Hey, this is Brian Alvarez and this is today's edition of the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network.
Live from San Francisco. I'm a sports byline broadcasting network. You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with your hosts, Brian Alvarez and Mike semper Vv.
Right you ready, You're ready, Let's get it off.
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 sixth Eastern Saturday Mornings with Jim Valley, Tenday and Pacific one Eastern Sundays with andrews Arian. And it's Halloween on this show Thursday. You know that means simper vv better have his costume when we come
back from the break. We got a lot of news to talk about here today, and not only that, but we have a special guest which I'll tell you about.
Here in a while.
But yesterday was fright Night Dynamite, so we can tell you about that here today on the show, as well as all of the shows we got coming up this weekend. What is with this hair everywhere? Driving me nuts doing my best here. We got SmackDown coming up on Friday night. Of course, Crown Jewel is coming up on Saturday, so we'll give you the full line up for that show.
And there is an injury. We actually had a lot of injuries to talk about, aw ANDWE injuries, so we're gonna get into those after the break, Plus an update on the WWEID deals. There are half dozen slightly more wrestlers currently under ID deals, and we're gonna tell you what the situation is if somebody gets an offer from somewhere else, So that'll be after the break. Then the injury update, and then the rest of the news including NXT ratings and a former WWE wrestler has retired, and
the Dynamite report. We'll talk about Dynamite as well. Final second of the show, our old friend Ario Winner is gonna be on the program. Theten a new book, forty years of pay per View, literally going back and reviewing every single pay per view and book one is now available in paperback on Amazon nineteen eighty five through nineteen ninety. This is gonna be a long series of books back in a month with more Observer Life.
My Monster from his slab began to rise, and suddenly, to my surprise, he did the Monks to Main. It was a craveyard small, it caught home in a flag.
He did the.
Monster mash from My Love Tory in the cast release.
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You were listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez and Mike simperviv on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
I am so disgusted right now, why's that you saw a mirror show show, Mike, Look at this. You had one job, one job? How's to find a costume? Couldn't even do it? You don't have a sheet. Could you put a sheet over your head or something?
Oh?
Yeah, because that's what I want. The chat saying, hey, look he's dressed like a Klansman or something like that.
No, not a Clansman outfit, but like, get a sheet and put some holes in it. Fries like you're a ghost. You soon as you don't have a Luca mask.
I was looking for one, actually, and I thought I knew where they were in No, like a mysterio mask and a mask somewhere.
And here, I'm gonna make you a deal. I'm gonna give you a five minute break from the show to see if you can find a Luca mask. I'll just talk about the first bit of news here, which you ain't gonna care about anyway. Alright, just a bunch of injuries. You go find a mask. The chat is so disgusting. Right now, goll Lee Dom's got a costume on. He's a radio producer, right.
Tom, You're damn right, And I have a Plinko shirt on pretending to be a price is Right contestant today.
Also, Wow, a Plinko shirt. I've gotta, I've gotta. I've got a Shahalas Flying Saucer party shirt.
I don't know why.
Actually my workout shirt. Alright. Well, while, uh, while this guy is trying to find a mask, should probably be wearing every day.
All right.
First, a bunch of injuries to talk about here. Former former aw tag team champion Nick Jackson has been working with a separated shoulder has been bothering him for weeks. News comes from Brian Albert. Hey, that's me. Yeah, I did report that. I don't know, I don't know when
he got hurt, but apparently it's been a while. And if you guys saw the tag match with Private Party at the pay per view, and then the tag match they had last night, which was absolutely last night was like even better than the pay per view, and the pay per view match was great. He did that entire
match with a separated shoulder. And if you've ever had a separated shoulder, I mean you can work through it, but I mean can't even lift his I think he obviously can lift his arm, but can't lift weights anything like that. So yeah, he did both of those matches with a separated shoulder, so there's that. And then also Dave reported last night Bandido is healed. He actually injured
his wrist in June of twenty twenty three. It is currently basically November of twenty twenty four, so he's been gone like seventeen months with his broken wrist because apparently they gave him surgery, it did not heal properly. He had a second surgery and is now finally able to return, so he should be back at some point here. But that is the update on Bandido and Rear. And keep in mind, by the way, keep in mind Adam Cole
completely shattered and destroyed his ankle. They had to put like a cadaver, you know, they not a full cadaver obviously, but they had to do a lot of They had to do a very very intense too surgeries. I believe it was multiple surgeries and he was only had a little more in a year. So yeah, eighteen months out with a wrist injury for Bandido, and then this rear Ripley will be out for an undisclosed amount of time.
They did an angle on NXT where she showed up because she's friends with Zaria, and I believe she even said that she knew Zaria's dad. And this, by the way, is a slow build to Zaria going to the main roster to eventually feud with Rehea Ripley. So kind of planning some seeds right now, that's the long term, but you know, she was there wishing all the baby faces luck. And then they cut outside a little later and there's
Live Morgan and Raquel. They're walking off the set with you know, baseball bats or whatever, and they zoom in and there's Rhea Ripley covered in blood. Yes they're doing bloody, and I'm sure was fake Halloween blood, but she's all bloody and laid out and dead. And apparently she suffered a broken or I guess fractured orbital bone, and this was the angle to write her off for a while. So she actually, I mean she did a storyline a
little bit. I mean she did the appearance earlier in the show, so I mean you can't really see it, but I mean, I cracked my arbital bone in it sucks. So she's out of action for a while, and that was a storyline injury to put her out of action, So when she'll be back, I don't know, maybe able to wrestle with one of those face masks on. I guess we shall see. And speaking of liv Morgan has signed a new five year deal with WWE. She wants to stay with WWE as long as the company will
have her. She was on Logan Paul's podcast and talked about a lot of things, including signing a new five year deal. My five year plan is WWE, she said, that's my five year plan. So she has re signed, and apparently elsewhere in that interview, she talked about I forget why she was arrested, but it was I don't know, six eight months ago, maybe a year ago or whatever, and she said that when she took the mugshot, the officer taking the mugshot said, this mugshot is going to
go viral. It's one of the best I've ever taken, or something to that effect. So talked about that on the podcast as well. Then we've got a couple of notes on WWEID which every time I bring this up, everybody comes out of the woodwork. But thankfully I've begun just blocking people on the twitch chat to thus not to be distracted by rampant stupidity. But as noted yesterday,
there's probably around eight was what I was told. Around eight people are already under WWEID deals, and this has been in place for several months now, the beginning of this program, and everybody's asking like, well, what happens with this, what happens with that? So essentially the guides with WWE ID deals at this point are free agents, and so they're able to wrestle where they want, they can do jobs.
They're free agents. But the situation is, if for example, AW comes knocking or TNA or whoever, if they get an offer from another company because they are under ID deals, they have to report this to WWE. And at that point WWE can either say, all right, we're offering you a full time developmental deal you're moving to Florida or eventually Vegas, or they can say you're free to negotiate
with these other companies and sign there. So essentially this ID deal, you know, the wrestlers get a small amount of money to uh work on their their appearance and everything. But also they w W has right of first refusal for contract offers. But they are free agents other than the I D designation they can wrestle wherever they want. They can do jobs, but contract offers have to be uh brought up with the w W E and hey, who's here doing jobs?
No?
Finally, finally, are you don't tell me? What's his name?
Dang it?
What's that guy's name in w CW that had the mask with the goggles on it? Who was that? No, not Clo.
Who had the goggles?
Who are you? Are you hooving tude Mysterio? It's an old Ray Mysterio mask. Yes, Raysteria has more masks than mill Maskris, whose literal gimmick is man of a thousand masks.
Ray's got a million.
Much better, Mike, that's much better.
Yeah, thank you.
Hey, and you know you made some money by not having to work for ten minutes here.
That's true.
You missed a lot of very exciting news about injuries and such.
Oh no, I don't want to hear anything more about injuries. Thank you.
But when we come back, you're gonna be able to talk a little bit about the super Coolo.
Thank you.
Ah, I thought you were super Kello.
Oh man, what happened to him? I don't know, But did super Kolo? No he didn't. Who was the one who was Silver King right, who won the uh who won the on a pole match and then stole Lex Luger's cap.
I think that might have been Silver King. All right back in a moment, we'll do Dynamite and then we have a special guest.
Observer Live Got the Magic King, got the Magic Baby from the Ghost snap.
Awsome dressed up magic magic magic magic magic magic.
You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez and Mike simperviv on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
Whoever's doing the tweets today, we have a shot at me and Mike. I need a new one put up on Twitter. There we go.
Oh that's a new mask. Now you're mystico. Yes, and you know what, I have an announcement to make. I don't know if people have heard this or not have seen this or not, but I am the NWA Historic Middleweight Champions I now.
You vacated that exactly, and That's what.
I'm going to do right now. I'm going to take this belt and dump it in this trash can. Oh right there, horrible, horrible. I'm ready for more action in MLW and New Japan Pro wrestling.
Brian Rose made a great comment, which is it right now? It's Ricky Morton and Mystico, which is an incredible tag team. He said, Ray Mysterio, But I guess that was in the in the last Either way, that would be an incredible tag team.
I see right now, see it was? It was before it was Ray Mysterio and Bobby Eaton. Now it's Mystico and uh Bobby Eaton.
Yeah, that's kind of what I don't know about Bobby Eaton. This This is definitely more Ricky Morton, I think. All right, we got to talk about some highlights from the UH from the Dynamite show. Let's start with the UH. Let's start with the best thing on the show, which was Young Bucks versus Private Party tag team titles Private Party must split up forever if they don't win. And my god, speaking of Ricky Morton, you know it's gonna seem like an Odalian, but I must put myself over myself and
filthy Tom wrestled the Rock and Roll Express. That's right, we wrestled the Rock and Roll Express Ricky and Robert and granted we didn't win, but for fifteen minutes of that black Label pro show, we turned it back the clock. And I bring it up because I watched this match and listen, I was there and Wrestle Dream. Okay, I was there in the crowd. I watched the Young Bucks versus Private Party at Wrestle Dream and it was like
it was like a really good match. But when it was over, it was like, yeah, it was a really good match, But was it like an all timer, like an all time great Young Bucks?
It was.
I mean, it was just like it was really good. I think I gave it four stars or something. It was like good, It was like really good, but there was just something about it. Then it kept it from that level. It was a I don't know what it was. My god, this match last night, Oh my god. I thought this was way better than the pay per view match.
And granted, it's funny because like there were sixty five hundred people seven thousand somewhere around that in the Tacoma Dome, but you know, they were cheering and everything, but it wasn't like a barn Burger. They had thirty two hundred people, I believe in the show last night, which was a good crowd for a Dynamite and these people were just going nuts during this match, and they just had incredible heat from about five minutes in and they're doing all
of these crazy spots. Everybody looks great. It's probably the best match Private Parties ever had in their lives. And they finally win the titles and the place just fricking exploded and it was like, for twenty minutes, it's like twenty nineteen all over again, Like this was twenty nineteen. Aw stuff right here. Just an incredible match. I mean, everybody look great, crowd's going haywire. It was awesome, absolutely awesome.
And then the Bucks give the belts to a Private Party and they leave, and then they pack their bags and they leave the building and Chris Daniels is trying to stop them, and they're like, nop, this place is pure chaos. We came back and want to try to make this place. Nobody wanted to listen to us. We're out of here. We're working from home, so I don't know they could be back in a week, but I watched this thing and it was like they're gone for
a while. And it's kind of interesting because it's like they're two different universes in aw there's like this John Moxley universe where he's trying to take over the company and like all these babyfaces are just getting murdered every week. And then there's like the other half of aw where like none of this even exists, like Swerves there, but he's dealing with the hurt business and this and that, and the Young Bucks are kind of right in the middle.
They don't want to be involved, but like they're they're at least acknowledging that this is going on. And I watched it and I thought, Okay, well, they're gonna go home for a while, and then the day's gonna come where they return to try to save AW as Babyfaces. But the problem is there's another universe where they've got an issue with Kenny Omega, who's gonna be coming back soon,
and he ain't coming back as a heel. So I'm not sure what's going to happen in terms of what the Young Bucks are going to be doing when they come back. Are they coming back to feud as heels with Omega or are they gonna come back and reunite and like be conquering Babyfaces. I have no idea, but I think they're gone for a while. But that was the best thing on the show by miles.
Easily, easily, And even if you didn't like the post match stuff when it came to the deal afterwards when they left, that's fine, but it was by far the best thing on the show, right It was probably the best private party match that they've had since the last time they faced the Young Bucks, or really back in twenty nineteen when they debuted and nationally, you know, came on the scene against the Young Bucks. I and for Matt Jackson to have a separated shoulder and granted the
different Lord Nick Jackson to have a separated shoulder. Again. Granted, there's different severities to this, and I don't think it's too bad, but the fact that he's been working like that and the match was that good and you really wouldn't know.
Both matches, the pay per view match as well.
Yeah, so hopefully he didn't make it any worse. It's something that he's probably gonna be out a couple of weeks for. That's one of the reasons I'm sure they're
kind of stepping away right now. But you're right, it's gonna be interesting to see how all of these worlds collide together and then move the entire project of product forward, because we are going to need to have some sort of tie in here at some point, because once Orange Cassidy is out of the way, sure we have Moxley and Darby Allen, but what about the rest of that
group and how it fits into everything else. At some point, you figure they're going to have to come across the hurt business, and that's going to be interesting.
The thing with I don't know exactly how bad his separated shoulder is, but when I separated both of mine, and when I separated the one that was the worst, like I couldn't even lift the bar, Like I couldn't bench the bar, which is forty five pounds. Not one time. I couldn't mention it one time. It hurts so bad, but like I could do normal things in life. And I believe because I remember because at the pay per view Matt, Matt got pinned, okay, and I had somebody
ask me. They were like, does Nick ever do jobs? Because it's always Matt, And I had noticed that Matt was usually the guy that did jobs, but I knew that he wasn't the only one because I remembered there was a time when Nick got pined and I remembered it because it was unusual. Okay, so you know, Matt did the job in the in the pay per view match, and I was asking around, you know, like someone's asking
me this question, like how come? And as it turns out, Nick was supposed to do the job in the pay per view match, but the finish they had he couldn't lift the guy because of his shoulder, and so Matt ended up doing it and he ended up getting pinned. But if you watch last night, Nick did his job. So anyway, there's there's no conspiracy. Nick does do jobs for the Young Bucks, but for whatever reason, I think Matt really likes doing jobs for some reason.
And you know what's gonna be interesting too, is what role will Jack Perry play as things going along? Because it seems to me that absolutely you get omeg it back together with the Bucks and you have a force
that's gonna try to fight back against this group. Obviously you would have a Boushey tied into that, and you have Okada there who everybody wants to cheer anyway, But when he comes to Jack Perry, would he be a part of that or is he more served maybe being towards Moxley or a line closer to Moxley, or as a loaner. What about Hangman Page as well too. That's gonna be interesting to see how they might fit in a mix where once Omega comes back.
And then the main event was Shelton Benjamin and Swerve. And if you've listened to interviews with Swerve, I mean the guy loves Shelton Benjamin. And if you have not listened to interviews with Swerve, all you have to do is watch this match to realize he loves Shelton Benjamin. Because Shelton took like ninety five percent of this match. I mean, Swerve just sold and sold and sold, and Shelton looked great. He's just thrown this dude around. This is like one of the best working forty nine year
olds you'll ever see. You never know he was forty nine years old if you showed some rando this match. And Swerve did eventually win with the Swerve stomp, and then yes, Bobby Lashley debuted, I got a big pop, came down to the ring, and the hurt business murdered poor Prince Nana and Swerve and I presume this was literally the exact angle. I can't say for sure, but this is my presumption. I presume this was the exact thing they were gonna do in Tacoma, because they were
gonna do this in Tacoma. I don't know if it was this exact, but the idea was they were gonna kill Swerve in Tacoma. And then eventually it was sort of like, wait a second, we're killing Brian Danielson in Tacoma. We should We're gonna kill Swerve also in Tacoma, And so the decision was made, no, we will not kill all the hometown babyfaces in this town. And they held
it off until until this show. And honestly, honestly, you know, Tacoma was Swerve's first match back, his first appearance back, I believe, since he lost the title and so to be gone for like weeks and weeks and weeks, and on his first appearance back in his hometown getting murdered,
I think this was way better. He got to come back, he got to be victorious, he got to do some stuff on TV, and now he gets killed, and I think it was better, you know, give MVP showed up first a few weeks Shelton Benjamin shows up, and you don't need Lashley showing up immediately. Several more weeks then Lashley shows up. You know, if you remember like the original nw O, when Hall and Nash showed up at the same time. Haul showed up first, a little while
later Nash shows up. A little while later we get the famous third man. So anyway back in a moment, observerlive.
Got I've got him, got him.
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If you were listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez and Mike Simperviv on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
Back of the show. Bright Alvarez here Wrestling Observer Live. Mike Simperviv also Wrestling Observer dot Com. Very happy today to be joined by our old friend Mario Whittner. We got a lot to talk about, including a new book, which appears to be the first in a series of about nine hundred books. Are you how you doing today?
I'm doing pretty good? And yeah, so the first of about seven hundred and four. I'm sorry if you just heard a motorcycle go off the street behind me.
That's all right. Yes, you have written book one of a series forty years of pay per View, and this is nineteen eighty five through nineteen ninety and the book just came out a couple of days ago. It's available on Amazon dot com. And uh, what in God's name possessed you to watch forty years of pay per views? So it was.
Actually started about a year ago. I realized that twenty twenty five was the forty year anniversary of when Vincikmanhn started putting wrestling pay per views on and it just kind of snowballed from there. It was originally going to be a podcasting project. But then I realized, nobody listens to my podcast now, so while they listened to it then, So it since I came to that realization after I'd already written like twenty year thirty shows. I'm like, let's
turn this into a book, and here we are. And I released it Monday, the day before my fortieth birthday, which was the goal.
The day before your fortieth birthday. Yes, that means you are now forty.
Yes, it does go Wait, my goal for a long time was just to make it to forty eight. Now then I got there. Man, it's all gravy after that.
Your goal was to make it to forty.
It was tough. I had some stretches there.
Wow.
So so forty years of pay per view, meaning this all begins the year you were born.
The year after I was born in eighty four.
But yes, I see, Okay, I guess that's how birthdays worked down, doesn't it?
All?
Right?
So what is the what is the the ID?
Here?
We talking all pay per views? So eventually we're gonna get like Heroes of Wrestling and the weekly pay per views for TNA.
Yes, oh, in this book is the AWA super Clash three pay per view. That's the only non WWF slash NWA show from that period. But the next one, which is tentatively ninety one through ninety four, you have the LPWA show, you have herb Abrams UWF. You have a whole bunch of wonderful non big two pay per views coming up down the line.
So you are going to review every single pay per view from any company that has ever existed in professionals.
Collide and you got that one, Yes with an asterisk on the every single pay per view ever because it has to be a limit somewhere, so like no eye pay per views, because I'd be here nice, you know, my grandkids would need to do this.
So it must it must air on traditional pay per view.
Correct, and it has to have some degree of a national following or at least national clearance. Like WrestleMania one. It was on a handful of shows, but or a handful of pay per view providers, but it was so few that it doesn't even register. So I note that in the book that I'm not going to review WrestleMania one, like maybe in some future project, but I don't consider that a pay per view.
Interesting. Yeah, that's gonna drive a lot of people crazy, a lot of completionists.
Oh, my friend and co host Trey, it's driven him crazy already.
Wow. Well, we have to have rules right exactly, Yes.
Including like UWFi into that too, or big you know, shoulder wrestling pay per views that were a big deal at the time.
As long as it aired in the United States, either live or did a good job of pretending to be live, like SummerSlam ninety two or UWFi, they'll be on the list.
So now, the title of the book is forty Years of pay per View, Book one, So I guess that means you have decided that the cutoff is going to be twenty twenty five four.
Honestly, I never really thought that far. I just thought it was a cute title.
I just read your title.
Or you forced me to like put out like ten books or twelve books in the next year and a half.
I've forced an end date. Yes, yes, forty years of pay per View eighty five through ninety God how many pay per views were in this first book, thirty thirty so thank god.
It was originally going to be eighty five through eighty nine, and then the next one was going to be ninety through ninety four, but that ninety to ninety four period has a load of shows, so I cut off ninety and added it onto the first chat of the first book.
Okay, I mean this with all due respect. Did you think this out when you started?
Yes?
Ish, okay, because you mentioned you mentioned how many pay per views are in book one thirty Okay, that's like a year nowadays, right.
It's a it's a year in two thousand because it's between WWF WW andw this thirty one.
Oh my god. So you're gonna have to go year by year here pretty soon.
I haven't quite gotten that far, but yet, especially in that ninety nine two thousand period, it's probably gonna be twelve to eighteen months.
Well, you gotta think about this too. Once you get to the weekly pay per views with TNA, you're gonna have to do like three books per year.
For that. I'm thinking of just doing the TNA shows as one book, and so all of.
The pay per views are just one book, like the TNA pay per view years.
Just the TNA weekly shows as one book, and then ww and whomever else from like two thousand and two to two thousand and four. Ish.
I'm trying to think if I would want to read a book that just recapped all of the TNA weekly pay per views. There's part of me that we're like there, like I would never ever read that book, and then there's that other part of me that thinks, I have to read that book.
Wow, I have. I have actually been watching them for my for my Wednesday show with my co host Cindy, and where we've almost reached the point where you and Vinnie and Sean gave up, and at least the last two weeks have been pretty good, but the next week is the week that you gave up. So I'm kind of curious just.
How bad it is.
Oh God, Aria.
I was a big boxing fan my entire life, and I was always fascinated with pay per view and close circuit and things like that. I've done a lot of research on it. So when the idea came for TNA to do weekly pay per views, even though it was found out to be a complete disaster of an idea, I was interested in it, especially because there really was no other American wrestling at the time unless you were a tape trader or buying VHS tapes DVDs, so TNA was actually an interesting thing a concept to me at
the start. But one of the things I also liked about pay per view was finding the numbers and things like that. Are you going to have that added in as far as buy rates and dollars and maybe some of the crazy things that happened. Obviously more crazy things happened in boxing when it came to pay per views and putting them on, but wrestling there's been plenty of those cases as well. Are you going to give a little bit of a backstory and some stats when it comes to these pay per views?
Oh, definitely, every show. It's not just like me saying, oh, Wrestlania four first Match Battle Royal, No, it's like Wrestling four. Here's all the crazy stuff happening in the world that's happened since the last thoty of pay per view. Here's how this show is done, and how it compares to the last show they did and the last WrestleMania and
any fun little story. And I bring up Wrestlemany four just because my favorite passage that I wrote in the book was the Wrestlingia four passage, because that's the show that went head to head to the clash of the Champions, and I basically wrote on this day it was one of the greatest shows of all time. It created a brand new star and had some of the best matches you'll ever see. And this is the story of the other show that happened.
That day, brutal. And then you rate all the matches, right, but not on a five star scale.
Parrect I've always preferred the zero to ten scale, my grand scale. Yes, pretty much, yes, And I tell you, like, if it makes it feel better, just cut it in half and say that's how many stars. It is interesting, you know, And I do tell but at the end of the day, if you disagree with my opinion about how good a match or a show was, that's great. Like life would be pretty boring if we all had the same opinion.
Now, let me ask you this question, because a lot of I don't even know what age it would be, maybe maybe somewhat younger than us. A lot of fans I guess younger than me. You know, they think of like, well, you know, the eighties NWA was awesome and WWF sucked. But and I've gone back and watched a lot of that mid eighties stuff and a lot of whole Cogan matches like on Saturday Night's main event, and it's not
that bad. Some of it is bad, but like I mean some of this stuff with like Hogan until about like nineteen eighty eight, I mean, he would just kill it in these main events, not not so much the Andre match, but like other matches, and like you had Randy Savage and Ricky the Dragon Steamboat and Cowboy Bob Orton, and like there were some freakin good matches in the mid eighties and WWF, but people kind of remember the really horrible stuff and I think start to fixate on
like the real late eighties and early nineties when there was a lot of terrible stuff.
Oh definitely. And I mean at the end of the book, I put like the top ten overall ratings of all the shows during this period, and three of the top five shows are WWF shows. And so it's not like, oh, it's all just gonna be NWA shows, you know, It's no, it's likes had a lot of good stuff, just it's easier to remember the bad stuff sometimes, or it's easy to paint it with a giant brush. And I know
you're bringing up the WWF, but like Lex Luger. He is so underrated during this period, it's not even funny. And I know he's wrestling Flair and Steambone and Pilm and et cetera. But you know something, it takes two to have a great match. Takes one to have a good match, but two to have a great match.
Well, you know, it's funny. I have I have watched a fair amount of of mid eighties and WA, and I have rewatched all of the Monday Night Wars, and I really haven't rewatched like nineteen ninety through nineteen ninety four NWAWCW. But I mean, I mean, I mean I thought the same thing, like Luger always got kind of
a bad rap. But I watched him during the Monday Night Wars, and this guy was so over and they never pulled the trigger on him, like they would give him a big win and then they would take it away and they would focus on other people, and it was like, dude, this guy is like he's right on the cusp and they never pulled the trigger. And yeah, watching a lot of the uh, you know, I watched a lot of the mid eighties NWA, and I'm waiting to see like horrible X Luger, but some of his
interviews were kind of boring. He'd go on forever. But as far as like matches, I mean, he wasn't bad at all. In fact, he was often good.
No, and I think it was the motorcycle wreck and also just in general going to the WWF where he realized he could get by by doing a lot less.
I think one of the other issues with Luger too, in the moment when we had Tully and Arn and Flair and Sting was at a different Luger just he never Unfortunately, he never got the shot in the NWA because when he should have, when the belt after Sting got hurt, Blair didn't want to get the belt to him, and that's probably when he should have won it. And yes, you go into eighty nine he turns heel on steamboat.
He was actually really really good and told pretty much the time he left to go to the WWF.
All right, stand by back in the moment with more Wrestling Observer Live, Baby soopsticks, long.
Letter.
You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez and Mike Semperviv on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
Man, everybody here in the chat says, it's Looch's gimmicks really working for you. Mike, you may be the next ex Caliber.
Don't insult me like that, although again, covering up my face more. That's that's, that's what it's about for these people. I do look better when you don't see me.
Well.
We are joined by Aria Witner forty years of Pay per View Book one of eighty nine, nineteen eighty five through nineteen ninety available on Amazon dot Com. It says your paperback. Is it only paperback?
No?
You can also get it on Kindle, Elk, Kindle unlimited.
Oh wow, I have Kindle unlimited. Wow. You'll need Kindle Unlimited to read this entire series.
Yes, you do. And by the way, since I've just discovered the economics of Amazon, if you get it on Kindle Limited and hate it, do me a favor and just slip through the entire book books. Did you get paid by the number of pages people read?
Wow?
I did not know that.
I did not here's it all until I had to look it up.
I'm going to write a really long book with one word on each page. That's my that's my that's my idea. Get some plugs in here for your book and everything else you're doing.
But it's forty years of pay per view book one nineteen eighty five through nineteen ninety. It's available on Amazon. It's one of the I don't want to say best selling, but it's one of the hottest new releases right now in the pro wrestling market. If you want to hear what else I have to say, check out the Something Else podcast network, available on almost all your favorite streaming platforms. Just don't listen to it at work because we tend to go off on some rrated tangents.
You mean, don't listen with speaker on pretty much. Yes, well, don't worry. Nobody listening to any of these shows ever listens on speaker. It would be a bad idea.
Ario.
I want to thank you so much for doing the show today. Best of luck, and we'll see you about ninety two times in the future when new books come out.
Sound good, sound Thank you so much.
Thanks so much, and of course thanks everybody for listening. Have I happy all away everybody. We'll talk to you next time. Wrestling Observer Live. You have been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network