NXT Report/WWE NIL News

tell you, but that's long story. But the story continues today. As my children have given me their illness stricken. I am here today, damn, and I'm here for you all. And I got a lot to talk about here today. And we've got a special co host will be joining us in the next segment. Jim Valley is returning here to the program him today. Let see how Jim Valley is doing. We'll talk all of the news, and boy, we got plenty of news talk about here today. I

wouldn't hear yesterday. I think Mike got all of the news. I'm gonna let him. He handled the raw report. I don't think I need to do it again. But I can do the n x T two point oh report today because a lot of stuff happening on that show, and it was he go home show for the WrestleMania weekend,

and so yeah, we'll get into that here today. I a WS tonight as well for Dynamite, and I have a lot to say when it as it pertains to n x T and an article that came out ESPN w W talking about their N I L deals and everything. I mean, it's not like I haven't talked about this before, but I watched n x T last night, I read this article and I was like, holy smokes, whatever, not my company. But we'll tell you about that here today.

Shane McMahon, it's going to be around for WrestleMania. I know now everybody's expecting that he is going to be the the opponent of seth Rawlins, and hey, listen, until it happens, nothing is official, but I do expect it's still seth Rawlins versus Cody at WrestleMania. But it is interesting to the the original seth Rawlings opponent for WrestleMania was Shane McMahon. I've got raw ratings showed it a huge number for the go home show on Monday night,

and a bunch of other stuff as well. There's so much to get into. We won't get into all of it, but you know what we're gonna try. So I'm back in a moment with more Observer Live back in the show. Brian Albert is here wrestling Observer Live. Mike Simper Baby not joining us here today. Instead we have Jim Valley and Jim, I gotta ask you a couple of questions, but then I had the epiphany to end all. Epiphany is the greatest idea I've ever had in my lifetime. Yeah,

how are you, Jim? What's going on? Great? I'm fantastic. It's great to be back. I missed everybody. What's going on? Well, let me just start. It's been so long as I've been on the show. I have literally been waiting years to show you this. As people might remember, I would show up at your house in the studio there with you, yes pret COVID, and for some reason you started noticing that I was wearing different T shirts all the time

and you didn't wear the same shirt every day. It was weird, and you gave me the name Shorty V based on member Chad Gable Shorty V. That's so long it's been And I've had this shirt literally waiting for years for you, Brian, and here it is. You ready, I'm ready for you. It's the Roddy Piper all out of Bubblegum John not a they lived t shirt. Wow. You know I remember meeting Roddy once and he was all out of bubblegum. That was a rough time out of a lot of things. So so, Jim, I mean,

can we tell people what today is all about? Or or are we just gonna uh, we can talk about whatever you want. Well, are you thinking of making a big comeback here Saturdays? So here's what I'm thinking. I think that as far as my voice goes, honestly, it was never great and and I appreciate the YouTube comments for telling me that. But you know, this is probably about as good as it's going to get. And I think my lung capacity is enough that I'm not taking

breaths constantly. Course I did that before anyway, But I'm gonna try this, see how this feels, and if this works, then let's let's come back. And if there's a better time than Wrestlemany. It just feels like if this is as good it's gonna get, then this is the time to make the move when everything's happening. So you're thinking about this coming Saturday, WrestleManias Saturday, making a big return

to the Byline airwaves. If Byline has the people and we have the technology, I have been rebuilt, let's let's make it happen again. Well, we'll see what I can figure out during the break. Right here, I probably should ask again if if this sounds terrible to people, I don't want to do it. I'll just you know, who cares about the people, Jim, don't listen to these nerds, especially the ones on the YouTube chat. Ignore him. They bought my T shirts, they donated to my go fund,

But now I love the the empire. Well, listen, I gotta get into my idea here, Jim, we can ship chat more later. I was just thinking about this during the break. Is it only fans? So listen, I'm gonna start by reading this article. Shane McMahon will be in Dallas for Wrestle Meny weekend. According to a report People Are You Inside reports ww is bringing mcamahon in for the entire Mania weekend, his first time back with the companies, is being phased out following this year's Royal Rumble event.

Report does not state whether or not they're recruiting of plans for McMahon, or even if he will appear on either night of WrestleMania. Justin he will be in town and is being brought in by Deputy w W E. McMahon was originally penciled in for a WrestleMania about against seth Rawlins and a spot in the elimination Chamber match in Saudi Arabian February, but was sent away after unprofessional conduct at the Royal Rumble, including talking down to producer

Jamie Noble. According to our reporting in the February seventh edition of The Observer, Dave wrote every single story we've heard, multiple multiple lined many times over, he was unprofessional, the likes of which left v k M no options but to fire him. And there's a whole bunch more here you can read on the front page of Rustling Observer dot com. But boy, did this ever get me thinking? And this is not a finished idea because I literally just came up with it during the break, but I

started thinking about this a little bit. So what do we know. Well, we know that seth Rawlins does not have an opponent for WrestleMania. We know that the original opponent for seth Rawlins was going to be Shane McMahon. We know that Shane McMahon was I don't know if fired is the right word, but he was sent home. All plans for Shane McMahon were out the window. They were not gonna do anything with him. He was gone.

And then we also know that Cody left a w and I just believed the Cody is signed, sealed and delivered with w W E And at least as of several days ago, the plans were still that it was going to be Cody versus seth Rawlins at WrestleMania. So this is all we got all this, that's where we are when this story came out. So of course, when this story broke that Shane is uh. Essentially what's happened is they bought plane tickets for Shane McMahon. We don't

know anything other than that. We just know that he's got tickets to go to to Dallas. So this of course got everyone thinking, oh my god, can you imagine maybe the thing with Cody fell through and it's actually

gonna be Shane McMahon versus Seth Rawlins. And then you know they're thinking about can you imagine if like Seth is in the ring and everyone's chanting Cody's name, and then they hit Shane McMahon's music and it's actually Shane McMahon versus Cody, And I'm trying to imagine what the the Dallas crowd would do if that was the actual match of If that's you know, they're all expecting one matching to get the other, one would be like an

incredible heat and everything like that. Then I was saying, you know what they can do for heat is they just play Shane's music, but that's like Cody's new theme song. And you know Cody, he's got signed from a W so he's got all this money, money, money, And then I thought, you know what the storyline can be that Shane they bring they bring Seth down to the ring,

they do, in fact, hit Shane McMahon's music. Shane McMahon starts coming down to the ring, the place is furious because it's Shane McMahon, and then of course Shane grabs the mike and announces that he is in fact brought in the A E W E V P. It would be just like in two thousand one when Vince was going to announced that he bought World champions pressing, but the storyline Shane showed up and he had purchased World

Championship bressling. It would be playing off that Tony con prom with it did a few weeks ago, where Tony said, uh, you know, I purchased a Ring of Honor. It wasn't Shane, because I was playing off two thousand one. Well, it turns out on storyline, Shane McMahon is so angry that he was sent home from the Royal Rumble and fired that he went out and he has started his own group.

And the first sign he is Cody, and him and Cody are showing up to invade, and of course they beat seth Rons and they beat him down, and uh, you know, we'd have to get some other folks to uh, some former a W folks to show up in this, uh this deal. But I think there's a way that you can make this work. I don't think at all that they're gonna do it, but I just started thinking about it during the break when everyone was thinking about Oh,

I'd be so mad if they he played Shane's music. Ah, they'd be furious if it was Shane versus Seth instead. So I think that there's a way that this could be done. You're missing a key part. What is that, Jim, That's why my face just turned white? How often has w w E in the past used a surrogate character to make fun of somebody else? Well, I mean they actually they actually did it with Robert Stone and x T when for a while he was supposed to be

Tony Cohn. So Shane McMahon becomes Tony Kahn, and they're going to position him like a money mark and doing you know, hiring and just whatever stereotypes you want to say about the perception of Tony Cohn is the owner of a w that they may have. And suddenly Shane McMahon epitomizes what they want people to think of Tony

Cohn and becomes that character. So Shane McMahon is playing the role of Tony Khan, bringing in an executive vice president from the outside to take out all these and he's he's an idiot with his money and he hires the wrong people and the people that hires are are like comedy people. I'm just these are just things are coming off top of my head. Probably people in the twitch chat could think of ideas like that, but they would use Shane McMahon to mock Tony Cohn and he

would be de facto Tony khn Man. We'll see what happens on I hope not. I think here's what I think. I think Shane is just gonna be the referee. He'll either be the referee for um Pat McAfee his match or he'll be the referee for Seth's match. And that way Seth can beat Cody because you've got a cheating ref or McAfee can lose because the McMahon screwed him out of his match with Austin theory. Well, they have

announced that. By the way, it's official. The main event of Night one is going to be the Cho Show. We talked about this a couple of days ago, and yeah, have I missed something. I thought it was very weird. We hold that thought. Hold that thought, Jim, we're actually up against the break. I think there's more to the main event that meets the eye. Stand by. We'll talk more. Observer Live. All right, what's your question, Jim Valley here on Observer Live. What Oh? Sorry, I was just watching

Roman Talcohol. She's sleeping at Cork and Hall. Sorry. Um. So here's my thought on the Go Home Romo by Roman Reigns on RAW. I thought it was very odd that he mentioned Steve Austin. Why what he mentioned Steve Austin. There's no reason to mention Roman did, and it just seemed very odd to me that he would do that. And I'm wondering much like this show, the test for me is WrestleMania and the Chao show a test for

Steve Austin. And maybe if Rock isn't available for l A, what other big match does Roman half or if this is the test, maybe we do Summer Slim. If you heard anything like that with Steve Alston, it just seemed really odd that he would mention Steve Austin for no reason.

I I I would be I mean, listen Steve Austin at this point, and I suppose maybe they could do the angle listit up a match, But I mean if I if if a if a weapon were put to a tender part of my body and I was asked, do you or do you not think your life is on the line that Steve Auston is going to do a match on Sunday. My life were on the line, I'd say, now there's gonna be the KO Show. Do I think it's possible that they shoot an angle to

do a match on Sunday? Yes, but I do think that you know, we had We've been talking about this for a while. They wanted Steve Boston to do a wrestling match with Kevin Owens, and it was all up to Steve Auston what he was going to do. And my, my, big, my big clue here is when Steve Aouston did the promo accepting that he was going to be on the KO Show, he actually said in his promo, you can call this a confrontation, a brawl, a match, whatever you

want to call it. That to me was him acknowledging that you know this is gonna be your physical thing, but you guys ain't getting a match. And I just have this like it's it's them relying on on Rock showing up next year to to do WrestleMania. That to me is a big enough gamble and if you can't get the Rock, I mean, this is an even bigger and gamble with Stone Cold Like he doesn't even seem he doesn't appear committed now to even doing a short

match with Kevin Owens. So I I would be very very surprised if he had said to them, you know, well, let's uh, let's let's let's pencil it in for next year, because to me, if he's even willing for them to pencil it in for next year, then he would do like a three minute match with Kevin Owens, or even you know, you brawl or whatever, you do some punches, you go into the concourse, you do some punches there,

you punch your way back to the ring. You know, Kevin Owens goes for the stun or whatever, you reversing your own stunner pin him. I mean, I'm sure Steve Buston could do that, but it looks like he's not even willing to do that. So I think it was just coincidence. I think they probably told everybody. You know, I'll make sure you mentioned that Steve Aoston's gonna be at WrestleMania because we're only at sixty thousand tickets for one of these nights. That's my guess, may be right,

I just thought it was odd that mentioned him. Well, the one thing I will say about Raw is that people are very interested in this go home show for WrestleMania. The go home show one point nine eight million viewers, A point five five and eighteen to forty nine. The first two hours topped two million viewers, although they did have a fairly significant third hour drop. Male eighteen to

forty and we're almost identical to the week before. But for whatever reason, female numbers up thirty four percent from last week and extra seventy thousand women tuned in this week. I don't know why were they anticipating proposals in the seven segment right did a point four one in eighteen forty nine two point three one for a women's basketball game. There was an n C double a women's basketball tournament game on ESPN. Then, for whatever reason, the women chose

to watch Raw in larger numbers. In this women's basketball game, Raw was second in women eighty nine below behind below Deck three hours, two point oh five million viewers in the first hour, two point one oh million viewers in the second hour, and then the Giant plunged one point seven nine million viewers in the third hour. So these were the best raw numbers. I think it was since last August. So you know, people interested in seeing what's on the wrestle Menia card. What are the big angles.

I mean, hopefully the raw after wrestle Menia does very well, and I guess we'll see. I don't think it's the beginning of a boom period here, but those are some good numbers. I hope we have some thing big plan for after WrestleMania. And it's not just hey, look, used the same card, but now we're hitting people with sticks at extreme rules. It's always that it used to be WrestleMania was the end of the year, and then it became the middle and it was like, let's rehash the

matches we already rehashed. And if they want to keep these numbers up, they've got to have something exciting and new and compelling. And hopefully Cody and whatever they have next and Drew mcintyg for SummerSlam, whatever happens, they have

something big. We've got Dynamite coming up tonight with h we got John Moxley versus j Lethal, which I presume is going to continue the j Lethal losing streak as he gets more and more frustrated with being unable to win the big ones Darby Allen Versus Andrawda, which they've actually been setting up for quite a while. FTR faces the Gun Club, which is furthering the FTR baby face turn. We've got a Women's Own Heart Foundation tournament qualifying match.

You have to win a qualifying match to be in a tournament, as opposed to just having a larger tournament. Bunny will be facing a new A E W signy. Is it the former Tony Storm, Is it's Athena the former Ember Moon or is it somebody else? And just added And I'm sure you can probably all figure out why I'm based on the Academy Awards this past weekend. See him Punk will be facing Max Castor, who will have a pre match rap. Can't wait to hear that one. I wonder where he's gonna rap about. I'm sure he's

gonna rhyme rap with something would be my guess. We'll see what rhymes with Smith and rock. We can easily rhyme slap. Yeah. So anyway, that's the A W Show tonight. Of course, last night we had an A T two point Oh. I can talk about that after the break. Did you see the show, Jim Man, Well, we'll get to the review, but first off, we do have the full lineup for the show that they've got coming up

over WrestleMania weekend. And this is the show that for me and Jim airs at nine am Saturday on WrestleMania Saturday. So no, i will not be watching this show live because I'm spending the morning with my family, because I'm spending zero afternoon or evening with my family. So we got Dolves Ziggler versus Braun Breaker for the n x T title. We got Imperium versus The Creed Brothers versus MSK for the n x T Tag team titles. Mandy Rose versus Cora Jade Um, It's Mandy Rose. Cora Jade

is an old card. It's a four way now. Leo Sharai and Kaylee Ray also in that match. Whoever wrote the front page article fix that one? Tomasso Chop and Tony di'angelo l a Night versus Gunter Carmelos Santos Escobar, Grayson Waller Solo Sakoa Cameron Grimes in a letter match

for the next Team North American title. And remember when Eo Sharai and Kaylee Ray won that Women's Dusty, and they won the Women's Dusty, and traditionally they should be getting a take team championship match and instead and it's actually it makes sense in storyline because in storyline, nobody wanted to be in this tournament, Like everybody was desperate to find partners, and nobody wanted to be in the tournament. So in storyline, they finally got enough women to do

a small tournament. And then the two women that win, Eo and Kaylee, who didn't want to be in the tournament, now they don't want the tag team titles, so they totally blow off the Tag Team champions and they say we want to be added to the women's match and making a four way and stand and deliver. And so you know, on the show, I pointed out Lee talk about burying the tag Team champions and not wanting the belts at all, and you know, Cora Jade should be angry,

but she's not. That doesn't make any sense. And then all I heard was, well, Brian, obviously j C. Jane is injured. She's hurt, so they can't do a tag team match. That's why they did this. I remember I heard that, I remember hearing how wrong I was. Well, last night they announced that, in fact, J C. Jane and G. G. Dolan are working this weekend. They're on

the kickoff show. They're wrestling. They'll be facing of all people, hated rivals who are now just suddenly friends again, Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez with the n x T women Tag Team championships on the line. Why do you think of this line up? Jim or A, Nicki, Lions and Last Legend are They made it clear that's after after Okay, next week's Brother for the Best. Um. I think it'll be a good show. I think there'll be lots of

good matches. I mean there's a ton of talent on n x T. I mean obviously they're setting up this WrestleMania for Braun Breaker, and you know, for as far as the other titles go, honestly, it's pretty much a toss up. I would imagine that Talks and Contraction, it's gotta probably continue their reign of terror a little while longer, at least that's what it feels like. But the men's titles really could go anywhere. So that's the line up

for Saturday. And yeah, if you're talking about this for a while, this pro wrestling is like it's it's uh, it's very much. Uh. I would say it's a popular niche with each promotion having their own niche group of fans and uh, those fans being super served. So if you're a w w E fan, man, what is Saturday?

You're gonna have nine am, the Nude n x T get a couple of hours to do, I don't know whatever, and then uh, four and a half hours of WrestleMania Live and haf of the free show back in the moment x T report was over live back in the show. Bright now bur is here, Wrestling Observer Live, Jim Valley joining is here today and yes, everyone, it is official Saturday. You know at the beginning of the show, I say

we're here every day. Well we are now here every day again, Jim Monday through Friday, myself like semper v V Saturday, ten o'clock am Pacific one Eastern. Jim Valley returns this weekend, going head to head with n x T and of course andrews Arian on Sunday's Excited me back Jim, Yes, so I didn't realize n x teas at the same time. Can I cancel? Nope, damn No, that'll be great. I'm looking I can do live play by play. Brother, Look, give me something to do. Put

it on the background. Tell us what's happening on this show. Tell us how long the video packages are? Just that kind of time. I look at an hour. Hey, listen, I'm gonna I gotta go through this. Uh. I don't want to take away of your time, Jim, but I gotta get into this. I'm gonna go over this n x T report. Feel free to jump in if you want to, but I need to get over this report because I got something I gotta read from ESPN and I got to talk about it, So let's keep going.

It opened up with Imperium Gunter, Marcel Bartel and Phoebe Nightner beating l A. Knight and MSK in a six man tag and of course Imperium or the tag team champions, and I could not help but notice that they won it. They pined Nash Carter. So there's a number of potential reasons for that, and we can talk about that this weekend. But Imperium got the win there. I thought it was a very good match. Hard to not have a good match.

The only downside was the fans who hate MSK and they hate the name gun Thur and so they're just gonna it whatever they want and it takes away from the matches and uh, you know, local chance on the national show whatever. Not my favorite, but there you go. We had Kaylee and EO bickering backstage, which was ridiculous because you know, Kayley goes, you know, the best woman is gonna win, and so EO goes, Yeah, it's gonna

be me, and Kayley has completely taken Aback. I can't believe that you would say that you're better than me. As some of these backstage interviews, Brother Holy smokes. Dakota Kai found Wendy Choose a pillow all torn up backstage. She's now missing because on n x T people go missing regularly. We had Ivy Nile. It's been what like two weeks since a kidnapping story. Yeah, they they were due a kidnapping wrestling kidnapping. Ivy Nile b Tiffany Stratton.

They practiced this match NonStop for a week and it's fine. I mean it only went like maybe two and a half three minutes, but they didn't screw anything up. I mean, it's this not really how you learn how to work, but I mean, if you're gonna be doing one show a week and it's gonna be on national television, you do what you gotta do. And Ivy Nile beat her after a distraction from Sarai, So, uh, you know, it's fine. Everything you'd expect out of a w w E match. Short,

choreographed distraction finish. That's next t two point Now we had a chop a promo, right goes you know, everyone thinks it might be the end this weekend for Tomaso chomping and next and then literally at the end of the thing, he folds up a chair and it says, uh, September April, So I guess he's done after this weekend.

We had a we had we had video package with Ziggler and braun Breakers are very good building up the main event storyline is, you know, braun Breakers a hard working, tough guys first in, last out, works his ass off, lives, breathe in xt Ziggler is a guy from the main roster that flies in, does this stuff and gets out as quickly as possible, does care. You know, he's the big superstar. Everybody wants talk to him. Nobody wants talked about bron Breaker and the you know, as they do

all of the media and everything like that. Maybe because the media knows are not allowed to ask Broun Breaker about his dad. I never thought about that, but that might be why. But they were good. Briggs and Jensen faced Legatodell Phantasma and they won and it was all right. And uh, all I can really add about this is, uh Brooks Jensen, who's gimmick as he's a virgin nerd. This character is not getting him over. Nobody cared when he was getting beaten on. But hey, I gotta keep

giving these guys personalities, even if they're of dorks. Indian Persia did a absolutely comically horrific interview segment backstage. They're gonna do some sort of thing at the show. Fans are gonna vote about what couples hotter awful, holy small, terrible acting. I was waiting for someone to deliver a pizza. Acting was really bad. Yeah, people are confused here. You guys don't watch an x T two point oh his gimmick because he's a virgin nerd, that's his gimmick. I'm

not even being like sarcastic. That's actually his gimmick. He's never been with a woman. He admits it, and he's a total nerd. That's his gimmick. What do you want me to do about it? Then we had Toxic Attraction doing a promo about the show on Sunday, and UH and j C and j C Jane and Gie Dolan are out there, and Dakota Kai comes to the ring

because they beat up Wendy Chew. They all beat her up, and then Raquel Gonzalez, of all people, make the same and then Raquel and Dakota, who had a blood feud, a blood feud with two hated rivals, they square off and they hug and their friends and they're facing j C and Gig on set her day, Von Wagner beat Body Hayward. And they had this new woman out there watching and they actually said her name this time. Her name is um Help me out, Jim, what's her name? God?

I don't remember. It doesn't matter. It'll matter when she's on the main roster in about three weeks, but it doesn't matter now. Then we had Joe Gazzy beating Draco Anthony. This was a horror. What's her name? It's not Bluxton pungs Ley stop and it's not fell in heavily either. Go Lee you people anyway, Uh, Joe Gazy, Draco Anthony was not good at all. God blessed Draco Anthony. I'm

sure he's a great guy. But when you look at like the n x T two point oh rostro on national television as far as like the number one greenest person who absolutely is not ready for TV, God bless him. It's Draco Anthony. And they botched the first spot and it was off to the races from there and Joe Gacy one crowd was absolutely dead and it went a

long long time. Nikita Lions beat Sloane Jacob's quickly. It's funny is when I saw the name Sloan Jacobs, I thought it's a pretty normal name, nothing weird about it. Then I say it and I'm like, Sloan Jacobs is her name. She lost to Nikita Lions and then lash Legend appeared on the Titan shron and they have unfinished

business to settle after standing deliver. I hope they've been practicing this one for about a month, because that could be mean Nikita Lions has a lot of strikes, so I'm hopeful that that will be good for lash Legend, that she can just sell strikes as opposed to something else because she's it's amazing to be. It really speaks to how difficult wrestling is as a craft, as an art form. Seriously, a world class athlete like lash Legend can't grasp it yet, that she can't just pick it up.

And I'm not ripping on lash Legend. I'm just saying, you know, we're I'm sure she respects the craft, but people watching should also respect the craft the fact that someone of her athletic ability and pedigree can't just pick it up. Sophia Cromwell, by the way, I'll talk about that in a second, gim because I got more to say. It sounds like they're a cop show in the seventhies basically. Then the main event was Cameron Grimes a Kid and

Roderick's strong triple thread match. Cameron Grimes one match was great. I know you're surprised, and that brings us to what I want to talk about. Rushed through this because I gotta talk about this. So I thought this show was was It was pretty good. You know what you're getting when you watch n x T two point. Now we know what I couldn't help. But notice for like the eightieth time, Well, what was the headline match? Cameron Grimes, longtime worker, a kid, longtime worker. Well, given how long

he's been doing it. Roderick's strong, really long time worker, and they had, you know, a fantastic match. What was the other really good match? Oh, we had Imperium, which consists of Volter, longtime great worker, Marcel and Fabian and l A. Night and Nash Car all workers. They went out there and they just had a tremendous opener, and then we had a great main event, and uh, then what else do we have? Ivy Iveland, Ivy Nile and Tiffany Stratton. It's all right when they practiced for an

entire week and went two minutes. And then you know Brooks and Jensen. I mean that was all right because you had Legato del phantasm in there, but I mean, Briggs and Brooks, they're not bringing a whole lot to the table at this point. And then von Wagner and Body Hayward was just it existed. Joe Gacy and Draco Anthony was like aggressively not good. It was you know, that would have been a bad match on any shows I used to work on, and it was on national television.

And the same thing the Nikita Lyons and Loan Jacob's longtime practice match squash a minute, and that's it. So I'm watching this this show, and it's like, it's so obvious what the best things on this show are and what the worst things on the show are. And the best things on the show are the things involving professional wrestlers, people experienced in professional wrestling here on this professional wrestling show.

And the worst stuff is the volleyball players and the basketball players and the gymnasts and the football players and the people that lift weights who are now being asked way too early to be pro wrestlers on national television. So then I read this article. It's on the front page of Wrestling Observer dot com. An interview with ESPN and focusing on their n i L program and specifically

college football players. Senior Vice President of Global Talents Edge Development, James Kimball talked about how they're focusing on young talent to sign, especially in athletics, and gave interesting insights to whether they're looking for. We would like the age number to come down, especially on the developmental standpoint, the second you enter our developmental program and then potentially end up on an x T and then on a our SmackDown. We want that number to be twenty five, not thirty

or thirty five. Never mind whether you're a good athlete, which we gotta you gotta be young, otherwise you're just we're not gonna look at you. He says. Uh, they're sporting athletes who are looking to achieve their college goals before coming to w W. E even if you come to w W and that's a significant improvement or over what has historically been the case with some of our developmental talent. Like all these you know wrestlers have showed up they were too old even though they could wrestle.

We're able to develop them in an accelerated manner. Get them. We're able to develop them in an accelerated manner. Get them to WrestleMania or raw, do media training, community events, all these initial exposures to the business. Those are done when you're still in school. Then you go to Orlando and off you go. What is their wish list for for signees? They want you to be physical, look, size, athleticism, strength and personality, public speaking, charismic character, range, willingness to

be coached. Like, you know, I don't know who this guy is, Kimball. Who is this guy? What's his name? James Kimball. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but you know what he isn't he's not a pro wrestler and uh and so he's he's like I'm sure been indoctrinated in the w w E and this idea that, hey, Kimball, you know, we need young athletes that are good athletes, and we don't want him older, and we don't want

him to have any wrestling experience. We want to be good looking and athletic, and then we will rush them to n x T and the main roster and they're to be ready to go. Do we have any evidence that this has ever worked yet? I mean, I know you could probably say, well, brun Breaker pro brun Breakers, a second generation pro wrestler. He grew up with the Steiners. Do we have any evidence and this has worked one time? And now this is like the whole recruitment process. We

don't want any pro wrestlers never mind. On our developmental show, the only good stuff involves pro wrestlers. But we've got to get all these athletes, because man, we can teach anybody to wrestle fast, just get him in there and rush them through. They're already that's what they're saying here. We knew this, but now they're saying it anyway. Sorry, you have hold on hold that thought live, Yes, Jim, Brian, Yeah, Saturday, Yes, ten o'clock. Yes, Sports Byline dead head to head with

n XT. We'll see if we can. I don't know. Am I gonna be on Twitch? I don't know. Yeah, of course you are. Why wouldn't you go? So then we'll have all the Twitch homies, all the chat and all the fun. And I just want people to know. Do you want to know why I'm coming back, Brian? Because no one ever retires, Jim that, And it's because of the fans. It's because of each and every one of you. Well, I'm sure to the crowd turns in a circle. I'm sure the f four W universe right now,

Jim is chanting. You deserve it, Yes, hashtag because of the fans, Brian, because of the fans. Wait a second, you're supposed to be a baby face. It's the heels that say it's because of the fans. But that was my chemmick. I've I've trademarked that for years. Every month when somebody turns because of the fans, people always hashtag because of the fans. Well, that's that's the one heel promo that they've got. It's because of you fans. It's right,

because of the fans. So ten o'clock Saturday Morning Wrestling Observer Live. By the way, that's ten Pacific, yes, one eastern, thank you, Yes for most of you. Most of you is gonna be one o'clock. Most of you is just gonna download it. But yes, no, no, did you not read the chatting and watching an x T two point now? Right? So I want people in the chat and we'll have some fun. That's the plant everybody. We're now back every day, and I guess I gotta probably you know, talk to

the other folks. We got a lot of people we gotta talk to when things change, and I forget most of them half the time, so I apologize. But anyway, operation it is a big operation, much much larger than myself. And I also do this because of you fans. And we're at a time. Him Wan do I think, Jim, Mike Dom, Callers and listeners, everybody the studio. It's talk to you next time, Wrestling Observer Live. You have been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network