Episode 87 | “CM Punk, Head Bunts & Changes Happening In AEW"

What up? What up? What up? Welcome to TFW Podcast. That's freaking wrestling. Best kept secret in wrestling podcast. Episode 87. One of my favorite numbers. Locked and loaded. Y'all know who we are. Three the hard way. Rhodesia is in the building. Eshaan is in the building. I am in the building. I am Matt. Shout out of course to everybody who is listening and supporting the pod. Last pod 86 is doing big numbers for us. So we appreciate you guys. We love you

guys. If you've tweeted at us, if you tweeted, retweeted, quote tweeted any of our stuff. If you interacted with us on YouTube, Instagram, anywhere and everywhere. In person. We appreciate you guys. All right. Real quick. Shout out to socials. That's FNW on Instagram and on X. That's freaking wrestling on YouTube. That is where you will find our full episodes twice a week. Each and every week. So, um, let's start, I guess, with CM Punk again, right? That is the news all over the

place. WWE shared, and I know these numbers are not accurate now, but on Raw Monday night, over 71 million views across all social media platforms. And his return video was the most viewed X video of all time for WWE. That is unreal. Unreal when you think about that. So I tweeted last night. I said, it may not even be a hot take. You guys tell me. I think CM Punk has the most emotional connection than any other wrestler in history to the fan base. Would you say

that's a hot take? Would you say that's not accurate? Would you say, yeah, it's common sense at this point, looking at some of these numbers that they're producing with them. I think it's hard to dispute that. If you just said it's the highest rating clip of all of WWE history, how can someone go against that? I think Cody probably could be a close second. But yeah, I mean, the numbers don't lie. Well, we can't also compare back like the Hogan days when social

media didn't exist and the kind of stuff didn't exist. So I can only compare it to modern times. So I would say that, yeah. Because I would imagine Hogan would probably be number one. I don't think it's definitely a take for sure. I think it's definitely a take. But it's undeniable that he has a connection with fans. He's a polarizing character. I want to say maybe more accurate might be the most polarizing character in the world of wrestling ever. Absolutely.

Right. People feel some type of way about CM Punk. And that's great. Because you want someone to feel some way about you. Right. The worst thing is empathy. Right. Especially when it comes to a wrestler. But I don't want to say that as far as connection. I think when you think about the Stone Colds, when you think about the Rocks, when you talk about the Ric Flair's, when you talk about the Boo Hogan's, you know, those are guys that definitely have resonated

and had a connection for a generation of fans. But I don't think it's a horrible take. You know, let me ask you then because I thought about it, because my initial thought was the biggest of all time. And I'm gonna stick to that. And then I then I thought about switching it last night to to where these just said, like, this modern time, but then I kind of switched it again, because everybody you just named off, Austin, Rock, Hogan, they've all had a

comeback. All their videos have been plastered on social media through their comeback through WWE and nobody was even close. Hell, we just saw Rock come back to SmackDown a couple months ago. His numbers wasn't wasn't this. Austin wrestled KO two years ago. His numbers wasn't this. So when I look at that, and that's not like X is growing, people have left X by the millions because of everything that's been going on over there over the last, you know, whatever

it's been six months or so. So that's why I'm like, man, like he has to he just has a connection that you just can't describe. I saw people on social media Monday, saying that they haven't watched Raw in ages. They're only watching Raw for CM Punk. Hell, one of our boys finds he went with SummerSlam with us. He watched Raw. I don't know if he was impressed with what he saw. Maybe outside the CM Punk thing. But he was locked in for it because of Punk.

Um, you know, so with that being said, we got one night our first night, Saturday came back and Monday is his first official night back. What'd you guys think of his promo? Oh, hey, Rodee. I'll be waiting. I know. I mean, I don't really Okay. Um, well, I'll say again, we press to do the good sandwich, right? So we'll start off with no, we're not supposed to do it good. You're supposed to give it up. We don't know it for you if you want to.

If you want to play this little sweet, nice thing. I don't want to. I'm just not. I'm just not a negative Nancy like you called me last week. Unless you're at home and the microphones are on and you give it up. But I guess not the microphone. You got to act like you're so nice. She's she was giving it up Monday. No, not no, no, I wasn't actually. That's a lie. He says anything

about a W. No, that's true. But after he didn't fucking pissed if he fucking even says Tony for any reason, if he says kind, if he's talking about Nick on site, you're like, all right, man, relax. No, no, I said, because I did pretty much right after that. I mean, it was it was great. It was electric. It was fun. I was on probably pins and needles because I was because again, me just my feelings toward punk. I knew he was gonna say something and do something out

of line. So I was just waiting for that shoe to fall. I mean, actually, he impressed me. He actually he didn't. I know after they went off air, he did his victory lap, which I think is cool. I mean, that you're supposed to do that kind of stuff. You know, they did that to you. You could do that to them. My whole beef has always has been don't do that. We're now the masses can see it because you're shitting on your own product. That's when I got that's what

started my issue with punk to begin with. You don't bury the other people you're working with in a W. So the way he did on raw, that was perfectly fine. I actually thought it was good. What you think about it, Matt? It was there. It wasn't what we thought we were going to get. And word came out that Orton and Don went longer in their match. So his promo got cut. But even with that, it was cool. It was okay. Like, was it worth me watching three hours of

a raw show that I would not have watched? No, I watched raw. So that didn't matter to me. I was impressed with the cadence of the show. And we'll talk about raw here in a few minutes. But um, I thought he said, I think he said,

nothing but said a lot at the same time. Right? So if you look at WWE and just a bubble, if you look at the WWE universe, he spoke about why he left the first time, why he had to leave, spoke about why he's back, threw in some subliminal shots about who may not be happy that he's back, but the majority of people are there to see him. And he's happy to be there. That's enough for your first initial promo. Now is enough for your first initial CM Punk promo that maybe

some of those folks hadn't seen him. If you look at those numbers, right? So we look at when he debuted, I don't know what the raw ratings were. So we take social media out. I know that clip when he debuted, did millions of views on A.W. social media. But we look at just like ratings, they did 1.4 million. I believe it was right for rampage, which they haven't kind of come close to

hitting yet. So 1.4 million people watch that live. I'm gonna have to assume the numbers will be much higher for this raw, even though they went up against Monday Night Football. So there could be a world where there's a percentage of wrestling fans that hadn't seen Punk in nine years. I don't know how that's possible, but it's got to be a percentage. So if you're only talking to them, if you're only talking to them, well, find the scene him on A.W. He

keeps up with like social media, YouTube and such. But like, so if I'm looking at he's talking to that fan base, it was cool. Now for what we know, and maybe what some people wanted, I didn't expect him at all to go out and talk about A.W. I didn't expect him to mention Tony Khan or mention the Bucks or anything like that. I did think we were going to get a little bit more in regards to just his story with WWE. I didn't think we were about to fast track the Seth. Like one

of our guys, I forgot who it was. Shout out to you, my bad. We were tweeting back and forth and he was like, I'm just ready for like Punk and Seth. Like, let's get this thing going. All I need is a stare down. And I was like, Whoa, man, slow down. Like we got to get this thing to at least the rumble. I'm hoping mania, but there's some word out there that it may be at the rumble. But we got we got we got a few months to get there. So you don't want to go too quick. So

overall, I thought it was cool. I thought it was cool for night one. I always find it interesting when you listen to the marks online. Yeah, so riled up about the promo being banned and it didn't live up to like, I'm not sure what people expect. If you really watch these shows and you're a fan of us, how can you be so off base on a lot of different? Of course, that's the kind of promo he's going to hit you think he's going to sit there and run down a

W. Why? Why? Why would WWE feel the need to do that on their TV? Why did it? Why would their fan base need to hear about Tony Khan or any of those kind of things people are kind of throwing out there? Like why? It's about punk and the WWE universe. Now what I will say, I thought was fascinating, because we all know the history we heard the podcast back in the day with, you know, him and Colton, he ain't cold. Right? But like, see, I'll punt got that man, you know,

fired from a W. Right? Those that's that was a schedule. But that's what he thought was being said about him. Right? And everything punk said about the company, even more, we're talking about he was talking about the company, calling the snakes and things of that nature at the at a comic con was like a year, year and a half ago, wasn't it? Yeah. To now hear him on a Monday night

raw, saying I'm home. Like, wow. Like, wow. Mm hmm. Right. The same company that you know, you came out on your return to wrestling a couple years ago said stole your love and joy of pro wrestling. He stopped being a pro wrestler when he joined that company is how much he hated that company. And that was just a year ago. To come back now and say I love you. I miss you. And I'm home. That kind of reminds me like a you know, a girl there it is. That's what I was

about to say. 100% 100% she she like you know, you're like you did it wrong. Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't, you know, but you had a breakup bad or she did or she did you wrong. Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she didn't. Right. And now you're the worst person ever. You ain't this. You ain't that. I never want to see that man again. Until you do. Now I love you. I love you. I need you. That's all I heard last night. I can't believe I could peer in that to

a woman leaving a boyfriend or a man because it's love is what it is. And you know, when they say it's a thin line between love and hate. It's a thin line between love and hate. So if you classic movie, classic movie. So if you take him for his word, and who knows, he may have been working last night. Right. Because we saw Seth come out and say, Hey, they started chanting CM Punk, which I love. And he's like, yeah, get out your system. It'd be last time I talk about that

hypocrite. Right. And then for punk to come out and be a hypocrite, if you look at it at face value, that entire promo could be working. Maybe he doesn't feel that way at all. But maybe he does feel that way. I think he does feel that way though, because even if we're talking like punk, no punk, even if we're talking like legit 100% real life, he reached out to WWE, not the other way around. So we

know WWE did him wrong when he was there. And yeah, we also know he was butthurt and jaded by the rot coming in and taking the main event slot that he thought he should have had with taker that mania, all of that, you know, his infection and he was still out there working every single night. We know that story. I think a lot of that is, it was his feelings. And he's burnt out. I think he's burnt

out. He was in his feelings. And you know, it'd be interesting if he ever says, you know, says, because you know, I never knew as a big of a Cody fan, as I am, I never knew that Cody admired Triple H as much as he did. I never knew that. I only knew it when he started going at H so hard when he left WWE. Like breaking the throne. It's like, okay, that's admiration. Right? Like, oh, you want that. And I wonder did CM Punk have some type of admiration for Triple H and he felt

he was being snubbed by someone he you never know. But I gotta ask you guys this because this is when I when I listened to the promo because I the facts are the facts. He's back. He's under contract again. So obviously, this is a place that he wanted to be for whatever the case may be. But then did that promo seem genuine to you? I like it might have been. But when I listened to like the cadence, it didn't seem it almost sound like a heelish promo, like at some

point he's going to turn or something like that. Is that just me? I would say that I felt when I heard it, it was definitely not scripted by WWE. Now did he scripted himself? Maybe. But I felt like it wasn't scripted by WWE. And one thing that I did not like about his promo was he this line of him saying, you know, he's moved the bar as far as the best of the world in the ring, on the mic and even on commentary. And to me, it's like why? Because you've announced a

few MMA fights that you're like the shit on commentary. I never listened to any of his calls on MMA, I might say. So I'm ignorant in that statement. But I know what he was saying when he when he threw that shot. But like, I don't think you're probably the best in the ring anymore in WWE. I'm just be completely honest with you. He's what 39 40 years old, maybe a little bit older than he may be 43. I think or somewhere. Yeah, somewhere. I'm quite sure some other guys can go better

than you in a ring. So to me, I felt like maybe he was scripted his scripted of it. Maybe he didn't just go speak from his heart, like how I felt maybe Randy went out and spoke from his heart. So I think it was scripted for him, not by WWE. So maybe that's probably where some of that genuosity if that's a word. Let me tell you something, Rhodesia. Let me tell you something, Rhodesia. Real quick, man.

Let me tell you something, Rhodesia. Can't nobody tell me that I don't have the illest three point shot in the world. Can't nobody tell me that I have the best, the wettest jumper in the world. Nobody stopped my three point shot. You can't tell me nothing. You can't tell me nothing. My three point shot is immaculant. It's immaculant. I can close my eyes and hit that shot anywhere on the court. Like why not?

You gotta be your biggest fan. Yeah, you gotta be your biggest fan, right man? And don't forget. I'll give you the ring. No, no, but don't forget, don't forget his slogan is best in the world. His point of saying that is there's a lot of people here who think they're the best in the world, but you can't say you're the best in the world when the best in the world wasn't here. Now let's step up. I love that line. I thought that was fantastic. Don't bring in the commentary part.

Corey Graves. I know that part of who he was making the shot at, but you're not better than Corey Graves on commentary wrestling. So you don't know that. You just said you ain't heard. I said MMA. I said MMA. I'm all pro wrestling. I think punk is probably the best commentary I've ever heard. Oh my God. Hey, hey, shots, shots though. So punk does something again and get fired and or cause some drama.

I think I'm going to retire from the show. It's going to be a great moment when he shows up at All Out 2025. Hey, when you talking trash, nothing is off limits. Of course not. Talk your stuff, man. No, I didn't have a problem with that at all. So and that's what I was saying about. Was it was he working or not? I believe everything he said was genuine, either he was genuinely working or that's how he felt when he says like I'm at I'm home.

I believe that 100 percent. I believe that because he wants to be there. Yeah, I believe he's happy to be there. Once again, he reached out what I think was. And we probably can all agree he was burnt out. They fired him on his wedding day. He was fucking over it with WWE. AW comes, reunites his passion for pro wrestling that goes sideways pretty quick. This ain't what I'm used to. I am used to stars and organization, certain type of treatment and organization and not high school type.

I work with children. Yeah. Yeah. And I think he's like, man, I'm over this shit. And then I think when he had a chance to get back to WWE and let's also not forget, this is a completely different WWE than what it was nine years ago. Speaking of Corey Graves, he just had 12 days off or whatever it was for having a baby. Back then, you had nine years ago. You had two days. You may have gotten that raw show off or that that first show you're supposed to put you back at work that next day.

He told Vince Russo famously, hey, he was like, you know, I need to be home with my family. They never see me. And he's like, Vince, you're making the money getting any. There it is. It's just a different because that's how Vince was. Vince, like if I'm working every single second, like you all can't do it's not work. We're having a good time here. So it's also a completely different world, too. But I am so intrigued. So I came out of.

So the promo was what it was, right? It was good. It was a good promo. But I came out of it more intrigued than if he would have did his sit down in Indian style and blasted whoever on the. Mike, you know, say if he went right at Seth and gave us five minutes on, you've been calling me out, you know, for years, blah, blah, blah. I'm more intrigued by just what we got. OK. Monday night than if he would have done that. So it's a win. Interested to see what the numbers are.

I know they've I think already done like one point six million or something in views on it since Monday night. So I'm ready for it. Before we get to Orden. You brought up the fire piece, he came out. After our last podcast, that's so what happened was on Monday, a lot of A.W. wrestlers were like showing support for A.W. I was like, you just hit us with what had happened was. But yeah, because I was like, that's kind of interesting. Like, all right. I mean, I get it because punk love.

OK, I get that. But to me, it was like a little like. Hard handed with it and then Brian Danson does a tweet that basically just says like, you got to do what's right. And I was OK, that's interesting. They come to find out. And I got to get your guys' thoughts on this. Sean Ross, that reported this. Brian Danson headed up the disciplinary committee that ultimately decided to terminate CM Punk for A.W. should a active entering performer. Be on a committee. That can vote, help deter.

Terminating an active in-ring performer. Can I just backtrack just one quick moment? When Tony came out in Chicago and said that he was let go, that it was ultimately his decision. I was under the impression that this disciplinary committee was comprised of attorneys. So maybe in addition in a jar. So what meets my eye? No, an active wrestler should not have say in what another active wrestler career should look like or not look like for that matter.

But I also believe that wrestlers opinions do matter when it comes to that locker room. But if Brian, I always had the impression I don't know this for a fact. I thought Brian came over to A.W. kind of more than just a wrestler in a capacity of also maybe like a consultant or advisor or like a producer. So not initially. Not initially. Nope. Not from the booty. Yeah. He just now remember he was there for the rushes like Kim and Regal.

They would show up, you know, two o'clock, three o'clock on Wednesday, hit that ring and anybody wants to come in and train and pick their brains. They were there for that. But that wasn't in any type of official capacity of anything more than just contracted wrestlers. If Brian was part of this committee and this committee let go of CM Punk, I don't necessarily have a problem with it depending on who else was on this committee.

Now if you're saying that Brian decision swayed it, then yeah, that could be a conflict of interest. But at the end of the day, Tony already came out and told us that it was his decision alone that he used the disciplinary committee to help advise him. But I have no problem with it. Initially when you said it, I'm like, yikes, no, no active wrestler should have anything to say. Another one of my counterpart peers gets me fired.

Why are you letting that person who's on the same level as me get me fired? But again, if it's a whole like a whole team, who knows? They may have asked all of the veterans there how they felt. We don't actually know, do we? No, not that I've seen. But then what's the difference also getting what you call a fire? Call Cabana fired. He didn't get called fired. He said he did. He did. He said he did. Come on.

Real quick, so with the tweet said, my dad always told me the right thing is often the hardest thing to do. It won't always make the most money. It won't always be the most popular, but it's still the right thing. And he put hashtag A-W then put a heart emoji. And what Sean Ross said was that was almost verbatim what he heard Brian said when it was time to make the decision about firing Punk. And Brian and Punk are on really good terms too. So or were. I don't even think Punk even.

Right, at least now? Yeah, even now I don't think Punk. I think Punk knew. Once again, if he choked out the devil Jack Perry and he tells Tony Khan, I fucking hate this place and I'm gonna kill you too when I get back from this match with Samoa Joe, I think he knew he was going to get fired. So there's that. You know, when I saw the tweet and you asked about it, I had a couple of questions first. Like what are the parameters of this committee?

Because if it's like a legal type of a team, typically like within a company that will be HR, that would be some type of management, et cetera, that would make that decision. Now, would you get input from wrestlers? Sure. But ultimately, especially with the fiasco that happened at the brawl out, you know, there's a lot of legalities, they couldn't make certain statements, have conversations, et cetera.

So you would think about this type of instance, especially if it involved the owner of the company, that it would be a similar situation. You want to have a legal department on hand along with HR to make sure things are done correctly. But the fact that a wrestler was ahead of something, maybe this was something else. Maybe this was a AEW version of wrestlers court.

Like, hey, considering what went down and how it went down in the history and what's going on within the locker room, do we want CM Punk in our locker room? And is CM Punk causing an issue within our locker room and ultimately creating discord? Right? So maybe that's what it is. Right? And like, hey, Tony's like, hey, do you as wrestlers know, does the locker room want him in the company anymore?

And then Tony made his decision based off their recommendation based on other factors like HR and other things. But that's what it is, I mean, I understand. If the general consensus was like, hey, Punk needs to be gone, he's fracturing this locker room, it is what it is. They made that call, they made that decision. I'm okay with that because that happens in a lot of sports and teams. Why, hey man, this dude ain't working out in the locker room, a chance has to be made.

That's happened multiple times. And he's voted out. They need to do that for the Detroit Pistons. Hmm. Do you vote now? Detroit Weaver? Man, GM gotta go. Owner gotta go. You gotta keep Monty, because Monty inherited it, but man, we need some holes. I told you, I told you guys last year, get rid of that man. Right now, give him a chance. No, I'm not. I thought he was going to course correct properly this summer and he didn't.

Hey, as you know, we can see that there's a thing, the leopard doesn't change their spots, not on their own. People don't change unless change is forced upon him. So if you see us, and this can kind of correlate with Punk, if people have a certain history of behavior, they're not going to change unless they're forced to change. So it'd be very interesting to see how Punk moves forward with WWE. I honestly don't think we're going to have any of these problems that we're going to see.

You can tell with that promo last night that that was a different promo. That was a more structured promo than he's cut at any point in AEW. Right? That was a very structured one. Yeah, I mean, he's not going to Roman and pulling any of that. That's just not happening. I don't have a problem with the Bryan thing. I think initially when I saw it, I was like, I don't know if wrestlers should be on that kind of committee.

But then I'm like, well, we're talking about Bryan Danielson, which I've never heard one bad thing about Bryan from any professional wrestler. So his respect level and knowing that he's on up and up and he's only here for business and help everybody probably had something to do with that. I mean, that's probably why he's in a position he is now with really having Tony's ear. So I don't have an issue with it. It did kind of throw me off, though, because that kind of came out of nowhere.

But then knowing that that tweet yesterday is kind of what spurred. Okay, evidently, Sean Ross figuring out like, let me just make sure to validate this is how it all went down. And then he released the story. But it's very concerning, though. And I got a couple other things that I think is very concerning with that company will get to later on. But I'm with you on that, though. Yep, so as we always say, we'll see, right, what happens next to punk. I don't think he's advertised for SmackDown.

I know Orton is, but I don't know if that's going to be a dark match or he's actually going to be on TV because they got to they got to split some of these folks up. You can't have Cody, Jay, Orton and CM Punk on Raw. Some of that stuff we got to we got to flip. We got to switch some of this stuff up. So let's talk about Orton and then, of course, we can talk about anything else that we saw from Raw that we wanted to get into.

It was for me, so beautiful to see Orton and even Saturday at Survivor Series because you can tell how much he was enjoying it. But really on Monday, he comes out to open the show. And what I thought was, I know I think I tweeted like this is what gratitude looks like. But even more so than that, like when life humbles you in a positive way, that's a life changing beautiful thing. We're all old enough to have seen Orton's first match.

Right. Radeezy and I was in Toronto against Benoit at SummerSlam when he won his first champion. He was the youngest WWF champion of all time at the time. And it's no he was taking that for granted. We've heard those horror stories about him allegedly backstage, how he just thought everything was supposed to come to him on a silver platter, lack of respect in time. So to see that and then to see somebody who thought they may not ever do this again and how much they love it.

Hell, leaving Survivor Series and there's a video of him throwing the tent up saying 10 more years of doing this, which is unreal if you think about that. But to see him just take in that moment of signing autographs, going to the ring on TV, that's typically a no no. Waiting that extra few seconds to hit his post because he hasn't hit it in a year and a half. That's beautiful. That's incredible to see that and to see somebody to still have their wits about him.

It's not like he's 60 plus and this is a mania run and he's coming back from mania and that's it. No, he's back in the fold now. I just thought that was like out of everything that I saw Monday around Orton, I was like, man, that's so damn cool to be able to see that and know that we've seen his entire career from day one on WWE main roster to now. You mentioned words like beautiful and humbled and my word I have for that is enlightened.

When he came out to the ring and like you said before he hit struck his post, it was almost like he's just an enlightened person. Like life has changed and we see that all too often with a lot of the people who come back after injury who's over 30, over 35 is just something that they see life differently. So that is just all the energy that I got from him. I'm happy he actually started off the show.

I even thought to myself, hey, I actually might become a Super Randy fan after this or at least this whole run for him. You also was a, oh, I don't know if the fans of the pod know this. E, you know this, right? Rodizia is an Orton hater too? I don't know who she likes to be honest with you. She told you already, Roman, Roman, Roman, Roman. I think Jade has like gotten that fifth spot now. Oh wait, whoa, hold on. Wait, hold on. I didn't have this in my notes.

This is a perfect time to bring it up. Wait, this is a, and hold on. This wasn't even on my notes for raw talk. We got to give it up to Mr. Drew McIntyre and his black boxers. I thought, I thought, will I spray in his gray sweatpants was the truth. When I saw, when I, when that, when I killed fell down to the ground and I'm like, wait, his kids on the ground. I looked up and I saw him in his black boxers. Woo, woo, Chile, man, I was like, okay. Wow. But I digress.

Geez, old P. So he's a married man, right? So like, let me not do that. And you're a married woman. I am. You know, like, oh my God. Anyway, so yeah, so, so back to Orton and how he came across and what he did. What'd you guys think about him putting that line in saying, saying, all right, if you're down with the bloodline, I'm coming. Oh, and then I thought it was cool too, which was funny. And I guess maybe he may have been telling the truth. He gets in his promo.

He's like, and nobody's telling me what to do. And I was like, damn, that's a shot at Triple H. Like, because, you know, that's the first time we've seen him under the Triple H regime. I'm like, oh shit, Triple H, you're going to have your hands full. And then come find out H wasn't even at the show. What? He was, he was, he was attending to other business. So Bruce Prichard ran the show. So he's talking to Bruce. I think he's talking to Bruce. Like I run this, I'm going long against Dom.

Don't nobody tell me what to do. Sorry, Phil. Other, other business. Stephanie knows in town shows up, you know, I mean, maybe he has, yeah, that kind of business to tend to, right? Code of AK. Yeah. Could be, could be. I'm like, look, I gotta look wife, wife's here. I gotta do what I gotta do. So are y'all, are y'all, do you, do you want Orton on Raw? Do you want him on Smackdown? After seeing him last night, you know, they, they gave him something to do with judgment day.

I thought him and Rhea, of course was great. And for a second, I'm like, here comes the RKO. And I was like, nope, you don't give it away yet. Yeah. So I was like, no. Yeah. So what do you guys want to see from, from Orton now that we've seen him on Raw? Do you want to see him go on Smackdown and then kind of figure it out? Or do you already know where you want him at?

I don't know where I want him at, but maybe after his line about anybody in the bloodline or associated with the bloodline is on site. We really say on site, but you know what I mean? I was like, okay, well maybe he has, he has to go over to Smackdown because Jay came up to him and say, Hey, listen, I'm sorry. I apologize. He checked his temperature quick, didn't he? He's like, man, look, I'm out the bloodline, dude. I don't know if you saw me, but look, a couple months ago, I left him.

He made sure, he made sure his name was clean. Like, listen, no, do we got any more beef? Like you saw he look at him like, and then they came in with the daft and hung all that. But he has to, and I'm okay with that. I like that. I can show him at solo a little bit. I could see some fun action between the two of them. I got a couple of raw thoughts. You guys still talking about ordinary guys.

I want to segue real quick, maybe not real quick, but it just popped in my mind right now, which we talked about Smackdown. We talked about Smackdown and I'm like, man, like I thought maybe right. Randy Orton could go there. I feel like they need some help. I don't know why I feel that way, but when I watched the show raw that is last night, and you know, Seth held up the title and said he's the best world champion or the best champion in wrestling right now.

Right. And I thought to myself like, I don't know, Seth, I think Guther might got you. Now I thought to myself like, wow, maybe at some point we get a Guther versus Seth match and some kind of unification or not unification, maybe, you know, like is Hogan versus Ultimate Warrior. No, title, take all. Winner, take all is what I'm looking for. Right. I'm like, because Steph is a working champion. Guther certainly is a working champion. Then I thought about Smackdown.

Well, damn, we got one champion who shows up twice a year to defend. We got Logan Paul, who I ain't seen defend the title once and has been off the show for a minute. I'm like, damn, like we ain't got no defending champions over there. We ain't got no working champions on that blue brand. What can we do to remedy that? Right. And I don't know Randy Orton is going to solve that issue unless he's going to be the next up for Logan Paul and he becomes the US champion.

But I would love to see somebody go over to that brand and make those titles mean something. Right now, they're just props to me. So you know what they could do? Half of them go to Smackdown and half of them challenge Roman at the Rumble. I can see him at the Rumble, yeah. So then you don't have to have Randy in the Rumble. We know Randy's not going to win the Rumble. Yeah. Right. So don't even put him in it.

Half of them, and you can tell a really good story for five, six weeks or so with Randy, to your point, where he's just taken out Solo, taken out Jimmy and there's only one left. I've been gone because of you guys and now you got to come eat this Roman and you do that. So man, like, I mean, if you think about what the Rumble could be, Cody wins the Rumble. And if they don't wait and do Punk Seth, you go Punk Seth, Roman Randy, and Cody winning the Rumble.

That is a, I was telling Rudy's watching Raw. So like the way they did the Raw show, first thing you see is Orton, right? So he leads off top of the first hour. Into the first hour or, you know, top of the second hour is Cody. Into the second hour, top of the third hour is Seth. Into the third hour is CM Punk. Man. And that's, Goulter wasn't in a prominent spot. Becky Lynch wasn't in a prominent spot on that show. Like you just look, it's an embarrassment of riches.

But to your point with SmackDown, I think you do put them there. And then now you have that that you can nurture for a couple months. And then you still got the women killing it. Like EO's a fighting champion. So you got the Becky, hopefully the Becky and Charlotte story being told. You still got Bianca over there. We still got LA Knight over there. I know Logan Paul is scheduled to be there on Friday. I don't know how often.

He made a comment a couple of weeks ago and we know he's always working. So who knows where he says like he's basically done with boxing. Ain't no money in boxing. He's a full-time wrestler now. I don't know like if he's telling the truth or not. But if he's there, you know, semi-ruggerly, he's another massive name that they have at their disposal. But I do think that Orton probably should go to SmackDown.

Yeah. He said that he drew like the line in the sand that he's going for the bloodline and anybody associated with him. So that's a perfect, perfect way to send him off. It would be to give, like you said, give Randy and Roman something to do before hopefully we get Roman and Cody at Mania. We do, hey, you know, I'm not sure how long, do we know how long Punk's contract is? They just said multi-year. Multi-year, this is multi-year, right?

Yeah. But for the next couple of years, we can have some really nice POEs and main events, right? We talked about before Punk came back, like they have so many guys at the top of the card right now that you can see. You know, we talked about a couple of years ago that, you know, when Roman wrestled, we didn't really see many people that can dethrone him. I think if Roman was hot as he was a year or so ago, we got a couple of people now. We got, you know, now we got CM Punk.

Or even to that point, if we knew Roman wasn't holding the title for Cody, while they say there was no Cody Rhodes in completing the story and what happened at Mania, we probably could name five or six people that right now, if you were to put him in a, you know, Rumble, SummerSlam, WrestleMania main event, you'd be like, oh yeah, Roman's probably going to drop that. Yeah. So they're doing it. They're doing fantastic. They're taking their time telling these stories. So I'm excited.

Just thinking about who they have. And it's crazy because only two people came back, but it felt like they fucking- Three people. Come on, we got to give it up for Truth now. I was about to say that. Okay, my bad. Truth. I'm not done recapping Raw. I'm not done recapping Raw. Okay? You gotta give it to Truth. Truth, he's trying to get into war games. Let's go. Look like he, man, that man's 51 years old, y'all. Killing it. Great. He looks great. And his performance at war games?

Dude. My man said, how'd I do? Truth, you wasn't in war games, dude. You gotta love Truth, man. I told myself, I said, I think he is probably my favorite character in wrestling. And when I mean character, I mean like that caricature, that favorite of how long. I think it completely shot and skyrocketed when he got with Carmella and she did some good stuff with him too.

When they would do dance breaks and stuff like that, who'd have thought dance breaks would get over and stayed over for so long, as long as it did. Ever since then, I've like, I always liked K Quick to begin with, but then when he became this our Truth, I'm like, okay, this guy is hilarious. The only time he ran a little thin with me, and it wasn't because of him, but it was the 24-7 title. I didn't find much fun. I love the 24-7 title. I didn't. I hated it. I loved it. I loved the 24-7 title.

But like his stuff is always good. And his stuff is like weekly, it's fantastic. So yes, three returns. Hey, put him on SmackDown. Yeah, put him on SmackDown. Put him on SmackDown too. Have him go against Solo a few times too. That ain't gonna be good for him. That ain't gonna be good for him. But that's okay though. Shinsuke. Yes, finally. He was shooting at Cody this entire time. Finally. Finally. Would y'all feel about a six week, five week Cody and Shinsuke build?

Actually, it could probably be more than that. Call back to that. Put it right in your veins. Put it right in your veins. Remember a few episodes ago. Yep. You're getting me excited over here. Put that right in my veins, baby. Put that right in my veins. Even though I didn't want to believe it for a second, I did think Shinsuke was talking about Punk. But we found out, nope. He's talking about Cody. How perfect is it? She know that's what it sound like.

You see she trying to just skate on over it. Because we have a pod to do here. Oh, sorry. I'll be putting in work. Listen. You know what? My bad. I'm just... I'm on my bad. You're right. Y'all can get all this. You're right. My bad. You're right. For $9.99 a month on the upcoming... My bad. You saw him about Shinsuke. Shinsuke and Cody. Oh, man. You made me lose my train of thought. Yeah. We got... You're here for it. You're here for it.

I'm going to go out on the limb and say E is not here for it. I'm not here for it. You said something about you wanted Matt to put it in you or something. I don't know. And I put my head down and decided I was going to edit it out of the pod. So why are you not into Shinsuke versus Cody, E? Oh, it's fine. That's it? Yeah, it's just fine. I'm watching it. Okay. You know, we... For some of the same reasons why Seth and Shinsuke wasn't... I gave that a chance.

And I like... I like you're doing something with Nakamura. I think this is probably the best version of Nakamura we've seen in some time. But I'm still not super interested in the character. And I know Cody's going to beat that ass. But it's fine. I mean, Cody needs something to do. We got to get that man- Right. Exactly. ... in some kind of a story, right? He can't just be coming out there.

He sounds like the politician come out there, you know, he kisses a couple of babies, shakes a couple of hands, he waves to the crowd, and he's sending back out, right? We need him to do a little bit more than that. So I'm cool with it. Yeah. I'm fine with it when he said Cody's name, because we have punk. I was like, oh, that's cool. Like, if we didn't have punk and it was... I was like, that was dumb. Like, that could have been seeing punk spot. Right.

Yeah. And you know, you hit him with the mist. I'm cool with it, because I'm like, okay, that's a good... More so for Shinsuke, because you know, he came off of losing to Seth twice, and then he had a real quick feud with Ricochet, it felt like, and that kind of just like stopped out of nowhere. And he started with these promo videos, and we know who he's talking about. I'm like, all right, Kay. I'm like, cool. That takes us to Rumble season. I'm good with that.

And we don't have a pay-per-view, so I'm guessing we're going to get the blow off on a raw show where they'll hype it up. You know, what'd they say? Seth is going against Jay next Monday. Jay for the title. Well, we know what's going to happen there, but... Which is what? Jay's not going to win the title. Is that due to Drew McIntyre interference or what? Absolutely, and we can't not talk about that headbunt that Drew almost knocked his own self out.

He wasn't playing baseball, so it wasn't a bunt, but it was a headbutt. Butt? How you spell that? It was a butt. How you spell that? H, you know, do that noise again you were doing. B-U-T-T. That's how you spell it. It's a headbutt. Headbutt? It should be a bunt. Why would it be a bunt? It's like, because you bunted it. You've always thought that movie's called a headbutt? So listen, I have my baseball in my hand, and if I do the little bunt, that's how his head- Wait, wait, wait, wait.

That's the shoot? You thought that you was headbutting? I thought it was a bunt. So why would we call it a headbutt? That isn't even making any sense. Oh my God. A headbutt. That is hilarious. That is hilarious. It's a headbutt, like you bunted a ball. He bunt his head on the title. Mine's making logical sense. And I learned something new every podcast. It's like, wow. But if we talk about what would make more sense, a headbutt does not- Oh man, she still trying to explain this.

It says a headbutt is a targeted strike with the head, typically involving the use of robust parts of the headbutter's cranium as the area of impact. The most effective headbutt? What? We done a Rodincia Google moment in 30 shows. She brought it back. Oh my God. That was hilarious. Headbunting. Wait, wait, wait. No, no. No, never mind. Sorry. Oh, you know what it is? So the verb word of a headbutt is actually headbunting. B-U-N-T-I-N-G, just so you know. Oh, so you do that, right?

So you just short it in? Yep, that's exactly what it is. Yep, headbutt. So I'm not doing the verb of it. I'm just doing headbutt. Anyway, poignant, whatever. This show is just... I said I was going to retire until punk leaves. I think this is just all a disaster. It's off the rails. I almost closed out of this recording, see by accident. Trying to close out my Google search. Oh my God, man. So guys. You gave us a moment. We appreciate it.

So guys, what did you guys think about the overall raw show? For me, it was... The stories of those hours I got talked about, beginning, first hour, end of the first hour. That was the show. In terms of matches, Ivar and Reed killed it, I thought. I thought that was fantastic. I like the Gauntlet match. I don't know if they call it the Gauntlet match, but I'm calling it the Gauntlet match. I love the tag, Gauntlet match. That was pretty awesome.

The Kree brothers, they're pushing them something crazy, which again, I had nothing against it. So I'm happy to see that, for sure. But overall, I thought raw was two thumbs up. I was awake for it and alert from beginning 10. The tag team, and shouts out to Fonzie, he popped me a little bit. He said that he called it the tag team, jobber into the invitation tournament, something of that nature. I heard my feelings a little. Good to know. I thought about something.

So we haven't seen the ratings for the show yet, have we? No, I can check real quick to see. But I would imagine this is one of the shows that have the most eyes. And kudos to WWE, man. They know how to structure and set up a TV show. They knew this show was going to have eyes on it. And they made people tuning in for the first time in a while, tuning in for years, or tuning in just in general.

They made you sit through a whole three hour show to get to the main event, which is CM Punk's first promo back on WWE TV. Great business. Right? Do you think though, hindsight, looking back, should they have really, really pumped that show for main event talent? Should we have seen a Becky match? Should we have seen a Cody match? Should we have really seen that? So to your point, if anybody's watching this show that haven't watched it, they're like, all right, I got to lock in.

Because I don't know if anybody who watched Raw, say they don't watch WWE, or they don't watch Raw at all. I don't know if there was enough besides Seth and Jay teaser for next week. I don't know if there was enough for them to say, oh man, I got to come back next Monday and watch. Here's Matt again, always stealing my thunder. My bad. That's exactly where I'm going. You're stealing my topics. I ain't never bring up no head bun, I tell you that. Oh yeah.

You know, I'm still looking it up on the internet right now too. I bet you are. I swear to God, I'm looking it up here. When you watch that show, and the way they kind of loaded up, I don't know they did enough to kind of keep those people coming back. Like the Fonzies of the world, to keep them watching show. When I think about WWE in the past, and even in Triple H's run of creative, there's a lot of long WWE style TV matches. And that's exactly what that tag team terminal match was.

It was a long TV match. And typically it's with guys who are lukewarm to kind of cold. And they're putting these long form WWE style matches. And I'm not sure if that tag team tomorrow match, especially as long as it was really brought in viewers and men to keep going. Because I saw a couple of guys who tuned in to Raw for the first time in a while. And they were just saying like, ah, you know, the wrestling isn't up to par to AEW.

I saw someone say, go as far as say that they think that WWE does a great job telling the stories outside the ring, but AEW does a better job of telling stories inside the ring. I'm like, what? AEW tells a better job of telling a story? Through what high spot? Through what no sale? Through what I will say is that I think the AEW matches are faster paced. They have more high spots, right? With the WWE style, I think they are trying to tell a story with that tag team match.

It was evidence stories they were telling with that match with the Creed brothers. They're trying to get those guys high, right? They're trying to show you the struggle and the thrive and them overcoming to get that win. And they did it, right? They showcased their athleticism. They have some great spots, but you have to tell the struggle so you can get invested in seeing those guys win the match. I get all that, but for me as a viewer, I'll be honest with you. I was kind of bored.

I was sitting in the urgent care. I'm watching the match. I'm already kind of half tired. And while maybe if I were sitting to come from my own home, maybe I might have gotten into the slow paced storytelling that was demonstrating that match. But how many guys who haven't watched wrestling in a long time tune into that match and say, oh, this is what I need to see more of?

What if that match was a little bit faster paced and it got to the story a little bit sooner so you can kind of get those guys coming back? Well, so, but okay, so real quick then let's also not forget Punk just signed on Saturday, right? Like legit. So this wasn't like planned. So I guess what I said earlier, maybe you don't do that because then I'll be knee jerk, high shotting. Well, let's go back, your uncle Dave said he was signed 10 days ago. Okay. That's your uncle.

He needs to be handbunted. So I don't know. I got something for that for y'all too. I don't know if you do that. So yes, the show itself overall, was it if you take out those promos, right, which is a lot to say, but if you take out those promos in the ring, could you miss that show? Yeah. It's a possible show, but this happens every November, December because especially now that they don't have a pay-per-view in December, we're playing the long game to the rumble.

So I think there's gonna be a few raw shows over the next two months. We'll be like, but not, I mean, I wouldn't, but that wasn't great. But not this raw show, not this raw show. They had enough time and I believe this wasn't, this was known before just tonight of, they had a Sunday and all of Monday, not to rewrite the entire show, but to tweak a couple of things to make it a little bit faster paced for people coming in and tuning in. It gets to get them hooked.

And then you can go back to kind of weaning them into this is what we normally do, you know, but there was a, they had a big opportunity to make that a big show. Now on paper, was it with the interviews and segments? Yeah, sure. But I think from start to finish, you know, as you say, you take those bookends out, it was your average raw show, which doesn't make it a bad show. It just makes it an average show. Or maybe even less than average because no Gunther, no Ricochet.

We already talked about who else didn't wrestle. They were in the promo segments. Did Jay, Jay didn't wrestle either, right? No, he came out and said Cody. Yeah. I mean, so you're, you're major players. The big guys didn't, the big guys didn't wrestle. And your big woman. Well, no, we had a die up fight. I'm talking about like Becky. I mean, Becky's the star on that raw brand. Well, I, I'm going to personally completely disagree with y'all.

I thought that this raw was exactly what it needed to be. You had two returns of very important people and them setting up possible storylines. The bookends that you mentioned were hell of a bookends. I mean, let's think about it. You just said Orton, Seth, Drew, Cody, Punk. Those are hell of bookends. So I'm sorry that if they couldn't get another good match to throw in there, it's okay. If this raw right after war games was like that, I'm completely fine with it.

Now you add and sprinkle on that we don't have another pay-per-view until January. Then this makes even more sense. I thought last night's show was exactly what it should have been. And I have no problems with it at all. All right, are you coming from a perspective of you as a fan, a hardcore fan who watches all the shows or are you thinking that from somebody who's just tuning in for the first time that's having watched punk or watched shows?

Yeah, he's talking about that person who maybe they're only AEW fans and they're tuning in just to see Punk. Was that enough for you to come back? But I don't know if maybe, of course I would imagine that any producer, anybody who puts on the show, they know that they have two people coming back, huge names like that, that you would probably want to be able to hook people in.

So when I'm about to say myself, I sound like I'm talking on both sides of my ass, but for me, I feel like they, I'm losing my train of thought here. Sorry. I just got to mess with you. Still thinking about that punk? No, no, I feel like I'm hitting it too hard. You got hit on it too hard. I just got hit on it here.

But as far as, okay, new fans coming in to watch, yeah, you should probably produce a show that if somebody's going to come in, I know I'm going to get eyes on the show, I'm going to get eyes on the product. So you should hook them. But I don't know if I would want it to been anything different than what I saw yesterday.

I would not want another match to be in there that shows maybe showcased the great talents that y'all mentioned that didn't have a match because it's going to be overshadowed anyways by your Randy Orton, your Drew, your Seth and your CM Punk. So to me, I think that's perfectly fine. 100%. Now someone like Afan's coming in and the only real match he probably saw was the Gauntlet match. Okay, maybe that's not going to keep him to turn back and tune back in again.

But we always talk about when it comes to WWE has been about stories. So we have four segments that talked about stories. So to me, I completely feel like they did exactly what they were supposed to do with that show. Now, could you may tweaks? Okay, maybe, but I'm completely fine with how they produce that show. Yeah, no, the majority of feedback online was that wasn't it? The majority. Yep. Wow. Not that it was, it wasn't horrible. Nobody was in a bad show at all.

Yeah. It was just that, hey, you got an opportunity to really lock in folks that aren't maybe watching this show normally and there was nothing special about the show outside of- So then how do you do that? I know you said maybe put in another more, like a match of one of those big names that y'all mentioned that didn't have a match. How else should it have looked? No, I mean, you could have done that.

You could have switched out a couple of matches and had your stars in it because we're going off of only if you don't watch WWE typically, there was a lot of people who tuned in from what we can see. Yeah. And the ratings aren't out yet, but they don't typically watch Raw. So let me check it out because I know Punk's going to be there. That's when, like I said, you put out there some of your biggest names. That's what AEW would have done. And I can't wait to watch Dynamite.

Yeah, we already have the tournament matches set, but I'm sure they're going to have some eyeballs on them to see how do they react to seeing Punk going to WWE. And they're going to put their best foot forward. Right? And that's not to say WWE didn't. All I'm saying is you had an opportunity to maybe hook them with something and I don't know the hook was there. Somebody who doesn't watch Raw. You got to say it. Somebody who doesn't watch Raw. It doesn't matter. If you don't watch Raw.

If you don't watch Raw. Yeah. What did you see on Monday that's going to make you watch Raw next Monday? I saw Drew in his boxers. I already know Drew. No, no, no, no, no. I already know Drew. I saw Randy come back. I saw that. I know Randy came back at WarGames. So then you can't keep moving the goalposts if I'm giving you examples. But those aren't examples. How about this? Those are people that they've been there.

When CM Punk returned to AEW the first time or the second time, I don't remember a Nans single match on that show. I remember Punk returning on any of them. When he first came back, when he passed out ice cream bars. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. It's not supposed to. But not really because we talk about AEW not allowing us to breathe sometimes. They throw so much at us and you enjoy that format. That's what we're saying WWE could have done. Not to that level.

But there's so many times where you forget what happened in segment two on the Dynamite because they gave us so much and you don't know what's important because everything was just awesome and great and car crash and fast pace that you're just like, whoa, hold on a second. Damn, I forgot that even happened.

I just think that y'all being overly critical though of Raw because again, I'm tuning into Raw not to watch the great matches that I'm going to see of these new people and highlight these other people. I'm watching Raw because I want to see the return of Randy Orton, the return of R-Truth and the return of CM Punk. But the thing is, you talk about the sandwich, right?

And here's funny, I was in a corporate training and I mentioned the benefit sandwich and they call it the shit sandwich or something. That's what it is. And that's what you kind of got, right? You get a hot interview segment. A shit sandwich? You call him a shit sandwich? You got a hot, I'm talking about not from Rhodesia the super fan. I'm talking about Joey who hasn't watched the show in years. You got this guy I know and then in the middle, I got a long ass match from guys I don't know.

And they're giving me a slow storytelling match that I have to, that I'm not particularly invested into the characters. So I'm not maybe invested in the story that they're telling me, right? Because I'm not invested in those specific characters, but you're putting them in front of me for a long period of time, right? And they had countless encounters and matches where there were guys that weren't over with the returning or new audience, right? So that's what it is.

That's what people are, you need to have something kind of popping for them throughout the show. We have a three hour show and we're talking about, you're giving me, but hold on, you're talking about a three hour show and you're talking about 35 minutes of it. But listen, we talk about a show and we can leave this too, but we're talking about, we need to put on a showcase show, talking about Raw from last night.

And they gave us that, they gave us all the top heavy hitters, they gave us segments. We saw everybody, it's maybe Shepard Gunter, I'm not sure if you saw Gunter. We saw everybody and we saw a showcase of a Gauntlet matchup, all the up and coming tag teams. I don't understand how this was not a showcase.

Now maybe it didn't get those people who turned on the channel that was a fan that came back to like it, but we don't know if somebody who's brand new to wrestling turned it on last night and said, oh, actually I do like this. They do have a lot of people. When you think of a showcase show is to put everybody on, get everybody air time and showcase what you have in talent. We saw everybody maybe except for Becky Lynch. No, we saw her too. She got a 42 second promo.

We saw everybody you mentioned for about a total of 35 to 40 minutes of the three hour show. And everyone tuned in to see CM Punk and we got them at the end of the show. And so the tag team match that you like had DIY who you're not engaged in right now. I'm not sure. Oh, I am. New fans. No, she loves their theme song too. I absolutely am. I absolutely am. And I thought they were going to win until then the Creed brothers came in. She likes DIY, but she doesn't like Randy Orton. Moving on.

We were talking about stories and talking about AEW and this news broke and MJF tweeted it and then untweeted it. He deleted it. He said he just got an MRI and he tore his labrum in his left shoulder. He said he'd still be defending his title at Worlds and he believes in AEW. Him saying he believes in AEW. Maybe they completely dropped this whole contract world of 2024. Because if he didn't have a contract, I don't see him saying that. He deleted that.

But we do know it is confirmed that he does have a torn labrum and he also dislocated his hip during the match and they had to pop it back in place afterwards. So he's banged up right now. Looks like he's still going to defend his title against Samoa Joe. I think they were saying on the quick end torn labrums are four to six weeks. He's going to try to rehab it and not have surgery. I already thought Joe should have won the title and then we get the devil debut or the world's end.

After the races in January telling that story, I think now you may have to pull that trigger. I don't know how long he's going to be out. That's a blow for them right now. I don't think he was probably going to work any wrestling matches before Worlds end, but hopefully he gets better quick because that one does kind of suck. It's a big time for AEW. There's a lot of information and I know you wanted to bring up the QT Marshall thing, so I'll throw it to you.

There's a lot of, and it's starting to make sense of why we feel like their shows are disjointed at times on TV because it sounds like there's a lot of different voices and opinions backstage and we're seeing that reflect on weekly TV. So I know what QT tweeted, he left, right? Effective like immediately he's leaving or he's not under contract anymore. Or he'll fulfill his contract by the end of December, by the end of this year he'd be completed or fulfilled his contract.

Yeah. Let me pull up an actual quote, but hey, Rhodesia, did you have any thoughts on the MJF entry while it's up? When that came out, first off, I'm speechless and that doesn't happen often. I'm just at a loss for words. I'm nervous for A.W. because we look in like the last seven months, six months, you got to see him punk leaving. You have really low attendance sales. Adam Cole gets injured when he was about to be in a prominent position spot.

Adam Copeland didn't come back to what we maybe, guess what we thought he was going to come to. Punk now goes back to WWE. That's y'all. Adam Copeland's doing just fine. He cut a hell of a promo on Collision. Y'all got to go back and watch that. I'm sure neither one of you saw it. It's on YouTube. He cut a boy. He did a piece of business. Okay, well maybe that's a step in the right direction. Yeah, but it's around with Christian. So, yes, but- And now you're talking about MJF is being injured?

Wow. I'm a little bit nervous there. I'm a little bit nervous. Do we know what spot injured him? The top rope. Was it a Hurricanrana? The elbow drop, right? I remember seeing the move and I was like, hmm, okay. The elbow drop, right? No, that was where his hip came out of place. Okay. Yeah, his shoulder was, what was it? It was a top rope move though. In the ring, not the one off the ring where he did the elbow. Use them on in the ring one. Okay. Yep. Yep, yep. No, I'm nervous.

I'm nervous for AEW just because of those things that I just mentioned. All the momentum is at WWE right now. I mean, I'm not nervous for MJF because I don't think he was going to wrestle. I mean, I guess he could have wrestled on TV up to this time, but as long as he can go and he can still show up to TV, you're fine because we're talking about story, right?

You can still tell the story of Samoa Joe match, joking, do any type of physicality to kind of tell that story through it to get us to the end of December. So I think there'll be okay there, but I do know what you mean from the momentum perspective. And then you have the stuff about QT. Yeah I do. And if he can rehab in four to five weeks, I think they can work around that. You know, so hopefully, you know, he's able to come back soon. But so it wasn't necessarily no QT leaving.

So like, I actually like the idea of QT leaving. I thought no, the QT, the wrestler, the personality, the QT, the rest of the personality. I thought, you know, I like the stuff he did with the factory. I wasn't a fan of the stuff with the QTV stuff he did here. But just reading something that he said here, he said the company has changed a lot since 2019 and is heading in a different direction. And I feel that as best I do the same as we only get one chance to go all in.

And what I thought about was like, wow, this is QT leaving or resigning. And he was one of Tony's confidants. I know he's part of their creative and he's leaving. And he mentioned that the show has changed since he's been in the company. As everyone, that was what, three years ago, everyone should change and grow. But my thought is that, is it growing in the right direction? Because I hear a lot of fans say that AEW has changed. It's not the same. It's not what they fell in love with anymore.

And we go to the live shows and arenas, you guys more recently than me. But even at this last show I went to here in Georgia, it wasn't nearly at capacity as it had been years past. We've seen the attendance for Collision and some of the Dynamite shows, et cetera. So we know that the fan base is shrinking and maybe not as paying like they used to. I'm kind of concerned about the company. When I think about the company, not from a talent standpoint.

When he got Swerve, who was on the rise, he got MJF, who I believe is signed with the company. He still got Hangman Page, who's proven he is part of the elite. You got Kenny Omega, you got Will Ospreay coming sometime next year. So from a talent standpoint, it's not the issue. I just think from an organization standpoint, I'm a little concerned about what's happening with them. That's why I said I'm nervous about AEW. That's all that. But it's all that though. It's not the wrestlers.

And it's just like, you know, we got somebody who was working closely with Tony Khan behind the scenes resigning and saying the company isn't the same and he thinks it's possibly going in the wrong direction. And I hear so many fans saying it's not what it used to be. I just wonder, is it going down the road of WCW?

Because a lot of the backstage stuff, the lack of leadership, the lack of proper planning is what did AEW in, I'm sorry, WCW, of course, the finances, but that company was so mismanaged and lacked such leadership that it eventually just went away. And I'm just worried, is AEW and Tony Khan going down a similar path? So this is what I think. I think, no, AEW's going to be around. We know that, right? AEW is going to be here for as long as they have TV and they're going to get TV.

I think where the worrisome part comes in at is where and what are we? I'm on social media a ton and there is a group of AEW fans that are saying AEW needs to stop being WWE light and get back to what you do. There's another set of fans that says, and I'm in this set of fans, we need to tell better stories and spend as much time as developing our characters as we are just putting matches together on weekly shows.

Then there's another set of fans that are, nothing's wrong, everything AEW does is right and I love it and it can't get any better. I don't think I'm missing any segment of fans, fans that matter. There's some people who just shit on AEW, whatever, we're not talking about them. We're talking about people that actually care and want to see this company do right. While you were talking, E, I pulled up some information about the QT thing.

It says, according to AEW sources, QT Marshall was not a fan of some of the shifts in AEW creative and felt the company wasn't telling great stories the way they used to. In his view, putting on a bunch of high end, high work rate matches with no story or build is being like NJPW, we're told. Who alleged he's saying this? QT. Got it. That's his thought. E read his statement and talked about the vision, it's different. I'll disagree about NJPW not having stories. I completely disagree with that.

I can't speak for NJPW over the last few years. I've said that before. Since AEW's come, I haven't watched a lot of NJPW, I'll still catch every Russell Kingdom, but that's kind of about it. I agree with the part about the high end matches aren't enough. I'm not saying it needs to be, and this is where we talk about WWE light. I think what that fan base is saying, those segment of fans is, we don't want 20 minute in-ring promos. We don't need hokey backstage segments.

I think that's what they mean by WWE light. We know WWE has a way of telling stories. You can absolutely tell stories in the ring. My problem recently with AEW, and it sounds like we got to fight here people backstage on what should be what, and Tony Khan is going to win because he's the owner. What they were also saying was this tournament is based upon what QT doesn't like and where Tony wants to go. Telling stories during matches in the ring, IE a tournament like NJPW.

But my issue is I don't think we are telling enough character stories. Find out a way for me to care about these people. Keith Lee was on collision. He worked against Lee Moriarty, pretty solid match. Keith Lee cuts a promo at the end of the match and says, I'm tired of being the nice guy. I'm tired of not getting what I want. I'm coming for him and y'all know who him is. Who is him? On commentary, they try to make it seem like it was- It better not be MJF.

No, on commentary, I knew you were saying it. No, he's busy already. It better not be MJF. They were talking about being Shane Taylor because that feud never finished. But then I'm going to look at that and say, he's probably talking about Swerve, right? We still waiting for that to finish. We never finished that. That's what I mean by stories. Why is Keith Lee doing this? We know Swerve has a story right now and he is off to the races.

MJF has a story, Adam Cole. They do have people that are telling stories, but some of these matches they just put on, I don't care if it was an incredible match on its own because it doesn't matter. Okay, great. That was a great match. You're going to give me great matches, but I want to know why should I care about that match? Then I also want to know, okay, you had a great match on Wednesday. When's the next time I'm going to see you?

Am I going to see you and it's going to be a follow-up next Wednesday or are we not going to even mention this match again until three weeks later where now you're wrestling somebody else or you're in a random backstage segment just to set up a match on Rampage or on Collision that Saturday? That is, I think, the crux of their issues for TV. You get people hot, people are going to start paying for your product.

I know we're going to skip it because we're running out of time, but I know E1, the question you kind of had was what do we like better between Survivor Series and full gear? We can maybe even come back to that, but what I can tell you is we were at Dynamite last Wednesday and we were also at SmackDown on Friday and there was a stark contrast in crowds. Two years ago, three years ago, AEW was the party. AEW was the hot ticket. AEW was the cool kid.

When you went to an AEW show, I said it was like the difference of listening to your favorite musician on the best speaker system you could find, which was WWE, or it was listening to your favorite artist at a live concert. That was AEW. It is completely different now. The filling of a, and yes, it's Chicago and it was Survivor Series weekend, but I'm only talking about SmackDown. I'm not talking about Survivor Series. The filling in that arena, in Allstate Arena, was 10 times the energy.

Yeah, you're talking difference also of 5,000 people compared to 17,000 people. Let's say we had double people, or triple people in that case, yeah. Who's fought is that? Oh, yeah, right. For sure. For sure. Because even if they sold out, we can get 11,000 people in the ring trust arena. So 11 to 17 is still, all right, we can have that conversation. It was just, it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same.

And for me who has gone to every single AEW show that's been in Chicago, we've flown into Vegas and all this other stuff to kind of see where they are now. It is a little disheartening because I just feel like, what are we doing? I want them to right the ship. We know how much competition helps. And I didn't watch Collision until today, just how busy we were this past weekend. And it wasn't a missable show because it has some really good matches on it.

But if I missed it, I would have only missed good matches. I wouldn't have missed, I wouldn't have missed like, yeah, yeah. But I wouldn't have missed something where it's like, okay, I got to keep watching Collision because if you don't watch Collision, you're going to be completely lost on the happenings. And I think they got to get to that. That's what Dynamite used to be. Every single week is like, I mean, you missed Dynamite.

Good luck catching up because holy hell, was that an incredible show? And they just got to get back to that identity, but they got to figure out what that identity is. And it sounds like it's going to be sports centric and telling stories in the wrestling matches. When you, I saw that thing about QT resigning. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't he a Cody guy anyway? Oh yeah. Yeah. But he was also a TK guy. He was also a TK guy. But originally though, he was down with Cody.

And to me, when Cody left, I just knew it was just a matter of time of QT leaving. I know you mentioned he did like 750 formats. I'm assuming that's like maybe scripts. I don't want to say shows because that's like a lot of shows, but 750 formats that's under his belt. Maybe this is a great thing. Not maybe, this is a good thing. Maybe the only thing, the only constant in life has changed and let them go do something else.

We said that we wanted AEW to have maybe better writing or some writing or something different. Maybe that could be the start, the jumpstart of creating a new creative team. And maybe we can get what they're trying to achieve, which is like you said, telling these stories in the ring, but just in a way that's true to them because evidently maybe they don't want to be WWE light. Maybe they just want to tell these great stories in the ring and there's a place for that.

They just have to do it to the point where for the people who really enjoy it, they're not going to lose them. And I know you're a business, you want to keep growing. That is the plan. But right now there's kind of identity crisis there. I think definitely the company needs to settle in and understand that there's no war. There's no war. WWE is on a whole another level. They're on a whole different vibe. AEW can't catch up. And they shouldn't have to worry about that.

They should settle in being the number two company in the business right now. And there's nothing wrong with that. And they should focus on being an alternative for the people who want that. Because there are still people who prefer that style over WWE. But as Bat said, they need to understand what brought them to the dance. What made us fall in love with AEW in the first place? What made that product red hot? Get back to the basics and then build from that.

But here's the reason why I'm just concerned. I just don't think the people that are inside the company are capable of making the necessary changes and adjustments to right in the ship. Because when you keep constantly seeing attendance going down and you got another red hot program, I think it's just going to be a matter of time to where we start seeing dynamite maybe. Because a year or so ago, they were at least giving us close to a million. Right now, they're lucky to break 800.

Barely, they're celebrating doing 600. You got Rampage. I don't know what they're doing. I think they're doing 300 sometimes. And you got these empty arenas. It's just not going down the correct road. And I don't know if people involved understand exactly what's happening or how to make adjustments. And I don't want AEW to go away. I want it to flourish. I want it to do well. Like, hey, be number two. It's the LeBron and MJ conversation. There's nothing wrong with LeBron James being number two.

And we all know Michael Jordan is number two, and there's nothing wrong with Jordan being number two. It is nothing wrong with you being number two to LeBron James. There's nothing wrong with that. It's nothing wrong. Right? Actually, everybody's number two to Tony Cooke Coach, but that's just on NBA Jam. Oh man. Big Bill brought up Tony Cooke Coach in a promo. That's for real. He sure did.

One thing I want to do, and not now, maybe in the future, because I think we really need to take some time to think about this. We need to come back and talk about what is different from AEW then and now. And just from first initial thinking in my head, I don't think there's that much of a difference. I just think that the shock and awe we got in the very beginning is already kind of stale to us. Not stale. I'm just using that word for a lack of words right now.

But I think we should come back to this and say, hey, from when it first came out, when it was first debuted, what is really different? And that could also be the thing too. It's not really different and you're supposed to grow in time. But I want us to come back and talk about that. Yeah. I mean, no, I think that's a good one. We can maybe even do that on Sunday. The honeymoon stage is over. Well, more than that though. But more, right.

But what I'm saying- Okay, the honeymoon stage is over with man, that mistress who was 800 pounds and never took a shower. That woman got on a weight loss plan. She taking showers every day. She got on perfume. She looking mighty fine. And that's WWE. WWE sucked with AEW. That's what I'm saying. We need to really come back and think about that in totality. Is there really a difference with the product of AEW, not the other factors that we got going on? But is there really a difference there?

And I don't think we can answer just right now in the next five minutes. So we should bring that back. Yeah, we'll talk about that on Sunday for sure. So we'll see with now us kind of hearing the whole QT thing and their thought process, the timeline is really making sense of what we're seeing. I said the tournament is right now. His tournament is going to take us to December 30th. And then that's going to take us to the next saga of MJF, Adam Cole.

But if you look at it and right now we were to say, hey, give us real world answer. Somebody said right now, we can do this right now and we can wrap the show after that. And then we can even come back and deep, deep dive it on Sunday if you guys want to. So E, you got one thing that you or you can say even two, one or two things that AEW needs to do to figure out their identity. What is that? Yeah, you know, I can't think. I think it's a complicated answer for me.

I know one thing that would improve things for me is them as them simplify their, their championships. So they got too many goddamn championships. It doesn't matter. That's a big one. I'm thinking that the start stop continue. The first thing was again, the refs just doing your job. But of course that's just superficial. AEW as a whole, I just have to, if you're not going to give me storylines, it's going to keep me tuning in every week.

And the psychology of matches has to be to the point where it's for me as a fan, kind of high pace, a good, a good pace, I should say, but not to the point where again, you have Darby taking a clothesline or taking a bookend to the apron and then he falls onto a bed of tacks. I like that. Gotta like slow down. Like it's okay if you do that here and there. Just make sense. The, the, the actual wrestling itself, even if you want to be high pace, it just gotta make sense.

If this person, any other person would have like died or had to go to the hospital for it, let that simmer. Let that be the end of the match. So better ring psychology. Mine's is just, just make me figure out for me to, if they're on my television, give me the care about them. And it's not them doing a six 30 splash heading to commercial. That's number one. Number two, nail this devil storyline. If this devil storyline does not finish and we are like, they did that.

Woof. But we might not get it. They did that. I mean, there's not really many options. Do y'all care about that storyline? But that's the point that I make it. I do care a lot about it, but there's not really, I don't think I'm going to get surprised. No, it's not about being surprised. Even if it's cool, you're like, awesome. But if it's Jack Perry, some people think the laugh from dynamite sounded like Jack Perry.

If it's Jack Perry or even if it's Roddy Strong as the devil now, if his Roddy Strong threw out of cold, okay, cool. But say if it's just Jack Perry, I don't think that goes over the best. No, I think the reason why I'm not that interested in it is because I don't think that I'm going to get a satisfying payoff. I think that it's Adam Cole. But I think if it's anybody other than Adam Cole, I'm going to be disappointed. And with that in mind, it's almost like it's too obvious as Adam Cole.

So it's like I know it's Adam Cole. Even after Full Gear, where he tried to help MJF. He was there, he didn't turn. You still think it's like super obvious. Now take off your, I've been watching this for decades. Just what they're presenting to you. You still think that's like, oh, that's common sense is Adam Cole. Well, you know, if I do some Sleuthin, right? Because take off the wrestling hat. I watched Scooby Doo. Headbutt to Sleuthin. Yeah, some Sleuthin. I watched Scooby Doo all my life.

So I know how to unmask some bad guys. And they would have got away with the truth. Oh yeah, I know how to unmask some bad guys. And we've never seen, we've only seen the devil on a TV screen. So you know, if you look at WWE TV, you know, Nakamura is cutting these promos. And he's showing right up. And he's showing up right behind him at every damn time. So we know that can happen. So it just seems like it's Adam Cole's story. Still makes sense to where they're going.

And if it's not, I can't look on that roster and say, oh, it's him. Right? Actually, I just can't in my mind right now. The only person that it can be that I would legit pop and be excited for is if it's Squared. That's the only person in the company right now that they have that I will be excited for. And I don't think it's him. And I think they could have pivoted, but he's in the tournament. Right? So like, that's the way I would agree with that.

So then also the outside of my my my to be because that's to a the first is getting me to care about the wrestlers to is the devil storyline. Three is wrapping this MJF storyline. How does war low come into play with this? Like what you said, you know, numerous times he's got like six or seven people after him. I love that because that's the way all champions should have to deal with it. But it has to wrap. It needs to wrap in December. So that's that. What else y'all got? Y'all ready to wrap?

Y'all ready to get out of here and hit this thing again on Sunday? Or y'all got something else? Yeah, on Sunday, we could also talk about to I would say Victor. Oh my God. Triple H Hunter's comments on Jay Cargill at the scrum. So we'll probably talk about that just really quickly on Sunday show. You're basically saying she learned shit. Okay, actually, there we go. You had it. Topic completed. No, no, no, we got to talk about it. We agree. We disagree. Like we got to have that conversation.

He said that at the at the scrum that no fault of her own basis she ready when they asked like where is she at and when we're going to see her. So we'll definitely have that conversation. All right, so then we can get on up out of here. Thank you guys for listening to the TFW podcast. We already talked about the socials. Tell a friend to tell a friend to tell a friend to check us out. Hit that follow button on the device you are looking at right now. Leave us a five stars.

Do all that kind of good stuff. We appreciate it. Love you guys and we will see you on Sunday.