The Press Box - Ep. 259: ‘The Masked Man Show’ on the 'Festival of Friendship' and Bray Wyatt’s Reign

Episode Date: February 16, 2017

The Ringer’s David Shoemaker teams up with Bleacher Report’s Dave Schilling to break down the main event from 'Elimination Chamber' (01:30), Bray Wyatt’s future as champion (03:05), Emmalina and the most meta moment in professional wrestling (23:35), Bailey ending Charlotte’s reign (29:00), Kevin Owens betraying Chris Jericho at the 'Festival of Friendship' (36:10), and the upcoming Andre the Giant documentary (41:55). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, this is Robert Mason, the Ringer NFL show. Even though the Super Bowl is over, free agency, the combine, and the draft are all right around the corner, and the Ringer NFL show will have to be covered bringing everything you need to know. You can subscribe to The Ringer NFL show at iTunes.com slash The Ringer or wherever you get your podcast. The Mask Man program. I'm David Shoemaker, aka The Mask Man. Dave Schilling, how you doing, man? Good, intellectual chocolate.

Back at it. Yeah, it sounds better when you say it than when I say it. So Raw was really big this week. Smackdown was really big. I mean, everything felt big this week, including, I guess right at the top, we should talk about the elimination chamber. Yeah, we watched it together.

Speaking of big, there's also some Andre the Giant documentary stuff we got to talk about, but we'll hit that at the end of the show. Yeah. But yeah, we watched the Elimination Chamber together. Your lovely East Los Angeles abode. Thanks, buddy. Don't blow up my spot and tell all the kids where I live.

Oh, man. If they could, if anybody, If everybody listening to the show can, like, you know, find their way to Eagle Rock, they deserve to hang out with you. Really narrowing it down. Why don't you just tell them the street I'm on, too, Shoemaker? Sheesh. That'll come in the second half of the program so people stick around and you'll get Dave Schilling's address. Great.

So, Elimination Chamber was, I mean, there was actually a lot of cool matches and stuff, but it, I mean, it was a, it was a, not to be disrespectful, but it was a one-match show. Yeah, no, I definitely was. super into the main event. And I did not like the elimination chamber gimmick when it was first around. I like how they redesigned the cage. Yeah. I like all the lights and all the doodads on it. The lights and the...

I mean, I didn't go back and watch all the elimination chambers. I didn't feel that... I mean, I wasn't that passionate about this pay-per-view or anything. But it seemed to me that the things that made the elimination chamber so silly in its previous incarnation were some of the coolest parts. Like the cool camera angles, the light-up parts of it, all that kind of stuff. Like, it all felt very legit. Yeah, that spot where Ambrose jumps off the pod was really cool.

And then a lot of great near falls. It was booked incredibly well. And then having it be AJ and Bray at the end was a surprise, but a welcome surprise. And AJ was selling his ass off that one match. One thing that they do, the WWE does really well is these days the past year. So it's just like the subtle in-game teases. You know? I mean, it's just like you don't realize how specific your expectations are for like

every segment of the match, or especially for in-game, and they'll do that. It's like, I always talk about the way they used Roman Raines to trick you into thinking he's winning, and that's like his main, or his most, you know,

his best purpose, at least now these days. And, yeah, I think in the elimination chamber, when Sina got pinned clean, right? It was just such a weird moment. It's such an unexpected twist that it made you sit up and pay a lot of attention and made you appreciate the ending a lot more.

Yeah, yeah. And that great spot with Mitch, picking up the scraps and then of course getting all his hot spots in and then getting eliminated. It was a great little moment for him even though he wasn't really in the match very long.

The good thing about the elimination chamber compared to some of its other, whatever you compare it to, somewhere between the Rumble and Hellenicel or whatever, is that it's just the right size to do the perfect version of what the Miz did. That was like the platonic ideal of the like get all your spots in,

look really good and then just get pinned. You know? Just get tossed right of. out. Totally. It's just, it was a really, it was a nice,

it was just a really well-booked match. I mean, I was pleasantly surprised with it. I mean, I don't even have anything bad to say about,

about, you know, about Baron Corbin in the match. I mean, it was, it was just really well put together. It was good, yeah. And the rest of the card

wasn't so hot. We were kind of griping a little bit during the show up until the main event. But, you know, once, once the, the main started,

we were back into it. And Bray Wyatt, congratulations. You deserve it. Yeah. I was on Bill Simmons podcast this week, as some people listening to this might know to talk about Andre the Jam. But we also talked about Elimination Chamber on the Road to WrestleMania, and Bill was not really high on the Bray Wyatt win. And we talked about it, and he's fine with it.

You can listen to the podcast and, you know, see this deep therapy session that we had, listen to here for yourself. but I think I don't without meaning to get without getting too meta on the subject I definitely think that there's a lot of fans probably not to target audience of this podcast but there's a lot of fans out there

for whom it doesn't it's never going to seem like a legitimate win until you're already in that Sina echelon does that make sense? Yeah it's like the same way they're just like giving Sina title wins

just to like get the tally up to 17. In some ways, you've got to give somebody a couple title runs just to make the more casual fans care when they're in the main event at WrestleMania or whatever. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's why Dean Ambrose got his run with the belt in the summer was we just need to get him up to that point.

Exactly. And he's got to win the belt. And people got to stop talking about when is he going to win the belt. And Bray Wyatt was treated like a jobber to the stars for years. You know, his first WrestleMania, he was dropping to John Cena. He was built to be a monster, and then he gets slayed. And it's this sort of this yo-yo effect of him going up and down the card. And so this was necessary to cement him as someone who belongs on the poster,

who belongs in the commercials, who belongs sitting next to John Cena at a press conference. And, I mean, it's not like WrestleMania's next weekend, although with the schedule the way it is, maybe it is, and I just forgot. But, you know, they have some time to kind of build him up, to insinuate him, ensconce him more completely. as the main event. Now, who knows what's going to happen at WrestleMania,

but I would love to see a run, a long run with Brayas champ, and actually make him storyline the sort of like heel champ that Lesnar was. You know, sidebar to say, one of the great things about Bray Wyatt being champion

is I'll get to see him Russell more probably, but, yeah, but I mean, I think that Bray White's character should just be, not necessarily a heel, but just a sort of, you know,

just weird domineering heel title holder, you know, he should be cutting promos on every raw, I mean, every smackdown, and then like refusing matches. And if they say, no, you have to, he can just say, no, fire me. You know, I mean, you can just be this sort of Floyd Mayweather almost, just like he fights when and where he wants to fight, and he can, but still have a huge presence on the show. I don't know. I just think, I mean, I'm, I'm just excited to see where it could go. There's a, there's a way to do this where he is not fully a heel, not fully a baby

face, not necessarily an Austin style tweeter, but something that we haven't seen before as a wrestling character. And what I like about the storyline is that there are no baby faces or heels really in this Wyatt family disintegration.

It's like when he got to you deserve a chance to start SmackDown, it didn't feel out of place from like a k-fate perspective. Right. It's, he can be a well, he can be a respected pro wrestling. Yeah.

Let's just keep the magic to a minimum. That's my only advice. Let him shine and keep the magic to a minimum. He is the potential, and I'm not saying, like, five years from now potential, he has the potential to be one of your three to five biggest stars right now. And I think it's just a matter of putting the camera on him and letting him be Bray Wyatt in the main event spotlight. That's what we've been saying. for years now.

And I'm glad that they've caught up to what we as fans have been saying about his potential and his ceiling, which is, I think, unlimited. Yeah, so anyway, that was, I mean, it was a cool ending. It was an ending we had predicted. I mean, most fans, not like we looked into a crystal ball or something like that, but that's where all the rumors were pointing. And then on SmackDown, we got kind of an interesting ending where, first of all, great match between Bray and Cina and AJ.

I mean, you know, there's the old joke about Raw, I mean, even dating back to the attitude era where they'll have the main event and then give you the real main event the next night on Raw. They'll have the main event at the pay-per-view and then give you the, you know, the rematch immediately is you don't even have to watch. But this felt like the exact right moment to do just to shotgun the important rematch. First of all, it kind of closes the book in so much as that's significant on, you know, potential competition or rematch clauses, I guess, in storyline terms. but they were able just to have a really good match, you know, and just sort of set this, like, I think that that's the way to, you know, to prove that Bray is a deserving champion. And also, you know, even for nerds like us,

to give us a little more confidence that they're going to, like, let him shine, like we were just talking about. Yeah, with a guy like him who hasn't had the belt before, who wins it in surprising fashion for those people who were not consuming rumors all day, he had to get that win that says, this is not a fluke, this is not a joke, this is not a hot shot, this is our plan to let the fans sort of settle into this idea.

Another clean pin over John Sina is the thing that everybody knows he needs to get in order to get to the next level. Yeah, I mean, Sina was great in that match, and both matches just making people look good. That's his greatest skill now, you know? And yeah, I really appreciated that. But then after the match, and AJ, I mean, nothing,

I mean, we haven't even said the name AJ Stiles in this podcast so far, but he's, I mean, he was the MVP, maybe, of the elimination chamber. I thought he was, like, really hurt the entire match. He was moving slow. Oh, yeah, his face was all, like he looked like he'd taken a real forearm to the face or something. Or a cage to the face, I guess. Yeah, I think that was the imprint of the cage. But he just did a stellar job in that match, and it wouldn't be the same match without his presence.

I mean, there are finishing moves that are infallible, like the RKO or something like that, which is just like as long as the person you're putting it on is like 5% aware that they're supposed to bump. It looks great, right? Sister Abigail isn't one of those moves, but AJ, like, no one else could have made it look as just legit and painful as AJ did in the chamber. because sometimes that transition from like the catch to the whatever like the deep bow to the you know to impact looks a little bit awkward because people don't land on their face like they're supposed to they land on their shoulder or sometimes they flip and they end up on their back like i think sina did that on tuesday anyway so the smackdown ends with randy orton coming out i won the royal rumble and all the privileges that come with it but you are the WWE champion. However, I refuse to face you at WrestleMania. I appreciate that there's some thought put into casting or growing seeds of doubt in the minds of the fans about what's actually going to happen.

Where are we going for WrestleMania? I don't think that we're going to get to a situation where someone else is in the main event of WrestleMania. there's nobody for him to wrestle. Obviously, Cina's got stuff going on. A.J. has got stuff going on. Tina Ambrides, have stuff going on. If anybody's going to win that Battle Royal on Tuesday of next week, it's Luke Harper. Yeah.

Let's just think about that for a little bit. Luke Harper could be in the main event of wrestling. Who made an appearance during the main event at the beginning of the main event. And it certainly seems to be being positioned as a legitimate threat or like as a you know a main event caliber wrestler right is that safe is that fair to say yeah no I think he's been he's been positioned just slightly outside of the main event he hasn't really gotten a victory over anyone of any significance I assume if he wins his battle royal that will be not quite enough but enough to in storyline terms make him a number one contender of a sort

That said, I think they need to build him up a little bit more. They need to give him some more motivation besides just not liking Randy Orton. Who is Luke Harper besides a former cult member? Maybe he's the voice of the voiceless. Maybe he's the new voice of the voiceless. He's there for all the fans who don't want to see another Orton title run. I guess so, yeah, just like a potential spoiler, an agent of chaos in this match. But if you really want to get to that place where you are in the,

upper echelon of WWE, you have to have a character with motivations that are understandable, that are clear. And Luke Harper is right now just a guy with a beard. What else is there besides that? Well, yeah, it's interesting. Five years ago, being the guy with the beard would have been enough for a gimmick. But now it's not in 2017. There's a lot of beards in WWE right now.

Do we know who's in the Battle Roy again or no? No, it was announced on Talking Smack, and they have not released a list. I'm sure it'll be a last minute to. decision who's going to be in it and who's not going to be in it. So how are we, so fantasy book this for me? What's the road between, how does now to WrestleMania go? So Orton refuses to wrestle Bray Wyatt. Luke Harper wins the battle royal.

Randy Orton gets, you know, nervous that Luke Harper might win the belt. So he says, well, I still won the Royal Rumble. So I'm going to also be in this match and I'll end up being two on one. or it'll be a triple thread or whatever. Some combination of these three guys. They take care of Luke Harper and then somehow punch each other in the process and end up having a match. I would think on the road in the weeks leading up to WrestleMania,

there will be some seeds of tension between Bray Wyatt and Randy Orden. Orrin. Or how about this? What if this is all part of Orton's long con? I know that he just fought, I know that he just brutally fought Luke Harper on Sunday. What if it goes just like you plan? They have to have a number one contender.

Luke Harper gets it. WrestleMania ends up being a triple threat. And then Luke Harper and Randy Orton team up to take the belt from Bray Wyatt. Luke Harper just lays out Bray Wyatt and it was just like, go ahead, Randy, take the pen. That's weird. But, I mean, it's the nice thing about this match is that it doesn't have to carry the show. Obviously, Goldberg and Lesnar is the real main event. And we'll probably close the show.

And you've got Owens and Jericho, which. which is going to be a hot match. We'll get to that in just a minute. Yeah, that's great. I can't wait. So this can be kind of a weird, like 15-minute psychological thriller of a sort. Why not? Why not have it be that strange?

But I think ultimately, Bray is going to keep the belt. Right now, in my bones, I think he's going to retain the title. As weird as that sounds. At mania. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I can go either way. It's weird, like you said, there's no faces and there's no heels.

So I don't know if this is going to be the sort of match that comes down to a last-minute decision about, like, card pacing at WrestleMania. Yeah. In another era, you know, evil Bray Wyatt versus Randy Orton about to turn baby face would be a match that you make that decision based on what you have before and after it, sort of? Because as long as it's this kind of 50-50. But yeah, man, I mean, I think that unless there's a big Randy or an angle that we're not seeing, you know, that I think that the move has to be to leave the title, to give Bray the WrestleMania win. Let his WrestleMania streak begin. Why not? And I think that it's great because this story is so non-traditional and so clouded and mysterious and odd.

And then the other side on Raw, you've got Owens and Jericho, which is the most classic heel, baby, face sort of blood feud that you could get in wrestling. It's like Memphis, as you always say. You know, it's very much an old school territory type of booking thing. Yeah. And, I mean, yes, I mean, they couldn't have booked that more straightforwardly. I even asked a couple weeks ago who was going to be the baby face, you know, the nominal hero in this.

Man, I mean, that is not a question even in this era that had any, there was no shades of gray in that, in the celebration. The Friendship Festival, what was it? The Festival of Friendship, yeah. We get to have one of those soon. We should. This is really working out well with you on the podcast, and I think a festival is an order.

Just don't turn on me and throw me into a window, man. We will, listen, you can't make those kind of demands. I've got to tell you. Okay, I'll just take my chances. Before we talk about Rob, here's a quick word from one of our sponsors. As important as home security is, it shouldn't come at the expense of signing your life away on a confusing long-term contract.

Thankfully, there's a smarter way to protect your home. Simply Save home security. These are the guys that I trust. Built by a Harvard-educated engineer to make you safer, Simply Safe provides professional monitoring with police dispatch, so your home is safe around the clock, plus it's wireless, portable, with a cellular connection built in,

and there's no lines that intruders can snip. You can even download the SimplySafe app on your iPhone or Android smartphone and take control of your security remotely, and with Simply Save 24-7 protection is just $15 a month. which is a third of what most places charge. There's no annual contracts. There's no middlemen.

SimplySafe is just really unbeatable protection at a great value. And like I said, no contracts. So protect your home the smart way. Visit simplysafe.com slash ringer to get 10% off your system today. That's SimplySafe. S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E dot com slash ringer. I'm going to need Simple-Safe after you reveal the address to my house on the air. This is how we do this.

this viral marketing, man. Good grief. I mean, I worked this into the program. You and Jim, our producer Jim, are just devious. Jim was just in here before we went on the air telling us about how every time he used to be in a stage show. And every time they went to San Francisco, they'd get their car, their windows smashed in and their cars robbed, which happened to Heath Slater in the Ascension this week. For some reason, this is the first, this is like the only news bite of the past, like, five years where I just default into K-Fable-only mode. And I'm just like, really?

He's Slater in the Ascentia. Kids! Heath Slater should be, yeah, Heath Slater should be like, you know, in like a turnip truck or something, driving around. Yeah. Or a convertible.

I don't really know which one, but like an old Mustang or something like that would be fine. Something missing one or two hubcaps. Yeah. The Ascension should either be on, like, motorcycles or just teleporting. I can't wait. What is the appropriate K-Fave mode of transportation for the Ascension?

I think they should fly. They should have big wings, like, the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, because they're an evil, just like those monkeys. Are you buying end to legitimization of the Ascension? I'm fascinated by it. It's bizarre because they were, like I said, about Bray Wyatt, buried for so long, and now we're supposed to think of them as a threat.

Granted, Bray Wyatt was never buried to the extent that the Ascension were buried. But it's a similar situation where because the rosters have split, there are guys who were sort of cast-offs or considered less than when it was just raw and then SmackDown was a clear B show. So now people like The Ascension and Bray Wyatt and Heath Slater, all these guys are getting more attention than they did before. You have the opportunity. We'll go ahead and finish.

Oh, no, I was just saying that the Ascension is clearly taking, taking the ball and running with it, trying to change up their entrances and do things and have some more flavor to their deal, their characters. Yeah, the deal with a brand split as it stands right now is that you have more opportunity than you, certainly, than you would have had before it. But the smaller rosters that give you that opportunity also mean that, like, somebody's basically have to be, it's like somebody's got to be a jobber, you know, on every episode of every show.

Yeah. Because not every match can be a blood feud. Not every match can be a perfect to make both guys look good sort of setup. So yeah, you're going to have long stretches of time where someone like the Ascension or someone like, I don't know, Apollo Cruz, whoever looks just like jobs for lack of a better word.

And then you're going to have to have to like buy into the fact that like when they get the push, then they're a whole different person or people. Right. It's just like, well, Christ, we need somebody right now to do this match, why not these dudes with face paint? It makes sense. It's just, I don't know what they have to do to really make them credible

short of letting them actually win a match on Smackdown once. Yeah. One time, just one time. Yeah, I mean, they were trying with the announced team, but there's a limit to what you can do. Yeah, you got to win, you know? You got to count that fall, one, two, three, and get a W to really be taken seriously by anyone.

Yeah, and I just don't know what they, I mean, I like the fact that they're working matches, you know, but they're, I mean, they're not like an easy thing to do. I mean, not an easy thing. One thing to do would just be to make them less of a, you know, ring team and more of just like, you know, somebody's strong guys or whatever, you know? Although, go ahead.

Join the Wyatt family. Yeah. That might be a good, that might be actually a good look for them. Absolutely. Because, I don't know, yeah. I mean, I assume that the, what are the NXT tag champs names? The Masters of Pain. Authors of Pain.

The Masters of Sex. The Master's of Sex. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, authors of pain. I assume authors of Pain will end up on Raw because they're, you know, a good look. I mean, they're a big time thing. But if they end up on SmackDown, that sort of takes a lot of the thunder away from the

Ascension as they exist, right? Especially because, yeah, geez. I mean, that means the Ascension is. is expendable. Yeah, so they'll probably end up on raw. But, I mean, Paul Ellering, it'd be impossible to have Paul Ellering interact with the Ascension in any way and not have it be this incredibly meta moment.

Absolutely. Speaking of incredibly meta moments, we will get back to Jericho and Kevin Owens, surely, but maybe the most meta moment in the history of professional wrestling happened on Monday night. When Emilina finally debuted after how many weeks? 17 weeks of video promos Actually not 17 weeks of promos

But 17 weeks of her being out, I think Yeah Maybe the promos were going the whole time That would be sad The problem's been going for months Good God So she finally appears And

And announces that she's transforming back to Emma I just think of her like as a caterpillar Turning into a butterfly And the butterfly is like You know what flying sucks. I'm going to be a caterpillar again. I feel like there's a good like Pokemon Go joke to make here that I have no idea.

I have nothing about Pokemon. Like a Charzar and a Charmander kind of deal. This is the worst angle I've seen on WWTV in a long time. And the scuttle butt is that they did trial runs in rehearsals of whatever this character was going to be and she sucked at it. It's supposed to be like a 90 style sable or like the cat or whatever gimmick. Right, where the gimmick is she's hot. And blonde. Great.

And has a body, like hand body pain over her boobs. One, how do you pull that off? Or how do you not pull that off? Because it's really just like you standing in a bikini. Sable didn't do anything special. Sable didn't cut a bunch of, like, scathing promos. She said that she was sexy and that all the girls wanted to be her and all the guys wanted to be with her and whatever her catchphrase was.

So what did Emma do that was so terrible? But then the other thing I have to ask is, why did anybody think that they could do that gimmick in 2017 on a PG-rated TV show? It was, you know, I hate to say it, but it was very masturbatory, the whole Sable gimmick. But that's not what they do anymore. The Diva's Revolution or the Women's Revolution created an environment for women to get over as workers, as wrestlers, as equals. superstars. Yeah. So what was this Emmolina thing supposed to be?

It's a weird one. And I don't, I mean, I've, I think I've spoken one time in my life to Emma. Yeah. She's good. I like her. I like her in the ring and I like her personality. I mean, it was on NXT. It was really great.

And I think there's a lot of potential there. From what little I know about, I mean, like I said, met her one time, don't know any particular opinion. But just from seeing her on screen, I just can't imagine how a soccer. from her being just dropped-dead gorgeous. I don't know why you would choose her to be your 90s throwback pinup girl. I don't either. And also, if you're going to start running these vignettes,

maybe figure out if she can play the character first. All right. Okay, so there was talk on the internet, like a month ago, that this was, the gimmick was never going to happen, and they were just running the promos as like a rib, basically. It's like an in-joke. Like, at some point, they must have known by week five that she was never going to play this character. And they just kept running the promos.

This is the problem. When you have a well, I'm not going to say this is a well-told story, but if you have sort of a long-form wrestling arc, when it's not the main event, then you actually run the risk of it. Sometimes that you're able to tell a story sort of under the radar and it becomes a great story because you've had this time to maneuver. You're a little bit out of the spotlight, so Vince or Ever is not paying as much. attention you can have this great long-running storyline the flip side of that is you run the risk of someone just saying no you're not this storyline's on TV for the next three weeks because we got bigger fish to fry right right and I you know you you wonder with with emmela you know the emmelinea thing if at some point they were just like I mean that you just

give up on it but like nobody's nobody steps in to say like do we stop running the promos do like what um I don't know it's it's in some way though it's sort of like if this was all the plan, it's sort of brilliant. Now, maybe she should have debuted as Emmelina going back to Emma, going back to what I was saying before. Maybe that maybe last, maybe Monday night's segment should have happened a month ago. It's just so strange. It's weird. There's still a lot to play out.

If she comes back, I mean, what she could be, what if she's like the female McFoly where she just has like two different personalities? That would be awesome. And there's like Emma the fun-loving, like, regular person. and Emilina The sultry diva The sultry diva Who like you know Screams at Jacqueline

And stuff Sable Jacqueline feud Is one of my all time favorite Like bad feuds Go back and watch those videos Oh I don't want to I mean there's something to be said For this era where like

It's not just the women All across wrestling There were so many people Who were like bad promos And they just said like Just go yell as loud as you can And just we'll turn the mics down Are we talking about Steve Blackman right now?

Yeah You know what I mean? Sorry to name name, Steve Blackman. That's really great. Anyway, I hope that they do something with this M. Emily thing. At a bare minimum, I'll be happy to see her back on TV. I'll be happy to see a fourth woman wrestler on Raw. We got four.

Five, I'm sorry. After the main event, which I guess we should, since we're there, we should discuss. There were four involved in the main event, in the two-person main event, I should say. Both Dana Brooke and Sasha Banks got involved in the match between Charlotte Flair. and Becky, I mean, sorry, and Bailey. I like last names. Last names make it really easy to make it easier to differentiate between people's names. That's why we have Charlotte now instead of just Charlotte.

Well, that's why we have last names also. I mean, if we all, like, if we, like, you know, if this were a thousand years ago, we would just both be David and it would be really hard to tell us apart. Oh, yeah. Quick anecdote, went to the barbershop, asked for my regular stylist, Evelyn. and they pointed to this other woman. I was like, no, no, Evelyn. It's like, well, that's also Evelyn.

You can't just do that. On the online ordering or scheduling thing, put it last initial. That's it. Whatever, I'm sorry, I'm just griping now. Maybe that was Evelyn all along. Maybe you just, maybe this is another Mandela effect situation. I thought it was some fucking crazy thing that happened to me. So strange.

Anyway, I like the main event. I just don't understand why we have to do another title change. Well, this goes to, you can make the same argument I was making about Bray. You put the title under to sort of legitimize her. And I feel like before the swapping back and forth of the title between Sasha and Charlotte began, the first, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but there was, I think the first, Sasha's first title win came right before SummerSlam, and everybody was like, why don't you do it at SummerSlam?

It was the night of the first night after the brand split. It was a night when Finn Baller premiered as well. It was a crazy raw. One of the best raws of the last five years, I think. But yeah, it doesn't make any sense. I think the answer for Sasha Charlotte that I gave at the time, and I think there's a lot of legitimacy to it, is that it's easier to book, you know, champ versus champ

or a champ versus former champ match on a big show like SummerSlam, especially when casual fans show up, it's easier to just say that than to explain that she's been chasing the title for seven years or something. Not that it's been that long. But clearly there is some of this logic going on in the overall booking strategy, right?

Yeah, but there's also, I think, something to be said about continuing the angle of Charlotte being unstoppable on pay-per-view. That's where all of that was in service of saying. I think this was a dumb decision. Yeah? I think that Bailey may look less formidable than even Sasha,

but that's her character, right? You know, I mean, Charlotte has done so well over the past year, year and a half, of just like taking the best parts of her dad's character and sort of, you know, just evolving a little bit. You know, Flair had a lot of championships. feuds against people who you didn't think had any chance. And but what, what made, what made some of his great sort of like top dog underdog feuds work, wasn't that the other person stole a win necessarily or like got a,

and certainly not got a title win. It was that, like, Flair was just so overconfident that you thought that this person might have a chance. Right? Like, Flair just talks so much trash that you were just like, oh, he's overlooking this guy. But there was also, you know, a big part of Rick Flair's character was that he was devious enough to keep the belt. And you wanted to see him lose it so badly to the Ricky steamboats and the dusty roads of the world. And they kept teasing it and teasing it. And finally it happens.

And it's such a wonderful moment. And then you do the rematch. And then you do the blow off. But with Charlotte, it just seems like she's constantly losing. She doesn't seem dominant She doesn't seem particularly devious anymore She just seems like someone who can't win on Monday night Maybe she should switch to Smackdown

Sure, why not Or just quit agreeing to wrestle matches Yeah, why don't you just be like, you know what, it's Monday This is my day off, but I'll see you on Sunday night Next Sunday we can wrestle Right now, just no thanks, I'm watching football If they ever decide to spend the women's division off into its own show and I'm not in favor of it.

But if they ever made the call to say, like, we're just going to have Thursday night women's wrestling or whatever, that would be the greatest K-Fabe explanation for it. If Charlotte was just like, I refuse to wrestle on Mondays anymore, I always lose. Yeah.

Big picture on Raw. It seems like there is a, maybe this is just me. I'm not going to say certainly. It feels like we are moving towards, if not another era of the authority, a sort of, interestingly overarching

evil McMahon's situation on Raw. Am I crazy to say this? We have Stephanie who's like opening the show as a heel in so much as Roman reigns as a baby face. Just like taking over that part of the few Triple H's entering the arena with Samoa Joe

obviously has ties to Kevin Owens. Must be behind this beatdown of Sammy Zane. I mean the tentacles are sort of of everywhere, right? Right. And then, of course, there's the Seth Rallin's situation that's ongoing. And they're teasing McFoley getting fired as the general manager commissioner. That's one of the rumors.

I mean, that's one of the rumors that was out this week that they are actually, spoiler alerts, jump 15 seconds, are actually going to replace him with Kurt Engel after WrestleMania. Oh, that'd be amazing. Oh, I don't know if that's a McMahon. That would be a McMahon-approved sort of situation or what. Anyway Yeah, I mean

It is very interesting First of all, Samoa Joe Had a great debut Was that just last week? Yeah Two weeks ago? Followed it up with an even better I mean this was a great week for Samoa Joe

What a promo What a promo Wow It was this like old school It was focused It was aggressive And he wasn't going for jokes He wasn't trying to oversell things.

It never got campy. It was just like, this guy's a legitimate badass. He's going to hurt people. And that's what you want from heels, I think. I don't think you want, and we'll get to Kevin Owens later, but you don't want what Kevin Owens became for the last six months to be your top heel. You want a guy like Samoa Joe. And then Joe's showing up to take on Sammy Zane, or to beat up Sammy Zane, I thought was just really good.

So are they going to fight at Fast Lane? We have this fast lane. Yeah, so because of the Seth Rollins and Joe, They need a match for Joe. And Sammy Zane obviously is not going to be working with Chris Jericho because Chris Jericho is, in K-Fabe terms, very, very hurt and probably won't show up for a while. Was this the greatest thing that's ever happened on wrestling,

or am I overstating it? It's definitely not the greatest thing that ever happened in wrestling. And, you know, it owes so much of a debt to things like the barbershop or Piper's Pit or, you know, all those great... sort of blood feud turns that would happen in the 80s and 90s. At the same time, it was the best executed version of that in 15 to 20 years. Just talking about it's just, it's a lot of small things, but here's one small thing. I flash back to my childhood because this was the first time I've seen a guy get his shirt,

actually just his jacket ripped off, but it had that feeling when I was a kid like that like, like, like it's going to hurt worse because your shirt is like yeah like when it used to be a thing where like you would like the heel would like rip somebody's shirt off like rip untuck their pants and like whip them with the belt or something like that and you just forget about the fact that these guys never wear shirts like wearing the shirt is the exception but man when he like jericho was like I don't know the jacket came off and I was just like oh Kevin don't hurt him too bad

you know like it made it seem really legit even though it was obviously a worked worked beat down and there wasn't anything particularly stiff, it looked it looked tough. And we have to say that like the reason why this segment was as effective as it was

and presumably everybody listening to the saw it but if you didn't, Jericho had it through a festival of friendship to celebrate he and Kevin Owens union long time partnership and it ended after a lot of grousing

and an appearance by Gilbert and a painting and a trophy. A magician too. Oh, and a magician. It ended with Kevin Owens turning on Jericho. And it wasn't, he was upset the whole time. But it wasn't, but this was a premeditated beatdown.

He gave him a gift, which was a new book of Jericho. How come my name's on this? The reason why it was so successful is because they've teased this like three times and always pulled it back. Yep. So yeah, I mean, that was just, it was just really good. Really compelling. Let me point out the performance of Chris Jericho specifically because there's a moment

where he drops character, or at least it seems as though he's dropping character and he's shooting on Kevin Owens talking about how this was his favorite thing that he's done in years and one of his best runs of all time and that kind of stuff and that he's his best friend. That moment of vulnerability really, really, really cemented that as a great segment because Jericho has been this sort of larger-than-life, campy figure for most of his run since he came back. Yeah. And to sort of be a regular person for a second

and say things that seemed legitimate made the beat down even worse. Yeah. Yeah, the larger-than-life thing I thought was, I mean, that really gets the heart of it. Like, I remember thinking a few minutes into this how only Chris Jericho would have the balls to do with Provo, like this in a sequined fedora that's like three sizes too small.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like he's pouring his heart out and he looks like a schmuck. Yeah. It's perfect wrestling. And then that popped off. I mean, the hat came off literally and I don't know what the figurative version of that would be. But if the hat came off and suddenly he was like human, he's like this very human figure

just getting destroyed by Kevin Owens who, despite all of his comedy work over the, since this partnership began can do the power bomb onto the ring apron and like eyes roll up in the back of his head look better than anybody else in the business. Yeah, he's one of the most vicious heels there is. The most purely evil

expressions. Yeah, it was just really good. Now, we have, I feel like there's a lot of different ways that the next several weeks can play out. But I mean, Jericho, I mean, Owens has his

match at Fast Lane. Certainly this is setting up a WrestleMania match between Jericho and Owens, and the ride will be fun, so the fact that it seems preordained is sort of beside the point. But it is interesting that they're setting it up this far in advance. They're really going to get, you know, we have a little bit of time to play with this.

It's not just Jericho costing the match at Fast Lane, and so they have a match. Yeah, no, it seems like Jericho is probably going to spend some time on the shelf, not on TV to build the heat and then maybe not even show up at Fastlane. I mean, I think you can see a version of this match where Goldberg simply just walks all over Kevin Owens. Yeah. All right. Well, I mean, I hope that Jericho comes back at Fastlain or comes back with a whole new gimmick. I mean, wouldn't that be great if he just got new tights and a new and a new look? Just put him in like

rainbow colored tights. No, what you got to do is. He's got to come back as classic Y2J with a countdown down clock and the regular pants instead of the tights. Can he wear a wig? No, let's not go that far. You can keep the short hair, the Bon Jovi haircut. But I would mark out huge for just like classic Ayatollah rock and roll of Chris Jericho. Yeah, that would be really great. I'm all about that.

Maybe you can just stay out long, just long enough to grow some bad sideburns, some like weirdly shaped sideburns. Oh, man. That would be just enough. Like a lash loroo sideburn deal. Yeah. Listen, we got to get out of here. I know we've missed like 100 things.

Can we talk about Andre the Giant? Oh, we got to talk about Andre. We're at 45, we've got to talk about Andre. So they announced this week to Bill Simmons Media Group and HBO and WWE are doing an Andre the Giant documentary. We're going to have a whole, we're going to have multiple Andre the Giant related episodes. I'm sure between now and whenever this happens. I told Bill on his podcast, I was proud of him for calling his shot for like announcing it and then having interviews about it, I mean, having podcasts about it and talking about how great it was going to be.

I mean, it's going to be great. Andre is the best subject. the history of documentaries and the WWD involvement is what's really going to make it. Yeah, because they aren't always amenable to things like that and very protective of the brand for obvious reasons, for understandable reasons, but the fact that they're opening up, especially someone who was as close to Vince as Andre was and as close to Stephanie as he was. It's going to be great, and we're going to, I think, learn a lot of stuff that we didn't know before about him.

And, you know, a lot of his... Spoiler alert, he was actually a robot. Oh, my God. That's something I've just found out since we... Get out of here. How did he drink so much as a robot? Wouldn't the alcohol, like, rust him? No, I just shot straight out of a hole in his back.

That was it. I was going to say a lot of the stuff that he's really known for is on the network, but so much of the stuff that he did before Vince Jr. took over and turned it into a national thing. A lot of his territorial work, we haven't seen. They haven't seen. And they own a lot of that stuff. I mean, I don't know the details. I haven't, I've not been involved in that process at all, but I can't wait to see what else they have.

I'm sure there's a lot of really cool stuff. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's really, I don't know if this is going to be like an hour long or two hours long. I mean, there's a version of it that it's five hours long and four of those hours are drinking stories. You know, I said that the, it's really, it's a, it's, it could be really, really cool. Yeah, if it's 10 hours, I won't complain. I'll tell Billy you said that. Okay, please do.

This is going to be like, this is going to be R.OJ. made in America. It's going to just, like, be the longest documentary of all time. Fine by me. I think, was there, was there a sports illustrated profile of Andre the Giant? Am I remembering that correctly? It might have been. I feel like there were the longest sports illustrated piece of all time was about Andre, and that was sort of a joke. Interesting.

Like, it's always just this, like, blown-up balloon thing. Right. I could be making that up. Who knows. I think there's another paper view on Sunday that we've forgotten about. There's one every week now, right? Just like a roadblock junior.

Is it PWGs this weekend? Our producer, Jim, is talking in our ear, telling us that PWG is very important. That's not on television or anything, so most people listening this will be mad that and mention it at all. We'll be checking that out. Should we go to RAW next week? It's in LA? I'm going to Raw.

You're going to Raw. Yeah. Okay. Well, get me a ticket, please. I know you have hookups I will send you a link to step up Also be sure to watch Peter Rosenberg In the celebrity game

Oh the NBA All-Star game That's right We both saw Peter this weekend He seemed to be He was working out stretching Getting ready to shoots and birds Yeah All right

Anyway thanks for listening guys Apologies to Dean Ambrose And we'll see you next week Humanids