The Ariel Helwani Show - The Uncrowned Wrestling Show | WWE Radio takeover, SummerSlam predictions and AEW Redemption reaction

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Solomonster addresses to the demise of Pro Wrestling Nation 24/7 on SiriusXM and the debut of WWE Radio, heated reaction from fans online, and what it means for coverage of AEW and other promotions moving forward (3:13). Preview and predictions for both nights of SummerSlam, with thoughts on the Brock Lesnar and Oba Femi weigh-in, and one of the worst segments on any wrestling show all year (16:15). Thoughts on AEW Redemption, including Will Ospreay leaving the Death Riders, only to get dropped by Kenny Omega, three title changes and Willow Nightingale finally shedding light on her recent injury (51:04).  Plus, the latest major development in the Paramount Skydance bid to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery and what it means for AEW (1:14:47). Finally, the former WWE champion who says he will go broke before he ever goes back to pro wrestling, and a couple of listener emails (1:18:29).

Welcome to the uncrowned wrestling show, Solomaster, here for Tuesday, July 28th, 2006, where unlike Busted Open Radio, you actually can hear about promotions other than just WWE. And that's good, because AEW held its redemption pay-per-view on Sunday in Montreal. And I've got some things to say about that. Plus, we now know what matches are attached to what nights for SummerSlam this weekend, and I've got my predictions. We'll see if they'll be able to. lineup with yours.

Last night was the go-home raw before SummerSlam. We had a way-in with Brock Lesnar and Obafemi for a match with no weight classes. And we also had concert slop on the show. We had concert slop five days before SummerSlam. One of the worst segments on any wrestling show

all year. And the former WWE champion who says he will go broke before he ever goes back to wrestling. Sounds very adamant about this. Hey, Mike Santana, I want to mention this real quick. Mike Santana officially debuted on

NXT last Tuesday, the former TNA World Champion. Once he dropped the belt to Nick Nemeth last month, it was pretty clear. He was headed on in. So that wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was him showing up and never being identified by name. And my first thought on that was,

uh-oh, you know what that means. even though he has been on NXT television multiple times before, as Mike Santana. Now that he has put pen to paper, Mike Santana is no more. He will now be going by the name Cruz Montana. And he explained why on social media. A name I put together as a tribute to honor my late father, who I've always made sure to keep as close as possible to my journey. Losing him six years ago is what sent me on the spiral that I eventually would rise from.

to become the man that you see today. And today that man is addicted to greatness. Here's to this next chapter. Let's get it. It will never not be weird to me to have established people debut on the show with a new name when others get to keep their name. But at least there's a personal meaning behind it for him. I got to watch Santana grow as a performer front row

when he worked for us at House of Glory as our world champion and just to show that he could be a main event level performer. And then the run that he had in TNA, I like that they're starting him out in NXT. The main roster is a bit of a shit show right now. A lot of people who are hot at the beginning of the year, and they have fizzled in recent months. And then you have other people who were just kind of treading water.

Let him marinate down there for a while. Let him take that show by storm. Let him get a run as the NXT champion until they have something worthwhile for him to do. He's a great pickup for them. He will excel. Whatever they need him to do, he'll do it. Sky's the limit.

Can't wait to see what he does. Now, I mentioned Busted Open Radio. Let's start there, because that was sort of the big story of the week. People are still talking about it. You know, this is not WWE's first time in the radio realm. They had something called Radio WWF back in 1993 into 94. It was sort of an experiment that didn't last too long. So now they're back in the radio space.

and they have taken over an existing channel, an existing pro wrestling channel on SiriusXM radio. The announcement came last week that beginning on July 27th, WWE is partnering with SiriusXM to launch WWE radio, taking over channel 156 on SiriusXM, replacing the existing pro wrestling nation 24-7 channel. It is no longer a pro wrestling channel. It is bought and paid for by WWE.

The announcement says that, the lineup will still be anchored by busted open radio, but the channel will also feature live commentary for every PLE with Vic Joseph and Booker T calling SummerSlam live for serious XM listeners, and there will be audio simulcast for select

television programs, which honestly sounds like the coolest perk for the listeners out of everything. That's in the spirit of what they were doing with radio WWF back in the day. The WWE and Fanatics Group of Podcasts will also air on WWE radio, including Cody Rose,

Stephanie McMahon and The Undertaker shows, and WWE Now, from Sam Roberts and Megan Morant, episodes of those podcasts will air daily at 4 p.m. Eastern. The reason that so many people are upset about this, and not everybody is, right, but a hell of a lot of people are, has more to do with them replacing the existing pro wrestling channel that they had on that station, or station, on that service, that Dave Legreca and the crew there only started

a year ago. You know, Busted Open has been around since 2009, but a year ago they started a 24 hour a day, seven day a week, pro wrestling channel that talked all pro wrestling. And sure, it may have still heavily tilted towards WW. I mean, they're the biggest company in the world, so of course it would. But you could talk AEW. You can talk about other companies. And instead of this being a new channel altogether, which I don't think would have bothered people quite as much, they have replaced the existing one with WWE all day every day. And the only other pro wrestling that you will hear about is from companies that are friendly with WWE or in business with WWE.

So you're going to hear some TNA, I'm sure. You did for years. Tommy Dreamer worked for TNA for years up until recently. He's one of the hosts over a busted open. Maybe AAA, you'll hear about AAA because WWE has an ownership stake in them. And that's about it. you're not going to get much else, which should surprise no one

since it is now called WWE Radio. It's not a big leap. You know, think, hey, maybe they're not going to cover other shit anymore. But Dave Legreca had said, nothing will change. He put that video out. It was all over social media. Nothing will change. Bully Ray and answering people on social media

gave the impression that nothing would change. And that was a lie. I don't know why they would say anything at all, since it was very clear that the show would be changing. So they set themselves up for that. Thunder Rosa works for AEW. She's also under contract to CMLL. Two promotions that WWE and AAA, who of course are partially owned by WWE, do not play well with.

They do not play well with AEDAW. They do not play well with CMLL. Now, she hasn't been on Busted Open many times over the past year anyway. A lot of her appearances, you know, she's curtailed for one reason or another. She's got the dual contract now with AEW and CMLL, so maybe. Maybe it has to do with her, you know, working more down there. I don't know. But there will be no AEW coverage on that channel moving forward.

And as part of this changeover, Rosa was let go. And she posted on social media on Friday, After four unforgettable years, it is time to turn the page. Some chapters in life change you forever, and this has been one of them. Being part of busted open has been so much more than sitting behind a microphone. It gave me the opportunity to share my perspective, connect with reference, wrestling fans around the world and celebrate the sport that has given me so much. I'm especially grateful to Tony Khan for believing in me, trusting in me to represent AEW,

and allowing me to contribute my voice to one of the most respected wrestling shows in our industry. To Dave Legreca, Tommy Dreamer, Bully Ray, Mark Henry, the producers, and everyone behind the scenes. Thank you for welcoming me, challenging me, inspiring me, and making me feel like family. Most importantly, thank you to everybody who listened, watched, commented, and supported me throughout these four years. This isn't goodbye. It is simply the beginning of a new chapter. I will see you all very soon. Now, I personally, I don't listen to Bust It Open on a regular basis, not because I dislike the show or anything. I don't even have a serious XM subscription at the moment. I think what Dave Legreca has built over there is very impressive. You know, again, he started the show way back in 2009 at a time when there were not nearly as many wrestling talk shows or radio shows, podcasts, or what have you, as there are today.

I was part of that very small contingent. I started Solomonster Sounds Off in 2007. I don't know what Dave's in was to Sirius X. I mean, back then, the idea, man, if I could do this on the radio, that would be amazing. I remember when I was in college, you know, I engineered at the college radio station, and they wanted me to, you know, pick a show and I could go ahead and produce that show, and that would like be my show. And they had like a rock and roll show. They had this. They had that. I didn't have any interest in any of that. I kept pitching the idea of a wrestling radio show. I said, I don't even give a shit if it's like late at night or whatever. Like just give me the chance. I'd love to be able to do a wrestling radio show. And let's see how it is. And I always got shut down. And that kind of. And that kind of. kind of turned me off from the entire thing. So I don't know, you know, in Dave's case, I don't know what his in was as far as how he was able to get busted open on Sirius XM. I know his brother, Don, is a pretty prominent sports talk radio host here in New York. I'm embarrassed to say it took me far too long to realize that Dave Legreca was Don's brother. I just never put two and two together until a few years ago. I was like, hmm, I wonder if the two

with them are related. Yep. So who knows? Maybe that helped him get his foot in the door. I don't know, but he got a pro wrestling discussion show on Sirius, and that was a big deal. And to see what he's been able to grow that into is very impressive. Originally, it was him and Doug Mortman, who still works for Sirius XM. They started it as a show by the fans for the fans and talked about whatever they wanted to talk about, right? Not just WWE. They talked about all promotions. Over the years, it's turned into something very different, you know, with bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer and Mark Henry and a lot of the other wrestlers that they have on, you know, being brought in his hosts. And it could be great to get the wrestler perspective on things, but it's sort of betrayed what the

original idea was behind the show. So as someone who isn't a regular listener, I can't speak to the daily listening experience when it comes to how much coverage other promotions have been getting unbusted open recently. From what I hear, it was already very limited, but it was still there. We just had an AW pay-per-view on Sunday night, and not one mention of it on busted open the next morning. But they did have Seth Rollins on the show to talk about, you know, is being in the night two main event of summer slime, you know, better than being in the night one main event? It's like, okay, sure. I saw the video they posted, by the way, of the Rollins interview. They posted it up on their YouTube channel, I swear to God,

I have never seen Bully Ray beaming from ear to ear as much as he was in this interview. He was smiling, you couldn't surgically remove the smile from his face. I've never seen him so happy. And then I looked down at the comments under the video. I don't know

that I've ever seen a comment section on YouTube or any sort of comment thread on social media ever as unified as these people were in just absolutely roasting the show for what it has turned into now. Like, usually you see a lot of back and forth.

People are flaming each other. There's a lot of disagreement going on. I'm not saying that there weren't some comments like that, but they were few and far between. I've never seen people so unified in their opinion on one thing. Did they sell out? A lot of the comments, oh, Dave, they sold out, you sold out. Yes.

Yes. They literally did. And good on Dave. It's a huge opportunity for him. and the entire team over there. But yes, they sold out, which is why I think it is more important than ever to have independent voices out there for you to listen to and engage with because that's not what this is. You know, there's nothing independent about that.

I would love to know, for example, what they had to say this morning about that raw show last night, right? That will be the true test of independence, of independent thought and opinion on that show, what they say or don't say about certain parts of that show last night. But, you know, we've seen what's happened with WWE and ESPN. It is a business relationship. They don't cover pro wrestling on ESPN. They don't. They don't cover pro wrestling on ESPN.

They cover WWE. Because that's who they're paying billions of dollars to be in bed with. It's called co-opted media, which is what this is. And they've had the relationship with WWE already for many years, you know, busted open has. This just effectively consummated the marriage. This is what made it official. And it's great for WWE. It's win-win for them.

They can't lose. And very likely it's the same for Sirius as well. All the fans online claiming, oh, I'm going to cancel my subscription or I just canceled my subscription. They're betting that those people are going to be replaced by many more WWE fans who maybe were not subscribed, right? That's what they're betting on. For Dave Legreca, look, I've never spoken to him.

I've never interacted with him. He seems like a nice guy, very passionate guy for sure. sure. I'm not sure how much power and influence he even has over things at this point. It feels like he's going along for the ride more than anything once WWE moves in. You know, it ain't the Dave Legreca show no more. It probably kills him on some level to see all the hate that this has been getting. And he's probably getting a lot of it directed at him personally. But if WWE wanted to work with Sirius XM, I don't think Dave Legreca had the power to go to Sirius and say, no. I don't think we should work with WWE.

I don't think we should rebrand the channel as WW Radio. Because we got to be able to talk about AEW redemption. We got to be able to talk about, you know, wrestle kingdom when it comes in January. Like, that wasn't happening, okay? That was a business decision that is far above his pay grade. So what do you do? You put a happy face on it and you hope for the best.

But don't tell people that things aren't change. changing when you know that things are changing. Like, don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. People see right through that. They're not stupid. The good news is, if you don't like the change, you've got plenty of options when it comes to pro wrestling discussion online. You know, the thing I love about doing this show, for Ariel and for Uncrowned,

is that they've never once told me what I can or cannot talk about. They just let me do my thing. If it works, why mess with it? So whether it's this show or whether it's another fan host. or a wrestler hosted show, and there are many of them out there, you have other voices who are not afraid to tell you how they really feel or to talk about different promotions. So you can choose to listen to them. Or you could stick with busted open, but for the people who listened before and are very

unhappy with what it has now become or is about to become, I feel you. I understand. It sucks. But for Dave and his team there, it's a huge opportunity that most people, I would, would wager to bet, would not say no to. But with it comes pros and cons. They're finding that out right now. There are pros and there are cons.

And it's one more space where WWE wants total and complete domination. Total and complete takeover. They want to control the message, especially when it comes to their product. That's never a good thing. Especially as bad as some of these television shows have become week to week, we need people to have the freedom to call them out for it when it is warranted. If no one does, they have no incentive to change. SummerSlam is coming up this weekend.

At U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, we are looking at six matches per night, 12 in total. Last year's show, they had 13 matches in total. And we have the lineups now for SummerSlam Saturday and SummerSlam Sunday. SummerSlam Saturday will start there. I'm going to run through the card here. I'll chime in with some thoughts and predictions along the way. we have fatal influence.

We're going to be taking on the team of Page and the Bella twins. Nikki Bella made her return on Smackdown last Friday. She had been out since March after suffering a foot injury or an ankle, I think an ankle injury. So she's backed. The Bellas are back together. Fatal Influence just won the women's tag team titles from Bree Bella in Page at Saturday night's main event a couple of weeks ago. And then on Smackdown, you had one half of the women's tag team champions losing to Bree Bella. And so I don't think fatal influence going into the show and losing is the right move here.

I would hope that they pick up the win. I expect them to pick up the win. And if anything, I think we should keep an eye on a potential heel turn. Maybe it doesn't even happen here. But Page and the Bella Twins, this is not going to be some long-lasting alliance here. The Bellas, I think, are going to eventually challenge for and win the tag team titles. That's still the end goal here. I think the two of them want to win the belts together because they've never had them.

They've never held tag team championships together. Page going heel and potentially linking up with fatal influence is an interesting proposition. It's something I could see. Again, maybe not on this show. But I'm hoping for and expecting a fatal influence win here because they kind of debuted in a hot way and then they cooled them off a little bit. J.C. Jane had the chance to qualify for this latter match I'm going to be talking about here in a little bit. She couldn't even qualify. I'd be given fatal influence the win here.

Then we have LA night, Solo Sacoa, and Royce Keys taking on the bloodline. Jacob Fattu and the Uso's. Hard for me to imagine the bloodline taking the loss here. There was a big schmaz on Raw last night where they were all brawling and the baby faces stood tall. I don't suspect that's going to be the case on Saturday. This should be a Fatu and Uso's win in this match. Solo Sacoa, I have to say this. And I have been someone who has railed on this guy with the whole M&A,

stuff on Smackdown for months. It was so boring. It was just dreadful television. They were a terrible faction. It wasn't even totally their fault. WWE never took the time and effort to really get people to care or invest in these guys. Whether their baby faces or heels, it doesn't matter. I mean, the bloodline were heels.

And they did great character work with them years ago. They got you to care about every single member of that crew. Solo maybe was the only one. He was kind of the silent enforcer who never spoke. that was his role in that group, but the stuff with Sammy Zane and Jay Uso, I mean, it was great. It made for great television.

The MFTs were the opposite of that. They were the inverse of that. They were the bizarro version of that. And Solo Sacoa, he's this stoic, you know, leader, like a mob boss leader. Like, it's not the role for him. Now we're starting to see where Solo can excel. He's got a personality.

He's a funny guy. He's charismatic. Let him be himself. He will get a, over as a baby face. I've been saying this for months. Solo Sacoa as a baby face. There's money there. So right now we're starting to see glimmers of that. You saw that on Raw last night. I just hope this isn't some sort of big swerve where he ends up just going back to the family anyway. I think that would be terrible. I don't think they're getting the win here, though. I think the

bloodline picks up the W. Then we have Gunther, and we have Nick Aldus. For Nick Aldus, this is going to be his first match ever in a WWE ring, the general manager of Smackdown. for now been relieved of his duties. So as of this moment, he is no longer the GM. I suspect that he will go back to being the GM after this weekend, hopefully, because I think that's a good role for him. I think he's done well in that role. Gunther being in this situation is not what I would have expected. If you would have asked me a few months ago, what is Gunther going to be doing at SummerSlam? Of all the answers I could have potentially given you, this is not one that would have been on my brain, especially when you look at what he was doing at the end of last year, going into the

beginning of this year, and now he's wrestling the GM of the show. It's an attraction, though. There's going to be this novelty to it. There's going to be this natural question on, you know, some of the fans anyway, who may not be familiar with his prior work. Like, what kind of wrestler is he? What is he going to look like in the ring? I'm wondering that myself. You know, Nick Aldous has not wrestled in three years. But he is a former NWA World's heavyweight champion. He was, you know, a very accomplished wrestler in his own right. I cannot think of a better person if I'm Nick Aldus to be in the ring with in my first match back than Gunther, right?

One of the best in the world. Should be a fun match. Anything other than Gunther winning to me is completely ridiculous. This should be a Gunther win. And we have hell in a cell. Obafemi, Brock Lesner. I'm thinking that they opened the show with this. Because, and we've seen this with Brock many times before, where if you're not closing

the show, you're opening the show. And also, if that first hour is airing on ESPN, and I don't know offhand if they've confirmed that. That's what they've been doing for these PLEs. I don't know why SummerSlan would be any different unless there's another sports event taking place. Maybe there's a conflict on ESPN. But especially if it is going to be airing on ESPN that first hour, I would think they would want the Brock Lesnar match on there.

They had a way in last night on the show, which is ridiculous. To begin with, obviously, there's no weight classes. there's no weight limits. There's nothing like that. Why have a way in? They did it inside hell at a cell. They lowered the cell last night. Triple H was in the ring.

Adam Pierce was in the ring. Obafemi came down to the ring and then Brock came out. And then Brock refused to get into the cell. And he locked the door. And Oba was trying to get out and he couldn't get out. And like, obviously if they wanted Brock Lesnar to get on the scale, all they had to do was push the button and raise the cage. And nobody thought to do that.

So evidently, you know, everybody was trapped. And yet Paul Heyman saying the usual stuff that he says, you know, he's talking about the conqueror, he's talking about Brock being undefeated in his two matches in 25 years that he's had, both against the Undertaker, inside hell and his cell. It was rinse repeat. Oba, he beat up a bunch of fake rent-a cops at the end of the segment. He was the only one who even weighed in in this segment. They said Brock weighed in backstage. Oba was 302.

Brock was 303. And so that's where we are, heading into Hell and, sell this weekend. I didn't need this stupid weigh-in segment last night to get me excited for this match. It's one of the matches I'm looking forward to on the show. Their first two matches were exciting, very smash-mouth. The first one was four minutes. Second one was six minutes. I would certainly hope they hit double digits for this one. I don't want the match to be less than the time it takes for them to lower the fucking cage. So this should be fun. And this again, like I mentioned before, like Gunther beating Nick Alde, this should be the only outcome in that match. The only outcome

in this match should be Oba Femi putting down Brock Lesnar. I don't personally believe that this is going to be Brock's retirement match. There's been a lot of talk about him retiring in Minneapolis. I don't see it. And I'm not going to believe it, whether he leaves his boots in the ring or not after what we saw at WrestleMania, you know, fool me once. But this only one outcome here, Oba Femmy wins. Obafemi should be challenging for the World Heavyweight Championship, if we're being

perfectly honest. That should be the match on this show. They didn't want to go there just yet. So we're getting this again. I question, though, what happens with Oba after he beats Brock this weekend? Brock is probably going to go away. You know, whether he retires or not, he's going to disappear. Where does Obafemi end up?

Because if the idea here is that they want to hold off for a bigger event, they want to hold off until maybe Saudi mania next year, that's a long ways off. Oba has been completely dominant. They started an open challenge with him. Thankfully, it didn't go very long. Are they just going to go back to the open challenge gimmick again? He's a very unique talent in that you can't book him like you would just any other guy.

Right? And you don't even necessarily need him on the show every single week, but he's got to be around, right? He shouldn't just disappear for weeks at a time. What do you do with Obafemi coming out of SummerSlam? Are they going to go ahead and give him a World Championship match? Maybe at WrestleMania in September. Maybe they're not going to wait until WrestleMania. I don't know.

That becomes the challenge. you got to be very careful with what you do with him. You want to keep him as an attraction and not just have him sort of feel like he's treading water for the next nine months just so you can get him a WrestleMania moment. But this should not go any other way, but Obafemi winning. Period. End of story.

Eoskeye is going to be challenging Liv Morgan for the Women's World Championship. Live Morgan, who just passed 100 days as the champion without a single title defense since winning the belt at WrestleMania. And if that doesn't tell you about the state of the women's division, really on both shows, and I don't know what does, it is awful. It is dreadful. E.O. Sky, I have her winning the championship here, but at the end of the day, if she wins the belt, is it really going to be all that different? Is EO suddenly going to have all of these challengers and could be defending the title every few weeks on television? Probably not. You know, she came out of

WrestleMania last year as the women's champion held on to the belt and then proceeded to do absolutely nothing until she wrestled Rio Ripley at the Evolution Show in July of last year. They have a very big problem when it comes to booking the women and booking around these women's championships. They don't know how to do it.

So I hope EO wins, but even if she wins, I can't say I have a whole lot of optimism about where they go from here. I think one of the reasons that they would want E.O. to win the belt is because if they're going to do another crown jewel event in October, as they usually do, that's usually the champion, the main champions from each brand, wrestle each other for the crown jewel belts, I think they may want to do Ria Ripley against EO Sky on that show. You know, the two former friends, I mean, they're still friends, but, you know, the two friends who they've established this story that Ria has never been able to beat EO. Eo always very playfully brings it up. You've never beaten me.

I think they may want to do the match on that show and have Rhea finally beat Eo. For that to happen, Eo would have to be the champion going into that show. By the way, Raquel Rodriguez, speaking of the judgment day here, Raquel Rodriguez won the Women's Intercontinental Championship on Raw last night from Sol Ruka,

and she got her nose busted up in the process, sold at a moonsault out to the floor early in the match. Raquel came up bleeding badly from the nose. But after some Judgment Day hijinks, she was able to win the title. Sol Ruka had two months as the champion, didn't do a whole hell of a lot. For Raquel, this is her first singles title in WWE. And she's made a lot of improvements. She's upped her game over the last like 18 months or so.

So happy for her. That was a cool moment for her. Sol Ruka, I guess she'll just have to come back and challenge for the belt and maybe she'll win it back. I don't know. But that was like the only newsworthy thing, really, coming out of the show last night. was that title change. And the main event of night one on Saturday is going to be the undisputed WWE champion CM Punk defending his title against the former champion Cody Rhodes.

This was the match I was most looking forward to, and I guess to some degree it still is. But you look at what they've done with them on television. I was really looking forward to that face-to-face this past Friday coming out of Saturday night's main event, they had started to really ratchet up the tension between these two. And we know what Cody and punk, punk especially, can do on the mic, right? When they have something really good to sink their teeth into, I said, man, this is going to be the segment that sells the match. And they went out there on Friday, and they had a fine segment, but it really was nothing terribly great. You know, I was looking for more from the two of them.

And it just, it wasn't there. It wasn't there the way that I was kind of hoping it would. be. Now we have one Smackdown left. I don't even know if they're going to be face to face on this show. So the match is really being sold on the star power involved in the fact that we have not gotten this match before. It's a fresh match. First time we're getting it, at least since these two have been back at the company together. I think they literally have had one match together. And it was on Raw back in 2008. And they were both at very different stages of their career and their stardom in that They didn't really have any in WWE back in 2008.

I mean, Punk did more than Cody, I guess. But for all intents and purposes, this is their first meeting. Probably their first of several. I don't think that this is the beginning and the end of the Punk and Cody stuff. And I think this could very well still be the WrestleMania match next year. I don't think CM Punk is dropping the championship. I think CM Punk walks in with it. He leaves with it.

I'm leaning towards a Cody Rhodes heel turn. I feel like something has to happen. other than just punk beating him. Something big has to go down, some big development in this match or after the match. And you look at Punk and Cody, two baby faces, right, two of the biggest baby faces in the entire company, outside of Roman. What's the biggest thing they could possibly do? Have one turn heel on the other. Have one go to a place very different than the place that they've been in and then build to the eventual rematch between them.

one is the very clearly defined heel, one is the very clearly defined baby face, as opposed to just being baby face against baby face again. Of the two, I'm much more interested in the possibility of a Cody Rhodes heel turn. People have been clamoring for this now for a couple of years. The Rock tried to buy his soul last year, and Cody told him to go fuck himself and stayed babyface, and it made sense to me because they really didn't have anybody on that show to replace him.

You could turn Cody Rhodes' heel six months ago. You could turn him heel a year. You can have him go with the Rock. Okay, cool. Well, then who is that A1 baby face on SmackDown? They didn't really have anybody kind of on deck waiting to take that spot. Had they played their cards differently? Maybe someone like Jacob Fatu who was on SmackDown.

Maybe that could have been him. Now he's just Romans Lackey on Raw. But they didn't have anybody. Now they have Punk. Now, punk is not the answer. I'm not saying punk is going to be the new baby face on Smackdown to carry the show for years to come. guys 48 years old, you shouldn't rely on him as like your sole big baby face on the show. There should be somebody else.

But for now, punk is that guy. You at least have somebody of equal or greater value star power-wise. On that brand, you can safely turn Cody Heel or you can play around with a heel turn if you want to. I wish I could sit here and tell you I had more faith in them to really follow up with a great heel-turn. They can do the turn. Triple H has shown that he can do the turn. The problem is he can't stick the landing on the follow-up. And we saw that with the new day.

When they turned heel, great turn, great segment with Big E. No follow-up whatsoever, a complete waste. John Cena turns heel. There were people that night, oh my God, this is bigger than Hogan in the NWO. And I'm like, you're out of your fucking mind. But it was great. It was this great moment. And the sight of Sina standing shoulder to shoulder with Hollywood Rock,

we'll forget that Travis Scott was in the background. and I'm like, this could be something special. And it turned into just, I mean, you talk about drop balls, okay? You talk about something that was just fumbled and wasted. That was the John Sini. And I know Triple H feels differently. Triple H on Unreal on the new season of Unreal on Netflix said, I think the John Sina Heel term was a big success.

It wasn't. It was a creative failure. That's what worries me. It's not the turn itself. It's what follows that. where are they going to go with it? Is it going to, in people's minds, you build something up over such a long period of time? There are people that have been calling for Cody to become homeland or Cody now for years

that when they finally do, when the day finally comes, can it possibly live up to those people's expectations? Probably not. But I do think you got to do something different with Cody. I think you're already in that territory with him where it just, there's a sameness to it. And it's just, he's not very interesting. And if anybody is going to go in that direction, I think it should be Cody and not Punk. But even still, if he does, I don't think he wins the title. I think they're going to keep it on Punk for a while.

So anyway, that's Summer Slam Night 1. Then we get to Summer Slam Sunday. Night 2. This is the lineup. We know that Chad Gable is going to be challenging Penta in the first hour for the Intercontinental Championship. I don't know if it's opening the show, per se, but it is going to take place in the first hour. This is one of the matches I am looking forward to most this weekend.

First of all, you know it's going to be a great professional wrestling match. Chad Gable was Penta's very first opponent when Penta debuted on Monday Night Raw. So it's kind of like a full circle moment here. Now they meet here on this big stadium show and there's a championship on the line and they're in Gable's hometown. Gable is from Minneapolis. Gable's arc has been an interesting one. He was a baby face. He was challenging for the title a few years ago.

He told Gunther point blank and they showed the footage last night in the video package. I swear to God, I'm going to be. win that championship. And then he fucking lost. And they showed his little girl in the front row, tears in her eyes. Oh my God, my dad. She was so sad.

She was devastated when he didn't win the championship. So he went heel. And then the El Grande-American stuff happened. He had that epic match with El Grande Kaiser back in May. Now he's a baby face again. He's trying to make amends for all of his sins. He's on this like 12-step program. And now he's a baby face again.

And now he's in his hometown. It's a little weird that he's in there with another popular baby face, a bigger baby face than him, although Penton may not be that night in Minneapolis. Ideally, I think in a situation like this, you would have had him in there against a really hated heel, but nonetheless, this is going to be a great match. And as with the Oba and Brock match on night one,

there can only be one outcome here. They have one job this weekend. Put the Intercontinental Championship on Chad Gable, give him his crowning moment. He's been chasing and chasing and chasing and now he finally catches up to it and he wins the title. This should be the easiest slam dunk

on either night. The other mid-card men's title is also being defended on night two and that is the United States championship. It will be Trick Williams putting the belt on the line against Baron Corbyn. In Corbyn's first match back in WWE, he's challenging for the U.S. title.

They set this up, by the way, off the air after Smackdown went off the air on Friday night. They threw the segment up on their social media. Because they had Trick Williams fighting in a number one contenders match in the main event on Smackdown Friday for the right to go to SummerSlam to meet Sammy Zane in a number one contenders match for the WWE championship. And I'm watching this and I'm like, wait a minute,

weren't they setting something up with him and Carmelo Hayes and then Baron Corbyn came back? I'm like, where the hell are they? they weren't even on the show. And then Corbyn shows up when the show is over, and then they made this match official. And it's deja vu all over again, because I sat here when we were going into WrestleMania, and Carmelo Hayes had this great run as the United States champion. He inherited the open challenges from Sammy Zane and Ilya Dragonov, and then it looked like he was going to be left off the WrestleMania card, which he was.

But I kept saying, man, add him to the U.S. title match. Add him to the U.S. title match. make it a triple threat, and they didn't do it. And so now we're going into SummerSlam this weekend, and wouldn't you know, we have the United States Championship on the line, which he has been involved with. And they have a singles match, and he is not part of the match. And I find myself sitting here in my mind, I'm thinking, add him to the match, add him to the match, but I know better, even though we do have one Smackdown left.

I know better. He ain't getting added to this match. I'd be shocked if they add him to this match. I fell for it in March and April. I thought they might. And then they basically said, fuck you, we're not doing that. So it's going to be trick and it's going to be Corbyn.

I have Corbyn winning the belt. That's my pick. I think they're going to put the championship on him. By the way, Corbyn himself in the social media comments, when WWE posted the match graphic for this and people were like, what about Mello? Where is he? He should be added.

Corbin himself posted a comment under there and said he needs to be. So even he agrees. I leave open a sliver of hope that that will happen on Friday. I'm just not very optimistic about it. Then we have Danhausen against Dominic Mysterio in what is now a poll match. Human monies on a poll match. Because they're continuing this story that began centuries ago, where the Judgment Day paid him $100,000 to put a curse on Obafemi.

and Dan Housen refused to do it, but evidently he took the money anyway. And so for months now, the Judgment Day has been trying to get their money back. And this is all building now to a human monies on a poll match. They had a concert segment on Raw last night. They promoted that there was going to be a concert with Dan Housin and Joe Hendry. We had concert slop on this show five days before SummerSlam. Now, we've had good concert slop. in the past, namely with the rock.

I think they should leave it to the rock. The only person who should be allowed to do concerts on Monday Night Raw is The Rock, because he's the only one who's ever done them where it's at least entertaining. They did this concert, Joe Hendry, God bless him, man. Joe Hendry is, I mean, he's dead in the water in this company. Where he is now, that's about as good as it's going to get for him. Danhausen is popular. I understand why they're in full Danhausen mode.

they have a fucking ice cream truck with his giant face-up. It's like the most terrifying thing. If I was driving through the neighborhood, I'd have a fucking heart attack. They have this truck now that's driving around, I think, in Minneapolis, giving out ice cream to people. He had a little parade float for himself in New York City, you know, for helping the Knicks win the championship. This was when they came to town for Saturday night's main event. And then, of course, he was doing stuff with the Knicks and Carl Anthony Towns. He's all over the play.

He cursed the Miz and Kit Wilson weeks ago. and they were showing up on TV, they looked like they were like zombies. And then they, we haven't seen them in weeks. I don't know. Have they taken a turn for the worst? No one in this company seems terribly bothered by the fact that Ms. and Kit Wilson have dropped off the face of the earth.

But Dan Housen is in everything. He's in multiple segments on the shows every single week. I like Dan Housen. Very happy for his success. We have rapidly gotten to the point now where I am sick of seeing him. because there is such a thing as too much Danhausen on these shows. There's room for Danhausen. He's very entertaining.

He's very funny. He's very nice. He's very evil. But what you don't want to do is you don't want to overload the entire show with comedy and silliness and bullshit and turn it into a clown show, which is what it feels like we have reached that point. This segment last night, they may have thought that this was going to be the most entertaining thing in the world, and Danhausen's over, said it's going to get over.

And basically they were just singing a song. The lyrics that they sang, they repeated on a loop over and over again. They were fusing the whole, like, I believe you are cursed. I'm not going to, believe me, I'm not going to redo it for you and sing it. And they just kept singing that over and over and over again. And then we had the Miniehausens who got into the ring and now they're doing a dance routine. And then we had a bunch of women in white masks who are lined up in the aisleway and they come down to the ring and they take the masks off. and they're doing a dance routine outside the ring.

This is turned into a Broadway show. And it's going on and on and on. And then they had Ryan Garcia, the boxer, get in the ring. He jumps the barricade. He's dancing with the women. And he gets in the ring and he takes the guitar and he smashes Joe Hendry in the back with the guitar. He's gone heel. I'm watching this and I'm going, who is this?

I know who he is. I mean, I know he's a boxer. I think he was on recently with Ariel. He was interviewed. I get it. I get it. But in the context of the show, I'm like, why is he in the ring? Why?

Why am I looking at this man here? Why am I watching a concert with Joe Hendry and Danhausen? And now Ryan Garcia is in the ring and he has turned heel. And now here comes Dominic Mysterio and J.D. McDonough to put a beat down on the baby faces. And Dominic gives a frog splash to Danhausen. And now Ryan Garcia is standing in lockstep with the judgment day. Why should I care about this?

Was this supposed to get me more excited to see this money's on a pole match this weekend? I can't wait for this to be over with. I cannot believe that after he beat J.D. McDonough at Saturday night's main event, that we are even still continuing with this story. I can't believe we're still talking about this $100,000. I wish that they, I wish he would just pay them back the money just so we could be done and finish with this. Now, my original prediction here was that Dominic Mysterio was going to win. Then I saw what they did last night and I was like, oh, no.

They left Danhausen laying. Normally that would mean that Danhausen is going to win. I'm going to stick with my original prediction. And I'm going to say that Dom wins the money. Because Dominic Mysterio is the AAA mega champion. And I'm sure they're building him up for a big match, probably with El Grande Americano at Triplemania in September. I don't see what is accomplished other than just popping the people who like Danhausen and, you know, they're going to cheer.

Yay, Danhausen won. Why are you going to have Danhausen go in there and beat the AAA mega champion in a comedy match? I wouldn't be doing that. That sounds like a terrible idea. Instead, I think he wins the money and probably as he's running off or whatever with the money, the fucking bag explodes or something, you know. Danhausen will get the last laugh. Danhausen should not get the win here. I understand he's undefeated so far in WWE.

That should come to an end this weekend. But yeah, the concert segment last night was truly one of the most awful segments on any wrestling television show all year. And how I would describe it is they thought it was going to be funny. And they thought that people would be super duper into it. And they just kept repeating the lyrics over and over again and everyone's dancing. It's like the comedian at the comedy club who tells a really bad joke. and instead of just moving on to the next one and taking the L, he just keeps, because no one's reacting to it,

no one's laughing and no one's clapping, he just keeps going. He just keeps telling the joke or expanding the joke and trying to get a reaction, and he's just failing miserably. That was the concert segment last night. We have Sammy Zane in a number one contenders match against Finn Baller. So the winner of this match will challenge either Cody Rhodes

or CM Punk at some point after SummerSlam. know when for the WWE championship. I think that they are going to want to continue this character that they're doing with Sammy, this crusade, right? Justice for Sammy. He keeps getting screwed over. I think he's losing here. I think Finn Baller, who they've actually been pushing and feeding wins to.

I always call him Pin Baller for years because he would just eat the pins so many times. Every time he had a big match, here's Pin Baller. And now we actually have Win Baller on these shows. know how long this is going to last. I suspect that if he wins this match, it will last up until the point that he gets a championship match, and then Pin Baller will be back. I think Baller's going to get the win here. You know, it's hard to believe. It's been 10 years, 10 years to the Summer Slam that Baller beat Seth Rollins to become the first ever universal champion, and he completely fucked up his arm in that match, had to come out on Raw the next night, vacate the

championship, and he has never been the same since. Never held a, a, a, major world title in the company since has barely gotten any opportunities for it. I mean, that injury really, I don't want to say derailed his career because it makes it sound like, I mean, he hasn't done anything over the last 10 years, but I think for what people were hoping to see him do on the main roster, he never was able to attain that level of success. And that injury just really derailed things for him. So now it feels like they're trying to build them up to kind of get him in that mix. I don't think they really want him in that mix.

I think they want to tell that story. He'll get his shot. He'll fall short. And then he'll kind of settle in where he was on Raw, where he's just that solid mid to upper mid card performer that you could just sort of plug in there with anybody. And maybe he'll go after the U.S. title at some point. I think that's probably where he settles in.

But he's going to win the match here. Then we have the five-way ladder match for the interim WWE Women's Championship. Ah, yes, the interim title that we all love so much because they don't want to take the championship off of Ria Ripley, who is hurt and is not medically cleared. We don't know when she's going to be back.

It could be in a few weeks. It could be a little bit longer. They say she's not going to be out for much longer. So instead of stripping her, we're just going to have an interim title. And we have Charlotte Flair, Jade Cargill, Tiffany Stratton, Chelsea Green, and we still have one spot open. And that spot is going to be decided on SmackDown. this Friday in a match between Julia

and Lash Legend. And considering that there's only one heel in the match right now, that spot probably is going to Lash Legend. They don't really have any plans for Julia or Kiana James. Kiana already lost her qualifying match to Chelsea Green.

They've demonstrated that over the last few months. They got nothing for these women. So Julia qualifying would surprise me. If she does, I mean, it's not like she's winning anything. So, I mean, what's the fucking point. I think Lash is going to get in there.

I think Lash is going to win. I'm actually going with Lash Lash. She hasn't even qualified yet. I'm already going with Lash Legend to win the match here. And then when Ria comes back, they build up to the big champion against champion match, and then she beats Lash. And we're right back where we would have been.

Now, if I'm wrong, and Lash doesn't qualify on Friday, then I'm going to predict that they put the belt on Jade Carg. and they just run back Ria and Jade for the belt when she comes back. I think they may want to hold off. I'm putting the belt back on Charlotte to save that for a much bigger platform or a much bigger occasion. And then they can run back her and Ria again.

I don't think that's something they want to do right now. I don't think it was in the plans. It wasn't in the cards. They didn't plan on Ria getting hurt. So I can't pick Charlotte because I don't think they want to go there just yet. So if it's not Lash, I'm going with Jade. But this interim title stuff is completely unnecessary. I said that last week. I stand by that.

I think it's just stupid. It didn't have to happen. But here we are. And then in the main event of Night 2 for the World Heavyweight Championship, Roman Raines defends his title against his old friend, Seth Rollins. And we know the history between these two men. They've talked about it.

Ad nauseum on television now for weeks about the shield and breaking up the shield and the money in the bank cash. from WrestleMania in 2015. A lot of history between these two men. And they did that weird segment in Madison Square Garden where Roman Raines was posing with Jalen Brunson, and then Seth Rollins came out, and he was treated as a total heel in that segment,

even though he's not really the heel in this story. But he said last night on Raw when they came face-to-face, he said, you know, I'll be the bad guy. I have no problem of being the bad guy. And he talked about how you can't beat me. Every time you and I have done this dance on the big stage, I got your number. I'm in your head.

Roman called him an asshole. Seth said, well, that may be true. I'd rather be an asshole than a liar. And it was just a lot of the same stuff that we've heard from them. In the end, Rollins left him laying with a stomp onto a chair. So Rollins kind of got the last laugh. That will not be the case this weekend. I do not see Roman Raines losing this championship to Seth Rollins.

I think it's going to be a great match. I think that they probably are going to have great chemistry in the ring as they have in their previous matches. They know each other like a book. And they're going to have plenty of time. They're going to have 25, 30 minutes probably to go out there and put on a clinic. And it's going to be great. But in the end, Roman Raines will still be the champion. And I don't know if Roman disappears coming out of SummerSlam.

Maybe he'll stick around for the September PLE. They haven't announced Russell Paloozy yet. I assume they're doing it. But Roman did say after WrestleMania when he won the belt, you got me for the summer. So I suspect he's not going to be around too much longer. And even if he disappears, I don't think they're taking that belt off of him. Certainly not this weekend. So that is the Summer Slam card.

Night one is the stronger of the two nights on paper. Again, the only thing that really surprises me is that they're running both tag matches on the same night instead of spreading them out. I mean, I say tag matches. They're trios matches. We don't have any actual tag team title defense. on the show. And mind you, they have three sets of tag team titles in this company. It is a two-night summer slam.

Not one tag team title defense. Tells you everything you need to know about what they think of tag team wrestling in that company. AEW redemption took place Sunday in Montreal at the Bell Center and was a pay-per-view that had no real reason to exist once they had Kenny Omega beat MJF to win the world title of Beach Break. It was very clear the story of the show was intended to be Omega getting his redemption over MJF and winning the championship in Canada. And once they took that story off the table, it just became another show. Not that it wasn't newsworthy and not that it didn't have its moments. There were some very good matches on the show. But the main story in the marquee main event of the show was gone.

And that is said to be an MJF decision, by the way, that he pushed Tony Kahn to bump the match up a few weeks between him and Kenny. the belief is that. And Tony said it the other day on the media call that Max has been dealing with some injuries throughout the year and he's banged up. And so it was probably injury related. He had hyper extended his knee in a match with a Roosch on TV about a month, month and a half ago. And so if it's injury related, then he just felt like, hey, I need some time off to heal up so I could be back in time for the big Wembley show, then it's understandable. But it still sucks that they lost their big main event for this show. I thought it was a mixed bag. There was some really good stuff. There was some bad stuff. All in all, I thought it was their weakest effort of the year as their paper views go. And their pay-per-view are what set them apart from WW. With WW, you're lucky to get five matches.

And you're assaulted by commercials. AW goes in the opposite. They go to the opposite extreme, where they assault you with matches. And not just matches, long matches, where almost none of them go less than 20 minutes. Tony started this pay-per-view an hour earlier than usual after the outcry from Forbidden Door where they didn't go off the air until almost 1 o'clock in the morning, Eastern. So he started it at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. and they still ended just shy of midnight. And so you'll have some fans tell you, well, you know, I won't want to get my money's worth. The more wrestling, the better. Yes, well, if they shaved off two or three matches from a 10-match card,

you're still getting a lot of wrestling matches. Like, I wouldn't feel shortchanged. I would still get my money's worth. But he just can't help himself. It's just, it's not in his DNA. We had a six-way ladder match for the future international championship match between Speedball, Mike Bailey, Jack Perry, Nick Wayne, Commander, The Beast Mortos, and El Cologne with Speedball in his home province

picking up the win. And what a pop when he pulled down that. contract. This was 20 minutes of the usual dangerous stunts and insanity that you would expect in these latter matches, all of the usual contrived spots, but it was a hot way to open the show. You know, Speedball has since announced that he will be cashing in his opportunity for that title on their Grand Slam Mexico episode of Dynamite, which is coming up on August 5th from Arena Mexico. That was a lot of fun last year. Their show at Arena Mexico, I'm looking forward to that one. John Moxley and Will Osprey, they took on the young

Bucks always felt like a win for the Bucks to me, especially if they were going to be priming them for a tag team title match in London. You know, why have them lose here? Plus, you know, it's far more interesting to me to see Moxley and Osprey lose to see them at odds. And then, you know, what's going to happen then? Then it would be for them to just go in there and win. Thankfully, they lost. This was different from your usual Young Bucks match in that they had Nick Jackson selling a possible concussion for most of it, which I mean, begs the question, why wouldn't the referee then call the match off? But if you bring up these things, you know, certain people get very angry.

I also have to point this out. There was a 450 splash in this match, a picture perfect 450 splash. Will Osprey came flying in from off camera, and he landed on Nick Jackson. This was in the middle of this big offensive flurry, where everybody was hitting big move after big move after big move after big move. He lands the 450 and Nick Jackson immediately just gets right back up to his feet.

No sells it. It's like it never even happened. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was the best of the young bucks and the worst, the absolute worst of the young bucks all in one match. But we did have storytelling here because

Ospre he could not bring himself to go for the kill shot on Nick. Whereas Moxley, he had no such reservations. In the end, though, it cost them the match. Kyle Fletcher, he retained his international title over Bandito. This would have been a great 15-minute match, but they just kept going. They ended up going almost double that for a match that was set up on television by Bandito walking into Fletcher's shot while he was cutting a promo.

This did not need 30 minutes. What we got was still very good. I hate that Bandito lost again, but there was definitely a point in this match where I remember feeling that should have been it and then they just kept wrestling. Then we had the double chain match with all four men bound by the wrist. Switchblade J. White and Juice Robinson against David Finley and Clark Connors, the dogs. I didn't think that I was going to hate anything more than I did this match and then I saw that concert last night with Danhausen and Joe Hendry and I still feel like this was,

this was the worst thing I saw all week. Because at least the concert was over fairly quickly. This went for a while. This was like almost 20 minutes, I think. I hated this match. I hated. This was easily the worst thing on the entire show. And men, I mean, they were brutalizing each other. They were whipping each other with these chains.

And Jay White is very lucky to be walking on his own two feet right now because there was a spot in the match where Finley went to give him a dominator off his shoulder. and his foot got wrapped up in the chain, because the chains were so long. And so he kind of tripped or almost tripped, and he nearly killed poor Jay White. Thankfully, he is still walking and breathing on his own. You know how Jay White says breathe with the switchblade? The switchblade was this close from needing a machine to breathe for him. Okay, that's how scary that was. But the greatest sin of this match for me, and again, maybe it's just me, maybe you disagree, I don't know,

but I just thought it was boring. It was just a boring match. The dogs win. I figured they would, thanks to a Shalali shot by Finley to Juice. And this now sets up what I have to assume is the eventual singles match between Jay White and David Finley. I'm not saying they didn't work hard. I'm not saying they didn't take some abuse in this match. But I'm not going to sit here and lie to you and say, well, you know, it was a...

No, I did not enjoy this match. The crowd was pretty quiet for most of it, too. I don't know how much they were enjoying it either. They were just out there doing a bunch of stuff, and I just, yeah, I didn't feel anything watching this match. Maya World, she is the new TBS champion with a win over Hikaru Shita. We had 10 matches on the main card, by the way. I nailed all but one of my predictions. I went 9 out of 10 on my predictions for this show.

This is the match that fucked me over. Kept me from a clean sweep. I was surprised that they changed the title here. Shida had just won the belt only a few weeks earlier. After the belt sat vacant for over a month, they finally crowned the new champion. Not even a month later, we have another new champion. Now, I see a lot of people crapping on this match. I'm a little surprised.

I'm not saying that this was a great match because it wasn't great. I enjoyed it. I guess seemingly I enjoyed this more than most. I didn't think it was as bad as some people were making it out to be. Down the stretch, the kickouts did get ridiculous. That I will say. They lost me on all the kickouts because it was to the point of absurdity. But Maya pulls it out to win her first championship.

I was not a fan of putting the belt on Shita to begin with, so I have no issue with them changing it here. And I'm glad, you know, coming out of the Owen last month and her lost to Mercedes-Mone, that they're doing something with Maya. You know, through the face of tragedy, which was the death of her brother last month. Something good has at least come out of that for her. So I'm happy for her. Adam Copeland, and by the way, a new face now with the TBS title. Someone new in that championship mix, that's good.

Adam Copeland and Christian Cage, they retain their AW tag team titles over Claudio Castignoli and pack of the Death Riders. Copeland and Christian, they sold for most of the match, like 90% of it, before making the big comeback at the end and winning what turned into a good match there at the end. The outcome was never in any doubt with Wembley right around the corner, and they made it official when the match was over, the young bucks came out, it will be. Cope and Christian defending their titles

against Matt and Nick Jackson, first time ever, at all in London. That's the big tag team dream match, right? The clash of generations. And right now it's two on two. Doesn't mean that FTR can't come back and get added,

or when the New Day debuted, and make no mistake, the New Day are absolutely coming to AEW. There's not a doubt of my mind about that. Who knows then? Maybe they get added. they should be free any week now from their 90-day non-compete period. The Motor City Machine Guns are another team to watch.

I would be stunned if they don't debut tomorrow on Dynamite. Or on Collision, I guess. They're doing Collision, I think Thursday. They're also taping that in Detroit. They're going to be in the Motor City this week for Dynamite and Collision. If ever they were going to debut the machine guns, it's got to be this week. Chris Jericho, he brought out his pain maker persona against Tomaso Champa in a No-Hull's Bard match that had to be as violent a match as Jericho has ever been in.

And someone mentioned to me the, oh, the Nick Gage match. Because Nick Gage wrestled Jericho once upon a time on Dynamite. And there was a whole big scandal coming out of him. Remember Pizza Gates? I'm not going to get into that whole thing again. But he used a pizza cutter during the match. And there was some chatter. WWE was behind the scenes, shopping around the story about it to try to scare off their advertisers.

It was a whole thing. I still don't remember of being as bloody as this one, though. Your mileage is going to vary on these types of plunder matches. I'm not a big fan of them personally. But I'll say this. They definitely made the most of the stipulation. Again, I'm not really a death match guy,

but I can appreciate them when the story calls for it. I don't know that this one did, but they delivered what they advertised. And Jericho got his win back. Champa won the first match at Beach Break. Jericho won the match here. He used a power drill at the finish. I mean, if those words I just spoke don't sum this thing up for you, then I don't know what does.

I'll bet that champ of those having the time of his life right now. I think he's got to be on cloud nine because he's able to go out there and have exactly the kinds of matches that he wants to have. He did not have this freedom in WWE. He wasn't doing anything in WWE. And look at his former partner right now. Look at what he's doing on Smackdown every week. He's laying on a fucking crate. planking for months, probably counting down the days of his contract before he could come in

and reunite with Champa, would be my guess. But Champa, he's out there. I mean, he's bleeding all over the place and everything. He was beating up the mascot, too. They have, oh God, the Montreal Canadiens. What's their mascot? Oh, I forgot the mascot's name. Anyway, they had a little plush stuffed animal. And at one point during the match, he was beaten up the mascot, which got a big pop out of the crowd. They were booing the shit out of him for it. But he's out there, man. He's just, he's just, he, he's just, he. You can't tell me he's not having the time of his life. There was a backstage segment on this show where Mick Foley interviewed Megan Bain and Lena Cross,

the women's tag team champions. Or rather, I should say they sat him down and they started to interview him. And then they told him to bow down. And he started saying bow wow. And he started barking like a dog over and over again. Ruff, ruff, bow, bow, bow. And like, I'm watching that. I go, this is so sad.

What the fuck? What are you doing? The Foley claimed later on Oh, it was a misunderstanding where they I guess he thought that they said bow wow. He didn't realize that they had said bow down. I don't know if he's just covering his ass or if he's being honest when he says that.

I sure hope he's being honest because all this did was make him look like a creepy old dude. I mean, the guy is missing half an ear. So it's possible he really did just misunderstand them. But I just, I was. floored watching this. I'm like, what, what am I watching here? What is this? What is Mick doing behind closed doors? I don't want to know. It's a very different definition for the hardcore legend. We had Andrade L. Italo winning the national championship from Mark Davis of the Don

Callis family. I love Andrade, but yeah, I've become a big fan of Mark Davis's work. I was so happy to see him actually get a singles title. I never thought that would happen. He was a tag team guy. He was a tag team guy that I never saw as like a breakout single star like Kyle Fletcher because the two of them were a tag team for so many years. And then, you know, Davis, he suffered some big injuries, but he has gotten himself to a point now where I was enjoying seeing him go out there and have success as a singles. But as soon as they made the match, I knew that that belt was coming off him. I was still sad when it happened. But for Andrade, you know, the timing was right. You know, he's putting in some of the best work of his career.

He also looks like he's having the time of his life. He is vowed to take all the championships from the Don Callis family in route to eventually winning the world title. I don't know if that'll happen, but to not put the national title on him would have killed that story dead. Wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense. Willow Nightingale for the first time in her career is the AEW women's world champion, ending Tecla's 160 plus days as champion right before their biggest show. show of the year. I had a good time watching this match.

I thought that the work was good. I figured Willow was winning the championship. I can understand people being upset for Tecla that she's not going to be in the big world title match. You know, London, I sure hope they have something good for her on that show. I think the work Tecla has put in this year has been great. She's been maybe their biggest breakout star at all honesty on television this year. What I wasn't a fan of, though, now that I have watched it play out, was just how rushed it all felt.

This was Willow's first big world title win. And, you know, she wins with the backslide and like a flash pin. And she's won matches that way before. I get it. But I just hate that that's how she won it. That that's how she won her first world title. And I really felt like coming out of this match, the match that she had with Mercedes on the New Year's smash episode of Dynamite at the very end of last year when she won back the TBS title. felt like a much bigger deal than this did.

And she won the world title on pay-per-view here. And yet that match felt like a bigger deal. But that's going to be the match now in London. Mercedes was up in her luxury box looking down. Willow was looking up at her. Willow will now be the defending champion. She'll be putting her title on the line against Mercedes at all in. And I don't think Mercedes should win the belt.

I actually, as I sit here right now, if you had a gun to my head, what do I think? I don't think Mercedes is winning. at all in. And I guarantee you most people figure she is. I'm not convinced that that's the case, and I think it would be a mistake. Take that belt off Willow so quickly and just use her as a transitional champion.

I think that would be a bad idea. But I enjoyed the match. Now, when the show was over, the redemption post-show media scrum, Willow talked about her decision to relinquish the TBS title and the injury that took her out of action. She said, for transparency's sake,

I had an AC sprain, which is something that I have experienced in my other shoulder a few times, and it wasn't as bad. So in my mind, I think that's also why I was like, I'll be good for double or nothing. I don't know if what I'm going to say is going to violate HIPAA or anything, but I was going to talk about one of my good friends who works here had an AC injury, and they had to get surgery, and they were out for months and months. So depending on the grade or the severity of it, it's something that could be, okay, you're going to be out for a few weeks.

or you're going to be out for almost a year. And ultimately, even if I get to a place where I'm like, I'm feeling better as a human being, cleaning my house or driving, because I had to drive home after I heard it, that was terrible. I was like, I'm convinced I can drive back from Maryland to New York, which is like a five-hour drive.

I'm like, I can do that. I got like 30 minutes in, and I was like, I have to get a hotel right now. This is impossible. So it was really just kind of like, how do we get to wrestling? How do we rehab this and make sure that we're good for this? And we were very fortunate where it wasn't the level of my friend who needed surgery. But it was one of those like, we'll play it by ear and see how it goes.

So anyway, that shed some light on the injury situation, why she was able to come back so quickly. I was starting to think that maybe the whole thing was just to work, just to get the TBS title off of her without her having to lose it. Because everything just worked out very conveniently, where she was back in time. they did that gauntlet match. She became the number one contender. She goes to redemption. She wins the championship. Now she's lined up for a big rematch with Mercedes.

But if that was the case, then my opinion, Willow was probably going to be the one to win the Owen. And if that's the case, then she would have been the one going to all-in to challenge for the title. And maybe they were going to save her big title win for Wembley. And they ended up bumping it up by a month. In which case, that just makes me. feel even stronger that if the plan was ultimately to get the belt on Willow, she's not going to lose it. Like if they got to the place ultimately where they wanted to go,

I don't think the plan would be to then just take it right off of her and put it on Mercedes. That's just how I feel. We still have like five weeks to go until Wembley. Maybe my mind will be changed on that. But anyway, very happy to see Willow get her moment, even if it was a little underwhelming. And in the main event, Kenny Omega. successfully defended his AEW World Championship

against the TNT champion Kevin Knight. Very good main event. No surprise there. There was no drama whatsoever as to what the finish would be. And so I don't really have a whole lot to say about the match beyond that. We know Kevin Knight has a very high ceiling in this company. They think very highly of him and I think one day he may get to that place. Watching him in there with Kenny Omega in the main event on Sunday night, he's not there yet.

it'll be some time before he's kind of in that position. But he was put in a very high pressure spot here, main event on a paper view where you had a ton of matches on this show that went 20 plus minutes. What can these two go out there and do that's going to be different than what everybody else did? Not a whole hell of a lot was really different about it, but they went out there and they had the crowd and they had a very good wrestling match. And then it was over. And then they shot the big angle after the match where the death riders came out. to attack Kenny Omega. And they were about to kill this man.

They wrapped a chair around his neck. Will Osprey, who is challenging him for the world title in Wembley and who has recently become a member of the Death Riders. He sprints out to the ring to try to stop them from doing it. And John Moxley gets into the ring, and he had just tagged with Ospre earlier in the show. And Omega is still laying on the ground. Osprey's got a chair in his head.

Moxley pulls the chair away from Osprey, throws it down, and Moxley pulls out the plastic bag of doom. We've seen him suffocate people like Brian Danielson before with that plastic bag, and he hands it to Will Osprey, kisses him on the cheek. And Osprey is, I mean, he's shaking. He's physically shaking. He's staring at the bag. He's staring back down at Kenny Omega.

He's debating in his head what he's going to do. and he walks towards Omega and ultimately he just rips the bag in half. Now, mind you, Omega was laying on the mat. He didn't see any of this. Okay? I'll get to why that's significant here in a little bit. But he rips the plastic bag in half

and then he turns to Moxley and he drops him with a punch. He has made his decision. So as quickly as he was officially inducted into the Death Riders, he is now out of the Death Riders. And he dispatched each of them one by one. The Death Riders retreated. Osprey looked down to the championship, picked it up. Kenny got back to his feet.

He went to hand Kenny the belt. Everything seemed to be copacetic between these two. Right? They're still brothers. And they're celebrating until Kenny Omega puts Will Osprey down with a one-winged angel. And we end with the shot of Omega posing with the young bucks who would also run out. First of all, the fact that they even kept this match to 25 minutes is, a sign of great self-control and self-restraint because by paper-view standards in AEW, 25 minutes is nothing.

It's a drop in the bucket. But it didn't really need to be more than that. So good on them for not going, you know, 35 or 40 minutes. But in the end, it was John Moxley, proving that he was right in what he told to Will Osprey earlier in the show in the back where it's like, you've got to be willing to go all the way here, right? Because this guy's not going to hesitate. You're wrestling for the world championship at Wembley. and if you can do it, then I will.

And he almost did until Osprey got in his way and he made his choice. So now we have some real tension here between the two players and the main event in London next month, which, again, is much better than what we had before, where it was just this mutual admiration between the two of them. That's fucking boring. You can't do that for five weeks. But I mentioned the plastic bag, and I want to know what Kenny Omega has to say in his promo tomorrow night on Dynamite, because when he gave Will the one-winged angel and dropped him on his head, he picked up the plastic bag and he was kind of pointing at the bag and he was yelling at Osprey

as if, you know, oh my God, you were going to suffocate me. All right, but the bag was ripped. It was in tatters on the mat and he didn't see any of that. So it was a little forced, you know, as far as like, this man had a plastic bag put in his hand and he ultimately decided not to use it. So why is Kenny getting so upset? Hopefully he'll explain that on TV tomorrow night. But it was a newsworthy show.

You know, it was a newsworthy show with Osprey leaving the death riders, three title changes. A couple of new matches made official for the pay-per-view coming up. Not the best AEW pay-per-view I have seen this year. And there were no questions addressed to Tony Khan at the post-show scrum about the latest development in the Paramount Skydance bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which they thought was going to going to sail on through. Not so fast. Pump the brakes. If it happens at all now, it may not even happen until next year. They've hit a roadblock. Paramount announced last Friday that it agreed to pause its acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery until anti-trust trial first takes place or June 1st,

2007, whichever comes first. The Writers Guild of America and 12 states Attorney General have filed lawsuits challenging the merger, alleging that it will lead to less competition in the film and TV industries and fewer jobs. Paramount is putting a happy face on this. They're calling it a significant win and saying that they look forward to proving their case at trial. And in the meantime, they will now begin at the end of September. They will now begin paying a ticking fee that they previously agreed to pay if the

transaction was not completed by the end of September, which it will not be. They will be forced to pay an extra 25 cents per share each quarter to Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders. So if this thing were to get delayed until next June, let's just say, they would be on the hook for an extra $1.7 billion. On top of the $110 billion they already agreed to pay for the company. They only pay now they only pay that $1.7 billion if the deal ultimately closes. If the deal falls apart, then they don't have to pay the ticking fee. Although they would have to pay a $7 billion termination fee to Water Brothers Discovery. I got us. I mean, look, if you're David Zazlov, you are sitting pretty right now because

either the deal goes through and the shareholders get that extra cash or the deal doesn't go through and they collect $7 billion for nothing. They could always start spinning off assets, I guess. They could spin off the movie studio or CNN if they think that might help get the deal to close. I don't think they want to do that. Why even make the deal in the first place? if those are the things they went after.

They don't want to spin that off. But Paramount is looking for a November trial date. The Attorney General of California wants the trial next year. Paramount wants to go to court sooner. Because if they lose in court, the faster that happens, the faster they can appeal the decision possibly all the way up to the Supreme Court. And that would only delay things further. And there's no guarantee the court would take it up.

But I guess that's part of their strategy here. Now, as far as which one would be preferable to AEW, you know, which scenario? Because Warner Brothers Discovery is the media partner for all elite wrestling, as you all know. As far as which one would be preferable to them, you know, Paramount buying it or, let's say, Netflix coming back in and getting it. To listen to Tony Kahn talk about it and his great relationship with David Ellison, it would be paramount. But I think that's just him gassing them up, you know, to get them. get on their good side. I think he would be doing exactly the same thing with Netflix if it was them buying the company. Netflix has the relationship, though, with WWE. Paramount does not. So it might

actually be worse for them if that happened, but I think this Paramount deal is terrible to begin with. I would love to see the whole thing go down in flames. It just never felt realistic to think that it would. Even now, it feels like a long shot, but there is a non-zero chance of it happening now. Whereas before I would say it was zero. Now there's a non-zero. chance that this thing is going to fall apart. In any event, AW is safe through next year and the end of their existing deal.

And I thought this was interesting. Former WWE champion Dave Batista, Big Dave, love Big Dave. My favorite wrestler-turned actor. He was the only good thing about that knock-at-the-cabin movie. He sat down for an interview with Kail Owen of Wolf Jims, and he talked about how he got into wrestling

and why he has no plans on going back. said, people always asked me why I got into wrestling, and I always tell them I hate answering this because it's not a glamorous answer. I got into wrestling because I wanted to make money, because I was fucking desperate. I was poor. I had two kids and not a dime to my name. After a while, I became obsessed with it, and I would have wrestled for free because I just loved it so much. Making a good living, wrestling was kind of a side effect. I left the company on good terms. I left at the height of my career. It was hard as fuck to walk away because I walked away and I went broke. It was nice having that check coming in every week, but I walked away because the company was

heading in a direction that just wasn't right for me. It worked out. I was lucky it worked out. I walked away as champion. I walked away on top. It's hard to walk away. Most people don't walk away. And this is why it's such a running joke when wrestlers retire because they never retire. They retire like five times. There's people, they always thought throughout the these years that I would come back. I would come out of retirement and I told them over and over I won't. I had a fucking storybook ending. I won't shit on it. I'll go do manual labor before I tarnished that. If I go broke again, I know what it's like to be poor. I don't like being poor, but I know what it's like, and I will go fucking broke and be poor before I ever go back to wrestling.

I will never wrestle again. I went out the way that I wanted against the guy that I wanted to go out with. It's never going to be that good again, and I just won't tarnish it. That was the WrestleMania 35 match with Triple H. Triple H is the guy who really gave him his big break, you know, when he brought him into evolution and then put him over big at WrestleMania. He put him over on three straight paper views, in fact. And let me tell you, Triple H didn't do that for many people, okay? I can't think of anybody else that he did that for. But he also discussed the toll that wrestling took on him back then. He said, I can't speak for how it is now, but when I was there, you're just grinding. You're pulling your own weight, and most of the time,

it's not only physically, but mentally very difficult. It's also very expensive. When I was wrestling, they pretty much provided you with airfare, and that was it. No food, no cars, no hotels, none of that. So my first few years of wrestling, I was broke until 2005. When I became the world champion and I started to make some money. I was still borrowing money from people. I was living in a tiny apartment when I was world champion because I had just become the champion. I had not started making money yet. I used to go to those check cashing places and get like a $300 loan and then you would come back, pay it, borrow another $300 and do that week after week. That was until 2005 when I didn't have to do that anymore and I started to make money. I always tell everybody coming from wrestling,

this is gravy because when I was wrestling, not only was I grinding, it was a very different spot every night. There's a luxury about filmmaking. You're typically in the same place for long periods of time. Whereas in wrestling, you're moving and hustling. Also, nobody is catering to you. Nobody is setting up stuff for you. You don't have a trailer. It's not people there helping you with things and moving you along and making your life easier. Yeah, I do think it's ridiculous that in WWE, the talents are still responsible for everything outside of airfare. when it comes to their travel. I mean, unless that's changed recently, and I mean, you know,

to my knowledge, they still take care of their own hotels and rental cars and ground transport and all that stuff, which is part of the job. I know in AEW it's different. They actually take care of a lot of that stuff. I know Chris Jericho has talked about that.

In WWE, that's not the case. Because they're independent contractors, even though they're really not. I swear, I'll never forget that interview that Bailey did. It's like five or six years ago with Fox Sports. And the reporter was stunned to find out that the wrestlers have to drive themselves from town to town after the shows. Like five or six hours in the middle of the night.

She was stunned that WWE didn't provide drivers for them or that they didn't have a collective bargaining agreement. She's like, you don't have a CBA? Bailey was so uncomfortable because she could probably see like, oh my God, This is going to be terrible. And she's like, no, no, we don't. Oh, I'm sure WWE must have loved that interview. I don't care how much money they get paid these days. That's not even the point.

Independent contractor, my ass. And we'll end with this. I get a couple of emails from you guys that I wanted to go through. You could always email me, the Solomonster at gmail.com. You can find me on X at Solomonster if you want to use the hashtag uncrowned. I got this email from Steve. I'm a wrestling fan of 30 years who loves the mindless escape of the shows like most do,

but I thought you were too hard on this past Saturday night's main event and last week's Raw. I thought Saturday Night's main event was wildly entertaining. And even though Raw wasn't a blockbuster episode, they did a great job of showing the depth of their roster. The involvement of the Knicks showed that you can use outside celebrities without forcing them into the story, i.e. Pat McAfee. I also thought the in-ring work was good.

Just my two cents. I've been loving your new show on Uncrowned and have listened weekly since it started. Well, I like hearing that, Steve. I appreciate that very much. And look, that's why everybody can have different opinions and we can debate and discuss different opinions about different things. That's the beauty of all this. I'm going to disagree with you on that. I did not think Saturday Night's Made event was wildly entertaining.

That's not how I would describe it. There were parts of it that I was entertained by. but I think they went overboard, especially with some of the Knicks integration on that show. And just in terms of Saturday Night's main event itself, I just didn't think it was one of their better efforts.

The thing, I will say this, and I'll even use last night's raw. He was talking about last week's Raw. Talk about last night's Raw. Despite the stuff I didn't like, there were two matches on that show. One was Javon Evans against Rusev, and the other was Ethan Page

getting a win over Ray Mysterio. None of these four men have a match at SummerSlam this weekend. So it didn't really, I mean, this was the final raw to build up SummerSlam. This had no impact whatsoever on SummerSlam. But Javon Evans, every time he goes out there and they feed him a win, they have him in a situation where he's got to, you know, climb out of a hole, he's got to make a comeback like he did against Ruseb last night.

It's good to see and hear the fans behind him, like in a major way. And that's how you build somebody up, you know, brick by brick, bit by bit. You know, you keep feeding them wins until eventually you're ready to put them in a position to, you know, win a championship or whatever it may be. So that was good. And then with Ethan and Ray, they had a solid match. I like that, you know, Ethan got the win as he should. Ethan is somebody who I'm pretty bullish on, honestly, where, you know, when I think about his next six months on Raw, him with that intercontinental title makes a lot of sense to me. I want Chad Gable to get his run with it first,

but then if the idea would be to transition it over to a heel, I don't think you're going to find a better option for that than Ethan Page. Depth isn't necessarily an issue with the roster. It's just how certain people are being used. That's the bigger issue. And Sam from Atlanta, Georgia, I've always found pro wrestling to be a compelling subject for film and TV, particularly because of its blend of inherent tragedy and gritty.

Realism, while I understand why the Crossface project ultimately stalled due to the family's wishes, it makes me wonder about other untapped narratives in the industry. Which wrestlers or specific historical events would make for a great movie or series if the creators were given the green light to tell the complete unfiltered story? Yeah, so when he mentions Crossface, that was going to be a Chris Benoit-related project. I just jogged my memory. I had completely forgotten about that. And yeah, that's stalled out in development. Look, they already made one. It's called the Iron Claw, although I don't know how unfiltered and accurate it really was. But I mean, the Von Erics are as big of a tragedy in wrestling as anything. And if you didn't know the story or you weren't a wrestling fan, you would never believe that it could be real.

Like, I could see people who were not wrestling fans or never even heard of the Von Ericks before. when that movie came out, going to see it and thinking, well, this is clearly a fictionalized story. And then when they go online and they start researching the real story, they're probably just traumatized reading about it. So if anything was ever made for a film, I mean, that's it right there. Bruno San Martino's life, I think, would make for a great movie. There was talk of one either being in development or there was one that was being pitched a few years ago. I don't think anything is happening with it. So he's got a pretty compelling story.

And Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle is another one. Great story that could be turned into a feature film, right? The Foxcatcher stuff. Which I know, you know, Foxcatcher got its own movie already. But the Foxcatcher stuff, winning a gold medal with a broken neck, his career in wrestling, his drug and alcohol issues, his marriage falling apart, his redemption arc.

It's a great story. Maybe it'll be a movie one day. Anyway, keep them coming. I love the engagement. I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Got another one in the books. We get to do it all over again next Tuesday. That's going to be coming out of SummerSlam.

So I'm sure there's going to be a lot to talk about there. I'm going to get out of here. I will see you back here next Tuesday again. Make sure you're subscribed on the Ariel Helwani show feed or the dedicated feed for the uncrown wrestling show. Tell all your friends. I am the Salomonster. I will see you back here next time.

Until then, take care, guys.