RAW After Wrestlemania/Top Heel Kevin Owens

al right show. We had a wait three hours for Roman Reigns to tell us that he would tell us what was going on on the next show. That was interesting, and I always see what's going on? What's chat talking about? A I asked myself as the show begins, what what about Raw or any of the news. What's really what's really getting their conversation going? And of all things, it's Elias, of all things, So I guess we got to talk about Elias today. You guys know the story of this

Elias bloke. Remember Elias, Remember he played that guitar and then uh and then he did those vignettes and he said that Elias was dead. Long live Elias, and this was like nine months ago or something crazy, and then he just vanished off television forever. We never saw him again. And then they cut a whole bunch of people, but they didn't cut Alias, and I was like, where's this

Elias guy at there's nowhere to be seen. And then last night on Raw, Kevin Owens is doing a promo top hell Kevin Owens, I might add, and he's interrupted by Elias, who has shaved his face and does not have a guitar. And this this new Elias, he looks like somebody like straight out of you know, w WF like a job guy from Superstars of Wrestling about just got you know, long hair, you know, big dude, totally generic looking, generic trunks, everything it comes out and coming

out and says, uh, what are you doing here? Elias Lisase, I'm not Alias. I mean Lias's brother Ezekiel. He's playing his own brother. So anyway we can talk about this compelling storyline and everything else that went down on rob We got Wrestle media Weekend business notes. We got a lot of news. We'll get into it after the break. Wrestling Observer Live back in the show. Brain Eva is here Wrestling Observer Live Mike and for v B also Wrestling Observer dot Com. I can't. I can't believe this

is the top story today. That's all everyone was talking about. Ezekiel. So listen. I got a text during the break from producer Rob. If you guys are aware of Rob, Producer Rob, but he's he's regularly wrong, and he goes here, you don't like the Ezekiel storyline. I'm shocked. Shocked, I say, I never said I didn't like the storyline. In fact, I can't even say whether I like the storyline or not because there is no storyline right now. We have

a guy who's claiming he's his own brother. Now, listen, I once saw this storyline and of all places, t n A where you had the monster Abyss, and then one day his brother Joe Park showed up. Okay, dude, this storyline was awesome. But there's a big difference. Okay, there's a big difference. Yeah, Park Park and Park he was he was an attorney, Joe Park. So the problem, the problem here the guys don't seem to realize is Abyss was a masked monster and he had a mask

with a long haired wig sewn into it. Okay, So when he was gonna be Joe Park he took the mask off and he combed his hair and he you know, put his glasses spectacles on, and he was all goofy and uh. He could play two characters. And it was fun because you know, you were sitting there thinking, Okay, am I supposed to believe that there actually are two people here? Or am I supposed to believe that Joe park is pretending to be his brother? But he's actually

Abyss without his mask on? And then you do a bunch of storylines from there. Elias doesn't wear a mask. His mask was he had a beard, So like, where are we going here? Like, you know, Ezekiel is gonna come out here and do some stuff and then he's gonna put on a fake beard, like a Santa beard with the thing, and then you know, play some guitar or whatever, and you know he's gonna be Elias that

day and then he'll take it off. I mean, you know, maybe they can make it so campy at work, but you're already it's already not gonna work the same way it did with Joe Park. An Abyss, but I mean Abiss does work for w w E, So I mean, you know, maybe he made this suggestion and uh and way we go. But I mean maybe they have some

other grand plan. I mean, if you had had Caine member, when Caine had the mask and then they unmasked him, like if they would have done it then before they had masked him, like he had his mask on and his long hair, and then one day Mayor Glenn showed up and he wore a suit and he had a shaved head or whatever, and he, you know, talk politics, and you really wanted to get rid of this big red monster because it was like, you know, hurting his political career that you know, his brother was like a

crazed arsonist or something like that. That'd be one thing. But we got an unmasked guy who's now praining as his own unmasked How do you make this work? What do you mean? I don't know what they're gonna do. Maybe I'll love it, but so far, I'm like, what is this? You really could have pushed it with the Kane storyline, because you could have had his brother him join up his past as the unibomb and in O

v W could have been brought up. But this is this is right out of a daytime folding the Beautiful, Young and the Restless General hospital sort of thing. Character Lee comes back. No that's not me. Well yeah, but there's no one cares that he left. No one even

remembered he was gone. I mean, it'd be one thing if you know, a sudden Randy Orton disappears and then some long haired guy shows up and he says he's his own brother or something like that, or Barry or maybe he let it grow out and it got all puffy and he claimed he with his own father. I'm about Randy, I'm cowboy Bob. He could have showed them with a cast on. I got ideas, but I'm not sure about this one. Anyway. I gotta let it play out right. We got a lot of other stuff that

we gotta get into it. Trust me. Is more important than that name though, because it was Ezekiel Jackson was the less Ezekiel. And ww's about that name. Yeah, you know in the Bible, this Ezekiel fella. He saw this, this this vision that all the the UFO folks think was a UFO. So maybe the story could be that Elias was abducted and they brought down his Eikiel. That's where he's at. Anyway, I got a story to tell y'all. It's not really a story, but so, uh, here's a

n x T tonight. This is the line of for n x T. We got Raquel and Dakota against Toxic Attraction. Toxic Attraction lost the belts, and they're getting an immediate rematch because we got a lot of immediate rematches I've noticed lately, even though anyway, we're gonna hear from the North American Champion, Cameron Grimes, Nikita Lions versus Lash Legend

is tonight and the fallout from Standing Deliver. So on Saturday, we had the standard deliver and it was Ziggler versus braun Breaker, and braun Breaker was defeated by Dolph Ziggler. And that afternoon I I heard from someone who's close to folks and n x T and I know a lot about what's going on there, and they said, you know, it looks like Ziggler is gonna be champion for a while.

This was Saturday, Okay, So then Sunday or Monday, uh, at about eleven thirty or so, I I heard actually from several people that we're gonna have uh n x T title change on the show tonight. One person said n XT title changed tonight, and the other person specified that it was gonna be uh braun Breaker beating Dolve Ziggler to win the title back on Raw, which is

why I said everything that I the said yesterday. So, uh so I watched the show and they do braun Breaker and Dolve Ziggler, and braun Breaker defeats Dolph Ziggler and he wins the NXT Championship. He's a new champion,

He's won the belt. So I continue watching the show and everything like that, and then about forty five minutes later, they have a commercial for an x T, and the commercial for n x T, the whole commercial it's about how dolves Bagler beat braun Breaker and we're gonna get the fallout on n x T, which, oddly enough, they said n x T tonight at nine o'clock, so not only it was tomorrow's commercial that they aired on the wrong day, and the commercial that they had had been

created with the idea that Ziggler was still the champion. So anyway, it's the usual, you know, Oh, Brian and navy chain plans change what a compount bro They changed this plan, and we have all evidence. All evidence points to on Saturday Dolphin was gonna be the champion for a while, and by Monday he had already lost the belt to braun Breaker on Rock. I think it is

my theory. I think that on Saturday the idea was we are going to beat braun Breaker and then he's gonna be called up to the main roster on the Raw after WrestleMania, and then I don't know, you know what happened over the next day or so. Maybe someone was like, dude, can we have him for like six more months? You know, maybe you know what it might

have been. Maybe they watched that Omas match and they were like, we don't want to call anybody up to early, even braun Breaker, so let's leave him down there for a while, and instead of calling him up, we'll give him a big win on Raw. You know, hey, everyone, here's his braun Breaker. Fella. Oh, he gets a big win, wins a championship on Raw, y'all cheer and everything like that, and then he he stays on n x T for

a while. So I don't know what the whole mindset was of everything that happened, but clearly there was a change of plans this weekend and Brun Breakers back as the champion, and uh, he's gonna be I guess on the show, which I think is actually tonight. Unlike what they told me on Raw last night. It doesn't kill my feelings that he's back in n x T at all.

It doesn't, but I just don't. I don't know. In another world in common sense, he's only been wrestling for what officially six months, he's been in their program for and so yeah, I mean, him staying down there for another year in theory is going to make him a better wrestler, a better worker, but that also depends on what they're teaching him, what they want him to do, who he's working with. And it's like bron Breaker on

the main roster. I mean, there's all these things that in theory could go bad, but it's like him on the main roster makes a lot more sense than let's say, oh, I don't know Gable Stevenson debuting on the main roster, as opposed to really now taking bron Breaker's place in n x T and having Braun up on the main roster there they finally debuted Vier. You have Cody showing up, You've now re debuted alias as Ezekiel. There's obviously these

Postmania changes that get made. Bron Breaker now to me would be a great time for him to be up there, but they again, for whatever reason, he's back down in n x D. I guess he's going to continue on with Dolphin Bobby Rude, which you know that's helped them as far as refreshing them. But again, it surprises me that they would want on down there for really any extended period of time. But yet they're still, as far as I know, wanting to debut Gable Stevenson on the

main roster. Back in a moment, Bros. Observer Live back in the show Bright now Vera is here, Wrestling Observer Live Mix, sumbur Vid also Wrestling Observer dot Com. I'm gonna do this raw report here real quick, then we'll talk about it. There's a lot to talk about. So it opened up with a Cody Rhodes promo and uh, he did a great promo, a w style promo, and he acknowledged that he had been swear He said it was an easy decision to come here send a multi

year deal vance chanted you deserve it. And then he told a story about a photo that they had in their house, Dusty had in his house of a match at Madison Square Garden September ninete. Dusty's holding the belt over his head, and Cody notes he held the belt, but he never actually won it because he won the match via count out, and the title cannot change hands via count out, and so he said it was the belt at Hogan Undertaker Michael's Triple h and many other

had had held. And he said his father was a hero and he had vowed that someday he was going to get that belt and he was going to hand it to his father, but his father died, so he can no longer hand of the belt to his father. But he can win that belt and strap it around his own waist for himself, for the fans, and for

his family. So that's the storyline. Cody's goal is to win the w w E championship that his father never won, and there's a lot of ways that you can do this, right, There's also a lot of ways you can I mean, he's gonna win the title eventually, but I feel like there's a way they could do and it would be awesome, and there's a way the way they could just do it. So we'll see which one they choose, but I know which one I'm leading towards. I hope for the other.

We had a non title match. This was absolutely positively classic w w E. It is champions Sasha Banks and Naomi versus Ria Ripley and Live Morrigan, but it is a non title match. Sasha Banks and Naomi versus Rhea and Live in a non title match ends when Live Morrigan is pinned clean in the middle of the ring by the champions. Ria has been with one geek partner after another. She can take no more. She is upset and she just storms to the back. Later, Live goes

up there. She says, what was that all about? It seems pretty self explainatory to me. Marie says, you know what, I'm sorry. I was frustrated, but I have spoken Adam Pierce and Sony Deville and they have granted us a championship match next week. So they lost a non title match clean in the middle of the ring to lead to a championship match a next week's show. When a Kevin Owens segment this was the return or the debut

of Elias Slash Ezekiel, however you want to determine. It appears they will be having a match or something from Stone Cold Steve Austin in the main event of WrestleMania to Ezekiel, the Man Is defeated Dominic Mysterie You in thirty one seconds clean with the skull crushing finale thirty one seconds clean in the middle, and then Veer debuted and he beat up Dominic and he beat up Ray and next week he will kill the legendary Ray Mysterio Jr. On Monday Night Raw you hatt a Bianca bell Air promo.

I thought Bianca was awesome, but you know what, Nobody wants Becky Lynch to be a heel. They've never wanted Becky Lynch to be a heel. They've always wanted her to be a baby face. And so Bianca's here talking about Becky and there are people booing her, there are people chanting for Becky Lynch, and bro get these two away from each other. Immediately, get them away from each other.

Move Becky on to somebody else, and move be or yeah, move Becky to somebody else and move Bianca onto some heel that people aren't gonna so that you can actually get over as the baby face, because the irony is that everything that Becky complains about is a hell is what's actually happening for real with Bianca Miller. So get

them away from each other the sooner the better. For the love of God, braun Breaker beat delve Ziggler to win the NXT title ten minutes, no heat, but they did pop big for the finish because they got to see a championship change. You know, we've got an audience that, uh, you know that they're not watching n x T two point oh so, and who is except for me. We had a Bobby lash Lee m v P segment. This was also classic Deva viewee. You had a group called

the Hurt Business. They were the coolest group in all of raw or SmackDown. You had m v P, you had Bobby Lashly, you had Shelton, Benjamin, Cedric, Alexander. So what do they do. They break off Sheldon Cedric, then they reunite them and no one cares, and they break them up again, and no one because no one even knows what's going on. But you at least had Lashly who's not a great pro momo and m v P, who's an awesome promo. Well, they have a match in

Mania with Bobby lash Len Omas. It absolutely sucks. Omas is incapable of having a good match. All people can talk about is at the very least, I don't want to see when get fired, But you gotta send the guy back to developmental or something not w w E. No, Bobby Lashly comes out, he does a promo which is not very good, and then Omas comes out and m v P turns on Bobby Lashly and now m v

P is managing O Moss against Bobby Lashly. You know, there's an old saying accentuate the strengths and uh, you know, don't expose everyone's weaknesses. This is this is like, this is idiot proof. W w either making so much money it doesn't matter, but you have literally done everything wrong with everybody involved in this whole scenario. Great, now we've got m v P and Omas. I'm also have bad matches, Lashly do bad promos. Then we had Zelene and Carmela.

They're supposed to face Natty and Shana, but Carmela dances all the way down to the ring. The good commercials. She dances during the whole commercial break. Apparently they come back and Selene is just sick of this dancing turns on her. I hate you. It's all it's all about you. Your husband's an idiot for marrying you. But boy, he's a handon and I'm like, oh my god. Now Corey Graves is a sex symbol all the women want. Carmela gets mad. I'm so like, I cannot wait for them

to get married. I cannot wait. He's leaving. Thank god, she's leaving. Get off my television. This is the ultimate go away. He did it. I tolerated it for long enough. I can't take it anymore. Thankfully they're leaving, and Jerry Lawler is replacing Corey Graves for a while. I yea it is. I hope, like Carl Listen, Corey Grays, when he's just a commentator, is better than Jerry Lawler. But now he's not a commentator. He's a part of the storyline. The women are fighting over him. He's got a pander

to his I'm over it. Get out of here for a while. Like, honest to god, I wish them nothing but the best, and I hope that they can pay for like a six month honeymoon and then they can come back and start over again, and like it's over, this is over. I got it, you're married. I don't care anymore. CALLI. I think you're handsome. Corey Jimminey Christmas. Then we had Austin Theory USO's versus Finnbalor Ran Jordan Riddle.

I don't know if they like think that Finnbaler is leaving or something, but I mean they're just beating him like a drum. Austin Theory pins him for about the eighth time, because you know Austin theory is and they even said it on TV. He is Vince's new chosen one because Vince always has to find a handsome guy with a good physique who can work. But then he's got to go beat everybody that works better than he does, and everybody turns on him and hates the guy and

they think he's being shoved down there. This is classic, classic w w E. That's what we're seeing here. Edge and Damian Priest segment fans just mocking them throughout this segment. Edge is now uh the old seth rawlins Messiah Gimmick. I'm gonna be brooding and do uh, you know, very generic monotone promos. Damian Priest is, uh, you know, it's it's it's literally it's a Jericho appreciation society, but it's Edge and Damian Priest is, I don't know, I want

a two point oh. But anyway, fans are chanting, you know, we don't care, and then Edge goes, of course you don't care, you're you're idiots, and they chant we are idiots. Whatever, it'll be better next week they won't have this crowd. And then a Stiles comes out and they beat him up and they're gonna give him the concerto. But thank Lee for once in in anyone's life the guy has actually come out to save a j And then we get a chant for Jamie Noble, who was the only

over guy in the segment on this raw. After WrestleMania, we had the Street Province versus Alpha Academy. I mean, it was all right, but it's one of those matches where they're all in the ring together as a Texas Tornado match, so they're like falling on each other and they're in everybody's way. This would have been a thousand times better it's just a tag match, but after WrestleMania, we gotta do something wacky. And then uh Ford pinned

Gable splashed him through a table. It's a good finish, and I mean, they worked hard, but I think this could have been better. And then the main event of the show is a Roman Reigins segment. Roman Rains comes out, he goes, I know what you guys want to hear about, but let's mix it up a little. Paul tell everyone

how great I am. Isn't that every Roman promo? So Paul tells us how great he is and all of the business records that have been set under Roman reigns, and then he gives them Mike to Roman Reigns, and Roman says, you know, after what I did at WrestleMania unified these idols be brock lesner some men. Some men would call it a career, but not me. I am a progressive tribal chief. He says. Perhaps he's running for office. And he says, I'm gonna tell you guys what's next

on SmackDown. And then they all go like this, and then the fans, I'll go like this. Roman was over his total baby face. They weren't even mad that he wasn't gonna tell tonight. They were like cool SmackDown and that's how the show ended. So there you go. I was not blown away by this raw. I just wasn't. It didn't suck, but it was not the raw after WrestleMania we've seen in the past. That was more of a raw hangover type of deally because again he wasn't.

It wasn't an awful show at all. Uh, some of the monotony of those seeing WrestleMania footage in there as opposed to some of the long, grown out stuff that they usually do. Again, it was okay, and I guess we can get into a little bit more of it. We'll get more do with Mike after the break. Everybody hold that funt Observer live back in the show. Brian Elba is here Wrestling Observer Alive. Mike Sumberviv also of

Wrestling Observer dot Com. Hey, listen, we can talk about RAF to wrestle meeting and all that kind of stuff. Let's talk about some actual, real important stuff very quickly. I am man enough to admit when I am wrong, and no, anyway, the great old Cohn is being honored for having saved a girl from an assault. This is the greatest story. On the evening of March twenty nine, Con reportedly subdued and in he breeded sixty one year old man who had grabbed a ten year old girl

by both shoulders. Conde see the man harassing the girl before stepping into intervene. Incident took place out side JR. Musashi Kosugi station in Kawasaki City. Nakara Police honored Great o Kan Monday, April four with a letter of appreciation for his efforts. He told Tokyo Sports the recognition was more valuable to him than a championship belt, if I

recall correctly. When the police showed up and they asked him who he was, he responded, I am the Great Okon of New Japan Pro Wrestling right there, and then I think later they he was interviewed or something like that, and he got in a plug for the TV show This guy's this guy is a real deal. I ever said anything bad about the Great o'con, I apologize, but I mean he's still not the best worker in New Japan. Let's not. Nobody ever said, listen, this is what you

will to understand. I am able to I am able to separate real life from this business, unlike some people. Okay, and listen, I wish nothing but health and happiness and prosperity to for example, to miss. I hope that when he goes home like his wife and his children and his family and his father, and I will be as a wonderful life with all sincerity. Absolutely the same with everybody. Okay. Now, he's a wrestler, horrible. He wrestles like he's underwater. He

was outshined by Logan Paul. But these are different things. Some people don't understand that. Okay. So like the Great O'con, I can't say enough great things about about this person. Now is wrestler. You know, he still got a little ways to go, but he's you know, he's had some good man. Here's the thing with Great o'con. Okay, I'm talking about the Great o'con. The Great o'kan is everybody in wrestling. When the Great o'con doesn't match where he has to go in there and like wrestle like an

amateur wrestler, it's great. But then when he has to go in there and you know, do all though whatever and ah, and not as great. You gotta work to a person's strengths and and you know, and avoid their weaknesses. How many times do we say this, Mike? So Anyway, in this case though, aren't you really wanting to blame Jotto though? Because the reality is a lot of guys they go on their excursions, they come back. Is something.

What we've seen under Jatto and and their Ghato and Jotto, I guess really both of them, we've seen guys come back as characters. There was a heavy emphasis on characters. That's why we got great Ocon, That's why we got Master Watteau, That's why we got Evil in all caps.

That's why we've gotten those things. So, I mean, it certainly gave him a personality, but I think people really, maybe even you, really judged him more on the character and him coming back, knowing if you watch New Japan that there was going to be a lot more development taking place, which is why he's with will As Spray and why he's with Jeff Cobb. That you know. Again, I think the character, and I don't know you have seen him. You have just not liked him from day one.

You wanted to make fun of the I did not like him. I I thought that he badly overrating his his matches. But who are these people that badly overrated his matches? Because you have people on your own website that have shows like The Adam and like Big Audio Nightmare that talked about his progression and what they were doing with him and where they wanted him. And you looked at him and it's like, that guy is never gonna be world champion, and it's like, can we give

it some time? Here? Can we give it a little bit of time? And here's the thing, it's not five years into his career. I've talked to countless people who work for New Japan and they'll tell you the same thing. We're giving it how much time we've got, and that's it. You know, one tells us how to work. No one tells us what to do in the match, like they go out there and they do that on their own.

And Great o'con has certain strengths and I believe that he should play to those strengths more because that's the best stuff that I see out of the guy. The guy comes across when he wrestles is like a badass grappler, wrestler, tough guy. That's way better than doing like the goofy gimmicky stuff. That stuff is just like to do that. All that stuff with the Mongolian chops was something that they wanted to give him. And then they obviously wanted to pat into a few that he had with but

the bottom but he didn't book that. Well no, but I didn't blame him for that. But whoever put that few together jimminy Christmas, I'm talking about ghetto by the way, Ghetto ghetto, you know. But they look, they've had, they've had, they've had some pros, and they've had some cons and and you know, I guys remember that storyline by the way with with the Great o'con and tends On, what about it? We don't have to relive it. That's tens

On didn't mo going chops. So they literally built to a match where the where the loser could no longer do Mongolian chops. That was a stipulation. So they do the match, Ocon wins, and then the very next show, ten songs just Mongolian chopping people. They just totally I'm like, what, Yeah, that was his hands up on that. From what I recall it, it didn't make anything. And I don't know, maybe they were trying to push tens On with a foot out the door to officially just be a trainer

and never active. I don't know what the plan was, but whatever was, it went right out the window, and the damn stipulation didn't mean a damn thing. But tomy Yuki Oka is a is a hero at the end of the day. Whether he wants the people to to give the heroicism to the great Ocon doesn't matter. No, it doesn't matter. When he was asked who are you, he said, I am the Great Okon from Japan Professional wrestling. But I'm going to look past that a little bit.

What matters to me is is Oka as a human being, a hero for what he did, and a hero to the wrestling business. Because that's pretty damn old school, you know. It's uh, it's not exactly the same sort of situation. But like Tim Woods MR Wrestling, the original Mr. Wrestling was part of that plane crash where the pilot died, Ric Flair broke his back, Bob Bruggers ended his career, Johnny Valentine's career ended, David Crockett was badly injured in that deal, and when they came to him because here's

a baby face flying with these other heels. I think he said, uh, George Wooden, I can't remember if he gave him his you know, some variation of his you know, Christian name is God given his government name, whatever it is, he gave some sort of variation on that, and you know, save the business in a in a way. So it is a very old school thing to do. It was a and just a very awesome thing to do in the lore that's gonna come out of this for his career.

I mean, it's and and just it's something else. It really is. We have the Ring of Honor, Supercard of Honor, twenty thousand buys. That is not counting anybody that watched on Honor Club like I did, Vinnie did, Dave did. I don't like everyone I know watched it on Honor Club. But apparently there were twenty thousand other people that bought it either streaming or traditional pay per view. And that says a lot for FTR and in the Briscoes, well,

of course it does. But you know it's funny. It's like I could not, for the life of me figuret where to straighten the show at I finally like I'm looking everywhere. I'm looking on Fight and I'm looking uh b R, and I go, maybe it was an Apple TV app or whatever just wasn't coming up. But I

could not find it anywhere. And then finally I just thought, maybe I'll just try Honor clubs that even exist anymore now that Tony bought it, And I click on Honor Club and there was for free because I was a subscriber,

so I watched it there. But anyway, twenty thousand buys and yes, obviously FTR and the Briscoe is a big part of that, But I think that what a lot of it was that, you know, it was Tony Khan's first Ring of Honor show, and he had promised a lot of surprises, and uh, you know, whatever, whatever you think of a w the fact is, you know, some people are down on certain surprises, like, oh, I didn't think the sale of Ring of Honor was a good surprise.

Everything like that, which you're you're welcome to hear the thing. You're welcome to think that you didn't think that that was this that goes back to christian by the way, you are welcome to say I thought that the Ring of Honor announcement was a lame surprise. You are welcome to say I believe that the announcement that we've got a big star, a Hall of Fame caliber wrestler coming, and it ends up being Christian, You have every right to think I was let down by this, Okay, But

here's the difference. Tony con in his mind, he believed what he said, and he believed that he delivered what was in his brain. You know, guys, you guys know what a fan Tony Khan was of Christian. You may think that Christian was just like some bloke that you know, he had some good matches, he was, you know, just part of everything. Tony thought Christian was the greatest. He was a enormous Christian fan. You ever hear on these shows where you know, you could argue he doesn't know

his audience, then that's fine. He he believes that Christian is a Hall of Fame caliber performer and that he delivered on his promise. He believed that his purchase of Ring of Honor was a gigantic story that was going to change the landscape of the business. Now, I don't know if it's gonna end up being that way. We got some evidence he did pretty well for that first show. But this is not like some promoters. I'm going to screw these people. I'm gonna tell me I'm gonna get

a great surprise. I'm gonna give him something that sucks. No, he thought, he thought what he said. If you don't think so, that's fine. I'm not saying you're not allowed to think that. I'm not allowed to You know, you can think whatever you want about any surprise that he promises, whether you felt it delivered or not. But in his mind,

he was delivering that surprise. He's the owner. He's the owner that obviously believes what he's saying, and as a wrestler because he was a fan of Christian but he's also a promoter. And Vince McMahon, Don King, Bob Aram, Joe Goosen, the Douva's. You look at the biggest names and promotion and Dana White in fight history, whether it be boxing or mixed martial arts or K one doesn't matter what it is, Like you wanna I mean, I'm

not saying you want to overdo everything. You want to have levels to your promotion, but like, what would you expect him to do? Well? We got a special announcement tonight. Tune in, don't tune in, because if you like, yeah, that's that's the whole thing. And look there's a you can you can cry wolf. Don King is a great example of that throughout time when he lost Tyson, when he didn't have Chavez, when things kinda went downhill for him, there were a lot of these things that you throw

out there. You pay fifty bucks and you didn't get your money's worth, and you know, but you still need to promote. You still need to make things that may not be that big a little big bigger, put some shine on it so those people that may not know about it, or maybe on the periphery you've got Look, it's just promotion. And I think people bend that little way too far out of the way when it comes to any promotion. Well, that wasn't that big of a deal. Well,

how do you want him to sell it to you? Here? It's not a big deal. I mean it just you know, I think it's silly sometimes and I think people get too caught up in that and it's like, look, it's not gonna always fix your fancy and every time it's not gonna fulfill you every time. You may not think it's the biggest deal in the world, but you know what, there's somebody that might actually think that's the case for somebody. And Christian had a lot of fans. Are people that

love that dude, and he did. It's not just him, There's a lot of people that fit into that. So I don't know. I think sometimes he gets his his cohnis busted too much for just being a promoter, which is what he's supposed to be doing. All right, Listen, we got the raw ratings from Brandon Thurston here the

raw the night after to WrestleMania. They broke two million, two point one million viewers point six three at eighteen to forty nine bear to last week, up six percent in total viewership, up fourteen percent in eighteen to forty nine, Male eighteen to thirty four up sixty eight percent compared to the prior four weeks. People eighteen to thirty four up sixty one percent, Females eighteen to thirty four fifty

eight percent, females eighteen forty eight percent. So we will get the quarter hours I'm sure here in a while. But that's the biggest ROW number I can believe. I can remember in I don't even remember how long it's been a long time back in a moment Observer Life back in the show. Right now is here wrestling Observer Live. Mike's umber viv also wrestling Observe dot Com. You know, I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories, but I

have a conspiracy theory for you all here. Do you know this Ezekiel bloke showed up in city was Lisa's brother, remember that we talked about in any of the show. Well, I believe he's lying. No, yeah, really yeah, how do you know? Well, I'm looking at a picture of him here that showed up on the internet, and uh, it's uncanny. I believe I believe that Ezekiel actually is someone's brother, but he's actually the brother of l A Night. L A. Knight. Once you see it, you ain't gonna be able unsee it.

So there you go. Oh boy, Dave is really going to be upset. That mean we get Ezekiel going down in the next team, we get gun thor and and him next. I wonder where that fits on the Walter scale. I don't know. Maybe we'll have another Walter match tonight. I hope. Do you think Ezekiel is better than the rain, than allies. Oh man, everyone, everyone, everyone's noticing it now. Yeah, you ain't get every year. You'll never unsee it now that you've seen in everybody. He's the brother of l

A Night? Is that the eyes of the upper cheek when I'm thinking he should have he should have come out as l A Day, the brother of l A Night. He should have done They viewed both of them anyway, rut a time. Think Mike has always colors and listeners over the studio. Dr you next time, Wrestling Observer Live. You've been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network