The Press Box - Ep. 143: 'The Ringer Wrestling Podcast' With Steve Kazee

Episode Date: July 7, 2016

The Ringer's David Shoemaker and Steve Kazee on Kevin Durant's wrestling-worthy responses, Brock Lesnar's UFC 200 ripple effect (8:00), the holiday letdown of 'Raw' (27:00), the WWE pay-per-view expansion (36:00), the impending draft (47:00), and the current iteration of the New Day (54:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer Wrestling podcast is brought to you by Seatgeek. They're a 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 to any 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 sell your tickets directly from the app in less than 30 seconds. With Seat Geek, there's no guesswork. You'll know exactly where you're sitting, what you'll 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 the way it should be. To start using Seat Geek, download the free Seatgeek app, or go to Seatgeek. Welcome once again to the Ringer Wrestling Podcast. I'm David Shoemaker, sometimes a.k.k.a. The masked man here with my dear friend and wrestling aficionado. Dear friends now. Steve Kazee.

Hey, listen, this is your, what, the third podcast? My third podcast? That's it, man. We're going steady at this point. All right, good, good. This has been a really, it's a holiday week. We're recording late in the week. I apologize to all my diehard fans out there,

but it's the holiday put me behind, and it also means that there's not much going on in the world of WWE, at least storyline-wise this week. Some food fights, that's about it. That's, yeah, actual food fights. I'm sure, I hope that you didn't all see that, but I'm sure most of you did. The biggest thing that happened in wrestling this week,

had nothing to do with wrestling at all. It seems, I think it was Kevin Durant signing with the Golden State Warriors and the entirety of the internet being taken over with wrestling gifts. Yeah, it was pretty incredible. Is it safe to assume that between Hogan joining the NWO,

Sean Michael is in Marty Genetti on the barbershop, on the barbershop when they split up and now I guess the new addition to that is Seth Rollins turning on his shield teammates. Are those the three most important cultural moments in wrestling now that they're just so gift-worthy?

I think so, yeah. I mean, they sort of like live on. The crying Jordan face of wrestling memes. The shield one was pretty good. I watched it many times, yeah. Yeah. They got all the face reactions when Stephen Adams is Roman rains and he goes into the ropes. It's just perfect.

I feel like as an art director in my real life, I should know the answer to this. I don't know how long it takes to make that gif. It seems to be a pretty, I mean, it's not a light lift, right? It can't be a light lift, but somebody knows how to do it and do it well because it was quick. Somebody has a lot of those prepared for whatever's going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. It was just really incredible.

Yeah. And it was, you know, congrats on Kevin Durant for, start for like, beginning the heel segment of his career. I'm not sure that he was ever really a baby face. He had. Well, he was for a little while. Let's be honest. You're the real MVP was a definite baby face moment. And then the turn started.

And I think it started with the Mr. Unreliable. Liable headline. Oh, yeah. And then when he turned on, then he like got mad at the newspaper and demanded an apology. Yeah. Brian Curtis, my buddy who also works at the ringer wrote the piece of a couple of years for

at Grant, back at Grantland about how the weird way that, the weird relationship between the thunder and the local sports media and got a lot of blowback for that, even though I don't think. It's a pretty small town though. I mean, people like Oklahoma City is a small town.

It may have huge sports franchise. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. So it's probably a little, they took things a little more personally there. Yeah, it's true. I talked to Jim Ross last week, and this, thankfully, before this happened, although I'd like to hear what he, I'd like to hear what he, he thought they were, he thought he was staying. Oh, he, 100% thought, but I think everybody did. I mean, I don't know. I thought he was going. Really? I've ultimately always thought he would go because I think there's more to that Westbrook Durant relationship than what they ever led on. I think Durant doesn't want to play with him. I think Durant got tired of the sort of like. So this is actually like Sean Michaels and Martin. Genetti.

Yeah. Like, there was just a lot. Yeah. I don't think it's that Durant wants the spotlight. I think he just wants to play with somebody who's a little

less chaotic and a little less frenetic for all of his talents, which are many. Yeah, I think that we're sitting in here in the Ringer planning meetings, I mean, we had, I think that percentage-wise, everybody at the Ringer thought that there

was a really huge possibility that he would go. I mean, we talked about him going to Golden State as if it was a real thing. Yeah. But then when it actually happened, I think we were all still so blown away. I think that most people had just convinced themselves, ourselves, that he would sign the one-year contract

so he could make more money next year if he decided to leave. It just seemed like the easiest way out, you know? So that part was surprising, but you're right. If he decided it's time to go, then why not go to the city you want to live in? I mean, whatever, man. And what's the word you're going to do? Wait two years there?

I'm sure I can understand why people are mad, but, like, I deal with all these, you know, I talk about, like, you know, free agency and unionization and wrestling all the time and dreaming of a better day. I mean, this is a dude who just wanted to take a different job. I think that's okay. Good for him.

But that doesn't mean you can't boo him next year because, like we said, he's going to be the biggest heel in the world. Oh, he's like, LeBron is now a face. That's just that you have to leave. You have to turn heel to set up the big baby face run. LeBron could never have achieved the level of just a baby face celebrity that he's at right now if he hadn't gone to Miami. Yeah, because anybody who's not a Warriors fan right now wants the,

Warriors to lose so bad next year. And if it's got to be the Cavs, fine. It's got to be the Cavs. Oh, yeah. And anybody that thought, I mean, like, if LeBron had never left Cleveland, he would have been Roman Reigns. He would have been, like, the baby face that's getting shoved down our throat that nobody actually likes, right?

Now people are, I mean, like, my dad is like, yeah, I'm happy to see LeBron get one. You know, like, he deserves it. Or get one for Cleveland or whatever. But, like, it's crazy. And it's amazing how in the ringer office around Twitter, how just everything immediately goes to pro wrestling. Whenever something surprising happens now, it's just, it's like that time. Yeah, you know, and there are those people out there in broadcasting who sort of like to talk it down. And I'm not mentioning any names, Colin Howard. But, you know, they sort of like to talk it down and the

booger eater comments and all that. But it's sort of, you see on Twitter, it's immediately the first thing that everyone goes to is a wrestling meme. Sure. All right, wrestling jiff. And I think that that's maybe what we are. I think, GIF is the official pronunciation of this podcast, no matter what anybody says. But the, I mean, I think it is. It's interesting. It works in two ways. One, I mean, Colin Coward is very good at what he does.

Right. He shits on wrestling, I think, pretty deliberately. Yeah. And I think in a different... He's a heel in his own right. Yeah. He's definitely warmed up a lot to UFC since he signed a multimillion-dollar contract with Fox. That's just the way things work.

But I think that just taking him at face value, all of his critiques of wrestling, His critiques of wrestling aren't necessarily incorrect so much as it's just that he's missing the point entirely. Yeah. Which is professional wrestling is perfect for explaining these moments in our life. Like, that's why it exists. It's just, it's Greek theater, you know. It's high drama.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And, and man, it's, I'm, it was just, it was a really big, it was a big weekend for the NBA and for Kevin Durant for the Warriors. And it was a big weekend for pro wrestling gifdom. I just can't, I mean, I just can't say enough about how. how reaffirming it is a wrestling fan when the only, I mean, it's, it would really, it's like

the only language people have to communicate moments like this are, are Seth Rollins hitting, hitting Raines and Ambrose with a steel chair. Yeah. It's just incredible. It's absolutely poetic and beautiful. And good, and just good on them. And, I mean, it's one thing, the Hogan, the Hogan joining the NWO thing was sort of, was, you know, it's a really good parallel.

And it's a, I mean, it's not a great parallel of this situation, because, you know, the Warriors weren't exactly crazy heels up until this point. Right. Although I guess they were hedging that way, but they weren't the outsiders. But anyway, you can look at that picture and you and I get the joke. Yeah. But the shield turn gif, like, you could have never heard of pro wrestling in your life and you get the GIF. Yeah, you get the idea behind it.

Like, it was a very, it was, that was a good, it's nice to appreciate our favorite wrestlers in a different light. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the other big news this week that's not entirely related to wrestling is Brock Lesnar. He's fighting this weekend, this Saturday at UFC 200. This could be... Some poor bastard is going to get destroyed this weekend. Mark Hunt is not a poor bastard. He's really good. I know, but like, I just have a hard time believing Lesnar is going to go in there and lose at UFC 200.

I just, we'll see. Do you think that it's possible that the match is going to be worked? I mean, no. because I often think that Brock Lesnar loses the line of distinction in actual like between the two federations. Yeah, this could be more of a work than his WWE fights. Yeah, so he sort of gets a little lost, I think sometimes. I often worry about the guys he wrestles. I don't know, man.

I just, look, it's good for UFC. It's good for UFC. And I think it was a most of all a big FU to Connor. I mean, I don't know that for sure. But it seems to me like Lesnar sat back and was like, all right. enough of this guy like talking about oh i'm the money i'm this i'm that let me go in and like save the day and show you what like a real fighter is how much more money they annied up for brock too right exactly so it's kind of a brilliant business move on all sides because you you had a huge

hole to fill and there was no better way to fill it than with that big massive hunk of meat i have a story up right from fox sports in front of me about brock talking about his relationship with vince McMahon and how how they kind of negotiated this deal but there's just like a a video that is a YouTube video that is not playing. I haven't clicked play. And it's just Brock like pointing over his shoulder towards it. Like he's sitting next to this very slight woman who's interviewing him. And Brock's just doing like the like a hitchhiker thumb and his arms are so big.

I can't even understand. Like it's, um, yeah. I mean, maybe they also, I wonder if this is going to affect his, his WWU ring shape. If people are going to start, we can call him out now on not being in UFC shape every time he jumps in the ring. Not that you really need it. Have you, is there anybody. back in that dressing room who's more intimidating in a room than Brock Lesnar? I mean, not personally, but just, you've never been in the same room?

I don't think so. Oh, God. It's, uh, it's staggering. I'm hoping for SummerSlam. We'll see. So Simmons and I and Michelle were all back at SummerSlam. Right. And he walked in and I've never been more, I'd like, wet myself.

I immediately went into submissive position. I covered my genitalia and I laid on the floor and just peed a little. Yeah. He's so, he's so intimidating. Super nice guy, but also will not like mess. You will like break your face in an instant. If you react in that sort of primal way, right, where you're just like you're not afraid, like it's not that you're afraid.

You don't even have the ability to decide whether or not to act tough in front of your girlfriend. You're just immediately rolling over. I was immediately like over on the stomach, complete submission. That's great. Yeah. I do not envy Mark. Mark Hunt at all. Yeah.

It's going to be, I mean, there, They're very different styles. It'll be a really interesting fight. The cool thing about him doing all this press, though, is that, like he said, he was talking to, he opened up a little bit about Vince. The quote, the quote quote, the quote, the quote,

both older and more mature and it's water under the bridge. I think he, he meaning Vince, knows a happy Brock Lesnar is easier to work with than a Brock Lesnar that's not. And he went on to talk about his, how he has good people looking at his contract and all that kind of stuff. Well, let's be honest,

it benefits both sides quite well. because as much as I know the probably the guys, you know, the sort of day-to-day guys don't appreciate that kind of a contract. I can't say that as a fan. I don't love knowing that at some random juncture, you know, three months down the line, Brock Lesnar's going to pop into raw one night and I'm going to go through the roof with excitement. Right. It's like, you know, sometimes these guys, they get overexposed and I think we're seeing it right now. It's just like the same stuff every week. And you kind of almost wish a lot of those guys had some. and more time off.

Like, take a month here, take two months here. Go do the Marine 16 and come back. I wrote a big piece about it for Grantland a while ago that they're like where I was doing it, you know, proposing a rolling off season for everybody where like these guys, they need an off season anyway because they're just beating themselves to hell. Yeah. But if you just kind of mandated that everybody takes three months of the year off the road. And if they spend that time in Orlando at NXT, either helping train guys and occasionally

popping up on that show or if they're just on the beach somewhere or much, much more likely that time comes about somewhat mechanically when you're out with injuries instead of figuring out how quickly you can get back it's just like minimum three you know from now until this time is up you're not coming back yeah but it would help everybody to be off tv more and brock is the prime example of how much you want to see somebody when they're not around yeah like i'm i'm jonesing for lesnar to come back so the rumor this weekend i don't need i mean it's there it's been it's not been verified as far as i know but rumor popped up that that it's going to be lesner versus orton at SummerSlam. Now, everything people have been saying to that point was that they would wait until after

UFC 200 to make these plans. I think it makes a little bit of difference. If he just destroys Mark Hunt, then maybe the idea being, if he destroys Hunt, then maybe Vince is like, oh, he's in the title match or, you know, we'll figure that out. Or if he gets destroyed, then maybe he gets to fight, you know, the social outcasts on the pre-show. I mean, that would be the very unlikely span. I mean, listen, he left UFC last time on a losing streak. Yeah. And now, I mean, and he showed up in WWE as the biggest star in the history of WWE. Yeah.

I mean, part of that is the returning, conquering hero. Not even conquering, just the returning hero. I think there's also, you can lose in UFC and still be the, you know, the biggest badass in the WWE. I think that's sort of. Yeah, but how many times can we suspend disbelief? I don't know that losing at 200 is going to be that big a deal if he puts up something of a fight, but like, What if he just does, what if Brock Lesnar does a UFC fight every six months or every year and keeps coming back to WWE, like, you know, in the meantime? Well, it's diminishing returns at some point.

Right. I think it's a smart move for right now, but I don't think this is something you can, like, play out over time. I don't think he can keep bounce. It's not Dionne Sanders situation where he can, like, bounce between the two leagues and everything will be just hunky d'noy. Yeah, I guess that's true. I mean, we also talked on the show about how if he loses, then, I mean, how much money could it possibly take to get Mark Hunt just to come on over to WWE? Yeah, exactly. He would do that for a million bucks.

Right? Yeah, play that out until SummerSlam. But yeah, I mean, Orton is an interesting matchup just because it's a match we haven't seen since Rock's return. Right. And it is in, I guess, in WWE think

that it's a big time match that hasn't happened yet that could happen. I remember Rosenberg was a real big proponent of wanting to see Orton Lesnar. I mean, some people are really into this. It's not, I like Lesnar, and I would love to see this match If you said that Orton has, I mean that Lesnar has a certain number of matches left on his deal and he might retire, I don't think Orton would be in my top five.

No. No. There are so many other people I'd like to see Orton wrestle. But I think it would be, here's the interesting way to do it. Like if Brock loses and then you have him come out like the next week and have Orton come back and sort of just start talking smack about how he doesn't belong there and like you can't even win a UFC match or whatever. Sure. That's the buildup for a month and a half. Then I want to see that match.

I don't know where's the angle coming from. Like, what are we going to play for, you know, the next four weeks, five weeks until we get to SummerSlam? Like, what do you do to sell me that match? I just don't want another situation where it's like, oh, I want Sting and Triple H to wrestle because, you know, clearly I just want him to wrestle. I've never seen anything like it before. Right. Yeah, no, I think that's true. I mean, or Sting and Undertaker, which is, I mean, the match that might never happen.

But that's it. But, yeah, I mean, that's by the time that that match officially didn't happen this year, I think it was a great thing that it wasn't happening. Yeah. Just as far as it's only, it's only going to be, it's going to be a million times worse than we ever imagined it. So bad. Because our expectations were so high. Yeah. And you never want a wrestling match that will only serve to disappoint.

I guess you're right. I mean, I'm going to write about that, I think, for this Friday. And right before, I mean, in preface to UFC 200 is like what this means for WWE and what this means for Brock's career. And I haven't sorted through all my thoughts, really. But there is a sort of like, you're right. If he wins, then WWE is a lot better off, right? Yeah, for sure.

If he loses, I worry that there's a, that it would be, it's harder to imagine WWE booking it the right way. You know, like the way that you were talking about to let Brock actually like take some crap from Lesnar. Yeah, from, from Orden on the show. Orden can give it really, Orden's the guy that can fill that kind of role really well.

And as much as, smart ass, like, yeah, well. Yeah, company guys. I think I'm not as as sold on that, but yes, I think that if he can be the prick that he seems to be, sometimes it just like on the edges of promos and, you know, what I sort of always took is the real life, Randy, and I don't mean that as an insult at all. No, I know exactly what you're saying. But like, yeah, he could be a great version of that guy.

I actually think, as much as I love Paul Heyman, the worst thing they can do of Lesnar loses is let Paul Heyman come out and try to hype him back up. Yeah, I know. It's got to be some, it's got to be closer to like Rocky, like working for, like, like, I kind of feel like we need that from Lesnar right now because we've had a lot of years of him just being the conqueror, you know, the guy that comes in and like destroys everything. I need a little bit more of the lone wolf from him. I need to see, I mean, I love Paul Heyman. Don't get me wrong. I want to see Paul Heyman every raw.

But I would like to see Lesnar sort of on his own, just sort of willy-nilly coming out and just destroying people because he's upset about having lost a UFC match. Yeah. I mean, and I just said Rocky off the top of my head, but I would be totally excited to see like a Rocky 4, like him. training in like the, in Minnesota, just chopping wood. Yeah, totally. That would be really great, right? It would be amazing. And I just have him be really mad.

And just some very, I mean, even the, like, the, my favorite part of the, of the undertaker, Shane McMahon build up was the, was that one weird video package of Shane training with his, like, MMA coaches. Yeah. He looked so much, like that. Just like dropping knees on that guy, like, nonstop. Yeah. That's just like when, and, you know, UFC does those packages all the time.

But seeing guys in the gym just makes you so much more impressed that they're doing real things, you know? even though we know Lesnar's a legit fighter. Yeah. It would be interesting to see WWE start to shift, well, I mean, professional wrestling in all forms, start to shift into like, you know, we see like the 24-7 aspects of like actual fights

where they follow these guys through training and they sort of like want you, you build up to the fight. It'd be more interesting than the sort of like talky promo things that we have every week that don't really go anywhere. I think Dan St. Germain is going to be back on next week. And one of the things that we talked about was that Seth Rollins documented. We're going to talk about this more next week, the Seth Rollins sort of doc that they put out

and just in general how these things affect our perceptions of pro wrestlers. But I think that in a very general way I mean, it's funny because in a lot of ways UFC learned everything in their sort of myth-making promo packages from WWE. But now there's a lot of stuff that WWE can learn from UFC.

I agree. Well, you know, the Sammy Zane Kevin Owens promo a couple months ago was really a good, like a good visual to sort of build that match up. Like, we all know. Like, I want to see that match any day of the week. Like, I'll watch those guys wrestle forever. But when you see it built up like that, like it had a whole different feeling to it. Oh, yeah. It's like a great restaurant. This is just the nerdiest or the most like ringerick thing I can possibly say. I can already hear it coming out of my mouth.

It's like if someone tells you there's a great restaurant, like you want to see, you want to eat like you're cool to eat there. Right. Someone's just like, oh, this restaurant just got a five-star of you. You and me were going tonight. You're pretty excited about going. But if you see that restaurant on like Anthony Bourdain parts unknown where it's just like, this is like the chef's family and this is his experience and there's all this beautiful camera work and it, you know, them in the kitchen, you want to go a million times more. Yeah, exactly. So, because you feel like you're a part of the story.

Like you're invested in the story. And I think that that's the big difference. And when I talk about just being told a restaurant's good, I don't just mean like the regular way WWE does something. I mean the way that people like you and me, we know that we should love this. Right. I've seen, I saw them wrestle on the indies a couple of times. Like, I understand as much as probably, or most people, but yeah, the best thing that wrestling can do,

calling back to the gifts is tell a story in a really good way that makes you care more than you did before. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I think that to bring this back around to Brock, I think that there's, you know, I think there's going to be, it's going to be really interesting the way that they go forward off of this. And if he wins, I mean, he has a clean, his last match was a clean win against the current champion, right? So, I mean, I don't know if you go right back into that. Obviously, probably not at SummerSlam, but I think that, you know, it's, I mean, I'm very, for the first time in a while, I think it's totally up in the air what WWs do, plans for SummerSlam are right now. It really seemed like they were going to find, or it really felt like they must find a way to put off the Shield 3 way until SummerSlam because of what a,

big money match that was. Yeah. And like I've written and said a million times, like that match, that match and Rock versus Brock were the two matches that Vince McMahon wrote out at the top of every what's going on at Russell, next year planning list. Yeah. I mean, those are the two, those are the two big, big bouts and the fact that they're not

even, I'm happy that they're not saving it for WrestleMania because it would probably never happen. Isn't it crazy, though, that every time they've gotten close, like something has gone wrong? I think just at this point, with the, with the, with the, injuries the coming in the way they have. And also just with like just the arc of rains and everybody and all three of their careers over the past two years, you can just never count on that being as big a money match as it seems like to the people in W.W.U. Front Office. And even to you and me like, well, we still don't even know what's

going to happen. Let's be honest. I mean, it's like still through what two and a half weeks out. Yeah. I still don't know what's going to happen. Because when he comes back two days before the pay-per-view, I mean, he's off suspension like two or three days before, I think. Yeah. I mean, and just, I'm still in this camp. Like I'm never much of a conspiracy theorist, but there's a part of me that feels like we're just all getting like worked right now. I just, I can't. Yeah.

When Rawlins came out and sort of dropped it and was like, and then it became a like, let's make fun of Roman Rain's night. I was like, I like something. I mean, they put his tweet up on the Jumbotron, like, or the Titan Tron. Yeah. Like, I don't know, man. I don't know. I, um, I want to believe.

I turned on the, I turned on the, uh, my, the DVR of Raw and accidentally turned on last week's raw this week. And it was, and just Seth came out and cut the promo again. And I was just like, oh, we're really going to town on this. Like, he's really, this is just, every week's going to be a Seth Rallens, like,

work shoot. Yeah. It's funny that you said that you don't know, like you feel like we're being, we're being worked because I, right after the PED thing came, I mean, the failed wellness test, whatever came out.

Um, I just put up a jokey tweet about like a poll just like, because the Twitter polls are just inherently funny about what, and I said is the PED suspension or the wellness suspension, a work, a shoot, a work shoot, or a swerve. I think I voted this. And first of all, thank you to everyone that voted. A lot of people voted, but the craziest thing was how many people put that it was a work.

And I, I know that some people did that ironically. But I, but like, my first reaction was that's impossible. You know, it's just so out of the, it's just so silly to think that it's a work. But the way that they've handled it is either the most brilliant way possible or there is something else going on. I will tell you this much. I did not give them enough. I did not give them enough credit because I thought when I was like when this happened, I thought

there's no way they're going to address this. It's going to be let's keep this as quiet as possible for the next few weeks. And then I just never thought they would, I never in my life thought they would actually sort of like go in on him. And they went in on them. And I was like, all right. When Rollins was like, you know what? Let's talk about Roman Reins. I was like, oh, here we go. It's an interesting world that we live in where those, I mean, listen, there's nothing, there's in the wellness policy that states that they can't they couldn't just shoot to like they shouldn't shoot a month of Roman rains doing push-ups at home, you know, like video packages and having that and have that or you know, I mean, I think we've seen in the past, people get beat

up backstage to cover up these sort of disappearances, you know, and, or you lose a match, you go on walk about, whatever, there's a lot of, they're, they could have covered this up. And I think they even have a thing, I said this last week, I think they even have a provision where you can continue to work and not get paid. Or like if there's one more match or something. I think it's, you know, they're always trying to blur the lines between reality and fantasy. And I think it's, I mean, it's tricky because you don't want to go too far

because the wellness policy is there and it's established to sort of be a thing that is there for disciplinary reasons to try to clean up your sport, which has had a history of, you know, questionable things going on in it. But at the end of the day, if you could find a way to make that a work, you know, to make that a storyline, I'm all in. I would love nothing more than for him to come back and just be like the biggest heel of all time and just sort of go with it. Yeah, I mean, I wonder how much of that came into the consideration. I'm sure that it was, I'm sure that it was like a significant part of it, although I think that regardless, in this day and age, something like that comes out, you just got to, it's like the way that people kind of politely clapped Roman Raines on his tweet taking, you know, like putting it all on himself and just saying we're going to move on from this.

if more professional athletes, you know, did that. I think the world would be a slightly, like, a 0.01% better place. Yeah. But the, but yeah, it's, you know, it could have just been, I mean, that's sort of like a metaphor for WWE. If they had, you know, they just said, okay, this happened, we're going to dress it on TV. We're not going to wallpaper over it or whatever. Right. So, yeah, it is, it is interesting how much they embraced it.

I'm not sure how much they really had a chance. Well, they did the tease. With the four-way, five-way, they did the whole, like, are we going to get a four-way? Are we going to get a five-way? I don't know that there's really that much to, I don't know that there's that much that we need to talk about about Raw. Except, but, you know, it was a holiday. This is going to happen. All holiday episodes are sort of downers.

But it was such a letdown from the previous week. Or from those, was it was last week the four-way, five-way? Yeah. So, I mean, it was so, it was from. going from a week where it felt like we don't like anything could happen. Yeah. I mean, the whole,

the, the battleground main event could change, just the title picture in general could change. It's going from there to a place where it's just, it's not only that, that it was a holding episode, but the, but the fact that they were willing to go,

to go, to make it 100% a holding episode and just, you kind of watched it feeling like, well, now I know that nothing is going to happen between now and battleground, you know? Yeah. The only interesting thing that I,

thought was this setup, you know, where Enzo and Cass come out for John Sina and now you're going to have an Enzo Casp, you know, Anderson Gallo's match, I think, a battleground. I don't think you do a three-way, a three-man tag. Maybe you do. Maybe just because it's Battleground. If we really are having the Shield three-way, although that's two big, like, multi-man matches, but I think that it makes a certain sense to save Sina A.J. 2 for... I like that match, though. I like the club. Although the rumors, the Sina versus Roman Reins at Summer Slam, or the scene of versus, yeah, I mean, the Sina Rains championship match at Summer Slam was the rumor, which was in some ways

very legit before the suspension, before he lost the, before Rains lost the belt. And I keep hearing that pop crop back up. Like there are still murmurs about that match. So I don't know if that's still, if there's still, you know, a world in which maybe that happens or maybe they fight, but then it's rain. I mean, it's Rollins and Ambrose for the title. You know, I mean, there's different ways they could go about it. But I like the fact that I don't know what's going to happen at SummerSlam.

Yeah. I like the fact that we don't know what, we don't know if Raines is going to, you know, if there's, you know, we just don't know. And above all else, it's epitomized by Brock Lesnar. We don't know if he's, you know, the most over baby face in the history of wrestling or if he's just sort of like, yeah, like a midcard jobber. Like we are mid-card heel. Like it's like, I don't, there's a big gap in what, I mean, and we all love him. So whatever. but I mean, I think he's going to be fine when we're or the other.

I thought that it's weird that, like you were talking about them acknowledging Roman reign suspension, that, I mean, it's, you know, anything can happen in WWE is the saying. Right. They're not constrained by anyone's perception of what they are at all, but it is pretty funny to go from one week that opens with a work shoot, basically, and the next week opens with, like, the most canned, food fight. Like this is a thing

straight out of like the like UFC I mean WWF like the sledgehammer music video like where all the faces and heels are like just joining arms

and singing songs together there could not be a more ridiculous moment. It was pretty bad. It was pretty bad. I mean it was not unfunny. Then they have the audacity to ask who hit Kevin Owens

with a pie as if that's gonna be the thing that like sets up a match or something like I was like I don't care. That's the crazy thing that happens and I don't know why I mean I do know why it but it seems like a quibble it such a minor quibble but whenever they switch the camera angle yeah it just feels so insane it's like we're we're actually acknowledging that this is closer to Scooby-Doo than like boxing you know it felt very sort of looney tunes that whole thing but again it's just like I don't feel like normally I would

I think I would be taking the other side of the argument if some guy if I was just at a wrestling event someone was just talking crap about how corny wrestling has been lately, I would just be like, yeah, it's pro wrestling, shut up, like it's fun, let's enjoy it. But just such a weird juxtaposition between this and last week that it felt, it felt really odd. Although it was nice to see, you know, people besides the New Day get a chance to be funny, you know, and actually succeed at it. Yeah. Yeah. There was a great series of photos that was floating around online of how, how Apollo Cruz and Cesar were having an arm wrestling match the entire time, yeah.

And Kevin Owens was hiding under the table, which was the reveal. It was a great little like flipbook reveal. But yeah, I mean, aside from that, and also the, I mean, related was the main event where it was just like America versus the world. And like no one really cared. I don't know that you should really care whose heels and baby faces

when it comes to enforced group tag matches. I think these are all professional fighters and like this week we've seen that like UFC fighters who nominally hate each other can go do press together it's not that big of a deal but it did seem like they were just sort of like

forgetting what the characters were yeah I mean it was just a well not only that but let's just point out the fact that Kane is from hell he's not from America Kane is from hell well it's like it's like you know Lexillude the narcissist no one really pegged him as an all America or the Undertaker also

the Undertaker remember when he when he opened up his duster and had the American flag? Yeah. That was a big reveal for him. I guess if Undertaker is from America, then Kane. I switched it off.

I knew what we were getting. I was like, it's Fourth of July. They're just going to give us some schlock. Team America's going to win. Here we all go waving our flags and like, let's go watch some fireworks. Yeah. It was pretty bad.

It was a pretty bad way to end the already. Well, they started the live portion of the show post food fight with Rusev, which was hilarious. It was just like, welcome. It's the fourth. It's Independence Day. years and because of that we're starting with our United States champion and Rusza

is just how basically like spitting on America I kind of love Roussev a lot he's uh I've always sort of loved him I don't know why he's not I don't really like those sort of usually I'm not a big like oh the Russian or in this case the Bulgarian heel you know I don't really sort of buy into that but he's really good at it he's very very talented

and he's really fun to watch yeah he's fun I hope that we don't I mean he's so good at holding down the spot that he's in right now and even even if it's a little bit higher I hope he don't get into like a rut with him. You know, like we've said when Cody retired and with King Barrett, like to be like a second tier heel is a wonderful place to be if you want job security, but it's not, but it's a, it's a terrible place to be if you want upward mobility. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just,

that's not just about being a heel, but it's just, you know, it's always a flavor of the month thing. Like you need something to force yourself into the. I mean, I sort of feel like that, I don't know. I always hate saying this because I, you know, it's, I like the guy and I want him to like have all the success in the world, but it's hard to look at a landscape where Rusev is ever the world champion, you know? I mean, I just don't... As he is now, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, it just don't see that guy as being the guy, you know? You mean because of his character or just like you're talking about it? Bigger, bigger level, a bigger picture? I mean, look, there's how many, how many guys in that back room and there's one belt, right? Well, soon there are going to be two,

it seems like. Well, there will be, yeah, but still, uh, it just factors in. It's like we were talking about, I think the last time I did the podcast, we were sort of talking about relating it to like an understudy. Yeah. You know, like Dolph Ziegler is so good at his job, but because he's so good at his job, he's never going to move out of that job.

Yeah. Because that job is just, he does it really too well. Yeah. So I think Rusev's kind of the same guy. But, I mean, I see him like maybe Intercontinental Champion,

you know, that kind of thing. But I just don't know. Yeah. I mean, it definitely is going to have to go hand and hand with some sort of shift in the character. Like,

he can't just be this sort of cartoony villain and go, I mean, he could, He can be who he is now and be and fight for the title. Right. You know, he can be Umaga for like two months. Yeah, work his way up. But he's not going to be.

And honestly, I think that like, I mean, I've been saying for a long time that he's going to turn baby face sooner rather than later. And his sort of like personal life stuff that worked its way into his career planning, got in the way of that, I think. Yeah. But I, but I mean, it's a good, we're in a good era for being a, for being like a likable heel turning. baby face. They're not pulling the trigger on any of it, but like Bray Wyatt, Kevin Owens, Rusef, and I mean, I guess Brock Lesnar is the closest thing. They came to like letting their major, letting their number one heel accept like the baby face adulation. Yeah. Kevin Owens works so well because ultimately his character is him. You know, he's, it's just him as

that person. Yeah. So that guy can keep going up. That guy can hold the belt, I feel like. I think maybe it is that the fact that it's like this cartoony villain. and, you know, the Bulgarian beast kind of thing that I don't know how... Yeah, I mean, it's funny because Lana, I mean, Lana seems to be evolving as a character, at least indicated by her dress and hairstyle. Right. Rousseff is in slightly different tights now,

but... Yeah, slightly different tites and slim down. And no longer sort of going with the Russian aspect, now just the full Bulgarian. Yeah. Which I kind of like as well. And it seemed like it was like kind of deliberately changing his hair around two for a little while.

Now he sort of backed... Anyway, I think that there's avert... Like, my... I remember a long time ago, I fantasy booked Lana and Rusef, like, becoming, like, just kind of, like, segueing them into a little bit more into, like, just Euro trash instead of these cartoon characters. Like, just Rusef in a track suit with no shirt, I thought would have been an interesting look. Anything's possible, man.

I never thought I would see Fandango, like, in this Briseango thing. Yeah. Actually, I mean, a little guilty pleasure for that. It's funny. I think it's great. I mean, I think that it's, that also what we're saying specifically to that point is that You were talking about Inzo and Kaz, Cass going up against the club. I think that now we're saying tag teams get more opportunities because they're going to split the tag team division in half, presumably, at the brand split.

Yeah. I mean, I could eat my words when they have one show be tag and one show be women's. I mean, they've done those things before. But yeah, I mean, I think that it wouldn't surprise me if we kind of had like a comedy tag division on Smackdown and like a serious tough guys tag division. tag division on raw or vice versa. But it definitely seems like, you know, it's one of the benefits, even if we look back in six months and say the brand split was a total cluster fuck and like whatever, let's look back at these moments of hope where like, it looks like they're giving these like weird

guys time to exceed, it's time to excel as tag team, you know, competitors. So, yeah, I mean, I'm into those, I'm into those guys too. I'll admit it. Um, only, my only other note about the, uh, about the, uh, about the Rusev match was that Titus looks so much better in baggy shorts than he does in briefs. So I've, I always joke about this and it's such a weird thing, weird complaint, but I, but there's no way to look at Titus in briefs and not feel like you're looking at a naked person.

Like, yeah. It's the reaction of seeing like, like, like, you know, the statue of David or something. You're just like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't be looking at that. Yeah, right. It's not like, it's not a scene or anything, but yeah. I don't have a. an appetite for the for the for the Titus O'Neill just in general just in general oh great guy great guy yeah yeah I appreciate it as of the Apollo Creed routine um yeah I don't

a lot of guys in the main event seem to have all-American tights too I wonder how much money w. w. w.mede up or if that or is that just like I think it's out of your personal expenses is it like the all-American tights so seamstress is here yeah and if you're if you want to pay you go right ahead I think so yeah probably it just seemed like they are all Like, they must have helped out with that. There was a lot. There was a lot. Well, the big show was wearing the All-American tight, so that's not going to come cheap.

That's just a lot of material. It's a lot of fabric. But my favorite, my favorite running gag or whatever motif on wrestling, I mean, on WWE now is the repetition of the last time we see this matchup, right? It's Michael Cole says it over and over again. And I don't hate it as much as some of the things Michael Cole says over and over again, but I love the faux finality of this brand split as if they're not going to be back together.

You're never going to see these two guys ever again. I mean, first of all, we don't know the answer. So at least wait until the last episode after they're doing the matches, you know, to have like a parade of last time ever matches. Right. Maybe that's what SummerSlam should be. They should just make summer,

well, I guess it would be Battleground. Is Battleground after the Brand Split? Yeah, brand split's the 19th. I mean, well, the draft is the 19th. It would almost be more interesting if they just announced no matches for Battleground and it was just last night ever or something.

You know, like the biggest, like this is the last time any of these matches could take place. But is that what we're going to do? We're not, I mean, do we, are we not going to live in a world where we have, like, crossover on paperviews as well? First of all, we don't have answers to this deal. There's no, even if we were living in that world,

they could still do what I'm suggesting. We're just, you know, it's all crap anyway. Right. I mean, crap meaning bullshit, not meaning bad. But the, but, you know, the rumor, I think, is that they're really going to have 24 pay-prews. They're just going to go all in. Have we not talked about that on this show?

Well, you and I haven't talked about that. This is the question now I'm asking everybody that I run into who's a wrestling fan, who's a wrestling fan that has, you know, other interests in life and a full-time job and all this sort of stuff. So if wrestling is every other Sunday, there's a pay-per-view, and then live Monday and Tuesday nights for Raw and Live Smackdown. And this is excluding NXT and Lucha Underground. and whatever else, just as far as WWE Sunday, Monday, Tuesday goes. I noticed you didn't mention TNA. If you're watching TNA, that's great.

I'm a big brother Nero fan. Like, this is, it's, uh, if, if, just for WWU Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, what do you think, on a pay-per-view week, what do you think you're, what you're viewing a schedule is going to be? Oh, it's already terrible. I'm telling you, I watch wrestling pretty much every night. Really? Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah, it's my, like, you know, for a long time, I was the guy, you know, I'd watch, like, family guy reruns or I'd watch adult swim at night is just sort of my background entertainment but it's become now like oh I've got lucha underground I've got nxte so I'll watch you know nxte live and then I'll put lucha underground on tape and then I'll watch that tna from last week just to sort of see what happens yeah it's gotten any better and nope it hasn't moving on um so I mean look my concern is not about the amount of wrestling I'm going to watch my concern is the quality of the amount of wrestling that I'm going to watch because I'd be much more interested to see like a buildup between like all right so this guy and this guy from Raw and Smackdown

are going to wrestle at the next pay-per-view and then I see them wrestling other guys for the next like three weeks that's interesting and the stories are there and they're you know you can still cut promos and tell this person you're coming for them or whatever and you know you might be destroying people over there at the same space. Yeah, but they can't, like, see each other until the day of pay-per-view or whatever. There's something very old-school, like, territorial wrestling about that, where you would just have, I mean, I feel like I have been making Rick Flair cutting promo references all the time, but it's like, it would be like Rick Flair.

I remember the Flair Piper Feud, which is really great, but, like, they would just come out and you would cut a promo on the other guy, and then you'd go beat the snot out of a jobber, and then you'd get back out and finish your promo, basically. And it would be great. Like, there's nothing. And, you know, there'd be, and then maybe there's a run-in during that match that does not really significant but the run-in you know that really spikes interest in the show because we kind of get bogged down right now like you know how many times i mean i i i do have to admit i loved the whole

um beat-up john sina thing that they did the other night like where they were just like what christmas is next like what are you going to do yeah i think he said i'm going to wrap presents with my hot asian wife and then i'm going to beat up john sina yeah that's i appreciate that but i just don't want to see that every week yeah leading up to battleground that's that's true because then by the time the match gets there, I'm like, eh, so I kind of like the idea of the brand split sort of separating these people a bit, but if it's going to be double pay-per-views, oh, man, I mean, I'll watch it. Of course I'll watch it. I'm like a crack addict. But I'm still like, I mean, when I have nothing to do, I just turn on the network and watch like any old thing. I'm like, oh, in your house from

1996? Let's see what that's got to offer. Yeah. Yeah. I wish that, I mean, I still think the network's just like a few degrees away from that being like my 100% go-to. I'm much like I am, I'm still more likely to look to search on YouTube for old shit than the network. I think that's the thing they got to figure out next is how to just like, because see what we're all searching for, because just the other night, for example, I think we went to the roast of the macho man together. And so I was like, I want to go watch some old macho man promos.

By the way, this is a, it was a, it was a comic roast and it was, everyone knows macho man is dead. This was the premise was that it was a really distasteful roast of a dead person. And they do this for other, for other dead people. Yeah, historical. I think it's like historical roasts. Like ex presidents and things.

Yeah. So I went and home and I watched a lot of the promos. I mean, there's just some bad shit. There's just some bad shit promos. Like Hogan and Macho Man, like clearly like coked out of their minds, just yelling each other.

But so WWE doesn't really have a lot of those things on the network. Like you can't just. go pop and like listen occasionally they'll put up like you know hard times or something like that but it's still available on like youtube so they figure out how to do that i'm with you i'm 100% just simple things like the macho man promo playlist like the thing that you the rabbit holes that you fall in just to get one step ahead and honestly like i mean part of it's not wab's fault it's the like i'm too old i don't interact with like my the remote for for my apple tv or the remote on that my phone the phone version of my remote the same way I do with a keyboard.

Right. But like, I was looking up old like Ox Baker videos the other day. And WW probably owns a lot of those. They certainly don't own all of them. But the, but you know, I just go through YouTube and you can just sort of scan through in a different way. But you know, I've said it a million times. If they had, if they just had it like, it seems so obvious.

If they just had a, uh, just like one old Mid-South card, even if like the supercards or just a weekly show, if they just had one a week that was just, they just had director's commentary. I just had Jim Ross talking over the top. I had some wrestler, had just somebody. Man, I would just watch the hell out of that. There's no doubt in my mind, because the things that I go, I mean, I know that they're trying to make the network more than just a place to watch old wrestling.

Like that's important to them that they have these distinct properties that they can market to different advertisers and whatever. But it's like you go for these distinct property. It's sort of the WWE version of each of these things that just sort of you get lost in everything. You know? And then you end up with things like Camp WWE, which is actually pretty funny. Pretty funny, yeah.

But it's not, but you just get, like, it's so, it goes so against their brand because they're trying to do this really, like, they're trying to do an adult swim thing, you know? And they don't have the vocabulary to describe it adequately. Right. And it's like. And it's just sort of there with everything else. And, and my guess is that, like, you know, most adults don't know that they should be watching it. And most kids probably aren't allowed to watch it. So, like, who's watching that show?

You and I. Yeah. Yeah. Well, at some point, you've watched all of breaking ground. You've watched all, I mean, you've watched everything they have to offer, everything that's new. Yeah. And I even think that if they just did, like, just, like, retro roulette, you know, just if there was just a button you could, or if they just pulled up a match literally at random every day. Yeah.

Featured match of the day. Yeah. And then, like, you can just, like, tweet about it to your former, I mean, to your co-wrestling nerds, you know? Like, there's just some common vocabulary of, like, the old thing we're watching. They'll figure it out. I mean, it's still, what, only a really year and a half old? They have lots of, they still have lots of room to grow. I think, you know, it'll be, I don't know.

Still only $999, by the way. No one's paying us to say that. Yeah, I mean, I think they actually do need to sort of get insinuated in a certain way in the next couple of years much more quickly than they're doing now, only because the $999, like it's, they sort of set the price for having these standalone networks, but as soon as people start fully, you know, pulling the plug on cable, I don't know if 10 bucks is going to be the answer. Like, is, no matter how much content WW has, I think there's going to be a lot of people who suddenly look and say, I'm paying 10 for HBO and 10 for Netflix. And if other things

start coming along, maybe ESPN has like a first year $5 special or something like that. Then at some point, aren't you saying, like, why am I paying 10 bucks for WWE? Yeah. I don't know. It'll be, it'll be, I think they just need to, we need to be a little bit more. more sure that that's worth our money, like, within the next year. Yeah. Maybe that's saying too much. Yeah. Nothing.

As far as I know, there was not any big news that was coming out of Smackdown. But we have, but we're still, we're very close to the draft, which will be such a weird experience. Do you think we're on the cusp of seeing a lot of call-ups as well? I mean, it kind of feels that way. Yes. I mean, that's certainly the vibe that I've been getting for people I've been talking to. Or call-ins, I should say, not necessarily call-ups, but. We can still call-in call-ups.

And I think that when the draft splits them off, NXC will be, it wouldn't surprise me if it becomes even more, you know, even they refer to it pretty plainly on screen as like AAA. You know, I mean, that's not the Mexican Wrestling Federation, the AAA ball of professional, of the WWE. But the, dude, I was watching,

great thing, I finally moved into my place. I finally got cable out here in L.A. And one of the best part things is there is so much Lucha Libre just on broadcast television. Like, just on like the lower 40 channels. Like, it's all, it's all you can do. You could, like, you know, swing a cat.

Or that'd be the southern phrase. It's like, you could do a, you could do a Hurricane Rana. You can't do a Hurricane Rana without hitting a Lucha Libre show on basic cable. It's unbelievable. Yeah, there's a lot. It's one of the joys of living in Southern California. It's so nice, man. I mean, and there's, and honestly, like, I mean, it's, I'd say on the podcast,

I got to go see Lucha Underground and can't talk about it. because it's not airing for a million years. Right. And, you know, you go to see these in each, I'm so going to go, my first PWG show hasn't happened yet. Like, I'm getting very excited. I don't have tickets even, but like, I can't wait for that to someday happen. It's so cool to go to new and exciting wrestling things.

I almost would prefer to watch some random Lucha Libre show in Spanish in the background than to watch, like, WW Network. I mean, old stuff is different. Like the really, the really old school stuff that is still like a cross between, like, in the 90s and Sabado Higante? Yeah, exactly. Just weird, like, characters, and you don't know exactly what's happening. Yeah. People are just sort of flying around the ring.

And it really is sort of, like, the language barrier. Like, yeah, the weirdness of the show is as hard to get through as the language barrier. Or it's a close parallel. Yeah. Because you're just watching and you're like, yeah, I understand that this is wrestling. Right. But I'm not all the way sure what's going on. And then all of a sudden there's just like a glimmer of recognition just like, oh, that's original Sincarra.

Right. Like, I don't know how he got there, but that's him. And, yeah, just piecing it together makes it so much more fun. But, yeah, so anyway, I don't even know what I was talking about before I got there. So there's going to, oh, yeah, so the draft, I think the draft is going to happen. Yeah, I said call up. Yeah, I think they're going to do, this isn't based on any inside info. My guess is that they'll do the draft totally straight based on what they have now.

And then once they give it a couple weeks to settle in, we'll start saying a lot of of people. Right. Or maybe it'll be the week after. Maybe we'll suddenly see a whole, I mean, it wouldn't shock me if Finn Baller got drafted just to give him a bump, someone like that. Right.

If they're doing it, if they do it the right way, which is to actually make this feel like a sport, to make us care about it and the way that the world cared about Kevin Durant this week, they're not going to ever get to there. But if they, but that's what's really interesting about it. And if they, if, you know, Shane is running raw and Steph's running Smackdown and Smackdown has a way better draft, and we see on Raw, Shane saying, shit, I'm, I got to call Samoa Joe. I need something big, yeah.

You know, like, I got to do something. Like, that's interesting. Yeah. And honestly, if they just, all they got to do, it's so, it's so easy. Just put out rumors. Just hire a guy whose job is to make alt Reddit accounts every day and just say, like, I heard that they're going to move Seth Rawlins to Smackdown because he's underperforming. Yeah.

You know, and just there's that every day, then, like, people will stay very interested. Yeah, I think so too. They've got to figure out a way to manipulate the social media aspect of wrestling. There's some of the superstars, some of the performers who do it really well, others that just don't participate. But it's, I mean, look, it is where we are all going. It's where we all already are. We're sort of waiting on them to catch up. But I'm with you. Yeah, and they know that we know that we know that we know that. And they know that we know that has a great viral marketing campaign. I think that it's, I mean, listen, the social media is a difficult thing for every industry right now, right? I mean, nobody knows how to do it. Because we know that because we know that because when people do it really well, when there's a movie that has a great viral marketing campaign, like that's all that. anybody talks about for a month. Yeah. You know? Or when the NBA teams do it really, really well, like that poor kid inevitably gets fired. Yes, exactly. It's like they do it too well.

Yeah. And the old fogies can't handle it. That would be a great, I mean, if that's not already happening, and maybe it is, that's like, that's a marketing company that you and I should start is just, we'll, what we're going to do is just hire, we're going to. Run your social media? Yeah. What?

Do you say run? Run the social media? Run or ruin. Either one would have worked. I just think that like you can freelance your social media account to us. We'll make like two simple. my offensive tweets that doesn't make people stop coming, but just firing us is enough. Just enough. Yeah. And we'll just like thankfully take our check and take our bow and go back,

go back to whatever we were doing before. We'll go back to doing wrestling podcasts. I mean, look, I'm not going to lie. Every week when I'm watching wrestling, if I'm, especially, like most times I don't get a chance to watch it live because, you know, we're on the east or on the west coast, so we sort of get that laid out. That's the big letdown for me. Yeah. Well, DirecTV, which I have, you can catch the five o'clock. I'm just usually never home. But if I am home for it, I mean, I've got the Twitter right next to me on the computer just sort of checking the hashtags because Twitter is so damn funny. It makes it so much better.

I actually tried to get DirecTV and failed at my place. Oh, no. It had less to do with DirecTV more to the fact that like AT&T Internet, which is sort of part of the package deal, literally doesn't go to Echo Park. It's so strange. Yeah. But yeah, so that was my, I had these, I had amazing visions of like, having an excuse to leave the ringer office every day at four.

Every Monday at four. Like, yeah, time to go. Live Smackdown, too. See you guys later. And I still might figure that out. I mean, I've been mostly watching live illegally rather than like waiting for the 8 o'clock show. Right. But now I know you have it.

I'll just be at your house every Monday night. Sounds good, man. That's great. Is there anything else we need to touch on, man, before we get out of here? I feel like we just totally, we just managed to totally tread water for an hour. And that was pretty impressive stuff. Some mid-card jobbing there, but we did it. Yeah, Brock Lesnar, we've talked enough about the UFC is this weekend.

Yeah, Brett Hart, a bunch of people have just messaged me the hilarious Brett Hart, like, promo that he cut on Triple H recently. Like, he's, he is on another level right now, which is great. This is peak, Brett Hart. We published a piece in the bringer day about how we're at peak peak. Like, everybody said it enough. Yeah. But, yeah, it's, like, that Brett Hart is just. incredible.

But yeah, I mean, wait, before we go, this is a very minor thing, maybe. But what do you think about, what do you think about the Wyatt family and the new day right now? We touched on this a little bit last time I was here. And I said, this week was kind of a real big turn. I mean, it was a moment in the feud. Yeah, we saw it a little, it was creeping. It's been creeping for the last couple of weeks.

And I think I said when I was on the podcast, I'm not crazy about it because I'm still, like, the supernatural thing doesn't work for me. Like, it works for me with The Undertaker because, like, I, I like seeing the Undertaker again, but like the spooky stuff doesn't really get me in any way. Well, did it affect, I'm interested in your take because, you know, you're a, you're a famous actor. Did you notice or did it affect you that they seem to be shooting with like the O'Bother War Art Thou filter this week as opposed to the like the creepy horror movie filter? Like they seem to be doing a deliberately different. Well, it was like the power of positivity, right?

It's like what it's the new day's alternate reality. of like what it's like to be the Wyatt family. And here's the thing that I think they're trying to play off of, which is actually interesting, is that both in some way could be considered a cult, I guess. One is, you know, light, one is dark. But it's this idea, the whole, and this is, to Xavier Woods' credit, he's playing it beautifully.

But I just don't love the idea that, like, this, that Bray Wyatt is a person that has this, like, magical power and can, like, seduce you and, like, you know, be this. Like, if you're going to make him a cult leader, make him a cult leader, but I don't know what he is still. He still seems like your next horror villain. And at the end of the day, I mean, you can't quite, you can never, if you can't wrap your head around, I always say this, if you can't wrap your head around why this guy has decided

to pursue professional fighting as a career, then like, the rest of it is lost. Right, exactly. It's a great thing, but it just doesn't ever fulfill itself. The only, I mean, you can kind of do the George of the Animal Seal, like this guy is mentally handicapped and hangs around. Right. But, like, there's not, like, you can't do this guy as, is an IRS agent. and then any more at least and then like try to explain how he is actually that's probably a bad

example because there's a lot of people who are like CPAs is their second job right you probably know lots of working actors I do know a lot of working actors yeah I mean look it will see it will see where it goes I sort of always sort of like wait and let these things play out because I'm I you know I try not to prognosticate too much but I just I don't know I don't mind I want to see him wrestle but I just don't know what we're trying to do. Is Xavier going to leave new days? Because, I mean, let's be honest, the time has come to sort of do something to them.

Yeah. To shake that up because... The problem with that is that they've been... People have been saying this now for six months or something, and it seems so ridiculous when it first came up, it's time to split them up, it's time, whatever, that now there's this hard and fast opinion that no, we can't split them up.

Right. And that's stuck. I'm not necessarily saying split them up, but I think they need to lose the belts I think they sort of like need to sort of get knocked down the ladder a little bit because I think for the longest time they're all we had. Yeah. And now we have a lot of people.

You know, we have a lot of good tag teams coming in. I wouldn't mind seeing, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing them lose the belts due to just like the fact that the white family is driving them insane. Right. But maybe, I mean, I'm saying, have them drop it to somebody else. Yeah, Xavier Woods just lays down or something because he doesn't want to do this anymore. Or yeah, just, yeah, exactly.

Maybe you walks away and then the next time. it's like you lose the belt on DQ, yeah, but something like that happens. And then, yeah, I mean, if there was just something where maybe they're split up into, they're still together, but they're split up into two different feuds for a month. You know, they get like, maybe it's, you know, one-on-one against Bray and then the tag team matches, something. My hope is still that they're just screwing with the Wyatt still. I think that's got to be the answer.

That it's got, the whole thing is like, it's going to be that he's like, of course you don't have magical powers, you idiot. And then, you know, they just sort of attack the Wyatt family. I think the first piece I wrote for the ringer that I mean I mentioned this but it was or not the first piece but I think I wrote about this before the last pay-per-view in that it seems like but if this feud weren't taking place we are at the time we are at the time for the white family to kind of turn baby face at least bray and for and for the new day to kind of edge back to her I don't think they need to change they didn't change a ton when they quote-unquote turn baby face

but like they work better as as lovable heels than they do as sort of like dickish baby faces. Yeah. And I think that on paper, it almost makes sense to do the double turn in this feud. And functionally, I don't know with these sets of characters that that's even remotely possible. I don't know if there's any way you can take a team

that's over with like the sort of non-smark masses as the new day is and have anyone that looks like the white, family swap places with them. I don't know if that's possible. I think it's hard too because you know, you have a true trio of people like not there's not one guy on that team that sort of outshines the other. But it feels very much like it's Bray Wyatt and two other dudes. And that's not a knock against Eric and Braun. I mean, they're both like massive good performers, but it just, Bray is the face of that outlet. So if you're going to do a three on three, it just sort of doesn't

feel like equal weight. It's like AJ in the club versus Bray. and those two guys might be a little more interesting to me. But I don't know. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. It's true. I mean, and maybe that's the, I mean, maybe the look is that Bray eventually is, you know,

off doing his own thing. Maybe Luke Corpher can take over the family when he... What if Xavier Woods takes over the Wyatt family? That would be great. Bray just goes on and does a solo thing. I feel like that's a thing that would happen in like the wrestling of my youth. Oh, that you would just toss off a gimmick.

There you go. WWE, listen up. Xavier Woods comes in. He brainwashes the other two to turn on Bray. He starts the new, like the new new day. and Bray Wyatt goes off into the sunset. What does the old New Day do? Are they mad?

Yeah, they're mad. Because they lost their spots. Yeah, they try to get Xavier Woods back. Just for, if Kofi and Biggie are just sort of semi-serious and mad. Yeah. And Xavier Woods with Rowan, I mean, wait, Rowan and Stroman and Stroman are like trying to do comedy bits every week. Like that would make my day. I applied to be a writer.

They never got back to me. Oh, well, that's it. Now they're going to take this idea. So it doesn't matter. You're not going to get paid, but this is totally worthwhile. This is, I mean, and if it doesn't happen, it definitely should. But you know what? This is a perfect example.

This is something that I'm very upset about. I don't love what's happening, but still, I can't wait to see how it resolves. Like, I'm so, I just kind of want to know what's going to happen. Yeah, I think that that's true. I mean, I think it's crazy. We're all, I mean, it's, that we're waiting for these storylines to play out. Right. I guess to bring this all back around in the beginning.

The two biggest storylines, well, Kevin, Kevin Durant's The storyline is over for now But the other big storyline is Brock Lesnar And this Saturday we're going to find out If it's play I mean how it plays out Yeah I'd say they probably don't know right now

Because they gotta wait and see what happens this weekend That's what I mean Yeah they're like the biggest thing that's going to happen Is him winning or losing on Saturday Is a bigger deal than what happened at SummerSlam No matter how much they hype it For sure So it'll make that amount of difference

So you know I'll be cheering for Brock Lesner Just for the sake of WWE being a little bit awesomer Yeah. But it'll be, it's going to be really interesting to see what they're going to do if he, well, I'm not going to get too far ahead of myself. We'll see, we'll see. Wrestling fans, you are not obligated to watch UFC 200, but it's actually, for a card that's

missing arguably the two biggest stars that UFC's had in the past year, it's really stacked. They have like, they have really great former champions working the pre-show. So this is, this is actually the card that WWE tries to make you think they're putting on every month even when they're calling it like like pretty good wrestling volume four um anyway i think that's it for this week all right man uh i'm glad to be back again check out the ringer oh i wrote about the rock last week i did i wrote a profile of the rock this is actually my biggest outside of wrestling thing of the week the rock tweeted it on saturday and my entire twitter timeline became people trying to talk to the rock okay i don't know how familiar you are with this

phenomenon but the certain level like when you have 80 million twitter followers or whatever every time you tweet anything, I guess, all your responses are just like, hey man, I loved you in the rundown. They just hit reply all. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you just like trying to talk back. And you get both people in the thing, yeah.

Oh yeah, they hit reply, yeah, including to me. So it's like, every single one is just like, you and my sister should date. Or like, you know, it's just like really intimate, direct stuff or like just hey Rocky. Or like, hey, Dwayne, I love you so much. You know, where it's like, this is very intimate, like very personal.

I'm currently working on a script for the rock because I sort of went, I went and saw CIA, or, no, central intelligence. And I thought, Ike Barronholtz is probably the smartest man

in the world because he was like, I'm going to write a movie for the rock and for Kevin Hart. And it's going to make a bazillion dollars. I think that's probably true.

So now I'm working on a movie for a rock and I think Channing Tatum. Does anybody know this? No, he does now. He just heard it. I know he listens to the podcast. Hit me up,

Dwayne. He definitely reads the ringer. So check that out. And we have, we do a UFC preview up that's up as I'm recording this and there'll be a, I'm doing something, like I said,

on Brock Lesnar for Friday, unless I just disappear from the face of the earth, which is possible. There's a lot of work going on. Do you have anything going on? No, but that was dark. That's a dark ending in the podcast. Oh, I'm sorry.

The power of positivity has been waning ever since the Wyatt family reappeared. I have nothing going on, man. I'm just watching wrestling every day. What's your Twitter? Do you have a Twitter account? People shouldn't check out. At Steve Kazee.

Yeah. Where you can write me and tell me how mad you were that I called Cleveland a shit hole. It's okay. There people were upset. We're going to make it up to Cleveland. Yeah, we'll make it up to Cleveland. Somehow.

We'll figure out a way. I'm at David Shoemaker and, yeah, tune in next week. Maybe I'll tell you the name of this podcast, Humanoid.