The Press Box - Ep. 271: 'The Masked Man Show' on the Hardys, 'SmackDown,' and 'Fastlane'

Episode Date: March 2, 2017

The Ringer's David Shoemaker teams up with Dave Schilling and Steve Kazee to discuss the "Dusty Finish" at the Oscars (02:00), whether the WWE will sign Matt and Jeff Hardy (05:45), AJ Styles defeating Luke Harper (18:10), and Randy Orton burning down Bray Wyatt's compound (19:45). They finish with a preview of 'Fastlane' (31:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We got a very special announcement this week, guys. Thanks to all of your tweets and screaming at Tate Frazier online. We finally are getting our own podcast feed. The Masked Man Show feed. Thank you, Stephen Day. The human rap air horn. Wow. What a feeling.

Pause the podcast right now. Go to iTunes wherever you get your podcasts. Search the Masked Man Show and subscribe to it. We're going to be both on there on Channel 33 for a little while, but pretty soon it's going to be just the Masked Man Show feed. so you know you want it. Go and subscribe right now. Today's episode of The Masked Man Show

is brought to you by our college basketball podcast, teed up. As March Madness quickly approaches, make sure to catch Mark Titus and Tate Frazier on the Ringer University podcast. You can subscribe to Ringer University by going to iTunes.com slash the Ringer or wherever you get podcasts. Mark Titus, giant wrestling fan.

So if you need any more reason to listen to our college basketball podcast, that's all you need. Welcome to the Maskman Show. I'm David Shoemaker here with two special guests. Special. One of Dave Schilling. I don't feel like I'm special anymore.

I feel like I'm an institution on this podcast now. But the man sitting to your right, it's very special. Steve Kazee. Finally. Kazee has come back to the podcast. I got the chills. That was the most electrifying entrance I've ever seen in person. Yeah, I totally agree.

When I walked in and saw them today, I kind of had that shiver went out my spine. It's been a lot. Oh, yeah, no, I'm just... Feel the electricity in the air. I'm tingling, baby. So this was a big week for wrestling for a lot of reasons, but I think the most important thing that happened this week was that the world finally now understands what a dusty finish is.

It was the most incredible thing that Oscar's best picture snafu. I immediately thought about professional wrestling. There was no moment where I wasn't like, oh, is this? of work, I knew immediately that this was like the biggest like Montreal screw job as disaster in history. Yeah. It was awesome. I think the one thing that I think the world at large won't maybe won't recognize for a, you know, a while is that everybody being totally like confused and outraged by this is a net positive in the long run. Yeah. It's going to, it's not going to be, because there's a lot of people that are complaining like moonlight didn't get the shine they deserved or like,

you know, all these people from La La Land got made to look like idiots or they look, you know, whatever. But like at the end of the day, a year from now, we're going to look back and just be like, you know, this is really probably a net positive for both films for the Oscars in general, even though they're talking about firing all. I mean, with this dude who is tweeting photos backstage. Man, that guy's, that guy's an angel. Somebody's head is going to roll for sure. That guy's probably going to lose his job or be demoted. But you're right. Like, it's going to, it's going to definitely up the profile of, they're both going to get heat from this. Yeah. That's the thing, you know, is I think about what we look for when we watch professional wrestling, which is to be surprised.

And when things go the way you expect them to go, it's almost sort of like, well, why did I waste my money and my time on that? This is finally a moment in Oscar history where something didn't go right in the most important category that there is. Oh, so great. And the main event. Exactly. It was like what, 86 Great American Bash, where the state athletic community. mission had to stop the match because Lex Lugar was bleeding too much. Yeah.

And then people just lost their minds. We're so furious at this finish. This is what we got. And, you know, maybe business will pick up for the Oscars next year. I want Jim Ross to just, like, overdub a call on the end of the show. Somebody must have done that right now.

It's got to be right. Well, I did see a tweet, I think, if somebody said, by God, that's Barry Jenkins' music, which is, I thought that one's pretty good. Just have him come up to the Stone Cold theme song. Totally. Wow.

What if they had just done the WC? thing where they were like during when it was all just confusing on stage if they had just been like sorry guys you're going to have to turn into the nitro tomorrow to find out what happens there's a mistake moonlight you guys won best picture this is not a joke let's get to see you next week and see you this coming weekend shout out to tony chavani no doubt because it was the greatest moment in professional wrestling slash motion pictures of all time it's pretty good yeah the greatest moment ever thank you for that um this is the ringers

Food Week. It's called Last Mail on Earth. And we had this giant, like, best fast food in the world in the country countdown and have gotten all this slack because people disagree. That's why you make lists so that people will disagree. But I, like, I had Bojangles, like, biscuit sandwiches were like all I cared about. And I don't think they made the list. I just like, I stopped paying attention after that. I'm just thinking about and fuming over Bill and House's take on In and Out. It's repugnant. Unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, Jim's in my ear telling me that Bojangles tweeted fake news at the list. I fully back up Bojangles on this.

Oh, man. Speaking of Twitter, we got some Twitter questions. Finally, Twitter acknowledges the existence of the show. I mean, people are just beaten down my door trying to talk to me about professional wrestling. Tell me your Twitter account. I mean, just in case people want to tweet you, because we know that you're the one who actually checks this mention. Yeah. I'm constantly on Twitter.

I'm at Dave underscore Schilling. If you have a question for the Masked Man podcast, either for me, for Shoemaker, for Steve, for Hollywood, Dan St. Germain, tweet at me for right now, and I will pass that along, and maybe you'll get your tweet read on the show. Who knows? So our first tweet for this week is from Raoulter 33 at Raulter 33. He asked, do you think WWE will sign the Hardee's? the Hardee's of course are now unemployed they chose to end negotiations with TNA or Impact Wrestling or Anthem or Jeff Jarrett's personal toy whatever you want to call it so now they're free agents well but they're not

they're they're I mean they're what do you talk what you were talking about before Steve they've well it seems to me that they're popping up around like Ring of Honor a lot I know Jeff Hardy did a video and then Vanguard got super kicked by the young bucks recently. It's a big. It's a big,

Big month for drones. Vanguard One took it really hard. It is a big month for drones. I mean, look, it, it seems insane that when you have people chanting delete at basically

every WWE live event, that Vince McMahon, being the money hound that he is, would understand that this is the right direction to go at this time. And it's been long enough for everybody to have their cool down from the bad breakups that they've had the years.

Open up the arms, bring those guys back. I mean, I think, you know, you could get into an interesting situation where you have, you know, the Hardee's, now that the Wyatt family seems to be maybe on its way to dissolution, you have like the Hardee's coming in at a time when sanity is sort of starting to build strength in NXT so you can finally get back, you can get to that like weird Hardy's decay kind of thing that was happening. Like a supernatural version of the gang wars from the attitude era. Yeah, totally.

Maybe I'm in on that. Totally. Like a weird, like a weird take on like Warriors, the film, you know? But it makes, to me,

it makes total sense. I think you have to bring those guys in. Let me ask this question really quickly. They're not, they're not the only guys. Exactly. Yeah, who else is,

do you have the list handy? Mike Bennett and Maria didn't resign. Jade is gone. Yeah, there were a bunch of people who seem to be not resigning with TNA right now. Drew Galloway.

These are, these are big names for TNA. And all people who, well, go ahead. Okay, so I have a theory. What if all of these people are not signing? Not because TNA and Impact Wrestling and Anthem are looking to clean house because God knows their talent cupboard is fairly bare

even the week before all these axes came down. What if all these people are being covertly signed by WWE in some way to run an invasion angle? What if there's an invasion angle being playing? Like handshake deals? Yeah, it's like, oh, if you guys just like cut off negotiations with Anthem, we will sign you, we'll send you to NXT or we'll do some sort of thing where we have like a fake indie promotion or like a Ring of Honor type promotion that we buy. And then we run that show on the network. I'm glad you mentioned this because I was, how do I say this?

Hypothetically, I was going over something like this in my head recently. Yeah, I mean If you're looking If you want to be a conspiracy theorist And you everyone knows I encourage you to be a conspiracy theorist On about everything in life WWE just announced there's going to be

A Kevin Owens documentary that they're putting out this summer Uh And where is most of his Uh Yeah, You need some footage You're gonna need to, yeah And Ring of Honor has been

kind of sporadically on the block over the past couple of years. Now, there was, you know, Sinclair was determined to not sell it for a while, but I think that it's, you know, I don't think that's 100, that's, I think they've come off that in recent past. So, hypothetically, if you were, I don't, I don't know what the Ring of Honor name necessarily means to WWE. But if they wanted to, you know, have some more programming on the WWE network with an established brand name. And this isn't outside the realm of reality because we. know WWE was in talks to buy TNA, to buy Impact Wrestling before Anthem was able to rest it from Dixie and from Billy Corgan. Why not? Why not to start buying everybody? Well, I mean,

it's not like it's not in the DNA of the McMahon family to sort of like eliminate competition. I mean, my only curiosity is, you know, when WCW got bought out, when ECW got bought out, they were in a lot of ways more mainstream names at that point. Like we were way beyond the days of ECW being like super indie wrestling. Yeah. Right. It had started to sort of make a name for itself. Same WCW clearly with the Monday Night Wars.

But Ring of Honor, I'm not sure how much pull that has outside. Like I think if you ask a casual wrestling fan who the young bucks are, they're not going to know. A casual wrestling fan. They might know Generation Me better than the Young Bucks. Maybe. Yeah. You know, but I just think that they don't have a lot of like breadth of information as far as like, you know, New Japan or Ring of Honor or PWG. Like, you know, they watch, they watch Raw and they watch Smackdown and they probably watch, you know, the Saturday morning, what is it, the main event?

Yeah, yeah. You know, like those casual fans are not going to be like frothing for all these things. So then my question is, what's the incentive for WWE to do something like that? Casual fans might not know. And I think that you're right. I think that if, you know, the leading lights of Ring of Honor invaded at WrestleMania, that would be just really confusing to a whole lot of people. Completely.

I mean, I guess you could, I mean, you would necessarily have to include, like Kevin Owens and Samoa Joe and maybe even Sammy Zane and the storyline, whatever, just to do it. But, you know, the other thing to think about is, as long as we're entertaining this hypothetical to its, you know, for this degree, Chris Hero just made his big return on in NXT. maybe, I mean, does it just make more sense that Ring of Honor would be invading NXT as opposed to the main roster? Oh, you could do like a, you could do like a sub-developmental like invasion angle where like NXT and Ring of Honor are like going at it for like developmental indie

credit? Yeah, it's all about signing contracts, signing the biggest free agents and wrestling to contracts. See, I think that's the thing because really it's not about Ron Smackdown. It's not about the USA Network programming because as Steve said, those names aren't really names to the mainstream wrestling fan that watches raw on Smackdown.

But they are names to the target audience for the network. And the target audience for the network is people who are really obsessive wrestling fans who would spend time watching an old Starcate or an old war games. Or holy fully. Well, let's be fair. Yeah, that's a bridge too far for most of us. But who are going to watch old ECW and old world class and the state. Stuff that really gets the wrestling fan going.

So why wouldn't they be excited and say, I'm going to pluck, throw down my $9.99 because now I can watch the Hardy Boys or I can watch Drew Galloway or whoever it is that is an indie person. I mean, this is also crazy. The thing that's most confusing, I think, is just that WWE has done such an admirable job of pulling talent from other federations over the past, you know, over the past couple years that like it's really blurry. Now, if the

frame of reference for this hypothetical invasion angle is the WCW invasion, then obviously logic doesn't need to hold attach itself to anything. I mean, it's, we had Austin and angle like who were the, I mean, Shane McMahon was whatever. Stephanie McMahon owned ECW. Yeah.

That's all you need to say about the invasion angle. But if that's the, I mean, so like let's just pretend that never happened. If the, you know, there's so many guys who are entrenched now. I mean, if there was something that happened in NXT, like is Bobby rude really more, I mean, he wasn't a ring of honor guy, but is he a

WWE guy? Is he an NXT guy? You know, there's like the, it seems like he has more in common with some of these people who would be the invaders than he would have, than the differences he would have with that. I think you have a couple of weird things happening right now, which is great for the business, but also can possibly be long-term troubling for the business. You've got so many different brands.

You've got raw Smackdown, Cruiserweights, NXT, the sort of English championships that they're now sort of those guys are getting more pull. You've got, you know, these talks about like TNA breaking down, a lot of those guys jumping over and maybe Ring of Honor and this all colliding together, you don't have any place to put all these people. The WrestleMania roster, and we're going to talk about Fastlane at the end of the show, but we're obviously well on the road to WrestleMania. The roster is already like bursting it, it seems. We were talking before the show started trying to see how many, I mean, how we could cram all

the wrestlers that we know have to be on the card into the card. It feels like the pre-show, you're going to have like at least two, maybe three title matches in the pre-show. Yeah. Yeah. With so many with Rawl. Well, Rollins is probably going to be there. But with Finn Baller still out, but these guys still, you know, a lot of people still hurt.

There's a lot. There are people who are not even around right now. So imagine if they were at full capacity on the roster. Like, how are you going to start shoving all these pay-per-views in? I don't know. I mean, I would personally love to see. the Hardee's come back. Whatever form that takes, I'm not sure at this point.

But I don't know how making them the face of Ring of Honor and then like making that a new brand in some way does anything good for anybody. Yeah. Programming on the network. That's where that's where they're- You think that's what it all is? That's where their biggest growth opportunity is in every territory in the country, in every single country in the world. the more people that pay $999 a month for the network, the better the company is.

I wonder what their international sales numbers are. I would like to know, because I feel like they probably make so much more money overseas. I haven't seen the numbers in a while. But I mean, my recollection is they weren't making as much as like the outside expectations at the start would have had you believe. I mean, it's just, I think getting going in all these other markets

is more difficult than we thought, finding carriers or whatever. Yeah. So maybe it is, like you were saying, if you put all the wrestling content out there on one format, then you have no choice. Like if you want to watch PWG matches or you want to watch Ring of Honor,

WW just goes in and buys them out, buys all the content. Yeah, I mean that's... And so now that's where you have to go for it. You can't, there's no analogous service for any other art form. There's no service where you can get all the music. Because you've got your title, Spotify, Apple Music.

With movies and television, you have Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Video. I'm sure I'm missing 57 other streaming services that are out there. But for professional wrestling, there's only WWM network. It's true. I wish they would just- Nobody has the money to compete. Exactly. Except for New Japan, maybe.

Buying your own competition is a great move. It would just be really fun, though, if they would just start, if they would actually have make their own competition. It could never happen to such a degree. Although NXT, I guess, is running in somewhat and something resembling isolation. Yeah. Just have a network show. Like, why don't we just get the great bookers from like years past?

Like, can we find Jim Hurd and just let him run or like a made up wrestling promotion on the network for six months? Who's not? Vince Russo needs to be unleashed on millennials. Yeah, that would be so great. All right. Listen, we got to get, we got to move on to things that are actually happening and not just our hypothetical conversations.

But I think we're recording this on Wednesday. The thing that's freshest in all of our minds, I think, and maybe it would be the same if, you know, if we recorded later in the week, is the wacky promo at the end of Smackdown. I'm shaking my head because I still don't know what it meant. Randy Orton burnt down the Wyatt compound. Honestly, I would have thought that Bray would have upgraded

now that he's the champion anyway. Like a nice Boker Riton. beachfront condo of some sort. But earlier in the show, AJ Stiles defeated Luke Harper to become the number one contender to Bray Wyatt's title. In a match that seemed completely set up

for a schmauzy non-finish, which would have made the main event promo make more sense. I'm sorry, Shilling, can you just explain to me what we think the Smackdown main event at WrestleMania is going to be

and who we're supposed to be rooting for. Okay, briefly, I want to say I think this is great that there is a question but it is completely convoluted and nonsensical. So, AJ Styles defeated Luke Harper, almost called him Bryce Harper.

Luke Harper in that number one contenders match, even though there was a false finish where Luke Harper's foot was on top of the bottom rope. So Shane McMahon comes out. Shane McMahon says, whoa, whoa, whoa, AJ Stiles, you can't win that way.

His foot was on the rope. Restart the match. And then after two minutes, AJ Stiles wins clean again. So I don't know what the false finish was for. Anyway, we move on. Well, I mean, if, you know, the rumors we've discussed are true,

then maybe that was the first step in an AJ Stiles, Shane McMahon feud that because Shane was the one that came out and restarted the match. But there was no beef. Like, AJ shouldn't be that upset that he restarted at one, because it was true that Luke's foot was on the rope. And two, he won the match. Yeah, so then later on, it seems like it's all settled.

AJ is interviewed backstage and says, he's going to go out and confront Bray Wyatt when Bray Wyatt does his invocation, whatever that is supposed to mean. It was really just him cutting a weird promo. So we get to the main event segment, and Ray Wyatt started talking about his brother, Randy Orton. And Orton appears on the Titan Tron. And he's in the compound.

And we keep cutting to a floorboard, exposed floorboard, full of maggots. There wasn't even maggots. It was earthworms. Okay. Well, of course, it wasn't going to be maggots. With some weird, like, half red meat, but like not even like, ah, I don't even miss that. It looks like stuff you get from like the grocery store deli section. Like it was

Some gizzards Yeah It was It was pokey actually It was just a bucket of pokey And then he says Sister Abigail is buried underneath the floorboards And that she's the son

Of the daughter of the devil And that her spirit lives inside the compound And by setting it on fire She will go to hell The thing that I kept thinking During this segment Was that like Was this in a movie or was this just something

That like every kid did But it's like if you're like Your kid brother hasn't a map imaginary friend and you and it the funny thing is the older brother to do is like put the imaginary friend in the headlock and like give it a nudgy and like just say you're like throwing the imaginary friend out the window or something it's like you're he's like messing with a figment of bray's imagination well is that what sister abigail supposed to be or is because he implies that she died years ago that's what's not clear to me underneath the floorboards of the compound now i'm

not 100% clear on the mythology of the white family and maybe you kids out there not that you're all kids, but you listeners can explain it better than I can. But it seems like it was his sister and she perished in some way. Like a Katie Vic, so to speak. Right. If there's a Wyatt family, like fanfic page or something, if there's a Wyatt Wiki. There's got to be, but I need to see it. I don't remember who it was, but shout out to the person who said on Twitter that they're hoping that

Katie Vic, someone, that Sister Abigail shows up Katie Vic style and Triple H pretends to have sex with her next week Smackdown But I don't, yeah, I'm unclear What this is supposed to mean? Does that mean Bray Wyatt no longer has his powers? What are his powers to begin with? Yeah, exactly.

I've never quite understood. So he's going to try to do the crab walk And like his arms won't support himself anymore? Is that like it finally be too fat for it? He can't make the lights go on and off in the arena anymore. I don't know what's happening there. This is, it reminds me of when the Undertaker lost the urn.

Didn't have his powers anymore. Yeah. Taking like the spooky powers away from Brayette is not a negative thing. No, it's actually a net positive. Yeah, but doing, but having, but if that's what they're doing, having the storyline be the, the most fantastical possible storyline is just a terrible idea. You can just have him stop doing the stuff, you know? Yeah, that wouldn't be a problem. The Undertaker stopped doing his supernatural stuff for two or three.

years and just rode a motorcycle it was fine, I guess. Can we just talk real quick about technicalities here? First of all, why did it take so long to douse that place in gasoline? I mean, it was like Randy Orton, there was like somebody was in the background just going, keep going, keep going. Yeah. We need, fill time, fill time. It took so

long. It did. It was a very long segment. It felt like a very long segment. What was more compelling to me was Bray Wyatt's total meltdown in the ring. Like, there was a moment where I thought, God, he really believes that Sister Abkell is a real thing, but we were only getting flashes of it because they were too busy focused on Randy Orton like spilling out 19 gallons of gasoline. Then the floorboard thing like, why not just have like a skeleton in there like some sort

of form that actually looks like a body like a bag like some burlap? That would have been too intense for WWE. Do you think so? Yeah, dead body. They literally had earthworms and like, okay. They cut a lot of the actual references to dead bodies and stuff out of the YouTube version of it. Really?

Because I watched the YouTube version before I watched the show, because I got home late last night from the airport. And so I was like, I'm just going to watch the YouTube version and then watch the whole show in the morning. And there was a lot of stuff that was missing and more like macabre references that Orton made were excised once I watched the real version. But you make a good point, Steve,

and that we keep cutting away from the thing that's the most interesting, which is Bray Wyatt losing his mind. Losing his mind. And that's the big question. question that I think I want to answer is who am I supposed to be rooting for? I know we always talk about shades of gray and wrestling

and how it would be great if there was complex characters. But now I'm just confused. Am I supposed to feel sad for Bray or happy that Randy were talking about last night? I feel like there's some portion of this where oh, spoiler alert, we all talk on text about wrestling all the time. But, you know, I feel like there's a

like I felt like we had a real Luke Harper face turn last night. This is, yeah, so this is what we need to bring it back around to. My original question is what the hell is going to happen at WrestleMania. This is vindication for Luke Harper, right? In some way, I think it's like going to have to come down that like Shane getting involved ultimately cost him the match somehow or like he deserves a second shot or Randy Orton's going to want to be a part of this. And so now like you're going to. But then if you have those three fighting, it makes no sense to put AJ Stiles in the match at all.

Not at all other than you want your best wrestler in the most high profile. Do we not have somebody better for AJ Stiles to wrestle? There was a really compelling fake call sheet basically for WrestleMania that was circulating last week. We had talked about it off the air a little bit. I mean, it was a wonderful troll job

because it was just all of the matches that are 100% set in stone were there. And then just kind of fantasy booking the rest like it was AJ versus the Undertaker and whatever. But even that makes no sense. No, but there are other things you can do with AJ Styles, I guess. I mean, even if it's not chain, you know, it could be taker, I don't know.

We also, by the way, still have a lot of time before WrestleMania. We do. And there are things that could happen. And a lot, I think the thing was that so much happened last night on Smackdown. They're just that it's kind of hard. I mean, it seems like a sort of a lot more happened in one night than has happened in the past few weeks. You know, Randy Orton, I think the thing that was disconfitting for me more than anything else was that Randy Orton has had many logical opportunities to turn on. to turn on Bray

Yeah Including when he won the number one contendership You know more power to WWE for not taking the most obvious path But I'm still confused as to why it happened It was sloppy That you I have a theory and it's just that Bray Wyatt trusted him so much

That he's like you can hang out at the compound without me You know what? Have a nut man The fridge is full of beer You know the net The fringe hasn't been plugged in 25 years, but it's full of gear in it. And like body parts and eyeballs. Here's a Netflix password. You know, have fun.

Call me if you need anything. And then he's like, all right, I got him. And then I can set the house on fire. And then I'll really get him. But what is Randy Orden really after? Does he want the belt? Or does he want to hurt Bray Wyatt? That's the thing.

If this has all been a long con, I guess that's the storyline. It's a really, really long, really. I mean, if the whole point was to get to the. compound to set it on fire to that's the worst i mean i guess that's the worst thing you can do to bray wyatt but that's just weird i don't know why randy orton would care so much about that in k fab i don't either this goes back to if you will go back to our original conversations about this on the podcast i had no idea why this was happening in the first place it made no sense why they were teaming up yes it made no logical sense to me there was like a thousand people that i would have believed joining the wyatt family

before randy orton and maybe that's why maybe that's the choice of you're not that's the choice Maybe they were just like, we want Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt to fight. That's our ending point. Let's figure out a way to get to that. But it has never made any sense. It's never been compelling in any way. There's never been a moment where I was like, ooh, Randy Orton's in the Wyatt family.

And look, he's cooking Luke Harper out. It was so boring. Yeah. Made no sense. I was very into them winning the tag titles. I thought because I thought that was going to be like just an institution, at least a brief one, you know, or they were just sort of they could run rough shot as,

the heels of the of Smackdown from that point of view. But I agree with you. It's been all very, the arc has been very sort of, you know, stop and start, or not even that. It's been slow and confusing. It's why the supernatural stuff doesn't ever really work for me. I liked it. I liked the whole angle.

Yeah, because one, it's spotlights what's interesting about Bray Wyatt. Two, it's mysterious. Even if it's not always executed effectively, or like not effectively, but like perfectly, it has done its job in getting us to question the path to WrestleMania. It's gotten us to do the things smart fans do, which is to talk and to consider and to ponder into fantasy book. And that's what a good wrestling angle should do. It's surprised us in a lot of ways,

but it's also been a traditional story in a lot of ways. And I think we have to judge it based on how it ends. And if it ends with Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper back together as a baby face unit, maybe with Eric Rowan in there going against evil Randy Orton, I would be into that. I would be into something

where Randy Orton creates his own weird family to fight. But we got to see where this ends up first. You know, I mean, he comes from a wrestling family. That could maybe put legacy back together or whatever. I agree with you on that. It's just, he's my only complaint, is that doing something for the sake of just,

doing it because it causes people to question it. I think sometimes lead you down a road of ultimate disappointment and too many disappointments in a row makes Stevie turn off the TV. Okay, we have to move on. I know that's my new catchphrases. We got to get out of here apparently. People keep talking about it. When people listen to the show, what they don't realize is that it's edited down to

whatever link that's at. We usually, we cut 15 minutes every week because we like to keep things moving quickly on the Maskman show. So we're going to, we need to talk about Fastlane because. it's this Sunday. Before we get to that fast lane talk, let's take a quick break to thank SimplySafe. Ever find that when you're out of the house, maybe relaxing with family and friends, you get that nagging feeling, did I close the window, that I lock the door? You just don't know, and it can drive you nuts. But you don't have to worry about that when you've got Simply Safe home security.

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Visit simply safe.com slash ringer to get 10% off your system today. That's simply safe. S-I-M-P-L-I-S-A-F-E dot com slash ringer. All right, back to pro wrestling. Fastlanes this weekend. The worst of the named pay-per-views in my opinion. Well, it's the road to WrestleMania. Before we continue, I got a text from our producer, Jim,

saying Bray Wyatt should have had Simply Safe. I couldn't let it go. Come on, man. Yeah, it's true. A nest camera at best. Something. I need to know somebody's in the house. Yeah.

Do you think he has Wi-Fi, though? He's got Netflix. I just said earlier. He's uploading videos to YouTube. Yeah, all the time. Whatever. Wi-Fi everywhere now. All right.

Fastly. Sorry. All right. I'm going to run down. We're going to just run through the matches. And you stop me if you have anything specifically you want to say. Well, there's a, there's a cruiser. weight match, the Brian Kendrick versus Noam Dar versus Rich Swan, or no, sorry, it's a tag match.

Kendrick and Darr versus Rich Swan and Tizawa. Tizawa's getting a hell of a little push for this division. Why does it have to be a little push because he's a cruiserweight, David? Yes, I'm sorry, I'm being really offensive. Do we talk about the cruiser weights last week? How about the setup? I was complaining about the pacing of the show. One of the main culprits of this now is that every time they have a cruiserweight match,

They just have to build in 15 minutes or 20 minutes before and after so they have time to wrap to literally wrap all of the ring ropes and purple tape. I have seen this in person. Yeah. It happened in New Orleans when I first got there. It was incredible to see. Yeah. It's really impressive that they could do it that. Yeah, like 20 people strip that ring down and like pull tape off the ropes.

They're not changing ropes. They're pulling purple tape off of the ropes. And it's not like you would think they would have some sort of like, you know, like satine sleeves or something. that go like in a boxing right you know something just something to make it like quick and easy but no it's like literally like sport tape or like electrical tape going around and around and around and around it's just a very weird I don't know that there's a I don't know that the it's there's enough return on the investment to make it just to make the cruise weight matches look special and then my confusion is then why don't you just put them back to back or you know have just one

yeah to do one at the beginning of the show and then one at the end I yeah open the show with it the okay so anyway um does this tag match, I mean, is there any way that we don't end up at WrestleMania with like a 10-person 10-man cruiserweight battle royal for the title? It's going to be a battle royal or a ladder match or something where they can do a lot of bumping. And it's going to probably be fairly close to the

beginning of the show. There's no way that's not happening. Yeah. There's not a compelling enough issue for a singles match. Well, you're also going to want to get that brand a little more profile too. So there'll be a lot more eyes on WrestleMania. So you're going to want to see as many of those guys perform as possible. And later in the show, we have Neville versus Jack,

or presumably later in the show, Neville versus Jack Gallowher. So it's crazy that my man, Jack, has, like, put himself in this spot? I mean, maybe it's just sort of a treading water position. You know, I'm sort of surprised that, you know, Cedric Alexander's not getting this look or whatever. Is he healthy? Yeah. It's, I think he wrestled on Monday when I was in.

Pretty sure Vince McMahon just thinks that Jack Galeher's funny. Yeah. he's like a little like he's got an umbrella and he drinks tea yeah it's so cool he's got an umbrella I think we I think it's safe to say that Neville's gonna win Elise I'll let you guys make your own predictions Neville's gonna win that match but we're gonna somehow get

a schmazzy finish that will I just can't imagine our walking into WrestleMania as the as the champ yeah no way I think they'll they'll probably be some chicanery on Neville's part and then you know that will continue and then we'll go to WrestleMania and every cruiser weight in the company will throw themselves off a ladder or something. You know what I want to see? I want to see the cruiser weights versus the like heavy weights

or whatever in a like 20 person Andre the giant Memorial Battle Royal. That's what I want to see. Let's bring all the cruiser weights in and let them fight all the big guys that are going to get wasted off. So you just get like both rosters, all the guys who aren't going to compete at WrestleMania just out there fighting each other. And they just specifically got the biggest guys on the roster who don't like the Mark Henry's of WWE just to be Titus O'Neill just to let the little guys jump

off their shoulders and stuff that would be great Master Blaster Memorial Cup Sounds awesome Be for that All right Sammy Zane versus Samoa Joe Maybe the best build up

As brief as it's been And in WWU on this whole card Samoa Joe rules He's done a fantastic job Since being called up And they We know both these guys can work a match

Samoa Joe Is gonna be able to throw around Sammy and Sammy's be able to bump for him. It's going to be great. It's crazy. My boss and dear friend Bill Simmons was talking to somebody backstage at Raw when they were in town and said somebody, a very important person in the talent department. And he was talking about AJ and he said something, the person he was talking to said something like, yeah, we knew we were getting him at the right time, you know, in his career and for WWE, but we had no idea

that he was going to be, you know, everything that he is. And, you know, it's amazing because people have been talking, people have been begging WWE to sign AJ Stiles on and off for 15 years or whatever, but they really did and, you know, I think we can all agree that it would be nice if we got whenever he retires, it would be nice to have had five more years of AJ

in WWE, but they did get him at exactly the right time, and I'm saying this just in reference to Samoa Joe's, another guy who could have been in WWE long before, but man, like, he is on another level. Like the moment, I know he was great in NXT,

but I mean, he was, he, they had cut like three promos on Monday night basically like he was care he couldn't cut those promos a year ago not at all and AJ styles used to be a really mediocre promo and he more than held his own against John Cena last year yeah yeah but so I mean

all I mean all that's to say I mean Samoa Joe was just impressed the hell out of me and I was predisposed to like him anyway and to like him even if he was bad you know but he has been really really good so anyway who's gonna win Samoa Joe or Sammy Joe or

Sammy Zane. I mean, it's got to be Samoa Joe, just because poor Sammy Zane just loses everything. He does. And unfortunately, he's one of those guys. He's like a Dolf Ziegler to me. He just can't win because if he wins, he loses that thing that we all love about him.

Which is that sort of like, I'm going to get up that mountain. It's the sisyphus of it all. But Dahl Figgler isn't lovable in the way that Sammy Zane is. I don't know if it's because of his look or because of the sort of cockiness of his gimmick. But he will never be the underdog that I they wanted him to be when they first did the brand split

and they put him up against Dean Ambrose. He's not on Sammy Zane's level in terms of eliciting sympathy from an audience. And that's why you're right, Samoa Joe has to win on Sunday because every time Sammy Zane loses, it is another notch on his bedposts of losses that will eventually get him

to be a Daniel Bryan-esque folk hero. Yes. Yeah. Intercontinental champion. Yeah, I think that's true. And I mean, I don't think, do people complain about Sammy Zane? Maybe I've just been not neglecting the internet,

but I don't think people aren't complaining when he loses so much. No, not really. It's not like Daniel Bryan because, I mean, it's not, okay, it's not like Bray Wyatt where he kept losing big matches at pay-reviews

and it was, it was, you know, it seemed like his win streak, or, I mean, sorry, his win-loss record did not match up with the character they were

portraying. Like, that's, that's an argument that makes him sense, right? Yeah. Daniel Bryan, I think it was just abject fear on the parts of, you know, fanboys like us, that WW was going to fuck it up, right?

I think with Sammy Zane, it's clear that, like, you know, they have a future for, he has a future in the company. They have a long-term plan. Even if it's, even if it's not being executed on a week-to-week basis and they're just feeding him to the wolves, that could be in service of a storyline down the road. I don't know if they have a long-term plan for him. I think that they're treading water until the right thing comes along because so far there's not been a thing for him. I totally agree.

So I don't know that there is still a thing for him, but I think him wrestling Samoa Joe has the potential to be like the match of the night that night with some big matches. And I think it only, I think it finishes with Joe and I think it only pushes both of them ahead. I think they both come out of it with heat

and I think it's like exactly what both of them need heading into WrestleMania. Sasha Banks versus Nia Jackson. I mean, I don't mean to be dismissive to put that together with Bailey versus Charlotte, but the four of them had a match on Monday night, which was pretty good. I know that we can't keep having Sasha versus Charlotte as, you know, the main event of the

women's division, but it really felt on Monday night like they just had, I mean, it feels like they just have these matches backwards. Like I don't care that much about Bailey's champion. Am I crazy? No, no. This is, and I don't, I don't mean to sound overly snarky or mean about this, but I think this is exposing Bailey. Bailey's not ready for this.

And of course, you know, grain of salt here because I'm a Sasha Banks mark and that's everybody knows that. But I think even people who aren't like enamored with her the way that I am

can recognize that in a big match she delivers. And in a big match, Bailey just kind of is there. She's an entrance. Yeah, I mean, and maybe this is... Yeah.

I mean, her winning the title of all of the complaints about, you know, the women's title being passed around. This is, you know, the one I'm going to agree with. I don't really care that much in general about title placement. And I, you know, I get that it's like an easy storytelling device. And that's probably why they do it.

One, legitimize Bailey for the pay-per-view or for her eventual, you know, at WrestleMania or whatever they do with her. And also because it makes the kind of rematch, you know, it institutionalizes your rematch. We've seen this all over WWE now, though, where they're, It's not, I mean, wrestling history proves that you don't have to win a title to like demand, to reset the match for the next month. But anyway, hopefully this is just a process of Bailey, you know, getting her legs and it'll all be fine by WrestleMania or soon thereafter, you know. I think that Fastlane's, it's just weird that I think this being a pay-per-view, like the last paper view before Mania doesn't serve this storyline very well. Yeah, I mean, it feels telegraph to me that Charlotte's going to win.

That Charlotte is that they're building up her pay-per-view streak. Yeah. And that WrestleMania is going to be, you know, fatal four away between all four of these women. And the question is going to be, can Charlotte continue her undefeated pay-per-view streak on the grandest stage of them all against three other competitors? So I think that's another reason why we're not as stoked on this as we could be. not just because Bailey's promos are kind of bad, not just because the matches haven't been amazing,

but also because we've seen this story already with someone else. And now we're seeing the exact same story with another wrestler. It's funny because Bailey is, I think what they get wrong about Bailey is that she connects, obviously she connects with a younger audience or whatever, and they try to humanize her because of that. You know, she's just like someone who's just like trying to reach the top, and this has been her lifelong dream, and that's great. but really she should almost be like

she should just be like the like the happy version of the ultimate warrior because it's just all about the entrance and she's good in the ring I mean she can she can work but it's more just about like the presentation and like the bright colors than it is about like really getting to know her at least at this point the matches I mean she's not

I hate I feel like I said too much about her not being a worker it's not that she's not her work is bad it's that it doesn't have the shading and the nuances that we saw in those other matches and those Sasha Charlotte matches. Didn't have the storytelling

that you want from a title match. Okay, Jim's yelling in my ear officially right now. Wrap it up! So Sasha versus Nia Jax, who's going to win? Nia Jax.

I agree. All right, I'm gonna go Sasha. And then for the Raw Women's Championship, Bailey versus Charlotte. Charlotte wins for sure. Yeah. I don't think there's any...

I think that's the the Masked Man Show, lock of the night. What else do we got? Gallozen Anderson versus Inzo and Cass for the titles. Oh, Gallozen Anderson have to win because why not just have Inzo and Cass win the belts at WrestleMania? Yeah, that feels about right. What about handsome Rusef but got his haircut, by the way, and is not a repress.

This is the... Pre-show, baby. Pre-show. What are they doing on the pre-show? I have no idea, but why not get handsome Rusef's handsome face on there? Yeah, I think that's probably right. But yeah, we could be I mean there's a

Multi-Way raw tag team potential for WrestleMania too I mean there's a lot of different options for that The New Day are officially the hosts of WrestleMania if I remember if I have that correctly But I guess that doesn't necessarily preclude them From wrestling hopefully not Yeah

Okay Roman Reigns versus Braun Stromen Who do you got? Shelling? This is tough because you want reigns to be strong going into WrestleMania, presumably because he's going to be wrestling the Undertaker.

So you want him to look like he's a world beater. But at the same time, Braun-Stromen, you also want to look like a world-beater because his whole gimmick is that he's a monster. Yeah, this feels like a weird moment to end, I mean, to put a knock in the Bronze-Strauman machine. My beautiful dream is that this is basically SummerSlam a couple years ago when Lesnar

squash John Cena. And you want to see Stroman squash Rains? Yeah, not because I'm like the biggest anti-Roman Rains guy, but because it would be a great way to get Stroman to the next level. It would be a great way to humanize Roman Rains and get him into a situation where maybe he might

get one or two people cheering for him against the Undertaker. Maybe. Because that's going to be, that's a, that's a, quite a boulder to push up that mountain. Is getting people to cheer Roman Rains against the phenom. Yeah, I don't know how that's going to happen. I mean, Roman, maybe Roman, this will be finally Roman,

the chance for Roman to turn heel if he goes up against the Undertaker. But they just need to have Bronz Roman Roman be the crap out of Roman Raines to the point where like Vince McMahon makes a shocking return to come stop the fight because he cares so much about Roman Raines as well-being. That's huge.

I love that. I feel like we could see a pretty dirty finish on this. Like, I see the two guys like beaten the hell out of each other. Like you sort of, got a taste of it last night, right? Like, I can take your best shot and still get up. Yeah. So, like, Roman Rains is going to finally be the guy who can give it to Braunstromen.

And they're going to just trade it back and forth until no, like, both guys can't finish the fight. Double count out. Double count out. They did with Seamus and Cizaro. But you'll get like a good 20 minutes of just brutal. I mean, look, that shot last night on Monday of like going through the barricade, that poor security guard, but this, quote security guard. Like it all looked good.

It looked good finish. Raines getting up and signing the contract. Like you felt the crowd sort of like going a little bit. You know, they're popping for Roman a little more these days. So maybe they're finally on to something. I don't know. I like Braun Strowman.

We'll see. Do we all think non-finish then? Yeah. I think it's a non-finish. Yeah, that sounds about right to me too. Okay. And the main event, Kevin Owens versus Goldberg for the Universal Championship. I love Kevin Owens.

I think we can probably all agree that we love Kevin Owens so we're a little bit biased about just the general direction of this match. But I was, you know, I surprised myself with how much, how into Goldberg I was when he made, as soon as he popped up on TV, you know? That was sort of was, I could tell that feeling that elation was gone on Monday night, for me personally. Yeah.

When he came out, I mean, it's still really interesting. and I can't wait to see this match. But, yeah, I really want Kevin Owens to win. Like, I just really, you know, like, now I feel like I have a personal investment in it. There's no way he wins. There's no way Goldberg doesn't take that title. I think you're probably right. I think you're, but I...

And honestly, I think it might just be a complete squash. I think we might get it again. I think we might get the third because we've had the two Goldbergs, and now we'll go to Kevin Owens leading... Because that's Goldberg's whole thing is he's the undefeated. He's the unstoppable. He's the monster. He's the machine.

He's this thing that cannot be beaten. And Kevin Owens, for as great as he has been, feels like an immature champion in a lot of ways. That like an old dog could come in and teach him a lesson in two seconds and maybe like humble him a bit, knock him down a little bit. Because there's no way, the Jericho-Owens match is not going to be a title match. There's no way. It's just not going to happen.

Here's my problem with that. They've got to get that belt back on lesson. there. Here's my issue there. You squash Kevin Owens with Goldberg. All the heat that he built up at the festival of friendship, the turn, that's gone.

He's nobody again. Or is he in a new faction with Triple H, Samoa Joe, Kevin Owens? Are they now like the new evolution? Yeah, I think that there, I mean, I think that that's, I think that there's a real, they're clearly like paving the way

for like Triple H to eventually have like a faction with the people that he signed at NXT right I mean that's gonna that that would be a great storyline whether or not that has to do with what we talked about at the top of the show I mean it seems like a separate thing but all of those guys

are you know they all kind of come from the same world I don't know I mean talk about heel heat will there be anything is there going to be a better heel in the business than Triple H pretending he's the king of indie wrestling. I mean,

that would just be the greatest, the greatest heel act I could have possibly imagine. But yeah, it would be, yeah,

anyway, I think that, I think there any world where Owens keeps the belt, do you think? Well, that fake booking sheet that I, that I,

you know, so that we saw earlier this week or last week had him winning. It was part of the great troll job. That, you know, Owens versus Jericho for the universal title.

You can make the case, I think that what you said is actually right. I think it's easy to make the case that Lesner Goldberg. doesn't need the title, but Owens Jericho is not, just doesn't feel

quite title worthy, because I don't think anybody's really buys Jericho as champion. I mean, the only thing I could see is that I personally think Chris Jericho has had the best year of his entire career and I could see a payoff of him like winning the belt and mania because his days are not long. I mean, I don't think

he's got years left. And something's keeping him well past his expiration date based on the tour dates he has for Fazi. Right. So maybe he has been sort of nudge, nudge, wink, wink promise to title run. Yeah. Possible.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, maybe if he talks about it in terms of his last run, then it becomes really believable or something like that. I just feel like they probably want to get the belt back on Lesnar somehow. Really? Do you want to put it? Is he the guy that you want? How long has it been without him on it?

A year? Year and a half? Like, people get hungry for that dude to have a belt because then he's just this guy that can't be beat again. I mean, we go through the same thing all the time. And we're all suckers for it. And at what point is he going to finally do the job for Roman Reigns that he was supposed to do at WrestleMania 31? Right.

You know that's got to still be the plan at some point, one day down the line. Yeah. This is a tough one for me, but I'm going to say that Owens retains the title. He's not going to get a pin. I like it. There's going to be a DQ or a count out and Triple H is going to be involved. Or Lesner's going to be involved. Does Lesnar get involved, do you think?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's going to be. If we get to the point where Rain, Stroman, and has a clean finish, then we go on in the main event, and I guarantee you there's going to be some chicanery.

I like that. I like that. That's two chicaneries in one podcast. Oh, it's my new catchphrase. I'm going to start selling shirts on pro wrestling teas.com. Yes. That is not true. Yes, it is not true.

Make it happen. I'm working, you guys. Can we get a shirt on? Let's get a shirt. Yeah, we should do a shirt. We should do a shirt. We have our own feed. That's right.

The Mask Man Show finally has its own podcast. Are we announcing that right now? I think, I think this is going to be on its own feed when it's out. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Maybe we'll do a pre-roll out. Hopefully people will be able to figure that out.

Listen, I have a very firm opinion. I have a very firm prediction about who's going to win the main event at Fastlane, but unfortunately we're out of time. Tune in next week to find out what my prediction was. The greatest prediction in the history of professional wrestling. It's going to be amazing, guys. You won't believe it when you hear it. So tune in next week.

Thank you guys for both coming on. Do you need to plug anything? At Dave underscore Schilling. I have a piece about Jimmy Butler coming out on Bleach Report on Thursday. So check that out. I am doing three shows at the Hotel Cafe. So if you live in the Los Angeles area, come out and hear me play some tunes. That would be March 14th, 21st, and 28th at the Hotel Cafe.

And you can follow me at Steve Kazee on Twitter. Awesome. And I'm at David Shoemaker. Whenever I check Twitter, that's where I pop up. And yeah, go to the ringer.com. We'll have some cool stuff coming up soon. Thank you guys for coming on. Thank all you people for listening.

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