RAW Go Home Show

Bank pay per view just Saturday. I keep getting caught off guard by the Saturday pay per views. I don't like Saturday pay per views, but it's Saturday, and so such as life. So we'll go over the Raw show from last night, line up for Saturday, and so much more. N x T two point oh is tonight. Gotta line up for that show. A lot of segments announced for that show. Seven segments announced. We have got Blood Guts coming up on Wednesday. We have got a w Rampage

SmackDown viewership. And also this the domestic violence case against former w w E n x T and a w wrestler Jake Atlas has been dropped. T M zero Tuesday, Orange County officials canceled a Tuesday hearing following an investigation, which quote, it is the opinion of the writer that this case is not suitable for prosecution. The aforementioned documents

were filed last week. The matter is closed. Twenty seven year old Atlas arrested May domestic violence charges after attacking his boyfriend in an incident that began at an Orlando, Florida bar and continued at a friend's house. Released by police that day, Tuesday was said to be his arraignment. He is recovering from surgery to repair a torn a c L suffered in an early January rampage match against

Adam Cole. Reported earlier this month, he has not expected back in a w where he had just signed before getting hurt. He was not under contract with them, was working on a per appearance schedule, as reported here on Wrestling Observer Live. I might add, so anyway, we've got more news coming up. I love a lot of time for feedback. I think here today, So text us four to five seven eight zero seven five six six. That is four to five seven eight zero seven five six six,

what's on your mind? Back in a moment Observer Live. We saw the boys strike Nobody and the competing it back in the show. Brian Elber is here Wrestling Observer Live. Mike's umber Bev, also of Wrestling Observer dot Com. Well, we're back on the show. I'm gonna wait till the next segment go over raw because I like a lot of time to really go into detail on these raw shows. It was fine John Cena twent anniversary show. We'll get

into that here in a moment. Well, we got a lot of big shows coming up, including everybody's favorite show, n x T two point oh, which this is interesting everybody. I know you guys don't like talk about it, but I'll tell you why. It's interesting because I think most of us who actually watched this show would agree that the last three episodes of n x T we're much better than usual. I think we can all agree on that. You don't have to say they were great, but they

were much better than usual. The last last three weeks. Were they all timers? No? Oh? You know it's funny, as I could have sworn on Observer Radio last night, Dave, he said it was an all time great show. That get you said that they didn't they want to text him and yell him about it. I can't believe it. But anyway, so yes, uh, they were better than usual, which is not an all timer, because I would say that Forbidden Door was closer to an all timer than

better than usual. But anyway, the question is is the show gonna be a better than usual tonight because it's back to being live the last three weeks the show was taped. Is better than usual? Was that because it's been better than usual or because it was taped and they did what they had to do? This show was live. We have got Roxanne Perez and Cora Jade versus Cayden Carter and cut a chance. Oh god, I hope there's no promos for this. Oh God, Indie Heartwell versus Kana James.

Can you see how excited I am for the show tonight? Song will be fair. I gotta review it tomorrow and with video, I gotta review it twice. Bro There Sanga will face Zion Quinn, Giovanni, Vinci will face Ickaman Gio t Keita, Lions returns. Braun Breaker will go face to face with Cameron Grimes and uh Josh Briggs and l Vergino will be addressing their n x T U K Tag Team title win. So that's coming up tonight on

n x T two point oh. And then tomorrow we have got a w Blood and Guts with Chris Jericho, Sammy Gavara, Matt and Angelo, Daniel Garcia and Jake Hager facing John Maxley, Claudio Castanioli, Wheeler Universe, I like call him Claudio Casanioli, Santana Ortiz, and Eddie Kingston. Plus we will have another promo if you didn't get enough last week, everybody, another promo from Christian Cage. There's a lot of fun stuff coming up. Wrestling has been sure fun lately, hasn't

it been, Mike, It has been. Actually, there is enough fun out there. Yeah. I mean, look, regardless of any of the fights and the tribalism and the flag planting and all that sort of thing, if you look hard enough and for right now, you don't have to search high and low. It's pretty much delivered right to your

computer screen with a few clicks. No matter where you want it, there's something out there for you, whether that be w w E, whether that be New Japan and New Japan World, whether that be Wrestle Universe because you really like Makido, so you gotta watch Tokyo Joshi Pro and D D T and Noah, everybody's got a streaming service. Everybody's got something going on right now. It's a summertime for Heaven's sakes. Warrior Wrestling a w g c W defy the I mean the groups in California that are

are hot right now. I mean there's something out or if you want it. You can spend every day online fighting and and bashing people and looking to be offended about things, but when it comes to the end of the day, you can turn this show off. You can turn a lot of things off and just turn your social media off and enjoy the wrestling that you want to enjoy. Why are you telling people to turn our

show off? Like sometime the worst promoter. Sometimes you need to as long as they turn it back on again, and I know you have the ability to turn people back on again. You know it's not doing well right now as a Rampage well Forbidden Door Go Home show thousand viewers and a point one to man this matches Rampages series low in its regular time slot, so this

show is still suffering those preemptions. Dude, you guys realize that a W was moved because the pre Emptions killed them last year, and the same thing is happening here. I think that, uh, you know, Rampages the B Show I love, I love the Matches. I watch it every week. I devote a show to it on Sunday. I like Rampage,

but it's absolutely the B Show. And when you have a B show and then the thing gets preempted over and over and over again, what happens is people get out listen to me, Mike, they get out of the habit, and once you get out of the habit, it's hard to come back. That's why I don't recommend people stop

listening to this show ever. Get it into a habit where every day, no matter what, you listen to this show on Sports Byline on the Mighty or ten ninety on Twitch, on YouTube, on the American Forces Network, on the Cable Radio Network. If that still exists, wherever you're listening to this show, wherever you're listening Apple music sometimes never never, never, no. And if you're a commentator, never take a week off. You will be replaced. You understand, everybody, now,

SmackDown smack Wally. Who you know that is? I know who it is, But what does that have to do with my show? Well, you know, you never a guest today or something. You decide to step out for a minute, and you know, if somebody becomes Lou Garrick and please in two thousand one d thirty consecutive games and takes over your spot, there's another reason not to take off

when you don't need to. Friday Night SmackDown did two point to three one million viewers, which is up six point six percent from the previous week, the second best audience for smack instance April one, although the show did finish second to last among the major networks in terms of total viewers. So you know those people that go, why do you guys talk about the demo all the time? Why you talk about a WS demo and just talk about the viewership. Well, if you want to the showed

it horrible. If you want to talk about the demo, it did great, So maybe we should talk about both, right, it seems like that'd be fair. So anyway, that's the deal, and uh up year over year. So we say this every single time there's there's a renewal coming up if you blow think that this thing ain't gonna make mountains of money on the next television renewal deal. Think again, kids, Think again. I like all the people saying, who are maybe I guess on Vince's side, where it's like there's

a knee jerk reaction. You know, wrestling will never work, you know, publicly owned and even though it's been working for a long time in its own way, in WWS way, and they should really take the company back private again. Yeah, like those billion dollar deals just fall out of the sky, like you know, I mean that sort of stuff. You can not like the product that w w E produces,

but them as a machine, as a company. Sure, if you don't like big business, you can point out all of the flaws that are inside of it, including how they decide to regulate and view their independent contractors as opposed to employees. But it's such a machine, and and any of the hand waving and all that stuff that goes on, it's silly, and it's the a w is

never going to be able to catch up. I shouldn't say never, but it is going to take them a ridiculous amount of time to get the footing to even get remotely close to the level of where WWS at. And it's just one of those things. It's gonna take time. But the monster that ww E is this New New Yorker story from the guy that's writing his autobiography, you know, drudging back up the readA Chatterton story, you know, the

same way. It doesn't look like it's making a move on anything right now, so strong w w E. Well, we also have to UH find out what's going on with old Triple H who uh last week at a meeting at the uh AN n x T and and used the term I'm back, but no one knew what that meant. And Uh, I can tell you by the way that what happened actually last week was he was in he was in town for a birthday party and stopped by. So it was never like I don't think it was like a plan meeting for him to be

there and make an announcement. I think he was there for a birthday, gave the speech and then made the line about I'm back, and then he said he couldn't tell anybody what that meant. So I guess we'll see what happens back at the moment with more observer lives. You geeks telling me you can't hear me over the music, tell me you're complaining about all right. So what I was trying to say these people say they couldn't hear me because the music was playing. I find cut the

music down, thank you. So what I was saying was last week, that Triple Ate story, It's possible it was much a do about nothing because it wasn't a scheduled meeting, like Triple H was in town for a birthday or something like that. He stopped by and talked everybody. He dropped the line about how he was back, and then when he was like I guess, he said he couldn't say why he was back or win or any details.

So that was it. And apparently he's done similar speeches to this in the past, and uh, you know, everything is just pretty much like it's like Moxy's concussion line. I guess kind of. But I mean, who knows, Maybe

he'll be there running the show tonight. But the impression I was given was, you know, he said something and nothing has changed, so I guess we'll like he literally popped in the door like at the place he used to work, like, hey, guys, I'm back, and then somebody, yeah, somebody ran that he didn't show up with a cake. If you report, then he shot up with a cake. You know what you should report. Actually what you should report is he went walking in and he busted open

the doors. And much like Ted Dbasi at that jeweler when he was looking for his million dollar belt, that's how he said I'm back. He came in and busted in. Instead of saying I'm here, he said I'm back. He had a folk, he had a cape on, and he

had Virgil behind him and everything. It was crazy. All right, brother, let me get through this raw report time for that and uh shout up with John Cena showing up and he said, hid everybody in the back, including Drake Maverick, who I believe is now on the creative team for

those of you asking. And then we had a qualifying money in the bank qualifying Battle Royal for the last spot called last chance, and so like after all of these losses, you get one more chance at the end, and after failing, Riddle ended up winning the Battle Royal. So he is in money in the bank. And most of it was your usual nothing happening, boring Battle Royal, but the last few minutes with a j and riddle, and uh, even even the miss and riddle at the

end had a decent little segment. And then finally miss eliminated or got eliminated, and Little is going to money in the bank to potentially win the briefcase, and then he could get another shot at Roman reigns, and given how many people are injured and how few main inventors they have, the probably should win money in the bank. They announced just out of the blue, Kevin Owens Ezekiel not taking place here tonight. Ezekiel was on the show,

and uh, talk to John Cena. So whatever it was, it was something involving Kevin Owens, and apparently he's fine and we'll be back very soon, maybe even by SmackDown Friday. I guess we shall find out. We had a single Sina and the street profits and then uh, the strangest

thing we should talk about the next segment. There were videos from a number of individuals, including The Big Show, Chris Jericho and Brian Danielson, all on raw and these were not archive interviews, were new putting over John Cena's twenty years So we can talk more about that after the break. Montez Ford beat Jay Usso so literally we talked about this weeks ago. They have a tag match. Can you just beat the USOS to set up a tag title match? No, they gotta eke out count out victory.

Then they gotta do a singles match and lose, like nobody believes the Street Profits can win. Well, now all of a sudden they figured out that no one believes the Street Profits can win, and now it's a storyline. The Three Profits are all sad with John Cena, we just can't get any wins over these guys. I'm like, oh,

you finally threw this out, you idiots. So anyway, they finally got a singles match, and now Montez has gotten to win, and last week Dawkins got to win, so they gave him something and route to them losing had

money in the bank. We had a Finnbalor Damian Priest segment with Ray and Dominic where they belittle Ray for being a legend, but his son is a geek and Ray got mad and now we're gonna have a tag match in San Diego next week, and I just have this feeling just like Christian Cagen Jungle Boy, Old Dom's jumping ship. He's gonna join whatever their group is called. What are they called the Evolution? What's the name of the judgment? I remember it like it's a pay per view,

so basically in this case, is dominic there Julia Hart. Yeah, I mean at some point they got to pull the trigger on this bloke. We had a missinterview in the ring, and uh, he said he was gonna team with Logan Paul and actually acknowledge other They're gonna drop it, but they acknowledged Miss laying him out at WrestleMania, and Mrs excuses, Well, you know, I just teach him a lesson. We're gonna win the tag team titles. We're gonna be a team, which may very well happen, which tells you how much

you know. I don't know why they laid out Logan Paul at WrestleMania. Was stupid at the time and it's stupid now. Then we had a j Styles versus the Miss. Oh, what a fun time. We had an Observer radio talking about this one last night. I thought this match was boring as all hell for about ten minutes, but I thought the last three minutes was pretty good. They thought it was horrible. Like from start to finish, but anyway,

it doesn't matter. They had a match and uh a j hits Miss. I'm not even making this up with a high angle brain buster. He lifted this bloke up and dropped the Miss on his head and at that point MS was like, bro, I'm out of here, and he walked to the back and got counted out. Styles bleeding all over. Apparently I have another match, I guess, but I thought the last few minutes were okay. J was great and what we're all surprised at. Miss wasn't very good in the match. That's news now, and we

had It's funny. There was some guy on the board and uh and he goes, man, I watched Raw and when that show was over, to me, there's no way it's John Cena and Theory at SummerSlam. It's like, wait a second, you watched the show and that's the conclusion you came to. Dude. They had a Theory John Cena confrontation. The crowd actually popped for it. Theory runs down John Cena.

John Cena just sits there and listens to him and does these funny facial expressions, and then Theory goes for uh, selfie and seen it disappears and then theories furious about it. How does that not lead to a match? Now, I will say that it was weird because John Cena later comes out for his big speech and literally a speech is well, I you fans are all awesome. Someday I'm gonna be back. I don't know when, but when I do come back, it will be for more than one match.

That was his entire comeback speech that he stretched out over ten minutes. That was weird. We had a segment with Bianca and and Carmela. Hold on, I'll get to you in a middle. Let me get through this. Bianca and Carmela have a segment and Bianca's DNA promo. Carmela comes down to the ring. She has zero credibility as a challenger. She tries to jump Bianca. Bianca sensor packing

that's your go home angle. I was just whatever. I mean, she was never supposed to be in the match, but I mean, this is this is worse than the street profits. We had Alexa Bliss promo with Live Morrigan. The dialogue was, I mean, literally, you can't even say the bottom of the barrel's like the barrel had no bottom, and then then they dug a hole and they dropped the dialogue down there. Essentially, Alexa said that she's gonna beat Live tonight,

and or No Lives said she'd beat Alexa. Alexa didn't believer, and then Live beat her. Live Morgan beat Alexa Bliss with a cradle and just, oh my god, this whole segment, and it was not Live Morrigan's fault, and I wasn't really all his fault. They just give Alexa the worst dialogue imaginable and she tries to deliver it, but it's just it's just horrible. Do you have to hear from the Alexa geeks? Now, get out of here, go listen to another show. I don't want to hear from you.

We have the John Cena promo. Then we had a two on one handicap match Bobby Lashly versus both of Alpha Academy with Theory as the as a special enforcer. Bobby beat him both submitted. Uh, I guess it was Gable with a hurt lock, and then Theory tried to attack him afterwards and lastly beat him up three and one. So they're doing a hell of a job with Lashly and quite frankly. I mean, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if if Lashly one. Because John Cena is

not gonna win the US title. I guess it's possible that their idea is that Theory beats John Cena, which if that's the case, you may as well leave the title on Austin Theory. And I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was the idea, that Theory is gonna beat Sena. But there's also you know, it's w W E, so you know Theory can get the rub losing to John Cena. But anyway, Cody Rhodes interview in the gym, he's board senseless, having to do all this rehab, but he talked about

money in the bank. He talked about all the wrestlers, and he said, you know what if U if Seth wins that money in the bank briefcase and wins the title, I'll be the first to congratulate him. The story is that he might have been able to do money in the bank with a torn pack, but because Seth rollings hit him with a crowbar or a sledgehammer, now he's out nine months. So they're putting all the heat on seth Rawlins for for that injury, and then the main

of it. It was a money the Bank qualifying elimination match Becky Lynch, Anziale, Nikki, Shana Tomina and do Drop. This is the main event a Raw. Becky's eliminating blowcats right and left and just getting the biggest baby face reaction because you know she should be a baby face, but like they just have to have her be a heel and they have to have seth Rawlins and his stupid laugh be a heel. But man, she's just beating all of them, crowds going nuts. She finally wins the match,

the crowd goes nuts cheering. They're just cheering like crazy, Rebecky Lynch. So I guess next week we'll have to have that healed promo where she says, you fans turned on me and so I don't like you in anyway. Show was fine. I mean, it was nothing. There's nothing wrong with the show. Certainly was nothing like blow Away about it. It was like your average edition of Raw.

But we could talk about whatever Mike wants to talk about after the break, as well as the a W stars on w w E television Back in a moment, Observer like notes thinking that there's nothing that I won't try. But I'm imagine all the show Bright never is here, Wrestling Observer Live. Yeah, Mike Simper vv is here. I don't allow him say some words in a minute. But first I have two things I gotta say very quickly.

Number One, they're really in a lot to say about Jericho and Big Show and Daniel Bryant on Raw because you know they am sure cleared it with Tony con he said, whatever, he's not a wrestling I mean, he's a wrestling guy, but he came from sports and uh he apparently was fine with that. Now what Here's the most interesting thing is it relates to this show. About that. Somebody messaged me and they said, it looks like I'm winning the prediction contest because I predicted A W Stars

on Raw. Well, those guys are a W Stars and they are on Raw. So oh, I mean, if nobody else comes close, that is the winner of this year's prediction contest. Is these a W Stars on Raw? Now the only only thing I want to say is somebody asked a question, who do you think is winning money in the bank, And uh my, my, knee jerk reaction

was who cares. It doesn't matter because what we have learned is they pick a winner the day of the show and they have like no plan and then you know later it's either like a cash in and they win whatever, or it's a failure or like in the case of Otis, it's like, what did we put the title on Otis for? Well, let's do a stupid storyline to you know, get the get the thing off him and give to somebody else, or like miscashed in twice

a couple of years ago or whatever. He lost it then he got it back, So it doesn't Honestly, it doesn't matter. There's no like foresight for the most part. But but there should be foresight as it pertains to Cody, because they have like one storyline, one long term, easy storyline, which is Cody has never won the title. He cannot win it for his father, but he wants to win it and give it to his mother. This is idiot proof.

So I feel that like whatever they do with the men's money in the bank should somehow tie into that story. It could be Seth wins, and then you could do, uh, Cody and Seth doing a match for the briefcase right before us. There are things that you can do, or you know, it could just be Riddle Winds and then Riddle goes on and loses to Roman Reigns again when they don't have a main eventor for whatever big stadium show they're not selling tickets for, or selling tickets for.

Don't want to make people man, but anyway, Uh, don't overthink this. This money in the bank because they they just do whatever they're gonna do on the day and then they quote fix it later. So that's my money

in the bank. Thoughts, Or to not screw up the briefcase and making it weak, you could have Cody win the rumble and then say I want to tie up loose ends before I get to WrestleMania, and I'm going to get you out of the way with a sledgehammer at whatever it's called road bomber or whatever the hell that the paper roadblock, and then we're gonna go on to Mania and I'm going to defeat Roman. But who

knows and is Drew McIntyre and Roman Reigns. Looks like that's gonna be September or are we any closer to seeing announced that? As the Castle, Okay, because that's why I wasn't sure where Tyson Fury was at with that, because if the way they are playing things up with Roman reigns being vulnerable and look they the stipulations that they added to riddles seemed to help that situation with Randy Orton and he wasn't gonna get a crack again

and all that sort of stuff. So you know, Drew winning and winning the title on Saturday, you know, wiping after Roman and Brocco at it. That's not the worst idea in the world to me because then there's a reason for Roman to be piste and off of TV. I know it breaks up the title reign, but you could go in that direction at least one more thing on the Jericho Big Show. And Daniel Brian deal, Um, what does this mean for uh, for potential resignings in etcetera.

I don't want to read too much into this obviously. Okay, the Daniel Brian story, we already know that Daniel Brian story. He very much waffled back and forth about whether to go to a W or whether to stay with w. W is a very very difficult decision for him. So when the time comes and his deal is up, He's probably gonna have a very very difficult decision to make again because he is fine doing sports entertainment. He loves

Vince McMahon. Obviously, he's having also the time of his life in a W. So he'll have to make a decision. But he's not one of those eyes where you could say, well, for sure, this guy is never going to even consider going back to w w E. Jericho, I mean constantly attempting to reinvent himself, and I think that if they you know, there was a bidding war with Chris Jericho w w E in a W, I think that he would consider both sides. I don't think Jericho is one

of those guys. It's absolutely and clearly by the fact that he sent in a video. I think that he would be open to the idea of returning to w w E if they made him a huge offer and he felt that they would use him. Right. So there's that. The one that was most interesting to me is is UH is the big show? And Uh. It's just interesting because I don't I don't know if he's ever gone public as to why he left, and I don't want

to put words into his mouth. But I mean he left w w E very shortly after they had that Legends Night deal or whatever, and uh, and they absolutely humiliated him. They made him look like the biggest geek and loser on that show. They called him old, they called him washed up, the heels made fun of him. He got no comeback, he didn't get to do It was like, man, I watched that, and then later it turns out he went to a W and I was like, well,

of course he did. Of course he did. So it's interesting that he wasn't disrespected enough that he didn't want to send in a video here. So listen, I don't write stories about I'm saying these guys are gonna go back to debit. I don't have any idea what they're going to do, but I do think it's it's pretty clear from the fact that they sent in videos that they're on decent. They're they're clearly on good terms with

Vince and w w E. And Uh. I guess it'll be interesting to see what happens when they're a W contracts come up, because there there are you know, when a W started, I heard from so many people and they were like, man, I'm never I will never go back to w w E. There is zero chance. It's

absolutely not happening. And uh, you know now I think that there are more people that are open and Cody is a large part of that open to going to w w E. And uh, if the money is right and if they think they can be put in the main event position because w w is hurting for main eventors, you know, there are people that are gonna be willing to go there. So just interesting, oh on anybody they can use it as a negotiating ploy. Should There's only

so many places you can work. There's only one bigger than the one you are working at if you're a w So if there could possibly be interested, you do want to kind of leave those doors kicked open a little bit. Just makes sense for your career. One thing I didn't really I was confused by what you said about John Cena being saying that it was so weird his promo. I thought it was the opposite. I thought it was a very stock John Cena promo where he thanked all the fans. You know, this is about you

and me. Every time I succeed, every time I do a new movie, it's us doing it together and there's gonna be one more time where it's about us, and they started chanting one more time. It's not like he said, hey, I'm coming back for one more, but you know what it's gonna be, It's gonna be more than that. It's because they were chanting one more time and he cut off. He said, yeah, there's gonna be one more and then said whatever. You know it's but it's gonna be more

than that. The Angle, they didn't angle whip theory where he walks away. They don't want to overshadow what's coming up, so I didn't. I don't know why you thought it was strange. I may miss something there, but I thought it was very paid by numbers. Well, it was strange because John Cena is scheduled to work SummerSlam, and so you don't have to shoot the Angle, you don't have to do the theory full whatever that night. But I mean, it's a big show. They advertised it forever. It's I'm

sure it's gonna probably do a really big number. I mean, I thought he would at least come out and say, you know, Summer Slam. I don't know who I'm gonna face, but I'll be there instead it was like, hey, you know, one of these days I'll be back. I don't know when, I don't know where. It'll be more than one match, but you know, hey see you see guys later. And he just left. That was not what I was expecting. I guess, yeah, I mean I didn't really take it.

Is that once they did the angle with Theory in the back where it was okay, now these two are finally face to face for the first time, and Theory is obviously laying it into him and seen it just walks away from him and you could say, what you know, what you want about how they produced that and if that was the right thing to do or not. But I thought it was fine because you do have money

in the bank coming up. That's this Saturday, so come Monday, I can see once the deal with Lashley is out of the way, whatever happens with it, that's when we're

gonna see this thing amped up and see Theory. You know, it's gonna be obviously more Theory even seen on these shows, but having him pouring it on as much as he can to lead into whenever scene it comes back, because who knows when Seen is going to be back on raw again to lead into that for it says, maybe a stupid question, but how do you feel about them A hug? No? I don't consider that unprofessional. If if you do, that's that's your thing. But all right, who

dropped me? Am? I out of here? Hey? I am you are? Do you hear me? I can hear you? Can you hear me? I hear you? Why can't the chat here's anymore? Can you hear us? No? We're back, We're back. That was weird. I don't know what happened right there? Anyway? Did I answer everybody's question? Maybe the question was so ridiculous of the thing muted? All right, what else do we get? I could be wrong, but I was hearing there are still one more spot in

the men's ladder matches that correct? If so it really wasn't the last Chance Battle Royal. If that's the case, well it was a last Chance Battle Royal because when the show was booked, it was the last chance for those guys, and they had the match scheduled for the other spot, but that match had to be pulled because whatever happened with Kevin Owens happened. But yeah, it was still a last chance Battle Royal for the people in it, it was their last chance. And yes, I wouldn't be

surprised at all if Kevin Owens can come back. I would presume they're doing Kevin Owens and Elias and whatever they were gonna do on SmackDown this week, because there isn't.

I mean, I don't know whatever. Remember when I uh was talking about how the brand extension is like, you know, essentially done, and then uh, you know, everyone did stories on it or whatever, and then I can't remember who it was, but you know, somebody said, well, what's actually going on is uh, the brand extension isn't dead, but you know everyone's gonna be going back and forth. That's what I said. So anyway, yes, people are just going

back and forth on all the shows. I'm sure technically there's still a brand extension on paper and still there, but people on every show it's essentially done. Come on, Everything have to be about semantics in this world, that's what they say. It's about the networks. The networks wanted separate people so they can still say that this person is exclusive to you. That's why you're paying us all this money. Yeah, how funny is it? By the way,

how funny is it that things aren't exclusive anymore? And look at these SmackDown numbers through the stratosphere, and these Raw numbers are huge, And granted there are other reasons for it, but my point is, it's not like it hurts your numbers because Roman Reigns is gonna be on SmackDown, but he can't be on Raw and vice versa. It's almost like having everybody available for both shows makes both

shows like better. And you know, uh yeah, everyone's always got some theory, you know what I'm saying, there's always a theory. Well in theory this, in theory that well, as it turns out, wrestling fans like to see more stars on the show than less. Gee, who could have thought a town down that you keep talking not that theory. But the problem is the thing is he could be a star right now in a brand extension could work, even though it's a pain in the ass. But the

bottom line is, you haven't created enough stars. Do you have a brand split? You barely have enough stars to have one show. So while that is the case, actually it's funny, Mike, It's funny. You're right and you're wrong. They have more than enough people to do a brand split, but on those people, they have no stars because they don't make a star. So therefore your brand split is causing more harm than good. Have I yelled enough today? Back in a moment Observer Live, I'm totally calm dude.

You know, DJ here made up point. I'm gonna try and make an analogy out of it. I'm sure I'm gonna mess it up. Let's say, let's say that you got you got two local buffet restaurants and uh, and you know they're maybe they're uh, they the same, you know, truck brings them all the food and uh, and one of them is like, do we only want steak here? No fish? And then like the other ones like we only want fish, no steak. So like, if you like fish, you ain't ever going to the place it has no fish.

And if you like steak, you're never going to the place it has no steak. So the two buffets, you know, they they're limiting the number of people that are gonna come into their buffet. Whereas if they both features stake and fish, then if you live in the town, well, whichever one's closer, whichever one year, buddy, you'll go to both of them, that's the stupid brand split. Oh well,

we want an exclusive roster of half year stars. Oh wow, what a great idea, and exclusive roster of half the stars so you see the same matches over and over again. You never get to see half of the big stars. Has a great idea. And then here we are, and now you know everyone's on every show and lo and behold, w w E is doing significantly better than they've been doing for a while. Let me guess, Oh, it's because

of this or that. Well, I'm sure there are other factors at work as well, but what I can tell you is it certainly has not hurt Fox to have their guys go to Raw and have the Raw guys go to Fox. And it certainly hasn't hurt Raw in the USA network for the Fox guys to go to Row and vice versa. But in theory, Mike solo tomorrow, he's had enough of me. I'm sure y'all have as well. But too bad. If you're a subscriber to Wrestling Observer dot com, I'm back tonight, I'm back tomorrow. You'll never

get rid of me. I'll never retire. I'll talk to you next time. Wrestling Observe Alive. You have been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the Eight Side Network.