The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | Pac's shocking death, AEW All Out thoughts, major Raw angle

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Solomonster discusses the sudden death of AEW star Pac, who passed away on Sunday, less than 24 hours after wrestling on PPV. He discusses reports about how he was found, what made him such a special performer, his greatest matches, and more (02:13).Thoughts on AEW All Out, including PAC’s final match, one very scary injury, Tommaso Ciampa’s daughter stealing the show, Will Ospreay’s first defense as AEW World champion and his comments about WWE counterprogramming them in Chicago (12:42).WWE announces a new content distribution deal with Bleacher Report (38:12) and where you will be able to watch the WWE Worlds Collide show this week (42:18).Thoughts on a good Raw, including the major angle with Jaida Parker debuting and joining the 946 crew after running down Jacob Fatu with her car, one theory about LA Knight, and two new matches set for Money in the Bank (48:39).TNA having issues selling tickets for its Bound for Glory PPV, which is less than two weeks away (1:00:33).Your questions on Conrad Thompson’s latest shade thrown at Roman Reigns, Triple H marrying into the McMahon family, Ricky Saints joining 946, and one last story about the infamous Randy Savage “Brasso Belt,” now available for auction (1:04:09).

This is the uncrowned wrestling show. Solomons stirring here with you for Tuesday, September 29th, 2006. It is a sad week in the wrestling world. Rick Ackberger famously dubbed Sign Guy Rick. I would see him on TV all the time on WWE shows for years. At the backwards red baseball cap holding up all these creative signs. You don't see too many signs in the crowd anymore,

but I give him credit for being creative with them. He passed away. He had battled some health issues in recent years, and he was only 54 years old. Triple H and John Sina, among others, they paid tribute to him online. He died on Sunday, and then only a few hours later came the news that AEW Star PAC had passed away, also on Sunday. And then last night, I saw the news that Dennis Haskins, who played Mr. Belding on Saved by the Bell, he also died at 75 after battling Parkinson's disease for a number of years. He was a huge wrestling fan, and he even appeared on Zach Ryder's old Zee True Long Island Story Show on YouTube. He even once said that he was in discussions with WWE about a potential role on the show,

but he didn't want to be on the road five days a week. Can you imagine Mr. Belding as the general manager of Raw? See, that would have been ridiculous and amazing all at the same time. And this all comes only a few weeks after Andy Williams, the butcher, passed away. And what's even worse is that a celebration of life was held for Andy on Sunday with a lot of wrestlers in attendance. And it was during that ceremony that they learned the news that PAC had died. And I just can't even imagine what they must have been feeling. It's just awful.

There's a lot of other news to get into this week. AW just hosted its All-Out pay-per-view, which we got to talk about. WWE had what I thought was a good episode of Raw last night with a big angle at the end, a great ending. and TNA is really struggling to sell tickets to its biggest show of the year. So I'm going to get into all that, but we got to start with PAC. Ben Satterley, known to wrestling fans as the man that gravity forgot, the king of the cruiser waits, Adrian Neville from his days on WWE television, and The Bastard Pack in AEW, passed away on Sunday the age of 40.

Less than 24 hours after having just wrestled on air. AEW's All-Out pay-per-view, where he looked fine. He went out there in the opening match with Andrade Al-Italo and had a very good match. He even came back out again during the main event to try to help John Moxley beat Will Osprey. And the last move he ever took was from Andrade when Andrade came out to hit the discus back elbow that he calls the Dia de los Mueros, which literally translates to Day of the Dead, which is just a really unfortunate coincidence. But he was fine. There was no reason to believe that anything was wrong. And then the news broke late Sunday, and it's been a long time since I've sat here in a state of shock, like I did when I read that.

Just absolute disbelief. And AW broke the news on their social media, posting All Elite Wrestling is saddened to announce the passing of Benjamin Satterley, aka Pack. A native of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Satterley began his wrestling career in 2004. It went on to perform for wrestling organizations all over the world, captivating fans with innovative high-flying moves, an incredible in-ring ability. Pax signed with All-Eleet wrestling in 2019

and held multiple AED championships and competed in some of the most memorable matches in AEW history. Our condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans. Tony Kahn tweeted, Ben Satterley defined excellence as a beloved husband and friend to his many loved ones, and in his wrestling knowledge, skill, unprecedented athleticism, professionalism, consistency, and dedication to the sport that he loved and traveled the world to pursue. May Ben rest in peace.

So what the hell happened? Well, we still don't know. We probably won't know for a while yet, but we do have some more details. Per the Daily Herald in Chicago, Benjamin Satterley, who performed under the name Pack, was found dead at about 4 p.m. Sunday in De Plain, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. Satterley's body was spotted by a passerby in a rental car. The passerby called 911.

Satterley was alone when he was found. There were no indications of foul play or trauma. And Satterley's death did not appear suspicious, the spokesperson said. No other details were available from the De Plain police or fire departments as the investigation into his death continued. TMZ reported that first responders were told they had a, quote, slumper in a car and could not confirm whether the 40-year-old was breathing. A witness told the outlet that customers, there's a restaurant, in the parking lot of a

restaurant where he was found in his car. Customers spotted pack passed out inside the vehicle and called 911, with some even searching the restaurant for medical equipment before paramedics arrived. The Cook County Medical Examiner's office says PAC was pronounced dead at 408 p.m. His cause of death is still pending an autopsy. The Cook County Medical Examiner tells TMZ, cause and manner of death are pending additional testing, which could take several weeks, an autopsy was performed today. And my brain doesn't even know how to reconcile something like this, having just watched him the day before.

And then this happens. I mean, he's younger than me. and whenever I hear something like this, it just really drives home how fragile life can be. Right? I mean, people die every day, but they're not supposed to when they're that young. That's just not supposed to happen. The man was still in his prime. One of the most gifted performers inside the ring that I've ever seen.

I mean, this man was able to do things in that ring that just seemed physically impossible. And that red arrow finish or black arrow, I mean, call it what you will, is one of the most beautiful finishing moves in all of wrestling and was a largely protected move, as it should have been. I first became familiar with his work when he joined NXT in 2012. It made me seek out more of his independent work, and he was a big part of those early black and gold days of NXT, which were the best days of NXT.

But he was part of that core, along with guys like Sammy Zane and Finn Baller and Tyson Kid and Tyler Breeze, all those guys. one of my favorite NXT matches from that period. It was a four-way match at one of the takeover shows that they used to do at Full Sail University. It was him and Sammy

and Tyson and Breeze, all four of them. And it was tremendous stuff. And then the NXT championship defense against Sammy Zane at the Takeover Our Evolution Show where Sammy finally won the big one is one of the greatest matches in NXT history. Now, he was called up to the main roster

eventually. He won challenge John Sina on Raw for the United States Championship. And he famously wrestled Seth Rollins on Raw for the WWE title, which is one of my favorite raw matches with one of the absolute best false finishes you'll ever see. It was so great. And the crowd was just losing their minds, thinking that Neville had actually won the title. And then he got his run as the King of the Cruiserweight's and turned heel and was cruiserweight champion and working in that division before walking out on the company in 2017 over creative differences. I think he was sick of being stuck doing cruiserweight stuff because it put

a ceiling on him. There may have been other reasons, but he walked out and he eventually joined AEW once the promotion opened because when he walked out, there was no AEW. But by 2019, there was, he was one of their very first sightings. The first match he ever had in AEW, he beat Kenny Omega by ref stoppage at the first ever all-out. The first and last matches of his AEW career were both at all-out. But during his time in AEW, and Tony Kahn said in his quote, some of the best matches that you'll ever see. I mean, a 30-minute Iron Man match on Dynamite in the early days against Kenny Omega.

There was a revolution match in 2020 right before the pandemic hit. you talk about two differences between, you know, two performers. You have PAC, very stoic, very serious, and then you had Orange Cassidy, anything but. And their match at Revolution, as I recall, was a really good one. And it really helped elevate Orange Cassidy, who a lot of people didn't know at that time. But he had a great match with Okada Dynasty a couple of years ago, Will Osprey at what else, all out in 2024.

And even earlier this year, there was a match he had that I really enjoyed with Darby Allen when Darby had that brief run as the AW World Champion. He was defending the belt against different people

every week, and he defended against PAC in a match on their fair way to hell show. It was an indoor golf course. So it's a very unique match. And I liked it. I dig that kind of stuff.

And so I remember having a lot of fun watching that. That was only back in May. But one of the eerieest things, you know, people pointed this out that on his, his ex account, the last tweet that he posted was a photo of him and the butcher, kind of locking hand, shaking hands in the locker room. I don't know how old the photo was, but this was only a few weeks ago. That was the last thing he posted after the butcher had passed away. And now he's gone. And as I mentioned before, it was only this past Sunday that there was this celebration of life.

service that was held for Andy Williams and it was in his hometown of Buffalo, many wrestlers were there. And during that memorial service, they got the news that PAC had passed away. It's just unbelievable. You know, AEW, I have to say, has assembled quite the heavenly roster with Brody Lee and Jay Briscoe and The Butcher and now PAC. In a relatively short period of time, they've lost a lot of really talented wrestlers. At the Ring of Honor tapings last night, they do these long tapings, a lot of wrestling. Tony Khan was there. And they streamed this part of it on social media where Tony is just standing there. And they did a 10 bell salute for PAC. And I mean, Tony could barely keep his eyes open. Like, it was very, it was tough to watch. Because you could tell just how

emotional he was and how close he is with a lot of these guys that work for him. And And he's also a fan, you know, I mean, he, that's what he grew up as. You know, he grew up as a mark like many of us. And, you know, he gets to work with these guys and probably, you know, becomes friendly with them and knows a lot about them and their families. And when something like this happens, you could tell, you know, it's just a punch to the gut. And I thought he was going to just completely break down here. But he was just informing everybody that tomorrow night's episode of Dynamite will now be a. tribute show to pack. The tribute show that they did for Brody Lee when he passed away back in 2020, in my opinion, is still their best episode. As sad as it was. And it ripped my guts out watching that. I can't imagine what tomorrow night is going to look like.

But this has been a real tough period for AEW. You know, coming off that Rebel Heart episode of Dynamite a few weeks ago. And again, then the butcher tribute on collision, they did a butcher tribute show. and now this. It's like, man. But he leaves behind a wife and a hell of a lot of friends and fans. And as I said on Sunday night in the short video I uploaded on my channel, he may have been known as the man that gravity forgot. But if you ever saw the man wrestle, it would be impossible to forget him. And my condolences go out to all who knew him. Now the day before all of this happened on Saturday, AEW hosted its all-out pay-per-view.

They were sold out in Chicago at the Now Arena, over 9,400 in the building. They had really sold the show out a few weeks ago. They added some seats late, and those filled up, too. I thought on the whole it was a good show, maybe even very good. I didn't think it was at the level of their best shows that we've seen from them this year. There were four matches that I thought were very good.

the latter match, the women's tag team title street fight, there was a trios title match, and there was an international title match between Tomaso Champa and Kazuchka Okada. That was just excellent. So there was a lot of really good stuff on this show. Again, a few steps below last year's all out, I would say. Before great matches, three of which were tags. There was one title change on the show. We had one very scary injury, which I'll talk about in a second.

And we got a little teaser. A little teaser video for the return of Wardlow. There's a name we haven't heard in a while. Former TNT champion, last we saw of him, he had just joined the Don Callas family. He had just come back after an extended period of time off. And as soon as he came back, his first night in, he tore his peck. And we have not really seen him since, other than, I guess, a guest stint he did filming that New American Gladiators show.

He played one of the Gladiators on there. I still have to get around to watching that. So he's on his way back. didn't say what or when or anything. They just said he's on his way back. But they did open the main card with the national championship match between PAC and Andrade, which just feels so weird talking about now in light of what happened. This is a match that was supposed to happen at all out five years ago. And PAC had travel issues at the time, so the match was not able to take place. But we got it here, and it was very good. I thought the crowd was unusually quiet and tame,

especially for a pay-per-view opener. They got more into it the deeper into the match they got. But it was a very good pro wrestling match. In the end, Andrade rolled him over into a pin and got the win. No surprise there. But that's how they opened the show. And then we had a tag team match. It was Darby Allen and Stephen Borden.

The son of Sting against Kyle Fletcher and Kevin Knight. The winners would become number one contenders for the AW tag team titles. And the match was going along until a spot. that was supposed to be Borden on one turnbuckle in one corner, Kevin Knight on the turnbuckle in the other corner, on the same side of the ring, but opposite ends. And they were going to do a spot where they dove at the same time, and I don't know what the end result was supposed to be,

I assume just a collision where they would both smash into each other and then collapse to the mat. And from the moment that Borden started climbing to the top and was trying to balance himself, it was very noticeable to me that he was very nervous. and was also waiting on Kevin Knight to climb up, because Kevin Knight was kind of taken his time, and he was milking the crowd reaction, you know, oh, he wants to do this.

Should I climb to the top? You know, what should I do? Meanwhile, Borden is already on top trying not to fall off the fucking rope. But he just looked very nervous because, again, he's had, I don't even know the exact number, but it can't be more than 30 or 40 matches total in his career. He's still very green, very new at this. He looks great, right?

Physically, he's in great shape, and he has shown signs that there is great star potential in him, but he's still very new to this. And I haven't really seen him do anything off the top row. I mean, nothing like this. So he's up there. So I noticed that right away. And then when Kevin Knight finally was starting to climb to the top,

it looked to me like Borden just jumped too soon. And the Knight kind of had a rush also. And it was less of a collision and more of a, like, Borden putting his hand out to, like, chop him in the chest or something. It didn't look great. And then they collapsed to the mat, which didn't look like anything out of the ordinary, other than if you really look at it, you could tell that Borden the back of his head smacked the mat pretty hard. I mean, wrestlers take bumps every day where the back of their head smacks the mat pretty hard.

But unfortunately, in this case, it resulted in an injury, and it was instant. If you were watching it, you saw how Borden's hands, he went into this, you know, fencing position. And his hands were all, like, contorted. and you could hear on commentary, Taz, like, do right away. He said, guys, I think he's hurt. And the referee rushed over. He saw the same thing. He called the doctor into the ring,

and everything just came to a standstill. And the crowd, kind of like a hush, fell over the crowd, and we're all just kind of waiting to see what's going on here. And then not long after that, they called a stop to the match, which was the right thing to do, was the only thing to do. And they awarded the match to Kyle Fletcher and to Kevin Knight, who I don't know if they were going to win, or not, I had figured coming into this derby and Borden were going to get the win.

So it's possible they just had a call in Audible and go to a different finish, but that really wasn't terribly important. The most important thing was making sure that this guy was okay. And they never showed him on camera again. They kept the camera on the announcers as they spoke and tried to kill time as the medics tended to him. And they, based on what people in the building said, they put him on a stretcher. He did not leave on his own power. And they wheeled him to the back and took him to the hospital. And we got an update later on in the show that at the hospital, they had done a CT scan. Tony Kahn said the CT scan looked good, and the hope was that he would be discharged from the hospital on Sunday. But he was communicating. He was conscious. He remembered the

match. Those were all very positive signs. We have not gotten any sort of updates since then. So probably the best thing to hope for is that it just ends up being a minor concussion because he's He has to, at the very least, be concussed. You hope it's nothing more serious than that. You hope it's not something where it's going to become a pattern. Some people are prone to concussions. You know, it's what ended Corey Graves' career. It's what ended Christian's career in WWE for seven years

until he was able to eventually make a comeback and joined AEW. So you hope it doesn't end up being a situation like that. He has shown a lot of great potential. And hopefully he can realize that. and they could create a star out of this guy. But at the moment, the most important thing is that, you know, he gets healthy and is able to come back at all. I think it was it a stupid spot for them to do? Probably, I mean, given his level of experience, but, you know, what's done is done.

And hopefully he'll just end up being okay and not out for too long. So that sucked the air out of the building heading into the next match, which was Persephone defending her TBS championship in an open challenge against the debuting Danny Luna. Last we saw her on TV, she was part of the T&A roster earlier this year. She requested her release and got her release. Whatever her reasons were for wanting to leave TNA, she got out, and she is officially All Elite. And they had a good match here.

Persephone, obviously held on to the championship. You can take the TBS title of her. She just got it. And Persephone is great. But she's a solid addition to the women's division. You know, I think actually they could use a couple more faces in the women's division. Then we had Okada and Champa for the international title. We had the rainmaker against the psycho killer. I was looking forward to this match more than any other single match coming

into this pay-per-view. They did not disappoint. This was fucking great. And what was, honestly, the highlight of the match, as great as the match itself was, the highlight of the match was in the middle of this thing. Champa's wife, Jesse, who was a contestant many, many years ago on the second season of Tough Enough, and she has worked as a producer behind the scenes at different times for WWE and for TNA over the years. She was at ringside with their daughter, Willow, who was celebrating her eighth birthday. And Okada, the shithead that he is, he walks over, he's beaten up her dad, he puts his hand up, high five, he wants a high five, and she shakes her head, no. And then Okada's demeanor changes, and he balls up his fist, and you know it's coming.

and then the finger goes up. And he flips off this little eight-year-old girl on her birthday, no less. So then Willow turns to her mom. Her mom nods in approval and gives her permission. And then this eight-year-old girl on her birthday flips Okada the double bird to, I shit you not, the biggest pop of anything on the entire show up to this point. It was fantastic. And look, hey, she was smart enough to ask for permission first.

She got permission to do it. So then the match is, you know, building to the big finale here. There's a lot of back and forth between these two and teasing their finishes and everybody is just into it and hanging on every near fall. And finally, in the end, Okada puts him down with a rainmaker to retain the title. And they had me not necessarily believing that Champa was actually going to win the belt, but hoping that he would. And everybody in that crowd was hoping that he would win the championship. they had people hook line and sinker. And I'm just really happy that Champa has the chance to go out there and have matches like this.

Because he wasn't given that opportunity towards the end there in WW. And that's probably the biggest reason why he's not working there anymore. And he said this. He said this in an interview after he left the company and joined AEW. He said he got tired of seeing all of the comments on social media from people saying, man, I miss the old Champa. I miss when Champa was in his prime. I miss when Champa was the champion in NXT.

I miss that guy. And it drove him fucking nuts because he knew that guy is still here. You just don't get to see it. It's not like I'm not in my prime. It's not like I can't do that anymore. I just need to be given the opportunity to go out there and do it. And he was bound and determined in coming here to show people that he can still go. And that's exactly what he's been showing every time he gets in the ring.

and so this was a lot of fun. We got the Continental Classic coming up towards the end of the year, and I think him being in that C2 would be a fantastic edition. We had the Brawling Birds retaining their women's tag team titles and their first title defense and winning them at Wembley. They picked up the win in a rematch here over Divine Dominion. Megan Bain and Lena Cross, this was a Chicago street fight, so you got a lot of chairs, you got Barb wire wrapped chairs,

you got kendo sticks and tables and tacks and. all kinds of toys to play with here in this match. And it ended with poor Lena Cross taking a bump on the thumbtacks. Although so did Jamie Hader. They're finished. The Brawling Birds finish is basically the old heart attack finish that the heart foundation used to do. And so Jamie Hater, she hits this move and lands right on her ass, right on the tax. But they picked up the win.

Look, it lived up to the step coming into it. You call it a Chicago street fight. You expect a Chicago street fight. And that's what you got. We had swerve Strickland in the new level, Kofi and Austin Cree, defending their trios titles against Hangman Adam Page, Brody King, and Bandito. I actually had this as my match of the night, just barely over Okada and Champa. This was the match I thought was the best of the bunch.

Anytime you get Hangman and swerve in the ring, you know, it's going to be just chaos. So they were going at it, like hockey style, man. I mean, this looked like a real fucking fight between these two guys. They had to be pulled apart. So anytime they were going at it, it was great. The new level, they continue to just kill it, you know, since coming over to AEW. And very much like Champa, I think they came in, you know, with the attitude of, okay, there might be people out there that have dismissed us because we've been around for so long and they think they've seen everything we can do. And, you know, we're kind of on the descent of our careers.

Well, they were in WW. But it doesn't have to be that way. Sometimes the best thing you could do, and I would say it's analogous in many ways to sports players or a baseball player who plays in one city with one team for so long. And, you know, sometimes you can get in your own head and you're in a slump and things just aren't going your way. Your stats are way down and people think, ah, this guy's washed. And then sometimes all it takes is a trade to another team and you're playing in a different stadium in a different city and all of a sudden you're reinvigorated. And the numbers rebound and you're like a new man. And I look at it the same way here with these two guys, where they were in the same place,

playing for the same team for so long, and you get comfortable. I'm not saying that they were lazy or anything like that. I'm just saying you get comfortable seeing them on TV and you're like, okay, yeah, we've seen this already. What more could these two possibly do here? And they weren't really getting any opportunities either. That was very frustrating. And then the company comes to you and says, oh, by the way, we want you to take a take a fucking 55% pay cut. It's like, okay, you could take your pay cut and stick it up your ass. I'm sure

they were a lot more respectful about it than maybe I would have been. But they leave and they come in here and they've only been here for about a month. But every time we've seen them in the ring, they've been killing it. And it's very cool to see. And you can tell they're having a lot of fun out there. And they have a whole new roster of people to work with. So this was great. In the end, they retained their trio's titles, 25 minutes this win. It never felt too long, and I loved every second of this. I thought this was the match of the night. Willow Nightingale and Tecla, they went at it in the number one contenders match.

The winner would get Mercedes-Money and her AW championship match at Russell Dream coming up on October 17th. I didn't like this as much as their match that they had at redemption, but it was still good. In the end, though, Tecla picks up the win. I think if you were going to do a finish where we had a decisive winner. and not something that left it open to a potential three-way, which I think would have been best. But if you weren't going to do that, then Tecla was the right choice. And that is a fresh match we've never seen before.

Tecla against Mercedes. I'm intrigued by that match. And Tecla's a heel, but she's the kind of heel that people love to root for because she just comes off as such a badass, that people, they just have fun watching her. So she may be the heel, but going into this match, she ain't going to be. She's going to be the baby face going into this. Adam Copeland and Christian Cage

They've been doing this for a while And they've been here before A TLC style ladder match Defending their AW tag team titles Against the Young Bucks and FTR Two of the best teams in all of wrestling I mean all due respect to Cope and Christian Young Bucks and FTR two of the very best

Still when it comes to tag team wrestling So again this was their version of TLC You had ladders and tables and chairs My God the number of tables that got broken here I lost count And it was just pure insanity. And they mixed in some moves and some spots using the ladders that were kind of innovative that I hadn't seen before, which is a tough thing to do because how many of these matches have we seen over the year? How many matches like this have these men been in?

How many matches like this have Copen Christian been in? They're the ones who innovated this with the Hardies and the Dudleys 25 years ago. And here they are in their 50s and they're still going out there having these matches, which is kind of crazy to me. And thankfully, nobody, you know, got hurt. We saw Copeland in a cage match last year where he did something very stupid and came off the top and broke his leg. So, you know, you see a match like this and all of the various steel items that are laying around, people jumping off high ladders and you just hope that they come out of it in one piece. When it was over, the young bucks were standing tall as the first ever four-time AEW tag team champions. It's been a while since they've held tag team guys.

gold here. It's been a couple of years. Not one of these guys was available for comment at the post show Scrum because they were all being checked out by medical. They were all banged up, so they were not at the scrum after the show was over. But now the Bucks have the belts and come next year, the stage is set when Tony Kahn is ready to pull the trigger on this to do the match that nobody thought they would ever get to see. Two teams that have been dying to work with each other and wrestle each other for years and years, like the Bucks and FTR were, before FTR came over to AEW, we're going to get the new level and the young bucks. And when we do, we may see the new level take those titles from the young bucks, but you had to get the belt on the bucks first. So now they have

the belts. And I said this on Sunday in my post-show review that if Tony Kahn is planning on doing some sort of special show in April, which I think he is, I don't know if it's going to be in a big stadium here in the States or what. But WrestleMania is going to be in Saudi Arabia. We're not getting WrestleMania on U.S. soil this year. They're going to be overseas. If Tony Khan wants to try to fill the void in April and have a big domestic event and really build it up as this big thing,

I don't know if he would move all in, if he would bump it up to April or come up with some new event, that's a match I would save for a big show like that. That's what I would do. You got to save that match for some special event or some special occasion. And if you're going to be doing a show like that, you're going to need attractions. That is a big attraction that he could save for that show. And then in the main event, we had Will Osprey defending the AW World Championship against John Moxley. This is a match they've been building for over a year now. They gave Moxley credit for being the man to break Osprey's neck.

He had to undergo neck surgery. He was gone for five months. He came back. He lost to John Moxley, a dynasty in April. And then I guess if you can't beat him, John. join him. He linked up with the death riders. You know who wasn't happy about that? Pack was not very happy about that. But he's with the death riders for a while and Moxley said, I'm going to bring out the killer in you. I'm going to bring out the best version of Will Osprey. And he did. So Osprey was able to win the Owen. And Osprey went on to Wembley Stadium and he beat Kenny Omega to win the world championship. And so now he wanted to give Moxley the first crack at the title because Moxley had a win over him earlier this year. So that all made sense. And it always made sense to me for

Moxley to be the first challenger anyway. He had gone undefeated and nobody's been able to beat him all year. So it made sense for him to be the guy to, you know, kind of step in there and be that first mountain for Ospre to conquer as part of this title run. And they were having, you know, they were having an okay match and then the interference started from the death riders and then Osprey had his United Empire buddies out there, Speedball Mike Bailey and Francesco Akira. And then PAC got involved. Andrade came out to neutralize PAC. All of this just overbooking and interference here. And look, you know, when you do that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it could be really fun. It could add to the match. And sometimes

it's just overboard and it's ridiculous and it can bring down a match. I was not a fan of doing this. I was not a fan of this. As main events go on AW pay-per-views, I actually thought this was one of the weaker ones that they've done this year. But in the end, the final spot, I did like the finish. And the finish was John Moxley on his knees with his back turned and a smile on his face when he realized what was about to happen.

The man accepted his fate. And he turned around as Osprey won. to make sure he saw it coming. And as soon as he turned around from his knees, Osprey just wrecked him with a hidden blade. And he pinned him to retain the title. So I did like that. And they accomplished a few things here with this match. I may not have been a huge fan of the match and what they did, but I was able to look at this and go, okay, here's what they were able to accomplish. Right. Osprey first and foremost, he got to avenge that loss from April and got that first successful title defense, right, under his belt.

Moxley, I had been so dominant all year. Not a single one-on-one match had he lost in 2026 until Saturday. He got to beat the unbeatable. And they also set things up for a potential blood and guts match between the death riders and the United Empire. And it just felt to me like, okay, we may be heading finally in the direction of, if not a death writers, like the end of the death riders, at least John Moxley, maybe being excommunicated from the group that he helped form. That's what it felt like to me. And I said, you know,

PAC has had issues with Moxley in recent weeks where he looks like the disappointed dad, where he would be shaking his head, like the stuff with Osprey. He just did not like the fact that Moxley welcomed him into the group in the first place. And even in the main event, there was a moment there where Moxley kind of showed a moment of weakness where he was hesitating should I hit this guy with this metal briefcase or should I not? And I'm looking at this and I'm going, I think things may really ratchet up in the weeks ahead, specifically with PAC and Moxley. And maybe Moxley is replaced by somebody else if they want to keep the group going.

You know, there's a lot of talk about Seamus potentially coming into AEW because he's a free agent as of this week, as of October 1st. I believe Seamus is a free agent. I am sure he will find his way in, as will I'll Ely you drag enough. shortly. And so who knows? Maybe one of them ends up with the death riders, right? But like, I'm looking at all of this. And now in light of what happened on Sunday, I have absolutely no idea how this affects things. I really don't. Creatively, whatever plans they may have had, how those plans now were going to be affected by PAC's death, because I do think he would have been a pretty important part of that story moving forward. That's all out the window now. So I don't know what AEW was going to do. We

may still end up with the United Empire Death Riders' Blood and Guts match. They're doing blood and guts in November on Dynamite. It's their version of war games. Look, they got Gabe Kidd is technically part of the Death Riders. So if you need five guys, you still have enough people to make it work. But yeah, I just don't know. I don't know how this is going to affect things. And it's not really all that important right now. But if you're Tony Kahn, you have a television show that, you know, you're building to certain events coming up in the next month. two months. You've got to write TV. You've got to come up with what your creative is going to be. So, you know, there's that period of morning. But at the same time, he's got a job to do. And he's got to

figure out, okay, how do I want to handle this now going forward? I just don't know what kind of impact this might have on his plans. But that was all out. Again, a lot of really good wrestling. It just wasn't at the level of some of the better or the best AW pay-per-views of the year. there was a mix of really, really good stuff and stuff that I just didn't care for. He did mention at the scrum after Okada showed up, as Will Osprey was speaking at the, I guess, the dais. And Osprey, the champion is the one who threw the challenge out to Okada and said, I want to defend my title against you, right? You were always a mentor to me.

You were a big part of my career coming up through New Japan. And I want to put my world championship on the line against you in, Paris because they have Grand Slam France. Their special Grand Slam Dynamite coming up on Tuesday, October 6th, which is a week from today. And Okada accepted the challenge. So they're going to be doing Okada and Osprey for the World Champion, which is going to be a hell of a match for the World Championship on Dynamite next Tuesday.

Because there is, what is it? Game 3, I believe, of the ALDS is going to be airing on TBS that Wednesday. so dynamite is being bumped up to Tuesday. But yeah, that's going to be a hell of a match. And Osprey was, he was on one at that scrum. He was talking about WWE. Didn't mention them by name, but it was very clear that he was referring to them.

He was talking about them counter-programming them this past weekend with their World's Collide show. And he said, I cannot tell you the pride I feel because people did have a choice. And everyone that came to this show tonight chose the right company because we deliver the best pay-per-view, the best pro wrestling.

anytime anyone wants to come and step up to us. Here's the reality for you. We are going to knock you down two fucking levels. We are the best pro wrestling in the entire fucking world. Do not fucking step up to us ever again. You think he was a little upset? He sounded a little upset to me. Well, look, WWE is going to continue to do this,

even though it didn't really work out for them this time. They were trying to impact the attendance for the AW show. And that didn't work. But what we ended up with was about 9,400 at the AEW show. They sold out. And then WWE had 13,000 at the Allstate Arena for their World's Collide show. So you had a good number of people somewhere in the range of 22,000 fans watching wrestling in the Chicago area on Saturday night. I would say that's pretty damn good.

WWE yesterday announced a new content distribution deal with Bleacher Report, which is owned by AW Media Rights Partner Warner Brothers Discovery, under its TNT Sports Division. They have signed a new multi-year deal that includes global highlight rights across the pro wrestling company's programming slate, according to the Sports Business Journal. The deal will begin rolling out ahead of money in the bank on October 10th. Under terms of the deal, content will come from weekly series like Raw, Smackdown, NXT, as well as WWE Premium Live Events. Content will then be distributed across TNT Sports-backed social platforms like Bleacher Report,

House of Highlights, and BR wrestling, among others. BR will have a ringside presence at select WWE PLEs to gather and disseminate such social and video content. Says WWE joins the NFL, NCAA, MLB, NHL, and NBA as major property partners with formal Bleacher Report alliances. And so the first thing you wonder, when you hear something like this, you hear, wait a minute, at WWE and Bleacher Report, AEW has the relationship with Bleacher Report. What does this mean? Not a whole lot.

And so when asked, a spokesperson for Warner Brothers Discovery provided some clarification about this deal to F4W online. It said BR is part of TNT Sports, which is a separate division within Warner Brothers Discovery. While WBD has a significant relationship with AEW in the U.S. only, this deal with WWE is global.

one doesn't replace or diminish the other. They said BR has existing relationships with various sports properties that compete with each other from teams to leagues to organizations. They consider themselves a broad sports platform where those relationships enable them to serve fans across the full range of their interests and does not require choosing one property over the other. See, we have been so poisoned by this idea of exclusivity. The W.W.E. traditionally has wanted exclusivity in a lot of different

situation. They have exclusivity when it comes to some of the arenas and buildings that AW can't run. And it was the same thing with WCW back in the day, which is why they didn't run Madison Square Garden. I think they actually did a show once at the theater at Madison Square Garden. But WCW never ran MSG. So exclusivity has been a thing, at least when it comes to WWE for a long, long time. And the reality is when it comes to some of these bigger media companies, they don't always do that. Because to them, it's like, why would we limit our ourselves to one. We want to work with everybody, right? So that seems to be the case here. They also said what BR hopes to gain from the deal is to further broaden what it can offer

content-wise to wrestling fans and not redistribute a fixed amount of attention from one wrestling property to another. They noted that there is no mandate for a specific allocation of posts or promotion within the deal and that BR will respond to the stories, talent, and moments that matter to fans. Mike Johnson, a PW Insider, basically said the same. He said in speaking to a well-placed source within WBD, we are told this is a global deal inked by them. It would not impact or breach any existing deal that AEW has on the entertainment

side. The WBD source made it very clear. The company is very happy with their current AEW deal. So basically, there is no exclusivity in this deal. If there was, it would preclude them from working with. with AEW, but it doesn't. So nothing changes with respect to AEW. If anything, it may end up benefiting them in kind of a roundabout way. The wrestling's fear on social media has handled this news about as well as you would expect, coming up with all sorts of doomsday scenarios for what this

means for AEW. The only doomsday will be in movie theaters in December, okay? And it's going to make a gajillion dollars. Avengers Endgame is the second highest grossing movie of all time. Avatar is still number one. I think that's going to change at the end of the year. That's the only doomsday we're looking at here. I mentioned before, WWE, they ran their World's Collide show in Chicago on Saturday night that nobody saw unless you were present in the building at the Allstate Arena to watch the show. And we were very unclear still, even going into the weekend about what the broadcast plan, if any, was going to be for this show. Obviously, it wasn't going to air live, but is it going to air and if so, where and when? Are they going to put it behind a paywall on Club WWE and try to

drive subscriptions? Is it going to be on YouTube? What are they doing here? And it was funny because JBL, who does commentary for AAA, he was on his podcast and talked about how up until just recently he thought that he was going to be flown into Chicago to do live commentary at the building for the show. And he was totally on board with doing it because they asked him about it a few weeks ago. He said, yeah, sure. I don't mind coming in. because most of the commentary they do is remote. You know, JBL is probably in his home studio in Texas or New York. I don't know where he's living these days.

And they don't fly the announcers in. They did for Triplemania because it was such a big event. But like when they did commentary for that big mask versus mask match between the two El Grande Americanos back in May, and that was a big deal. It was very obvious that the commentators were not there. And it sucks when they're not there. It's just not the same.

You know, you have to have them there in the building, right? Otherwise, you could just tell that they're all in different locations and sometimes they're talking over each other. There's a delay. It's just, it's not the same. And Corey Graves, by the way, had been flown to Italy for the Clash in Italy show. And so he was, I think, in a, in the hotel. What do they call the, not the board room, but they have these conference rooms. He was sitting in a conference room, I think, at 3 o'clock in the morning or 4 o'clock in the morning.

he said in Italy doing commentary for that show and then had to turn around and I guess work clash in Italy later on that day. So anyway, he thought he was going to be going to Chicago and then they just never got back to him and they changed their plans and said, yeah, we don't need you. We'll do commentary and post. So that's what they're going to do. The announcers were not there. It'll be the same as they usually do. But now we know that they're going to be airing Worlds collide this Wednesday. So tomorrow at 7 p.m. Eastern on the WWE YouTube channel. So we got Wednesday night competition. Yeah, 7 o'clock is when World's Collide starts. 8 p.m. is when dynamite kicks off. I'm not going to get into any spoilers here, but WWE posted it, so I'll mention

it. CM Punk had been teasing the possibility of coming out to his old theme song. This fire burns by Killswitch Engage, which he was using in WWE, um, in the late 2000. early 2010s before Vince McMahon got the rights to cult of personality. I wouldn't mind him going back to this song. I had forgotten how great that song was. He came out wearing a lucha mask like he used to during his straight-edge society days. So that was fun. But as far as the rest of the show, Obafemi made an appearance. It was exactly as I figured. Obafemi was there for one reason to have a face-to-face confrontation with Omas, who dwarfed him. It was quite the visual, seeing these to face-to-face.

Anyway, all of this will be airing tomorrow on YouTube if you want to check it out. That'll be the place to do it. Smackdown this past Friday real quick here. There were a couple more qualifying matches for Money in the Bank. Lash Legend was added to the women's money in the bank match. She picked up a win over Charlotte Flair and Julia, after Lashpin Julia, of course. Of course. I mean, it was never going to go any other way.

And in the main event, and by the way, Julia is supposed to finally have a wrestling match with Blake Monroe, which they've been teasing now for what feels like years. Supposedly, they're going to finally have an actual wrestling match this coming Friday on Smackdown. I'll believe it when I see it. The main event on Friday was a qualifier for the men with CM Punk, Gunther, and Finn Baller. And they did a finish where Gunther had punk and a sleeper, but he gave up his back. And that gave Baller a chance to come off the top with a double stomp right to the back. and then Punk basically stole the pin on Gunther.

Ballard could make it in time. And so CM Punk, not his first time in a money in the bank match. In fact, he's won two of them before. I think this will actually be the fifth one that he's been a part of, but he's won two of them before at WrestleMania. And he brings veteran presence that nobody else in that match has had. He is the only man at this moment to have been in a money in the bank match previously. All of the other people in the match have never been a world champion in WWE.

They've never been into money in the bank match. And I like that. Putting Punk in there, I mean, look, I guess it gives them a veteran. I'm not expecting him to win, but I guess it gives them a veteran presence, somebody maybe who could help direct traffic. Maybe that's part of the calculus here. I don't know. There was a little face-to-face, though.

When Punk came out for his main event, Cody Rhodes was exiting after his promo. And we got a stare down between Punk and Cody. A little window, I think, into what one of our WrestleMania main events are likely to be next. year. And I'm okay with that only if one of them is a heel by the time we get there. No more of this, you know, baby face versus baby face. Let's be friends. Oh, we can't be friends anymore. Bullshit. No, I want a clearly defined heel, preferably Cody going into that match if you're going to do that next year. The final spot is going to be occupied by one of these three men. Cody Rhodes, Kevin Owens, or Johnny Gargano. They're going to have the final men's qualifier this

coming Friday, I'm thinking that's going to be a Kevin Owens win because there's still a lot of tension being teased between Kevin Owens and CM Punk. So having them both in the latter match would make more sense to me than honestly either of the other two. And then on the women's side, Candace Lurray, Tiffany Stratton, and Tatum Paxley. And I'll say following the pattern of putting people in the match that have never been in one before, there's a lot of younger, newer faces that are in that women's ladder match, I think Tatum would fit the bill. I think Tatum Paxley gets in there. Now, Raw last night, I'd talk about this briefly here.

This is a good show overall. I enjoyed last night's episode, but for weeks now, we've been watching this stuff play out with the bloodline and this new 9-46 crew, led by Roy's Keys with Bronco Neema and Lucian Price from NXT, who just recently got the call-up. We're a tag team O-TM out the mud in NXT. Now they are part of this crew. And so for weeks, we've heard Jacob Fatu telling the Uso's who want to just go and kick these guys' asses. Right?

No, no, no, no, no, you got to be smart about this. And we're going to run the play, but we're going to take it slow. We're going to play it slow. We're going to play it safe. And then we got to run the play when the time is right, right? We've been hearing about this run the play stuff now for weeks on end. like he's fucking Bill Belichick out there. Bill Belichick was an angry Samoan who was all tatted up. And what a fucking visual that would be. So anyway, finally, finally, the bloodline ran the play

last night against 9-4-6. And one thing that is very clear now, because I thought maybe this was a possibility, and clearly now that is not the case, I thought there was a chance that in the end it would be revealed that Jacob Fawtu was sort of the puppet master pulling the strings And he was with 9-4-6 the entire time because up until last night, 9-4-6 had yet to put their hands on Jacob Fautu. They had beaten up the Uso's, and they had beaten up Solo Sacoa, but they had not put their hands on Jacob Fatu. And that all changed in a very big way last night.

So I think it's safe to say he's not in cahoots with 9-4-6. It was really, it goes back to the beginning of the show, because right at the very beginning, this SUV pulls up, and out comes Jada Parker. Now, Jada Parker has been in NXT for a few years now. And we've seen a lot of NXT women get called up. Tatum Paxley got called up to Smackdown recently, and that Lola Vice is on Monday Night Raw. So Jada Parker becomes the latest NXT import from their women's division.

And it was very weird seeing her come out of the car and there's this face-to-face with her and J. Uso, right? Because the Uso's in Fautu were there, but obviously people were hyper-focused on Jay Uso. because the rumor has been, and I don't know this for a fact, but the rumor has been that Jada Parker and J. Uso have been together for a while. Jay Uso went through or isn't the process of going through a divorce from his wife, and there's been a lot of rumors and things being talked about when it comes to Jada Parker and J. Uso. So seeing them on screen together, I'm sure that was not a mistake. They wanted to get people talking like, oh, shit.

And so she claimed she was just there to have a meeting with Adam Pierce. And so off she went. And we didn't see her again until the very end of the show. When the two groups came out, they immediately started brawling. It's this big, just chaotic pier six brawl all over ringside and then out to the back. We had multiple brawls going on, right? We had the Uso's and we had O'TM in one part of the building. And then over in the parking lot area, Jacob Fattu and Royce Keys were going at it.

And Roy's Keys attempted to flee. He got in his SUV, tried to pull away. Jacob wouldn't let him. And then he smashed the car door into Jacob's head just to get him off the car. And then out of nowhere comes this black sedan. And they run over. Jacob fought to. I haven't seen someone take a bump like that and get run over since Austin got ran down by Rikishi back in 99. And I'm like, man, Rikishi is back. But then Jada Parker gets out of the car. And I'm like, that is definitely not Rikishi. And she comes out and she's playing it like, oh my God, I didn't see you. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that. And then it becomes very clear. Her whole demeanor changes. And she says, nobody is safe. And she leaves with Royce Keys. So Jada Parker has turned heel. I think she would be considered the heel. And she is now part of the 9-4-6 faction. I have to give credit to the stuntman who took that bump when he got hit by that car. He took this hellacious bump. It looked really good the way they shot this. But then you see Jacob Fattu laying on the ground. He's got some blood on his forehead and Roy's Keys looks down at him and says, all gas, no brakes. And off he goes. And that's how Raw went off the air last night. So that was a pretty big angle there, introducing a female member now into 946 and hitting somebody, you know, with a car usually puts, you would think would put them out for a while. But who knows? Maybe Fattu will be back on the show next week with a Band-Aid on

his head. And the first thing I thought of when I saw this, and I saw that Jada Parker had linked up with this crew, was, we got to be getting Naomi back. We got to be getting Naomi back. When Naomi, you last saw Naomi, she had just won the women's world championship last summer. And she was doing this heel gimmick and, you know, proceed with caution. And she was getting real good at her promos to where it's like, oh, man, the timing couldn't be worse for her to have to leave. But she left for the best possible reasons, right? She was pregnant. So she had to give up her title. This was in August of last year.

And so she went away. And we haven't seen her or heard anything about her or from her since then. It has now been 13 going on 14 months. And I think the time feels right if she's going to come back. Now it feels like now would be that time because the bloodline is going to need a female to help counteract Jada Parker, especially if we're heading into maybe like a war games match between the bloodline and 9-4-6. like this is the big program on Monday nights.

This is the big feud now on Raw. And it just feels to me like we're going to be getting Naomi back soon. I only hope that if she comes back and she's not just a straight up heel like she was before because she was so fucking good at it, that she can still play that same character. Even if people want to cheer for her, even if she's in the position of being kind of like a tweener where she's kind of like in the middle, you don't really know what she is. I don't want her to change or deviate anything from what she was doing the last time we saw her because she was so good at it. So we may be seeing her come back soon. We'll see how this all

affects Roman Rain. Roman is defending his championship at Money in the Bank against L.A. Knight. And I cannot envision L.A. Knight walking out as the World Heavyweight champion that night. I would love to be wrong. I really would be. I would love to be wrong about this, but this company has just fucked with this guy's fans now for at least the last three years. Why would I sit? here and allow them to fool me again into thinking that this man has a shot at walking out with the World Heavyweight Championship. But he does. Look, somebody floated a very interesting theory a couple of weeks ago, which I would love. And you'd have to explain it. But if it's not Jacob Fattu who was in cahoots with 946, what if L.A. Knight has something to do with this crew?

And this turns him heel in the process. And I was still. very popular. I know that, but he's a better heel to me anyway than he is a baby face. And that might be reason enough for them to actually pull the trigger on a title change. If we get this big swerve at the end of money in the bank and we come to find out that, holy shit,

L.A. Knight is behind this whole thing. And L.A. Knight, who would befriended Solo Sacoa recently, the two of them have been awfully buddy-buddy since SummerSlam. And he got abducted last week and beat up by this group and we come to find out that night was the one who was behind it, right? What an asshole.

I don't hate that idea. I actually really like that idea. And I think it puts him in a great position. So I would love to see it, but I think this may be one of those situations where the fans are coming up with ideas that are a lot more exciting than what we end up getting.

Because I still don't put a very high probability on there being a title change on that show. But if they wanted to put more heat on this stuff between these two groups, I'm just saying that would be one way to do it. You would have them play a role in Roman getting screwed out of the belt. because that's about the only way I would see a title change happening.

But also on the show last night, we got some good wrestling. We had a tag match, Penta and Javon Evans, who were both in money in the bank. They beat Dominic Mysterio and J.D. McDonough, that was very good. Dragon Lee had a much better match than I was expecting him to have with Big Cass. Pulled off what I guess you would consider the upset win. And there's been some discourse online since last night where Big Cass is concerned. and I think Dave Meltzer made a comment, and he wasn't reporting anything. He was just voicing his opinion from the show last night in saying that this is the end of the big cast singles push, clearly.

I don't know that I'm ready to say that, but I'm also, you know, as I look at this, I'm not sure that there was any really big sustained push even planned for him in the first place. And the reason I feel that way is I think of Baron Corbyn. Baron Corbin was a guy who was on the roster previously, like Big Cass, although Cass was gone for a lot longer than he was. Cass was gone for like eight years. But like Big Cass, this guy that this big guy that they brought back out of nowhere. It's like, well, why are they bringing him back all of a sudden? And he comes in, they put the U.S. title on Corbyn,

but it was clearly just a way to try to help get Trick Williams even more over and just transition the belt right back to Trick, which is what they've done. In fact, they did one more match between him and Corbyn on Friday in a cage and trick beat him again. And now I look at this and, you know, he did the job here for Dragon Lee last night and Javon Evans got that win back over him in their qualifier for money in the bank. We're talking about two losses for Big Cass. So it's premature to be saying, oh, well, the push is over or the guy's being buried.

It's two fucking losses. All right. So let's not put the cart before the horse here. But I do look at this and wonder if the idea was we got to bring these guys back. not to push them so much as to use them as a way to get our existing guys over and elevate some of these smaller younger guys like a Javan Evans, like a Dragon Lee. Dragon Lee is over. Like if you were watching that match last night and seeing the way the crowd was reacting to him, like it was very encouraging if you're a Dragon Lee fan to see how much the crowd was really into him. So he's over and he seems to be getting more over by the week.

It was the right result. He's the one who's over right now, not big cast. but I think that may be why they brought him back in the first place was to help elevate other people. And maybe the idea wasn't so much to do anything major with him. But I wouldn't cast him off just yet and say, well, the push is over. I don't know that the push ever really started. So maybe that just wasn't the idea from the jump.

We got two more matches added to the money in the bank card. Obafemi and Bronson Reed, they signed the contract to make it official. That's going to be a good one. And Stephanie Vakere will be defending her women's world championship against either. Becky Lynch or Liv Morgan. They're going to have a number one contenders match next Monday. Maybe we don't get a winner. Maybe we end up with a three-way match.

But there will be a women's world title defense on that show. That feels like a pretty complete card to me by WWE, you know, PLE standards. We have a Roman Reins title defense. We have two ladder matches. We have a women's world championship match. And we have the, I guess, the Battle of the Big Men. or, I mean, Bronson Reed isn't quite as big as he used to be, but he's still a big guy. Bronson Reed against Obafemi.

Maybe they add one more, but that seems like a pretty complete card to me. Other news and notes, TNA has its Bound for Glory pay-per-view coming up. Their biggest show of the year, it is less than two weeks away, and they still have less than 800 tickets sold in a building that fits close to 10,000 for wrestling. They are currently set up for around 2,400, according to Russell Tick. If they end up coming close to that number, there could be some late, you know, late buys or walk-ups. If they come close, though, it's probably going to be a lot of papering involved. Now, they had close to 3,000 for their slammerversary show back in June.

And they had close to 5,000 for their lockdown show last month. So I don't know if it's the card that they put together that just isn't attracting people. I don't know if it's the lack of star power on the show. the lack of star power definitely is an issue. If it's the fact that they're running Florida, I guess that's a possibility too, and that's just not a good place for them to be running, it's probably some combination of all of the above.

But TNA right now is in a rebuilding mode. You know, they have not been using as much NXT talent as they used to, right? Likely not by choice. Because if they had the choice, I'm sure they would try to goose ticket sales for this show with them, but they need to be able to stand on their own two feet, and they need to be able to build a viable brand around young TNA stars.

Now, Leon Slater is in the main event of this show. He's challenging Nick Nemeth for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. He should win. But if they think he's leaving, why put the world title on him? I think the outcome of this main event may tell the tale about what Leon Slater's future is. If he's sticking around, they should absolutely do a title change here. And if he's not, then they shouldn't. Because you know WWE and AEW want to get their hands.

on that guy. And probably Ricky Sosa, too. And this is the biggest challenge that TNA faces when it comes to building a core of young talent. It's that if those talents are any good, okay, and they are, they're very good, they're great. They're not going to be with TNA for very long. They're not going to be with T&A for the long haul because their deals are going to come due and they're heading to WWE or they're heading to AEW because those places are going to pay them more. and they're going to offer them greater visibility. So if you're T&A, I mean, you want that one star at least to get really hot that you can build around, right? You can get behind them.

But the downside is that if they do get hot, you can start the countdown clock to their departure. And then they're right back to where they were before trying to find other talent to build. And that talent won't draw for them because they're not ready to. You know, they're not going to draw for them if they don't have a name. They're not stars. It doesn't help that there's already so much wrestling as it is. I think TNA's biggest problem is that they have no identity anymore like they used to. Like, what are they? What are they doing or offering that is different than what people can get from any of the other shows? Right. They have better television than MLW does with their visibility on AMC. Same with Maple Leaf Pro. But Scott DeMore has done a very good job in a very short.

period of time of making Maple Leaf Pro into something special. And it helps having access to a lot of AEW names who are allowed to work those shows. Maple Leaf Pro also airs on the My AEW service. And also they have Mara Ranallo doing play-by-play for them, which is an automatic win for MLP. But TNA does nothing to really differentiate itself from those other shows. And so you end up with 750 tickets sold 12 days out from their biggest show of the year. All right, I got some questions from you guys. Some unread on Uncrowned. The Salammonster at gmail.com is where you can send in any questions you may have or you can tweet me.

At Solomonster on X, just use the hashtag uncrowned. We got Neil from North Carolina. I watched your video on PAC this morning and it made me think about my favorite match. Pack versus Amazing Red, November 2019 in RevPro. First time meeting and they killed it in the UK that night. RIP pack. Yeah, I mean, I mentioned earlier a lot of the NXT and WWE and AEW matches, but the body of work he put together on the independence scene is what got him signed in the first place. And, yeah, I'd forgotten about that match with Red.

I remember hearing about that. And, yeah, I mean, look, every time he stepped in the ring with almost anybody, he killed it. But when he was in there with somebody on the level of an amazing Red, then you know it would be impossible for the two of them to have anything but a great match. Jonathan, also from North Carolina, Charlotte, to be exact. What are your thoughts on the comments that Conrad Thompson made about Roman Raines when he said, Never have I ever seen a Roman Raines T-shirt out in the wild? I also never heard anybody putting him on their Mount Rushmore. He is just Triple H of 2006.

Well, I've never seen a Roman Rain shirt out in the wild either, to be fair. Outside of a wrestling event, I can't remember seeing a single one. But there's a better chance of him ending up on people's Mount Rushmore's in the next five to ten years than Triple H. And I would also contend that Roman has been far more important of a draw and an attraction to WWE in the last five years than Triple H was at any point during his entire career in the ring as a performer. I'm not talking about the work he did with NXT and the Performance Center in those early days. So he's right and he's wrong. Speaking of Triple H, this comes from Nathan and Marietta, Pennsylvania. I was wondering about Triple H's career.

So many people talk about how he's only been so successful because he married into the McMahon family. Though I'm sure there are benefits to marrying the boss's daughter, he was sitting in on meetings and making creative decisions before he got with Stephanie. I do believe he had a level of trust with Vince, and I do think he would have grown, or that would have grown over time. He may not have won as many world championships, but I could still see him headlining WrestleMania's, even creating evolution. I do doubt whether or not Vince would have trusted him enough to build NXT, though. Gaining a position of power also may have been a lot less likely. What do you think?

I mean, the answer is we'll never know for sure, but you're not wrong. I mean, he was sitting at on production meetings as early as 97. So, yes, there was a level of trust that Vince had in him to where he would have been a big star regardless. What he have won 13 or 14 world championships and headlined all those WrestleMania's? No, no. There was some success that you could absolutely attribute to him marrying into the family. But you can't quantify it. It's just not possible to know how big he would have gotten, how big he would have stayed. But he was already on his way to becoming a big star, you know, in a main event attraction for them regardless of whether or not

he got with Stephanie. So did it have an impact? Yes. Would he be in the position he's in now without it? No, I don't believe he would be. Cameron, also from Charlotte, North Carolina. What is going on here? I may have to make my way out to North Carolina one of these days. I'd do some kind of meetup. With Ricky Sains doing nothing on Smackdown and him having history with Roy's Keys, should Sane's be added to 946. Keys isn't a bad talker, but I can't help but think this faction could use a talker in Saints, and Saints working with Roman and the bloodline could benefit him. Look, I like Ricky Starks, Ricky Saints, whatever you want to call him. WWE does not see him at that level.

That much is very clear from the booking. They are not going to do that. And I don't know that I would either. I mean, he's a great talker. You're not wrong about that. They could probably use someone who can really talk, but that goes back to the LA night theory that I talked about a little earlier, where if L.A. Knight, it comes out that he was part of this 9-4-6 thing all along and he wins the world title from Roman,

well, then he becomes the de facto face of 946, and he could do all the talking for them. I mean, Roy's Keys, not like Roy's Keys can't speak or cut a promo, but if they get L.A. Knight in there, there's no need for Ricky Saints. And St. Clair on X, not from North Carolina, tweeted me. he tweeted me to ask if you had a kid and had to name them after a wrestler, who would you pick? Which is a very unique question that I've never been asked before. I always liked Austin or Cameron as a boy's name. Austin would probably get my vote, though.

I wouldn't be the only one making that decision, though. So I might be outvoted, but I am partial to that name. One last news item here. Get your checkbook out. Heritage Auctions, which sold a pair of boots worn by Hulk Hogan earlier this year for over a million dollars. It's that pair of boots that Logan Paul stayed up all night trying to bid on before he gave up. And they also had an auction for the title belt that Hogan wore at WrestleMania 2 last month. That sold for over $400,000.

They have another belt up for auction. This one is pretty iconic. It's the Intercontinental title held by T. Santana, macho man Randy Savage, Ricky the Dragon Steamboat, and the Honky Tonk man, between 1985 and 1988. So this would be the belt that Savage wore to the ring and defended against Steamboat, and Steamboat won in their WrestleMania three match, which is one of the greatest matches of all time.

It is also the belt. I could tell straight away just by looking at the photos of the belt that they posted. This is also the belt that Savage famously tried to polish. with Brasso. Brasso metal, which stripped a lot of the color from the belt. It looks so faded

and beat up. I guess nobody told them. You don't use Brasso to polish title belts. That's a bad idea. He found out the hard way. I actually think it gives the belt some character.

It makes it look like battle tested. But now you could own the famous Brasso belt. The opening bid is only $77,500. Good luck. If you want to check out more of my content, you can find me on YouTube, Solomonster Sounds Off. I also have the weekly Solomaster Sounds Off podcast that drops every Sunday.

So follow me on there and come on back next Tuesday, my birthday, for a brand new episode of the Uncrowned Wrestling Show. 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 guys next Tuesday.