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Yes, you there, the one listening to this podcast. Hello, it's Luke Owen here from the WrestleTalk Podcast. Hope you're doing well. This is just a little quick plug to click the link in the podcast description because there is a survey there.
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Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk podcast here every Tuesday and Friday. And that's the reason we're probably at the top of your Spotify wrapped podcasts. I was inundated actually with messages from people saying, yeah. are you with number one or in some cases number three behind cultaholic but still like broadly speaking mostly number one i did mine and uh the most listened to podcast uh what we don't feature because i'm not that narcissistic
to listen to us as well as listen to you here. But it was The Rest is Entertainment. And did you get this? I got a special message from Marina Hyde. Uh-oh. Well, I know what Oli Davis was doing last night then. And it just goes, hi, I'm Marina Hyde. And for a split parasocial second, I was like, she's recorded this for me.
Of course, it's a generic one that everyone gets if you're in the top five. But yes, we're here every Tuesday and Friday, and you can subscribe on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts from. NotoriousBHG here writes,
Weird echo issues at the start of this episode. He's talking about Tuesdays, but quite a few people cannot wait two minutes, 30 seconds to get fixed. For a laugh, I put those comments into a text and speak machine. And instead of the comments running across the display. It was hundreds of tiny, tiny QR codes that took me to a waiting room.
for next week's episode. Honestly, amazing work using fake audio issues to debut new episodes. It's big brain thinking. Yep. It's set up. It's payoff. People think we're incompetent at our jobs. Nope. You've noticed the audio issues over the last couple of weeks. We've been trying to fix them. But actually... It was all intentional because it's another marketing scheme. But that is hopefully the end of that really inventive, intentional marketing scheme because we think.
We've hopefully fixed it. And as you're listening to this, I don't sound like a robot. Yes, we think we think it's a Premiere Pro. exporting or audio enhancing that they've just automatically placed on there using some form of AI. Maybe some form of end certification where they have made a product worse where they didn't need to. But we don't know. We're just running some tests.
hopefully this one will be fine. What we are absolutely certain of is this isn't a simulation. This is not a robotic version of your life. Who was your number one artist? in your spotify rap oh it's a band called divorce i listen to new music uh faith no more i don't listen to new music as it would turn out uh but as i suspected earlier this year
Weezus Pinkerton was in my top five most listened to albums. That was my number two. Because you and I listened to it like three times each in preparation for that podcast we did. It was my top three with Divorce's Welcome to Golden Hammer, their new album. the Weezer's Pinkerton and the Beach Boys Pet Sounds. Yes, they're the best band ever.
right so in this episode are you going to tell us your spotify i'll tell you what mine works it's what everyone wants to know it's that time of year it's that time of year you know youtube's doing one now oh i know yeah i can tell you what my most watched youtube channel was
¶ Hogan Reigns?
It was beard meets food. Nice. And then it's followed up, followed by Neroz Bard. Oh, that's good. That's good for us. It is good. Bussman's holiday for you. Yeah, well, you know, I like Clocktower. And they're long videos. Yeah, top artists were Faith No More, Nirvana, Deftones, Weezer, and The Beatles. No, I think you've... Is that the 20-year-ago edition? No, it is. Legit, that is my Spotify wrap for 2025. And none of their songs were my top five most played songs because my kid.
request songs. So my top five songs are songs that she has really gotten into this year. So it's Hot To Go by Chapel Row and Pink Pony Club. That was on mine. That was on my top five songs, Hot To Go. Girls Just Want To Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper. Great. A song from Trolls and Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis. So, singles for the Bubba? Mm-hmm.
Albums for the data. Oh, that's right. On this episode, we're going to be covering AEW Dynamite, the gold and blue leagues of the C2 Progress. Yes, but we're going to be kicking things off talking about a report. not exactly like an official written in the observer newsletter or written on five four select but something that eboo of self-made pw was talking about on uh his podcast so eboo is a guy who has got a good track record of having very good
connections within AEW and WWE and sort of around the the wrestling world uh he was working with Fightful he had a bit of some controversy earlier this year which kind of made himself away from Fightful for a little bit but he's done a lot of reflecting upon that uh and when the way that
he kind of talks about the things that he is told because he gets told a lot of things then often we'll just be like here's what i've heard here's what i've been told and then that can sort of backfire on people and it can make people mad and upset yes yeah so he's been very much more careful about the way that he does talk about things that he is told and he was talking on their post survivor series review
about well here's what the wrestlemania plans are and here's what happened and the big sort of arc of this is i'll give you the quote he said about him roman reigns is now the most potent backstage political force that is an active talent Which is mad. Like, that's a really big claim because Triple H has been in existence.
Since Hollywood Hulk Hogan. An excellent point. So I think there is a bit of hyperbole there. I don't think Roman Reigns is out politicking the guy who got with the boss's daughter, scuppered about 10 years of... Bushes always made himself the focal point and is now running the company. And I'm sure there's quite a few other names you could add to that list. But it is, hyperbole aside, it sure seems like...
Something has shifted over the last three weeks with the direction to WrestleMania. And again, look back at Unreal. There is that screenshot of the whiteboard from Survivor Series time. They have a rough direction of where they're going, but it's not concrete. This idea that long-term booking is this thing you decide... now when it exactly goes to plan a year later is is nonsense that's not how anything works even your favorite most intricately plotted tv tv shows
They're rewriting bits on the day when they film them, generally. Same with films. Marvel Studios, quite famously, their method of making movies is that the script is incomplete when they start making it, and then we'll rewrite it as it goes, because people come in with new ideas, and you just...
sort of go freeform it they boast about that as being sort of like one of their methods of making films spoiler for my recommendation that's coming up later i went to the wes anderson archives i knew you'd love it Did every item look the same? But everyone walks by and was like, he's still got it. What a genius. Hasn't done anything good for the last 10 years, but he's still got it. And I will go to the next one. If you don't like Marmite, Luke, that's fine.
I like Marmite. Why does me liking Marmite? Have to make you upset. It doesn't make me upset. It's just fun to make fun of you for liking a guy who every time you go to one of his films, you tell me, it's just not very good. Yeah, yeah, it's true though. So Royal Tenenbaums, they have the script, the working script.
from the set of the Royal Tenenbaums there, and I was looking at it, there are a few directors more intentional and premeditated than Wes Anderson. Every frame is storyboarded and designed. That script is just marker, changing lines, changing dialogue. Now actually this guy goes over here. That's on the day. So the creative process shifts a lot.
Now we have this bit where, oh, it's Survivor Series. It's the road to the road to WrestleMania. They must roughly know where they're going to go. And it seems like it shifted partly due to injury. But partly due to some people just going... i want this match yeah i think you can have a idea you finished wrestlemania 41 and you sit down and be like here can be one of our main events of wrestlemania 42 let's start putting the pieces in place for that now but
And you can do that. I think the WWE over the years have definitely put those in place. The end of WrestleMania 39 is done to set up the main event of WrestleMania 40. With the chicken. with the chicken. The chicken was, you know, the nexus point of all of this. Like, you have to do WrestleMania 39.
to build to wrestlemania 40 the john cena losing to the rock at wrestlemania was done to build to john cena beating the rock at the following year's wrestlemania so you can't like it does exist and it can happen but things happen curve the best thing to do is kind of have a skeletal plan we'll go with this sort of idea we might pivot and change things along the way but the end point will be the same the things that often will change that though are people saying things like
that doesn't work for me brother and if you've got a lot of political sway that can really change what the creative wants to do or the direction you want to do as head booker because one of your most noted stars one of your biggest names actually wants to do what they want to do rather than what you want to do it's interesting how when you were saying that i thought yeah it's it's like the wrestlers themselves their egos going i want to do this or i don't want to work with them
You know, CM Punk famously walked out of the build to WrestleMania 30 because he was like, I'm not facing Triple H. You're going to face Triple H, even though he was going to win. It's like, I get nothing out of this. So you've got the egos, and then you've got injuries, but you very rarely get, oh, the fans wanted this.
Because, like, the Seth Rollins Vision storyline, you know, I'm really upset that the guy got hurt. I don't wish that on anyone. But it was boring. It was a boring story that we were all pretty tired of. WWE wasn't going to listen to us or the fan reactions to it.
They only changed course because a guy got injured. And sometimes when they do listen, i.e. say a Kofi Kingston or a Daniel Bryan, and we're like, we will put those into the main event. We will have them win the titles. That's not the plan that they had anyway, so they won't really... take it very seriously on the other side of that kofi kingston was treated as a mid card despite being ww champion danielson wins the title his first feud with kane
These are not the big title programs to come out of having just won the WWE Championship. So yes, sometimes they will listen to fans, but then also just kind of go with what they wanted to do anyway, despite what you fans wanted us to do. So should we go from... There's sort of three phases of this. There's the...
There's the pre-Seth injury phase. Yes, I think you can, yeah, they're right. There's three ideas here. There is the original plan, the secondary plan to that, and then the post-Seth injury. So I think that's probably the best way to say that. Sorry, I thought it was more, there's the original plan, Seth gets injured, there's the secondary plan. No, so I think there's a plan, then Seth gets hurt, then it changes into something else. Yes, and then it changes into something after that.
No, since it was a plan. You're more familiar with the story. I'll let you go through the phases. Do I need to watch WandaVision for this to make sense? I didn't watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 3. Am I lost? Read the wiki write-up of this. So, Eboo claims that the original plan, and actually, credit to Eboo, I think if you just watch the TV, you can see this was the original plan. The original plan for WrestleMania 42 was Seth Rollins...
versus Sami Zayn for the World Heavyweight Championship. Sami Zayn wins the Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia, and he faces Seth Rollins. This was set up the week after WrestleMania. Because you had that segment with, you had Sammy look at the title when it was on Jay's shoulder. Then you had that promo with Seth Rollins where it's like,
you'll never be the world champion. And then he got into a feud with The Vision, where Paul Heyman's like, no, go to SmackDown. I've set you up a WWE Championship match with John Cena if you just go over. And Sam's like, no, I'm sticking here. I want to beat Seth Rollins.
I mean, I've been saying everyone, you know, you were heavily pushing. It's going to be Sammy. He's going to win the Rumble. He's going to win at Mania. And I was here cynically. I love that idea. But cynically, I was like, you're out of your goddamn mind.
this company yeah maybe in the third match on night one that they'll do that match but uh opener of night one yeah sure but to hear that was the actual plan you know as a fan that's what my heart wants to see so it's a shame we're not getting that so what and then what happens is according to eboo roman reigns at some point in the year said do you know what i'm actually not all that enamored with this hollywood thing as i thought i was going to be
I'd like to come back and I'd like to do a title match at WrestleMania. Because Roman, over the last two years, has done a few... One was a comedy. He's got Street Fighter next year. He's done Street Fighter, yeah. He's in Zootopia 2. As the Z-Bros. As the Z-Bros with Punk. Did you catch that at the end of Survivor Series? One guy shouted it out, yeah. I love that it's just one guy.
But loud enough. Was he standing next to a mic? So according to me, that's when Rowan's like, I want to be in a title match instead. So... then it's going to be, all right, we're going to do Reigns versus Rollins at WrestleMania for the World Heavyweight Championship. Which makes sense. Yeah. And we'll move Reigns from SmackDown to Raw. He can feud with the Vision, feud with the Bronze.
beat the bronze on his way to facing Rollins at WrestleMania, which is why he did stuff with Bronson. He was reportedly declined doing a match with Bron at SummerSlam. Because instead, what his plan was, according to Ibu, the pitch then was made, that he'll beat Rollins at Mania, then Braun turns on Rollins on the night after WrestleMania.
Bronn wins King of the Ring, then Bronn beats Roman for the title at SummerSlam. So that is Roman Reigns' here's my storyline, here's my creative for the next year. And the way that Eboo says this is that all of Roman's ideas... go through hayman then hayman takes it to the creative team hayman is basically the like all of roman's ideas go to paul hayman paul hayman then the seminates are like
here's what Roman would like to do. And that was always the case with the bloodline stuff as well. It was always Roman and Heyman reportedly working on the creative. they present that to, it sounded like Triple H and Kosky and P.S. Hayes, who would do the sort of match finish side of things. And yeah, it's not within the normal writer's room. Yes, and so that's when Sami Zayn just randomly moved to SmackDown.
and remember me at the time saying isn't it really weird that sammy's angels he had a story with the vision where part of that story was we will move you to smackdown and get you a world title match against john senior's like no i'm staying on raw
Then he went to SmackDown anyway and didn't have a world title match off the back of it, which made him look supremely stupid. Yeah. And I was like, that's such a weird move. And he was so like, I want the world heavyweight title. I need to be a world champion. Everyone else. has done it the kevin owens promos and he's like yeah but this i guess this us title is pretty good yeah i'm quite happy with this and then i lost it
Do you know what? A five-on-five match with the MFTs. That's what my direction is now. So that's why Sami was moving over to SmackDown. Again, all according to what Eboo was saying. So now the idea is to do Roman versus Seth at WrestleMania, rut row. Now Seth's hurt. Bearing in mind the other side of this was that it was going to be Cody versus Punk for the WWE Championship.
Which, again, is something they've kind of been building to for years. Two years at this point. The go-home... Yeah, they were the final two for the Rumble 24. Yeah, when he first comes back. And then the go-home segment to Rumble 25 was... was punk saying that title turns people bad yeah he had they've had two segments in the build-up to wrestlemania
like and it actually might have been the build-up to the rumble either one of the two but very purposely done to be like we were here this time last year we'll be again this time next year they have been doing this to set up the idea of doing punk versus cody for the title at some point apparently according to ebu that was the
planned for Mania 42, Cody versus Punk for the WWE Championship. So the two top title matches are Seth versus... Roman. Sammy. Yes, Seth versus Sammy and Cody versus Punk. So where was Roman in this? Hollywood.
He wasn't going to do WrestleMania 42. He probably was going to do WrestleMania, but he doesn't, he doesn't say what his plan for WrestleMania 42, what his match would have been. It's just that at some point he said, I want to do a title match. So I don't know, maybe he would have faced...
Heyman. I don't know. Maybe it would have been Bronn. Maybe it would have been Bronnbreaker. Austin Theory. It could have been Battle of the Spears. That makes total sense. Yeah, it could have been something along those lines. Anywho. Could have been Jay.
Could have been Jay. Jay could have finally beaten Roman. Yeah, could have done something along those lines. Plenty of options that you could have done with him. So those are your two matches. It's Cody versus Punk and you've got Sammy versus Seth. Roman's decided.
Actually, I want to get on this. So now it's Cody versus Punk and Roman versus Seth for the world title. Clearly something that Roman wants to do anyway. He's very like that shield story, very tied within the characters. Great for Seth as well. Really elevates up that world title note within this. And it concludes... trilogy because Seth interferes at WrestleMania 40 to help Cody win. There's the shield spot there. There's Roman Seth.
Punk at WrestleMania 41 with the heel turn. And then here's the same match, but the roles reversed. Inverted, brother. So Seth's now the heel. Roman's the baby face. I like how you said that you looked at the interference spot at WrestleMania 40 and not the tag match that Reigns had against Rollins on night one of WrestleMania 40. Yeah, the go-home segment for WrestleMania night two. And then...
Uh-oh. Whoopsie-poopsie. Rollins gets hurt. So then, and Eboo says, on the show, he's texting one of his, he sends a screenshot to... uh one of his co-hosts and so like just you know i'm sending you the receipt to show you that i was sent this on november i think it's like november 11th this is what i was told the plan now is for wrestlemania and it's really funny because he sends it to his host and his host like oh so now i've just got this guy's number
I'm going to call this guy. And he was like, do not call that guy. Do not call him. I thought you said Abu learnt from not sharing private information. So he says, that's when the plan became, it's now going to be... Roman Reigns versus Bron Breaker for the World Heavyweight Championship and Cody versus Punk for the WWE Championship. Rollins goes out hurt. Bron kicks him out of the group.
Braun wins the world title. Roman then faces Braun for the world title at WrestleMania. And Cody faces Punk for the WWE Championship. You know what that sounds like? Exactly what we booked when Seth got kicked out of the Vision. Yes. That is exactly what we booked. And then somewhere along those lines, what he says there, but there was another option that some in WWE kind of wanted and Roman Reigns wanted if it was on his terms. And that was Punk versus Bron and Roman versus Cody.
He then says that a meeting, a creative meeting was held where the terms of what we all want have to be agreed upon. Like he says there. So if it's on Roman's terms, he's happy with doing this. And those terms have been agreed, which is why it's now been switched, and it's Punk vs. Bron, and it's Cody vs. Roman 3, their third WrestleMania main event in four years.
And that's now where we're at with the current plans as it stands. And Eboo says, I don't know if this is for sure. I don't know if this is creative plans. My guess is Roman's going to win the Rumble. He's then going to beat Cody for the title at WrestleMania. And Breaker is, of course, facing Punk on the first episode of Raw of the Year on Netflix. Yep. I think he loses. I think he might win. Yeah, he could win and then Punk wins the chamber, faces him.
beats him could beat him or maybe there's the the masked man returns and interferes or something along those lines i have seen there are some people who now think that the masked man is going to be revealed as seth rollins
You string it out that long. You string it out that long. Also, I think, and I might quickly double check this, but I think there might lead some credence into my feelings that Bron's going to win and... then punk wins the chamber and that is because yes i went right elimination chambers in chicago oh Yes. That works. So Bron wins the title on Netflix. Punk wins the chamber in Chicago. Sets up the rematch for WrestleMania. So that's where we're currently at now. Yeah.
Unless the title is on the line in Chicago, Punk puts it up and he loses. Because what's more Triple H than wanting to beat CM Punk in Chicago? Yeah. Saudi's his home country now. Also, Ibu says, I don't know this for sure, but I would imagine somewhere along the line, someone has said to Sami, because now your big WrestleMania match is no longer happening. We'll do your big WrestleMania match at the WrestleMania in Saudi Arabia.
And you can win your world title match there. Okay. And I hear that and I'm like, he's gonna be like two years older at that point. He's not a spring chicken now. And when you're having all of these discussions about not pushing younger stars, I think maybe the time has... past yeah being in that position yeah chamber in toronto what was that 2023 yeah that that felt like the time it was also not the time because the roman cody stuff is
had to be that match but god i mean what if well i mean what a special period of like run of time that was overall uh that was a build 39 wasn't it it was yeah so what do you make of all of this i mean first off like For me, listening to the way that...
excuse me ibu tells the story when i watched when i've been watching the show a lot of this tracks a lot of this just makes sense like the sammy zane stuff i think just makes sense roman feuding with the vision to have a match with rollins like that that all just sort of makes sense bronn handing over the world title and not being in the world title match and punk winning it instead i was like that just all this just feels
weird it feels like somewhere along the line they've got an idea and then something has changed and now they're going in this different direction here and sort of like from a fan perspective it has just felt odd but when you hear this and you like oh actually now a lot of that makes sense in terms of like, it's not what I would have done, but it certainly makes sense of like, if these conversations are happening,
I can see why these things have now happened. And sort of go back on themselves on TV. Yeah. I guess my first thought on it is more Levesque's just not as focused. as i guess i thought he would be and of course you know like that's been one of the trends of 2025 is that the bloom is somewhat off the rose with triple h he's a very conservative booker
But the way he oversaw NXT, you know, he's not the guy directly booking NXT. I just always got the sense that he's a guy with strong opinions. He gets a plan. He gets a match he wants to do. And he will see that through because he's a very forceful personality. He's built his whole career on getting his own way and doing his creative vision. Yeah.
and protecting the guys he wants to or is friends with and burying the guys he isn't friends with. Yeah, making sure that he is the most protected. So it's just that the idea that he just seems to now be... I said this a couple of months ago when we did a podcast on Triple H's booking. It seems that was fine as Triple H, the wrestler, the player coach role. But now he's fully management. It's like he's just getting it.
from all ends yeah he is this is the this is the middle management really that's what i was gonna say and he's like i've got i've got tko on my ass to sell out these things and then he's got roman coming in and roman's like i want to do this i don't want to do that i feel like triple h from years ago would go shut up kid you're facing this guy at mania
Because we've been building this. I've been building Roman versus Punk or whatever for this long. I'm not like Sami Zayn's my guy. I'm going to push Sami Zayn and he's going to beat Rollins or he's going to beat you, Roman. I'm just going to put the belt from Seth to Roman and Sammy's going to beat you. But now I think he's just in a spot where he's like, oh, yeah, OK, OK, you can have that.
Maybe. I think with Roman, it's probably slightly different. I feel like Roman has got so much backstage political sway. You had a really interesting point a number of years ago when The Rock joined the board of TKO. And you said to me, I was like...
The McMahons are no longer the most powerful family in wrestling. It's the Anawaii family. That's now truly the most powerful family in all of professional wrestling. And maybe that is sort of the... the fruits of that labor is that Roman reigns as part of that dynasty can say like, that doesn't work for me, brother.
And actually, I think I should be the focal point of WrestleMania and Triple H. It's like, well, actually, yeah, you know, you are one of our marquee stars. That is a bigger match. I've got a feeling, like, I've got nothing to base this on. Just a gut feeling, right?
I don't think Roman thinks doing a match with Punk is a big deal. I'm not saying that he doesn't want to work with Punk, because clearly he worked with him at WrestleMania this year, and he did the Survivor Series thing with him, and was in Survivor Series with him again this year, teaming with him. I just get this gut feeling because if you were looking at these plans, you didn't need to do Roman versus Cody.
You could just do Roman versus Punk. Punk wins the world title at Saturday Night's main event. Roman wins the Royal Rumble. He picks CM Punk. That ties into the WrestleMania story you were telling this year in the Paul Heyman thing. And do it that way.
But instead, apparently, he's gone for Cody. Which makes me think that he doesn't think the Punk match is actually that big of a deal. And him versus Cody 3, which is what I was saying on the War Games pay-per-view review, I think he thinks that's the bigger match.
Yeah, I think you're probably onto something there because while I do believe, and I mean, he has said in interviews, but you've got to take it with a pinch of salt. Is it work? Is it a shoot? I believe there is... personal dislike or tension between punk and Roman, but professionally they'll work together.
Same with Punk and Seth. I'm sure same with Punk and a lot of people. He rubs a lot of people the wrong way. I don't think he is now because now he's just, he'll just do what everyone, he just will do what people say he should do now and will smile along the way. And again, because you said this earlier, I think that's the ultimate political power play to eventually get control. Yeah, because he's got his eye on NXT. Yeah. He wants Sean's job.
But I think now the people who didn't like him before for being so opinionated and bullheaded now probably dislike him even more because he's turned into a corporate stooge. He is corporate man punk now. But with Roman... Do you think there's a sense of Roman and Cody see themselves as...
this generation's Rock and Austin. And Rock and Austin had three WrestleMania matches. Yeah, they had, let me get this right, 15, 17, and 19. Yeah. So there's a year gap between each, but really that's... three matches across five years we're talking about three matches across four years it's not that different and you can't really argue with them either they are the two guys who turned around the business
And that presumably builds to a babyface, babyface Cody versus Roman match, which is what you got at WrestleMania 17. but maybe maybe that is the time to do the cody heel turn yeah i think i have to beat you roman i think if you do cody roman 3 because that that's what set up at the end of war games we were like
Okay, board games again. That's been the overwhelming sentiment I've seen online. No one is in the scene a third installment, particularly because the first two were made so great because you had the Bloodline saga. This is like doing... Thanos is back again. We're going to take down Thanos. I'm like, I already saw you do that. Yeah. It is a rubber match. Yeah. They are tied one apiece, but I feel like this rubber match face versus face.
I feel like you need a big angle coming out the back of it. And to me, the only big thing you can do left with those guys is a Cody Heal term. I would agree with you there. I think the big thing will be Roman wins the Rumble.
And he wins the Rumble as a babyface in Saudi Arabia, where he's probably going to... Finally, he wins a Royal Rumble and gets cheered. That'd be part of the story for this. The Rock lifts his hand. I agree with you. I also wonder if that's... why Triple H is going in this direction or has very much agreed to go in this direction, even though maybe it's going against what he had originally planned for WrestleMania, is a lot of the online discourse is...
we're a bit done with your booking we're a bit done with your safeness so he's looking out okay well what but previously when was i like when was like all the when was the bloom on the rose that's cody roman that is our rock and austin
we should do a third one of those. And we were always going to do a third match. You do one win apiece. It was always going to happen in our timeline. We were always going to get a third match at WrestleMania for the title. So we'll do it now here rather than do it in three years' time. I wonder, I'm just trying to book, how would you then do a year, because you could then do a year of Roman trying to take down Rhodes' nightmare family.
You know, Rhodes gets his own bloodline. I was thinking, but who would be in that? Because Dustin's in AEW. I mean, he could call up a Ricky Saints and he's in the gang and Ethan Page. Just put all the ex-AEW, put Jade Cargill in the group. That's actually really good. My knee-jerk reaction. Or my knee-jerk reaction was Jey Uso. That's fun. Which does tie into his character confusion over the last six months. He's always got that friendship with Cody. He went to Cody when Roman kicked him out.
yeah but also you know his whole thing is that maybe he's going to help roman maybe he's going to help roman win the title and it's going to be like the bloodline effectively get back together jay becomes the right hand man again but it's now a baby face version of it Or Jay is heel for a year with Cody and it's Jay turning babyface to help Roman because Cody's like, kill Roman.
And you do the, you invert the sort of Jay and Sammy spot. The only reason I said that maybe Jay just goes back with Roman is Jay's promo on Raw was world titles look better. Maybe they just look better on Roman's shoulders. They don't look good on my shoulders. So he just sees himself as a number two. And I'm going to be a number two for coding because I don't want to be Little Roman. Who does number two work for? So yeah, I...
I think I don't I'm not saying like this is 100% exactly what happened. This is one person's recounting of what they have been told has happened along the way. I'm just saying that when I've been watching the TV program, a lot of things have felt have had question marks over them.
¶ Patreon
Over this last year, I've had like, that's weird. That's weird. Felt like you were setting something up then and you stopped doing it. That's weird. Felt like you were setting something up and you stopped it. That's weird. And even heading into war games.
I was like, the idea of doing Cody Roman 3, I was like, that feels weird. I'm pretty sure you're going to do Roman versus punk. Like that feels more the direction. And then when you hear someone lay it out like this, and here's what I've been told. it kind of makes you maybe it's just the conspiracy like it's a conspiracy theorist sort of mindset maybe you look at me like actually now all of this adds up and those question marks have been removed because now it actually adds up so i don't know
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¶ AEW Dynamite Review
of aces and eights bound for glory 2013 will be public on the youtube channel and podcast feeds and turning point which is the absolute fart of an ending to that storyline Let's make it about Ken Anderson. Yeah, he's our Austin. Even I don't like Ken Anderson at the end of 2013. Yeah. that's how annoying he is but guys you're a bit of a treat with the uh bound for glory 2013 review because ken noises are back and but right
So yeah, if you enjoy Ken Anderson noises, there's more of them coming tomorrow as AJ Styles becomes the new main character of TNA where he is Sting and Daniel Bryan and CM Punk all rolled into one. And Dixie Carter is a...
Budget, Timu, Stephanie McMahon. Yeah, and Hulk Hogan just leaves the company and... you know we're talking about some like Hollywood Hogan style things he there's the end of Hogan and TNA we're going to cover all of that the last episode he has and the only thing he would agree to for his final segment was that he leaves with Dixie Carter begging him
to say holding by the leg while he drags her up the ramp that is the last image of hulk hogan and tna is them saying this company will fall apart if you go so if you've not been watching it already you can join patreon.com forward slash wrestle talk right now
and you will get the whole run of all six episodes, only two of which have gone out publicly, but the other four are behind the scenes, and it's the whole year-long storyline. And if you do it now, of course, you'll want to keep it for next year. Because the invasion begins. Yeah, we're going to be doing the invasion storyline from start to end. The very end, that being Vengeance 2001 is where we're going to be ending this up. We're going to be looking at...
all the big bumps in the road, all the pay-per-views, the roars, the smackdowns, all the big pivotal points of that storyline, going through all the backstage, the imagination. We've actually recorded part of the first episode of it. We are two and a bit hours into it, and we've only just got to the perch. the week of the purchase of WCW. Episode 1 which will be on YouTube.
I think that might rival the cutscene episodes for length. That's going to be a five-hour episode. I think it's going to at least run five hours, I think. Because when you said to me, can we break now?
Like how much more have we got to get through? I was like, we haven't even got to who they've got under contract now. Well, we've been recording for about two and a quarter hours. I really needed the toilet. And you kept on saying, and the day before the episode, this happened. And I was like, it's got to be.
it's got to be finishing soon right and then like you just kept going it's so interesting you've done so much research and it's incredible yeah um but i was just like my bladder's gonna burst yeah i was gonna say where we're just about to get to when we start recording again tomorrow is when the conspiracy theories kick in as to how Vince McMahon got the company and why they sold it to him and not to Fusion.
Very exciting. Oh, it's really good. So patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk. We've got loads of Christmas exclusive content going up there as well. So, yeah, support us over there and get loads of extra videos. The thing I was most looking forward to on this episode of Dynamite.
was the main event so i was so looking forward to this main event but i enjoyed everything else that was on this show as well yeah really solid episode yeah really really solid and we have got a match announced for next week at winter is coming as uh samoa joe will defend the AEW World Championship against Eddie Kingston after he beat Shibata on Collision and cut an awesome promo. It wasn't like the greatest match on Collision and Eddie has not...
been his previous self in the matches. Promo, of course, he's still there, but he had an awful leg injury, broken leg. It took him ages to come back from. There's a little bit of me that hopes. the all Japan loving Eddie has made this all a work. No way. And the, the, the few short matches he's had since his return have been purposely sort of lackluster.
Because he knows he's got a winter is coming huge annual show title match against Samoa Joe. And he's just going to be like, boom, here's the Eddie of old. I'm back. But yeah, that was the opening segment with Tony Schiavone, who got out there pretty sharpish. Joe got some local sports team heat, explained the genius of putting hook with Kingston.
Yeah, it was to mess with Kingston. And to show him what a bum looks like. Yeah, and then Eddie got to cut. And the other thing with Joe's promo, it's kind of a similar promo that Jericho and Punk and Danielson cut on Eddie when they were feuding with him, which is that, like, you're...
You're a man full of potential that you'll never fulfill. You can't get over the finish line. You can't get over the finish line. You'll never win the big one. And Eddie got another great promo on Joe to be like...
Is this Samoa Joe? Because this doesn't look like Samoa Joe to me. This doesn't look like the Samoa Joe that was the greatest Ring of Honor world champion of all time. It's not the Samoa Joe that was tearing up with my mentor Homicide. This is not the Samoa Joe that would badmouth veterans. for trying to give bad advice to younger talents which is now what you're doing to hook and i want next week
next week, you better bring that Samoan submission machine because if you don't, I will eat you alive. And he just walked away from him. Gets the final word. And Joe, like, he just shuffles the... Joe's so good. He just shuffles the belt on his shoulder and it's like...
Yeah, you'll get what you ask for. Exactly, yeah. I think it's going to be bad news for Eddie King's the next week, I feel. And both incredibly excited and tremendously worried. Yeah, trepidatious. Because I just want Eddie to be great.
The rest of the ups caught a promo saying that they're going to take on the Dark Order. And Hook's new gimmick now is he's the greatest second generation wrestler of all time. Can't wait for Dave Meltzer to dispute that on every episode of Wrestling Observer Radio. Every time it's brought up. Pac with three points takes on Kazuchika Okada with zero points in the Gold League. Pac makes my body hurt. In what? He's so big.
Showed a picture of him this morning to a non-wrestling friend fan at the gym who is familiar with ways to get large. And what did they say? They said there's no way. In their opinion, there's no way that's natural. natural uh physique i mean of course it's not you remember he was going to be given the mighty mouse gimmick he literally just probably goes like and inflates himself yeah i just it just it just makes me think about what is aw's wellness policy
I probably don't have one. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? I mean, they certainly don't talk about it publicly if they do. No, no, you never hear of... violations or suspensions or things but typically you think of aw as quite progressive company yeah um so yeah but yeah He is enormous. It could also be as well that the wellness policy stuff was a fad of the mid to late 2000s following the Benoit thing, but that was a long time ago now and times have changed.
It's fine. Just do it safely. Just do it all right. So this was a good match. I really enjoyed it. Pac looked like he had it won when he hit the Lariats and locked in the Brutalizer, but Okada managed to reverse it into a Crucifix pin to get a win, get a crucial three points that he needed here. Yeah, so Fletcher got that sort of... Last second reversal pin. Gunther and Solo. Was it? No, no. What match am I thinking of? What happened on Raw?
I swear there was a last second crucifix reversal pin. Oh, it was the LA Knight Jey Uso one. That's it. That's it. Yeah, it was off the splash and then the boom. Yeah. But yeah, good match. Nowhere near as good as the other matches. It's probably like... down at the bottom of the matches so far. Not saying it's bad. I'm just saying all the other matches have been better.
Mark Briscoe got a promo on Daniel Garcia for being too much like Jon Moxley, and he wants a match with him at the Cardiff show. Update for anyone watching, if you were hoping to see us at the Manchester show in Dynamite, AEW still do not respond to any white emails. Ricochet cut a promo saying, I'm getting calls from promoters all over the world to come and defend this national championship, and I'm going to do that this Friday.
at Ring of Honor. This same company I'm at right now. Because the main promoter that's called me is Tony Khan. So I'm going to go do Ring of Honor Final Battle against Dalton Castle. I like that they're called The Demand. And they're in demand. That is a satisfying name now. Mark Briscoe gets another promo because Renee interviews him as part of the conglomeration to hype up Orange Cassidy versus Roderick Strong for Collision. Roderick Strong being like...
I'm not part of this group. Why do you keep saying that I am? And Roddy's like, I'm just going to break your back. And he storms off. And Cassidy's like, could we not do chops? Brilliant. I love this stuff. It's the opposite of the Deathriders tension, isn't it? They also announced that Derby is hurt. It wasn't medically clear to travel for this show. Yeah, they showed a clip of him in a hospital bed after last week. I mean, this could be a work.
because this is the sort of length Starby would go to for the bit. But it's enough. It's making me doubt whatever, if it's real or not, like storyline-wise, it works very, very well. Looks like a real local medical facility is what I've written here. It just made me think, what do you do then? Because you need to take him out of the league, but it's a round robin.
do you just put him in there and have a match with kevin knight to see if they could have got three points but if knight beats them he doesn't get another three points so that they said they'll have an update on him
if he can compete in the rest of the tournament. Is that... That's on collision? Because I don't remember it here. No, maybe even next week. I don't know. Kyle Fletcher with three points took on Kevin Knight with three points in the Gold League. This was a really good match. But by the end... I bought into every single one of these near falls. That last sequence of reversal, reversal, pin, pin, finisher, finisher, kick out, kick out, was brilliant. Kevin Knight has it.
I really like watching him wrestle. It's not like I'm like, oh, I can't wait to see Kevin Knight do the next thing like I am with some people like Kyle O'Reilly. But I can't deny there was a bit when he got up to the top rope. And the crowd got to their feet. Yeah. I'm like, oh, there's something here with this guy. I think he needs a character.
He's got a character. He's friends with people. He needs, he needs something. I'm not saying give him a gimmick. Don't give that. He's also a race car driver. I'm not saying that, you know, he'd be a jet fighter pilot. He's called the jet. Yeah. I'm just. said he needs he needs an edge i don't know not not adam copeland i don't know if he's great i don't remember him being particularly stand out on promos give him a manager then he's gonna wear sunglasses
But I thought he was tremendous in this. Kyle Fletcher is one of the best wrestlers in the world. He's so, so great. And he just ekes out the win here with a brain buster. I really thought Fletcher could lose, though. That's how great Kevin Knight was. And it's weird as well. And I have the same thing in the main event as well.
The right choice here is for Fletcher to win. He should be the one that's dominating this league. And that can then lead to maybe a rematch with him and Okada for the finals of the Gold League. But also, I'm like, I bought into Knight possibly winning here.
I think Fletcher is the right choice. Don then brought out Josh Alexander and Hedgesero. I think we had some timing issues here because Don started his promo and then we had to go to ad break. Yeah. So he was like, I want to cut a promo on the Young Bucks. I was like, where are you? You over here? How you feeling, Kyle?
Not great, Don. Yeah, cool. He does say that. Well, yeah. Anyway, Young Bucks, we're back from the break. Let me come out from the break. I've got something to say to you, Young Bucks. I thought when we came... back from the break, I thought the crowd were going to be going nuclear. I thought Don Callis would have spent those three minutes doing like the basest cheap heat crowd work. And I bet he did.
because he's Don Callis. But we come back and the crowd are just, I don't think it was a great crowd. No, in that main event, I was so mad at this crowd. I don't often get mad at crowds. If a crowd's not reacting, that's sometimes on the wrestling show for not putting on a great show. But they were putting on such a good match in their main event. And I was like...
where are you? Where are you crowd? Where are you? Is this Dayton, Ohio or something? What's wrong with you? I don't know actually where it was. Don't tell me in the comments. But I really enjoyed when Don Callis finally did get a cut his promo because he has this bit where he's like, I've forgiven a lot of people in my life. People have backstabbed me, and I've forgiven them. People have lied to me, and I've forgiven them. I've known someone who's committed a murder.
And I forgave them. But I cannot forgive people tagging with Kenny Omega. The unforgivable sin. Unforgivable sin. So he calls the Bucks out to come pick up their money or try and take the money off of them. And the Bucks came out. They brawl with the Don Callis family. Okada then comes out to brawl with the Young Bucks. Jurassic Express come out to make the save. Is that the first time Okada has...
physically interacted with the Bucks. Yeah, because they did play it up like a big spot where Nick's like... akada what are you doing and akada gives him the the middle finger yeah and then uh the brawls were drastic express then kenny omega runs out and they sort of tease an akada omega showdown again and by the end of it when you sort of have the two teams staring at each other i think we're gonna
10 man tag player maybe at a maximum carnage yeah that's a good shout uh yeah snap dragon from kenny on okada and he was setting up the v trigger but okada got out of there kenny was a bit late on this save here Wait for his cue. I feel like the Bucks came down ages ago. And then... Then they were jumped by the Klon and what's the other one? Mark Davis and then Jurassic Express and then Okada.
And then Kenny wearing a Christmas jumper and shorts. He's awesome. What a hero. I felt so bad for Jurassic Express as well because the bucks are beating down. So, of course, this crowd are going, Kenny, Kenny, Kenny. Then Jurassic Express came out and the crowd went, ah, yeah. Well, that makes sense. That makes sense, I guess. We've got a promo for the Babes of Wrath and then... Oh, sorry. Hot take on Babes of Wrath. I think they could win.
I think they are presenting as the most coherent tag team because they've got, they're putting so much work into like, we've got matching gear and here's the Babes of Wrathname. I think the other ones are winning though. Mina and Tony. Yeah. So I believe that Megan Bain and Marina Schmidt are now called the Mega Problems. Yes. Tony Khan announced that earlier this week. That's quite late.
like i know it's a play on mega powers but that's that's naff mate the mega problems took on the timeless love bombs in the tag tunnel tournament in a holiday street fight which like fold my arms here but you came up with a wacky stipulation with a wacky name and i don't think you delivered much on that i know what the women's hardcore matches on aw are excellent
I cannot think of one that has not been my favourite match of the week, really. And it's like with the most random people. Sky Blue and...
Name another one. Anna Jay. It was Anna Jay. It was like, oh my God, this is the best wrestling I've seen. But here, you know, Tony Storm, Mina Shurikawa, Bane, Shafir. There was no... Like, we were fantasy booking last week. Oh, you just... do home alone yeah you do the lego bricks on the floor you do someone gets tarred and feathered machines the baubles because it's like she's got bare feet marina shafir exactly but all we really got was a barbed wire candy cane
which was used upon on a cross face. There was a table that was kind of decorated that someone got put through. Both tables were decorated. And then Luther came out as Santa Claus at the end with a present. revealed himself as luther which was really fun and that led to uh mina take sorry marina taking the loss but yeah like where's the christmas tree this didn't feel like it went on that long there wasn't any blood that i noticed no this was
WWE in 2019. I thought this was pretty lacklustre. Yeah, this was the New Day versus... Carl Anderson and Luke Gallows. In a trick or street fight. Yeah, yeah. But actually, I'm going to take that back because a trick or street fight would have had more gimmicks in there to befitting of the name.
A barbed wire candy cane is not enough AEW. You could have done better here. There was a whole build to the stipulation of this match. It wasn't just, oh, we're going to have a hardcore match tonight. No. This was a two-week build.
Next week, they're going to face the Babes of Wrath for the titles. Then we've got a promo for Jamie Hayter and Chris Statlander versus the Triangle of Madness. They're going to take on the Sisters of Sin next week. Kind of sets up Tekla to be a future challenger for Chris Statlander. as well as Jamie Hayter eyeing up the world title as well. Tekla's so cool. She's awesome. The way she delivers primos is just, I want to run away. I got, so we've got the awards out now.
The nomination forms for the WrestleTalk Podcast End of Year Awards and someone filled theirs in and one of their worst matches went to the Sisters of Sin. and I can't remember which match it was and I turned to them because they were in the office and I said, what's your problem with the Sisters of Sin? And...
They went on a tear about how much they cannot stand the system. They're like, Tegler's great, but I think that Julia Hart and Sky Blue suck. I get a kick out of them. Yeah, I mean, worst matches is so difficult now that wrestling's good.
yeah there's i think there's a fair looking at the way that the polling is going at the moment there are like three there are three john there are three john cena matches two john cena matches but there are like three main contenders for the worst match of the year
And the rest of it is just sort of like variations of other, I didn't like this. Some people's memories for things. Some people have voted for a match that happened on a Monday Night Raw. And I'm like, I don't think you can count. It's like, a match on TV wasn't all that great. They've been way worse stuff. Anyway. Dark Gordon then cut a promo about being back on Dynamite and Hangman Page walked past them and Alex Reynolds just asked him to not get involved in their match.
Renee then interviewed Mercedes-Benz. She'll be facing Red Velvet at Final Battle. Then we've got a promo for FTR versus the Bang Bang Gang and then FTR cut a promo on the Bang Bang Gang. And then we got the Ops taking on the Dark Order and Excalibur was running down all the various shows that were coming up and Hobbs won. I really like seeing the Dark Order. That gave me some nice warm flashbacks of another era of AEW. I think you could use them more.
Like, they're already over. They're really good wrestlers like Reynolds. It took me ages to remember Alex Reynolds' name. It was Alan Angels. but yeah john silver reynolds evil uno is just a great sort of character yeah um but yeah um it was just it was just really a hobs Victory. One spinebuster on Evil Uno to win. And then Paige ran down to attack. The op security stopped him, but he then beat up the security. Security? Or is it a pussy palace? Pussy palace. Pussy palace.
Pussy, pussy, pussy, ballast. They noted that Hook ran away from all of this. Hangman Page then challenged Shibata and Hobbs to a tag team match next week, and he's not going to be alone, which presumably then will be Swerve Strickland.
weak angle. I thought so as well. Not helped by a quiet crowd. No. But I don't think the angle was particularly... great either no but it's all right because they've sorted out the uh the continental classic situation uh and the title in this next promo oh it's our fault
at least it was the heel that was doing it but yeah don callous renee interviewed don callous to clear up the confusion over the continental championship he's like look you idiots i know that we said we unified the championships at all in but actually We just created this fake belt to represent the fact that he's got two titles, even though...
He didn't say this in the promo, but I watched Swerve Strickland face Okada for that title for the Unified Championship with my own two eyes in the O2. And he's like, look, you dumb morons. It's actually... since day one since all in it's always been two belts we've been very clear about that and now the i'm not gonna put the international title in it because an idiot would do that thing so just the continental championship is up for grabs so i guess now the unified championship is deactivated
Yeah, yeah, it's split into two again. Yeah, it's back into being two belts. I'm glad that we've now got four mid-card titles. Yeah, so a couple of months ago, we managed to get rid of one belt. And then Tony has relapsed hard. Often happens with addicts. And he has introduced, reintroduced the, I've forgotten what it's called. The Continental Championship. The other one.
The National Championship. The other one. The International Championship. So he's reintroduced, let's say, the International Championship. He's debuted the National Championship. And there's a tournament going on right now for women's tag belts. Yep.
And the Continental Championship, of course. I think if Okada wins, which is every chance that he does do, because then he'll have broken the record and become the greatest tournament wrestler of all time. I think that is going to be the story. I think Okada will just go back to being the unified champion again.
And then we'll come to the C2 next year and we'll just have to go through this whole rigmarole again. I went on a tear on this in yesterday's WrestleTalk News. I think this is so dumb. I really appreciate that you took the time out on TV to address the criticisms. that it's stupid that you have ununified the unified championship. But this is a stupid idea in the first place. You didn't need to have this promo. You made a stupid decision. Yeah, because their route was to...
use Don to go, well, I'm not an idiot. Like, if I can keep one of the titles, I'll keep one of the titles. But that's just a bad story. Don's character motivation makes perfect sense. So what, you know, the best way I think to have dealt with this is to have an announcement from Tony Khan. We've heard you. Don, we're overruling you. Both belts are on the line in this and it's now the continental. championship again I think Tony's we talk about Tony being a traditionalist
And he likes tradition. He likes doing shows in similar buildings. Like Wembley Stadium is becoming a tradition for him. Even though it's probably more beneficial for him to run the O2 every year. I think he likes the tradition of going to Wembley Stadium every year.
year um i think that sometimes is to the detriment of aew because the reason why i think we got the continental championship back so it's like well it's tradition that it's for the continental championship I'll never get to interview Tony Khan in the same way I'll never get to interview Triple H. If I ever got to interview Triple H, I would ask him to apologize for the John Cena retirement year and tell him that he should be ashamed of himself.
If I could interview Tony Khan, I would tell him, stop doing all of these titles. Can you, Tony Khan, explain to me? why we've got this belt you'd never get a word never yeah he would filibuster me for 15 minutes and then i would just ask him again but why Paige then cut our promo setting up the title match and then we got our main event of Jon Moxley versus Claudio Castagnoli in the Blue League both men on three points and I loved this match loved loved loved this match
it was made even better because it was Brian Danielson on commentary right at the start Marina Shafir doesn't leave ringside which means the referee has to be like And Brian Danielson's like, Marina shouldn't be here. The rules of the competition are she's not allowed to be here. And the referee's telling Marina, you've got to go. And then Danielson, you can hear his thought process while he's doing commentary, what you're performing. He's like, I wonder if Mox wanted Marina out there.
because he doesn't feel comfortable doing these matches without her at ringside. She's like a comfort blanket to him. Yeah, yeah. And then Mox effectively wrestled this as the baby face in peril.
¶ Your Comments
Yes, it was very interesting. Claudio worked him over early. Babyface spots like Mox hitting a dive on the outside. Yeah, he got busted open. He was in the sharpshooter with the blood pouring from his face. He's such a good worker, though. The crowd popped. It took him about a couple of minutes and they're like, oh yeah, I will pop for this move. I will pop for that cutter because of the way the match was structured and worked. So, I mean, just as craftsmen.
That's an incredible feat. I think the problem with this crowd for me was that they were popping for moves but not the story. They were just not buying into the characters or whatever it was. They went into the characters, they went into the story, but they were popping for someone doing a dive or hitting a big move.
And in the end, they said, you know, 10 minutes are remaining. We're halfway through. And they battle some more. And there's me thinking, I was like, I wonder if we're going to get a time to draw here. Like, that makes the most sense, I guess. They'll both end up on four points. You can build towards the end. Maybe that'll be the finals of the blue.
league and then they were like five minutes remaining and i was like yeah okay i think we're heading to hits the uppercut and claudio wins like honestly i don't know i was literally writing in my notes five minutes remaining and then boom claudio hit the uppercut and pinned him and i was like oh no, Claudia's just beaten Marks. And it took me a little while to process it. I was upstairs in the office watching this. It was just me and editor Wes in there. And I saw this bit and I just went, oh!
And Wes was like, you okay? Everything okay? But Mox lost. A genuine shock. Not a shock that he lost because that was always a possibility, but the manner in which he lost. clean out of nowhere like that suddenly boom hit that move and he pinned him it was awesome and then brian danielson had this to say on commentary When we were in the Blackpool Combat Club together, I was never able to defeat Jon Moxley. That's why we saw him as the leader. Claudio Castagnoli has just defeated Jon Moxley.
That's the story, man. I think him doing the babyface, it was almost like a babyface turn for him within this match. It's a foreshadowing of, hey, audience, you've hated this guy for a year. here's a baby face set up for when he does turn, when the rest of the group turns on him. They were doing a lot on commentary about the stats that they've had to get wrestling. I said they've had like eight matches and Moxley's won seven of them up until this point. So now here's Cloudy.
beating him in this tournament, he's taken over this group. One of the huge things as well is it's not a submission. Because if Mox gets submitted here, I think the conversation could be about... Well, that one part of him is psychologically shook. That's his Achilles heel right now. But the fact that it was just a clean pin off an uppercut, which is Claudio's finisher, but it wasn't a submission.
the problems have spread to all of mox's strategy yeah i loved it i loved it as the finish and you know you had the then you had like all the the rest of the combat club All the Death Riders come down celebrating with each other, you know, the sort of the hand slaps. But we never got to see the Moxley-Claudio interaction. It was like packing the ring with Claudio, really on the outside asking if Mox is okay.
Never got to see it, and I want to see what the next part of this is. They told me at the start of this year that Moxie would be one of the most compelling characters in AEW. I wouldn't have believed you. Here we are, and I can't believe how much I'm into it. Well, should we go on to last week's comments? Yes, please. Of course, because someone missing on this episode was Bobby Lashley and the Hurt Syndicate. That was our big talking point last week. AEW's Bobby Lashley problem. He doesn't lose.
He's not in the C2. They made a new belt for him that he weirdly didn't win. Deans has said, I don't think the problem is losing. The problem is there has been no character or story development since the MJF feud. was abruptly dropped. That's a good point. We didn't actually mention this. I totally forgot about it. I forgot. I was reading the comments. I was like, oh, yeah.
The MJF thing. Because we sort of just went through the matches and like, oh, this match, they didn't put anyone over this match. That is a storyline that felt like they were building to something and going somewhere. Totally dropped. Yeah. Bonus baby. Wasn't Shelton Benjamin in the C2 last year and take losses? Yeah, he's not the protected one. Yeah. Yeah. Either MVP is going to take the fall in the trios match or Shelton might occasionally.
Take fools. There is an order. There's a pecking order. It's MVP, it's Shelton, and Bobby Lashley is the most protected. Did you see the interview with MVP this week? He said... that Bobby is too unselfish. So MVP steps in and says, no, Bobby's not doing that for him.
Yeah, I mean, look, I think there is a lot of truth to what Sean wrote in that report earlier this year. Dendez Demise, however, has this take. Bobby Lashley has a 17-2 MMA record and could shoot beat up anyone in that locker room. And he's got the best and... Craziest physique on the roster as well. This is a prime example of a wrestler you do protect 90% of the time for legitimacy optics. Yeah, you div. That's why he's not in the C2.
And there was a comment reply to that, that someone just said, yeah, but this is pro wrestling. Well, that's always been my argument as well, is that like, it's not real and you can take loss and it's not real at the end of the day.
The 17-2 MMA record is like 10 years ago. He's 48. I don't think he could do MMA fights to that extent now. And yeah, you even say there, 90% of the time, he has been... protected a hundred percent of the time that's the problem that he's not put anyone over uh but yeah please do get in your comments on the the roman reigns political Yeah. I'd like to think that people have watched the podcast first and left their comments, unlike Tuesday's show.
where everyone thought that we thought that Jericho was the guy that scaled the cage. Even though we quite clearly said in that episode it was Austin Theory, but clearly people just opened that video and left their comment before watching the podcast. I think that's what a lot of people do.
We've just got to make peace with that. They open a video, they see the title, they watch two minutes and I'm like, I'm going to leave my thought. Which is fine. That's how comments work. Do you have any recommendations? Vinted. The reselling platform Vinted. Yeah, that's where I got the shirt from. This year, I said to my wife, I was like, I'm going to buy myself a new Christmas shirt this year. And she's like...
I don't think we need to buy new things. I'm like, that's a fair point. She's like, get on to Vinted and try that. Went on to Vinted and I got three new Christmas shirts and a Christmas jumper for 15 quid. Yeah. And happy days. It's like eBay, but...
Yeah, I mean, it'll eventually... An app? Oh, yeah, I mean, eBay's... got an app as well um i mean it'll probably start becoming more like ebay because you can buy like homeware and stuff of it and stuff it will just become ebay with but with different branding but yeah i've got no other recommendation actually i'll tell you what uh merry little xmas on netflix recommend that why not
You're a madman. It's a fun film. It's not good enough for a recommendation. Oh, I've recommended way worse things on this show. Merry Christmas is on Netflix. It is a Christmas movie with Alicia Silverstone. And it says where I'm Melissa Joan Hart. She has like two scenes.
But it's a fun little story about a couple getting a divorce and trying to work out what their Christmases are going to look like. And the divorced partner in the man side of things has got a new girlfriend played by Jamila Jamil. And then Alicia Silverstone might be doing a little thing with a young girl.
He's very funny, actually. He's the star of the show. You know what? I will allow you to recommend Chet from the movie. I won't allow you to recommend the movie itself. But if you're looking for Christmas, do you know what? Here's the other reason to recommend it. One hour and 27 minutes. Beautiful. More 90-minute movies, please. The Wes Anderson... exhibition at the Design Museum in London. It's just opened. We went last weekend. It's brilliant. It's so good. Because he's...
The guy has a lot of props and the props are individually beautiful and of a very certain aesthetic. You walk around the corner and there's the whole Grand Budapest hotel model. You walk around another corner, there's a glass cake.
of all of the fantastic Mr. Fox models. Just like from a movie memorabilia perspective, the stuff I talked about earlier with the script and the actual... script that is cool yeah i i'm being very facetious about this because i find it very fun to make fun of wes anderson movies because you everyone that wes anderson man you speak to will tell you he hasn't made a good film for like 15 years or last one he made was grand budapest
The Best Hotel was the last good one. But every time a new trailer comes out, it's another West Andes. But I get it. I'm a Kevin Smith fan, you know, and he is a guy who also... has not made a lot of good movies. But hey, he's going to have references. And you can go and you can be like, ah, that wasn't the best film, but those references, I had a good time. With the Wes Anderson movie, the colours. The colours were nice. And, you know, I'm wearing...
a Star Wars t-shirt. A franchise that has got nine movies and three of them are probably good. Yeah. Revenge of the Sith, Phantom Menace, and Attack of the Clones. I think you can go to bat for A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back. and Return of the Jedi, and had a push for Revenge of the Sith. I thought you were going to say Last Jedi then. I've fallen off Last Jedi a little bit. I haven't watched it since it came out, so I can't say too much whether I would put that in my rankings. Just because...
You know, there's not many tickets left for the Design Museum and you've got to be in the UK or in London, really, to go see it. A music video choice. Hello. If you want something intense, viewer discretion advised. I might play it for you after this when we're packing up. Black Midi's Welcome to Hell. Okay. It is an intense song. Can't stop listening to it. And the video is nightmare fuel.
Wow. It's like this anime horrible thing. I think about a weird bunny man following a bunny lady on Only Bunnies. Annie goes to chew her face off. Well, you said bunny ladies and all of a sudden I can see why you have had such an affinity for watching this. Zootopia's back. I get it. Judy Hopps is nothing to me anymore. I'm engaged to a human, non-animated woman. Yeah, because you couldn't get...
Can get Judy in the end. She won't return my course. But thank you very much for joining us here today. Of course, go to patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk where you can catch up and complete The whole Aces and Apes deep dive series from tomorrow. But for now, I've been Oli Davis. This has been Luca in DAD. Jam that jam. Jam that jam.
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