The Press Box - Ep. 281: 'The Masked Man Show' on Dennis Stamp, Finn Balor, Triple H, and 'WrestleMania'

Episode Date: March 16, 2017

The Ringer's David Shoemaker and Bleacher Report's Dave Schilling team up to discuss the passing of Dennis Stamp (02:00), Triple H's and Finn Balor's returns (10:00), the 'WrestleMania' card (19:00), and Twitter questions (37:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tell us what you'd recommend with the hashtag tripod. That's T-R-Y-P-O-D. Thanks for spreading the word. To the Mask Man Show with Dave Schilling. I'm David Scho. And then this is the aforementioned David Schilling. God damn it. It's going well. We are

so close to WrestleMania. I found out officially I'm going and that you're not going. So we're leaving that up in the air. We're leaving, we're going to put that up to a public vote. You're not going to like the result because everyone's going to say you should go. I'm going to say you should go. If I stay at home, it is

out of, it's a, it's a, I'm protesting. I'm voting with my feet. You know what? My of an reaction to AJ versus Shane. My liver thanks you because I'll be drinking way less with you, not around. Listen, man, this is not the shoemaker of old that you're talking to. I know. This is the middle-aged shoemaker.

Well, listen, if I don't go to WrestleMania, I mean, obviously it will still be well. I will engage with wrestling more from where I'm sitting right now than I would in Orlando. I understand. It's fine. I'm only sad from a personal standpoint. I'm not mad from a business standpoint. Do what's best for business. That would actually be best for business.

Now, listen, if I don't, if I'm not, if I don't go, what's important is that the most important part about it is this segue. I've, you know, we can say that I'm not booked at WrestleMania. Right. I'm not booked. And the biggest news of the week, weirdly, for a lot of reasons, is that the great Dennis stamp has passed away. the most famous for appearing, most and maybe only famous for appearing in the documentary

Beyond the mat and repeatedly saying, I'm not booked. He was really mad that he wasn't on the Terry Funk retirement card. It's all over YouTube. If you haven't seen it, just go watch it right now.

There's a version with Eye of the Tiger in the background. There's a version of, with Van Halen's jump in the background. There's a couple of shoot interviews post-fact, I mean, later in his life. I think one of the most interesting things about it is that they were just talking about them

on Pritchard's podcast. Was it last week? It was last week because this most recent episode is WrestleMania 15th or the week before this one. They did the Beyond the Mad Bonus app. And this is the only podcast I listen to right now that's wrestling related. I usually listen to none.

I listen to ours just because I want to hear my beautiful voice. I find that very uncomfortable. For myself, but also that you said that. And of course I listen to like cheap, Pete when they, you know, say something bad about me. But yeah, so beyond the mat is a landmark wrestling documentary. There's no other way to put it. It was a weird episode of Pritchard.

And I don't want to get to Inside Baseball, like podcast reviewing podcasts. It was very enlightening in a lot of ways. one of the great things about Pritchard is his constant refrain of like it was a different time, it was another time, you know, and it's just like, why did you decide to, you know, have a 70-year-old woman date raped on television, like, oh, it was another time, it was another era, something. Katie Vick, it was another time. Social norms were different, which is true. I mean, I don't want to make fun of the guy, but it's funny how often he has to fall back on that.

All of this is to say, beyond the. Matt, if you rewatch it now, I rewatch it just really recently, what is that, like, the documentary itself was in another time. Yeah. Not just what was going on in the wrestling world, because I think we remember most of that stuff, but just the style of the documentary. And the sort of breathless, just breathless investigation, like, there's a lot of beyond the mat, as artful as it is, that's closer to, like, 2020 expos, or a current affair exposé

of pro wrestling than even just the most run-of-the-mill documentary is that WWW puts out now. Yeah, it's not terribly cinematic, and it's also, I think Breathless was the word that you used, but I would say sort of, you know, Craven and its desire to pull the mattress up and reveal the bedbugs underneath the mattress. There was a Barry Blouse.

Pull the ring mat up and reveal the mattress. Yeah, Barry Blousting, you know, did a great job, He never met him before, don't know him at all. But it seemed really, really eager to get as much depressing stuff in that movie as possible, from Jake Roberts, Smoking Crack to everything about Dennis Stamp. And, you know, it's a shame that that's the thing that he'll be remembered for because we were talking about this prior to recording was, without people like him, there would be no wrestling industry.

because there's nobody to take the pinfall. You know, someone has to lose in every wrestling match. And if everybody is a superstar, then no one's a superstar. Yeah, I mean, to me, that's the Dennis Stamp. I mean, listen, I think that I can fully understand why when you're reviewing beyond the mat, when you're talking about Beyond the Mat, when you're watching it with your buddies, Denny Stamp is the punchline. I mean, there's no doubt about it.

It's the way he's presented. That's the way he presents himself, you know? I mean, but I think, you know, everything is. takes in a little different tent when somebody passes away. And you got to take a step back and realize that, like, the professional wrestling industry is built on the backs of guys like him. Yeah. And so, I mean, it's just, it's, he deserves our endless credit, man.

I mean, and our, and our, you know, the dentist stamps of the world, not just him, but everybody like him. I would love to do, I would love to, like, actually pull back a little bit further. And, well, let's get on Twitter and talk about this. but I feel like everybody who grew up wrestling was my age, maybe a little bit younger, but certainly older than me, watched local wrestling, and everybody had a dentist stamp, right?

I mean, I remember, man, I can't even think of dudes off the top of my head, but there were guys in Memphis, I remember saying, just every weekend and week out. And sometimes, like, once a year, they let them cut a promo because they needed a little bit more oomph for, like, you know, them getting squashed by superstar Bill Bundy, you know, I mean, but like, I think it will tweet me, tweet Dave, tweet at Masked Man Show.

If you have it, if there's a Dennis stamp of your wrestling childhood, of your memory, who is your favorite job brand? Listen, I've written about SD Jones. I like Johnny Rods is, to me, deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. But I'm not interested in WWF Jobbers. maybe NWA, like, you know, Turner, early, early Turner era. You're who I love Sergeant Buddy Lee Parker. Oh, he was a good one. Because he had a pretty, like, clever, not clever, but like an elaborate gimmick of being, like, a highway patrolman.

I'm putting, for this, where we're putting together our, I don't know what we're going to call. We're going to call it the Dennis Stamp Memorial Battle Royal. We're going to find, like, the 30 best Dennis Stamps in wrestling history. I'm putting, Sergeant Buddy Lee Parker is not eligible, but anyone below Sergeant Buddy Lee Parker. Okay. Anyone that like, anyone that you can think of off the top of your head and someone else would be like, oh yeah, that guy, probably not eligible for the, for the, uh, Dennis Stamp Memorial Battle Royal. And no Ellsworth either. I mean, props to Ellsworth, but it's too soon.

We don't know where he's going. Sure. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I remember going back, when I was in Texas, when I moved to Texas for high school, like, As soon as I got my driver's license, my buddy, Brian Curtis and I, he drove. I don't even know. But it was right when we turned 16, drove to the Sportatorium.

Last days of the Sportatorium. Although JBL was there in his Justin Hawk Bradshaw days. Who else was there? There were a couple other, oh, oh, oh, oh, Tony Norris, who was, why can't I remember? Ahmed Johnson. But, yeah, I mean, those were the two like up-and-comers, and you could tell they were going to make it. just because of their size, but there were a couple of those guys. I mean, like, this guy's also too big, but fire brick or chip.

Oh, yeah. He was there, like, signing his 8x10 glossies, like crazy. He was in WCHAB special forces. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, listen, man, they were heroes in so many ways. So listen, text us. I mean, not text us.

Tweet us. Yeah, please don't text us. I mean, you can text me if you have my number. If you're listening to this, I really appreciate it. Who is the Dinnis Stamp in your life? We're going to have the Dinnistan Memorial Battle Royal soon on this show. And I think it's honestly, it'll be fun. It'll probably be funny.

But like I said before, it's not a joke, man. This is professional wrestling would not exist without these. It's not just jobbers, you know? It's not just guys who are out there to get squash. It's like jobbers who are like hands, you know, like the lo-fi mechanics of the business. If you stick around a company long enough to be the jobber to the stars, to be the Barry Horowitz, or the Brooklyn Brawler, you're doing something right. You're selling well.

You're getting guys over. It's a hard job. It's not as hard maybe as being Stone Cold Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan or Sting. Yeah. But it's hard. And it deserves our respect. Our producer just said, wouldn't all these guys lose because they're all jobbers? No, the battle real doesn't have to have a winner.

Yeah. But we'll figure this out. Bonus points go to, in honor and in memory of Dennis Stamp, bonus points go to outside of the ring stories. Like my dad used to hang out of the same bar as this guy. Like anything like that, any of the documentary style information. And also any, and also it's the, what made Dennis Stamp so great was that in a lot of ways, this document, beyond the mat, you know, shine this light onto the quote unquote, real side of professional wrestling.

What we remember is the drug dependency and the physical, you know, brutality and all that kind of stuff. and the behind-the-scenes machinations, you know. But in some ways, Dennis Stamp is like the realest part in that he can't get out of the fakeness of it, right? Just the, like, the dedication to, you know, there's always going to be one more match. You're always fighting it booked, because that's really what matters in pro wrestling.

That's the winning is just being asked to appear, you know? Just that the sort of like permanent K-Fabe of Dennis Stamp is what I think so great. So anyway, tweet us at Maskman Show if you have a dentist stamp in your life. We got a lot in the WW world to talk about this week, and we're going to talk about the fact that we have a WrestleMania card more or less. Pretty much. But before we get there, in teasing the WrestleMania card, we had a really, there was a really apparently very awesome house show in Buffalo, New York this weekend.

Yeah, one that maybe has implications. for the WrestleMania card. Not only did Triple H work as the six-man tag main event, but so did the demon himself. Finn Ballard. Kane. Oh, you mean Finn? No, Kane didn't work. Is Kane still employed?

Yes. Because he teased her retirement and then disappeared. I think he's a little banged up. Something like that. Otherwise, he'd be in the Andre, right? Yeah. Man, the Andre is going to be an interesting one this year. Yeah.

I want to have like a standalone. We get to do some like stand alone pods about the big matches, but I can't wait to see, like, talk for 30 minutes about the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. We won't, we'll know like four of the competitors. Mojo Raleigh is the frontrunner at this point. But yeah, so there, I mean, apparently Oshka just blew up the joint, too, at this Buffalo show. I'm only relying on firsthand reports. I haven't even bothered to Google it.

But I, you know, we talk about the things that get us excited as like smart fans in wrestling. my most excited moment, probably of the past two months, was getting a text message of a photo from that show. Finn Ballard. A fit. And it's not just, it's not just fan and it's not just Triple H, but it was the three-on-three situation. Yeah.

That was a cool combination. Everybody, everybody except Vince McMahon, loves three-on-three situations, right? Or four-on-four, you know, whatever. Like, the four horsemen were great. The dudes with attitudes or whoever, whatever, like the various iterations of Stan. putting people together to fight them.

It was terrible. But seeing four guys face off against the horsemen was great. Yeah, of course. It was like all the baby faces are getting together to fight this evil heel stable. It's always cool assuming that the baby faces are over. Like I watched wrestle war, I want to say 90, 89. It was Sting Squadron versus the Dangerous Alliance.

Oh, yeah. And that was great because it's Sting. Sting was super over back then. I think I wrote a thing for Marvel. about their WCW comic book they used to do. I remember that. I used to read it. That was the dangerous alliance is hated.

The Dangerous Alliance might have had a bigger footprint in the comic book than they did, you know, when everything's said and done in the wrestling ring, just because the comic book was, you know, probably ran for a year and they were the villains more, well, there was a lot of, like, Rick Rood in a skeleton costume, too. I don't know. That comic book is one of the reasons why I still like war games, even though. war games in practice was never as awesome as it should have been. Yeah.

But the Dangers Alliance was so good, man. And I know they'll never let them do it again. To me, more so than war games, I know this is sacrilege. You can't put anything in the hierarchy of things, old WCW things I wish WWU would do. Forget war games, man. Forget redoing the invasion. Are we talking about Robocop right now? Forget Roebuck.

No. The Dangers Alliance is the thing I want. Yeah. Yeah, just like Polly walking around with a cell phone. And, I mean, you'd have to bring back Terry Reynolds, right? Wasn't she in it? No, Missy Hyatt was in it. Missy Hyatt.

Yeah, because Terry Runnels was... Working at a computer. Alexandria York and had the York Foundation. Which was, wow. Very lame. No, she's doing great work for the Cleveland Browns right now, though. That was a saving metric stroke. I'm sorry.

Google for York Foundation, Humanoids. The... But what was I even talking about? Oh, yeah. But just to have, I mean, Haman's so great. And, you know, there's a limit. You can't have them out there every week and whatever. But I would love just to just give him four guys and or three, I guess four guys and one lady and just have them be awesome.

That would be so good. Last thing about wrestle war, he's got plans and like drawings of the ring and stuff and he's doing coaching. Like, okay, Austin, you're going to go in. And then it's going to be you rude. Bobby Eaton, you're going to go in. Bobby Eaton setting a screen. Yeah, exactly. Bobby Eden is definitely the Zaza-Pichulio.

Bobby Eaton might be hanging out there, just waiting for the corner three. I don't really know. Yeah, he's spotting up. At that point in his career. Yeah, so anyway, that, I mean, I would trade, I would trade WrestleMania. We were talking about whether I'm going to WrestleMania,

but I would rather have been at that Buffalo House show than WrestleMania. We need a heel stable. They have the elements there, make it happen. And Finn Baller, Chris Jericho, Sammy Zane, there is a deep enough roster of baby faces that you can make a heel-stable work. Yeah. No, it's true.

I mean, that's true. I think we need, yeah, I think we need... I mean, I guess Finn is going to be the big baby face, right? Upon his return? No, Roman Raines is going to be the big baby face upon his return. I just can't find it hard to imagine anybody. I mean, if Roman Reigns, if it's like Roman Raines and Finn Baller and Chris Jericho or Sammy Zane take your pick.

Like, and are we cheering? Doesn't matter. Do people, are we behind the people who would be standing next to Roman Raines enough to put Roman Reigns? No. We'll see what happens at WrestleMania. Yeah, I mean, we know what's going to happen all the way through SummerSlam. The dude's getting the belt. There've been a lot of rumors, not rumors.

There's been a lot of kind of fantasy booking about post-Ressomania trades. Have they talked about, have they officially talked to? about trades or a draft lottery or anything like that? Nothing as of yet. I'm sure they won't even broach the subject until the night after WrestleMania. But yeah, I think that... I think there are going to be some really interesting

little switcherooes going on. Yeah. But anyway, the most... I mean, so we have the... We have... Those six guys in the ring. I'm looking at the picture right now. Do you think the heel state would be more over

if Triple H got fat? This is all Heavy guys Triple H with 9-9 I've had Just like a beard guy Like a Harley Race sort of look I mean that's probably Been a dream of his for a long time

It's to be Harley Race I think I've said it before on this show But like the great like the greatest heel move The greatest thing Triple H could do Would be to like let it Just just get out of shape That's just not in his character The guy loves to work out

He is But imagine how much But if he But if it's like last year When it was Triple H versus Roman Rain and everybody turned on Roman Raines. Like the one way Triple H could have saved Roman Raines as a baby face is if he just can't come in with like a beer belly

and really skinny arms. I don't know, guys. I don't know if I can work 30 minutes. If he just looks like he has no business being in the ring and they're booking him in the main event, like that would be the best AAA heel move possible. Let me throw this headlock and then we'll go home after 10 minutes. It's fine.

Exactly. Just to hold is him begging off for like 45 minutes. So you'd mean working a Rick Steiner match? Rick Steiner? That's like the kind of match for next time and it was working in WCW in 2000. I thought you were going to say Rick Flair. Okay, so that's established. What's more important is that we have, after SmackDown,

we have a lot of a WrestleMania 33 card established. I'm looking at the Wikipedia page right now. We have a lot of matches on the Wikipedia page. Bray Wyatt versus Randy Orton, we know all about. Although Orton this week on Smackdown Sort of I mean they went another step further this week on Smackdown Randy Orton came out to explain himself once again

Still didn't quite explain it You know to my satisfaction but okay And then Bray Wyatt basically said Jokes on you you didn't manage to kill the Soul this Immoral spirit of Sister Abigail Oh no he said that He did but then

He's taken on her power or something, and then he rubbed a bunch of ashes on his face. I'm all about him wrestling with, like, black. I feel like that's going to happen. He's going to wear some weird. He's on his face. For the Uso's, for like everybody, just rub black paint on your face

in a non-geometrical, I mean, just literally smear it on your face, and you will be automatically the scariest guy on the roster. Like the buggy man? No, because that's the full thing. I mean, just, like, you just smeared it on your face. Like Roddy Piper. WrestleMania 6? Nope.

That's real racist. No, I think it's funny you think about Bray Wyatt and he has subtly changed his look so much over the last three or four years, right? So first he was, you know, Waylon Mercy. Yeah. And he was, you know,

wearing Hawaiian shirts and stuff and white pants. And then he started to get darker colored outfits and he started wearing a different kind of hat and then he got the weird dreadlocks and then he started dressing like He was in the band Disturbed.

Yeah. And now I think we're getting Bray Wyatt with FACE Fane. It's funny because when I, back in the cheap heat days, I think it was last year at Mania, we interviewed Bray. And he basically said, you know, I don't remember if it was on the mic or not. So apologies if I'm breaking all sorts of journalistic code here. But he said, you know, he had a lot of ideas for what they should be doing with his character. Because it kind of felt like he was treading water at that point.

And he was like, man, he's like, I got tons of ideas, you know. We'll see if they let me do them or whatever. Yeah, I mean, I think. And then when, and then when. He went to Smackdown. The word I got was it like he was getting to do him, but it didn't really seem like anything was changing, except for the dreadlocks, you know, whatever.

There wasn't that much. But now, you know, you kind of take a, you zoom out a little bit, you see where they're going to, and I guess we, you know, we'll give them until WrestleMania. It does feel like that, you know, there's been a bigger shift than you realize on a week-by-week basis. That said, if you have big ideas for your character and going to the next level,

and it involves absorbing the soul of Sister Abigail. I mean, that's maybe not the biggest change in the world when you're talking about a spooky character. But, you know, give them some credit, man. They're keeping this, they are, the storyline is evolving. Yeah, and it's skirting the line, but hasn't gone over into just, like, overt, like occult, like satanic stuff. Like, obviously he's mentioning that Sister Abigail

is a daughter of the devil and these sorts of things. but for whatever reason parents aren't getting upset about it and no one's complaining like oh I came to a fun wrestling show and they're talking about the devil yeah that's interesting

I think we call that Kevin Sullivan Heat in the business he's not actually satanic it's a symbol as Jim Ross says okay so yeah so that's as much as we can say about that match right

yeah okay we got Goldberg versus Brock Lesner which I understand how the wrestling business works in K-fabe why the hell was Goldberg not at raw because he was hurt no that 1 F5 he's not if he's that hurt after 1 F5 first of all Seth Rollins was there with you know zero ligaments in his knee and you know working a full beat down whatever that was kicking people with that leg if you're 50 years old then an F5 put you out of Commission for two weeks, you should not be okay to wrestle at WrestleMania.

The Sports Athletic Commission should not allow you to get into that ring. Well, they shouldn't allow him to wrestle when he sweats that much. He's got a heart condition. All right. The Undertaker versus Roman Raines. It's going to be fascinating just from a heat perspective, from a booking perspective. How do you get Roman Raines over? And how do you keep him from getting booed out of the building?

What are you thinking about Bronstrom? One of the most interesting things to me about the whole setup is that Braun's Stroman still involved. Now part of that might be Undertaker's not going to be there every week necessarily until WrestleMania. They need someone there to punch Roman. Yeah. Do you think, though, that Braun has a part in their match at WrestleMania? It's obviously going to be a schmazzy match. There's going to be a lot of chicanery to get my word over.

I'm going to be a lot of chicanery in that match. and why not have Braun Strowman be part of it? It gets him over as a monster. It prevents the Undertaker from having to do too much in the match because he's not in great shape. And we saw what happened with Shane McMahon last year. And aside from that elbow off the top of the cage, it was mostly ground-based wrestling holds.

It wasn't a lot of high spots, it wasn't a lot of bumping. There wasn't a lot of anything, man. So, okay, so, but it does, but it is interesting if Stroman stays involved. Yeah. It'd be really cool if they just, like, totally align Stroman with the Undertaker in the match. Like, what if Stroman comes out and happens to the match in, like, old school Undertaker outfit? That's like a Druid, maybe?

No, I mean, I mean, like the, like the black sleeveless shirt with purple tie and, like, and gray Western hat. I'm in. The Bronster Taker. Why wouldn't it just be the Bronder Taker? It can be that too. Okay. Hashtack Brondertaker. That would be so great.

Just white, white cake makeup. Oh my gosh. That sleeveless, the gloves. Who's going to cosplay as Paul Bear? Oh, yes. Bruce Pritchard. Yeah. Bruce Pritchard on the horn.

What if they just brought Sienpunk back to do, just to be the Paul Bear? Just to reprise his role as Paul Bear. Okay, we'll let you come back. But. You have to play ball bear at WrestleMania. I think what if they did, if they brought him back for that, even if they gave him like a million dollars just to do that one-off. And they don't have to say it's in,

but people figure it out or whatever. That could be the greatest ratings thing they could possibly do because, like, we would be watching Raw, every minute of Raw live. When's he coming back? For the next nine months minimum, just waiting for that to pay off. It would be the wrestling equivalent of Rachel Maddow saying she has Trump's tax returns. It's true. What if Vince got Trump's tax returns?

Do you think he would read that he would like give them away at WrestleMania in the main event? No, no. No way. Do you think he cares about Trump too much? They're friends. He went to the White House. They took a picture, the whole family, all the little. Well, I'll ask people go to the White House.

Okay. But yeah, that would be great. He should say we have Trump's tax returns. We're going to debut. We're going to show them to you at halfway through WrestleMania. And then it would be just like a tag team called Donald Trump's tax returns. And it's the authors of pain. They've got a new gimmick.

Or they could just bring out IRS. Oh, God. Oh, my God. You're giving them bad ideas. Stop it. Wait, why do they not do it? I don't know. First of all, he's so alive.

Second of all, he's Bray Wyatt's dad. I was just going to say, one of his kids, and I'm not talking about Bray Wyatt, is in dire need of a gimmick report. Oh, yeah. IRS Jr. It's always worked Every time they do a new generation

Have they ever done an actual Junior gimmick Where like somebody had a complete put-off Like it was there like a Duke the Dumpster Drosie Jr? Well the giant No no but someone's actually the son Oh

Of a bad game I guess the bad gimmicks really haven't been around for that long Yeah now the only I mean there's a Mexican wrestlers do that all the time Right Like Octagon Yeah they're like Octagon

They're not all actually in Japan too. They're not all actually the children, but often they are. Oh, no, Pentagon is who I'm thinking of. Pentagon, Jr. Yes. No, if it's a bad gimmick,

your son or daughter is probably not going to end up in the wrestling business. Bo Dallas needs to be IRS Jr. And he needs to be hunting for Vince McMahon's tax returns. That's the gimmick. I was talking to Big Show,

did an interview with him, and he put over at Bo Dallas really hard. He's like, I love Bo Dallas. Bo Dallas is great. All right. Before we get to the rest of the WrestleMania card, and the listener questions. A quick word from a couple of our sponsors.

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john sina and niki bella versus miz and the maurice we're back at russomania i'm excited for this match it should be uh whack-a-doodle but fun i'm gonna make an official mass man show proclamation here we will no longer

take any opportunity to dog on this match because we wish any of the parties were doing something different uh those promos were fire they were they were hot fire and and listen it's not we've we've set our piece We always, John Cena, we're doing something different. Let's move on.

But I think for what it is, this is going to be a really cool match. And like I said, how long, I think they can actually do something really good with it on the show. Yeah, I think Ms. and Sina have a lot of chemistry, more chemistry than they had back when they may have been to WrestleMania. Yeah, well, you know, sometimes relationships get better with H. Bailey versus Charlotte versus Sasha, triple threat match for the women's championship. I mean, I'm too close. I'm too close to this. Yeah, with Sasha being involved.

That's actually an interesting way to put it. We've all been so invested in the raw women's division over the past year. Yep. And I feel like it's our excitement and our disappointment, more than that, are kind of outsized at this point. If they steal the show, then we'll forget all about the buildup. But right now the buildup has left a lot to be desired now. I just don't know. Just leave the belt on Charlotte.

I don't understand. You can make this trouble threat. It's weird because it seems like they fall back on the real sports kind of side of the women's division a little bit too much. I don't know if it's true. I'm saying that with the assumption that they put the belt on Bailey to legitimize her enough to have her in this big WrestleMania match. I don't think she needed it at all. If this ends up with Charlotte winning the title again, I am going to flip my wig. I am absolutely going to lose my mind.

What if it ends up with Charlotte and Sasha joining forces? That would be awesome. Reuniting. I don't see that making sense for Sasha's character. But, you know, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Triple H beat the crap out of each other mere months before the two-man power trip formed. Sure. Anyway.

The Women's Championship is all set. Alexa, Mickey, Becky, Natalia, Carmelah, everybody who's available. I'm hoping there's an Eva Marie moment. Ooh, the announcement of Eva Marie. I think Naomi's spoiler alert is going to be in that match. I'm pretty sure they're hoping she's going to be ready. And you know what, to me, this is not based on anything I've heard. This is the red carpet rollout for Asha.

That's how I feel. If it's time for her to be on the main roster, clearly she's working main roster house shows. Does she come in with the belt, undefeated? I mean, who knows? Maybe so. That would look really. I mean, that would be a great, just have to leave it behind, you know?

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the women's division on NXT is, kind of ripe for a tournament rather than somebody shockingly defeats Ashka situation. I agree. Anyway, a lot of people are assuming Osh is going to go to Raw, I think, just because of the

level of excitement we have for her, but I think that she's a great fit on SmackDown, and certainly, you know, if she's going to show up at WrestleMania, this is a, like I said, red carpet opportunity. Yeah. Neville versus Austin

Ares. I think this has a, a lot of potential. I like Austin Aries as a baby face. I love Neville as a heel. They had the best match of the night at Fast Lane. The Division had the best match. The Cruiserweights had the best match. I'm worried about Austin.

I'm worried that just because of Fast Lane, we're going to be disappointed by Austin Air. Maybe. Anyway, we have the tag team, the raw tag team situation, the club, Inzo and Cast, Zazaro and Shamus. This is my P-Break match at Mania.

Really? Yeah. Well, I hope that, I just hope you're about it. I hope they give it some time because it could be really fun. Cesarro and Seamus have been like breaking out cool tag team moves left and right.

Like, I don't know. I really... I just, I haven't loved the buildup. Same with Dana Brooks' baby face turn. It's too late for Insohn cast to win the titles. It'll happen. It's going to happen, but it should have happened months ago. And then the biggest match,

the whole reason we're talking about this, the match that is finally finalized or at least finally challenged for was AJ versus Shane. Yep. He spent a lot of time sort of, sort of giving us very tiny bread grums and just waited until this week

to just like roll out the whole damn loaf for this storyline. But AJ Styles's fire was A.J. Stiles complained. Started the show by complaining and met Shane in the driveway or whatever attacked him, bloodied him, was then fired

and then Shane at the end come out of the ring and challenged AJ to a match. They K-Faib put AJ Styles into the alumni section of W. It's always a great fallback move. I mean, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the setup for this on Smackdown. They certainly made it interesting for a match that we all kind of knew was coming.

At least, I mean, listen, AJ Styles didn't have another spot as of how, when was his, last week is when he lost the number one contenders match, right? Yep. So we knew at that point more or less, and then as soon as this week started, you saw the, you know, the wheels were in motion. But I think, I mean, I enjoyed the way they pulled. it together on Smackdown. Yeah, I think it was a hot angle. The beatdown, they showed it 50 times. But, I mean, I think it did the job of making it feel like this is a real blood feud.

It was blood on Smackdown for the first time in a long time. And Shane sold his injuries really well. And I love the hard out when he comes out and he says, you got an opponent at WrestleMania. It's me. And then the show just stops. I thought it was a cool move. Yeah. No, it was well done.

Although, if you really want to punish AJ Styles, if you're really going to punish AJ Styles, really mad at him for busting your head open, the move is to have him come out for WrestleMania, and as soon as his music hits, and he gets to the ring, just be like, I'm just kidding, you're still fired. Yeah, sure. You just sign this HR paperwork. They actually have his exit interview in the ring. The HR paperwork signing.

Hi, I'm Melissa. Who is that? They had the HR person. Who's the movie? No, they did, didn't they? I don't remember. No, I think that would be really great. I used to always say that whenever they would do the authority angle

or like over they're feuding with the CM Punk is going against the powers it be or whatever. It's like if the authority really wants to ruin your career, if you're Daniel Bryan or whatever, they don't have you fighting your way into a main event at WrestleMania. They have you like wrestling, you know. Cain. Not even that.

They were having a wrestle cane. I mean, they should have them wrestling Bo Dallas on the pre-show, you know? Yeah. That's the way you ruin someone's career. And I think that would be great. If he was just like, you do have an opponent at WrestleMania, Any of AJ Stiles it. It's Kurt Hawkins.

Yeah, I don't know if you can do worse than James Ellsworth, which they already, like, you know, they had like a three-star match. They did. But yeah, you're wrestling, you're wrestling Kurt Huggins and the pre-show. By the way, Kurt Hockens is in the Andre this year. We have, so far the only four people are Hawkins,

big show Apollo Cruz and Mojo Rally. Wait, does Ziegler not officially announced? I think he must be because he's working an angle with Mojo and he got thrown out of the ring four times and then got counted out. Which was maybe the most bizarre thing I've seen on wrestling. Anyway, I got my money on Big Show. Should we get to Twitter questions?

Let's get to some questions. All right. Fans of the Mass Man Show podcast are burning up social media, trying to get me to put their questions on this show. So here are the lucky winners. At James LeBlanc asks, your opinion on Christopher Daniels winning the Ring of Honor title and is Adam Cole WWE bound.

I think there are a lot of ring of honor types that are WWE bound, but I don't, I mean, what they need to do is to replenish an XT for a while. Adam Cole is, in so many ways, just a next-level performer. I mean, I think that he's got a lot of rebuilding of himself to do before he's a WWE big, you know, main event. I mean, just like, just his size alone. I mean, that's not the only issue. And obviously, we're moving in a different direction. But I stood in line for a bathroom next to Adam Cole.

and you probably if you looked at the two of us you probably wouldn't pick him as the professional wrestler let me interpret it that way but it's not just that he's plenty big enough to be a star in WWE I just think that he's

he's so good right now but he's not like Kevin this is such a subjective thing he's not Kevin Owen's good in the way that like he was just ready to come in I think he's got I think he's got like a year in NXT before he's going to be a big star

well you make the point that NXT needs guys and they need wrestlers who can come in and get over very quickly and sell tickets. And Adam Cole is one of those people who could probably do it. Or invade the company in sell tickets. But to take the beginning of that question, Christopher Daniels, man, like, what a god.

Yeah, he's awesome. I can't believe, I mean, he's, yeah, I mean, he's not a dentist stamp, but he has been just such like a cog for so long in Ring of Honor and TNA, and all over the place. I forget who dropped this knowledge, but rumor going around is that he was almost the higher power. Oh, really? Yeah, but Vince thought he was too short. That's crazy.

But yeah, no, it's really cool for him. And it also, someone pointed this out on Twitter or something like that, but it also, like, if you look at our, who like are all of the world champions in the world are right now, the average age is like 75 at this point. It's not that old. But Daniels plus Goldberg, I think, puts it to a point where it's higher than it's probably ever been. I'm glad you bring up world titles because our next question is from at Miller, UNC, asks, who are three WWU wrestlers on the active roster with no world or universal title runs who will make the Hall of Fame? Sheesh, I really should have prepared for these questions. Do you have anybody off the top of your head?

No world or universal titles? Well, I mean, I think number one off the top of my head is going to be Inzo. I don't think Inzo is ever going to win a world title. But I also think he's going to be a Hall of Famer. They're going to win the world title at some point in the future. Like, that's okay for this question. No, this needs to be someone who is not going to win the belt, right? No, is that what you asked?

No, no, no, three people who haven't won it yet who are going to be in the Hall of Fame. Okay. Let's go with that question. Inzo still qualifies. Who have you got then? Man, that's a really good question. No world or no title runs. I'm just looking at, now I'm just looking at pictures of the roster.

I mean, man, I think Enzo and Cass definitely have all that potential. All three of the dudes in the New Day. Yeah, I was trying to pick and see if there was one name from the New Day. That's the problem in the New Day is if you can't break it out. They're going to go into. together. Yeah, they're like the freebirds. They're going in together.

I'm going to just go out on a limb and say Sammy Zane. Or which limb is further? Sammy Zane or Cesaro. Cicero, I'll take, which I'll take the huts. Is a harder one for me to stomach. Not because he's not very talented, but because

he's just kicked around a long time. And he's not an NXT, like, original Triple H pet project. All right, moving on. We've got to move on. You got to go. Keep going.

We gotta go. I think Mojo Rowley goes without saying, so that's why I didn't mention him. Oh, sure, of course, of course. All right. This probably should be the last one because we're very much past the point of no return. At Easton Express asks, why the Ambrose bit to end your podcast? Are you setting up a gimmick infringement angle with Kimmel? Geez, if we could get Dean Ambrose to come on and respond, that would be fantastic.

I would be, but no, that's not why I'm doing this. That we had, it was like last year that we, on this very show, we spent a segment talking about Dean Ambrose. I'm trying to look for the, I'm trying to look for the quote. Dean Ambrose says, quote, a lot of the fans kind of take the magic away. It's been like this for years now where they dig and search for every little bit of info and spend so much time deciphering everything and overthinking things. Ooh, that hurts. That's just an outlet for their passion for pro wrestling, but it does take the magic away sometimes. So I almost wish people would stop doing that.

Yeah, as an adult, a part of the magic is overthinking it because if I didn't think about it Then it would just be people pretending to beat each other up there would be no wrestling Podcasts if people weren't allowed to overthink things. Yes, this is interesting There'd be no wrestling fans you're right over the age of 30 I mean it would it would die a horrible death Speaking of dying a horrible death we got a lot of questions we don't have time for about TNA I just want to say for the record I watched impact it's not called TNA anymore, excuse me, I watched Impact, didn't care for it, don't like when the announcers feud with each other through every single match. That's lame. Yeah, and the implicit

acknowledgement that like our new book, our new two bookers are our biggest stars, sort of, you know, I mean, it's just weird. It's weird. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't care for it. I don't like all the W.W.E mentions. It just, it didn't do it for me. I will not be continuing to watch Impact Wrestling. No, you will, because we're starting a new podcast about TNA. that you are the sole host of. We got to get out of here. So subscribe to the Mass Man Show Twitter account. If you haven't done that already, you can follow Schilling at Dave underscore Schilling.

More importantly, leave us reviews. The reviews get us onto the iTunes charts and are very helpful for this show. So leave us five-star reviews. Tell your friends about the show. Do all that good stuff. It's super important. I'm at David Shoemaker. The podcast is at Mass Man Show.

Thanks to Jump in Jim Cunningham. And as always, Apology, Sidney and Ambrose. We'll see you back here next week, Humanoids.