Maddening Wrestling Takes

Maddening Wrestling Takes (00:26)
Hey Madhouse, welcome back to Maddening Wrestling Takes. These are your hosts. This is Mike and Ace and we're here to go over the weekend wrestling so far and we got a couple of topics. Three, four, seven, who knows. We have a few topics at least that we want to hit up this week. Got some feedbacks from some of the Madhouse listeners out there that we'll definitely be getting to. Accidental run in with an old time wrestler on Facebook for me. So that was kind of interesting. So we're going to get started.

Want to get to all the fun stuff at the back, so let's Let's hit with our review straight up. Let's kick it off with Raw. To Start off the show, Seth Rollins came out. Seth Breaker and... Oops. Seth Breaker and Heyman came out. Have you seen what they're thinking about calling us? No. Like the trifecta of terror? Come on man, Hunter you can do better than that. If your creative room can't come up with a better name...

Just look us up Maddening Wrestling Takes, hit me up. You know, don't need to bring us on full time, but I can at least give you a way better faction name than Trifecta of Terror.

Rollins basically said the two of them are the future of the company. Sammy Zane came out. Sammy Zane said this was a bunch of bull crap. It was ridiculous. Basically called him the new bloodline. The new, new bloodline. Bloodline 3.0? Or what? I don't know. then Rollins said, Zane can either...

don't know why I said Zayn. Sami can either go to SmackDown and not worry about him because he's not... Sami's made it clear that he's not going to join them. So Seth has said he's a friend, he doesn't want to hurt him, but if he's in the way, he's in the way. I really like this. This was kind of unique for me as far as wrestling heel goes. Just looking at the guy and saying, I get it. You don't like what I'm doing. Just stay out of my way and I can help you if you do.

You're my pal, man. It's cool. I'll help you out. Just stay out of my way. I like that. wasn't just instantly I'm a bad guy and gonna attack you. Yeah. So he presented Sammy with an offer. He can go to SmackDown and as soon as he goes to SmackDown, he gets a Undisputed Championship match between the winner of Cena and Randy. That was brought on later in the night from Paulie. You're right. That was. Or he can stay and be in the way.

Yeah, basically the whole if you're not with us you're against this thing which in the long run is cool but the way they went about it I absolutely loved. Right. Um, Jay told him not to, not to go to Smackdown. Yeah, had a couple people backstage talking. Heyman, Kross, he Kross. Yeah, Kross stopped and told him, talked to him. They've got to be building something with Karrion Kross as much as he's getting invested with Dude, did you see on the main event, the pop? He's over.

that he got and then he lost to Ray Fennec- or not Ray Fennec, Dragon Lee. The lesser Luchador. Wow, and he's really good. Right. They're just trying- they're really trying to push their Lucha division, which I guess was what I'm have to refer to these guys as right now, since they bought AAA probably especially. I suppose. So that might be the logic behind that, because there is no denying that Cross is getting over

He's getting over on his own, he's getting over organically and I don't think Hunter's as big of a dick about that as Vince was. Right. So I think if you can get yourself over then Hunter might actually go ahead and ride with that but we'll see what happens. Isn't that what Sammy did? Like with the bloodline and that's how he got a world championship shot? Uh, yeah it was kind of built a little bit to do that but uh...

like back in vince's day like we talked before christian got himself over as captain charisma and they released him and yeah then they like they put him on a losing streak released him he went to tna got himself over again on tna right vince just doesn't like vince never liked guys if it vince i think it was an ego issue he's like i didn't come up with it this guy can't be smarter than me so we're just going to get rid of that

Which is stupid, people have said for years and Vince always said that he did what was best for business. And I disagree, I think that's a horrible lie on his part. If it wasn't his idea, he buried it. Whether it be wrestlers getting over organically, guys coming over from other federations, nine times out of ten, he would bury him. He made the WCW invasion look so weak, just so WWE could look superior, which they'd already won. He bought WCW, there was no reason.

to make these guys that are now working for him look weak. Right. I do think Cross is getting a push June 7th. Well, it's June 7th. Money in the bank. I don't know. I don't see that. I don't see Cross's money in the bank holder. It's just him holding the briefcase doesn't fit him. You know what I mean? Right. And that was the only conflict I had. Yeah. Because if he cashes in that night.

Right. That would be the only way I could see it. can't see Carrion Cross constantly carrying this briefcase with him. No pun intended with the Carrion and Carrion. Yeah, you're funny. No, I just caught it. Give me a break, He could do something with like... Not trying to compare Carrion and Mox, but he could do something like that. Like have Scarlet... Like basically what I'm thinking is he... It's like...

He you know how people redesign the briefcase. He'll do that in like the Raiders colors black and silver He'll have scarlet carry it around and he'll go up to the champions and like kind of Tell them what he wants and threaten them with the cash in okay. How about this? How about this how about? They carry the briefcase or whatever right then before He ever he doesn't keep carrying it

He waits, but he doesn't always have it on his person, Okay, so the first time they go down to Let's say Jay's the champ. Okay, and they slide the briefcase they come out to the ring They set the briefcase down and opens it and there's an hourglass. How about that? just flip Make it a little bit thinner Yeah, they stand it up flip it over and he just says tick-tock. Yes See see all right that could work. I just can't see him carrying that

I think it would work if Scarlett carried it. Maybe if cross was talking to Jay and Scarlett's like over here like with the briefcase Maybe you know I have seen cross a few times recently in suits, too So maybe if they go that way where he's like trying to look all like super professional and stuff like that That could be fun. I just I hope he gets a push even if he doesn't win money in the bank I think he needs to be in it. I think he needs to have a good showing 100 % you don't have to win to get over

Right, you don't have to win to get a push. That's a huge misconception I see on the internet all the time. People are like, so and so is not getting a push. They're burying so and so. Let me tell you, if you look at the size of the roster of either of the two biggest companies in the United States and you see who's on TV every single week, win, loss, not having a title, if they're on TV, they're getting a push. They're not being buried.

I Well think about all these other guys that are sitting back in catering and not doing anything. My only counter for that is Kofi Kingston and Brock Lesnar on the premiere of Fox on SmackDown. That championship rung got buried. I think Kofi then got buried right there. But he went straight back to the New Day and kept a push. You're thinking only, and this is what I see on the wrestling internet, is that people

only see championships and victories. all know and we'll get into this later because one of things we want to cover today is the death of kayfabe but everybody and their brother out there knows that this is not real. Right okay so it's it's storyline so winning that championship just means somebody thinks you can make them a little more money not that you're better than anybody else I suppose so him losing that was unfortunately that was a I think a fox decision

do you? It was, we just paid a billion dollars for your show. You better put somebody on who's marketable and like then Cain Velasquez came out. Whether you like Brock or you hate Brock, there is zero argument that internationally Brock Lesnar is far more marketable than Kofi Kingston. That's a good point. Yeah. So.

I lost where I was. We got Rhea and Roxanne. Rhea and Roxanne. That was a great match. Roxanne's getting put over. The official word that I saw is Roxanne and Julia both got the official nod for the call up for Raw. In case you guys don't know, I don't know if we've covered it before. WWE is doing this thing where when their talent gets called up, they wear a patch somewhere on their outfit they wear for their first match.

after their call up and those patches will then be included on a one of one tops card that will be coming out later. I need to start collecting those. Julia and Roxanne both had patches. okay. Well, I... But they said that was for their raw debut, not their call up. We'll see how it plays out because... Because... But Stephanie, I don't think Stephanie Valcour did. do you not? I don't think so. Everything I've seen has the...

close up of Julia's and Roxanne's but I don't believe I've seen one from Stephanie. So I think it's a call up. We'll look into that a little more this week. I lost who I was. Julia interfered in the match and then they both attacked Rip. Do you remember who won that match? It was a no contest. Was it? Yeah.

Julia came in and hit her before it was before. yeah. She hit the riptide. Yeah. Julia came in and hit and then EO made the save. Yeah. That's that's what I was getting. EO came down and saved Bianca, not Bianca Ripley, which I think is a match we're getting that backlash. Yeah, it looks like we're heading toward a tag match and the four of them in a tag match signed me up every time. Right. Then we have world heavyweight champion Jey Uso talking about how he's happy he beat Gunther.

blah blah blah what's next you know Logan Paul Logan Paul comes out I Logan Paul came out first

doesn't matter the point is Logan Paul I don't think he did like we both just but the point is that Logan Paul is going to challenge Jeyuso for the world title okay this this will make the second time that Logan Paul has challenged for the top title you're right I'm like yeah the first yeah and we'll get into that that's one of the other

So we just like trying to segue into everything we're gonna do later because we're gonna discuss Logan Paul later We're gonna discuss whether or not we think he's Still part-timer a legit wrestler. I think we've each got some views on that. We'll see how it goes but Logan ended up laying Jay out backstage later, too. So yeah, that was after he had talked to Sammy. Yeah, this is obviously Going to be a match which is fine because I don't want to see Jay lose his belt on the first title defense

No, no, they're not ready. Well, let's hold that for the later discussion. Becky Link comes down and she said she attacked Bailey because she's sick of Bailey. Thank you for not drawing it out like a damn Naomi and Jade thing. God, what was that, six months? That was ridiculous. my goodness. But yeah, we all know who did it. So I'm so happy on this one that

We all quickly figured out who did this and she just came out and went, yep. Yeah, you're right. Lyra came down and said that she was very upset that her idol turned on her like that, turned her back, turned against everything she stood for. So I think that's setting up a match against at she said it. Yeah, Lyra said, you know, how about this? Becky said she wouldn't wrestle in front of this crowd. Lyra said, Lyra said, yeah, I know you'll do it on your time. How about this?

So which is great because I really think up until this time, I think Lyra has been little bit slept on. I like Lyra. I don't think she gets enough credit for as good of ring work as she does. She gets overshadowed by some of the other people in the division. And I think it's very funny that the people who led the women's revolution, Bailey, Charlotte, Becky, are probably now some of the worst female wrestlers we have. yeah.

in WWE, which is crazy because if you'd have looked at that point in time, athletically and skills wise in the ring, they were leaps and bounds better than what they had in the generation previous to them. Right. And now we're seeing it again and it's a pretty quick turnaround, which we are. did see the July that they're looking to have an evolution to the all female. Yes. July 2nd. I don't know. That's a Wednesday or something. That was it. I think it's July 5th, the day after the fourth. OK, I heard.

I don't know if it was evolution, I heard there were, cause it goes night of champions, Saturday night's main event and evolution two back to back to back. Saturday night's main event. it normally at nighttime? how do they- No, no, no, no, no, no. Like back to weeks, back to back to weeks. we have three PLEs back to back to back. That'll be something we-

we can discuss on another day of the women and what we think they're gonna do with all those. Let's keep going through, get through these since we have three topics plus our maddening takes to hit yet this week. Tag Team Mac, War Raiders against the Judgment Day with New Day on Commentary. New Day on Commentary was great. New Day on Commentary was great. Shout out to JD McDonough for coming back as quick as he did from what he had.

and uh... wrestling the same guys yeah exactly if you watch this match uh... there's a spot where JD does pretty much the exact same thing except he goes out the other side of the ring with that uh... springboard Acai moonsault and when he lands it man he is just so psyched and so proud he's pumping hitting his chest it was a really good feel good moment especially if you know what these guys have been through and you know JD was legitimately super close to a career ending injury

with what happened to him a few months ago. And he came back in like three months. Great to see him back in the ring. Great to see him not being scared to do those things. Right. I would be terrified. Right. I mean, I don't know how long he's been practicing on a crash pad trying to get used to it. Right. But you see, I don't think he's scared of jumping off of things because because did you see that interview with JD with Chris Van Vliet? We're just talking about all the crazy bumps and they're always his idea.

And they let's throw you off for the RKO. That was my idea. I asked Randy if he thought he could hit it. Randy and he jumped off on the crash pad. Randy goes, yeah, I got that. Well, Randy is a consummate pro, man. Randy is he's just done great stuff. Right. next up, we have my favorite segment from Monday Night Raw. The Pat McAfee Challenge. Pat's. That was a fantastic promo. Pat's promo was great. Promo of the year. So much passion, so much.

just McAfee everything Pat McAfee does when I die they're gonna call me a loyal mother yeah he's he is just he puts everything he has into everything he does McAfee does not do anything half-ass I was a little nervous about this Gunther match that it looked like they were gonna do and now they've confirmed they're going to do but again you know I just had to reassure myself I've seen McAfee in ring he's great and there's nothing he doesn't do that he doesn't do 100

Right. So if him and Gunther aren't out there practicing every day, would be shocked. Yeah. If him and somebody at least aren't out there so he can get timing. Did you see Big Papa Pump offered to be in McAfee's corner for this match? No. Yeah. Why? I don't know. Because he's Big Papa Pump and he's probably tired of everybody talking about his nephew and not him. Right. What happened next? Stephanie Valquer, speaking of her.

Two weeks in a row on Raw, come on. That's right. And I'm not saying just move her up already cuz she needs. Yeah, she's a champ. Well, KO came up as the NXT champ. Did he? Mm-hm. When he beat the first night he was there, he beat John Cena. I know he beat Cena. I didn't know that was his official call up. So it's conceivable, but in as deep as that women's group is in NXT, I don't think it would hurt a ton. you bring up, gotta get her to-

You gotta let her and Jordan Grace have their moment of the sun first. I, then the main event, Seth, Seth and Sammy again, Sammy comes out, tells Seth, I'm not going to take your offer. I'm just not. I'm here to stay on Raw. And the timing of Breaker's music, dude, when Sammy said he wasn't going to take the offer, Seth just sighed and those sirens hit. It sounded like a war call. It was great.

This whole segment was masterfully produced, I Seth's numb gimmick, I think is the best way I can describe it. He just stands there with a blank stare. After Sammy turns him down, he goes over to the announce table, basically leans against the corner of the announce table and just stares at the match with a complete blank expression. Yeah, I saw that because Breaker did his jumping clothesline on the announce table. was just going to say that. didn't.

blink so the coolest yeah the coolest part of that is when breaker goes off the apron does his flying clothesline and his feet kick out in Seth's direction right to clear the table and Seth doesn't move doesn't look to the side doesn't do it complete trust in what breakers doing it's amazing outstanding and then afterwards know breaker speared Sammy what three times and then Seth hits the stomp on him which

opening the show because in case you didn't know trick William showed up at the end of the TNA pay-per-view this past weekend. Rebellion? that what it was called? I think so. So Henry retains the TNA world title, trick shows up, hits the trick knee. Trick shot. Whatever. I like trick knee. It's funnier. Okay. Do you know what trick knee means? No. It goes out on you. So it's just Oh, that is funny. I'm old so it works out for me. I know. Alright, shut up.

So yeah, Hendry comes out and says, you know, he's calling out Trick. And before Trick can respond, Dark State hits the ring and lays out Hendry. Yep. So we'll see what happens later. Hank and Tank agreed. That is a confirmed match for Tuesday. For this coming week? Yep. Hank and Tank plus Joe Hendry versus Dark State, which is...

Give me as much dark state on my TV as possible. Right. Like this. I expected it to be a massive fail. Right. mean, it's been a while since we've had a really good. We don't know what the hell's going on here. Faction. Rebellio. Retribution. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. Big words. English is hard.

Yeah, they were like Dark... They were like Dark State. Right. They were more extreme. Wearing the masks, attacking and... Yeah. And I thought they were gonna do good. And they just... That was a horrible, horrible execution. that's kind Flapjack and T-Bar. Right. Kind of what I was looking for with Dark State. Thank God they proved me wrong. I'm always happy. Always happy when my expectations are set low and somebody proves me wrong. Exactly. That's great. So back to the show. Unless they're proving you lower.

Back to the show, got the Undertaker comes back to talk to Obafemi. If you remember a few weeks ago when Obafemi wrestled Moose, Undertaker said, know, this is a months ago, whatever, said, this is your yard, go out and defend your yard. He basically comes out and tells him the whole same thing. then the dead man says that you might also want to watch. I'm sorry. Sorry. Leading up to that for the context.

Ava announced a 20 person battle royal for number one contender. The NXT Championship. So the dead man says you might want to watch because I might be bringing some guys up from LFG as well, which if you don't know, it's Bubba Ray Dudley, Booker T Undertaker, Mickey James are coaching up and coming wrestlers. now it looks like we're not only getting NXT call ups, looks like we're going to be getting LFG call ups and evolve call ups. I saw some.

They're gonna be the back. They're gonna be in Timothy that how is he involved? Anyway, we'll talk about that on the call-ups. That's ridiculous, but three guys I apologize. I have not watched LFG. So I don't know who these three guys are I will have to go back and do a little research because if takers confident enough to be seen with them on TV There's got to be something about these guys, right? Tony D Tony D and what you skip the EO return? Yeah, that's main event

I'm going in order. I'm going in order what it says on my rundown. Yeah, I'm going in chronological order. Look at you Mr. Fancy. ahead. Alright, Tony D and Stax. Stax basically said Stax not there live. Stax on the Videotron says. I might have shocked myself. Stax said that he turned on the Don because.

Don is always telling him what he has to do, what he has to do. And that the Don doesn't have what it takes to be the Don anymore. Right. So Stax, I believe, wants to be the Don. sure Stax killed Luca too. Yeah, I don't know what that's like. Not the first time they've alluded to that. Right. But then they got called up. Right. Last time they called. Well, they did kill somebody else before. Do you remember? No. When Tony first showed up, it was Tony by himself and then he had Stax and.

Dimes. Dimes, that was his name. Yeah. And they took care of him and he was sleeping with the fishes. He did show up on AEW a little while later for like a show or And they killed pretty deadly. And then they showed up on the main roster. So maybe it's a good thing for Luca. I don't know. Right. Maybe it's a good thing getting killed by the Dimes. Yeah. You know why I called you out here, right, Luca? And then they just show like black screen. Nothing other than a black screen. I'm like, are they going to kill Luca?

Right, he goes, black screen. All right. Your turn. It's my turn. All right. So this is where Ace already kind of spoiled my turn because now we're going to talk about trick saying he wants a shot. And Ava said, okay, cool. You get a shot, but you got to beat these 24 other dudes. So yeah, it looks like we're going to have people from NXT, Raw, SmackDown, AEW. That would be fun as shit, wouldn't it? Let me see.

Let me start that list again. NXT, RAW, TNA, Evolve, and LFG. So we're going to see all kinds of people from all over the place. So this will be fun. If Trick wins, I might cry. With all the talent that they have in there, will be. I don't think Trick's going to win. I think Henry's going to cost him somehow. I hope so. I think that's where they're going. Right. But this will be fun because you're going to get to see some guys you don't know, some guys you do know.

Maybe some guys you forgot about from TNA like when Fandango showed up the other week. I loved Fandango at the end of his run, him and Tyler Breeze. They were fun. Him and Breezango. They were fun. They were one of those groups like you like where they're just silly and fun. don't expect much of Pretty deadly. But you're going to laugh when you see them. Speaking of pretty deadly, that was a nasty, nasty.

elbow forearm to the nose. that's my My bad. You're about chronologically. You're skipping shows. Come on now get to your heartbreaking part here. Now get to the part that broke your heart on NXT. Hello. Hello. Or should I say goodbye? No metaphor is done. Um, come on. You can't even be rhyming and fun with that. The metaphor is no more. No, cause I'm upset. Um,

Metaphor basically said that they had their fun moments But I think they think it's time for them to go their separate ways then half of them got released. Yeah was gonna say WWE took that shit quite literally. It's oh it's time for you to go your separate ways Okay, Jakara, Aura, you can go way the hell over there So Right, so Yeah, that was a that was the heartbreak of the of the night right up there next to um Carmen Petrovich

chicken Ashante Theodonis in the face. Really thought that was a heartbreaking part. I was just going to say in my next highlight that I have on my recap here is not really much of a highlight but I'll just say it because it's here and that was it. Oh yeah. We announced a number one contenders match for the women's title Stephanie Velcour basically goes in and she's ready to say she wants to fight both Jordan Grace and Julia. Ava says no no no before we even start next week

Jordan Grace versus Julia. Possibility of such a good match right there. Will go one on one this coming Tuesday. Winner gets a shot at Stephanie Valcour. Right. So we didn't quite go over

Ricky Saint beat Lexus King in a Who's the Man of AEW match. Oh wait, that's not what it's really called, my bad. It was a North American Championship match. Sorry, my mistake. Who's the best ex-AEW guy in the NXT Mid Card division? I'm glad they just said North American Championship, cuz yours is a much longer-

Description of the match. All right, then we had NXT North American Women's Champion, Sol Ruka beat- Non-title. I just didn't say for the match, I said the Women's Champion. I thought you said championship. Dude, seriously, do you need to turn those headphones out? Yeah. Come on. All right, so- Put more sound in these bad boys. My girl, Sol Ruka, wins the match. Because Carmen Petrovic can't whatever. Which I looked up means son girlfriend. Sol Ruka? Translates to-

Son, spouse or girlfriend. Yeah. Why the hell did you look that up? Because I knew Sulment's son in Spanish. Yeah, that would have been the end of it for me. I knew what it meant, too. She gave it as a surfer. Wow. All right. right. So, team. All right. So, yeah, Hank and Tank beat Josh Briggs and that guy he hangs out with. And Amora. There you go.

by Penfold retain Eoskye and Jordan Gray's defeat Roxanne Perez and Julia and Eo Pen Roxanne which leads us into a match confirmed for Raw. Raw? Should we go over those now? I mean we can just tell them that they're gonna have that match since I just said in a match confirmed for Raw. That match is confirmed for Raw tomorrow night! It's official. Okay Pierce. Hey whatever I don't think that's copyrighted and I pretty damn sure

You know what, if he does sue me, that means that he's listening and good on us. Whatever. That's a good point. I'll take a loss. Bring it, Pierce. Where are we at? are we at? Smackdown. Smackdown. Smackdown. All right. The most lackluster Smackdown in a while. I didn't think that. thought it was all right. LA Knight and Damien Priest out there, betcha' each other. Actually, it started with Damien Priest getting into it with Solo and Jacob backstage. Oh, really?

And LA Knight walked by as they're kind of just a pushing shoving match. Everybody broke him up. No real physicality. LA Knight comes out bitching and complaining about losing the match last week by disqualification. Yeah. And so Priest comes out. They're like, hey, you know, we don't have a problem with each other. It was just miscommunication. And then they started taking jabs at each other verbally. Right.

And then it turned into, we do have a problem. Let's go ahead and have this match. saw people saying that Priest was emotional during his promo for a good reason. Yeah. Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. We'll talk about that. I'm sorry. I'm sad. I'm that well, there's part of my hot take in that, too. So I think that's I think we have completely different optics this week. Good. It keeps it so interesting. it's if we agree on everything, we're going to get really bored. have the exact.

hot takes this week. Excellent. Excellent. Alright, so. They have, yeah. They have the max. Solo interfered. Priest and Knight. LA Knight end up taking him out and then Jacob just comes out and and Rex House because that's what Jacob does. Then Aldous says, yeah, yeah, you know what, Jacob? You need to stop. Triple threat between you, Priest, and Knight. And I turn to my father. go, so we're just gonna forget that.

McIntyre won the match and on cue then Nick Aldis goes solo solo go so Drew's the number one contender that doesn't even make sense Why would you put him in a triple threat match Drew just won last week? He's the number one contender Aldis goes You know what you're right make it a fatal four-way loved it. It was it was great builds that heat between Solo and Fatu because it's happen solo says I see what you're trying to do trying to screw over Jacob

All this goes, no Solo, you are. Yeah, so it's gonna happen. It's gonna be a fun match when it happens. Jacob's gonna completely destroy him. They tried to make Solo look so intimidating while he was Roman's enforcer. Did you see Paul said, Hey man, said that Solo was the most improved superstar over the past calendar year? In-ring improved superstar. I think I'm gonna have to disagree with that statement. Right, that's...

anyways, sorry, I'm really getting off topic this episode. are. We're kind of floating here and I really want to try and cruise through these recaps pretty quick. Sorry. Naya Jackson, Tiffany Stratton. Naya says, you know, she's coming for the belt. Tiffany says the same thing you hear all the time from young superstars. Tiffany time. No, not that. My bad. Who split from their teachers. I'm not the same, insert generic name here, that you knew before. Right.

Yeah, that's always the line. It's like, no, you really still are. You just jumped me with a briefcase and took my title. Way to go. I like Tiffy. Don't get me wrong. Just, it's a cliche line that I've been hearing for 30 years and I'm tired of it. Right. Naomi, or Jade Cargo comes out and says, I want that title. thought Naomi started it. Whatever, go ahead. Yeah, no, you are right. That's what I thought. Man, I'm getting out of order. Naomi comes out and says, I want that title. Yeah, shut up.

She yells at a guy in the crowd for copying her stuff. the dude yelled at her. You were just not on this. The dude's like, you copied my wardrobe.

You what? I'm just not going to talk to the rest of the SmackDown. No, no, no, no, no. You take this. You take this. OK, Cardgill comes out and they end up having a tag match. Nothing super impressive in the tag match. think that they end up actually this is going to be the main event. So because the main event was supposed to be Priest and LA Knight, but they wanted to start off the show fighting because they couldn't stop talking.

I believe in this. Naomi gets the pin. So that's kind of further. Says right there. Cargill power bombs. There you go. Maybe you should read the notes. Shut up. That sets up the number one contenders match between Jade and Nia for next week. What a snooze. I know where my snack time comes in next week's Smackdown.

Right? Yeah, I might have time. event. Yeah, I might have time to like make a burger or a pizza from scratch or something. I zero interest in watching that. I'd rather watch paint dry. OK, then we get Alistair Black's return. Love it. They're making Alistair look like a monster. They're making him look completely formidable. Back in Carmelo Down, what, twice? Which is just by looking at him. Looking at him. Right. Like they did let the Miz get some offense in.

The cartwheel out of the skull crushing finale was pretty impressive. think everyone on the internet thought that too. I liked that. And then Miz's look. Miz? Man. I hate to admit how good the Miz is because... You don't like the Miz? I love the Miz. okay. But I hate to admit that I love the Miz. I watched when Miz first came in. I know where he came from and I know how horrible of a wrestler and human being he was when this started. And he's genuinely such a much better person and wrestler.

Overall, really enjoy The Miz, you know, young Mike and me is like, God, how do you like that, So it makes me feel sad. Mike Madden or Mike The Miz? Mike Madden. Mike The Miz-Mizana. I give no shit what Mike The Miz-Mizana thinks, even though I like him as a wrestler now, I still could not possibly care less about his opinion. Anyway, back to the show. As Ace is trying to sidetrack me now, Randy Orton comes out. we just cut my mic off?

Randy Orton comes out and delivers a big promo about Cena because Cena's not there so he's just gonna talk some shit. says, know, Cena you call yourself a last real champion but he's just the latest legend that Randy needs to put down. Meh, alright. As good of a... At this point I don't need a promo from these two and maybe I get it, it's to build for their match. I get that and it's for younger audiences who haven't watched it.

But these two having a match for me personally, I need zero build. These two have such an extensive storyline. I need zero build. I need these guys to come out and say, hey, I want to fight you. The other one says, cool. I'm golden. I already know the storyline on these two. Yeah, I'm not going to talk about this match. And Ace's favorite tag team, Fraxiom. You're funny. Defeats his least favorite tag you're really funny. Pretty deadly with there was a win-off.

we don't like to throw the word botch around because everybody makes mistakes i don't want to say that somebody's really bad at their job somebody's often inch one way or the other it happens but i'm pretty sure one of the guys from pretty deadly got a pretty nasty either nose or busted lip or or something

Um, yeah. Do you really? Yeah. All right. Thanks for that insight. I saw a tweet that said it was really good. Best two out of three falls match between these two teams because both of them had a, were the ref like should have hit three, but just didn't. Right. And honestly, I don't know which one of those two is which. never have. Kilt Wilson, Elden Prince. I don't know which one's which. The blonde one's one who got up. Wilson is the blonde. Right. He's the one that got messed up. And then he ends up tagging out. me check this. I sounded so confident. Right.

he ends up taking out and falling out of the ring and just he's out of the match for rest of time because he got his belt wrong it happens a lot, you had him backwards didn't you? it's Elton Prince this is not aces a week too bad we don't have money on this I could be making tons of cash I mean it would mostly be my money back but whatever women's tag my god see look you've infected me you've infected me with your your inability to read

Women's United States champions, Elena Vega defeated Piper Niven in a non-title match, overcoming interference from Chelsea and Albifire. Ray Fenix and Santos Escobar put on a great match. Absolutely great match. I went to bed before that. I was tired. Fenix won with the top rope Meteora, which if honestly that's what they want to change his finisher to, looked far better.

looked far more devastating than that MMB. and it could have been Santos selling it too because Santos is very good at everything he does. Right. But yeah, that match was a top notch match. I like the Meteora finisher, so we'll see. So the match run down in case we didn't get it. Priest beats Knight by DQ. Fraxiun breaks pretty deadly and wins by pinfall. Alistair Black takes out The Miz. Zelina takes out Piper Niven.

Phoenix takes out Santos and even though obviously I couldn't read when I said it before Tiffany Stratton and Jade Cardgill win over Nia Jax and Naomi. So they got a pretty good build going right now for backlash considering we only have like two or three matches announced. I was thinking Jade and Naomi were on the same team and you just had the partners backwards. the whole team backwards. Dude if you'd just been quiet I'd have been the one to look like I messed up and you'd have had one good one going your way so far today. You could have had a good one.

On to Dynamite. Yeah, that covers our WWE television action for the week. We'll get into a bunch more in WWE action when we get done with it. Like, was it two hours before SmackDown? Yeah, it was, as you saw, we put out a breaking news on all our socials about the releases and we'll be discussing them here shortly. Yeah. Where do I want to start? The first one right here.

In the main event. Yeah, no, we're starting with the main event. That's a great recap. Hangman out of page defeated Kyle Fletcher in a semi-final match with the Owen Hup. Owen Hurt Foundation Men's Tournament. This is brought. to start talking when it's on releases and kayfabe. Maddening Wrestling Takes brought to you by Rosetta Stone teaching you how to speak English.

Alright, so our next match. I don't know, I was gonna get a bunch more stuff. I don't understand. We talked about this before. I'm not a Hangman Page fan. I don't see what Tony sees in him. don't see the draw in it. Hangman Page. Alright, now get this. Hangman Page defeats Kyle Fletcher. Right. The winner of this match is facing Will Ospreay?

in the finals of the tournament.

for a heavyweight title shot. Why the hell are you not giving me, you could give me Kyle Fletcher versus Will Ospreay, know, six times in a row, six shows in a row, and I would watch every single one of them before I watched Hangman Page Russell. Yeah. It just, is what it you say before you watched Hangman Page Russell? Because the last time those two fought, you didn't watch it. Right. I don't see it. I can't tell you the last time I watched Hangman Page Russell. I do not enjoy him.

He advances to the tournament final at Double or Nothing where he will face Will Ospreay. Come on now. Why is the... I feel like the championship match should be at Double or Nothing. Am I wrong? No, it'll be at All In. What is their WrestleMania? It changes. It started to be All In when they did it in London because it was so huge. So that's what they wanted to make the next year they did it London. It was huge.

And then now this year they're doing it in Texas. Texas. And if I read right, it's not selling anywhere near as well as London did. and not trying to slam on AEW. this goes out directly to Jamie Holbeisen. So when Jamie's hearing this, he keeps giving me, he gave me a hard time today about giving AEW such a hard time. So again, Jamie, not trying to give AEW such a hard time, but I just think they sell better overseas.

well, yeah, that's because you don't like if you were a, if you lived in London and you are a big fan of a WWE and they came to your town, your city, you're gonna go. Right. But I believe AEW did better numbers in WWE on WWE last European tour. well, so, and kudos to them. That's great. But,

Maybe look at having more of your shows over there. Again, not trying to say anything negative about it, but if your bigger audiences and your bigger draw are there, put them on. Use it. Utilize that. If you're beating the big guy somewhere else, utilize that. All Well, we had eight man tag match, which again, I don't understand how they just randomly throw these things together. So we had the elite. We had Okada.

and the young bucks and ricochet. Is he he part of the elite now? No, he's just hanging around with them. They defeated Kenny Omega, Speedball Mike Bailey, Kevin Knight and Mark Briscoe, who gets thrown into every eight man tag match that they put together. It's like we got shit else going on at Briscoe. We got nothing. No. All right. One tag. Yeah. We'll just grab you some guys. What the hell ever. So you know, sorry. Sorry that your brother's not around anymore and you are.

as a singles wrestler so we're just gonna throw you in with whatever random guys we don't have anything doing tonight. I don't know how you can be a good tag wrestler but not a good singles wrestler. I present to you Jimmy Uso. I present to you Marty Janetti. No I know but I don't know like how. Because you don't wrestle a full match. Because your matches still look good when you're good tag team partners in there.

So let's go back to Marty Janetti. Okay, you know who Marty Janetti is? Yeah, it's the guy Michael's turned on. Right. So when the Rockers tagged, they were great. had their tag moves were great. So when they were doing stuff in unison, it was great. Then Sean's in there carrying at least half of the match. So when Marty comes in and maybe the match hits a little, every match, no matter what it is, has a high and a low point. There's an ebb and a flow in the match. Right. So when you get to the low point of the match, it's almost always the Janetti side.

But then Michaels comes in it goes back up and people remember these highlights from the match so you're a good tag team wrestler. Well then you take away that good side of it and you're no longer a good wrestler. I present to you the greatest tag team of all time the Usos. I'm sorry you mispronounced Steiner Brothers. You're funny. They are fantastic as a tag team. Both of them. Both of them are bad singles.

I don't know what to tell you, they don't have that break, they have to work the entire match themselves. Standing on the apron gives them a chance to catch a breath and think about their next move maybe. I'm not sure what to tell you on that one. Yeah, I'm getting off track again. That's alright. We'll get through here. So we go to the Ops. Picked up a quick win over three jobbers that no one really cares about. I thought Nick was gone. Who? Comrade.

Nick Camarado, thought they'd released him. I don't know who that is. Okay. Before the match, the Death Riders attacked the Ops. Claudio hit a neutralizer on Shibata onto the steel chair, same way he did with Hook a few weeks ago. Joe choked Mocks out again, challenged him to a steel cage match at Beach Break in two weeks. Two weeks.

was later confirmed and I'm guessing by later it means 37 seconds because Tony Khan wastes no time when there's a challenge out. One thing that annoys the shit out of me on that show at least the WWE waits till the next segment to say that they approved it. Like they didn't use to with Vince. They it would be instant. Like they just need to get Tony Khan out of there and put someone else in. It's always the first owner with Tony. It kills me that right now because it's like they'll literally like put the mic down.

And Shivani will be like, we just got an official from Tony Khan. How the hell did you even hear it? He's backstage. Joe's Steel K, me, you. Tony's like, Tony goes, yep, Shivani, you heard the man. One of these days, Tony Khan is going to say, ahead and make the match before the guy's done saying it. And he's going to challenge somebody completely different. And shit's just going to go all kinds of.

or all of a sudden you got some over Joe versus time with Tony storm because Tony kind of wanted to make a match too quick or or Joe just Tony Joe challenges mocks and Tony goes nah nah not yet post match what the hell post match I told you what happened you did say post max you're killing me so

Speak of time with Tony Storm. She defeated. Yep. Yeah. Yamashita in a title eliminator match. What's that first name? Me you. Me you Yamashita. That's how I would pronounce it. After the match, Mercedes Monet came out and said, Hey, you know what? I haven't buried enough people. I'd like to wrestle you for your title. So does he really see that?

Now she said she's gonna be Jamie Hader and then challenge time with Tony Storm so she can get her fifth title. You know what? used to say that Goldberg was the most undeserving wrestler of all time. Mercedes-Benz is making a hard push for this shit because my god. Are kidding me? take the pin every once in a I don't know. Put somebody over, make your division look tough when you completely beat everybody in every division.

in every promotion that you work with because you refuse to take a loss, the entire division looks like it sucks and you're the champion of garbage. So congratulations for building a garbage division.

Yeah, sorry. I'll get off my Mercedes. Monet soapbox right now. Hart Syndicate came to the ring to MJF one of them to hold another group vote to see if he could join. And he stated before that all three of them have to have to give the thumbs up. MVP did as as he did before. Then Benjamin gives the thumbs up. is the second time Benjamin's given a thumbs up. He gave the thumbs up last week when Bobby stole the sports car. You're right.

You're right.

You're right. yeah, Benjamin gives the thumbs up and then Lashley again says no.

So MJF gets all irritated and confronts Lashley and Lashley grabbed MJF and told him he needs to hurt somebody before they'll be impressed. The hurt syndicate then leaves MJF in the ring. Do you see where this is going? Do you see where I see this going? I don't see where you see this is going. Okay. hold on. I... Alright, what you got? Is MJF gonna hurt MVP? No, I think he's gonna hurt Bobby. I think he's gonna hurt Bobby. I think MJF's gonna get yet another group put together.

He's really good at that. is. We'll see what happens. be a likeable guy. We'll see if Wardlow gets into this group too, because God knows. Who knows? Maybe Wardlow will go into WWE. We've seen talks about that. So we go on to... Yeah, yeah. Nick Wayne successfully defending his ROH World Television title against Jay Lethal, because Jay Lethal is really getting up there in age and I'm amazed that he's still wrestling it though, but he does. Good job to Jay Lethal. I thought we were on collision. Not there yet, hang on.

Now we're on to collision. was the last match. All right, let's go collision. this has been a long podcast for me. Dude, it's we're almost an hour in and we're not even through recaps that I wanted to shoot through quick. All right. So let's go through this real quick. All right. FTR versus the Paragon two out of three falls match. FTR. Easy, easy. Quick. Not quite that quick. FTR beat Roger Stonin, Kyla Riley in a two out of three falls match. Paragon wins first one by submission.

then FTR takes two straight. Stokely Hathaway controversially put Cash Wheeler's foot on the rope to break a pin attempt as heels do. After the match Danny Garcia confronted FTR and Hathaway with a crowbar challenging them for next week. Him alone. Yeah that's one thing him and a mystery partner or do we see a swerve and he joins?

I don't know. I'd have to see his body language more to know and I'm just reading a recap for that. Danny Garcia? Wait, but he was in the...

Speaking of Daniel Garcia, he accepts an open challenge against Max Caster. It's at the bottom. I knew it happened. It's a five minute open challenge and Daniel Garcia beats the best wrestler in the world in one minute. In about a minute. Ouch. Yeah. Sorry, back to order. In another women's title eliminator.

timeless tony storm defeat lady frost it's not the same one no it's not it was a japanese girl yeah you're right storm cut a promo afterwards appearing in the balcony or whatever so yeah yeah she went outside and cut the promo she said crazy i'm here and okay yep now why do they keep doing this money thing this is the second time in the last few weeks they're like we're gonna give a hundred thousand dollars to that shit ain't happening you guys ain't getting an extra hundred grand knock it off we're not stupid

uh... would be a bit of a semi-gavara once a chaotic with airfox kevin night roosh so yeah i've been a great i've got that's probably pretty all over place i guess are watching this uh... just on saturdays the barra's here the bar signal toward adam cole after the win and call was on commentary so maybe we'll get that'll be a great title match i'd like to see that little few go and give our at all

Yeah. think it could be a really good match. Next was Brody King vs. Josh Alexander. It ended in a... This says 15 minute, but I heard it was 20 minute time. It was a time limit draw. Brody hits his pile driving finisher, then Josh Alexander rolls to the outside. It was a... Oh, and then Lance Archer gets involved, leading to a brief altercation involving King and Alexander. Look man, you know how I feel about Josh Alexander. I've been...

talking about Josh Alexander for the last week or two now and I'm loving that they're putting him over like this and at the same time not burying Brody King after right after Alistair Alistair slash Malachi left I wasn't sure what they were gonna do and then Buddy one injured his ankle wasn't sure how they were gonna handle Brody they're still handling Brody very well yeah Megan Bain versus Harley Cameron and Megan Bain wins of course after the match Bain and Penelope Ford

Attack but Anna J makes a save with a 2x4. man, I really hope she hacks out Jim Duggan that and yelled ho and they all looked. Ho! Which one we're talking about? So when we talk about the Daniel Garcia winning, Gates of Agony. Gates of Agony in action. Gates of Agony. Squash. Squash match. I thought that said Tongalilla. They called, yeah I know. Then they called out Big Bill and Brian Keefe leading to a brawl in the parking lots. Then we have the

It was a sweet, kinda, vignette, or promo package of Joe talking about how he's gonna beat Mox in the, steel cage. if it wasn't Mox, I'd be all for this match. Anytime I could see Joe in a cage, I mean, I'll still watch it because it's, it's Joe. Right. And I love me some Samoa Joe. Right. I think that does it.

We are recaps for the week how long if we much longer than I thought it was gonna take we did kind of wander off the path there a couple times on that reminds too much. it wasn't just you so In case you missed it before you clicked on this the name of this episodes this episodes episodes Yeah, both of them that one's for Jamie to know what I'm talking about So

The name of this episode is K-Fabe Cosplay and Call Ups. So we're gonna go into this and we're gonna talk, I think we'll start in a little bit of reverse order, we're gonna talk about the call ups. Yeah.

the reason we're gonna start with our call-ups is because they directly linked to some breaking news we had earlier this week about releases it's inevitable when you get call-ups you your roster's already full you get call-ups you gotta have releases you gotta make room for these call-ups it's unfortunate i don't like to see anybody lose their jobs these people are all paid well don't get me wrong so they've got some money most of these people some of these people were

low-level guys but the following people have been released.

Yeah, Keanu Carver. these guys were all released. This happens yearly, sometime shortly after WrestleMania as they start doing call-ups. Now with LFG, with Evolve, it's probably going end up being a little bit more. Right. It's an unfortunate part of the business. the same as in football. People get cut from teams. It happens. I see online where people are irate about it.

It's business guys, you know, and I understand that WWE says that they're making a record profit and they're charging shitloads of money for their tickets and all that so Yeah, they can afford this but in reality if you're running a business now Be honest with yourself here if you're running a business and you got some guys sitting in the back rumor has Braun Strowman making like 1.2 million dollars a year You see exactly you see what bronze been doing over this past year nothing outside has feud with

Bronson Reed and a little bit of time he spent with Jacob Fah too. He's done nothing of value that would deem him 1.2 million dollars. So he got to cut the FET somewhere and unfortunately it's with these people. Now most of these people I feel if they decide to will have a future somewhere else. Maybe the Indies, TNA. Yeah I have to wonder if some of these cuts were made specifically

with tna in mind since they're still doing a cross promotion with tna tna i feel like i wouldn't if i was released from like if i was fired from my job and i go to work with someone that's working with my job i wouldn't want to be like hey do you want to go wrestle max like take core j do you want to wrestle max with roxanne perez like no okay but here's the thing now what if i framed it to you like this is your employer what if i said we're releasing you we still want to work with you

and I have a job set up for you. Okay. Then that's different. So you're taking, and I hope this is the way it happens with at least a couple of these guys. Right. Cora Jade being one of my higher ones on this. That they would go to TNA and say, hey, you know, she's been here a little bit, she's been working. How about you take over her pay? You take over how much we're paying her and probably not as much, but we're going to get her off our payroll onto yours. She can help develop.

your girls and develop with your girls but you can still use her in cross promotion with us so you can keep those storylines that are already established. hope that's what it is especially for Korra. love Korra. I think looking at this entire list of names Korra Jade is the one. Galas. Big body Javi. Shut up. I really thought Galas had some promise to be called up and I think that at least Raw's tag team division could use a boost in the arm.

Right. After these releases, the way, Raw or WWE only has five tag teams, five women's tag teams in their women's tag team division. right. Not counting NXT's. Right. Even if they are, I mean, you just got rid of metaphor and chemical X.

I was like, who the hell is Chemical X? Gigi, Tatum, and Shotzi. Shotzi has not been released, but she has been informed that her contract will not be renewed. she's effectively released. Right. Which is, kind of good because you can see Gigi and Shotzi going somewhere together. I saw her and Cora tweeting about going back to the same indie show together. And they probably will hit a couple of indies before they go to wherever.

the nxt people typically have a thirty-day no compete clause, main roster have ninety in case people aren't aware of this, because I've seen a lot of people online bitching about it how can you tell someone they can't work for ninety days what actually happens is wwe says hey in three months we're going to release you so they're not officially released they're still getting paid their full wages they're just not getting put on tv right for those ninety days so in order to not

push momentum for another company, WWE keeps them off TV for 90 days, 30 days for NXT. Just because that's development versus- it different? It's just development versus, it's profile. Okay. You get higher profile, more mention on Raw, SmackDown, stuff like that. Than you do on NXT. I see. So it's not that they're actually saying, okay, you guys are fired, but you can't go work anywhere for three months. They're saying, in three months, we're going to release you from your contract. We're gonna keep you off TV, but you're still getting paid.

Right. So I mean that made me actually feel better for these people when I found that out years ago. So that's the downside of what happens after WrestleMania. The upside of what happens on WrestleMania is the call ups, which is something that we wanted to go over. We all know Fraxium got called up. know Ace is heartbroken that Fraxium got I like Fraxium. Should have stayed on NXT. Should have gone down to evolve. Ouch. I really do like Fraxium.

we just talked julia and raxanne raxanne getting call ups i'm going to assume with the metaphor breaking up and that's i was going to get kicked out that that's her lash legend my god i'm assuming that she's going to get called up because i think she's going to smack down i so i do i think she would fit in perfectly with jade cargill what if naomi gets an enforcer

Her enforcer is Nia Jax. No, no, no, no, no, no. Her enforcer is Lash Legend because Jade's bigger, stronger, more intimidating, blah, blah, blah. So she brings out Lash, who's a big girl. Right? That could work. That could be fun. I could enjoy that storyline quite a bit. I think after his whole thing with Joe Hendry's done, Trick's getting called up. Thank you very much. Trick gets I think when Oba loses the title, he's getting called up.

I think when Stephanie loses the title, she's getting called up. think Luca might have gotten called up. Maybe, that's what I said, man. When you kill a member of the family, they either show up on AEW or they show up on the main roster. We'll have wait and see what happens. I, for my sake, I hope Luca doesn't show up in AEW because I don't see him getting pushed up to where I would like to see him. I don't even see him getting in the mid card.

there is where I could see him get a mid card on and smack down or raw. Right. Here, hold on, let me go through their roster because I can't think of any people off the top of my head. Tony D. When this feud with Stax is done, Tony D gets called up. a month. So it would still go in this round of call-ups in my opinion. No, not results, roster.

I I think Ethan Page might get a call up. Ethan Page definitely could. Um, you know, Henry is listed as a member of the NXT roster. Is he just throwing that out there? How about that? That's good. They, they also speak of rosters. They also snuck Alberto Del Rio back on. that on the alumni, if you guys don't know, Alberto Del Rio used to be in WWE former champion, uh, had some domestic violence allegations against him.

Him and Paige were together, had some issues there. WWE basically tried to scrub him from history books, but they just purchased AEW or not AEW, they- AAA. AAA, I just got an A in my head and I say it. They just purchased AAA and Alberto is their champion. it was a big controversy about how they were gonna handle that. I don't know if you can see that, but on the left side of Julia, it's Raw. So it kinda has like a split. Right, so she is officially on Raw and SmackDown. I'm assuming, yep, same with Roxanne and Stephanie.

Really? Yeah. I I think When soul Ruko loses her title, she's getting a call up. No. No. Nope. She's gonna go she'll be a main NXT champion level for you think yeah, I think she's gonna build same with Kalani Jordan

Uh-huh. she's going to be... She's... Where she was in the mid card for a little while. Right. And she'll feud around there for little while. And then after Roxanne, Julia, and Stephanie are all gone, there's gonna be a vacuum at the top, so they're gonna have to pull some people up. And I think Soul will be one of them. Right. I would, I would love to see... I know it's not gonna happen, but I'd love to see Tyreke and, Tyson.

Tyson and yeah they gotta get a little more with the guys with Wesley yeah they gotta get a little more time and I think as a tag team but I love what they're doing right there they definitely have a bright future I like I like where they're going with them but I don't think they're quite ready right I got people like

Dante Chen is still employed? I wouldn't have thought that. Right, I got people like Charlie Dempsey getting a call up. I don't see it, but okay. Call me crazy. Crazy? Okay, I think by, I know that's not what we're really talking about, but after next WrestleMania, I think Dark State's getting a call up. So not only did you have me doing WrestleMania predictions,

Now you want to do call ups after WrestleMania predictions? No, that's not. I'm just saying that I think that's how bright their future is. We'll see. We'll see what their storyline or three, four matches and we'll see what their storyline involves to. Right. I mean, you got people like all the ex AW guys, really. Right. Any of them. I think they can get called up. I think it's just a matter of learning to work the WWE. What way and style. It's the same reason that Julia and Stephanie, I think the only reason Cody and Punk.

didn't go to NXT is because they were originally in WWE. Right, they know the style. Right. And there's a handful of guys that like AJ Well, I don't know. Shawn Spears. Shawn, but again, remember how Shawn wants to transition into training. That's true. So he wanted to work with Younger Town. I think that was more a hit decision thing. yeah. But there are guys like AJ Styles who WWE just had enough faith in that we know you're going to be able to adapt to whatever style, Penta, Rey Fenix. Right. You know, we know no matter what you're going to adapt to this and-

It'll work out.

We don't have to the entire roster. No, I'm just saying I've never heard of that guy in my life. Me neither. Maybe he's one of the guys that they're talking about from Evolve. So we've seen a few call-ups already and we got a few more that we think are gonna happen and unfortunately and I'm sure we're gonna get some call-ups from Evolve into NXT and I'm sure we're gonna get some LFG people graduating to NXT which is why this new crop of NXT guys are coming up and then in turn

Making these releases We will get into a little bit more on releases when we get into the maddening takes because I Have some takes on those releases. It's how good saying it sounds like ace does as well. So another topic we were Heavily debating and talking about was Logan Paul. Yeah, okay Logan Paul came in as this YouTube sensation this cocky kid this whatever him and his brother or

real athletes or I believe Jake Paul's about as real of a boxer as Logan Paul is as a wrestler but well I don't by wrestler I mean like Olympic wrestler. I thought you meant... No. So the debate is and we'd like a little feedback on this if you guys want to hit us up on our comments you know hit us on any of our socials let us know I'll put some posts up on it we'll get a poll going on this to see where everybody stands. Logan has been around for a while now

Do feel Logan Paul is still just a celebrity guest? Or do feel Logan Paul is actually a WWE superstar just on a lighter schedule? I think ever since this new year, he is a WWE superstar on a lighter schedule. I mean, if you... Let me fact check this real quick. But if you check his YouTube, he's not uploading nearly as often as he was.

without or when he was a part time WWE. So I mean, he's obviously, let me, let me fact check that. Well, he said he was going to cut back on his socials. Right. So if he's obviously cutting back on his socials and you know, I don't like Logan Paul, I don't like him at all as a human being. I have seen some interaction backstage with some of the guys when he's not in character. And unfortunately I think he's in character a whole lot.

Even on his YouTube shows and all that stuff. I think he's in character a whole lot. Right. But I've seen some interaction that was actually enjoyable where he looked like he might be an entertaining type of guy. I'm going to side with you on this though. Yeah, I think and I looked at it. looked at it. The videos he is uploading goes, I broke my back at WrestleMania. Triple H cut me off.

You know, it's stuff about wrestling. He's not doing anything not about his most recent one was 100 WWE superstars or one gorilla, but that's I do. I do think that Logan Paul is at this point actually a WWE superstar. Granted, he's a light schedule. Very WWE superstar, but he's been showing up more than some of their other part timers do. Right. Like when's the last time you've seen him up until

That mania build up, when's last time you seen Roman since he lost the championship? I mean... You know, I love the guy, but... so you got Roman working a light schedule, and we know Cena's working a light schedule. When Lesnar was a full-timer and the world champion, his schedule was ridiculous. I think Paul's putting in more work now than some of these guys do, and those guys earned their spot to be part-timers. Paul Logan has...

If he doesn't want to do it full time, doesn't have to. That's the thing. him... Because he's got enough money. Right. Him doing what he does is great. But I think at this point, as much as it hurts my pride and hurts everything else, and I really hope we end up with a carry and cross Logan Paul feud. Why's that? Just because I think it'll be fun. Okay. And I'd like to see Logan Paul get smacked around by carrying cross a little bit. That's true.

I like that as well. hope we get to see that happen and I'm gonna give Logan Paul the nod. Yes, I think you are actually a WWE superstar now. So we are gonna put that poll up. We'll put it up with this episode at least on, I know I can do it on Spotify. I'll look on the other ones. do it on X. Okay, well no, mean straight up with the podcast. see, I see. But we will put it up on...

Expo put it up on I don't know how to but you can face don't worry about it. I'll take care of it We'll put up on all our socials if you follow us anywhere Hit us up. Let us know You can leave comments wherever you're listening to the podcast. What do you think is Logan Paul a WWE superstar? We're still a part-timer part-timers that look more like guys like bad bunny Great bad bunny was great in the ring so pot surprisingly great in the ring for as little as he did but

When's the last time you've seen him? I think he's a celebrity guest. Yeah, celebrity. Yeah, that's what meant. I'm sorry, I said the wrong thing. He's a celebrity guest. Roman is a part-time. And I think we're going to end up seeing Bad Bunny and Travis Scott in the same ring before the year's up. Yeah, that'll be... It'll be a tag match. Right. It'll be John and Scott. John and Travis versus somebody and Bad Bunny. It's gonna happen. Might be Cody. I don't know. When Cody comes back, we might not see face Cody for very long when he comes back. Good.

we might see a turn happening with Cody. That's a wild prediction, but who knows? our second to last. So if our maddening takes, right, right, right. So yeah, so our last, we have world of K-Fabe, right? We have done call ups. We have done cosplay. Now it's time to talk about K-Fabe. Now I assume if you're listening to a wrestling podcast that you know what K-Fabe means, but

for those of you who don't. It's basically the acting. Keeping the secrets of the business secret. Like you don't know how... I can't think of a good example. I'm sorry. You don't know all the backstage stuff that goes on. The talking before the matches. The who's friends, who's... Basically if you're a bad guy on TV you should be seen as a bad guy. If you're a good guy on TV you should be seen as a good guy. And you shouldn't be, you know...

on a YouTube channel playing video games with each other, joking around. Austin Creed. Yeah, which I have absolutely no problem with, personally. Well, sometimes they stay in, like, Baszler, Shayna, on Up Up Down Down, she usually, like, she's a lot more light-hearted, but she usually takes jabs at people and tell them how bad they are. Well, that might just be how she is in real life. So she might not be keeping Cape Fave, she might just be being how she is. I I jazz at people all the time. Right, but, I don't know.

I don't know, I've been on line a whole lot reading about this. A lot of old time wrestlers, Steve Austin came out recently and said that he's not in favor. WWE is putting out a show, I believe it's called Behind the Veil, showing you backstage footage and stuff that happens backstage you might not have known about. And to me, I don't see the issue with it. A lot of old timers, a lot of long time wrestling fans, a lot of long time wrestlers are not.

in favor of this because they think it's taking something away. So I told you... It's just called Unreal. Oh, sorry. I really thought it was called Behind the Veil. don't know what the hell was. Behind the Curtain was the WrestleMania 41. Okay. Like with the Rock. Anyway, earlier in the show I said I accidentally ran into a wrestler that I used to watch growing up. And I'm online talking about this kayfabe stuff. I've seen a whole lot of it on there. one, for whatever reason, I responded to one...

particular Facebook post about it. And I said, you know, guys complaining about the show coming out. said, you know, don't watch the show. Just watch Raw. Just watch SmackDown. Just watch NXT, AEW. Don't watch the behind the scenes stuff. You don't have to. So he and I had a conversation a little while back and forth and he said something about even in the shows he does today, all his guys like to keep kayfabe. And I'm thinking,

this guy's a promoter that's kind of cool you know I help promote a promotion maybe we could do something I'm gonna look up see who this guy is so I look him up and his name is Bobby Fulton it's not a huge name it's not a name that probably definitely not a lot of younger guys are gonna know but he wrestled in a tag team called the Fantasticks and world-class championship wrestling WCCW and the old NWA before it became WCW

He was this tag team the fantastix feuded against the midnight express rock and roll express who were two other big indie tags a lot of expresses didn't that yeah, it was there was a whole lot of expresses because there was the midnight express and those rock and roll express and then There was the orient express. Yeah, it was crazy. It's weird. Yes for some reason there was expresses but so Bobby Fulton and I are on here talking and he's telling me how it's just this worst thing in the world that they're breaking kayfabe and I talked to Nolan

I asked Dolan how he felt about it. He was trained by an old-school wrestler and he likes K-Fabe. Some of the guys we wrestle with at V1P they like to K-Fabe. Part of K-Fabe is that if you're a heel you don't go out during intermission and shake hands and meet the audience because you're a bad guy. You don't like them. Which if that's what you want to do that's fine but let me tell you something folks at an indie wrestling show intermission is where you go sell your merch and where you make your money.

You don't make your money wrestling at an indie show unless you're a former WWE, WCW, AEW guy. You don't make your money wrestling on these shows. You make your money selling merch and if you want to sit in the back because you're a bad guy and not selling your merch, that's on you. That's cool. But to say that letting somebody know that the story isn't real ruins it. I don't see it. They blame Triple H.

which kills me because if you go back years, was a wrestling documentary called Beyond the Mat that was actually released in theaters that talked about all this stuff in like 2000 or something, somewhere around that time frame. But they're blaming Triple H with this new show coming out, which I think is funny because if you know too much about Triple H, back right before the NWO invaded WCW, Triple H, Shawn Michaels,

Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, the clique. were four very good friends. Hall and Nash were wrestling their last match in WWE at Madison Square Garden in a steel cage against Hunter and Shawn. Match gets over, they're all done. They stood in the middle ring and hugged each other, all four of them. Now this was the first big major break of character in front of the audience.

at least in a very very long time. Now the problem with this is Kevin and Scott were leaving. They were going to WCW. Vince couldn't do anything to him. Sean was his heavyweight champion. Vince couldn't do anything to him. So for this break of kayfabe, Hunter gets punished. Why? Because he was the only one Vince could punish. Vince was pissed. You know, you broke character. These guys don't... These guys now realize that it's not real. Vince and everybody else who's defending how much...

much everybody believed in kayfabe nobody believed that that garbage man wrestling in the ring was a real garbage man who brought his trash to the ring with him on his days off to wrestle nobody thought that right nobody thought the undertaker was actually an undead dude in a trench coat nobody thought that I watch behind behind the scenes extra footage from movies all the time

That's what I was going to bring out. And I never once think it takes anything away from the movie. If I take my wife out to a Broadway show and we go see Hamilton, which I didn't care for, but that's all another story, but we go see Hamilton because it's the big show everybody wants to see. And after that I say, hey, you know what, Brandy? That was a very nice show. Let's go grab a drink. So we go to the bar and we grab a drink and lo and behold, over there at the other end of the bar, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

I don't know who the hell that is. I'm just going to use the character's name. Shush. OK. Is Hamilton and Aaron Burr having a drink together? I don't say, well, shit, you just ruined a movie. You just ruined the whole play. That dude shot him. They can't be drinking together. Come on, man. The fun of wrestling is the suspension of belief. And to suspend belief, you have to have something to believe in.

So knowing these things, knowing this behind the scenes stuff, once the curtain goes up and the show's on, you forget it. You're watching the show. This is something that's probably going to piss a lot of wrestlers off, especially the older wrestlers, because it's going to sound really, really soft. And none of these old guys like to be soft. But wrestling is performance art. You can look at it any way you want. You're out there.

doing a show in front of these people and nobody believes for half a second that when you both go back behind the same curtain after you've been beating the shit out of each other for 15 minutes that you can walk behind the same tiny thin ass little curtain and you keep everything's cool but you think that they really believe the kayfabe come on I don't get it kayfabe is dead kayfabe thinking that you were keeping kayfabe to me was silly

So if there are any wrestlers out there who are listening to this, I've talked to a few. Colton Quinn got back with me. When he's at the show, he is Colton Quinn 100 % of the time. And that's fine. I'm absolutely cool with that. I've talked to a couple other guys that have wrestled. Some of them believe in it. Some of them see the value of it. If you're at the show and you're in character 100 % of the time, that's great. I love it. That's cool too. But I don't understand the anger that's online about the K-Fa-

Yeah, that was a good point. I don't- I- The only thing I like about the wrestlers keeping K-Faith is like, when they're with little kids. Like, if you go up to Dom, like, Mysterio, as like a... age type of man, I don't know how old you are. Yes you do, shut up. I don't. 50.

Okay, Dom's gonna know that you know he's not a bad guy. But I just saw an interview the other day with a little kid. goes, Dom goes, you're not a Reyna Estirio fan, are you? The kid goes, no. He goes, then the dad goes, well, me and him fight. He always says, I'm Miss Rey and he's Dom. And Dom goes, he's a deadbeat too. So like in Austin Creed, Xavier Woods.

He, this little kid, waited in line for an hour, hour and a half to meet him. And all he said to Xavier Woods was, New Day sucks. Xavier Woods then goes, you waited in line for an hour and a half to tell me New Day sucks. Right, and I get that. But that's no different than a five-year-old kid seeing Tom Holland and Tom Holland pretending that he's Peter Parker. You act differently for small children. Right, and that's what I think.

Right, and that actually kind of drives my point home a little bit. These grown men throwing a hissy fit online are acting like little children. You know goddamn well that these people are not their characters. You know goddamn well that they are portraying somebody to entertain you. Right, Yeah, I guess it's only for kids that I think you should keep K-Fabe. Right. Because it's the experience. It is, and

I guess, you know, maybe I might be a little jaded the very first time I ever watched wrestling. My dad made sure I understood that it wasn't 100 % real that these guys didn't hate each other. That dude with a chair really wasn't trying to kill that guy. You didn't do that for me. You, I had the, you, you once told me Roman Reigns his real name wasn't Roman Reigns. I'm like, it was when he said my real name is Joe. When he came out for the leukemia. Yeah. I go, who's Joe? You go, that's Roman. I go, no, it's not. He's Roman. Right. Then

You tell me you really thought these guys his real name. thought Biggie's real name was Biggie. I go, I guess I just thought it was a nickname, you know. And actually it is because his real name begins with an E. It does. So. So I think we're we're kind of on the same page on K-Fabe. Yeah. But that's another one. If you guys want to hit us up and tell us what you think. I just think that wrestling fans, you know, I know I say a lot that I've met a lot of wrestling fans that I didn't like because they're not too bright.

But even the ones that aren't real bright are smart enough to understand that these guys aren't really the characters that they think they are. Like Dom and Ray love each other. Right. mean, here you go. When somebody knocks on Ray Mysterio's door at Christmas and he answers the door, he ain't wearing a goddamn mask for real, guys. That was just for the camera. Right. You got to know that. Right. All right. We kind of agreed on that. OK.

but i don't think we're gonna agree at all for these maddening takes. I'm gonna let you start off maddening takes today. Thank you Brandon for pointing out how obviously stupid we were for not doing that. one more thing I wanted to say before we get to our maddening takes on Brandon. Obviously the studio that I use that helps me with editing thought that everything that Brandon had to say last week was super important because he said it twice. I apologize to everybody for that echo. Next time we have a guest I'll check in to see exactly what happened.

Maddening take. There you go. This is gonna get used to. This is gonna... I don't think any of these releases were justified. None of them. Even after I talked about Strowman's salary? None of them. I don't think any of them were justified. I don't really know that that's a hot take because everybody and their brother seems to be pissed off about it. Not about everyone. Sorry, Maddening take. Damnit. They get... They get upset about like... Dakota Kai. But you don't see people complaining that Caden Carter and Katana Chan's are gone. You know?

I think none of those releases were justified. Zero.

I cannot disagree more. I know. ironically, and folks, promise you, Ace and I did not discuss our maddening takes before we came on the air today. I think that people are getting worked up over a business decision. I think that these people, you can't just keep paying people just out of the kindness of your heart to sit around and do nothing. Then book them. If creative doesn't come up with anything for them, if creative is sitting there and you got these people over here making this money.

And it's like, man, they just don't fit into the storyline I'm writing. Okay, so I'm gonna write a different storyline. This one I don't think fits into the storyline. It just doesn't make sense how we get from here to here. Shayna Baszler, yeah, she was a badass and she is a badass legit, 100 % legit. But did she ever get over with the crowd? Yeah, NXT Women's Champion, 100 % over the undefeated 500 300 something day reign. 100 % was over because-

When she came up to the main roster and lost to Becky Lynch for the Raw Women's title, you and I were both very upset and I'm most of the rest of the internet was as well. Most of the rest of the internet is nothing to base over on. Okay. First and foremost. Yes, we were upset because as I've always told you, I think established stars need to build new stars. So that was, that was a thing, you you built Shayna to this point and just cause you built her on just, hmm. Yeah.

Just because you build someone undefeated doesn't mean they deserve to be undefeated. Goldberg was over and undefeated, but he did not deserve to be there. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I don't know. think these cuts are good, honestly. Yeah, I know. That's ridiculous. It happens. You have to cut in order to grow. It just happens. It's the same as if anybody knows anything about

You gotta prune every once in a while so stuff grows better. It just is what it is. It's an unfortunate side of business, but you have to get rid of people. Then release people like Dante Chen. Release people like Cale Dixon. Do know who that is? Keep going. Release people like... Hold on, let me... find another going. Release people like Ariana Grace. Keep going. Release people like... Jasmine Nicks, Nikita Lyons.

Omas what are they doing for the company? Well actually Omas is doing a lot of international work for the company He won the pro wrestling Noah tag team titles over in Japan, which Noah is Probably the next company to look at buying at Japan's next market Noah they work closer with I was surprised at the rocks new Japan shirt honestly because they've been working with Noah But that's the market that they're going to get into is Japan

So that's what Omos is doing. the other ones, all the other ones you mentioned, you could probably add their salaries together and not equal what Strowman made. That's because they're on NXT. They're in the minor leagues, so they're not getting paid as much as the people in the that. But you have to look at it on a business side. You can't just say, hey, we're going to release all these guys that make a little bit of money and save a bunch. cut. It's just like, all right, you're an NFL fan, right? Yeah.

Okay, when is the best window of opportunity for an NFL fan to win a Super Bowl or NFL team to win a Super Bowl? The draft, right? No. No? The quarterbacks rookie contract. Because that's when their budget is the most manageable. Okay. So you have to bring you get rid of these people that are making $1.2 million to come out and have one or two matches and lose.

And then you can bring up these guys that are making five hundred thousand dollars then you can get three guys on the roster for the price of one who wasn't doing anything and if one of these three work out You've just improved your company. I said but like the people on the main roster even like Apollo Cruz Release him you can release B fab you can release like Carly Bright You can okay

So here's the other side of that. All right. You can release Chris Sabin. No, kidding. Let's let's release Apollo Cruz. Good. Let's go ahead and do that. Who do we put on Main Event? You same same people you're putting on Main Event. You can put Cruz del Toro Dante or no, because you're releasing Dante in this specific scenario. You can put Dexter Lumis. You can put Idris Ennoth. You can put these people from NXT. Give them a little push up.

like a kinda call up on to main roster and have them beat like a mid-carder like Cruz del Toro. So you really think people are going to tune into a show to watch Cruz del Toro wrestle somebody whose name I can't even remember that you just said 10 seconds ago? Not at all. So where's your show? thing is when you keep these other people around

They end up on main event. They end up going down and doing stuff. You got Timothy Thatcher, who should have still been in NXT, now wrestling on Evolve, which is absolutely crazy to me, unless he's just there as an instructor, which I'm not 100 % sure of. But then you're have everybody bitching about that. So you either bitch that they're getting released, or you bitch that they're putting them on a lower show, or you bitch that they don't have enough story language.

So I understand that you want these guys to get paid, but a lot of these guys want to work. And if I don't have a story for you, and I can save some money, I'm gonna let you go and you can go work. I think my thing is, if they haven't been on TV for six plus months, let them go. I don't care what they're doing, I don't care. Unless they're injured. If they're injured and trying to work back. Of course. But like, people, like, the Wyatt Six, Alexa Bliss.

You got people like Nikita Lyons. She's working back from an injury. yeah, I didn't know that. See, that makes me seem like a jerk. But like BFab. So you just don't like BFab. BFab is getting better in Ring. And BFab is something this is going to sound bad, but there's a demographic look at it. You also have to get to. I suppose it is what it is. There's certain.

things that you need to hit to present yourself to a wider base audience. Right. So, you know, you can release some of these people. I mean, I guess they did release Kayden, which by the way, we never touched on that. We did. No, we never touched on you said Damien Priest looked a little emotional. yeah. Damien and Kayden are dating if you didn't know when she probably just got she had just gotten the news of her release. Yeah. Right before he went on to do his promo.

So he looked a little emotional. Poor guy. Like, everyone and their brother knows who Roman Reigns is. Shane O'Mac is still employed. Release the guy. That could be a tricky situation. Family-wise, buyout-wise, I don't know what all was involved in the buyout contract. Who is Stevie Turner? Release her. Tamina, release her. Like, there are so many other people you could get rid of that would not hurt the company at

No one would be complaining about it not that you know of Okay, it's not everybody that's on that roster mm-hmm can be used on TV Everybody that's on that roster Doesn't necessarily get that's you don't know what they do behind the scenes though Tamina trains Tamina is one of the Performance center trainers so they can still pull her out as a surprise. She's still

I I've said previously that I love these guys. Release Alpha Academy as a whole. Alpha Academy moves merchandise. They sell. I just feel there are so many other options than these people that were... had... event or finals for the championship matches. Dakota Kai.

We're on Raw. Dakota Kaya gets hurt every three months. Okay, so does Cora Jade. She's working to improve. They are both doing their best to improve. They can't help the fact that they get injured. That's not pretty passionate about this. Because I am. I think it's so dumb. People, it's business. You have to see a business aspect. You can't just, when you hire somebody for this, especially in the wrestling world, you can't just indefinitely pay them.

If there's no return on your investment, or you're not getting the return on your investment that you think is worth it, you need to move on. It's that simple. Okay. Candice LeRae. Okay. She gets injured. A decent amount of time. Nowhere near as much as Dakota, but alright. A decent amount of time. Doesn't sell merch. Has no storylines. Nope. What is she doing?

trying to think who it was that I had read a match with. It was a male wrestler that had wrestled Candice on the indies. I can't remember who it was because I think she does, she works with the young people too. But he said that her in-ring work was like some of the best he'd ever been in-ringing. It was a shocking person. I really wish I could remember who it was. It might have been Cedric Alexander. really? Yeah. Yeah because he hit her with the lumbar check.

and they showed the footage and he just raved about working with Candace and how great she was. So that's another example of somebody who might be working behind the scenes that they can pull out as, crap, we need to fill in or we don't know who else to quite plug in here, whatever, you'll work. But they do other work. You... Okay, what is the Wyatt 6 doing? Waiting for Uncle Howdy to get cleared. Is he injured? Yes. How did he get injured? No idea.

Okay, cause I know Apollo Crews tore his peck in catering.

Where did Cody tear his back? Cody tore his back training. Exactly. it's not I mean, you can you can hurt yourself not entering. Keanu James is no one cares about. She wasn't. She was. Was she? Yes. I am almost 100 percent that they I read somewhere that they she was part of the budget cuts last year. Budget cuts last year and she's still employed.

Who's Kendall Grey? Really, her. Who? Like, there are so many other people that have zero talent. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nobody gets to this level with zero talent. Okay, bad in-ring skills. Okay mic skills. They don't sell merch. They don't have any cohesive storylines. So let them go. So you're...

plan to run a business? Let me get this right. Your plan is we're going to keep the people who cost us more money, don't sell merch and don't really advance storylines and get rid of the people who we can possibly train to get better and see what we so we're going to get rid of the short things that we know aren't working and keep the keep the things that we know aren't working and get rid of the things that could possibly work in the future.

But you don't know that they're not working because you haven't tried them. You've tried them three or four times and they didn't work then. So try them once more. Give them another person. If they don't... Listen, I'm right. You're not. 100%. Try them once more until we get to next year and we release them and then everybody's like, no, why did you release them? give them one more try. And then next year, well, okay, we're going to release them. But...

But you didn't give them enough of a try. You should have tried this angle. You should have tried this angle. This is a multi-billion dollar company for a reason. These guys make cuts because they have to. They make cuts because these people are not a good return on the investment. I'm not saying I don't like these people. You know I love the party girls. I love Katana Chance and Caden Carter. I thought they were great. But the return on the investment wasn't there.

You're a multi-billion dollar company making budget cuts and then releasing championships like the 847-carat Crown Jewel Championship. Which was paid for mostly by the Saudi Prince. Back, check, do your research before you start bitching about stuff. But still, it's ridiculous. do mean but still? You just threw me a budget number that has nothing to do with this. It's not a but still.

People like Braun Strowman are at least mid card championship material. could, he is a former universal champion. How well did that go? It's because it was COVID, no one, shut up. He, he- The second time Braun Strowman was released by the way. So they did bring him back, him another chance and he still wasn't worth the return on their investment. Right. And that's the one thing I don't like about people complaining about the releases is that-

Like, you're acting like this has never happened before. Exactly. It happens every year. But it's people with immense talent that goes nowhere. You're going to tell me... Uh-huh? That other than being large and strong, Braun Strowman has, and I quote, immense talent. Okay, buddy.

What talent does he have besides being large and strong? He can work with people. Watch his matches. Watch how he sells. Watch how he does. He is way better than Bron and Ring. But I'm saying Bron is good. Immense talent was the quote that I took an issue with. Most of them. They're at least decent or above. Every single one that got released. Cora Jade. Amazing. And Galas. Amazing. Outside of that, bye bye.

Here, me pull up the releases again, shall I? You can, but we're running real long on this segment. I know. I'm going to go through every single one and tell you why they shouldn't be released. Braun Strowman, former Universal Champion, former Intercontinental Champion, he could field with Jacob for like another... Been done. Can you let me talk? I can. Another two or three months? That's not...

That's not gonna get old. It's not. People are gonna be invested because it's Jacob Fatu in Braun Strowman. Two big meaty men slapping meat. That's what you have to do with those big guys. Or put them against like... Can't think of his name.

not not more keen wild but the other one yeah you can put him against like cruiser weights like that it'll be good matches to have him what smack him out of the sky it's not gonna be a good match my my goodness Ron doesn't put on good Matt Ron is not like Brock Lesnar so when you put him in with a smaller guy he gets better that's not what happens with bra

Okay, sure, whatever. Shayna Baszler. World Championship material right there. And you're doing nothing. You're putting her in a tag team with Sonya Deville, who got released last year, and Zoe Stark, who I don't know how she's still around. Whoa, you love Zoe. But she's doing nothing! Well, and the thing with... What was the other one that got released from that? Sonya? Sonya, yeah. I didn't hear anybody whining and crying when she got released. But because she didn't have potential.

Do you wanna, you Keep going, keep going. Dakota Kai. Amazing potential. She is mid card, that is why they made the mid card championship. It's for people like Dakota Kai, Ivy Niles, Alina Vega, Chelsea Green. But then you release half of your women's mid card division. Like that's not, that doesn't make sense.

Then you have the best women's tag team.

Kayden Carter and Katana Chance.

They could have held another run. are amazing in ring. They sell merch. They like, why are you not? I don't know how much merch they sell. I'd have to sell a decent amount. I have to look at that. And we talked about this. Katana chance. have loved Casey Catanzaro since she was on American Ninja Warrior. I thought she was great when I heard she was going to WWE. I thought it was going to be awesome. But this is why I told you when it got called up. I wasn't sure how long she was going to last.

just based on her size. this is right or wrong, something that I saw coming, something that I'm not shocked by. Think about the amazing matches they could have with Liv and Raquel. Think about the amazing matches they could have with metaphor if they kept Jacara Jackson around. Because they were in the women's tag team title picture not too long ago, Stand and Deliver, WrestleMania weekend, same with Gigi Dolan.

who also got released. I'm fine with that one. 100 % fine with that one. But your main thing is that you don't have storylines for them. It's not my main thing, but alright. With tag teams, you have so many storylines. You can break them up, make them a single superstar, which Jacara Jackson, by the way, has proven that she can do. Same with Gigi. Corey Jade. She has.

Corey Jade just got in a tag team with Roxanne again, Roxanne walks out, and then WWE lets Corey go. I don't understand, Eddie Thorpe was just in a championship feud with- For some reason, wasn't good on He's good in ring. I don't think he is. This is the thing, the viewpoint of good in ring, good, not good in ring, to an extent, is subjective. I don't think he was good.

I don't think so at all. Gigi Dolan, I have never been impressed with Gigi Dolan going all the way back when she was with Mandy. Of the three of them, she was the one I liked the least. Gallus. Gallus, 100%. I told you. Gallus and Cora Jade were a mistake. We'll see how it plays out in the long run. That's the other thing. Everybody's getting all pissy about this right now, yourself obviously included. But this is kind of like the NFL draft. You're not going to know until six months to a year down the road whether this was the right choice or

I don't think any of these were the right choice. Because Oro Mensa put him in a mid card division instead of getting him on Evolve. Have you, you haven't been watching him. Have you seen his matches against people like, I can't remember who he wrestled. But they were, shut up. They were great matches. He's, he can cut a promo. He's on par with Ricochet in ring.

I'm not crazy for saying that okay. I'm not cute. I will Riley Osborne that is one I can understand why you released it

He hasn't been on TV for the past couple weeks, couple months. Right, pretty much since Chase you broke up, Yeah. They just didn't know what to do with him. But he also has potential. Okay, here's the other thing that you don't see. And you don't know. And I don't know. You don't know what these guys are like behind the scenes. I suppose. You don't know what these guys are like. So let's say, hey, I don't have a role for you. I'm going to have to have you sit for a couple months. How do you deal with that? Do you...

go into the performance center and bust your ass every single day and push yourself harder and try and improve and try and work on my skills or do you get pissed off sitting catering and gossip about shit see if you're in the performance center busting your ass and trying to get better I might look at you again if I tell you I don't have anything for you and you get pissy about it I might not look at you again it's not just a business thing it's not just money it's not just entering talent it's

You gotta see how this reacts for the whole thing. If you got guys that are coming in lazy because they're not getting their way, those aren't the guys you want to work with. is, know, AEW fans, sorry, but this is the top of the top in professional wrestling right now. So if you can't come in and even when you're not getting your way, bust your ass and show that you deserve to get your way, that's going to get you cut. And we don't know that about any of them. I'm not saying that that's how any of these people are.

Obviously I do not know them, but that's something else that you have to take into consideration before you just say they shouldn't have been cut. You don't know the backstage on this. I do know Dakota. He just sits at home playing video games while she's Well, you're injured is one thing. I mean, cause you might not be able to be in the gym and stuff, but these guys who aren't on TV, these guys who aren't getting pushed on a consistent basis, what are they doing? know, Bron's making 1.2 million a year.

And obviously he's staying in good shape, but he's done that since he's been a professional strong man. What is he doing to improve his ring work? What is he doing to pitch creative ideas? What is it? We don't know any of that and that's going to weigh into it. Speaking of pitching creative ideas, did you hear Becky Lynch is in charge of creative control? Who gets released and who gets signed? Shows says who said I saw multiple sources. I want to see where the first report came from.

because there's a couple legit sources out there who I don't believe won a little bit. Okay. I'm not saying it's not happening. I'm not saying that you are 100 % wrong. Right. But there's a couple legit sources that are considered the guys in pro wrestling that sometimes just talk shit to talk shit. Right. So I don't think we're going to get anywhere further in our discussion. Matter of fact, this might get cut down a little bit. We'll see what happens. What are we, two hours?

just about. But I did also want to mention real quick that I was on this morning, this afternoon I went to mention Jamie Halibisin earlier. Jamie has a podcast called Dirty Laundry and White Lies and I was on his podcast earlier today. We were talking a little bit about V1P. We were talking a little bit about this podcast right here. I would like to get Jamie

on this podcast in the future. been a good friend of Jamie for a few years now. Jamie's really getting into wrestling. He's going to come help us this Saturday, May 10th at the next V1P show. He's going to be doing some commentary with Ace. Oh yes, I forgot about that. I'm so excited. Anybody that doesn't have anything going on this Saturday, hey, you know what? This weekend's Mother's Day, maybe Mom likes professional wrestling. Bring Mom out.

to the Black Swamp Sports Academy in Tiffin, Ohio to see V1P. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday, come see V1P World Champion Manson Crane. Come see Nolan Bates, the hometown hero. Yeah, that's great. Let's wrap it up, buddy. All right. Thanks for listening to Maddening Takes. Have fun out there and we'll talk to you next week.