The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | King Jey Uso may be a real thing, Vince McMahon case takes major turn, wild CM Punk rumors

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

Solomonster chimes in on the wild rumors floating around regarding CM Punk, his physical appearance, heat with WWE, and even a future return to AEW (04:09). Thoughts on Friday's WWE championship, where things may be headed for Night of Champions, plus an injury update on Rhea Ripley (12:53). News on the death of the man who created the King of the Ring in 1985, plus thoughts on where things stand with the KOTR and QOTR tournaments after Raw (19:37). A major update on Vince McMahon's sex trafficking lawsuit and whether it could pave the way for an eventual return to the company, plus an update on Liv Morgan’s stalker being found not guilty by reason of insanity (30:49). MJF gets a match at Forbidden Door but it’s not a title match, the finals of the men’s Owen Hart tournament have been set and why the Forbidden Door concept no longer works (44:37). Five title changes on the New Japan Dominion show this past weekend, including a new IWGP champion crowned, and the blocks revealed for this year’s G1 Climax tournament (54:19). Vince Russo reveals some sad news about Konnan’s health, plus some listener questions and a note about the social media ban being implemented in the UK (57:53).

Welcome to the Uncrowned Wrestling Show. Jason Solomon here. It is Tuesday, June 16, 2006. How's this for a crazy story? Earlier this morning, a 5.5 magnitude earthquake northeast of Tokyo briefly impacted the pro wrestling Noah show that was taking place at Corkin Hall, right in the middle of an eight-man tag team match that had Kenta and Tetsuya Naito in it, former IWGP World Champion. And they paused the match once the building starts, started shaking, probably a good idea. But they paused the match. Everyone's phone started popping off with alerts. And one of the announcers mentioned that we're shaking up here on the fifth floor. And nobody panicked. These things happened there occasionally. It passed quickly and the

match continued. But that's got to be a trip. Like when you're in the middle of a match and the building starts shaking and you're thinking, man, I'm really over. And then you just realize nah, it's just an earthquake. Carry on. It's business as usual. I'll tell you what was not business as usual. Oh man. Nixon 5. What a week. You know, I'm not the kind of diehard Knicks fan that my brother is and some of my buddies. Ariel, I know it was like a religious experience for him watching the game the other night. But I'm really happy for them. You know, I know what it's like to be a long-suffering fan of a franchise. I am a Mets fan. So I get it. And it was very cool. to see, you know, between that and the World Cup game they had over at MetLife, and now to cap it off this Thursday, they got a ticker tape parade down the canyon of heroes. It's a special time, man. Actually, the New York Knicks, or some of them, appeared on Jimmy Fallon last night. And Jalen Brunson, who was the MVP of the finals, big WWE fan, he asked him point blank,

Fallon that he goes, do you believe that Danhausen contributed to your win? and Jalen Brunson said, well, at first I was a little skeptical, but I mean, you got to believe it now. You're damn right, you got to believe it. You cannot doubt the power of Danhausen. Brian Alvarez is reporting that the Danhaus and Knicks stuff is being put together by TKO. They're going to have WWE cameras at the parade. They're going to be putting together a Knicks and Danhausen documentary for YouTube. And at least one Knicks player is confirmed for Saturday night's main event, which is coming up on

July 18th at MSG, and they are trying to get several more, including the coach. Now, again, Brunson is a big WWE fan, so it wouldn't surprise me if he's the guy that they locked in. We'll see how many Knicks they actually hit. I mean, it would be ridiculous not to have Danhausen on that show in some way. They're basically building the advertising around him now. Like, how could he not be there? He's going to be this unbelievable hero as soon as they play his music and he walks into that building. He'll be the most over guy on that entire show.

I saw the WFAN radio they put out a tweet to Danhausen inviting him to be their guest at the parade on Thursday. So whether he's their guest or not, he's definitely going to be there. I think the man should be given his own float. But that's just me. But thank you for supporting the Uncrowned Wrestling Show. If you are not subscribed already, you've got two places to do so, the main Ariel Helwani show feed where all of his shows drop. You got the boys in the back and the crack.

A lot of great stuff over there. so you can get the show there or on the dedicated feed to the uncrown wrestling show, either or works. And leave a review. It really helps the show out. There's plenty to dive into with the king and queen of the ring tournaments, some legal updates on Vince McMahon and Liv Morgan. I've got thoughts on AEW's upcoming forbidden door pay-per-view and why it doesn't really work anymore. Some big title changes in New Japan as well. There's a lot. But I'll start with this. One person that we have not seen on WWE television since WrestleMania, really, I mean, the raw after WrestleMania is CM Punk. He had that great main event with Roman Raines. He lost

the World Heavyweight Championship. And he had a promo segment with Cody Rhodes, actually. But he told all the fans, you know, I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going on vacation. And then he ended up disappearing and basically going on a de facto vacation. But he's been off TV now. for a few months. And in that time, it is given certain people the chance to make up a lot of really dumb shit. And the rumor mill around punk has been swirling now for the last couple of weeks with some really just outrageous stuff. Now, of course, many of you have probably seen the photos or the still shots that have popped up online of punk allegedly in the gym. I say allegedly because, I mean, everything is freaking AI these days. Who the hell knows what's real and what's not? I'll assume it's real.

these photos of punk getting his you know getting his pump on in the gym and looking like he's in just incredible shape and everybody talking about now he's on the gas, he's on steroids, he's not straight edge anymore. All of this ridiculous nonsense. And then this week there was a rando account on X that started posting news as if it was some kind of big scoop

and had any credibility behind it whatsoever talking about punk playing politics behind the scenes for the WrestleMania main event. and things didn't go the way he wanted them to. And so now there's heat there. And he's very upset about this. And, you know, he may have been asked by TKO to take a pay cut. Yes.

One half of your WrestleMania main event this year. One of the biggest stars of the company was asked by TKO to take a pay cut. Sure. Sure thing. But apparently he's so pissed off over this. He's threatened legal action. And this is why he's been off of television. Obviously, this is the thing.

This is all bullshit. Okay. Now, I'm not shocked because, look, punk, punk's a big name. And when you can put punk in the headlines, people are going to gravitate towards it. I mean, this man has a way of attracting controversy over the years, so you can understand why. So I get it. I get why people would, you know, make shit up and they would want to talk about punk. It's been a very slow news cycle in terms of like they're being real hard wrestling news.

It's a lot of stuff going on on the TV shows. But like, people get bored. They're like, hey, what can I make up about? this person. All right, and that's basically what's going on here when it comes to CM Punk. Fifell was forced to look into this stuff, and they reported that nobody in WWE, among the dozens that Fifell spoke with, have heard that Punk wanted out of his contract, no talent we heard from, believe that he was asked to take a pay cut. One source we spoke with says that he has a story coming up soon with new merch being produced and dates planned for this

summer. Yeah, and I'll add to that. They've started over the last couple of weeks. weeks airing commercials advertising him for Fanatics Fest, which is coming up in mid-July. So he will be a guest. I think Roman Raines will be there as well. So we've seen Punk's name mentioned on TV over the last couple of weeks. Russell Vose Radio on Thursday reported that one source has told them point-blank that signs point to punk being back on TV on or before July 6th, which just so happens to be raw in Chicago. Now, this comes with a report from Dave Meltzer the other day that Punk is expected to be on the Smackdown brand upon his return, which is absolutely the right move, and that's exactly where he needs to be.

So we have Chicago coming up for Raw in a few weeks. Obviously, that would make sense if they want to save his return for them. That would be less than a month before SummerSlam. And I'm kind of struggling here to figure out what the program would be, what the big match at SummerSlam would be for. him. Yeah, one person I would love to see him work with, and I've said this for a while. We haven't gotten any status updates on his health or where he is in the healing process, but Kevin Owens has been out for a very long time. He had neck surgery, very serious neck surgery, and obviously we all, I'm sure, want him back 100%. As long as it takes, it takes, and hopefully

he'll be able to come back at some point. Of all the people left for punk to face on this roster that maybe he hasn't already worked with, Owens to me is the most intriguing. one outside of Cody, right? The Cody thing, that's the big one. But a feud or a match between CM Punk and Kevin Owens, we need that. We need to get that at some point. If the stars were to align and they were holding out Owens, you know, he's already cleared and they're holding him out and they're going to set something up with him and Punk at SummerSlam, that would be fantastic. I don't know that that's going to happen, but I'm just saying that is a match that I would like to see at some point in the not too distant future. Also, if Kevin Owens comes back on Smackdown,

all the more reason for Punk to be on SmackDown when he comes back. But Smackdown is really the show where he needs to be for no other reason, because SmackDown could use all the help that it can get right now. And I don't know what Randy Orton's status is as far as his back injury is concerned. But the pieces are there to kind of turn the corner with Smackdown, which has not been a great show for a while now. I mean, it really, it's consistently one of the worst shows, honestly, on television. But the pieces are there for them to really turn things around.

And don't forget, Smackdown is going back to two hours, I believe as of June 26th. If not the 26th, then the week after, but I'm pretty sure it's the 26th. And that'll be a welcome change as well. Fightful also had this on Punk, though. I mean, it gets weirder here. They had a report that said some people within AEW have long believed that bridges between Punk and the company could eventually be rebuilt, even if he never wrestles there again. And the report noted that punk may not repair his relationships with everybody in the company,

but when asked whether or not he had completely burned bridges with the promotion, the response was, Never Say Never. And as soon as this news item was posted on Friday, Jack Perry, who, by the way, is in the midst of negotiations with AEW, so we'll see where he ends up. But he posted an image on his IG story of an album cover showing a creature torching a bridge. as if punk ever became available and actually wanted to go back to AEW, Tony Kahn wouldn't take him back in a heartbeat. Like give you a break.

I mean, he would take him back without any consideration whatsoever. But look, I mean, that's just how slow of a news week it's been. Okay. Punk is going to be back on television very soon. I believe that there were creative plans that had to be adjusted because of the Randy Orton situation, the Randy Orton injury. Gunther was clearly being positioned to go for the World Heavyweight Champion. ship soon, and there was a very sudden shift where they moved him over to Smackdown,

and all of a sudden he was going after Cody Rhodes. And so there was some creative change that took place, I believe, around that period of time, and that likely did, you know, impact punk. I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, by the way, to keep punk out for a couple of months. You know, the guy, he's pushing 50. He's had some major injuries in the last few years. He's been able to stay healthy since he came back from the torn tricep. And so I don't think it's the worst idea in the world to give him a couple of months off after the run that he had as the world champion, where he was basically showing up every single week. He had a couple of title defenses on the actual television show. He was making all the PLEs. You know what? Give him a couple of

months off, let him recharge, come back. The gym stuff is funny to me because I'm fully expecting the next time we see him on TV. He's going to look exactly the way that we saw him the last time. Like, I don't know what was going on with those photos. I don't think punk is all of a sudden going to come back and be a body guy. I just think people need to temper their expectations when it comes to that. One person I can tell you that we will not be seeing back in time for SummerSlam is Drew McIntyre. Now, like Randy Orton, we have not seen McIntyre since losing at WrestleMania to Jacob

Fatt, too. He was wrapping up filming his role in the Highlander reboot that's going to be coming out. He's going to be playing the brother of the lead character. Now comes news from Deadline. dot com on Monday that Drew has been cast in a new Russell Crow movie called The Last Druid, which is already filming in Spain. No word on what McIntyre's role in the film is, but that is where he is going to be for at least most of the summer. And Randy Orton, again, still hasn't been seen since WrestleMania either, possibly due to a recurring back injury.

So all the more reason to move Punk over to the Blue Brand. They could really use him. Speaking of the Blue Brand, let's just start there and go back to that. to Friday here for a second because we have a big match coming up this coming week on Smackdown. It was all set up this past Friday. Now, Cody Rhodes is going to be defending the WWE championship this Friday

on Smackdown against Gunther. This is after the controversial finish to their match last month at Clash in Italy, where Cody hit a Cody cutter. He pinned him even though Gunther's foot was clearly under the bottom rope. These referees are blind. And their decision is final.

Only when it's convenient. for their decision to be final. In this case, their decision was final. Now, I could just imagine all the people watching that match in the first hour, which aired on ESPN, and maybe you're not really a wrestling fan or you're casual at best, and you're watching this, but you're a sports fan. And so if you watch sports, right, doesn't matter what sport, NBA, NFL, MLB, most of these sports, right, you have instant replay or you have challenges, you have reviews, right? That's what sports fans are used to. And I could just imagine them watching an hour of this WWE stuff on ESPN. And they see this guy's foot under the bottom rope and the referee counts three.

And the announcers acknowledged it. Everyone seems to acknowledge that this guy got screwed. And we at home are seeing the replay. And yet the referee insists, no, no, no. I didn't see it. My decision is final. What must these people be thinking watching this nonsense? So because of this,

Gunther was given the opportunity to choose the stipulation for their rematch. which will be airing commercial free this Friday. And the stipulation that he chose was Sammy Zane as the special guest referee because Gunther sees that Sammy and Cody had a falling out over the last few weeks. There's great tension between the two of them. They actually had a great segment on Smackdown

in the ring, just the two of them. And Sammy, you know, he's going around calling himself the last real good guy. He thinks he's all righteous. Cody is just fed up with this guy. And so Sammy slapped him and then Cody slapped him back and Sammy grabbed the chair. He was going to use it, but he thought better of it. So they're on the rocks as far as their friendship. And the look on Cody's face when he found out that Sammy was going to be the referee, told the story that Cody thinks his championship may be, to say the least, in some fair amount of

jeopardy on Friday. So that's the angle that they're going for. Question is, you know, this match is coming up eight days before their next PLE. Night of Champions is coming up on the 27th in Riyadh. We know the WWE title is going to have to be defended on that show. Roman Raines ain't going to be there. So you're going to have to have a WWE title match. Do they put the belt on Gunther and then run it back with Cody? It doesn't feel that way to me. I think they want you to believe because Sammy's the referee that Cody's going to get screwed. I don't know how they're going to go about doing the finish. I just don't think we're going to get a title change on Friday. And I think this is all leading to a three-way match at night of

champions with Sammy involved. I would not mind putting the belt on Sammy for a short run. I think it would disrupt whatever plans they have for Cody at Somerslam. I can't imagine Cody not being in one of the main events at SummerSlam. But to do what? Just to run back him and Sammy in a rematch, we still don't know who the king of the ring is going to choose. You got Jay Uso running around saying that he's going to pick Cody Rhodes if he wins the crown, which he may well win. So the timing may not align to do a title change right now, but whether it's Night of Champions, whether it's at SummerSlam, I'm down for a short title run for Sammy Zane.

I would not have said that five or six months ago. You know, when Sammy was still the good guy, the real good guy, and he was in there challenging Drew McIntyre when Drew had the belt, and nobody believed that Sammy was going to win. And Sammy's character was very, it was very plain Jane. It was just nothing to really root for there. he was boring. He was boring, and I had no interest in seeing him wrestling for the world championship. And so now all of a sudden, a few months later, and this story arc has taken a turn where he's become the most interesting character on Friday nights.

He is the most compelling part of that television show, which I know is not saying a lot because Smackdown is pretty bad right now. But he is easily, his segments are the most compelling stuff and the stuff with him and Cody on the entire show. So I would not at all be against a Sammy title run. I just don't know that the timing works out right now, but I do think we're heading for a three-way at Night of Champions. Another match at Night of Champions that was made official last night on Monday Night Raw. Seth Rawlins will go one-on-one with Braun Breaker. That match will be contested inside of a steel cage.

Now, they're not coming out and saying it, but I do look at this match, and I think to myself, depending on who wins King of the Ring and which championship they choose to go after, I look at this match, this could very well be, without them saying it, a number one contenders match, where if Rollins wins, he ultimately goes on to challenge Roman Reigns for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam. I think there's a very real possibility of him being Roman's opponent if he is, then he would almost have to win this match here. So that's official now. There's some news on Ria Ripley. She's currently out with a knee injury that she suffered at Clash in Italy, or at least the last time we saw her in the ring was against Jade Cargill at Clash in Italy.

She had two live event matches on their European tour after that. There were six-person tags. So I'm not sure exactly where the injury would have happened. She's being evaluated. A timeline for her return is going to depend on how she responds to treatment. She's been replaced. As of this morning, I noticed there was a slight change made to the night of champions poster. She was on there. She is no longer on there. She's been replaced by Tiffany Strass. So that means she's likely off that show, at least as a precaution. Hopefully it's nothing serious. You know, Ria's one of the bigger names they have. She's the women's champion on SmackDown.

We're heading into their second biggest show of the year at the beginning of August. They got a two-night summer slam coming up in Minneapolis. And so the timing would be awful if she was going to be out for an extended period or if she, you know, had to be stripped of the championship. False Finish HQ is reporting that J.C. Jane, who is one of the first, one of the newer faces on Smackdown. She's part of the Fatal Influence Trio. She is being considered internally as a potential challenger for Ria at SummerSlam,

which is not a marquee match. I like Jacey, though, and I think they need to push some new faces there, so I'd be okay with it, but everything's up in the air right now. It really depends on, I guess, how her knee responds to treatment. Hopefully, she doesn't need surgery or anything like that. We'll just have to wait and see. King of the Ring and Queen of the Ring. Let's talk about this here for a little bit.

And actually, speaking of King of the Ring, Eddie Andleman is a name that you may never have heard of before. I never did until just recently. But Eddie Andleman, he's a Hall of Fame sports radio host out of Boston. He passed away yesterday at the age of 89. Most people, again, may not know this. They may not know who he is. But he played kind of an important role in the King of the Ring because he is the one who created it.

Now, he never worked in the wrestling business. he was friendly apparently with the McMahon family going back to the 80s. And he is the one who came up with the idea to do a King of the Ring tournament for the first time way back in 1985. First two King of the Ring events were live non-televised shows. They held them at Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Andalman, he owns some of the land there. So that's the connection. But he came up with the idea for King of the Ring as a charity event with the proceeds,

or part of the proceeds anyway, going to very very very. going to various children's nonprofits. I know they kept it as an annual gimmick. It was more to help sell tickets to the house shows than anything else in the years that followed. But he was a guest on the Lapsed fan podcast a few years ago, and he mentioned that the first event raised more than $100,000. But that's where it all started. You know, Don Morocco, he was the first ever King of the Ring winner.

Harley Race. He won the crown in 86, which is where the whole King Harley Race gimmick came from that he started doing on television. The only years they did not do a King of the Ring tournament were 1990 and 1992. And then in 93, they turned it into a standalone pay-per-view and Brett Hart won the tournament. It's still my favorite of all the King of the Ring tournaments. Brett was actually a two-time winner because he had won the last one prior to that in 91. So there's a little King of the Ring history lesson for you.

We'll get to the King of the Ring. Let's start with Queen of the Ring. We had a four-way match on Smackdown this past Friday that involved Jade Cargill Charlotte Flair, Lyra Valcuria, and Sol Ruka. Now, Russell Votes Radio is reporting that a match between Jade and Charlotte has been pitched for SummerSlam. At one point, the match had been penciled in for the show. If Charlotte is not going to be challenging for either championship, that's the match that makes sense. We still have yet to get a singles match between them.

They've teased it and teased it and teased it. So Charlotte against Jade makes sense for that show. And I certainly hope that if that's the match we get at Summer Slam, it's a hell of a lot better than what we got from the two of them here in this match. Because this was our first chance to really see them in the ring together one-on-one, even though it was a four-way. And it was not good. It was not good.

I mean, they were moving so slow. It was almost like, I don't know, they were guiding each other, or she was guiding Jade, and it just did not look good. And if you're going to put them in the ring together in a singles match for 10 or 12 minutes, 15 minutes, boy, all I can say is, I just hope it to help it. Hell of a lot better than what we got on Friday. Thank God for Soul and for Lyra, because they were really the stars of that match.

But in the end, Charlotte was the one who got the win. She is moving on. She was the lone Smackdown talent to advance in either tournament. If you can believe that. Charlotte is going to be wrestling Liv Morgan, the women's world champion from Raw, this Friday on Smackdown. Charlotte wrestled Roxanne Perez on the show last night, by the way.

Roxanne continues her losing ways. Last time we saw Roxanne Perez win a match on TV was December. It's not going too well for her. Also last night, E.O. Sky wrestled Raquel Rodriguez. This was the first semi-final round match in the Queen of the Ring. And I am happy to report that E.O. Sky is moving on to the finals. I'm a big EO fan. I think at the end of all this, it should be Queen EO.

Hopefully that's what we get, but she's at least going to the finals. Now in the King of the Ring. I mentioned before that Charlotte Flair was the only Smackdown name in either tournament to advance. That means that on the King of the Rings side, the Smackdown sweep was completed on Friday. Even more impressive than the Knicks sweeping Philly and Cleveland out of the playoffs this year is the Smackdown sweep. Not a single Smackdown star advanced in the King of the Ring tournament. Just in case you were wondering which brand they want you to know is the inferior of the two right now. I mean, we kind of already knew that since the bloodline runs raw.

That's going to be the dominant brand. Yet another reason why they need punk on Fridays. But they really built to this main event last night. It was Oba Femi, taking on Dominic Mysterio. You talk about David and Goliath. You talk about a mismatch. This was the open weight match of the night here. The winner would go on to the finals of the King of the Ring,

and they played it totally straight. It went exactly the way that you would have expected it to. It didn't last very long. Oba more or less dominated. He beat him straight up. And that was it. Oba Femi is going to the finals. There were no swerves.

There were no surprises. There was no Jacob Fattu coming out. The reason I mentioned that is because earlier in the show, actually right before this, there was a segment in the back. One of the many, many, many, many bloodline segments on the show last night. So if you're a bloodline fan, boy, Raw is the show for you. If you are not a bloodline fan, well, I don't know what to tell you. But we had a segment in the back with Roman and Jacob fought to.

Jacob, of course, is doing Roman's bidding. Whatever Roman wants him to do, he does. If Roman says jump, Jacob will ask him how high, right? That's his role right now to be the lap dog of the bloodline or the killer, the enforcer. And so Roman tells him there's one more thing I need you to do because Jacob had a busy night, you know, beating people up. He beat up Eric Andre. Eric Andre was in the audience. He pulled him over the barricade and he kicked his ass.

He gave L.A. Knight the Tongan death grip in another segment. And Roman told him, I got one more thing I need you to do. And he leaned in close. And it was hard to hear. You kind of have to read lips. But one thing was very clear. He told Jacob to kill him. The only question is, who was the hymn that he was referring to?

Now, I could have sworn that before that, I could hear Romans say the name Seth Rollins. Now, maybe I was hearing things. I thought he said Seth Rollins. It wouldn't really make a lot of sense. just something to keep in mind. Maybe you heard something different. But clearly he is sending Jacob out to annihilate somebody.

The only question is who and when. And we'll talk about that. Now, on the other side of the bracket, we got our first upset of the tournament last Monday when Javon Evans beat out Seth Rollins, Ricky Saints, and Talatanga. And really, it was only an upset because Rollins got bounced out of the opening round

thanks to a brawn breaker spear. And so Javon Evans is in the semi. and he would be meeting the winner of the match from Friday, this past Friday, with Jay Uso, L.A. Knight, Finn Baller, and Royce Keys. Baller and Keys were the last hope that Smackdown had of picking up a win in this tournament. And instead, they chose what I thought was the worst option of the four.

Now, I know that it advances the bloodline story they're doing. I get that. Everything revolves around the bloodline. it was still very weak. Jay Uso wins. Jay Uso will wrestle Javon Evans on Smackdown this Friday. Jay Uso winning the entire tournament in challenging Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam

is the weakest option that they could go with. And frankly, him against Roman Rains, if you wanted to swerve everybody, and he chose Roman instead. I saw that match. I saw the tribal combat match, or I think it was tribal combat, that they had at SummerSlam three years ago.

I saw it once before. Once was enough. I have no interest in seeing them rematched up at SummerSlam this year. The only good thing I could say about that is if they did that, at least it would contain the bloodline stuff to one main event at SummerSlam instead of two. But my takeaway coming out of Raw last night, other than just how many bloodline segments we had throughout those two and a half hours, I think Jay Uso alone had to have five or six different segments. There was a segment during one of the commercial breaks where he cut a promo, he was interviewed by Byron, in Saxton, so you could add that to the list. I mean, he was all over the place. Other than that, my takeaway after Obel won, and he

cuts this promo in the ring, and he, again, name drop Brock Lesnar. But the show ends, and I'm like, holy shit, Jay Uso just won the King of the Ring last night. He doesn't have the crown yet, but it felt to me like

he just won the tournament. You know, if he beats Javan on Friday, he goes to the finals against Obafemi. This is the same Obafemi who called Brock Lesnar a bitch last week. And then last night he questioned Brock Lesnar's manhood. Okay, Brock is not going to let that go unpunished. He is almost certainly showing up in Riyadh to try to screw Oba out of the crown. And if he does, it's very unlikely that he doesn't succeed because there really is no other match for Lesnar at SummerSlam that makes sense, right? It's him against Oba. If Oba gets screwed, Jay Uso gets

the crown. It's as simple as that. And I know this is just my pie in the sky fantasy booking here, but I'm keeping hope alive for this idea that I kind of pitched a couple of weeks ago, where we could end up with a last minute replacement in the tournament. If let's just say that Oba gets taken out by Brock before he even makes it to the finals, right? We need a replacement all of a sudden. Enter Randy Orton or enter CM Punk. Actually, you know, Javon. You know, Javon. You know, Von getting a shock win this Friday would make it more likely to be Orton in that scenario. If Jay wins, then I think punk would make more sense. But either way.

Like, say it was punk. He could then challenge Cody Rhodes for the WWE championship at SummerSlam. See, that I would love to see. It's not that punk needs the crowd. It has everything to do with what kind of main event does it give us at SummerSlam. And that's the biggest. Like, outside of something like Rock coming back to wrestle Roman at WrestleMania, Cody against Punk is the biggest marquee main event that they could do.

I'm looking at this with an eye towards SummerSlam. Yeah, I think WWE does a generally poor job when it comes to these tournaments on the main roster. It hasn't been the case in years past. They've had a bunch of really great tournaments. The Cruiserweight Classic and the UK Championship tournaments they did in 2017 and 2018. Like those were all great. Those were not main roster events. And it's clearly not just a Vince McMahon thing where Vince McMahon is very very

bet at tournaments because he's been gone for a few years now and they're still doing this. Speaking of Vince McMahon, that's a great segue into this. The reason that Vince McMahon is not in WWE anymore is because he got hit with a sex trafficking lawsuit two years ago by an ex-employee who made some very serious, very salacious, very disgusting allegations against him. And not just him, but his right-hand man, right? their former head of talent relations, John Laurenitis,

who was removed as a defendant. He was a defendant in the lawsuit. He was dropped as a defendant after he flipped, and he agreed to provide evidence to Janelle Grant and her attorneys against McMahon. And he also tried to act like,

he's the victim, too, like the snake that he is. But he's flip-flopped a few times now, but he at least got himself out of legal trouble. The case was still pending, and it really hindered on one question. is this going to be litigated? Should this be litigated in private arbitration, which is what McMahon was arguing, as that was spelled out in the terms of her $3 million non-disclosure agreement that she signed with him, of which she was paid $1 million before he stopped paying, which is why we're even talking about this now. But in the NDA, it said that if any issues were to arise, it would need to be dealt with in private arbitration. Her argument has been that she signed that agreement under duress. intimidation, and therefore it should be deemed legally invalid and unenforceable.

But that's really what this hinges on. Should this be contested in private arbitration, or should this go to a public trial? And the judge in this case was to have made her ruling sometime this month, right around now, on which way this was going to go. But then all of a sudden, on Thursday, that all changed. When Janelle Grant joined with Vince McMahon and W.W. She joined with the defendants in asking the court to continue the case in private arbitration, which is what he's wanted all along. And on Friday, the judge granted their joint motion. She is requiring them to file a joint status report by July 10th. If they have not reached an agreement by that date, then they will have a hearing sometime in August. Now, agreement here doesn't necessarily

mean a settlement. It could mean an agreement on the terms of how this whole thing is going to proceed. They could very well reach a settlement before then, before it even gets that far, which is the way that this was always likely to end. I don't know what made her change her mind all of a sudden. Something happened. Maybe she realized the financial impact and financial burden that this would have on her if she continued to drag this on for too long. I don't know. I don't know what kind of financial arrangement that she has with her lawyers. When you're someone who has scores of women, signed non-disclosure agreements over a period of years, as we learn when the Wall Street Journal story first broke on Vince four years ago, long before this lawsuit was ever filed.

But when you are someone in that position, it is bound to come back and bite you on the ass. And that is what happened with Vince. He thought he was bulletproof, right, until he wasn't. He stepped away in 2022. He claimed on Twitter. Remember that random tweet on a Friday at 4 o'clock, goes on Twitter, I'm retiring. I'm 77. It's time to retire. It's like, what? So he tweets that he's retiring, except he really wasn't. He spent the next six months plotting his return and installing people on the board of directors who would help facilitate his return to the company, which is what happened, until this lawsuit dropped. And what did him in, ultimately, was one of their sponsors, Slim Jim, which they had just signed a new partnership agreement

with paused its sponsorship after the allegations first came out. And that spooked TKO enough to have a conversation with Vince. They got on the phone with him and said, hey, you got it. Basically, you got to get out of here. And at that point, he announced his resignation. Because the last thing they wanted was for sponsors to start dropping like dominoes. Right. If Slim Jim doesn't pause things when they did and if no other sponsors pulled out,

very likely Vince McMahon is still involved with WWE in some capacity. Now, if Ari Emanuel was telling the truth in 2023, after the endeavor acquisition was announced, remember he went on CNBC with Vince for an interview, they were sitting side by side, this was during Vince's telenovela villain mustache phase, if he was telling the truth when he said that this entire deal was contingent on Vince staying on, I wanted him on, I wouldn't have made the deal of Vince wasn't going to be a part of it in some way. Otherwise, we never would have bought the company. If that's true, if he's telling the truth, if he's telling the truth when he says that, then there is at least a decent chance with all of this going private behind closed doors or getting settled very soon. That could open the door to a Vince McMahon return to WWE. In what capacity, I don't know. I'm not saying they would bring him back to replace Paul Levec as the head of creative. Maybe it's a gradual thing where they sort of dip their toe in the water with an appearance here and there just to see what the reaction is, and then they go from there. he still has another outstanding civil suit pending against him, him and his ex-wife, over the ringboy scandal.

Are they divorced? I don't even know if they're divorced or they're sad. That what a weird relationship between Vince and Linda. Whatever the case may be, though, both of them are defendants in that ringboy scandal suit. Yeah, the ring boy scandal from the late 80s, early 90s. But that case has never gotten nor will it ever get the type of publicity that this case did. And that one too, I would expect at some point, that's going to get settled. and that's going to be the end of it. I don't know that TKO cares about that. So all of a sudden, we're in a situation where maybe Vince does find his way back. Again, he's already done it once before. I know he's got a lot less power now. He doesn't have those supercharged majority voting shares that he had as like the dominant shareholder back then. But still, maybe he finds his way back in some former fashion.

He is still one of their biggest shareholders. And if Ari was lying when he said what he said on CNBC, and he only said it to get Vince to sell to him and make the deal so they could get the company, right, with Vince thinking, oh, I get to keep power, I get to stay on, I could be the executive chairman. But if he was lying and it was all bullshit and they were more than happy to get rid of this guy, then I guess we won't be seeing him back. But there are an awful lot of people I have seen, fans and talents alike, over the last several days who have been commenting on this, who for some reason,

seemed to be enamored with the idea of getting Vince McMahon back. They are longing to get this man back in a position of power. And for the life of me, I cannot understand it. I just don't understand it. As if the 80-year-old octogenarian is the creative savior that this company needs. It's completely ridiculous. It's lunacy. Teddy Long, he was on a TMZ podcast last week.

He was saying, well, here's what we need to do. We got to get Vince back so we can do this. thing right and we can get the fans back on board. What fans? What fans is he talking about? He's glazing this man and the fact that when he attended Vince's 80th birthday party a few years ago, Vince gave him a bust of his own head to take home with him, which he did. I don't know how many of you saw those photos. Photos leaked. It is a bust of Vince McMahon's head that was given out to some people at the party. Apparently, Teddy was one of those people who went home with Vince's head. Maybe he holds it up above his head and shakes it around like Al Snow used to do in ECW.

He called it his most prized possession. Teddy Long spent 35 years or so in the wrestling business and a bust of Vince McMahon's head is his most prized possession. I think Teddy's been busted in the head, one too many times. That's what I think. But so long as there are enough people around in support of this, there exists the possibility that he could pop back up again at some point, as if that's what they need. He's proven to be very resilient, though, when it comes to these things, so nothing would shock me at this point. Now, in other legal news, you know, there's a lot of very disturbed wrestling fans out there. I mean, you just look at social media, you see it every day. But there have been a lot of incidents involving WWE talents,

namely the female talents. Although I know a lot of talents dealt with a lot of really bad shit in Las Vegas for WrestleMania this year. It was just horrible. Just the logistics and everything at the hotel. It was terrible. There were a lot of incidents. Including with CM Punk. Speaking of punk. But the female talents,

boy, man, they get a lot of shit. And Ria Ripley just on a Twitch stream yesterday. She was auctioning off some bracelets. And she talked about fans walking up to her house. Her house.

And then someone the other day somehow got her cell phone number and was texting her asking for tickets to Smackdown. Like, what? Sonia DeVille, who's in T&A now. But Sonia DeVille's stalker six years ago, breaking into her house with zip ties and a knife and duct tape, he was plotting to kidnap her. Or worse. Like, there are some seriously fucked up people out there. You can include Liv Morgan on that list. of victims, I guess you would say.

She has her own stalker who was arrested after an incident last year. We have an update on that case. John Pollock and Brandon Thurston of post-wrestling, they were first to report it. The case involving Sean Chan, who was accused of stalking Liv Morgan, has concluded with Chan being found not guilty. The U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Florida held its trial on Monday involving Chan, the court ruled that the defendant was found not guilty by reason of insanity on a charge of interstate domestic violence, which carried a sentence of up to five years in prison.

Chan has been detained for just over a year up to this point. Chan waived his right to a jury trial, allowing Judge Mary Scriven to decide his case. The judge determined that the U.S. Marshal Service would coordinate with ICE to release the defendant into its custody. Shan is a Canadian resident. Court records do not detail what's next for him, although normal practice suggests ICE will continue to hold him in detention while a process to deport him from the U.S. proceeds. Yes, please. Get him as far away from this woman as possible. The story says that Chan traveled from Scarborough, Ontario to Florida on May 31, 2025. He arrived at Morgan's residence and surveillance footage detected Chan searching for a key. and trying to enter the home. Chan remained at Morgan's home for over two hours, thankfully she was not present,

and left a handwritten note saying that he was paying a friendly visit and left his contact information. Security footage shows Chan at one point picking up an air rifle pellet gun that was on Morgan's front porch and attempting to open the front door while holding it. Days later, he appeared at the WWE Performance Center where Morgan was present for an NXT taping.

Security recognized him, and he was arrested and taken to the Pascoe County Detention Center. The verdict arrives amid a wider conversation about talent safety, which heightened after many wrestlers were approached by fans in an unwelcome manner across a series of incidents around this year's WrestleMania in Las Vegas. Two separate psychologists determined that Chan was unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions due to the severity of his mental disease.

During an evaluation in jail last August, Chan was diagnosed with delusional disorder and adjustment disorder with depressed and anxious moods. He claimed apparently falsely to have known Morgan in high school. Thought content included obsessions, delusions of grandeur, erotomania, the first I'm hearing that word, and paranoia. That was noted among his behavioral observations. Clinicians noted that Chan had not been treated for mental health issues in the past, nor had he been seen by a doctor in more than 20 years, despite finding he was mentally ill and evaluation found that he was otherwise intelligent.

Before the onset of psychiatric symptoms or other potentially interfering factors, Mr. Chan likely functioned at a high average level of general intellectual ability. Chan reported to clinicians that he has heard the voice of God since his early 20s. The voice tells him what to do, he says, and he has continued to hear the voice while in jail.

Chan held the delusional belief that Morgan was his girlfriend and that he was traveling and visiting to check on her. Court documents indicate that Chan, 42, was born in Hong Kong. He reported in his evaluation that he was neglected and physically punished as a child. In 1990, he and his family moved to Quebec, Canada. Growing up, he said he felt alienated because he was the only Asian student in school. He returned to Hong Kong for a time and reconnected with family there. In 2005, he moved to Ontario, though unemployed at the time of his arrest, he reported being previously employed for 10 years as a computer technician. Mike Johnson is reporting over on PW Insider that Chan was taken into ICE custody overnight.

He will remain in custody until he is deported. Now, he was born in Hong Kong, but he lived with his family as a child in Canada. Canada is where his current residence is. So I don't know where he would be deported too. but so long as he's kept outside, you know, the borders, I guess, away from Liv Morgan and can get the help he clearly needs, then that's where he belongs. Because otherwise, this could end very badly and nobody wants to see that. Some AEW news.

Two weeks ago, the AEW world champion MJF hyper-extended his knee in his title defense against Roosh. They gave no update on his knee last week on Dynamite, but he did appear on the show to set up his match for the Forbidden Door Paper. review. It was looking like it might be a title defense against Mark Brisco, but that's going to have to wait because before we get there, they're doing a 12-man tag team cage match on the show, six on six, team MJF against team Brisco, and if Briscoe's team wins, then he gets a shot at the AEW World Championship. Now, why he needs to jump through hoops to get there when Roos just got a title shot for doing a hell of a lot less was never explained. I mean, they had Roche go

on a win street where he just beat a bunch of scrubs, and suddenly he's getting a world title shot. Brisco actually has a win, a pay-per-view win last year, over MJF, but he has to tag with five other guys to win one. It doesn't make any sense. Unless MJF is just too injured to go one-on-one, and this is their way of protecting him to let him heal up a little bit more, which is very possible.

But it's, I mean, it's not like they're keeping him out of the ring. I mean, he's wrestling on that show, maybe a little easier to hide him with 11 other bodies in the cage with it. them. Tomorrow night on Dynamite, they're announcing who the partners are going to be. We already know one. MJF went to Don Callis to recruit five members of the family. And Kevin Knight, the TNT champions step forward, so that's one. Andrade El Edelow is likely another one. Both of them want the title. They want title shots against MJF, and so they're going to work some kind of story there. Brisco is part of the

conglomeration crew, so I'm sure some of them will be partnering up with him, Orange Cassidy, maybe Canosukee to Kestha, if Kyle Fletcher ends up on the other side. You have to think Darby Allen, who returned on Dynamite, he went right after Kevin Knight, that Darby Allen might be one of the partners. Not only are they announcing all of the participants tomorrow, but they are giving the match away early by doing a 12-man tag minus the cage. I don't know why they do this. Now, of course, Briscoe's going to get his shot.

We all know he's going to get his shot. The only question is when? I'm hoping it's on TV because MJF against Mark Briscoe, I'm sorry. That's not a real main event for their redemption pay-per-view next month, which is coming up in Montreal on July 26th. I still think we end up with MJF defending against Kenny Omega on that show. They've dropped a lot of very strong hints about that. That would be a far bigger main event for them to do Canada or not.

I didn't think Dynamite was a great show last week. I thought it was a big step down from the week prior. but we did get two good matches in the men's and women's Owen Heart Foundation tournaments. We had a lot of tournaments going on right now. We got King and Queen of the Ring. We got the men's Owen and the women's Owen. Maya World, she stepped in for Surrey, who flew in from Japan to wrestle sky blue, but she ended up not getting medically cleared.

I am still mystified that Tony Khan even announced her in the first place for this tournament, considering she had just pulled out of some shows in Japan last month and posted that she was taking a month off to heal her injured neck. So it's not as if he didn't know this was a risk. He put her in the tournament anyway. And so she ended up not getting cleared. Now, she brought her tag team partner along with her to pinch hit if she couldn't get clearance, but Tony Kahn opted to put Maya World in the match instead because she came to the building

and she wanted to wrestle. This was just days after her younger brother was struck and killed in an auto accident. He was standing outside his disabled vehicle on the side of the side of the the road. He entered a lane of traffic, and he was hit by a Mercedes SUV, and he died at the scene. He was only 25 years old. So just a terrible tragedy. She said her brother is the reason that she even started wrestling in the first place. So Tony decided to go with her. And so she got the feel-good shock wind over sky blue. And now she moves on to the next round. She's going to be wrestling Athena on collision this coming Saturday. Athena is from Garland, Texas. Maya is from

Greenville, Texas. So two Texas natives on a show taking place in Texas. I mean, it makes sense to do it there. Meanwhile, Swerve Strickland got a win over Brody King in the main event to advance to the finals of the Owen. So we got the predictable final, but the correct one. This was the only way to go. It was the only plausible one where you can actually look at this match, and it could reasonably go either way. Now, Swerve is not going to win. But you could at least argue that he could, right, former A.W. World Champion. He's been in the main event at Wembley before. It's at least possible, right? He could win, but he won't. This is Will Osprey's story. Coming back from a career-threatening neck injury, losing to John

Moxley, giving himself up to the death riders to let them train him, right, to bring out the killer within the best version of himself. And then he goes through the rigors of this tournament, and he makes it all the way to the finals only to lose and not go to the main event at Wembley Stadium in his home country. I suppose if Tony Khan have the brain of an empty shampoo bottle, then sure. But he's not that stupid. And I like the way it worked out where, you know, two years ago at Forbidden Door, Swerve beat Osprey to retain the AW World Title. They had this incredible match. And now two years later, Swerve gets to pay it back and send Osprey to London in August in the main event.

So this is what the updated card looks like for the pay-per-view so far. Forbidden Door, June 28, San Jose. Again, we have MJF and his team against Mark Briscoe and his team six-on-six cage match. We have swerve Strickland taking on Will Osprey, men's Owen Hart final. To me, that's the real main event of this show. Women's Owenheart Foundation final will take place. It'll be either Athena or Maya World taking on Mercedes-Money or Hazuki. That match takes place on dynamite tomorrow.

That should be a win for Mercedes. I mean, look, I guess if Tony really wants to go for the feel-good story, he could give Maya the shock win over Athena and at least send her to the finals, but she's losing either way. She's not winning the tournament. You do the match that makes the most sense. The match that makes the most sense here, the biggest marquee match you could do in the finals of this tournament on your pay-per-view

is Mercedes-Money against Athena. Period. End of story. Kenny Omega, he's going to be wrestling Zach Sabre Jr. That kind of came out of nowhere. And then Stardom's Starlight Kid is going to be challenging Tecla for the AW Women's World Championship. And look, it will be a good show in ring, as all of these AW pay-per-views typically are.

But I maintain the forbidden door concept it jumped the shark years ago. It was a novelty that worked for a while because it really did feel like this forbidden door had been open to all of these great inter-promotional matches. but the forbidden door is open on television every single week. Every week, we see talent from CMLL or New Japan or Stardom on AWTV. They've normalized it, which I think is a great thing.

I mean, there should be more collaboration, not less, between companies, but as a standalone pay-per-view, unless you make it a real interpromotional supercard, and you put some real effort into building those matches up, it just doesn't work as a concept, right? Instead, we get a bunch of matches that feel thrown together with some talents from outside the company, just so Tony has a reason to justify doing the show. That's what Forbidden Door is now. Now, Omega is wrestling Sabre.

Because, uh, to see who's the best. Rividing stuff. It's going to be a great match. I'm not knocking the match. I'm just saying it just came out of nowhere. There's been no announcement of anything else with any other New Japan talents. I assume because they were waiting for them to hold their Dominion show this past weekend. I'll have more on that here in a few minutes.

Some big title changes on that show. So now that that's in the rear view, you know, starting tomorrow night, we may get something announced this week as far as New Japan stuff. It's really a combination of things, though. Again, the novelty of it wore off, but also New Japan is not nearly as strong now as it was years ago. Part of the reason for that are all of the big names that they lost because they could not make the money there

that they could make elsewhere, like in the United States. and AEW snatched up most of those guys. There's no Tanahashi anymore. He retired. There's no Naito anymore. He left the company. Okada went to AEW. Osprey went to AEW. Jay White went to AEW. Kota Ibushi went to AEW. David Finley went to AEW this year. Gabe Kidd left for AEW this year.

And then you had others like Tomatanga and Jeff Cobb. They left to go to WWE. and Cobb just got released, so it didn't work out too well for him. But it doesn't work anymore. It just doesn't work anymore. And then there's this cage match. You know, they headline last year's Forbidden Door with a big bloated cage match like this. That was 5 on 5. This year it's 6 on 6. Next year it'll be 7 on 7. But last year it was announced as an unsanction match.

So you had the blood and the gore and the plunder and the weapons and everything. And I personally, I wasn't a fan of it. We had just gotten a great anarchy in the arena match the month before. This was basically anarchy in the arena, but confined to a cage. I really hope this doesn't become the annual thing at forbidden door to just stick 10 or 12 guys in a cage. It's lazy. But I mentioned New Japan. Five titles changed hands at their Dominion show in Osaka this past weekend.

Yota Suji defeated Callum Newman, who became the youngest IWGP world champion ever when he beat Suji for the belt back in April. This begins Suji's second reign with the championship. that he first won in January at the Tokyo Dome. And we'll find out what the deal is with Callum Newman because apparently Brian Alvarez was reporting that he suffered a dislocated shoulder during the match. And he finished the match,

but they're, I guess, evaluating him. Maybe he's getting an MRI, I think. So they don't know the severity of the injury, but he may be out for a little bit. Shota Umino won the IWGP Global Championship it from Andrade L. Edelow, after beating Andrade Andrilla Maloney in a three-way match, Gabe Kidd made his return to New Japan after the match. He laid out Shota. A. Kid had injured his shoulder in a trio's title match at Dynasty, the AW pay-per-view back in April. He had been out

since then. Yo, who was, this is funny when I say that out loud. Yo, who won the best of the Super Junior's tournament last month. He beat Dokey to win his first IWGP Junior heavyweight title. Warren Wolf, the Olympian. He beat Ren Narita to win back the never open weight title. And Yuto Ice lost their IWGP tag team titles to Grado Khan and Hanare. And with that win, Grado Khan and Hanari, they have been entered into the field for this year's G1 Climax tournament, another tournament. Usually the G1 is the best of all. To me, the 2016 G1, God, it's been a decade. Holy shit. But the 2016 one is kind of the one that I hold up there in high regard. But that tournament begins July 11th at the now

arena just outside of Chicago. And it ends August 15th at Sumo Hall in Tokyo. Gabe Kidd and Konoskechita are the A.W. names that are in the tournament. Although Takeshda has a dual contract with A.E.W. in New Japan. Actually, he has a triple contract because he's also signed to DDT Pro. See, that's how you know that this guy's a boss, right? The only man rocking that. that triple contract in pro wrestling. Like, who does that? That guy. That's who.

16 of the 20 names have been announced. The final four spots are going to be decided by play-in matches that are being held on their Road to G1 Climax Tour. That kicks off July 19th. Here's the current lineup for the tournament as it stands. In the A block, right, we have the A block and the B block. The A block has Konoske-Tekhta, Yota Suji, Sonata, Shingo Takagi, Jake Lee, Bolton Oleg, Heroki Goto, or as I am calling him now, E Honda in the Street Fighter movie coming out in a few months.

It will have either Hanare or Grado Khan. We don't know which block they're ending up in, but one of them. And then play in winner A and play in winner B. Yet to be decided. In the B block, we have Callum Newman, possibly. I guess it depends on the severity of his shoulder injury. Zach Sabre Jr., Shota Umino, Yuya, Yuya, Y, Y, Yohia, Yuri Murrah, Ren Narita, Drilla Maloney, Gabe Kidd, again, either Grado Khan or Hanare, and then

play in winner A and play in winner B. So those are the blocks for the G1 climax. Vince Russo on the Coach and Bro show that he does every week with Jonathan Coachman, he revealed this past week that Conan underwent a double leg amputation. Now, it was first reported back in March that he had one of his legs amputated, it was never confirmed publicly. Still hasn't been. But evidently, he had the other one amputated as well. He's had a lot of health issues over the years. I believe diabetes, which may be what led to all this.

But I know he had a kidney transplant 20 years ago. I know he needed a... He was in need of another one a few years ago. I don't know where things stand with that. But Russo also revealed that, according to Conan, he spoke to him briefly on the phone. when WWE is covering all of Conan's medical bills. And good on them.

Good on WWE and TKO for doing so. Conan is still employed by their AAA brand, but these are not illnesses or injuries that were sustained on the job, so to speak. So, yeah, they wouldn't be under any obligation to do so, but it's nice that they are, right? Nobody should have to stress over their bills when they're fighting for their life.

Unfortunately, that's when millions of people in this country go through every day. and it sucks. So best wishes to Conan. That's why he's been absent from commentary on the AAA show the last few months and they brought in Ray Mysterio to help

with the translations. And Savio Vega, even pinch hit. He joined Corey Graves and JBL at one point for that very same reason. I got a couple of questions here from you guys. We'll run through these and then we'll get you out of here. But I wanted to bring this up.

Andre on X submitted this. He said, I recently watched Killer Cross his interview on the Ariel Helwani show, and it got me thinking, in Cross's original Ariel interview from August of 2025, he talked about a conversation he had with Paul Heyman at the guerrilla position. According to Cross, Hayman asked him, let's say they pull you off TV for another three months, six months, a year. Do you think that if you were given the opportunity to go out there and perform at your best, that you could get over with that audience?

And Cross said, of course. And Hayman responded. good, I do too. Never forget that. That made me wonder. In today's wrestling, do you think there are any scenarios where a company would intentionally release a talent on a handshake agreement? Let them rebuild their value on the Indies for a year, and then bring them back as a bigger star, like a modern-day version of Brian Pilman. Cross has seemingly avoided signing an exclusive deal anywhere since his release, and the Sammy Zane Healturn story that Cross helps set in motion never still has yet to reach its conclusion. Maybe it's just coincidence,

but the timing feels interesting with SummerSlam approaching. Do you think there's any realistic chance that WWE and Cross had some kind of understanding in place, or is that giving wrestling bookers way too much credit? I think you're giving WWE way too much credit.

I can't speak to other bookers out there and other promotions. Look, could there be a promotion that works out some sort of arrangement like that? Sure. Do I think that the current administration or regime in WWE came to some sort of secret handshake agreement with Cross? No, I don't. You know, he's been very open about the negotiations or lack thereof and how

disrespected, you know, Scarlet was and all that. I think that's legit. I don't think he's working us. I don't believe any of this is a work. I think that he would love to go back to WWE. I think there's always the possibility that he or they could end up going back there. beats the two of them. But I don't think that there was any sort of Brian Pelman-esque, you know, agreement in place for him to go hone his craft or elevate his status somewhere else and then we'll bring you back. Right now he's doing his thing in MLW. He's having great success. He's got multiple championships in different places. I think that's the sort of thing the WWE could look at at some point like they did with Drew McIntyre many years ago and say, hey, we got to get this guy

back. Right. We have a role for him. Look, they brought back Matt Cardona. They brought back Carlito at one point. Of course it's possible. They could bring back cross. They brought them back before. But no, I don't think there's any sort of secret agreement there. And Jacob from McAllen, Texas. Who should be uncursed by Danhausen next? The Jets, the Jets, the Mets, or the Mets? I would say the Mets, but again, Danhausen's powers can only go so far. I don't even think Danhausen can do anything for this crew. I would say the Mets. Of those three, I would go with the Mets, but I have no expectations. I have no great expectations for even Danhausen's powers being enough to change the trajectory of this franchise. It just seems

like a lost cause right now. Hey, you know, Britain just announced that it plans on banning kids under 16 from using social media apps like YouTube and Facebook and X and Instagram and TikTok. The ban would go into effect early next year. It's going to follow the same model as the band that Australia implemented last year, which does not seem to be working the way that they intended because from what I read, a lot of kids say that they're still on social media in Australia. Some of them are getting around it with VPNs. Others say they didn't do anything. They just log on it. It still works for them. I do wonder what percentage of the audience, though, who watches some of these wrestling shows on YouTube. And I don't mean just like mine or

even like Ariel show and stuff like that, but like actual wrestling shows on YouTube. You know, YouTube, I wonder what impact something like this would have on those channels. Like, if they could really implement this. I don't imagine the majority of their viewers are 16 and under. That's probably not their main demographic, but there are a lot of viewers who are 16 and under. So I do wonder what kind of impact that could have. But good luck implementing that.

I do think it's good, though, to keep them off X. I can support that. It's bad enough being an adult on there. I can't imagine being 15 and scrolling through a lot of the shit that I see on there. Anyway, thank you guys for tuning in. Another Uncrowned in the books. Thank you for the questions. Thank you for the comments and all the support.

If you have a question for the show, you can email me, the Salammonster, at gmail.com. Or you could tweet me on X at Solamonster. Just make sure to include the hashtag Uncrowned, if it's something that you would like to possibly have used here on the show. And next Tuesday, I will run it back like Jay Uso. and we will do it all over again with a brand new episode. For those of you who are in New York or wherever you may be, but if you're going to be in New York this week and attending the parade,

enjoy, I will be watching on TV. I'll be watching from afar. I'm sure it will be madness here in the city on Thursday. But if you are attending, have fun, and I will see you back here next Tuesday for a brand new episode. Until then, I am Jason Solomon, and when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. Until next time, take care, guys.