Ladies and gentlemen, It's time for Unsanctioned Thursdays with Jeff I and me Freddy.
Let's start the show. Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready shuts up? About to hit the fan. Welcome to Unsanctioned Thursdays unter Wrestling with Friday.
While we were gone, everything in the world happened in professional wrestling, which is complete and total bs. You guys couldn't wait until we were back. So here's what's happened. Edge joined a w which was freaking crazy. Granted he wanted to work with his friend with Christian and they got to have an awesome match in Canada with a spike baseball bat and this beautiful finale to their storyline. But I never in a million years would have thought
he would have done that. CM Punk got fired by the company helped build, and then rehired by the company that fired him on his wedding day, and then got injured and couldn't go to the WrestleMania that he was said to go to. All while we were gone, WWE has been making tons of moves globally and now they're having international paid live events. They did the Elimination Chamber in Australia. Ripley got to be there. Indy Hartwell, who's a young wrestler, got to perform in front of her
home people. The crowd was going crazy. She couldn't even help but smile the entire match, which was funny. Backlash is going to be in France, Bash at Berlin in August. They're going all over the world. I think they saw what AW did in England and we're like, if that, we can't let them have the biggest number. We got to get the biggest number. AW has really started to come back and find its groove despite not having MJF which when he first left it had been a bit
of a struggle for them. But they signed Sasha Banks aka Mercedes Monette or I should say formerly known as Sasha Banks now known as Mercedes Monette. They signed Okata and Jeff. They signed Will Ospray.
This best signing you could get.
I'd argue, yo, wwe fumbled this so bad, And Will talked about this in an interview. He was like, Yo, it was basically, and I'm paraphrasing, it was an NXT contract or. It was millions of dollars at AW. Peace like the fact that they didn't know this dude could cut a promo. Forget the fact that he's arguably the best wrestler in the world today. Okay, it might not even be arguable, but I'm saying arguable just to respect other wrestlers out there who maybe I haven't seen. His
work on the mic is top notch. I sent a clip to my wife. I said, Yo, this is Tom Hardy, but as a professional wrestler, and she wrote back, Oh my god, he is like even my wife watched his promo and I was like, this was amazing. That last one he cut on Brian Danielson where he was talking about his shoes in the ring. Look, look, everyone, bron Danielson's shoes and you know what, I'll looked at him and they were too small. Foolmy bruv and the whole
crowd just goes crazy. And he's got this this English like, I don't know if it's a Northern accent. It might be a north I don't want to get it wrong. But it's not like probabrid. It's not like, oh I know, yes, I'd like some tea and yeah, oh, I can't believe you.
Spalked to me.
Yeah, it's very like just rough and in your face and take it or leave it, and his personality is as such. And then he shows incredible respect to his opponents at the same time as he disses him later on. It's like he doesn't go at Brian Danielson until Brian Danielson goes at him. He doesn't go at the Japanese dude that beat him up in New Japan, the one
he just wrestled. I had never seen him work before, but he's even speaking to him in Japanese and showing him respect, and the promo like, this dude is a top top star, a top top star. I cannot wait to see where he goes. Dude, I've been talking a long time. Jeff, jump in here.
I agree with you.
I think Osprey is the real deal, and he's not the only person like that. You know, like wrestling has a lot of really big stars, but I think that this guy is the cream of the crop. And he has the opposite problem of some of the things we were talking about. He's still pretty young. He's only thirty years old, and he's got every single thing. Also, you don't have to be seven foot anymore to be a
big to be a successful wrestler. So I think will Osprey might have been a Eddie Guerrero Ben Wall kind of guy in the nineties, but nowadays he's a star. He's literally he's there's sky's the limit for this guy. So I think that WWE's screwed up big by not going out and getting him, Like I would have thrown the whole bank at this guy.
To even think that he's an NXT talent is just insane. It's just, oh, let's control costs, right, Like that has to be what that was. They could not have seen him cut a promo and then offer him. That's just like how how how do you think you would get someone that talented, who's gonna be in demand, and then offer him seventy grand a year, which is an NXT contract.
I think if you do what the Dodgers do and you just go out and buy an Ospray, you buy an MGF, you just throw the throw the money at those just those two guys I just named an MJF and Ospray, I think AE w Dies. I don't even think that they could compete. They'd become another you know, thing that would still exist. But I think WW wins that war. If you could just go sign those two guys.
MJF and Will Ospray are the two best of the younger generation. Like there's there's nobody else even close, and there's great wrestlers out there that I love, but in comparison to those two, it's like there's those two guys, and then there's a great group of guys beneath them, and then there's everybody else. Like it's they're just their top show.
All right. I was gonna say, ae W. It feels like what Tony Kahn is doing.
Is letting the fan kind of sneak into his business plan. It's slowly turning into this like, look who we have from when when when I was young, Look we got edge. Look we're giving Jake the Snake a bigger contract. It's like, dude, you know you got to invest in these young cats. Grow up your things, don't don't look for this nostalgic pieces thinking that's going to get a pop and whatever and might work, and people might.
Disagree, but that's just how I feel about it.
And for everybody who already knew about Ospray, guys are jerks because none of you told me about him. I'd only seen an Instagram clip of him getting flipped and landing, so screw you guys, all right? Moving on? Oh, also, they signed Okata the rain Maker and he had a great match with not a great match, but a good match with Eddie Kingston. So they're really embracing the Japanese side of things in WW does to a certain extent as well, especially with the with the female wrestlers. The
Rock joined the TKO board. While we were on that's kind of big news Raw is moving to Netflix. They announced that that was kind of big news. SmackDown was moving to the USA network. That ain't news. The USA
needs wrestling. Their heart was broken when the Austroids one of their highest rated shows, and and NXT is moving to the CW, which to me was the only one that was kind of like what the CW has no identity, It's not like it was when it was the WB and it had Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it represented young America so well, and what the
youth was inspired by. It is an aimless boat with no sail, sitting in the middle of the water, waiting to be consumed by a bigger whale, Like that's all the CW is. I'm telling you that it's not a shot. That's the nature of their business. They're about to get absorbed into an app and not even exist anymore, and there won't be a CW as we know it, like a lot of channels have sunk and gone into the corporate streaming services. I have no idea why NXT moved there.
It should have just been on Peacock. I don't know why they couldn't cut a deal there, that's where they already have their previous deal. But yeah, so it's moving to the CW. And I've actually watched a couple episodes during during our hiatus here, and I still wish they would shoot it differently. It's still shot like you know a high school play. Everybody just lines up in the middle of the ring. Even if there's four people, they just line up in a row. There's nothing cinematic about
their shots. And it's not like they have different camera people like it's it's the same crew that shoots everything. They get cinematic on Monday and Ira with the Rock and Roman Reigns and shooting the Rock in the foreground and Romans a little blurry and that a stab and Roman's side eyeing him, and that establishes a little tension in the bloodline. Like they can do cinematic shots. I've seen them do it, and they just refuse to do
it on NXT. It basically should just be a hardcam with no close ups and that's and that would be the show. Maybe the CW has notes for him, but I just can't. I just don't understand why it would go there outside of they have nothing, and they were the ones buying live golf contracts. The CW like they don't know who they are anymore, they don't have an identity. So this to me was just a very lateral move. It doesn't progress the business in any way, and it
certainly doesn't progress NXT in any way. And that's pretty much what happened when we were gone, you guys. Now, one of those things, had they happened during the season, would have been enough to talk about for weeks and weeks on end. But that's like twenty things, twenty things, and it's like they timed it out when our show ended. They're like, okay, now make everything huge, So we missed everything. But out of all that stuff, Jeff, what would you like to talk on.
I don't really care what we speak about.
But there's been a billion things that have happened, and we've noticed that the second week went on hiatus is when everything exciting started happening. I would like to vent a little bit about how difficult these TV networks make it for us to watch things. It's just so hard and it moves around. It's like I feel like I'm constantly trying to It's it's the new hunting. You know, we're not cowboys anymore. We don't go hunt our food. We have to go hunt our content. What app is
it on? And oh, I don't remember my log in for this? And now, oh you're gonna send me a link that streams to a thing, and oh but this is a special event, or this one's blacked out, or this is a pay per view, but now the pay per views are on Peacock. But now Peacock put it to and it's just keeps jumbling around. If these TV networks want to keep our viewership and our loyalty, maybe figure out your crap.
It's too hard.
To like, you know, jumping from Monday nights to Saturday nights and Now, wrestling's on Friday when I'm doing comedy, so I come back to my hotel at one am just to start Monday Night Raw.
It's very, very flustering.
But I don't know if you guys agree with me or if you guys have those same if you feel that, but it does feel like difficult to watch.
You know, this has been an issue ever since all the networks tried to catch up with Netflix and they all started buying each other out. And that's that's why anti corporate philosophies have always been good, and that's why George Carlin was kind of right with a lot of the stuff that he said back in the day. And all these all these buyouts to create these streaming services. Understand something. These aren't plans that are being executed. These
are moves that are being made. There's not a lot of forethought that goes into this, if that's the right term. There's not a lot of planning. It's just, oh my god, they did this. We have to make a move. And that's why all these streaming companies come up buy all this content and then they go away and they cancel all their shows. Like if you want to know, if if a streaming service you watch is about to be bought out, and you should cancel your subscription and save
ten bucks a month. Just watch how many shows they're canceling. If they're canceling the majority of their shows and only holding on to like one or two, they are about to be sold. I'm not going to call out the streaming companies that are doing this, but it's pretty easy to find out they're they're looking to claim losses so that they can just sell out, and it makes it impossible to commit to a show.
They're going to.
Cancel it anyway. Why would I watch this crap which then hurts the show. None of the contracts that they signed with these shows are for more than one year. It's not like there's no threat on the studio side, Like if you sign if I write a great show it's called it's called Wrestling with Freddie and Jeff and it's an awesome show, we won't get a five year seven year contract will be under one, but the studios not under one, which means we can't work anywhere for
five to seven years. It's usually seven years is your contract, So for seven years without permission, you can't go anywhere. But there's no seven year commitment on their end to keep the show, so there's no risk. There's no risk on their end. They can kill you at any time they want, and if they feel that they need to sell the company, that's what they do. They kill show, show, show,
with no financial penalty whatsoever. The only penalties that happen on the creative side of things the writers, the directors, the producers, and the actors and the musicians and the carpenters and everybody out the electricians and the gaffers and everybody who makes your TV shows and movies that you love. That's where the risk is. The studios have none, and a lot of these bigger corporations that have come in lately, like Amazon, they don't even care about television or movies.
These aren't tax ride offs for them. That's why they bought them to claim them as losses. And they're assigning executives from their companies all of a sudden in creative positions when they have no experience in film or television. So that's why I think it's so hard to find something we like and then stick with it, because these aren't plans, these are moves. They're just lateral moves that
people are making. And that's what the NXT thing felt like, was just like, oh, you're going there now, Well where are you going next year? Because CW probably won't even be around. Well, then we'll go to Peacock. Okay, now I am at Peacock. What happens if something goes instead of if the networks would have just stayed the course and said, let Netflix be Netflix and we just won't
sell them our content. And if we don't sell them our content, they can't exist, and that should have been the studio move to deal with Netflix is okay, you're you're you have every episode of Friends on your network. Yeah, you don't get to have Friends. Oh you want to have this movie, So you don't get to have those movies. And if you're not selling your product, they can't buy it. They can't exist. But all these studios this money, money, money, money, money.
I gotta get my bonus, got to get my bonus. You can have Friends for ten years, here you go. Yeah, you can have the Star Wars trilogy for three here you go. All these like huge franchises and that built Netflix, and now Netflix can make their own movies and they don't need your stuff, and now all these other networks are like, well maybe we should stream too. It's like you don't have to, right, you didn't have to, now you did. And now every streaming service basically turned back
into cable because now they all have commercials. Again. Ah, that's my half of the rant, Jeff, But yeah, man, it's it's that's what the business is nowadays.
It's very flustering.
And also like, I mean, they've made some things are convenient, you know, like I can binge watch something, but even that, we're consuming it too fast. So they're going, all right, you got to tune back in next Tuesday, we'll upload that. It's like you have them all, just give me them all, you know what I'm saying. Like, so it's very flustering. Luckily Wrestling will be going to Netflix where we won't have to worry about all this crap.
But that's not till January.
Yeah, but it'll finally have its new home, and I feel like it'll be there for as long as it was on the USA network, Like it'll be a double decade, triple decade kind of thing, Like they have their home. Netflix ain't going anywhere. And yeah, everybody who doesn't have streaming services. Get ready to cut that cord and get streaming services. Save yourself a couple bucks from cable and satellite because they played themselves, and watch your wrestling. Man,
this is wrestling is. I don't know how long this window is going to stay open, but wrestling has opened a window. And it was before the Rock. The Rock doesn't get to take credit for making wrestling cool again. It was all these young wrestlers that came up that made it cool again, but he certainly helped. It has this window now where I feel like there's room. And I'll say this on the show because you guys listen, and you guys give a damn. I'm going out with
the wrestling show this year. I've already shot like a little real for it. I might fail, I might fall flat on my face. I might succeed. I might have the highest rated wrestling show on television. I don't know what's going to happen, but I had a plan and I followed through with this plan and I made it happen, you guys, and I'm going out with the show. I'm not saying I have a TV deal yet, but I have multiple places that want to see what we did, and I'm gonna show it to them, and I'm gonna
sell the hell out of it. And if I'm fortunate enough and someone says yes, it only takes one person to say yes. If that person says yes, then I will give you guys all the inside scoop on the process of selling the wrestling show. There's probably a lot of you that fantasize about being small time promoters too, which is all I want to be is a small
time promoter if it becomes big time cool. But I'll give you guys every single detail and talk you through the process step by step, just to share that with you. I like giving people inside information and I'm not giving up the business that was given up a long time ago. Go to YouTube type pro wrestling plan B. I want to see some freaky shit type in pro wrestling plan be and you'll see the old timers giving up the business.
So yeah, man, I love wrestling and I love movies and television, and I'm not trying to combine them all. But it's all a part of show business and I'm happy to share the whole process. Whether I fail or not, I'll tell you all everything we appreciate you guys listening in every week. Thank you for the Wednesday love and the Thursday love, and we will see you every single week every Wednesday with Wrestling with Freddy every Thursday on Sanctioned.
Make sure you guys give us some awesome five star reviews. If you love our show, share it with your friends, share it with everybody.
And that's it.
Jeff, you want to say good bye to the people.
We love you. Thanks for listening. Send me money on Venmo.
Have a good week.
This has been a production of Iheart'smichael Toura podcast Network. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
