Sound Off 901 - THREE Names Released Early By AEW And Does WrestleMania Feel LACKING This Year?

to listen to me more off. Hey, I watched the match with Zach Saber Junior and Hiroki Goto at the New Beginning in Osaka for the IWGP World Heavyweight title, and Goto won the right to challenge for the title by winning the New Japan Rambow at the Tokyo Dome last month, which is usually treated as you know, comedy fodder, but they raised the stakes forward this year, and look what happened. It actually paid off. Now Goto, he's been a mainstay in New Japan for over twenty years. Always

a bride's maid, never a bride. You've heard me use that expression before. He had done everything there is to do. You know, he won multiple singles titles and multiple tag team titles, g One Climax winner, New Japan Cup winner, tons of tournament wins, everything except for winning the big one. Every opportunity that he ever had to win it, he failed. And that was the rap on him. When he gets to the one yard line, he chokes. Great wrestler, but not good enough to be the guy. But not this time.

And it was ten years since the last time he challenged for that championship, and Goto has finished his story. He defeated Zach Saber Junior to become IWGP champion for the very first time, just a few months shy of his forty sixth birthday, and he had his kids in the ring with him after the match, and he dedicated the win to his father who passed away last year.

Just a great moment. And you know, I know some people were upset that Saber lost the title, has only had it for a few months, and they think New Japan did him dirty. They did not do him dirty. He's going to be champion again. But this was one of those, you know, kind of great feel good moments in wrestling that they felt they couldn't pass up, especially after tickets started moving when they announced Goto would be

wrestling for the title on that show. You know, that's the best way to get a promoter's attention is to move tickets, over five thousand of them, to the point where they had to reconfigure the stage to accommodate more seats. So he's standing in the ring after the match and he says, you know, I know, I know my dad was watching and this is for him. Everyone, A lot of you probably know, but I'm an idiot. I've been an idiot as I've pursued this pro wrestling life. But

now this idiot is a champion. Dad, I did it. So he wanted his first title defense to be against Hiroshi Tanahashi right this being Tanahashi's final year in the ring. At their anniversary show next month is when that match is going to take place. That Tanahashi beat him four times previously in IWGP title matches, so he's going to be looking for his first win if he wants to hold onto that title and Euji Nagada challenge the winner

of that match. You know, Euji Nagada is fifty six years old and Goto is going to be forty six. Tanahashi is on his last legs. It's a nice story to tell and if it helps business, then more power to them. But coming out of this, whoever gets that title next, unless it goes right back to Zak, it should be one of the younger guys that they're building up who's never held it before. I have got a ton of stuff to get into this week. We had two great wrestling shows this weekend that I'm going to

be talking about and reviewing. There was a ton of news this week. I even got some team news, so we're gonna get into it all. If you would like to make a PayPal donation and show your support for the SoundOff what I do every week, you may do so on the Solo Monster dot com. You will find

it at the very top of the page. Ten dollars more will get you a nickname and a shout out here on this show, including these folks, the Diamond Dallas Dance Machine, Dancing the Night Away, Harrison's Soep, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, the Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, the Chicago Slayer, Willie Iicherd, Knight Stalker, and if Alsa far best in the game, Trey Porter, Killshot, Keith Hart, tough Guy, tem Gen Zephyr who bought a ticket to NXT Roadblock coming

up on March eleventh, which is taking place at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, and he says that he is thrilled because he always wanted to see Julia Russel live and a few others Zaria Stephanie Vequer, Trick Williams. Hopefully Ricky Starks will appear, he said, I'm sure Ricky will be there. I don't know if they'll identify him, but I'm sure I'm sure he'll have a name by that. Yeah, we're going to talk about Ricky in a little bit too.

But Temgin, thank you, Rebel. Jay Leonard wants to wish his best friend Cannonball Cam Jones a very happy birthday and eighteen years of friendship thanks to him. Jay says, he listens to my content daily and he means daily, and he had some very kind words for me as well. So Jay, I appreciate that. I'm very glad you enjoyed the content. I'm going to wish Cam a happy birthday as well. You're very lucky to have a friend like that for eighteen years and shared big Daddy boyd. I

want to wish him a very happy birthday. And also to Jessica, stay strong. I hope your mom is doing better. Sending positive vibes your way, and don't forget you know, if you want to pick up a free audio book, you know, I don't mention this often enough, but we do have a special offer exclusively for sound off listeners, and there are a ton of great books. It doesn't have to be but there's a ton of great wrestling

books that you can get for free. You might even be able to get two of them for free if you are an Amazon Prime member. All you got to do is use the link audibletrial dot com slash solom Monster, and if you sign up for the thirty day trial of the Audible service, you will be able to get at least one free book. And then even if you cancel that trial before it's over, you get to keep your book. They're not going to come. They're not going to send a posse to your door to take your

digital book away from you. So whether it's one of Jim Ross's books, including his new one, business is about to pick up John Moxley's book, Becky Lynch's book, or any number of books. Guy Evans has that great Nitro book, make sure you take advantage of that audibletrial dot com slash solomn Monster. I did watch NXT Vengeance Day last night, but first we got to take it back to earlier in the week because there were three names, all of

whom are likely WWE bound. One of them is already on NXT television, so we already know one of them is in WWE, but three names that Tony Kahn released from their contracts. Malachi Black is one of those people. He is no longer with AW and there was talk of his deal not being up originally until twenty twenty seven, because that came from Tony Kahn many years ago when he said, oh, I've got Malachi and Adam Cole locked up until twenty twenty seven. Well if he did, he

doesn't anymore. Obviously, Malachi was able to negotiate a quicker exit because he's gone. Miro is also gone from AAW and per pw Insider we are told Miro and AW mutually parted way, setting the stage for his exit from the company. There was talk that he had asked for his release back in the fall of twenty twenty four.

The two sides had been working towards an agreement for some time, and they also mentioned that Miro has signed with Paradigm for representation in all areas of Hollywood, as have many WWE stars by the way, Damian Priest and CM Punk, Tiffany Stratton, Drew McIntyre, Live Morgan, I think, Jade Cargill. They're all represented now by Paradigm, which is one of the top Hollywood agencies, so you could add

Miro to that list. And Ricky Starks was given his release from AAW months before his contract was due to expire, So all those free Ricky hashtags, Ricky has been freed. And it didn't take very long, all of twenty four hours for him to show up on WWE television because right in the middle of Tuesday's NXT show, there he was coming through the crowd with a microphone in his hand.

They never identified him by name, but they spoke like they all knew who he was, and he cut up promo saying that if NXT is the future of professional wrestling, then it needs a true superstar of the future. Everyone's been begging the question when will the Revolution be televised? Again,

he said, I'm here, ain't I? And then last night of Vengeance Day he wasn't there live, but they are to pre tape promo where he said he would be signing his NXT contract this Tuesday, And again he nor the announcers made any mention of his name, and people are freaking out over them not mentioning his name. You know, they're not gonna let him use it, and they're gonna saddle him with one of these terrible fucking names they

just trademarked last week. It's quite the list. By the way, if you haven't seen this list of names we have, I don't know if it's O Sirius or Ozoris. I'll say Oziris Ozius. Griffin is one name that they trademarked. Hayes Jamison. I've been in a few hazes after drinking Jamison in my day. Trill London, Harley Riggins, Draco Knox. I think this one may be my favorite. Braxton Cole like they just fused Michael Cole together with Caleb Braxton.

There's a photoshop for you. So anyway, you had people worry that Ricky Starks was going to be Trill London or some such thing. Not realizing they literally rushed him onto TV, Like he got out of his contract on Monday,

and he was on television by Tuesday. Okay. And while I'm sure they had some sense that eventually he was going to leave and they were gonna be able to bring him in, they could not legally do anything until he was free, so on twenty four hours notice, I doubt they went through all the proper legal channels to license the man's name from him, because that is his name,

so he can absolutely use it. See what I did there, But I would imagine the company has to go through a process to license it from him if they want to use it on TV, if they want to use it on merch. I would not have a panic attack just he had about the name. This all happened very quickly. You know, Ethan Page, he left AW and he came to NXT as Ethan Page. Sean Spears left AW and he came to NXT as Sean Spears. There is no

reason that Ricky Starks cannot be Ricky Stark's now. I don't know why Tony Khan decided now was the right time to release them all in a bunch like this, but I'm glad he did. Ray Phoenix is still under contract, but Chris Featherstone, i saw of Sports Kita, says that negotiations between Phoenix and Tony Khan to end Phoenix's tenure with the company are progressing and a resolution is expected to happen soon, and he says he was also informed that Tony Khan has been heavily advised to put an

end to this soon. Regarding Phoenix's holding period. I'm not sure who's advising him, But remember those tweets that Ray Phoenix put out and quickly deleted talking about inhumane treatment, right, we didn't know what he meant by that. If there's a there there with some of the things that he was tweeting about, and he's got some stories to tell, then yes, maybe it is in Tony Khan's best interest to put an end to this soon. I'm sure with

a nice nda to go with it. But you know, if he let the other three go, there's really no reason for him to hold on to Phoenix if he's not going to use him, and that's that's the case with any of these guys, and that's been my whole thing this entire time. I understand not wanting to set a precedent or anyone who's unhappy and who's under contract can just go to you and say, hey, you know what, I'm not happy. I want to leave, and they end

up going to WWE. But if he's not going to use them, then work something out where they can leave and maybe they could work anywhere but WWE for a period of time, Right, if they really want out that badly, if it's not just hey, I want to leave so I can go work for you know, for mister Leveck over there, then maybe work it out in that way, right,

if they're that adamant about leaving. But there's just no point in paying these people just to let them sit home and do nothing or just work indies, right, it's just wasteful spending. Starks was clearly going to go to WWE, and I think starting on NXT is actually the right move, right. If they were going to off on this debut for later in the spring or in the summer, I think I might feel differently about it. But you bring this guy in two months before WrestleMania, where he is not

going to be factored into any major WrestleMania plans. You know what, It's better to start him off on the brand where he could be a top guy right out of the gate, instantly, instantly. Ricky Starks is a top star in NXT. That wouldn't be the case if he debuted on Row. That wouldn't be the case if he debuted on SmackDown. Anyone who's not familiar with who he is is going to become familiar very quickly, and a run on top would do him a lot of good

for when he finally does get called up. Plus, let's be honest here, the NXTAM men's division could use someone like him right now, okay, because they they could definitely use the help on the men's side. Malachi, I've talked about him a lot already. He started out with a lot of promise and then just got stuck in tags and trios for a lot of his run there when there was still money to be made with him as a single star. Know, he was clearly frustrated at various

points of his run. He even asked for his release at one point he got denied, right, there's no need for him to start with NXT. Triple H just needs to do what he did with him on NXT on the main roster, and I think he will do well. Someone like him could work on his own. Someone like him could work as the new leader of the Judgment Day and replacing Finn Balor, and that he could even

feud with Balor. You know. Someone on the SmackDown Scream the other night suggested a Cody Rhodes like debut for him at WrestleMania, where he returns as the mystery opponent for someone who ends up not having an opponent, like a Drew McIntyre. Drew McIntyre is going to have an opponent, but I could see something like that. I don't know who you would put him in the ring with, but I could see something like that. Or just hold off on his return for the week after WrestleMania. You don't

have to give everything away before WrestleMania. And then there's Miro, who has not read led a match for AW since a win over Andrade at World's End in twenty twenty three. Then he was injured after that, Then he got divorced. I think he moved back to Bulgaria for a time, so he went through some shit personally, but that does not explain why in twenty twenty three he only worked seven matches, all of which were either on Collision or on pay per view. There were two of them on

pay per view. He hasn't worked a match on Dynamite in three years. Three years he hasn't wrestled a single match on their flagship show. His only singles losses in five years working for Tony Kahan were to Sammy Gavarro when he lost the TNT title, and to Brian Danielson. That was in the finals of an eliminator tournament at full Gear. You know when that was. That was in

twenty twenty one. That was the last time Miro lost a match if you don't count the four way that he was a part of at that first Forbidden Door pay per view. Like, these numbers in these stats are insane, especially for someone who you would not consider a top guy on the level of a Roman Raids or a John Cena, or in aw terms, a Kenny Omega or

a John Moxley. Right, he was not at that level of stardom, but he seems to have had a lot of say in how he was booked, and that was one of the raps on him over the years, is that the company would pitch ideas to him and he would turn them down. Right. It's not that they didn't want to use him, but whenever they did, he didn't like what was being presented to him, and so it

just never worked out. Right. There was a report, now it was from Dave, but a few years ago there was a report in the Observer that Miro was going to lose a Battle Royal. It would come down to him and Hangman Page and he was going to lose the Battle Royal, and supposedly he refused the idea. He didn't want to lose. And then his wife at the time, CJ. Perry, was doing an interview somewhere and said that russe v Day would be back in WWE one day. Everyone returns

to WWE at some point. That's what she said, which I could understand Tony Kahan hearing that, even though it was his wife and not him who said it, right, they were husband and wife, and your wife is out there publicly saying, yeah, everybody goes back to WWE. He'll be back there one day. I could see that not sitting well with his current employer. Now that's one side

of the story about him rejecting creative pitches. One day Miro will say his piece, and he may deny it, or he may have a different version of what happened. But his entire run from start to finish was just weird. And I don't think all of that can be laid at Tony Kahn's doorstep. I think there's blame to go around though why Miro's run in AW failed. Right, his

redeemer character was really good. But when you look at his run from start to finish in this company, I don't see how you can classify it as anything other than a failure the redeemer character. I would love to see some adaptation of that in WWE if he goes back. There's talk of maybe Lana even rejoining him. If he goes back. I guess they must be on good terms even though their no longer husband and wife, if they

want to work together, Meltzer says. Those close to MirOS say that he was constantly pitching ideas to AAW for the both of them, and they never went anywhere. And then when AW let her go. That was the kind of the straw that broke the Campbell's back and it led to him asking for his release. Obviously he didn't want to be there anymore. I've always said, you know, if he really wanted to work, if he wanted to work that badly, he would have been back on TV.

If he wanted to work, he would have had more than seven matches in twenty twenty three, or if he wasn't going to be on AAW television because there were creative differences, right, I'm sure he had the right to go out there and book his own independent dates. Right. We didn't see him working indies. He just wasn't working, right, not wrestling matches. If you wanted to work, he would have been back on TV in twenty twenty four. Miro did not want to be there, Ricky Starks did not

want to be there. Ray Phoenix does not want to be there. So how long do you drag this out and pay them When you're not getting any return on your investment, It's best to just part ways and make room for other free agents, someone like Josh Alexander, for example, who, according to Fightful, is expected to sign with AW if

he has not already done. So. He enlisted the help of superagent Barry Bloom to represent him in contract negotiations, which should have been a sign right there that he was looking to get paid number one and number two. Barry Bloom has represented a whole bunch of AW names, Chris Jericho, will Osprey, Young Bucks. I saw Jordan Grace tweeted to see you soon at Alexander after he finished up with TNA on Friday. But it looks like AW is going to be his landing spot, and he's super talented.

But I actually think AAW is the better destination for him. I do. I don't know if he still wants the ability to work indies. I think he just wrapped up his indie commitments and sounded like he was pretty much done with it all. But maybe he wants to work New Japan, or maybe he just wants to get paid, you know. And Tony Kuhn was willing to pay him more than what WWE would have been willing to pay him for an NXT deal, which is where he would have ended up had he gone there. He would have

done well in NXT on the main roster. I don't think he would have been nearly as big as he was in TNA in AW I actually feel like he has a better shot. I may eat those words, but that's how I feel.

like Fallen. I think before the draft last year, I pitched for her to get called up. She's not on Stephanie's level, but she was good enough to hold her own in there and they had a good opener. I actually think the crowds are more invested in Stephanie than they are in Julia, and they liked Julia. I mean, so do I. But Stephanie's reactions are just a notch above and it's not hard to see why she's great.

The announcers went on about how she just became the first ever South American born champion in WWE, but as someone pointed out to me, Ezekiel Jackson was born in Guyana and he was the Intercontinental champion, so the announcers on their own show were incorrect. She is the second South American born champion ever in WWE. Axiom and Nathan Fraser have quietly become one of the best tag teams in all of wrestling over the place. They always have

good to great matches. They retain their NXT tag team titles over Josh Briggs and Yoshiki Inamora, who was on excursion from Pro Wrestling Noah. I take it that when they sent Briggs over there last year for like a month, the two of them struck up a friendship, and now they're tag team partners. I've seen a couple of their matches together on TV. They haven't had that many, but in Amora is still pretty new to me, so I don't know a whole hell of a lot about him.

By the end of this match, though, even he had fans chanting his name, and I just I love how Briggs just traded one tag team partner for another. But I thought everybody looked good here. This turned into a hell of a match. I would even say the best on the entire show. I had this over the main event.

I just love that they're more open to sending their talent to other promotions and inviting other talent in like you know, in Amora to work shows for a while before he goes back It's just something that I'm still not used to them doing. You know, every other promotion pretty much has always done this, but WWE they were always you know, no open voters here. You know, they're all very walled off, and I think we know why.

But even if this is only for NXT and they don't really do this on the main roster, I like that they're doing it at all. After the match was over, both teams got jumped by a group of mystery men who had their faces covered and it gave me retribution vibes, which is not a good thing, and the fans chanted, who are you at them? So I guess I know

they've been teasing this for a little while. I think they've had some teasers on TV and glitches and stuff, so it's not like it came completely out of nowhere. But that's all we got here. That was not the last time we would see them either. They put Eddie Thorpe over Trick Williams in a scrap match, and the fans in the crowd they were shook hands on their heads the whole deal because they could not believe that they had Trick Williams loose to this guy. Now I

have not been following their story every single week. I've seen bits and pieces of it. I know Eddie was obsessed with trying to win the NXT Championship when Trick was still champion. They did that angle where he tricked no pun intended. He tricked Ava into giving him a title shot by pretending that he was attacked backstage by a mystery attacker and then revealed that he was never really attacked at all, right after he signed the contract to a title match, which was clever, even though it

made Ava look like an idiot. So I know of some of the stuff going into it. I thought the match was decent, you know, he was still the weakest match on the entire show compared to everything else. Obviously for Eddie Thorpe, it's a huge win, and my expectation is that they'll run this back and Trick I'll get his win back. But I still thought it was the weakest of all the matches on the show. Ethan Page and Javon Evans, on the other hand, this I really enjoyed.

Javon Evans is he's something else. When he did that wild dive out of the ring in the first like thirty second, not even thirty seconds of the match, and he went soaring over Ethan Page and he overshot the announced desk. It reminded me of one of those amazing red dives that he's busted out a few times at hog shows, where he just goes flying into the third row and it always scares the shit out of me when he does it. But for someone as young as he is, you know, Javon is only twenty years old.

He's already worked a match with Randy Orton, Like you see the potential there for him to be something special. And they worked the match around the jaw injury that Ethan gave him. In storyline, Evans was out there wearing a mouthpiece so big I'm surprised that that didn't dislocate his jaw, but it got knocked out of his mouth near the finish when Page smacked him out of mid air on a springboard and that led to a twist of fate by Page for the win. So I really

enjoyed this. I thought, I thought it was good stuff. We had Obae defending his NXT championship against Austin Theory and Grayson Waller and this just reeked of. We don't have an opponent for Oba. So let's just make use of these two guys because we're not doing anything with

them right now anyway. And that's really all this was. Now, this was what you would expect with Theory and Waller working together only for the cracks the show as the match progressed because each of them wanted to become the NXT champion, so you knew it would end that way. They've been teasing a breakup with these two since the Reagan administration, and they did it again here, which means that we'll likely get another six months of this before

they finally pulled the trigger. But they ended up having a pretty good match here. Oba is the real deal. I've said that before. Oba Femi is just I mean, he's just got all the tools to be a major, major star on the main roster, and he will be the wanna be Retribution group came back out again. They attacked Oba when the match was over, for two of

the guys actually flung him up into the air. It Ohpa is a big dude, and they threw him up into the air and another guy caught him on the way down for a power bomb, so that looked cool. You know, whether this New Faction hits. Who knows, But I just I can't help but look at them and think retribution. I just I just can't. I'm scarred. I'm

still scarred to this day. I can't help it. And they closed the show with the four way match for the NXT Women's Championship, with Julia retaining her title over Bailey, Roxane Perez, and Corra Jade, who was a late addition to the match. I figured they added her to eat the pin, but Julia Pinnroxanne to retain the title. But if Roxanne is getting the call up soon, then it

makes sense. So we got to see Julia and Bailey mix it up for the first time, and while not as messy as some of the work was with Bailey and Lyra on Raw last Monday, that was their first time in the ring together, there were moments here where these two clearly were not on the same page, and Bailey actually looked the roughest that of all four women in this match. There were a bunch of spots where she was just off, you know, just like in the Lyra match on Raw. But Julia retains in a very

good main event. Stephanie Viquier, she walks out to the ring after with her North American Championship. They pose together, right, her and her BFF and Stephanie was definitely sneaking a peek at that NXT Women's Championship. But then right so, as they're doing this and I'm thinking, okay, they're setting up a champion against champion match for Stand and Deliver, then we hear the sirens and it's Jordan Grace, So now we know why they chose to close the show

with this. Jordan Grace gets into the ring and they go off the air with all three women staring each other down in the ring. As if the NXT women's division wasn't strong enough, it's a lot stronger with Jordan Grace in it. I didn't think she needed to go back to NXT. I still think she doesn't need to go back to NXT. She already spent time down there. But if they have no WrestleMania plans for her, then at least she'll have something to do for the next

few months and they could call her up whenever. Right whenever they're getting ready to call her up, she'll be ready to be called up. But they've got a women's division headed up by Julia, Stephanie, Vicaire and Jordan Grace and Roxanne is still down there for now Zaria and I forgot to mention the stuff they're doing with Zaria and sol Ruka. Sol Ruka is trying to humanize her. I actually get a kick out of it. But that division right now is in good hands. Now. The question

is what's the match for Stand and Deliver? Right. They had a segment on the show last week in the back where Julia and Stephanie they wished each other luck at Vengeance Day and Stephanie said, after she wins the North American title, there's only one place left to go, right. They were teasing Champion against Champion, So would they do that, would they do Grace against or are we heading for

a triple threat match with all three of them? I'm thinking Jordan Grace against Julia, but any combination of those three would be fantastic. So I enjoyed it. I thought it was a very good show on the whole. I've got another update on Vince McMahon, who was spotted at the super Bowl in New Orleans last weekend. He finally shaved off that fucking Boris Badanov mustache from Rocky and Bullwinkle. He was hanging out with the Undertaker looking like happy Corbin.

Shane McMahon was there as well. A federal appeals court ruled that a former lawyer for Vince McMahon was wrong to withhold documents related to McMahon's handling of two hush money settlement deals with former WWE employees. In September twenty twenty three, federal prosecutors subpoened McMahon's lawyer, who was unnamed in court documents, along with their law firm, seeking all

communications related to the settlements. One of the employees is believed to be Jenelle Grant, who reached a three million dollar settlement with McMahon. Another seven and a half million dollars settlement was made with an unnamed former WWE employee or talent. I think it was a talent, female talent that worked for the company in the mid two thousands. While some materials were turned over, McMahon's lawyer withheld two hundred and eight pages of documents, citing attorney client privilege.

Prosecutors sought a court order for their release, and a lower court ruled in their favor on Monday, the Second US Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, stating that the documents were not protected by attorney client privilege due to

the crime or fraud exception. The appellate judges wrote because the settlement agreements resolving the victim's claims were structured and negotiated to keep them hidden from the company, The District Court found that all communications about the claims and settlement agreements were made in furtherance of the criminal scheme to keep the company and its auditors unaware of the allegations.

The court found reasonable grounds to believe McMahon and his lawyer circumvented WWE's internal controls, created false records, and misled auditors to keep the settlements hidden. As a result, WWE had to revise its financial settlements in August of twenty twenty two to account for the previously undisclosed payments. Unless McMahon's team appeals to the Supreme Court, they would be required to turn over the documents to the grand jury

investigating him. So they make mention of him being the subject of a grand jury investigation as if the case is still active and ongoing, and yet in the New York Post this week, it says. McMahon's lawyer, Robert Allen, dismissed the court's ruling as irrelevant, stating that the documents will not be reviewed as part of a criminal investigation because, according to him, the case has been closed. He said, this is simply the result of an appeal of a

procedural matter that was argued five months ago. We have been inconsistent communication with the government since that time. I'm understand no ambiguity that the investigation has definitively concluded and will not result in charges. Also in the Post article, it states that prosecutors decided to drop the case sometime by or before January tenth, which is when the SEC announced that it had reached a settlement with McMahon to resolve the cover up claims now the Southern District of

New York. They have not commented on whether the investigation is still ongoing because they usually don't comment on these things. So the only people that have said that it's no

longer ongoing are Vince's lawyers. And if true, that decision comes despite a judge in this case, Judge Valerie Caproni, ruling previously that prosecutors had established probable costs to believe that McMahon and one of his former lawyers broke the law, and again in the appeal this week, all three judges uphel Caprony's ruling that interactions between McMahon and the lawyer were not protected by attorney client privilege because it was

a key part of the investigation into a crime. So what we've learned is that the investigation was all about Vince and his lawyer allegedly concealing documents related to his many many settlements, and the government was not investigating him for sex trafficking or anything like that. That remains something he's accused of by Janelle Grant, and that's a civil case,

not a criminal one. But through this we did also learn more about that seven and a half million dollar settlement, which is the largest one that we know of from all the settlements and the nbas around Vince. It was noted that on December third, twenty eighteen, the former talent's attorney, now the former talent in this case would be the woman who got the seven and a half million dollar settlement.

The former talent's attorney sent Vince's lawyer a letter alleging that during her time with the company years earlier, McMahon had attempted to kiss her, expose himself to her, and obtained non consensual oral sex from her, all while she

was employed by the company. She claimed she was retaliated against for refusing to have sex with McMahon, and she was seeking eighteen million dollars in damages on or about December tenth, twenty eighteen, which actually I December twenty eighteen, I think, wasn't that the month where all the McMahons stood in the ring and lied to us about how the fans have the power and creative sucks and we recognized that creative sucks, and then they all blamed it

on Baron Corbyn. Yeah, good times, Honor. About December ten, twenty eighteen, the filing states, the person being investigated and the former performer meant to discuss her claims and agreed on a settlement amount of seven point five million dollars. The parties met, or the parties agreed rather that McMahon would pay that out over five years in exchange for confidentiality and a release of any claims that she or her husband had or might have had against him or

the company. Negotiations and revisions continued until the agreement was signed on February thirteenth, twenty nineteen. Now I know Dave and the observer. He also mentioned that there were discussions in the negotiations of the woman writing a book about her experiences, you know, regarding her turning McMahon down and being sent from the main roster to developmental and then

having her contract not renewed. But she would not be allowed, I guess, to write a book so long as the person being investigated, which we presume to be Vince, was still alive. So I don't know if that was ultimately agreed to or not, but if so, then it's possible she may reveal her identity once Vince is no longer around and she writes a book about it. I mean, people have been speculating about who the woman is since

it first came out in the Wall Street Journal. I have my suspicion about who it is, you know, as someone who was on the main roster and then got sent down to developmental around that time and then disappeared from the company. I have my suspicions, but I won't say who I think it is. As far as prosecutors not bringing charges against Vince clearly they had a case

against him. The judges felt the same way, but it wouldn't have mattered because even if they did bring charges against him, there's not a chance in hell, there is not a chance in hell that this Justice Department would allow that to go anywhere. And even if it did, right, he would be pardoned anyway. So it would have been a gigantic waste of everybody's time, a gigantic waste of money and spent for what for nothing. Right, as soon as the results came in on November fifth, this case

was effectively over. But this does not mean that he's still not facing a sex trafficking lawsuit. And there has been no update since the last one that I gave you about whether Janelle Grant's amended complaint has been accepted by the court. Because she did file an amended one.

Vince McMahon, John Lorinidis and WWE they have until this Friday to respond to that amended lawsuit, and until that's resolved, there's no update as to whether or not the case is going to go to trial, which is what she wants, or going to binding arbitration, which is what all the others want, And that's going to be the most important decision made in this case, because if the decision is made that she should be free from the NDA that she signed and she could take this to trial, that

makes it a whole lot more likely that the sex pest ends up offering her a nice, big fat settlement to make all of this go away. If it goes to arbitration, then that's a different story. But if it's ruled that this can go to trial, I very seriously doubt this ever ends up going to trial. Raw was better than SmackDown this week, but not by much. The in ring is what really carried Raw, but also by virtue of not being three hours that automatically gives Raw

a leg up on SmackDown. And speaking of SmackDown, PW Insider is reporting that road Dog Brian Jane James has been named the new lead co writer for SmackDown, joining John Swakata an unfortunate last name because that's not how I read it in heading creative for the Blue Brand, and hearing this, I find myself filled with dread. Sounds like he's first taking over. Now, this triple H does not get a pass for this. SmackDown has not been great for a while. Now, it's not like the show

couldn't use an overhaul. But road Dog, I guess the DX takeover of creative across the entire company is nearly complete. We just need Waltman now in charge of Raw. This is the same road Dog who took over as the lead writer on SmackDown at the end of twenty sixteen, and the quality of the show nosedived after that, to the point where the fans even started a hashtag fire

road Dog on social media. But that was also still the Vince McMahon era, and what we saw on TV was what Vince McMahon wanted us to see, or what they thought Vince McMahon wanted to see. So now the sex pest is gone and road Dog is writing for someone else, so we'll see how that goes, you know. Road Dog said, one of the reasons he quit his head writer the first time was that he was just sick and tired of Vince McMahon tearing his work apart.

So was it a case where he had good ideas and Vince made them worse or did Vince change them because they sucked? And as bad as what we saw on television, was it would have been even worse had he not ripped it apart and changed it. See that's the question, right. He was one of the ones writing at the time for the KOFE Mania stuff. Heading into WrestleMania thirty five, he was writing for the Angle with

Randy Orton joining the Wyatt family. But my god, I mean was there was so much bad shit during that period. And it wasn't just SmackDown. It was both shows at various points between twenty seventeen and twenty nineteen, like during that period. For all the good things things that we did get out of that period, because it wasn't all bad, but for all the good things we may have gotten, it was the absolute creative bottom for that company. Just dreadful at three hours. I don't know that anybody can

save SmackDown. I don't think that show is going to get tolerable until it goes back to two hours in a few months, and we're just going to have to just grit our teeth and wait until we get there.

That's not an excuse, though, to put on boring shows, right, you could certainly come up with some fresh ideas, but I really don't think SmackDown is going to benefit from any changes now in the way that it could until they reduced the show from three hours to two hours, because they're still working with a two hour roster and they're trying to stretch, and it's making for these long, boring stretches where maybe the third hour is good, but

the first two are fucking terrible. Like it's just SmackDown has become the worst show of the week. So if they want to make changes to the show, I don't see how it can get much worse. You know. It's like, Okay, well, let's see what happens. But I'm telling you, the three hours is not the only problem with smack Down, but it's a very big problem with that show right now. Now, going back to Raw Monday night, they opened the show with a hot angle with Jay Usso coming out doing

his entrance. Everybody's going wild, and then Gunther comes out and trips him up and we got a brawl between them, and then ultimately Jay says, you know what, I've made my choice, Gunther. It's going to be you and me for the World Heavyweight Championship of WrestleMania. It was the obvious choice. Everybody knew he was going to pick. Gunther. That's not a surprise, but the way they did the angle, I thought it was well done. Then you fast forward

to SmackDown on Friday. Charlotte Flair comes out after Tiffany Stratton's match with Naya Jacks and chooses Tiffany as her opponent to challenge for the WWE Women's Championship at WrestleMania, which again not a surprise. I think most people expected that it was going to be Charlotte and Tiffany and not Charlotte and Rhea Ripley. Trish Gratis was on SmackDown Friday night as well. We come to find out that she's going to be teaming with Tiffany against Naya and

Candace Lay in Toronto at the Elimination Chamber. So getting Trisha on that show in Toronto makes all the sense in the world. She tried to come to Tiffany's eight on Friday after her match with Naya, and so she got kind of all mixed up with Naya and Candace. Hence the tag team match that we're going to be getting. A Ria Ripley is not going to be defending against

Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania. However, she will be defending her Women's World title against EO Sky, but it will not be at WrestleMania, but it will be on the raw after the Elimination Chamber. That does not mean that we still won't get it though. At WrestleMania, we still could very well end up getting Rihea Ripley and EO Sky. But if we do, it's going to have to be a triple threat match because the winner of the Elimination

Chamber is guaranteed a shot at Rhea's championship. Now that we know that Tiffany has her opponent, that Elimination Chamber match comes a shot, a guaranteed shot at Rhea Ripley's title. EO Sky is not in the Elimination Chamber. So if you are someone who wants to see EO Sky challenging Riao Ripley at WrestleMania, then gonna you're hoping for a triple threat match is what you're hoping for, because that's

the only way that it happens. And I'm gonna get into the media stuff here in a second, so we'll talk about what that might look like. But Logan, Paul, Damian Priest, Bailey, and Naomi they have all qualified this week for their respective elimination chamber matches, So there's only a couple of spots left. Lyra Valkyria and Chelsea Green. Those are your two women's mid car champions right now. In WWE. Lyra is the Intercontinental champion. Chelsea Green is

the United States champion. They both got pinned in qualifying matches in the same week. It's just bad optics. Both of your champions get pinned and beaten in the same week. What does that say for what WWE and Triple AH thinks of these two titles that they established. This is this is the reason why I was not against the idea of them establishing an intercontinental title, okay, or a

US title one of the other. Right, I would prefer IC because if you ask me, of all with the men's titles, even like, what do I look at better the Intercontinental title of the US. Well, I grew up with the Intercontinental title and watching those guys and watching those matches, so I will always choose the IC over the US. But I was in favor of trying it and saying, you know what, they have the talent for it.

They just have to come up with good stories. But Okay, fine, you want to introduce an IC title, go for it. Don't do both. Just because you do one doesn't mean well, we got to do the other. Start out with one, even if the champion floats between shows, see how it goes, and if it goes well, you can always introduce a women's US title later in the year. You don't have to do them both at the same time. So what

did they do. They did them both at the same time because we have we have to have, you know, parody here between the two brands. And I am unimpressed by what they have done so far. It's only been a couple of months. I am thoroughly unimpressed. Lyra Valcarry is going to be defending her title soon against Ivy Nile. That's what they seem to be building towards. But she won that championship on January thirteenth. I believe it was right.

She beat Dakota Kai in the finals, and up until this past week, I'm not even counting the Royal Rumble. I mean, in terms of matches she had not wrestled. She won the title, and then she sat and did nothing for a month, and then her first match after winning the Championship. She fucking loses. What are we doing here? So yeah, that's the state of those two titles right

now as they currently exist. But you know, all this talk about wrestle media, Let's talk for a little bit here about wrestle media forty one because I see a lot of discourse on the line about WrestleMania. What do you think of the cards so far? I should point out that we legitimately only have two matches official. Okay, we only have two matches so far official for WrestleMania, so we don't know for sure where things are gonna land. Right.

We could come back and have this conversation and run this back in a month and be like, wow, okay, well this is a hell of a lot better than what I thought it was gonna be. But I think we have a pretty good sense of where certain things are headed. So the question is, like, what do you think about the WrestleMania card so far? The way it looks like it's shaping up. Do you think it's good?

Do you think it's lackluster. If you think the WrestleMania card feels lackluster, this is a good reason for that. And you got to remember where we were a year ago. A year ago, all of the talk was around the Rock. But what the Rock almost did to Cody Rhodes and his title match of WrestleMania, and then they had to blow up their plans and they had to pivot, right, That was the word of WrestleMania season. They pivoted, We

have to pivot. Well, they made the pivot, and it was the right pivot to make because we ended up with Final Boss Rock, which injected an energy into the shows that just isn't there when he's not there because he's The Rock. So obviously when he's around and he's playing heel and he's healing on the fans, right, it's very entertaining and it's just a different vibe when he's around.

So we have The Rock on TV on some weeks, and Cody Rhoades was finishing his story, this fucking story that he was going to finish, right, This story they were telling for two years. It was all culminating in that rematch with Roman Reigns a WrestleMania. That's the difference between the wrestle Media build from a year ago and the WrestleMania build from now. They had that coarse story that long term story with Cody that they paid off. They don't have anything like that this year, and they

don't have the Rock, at least not yet. They don't have the Rock on the show. So you wonder what's missing from where we were a year ago. That's what's missing. And so you look at some of the matches that are being proposed, and some of the matches are more appealing than others. But I think that has a lot to do with why this card so far is feeling very lackluster compared to last year, because those are two very big things that we don't have going into this

year's show. Cody Rose is now the defending WWE champion. Who is he going to defend his title against? There's still multiple options as to who that could be. The likeliest option is John Cena. John Cena is in the elimination Chamber. He didn't have to qualify for it because he's John Cena. He was in the Royal Rumble, he lost, He's going into the elimination Chamber. I don't want to get ahead of myself with predictions. I think it's a hell of a lot more likely he wins this time.

So we're looking at Cody Rose against John Cena. That's probably if you had to rank them in terms of possible matches, the one that would be ranked number one as far as the likeliest to happen. Now, I will point out to you that last week on Pat McAfee's show, he had Ari Emanuel on right, he's the head of everything when it comes to Endeavor and Tko, he's the head Hans show, And he was talking about the elimination Chamber and ari Emmanuel said, March first, I think there

are some pretty good things going to happen there. What did he mean by that? I'm sure Ari Emmanuel was not on Pat McAfee's show talking about how great the women's elimination Chamber is going to be. This is gonna be some pretty good things going on there. We're gonna get Tiffany Stratton and Trish Stratus against Naya Jackson Candas lore No. I don't think that's what he was talking about. What did he mean by that? Could we still get

the Rock on the WrestleMania car. He's been awfully quiet lately. Is he going to show up in Toronto? I mean, unless he somehow ends up inside the chamber. I don't know what he would be there to do. But then again, he showed up a bad Blood and that didn't lead to anything either. So do I think The Rock is going to show up and end up wrestling Cody? No, I don't. Because they have a chamber match, We're going to have a winner. That's the person going on to WrestleMania.

Could The Rock still have some kind of involvement in the show, even, you know, away from Cody, It's possible. I just I don't know what he meant by that comment, unless that was just, you know, the CEO and president of this big company just trying to hype up a big show coming out. It could have been as simple as that, but it caught my eye when I read what he said, because if that somehow led to Cody and Rock for the WWE title, let's just say hypothetically somehow.

I don't see how that would happen, but somehow, if it led to Cody and Rock for the WWE Championship, that would open up John Cena to wrestle Logan Paul. Because right now I don't have a match for Logan Paul at WrestleMania. I don't know who he wrestles. If not John Cena, the only name I could come up with, and I actually I could see this, and I think it would be a great match is AJ Styles. I could see Logan Paul and AJ Style. AJ just got moved over to Raw. Logan Paul is new to raw.

They've never worked before one on one. Actually, you know now that I mentioned that, I kind of liked that match, So maybe they could do Logan and AJ. But I think we're looking at Cody and Cina. Then you go further down the card. Roman Reigns, Right, Roman Reigns is not going to be back on television until after the Elimination Chamber. They didn't want him in the chamber because he wasn't going to win the chamber and they didn't

want to beat him. They didn't want to pin him. Right, It's one thing to be dumped out of the Royal Rumble. It's another thing to get your shoulders pinned to the mat.

So Roman Reigns, CM Punk and seth Rawlins. When we last saw Roman and all those guys at the Rumble, right, they were all kind of tangled up together there when everybody got dumped out of the ring, and it seems very likely that Roman will be in the ring with at least one of them, But I don't really have a good spot for Punk if he's not a part of this, So I think we're looking at a triple threat match Roman, Rains, CM, Punk and seth Rawlins, all

of whom have different issues with each so you can't say there is in history there with some of them. And Punk has that favor from Paul Hayman. Is he going to catch that in in some way or are they going to hold off on that. I think it would be a great match. I think it's a compelling match. I always in these situations, would much rather a singles match, you know, like a hot one on one match with some deep story to it. But that would be big. Look, you know, you put Rains, Punk and Rollins in the

ring together, it's gonna be a big match. Gunther is going to be defending against jay usso we already know that, and there's a story there to be told. Tiffany Stratton

is going to be defending against Charlotte Flair. That's been confirmed, and that's the match I've been figuring going back to probably last fall, that that was the match that we were going to end up with Rhea Ripley defending her Women's World title against who to go back to what I was saying before, She's going to defend against EO sky On. I guess that would be March third, on the March third episode of Raw. We don't know the women yet who are going to be in the elimination chamber.

I'm looking at the elimination chamber and the name I'm looking at is Live Morgan. Live Morgan winning the elimination Chamber to wrestle Ria Ripley or WrestleMania would be ridiculous because they have played out the Rhea Ripley and Live Morgan story already and they blew it off on the Netflix premiere and that should have been the end of it. But if we get Live Morgan winning in the chamber, and then if Live Morgan gets involved in the Rio Ripley EO sky match, right Ria or Live in Raquel.

Let's say they get involved and we get no winner, we get no definitive winner between Rio Ripley and Eoski, and March third, then what I think we're looking at is a triple threat match with Ria Ripley defending her title against Live Morgan and Eosky. So that to me is the likeliest scenario here. There are other options because Bianca Belair, for example, has qualified for the elimination Chamber. I would love to get Rhea Ripley and Bianca bel Air at WrestleMania, but at this point it would just

feel rushed, right because they've had no interaction. Bianca has involved in a completely different storyline right now, and so I hate to say it, but I think they've already kind of missed the boat on doing that match this year. Probably better off holding off until forty two at this point. So that's what I'm looking at this going Rhea live an EO is what I think the match is going to be at WrestleMania. Kevin Owens and Sammy's ain They're

headed for yet another battle. Kevin Owens was on SmackDown in a pre recorded video as Sammy was, but Kevin Owens said, in response to the video that Sammy sent in talking about his injuries and how we're going to do the dance again, I'm gonna get my hands on you, blah blah blah, Owen said, Okay, let's do it. He invited him to Toronto cleared or not, because Samy's Ain is not medically cleared. You come to Toronto and we'll

do it in Toronto. I don't know that Sam's Ain is going to be medically cleared on TV to have a proper match elimination chamber, but they're definitely shooting an angle or doing something unsanctioned at that show, which makes sense. They're gonna be in Canada, and it's kind of where they both started out together. Big crowd in Toronto. I mean they're at the SkyDome. You know they're not gonna

have sixty or seventy thousand people. I think they basically have it set up for thirty thousand, but it's going to be a big show. So the question is if they don't do a proper match, are they saving the actual match between them for WrestleMania And what the hell does that mean for Randy Orton? Because we have not seen Randy Orton since he got taken out by Kevin Owens with a pile driver. He has not been seen, he has not been heard from, He was not in the Royal Rumble. Is he going to show up in

Toronto and go after Kevin Owens. It doesn't feel like it. So are we going to get some kind of an angle instead of a proper match in Toronto? And then do Owens and Zane in Las Vegas. I don't know what that means for Randy Orton. If you do that, it doesn't make any sense to me. For Randy Orton to eventually come back and not target Kevin Owens for what he did to him and just ignore it. That just doesn't make sense to me. It just doesn't unless

Cody retains at WrestleMania. Randy Orton makes a surprise return on SmackDown that week after Mania, and the first thing he does is he drops Cody with an RKO out of nowhere, and we're left to wonder what the fuck why? And then the following week we get the promo from Randy explaining how he came to agree with Kevin Owens. He sees things the way that Ko does. Yeah, that Cody is duplicitous and Cody is a terrible friend and doesn't care about anybody but himself, and that's how we

get Cody and Randy. Randy just sort of comes around to the same idea. Maybe that's the plan. Drew McIntyre is another one. I wish Drew McIntyre had something better, like a much bigger match than he's obviously gonna end up having on this show, because he had just incredible year last year and he's one of the more compelling

characters on the show. He deserves better than this. But it looks like he's either going to be wrestling Damian Priest or maybe someone like La Knight, because there was apparently talk this week internally about them, you know, considering maybe we should be doing McIntyre a night and playing off the real heat right coming out of the Royal Rumble when Drew was all upset with La Knights and LA Knight made that little dig in his promo last week. Oh,

I forgot to get my stuff in, right. I think that if you give me the choice, if I could book one or the other, it has to be one or the other for Drew McIntyre. I personally, I'm going with l A. Knight, and I think Damian Priest is great. I think he's fine. But I just think the build up and the promos and playing off you know, that real situation just makes it a more interesting match. It just makes it a more interesting build if that's what

you're gonna do. The history though, is there with Damian Priest if you go back to rest media last year, Damian Priest cashed in his money in the bank and Drew McIntyre and then they had another match, a clash at the Castle. But even that was kind of a fuck finish because you had seem Punk interfering as the guest referee. So we really have not had a decisive winner between these two men. And then, of course at

the Royal Rumble, who eliminated Damien? Who eliminated Drew McIntyre rather Damian Priest, everything is set up for Damian Priest to be the opponent, Like logically, historically it makes far more sense for it to be Damian Priest. I just think, you know, in terms of the week to week build up, I would find it more entertaining if it was La Knight going out there cutting promos and Drew and Drew cutting promos on him. He's already doing that on social media.

He's already he's already lighting him up on social media. I'd like to see more of that, to be honest with you. So let's say Damian Priest gets that match Okay, what do you do with La Knight? He's still over. You got to give him something on that show. He has made it very clear, as he did this week, he wants to get back his United States Championships. So do they just rematch him in Shinsky Nakamora and he

wins the belt back? Like, if you're an La Knight fan, I would argue that a match with Drew McIntyre would actually be a bigger spot for him on the show than just wrestling Knackamora and winning the US title. But that maybe what ends up happening. But then there's Jimmy Usso. I was thinking about Jimmy. There was a segment on SmackDown Friday Night where Drew McIntyre again was mocking Jimmy. Right low, look at your brother. Your brother's going to WrestleMania.

He's challenging for a championship, and like, poor Jimmy, Jimmy's got nothing going on. I think maybe they're building to Jimmy Usso winning the US title and you could have both USO celebrating at the end of WrestleMania one with each title, right, Jimmy with the US title, Jay with the World title. I think that may be what they're going for. So are we looking at another triple threat match here? This could easily be a multi man match. It could be a three way, it could be a

four way. Get a bunch of people in there, challenge for the US title. That's what this feels like to me. All this fantasy booking of WrestleMania and all these potential multiman matches and having flashbacks to WrestleMania two thousand, that's not a good thing. Bron Breaker, He's the Intercontinental champion. They have teased a couple of matches for him, and it doesn't have to be WrestleMania, but they've teased something

with him in Penta right. It was just a one off in the back many weeks ago, and they did the same thing this week where he confronted aj Styles and they stared at each other and Bron told them, see year around, is that the Intercontinental title match for WrestleMania. I would rather it be Seamus. I've made that very clear before. There's a story to be told with Seamus finally winning the Intercontinental title at WrestleMania. No one's been

talking about him for WrestleMania. I'd prefer Shamus, not that AJ wouldn't be a great opponent for him, but I would still prefer Breaker and Seamus. And you know what, Gunther's going to lose that World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania. I'd like to see Gunther working AJ coming out of that show, because they've never worked together before. That would be a great program Gunther and AJ styles. That could

be what Gunther does coming out of Mania. Then you have the bloodline, right Timu Bloodline, Jacob Fa Tu, Tomataga, Solo so CoA. You see that there is a drama from within the bloodline after what happened on SmackDown Friday Night. We're gonna get Solo Socoa against Jacob Fa tw at some point, probably WrestleMania. I think that's the WrestleMania match for those guys. You've got Penta. You've got to get

Penta on the WrestleMania card. They shot an angle at the end of Raw Monday Night after Raymisterio lost his Chamber qualifier to Logan Paul, where the New Day ran out to attack him and they went off the air two seconds later. We got to see none of it. Now, there was a video that was uploaded, I guess to YouTube after the fact of the attack on Ray. They went after his knee. They took a chair to the knee. It felt like an angle to write him off for

a while. And what I'm thinking here is that and I talked about this on Monday in my raw review, and I see the vision here. I don't know if this is Triple H's vision, but this is my vision of where this is headed. You have the New Day. They're gonna have to take out each member of the LWO. You know, Dragon Lee came out after the show Monday night to try to rescue Ray, and he got beat down too. But you got Dragon Lee, You've got Cruise

Del Toro, You've got Jokin Wilde. They're gonna have to take each member out because if Ray comes back and he needs a partner to go after the New Day, He's got three guys right there, right, You've got to come up with a way to get them out of the picture. And it looks like Ray has nobody right. The New Day has gotten rid of every member of

the LWO. Ray finally comes back sometime in March, whenever it is he returns, and it's two on one, he's got nobody to help him, and that's when Penta comes to the aid of Raymistereo and we get Ray and Penta again. To the new day at Wrestlemdia. You look at the SmackDown tag team title situation, I think we're headed for a multi team match, probably a ladder match, which is kind of you know, that'd be kind of lazy, honestly, because that's what they did last year when they merged

the titles. But I think that's where we're headed something with the Street Profits and pretty Deadly and Los Garza and Diy, they're all gonna lump them into one match together. So then the question is what about Bianca, What about Jade? What about Naomi? Right, we had a segment on SmackDown where Nick Aldo he received some anonymous cell phone video and he showed them and it showed when Jade was attacked and they were loading her into the ambulance in

the parking lot. We see Live Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez on the side like scurrying away, and of course the dumb babyfaces just take that to me, Well, they must have done it. We know who the culprit is. Boy Naomi looked awfully nervous when all this was about to show that video, So it's a misdirect. It's not gonna end up being Live Morgan in Raquel as the perpetrators. I still say it's gonna be Naomi. It could be Naomi and Bianca. I don't see them turning Biyanca heel.

I think it's gonna be Naomi. I don't know when we're gonna get the ultimate reveal. I don't know when Jade is going to be back on TV. I would assume it would be in time for a WrestleMania match, But what's that match? You know what I mean?

for shit so far. I don't even know that they're going to be defended on WRESTLEMANI and then the last thing is we have not heard one name mentioned for this show, and that name is Guldberg. We have not heard about Goldberg for WrestleMania, even though he did say he's going to be having his retirement match in twenty twenty five and teasing at the time that it would be against Gunther, although they never actually said who it would be against, so they haven't mentioned Goldberg. Goldberg has

not appeared. I don't know that the match is happening at WrestleMania. Maybe it's going to happen on one of the Saudi shows. But that's just something to keep in mind because I think a lot of people assume that if he was going to be retiring, it would be on a big show like WrestleMania. It still could happen, but we have not heard his name mentioned at all. So when I look at this potential WrestleMania card, I

could see where people would be underwhelmed. I do think that what they did last year has a lot to do with why this year feels less than But again, we have two matches confirmed. I don't know where half the card is going to end up. There's so many different potential paths to take with some of these people.

It'll be interesting to follow in the next i'd say two or three weeks when they start locking shit in what the wrestle may be you card this year is actually going to look like today's episode is sponsored by Factor. If you've been looking for a way to eat healthier, but maybe you don't know where to start, or you work yourself to death during the day, so much so that by the time you get home you just don't have time to make yourself something, or maybe frankly, you're

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That's code Solemn Monster fifty off at Factor meals dot com slash sole Monster fifty off. Get fifty percent off plus free shipping on your first box. Other news and notes before I get to aw both wrestle Votes and Fightful reported on Thursday that New Orleans, Louisiana is the likely spot for WrestleMania next year, with wrestle votes, adding that the announcement will come before WrestleMania forty one in

Las Vegas. Fightful noted that New Orleans had been the plan for years and that some WWE partners were made aware of the location as well. If it happens, this would be the third time that New Orleans gets WrestleMania, the last two times being twenty fourteen and twenty eighteen. And I swore that if they went back, I would be there, so it would be my third trip there too.

They just hosted the Super Bowl last weekend before a crowd of sixty five thousand, but believe that's what they claimed, So of course WWE would have to announce a number higher than that for each night, even if it isn't true. That's just how the game is played. We have our second name confirmed for the WWE Hall of Fame class of twenty twenty five, joining Triple H, will be Michelle McCool.

During it appearance Friday morning on ESPN's Get Up, McCool was surprised with the news by Triple H, who was not there with her but appeared on screen while she and the Undertaker were in studio, and Triple H said that since the Undertaker and Sean Michaels they surprised him about his induction into the Hall of Fame, this was his way of basically getting him back, which made it sound like she was only going into the Hall of Fame this year because he wanted He wanted to get

the Undertaker back, but she got very emotional and even the Undertaker started wiping away tears. K Fabe is deater than he used to be, So that would make them the third husband and wife couple to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. I know Edge and Beth Phoenix are both in, and Booker t and Charmel are in, and I think that's it. Taker and Michelle would be

the third. I really thought that somebody like Mickey James or Victoria would go in this year, especially with Mickey being a part of that LFG show which premieres tonight on A and E. But I guess Michelle is on there too. She's in at least one of the episodes. Look, it's not like she wasn't going in at some point. Four time Women's Champion part of the first ever women's table match as part of Lay Cool against Beth Phoenix

and Italia. She really was more associated with her run as one half of Lake Cool with Leila l than her singles run, which is what makes me laugh, because she just did an interview with Chris van Vliet and like it literally just dropped this week and the video version went up on YouTube on Thursday, and Chris asked her about the possibility of going into the Hall of Fame one day, and she said, of course it would be an honor, but lay Cool is what put her on the map, and she had hoped that when she

got or if she ever goes in, she wanted to be together with Layla, And then like forty eight hours later, she's announced as a solo inductee for the Hall of Fame. Like, oh, well, she's not wrong, though, if she was going in, they really should have put her in with Laila. They should have gone in together. Layla hasn't done anything with the company in years since she left. She's kept a very

low profile. The thing with Michelle McCool, you know, and I always have fun with like when we land on her and be the booker on the streams and stuff. Sometimes I'll hit the buzzer and it's not because of her. It's not like I land on Rosa Mendez or something. But the thing with Michelle McCool is that she was very athletic like growing up and it showed in her matches,

like some of the moves that she would do. She played softball and volleyball when she was younger, She did fitness contests, she taught kickboxing, so, like you know, she was very athletic and very active. Today they have tons of women who come from athletic backgrounds right their recruit being nil athletes and all of this stuff. She came to WWE I think ten years too soon because when she was there, it wasn't about how good of a wrestler you were. It wasn't about how athletic you were.

It was about how hot you were. Right, there were a lot of blonds like her running around. You know, Vince had a type. That's what it was about. It was about that, and it was about what dumb storyline Vince McMahon could come up with where he can make out with you on TV. I can't think of many matches outside of that Tables match, you know in lay Cool that she had that really stand out to me. It doesn't mean that she was a bad wrestler. Right, she wasn't. There just wasn't a whole lot that stands

out for me from that Diva's era. I actually liked the finish of that tables match, by the way, because if you remember it, and I won't fault you if you don't. But Michelle and Layla they get shoved the like on the ropes and they get shoved backwards by Natty and they land on this table and the table it doesn't fully break, It just sort of SAgs like it bends a little bit. And because of course they don't weigh enough to break the table, and the crowd

could have shit all over it. You know, you fucked up or whatever. But I remember the crowd. They started going crazy and they're yelling for Natty like to jump off, just like dive off, And finally she dives off the top rope with a splash and she puts them through the table and it got a great reaction. I know, lay Cool they did that terrible Piggy James angle. And you know there was a Royal Rumble match with Michelle

McCool and Mickey James that went like twenty seconds. It's like the women's matches back then, they were routinely put in the depth spot on pay per views, like if you wanted a piss break, Oh, they got the women's match, it's time to go to the bathroom, Like that's that's what they were put there for, right before the main event every show, and if the matches on TV, he

got more than two minutes. It was a miracle. And given their experience level, for some of the divas, maybe that was for the better, but for the ones who could actually work, I'm sure it was frustrating as fuck. And she told some stories on Undertaker's podcast. She was on his show last year and she told one story.

She had a match with Molina and it was a Night of Champions match and they got in trouble for doing a DDT spot on top of the barricade, which was a no no for the women back then, like, oh, you can't do that. You can't outshine the boys, right, the women are not supposed to be doing that sort of thing. So they got heat for that when they

got to the back. And then there was a match with her and Victoria where they got to the back and they're changing out of their gear and somebody comes in and tells them you need to go back out and redo your match, and they're like, what why, And this person says, well, your punches look too good, right, because you can't have the women out there throwing better

punches in the guys. And she said, even, you know, Chris Jericho heard what was going on and stood up for her and said, well, if they're punching better than the guys, then you know what that's on. The guys throw better punches, which is one hundred percent right. So they had to go out and redo the entire match all over again, which I'm sure confused the hell out of the crowd. But she said from that point on, they instituted a no punching and no kicking rule for

the women's matches. Right, So that's what she claims anyway, But that's the kind of bullshit that the divas were up against back then. Right then came the era of the Belas and the thirty second matches where they were getting their time cut right before they walked out to go to the ring, and then came the you know, give divas a chance hashtag and we all know what

happened after that. That's why I say like she's one of those women who came along ten years too early, so maybe they can have Leyla be the one to induct her. But that's the second Hall of Fame name for this year's class. And we took one giant step this week towards another Hall of Fame induction that is long overdue, because this week we learned that WWE has signed Bill Edy and Barry Darso Demolition to WWE Legends contracts.

They are back in the fold, which means new action figures and video games if they weren't already in the video game and they could take their rightful place in the Hall of Fame right They each had very accomplished careers outside of Demolition. You know. Bill Ady was the Mass Superstar and I think had a couple of other gimmicks. Barry Darso was Crusher Khrushchev and the NWA and then Repo Man many years later. I guess accomplished is not

a word I would use to describe Repo Man. I gotta tell you, though, I still get a kick out of those old Repoman vignettes. Yeah, they've been putting out coliseum videos on the Vault YouTube channel. They had one I just watched it last week, and in it they had a bunch of repo men vignettes where I don't know what, I don't know where he was, but like he ran into like a regular person on the street who was filming something with his camera, and he's like

he was gonna steal the camera. He goes, I won't steal the camera. I won't repoe the camera from you if you just come with me and film me. And the guy follows him around and he's like repossessing various things. So like he just goes around and like he steals a little girl's bike, and then he breaks into someone's garage and says they missed their their last payment. They were a day late on their last their last payment.

He goes, you know, you know what I always say, you know what, what's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine too, and that fucking cackle. How can you not be entertained by that? It was a ridiculous gimmick, But like he tried to make the most of it, you know, Smash Acts left and so he had nothing to do. He needed a job, and so that's what they had him doing. But uh oh, and don't forget whole one. Darso holand won Darso at the golf gimmick in WCW. But forget all that shit. When I was

a kid, Demolition was the shit. Now if you watch the NWA, if you grew up on that, you have the Road Warriors. Okay, I knew of the Road Warriors, but I didn't really gru u watching the Road Warriors. I read about them in the magazines and stuff. But if I were like me, I was watching the WWF, it was Demolition. Demolition and the Heart Foundation. Those are my two favorite tag teams. Three time tag team champions.

Their first run as champions lasted four hundred and seventy eight days, which was a record that stood until the New Day beat it in twenty sixteen. That record stood for twenty seven years. And as he was blackballed from the company after he sued them years ago over the rights to the Demolition name and the two of them they signed on to that big concussion lawsuit, the CTE lawsuit that ended up getting dismissed but billy ed. He is seventy seven years old now, Barry Darco is sixty five.

It's time before it's too late, It's time it's time to hear that theme music one more time. I figured their chances of going in were pretty good after Darso did that interview a few months ago where he said they were invited to attend the Hall of Fame as guests last year in Philadelphia, but they had to turn

it down because they had a prior commitment. So if they were invited to attend, even if it was only as guests, then that meant that the ice had thawed, And you know, with Vince McMahon being gone, it was only a matter of time. This is the next logical step towards an induction, and I hope they do it this year. They were part of my predictions for this year's Hall of Fame class when I made them last year, Remember said John Cena, Right, So I was wrong on

that Mickey James, which is not happening. But I think the other ones have a shot. I had Demolition, I had Sid Vicious, and I had Haku, and I still think they have a pretty good shot. And Hulk Hogan, speaking of Hall of Famers, has been sued. Is your weekly hul Cogan update here Hulk Hogan has been sued. Him and his real American beer company by a woman claiming that she was injured at an event last summer that required ten stitches in her head. This is the

story from the Fox affiliate in Akron, Ohio. An Akron woman is suing WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan and his Real American Beer Company. The Akron resident, Michelle har Lukowitz, alleges in a complaint that Hogan or one of his fellow promoters at a Real American Beer event in Medina, Ohio last August, threw a can of beer into the crowd that struck Harlukawitz and caused an open wound on her head that require ten stitches to close and will

cause permanent scarring. The alleged incident happened on Augus nineteen, twenty twenty four, at the Thirsty Cowboys Bar. R Lukawitz says that Hogan and event organizers were throwing cans of beer into the audience when one struck her from a distance of about fifty feet. Police were called to the scene at the time, but refused to file charges as they could not determine with certainty who threw the beer can. The bar and the bar owner are also being sued

along with Hogan and Real American Beer. R Lukawitz seeks financial compensation from Hogan, Real American Beer, Thirsty Cowboys, and its owner for her medical expenses as well as emotional distress and pain and suffering. So his shitty beer has claimed another victim. I'm telling you, I was fine until I had that fucking beer, and then I got sick. That's one hell of a coincidence. And now this woman has been permanently disfigured. This is some final destination shit

is what this is. Don't drink Stone Cold's new Broken Skull ips. He's got a new Broken Skull three sixteen IPA. It's out this week. I haven't tried it yet, but at least it won't kill you. And I'm not sure why this is first being reported now, as the podcast that she was on is from November, but it was

only first report. I guess people only caught onto it this week that former WWE referee Rita Chatterton, the first female referee in WWE history, spent a year under contract with AEW, although she did, in her own words, absolutely nothing during her time with the company. Chatterton she's the one.

If you Recall, who has always alleged that she was raped by Vince McMahon in the back of his limousine in nineteen eighty six, appeared on Power and Glory the podcast and recounted the story of how she started making wrestling appearances again after decades away from the business, What happened and was She agreed to receive an award, the Trailblazer Award from the International Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame

back in twenty twenty one. That led to Chatterton being contacted by Tony Kahan and signing a contract with aw and She says that Tony was very nice during their interactions. But this is how she recounts how this all came together. She said, I turn around and I do this event for the International Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame President Seth Turner. I get the Trailblazer Award, and you know, it's kind of like riding a Harley. It's in your blood and

it started creeping back into my blood. Well, a few weeks after that, Seth calls me and says, Rita, there's this guy that's trying to get a hold of you. He wants your phone number. And I said, well, who's that And he says, well, his name is Tony Kahan, and Rita says, who the hell is Tony Kahan? And he says, no, no, Rita, you should probably take his call. And I say, well, why do I want to take

his call? Says well, he owns the Jacksonville Jaguars. And she says, well, why the hell would anyone who owns the Jacksonville Jaguars want my phone number? And he says, well, he also owns AEW wrestling and she says, well, all right, give him my phone number. So he gives him my phone number. I don't hear anything, and a couple of weeks later, I get this phone call and I look and I don't know the number. Then I get to thinking about it, I say, well, let me call that

number back. So I call it back and it's Tony Kahan. So Tony and I had a nice long talk, and I was under contract with him for a year. Very nice man, a gentleman, very very nice man. And apparently talent scout is what her role was. I guess that was the role listed on her aw contract. But she never did anything while she was with the promotion. And she said that she did go to a couple of Jacksonville Jaguars games, though she said, you know what, I was under contract with him for a year and I

did absolutely nothing. I did absolutely nothing, but he wanted me under contract, and so I was under contract with him. And during the interview is a video interview with her was Mario Mancini, who spent time in the WWF. He was a journeyman guy for many years. I think Mancini was one of only two people that she confided in back in eighty six after the incident with Vince and the other person that she told about what happened and

confided in Andrea the Giant. It was Andrea the Giant of Mario Mancini that she says she told about that. But Mancini said that Chatterton had a talent scout contract and he would put wrestlers in front of her to potentially recommend to the powers that be at aw And these days he helps out at the Paradise Alley Pro Wrestling School, which I believe he runs with Paul Roma,

who was hosting the podcast. So there you go. Rita Chatterton, unbeknownst to anybody, was under contract for a year to aw And I'm sure a lot of people are gonna look at this and they're gonna rant. And why would he sign someone to a contract like that and then have them do nothing? You know what? If Tony wanted to pay this woman for a year, that's basically all this was. It sounds like it's just he wanted to give her a paycheck for a year. Great, and she

had nothing but positive things to say about him. She said he was a perfect gentleman. But if that's what he wanted to do, more power to him. I got no problem with it. Today's episode is sponsored by Betterhelp. When it comes to relationships, you always hear about red flags. Right Here's here's one red flag to avoid. Here's another red flag to avoid. What if we focus more on looking for green flags when it comes to your friends

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which did not air too late last night. I finished up with it this morning and I thought it was excellent, the best show all weekend, and it continues the streak that they are on right now of good shows, this being the best of the bunch. To show you just how expensive tickets were for this show, and this may

not be across the board. I'm sure some people got in for a lot less, but with eleven thousand fans said to be in the building, Tony Kahn says that it is one of the biggest live gates in the history of the company, so probably behind only the two shows they did at Wembley Stadium, which had considerably more people each time. So I don't know where they are right now as far as the gate for Texas in July, but I'm sure in the end that'll end up ahead

of this one. At least they didn't glaze themselves in front of the fans about how much money they made off of them. Fans there were loud though, and because they ended up running an arena and not a stadium. And again I've talked about the journey that they took from the moment the show was announced right on through the show itself. It honestly was one long, embarrassing journey, and we've already talked that length about that. But the show itself, I mean, it was in a smaller arena.

It was not in a big stadium like it was originally supposed to be, but they were able to pack it in because it was a smaller venue. So it looked mostly full. I don't know that it was sold out, but they had a lot of people there. And the first thing I noticed, other than the crowd was the ring. The ring looked a little bit different. It was noticeably smaller than the ring they usually use, not quite as small as the ring that TNA used when they ran

Webster Hall that one time. I have no idea, still to this day, how the wrestlers were able to do anything in that ring. It looked like a fucking hasbro ring, but this one was definitely smaller. They had a ton of extra space around the ring outside, more than I've ever seen before. I saw tweets about them having to borrow a local ring from an independent promotion. I don't know what happened, and I'm certainly not assuming anything I

see on fucking Twitter to be true. It may be, but it's not like the ring skirts were hanging off the edges of the ring. It looked like it fit the ring. So they had to have some sense of what size the ring was going to be, which is why I'm not taking anything I see on Twitter at phase value. But they had just a little less room to do all their shit, and they opened with Kenny Omega and will Ospray against Kyle Fletcher and Knewski Ta Keshta.

Anyone wondering if they would cheer Fletcher and boo the baby faces, I don't know why anybody would think that they would boo Omega and Osprey, but they did not, and in fact, Kenny Omega was treated like a god when he came out. Unfortunately, he came out to his shitty new music, so that was disappointing. The match was not. The match was awesome, and I would expect nothing less from these four. This was the match of the night right here, and I loved the combo finish from the

baby Faces. Omega had Takeshta up on his shoulders for the One Winged Angel as Ospray came off the top rope with a hidden blade to the back of the head right as Omega dropped him, and Omega pins to Keshta. So they spared Fletcher. I mean, they did pin the champion here, although it is leading to a title match, so that's good. If you're gonna pin the champion, then

at least it should lead to a title match. But they spared Fletcher the pin in his home country, and then later on in the show in the back, Omega challenged Takesha to a match at Revolution for the international title, wanting to see if Takesha could beat him for a

third time, because remember Takeshta pined Omega. Not only did he pin him, well, he pinned him twice, but he pinned him in a six man tag at Wembley Stadium at that first all in show that was back in twenty twenty three, and in the same week right the following weekend they had All Out and we had a singles match between then, and he pinned Omega there too, So Kenny is daring him to do it for a third time, and that feels like an Omega title win.

And then they build to Omega versus Okada Champion against Champion in July at All In, and I don't know if they would want to merge the titles or not, but that's what this feels like to me. Will Osprey then cut a promo challenging Kyle Fletcher to a steal cage match at Revolution. So those are two huge matches now added to that pay per view. Mercedes Monet against Harley Cameron for the TBS Championship in Harley's home country. Harley was super over and Mercedes gave her the best

match of her career. She carried a very inexperienced wrestler. I mean, look, Harley's only been wrestling for three years, carried her to a good match. And let's not kid ourselves here, Okay, Harley Cameron has not been doing this for very long. She came into this show with one win her entire aaw run. That first singles win was just recently against Tye Valkyrie, and she's been there for

a few years now. Her first win, which is why it was ridiculous seeing so many people advocating for a title change here, because that would have been the wrong move. The right move, which is what they did, was to give Harley a nice showcase and have her come close but then fall short. And this was not the best Mercedes match of her run or anything like that, but

it was. I thought it was perfectly fine for what it needed to be, and if they want to now there is a longer term story they could tell with Harley eventually winning the title, that this was not the time to do it. This was the time to show people that for all the comedy that she does, she could be taken seriously as a wrestler, and I think they accomplished that. I could have done with less of the puppet Mercedes stuff during the match, though, but that

would really be my only critique about this. Adam Copeland and Jay White against John Moxley and Claudio Castignoli in a Brisbane brawl. Very cool moment where the crowd kept singing Copeland's theme song even after they stopped playing it. This was your your typical garbage match with weapons and plunder and brawling in the crowd. Copeland did a balcony dive spot in the crowd onto Claudio, which is crazy for a fifty year old who just came back from a broken leg diving off the top of the cage.

This was still a lot safer though it wouldn't be a death Rider's match without Wheeler fucking Udah getting involved. But he got dropped by White with a blade runner. You know, you would think that the babyfaces would bring their friends with them, given the death Riders always have the strength in numbers, right, Copeland's got friends in FTR. Jay White has friends and the guns, but they were

nowhere to be found. I mean, I know Australia has strict gun control laws down there, but I mean, come on, get it gun control anyway. For the finish, Copeland teased the concerto using a chair wrapped in barbed wire, but you to pull the chair away. Claudio hit the neutralizer for a near fall, but Moxley locked on the bulldog choke as you to held White back. Copeland tried to fight out of it. Moxley tightened the choke and Copeland went out for the rep stoppage and the crowd did

not like that finish. And I was surprised by the finish because I figured they would give Copeland the wind and then he would lose at Revolution, but with him losing here, especially the way that he did, that would make a win at Revolution a lot more likely. And I don't like that idea. I mean, I'm all forgetting the title away from the Death Riders, but Adam Copeland ain't the right choice, you know, unless Christian immediately cashes

in his contract on him to win. But honestly, you know, either of those outcomes would feel like an anticlimactic way for Moxley's run to end. It always felt like this was building to an aw original or a younger guy being the one to get the rub and to take that championship away from Moxley, you know, Adam Copeland winning the title, or even Christian Cage winning the title. You know, just it feels wrong. It really should not be either one of those guys Kazuchka Okada against Buddy Matthews for

the continental title. Another Aussie goes down in flames here. If anything surprised me, it was how many people in the crowd seem to really think that Matthews was gonna win that championship? Have they not paid attention to the teases for Texas retaining was more obvious than any of the other champions on this show, retaining, even Mercedes. I thought there was a small chance with Mercedes they might take the title off for her. There was no chance in this match, but they got the crowd to buy

into it. Matthews was favoring his ankle. I didn't see how or why. Hopefully he was just selling. But even after the match people said that he was helped to the back. If he was heard, it certainly didn't affect the quality of the match. I thought this was a very good match. Ocatta hit the rain Maker and to his surprise, Matthews kicked out and ending it there would have been very underwhelming, but he kicked out, and maybe that's why the crowd thought he was winning, because he

kicked out of the rain Maker. Matthews hit Murphy's Law a few minutes later, his or I guess Matthew's Law, right, I guess that's what it would be called now. His Matthew's Law finish. But Olkatta got his foot on the middle rope at the very last second and fans chanted bullshit. So from where they were sitting, it may have looked

like a three, but it wasn't. Matthews got Rhea Ripley's prism lock applied to a big pop Ocatta got out of it, had the referee, but Mule kicked Buddy Matthews, which the referee did not see, and then he finished him off with the rain Maker to retain the title. So kind of a lame finish there. It didn't take away from how great the match was. I thought it was a very good match, and the correct match got

the main event spot. It was not the best match on the show that was the opener, but given where they were and given how long this feud has been going on for, it was the right choice to close the show, especially with the title change timeless. Tony Storm beat Mariah May to regain the aw Women's World Championship for the fourth time. This is why Harley Cameron and Buddy Matthews lost. I mean they were probably losing anyway, but the two ossees lose to make Tony winning in

the main event mean more. And Mariah gave Tony a may Day on the floor, which had to have sucked in the ring. Later, Tony hit Mariah with may Day for two. Then came the running hip attacks, which from Tony's Storm just looked absolutely brutal more than anyone in the bloodline. When they do it, I don't know how she does it without scrambling her opponent's brains. She hits

Storm zero, but Mariah kicks out. Mariah comes back, hits may Day not once but twice, but Tony kicked out, and it got a little ridiculous with all the finish kickouts. Tony hit a running power bomb and then another Storm zero, but Mariah rolled out to the floor to avoid the pin. Tony went to go get her but got yanked into the turnbuckle and Mariah hit Storm zero, but she didn't go for the pin, and she opted instead to try another may Day when Tony rolled her up and pinned

her the dreaded roll up of doom. I actually did not hate the finish as much as I thought I would, because there's gonna be a third match. There has to be. There has to be a third match between these two, So if they wanted to hold off on a more decisive finish for the next one, that makes sense to me.

You know, Mariah can turn around and say that you you know she won on a fluke, you didn't really beat me, and she calls for a rematch, which they can do at Revolution in a few weeks with a stipulation, right, maybe something like last Woman Standing or something like that. So they had a very good match. It just felt like they were saving their very best for the blowoff, and they really need to do this at Revolution. They need to blow this off at Revolution, not in Dynasty,

not a double or nothing, not in Texas. These two women have had that world title. Think about this, okay. As great as they are, these two women have had that world championship on lockdown since November of twenty twenty three. Think of all the women in the division and the world title has been centered around two of them, and I've enjoyed it. But after Revolution, it's time to move on to new stories and get some new women involved

at the top of the card. They have a ton of talent in that women's division just waiting for the opportunity. Mercedes has had the TBS title locked up for almost a year now. Two it can't just be about Tony and Mariah with the world title for another six months. Let's get it done at Revolution. But this was a great show, right, Not everything was great, Just like on the NXT show, not everything was great but on the whole, we got two very enjoyable shows this weekend. I just

happened to enjoy this one more. There were some big changes internally at TNA this week, with Anthony Chacone who works for Anthem and took over as TNA president when they fired Scott de Moore getting ousted from the position this week, so he lasted a year. He is still with Anthem that they have moved him out of that spot. And the new TNA president per pw Insider is Carlos Silva, and absolutely no additional information about the men was given,

so I don't know who he is. I don't know where he's from, what his background is, he has any prior wrestling experience. I have no idea, but that's who the new president of TNA is. They also fired Josh Matthews, who had been there for over a decade and he did commentary for a very long time in recent years. He worked in the truck, he worked behind the scenes, and Christy hemy was let go as well. She also worked behind the scenes. She was running TNA social media.

In their place, they have brought in George Varies in an executive producer role, so effectively what leaf fitting is to WWE and Kevin Dunn used to be. He's someone that has worked in the past for ABC Sports, NBCCBS, Cleveland Browns, So the belief is that he'll be putting his own team together, which is why we saw those

other names. Let go p w Insider says Mark Brown, who was a director with Ring of Honor back in the Sinclair days and worked with New Japan Pro Wrestling on their US events, is coming in as a director, and Fightful is reporting that Andrea or Andre Andrea could just be Andrea. It's probably just Andrea, see but Andrea Andrea sounds so much more eloquent. Andrea Pagnanelli has been named Senior VP of Margie. See what I did? They see how great I made that sound. I should be

like an announcer or something. This is all said to be part of a restructuring by Anthem, and there is not said to be any concern from talent or anybody upset like they were when Demor was fired. And this ride here is the best damn news all week, and

I'm happy to share it with you all. TNA star Chris Bay, one half of the Tag Team ABC with Ace Austen was paralyzed in a match back in October against the Hardys, and ever since then there really have not been any updates on his condition, which seemed to be a bad thing right. A lot of people very worried about the fact that there was no new information

about his condition. We didn't hear from him directly. There was a GoFundMe set up for him that currently is north of one hundred thousand dollars in counting, and different promotions have been holding fundraisers for him. So it all sounded very bad and we had no updates until now. On Thursday, Chris posted to his social media on his birthday a video of him standing up out of a chair and walking towards the camera and with it, he included this message today I turned twenty nine, blessed to

see it. On October twenty seven, twenty twenty four, I suffered a life altering injury in Detroit at a TNA event while sharing the ring with my partner, Ace Austen and some of my idols, the Heartys. This was the scariest moment of my life. I tried to get up and finish the match, only to realize I could move I was laid out paralyzed in the middle of the ring. I felt ashamed for not being able to finish the match,

embarrassed and terrified. Thanks to our incredible ringside doctor and the team at TNA, I was rushed to a nearby hospital and quickly underwent surgery to fuse my neck at C six C seven, along with a spinal cord fusion at C six T one. If it wasn't for TNA and their quick response, I might not be here today. They have been so supportive throughout this entire journey. When I woke up the next day, I was overwhelmed by the love surrounding me in the outpouring of support from

the wrestling community. But I was also devastated by the thought that my lifelong dream, an eight year wrestling career, might be over. I lay there paralyzed from the neck down with no promise of ever walking again. Doctors told me it wasn't likely, just a ten to twenty five percent chance. I had no use of my hands, which made it impossible for me to post or respond to anything.

I spent about a week in the ICU and then fifty days in a spinal cord rehab facility in Detroit, doing therapy se days a week for three hours a day, sometimes longer. On December twenty eighth, I was finally able to go home. Since then, I have been in therapy, working as hard as I can. I've had an incredible

support system. There are so many people I want to think, but if I had to narrow it down, I must thank my family, my TNA family, the dedicated staff in Detroit, my brother Ace Austin for never leaving my side, and my amazing girlfriend Britney Brooks for being there every step of the way while I was at my lowest. If you've reached out, donated, bought merch, said a prayer, or even just shared a thought about me, thank you. I

am eternally grateful for every single one of you. Because of you, even on my hardest days, I never gave up. Because of you, I've lived my dream and in my opinion, helped inspire others to do the same. There's so much more to the story, and I will share all the details soon, but please allow me the time to get there. Today you see me celebrating life and taking the steps they said would be unlikely. For three weeks, I've been out of my wheelchair, learning to walk again. Nothing is impossible.

You just have to believe and do the work. I thank God every second. I thank you every second. Will I ever wrestle again? Never say never. I'm just so grateful to be alive. I don't know what my purpose is, but I know that there's something meant for me to do. For now, I just hope to continue healing as my body is still in a lot of pain. It's going to be a long road, but I will not give up. This will be the greatest story ever told. I love you all. To see him up and walking was just incredible.

And whether he ever wrestles again or not, you know, like Biggie, if he can get his quality of life back and live pain free, since he says he's still in pain right now, that really is all the matters. Like everything else will work itself out, everything else will fall into place the way that it should. Tommy Dreamer on Busted Open Radio said that he broke down in tears when he saw him stand up in that video.

He was there when Chris got hurt, he said. Chris asked that no one share any details about what happened to him and everybody banded together and kept quiet about it, well all except RVD, who went on his podcast a few weeks ago and said Chris was paralyzed but was starting to get everything back. But outside of that, everybody kept quiet, which is a hard thing to do these days, right, to keep something like that so close to the vest. That's what happened after, you know, Brodie Lee got sick

those two months. You know, from the time he had that last match and got sick to the time that he passed away, there was really no information being released and nobody knew what was going on with him. And that was because his wife asked, you know, all the folks in aw not to say anything, and everybody kept their mouth shut. You know, they were respectful of her wishes and respectful of the family, and they didn't let anything get out. So it sounds like this was a

similar situation. And I think this is pretty cool and maybe you will too. Gerald Brisco worked for WWE for many years as a wrestler. He was a road agent, a talent scout, he was a local promoter. I mean, this all dates back to the early eighties and he was one of the Vince McMahon's right hand men, and he has kept a lot of items over all of these years. Some people just throw away all their stuff, their memorabilia and everything they didn't know like these days,

they can make so much money off that stuff. So imagine all the guys with their gear and old belts and all kinds of stuff that they could have held on too. They could have made a fucking fortune off that stuff. So many of that stuff has lost the time,

and so many of that stuff was thrown away. It's like those promoters that and I think Jerry Jerry used to do this, these promoters that would tape their weekly shows like in their territory and use those same tapes to just record over the old shows to tape the new ones. So a lot of those are not available anymore now. If they would have had the foresight to know that one day they'd be able to make a lot of money off those tapes, they wouldn't have recorded

over them. Well, Gerald Briscoe he kept a lot of his stuff from over the years, old programs, magazines, run sheets, that sort of thing, and over the past week or so he's been posting a lot of it on his Twitter page. Not that he's giving it away. He just posting pictures of it. His handle, by the way, is at FG Briscoe if you want to go follow him. And there were a few things that jumped out at me that I thought I would share because you may find this as interesting as I do.

of such signing. As has been customed for three generations, this office has maintained an acute sense of fairness and integrity. Since all of you have had ample opportunity to review our standard contract, we must ask for immediate acceptance or rejection. Those of you rejecting the contract will be deemed to have given this office a four week notice of leaving. Those of you accepting the contract will undoubtedly live happily ever after along with me in Fairyland. Remember that today

is just another day in Paradise. Please return the signed contract signifying your acceptance or the unsigned contract signifying rejection, and notice to the appropriate agent tonight, who will issue last week's paycheck. This office has maintained an acute sense of fairness and integrity. I wonder if Wendy Richter felt that way the previous year. I love that if you signed the contract, you will undoubtedly live happily ever after with me in Fairyland. You'd have to be living in

fairyland to believe that. But if you were someone who rejected the contract and then WrestleMania happened two months later, I could see how that might have ended up being a bad business decision. So then he posted a WrestleMania four sheet with the tournament bracket for the World Championship tournament, and like at the top, it's got contact information for their director of media relations at the time, and it's got a contact for the public relations manager for Trump Plaza.

All the names on the sheet are printed for the opening round right in the bracket. Plus you have Hogan against Andre in the quarterfinal round because those two got an automatic buy into the next round. And Brisco wrote in pencil the results or the planned result of the tournament. So you can see where he wrote in like Elsewhere on the sheet he wrote in like six man tag with the Bulldogs and the Islanders, and he wrote in icy title match with Honky tonk Man and Brutus Beefcake.

In the tournament bracket itself, above each opening round match, he wrote in I assumed this was before it even happened, what the planned finish, what the planned result was gonna be, So he wrote in like pin DQ, and he wrote in the results to each subsequent round. And what caught my eye about this was when he gets to the

Ricky steamboaug Greg Valentine match. The winner of that match, which ended up being Greg Valentine, met macho man Randy Savage in the next round, and it was such a missed opportunity to run that match back Savage and Steamboat, this time with Savage going over. All of the matches in the tournament were very short though, I mean, so they wouldn't have gotten the time that they had at WrestleMania three to go out there and have a classic or anything, but Savage Steamboat would have been a hell

of a lot better than Savage and Valentine. I'm not saying Valentine was a bad wrestler, but I'm just saying Savage and Steamboat sounds much more attractive as a match. But he wrote Steamboat's name in as the one advancing to the next round, only to cross it out, and he wrote Greg in right above his name, which means that the original plan may well have been for Steamboat

to advance to the next round to face Savage. I never knew that, so I wonder what changed unless this was just Brisco fantasy booking his own tournament and then as it played out, he simply crossed out the wrong results and wrote the right ones in. But I'm just in the role that he would have been in behind the scenes at the time. I would imagine in his position, he would have known what the plan was and he

filled out the bracket accordingly. But it's interesting to think that Ricky may have been planned to win that match, and maybe that day it got changed right, which is too bad. He also wrote Bam Bam Bigelow in into the next round with a win over one man Gang in the opener, but Gang up winning that match, and so Bam Bam is crossed out in the next round, and he wrote Gang above his name. And he also had Rick Rud going over on Jake the Snake Roberts.

So it would have been Rick Rude against Bambam in the next round, Rude going over and wrestling Randy Savage in the semi finals, and then Savage wins, and we get what we got with Savage against Dbiasse in the final. So we could have had Randy Savage against Ricky Steamboat and Randy Savage against Rick Rud in the tournament on the same night. According to this, that would have made for a better tournament. But again there were there were so many matches because they did the entire thing in

one night. It's, you know, sixteen man bracket. It's not as if they would have gotten a whole lot of time. But it's fascinating to see what the original plan may have been here. And he also shared I mean, he shared like so many things, but this is the last

one I'll mention here. He shared a newspaper clipping from the Tampa Tribune dated New Year's Day nineteen ninety one, in a story titled drug charges fell Wrestling manager says Raymond Bobby the Brain heenan a manager with the World Wrestling Federation, was arrested on drug charges Monday after passing out a board of flight bound for Tampa International Airport. Heenan of fifteen oh five Kyle Court in val Rico, which that's very encourage you. They just put it all

out there. Here you go. You want to knock on his door and say hello, there you go, says Heenan was charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to an arrest affidavit. He was released from the Hillsboro County Jail on three thousand dollars bail. The forty six year old wrestler turn manager was a passenger on Northwest Airlines flight four seventy five from Detroit that arrived in Tampa at ten to fifty am, according to Lieutenant

James Klem of the Airport Police Department. Northwest spokeswoman Christy Klapp said that Heenan passed out as the flight was making its approach. The flight crew was unable to revive him, so emergency crews were called before it landed. Heenan was taken to Saint Joseph's Hospital after airport police and rescue workers found him unconscious in his seat aboard the airliner. At the hospital, he was still unconscious, so he kept his bags for him while he was there, said Clem.

Doctors from Saint Joseph's then called airport police, asking them to check Heenan's luggage for any medication that he may have been taking. During the search, police found forty eight grams of marijuana, two pipes containing marijuana residue, and a pipe tool. After being treated and released from the hospital, Heenan returned to the airport at three pm to pick up his luggage. He was then arrested. Heenan wrestled and managed in the American Wrestling Association in the nineteen seventies.

He retired, but he returned to manage wrestlers in the WWF. Hospital officials would not say what Heenan, who who could not be reached for comment, was treated for. I don't think I ever knew about this story. In checking The Observer from the following week in nineteen ninety one, this

is what Meltzer reported at the time. Bobby Heenan was arrested on Tuesday, one day after he collapsed on an airplane coming home for New Year's Heenan was coming home to Tampa from Detroit when he passed out just as the plane was landing. Airport. Police found him unconscious and rushed him to Saint Joseph's Hospital with his heartbeat down near thirty five beats per minute. The doctors asked police to check his luggage, and they found forty eight grams

of marijuana and two pipes containing marijuana resin. After Heena regained consciousness and was released from the hospital, he was arrested where he went to when he went to claim his baggage, and according to the story in the Tampa Tribune, Heenan did not appear surprised and was very cooperative when police arrested him and charged him. Heena went back on tour without missing any scheduled appearances for a Thursday night

show in Tucson. Because of the storyline, and Heenan's current house show program with Big Boss Man is that if he fails to appear, he will be suspended for life by the WWF. Heenan was not pulled from any shows immediately, to the best of my knowledge, with the exception of the Tampa Tribune newspaper, the incident did not make any press until this past weekend when on Sunday went out over the wires and was picked up in Monday newspapers

all over the country. I knew that Bobby smoked years later because Jim Ross told the story on his podcast. This was years ago about smoking weed with Bobby the brain in the WWF because Bobby would get very upset. You'll find this funny. Bobby apparently would get very upset and worked up over some of the booking back then. This would have been like his last year or two in the company before he went to WCW. So he

was just announcing at that point. I have been doing some producing backstage also, but he was announcing he wasn't managing anymore. And Jr. Said that Bobby was old school, so him having to make sense out of gimmicks like repo man and then go out and talk about them when they would do their voiceovers, it made them crazy, right, They were just so ridiculous. So they had a code word, which was or two words, I guess, which was chocolate cake.

And so when Bobby would ask if Jr's wife was making some chocolate cake, he knew what he meant, and they would go off to go smoke and calm down before they did their voiceovers for Wrestling Challenge or whatever show they were doing. Because back then you couldn't smoke marijuana like it was. It was absolutely prohibited. You would get fined, you could get suspended. They had all the heat on them from the steroid stuff and everything, and

they had that. They had a drug policy back in the late eighties for you know, for cocaine because it was just so out of control. But they would not let the boys, you know, smoke marijuana. Would is not to say that they didn't, but if you got caught with it, you would you get in trouble. And that's probably what drove a lot of them to drink. And so now they're taking pills in their drinking, whereas if they were smoking marijuana. It makes you wonder how many

of those wrestlers might still be alive today. But that was the policy back then. I think Brett Hart has talked about that too. How oh, you can't smoke weed because he also smoked weed. Can't smoke weed? And so what did the boys do? They did more drinking, right or if they didn't drink, now they drank and you know, drinking and taking pills is not a good combination. But there you go. If you didn't know, now you know Jr.

And Bobby Heenan. I almost set a safe word. Holy shit, now they had a secret Oh my god, they had a secret code. Work Jesus. They had a secret code word, which is very different from a safe word. Let's move on, shall we We have some mail bag Let's do that. Let's do some mail bag questions and forget all about this. You could email me the Solemn Monster at gmail dot com. Please include your name, but where you are from you write in let's get through this here. David from Chicago.

I have a question, he says, regarding AW. Do you think it's too late for AEW to get back to the way they were before. I'm noticing that it's getting cool to hate AW. Yeah, I mean it's cool if you're a geek on Twitter. I don't think it's cool to just blindly hate on anything. Like if you want to hate on something because it legitimately sucks and you didn't like it, then go ahead speak your mind. If you think it sucks, then say so. And if it's great,

then say so. If they need to. I think AW needs to worry less about getting back to twenty twenty one and just put out a compelling, exciting product. And you know what, it's never too late for that. Kenny from Cottontown, Tennessee. I know this feels way too early to speculate, but where do you rank Ricky Stark's debut

appearance on NXT in terms of surprise wrestler debuts. I know it will never beat Scott Hall's surprise appearance on NITRO nearly three decades ago, but considering how quick he happened to show up as soon as he was released from AW, it was an amazing appearance for sure. I also put brock Lesnar's WWE television debut in Sting's WWE and AW debuts in the same category as shocks surprises, as well as John Moxley's AW debut in the same conversation, Kenny,

I love you, brother. They're not even in the same stratosphere. And I like Ricky Starks and I'm glad that he got his release and he finally made it to WWE, which is where he's obviously wanted to be. Like, that's great and all, and there, look, there were a lot of people in the audience who were genuinely shocked to see him in the crowd on Tuesday. The Ricky Starks debut doesn't compare to any of the ones you just mentioned. Like again, it's not even in the same coma. Kevin

from Washington, DC. Something tells me that John Cena is not going to win the Elimination Chamber and instead will be eliminated by Logan Paul and setting them up one on one. It sucks as seen as last media match, but they want Logan Paul to face a big name and I don't see any other baby face on Raw right now. That being said, I think Drew Well, I just named one earlier, I said aj Styles. That being said,

I think Drew McIntyre is going to win. That way, Paul and McIntyre have a path to the Big Show. Do you feel this idea is plausible Logan Paul against John Cena. Yes, it's plausible. Drew McIntyre winning the Chamber and challenging Cody for the title. No, I don't see that happen. Dominic from Connecticut. Assuming the participants of the Men's Elimination Chamber are John Cena, Cmpunk, Drew McIntyre, Logan Paul,

seth Rawlins, and Damian Priest. I think it is clear that the Chamber will be the catalyst for all six of these men's matches leading into WRESTLEMANE. While I had originally thought we would get the official kickoff to Damien and Drew's feud in the Chamber, with recent reports the WWE is now reconsidering Drew's program. Perhaps instead we can see the start to Drew and John Cena.

think they could have a very good match. Logan is then eliminated by Punk getting his revenge for the Logan for Logan tossing him out of the Rumble, and the final two are seth Rawlins, and Cmpunk. Roman then makes a surprise return and spears Rollins call him the match, and Punk wins the Chamber, and then it's revealed the favor was having Hayman instruck Roman to interfere in the match and assure that Punk's ashore Punk's victory in the chamber. Eh,

you lost me there. Therefore, coming out of this, we have set up Logan against Damien, Drew against Sena, Seth against Roman, and Punk against Cody at WrestleMania. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean the Roman thing just it still doesn't make any sense to me. I don't buy it. I think that's a weak explanation. I think the other things that you've set up here are are at least plausible. You know, like Drew against Sena I think would be great,

Logan against Damien would be fine. Seth and Roman's fine. Punkin Cody I have no problem with that. I mean, I'd rather see punkin Cody than Sena and Cody. I don't see any of this happening. I mean, Seth and Roman, there'll be some form of Seth and Roman at many of the other stuff. I don't see any of this happening. But yeah, you lost me at the Roman explanation, you know, coming into the chamber and helping Punk and that being the favorite, it would just feel like a waste of

a favor. I feel like, like, why would Punk instruct Hayman like he thinks so little of his ability to win the elimination Chamber that he instructs Roman Reigns to interfere in a match where, by the way, no one is supposed to be able to get inside. I mean, I know people do like to waste the favor on that, Like, No, I don't. I don't like that at all. Uh Kobe from Dothan, Alabama with an idea on how to spice

up the Royal Rumble. How would you feel about WWE bringing back the lottery with the ball roller for the Royal Rumble, except they bring it back in the weeks leading up to the Rumble. They can have the obvious big names draw their spots, but they can have other contenders trade or make deals for the spot in the Rumble. Some can offer promises or other incentives such as title shots if they are a mid tier champion to trade or get their entry number. They can treat it like

how teams trade up in sports drafts. Someone could draw number thirty in advance of the rumble, but there's no guarantee that someone like the Rock wouldn't come in and offer them a deal where they get or where they give up their entry completely. It would still give you the mystery on if anyone drew their number would actually keep their entry. It would be a lot more entertaining than people just declaring themselves for the rumble or saying

that they're going to win. It can have people running around making deals with everyone to add a little more mystery into what was traded to get such a good spot. You know, that's actually a very creative spin on the roller, And I don't hate the idea, especially if you keep I wouldn't want to know who number thirty is going to be, so like I would still want there to be some mystery behind who's in some of these spots. But the idea that I remember it was either the

first or the second. I think I think it might have been the second Rumble, but it was a Royal rumble where DEBIASI drew a poor number because they did the roller. Even back then, in eighty eight or eighty nine, they were doing the roller and he picks his ball and he looks and he was not happy about his number, and so he went off with somebody else who drew a better number, and then ultimately, you know, DEBIASI came out I think at number thirty. So like, that's the concept.

I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. It would make things a little more interesting. I think going into the rumble Dak from Saint Paul, Minnesota, who says he is in the process of losing his voice similar to what I recently dealt with. So I'm sorry to hear that. Brother, You'll get yours back quicker, so long as you're not doing six shows a week like I do, so feel better. What do you think is the greatest wrestling character created

that Vince McMahon had no hand in creating. I say that because when you add in Vic, the answer is obviously the undertake. Well, yeah, obviously, and Kane Cain would have been the second one that I would have gone with. You take Vince out of the equation, I think Big Van Vader, which was the brainschild of Antonio Andoki. I love that character. I think the look of it with the helmet and the steam coming out of it, just the whole visual of Vader and that whole character. I

would go with Big Van Vader. I think that you could throw in some other ones like Liger, you know, Jusi and thunder Liger. Great Muda has to be on that list, but I'm gonna go Big Van Vader. Secondly, since you believe Mariah May will win in Australia and we can forget about that, what if Tony Khan has Mercedes lose to Harley Cameron to give the crowd the hometown winner. You can have Mercedes move on to the world title picture. Harley holds the TBS title for a

few weeks before losing it to Meghan Bain. She can be a big star for aw's women's division, and this could be a good way to showcase her, similar to what they did with Jade as the TBS champion. Well, obviously Mariah May did not win in Australia and I would not have done it this way. Meghan Bain just debuted like she is just now entering her very first program with Chris Statlander. They're going to have a match soon, maybe at Revolution. There's no need to rush a title

onto her. And I said what I said earlier about Harley. I don't think putting the title on her for a few weeks would have done her any more good than the good that was done by just putting her in a serious match and having a good match with Mercedes, which she did. I think it accomplishes exactly the same thing without having to change the title. William from Calgary, my question for you is the WWF King of the

Ring Championship belt. I saw a photo on the internet, but I never recalled the belt ever being used on TA or pay per view. Do you have any backstory on why the King of the Ring belt never debuted and who the belt was originally for. Well, it's a good thing you've come to the beltmark here because I actually do know the answer to this. It was never used because it wasn't WWE that had the belt made. That was Mabel. Mabel personally went and had the belt made.

He paid for it. That was all him. That was in ninety six. After they let him go. Mabel won the King of the Ring in ninety five. That ended up being his big claim to fame in his career was being King Mabel. So after they fired him, he personally reached out to Reggie Parks about creating a King of the Ring belt that he could use on the indies. And I don't think it was Reggie who made the belt. It might have been Dave Millikan, but they made the belt.

And if you look at the photo of the belt, if you look closely, it's got the WWF letters on it, but it's not the logo because he didn't have the rights to use their logo because it wasn't a company belt. And I'm glad it wasn't. I mean, the King of the Ring winner does not need a championship belt, but this thing was fucking huge. So he had the belt made and he took it around with him on the indies and he would charge for photos with it. William

from New Jersey, big fan of your podcast. Since I stopped watching WWE in twenty fifteen, I unfortunately was at that Royal Rumble when Roman won and Rock tried to get him cheered. Man, that killed my spirit to where I stuck with indies for a long time. So thank you for sticking around for this long. You were more

honest and reliable to listen to. One of my friends asked if I knew about Wrestling Society X, MTV's attempt at doing a wrestling show that only lasted ten episodes, although only four of them actually aired due to the network finding it too violent, as if their network hasn't aired violent stuff before on Jackass and Celebrity Deathmatch. I have the DVD and I watched it again recently, and I find it the most bizarre wrestling show that I've

ever seen, but not a terrible one. Have you seen MTV's Wrestling Society X. Would the show have lasted longer if it wasn't thirty minutes and aired online instead of on television. I do remember it. I remember another one too, called Matt Rats, although I don't think they had TV for that one. I don't think that ever aired anywhere. I know Eric Bischoff was involved with Matt Rats in some way, either as an investor or a producer. Better to call it Matt Rats, I guess, than Ring Rats,

but it never really went anywhere. Wrestling Society X aired on MTV. Like he said, it didn't last very long, and in some ways you know what it was. In some ways it reminds me of now that I think about this. It was a precursor in some ways to Luca Underground, just it wasn't nearly as good. One thing I remember about the show, I remember the explosions. They had explosions, at least at least in one match with Vampiro.

I vaguely remember there being a casket. I don't know who he was wrestling, and there was an explosion of some kind. Do I think it would have done better if it aired online instead of on TV? Back then? Absolutely not. Today I'm gonna say still probably not. It would have fared better a little bit because back then, I mean streaming, I mean, did it even exist. I still don't think it would have done that well. In it being thirty minutes, it didn't help. I remember the

oh my god, those MTV commercial breaks. Good lord. I used to watch Beavis and butt Heead on MTV and they would go to commercial, and I swear I could make a sandwich. I could go to the bathroom, answer the doorbell, sign for a package, have a phone conversation with someone. I could trip and fall. I could bandage myself up and pour a dren to go with my sandwich, and by the time I got back to my seat,

that show would still be on a fucking commercial. Those ad breaks were brutal, So really it wasn't a half hour show. It was closer to a twenty minute show. And what can you even do in twenty minutes? You know, you can't develop characters in twenty minutes. You could do

high spots and explosions. That's about it. But if you watched it, I think you could see where I don't want to say Luca Underground borrowed from Wrestling Society CX, but you could see where Luca Underground took elements, not directly from it, but like the way that they did that show was very similar to some of the things they were trying out on Wrestling Society Act. They took what they tried to do and Luca Underground made it better.

James from Staten Island. Every once in a while, we hear questions about dream matches like Hogan versus Austin or Undertaker versus thing, But what about those dream matches that don't get talked about? Fantasy matchups that what ever happened, But when you think about them, probably would have been very fun to watch. Buy or sell on the fantasy matchup that you would have been most interested in seeing the Road Warriors against the Dudley Boys or Samoa Joe

versus Brock Lesnar inside Helen a cell. Oh that's easy. I mean Joe and Brock Helena Cell. They had one match. It was like a six minute match. It was fucking great. Take those two. Lock them in the cell. At least double the match time. That's all I need. Good buy on that one. Cell On the other and David from Sacramento has put together some Be the Booker supercards in

the past. You've heard me talk about them. He combs through all of the Be the Booker matches that I've booked over the last few months on the various YouTube streams, and then he comes to us after polling all of you. I pined the polls in the chat the other night, and we have the results of those polls for what he is calling Alla Monsters Supercard ten. So he held a poll with one hundred and thirteen matches to determine the undercard, and a second poll to determine who would

win the first ever Sound of Rumble. And here's what

he came up with based on those results. With twenty three percent of the votes for the Be the Booker Tag Team titles rated Rko takes on the Shield, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns with sixteen percent of the votes for the be the Booker World Heavyweight Championship, Kurt Angle against Jeff Hardy with fifteen percent of the votes for what he is calling the Hardy the Horse, Hardy the Workhorse Championship, the Bruiserweight Pete Done against Johnny Gargano at

eleven percent of the votes. For the Mama Monster Championship, Julia from her stardom run against Mako Sodamora. That reminds me, I think, isn't Mako's having her retirement match in April? I think I forgot all about that. So it's not just Jeff Jarrett and John Cena this year, Mako sotomore and the main event an unprecedented two hundred and forty one men. That's a lot of rings. Two hundred and forty one men. Sound off, rumble, I'm gonna I'm gonna

stick to the highlights here. Highlights include the final four, he says the winner at thirty eight percent of the vote, Brett the Hitman heart Well, of course, last eliminated at twenty nine percent Kurt Angle at twenty seven percent, Stone Cold, Steve Austin at fifteen percent, Drew McIntyre the Iron Man is mister Perfect Unlucky. Number one and two is Sammy Gevara and Dominic Mysterio. The diesel spot goes to Swerve Strickland and Dan Housen curses Bob Backland and then he's

got manager madness here with all different kinds of managers. David, I want to thank you for putting the time into this, and everybody who voted David thanks you as well. It's always quite the undertaking here, but I wanted to read all of this so that you can visualize what such a card might look like. Next week is going to be episode nine oh two of The Sound nine o

two one zero of the Sound Off. We're going to be doing Elimination Chamber predictions because next weekend is the final weekend before the Chambers, so we'll probably do predictions on that show. We'll cover all the news of the week, the good, the bad, and the ugly, like we always do. I want to thank you guys for all of the support, for all of the emails, for all of the tweets, for all of the interaction for all the nice comments. Hey,

you know Tuesday Night Titans. This week over on JD's channel, we did What's Closing In on sixty thousand views, the most successful episodes yet of TNT. Will be back at it this Tuesday. I have a feeling we have a difference of opinion on the NXT and AW show, so that'll be coming up on Tuesday. I'm gonna be live on YouTube of course on Monday night, Wednesday night, and Friday night for all the usual streams, and then back

here next Sunday for episode nine oh two. So until then, be well, stay safe, have yourselves a great week, and I will see you back here for more sound off next weekend, like every weekend until then, take care, guys.

a killing off this shit, and for what. So the flowers could die a few days later and the chocolate's get eaten, you gain six pounds. That's Valentine's Day. Hope you get a good one.