The Press Box - Ep. 195: 'The Masked Man Show' With Dave Schilling

Episode Date: October 19, 2016

The Ringer's David Shoemaker and The Guardian's Dave Schilling discuss Paige's proposal to Alberto Del Rio (2:33), the Undertaker's crutches (6:25), and the surprisingly entertaining return of Goldberg on 'Raw' (7:29). Then, the announcement for the main event for 'Hell in a Cell' is analyzed (27:18) as is the impressive championship match on 'Smackdown' (36:41). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Today's episode of Channel 33 is brought to you by Seekek, the presenting sponsor for my podcast, as well as the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. With just two taps on your phone, you can instantly buy Seekkeek tickets to an event, and you can enter that event just using your phone. No paper tickets. Drop your old ticket app. Use one that's built for 2016.

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and reruns on HBO Now, HBO Go, and HBO on demand. And now without further ado, here is the Masked Man, David. Shoemaker. Welcome to the Mask Man Show. I'm sitting here in a lovely cave with my dear friend Dave Shill.

Should we, I'm going to chant your name now. This is a big moment. So, Shilling, Shoeing, Shill. Okay, that was good enough. I just want the sparklers and for smoke to come out of my mouth, like a drag. I just want someday in my life to walk by Biggie and have him react to me in the way that he reacted to Bill Goldberg on Monday.

This is a, I'm going to say up front, this is an episode of reversals for me. I'm just going to spoil the whole show. I'm in on Gold, back in on Goldberg. I'm out on the Raw Women's Championship match, and I'm in on James Ellsworth, although I don't know that I was ever totally out on him. But yeah, we're going to talk about all of that stuff. Goldberg it was such a crazy it was more of a moment

than I thought it was going to be Well part of that was just him He was really taken aback by the reaction And I think it's partially because The last time he was in a WWW ring They booed the hell out of him Yeah well let's get to that in a minute

Before we get into that I want to touch on a couple of outside the ring things Well actually this has happened inside of a ring but get to the news of wrestling. Number one is that Paige apparently proposed to Alberto del Rio, now Alberto El Presidency Rodriguez, is that correct? That is correct. She proposed inside a wrestling ring? Yeah, there's a WWC event.

And, you know, he's still married. He's still married to his wife. Yeah, and last I checked, she still promised herself to me. Oh, okay. That's not true. depressed by this story. This is just bumming me out. You know, I chat, you know, I DM a lot with Sam Donski, who's on the show a

good bit and our editor-in-chief, Sean Fennessee, and he's, and we were talking about this, like, it is so harrowing, this whole storyline from the moment that they were caught arguing outside the WWE event, I mean, even before that, if this were a WWE scripted storyline, this would be one of the best of all time. Yeah, I mean, I was half expecting Roman Raines to come out during the proposal and spear everyone because he apparently hates when people get married. Yeah. Well, I mean, if that's going to be your gimmick, you got to run with it. I, like, I mean, we've obviously, I don't want to, you know, last week was, you know, we were reading that crazy, thinly sourced rumor about what might be going on behind, you know, the backstory of their lives.

So I don't want to make too much light of the situation, except this is a wrestling podcast, so who cares? But like, we've seen WWE take real life and bring it back into the, you know, into the ring for ratings, for, you know, for crowd reactions. Like, this is really almost a moment where they should just, you know, roll up the brinkstruck to these two

and just say, like, we're going to keep doing what you're doing, but we're going to slow burn this for like the biggest WrestleMania moment of all time. I mean, I can't help but think about Matt Hardy and Edge and Lita, Of course. Like that was the ultimate example of this real life relationship drama becoming a huge money angle. I know.

I've written about that before. And, you know, I honestly feel like there's a lot of little moments where the crowd, the crowd interaction has always been an integral part of pro wrestling. Obviously, it's a scripted thing. The crowd has to react in the appropriate way or the show adjusts. But that was like one of the most integral moments for the crowd realizing the power that they had. And that's why, I mean, I feel like there's a direct line. from the crowd demanding Matt Hardy come back

to now when they're just like real-time, like, you know, critics in the crowd of like, you know, this is boring or like... This belt is ugly. Yeah. I can't help but feel like they're like a dog. Like you give a puppy dog, you know, a treat when it shits on the floor

and then it'll shit on the floor every day just to get a treat. And now every time something dumb happens in a ring, the crowd has to say, don't do that or please do this and there's too much they're drunk with power it's true uh i for a moment thought you were comparing do rio and page's relationship to a dog uh or el piero yeah exactly they no but it's it's a cr i mean it's just a nutty it's a nutty thing and like you know i honestly hope that they get if they're going to get married that they get married and and live

happily and and substance free and that's the only thing that matters here is like wrestling Asling aside, I just hope they get their act together, and there's not some sort of horrible tragedy that it comes from this. Well, okay. But, I agree. But as a, separate the reality from just the fun of being a wrestling fan, even as it enters the real world, I'm 100% along for this ride. It would be awesome if he shows up a WrestleMania with her, and like a macho man,

Miss Elizabeth sort of thing. Yeah. No, I hate to say it, man. I'd be all in. You were saying that The Undertaker's on crutches? Yeah, apparently he had some sort of hip surgery, and then there was one of those stories that goes viral on Facebook, where everybody thinks The Undertaker is infirmed or something.

But, you know, this is pretty standard for an old man who does a lot of physical activity. I'm Googling right now. The Undertaker is 83 years old, so this is nothing to be surprised about. Who's older, The Undertaker or Thon Maker, the basketball player? That's a really good question. He's starting for the bucks right now. I believe he is. Oh, man, I cannot wait for the Thon era.

Sorry, guys. This is going to be a mostly basketball podcast. It's part of my ringer contract now that the NBA season is starting. How do you feel about Michael Carter Williams, guys? Yeah, I'm not really interested in that. I did have a long conversation about that the other day. Well, cool, man. I mean, I don't think there's anything else that's crazy outside the ring.

The Undertaker News is a particular interest to me. because we got really excited on Monday night about Goldberg, who was also an old man. And I don't, you know, he looks to be an amazing physical condition. It's been 12 years since he wrestled a match for WWE. When he came out, his kicks didn't really go up as high as they used to, or those uppercuts he did in his entrance.

That might have been because he was wearing very tight affliction jeans or something. I was so in on Monday. I was so in on that promo. I had so excited for the match beyond what I would have expected but I'm gonna do my my positive take and my negative take

I'll get the negative take out of the way because you brought up the red belt I really think that there's we're in an era where because of the crowd reactions and everything like that I'm just going to call it red belt heat when W.W.E waits to unveil something that where it's not necessary

to wait till that moment to unveil it to unnecessarily build up expectations for a small thing that doesn't matter, right? Like, it wouldn't have mattered if they had just put that belt on TV the week before, and everybody would have had it out of their system. If it's not a real surprise, don't make it a surprise in the show. And this is a really piddly thing, but if Goldberg doesn't look exactly like Goldberg used to look in his ring gear, let's put him in the ring in his briefs before we get to the pay-per-view.

Right. You know what I mean? Like, let's just get that, let's just get that, that audience-wide, sigh out of our system before we get there. That's my only critique of this because here's the thing. I've written before about how Paul Heyman is one of the most important pro wrestlers in the world, like pro wrestler full stop, right? Because if you can be just, if you can be a, you know, Binwa style only like just ring general and that's, that's enough to be a transcendent star, then being a talker should be able to get you to that same place, right? What Goldberg has that I

honestly, like forgot that he had was a level of charisma and magnetism that makes everything else almost secondary. The guy's a star. I mean, no question about it. Even just the, him walking through the backstage area, as he typically did in his first run, I was like, yeah, that's the guy. I mean, he's probably not going to look as huge as he did in 1999 or 2000. But he's, he's, he's still has it. And that's why WWE loves to go back to the well with these dudes, because when you have charisma, when you

have magnetism, when you have the crowd in the palm of your hand, just with a look or a gesture, that's valuable. It's so valuable. And I mean, I guess as unpredictable as Brock Lesnar matches have been over the past year, two years, I mean,

whatever, since his return, but I feel more secure about this Goldberg match, because like, Lesner's not, like, Lesnar had to agree to this, right? It's not something like, this is a, this is a performance more than, this will be a performance, probably more than his other matches,

although, you know, Goldberg does fancy himself quite the MMA aficionado, so who knows if they're going to, like, go for some real looking stuff. I just think that this is going to be a more scripted, more protected match than maybe some of the other ones that he's worked. So I'm weirdly, like, I'm not even thinking about

potential doom for Bill Goldberg at this point. but go ahead I was gonna say I don't even care about the match yeah I mean that promo was so moving it was one of the best I mean really wrestling's not that hard

but it was one of the best like ABC simple argument based promos that they've done in forever yeah and he sealed the deal with that your last thing like this is his last match wow what a big deal I didn't care before

and they they sold me completely and like him hugging kids at the end. I was like, oh, man. There's nothing better than the moment. I thought it was so great when he picked up a random kid out of the crowd and then then remembered that his own kid was there and went back to get it. I was so sweet.

I interviewed Goldberg on this podcast a couple months ago and he's, and he was talking about like his motivation then if he was ever going to wrestle again, it would be for his kid. Like he wanted his kid. Like his kid was not alive when he wrestled his last match. He doesn't know, like the legend of Goldberg. Right. His wife was crying.

I mean, just the whole thing was perfect. And if they can keep this up, Survivor Series is going to be memorable, even if the match is terrible. Yeah. I mean, I just think that the match will probably be terrible. And I don't mean terrible. I think the match could be very good in its own terms.

I just don't, I don't think that, I think that as fans, we should temper our expectations and not let our excitement for this angle, this feud, like make us delude. us into thinking this is going to be a particularly good match. It's probably going to be a lot of MMA style like holds on mat holds and stuff like that and like attempts at arm bars and, you know, and presumably Goldberg has spent the past month and we'll spend from now until

Survivor Series just making sure he can get Lesnar up for the Jackhammer. Yeah. Sounds so weird to say to Jackhammer Lesnar. Like it's just, but yeah, I mean, I was, I went after Monday night. I just stayed up watching old Goldberg clips. And it's, oh, man, it's exciting. I'm, I'm 100% back in on it. Now, the bigger conversation to have is, I'm sure you saw that, like, the raw ratings were just through the roof for Bill Goldberg, which is a little bit of a surprise to me because we've had other big names come back.

You know, I mean, one would think that even, like Lesnar would have more of a crossover appeal than Goldberg. But, but Goldberg, everybody tuned in. 12 years. It's been 12 years since he was in a WWE ring. So that sort of layoff naturally creates the anticipation of the interest, whereas, you know, Brock disappears for six months, comes back. You sort of know, oh, Summer Slam's coming around. Brock's coming back. It's not as special. Yeah, I know. I agree with that. My question, though, is did, WWE may or may not have predicted this. sort of ratings boost bump, but you would have, but they should, they certainly must have planned for it, right? But did they do enough with the rest of the show? If you hadn't, if you,

Dave Schilling had gotten too cool for wrestling 10 years ago, and hadn't been watching for a while, but you're like, you know what, I've been hearing some good things about Ross, some of these young guys, and now Goldberg's back, tonight's the night I'm tuning in. I feel like they just, they just totally dropped the ball on what the rest of that program could have been. Yeah, well, I mean, what do you, you have to carry on as normal. That's the thing is you could create an outlier version of Monday Night Raw, but at the end of the day, you have to go back to, well, this is just the product. This is the product.

Yeah, but I mean, we've had, we've had a women's championship match in the recent past on Raw. I mean, we've had ever, like, you know, the, I mean, I guess Rollins and Jericho on its own is not that big of the, although it felt a whole lot bigger last time than it, obviously, than it did opening the show this time. I just feel like if they had just put in a couple of matches, it just felt like bigger deals, you know? And just...

Well, you know what? Maybe next week is the show, because they're already promoting the triple threat for the title. So maybe they're saying, okay, this show we build to the go-home show, which is going to have a bunch of marquee matchups, plus Brock is back. Sure.

People are invested now that Goldberg has cut the promo of his life. And then maybe they get really excited, get the network for hell and a cell. So there's this sort of three-week window of promotion that they're doing. Yeah, no, I think there's definitely something to that. I just think, like, you look at that rating that they got and you're like, we spent a segment with Mark Henry and the Golden Druth versus Titus O'Neil and the Shining Stars. It's like, okay, you know, like we, like, I, like, there were actually some good throwaway segments. Yeah.

The Bo Dallas segment, I thought, was, like, if that had been the weakest segment on, or the, sorry, the least, like, you know, edge of your seat segment on the show, that would have been, that, that would have meant the show was a raving success, you know? I mean, that was, I had a lot of fun with that. I'm never going to get mad at Dana Brooke and Bailey. I enjoyed that match. You enjoyed it even though the finish. But, yeah. All wrong. I got, like, so many text messages about that.

I was like, it was clear that Dana was supposed to get her foot on the rope and couldn't get her foot on the rope, which is, you know. it's one of those things when like you just it's not bad to make a mistake but when you make a mistake that reinforces like a negative opinion of you you know it's just like Dana Brooks height is the only thing holding her back from being a megastar or whatever and she like wasn't

long enough to reach the rope but yeah I mean I and also I'm like I'm enjoying the hell out of the Bronz Strowman stuff I almost wish they could just they would just drag it out for another two months and have them wrestle more and more people every week it's just him against 12 guys yeah I mean

I like the Sammy Zane thing. And again, I'm speaking to my wonderful fans, let's not get mad when he squashes Sammy Zane or when he beat Sammy Zane after a relatively hard-fought short match at the Survivor Series, or wherever they're going to do it. Sammy Zane will then inevitably get the win back

during his championship push, and they're going to build it up to be a big match on Raw, and all of us are going to be like, oh, we knew that was happening, so it wasn't cool. But, like... Yeah, you had to know. That's his character. He's in the Daniel Bryan.

mold and that they're trying to turn him into a guy that the fans root for despite the fact that he always loses. So I just let him lose to Braun Strowman. It's a good move. It's going to help Strowman. And that's, I mean, the difficulty anytime with someone when you're building a monster heel is that there's got to be like he's got to lose at some point. And if the only thing he is going for him is his win streak, I mean, Goldberg is actually

an interesting parallel here. Then like, Goldberg, I mean, the windstreaks. a cool gimmick or whatever, but it's just like, at some point, you've got to let him lose in a way that it doesn't matter. Yeah. And Bronz-Roman, we've seen this before, you know, closer parallels with people like Umaga or something, where it's just like at some point, as soon as he looks weak, he's useless. Yeah.

You know? Or he's a comedy character. You either have to put the belt on him and have him wrestle Seth Rollins in a meaningful match and then lose and then figure out what to do after that. Or you just say, well, there's a ceiling on this guy artificially. we're going to have him just be a regular character now. It's true. I mean, there were some rumor that they're building him up

for to be Joe's first feud when he, Samoa Joe, when he gets called up. I have no idea if there's any validity to that. But, like, again, that would be really fun and cool as, like, a Samoa Joe fan. I don't know what that does for Ron Stroman on the other end or whatever. But maybe the move with Sammy Zaden is just to have him beat the crap out of him and then spend literally 10 or 15 minutes of him just, like,

power slam, and then Sammy's eight. Zane kicks out at two, like over and over and over again, and then just eventually the show goes off the air. They just keep wrestling forever? Anyway, but yeah, I mean, but my overall critique of the show, I guess, is that, like, I don't know. I mean, maybe it's an overall critique of Raw. They, when they did the brand split, they just, they, all of the, all of the guys, all

of the guys and gals who can cut a promo, uh, and like who can promo for a segment, basically, Who can hold down a whole segment by talking. They're all on Raw, and it seems like they're all talking all the time. I mean, to the point where, like, I don't, I'm not trying to hate on Biggie versus Chameas. I mean, they kind of did a small but interesting thing there, I guess, with that feud. And I'm into the feud in general. But, I mean, I don't know. It just there wasn't, it just doesn't seem like Raw is a well-rounded promotion in the way that maybe SmackDown is.

Well, there's a lack of narrative momentum. Even though this train constantly, you know, keeps moving from station to station, pay-per-view to pay-per-view, there's nothing that makes me need to tune in on Monday. Except for Goldberg. Except for Goldberg. Yeah, I missed last week because I was in New York and I didn't have cable in my Airbnb. And I just looked at the spoilers, you know, on SB Nation or something. I was like, oh, yeah, I didn't miss anything.

Nothing really happened. Yeah. I missed Seth Rollins and Jericho, but how good was that going to be? It's a TV match for free that went maybe 10 minutes, 12 minutes. No, and it'll be a cool match to go back and watch at some point. But you're right. I mean, I think I said this last week at the week before, that there was, I think, there was like a pay-per-view and then Raw and then Smackdown,

and then I was doing the podcast, and I was, like, reading the spoilers to, like, make sure I remembered everything. And it was, like, at that moment before we went on the air that it was like the night before the morning of whatever, that I realized I just, just hadn't watched like two hours of raw. And I just, when I was watching it, I was saying, oh, yeah, I got to go back and watch the first two hours. But then like, that I totally forgot.

I mean, it was just so much, it's just so much wrestling. And there's, and when you don't, I don't know, anyway. There was a moment when every episode of Monday Night Raw and to a lesser extent, Smackdown when it first premiered on UPN, had an interior narrative. Sure. There was, Vince would come out and he would say, Austin, you know, you're going to have to wrestle three guys. And if you don't beat all three guys, you're not going to get your title shot at no mercy or something.

So at the end of the episode, after two hours of the story sort of slowly dragging along, you get to a conclusion. And that's why the best episode of Raw in quite a while was the first episode after the draft. Where it was, all right, the story is Finn Baller, NXT, superstar. Yes. debuting, can he get over the hum? Yeah. And then that was the story. But there's no wider narrative to these episodes.

It's always the pay-per-view is in three weeks. The paper-view is in two weeks. The pay-per-view is this Sunday. Yeah, and honestly, I think that this episode, I mean, I don't want to dogg on like the sort of mid-card, but this could have been, if they just used the main event feud to book into it, you know, if they had done Rollins Jericho for the first time this week and just ran that as the main event.

Just, I mean, you could have Goldberg as like, Goldberg could go on the air at, you know, 1055 still, just have a massive overrun. And just imagine the moment where, like, Goldberg and Ron's past each other in the aisle, you know, or in the entrance ramp, like when Ron's coming to the, just something, or Jericho and Goldberg, even better, right? I mean, you could just have it, I mean, that's going to what you're saying,

if the show is about, either make the show about Goldberg or just have that be a segment and make the show about Seth Rons and Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho. Right. Yeah, there's just, it needs to be structured differently. Anyway, that's just my opinion on how they could tell the story. I don't want to get too much into ex-wrestler podcast territory here. I want to talk about the women's division and their upcoming hell in the cell match.

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Now the man with one leg because he pulled off a sweet chin music or sweet no chin music because people are calling it online. Orr called it no chin music. Oh, he did? Yeah. I totally, Maro's, sometimes like my,

like, I'm like the, like, there's certain frequencies only dogs can hear and humans can't. Like, there's certain morrow frequencies

that I just can't hear at all. When he, like, really gets rolling, it feels like a big, it's sort of like the Joe Buck thing. It's like,

he sounds like, I don't, he's not anyone's favorite announcer, but he makes it feel like a big event. I don't really know what he's saying, though. You know, like he has the,

the tenor of the, his voice is perfect for me. I love, I love his calling of, matches. I even like the pop culture references, but when he busted out, no chin music. It was him, right? It wasn't Otanga. Someone did it. Whoever did it, I pumped my fist. It was a great moment. He was, Maru was really on. Was really on on Tuesday. Before we get to Smackdown, though,

I want to talk about, I want to talk about, I feel bad about this. I'm, I think, okay, let me say this. It was announced, McFolly announced that, that the, Sasha Banks versus Charlotte match for the the raw women's championship inside Hell and a Cell is going to main event the Hellnessel pay-per-view. That's awesome. I mean many people, both of us included, have been saying things like this for the longest time. You're taking

this division seriously? Then like, you know, show it. And honestly, these two have the best claim to a Hell-N-Sel-level feud of any of the three Hellan-Sel matches that are happening. That said, I feel like, I mean, previous, I don't even know who was saying. Donsky, I don't know who was on the show saying this a couple of weeks ago. And I was sort of back and forth, but now I'm 100% in. Your feud is, they have a legit feud.

They have a legit rivalry that is longstanding and violent. And, you know, I mean, there's so much emotion tied up in two. it and yet they're making it about making history for women's wrestling. Like the re that's not why you have a hell in a cell match. This isn't like, this isn't, you know, American Ninja Warrior where you're running an obstacle course. This is, you go in hell in a cell to have a wrestling match because you hate each other and you want to beat each other up.

Am I crazy for thinking this? No, and this is something that a lot of people have been saying in the internet wrestling community, especially after Raw on Monday, where you have these sort of like really ineffectual promos with Lita not selling the blood feud very well just because maybe she's not keyed into that part of the program. Sasha Banks kind of not really,

not a lot of passion coming from Sasha in this moment. And Charlotte, Charlotte did good work, I thought. But in general, you're 100% right. Why is this about some sort of gender, glass ceiling breaking when it should be about these two women by the way

Byron Sachston calls them ladies all the time and it really bums me out these women He's a good old fashioned guy These women have been Fighting each other for months now Years if you go back to NXT And the horse women era

Why not just talk about that? This is their This is the blow off. This is the third match, singles match between these two. Why not just say that? Yeah. I mean, and I think that we shouldn't discount the history that is making. But we should leave that for other people to say, you know?

I mean, Sasha and Charlotte should just be talking about winning the match and ending the feud. Do you think that WWE is concerned about the idea of these women, you know, maiming each other? Because they always sell this pay-per-view and the gimmick match of Hell in a Cell as people are going to get badly damaged and showing Mick Foley falling off the cage and stuff. And that's not really how they sell women's wrestling. Have they really been peddling that

for any of the Hellenicel matches this year? There's been a, like Jericho mentioned it in his opening promo on Monday of like it ended McFoly's career. Oh, sure. Or something like that. But I have to point out, Eric Bischoff. on his podcast said, that he's good.

I have not been listening. Let me read this whole quote. I don't like it at all. I don't like it. The standard for hell and a cell is pretty high. It physically is what it is. It's a hardcore match. It's an extreme match.

It's all of the above and min-sum. I've talked before about expectations and managing expectations with the audience. Sometimes you can do such a great job building something up that you forget to remember that you also have to deliver. I am not taking anything away from either of those athletes.

that happen to be women. I am suggesting that the audience may not necessarily want to see that type of entertainment and that type of match out of that type of athlete. You know, I don't disagree with him in any of his general,

the generalities when that type of athlete, I think we're getting into some really sketchy territory. Absolutely. Yeah, Eric. There could be just some fear of, well, We have to do this.

We can't look like we're misogynist by not putting them in hell in a cell. Sure. But we don't want to sell the fact that there might be blood or that they could hurt each other or something. Well, I mean, honestly, I'm, my fear, I mean, my concern is much more that, like, you know, is for their safety. Like, you know, just in general, we've seen, I mean, we've talked before about how, like, every time, like, in every big Sasha Banks match, there's a moment where I think she's dead. you know and like and putting her in a higher putting her or anyone in a higher stake situation you know raises the stakes raises but um listen i i said this i think last week i i agree to a large extent with bischoff just in that like there's no way that three hell and a cell matches in one

night are going to live up to anyone's expectations right i mean there's going it's inevitable that that i mean the the easiest thing to guess and i'm not saying this is going to happen but you can imagine like the that charlotte and sasha have a really good match that that rawlins and keo have a really good match and then even if like rusef and and um and rains have like a b plus match it's just kind of get shit on yeah you know and if not and even if it's like the best match they've ever had but it's just sort of like overreliant on chair shots and not really there's no real they don't really use the cage that much you know just what like it's going to be putting these in comparison with one another is going to make all of them look a little bit worse, I feel like.

And the expectations for Hell and S.L. are high. But that's mostly the mythology, right? I mean, it's not that the matches haven't been good, but everything in wrestling is, I mean, listen, we don't talk about the expectations in Hell and Sell being so high and then immediately reference, you know, big boss man getting hung in the middle of the right. Oh, you mean the kennel from Hellmatch? But yeah, it's just, yeah, I mean, I think that expectations could definitely be a problem. I think that booking this match as a glass ceiling breaking moment raises the expectations unnecessarily as well. I mean, just because, like, it's possible for it not to be a great match.

And then what? You know? Like, fans aren't going to be soothed by the fact that they saw that they were, I mean, I guess maybe so. maybe this is like, like, I'm not so excited to, if someone's saying, I'm not that excited to vote for Hillary Clinton, you know, if I had everyone in the world to vote for, but like, I'm kind of happy that I'm going to cast a vote for the first female president or something like that. I guess there could be some of that. But still, I just think, yeah, expectations are going to be high. And, and, and, but, you know, the thing we're Bischoff, I think is totally wrong is that these, these, that Sasha and these two, these, these kind of athletes, what were the, what's the word? Yeah, these types of athletes or whatever. These, these, these, these, these, these, these, these. These, these. These specific two types of athletes have all the, I have all the confidence in the world and then that they're going to go out and just bring the house down. Now, I'm going to be nervous watching it because of past history, but like, man, I mean, these two have earned this sort of match, not just in the feud, but with their, you know,

their ringwork over the past couple of years. They can tell stories and they can pull off near falls that have you on the edge of your seat. And that's all you need from a wrestling match. the question is are they going to take a risk that maybe they're not prepared for and that's you know if they come out are not hurting each other and Sasha Banks actually you know is capable of working a match without almost breaking her neck I'll be thrilled I don't care if it's not a match of the year candidate because they've done they've worked so many

match of the year candidates before that it's all gravy yeah I mean I think that I mean like Sasha Bailey too was not as good as Sasha Bailey won. Right. But no one was, like, down on it. You know, everyone kind of agreed, yeah, that was a slightly less good match, but it was still a great match. And, like, I think that, you know, I just, I think that the expectations matter more.

I mean, matter just as much with the fans. It matters with, you know, the wrestlers and how they, what, the sort of match they decide to put on just for the sake of fulfilling those expectations, you know. And I don't think that's necessary to, you know, Jeff Hardy off of a ladder. through 10 tables every match just to like up the ante. My expectations for the show are low. So if it's even half as good as no mercy was,

I'll be happy. Yeah. I mean, my expectations are, I mean, I think that maybe we can take some comfort in the same argument I kind of had about Goldberg and Lesnar earlier, just that like there's, my guess is that these matches are going to be

a little bit more carefully plotted out than maybe your standard main event style match. Yeah. There's got to be someone who's going to take a huge bump. Probably Kevin Owens, though I've been wrong about pay-per-views before. He seems like the guy who is the most capable of taking a dime. I think I said this last week of the week before. With three of these matches, like, it's one, like, and every match has to have a different big spot, right?

Now, one of the bigs, like I said, Raines and Rusef, the big spot could be the 100th chair shot or something, you know, like whatever. But like, I mean, off the top of the cage, I don't think, or something with, you know, the roof of the cage is not out of the question when you have to make three Hell on a Cell matches feel different. Yeah.

Now, you know, Sasha and Charlotte, battling on the top of the cage could be an incredible moment. I'm just going to stop fantasy, fantasizing slash fantasy booking about this because it could only, it's only going to lower my expectations. I'm excited about this match.

I'm so excited they're going to, they're putting it on last. Like that's, that's... Fully came out and said they might not be doing it. Oh, really? Yeah. I saw that on, I think it was cage side seats. Oh, well, then I, if he's, if he's walking it back now, I thought that he said that they were, but the, but, you know, it's a co-main event.

It deserves that, it deserves that, you know, that stipulation. And I think that, regardless of when they put it on, I feel like, yeah, I mean, there's also this thing where, I don't know, I'm just, I'm just going to rant now, but like, whoever goes on last is breaking the cage, right? Like, no, or we don't, we can't, we don't, we don't need to, I mean, I think it's safe to assume. that whoever goes on first or second in the cell is not going to be demolishing the cage is one of the, you know, you can start kind of like ticking off boxes, which is fine, but unfortunate. Listen, I think that's enough talk about that. We're still a week away from the pay-per-view.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Same for the preview. Well, let's end this on a positive note, at least for me. I don't think, I don't know if you're going to be as positive, but, um, Smackdown, man, that match, that championship match last night was one. One of the most beautiful pieces of wrestling storytelling I've ever seen. Yes, sure. I mean, AJ Stiles did his best to turn it into something that was useful to the program.

I mean, he's basically carrying Smackdown on his back in a way that, you know, you can't really think of anybody doing something like that. In the same way, since Kurt Angle was on Smackdown. and working four or five-star matches with everybody. But, like, to what end are we dragging out James Ellsworth? It feels like Vince McMahon or Triple H's inside joke of, like, let's drag this goofball out. Here's the thing. They're selling shirts. They're not great shirts, but still.

No. It looks like a cafe press t-shirt. It does. It should have a kitty on it or something. I was I was I was I was perusing wbwee shop shop zone shop the WVE dot com shop shop place last time I was on here you said you'd stop buying wrestling t-shirts

I did not buy anything good but I but I was looking around and what struck me was they have a lot of like long sleeve t-shirts and the the faux Christmas sweaters are in stock now and like Finn Baller is is heavily represented and I mean great that's great if you're really in the, if you're in the market for a Finn Baller faux Christmas sweater, because now you can get that.

But it, but it, but it made me think about how long the, like the production time on these things must be. Because clearly they put all these things in a production when the, when Finn Baller was healthy and was, and was booked to be, you know, the top baby face on Raw for a long time, right? So, uh, it would not surprise me if the production time on, if, if, if the production time for a James Ellsworth t-shirt was prohibitive and they had to go to Cafe Press. or to like just you know get some interns with some silk screen materials in the back or whatever ironons um anyway like i for for a long time people have been like you know half-heartedly saying that wrestling needs to bring back jobbers and obviously in the brand split that's one of the things they've done they've done a pretty good job of it but james elsworth is really what you mean when you say bring

back jobbers you know if barry horowitz was wrestling if if you're If we were in that era, but it was today, if that was the same roster, like, you would demand some more depth. I mean, I guess Barry Horowitz did get an angle after a while or whatever, but, like, you know, Esty Jones would, like, get that one big win on a pay-per-view, you know, or Johnny Rods or whoever. Like, we would be more invested in them because, you know, we'd see them week in and week out. And I really like that, you know, W.A.B. just listened to the fans when they just went

nuts for Ellsworth, and now they're, like, putting them in this position. And what it does is, and this is part of what the main tool of a jobber is, is to have another week without a silly, like, match that's exactly what you're going to see on the pay-per-view. You know, it get this, that title match felt more meaningful than an actual, like, a legit, heavily promoted title match between Ambrose and AJ Styles would have felt, right? Because, like there's, it felt like the bar is so low for Ellsworth that there's actual stakes. Right. You know?

And he, I mean, he won, I mean, he literally won, but even if he hadn't. Like, he won just by being in that match. I thought it was just a maestro performance. Largely thanks to AJ Seiles, I agree. But, man, I mean, it was, it was just well-booked, well put together. It was the perfect use of Dean Ambrose. I think it was, like, all of them were just, like, used exactly right. The performance of the match itself is not my problem.

My problem with his whole thing is that... Schilling is waving his arms right now. I'm gesticulating like a madman because I don't care about James Ellsworth. It's a distraction from what should be the program that is the most important on Smackdown. Sure. Dean Ambrose comes out of this just looking like a goof again. He doesn't really have any motivation besides, you know, needling AJ Styles. I don't know why they hate each other besides the title.

There's no layering or underneath to this angle. It's just like Ellsworth has been shoved in between these two guys to distract them the fact that there's no real heat behind it. Yeah, I mean, I guess I see some truth in that. I just like the fact, though, that like Ellsworth basically was just, he was shoved in there. He took John Cena's spot in this feud and I'm more into it now. Like, I just think that that's, you know, that just they've really accomplished something. Also, shout out to the Spirit Squaders. Also, just replacement level jobbers who are making the show more fun.

I think the diminished roster on SmackDown, the smaller roster, opens up the, I mean, provides the opportunities for this sort of stuff to happen. People could come in, come out. You know, the Spirit Squad will probably be long gone by the time we get to the Royal Rumble. But they served a purpose in this Ms. Ziegler thing. but at least they're something of a threat. Now that we've had this title match with Ellsworth, what do you do with him?

I think he gets another match, doesn't he? He deserves a rematch, yeah. I'm afraid that at some point it's going to be Hornswagel-esque, where it's like, well, this sort of comedy character needs to be a part of the show. So we're going to have him be Stephanie McMain. Man's long-lost brother or something. And I don't want to see that. I don't want to see James Ellsworth be a long-term part of the product.

James Ellsworth McMahon? Yeah. They did that with Hornswaggle, Vince's son. Yes. This is not something that appeals to me as a very snaggy-y fan. I don't disagree with that, I think. But we're a ways off from that happening. But I can't help but see, you know,

six months in the future, we're wasting all this time on him, there has to be something else dumb like that. Well, you know, I... I'm sorry I don't agree with you on this. I'm not even... I agree. I think, I mean, I don't disagree with you on those terms. I don't...

If James Ellsworth is headlining Survivor series, we can revisit this conversation. He's got to be in one of those Survivor Series matches. In the environment that we're in now where there's so much wrestling. WWE content, right? Where we have pay-per-views every other week, uh, must-see episodes of raw on Smackdown seemingly every week. They're, you know, they're, literally every week there's,

there is a title match of some significance. Um, every week there's one on one of the show or the other. We have those Goldberg stuff. We have, uh, we have, uh, total bellas, which is now, like, taking over the feud on Smackdown as well. Tell me you're not watching that. I watched a little. little bit of it the other day people people keep getting on me about watching because uh it's

john Cena's heel turn has finally happened and it's on total belts okay it's it's it's it's compelling television um a DVR it i mean this there's nothing worse than reality tv with commercials it's just once you once you get off the commercial the commercials you realize it's it's very manageable and fun to watch and anyway all i'm saying is there's so much product we've talked about this there's too much though there's too much to watch really there's too much to in but like during that main event on Tuesday night I was a hundred percent in on the match and it just told a story from start to finish in a very kind of concise lovely old-fashioned fully entertaining way and it was it felt I guess I'm just I'm sure

I'm overblowing this but it felt just like a calm in the storm you know it was just my little oasis of like well-done wrestling sweet sip of Pinia Calada exactly I think you're right about that, that they did what Raw refused to do on Monday, which is the episode is about AJ Stiles versus James Ellsworth. And we're going to tease it out the whole show, and it's going to be the main event. And there's going to be backstage promos and Daniel Bryan's interacting with Dean Ambrose and figuring out what his job is going to be in the match is this sort of runner story. if he's not going to be the referee, so what's he going to be, that kind of thing, really is effective in keeping you interested in a show. But it's still James Ellsworth in the main event of SmackDown, and I can't wrap my brain around something that is that inconsequential

to the story. Would you be more interested if it was Heath Slater in that role? Absolutely. Because at the very least, Heath Slater is a believable. W.W.E. World champion. I can see him having a great match with AJ Styles at some point down the line. Sure. And the crowd is going to be doubly into it because he's a legitimate competitor. James Ellsworth is a joke. God bless him. Your Ellsworth hate is really out of control. I'm turning heel on James Ellsworth. I'm sorry. You, I mean, that could be the final, the move for John Cena if he's going to turn heel in the ring, just come and like powerbomb James Elver through a table.

I'd mark out for that. Oh, yeah. I think the fans would actually fully accept that heel turn. They would just be like, yes, that's a villain. That's a terrible thing you just did. You're a bad, bad person. Anyway, well, we had different opinions on that, but I think we can agree that there's, that there's, you know, stuff to be excited about this week, man.

We got Goldberg back. It's going to be something else. I'm excited for it. I have trepidation. I'm running the gammon of emotions with Goldberg-Lesner, and that is a sign of a well-done wrestling program. I totally agree. I feel the same about the main event on Tuesday,

but, you know, we can wrestle about this another day. Thank you so much for coming by, Dave. Of course. Do you want to plug anything? Let's see. I'm on Twitter at Dave underscore Schilling, and I have a basketball podcast now called Round Ball Rock, that you can find.

You have a basketball podcast? I do. Is it just you? No, it's me and two really funny comedians, Sean Keane and Joey Devine. And we talk about basketball and we have comics on. And we talk about basketball. It's about basketball guys.

That's really great. Yeah. Who's your team? Lakers. I'm a Lakers. Oh, that's right. I knew that. Yeah.

Oof. Well. Oh, that's not nice. Come on. It's going to be a fun year. It's going to be a fun year. The Lakers are the James Ellsworth of the NBA. Okay.

I will take that. And I hope that reflects your secret hatred for your own home team as well. Anyway, thanks for listening. Humanoids. We'll be back next week.