The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | This year's best match just happened, Clash In Italy thoughts, another Ric Flair meltdown

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Solomonster opens with his thoughts on the greatest all-around spectacle of the year in pro wrestling and the fumble WWE is making if they don’t capitalize on things with Chad Gable (0:28:24). Then, he dives into Clash in Italy, including Brock Lesnar beating Oba Femi and why it wasn’t necessary. Plus Jacob Fatu drops two straight to Roman Reigns, and why a conversation needs to be had about WWE's infatuation with the Bloodline (12:17). Thoughts on the the King and Queen of the Ring tournaments, potential winners, and why one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing when it comes to King of the Ring announcements (34:10). Reaction to a former WWE intercontinental champion being arrested in an embarrassing McDonald’s Drive Thru incident (49:34). AEW announces a new PPV event for Montreal, why it feels like Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay will main event at Wembley Stadium, and how AEW plans to fill the TBS championship vacancy (53:09). TNA contract news on Leon Slater and why they allegedly did not allow him to break the record for longest-reigning X Division champion (58:56). Ric Flair has another social media meltdown, this time dragging his son publicly and threatening to sue him (1:01:23) and an ex-WWE writer reveals a pitch for a terrible nWo reboot in 2020 that nearly became a reality (1:05:42).

Welcome to the Uncrowned Wrestling Show. I am Solomaster here for Tuesday, June 2nd, 2006, or as we say here in New York, the eve of Game 1, en route to the Knicks' first NBA title in 53 years. That may be the only thing that could top the reaction inside Arena Monterey on Saturday night for the Mask versus Mask match between El Grande Americano Gable and El Grande-Americano-Gable. a match so great that they had to replay it on Netflix last night after Raw. If you watch the feud between these two play out on WWE television any given week on Monday Night Raw, nobody cared.

Like the emotion wasn't there. It was like I was watching something entirely different than what we've been seeing with them in AAA. And it became pretty clear a couple of months ago that even though I thought that they were building to Mask versus Mask at WrestleMania. and WrestleMania felt like it was the right place to finally blow this thing off because it had been going on for months and months, that would have been a terrible decision.

And it was pretty clear that match had to take place in Mexico because the fans down there were invested in a way that the fans here just were not. Like it had to be this way. And on Saturday you saw why. Everything about it from the pre-match hype video to the entrances to the crowd reaction to the match. to the blood, to the cameo appearances, to the postmatch with Gable unmasking and cutting that promo in the middle of the ring, to Americano kissing his girlfriend in the middle of the ring like

Rocky and Adrian. The only thing missing was him dropping to one knee. And honestly, that may well happen in a few months after he wins that AAA mega title. Everything about this was pitch perfect. and it's a great example of what makes pro wrestling so great. As silly as this all is, and as ludicrous as it is, the idea of having a massed American luchador, feuding with a German luchador, masquerading around as the American luchador,

in a battle for Mexican pride, no less. Like, the whole thing is just preposterous, but that's part of what makes wrestling so great. You know, when Chad Gable first started doing this, gimmick, it was a comedy act. For a guy who deserves so much better and is wildly underutilized, okay, not underrated. I see a lot of people throwing that word around and you're using it wrong. We all know how great Chad Gable is.

It's not a secret anymore. He's not underrated. He is underutilized. And they stuck him under a mask coming out to mariachi music, doing AI slot videos for him on TV. And then he got hurt. And he needed surgery, which opened up an operational. opportunity for another underutilized talent on the WWE roster. I mean, they have quite a few of them.

Ludwig Kaiser. I'm sorry, I'm breaking K-Fabe here, I know, but I have it on good authority that it's Ludwig Kaiser under the mask. I just can't prove it. But Kaiser is another one who's sort of disappeared off the face of the earth there for a while until they swapped him in for Gable just to kill time, really, until Gable was able to come back. And I think it was pretty clear the plan was to feud the two Americanos once Gable

was ready to come back from surgery. But then something very strange happened, right? The guy got over. And because WWE bought AAA last year, they started sending him down there to work, and the fans took to him, you know, in a way that nobody could have predicted. I don't care what anybody says.

There is not a man alive who could have predicted that this man would get over the way that he has. It was a happy accident. Chad Gable getting hurt is the best thing that could have happened to both of these. men. And if you feel bad for Gable that, well, you know, it could have been him in the Kaiser spot

right now. I don't think so. You know, a big part of why it's worked so well for Kaiser is the fact that he's fluent in the language. Gable is not. Right. Don't underestimate how much that makes a difference. That and Kaiser's got a Mexican girlfriend. So, I mean, like, he's taken that role and he has owned it. He embraced it. He embraced the culture. And the fans love him for it. Like, he could do this for the rest of his career and never take the mask off. Like, I'm not even joking when I say that. I don't think it's ever going to be any bigger for him than it is right now. He'll always be far more over as El Grande Americano than he ever will be as Ludwig Kaiser.

You know, one of the reasons that this worked so well was whenever these two went at it, it felt like they were really beating the shit out of each other. Like that pull-apar brawl that they had, and I know you know what I'm talking about here, The pull-apart brawl that they had a few weeks before WrestleMania was the best brawl that I have seen in years in wrestling. Like that was the night that Gable beat up the blind comedian, he pulled him over the barricade, put him in an ankle lock. He threatened Kaiser's girlfriend before Kaiser ran out.

The two of them didn't hold back. I mean, they were going at it. He was very intense. It felt real, which is when wrestling is at its best, when you forget for a second, right? You can watch something and go, holy shit, was that real? Like, did he really tag that guy? Did these two guys really not like each other?

Like, we don't get enough of that these days. There's not enough of that suspension of disbelief. This felt like a true blood feud. And then we had the match. And the heat that Gable got was off the charts. And the love that Kaiser got coming out, it's one of the best entrances that you'll ever see. Like, if ever there was a time to get blood,

this was it. And they both bled. Gable more than Kaiser. I mean, my God, he was leaking like a faucet there at the end. But these men beat the piss out of each other for 33 minutes. And it never felt like it went on for too long. And they had the match of the year so far. I waffled between this and the Okada to Kesh to match a double or nothing

because I love that match so much. And the crowd was also molten hot for that. But, I mean, top to bottom, the whole presentation in the match itself, this clears it. but imagine getting those two matches within a week of each other. You know, that's what's so crazy about it. And then after the match, I was wondering, like, how are they going to handle the unmasking? Would they go the comedy route and they would have Gable try to run away to avoid his fate?

Or would they take the more traditional Lucha Libre approach, which is what they did, with Gable bringing his family into the ring and he's got blood pouring down his face and he unmasks. And he hands the bloody mask over to Kaiser and he gives his real name in his hometown. and he promises to come back to AAA and the fans cheer. He walked in the villain and he walked out getting applause from the crowd and gable chants. You know this guy had to be doing cartwheels on the inside. He had to be so happy to finally be able to go out and have the kind of classic match that he knew he could always have. And the only criticism that I have, the only thing that bugged the shit out of me,

was not having the English announcers they're live in the building for this. I have no idea why they didn't fly Corey Graves and JBL in for this show. Now with Graves, I know they had him calling the Italy show the next day. And credit to him because I'm guessing

he was already in Italy calling that remotely, which means it would have been probably three in the morning where he was. But why not just Wade Barrett in there in his place and let this guy work the AAA show?

Like I understand them doing commentary remotely for their weekly shows, which is what they do. Usually it's them in Ray Mysterio. Ray was, he was there. He was in Mexico. He's the general manager of AAA. So, you know, of course he's going to be there. But it's so obvious that they're not all in the same place doing the commentary. And you could tell, like, some of their calls are off by a few seconds. There's a delay. Other times they're talking over each other. You know, and as someone who does commentary, I could tell you, like, even when you are all there together sitting right next to each other, it's tough not to talk over one another when you got three people.

But it's infinitely harder when you're not there together. And I just don't understand why, you know, knowing how big of a show this was going to be, they didn't fly them all in to be there at ringside, you know, and just have him do that show exclusively. I wish I would have listened to the Spanish commentary. It probably would have made it even better. Like, that's how I used to watch those big Tokyo domain events on those wrestle kingdom shows. I would just listen to the Japanese commentary.

Now, I had no fucking idea what they were saying, but boy, did they say it with a lot of enthusiasm. It's infectious. It kind of rubs off on you. But it always used to get me hyped up, but that would be my only gripe. And I hope they can correct that for other big shows that they do going forward. None bigger than Triplemania, which is coming up in September. They announced that night one is being held at the Luxor in Las Vegas, Friday night, September 11th, and night two, that Sunday, September 13th, is going to be taking place in Mexico City. And that is where El Grande Americano wins the AAA mega title from Dominic Mysterio.

Mark it down. It cannot happen any other way. It's got to go down there. And as for Chad Gable, you know, this is his time to shine. If they don't give him a push of some sort coming out of this, they never will. They never will. Now, he wasn't on Raw last night. Raw was in Italy. I don't know if there was a reason for that,

if it was a travel-related thing or what, but if he's not back on Raw next week, or at least they start airing vignettes, teasing a return or something, then what a fumble this would be. Or Smackdown even. Maybe they'll move him over to Smackdown, right? They could use some help in the mid-card over there.

But boy, you got to strike while the iron is hot and take advantage of this. And if he's not back on TV imminently, that is a fumble on their part. part. But the rest of that show on Saturday was good. I didn't think it was anything great. Ray Phoenix, yet another underutilized talent on the WWE roster. He won the AAA cruiserweight title from Laredo Kid, who had over 500 days as champion. They had a good match. It only won 11 minutes, though. I mean, that should have gotten more time. El Eho del Vigingo. He won the Latin American

title from El Ejo de Dr. Wagner, Jr. We had a ton of interference there at the end of what I thought was a solid match, certainly not at the level of a great vikingo match. And the War Raders, another export from Monday Night Raw, win the AAA tag team titles from Pagano and Psycho Clown. I thought that was the weakest thing on the show. I mean, it really was a one-match show.

It was all about that main event, and it's going to be very hard to top. Unfortunately, there was also a serious injury for a match that was taped for the triple A show that's going to be airing this coming weekend, although I don't know how much of this is going to air. Octagon Jr. He was part of a fatal five way where midway through Joaquin Wilde, he executed an avalanche DDT. And Octagon came straight down.

The footage is floating around on social media. He came straight down on top of his head, just spiked into the mat on this DDT. And he was not moving. he's not you know he's able to move now but like he was laying there very stiff it was very scary the referee threw up the dreaded X sign he had to be stretchered out the latest update that I saw on him is that his MRI came back okay and he's going to be all right but he's going to miss a few months and I mean he got off easy if that's the case because that could have ended so much worse for him anyway clash in Italy coming less than 24th

hours after that main event, it never stood a chance. Like it just, there was no chance. There was nothing on that Italy show that was going to be able to top, you know, what we saw on Saturday. It's like the old days when NXT would put on a big takeover show the night before WrestleMania and it would just blow away the main roster. It's almost like, like, follow that, right? Nothing on Sunday could match what we got in that main event on Saturday.

But we still got some good in ring out of it. It was not without its problems, though. I'm going to go through all of it here in a moment. and what went down on Raw last night. We'll kind of weave that into things. I got the brackets for the king and queen of the ring tournaments. But clash in Italy. First of all, I got to give props to the crowd in Italy on Sunday and Monday.

And I believe they're in Bologna for Smackdown this Friday, and I'm sure the crowd's going to be hot there as well. The crowd has been great over these last few days. As is usually the case when they break into, you know, one of these European markets, European countries for a big, whether it's a PLE or a Monday Night Raw or a Smackdown or whatever, they're starved for it over there. And this was the first big televised Italy, PLE type event that they've had.

And I'm sure they want more of them. And I think the crowd gave them good reason to come back and give them more. So kudos to the crowd. I mean, they just make everything feel so much bigger than it even is. And so it helped enhance the shows. But, you know, that alone. could not make Clash in Italy one of the better shows of the year or anything like that.

We did have two world title matches with the men, which was more than we had a backlash, by the way. This was a bigger show than backlash was earlier in the month. We had two world title matches. No title changes in either of those matches. In fact, the only championship to change hands on Sunday was the women's intercontinental title. But I felt like coming into it

if there was going to be a title change, the likely place for it would have been, in the WWE title match. We had Cody Rhodes, defending against Gunther. This is what opened the show and that first hour aired on ESPN. And they went out there and they had an 11-minute match.

They gave these two guys as much time as they gave Ray Phoenix and Laredo Kid on the AAA show, which is to say, not a lot of time. Now, in those 11 minutes, I thought they had a good match. It was nothing that you're going to be,

you know, thinking about a month from now. but they went with a controversial finish. Now keep in mind that Gunther came into this match, he has not been beaten, or, well, can't say that now, he had not been beaten since SummerSlam last year, when he lost the world championship to see M Punk. Since then, he gave John Cena a loss in his final match and sent him on his way,

and he gave A.J. Stiles a loss in his final match, and he sent him on his way. And that's to say nothing of him beating Goldberg and retiring him last summer on Saturday. Saturday Night's main event. So that's where this whole career killer gimmick comes from, which I think at this point, I'm kind of over the whole career killer thing. I think that, you know, it can't be something that he just does this for the rest of his career, right? There's got to be some maturation. There's got to be some sort of change at some point. You can only do this

so many times. But he was very dominant coming into this match, and they just moved him from Raw to Smackdown. So outside of one Smackdown match, this was the first big match that he has had since being moved over to this brand. And he went in there against Cody and he got pinned in an 11-minute match that opened the show. Now, he stuck his leg under the bottom row. The referee didn't see it. And before the referee counted three,

Cody had kind of pulled back on the other leg and so Gunther's leg came back up. And anyway, the referee didn't see any of this. They showed it on the replay. Gunther kind of pled his case and then he just walked away. So they left it with some controversy because they had to. My God, I mean, if that's just the way the match ended,

how freaking horrible would that have been. I thought it was bad enough as it was. I just thought the finish did not come off well at all. I see what they're trying to do. They want to run it back again. They're going to run it back again. They will probably be running it back in Riyadh at Night of Champions. But for what they were trying to do here,

I just thought it came off incredibly lame. And they kind of cheated us out of what I know could have been a better match. I understand them wanting to save their best, you know, maybe give them 20 minutes for the rematch, but I can't judge the rematch because we haven't gotten it yet. I can only judge what I saw. And what I saw, it was good for the time that it lasted. And then the ending, they just kind of crapped the bed with it. And I wasn't a big fan of it.

I wasn't a big fan of them beating Gunther. Yeah, to be honest with you. I mean, this was almost like a no-win situation. If he wasn't going to win the championship, why even put him in the situation in the first place? being that I'm mentioning Gunther, I should mention this here. Gunther, we found out this week, just FYI, was the person who bailed Ludwig Kaiser, Marcel Bartel, out of jail after his arrest two weeks ago.

See, that's what you call a ride or die. I think they've known each other since they were teenagers. But that's a real ride or die right there, bailing your buddy out of jail. We had our first of two WrestleMania rematches on this show, Jade Cargill, the former champion challenging the WWE Women's Champion,

Ria Ripley for the title. I thought this was the best match of Jade Cargill's career. If not her best, it's her best since her last one in AEW against Chris Stalander. And I do think she's improved quite a bit since then.

So they went out there. They got like 16 minutes, 17 minutes, somewhere in that range. What I wasn't a fan of so much all of the rope stuff that they were doing. You know, we just came off a match that opened the show where we had this controversial finish of Cunther putting his foot under the bottom rope. And then in this match, you know, late in the match,

it came down to a couple of spots where somebody was putting, you know, Jade's foot on the rope to break the count. And then Charlotte Flair showed up and she did the same thing to put Ria's foot on the rope to break the count and save the title. BFab and Meachin, who were with J, they had come out late in the match.

BFab had won one. job, which was to take Jade's boot and place it on the bottom rope to break up a pin attempt. And somehow, again, this was the only real job that she had here in this match, it got fucked up. And it didn't look good, and it was like, it didn't look good. And like I said, Charlotte Flair showed up. She ended up doing the same thing to save the title for Ria. And Ria ends up retaining the championship at the end of what I thought was a good match. and it sets things up now coming out of that match between Jade and Charlotte.

Now they have tap danced around issues between these two now going back to last year, right, where they've kind of bumped into each other a couple of times, like as Charlotte's coming out and Jade is leaving and they've, you know, shared like a stare down. They've definitely teased it three or four different times on television. And now this is sort of exploded where, okay, we're going to get the match very soon. And we're actually going to get the match even sooner because I'll get into the Queen in the ring stuff here in a second. But I like that as well. I like that coming out of the match.

It wasn't just that Ria beat her. They were also establishing some stuff that sets up at least one match now with two of these people coming out of it. So I thought this was good. The other WrestleMania rematch that we had was Brock Lesnar against Obafemi. And they really hyped this thing up as the biggest rematch of all time. Everything's the biggest of all time with these people. they went in there and I'll talk about the good first.

What was good about it is, first of all, the crowd was super into it from start to finish. I don't think when these people bought their tickets to come to this show, that they had any expectation that Brock Lesnar would even be wrestling on the show, especially coming out of what we saw WrestleMania when he left his boots in the ring. So I think they were just excited to see him. I mean, they were literally singing this man to the ring. He doesn't even have any words. There's no lyrics to his theme song.

And they were singing him to the ring. I've never seen that before with Brock. And so Oba comes out and it's got that big fight feel to it. And right out of the gate, it was all action because Brock rushed him in the corner right from the opening bell. Like right from the opening bell. And then he immediately picks him up and drops him with an F5. He ends up giving him four straight F5s. And Oba kicks out.

And it just continued from there. It was also, I will point out, one of the few matches that I could think of, one of the only matches that I could think of. I don't recall Brock Lesnar hitting a single German suplex in this match, right? There was no suplex city in this match, which is rare for a Brock match. Instead, he just was spamming his finishing move over and over again. One of those F-5s came outside the ring where he put Oba through the Italian-on-ounce desk with an F-5. But before that, like, he locked on the Camorra lock, and he was teasing that he was going to break his arm,

and Oba kind of muscled back up to his feet while holding Brock, broke the hold. Then came the F5, as I mentioned through the announced desk. Brock was going to take a countout when Oba just got back up after, I think, like a six count, got back into the ring, a bunch of uppercuts in the corner, and it looked like he was about to finish this guy off. He was throwing Brock halfway across the ring. He went to go hit his finishing move, the fall from grace. Brock was able to escape.

He got him up for one more ever. F5. It ended up being a total of seven F5s. And finally, he puts down Obafemi and he wins. And he gets his win back from WrestleMania, which is exactly what I feared they were going to do. I was kind of hoping they wouldn't because there is a way, or there was a way for them to get to a third match, even if Brock lost this one. But they went the predictable route. Brock got his win. Again, the crowd went crazy for the match. They went a little over six minutes. I think they went four minutes at WrestleMania, so this didn't go that much longer. But it reminded me a lot of the WrestleMania match that Brock had with Bill Goldberg back in 2017, I want to say. And they more than made up

for that shitty match they had in 2004, a very infamous match that Brock and Goldberg had back at WrestleMania 20. In Madison Square Garden, where the fans, they knew going into it that both men, it was their last night. And they just shit on the match. The most over person in the ring that night was the referee, who was Stone Cold Steve Austin. So those two were able to avenge that at WrestleMania. But that was a six-minute match that was just nothing but, you know,

finisher attempts and just smash mouth from start to finish. It's a formula that works. You can't do it all the time, but like it's a formula that works. Or it works for Brock. So the match was exciting, you know, for what it was supposed to be. I was not thrilled about Obafemi losing just because I didn't think he had to lose. I just think this entire match was completely unnecessary. But having him lose, you know, you could have done the match in a way.

And again, I'm not just poohing it because, oh, they didn't go with my idea. I'm just saying, like, going into it, I was thinking about this. I'm like, clearly they want this to be a trilogy, right? They want to get to a third match. There's a way to do that that makes storyline sense that doesn't require you to go. with parody booking, you know, and going 50-50, which is the way that normally it would be. But if you really try to establish Obafemi as this dominant force, like, haven't beat Brock again, right? I mean, that's a real ballsy move. Having beat Brock two in a row. And if you remember

when Brock came back, they had a whole video package and he talked in the video about how, well, you know, I was going to go out after that WrestleMania match. I thought that was it. But then I realized, like, I can't go out that way. Well, then what happens if he loses a second time, right? That's only going to motivate him even more to really, like, he just won't be able to let this go. And then you got this King of the Ring tournament coming up. And if Oba is, let's say, he's in there. And then Brock were to screw him out of a win there, that would really get, you know,

Oba all fired up. But there are ways to get there where Brock puts his career on the line for real this time. I need you back in the ring. one more time. I know I can beat you. You're like that itch I can't scratch, right? I'm just saying there were storyline ways that would have made sense that did not require Obafemi to take a loss in this match. Having said all of that, it's not as if the guy is suddenly buried six feet under or he's not going to be able to recover from this. And you saw it on Raw last night. Like he was still super over. They were still in Italy, same crowd, but, you know, he was still super over. It's

going to take a hell of a lot more than one loss to, you know, kill or blunt the momentum that this man has. And they did it in a way where they tried to protect him. I'm just saying, you want to really protect the guy, then don't beat him. But they, you know, they had him absorb seven F5s in a Camoralock and, you know, all of this stuff. So, you know, whatever. He'll be, he'll be fine in the end. Sol Ruka is the new women's intercontinental champion. She was winly. on the main roster outside of that horrendous finish and match that they had on Saturday nights main event the other week. That was pretty bad.

So she came into this and she kind of had to win. And she did. I thought the two of them had a good match and it was a match that Sol just had to win because for her to go in there and lose, it would have been a really bad look. After the way Becky was kind of mocking her on TV like, hey, you can't win a match. Maybe you should go back to NXT. It's like, well, you can't. really validate everything that she's saying by having her lose another match. And she didn't.

And that title was kind of made, I think, for people like her, you know, someone who's new, who is maybe not, they're not ready to push her in the world title scene just yet. She just debuted, you know, on Raw. So, you know, whatever, that's fine. At least she hit her finishing move this time, didn't have any issues. Soul Snatcher is a great move. It really is. And more often than not, she hits it fine, you know, but she's had a couple of stumbling blocks so far on the main roster. Hopefully she could put that behind her because she is super talented. And then in the main event, we had Roman Raines defending the World Heavyweight Championship in tribal combat against Jacob Fawtu. This was their second straight PLE main event in the same month.

And they did what I feared they would do, which is they just had Jacob Fattu go in there and drop two straight to Roman Rains. He talked a lot of shit in the lead up to this match. And they really built up this Tongan death grip as his new finishing move. It's this deadly lethal maneuver that still to this day, as I am recording this, he has yet to win a match with, which is just funny to me. You know, they went in there and I didn't think anything terribly exciting happened in the first half of the match. I mean, they had like 27 minutes. it was not the most exciting match in the first half.

It did pick up in the second half. They ended up having what I thought was a good match. I wouldn't say it's anything, you know, over the moon or anything like that. But they had the usual plunder and, you know, the slim gym tables were in there and various other weapons. You know, Roman was beating him with a toolbox. But in the end, Roman beat him. Second straight time, he beat him. And as per the stipulation, if Jacob lost this match, he would have.

have to show up, I guess, on Raw the next night and acknowledge Roman reigns. And he would have to serve Roman. Never really explain what that meant, but basically you know what it meant. It meant he has to fall in line. Just like a good little soldier, just like the Uso's, he would have to fall in line. And so that's exactly what ended up happening. And we saw it on Raw the next night where we had this, basically. Basically, it was acknowledgement day.

Roman shows up with the Uso's and Fatu shows up and he looks like his dog died. But he says, look, you know, I knew the risks. I knew what winning meant and I knew what losing meant. And I'm going to be a man. And it's about family honor and family pride and all that. And he said, you know, he acknowledged him as his tribal chief. And he even bended the knee. On bended knee, he acknowledged Roman reigns.

and he fell in line. And, you know, I went on X when the show was over on Sunday. And I said, you know, a conversation I think needs to be had about this company's reluctance to put the main focus on anything other than this bloodline story. You know, because the fact that we are still doing this and we're circling back around to it, it's been six years since they really started this bloodline stuff, right? It was during the pandemic. And here we are.

We're closing episodes of Raw. We're closing PLEs with Roman Raines and the Eululofala around his neck. sticking his finger in the air. Jimmy on one side. Jay on the other. Acknowledge me. It's like, I'm not saying Roman's not popular. I'm not saying he hasn't been a cash cow for this company.

But my God, how many fucking times are we going to see this over and over and over again? And the fact that they rely on it so much, whether it's just Paul. Aulevec because this is his sort of golden goose creative idea, which by the way he inherited, he didn't come up with it. But, you know, it's kind of their biggest idea and he just keeps falling back on it. Or is it a TKO thing where, you know, Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro and that contingent, they want Roman in this position. They love the bloodline stuff. They sell a lot of merch. Whatever it is. You know, after a while it gets very tiresome, especially when it doesn't really look radically different than it did at the beginning.

And it just makes you wonder, like, is it stifling the growth of other people on the roster? Look, I think it's noble that Roman is looking at for his family. And he gets to work with his cousins and all of these people. But this over, not over-exposure is the right word, but this, again, over-reliance on the bloodline stuff and everything bloodline. We have Timu bloodline on Smackdown. We have like a splinter faction.

of the bloodline with Solo Sacoa on the other show. You know, when is enough enough? I pointed this out on my end when I was talking about Raw last night on my channel, and I said, you know, there was a point in time where Jay Uso, after he had broken free, and he had branched out on his own, and he was the world heavyweight champion, or maybe it was before he won the world title, but it was, I feel like it was after that.

But when Roman came back and Roman was kind of trying to get the family back together, but this is a very different Jay Uso. And I vividly remember this now. There was a segment in the back on an episode of Raw where he said to Roman, the only way this works, because Jay didn't want to have anything to do with him after the way that Roman had treated him

for all those years. And he said, the only way this works is if you treat me as an equal. No more of this like, I'm the tribal chief, I'm above you and everybody else, like you either treat me as an equal or this doesn't work, and I'm walking away. And it was sort of ignoing.

knowledge like, okay. And I'm just looking at this and I'm like, how did we get from that and kind of the growth in that character to where both Uso's have just completely reverted back to, they've regressed, they have regressed back to the characters they were portraying three years ago. And there's no storyline explanation for it. We're just supposed to accept it because there's just the way that it is. It's family. It's lazy. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. I feel like I've been teleported back in time. These are things that I wish they would take the time to address instead of just saying, well, people are just going to accept it anyway. Well, yeah, sure, the Roman reigns, you know, diehards are going to accept it. And they'll

throw their fingers up in the air. But, you know, what about the rest of us who were trying to make heads or tails of this stuff? And it's like, well, how did this guy go from, you know, kind of standing on his own two feet and doing this to just sort of waking up one day and he's just back to being the old Jay Uso? I don't know. My only hope coming out of this is however long it may take, you know, because they're playing the long game with this stuff, is that Jacob Fatu when all is said and done, and I know Fatu is good enough,

his work is good enough and he's got a passion for this, is when all is said and done, he'll come out of this better off for it and at a level above where he was when he walked, into this because he leaves the month of May a hell of a lot weaker than he was when he walked into it. Hopefully that will change. He's too good for it not to. But now we have bloodline 2.0. After what we saw in Raw last night, it's officially Bloodline 2.0. Now with 50% less calories. I mentioned the king of the ring though and the queen of the ring. So we got some brackets for these tournaments, which did kick

off on Raw last night, by the way. Now, I will mention that they are doing the multi-person thing again instead of just doing straight singles matches, which I would prefer. This time, it's a series of fatal four-way opening around matches so they can protect certain people by having them lose without actually losing. We'll start with the King of the Ring here. So we have a series of four ways. The first one we got on Raw last night, Obafemi versus Penta, versus Solo Sacoa versus Carmelo Hayes. I enjoyed this. I thought it was a fun match. It was a rebound, bounce back win for Obafemi that he needed coming off that first loss on Sunday. He came out. He was dominant. He basically beat them all up. And he ended up winning. So he moves on to the tournament. Now he advances to the semifinals.

He will meet the winner of the match between Dominic Mysterio, Bronbreaker, Trick Williams, and Damian Priest. On the other side of the bracket, we have Seth Rollins, Javon Evans, Talatanga of the MFTs, and Ricky Saints. So they're going to be in a four-way.

And also on that side of the bracket, Jay Uso, L.A. Knight, Royce Keys, and Finn Baller, who, by the way, has been traded from Raw to Smackdown. That is official now. So Baller is,

He's away from the judgment day, finally, the judgment day vortex, just to find himself probably in the MFT's vortex on Friday nights. But you know what? It's kind of like in baseball sometimes. A little change of scenery can sometimes make all the difference in the world. So maybe that'll be a good move for Finn Baller. But on the subject of the King of the Ring, before I move on here, I have to mention this, because this was going around on social media. And at first I thought that this was just something that was, you know, manufactured by somebody online like a spoof.

They put together a phony bracket because we got the brackets on the Clash in Italy post show on Sunday. They put the brackets up for the king and queen of the ring tournaments. And then on Monday during the day, there was a King of the Ring bracket that was released that looked a little bit different. And then I realized, no, it's just one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing in this company. Because this was posted on www.com.

They posted an updated bracket, a different bracket for the King of the Ring tournament. minus Ricky Saints and minus Talatanga. Those two were nowhere to be found in this bracket, and instead they were swapped out for Sammy Zane and Drew McIntyre. And Royce Keys had been moved from one match to another. He had been moved to the Seth Rollins four-way with Jvonne Evans and Sammy Zane. And then it was going to be Drew McIntyre, who we have not even seen since WrestleMania, swapped into the four-way with Baller, L.A. Knight, and Jay Uso.

And to be honest with you, that's actually a stronger bracket. It wasn't a fake graphic. It was something that WWE posted on their own website, and then they pulled it. And I thought something was very strange because I had seen this on social media. And then on Raw, they were using the old bracket. I'm like, what the hell is going on here? And Mike Johnson on Pwinsider.com said that, no, this was on www.com, and somebody posted it, and then they pulled it, and they're still using the old,

bracket. So I don't know what the hell happened there. I don't know if they just spoiled Drew McIntyre's pending return. But this is on the heels of Joe Tessitore. And Joe Tessitore is a pro's pro, right? This guy knows what he's doing, man. He's doing college football every week. He's on the ball.

But on the post show for Clash in Italy on Sunday when he was running down this King of the Ring bracket, initially he announced Obafemi in a singles match against Penta. And I made the same mistake because if you look at the bracket. If you look at the graphic, like just at first glance, it looks like a series of like all of these singles matches. And I looked at it. I'm like, wow, like, that's a lot of

matches here. This is kind of cool. And so he thought the same thing, evidently. And he was like, yeah, in the opening round, Obafemi is going to be wrestling Penta. And no, it's a series of fatal four-way matches. So I don't feel so bad now that Joe Tess made the same mistake that I did. The only difference is he announced this on their own fucking show, which is a little bit different. So I just thought that was kind of funny. So if you see a different King of the Ring graphic floating around on social media, just be aware. As far as we know, the old one is still the accurate one, until they change it again, I guess. But you have a King of the Ring tournament here that has no Drew McIntyre.

Randy Orton, he made it to the finals last year. And he's still MIA. We haven't even seen him since WrestleMania. I wouldn't want to show my face either after that whole Pat McAfee fiasco. CM Punk is still off television, enjoying his vacation. Jacob Fatt, too. He's busy serving Roman reign, so he's not in there. There's no Sammy Zane.

There's no Ethan Page. There's no Illia Dragonov who hasn't wrestled a match in almost two months. No talk of any injury. He just sort of disappeared. So there's a number of names that are missing here. I look at this bracket, and right now I've got to say it looks like we are looking at a final, I think, of Seth Rollins against Braun Breaker. That seems like the likeliest scenario. Now, on Raw last night, Breaker and Rollins had a singles match.

This is coming off the match they had a backlash. They had a match last night on Raw that was even better. They went 22 minutes in the main event of Raw last night with a hot Italian crowd that was into it. and they had a really good match, and Rollins won. And so now they're all evened up. So I could see a King of the Ring final being the rubber match, and Rollins winning, and then Rollins going on to challenge for the World Heavyweight title at SummerSlam. I could see it playing out just like that.

Now, if Rollins wins the crown, it would set up a match with Roman Rains, which was originally rumored for WrestleMania this year before Seth got hurt. and then all their plans went to hell. But it's also running back to the past again. You know, when I would just prefer they look to the future. I feel like so much of the stuff we see on WWE television, it just feels like we're on this infinite loop. But I mean, look, I'm not saying there aren't a lot of people out there

who would still love to see that match. You know, given all the history between Roman and Seth, I just, you know, I think of all the potential options. I don't know that that's the one that excites me the most. Now, Oba won his match. Mention that. He won his four-way match. He's moving on to the semifinals.

And I look at this and I go, this goes one of two ways, right? Obafemi going in there and losing clean again after already losing is a bad idea. Right? He shouldn't be just losing clean to anybody in this tournament. Really, he should be winning the tournament, if we're being honest here. If he's not going to win the crown and challenge for the title at SummerSlam. it would seem to me there's a very good chance

that somebody will cost him a win and that person would be Brock Lesnar. Now, Oba, after his match last night on Raw, he cut a promo on Brock. He just pointed out, he goes, look, you know, you said to me before our match at Clash in Italy, how are you going to respond to your first loss?

Well, I took seven F5s and I'm still standing here. And he said, you won one, I won one. I'll see you down the road. Right? He didn't say anything egregious. He just said, like, we're all tied up and we'll meet again at some point. Brock coming out during, let's say, his semifinal match.

Like, if we game this out, right, Braun Breaker is in one of these first round matches. He just lost last night. Could probably use a rebound win himself. I see him going to the semifinals. If he does, we end up with Obafembe against Braun Breaker, which sounds like a hell of a match. Braun Breaker's a Paul Heyman guy. Paul Heyman is also tied into Brock Lesnar. So I'm just saying you kind of start putting the pieces together here.

If Brock was going to stick his nose in here, that would probably be the match where it would happen. And he costs obo win, he costs him the crown. But I look at that and I go, there's no circumstance that I could think of here. Where if they do this and if Brock Lesnar does interfere in let's say his semi-final match or the finals or whatever, I can't see the scenario.

were any of it makes sense, given how things went on Sunday. I just don't see it. If Brock had lost, absolutely. I got to get back at this guy. How do I get back at this guy? I know what I'll do. I'll fuck him over. I'll fuck him out of the crown, right? That makes sense. You can understand that. But he won. He beat him. What incentive does Brock Lesnar have to stick his nose in the King of the ring tournament. I guess other than just to be a dick. So, I mean, if it ends up playing out that way, I'm going to look back at this and just be like, boy, I mean, it just makes me shake my head that much more over the result of what we saw on Sunday because it actually would make a lot more incentive Brock had lost. Then he would have more of an incentive, I think, to screw this guy over. So we'll see.

I mean, we'll see how that plays out. Now we have the queen of the ring tournament. Speaking of things that don't really make a whole lot of sense, first thing I notice is the first thing I'm sure all of you noticed, which is that Liv Morgan is in this tournament. Liv Morgan happens to be the women's world champion. Ria Ripley's not in this tournament. Cody Rhodes is not in the king of the ring. Roman Raines is not in the king of the ring.

But Liv Morgan is in there. Apparently, according to Dave Meltzer, that was also news to Liv Morgan. She had no idea that she was going to be in the Queen of the Ring tournament. But she's been doing her damnedest on social media to try to explain to people who are questioning this, why she's in there. And basically the gist of what she's saying is, I don't have any challengers because nobody wants to wrestle me.

They're too afraid of me. And I want to be the greatest of all time. I want it all. I don't want to just be the women's world champion. I want the crown. And so that's her explanation. I mean, look, that's about the only explanation that you can really come up with because it don't make no sense.

Having her in this tournament, it doesn't make any sense. and the only reason I could think of is because to the point I was just making about Oba and Brock, somebody is going to end up costing Liv Morgan her spot and that person probably will end up being Stephanie Vicar. Because Stephanie would have had a rematch by now if she wasn't hurt. She's due back any week. Apparently she's clear they're just waiting to bring her back in the right scenario.

So it seems very likely to me that that's what we're going to see. Probably in that opening round. I mean, I really don't see Liv making it past the opening round. Whatever you're going to do, you may as well just do it there and get it over with. And then Liv can, you know, move on to defend her title against Stephanie and they can have their rematch. But she's scheduled to be in a four-away with Becky Lynch, Alexa Bliss, and Chelsea Green. On that same side of the bracket, Sol Ruka, Lyra Valcaria, Charlotte Flair, and Jade Cargill. So the first match, I guess, technically here, between Charlotte and Jade, it's not even their first singles match, they're part of a four-way.

On the other side of the bracket, we have Roxanne Perez, E.O. Sky, Julia, and Lash Legend. And then Bailey, Raquel Rodriguez, J.C. Jane, and Keanu James. We had one women's queen-of-the-ring match on Raw last night. It was the E.O. Sky match. I'm just happy for Julia that she at least got to wrestle in Italy, right? She's got Italian roots. It wasn't looking too good that she was even going to have a match over there, so at least she got a match.

She did take the losing fall, though. But E.O. Sky won. Eoskeye is moving on to the next round. I'm happy with that. I'm glad that they're getting EO back in the mix. I don't know if she's going to win the entire thing, but I thought that was the right outcome. So she's going to meet either Bailey, Raquel, Jacey, or Keanu in the next round.

Charlotte and Jade being in an opening round match together, one or both of them, you know, could potentially be, well, I mean, one of them will be bounced at least, if not both of them. I just, I see Charlotte and Jade. I mean, that could have been the final. You know, if you had them on opposite sides of the bracket, that could have been your final match right there.

I'm still wondering where the hell Jordan Grace is, you know, former TNA knockouts champion. She spent all that time in NXT. They finally called her up to, the main roster late last year. And where the hell has she been? I know she's not hurt because she just wrestled Kiana on the main event taping before Smackdown in Barcelona.

That's why she's not in this tournament. I have no idea. But you look at who's in here. You can make the argument for a few different people here. Charlotte being the most obvious one. You get that Charlotte and Rhea Summer Slam match, EO, right? I'd love to see EO back in the title picture. And actually, somebody mentioned this to me.

me last night, and I actually love the idea. The idea that EO wins Queen of the Ring goes to SummerSlam, wins the championship from Liv Morgan. And then typically later in the year, WWE has this Saudi show called Crown Jewel. And with the Crown Jewel belts that they created, it's usually champion from one brand against the champion from the other brand. That could be how we get another match between Ria Ripley, if she's still the champion, and E.O. Sky. who were tag team partners in BFFs for so long, but they also have a history in the ring together. Ria has never been able to beat EO.

This is like a long running story in this company. And so here we could be potentially looking at a scenario where later this year it's Ria and EO, and they don't lose either one of their respective titles, but we get that one match between them. And Ria finally, you know, she finally gets one over on EO. I wouldn't hate that. So I love the King of the Ring tournament, Queen of the Ring.

I mean, I've been a big fan of the King of the Ring now for many years. I do kind of wish that we were able to go back to a format where we had singles matches instead of all these multi-person matches in the opening rounds. Look, I miss, you want to really have somebody run the gauntlet. I miss having the entire thing of one night. I mean, I get why they do it this way. It's great for television, right? It just gives meaning and purpose to these matches that you're doing on TV over a period of a month.

I get it. You build to the finals on that big night of champion show. But I've always been a mark for the King of the Rings. So hopefully they get it right this year. Hopefully they don't screw it up. A former intercontinental champion found himself behind bars a few weeks ago after a drunken incident at a McDonald's drive-thru in Minnesota. Another McDonald's incident.

This time, Ken Patera, had nothing to do with it. But Joe Hennig, the former. Curtis Axel in WWE, son of the Hall of Famer, Mr. Perfect, Kurt Henning, one of my all-time favorites, is now facing multiple charges after being arrested on May 17th on charges of DWI, refusing to submit to a chemical test, and failing to stop for an accident. The Watch Project in Minnesota reports that charges also include obstructing the legal process, having an open bottle of alcohol in his car, and disorderly conduct. He spent two. days in jail before he was released on May 19th. According to the arrest report, police were

dispatched to a McDonald's in St. Francis shortly before 9 p.m. due to a property damage crash or a vehicle backed into another in the drive-thru. Police found Hennig slowly navigating the parking lot and claimed that he reeked of alcohol. He had bloodshot and watery eyes and was slurring his speech. An open bottle of vodka was found in the vehicle. And they say that the 46-year-old had to be physically removed from his car. He was swearing at them. He uttered a slur. Said that when instructed to step out of the vehicle, Henig reportedly refused. Officers subsequently opened the door, reached inside to turn off the engine, and placed the keys on the passenger seat. After continued defiance, officers physically removed Henig from the truck, escorted him to

the ground, and handcuffed him. While seated in the squad car, an officer read him the Minnesota a breath test advisory. He allegedly refused chemical testing and responded with profanities, including, I don't give a shit and fuck you, you blank. He's also said to have sworn at the McDonald's staff and the female driver that he backed into. During the investigation, a McDonald's employee reported that Henneg had been mumbling in the drive-thru before pulling forward, swearing at its staff, and backing into another vehicle. He then allegedly opened his door and yelled at the female driver, calling her a bitch, and a, and I'm not going to repeat that, an inventory search of his vehicle prior to towing

yielded a 750 milliliter open bottle of Phillips vodka on the front passenger side floorboard. So not good. Not good. Henning, he held the Intercontinental title just like his dad did. He was also a tag team champion in WWE. They released him in 2020. It was part of the COVID cuts. I mean, they released a whole bunch of people during the pandemic.

Then they brought him back a couple of years later as a producer backstage. That didn't last very long. He's only worked one match in the last six years, which was last year, was an independent show. I don't know what else he's been doing to support himself. It's just sad to see him like this. And even sadder that he would be putting other people's lives in danger by getting behind the wheel while intoxicated. Hopefully this is a wake-up call. Hopefully this is just a one-off and he gets whatever hell.

he needs. But, you know, this type of thing should be zero tolerance. I'm sorry. Like, you can't be getting behind the wheel if you're blitzed. We've seen too many examples of how that can end very badly. All right. Just look at Tammy Sitch. It took someone getting killed to finally get her off the road, the monster that she is. Switch over to AW for a sec. We got some AW news here. AW. This was right after the uncrown show dropped last week. AW announced a brand new paper view has been added to the calendar for Sunday, July 26th, their first ever redemption pay-per-view, first ever pay-per-view from Montreal at the Bell Center, the site of the infamous screw job in 1997, although I think back then, what was it called back then?

Was it the Molson Center? I think it was the Molson Center. Anyway, so it's very interesting because that is a month before Wembley Stadium, right? Their big all-in show. and if you watch that episode of Dynamite last way, boy, it sure looks like Kenny Omega may be the one challenging MJF at redemption for the AW World Championship. If they do that match, there ain't no way Kenny Omega is losing this time. Kenny Omega wrestled MJF in Vancouver back in April at Dynasty and he lost. The Canadian went to Canada and he lost.

You honestly think that if they run that match back again in Canada, that Kenny is losing too straight to this guy? What do you think this is? Tribal combat? He ain't losing too straight to MJF. And they did a backstage segment where Kenny and Osprey, they were sitting next to each other in the trainer's room, right? This was footage from double or nothing from the pay-per-view. And this is not the first time that they have done one of these backstage segments where they're sitting in the trainer's room talking to each other. and talking about, you know, Kenny's telling him how come you've looked to the death riders to find your way.

You could have come to me instead of having to go to them. These guys tried to end your career. Anyway, it all ended with Kenny walking off and Will telling him, hey, don't give up on winning that world title. Meanwhile, Osprey's the one in the Owen Hart tournament where if he wins it, he gets a world championship match at Wembley. Everything is aligning up for an Omega Osprey match, even though it looked like we were probably going to get MJF in Osprey.

Right? And maybe we still will, but all of a sudden, I'm not so sure now. And I can't sit here and say that Omega against Osprey wouldn't be a main event-worthy match. Of course, it would be. I just don't know what you do with MJF then at that point. Plus, they just put the belt back on him. Here's my issue with this. This is really my main issue with this.

If this is how it all plays out, is it really the right move to put the world championship back on Kenny Omega just for a month? to make him a transitional champion. I just kind of feel like if that's how this ends up playing out, then why didn't you just put the belt on him in April? You know, give him a few months with it. I'm sure the fans would appreciate it. And that way you wouldn't end up playing hot potato with the belt. You know, that would be my only issue with it if it works out that way.

And then as far as what MJF does, I have no idea. I mean, Darby Allen, we know that, you know, he's going to be working with Kevin Knight, whenever he comes back after what Kevin Knight did to him. Kevin Knight cut his first heel promo on Dynamite last week. Didn't do a bad job? I feel like he's going to slowly grow into the role. I think he's a better promo as a heel than he is as a baby phase.

MJF, meanwhile, he's got a world championship match with Roosh coming up on Dynamite tomorrow night. They also set up Mark Briscoe as a challenger for him in the near future. Mark Briscoe has a pay-per-view win over MJF last year, so that kind of makes sense. and we had the Owen Hart tournaments. It's kind of where. We have the King of the Ring and Queen of the Ring right now in WW. And we have the Owen Hart Tournaments in AEW. Mark Davis and Jack Perry got the main event spot last Wednesday.

And Mark Davis, the AEW National Champion. He went over in the end, which means that he's going to be wrestling Will Osprey in the next round. Or I should say, lose to Will Osprey in the next round. And on the other side of the bracket, we had Brody King picking up a win over Claudio, Castignoli, which means we're going to get Brody King and Swerve Strickland in a rematch from Revolution back in March. On collision, Tony Chivani announced how they plan to crown a new TBS champion. Willow Nightingale is hurt. She had to pull out of the Owen. She had to vacate her TBS title. This is how they plan to crown a new champion. For the first time ever, the survival of

the fittest match from Ring of Honor is going to be held in eight. So Chivani announced this on Saturday during collision. He said that a series of matches is going to be held over the next month to decide who will qualify for a spot in the survival of the fittest match. That match will take place on the July 1st edition of Dynamite. And whoever wins that match in San Diego, they will be crowned the new TBS champion. So the survival of the fittest match, I mean, it's a concept that goes back to, gosh, 2004. I want to say in Ring of Honor. They just had the first ever

women's survival of the fittest match in Ring of Honor last month, actually, where Athena, she retained her title against five other women. So it's a multi-person elimination style match. So they're going to have five or six people in there instead of one fall to a finish. You just pick people off until there's one left. It's very simple.

So we're not going to have a champion for another month, but it's a good way to add some value to the matches on TV over the next four weeks. I don't hate the idea. Makes the matches mean something. Look, it beats the hell out of doing a one-night battle royal or another tournament. You can't do another tournament.

You got two tournaments going on as it is. What are you going to do? A third one? Some T&A news. After losing his ex-division championship a few weeks ago to Cedric Alexander, the belief is that at the end of his current contract in the fall, Leon Slater is off to either

WW or AEW. And it appears, per Dave Meltzer, that that is the reason why they did not allow him to break the all-time record as champion. Because had he won that match, he would have broken the record of 298 days set by

Austin Ares in 2012. Instead, he tied the record, but he fell short of breaking it. Now, let's be clear. Not because he may go to WWE. Okay, they didn't do this because he may go to WWE, which has a working relationship with TNA, they did it because he might go to AEW.

Okay, there, I fixed it for you. Because to not allow him to break the record if he might go to WWE does not make any sense. And if they are salty about it, then I don't know why they would be, considering that this was always going to happen. When you have a young guy who gets airtime on WWE television, as he has, they clearly like the guy. They featured him on John Cena's retirement show last year. They're all going to leave at the end of their deals because that's where they can make the real money. TNA just signed Fabian Eichner, okay, the former Giovanni Vinci from Imperium in WWE. They just signed him to a deal.

John Alba of Sports Illustrated says the deal will keep Eichner in TNA at least through the summer. Ooh. That's a long time. Let me tell you. It's the old TNA special. Not exactly a long-term commitment. Because in a lot of cases, they probably can't afford to make one. Like Mike Santana, his deal is up.

Very soon, when his deal is up, it's expected to be sometime in the next couple of months. He is all but guaranteed to leave for WWE. I would be stunned if he doesn't go to WWE. And when Leon Slater deal is up, yeah, he'll probably end up in WW2. But you know what? I think his style would lend itself a lot better to AEW. I would not rule out a big swerve with him signing with AEW instead. I mean, I know he would be one of many on that roster who kind of worked that same style,

but him working those kinds of matches with those guys, it's only going to up his stock, you know, that much more when he does eventually go to WWE, if let's say he doesn't go this time. Remember, he's only 21 years old. This will not be the last contract he signs. Far from it. And Rick Flair was back at it again this week on social media. or more likely sitting at the bar with a vodka soda in one hand and his phone in the other. He started tweeting randomly on Friday out of nowhere

about someone that he knows very well, infringing on his trademark by using his name. Okay, this is what he wrote. He wrote this in a now deleted tweet in the trademark Rick Flairway with the first letter of every single word capitalized. It says, unfortunately, there is someone that I'm very familiar with using my own trademark, Flair. I would like anyone who is using my trademarks, which are impossible to own, and I own mine,

to know that I'm well represented by a reputable $1,000 per hour attorney that makes a living suing people that abuse my trademark. You know who I'm talking about. I hope you can clear this up by Monday, and if we can't resolve this issue, read the penalties. And he included a screenshot. I think it was of a Google AI search, just listing the penalties for doing such a thing. Then came another now deleted tweets.

Oh, he wasn't done yet. He said the relationship was gone nine years ago. I'm sorry and sad that it has come to this. I've tried my best to fix things over the years, only to be rejected because your wife runs your life. And he included a photo of, I think it was the side of a truck. It may have been, but it included the logo of a resex.

recycling company out of Shelby, North Carolina, called Green Flair Recycling. And Flair is spelled the way that he spells at FL-A-I-R, which happens to be owned and operated, I believe, by his son David and his wife. Yes, former WCW tag team champion and WCW United States champion, David Flair, that David Flair. So this man was vague posting about suing his own son. Make that six vodka sodas. Then he posted and deleted this. I mean, he was really on one this weekend.

I'm obviously not suing my son. Just reminding him that you can't have the best of both worlds. Use your God-given name, Fleer, which isn't worth a cup of coffee. Or your wife's name, who has had three generations of success. Also, please don't sell my robes that I let you use during your career as you have already sold one. You're 47 years old. Now stand on your own two feet, please. Then on Saturday, to wrap up this latest meltdown, he posted a photo of himself standing outside of a hospital. Says, if you understood the health issues that I deal with and am currently dealing with,

you would understand why I get frustrated in life with a lot of people. I'm sorry for the frustration. I am taking time to focus on my health. And there it is. He got dragged for it, so there's the apology pose for sympathy. He pulled the same stunt after that last interview that he did with Ariel, where he nuked Ludwig Kaiser, Dutchman Tells, Stevie Richards, and James Romero, okay, who hosts their podcasts. Then he tweeted an apology and he said, let's all just be at peace. Let me wake up tomorrow and see only positives on my social media screen.

He really said this. First of all, expecting to ever see only positives on your social media screen, while he's at the hospital, they may want to do a brain scan. Okay, that's number one. Number two, he says, why all the negative comments? Let's all just be at peace. He says this, though, after maligning multiple people in his interview and then turning around the month later and publicly embarrassing his own son. The only one who can bring true peace to Rick Flair is Rick Flair. If only he took his own advice.

He's like the arsonist setting fire to the bar and then crying that he has no place to drink anymore. Two more, and then I'll get you out of here. We almost got a reboot, a terrible reboot of the NWO in WWE in 2020. During an appearance on the Public Enemies podcast, former WWE writer Chris Dunn, who worked for the company from 2016 to 2021, shared that the idea of a new version of the New World Order was discussed during the pandemic era. And it would have consisted of, are you ready for this?

Seamus, Sissauro, Shinske Nakamura, and Lars Sullivan. Holy shit, there's a blast from the past. I won't fault you if you have no idea who Lars Sullivan is. So basically a shittier version of the League of Nations. This is what he said. He said, do you guys remember that Thunder Dome. Really tough to do TV in there, so a lot of ideas were thrown against the wall. So it was

discussed at one point, bringing back the NWO in 2020. The pitch was Seamus, Sassaro, Nakamura, and Lars Sullivan. It was really close to happening. I forget which legendary NWO member was supposed to fly to Orlando to introduce this new NWO, but essentially they landed and they didn't pass the COVID test. Well, thank God for that. Dunn said that there were plans for a debut, but no concrete ideas after that. WWE was going to figure it out as they went. Seems like kind of the way they do their booking these days. How long did Lars Sullivan even last on TV?

He was there for, I mean, barely any time at all. How the hell was he factored into this? But on his 83 weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff claimed that none of the living members of the NWO have any idea about any of this. He said, Sean Waltman reached out to me and said, hey, did you ever hear anything about this? I never heard anything about that. And neither did Kevin Nash.

So the three surviving members of the NWO knew nothing about it. That's what Bischoff said. Man, I mean, this is after we just had Reginald doing an interview telling us that Vince McMahon, Reggie the Somali from WWE television many years ago, doing an interview saying that Vince McMahon almost. almost added him to the WrestleMania main event with Sasha Banks and Bianca Bel Air around that same time. Remember retribution? Retribution was another great Vince McMahon idea from the pandemic era. And yet you still have people out there. Look at social media any day.

You still have people out there who cry for this man to return. You people need to be institutionalized. And how about this? WWE Hall of Famer Tony Atlas. Mr. USA himself is a champion again. He wrestled a tag team match at the ISPW base brawl event in Wallington, New Jersey this weekend. He was teaming with Mr. Joe Clean against their tri-state champion, the A player, Anthony, and the assistant Angel Reyes, with the stipulation that Anthony would lose his title if he was pinned, which he was. And now Tony Atlas is the new tri-state champion at the ripe old age of 72. When do the open challenges begin?

Isn't that what you're supposed to do these days in wrestling? You've got to have an open challenge. So if you want to try your hand that a 72-year-old man, here's your chance. Make yourself famous. I've seen photos of Tony Atlas recently. I would not be taken on 72-year-old Tony Atlas. That doesn't seem like a good idea.

Anyway, thank you guys for tuning in another week of the uncrowned wrestling show, the wild and wacky week that was in pro wrestling. I'm going to be back with you next Tuesday for a brand new episode here as we get closer to the beginning of summertime. I hope you guys had a great week and have a great week, and we'll come on back next week. Make sure that you're subbed,

whether it's to the Ariel Helwani show feed or the dedicated uncrown wrestling podcast feed. And that way when brand new episodes go up, they will pop up and you'll be able to download them, stream them. I'm Jason Solomon, and when it comes to the news, if you didn't know, now you know. I'll see you next Tuesday for more uncrowned. Until then, take care, guys.