Hey, this is Brian Alvarez and this is today's edition of the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network.
Ready, when you're ready, let's.
Get it all. How's it going everybody? Brian Alvarez here on Wrestling Observer Live. We are here every day Monday through Friday, New Pacific three Eastern, Sunday three Pacific six Eastern, Saturday mornings with a Jim Valley Toenday, and Pacific one Eastern. And it is a Thursday on this show, and you know that means we have a lot to talk about here today. A lot of business news. Got a new television deal for SmackDown announced this morning. They've been cutting folks.
The main roster cuts have begun and apparently there will be NXT cuts to come as well. And we're gonna talk about all of this in detail after the break because there's a lot to talk about, both in terms of the TV deal and the cuts. And we got more. There's a WWE the essentially they've got a trading card company, Panini, and they claimed the Panini violated the terms of their agreement and so they were done with Paninia, and then Panini filed a lawsuit saying they were terminated with no
notice whatsoever. So a lot of you know, not just television, but there's a lot of things going down with this merger, which we expected, and they did the cuts last week. One hundred people got cut, you know, office staff and the like, and I would bet that by the end of the day we'll probably have several dozen wrestlers, either main roster or not even just developmental, but people in the system. So we got a lot of talk about there.
We got the NXT ratings, and of course we have got the aw Dynamite report, the Grand Slam show which was Wednesday night, which I thought was an excellent show with the exception of two injuries, and we've got something. You know, we got some updates on the injuries, but really not a lot from last night and the way it goes in aw you know, you got to figure out these injury situations by asking around because they're not going to announce anything publicly. So I'll tell you what
we know there and plenty more. So a lot to get into here today, back in the Mole with more Observer Live, back in the show right now, Barez here Wrestling Observer Live, Mike Simber Vie also Wrestling Observer dot Com A lot to get into today. I'm ben a mitted the twitch chatsy along I last I should start a timer here, but let's start with this. WWE and NBC Universal reaching agreement for SmackDown to return to the
USA network. TKA Group Holdings in NBC announced today they've agreed to a five year domestic media rights partnership for the show that will begin in October of twenty twenty four. The partnership also involves four specials a year to air on NBC in prime time. Although financial terms were not disclosed, the Wall Street Journal wrote people familiar with the pact valued it at roughly one point four billion, which is about a forty percent increase over the deal that WWE
had with Fox. The deal comes out to an average of two hundred and eighty seven million dollars per year, a total of over one point four billion. Mark Shapiro told The Hollywood Reporter that the deal is expected to quote meet market expectations, which was about a forty to fifty per increase over what they were getting before. And and that's that now stock way down today. I actually haven't looked at in a couple hours, but it was way down.
On this knee. It is down fifteen percent right now, eighty.
Six five fifteen percent.
Yeah, it started falling badly in overnight trading. It opened up, there was this news. It did not spike it and in fact it has continued to go down.
Well, it's it's down, and then you know a lot of fans, oh man, they've been relegated to the USA network, and uh, I do have to say that.
I want to say that relegation.
The funniest thing about this is can you imagine getting a forty increase and the stock crashes. I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. Well, now, a couple of things, and I think that this is this is one of the reasons that this is why I believe that the stock is down on the news that they've got a forty percent increase for SmackDown. And we still don't know where Ron you know, nx T are gonna end up. I mean, Rock could end up on Fox, I don't know.
But and their next day rights because what's the steal with Hulu's pretty much over.
Yeah, we'll get to that as well. But here's here's the thing with this forty percent increase in the stock going down. I believe that the stock is down maybe because it was overvalued to a degree, but also because of the idea. And this is true that by moving from Fox to USA, even on the same day and everything, you're going to UH, you're gonna have significantly fewer people watching.
It's an optical downgrade from those on the outside. You're going from network back to USA.
And you know you will. I mean, we've seen it a million times. You put Friday Nights SmackDown on FS one in the same time slot and you know, they had shows it at eight hundred thousand. You know, the last few they put Roman Reigns on there and such and it did, you know, over a million. But still, I mean, same day, same time network to cable, you're losing a large percentage.
Of two thirds of your audience.
So I think that that's the main thing here. But you know what's interesting about this whole Fox thing. So I think that some people have short memories and what they believe is that you know, we're kind of in a and we're definitely in a boom period right now if you look at WWE business, and I mean, I think people are like, it's because they are on Fox. And what people are forgetting is that when SmackDown. Remember
when SmackDown first went to Fox, they signed the deal. Well, if you guys recall, you know, Vince was all over the place going, well, let's just got to lay to amone period. We're on Fox, and uh, you know, the first show did like four million viewers, you know, the debut on Fox, and like Vince's.
Are ah, but but they guaranteed Fox. So one eighteen forty nine, Well.
Let's let's uh, let's look at what actually happened. It did not lead to a boom period. In fact, the Fox numbers were nothing special for a long time. It was only in the last eighteen months that things started to turn around and we started seeing increases year over year. Before that, there were decreases year over year over year over year. So it was not the fact that they were on Fox that we are where we are now.
What happened was the shows improved dramatically. Various people and storylines, the bloodline, Sammy Zay, all of that started to like click with fans, and we sign increases on SmackDown, We signed increases on Raw and of late we've seen big increases on NXT. So it is not that they were on Fox that everything turned around. Is that everything turned around and they were on Fox. And obviously, because Fox is a much larger platform, you know, that benefited more
than anything else from this increased interest. So yeah, obviously when they move to USA network, we ain't gonna see you know, two point four million people watching SmackDown anymore, and you know that could have ramifications. But you know, the other deal is this is a one point four billion dollar deal for a show. We don't know what Ro's gonna do. We don't know where Ro's going to
end up. Whatever NXT is making, they're probably going to get a forty percent increase based on the numbers they've been doing of late. So I expect that there's going to be a uh, you know today's decline in the in the stock price, and then I would expect that somewhat shortly that's going to to return to normal levels. So anyway, that's a SmackDown deal. We still are waiting on Raw and NXT.
Well, just back to what you were saying about the viewership and Fox and everything. You know, wrestling habits a lot of people didn't watch during COVID, but the habits for the most part, didn't change. The times didn't change wrestling when it came back, you know, when everything started to get regular again, Wrestling was well on the track to do that. And look, Fox and the storylines, it's
like a hand in a glove here. Yes, the storylines are very important obviously for the product you're putting out there, but it was the visibility on Fox. It was what you were able to do on Fox, where they're going to miss that, they're going to miss that going to USA because you just don't have that visibility that you do on a network. And we'll see how things go. They got Obviously they made tons of money off of this.
But also I don't think it should be discounted that the stock price was going down yesterday and it was down in overnight writing. And sure some of it was the speculation about this, but we're also now seeing Axios put out a story today that Vince McMahon is setting things up for his possible exit. We saw a large feature in the Los Angeles Times which went back a lot, and for people that already know the story, there was
a lot of repetitive things in it. But what it did mention was that obviously Ignues Lahude stepped up and was one of the two people with Manjit Singh that said I disagree with this, and he's now on public recon for stating it when he didn't have to. And you had the former Council for the Securities in Exchange Commission that they quoted saying that you know, Vince is still in peril here, and by being in peril here with the sec and with the federal government, he puts
t k AO and WWE in peril. So there is still a lot that we have to see how these investigations go. There's still a lot that needs to be seen. But as far as the stock price goes, I agree with you. I think it's going to rebound back. I think it's going to be in triple digits again very soon because the bottom line is the bottom line, and
they did get forty percent more out of USA. We'll see how it goes when it comes to some of these other deals and what we're also going to see two when these deals are announced, if they happen to be with an Amazon or an Apple or something like that, where it tends to ends up being a streaming thing. We're going to see how the market responds to that. Because network and a major cable operation, you know, we see that. But look the PAC twelve in Apple got
a lot of rolling eyes at it. There. There have been a lot of connections between a week and go to streaming. That again, the financial markets and some people have looked at and been very tentative about. So we're going to get a true feeling if they do go to a streaming service on what the market really thinks about that.
That's I don't know where they're gonna get for raw, but I mean I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. They could get one point eight billion for raw and NXT add that to one point four billion. You're talking a three point two billion dollar television neal over five years. I think everything is all right, but it's not all right for a lot of the talent, as we'll get to after the break Observer Live. Well, I made it a segment.
I'm out me too. You know what I see this, I got it up right now, and you know what gone out of here.
I got a lot of other stuff to talk about here done. I cannot deal with people saying NXT is valueless. Come as it was literally number one on cable this week. Now we have more to talk about. The cuts have begun.
Unfortunately, we got.
Main roster cuts, including Mustafa Ali who was scheduled to face Dominic Mysterio for the umst it All Atlantic Title, North American title. Well, he was gonna show up, He's gonna show up on Monday, but then he's he's got a championship match. He's already he had it not anymore. And also cut Aliyah, Rick Boogs, Elias, Riddick Moss, Top Dollars,
Shelton Benjamin and Dolf Ziggler. And uh, you know, I don't like to see anybody get cut, but I can't remember the last time we saw a Leah or Riddick, Moss, or Elias or Shelton. Ziggler made like an appearance once or twice. A few months back, Boogs made an appearance or two man Elias. This guy, it's like Vince didn't want to do anything with the guy, and then Vince was out, and then Triple H didn't want to do anything with a guy, and then Vince came back. It
was like this guy had no chance. So he's gone and then I guess we'll see what happens. But the word in WWE is that there's expected to be a number of cuts from NXT coming up later this afternoon. Now, maybe we're happened today, maybe it'll happen tomorrow. I don't know, but the belief is that like a lot of cuts are coming. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean they're gonna cut no? M dar Well, NXT cuts includes the people that are in developmental and we talked about
this months ago, months and months ago. Their new deal, before there was ever a sale or anything, was every six months, its evaluation time every six months. And they're gonna look at everybody. And I don't know if it's like can this person main event wrestle meaning because that's ridiculous. But if you're not like moving along, if you're stagnant, you're out of here. And so I would not expect like big names to be cut sssarily, but they could. But my guess is that it will largely be people
in the system. They've been there for a while. They don't appear to be showing a lot.
But they can't bump, they can't roll, They can't do this, they can't do that.
Well, not even that. It's like if you've been there for a long time and you still are exactly the same as where you were two years ago. I mean, you could be on the chopping block. Well, and there are people like.
That, well yeah, I mean we talked about one in particular yesterday who was a tag team partner of somebody you think is going to be a big star one day, and she very well maybe, but she has been at the same level for a long time. I do, for humanity's sake, worry about people like that. But I also think about all of these nil people that they keep putting in and nil is not going anywhere because kids
want money to just visit college campuses. So you're gonna see nil money continue on and ww's gonna throw it out there and they're gonna bring people in. And I think there are some people people where it's like, okay, you know, we got a little bit of a look at you. But if you don't have the aptitude for this, you know, I think you're quickened out of there. You know.
With a lot of the people that have been there, I think it's a lot of people that we've seen on the main roster, same sort of way, where if you've been forgotten about, if creative has had nothing for you, if you've just been in the you know, stuck in the meyer for a while. Unfortunately, I would be very worried right now.
And then we got more business news the Hulu deal could be coming to an end some WWE content and the service showing it will expire in the coming weeks. Hulu support was asked. They responded to a question on social media regarding this, stated, it's streaming rights with the WWE expire shortly, so a lot of deals coming do all at the same time, which is very beneficial for WWE.
As they're you know, we're gonna know what is Yeah, I mean it happens every time, dude, every time there's like a contract year, they happened to magically be up year over year. It's incredible, it's incredible the uh, whatever you want to call it. I don't want to say it's a coincidence. But it's not like they try to be down year over year. It's just like they're always
trying to be up. Hey, and you know, they were down down down, down down, and then the last contract year was like what was it twenty eighteen or something like that, twenty seventeen when they were negotiating, they were up and then they signed, and then they went back down again and it was like down, down, down, and then you know, we're in a contract year and guess what they're up. So it's pretty impressive.
Ever since they had to crawl back to USA after Spike. You know that was the last time, and I know there have been you can debate from business purposes, but from there it has just been working your way upwards. And they call it a contract year in sports, you know that last year somehow, some way. You know, the I who's been hitting two twenty and you know, striking out more times than he gets on base, all of a sudden is hitting three thirty and has got thirty
home runs in thirty stolen bases. That's what WWE has been doing. It. They've been stealing it, you can say, but they've been doing what they need to do. And the NXD is interesting because NXT can always fall back and have a home on the WWE network. I don't think that is anywhere near the chance of happening, but it is interesting. If a say a Fox. Let's say they decide to switch it over. Disney Let's say buys the rights to Raw and wants to put it on FX.
If they decide they don't want NXT, it'll be interesting to see. Do they offer it as a discount back to USA? Do you want to put that on an Apple as opposed to and get money there, as opposed to keeping it all for yourself and putting it on WWE network. I don't know where you go that same thing.
When it can Well, here's the thing, here's the thing to me. Okay, Obviously for Ron SmackDown, you want the biggest visibility SmackDown. Obviously, if they could have gotten this deal to stay on Fox, I'd have been awesome. If they can get a deal for CBS, NBC, ABC for Raw, awesome. You want to expose it to the largest number of
people possible. NXT you don't need to do that. So if if USA says, you know, we'll give you forty million a year for NXT, and then Amazon goes, hey, we'll give you eighty million a year, we want people to, you know, get into this Amazon streaming thing. Take the deal. It doesn't matter if people don't see these guys on NXT. For some of them, it probably better.
That's that's true, and you can make that case for that. What's let me ask you this, because I you would be financial suicide and malpractice to your shareholders if you don't take the biggest deal. But I was so curious with a lot of people talking about Smack being the show that maybe gets picked up by an Apple or wherever and it goes to streaming. It's like, that's bad. Going to cable is to me bad because again, the network still has power. How Fox was able to promote
that show with the NFL with college football. I mean, for Fox, they don't care. They're gonna put college football on Friday Night next year or whatever. They couldn't care less. But wwe misses that. And if you go to a streaming service, I mean again we've seen a lot of these numbers. They don't get anywhere near what cable gets, anywhere near what network gets.
And that's a.
Concern, And that's a concern when it comes to law or anybody, because here's the thing. Do you take a gazillion dollars to be on Amazon or do you take less money? You have to keep your visibility on you.
You have to wait networks. If if if Fox says one point eight billion for SmackDown and an Amazon says one point eight billion for SmackDown, you're a maniac. If you go to Amazon. If Fox has one point eight billion for SmackDown and Amazon decides they're going to give you a three billion to go to Amazon, you go to Amazon, way to go to.
Saudi Arabia, because you're just a slave to that dollar. But I think sometimes in the urge to get rich, you forget about how people are consuming, truly consuming this content, and you may be overrating your ability to lead them by the nose to a streaming service that they'll have to pay for because you can't even take them by the nose and get them from Fox to FS one when the change is there. So if it goes to somewhere else, this is all very fascinating, And again this
may be again. Look, the money doesn't get smaller, I guess, so they're always going to continue to make big money. But it'll be interesting to see if, like percentage wise, this is the best they do for a long time because of all of these options, probably going to have to consolidate over the next couple of years.
Well, you are the NXTEN numbers the show that is allegedly meaningless. According to some this show did eight hundred and twenty four thousand viewers on USA. It did a point two four in eighteen to forty nine. It was the number one show on cable and a year over year they're up nineteen point eight percent in audience and they're up sixty percent year over year in eighteen to forty nine. So obviously, you know the idea of moving
people from the main roster down. You know, it's funny like they do it, and I hear people complain and we've been talking about having them do this for years, Like this is what you should do, because A you get more people watching the show, and b you know, it's great for a Tiffany Stratton having a live, long television match with a main roster star, or as was the case on this show, a couple of main roster stars. It was Becky and Lyra val Keira versus Tiffany and
uh and uh James my favorite Keana James. Yes, but you know, uh talk about heat. The most watched thing on the show was Old Dirty Dom nine hundred and thirty thousand people. I believe for his match with Carmelo Hayes.
That's because everybody see. That's the great trick about Dom on NXT. You have him there and people I want Ria. I bet Ria's going to be there. Then you don't get Ria. But you still gotta tune in next week even if it's just gonna be Dom, because Ria still might show up.
Hey, you want to know how to you want how to get a million? Hell, somebody somebody mentioned this. They mentioned this comparison and it was apt. There was a match back in the day in w CW. I know he should not be named, but it was Chris ben wal versus David Flair. If you want the modern version of Chris Ben wal versus David Flair, it's Dominic Mysterio versus Elia Dragonov Oh my God, with MORBs of her live in the show. Brian Elver is here Wrestling Observer Live,
Mike spber VB also Wrestling Observe dot Com. So the the update on the injuries last night. All I know is that Adam Cole went to the hospital and they did X rays on his ankle, and I don't know
what they I don't know what's going on. So he ran down and jumped off the ramp and h and hurt his ankle, and you could see him like he's trying so hard down to sell it, but he can't even walk and he limps over, and they did all the spots and everything, and then he ended up getting in the ring at the end and got shoved by Simode Joe and almost his leg almost fell off, and then they had to take him in to see what's
going on. So we're we're like a week and a half away from uh from this pay per view, So I don't know if he's gonna be able to work. I guess we'll find out.
He'll be able to work. He may not be able to work a match, but he'll be able to work.
Well, he can stand. But I'm talking to it's supposed it's supposed to be. They've already announced the tag title match, Like he's supposed to be wrestling in a tag title match.
Well, here's the thing to probably take that bullet. He's going to do a two on one because he went and visited Adam Cole in the hospital, who's there next to Roderick Strong in the same move and they have the bed set up there and there there's poor Adam there with bad ankle health, that high high ankle health or whatever it is that that happened to him last night, and you can have him there that way. Don't try to take him off TV. He's going to be working.
He's got to do something. Or maybe maybe you can have him laid out by filthy Tom Lawler because they still owe us that one too. He can come and beat him up in the hospital.
All right. So we also have the mox Lee deal, which was he did a match with Phoenix and they just spot immediately where Phoenix did a running dive off the ramp and he landed on Moxley's head. And if you watch the show, like there's a lot of criticism about everything today. I'll talk a lot more about this on the Bryna Viny Show tonight when we have more time. But basically, if you watch the show, like, listen to the announcers, I mean they thought he was selling. They're like, oh, man,
he's all glassy eye. That's the look of a man who's rocked. Well it turns out he was. So he kind of stumbles around a little bit and then he gets in the ring, and probably about a minute later, maybe two minutes later. I mean, he's just fine. He's seemingly fine, and he's just doing the match. So apparently he's doing the match, and like you know, the ref's watching, and it seems like he's fine. He's doing everything he
normally does. He even did Luca and then you know, but I guess Moxley, you know, is a thing starts going. He starts realizing, man, I'm I'm not.
Right here, probably having spells.
Yeah, and so he called for not only the finish, not just like you know, let's go home, but he called for the finish with Phoenix going over, who wasn't supposed to go over, And uh, my understanding here is that, you know, he wanted Phoenix to hit the splash and and that would be the finish, but Phoenix was confused and thought he was gonna hit the splash and the pile driver. So Phoenix hits the pile driver, and uh, like you can watch the show, like Moxley's loudly telling
the referee like this is it count? And for whatever reason, the ref holds up, No, it wasn't. It was Oh Knox, Yeah, it Rick Knox and so so Moxley looks right at this guy and you can't hear it, but you can see it, and you can read his lips. He goes few at the top of his lungs and then Phoenix has it him with another pile driver, and then uh, and then Knox counts the pin. Now, what Moxley told people was, you know, I didn't feel anything on the
pile drivers. The pile drivers were safe. Other people watch him when we're like, I can't believe this guy took a pile driver, but one way or the other, they they took him in the back. I've had five hundred people aying that we called it a mild concussion. I'm not a doctor. What they told me was mild concussion. If you want to say there's no such thing, fine, I don't care, but don't yell at me. It wasn't my diagnosis.
I'm reporting.
I am reporting the wording that was used, which was a mild concussion.
I have a traumatic Brian injury every day on this show.
Why are you yelling at me? For the love of God, So that was the that was the story. But you know, we'll find out a concussion. I mean, he could be cleared Saturday. He could be cleared Wednesday. He could be cleared a month from now. I don't know. I'm just telling I'm just don't shoot the messenger. You ever heard that saying.
Well, if this guy ever wanted off work, now would be the time to say, eh, you know what, he's getting his vacation.
You know he will never get the vacation.
This would be a fantabulous time to take a vacation. Put some pressure on your boy there. You know he could use it right now, get some rest, go do something nice. RJ City can fill in for a little bit, maybe Lexi if he doesn't get too many shoes thrown at her. But I honestly thought last night when that show was over with, that we were going to, I don't know, kind of be regaling it a little bit, because we talked about yesterday.
What I'm about to if you give me some time, I got lots of regaling.
Let's say, you know, I thought this was going to be a very important show to set up for this weekend, and they again, coming off the pay per view things have been okay, so wanted to continue that momentum, and then we had all this wwe stuff today, stealing all of its thunder.
We had Eddie Kingson beating Claudio Cassanioli title versus title Ring of Honor World New Japan's strong open weight match was great. It was so great that when it was over, I thought, man, maybe this should have been the main event. But then we had the main event, and when it was over, I was fine with this not being the main event. But this match was great and the people were so behind Eddie here in New York going for this title, and they just beat the crap out of
each other. They souplex each other, they chopped each other, they hit each other's moves, and then finally Eddie hits a series of backfists and for his main man Kwata heat power bombs Claudio and after all these years, he gets that title. And afterwards Claudio offered the handshake, Eddie shook his hand and Claudio gave him the belt and left. This was great, great, We had I gotta do this
one tonight. I need hours. Roderick in the hospital. Roderick and the Kingdom deserve like every award in the Observer. I mean, they have turned their careers around. They are my favorite gimmick in all of aw right now, Tavid and Bennett and Roddy with his idiot glasses, his neck brace and that stupid bed. Ah love this adored.
A couple more wins on TV as a tag team too. Let's not forget about all this is going on here.
Oh my lord, they had rosary beads, drag or notes here. Yeah. So then we add Renee with Christian and Lucasaurus and uh so what's happening is they're doing that tag match at a rampage Grand Slam, and then all Christian is creep. He wants a three way Lucasaurus himself and Darby for the title on Saturday. And do we not all know where this is going? Sammy Gabard, Chris Jericho, oh man, thread on our board about this one. Bro, you know that it's okay I have like two botch spots in
a match, but the match can still be good. Yes, there was a spot where Jericho slipped running the ropes, he hit the middle row, he bounced back, and they just kept going. I mean they had a match I did that with Craig once gat of course that wasn't Chris Jericho. But and then They had another spot where he goes with the Silver King dive and Sammy throws a kick and he misses him by like a full foot, and then he immediately kicked him again. But I thought
the match was good. The crowd as soon as Jericho put on the walls there at the end, I mean, they were going crazy. Sammy hits a cutter off the top. This whole thing was built around Chris Jericho and Sean Michaels from like two thousand and eight. Sammy came out like an HBK tribute deal and then they did pretty
much everything. They did pretty much the exact same finish, which was he tried the big thing off the ropes, Jericho hit the codebreakraut of mid air for the pin, and then Jericho offers a handshake and they did the same deal, which was Sammy kicked him in the you know, ying yang and left him for dead, and then out comes this absolutely despicable, grotesque monstrosity of a human, Don Kallas scarred up, and this place is just furious that Sammy is going with callous.
It was awesome. Why doesn't somebody, you know do a remake of Rustlemania twenty and the dollar Trish bet that led to Christian turning on Jericho there and then kissing Trish. Now that was a great story.
M Jeff arrives and he's doing this promo and all of a sudden, Cole gets a call right in the middle of it, and he tells M Jeff, I gotta go. I gotta go help Roddy right now, but I'll be back. And M Jeff goes, why are you leaving? And Cole goes off screen just here, You're not gonna die, Roddy.
Ronnie's afraid he's gonna die, So Cole runs off. We talked about John Moxley and Phoenix for the title and uh, I'm sure, like you know, I don't know, man what I don't want to put it over because of what happened, But like, I don't think I've ever seen a match with a guy that got knocked out seconds in end up as good as this match. It was like, how did they do this?
What about a guy who's gotten knocked out late? Who do you think has been the best at that?
Well, at least you had the whole match before he got knocked out, like that Kurt Angle match where he got he took the pedigree on the table and the table broke and c he was knocked out. That match was a horror and he made it through this like if you didn't know what happened, you could watch this match and you know, go, holy smokes, this match was great.
Well it wasn't like brock lesnar and uh that was at the very end, you know, because at the Veria and everybody knew it and it was scary. This was one where again because of how Maxley sells with that stumble and stuff like that, you really you really didn't know that he was that badly hurt. And again if if he was in touch with those pile drivers, I mean those Phoenix drivers looked like they absolutely killed him.
So the Phoenix dregar here said, I had no idea it was hurt. I just cheered the whole time. Thought it was great. Say and Tony Storm made w title. This was a bullet club.
But it was one of those.
It was one of those bullet club matches and that they have every now and then where like the fans decide they love every bit of it, so they're doing every gimmick. They're doing the shoe for a near fall they're doing the spray, there's interference. Interference difference was Tony did not win and fans were sado hit the.
Why would you do this?
Exposed buckle say hit the rampage and pinder because I don't know if you've noticed this or not. But barring like injury where it's necessitated, if you win the title, you're holding it for a while. It doesn't matter if there's somebody that comes along. That's just what Tony does.
And talking Tony, who again, compared to a lot of women you have. I know she's got a level of star power, but it just peaked when you were at Wembley. She cannot carry it. I don't know.
It seems to be getting a little better every week. She's got the entrance now with the black and white. She's got the film.
In the wall. No no, no, no no, I'm talking about Sorea already peaked. You already got what.
You She got the title. She's got to hold it for a while. He's not gonna give her the title and take it right off of her. He's never done that ever, unless somebody was injured or whatever. And then a night event was MJFF and Samoa Joe. This MJFF brother. He doesn't do like crazy stuff, but every match is a very detailed story and and he he gets this
stuff over. Like I don't know about everybody else, but when he did that promo and he goes, I swear on my life, I'm gonna choke out Samoa Joe in the middle of the ring in New York, it was like, y'all know, he's choking him out in the middle of the ring, right. I don't know how he's gonna do it, but that's what he's gonna do. And that's what he did. And so the whole match from start to finish was I gotta get on this guy's back and choke him out and he gets foiled, He gets foiled, he gets
his neck worked over. They did a spot this stupid kangaroo kick. It's like he does a backflip off the top of road and he starts going like this, and this got a bigger pop than anything on the show outside of when Eddie Kingston actually won the title, and it may have been bigger. I may have to go back. They went crazy for the kang Guru kick.
It's a very simple business. Brother.
Yeah, when you do it right, and then they build everything. In the end, he gets the pile driver on the floor. You think it's over, but he kicks out, and then Cole comes out, and finally Max gets the wrist tape and he starts choking Joe because he's, you know, our scumbag, and he puts him in the choke and he chokes him unconscious and he wins. And then Joe goes after Cole, but MGF gets in front of his friend and Joe offers Max the handshake, and you think, man, we got handshakes.
We have a derricha one all show like something's gonna happen. Joe shook his hand left. This show was great, and we got another one Friday. We'll get the lineup after the break ups.
We're light.
Remember when I used to like producer dom may as well go to the twitch chat while you're at it. Brother, Hey, listen, here's the lineup for a rampage Grand Slam. No spoilers, and as I mentioned before, actually I do know some of the finishes yere. But so we have the world six man titles on the line, Brian Cage, Bishop Kahan and toa Leona. We'll defend the titles against the Young Bucks and Hangman Page the Hung Bucks. We have got
the aw Trios titles on the line. The Acclaimed and Daddy Ass will defend against Evil Uno, Alex Reynolds and John Silver.
I thin you can call him mister Ass. Was ridiculous enough, but here we are.
We have got pretty soon he's gonna be Granddaddy Ass. Granddaddy yes, it probably already is. Maybe on a World Tag Team Title Number one Contenders match. The winner of this match faces MJFF and Adam Cole. If Adam Cole can wrestle at Russell Dream, we have got Mike Bennett, Matt Tavin, Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy, Vincent and Dutch and Trent Burretta and Chuck Taylor who will be facing MJFF and Adam Cole.
I have a rant about this.
Next week, Sting and Darby Ala will be facing Christian Cage and Lucasaurus Orange, Cassie Hook and Chris stat Lanter face met Monard, Angelo Parker and Ana j and Sky Blue faces Julia Hart. You know, sometimes w W will like take away a person's name of some sort, like you know, for a while he was just theory instead of Austin theory. Yes, sometimes sometimes I believe that Santana is a much better name than Mike Santana. It's no offense Mike, but I think that he was better off
when he was just Santana. But he is now Mike Santana and he will be at action on the show.
Would he be better off if he was Jewel's Santana?
I have so much to talk about on the Brain and Video Show Tonight, a w don xt only for subscribers Wrestling Observer dot com or Video dot f W online dot com. So join us tonight, everybody, and we'll talk to you next time. Wrestling Observer. Lier you have been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network