The Press Box - Ep. 124: 'The Ringer Wrestling Podcast' With Blake and Dave Schilling

Episode Date: June 7, 2016

David Shoemaker, David’s buddy Blake, and Guardian writer Dave Schilling talk about Brock Lesnar's UFC announcement, Lesner's career, and how his MMA return may affect his legacy (4:00). Then they discuss a very goofy episode of ‘Raw’ (26:00) and hold a ‘Raw’ vs. ‘SmackDown’ mock draft (36:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's podcast is brought to you by the new HBO series Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons. The new show will feature intimate conversations with compelling guests from the worlds of pop culture, sports, entertainment, the arts, and technology. Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons will also include field segments and Simmons's signature commentary on current events. Make sure to watch Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons premiering Wednesday, June 22nd, at 10 p.m. on HBO. We're also brought to you by our new website Theringer.com presented by Miller Lite. Go now and check out the latest in pop culture, sports, and tech at Theringer.com.

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but at Seat Geek, the price you see you, is always the price you pay. With Seat Geek, there's no guesswork. You'll know exactly how much you're paying, where you're sitting, and whether or not you're getting a good deal, all right from your phone. So drop your old site and experience buying and selling tickets the way it should be. To start using Seat Geek, download the free Seatgeek app or go to Seatgeek.com. Welcome to the still unnamed Ringer Wrestling podcast.

Actually, someone tweeted me, if it's going to be unnamed, we should just call it the vacant title. because that's the greatest pun of all times. I love it. Yeah, I'm into it. Anyway, I'm sitting here in the lavish offices of Bill Simmons with the, one of the people that people have demanded be on my new podcast on a fairly regular basis, my buddy Blake. Hey, what's going on? And friend of the ringer, former ground staffer and cheap heat special guest at least once. No one asked for me to be on this show.

sorry. I asked for you to be on this show. This is Dave Schilling, everybody, from The Guardian. What's up? I think one person asked for me to be on the show, and it was Shoemaker, and that's it. So, right before they told, right before they had to do that introduction, Dave was telling me that, wait, what is the story of Seamus? Oh, Seamus wants to be Venom in the Marvel universe. Oh, so not. He wants to play the character of Venom. Okay. What were you thinking I meant? Well, I grew up watching Jerry the King Lollar and Memphis Wrestling, and they actually had fake Spider-Man on that show, as well as like fake Ninja Turtles and some like monster movie monster. Jason, there was at least two Jason's.

Yeah, he's not trying to make Venom his character on WWE, which I don't think would get over very well. No. Just going to throw that out there. And I think Finn Baller already sort of has the dibs on that. A little bit, you're right, yeah. So is there a chance that Seamus is going to be going to be? I'll read this.

This is on Bleacher, or it's on Uprocks. I want to be a part of the Marvel universe, Seamus said. I am a big fan of the Marvel comics and The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, but I would love to be a part of the Marvel universe. No offense to Topher Grace, but he just didn't look like Eddie Brock.

He looked like Eddie Brock had been on a hunger strike for a few weeks. Is he really just name-checking Eddie Brock? Yeah, he knows about comics. Wow, that's great. I thought, like, the first part of that sounded like when he just got a microphone from his face for the first time from like a real outlet, and he was like, I'm a big fan of,

and then reads the top 10 television shows off a piece of paper. How much does Seamus think that he looks like a rogue newspaper reporter, Eddie Brock? He does have the Topo Grace. He does have that hat and that sweet vest he always wears. Yeah. I don't, yeah, this seems like a very terrible idea. And I think he's just hoping to get another acting job before his career is over. Before the shine wears off.

All right, just we can have terrible ideas. The biggest thing in pro wrestling history happened this week, and we're talking about Seamus playing a comic book character. Um, the biggest thing in pro wrestling that could possibly have happened has nothing to do with pro wrestling. And that is that Brock Lesner has announced that he's going to be fighting at UFC 200, um, against Mark Hunt. Now that's the official thing that was he was announced it on Sports Center the other day. Uh, we will get to Raw, Monday Night Raw. We will get to the impending brands put later on.

But up front, I mean, like, how crazy is this that, that, uh, that Brock Lesnar is now a two sport competitor. Well, the part that I don't understand is I thought he had diverticulitis and he couldn't fight anymore. Right. So did that just magically go away? Or is he risking it? Yeah, I thought if somebody punched him in the stomach, he would die or something like that. He diarrhea all over the octagon. He die and diarrhea. I don't know that that's necessarily like a disqualification, but the, I think that it's just a matter of him being much, much more stricken with it when he fought Alasdor Overeem. That he was just like, he had a long, he had a long healing process ahead of him. And now he feels fully healed.

Right. I mean, but I thought part of it, I mean, maybe I just don't know, but didn't they take out like a large portion of his stomach and that in real fighting? Not that, not that the WWE isn't real, but if it, if it wasn't real, I mean, that, isn't that, I'm just thinking, I have no idea. I'm not a, well, I used to be a doctor, but, you know, I left all that, but that life behind me. The, no, but I mean, I feel like if you got like a kidney transplant, they would tell you

to not play football for two years, you know, but then maybe you, you. you could make a comeback. Sure. This is a limited comeback, though, right? This is only... One fight. It's a... He specifically said he's...

Who interviewed him on ESPN? I don't want to get it wrong. He was on sports... Yeah, he was on sports center in the morning. Yeah, but anyway, she asked him, what happens if you won? And he said, oh, I'm going to win, but I have no comment on what happens after that.

So how long has he been training for this? I mean, he's got to be... He's got to be getting after it for a couple months, at least. He said that the moment that he said that he said that the moment that he's signed the WWE deal. And remember, when he was signing, when he signed that WWE, that new WWU contract before WrestleMania, there were lots of rumors that he was going to sign with UFC. Yes.

And he made a big appearance on SportsCenter. Again, I think SportsCenter announced that he was staying with WWE, which is a big coup for at the time. But he said that as soon as he did that, he felt like he had made the wrong decision. So, you know, he's a fighter at heart. And I think that he knew that he could just probably get whatever he wanted, which is true. You know? The weird thing is that it's, I don't know, I mean, like, I understand, I'm not going to spend,

I'm not going to spend this whole show, like, arguing in favor of a, of a wrestler's union. I've done that before, but I understand why Brock Lesnar has greater negotiating power and why Vince is going to roll over and let him do this, right? Well, he's the biggest draw in the company. Well, by far. But wouldn't it be better if, if, like, everybody could do stuff like this? Like, wouldn't it be more interesting if Dahl Ziegler was popping up and, like, popped Tart's commercials without asking WWE and then they would just have to roll with it?

I mean, wouldn't that like just kind of bring another level of interest of like intrigue into the promotion? Yeah, but then the Pop-Tart would pop up and Ziegler would get a concussion and it would just there's no way that he doesn't get a concussion in that commercial. And what if it's like a bad product? What if it's, you know, Bray Wyatt advertising like a skeet shooting equipment or something? Yeah, I mean, I guess the company. It's a cheapening the brand a little bit.

Maybe, but yeah, I mean. But that's the point, right, is that broad. isn't going to give you a quote unquote bad product he's going to he theoretically speaking he's he got knocked down three seconds by mark hunt he got knocked down in three seconds by frank mear right I mean no he got or no he attacked by frank mirror it was a quick match but so but there was but he wasn't coming back at that point um I don't know I mean okay so let's let's talk about Brock in the general sense like I I emailed you guys to take a look at Brock's raw debut, which was coincidentally

for the hardcore listeners of the show, the episode sequentially after the brand split episode we watched last week. It was a quick appearance. I think it was actually the week before the brand split. No, no, no. Because Brock was drafted the next week onto Raw. Oh, really? Yeah.

Oh, it's right there. Does he know? He knows. He knows. I was all up in that network last night. I did a deep dive. Don't blame. One of us is certainly wrong and whoever's wrong. I don't think, I think, you know, the blame can go on the network for putting everything weirdly in, like, reverse order sometimes and sometimes in proper order.

Like, I don't, anyway. But yeah, so, so there was, so Brock was, you know, made a quick appearance in, well, a throwaway match, I guess. I'm a big Al-Snow fan. Whoa, come on, man. You respectful. Al-Snow can get a good match out of anybody. Even Maven, who he was fighting tonight.

Al-Snow, Al-Snow is, was literally on T&A wrestling last week, trying to get a good match out of, some like two tag teams. Well, it's like 14 years later. Yeah. Asno can't work anymore. I don't know that it matter. He's like twice as muscular

than he's ever been. He looks like the main event or he always should have been right now. I don't know if he can move. This is the hottest take I've heard on this show before. Alice should have been. If you want to get into T and it, man, we could do a whole hour on the Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy feud that is, that is,

listen, the world would be better off if I just didn't, if I just didn't talk about it. But, What was they talking about? Oh, yeah. So, Brock Lesnar, so Maven and Al Snow are having a hardcore match. Weirdly Spike Dudley runs in about one second before Brock Lesnar makes his, like, supposedly shocking run-in. And then Lesnar comes in and just sort of like power bombs the hell out of everybody. What is there, do you see that? I mean, I guess you look at that moment, you can look at the moment where he made his big comeback, the Monday night after Raw.

I mean, the Monday Night Raw after WrestleMania, like his big triumphant return from the UFC. Was there any way to tell when he first debuted that he was going to mean this much to the sport? Not at all, because you didn't know he was going to go to UFC. The only reason why Brock Lesnar

became Brock Lesnar is because he became a legitimate athlete. He was already a legitimate athlete. Well, yeah, but I mean, he went in to U.S. professional athlete, UFC, very high-profile job where he beat people up. He was the champion. And so he comes in and he's booked a certain way because, you know,

WrestleMania 19 and there are all those like attempts to get him over and be the guy failed. And I think at the time, I remember when he came in, he was super athletic, more athletic than the other guys, his size. But he looked very, with the crew cut and just being jacked out of his mind, he looked a lot like Nathan Jones or a lot of those. those kind of talentless. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think Sina was after him maybe. I think Sina was maybe later that year and Orton was maybe later that year. But he looked very much like just some stiff dude who couldn't really do very much. And it was kind of impacted by the fact that like after that Batista came and a lot of other guys. And at the time, Batista wasn't a very good wrestler. But at the time, like a lot of these dudes, I just thought it was, okay, well, this is another big, gigantic jack guy with a crew cut that Vince has. super hard on for.

He could have been Hydenreich very easily. Yeah. Well, I mean, it is interesting. Yeah. I guess like in an era where the overwhelming impression you get from like an episode of raw,

like that whole episode of Raw was, I mean, there was the rock who was, who had a big role. But that's my, that's the weird rock. That's sort of like the Hogan's first, first few months in WCW era rock

where he's like kind of oddly skinny and has a bad haircut. You know, like he was between, he was between rocks. if that makes any sense. But, uh, but like, so the NWO and all the hardcore stuff, the ECW influence sort of broadly, like there were very, like everybody was just kind of wearing slacks or like wearing jeans and t-shirts or whatever, except the people that WWF was like churning out of their developmental system who all just looked like

generic like makeup players in video games. And Brock Lesnar was sort of one of those guys prior to getting a giant sword penis tattooed on his chest. Like he was, and he's obviously gigantic. But you're right in the sense that he didn't, the fact that he was a collegiate standout, Olympic standout, or just collegiate. Collegiate standout was sort of beside the point because the wrestling world has seen a million of those. And traditionally, you know, that's been the realm of professional athletes who have sort of failed at their sport or kind of, or reached the end of the line at their chosen sport.

What was striking about watching it last night and having seen, you know, however many years of his career afterwards, is how quick he was relative to now. He's not quite as quick now. I mean, that's just part of age. He was 25 years old at the time. But the guy was, he's as strong as he is now, except trim and just the fastest guy you've ever seen in your life. Yeah. It looked like they had no trepidate. I mean, you always hear about the old, like, like the, like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the.

the bookers or whatever, like the, the, the, the, the, the, Anderson's backstage will tell you, if you're a big guy, like, you know, absolutely never do moves that a small, like a flippy guy will do or whatever, because it, it just, it, it makes light, I mean, no pun intended, it belittles your power to be doing, like, moonsaults off the top, but you could tell that from the moment Brock Lesnar got there, they were like, none of the rules apply, you know, because he was just doing this crazy stuff, like, even just the way that he carried himself. He was just, like, like, cracking his neck, you know, and just like jumping around the entire time.

Well, they booked him as a monster at the beginning. He beats the rock at SummerSlam, wins the title after, what, six months of being in the company. And his title ring kind of flopped a little bit after that. And then they turned him baby face. They get rid of Paul Heyman. And then they have him talking and, like, trying to be like this superhero. And that flopped. And then the Goldberg program happens.

and then he's gone. You left pushing Zach Gowan down the stairs out of that timeline. I've been trying to forget that that happened. I just saw Zach Gowan on TV. Is he an American Ninja Warrior this season or am I crazy? His name has popped up a lot on the internet and in weird places. And so maybe he is. I just don't watch American Ninja Warrior, man.

My Zach Gowan Google Alert is off now. So I'll turn it back on. Anyway, so yeah, I mean, it's, I don't know. He was like this crazy specimen, like you said, Blake. But yeah, you just never knew. I mean, like, it was impossible. I guess it was just impossible to predict. To tie back around, I mean, what's what besides the speed, which was super striking, it was,

if you watch his facial expressions in the ring as he's waiting to power bomb Spike Dudley and beat the crap out of Maven or whatever, the guy is a total cartoon. Like he's making all these facial expressions like kind of, he's like kind of crazy, kind of unhinged. And that's so different from the guy he's become, which is the eye. I don't give an F. I'm going to be me. I'm here for the money. I'm here to beat people up.

I'm here because I'm really, really good at it, not because I'm necessarily a pro wrestler. I'm a fighter, whatever. That's crazy how much he's changed. You should really watch those early kind of 2002 matches. And the guy is so much different as he's almost a, it's almost like watching a caricature of Barack Leslie.

Yeah. So this is the kind of, I wrote a little thing, who knows if he'll ever actually see print, but about like how Ali, like, you know, Muhammad Ali in wrestling and it was a sort of weird thing where he adopted the style of a pro wrestler and then wrestlers at that point kind of had to

play I mean wrestlers, Ali bringing like the heel promo into the sports world, I guess my argument, is that like it sort of just took the wind out of pro wrestling because what, then what does wrestling have that is unique to wrestling? You know, it's fake fighting. Yeah, whatever. But I mean, that's sort of like an aside. But there is an extent to which Brock sort of took all of the,

the wind out of the sails of a certain, of that aspect of like the over-emotional or over, like, over-emoting pro wrestler because he was acting like doing all these facial expressions, doing all these like over-flexing and stuff. He was doing what they, what, you know, wrestling, what people, trainers will tell wrestlers, that's how you, how you're supposed to act to seem like a legit badass. Then Brock Lesnar went and became a legit badass and he came back and he was like, no, this is how you act if you're a legit bad, right? I mean, and it's so much more dangerous than these. It's almost like he's on a some kind of a Broadway play where they tell all the actors to over-accentuate all your facial motion and they put makeup on everybody.

That's Brock, that's Brock as a Broadway actor and now, except the play was about fighting and now he's just actually a fighter. He's just a one-man show. Exactly. It's insane. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because we're in a world where we have all these Conn Regregor type, Mike Bisping, who just won this weekend. Like, God bless that guy. Crazy. Have been basically doing the heel promo. schick in UFC forever. Brock Lesner, as the wrestler, goes over there and doesn't do it at all, except for, like, that one time when he

talked about Bud Light or whatever and got in trouble. But, I mean, he's, yeah, you're right, he came back and he just had no need to be a wrestler anymore because he had established what it meant to be the baddest man in the planet, basically, you know? I don't know. I mean, it's crazy that he's doing this fight.

Let's jump to, let's do one more question before we jump ahead, but, like, if he loses, let's just say he doesn't lose in five seconds. Let's say it's a fairly embarrassing loss to Mark Hunt, who is going to get built up like the baddest man in the world, even though he is a, I mean, and he is a very bad man, but he's not, he's not, you know, he's been on the, he's been on the periphery of the title, of the heavyweight title scene in the UFC a few times, but he's not, I mean, I don't think he's, he's just, you know,

he's like 12 in 10, he's like a good, he's like a decent fighter or whatever. He turns out of a nice way to say it. No one, like, has him pegged to be a champion at any point the future. You could probably lose to him. 12, 10, and 1 with all of his losses coming via stoppage. Yeah. So all of the, I mean, right. So, I mean, Hunt is, there is a way that he could be the UFC heavyweight champion because

there have been a lot of kooky heavyweight of all the divisions in the UFC that has the most ebb and flow of talent sort of. But like, let's just say that Brock Lesnar loses to a guy who, you know, is not the top guy in the division. But it's been fighting for the last five, six years consistently. then has to, then he shows up at SummerSlam a month later? What, how does, does that hurt Brock Lesnar's wrestling legacy? I think it has to.

I think, because they built him up to be unstoppable. He's only lost. But they started from a point where he hadn't, where he had lost. I mean, he got, he basically just got run out of the UFC and then shows up at the Roth to WrestleMania and is the, it's the biggest moment in, that, I mean, it's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's just one of the biggest moments in my wrestling lifetime. But if he loses and it's embarrassed. If he loses in like five minutes,

then I think you lose a little bit of that heat that you've built up of him being unstoppable. Because the whole point of creating this Brock Lesnar character in WWE is to have someone who, if he loses, it's the most meaningful thing in the entire. And that's the mythology. I mean, they've built this mythology of him and to have, you can't just,

you can't build upon that and have him wear the gloves out to the ring and the shorts and the Jimmy John's on his ass and all that stuff. You can't have him come out there and build on that and then press pause and just say, hey, he's actually going to, he's going to fight for real now. But if he gets his ass kicked in two seconds, don't worry about it. That's, you can't ignore it. It's too real.

Yeah. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds. By the way, I was just playing devil's advocate. I think you're totally right, Dave. Like, I think that he's, I think that a loss would be a bad thing. I'm sure they've thought it through and they have a way to deal with it. I don't want to get too deep in the weeds of the contract situation, although he seemed to say that he just went into Vince's office or called Vince and said, hey, I'm going to do this. like let me do this and Vince, you know, they had a big boy talk.

I think that was the quote and it happened. A lot of people were speculating that this is sort of some sort of, there's a trade and that where Rousey will get to do WrestleMania. I don't know. I mean, listen, if Brock Lesnar had said, like, you know, I want to eat your grandchild during the last contract negotiation, I think Vince might have said yes. Like that was as powerful a negotiating position as anyone has ever been in with Vince McMahon. It just doesn't, it didn't surprise me.

I mean, I don't think they're necessarily. needs to be quid pro quo. I think he probably is in the position of being able, even now, he can just say, even if it's not in the contract, I'm going to do this, and Vince tries to make the most of it. That said, whether or not Rousey comes over, whether or not the greatest

fantasy booking tweet that I got during this whole thing was a dude said, we just imagined, like, during the draft lottery, if Shane walked out on stage and was just like, before the next pick, I need to announce a trade with the ultimate fighting championship and then Sium Punk's music hits and everybody just

goes bananas. None of that's going to happen. That said, if he loses, I think Mark Hunt is available to WWE. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. So he's Tank Abbott, though, so we can get that guy. Is Tank Abbott, by the way, rest in peace, Kimbo Slice.

It sort of relates to this conversation. And he's a sort of guy, I said when you were walking in that in another world could have been a champion, a professional wrestling champion. I mean, it wouldn't have been a great situation for fans or anyone. But, like, I mean, when Tank Abbott and Dan Severin and all those guys were getting pushed in WCW, like, that was, man, Kimbo Slice could have been. Could have been on top. Straight off an internet video right into your ring. You could have been a television champion or their hardcore champion or something for sure.

Yeah. But yeah, it's, I think that Mark Hunt of all of the people they're putting them up against is a guy who could just be like, I'm going to opt out of the view of professional fighting and just go do the WWWE stuff for a while. I have a question for both you guys. So more than anything, though, this is just, it costs something because the cost is you're allowing Brock Lesnar to perhaps get seriously actually injured. Oh yeah. But isn't this just the best plug for SummerSlam ever? Yeah, 100%. This is just the best, most inventive marketing campaign that you could ever possibly imagine.

I don't know. I mean, listen, if it's, I think it's silly when people, I mean, the silly thing about talking about like Ronda Rousey is part of the trade. That all might be true. But if I'm Vince McMahon and there were negotiations, I don't think they're probably. I don't think he and Dana got on the phone, but maybe. But if he and Dana really got on the phone and they were legitimately negotiating some sort of talent swap for this, I think that you're also in the realm of the conversation where you can say, I will let Brock Lesnar do this if Mark Hunt takes a dive. You know, I mean, like, I would not be talking if this was the work.

Yeah, I mean, I'm just like, it's not, if we're talking about talent swaps, between people who legitimately hate each other, you know, it's like anything's on the table. Yeah. And it doesn't hurt UFC. I mean, as long as it doesn't look crazy, you know, like, Anyway, I think it depends. I'm too in the weeds of pro wrestling. Obviously, that would hurt UFC.

But, you know, they can also, like, suspend their best reporter and resour's credentials the next day, and that's all going to be fine. I think SummerSlam depends on who they book him against. Who is the guy who's working the program after USC? Speaking of which, can you talk to me, can you tell the people about the text that you sent me last night of what was happening to you on the internet? Oh, yeah. So I didn't even tweet anything about Aero Hwani, who obviously I know I've done a podcast with.

and hopefully I'll have you know a chance to talk to them about it soon but I didn't tweet anything about that or write anything about that uh deliberately you know I just don't like I had I wanted to give myself a little bit of breath and maybe I would write something about it but I didn't want to go off half cocked on Twitter of all places so I hadn't said anything and then and then last night I was checking Twitter after raw was over because I was writing during that whole thing during the whole show and disco and fun of all people had tweeted me asking my opinion about the Ariel Hawani thing and saying it was just like if the guy who was leaking WWE results under Reddit, if he, if WWE had found out who he was,

you know, what should they do? And he asked me as if it was the same thing as Ariel Hawani who's like just a, who's a reporter getting thrown out. Like it's not, it's, it's crazy. So you're neither a reporter nor a personal friend of Disco Inferno. Well, I mean, I'm not getting paid by WWE, and Ariel at this point isn't getting paid by UFC, although there is a sort of correlation. I don't know that there's any pretty way to defend the situation. There's no idealist way to look at this. I think you're burying the lead, which is Disco Inferno. He's tweeting at you personally.

Disco Inferno, I had never tweeted this guy before, and he's tweeting at me. That's a pretty big moment for me. Yeah, that's huge, man. Now people are going to accuse me of being in the, you know, being like in the bag for disco inferno and like vis-a-vis disco inferno. I mean, Disco Inferno now I'm like, I'm basically like on the payroll of WWE and I'm just as corrupt as anybody else. Just because you have that disco inferno tattoo on your shoulder. Does it mean that you're not like his boy. I'm going to tweet some breaking WWE news and they're going to ban me from every event from then on. And people are going to be like, see, you shouldn't have been tweeting with Disco Inferno. I don't know those things. That's a good. That's a good piece of advice for everyone, guys. Disco Inferno obviously is a little unhinged right now if he's coming at you like that. He's definitely going to tweet you after your business. Maybe he just knows, maybe he just, you know, reads my Twitter timeline and thinks that, like,

it's worth tweeting at me. I barely read your Twitter timeline. I don't know why Disco Inferno's looking at. Yeah, that's weird. You spent more time with Disco Inferno this week than I have, but we can go into that story totally different times. It's fine. We're giving him a lot of run on this.

Yeah, I don't want to read him. Maybe we should go. Maybe we should go. All right. Let's move on to Monday Night Raw. really briefly. I don't know that there was anything, any one, like, storyline-wise thing

that really stood out. But I think it's safe to say this was the, like, weirdest episode of Raw in some time. This was sort of like Raw's answer to weird Twitter. Like, there was so many strange things happening in every segment. It was, it was almost like they... Well, you guys just jump in.

It was almost like they, like, they made a really hard choice. Like, they just said, like, let's let this really, like this really goofy intern run the show tonight or something. Like, because it was, there was a lot of oddness. Was, were Seth and Roman unavail? Is there some secret European tour that I don't know about? That's a really good question.

I think the video package was very successful in pushing that angle. Yeah. Way more successful than last week's angle, which was Seth Rollins running toward the ring and running back and being a coward. I think that they, I think you're absolutely right. I watch those things, and those are two of the best video packages they've done in a long time. And I think that this ties back to Brock. I think that the lesson that, you know, WB can learn, if anything, from Lesnar is that it's powerful to have a champion who's not there every week. It makes the belt seem like it's worth more than having a dude who's just, like, getting in random, like, title matches or even non-title matches that last four minutes every week.

Yeah. You have to bring some prestige and a certain aura of significance. to the main event feud. Yeah, there's no value in dragging him out and having him wrestle Dolph Ziegler or Bray Wyatt every week or whoever it is that's sort of an undercard figure that you know he's going to win.

There's not going to be a title change on Raw. What's the point in beating one of those guys on TV when it is how much is that forwarding the story as opposed to these video packages, which does essentially the same thing, right? And he's not cutting promos at all, really, so... Yeah, no chance for him to get booed. But then the other thing,

is it like in the context of raw that we, the raw that we saw last night, uh, like they would have looked so, it would have like inherently demeaned them. I loved raw in a lot of ways as like a sort of like postmodern writer and, and viewer of raw that was like, it was just incredibly entertaining.

But yeah, I mean, it was, they, they made the right call in like segmenting that off from the main event, you know, for, of the,

of, of, of, of, of, uh, money in the bank because, man, it was just strange.

So let's start at the top, no pun intended. All six dudes from the ladder match are standing on ladders as the show opens, basically, and they have a conversation. Like, what was the, like, what, when, when, what's going on? When all the dudes or women who are in an angle together are fighting at a pay-per-view, they should beat each other up. There's no reason why they would just not immediately start swinging. I will defend that.

I mean, I go back and forth in this. It's a little bit situational. Like, UFC fighters can be in the same room and not necessarily want to beat each other up. If they really don't like each other, they try to punch each other or that you'd get close. But, like, there's not, the logic of, like, agreeing to standing on a ladder is what seems more bizarre to me. Was it more bizarre for the show to open with one guy walking down the ramp and five dudes just perched up on the elevator waiting for him to come? One of which was wearing a scarf. I was 10 minutes late.

I'm sorry, I'm on my way. Yeah, I go back and forth on Jericho a lot, but the, but he, his outfit, like, briefs at a scarf is like the most heelish outfit in the history of mankind. And being the only guy wearing, who insists on wearing the wrestling out, you know, just the briefs when everybody else is in clothes. Just the so strange. And the dad bod, too. Oh, yeah.

That's what I mean. He got some great player bod. He's, he's doing a really, really good job. Does his scarf thing mean that Alberto del Rue? Rio can't wear a scarf anymore because I feel like he hasn't worn a scarf since Jericho came back. Well, but if you don't have a limo, you can't wear a scarf. That's true.

I think, and also, when he came back, I mean, I think the scarf is a little bit indicative of, like, the, like, the Mexican millionaire angle, which is not necessarily what he's, with the same gimmick that he's pulling right now, that he's working right now. I don't know. Yeah, it was, it was definitely a strange, it was, I mean, it was definitely just a weird look for everybody, just to be talking, I mean, Kevin Owens, God bless him, did his, both to hold that best, did his best to hold that segment together, but like he looked more uncomfortable than anybody up there, despite being, you know, having some expertise.

Can we talk about Teddy Long for a second? Because I don't know why he was on the show. He didn't serve any plot purpose. Was it just to promote Smackdown? I think it was just to promote Smackdown. That's the only thing I can think. And it was, I mean, I thought it was great. Like, the number of in-jokes, I think one of the number of, in-jokes, I think one, I think once every couple of months you can have just an in-joke-filled raw. Teddy Long is like, if the three of us were hanging out at a bar, instead of hanging out on sofas recording a podcast at 9 in the morning, we would make a Teddy Long joke at some point talking about the brand split, right?

Yeah. This is WWE just acknowledging that they're like, you know, that they're like hip dads or whatever. Like, you know, I mean, it's, I thought it was really funny. I think the fact that me and Dave so quickly said absolutely to your Teddy Long reference. They're like, we have made those jokes just today. Oh, God. That's super telling of how nerdy this is.

But it's two weeks before money in the bank, and they're doing this thing where the angle is, Teddy Long is trying to get a job because he's potentially homeless? I mean, why was he trying to book matches? Yeah, the weird thing is that whenever someone like Teddy Long leaves, like there's always just vague rumors of like the split was a little bit acrimonious or whatever, and then everybody always just will come back for a one-off guest spot, like no trouble at all. I don't want Getty, I don't mean Getty, I don't want Teddy Long to be a regular fixture playing this kind of weird cartoon role on SmackDown when it happens.

But I thought for just an episode of Raw to sort of like hype the idea of the brand split, that's fine. Let me, let me fantasy book the territory very quickly and say that if Teddy Long did come back, he'd have to come back as a manager for Golden Truth. Oh wow. That would blow up that angle. I'm telling you. Well, I was watching a Teddy Long promo when he was managing the skyscrapers. last week. Ooh. And it was just really bizarre.

Like it was like, I love Teddy Long to death, but I remember not quite getting him at the time and watching it in retrospect. I was like, I don't know. Like, I guarantee that like Dangerous Dan Spivey can talk better than Teddy Long. Like, what is the, he doesn't do anything except, I guess the only thing that he does is show you the scale of these two guys, right? You put a tiny dude in front of two tall dudes and it's just like, oh, that's how big they are.

Harvey Whippleman was kind of like that. I think just a weird little tiny fella that looked strange next to Bertha Faye or something. This is kind of a Teddy Long non-sequitur, which is a ridiculous statement. But does he still look weird to you guys as a skinny dude? Who? Teddy Long.

He's like one of those guys that looks more normal to me as a fat guy. I know it's been like 15 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it freaks me out. I don't like it. Yeah. No, no, he's a.

He was never that fat, right? He was just like left. He was a chubby rough. He's bit. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I liked Teddy. I liked, what were the other weird things that happened on Raw?

Charlotte apologized for insulting her father? Was that segment just like, was that just retconning the week before, basically? I mean, not recconning because they acknowledged him. Well, she still wanted to have Christmas dinner with him. But was the point of that, the beginning of that segment just because they had gotten a lot of, like, they had gotten a lot of shit for the way they did it before? It must have been. But isn't that the point? to get her heat, even if it's legitimate?

I think legit heat is the only heat that exists anymore. I mean, I think the only way, yeah, maybe the only way that Brock Leasier could become a better heel is to lose to Mark Hunt in five seconds. It's like only legit heat is the only way to go. So that, yeah, that was very weird and certainly like meta. There was the Sina versus the club thing where one, the club said get out to shovels at some point, right? Yeah.

And then I referenced Sina burying them, and Sina referred to them as the bullet club. Or I saw online that he said pullet club. But like, actually like was like there was a lot of just. So it was a double entendre pullet club, right? Yeah. Oh boy. I did think that that was one of the most oddly effective promos that I've heard from Sina in a long time. Oh, sure.

I think serious Sina without the, well, except for the maybe the joke at the end about bearing or whatever. but that Sina is just so much more effective and I know you can't overuse it that much but it's the way that he is able to sell a storyline it's really really underrated I mean the guy is still tremendous at promos and I think we overlook that a lot yeah he just has to be in the right situation

and you know the big thing is I think that he's got one promo per feud in him yeah but and then by the time he gets like the week two and week three big promos then he's just like, he just gets silly or like it's all dick jokes or it's weirdly like just like misogynistic. Like, you know, he just like go, he, like his like second gear isn't is never an ideal spot. But his first, but like when he, when he hits that one perfect promo in every, in every feud, it's just amazing. Well, I think it goes back to your point about keeping the big stars off of TV for a while is if you have seen it coming out every week and cutting a promo in the ring, of course he's going to get bored.

and he's going to start to tell jokes, or he's going to be flippant with the crowd. You have to say, okay, Sina, you're going to have your one big moment in the ring, and then we're going to do some other stuff. We're going to do some backstage stuff. We'll do some vignettes and keep you from getting exhausted. Yeah. Well, was there anything?

I mean, the other weird notes that I have, one, congratulations to Sam, talking about skinny guys. Congratulations to Sammy Zane for being where he's being. And more importantly, being where he is, and more importantly for finally getting a black t-shirt, I think is the real signal that you've reached the upper rationale at WWE. They're no longer marketing this weird like military green shirt that, you know, I'm sure somebody's excitedly wearing, but never would be me.

But it is still a caricature of him in a windbreaker and a, and a pageboy hat. It's enough of a caricature that I'm okay with it. I agree with you, though. He's in a better spot than Del Rio who's still wearing his League of Nation shirt from WrestleMania. I have two special guests sitting here in this room right now, So I thought, what better a way to waste yours and everybody else's time than to make you guys draft for separate shows? Now, interesting thing from Raw was Steph trying really, really hard to put over SmackDown as the better show, which I think we're going to be seeing a lot of in the coming weeks.

That's what, you know, they have to do, like when they did the first brand split, Vince was Smackdown. And, and Rick Flair was holding down the Ford on Raw. But, you know, Vince and The Rock went to Smackdown. Like this is how they like launch the show. I do have a stat for you. Oh, that's good. So Greg can suck it. March 18th, 2002, that's, that's Brock's first appearance.

And then March 25th, 2002 a week later. You were right. That's why it was so surreal because I thought I was watching the next episode. And in fact, I was watching the previous episode. Yeah. They did refer to Brock before. I'm no, I'm backtracking now, but they referred to Brock as the biggest free agent in sports entertainment, which I love.

It's appropriate to talk about now as we go into this brand split discussion. because it's WWE issues so much of the reality, quote unquote reality of the sports world, but they do love to talk about free agency as if this is a thing. MVP was the free agent. AJ Stiles, when he just came back,

was the hottest free agent in pro wrestling. It's nuts, and I've long been making the case that they needed to do a brand split specifically for the reason of integrating the full like, you know, trade rumors, all that kind of stuff, which is the reason why people pay attention to sports, like, we need WWE's version of hoops hype, you know, we need woge for WWE, we need to find ways to get ourselves, like, excited about the backstage minutia. But I think according to Disco Inferno, you are the woge of the WWE.

Yeah, he's misinformed about that. It's a shoe bomb. I'm happy to take on that mantle. I'm happy to take on that mantle if it means that wrestling gets more interesting on like a day-in-day-out basis. And, for the record, more wrestling programming is not the correct answer. Hashtag shoe bomb kids. All right.

So listen, I don't really know. I'll let Dave go first. Would you prefer to be raw or Smackdown, Dave? I think Smackdown is more of a challenge. So you're going to go Smackdown. Yes. So we're actually going to do a draft, a five-person draft, or five people each. Yeah.

If you guys have the same people, then we're just this whole thing's going to break down. I think we should also say that tag teams should not be split up personally. I think that's what they're going to do. They should not be split up? We should not split up. Okay, so you can pick a tag team as one person. Are we picking tag teams? I did not prepare for this on my big board dish.

It's okay. It's okay. You don't need tag teams to serve on your show. I have no tag teams either. Oh, okay. This is an unnecessary rule clarification. We're only doing singles wrestlers and we're just going to go through, we're going to run through a top 10 because I'm very interested to see.

I've done zero research on the subject, and I want to see where it comes out for you guys and make fun of you for making decisions that I'm not forcing myself to make. So good, because I've done entirely too much research. All right, yeah, I think I know. With the number one pick in the 2016, W.E. Raw Smackdown draft, Dave Schilling, general manager of Smackdown, selects Roman Raines.

Oh! Wow! That's a really bold move. I know, and let me give you some rationale for this. So I see Smackdown hopefully being, the younger brand where you've got Sina and you've got Orton and Triple H on Raw. Smackdown should be built around these sort of young guys. And I think Roman Raines can work. The styles that Sammy Zane, AJ Styles, Kevin Owens can work. And that's sort of where I see

Smackdown going. And Roman can work both sides of the coin, too. He can be a heel. He can be a baby face. He can do anything. I really expected Roman Raines to be that guy sitting there like with the eighth pick and you guys staring at each other trying. to figure out who was going to take him. Just sad in Erlinds, Noel sitting there. Yeah, exactly. Or the guy with the gravity bong on his face. The gas mask from the Ansel.

Yeah, that's exactly. But, like, Roman Rains is both a totally legitimate number one pick and totally legitimate not on anyone's draft board. Absolutely. He is not, he did not get caught with, like, with a gas mask bong, but, like, for some reason, that's his reputation. That was a very ballsy pick for number one. And I like your idea about the difference between Ron Smith.

Macdown. Unfortunately, my buddy Blake here is not tethered by the rules that you laid out. Blake, with the first pick of the raw brand. It's obviously Seth Rollins. Yeah, okay. Are you crazy? He does all the things that you said except better and more effectively. He can play both sides of the, he can play absolutely both sides of the coin, heel or face. My only thing is he just had that devastating knee injury.

Roman doesn't, Roman had a sports hernia, I think. And so that's really the only concern I have is maybe Benny. He had the sleep apnea nose drive or whatever. His wife was pissed because he was snoring a lot. So he had to get a, he had to get it fixed or whatever. If you turn him heel, he's the biggest heel since Roman Raines. Triple H, absolutely. Oh, yeah.

I think that's true. The biggest heel since Rock. Yeah, he has a bright future. Don't get me wrong. I think that the hate is over. I mean, but I just, I don't think that he should have, I think that he should have been in the top three or four. I mean, can he play, realistically, though, can he play heel? Like, if he starts doing all these.

He's playing heel right now. Well, I know, but he's playing heel almost not inadvertently, but playing heel because he's a face. If he actually tries to be a heel, there's no proof that he can actually do that. It's a simple adjustment. It's a really simple adjustment. He's already very arrogant in the way that he interacts with the crowd. He's already kind of working heel in his matches and that he's doing a lot of the grunt work. He's doing like reverse. psychology right now.

I guess what's a key. Yeah, no, but I think that might be what a heel is right now. I mean, I don't know if you can be a straight up heel in the main event without being, you know, umaga. Even Kevin Owens gets a big pop when he comes out, like a baby face pop. Yeah, I think that's just inevitable in this day and age. I think the most exciting thing to me about these first two picks, though, is that now we really know that the money in the bank main event match is not just for the WWE

championship, but for who really deserves to be the first pick in the draft. All right, Dave, who's your number two pick? Okay, with the number two pick in the 2016. What are we calling this? The Ross MacDown. Ross MacDraft. Yeah. Kill the momentum, Dave.

I just wanted to make sure I got the nomenclature correct. Okay, Mike, I'll move on. The second pick is Sasha Banks, guys. Wow. Sasha Banks, the legit boss. That is, again, a very, a very strong, very bold pick. I think that I have said in print, I mean, I've been on the record, Sasha Banks is the closest, is the only person in the roster that has the upside of the rock right now.

And she may never get there, but there's a lot of potential. And it's, and that's important. They are booking her terribly or not booking her at all. I don't understand that. I think it's a complete waste of resources and talent. And you can build the women's division around Sasha Banks very effectively. So I think she's a cornerstone of Smackdown for me. She's the next big thing.

That's a great pick. Thank you. Damn. Blake, do you have a number two pick prepared? Yeah, but it's not as good as that. I'm color-cording my big board. I've red and blue. Are you running like a trello board over there to figure out who your draft bag?

No, it's through my Zanga site. I did this on the toilet, so I don't understand why this is all taking some. You know, I'm sorry, I have a note here. I forgot to mention the last round. Seth Rollins at a house show joined the club this weekend. Did you guys see that news? No. Yeah, they were like the fan photos of him doing the Wolfpack Kiss, like, you know, the little

like Wolfpack, whatever that is, with AJ Styles. I think that they're just, they're not only, have they imported the gimmick of the club wholesale from New Japan, but they're also just doing the thing where like every heel joins just to like reinforce their he'llness. I don't think that he's actually going to join in real life, but I think that like it's a great little thing to run out of a house show to make people just to make us talk about it on podcasts.

Exactly. Yeah. Anyway, Blake, your number two pick. My number two pick will be John Sina. Wow. Yeah. It's hard to disagree with that. I mean, for all the reasons I said, Roman Raines was a little bit sketchy.

I think John Cena, you can say the same things, although John Cena is a super-duper star. And I think right now, I mean, once you get to the fourth pick in the draft, you're right. You can't say anything bad about anybody that's headlined really. I'm going to just steal what you said the other day, which is if you start an NBA team now, you know, you might want to take Seth Rollins or Roman Rains or like the Kevin Durants or the Russell Westbrooks of the world or the Steph Curry's. But if you see if you see LeBron James on the board, which is John Sina for all intents and purposes of this draft, you take LeBron James. He might be a little bit older.

You might be worried about him breaking down. Yeah. But I think there's a strong argument that if you're starting an NBA team from scratch and you know with 100% uncertainty that LeBron's going to retire in three years, you still take LeBron number one. Absolutely. I don't think that you do it. But like I think that you may, like you sit around thinking about that.

that for days. Especially in a wrestling context, John Sina has so much heat that he can transfer over to anybody that you draft that's a younger guy. Sure. Like if he lays down for Seth Rollins, it's meaningful. If he lays down for Kofi Kingston, if you pick him. I've been saying forever the most important thing about John Sina is that he makes the wrestlers we care about matter.

And you can see that he's really embraced that. Like his feud with AJ and the club right now is so much more interesting because he's, it's not just that he's allowing them to get. get in the ring with him and, you know, get some rub, but it's, like, totally legitimate. Like, they're, they're, he, like, he's invested himself in this feud in a way that he maybe hasn't 100% always in the past. Anyway, I, I think that John Cena is an impeccable pick, um, at number four anyway. Dave, who you got at number five? Okay, uh, my next pick is Kevin Owens. Wow. Blake is, Blake is reacting really strongly. He should, apparently,

because he's, fucking up my board, Dave. That's it. This is what's going to happen. spreadsheet over here? I do have a spreadsheet. This is insanity. We all know. You got to be one step ahead, Blake, which is hard when you're picking second. I know.

You're the Eric Bischoff of this mock draft. It's okay. You're going to get better ratings. You're raw. That's true. This is inherently, this is chicanery. Well, I never have to go against Monday Night Football, though. Let's, like, is there an argument for Kevin O?

Is, where would you, would you have picked Kevin Oens as pick, Blake? Yes. He was number four. On the board. I think he's the. best worker in the company right now in a consistent basis. He cuts the best promos. And I just think that he can do anything. He can do it all. Yeah. No, I don't think, I don't think you even have to make the case for Kevin Owens. But we let's, let's keep moving ahead because, I mean, I'm wondering,

I guess my question is how if Kevin Owens could have gone higher. Kevin, Kevin Owens, he could have been a number one pick. He could have been a number one or definitely a number two. Blake, who do you, maybe, maybe you should have looked at him a little bit higher, Blake. Who do you, I did, you know, I did. I had their ages here and Kevin Owens is 32. Roman is 31. I'm seriously prepared for this shit. This is crazy. They're all around the same age. If Shane McMahon, if you want to get in touch with me, because you have a real numbers cruncher sitting next to you at the draft, I'm for hire. If you need your dear, I'll do it, then we have, we can, my buddy Blake is available. Pro wrestling analytics is going to be a thing very soon. I can be better than Jaylin. From day one.

The, uh, okay, Blake. Okay, Blake, who you got? All right. So this is, uh, with a, uh, with a number. number, what, number third round pick, number six pick. Yeah. Despite scheduling, despite appearances, I'm going to take Brock Lesner. Wow. Great. This is, you're actually, you're drafting raw the way that Shilling wanted you to draft

raw, basically. He's doing it perfectly, yeah, so, because I've got all the, like, hot young talent and you've got Brock and Sina. It's perfect. And this is really incredible. But when you, I mean, even for, you know, if it wasn't for 15 appearances a year, 20 appearances a year, or whatever, I mean, there's no question Brock would be number one, right? If he was doing 52 weeks of TV a year.

Oh, yeah, no question at all. Yeah, so. Is your next question whether or not Kurt Engel is available for the draft? Because I think this is the show that you're working on. Is he a free agent? Yeah. I'm doing it. All right.

Dave, let's run through the rest of these. Do you have more people on your board? I have two more because he said to prepare five. Oh, yeah. Well, I guess that's my fault. Sammy Zane, because I cannot separate Sammy and Kevin Owens. They have to be able to work together. And with my final pick, I select Disco Inferno.

No. I'm picking the Miz. I'm picking the Miz because... Wow. One of the best heels. Not the best heel. I love the Mids. I love the Miz. I think maybe you could have picked him up as an undrafted free agent. Blake, who are your last two? Are you kidding me? The Mizz is great. I guess. And I get Maurice too. Well, oh, that's a pretty good one. My last two, I had, I had A.J. Stiles. I mean, the guy can work. He could have been a number one pick.

I should have taken A.J. Styles. And then the last guy in my draft board or the next guy in my draft board was Finn Baller. Yeah. Finn Baller for the last pick. I mean, he's largely, I guess, unproven, literally unproven. He's great. Does the guy not look like a start? Does the guy not look?

I think after Sasha Bank, I mean, I think he's the, I said, I compared Sasha Banks to the rock, and obviously that's a little bit of hyperbole, but I think Finn's the only, I think Finn's got the most upside coming out of developmental since Sina. I mean, I mean, and he has, he probably has a little bit of like, it's like a steeper, like, whatever, like the arc is not going to be as straight a line for him as Sina, but I think that he's got that kind of upside. There's something about his character that feels modern, whereas you think about a lot of, like, the Roman Rains of the world kind of feel like retreads of characters you've seen before and Finn Baller feels like a millennial professional wrestling character. Exactly what I was going to say is that he doesn't feel like rock, he doesn't feel like Austin, he doesn't feel like Sina, he feels. he feels like maybe how Roman Raines should have been as kind of a more modern face of the company, so to speak. You think, I mean, would you put Punk and Brian

in the category of modern wrestlers? Yes, yes. All right, so we got to get out of here. We've used up all of our time, but there's a couple of things I want to touch on. One, shame on both of you for not drafting Darren Young because he's... Oh, man.

I think I saw Darren Young running as I drove here today, oddly enough. Was he being made great again? He was... I mean, Bob Backin was on a bicycle next to him. Keep moving. But if we're talking about, one last news by I want to get out there. And I didn't ask you guys to even prepare for this. I totally forgot about it until this conversation came up.

But WWE just signed Tommy End, who is a professional wrestler from the Netherlands, who is the best wrestler, just the best wrestler. He is like if CM Punk and Daniel Bryan and like Davey Richards, had like a three-way child. He's incredible. He's like, he actually wrestled a, a semi-famous indie match in Europe

against Brian Danielson back in the day that was like, like strong-style rules where they were just like kicking each other really hard and then like recoiling like crazy from the kicks. It was an end, that, from that guy, you would never thought he's going to be the next big thing or whatever, but he got a bunch more tattoos and grew his hair and beard out.

And now he is like, he does a lot of like the kicky, stompy stuff that the Indy guys do. But it's really legit the way he does it. And I think that I think, if talk about upside, like, who knows, this guy could, this guy could really be a thing. So he's like five six or seven or something like that? No, no, no, no. He's, he could be. He's, he going to NXT or is he going straight to run in NXT for sure. He's got a little, he's got a ways to go. Like, he wrestled Hero not that long ago and didn't look significantly smaller than Chris Hero.

Okay. It still means that he's not huge. Oh, in real life? Yes. Yeah. My guess is he's probably 5-10 or something, but like he's big enough in this day and age. Yeah, you don't have to be a giant. He's bigger than Finn Baller, who you had on your draft board.

That's one of the reasons why I thought not to pick him is because of his height issue. And because... High issue is not a height issue. I mean, I don't know. Some of us aren't born like you. All right. Some of us are born small. Finn Baller, if you're listening to this, I apologize.

You're just tall enough. You're just tall enough. Wow, tall enough. Anyway, everybody go watch Tommy N videos on YouTube. There are like three of them, but it's totally worth checking out. He's done some cool stuff for American Indies. Like, he's been around a lot, but also just like the compilation packages. I want to know who these guys are that do like the 10 best moves of every indie wrestler on YouTube.

I mean, that's a lot of work. Those are the heroes of this country. Those are the true heroes, at least of the wrestling, at least of the Internet wrestling community. So anyway, appreciate you guys coming by. I think that you both have real futures as a professional wrestling television show GMs. It's a hard climb up the ladder past all the other guys who watch video and sweep the floors. But I really wish you guys all the best. Pick, give me, since you guys probably won't be around,

give me your picks for Brock Lesnar versus Mark Hunt and let's get out of here. Mark Hunt's winning. I think Mark Hunt is absolutely winning. I'm going to take Brock Lesner just because it's more fun to cheer for my heroes. Oh, that's cool, man. I hope everybody at home listening to this. This is cheering for your hero. I can't even say it right.

Keep cheering for your heroes, humanoids.