The Press Box - Ep. 217: 'The Masked Man Show' With Peter Rosenberg and LaToya Ferguson

Episode Date: December 8, 2016

The Ringer's David Shoemaker is joined by his former tag-team partner, Peter Rosenberg, to discuss Rosenberg’s appearance on ‘WWE TLC Kickoff’ (1:05), his beef with Booker T. (2:34), working with Daniel Bryan (7:12), and Lance Storm's tweet about him (12:31). Then, LaToya Ferguson joins to talk about ‘TLC’ (18:24), relationships in wrestling (28:23), and the impressive “work rate” from the week (32:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Masked Man Show is brought to you by Bose. As the official sound of the NFL, Bose gets players closer to their peak performance and gets you closer to them. How? With powerful products like their quiet, Comfort 35 wireless headphones. These are Bose's best headphones yet. No noise, no wires, just your music and you. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Today's episode of Channel 33 is brought to you by Seat Geek,

the presenting sponsor for my podcast, as well as the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports. 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 Seekek app or go to seekeek.com. And now without further ado, here is the Masked Man, David Shoemaker. Welcome to the Maskman show. I've got a very special guest to kick things off this week. I'm doing my WW Year End Awards, and I wasn't quite sure who to put on for Rookie of the Year, but I found my man.

He's on the phone with me right now, my old friend, Peter Rosenberg. How you doing, Rosenberg? What an honor. I'm so happy to pick up this Masky Award. The Maskies are very prestigious. I don't know if you're aware of them. Listen, man, the wrestling world went nuts on Sunday. there was a lot of big action at TLC,

but the most important thing for me as your buddy was that you were on the pre-show and mid-show, right, panel. How did that even happen? Oh, man. I don't know. I guess it's happened over the last 10 years that you've been a part of much of it, watching me sort of schmoozed my way around.

But I've been talking to them for a while, like maybe since WrestleMania about different stuff. but then, I don't know, a few weeks ago, they called me and said, we want to try this thing. Are you interested? And I said, I'm bearing my mind. I thought, well, I wonder if this would compromise the credibility of my podcast. And then, as you know very well, I said, I don't care about the credibility of my podcast.

So, of course I did it. And it was a lot of fun, man. It was so cool. Well, I mean, the first question that I have to ask is, how much heat was there really between you and Booker T when he was calling you? a mark on camera or even before that. I'm confused here. I thought your name was Peter, not Mark.

No heat whatsoever. He was giving me like the most friendly. He gave me the most friendly ripping all day. There's a locker room. Classic wrestling rookie move of putting my bag. Oh, no. So yeah, so I already was getting ripped from the second I showed up. And he's like, man, he talked about it.

He was talking to Morrow about it for 10 minutes. He was like, could you believe he did this? I don't understand. And, you know, he was being hilarious, and he just kept going. Busting my chops for that. He said that line during the actual show. It was hilarious. I didn't really know how to react to it.

So I tried to sort of laugh it off and plow through, but I thought it was pretty funny. He's an awesome dude. And unknown fact about Booker, he is the last man who still rides a... No. Yes, he is the man flies on a hoverboard backstage at WWB all day. Well, I mean, I got to give him credit. There's probably a lot of retired wrestlers that could use that sort of transportation assistance. That's really funny.

And then you wouldn't be able to do it. Yeah. What, um, so you're in the locker room with all the broadcasters. You texted me at one point during the show to tell me which bizarre crew of wrestlers and next wrestlers you were watching the show with backstage. Do you have any specific stories that you're allowed to tell on the Masked Man show? You know, I have no idea what I'm allowed to tell, so I guess I'll be mindful. But, you know, it was totally surreal.

It was like the ultimate, you know, fans' experience. Like, you know, that was sort of the role they had me and was like, you're the fan. And it's funny because I really had like, I saw a gorilla, which is crazy. I talked to Road Dog at Triple H there. You know, like, it was, it was crazy. Just walking around and doing rehearsals, obviously, it's a few hours before the show. So, what's happening a few hours before the show? And I'm just sitting there watching like, oh, I'm just allowed to be here.

I'm not like someone's friend. I'm like supposed to be here. and you know and I will tell you my biggest regret is I did not talk to Ellsworth at all. I am a bunch but like never had the chance to sort of just go up and chat with him and I was sort of

curious to see what kind of like what his deal is. He would have been that guy who's like hitting you up on text message 10 years from now trying to like trying to get some like show tickets or something. It might be better off. I'm in Goch. Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. He's an interestingly a nice guy but definitely.

Yeah. he was working that gimmick on the Indies, basically. So, like, this was not something that somebody slapped on him. This was a life choice for the guy. Yeah, he was cool, though. And honestly, everyone was really cool. Everyone was super nice, super respectful, and, you know, seemed to dig me being around.

And I was just so psyched to be there. And I just wanted to, like, not mess up. You know, I wanted to, like, go in the WW universe, which is sort of, like, a challenge that I've made. Yeah, was there, I mean, you might not be able to tell us that. but I mean how much of the that you say you're talking about rehearsals like how much of that pre-show stuff was

was you know like did were your were your picks fed to you? Was there like were you were you cave-fading us on the panel? When I say rehearsals, I just mean we went there and went through it. Everything was legit.

That was completely that was like I not fed one word and like all my picks on matches. That's why sometimes we all picked the same person and sometimes we didn't. You know there was no you know I basically acted like a huge fan of all the people that you've heard me be a fan of forever, like Nikki Bella.

I mean, like, I was very true through it. They just wanted to get me comfortable with how it works. But no, I was very pleased with, like, how I got to operate and the way they treated me. It was, that was all legit. Last question about just the behind-the-scenes stuff. As soon as you popped up on screen, I was sitting there with your super agent, Brian Dipperstein. And the first thing I said was he wore a hook.

Kogan shirt to the show and they took it off of them and put an American Alpha shirt on. Is that true or not? It is not true. It went by me and someone I was working with. I think as anyone could imagine if you got a chance at WWU, you could dream of it forever. You want to do your thing, but you don't want to try to completely rock the boat. So I just thought what would be a shirt that could work? So I went over the merch area and just looked through, and I was wearing blue, and I actually

loved that American Alpha shirt, and that's what I did. Wow. Well, that's really great. Well, you looked great. The show, I mean, the pre-show was, I'm a fan of the WWE doing the pre-shows in general, but you definitely gave it more of a, more of a, like, a real sports panel vibe. It just seemed like, you know, one more, like, you know, trained talker on there really changed the dynamic a little bit, and I thought it was good.

Were you scared of Daniel Bryan? I know we've interviewed him before. You've interviewed him more than me, but, like, his personality has sort of exploded over the past few months. Was it weird sitting next to him, not knowing what he was going to say? Yeah, like, that was, then I told him right when I sat down. I was like, dude, I didn't know you were going to be so good at this. Like, where did this come from? And then sort of the funny thing is you sit around during the show.

And, you know, obviously, before we go live, we come out maybe five minutes before. And so you're sitting in a wrestling in a W.W. Arena with Daniel Bryan. The crowd obviously just starts chanting, yes, yes, yes. And Daniel, Brian, over and over and over again. And I'm like, what do you? I don't even know what you do. Like, he just sort of keeps waving and then she sort of has a Michelle Beatle, real Michelle Beatle quality of like being able to sort of just comfortably navigate a show

and lead in a way where she adds her own personality and her wing from when I saw her last week in Stanford. She's literally just like taking me under her wing and been up. Well, yeah, she's in the biz, you know. Maybe someday, maybe someday you'll be able to sit next door in the play-by-play booth or something. Oh, wow. Now you're talking about making history. That's what you're talking about, Matt, man. Listen, listen. There would be nothing that would make me happier.

Have you read the reviews of your work on the internet, or are you just like keeping your ears and eyes shut? As you may or may not know, I have been so involved in other sort of beef in my other career that I really haven't gotten to see anything. And, like, I know I killed it. So I was just walked out. Like, that was good. Dude, road dog came up to me and was like, that was awesome.

And I was like, all right, I'm done. But who am I going to worry about? What internet person am I going to worry about? Yeah. But what are they saying? How did I do? You know, I mean, the word came out that Jerry Lawler and Lita, or who knows if this is true, but that Jerry Loller and Lita probably won't be working that pre-show thing anymore.

And then I didn't read a lot of direct reviews. I read that, that. I don't think that has anything. I'm sure. Yeah. No, I only mention it. I only mention it because I didn't look for comments on you. I usually stay away from that stuff because it makes me nostalgic for our time together.

There's always the people who were just like talking about it when we were together and then like comparing our shows. And it's just even if it's positive for both of us, it's sort of sad, you know, it's like whatever. But I stumbled into some of the commentary on that, on the Lita Loller thread. And yeah, I thought, I mean, I think it was, think it was mostly good. I don't think nobody had anything bad to say about you that wasn't just I hate Peter Rosenberg from the beginning or whatever. So, you know, forget those people.

Yeah. Right, and that's what I got mostly, like, every, I did the first day when I was sitting around watching the show. I did search my name, and most of it was all good. My favorite guy? Yeah, Dip and I were looking at that during the show. It was, that was the highlight of my night, I think.

Yeah, that was awesome. The fact that The fact that you actually cared enough about my appearance to go be social and watch TLC, that was very flattering. Well, I mean, listen, the fact that you cared enough about it to immediately forget it and then start a beef with Trevor Noah and Charlemagne really means shows a lot about your commitment to WWE. I know, I know. You're right.

How many current things do I have going on with different people? I really am taking this being a WW superstar very seriously. Yeah. If you were actually a WW Superstar, I think you'd be fired for all that right now, but that's okay. So last before I let you go, man, did you have any favorite matches from TLC or any favorite spots you want to talk about? Anything that surprised you? Is it a coincidence with the WWE? I thought it was an amazing pay-per-view. And like I'm not just saying that because I was there, but like I think from everyone I've talked to, non-big-4 paper reviews in such a long time. It was awesome.

I think the Dolph Mismatch was, I enjoyed truthfully. I didn't get to watch a lot of Calisto Baron Corbin yet, but truthfully, I enjoyed everything. And you know me, I went out in the arena to watch Nikki Carmela, and I don't know that I've ever heard a crowd as, like, vocal during a Nicki-Bella match as that one. I thought that was pretty awesome, too. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not news for me to say. Like, what Smackdowns really excelled at since the brand split is,

is, you know, on Smackdown itself, the two hours are really well constructed. And there's like a sort of like narrative arc throughout the show that's really coherent in a way that a three-hour raw is just too sprawling to be. But yeah, I mean, when you break down TLC, when you get into the details, it diminishes the card. But when you're there watching it, like even the lesser matches, the Wyatt family winning, it accomplished what it needed to accomplish. Nikki Bella versus Carmela, same thing.

Corbin versus Colisto was actually a really, really, it was like, I mean, I don't know if I'd call it a great match, but it's, it was about 10 times better than it had any right to be. But just the whole, the overall show, it just felt, like I went over to like you said, like we said, to dips. I mean, I needed, I had to leave. I had dinner plans. So I was planning on watching just the first hour, and then I just got caught up and watched the whole thing. I mean, it was, it was just a really good show. You know, it's not exactly right to say top to bottom, but like the entire package of the show I thought was just really amazing.

Yeah, that's how I came away feeling, which was like, it was kind of like, it was almost difficult because I was kind of walking around and watching at different places throughout the night, and I kind of was like, man, I wish I just had a little taken aback to how good it was, and I will tell you what, I think it continues to add to keep pace with Smackdown. Like, we'll see how Roadblock goes. I'll be impressed if Roadblock's able to be as good as. Yeah, I mean, that's really true.

And it's, excuse me, especially at this time of the year when we're just getting into nosedive into Royal Rumble and then WrestleMania time, You know, it's, they, Raw has a lot to keep up with. I mean, Raw on Monday was, I mean, this week was really, really good. The level of wrestling and the kind of storytelling over the past few weeks has been really interesting. But, I mean, TLC was, TLC was a real accomplishment. And, you know, I think that the two people we have to thank the most are James Ellsworth and Peter Rosenberg. So, you know, you're.

Thank you. You know, everybody always says that AJ Styles can carry anybody to a five-star match, but, you know, I had no idea that you were the AJ Styles of the announce table, so. I was about to say, you didn't know that Peter Rosenberg could carry the company to a five-star pay-per-view, and that's exactly what I did. Thank you. Well, I'm glad that you had a good time. I'm glad that you got to do it, man. I mean, it was really cool to see you and that they, you know, that they let you be you. That's pretty cool, man.

You're shooting on the WWE network. Immediately want to not talk to me after doing your podcast, but I'm very, I'm just, I'm thrilled that I did it, and hopefully there's more to come. And if there's not, I'll still feel like I lived a dream, as corny as that is. And also, Alexa and I will be in L.A. in January, with you in the valet.

Hey, listen, I would love to do that, and for all the L.A.-based stalkers who are listening to this, we'll wave to you as we, as you look at us through the window. And we will likely be a Katsuya in L.A. live. Yeah, not hard to find us. All right, man. Well, thanks for calling in.

It's always good to talk to you, but especially now that you're famous, it's good to know you're not too important for your old friends. Oh, no, I pack her head in humanoid out there. All right, man. Have a good day. Later, bud. Big thanks to Peter Rosenberg for coming on the show.

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All right, thanks again to my best friend Peter Rosenberg for coming on the show. I'm now sitting here with my second best friend, Latoya Ferguson. It's been a huge week in wrestling. I tried to break. Okay, so we had TLC on Sunday. We're going to call this episode of the Masked Man Show TRW. We're going to do TLC, relationships, and work rate. I think the three biggest, the three banners that I could sort of group everything,

all this stuff that's happened this week under. First of all, Toa, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty well. How about you? Good. I know you had a crazy morning. Yeah. My dog is sick.

Not my little brother. My dog. Dogs are scary. Dog sickness is scary too. But you're here for a very important reason, which is to break down the TLC card off the top. You were saying right before we went live that you thought it was one of the best TLCs

that you can remember. Yeah, the thing about TLC, which I was talking about a lot in my reviews leading out to it, was how inherently it's not the best pay-per-view because you can get a great TLC match, you can get a great ladder match, but then you have to shoe in horn things

like a chair, match where only chairs are legal, which is just a ridiculous concept. The stairs match, of course, the infamous stairs match. And it's just building matches around a gimmick pay-per-view, as opposed to building a paper-view around like the matches and the feud. I think the build-up and Smackdown in general has been pretty good overall with paper-brew build-up. But I think here, it was probably the best TLC pay-per-view from top to bottom just in terms of story. In terms of They're all, like, decent to great matches, I think, even the pre-show match. Yeah, I agree.

I said this to Rosenberg right before you came on. But, I mean, what Smackdown's been good at overall is just sort of like designing the shape of an episode, you know, and really making it seem like a coherent story. And this pay-per-view, I think, was the best example yet of that, that it felt like everything was the right size, the right shape, everything sort of combined into a great show. And actually breaking down, we're not going to break down every match, but when you do break it down, it sort of detracts from how great the show was because it doesn't matter if, you know, Colisto Corbyn,

which was a very good match, I mean, for what it was, it doesn't matter that it wasn't a five-star match. It contributed to this really cool show. And it served the purpose for the story, which they continue to tell on Talking Smack afterwards. That's the whole point to, like, tell the story properly. Yeah, I mean, okay, so I agree with your take on TLC in general. There's no other, I mean, I don't know if there's no other.

There's very few other pay-per-view concepts that sort of force you into that snarky bad fan mode where you're just watching matches saying why don't they use the chair for this or like why did he put down his weapon or the tweets that I always get which are like is there any difference between you know a no holds barred match

and a TLC match or you know what I like there's there's all these like just silly questions that pop into your head and it's fun to ask them at the time and then but I try you know you try to be a little bit more upbeat of a yeah if they're doing their job well then you can suspend your disbelief for how ridiculous some of these matches can get

And I think that TLC, the pay-per-view, did it very well. Yeah. The Insta reviews were all talking about the title match or the two big title matches, the World Championship match, or the World Title match and the IC title match. The Smackdown Women's title match, I thought, was also really good. I think if we take a set back and just look at it in broad strokes, this was the night of the heels on Smackdown. It really was.

I mean, everybody, I mean, with the exception of, Nikki, right? I mean, and discounting the pre-show, no offense, it was all heels, I believe, and coming out on top. And I could not be more excited for our new tag team champs, Bray and Randy, because they're my good friends, I can call them Bray and Randy. I couldn't be more excited for Alexa Bliss,

getting a little run with the belt or a big run, who knows. And keeping the belt on AJ. It seems like a no-brainer, but. Yeah, I mean, I was watching with, some guys, watching the show with some guys at my buddy Brian Dipperstein's apartment, and we kept on trying to like map out the way forward. It really just seemed like that you had, that unless Ambrose and AJ Seiles is going to be a feud through WrestleMania, then this was the point where you had to pivot away from this feud. Exactly. But, and I think

they did it in the best possible way. I don't know if, you know, I don't know what James Ellsworth's role is going to be going forward, but, you know, I've gotten to the point. tell me your thoughts on this. I've kind of the point where people who, like, talk shit about James Ellsworth, I just don't even have any time for it. Yeah, I feel like they're not seeing the forest for the trees, basically. I do think this was the perfect time for Ellsworth to make turn

because, well, it's not even really a turn, as it's just, like, his full-headedness. But as I've been saying is that the longer this goes, the more Dean's, like, I'm really a cool guy, like, shots at Ellsworth. Like, they kind of kill him in his promos because he'll be, like, on fire in his prong. and the crowd will be with him, and then he'll, like, make a jab at Ellsworth. They'll be like, hey, do my errands for me, and then it will lose them.

So Elswath had to do something, so, like, Dean could be fully loved. Yeah. Although, I mean, there have been a lot of people use, I mean, if you want to turn Dean Ambrose, you know, attacking somebody like James Ellsworth might be the way. I kind of, I came with this realization where it was the Knight of the Heels at TLC, and yet I don't know that there's anybody in the top of, in the top half of the card that I wouldn't rather be a heel. I mean, Ambrose would be better off playing heel, I think, in a general way. Everybody was saying Dolph Ziegler-Land-Nard needs to turn.

I know, I'm not saying the show should be all heels. I just think everybody on this roster would be better off working heel right now. I mean, they're just everybody, all the baby faces, Ellsworth included, are at the moment where they needed a turn. With Ziegler, I feel like he neither needs to turn heel, which I was saying early on when, like, the Smackdown drafts, like, when they first started, and he was like, oh, he was going to turn heel, or just put them in a tag team at this point. Yeah. Put them in like with a good tag team partner, obviously.

That makes sense. I said last week just put him with Baron Corbyn and just totally rerun the Sean Michael's diesel storylines of the 90s. You know, I mean, just like they'd both be better off that way. But yeah, I mean, I thought it was, I thought it was a really good show. And you talked about Talking Smack, which was not, I mean, it's never, it's always a great product. but the way that they just brought Elwoods right out to explain himself. It's like it's an integral part of the storytelling.

He needed to explain himself. You don't want to, it's, you want to build anticipation, but you don't want the logical, like, holes to be there for the entire week or a few days to get to next show. Well, it's especially important for Smackdown because you have two days to wait. You can't just wait the 24 hour, the 20 hours, whatever, until the raw cold open to explain. And yeah, I mean, and honestly, like, the explanation you get,

was perfect. With two days of internet theorizing, there probably would have been some better ideas or something. I mean, the reason why wrestling fans are so often disappointed, as I've written and said before, is that fantasy booking, you have to pick sides, right? You imagine a thing and you're like, that's what I want to happen. If it doesn't happen, you just say, like, why did they mess up, right? Exactly.

Well, we're going to circle back around to this a little bit because I think this has been an incredible week for work rate in general terms, and we're going to hit that at the end. So AJ Stiles and Dean Ambrose, Ms. and Doff, both really high-quality matches. I mean, AJ Stiles and Dean, to have a match in the way that it ended and to not feel like you got ripped off, says a lot about how good the match was. But, again, we'll come back around to that. But how do you feel about Alexa's champ? Oh, I love Alexa Bliss.

My one problem just in general with the feud was that I feel like, obviously, she's still kind of green. but I think that she has a work ethic that would make it a good title like a championship reign. It's just I worried because she does need to be slightly carried in matches still, but I love Alexa Bliss. It's true that she's green,

but I'll say this for her, green is much better than that mahogany color that she used to be when she was a professional bodybuilder, and if you haven't, actually don't Google those images because it'll ruin your impression of Alexa Bliss forever. Another interesting thing that, I mean, we saw some of this on Sunday,

but a lot on Tuesday is that I feel like with Bray and Orden at the top of the tag team division, the rest of the tag division is getting a little chance for a reboot. The Ascension is obviously kind of being slightly tweaked in their presentation. You know, I just think that the hype rose seem like they're getting a look. And, you know, I think American Alpha is they're really doing a very low-key sort of Daniel-Brieney storyline with them. But by the time that they actually take the belts off, Orden and Wyatt, it's going to mean a whole whole. lot. Exactly. And as excited as I think everybody listening to this probably was for them to just, you know, shoot them right to the top of the division when they did the brand split. It's for the best that they're not. Oh, it's just so much better. And it's, if they're off TV for a week, it's fine. It's just, it's so much better this way.

I understand people's frustrations that maybe they're not as over as they were in NXT, but you do, it's one of those things where you don't want them just be like, here, you should like these guys and now they're at the top. Like, let it build. Yeah. It's going to be worth it. It's one of those instances where the dream is actually being fulfilled, that they are elevating the titles and elevating themselves at the same time. And it's really, sadly unusual that that actually, you know, comes to pass. Yeah. I like your shirt, by the way. Thank you.

It's a map of the United States with all the wrestlers from different states' names as the shape of the state. Yes, sir. That's really great. I'm glad that Eric Bischoff got his own state. Anyway, all right. I said there were two other things we want to talk about. Work rate we'll get to for the week. But before that, relationships.

I know that's kind of a weird subject for wrestling. That's a great transition. And listen, we talk about relationships on this show. Normally they have to do with, like, Page and Alberto del Rio's, you know, Latin American misadventures. But this was a little bit of a little bit of a callback to some of the cool parts of the attitude era or just even every era past. Before we get into this, just because I mentioned your name, Page's downfall seems to be the subject of total divas right now, judging only by the commercials.

I'm excited to watch tonight's episode, that's for sure. Do you think, if you had to guess, there's one or the other, that one, this is all a work to put for the sake of getting total divas over, that all of the page disappearing and stuff. Or two, their, WWE, it's only total divas. Like, it's all real, and WWE is just, like, not releasing page for the sake of Total Divas? I have an answer, but I should do it off mic.

Okay. Wow. Okay. Well, this is, sorry, guys. You're not going to get the real answer. A little bit, it seems like a weird thing to build a reality show around, but who am I to criticize the wonders of total divas? Listen, let's talk about Rousse Evanenzo. I think, I don't know about you.

From the moment this storyline started on Monday Night Raw, on this past, Monday from the first sequence, I knew exactly what was going to happen, but I was 100% in for it, and they exceeded my expectations. It's funny because I was actually just having this conversation with my mother before we watched The Raw actually, which is about how one of the things we really miss about WWB, and they've been bringing it back these past couple weeks, is how, like, they acknowledge that the rest of the world exists outside of it. It's not so insular.

So, like, the things like the Cesaro, Seamus Bar Brawl, Like little things like that. Love that. My problem with the Rousse of Enzo-Lana thing is the usual problem with a lot of these Russo-Lana-N-N-Wan things where it's a bunch of disrespecting a man and his wife and, you know, some slut-shaming. Right. So. Well, self-slet-shaming, but from a writer's perspective, you're right.

No, I totally agree. To take your first point, my favorite part was I think it was during the Jericho-Raines match when Michael Cole had to do this. like this like brief aside to explain everything that was going on. He was like, this match is a result of Kevin Owen's doing this thing at the beginning of the show. And then there was a match between the big show and Roman Raines. And then, you know, then Sammy Zane. And it was like, suddenly the entire raw roster mattered like in one moment, you know.

But like, which is a different thing than what you're saying. But I think in a broader sense, when the world matters, both in terms of the entire product and the world outside the arena, I think it really helps. It does have that ring of reality to it in just the sense of like, if you really don't like somebody, sometimes you're going to want to beat them up in the ring,

but sometimes you might just want to beat them up out back, you know? And that's like, you know, I grew up with watching, you know, the four horsemen lure dusty roads to parking lots way off, you know, just to beat him up. Yeah, and this had like nice little touches, like the moment of realization when Cass gets what happens and he asks someone for a phone. Apparently he remembers Enzo's phone number, which is great.

But yeah, my favorite moment was Rusef coming out and for some reason looking directly at the camera before he turned to Inzo L'O moray when they were in the hotel room. But yeah, I think that was really great. And having a Rusef versus Inzo and Cass angle in a month where neither of them has anything to do is like the best possible use of it. It feels like what they would have done in Ring of Honor three years ago or something where it's just, who do we have left? All right, let's figure out a way to put them together. And also like a thing they would have done in WW in the 90s. Like it's just, there's not, WCW actually, maybe even more so. It's just interesting.

Yeah, they just need to keep the good parts of the storyline. Yeah. It keeps it away from feeling like you know exactly how it's going to end the moment it starts because this isn't just in zone castes or against another tag team and we know the trajectories they're both on and you just do the math. And that's why in general, why these interpersonal relationships are more interesting. Now, we talked earlier about Ambrose and Ellsworth and we can use this to segue into our work rate discussion. but I mentioned not having time for people who don't love Ellsworth, but I mean, it might just be me, like if you grew up just watching WWE,

even if you're in your 30s, if you grew up watching WWE, you know, your memories of the twerps, you know, your memories of Harvey Whippleman or mouth of the south of Jimmy Hart or whatever, are, you know, they're not that integral. But like, if you grew up watching territorial wrestling just about anywhere, then you grew up watching guys who had no business being in the ring get in there and have their moment to shine, or more importantly, have their moment to get their butt kicked.

I mean, Jerry the King Luller, you know, belt-wipped more weasily manager than just about any wrestler in the history of time. I mean, we look back fondly on everybody praises Andy Kaufman's run as a wrestler. He was basically James Ellsworth with a louder mouth, you know, and more like confidence in himself. that I think there's just something incredibly valuable about as long as you don't as long as you don't put Ellsworth over you know as long as you don't David Arqued

him or anything there's such a value in having a clearly underqualified performer in the ring to make your wrestlers look more impressive yeah I mean it's just it's so again simple math the only thing I'll say about him in terms of relationships is they signed him because he was so funny looking that the crowd just loved him, right? He had that it factor. He drew attention. Yeah. The fact that they've been,

the fact that they got lucky enough that this guy can pull off character-wise, everything they've asked of him, is incredible. And it's not just staying in the ring looking confused or looking, you know, like, whatever, like all of his different looks, but the fact that he can swing the talking smack,

that he can actually, like, pull that that characterization off, there are so many moments. moments on Sunday where I thought that he was going to lose the script when Daniel Ryan was asking him questions. He was, his acting is top notch. It's really crazy, right? I mean, it's just amazing that he can put over, I mean, he can put over these feuds as well as people who've been doing this forever.

And he's been doing it for a long time, but obviously not on, uh, not in front of big cameras. His tunnel vision on talking smack, just as both Renee and Brian were like, what, what did you do? he's like, I beat him three times before. I can beat him again. Daniel Bryan's, whatever, the work shooty stuff he's been doing since the beginning of Talking Smack, the fact that it's all sort of paying off

in his just total indignation towards Ellsworth. See, it's the downside, quote-unquote, of being the land of opportunity because Ellsworth's got all these opportunities and now look at this inflated ego, basically. God, it's really good. Now, I don't think James Ellsworth is ever going to be you know, anyone that we consider a top 10 work rate guy, but who knows, we haven't really

seen him at his full potential yet. And you know, you put him out there on the road, you give him some opportunities. I learned a few weeks ago he's younger than me. Really? Yeah. Well, you know, he's got a long career ahead of him then. That's great for all of us. But I mentioned before that when you had him knock over that ladder at the end of FTLC, No one was disappointed. And it's not just, but first of all, I was predicting an undertaker appearance.

I don't have any critique of TLC. I think that they booked that show as well as they could have possibly booked it. But my opinion last week, which I don't think I was wrong, was that TLC is the fact that the Smackdown brand got the TLC pay-per-view. This is going to be one of the most sets of eyes

on Smackdown, probably in a long time, until we, you know, on a SmackDown specific show, if you want to just, you know, make a big deal of it, if you want to blow it out, just have the Undertaker show up, you know, or John Cena show up. You know, I do, I thought they were going to use as an opportunity to sort of put more eyes on Tuesday night. But to show, but they did, they took another tack, which was just were the best work rate. This is going to be the best work rate show of the year. And they, they almost pulled it off. The main event was insane, insane.

Insane. In the best way possible. Ambrose was Ambrose deserves a bunch of credit for so many cool things happened in that match the plotting on the match the pacing of the match there are you know

people will people you know always have a little bit have a couple of issues with his work rate it's not that I mean he's it's unfortunate too because if you're going against AJ Seiles it's kind of hard to keep up in that level but the thing is he can keep up I think that the only

people of course are going to be looking at AJ Stiles because he's AJ Stiles. I think, yeah, I think that Ambrose, his credit, keeps up, I mean, is at his best when he's against someone who's really good. His matches against Rollins have been good

and, you know, AJ even better. That flip with the power bomb onto the six chairs that they did in the ring or whatever that was it? Was it, Orange Crush? Is that what it's called? Is that what it is? I think so.

I'll give that to you. But, like, that was just, you know, that was Dean executing a perfect move. AJ is like the flippiest guy in WWE, but if you go back and watch that, like there's very little that AJ could have possibly done to even help that move go off, except know how to position his body

while he's being thrown by Dean Ambrose. Just cross his fingers. It's like, yeah, it's that little flip-out thing. But, you know, I mean, there were so many cool moments in that match. I don't even, I don't even, I mean, the stuff outside the ring, jumping off a ladder that's on a table is a cool spot one, but also incredibly difficult.

Like, I was just sure he was going to somehow kick it backwards and fall on his face. There were just so many cool moments. Did you have anything stand out to you? I really just love the entire match. I love the people who pointed out that this is the second TLC ladder match main event where it ended with, like, a fuckery that involved in AJ, because you have the Ziegler, Sina one that involved A.J. Leach pulling the ladder pushing spot on Sina.

Oh, that's really great. Um, yeah, I mean, the, the ending was good. The, what happened in the match, I keep coming back to it was so great. AJ's that 450 springboard that he did outside the ring. Yeah. Or in, out, from inside to outside the ring? Yeah, and, like, just, if you were a second off, he would have, like, just broke his head, basically. Oh, yeah, like, he, like, he scorpioned himself, but in, like, a totally fine way.

Yeah. The replay, I was like, that, that made me feel safe about, what, what? what just happened because I was so worried. Nobody's a safer worker for what he does. It's like the pound for pound safest worker. The flip for flip, AJ Styles is the safest worker in professional wrestling. Get that T-shirt.

And yeah, just the ending and then the cut to Talking Smack. And you have Renee and Brian both be like, what just happened? Yeah. Such a good image. Much better than Tuesday when they open Talking Smack, pretending to react, like, pretending to shoot, react to a Bray Wyatt video

promo, like as if that something bad had happened in the production truck to allow that, you know? Well, no, it wasn't, wasn't it, wasn't it that they had taken over and then they, like, they teleported or whatever, and then they were showing up? Sure, yeah, but I mean, but that was just, you know, I like, I like my talking smack to be a little bit more legit. Also, I like my talking to be live also. Yeah, oh, well, talking about guys who are, you know, are already adjusted to, let's jump back to, let's jump back to Raw.

Kevin Owens versus Sammy Zane That match on Monday Was one of my favorite matches I've ever seen him have Am I crazy? I mean I... I mean just given the constraints I wouldn't think I have any one of their matches where I hate I think it was very, very good

They just went all out Like they were, the way that they were doing that match I thought that they were They had me believing that Sammy Zane was going to win Only because of the degree to which they were just pulling out all the stocks And I think at this point they should, whenever those two go against it, they should always go all out because they have a lot of tension. Yeah. Some, like, matchups where, even if they haven't wrestled in a while, like, they should always just, like, go at it like they, this is the paper view and they're trying to kill each other.

Yeah. They were, it was, it was just such a good match. Like, I only watched it live, but I will go back and rewatch it this week because it was just so good. they both got all their spots in and the finish was somehow just so perfect that it was not, I mean, that they let Owens win sort of just out of nowhere, but with the big power bomb,

it put over his move, but it also, we didn't have to go through, I mean, but it didn't feel like a false finish. It didn't feel about it. It just felt like Sammy Zane was right there on the cusp, but Kevin Owens is always able just to end a match. You know, he's able to get the knockout. I loved that match.

Like there was not, like, Yeah, that was so good. You know, Seth Rons versus the Big Show wasn't a four-star or a five-star work-grade match. But it was great to see just how amazing Big Show looks and how fast. Yeah, and how fast he is. Like, I felt just happy to see him for the first time in a long time, honestly. I agree. And listen, it wouldn't be a big show match without a heel turn and a face turn within a five-minute span.

It was like, it was a heel turn and a face turn than another face turn because so Kevin announces him. and he's coming to beat up Seth but he's like high-fiving everyone so there's your face turn and it's like just another face turn by him ditching the match yeah so strange but perfect

I mean I would a good that was the right use of the big show and then Roman Reigns Chris Jericho there's a lot of there's a lot of good stuff Roman Reins Chris Jericho

I really enjoy it too I feel like that I don't think we need another month of Rallens but like I wouldn't Reins and Jericho had good chemistry, and I really enjoyed, you know, seeing them work together.

I enjoyed the match. I wish Jericho could have won because they were playing up the fact he'd never won the U.S. title. And also, Roman definitely doesn't need the belt because... Well, that was... Okay, so for the second time... I agree.

For the second time in the night, they had me believing because, you know, halfway through... She's always good, but sometimes you should follow through with what people believe. Yes. I completely agree. Listen, I mean, Jericho did so much good for himself.

I mean, every time he comes on camera, he gets significantly better because he's just that good. But they did a lot of good for Jericho by just making him look strong in the match against Roman Raines. Roman Raines is, for better or worse, sort of, you know, the hero by which all others are judged right now.

If you can look good against Roman Raines, it means that WWE has a lot of confidence in you or whatever. It means you can lose to Roman Raines some more. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, but halfway through, I was just like, oh, of course they're going to make the Jericho-Rollins match for the U.S. title. like this is going to be and when when owens came out i was even more sure of it but then they you know

they flipped the script and listen i'm not mad about it with going into rassalmania season we probably have too many either every match is going to be for a title or there's going to be some title matches that are just sort of left off or we're going to do an i see versus intercontinental match you know i mean there's not enough there's well there would be if that's all it were but there's barely enough room for all these titles so to have two titles in a match at roadblock does not bother me either you know i mean Sometimes that's the way the story line crumbles, I guess. I mean, I guess my problem is, I think we talked about this before, where it was pretty much you had Roussev, who was a dominant U.S. champion who wore it with pride,

and you have Roman who was basically like, oh, yeah, I have this title. Let me hold it like the cool kids holding a backpack at school. Yeah, no, that's true. But also, I don't think it really does anything. And it's really, like, the fourth thought in this entire storyline. Yes. I don't know that it does anything for Rollins Jericho to put the mid-card title on there. It might only, like, diminish it, though.

You know, I mean, to have, because Rollins and Jericho were supposed to be like your number three and four guys on the roster. If there's a way to get Ron to the belt, then you have Jericho kind of chasing after it because he has, again, he's never had it. Yeah, no, that's a good gimmick for Jericho. I just don't know if that's, I feel like the match is bigger than an I see title match or than a U.S. title match on its own. Maybe you should make the U.S. title bigger. Well, maybe putting it on the Great Roman Reins is the way to do that. You say these things to upset me, don't you? I do, I do.

The tag team match wasn't a giant war crate spectacular But I really enjoyed that too At some point Are you, are your expectations for the triple threat tag team match High at all? I mean, do you... Is the match before or after the record? That's a really good question.

I don't know. I don't have my tracker on. I'm like, just get, please get past the record already. I'm ready for it to be over. You're ready for them to have a little bit of mobility? I'm ready to never hear about demolition ever again. Well, that's, I don't know. I don't know if I can, I think you're saying that just to make me mad at this point. I'm not

anti-demolition. I'm anti-WB doing this because demolition's suing them. Yeah. Yes, I kind of wish they made a bigger deal of it because that's my favorite storyline going on in WWE right now. Yeah, they might as well just be like, hey, these guys are suing us, so just get like super reality era. Listen, we got to run out of here. There's, the one thing we didn't talk about is the ladder match, which I'm glad that we're into. on it. Now, you can make a case that the last Ms. Ziegler pay-per-view match was their best. But this ladder match was just really, really well done. I mean, I thought that it was, I mean, I think, you know, there's something perfect about the I see title and the ladder match. They

go hand in hand. And you knew that Dolph and Ms. were going to make each other look good. that's clear that they both are capable of doing it and are very invested in doing it. But I'd say, you know, maybe I'm just too high on it, although it's several days later. This match fully lived up to my expectations. What did you think? I agree.

And I pointed out while watching it, but I love how Ms. is just in this match, he's just wrestling like Daniel Bryan. Like he wrestled that match how Daniel Bryan would have. He was trying to basically cut off Ziegler's leg. And it was amazing. Yeah. I mean, something happened.

I was watching, the match was good. I mean, that match was great. His match against Ambrose on Tuesday, I thought was really fun too. And I was watching him when he had the figure four in that match. I was just like, wait, when did the Miz learn how to do the figure four? But I realize I haven't, like, made a joke about it to myself in a while. But he's, like, really figured it out. Yeah.

It looks really good. Also, big credit to Ms. and Ambrose for two guys who justify get some shit about their ring styles being a little bit cartoony. Like, they work really well together. I mean, maybe I should have expected that. But whatever. I really enjoyed that match. But the latter match, you're right.

The Miss is an incredibly smart guy. I mean, if you've ever met him, talked to him, like, it's clear that he... Oh, he's one of your friends? Yeah, he's one of my dear friends. No, but if you, I mean, he's like, he gets it, you know? I mean, he's a fan like us, and he's, and, you know, he's had a really weird shape to his career, but yeah, he's a smart guy, and you're right. He wrestled like Daniel Bryan.

I wouldn't have thought to say that, but that's exactly right. But yeah, I mean, the, when they were setting up to, whenever they set up the two ladders side by side, you know that there's a spot coming. Yeah. I was not expecting that the whole setup to be for just a crotch kick, but I thought that was just sort of great on its own too. I love it. It was well within the rules.

Yeah, exactly. No, Marie's helping or anything. Really, we got to. to get out of here, but really quickly, we have the Royal Rumble coming up before too long. There's no more Smackdown shows before the Rumble, right? Yeah, which is actually pretty good because I was like, why is there another pay-per-view so quickly? So we're going to have Ambro, I mean, we're going to have A.J. versus somebody at the Rumble.

Do we have any idea who that's going to be yet? We don't. I don't know. I feel like, I know technically we heal, heal, but like AJ gets cheered just, like, regardless. Baron Corbyn, honestly, it's not like a full-time main event stay. but it's like a good test. I just Googled Royal Rumble rumors, and I recommend that everybody does this

just to see how crazy the world is. Goldberg versus John Sina at the Royal Rumble was the first thing that came up. Latoy has her head in her hands now. If that happens, we're going to look like real idiots. Anyway, obviously John Sina and the Undertaker, despite not appearing at TLC or the two question marks for what happens with the Smackdown roster going forward,

You could very easily reboot Stiles Sina. You could very easily just have the Undertaker appear and be the opponent for Stiles. You could have Goldberg show up. Yeah. I mean, but like, or you could, Stiles and Sina, I mean, sorry, Sina and Undertaker could both be in the Rumble and set up a match for themselves, like, whatever.

There are a lot of, there's just a lot of question marks going forward. I think that I think that I am more interested in the workings of Smackdown than I thought I would be, you know? I mean, it's just sort of wide open. It could be, it's a good, I think it's a positive for the show. Yeah. I'm sure whoever it is will be a good story, so. Yeah, I totally agree.

Well, listen, thanks for coming on. You have anything you want to plug? Well, you can find me at Twitter, at LaFergs and the A.B. Club and other places, which I can announce in the new year. That's awesome. And, yeah, we'll be back next week. And thanks again to Peter Rosenberg for coming on. thanks to Latoya

and thanks to all you for listening. Have a happy week, humanoid.