The Press Box - Ep. 139: 'The Ringer Wrestling Podcast' With AGW's Joel Solomon

Episode Date: June 28, 2016

The Ringer's David Shoemaker brings on 'Any Given Wednesday' writer Joel Solomon to discuss Roman Reigns's next move, AJ Styles's heel turn (20:00), the biggest slide in the upcoming draft (32:00), WWE's dating carousel (42:00), and 'Monday Night Raw': The Man vs. The Guy vs. The Dude (53:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer Wrestling podcast is brought to you by Seat Geek, our presenting sponsor, and the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling sports and music tickets. Seat Geek makes buying tickets on your phone a total snap. With just two taps, you can instantly buy tickets at an event that same day, have your tickets delivered straight to your phone, and enter the event without ever having to print a ticket. And if you can't go to a gamer show, you can just sell your tickets directly from the app in less than 30 seconds. But Seat Geek, there's no guesswork.

You'll know exactly where you're sitting, what you will pay, and whether or not you're getting a good deal, all right from your phone. So drop your old ticket app and experience buying and selling tickets the way it should be. To start using Seatgeek, download the free Seatgeek app or go to Seatgeek.com. Welcome back to the number one rated professional wrestling podcast on Channel 33 and the Ringer Network. I'm David Shoemaker. I'm joined here today by Joel Solomon. who is a writer for any given Wednesday. I just heard you on the phone with somebody calling yourself the head writer.

Is that correct? Don't tell anyone that. All right. But I love the name. Congratulations, the name of the show. What? That we just beat out. I think you made any given Wednesday.

Also a great name for a show. If you guys aren't, I mean, this is a great bit of corporate synergy here. As you all know, probably know, I work for the ringer. I'm a writer. I'm the art director. Two very separate jobs. And down the hall is this writing crew. for the TV show Any Given Wednesday, which is now on HBO.

And I think it's pretty good. I mean, I probably wouldn't say anything else, but I think, like, I really enjoyed the first episode. Appreciate it. And wrestling brought us together. This is amazing. Yeah. Our shared passion for the only true sport professional wrestling.

You got it. Well, last week I recorded with not you, but immediately afterwards. I, like, I walked out, checked in with my editor-in-chief, and he was like, how's your day going? How was the podcast? And I look at my phone and like 10 people have texted me that Roman Raines has been suspended from WWE. That is a sort of a major event in the professional wrestling world.

Crazy. And you know what? I didn't even realize how major it was. It really was, I think, a week ago at this time because we were getting ready to record the first any given Wednesday. And I think TMZ was the first place I saw it. And I always breaking these stories. Yeah, of course.

This is like a perfect TMZ story. And I show Bill the phone and Bill right before taping is like, wow. And this is like the most animated over a story. I've seen him in the two months I've been here. And then I guess you really realize like this is like Mike Trout getting busted. This is pretty big. It is. It's like Mike Trout if like, I mean, I was going to say like if steroids were like functionally legal and professional and baseball.

But you might be able to make the case that they're just as, you know, PEDs are just as prevalent there as they are here. I mean, here meaning in WWE. Right. I mean, WWE takes their wellness policy very seriously. I mean, it exists, you know, in a sort of interesting tension between the interest for the health of the talent and also for, you know, corporate PR. That's how everything works in a capitalist system. But I think the most shocking thing to most people was that. that they even, that like Roman Raines got, got pinged or whatever by this test, and then they just

went ahead and suspended him instead of just pretending it never happened and letting him continue to wrestle. Right. Adam Rose gets busted, you know, whatever, a week earlier. We, you can deal. Like, that's... And Adam Rose got busted. I mean, I've been talking to so many people about this stuff this week.

There's so much crazy semi-information floating through my head, but Adam Rose of memory serves got busted for something he had a doctor's note for, and WWE was, like, well aware of that. And it was a situation where they were happy to take, they were happy to use that as an excuse or something. Right. Yeah. And still right, taking it seriously. But, you know, that's a guy I don't believe had been on TV and dealing with other things. But this is one of the big, the face of your company had the belt and couldn't be getting more of a push.

And it's just halt the brakes, hand over the keys. You're done. So there's a couple of different things we have to go through. And again, WW has been very tight-lipped about this. everybody that I've talked to or even heard secondhand is basically said, you know, from the beginning, this is 100% real and I can say nothing about it, you know? Like, so it's a, it's a very, it's a, it's a, it's a unique situation even as far as how, how much info is, is trickling, trickling out of Stanford.

But what was super interesting and we can go back and forth, because I know how you like to jump around. What we talked about yesterday was, you know, well, let's see how they use this. Yeah. And I do love. I kind of loved it right away Rollins, oh yeah, this is the WWE, of course we're going to use this

in the storyline. They cut right to the chase. Yeah, well, let's go ahead and talk about it. On Raw, it opened, I mean, the show opens up with Seth Rollins coming to the rain, gets on the microphone, and teases that he's not going to

make this about, not going to bring up Roman Raines. I mean, he starts in on just a regular kind of milk toast heel promo against Ambrose. then like hard cut hard stop okay you want to talk about you want to talk about roman rains let's talk about roman rains tremendous promo i thought uh it was really really good there are moments where rollins i mean we this is not the point there there were moments last night where ralins he sounds a little bit like uh like your your buddy doing a heel impression you know like but i don't

know that's a bad thing like he's just because you have to know we all love rawlins and so we have to like be made aware when booing is the appropriate response and it takes being a real like old school heel to do it but anyway yeah he he had a great promo he had a great night big night for i mean it should be nothing nothing new for i mean no surprise for that guy but um but yeah had a great promo and just immediately said uh the roman rains dropped the ball he didn't say that he referred to it as the roman reign scandal and said that it really reflected more it reflected poorly on south bronze, which is, you know, not entirely untrue. And way to bring more heat to him, kind of take the, without calling too much attention

to the actual elephant in the room, whether it's steroids or, but just say, hey, like, it was pretty cool that he worked it into a storyline. You've, now, this affects me. And, yeah, we'll see where this goes. And also, it's interesting that you brought up with steroids. I mean, nobody really knows what it is. I've literally heard nothing except. I mean, my personal theory is that it's a,

this is totally unsourced, is that it's got to be something pretty legit for them to decide to go through with the suspension. I mean, I think that I don't, I'm not saying that they would just, like, sweep it under the rug fully, but, like, you know, I mean, I don't think they're not even, like, testing for weed at this point.

And if it's just, like, some G&C stuff, like, I think that maybe they would have let them off, you know, Scott. I think it's the sort of thing that if it got out that he had previously failed the test and they didn't make a big deal of it, it's a big enough, it's a big enough blip that it would be a scandal, right? A minor scandal. That's just my, that's my assumption. Who knows? But it does serve the purpose of sort of by bringing it into the storyline like everything else in wrestling, it sort of makes it seem less of a big deal because it's now part of the fabric of this fake reality. Well, that's the thing now. Now they have everyone,

and talking and it's, you know, on the, on the internet, well, is this a work now? How, how serious is this? I think it's pretty serious. I mean, the guy got suspended, tweeted, tweeted an apology, but, you know, nothing's out of bounds. The weirdest thing was that the apology when it came out seemed so, I mean, maybe it was workshopped, but it just seemed so direct and heartfelt, right? You was like, I dropped up, all right, I messed up. Here we go. Having that tweet on the titantron on Monday night was. the most surreal thing. Yeah.

Because that's the most, that seemed like the most human part of the entire story, right? Right. But also what's interesting now is now, again, WWE can take this however they want, but Raines could tweet again. When you're suspended in other workplaces or in a sport, you can kind of, well, hey, you cannot even come near the clubhouse.

You can't be in the locker room. You can't train. Right. It's interesting now that, well, Raines could technically reply back. But I, you know. I'm trying to think. of all of the different, like, there was, there have been instances where someone was suspended

but continued to work. Like, it's like you can work, but you can't get paid. Like, if you choose to, or something like that. That's how we, on our show. That's how we do. Really? Yeah. When we get busted for steroids.

That's, I mean, that's, to me, that's the more interesting thing. Like, as far as, if we want to get into the meta conversation now, like, how big is the writing staff for any given Wednesday? We've got five, six. That's it? Five writers. There's like 30 people up there all the time. Well, yeah, but we rotate.

It's like 25 of them are bringing you coffee all the... Yeah. Well, it's... You never know. We're in and out. We keep you on your toes. Let's just say, but like, you know, you have five or six. Maybe more.

I don't know. We have... I mean, like, like, of all the TV writing that you've done in your life or you've been, you know, exposed to, I've been exposed to a little bit, like, I think it's safe to say that conservatively 60% of the people in any room were on Adderall at any given point or on some sort of mind-altering drug to help them on their help them you know in their career I'm thinking of who it is now okay yeah 60% yeah I mean and that's not a big deal right if you need to I mean the deadlines the people at the I mean the the journalists writers that I

work with have to deal with I mean it's it's not like no one's at least there's no shame in being like, I like, you know, I had to pull an all night or, I mean, no one's saying, how is this humanly possible, even when it's probably not. Right. There's so many walks of life in which, like, using, like, if you define performance enhancing drugs very loosely, we, like, many, many Americans are using performance enhancing drugs. Of course.

If you're, I mean, we're in California. If you're taking a couple of hits a weed, medicinal marijuana on a regular basis just to, like, even you out so you can get your job done, like, that's a legitimate. that that's a performance-nancing drug on some level, right? And we're not even, and these, and these drugs aren't even requiring us to be in a tremendous physical shape and judged by how we look with muscles. I know. And listen, I'm 100% in on the wellness policy.

I think that there's, obviously there's a history that, that WW really needs to be taking, like, keeping an eye on this stuff. And, and, and so far, you know, having, they've mostly adjudicated, I think, I think, the process fairly. Now, I mean, that's assuming that we know everything that there is to know, and probably we don't. But all that said, I mean, these are much closer to Hollywood action stars than NFL players, right? I mean, as far as the, I mean, the argument that you hear against PEDs in real sports is often like the competitive balance one and just the sort of, you know, the spirit of competition. And that doesn't matter. Level playing field, right, of course. I mean, like, you know, you have guys like Sylvester Stallone who are like, like,

who are almost literally trafficking HGH or testosterone around the world, right? I mean, that's like, you like action stars, movie star, and it's not just the ones that are obvious. I mean, I think half the guys that take their shirts off on TV are probably doing something that like, you know, might get you pinged at the Olympics. Yeah. So, I mean, like, it's just, it's a weird world in which we're, uh, in which, you know, there's something particularly shameful about, you know, doing this stuff in the wrestling game. And this, by that I mean specifically PEDs that are not horse steroids.

Like, obviously there are things that are really unhealthy for you to do. What's interesting, too, is now, who knows, like, how you react in that locker room, too. I'm sure it's a brotherhood back there in the back. And these guys, you know, very much support each other. But now, like, you know, who knows? that is pretty embarrassing. It's, and,

you know, and maybe now pressure's really on. If this guy can get suspended, I'm sorry, if, if the guy can get suspended, then, I mean,

it really is. This is pretty serious. Speaking of the Brotherhood, okay. Stone Cold Steve Austin was on, Rosillo and Cannell earlier this week, right, just the other day.

And this is, I'm going to read his quote about Roman rains. He said, quote, he got popped, and that's just the way it is. He owned it, and he'll live to come back,

another day he owned it so I think the kid did the right thing sometimes these things happen so this that seems very much like first of all very level-headed very smart and I and I think pretty much correct but talking about the brotherhood and backstage and that that you were speaking up before it sounds this sounds like Austin saying like yeah like nobody surprised that like he's on it the issue is that he got caught yeah and that's like his that's his burden and he he's handling it like a man agreed like when you look at Roman rains it doesn't seem, well, of course, like, if you could pick a pick out of a lineup, maybe he, he, like, Dean Ambrose, not probably, yeah, but, but I think to the other point now is Stone Cold saying he got caught

move on, this is where I think maybe you, you and I differ from briefly talking yesterday. I think this might be the best thing that happened to Rain. To Roman Raines? Yeah. I, it, I like this take. Go, you like, explain, explain. At this point, really, at least from fans' perspective, couldn't get any lower. The fans are listening to this podcast at least. Getting booed out of the arena. Clearly, even in ring on the mic was getting a little flustered, really, you know.

Yeah. You know, not welling up with tears, but it was like clearly bothering him. The fans were bullying him. I mean, you can't wrestle. When it gets to that point, it's just really, it's not even fun for him probably. Yeah, I know.

So now, He gets 30 days to kind of rehash this image, kind of made, not come up with a new character, but come back and have potentially, at least a storyline where let's see what he can do with this. And maybe he is, he rebrands himself a little or, or it's just like, you know what, now it is, now it really is me against the world. And I'm going to show you that. And hopefully, and most importantly, get rid of the Superman punch. Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that people are going to be looking at first and foremost is if he comes back with skinny arms.

But like once that moment has passed, I think that you're right. I think that like, I think this is a real opportunity. And, you know, I mean, there's just, I said this last week. And I mean, I wasn't, I'm sure the only one to say it. But taking the title off of Raines was the, was at that point the best thing that could have happened to reins, right? It was just sort of marking the end of the reins experiment, meaning, you know, defining the reins experiment as from the moment they said, we're going to make him our champion next. And then like the 18 months or two years, it took to get there and then get to now.

Yeah. That, now that moment in time is over, right? The next time he wins a title, and I'm talking separately from the suspension, but even including it, the next time he gets a title, there will be so much less pressure than there was as when he was carrying the title three weeks, two weeks ago, right? Or a week ago. Right. And this time it won't be rushed. There's no way they're rushing this title back on him.

There's no, you know. You want, you, you would assume that they would give it some, they would, you know, give him a little time to make sure that he's, that he's clean. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's interesting because, you know, you look at what Stone Cold said. And, you know, the, the intricacies of WW's testing policy have been, you know, kind of been out there in the press over the years.

and it's a different system than a lot of professional sports use. It's not necessarily testing for specific drugs, to my understanding, as much as testing for a consistent kind of testosterone balance in your body. So, yeah, I mean, but it's an interesting, it'll be, I think he'll definitely be on a sort of unspoken probation for a little while. But that said, if you're right, and he comes back, born again, and everybody's really interested to see him now that he's sort of like, up, maybe, you know,

what was WWE going to ignore that and not put the title? Like, if there's a perfect storm where he returns at Battleground and is the most popular wrestler ever, it's not going to happen. Right. But let's just say he comes back with a pot bigger than CM Punk would have if he came back. And more on Punk later, by the way. Mm-hmm. Do you think they

would still, you think they would put the title on him at SummerSlam or no? He's going to be, he's going to still be booed out of the building. Well, I know, but if he came back for somehow as the biggest, if he, let's just say he spent the next week doing shoot interviews on Triple H on podcasts. And he came back and everybody was like, oh, this is the best dude ever.

Interesting, right. That is. Does WWE have the balls, have the conviction to put the title on him at SummerSlam? In my opinion, that's a great question. I think sadly no. I mean, that would be, that actually is. That would take huge balls to be like, you know what? We know you don't like this guy.

We know you don't even like him even more. But screw you, we're not going off script. I mean, you're right. That would be a balsy move. I don't think it'll happen. Yeah. I do think looking back that night now, it took me like almost a few days to realize. How crazy is it that the shield, all three of them held the belt in one night money in the bank?

It's really weird. It's kind of weird, right? Yeah. There was a, you know, we'll come back. Roman Raines is going to be the subject of this podcast for the rest of time. He's my new CM Punk. I just want to let everybody know. But speaking of the shield all throwing, all having the title on one night, there was a cool post on Squared Circle on Reddit yesterday, I guess.

Today, I don't even know as I'm looking at this, pointing out that at the beginning of the show of Raw on Monday night when obviously Reins wasn't there. But Ron's was there, Ambrose, A.J. and Sina. There was like a very brief window in like April, I think April 2010. where all four of those guys were world champions. Wow. Or like, CNA, obviously, W.E. AJ Stiles was TNA. Ambrose had the CZW title and Rollins had the Ring of Honor title.

That is actually a really cool moment. Right? I mean, that was, I always say that wrestling is best when everything matters to everything else, which is a sort of like vague way of saying there's nothing worse than just when everything is segmented into its specific feuds. Like my favorite wrestling back in, like when I grew up watching like NWA wrestling with Dusty Rhodes and Magnum T.A. and Rick Flair, like, they were kind of always hating everybody at all the time. I mean, there were baby faces and there were heels. But like Rick Flair would come out and say and just like cut a 10 minute promo. And because he was like touring around the region, he didn't have the same match every night. He was just cutting a promo on everybody he might be fighting. Right. So like mostly he hated Dusty Rhodes. But they would be like, and you Magnum T.A. let me say something to you and then you're like and you know Ricky Morton like really you have a singles match yeah okay and it's just like and another thing road warriors and it was just like awesome because every

it made every few that was going on sort of overlap and matter what i think was really effective for me on raw is we started we ended the show exactly where we started the show there's a triple threat match for the title and AJ and Cina are going to continue feuding right but you but we spent a really enjoyable well for in the context of those this story a really cool three hours involving AJ and Sina in the main event and then stripping them back out of the main event. But in a really compelling way, I thought. No, I did think they did a great job last night because, oh, wow, really, what are they going

to do with this next pay-per-view? Are they going to alter the match? And at least for one week, you were kind of left with a cliffhanger of, oh, yeah, maybe they are, this is the strategy and to get seen in AJ into these. matches where if you win, it'll be a fatal four way, fatal five way. But you're right. Now we're back exactly where we started.

They did it or they think they did it the right way. I mean, listen, once Sina lost his match, there wasn't a whole lot. I mean, it seemed like you knew the direction it was going a little, I mean, at least more than before. Uh-huh. Right. Because he didn't mean. I saw a WWE house show weekend before last at Staples Center.

And the main event was A.J. Rollins and Raines in a triple threat. And there was part of me. that was thinking like, oh, maybe they were sort of preparing for this. Like, obviously, Ambrose wouldn't have been there. But that match was actually really very good. And I mean, I think on some level they probably were. Raines and Rollins were prepping for this, you know, three-way with the shield.

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I guess by the time AJ, by the time AJ had his match, you knew, you know, that he wasn't going to win. But it was still pretty fun the whole road there. Yeah, and we know that AJ and Cine can put on an amazing match and have to finish. I mean, they still have a best match in them, right? I mean, they can do better than they did last month. Well, here's my other question to you yesterday, and this is my problem with it.

You have AJ Stiles who finally in the WWE. He's moreover than anyone in the company unanimously with kids, with parents, with across the board. And when Sina comes back, you know what? Let's turn this guy heel. And that just still really bothers me. Yeah, not only is a heel, but he has Japanese on his vest now. So that makes him a real bad guy.

And we're growing the hair out even a little more. Yeah. So a couple of other, I might have said some of this last week, but a couple of other notes from the house show, you know, I had always, I had heard through this entire, the past two years of Roman Raines that Roman was super over at house shows. Like, despite the fact that the smart fans were all chanting, on TV like he was over.

I mean, that's true. He was, I think the, the Never Raines movement has trickled down to the house show crowd, and it's not that it's a different set of fans. I mean, it is some different fans, but like, you do watch house shows more reverently than you do,

than you interact with, as a crowd member when you're at a TV taping. Right. They turn, they turn the lights down, the ring is on a spotlight. It's beautiful, man. I had a great-ass time. Like, I was cheering for all the baby faces,

moving for all the heels, fully invested. Roman Raines got the snarky booze to start off, but I think that's a new phenomenon in the house show. But by the end of the match, fighting heel A.J. and Heel and Heel Rollins, Raines had fully won the crowd over. And it made me, I think I wrote this last week, it made me really see what WWE sees.

Like, it's, it's, like, he has the power to be that baby face. if the crowd will let him do it. So, but the, if, that's a huge, right. Flip side of that is the biggest baby face pop of the entire night. Well, I think the biggest baby face pop of the entire night was Becky Lynch. But the, but close number two was AJ Stiles for about three seconds until the fans remembered they were supposed to be booing him.

And it was, it was, it was, it is pretty incredible that they took, I mean, Meltzer's been reporting, it was reporting that six months ago. that Reins and A.J. were the top two baby faces on the house show circuit. It's crazy, like you say, that they just decided to, like, end the AJ baby face experiment so quickly. It just bought, I mean, what? So it was at Royal Rumble, right? And it's less than six months. That's just what really bothers me is kind of, well, you know what?

The biggest way to get people maybe possibly to move for Sina or let's just turn this guy because. Yeah. And that bothers me. I don't disagree. I think there's, there's, the, what makes, what makes me uncomfortable is if, is if the decision was made that, like, you know, only, only AJ as a heel with his heel running buddies, the club, it takes those three to kind of equal Sina. Like, if that's the thought process, then like, yeah, that's a rough thought. That's not, I'm not into that. But, you know, it's 2016.

You can, AJ is going to turn baby face and turn heel in WWE 10 more times and the rest of his. career. Like it's, I think that they, I think that they can, they can backtrack this, you know, when they need to. It is strange from like a merch and marketing standpoint, but, you know, there are a lot of, there are a lot of teases. There are a lot of rumors out there that, that, uh, that Finn Baller is on his way to the main roster. Everything seems to be pointing towards him involving himself somehow in this club storyline. And that's going to end up. That seems to me that that will, that will end up with either AJ or Finn being sort of kicked out of the club and being the new baby face of the moment. So whichever one of those guys it is, they're going to get up, you know, they're, we're going to end up with another big baby face out of this whole storyline.

Yeah. And that's why if now you're looking for this reboot and you've kind of hit a lull with some of these storylines between the draft and now rains, it is a good time. There is, you know, some decisions are going to be made. Yeah. Well, the draft is really interesting too because, I mean, obviously it's all K-Fabe, like, whatever. It's not, it's not like, I mean, it would be great if they did draw names out of a hat. I would, I mean, if they said we're actually conducting a shoot draft and it's like, you know, Wednesday night at eight, I think every wrestling, it would be, that might get more, that might get more eyeballs than like anything except WrestleMania. Yeah.

And you, we joked upstairs the writers on our. show, like how funny if there was a real Adrian Wojahowski that was trumping WWE. Oh man, I would do anything to be that guy. It wouldn't be me, but that would be so great. I think it would be you. Oh, man, that would be so incredible. Shoemaker's ruining the draft.

Yeah, that would be, I'm getting blacklisted again. This would be wonderful. Yeah, no, but I think that it would be, it would be great. Yeah, if all the talent is in one room, like at the last draft, the last brand, whatever brand split draft, except it's real. And we see them react in real time to things that are actually happening. It'd be great if there was also a second camera in the writer's room where we see them trying to figure out what the hell they're going to do with these guys that they're losing or

I mean that they're getting on their show. It's just like, you know, AJ leaves the club. And all of a sudden, like the writers are just like throwing styrofoam cups at the wall. Just like, that was my best storyline. Jesus. Right. They break up New Day. Yeah.

Oh. That would be really sad if they broke up New Day. But the last time they did the Branswell, they did a couple of those. Remember they broke up the Dudley boys? Oh, I think. I think that's definitely going to happen, you would think. But that's why this is now, you know, it is interesting. And again, maybe you know better than me.

So is it a new set of belts over there? That's a really interesting thing. There was someone just pointed out online that sometime between last week and this week, the Kairon, when Dean Ambrose comes out, has changed from WWU World Heavy champion to just WWE champion. So it appears, good eyes on that guy. I think we're splitting the belts back up. We're going to get

to, I think, I don't know if it's the big gold belt or what, but my guess is that, yeah, SmackDown is going to have its own title. And you know, I think that that's, in some sense, that's the move, but at the same time, it's like, I would rather the champions be able to float a little bit, you know, and to have a

little bit more freedom. It makes you want to watch both shows for sure. I mean, this is well, yeah, I mean, last week, last week was such a confusing week with the Raines thing i mean we're coming back around to it but talking about watching both shows smackdown was like must-see television and i almost always watch smackdown i mean i would say i always watch smackdown last week was the most must-see episode in a while because i just you wanted to know if they were going to talk about rains and they didn't uh i think they made the right move you know we talked about this a little bit you and i talked about this off off

mike but the interesting the most interesting part of the rains thing is when wbbb knew that he got pinged. And when they told him and when they decided to go, like how long they waited to go public with it. Now, I talked to one person who used to work at WWE, and this is not inside information. This is just his personal theory, was that they probably knew about it on Sunday

and didn't tell Raines or, you know, probably didn't tell the talent. But regardless, they waited until after Raw, they made the battleground match and waited until after Raw to announce it sort of to legitimize Dean Ambrose's championship. So, that's true. That's like, like they made the decision to put, if they made the decision to put the belt on Ambrose because of Reins's test, and they announced it that night, then it would have seemed like, oh, we all know that Ambrose got the belt only because of Reigns, right?

I agree. Like that, that does make sense because also why, why tell him, WDWE clearly knew, but you're right. Go out, do the match. There's no need to futs with it. But what, what is interesting is the. the timeline 30 days really does add up specifically to, all right, he's going to fight at this battleground. Yeah.

Oh, he's going to fight, yeah. And be back in the bank and then be back at battleground. Yeah. Right. That's where it's a little like, oh, super convenient. Well, listen, it's also a great. I mean, I've been begging W.A.B. to have less pay per views for years now.

I mean, it would be if you really want to, if you really want to be able to F around with the, with the, with the wellness policy, just have a pay per view every five or six weeks. and that way anybody that gets busted will be back for the pay-per-view. Yeah, perfect, perfect. But apparently they're going to go to double pay-per-views now. I mean, this is the wide rumor that both shows are going to have a monthly show. Oh, my gosh. Which means... You're going to...

You will have no time for anything. That's what that means. I don't know... I was talking to a wrestling fan about this last... Just last night. And I talked to Dan St. Germain on this podcast about it, but it's like... I know what I do. I will watch all of the wrestling because that's part of my job.

But, like, I'm... Like, you... What are you going to watch? If Smackdown is live, Raw is live, every other Sunday is a quote-unquote pay-per-view event. It seems to me that if this weren't my gig, instead of watching more of this stuff, I would probably end up watching about 25% less. You know, if things seem less significant, you just sort of like phase out. And it's like, I missed like in your house 52, like not that big of a deal.

I can read the results online. But you have me in the beginning. Very similar to TNA. I can't wait for Smackdown. I mean, not going to happen. But high hopes, I hope Kurt Engel walks out that door that first night and he's the commissioner. Not going to happen. But, you know, I have tremendous high hopes.

It's weird. You know, Rick Flair hasn't necessarily been on TV on Raw. Who knows? It's wide open. And if they disappoint me that first Smackdown, well, then, yeah, that's going to suck. And it'll just go back to regular schedule as it is. now. Yeah.

I mean, I think it's, I don't think it's unsustainable, but it'll be interesting to see if they're capable. It's sort of like, it's like having two shows that are equally vital and serve to improve the product. And it's not, it's not the Monday Night Wars,

but they are, but part of the idea has to be creating their own competition, right? Because WWW has only been, only reached certain heights when it's had real, like competition. This is smart. Yeah, that's, so, I like that.

So if the idea, though, is that it's that, I mean, they're trying to build, trying to build both brands and, you know, build the whole sport through it. It's sort of like the invasion storyline. It's like, it's a really great idea. The odds of them actually pulling it off are not probably really high. It's also at an unfortunate time where the talent, I'm not saying the talent is thin.

You know, I mean, the Divas Division is tremendous. But how many guys are going to get pushes to be these, you know, Top lines. And right now it's a thin plaster. Yeah, you kind of get, I always think that the, when we talked, I mentioned the Dudley boys earlier, like when Devon became a preacher, that was sort of ridiculous. But I always think like the standard bearer for this was Brian Kendrick, where when he became the Brian Kendrick, were you watching this?

Like, it was when the brands were fully split. He had Ezekiel Jackson is like his muscle. And Brian Kendrick, I think it's just like, he's incredibly good. I mean, for a small guy. at that point to be getting that kind of push was pretty significant. But it was one of these things where I was really happy to see Brian Kendrick getting a singles push and getting really some time on TV. But at the same time, it sort of spoke to like the situation of the brand split.

And that like they're in a position where they have to give Brian Kendrick a put. You know, it made it, I was, I was happy for him and excited to see everything he did. But it did sort of feel like the product was a little bit diminished because there was a lot of that stuff going on at the time. Right. I mean, you would think out of like top tier guys, maybe it's like Bray Wyatt finally gets some, just lot. He's out of the shuffle at least or like a tightest, but. I mean, it's the tightest level guys if they get, if they start getting immediately pushed. I mean, they just got to be really careful with it. They've got to make it.

They've got to, I think first of all, be honest with the fans. He never got a fair shake because the roster was too full on raw. You know, like now he's finally, he's recommitted himself. like make it actually about the brand split and don't make don't make tightus o'neal you know a long haul driver or something and like just put him in a funny outfit and say like now we have a new titus o'neal you know i mean you've got to just like you i mean the best thing about the brand split is going to be if they treat it like a real sport like actually having whether or not they i mean obviously they're not going to work they're not going to do a shoot draft but treat the draft with some

legitimacy you know let it feel like the most important thing is i mean i said this months ago the coolest thing they could do is have fans speculating about like inner show trades. You know, I mean, that's the part of, you're talking about Woj. That's the part of sports that the WWE has no part of. And like, it could be really fun if they bring that stuff in. So if they treat it like a sport, if they treat the story, like the characters as they evolve in kind of realistic ways, I think there's a shot. Who would be your guy just talking about it like this that would slide in the draft that has so much talent? Oh.

And it's like, oh, he's dropped. He hasn't even been picked yet. Who is really good. So I'm going to do a mock draft on the ringer. And I haven't even started piecing it together yet. I mean, I think that like. Or it could be an announcer. It could be anyone.

I think that Roman Raines definitely has some Laramie Tunsel potential, you know. Like he's going to disappear on some people's draft boards. I mean, I think he would still end up going in the top five, right? I mean, but I think there's definitely going to be a situation like when the Ravens had Laramie Tunsel at number one and then that the the gas mask thing came out and he just left their draft board they're like we're not going to take him into seventh round but that's really interesting I mean I think that the I think that you know you're going to have some dudes like Dolph Ziegler who have people have very divergent opinions on now of course everybody listening this podcast

you and I probably think very highly of Ziegler but when you're actually drafting people I mean if you were actually drafting people do you think man maybe I can get Dolf Ziegler at like 20 if I just if I just waded out You know, Cisaro is another really interesting one where it's like we all, I'm sure that like. Cesar's a great one, yeah.

Yeah, like I would go, I could, I mean, I could justify going Cisaro in like my top five, but also, yeah, if the dude you're drafting against,

or the lady, if you're drafted, if you're Shane McMahon drafting against Stephanie, if you're, if you don't think that they're going to take Cizaro, then like maybe he's a top, maybe he's like a top 15 talent, maybe top 20,

I don't know. How good was he for those, two weeks when he got main event and he roped in with the Sina. Those two weeks were so good. He had a great match against Del Rio. I mean, I used great sort of loosely, but he had a really good match against Del Rio on Smackdown this week. And both of those guys, I mean, I wouldn't mind if, I wouldn't mind if they just let them go

for 20 minutes at the battleground, just like, you know, they're good wrestlers. They're very good at what they do. Let them go do that. Well, maybe Smackdown will give these guys a chance to shine. But speaking of Del Rio, you can't break up him in Page now. which is the other thing. Well, maybe, maybe WWE, I mean, will decide that they should break up him in page. I mean, that is the one weird power that WWE has over their, over their talent.

You know, there's, there's, talent is, I think, supposed to not be in relationships, but of course it's okay. The big no-no at WWE is talent and then, like, office relationships. Like a wrestler cannot date a producer. See, I wasn't aware of this. That's the biggest taboo. Because this is now the most incestuous company. And I worked at MTV where everyone was dating. By when you just recently worked at MTV?

This was like, no, no, no, MTV Beach House Days kind of can't Coom Springbrook, like TRL, yes. Like 99, 2000, 2001. And, yeah, the Carson Daily era. Yeah, oh, I'm very aware of the Carson. I was tending bar during the Carson Daily era and like would wake up on my couch. You know, I pass out of my couch and wake up in time for TRL most days. So I was very, I was aware. No, your wrestling knowledge is that era of music.

Like, I could name you the guys of B2K. Not that you need it. But now we were going through the divas and the right. I mean, it's how. I just want to point out. I sat next to Ryan Cabrera at SummerSlam a couple years ago. He was marking out. Ryan Cabrera.

Amazing. Yeah. So, yeah. So we're talking about these divas. He peaked at number five, I think. He never on the top 10 list. I don't think he ever, yeah. Oh, man.

Gavin de Grau, I think, took his thunder. And now I just lost all your wrestling audience. So go on. I'm sorry. No, there's a big Gavin deGraud, WWE crossover. I think. No, you were saying that's like everybody's dating somebody now. Crazy.

So Paige and Dorio are apparently dating now, according to all of the hilarious websites that report on such things. I will wait. Do you tell me who your power couple is? Let's go through the list. Okay. Page Do Rio, Lana and Rusef. It's like if we're drafting couples, they slide down the draft board, right?

Because they, I love both of them to death, but it seems like WWE is not quite, like, they were way more into them in the past. And it seems like the relationship might have affected, like, WWE's promotion of them. Interesting. So, okay. You don't agree? No, you're right. Well, I mean, they, even last night on the intro, my fiance, I mean, that's how she's, my husband.

I think that's how she's bringing him out. But no, go on. Yeah, they're, they keep subtly trying different things with them. It's not quite like Cesarro in a beret territory, but like it does seem like they're sort of tweaking with that gimmick on a fairly regular basis. Well, they've gone down that road so far now. Speaking of husband and wife, Ms. and Maurice are now, I mean, Maurice was obviously a diva women's wrestler for WWW for a while. tired and then now is back with her with her man the miss and they're great i mean i think that he is so much more valuable with her it's unbelievable you can see they love working together

and it was hilarious last night um and of course we have john sina well i mean i don't know if we even count sina and and brian and the bellas anymore because there's so many i don't i don't even know which people are so wrestling besides john sina but they're they're together That's a WWC couple. Is Nikki making a comeback? She, where, yeah.

Like, Brie retired, right? Yeah, but. Yeah, okay. And then, uh, I think the,

I think the power couple has to be Ambrose and Renee Young, right? This is, they're probably, I'm okay, Stephanie and Triple, we're going to exempt Stephanie and Triple H

from this list. But Ambrose and Renee Young are like, we, that's the world champion and the most beloved, universally beloved broadcaster on WWE television, right? And they've kind of kept it

quite, as much as they can. They got some taste. They got, they got tacked. Yes. Yeah. No,

I think that's really good. I mean, I think that, Tate, what's the best example of like a celebrity couple that's not, that's like totally,

that's on the download? Like, they're not lying about it, but they're just, like, they're being very tasteful about it and not making a big deal of it. Tate doesn't have an answer.

Yeah. I feel like if, it's either a publicity stunt or, you know, or it's real. Yeah. Like, Aaron Rogers and Olympia month,

like, that's fake. That's publicity. You think it's all fake? Yeah. Wow. What about Sir Jabaka and what was his lady's name? I can't remember her name, but yeah, that's real.

That's real love. That always seemed really tasteful. Yeah, that's tasteful. WWE, real love. I stand by it. These are all real love. I'm not sure that, yeah, I mean, it's weird if I don't spend a lot of time on wrestling Tumblr, but being in relationships seems to only be a benefit for like, you know,

by the, for the fan girls or whatever. Like, it just kind of proves that your relationship, Especially if you're leader. You know, I don't know if that's true. Oh, God. But yeah, we started off the show talking about how real life things affect storylines. Right. I don't think that there's any, you know, the old adage, no publicity, all publicity is good publicity.

Who's Charlotte date? Well, Charlotte used to date. I mean, I think she's actually engaged. But I, but she used to date a dude who wrestles in TNA, who's sort of like crazy and has been in some trouble with the law. I'll look this up. Is it crazy that she would possibly be my number one pick if we were doing a real draft? How many real bumps, by the way, in that match last night? She's like the probably the best one.

The first thing that came up, by the way, when I searched this is Charlotte, is Kevin Love dating WWE Divas champion Charlotte? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. This guy's all in on wrestling. Yeah, I think I'm not even going to click that link because I'm fairly certain the answer is no. You're breaking this on the pod? Kevin Love and Sharlet. Charlotte are dating?

Right. So Brom, her first marriage was to Thomas Latimer, who wrestles in TNA as Brom, but they're divorced. And then she had it. She was, there was,

she had another run in with the law because she was with a dude named Ricky Johnson. But I don't know that, I don't know. We're way too deep into wrestling Tumblr right now. But this could be the chance. Whoever dates Charlotte Flair,

that's the power couple. And, and I, or you. If you were, if you, No, whoof, I am, I am mini-WW wellness policy buss away from being a compatible mate for Charlotte. I'll tell you that right now.

I love, though, that, like, this is a real sign of how WWE has taken, has invaded pop culture. Because, one, we know the calves have been wearing these shirts nonstop. And two, there is one crazy website that is purporting a Kevin Love Charlotte link. Such a huge summer for WWE between LeBron wearing the shirts, the retro WWE shirts. Kevin Lowe bring up the belt. I mean, they're not paying me, but homage those shirts and they're very comfortable. They're the best. They're very nice, man.

And then in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Penguins won with the HBK line and getting Sean Michael Stephen come. The WWE, you guys have gotten your wish. You are now every championship, every big fight. finals, you're there. And then there's Triple H sending you a belt. That is the best publicity they could ever get. Yeah. It might even be worth it for them to like advertise the network on these shows. I don't know. I still don't understand why they're not just putting a 30 second network ad on like actual sports. Yeah. Here's your MVP trophy. Here's your cover Sports Illustrated. Oh, and you get the belt. The interesting question for me is if the whatever, whatever blood

packed Vince McMahon and Dana White signed to let Brock Lesner go fight in the UFC, It would be really interesting if part of the deal was like, we get a WW commercial at UFC 200. That's more important to me than like Ronda Rousey gets to fight at WrestleMania. That conversation one day, that is going to be an amazing. The oral history of that cell phone conversation. What do you think, honestly? Like, especially that it came out and it wasn't leaked or, I mean, that was, what was it? It was leaked an hour before.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that it was probably a much more perfunctory conversation than we are used to having. I think that both guys probably went in thinking they had the upper hand and left thinking they got everything they wanted. You know, I mean, Vince certainly extracted, you know, something from Dana for the deal. But what's the, what? But that's what you're right. I think that's what Vince would want.

I need three commercials. and you're... Yeah, I think it was probably just money and like a favor to be named later, like whatever. But a commercial would have been a smart thing to ask for. We'll see. I mean, that might be beyond the pale for the UFC. But who knows?

But yeah, I mean, Vince, I heard once that Vince has like, has this like 51% philosophy for when he's negotiating. He's like, if it's 51 to 49, I'm winning. But if it's 50, 50, give it to the talent and let them think they won. Like that. It doesn't make, it makes sort of more sense when you hear it the first time than when you actually try to parse it out. But anyway, the idea is you roll over sometimes just to let the other person feel like they're getting one when you don't really care about it. You know?

So, but that's also the kind of philosophy that lets you walk away from every negotiation thinking you yourself won. So anyway, that's all kind of neither here nor there. But speaking of the UFC, we just got announced this past week that CM Punk finally is going to fight. at UFC 203. Are you excited for this? I, I, this, again, I can't wait to watch. It gets me excited. This has been a long time in the making.

Mildly, actually very, very word for CM Punk, though. What on a, between CM Punk versus Mickey Gall, who is, we, is a 24-year-old with two, I think, two wins in the UFC, CM Punk versus Mickey Gall at 2003. Are you more excited about that or Lesnar versus Mark Hunt at 200? Well, Lesnar for sure. I mean, proven champion. I mean, this guy. But for pure curiosity,

I'm going to have trouble watching the CM Punk fight. With Lesnar, that's the thing. With Lesnar, if he loses, he's still Brock Lesnar. Yeah. Man, if CM Punk, this is like a hero. This is, you know, a guy, you really don't, you want to see at least not be embarrassed. And that's how I would say.

What about you? Yeah. I think I'm about, I'm about, I mean, I think I'm much more interested in 200 the whole show. I mean, it's going to be, there's a lot of good fights. But, yeah, it's about 50-50 for me. I'm very interested in Brock fight again. I think Mark Hunt is, will be an interesting matchup for him. C.M. Punk, though, is just a freak show.

I mean, C.M. Punk is really just like, like the Carney side show that pro wrestling started off as. You know, I mean, it's, we don't know if he can even. would go. But I don't, you know, smart guy, very talented, very athletic. I can't imagine he'll be afraid. I'm sure he's not going to run around the ring. He's, you know, he'll take it head on and, and, yeah. It'll be interesting.

I mean, I think he'll definitely go in with a game plan that would allow him to win. But the problem is, you know, with really specific game plans and fighting, it doesn't take long for those to go out the window. Now, the guys at Bovada have actually already put the lineup for this. and Mickey Gill is minus 300, and Punk is plus 265, which is, which means nobody is expecting CM Punk

to win this match. And that's, and listen, I don't know who bets these things on Bavada, but like, if they're, I mean, presumably CM Punk would be, I mean, would get a lot of like people voting, and people betting on him just because he's CM Punk, right? And if he's the, is he the,

is he the public team? Yeah. I mean, as a, I mean, he's fighting a dude with two wins, right? I mean, that's, like, CM Punk is so much more famous. How many wrestling fans are going to go place a $25 bet on their, on their idol, CM Punk, right? But now, Mickey Gall, I'm sure, this is one of his things, cannot lose. He's probably also knowing full well, my God, if I lose.

It's all in his head. Yeah, it's like, you know, when Billy Crystal had this at bat against, in spring training in the pit, and the guy got, Billy Crystal got a foul ball, and now this poor guy was like. It's a really good point. Yeah. I mean, if he loses to CM Punk, that's not exactly good for the rest of your career. By the way, how many cutaways to CM Punk's? What was his, the diva he married?

AJ's, I mean, sorry, A.J. Lee, how many cutaways to the audience? Ooh. Very excited for that. The people love A.J. Lee. They do. I mean, it'll be interesting to see if she's at presumably she'll be there. She's got to be, right? Sometimes you watch backstage.

You don't necessarily want to be there watching your husband get this face punched. I mean, it's a tough sport to be a significant other. I wouldn't know. No. You're not married to a professional fighter? No, no. But you're right. I mean, these are both tremendous fights and it's, you know, really cool that, uh, that Siam Punk probably could have, you know, hey, this isn't for me, but he, he's stuck to it. He's going to do this. Well, I think he's got to do it to, I mean, they pay him, they've paid him a lot of money to me, to do very little over the past year so. So it's, I mean, he's been training very hard, presumably, but, you know, he's got to have this fight. You can't just walk. But yeah, it'll be interesting. And, you know, the best slash

worst thing about it is that we will continue to speculate about how this pertains to a future WWU return. Right. He's never coming back, folks. Just never coming back. And why does he need to win? We have a champion like Dean Ambrose, who is so capable filling his shoes. The big, The biggest note that I have from Monday Night Raw was that they're calling Dean Ambrose the dude. Did you catch this? Oh, yeah. We got the man. Yeah.

They actually said it in the main event. The Seth Rons is the man. Roman Raines is the guy. Dean Ambrose is the dude. I mean, is there... Clearly, they've never seen the Big Lobowski, by the way. Or they just saw the Big Lobowski. That's it.

Like, it's the only... Like, everything that WW does is like 10 years behind pop culture. It's incredible. I know. It just doesn't... Like, you want your champion to have, like, this fighting shot. You want them, you know, eh. It would be, it would be sort of interesting if Dean Ambrose called him.

I mean, they said he called himself the dude, right? But it'd be fine if he was just like, I'm not a guy. Like, I'm just a dude. Like, did he say that? Maybe that's how it started. Last week on Raw, that's how he kind of came out. But like, but then when you hype it up, yeah, it just becomes so silly. It is silly.

And the cold open last week of arriving in the cab and forgetting the bell. and the gab like, like, you're the, it was kind of like when Daniel Bryan, it was flimsy, like the name on his, what, the U.S. title was flimsy. Yeah. You're a champ. This is a big thing. Don't, don't like half-ass it. Like, hey, can you believe?

Like, Steph really went all in with the, like, your scraggly face. I can't believe your ugly mug is our champion. Is it, you know, is the face of our company, whatever. Like, she's going real hard on the sort of the Daniel Bryan-y, like, you like, you don't deserve to be our champion's angle too. Not a good angle. No. I mean,

I think it's okay for, I think it's, I think it's, it's okay for Dean Ambrose to be your champion. But I guess you got to, you got to, you know, it's part of the story.

You got to, you got to knock him a little bit. Who would you, who do you think is a better champion for WWB? Mm-hmm. Dean Ambrose or the returning Kurt Engel. Well, Kurt Engel doesn't have a neck.

I mean, I don't even know what the rumors are if he's actually coming. He said it's happening. that he's coming back in some shape, but it could just be that he's a manager or something like that. But that's huge. I mean, people always talk, what would be the biggest pop?

Who could be the biggest pop? Yeah, Engels on there. Shane McMahon and then angle. I can't. Yeah, I mean, it's weird that you would bring back angle and not, I mean, who knows? There have been rumors that they're calling a lot of legends to sort of help fill out these rosters.

But like, you're going to bring Engel back and not Shelton Benjamin, who seems to still be working at a really high level. Okay, right. I mean, that's a valid point. Yeah, and he could join the new day. That's probably what they would do with him. Yeah, I mean, they talked about Jeff Hardy, but I haven't heard anybody making, I haven't

heard any John Morrison rumors, which is, which by the way, I can't talk about this, but I went to a lucha taping this weekend. And all I can say is that, like, whenever this stuff airs, yeah, Lucha Underground fans are in for like an enormous smartgasm. Like, it's there, it's, it was a, it was a good day. And John Morrison, what? He's lighting that place on fire? I didn't even see John.

I saw John Morrison in person. He was driving in at the same time as I was walking into the parking lot. The dude was just like, yeah, do you have like a parking pass or whatever? And he was like, oh, okay, yeah, go park over there. Like, it was great. But the, but yeah, I mean, I saw him wrestle last year. He's an incredible shape and he's very, very good. I was never his biggest fan at WWU when he was there, but like they could use him.

They could really, really use him. Well, I mean, with three hours, they need everyone they can get. By the way, that's why I think Jericho is so important now that he can just fill 15 minutes of doing what these guys that can are just versatile. And Jericho just got just got tab to replace Bray Wyatt at the Japan show, China show. They're doing a China show. Yeah, yeah. Like they're, Bray Wyatt. I think Bray got shuffled around because of Roman's injury.

There's a lot of weird stuff. But yeah, they just said that it was supposed to be, it was supposed to be Brave versus Nakamura. And now I think it's Jericho versus Nakamura. Can I ask you one more question? Yeah, of course. Okay. Is this going to be Roman Raines' destiny?

I'm just throwing this out there. That it's almost like a Batista-like situation where, you know what, I might have a better career just doing movies, being a Bond villain, being, he has such a good look that even just in the last 24 hours, I thought I'm like sitting at home. This poor guy might honestly just have a better career at some point. You know what? Let me at least try Hollywood.

Yeah. I mean, I think that's got to be on the radar, right? I mean, look at him. He has, that's what his look is maybe. Yeah. I mean, listen, after he got, after his suspension was announced last week, there was some people retweeting on, obviously on Twitter, people retweeting like random people's tweets who were like,

Like, I don't know who, like, women were tweeting. I don't know who this Roman Raines guy who's trending, but he's hot as hell. You know, like that kind of stuff. And, like, you can, you see it. It's sort of like, it's sort of like the big pot, the pop he earned at the house show. There are, there's a lot of evidence that, like, you know, Roman Raines could be this star. Something is just not happening on television in the ring. And, uh, and, uh, and, you know, maybe, maybe it would be better.

Maybe he would be, maybe he's going to be a movie. So I find it hard to believe that he's going to, that he's going to have, he's going to have any. He could have any. He could have. been Aquaman. And I know we're, you know, Deaver going down a different road, but I just, if that kept up, don't you think Batista, after getting booed and coming back was like, you know what, I honestly don't need this. You think what? I mean, do you think like, like, WWE is having this sort of talent sharing deal with UFC right now? They should have really gone all in with a talent sharing deal with Game of

Thrones and just said, please take our Roman reigns and just give him a role as a cow. Just do let him do something. Thrones, Marvel. That, see, that's the business McMahon maybe should be getting into. Instead, they're just making their own movies. Has Roman Raines been in a WW film yet? Hmm. That's the first step to his Hollywood career. Kane is taking his roles, I think, of, unfortunately.

If you were going to cast Roman Rain, if you were going to build, you're a, you're a very well-established television writer. Hardly, but go on. With, you know, I'm sure a high-powered agent. All right. What, if your agent was just like, we're going. we need a vehicle for Roman Raines. And we need pitches tomorrow.

What do you do? With Roman Raines? Yeah. I think it's like he's an undercover rabbi. Okay. No, of course. No, no, no, I'm kidding. I mean, well, of course there's like a Tarzan type of role.

He probably has his shirt off, let's be honest. He doesn't take his shirt off in the ring. Well, now, probably because of the pimples on his back. Now we know why, Shoemaker. You just took that too far. Yeah, no, I apologize to Mr. Raines. But I do think, like, that's, at one point, this has got to get in your head. And, you know, maybe he's like, you know, let me take a break.

And it worked for Batista. And, you know, careful what you wish for. These fans keep booing him. He might just be like, you know what, see you. Yeah. And like I said, whatever he got busted for is totally okay in Hollywood. No matter what it was. Like, there's nobody, there's nobody taking piss tests when you're, like, on the set of, you know, Transformers 5.

Well, I mean, look at Jake Gyllenho on that box. boxing movie. Yeah. That wasn't from protein shakes. Well, I'm sure it was partly from protein shakes. Oh, you're a big Jellon Hallmark? No, I mean, there is this great phenomenon now of celebrities releasing their diets when they're getting into crazy shape.

Like the Rock's diet was a big thing for a while, the mountain from Game of Thrones. But there's also, yeah, like when Jake Jillenhall will do that, they'll be like an in-depth piece or at least, you know, a puff piece somewhere about how he got in this crazy shape. But I guess that's just like... Just like so much of what we deal with, that's, that's K-Fabe in the real world, right? When you're just like, I just ate a lot of cod and like drank a bunch of raw eggs. And it's basically just like, you know, the four horseman just broke Dusty Rhodes's arm or whatever. Like, we all know this is bullshit.

I would do it. I would do the Rock's diet, but they don't have cod in the conversary here, unfortunately. I've asked. Really? Yeah. Specifically for cod? Only chicken parm is really the only. Actually, I'm pretty sure they have more than chicken parm.

But I think you're just, you're diluting your life. off. Right. Is there anything else that we need to talk about? Seth Ron's incredible frog splash onto his face on Raw, I think bears mentioned. Although, you know, in the concussion era, maybe we shouldn't get too excited about that. You got very upset at me about my one take Enzo and Big Cass. Apparently a new promo, you can't teach that. I'm getting a little tired. These guys, it's starting to peter out a little bit. It is. If the idea is we're going to do the exact same promo every week until the fans memorize it. That's a fine idea that is kind of boring, but it's fine.

But, like, I think we've got it by now. Yeah. Bill's, like, seven-year-old son knows this promo forwards and backwards. And you know what? Little kids can go watch YouTube. Like, they know how to learn this stuff. Yeah. Not hard.

It's gotten a little bit tiresome. That's, you guys are creative guys. Got a lot of push. Let's... It's weird. I think that, you know, we've seen a couple of instances of people. people getting called up and and the, the creative not knowing exactly what to do with them.

We're just sort of misreading the situation. You're almost, I'm always getting a vibe that like they're stuck in. And for somebody, and by somebody I mean, Vince, they might just, like he just looks at them and says like, oh great,

I got a new set of new age outlaws. This is what they're going to do. Keep doing it. Keep sewing shirts. Yeah. This is, it's good TV. And they can do so much more than that.

I feel like they keep coming up on this podcast because they're great. But if you had to bet back on bovada.com now, if you had to bet everything, if you bet all of your money on one of those two guys being a future world champion, who do you take? Enzo or Cass? You'd want it to be Enzo, but it would be Cass. You think just the odds are in his, like he looks the part.

Only because you said I have, I'm now betting all of my money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I'm sure the odds are. are in his favor. But man, Inzo is, I don't know. Inzo, Inzo's, he's great. If he just, if he just stops doing the same thing every week. I think that he's like the sneaky, is totally different

than Daniel Bryan, but he's like the sneaky like underdog pick. Wait until they turn those to against each other. That'll be, uh, has that ever happened? Not even in NXT, never, never, right? No. Maybe they can fight over Carmelo and she gets finally called up. Yeah. Um, Another thing I thought was hilarious last night just quickly. Becky Lynch in Summer Ray, that match never happened. They never rang the bell. And then they just came back from commercial and it was Jericho because Becky Lynch attacked Natty. Oh yeah, and that was the whole thing.

Yeah, when they do that kind of thing, it gets really, yeah, that's very confusing. I didn't want to bother you. I didn't want to text you. I know you're in your zone, but it was so confused. Yeah, no, it is very confused. There were a couple of times for some reason last night where I was watching and I was just like would People always say that like Smackdown is you know they were back especially during the brand split but even recently Smackdown is the more like pure wrestling Show and Raw is more just about the storylines

I wonder what it would be like if raw was like actually no wrestling if it was just promo packages and people yelling at each other or like cutting promos It would be. It would be me DVRing it. That's that's pretty much what it would be So you need the wrestling to watch live. It is strange that sometimes these squash matches are like, okay, come on. What was the point? But that's what we grew up with. I mean, we grew up with guys cutting promos and then getting beat up during the promo and then squash matches.

Like, that was it. I don't know. I wouldn't be opposed to getting some jobbers. Wouldn't that be great if, I mean, maybe that could be the whole new thing. Bring back jobbers, but actually how. have a WWE network show that's about earning the jobber spot. Yeah. They're like a tournament.

America's best jobber. Yeah. The Brooklyn Brawler is the host. The invitational. Well, he can't be. Well, they fired him, but they can bring him back. Come on. I mean, that's fine.

Well, it would be like the Andre the Giant invitational. This would be the Brooklyn Brawler invitation. America's best jobber. We've got to tell Bill. Oh, we can make this show happen. But that would be so great. And then the fan, they would get over. Yeah.

Oh, for sure. But they have to sign a deal. They have to sign a contract. And it's just like, you might not ever win a match and you can't complain. Who was the teacher? He was kind of a jobber for a while. And then they made a better. The teacher?

He was an announcer. Oh, Matt Stryker. Matt Stryker. But he's doing Looch Underground now. He is. But for a while, he was kind of like. He was that guy. But he was America's best jobber.

Is Johnny Rod's, I believe, is still alive. He's still training at the Ed Gleason's gym in Brooklyn. He was like the jobber of all jobbers. He's 78 years old. Maybe this is where... Definitely still alive. This is a good ringer piece, I think. Yeah.

America's best jobber? Best jobber of all time. Oh, yeah. Johnny Rods was the guy. I mean, he trained SD Jones. Like, he was, he trained a lot of jobbers in his day. Not easy to do. No, it's not easy to do at all.

Nor is it easy to keep this podcast going. So thank you guys for listening. Anyone who's still listening this point, thanks Tate for sitting right there and recording this whole thing and not being able to remember Sir Jabaka's girlfriend's name. Is it C.R. Who is it? What's his girl? That's Russell Wilson.

Oh, yeah. I'm very confused. And thanks to you, Joel Solomon, for stopping by. Do you have a Twitter account or something that you want to plug? Joel W. Solomon, S-O-L-O-M-O-N, and Any Given Wednesdays, 10 o'clock, HBO. It's Kerry Hilsen, David. Carrie Hilsen, God. Okay. Well, thanks to Tate and to Carrie Hilsen and to Joel. Go to the Ringer.com. It's awesome. Watch any given Wednesday.

it's even awesomer. And in the meantime, keep watching on this WWD TV, humanoids. Hi, I'm Jeff Shackleford, and today on Shackhouse, we talked to Henrik Stenson about Olympic Golf, the open championship and his recent win in the BMW International. You can subscribe to Shackhouse on iTunes or wherever you find podcasts.