The Press Box - Ep. 120: 'Ringer Wrestling Podcast' With Bill Goldberg and LaToya Ferguson

Episode Date: May 31, 2016

The Ringer's David Shoemaker is joined by former (and maybe future) professional wrestler Bill Goldberg to discuss his favorite WWE memories, the return of the L.A. Rams, and the 'WWE 2K17' roster card. Then A.V. Club writer LaToya Ferguson (19:00) on the upcoming WWE brand split and re-examining the 2002 WWE roster selections. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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To start using Seat Geek, download the first. free seat geek app or go to seatgeek.com. Welcome once again to the unnamed ringer wrestling podcast. We will have a name soon. We will have our own feed eventually. And we will have the great LaToya Ferguson on as my co-host this week. But up first, we have a very special interview. Who's next? Yeah, that's right. It's Bill Goldberg, the ringer interview. The first former wrestler guest of this podcast history. It's a great honor for me to welcome in one of my all-time favorites It's Bill Goldberg. Bill, welcome to the show.

It is an honor for me to be here. We're coming up on, I can't believe this. I was doing the research last night. We're coming up on 20 years since Goldberg, since the phenomenon exploded in WCW. Does it seem like it's been that long for you? Told me that it's, um, but. Yeah.

Well, I mean, you're here for, I guess we're here for a special announcement, which is that, 2K Sports has hooked this up because you're going to be the special pre-order bonus for the new edition of the video game, WW2K17. That's a pretty, I can imagine that's a pretty crazy honor for you, especially when, you know,

the people that have come before, people like the Ultimate Warrior and Sting and Arnold Schwarzenegger, how did you find out the news? You know, we've got it up to what they did. If you, you know, these games, they go back, you have all the characters. I mean, the ones in the past years have had so many characters throughout wrestling history. But when you sit down the first time and pick up the controller, who's the first one or two wrestlers that you want Goldberg to square off against?

Well, what, have you watched Roman Raines? Do you watch the current product? Because, you know, that's a, that's a comparison that I've heard a lot too. And I think, and I think it's a sort of interesting one. You know, I, yeah. Well, you're, I mean, you talked about, you know, being compared to current guys. I, you know that the, that the internet's going to run wild with speculation that this is, we saw this happen with Sting where he got, he was on WWE 2K and then, uh,

you know, not too long thereafter. He was, he was actually on the active roster. Do you think there's any, what are the odds that we, that we see Goldberg in a WWE ring sometime? Had some ups and heads of down.

Uh, but just for the record, you're physically, you're, you're right where you were when you, when you were you, when you were in your prime? Or what would you say?

my little boy So speaking of cardio shape I mean I went back and watched a lot of your A lot of my favorite old Goldberg matches last night It got me It got my heart pumping I mean what like my favorites You know I gotta think

They're Brett Hart match A great DDP match I mean just seeing you come out When you debuted with WWE And interrupting the rock I mean there are so many great moments What to you are your favorite matches or moments From your in ring career

Yeah man I'm going to, and that makes me want to go back and watch the Steiner matches right now. The, the, you're also, oh, you have to. Yeah, I mean, but speaking of potatoing and kind of like working, working tight, working stiff, whatever, I mean, like, your, your style was a little bit ahead of its time, you know? I mean, we, there's so much MMA influence in wrestling these days. And, and, and I think, you know, when you debuted, there, a lot of fans didn't know quite what you were doing when you were, like, putting guys in the corner and kneeing him in the ribs. So, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when, when you, when you, were, when all those guys were training at your gym, or even in the years since then,

um, do, do the, do the MMA fighters come up to you and they're like, like, holy crap, it's Goldberg? Are they like excited? Do they, do they know you as a famous wrestler and get really excited? I'm never getting the other famous goldberg. I'm glad you said it. All the fighters that I know only tell me off microphone that I'm, how big of wrestling fans they are. So, um, one more, oh, shoot. Oh, man. That's, that's, that's great for my, for my wrestling fan ears to here. One more question about your, about your time as a wrestler. In all of your matches, who was the one guy that you got up for the jackhammer and just thought, you know, maybe I've just gone too far tonight. I hope that the wrestling fans that buy 2K17 will

find something resembling that sort of Zen state when they try to pick people up and try to try to match your undefeated streak. I'll let you go, but I'd be remiss if I didn't, and ask. I just moved to Los Angeles last week to work for the ringer. You're a California guy, and you spent a little bit of time with the L.A. Rams earlier in your career. How do you feel about them coming back to Los Angeles? Well, the first goal is that. Yeah. Well, we got to, we got to do something to get you down there on the sidelines because, you know, anytime I could see Goldberg and the Rams together, I would be, that would really make my day. And I think a lot of fans would agree. But thank you so much for talking to me, man. I'll be looking forward to giving

2K17 a shot, and I'm sure there's fans all over the place that are looking forward to playing two different versions of Bill Goldberg on 2K17. You've got it, brother. Oh, man, I will go tell him that right now. He'd probably be very excited to hear it. Thanks so much. You got it. And now back in person in the Ringer studio, I'm joined by my other guest, my true guest, my co-host for the week, the one the only, Latoya Ferguson of the AV Club, the AV Club's premier wrestling writer,

much better than that, Roman Raines, Mark, Kyle Fow. Absolutely true. Just kidding, Kyle, I'll love you. It's been a big week, if not in the wrestling ring, in the wrestling world, in the breaking news Twitter arena of pro wrestling. You know, we're going to talk a lot about this brand split that they've announced.

Right off the top, when you heard brand split, Latoya, what happened? What did you feel? There were hearts in my eyes. I'm a pro-brand split girl, actually. Good. That's a great tease for later on. We'll definitely come back to this. I will be honest, there are some hearts in my eyes as well.

Anyway, but a lot of other stuff happened this week. Let's talk about some outside of the ring or at least non-WWWE things. The biggest thing that happened, at least on my Twitter timeline this week, was the gif of the beginning of the Rickishy Will Osprey match. Oh, you mean the death of wrestling?

Oh, my gosh. We're coming strong this morning. Yeah, the death of wrestling. What did you think? You've seen these guys wrestle before. Yeah, I've seen them wrestle. I saw the gif, and I didn't really think much of it because it's basically their big gymnastic spot they do at the beginning when they go one-on-one.

They did it in their evolve match. Yeah, this is their thing. Yeah, that's their thing. That's how they start their matches against each other. And then everyone blew up and it was either the best thing that's ever happened in wrestling or the worst thing that's ever happened in wrestling. You know, I knew that it was, I knew that it got serious when Jim Ross had to chime in with a fairly positive reaction to it.

Yeah. Because, you know, J.R. is like the bastion of the old school of, like, matches having meaning and whatever. And to be fair to these guys, they just did this little, like, pop spot at the beginning of the match. And then they had a regular wrestling match that followed it. So, you know, J.R. wasn't, like, BSing when he was talking about it. But, but, yeah, I mean, it's a cool thing, you know? It's like, it's a weird thing when that, I mean, it's, listen, one of the most impressive physical things I've seen ever. Olympics included. This was a really cool spot to open the match.

But it is sort of weird because we're like in this very like we're in like the cave of like wrestling nerd Twitter. And this is the sort of stuff that doesn't always align, you know, with that. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. So anyway, you're saying the death of wrestling. Well, I thought it was fantastic just in general because because like you're saying, that's just insane athleticism. I did actually see the match and not just gifts and I love the match I think it was their best match actually and I was really into it

and I made like my family members watch it and they're like that was an amazing match but we're gonna make the ringer staff will be watching this match later on today so it's homework it's an interesting thing because you can kind of like the old timers can kind of crap on it and even the nerds like me can be

just a little bit over the reaction online about five seconds after the reaction starts. I guess that's how I'm an old-timer. I'm not, people like you and me, we don't complain about, like, you know, like old-fashioned work rate. We complain about, like, just memes getting out of hand too quickly. Exactly.

Because we're just too old for that crap. But, yeah, I mean, people, that's a great kind of entry point because everybody knows wrestling's fake, right? You show them a John Cena match and, like, a non-fan is just going to, like, groan and leave the room. You show them this match. Well, no, it's fake, but they'll wonder, like, how can they possibly do all the things they're doing. Exactly. Yeah, it's really, it's super cool. And there's been a lot of ricocheted

WWU rumors. Have there been, have there been, have there been auspired of WWU rumors? Certainly, there have been. If he's, I mean, look, if you just watch him in this match. I don't know how there can't be after this, because I think there might have been some buzz, and then he's signed with New Japan. And, yeah, I know there was, uh, well, offrey, to TNA rumors. Oh, I was saying before this match. He looks like 20 pounds heavier than the last time I saw him. Like, he's, he's putting on some muscle, man. Which, it's always a good sign, actually. And then it's, or just, or just, A sign. You know, just to preview what's coming up, when we're talking about the brand split,

we, you know, our flashback of the week is the March 25th, 2002 episode of Raw that featured the brand split talking about people putting on muscle, man, there was an abundance of supplement use going on in 2002 in WWE. I hope that's not that. I know obviously we're at a different era now. So, you know, good, all the best of the guys who are doing it naturally these days. But, yeah, man, I love Rikishay. I met Rikishay one time.

I've told this story on podcast before. But the first time I went to go see Lucha, and he wasn't on the card, and I was really sad because I wanted to see him live and whatever. And I was talking to some of the producers whenever after the show and just sort of getting a lot. I was there to watch people leave, basically. I wanted the full experience. And I turned around, and Riket is just, it's, it's.

It's empty. The temple is empty. Rurcée is just sitting on the front row, staring at the STO cage. It's around the ring. And I just was like, what? He's here? And I walked over and I was just like,

dude, hi, I'm David. Like, what are you doing here? And he was just like, man, I just love wrestling. It's just like, this is the greatest, the weirdest, like, most reaffirming thing that could possibly happen. He's clearly a mark for himself, obviously. Well, he's a mark for the sport.

That's more important. Anyway, speaking of the indie wrestling ranks or the extra WWE wrestling ranks, Cody Rhodes tweeted his list of future of, I guess, dream opponents. What was the date that he had on it? It was like July. I think it was like August 19th. Yeah, there was definitely a 19 in there. It was a good list.

Very good list. You know, it was sort of depressing. to like have it be that final that this is really going to happen and this wasn't just a gimmick. I know everything's a gimmick and that saves us, you know, as wrestling fans, sometimes you imagine that like, Sam Punk's not really leaving, Daniel Bryan's not really retiring. Oh, CM Punk's definitely coming back for the main event in WrestleMania. I don't know what you're talking about. Cody Rhodes, this is all part of a giant like NWO style work.

Anyway, but his list was, I mean, like, I want to see all those matches. It's funny because I fantasy book, tell me what you think. fantasy book, crappy WWW wrestlers going on to the Indies. Like, there was just... Like who? I mean, I remember, like, two or three years ago, I said that they should just give them out of doors to, like, Dragon Gate, a Revolve, or whatever. You know, just, like, let them have some fun in a different federation where people

would, could, you know, admire different parts of their skill set. Would that really help them? I mean, it would certainly... That's a different discussion right there. But, I mean, now we're... Now they've helped themselves. and become the shining stars. We can talk about that when we talk about Raw.

We don't need to talk about that at all. But yes, we can. Be whatever you want to do, so yeah. But yeah, so here, I'm pulling up the picture that Cody Rhodes tweeted right now. So, by the way, as the art director of the ringer.com, everybody check out theringer.com. As you're listening to this, who knows, that website might exist. I can say that this is some real top-notch Photoshop work that Cody Rhodes pulled off here.

Adam Cole? What are your feelings about Adam Cole? I love Adam Cole. I think Adam Cole is really great. I'm counting down the minutes until he signs with WVE. I mean, I'm enjoying the fact that he's now in the Bullet Club because he's everywhere. He's just Mr. Indies right now,

which is weird because he's not one of these dudes that just popped up and everybody said, you're just doing the Indies to get a WW contract. But he did kind of feel like Mr. WWE when he showed up when he really started making ways. Exactly. It wasn't like a matter of if.

It was like when, basically. Yeah, he's not the biggest dude. He sort of looks like if Beau Dallas were a little bit smaller and on P90X. Like if you see him in real life. Yeah, he's got that personality. I took a friend who like doesn't really watch wrestling anymore and hadn't been to PWG shows.

So like his first one, like a few months ago. and one of his notes were like Adam Cole and Zach Saber Jr. The two of them like, why are they here? Why aren't they in WWE right now? Yeah. No, no, it's true. I mean, Adam Cole is really, really great. I accidentally waited in line with him for a bathroom a couple of weeks or at

WrestleMania weekend. And he was a very, very nice guy. Dalton Castle. I mean, are there any of these like here? Let me show you this list. If there's anybody on here that jumps out to you, who are you most excited about seeing. Let's see.

The Young Books are on there. The Donald Castle one could be really fun. Adam Cole, obviously. Chris Hero. I love Chris Hero. Me too. I mean, Chris Heroes and one of the great guys in the business. And I've loved, man, I mean, his indie work has been really, really strong over the

past year. Shabata, that would be an insane match. Shabata. That would be, Cody's insane. Yeah. Yeah. I love that, like, Pat Buck and Roderick Strong made the list, too. I mean, it's just like, this isn't just like the,

newest shining stars, no WDVWWW. Yeah, exactly. This is just like, like, these are all guys I would love to see him wrestle. The point I was going to make earlier was I always booked crappy WB talent on the indie scene

because I just would like to see what would happen if, like, you know, if the social outcasts just got shipped a ring of honor for a year, you know, I'm just interested to see what happened. You mean where Heath Slater would reign supreme and show everyone how great he is? Well, you're being kind of serious. I'm not, and I don't think that's impossible.

I think that it's, you know, especially like, you know, Ring of Honor, even at their best, it's a lot like the old ECW where they kind of just have to like book with the talent given and like do the best. And they have a really good booking committee, a good creative team. And yeah, like, there is totally, it's totally feasible that Heath Slater could be like bigger than Matt Hardy was for them a couple years ago.

Yeah, I feel like Keith Slater, if he were to go to the Indies, I don't think that would ever happen, honestly. I think like he's pretty much set for life in W&E. Oh, no, no, no, I think so, too. Yeah, I feel like he could, like, tear it up on the indie scene, honestly. But the point I keep, I keep failing to make is that I always book crappy wrestlers going to the Indies. It's so weird that Cody Rhodes is going now, you know? Even when he announced that he was leaving, I was just like, oh, maybe he'll just do New Japan for a minute and then, and then WWU will re-sign him for a billion dollars.

You know, or something like, I don't know. Or maybe he's going to go. I thought he might just go, like, act in a movie or, like, open a yoga studio or something. Like, I don't know what Cody Rhodes is into. I would love to know what Cody Rhodes is into. Well, the times are true. changed, I guess, now it's just, it's more viable. Like, it's viable to just go hang around in the Indies or in Japan and, like, make a great living, too.

And, like, people will actually see it and it will go viral. I wonder, and I know, like, tech, like, from a, from a WVE corporate standpoint, this would be next to impossible. But, like, it would be viable. He lives in Florida, right? Like, wouldn't it be viable for him just to become Rino at NXT for, like, a year? Like, couldn't he just, like, take some indie booking shows and then just, like, also work at NXT? I think. Do they live in Florida?

I think they might live in Texas. Oh, maybe so. When I did a very perfunctory Google last week live during the show, I got a Florida, I got in Florida, but like... I think Brandy Eden, like, tweeted something about going back home to Texas. Oh. Well, it could be a metaphorical going back home to Texas. But yeah, you're right. So, anyway, I mean, it's just, it's like, it's a, there is a lot of viability out there.

It's a lot of interesting, a lot of interesting stuff going on. I mean, we got a name check before we get out of, before we get into the real stuff. this Jeremy Gordon piece in the New York Times, everything is wrestling. Or, alternatively, is everything wrestling? I tweeted it out. If you haven't read it, go check it out. It's not like the freshest, the hottest take

and the history of takes. I remember when my book came out two years ago, three years ago now. It's got to plug that book. Yeah, the squared circle. It's still as good, as relevant now as it was then. But I would go on the radio, all these are like random radio shows

and say, kind of make the semi-facetious point that pro wrestling was America's greatest art form. It's more important than jazz, and it says more about the country than jazz or whatever other art form you want it, rock and roll, whatever you want to say will ever do. Just because every, I mean, you look around, like our whole country is based on this like culture of artifice, at least in the, at least in the 21st century. And certainly we're saying a lot of it transported out in the political sphere right now. What do you, what do you think? Yeah, I agree to that. I'm saying that I often say that it's like, wrestling's the last true performance art.

So that's how I said. I don't know if I would say it's the greatest art form possible. But yeah. And so I just think it's a good export. But you do see these elements. He talks about pop music a lot and all this stuff. I mean, like... And of course, reality TV and...

Oh, sure. I mean, reality TV has been very influenced by wrestling from the start. And now it's, I mean, that's why I say... When people ask me why wrestling's hip or popular or not... Or doesn't have the stigma it used to have anyway. Yeah, that's my first reaction is. it's reality television. I mean,

it used to be that people would say, you know, that stuff's fake, don't you? When you were talking about wrestling. Which is always a stupid question. Right. It's all,

that's inherently stupid. But even if you're stupid enough to ask it, you can't, you can't ask that about wrestling and then go watch the real housewives. Right. I mean, everybody knows everything's fake now. And then you think,

think about that, like, you know, is Fox News any less fake than the real housewives? Like, like, it's all, it's all a put on. And the pot,

he talks about Chance the rapper and Beyonce. I mean, I remember when, like, was like an unsigned or artist for like a year and a half. And it was clear that, you know, like, there was a long-term plan for him to sign. You know, like, this stuff goes on.

And it's really, on the one hand, really awesome. The wrestling can take some credit for it. And on the other hand... It's never going to get the full credit. It deserves probably. Yeah. And it's also scary for our country. I mean, it's scary for our world.

Reality doesn't really exist. I don't know Tate, what do you think? That's depressing, geez. I think you're right. I think reality does not exist. Okay, Tate agrees. Reality does not exist.

We're just going to spend the rest of the podcast just being depressed as hell. Nope, we're not. We're going to be upbeat about this. Because, because... Because? That's a section break there. Because it's a new era in WWE, Latoya.

I don't know if you've heard about this. You have, wait, you're putting your head in your hand. I hadn't heard. Thank you for alerting me to this new era. Tell me more. We're going to talk about the brand split in a minute, but first let's touch on Monday Night Raw. The new era was in full effect, and the one thing that I really want to focus on was the return of John Cena and his immediate feud with none other than AJ Stiles. What was your reaction? When this is going down, first of all, John Sina comes out, gives a little America the Beautiful speech. Yes, he does.

And then A.J. Stiles comes out, plays a little baby face, and then everything goes to hell. Give me your play-by-play. Well, let's see. Kind of want to fast forward through the America speech because it's part of like the one thing that still just like really pisses me off about John Sina. Like, I'm not, oh God, I'm going to sound anti-patriotic, but Sina's. you know, whole, I'm the Marine, everything. It's always, like, rub me the wrong way because, you know, he never actually served. And, like, when they lay it on super thick like that, it's like, it, I understand, you know, his respect for the military, but, you know.

And they respect him, too. But I agree. It just makes me uncomfortable more. Memorial Day is, is an all-time weird holiday for me just because I, and I know this makes me a terrible American, but I don't, I'm not, I'm always caught a little bit off guard by the level of reverence for the troops on that day. because in my childhood, that was not, I feel like that didn't come up a whole lot. Yeah. Maybe it's just because we're in a time of war, like, whatever.

But, and I've been working on this website all weekend. So, like, I was just in a dream state. Like, I was like, like, my brain was so frazzled. John Cena comes on the TV, and he starts giving the speech. And I honestly thought, I was like, did we kill bin Laden again? Like, what happened? I believe we compromised him to a permanent end. Yeah, exactly.

Thank you. But I was like trying to like Google to figure out what he was like, why he was giving the speech. And then it was like, oh, it's Memorial Day. This seems really over the top. Doing this with Ellen shorts on. Yeah. Anyway, so go back. We failed at skipping over that part.

What was your take on that segment? Well, then AJ Styles comes out. After Sina, basically he calls out the new era. Like he goes from pro-America to be like, now I'm the face that runs the place. So, hey, new era people. You're going to have to go through me, which I'm like, oh, God, Sina. By the same time, I'm like, kind of want to see those matches. Yeah.

I've long made the case in writing that, like, the Sina's most important role is he's the guy that makes the people you care about matter. They're young wrestlers that you care about matter. And certainly that is like now his gimmick, full on. Yeah. And I'm glad they just kind of accepted that. And so A.J. Stiles comes out. And then basically chills because the pop that Green Bay gives the two of them being in the ring

is amazing. And it's not let's go Sina Sona sucks. It's AJ Stiles, let's go Sina. And it goes on for over a minute. Yeah. It goes on for over a minute. It's always hard to do. It's always hard to like really gauge those things just because, you know, it feels

like it went on for half an hour. But yeah, I mean, yeah, it was crazy. It was amazing. And you could see, like, you could read AJ Styles Lipsies like, this is awesome. And then Sina's like saying, yeah, this is what they want to see. And. Yeah.

It's nuts because, well, I, you know, we, I've been talking on this podcast and in writing about how it's sort of crazy that they're, that they're, that they've been letting these, like, kind of indie wrestlers keep their names, right? Yeah. It used to be, like, it was seen punk and nobody else. Well, I guess John Cena, because he just got to keep, he has a good name and they let him keep it. But that was before, like, the rule they did. And Samoa Joe told us over the back of the cheap heat podcast, I think, that he was just like, or maybe he said it somewhere else. that he was just like, you know, we decided like we could either start making money on merch today or we could make it in two months and people get used to my new name.

So that was a good reason. But I did wonder on Monday night watching Raw if part of the decision to let AJ Styles keep his name was that like it fit in the chant so well. You know, like as soon as it was happening, I was like, oh yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like it's the exact. It fits in just for seeing punk used to fit. Like not only is he going to work there.

But yeah, it fits in the cadence of the chant, too. Yeah, it just fits in so well. And it's a joke everyone makes now just AJ Styles being in WWE. It's so surreal. You literally have the face that runs the place and Mr. TNA in the same ring. And you know they're going to wrestle. It's going to happen. Yeah.

This was like one of those terribly fantasy book things like 10 years ago, you know? Like, what would happen if TNA invaded WBE, Cina versus A.J. Stiles? Yeah, the answer, if TNA hadn't invaded WWB. it would have been shit. That's the answer. This is somehow, like, give WW some credit because that felt like a real important moment. And it might not have, you know?

I mean, it's, it was, it would have been impossible to predict the level to which AJ Styles was going to be over right now. But, you know, especially last week when it felt like we were just headed for an AJ versus the club, like silly sidebar feud or like people were talking about AJ just kind of getting jodied out of the title picture

when Rollins came back. And there's always going to be people overreact. acting on the internet. I'm not trying to paint everybody with that brush. But, man, like, this AJ versus Sina was made so incredible by the existence of AJ versus Roman reigns. And by everything, AJ, you know, by AJ Jericho before that. And this just feels like, like, so obvious and yet so important. Like, it's just, it's a, it feels really, I mean, I don't know, I'm very excited to see it. That's the feel of a new era right there. And so I'm I'm just saying new era a bunch of times, like a moment like that is what shows the new

era, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I wonder how, I mean, what is the over-under on new moves Sina is going to bust out at TLC? I mean, sorry, at Money in the Bank. I just hope he keeps going for the Springboard Stunner and never gets all of it. Yeah. That's really the secret meta storyline going on for Sina right now is just like his never-ending quest to actually hit the springboard stunner. Yeah, I mean, like, I wonder his like kind of like, and Sina is, by the way, I'm a fan of seen his ring work. He tries really hard and he actually tells good stories and he does a lot of stuff nobody else can do. Um, but I am going to show on his Hurricane Rana a little bit, but I think that that's going to hurt someone. I got to tell you though, just like me himself. Sina's Hurricane Rana is not

terrible if you have somebody like AJ styles bumping for it. So I'm very excited to see how that works out. We're talking about that ricochet Osprey match like they'd have what they do down to a science, but like if they, that little, the little, I mean, what's, is there a technical term for the super aerial version of the Hurricane Rana that's really just like you rub the insides of your feet on somebody's face and then they do a flip. You know what I'm talking about. It's like the very

lucha version of the Hurricane Rana. It's like the Frankensteiner is at one end of the spectrum and the thing that and this thing that like you do in like comic matches. Can you even call it like a snap situation because there's nothing really snapping. Yeah, whatever that is on the other end of the spectrum. I mean that's if you if they some, if you try

to do that to a big lug, you know, a WWE who at pick your wrestler, it would look terrible. I'm very excited to see John Cena's move set being sold by AJ Styles because he has made everybody he's gotten in the ring with look like a million bucks so far in WWE.

Let's see. I mean, before we move on to the brand split, the ending of the show, I guess we should touch on. I'm really excited about this money in the bank match. Everybody that sent it is good. I mean, I'm excited about it. I'm excited to watch it at the pay-per-view.

But it was weird. They kind of just like gave us the go home moment it felt like on Monday night at the end of Raw and also eliminated the spot in the match oh yeah smackdown they were still advertising there will be seven people in it and Raw they just stopped like six people did they because to me it sounded like they were just saying like these are the people who have qualified they were even showing like the blank seventh person spot on Smackdown as well and then just like they haven't like that completely got removed oh maybe maybe You know, maybe it's a surprise of a person. And they're trying to make us forget about it for a minute.

Maybe Ms. was going to be in it until he had to go film the Marine. The Marine 8? The Marine franchise is one of my favorite things about, in professional wrestling or out. Just in life. Yeah, it's just, it's really great. I think that they should totally just film a movie, film, like, WWE got the rights to, oh, wait, did they ever make LeperCon 5 or whatever after they bought the rights to it? Because they fired Hornswoggle last month.

I think it came out. Really? I think it did. Oh, man. I vaguely remember a trailer. Maybe I just imagined it in my mind. I've been having some crazy lucid dream since I moved to L.A. and I just can't separate real from fake anymore, which is great.

Everything is wrestling now. It's okay. It doesn't really matter what's real. Speaking of what's real, did you see that Dolph Ziegler movie? No, is it great? It's literally the worst W. The worst W. I've ever seen.

Oh, really? I've seen a lot of crappy W.E.M. Yeah. Sorry, Dolph. That's too bad. I like Dolf Ziegler. Was he bad? Was it just a bad movie? Everything was bad.

Yeah. And, like, the female lead was Catherine Isabel, who was, like, recently enough on Hannibal and was great. And my brother, who had not seen that Hannibal, like, asked me, can she act? Because everyone was so bad in that, herself included. It's amazing. It's amazing how, yeah. Some of their, a lot of the WWE movies are really good. They can be surprisingly better than they have any right. But maybe it takes some bad ones like this one to make you really appreciate all the other ones.

I'm going to watch it. Well, I'll let you know what I think. It has the worst car chase possible. Really? I'm sure there could be a worse car chase. I mean, there were real cars, at least. They didn't show like any toy cars as far as I remember. Yeah. So it could have been worse, I guess.

Yeah, just like with little strings pulling them. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there was, what were you? Oh, yeah, speaking of Dolph Ziegler, he had a, he failed at having a traditional a technical wrestling match on Monday Night. Although I kind of like Dawesigler with the headgear. I think it's a good look for him. Like, I love the look, honestly, and I was saying to you, I kind of wish we would just have

heel-ish Dolf Vigler against the new era, just like kicking everyone in the dick. Yeah. That'd be pretty fun. I would be totally into that. This was the most fun I've had watching Dahls Degler in a while. It certainly raises the question of how long they can stretch out this feud. Considering, like, Barron kicked them with balls, but, like, it was a no-d-Q match. Like, get over it.

Yeah. Why is it so far? Some people, that's really hard to get over, you know? I mean, but I will say, for a feud that, for like a mid-card or sub-mid-card feud that, like, for whatever kind of feud this is, I have no problem with this feud lasting six months. It's not my favorite thing, but rather than, rather than these two guys both go to other feuds that are going to be at the same level or lower, like, let it keep going. Let them keep doing all these weird stipulations. And at the end of the day, we won't really forget who got more wins over the other guy or not.

I mean, maybe if they did how they used that brief period when they were just doing like constant like gimmick hardcore matches with like props. Yeah. Like I want to see a pumpkin on one of their heads. All right. I'm sure I know a lot of people at WWE listen to this. So it's like certainly going to happen. Oh no.

If you had to guess, if I told you with 100% certainty, I came from the future. Oh dear. And one of those two dudes is going to be WWE champion within three months. Who do you think it is? Baron Corvin. Really? Yeah. All right.

That's a bold proclamation. Obviously, he's got a big future, but Dolf is, well, you're just giving me a sad face now. There's nothing I can do to work with that. There's nothing I could do other than just give a really sad face. Any thoughts on the money in the bank? I'll have more weeks to talk about this, but. Anything else for money in the bank? Not really.

I think they're doing well with like the six guys who are in it. I'm enjoying seeing this. Yeah, and then there's one other thing that happened that you really wanted to talk about. You told me about this before we came on the air. Titus O'Neill is getting a push, it seems like. A lot of people thought that John Sina was going to fall into the, it was going to be Rusef's opponent upon his return. I'm happy just because I want to protect Rusev. Well, I think that a feud with Titus O'Neill is certainly in the realm of protection.

I don't imagine him losing, but who knows? I don't imagine having a good match. Not a big Titus O'Neill fan. Really not, especially as a singles wrestler, especially when you're doing this Make Daring Young Great Again thing, which I guess they've dropped already. This would have been the perfect time for Darren Young to get a match of some sort.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen, I think that Titus versus, I think Titus versus Ruseff will look cool for like a minute at the pay-per-view. Is this a paper-view match, you think? Is this what we're sitting up? It might be a kickoff match, which just kind of sucks for the title. Listen, people have been complaining.

People complain to me all the time that, they don't know between the IC title and the U.S. title, like, which has more prestige. And that's why, that's the argument for making them one belt, right? I don't like that argument at all. We know which one has more prestige. Yeah. It's the good one. You know, it's the one that's not from WCW.

Yeah, it's, yeah, exactly. And it's the one that's not constantly being defended on the pre-show in, like, a match where one of the two guys might not be employed in a year. It's a different, it's a totally different tier. But I don't mind this match. Besides just, like, skill in general, I, It just feels weird that he's even in this, not even just because of the suspension thing, but because it just happened because he went to make the save for Calisto instead of, you know,

Sincara doing that. And then he was like, you know, he keeps demanding that Rousseau fight him, even though he's done nothing to warrant himself getting a match for the title. And then he got like, I'm an American and we fight. Patriotic. Yeah. And that's like, I think Mark Henry did this a couple of times. Like for lack of a better or more effective face turn, they just made him really patriotic. Which at least he was like Olympic.

Yeah. Oh, sure. Sure. That makes sense more than... Listen, I'm a very stupid wrestling fan. If you're going to go... This applies to John Sina, too. I'm sorry, John.

If you're going to be giving a pro-American speech, you better be wearing red, white, and blue t-shirt. Or briefs, one of the two. That's the only way that I... Otherwise, I feel like you're doing it ironically, and I don't compute. Yeah. So when Tice was getting really aggressive,

like, America, we fight, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, and everyone was chatting USA. It just made me really uncomfortable. And it's like, wow, we're just going to get super xenophobic, aren't we? There's really no reason Roussev should get, like, just in storyline at all, no reason he should give Tysa, like, a match. I want to say, it's the only thing, I think, I mean, one of the only things is keeping Rusef heel. I guess he's got his foreigners and he's got his, he's got Lana.

But it's funny, the impenetrable wall of foreigners, though, because if that was an American dude, even if he was an American dude playing a Russian gimmick, he would have had like a run as like a top baby face by now. The thing about the foreigners, too, is that, what was it, on the pre-year-old? show, like for the last preview, like his broken English accent, it's, he's completely dropped it at this point. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, he's just a dude. Yeah. He likes going to hockey games with his fiance.

Yeah, who doesn't? Yeah. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out, but I agree with you about Darren Young. I actually just would love to see Darren Young. I mean, I, like, I'm sure I can go online to some superstars matches and watch right now, but I'd be really interested to see how Darren Young performs. you know, in a 10 or 12-minute match on a pay-per-view.

I don't know the answer to that question. And I'm much more interested in finding out the answer to that than seeing Roussev-Tytosoneo. Yeah. But anyway. Because as good as Rousseff is, I don't know if he can, like, I don't know if he's ever been in an opportunity to, like, carry someone, you know? Yeah.

Like, either someone equal or, like, a better wrestler in him. And he's a very good wrestler, but I've never seen him have to, like, elevate someone. His ring skill definitely goes up a bunch of notches when he's in there with something great. He has very good psychology. But he's capable of carrying match. And if he's not, I guess we'll find out very soon. All right. Jumping to the biggest news of the week, circling back around and flashing back to 2002,

let's talk Brant Split. Let's do it. It's the biggest. I mean, this is a huge deal. It's something that I've been pushing for for a long time. Me too. If for no other reason, then just because, like, it makes, well, I mean, okay, the biggest argument against it, I'm just going to say it up front. The biggest argument, the problem with the first brand split was that Vince McMahon, and who knows if it was him, but I'm just assuming it was him, because I've heard it was, could not abide by the rules of his own brand split.

I'm sorry, not Vince McMahon, the on-screen character. Vince McMahon, the COO or whatever, or the CEO of the chairman of WWE, when you're going through hard times, it's really hard, you know, when ratings are down, it's really hard to not call John Cena and say, get on this pay-per-view

even though you're not on the SmackDown roster. You know, you need to, like, anything you can do to Goose ratings, you can do. Now, maybe they have a little bit more latitude now that it's all network, I mean, 98% network. People are already paying for it. But, like, man, And I just, if they stick to the rules, whatever arbitrary rules they lay down, I'm excited.

How do you feel? I greatly feel that way. And when you know, when they started doing the raw super shows with SmackDown, like, that was the beginning of the end. And then we got the W.B. World Heavyweight Championship, which I think was like really the death nail, because there's always the argument that when you have like the two world titles, obviously the World Heavyweight Championships, like, is the quote-unquote job or title.

But at the same time, a lot of the guys that, like, we. love would never have gotten a chance at the title if not for that World Heavyweight championship. And people, in the fact, Daniel Bryan, we wouldn't have like the yes movement if not for that World Heavyweight Championship. I know a lot of people complain about the branch, but like, well, I never even watched Smackdown. It's like, well, that's your own fault, really?

It's kind of your fault for, like, missing out on things. The past several months, Smackdown has been an incredible show too. I mean, like, without an official brand split, they're obviously kind of trying out different things. Now, you know, I'm going to write a column at some point that I'm sure you will too, that gives them all the advice we can give about how to make this brand split work, right? And there are a lot of little things. But just from a, I don't know, from like a purely conceptual level, you're right. It gives people a chance to shine that wouldn't normally have that opportunity. You could say that you could do that on the main roster with or without

a brand split. You could, whatever, but like really, just seeing somebody, I mean, back when they had two different titles, just like you were saying, to see somebody carrying around the big gold belt, you just could, you kind of, the WWE creative team would just get it, would get an idea whether or not it would work to put the main belt on them. Dolph Ziegler's two reins, those are the World Heavyweight Championship. Yeah. Yeah. Guys like Cody and Wade who just left, they could have been holding that belt.

They should have been holding that belt. Exactly. And I'm not doing this to like to sit on Roman Raines, but as long as Roman Reins right now, especially, is the guy, you're not going to get anyone else, like, who can get, like, It's hard to get somebody over. I mean, AJ Styles may be the exception to the rule, but yeah, I mean, Cody and Wade are really interesting people to bring up. And you can also look at sort of everybody. You were saying to me off, I think, before we started taping, the sort of pre-generation that's getting kind of metaphorically jobbed out to this new era.

People like, like, Kofi Kingston or, I mean, like. Well, it would have been Kofi, if not for New Day. But, yeah, like the ones who were like waiting. for their time to shine. Yeah. And now we've already like, kind of skipped over them. Yeah. I mean, the toughest spot to be, and I think Cody and Wade are probably like,

are like the top two people I would have put in this category. Almost even like the toughest spot to be in in WWE is to be a viable champion for some point in the, like, indeterminate future, right? Like if something happened and like half of the WWE roster got arrested and thrown in jail, you could have made Wade Barrett a legit champion. like he'll contender for the champion in about five minutes, right? I mean, he's already been there when he first started out, but like he's got all the skills necessary.

If he's healthy, he can be that guy. Cody Rhodes, same thing. You know, you can, maybe it takes 10 minutes because you build in this like interesting backstory of like the Rhodes boy finally achieving his dream. But like both of those guys could have been booked to the championship. And I think the problem was that WW knew it. So they're like, why do we, so why pull the trigger on that when we just have that in our back pocket for a time that we really need it in the future. With a brand split,

those guys, people like that will have a chance to really shine, hopefully, on the second show. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I've always felt. And people are like, but no, there's not enough roster. We're always talking about how this is the biggest roster they've had in years. There are so many people not even just getting on main event and superstars that you could be using and you're not using them in a three-hour raw. Yeah. Come on. And here's the thing. For, we're talking about roster size. The roster, I mean, there's a lot of people on. on the roster. There's plenty of people. Yeah, that's not even counting like,

and the first and the one complaint that I've had forever that I think everybody should, everybody should, everybody should agree with me on this. It's okay to have a feud that doesn't make the pay-per-view card. Like, Dolph Ziegler doesn't need, Dolph Ziegler's matches, I mean, if Dolph Ziegler's in a six-month-long feud, he does it with Baron Corbyn. These guys don't need to be on every pay-per-view.

Maybe every other pay-per-view is fine. They don't have to have a match. They could just be, like, backstage, too. Like, just have like, a backstage segment. Exactly. or have their big blow off like we hate each other so much we're going to hate each other with chairs match on an episode of Smackdown or raw or whatever it's going to be, you know?

Like make those episodes feel bigger because the world of WWE is too big to be contained by a money in the bank pay-per-view match or a pay-per-view card. Sorry. The best thing about one of my favorite things launching the ringer has been engaging in in-depth conversations with the copy chief about how we work with, when there's a match and a card that have the same have the same name like money in the bank or the royal rumble

and the funny and just i've showed him clips of wwee announcers wrestling with this no pun intended in real time on the air um because they're basically like michael cole is basically copy editing his speech in live on television he's like the money in the bank match on the money in the bank pay per view which is not actually a pay per view on the wbd network you know like it's a wonderful wonderful world we live in right now But talking about roster size, you and I watched the 2002, what did it, the March 25th, 2002 episode of Raw, where the first brand split took place. Vince McMahon had Smackdown. Rick Flair had Raw.

Rick Flair, by the way, it feels like he hasn't changed much over the past 15 years. This was a totally different era of Rick Flair. He was great. He looked great. He was, because I remember at that point when people were already kind of. of dogging on him as a wrestler a little bit. But man, he could talk. He could, he could just, they just went up on,

he was making draft picks on live television. And there was no, with Uncle Orne by his side. Yeah, there was none of this old, I mean, there was none of this fear that, the kind of, the kind of half serious fear we have whenever Rick Flare gets a mic now, that he's just gonna. Like when he had a mic last week. Yeah, exactly.

Very, very little risk of crying in 2002. And for the most part, staying on script, but not even script. We just knew he was going to do the right thing. He exudes such confidence on the mic. But anyway, yeah, it was a really, like, the roster in March, in March 2002 fit in a room not much bigger than the one we're sitting in right now. There were just a folding chairs and everybody got their own seat. It was, and I always love when all the wrestlers were in the same room.

Yeah. I love seeing how they just interact in the background, you know. Yeah. And it's always, I mean, just from like on a meta level, it's great. because only like half of the people in the room, if that are acting at any given time when the camera's on. It's like Perry Saturn may or may not be aware that he's being filmed at this moment.

A nice touch I appreciated that it was never going to be acknowledged which is the fact that Trish Dress was sitting next to the Dudley Boys because they're her friend, so why wouldn't she? Yeah, it's a lot of little nice things like that. So the draft ended up being, as these things naturally go, it ended up being a lot of sort of psycho-gratial. drama between McMahon, who is being coached, for lack of a better term, by Kurt Engel through most of the show.

And then... Kurt Engel was the only reason, like, Vince made any good choices, apparently, based on what we saw. Except for picking Kurt Engel, because he thought, because Kirk convinced him that Rickfler would not pick the NWO. By the way, the NWO... No, no to pick the NWO. But you get three guys? But it's WBNWO.

Yeah, but still. X-Poc was wrestling in shorts on this show. This was the most undressed we've ever... Well, with the exception of sex tapes, this is the most undressed we've ever seen X-Pact. I haven't seen that sex tape. I haven't either, but I'm sure a lot of our listeners, I have no idea.

I'm just going to stop right there. Although I will say them picking NWO kind of went against their own rules of the draft because the Billy and Chuck one it was because they were the champion, so they got a package deal. Sure. But the Dudleys, they were.

got split up. Yeah. You could have just been like, I'm going to choose Kevin Nash and the rest of them can go away. Yeah, it is weird that you can pick the NWO. Right? I mean, do you have to have a team name or could it have just been like broad categories of wrestlers?

Just like, I'm going to pick, you know, I'm going to pick like South American wrestlers. Like, whatever. If your team has only a one word name, you can be picked together. Oh, Dudley Boys. Yeah. Okay. We also saw the, like, the Hardy Boys. There was a lot of parallels to right now, I feel like, in this episode.

Because it really did feel like a sort of new era. There were all these guys, I mean, guys and gals, like The Hardy Boys with Lita, who was, by the way, the last draftback. Very interesting, very interesting storyline move there. But Edge, Christian, that was Youngish Angle, Brock Lesner, RVD, get to sort of like cusp. Yeah, I mean, there were just a whole lot of Rikishi, who was a great example of, obviously not a young new guy, but somebody being put in the position to succeed

for the first time, really, as a singles wrestler, it, there was a lot of, it felt like very vital in a way that maybe it wouldn't have six months before that, that felt a lot like right now. And especially knowing now, like, given the time, like, soon, like, this is like, especially on the Smackdown side, it was beginnings of what would eventually become the Smackdown six, too, like, all the drafts they were having. I'm like, this makes me so happy. Yeah, it was really, really great. You watched Smackdown, the following episode of Smackdown, I watched out and stopped watching after this episode.

I didn't watch the Smackdown that week because, like they said, the changes wouldn't take effect to the week after. So I watched the Smackdown the next week, and I'm like, okay, this is something's up. That other SmackDown had probably already been taped by some weird contrivance of the taping schedule. But so anyway, you watched the first Brand Split Smackdown, and what struck you the most? It was just, it was fun. It was still, the worst part about all of the,

This was of classic attitude era. It was all like two minute, three minute matches. Sure. Like matches, like, some of them I really wanted to see. I'm like, ooh, we're having Triple H and Tristierico. Wait, nope. Stephanie's in this match too. It was, although it was a pretty fun, like shit show.

By the way, I want to, I have to read this. I want to get, I want to find somebody on the, in the ring or staff that can do a convincing British accent to pull the segment off for me because it's something I've been wanting to do for a while, but I'm calling this brief interruption, wrestling with Wikipedia. It's a section in which I just read a number of sentences from Wikipedia

that make me crack up just because of the phrasing. But trying to hammer down the backstory between why the main event of this episode of Raw was Chris Jericho versus Triple H versus Stephanie McMahon in a triple threat match for the title. Which, by the way, spoiler, well, we'll get to it. I mean, it was all of like Stephanie's

worst qualities, but at the same time it was a pretty fun match. Yeah, so this is the I was on Triple H's Wikipedia page, and this is, I'm going to just read directly from this. The McMahon-Helmsley faction was brought to an official on-screen conclusion. By the time he returned, Triple H's on-screen marriage to Stephanie McMahon was faltering, so Stephanie faked a pregnancy in order to get him back on her side. When he learned that it was fake, he dumped her publicly on Raw when they were supposed to renew their wedding vows. Stephanie aligned with Jericho afterwards, but she was forced to leave,

after losing a triple threat match on Raw the night after WrestleMania when she was pinned by Triple H. The divorce, and thus the storyline, was finalized at vengeance. There's no better, there's nothing better than Wikipedia like abbreviating inane storylines.

And by the way, if you're gonna, if your marriage has to end, I think a spine buster is the way to do it. That's not true. I should not say that out loud. I was going to make a really terrible joke. Yeah, I mean, just wrestling relationships.

They should, I mean, it's a miracle that Triple H and Stephanie in real life have lasted this long because when you, because like those on-screen wrestling relationships, they're just can't. Nothing, I mean, nothing is more fragile than those. What did you, what was your take on the actual draft that they pulled off

in 2002? The Rock goes number one. My first reaction was the Rock is exactly, like, the Rock has not changed at all except for his hair and amount of muscles. Well, my thing about The Rock was that, like, now, if you watch this episode of Raw and then, like, watch a recent Rock appearance where he cuts a promo, you can see why people are always making jokes, like, is the Rock high when he's doing his promos now?

Because, like, he, you know, repeats words a lot. He, like, kind of stutters a bit. Like, he repeats everything. He didn't repeat anything in this Raw promo. It's like, it was just, like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It was just, like, very smooth. Pandering into the crowd very smoothly. Like, yeah, people try to say he hasn't changed, but, like, he has changed, and it's not quite

for the... better. Yeah. The number two, well, I mean, you know, he doesn't do this every week anymore. Yeah. That was a weird era of rock too where he was like losing a lot of weight, losing a lot of hair, but still trying to keep it all together. But he was wonderful.

I mean, definitely the number one pick. I did. We should say, you are an asshole, I did appreciate. Yeah. He got the you are an asshole chant going at Vince McMahon, which was just wonderful. And so uncle Zee Boston, by the way, was exempt from this because of a contract clause, which was a hilarious little threat. As were Triple H, Jericho, and Stephanie.

Because they were wrestling in the championship triple threat match at the end. The second pick was The Undertaker, which was a shocking pick because he was feuding with the guy who picked him, Rick Flair at the time. And Undertaker was not happy. Undertaker and his, like, the first, like the top five buttons of his shirt were unbuttoned. Yeah. And no one needs that. No, no one needs Roland to be their theme song either, and that was the case that night. They're showing like the clips of Undertaker with Roland, and they're also like interspersed with the.

music video for Roland. It's like, oh, that happened. There was a guy like cosplaying as Fred Durs in the front row in that raw. Tate, do you think we, do you think we could get Limp Biscuits Rowland to be the theme song of this show? Is that? I hope so. Okay, good.

That's what I mean. The, uh, the, I want, someone who's listening to this, please make me a giff of the Undertaker's reaction to being picked. It wasn't just him throwing whatever he was holding against the wall, but it was the wobbly camera at work, like it was like a handheld camera that zoomed in on his. him as he realized he was being picked was maybe the funniest three seconds of Raw I've ever seen. It was like, and I'm getting too old for this shit reaction, and then he just exploded. Yeah, he went off.

The third pick was Kurt Engel. I mean, by Vince McMahon. Flair picks the NWO. We've been over that. Then number five, wow, Vincent McMahon goes with Chris Benoit, who's just coming off of an injury. Because Kurt Engel told him to. Yeah. That was, well, I don't know.

Kurt Engel might have been wrong about that one, too, in the big picture. Kane with a shocking, at least for me, surprising choice at number six, although he was one of the big, the most over wrestlers in the business at that point in time. Yeah. And he was wrestling in his semi-seathru shirt. The see-through shirt, that was a big moment for see-through shirts, I feel like. Yeah, but this is also, this is probably the beginning of, like, Kane turning into, like, he's going to be like a comedy guy, right? Like, it's going to be, like. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of ups and downs.

But he did make, he made the big save for the Rock and Hogan when they were getting beat up. by the NWO later on the show. Like, this is a big cane moment. Yeah. But I think, like, face cane at that level meant, like, the transition was going to be like, we're going to make him more, you know, family-friendly, essentially, like, we're going to have some really bad things going on. Yes.

Hulk Hogan then goes to Smackdown. This is Hollywood Hulk Hogan. I'm not sure. He keeps saying that even though he's, like, dumped the MWO, so technically he's not Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Yeah, I think they just hadn't made the official move to put him back in red and yellow. tights yet. Yeah, I mean, it was a really interesting, you guys watched the episode of raw.

He was red and yellow on that Smackdown after, actually, yeah. Oh, like one episode later? And they were still calling him the Hollywood Hulk Hogan. That's really weird. Yeah. Was it a Hollywood Hogan or just Hollywood Hogan? Hollywood Hulk Hogan? Oh, that's very strange because they just, I don't know, I don't even know.

Ivory and Trish had a great match on the show or a short match. Yeah, it was a bit sloppy, but it was like, it was good, it was fun. Yeah, but it was the first time, and we talked about the kind of the Divas Revolution. and this great, and again, comparing it to today. That was like, I mean, 2002 might have been the last time that you could just, that you would have a women's match in the middle of a show as just a regular match and people are into it, and it's not like some sort of throwaway tickle fight

sort of thing. Although a puppy's champ did break out. Yeah, well, I think that that was sort of a necessary evil of the time. I mean, if you look at, I mean, I've watched a lot of old stuff and actually read a lot of old, a lot of old Vince interviews for a piece I'm working on, and I think that there's, There's something, too, as just irritating as the king was, the king did tone down. Okay, the king was our proxy in the announce booth, right?

Like, he yelled puppies because that's what, that's what, like, your average young male fan was thinking. What your Fred Dursk, cosplayer was thinking. Exactly. But he also, but saying puppies, as weirdly demeaning as it was, was also a way, it also steered everybody away from saying tits or, like, whatever more offensive thing they could have been saying, right? He made, he sort of like made it all a little bit less lewd, even though it's a lot. He made it more creepy and less lewd. And then I think served a very important role at that time.

And I like I said earlier, man, we're at a peak illicit supplement moment in WWE right here. I love going back and watching the old like Hulkomania era where you just see where like, you know, Ricky the Dragon steamboat's arms are like 36 inches around. Like he's just like so puffed up with water weight that it's just ridiculous. And everybody on the roster looks so silly. This, I don't know what was happening in 2002. The Rock was skinnier than he had been. But there were a lot of people who had, let's just say,

who looked like they'd been spending a lot more time in the gym than they ended up looking later in their career. Jericho. Yeah, well, Jericho's a good one. I mean, I think there's nobody that's, yeah, nobody that's, yeah, Nobody that's been mentioned so far gets off the hook. I think there were, yeah, I mean, this was, it was a pretty impressive, pretty impressive moment. But yeah, go back and watch this episode, get it in mind because there's another big brand split coming up and there's going to be a lot of points of comparison. What was the, oh, you know what you told me earlier was on that about the, about how this was the new era according to Michael Cole as well.

On that Smackdown I watched, Michael Cole just kept talking about how it was a new era. Like, he just kept hitting that new era. No one else on the show was saying it, but Michael Cole and his frosted tips were. Myho Cole's Frosted Tips are my favorite WDB announcer of all time. You know, it's interesting that you bring that up because on Monday night, Michael Cole accidentally called Raw Smackdown. He said, we'll be right back with this live episode of Smackdown after this break or whatever. Oh, cool. And you've got to wonder if maybe it's just not, maybe that's what happened.

Everybody was thinking, oh, he's getting ready to call Smackdown. Or, like, you know, we've been talking about how Smackdown's changing. maybe saying the new era again, his brain just short-circuited back to 2002. I kind of wish, because that means his commentary would go back to that level, too, and we could all be happier. Because you think he was better in 2002.

I mean, I think that I didn't have to deal with him talking about hashtags then. I wonder, there's a lot of, this brand split is going to be, there's a lot that could go wrong. Brian Depperstine, who listened to this podcast, might know as Peter Rosenberg's agent, You know, I didn't get him in the divorce, but I do live in the same city as Brian Dipperstein now, so I'm calling it shared custody.

You're going to have an affair? Oh. Yeah. The, uh, but he was very upset about the brand split. He thinks that it's like the word, he just, he just, anything that, like, disrupts his, like, simple k-fabe world is a problem. And he thinks that it's, frankly, that, like, you know, WWB is sort of headed in the right direction and this is going to diminish raw. And, you know, the kind of the, the, the, maybe diminish the most important. things rather than kind of spread it out wider.

I think that, listen, I hope it brings back the sibling rivalry the branch to have. Yeah, I wrote about this before. WWU is at its peak when they were feuding with WCW, or they hit a huge peak when they were feuding with WCW, and they've been trying to find competition ever since, and it's never happened. For a while, it was Raw versus Smackdown.

Over the past year or two, it's become WV versus NXT. I mean, really, they've been. finding their, they've been finding passion by, by trying to match what NXT's able to do. So if this works out as another like, like, you know, like you said, sibling rivalry, it could really be great. But, you know, there's, there's some things that could possibly go wrong. And it's, and we'll, it's a matter of time. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I just hope during the brand split and I hope, I kind of hope they do like, you know, a big special. I hope that at least one wrestler dresses up like Matt Hardy in this episode. He was dressed like Xander Harris from Buffy. And I was like... Yeah, that's actually... That's exactly right. I was trying to place it.

He looks like... He looks like he's wearing like two parts of a regular outfit, but putting them together is really weird. But yeah, it's that sort of 90s, like, you know, can't hardly wait moment of movie and TV where, like, everybody was wearing these outfits that only really existed on television and movies. Yeah, it was really, really perfect. I really love the team of...

extreme jackets that they came out with. Those were really dope. I totally missed that part. They look great. Yeah, it was like, because of the black light, so they were white jackets and they looked really good. Wow. It was like the preface to the, or the precursor to the Jericho Light of Jacket, which I

guess is gone now. Before we get out of the show, by the way, props to Seth Rollins were actually pulling off the same Jericho gimmick that Jericho did, but he came back by just not talking for, and not doing anything for like 15 minutes. I love that so much. And before we stop talking about jackets, I would want to give you, I would just want to give some attention to the beautiful throwback macho man jacket that you rolled in in today.

Of course, thank you. It's very nice. And a WCW Monday Night Jericho shirt, which is the... Living my best self right now, actually. I'm glad. I'm living out of two suitcases right now and only managed to bring... I think I brought two wrestling t-shirts, and I've just been trying to save them for a really... I don't know what the specific time is.

What shirts are they? I got a lot of advice on how to pat it's one is a one is just the the fake retro macho man greatest all of all time shirt that homage made which is just incredible and the other is an actual vintage stone cold Steve Austin shirt that's just like early it's right before I mean it's probably the first shirt that was stone cold Steve Austin or amongst them it was before the Austin 316 shirts were everywhere it's a picture of him stunning somebody I thick, but then someone on the back has ironed on Costuncle, the words

because Stone Cold said so. So it's like a double layer, I mean, of awesiness. And it's pretty comfortable, too. But yeah, so is there anything else that we've missed this week? The new era is upon us. Oh, I know what I was going to say is that there are a lot of things that can go wrong. The one thing that could go the wrongest is if

SmackDown just becomes like raw, right? I mean, the best way to do this is we've established that NXT, NXT is established that there's kind of another way of doing a WW product with the same production values, the same everything else, you know? The best thing they could do would be just to give, like, you can't just have it be the same, obviously it's going to be different rosters. The way to do it right is to have separate production teams, separate creative teams, like have everything be really different.

And I don't want to like unnecessarily full-8, triple-H, you know, just is this like, but we do, and knock Vince because, like, you know, they work together and we don't know the intricacies of their relationship. But if we're just speaking in the way that people talk about on the internet, they just need to give SmackDown to Triple H. You know, they just need to have two different people

running these two different shows. Yeah. And sure, everything is going to cross the same desk at the end of the day. You know, Kevin Dunn's going to sign off on all the graphics and everything. But it would be awesome if they felt different. You were talking about the sibling rivalry. It really needs to be two

different products. Yeah, just go out there, try to do what works for, like, your brand versus this brand, like, play the strings of whoever's on either roster, you know? And it's not always going to be the same thing, so it should be different. Yeah. Well, anyway, it's going to be a whole new world. What is the date that we have set for the brand split? That is another 19th, I believe, July 19th. Wow. Oh, July 19th is, oh, no, June 19th is money in the bank. Yeah. And then we're, we're splitting a month after money in the bank. Yeah. That's awesome.

I'll just take that to be true. If it's not true, then everybody can correct us on Twitter. I've written down in my notebook of notes, but I don't know where I put it. People are going to correct us on Twitter whether or not we got everything wrong. So I'm just going to, I just like to get a few things wrong in every episode to have a point of conversation. But yeah, July 19th is the answer. All right. That's cool.

We can all look forward to that. Well, listen, Latoya, thank you so much for coming by. What's your Twitter handle? LaFergs. L-A-F-E-R-G-S. It's LaFERG-I-I-I-E-R-G-S. Like, I don't know why. I knew, L-A.

You live in Los Angeles, you know, like, it's L-A-F-R-G-S-A-Fergs. Anyway, so it's LaFergs for Twitter, and where can people check out your stuff? You can find my wrestling stuff over at the A-V-E-V-C-Cub. I write also a complex and a few other places, so I'll let you know what I'm writing, you guys. Don't worry. Yeah. And I will be reviewing the first episode of the Brandsplay on SmackDown. And if that does well, I'll be the Smackdown reviewer, leaving Kyle in the dust.

Oh, wow, that's good. Yeah. So the brand split's actually, mate, are you just excited about the brand split because it's going to pay off for you? I was already like always wanting one, but now it's going to pay off for me, so. That's good. It's good. It's good.

So the brand split is at least for, at least for Latoya. It's best for business. Yeah. Thanks to Latoya Ferguson. Thanks to the one and the only Bill Goldberg. Thanks to Tate and podcast Joe. Have a good week, humanoid. Thank you.