The Press Box - Ep. 275: 'The Masked Man Show' on the Failure of 'Fastlane,' 'Raw,' and 'SmackDown'

Episode Date: March 9, 2017

The Ringer's David Shoemaker, Bleacher Report's Dave Schilling, and "Hollywood" Dan St. Germain team up to reluctantly break down 'Fastlane' (01:00), the end of Kevin Owens's championship reign (13:20), Goldberg headlining 'WrestleMania' (17:00), Braun Strowman and the Undertaker (25:40), Jack Gallagher's headbutts (34:00), and AJ Styles's loss to Randy Orton (37:00). Then they wrap up by answering some of your Twitter questions (40:20). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. The Ringers Gaming podcast, Achievement-oriented, and our very own wrestling podcast, The Masked Man Show, are breaking off of Channel 33. It's a split. Will it be a rivalry? You'll see soon. You can now subscribe to each of those shows on their own, on iTunes, Stitcher SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. So subscribe right now. Welcome to the number three podcasts in all the sports and recreation. It's the last time I'll ever be able to tell our ratings. I guarantee you. This is The Masked Man Show. I'm David Chewaker, and I'm here with Dave Schilling. And very shortly, we'll be joined via conference call with Dan St. Germain. How are you doing, Dave? Good, good. I can't believe that we were so successful in the first week.

Keep liking the podcast, subscribing, and writing reviews. The reviews super, super helpful to us. Thanks for saying that, Dave, because I've managed to forget to say that every time someone's asking me to in my mini-year podcasting career. I'm a broadcasting professional, just like Bobby Heenan. That's what I heard about you before I invited you in here. It's been a big week for wrestling, a big week for deep and painful feelings of disappointment for wrestling fans like ourselves. I think that's just part of the deal of being a depressed, disappointed wrestling fan, as you know, is going to happen soon enough. And I think...

Speaking of disappointed, depressed wrestling fans. We got him. Dan St. Jermaine, how are you doing, buddy? That's not want to be introduced every time. Yeah, the King of San Jose himself. To be fair, it's not just wrestling that I'm disappointed by most areas of my life. I'm pretty disappointed by myself. I'm glad that we can lead with wrestling this time.

Yeah, man. We still have to have a long talk about your Twitter follows, but we'll save that for a time when you're here in person to defend yourself. Listen, we were together watching Fastlane on Sunday. Yeah. I think we all would have said going in that we thought Goldberg was going to win. And yet the room, there were probably about 15 marks in the room, or smart marks or whatever we want to call ourselves.

And I think the feeling of disappointment was palpable. What was your take on the main event? Well, I missed, you know, I don't even remember, but I missed. I didn't watch it with you guys because I had to go to perform, do stand-up at the comedy store, just dropping names. But I Yeah, I mean, I thought it was, look, I mean, I said it was the It was the best they could have done with that

With how it ended, you know? Like, like, I think that like they It would have been nice if Kevin Ellen's got some offense in But if they were going to do a squash, that was the best way to do it Because at least you could make the argument that it wasn't Kevin Owens as bad. But, yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's just, it's kind of insult you know like Brock I get as a draw the rock I get as a draw but like did Goldberg draw any money in WW? Like that's my big question I never thought he was that good um I didn't think he was particularly

great than wearing I thought he was okay on the mic he had a great look and we still have no idea whether or not this guy can wrestle and he's in the main event at WrestleMania it's kind of insane actually I think we know he can't I mean the three of us all went back and watched Unforgiven 2003 to get a sense of what he was like the last time he won a World Heavyweight Championship and that match was really bad. It was 14

minutes of stalling by Triple H and Goldberg kind of throwing really generic power moves. So we know we can't so I think that we have to just accept that this is the best he can do and in terms of his drawing power

I mean can you blame him for not drawing money in WWE or can you blame the booking of him being mediocre. When he first came in, I blamed the booking for sure. But I don't know. I mean, I would have to look at the numbers. I don't really, maybe there's something I don't know that Goldberg's shirts are

selling crazy and the ratings are higher when he's on. I don't know. I mean, I think it would have been a way more interesting event, main event, is if, like, they hadn't broken Jericho and Kevin Ellen's up and they had Goldberg versus Lesner versus Kevin Owens and done you know what everyone had hoped

or WrestleMania 29 when it was seen of the rock and punk that's what a lot of people would hope or we see them punk and hope that. So I think that that would have been a more interesting angle but you know again it's like in WrestleMania

we're not again this is like the probably the second year in a row where we're not watching it for the main event at least I'm not so. Yeah I mean I think that that's I was thinking about that earlier today. I mean, we all know that Russellmania is not for us. That's been a given. I've been writing about that for years. And that's fine. We can enjoy it on its own terms. But it really does feel like this year is sort of, I mean, give WWE some credit in the, in attempting to

make the road to WrestleMania more intriguing than it has been in years past by putting these sort of twists and turns in the road. They've really managed to like break our hearts that much more. You know, I mean, it's like, it's the wrestling. It's the Resumania of Broken Dreams. For the first time, I was super excited about the Smackdown made of Vegas. I thought it was going to be Harper, Orton, and Wyatt together. Maybe not super excited, but I was like, oh, well, that's at least interesting. Like, I don't understand.

We've already seen Orton v. Wyatt. Even like Kevin Owens versus Jericho, we saw it some, like, I think one of those live events. I don't know if it was, maybe not the one in Japan. Maybe it was, I forget. But we've seen everything, and it stinks. It thinks that we've seen everything. I was thinking about that watching Smackdown the other day because they were hyping up the first ever Orden A.J. Stiles match.

And it was a really good match. And I was just like, I know we can't save these things forever anymore. But we can save that match. That's what I thought last night. I was like, why did we need that match on Smackdown? And why did you need? Look, here's another thing, which I know that some wrestling peers are going to get pissed off of me. I understand that on paper, Randy Orton,

is a good wrestler, just like Tim Duncan was a good basketball player. I don't have fun watching either of them. You know, like, they're just so, you know, it's this slow, methodical, like, almost like fundamentals wrestling. And, you know, you always have to wrestle a Randy Orton match whenever you're fighting Randy Orden, you know, even his great matches, you know, I don't know, I just watch that match and I'm like, it's always the same shit with that guy where he's like, the snake and the, even like, you know, Undertaker kind of like

changed his style up after a while. But I don't know. Maybe I'm a little harsh on that. I mean, I think wrestling's better with Randy Orton in it. But I also like, sometimes I just can't get excited about, about, I don't know, I just don't understand. I just can't get that excited about it. You're not excited about him.

I loved him, I'm sorry, I loved him in the legend, when he was a legend killer. I thought it was amazing. Yeah, me too. You're not excited about Bray Wyatt? being in the World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania? I mean, I am.

I hope he leaves it with the strap, you know? I think I like Wyatt. You know, I do think that some of this stuff got super kooky at the end of it for kookiness sake. You know, I had always fantasy booked it once Wyatt was going to get the title, he was going to light it on fire in the middle of the ring and said it means nothing, you know, do the Joker type thing.

They've already used their fire budget for this year. Hey, Dan, before we have to let you go, you mentioned The Undertaker in the same sense as the award excitement. How are you feeling about The Undertaker's big return to Raw this week? I thought that was handled about at least we haven't seen that match before. I mean, do I wish it was like Undertaker and Sina or Undertaker Sina and AJ? I mean, yeah. But, you know, at least there's a clear face and a clear,

He'll, I mean, if they really want to double down, I was fantasy booking this, at mania, right? I mean, you have some, you know, you have the, I'm more excited probably about the Cruiserweight Championship than anything else in Mania, which is weird. But you have, you have in the beginning of the night, like, or in the middle, you have range just squash taker, squash him, and then maybe get added to Goldberg and Lesner at the end of my triple thread, have him beat them, have him beat both of them in a screw job,

and then just make the ultimate heel in Roman Reigns. Like a mirror universe version of the WrestleMania 9 finish? Where he just shows up? Like that. Yeah, just go full throttle, make him a super heel. Because at least now with Taker, he's a, he's like the closest he's been to a heel, right? He has no choice, yeah. You're wrestling the undertaker, you're a heel at this point.

Yeah, but he might. good. You know, when Sean Michael's in Triple Age face the Undertaker, there is an element of, like, still respecting those guys, you know? At least I felt like, okay, everybody hates that, dude, you know? So, yeah. Yeah, no. I mean, I think it'll be an interesting, it'll be an interesting new chapter in the Roman

Reigns experiment or experience, I guess. I think it's experience at this point. I think it's a full-blood experience. Anything else you're excited about heading to WrestleMania, Dan? Anything you win in touch on? Oh, Cruiserweight title match. I hope. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be at WrestleMania this year, which kind of stinks.

But I will hopefully be on the pod before that. Again, I mean, you know, again, the Cruiserweight, I'm really, I think Neville versus Austin Arias could be great. I thought that that match that they had was, that Neville had at the pay-per-view was awesome. And I thought Austin Ari's, like, the promo that they had on Raw together was great. So that's really exciting. Jericho versus Owens, hopefully they have a good showing. I don't know, the Triple Threat Women's Match on Raw, maybe that.

Is there anything else I'm missing that should be super exciting? Oh, the mixed tag match, I will say I love the buildup for it. Like I said before, you know, what we were going to get out of this mixed tag match is a lot of really fun promos. Yeah, the match will probably be whatever. promos will be fun. Yeah. It was more

of a seamless transition for Sina than I was expecting it to be. Not, I'm not, I'm not as down as I,

as I might have thought I would be. Well, listen, Dan, thanks for, thanks for calling in. Thank you. Thank you guys.

I really appreciate it. And, yeah, check out my dates on Dan Cajerman. I'm going to be on the road a little bit in April and May

and, you know, check on your donuts. All right, have a good one. All right, man. talk to you soon.

Thanks again. Bye. I'm on the internet right now to see you as Dan Saint-Germain.com. Dan probably does. It's a web designer. You say it's Dan-Saintramain.net is the place for all of your... You can't buy out that guy? Yeah, I don't know, man.

Or get him to do his website? That'd be the trade-off I would do, man. That would make a lot of sense. Okay, listen, we covered a lot of ground with Dan, but there's some big things. The big picture stuff that I want to touch on, or like, the bigger issues here. Let's start with Fastlane. Let's move in chronological order. That was a, I said when we introduced Dan on,

I was more disappointed than I thought I would be. There was nothing particularly surprising, but I still hold out hope because that's just the curse of this mark. And Owens had a great run with the title, arguably the guy who was keeping raw flute after the Finn Ballard injury with Seth Roller. being out, you know, for a while. But Goldberg had to have the belt.

That's the thing. It's like, and I don't know if the casual fan cares that it's a title match. But when somebody who's going to a WrestleMania party comes late and is like, what's the title match, some random casual fan? And they say Goldberg versus Brock Lesnar, maybe people will be excited about that. Sure. And I mean, there's a lot of validity to that and that's great. I don't want to, you know, formally eulogize Kevin Owens, but it's, this seems like an appropriate

time to say some nice things about him. You were talking, you mentioned keeping raw afloat. I mean, there were definitely times during the Seth Rollins championship reign where keeping afloat was sort of like the best compliment you could pay him. I mean, he was, he's an incredible talent. There was never a point where with Kevin Owens' champion or that sort of thing even crossed my mind. I mean, he just, the show was just firing in all cylinders with him on top. You know, it wasn't just, they weren't just eking by or whatever, you know.

he was just a really, really competent, skilled champion. And two things to the, I mean, to the matter of my disappointment, it's 100% on Kevin Owens being awesome. That promo that he cut in L.A. made me believe that there was a chance, you know? That just the way that it's, I mean, W.W., you could say the way that they booked him, it was more the way that he just, like, booked himself

that made him seem like a legitimate threat. The threat, I mean, you know, there's a chance he was going to hang onto the belt. and, you know, spinning that forward, that his work on Monday night just formally, you know, just codifying his U.S. title match against Jericho was by the book, but it couldn't have been any better. I mean, there's so few people. Like, I can't even think of who the other people in WWR

who could just pivot from, yeah, I lost the WWU universal title to, but now I want your U.S. title just because I hate you. better than Kevin Owens? I think Ms. is the only person who could pull that off verbally. I almost wish that they had saved the turn for after Fast Lane or at Fast Lane, because what we've gotten to a point with here is Kevin Owens built up all this heat, and he got so over as a heel, but then a lot of that heat dissipates because he gets beaten clean in the middle of the ring.

Granted, there's him being distracted by muirms. music and a person standing 50 feet away from him. So that mitigates against him looking completely weak. But it's just like he had all this momentum, and then he hits this roadblock, for a lack of a better term. And then now he's supposed to be built up again as an unstoppable, well, not unstoppable, but a monster. I just wish that the story had been told in a different way in a more linear. your fashion. Yeah.

I mean, I think there's some validity to that. I think that, you know, there's a lot of competing interests for talking about composing the show. I mean, from the one, you know, I'm always a proponent of tell your best story right now and figure out the rest later. Obviously, this is, we're talking about one story spread out over a period of time, so you get the benefit of the doubt on that one. But, you know, to have them split up and to string that out, I mean, I guess I can see

where they're coming from. Also, there could have just been the case where they, like, they knew they had this festival of friendship in their back pocket and that had to play out on a raw, you know, and you have to just sort of fit everything in around that. But listen, it's going to be a great match. I hope that W.W.E. is smart enough to really give that time because, I mean, Lord knows that a lot of the matches we're looking at

aren't going to be five-star classics. Right. Not that that's ever part of the calculus necessarily, but we're always looking for the Savage Steamboat on every WrestleMania car. I don't even, you know, I mean, frankly, if I had some other choices, I don't know if Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho would be in my, you know, top five for I mean, I guess I'm making up an imaginary ranking, so there's no reason to even say a number. But that's not, both of those guys are incredibly gifted. They're not, I don't think you put them together and immediately think Savage Steamboat.

But emotionally, they have a lot to work with there. Yeah, this is their opportunity to steal the show. And I think that with or without the title, that opportunity still exists. And if they take it, which I know they will, because these are two guys who are very dedicated to the business. And if they're able to be successful in telling the story that they want to tell, it could be the match that we remember. We have a new universal champion, Bill Goldberg.

Let's applaud him. The sweatiest man alive. Good God. Did you see him on Monday night? Yeah, but I mean, he was drenched. I disagree. There are two men that are sweatier than him. One is the Rock who may or may not be there on Ed WrestleMania.

The other one is Brock Lesnar. Like I always, you know, whenever there'd be rumors about Rock versus Brock, and I mean, that's obviously a match that Vince has wanted for a long time. My concern was that they wouldn't even be able to get a hold of each other. And I think now Goldberg is, Goldberg is right there with him, you know? I mean, this could bring a whole new meaning to Sloborknocker, you know. I mean, this could be just like a terrible. I mean, just a weird, weird match.

Special guest referees. But yeah, it's a, we're going to have Rock v. Brock for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania we saw Brock Lesnar on Monday night with a little F5 action Do you, I mean

did Monday night make you more excited? I mean, are you on a scale of you know, 1 to 10, how stoked do you for this match at WrestleMania? This is going to come as a surprise to most of the listeners, but I'm a 9. Even though I'm down on the fact

that Kevin Owens is not the champion going into WrestleMania and all that because he's one of my favorites. I'm so intrigued by the idea of these two guys wrestling a longer match. How are they going to do it? Yeah. Are they going over the beats of the match now? Are they going to rehearse it the way that Warrior and Hogan sort of really like broke down that match to the nth degree and to the most minute detail so that it functions? That's the only way it's going to work.

Yeah. So I'm super, super interested in how this is going to play out just from a craft perspective. To take that to another level, I'm extremely interested in just the backstage aspect of it, too, because, I mean, I'm interested to know what to what degree Vince or whoever actually has the power to tell them to practice, you know, to work it out if they don't. But you're right. You know, we watched the two with a, what was the Goldberg Triple H match? Was that it? Yeah, Unforgiven, 2003. It was when Goldberg finally won

the World Heavyweight title. Yeah, it was, to me, what that reminded me of was Rick Rude, who, by the way, we should say, congratulations on getting in the WWHall of Fame. We'll talk more about all of the Hall of Fame inductees at some point in the future. But it reminded me of Rick Rood Ultimate Warrior in the sense that it was just like,

there was one person who was, you know, needed to be carried. and, you know, Rick Rood was, I mean, an incredible in-ring performer in a lot of ways. He wasn't, like, you know, Dean Malenko in there. But I think that, like, you know, I think Triple H had that, had that Rick Rood role in that match, you know, to make Goldberg look good and to stretch the match out and have a couple of, you know, like B and C spots within their match to make it all, to make the narrative arc sort of carry through. But, man, that match wasn't the most fun thing in the world.

He took like two or three powders during the match, even though if he was to get counted out, he would lose the title based on the stipulations. So that logic was in there. He pulls out a sledgehammer and hits Goldberg in the face with a sledgehammer, and Goldberg just basically doesn't sell the thing. It was a struggle. So I'm concerned.

My biggest struggle with the matches was the compression shorts. I know that there was a medical reason that Triple H was wearing those during that period, but every time I see one of those matches, it's my irrational complaint department here. It's like he wore pants for most of his career up to that point. Why not just wear pants for a couple of matches? I don't know. And also no beard at that time.

That was when he was doing evolution, so he had to look clean-shaving. He had the Farifocet hair and no beard. It was odd. It was a very weird triple-H moment. And it goes, I mean, he's remade himself in so many different ways up to this point. But, man, just looking at him in that match compared to his last year at WrestleMania, it's like night and day. Back to Rude Warrior. What if, like, next week on Raw, they announced that Goldberg-Lesner is going to be a super pose down.

Oh. Well, that would be interesting. Lezner would have to cut some weight maybe. Yeah. That would be really, you know. And he's going to airbrush Goldberg's face on his tight. It's going to be great. I'm 100% in.

No, I mean, I think that it's going to be a, I think that it's the, I mean, I don't want to argue against the notion that it's the right call for WrestleMania. It's probably it's the right call for but it's fine. If that's what Vince thinks, it's the right call for WrestleMania. And, you know, it's, I think it's sad that

that, you know, if that match benefits from having the title, no, take it back. That match doesn't benefit from having the title. Maybe it benefits 5%. If anything, it just, it raises the stakes and the pressure on them to actually have a good match, which might be a net positive. It certainly

hurts Jared O'N's more than it helps that match, right? I mean, the absence or presence of the belt. But you can, but that's all separate from does it help the WrestleMania card? And I think you said it earlier, right? When somebody walks into the, to a WrestleMania party and they're like, hey, what's the main event?

This mystical, casual fan that you speak of. They exist. I haven't met them in a long time, but they're out there. We hung out with someone on Sunday, you know? There's a lot of people who were just like, explain this to me. Explain what's happening right now. And for them, yeah, I mean, come Goldberg-Lessner is great.

I mean, and it's, and for those two guys to be on all the promotional posters and the belt right between them, I think that's fine, man. I'm in on it. Speaking of belts, I just saw a thing on Reddit, on Squared Circle that W.W.E. is erected a gigantic

world championship belt to, you know, celebrate that WrestleMania is there. It's actually not as gigantic as I was hoping. But it occurred to me, they're going to do this physical Hall of Fame, right? That's the rumor that we've been hearing. They haven't said it for sure, have they?

No, it has not been in that. The idea was always that having WrestleMania in Orlando was like, part of it was a pretense for announcing in Orlando that there would be a Hall of Fame in Orlando, you know? I mean, it's a pretty illogical destiny. I mean, I think that's the destination for it.

But like, do you think that we could do, could we construct something that just by its magnitude would make it into the Hall of Fame? Like, if we made the world's biggest WWD title belt out of Cheerios or something, would they have that in the Hall of Fame? We can start trying now.

Like, they have all those, like, you know, like the Dairy Hall of Fame has the giant butter cow. You know, and like, there's like all, we should be, we should do something. It would be nice to get something into the Hall of Fame that is, belongs to me in some way. Tweet us your suggestions. Or actually tweet them at our new Twitter handle

at the Masked Man Show. At Masked Man Show. Yeah, at Masked Man Show. There's no the in there, kids. No, there's not. We don't do articles. That's right. Not on social media, anyways.

Those are precious, precious letters. But, yeah, tweet us some ideas. I think it'd be really fun just to, like, make, what can we, like, just build a ring out of melted action figures or something. Not that. That seems dangerous. Anyway, so, yeah. So, yeah, so that's our, I mean, that's what's happening in the main event at WrestleMania. I feel okay about it.

It's Sunday hurt, but, you know, like I said, props to Kevin Owens for making it hurt. Yeah, I mean, I think Goldberg, Lesnar is going to be a spectacle. It's going to be a lot of chicanery in that match. But it's going to be a WrestleMania-worthy main event because it's two huge, legendary Hall of Fame-worthy names. Yeah. There was another big moment on Raw this week. But before we get to that, a word from one of our sponsors. All this month, we're asking you to tell a friend about a podcast they'll love.

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Thanks for spreading the word. All right, Dave. The other big moment from Raw, bronze Roman comes to the ring and he calls out Roman Rains. Now, these two guys had a good match at Fast Lane, right?

It was fine. I mean, better than it could have been by a long shot. I was doing a lot of kvetching about Roman not selling as much as I wanted him to, but for what it was, it was fine. Yes. It's funny, I don't know if it was that match that made me think of it

or another one I was watching, but I certainly was thinking, there was certainly, it holds for this match that there's really two kinds of selling or two halves of selling and one is reacting when something happens and the other one

is like consciously reacting the right way or like continuing to sell a hurt land the sort of like headier aspect of selling Roman can do the first half he was like hitting the ground when bad things would happen to him you know I mean he was not like he was like he forgot to be a wrestler

but there certainly seemed like there was a second level of it was a little was not entirely plugged in. Yeah, on one end of the spectrum, you have Sammy Zane, who looks like he's dying every time he wrestles. And the other end of the spectrum, you have your Goldbergs, your Ultimate Warriors, your Bronze Stromans, who don't sell anything.

And there's a middle ground that the Austens, the rocks, the Triple H is to a lesser extent that Kurt Angles, the Rick Flares of the world, would live in. And I don't think Roman Raines is far enough towards Sammy Zane on the spectrum to really be an effective baby face. I actually think Braun-Strauman seems to have a better grasp of that second level of selling. I mean, because he does react in sort of the right ways. He's maybe not bindi enough to sell in like the phase one aspect of it.

He looks dazed sometimes. Yeah, he has a good dazed face. So those two fought, it was a little bit of a surprise that Roman won clean, I think, to add to the mild surprises and disappointments of Fastlane. I mean, I just assumed it would be some sort of double countout or some sort of, you know, whatever. I don't think, I mean, the answer to why Roman went over clean, which everybody was saying at the moment on Twitter and in real life,

was that he has to win if he's going to go up against the Undertaker. And often that sort of, you know, non-KFabe logic is enough for me, but it didn't really feel very fulfilling after that match. but all that aside Bronz Roman comes to the ring on Monday calls out Roman Reigns instead he gets the Undertaker

You take over here How would you explain Bronz Strowman and the Undertaker's interaction on Monday So as Roman looks at him for a while And then he just slowly backs away He was afraid of the Undertaker Which is reasonable in K-Fabe terms Because the Undertaker is an icon

He's a legend. He's the phenom. He's an undead professional wrestler. Yeah. He's legitimately scary because of his track record in the ring. From a booking standpoint, it's a little peculiar because Braun Strowman has up to this point been afraid of no one. So you're sort of putting over the Undertaker at the expense of Braun Strowman's mystique as a monster among men. Yeah.

No, it's true. I mean, you can also just say that Bronz Strowman respects the Undertaker, right? I mean, I think to what you're, to your point, it was a weird look just. coming off the night, I mean, coming off a night where he lost cleanly to Reigns. I mean, maybe that's part of it too. Maybe he's like, you know, I still hate Roman Raines, but man, I just lost. Could I dare take on The Undertaker? No, you know.

And maybe, you know what? Maybe he and The Undertaker are good friends, and he was just clearing out of the ring for him. Well, Braun's Roman was in the Wyatt family, and, you know, they had some tussles here and there. I just think that if you're going to have these two guys, Reins and Undertaker square off, Do you need to do it at the expense of Braun Strowman, who just, he either looks like a baby face because he respects The Undertaker and Roman Rains doesn't, or he looks like a coward.

Yeah, I mean, I think that if I wanted to defend this, I would say that it's not a bad thing to give a monster like Bronz Stromen a little bit of humanity and just a little bit of personality, you know, like a little bit of intrigue. If he just swings at everything that comes his way, then we've seen that before. And we know what the expiration date is on that. They've got to find another level, even if it's a subtle one to Braun Strowman in the long run. And I think the same thing could be said for Sunday night.

I mean, he's not going to be undefeated forever. So let him lose to Roman Raines when we as fans are complaining about the Roman Raines push and not immediately going to, oh, well, I don't want to see Bronz Strowman anymore because the mystique is gone. Right. But anyway, it's a, I mean, it was clearly a set up for a WrestleMania match between The Undertaker and Roman Reigns. Either that or a, you know, lawn trimming match because the entire thing seems to be about yards. But the, but yeah, so we have Undertaker versus Roman Raines. Listen, I'm not mad about this match.

You know, I think this is a good, I mean, this is a good use of Roman Raines. I can imagine Undertaker matches I would rather see, but I think, you know, if you look at the people who were probably on the short list, the entire list of people Vince would let the Undertaker wrestle and the Undertaker 2, this is fine. And I mean, if Dan's takeaway from this, and he's not alone,

was that Roman Reigns is the heel on this match, then I think that's a good thing. Yeah, that's a net positive. I was never really that excited about the idea of Undertaker versus John Cena because John Sina doesn't need to beat The Undertaker. John Sina does not need to work with The Undertaker. Well, wait, can I interrupt real quick? Yeah, of course.

I know you're not excited about that, but would you have been more excited for John Sina and Nikki Bella versus The Undertaker and Michelle McCool? Oh, would she be doing an undead gimmick, too? Would she be like a corpse bride? That's exactly right, the corpse bride Michelle McCool. That would be kind of funny. I do that.

No, I take your point. I mean, I think Undertaker, I mean, listen, Undertaker Sina, we talked about on this podcast six months ago or whatever. Nobody was that excited about it then. We were all hoping that we were saying get rid of Sina and give us AJ Stiles or whoever. I mean, I think that that's what the internet wrestling community was pretty much unified in that. I personally think this is the Undertaker's last match. Yeah. It's interesting.

Because they teased him being around way more, and he wasn't. And he just had hip surgery. Yeah. The one thing that we haven't mentioned, though, is that this is that, you know, we made a big deal of the, or WW made a big deal of the brand split when it happened. And, like, are there going to be matches between Brandt? Well, we're getting one in this match because Undertaker pledged himself to Smackdown. Right.

Very loyal to Smackdown despite having not been on this show since November. That'd be great if that was what the whole buildup to the match was about, just a raw versus Smackdown rival. Bragging rights. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that this has the potential to be a pretty terrible match, also like a really enjoyable match, you know? I mean, it's certainly better than The Undertaker's match last year against Shane. And we'll have heat. Yeah.

That is the one thing it will definitely have. And this might be, of all the people who, you know, Vince or whoever it is at WWE, who's in, you know, willful denial of Roman Raines face heel alignment. If there's anybody who they'll believe, any way that Vince will trust the reaction because of the opponent, it's got to be the Undertaker. Yeah, this is a litmus test for Roman Raines, I think. and it will dictate where his character goes in the next year or five years or ten years.

That's another intriguing element of it is where does he end up on the spectrum at the end of the match because he's going to get boot out of the building. There's no question. He gets boot out of every building now. Yeah. And in Orlando against the Undertaker. I mean, as far as getting cheers,

that's a no-win situation. Yeah, pretty much. Let's talk about Smackdown real quick. Before we get there, we mentioned briefly the cruiserweight match. Oh my God. The Neville versus Galaher. I mean, talk about WrestleMania repercussions.

I like Austin Ares. He's a very talented wrestler and an even more talented talker. But I think that the bar, the bar has been set, and WrestleMania is not going to go over that bar for a cruiserweight matches on big shows. That was one of the stiffest matches I've seen in a year or two, in WWE, that is. and props to Jack Galaher for those headbutts, my God.

Jeez Louise, man. Those seem just, like, shoot headbutts to me. And so much more, it's just the tiny thing, but so much more believable than most, like, comeback moves. Because it's like, it doesn't take, you know, somebody comes back with, like, a big drop cake. You're like, where did he get that energy? He was just lying on the ground. Headbutt a little bit less intense as far as, like, energy expenditure. It's like a last gas.

Yeah, and it's so much more believable than a punch. Absolutely. It was just, that was so nice. Oh, what a beautiful. beautiful little match. And a great red arrow to finish. It just, it was, they were going for it, and I think they had a lot to prove, and they proved it.

That the Cruiserweight Division is worth your time, that there are a lot of talented guys in there when they're given the opportunity to stretch, to work a match that's longer than five minutes, and for them to do their thing and not work WWU style. Well, I mean, talking about styles, I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole, but this is, assuming this wasn't, you know, a deliberate move by WWU style-wise, why, but it's, W.W.E, listen, like, this is your way forward. Yep. Because the style is not, the style for the Cruiserweight Division

does not need to be, you know, like something from an indie show where it's just coordinated backflips for five minutes or whatever. You know, like, this was a real match with a real story well told that existed largely on the mat. I mean, not like, not lying down on the mat, but it was a heavily for a cruiserweight match, a lot of ground, you know, a lot of ground game. Well, let's go back to really quickly because we now we have to get to smack down, But when the Cruiserweight Division debuted in WCW, it was a WCW upper midcard that was full of guys who didn't go to the top rope.

They didn't do a lot of high-flying moves. They didn't do flips. They were ground-based heavyweights. So it was revolutionary for-ground-based cruiser weights. No, I mean, when the cruiser weights debuted, there was nobody really doing a lot of flippy stuff in WCW. They brought Lucha styles and they brought Japanese styles over to. America to a greater extent than we've ever had, besides the Jusian Ligers and random guys. Now, the sort of like flippy stuff, the high-risk planches and Topesuacidas and moon salts,

those are so intrinsic to the main product that the only way for the cruiser waits to really differentiate themselves from the main product is to do what Galaher and Neville did. To do something totally different. That's a good point. And I just think in general, you know, these guys can like punch and kick and headbutt each other. Anyway, we're getting too far afield. The main thing that happened on Smackdown this week, getting to the real important stuff, was the main event. We got our, at the show open with a Daniel Bryan, Shane McMahon, dual promo,

and ended with, I mean, the promo that announced that there would be a match between AJ Styles and Randy Orton to determine the number one contender. Again, we are now where we were one month ago at the end of the elimination chamber, right? The only difference is that we got this tease that A.J. Stiles was going to end up in the main event. Well, we're essentially all the way back to where we were at backlash. Yeah. They're fighting each other again. That's true. I mean, I appreciate it.

We talked about Randy Orton burning down the compound or setting Sister Abigail on fire, whatever, last week. The thing that occurred to me this week was just like, in K-Fabe, right? it's fair to assume that the Wyatts live a very bizarre lifestyle. Right. Randy Orton didn't just show up in K-Fa. Randy Orton just didn't just meet him at the arena and go out to the ring with him every week. Like, imagine the hell, just the general discomfort that he went through while playing out this con to set their house on fire. Eating bugs and wearing sheep masks and doing strange pagan rituals, you mean?

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure his old buddies backstage were just like, hey, good shit. show tonight, do you want to go to the hotel bar? Do you want to go to the club? I got a gun. Let's go to a Broadway show. And he's just like, no, guys, I got to I got to just, like, cover myself in pig's blood

and, like, have a ceremony. Yeah, we're sacrificing aversion tonight, guys. But I'll see you after. I just might smell funny. I don't understand it. It's fine. I get it. This was, it's an angle with professional wrestling,

suspend your disbelief. But, yeah, it's hard to suspend disbelief. with this particular angle. But I think it was relatively well told. I just feel for Luke Harper. Luke Harper is persona non-grada in this angle for right now. I'd have to guess that he's probably going to end up back with Bray, with a reconstituted Wyatt family.

Eric Rowan also healthy. Yeah, he's ready to come back. Somebody on Reddit had an incredible, just an incredible theory that Eric Rowan has actually been, is a part of the story even though he's not on screen. Because he's been, like, tweeting videos of him dragging body back. and stuff. I mean, there's like some interesting over the past...

He rescued sister Abigail. Right. It's really, I'm totally into this. Luke Harper's going to get his turn. I think, you know, this is a slightly frustrating time, I think, for a lot of people on the roster. A lot of people we love just because it's, it's, you know, a time when no one's, no one knew is getting it shot at the next paper few.

Sure. I don't think Luke Harper was necessarily ready to be in a world title match at WrestleMania. I think he was kind of a pipe dream from the get-go. but he proved himself to a fairly significant degree working with AJ, working babyface a little bit. You could see there's something there, but I don't think that it made a ton of sense for him to be the one that would be in that match. Sure.

Listen, we got to get out of here soon, trademark, David Schroemaker. Do you mean that for real this time? We do. I have a meeting in one minute. But let's hit some Twitter questions. Oh, yes. First question is an email from Brian Chung. One thing I'd love to hear discuss is why does the WDWE do such a terrible job of preventing spoilers? This doesn't happen on other TV shows where we all know what's happening in the season finale months or weeks in advance.

Well, first things first is that it happens live. So, I mean, there are actual things like, you know, I saw Goldberg at the airport today. You know, I mean, going and catching a flight to wherever raw. I mean, those things are sort of hard to get out. The other thing is that it's evolving in real time, too. So, you know, when these rumors come out, they're much more pointedly about that time. I mean, there's spoilers for, like, Game of Thrones. I saw John Snow in whatever, in Glasgow or whatever, with his hair along.

We know, like, so you know he's going to be on the next season. That stuff happens. Yeah, there's never a point when there's a down time of, well, we're not writing right now. So they're constantly coming up with ideas, brainstorming. What Bruce Pritchard says on his podcast all the time is. New director of TNA or something, Bruce Pritcher. Impact wrestling is Bruce Bridges. He says all the time, like, well, we just had suggestions that we throw out,

and sometimes Meltzer or Wade Keller or whoever would hear about those, and then they would take them as gospel. That's the other part of the answer, too, is that, yeah, there's spoilers. Like, 75% of them aren't true. Right. And we, but, like, yeah, so the real stuff gets out there, too. But I think it's just really hard, man. I mean, if, what's the hour-long prestige drama du jour right now?

like Westworld was the most recent one that I think everybody was watching. If Westworld was like a community theater production that was just being performed live from a stown stage on HBO every Sunday, trust me, we would have a lot more spoilers about that. Exactly. There's a huge difference between like

you know, a show that's been produced and everybody's working together and it's, you know, it takes months of production and just like a show where you can just, you know, a guy backstage can be like I'm going to Instagram this cool picture of a prop, and then everybody in the world knows about it, and they're interested about it because it's

happening that night. Yeah. Yeah, it's just a different beast. Next one, Justin Panotti on Twitter at Justin Panotti asks, why is everyone surprised Goldberg, a guy who has lost five times in 20 years, beat Owens. I don't think,

we talked about it. I don't think there's any, I don't think it's a surprise so much as just a, you know, hoping against hope situation. We're just irrational marks, man, I'm sorry. What can I say? And it's, I mean, listen, there's nothing better as a wrestling, I mean, on some level, the disappointment aside, there's nothing better than realizing you've been worked.

I mean, really, that was Kevin Owens did it. That's why I wanted to give him props to start off the show. Yeah. Listen, I mean, my big complaint coming out of Sunday, and we texted about this, and, you know, it was a little rant on my part, was just the, I think you can say this about so many of the thing, all the things we've talked about today come back around to this point,

and it's just the pay-per-views don't matter. And it's not, it's a point other people have made before. It's not a new thing. but really, with the exception of WrestleMania and SummerSlam, and you said that, you said the, you mentioned elimination chamber, money in the bank, because there are actual stakes in those matches, point taken. But I think as far as what happens on the non-super major pay-per-views, there's just nothing's going to happen.

You know, like Sunday should have been the Undertaker making a surprise appearance. Sunday should have been Sasha Banks turning heel. Iran Smackdown are for storytelling, pay-per-views are for wrestling. And there was a time in the 90s and early 2000s where angles would run on the pay-per-views as a way to then get people to tune in to Raw the next night. They don't need to do that as much

because they don't have competition. So if you want to see a great 25-to-30-minute match with stakes, with drama, with false finishes, all that good stuff, it's on the pay-per-view. Sure. If you want to see angle advancement, if you want to see surprise appearances, if you want to see heel turns or babyface turns, if you want to see great promos, Ron Smackdown or where you go.

Yeah, but sometimes stories should be told in the ring, you know, and that's just it. I mean, we're talking about great wrestling on a night where, yeah, we had the cruiserweight match, and I guess Samoa Joe, Sammy Zane, the show opener would have been number two. I mean, I've heard people say that Roman Reigns, Braun Stromen was the number two match on the card, but we're splitting hairs over, you know, just very minor matches in the grand scheme of things. Listen, thank you for stopping by, as always, Mr. Schilling. You're very welcome, man.

What's your Twitter handle? At Dave underscore Schilling. Tweet at Masked Man Show. If you have questions, use the hashtag Masked Man Questions because someone came up with that hashtag, and it seems like a great way for me to then comb through and find those questions. That's great.

If you have questions about wrestling or just life in general. Sure. Also, wrote a piece about Goldberg and Unforgiven, 2003 on bleacherreport.com. Check that out. Yeah, we'll tweet that from the official show Twitter account. I'm at David Schuemaker when I'm on Twitter. Apology to Dean Ambrose, as always. We'll catch you back here next week.