Sound Off 938 - THESE CHANGES Must Be Made Before 3 Hour Smackdowns And LOLTNA LIVES!

ninety five years old. God bless him. We should all be so lucky to live that long. Cardle just lost his wife in April, not long after the couple celebrated their seventy sixth wedding anniversary, and they leave behind three children, seven grandchildren, and twelve great grandchildren. It is quite the family there. You know, as someone who grew up watching

WWF television in the Northeast as a young fan. I really had no exposure at all to Bob Caudle and only became familiar with him, you know, later on as I went back and watched old NWA and WCW stuff, And he was a very straight lace, kind of like broadcast journalist type. You know. He wasn't over the top. He wasn't like a heel commentator or anything like that, didn't make himself, you know, the center of attention. He was that guy with credibility that you would tune in

every single week. Oh it's Bob Caudle. Probably the way that people who were watching WWF would look at, you know, like a Gorilla Monsoon or someone like that, and he wasn't even like gorilla, and that gorilla could be over the top sometimes. So yeah, there were a lot of fans who grew up for years and years and they would tune in and watch their wrestling in the morning mid Atlantic or whatever it might have been, and Bob Caudle was the voice, you know, of their childhood. And

it's very sad to hear that he's passed away. His go to line on all those old the mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling shows at the very end, his sign off was so long for now, so I will say that about Bob Caudle. So long for now. I've got news to get into on the location for Elimination Chamber, why it's a big deal SmackDown moving back to three hours that sounds you Here is my soul dying on the inside. Got news on John Cena's final raw match tomorrow and

last match ever next month. With this tournament, the lineups for war games have mostly been completed, not total, but we're just about there lol. TNA lives, blooding, guts, thoughts, full gear predictions, including thoughts on MVP's latest comments about one Paul Leveck. Well he really does not like that man. And p WI just dropped its list of the top two hundred and fifty women's wrestlers in the world, and

I've got thoughts to share on the top ten. That'll be part of the mail bag a little bit later on. If you would like to support the podcast, now running eighteen years strong, you may do so on the Solomonster dot com. You'll see the PayPal link at the top of the page. Ten dollars and more. We'll get you a nickname and a special shout out here on this show.

I want to say thank you to Big B Bryant Becea, the Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, Diamond Dallas Dance Machine himself, Harrison Soap, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, the Cape Cod Crusader, Chris Setterland, Josh Bad Medicine, Medina Tough Guy, Temjin Zephyr, the Chicago Slayer, Willie Iicherd. Maybe I'll see you and Mama Ikered on Friday. I Hope the Wichita Workhorse, Clayton Nettleton yeeha. Indeed, Russell the Mussel, thank you, He's been

here with me since day one. Night Stalker and if Alsafar killshot, Keith Hart, Jason the Boner Ventura, that is his name. And also I want to give a shout out to the Boner's girlfriend, Queen Mallory Twinter. They have been dating for four years now and she has supported him through a lot over those four years, So congrats

to the two of them. Jason does a monthly reading at the local daycare near his library, and typically he says he reads Marvel or Disney stuff, but he tested out my mom's children's book, The Adventure of Hardy the Horse which you can buy right now on Amazon cheap plug. He's done six readings so far and the book has been a big hit apparently, so I love hearing that. It's like I told him, I started doing readings myself to kids right before COVID shut everything down, and I

really wish I could have done more. So this is very cool to see. This Tuesday, Brett Hart's book, which has been out for a number of years and is probably the best, certainly one of the best wrestling books ever written, one of the biggest ones, is coming to Audible. Officially, it's been available for pre order. It still is available for pre order right now as we speak, but the audiobook drops on Tuesday, with twenty five hours worth of

narration from the Hitman himself. You can wait if you want to until Tuesday and use our Audible link here to buy the book, or you can pre order the book right now for free when you use the link audibletrial dot com slash Solo Monster. So whether it's today, tomorrow, Tuesday, make sure you jump on that deal it may not always be there, and get yourself a free audio version of arguably the best wrestling book ever written. And don't sleep on that Natty book either n Italia's Memoirs out.

The audio version is also on Audible, So if you're an Amazon Prime customer, use my link and you can get two free books instead of just one. And if you can get two instead of one, I don't know why you wouldn't take advantage of that. So audibletrial dot Com slash Solo Monster. Last night, House of Glory presented its super Clash show from Brentwood, New York, in conjunction and collaboration with the Big Event Expo for the first

time ever. The Big Event is the biggest autograph expo to hit New York each year, usually twice a year, and this is our first time partnering with them. It was a huge success. We had a sold out event last night, well over one thousand fans. I met many of you there who either were at the event or at least the convention, so that was very cool. Great to catch up in person with Chris van Vliet as well,

so that was nice. Now I arrived pretty early in the day, but the convention itself started at ten, so the convention went from ten to four, then they cleared everybody out and then hour events started officially at eight and I got there probably midway, a little past the midway point of the convention, so I did not bear witness to any of this, but I know that Bill Goldberg was there. Brett Hart was supposed to be there, but he had to pull out of some East Coast

conventions a few weeks ago. This was one of them that would have been very interesting. But you know, Sting was there, Great Muda was there. This is probably one of the last conventions Sting will be doing in the face paint because he said he's going to stop doing that at the end of the year. But Bill Goldberg was there and K and S wrestle Fest shared on

social media. Now they have since taken this Facebook post down, but they did post on social media that Goldberg did not participate in a previously scheduled private autographs signing that they had agreed to and that they had set up for him. This is what they said. Unfortunately, Goldberg private signing did not happen. We had all of our items laid out ready to sign as Goldberg was doing another private for another vendor. After he was done, he got up and said he was done. He walked out right

past our stuff and he left. We were all super disappointed and frustrated. My apologies to all. And he was apparently he was at the Big event as far as you know, the pictures of him chatting, would sting and signing autographs and taking pictures. But evidently this other private signing, he just walked right past these guys and right out the door. So there you go. That was the Goldberg

controversy coming out of the Big Event. But as for the event itself, a lot of great matches in the card, of course, the one that got the most attention and actually had hog trending on social media number two behind UFC. It was Mercedes Monette challenging for title number thirteen in the main event against nor Phoenix Diana out of Malaysia. She has been the APAC Wrestling Women's Champion for well or had been now for over seven hundred days. She had made it very clear it was a dream of

hers to get a match with Mercedes. Mercedes as the one many years ago, ten years ago who inspired her to take a shot at wrestling in the first place, so this was a big match for her and she traveled all the way to the States. This was only the second time that she has defended that title on US soil, and Mercedes Monette goes from Mercedes twelve belts to now Mercedes thirteen belts. She is victorious. It's thirteen her unlucky number. Or does she make it number fourteen

next weekend against Chris Statlander. We shall see, but it was very cool to be on the call for that one. You could probably hear it in my voice right now. We're not done yet, because House of Glory is coming right back this Friday with our return to the Windy City November twenty. First, we are already sold out in Chicago, so this is going to be back to back sold out shows for US in less than a week, which

is the first time we've done that. Amazing Red Battles Tyler Breeze for the first time ever the Rascals Desmond Xavier and Zachary Wentz. They're going to be taking on Jay Lion and Midas Black of main event, with the winners getting a shot at Matt and Jeff Hardy next month back here in New York for the hog Tag

team titles. We've got Mustafa a Lee of course, he a Chicago native, taking on Marcus Mathers, Indie Heartwell Defenser HG Women's Championship again, Shatzi, who tagged with Scarlett Bordeaux last night, Charles Mason defends his Hog World championship on the show as well, and more yet to be announced. I will be on the call yet again on Triller TV plus if my voice holds out, hopefully it will. We'll see, but hopefully I will get to see some

of you in Chicago. It's always a fun time there, especially when we're packed in and sold out at Logan Square Auditorium. So given that that is where I'm going to be on Friday, you could surmise from that that there will be no SmackDown live stream, so just be aware of that. Let's get into the news of the week here, and we'll start with this. WWE announced that next year's Elimination Chamber, while they still have an Elimination Chamber until Mark Shapiro decides to kill it, will be

held at the United Center in Chicago. There you go, Chicago, man, I'm telling you, Chicago's a big hub for wrestling. Chicago. And I say this as a as a native New Yorker my entire life. I can sit here and say that I do believe Chicago. If you had to pick one city that has the best wrestling crowds, it would be Chicago. Right. New York is great, there are cities in Canada like Toronto that are great in the UK,

but Chicago has got to be number one. So they are going to bring the Elimination Chamber to Chicago, the home of the Chicago Bulls and the Chicago Blackhawks, on Saturday, February twenty eighth. That's big because WWE has not run a show of any kind at the United Center in nearly eight years, and they have not run a major show there since SummerSlam in nineteen ninety four. That was the very first event that that arena ever hosted. And

I especially like this. This is a Today in Chicago History item that I found from the Chicago Tribune site from just a few months ago. Breaking the seal on this dulled up barn was not the Rolling Stones as originally rumored, but rather the sophisticated artistry of the World Wrestling Federation's SummerSlam ninety four and with the three tenors already booked through the upcoming millennium, Brett Hitman, Heart Lex Luger and the Undertakers seem like the next logical lineup.

And in the steel cage match, Hart defeated Owen Hart and the Undertaker defeated himself. I don't know why that made me laugh so much when I read that for the first time. It just sounds so ridiculous, but I mean it's classier I guess to say that the Undertaker defeated himself than to say the Undertaker beat himself. But what better way to break in the new arena than having the Undertaker beat himself in the main event. I oh, man, I'm five years old. You know the bigger story here

from the original newspaper article is this. This is legitimately from an article that was done after this original Furst Ever event at the United Center. Other Virgin customers who dared to venture out of their seats meander throughout the boundless confines, trying to find restrooms, exits, and mustard. It took me almost fifteen minutes to get two Italian sausages, said a visibly distressed Audrey Doneldson. Then they told me they have no mustard. You expect the high prices, but

not bad service. Her son Brandon chimed in tell them to get mustard packets so you can fix your food at your seat before it gets cold. You know, it's been thirty years. Hopefully they've addressed the mustard situation by now. But that's one of my favorite matches of all time from that Summer Slam show, the brett Owen Cage match. I don't know that anything on this Elimination Chamber show could possibly top it, but they'll have their chance now. I said that it was the first event of any

kind there in several years. In twenty eighteen, they ran a house show there because the All State Arena where they usually run was already booked, and that show had a main event of Roman Reigns beating John Cena. That's actually the reason they're running the United Center this time instead of the All State Arena, because they already have a Monster Jam Freestyle event booked that day. The United Center is the largest indoor arena in the United States

for concerts. It has a capacity of over twenty three thousand. This is going to be less than that if you account for the staging. But you know, the way that TKO has been doing things over the last couple of years, and if they run a very minimalist stage, they could probably fit pretty close to twenty k in that building. And as you would imagine, CM Punk is front and center in the graphic for the show. If he is not defending his World Heavyweight title on that show, he will

surely be in the elimination chamber. I could see him winning the elimination Chamber. I don't see him winning the Rumble, but if he was to lose the championship between now and then, I much better chance I see him winning the chamber. Punk has a very unique connection to that arena because it is the place where he returned to wrestling in twenty twenty one and made his aw debut, which is still one of the loudest reactions that I

have ever heard on a wrestling show. And that is I mean from someone who lived through all of those Austin reactions during the Attitude era. Okay, that Punk return in twenty twenty one was up there in that category. And I have sometimes gotten questions over the years about why WWE always runs All State and they never run the United Center. Now, I think it has mostly to do with costs. One of the reasons they don't run Madison Square Garden as often as they used to, and

they tend to run the Barclay Center in Brooklyn. You know, it's very expensive to run the United Center relative to whatever the deal is they have with the All State Arena. But also they don't have conflicts with All State to worry about like they do with the United Center. They don't have to compete with Bulls games, they don't have to compete with Blackhawks games, and whatever the schedule is.

And then there's another aspect to this, and this is from what I've been told by some of my Chicago listeners, which is that All State is a lot closer to the major airport there than the United Center is. It's only like three miles away, So it's just the more convenient options. So if you've ever wondered how come they don't run the United Center anymore, I think it's a combination of those three things, and when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. But then came this

piece of tragic news from wrestle Votes on Friday. I'll be sitting shiva for the rest of the week because SmackDown is moving from two hours back to three hours again. Starting with the January second episode from Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, New York. I wonder if a West Side Gun will try to attend. They said that this was a joint decision between WWE and USA Network. And this comes after I threw a party on July fourth when they finally moved the show back to two hours. We celebrated our

nation's independence and our independence from three hour smackdowns. I just don't believe it. At a time when the show has not been this bad in years, their answer is to expand it, make it longer. It's to give us another hour. And of course the defenders are out there in full force. Who will defend anything this company does to their dying breath. They're already out with the excuses, well,

you know, Solemn Monster. Now they'll have more time for women like Julia and some of the undercard people, and more time for the Tag Team Division, and at Tag Team Division, by the way, that's gone from hot to cold, not because they're not featured enough, but because it's the same teams every week on TV and they have nothing interesting for them to do. Three hours is going to do nothing to solve this in and of itself. But evidently they think three hours is going to be the

magic pill that this show needs. You do realize that this means that it will be an extra hour for them to squeeze in another match with the MFTs each week. You do realize it's another hour for them to squeeze in a whole bunch of commercials. The problem with SmackDown is not that the matches are too short, although some of them are, the problem with that the show is just as an interesting The problem with SmackDown is that they haven't even bothered to truly shake up the roster

in over a year. The problem with SmackDown is that certain top names vanish for months on end. So you tell me, how does adding a third hour to this show do anything to solve any of those problems that I just mentioned. It doesn't. But if they insist on expanding the show back to three hours, and I stand firm in my belief that there is no weekly wrestling show that needs to be three hours long, I don't give a shit what company it is. I don't care how good the show is. I don't care how bad

the show is. You feel it more when the show sucks. But I absolutely hate this belief that some fans have, and probably because it's what they grew up with as a wrestling fan, that the shows need to be three hours long. This is the norm. It has to be three hours long so you can get everybody on the show every single week and you can tell stories the

right way. Motherfucker. If you can't write a good, compelling television show in two hours and you feel the need to have three hours in order to do that, then

you are doing it wrong. Because last night checked they had a brand split, so their giant roster is split in half between Mondays and Fridays, and I know there's a lot of overlap and they ignore their own rules, but still there is a brand split in place, and two hours should be plenty of time to feature all of the people that you need to feature, even if that means not everybody can be on the show every single week, that's okay. It's okay if you skip a

week here and there. Not everybody has to be on the show every single week. But I watched wrestling for years and years, and I saw lots of good wrestling shows that were a hell of a lot less than three hours long. The length of time is not the I mean, it is an issue when it's too long, but the length of time is not the issue here. The issue is with the writing of these shows and the booking of the talent on these shows, the way they utilize some of the talent on these shows. Let's

just say it isn't always up to par. Adding another hour to the show does not make the show better. All you're doing is adding another hour of shit. But if they insist on doing this, there are moves that are gonna have to be made. Now. I'm sure that they are doing this for WrestleMania season right now. TC from wrestle Votes says the move to three hours is at least through June. So it's not gonna go, you know, three months, four months and then go back to the

way it was. It's gonna go beyond WrestleMania. That's what happened this year. It didn't go back to two hours until the beginning of July. But I'm sure Mania season is the impetus for this, right that, and they love torturing me, but there are serious changes that are gonna have to be made to that show, whether it goes three hours or they keep it at two hours. So now we're getting into a discussion here about SmackDown in general. This actually doesn't even necessarily have anything to do with

three hours. There are serious changes that need to be made to this show. Getting Jacob fought Too back will help. Getting Bianca bell airback eventually will help. And Randy Orton. But they need to swap certain people out and swap other people in. And they need to make some roster moves. That's number one. Number two, they need to continue calling up new faces from NXT lash legend is not enough.

Number three. If they continue with this MFT stuff, I'm gonna need a reason to care about these men right now. I have none. And you want to know what would get the MFTs over. You know, I watched Ray Phoenix splat on the ground outside on Friday. When he did that corkscrew dive out onto the floor onto the MFTs, nobody caught him. Tongala was standing right there, he didn't catch them. We have seen Solo Socoa acting goofy. Sometimes he's a funny guy. He's got personality. Sometimes he shows it.

Sometimes they force him to try to be serious and it just doesn't work. I just want it to be entertaining. I have nothing against any of these men personally. It's their presentation and the characters and the way that they are utilized and presented on television. It is not entertaining. I just want it to be entertaining. I will never take these guys seriously in there current incarnation. I cannot

do it. But if they lean into them as the gang that can't shoot straight, if they lean into them like like a bunch of tryhards, but they fall flat on their faces each time, and Solo has a meltdown, right, that would be funny. That would be entertaining, and they would still be heels. But if you do that for a few months, and you inject some humor into it and give us more interactions between the members. Or maybe it's Tangala who always screws things up and they clown

on him for it. Tamatanga, though acts all protective since it's his brother. Talatanga becomes the giant with a big heart, you know, who can't control his temper and just smashes people and sticks up for his family. Like they each

develop a personality of their own. I guarantee you, if you play this right, within a few months, they are going to be super over as babyfaces, I promise you, And it sounds counterintuitive, but I think to get people to take these guys more seriously and invest in them, you have to go all the way and turn them into a complete joke. If you play it right, I think it pays off with an act that's actually over and you'll get more out of them on the back

end as fan favorites than you will as heels. But use that extra time to really develop some of these characters, and not just the MFTs. I mean this applies to everybody on the roster, top to bottom. You'll learn from what made SmackDown the a show there a few years ago. Kicking the can down the road and giving us more of the same is not the answer. They're lucky they have the Royal Rumble and WrestleMania coming up, because that

tends to get people more excited. It's the most exciting time of year for the WWE product, although the build to WrestleMania this year tells us that's not always a good thing. But SmackDown has been low effort, boring television and that needs to change, especially if you're gonna give us more of it. Three hours of the show in its current state benefits no one, No one except USA Network, which gets an extra hour of content. It benefits no

one else. Changes aren't made, and really what they're getting is an extra thirty minutes or so, because the rest of it is going to be commercials. But take those extra thirty minutes and make the most of it. John Cena got his Boston farewell on Raw Monday Night with a match against Dominic Mysterio, who interrupted the opening segment and talked his way right into what he did not want, which was an Intercontinental title match. And they had a very basic match, but it was exactly what it needed

to be. They didn't have to do much. They had that crowd eating up everything they did, and it was a huge spot for dom to be and even in the promo, like he just looked cool as a cucumber, like he knew he belonged in that spot. And then he got to wrestle John Cena in one of his last matches and he lost, and that's okay. I think some people are making too big of a deal about the fact that he lost this match. It was about the moment, you know, people wanted to see John Cena

win the Grand Slam. The Intercontinental title was the only one that he'd did not have and now he does, and so John Cena is the new Intercontinental Champion. He also announced that one request that he made, and he doesn't usually make requests, but he requested that they host a series of WWE versus NXT exhibitions as he called them, as part of his final night on Saturday Night's main event. This was legitimately a John Cena call. It's something that

he wanted on his final show. He wanted to do, you know something where the show would double as a showcase for NXT talent because he's paid a few visits recently to the performance Center and he was very impressed by what he saw. He was also spotted visiting the Dungeon with Natty and TJ Wilson and all of their students. The guy wants to give back and this is his way of doing so. I don't know what the matches are going to be, but I think you want to

showcase your best names from that brand. You know, we know Oba Femi is not going to be in this Last Time Is Now tournament unless he ends up as the mystery entrant on Raw tomorrow. Night, which I don't think he will be. Let's assume he's not going to be in this tournament. He also just returned at the very end of Tuesday's NXT episode, so he is not done with Ricky Saints yet. Obafemi should absolutely get a

match or spotlight of some kind on that show. He's going to be a major player for them in twenty twenty six on the main roster. Ricky Saints is the NXT champion. He needs to have a match on that show, and hell, why not Cody Rhodes Champion against champion. They're good friends. I'm sure Cody would love to work with Ricky.

He would give him a lot. Ricky loses that fight, absolutely, but losing to the top guy in the company is not a bad thing if you go out there and have a competitive match with him or Cmpunk, Right, Ricky is tight with both those guys. Either one of those matches would be a good option. Trick Williams, Javon Evans, Blake Monroe, Kendall Gray. Kendall Gray is the Evolved Women's Champion, but they're said to be very high on her potential. Why not show her in a spot on that show? Now?

As far as the tournament is concerned, and seen his final opponent, Gunther still looks to be the favorite. They announced that he will be back on Raw Tomorrow night from Madison Square Garden against Javon Evans. And that is the thing that I am most looking forward to about any of the shows this week. That is the match that I pitched as the final of this tournament a few weeks ago, and we're getting it in the opening

round instead, And that's okay. I'm just happy that we're getting it at all, because I think that match is gonna kick ass. Now. If they want to book the biggest upset since Razor and the Kid back in ninety three, it's right there, but I don't think they have the guts to do it. Rusev, Seamus, jay Usso, La Night, they have all advanced to the next round, although without a bracket we still don't know who who's facing who yet Russev against Seamus and La Night against jay Usso.

It would all make sense, but we've already seen those matches. We're not done yet, though, because Tomorrow night, in addition to Gunther against Javon Evans, Solo's Sokoa faces a mystery opponent, and on SmackDown this Friday, it's Carmelo Hayes against Big Bronson Reed and Finn Balor takes some penta and that's it. That's the entire first round. La Night beat Zach Ryder

on Friday Night under that name. He was Matt Cardona on NXT a few weeks ago, but here he's back to Zack Ryder, even though he has said in the past Zach Ryder is dead and if it were up to him and he went back to WWE, he would be Matt Cardona. Evidently it was not up to him, and I guess they wanted him back to Zack Ryder because Zach Ryder is the one who has history with John Cena. But it's still silly to go from one name and one gimmick on your television show to a

completely different one a few weeks later. But you know what, good for him. Cardona has been killing it on the indies for years. I know that he has been waiting for that phone call to go back there. This does not mean that he is back full time. This does

not mean he has signed a contract with them. For now, it is just a one off appearance now they do have Zach Ryder merchandise back up on WWE shop, and Fightful is saying that's because he signed a merch deal with them, but that's the only thing that he has signed. Under no circumstance though, should he have been beating La Knight in this tournament. So that was the right call, and it's sad that we've gotten to a point where when La Knight wins a match like this, I'm actually

pleasantly surprised. That's sad. And the final surprise will come at MSG tomorrow and it is very likely going to be Joe Hendry. Joe Hendry is officially a WWE superstar per Fightful Select. He has reportedly signed a full time contract with the company, which I think most people predicted was going to be the case. But this is even though his TNA deal was not set to expire for a little bit. PW insiders said the end of December

he used representation to move forward with WWE. Now, if I'm TNA, I know we have this partnership with the company. It really it's more of an NXT partnership than anything else. But you know, we saw Joe Hendry and the rumble we saw Joe Hendry get that spot against Randy Orton at WrestleMania when Kevin Owens had to be pulled because

of the neck injury. If i'm TNA, I'm asking for one thing in return for allowing you to sign this man early, even though he was still under contract to our company, and I am requesting an aj Styles match in return for letting Joe out of his deal. I think it's only fair. Styles doesn't seem to think another match in TNA is going to happen. He said that this week. But that's what I would have asked for. Right,

we'll let you have him early. Just commit to letting us use Styles for one match at some point next year. I don't think that's too much to ask, Or maybe they didn't they were rejected, but that's what I would have asked for. Henry has been trying to manifest a match with John Cena all year. He said he spoke to Sena about it back at the Royal Rumble and Seena's answer to him was very simple. He said, if you can manifest it and make it happen, then do it.

I would love it, but Sina wasn't going to lobby for it or anything like that, And then the last few months, no one was really talking about it. You know, it kind of felt like that idea had had grown cold. But now if he ends up in this tournament, he at least has a shot. I cannot see him in a tournament that has Gunther in it and Joe Hendry winning over Gunther. I just I don't see that. I actually think he's got a much better shot at getting a match with John Cena, and this is my idea

for how they could go with it. He's gonna be on the NXT roster from what we are reading, So this may be pie in the sky. But John Cena has confirmed that he will be wrestling tomorrow night. That's gonna be his last Raw match ever, five hundred and forty four matches on Raw, the most in history. He says, I'm not so sure that that is entirely accurate. Randy or teased him about it on X. It may be

Randy Orton, I don't know. Randy Orton, by the way, is being advertised for the December fifth episode of SmackDown in Austin, Texas, so he is finally on his way back soon. But it is not that hard to envision John Sena coming out tomorrow night and saying, you know, in the spirit of the open challenges that I started when I was the United States Champion ten years ago, I would like to do the same with the Intercontinental

title with the limited time that I have left. Because he's all about opportunity, right, That's all he talks about is, you know, paying it forward and giving opportunities to the next generation. So in his final match of Madison Square Garden, We're going to have the Intercontinental Championship Open Challenge, and that's when they hit the music and outcomes Joe Hendry making his MSG debut to challenge John Cena for the title. And if he wins it, what a debut for him,

and you start him on the main roster. If he doesn't win it, still what a debut for him, and then you can keep him in NXT. He's actually wrestling the following night at the theater at Madison Square Garden on the NXT Gold Rush Show. He's teaming with Thea Hale against Ethan Page and Chelsea Green for the Triple A Mixtag Team titles. But if Gunther is winning that tournament, then John Cena does not need to be the champion

heading into December thirteenth. If he does not drop it tomorrow, let him do another open challenge at Survivor Series and drop it to somebody in San Diego. Right, But Sena just won this title, right, and we know he's wrestling

on the show tomorrow. An open challenge would make sense unless they just have Dominic come out to accept the open challenge and he wins the belt back, which you know, I mean that works too, you know, and dom gets his win back, he gets his belt back, and the only reason they did what they did this week with John Cena was to give the fans in Boston a big moment and to give him the Grand Slam, and then the belt goes right back to dom I kind of feel like in his final Raw match, though, that

would be a little underwhelming, especially when you know that, you know, he's not gonna win the belt back without the judgment day or El Grande Americano getting involved in helping him with some bullshit like that. But that's tomorrow night. For Friday, let me talk about this real quick. You know, people are gonna laugh at the idea of Carmelo Hayes beating Bronson Reid. I actually think he's got a really good chance of advancing in this tournament, just because of

the way the show ended. On Friday, they had a WWE Championship match between Cody Roads and Bronson Reid. Paul Haman set the trap earlier in the show. Cody took the bait and he convinced him to make it a title match, and for some reason, Paul Hayman didn't seem to be too bothered when bron Breaker and Logan Paul ran in to cause the disqualification and ruin their chances of winning the WWE Championship that he asked for. He's the one who pitched the idea of Hey, why don't

you make this a title match? And Cody was like, WOOKI that's a great idea, Nick, make the match, and that's how we ended up with a w W Championship match. Paul him it didn't seem too bothered by it. Bronson Reid didn't seem too bothered by it either. None of that made any sense, but what happened at the end of the show was Reid squash Cody with a tsunami splash. So I think it's very likely that Bronson Reid is

going to get bounced. He's going to get his come up and and that may be the big upset of the tournament. You gotta have at least one. You have to have at least one upset. If Javon Evans is not upsetting Gunther tomorrow night, then I think you have Carmelo Hayes eke out a win over Bronson Reed. Now he's not gonna look very strong at all if Bronson Reed just dominates him for ten minutes and then he only wins the match because Cody gets involved. But a win is a win, and he would advance to the

next round. And then with Balor and Penta, there's a reason that I call him pin Balor. I don't see why this would be any different. I think that should be a win for Penta. We had a lot of developments this week on the war games front for the men's and women's teams. It will be five on five. In case anybody was wondering if they might shoot for four on four this year, the answer is no. Cody Rhodes will be in wargames. And if Cody is in war games, then it only makes sense that Drew McIntyre

is in War Games as well. Right now, it is Cmpunk, Cody Rhodes and the ussos. They are all official. On the baby face side, Roman Reigns said that he did not want to see his cousins until Christmas. But I think he's showing up in Madison Square Garden tomorrow. And you know, I was talking to Noah Mark, our old pal Noah, and he pointed out that Roman had a total of six matches last year and he has had a total of six matches so far this year. And him telling the USOS that he doesn't want to see

them until Christmas. You know, he was and that maybe he's contracted to a specific number of matches each year, right, as is the case I'm sure with brock lesnar probably so he won't be at Survivor Series and we won't see him in the ring again probably until the Royal Rumble. And it's an interesting theory. So I can't say that it would be impossible to conceive that Roman is contracted

to a specific number of matches each year. Maybe he has hit his quota and that's it for him in twenty twenty five, I still say he shows up tomorrow night. But it's an interesting theory. Now if it is not Roman, it could still be John Cena or someone else like La Knight. And then they do the idea that I pitched a few weeks ago where Jimmy or or La Knight gets taken out the week before it's like, oh my god, who's going to be the fifth man, and that it ends up being John Cena as a surprise.

Because we know Sina will be at Survivor's series, we just don't know what he's doing yet. Sena being in there actually kind of makes sense if Brock Lesner is going to round out the heel side. The only thing with that idea is that if they're right now, they're doing the exact same angle with the women after Charlotte Flair refused to team with Rhea Ripley and she walked out of SmackDown on Friday, so I don't know about

running the same angle in both matches. The heel side now has bron Breaker, Bronson, Reid Logan, Paul and Drew McIntyre, with one spot left open that should be the Brock spot. McIntyre returned on Friday night. Nick Aldis was not happy about this the reason he was back one week after being suspended by All. This was because in the Wargames contract, Paul Hayman pointed out earlier in the show, I could sign anyone from any brand to join our team, even

a SmackDown Star. That SmackDown star turned out to be Drew McIntyre. So that's their way of circumventing the suspension, which honestly, you would think would resume after Wargames. I mean, why would Nick All does not continue the suspension, suspension of disbelief. That's why they want you to check your brain at the door with this stuff. The Kabooki Warriors, they won the women's tag team titles from Charlotte Flair

and Alexa Bliss on Monday Night. Then Rhea Ripley and Eosky came out to make the save after the match. So it looked to be Ria EO, Charlotte, Alexa and a fifth woman on the babyface side until they all got in the ring together on Friday and Charlotte said, I can't do this anymore. He said, Ria, I don't like you, I don't trust you. You're a snake. I can't forget the history that we have together and she said, Alexi, you can do this if you want, but I'm out

and she left. So they're building drama because now the Babyfaces are two women short, right, what are they going to do? The heels have Oscar Kyrie, Naya Jack Slash Legend. My guess is Becky Lynch rounds out the five and on the other side, Charlotte eventually has a change of heart and rejoins them, and the fifth spot goes to aj Lee, who I think shows up to Madison Square Garden tomorrow night. We know AJ's in New York because she was at the Big Event yesterday. Boy, she had

the longest line of anybody at the Big Event. Long after the event was supposed to be over, there was still a long ass line for aj Lee. So I don't know if she flew right back to Chicago or not, but at least as of yesterday, we know she's in New York. I'm just saying that makes it a little easier to believe that she may be at Madison Square Garden tomorrow. But Becky on that show tomorrow is defending

her Intercontinental title against Maxine Duprix. Having Maxine in the Wargames match, you know it doesn't pack quite the same punch as aj being in there. I don't think any of this is leading to a Charlotte heel turn, by the way, just because they need Charlotte as a baby face to work with Jade Cargill like Jade needs challengers, Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair are two people for her to work with, especially now they don't have those tag team titles anymore. You have to keep them baby face

at least for a few more months. Bailey and Lyra they drew the short stick here because they've had their issues with Oscar and Kyrie and they have no spot in war games unless Charlotte really is out, and then the last two spots go to Bailey and Lyra. But if Becky is joining the heel side, it really has to be someone on the opposing side that she's been beefing with recently, and her feud with Bailey and Lyra that's months old at this point. But we're actually getting

a traditional Survivor Series elimination style match this year. We haven't had one in a while. We have the MFTs against Sammy Zain, Ray Phoenix, Shinsky, Nakhamora and the MotorCity machine Guns on SmackDown. Yes, the night before Survivor Series. We are getting a traditional Survivor Series elimination match. Yeah. I can't be too upset that they're doing it on TV instead of on the pl because it's the MFTs, so I'm not going to be sad they're not on

the big show. But at least we're getting an elimination match this year. I think they should shoot to do one every year. The only thing is we are going to have to deal with three or four commercial breaks during the match. That's the thing that sucks about it being on TV, unless, of course, you're using your Express VPN like this guy here, then you don't have to

worry about that. Now. On the TNA front, we had another example this week of lol TNA, which has lived on really for the entire eighteen years that I've been doing this podcast. You can find plenty of LOLTNA moments over the years, and as TNA has evolved and changed and come under new ownership, and they've even created some buzz around the product in recent months. We're still waiting for word on what this new TV deal is going

to be. It's almost December already, Carlos Silva said that it was going to have to be a deal that kicked off at the beginning of twenty twenty six, so we're still waiting on that. But for all of that, one thing remains consistent, one thing we'll live on forever,

and that is LOLTNA. Because this week, Mike Santana, who just had his big crowning moment at Bound for Glory right less than a month ago and became the TNA World Heavyweight Champion after a struggle that lasted most of this year, Mike Santana is no longer the TNA World Heavyweight Champion because Frankie Kazarian during Thursday night's Live Impact episode defeated Santana by cashing in his Call Your Shot Gauntlet trophy that he won actually co won with Nicknameth.

At Bound for Glory, Santana made his one and only defense of the TNA World Championship on Thursday's episode. He beat Ryan Nemeth. It was some kind of I don't know, no contest or DQ whatever it was when a group of NXT stars and I used that word loosely, ran in and attacked Santana during the match and they went after the arm, and after the ring cleared, Kazarian cashed in his trophy and became the sixth Grand Slam champion in TNA history. Boy, we had a lot of Grand

Slam history made this week, didn't we? In wrestling? So they took a month off. TNA had no shows, okay, for an entire month, and they came back with this TV taping They actually taped at Full Sale University on Thursday. And you have Lexus King, and you have Charlie Dempsey and Robert Stone, and you have Stacks and Brooks Jensen from nxt the NXT B team run into attack Mike Santana and injure him. This this was LOLTNA in every way because even the way he lost, Santana lost the

championship in the worst possible way. After the company takes a month off, the first night he defends that championship, he gets attacked by these guys. They stomp on the arm, Kazarian cashes in. Santana go in the second match here after you know, Kazarian kesht and Santana's going for the spin the block lariat, but he stops. He gets a cramp in his arm and he gets rolled up. That is how he lost the title. And you can call it well it was arm pain. I'm gonna call it

a cramp. He lost his championship on account of a cramp and Mike Santana's rain. Think about this as TNA World Champion, his first reign ends with his only other television appearance being a match with Cedric Alexander a few weeks ago, where he did not even bring the belt out with him to the ring because the match was

taped the month before he won the belt. And now they're trying to build drama around this, and this is only making the situation worse because per pw Insider on Friday, this was quite the drama over the course of the day because they said, as of two pm Eastern this afternoon, Mike Santana has not arrived at tonight's TNA Turning Point

pay per view. Call time for Talent was one pm Eastern. Santana, who dropped the title last night to Frankie Kazarian, did not appear for his scheduled meet and greet after the taping. The word making the way around Talent says that Santana

has not returned the company's phone calls or texts. TNA officials did not return a request for comment, and they said Santana is slated to work tonight's pay per view main event, teaming with Steve Macklin against Kazarian and Nick Nemath, and then later in the day on Friday, PW Insider follows up and says Santana's current TNA deal is up at the end of the year. The belief is that he has an offer on the table from TNA for

an extension. There has been WWE interest in Santana dating back months, but obviously the two sides work together, and it's entirely conceivable that they will work together as they did with Joe Hendry. There has been an assumption from some that last night's angle with Santana losing the title was to facilitate him leaving for NXT, but no one on the WWE SCA side has confirmed that that was the case. Then came Seawn ross Sap later on, who tweeted,

the Santana thing is a work. Don't know how else to put it. TNA should have probably just posted that on their Twitter instead of feeding it to media like it was real. That's a no go for me. First time an official in any company has done that with us. So they tried to pass this thing off as a shoot where oh, he's been unreachable and he's ignoring the company's phone calls and texts and Santana is angry and

this is all very very dumb. If this is all some angle, this is all some kind of work, This is so stupid. So like in storyline, why would Mike Santana be mad at TNA management and ghost them because they let Kazarian cash in on him after he was attacked by the B team. That's what the call your shot trophy is for. It's their version of money in the bank right played out as it is. Why would he be mad at them for that? Like everything about

this is just so fucking dumb. And I'll tell you what, Like, my guess is that Santana is probably gonna stick around for a while longer with TNA. You know, he knows. I'm sure that he can appear on NXT if they call upon him. It's good they have that partnership. Mike Santana absolutely belongs in NXT. If NXT is the kind of the first you know, entry point for him to eventually get to the main roster. He is more than ready to be on Raar SmackDown, But Mike Santana belongs

in NXT. You know, he should be in there wrestling guys like Ricky Saints and Oba Femi in a regular basis. If he wants to stay with TNA, that's that's his decision to make. But I just think ending his first championship run and he'll likely win it back and everybody will be like, oh see, you know he won it back. Yeah,

that's not the point though. For him to go in there after all these months and win the championship and to take it from him in the most anti climactic, just like Bush League way possible, is just incredibly stupid, where they're trying to work some kind of weird workshoot angle that really is not entertaining and it's not going to generate any new interest in the product or bring in any new fans. It's just going to piss off and alienate the people who already watched the product or cover.

The product. Doesn't do anything for Mike Santana, doesn't do anything for Frankie Kazari, and it doesn't do anything for TNA. Just stupid.

the shows here on the SoundOff. On his recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho made a comment that got a lot of people talking, and he had an episode with the Hardy's and the Dudleys discussing their match from TNA Bound for Glory this year, and Jericho is praising the match and the presentation really of the entire pay per view, saying that TNA looked like the second biggest company in the world that night. Yes said, I don't think I've watched an Impact sorry, a TNA match

in ages, if not this decade at all. I was so impressed. Jericho said, Well, first of all, you guys had a match. Yeah, no, shit, I didn't even It wasn't even the match. It was the beginning part, before you guys even locked up. It was the end part after it happened like that. I'm getting a little goosebumps. That's pro wrestling in its ultimate form. That's all that matters, is that emotion and that reaction. That was one thing too. That fucking crowd looked huge. It looked huge. It was

like a WWE level crowd. The place was packed. I was watching this and not saying anything out of school here, but comparing it to watching Dynamite when they were at the ECW Arena, which looked like a Tony Condello taping. Sorry it did. TNA looked like the second biggest company in the world, and that was amazing and the presentation was amazing. Yeah, he's gone, I mean we are. I think most people probably assumed he was gone anyway. I don't think that he's taken most of this year off, right,

he's I mean off television since what April. I don't think he's taken most of this year off just to go right back to aaw But if you didn't believe it before, you can believe it now. That Chris Jericho is just preparing for that Royal Rumble return, I am sure, but I expect him back in WWE in the next few months. AJ Styles was on a podcast, not Chris Jericho's podcast, although he may well be wrestling him at

some point next year. But AJ Styles was on a podcast, the No Contest Wrestling Podcast, talking about the lack of quality selling in wrestling today. He said he would like to see the industry return to way less is more type of approach. He said, I can tell you one thing that's missing, and I still to this day. I will go over to my buddy's house before we work out and we'll watch old school wrestling. It's what we do. That's kind of our thing. And the one thing I

think is missing the most is selling. When he was asked to respond to name one thing that is missing in the modern wrestling era, he said, the way they used to sell back in the day, Man, they really made you believe that this hurt, that this guy's in pain. And I just feel like we've gotten away from that. And I'm just as guilty as anybody. But if we could take it back and make it a less as more kind of thing, I think that would be best

for everybody. And naturally, he's going to say that the man is forty eight years old who wrestled a very high risk aerial style for a large swath of his career, and I'm sure he's feeling pretty beat up, and I'm sure he recognizes that as you get older as someone who is, you know, the crusty old veteran now in the wrestling business, that you know what, maybe it's not always the smartest thing to go out there, balls to the wall and do all of this risky, crazy, dangerous stuff.

Maybe sometimes you could just slow things down a little bit. You do a little bit less, but you get more out of it, and that probably is something that comes with just experience and time, because when you're young, like some of these guys in NXT, you know you're a Leon Slater and TNA or a Javon Evans going out there twenty years old, twenty one years old. You use the tools that you have, right, Javon Evans is not a big guy. He's not gonna go out there and

work a big man match. He's a lightweight, right, He's not exactly muscled up or anything like that. So he's going to use that to his advantage. He's gonna fly, he's gonna do things that dazzle you and make you go, holy shit, I can't believe you just did that. That's what made the match with him and Leon Slaters so much fun to watch because their styles so similar, their body types are so similar, and two of the best in the world of what they do right now. So

they went out there and had this great match. But you do all of these moves and these dives, and you take these incredible risks, and at what point do you just go how do you top this? Like, where do you go from here? It's just the natural question to ask, and this has been the age old question of wrestling. This is not like a new phenomenon here. I'm just using them as an example. But I one hundred percent as a fan watching the shows, I one

hundred percent of agree with AJ styles. Although I will say, you watch SmackDown each week, You've got Ilia Dragonov out there every week selling his ass off like he's on the verge of death in every match. Sometimes he may go a little over the top with it, but I appreciate the way that he sells in his matches. Dragonov is one of the few, honestly in wrestling today who can still sell in a way that is similar to a Brett Hart. And to me, Brett Hart will always

be the master at it. There's a reason why Guerrilla Mond soon started calling him the excellence of execution. Brett Hart was the best when it came to selling a beating in a wrestling match and making it look as realistic as possible. When he was in there and he was down on the mat, thrown into the turnbuckles, taking that chest bump in the corner when the heel was working him over, you felt like this was a battle,

This was a struggle for him. He was fighting for his life in there, and that type of selling is virtually non existent in wrestling these days. And I'll throw one more thing in there. And AJ didn't mention this, but I've brought this up before. I don't understand why we don't have that many wrestlers in wrestling today. It just feels like to me, who know how to throw a punch like those guys did back in the day.

I can list off of and Brett's one of those guys, but Steve Austin and Scott Hall and Jeff Jarrett and Jerry Lawler. There are certain people who when they would throw like a closed fist and they would throw a work punch in a wrestling match, it looked devastating. It looked like they were really punching the guy in the fucking face. And I just feel like we don't have

as much of that in wrestling now. And part of it is the fact that a lot of guys will throw forearms, which I think is something that I first started noticing that watching New Japan. I think it's a Japanese thing, you know, a strong style. I guess the logic behind it is, well, you don't want to break your hand so you throw a forearms so you can you could explain it in that fashion, but there's a

lot of wrestlers who will do that. Now we have these forearm battles and these chop battles, yay boo, all this stuff, But just throwing a simple punch I think is a lost art. It really is. But the art of selling is so important in the course of a wrestling match. That's how you tell a story. You tell a story through the way that you are selling in the course of the match. And if you're going to make a big heroic comeback, that's part of the story

that you're telling. So AJ is one hundred percent bang on in that. I think part of it. I don't want to excuse the talent, you know, the talent is guilty of it. AJ himself said, I'm guilty of it.

But also it's I think just the nature of wrestling television now where everything is just there's this sense of urgency and the pace has been picked up so much and you've got to go from one to the other to the other, and the way these matches are constructed, and I see it a lot watching aw where it's just spot spots, spotspot spot, Right, we got to go

from one big spot to the next thing. You don't leave any time for selling, and it's not just an aw thing, but I notice it a lot watching Dynamite week to week or the pay per views, and you just do this big spot. But I'll tell you what. I'll give you a WWE example, and I'll use Ilia Dragonov and the match that he just had with Axiom.

So they just had this United States Championship Open Challenge on Friday, and Axiom did this great move where he did a backflip off the ropes while he was holding Dragonov's arm, and he caught Dragonov on the way down with this spike DDT and it looked fantastic, right, this great fucking move, And of course you know he didn't win the match with it, but shortly thereafter we had a top rope Spanish fly spot an Axiom hit a top rope Spanish fly and went Immediately after that, he

went to go set it for his finisher, which was the Golden Ratio, and Dragonov caught him with a torpedo moscow coming out of the corner and head butted him right in the fucking face or chest or whatever it was, and it looked great. It was a great closing sequence and it got the fans into it. But you know what, I'm watching this and I said this on Friday, I'm like, boy, the top rope Spanish fly really doesn't mean what it

used to. That's just one example of these big moves that these guys do, and it just it's a setup move or it sets up a near fall and the match just keeps going. That's why I love how Penta when he left AW and came to WWE, they at least have really taken great pains to make the destroyer a finishing move. It is no longer just a setup move. It's not just another move. It's a move he actually

wins matches with. And I appreciate that, but it just goes to this problem that I've noticed in wrestling today. And maybe if you're a newer fan, you don't see it as a problem because you have no concept of what wrestling used to be like. To you, this is what wrestling is. It's balls to the wall, NonStop, boom boom, boom, spotspot spot, and anything else is boring. All this guy, he's why is he on the mat? He's just laying there, he's making faces. Fucking boring. Some people don't like that,

but I'm with aj on this one. I think it's It's definitely something that has become a lost art because I feel like wrestlers are too afraid to slow the pace of the match down. I think they're too afraid to slow the pace of the match in. I think there are definitely absolutely some wrestlers out there who pay too much attention to social media and social media comments and they don't want to log on and scroll through

their timeline and see all this match sucked. This match was boring, This match was slow, This match was dull, And there are matches that are just a little too slow paced, right. You just got to find that happy medium. But I think that's part of the problem. And there's just just this constant need to Okay, we got to keep things moving here, We got to do another big move because we don't want to lose the crowd and we want to get those chants. We don't want them

to lose interest in what we're doing here. And it's just a different way of doing things, you know, than it was back in the day. You can borrow from the old school on certain things. Not everything has to be old school. Things change, things evolve, but there is a lot from the old school that I think if you were to educate and condition the current audience that this is the way it should be, they would buy into it, and I think it would really help the

product a lot. Today's episode is sponsored by Better Help. One thing I hate about the fall season is how it gets darker earlier. Makes me feel like I somehow have fewer hours in the day to get stuff done. And honestly, I just find it to be depressing when I look out the window of four o'clock in the afternoon and it's pitch black outside. But it really can

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makes it easier to take that first step. Solo Monster listeners get ten percent off their first month at betterhelp dot com slash solom Monster. That's better h elp dot com slash solo Monster. Wednesday night was aw's big Blooding Gut show from Greensboro, which shot up to six hundred thousand viewers on TBS. That's up almost twenty one percent from the previous week. It's the first time they've touched six hundred k since September, and that was under the

old Nielsen system. The numbers for wrestling across the board have been down under the new methodology, so there was definitely interest in this show. Ricky the Dragon Steamboat made a cameo on the show with his history in Greensboro, and he shot an angle with FTR where they roughed him up a little bit until Brodido came out to make the save and Ricky tagged them with a few shots of his own. Not bad for seventy two. Rick Flair, on the other hand, did not make it on to

TV even though he was there. Tony Kahan brought him out before the show to address the live crowd, but he left right after as he was said to be in a ton of pain from a rotator cuff. Tear I said watching that segment this feels like Flair was supposed to be out there. It felt like it was planned for both of them. So it was strange that,

you know, he didn't make an appearance. I mean, I not that I needed him on the show, but it just felt like this show was, this segment was designed for him to be there, and then all of a sudden he wasn't. You know, if you wanted blood, you got plenty of blood on the show. One thing you cannot say is that when AW does this stipulation, they don't go far enough, right. Why don't they go all the way with it? Why don't they take full advantage of it. When you have a blood and gut show,

AW will give you more than enough blood. So you definitely got that, But there was a lot. My biggest criticism honestly, of these matches, if I had to boil it down to one, and it was more of an issue in the men's match. But my issue is that you have this cage that is covering these two rings, and the idea of blood and Guts is that you're trapped inside the cage and you just go in there

and kill each other. And you know, and we've seen it in past Blood and Guts matches and you know other maybe war games matches sometimes where people will end up brawling outside the cage. But this was just out of control on Wednesday. Now, there was so much shit going on outside the cage that it was just it

was very dumb. I think they overdid it on all of the action that took place outside the actual cage, which to me defeats the entire purpose of what Blood and Guts is supposed to be, So that would be my biggest criticism of it. But otherwise, I think the two matches delivered exactly what you were looking for. If this was something that you were looking forward to seeing. If you were looking forward to Blood and Guts and you wanted hardcore violence and weapons and all kinds of

crazy insanity, you got it. You know you got it. On the show, we had the first ever women's Blood and Guts match. They went forty five minutes, and they clearly went out there with something to prove. Every woman, I thought, at one point or another in this match had a chance to shine. They had some kind of moment or spot or something, you know, to try to

let them stand out. You had a lot of blood, you had a lot of broken glass, which is really just another Wednesday in aw Sky Blue was in there first. She was one of the first people in the match, and in the first probably four minutes of the match, if that she was bleeding. When I say she was bleeding, she was bleeding, like the blood was gushing out of the top of her head. And what happened to cause

that was just so lame. I mean she I think it was Willow, but she had her up in a power bomb position and basically kind of threw her backwards, face first into the steel. And look, I'm not saying that it's fun to have your face thrown into a chain link fence, but of all the things that these women did to each other in this match, that that's simple spot would cause that type of blood loss. And in the first five minutes of the match it was like, okay, I think we went from zero to one hundred a

little too quick here. That was a little ridiculous. So she stood out for that though, because by the she was in there for so long bleeding that by the time the match was over, a lot of the blood was gone and dried up. But for a good portion of the match she was just covered in blood and then caked in blood. So Sky Blue stood out for that reason. To me, though, the real standouts in this match honestly were Megan Bain and Marina Shaffir. Those are the two women who stood out the most to me.

I like the way they did the finish that closing sequence. It made sense. They had Tony Storm was in there and Mina Shirakawa was in there as well, and their tag team partners in this women's tag team title tournament, and they're like best friends now, and you had the Heels, you had the triangle of madness holding down Tony Storms.

So all she could do was watch as Marina Shaffir locked in this choke on Mina and Megan Bain was just brutalizing her with it might have been Mercedes TBS Championship, but she had one of the championship belts, and she's whipping her hard right across the back, over and over and over and over again, and right in front of Tony Storm, and all she could do is watch, and then finally she surrenders to save her friend and to save her partner, and the Heels win blood and guts,

and it made sense in terms of the storytelling, because it's pretty clear that it's not official yet, but Tony and Mina they're gonna wrestle Megan Bane and Marina Shafir in the next round. So this really of that tag team title tournament. So this really puts some heat on a match that otherwise wouldn't have had any you know going into it. That's the story they told with that finish, it will play into this tournament. And can I also just say, like, what a beast Megan Bain is? Like?

This woman shows up in Japan to work the Goddesses of Stardom Tag Team League tournament on Friday, the Tag League that would have been on the seventh, right, November seventh. Three straight nights she worked, then she flew back to the United States for blooding guts of all matches, right bleeding with tax sticking out of her body. Then she flew right back to Japan to continue in the tournament. Then she flies back to the States for Full Gear

just coming up next weekend. For whatever they may have her doing on that show. At least I think that was the plan for her to be a part of Full Gear in some way, only to then fly right back to Japan to finish the tournament, back and forth multiple times in the span of three weeks. You talk about jet lag. She's gonna end up topping Hogan's record of wrestling four hundred days in a year with that time zone difference. Then we had the men's blooding guts match.

The women's one went forty five minutes. This one went almost an hour. This one went fifty four minutes, which it did not need to go fifty four minutes. And again you had people freely going in and out of the cage throughout the match. I gotta tell you, I was pretty bored through the first half of this match. There's not a lot of heat. It was a lot of the same rinse repeat stuff we had already seen in the opening match. It picked up nicely though in

the closing stretch. There was nothing crazy off the top of the cage. Mark Briscoe, who they did this angle where Briscoe was taken out in the back by the don Kallis family. So now the conglomeration in Darby Allen, they're a man down. Oh my god, what are they going to do? And of course Mark Briscow ends up coming out anyway, so he did wrestle in the match, he ended up on top of the cage with Wheeler Dah.

He actually gave Wheelerda Jade railler on top of the cage, but then they climbed down, so there was no big crazy stunt bump off the top of the cage this year, which is fine. The big crazy spot belonged to Darby Allen surprise, surprise, and because there was so much fighting and brawling happening outside the cage, they ended up on

top of one of the entrance tunnels. Gabe Kidd had run out to also assist the Death Riders, even though he wasn't supposed to be in the match, but they had tables set up next to the stage next to one of the tunnels, and on top of the tunnel pack Gorilla presses Darby over his head and he dumps them all the way down. After Gabe Kids set those tables down below a blaze and Darby crashes through the

tables and he is engulfed in flames. He's like a ball of flames, and you could even see where his back was on fire for a few seconds even after he took the bump, like the flames didn't extinguish right away, and because when he rolled over you could see that there were spots on his back where he was on fire. And that was the last we saw of Darby Allen in this match, and that led into the finish, which I thought was great. Kyle O'Reilly was also everyone was bleeding,

but Kyle O'Reilly is just bleeding profusely. They gave the win to Kyle O'Reilly. He was the MVP. He won it for the Conglomeration. It was the biggest win of his aw career by far. But it made sense because they had a couple of matches recently on TV where Moxley was doing everything in his power to avoid being trapped in a submission and tapping out, which is what he did against Darby at Wrestle Dream when he was

locked in the Scorpion deathlock. He did not want to go through that again, so he did everything in those matches to avoid tapping out. Only here in blood and Guts to finally tap out and the crowd went crazy for the finish. So I liked the storytelling here. I like the storytelling at the end of the women's match. I like the storytelling at the end of the men's match.

Me personally, I'm not a huge fan of some of the excess violence and stunt bumps and all the blood is fine, but then you just kind of go overboard with it, so that's that's not my thing necessarily. But I love the finishes of the matches. I was a fan of that and so much for this leading to anything with Moxley and the Death Riders. This was the finish that I pitched, and I was happy they did it.

I said, it has to be Moxley. Moxley has to be the one who surrenders in this match, and that could be the beginning of the end of the Death Riders. I wasn't necessarily expecting them to gang up on him on Wednesday and beat the shit out of him. Maybe

this coming Wednesday. But then, you know, I caught up with what I needed to catch up with this morning from Collision last night, and I see that the Death Riders were on the show, and I see that John Moxley was on commentary for the opening match on the show, and he's brushing off their loss in blood and guts. He's preaching about I just want to bring positivity into

this world, which was fucking hilarious. So I don't know if the idea is that he is just completely you know, out to lunch and he is completely delusional about all these losses that he has incurred for his crew, because this is now the third big loss since all in that John Moxley has suffered to embarrass the Death Riders, including losing the championship to Hangman Page. But there was no hint. There was no indication of anything with Moxley and the Death Riders or him being on the outs

or anything like that. And maybe it'll happen, but if it is, there was no fucking sign of it on Collision last night, which I think is ridiculous. Now AW presents its Full Gear pay per view this coming Saturday from the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, with a seven o'clock start time for their Tailgate Brawl pre show eight pm start time for the main card. They're doing a tag team match on the pre show with Big Boom aj of the Costco guys teaming up with Q T. Marshall. Yes,

they're on the same side now. They set this up on Ring of Honor Television. They share an I'm an enemy in the don Kallis Family. They take on Trent Burretta and Rocky Romero. You know, keeping the Costco guys stuff to the pre show is where it belongs. I can't believe the Costco guy stuff is still going on here, but keep it to the pre show. Fine. He has no business being on the main card when they already have a ton of matches on their main cards, So

keep it on the pre show. That's fine. If I'm aj I'd be watching some old sting Rick Flair Horseman tapes to prepare myself for what's probably about to happen to him. Also, they've added a two hundred thousand dollars tag team match. Boy Tony Khan has a little too much money to throw around two hundred thousand dollars with the Acclaimed who don't want to have anything to do with each other, but they're being forced back together slowly

week by week. The Bang Bang Gang, Big Bill and Brian Keith and the Outrunners winner gets two hundred thousand dollars. It would be more entertaining to see the Outrunners win the fake money, but they don't do anything with the Outrunners, so it'll probably be Castor and Bowen's winning the money. On the main card, They're gonna crown the first ever aw National champion with a casino gauntlet match. I already talked about the national title last week, which is completely unnecessary.

All we know so far is that Bobby Lashley, Shelton, Benjamin Ricochet, the Gates of Agony, and Jet Speed have all declared for the match, and without knowing who else is in the damn thing, it's hard to predict a new champion, but I'll toss one name out there and say that we get the return of Switchblade Jay White. Jay White walks out as the new national champion. I still think adding this title is completely unnecessary and dilutes their other belts. MVP's boys are in he is not,

but I do have some news on MVP. He spoke with the website Adventuregamers dot Com and he revealed that he just signed a contract extension with aw saying I'll be with AWE for quite a while in my current capacity and hopefully beyond in a managerial capacity and to whatever extent, possibly behind the scenes. But he talked about other stuff too, and in comparing Tony Khan to Paul Levek and Vince McMahon. He said, it's very different because Tony Khan is a completely different human being with a

completely different personality. He's just a nice guy and a good person. I've never had any kind of relationship with Triple H Vince. I was able to work with and with Vince. Vince knows exactly what he wants, how he wants to do it, and if you can present something that is better, sometimes Vince will listen. But when Vince has a vision, that's it. You go with it. There's no second guessing it. Tony Khan is a lot more interactive and he will take in a lot more ideas.

He's more willing to be pliable when it comes to his vision and how he wants to present it and what he's willing to do or add or change it. He's just a nice guy. It's funny like his energy level. He's always happy and I've never seen him be mean to somebody. It's a much different environment where WWE was very corporate, very tight laced for some people, even uncomfortable, and they're made to feel like they're walking on eggshells and people are scared of getting fired. That environment doesn't

exist in aw, it's way more relaxed. No one's walking on eggshells. The boss has time for everybody and it's super fun. No stress on Bret Hart and others who have criticized Paul Levec, who he is no fan of. He's made that very clear. MVP was very blunt, he said, I've said before, I call him a coward and a liar.

Let's put it like this. If you really want to, you can go to YouTube and you can look up the interviews of various wrestlers through the years of what their opinion is of the man, interviews of guys that were his friends, what they had to say about the guy.

I can think of more guys that dislike him than I can think of ones that do like him, and people say MVP's salty or he's bitter like no. I have personal issues with the dudes, stemming from professional stuff, but just the things that he does, how he carries himself. I just don't have respect for the guy. The newer generation they don't know that guy yet. So the ones that came up underneath him in NXT, they think he's brilliant and a lot of them should. For the hand

that he's had in their career. But the guys that had to work with him back in the day will tell you a different story, almost overwhelmingly. And so it's not just me saying it. It's Sports Illustrated saying it. It's the Bleacher Report. Oh no, I'm sorry. I just I'm thinking of a different promo here, he said. So it's not just me saying it. There's guys who are way up the totem pole than me that are telling you that this guy's no bueno. I don't know where

the heat stems from. I mean, it stems from the MVP side at the very least, but what caused it, we don't know. He's never pointed, to my knowledge, he's never pointed to any one specific incident, although supposedly it may go back to when he was first on SmackDown years ago as a wrestler. So now we're going back

to like the mid to late two thousands. So this is not just a recent thing, because he knew Triple H from the days you know of him as an inn ring performer, when Triple H cared about Triple H and nothing else, right, not the Papa H crap that people talk about now, which is creepy as hell, by the way, when people call him that, So I can't

speak to his personal experiences with the man. Clearly, something he said or the way he carried himself when dealing with him rubbed MVP the wrong way and it gave him an impression of Triple H that really made him

lose all respect for the man. The stories about Triple H have been out there for years, right going back over twenty years, about how self absorbed he was, you know, trying to protect his spot, making comment which, by the way, a lot of top guys have done in wrestling over the decades, but most, if not all, of those top guys did not have the power and position that Triple

H found himself in in WWE. Not all of them can be part of that inner circle and those production meetings and the way the Triple H was when he was still a performer. That's the big difference here. But

he's very protective of his spot. He would make comments about guys behind their back that you know, may well have affected their career in some cases, depending on what he's saying in these meetings to a Vince McMahon or a Bruce Pritchard or a Pat Patterson or whoever would have had some level of power and influence at the time, like oh, hey, this guy doesn't have it, or hey, this guy did this, or hey this guy did that, or he's too small, you know, whatever the comments were

that could have a profound effect on someone's career. Now, are we to believe that, as he's gotten older and his priorities and his responsibilities have changed to where it's not all about him anymore, that he's a change man? Right? I'm not around him. I don't work for him. I can't say for sure. And also keep in mind that, you know, Triple H almost died a few years ago,

so that could change your worldview real quick. As of viewer, what I see on TV and what I see from all of the interviews and podcasts and Ted Talks and whatever else this guy's been doing is that he still has a very, very healthy ego and he likes to make things about himself. That hasn't changed. I don't think that part of Triple Ah has changed, And I joked about it when I saw him in the ring on Monday in Boston. The first person we saw on the show on what should have been a segment all about

John Cena. He had to be there front and center, knowing the house was sold out, to make sure that he was involved when he really was not needed right, not when raw was already they already have a general manager on the show. Yet there he was, right the credits at the end of the shows, which we never had before, all of a sudden the last couple of years. Now we do to make sure that Paul Levec is the first name that we see at the end of

every show WrestleMania in Vegas next year. When the first commercial dropped a few weeks ago, who was the first face that we saw in the ad? Paulovec the signature that opens every show. He made sure to add his voice to it, so it's the first thing we hear on every show. He is enjoying his new position. That much is clear. The ego is still there. Beyond that, when it comes to the way he treats people, MVP

would know better than I would. But it is an interesting point that he makes about how different the perspective might be for someone coming up in that system in the last decade. Let's say, who would have worked with him in NXT and now on the main roster. They're working with him there too, as compared to the people who worked with him fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, and they saw a very different side of Triple H. You look at Shawn Michaels, he's mister NXT right now

and people glow about Shawn Michaels. That wasn't the case thirty years ago. But how much of that was also him being hopped up on god knows what. He may have been an asshole anyway, but I'm sure that that didn't help. Every now and then a story will leak out about an interaction that someone had with him after he came back to the company and he became born again. That doesn't really paint him in the best light, right. Shane Helms had one of those stories many years ago,

Dax Harwood, Stevie Richards. Just to remind you that the old Shawn Michaels is still there, like buried beneath the surface. But I bring him up because by and large, people are very complimentary of him today, and how much you know he is a pleasure to work with and how great of a boss he is to work for. People can change. I'm not so sure that's the case with Triple h but people can change, but back to full gear.

In the first ever million dollar trios match, More Money, Kenny Omega and Jurassic Express they take on Josh Alexander and the Young Bucks. I'm going with Josh Alexander and the Young Bucks for the win. Mark Briscoe challenges Kyle Fletcher for the TNT Championship no disqualification, and if Briscoe loses, he must join the don Kallis family. Because if there's one thing we need, actually two things, if there's two things we need in this company, it's more belts and

more members of the don Kallis Family. Mark Briscoe failed in his first attempt. I think he wins the title. Here. We have a new TNT champion, Brody King and Bendido. They defend their aw World Tag Team titles against the former champions FTR Dax in Cash. I think they're taking the titles here to set up for the eventual return of Adam Copeland and the inevitable Cope and Christian tag team match. They've added the Bastard Pack against Darby Allen.

After Pack preslam Darby through a flaming table and blood and guts still with Darby and the Death Riders, we are continuing this. This should be a win for Darby, the reigning TBS champion now Mercedes thirteen. Else after last night's House of Glory show, You're a new Apak Wrestling Women's Champion, Mercedes Monette is looking for title number fourteen when she challenges Chris Statlander for the aw Women's World Championship.

A year ago at Full Gear, Monette beat Statlander to retain the TBS title, and then she beat her again at World's End. Two great matches but two losses. For Statlander. She got a measure of revenge in Blood and Guts, where she put Mercedes through a table outside the cage with a Samoan drop, even though her team did go on to lose. This needs to be a Statlander win.

I think it will be a Chris Statlander win, and she will retain her title, not only because she has already lost twice to this woman, but because the story should be Mercedes cannot win the world championship. This is now her second bite at the Apple. The one blemish on her record came against Tony Storm at all In she didn't get the job done. That will be the

result here as well. No matter how many belts she collects to make herself feel better, she cannot win the big one, and maybe thirteen ends up being her unlucky number. So she fails again here, and then she starts to drop each one of those belts one by one until she is left with nothing. And then and only then

does she finally win the world title. That's the story they tell with this, and that's the one that makes sense here, because to put your world title on someone only for her to then go out and start losing a bunch of different independent belts doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. You have her do that first, then you put the world championship on her. But before this match, Mercedes is wrestling Red Velvet in a title unification on Dynamite for the Ring of Honor Women's Television title.

Mercedes has the interim title, Velvet's been out with an injury since June. She has the actual belt. I don't think this would count as number fourteen because she already has the interim version. It would just go from interim to official and Hangman Adam Page defends the aw World Championship in a steel cage match against Samoa Joe. This is to keep Powerhouse Hobbs and Katiori Shabada out of the match, and we all know how well these cages

were to prevent that from happening. By the way, we're also coming off two blood and Guts matches and now we're getting a standalone cage match, which is just ridiculous. Of course, Hangman is retaining, he's not losing the title, and I believe we get the return of MJF after the match is over. That's the big cliffhanger they go off the air with, which leads to him cashing in his Casino Gauntlet contract for a championship match at World's end, and at that point, I think you're looking at the

brand new aw World Champion. Now it doesn't look like we're going to get the finals of the women's tag team title tournament on this show on Dynamite Wednesday, we have two quarterfinal round matches. It's Tony Storm and Mina Shirakawa taking on Riho and Alex Windsor, and then Taj takes on Megan Bain and Marina Shafears. So just time wise, I don't think there's any time left to do the finals on the pay per view, but that's coming up on Wednesday, which, by the way, is a three hour show.

It is a combined dynamite and collision show three hours. The two most evil words in my vocabulary all week. It won't be a three hour mail bag. I'll promise you that. Let's go through these questions here. You can email me the Soolom Monster at gmail dot com. Please include your name and where you are from when you write in. Dane from Saint Louis did want to mention he got notified that Eric Bischoff's book Grateful by Eric Bischoff and Guy Evans is either out or coming out

in the next few weeks on Audible. So again I mentioned the Audible link earlier, the Brett book, the Natty Book. If you're interested, there's also going to be in a new Eric Bischoff book. You could probably pre order it right now using our links, So just be aware of that. Dak from Saint Paul, Minnesota. The PWI Women's List has

come out and Mercedes Monet was ranked number one. Naturally, people online are losing their minds about this, and it still baffles me that it seems so many don't understand it's a k FABE list, just wanted to see what your thoughts on the women's list were. Overall, it is a k fabe list mostly so yes. PWI released its list of the top two hundred and fifty women's wrestlers of the year, and again it relies heavily on kfabe.

They consider win loss records and championships, and your influence within your chosen company or the industry as a whole, among other criteria. The evaluation period for this ran from October first of last year through September thirtieth of this year, and so with that in mind, Mercedes Monette topped the list in number one for the first time in her career. She came in second back in twenty sixteen, and she didn't rank at all last year because she didn't have

enough matches and it's well deserved. She had one loss all year that was to Tony Storm, who ranked right behind her at number two. She was number one in last year's rankings, so she went almost undefeated for the

entire year. She's held onto the TBS Championship for the entire evaluation period, and she has won ten or eleven other titles in the meantime, some of which she has gone back and defended right, and that cannot be understated the influence that that has on these independent promotions, the tickets that she helped sell for those shows, the exposure that she has given to some of these women that she's worked with, even if it just gets them on WWE's radar or aw's radar, right, then you factor in

the quality of her matches. Mercedes at number one is really a no brainer. And if not number one, then number two for sure. So there's really nothing to lose your mind over unless you're someone who just doesn't like her, or if you're not a fan of her winning all these championship, which is fine, and that's perfectly that. It's perfectly fine to not be a fan of it and think it's too much. But to say, well, well, you know, I can't believe she's number one, Like what like, why

wouldn't she be number one? Why wouldn't she be number Just look at the criteria they based the list though, of course she's going to be number one. There's nothing to argue here. They went with Tony Storm at number two, which again I can't argue with that. If I had one gripe with the list, Eosky was ranked too low. They had her at number six. Eo is one of the best in ring performers in the world right now. But that period after WrestleMania where she did nothing, I

think really hurt her. You know, she was the champion, but like, can you tell me, can you name me, off the top of your head, anything memorable about Eosky's run and what she did from post WrestleMania until that Evolution match with Rhea Ripley, because I can't think of a fucking thing, you know, And I think that really hurt her, or else she would have been ranked higher. So I guess it's less of a gripe with their rankings and just more of a gripe with how she

was used in that period between WrestleMania and Evolution. But she had that great match with Rio Ripley. Saya Katani, the reigning New Japan Strong Women's Champion and Stardom Champion, ranked number three. I can't speak to her because I haven't seen any of the matches that she's had this year. I probably should, but she ranked number eighty nine last year. She jumped all the way to number three. Number four was Tiffany Stratton, who spent most of the year undefeated

as the women's champion. Stephanie Vaquier was number five. This would have included her winner take all win over Julia in NXT back in March and winning the Women's World Championship at Wressell Palooza, but not her Crown Jewel win since that came after the deadline. Number six, as I mentioned, was Eo Sky. Number seven was Athena with her one thousand plus days as Ring of Honor Women's World Champion, but her influence is only going to extend so far

so long as she's stuck in Ring of Honor. Hell, she does own a women's promotion of her own down in Texas, so she has influence in that regard. Number eight was Surrey. Number nine was Naomi who had a breakout year. It's too bad it ended right as she was really starting to truly break out. And number ten was Rhea Ripley, who ranked number three last year this year was down to tenth. That's a pretty damn good list.

Becky Lynch did not make the list. You need a minimum of ten singles matches or six matches in the course of six separate months within the review period. Becky had nine non tag team matches during the period and only wrestled in four different months, so she did not qualify. It's the same reason Roman Reigns didn't make the PWI Top five hundred last year. He only wrestles six matches

all year. Adrian from Dallas. Do you see John Cena having an open challenge for the Intercontinental title and Shamus coming out and saying something to the effect of, I'm not waiting for December thirteenth, I want to match tonight and having Seamus beat Sena for the championship. This would be poetic as how Shamus beat Sena for his first WWE championship or seeing is how he beat him for his first title and now he beats him for the

one title that Seamus is seeking. No, I don't see that happening, and honestly, it just doesn't feel it doesn't feel like the right time for it, because again, Seamus is in the tournament, so it would be kind of weird for him to be like, well, I'm in the middle of this tournament that I just qualified for to move on to the next round, but you know, what. I don't want to wait, So why don't we just wrestle right now? Like, why don't you just tell people

this Shamus is not winning the tournament. Yeah, it doesn't work. If he wasn't in the tournament, I'm totally open to it, but now it's just not gonna happen. Curtis from Toronto. This week, WWE announced a brand new partnership with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment centered around a Monday night raw show on January twenty sixth of twenty twenty six. This partnership will see the show air from the city, with NHL players appearing on the air and vice versa, WWE

stars appearing at the Leafs game later that week. MLSE operates Scotiabank Arena, where many of the WWE pay per views are held, as well as TV tapings, but also the home to a lot of AW events vice versa. The Coca Cola Coliseum, where WWE runs house shows and AW often run their TV tapings, is under the MLSE banner until twenty thirty five and potentially twenty forty five. Based on the city's offer for an extension on their agreement. Is WWE essentially locking AW out of Toronto and the

biggest Canadian market. And then bonus question, TNA do their TV tapings at Rebel Entertainment Complex in Toronto, which is smaller but has spectacular audio video. Do you think that space would be a fit for AW. Yeah, I think it would be a space for AW, especially if it's a smaller venue then they can pack it in and

make it look good. This new agreement with MLSE, by the way, that you asked about in your main question, it will not preclude AW from running there because they were asked about this and a spokesperson told a reporter for TSN that the new agreement with WWE does not prevent other events in our venues. So I know there was some hey made about this this week and is WWE shutting them out of the market. They are not shutting them out of the market, and that is straight

from an MLSE spokesperson. So the answer is no. Chuck from the Joker's Voice channel on YouTube, first time emailing love your podcast and your channel. You and JD are huge inspirations from my own channel. Well, thank you, brother, I love hearing that. Again, it's the Joker's Voice channel on YouTube. But he says question, you guys talked about Julia and the quote unquote burial she got on SmackDown

against Chelsea Green, saying that she is damaged goods. As far as SmackDown goes, would you be opposed to moving Julia to raw and grouping her with OSCA and Kyrie and using the freebird rule for the tag team Championship. My reasoning is that OSCA wanted EO to adhere to a master and student relationship. This didn't happen, so OSCA is still looking for another student to take under her wing.

Julia fits that role. Also, Julia being associated with OSCA helps rebuild her credibility, as OSCA is pretty much the standard of excellence. This way, Julia can also have the leash taken off and tap into her more aggressive, ruthless in ring style. You could do it, You could do it. I think Julia has to It probably has to be moved from SmackDown. And I hate saying that because SmackDown. The last thing SmackDown needs right now is fewer women on the rock. I'm not a proponent of, you know,

cutting women from that roster. They need more women on that roster, but they have done such a horrific job with Julia this year that I just think moving her to RAW or moving her back to NXT for a period of time to rebuild hers is probably the best course of action here. You want to move her to

raw and pair her up with the Kabuki Warriors. I mean some people may look at that and go, of course, WWE taking all the Japanese girls, taking all as a Bill Goldberg would say, taking all the Japanese girls and bunching them up, right, let's put all the Joshi wrestlers together. But you know what, it may be the best thing for Julia. That's what it takes, then, so be it. Because the Kabuki Warriors are getting a bit of a push right They're on TV, they're featured every single week.

They just won the women's tag team titles. I'd be okay with that. Sean from Byron Illinois been a listener for twelve years. Like you, I was a huge fan of the black and Gold era of NXT under Triple H. I was really excited when he took over WWE. Creative fels like the honeymoon phase has worn off, probably starting

around Elimination Chamber this year with the Rocks involvement. I understand that running NXT against Ron Smackdan is a completely different challenge, but I often find myself scratching my head at some of the creative choices on the main roster.

Triple H did such an amazing job with guys like Tamaso Champa, Johnny Gargano Andrade and others in NXT, yet it feels like he hasn't really tried to elevate his former NXT talent on the main roster, even to mid card title contention, what do you make of the apparent downgrade in Triple H's creative direction compared to his NXT days in the initial period where he first took over creative Also, does Triple H truly have full creative control or is it more of a collaborative process where he

drafts ideas and higher ups like Nick Cohn or Mark Shapiro need to approve them. I'm not entirely sure how the TKO hierarchy works. Well. I am not in the TKO hierarchy, but I would be shocked if Nick Kahn and Mark Shapiro had any sort of say or needed approval on day to day creative ideas. If it's a creative idea relative to someone like the Rock or a celebrity that they're going to bring in like Travis Scott Been Been Been. Then yes, I'm sure Nick Cohn is involved.

Maybe Ari Emmanuel has some say in the matter, but no, I cannot imagine that on the day to day, week to week raw and smack down creative ideas. You know, we're going into wargames. Now what wargames teams do we want? And stuff like that. You know, Mark Shapiro doesn't give a shit. You know, Nick con doesn't have any saying that. That's Triple H and the people that work underneath him

as part of the creative team. It's Triple H. It's Bruce Pritchard, it's Michael Hayes, it's Road Dug, and it's all those people you saw in the writer's room when you watch WWE Unreal. So there is a collaboration there, but Triple H is the chief content officer. He has final say in everything, even if it's not his idea. He may say, Okay, it's a great idea, I'll go with that, and maybe some of it is his idea.

And the other thing to consider also is, you know, when he was running n XT, Triple H was not writing the shows. Like Triple H did not have a pen and paper and sit there and write out TV each week. He had writers working for him, and I think Ryan Katz, and maybe I'm getting the name wrong. I think it was Ryan Katz though who I don't want to say he was really the one who was

coming up with all the stories in NXT. But like Triple H had his writers and he had his right hand men or right hand men down there, but he got credit as the face of NXT. We don't know how many of those great ideas and great match combinations that we saw on those takeovers shows, Like how much of that was Triple H's idea, how much of that was a Ryan Katz idea or someone else's idea. I don't know if William Regal at the time had any

input into the creative process. So, you know, I think it's one of those things where we got to be careful not to give him all the credit or all the blame, because there's a lot of moving parts here. There's a lot of team members. People talk about SmackDown right now, road Dog, fire road Dog, Well, you know, yeah, road Dog may not be the best there, but it's still Triple H' show. And if nothing else, if the ideas aren't his, he's putting his stamp of approval on them,

and that's what we're seeing on television. Main Roster and NXT are two totally different beasts. NXT is a much smaller roster. NXT is also a very different roster. It's a less experienced roster. Ron SmackDown even just in terms of the formatting of the shows, you know, is different from NXT, and there are other obligations and responsibilities as far as things to promote on the shows that goes to the formatting of the shows. You have a much

bigger roster to work with. You have a roster that has a lot of older talent on it as compared to NXT. I mean, just look at the main events scene right now in WWE. Not a lot of what I would call young guys in the main event picture. So it's two totally different beasts. He's deal with certain egos maybe and veteran talents that you know, he wasn't necessarily working with in NXT. They were his kids, and he was working with a lot of younger talents and

older talents too. He did bring in some veteran talents from the independence scene when he basically rated the independent scene, so you know there was a mix. But yeah, of course there's a big difference between the two rosters. But at the end of the day, creative is creative. You either have it or you don't. You either have good ideas or you have terrible ideas that are not going to hit. And I don't know that there's any one

explanation for why. Yes, there's a honeymoon period at the beginning. I think a lot of it, frankly also is just it's not Vince. That's what a lot of it was. It's not Vince. Now, there are things that he shares in common with Vince McMahon, I think in terms of his just overall philosophy, things he learned from his father in law over the years. But I think a lot

of people were just happy, like knowing it's not Vince. Wow, And then you hear from talents, you say, wow, we have more input now and to creative and the handcuffs aren't on and the way they used to be, and that's great. There's a lot of positives that came out of Vince McMahon no longer being there and no longer being the head of creative. However, that doesn't mean that there are no issues. That doesn't mean that all of a sudden, Creative is great and everything's great and all

the stories are great. Clearly that's not what it means. But I do think the way that they probably operate, like, if you're a talent there and you worked under Vince McMahon and now you work under Triple H in this current regime, probably you're going to look at that and go, yeah, it's better now. It's a lot easier to navigate now.

You know, I feel like I have more of a voice in the process, or if I have an idea, maybe it's you know, they're more open to allowing me to go out there and do something, or go out there and maybe not stick to a script. That's all a plus, that's all a massive positive if that's the case. But creative is creative. You either have great ideas or you don't. Right now, there's not a whole lot of ideas on WWE television. I think that are really hitting

in the way that you would want them to. And that does fall on Triple h because you get all the credit when things are great, but when things are not great, you can't deflect other people. You get all the credit, you get all the blame. That's how it works. Bender from Milwaukee. Two questions about Chris Jericho's potential WWE return, One should it happen at the Rumble? And two? Will he be Judas theme Jericho or Y two J Jericho. I do think that he will probably be back at

the Rumble. I think that initial return appearance for the sake of all the WWE fans who maybe don't watch aw and just remember Y two J and oh my god, where's he been for six years? It's going to be to the Y two J music if you want to. If you want an example, just look to what we saw on Friday Night with you know, Matt Cardona on Smack Dad. He came out not as Matt Cardona, he

came out as Zach Ryder. I think he comes out initially to the Y two I would like to see him going forward, though, use the Judas music for his last run because I like Judas and I think hearing it in WWE would be something different that would be kind of cool. I think we're looking at a Rumble return, and I think we're looking at a WrestleMania feud in

match with La Knight justin from Chicago. I know there's a lot of speculation about Jay Usso turning heel, but what if both USO's turn heel at Survivor Series, Roman and Jimmy end up rounding out Team Punk for war Games and towards the end of the match, Roman has bron Breaker lined up for a spear as he charges him, Jimmy hits Roman with a superkick. A stunned Jay and CM Punk confront Jimmy, only for Jimmy and Jada lock eyes and smile and hit double super kicks on CM Punk.

Breaker then hits Roman with a spear to win the match, further serving as a catalyst for a potential WrestleMania match on Raw. The Usso's simply acknowledge it as a business decision, citing that brock Lesner and Punk and Roman reigns all saw their careers peak under the guidance of Paul Hayman, and they also note that they had the longest reign in WWE history as champions. While Hayman was the wise

man for the Bloodline. This could take Jay out of the main event scene as a single while also providing raws tag team scene with a much needed shot in the arm. Maybe you could even get a short program with the USO's and an eventual Babyface New Day one last time. What are your thoughts. I think that having the USOS back in the tag team division to give

that division a shot in the arm makes sense. And I would be fine with Jay being out of the main event picture for a while and having him do something different, even going hell, even if he stayed single, but you know, went heal just again. The fact that everything has to revolve around the Bloodline is just I'm over it at this point. Another War Games and we're gonna have the USSOS turn on Roman and the family drama continues. It's been years of this shit, Like, I

don't know, it's to me, it's just played out. The story peaked a couple of years ago, and they're just milking it for all it's worth and it just doesn't do anything for me at this point. But I mean, if you got to do something with these guys that I could think of worse ideas. I'm not opposed to

the idea. One thing I do like, not necessarily this idea no offense, but I think the idea that you mentioned of bron Breaker being the one to get the win if the Heels win and he beats Roman, that could be the catalyst to an eventual WrestleMania match in Vegas. That idea, I like Daniel from Houston. I don't see many people talking about the idea of Dominick turning face, really, because that's all people seem to be talking about. You could have Ray versus Dominic for the Triple A, Mega Title,

or just a singles match. At Survivor Series. You saw how Dom was upset with the Judgment Day not being there for him during his match with John Cena. So what if the Judgment Day promised to be in Dom's corner for his match, and yet again Dom loses to Ray, the Judgment Day turn on Dom after the match. You could have Ray at the ramp looking conflicted on what to do. They'll be in San Diego, so you can imagine just how big of a pop it would be for Way to go back into the ring and help

his son. This then leads to Ray and Dom teaming up against Finn and JD McDonough not a bad way to do it. The only problem I have with it is that I still think it's too soon, especially Live Morgan hasn't even come back yet. You can't turn don babyface before Live Morgan comes back and rejoins the judgment day or we know what she's going to be doing when she comes back. So next year maybe, but I

think it's too soon to turn down now. The fans can continue to cheer for him, but I think the actual turn I would not be doing it right now. Aaron from Indiana. With it being a month away from John Cena's retirement match, I was wondering where he would fall on your greatest of all time list. This could include things like impact on the industry, ticket and merch sales,

et cetera. So if we're talking about WWE goats, because wrestling is more than just WWE, I mean, if you were to make a list of all time greats, John Cena would not even be in the top ten all right, Like wrestling is more than just the United States. You'd have El Santo, you'd have Enoki and so on. But in terms of WWE, he's not even in my top five.

Like that's reserved for hul Cogan. And this is in no particular order, but Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Steve Austin, Brett Hart, and Shawn Michaels, Kurt Angle is right there with him. And honestly, Savage and Angle are both like the complete pro wrestler to me, they had it all, they could do anything. So it's tough for me to leave Kurt out of the top five. But I'm thinking for me, that's my top five. Then you get into

the Rock and Undertaker and Broccoli. I'm not sure exactly where Triple H or John Cena would rank for me. Seen him might be top ten, you know. Casting him as the generic top babyface for so long it hurt him with me when I know there was this great heel run in him during that period, And maybe I'd feel differently had Vince not been so scared to turn him.

But he didn't want to give up that sweet merch money, you know, when you factor in other things like merch sales and his role as an ambassador for the company all to make a wish stuff. He was a great representative for that company. I would have loved to have had Johnson as my top guy because he was probably very agreeable to whatever they wanted him to do, and you knew that you could rely on him and not get him. Yeah, he's not going to get himself into

any trouble. Of all the names that I mentioned, he was probably the one who gave them the least amount of headaches. And he just seems like a genuinely good human being. I can't always say that for a lot of the people I have in my top five, unfortunately. But this is not a list of the top five greatest human beings in wrestling history. This is my list of the top five goats, at least in WWE. My

list will be different than your list. I don't give a shit, right I mean, And again, those guys, I may love them as performers, but clearly they all come with baggage of varying degrees. But we all have our favorites, you know, for one reason or another. But even weighing their impact on the company and on the industry, Hogan's

impact is undeniable. So many people would not be wrestling fans today, myself included, very likely were it not for hul Cogan, Brett Hart and Shawn Michaels have probably influenced more talent on the roster right now than most right inspired them to want to become a pro wrestler or influence them in some way in there in ring style.

John Cena is one of the elite talkers in the history of the company when he wasn't playing the role of narrator on the shows each week for everybody else's storyline. You know, he's had more classic matches than some people will give him credit for. I defended him on that even back then, back in the day on this show. You know, he didn't have to be the best wrestler to go out there and have great matches. His matches with Edge and CM Punk and Sean Michaels and aj

Styles and brock Lesnar are like. He had tons of great matches. Scene is great. Was he over pushed there for a while? You bet you're ass he was. He was Vince's boy, so was Hogan. Doesn't take away from his body of work. He's one of the greatest in WWE history, but he's not the greatest. He's not my greatest. But you can let me know who you think is

your greatest. Send in any other questions, or comments you have for the mail bag the soolom Monster at gmail dot com, follow me on x at solo Monster, and of course subscribe on YouTube where I am live multiple times throughout the week and you get some bonus content as well. Just search for solom Monster Sounds off. We just passed eighty nine thousand subscribers, which means the March to ninety k has begun, so you can help get me there. The next time I am live will be

on YouTube. It will be Tomorrow night. It's gonna be a big raw show. John Cen is final Raw from Madison Square Gardens, so join me live for the post show as soon as Raw is done. I will be live on Tuesday night over on JD's channel for Tuesday Night Titans, and then Wednesday for the Go Home three hour Dynamite before Full Gear, and then Friday night for Actually no, I will not be live Friday night for SmackDown because on Friday I will be in Chicago for

House of Glory. That's where I will be and so if you are not watching SmackDown live, I will be broadcasting on Triller TV Plus and then back here next Sunday for episode nine thirty nine of The Solemn Monster Sounds Off. So until then, be well, stay safe, have yourselves a great rest of your week. I will see some of you in Chicago on Friday and back here for more sound Off next Sunday. Until then, take care, guys. The Solemn Monster sounds off. So you got Moxley on

one side, you get Darby on the other. Moxley said, look, I did what I could for Danielson, but this is a war for the future of the sport and for their crazy you know they're running. What is it with these Shield guys. You know here on this show, you've got John Moxley forming his own faction, coming out every week and talking about the future of the industry, the

future of the company, the future of the sports. You got Seth Rollins on the other show, forming his own faction and coming out and basically doing the same thing. I'm fighting for the future, right everything is so epic, like this match that you and I are about to have, Cody, It's a fight for the future of this company. Like

fuck aw, what is this nonsense? I don't recall like Stone Cold or The Rock or the Undertaker coming out on television every week for John Cito or Randy Orton, even if you want to use a different era as an exam. Coming out on television and cutting these fucking boring promos on television every single week, over and over and over again about the same fucking shit. We gotta save the future of the company. How about you worry about yourself? How about worrying about the here and now

and not fucking five or ten years from now? What is it with these Shield guys? At least Roman Reigns doesn't give a fuck about the future he comes out. He just cares about himself. I respect that. Fuck everybody else.