Now your main event, introducing hosts Wrestling within Parready Jef Died and Farready Friends tunor What's up?
Everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Wrestling with Friends. Not a lot happened in the world of wrestling this week, but you're still gonna get two episodes because we'll break it down for you on today's app and then the Thursday episode we will do our predictions for Le Royal Rumblai. My favorite pay per view of all of them, with me as always is Jeff di on location in New York City. How are you sure? What the hell are you doing out there? Feeling good?
I'm here doing comedy shows and I was just in Baltimore, which was great technically tumonium, and then I've got a gig in Miami, so just taking the two days and doing shows in New York City while I'm in.
So at least you get to warm up at the end of your trip, because you're probably freezing your little nuts off, aren't you.
Yeah, Baltimore's called New York is freezing. I don't know what Miami's like. In January, we'll see and then I go to Portland with it. It's gorgeous. That's how it is. Yeah, well I hope well good, and then Portland will be cold again.
Ah. The Life on the Road Wrestlers and Comics, The Life on the Road. We would like to announce that we will be coming back for a season five because y'all like to listen to this show. My favorite comment is still yeah, it's like five minutes show and twenty five minutes of commercials. That's still like the greatest comment ever. But thanks for listening, and we're going to come back out on Wednesdays. That's our day. That's podcast day, I think for everybody in April, and we're very excited to
continue this, this awesome podcast with all of you. So thank you for listening and thanks for putting up with us, thanks for agreeing with us, thanks for hating us, thanks for loving us, thanks for all of it. Let's start the damn show. The penta Era continues. His entrance. I think it was different. Do they add fire to it? Like? Was the entrance even better than it was last week? It looked better to me. I thought it was. He's got more style than anybody in WWE, like just his walk,
his presence, his I'm gonna sell. Yeah, you're doing the walk right now in your car, Eddie Guerrero. Bro. It's so cool. He has like an aura like that sound like Charlie Murphy. You know his aura. I can see it. You can literally like feel it on him. Man Like, there's just something special about him. And I really think that the WWE universe is like big time behind him.
I'll be honest, I didn't know if they were even gonna know his like call signs and like his chance because a lot of wrestling is very tribalistic, right and kind of like our country now, and it's like you can only like this or this, and it's like, man, I kind of like both. So I really didn't know. And that first one, I think it sounded like a good seventy percent of the audience knew his set on Mielough. But now everybody does, and it's been two freaking weeks
and he looked great. The match wasn't as good as the Chad Gable match with he wrestled against Pete Dunn don't call him, don't call him Butch, but it was still a cool ass match and I just I can't say enough good things about him. I love what WW is doing right now with all their sort of international wrestlers from Shinseki speaking in Japanese to Pentas speaking in Spanish. But I really love this dude and it looks like
he's gonna be the one. And I it's wild that AEW slept on him like this, and he was always a guy that was losing matches instead of a guy that was gonna get, you know, shot to the moon mid card status and then see if that works, and then if it works mid card, bring him up to the top. But WW is doing a great job with him, and I've and I've talked enough and I'm gonna give it to you. No, I agree with everything you said.
I mean, how long are these residing companies gonna sleep on Luca's You know what I'm saying?
Like, we love the high flying, we love the stuff. It's good.
And I want to say this as delicately because I love Raymonsteriro Junior. But I feel like the passing of the torch was long overdue. I feel like we still get Raymisteriro all the time in matches, we get thanks. I love Raymonsteriro, no disrespect. I just think you know he's getting up there in age there's got to be another guy, and Dominic Masterial who is a rock star isn't really a Luca though, he's not like a high
flying flipper Luca. And so the fact that WWE is making the face of the new like Lucha Era Penta, I couldn't be happier. He looks cool, he's got the presence, he has that it factor. He's got, like the little moves, the music, that the catch phrase or what is that it's not a catchphrase, whatever, that catch little thing that we all get to do with. Everything he does is awesome, and good on wrestling for embracing it, and good on wb for noticing it and pushing it to the forefront.
I love Ray, So it's like it's weird. It's hard to hear anyone say it's time to pass the torch, right because he's the greatest luciator that ever wrestled. But he is like fifty something years old. And they have for sure tried with other wrestlers. They've given other wrestlers opportunities to see how to see how it goes, to see if they can be the next Ray, and they haven't felt, for whatever reason, that they found that guy yet. But man, they seem to they seem to believe in Penta.
They really seem to believe in Penta. And I guess you I guess you're right. Man. It's it's weird for me to say that. Ray was one of the first dudes that I wrote for when I worked at WWE, because Vince basically was like, you're you're a Mexican. You speak Spanish to him? Speak Spanish to Ray, I'm like, you know, he speaks English, right, Like what do we do? What are we doing here? But uh, but yeah, man, I think I think you're right. I think you're right.
And it's also it's not like raymis here has got to go anywhere, no, no, but he does putting someone over. How many times have we had John Cena put people over? People had to put John Cena over. That's how wrestling works. So for for it's good that Rays. I don't want Rado retire. I just want I just want. I think that, like we should have a thousand Loochs, bring back you know, uh, bring back all all of our Philip. I want to see Laparka, bring back Laparka.
You love Laparty, He's your favorite. Do you have a Penta mask yet No, I would love one.
But when people wear the Penta mask, it doesn't look as cool as when Penta does it because he has a fa to and I have context.
Now he looks, so the whole look is awesome. You mentioned dominic U and it instantly made me think of dominic mysterio versus Penta and how they would get there one day, because I would love to watch that. Dominic's so freaking awesome too. Man, I don't know. I give him enough love. It's all I do is give him love. But I'm giving him more. And Sam Punk was on the show and he did his interview in the crowd this week and he free flowed it. It definitely wasn't scripted.
I ain't did okay with it. It wasn't his best promo, it wasn't his worst promo. But he is in the Royal Rumble and talked about winning the Royal Rumble. We'll get into our predictions on who we think will win the Rumble, but I will say this because I've said it before, I'm not betting against Sam Punk ever again. Like I just maybe in the Royal Romo match, it'll be different because there's thirty forty dudes. I don't know
how many they are doing this year. I hope it's just the thirty, but yeah, man, it's if he's in a match, I guess he wins, which is so weird. Party on Seth Rollins and Drew McIntyre and I don't want to talk about the match so much. I mean, we can, but the thing I want to focus on is how they're continuing to tell stories and develop long term stories, and they do it with matches, and I wish AW would do this a little more. They've done it a few times, but I wish they'd do it
a little more. Seth Rollins and Drew mctire they have this big old fight in the ring, screw you, no, screw you, and they're beating each other up. And yes, I sound like Michael Winslow from Police Academy when I do sound effects. But they had this match and some Shenanigan's gone after the match, and Drew McIntyre's like, yo,
I'm pissed off that I lost. I'm going to attack you and uh, and he gets he gets help from Seth, gets help from Sammy's Ain't and Sammy's aint comes out and he could have just saved Seth and that would have been it. And in aw a lot of times that's how it would end. And that's cool. But they need to create story constantly in WWE because they don't get days off like we do. We're gonna take some time off in between or in between our seasons, but
ww takes no days off. And so they have Drew get out of the way as Sammy's about to kick him in the face, and Sammy accidentally kicks Seth in the face. Seth's a hot head. He doesn't take kindly to this stuff. So it gives them an opportunity to have some story and have some reasons to fight, just a reason to fight, not for a big pay per view match or anything like that. It could just be
on a Monday Night Raw. It could just be the two of them fucking with each other in the Royal Rumble because Seth's like, nah, hell no, I'm knocking you out because you kick me in the face. But it's those little things that they do, and they're getting really really good at it that give them opportunities to tell more stories within their three hour shows, their two hour shows,
and their one hour shows. I'm not watching NXT, but I heard it's gotten a lot better than when I used to back, so maybe I'll give it another shot. But anyway, I just wanted to point on that because we've constantly talked about their long term storytelling, but we don't often talk about their short term storytelling because that's more an aew thing. And I just really liked the way they did this, and I'll stop rambling. Go ahead, sir.
I actually wish wrestling would evolve with these sort of things. I wish wrestling was so we always talk about the storytelling, right, That's what's the most important I think we should have. If we haven't moved past it, we should move past Sammy Zay kicking a guy kicking Seth Rawlins in the face, and then Seth being like you kicked me, Like that's too basic of a misunderstanding, Like you could easily clear
that up. I was trying to help you, dude, I sidenly kicked you because he moved, Like it's so easy to like explain, why don't we have a more evolved way of showing a distrust between two guys. It seems too basic that you would just be like, yeah, I was trying.
To help you. That's fair, but I think he'll say that and said we'll check that. Yeah, I hear you. However, and look, it's art, so you're right. It's it's not a scientific fact that their storytelling is good. We both have opinions on it. But I just think you need some of those short term storytelling devices to fill in a lot of these episodes. It's not going to be
this big, epic bloodline story. It's just a short, quick thing that gives them a reason to hate each other in the Royal Rumble, or gives us a match on Monday Night Raw. And everything you said is correct, and I agree with everything you said, but I still feel there's room for it from my side and what I need from wrestling. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes total sense. All right, Well, I'm glad we're making sense. Let's talk about Let's talk about WWE. Smack Sounds. Smack
Sounds Sound is a wonderful show. However, this, uh, this episode was not that great. Kevin Owens is great, I know that much. Jimmy Usso is pretty awesome. He came out there and Kevin Owens is talking all kinds of shit to Matthew McConaughey, which was really fucking cool of Kevin Owens so much, and he gets in there, aint Jimmy USO interrupts him and Kevin's like, what what what are you gonna do? You know I saw him to say, and Jimmy us just goes, you talk too damn much
and puts one on him. Man, And it was The show opened real cool like that, but uh it didn't. I don't know, man, it felt like we're getting ready for the Royal Rumble. We don't want to risk any injuries. Let's give some guys a night off. Let's get some fresh blood in there. There was good stuff that we'll talk about, but all in all, that was kind of the highlight. One of the other cool things was Damian Priest is a part of smack sound. I almost said SmackDown,
but this they spell it with an s um. You and I agree that the Judgment Day stuff was getting kind of old and we were wanting to see it evolve like the bloodline organically. Well I think they agree because not only did they kind of end that, they straight took him to a whole nother show, which is cool that they have that draft window or transfer portal, whatever they call it. They're trying to be like college football.
So they brought Damien Priestcott him as far from the Judgment day as possible, and now he can kind of not restart his career, but restart a story, find a news story. And they're going to establish him to the audience first because they believe that not necessarily everyone who watches Raw watches SmackDown, which I always disagreed with, but they said they had numbers to prove it, so what
the hell do I know? So he gets re debuted against Carmelo, who can really really work in there and really really go, and they have him lose a lot, but for some reason, I don't think it damages him. He's just he looks like he could in every match at some point in the match. He's really really good. He's from NXT and I should have known that, but I don't watch it because I'm an asshole. So Damian Priest is now on SmackDown. He gets an established victory.
I don't know where you send him first, maybe after Shinseka Nakamura because they could have a pretty crazy match for the US title. But eventually he's got to go after Cody and him and Cody had a little like, ey, I do it, yeah, pretty good? I doing yeah, pretty good? Welcome, okay, all right, peace and then they sort of walked off and did there I'm a badass lion and so are you thing. But yeah, so those were kind of the
big highlights. But is there any crap that you want to talk about that happened on smack Shone.
Now, I'm just excited to see Damian Priest reinvents himself. I'm excited to see what that's going to look like. I would like to see him in some different ring gear.
I don't know.
I think they that's a good idea biggest star ever. So I'm excited to see I don't know, just see what they do with him over there.
So that's that's what I'm most most excited about. Dude, he should get some new gear, some smack sound gear. That would be cool. Yeah, dude, Damian Priest, he has a cool story. I don't want to get into it because I like other people to tell their story, but you guys should check it out on YouTube or something and hear him speak about it. Pretty cool. The life changes that he went through to get to where he is now. It's just something to be respected and you
guys should check it out. Google him all right. A dubs this week they got into it. Will Ospray and Kenny Omega got on the mic and it was like, if you're ranking it one to ten, it was like a seven, you know, like a good seven Ospray's I still don't know how ww slept on Ospray. He's just perfect, Like he can talk, he looks good, he can move, he can sell, he can work, like he could do everything. And I don't know. I know there's like mixed feelings
on Kenny Omega. And I wasn't hip to Kenny Omega for any of this, so I he's new to me still because he's been hurt for a while. I think he's cool. He's pretty good on the mic, and he's in good shape. He can wrestle and uh, and he believes in selling too. I like, I like dudes itself. I like dudes that make you look good. That that's so important, and the ones that do it are selfless, and those are the ones that do the best business
I feel. So anyway, they both got beef with the don Kallis family and Donna's quickly becoming one of my favorite managers. He just gets better and better every week. Dude scarred his own head for for his art, which is so hardcore, and he just sort of lives it. Man. I don't know how he's pulling it off.
You know, on the Jeredo cruise with Jericho, Cruz jobbed for like so many matches he didn't did. Yeah, he was like he he had all these kind of different things.
He would just come out and lose in a match. I thought it was hilarious. That's really fun. Dude wasn't even managing, just being a jobber. He has been growing on me for a long time, man, and he's he's really really good. Dude. I can't believe he sliced his head open. That's so hardcore. But anyway, they got beef, Jeff, they got they got man beef. And it's not it's not the gross kind of man beef. It's the violent
kind of man beef. And yeah, man, they made the match quickly, which I still wish they would pull these things or or make these stories longer. But I guess they're selling tickets for a pay per view, so I should probably shut up. About that. But they both climbed up this giant pillar and basically challenged to Keshia and I think it was Kyle Fletcher to a tag match in Australia. I'm excited for this pay per view coming up. And and then at the end of the promo, he
gets the line of the week. By the way, Kevin Owens doesn't get the line of the week. It's Kevin, It's Kenny Omega from on top. And he goes and now I'm gonna get off this this this whatever scaffolding because I'm afraid of hides. Yeah, they climbed back down. I was like, yo, man, he kind of broke the fourth wall there and a cool ways. I thought that was funny. I wanted to mention that I would rather see these dudes wrestle each other than see them in a tag match. But I'm hyped to see the match
just the same. How did you how'd you feel about a doves overall? We'll get into more of it as we go.
Uh, nothing notable really on my end. I like, in my opinion, I watched it, I go, oh, it's good. It felt very much like was watching a house show or something, which I guess is kind of the vibe of AWS sometimes, but it was.
Yeah, sometimes that is the vibe, and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not good. It it kind of depends on the stories they have going on. Well, then I'll hit you with some other stuff, because there was some stuff that I liked. One Bobby Lashley looked great and Shelton Benjamin looked great, and they dominated a match that they should have dominated, and it was awesome for private part to allow them to be that dominant in the match.
Usually the AW matches feel like fifty to fifty unless it's a squash match, like everybody gets all their moves in, everybody gets to kick out of the of the finisher, you know, and it's it feels very fair. And even it's like fifty one forty nine, this match was not that. This was not a squash, but it was dominance and Bobby looked like Bobby Lashley should look. And now they're the tag team champions. The hurt Cindy could have gold,
which legitimizes them. Eventually they'll get they'll drop those titles and Bobby will move on once there's room towards the World Championship. I'm sure, that's the title. He's going to go for first, and Shelton can do great things in like the Continental Classic and go after the International title and things like that. But they look good, so I was happy about that. My man MVP was on commentary,
always killing it out there. And the one match that I did want to hit on because this was like the one bright spot and kind of a boring week of wrestling, was Jamie fucking Hater versus Julia Hart. And this was like a revenge match for Jamie Hayter because she had lost once she got the mooda mist in the face. Oh MyH she goes down, she gets paid one, two, three, no mooda miss this time? What's up? You're by yourself? Julia Hart and she took the big ass hilaria from
Jamie Hayter. But it's really good to have Julia Hart back from injury, really good to have Jamie Hayter back from injury. Really awesome to see women's wrestling and to see a good entertaining match. I don't know what the hell's happened with Britt Baker, but whatever story she had is now gone. Maybe she's hurt again. I've known, Maybe she's got beef. I have no idea, but uh, their division has been lacking, Like there hasn't been a lot of matches to see. There hasn't been a lot of
opponents to be built up for Mariah May. There haven't been a lot of opponents to be built up for that people really were into for for Mercedes Money. So it's been is been tough man, And this was like a nice kind of refreshing moment. And maybe, look, maybe it was so everything else was so boring that this just stood out because it wasn't. But to me, it
felt like a really good match. They worked super clean, a lot of the moves looked real, a lot of them probably were, and Jamie Hayter got the win and then cut a really cool promo at the end. It was like, look, you're bitch, but you're a tough bitch and if you want to fight again, fuck yeah, and she she said it better than that. But and then she walked out of the ring, and I thought it was really quiet. Even texted you guys, I was like, yo, man, check this match out. I thought it was pretty good.
Did you get to see that match or not?
I thought, yeah, I liked Julie Harder or that's your name, right, Juliard Julia Crazy hard Yeah, I like her. My problem is I'm not connecting with a lot of the mic quirk or a lot of that kind of stuff with h with what they're doing.
But uh I I don't know it. They're not all going to win a category.
I don't want to be sitting here and be a hater, So I'm like trying to not say what.
I'm Yeah, don't be a hater on Jamie Hayter bro It's like hits you with that Larry a lot. I'm pretty critical of a lot of this. You are criticae. I know your look. I don't think there's I don't think there's anything wrong with your criticism. I think you're always fair. I think maybe some of our listeners get upset because there is a lot of tribalism and that's my guy or that's my girl. You're talking shit on
my guy and I've believed in him forever. He's entertained me for years, and she's entertained me for years, and now you don't like him and you're saying shit and you have a voice, and I don't, So I get where that comes from. But I think you've always been fair. I disagree with a lot of what you say because I give more latitude to him. I think, yeah, you're very nice to the wrestlers. I'm very hard on the wrestlers. Yeah. Man, I'll put it to you this way. If I say
a promos a seven, that's probably most people's five. Like, I'm giving a couple extra points of latitude because they don't all take acting classes. They're not all you know, actors.
Some of them just wrestle and that's okay. And should they have a manager, Yeah, but should they get a chance to learn and develop that and maybe something cool happens, Right, Like when Jalen Rose was originally on ESPN doing commentary and stuff and all that, he sucked, and over the course of a year, you watched him get better from week to week to week to where the point where he became one of their best voices on that friggin network. Yeah, And if he didn't get those opportunities to fail and
f up, he probably would have never gotten better. He ended up doing like a podcast TV show with this guy, and it just he really was able to be himself and it just kind of helped him develop his skills, and that can happen with wrestlers too. We've seen it happen with wrestlers. We've seen, you know, We've seen Solo Sokoa go from no speaking to cutting full on promos to going back to not speaking anymore. Now he's pissed at the audience. He's like, fuck you guys, I'm going
out there. So I try to give more latitude with that. I also worked there, and I know how hard the conditions are. It's not an environment that's conducive to success outside of the wrestling part.
Yeah, it just takes me out of the story as all like like, and Kenny Omega is probably one of my favorite wrestlers in the last ten years. I'm a big Kenny Omega guy like him, and his last when he came out gave like it did a bunch of.
Did big spot. It was terrible and.
I was literally going it made me like while I was listening to it, I'm rethinking how I feel about Kenny Omega, was like, this is dog shit.
So I am at least consistent.
I just want I want the stories to be good and I want the mic work to be good, and I want the wrestling to be gimmicky.
So you see, I hear you saying this, and I don't even get mad. It makes me wish I worked there. It makes me wish like that I could help help out, Like I know, I one thing I was really good at. I couldn't like book matches very well. That's a technique that takes years to develop, and I wasn't there long enough.
But I could write some motherfucking dialogue. And I would just write all the lines that no one would ever let me say in a movie because I always had to play the sweet boy, so I didn't get to like talk tough. I always had to take the tough talk right, yeah, And so I would just write all that. And I did really well for a lot of wrestlers, and I screwed up with some, but I got good
and I got good quick. And when I hear people criticize the acting part and the writing and things like that, I'm always like, man, I could have written that dude to promo. I could have written that guy something sick that he would that he would have, you know, chewed up and spit out in a good way. So I hear you, dude, I want the stories to be good too. I get I get pissed off if I get taken out of it, and that's when my latitude mode kicks in and goes, ah, not give him a break, give
him a break. But you're not wrong, You're not wrong, all right, you guys, stay tuned for Thursday show. That's right, the Thursday shows are back, unsanctioned. Just for you guys. We're gonna give you our Royal Rumble predictions. So for all of those, So for all you people who just want WWE, you got it, stay tuned. I'm baff Jeff did, I'm Freddie Prinz. Peace We Out. This has been a
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