The Press Box - Ep. 265: 'The Masked Man Show' Remembers George "The Animal" Steele and Ivan Koloff

Episode Date: February 23, 2017

The Ringer's David Shoemaker and Bleacher Report's Dave Schilling team up to honor Ivan Koloff (3:30) and George "The Animal" Steele (8:30), and discuss Max Landis's video on Kevin Owens (16:50), the art of projecting during a promo (21:10), the Rock calling out CM Punk (26:00), and the downsides to attending 'Raw' (30:35). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Thanks for your help, humanoids. Welcome to the Maskman Show. I'm David Shoemaker. This is Dave Schilling. Hello, we are back. This is great. We were here last week. You just traveled to New Orleans and back in the meantime.

Yeah, it did the All-Star game from Wednesday through Monday, morning and totally miss raw. I mean, I saw it on TV, but you were there. You were at Monday Night Ruh. I was there. I was live. I took the valet. I took a small eight-year-old child that I just found. You know, this was a big brother, big sister situation. No, my girlfriend and her kid were there. And both of their first raw experiences, I believe, it was a lot of fun. That part of it was I mean, from the moment I started working for Grantland years ago, I always wanted to, I always like tried to wash wrestling with someone who had never watched wrestling. That was like, you know, it's like how you kind of, even if not a kid, but a kid's great,

but anybody just to kind of get those clear eyes. So this was, it was a ton of fun. I have some, I have some knocks on the, on the product too, but we'll get to that when we talk about Raw later. What were you going to say? What did the kid think? Oh, he was, he loved it. He left with a John Cena shirt.

There were only, John Cena were the only shirts available in kid sizes. Now, maybe the rest of them sold out. I don't know. I wasn't the one of the merch stand. but he got a John Cena shirt and I mean that was like his tenth choice but that was the only one with a kid size and later on we were passing by

and he desperately wanted Sasha Banks glasses and I said yes you can definitely have Sasha Bangs sunglasses. This is a good child. He understands wrestling already and he gets talent. He sees talent. Exactly.

The biggest news of the week so far is Finn Baller's abs Oh my God, I saw that I was on the toilet as I usually am when I'm looking at my phone And you know, people go to the bathroom That's great

That's why people listen to this podcast For these like insights into our lives Tips into, you know, when to look at your phone And he's just shredded, man It was terrifying Yeah The real news of the week I mean, at least in my very specific world

Is where the passings of George's Animal Steel And Ivan Kohloff, neither of those are the real human being names they were both given I was at raw they both got their salute at raw George got a lengthy video package and Ivan got a you know his picture was shown on the screen

at some point it's very hard watching there to know whether or not things are you're seeing things that are being broadcast to the world or not obviously George Animal Steel was a huge WWF icon you know short-lived as it was, and Ivan Koloff,

he was thought of as more of an NWA guy. I guess there's some probably, like, perfect irony, or not irony, it says something sort of magical about the WWE and just the world we live in that like, you know, the guy playing a Russian got like a passing mention, but the guy

playing a mentally handicapped person got like a 10-minute, 10-minute video package, but the, um, the interest, but like, Ivan Kohlhoff is the former WWWF champion. Like, it's, this is no thing. Like, like, he beat Bruton San Martino for the belt. Oh, down with a big Russian leg drop across San Martino.

No. Oh, you can hear of pin drop. We got a new champion. San Martino pinned in New York City. I can't believe my eyes. I don't want to be one of these snarky guys on the internet saying that, like, WW is, you know, evil for not giving him more shine. But, like, man, he was great back in the day.

I mean, he was, when I wrote my book, and when I've written other historical stuff since, he's a almost, he's a sort of forest gumpy character. Like the number of times that I've, that I have had to like check the spelling of Oriol Paris or whoever you say his real name is stunning. Like it just keeps coming up.

He's really good. I mean, I think most people, far as my generation, if you remember him, you remember him as part of the Russians in the NWA with Nikita Kohloff and Crusher Khrushchev. But he was,

he was just a good all around he was a very talented hand and was one of the early you know evil foreign nationalists um I was checking out the the wrestling forum message boards

um total throwaway but there's a but they there's a 1980 match between him and Dusty Rhodes that was potentially the first ever casket match this is not going to come around to some metaphor about death don't give you but it was but they there was just

a coffin in the ring, like a lidless coffin sitting in the ring and they just punch each other and like bumped around it. And then one of them had to end up in the coffin bloody. I mean, basically, I don't even know what they're. I was watching with a sound off, which was probably a terrible idea. But anytime you get the chance to see a good dusty Rhodes gimmick match in fairly high resolution, um, watch that match, man. I mean, and, and you know what?

Maybe the same for Ivan Koloff. I really, I mean, he's, maybe it's fitting that he got like a five second tribute right before like a bumper to a commercial because he was like one of the first transitional champions. He was just, he got a transitional, you got a transitional eulogy. Well, what they always say in, you know, most of the historical conversations you hear about the territory days is the WWF or the WWF, whatever you want to call the Vince Senior territory, was a babyface territory. Sure.

So the person that's selling the tickets for you is your Bruno San Martinos of the world or your Bob Backlands or later on your Hulk Hogan's. So if a heel gets the belt, it's usually just for the purposes of putting it on another babyface. And you can't, because they didn't do baby face on baby face matches, which is why WrestleMania 6 was such a revolutionary concept putting Warrior and Hogan together. So the idea of heel champions was an ethema for a long time. So any time a heel could, like an Iron Sheik or an Ivan Koloff or whoever could win the title,

you know, that's a big thing. It means a lot in terms of where you are looked at on the chart of esteem in professional wrestling. Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that because Koloff battled the Iron Sheek in mid-Atlantic in the 80s, which is like one, like just a notable heel versus heel feud. But yeah, you're totally right. The guy you didn't mention was the guy that he dropped it to, the guy that Koloff dropped. the belt to was Pedro Morales, which is interesting in its own right, because then they eventually went back to, I think Stan Sedaciac beat Morales and gave it back to San Martino, which was like

the end of this sort of like direct line of, you know, WWF, WWF champions. It was just like, it was, they are all, you know, Pedro Morales, Bob Backland, do you mention, Sam Retino. Before that, though, you know, there was Lundos and Argentina, Raca, you know, all these guys who sort of like, I I did, I wrote a piece a long time ago. I should probably revisit it, but they all represented a sort of specific socioeconomic class that was like one and a half generations into, you know, past immigration. Right. They find, like, they immigrate to America, to New York specifically.

And then at some point you have enough money to go to MSG. And then like that giant wave is the sort of, you know, wave of, I mean, that's how the new champion is determined. And Pedro Morales was sort of the end of that. They went back to San Martino and then kind of a straight line to the mass appeal baby face of the, you know, that Hulk Hogan was eventually the... I did watch a great Hulk Hogan George the Animal Steel match

must have been right after Hogan won the belt because Hogan was wearing the blue tights and was in that like... Vince McMahon at one point was just like, Hulk Hogan weighing into 300 pounds and 300 pounds has never looked as good on anybody as it did. It was great. Hockegian really did look in peak, like in peak four.

Yeah. But it was great because it was to heal George the Animal Steel. You know, if we want to keep going metaphor, historically. George Animal Steels, well, first of all, was it started off as just like the technical wrestler. It was just weird, had a weird career where he was recruited by Sam Ritino to come to New York and then was still working this sort of like classical wrestler, gimmick, non-gimic, whatever, but then repackaged himself into a crazy person. And, but when he was a heel, Mr. Fuji was his manager, then he turned on his heel buddies and became a baby face. And we all know the wonderful

Miss Elizabeth Macho Man Randy Savage storyline. Making reference, of course, to the love triangle between Elizabeth, the macho man, and George the Animal Steel. There is a great piece that, I mean, if I had spent time more time trying to figure out to write this eulogy for him, I think maybe that's the piece. It's just that, like, his transformation from, like, evil monster into just, like, hapless dupe is just sort of representative of everything that was happening, the WWF in that time. I mean, a guy that looks like him with that skill set in that physique. He's one.

My buddy, Zach Lender, and worked at WWE and spent a lot of time with, you know, archives and stuff and knew and got to, I mean, George Steele was working as a Booker backstage for a long, I mean, as a, as an agent backstage for a long time. But he was pointed out that he was one of the best promos in the business before he took on this like mute character. Yeah, basically. It's like goo goo, go, go, gaga, stuff. Anyway, what, do you, do you remember him from your childhood? Yeah, I mean, my, my memory of George Steele is. they used to do these like clip pay-per-views that you could get for like $3 or they were free or something if you got a pay-per-view. You know, Coliseum Video did those back in the day.

And it was called WrestleMania's History and Heroes. I taped it on VHS because it was a bunch of pay-per-views that I'd never seen that, you know, my parents weren't going to just rent pay-per-view VHS copies for me at Blockbuster every day. Yeah. So that was sort of how I found out about the wrestling that I'd missed before I became a fan, is around 91, 90. And it was WrestleMania 3. They showed all of Steamboat Savage, which is an amazing thing to get to see as a new wrestling fan,

is watching a match like that, which is still the touchstone for so many guys coming up, learning about wrestling, either on the side of being in the business or what we do, talking about it. And George Steele was always kind of a weird character that as a kid you just liked because he was adorable and he seemed helpless. And that's a thing that you don't see a lot in wrestling anymore

is a character that you almost feel sorry for. But you don't feel sorry for him. That's true. You're pathetic. It's more like he doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah. Which is a weird thing for a wrestling character. It's a weird.

I mean, if you go back and watch his heel stuff, I found a couple of other matches on the YouTube. I'm sure the network has some stuff too. But it's funny how just the simple tweak of alignment back in those days can make so much different. I mean, we all remember him chewing up the turnbuckles, which is a great innovation. Whoever came up with that stick should get a metal.

But, you know, back in the day, he would, like, use, he would, he was, he was chewing off the turnbuckle so that he could throw his opponent into the exposed turnbuckle. Yeah, he didn't just, like, eating turnbuckle. Yeah, he was, I would use the filling as a weapon to blind people or whatever. I mean, like, it was, uh, Wikipedia came really strong for George's Animal Steel. You know, sometimes I just, it's like a, it's a slog to get through the Wikipedia pages, some of these guys, but I was reviewing it to look at, I forgot what I was looking for, but one, it's, I learned, I can't believe I didn't know this before, that he started turning his tongue green originally by using Clorett's breathments. Oh wow, I didn't know that. But like the

green center, which is just, you know, that's, I mean, sorry, sorry for the K-Fable-only listeners out there. But there's also just a great turn where they, for whatever reason, refer to him absolutely perfectly as they say he he starts steel started to fully cultivate his gimmick of a menacing imbecile like menacing imbecile is like the most perfect way to like to describe the heel george the animal steel um there were a lot of those back then you know i think about kamala too camala sure i watched a kamala paterson match recently on um primetime wrestling it's like wow there used to be so many of these characters that were purposefully portrayed as stupid

as like incapable of making decisions for themselves. Sure. It's related to the real sports trope of like Johnny Johnny Football or like I mean try to think of a basketball player like Strohmile Swift or Darius Miles back in the day. It's just like

he's got all the tools if he could just get his head together. With Javille McGee. Javele McGee is a perfect one. There you go. Yeah, the physical, like, they're, they're like physically very imposing, and that's what gives the baby face a chance, right? It's just that, like, you can outwit them. Yeah, because there's always, every heel has, pardon the pun, in Achilles heel, a thing that they, that prevents them from being as good or as, as virtuous or as, as successful as the baby face. And often it's just you're not as physically gifted, so you have to cheat.

or you are very vain and you can't help but, you know, be attracted to women or something. And for George Steele and Kamala and characters like that, they could be outsmarted by the Hulk Hogan's of the world or the, you know, the macho man's or whoever it was that was a baby face at the time. Yeah. But certainly his run as a baby face that Miss Elizabeth Macho Man storyline. I mean, it's funny because he sort of gets edited out of it sometimes, you know? I mean, just in favor of the macho man Elizabeth love story. It's, you know, you don't want to delve too much into her dalliances with, uh, with, with this, uh, menacing imbecile. It's a little creepy.

Huh? It's a little creepy. It's more than a little bit creepy. But it was really important to that story, me into that storyline because as a kid, you're like, there was a certain performative aspect to it. Like Vince McMahon was constantly reminding us on the microphone how beautiful she was. Right. You know?

And I think George's Animal Steel was fulfilled the role of just like the fan avatar. It's like whether or not you really wanted to steal her for a macho man, like you did, you, you could sympathize with him and so you were in the story of like wanting her to be away from from the macho man anyway i thought he was really great both ivan coloff and george the animal steel are worth your youtube and just general internet deep dive especially if you can get early george animal steel baby face or heel but like earlier stuff if you can find 70s or pre 80 you know pre 85 work from either of them it's just worth your time like it's it's the most fun thing you can watch as a wrestling Yeah, and there are echoes of all of that work today.

And to really understand the product now, you have to understand the product in the 70s or the 60s or the 80s or the 90s. Jim Ross posted, I think, on his Facebook page or something, a great tribute to steal from, like, his local news station where, like, in Detroit, where he was a high school wrestling, like, PE coach, basically, the football field's named after him now. Oh, wow. Yeah, I mean, it's, he was always, you know, like, he was a teacher. he started wrestling to make some bucks and like even like probably up until like you know before the the baby face turn he was like flying out to new york or per kipsy on the weekends to wrestle and then back to the back to the high school for the week you know well it's not high schools anymore um no he they were he his day job was a high school oh i thought you meant they were

wrestling in high schools no they did wrestle on some like gyms and like pennsylvania gyms back there i think they were bigger than high school i was stretching for a transition so we could talk about Raw. No, they're in giant stadiums like the stable center. There you go. I will take that from you. Thank you. Kevin Owen's promo. Can we talk about that up front? Are you talking about Kevin Owen's promo? Were you talking about Max Landis's online promo? We can do a little bit of both. I'm all in on Max Landis. I just want to say that like my favorite thing about my one of my favorite things about the wrestling

internet is that legitimately I say this without any irony. The biggest heels in the world of professional wrestling are non-wrestling like wrestling adjacent personalities who fans take umbrage with like the degree to which they've earned their fame it's sort of like the Brock Lesnar syndrome right first of all Max Landis is a talented dude who whatever you think of him or I mean I don't know I don't I mean he's he's got a big personality so like whatever you get you can take it for what it's worth but like is wrestling versus wrestling isn't wrestling video was like super great and and this Kevin Owens thing I thought was really smart but like him and like Frank the clown and even like Rosenberg like whatever like these are

the biggest heels in wrestling at some point they're going to have to make use I mean maybe the way to get Roman reigns over is just to have him beat all those guys up I guess because the only people the only people that could really get over his heels with like the internet fans are people like that I don't understand that. I mean, I was talking to Rosenberg about this. Pretty good Peter Rosenberg. We were both on the same page about when you meet someone

who likes wrestling as much as you do, who thinks about it as much as you do, why wouldn't you want to just be friends with that person or like that person? Yeah. We all overthink professional wrestling to a degree that I think most wrestling writers or bookers would consider obsessive or insane. Well, I used to get this.

I used to get this a lot. during my Grantland days when I would just try to like what I would really really like break down like what the CM Punk storyline or something and I was fully aware that I was taking it much more seriously and trying to read much more deeply into it than anyone employed by WWE ever had

and that's not a knock on them it's a knock on me like I knew that I was I knew that I was like clearly I am working the gimmick you know and I think that like the big if you want to say if that's what Max was doing Max Landis was doing in this Kevin Owens video that he did, that's fine. Yeah, I mean, he's reading more into Kevin Owen's character than the WWE writers probably have.

And, I mean, maybe Kevin Owens is, I mean, he's obviously got as far as he has based on his brain as much as anything else. He may have thought this deeply, but, but, you know, it doesn't matter that it's, that it's more than what's on the screen. That's exactly what wrestling is. But that's what the point of, oh, go ahead.

I was going to say, that's everything about art, you know? Yes, the, entire point of pro wrestling is to be a morality play that we read our own personal like grievances and like anxieties into that's what it's like it's it is very base it is bigger than what you're watching in the ring or on television and we do that shit with every tv show we watch every movie we watch every sporting event that we watch as a sports writer my job is to go watch a sporting event and and give it more meaning than people throwing balls around the grandlin rice that's right yes That's the whole gig.

And so anytime I see somebody who gets enthusiastic about wrestling in the way that I do or you do or Rosenberg does or Max Landis does, I understand and I relate. And it's a shame that there are so many people who write things on the internet slamming Max Landis or slamming Rosenberg or slamming any of us who are just fans. We're just fans. And we are lucky that we have enough time in our day to sit around thinking about it. it so much. And I thought a lot about that Kevin Owens promo because it was so good and because... You're talking about the actual Kevin Owens promo. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's basically what Lannis is talking about, the sort of whole arc of Kevin Owens is the character. And we got to see a little mini version of that arc that he went through in the Indies and

in NXT through the course of this Jericho thing. He's friends with somebody. He loses his sight of himself and then he destroys them and then he becomes this monster. And we hadn't seen that arc in WWE yet. I will say this, having seen it live. There's something to the best pro-wrestlers. They work at a metaphorical volume that is exactly right.

One of the reasons why wrestling seems silly, there's a lot of them, to like the fresh fan, is that they have to project. so much, right? I mean, you literally are acting to the person in the 50th row. You're trying to make, they have to be able to see your face. In the era of television, that's shifted a little bit, but still, that's how you work house shows. You're like pointing at the guy in the balcony, you know?

And it's this is very outsized, like old Greek drama sort of way to do it. And when people do it, when people, that's why when Hollywood actors get in the ring, when they're guest host of Raw, they seem insane because they're either doing their normal acting, which doesn't work. or they're trying to modify and they just don't know how. But like regular acting on that stage doesn't work. This is all a very long way to say. Kevin Owens has a way of being a pro wrestler,

speaking to the person of the back row, but also seeming like he's talking to somebody who's six inches away from his face. And he doesn't always do it. But on Monday night, he turned it on. And I was watching from, I was sitting right by the camera. So like, you know, halfway up the first riser. And I could look over and see the close-up cam.

I could see the, like, the screen of the video camera. The guy that was working close-ups are back there. So if I look to my left, I see just Kevin Owen's face, just like filling this tiny screen. If I look up, I can see the Jumbotron and see what's going on and see what people are going out of home. But if I look right in front of me, I see Kevin Owens, you know, 200 feet away just sitting in the ring in the spotlight doing this promo. And it was just one of the most competitive. compelling things I've ever seen. I mean, in every, but every iteration of it, the TV, the guy, the camera guy, watching it in real life, every, every, every point of view, he was like, he was just 100%.

It was unbelievable. Such magnificent work. Anyway, that was a long Kevin Owens ramble, but like that, he deserves all the praise that he gets, man. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was really stoked that they chose in the, in the instance of this, this Owen's promo. he didn't get his music when he came out. You didn't have to hear Michael Cole talking about what happened.

It was because there could have been a pop. There could have been sort of any kind of reaction positive or negative to it. But you're really just thrown into this very intimate setting and you're forced to look at him and just look at him and not have that whatever immediate just like physical reaction you're going to have to. Oh, this is the first time we're going to see him. since he did this horrible heel turn. You know, the real measure,

we should move off at Kevin Owens, but the real measure of the greatness of that promo was that I spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not he was going to beat Goldberg. Like after that. I was tweeting about this. That night, I said, WWE did a magnificent job of making me think

that he could actually win that match. And I know he's not going to win. He's definitely not going to win. But he could. And here is what's great about professional wrestling. This is the one thing. I mean, the promo was the peak of professional wrestling in a lot of ways. The women's match we saw later in the night was, you know, also a P.

I mean, it was a good match, you know. I really thought we were going to go see, we were going to see Owen Zane too. And I was just like, talking to my girlfriend, just like, you came for the best night of wrestling maybe ever. Like, this is going to be incredible. What makes wrestling so great is that not only did they, were they able to make us believe that he could win, that he could beat Goldberg at Fastlane? But he could actually beat Goldberg at Fastlane because that promo was so great. Yeah.

Like this is how pro wrestling works, right? Wins and losses don't matter. Like, whatever. This matters. Like, having the fans react to you, like, they're reacting to him then and online. Like, that's what, now, probably nothing's changing on the WrestleMania plans at this point. But, you know, it could. I mean, that of all of the, quote unquote, major changes that they could make to the card between now and

WrestleMania, that one is the easiest to pull off. all they got to do is have Brock Lesnar run in and like power bomb Kevin Owens and you know he wins or loses by his qualification and the same two matches happen at WrestleMania just one of the different one has the belt and then we get to set up this Kevin Owens

Lozner feud that we've you know all been dreaming of but yeah I mean that's that's why wrestling's awesome man because now we're really going to be thinking about it yeah I'm actually going to be paying attention instead of like I'm going to go get some Cheetos all right we got to talk about so much more and we've been I've been just like monologue I feel like.

Raw. So Raw Live, it was super fun to be there with people who are not, you know, are new fans. Let's talk quickly about

the rock promo that was not on screen that was a dark promo. You think I'm kidding, but I'm gonna call CM Punk right now. First of all, everyone getting all this stuff about WW's mad

that he brought up CM Punk and there's all these like straight-faced news stories like, oh, he called CM Punk and CM Punk didn't answer. I mean, why do we know? not think that, why don't we just assume that it was all

a work? Like, everything is a work, right? Just we believe that the rock is being like 100% honest at all times. If someone said, I mean, if someone said like Carl C.M. Punk right now to you and you were standing 30 feet away from them, wouldn't you just push up, like, man, like push your phone and hold the- Pretend. Yeah, especially if

he doesn't pick up. It's like, okay, well, it could have been anybody. Maybe it worked, but if that's the case, then that's an implication that, hey, maybe he's coming back and but yeah i guess w w w uw has to put out has to like leak out oh we're really mad about this but why the hell here's the problem with the whole the whole situation and people thinking it's a big deal it's a it's a scene in a movie that is replicating a match between page and cm punk's wife

a j lee of course there's going to be cm punk chance you just play a j lee's music and someone comes down pretending to be her i i think the big i think the bigger problem which is going unremarked on is that there is a movie that I don't understand that part is it that is featuring a match between page and AJ Lee it's the night after WrestleMania 30 I mean I get it I mean I know it's about page but like what a weird why is there a movie coming out about I mean no slide on page but page hasn't been on TV in a year or something it's a very strange situation but I want yeah we're like she's a big deal in England, though, right?

Her family's a big deal in England, and I think it's like an English thing. I love Paige. I just, it's just like, can we just marshal the Hollywood wrestling forces in a slightly more productive ways? Yeah, like, no holds barred too. Yeah. I want to know what RIP is doing right now.

Riff has retired and sued a website. I want the Allender Blaze story, like on Lifetime or something. Can we just get that? I want it on Nitro. I want so many stories. Anyway, the rock coming out was really, really cool. I like that we're in this sort of like post, I mean, what a weird post-KFA thing to do

to come out and get the crowd to cheer as if they're seeing things in a match. He came out and just made the crowd cheer in certain ways and just cut rock, you know, did rock schick. So while the camera crew just filmed them reacting so they could cut to that in the match and stuff. Also, let's talk about the layers of reality that we're dealing with.

We're dealing with not only the K-Fabe of professional wrestling and the artifice of that, but also you're recreating a professional wrestling match that's already fake and already staged for a fake staged movie. And then you're also dealing with the reality of CM Punk suing WW or being sued by WW or whatever it is and him not being there. And it's just, there's way too much going on with that. And it must have been an interesting scene. Yeah.

I mean, I just like you're just that this is not to continue your point, but to make a movie that's, there's a documentary that already exists. I mean, it was just like a whatever, like not even BBC like British documentary about this family. And like the most, the most interesting thing if you're going to tell the story is like the craziness that's happening right now in the real world. Right. Alberto del Rio like just give, just get, get Tarantino to like write that natural born killers too or something. You know? I mean, like, there's, that's interesting. But like, that's always,

not always the case, but often the case with WWB storylines is there's the storylines and there's a reality. And the reality sometimes is way more interesting than the storyline. I was talking to somebody about, oh man, this is a terrible content. I was talking to someone about the WrestleMania card and what it was supposed to be and what it's going to be somebody that knows some stuff. And I think it's safe to say that the, that what's the stuff that's happening in real is much more interesting than any of the storylines that are happening on the screen.

Certainly more interesting than Maurice with a pipe. A rubber pipe, by the way. That was the least convincing gimmick I've ever seen. We're so running out of time. Is there, okay, here are my brief thoughts on going to see Rawlite. It is fucking terrible. It's too long. You can't fast forward through the board.

You're sitting there for three hours. Yeah, you can't fast forward. But you can't even, you don't realize how much you fucking love. Like, I just, I would have given anything for a Papa John's commercial at some point. There's like 20 minute segments between stuff that's happening in the ring. You're not, I don't even think we were seeing the backstage stuff. I mean, it was just like, something would happen. Like, Jojo's voice was the only thing I heard for, you know, three hours.

That's besides cheering and stuff. And I had a great time. Don't get me wrong. But I'm just complaining right now. Sure. But I mean like every time every time a match would end It was just like another five minute promo for the Scooby-Doo WWE movie or like like these lengthy like create your like create a player mode

And then in WW2K whatever 17 how many times did you have to see that commercial for the mobile game where everybody has a giant head? No, I don't think I don't think I ever saw that that's a real commercial I can just keep seeing the same like two or three things over and over again these literally lengthy versions. And I might have missed it. I went and, you know, I left my seat more than a few times. By the way, that create a player mode thing, I don't even know if that's a real commercial or if it's a thing you only have to go online and look for it. When they show the generic player, it's Cody Rhodes. Like, that must be a rib because it's just like make your own dude. And it's just like I'm making Cody Rhodes. Right. Well, yeah. I mean, he is literally the create a wrestler guy. So yeah. I mean, I just think, I don't know. They guys. to get some cheerleaders and t-shirt guns or something.

Nitro girls, baby. Nightro girls were on TV. That was the dumbest part of the Nitro girls. But it's like, it's not enough, man. It's not, like I was, like, I could have taken several naps. And it wasn't even like, oh, it's just like there's lots of commercials. It's just like endless amounts of time. I mean, literally like 10 or 15 minutes between things happening in the ring and you're just like, why, I don't know why I'm here.

At least call intermission. So like, everybody knows when to go to the bathroom. Do you think that we've gotten to a point where going to see professional, you're going to see professional wrestling live is is on the level of watching the NFL life where yeah you do it but you only do it so you can tailgate and you can drink a bunch and you can

pass out. I've been to an NFL game in a long time but I feel like the experience of being at a football game is more rewarding in a certain way. It's not quite, it's sort of like the baseball thing where you're just like chilling in a nice outdoor oftentimes outdoor or domed whatever environment and yeah on a certain So a certain degree you're there to like, yeah.

But you also, yeah, sitting around and being bored half the time. Yeah, no, that's totally true. But at least you can look down and be like, I wonder who like, you know, I wonder what conversation, the quarterback and the QB coach are having right now. You know, there's like you get to see behind the scenes. Yeah, you can't see gorilla when you're at raw. They should open that up, man. I agree.

There's always a one little part where you can see people walking like over to the side and it's just like, you know, custodians or whatever. But like, you just wish. Like you're staring, spent a lot of time staring. at that, seeing if I could suss anything out. But yeah, so anyway, that's a made for TV product. I had a great, it is. It's, I mean, the pay-per-views are really fun to go see. Don't get me wrong. And house shows are so much fun to go see. I would rather see a house show than raw any day of the week right now, because it's, because they're playing to the audience. They care, they're,

playing to the crowd that's there watching the show. And there's no, I'm not, I mean, this is not a blanket condemnation of Monday Night Raw. Like, there, there's a reason why you're there, you But the reason why you're there thing is the point I wanted to make. WWE, you hear from the people inside about how like the smart fans hijack the, you know, the crowd are hijacking the shows and like, Pete, there's all, obviously we've seen this whether or not people are talking about it. We've seen this over and over again. It's the smart fans, the people like us who go there and start chanting like for our beloved

wrestlers. And it runs contrary to what they see at, WWCs at house shows. And, you know, it runs contrary to storytelling. You're booing Roman Raines and stuff like that. well, open letter to WWE. If you want that to stop, you have to put on a show that casual fans can follow and stay invested in. I was with an eight-year-old kid who's just, who's like staring at the crowd behind him for half the show. The only people who were, the only reason why anybody is making any noise in that arena after like 20 minutes of silence, five-minute match, 15 minutes of side.

I mean, it's not silence, but like of nothing active. The only reason why anybody is making any noise at all is because they showed up to cheer ironically. those are the only people who have any motivation and have any like no one is cheering organically in an environment like that because there's just no it with the exception of a really good 15 minute match or even like a five or eight minute match it takes a while to get back invested to say like oh this is what I'm supposed to be watching now let me tell the story but like you can't hear the announcer so you're missing half the story anyway you got to get really invested in and and there's no cadence to the show there's no flow to the show no rhythm yeah you're right the only rhythm the only the only I said it before the only people who are going to do cheer from almost anything that happens are people that show up to cheer. It's like professional protesters. That's the old, I mean, the crowd, the crowd isn't hot because of what's going on the ring most of the time. It's hot because the crowd wants to be hot.

Yeah, I think that there's, there's got to be a disconnect between what's going on at guerrilla and in the office versus what's going on in the arena because it's not like, you know, Vince McMahon or Triple H or Stephanie or any of the big wigs or muckety mucks are sitting in the crowd during the show. They're a gorilla or they're in the locker room. You can tell a lot from gorilla, but I think that they're, but they can tell,

it's not about what you can tell or what you can hear. It's about what you feel. I will say this. You're right. I would say, some things just feel totally different live. Certainly like the volume and the, and the,

whatever, the, the sorts of cheers or booze, whatever that people get, definitely convey differently live. But some things just are look cool, are just better live in general, like the big show versus,

is Brown Strowman. It was so great. There's a lot of heat for that, too. When you're watching it on TV, it sounded like... Watching that match, you understand why Vince McMahon is just like, let's book seven-footers together every night for the rest of time. And you understand why it's worth. I mean, I talked about this about Andre the Giant when I was on Bill's podcast last week.

You know, they always put them up against these big guys, Big John Stud or Edward or Carpmentier. Like, there's all, you know, all these like giant versus giant matches. even Hogan Andre. You really understand it when you see it live. I'll just leave it at that. Because it's just a whole other beast. Well, yeah, it's like, you know, I was at the roast of Justin Bieber a couple years ago

and I wrote a piece for Grantland about it. Humble brag here. Well, no, no, no, no. This is leading to a thing. Leading to the humble brag. Yes. So Shaq was there and Shaq was standing next to Kevin Hart. And it looks impressive on TV to see Shaq next to a small person.

And when you see Shaq in real life, or when I saw him at the All-Star game, he's huge. Yeah. It's really, really, it takes your breath away when someone's that big and not only in height but in size. And I get it. You know, I get Vince McMahon's obsession with bodies and size and stuff like that. And it's not as impressive to see a shorter guy. So I've talked about it before. Like, Cesarro and Seamus versus Kass, Inzo and Kass.

and Inzo's my favorite guy in the ring, so apologies to him up front. But those other three guys, and Seamus in particular, looks so freaking impressive live. Gas looked like bigger than Hulk O'KoGan ever was in every way. But Seamus just sort of like you just kind of blurs on the TV screen, you know? Live he looks like a beast. And Cesarro is, I mean, it's like watching it, you know, like I don't even know. I mean, it's just like the CGI of a, from like a Superman movie before they actually put the skin on, you know? I mean, he's incredible, man.

And that's, I think that's why people who are observers of wrestling get frustrated with someone like Sasha Banks not being the number one female on Raw or in the company in general. And Charlotte is, you look at Charlotte, Charlotte's a champion. She has that incredible body. She's really tall, broad shoulders. She looks imposing physically. And Sasha Banks is not. there and so I kind of get why maybe for a house show or for a live audience it's not as impactful yeah well that's interesting maybe I should get Simmons to send me to like 600 shows this year and

I'll just I'll do some sort of like diagnostic we know if you need a plus one uh you're you're invited man um well speaking of uh speaking of wrestlers who look like wrestlers but we were watching smackdown last night and and Naomi came to the ring with her belt because every woman every time a woman wins the belt that she has to cut basically a shoot pro a work shoot promo about how long she's wanted it now um but she was like namie doesn't look like a wrestler and i was just like like what do you mean she was just like well she's just not

all these other girls are like skinny and you know have blonde hair and like she looks like a real person who could probably really hurt you but like a real person um what do you think about that promo what do you think about that angle i thought it was great i thought you know it seems to me like she's going to get her big moment in Orlando that she's going to get the belt back

that this was just a way to get heat and I think she's going to be back for me yeah yeah I think so her calling Daniel Brian Brian his real his real first name was an interesting touch she knows him from Total Divas right I forget that they're also

co-stars on E's number one wrestling related reality show but that element of reality was great she seemed for the first time to really be able to emote and give us something besides the catchphrases. I'm sure they probably just let her go out

and speak from the heart. Well, I mean, part of it, I mean, she definitely, her look has certainly changed since she debuted, or at least since her single, I mean, definitely since she debuted, but also since her singles career kind of took off.

I think she's just really gonna, she's really in position to benefit from the fact that, like, we're taking women's wrestling seriously and we're filling out our women, they're filling out their women's roster to the point where like, you kind of have to be yourself

if you're going to get, over you know i mean and you have to have a i mean in in the absence of a prevailing gimmick you got to differentiate yourself you know and not everybody can just be like the mom the blonde-haired models like they would have been you know five years ago yeah it wasn't that long ago that everyone basically looked like kelly kelly yeah you just think kelly kelly kelly was actually just working like you know 30 matches a night she was just an iron woman that's why you're thinking that they really it really was just kelly kelly kelly versus beth phoenix all the time, just every week.

So anyway, so that, okay, I'm excited to you that you think she's coming back. That's cool. We got to get out of here soon. We have a new, we have two new theoretical number one contenders. I actually looked at the Wikipedia page for WrestleMania just to see like, see how it was like getting filled in. And I don't even know if I'm going to be able to find it now. But the, oh yeah, there's two matches. This is last night.

I don't know if it's still like this or not. As of last night, we have Brock Lesnar. with Paul Hammond versus Goldberg in a singles match and Bray Wyatt versus AJ Stiles or Luke Harper in a singles match for the WWE championship. I love that we have enough information to put that Smackdown title match

actually into the matches listing given that we don't have a number of contender even announced and Randy Orden is going to be involved in this match. He Instagramed a picture of himself like creepily looking over Bray's shoulder at the title belt. This is like this is clearly

Yeah, we know where this is going. But it's nice that they're trying to create some intrigue. So who do you think, do you think AJ? I mean, it's got to be that chain, if we're going to stick with that. I think we guys to stick with that, guys. It's Shane somehow screws AJ out of his win during the AJ Luke Carper rematch next week, or rematch, whatever, match next week. Yeah, somehow he's going to not get his title shot.

He's going to blame Shane McMahon instead of Daniel Bryan. I blame Shane for most of the evil that befalls me. Shane hasn't been on TV in a few weeks, but sure, blame him. And then we'll go, we're off to the race is there, and then triple threat for the belt. And, you know, Luke Harper is having the best 2017 of any person I've ever seen. We got to get out of here. There is a paragraph on the Wikipedia page. You know, there's like the background section and it's the storyline section and it like tells you the lead up to all these.

And they have paragraphs for a lot of the matches that aren't announced yet. And one of them is, is you're a good for Schuil O'Neill versus Big Show. which, you know. Not happening. That seems unlikely. I can guarantee you it's not happening. Like personal knowledge or just intuition? It's just professional.

Seems like awareness. Seems like Los Angeles would have been the place to bring him out. Oh, yeah. On Monday night. Yeah. The fact that they haven't done anything that he's not talking about it with the press anymore, the big show's not talking about it with the press anymore. It's not happening.

There's been no movement. on that. You think he's just scared of the big show? I think he's probably not able to train in the ring and take enough bumps to make a good match. But that's a guess. I mean, I just know... There's a lot

of WrestleMania, man. If bump taking were a necessity at WrestleMania, we would have, we have a lot, there'd be like 10 matches that disappeared from history. If he can't be as good as Mr. T or Lawrence Taylor in the ring, he shouldn't do it. Wait, do we have a new Hall of Fame inductee?

Uh, yeah, so it's Kurt Angle. Oh, DDP. Oh, right. DDP, congratulations to him. Well deserved. Um, didn't have the best run in WWE, but everything that he did in WCW. Everything he's done in his retirement phase and is like saving the lives of multiple wrestlers with DDP yoga. I got to tell you, I love DDP.

I've done DDP yoga. I think it's really great. That's a, that is a Hall of Fame induction speech that I will watch with a remote control in my hand. after it actually happens. It's going to be like three hours long. Who do you think he's going to bring him out? Bischoff? No, they gotta do Jake.

They gotta do Jake, right? Or do somebody who he's like actually. Yeah, yeah, someone that he's saved. Jake would be good. There you go. We gotta get out of here. We're missing a million things. Seth Rons will be back on Ron next week.

What's your level of excitement? Seven. Talk to a guy who had the same injury recently. And what did he say? How soon can he come back? I was like, how quickly were you, just like walking around. He was like, well, I was walking around like five days later. But like I was like, you know, I was on my walking around with my hands on like the in table and then on the sofa and then on the table, you know, whatever. Like he was and it took some help. And he said even for him, it took him, you know, like five to six months before he was comfortable doing stuff. But he's not the CrossFit Jesus. He's not. And he's not. He wasn't wearing a knee brace and he wasn't getting paid lots of money to do that stuff. Exactly. That's really an unofficial. polling of the of the situation.

So CM Punk we've determined is definitely coming back to Raw after the Rock calling. He'll be there next week. I don't, I actually didn't read anything about that rock thing. We can talk more about the Rock next week if people have questions about it. So like hit me up and hit Dave up on Twitter with questions. We're going to start doing more of that stuff. We want to start hearing from you about questions that you have about the wrestling

business. I'm at David Chewmaker. You're what? At Dave underscore Schilling. Um, underscore. That's a terrible gimmick. I couldn't get at Dave Schilling. I remember there was a time Simmons tweeted at me and it was at Dave Schilling. And boy, did he get a lot of notifications from people.

Yeah, that all happened. It's the power of social media. Um, no, I think underscore would be a great wrestler's nickname. And then on Twitter, it could just be the underscore. So it's like a symbol. Yeah. Um, okay. Anyway, uh, I'm trying to see if we miss anything else.

Nakamura wants to face AJ Souser, Rosamania. I think that the boat has sailed on. The ship has sailed on that one. Yep. If you could take a time machine back like four months, that might be more possible. It'll happen. Let's do it.

Yeah. And I want to talk about the Ring of Honor New Japan Garden? Let me talk about Ring of Honor. I feel like we're going to have a reason to talk about Ring of Honor next week. I think what we should do is a Ring of Honor special episode

where we just talk about, We're not just Ring of Honor, but every other promotion that we never talked about. You're just making me do homework. TNA, New Japan, Ring of Honor, PWG, P.W.G, uh, pro wrestling Noah, all of them. We can just field questions from people about stuff that we haven't watched. Oh, we probably watched a lot of it. I watched some, yeah. That's a good idea.

We should do a Q. We should, we'll go on Twitter, ask for questions, non-WW-related questions, and then just do a special episode. Ask me about Lucha Underground. Ask Annie. Ask me about it. I love Lundlein-ch Underground. Okay. we never get to talk about it. You're right.

All right, we got to get out of here. Man, that was a long one. They always feel so short to me because I love talking to you, David. I talked a lot this week. I apologize, guys. We're going to have to edit this down. Apologies to our good producer, Jim, who's going to have to deal with this monstrosity. And apologies to Dean Ambrose, right?

Yeah, apologies to Dean Ambrose. We'll see you back here next week, Humanites.