The Press Box - Ep. 210: ‘The Masked Man Show’ Live 'Survivor Series' Special

Episode Date: November 21, 2016

‘The Masked Man Show’ went live for the WWE ‘Survivor Series’! David Shoemaker welcomed Steve Kazee, Dan St. Germain, and Dave Schilling to discuss the big matches and what the results mean going forward in a post-show wrap. 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. Download the free Seatgeek app or go to Seekgeek.com.

Well, yeah, that, okay, in 2016, the Warriors lost the NBA championship after being up three to one. The Cubs won the World Series. Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election. But not the popular vote. To Donald Trump. To Donald Trump. And Brock Lesnar just got squashed by Bill Goldberg in the main event at the Survivor Series. I don't even know

I just tweeted out that people should send us their questions and I'm not even going to I'm not even joking now this is the these are what we have what with in all caps with 12 A's WTF was that

let me see what else why just lowercase why and WTF just happened what WUT why that finish why what in the hell just happened here's my

question WTF. Like this is literally every single thing that I'm getting here. This is the receipt from WrestleMania. Oh no wait is Dave Schilling actually Bernard from Westworld. That's a separate question. It doesn't look like anything to me. Yeah, okay thank you. That's the hard for your answer. Jeffrey Wright. Jeffrey Wright. I think I have slightly more hair than Jeff. You never want to like guess wrong like you know if you're gonna make a black guy comparison because then you just look racist. Yeah that's it. That's exactly right. I'm just glad that you picked someone so handsome to be my

doppels. Good call. He's a really good-looking guy. He's a hell of an actor, too. He used to live in my neighborhood in Brooklyn that were totally off-subject. But there was also a bartender there who looked exactly like Jeffrey Wright, and you would often feel like you were, you'd be like, oh, Jeffrey Wright was here yesterday. It'd be like, you mean that guy?

And you would feel like a racist every time you were in. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so that was the main event. Goldberg, there's no, what is this thing? Goldberg beat Brock Lesnar in 30 seconds and then paraded around with his son in the rain. I tried to get everyone here to take their shirts off. Nobody was game. That was the weirdest part of the match.

That was the wild. The young child. Goldberg's son's nipples. I don't even know what to do. They were smaller than even ironed. Guys, let's just go around the room. Let's just go around the room here. And you can either tell me where you think this is going.

Do we think, or what we think the backstage conversation before this was? What do you think they were getting at here? St. Germain, why don't you, why don't you go first? You know, I do, I'm a Lesnar Mark, so I'm bummed out about this whole thing. And I'm a Heyman Mark. I'm a Lesnar Mark. I think Goldberg's run this time around has been pretty good. But I was never, I mean, I think he is charisma, but I just think that the way he was booked, he's nowhere near Lesner, you know?

Like as far as like what he brings to the business, his work rate, his character. Sure. the phenomenon of Lesner, the actual like, the actual athletic talent outside of wrestling. So I don't get it. I don't think Goldberg even looks like

he used to look. I mean, I think he looks good for an old guy. This is the body changing night for this guy. Yeah, I mean, look. I guess I understand. I'm pre-pre-diabetic. I get that. But, nonetheless. Diabetic adjase. Yeah, I'm diabetic at Jase.

It's the saddest of Jays. Yeah, that was... No, I'm bummed down. I don't know if they have... You think they're going to get a rematch? Somebody told... Who said Battle of the Spears at WrestleMania? I said that last week, but I don't...

I mean, that's just... Goldberg and Reins? Yeah. Well, I mean, Roman Reins' Spear... No, Rino and Goldberg. Yeah. Bumns ever... I would take Reins' spear

because he almost killed Shane McMahon today, so... Yeah, I would too. I mean, that was a great spot. What do you think about that main event? Well, first of all, I think it was the best possible match he could have between two guys who are part-time wrestlers.

Goldberg hasn't wrestled the match in 12 years? For the whole first two minutes out of the two and a half that match lasted, we were on the edge of our seats here. It was a very good, perfect booking for that first little encounter. The crowd was hot. They were responding the way that I'm sure Vince McMahon wanted them to where Goldberg was a clear baby face in the situation. There was that WrestleMania feeling that, like we said on the pod

we did when we were doing the commentary over WrestleMania 20, that was missing from that first match. It was there tonight. But we never had either one of them exposed. Nobody looked stupid, except for, I guess, Brockless. Well, that's real stupid. But here's the storyline. The thing that I think they're setting up,

and Steve, I think you alluded to this earlier tonight, that this is, yeah, Mr. Heel over here, Steve Kazzie. This is not the last one. This is just the beginning of a story that will end up culminating at WrestleMania. that the story is now Goldberg has Brock Lesnar's number. Goldberg is a true superhero. That at the end of the day, he's going to lose to Brock Lesnar.

But he had to reestablish himself as a monster in order for that final match, that real blowoff to have any power. Steve? I will say either that or Brock is being punished. Yeah. That's the thing. Either that or Rockles were being punished, I think. That's what we all.

I wish it was. Yeah. I don't know, man. I don't know. I mean, I said it was going to be a long, sloppy match, and it was anything but. Goldberg looked really fucking good in 30 seconds. I don't know how he can hold up over 20 minutes, but I mean. He never has had to.

That's the nice thing about Goldberg's character. Right. It's always, like, quick and easy, right? But I have always sort of felt like we were going to do a build-up to WrestleMania because I think, like, that's the best. biggest stage and you see by the reaction that this got just for Survivor Series, like, they pumped this thing the way they do for WrestleMania. It's just going to be a huge draw for them. You know, look, man, Goldberg has, like, got a thing right now. He's, like,

people want it. Maybe it's the whole Mimba Berry's, like, South Park, nostalgia world we're living in, but, like, people want to see that guy right now. And he looks great. Like, he's not as big as he used to be, but he's, like, I'll pay a million dollars to look like that when I'm that age. When you're that, I'd pay a million dollars to look like that right now. I think that that's, I mean, yeah, the flashback thing is really real. I mean, you know that WWE has, you know, Vince McMahon has on his desk right now the complete, like all the pre-sales from WW2K17, which features Goldberg and all the promo campaign and Brock Lesnar prominently. But, you know, they know.

And I'm sure that they've seen a lot just in the hype that he's brought the company since he came back. Yeah. I have, like, heard people talking about this event, like, which I usually don't do. Normie. Well, you know, like fan of jases. You know what I mean? Not to keep borrowing from cheapy terminology. That's fine.

I will say this, that, like, it is kind of a giant fuck you to all the other wrestlers. Because Brock Wesner destroyed Dean Ambrose, beat soundly Randy Orton. Yeah. Has like... Legitimate. Yeah, like, it hasn't really taken a... Didn't take a pin to rain. Through Seth Rollins around.

Beat Sina. But every time... But who's the guy who he gets jobbed out to? It's the ultimate part-timer. Yeah. You know, a guy that hasn't been here in 12 years. Yeah. And he beat him like that.

And arguably, Goldberg probably still not one of the most popular guys in the back. I can't imagine there's like... I bet Seth Rons probably had a Bill Goldberg poster on his wall. I mean, this is... It's been so long. The young generation, like, probably like we're all those WCW guys, you know. I mean, look, the thing you have to remember is Goldberg, for... Better or for worse, was always built as the undefeated, indestructible monster long before there was ever a Brock Lesnar.

Sure. Like, he was the phenomenon. He was the guy. And it was hokey, and yeah, he was 178 and no and 230 and no. It was like all these made-up numbers. But the fact of the matter is you establish that as his role. And now here we are 20 years later. And the guy came in and laid like two really great spears and put him in a jackhammer.

And that was a rap. and he conquered this thing that has been conquering every other star. So it's the only real way to tell Goldberg's mythology in a way. I agree. Because you do have to reboot him a little bit for the younger, for the new generation, or fully reboot him. And you're, I mean, you've all made the point that, you know, clearly there's no explanation for this that doesn't involve the WrestleMania rematch or, you know, whatever, or the, maybe the Royal Rumble rematch and then the WrestleMania rematch.

and this definitely sets the stage if this was Act 1 then that's fine like as with so many of these WWE pay-per-views we get a little bit over-stimulated we hype ourselves up about it before it happens thinking that every night is going to be

the blow off of our dreams or whatever this is clearly just phase one in a longer story but yeah I mean it's it was certainly an interesting choice but the crowd popped I've gotten more tweets just saying WTF than anything funny. Any reaction anything funny I've said or like what any other question people have?

People are interested, you know? And if regular folks or former fans of the attitude error are talking about it, and this is enough for people to be like, holy shit, you know, Brock Lesnar just took a pin in 30 seconds. Now, could they have done the same story with Finn Baller and had that bet, you know, saved that shocking win? I mean, yeah, that's something down the road. but I thought this was, I'm stunned.

I'm still in shock here. I might change my mind. I mean, we all do get a little, like, ahead of ourselves at the end of pay-per-use. I'm very guilty of that. But there's no way that Lesnar loses in that way if it's not a setup to something else. Sure. Like, that was an, like, if we're talking, you know, outside of the realm of reality. In reality, that's an embarrassing loss.

Right. You know, if that was an MMA loss, he would be done. Well, it's Ronda Rousey losing to Holly Holm. But that rematch is going to be. be money if that ever happens. I think what you're seeing is a UFCification of the way that they're telling their stories. Totally agree. As opposed to like we're going to do all the schmaws, we're going to have a run-in or whatever. He's just going to squash him. People are going to be shocked. It's going to be the talk of social media, which it is, and then we're going to do it again.

People are going to be even more invested to see what Lesner does to come back from this. I think it's going to be a great story if they tell it properly going forward. To me, if I'm in the minority here, you're just really. You're just, really sad and you're never going to, you're just too much of a smart mark. Yeah, but as a Lesnar fan, you have to look ahead at like what the reclamation program will be for Lesnar. Like he, his, you've gone about as far as you can go with him.

He's just been dominating everybody. And now he's finally like had his askbook. I just remember that with somebody else besides Goldberg. I guess I'd rather it was, you know, like Ruseb or like somebody like, I feel like who earned it or Samoa Joe have Joe come in there or Nakamura or somebody like who's going to be around longer. Rather than Goldberg's bullshit generic speeches of like, I'm here for you to believe in heroes again.

Well, in his defense, I've been wanting to believe in heroes again for some time. I just think there's more mainstream attention if it's Goldberg versus if it's Finn Baller or if it's Ruseb or if it's anybody. This is the thing that gets on- They don't build stars anymore. That's the problem. They don't. You're 100% right about it.

Listen, they have no. concept of long game because they have like two paper views a month, you know, they're always like quick fix, quick fix, quick fix, yeah. Well, I'm going to agree and disagree with you. They don't have any concept of long game for the most part. You know, we were just, we were just talking about that before, about how Vince McMahon seems to think that there's a, you know, that fans are too dumb to remember and that's, you know, that's the thing that we've heard from a lot of different directions. But I think that, you know, WWW does know that the multiple paper reviews are a problem. It seems like they're going to have, they're going to have a few.

next year. And I, you know, I think that they are building stars. I mean, the match before that was, you know, a five-on-five match that was, you know, eight of the ten guys, every, yeah, eight of the 10 people in the match or, yeah, eight of the ten people in the match are, like, relatively young new stars that WB is built, that they certainly hope will be, you know, WrestleMania headliner caliber within the next year or two, right? I mean, it's, they're, they care. They just, you know, I honestly think that the UFC, if a kid, comment that Dave made is dead on because it's the

shockiness that makes you actually you're walking out of the bar shaking your head, looking at your friends and shrugging your shoulders, you know? I will say if that match would have gone on for 25 minutes and Goldberg wins that match, we're not going to care about a WrestleMania rematch. But right now, like, I'm going to want to see

what Lesnar's going to... I don't care so much that Goldberg won. I care that Lesnar lost in the way that he lost. That's the story to me. All right. Where do we go from there? Maybe I'm just too much of a mark. Maybe I'm just too much of a mark. Hey, listen, no one's ever going to hold that against you, man.

You are wearing a Lesnar T-shirt, right? So let's take a step back and take a little bit of a broader look. Bill Simmons has chimed in again with some questions about the course of the night. Question number one, is Shane McMahon alive or dead? Has anybody been checking Reddit to find out if he's... 100% breathing when he walked out. He seemed to leave under his own power to some extent. I think it's like the ultimate warrior.

like there's been several Shea McMahon's. No, you think you didn't get of doink. Yeah. No, there were a lot of those rumors about the warrior. Yeah, that was a really serious bum. We didn't quite give it to, you know, the complete level of shock that it deserved as we were watching it. It sounded god awful.

Yeah, and he looked. Something smacked that shouldn't have smacked. I think it looked like some of what's going on in their head, maybe their heads. Yeah. Well, his head definitely snapped back off of the mat. Yeah. Which doesn't have a ton of give as, as people.

anyone who's taking a bump would know. It's just like wood under their plywood. He was also just like, he wasn't selling. Shane McMahon doesn't sell that well, where he's just obviously like got someone's like strings on his arms and he's being moved around like a rag doll basically. He looked terrible.

That was like one of those football hits where the guys like laying there sort of staring up at the sky and you're like, oh he's gonna be gone for the rest of the game. I mean there were briefly rumors, or you know, there's been some talk of a Shane Brock Lesnar match, you know, in the future, be it at WrestleMania or whatever else. That's not happening now.

I'm not saying those things are connected, but if there was, but if they had planned for Shane versus Brock at WrestleMania, then maybe this Goldberg finish was, was them realizing they needed a new opponent for Lesnar at WrestleMania. And they're like doing the deal right now, like making him sign the context. Okay, number two, was that the WWs revenge on Brock? That's one thing we really haven't discussed, that, you know, Brock went to you. UFC to fight as, you know, kind of, he made that decision basically unilaterally from everything we've heard. He said, I'm going to do this. And Vince McMahon, you know, we'll say yes because he

knows who, you know, where the money comes from or whatever. And, uh, and then he, he, you know, doubled down on his screwing them over by failing a drug test, you know, two drug tests for UFC. I don't want to get, I don't want to bring you back into this sad, this dark spiral. This is the king of sad style over here, ladies, gentlemen is he's, he's, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, as he's widely known. What do you, do you think? Stand home tonight like in front of a Lesnar post. Do you think that there was,

do you think there was an element to to WWU reminding Lesnar who's in charge tonight? No, because if they did that, they would have had a job against Randy Orton at SummerSlam. Solid point. And I just, I thought it was 1-1, and I just realized, oh, that's 2-ZIP. Yeah.

Goldberg basically just has Lesner's numbers. So even in a storytelling sense, why would you have an extra match? But I don't know. I'm bummed down. I think that that's, I agree with that. Or sad. Yeah, seriously.

What the hell? I think that Dan's actually totally spot on. It's a very fun conspiracy theory, but it doesn't quite hold up under sure. It doesn't make me sad. It's also, too, look, in the same way that Austin walked away,

I have a feeling that Lesnar would be the kind of guy that walks away if he's not happy with the storyline. Like, I don't think Lesnar's going to go out there and not, for all the shit that Lesnar takes, he is a company man. He does what they tell him he's going to do. You know, he goes through with the ending.

He's willing to look. like the weaker man in a match between him and Goldberg. There was no sort of like bullshit about like, oh, you know, I can't go out like that. Like he just literally put his ass on a plate for Bill Goldberg. Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of what, you know, when Goldberg, I mean, sorry, when Lesnar re-signed with WWE and there were all those rumors at that point that he was going back to the UFC, it was clearly a very difficult decision for him. And I think that goes to what you're saying.

Part of that decision was him reconciling to himself that he is not a pure athlete in the sense that he has control over his destiny inside the ring, inside the cage. What do you think, Dave? Did you have something you're going to say? I was going to say the money is remarkably easy for Brock Lesnar. That's a thing. So to be like, I'm not going to do the job is, would be short-sighted in some way. Because he has to know how many fights he has left in UFC. He's only got so many if he can go back. I mean, obviously with the PED bust and these things. It's unlikely that he's going to come back. But strike force would love to have him. Or Bellator.

Yeah, Bellator. But it's even more likely now. that he's just going to be a WWE superstar. So there is no incentive for him to be difficult. Buck the system. To buck the system, exactly. He's going to play the storyline as Vince McMahon sees it. And so I think the storyline is carrying forward. Speaking about lack of incentive, I mean, I used to always joke that with Chris Jericho,

you could tell when he was about to get, this is bad, this is not recent Jericho, but like five years ago and before, you could always tell when he was about to get a title push because he would suddenly have abs. Like you would like he would just, you could tell he'd been in the gym working really hard. And then like inevitably a week later he would just be, you know, he'd be, they'd announce him for a main event. Brock Lazer looked like the opposite of that. And I don't know if it's because he's actually on the, you know, he's just cleaning up or what. But he, or maybe it's because they said, by the way, you know, you're going to lose in 23 seconds tonight or whatever.

And he just decided to stay out of the gym for the several weeks before. But he looked like he like, you know, he wasn't trying to impress anybody. I don't think he looks significantly better at SummerSlam, though. I feel like he just has that sort of, like, softer body. He's definitely reached the post-fug-giving stage of his career for better or for a right. I think that that makes him, that does make him scary. Yes, one way or the other.

That was a compliment for your name, for Lesnar. No, thank you. A conspiracy theory that maybe, what if they told him you're going to job this match? And he's like, well, if it's the same amount of money, then fuck it, I want to be out of here in two minutes. I don't even know if that's a conspiracy theory. That was the story of his match with Dean Ambrose at WrestleMania when I think he knew that he was going to go UFC and Ambrose has implied that that was the reason

why the match was like 10 minutes long and nothing happened. It's because he was just like, hey, I'm going to get hurt. Lesnar's favorite thing to do, if you ever like hear the guy get interviewed or like watching it film, it's to sit on his farm with no one around and hunt animals. So the fastest way he can get, on a plane to the Yukon territory

or wherever the fuck he goes. Okay, question number three from Ville. We got two more. One, why did Goldberg's son take his shirt off? It's a weird Sandusky shit. That's what it felt like. It's really weird direction now. I don't think that's taking a shirt off.

I'm with Dan, it was uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable. I'm not saying that he was saying... It's a little bit strange coming from Bill because his son has his shirt off doing elbow drops on pillows about 95% of the time. Kids who like wrestling, should take their shirts off. That's what happens.

I never did. Even when I was tin, I had a terrible body. I don't think I had any concept of what my body look like when I was like seven years old. They were body shaming me at school is what I'm saying. That sucks for you. You get it. Shoemaker, I'm able to translate it. That's why you saw it.

He just looks right back on the laptop once there's a real moment. It sucks for you. All right. So, Marty Janetti in 1994. Okay, and question number four. Actually, I love this question. Can't the shield just reunite already? I think that it's a really interesting question only because literally every time these guys

appear together on screen and two of them or three of them, it's always about the shield. And I don't know if they need to reunite, but at some point we need to either get past the teases or just do it. Or do it, yeah. After the first time you reunite, it's diminishing returns.

Like the first time the NWO got back together after teasing that they were breaking up. Or DX or whatever, that first time first pop of their back is always so huge, but then the fifth time that there was another NWO, it was like, Jesus Christ, enough already.

So, I think... That was reunited, though. That they reunited for... Yeah, but people wanted to come out from the arena crowd and wear the vests. Yeah, the vests and have the... Skull fucking things. Yeah, the dogs and stuff. Every single time they're together,

the pop is bigger. People are more invested in all three of characters, it would be great money to see them do one more thing together. Yeah, I don't even know, I mean, I just kind of feel like we need to get it resolved a little bit. You know, I just want to see, I want to see them get together so that, like, maybe they'd just say one night only. Now you don't know, you know, you know it's always going to come back around. Right. But every time they're in these matches together now, it does feel like, like, oh, like it's, it's, now it's diminishing returns. It's like, it's before we even get there, we're just all going to be tired of it by the time that it happens. I say that, but like, like, the 15th DX reunion.

Yeah, but the 15th DX reunion when they were just like 50-year-old men selling glow sticks to little babies was like that was still huge for WWE I'm pretty sure I pissed myself at WrestleMania when DX and in the NWO like came out at 31 Yeah, I lost my shit and they were all basically dead at that but that's a little bit different That was all that was all that was all a callback to the attitude era even though they'd reunited since then You're good guy um are you talking about Sean Michaels? Sean Walman oh okay x-box yeah we didn't we didn't talk about car Marmella taking the Bronco Buster from him tonight.

There's a lot of stuff we haven't gotten around to talk about, but we are reaching the end of our time here on Facebook Live and Periscope and, you know, hanging out at the Ringer studio. So let's talk about, what do you say? Zuckerberg wants to say out. Yeah, I know. He's got, I can't even make jokes. No more fake news, no more fake sports.

Yeah. There you go. There's your joke. Moving forward. Moving forward. You know we've been here for four hours when Shoemaker's just like, shut out. Yeah, yeah.

I get producers in my ear yelling out. I understand how Michael Cole feels now, okay? This is insanity. Listen, the way forward. Now, there have been rumors about a Kevin Owens, Roman Raines program at what's it called? Roadblock. Roadblock. Also similar Seth Rollins, Chris Jericho rumors.

Who knows if that's true. But what do we know setting all that aside or including that, whatever? What do we feel like moving forward from here? I think it's safe to say that we haven't seen the end of Goldberg-Lesner. It's very safe to say that. It very well may be that there's something else happens in between now and the next time they come into contact with one another. We had some debate as to whether or not Goldberg is a raw-specific star

because he's been on raw, but that'll be an interesting question going forward too. But here's what we do know. The Cruiserweight Division is for now still on raw. So nothing happening there. And the tag team division, is there anything to be taken from that match? The tag team division is in a shambles. That's it. I mean, we have the Uso's won that match, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, sorry, Sizarro. Seamus. But the Uso's were the last man standing on the Smackdown side were the Uso's. So I think, you know, Seamus and Sazaro versus the New Day may, again. I don't know. Okay, the first interesting thing that happens is, I mean, that we know is Charlotte and Bailey

are going to be feuding moving forward on the women's side. That, I'm totally down for that. I'll see that. Sasha Banks is out. Well, yeah, I mean, I think the real question is how, like, how far forward this goes. And I'm sure they don't even know the answer yet. A lot of the things we saw tonight were probably setups or attempted setups for things that will last through WrestleMania.

Yeah, don't you feel like the, it's sort of, of like Christmas, it gets earlier every year. And I feel like the road to WrestleMania now starts the day after SummerSlam. It just sort of starts to feel that. I think I actually probably, I feel like I've written that before. But it's totally true just because we've gotten to the point where when the Royal Rumble happens, with the exception of that one slot, we've already have a WrestleMania card because they're already selling tickets for WrestleMania.

They're already like, you know, there's posters up outside of Orlando, like wherever they're having it. Yeah. They're promoting it in NXT when we went there. Exactly. Exactly. So, I mean, you do, it does, you know, the tail does get longer and longer. But at the same time, it wouldn't shock me if, you know, the women's match at WrestleMania was a triple threat. I mean, there's other ways to go.

Let's see. And then on the men's side, we got, we talked about Dean Ambrose versus the Undertaker being a potential feud going forward based on the Undertaker's promo. The Wyatt family is a force to be reckoned with. Looks like it, yeah. I'm sure Michael Cole has used that. phrase at some point over the course of tonight or you will tomorrow, or I guess it's Tuesday night, more or well, but I mean, is there anything else to be taken away from that men's 5-15 match, things that you're looking forward to, things that we can predict for the future? That to me was the least predictable moving forward. Everything else, to me tonight was about

all the people who didn't win. Like it felt to me like this was an evening about who's getting buried for the next few months going into WrestleMania. That men's match didn't really have that clarity to me because I thought they all pretty much they shone in their spots and it feels like you know smackdown is still going to have the same vibe with a j and dean sort of going at it sure rawl's still going to have ko and roman and seth in the mix but like the women's match Sasha banks seems like she's buried Becky lynch where's Becky lynch in this picture she took a pin early too yeah so what do you have or you have Nikki bella and Alexa bliss and maybe Natalia but car i mean it's just there's no clarity to me and so many people got buried tonight that I

I just don't know how you continue to build them up. I don't know. Do they make, it does, it did feel like that whatever the results were changed a million times before. Sure. But, I mean, not for the Goldberg match. It seems like that they knew they had a definite direction they wanted to go with that. But all the Survivor Series match. Even that, I mean, one of the things that's always sort of, that's always, you know, suddenly entertaining to me is that there is this real calculus that goes on backstage when they're booking these shows.

And I think for, you know, for the most part, it's probably smart rules of thumb to keep in mind. You don't want heels to win every match on a pay-per-view. You know, you got to space out the baby-face wins, the heel wins, so the crowd kind of goes up and down a little bit. A lot of times you've got to send the crowd home happy, you know, with a big baby-face win. Tonight was a good example of that.

But then also, on the nightly tonight, they're dealing with this calculus of, well, Raw can't get all the wins, smack then has to win some. Or like, and then even within the big matches, who looks good, how do the various brands look? We've seen them walking this ridiculous tightrope for the past several months, where Raw is clearly the flagship, but SmackDown, but the shows have to discuss each other as if they're on par. Then Daniel Bryan goes and cuts massive worksheet promos on Talking Smack.

And then Raw pretends like he doesn't exist. Anyway, the whole point is tonight, I think you're right. You change one little thing, you know, with the booking. If they decide that the main event is going to go two minutes instead of five minutes, and that trickles down butterfly effect to the whole card, and you just feel like you don't know. Like, it's all just so helter-skelter. Yeah. Well, the show definitely was short, right?

It was not the four-hour. Part of that, though, was then tricking you into thinking that was going to be a longer main event. Right. That's a weird decision in and of itself, but, you know, it was effective. They can do that because it's the network. It doesn't matter. Yeah. The biggest, is this the, was that main event, the biggest shocker since WrestleMania 30 Undertaker,

Brock Lesner? I thought you were going to make a joke just then. I was just waiting to figure out what. No, I sometimes have opinion. Every once in a while. I have an opinion. I mean, I can't think of anything. I mean, the Rollins cash in at WrestleMania was kind of a big deal.

Right. But it wasn't. It was in the realm. It was in the realm. It was in, like, holy shit. And then you're high-fiving your friends. Yeah. But it wasn't shocking.

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Let's be Undertaker and tonight were both just, like, just silence. Yeah. And this was, people were pumped at that event. It did not seem like people were bummed out at all.

No. No. excited. No, and I think that this is despite the fact that the tweets keep coming in and they all say WTF, I think that this, you know, I mean, like I said,

tomorrow might have a different opinion. I think this trickles down to being a net positive for WVE because once you, I mean, the disappointment's going to last until you wake up in the morning, but the, the weirdness of it. For some of us in it last way, wait a lot. I do think the WTF goes

either way, too. You know, it's like, holy fuck, what a great ending. or holy fuck, what was that? And I think any time that people are having that extreme of a reaction, one way or the other, it's a positive. It's a net positive for them. I totally agree with you. I also think, you know, as a wrestling fan over the age of 25,

like I think we're all in a sort of the older demographic, the sort of we are smarks by default at this point, and you just can't do it. It's nice to be able to just tell yourself that anything can happen. When we were kids, that was the catchphrase of Tuesday Night Titans or whatever, that was just like anything can happen and it usually does. That means a whole lot to a six-year-old, but when you get to be 30, you know exactly what's going to happen.

Even if you are not predicting it to a T, like, at the end of the day, you know what's going to happen. It's nice to have these moments where like you are really, really surprised. It reminded me of how I felt after Rick Flair won the Royal Rumble in 92, of like when I was whatever age that was eight or something, I was like, oh my God, this guy? Yeah. Because he was a heel and he was the number three entrant and it was, it felt improbable to me having only watched maybe four years of wrestling tops, probably three or two.

Right. Because I'm never surprised, like you said. There's never a moment where I really feel like I'm a mark again. And I screamed. I was like pushing you a little bit and clapping and doing the things that I haven't felt compelled to do by this product in a long time. I just turned 41 three weeks ago and I screamed. in a studio full of men. Jack Hammer!

Like, as loud as I could, because I was like, could not believe it was happening. I think a lot of people watching this probably felt the same way. Dan, are you going to be all right? I guess I'm in the minority on this. I mean, you know, wrestling continues to surprise me and break my heart.

Guys, thanks for tuning in. If you want to keep watching, you can go to facebook.com slash king of sad style and watch Dan crying his bathdown for the rest of the night. Could I just stay here I just imagine you guys leaving and then the lights just shut. Slowly coming down. Thanks guys for tuning in.

I hope that, I hope that, you know, you guys had as much fun as we did and that you were, that you were as surprised as we were. And I hope that, you know, keeping it 1600 is filmed in the same studio. And I'm sure that the emotions on election night were running a little bit higher than they are right now. But for your smile. But for nerds like us, tonight was an important night. And it really was shocking.

And I hope that we. I hope you had fun listening to us talk our way through it. Tonight we did a little run-in on the 1600 podcast and like smack them in the back of the head with a chair. Exactly. Fabro got a chair shot. It was a really uncomfortable 45 minutes of us cranking the ski even at 1600 signs down and spray painting the match demand show all over things.

Anyway, thanks for listening, guys. You want to plug anything? You have any parting shots, anything like that? I'd just like to plug whatever Dan St. Germain's doing for the next couple of months. Go check them out. Yeah. That was the weirdest face. It was a face turn.

Or it's like, I'm going to get halfway through and then the chair is going to get. Yeah, it's that weird? Plate glass window. I don't have anything to plug. All right, cool. Well, guys, check out the Masked Man Show. This is probably the podcast for this week, but you can hit us on Twitter. I'm at David Shoemaker.

D.S. If you're in New York, December 28th, I'm recording an hour at the stand comedy. Shit. I'm recording an hour at the stand comedy club at 10, December 28th. Go check it out. Oh, that sounds awesome. at Dave underscore Schilling on Twitter. And is Steve Kizzee?

I'm at Leather Daddy. Or at, what is it, Silver Lake? What is it? Silver Lake Heartthrob. At Silver Lake Heartthrob. You better reserve that right now. There's some more tweeting from it. Guys, thanks for listening.

Thanks to The Ringer and everybody else for making this happen. And we'll do it again sometime. Have a good night, Humanoid.