The Press Box - Ep. 190: 'The Masked Man Show' With Sam Donsky

Episode Date: September 29, 2016

The Ringer's David Shoemaker and Sam Donsky discuss the potential sale of TNA (8:00), the 'Clash of Champions' results (22:00), and the Seth Rollins–Kevin Owens rivalry (37:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Expert or rookie, you got to check out my bookie. Sign up today. Welcome to this very, very special post-plashers champions episode of The Mask Man Show. I'm David Chewaker, aka The Mask Man. I'm here with Sam Donski. Sam, how are we doing? Good. I'm just finalizing my bid for TNA.

This is good. I think if we pool our assets. I've got $20 in my pocket right now. We pool our lavish ringer salaries. This could be, we might actually be able to make some noise here. Or I think that if we pool their ringer salaries, we might be able to make an offer better than what Vince McMahon put forward. There is a whole lot.

We don't talk about TNA a lot on this show. Don't get a lot of complaints for it. Get a lot more complaints when we skip important Lucha Underground events and that sort of thing. But, yeah, TNA is officially for sale. Bound for Glory is coming up supposedly on Sunday, but there's some question as to whether or not it'll even happen if the sale doesn't go through. WWE or Vince McMahon made some sort of lowball offer the rumor is, and there are now a couple other people who are bidding for it.

One of them is a close confidant of yours, Billy Corrigan. Because, of course, that's like a kind of, it feels like, I mean, he's been around the company for a little while now, but it still feels like a just kind of WTF. Madlibs like if you were just sort of inventing like what is like the most TNA situation possible it would be you know a bidding war between Vince McMahon and Billy Corgan that Vince wasn't invested enough to win we should in the interest of full disclosure as we started this started this podcast we got kicked out of

the keeping at 1600 the lavish leather couch filled keeping at 1600 studios and we're now on a closet recording this but as we sat down We each had an internet window open. Mine was T&A roster, and Sam, yours was... Billy Corgan, net worth. Just take a second and guess his net worth to yourself. I have no idea of the answer here. Just guess.

Okay. Can we just say a number? Yes, say a number. Hoof. I'm just going to say he's been really good with his money. They were a huge band, right? And he had all the writing credits. He did a lot of producing.

I'm just going to say, going to say $200 million. 50 million. Oh, wow. I see, I was going high. That's what I'm getting just from Googling. But so... Maybe he's got a lot, maybe he's got like a smashing pumpkins limited on like the Virgin

Island somewhere where he's like hiding all of his cash. And then Vince is, Vince is a billionaire, like kind of a kind of borderline billionaire. Yeah. So it's like Billy Corgan's a 50 million, but he seems to really want it. and Vince's billion, but he seems like he's like hate bidding. Right. So there's so much and yet so little to wrap your mind around here. I mean, the presumption is that Vince McMahon wants the tape library,

and maybe that's it. You know, I mean, if he wanted another TV slot, he could get it. Right. Well, there's right. There's kind of the sort of backdoor incentive, similar. and like it's very evocative of the WCW situation on a smaller scale, right? But that the backdoor incentive is if he buys it, he will obviously shut it down. So it would be buying it to kill it.

Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Let's give him, yeah. I mean, let's say that he would buy it and just keep running it as a third brand and have a separate creative team. We know this isn't going to happen. But like, are there, what are the assets of TNA? Let's say you could get him on a little bit of a better chance. I mean, maybe it becomes another U.S.

USA show like on Saturday nights or something like that. Yeah. So I mean, I think that there's like, I think clearly the Hardee's, for sure to the extent that independent of this sale conversation, there were rumors that WWE was angling to bring the Hardee's back on board once their contracts are up in the spring. So for sure, especially with the final deletion and all that Matt Hardy's, you know. Yeah, I think Matt Hardy's. stock has never been higher. Jeff

Jeff gave an interview the other day where he said he wasn't interested in just going and going back to WWE and burning out in three months. You know, like he prefers the TNA schedule. And when you look at their roster, there's a lot of people who presumably fall into that category, right? I mean, the people that you, like, I mean, maybe not a lot, but, but, you know, Bobby Lashley is not interested seemingly in being a full-time wrestler. And the Hardy Boys and, you know, there's, they've had, they've done, they've had some

guy on the roster, some guys in the roster who were, you know, I mean, the Kurt Angle types who were maybe a little bit past their prime and not, you know, not particularly capable of working a full-time WWE schedule. Well, I think that, I mean, not that he's such a big name, but I think James Storm was in NXT and made the calculus that working, you know, a few dates at TNA for more money is, you know, worth it to him over the NXT line. He was in T, he was in T. He was in NXT? Oh, yeah, he was.

Oh, man. I totally missed that. I like James Storm, man. Yeah, I like James Storm, too. He's a good, but he's had some injury stuff. I mean, there have been periods where it looked like his career was done. And he's not like James Storm's, you know, 25 or not. And then the rest of him, I mean, you talked about the hard he's being on WWV's radar.

I mean, obviously, Drew Galloway is somebody who's, who has been employed recently with WWE. And, you know, no one would be surprised to see him back. Ethan Carter, who knows. But when you would kind of put him in that category, Mike Bennett has been rumored to go to WWE, you know, at the end of this current contract for like three contracts. You know, I mean, that's always the rumor there. I mean, it's not like the roster's not barren, right? Like, there's a few guys on their roster that if I told you, okay, in a year,

in a year, Ethan Carter is going to be an upper mid-card, W-W-Talent. You wouldn't, that wouldn't be crazy. No, no, no, no, I don't think so at all. I mean, I've, I've, I've, I've been saying that Eddie Edwards could be, um, could be a W.O.E. star, particularly now they have a cruiserweight division that he'd probably fit in, uh, for, for so long that now it's probably not feasible anymore. But I, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't know, they've got some,

they've got some talent there. Yeah. The, the, the last, like, sort of funny wrinkle of the prospect of TNA, getting, sold to Vince is Cody Rhodes just sort of, you know, free from the, you know, WWE after all these years. Finally out on his own, he's, I think he's like in talks with TNA and then his wife is signed to wrestle there apparently. And for them to get sold to WWV would be a cruel twist. Yeah.

I mean, I don't think that's, I mean, I would assume he has other options to, you know, to pay the bills. But yeah, it's sort of a weird thing. I mean, listen, the wrestling world is always needed a convocation to WWE. I think it's just hard to get too invested in this story because it's just hard to imagine teen day ever getting to that point. I mean, it's, and I don't think that they have,

I mean, honestly, people have been making fun of their names since the day they launched, and I think that that's probably one of the biggest problems they have with, I mean, if they were a slightly more legitimate, I mean, slightly more established, slightly more successful, slightly better named company, like you could imagine, you know, William Morris Endeavour getting in. Like, I mean, they wouldn't be paying all the money they paid for UFC,

but you can imagine them saying we want a wrestling promotion and maybe it'll fail, but we're going to make, we're going to try really hard to make it work. There's no question it could work. It's just, yeah, they don't have, like, it's, you'd have to, you have to, one of those situations where I think you have to, you know, put in money to make money. And it's not, I don't think, you know, that it seems like, unless, you know, someone with money to really bleed bought TNA

that they'd kind of be out of lock. And I don't think Billy Corgan's that guy. No shots at, you know, 50 millionaires listening. Yeah. Well, listen, maybe Billy Corgan is the genius of the wrestling industry needs and he hasn't just been able to show his stuff at TNA. Well, he's, I was reported, I forgot,

I read that he was going to change the name. That's part of his plan. He said he'll change the name. he also said that he was going to I think make a movie a final deletion movie which

sounds like a money loser all right I think I'm like losing money just thinking about it oh my gosh yeah I mean I think in wrestling in the wrestling industry and just in life there are many instances where if you if you say look at this awesome successful

five minute thing let's make a two hour thing that you're like you're that's that's just an incorrect idea, like 99% of the time. Do you care about, like, the tape library, like, aspect of it? Like, are you someone who, if, I mean, obviously there's YouTube and stuff, but the idea of having, like, you know, the last, or that, you know, that decade, that lost, lost, in quotes, decade of, like, AJ Stiles, having that on the network? Is that something that is, like, appealing to you?

It's funny. When I think, when I go on YouTube rabbit holes, and watch AJ Styles matches. I know he's had that killer one against Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels, but I feel like I end up watching more of his not, like, indie stuff than, or Japan stuff than TNA. I mean, yeah, I mean, I guess, like, the TNA stuff

that I end up watching is like, it's almost like the more of the Russell crap. And I don't mean that, I don't really mean this is like a knock. Like, they've done some of my favorite T&A moments to relive are like Scott Steiner's TN. heyday. Yeah. And the band.

Yeah. I mean, like the millionaire mafia or whatever. Like there is just some great like ill-conceived moments. But again, when you just give, when you just let, give wrestlers the opportunity to fill up 30 minutes of a show, sometimes some good stuff will come out of it. And also there's like the famous J. Lethal Rick Flair impersonation, which if you, there's no one who's listening to this who hasn't seen it. But if you haven't seen it, just Google it right now. It's the best impression in the history. history of impressions.

Anyway, that's enough talk about TNA. That's a lot of TNA. That's the most time I've ever spent talking about TNA on a podcast, I think. We had Clash of Champions, WWE Clash of Champions this weekend. And then it was followed up by, no, we didn't get a title match on Raw. We got a title match on Smackdown.

Title match on Smackdown. And it just seems like there's so many big matches. There's so many career-defining matches on a week-to-week basis that it all kind of gets, it all blurs together for me. Monday night, we had a presidential debate, which was the real, you know, that was probably the biggest moment. I mean, the biggest thing in that night, it certainly killed Monday night football, and it killed the raw rating, too, yeah. I think it was the lowest, I think it was the lowest raw rating they've ever done, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. which I guess makes sense

I'll be honest with you I was watching I was re-watching TNA I mean TNA I was re-watching Smackdown this morning before we recorded and went back to watch raw just like just to I'm all watched

the last 10 minutes of raw just to sort of have that fresh in my mind and realized I hadn't watched the last hour of raw but I like switched to the debate never turned back and just forgot that I had stopped I mean that the main event

of raw was a skip. It was not a... Yeah. I mean, it was a mid-card match from a couple months ago. Right, you could totally skip that. Not even that. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, but it's... I've complained about it before that WWE needs to somehow manage our, the viewer's expectations to let us know what we can skip a little, you know, so that you don't feel like you're missing

everything. But I don't want to get too far away from the... We actually had a big event this weekend, which was Clash of Champions. It was Kevin Owen's first title defense. Seth Rollins' first pay-per-view as a presumable, as a nominal baby face.

We can run through really quickly. I mean, the New Day, stop me if you have opinions that I'm just like trampling all over. The New Day versus Gallows and Anderson feud

feels like, has felt for a while like they're just, just waiting for something, like, to get another tag team ready to face the winner? Like, it's just a placeholder feud at this point? Yeah, it's really clear now in retrospect not to jump around the card, but that they hatched the Cesaros Seymus plan at some point and realized that, okay, that's going to be jump-started on the raw after a clash.

Yeah. And they just had Anderson and Gallas sort of play out the string. Yeah. And which is unfortunate because this was pretty good, I thought. Like, I don't think. I feel like the best, I mean, I feel like this has been, Sunday and Monday we're like actually two real banner nights for this feud. But, and part of that was just because it did feel a little bit like a throwaway. Expectations were a little bit lowered and they just went out there and had really good matches.

Coffey Kingston managed to explode his face. on raw, which was kind of exciting. That was crazy. But the show, raw start with two title rematches back to back? Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm talking about. It's such a blur. Like, it's hard to talk about the tag team match of the pay-per-view

without talking about the raw match. I mean, I don't know if that's, you know, if that's on purpose. I mean, obviously it's on purpose, but I don't know if that's like to have them both. If that's sort of a directional, like, okay, this is a type of thing that we're doing now or if that's just kind of they were sort of planning on the fly and needed I mean honestly the Reins

Rusev match felt like they were like killing time it felt like it was like on raw on raw felt like it was like um yeah it did feel like it was like it did feel like it was like long with a purpose like long to be long

yeah I mean we've seen this we've seen this over there I mean this is nothing new right where WWU will sometimes kind of book a match on Raw the way they wish they had done it on the pay-per-view, or wish they had had time to do it on the pay-per-view or what-have-you. But anyway, sorry, to go back to clash. I didn't mean to, yeah, yeah. No, that's it.

It's impossible to talk about one without talking about the other. The, I mean, Reins and Rousseff have decent chemistry or sort of developing an even better chemistry, a little bit on the fly. I mean, I think that, I don't think either of them. I don't think this is the right pairing that we're going to get the best matches, but these are both good wrestlers, and they're both good workers.

And I enjoy, I've enjoyed this feud. I feel like, I think they've got about all they could get out of this feud. Now, they probably hope, W.W.B. probably hope they would get a lot more. But. And it's not over.

It's definitely going to. Sure. No, we got Roman Raines, uh, destroying Rousseff with a chair. Right? I mean, it's hard.

It's really hard to say, like, with Raines. I get, you can very easily see what they're thinking, putting the U.S. title on him. I mean, it certainly was a runaway hit with the belt being on Sina, and a lot of their Rain's M.O. has been kind of to be a sort of baby Sina, and you can see them kind of wanting to replicate that kind of make a fighting face champion. It's funny that you bring that up,

because there was just a kind of bizarre rumor that Roman Raines got heat from Vince and Triple H backstage for sitting on the chair before he hit Rousseff with the chair because that was a heel move? That was a weird moment. Like it was so, it's like he kind of can't win sometimes. It really seemed like the anticipation

for him hitting Roussev with that chair seemed like the most over he's been in a while. It seemed that I was like sort of thinking ways. I was like, wow, like, you know, good for Roman. And you just needed that chair shot. And like, obviously Roman would, like, do the thing that sort of went against the grain of the heat and just sat there.

And then I guess he gave them the chair shot at the end, but still, it was like... Yeah, I mean, but it's almost like he understands that he needs to be a heel more than more than Vince and Triple H. do. Anyway, we need to come back to it. We need to circle back around to this because I think we discussed this a little bit last week.

I want to go into a little bit more depth. I wrote 90% of a piece and never published it about the subject. You know, there's definitely a dearth of baby faces on Raw and just sort of in general, and that's probably a lot of what they're thinking. Let's run through the rest of Clash of Champions before we get lost. T.J. Perkins defeated Brian Kendrick. The Brian Kendrick attacked Perkins after the match.

I mean, I admire that they're going really kind of old school with the cruiserweight division, and this feud is the sort of the most old school template feud you can imagine. This is a student and mentor sort of situation. And then, you know, the show of mutual respect at the end is tarnished by, by a very, by a heel turn you could have seen coming 100 miles away. I mean, I was, I thought it was, I was actually kind of worried that it was going to be, not that I thought it was anything special, but I was worried that it was going to be dead and it wasn't. No, compared to Raw where they had the six-man, or the, with a tag team match that nobody even realized was happening apparently.

That was good. Yeah, that was really good. Cizaro and Seamus, I loved this match. It was really good. It was really good. And I mean, and I, and I, I think, I mean, this kind of goes back to the managing expectations thing. I feel like WWE kind of shot themselves in the foot. Like, here's where we need, our brains are messed up as wrestling fans.

We love the idea of a Best of Seven series, like kind of in the abstract. And then as soon as they book it, we're bored before the first match even happens. And then, but then now it's over. And I'm just like, oh, I want to watch. I would love to see these, you know, I want to go back and watch the best of seven series, like just all in a row. It's a very, it's a strange, it's a strange kind of discomfort that we, I feel like I hear, see a lot on the internet. I mean, they just needed to, I don't know what the solution was, but yeah, none of, I mean, they could have done the same exact program, almost beat for beat in best of three. I mean, they, like, it was

Shamis winning, but it was three in a row, and then Cizaro winning, but it was three in a row and then a draw. I mean, you know, you could have saved a lot of, I mean, I don't know, three classics would have been better than whatever this was. I mean, and listen, I like the idea, again, I like the idea by best in the seven series. I think it's a good underutilized sort of, I mean,

it's it, you shouldn't do it all the time, but yeah, you could also see a thing where they were just like, you guys are going to keep having matches, week on raw until one until it one until it one until it's one until it's until it's one until it's in a pin or submission and then just have it keep they have them keep getting disqualified or something like that every week like you could just draw the tension in a way that where you can't like the moment they said best of seven series everybody said looked at their calendar and said clash champions yeah you know that that's going to be the

blow off well I mean this I mean says all besides first Cesar almost dying which was I guess a negative oh that when he jumped to jumped out of the ring and landed like seemingly on purpose, jump straight onto his skull. Yeah, so I don't want to sound enthusiastic about that, but otherwise, this was the match of the night for me. Sure. I was, like, really into it. I think the crowd was really into it,

which was, like, not, I think, foregone conclusion, you know, I think that... No, this matter, kudos of the crowd. I mean, it was definitely, it was definitely a hot crowd, at least, you know, it felt like a smart crowd. And as someone who grew up in Louisville, I don't have the highest opinion of people from Indianapolis, so, you know. I mean, this was a good crowd, I thought, because, I mean, we get to the other matches later,

but I thought that they were surprisingly flat for a surprisingly flat main event. So I thought they were kind of, like, a good... Chris Jericho and Sammy Zane, I have, like, I enjoyed the match. I've enjoyed this sort of a little mini-fewed, but it's, you know, there's not much to be said about it. I feel like Sam, I mean, I love Sammy, but yeah, that is kind of like his vibe right now. It seems like he's just a walking, you know, three and a half star match that you don't really think much about after the fact. Yeah. Or four star, you know what I mean?

It's so, he's so, like, he seems like he's kind of just sort of treading water and he's kind of like that upper midcard face that they just kind of put in wherever. Yeah, I mean, I think that they've done the bare minimum of, they've made the right choice and at the minimal level by kind of keeping him peripheral to the Kevin Owen storyline. But in a bigger sense, he just needs, he needs an arc. You know, he needs a storyline that matters because you can't call somebody an underdog unless he's actually fighting against something, you know? And that's, and there's just not, there's no direction. I mean, to his credit, though,

he's they could probably on a dime elevate him and he'd be up to it and he'd get over enough I mean he sure uh confident in him going forward yeah I mean I still I still don't think that we're quite at you know Kevin Owens versus Sammy Zane for the championship but but that is you could imagine you could imagine that in the not too terribly distant future also just giving jericho the pen was just like I I always I feel a little bit reluctant every time I want to compare something that happens in WW to indie wrestling when there's these recent indie transplants

who were part of the match but like that just felt like such a indie wrestling thing where it's just like this isn't a major feud so it really doesn't matter who wins and both guys ended up looking really good walking out of the match. I mean I kind of go back and forth because

I definitely get when like Jericho will come back and he'll do one of these runs and he only loses, that gets annoying, right? Yeah. So, like, I think that the, like, I hated, in the moment, I hated him getting this pin, and in the moment,

I hated him getting the, I think he's right, this clean pin on AJ at WrestleMania. Yeah. But I guess, like, in the kind of macro sense it, it's like, we talk about how great this Jericho run has been. and without a couple of wins. It would be a lot less. Yeah.

Also, I know everyone listens to this for my weekly commentary on Chris Cherico's pants, or lack thereof. I was really disappointed that he went back to the briefs on Sunday, but I fell a lot better on Monday when he was back in the long leather pants. I think that's definitely more of a creepy rock and roll dad look that he should be exploiting at this point in his career. Yeah, it's not even a question. I need Jericho and pants.

Also, Chris Jericho apparently antagonized Ashton Coucher to the point where he's going to be on Raw next week. I won't, you know, if Jericho's involved, I think there's a chance that it could be fine. I agree, Jericho's the right guy to kind of feed to that storyline, but like, if you've got to have Cudger and Danny Masterson show up on Raw. But at the same time, it's like, if we could keep them a few degrees further away from the title picture, I'd be happy. That's right. That's the, well, and that's kind of the,

I guess, the gift of Jericho is that you can have him, you know, he's the only guy he'd get away with being, you know,

one degree from, I mean, I thought that there was a chance that the, maybe there is a chance that after Clash, my thinking was that they were going to

actually insert him in the title picture, that was why he went over Zane was that they were going to do, some Jericho, Owens, Rollins situation. It's funny how many, they do a whole lot of triple threat title matches on house shows, touring shows all over the place. And I'm sure it's just to get the maximum amount of excitement out of a, you know,

a match like that. And also you don't want to do a clean, you know, title match. It makes, I mean, you could, but maybe it feels like a foregone conclusion. But, but yeah, I mean, that would be an interesting, that would be an interesting turn. Let's keep going. Charlotte defeated Bailey and Sasha. Any big surprise there? No, I mean, at this point, at this point, I just am really enjoying, I'm really enjoying Charlotte's reign.

I think that Charlotte's just a really, like, she's the best, I don't know, she's the most consistent heel in the company arguably right now. I mean, I just really enjoy it and I feel like, you know, until there's a compelling reason to take the belt off of her, I would just rather her be a dominant heel champ. I mean, that being said, I have a feeling Sasha's going to win the belt back. And how does that make you feel? I don't know. I mean, I don't know. We just really, just for the, for the people who are listening to this, you should know that we text about wrestling as it's going on Sam and I do all the time

and our kind of low, simmering disappointment with Sasha is one of the most frequent conversations that we have. It's from a place of we want her to succeed because her upside might be

her upside might be as high as literally anyone on the roster. Yeah. I mean Oh yeah. I think. But yeah, Something just feels not right with Sasha's direction right now. Her scripted promos feel just really off, and they're not getting over, and she's not...

Her even in the ring, I mean, it kind of just feels like a step off. I mean, maybe it's me because of those close calls with her, like, almost dying, that you kind of are watching, skittishly, which makes the work rate seem skittish, even though it might just be kind of an illusion, but I don't know. It seems like it's been a little sloppy. I agree, and I just don't think

there's anyone in the in all of WWE who is more adversely affected by the fans' adoration of them than Sasha Banks. And I mean, it works in a lot of ways. I mean, one of them is

she's probably in the position that she's in a little bit too, or two soon because she's just so over. Two, she's working as just like a cookie-cutter baby face when that's not her, the character she should be working. But that's, you know, the fans cheer so much that it's just inescapable. And, you know, and, you know, her interaction with Bailey, I think, actually pushes Sasha into a sort of better direction.

But it's, but yeah, I mean, I just think that. And part of it in the ring, I mean, continuing that same argument in the ring, I think what you're saying is on. I think our expectations are at the same time really, really high, maybe too high for at this stage in our career. And also, you're right. Like, we care about, like, we're so invested that you're paying closer attention. You know, you're like, you're more likely to notice when there's a flub in the ring or something like that.

I just think that it's that the fact that we all, of agree that she's, like you said, as the biggest upside in the industry before she got halfway to fulfilling it, I think, is, is, it puts her, puts her and her career in a difficult spot. I mean, to me, it seems like, not that, not to like fantasy book a solution, but it seems to me like it's, you have, in the women's division, you have two natural, you have two natural, iconic heels for me in Charlotte and Sasha you have two natural incredible baby faces in Becky and Bailey and they should be two and two on each on each

show yeah what like one of those faces and one of those heels that just seems too logical to me within you but you got to yeah I mean it's they shouldn't be separated you I mean there's just we have them all all four Yeah. I mean, that's probably, that's maybe, maybe that is really it. The women's division is one of the areas where the brand split has kind of, um, yeah, it's definitely hurt the division. I think if, you know, the cruiser weights can have, can be brand specific, then that's,

that's not crazy. But we've, we've covered that ground before. And we are where we are. I mean, I actually am enjoying the Smackdown women's division, you know, I think in a lot of ways, I mean, Smackdown, it's been more. enjoyable because it's sort of a simpler show, you know, and they have less time. And when you, I mean, they just are kind of hitting the beats really just dead on. And I think the women's division has benefited from that too.

That's bad, right? I mean, it says a lot that the division that just has one of the four horsemen is probably the better division right now. Yeah, sure. I mean, but I enjoy, I mean, I enjoy the tag team match. on Tuesday, I mean, yesterday. No, I agree with you. I mean, but yeah, I mean, and Alexa Bliss, you know, it's definitely stepping up.

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Just pay the shipping. After that, it's a few bucks a month, no long-term commitment, no hidden fees. there's no reason not to do it. So get yours at dollar shaveclub.com slash masked. That's dollar shaveclub.com slash M-A-S-K-K-E-D. We're actually running out of time because they're going to kick us out of here to do an NFL podcast. And if you want, just like, you know, tweet at Robert Mays and tell him that he should

quit trying to schedule his podcast when I'm doing mine. But yeah, so we talked about Roman Rings and Roussef. but then Seth Rons versus Kevin Owens, we have to talk about this. What was your takeaway from this match? It was just weird. I mean, I think I'm going to avoid banging the same drum too hard over and over, but this seemed to me like the real manifestation of,

it seems like when Rollins came back from the injury, when we were just talking about it, we were kind of talking about anticipating the pop, going to get, you know? And I was just thinking to myself as I was walking over earlier, like, how many conversations in the last, you know, year or two that pertain to W. You can even remember of an anticipatory pop, like a pop that you were just like, thinking like, wow, this is going be through the earth. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And for them to, I mean, that stands alone for me. I think the Shane McMahon surprised pop is probably like the other, like, really transcendent one that comes

to mind. But they knew that was going to be. to happen and to book against the grain of that. I think it was one of those things where at the time you could kind of argue it both ways. And I don't think they've really felt the consequences of it until now because the Rollins-Rains match happened and that was sort of interesting. And the SummerSlam was just interesting because it's SummerSlam and then the Triple H angle happened and that was interesting in and of itself. But this match felt like they are kind of getting finally the receipt on that decision, which is that if they had turned Rollins when he came back from the injury,

and he had just been a, given into the crowd and let them just cheer the hell out of him for the last couple of months and just built him up as just this, you know, giant baby face who had come back from this injury and had come back, and the company had abandoned him and just did one of those angles, I feel like they'd be in a much better place right now, and this match, to me, really showed it because the crowd just didn't even know.

I think you're totally right. I think that there's a couple of things going on. I mean, but what it boils down to is that they're just, the brand split is just laid bare the sort of lack of depth at the very top of the roster. And I think that that's not that this isn't a knock. It's a totally reasonable situation of the random. going to hopefully build their way out of it. But overall, you know, there's just no, there's,

there's, part of the way is the industry is evolved and the way that we watched it is there's just no baby faces anymore. But I think that leaves fans, I talked about this on last week, that leaves fans unsure about how to react, you know, I mean, it's, it's, as much as we want a sort of very modern or postmodern professional wrestling product are, our interaction with it is still very ingrained, you know, it's very Pavlovian, and we, and, and even the smartiest of fans, like, you know, if you don't know who the baby face and the heel are going into the, I mean, look at this, the, it's, to look at Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins, where you have the biggest heel in the company over the past two years on one side, and one of the most beloved

wrestlers in the, in the industry on the other side, despite the fact that he's working heel in a way that very, I mean, he is a heel by every definition. And then, and, and have, and when, to, despite Triple H's interference in the title match, there's there was not a hard turn

for Seth Rollins, right? So there's not, this is just, it's putting, Rollins, it's putting Owens, it's putting everybody in a weird position, you know, to, as far as the crowd reaction is going to go. It's so, it's just, like, you can have obviously, the, the, the,

modern ideal is, I think, is still a worthwhile ideal, and you can have ambiguity, but you have to have logical ambiguity, right? And I think that there's just kind of one too many or 10 too many layers of things that just you kind of, you can put up with a couple of them, but I don't know, it's just, it makes for a flat crowd, I think, in a match like this. Like, I know, I don't know, Maybe people love this, but when Owens did the crotch chop, I kind of, I don't know, I thought to myself, like, I don't know, like, Owens just, he's, I mean, he's so popular and so well liked. Like, that is like the last thing. Like, if I was trying to turn Seth Rawlins into a monster baby face, and you told me that,

okay, in the match where that's going to, that kind of face coronation is going to happen, and we're going to have the most popular guy on the roster do a crotch chop? Yeah. I mean, that seems crazy. It is crazy. That's another great, like, indie wrestling crossover thing, too. Because clearly this is the inspiration is the, you know,

the involvement of Triple H earlier in the month. But, yeah, I mean, that's for a while, the crotch shop has been the indie wrestler go-to of, like, people who have previously been WWE employees and stuff. And now the young bucks just do it, you know, like crazy. But the, but yeah, I mean, it was, you're right, it was a weird move. And listen, maybe if the idea is that we don't need a baby face and everybody, you know, like Vince McMahon supposedly said two or three years ago that like faces and heels are over,

that's great. It's just going to take some time for fans to adjust our sensibilities. 100%. And I think that that is really the bottom line, right? It's not like a, you know, I definitely don't, I am not down for, like, attitude era, like super nostalgia. And like, I don't think that, I think, but at the same. time, even though, like, the work rate is so much better now and there's, like, more things

to me are better now than they were. The one thing that I, you definitely can't argue, is that no matter whatever flaws, the attitude era, and et cetera, had, there really is no replacement for a hot main event. Like, there's just no, and in the attitude that really is, and in the attitude era, there were, I mean, as sort of, like, innovative as love of the storytelling was. It was still, there were still very delineated, clearly delineated baby faces and heels. You know, it was Austin versus McMahon. It was DX versus the nation. Over on WCW, there was, you know, the NWO storyline was a heel invasion storyline and it, and, you know, everyone can point at the various reasons for why the companies, you know, why they lost the lead in the Monday Night Wars and why the

company sort of fell apart. But I think you can, wherever you point, you can see it's right around the time when the NWO stopped being a good versus evil storyline and started being a bunch a dudes hanging out in the ring and like cutting promos on nobody. Yeah. I mean, it's also like on some level when Vince says that, it's almost like when you don't have a money-making baby face, that's when you say that, oh, yeah, faces and heels don't exist. That might be true. But the one he's always had is John Sina, which I think we should wrap up.

But it's worth talking about Smackdown a little bit. I mean, the Smackdown is, the main event picture on Smackdown is working right now. clicking right now, I would say largely because of John Cena's involvement. I mean, AJ Stiles, we're talking about the lack of faces in the company. We'd be remiss to not mention that AJ Stiles was the biggest baby face in the company until they turned him to the feud with John Sina. But far. Now, Dean Ambrose was arguably the top baby face in the company before he sort of started

turning tweener in the midst of this feud with John Sina. And I don't think that, I think that for Ambrose, Ambrose in particular, that's a really good move. I think that he's heading towards a sort of less definable character that's a better personality choice for him, probably closer to the real guy too. But, and AJ, you know, AJ works so well as a heel that it's sort of hard to get too mad about that in a retrospect. But if we are in a world where faces and heels don't exist, it makes John Cena's character

so much juicier because it's like he's not being booked as a baby face. That's just him. And it's, and I mean, I think that's true. And it's, you know, it sort of puts everything. It's the whole, it's what we've been, what I've been talking about forever about how seen is the biggest, the biggest, has been the biggest heal in the business for the past, you know, three years or whatever, without ever changing his character. I mean, his color commentary during the title match on Smackdown was like, was like a shade,

like a quarter of a shade away from just like healing off saying like, yeah, I, want to break the record now. So it's like I just have decided that that's what's going to happen. Yeah. And kind of like, it was like, I mean, it was incredibly effective, I thought. It was really good, but it was also obnoxious. Yeah. And I think that I think that Ambrose might be the guy on the roster who is most benefited by working with Sina. He seems like he is only as good like when he's when Ambrose is with like a mid-carter he feels like a mid-carter when he's with sina he feels like he belongs sure um it's it's it's hard it's it's we should we should get it

we should get a get moving but the but it's it's hard to imagine um i mean it's hard to say for certain what what how raw would be different if they if they had john cina but i think certainly If you just transposed him into the main event picture on Raw and let Owens and Rollins both play off of him, it would feel like, I mean, I've said forever, John Cena's most important attribute is he's the guy that makes the wrestlers you care about matter. And just putting him in that, transposing him into the raw main event, I think they would be better off. I could be complaining. I'm sorry. If you're going to agree with me, I'll let you talk. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, I mean, I think there would be justifiable complaints about CNA's, or maybe not, about Cina's exposure if he were there, but he was, but, but yeah, I mean, it would, they need, what Raw is lacking is the exact thing that John Cina at his best brings, and hopefully Raw are finding their way to get there pretty soon. Yeah, I, the only other thing that strikes me about the Smackdown feud is that I am shocked that they're not waiting until WrestleMania for Cina's, Breaking the record angle. Maybe he's going to lose.

Yeah, well, I guess we'll see. When is that pay-per-view? Tomorrow, I'm sure. Like, if you had told me Sunday, I would have believed it. Hopefully it's not Sunday. It didn't really seem like that was the go-home show yet. But the, there's a lot of professional wrestling out there. Before we get out of here, do you want to talk about Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt?

Or did you want to just leave that for some future time? we can leave it let's just say that that might be my least favorite feud of all time yeah I can't that was my feeling

until the last segment on Smackdown when Orton found Bray I was laughing so hard that like it sort of redeemed itself but I don't get to that point I don't think that was the intended reaction if I could like

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind like the stuff I've watched I would I would do that I would just or like that men in black little clicker I would just erase it right now yeah I think I think that's totally legitimate um yeah I mean it's it's a very strange it's really strange it's really strange weird that they didn't use this opportunity of the brand split to reboot bray Wyatt more than they have he seemed to get a new outfit and a slightly in a slightly I wonder if Bray and whoever is writing for Bray, I know that he's got a guy that he works pretty closely with

if they're a little bit too close to the character and they think that they're making dramatic changes with him when in fact no one else can perceive the difference. Other than like he has, he wears like a different jacket or whatever, like I don't think that there's any difference at all.

It's still the same that those droning on like purple pros like Oh, my God. Well, I mean, if we're just going to split hairs, the fact that they brought back, he's got the whole world in his hands and didn't save that for the inevitable sort of face turn or whatever is pretty incredible.

You know, like it's, when you're feuding with Randy Orden and you're singing a song, the whole crowd is going to sing along with, that's sort of, I don't know, it seems like an odd decision. Yeah, I mean, he was on the short list for when they did the brand split,

if you were making a short list of, okay, split the roster and half and this guy getting a longer look. Yeah. He would be like probably, you know, top one or two people on that list you would have made. So it's really surprising that they let him kind of... Well, if WWE buys TNA, we can all get excited about his inevitable feud with Abyss. That will be, you know, a dream matchup on the scale, on the level of Undertaker versus Sting that we've all been thinking about for a long time.

Jeff Hardy did say, by the way, that he's, I think he reiterated that he wants to have one last match. to have the Undertaker WrestleMania match and then retire. That's so generous of him. I know, exactly. I think we should just do a poll. Can we get every wrestler, every professional wrestler to comment? I mean, just to publicly say, like, would you accept a WrestleMania retirement match against the Undertaker?

And then we can just stop reporting that as news from now on. Anyway, I wish all the best to the Hardy Brothers and everybody on TNA over the next week. I hope that Bound for Glory happens, but I hope that, you know, they find a place of comfortable employment at the end of all this too. Whether or not it's WWE, I guess that remains to be seen.

Any closing thoughts for the week? No, I mean, we'll just, we'll update everyone on our TNA bid, I guess, another time. Yeah. If the podcast doesn't happen next week, it's because Sam and I are deeply involved in booking committee meetings,

for this upcoming TNA show. They said it cost $600,000 to put on a show. It's a lot. To put on like a Bound for Glory? Yeah, like one of the TV tapings. Yeah. I mean, imagine how much WW spends on a Summer Slammer or WrestleMania. Just how much does it cost to build like those giant palm trees that hold up the Titan trams?

I mean, hold up the, you know, that are like come out of the ring post or whatever. I mean, TNA's version would just be like a little... plant, I guess. I joked after WrestleMania 30 that WB's confetti budget was probably higher than TNA's altogether budget, but it's not, I mean, obviously it's a joke, but it's a, yeah, I mean, it's a lot, they, W&WB spends a shit ton of money

at these big shows. I mean, you just look around and you see it everywhere. And somehow they still can't find the extra cash to do my T-shirt idea where they sell T-shirts for the winner of every big, of the big events. That idea could pay for TNA. that idea alone. Yeah.

I shouldn't have given it away then. Then we could have really bought TNA. Let's get out of here. I'll go talk to Bill Simmons and see if he wants to make a bid. Until next time, let me know if you're going to bid anyone that's listening to this. And, you know, may the best Mark win. You annoyance.