¶ Intro / Opening
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Visit growtherapy.com slash start now today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan You there! 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. I'm Oli Davis, I'm joined by Luke Owen DAD, and you can subscribe wherever you get podcasts from. YouTube. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and exciting news, everyone. There's been a lot of rumours. There's been a lot of rumours because some people...
weren't happy with the way Stranger Things Series 5 ended. And Netflix, I don't know if you've seen, they've been maybe teasing Fechner's appearance on Jimmy Kimmel. It all starts tomorrow. Yep. If you go to the link for the secret ninth episode of Stranger Things, it's a deal we've done with the Duffer Brothers. It brings you right here. What actually is this?
¶ WWE Creative Shake-up
so as far as i'm aware i've been doing this for a while no no i mean the stranger things thing yeah like so as far as i'm aware it's just it's reddit conspiracy theories of fans huffing copium I didn't like the ending of this show. There must be more to it, right? There must be a secret ninth episode that they're hiding from us.
that all will be revealed, and then I'll get to the ending that I actually did want and I did like and I fantasy booked in my head. Yeah, it's a problem with a large group of people who, when we get disappointed, we complain. We just straight up complain. But some people... invent fictions to cope do you think actually do you think it's their version of watch it play out no no it's definitive end of a series yeah it's but i don't think it's let it play out it's it's
Well, it's got to be more than that. It's the same people who are like, well, surely they're going to remake the last season of Game of Thrones because they can't end it like that. So that's definitely good. HBO are definitely going to bring some new people in and they're going to redo it.
Yeah, well, that's not what's happened. And yeah, I've not seen the last episode yet. I am on the last episode. I know this year so far, and we've got comments about it coming up later. We have discussed Stranger Things more than Raw. In 2026. What was there to talk about on Raw? Just two title changes. That's a good point, actually. Two title changes and a call-up.
in the commercial break, which segues us into, yes, we will talk about AEW Dynamite shortly. But first, we are discussing WWE's 2026, because we're here now. We're in this new year. Raw and SmackDown have had their first episodes. There's been a report just clarifying what the creative structure of WWE is behind the scenes. Who reports to who?
And we're also seeing a call-up debuts, returns of other names. Yeah, it's been a huge influx. Specifically on SmackDown, they had three names on the last episode of SmackDown in Trick Williams, Jordan Grace and a returning Matt Cardone. and like when we came into our Wrestle Kingdom reactions that was one of the first it was like what did you make of the three hour Smackdown because there was like a genuine when WWE feels like it's a little bit
There's not a lot going on. When there's an episode where there are a return and two debuts, I was like, the show was interesting. What did you make of it? I think that it's more just to, we've got three hours to fill again. we need some more bodies on this roster. But it does also serve as a bit of a creative shaker because there's some new names to do some new things with. Or should we go through what the current structure is in the creative team?
backstage. Yes. So, at the top, the very top, is Triple H. Triple H is the head honcho. He is, if you want to compare it to AEW, the Tony Khan. If you want to compare it to old WWF, he is the Vince McMahon. Allegedly. Nothing goes out on TV unless he says so. So that means all the good stuff we have to credit him for. Absolutely. And all the bad stuff we have to criticize him for. Yeah, he is the last line.
If he doesn't like it, it's not going on TV. If he thinks it's good, it's going out onto TV. So he is the head honcho, signs off everything. And he is also, underneath him is Bruce Pritchard and Ed Kosky, who aren't like... writers they're not like creative they are there to kind of provide some inputs they're there to passive aggressively intimidate abyss he's one of the producers in WWE so they are there to be like
Oh, these are the ideas. You could try it this way. How about we put this person in there instead? Have you thought about it from this angle? Like, that's what their role is. And they also then oversee the whole creative department. Yeah, Kosky's been there forever. Yeah, this is Pritchard. I feel like Kosky... I mean, we don't know this sort of from an HR structure perspective. I feel like Koski's doing the one-to-ones. You know, he's doing management of people as much as he is...
putting in ideas or vetting ideas on the creative process. And Pritchard is setting up Zoom links. Yeah, and I don't know what Pritchard does. I'm surprised he's still there. You know, he's got a podcast. I think he's a yes man. Has he still got a podcast? No, I don't think so. No, you do not do that anymore. that like WWE brought him back to stop him doing the podcast, did the podcast as part of WWE for a bit and then quietly stopped it. Are you sure?
we'll just double check i'll tell you what i'll get my phone up i mean i haven't listened to an episode in about yeah yeah like 10 years or so yeah there's a podcast stop if no one listens i know we should know shouldn't we um bruce something to wrestle with bruce pritchett last five days ago oh what do they talk about dx oh sorry well how weird to have uh Like someone who's so senior in WWE doing an expose podcast. Yeah.
Episode 495, D-Generation X. It ran for two hours and five minutes. He did one on Bruce's WWE return, an episode on John Cena, Hulk Hogan's legacy. well violent jay and jbls were on the episode my sense of bruce pritchard uh is he's a bit of a yes man he's there to to to hype up whoever is an actual And you saw it in Unreal. Bruce Prichard's main role seemed to be going, that was great, wasn't it, Triple H? Yeah, he has got a catchphrase.
Great idea, boss. Yeah. And there's lots of bits of him in gorilla position with Trips. And Trips is just trying to concentrate on the show production. And Bruce is like, wow, the crowd are really hot here tonight, aren't they? So great. And Trips is like, what? The crowd are really good. Bit of J.D. Vance in South Park about it. I've caught up with more recent episodes of that relationship. I've got rid of Paramount+.
I can't do that anymore. There's sexual relations. Oh yeah, I did see that one. With Trump and Vance. Yeah, I did see that. There is a prolonged love scene. Anyway, so you've got Pritchard and Kosky in that position. It's basically like we get triangle. So you start with the top and then you go down this way. Then you have got Ryan Ward.
who is the former head writer of nxt he was the guy who was writing nxt in that glory black and gold era that was ryan ward and he is the kind of overseas both raw and smackdown on the main roster and then raw and smackdown have two different creative heads leading up those shows so on raw you've got i'm gonna have to get their names here on raw you've got alexandra williams and jonathan beckstrom
who are doing Raw. I've already heard these names. Well, Road Dogg. Well, on Smackdown, it is John Swittaker and Road Dogg, Brian James. You're just giggling, who, Ryan Ward? No, I know Ryan Ward, but I was like, didn't him and Cody Rhodes have a running before Cody Rhodes left? But it seemed to be more of a... Cody Rhodes was talking about... a writer and i think maybe ryan ward was one of those names thrown into the hat of who that writer could be i see um but essentially yeah uh
Triple H. Triple H advise Cody to punch the guy in the face. I don't know what I'm reading. So I won't read anymore.
But yeah, Cody Rhodes definitely did say he had an issue with a writer in 2015. Okay. And then underneath those people, you have... the writers the people who are pitching stories who are pitching ideas developing stories they are writing the shows then they get taken to the head honchos of those shows so your road dogs your alexandras that then gets to ryan ward who kind of oversees
all of this and sort of signs off on some things then he takes it up to Triple H to get final sign off on things that's when you have like those meetings you see in Unreal where they're all sitting around that big long table being like what are we going to do for the Royal Rumble it's in a week's time Chelsea Green wins at number 30 That's sort of bits and pieces. So is Ward kind of the Kevin Feige in a way? He's the middle management. Yeah, but he's sort of...
He seems to be filtering everything before they get to Triple H. I suppose that's probably the best way to put it, yeah. Which is, you know, it's actually a very good... It's a big role to have. It's a very important role to have. It's because you can then filter out the bad ideas and then take all the good ones and sort of like make sure that the... show is the best that it possibly can be but having watched the show recently is he filtering out the bad ideas
Or is it just there are no big creative ideas at the moment? Well, now they've done the series Unreal and we've had more of a look in the backstage. writing process, you've got people like Ed Kosky going, wouldn't it be fun if Chelsea Green won the Royal Rumble? This is a legit discussion pre-2025 Royal Rumble where everyone else gets eliminated.
So all 29 members. And then it's time for number 30 to come out. It's Chelsea Green. She's the de facto Royal Rumble winner. Yeah. That is a fun idea. I don't know if it's necessarily one that the company should do. I think it would get so much blowback if it actually happened. But that to me, even with someone like Ed Kosky, who's, you know, quite tenured there, you would think, oh, that guy probably doesn't bring the crazy ideas anymore.
Those are the sorts of ideas we come up with. Or like the comment section and you guys. And we all like, this would be a crazy thing to do. Actually, I quite like it because it's bold and it's different. So those ideas to me are being discussed. by these people.
Yet they're not choosing any ideas like that. We've said this a lot about Triple H over the last year or so when talking about the way that he seems to operate with creative. He operates on a very old school mentality of let's just take our time. sports-based it is real and we're just going to do very simple things there isn't wackiness going on there isn't a lot of big wacky crazy storylines like okay as a comparison piece
the Stranger Things episode of Raw that's just passed. You made a joke about this of being like, you know, where's my match with a demogorgon versus R-Truth? You know, that's sort of like, where's the sort of wackiness? Compare that to when we watched that episode of Raw for...
We're going to say the A-Team. The A-Team episode, yeah. The A-Team episode from like 2012. Was it the S.H.I.E.L.D. run we did, which was the A-Team? Yeah, maybe it was the breakup of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Yeah. And that episode of Raw. had the A-Team, the actual movie A-Team, the movie A-Team being their actors, but also their characters. I did a segment with Dusty Rhodes and Roddy Piper and they beat up Heath Slater and all this sort of stuff.
It was a show-long storyline. Ted DiBiase was there. They stole some stuff. Actually, I'm not sure if he was involved in this. But they did multiple backstage segments. Remember when the Muppets were on the show? They did segments with Seamus and Beaker.
You're not getting that anymore. What you're getting is brand integration. We have mentioned the show a bunch. We really appreciate you, Netflix. We have shown the Netflix executives around the set to show them what we've done to promote this show.
But that's the extent of it. You are just a sponsor for this show. You're not going to be incorporated into it. And really, I think that's a better way of doing it. Oh, yes. Yeah. Obviously, we have a... We like... bad things sometimes so we sort of miss the ups and downs of crap um so this is definitely objectively a better way of doing things of course of course yeah i mean i'm agreeing with you but at the same time
There are some elements of the Triple H era that I do feel, and I've said this multiple times over, I feel too slow. And I don't think he is good at capitalizing on momentum. Yeah, I mean, just look at NXT black and gold, right? Maybe the TV was... A bit... Very pedestrian. No one goes back and goes... I can think of one great TV match from that 2010s era, and it's the tag match of Moustache Mountain versus Undisputed Era.
There were a couple. There were a couple, of course. There was like the Dusty Classics. I had some really good tag matches in it when it was like the revival. But the big things are the takeovers. And really, NXT on the network in that era, it's an hour show. It's all taped the night after takeover at points or like before takeover. There was some matches, some weeks. So it was very little pressure.
on the week-to-week storytelling. Because, really, TakeOver, here's the matches, here's a couple of, like, very focused on storylines. Boom. And we have, you know, until AEW came along... And maybe it still piques it. The greatest, most consistently high quality run of pay-per-views ever in wrestling. Pretty much. That NXT 2014 through to like 2020.
late 2019 because he was booking super shows like every single month or like every couple of months he would just do these big super shows where it was the best people from new japan the best people from ring of honor the best people from like all over the world had just come together to put on these awesome super shows with baron corbin also on the roster and but like i think with his run on nxt the or just to add triple h
He's run on NXT. And Ryan Ward. And Ryan Ward, yes. This is the team that were doing that. But I think the difference between that black and gold era of NXT and what they've got on now with Raw is here you had time pressure. you had to pull the trigger on doing certain things because you didn't know if you were going to lose half your talents. Yeah. You have to do, like, okay, we have to do this Gargano Ciampa thing now.
because we can't delay this at six months, we don't know if Vince McMahon's going to call up the phone and just be like, I've called up one half of them. He does. He literally does it in that feud. And he would do it every now and again. So if you want to make this guy a champion, you've got to do this soon.
Because he's going to be going up to the main roster at some point. And I think it created a bit of a sense of urgency about NXT. Yeah, and unpredictability. And that was actually really frustrating. But looking back, you're right. Maybe it did give them a sort of... a productive limitation yeah you know like you
People often think like, oh, if only my favorite person had absolute creative freedom, they would make the best thing imaginable. It's not actually the case. Look at every Netflix movie by a really great director. Yeah. Because Netflix like. Do whatever you want. And Scorsese is like, three-hour movie incoming. Do whatever you want. And Zack Snyder's like, I'm going to make Star Wars that no one watches. So, but like, back in film theory and history...
a real golden period of filmmakers is like the Hitchcocks or the Howard Hawks working within the limitations of the studio system. And, you know, you see that like with NXT there. But now it's not just there's no lack of urgency in the call-ups. Like, oh no, someone might take my top star. Like AEW realistically isn't going to take any of these top stars. No.
But they've also got so much more time to fill. So you've gone from hour, weekly, like how many hours of content is that for NXT? You'd have four... Four hours a week. Four hours a month, rather. Four hours a month and a... Three hour, a push, takeover. Yeah, five matches. And they weren't monthly. They were every couple of months. So let's just say six hours a month of wrestling you had to do. That is a focused time. You're doing that a week now. Yeah.
Well, SmackDown, three hours. Raw, two and a half hours. NXT. I mean, are we going to count? Maybe let's just count main roster. I would just say main roster. Pay-per-view, three and a half hours. So now we're up to nine. Oh, this is a month. I've lost track of the metrics. You're doing six hours a week, let's say broadly speaking, or five and a half hours a week. So which across four weeks is, I can't do math. It's 20.
22 hours a week. 22 hours. A month. Of just TV. And then you're doing a three-hour pay-per-view a month as well on top of that. So you're saying 25 hours? 25 hours of original content you've got to make. But I would say with the pay-per-views there's less creative to-do round there because you're not doing any angles or things like that. You're just doing five matches and a load of commercials. Angles do happen on the pay-per-views.
We saw it with the Cena heel turn. Yeah, that's true. We saw it with Seth when he worked us all at SummerSlam. And then if you have that, you've got to discount the pay-per-views for the NXT bit. So we're comparing seven hours of monthly programming. back in the 2010s on NXT with the Triple H Ryan Ward combo worked great. Now we're talking about without a Saturday night's main event or an additional pay-per-view in the month or any other stuff they do to counter-program AEW.
25 hours. Yeah, three times more. Yeah, three and a half times more. Three and a half times more. And granted, you've got a bigger system, but like... You've got more people. Look at this, you've got like Road Dogg, you've got Alexandra Williams, you've got like way more people across this. That doesn't always make things easier. Because there's too many coaches. It's complicated. There's more things to check in on. There actually becomes an overhead that fills up the...
the space you would have hoped to create with having more people come in. And actually to that point, what we haven't discussed here is that while Triple H is the sign-off, there is a level above Triple H, which is TKO. And there are people, you know, they're seeing a heel turn.
is not a Triple H thing. That was not a writer pitched that to him. It was not someone from the Raw team pitched it to Alexandra Williams and then she was like, that's a really good idea. I'll take that to Ryan Ward. And then Ryan Ward took it to Bruce Prichard and Ed Kosky and then they took it to Triple H.
No, they had poor ticket sales for Elimination Chamber. So Nick Khan said, we need to do something. He calls up The Rock. The Rock says, I've got this idea. And then they go in to do the Cena heel turn. Who else do they call? Trevor Scott. Of course, yeah. Make sure that he's fine with it.
You know, who knows how much influence Travis Scott is having right now. We make a lot of fun of the Unreal call thing where they had to call Travis Scott. In fairness, he is in the segment. They do need to call him to let him know what they're going to do. But yeah, you've got TKO. You've got The Rock. How's The Rock's movie career doing? The Rock.
couldn't give a solitary F about what's going on on WWE TV at the moment. Until he does. Until... And that's unpredictable. Maybe that's what Triple H... And you know what? When was the greatest bit of Triple H's creative reign?
when The Rock mate came in and was like, I'm going to do this. Well, we said there was a comment on our Raw podcast that was left on Patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk that I think was really, really, a really smart bit of insight into this, which was... that triple h's long-term booking was vindicated by not having cody roads win at 39 and delaying it a year to wrestlemania 40 i think and that's completely true but the thing to step back from that is that
The gap between 39 and 40 was quite dross, was really quite boring, really quite rubbish for a lot of that year. But then The Rock came in and he turned heel and made it like really incredibly exciting. That was not because Triple H delayed the win by a year at 39 to 40. That was some chaos coming in and making the show really exciting. So... We're looking at 2026. This is the creative team in place. It doesn't feel like they're really changing anything in either the roster.
You know, we've got, so let's just run through them. SmackDown has Cardona, Grace and Trick Williams. Roars has Javon Evans called up. The way those have been done, that doesn't scream to me they're going right for the mid-card title or right into the main event.
i'd say with trick it sort of does because he did come in and set up a feud with sammy zane and was like i've got i've got eyes on the world title but having said that sammy zane has been saying i've got eyes on the world title for five years I'm concerned Sami Zayn is the new Dolph Ziggler. You call someone up, their first feud's going to be with dependable Sami Zayn. But then we've got these unknowns.
Trying to be optimistic about this because they're teasing over Femi, which maybe means he does just come in at the main event slot and beat someone. Yeah. That's what I'd hope. He vacated the NXT World Championship. He needs, I should say, the NXT Championship.
I think he should come in with something big. We've got some reported lady call-ups, Blake Monroe, JC Jane, Lola Vice. I think the women's division is much healthier than the men's across the board on the main roster, but SmackDown does feel lacking. If you add Grace, Blake... Monroe, JC Jane in there.
That really fleshes out the non-Cargill people. Yeah, and it sets up Cargill for a program with Jordan Grace because Cargill is lacking in challenges over on SmackDown. And actually, Stephanie Vacker is lacking in challenges on Raw because they're all tied up in the women's tag team. scene so he's just feuding with Raquel Rodriguez until Liv Morgan but the report with Blake Monroe is that hers is probably more imminent than others
because her creative plans in NXT had to change. And I think that's why she then got written out of the storyline she was in on NXT. She accidentally lost the North American Championship to Thea Hale. They were supposed to have the rematch on this week. New Year's Evil but Blake Monroe attacked Thea Hale during the entrance Ava ejects her from the building Thea Hale has a different open challenge and that was won by oh man Izzy Dane. Izzy Dane wins that match
And that felt to me, because Tatum Paxley tried to answer it, that seems to further the Izzy Dame Tatum Paxley storyline, and Thea Hale sort of on the outside. That kind of feels like it's removed Blake Monroe from that story, and the report plans are fight for select. She's heading to Raw, and it's probably going to be more imminent than any of these others. I'm really impressed with how NXT has handled that Thea Hale botch. Yeah.
Because, you know, when it happened, I was like, all right, well, in a couple of weeks, rematch with Blake Monroe, reset. It's like in a match where you just redo the spot that you botched a couple of moments later. Bob Breaker doing the Frankensteiner. But here, they've gone like, this annoying thing happened.
Stuff happens that we cannot plan for rather than just work against it and go back. Let's try exploring this new route that it's taken us in. This is what we wanted to happen with Brom Breaker when Seth Rollins got his unfortunate injury. But instead, they were like, let's just flatten this out. And it's...
I know they have lent into the breaker stuff, but not in the way they should have done to capitalize on that momentum. But this way, yeah, you've got Thea Hale, you've got Izzy Dame, you've got Tayden Paxley. Now that's a feud that's got a title attached to it. Yeah. And Blake Monroe is free to go up. This is a good example of going with unpredictability. On the flip side of that...
didn't seem to work in the men's division because Obafemi beats Ricky Saints for the NXT championship. And then a couple of months later, they're still setting up stuff with Javon, who's now been called up as well. Ricky Saints opened this week's NXT saying like, I'm going to come. for whoever wins the main event tonight. And Obafemi, I'm looking at you because you and I are one-on-one at the moment and I want to win the NXT Championship from you.
And at the end of the show, Obafemi just vacates the title. So what was the plan with Ricky Saint? Like, a lot of that feels very clumsy. Do you think there's a bit of main roster WWE? What are we doing? Let's just... Call up some names from NXT. Bingo. Just like Vince was in the 2010s. That's what I was thinking. It feels like we need to have a creative shakeup here. And the way to do that is just to add 10 new names to the roster.
That's the way to do this. So give me 10 names. It's so difficult to not become the thing that you realized was a bad thing. When you were starting out, like maybe there's an example, obviously when I compare triple anyone to Vince McMahon, it's usually in a business sense, not in a. moral conduct sense but triple h we always thought well he must know because like he's gone through the gauntlet dealing with vince trying to protect his nxt children
But now he might be in that position and he's doing the same thing. We've been covering the MCU over on cutscene. It's due to start soon with Iron Man 2. And yeah, this studio that started out knowing all the lessons, here's how we make great movies. 10 years later, they forget all those lessons because they've become too big. Yeah. Maybe there is an argument towards that. Maybe it's not a Triple H call. Maybe it's someone else was like, you need to do something.
The person above him was saying, you need to do something to freshen this up. And his first call was, let's add 10 new names to this roster. I think that is slipping into the old trap of the wrestlers or us back in the day where you're not blaming Vince. We started this. We blame Vince. We start, but wrestlers maybe wouldn't. We started this podcast with.
Triple H is in charge of creative. Here is the structure. Really, TKO will come in and go, we need to shift some more tickets. Can you do this? Right now, the metrics for WWE are still strong. They've got all the money. Yeah, sure, maybe they... promised someone who wouldn't be there on monday that was a reference to stranger things i'm surprised episode nine wasn't called break the walls down mike johnson by the way i'm pw insider i like mike johnson
he was like, all those people that thought it was a reference, it was clearly a reference to Stranger Things. I'm like, are you mad, Mike? You clearly have also not watched this show either. So yeah, we've got this... This is the... Oh, and there's Chris Jericho as well. Yeah. Can I make one last thing on NXT, actually, before we do move on to a new topic by any chance? One of the things I find quite interesting about NXT is it's a territory.
One of the things that's quite interesting about NXT, what makes me feel fresh, is it always has new influx of people, and then those people go off. With Raw and SmackDown... They can feel like the land of the stale because you're just seeing the same faces all the time. And then some people come up, but then they just become the land of the stale and they all just become part of the stale thing. NXT is constantly always changing, just like the territory system used to do.
Your town was exciting because it had a new influx of people. Then those people would leave and go to another territory. Even back in, you know, pre the sort of malaise of no competition WWE in the noughties.
people weren't spending that long on top. I know Taker was around forever, but Rock, Stone Cold, you know, these are guys who only have three to five years at the top of the company. Quick, we've got to make a new star. Hulk Hogan declared to... I know, this is... broken record i know we're talking about the wwe main event scene being too old from what is historically been proven to work but yeah i think you're totally right there and like nx having a televised developmental promotion
maybe isn't the best idea. Because then you would have these people just appearing on the main roster quicker. I guess so, but I think it does give people some form of recognition. And it allows them to create, like, when they come up to the main roster, there's probably more people watching NXT now than there was during the Black and Gold era. Like, compared to what the main roster audience is. Like, you know, when Emma came up to the main roster from NXT...
No one in that audience was doing that dance. If Emma had come up in this version of NXT to this version of the main roster... there would have been people doing that dance because there probably would have been more videos of it on Twitter or TikTok or something. So the audience is a bit more acclimated to that. So I do think there is a value in having NXT be a televised show. But does that mean that WWE don't put as much effort?
into debuting new stars fresh on the main roster. Look at Javon Evans. just got debuted in a backstage, not even a backstage segment. That actually would have been good. It would have been on TV. It was during a commercial break with no video recap, no announcements or anything. And that's my... We should say signed because, of course, he did debut. Yeah. Even then, that wasn't like Javon's coming or some vignettes that were building them up.
My thing with NXT call-ups always was, way back in the day, I'm saying like 2015, I remember when Tyler Breeze came up and I was so infuriated by his main roster debut and run. And I remember them saying on Wrestling Observer Radio, which I think was true then and it should be true now, you should not call someone up unless you've got six months of plans for them. Because otherwise...
You're just calling them up for the sake of bodies. And when you're looking at a bit of creative malaise, the answer to that is not just more bodies. It's better stories. It's using those bodies. creatively. It's using those bodies to have some cool moments and cool matches and cool new things as opposed to just what was Javon Evans on the main roster now? Are you happy?
Yeah. In six months time, he'll have a match with Dragon Lee on Raw and it'll be awesome. And then we'll be like, see, it was worth calling him up. Yeah, this is exactly my concern because we've had a lot of names there. It's almost like a post-WrestleMania superstar shakeup in a way. But...
Do I have faith and trust in the creative at the moment that these are the next big main event stars that I can look forward to around Mania or SummerSlam time? Obafem is the only one on that list, but that's more just me. hoping that they're going to bring him up and put him into a main event scene, or going to call him up, and in four years' time, they'll then look at him. When by that point, he'll be in his mid-30s, and now's the time we're going to start pulling some triggers on him.
Just before we move on, what... We discussed sort of the... These are all systems things. You know, the NXT training and the sort of time constraints that makes it feel fresh, but the main roster... Doesn't feel as fresh because you don't have those constraints. Here's the creative teams, how that all works. Is there anything like systems wise that you would change that could be a solution to this?
So we can try and help do some free consulting work for a way bigger company. Well, I think the system there, like you look at that triangle, that pyramid system they've got, that's probably a good way to run it. people coming up with some ideas you've got the writers working with the talents if you've got any ideas what you want to do putting those things together taking those to some other people they workshop it maybe there's a little bit too many cooks
spoiling the broth maybe it would be better if it was just triple h speaking with the towns as sort of like the the head of creative or if it was just triple h and ryan ward with some input from uh pritchard and cosky kind of like almost remove that second layer yeah
maybe then there's less voices in the room but like i don't know i i don't think there's anything structured at the moment i'd be like this is why it's boring or i shouldn't say boring boring is a harsh word this is why it feels like it's a bit pedestrian what i think what it needs is just some new creative ideas and i don't think just big swings some big swings maybe um i don't think just adding or removing people is going to change that maybe it's actually the people of themselves
are the ones that need some changing. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I think that's a part of it. I'm not saying do a brand split, but is there a way to reduce the creative teams? So you've got more, like, it's a different time, but the 90s, the Attitude Era, we're talking about Vince, Bruce, actually, Cornette. Yep.
Cornette and Pritchard were basically in the Pritchard-Koski roles now. And then the writers were Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara. And that was it. Five people. Yeah. Five people booking, granted, one weekly two-hour show. Yeah.
I would try and find a way to capture that simplicity without... making it messy overall and things don't talk to each other very difficult to do but that's so you can have sort of Raw and Smackdown, or maybe the divisions function as their own sort of creatively free things where you can do bolder ideas with sort of minimal oversight on top.
¶ Patreon Shout Outs
So these more innovative ideas can bubble to the surface. Yeah. Some writers, when they've talked about their time in WWE in the past, Vince Russo, one of the things he would do, what's D'Lo Brown doing? I want to make sure that I've got a board here. Here's all of my wrestlers. What are they currently doing? I don't feel like we're having a lot of that at the moment. Like, what's Ivy Nile doing? What are the Creed brothers doing?
they hurt like they haven't been on tv for like months on end the war raiders like they they will have a brief spell on tv and it's not like oh we're just taking them off tv now so that people can miss them no i think it feels like they just forget about them They just sort of forget about a lot of people and just maybe focus on some other things over here. What I think the company needs for 2026, if I have to give, here would be my big positive pitch I'd like to give you. A sense of urgency.
I know you are... Long-term booking is one thing, but you also need to have a sense of urgency about that long-term booking and not just getting complacent. Because complacency can lead to, I don't need to watch this week. I don't need to watch... Because when WrestleMania ends, I don't need to watch until the Royal Rumble. Yeah. Well, let us know if you have any ideas, and we'll read them out on next week's show.
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¶ AEW Dynamite Review
That's how doors work. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro delivered and set up by an expert wherever you are. Delivery available for select devices purchased at boostmobile.com. Terms apply. Hey, listeners. Meet Russell. Hey! Russell just launched a fitness app.
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Know who the best people in the world are? Who are they? People who support Patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk because... couldn't do all this without you thank you so much for supporting us over there because youtube sucks these days we've got a lovely little community over there delightful isn't it hanging out with those people for wrestle kingdom was
so so nice yeah we just like we didn't really announce it properly because we only came up with it the idea relatively late but we're like should we just watch Wrestle Kingdom. Let's come in on Sunday, stream it for the patrons. We're going to be doing the same for the Royal Rumble. So the Royal Rumble, we will be streaming that live, me and Luke here on patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk. Yeah. So you want to...
It's a good idea to sign up to Patreon now because the Royal Rumble live reactions will be included within that. It's not a bad shout at all. Here's what I love about doing live reactions on Patreon. Isn't he moderation?
When we used to do live reactions, I'd be like, Mod Mother General's like, we need to get a team together. You need to get your Avengers assembling because there will be a tribe of dickheads that you all need to deal with. None of that. Someone actually messaged me to be like, These are the nicest live reactions I've ever been a part of.
Because it just feels like hanging out with mates as opposed to hanging out with some people that you like and then some dickheads come bursting through the door for five minutes to have a go at you. There's also our Invasion series that starts next. Sure does. We'll have the second episode exclusively on Patreon. And if you donate at the $30 amount...
I should look into these. I should know these off by heart. You get a shout out on this very show like he can last Sean Furlonger than you in the ring. Starbucks, Stephen Costa. Shield Maiden, the Zornese. Burley, Rob Burwell. The Machine Gun. Alex Anderson. Let him cook. Alex. A pock. Alex now. Ali. The cat Gordon. The Swiss submission machine. Andreas Fuglistaler. You can look.
But you can't touch Bella Pearson. I'm afraid I've got some bad news. It's bad news, Bob the Ninja Goldfish. And lastly, for this Hall of Fame class on Friday, the 9th of January, 2026, be rad. It's B-Rad! Were you dismayed when you saw the runtime for this episode? 20 minute overrun. Felt necessary as well, didn't it? What would I have cut, though?
Because I really enjoy it. I'd have cut that Tony Storm Marina Shafir match. What? But then you get the DQ finish. I enjoyed all the wrestling on the show. Yeah, even that match? Really good. You're right, I could have done without that. The main event? Oh, I like the main event. I didn't like the main event. Well, should we get into the show so we can cover this? I thought the main event was fine. The big thing here, we were in Oklahoma, so they brought out in his home... Something.
state city definitely from the united states he is from oklahoma whether that is a city or a state i don't know uh but he is from there and he made his big return to aew to join the commentary desk it's a musical it's neither state Town whatever. Which I know. It's a musical. Because it was referenced in the TV show Friends. We just did. We just self-sabotaged so much. I can tell you, like... I'm going to dead air this. It was a game of dead air chicken. It wasn't salty, JR.
I think the only time he got a bit of salty jail was a little bit towards the end where he's like, can this match end now? Yeah. I want to go home. I want to go home. And when Mercedes-Benz went into the cake, Jim Ross went, not the cake. He didn't care about that. Tom fool.
Backstage, Renee informed us that JetSpeed had been attacked. So they were not going to be able to tag with Jack Perry against the demand. And Ricochet walks with me like, oh no, did they get attacked? And Renee's like, yeah, because you put a bounty out on them. It was like, oh, it wasn't. And then Don Callis walks in and be like, whoa, I've never heard anything about this bouncy. But I can tell you who did do the attacking. Mark Davis and a debuting Jake. Mark Davis too. It's also Mark Davis.
Jake something, now going by Jake something else, Jake Doyle, which is his IRL name, I believe. Very good, very good. Jake, something else, Jake. Thank you. Yeah, was it TNA last time we saw him? So this is a jumping of the ship. His contract going to Fight for Select ended on January 1st. He's on posters for the AMC TNA Impact debut. Like, he's being... for it but has chosen to get at AEW instead.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, you stand out from the crowd in the Don Callis family, won't you? Well, there won't be any other members being added to the group on this episode. Yeah, I mean, he's a good opposing lad. Mark Davis gives Mark Davis something to do as well. They're going to be a tag team going forwards. They come out later and they've got sort of matching just black vests on. Yeah. Very pared back look, but they look intimidating. Burly dudes.
Jon Moxley took on Shelton Benjamin in a Continental Championship Eliminator match with Continental Rules. I thought it was a great match. This match ruled. This match was so, so great. I just wish...
it wasn't a title eliminator. Like, why can't it just be for the title? Open challenge. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, John Moxley thing. Because like, oh, I want... like benjamin to beat mox here so i can get a rematch i'm not into a rematch between these two guys of the story no you know what i mean it just gives the match a stupid thing to say here it gives the match some stakes which it would do as well if it was also a title match but it also
means you're not just giving away title matches for willy-nilly but i agree everyone's got a title match who has a title match on this show everyone's got a title well everyone's got a title but they're not having title matches they're having title eliminator matches This match was great, though. When Sean Benjamin ran World with his version of Suplex City, he was launching poor Jon Moxley. Babyface Jon Moxley. That World's End performance was so superb.
The match with Kyle Fletcher was great. Him winning the C2, I didn't call. But what a great story that was from the C2. Came from behind. Lost to Claudio. Didn't look like it. They made it through the semis. won the final, is now the Connet, which means the Unified Championship isn't in anything anymore. But I think it's great. I really, really liked all of this. Really good parallels with Claudio later and Marina, who are all doing the interference. Moxley now has a...
a belt where if it's wrestled under those conditions, yeah, no interference. So it's a really, really well told story, all of this. And he got the win with five seconds left on the clock. The story of the match was that if a draw... would have gotten Shelton Benjamin a shot at the title. Really good. Really, really good. They shake hands afterwards. Derby arrived on his skateboard looking for Pac. We got a video for the retirement of Hiroshi Tanahashi, which included his little WrestleMania 3.
stairway walk stuff. But what didn't it include? All the AEW stars saying thank you to him. And Takeshita. Losing the idea. Oh yeah, that's a good point. They're just focused on Tanahashi. Actually, they're focused on Okada beating Tanahashi. Yeah, I guess you don't want to highlight that Takeshita lost, but...
It will have to come up at some point because canonically they did refer to him as the IWGP champion in AEW. But they also referred to MJF canonically as the CMLL light heavyweight champion. They never referred to it when he lost afterwards. I mean, it would be nice for your brand partner to reference the fact that a big title change happened on their show. And no Aaron Wolfe. That's the biggest one.
We got a video for Kenny Omega calling out MJF and his eyes being set on that AEW World Championship. And then we got the demand taking on Jack Perry and his surprise tag team partners. Super kick party. Be the elite. Old school young bucks came out. That was cool. Yeah, it was. Pretty obvious who it was going to be, considering Jack Perry has been tagging on and off with them for about a month. But yeah, I don't think it got the big...
pop of like, oh, OG bucks are back. I just think people, that story is done. And that story was sort of done a couple of years ago. I think that's very true. I think... Kenny being away from the elite, I think is probably a good thing. They are back together again, but they're not like an on-screen six-man unit. So I think that's probably the best for them. But I think with the Bucks, I completely agree.
We are just sort of taking a bit of a step back in time. They always feel like a nostalgia act at this point. But they had a really fun party match. Bucks got the win by pinning Ricochet, and then Mark Davis and Jake Doyle came out to attack. Jet Speed ran down to make the save, but then the lights went out. And because the contract situation is now sorted, when the lights came back up...
Andrade El Idolo was there, and this Don Callis family is ludicrously large. So Andrade's revealed, very similar to how he... debuted or returned back in October. So he's got the black mask on and his hair's like long and a bit like gold highlighted. I was like... is that jericho did you think that ever no i just thought it was andrade just as a like a split second i was like no it is andrade that's his build but um yeah it's andrade he's back for his quarterly return spot
Will he be here next week? We'll soon see. Watch, what's his name? The old Nexus guy. Oh, David Otunga. Watch David Otunga's YouTube channel to find out. The FCR came out on the ramp to pose. It sets up a bit of a tag team thing. You've got the Young Bucks, Jet Speed, Mark Davis and Jake Doyle of the Don Callis family. So you've got a lot of tag team stuff there posed with the tag titles. No real clear direction.
but way more effective than the usos coming halfway down the crowd and going that was a little bit too much energy you were not gassed out enough I'll just put over to Leona. He is so impressive with his strength. He hit a Samoan drop with both Bucks and Perry on his back. It's mad. Insane.
Sorry, he walked around with them as well. Willa Nyingale had a title celebration because she's the TBS champion. She put over a big win. She put over the fact she's reunited with Chris Statlander and her partnership with Harley Cameron. And she called out Mercedes-Benz to join her for... this manet comes out in like a you know a morning uh gown and stuff and she freaks out and falls into some cake and then willowhead a doctor bomb into the cake
I just love how Mercedes and I can't remember the name of her rider she took from WWE. Jennifer Peppermint? Yeah, something like that. But they just always do 2018 WWE segments. It is also, it's Racine. There's a cake in the ring. It's Chekhov's cake. Someone's got to go into the cake. But it is weird that it keeps happening with Mercedes. Yeah. Party celebrations. What would you like to do today, Mercedes?
How quickly can you get a cake? I thought this was all very sweet, though. Willow's just great. Awesome. Yeah, she's great. She bantered with the crowd of, yep, I love cake. I'm going to eat some cake real quick. We'll cut to this now. Tecla cuts this promo with the Sisters of Sin behind her and my only takeaway from it is like the Sisters of Sin while cool make you less cool you would be so much cooler on your own Tecla is
Unbelievable presence. And she's so good on the mic. Yeah, she's great. Like, she's just got... Yeah. She's not like anyone else. She's got this charisma that's really engaging. And she's a great wrestler. Yeah. So yeah, I think push her to the top.
Mark Briscoe also got a great promo. He's got an itch, he's got a scratch, and that is to whip someone's ass. He's got a match on Collision where he's going to be defending the TNT Championship against Hechicero. His phrase of the day is reign and defend. I'll just add on the Willow title celebration. Yeah, so Chris.
Chris and Willow, they're sort of back together, which is a really nice... They've actually told that story pretty well. Maybe a bit too long, maybe a bit too many false starts, but I liked it. And with Harley Cameron in the mix as well, it was a nice trio. Probably trios belts for the women.
Eminently. But also, there were some lighting issues. Yeah, well, there were lighting issues in the main event as well. What I think they had planned was there was going to be a spotlight on Willow and Renee. What they did is they turned off all the lights, but not the spotlight, then couldn't find the button for the spotlight, then found where the button was, but it wasn't pointed at Willow. Yeah. And then I think it was planned for the main event because it's a light sound.
match they did the lights down then they spotlight the two warring like the the wrestlers eventually uh because they turned the lights off then couldn't find the button for the uh the spotlights then found them then couldn't follow the action So I'll sack that. I'll just turn the lights back on. When they went into the ad break, they immediately went house lights, normal lights. But yeah, because AEW has precedent...
for teasing lighting malfunctions. This is literally all in the very first incarnation of AEW. They teased some lighting malfunctions to build to the blackout spot where Jericho made his debut. So you thought here this is another tease for a joke? Well, we'd already had a blackout spot earlier with Andrade. And then the next segment has a few lining issues. I'm like, oh. Turns out it's just incompetency.
Sammy Guevara took on Bandido. Crowd weren't hugely into a lot of this. I feel that's probably more on Sammy than it is Bandido. Yeah, it was a good match. And I was watching Sammy and I was like, you are good. You're very... It's a great in-ring wrestler. He has charisma. There's a bit when he gets on the headset and commentary and he sort of, did he super kick Bandito? Yeah, well, he's super kicking Bandito. But in AEW, he is tired.
we've seen him on this rise then he's gone down and he hasn't been able to pick himself back up and having a mustache isn't going to change that i think he should go to wwe i completely agree I don't think he's ever going to break out of this rut. He needs a refresh. Yeah, and if he's not going there, TNA. But the point is, when his contract is up, I think he needs to consider not re-signing and exploring other options. He is good enough, but...
Just like Jericho. Jericho, of course, is good enough and has that star power and fan support. But right now, the fan base is tired of him. And I think Sami just... we're tired of him this did get a this is awesome chant but it felt like one of those like obligation that because they're done a high spot 21 plex for the win good action crowd were not into it mgf then came out for a promo i thought this was a segment of two halves
The second half being much better than the first half. The gimmick was MJF is cutting this promo. thinking that Bandido's not going to understand any of it because he is not American. So he had a lad out there with him to do the translation for him. So he did this long promo. I'm a Lucha Libre legend, basically. I've sold out Arena Mexico. I beat Mystico. I'm a CMLL world champion.
all these things can you now translate that for him and then the guy translates it all then mjf's like well you're that diamond ring shouldn't really be yours i've got a bunch of them why don't you just give it to me We won't do the title match next week, and I'll tell you what I'll do, kid. I've got a bit of pull around here. I'll go backstage. I'll go to Tony Khan. I'll put you over to him. I'll put you over to Tony Khan himself.
Can you translate that for me? Well, it says, and maybe we can have a pay-per-view match in five years' time. I felt that was a bit of a shot at WWE. And then he asked the guy to translate it, but Bandido grabbed the mic and said, I can understand English, you stupid son of a bitch. Good reveal. Good reveal. Maybe you needed... I didn't mind the first half, and you needed it to build to the Bandido line. Yeah, and then you get the low blow from MJF.
and then he's going to hit him with the dynamite diamond ring, but in that classic heel shenanigans, the bad guy's holding him up. Oh no, I punched my mate. Then Bandido low blows MJF, 21 plex to both of them, which they both took like absolute champs. And Bandido... held aloft the aw title particularly the translator it looked like he was bouncing on the back of flubber of the uh
MJF is brilliant at knowing when to get his receipts. Bandido is a guy that is obviously not going to win the world title. So MJF has given him a lot here. Put him over. I thought this was very effective for what they're trying to do. Got a video package for Brodie King and then Tony Storm took on meanish shit. I kept doing this in my review as well.
I kept, because it's MS and I'm a bit thick, I kept saying Mina Shirakawa. And Kieran was like, she wasn't in this match. I was like, she was in the segment later. Tony Storm versus Marina Shafir. I thought. This was pretty naff. Yeah, it wasn't much of a match. Most of it was in the ad break. Marina did some fun heel work mocking the sort of dancing that Cassidy and Tony have been doing. It had such little heat. And then Marina...
Yeah, Marina's stuff just didn't look convincing enough that it wasn't... The crowd weren't... dying to see the tony comeback but then when tony started doing the comeback then they got into it like we started doing the hip attack and stuff i did think that they were doing some judo hair judo throws with the hair which was a shout out to the new goat aaron wolf uh early on that was a nice touch
But then at the end of it, we've got the big package, and then Willie Uta pulled the referee out. Ding, ding, ding, DQ. Very rare in AEW. Rubbish, mate. Like, we get one or two genuine DQ finishes a year. Well, you know, over in WWE, it's every other match. So it was, yeah, it's a bit like, well, not a great match. And is this the best time to waste your DQ? But also it's like, referees get pulled out of the ring all the time.
So if now, surely that has to be a new standard in AEW. If the referee gets pulled out of the ring, they're going to call for the DQ. Referee's discretion. Strong and Cassidy then ran out to even the odds. Marina Shirakawa did run out. She got taken out by Marina Shafir.
One punch. Yeah, she was out. She looked rubbish. Then they all stared down, Wheeler and Garcia. Claudio came out for a stare down and he had to be sort of held back. Probably going to build to a six-person tag. Claudio looked awesome. It was like, oh, dad's here. René interviewed Pac backstage, who pointed out that Darby's never beaten him, and then Darby walked up and asked for a match, and Pac was like...
No. Well, what he actually said, quote here, was, jog on, Bonnie lad. Which was fun. So Diaby then attacked him from behind, threatened to break his ankle. So Pac said, I'll read, I'll give you the match then. Yeah, I felt this could have... Biltmore. Me too. It was Darby looking for Pac. This was set up at the start of the episode backstage. He finds Pac and Pac agrees.
after you know that will ferrell's character in austin powers if you ask him three times he will give the information uh you just have to ask pack twice so yeah this could have been more of a derby all right And then he kidnaps Pac, I don't know. A couple of weeks. To show that Pac has to, you have to break Pac to get this match. And the main event was Hangman Adam Page and Swerve Strickland taking on the Ops in a Lights Out tag team match. Yeah, we mentioned earlier.
been on lighting issues with this one as well eventually they just put the lights on i thought it was like it was fine it was just a regular hardcore brawl match at the staple gun you had the cinder blocks i think the reason why i feel like i'm a bit down on this main event
This was not befitting the Lights Out stipulation, which I think you should protect and make feel like if you are doing a Lights Out match, it should feel like a big deal. This was a fairly standard hardcore match. Yeah, you're right. It's, yeah.
It was more of a way to do something big on the first show of the year and just like, let's go for that stipulation. But it wasn't at the height of the previous stipulations. It wasn't like, you know, I don't think every match should have loads of blood, but...
There wasn't any blood in this. There was more blood in the Sammy Guevara match. Yeah, and Jon Moxley busted his nose open. That's unsurprising. But yeah, you think the unsanctioned matches in AEW, even the hardcore matches are just usually blood baths. The main thing they had was the cinder blocks. That was sort of the main dangerous spot. Yeah, and they had a staple gun in there which had no effect on Hobbs until they stapled him in the dick. Yeah.
got the cinder blocks out world's most dangerous slam sorry Mark Henry onto the cinder blocks and Paige broke that up the ops pussy palace ran down to attack Adam Paige And then Hobbs like tied them together with the chain, but Nana threw coffee at him. Page and Swerve fought back. Buckshot reversed into a spine buster. How's cool to break that up? Swerve stomp takes out the pussy palace and then the Deadeye stomp onto the cinder blocks combo takes out Hobbs.
Hobbs, and then it was basically just beating up Hook for about 10 minutes, and then eventually they hung him over the top rope. Yeah, they hit all of the finishes, like Swerve House, Cool, the Buckshot, and then it was the hanging. This was where JR was going.
I'm meant to go home. I don't need to go home, actually. Can this end? I'm like, JR, that's the heel. They're getting the revenge for all the things that Hook has screwed them over for. Scallum had to dive in and be like, I mean, he did cost them the world title at full gear. Yeah, I'll just talk about my cat for a bit because you brought up Pussy Palace. So my cat's been doing this just adorable thing in the cold where she will burrow... And we're packing for Vietnam. So our suitcase...
We found her in there and she's made a little bed in the, in the clothes. It's lovely. We've got to wash everything again, but it was really cute. So like, let's get her a little bed with a sort of cover that she can burrow into. She likes to burrow. and snuggle in there and it arrived and i have called it the pussy and my partner is very against this So now I've agreed that we're going to call it Kiki's Dojo. That's great. That's nice.
I've got a board game for Christmas that you might enjoy. It's called Pack the Essentials, which is about a game of packing a suitcase, kind of like Patchwork. I would not enjoy this. I hate packing suitcases. But you're trying to smuggle in cats. Oh, what? Now I'm in. Into your suitcase. So you're putting in sort of like catfish trying to flip tiles over to make the cats. That is great. This episode was great wrestling. Not real...
storyline stuff. I guess you've got the MJF, Bandido stuff, but that's not a long-term thing. It'll be a lot more interesting with Omega coming next week. Next week is Maximum Carnage.
and as a themed episode. Yeah, and that Kenny Omega thing, I mean, no one's expecting Bandido to win anyway, but Kenny Omega having that video package and being announced to return next week very much the defies. This is only going in one direction, and that show is probably going to end with MJF and Kenny having a stay.
maybe that's gonna be your next pay-per-view main event which i'm i'm all in for yeah because we want our just like we were speaking about with raw and smackdown in 2026 what's our big storyline that you can start foreshadowing for the year that's kind of my thing Raw, NXT and AEW is their first shows of the new year this week.
And I think it's really, and actually I'll include SmackDown. I feel like it was only SmackDown that really felt like this kind of like new and exciting thing, like a new start to the year. These other ones just felt like we're not really moving much further forward. I kind of think you want like that big hot start. Remember like the 2020?
when tony took over the book and you had that first episode of dynamite that had the pack ray phoenix like whoa and had this real like exciting energy about it i feel that raw nxt and this week's dynamite were all lacking i agree So do you want to talk about recommendations or should we go through comments? Well, I'll do the comments. So just someone brought in a sign of the WrestleTalk podcast with the QR code for the first Raw.
on netflix shout out to you ryan and it did make it up people have sent us screenshots which is good uh but yeah it was taken away because the venue doesn't know so apparently even though we did say take you our codes to venues No venue will allow that. It's a bad idea. It's a terrible idea. So instead, what signs should we tell people to have? Well, I've told them...
Triple H fears Oli Davis. I don't like that one as well. I did that. I thought that'd be really funny. And then we're talking about it yesterday and you're like, I don't want people to do that. Adam Forver writes, so, so, so nervous they're going to treat... the Femi like Bronn and White years. I think there's every chance that doesn't happen. NYC Snowman said it was in the arena live. This is for the raw Stranger Things episode. And I saw the crew laying out the pyro on the stage for the tag.
and I see title matches. So I knew Punk was retaining when I saw no pyro was being set up on the stage for Brock. Fascinating. That's fascinating. Yeah, what a spoiler. Yeah. But I don't know how you can work around that. Just don't have pyro. Yeah, don't have pyro. Have ticker tape. Yeah, you don't need to have pyro for every time someone wins a title, I guess.
And John R. John Risley, this is on the Raw podcast because we didn't do this podcast last week. This made me really want a Stranger Things cutscene series. I'm not re-watching that show again. You can't make me watch season three. What are your first recommendations for 2026? New series of The Traitors on BBC.
Been a really fun series so far. The first three episodes were somewhat controversial in my WhatsApp group because they introduced a new gimmick that really splits opinions within my group. So I've been really enjoying it and it's...
fun. I like talking with my friends about it, so it's that. But do you know what my actual recommendation is going to be? Do you know what I watched over the Christmas period? The Back to the Future trilogy. Because it's all on iPlayer at the moment. I watched one, and I was like, ah, it's such a great film.
I'm going to watch the second one. That's such a great film. It's just as good. I love it. It's so good. It's so much fun. I really want to watch the third movie. Even though I don't like it as much, it's the weakest of the three. It's awesome. Here is why, though, it's my big recommendation. There's no other sequels.
There's no legacy sequel to it. There's no fourth installment with kids doing a new generation of Back to the Future. The only legacy sequel to Back to the Future is the cartoon in the 90s. That's all there is. It is one of the few true artifacts of the 80s left that hasn't been mined by greedy, uninspired, uncreative people. It is a perfect trilogy of movies that has not been sullied. Probably Goonies as well.
has remarkably remained untouched. The only reason I didn't mention The Goonies, because you're right, that's the other example, is there wasn't a sequel to The Goonies either. That is just a one-and-done thing. That is a trilogy of movies. One of them was successful. We'd better do another one. We'll do two back-to-back, but then that is it.
Nothing. It's a great stage show, but it is the first movie just put on stage. Really good effects and stuff. I do recommend it if anyone wants to go to the theatre. I feel like you saying this... When this goes live, who owns the rights? Disney? Because they bought Fox? No, because it's a universal movie. I feel like there's going to be a big announcement for 2026. If there is, I will cry.
I will genuinely be him. I will genuinely cry with upset and sadness and anger. 1.98 gigawatts. There is a... You're not going to get me. There is a... Patrick Willems, as a YouTube guy I really like, he's just got a video that he put up recently called Let Franchises Die. And he's got this really fascinating insight onto Alien Romulus, which I really liked. But he's like, I liked it as well.
But it is the first Alien movie that's not tried anything new. It's the first Alien movie that's just copied what they did in 1979. And for there, it's just like, oh, now this franchise is stuck. and they're going to do another one and that will probably just be another carbon copy of what came before it and it will just be stuck and i i think let franchises die and we've let the back to the future franchise die Well, I'm going to start campaigning for Marty Supreme 2 through to 28.
Because that's my recommendation. I saw Marty Supreme last night. I was curious. I'm a big Safdie Brothers fan. They're the directors. They've previously done Uncut Gems. Good time. Very claustrophobic. Very sort of stressful movies. But they've not split, but they're doing their own solo projects now. So Benny Safdie, yeah, Benny Safdie did The Smashing Machine with The Rock. And Josh Safdie did Marty Supreme.
I was underwhelmed by The Smashing Machine. And it's quite slow. You and the box office. It was quite a slow movie. But, you know, it's very well shot, the naturalistic performances. But, man, if you like... If you watch the Safdie Brothers films before, particularly Uncut Jams and Good Time, these really quick movies, this is, that's the style of this movie. Marty Supreme, it's the Timothee Chalamet movie, and Gwyneth Paltrow.
And it is just nonstop stress. There were like, there were a couple of scenes in it and a couple of images. And it's very rare I think this in a film. I felt in real time, that's a defining image. That will be the oranges rolling down the street in The Godfather. It just feels like an important movie that film history buffs will look back on. Last time I felt about that was probably La La Land where, you know, they're dancing. I'm like, that's an iconic.
That is going to live in the interstitial stings for the streaming platform that that falls on in the future. The other one we showed was Sinners.
with the music montage. Well, that was very bold and creative, and I think that will be studded, but I don't necessarily think that is a defining image. Like, it's a shot. That's true. But this, I think it's a... remarkable film with many remarkable performances and then on the way in today i listened to the timothy chamelay episode of cody rhodes is what do you want to talk did you now what is that podcast like
Oh, I dip in occasionally like the Kevin Owens one. It depends on the guest, doesn't it? Like a lot of interview podcasts. When it's good, it's great. Because they're drinking. Largely. The Owens one is really funny. I really like the... The Damien Priest one. It was just Cody trolling Damien Priest. Cody's a funny guy, I think. And he's quite like a, he tries to get a rise out of people in a sort of older brother.
yeah way like just needling people that's fun it is fun and he's but with timothy chamelay they actually talk a lot about the similarities between wrestling and acting and chamelay is turns out he's a big wrestling fan yeah and the what i i heard that but then hearing him speak in his own words when he says stuff like oh yeah acw one night stands my favorite pay-per-view of all time
A man of good taste. What? And he's like, well, you know, like, do you feel like you didn't get the right push? And he's using the words, like, you are a fan. You're not someone just pretending. But he even sort of gently probes Cody about AEW. Oh, really? Without saying AEW. And he was like, oh, do you regret any of those things you did in your career? Because Marty Supreme is as...
It's about being an idiot in your 20s. Right, okay. And they were talking about regrets. And Cody said, I don't regret any of the things I did. Don't say them explicitly, but you've got to be thinking it's the promos. It's the smashing.
the throne with the sledgehammer he says i don't regret them but i wouldn't do them now like i've grown i bet you were grown up well yeah i wouldn't do it because the guy's my boss now but like he's not going out and making the same kind of jabs at aw is he no he's not going out and doing super kick parties um so yeah quite an interesting listen um like and they taught you know that sort of crossover of sports entertainment and entertainment entertainment
And yeah, I think it'll be probably the best film of the year. It's freaking Wrestle Kingdom all over again. Oh yeah, it's January. I'll see the best film of the year and the best wrestling match of the year in the first week. And I'm like... this year is going to be a great year for wrestling and films. Oh no, it was just the first half of January. The first week of January was your big one. Should also say as well, I know there've been video games of Back to the Future, but like it's...
Those are non-canonical. You know when you realise someone's not been thinking about what you've been talking about because they've been sat on... No, I need to correct that bit. Yeah, I just need to say that. Someone left a comment on the video on Monday being like, Phoebe Cates was in Kremlin. I was like, I said that in the episode. 1.8 gigawatts. Right. Shall we get out of here? Please do go over to, oh, I should do housekeeping. Yes. I am going to Vietnam today.
In a couple of hours, my flight takes off, as you're probably watching this. So this was a holiday I originally had booked in April 2020. Why didn't you go? Yeah, just... Thought we'd cancel all our plans. Two-night WrestleMania. I was like, I better be here to cover that. Samoa Poncho. No, that wasn't that one. That's the one you're after. Yeah. That was Rob Gronkowski. I loved the six months of credit card battles we had to have.
to get all our money back. Thankfully we did. But yeah, not immediately. Well, banks are a bit worried. Where's the money going to come from? Better hold on to this. So, yeah, it's a holiday that we've been planning for ages, but we're only going on now. So, yeah, I'm going there. I'll be back. Weirdly, I know it's weird because I've just been off for two weeks for Christmas. It's just the way it's shaken out. I'll be back for the Royal Rumble live stream. Back at the end of January.
So I get back on like the Wednesday, but I'm going to be mega jet lagged. So really I won't be able to do any content. And then Saturday will come in. We'll live stream the Royal Rumble on patreon.com forward slash WrestleTalk. Do all the Rumble coverage the day after. But Dan's going to be replacing me.
on the podcast. Yeah, Dan Layton's going to be here on the WrestleTalk podcast reviewing Raw and doing this Friday episode as well where we look at Dynamite. Yeah, and you will be doing all the news episodes but so we don't break Luke. because it's a tough gig, the WrestleTalk News. You'll just be doing Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. So we're not going to be doing the Wednesday episode for the next couple of weeks. Yes, sir. But then everything returns to normal as of February.
Yeah, for the Royal Rumble. I mean, look, WWE feels like it's pretty much like in first gear anyway as we gear up to the road to WrestleMania. So it's probably the right time to take a couple of weeks off. I will be here.
uh in in sort of content form oh there's nine hours of you going live on on the 17th there's the three count royal rumble predictions going live tomorrow then yeah next saturday there is the seven hours of uh invasion podcast that we've done and the rest it's a five hour main episodes and then it's a three and a half hour uh king of the ring episode there you go so that's plenty of content to watch again patreon.com forward slash wrestle talk
And yeah, there's Monday Night War as well. So you can watch me see if I can beat or Luke can beat Dan Layton at my GM. It is getting tight as we get towards the end of my GM mode as well. That will end on February.
It'd be like the day after the Royal Rumble, that all comes to an end. Oh, and the last week of January, Iron Man 2. our review over on cutscene that's right yeah we've recorded it all we recorded that yesterday yeah our review of Iron Man 2 our covering of the starting of the MCU in worst movie ever we talk a lot about like the origins of Marvel Studios and the sort of the different wars between
your friend of mine, Ari Arad, or Avi Arad rather. And yes, we're going to go through all of that stuff. That's over on Cutscene. That'll be going live in a couple of Wednesdays time. There'll be plenty of Oli Davis around. But yeah, you've got to deal with this mug doing the WrestleTalk News and doing the Raw review, which is the one I think people are going to dislike the most. But for now. Yeah, so go be kind to Luke. Support Luke against those dickheads we spoke about earlier. Yeah. For now.
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