The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | AJ Styles wants more WWE acquisitions, Oba Femi’s Terrible explanation

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Solomonster talks about CMLL continuing to break box office records in Mexico, leading into comments from AJ Styles on his podcast about wanting WWE to acquire a promotion in Japan similar to what they did with AAA (02:42). News on Survivor Series coming to the home of the Houston Astros and why the War Games concept really needs to be put to bed for a while (09:05). CM Punk’s first night on Smackdown as WWE champion and a major match made official for SummerSlam with Cody Rhodes. Plus, the return of Baron Corbin and an AEW star‘s pending return to WWE (13:21). An injury update on Rhea Ripley and why the women’s title scene in WWE is a complete mess right now (23:24).  Thoughts on the Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins contract signing and the nonsensical explanation from Oba Femi for giving up his guaranteed title match at SummerSlam (28:19). Predictions for Saturday Night’s Main Event, with news on Jalen Brunson’s role and rumors about Bayley’s WWE contract status (39:47). Jim Ross reveals why he’ll be having brain surgery soon, thoughts on Kenny Omega winning the AEW World championship from MJF, and possible directions for each of them at their upcoming Redemption PPV (47:32). Thoughts on Hangman Adam Page returning on AEW Collision and making it clear he will never challenge again for the AEW World championship. Plus, footage leaks of Paul Wight stepping back in the ring for a dark segment (58:24). Thoughts on the Dark Side of the Ring Season 7 premiere, covering Jeff Jarrett and the battle for TNA Wrestling, which includes an epic burial of Dixie Carter (1:04:33).

Welcome to the Uncrowned Wrestling Show, Solomaster, here with you for Tuesday, July 14th, 2006. It was 32 years ago today that Hulk Hogan could very well have been the final nail in Vince McMan's coffin. During McMahon's steroid trial, Hogan took the stand that day. They thought against Vince. Instead, he denied that Vince ever instructed him to use steroids or arrange for them to be provided to him.

See, that was the key. It was the distribution charge. Nine days later, the jury found him not guilty. How different would WWE have looked if Vince would have gone to prison? There was always talk of Jerry Jarrett being brought in to take over his head of creative in his absence. But I don't think they survived without him around during that time. Business was not good. And it was only going to get worse when WCW started to gain some momentum.

We would be looking at a very different wrestling business right now, had that jury come back with a different verdict. But that was 32 years ago, this past week, you know, when I spoke to you last week, C.M. Punk had just won the WWE championship. He had ended the reign of Sammy Zane in nine days. 48 hours later, Kenny Omega beat MJF to win the AEW World Championship. So it's the first time since 1999 that we had two major world titles changing hands on television within the same week. You would have to go all the way back to the week that. Mankind won the championship for the first time on a tape show up against Nitro and the infamous

finger poke of doom. That was a long time ago. And then on Friday, former World Heavyweight champion, Jack Swagger, or Jake Hager, as it were, after a successful Power Slap debut over WrestleMania weekend, he got knocked the fuck out by Amin Prit Singh, who you may know better, some of you anyway, as former TNA star Mahabali Shira knocked him out cold in the third round. After he won his debut back in April,

I talked about it here on Uncrown. Hager looked into the camera and he screamed, Fuck you, Tony Khan. Well, he said it again here before the fight and then proceeded to get knocked out. I'm not sure if you were to ask him that he would even know who Tony Khan is right now.

That's how badly he got the piss smacked out of him. Tony who? Who's that? Anyway, let's start with this. Something a little bit different here. CMLL in Mexico continues to just absolutely crush it at the box office. This has been pretty insane to follow, honestly. It's continuing a trend that ran through most of 2025.

They have already blown past last year's record with what is now 67 total sellouts so far, and we're barely past the halfway point of the year. They've just sold out Arena Mexico alone, nine weeks straight, and 19 times total in 2006. But they've been doing this across multiple buildings. It's not just Arena Mexico. But it's not bad for the oldest active promotion in the world, 93 years running. That's a milestone worthy of being mentioned here, I would say.

I would hesitate to say that, you know, the Mexican scene is hot right now. I think it's CMLL that's hot. Everyone's been giving Undertaker a lot of praise. for his work with AAA, but AAA ain't putting up numbers like this. But on that note, we have WWE Hall of Famer A.J. Stiles, who on his phenomenally retro podcast indicated that he was very much open to the idea of WWE acquiring a promotion in Japan, similar to what they did in Mexico with AAA. This is bound to make some people's heads explode.

He said, Give me something over in Japan. Oh, man, I would love WWE to find a way to be in Japan, kind of like the way AAA is. We're not changing what they're doing. We're not trying to change the culture. We're just putting our spin on it, man. And then he pointed out that many times Japanese wrestlers

would be sent to Mexico on excursions and promotions. in Japan and other places, WWE could do something similar. He said, I believe that with the help of WWE, we would be able to revive Japanese wrestling to where it was. I would love to see it back where it's the Tokyo Dome. I'm talking about not like a WrestleMania over there. I'm just saying it's the company selling out the Tokyo Dome

like it did in, what was it, the early 90s? I said this is going to make some people's heads explode. It almost made mine explode. I'll say this. I greatly dislike the idea of WWE buying up more promotions in other parts of the world. When they set up shop in the UK with their NXT UK brand, it did more harm than good to the independent wrestling scene over there. When WWE goes into these places, it is not to play nice with others.

It is not with the needs of others in mind. It is to benefit themselves. And I think it's important to remember that. with WWE's influence over AAA comes pros and cons. The production is much better. They have access to major names who can help boost ticket sales for big shows, right? They have access to resources they may otherwise not have access to, not unlike TNA and its partnership with WWE, which has also had its pros and cons. But from what I've seen and what I've heard from other people who were more in tune with the product before WWE took over, and now after they've taken.

taken over, it very much feels like a WWE show when you watch it. And I would hate for other promotions to lose that sense of identity because WWE is coming in and taking over. I know AAA, you know, for many, decades, even many years, I mean, decades, tried to be like the Mexican equivalent of WWE, right?

Sports entertainment is what AAA has always tried to be. There was a lot of wacky stuff going on there even before, you know, came in, but I don't want to see WWE come in and acquire more companies. Have a working relationship with some of them? Great. I have no problem with that.

And I think more collaboration and wrestling is a great thing. WWE sending talents to Japan or even Mexico on excursion the way other promotions do. I love that idea. Especially with talents that WWE may not be doing a whole lot with right now or maybe some

who don't have the experience, they don't have the reps, and there's not many live events anymore. You send them to another country where they can work with people over there and learn and grow and improve their game. Then they come back as a more well-rounded performer. I think that would be a great idea. That's very different, though, than them going around buying up companies like these Chinese companies that go around buying up foreign real estate all over the place, right? It's terrible. AJ says he longs for the days of Tokyo Dome's sellouts in that early 90s Japanese glory period.

I'm sure a lot of fans long for that. You know, business in Japan, especially for New Japan, never fully rebounded from the pandemic. They're still struggling. And they've lost a lot of talent to WW into AEW because they can't afford to pay them what those companies can. If WWE wanted to throw a lifeline to one of them and work together because they saw some mutual benefit in it, then fine. That wouldn't frankly be unlike with WWE.

was doing with ECW in the late 90s. But what he's talking about is something completely different. We don't need them colonizing other parts of the world. I want there to be true alternatives out there, not versions of WWE light littered all over the map. I think that's fucking terrible. And I think AJ has his head in the clouds if he thinks that it would end up being anything else.

I love how he says, like, oh, they're not trying to change the culture. They're just putting their own spin on it. What the hell does that mean? What does he think that means? I mean, look at AAA more than half the champions on the AAA roster right now, our main roster, WWE stars. Dominic Mysterio has been walking around with that AAA megatitital for almost a year and is likely going to end up losing it to another WWE guy,

who the fans down there have adopted is one of their own. But we got the War Raiders walking around on Smackdown every week with the AAA tag team titles, which nobody gives his shit about. Is that the spin that he's talking about? WWE announced on Monday that the 40th annual Survivor Series is coming to Dyken Park in Houston, Texas, home of the Houston Astros, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 28th.

The last time they ran a PLE there was the Royal Rumble in 2020. Back then, it was called Minute Maid Park. This will be the second year in a row that Survivor Series has held at a major league stadium last year the show was held at Petco Park in San Diego, home of the Padres. This comes after a report from PW Insider earlier in the week that said, sources in Major League Baseball have passed on that WWE has been looking into the potential of running a major event in Milwaukee at American Family Field.

That would be the baseball stadium that houses the Milwaukee Brewers. Our source states, WWE was looking at the fall of 2026 or 2027, which could indicate that the stadium could eventually house a Survivor Series event. Well, if Milwaukee gets it, now we know it would be for 2027, not 2026. But in the announcement, they mentioned war games again. So they are sticking with the war games concept again for Survivor Series. You know, I was a big advocate for WWE bringing war games to the main roster. And for many years, even before Trump,

Triple H brought it to NXT because Vince hated it. He didn't want to do it. That's how we ended up with the elimination chamber in 2002. Triple H supposedly tried to sell him on the idea of war games, right? Triple H is an old school guy. And for whatever reason, Vince didn't want to do it. I always like the visual of the two rings side by side and guys just all over the place, beating the hell out of each other and, you know, blood everywhere.

But war games today doesn't really mean. what it did all those years ago. Especially when the cage has a top on it, if you watch those old matches, and now it doesn't. It's more about setting up big spots off the top of the cage. And everybody's got to bring a different weapon into the ring. It's like a prerequisite.

Now, you can't enter unless you bring a Kendo stick or a garbage can or some other kind of plunder into the cage. The bigger issue is WWE's inability to make it feel like there's a real need for war games every year. Now it just feels like, oh shit, it's November, it's time for war games.

Right? Let's get the bloodline back out there again. And let's give Eoskaya garbage cans so she could jump off the top of the cage. Rinse repeat every year, it gets tiresome. I thought last year's Survivor Series was one of the worst that WWE has ever produced. In the 40 years that they have been doing it, last year was among the worst. Easily the worst stadium show that they've ever produced. Four matches on the entire show. Four.

And in the men's war games match, the match they teased at the very end between Roman and Cody ended up not even happening, which was for the better. But still, they teased a match that ended up not happening. I would say it's time to give war games a rest and return to a couple of big elimination style matches like they used to do. But I don't think they would want to beat some of their top guys in one. You know, you do an elimination match. Some people have to get beat. I think they would be too afraid to do that. In war games, it's one fall to a finish.

You don't have to worry about that. And I'm not even sure there needs to be a focus on brand warfare, which they also used to do because they have crown jewel, usually in October, which has the top champions on the men's side, the top champions on the women's side, wrestling each other from Raw and Smackdown. So I wouldn't see the need to run something like that back. But some sort of focus on the elimination concept,

in a couple of matches and then just have a regular card. You know, they're just, they're trying to shoehorn things into this war games and it just falls flat. I can only hope they have a better idea than just running back the bloodline again for it. But it seems like that's exactly where we're headed. I only hope that whoever ends up in it, they can heat things up enough to where it really feels like there's a good reason to be doing it. Now, I mentioned last week CM Punk, new WWE champion, what we didn't talk about, was his

first night on Smackdown on Friday as the WWE champion. He came out and name dropped the whole bunch of people that he could potentially be getting into the ring with. He said, Sammy Zane, you deserve a rematch. He mentioned Trick Williams and Royce Keys and some of the other new names. One name he didn't mention was Cody Rhodes, who came to the ring and so we got the face-to-face promo with Punk and Cody. I think punk was the one who said, you know, maybe subconsciously we've been trying to avoid each other. You know, we're friends, I'd like to keep it that way. But Cody pointed out, you know, when he was the champion coming out of

WrestleMania and Punk had just lost his title to Roman Raines, they also ended up in the ring together. And Punk told him, you know, you never know when an opportunity, championship opportunity might fall out of the sky. And Cody told him, hey, hey, brother, you want to run this. All you need to do is say when. And so that's what happened on Friday. Punk said when?

Cody said, how about SummerSlam? And that was it. It was as simple as that. And the main event of, I would think night too, but we'll find out. But one of the SummerSlam main events was made official. Nick Aldous said Cody Rhodes will be challenging CM Punk for the WWE championship. Very thin on story here. But it's understandable at least because these two have been kept apart largely in these last few years.

They have not really been on the same brand until now. they've barely interacted with each other. They've never wrestled since Cody came back and Punk came back to the company. The only match I think they ever had, and they were both at very different points in their career back then, was like a random raw match in 2008. Otherwise, these two have never wrestled. They've never locked horns before.

So there's only so much story, you know, there to tell. The reason that we're getting this match at SummerSlam, I think more than anything else is because they still have a lot of tickets to sell. You know, the last updates from Resultics that I saw had the totals for each night, give or take, somewhere in the 25,000 range,

which is far behind where they were at this time last year. You know, going into that show at MetLife Stadium, I would imagine that this will help sell some tickets because this is truly one of the biggest matches that WWE can put together right now. And there's going to be a lot of talk about, you know, is somebody going to go heal?

What's going to happen in the finish? And I would not mind either. one of these guys turning heel, especially if they wanted to extend things out, you know, into later in the year and maybe even build to an eventual second match in WrestleMania next year. I feel like if you're going to run this back and do a second match at some point, you can't just have babyface punk and baby face Cody, because that gets boring. There has to be some sort of character shift for one of them. And my, I don't say fear, but like, if it were up to me, I would much rather see Cody be the one

to go heel. My sense is that if anybody was to go heal, it would probably be punk. Punk is the champion. I don't see him dropping the belt any time soon. They've already changed it a whole bunch of times. You've got to keep that belt on one person for a while now. And so if you're going to do that, somebody needs to chase, and it makes more sense for the baby face to chase. So if they were going to run this back eventually, but you turn Cody heel and you're building to a second match, to me, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. If Cody's, you're going to be a whole lot of sense, If Cody goes heel and he's the one in chase mode, it really should be the other way around. I know everybody's been waiting for this homelander Cody, you know, heel turn and everything.

And I just didn't feel like they were in a position to where it would have made sense to turn him heel, even earlier this year. Now I feel very differently. And I do think that if Cody just kind of keeps maintaining the status quo, you already have a lot of people who are bored by it anyway. it's only going to get worse. It kind of feels to me like this would be a good time to get something like that going, and who knows, maybe we see it happen at SummerSlam. You know, maybe he loses.

And then at the very end, he just sort of snaps. I'm not even saying he turns heel and wins the title because I really don't need to see the belt go back to him so quickly. But maybe, maybe they're going to shoot some kind of big angle on that show. They shot a big angle of the end of Smackdown. They had Gunther come out. Gunther has just livid beside himself. He constantly feels like he's being screwed over in these championship matches.

And so he wanted Nick Aldous, who he had a little scuffle with backstage after Night of Champions. And Nick, to the point where they were sent home and Nick Aldus was put on administrative leave as the general manager. He was reinstated as a Friday. And he wanted Nick Aldous. He gave him until the end of the show to make it right. So Nick came out and he made it right. And what he did was he made a tag team match. for Saturday night's main event,

where Gunther would team with Sammy Zane against Cody Rhodes and CM Punk. This is not what Gunther wanted to hear. So we got a big attack angle where he ambushed all this, he put him in a sleeper hole, officials were trying to pull him off, this major angle,

which clearly is setting up a match, whether it's official or non-sanctioned, something's going down at SummerSlam between Gunther and Nick Alder. I mean, it was pretty clear before, But if it wasn't before, it definitely is now. So we're just waiting to find out what all this is responses, I guess, on television this week. We also had the return of a former WWE star on Friday, Baron Corbyn,

whose run in WWE came to an end in November of 2024. He had been with the company for about a dozen years. And they let him go, and he's been working the independent scene. He was one half of the MLW tag team champions. he was stripped of that recently. It became pretty clear why. But I, like a lot of other people, were not expecting him to show up as part of the U.S. title scene. But I'm glad he did.

This is a much better spot for him to be in. He interfered in what was a non-title match between Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes. He laid them both out. And that would seemingly set him up for a position maybe as part of that championship match at SummerSlam. It's good to see him back again. My expectations for Baron Corbyn is that he's going to be a solid addition to the midcard on SmackDown. And I don't really have any expectations beyond that. So I'm happy he's getting another opportunity.

I think he's been doing well on the Indies. He could be a heel. He could be a baby face. It's kind of funny. He was a heel for most of his career. And seemingly is going to be a heel now. The last time we saw him in WWE, he was a baby face. They had sent him down to NXT for a while.

He actually had a tag team with Braun Breaker, the Wolfdorf, and they got over. They won the belts. They were doing well. Corbin got called up to the main roster, and they tried to replicate what they did with him and Breaker by just slapping him together with Apollo Cruz. And it didn't work.

It didn't work. But for the first time in his career, it felt like he was really starting to get over, and then they let him go. So I hope he can kind of rekindle some of that. Again, maybe it'll be his heel this time. But on Raw last night, we got a teaser vignette for a number.

pending return, and that is the return of Big Cass, formerly Big Bill from AEW. There were all kinds of reports about his contract coming up for expiration very soon, and he was leaning in the direction of not resigning with AEW. He did not, and he became a free agent, and he went and immediately signed to return to WWE. And we saw mostly kind of a silhouette of him in this vignette last night. We did have flashes of his actual face. But you could hear the voiceover in the background. What happens when the whole world calls you can't miss?

What happens when the whole world is wrong? And then they gave a date of August 3rd at the end of the vignette, which is the Monday after SummerSlam. No Enzo Amore, at least not yet. My expectation is that next week we're going to get a similar vignette, and maybe Enzo will be in there. I do think he's coming in. I think they're coming in together.

been the rumor. That would make sense. They're building up to August 3rd. They didn't want to save it as a surprise. I would have saved it as a surprise, but they want to build it up through vignettes, which is fine. And again, it makes, it makes sense that big Bill. I mean, look, the guy's big and he can work. And I think that you can do something with him if they bring him back as part of a tag team with Enzo. Enzo is going to completely overshadow him on the microphone because Enzo has the gift of Gab. And I feel like Enzo is better as a manager. I will die on that hill. They're going to bring them in most likely as a tag team.

They might even win the tag team titles. Maybe they'll beat the vision to win the tag belt. Great. Then what? The tag team division is dead. The tag team division is in shambles. Putting him in the tag team division, you're immediately putting a ceiling on him and handicapping him.

And I just hope, after that, they have enough sense to try to do something with him as a single. and then maybe Enzo could kind of be the mouth. It's too bad because, again, if they actually wanted to put the effort in to rehabilitate the tag team division and bring in a bunch of new teams, I'm not even sure how many teams there are available right now

for them to bring in. It's not like they've cultivated a great tag team division on their own with their own stars. I wish they had. I wish they would have done a better job of it. The fact that we even still have two sets of tag team title, or three, I guess, because now we've got the AAA tag belts

being paraded on TV. Yeah, that's just what we need. We need another set of tag team titles. Actually, four of them, if you want to count the women's tag team titles. What a mess. Speaking of mess, the whole women's world championship picture is a mess.

Ria Ripley has been the W.W.E. Women's champion since WrestleMania. And we have not seen Ria Ripley in the ring since June 3rd. That was at a house show in Lisbon Portugal. And it was revealed on the Smackdown from June 12 that she was being evaluated for a knee injury. And they were rehabbing it and they were going to see how the rehab was going to go. There's not been a single mention of Ria Ripley on television since. We didn't know what the nature of the injury was or what her status was. We are less than a month out from SummerSlam. No mention of her

defending her championship. Well, Ria was in attendance at the power slum. event. I don't know if this came before or after Jake Hager got knocked out. But during the broadcast, she revealed that she is dealing with a slight tear in her meniscus. She said, yeah, I hurt my knee. I got a slight tear in my meniscus, so it's healing. It's getting there. It's getting stronger. I just can't bend it very well. Kind of need to bend, guys. And when she was asked about a possible return date, she said, I don't know. I tore it in a really weird spot. So it's kind of a little bit up in the air with just how fast my body recovers. But I've been out for probably about a month now. I think it's been a month and one week. It feels better. It

still starts to hurt and throb. It gets tired. I can't get up or bend down really or kind of move side to side while crouching. That sounds like a problem. That sounds like a problem. If you can't get up and down and bend, I don't know how you're going to get back in the ring in the next few weeks. I mean, it's like, here we are heading into SummerSlam, and so what do you do? It sounds to me like the best thing to do would be to vacate the championship and just use the, and it hasn't been made official yet. But it's pretty clear we're going to get a match at SummerSlam between Charlotte Flair and Jade Cargill, and just put the belt up in that match.

You know, have them decide a new champion and want, give Ria all the time she needs to make sure that she is 100% fully recovered. She is too valuable a member of that division and a part of that roster to do it any other way. So instead of rushing her back because we got to get her on the SummerSlam card or just not even having her or the belt at all on the card, that's one way to go about approaching it. But, I mean, you look at the women's world championship situation on both shows right now. It is dire. Again, Ria got hurt, hasn't been around, may not even have a match at SummerSlam. Live Morgan. As with Ria Ripley, she won the championship at WrestleMania.

She won the women's world title from Stephanie Vicar. It is now July 14th. We now know the card for Saturday Night's main event, which I'm going to get into here in a few minutes. She's not on that card, which means that from WrestleMania until SummerSlam, from mid-April to the beginning of August, Liv Morgan will have defended her championship.

zero times, at least on television, zero times in that period, not once as she defended that title. Stephanie Vakar, for whatever reason, still hasn't come back, whether it's an injury issue, a visa issue, whatever it is. And it's like, you had no plan B for this woman? Okay, Stephanie couldn't come back in time. So you just don't do anything with her? It's just, it's bizarre. It is very bizarre. It is the plight of the women's world champions at the moment in WWE.

Just a horrendous situation. And I think the quicker they can get the belts off both of them, the better off those divisions will be. Eo Sky is going in there at SummerSlam. She's the queen of the ring. She's going to be challenging Liv. Eo's got a nice, you know, knot, nice lump on her head after she got bashed in the head by Liv last night on Raw with the women's title. Hopefully we're looking at a women's championship change. Although I say that, I have nothing against Liv Morgan.

I mean, I'm a big E.O. Sky fan. I think she should win anyway. Realistically, though, I sit here and I say that. But the more I think about it, like, if they put the belt on EO, are things really going to be that different? It's not a Liv Morgan problem. I'm sure if it were up to Liv Morgan, she'd be on television every week defending that championship. But you need people to defend against. Two of the other women that are on Raw right now are Raquel Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez, who are allies of

hers in the Judgment Day. Stephanie's not around. Maxine Dupree is now basically a manager. She's not in the ring anymore. Becky Lynch has been gone. She's not even going to be on the Summer Slam card. It's like, who's there for Live to work with? I don't know.

I don't have a really good answer for you. I'd still like to see EO win the belt, though. Speaking of Raw last night, we had a contract signing for the World Heavyweight Championship match between Roman Raines and Seth Rollins at SummerSlam. Last week, Roman Raines was not there. And Seth Rollins went out there and he cut a promo all by himself. And it sucked.

It was a gigantic bore. So it warmed me to no end to listen to Roman Raines last night, actually incorporate that into his promo and talk about him boring the fans to sleep last week because that's kind of what he did. But all of a sudden, Roman comes back and we get the two of them in the ring together for this contract signing, and it's like night and day. It's like, wow, this is what happens when you have both participants in the match present at the same time.

We actually get a great promo. What do you know? And Roman Raines was, I mean, he was lighting this guy up. I mean, he was talking about how, you know, the only way this guy all these years later can still win a world championship is cashing in a money in the bank contract. He called the Triple H sets Work Daddy. You know, your Work Daddy is basically running the place. you know, naturally, you end up in a position like, and just going on and on.

But I just thought the back and forth between them was really good. It was a really great segment to close the show last night, the kind of segment that will definitely generate more interest in that main event for SummerSlam. So I don't really have anything bad to say about what they did there. I thought that was very good. We had Obafemi at the beginning of the show come out to interrupt a Paul Heyman promo. He was in the ring with Brock Lesnar and about six Dallas police officers, quote-unquote police officers.

And Oba comes out, and he beats the shit out of all of these officers. I mean, he's chucking him around, double chokeslam. He just wipes them all out all by himself. Brock and Haman have retreated to the aisle. They've retreated to the stage. And Oba cuts this just fiery, intense promo. I love the intensity in his promos, like when he gets pissed off. But then he goes and he reveals the explanation for why he gave him.

up his guaranteed title match for SummerSlam that he earned by winning King of the Ring this year. Now, I talked about this recently how on WWE's official post-show raw podcast with Sam Roberts a few weeks ago, they were using language that would seem to indicate that Oba gave it up. Not that he just delayed his title shot, like he's banking it for another day. Like he gave it up, which makes it so much worse. Well, now we know, based on what Paul Heyman was saying last night in Oba himself, said he didn't delay anything. He gave it up. And the reason that he gave it, and look, you and I both know,

he's going to be fucking champion no later than WrestleMania next year. It's not like this guy's going to struggle to get a title shot. I'm just saying like, again, in storyline, the whole thing is ridiculous. But the reason that he gave it up, I swear this is what he said, is because he and Paul know that his client would have just cost him his shot anyway. If that's what they were going to have him go out there and say. First of all, why didn't they have him say that two weeks ago? Why are we getting this explanation out of the blue now? But if that's what he was going to say,

they would have been better off not having him say anything at all. Because that just makes him look worse. So let's get this straight. He gave up a guaranteed main event title match on their second biggest show of the year, on the off chance that someone might try to interfere in the match. Someone, by the way, who Oba spent weeks insulting on television, calling him, among other things, a bitch, I don't know, maybe don't go around insulting the man. You're so worried about him interfering in your matches.

You can't go out there on television every single week after he beat you in Italy. And you go out there like a sore loser and you call him a coward and you call him a bitch and you question his manhood. You're just poking the bear week after week after week. And you say, well, I had to surrender my championship match. because this guy would have interfered on my match. Yeah, no shit. Gee, I wonder why. But think about it.

Would he, though? Why would Brock interfere anyway and cost him the bell? Like, wouldn't he let Obo win the championship and then win the belt off of him since Brock, the last time they met, pinned him in the middle of the ring? Would that not make more sense? Isn't that why he has Heyman with him to think of these things? He's supposed to be the wise man.

That was a very stupid thing to say. Outside of that, though, I thought Oba looked great, just killing dude. See, that's when he's at his best, just going out there and wrecking shop. And I am looking forward to their hell in a cell mat. I just hope it gets more than six minutes. The first match was four minutes. Their last match was six minutes. Can we at least hit double digits for this cell match?

We had a gauntlet match last night to decide a new number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship. The winner would go on to SummerSlam to check. challenge Penta. And WWE had one job here in this mad. The easiest thing they'll do all summer slime season. Make sure that Chad Gable wins the gauntlet and goes to Minneapolis to challenge for the IC title.

That's it. That was the only goal going into the show last night, and they did that. So I'm a happy man. Chad Gable wins the gauntlet. He entered the gauntlet a little bit later than I thought he would, but look, the only thing that matters here is the enroner. result. Although I will say Javon Evans, they gave him the shine more than anybody else in this thing, probably because they knew he wasn't winning. So let's just let him kind of go. He didn't go the distance,

but he went longer, I think, than anybody else did. And the fans were really into him and everything, but then he ultimately fell to Rusev. Gable came out at that point, beat Rusev, and then Ethan Page was the last of the, I want to say seven men in the gauntlet. He was the last one to fall to Chad Gable. So Gable is going into his hometown of Minneapolis, in his home state of Minnesota, to challenge for what would be if he was to win, his first singles championship in WWE. And he's been in this company now for over a decade. He's been there a long time. It might even be like 12 or 13 years. He's been there a long time. It's almost impossible for me to fathom that at the rate that people win championships

in wrestling these days, that he has never held a singles title in WWE. Hopefully that will change at SummerSlam because if ever there was a time to belt him up and just put that championship on him, he's been fighting for this title for years, it feels like. He had all those matches with Gunther three or four years ago, lost every single one of them. The time is now. If not now, then when? I love Penta, but if not now, then when? Chad Gable coming out of SummerSlam without the Intercontinental title doesn't make any sense to me. Solo Sacoa was on the show last night, seemingly termed baby face, although people didn't really seem to react much to it. We got another match made official, though, for SummerSlam.

If you've been following the television, solo Sacoa, right, used to be part of the bloodline, branched off from that, formed his own faction on Smackdown for a while called the MFTs, my family tree. And it was terrible. It made for terrible television. They never bothered to flesh out any of the other characters in the group outside of maybe Tamatanga, kind of a little bit. and they did such a great job of building up these other characters that pretty much everybody else has gotten fired and isn't even on the roster anymore.

Although Talatanga, I guess, is still around. But Tonga Loa is not. J.C. Mateo is not. So the MFTs are no more. Solo Sukoa has been a man all by himself. He's been trying to recruit other people, baby faces like L.A. Knight and Roy's Keys, and they basically blew him off. They wanted nothing to do with him. And they don't trust them.

They still think he's part of the bloodline, right? So that's the story that they've been building now for a few months. And the bloodline has been trying to bring him in. He's been resistant to that. He showed up on Raw last night to confront Jacob Fautou and Jimmy Uso and was seemingly playing nice and saying, you know what, I've realized? Blood is thicker than water. And so I'm coming home.

And he threw up the ones. And so did Jimmy and so did Jacob. And then Solo turned on Jimmy. And he spiked him right in the throat. and they're ganging up on him and Royce Keys is there and he's getting ganged up on. Out comes L.A. Knight with the great equalizer, a steel chair and he clears the ring. And it was L.A. Night on the mic last night who made it official. He threw out the challenge for SummerSlam.

It'll be the three of us. L.A. Night, solo Sacoa, and Royce Keys on the same side, taking on Jacob Fatu, Jimmy Uso, and Jay Uso. Jay Uso has not been on the shows. He's not been on TV for the last two weeks. If you've been following on TMZ, he's got some. personal business going on. I don't know when we're going to see him now.

We'll see him at SummerSlim. I know that. And then the less set about the vision stuff on the show last night, the better. I mean, there was a segment where you had Austin Theory and Bronbreaker there, once again, tag team champions. Logan Paul's out there, his arm in a brace as he continues to recover from his torn tricep surgery. And Maxine Dupree, who was the newest member of the vision. They had put Theory and Maxine together as an item.

She turned on the street profits and helped the vision regain those tag team titles. So they came out to the ring and a little victory celebration. Otis and Tozawa came out, the Alpha Academy. They used to be together with Maxine. They look very depressed. Maxine, what are you doing? This guy's all wrong for you. It was we got some soap opera theater and not very good soap opera theater on Raw last night.

And they haven't made it. anything official yet, but it certainly seems to me. Like, if the vision is going to be at SummerSlam, that it will be a tag team title defense against Otis and Tozawa. And I'm just like, I'm looking at this, and I'm just like, Bronbreaker. Bronbreaker started this year, challenging CM Punk on the Stranger Things episode of Raw for the World Heavyweight Championship. And I know coming out of the rumble, he got hurt, he needed emergency hernia,

surgery and it kind of fucked up their plans. I get that. Bronbreaker was going places, man. Bronbreaker, he was right there. He was on the cusp. And here we are seven months later. He's one half of the tag team champions with Austin Theory in a dead division. And he is potentially going to be wrestling Tozawa at SummerSlam.

How did we arrive at this point? What has happened to Braun Breaker? The way they've cooled him off has really been something to see him and Jacob fought to. They're both in a worse position now than they were earlier this year, only a few months ago. Now, I have faith that they will be able to get past this, and in the end they'll be okay. Although I'm a little less certain about Braun now, but it's been very noticeable watching them on TV like, man. Boy, have they been cooled off. But this weekend we got Saturday night's main event coming up from the world's most famous arena.

Madison Square Garden. I have a card for you. I don't think this card is going to change, although we have one Smackdown left on Friday. So it's always possible they could add a match. I doubt very seriously they're adding anything. They did make the announcement yesterday that Roman Raines. I didn't think he was going to be on the show. Roman Raines won't be wrestling.

But the World Heavyweight Champion will be appearing on the show and with him will be the captain. Jalen Brunson is official for Saturday night's main event. And it started with Roman sending out a tweet yesterday inviting Brunson to the show. He said the OTC, the king of New York, at Jalen Brunson, at the Mecca. Let's have the whole world acknowledge us at Saturday night's main event. And Brunson tweeted him back and said, see you there. Throwing up the ones.

Now Brunson, he just underwent surgery on his left. right. Apparently he was playing through the playoffs with the injury, but he's expected to be back on the court later this summer. See, that's the captain right there, even with an injury, played through it and they won the championship. So what they're going to be doing together, I don't know, it sounds like they're going to have some sort of acknowledgement ceremony. Maybe Roman will acknowledge him, but they've got him on the show. And then in terms of matches, we have Danhausen, one-on-one with J.D. McDone. We don't get too many singles matches with Danhausen. But It's Madison Square Garden. It's New York City. You know, Danhausen's going to be treated like a god in that building. So it made sense that they would get him in a match. No Brunson. I thought Brunson would be in Danhausen's corner. I suppose it's still possible, but it doesn't seem like it. Seems like Brunson will be doing other things on the show. Who knows we may get other members of the Knicks to make it appearance. They're all going to be there. Right. It's Fanatics Weekend. So I know the Knicks are doing some stuff with fanatics. They're going to be in town. I would expect.

other members of the team to be there. And it's a notice qualification match now. So there's going to be plenty of bullshit. But it should be fun bullshit. Danhausen will win. Just added to the show, Bailey, one-on-one with her former friend and tag team partner, Lyra Valcuria,

who came out on Raw last night looking like crazy Nikki Cross. She had no makeup on. She looked all disheveled. She looked like she hadn't slept in days. She's playing heel now. We're getting heel Lyra for the first. first time in her career.

And my first thought, looking at her out there, I thought of Tatum Paxley, as I'm sure many other people did, because there's been reports that Tatum Paxley from NXT could be due for a call-up imminently. And what better place for her to get called up to the main roster than Madison Square Garden on Saturday? And maybe she helps Lyra pick up the win. So whether Tatum shows up or not, I'm going with Lyra for the win. And maybe they run it back at SummerSlam.

I'm sure this will not be the only match these two have. One other thing on Bailey, though, I would say it was about an hour or so after Bailey's segment on TV last night. Her good friend, Mercedes Monet, tweeted out an hourglass gif. This is after she shared a fan-made image to her IG stories two weeks ago, showing a match graphic for AEW wrestle dream with her and Bailey on it, and an October 2026 date underneath.

There has been a lot of talk about Bailey's contract, people speculating that her contract is due to expire later this year. I don't know that Bailey herself has ever confirmed that. Maybe she has. I don't know offhand. It's been a lot of speculation about her deal being up this year, though. I said at the beginning of this year on my Salomon's Sounds Off podcast, I do my annual prediction show at the beginning of January every year, end of December,

I said then that I thought Bailey would be the WWE star to make the jump this year to AEW. And now here we are seven months later. Nothing's been done with her on TV that would make me change my mind. If nothing else, she should at least use this as leverage to try to get a better deal if they offer her one. But we're also in the TKO era. I mean, they're letting some long-time talents go. They're not really putting up a fight for some of these people. They're trying to cut people's pay.

People are probably accepting it. Other people are obviously not, like Seamus and the New Day. I'm not really sure they would be willing to go very high for Bailey. They probably would offer her what they're going to offer her. Would they be willing to increase that? I'm not so sure, honestly, just based on the way that they use her. If that's how they're judging these things, would they really offer Bailey what she would be looking for?

I'm not really convinced of that. I actually think it would be a good move for her to leave and go somewhere else, not just because we can get another match with her and Mercedes, and the two of them are obviously best friends. My favorite women's match ever, at least in WWE is Sasha Banks and Bailey, NXT Takeover Brooklyn back in 2015. I would love to see them run it back again in 2026 or 2027.

And she would have so many new people to work with on that roster. Bailey is one of those people who she's been around here in this company for about a decade now on the main roster. And after a while, it's just like you kind of run out of people to work with or people get tired of seeing you and the reactions, they don't quite hit the way they used to. And it could be an amazing thing

what a change of scenery could do for somebody. Not unlike a baseball player who maybe isn't doing so hot in one city and then they move to another city and all of a sudden it's like they have a career renaissance unless you come to the Mets. And then it's the exact opposite of that. People forget how to play baseball.

We have the women's tag team champions, Bree Bella and Page defending their titles against Fatal Influence, Fallon Henley, and Lainey Reed. This has to be a title change. I don't really see any reason to run this match back again unless they're going to change the belts. We saw these two teams wrestle in a non-tidal match

a few weeks ago and the champions beat them. So now they get a title shot anyway. Can you imagine if they go in there and they get beat again? What the hell does that say about fatal influence? This has to be a title change. and in the main event we're getting the classic Can they coexist? Cody Rhodes and CM Punk

SummerSlam adversaries are going to be tag team partners taking on Sammy Zane and Gunther. This could go either way. I mean, they could have Cody and Punk lose to put more heat on things for their match. I'm going with them for the win because I just can't see either one of them taking the loss here. Cody or Punk.

So I just feel like they're going to end up pulling out the wind, but there'll be some sort of disagreement, and then they're going to beat each other's throats by the time the show is over. Sammy Zane, I mean, I don't know. I don't know what's next for Sammy. I really don't. I don't see him being inserted into that match at SummerSlan.

It's a much bigger match if you just keep it one-on-one punk and Cody. I feel bad for Sammy, getting nine days, not one successful title defense. but at this point it's like adding him, I don't see it happening. It's not something I would even do. He is owed a title match, though. Punk said as much last Friday.

When he gets his rematch, I don't know. I would think they would maybe do that on TV in the next few weeks. But Punk said it himself. He goes, Sammy Zang, you know what? You deserve a rematch. Okay, well, now we have to wait and find out when we get the rematch. WWE Hall of Famer good old JR Jim Ross revealed on his grilling JR podcast last week

that he is scheduled to undergo brain surgery possibly as early as this week to address a condition that has been affecting his memory. He told his co-host Conrad Thompson, I feel pretty good. I think it's getting better every day but still got a ways to go. I can't drive yet.

I'm cutting back on my appearances. I got a big one coming up in Minneapolis in a few weeks, so I'm just battling. I'm getting ready to have another surgery, brain surgery, this time. That's going to be an adventure because I don't think they're going to find much in my brain. I'll be in the hospital for a few days. Hopefully nothing will go wrong. I've got a great surgeon. I had to go to the cardiologist to talk to him about the upcoming procedure, and they're going to do it soon. I don't have a confirmed date set, but it's going to be in the next week or so. That's what I'm pushing for. It's just an illness and I've got to get it addressed. Couldn't live my life the way it was. I'd forget

shit and I just couldn't remember things. It was just horrible. I felt horrible. But it all started with me passing out of my house and being discovered there, which began an almost 40-day hospital stay. And he says, this procedure that I'm getting ready to have done, it's called a shunt. It'll go from my brain. I don't know where it's all going to go, but it's going to go someplace to get that fluid off my brain. That's making me not remember stuff. It's fairly serious. I always thought that anytime they open your skull up, it's a serious piece of business. And this certainly feels that way. So I'll get it done, short hospital stay, and then back home to heal up. And I had a friend years ago with a shunt.

I know what the purpose of the procedure is is to drain, you know, excess fluid down into another part of the body. I listened to what he said there, and my impression was that, obviously, this is just a terrible situation. This guy can't catch a freaking break. But it's good news. It sounds like that maybe they didn't discover that. he had Alzheimer's or a form of dementia because he said he was being tested for that. A few weeks ago, he mentioned that. And the fact that they're doing this procedure seems to indicate they discovered something

very specific has been causing his memory issues. Or maybe they feel like maybe it's causing his memory issues. And it's sort of the lesser of two evils because nobody wants to get an Alzheimer's diagnosis. So that's my hope without knowing all the details and seeing all of his medical records. Hopefully it is nothing more serious than that. But man, this guy has been through the ringer for the last few years. This year especially has been very bad for JR. So hopefully he can get this resolved and at least knock that out.

Hopefully that's the end of the memory issues that he's been having. But he's been falling a lot. You know, again, it's just, it's tough to hear these stories because you just, you worry about the guy and the idea of him falling and not being near his phone, you know, and laying there for hours and hours. and nobody knows, it's scary. You know, his wife passed away many years ago, almost a decade ago now, and he lives alone. And, you know, when you have, and I'm sure some of you listening to this can relate, you have family members maybe who live alone or you've tried to, you know, get them to not live in that situation or go to assisted living or something and they just don't want to do it.

And JR just seems like the kind of person who just wants to keep doing what he does. Like he wants to keep working. He wants to keep doing stuff. Maybe it takes his mind off the fact that, you know, he's. He's, you know, he doesn't have her around anymore. I don't know. It's just sad to me, you know, that he keeps having to deal with all this nonsense. So I wish him the best, and hopefully, hopefully we won't hear about another story like this is all you can hope for.

Beach Break was the big episode of Dynamite this past week in Clearwater, Florida. Kenny Omega against MJF on that show, which was very strange to me why they were doing it there. But they did it, and it was a hell of a main event. In the end, Kenny Omega is once again for the first time in five years, the AEW World Champion, in a move that was reportedly suggested by none other than MJF himself to move the match up from the redemption pay-per-view on the 26th to TV this past week. Dave Meltzer said there were no World Cup competition in what was originally scheduled as the redemption main event. Dynamite had its largest audience in two years, and based on panel numbers, almost surely the largest in almost three years. So they did a big number ratings-wise compared to what they usually do, but it seems like, I don't know, would have made more sense to save it for the pay-per-view, especially a show called redemption.

Very strange that they bumped it up like that. I can't hate on the main event, though. The main event I thought was excellent. Question now is, you know, what do you do with MJF? What do you do with Kenny Omega if, let's say they're not going to rematch them, which they certainly could. So they may have a rematch on the pay-per-view, but if not, what do you do with them? And one thought that I had was, you know, Will Osprey's guaranteed his title match at all in, unless, of course, he chooses to challenge Brock Lesnar and just throw it all away, like an idiot. Assuming he doesn't do that, though. MJF against Osprey at redemption. And not for the Wembley title shop because that would just make Will look dumb

to put that up. But let's say like if MJF wins, he gets added to make it a three-way in London. Which I would not do. And I don't think they're going to do. But you tease it, right? You tease it because people could believe that.

They could buy into that. Oh, man, he's going to get added to the main event. He's going to beat Will and then Will just beats him. Problem is he also needs someone for Omega on the next show. So what do you do with Kenny if he's not going to be wrestling MJF again? You could go the route of a rematch from all-in last year where Kazuchka Okada beat Omega. I mean, this is a match Tony Khan was waiting years to do in his company. And he finally had the chance to do it.

Omega, Okada. I mean, they've had classics before in Japan. And they had an excellent match last year and Kenny lost. So you could run back Omega Okada with Kenny defending and kind of avenging that loss. That could certainly be one option for your redemption main event. Kenny gets his redemption for the loss last year. You could also do Kenny Omega against John Moxley. And you tease that possibility that Moxley, if he beats Kenny and wins the title,

that would mean that Will Osprey would have to beat John Moxley. He and Moxley have been running buddies now for the last few months, ever since Moxley beat him. People would buy into that too, because that's a man. I expect them to do that match at some point regardless. The idea of teasing it as a potential Wembley main event could add some drama, you know, for some people who could buy into that. I personally, though, don't think Moxley should be losing to anybody until he wrestles Osprey

and then he could finally lose a match. So that's, I mean, it's not going to be him and Osprey on that London show. So then I probably would avoid doing it all together. But I'm just throwing out there possibilities that I think could add some intrigue. going into that show. MJF absolutely deserves to be in the main event of Wembley this year. They decided to go in a different direction with it. I'm not going to lie and tell you that Omega and Osprey is not a big match for them to do.

It is. But it sucks that MJF won't be a part of that because I don't see them adding him at this point to make it a three-way. I kind of feel like that ship has sailed. I mean, what are you going to do? You're going to tease the idea of adding a heel to the main event of the show. That works if it's. It's like a hot baby face that people want to see added to that main event at the last minute. But I don't know.

Adding in a heel, I just don't see that happening. Kyle Fletcher is the new international champion. He took it away from Konosuke to Keshda, who was going away for a month. He's in the G1 climax, which kicked off, by the way, this past Saturday at the Now Arena and Hoffman Estates, which is where All Out is being held this year on the outskirts of Chicago. Where is Hoffman Estate? What is that? 20, is it 20 minutes or so outside of Chicago?

Something like that. It kicked off the G1 on U.S. soil this year, but now they're going back to Japan. Actually, Takesha had a great match with Yotasugi, the IWGP champion in the G1, and he lost to him. But if he's going to be gone for a month, then, sure, take the belt off of him, and when he comes back, you can put him right back in the ring with Kyle. One of their pillars, Jack Perry, we also learned on Dynamite, has re-signed with AEW. In fact, the segment that they aired on the show on Wednesday, which showed various highlights from his career in AEW, and then they showed him sitting in a conference room somewhere, putting pen to paper and signing the contract, and Tony Khan was sitting next to him and Tony Khan, big smile on his face.

Evidently, that was his actual contract signing. That was not just done for show. When he signed the contract in that segment, that was literally him signing his contract. Russell votes on Fightful Select reported that WWE had little to no internal discussion regarding the possibility of pursuing Jack Perry in the case that he did enter free agency. And the prevailing feeling was that he did not fit in WWE's current landscape. Yeah, no shit. I've been like talking about this like if he actually. left AEW, which I could not imagine

that they were not going to work out a deal. A, would WWE even have interest in him, number one? Number two, if they brought him in, at best, it would be for an NXT run to start and then see where it goes. It's not a situation where even though he's got, you know, television experience now for several years, that they're going to bring him to Raw. They're going to bring him to SmackDown.

And that's to say nothing, by the way, of the prior issues with him and CM Punk, which led to the whole Wembley blow up, you know, a few years ago. I know punk has been on his best behavior, but, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that he wants to be working with Jack Perry either. But I just can't imagine the WWE would look at Jack Perry and say, this is someone that we need on our roster. We need to be doing something with right now.

For his sake, the best bet for him would be to stay right where he is. He's an AW guy. He said in the promo that, you know, he wants to win the world championship. You ain't winning a world championship in WWE. not even win one in AEW, but I guarantee his chances are a hell of a lot better there than they would be in WWE. Unless you count the NXT championship.

I could see him holding the NXT championship, but I don't know that I would consider that a real world title. But there was something else big that happened this week, and it didn't happen on Dynamite. In fact, it was never even mentioned. Tony Con went on social media a couple of days before collision

on Saturday, and put the graphic up to just randomly announce that because they're going to be in his home state of Virginia. Hangman Adam Page is going to be back. On collision. We have not seen Hangman or heard from him since his loss to MJF in Texas death at Revolution back in March. And he came out and he reiterated to all of us that by losing to MJF, per the stipulations of their match,

he can never again challenge for the AW World Championship. and that even though it was not actually put down on paper, it's not written down an illegal document somewhere. He is a man of his word, and he intends to honor that word. He will never challenge for that title ever again. He talked about there being other championships in the company that he could compete for. He mentioned the national title, the international title, the continental title.

That's one thing that you don't have to worry about in AW. You've got plenty of championships to compete for. But he said for seven years, I have defined myself by one goal, which is to chase and to win and hold that world championship. And now I'm faced with the question, who am I? Who am I without that championship? And he says, I don't know. But we're damn sure going to find out.

I have to find something else to do. Okay. Well, look, he's a former world champion who can maybe add some sizzle and some spice to what's going on with some of the lesser championships. I mean, that's not a horrible idea, but the idea of him never challenging for the world title ever again. If he's still in AW for the next few years, there's no way that he ain't challenging for that world title at some point. I can

guarantee you that. But for the time being, you've got to play by the rules for the next year, maybe two. Sure. Let him chase after some of the other championships. Paul White, The Big Show, haven't heard

Disney mentioned in a while. He's been with AEW for a few years now. I actually re-signed with them not too long ago. And I think for the most part he does Like ambassador work for them And promotional work Hasn't wrestled a match In maybe a couple of years

Did not look very good the last time we saw him It looked like he literally could barely move Fifty-four years old now He appeared during a dark match At Wednesday night's beach break Dynamite he made a run-in I believe it was after a tag team match That saw Steve Borden

Sting Sun And Kieran Gray Faced off against Blake Christian And Jay Lethal And there's footage that leaked on social media It showed him Already in the ring Delivering chops

To Christian And then there was a choke slam spot Where he didn't have to do much I mean I remember if it was Jay Lethal Or Blake Christian that he chokeslam I think it was lethal All they have to do is just bump for him

And just go up for the move And he, again, he just has to stand there and put his hand up in the air and go, ooh, you know. So he did. I'm sorry. I always remember back to the Rock promo when Rock and Big Show feuded 25 years ago, Rock would mock the choke slam gesture. I never forgot.

It was the funniest thing. Every time I see him put the hand up for the choke slav, it's the first thing I think of. So anyway, like I said, he hasn't worked a full match in a couple of years now. but he was there to help out with doing media for the event, and so he ended up making an appearance. Funny enough, I just watched a tag team match from Slambury, 1998,

with Sting and the Giant winning the tag team titles from Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, because WWE posted it on YouTube as part of like a Sting compilation. It was like great Sting team ups. And so various tag team matches going back to the early 90s that he's been a part of, and that was one of, them that they had there in that video. And then here I'm, I'm watching this clip and I'm like, here's, here's the giant rescuing baby sting. We've come full circle here. But he was out there moving like Andre in 89, you know, like in the end stages of his career, which was painful

to watch. And I know he's lost a bunch of weight. He's trying to get himself back in shape so he can actually do some matches. He wants to continue to wrestle, not full time, obviously, but he, you He's not done yet. And he's talked about Captain Insano, you know, the character that he played all those years ago in The Waterboy. And Tony Khan, I think, obtained the rights to the character some time ago. And he wants to portray Captain Sano or Captain Sano, Captain Insano. That's his arch rival. You have Captain Sano.

He's going to feud with Captain Insano. I don't know what the fuck I'm saying anymore. I think I'm the insane one. But I know he wants to do that character. and I don't know if it would be for a match. I don't know if it would be just for like a funny, goofy comedy segment. He still hasn't done that. So I'm sure we're going to see that at some point.

I mean, there are ways to allow him to go out there and just do a choke slam or a chop and get a pop from the crowd and not do much of anything else. And that's fine. I don't think anybody is clamoring to see him in a full-blown match because, you know, he can't do it anymore. You know, I mean, you can't try. train and you can lose all the weight in the world, but like when your knees are shot, your knees are shot. And it's different for a guy like him. It's not like any other person

whose knees are shot. There's a lot of them in wrestling. I mean, look, just to watch Tanahashi walk down to the ring is painful. But for a guy like Kali or a guy like Big show, who's seven feet plus, it's just a very different situation and it's sad to watch. So getting him in limited doses like that, that's the best way to approach things. The only other thing I wanted to mention here real quick is Dark Side of the Ring is back. Season 7, it kicked off this past Tuesday with a double episode on Vice. I watched both.

I thought they were very good. They were covering really the career in the life of Jeff Jarrett and the battle for TNA. So they're not really a, it's not a bunch of T&A episodes so much as it really is about Jarrett, or at least TNA through the lens of Jeff Jarrett and how it affected his career. if they want to do episodes on the history of TNA, they could literally get an entire season out of that. I enjoyed the first two episodes. It was very clear who was portrayed as the villain of this story.

That would be Dixie Carter, who did not respond to various requests from the producers to sit down for interviews. So she is not interviewed for this. And it's a shame because it would have been nice to get her perspective because there's a lot of things that a lot of people are saying about her on these episodes, and she's not there to, defend herself or give her side of the story.

They tried, but, you know, what are you going to do? If the person doesn't want to be on, they don't want to respond, then they're not going to respond. So she's not interviewed. Kurt Engel is not interviewed. He was also a very big part of TNA and Jeff Jarrett there for a while because they get into the whole controversy around Jeff starting to date Kurt's ex-wife, Karen, who did sit down for an interview to give her side of the story. You know, for so many years, people accused them of,

having an affair. And then she says, you know, Kurt and I had been legally separated going back to the first year he came into the company. And a lot of people may not have known that. And, you know, they get into the whole blowup with Dixie. And Dixie used it according to Jeff

and Karen as a way to oust him from power because Dixie at that point just wanted Jeff out of the way so that she could be the boss in TNA. Right? So from their perspective, That's how it all went down. And I'm sure that, you know, there were political moves and power plays being made here by Dixie. I'm sure there's a lot of truth in that.

But also, you know, there were reports even going back to when all of this went down that Dixie had confronted Jeff about this. Jeff denied that there was anything going on between the two of them. And then one day she gets invited to a Christmas party or whatever it was. They opened the door. And there's Jeff and Karen, like a married couple hosting the party. And Dixie hit the roof. You know, and Vince Rousseau said she called him and she said, She was furious.

How come you didn't tell me? I'm so embarrassed. You know, if it's a case where she flat out asked him, look, is there something going on here? And he lied to her and denied it and said no. Yeah, that's a little bit different. You know, if you lie to, you know, I guess his boss technically or colleague, I don't know what their relationship would have been.

I guess Dixie, would Dixie have been Jeff's boss at that time? I don't know. They were equals. But anyway, so there's a lot that's been said about this over the years. This did not paint Dixie in the best light. And I suspect that it will be more of the same tonight because tonight is part three. We're actually getting three episodes out of this.

And tonight is going to cover the tail end of things for Jeff and TNA, the Hulk Hogan Eric Bischoff era and more Dixie stuff. So that should be fun to sit through. But again, I enjoyed seeing some of the early T&A stuff. There was a lot of really bad stuff, but there was a lot of good stuff. And you realize, like, again, for a picture, period of time there, TNA really was trying to be a true alternative to WWE, and the X

division was proof of that. There was a period of time where their knockouts division, what was going on there with Awesome Kong and Gail Kim was very innovative compared to what WWE was doing with their divas. And they truly did feel like, okay, it's kind of like, we got something different going on here. And then they just went all in on bringing in the XWE guys and a lot of the legend. and it just wasn't the same anymore. You know, I'm sure paying all these people a shitload of money that maybe they didn't have to spend.

And then there were people like Samoa Joe and AJ Stiles who ended up leaving and they were the heart and soul of that company. And once that happened, T&A was really not TNA anymore. So I'm sure they'll get more into that tonight. But again, I enjoyed the episodes. Boy, they sure painted Jeff Jarrett in a great light. I guess that's what happens, though, when you agree to sit down for the interview

and you get to tell your truth. You know, you get to tell your side of the story. You're going to be painted a hell of a lot better than the people who don't. Anyway, thank you guys for tune it in for yet another edition of the Uncrowned Wrestling show. I hope you guys enjoyed it. You could always email me, the Salammonster, at gmail.com. If you want to submit a question for the show, or you could also tweet me on X at Salamaster. Just use the hashtag uncrowned.

And spread the word. Tell your friends. They're into pro wrestling and they're looking for a new podcast. check out, let them know. You know that you got the Uncrown show dropping every Tuesday, which is when I'm going to be back with you next. That'll be next Tuesday. We'll talk about the fallout from Saturday night's main event and everything else that happens during the week. So until then, I am Jason Solomon. And when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. I'll see you back here next Tuesday for more Uncrown. Until then, take care, guys.