I thought the atmosphere on Wednesday in Philadelphia at the Arena was great. I love the look of it too. It even just had kind of a distinct look to it with the lighting and everything. It didn't look like your typical week to week n XT show. No reason they can't do that. Once a month, you spend most of your time still at the PC. That's home base.

You got your hometown audience there. Once a month you take the show on the road Chicago, Philadelphia, Fucking Vegas, California, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, wherever, Atlanta. And I don't mean regular NBA arenas. I mean like smaller, more intimate venue. Use a thousand people, you know, eight hundred people, fifteen hundred people. It really does. It creates a very unique atmosphere for the show that you cannot

find on Mondays or Fridays. And per Mike Johnson of PW Insider, in speaking to several NXT talents, they were blown away by the atmosphere at the NXT Arena or ECW Arena twenty three hundred and hope the company would return there at some point, even if just for live events. We are told that all of the ECW originals were

happy to give advice to anybody who asked. The company specifically went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art Steps where Rocky was filmed, the Liberty Bell, the former Tony Luke's and Gino's Cheese Steaks, as well as down by the Pier to give the show a different flavor and lean into the Philadelphia history. The hope among talents is that they will do similar shoots and tapings in other cities.

One talent specifically pointed out the Hammerstein Ballroom as a place they would like to see NXT visit in the future. You and me both. I've been saying that for months. I said it again on Wednesday, in fact, during my review, and I'm not surprised as some of the talents want to run there. I will tell you something may be coming to Hammerstein very soon, and it's not NXT, but it should. At some point in the future. NXT should

run there. But let's talk about aw I opted to review NXT live on Wednesday and talk about Dynamite here on the podcast. I don't really think it was a good or bad choice one way or the other looking back, although I will say one of the reasons I did not bother with the NXT live reviews even before I started doing TNT on Tuesdays with JD was that people

just didn't seem to care. You know, when I did the occasional live review, it would always have the weakest numbers of all the streams that I did that hasn't changed. That's one of the reasons why so you wanted to know why. It's just the interest level was just never there for NXT and still isn't as compared to Raw SmackDown and even Dynamite. Even if you think NXT is the better show, which I don't always agree with. I'm not as in love with the current NXT as some

people are. But I did watch the show on Wednesday. I enjoyed it for what it was. But let's talk about Dynamite. We got our first Hurt Syndicate promo acknowledged by that name on TV for the first time, and I noticed the fans treated them, even MVP, like they were big, big stars and they love Bobby Lashley. If the Hurt Syndicate offers you their business card, consider it your golden ticket to success. That was MVP's message, and

if you reject it, this is what happens. And they showed their attack on Swerve Strickland from the previous week. That brought out Swerve, who had a very simple, very angry message while he was being held back in the aisleway. Bobby Lashley full gear an MVP accepted the challenge, so it was a simple segment to make the match official for the pay per view. The Hurt Syndicate. You know, they still have that new car smell. Fans are reacting to them like a big deal. We'll see how long

that lasts. Orange Cassidy and Darby Allen the two true defenders of aw and this war with the Death Riders as they're now being called for reasons that remain unexplained. No more BCC. Did you notice, by the way, they've got a traditional Titan Tron video for their entrance. Now, all the people who have been begging for old school Titan Tron entrance videos and wrestling again, that is one cool thing they did with this group. If you didn't see it, go back and check it out. You'll see

it again, probably on Wednesday this week. It's like a full fledged Titan Tron video showing them up different people, says Death Rider on Death Riders on the big screen, Cassidy and Darby. They beat Claudio and Pack by disqualification. I assume the referee got kicked out of the ring and the match just sort of ended when Marina Shaffir

and Wheeler DA got involved. John Moxley showed up choked out Orange Cassidy, who he is defending his title against the Full Gear, the title that we never see anymore. We presume it's locked away in that briefcase that Marina carries around with them everywhere. Darby tried to save with his skateboard. He got wiped out though, and in the end, the conglomeration of Mark Briscoe, Kyl O'Reilly, Rocky Romero and Tombohiro is she hit the ring and the Heels retreated.

They weren't beating the death Riders clean here and the non finish it was not a crowd pleaser. Yeah, but the Death Riders are not supposed to beat crowd pleasers. They're supposed to piss you off. They're supposed to get heat, and so in that way, they're at least trying to do that. You had people cheering for Lashley an MVP

in the opening segment. I mean, you don't want that with these guys, right, they're gonna they're cheering the Hurt Syndicate, who are feuding with Swerve, who up until at least recently was one of the biggest baby faces in the company. So, yeah, do you really want John Moxley coming out of being cheered when he beats the fuck out of Evil Luno, even though I would share him if I were in the crowd, I'd be cheering for him, But I don't think that's the right reaction that you want to go for.

The Conglomeration stayed out there because up next we had a Fight Without Honor, with the Conglomeration taking on the Ring of Honor World Champion Chris Jericho, Big Bill and Brian Keith. We were barely two minutes into this match, and is She already put Jericho through a table. Typical hardcore shit, not unlike the opening match on NXT this week, but at least there. I know they did it because it was an ECW theme show. They were paying homage

to ECW. This is basically every week on Dynamite. That was a theme show for NXT. This is your typical Wednesday on TBS. But I will say as hardcore matches go, this one was much better than the one with Lola Ice and Jada Parker on NXT. And it ended with ees She dropping Jericho with a brainbuster and pinning him. So that's going to be the match, if not for Full Gear. I mean, I know typically they've got final Battle coming up in December, but that's going to be

the next ROH World title match. Jericho against eh G. I wonder who will win. And then we had Adam Cole against Malachi Black. I watched this match and I could not help but feel sad I had forgotten about their match at Takeover in Philadelphia. I asked the question a couple of weeks ago, you know, have these guys haven't had a match before. I just couldn't remember. I thought it had to happen in NXT, but I couldn't

remember where or when it happened. It was in Philadelphia at Takeover back in twenty eighteen, and I think part of the reason why I didn't remember it is because when I think of that Takeover Philadelphia's show, I instantly always think of Johnny Gargano against Andrade, which is one of the greatest NXT matches of all time, and it overshadowed everything else on that show for me. But I

went back and I watched that match. WWE had posted it some time ago, the full match on their YouTube channel, and I'm watching these guys and watching them pre injury because they have both had serious injuries since then. Watching Malachi Black when he was still super over and he had big star written all over him, like everybody was talking Tommy en Man, he's gonna, you know, he's gonna go to WWE. He's gonna be the next big thing, and for the longest time in NXT he was. They

gave him that spectacular entrance. He had great music, I mean, the stuff with him and Velveteen Dream, that great little feud they had. Ah. I mean, you could just tell this guy was a huge star in the making. And you look at that and you remember that, and you see how he's been used in aew you know, seeing what a great match these two had and how hot the crowd was for it back then, and then watching this where the crowds sat on their hands outside of you know, some of the big spots sat on their

hands and were completely quiet. And the reason they were quiet is because I thought the match was pretty boring and plotting for the most part. I mean, this should have felt like a much bigger and it just wasn't. I also hated that Adam Cole kicked out of the end kick. They had protected that finish so the fact that Cole kicked out of it. You would think the crowd would react big, like holy shit, he kicked out of the kick. Not only did they barely react to it,

you could hear some people booing. I was one of those people. I wasn't in the building, but I was booing. And I guarantee you that the booing. And again not everybody was booing, but the booing that was not the reaction they were hoping for. The dead silence was not the reaction they were hoping for. They tried to tell a story here. Early on, Black had the chance to target the surgically repaired ankle. He refused. He refused to take the easy route. He didn't want to take a shortcut.

Later on, he hit the end, Cole kicked out and when Black tried to get to his feet, he couldn't and he collapsed back to the mat. So instead he sat cross legged and he basically allowed Adam Cole to hit him with the boom Finish me off, put me out of my misery, which he did, and Adam Cole pinned Malachi Black. Not much of a reaction to that either.

After the match, Cole thanked him and offered a handshake, Black hugged him instead, and then as Black was heading up the ramp, Cole put him over as one of the best that he's ever been in the ring with, and the crowd gave Malachi a very nice ovation. This felt a little like maybe he was on his way out, you know, whether his career was gonna end. I didn't look at it as his career might be over. I looked at it as, you know, gee, I wonder if

he's on his way out of the company. And so I can't fault people for coming away with that impression if they watched this, and believe me, people did, and Malachi noticed, and it upset him to the point that he posted a video on Instagram about it to refute the rumors, and in the video he said, I'm not injured,

nor am I retiring, nor am I leaving. I feel this happens every match I have, and I don't understand how many times you're going to say these things and then them not happening and people are still going to fall for that. I have not been injured in more than three years, and I'm referring to my back injury, of course, and I only posted about that after it was already done, and if you would have read the post, you would have seen that and not read what other

people have written about it. I'm fine. I've been fine for the longest time. I would really appreciate it if that stuff stops. If I'm going to retire, you're going to hear it from me, and not after Adam just cuts a promo as a thank you for the match, because that's all it was, so thank you. I think he should be happy that people even give a shit anymore. Honestly, he's been mostly a non factor in this company for the past three years. And I'm not saying that's all

his fault. I'm not saying that some of it isn't, but I'm not saying that's all his fault. Like he said, he had a very serious back injury for while that was years ago, though that does not explain why he is not doing more than they have him doing. That does not explain why if he wasn't hurt, Tony Kahn had him doing trios and tags and hardly any singles matches. He is not a tag team wrestler. I know he's been part of a tag team. I don't mean that like literally, But I don't look at him as a

tag team wrestler. He's not a tag team wrestler. He's not a trios wrestler. He built his name on the independent scene and in WWE as a singles wrestler, and as a singles wrestler, he gained the most notoriety in his career as Alistair Black. When he first came to AW, he pinned Cody Rhoads in his debut. He squashed him in under five minutes. It wasn't a squash in the way that Brody Lee beat Cody for the TNT title.

But when you pin Cody Rhoads in four and a half minutes or whatever it was, that's about as close to a squash as you can get. And you know what happened after that. He pinned him again at Grand Slam. His run there got off to a very promising start and then it just fell off a cliff And maybe that's when the back injury came into play. I don't know the timetable on that, but ever since then he has been a total non factor. And all of the people who thought when he came in, this guy has

world champion potential. What a loss for WWA. Those people have been made to look like complete fucking idiots, and I'll own it because I was one of those people. So yes, I can understand why he would be frustrated that fans keep writing him off, thinking that this is the end for him, But the fact that he even still has fans that are that invested to even care, he should be thankful for that. You know, he dances around it every time he posts a video like this.

He did this once before it he said, I don't know, I don't know why I'm not doing more singles matches. I'm not the guy you need to be asking that question. That was basically his answer. Don't look at me. He basically said, talk to Tony Khan without actually coming out and saying talk to Tony Khan. Here he says, I'm not hurt. I haven't been hurt. I haven't been hurt in more than three years. But he can't come out and say anything more than that because he works for

Tony and Tony is the one booking him. I get it. I get it. Yeah, gotta come out and shit on your boss. But it's frustrating for the fans to see all of the potential that he had to be a top guy just get flushed down the toilet. Jim Ross, just this week on his podcast, said that his last conversation with Malachi a couple of pay per views ago, he didn't straight up say it to JR. But he detected that Black was, as he put it, he was

a little dis enchanted. Yeah, you don't say. I'd be a little more than disenchanted if I were in his boots, but I'm not. So I'm not gonna waste my time protesting over this anymore. But that that lack of consistency, and that lack of any real, any kind of real singles push is why you felt the indifference that the audience had during most of this match, Because had his career gone a different way, had he gone right instead of left, I don't mean, you know, like not coming

to AW. I mean in AW, had Tony taken him right instead of left, or left instead of right, maybe today we'd be sitting here watching Dynamite and a Malachi Black. Adam colemagined Malachi Black would be on the level of someone like a Kenny Omega the way he's pushed, or an MJF or a Will Osprey the way they're pushed or even to swerve. You know, he never got that chance. At the very beginning. Again, it looked very promising and he ended up going a different way. And I don't

think it's because of a lack of talent. I don't think it's because he was exposed. He's not as good as people said he was. I think he is, it just didn't go that way. The reaction in this match would have been very, very different though, because he would have been a very different type of star for them. But now he is where he is, and that indifference that I mentioned, it's more than just Adam Cole against Malachi Black. It's not just an Adam Cole against Malachi

Black problem. That's a problem with AW in general right now. So Cole has now beaten Buddy Matthews and Malachi Black, you would think that he would need to just beat Brody King now to get his match with MJF at full gear. But you would be wrong. Not only is he not wrestling Brody King, they're changing the entire stipulation that MJF laid out a few weeks ago. Here Cole said that he's got one win left to go and

Roderick Strong, right, his good friend. He's got two more wins to go with the idea that if they both can get to three consecutive victories, what happens then Well, he talked to Tony Kahan and at full gear, it would be a triple threat match with Adam Cole, Roderick Strong and MJF. And he's guaranteed to get the ass kicking of a lifetime courtesy of the Undisputed Kingdom. Let me ask you a question, why would it be a triple threat match and not a handicapped match? Aren't they

both interested in the same thing? He just said it in the promo. MJF is guaranteed the ass kicking of a lifetime courtesy of the Undisputed Kingdom. They're both interested in the same thing. They're both part of the same group, right, they both want to kick mjf's ass. There's no title on the line. Why would it even be billed as a triple threat so it would be a fucking handicap match. Why is Roderick Strong even involved in this? I don't

give a shit about Roderick Strong against MJF. The story is MJF and Adam Cole so this whole thing is a mess. Originally it was Cole and Roddy would each have the chance to win three matches, and whoever reached three wins first would get MJF in the ring at full gear, which is why I've been saying for weeks. It's gonna come down to MJF forcing Adam Cole and Roderick Strong to wrestle each other, and the winner of

that match would wrestle MJF at full gear. So either Max misspoke, which I don't think he did, or they just changed the direction of mid storyline. You know, a triple threat probably means Roddy would be turning on Adam Cole, But a triple threat also means that Adam Cole is going to have to win his next match, and his next match is going to be against the international champion Kenoskate Takeshta, the same Kenoskate Takeshta who lost on Dynamite this week. He got pinned in the main event by

Ricochet in a tag team match. So you're gonna have Takeshta eat two losses back to back weeks. The only acceptable outcome then, if you're going to beat him is to have the Callous Family get involved with the DQ because if they pinned Takeshta two weeks in a row,

then I want what Tony Kahan is smoking. I should also note that after Call one, they cut to a pre tape of MJF from inside his evil Layer at home, all upset, and he pulled out his phone and he dialed somebody and he told this mystery person, I need you to pay someone a visit. And my first thought was it's Wardlow, isn't it. Oh, God, tell me they're not just going to end up putting Award Love back with MJF after all this. I'll tell you who it

should be. It should be mjf's lawyer paying Tony Kahna visit to show him the outclause in his contract so that he can get the hell out of there. I like the j White Hangman Page segment. Hangman crashed his backstage interview with Renee. They fought out into the arena.

Page was going to hit him with a chair. Juice Robinson made the save, and as Hangman scurried into the crowd, Jay White cut a promo and he pointed out Hangman's gimpy leg that he has been limping around on and he said that would be his undoing and maybe he'll even be the first man to make the hangman tap out. See a simple story, nothing convoluted, and I'm looking forward to the rematch because their last match was great. What was not great was the segment with Chris Statlander and

Mercedes Monete. Statlander was being interviewed backstage by Renee, which apparently is a very dangerous thing to be doing. She finished and walked away, and as Renee was winding down the segment, she reacted to something off camera. We saw Statlander was on the ground having just narrowly avoided death. She was almost hit by an suv being driven by Camille, with Mercedes sitting in the passenger seat, and Mercedes yells at Camille from missing Statlander and said she can't do

anything right. She goes, are you stupid? Or are you dumb? So Camille exited to go after Statlander, and Statlander meanwhile pulls Mercedes out of the suv. Statlander and Camille they briefly got into it until Chris slammed the door on Camille's arm, and then she slammed Mercedes onto the hood and that was that Statlander is going to challenge Mercedes at full gear for the TBS title, and the pairing between Mercedes and Camille is dead in the water. That

only took three months. Good job. If Camille had any kind of special aura about her when she first showed up, she definitely doesn't have it now. Then again, I could say the same thing for Mercedes. We had Christian Cage and the patriarchy out with security in the aisle to prevent Hook from getting to them should he show up. He welcomed Kip Sabian to the family. That's like Fritz welcoming Lance van Erik into the family. So Christian played

the video of Sabian stealing his pen. For those of you, I'm sure many of you don't even know this or remember this, but a while back he was about to cash in his World Championship contract. Christian was when Kip Sabian ran out, stole his pen before he could sign the contract, and ran off with this. Christian chased after him, and the camera followed them and as soon as Christian got to the back, he saw the BCC standing there and he realized. So now he realizes in that moment

why Sabian did what he did. He saved Christian because the BCC likely would have interfered and cost him his World Championship shop. So Christian said, in that moment, Sabian did more for him than any of his other sons ever have. And he was glaring at Nick Wayne as he said this. So now we see the Hook signal up in the up and up in the rafters. He comes out on stage and Hook said, whatever it is that Christian has to say, make it good and make

it fast. I don't have a lot of patience. Christian said. Hook is a wild card with crazy eyes. He's an ass kicker. He needs a son like him. He says, he realized that if he was going to be his son, he needed Taz out of the picture. He took out Taz with a lead pipe to the leg, and he pointed out that Taz got a good look at his face, so he knew who attacked him. And yet he questioned why Taz didn't just tell his son who did it? Why did he force Hook to find the culprit on

his own. Christian said, Taz buckled under the pressure of the bright lights and hid behind the commentary table. And he asks if that's what Hook wants to do, or does he want to be a world champion like Christian. Christian said, no one cares that Taz is alive, and he wishes that Hook's father was dead. So Hook broke through security. The patriarchy bailed. Hook said that he would go through all of them one by one, so that means we're going to get Hook against Kipsabian suit. How

many more weeks of rampage do they have left? They better get it in soon. Alex Marvez was in the back. He interviewed Don Callous about his new team of Lance Archer and Brian Cage before a large man walked up to him. I don't know who this person was, but he looked like a He looked like a wrestler. I couldn't tell you who he is. He offered Callous an envelope in a ring box before playing a message on

his phone. It was from MJF, who said that he needs Callous to do something for him and that there's more money where that came from. MJF said, do what needs to be done, babe. Don't scuff up my ring or I'm going to have someone scuff you up. Callous put on the Dynamite Diamond Ring and admired it. I would laugh so hard if Callus sends Brian Cage and Lance Archer, these two giant men after Adam Cole, and

they both end up getting their asses kicked. Imagine if that's the only reason they've even bothered to build up Cage and Archer in the last few weeks was just to go in there and get their fucking asses kicked by Adam Cole. Jamie Hater beat Penelope Ford. This was better than expected. Ford is not on Jamie's level, but she looked good for someone who's only been in the ring one other time recently, after almost two years not

wrestling match. But man, it is depressing to see Jamie out there not getting the kind of reactions that she was getting last year before she got hurt. She was gone a long time, so yeah, I mean, things die down when you're not around. But she's been back for a few months now. I mean she's been back since Wembley that was in August, and they have just given the fans nothing to get excited about, nothing interesting for

her to do. A side quest with Penelope Ford is not going to do it, and they close with Kyle Fletcher and Kenoski Takeshta against Ricochet and a mystery partner. I thought it would be Will Osprey. I was hoping it wasn't Mark Davis because that would have been fucking lame. It turned out to be Powerhouse Hobbes, which was a nice surprise. Powerhouse. It's great to see Hobbs back and healthy again. I remember that match against Moxley at Daily's place that was back in April, when he ruptured his

pattel attendant and he finished the match. He hobbled around for another three minutes, but he finished the match. You know, that's a nasty, painful injury, so it was good to have him back. Takeshta wanted a lariot on Ricochet. Hobbs, though, shoved him out of the way and took the bullet. Ricochet flew off the top for a hurricane RNA and Takeshta initially caught him, but Ricochet snapped through with a

pin attempt for two. Shooting star Press connected only for two, but Ricochet then after that just hit his running Larryot finish. I don't know what he calls him now, but it's far less impressive. I can tell you that, and he pinned Takeshta with it to win the match. I thought it was a fun made event. Ricochet pinning Takeshta logically sets him up for the next shot at the International title. After the match, Fletcher took out Hobbs and Ricochet with

chair shots. He went for the Tiger Driver on Ricochet, but Mark Davis of Ossie Open ran down to make the save. He and Kyle got into a shoving match, and then Archer and Cage hit the ring and laid out Davis. Adam Cole tried to make the save, but takesh to cut him off in the two brawl to the back. Kyle went to retrieve the dreaded Screwdriver when Will Osprey's music hits. He so he could have been Ricochet's partner. He was there, the hell was he doing

the entire time? Here he comes. He runs out to make the save. Fletcher almost ate a hidden blade, but he bailed before Osprey could connect. So we had Osprey, Hobbs, Ricochet, and Mark Davis running off the Kallus family to close out the show. They saved the best for last with this episode. It was cool to see Hobbs back. Hobbs has got top guy potential. He's not there yet, but he's got top guy potential. I think as a tweeter.

So someone who doesn't care who you are, baby face, heel, doesn't matter you get in his way, he's gonna smash it. Throwing him into an other faction that won't do him any good. I've had people, I've had people writing in with suggestions for who MVP could recruit. Obviously he's been making overtures on TV towards Ricochet. You know what about Hobbes I threw I threw a Wardlow's name out there is a suggestion a week ago, just because it would be something to try to kind of get him back

on the map, you know, not involving MJF. But then some people mention Hobbes and it's like throwing Hobbes into another faction is not going to do him any good. He's already been a part of three different groups. I guess Wardlow has been a part of two. But Hobbes is you know, he was with Team Taz, he was with QT. Marshall's Crew, whatever the fuck that was, and the Kallis family and what did that do for him? Nothing now. I would like to see him get a run on his own. So here's how the full gear

lineup is shaping up. So far. We have John Moxley defending the aw World title against Orange Cassidy. We have MJF against Adam Cole or Roderick Strong or possibly both of them. Lashly takes on Swerve Strickland, Jack Perry takes on Daniel Garcia for the TNT title, Mercedes Money against Chris Statlander for the TVs title, Jay White against Hangman

Adam Page. The tag team titles will be on the line, with Private Party defending in a four way match and they're going to face the Outrunners since they already qualified. And two other tag teams which will be determined between FTR and the House of Black on the next episode of Dynamite, and a match with LFI, so two members of Ruche Drelistico and The Beast Mortos, whichever two members

of LFI will take on the acclaim. And we know on the Zero Hour pre show we have Big Boom aj from the Costco guys going to be taken on QT Marshall. I can't wait to not watch that. Will Osprey against Kyle Fletcher is not official, but they're not going to leave will Osprey off their full gear card, and Ricochet against Takesha seems likely for that show as well for the international title. So that is the lineup

official and unofficial as it appears today. That show, of course, still a few weeks away November twenty third, that's the week before Survivor Series, so we still have time. I'm going to end it there because my mouth is starting to kill me here, so we'll put a lid on this and we'll get back to your mailbag questions and all the news of the week next week. That'll be episode eight eighty eight. How about that. We're going all eights next week, so get those questions in. Follow me

on Twitter at Solo Monster. Of course you can subscribe to the YouTube channel and find me there live during the week every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for Raw Dynamite and SmackDown the Post shows, and of course every Tuesday night back this week with JD for Tuesday Night Titans on his channel, So a lot of content come in your way. Again, as I said on Twitter, I apologize for the show going up later than usual this week.

I had a funeral to attend earlier today, and I will say, learn to appreciate the people in your life and those closest to you, because you never know when that day comes that they will not be here anymore. So you got to learn to cherish that and appreciate it while you still can. And on that note, be well, stay safe and I will see you back here for the Flagship next Sunday, episode eight eighty eight. Until then, take care, guys. The Solemn Monster sounds off. Let's go

ninety five. A lot of people screamed cinema after the recent SmackDown episode. Not me. I think that word cinema. I cringe every time I hear it. Oh, it's cinema. It's cinema. If you took a non wrestling fan, but they're like a movie connoisse and you showed them the segments and they saw people going, oh my god, this is sineva. This should win an award. Like these people would look at you like you need to get your head exam. All you fans of the Bloodline segments that

call them, we need to take that word. Okay, we need to take the word cinema is given to me, I'm gonna take them away from you and we have to throw them in a fire and he has to die. Okay, you're over using the word to the point where now it's just becoming cringing. Okay, please don't use that word. 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 young,