The Press Box - Ep. 202: 'The Masked Man Show' With Steve Kazee

Episode Date: November 2, 2016

David Shoemaker and Steve Kazee discuss 'Hell in a Cell' (5:02), Sasha and Charlotte's performance (16:44), and the NXT house show experience (23:30), then preview the 'Survivor Series' (36:50). 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 Seekkeek, 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.

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here is the Masked Man, David Shoemaker. Welcome to the Mask Man show. I'm David Shoemaker. I'm sitting across the table from the Silver Lake heartthrob, Steve Kazee. How you doing, man? I'm good, man. Good, good, good to see you.

It's been a lot of wrestling over the past 72 hours or so. It really has, yeah. It's like, I feel totally blind to a lot. Like, I'm sure that there's important stuff from Hell and S.L that I've just completely forgotten already. Yeah. So quick rundown of, I think we probably had a similar week.

I watched HellnessL live the whole way through, but I watched it here at the office because we're right across the street from where there was an NXT house show that just about everybody we knew, we know the wrestling fans in L.A., everybody was there. Yeah. I saw about like 75% of people I recognize from PWG shows.

Like it was the place to be for wrestling fans. Yeah. So I ran across the street, I only missed a match or two, and then watch that. And then, of course, giant raw, big Smackdown. You were complaining about Orton joining the Wyatt family as we went on the air.

I don't even know where to start on that. We will maybe get to a little bit of Smackdown later. We got so much other stuff to talk about, but I'll just say off the top, if nothing else, I love that Smackdown has finally seems to be going in on, like all in on these storieslines that they've, like, WWEs sort of flubbed in the past.

Yeah. Like if they, I mean, watch them just like turn Randy Orton face again in a week, but like it would be great if he was just really part of the Wyatt family. Yeah, I mean, I'd be interested to see where it goes. I mean, he is the one person who hears voices in his head. So it seems like a logical conclusion. What if it was Bray the whole time? Right.

It was like, yeah, it was like Husky Harris was talking in his head five years ago. So we, I don't even know what the best part of it. I guess let's start with the thing we start with every week over the past month, which is Brock Lesnar versus Bill Gold, We'll just touch on this briefly, but we did see on Monday night a little bit of Goldberg physicality. Yeah. It's a Goldberg and a T-shirt looking pretty big. He looks pretty ripped, but he also looked a little rusty.

Yeah. It's not the smoothest of transitions. He sort of like slipped and fell in the beginning of his assault. Yeah. And then I thought the spear to Haman was like a little strange, but I think that's also just Haman doesn't want to take a full sphere. It's Haman and it's having Brock. I mean, having Goldberg do it to Hayman, right? It's not like he can go all in.

Yeah, he's got to kind of pull it up a little bit. Paul Heyman, man. I mean, he's an MVP, and he was there to take it. Yeah. But Goldberg looks incredible. Like, if I look like that when I'm his age, I'll be thrilled. He's in good shape. I didn't understand why he was wearing a giant leather parka indoors,

but and sweating like a beast. I was like, what are you? Well, he's a sweater. He is a sweater. go back and watch some of the tape. He was drenched by the time you got out there. Yeah, I mean, maybe some of it's with age. I mean, I can speak as someone who sweats profusely.

First of all, being bald is a big problem if you're a sweater. Yeah, it's just going to go out. You don't realize, you lucky people with hair don't realize how much sweat the hair just keeps in up there. Yeah. If I go out, like, you know, just if I, like, I'm trying to think, like, if you do like yoga, just something sort of stationary and really, and like, like, barely intense. Yeah.

When the, when the sweat's not just, like, being whisked away by wind if you're out for a jog or whatever, I feel like a, like a lawn sprinkler. I mean, it's just like shooting straight out of my head in the most embarrassing way. And you can't even wear a headband because then you look like some cartoon character. Anyway, all that's too much. Survivor series will come around to at the end, but it's, it's shaping up. We need to talk about our giant pay-per-view this weekend, which was Hell in the Cell. Yeah.

I gotta say my annual birthday pay-per-view it's like always right around my birthday I didn't know it was your birthday yeah my birthday was on Sunday actually at the NXT show happy birthday man thanks man appreciate it um I feel I feel like a terrible friend I should have known man I uh I'll like you know I'll like you know find a free ringer t-shirt and wrap it up for you hey all right um so Helen is so I mean I feel like I just like sighed audibly on this it was it was a really good show But I feel like with I feel like this is a piece I've written a hundred times, but there's something about expectations getting too high that's just inherent in something like Helen Assel or like the Royal Rumble. You know, when we build ourselves up for every countdown. I mean, Russellmania kind of goes without saying, although I feel like we've our expectations are tempered to a certain point at mania at SummerSlam. Yeah. But hell and a cell, you go back. I mean, they show you Mick Foley falling off the cage three times a week and all of a sudden you're just like, oh, it's going to be that good. Yeah. expected some like really big spots and there just really wasn't very many big spots. It just felt it felt like a good pay-per-view.

Yeah. But it didn't feel like a spectacular pay-per-view. I think, well, we can, I mean, part of it was the pacing. Okay, I'm just going to go for a really hot take right now. You remember how great the John Cena or the, yeah, when they had a title match before the debate and everybody knew to tune in right then, the triple threat? Yeah. And you were just like, this is the first thing that's happening.

maybe a little video package. I don't even remember. But I was just like so hyped for it. Didn't he'd flip channels and whatever? I love that there were three big hell in the cell matches, but the other matches on the card just didn't do anything. I mean, with those matches built to the point that they were, they're inside the cell, whatever,

after the title match, between the universal title match and the women's championship match, it just felt like all of those matches, all those matches, those two matches were just like, like painful. You know, all I wanted was to see Sasha and Charlotte go. Yeah.

And I was watching wrestlers that I like and just not happy that they were on the screen. Yeah, I agree. I thought that it's the trap of, like you said, having three cell matches. You can't do them back to back to back to back. Yeah.

So you have to space in between them. But then the space in between them was just sort of like mediocre space that, you know, I liked all the people performing, but it just didn't have a connection. It didn't help the flow. There was no sort of build, you know, like a great match. A great match starts off, a little excitement.

It kind of builds and builds and builds. You have ups and downs, and then you have your final payoff. Yeah. We didn't have any of that if you look at it from like a whole pay-per-view as one giant match. There was just no flow to it. It felt very segmented and you're into one and then it was like out and into one and then out. And I get, you know, I've talked about it before. I get the idea of sort of like the popcorn matches or the matches that sort of like let the crowd reset between the giant matches.

You know, they do it at Mania too, they do whatever. And I have issues with it on a number of fronts. But I feel like this just occurred to me when I was watching it. It's like in 2016, we don't need like we're so accustomed to just going into the big match, right? Like you watch on YouTube, you watch on the network, you just like hop from big match to big match to big match. It's not just matches, anything you watch that way, right? It's like you watch, you don't like, you know, if you're binging, breaking bad, you don't like watch like an episode of, of Brooklyn 9-9 in between each episode

to like get the tape you're to reset your brain or whatever I mean but see so why not just announce I know they will never do this but there's three giant matches that nominally everybody desperately wants to see right and instead of spreading them out

why not just say we're just going to do them at like eight nine and ten or whatever like those are the times that they're on and you just like you can tune in just for that you can go do something else I mean even have less matches on a pay-per-view and just go to studio shows or even just spread them out over a weekend. Like it doesn't, like, all we care about is just tuning in at the time without

feeling so beaten down by everything that's come before just to see the big match, you know? The thing that's confusing to me is, you know, I kind of understand why Raw is as long as it is because I know it's about advertising dollars and, you know, you get an extra hour of that. But for a pay-per-view where people are already paying for the network, like, why are we stretching these pay-per-views into three and four hours? You know, there's not much, I mean, I get that's still an advertising thing for the most part. but I'm with you on the on the sort of like let's schedule it out a little more at least so like I know because I'm getting to the point now where I just avoid Twitter and then I go and watch it when I want to watch it. Sure.

Yeah, no, I'm exactly the same way and there's so much now that I'm literally like I don't go on Twitter anymore. You know, I sometimes will go into like catch up on news on like if something's happening or from searching for something. But I mean people listening to this will probably have probably all tweeted me to make fun of me for not tweeting. And like it's just there's so much. It's like yeah, you got to just stay away if you want to be. surprised and either way. But I mean, yeah, I think that you're exactly right about the network. I'm sure there is a really obvious reason that we're both missing or what I mean, why they would, why they would spread it out that much. But the other thing the network does, directly relating

to the show is it, you don't, if you don't have to pre-sell all of your pay-per-views to the cable companies, then you don't have to do hell in a sell every year, right? You can just call it W. W.W.E. October or W. Or call it Halloween or whatever. And then have hell in a cell matches when they come up naturally in storylines. Yeah. You know, have them actually be meaningful. And I get, like, I had totally given myself over. Like every paper view need something to pin itself.

You know, they need be able to pin every paper view on some big match, big event, big notable, you know, something that has history. Right. But they don't have to do that anymore. No. And, you know, it's like, it'll be interesting to see where we go next year because what we've done, you know, we did three giant cell matches this year. like what are you going to do next year? All of them are going to be cell matches. Like we were joking about a Royal Rumble inside of a cell.

Sure. When you sort of lay it out that you're like, hey, I'm going to do three and it's going to be the greatest thing and we're going to have this and that, you set or set yourself up for the next year of just like falling flat again, especially when this year didn't really live up to the hype at all. Yeah, I mean, we can run through the matches. Roman Reigns versus Rousseff was, I thought, better than I expected it to be. Yeah. But, like, you know, those, I mean, I've, it's funny because I'll say that, like, these two have, their chemistry is getting better and better.

And I sort of liked them in a, in brawley matches. Yeah. This was set up to be a great exhibition for them. But even though I say it, I haven't fully internalized it yet. So it's, I'm pleasantly surprised. I was pleasantly surprised on Sunday. Yeah. But, again, I mean, and that was a good way to open the show, I guess.

But, like, but, like, I just wasn't, I just wasn't blown away by it. Well, it just felt like, it felt like a great match that had no point being in a, in a cell. I didn't understand you know it didn't feel to me like the cell added anything to that story sure I could have seen that match outside of hell in the cell yeah absolutely it was the longest match of the night yeah by about a minute yeah um and it felt like I mean I part of it was just the the penalty of going first that everybody that was watching with was just like staring at the clock on the cable box and they were like wait is this been going on for half an hour like but like you know I don't mind that and big match that and big match

matches like this make you like earn it you know I mean go out there and it felt I mean there were times where it dragged but I think overall like it was a good performance by both of them I like the two of them together it's you know the storyline itself is not really bothering me all that much I like watching those two feud I think I might be done with it now I think wdb seems like they're done with it too yeah we were I was talking with somebody I was watching it with about what comes next and I was just like well uh I mean I does roman getting set up for like the title push now. I mean, and it does sort of look like he's, I didn't realize

watching on Sunday that all of the main adventures were going to be in the traditional Survivor Series match. So I'm trying to piece this together and I guess we have another another month and a half to go before they actually, before we see a raw pay-per-view. Yeah. A strictly raw pay-per-view. But

yeah, and it was like, where do you go with Rusef? And it was like, well, the obvious answer was, let him get jackhammered by Goldberg. Yeah. And then rebuild him again or whatever. I mean, Rusef is so great. He's so good. He's so much fun to watch. And I joke before that the only heel thing he really did in this entire feud was to shave his mustache off.

So good. But, yeah, I mean, he's really, really great. But, yeah, I mean, he's primed for something else, whether or not WWB actually realizes that is amazing. Or whether they have a person to put him with right now. I mean, that's, you know, the confusion for me is like, all right, so where do you go next with a guy like Rusev, especially he doesn't have a belt so and he's not going to be chasing the U.S. championship anymore. So what does this guy do next? Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a lot of, I mean, I think, I think that, I mean, one interesting thing is we're seeing a lot of iterations on just sort of like every version of wrestling, storytelling

throughout time. Like they're trying to like, it seems like they're making really deliberate decisions to differentiate the storylines to kind of go back in history and we got the two guys that don't like each other as the tag team, you know, whatever. Right. So I'd be interesting. I mean, there are, there are a lot of things that you could do with him. I guess my, I guess what I was getting at was that it's, you know, there's also things. I mean, everything seems to be happening right now. But I'm sure we could all imagine a way forward for Rousseff. I think that, you know, I mean, I think that eventually you start, you at least test, test the waters for a pseudo face turn, you know?

Put him up against Braun Strowman or just have him accidentally come face to face in a match with Bronzrowman and just see what the crowd does. Right. You know? Because, I mean, listen, their, Lana is a great heel, but everybody loves Lana too. You know, I mean, everybody loves both of them. Anyway, that's a long time on those guys. Owens versus Rollins for the Universal Championship match? I thought that was the best match of the night.

I did too. Those two guys together are really good. I thought that, you know, Jericho getting involved was a little early for my liking. Like, he was just involved for a lot of the match. It sort of felt like a triple threat. or a two, you know, a handicap match. So, but I thought they, they worked together well. I thought that, like, bumped through the tables was fucking brilliant.

Yeah. Owens took a hell of a shot and, you know, sort of, like, old school, like, almost reminded me of how Dean Ambrose used to do, like, just, like, whatever. Yeah. However you want me to fall through these tables, I'll definitely do it. And, uh, there's something about Owens. I mean, if you, if you go back and watch his indie stuff, it's obvious. But, like, he, the way that he's built is.

like perfect for taking crazy bumps. Yeah. He used to have matches, you know, the generico matches, like he used to have matches where I've joked that like, it looks like it's a contest to see who can most believably look like they're breaking their opponent's neck. And he just lands on his, like, like, he can just land on his shoulders and his neck, he's like a turtle.

Like his neck just disappears into his body and it's fine. But yeah, there was some, that was a really cool spot. There were a bunch of really cool spots. They did a really, I mean, that on its own, I think we would be talking about, if that were the only cell match of the night, I feel like we would be talking about it in a different way. I agree. It should have been the only cell match, I think, of the night. That said, the main event, which I don't, I would love to get like the, I mean, it would

be super boring, but someday if there was just an oral history or a TikTok of, like, how this match was announced as the main event, and then they kind of walked it back and then put it back, on as the man. Yeah. Were they just trying, were they, sad they lost the element of surprise by putting it on that?

I don't even know what happened. But it wasn't like a last second decision because they got WrestleMania entrances, Charlotte and Sasha. Yeah. Sorry, Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks. They,

they did it up. And it was, I mean, the entrances were incredible. The match itself, I thought was really good. Yeah. Again, the bar for these two was so high. I think that was a problem for me.

I set the bar for them a little. higher than I should have. I should have just let them have the match and then judge it by that point. But, you know, I was expecting like a lot of really big things. And to me, my only problem is that it felt like the end of the match just kind of fell apart. Totally. Totally. Fizzled. But everything up until the last two minutes, really. Yeah. If Kevin Owens is built perfectly for being put through table, Sasha Banks is the opposite end of that spectrum because she was, they tried to slam her through a table twice. Charlotte did. just like slid off and like it just looked so.

I mean, it was so much more painful that way. Yeah. It looked a lot more real. Yeah. I was like, oh shit, she missed the table. But yeah, she's a tiny. There have been a couple of times. Wasn't there a Randy Orton spot where he failed to go through a tape?

Like an Orton Sina like TLC match or something where like you felt. Oh yeah. They couldn't get through. Well, I think it was a table. They couldn't like, they just couldn't get it right. Yeah. I mean, when you do it twice and it works, like was that the current angle throwing chain through the wall or whatever?

Or like the second time, then you're just like, I cannot believe they did that. But yeah, I mean, listen, I was, I got to go back and rewatch that match. I haven't. There's been too much wrestling on. I really, I remember being, I mean, I feel like I was really into it the whole time. And then you're right. The ending just sort of fell a little bit flat. And I don't mean what I'm about to say in a dismissive way.

I think that, you know, as much as WWE was trying to build this up as a history-making, moment. And it felt way overdone and kind of unnecessary to the storyline. It was a history making moment. For sure. They headlined this, they headlined Hell in a Cell. Yeah. Inside Hell and a Cell.

Yeah. And gave a great match. Yeah. I mean, and they earned it. Like this wasn't, yeah, this wasn't like some corny, you know, Vince McMahon getting hit with a Kendo Stick main event. Like this was a real, like this is a totally deserving main event match based on storyline history, but definitely based on performance.

I thought the first five minutes sort of set it up in a beautiful way when, when they've done so well with like sort of feeding off everyone's perception that Sasha is an injury prone, right? So we all sort of believe that to a certain extent because she's been injured a lot. So they immediately start that way. And I had a moment where I was like, oh, no, like are we doing this? We're going to do a like sort of she's too hurt to. continue. And then when Lillian was like, you know,

ladies and gentlemen and Sasha Banks cannot continue, I was like, oh my God, they're really going to like call this match. Like they're going to screw us all on this. And you know, so when you jumped off that thing, I was like, the five-year-old inside of me was like, yes. That's exactly right. Sometimes sometimes the most

obvious like tropes or whatever, like, like as soon as she jumped off, everyone was just like, well, obviously, but you were too busy screaming with joy. Yeah. Like it, they, some of those things, That's why pro wrestling is so great. Some of those tiny things you can play on your emotions. Even if you see them happening, it just, it affects you in the same way.

I try to explain to people all the time. There's nothing quite like the instinctual, like, joy of a two count. You know what I mean? Like there's just something about that, like, oh, man. The kickout is amazing. I still, when I, when you said that, I still imagine the Vince McMahon is play-by-play guy doing the one-two new champion, no. Like that's it.

Like, it's just so a part of me. But yeah, anyway, all of that is to say, the Sasha Banks injury thing, I think, is real. And I said last week that I thought the winner of this match from a WWE history-making perspective was going to be decided based on who they thought was still going to be wrestling in 10 years when they showed this video package. Right. And that's why I think Charlotte went. I mean, it could have been a long-term storyline plan. But I think that Sasha's injury history is real. Yeah.

And separately, Sasha may be doing, maybe making movies in 10 years. Like, you don't even know. Yeah. I think Charlotte was the right choice for a lot of reasons, but I think that that was probably part of their calculus. It is interesting to me that we keep doing back and forth with the belt with the women, though. It's hard for me, I can't really, I mean, Charlotte had it for a long time, but in the last few months, it feels like it's been back and forth and back and forth.

You see that sometimes where it comes out eventually or all you, can do is assume that they just make a decision that like the pay-per-view needs this to like like at summer slam it's like they needed it to be a rematch like they needed to like legitimize sasha right you know by putting the belt on her and that stuff's all kind of it seems so sort of silly in the in the in a fake fight world yeah but still i mean you're right they do sort of go back and forth i mean hopefully this just leads to a you know blow off match at some point where they just somebody else, one of the two can't wrestle for the belt for six months or something. And I think also we're saying the rest of the women's division as diminished as it's been

on both sides because of the brand split. Yeah. They're just sort of building it up around these two while they just go at it. Yeah. You know, full steam. But I think at the end of the day, you know, this was a really cool moment and it was a really good match. And I think that like, this is what I was going to say before.

don't mean this to sound dismissive, but it's like, it's okay for, I mean, maybe the greatest thing that they could have achieved was to have a match of this magnitude, of this quality, that kind of left you wanting more, you know? Because guy wrestlers have been doing that for 50 years. Well, look, and it's going to make the package, like you said, 10 years from now, strictly based on the historical aspect of it. You know, we've never seen something like that happen. I mean, if you saw Alita on the sort of post show, I mean, she was genuinely overcome with

emotion about like seeing these two women headline a person. pay-per-view, you know, of that magnitude. It's crazy. And so I think of nothing else, you know, having a great match between the two of them and that spot will legitimize it for years and years and years to come. Yeah. Well, right after that, I ran across the street, a little bit dampened by the goings-on and saw NXT, which we'll touch on really briefly.

It was just an NXT house show. So it's not like anybody who's listening to this is obligated to know what happened. But if you don't know, like, NXC House shows are like the best thing in the world. Yeah, it's really good. I had never been to one before and I was so blown away by just the intensity and the excitement in the room. And it just felt like unlike anything else I'd ever experienced. My only, it was at the Palladium in Hollywood, which was the, which is just an incredible, great classical venue. I mean, not classical music.

It's been around forever. And it's just a really cool spot. And it was perfect for the show. Yeah. I kind of had that vibe. Like, I used to have in New York where I would like see a band at the Bowery ballroom and be just like, this is my favorite new band. And this is like the perfect venue. But then like you look around and you realize how many people are there.

And you're like, oh, they're going to be playing Irving Plaza in six months. Like I'm never going to have this moment again. Right. And it did sort of feel like they're, I think in some of the big cities. I mean, we've seen them in the Barclays Center. NXT's run the Barclays Center twice now, I guess. But it's like they're, they're outgrowing. part of what makes them so charming and awesome yeah I mean you're gonna have that

but then there will be you know they'll be the next thing that comes along that is you know sort of like the PWG shows or whatever that that everyone was sort of comparing the night to I think yeah said it felt very much like what a PWG show feels like it was really great it was just it was just such a cool it was a cool spot everybody I mean everybody the crowd was just going nuts for everybody yeah and even like the I'm trying to think of what a good example is It's like... Well, the fact that Ty Dillinger, like, his match alone changed the rest of the night's matches

because every time there was a count, it was just 10. Yeah, exactly. On the pinfalls. Every time somebody went out of the... Yeah, every time there was like a 10 count for being outside the ring, it was just a crowd just said 10 over and over. Or even on a pinfall. The 1, 2, 3 turned into a 10, 10, 10.

And this was, you know, five matches after he had gone. He was so over that night. Like, if he's that over everywhere they go, then that dude's going to... to be like the next star at the next team. There's not even a logical, there's no, there's nothing about, well, I'm going to say, at some point I'm going to have to go back and watch every Ty Dillinger moment on the network. Yeah. You know what's weird?

It happened over the summer, man. I watched it happen. I think I even tweeted about it. Like there was just, he had a couple of matches. It was like after the flush, you know, like after all of the guys sort of got called up. Right. And it was a, NXT was finding its way. Bobby Rood still hadn't really sort of debuted.

It was sort of the, you know, the idea was floating around. he was around and all of a sudden like Ty Dillinger is you know like low midcard guy down there and then I just felt this weird build like you just could tell that like the audience was getting behind him and like he was starting to go over a little bit and then in the last like four months man that dude is just like skyrocket yeah no it's totally true I mean they put him in a couple of I mean like you know he's wrestle he wrestled Joe right I mean he's they put him in a couple of like sort of big pay-per-view or whatever takeover spots yeah and he had that that scrappy thing about him.

You knew he wasn't going to win those matches. Exactly. But he gave a hell of a fight. And then you were like, oh, good job, Ty Dillinger. Yeah. And part of it is, you know, when you're left with just like all your favorites are gone. It's not, you know, you get behind guys like that. I mean, that's very indie wrestling, right?

I mean, that's very like, you know, you go to PWG, you go to even Ring of Honor, you go to, you know, evolve whatever. And like, you know, the two guys that were, that you bought the tickets for in WW or, you know, in NXT now. what do you do? Well, you remember the two guys that were there last time and you just get really behind them, you know? But yeah, it was just a really fun mat.

It was a really fun night. I mean, that, like, it was such a house show. I mean, like, Oshka wrestled in a tag match. Yeah. With Amber Moon as her partner. But, like, she got all of her spots in. The crowd got their chance to go absolutely wild for her. Yeah.

And it was kind of, it was enough. In a way that I think, you know, Hell on Sell or WWL large they could wdb can learn a lot of things from the way the success of nxte and the way it's been booked and they've they've they've been trying yeah well i think the great thing about house shows sometimes is they're not beholden to storyline yeah absolutely and so they're free to be able to just you know have some like oska and embermoon wrestle you know billy k and peyton royce like that's not going to be a story you're going to see on the nxte tapings yeah uh if anything you're going to see oska and ember moon going at it soon which i cannot

wait for I'm like salivating for. Let's take a quick break before we get, before we, because this is, we're obviously talking a lot about NXT, but take a quick break to, uh, for a word from one of our sponsors. NFL season is in full swing and it's time for you to get it on the action. I personally recommend betdyesi.com with over 20 years in business, bettdysi.com is built an impeccable reputation among all types of players. As one of the internet's top rated gaming sites, bett DSI offers safe, premium level service, including 24-7 live chat and phone service. You can wager on every sport virtually.

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I mean, it's hard to put in a, it's hard to put the excitement of that house show in a bottle. Yeah. I mean, there's no way that you, the WW, that RAR or that Smackdown can recreate that. although, you know, I honestly turn to the person next to me at the show and said, why don't we just have WrestleMania here and like, you know, just charge five grand for half the seats and 25 bucks for the other. I just figure out like the split to make it worth their while to make the money back.

And, and, I mean, it did feel like I would love to see a real show. I mean, a real show, that was a real show, but to see like a pay-per-view in a little venue. You know, like, but they would go back for the, you know, for the, you know, the ECW events, they go back to Philly or whatever. It just feels so cool. And watching it on the network is like, when they've done these smaller NXT shows in the network, they feel so cool, you know?

And I don't know. It would be fun to do one, just in a one of the, now we have 24 pay-per-views a year. Like one of them could be a small venue, sort of like intimate affair. I don't, we know rich people who like wrestling. Yeah, for sure.

I know there's at least one son of an NFL owner. who loves wrestling. So that's like all the money you could want. But we just got to get some like rich person just to be like, yeah, let's do the Royal Rumble at the Palladium. Right. And then give away the tickets on like a lottery basis.

It would be so good, but it's never going to happen. No, it's not. So, so setting that aside, I think that what I was getting at earlier was, was that it's sometimes, sometimes Aschka and a tag match is enough. Yeah.

Like if NXT were booked like WWE, then every time, I mean, again, this is a house show, it's not a direct parallel or whatever, but it's like if every time you turned on NXT on the network, it was Ashka and a hell in a cell match or whatever. You know, like there's sometimes getting your spots in, letting the crowd go wild, and focusing on, you know, the main event is enough.

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that I think is a bit of a problem for WWE when it comes to NXT and translating that sort of feel is that at the top of WWE, you have just an old guard there, you know, who still do, they're still tied to an older way of storytelling and, you know, you got to really, you know, they'll let things go for way too long and then things that are good, they'll cut off short sometimes. Whereas NXT is still, because it's so intimate, is still driven by what the fans are asking for. Well, yeah, you can make the case, too,

that they're, that NXT, if anything, is using an even older playbook, you know, I mean, it's a very traditionalist in a lot of ways. Yeah, they're back to like, Territory style. But part of that is responding to the crowd. Right. I mean, that's what you always hear. And he listened to Rick Flair or whoever talk about it. It's just like they, you know, they called matches on the fly based on what the crowd was responding to.

Yeah. Well, you know, the whole James Ellsworth thing is like a great sort of call back to those days. Oh, sure. Like that guy's having just like it, it warms my heart every time I see it. Even though it's like a dumb gimmick and it's like, you know, whatever, it's still like, you know, the crowd. is responding to that guy. And I love wrestling fans when they do that. You know, they see somebody and it goes from being a joke to actually like something

that you're really behind. What, you know. How, I know your answer to this. I'm, this is more of a question, just a hypothetical for the audience. Like, let's say that James Ellsworth, I think he signed a deal or he was about to sign a deal last week or something like that. So he's got a contract. But let's just say that he's got a one-year contract.

Downside guarantees, not, well, let's just leave a blank where that, what the, what the, what The minimum amount of money he can make is, and say there's like a 75 or 85% chance that he's just back on the Indies, back at his desk job, whatever, inside of six months. Yeah. But, like, what is the amount of money that it would take for you to take that job? Because I can just answer for Steve. Yeah, Steve's zero.

I mean, like, I'm trying to think about it because it would be so much fun just to go out there and just, I used to always This is totally off subject But I used to always like one of my great bar questions Not great one of my favorite bar questions Is like when you're like your faith If you're really into a football team Like my best friend Brian is like such a Cowboys fan

Yeah I was like let's say the Cowboys were in the Super Bowl And you got a chance to go play quarterback for one series And the game Like this isn't the end of the game But this might but this is legitimately a series in there And this might lose the game for them But you get to play quarterback for the Cowboys in the Super Bowl.

Right. Do you take the opportunity? Yeah, of course. Yeah, right? But like knowing that you could be ruining the, like, ruining a Super Bowl of everybody. But this is like the best version of that because you know, like James Allsworth is being put

in a position to succeed. Yeah. This isn't like, this isn't like David Arquette getting the belt. You know, this is like, this guy is, they know exactly how to use him, it seems, and they're putting him in the best situation. So like, I would walk away from my job, I feel like to go do that for six months.

Like it was like sure with the confidence that that I mean maybe I wouldn't have done it when Ellsworth said yes of course he was going to you know probably an easier decision for him. Yes. But like now seeing how well they've used him, oh my gosh, that would be so great. Yeah. And I think too, you know, I always want to get a job that has a huge like, you know, sort of Comic-Con following so that I can then go and do all these conventions for the rest of my life and sort of supplement my income.

So on that level alone, he's going to have that sort of extended face. long beyond whatever contract he has. You know, it's like the same way that we all go to WrestleMania. And I'm like, oh, look, it's fucking, you know, it's a hardcore Holly or whatever, you know. How are you not on the new Star Trek show? Listen, let's talk to CBS about that. I don't have any answers to me. That's crazy.

Like, you could be, you would be, like, so much better than Riker. You could be, like, like, Riker 2.0. I say that as a serious Star Trek fan. Is there any, but, like, I guess, I don't know if there's anything else you want to touch on, from NXT. The main event was Nakamura, Samoa Joe, and Eric Young. Which I think, by the way, insider knowledge here, I think it was supposed to be Austin Aries.

Instead of Eric Young. Instead of Eric Young. But Aries is clearly hurt badly right now. I think his eye maybe has like a fractured orbital, but I think he's, I heard maybe two to four months on that, but that's all speculation. That's nothing official. That's the rumor wave. But if you saw the picture, it looks pretty brutal.

It doesn't look just like that. Oh, yeah, I'm looking right now. It's a brutal kick from Nakamura. Wow. Either they're really putting over Nakamura as a legit badass and we're getting worked or... That eye is really bad, though. That looks like more than a black eye. It looks like a...

Oh, yeah, that looks terrible. Fracture. But we'll see. I mean, he looks like he has like Audrey 2 from Little Shop of. horror is on his face. Yeah, totally. That's really unfortunate. So wish him well.

Yeah, that's really great. Okay, before we get out of here, we should touch briefly on Survivor Series since over the past two days on Raw and Smackdown, things are really sort of coming into focus. Like I said, early in the show, I had no idea that we were actually going to go all in on Team Raw versus Team Smackdown being like the stars.

The way they announced it was the five best women from each show. So you kind of knew that that was going to be the shape of that. And the five best tag teams. And then they said, oh, and five men versus five men. Like, it set the table for it to be, there'd still be title matches on both sides. There'd still be all the big feuds. And then we'd just have, like, you know, the kind of B team in there.

Bronzstrom and Roussev. Yeah, Bronzsselmereman, who is on the team. But I think what's really interesting is that they're not only treating this as a big deal, but they're also letting, letting, storylines play out within the teams. They could have also done, it would have been fairly easy to do, you know, to kind of do like all heels on the Raw team and all baby faces on the Smackdown team or vice versa. You know, they could have sort of built it up that way and made it be kind of boring.

Or they could have just done, you know, two matches, you know, whatever. But I really love that we have, okay, so Team Raw as it stands right now, spoiler alert, if you haven't watched Raw on SmackDown. And if you haven't, then what, I don't know how you got this far into a podcast about wrestling. Owens, Jericho, Reins, Stroman, and TBD, which I guess TBD,

one would assume, is going to be Seth Rollins. I would assume. But then I don't know, like, where's Sammy Zane? That's exactly what I was going to say. That's what I was thinking you too. When I was driving to work today, I was going through it in my head and put Sammy Zane in that spot. And then I was just like, oh, wait, but Rollins.

But then what do you do with Rollins? I told, I just forgot about Rollins. I mean, listen, this is another great opportunity to do a three, do a shield stare down in the middle of this match, right? So I find it hard to imagine they would, they would skip that. But then on the Smackdown side,

we have Stiles, Ambrose, Baron Corbin, I guess is sort of the wildcard, Braun-Strauman spot, Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton. Yeah. Which is a pretty stout team there. It's hard to imagine,

it's hard to imagine that it won't be Ron's, but again, they have to have some other, they have to have some other matches on this card. I would assume, but then, you know, you've got Ambrose and, I mean, I don't think you're going to get to Sina Rawlins match at Survivor Series just for shits and giggles, but, like, you know, those are the two people that we don't know what they're doing at this point. They have announced that Ziegler is fighting someone from Raw.

Right. For the belt? Yes. So it's a possibility that the belt could go back to Raw. Sure. Maybe a Sammy Zane there, I don't know. Or maybe Rollins there. I mean, you could kind of go a lot of ways with it.

But if when you're, I mean, there's, there's Lesnar versus Goldberg, which is going to be, uh, it's not going to be a 30 minute match, but it's going to take up at least 30 minutes of air time between video packages and shenanigans and everything else. Yeah, at a 10 minute promo from Hey Mendo. But yeah, it's going to. Goldberg yelling, come on. We've got the block. We've got a Lesnar Goldberg block of a minimum 30, 40 minutes. And then we have the Smackdown team, I mean, sorry, the tag team Survivor series, which is going to be just a great schmaws. If everybody gets their spots in, it'll be amazing.

Yeah. And then the women's five-on-five match, which is going to be incredibly cool, Naomi's officially on the team. I think they've, I mean, I'm looking at Wikipedia right now, but they've finalized that, I think, most of the, these spots. It's good that Naya Jackson is back. I have a feeling this is going to be an opportunity to put her over pretty big in this, in that, at the end of that match. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, all of that was to say that, you know, those are a bunch of big matches, but Ziegler versus TBD might need to be 25 minutes long anyway. Yeah. I mean, I guess the entrances for these Survivor Series matches could be half the show. Well, it's a good point. It's still four hours to fill. Yeah. It's a lot.

It's a lot of time. But yeah, so there's, I mean, that's really cool. I mean, also, you know, it could be Ziegler versus Rusef. Like that could just be the point as well. It'll be interesting to see. I mean, I think you've got to put Rollins in that, you know, the five best. I think so, too. I think that it's clearly the main event and it's the spotlight for all these people.

Yeah. It'd be interesting to see since they're holding it back, like, what if there's going to be some sort of push in the next couple of weeks to, like, decide who that last person is or like what comes about. Does Triple H somehow get involved in this? Yeah. And we haven't really seen him since he came back and gave Owens the belt. Yeah. And it'll be interesting to see. Yeah, I mean, I think that they need to sort of announce these big matches,

but also have something that's sort of a trailing bit of intrigue. And that's what this is. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if they just are trying, if they book Rollins into a sort of underdog having to earn his spot, you know, for the next couple of weeks. Yeah. because, you know, they've been trying some different things with him without 100% success. Yeah.

I think they're trying to figure. It's a tough sell because, you know, you go from being the guy who got everything because people were screwing other people to help you get it. And then he just got so over and his clear, like, ability outweighed that storyline. Like, that's not a guy who needs things handed to him. Yeah. He's a guy who earns his stuff. And so now you have to sort of rewrite history a little.

bit and find a new way to sell Seth Rollins. And I think right now they're a little bit like spaghetti on the wall. They're like, let's just figure out what sticks. I totally agree. I mean, I just, I think that, you know, he's not going to get the Roman Rain's treatment from the fans, but I think that the reaction to him has been a little bit based in the same, in the same sort of, you know, I mean, there's a Seth Freak and Rollins shirt before, like the day he sort of turns face. Right. You know, that's sort of something that you ordered. Yeah. And I, and, I think that, you know, I think, I don't know if it's sort of a fait of complete that he's going to be a champion soon, but I think that's a little bit what the fans are reacting to.

The smart fans like us, and I think you're 100% right that there's a bunch of average fans that still aren't sure why they're cheering, why they should be cheering for it. Right. I've talked about this before, but like comment sections on WWE videos on YouTube or on www.com are just wonderful places to just let your brain bleed and spend some. in time. But, like, casual fans really hate Seth Rollins. And part of that is because he was such a good heel for so long.

Yeah. But there's also an element. I mean, people that I watch it with, like my girlfriend are watching, she's just not that under Rollins. She hates his voice, for one thing. But, like, I think that he doesn't come across as, like, a cookie cutter pro wrestler. And I think that there's so much ingrained in wrestling fans about, you know, what a pro

wrestler should look, what a champion should look like. Yeah. and act like and talk like and whatever. Not everybody is, not everybody is born with the, with the monster voice that Braun-Stromen has, you know, or at least that he's affecting. And he's,

you know, he's, man, I don't even want to get into Bronz-Stromen. I feel like I don't have the time. I'm just off, I'll go ahead and offer my services to WWE to, to be a talking head on the Bronz-Stroman DVD documentary

that comes out, the network only, maybe documentary that comes out of, because I have a lot of thoughts on the guy. Anyway, Survivor Series is on November 20th, so, you know, it's right around the corner, unsurprisingly. At least we have a couple of weeks without a pay-per-view. Yeah.

We have a big NXT takeover between now and then, which will be really cool. But I don't, I mean, I don't, it's, I feel so, I feel so lucky to have gone to that house show, the NXT house show. It felt like a really special night. Yeah. If you get a chance to go, go. people listening this like 100% go. And I don't say this as like a wrestling nerd,

even though I am. Like I'm not like a wrestling hipster about this. But like I would rather go to an NXT house show than go to WrestleMania. That's a bold proclamation. I think that I've said before, everybody should go to WrestleMania. If you're a wrestling fan, go to a WrestleMania.

Yeah. It's not necessary to spend the weekend. It's not necessary to go to 10 WrestleMania's. No. It's being in the football stadium to watch wrestling is not, should not be anyone's idea of a good time. Right. Well, should be.

You can have whatever your idea of a good time is. But my guess is, it's not ideal. Yeah, it's the weekend of events that I think sells WrestleMania. Yeah, absolutely. Watching wrestling in $180,000. 100%. I would rather have a pretty good seat at Raw after Mania than an okay seat at wrestling.

I agree. But like, if you're definitely trade an NXT house show for a Monday night raw taping. Oh, yeah. In a heartbeat. I think, I think I can say with almost any other pay-per-view, I would 100% go to an NXT house show instead. Yeah. It's just fun.

It's fun to be part of a crowd that, like, you're all in it together. And part of that was a similar feeling that I had when I went to a WWE straight up, like, WWE house show at Staples Center not that long ago, several months ago. But it just, you're freed from the storylines, like you were saying. You're freed from the expectations of, like, the snarkiness that you feel you have to put on this, like, this, like, smart coat because the cameras are on and, like, and chant ironically and do it. I mean, listen, I've been a part of it, too. It's just like, it's a different thing.

and we're all in it together. We're all cheering the baby faces and booing the heels and just letting the match happen in front of us. You know? And it's, I don't know, it's just really great. Yeah, it was a great night. Hell and a cell, I think, I mean, I don't know there's anything they could have done to fix it,

but it could have benefited from a little bit of that, like, just we're all in us together. It's not going to, we're not going to explode your brains with amazing new things. It's just going to be good, you know? It's like sometimes when you go out to dinner and you have a really great dinner, and by the end of the dinner,

you're super full, you feel great, it was a great meal, and then they come over and they offer you dessert, and you know you shouldn't have it. Yeah. But you do it anyway. Yeah. And you always ruin your meal. Yeah.

Because you're like, oh, now I just feel like shit. I think that's sort of like what happens in these pay-per-views. It's like, just be okay with having a great meal. So it doesn't need to be five courses. It can be three. So like the NXT house show was like, what was like a really, was like just like a rap that you grabbed on the way somewhere that you just remember because you could have eaten three of them.

Yeah, you're like, I'm hungry. I'm going to grab a rap. And then you get it, and you're like, wow, this place has great wraps. And you're like telling people about the raps. And it becomes your rap place. Yeah, and then you start, you're like, I don't know if I really want to tell any more people because I don't want them to run out of raps. Yeah, for like anybody, yeah, anyway, we'll just end on the raps because I don't think you can get any better than that.

Would you say that's a rap? Oh, my gosh. Hey, yo. I'm just going to, that's it. I can't do any better than that. See you later, humanoids.