Transcript
Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Predetermined, a Pro Wrestling Hangout. I'm your host, Garrett Callender, and with me as always, Chris Miggs.
Speaker: The sack of them, they were all green, which would be the lime spinny. I'm not super familiar with the spinny's. I only I only knew about them from you and him drinking them in that video. Oh, there's a lot of flavors, Garrett. So there's like a raspberry lime, which is delightful. There's a half and half one, which is really good.
Speaker: a strawberry lemon, like there's like a whole list of them. The standard mixed pack is grapefruit, lemon and lime. There's like a dozen grapefruits in my fridge right now because I think grapefruit is disgusting. And my wife only occasionally drinks a spinny. Someone was over at my house last weekend was like, hey, can I have one of those grapefruit spindrifts? And I was like, you can have six.
Speaker: You put those in a beer bong and butt chug those out of my house right now. Yeah, so I recommend the Spinney's Garrett and you can go on the website. They got a lot of flavors. Sometimes they're very cheap on Amazon, too, if anyone wants to check them out. If anyone wants to be like CM Punk and you can't you're not in Chicago, so you can't get to Mindy's Bakery on the regular. They ship everywhere with the Spinney's.
Speaker: Well, I will, you know what, I promise you, I will try them very soon. Very soon. Man, I - Are you gonna pull one out? Are you gonna pull one out on me right now? I feel like we just gotta get into it, man. Let's start by saying, on the day of this record, it is Tony Khan's birthday. Happy birthday, TK. I would normally say that. Give me one second.
Speaker: Okay, Garrett just reached under the table. Oh, okay. Garrett has a sack of spinny's. Oh, he's got the raspberry lime, which as I pointed out is my favorite. He's got so many of them, guys. And he's got what appear to be muffins. All right, let's get into this. TK, my man, happy birthday.
Speaker: Cheers with a spinny. I have... So Garrett, how are you feeling about... I will point out also for those listening, Garrett is wearing a murder death kill hat and an MDK sweatshirt. So I'm gonna ask an innocuous question. I assume it's innocuous, which there's muffin falling out of Garrett's mouth right now. How'd you feel about GCW this weekend?
Speaker: I have some fucking problems with you people. I have problems with everybody right now. TK. TK. I've not questioned anything you've done in three years. Anytime that people have been like, that was a bad decision TK. I said, give it time. I trust this man. He's one of us.
Speaker: So I gotta wash this muffin down. It is moist, but it's hard to talk with all these in here. Is it from a bakery that's closed? When is that bakery open, Garrett? Unfortunately, I didn't have time to make it to a good bakery. These are from the Kroger deli. They're definitely not closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, right? No, they're open every day. You can get these muffins whenever. I would probably recommend Five Daughters Bakery in Nashville, though. I think they're there every day. I'd have to check.
Speaker: A sip of spinny. TK, I've had to defend you. Like I read the comments and people are like yelling. I've never yelled at you. I've never yelled at you. It's your birthday, TK. The day before, my Super Bowl. My Super Bowl being Nick Gage versus Jon Moxley, part two. We don't know what's gonna happen. Is Nick Gage gonna retire?
Speaker: Is Jon Moxley gonna continue being the GCW champion? Is Nick Gage gonna leave the GCW champion? What is gonna happen? 24 hours, TK, before that match, you released a press statement letting us know that Jon Moxley signed for five more years. Great, love Jon Moxley. I wanted him to have more.
Speaker: Absolutely. I want him to have all the money in the world. I want him to have all the happiness and pro wrestling. Here's my problem TK buddy. Sorry. Let me just now. Okay. That's a very big bite of muffin for those listening. Two muffins down two to go. You said he is exclusive to AEW exclusive.
Speaker: That pretty much tells us the finish to the GCW show. I have to imagine you're a fan of stuff. What if somebody told you the end of Star Wars before you walked into Star Wars? I'll tell you, TK, one time in a film school class, we were getting ready to watch Citizen Kane. I had never seen it. The guy next to me says, it's a sled right before it starts. It's a sled. You, it's a sled me.
Speaker: You did that, you told me it was the sled before the goddamn match. I'm sorry, one more. Um. Gary just chugged that like the Sandman. He chugged some spinny. It goes down nice and easy, right Gary? It's pretty easy to chug relative to a beer. It's a smooth drink, Chris. It's a smooth drink. Here's my problem. Why'd you do that?
Speaker: Why'd you do that, TK? If you were here right now, I'd fucking fight you. I was so looking forward to that. And then, but let me say this, the match, it hadn't happened yet. We just assumed Nick Gage is going to win this match, but then the match rolls around. The match happens, Chris. Fax was at the show and honestly, the show was
Speaker: Yeah, it looked cold. It looked cold. Everybody was chilly. There were some neck beards and just t -shirts. You're by the sea. You're by the sea and the wind is blowing. What is happening? Well, no, for those types of guys, Garret, the fact that they were wearing pants and not shorts tells you it's kind of cold. I think we all know a guy, though, that's like going to wear shorts regardless of the temperature. Usually those shorts have a cargo pocket. It's mint.
Speaker: I, you know what, I would love an episode of Cribs with Mittens where we just get to go through his clothes. Any, any drawer where it's like, this is where somebody would keep their drawer of khaki pants. This is Mittens flag drawer where you can get all your SGC and uh, what, I don't know what other flags.
Speaker: God damn, I'm sorry. This, this bit is hard to keep up. Like, cause I was, I covered covered in spinnies right now. There is muffin all around me. There is spinning all around me. I am. I don't know, man. Like this show shook me up. I was rattled. Watching, watching big castle do that to people.
Speaker: Fuck. Oh, you don't even get me started on that. So, OK, let's just say the show was fantastic up until the gauge match. Well, I was sort of skimming it. It didn't seem like some things were short. It seemed like it was good. But I did note that Ali and Sawyer Rex seemed like it was on the short side, which I thought was going to make you more mad than
Speaker: I mean, I love the boat. I could have seen them go an hour, but you know what? They had a good match. They kissed. They punched each other. It had everything you'd want in it. Let's see, the Cologne match against Rina.
Speaker: And, um, shit. What's the white guy in Japan? The white deaf guy. Blue Parker. Blue Parker. Loved his crop top. He had a beautiful slipknot crop top. Uh, I wish I could pull that off myself. I think maybe this coming summer's crop top summer for Garrett. All right.
Speaker: I might crop the shirt to the next wrestling show perhaps whatever happens in the red con one gym if beast man shows up. You gotta try it out you got a lot of shirts you can crop some you can see how it goes.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's a question of how high you crop it. That's going to be, I think that's the question. Everyone, everyone has to sort of confront when they cut some shirts. You got to figure out how high am I cropping it? Cause we've all, if you've, if you've ever, maybe not all of us, but if you've ever cropped a shirt a couple of times and you crop it too high and you look at yourself and you go, I'm going to have to get rid of this one. You're like, I feel like they can see my nipples and maybe the seven 11 cashier won't let me in today.
Speaker: Yeah, the show, honestly, I had a good time. I never had a bad time watching the show. And my wife actually said, I'll come up and watch the Gage Mox match with you. And that made me very excited, because she never wants to watch wrestling with me. And her getting to watch my mood change from start to finish of that match,
Speaker: was, honestly, I wish she could be here to describe just all the emotions I went through. Well, let's start. Where are we when Gage's music hits?
Speaker: Oh, joyful, joyous. I think some food had just come. Some delivery had been dropped off. I got some chicken katsu from a Japanese place down the street. I was excited about it. I came with a California roll. I was happy. I was in a good place.
Speaker: Yeah, honestly, I think I was completely sober, too. I hadn't been drinking or anything. I was just filled with pure glee for my Super Bowl, my biggest match of the year. Right. This is, you know, this is the rock coming back. This is Nick Gage has been working out every day for five months. The king is back. Chris, do you think the king was back? That was like the king? Well, I was going to say that was my first question was next question was going to be how do you feel about five minutes in?
Speaker: So, I love Nick Gage. I don't want Nick Gage to hear this and think, does Garrett love me anymore? Nick Garrett loves you. Garrett's always gonna love you. You're still his son's godfather. Sip his spinny to the king. But, king, so I don't know, this was like,
Speaker: Something was off from the beginning of this match. And a big part was, Nick Gage has taken a lot of tubes. He's taken a lot of the violence. And my thought is, okay, well, either Mox isn't taking anything tonight, or maybe Gage gets some offense in later. Like, you know, this is, Mox is shining right now. But then as it goes, Gage is looking a little winded.
Speaker: The camera even picks gauge up, sliding under a fan's chair, grabbing a bottle of water and drinking it. And, no Chris, what do you have to say? I missed, I did not catch that. I was sort of, I was a little distracted when I was watching the match, I will admit.
Speaker: My feeling about 10 minutes in, because I watched the match the next day, because I was out. As I said, I chose a baseball game, which turned out to be the only joyous baseball game the Mets played in October, thankfully. Sorry. Got home real late, woke up the next day, was like, OK, time to watch this. And mostly, again, as I said, just kind of skim through the undercard, because I was like, I got stuff due today, and I got to make sure I get to gauge in mocks before anyone spoils it for me.
Speaker: Um, and so match starts about 30 minutes left in the video and I'm like, okay. And I'm noticing I'm like 10 minutes into the match. And I'm like, not a lot's happened here. Like maybe we're playing it slow. Maybe we're trying to build to something here, but also slow start to the match. And my feeling was also that Gage didn't look like we know how Gage looked in March and earlier this year. This was not that.
Speaker: at the same time, he did not seem to be moving with the speed that he did even a year ago, right? I mean, he just did not look like he was fluid in the way that, and again, he was never like 96 Ray Mysterio, but like just on a sort of movement and which is part of, and I would also note, it's one of the big parts of I think what made him really great and what makes any really great death match worker is a lot about
Speaker: movement and how you're moving through the ring and moving between things. There's a lot that's of stamina and finesse in there that is part of what makes a good deathmatch worker. Sometimes it's not obvious because it's not as obvious as 96 -ray Mysterio, but there is a level that that's needed to make the matches not seem contrived because
Speaker: they are going to take some stuff and there's going to be a little bit of, yeah, this guy's going to get hit with something and you got to expecting that to happen. So when that movement slows down, sometimes it can kind of wreck the illusion a little bit, you know? And so that's where I do think we're at a little bit. Again, it was really bad earlier in the year and this is better, but it still did not seem like old gauge. And this was his first match in six months.
Speaker: Just about like late, because the WrestleMania match weekend match was late March or early April. Right. And now we're in the titles. Yeah, that was the one where they dropped the titles. Was like him and Slade because because Murdoch couldn't make it. Not Murdoch. Tree month. And that was wrestling. That was WrestleMania weekend. So that was again, it's almost six months ago, basically five and a half. Whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, and I had been to Atlanta the month because I think all he had really done that year was he came back at Hammerstein and everybody was like, holy fuck.
Speaker: What's happening? I went to see him a month or two later in Atlanta and it was him and Tremont versus SGC. And it was just like, it was all Tremont. Like it still was just like this, this doesn't feel good. Like this makes me sadder than anything. Then we had that. I don't even remember the WrestleMania weekend when like, I guess like I do remember Slade like probably taking the pin and losing the titles for them.
Speaker: which is weird. I honestly don't even remember what the finish was to that match. But yeah, it was fast. I remember being disappointed. Yeah.
Speaker: And this, it was just like, okay, he's, like, we've seen the workout videos. We know Jordan Oliver's been in the gym with him every day. He's constantly posting the videos. He's looking better. He doesn't look like a hundred percent back to where Gage was last year, you know, fighting Jericho on AEW, fighting Cardona, fighting Mox, all that. But he looked good. He looked healthy. But I think there's a difference between working out
Speaker: and just jumping straight in to a fucking main event match. Right. I mean, thank you. There's a certain ring. There's a certain ring speed to it. You know what I mean? Like working out is not the same as moving in a ring. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: And now, I guess like all of us were really wanting, you know, Kenny to come back for Forbidden Door. We wanted like, they're giving us Kenny O 'Gottars, you know, but they give like Kenny had been gone nine months, something like that. If he had just hopped back in and we had expected a fucking Broadway out of him, that probably would have been shitty.
Speaker: Right. Even though, I mean, even though a little bit with storyline, it was smart for him to come back in the six man things with the bucks where he could sort of, you know, build up, move a little bit, take a little break, kind of be less just all Kenny Omega. Right. Whereas this was again, this is all working with obviously one of the best in the world, but this is a lot on gauge because it's the main event and it's a big deal. A lot of hype, a lot of hype. Like this was.
Speaker: Honestly, I thought for as big as the hype was, maybe the hype is all on me. Maybe it's all internal hype. But the show, I was expecting that place to look absolutely jam -packed beyond capacity. Like Fire Department could show up and shut the show down. And that was not the case. I do wonder if Fax was saying that it looked more full
Speaker: Uh, in person, then on screen, because based on the way the crowd sort of spread itself out. Um, I also wonder if moving outside killed some walkup. Like if a bunch of people were like, I don't really, it's cold.
Speaker: Like I don't want to go. Like I do, I do wonder if that was probably like a negative in that regard in the last few minutes. Um, I do also think, you know, they did this match a year ago last year. Um, I think there was a lot of hype around it then.
Speaker: I thought that match was really good, but it also wasn't the like stone cold classic that I think we were imagining in our minds. I wasn't unhappy to have been there. I was, enjoyed the match, but it was a little bit like, I thought we were going to get a little higher. Um, and, and so that was in the back of my mind, actually about this match too, of like, I'm excited for this, but I'm also a little leery because of the last year.
Speaker: I think that in my mind, this was gonna be redemption for last year. I think like I was, I don't know, I got worked up for this one. I was like very, I mean, don't get me wrong, I was excited for last year, but that was also, we were coming off of Gage Cardona.
Speaker: which was fan -fucking -tastic. The match was good, but I think also Cardona surprised us a lot in that, and honestly put substantially more violence to him than Moxley did in him versus Gage. That was...
Speaker: That was Cardona kind of proving himself in GCW. Right. Right. And then that would end up being sort of the summer of gauge, right? Obviously we had the match with Jericho. We had death match war games. Right. And, and as part of death match, war games, the angle where Max wins the title, which is still super fun. I still love that moment. I'll always love that. That was amazing. And so there was a bit of an energy towards it that I do think.
Speaker: was a little bit different than this where Mox had been the champ for a year and Gage just sort of comes back and is like, good. One more time. Oh man.
Speaker: It makes sense that he got the title shot, you know? But it just, everything about it, like the way, like I don't wanna put all of this on Gage. I think part of this does fall on Tony Khan. And as I was watching it, cause like visually it looked like what was happening in this match was Nick Gage trying not to hurt Jon Moxley. And. Maybe.
Speaker: I mean, there were moments, especially when he went around the world with the pizza cutter, how slowly he was moving with that cutter to make sure he wasn't cutting Jon Moxley's forehead was weird. And they had two, there were just certain things that the camera being too close really didn't hide
Speaker: how bad it was. Like, cause I know it sounded like Fax had a very good time, but he's also, you know, went into the back of a room and I'm looking four inches from Moxley's head as Nick Gage is like very slowly moving with this pizza cutter. I don't know, there was even stuff where like the Blackpool combat club thing of grabbing the guy by the arms and stomping their head.
Speaker: Gage or Mox was moving like half speed and just like not touching Gage. Yeah. I don't know. It was just a weird slow Gage taking a lot of it. And then the end like. Right. Because I thought the match was building. I thought the match was building reasonably well and maybe again wasn't going to be a classic, but maybe was going to be
Speaker: maybe just a half step below last year. But then there's the big cast of it all. Stokely Hathaway, big cast shows up. Big cast, choke slam, Jon Moxley threw a pane of glass. That was cool. That was fine. But I, okay, so I get they don't want to make Jon Moxley look bad on AEW. So this is what we have to do. But to me, this made Nick Gage look worse.
Speaker: Like Nick Gage can't win this match on his own. He needed help. Right. I mean, he didn't, I don't know. I think the story, they wanted me to believe that Nick Gage didn't need that help to win. But like he looked so slow and out of breath and like when he took that death rider,
Speaker: Honestly, they should have left Mox's finisher out of that match altogether. Because I think the least believable thing in that match was Nick Gage kicking out of the Death Rider. It's a good point, right? That part of the problem with the finish is what bled up to it, right? That had they been going real hard, even let's say at the level they'd gotten to last year.
Speaker: And that happens. It's still it's still a sour taste. It still kind of sucks. But I think you're right that it doesn't come off so much as like, well, that guy really needed that other guys helped to win. It comes off as wow, that dick, you know, stuck his nose in something that wasn't necessary. You know, and that I think is look, I get it. I also think I get it and I don't get it because
Speaker: This isn't 1977. I was just reading, you know, last week, at least I read some of it. It was very long. I have no intentions of that anymore. But Meltzer's biography of Antonio Anoki.
Speaker: Right, cause he, oh, Mel Torrey's right, it's an obit when people pass. And you know, there's stuff in there about the inter -promotional stuff with, you know, and him wrestling back on and all the things that they need to do there. And part of it is that, that shit was, you know, 40 years ago, if Mox goes out, loses a banger match to Nick Gage, like who's going to care? Is it really going to hurt him that much? Like, is it really going to change his ability to draw?
Speaker: on an AEW pay -per -view? Fuck no. Like no one, no one cares. I get the like, Oh, we want to protect him. But if you're going to let him lose, just let him lose. Although I guess here's a, here's a conspiracy theory thing. Toss this out. Don't know. Nothing to this other than do you think either?
Speaker: Mox or TK was aware that Gage wasn't going to be Gage, right? And didn't want Mox to lose clean to that Gage. Just saying, I'm just tossing that out there. I don't know. That is entirely possible, but I don't know how they would have known that. I mean, honestly,
Speaker: Mox may have known. I feel like if I were him, I would want to know who I was coming out there with. I would want to make sure I wasn't showing up against the guy that was Hammerstein. Right. Well, I'd also think it is interesting to me.
Speaker: In the larger context here, right? Cause because mocks is someone who has staked sort of his enjoyment of wrestling on wrestling, not just in GCW, but other places to revolve Callahan's promotion. He likes going places and doing things. And the fact it's interesting to me that he was willing to sign a contract with TK for five years that says, I'm only going to work basically for AEW new Japan.
Speaker: It's interesting to me. It's interesting that he made that choice. And it makes me wonder if, I don't want to say bitterness, but maybe he felt like he'd gotten, he'd gone as far as he wanted to with.
Speaker: with GCW, and maybe that had something to do with, I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud, because it was interesting to me that he made, he's someone who seems like he would not have made that choice. He would have said, TK, pay me less money and I'll go, I want to go wrestle in a cornfield in Iowa against Sammy Callahan. But maybe just felt, I don't know, maybe he just felt like we're at a different point. You know, I don't know, maybe Renee told him and he was like, I'll listen to you. Also, New Japan lets me do death matches now, so that's cool.
Speaker: you're right though it could have been that where it's just like you know what I can do I can go fucking tear it up with Despy over in a barn and TK doesn't give a shit about that but you're right like he held the belt for a year and what I would consider the top indie promotion
Speaker: I mean, I think GCW at this point is higher than PWG. Does PWG even have shows anymore? Very occasionally. Yeah. I don't think those shows mean as much as they used to. No way. So easily, at least for me, GCW's top promotion, he held the belt for a year. He was going to go out against kind of their top guy.
Speaker: But who else have they built up that he could have lost the belt to? I don't know. We talked about that a bunch because I think there was that struggle of who was he going to lose to. Gage made a lot of sense in that regard. But I don't know. I'm a little unclear, I guess, on how excited I am for the next Gage match. I don't know what the next Gage title defense is.
Speaker: But I think what happened on this show behind me, I can't be 100 % sure because I was like fast forward and Gage came out to start the show. And then it looked like Sawyer Rhett came out and wanted a shot at it, which I'd be like, fuck yeah. Sure. I'll watch that match. But then it was like a guy that without the volume on, I had no fucking idea who he was. And then Leo Rush came out.
Speaker: and then Shane Mercer came out, and it looked like there was a scramble of people that won a title shot at Gage. I didn't hear what happened, but I saw that Leo Rush won it. I don't know if that, I don't wanna see Leo Rush versus Gage. That's just, I don't need that. No, not really, no. But like you said, at this point, I hate fucking saying this. GCW is, for the past few years,
Speaker: has been my promotion. That's been the main thing that I've enjoyed following, and I don't like talking negatively about them. But that being said, there's nothing they can do now at this point that's going to make me excited. Maybe Gage just needed to knock the rust off, and maybe a couple more matches, and we're back to where we need to be.
Speaker: But throwing him out in that, having him win that way, like seeing the crowd be excited for that, me and the crowd had the exact opposite feelings from my couch. I was actually furious and a big, I don't know, but then you sent me that article from Fightful.
Speaker: that it was saying that TK didn't want Mox to do the match at all. And supposedly GCW is saying they had no control over the finish of the match or nearly anything that happened in the match. Well, I wonder, there's another piece on the conspiracy theory side here, right, that
Speaker: Look, we can make jokes about Brett Lauderdale taking pictures with Stephanie McMahon, which was hilarious. And Jimmy Lloyd taking pictures with Stephanie Mann, which is really hilarious. But you do wonder, I don't know what the relationships are there, but it's possible TK felt
Speaker: A little betrayed by something that lottered because he was pretty friendly to GCW not that long ago, right? A lot of Pete guys were working GCW. And if that stopped, I, again, I wonder if something's happened there. And, and again, does mocks feel like.
Speaker: I don't know, not like upset that he wouldn't have done it, but a little bit like, yeah, I'm with you TK and you're my main boss. And like, you let me do this other stuff. So I'm going to, I'm okay with not doing this anymore. Again, all of this pure speculation. I want to be clear. This is just me trying to sort of like read from what we've got. Right. But it does seem like we're in a weird place a little bit with all this.
Speaker: It just, it was such a wet fart to an end of like a very exciting build. And GCW up to this point has not let me down on this level. Like other than the Nick Gage return at Hammerstein where everybody was like, holy fuck, like what? They shouldn't have let him out there. Like he looked like,
Speaker: I don't know. And I'm not saying they shouldn't have let him out based on the way he looked, but he clearly wasn't Nick Gage and needed some help.
Speaker: And right, I don't it's. But that's actually another good example, though, because I was at Hammerstein and really, again, it wasn't until after in sort of like hearing about it and getting other people's perspectives in the building, everyone was like, it's Nick Gage. He's here. That's awesome. Everyone was upset that maybe they only left four minutes for the match, but it was like, oh, this would have been fine. But maybe that four minutes was intentional. That was as long as Gage could go.
Speaker: The one match, I think that it's gonna be really interesting. There's a moment that's coming, I think of the not craziness in the future, because there's one big match that's sitting on the table right now, which is Gage and Cardona, right? That they've set up and are teasing. I mean, I'm with you. After that, it feels a little bit like what else is there to do, top guy -wise.
Speaker: With that, what is gonna carry that match is like Matt Cardona truly willing to just get fucking wrecked, to wreck his body to make Nick Gage look good if that's not where we're at. Like I don't think he should do that. I mean, he's fucking awesome right now. I love Matt Cardona more than I have in his entire career at this point.
Speaker: That'd be nice of him. That's a real broski move. But I don't know, man. GCW's in a weird spot with me, and it's gonna take something to sell me a pay -per -view for a little bit. I mean, I feel kind of with you. I feel like I'm, look, if I'm there, if I'm somewhere where they're doing a show, I'm still in, right? If they run a show in New York, I'm going, or I'm at a weekend or something and they're doing it.
Speaker: Um, but I have over the last few months felt a little bit less, especially if, if it wasn't like you tell it, saying, Hey, let's watch this or something. Um, a little bit less inclined to buy the pay -per -views just cause it's kind of felt like, you know, I've got 98 ECW on behind me in my Sean Mooney control center. And like, I love 98 ECW. It's great. It was one of my, as a child, it was a 16 year old. It was, um, incredibly exciting to me, but there's something where.
Speaker: You know, they're basically just churning out kind of, if you think about it, they're basically just doing kind of the same show over and over again. It's like, look, exciting guys doing fun things. You like that guy, you like that guy. Here they are in a match against each other. Now here they are against two different guys. Now they're in a scramble. And it's like the shows are never exactly, never the same, right? They don't reuse matches a lot.
Speaker: but they're kind of the same, you know? And like any individual show, again, if you're excited for it, I never was disappointed in an ECW pay -per -view, not once. In the general, was I happy to buy it? I'm sure there were moments where I was like that finish sucked or this thing, you know, that happened. But, you know, and I think GCW is kind of at that point too, where it's like, it's never a bad time when you throw on the show, but it's also,
Speaker: Why is this time better than the next time? And this time should have been, well, because it's fucking Gage and Mox. And for a lot of reasons, it felt like we didn't get there. Yeah. And I mean, at this point, everything for them is a pay -per -view. We're not getting any free GCW. You're paying for every GCW show. Right. And they're doing so many shows lately. So many that if you want to keep up, you're spending
Speaker: $100 a month, probably less than that. 60 maybe? I don't know. That's a lot. That's a lot to spend per month to be caught up with everything they're doing. There was a while where during the pandemic, it was like, absolutely, I have nothing to do. I will buy every fucking GCW show that they run in Indianapolis.
Speaker: Yeah, it is. It's just it it's a bummer to have something bad to say about them. And it I don't know. I don't like coming on here and complaining about wrestling. But part of it felt like it was on Nick Gage. The other part felt like it was on Tony Khan to me. And what do you feel more? What do you feel more mad at? Big muffin. God.
Speaker: It's easier for me to blame Tony Khan than Nick Gage. But this also feels like this match was booked before Jon Moxley was going to have the title again. See, his punk should have the title right now. So this all goes back to his fucking Phil's fault. Phil eating these fucking muffins fucked up everything for so much.
Speaker: It's in a butterfly effect shockwave through the wrestling community that ended up with Big Cass being on my TV ruining John Moxley versus Nick Cage. And this isn't Big Cass. I'm not mad at Big Cass. He's just there. He's the guy they picked. Good for him. You got a paycheck. You got to hang out in Atlantic City for the night. You know.
Speaker: No, no problems with Big Cass. He's he's a very good poor man. Yeah. Yeah. He's he's in shape. He's gotten better. Good for him. I'm glad he's getting a paycheck. Right.
Speaker: If Sid was around now, he would, if Sid was his age now, Sid would totally be choke slamming dudes on paints of glass and probably into scissors. That would probably be a thing. That would be like a death match thing. Like Sid just shows up with a scissor board and he like chokes those people, you know, and that's it. That's the whole thing. Well, I think what hurt even more with this is that our pay -per -view ends and I'm sad.
Speaker: I'm full of chicken katsu. I'm filled with sadness, filled with regret. I'm down 25 bucks or whatever. How does your wife? I want to get you I do. If you could speak for her, which I know you shouldn't do, but how's Leah feeling at this point, watching you get progressively sadder at this wrestling match involving Nick Gage and big cats?
Speaker: I think at one point she looked over at me and said the words, you look sad. Cause I'm not out loud complaining. I think my face was just doing a really good job. I was like a silent film star. I was showing all the emotion right here and it was, it was getting the job done. Oh man. It's, it's just that ends.
Speaker: I guess WWE had a show going on that I didn't even know about, which, bad wrestling podcaster. I was aware that the show was happening at some point. I didn't realize it was a Saturday. It was like, oh, the show's today. I'm like, oh, it's not a Sunday? Okay. Yeah. And then I get a text from Derek that's like Bray Wyatt's back and he just got one of the biggest pops of all time. And
Speaker: I'm sitting here like still mad. And I don't want to like shit on Bray Wyatt. I don't care. I don't care. Like he had nonsensical promos. I enjoyed Bray Wyatt. I had a couple Bray Wyatt t -shirts at a certain point in my life. But like, what's he going to do? I don't know. Can you name a classic Bray Wyatt match?
Speaker: Not a one -on -one match. The one with Daniel Bryan's pretty good, but that's, you give a lot of credit to Daniel Bryan there. A lot of people have had the best match, Daniel Bryan. Is that the one in the cage where Bryan turned on the Wyatt family? No, there's one, he and Bryan had a match at the Rumble. I don't think it was in a cage.
Speaker: And I'm trying to think, like I definitely saw a bunch of Bray Wyatt matches live. I saw him versus Roman Reigns in a Hell in the Cell match. I don't remember it. That was the same year though that, I think they did two Hell in a Cell matches that year and it was Undertaker versus Lesnar later in the night. And that's the one where Lesnar like tore up the ring and like pulled the mats out and was like, and that was a very good match. So I remember the second Hell in a Cell, but then I saw Wyatt versus Undertaker.
Speaker: Which he had like he had fucked up his ankle before that. So like he was wrestling injured already. And that wasn't one of the good undertaker ones. It was not. It was not. No, and it's fine. Look, I mean, it's look, they left Wyatt off TV for like a year and a half. Right. So he's fresh, at least. People still seem to like him.
Speaker: I mean, people are already actively complaining about not wanting to do a program with the guy because he destroys everyone's heat. But, you know, I mean, whatever, do what you can with him. And I don't think it's the worst idea in the world. I also don't have, you don't have to force me to care. You're not going to force me to care, you know?
Speaker: What, um, at this point, like I know you said for you, like Cody Rhodes being back is the thing that like, you're like, call me when Cody's back. I'll tune back in. Yeah. Is there anything else that WWE could do to grab your attention besides Cody? Uh, I, I don't even know if this is theoretically available right now, but the young bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but no outside of that, I mean,
Speaker: What would get me back to WWE is them bringing in someone that I care about, right? Pretty much everyone left there is people that I like a bunch of them, but I just don't need to see them on a weekly basis at this point. Cody, I think, has a shot, especially if they're doing a bigger angle with him. Again, I was watching the one match a month with Cody, and that was fine.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't see much else on the table that seems plausible that would be because they're not going to sign. You know, they're not going to go out and sign someone from the Indies that hasn't already been in NXT and shoot them up. Right. And they're not going to. A lot of the my other favorite guys are pretty clearly locked up in a W. Right. Mox just signed a five year contract.
Speaker: So probably not for a bit, I think. I think it's really those guys and I don't, you know, um, but I'm happy to audit and be around, you know, again, I'll watch. Uh, I guess I could watch survivor series. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe I won't. I, you know,
Speaker: I don't know like at this point there are a ton of guys I like you know like I am interested in Walter being there like if there's an interest in Walter matchup maybe like I watched that Seamus match and it was great
Speaker: But did I see that one of the wrestlers, like my first favorite wrestler when I got back into wrestling was Candice LeRae. And for years I said Candice was my favorite wrestler. And I think I saw that she's back on Raw. If Candice is in a title picture where maybe it's like Candice in a big match against like Ronda Rousey, maybe I'm back then.
Speaker: I don't know, wrestling is, AEW's still doing good stuff, but Tony Khan, like, get rid of CM Punk or get a time machine and make all of this different.
Speaker: Yeah. No, it does feel weird. Like I was, I think I was telling you today was new Japan's declaration of power, which is what used to be king of pro wrestling. And, uh, I thought about watching it this morning and then I woke up late and I, my work day was kind of crazy and I didn't do it. And so I opened up, um, the observer site and I saw that there were some spoilers and I was like, I'll read what the big happenings were. And Garrett, I mean, can I, can I give you the most boring
Speaker: possible spoiler for this New Japan show. Please, please. They're introducing a television title. What? Why? I don't know. Why? Great question. Yeah. Like, I mean, there's so many things they could have done with Despy stabbing somebody.
Speaker: Do that. I'm into that right now. Yeah. Garrett, Garrett, do you know that, do you know that someone joined Los and go Bernalblase de Epone? Oh, was it Marty's girl? No. Who was it? It was Teton. Teton? Who the hell is Teton? He's that guy. He's a guy from Mexico. He wears really short, short, really short trunks. He's fine. He's a person. He's fine. Sounds sexy.
Speaker: Yeah. You know, this is like this, like these are. They have determined the Wrestle Kingdom main event, which was pretty obvious from the moment Okada won the G1. Who has the title right now? It's Jay White. Oh, so that again? We're going to do Okada, Jay White at Wrestle Kingdom. Thumbs down, says Karen.
Speaker: I keep I just keep I keep feeling like I want to be like excited about New Japan again And then they just I see things and I'm like I'm just gonna watch one hour a week with facts I just I don't know I just I can't I just don't have the energy to wake up in the morning and care about like This some of these matches. They're just they're fine and nothing's bad. It's not you know um
Speaker: MJF is great. MJF is great. I have a question for you, Garrett. I have a question for you because, um, there's one thing on the table here in the literal sense. It's on your table. Um, were these your first spindriffs? Yeah, I'd never had them before. Good. Um, you know, there's no alcohol in them. Uh, so I just feel regular hydrated and a little healthy.
Speaker: Yeah. Five calories ain't bad. I've had 10 calories sitting here, other than the probably thousand calories of four muffins that I've smashed while we've been sitting here. No, these have been good. Right. And you can take them down surprisingly fast, right? Because facts were saying, how can punk drink all these spinnies while eating muffins? Because the spinny is just sort of a nice palate cleanser for that.
Speaker: No, you are right. This proved to me, because I think Punk really only ate one muffin. He ate one muffin slowly while he was mad. I am missing four muffins.
Speaker: Oh, there's actually, there is like half of one left. Um, just to say something positive, cause this week wasn't very funny. I feel like the past few weeks we've been goofing around, having a good time. This week was no laughing matter. This week was sad, sad wrestling, but you know what? Let's say something a little happy, Chris.
Speaker: You've been following Beastman's Instagram this last week? I follow, but I haven't seen anything interesting pop up. Maybe he's got buried in my... Or maybe he blocked me.
Speaker: I could see him blocking us, where he's like, these guys are weird. And I think this is the conversation that could get us blocked, where he's like, this is too much. I don't need two random assholes talking about the vacation I went on. Well, Beastman, if you don't want us talking about your vacation, don't post about it on Instagram. Where's Beastman's vacation?
Speaker: Jamaica Beastman in a Hawaiian shirt, like probably getting high. Um, one of them, he was still wearing a Miami dolphins thing. It wasn't Ray Finkel. Um, but yeah, Beastman went to, this is a well -deserved trip to Jamaica for Beastman. It's been, he's been, he's been working hard. Um, now do we learn in this? Does Beastman have a wife?
Speaker: It looked like there was a significant other. I didn't see her name or maybe I didn't read it all correctly, but I did see he was there with someone. Beastman's got some love in his life.
Speaker: There is a beast woman along with the beast man. There is some beast love going on. Don't block us beast man, we love you. I wish that we had a fucking travel show of you going to Jamaica. If I had the money, I'd send you around the world, bud. Or Instagram, if Beastman hasn't blocked me, Instagram, please feed me more Beastman. I don't know how to tell you this Instagram. Give me more Beastman, all the Beastman. Number one,
Speaker: Number one. Yeah. If I were him and I listened to this, I'd be like, I've got to get rid of these guys. I can't have them showing up to shows anymore. Like I like their enthusiasm, but like, please don't care that I went to Jamaica. That was for my friends. That wasn't for Instagram though. People are going to follow you on Instagram. Kim Kardashian shows off a trip to Jamaica and as does Beastman. It's the same thing.
Speaker: I need the Kim Kardashian picture of her with like the glass of champagne on her ass, but beast man. Oh fuck.
Speaker: Um, the other, well, it's interesting though, cause I do think beast man missed a pretty big Appalachian championship wrestling show this weekend. So I, I read a thing I was checking for, for when the next shows were, I was curious what was going on. And there was a very long post on the Appalachian championship wrestling Facebook page about how they were supposed to do, they've done for years, a, um, a show.
Speaker: that's part of a fall fest in one of the towns in West Virginia. And they got an expanded budget for this year, and they were very excited. And then the mayor changed over, and they got totally the rug pulled out under from them on this. And I felt very bad. They booked a lot of terrific talent. The Rock and Roll Express, Barbarian, the second gear crew, Sommancer and Matthew Justice.
Speaker: Mansor and Matthew Justice not at the GCW shows this weekend because they were at the Appalachian Championship Wrestling shows this weekend. But so because now they had no after all of this stuff with the fall fest, they had changed. They had they had booked all the talent, but they had nowhere to run the show. So they basically ran the show. It looks like in the gym that they used for stuff during 2020, like during like the Covid era. But there's also a lot of pictures on the
Speaker: ACW Instagram that just appear to be in the promoters yard and driveway. And, uh, guys, I am cannot tell you, I have not been more excited for, uh, shows to pop up on YouTube.
Speaker: With no fans than these I'm I'm very excited to see what happened between the second gear crew the rock and roll Express Shane Douglas and the barbarian in this guy's garage I've just They went hard this time. So typically they bring your own chairs. This one was fans bring their own their own venue, right? You know like they
Speaker: Yeah, you respond. I was like, I felt fucking high as you started explaining some of that. A wrestling show should never be affected by a mayor change. It's like, well, you know, there was a new mayor. It's an election year. What the fuck does that matter? Mancers in town.
Speaker: I didn't travel here to deal with politics. He came here to kick the mass and drink some light beers. It was one of those, because the story, and again, it's still up there. Again, it really does feel like, unless they are telling a very skewed version of it, they really got screwed over by this. And good on the promoter for still being like, well, I guess we got to pay these guys, and I guess we'll shoot some stuff to put on the YouTube channel or something. I don't know.
Speaker: The mayor of this town is there, Vince McMahon now, where he's like, you're shut down, pal. He was like, the mayor took us out. What are we going to do? You can't fight City Hall. You can't fight City Hall. You can't. You can't. You can, but you can fight Shane Douglas. You can fight Shane Douglas at Terry's backyard.
Speaker: Just I hear Terry's got a big backyard and there's plenty of street parking. This made me really want to book a show in a backyard though. Garrett's might die choking on a spinny there. I've got a decent sized backyard here and I don't know. Do we I don't think we like the mayor in that. No, I think we like the mayor. We don't like the governor. Are you in Nashville proper? Yeah.
Speaker: Maybe you can start a fall fest with the show and see if you can get some money from the governor to do that. So I get the show going. It's in my backyard. I come inside. Kid Rock's using my toilet. And this isn't what I signed up for.
Speaker: Oh my God, it's like I knock on the, I don't knock on the door. I just walk straight in. Mance, or not Mance Warner, Thrash Justice is there just bashing his own head in with something, like just getting mentally prepared for the show. And now my bathroom's fucked up and the baby won't stop crying. I'm just imagining Matthew Justice handing your baby a pizza cutter to cut him open.
Speaker: or just, or like a block. He's like getting, he's like, Hey, Hey, Hey, that looks like a real, likes a real pretty, pretty cool block there. You want to hit old thrash in the head with it? Eh? Eh? You want this money, kid?
Speaker: Ozzy take it from it. Ozzy can't grip stuff yet. So I'm going to have to tape a pizza cutter to a child's hand, a baby, a newborn, an infant, a sweet baby boy. I've got throw up all over me. I'm getting old. I, my body hurts. Give me a fucking muffin. You haven't, you tore your, you tore your rota people. You got to understand guys, listeners Garrett tore his rotator cuff on a Topay earlier. And that's why he's being so abrasive.
Speaker: Um, you've got to, you've got to give him, cut him some slack. Uh, he knows he's screwed up and there's no way he's coming back, uh, to podcasting for, I mean, at least three months, maybe six months. So he can, he's going to be able to write out any suspension that we throw at him. Uh, so cold Cabana can suck my balls.
Speaker: You know what? You know what I think about his mom? You're getting sued, lady. You're getting sued by predetermined. Why? Muffin time. Sorry. Sorry, Colt. I don't mind you. I'm just, it's been a fucking day, man. I haven't slept. I got throw up on me. Nick Gage came out and did something. Jon Moxley like barely kicked him in the head. TK told me he didn't want the match to happen.
Speaker: I drank some spinny's. I ate some muffins. I feel bad for the listeners on this where they're like, they really complain. There were no jokes. Well, you had to stick around to hear about Beastman's vacation. You know, sometimes that's it's about the journey of being a wrestling fan. Sometimes being a wrestling fan is hilarious and sometimes being a wrestling fan is is kind of a bummer, right? I mean, you know, it's it's not always what we want it to be.
Speaker: And I think also again, I do feel very much like this is a transition year in a lot for a lot of people and a lot of promotions in the wrestling world. And some of this transitioning is not the prettiest.
Speaker: That's what I say when like the blues have a shitty year. Like when I'm like hockey wasn't so good this year, but there's so much wrestling. Why is all the wrestling shitty? All the wrestling. It's not WWE is apparently slightly better than it's been. That's a big improvement.
Speaker: AEW has mostly been pretty good this year. I mean, it's not like, again, had we been given this year of a promotion five years ago, we'd be like, sweet. But, you know, we had 2018, 2019, and a lot of 2020 in terms of storytelling that, you know.
Speaker: like, oh, it's pretty good. We haven't had Hangman page like, you know, completing a two year arc this year. It happens, you know, like, but at the same time, again, I think things have been built up. And I also think the spirit of cooperation has been
Speaker: so strong that again, I think what's happening now with whatever is happening with TK and GCW and I don't again, I don't pretend to know. It does feel just kind of weird, right? I think there's a little bit of like. Shit, this was feeling fun, and now you're throwing up a door there. That's now the forbidden door. The door with New Japan is totally open. That's that's a totally acceptable door. This fucking guy.
Speaker: Like, okay, so what, fuck, I can't remember who shared it, but there was a post about how Tony Khan is the Leslie Knope of pro wrestling. He is like, you know, he's so positive, he's so cheerful, he wants everything to work so bad at handling conflict. You build a forbidden door, you son of a bitch. You asshole, you fucker, God damn it. I am thinking about the forbidden door.
Speaker: Make me go to Chicago, the one from Forbidden, Georgia, and then you fell the door in New Jersey. Son of a bitch. Garrett, when you eat Sandman, you're going to have to offer him a spinny and see if he thinks it's a beer. This is going to turn your life around, bud.
Speaker: He's like, what is this feeling? I'm like, it's hydration. He's like, I don't feel bad. I'm like, yeah, you could have 10 of these and you're probably gonna feel great. He's like, you're gonna pee the same amount, but at this point you probably peed during the night a lot. He's like, they got pineapple? I'm gonna take a 12 pack of these and pour them in every mouth in this audience.
Speaker: The Sandman has not changed his character ever, but he finally goes like vegan or something. And these are his like healthy drinks. Actually, I want to see Sandman going around stone cold in some kombucha. Sandman loves ginger. He's banging the bottle against his head, but it's plastic.
Speaker: Recycle these. What does he do instead of smoke? He's like, don't smoke anymore. I've got a sack of nicotine lozenges. It doesn't visually look as cool, but you know, I'm sucking on them right now. And don't tell me to vape kids. That's terrible for you. It's terrible for you.
Speaker: His Kendo stick is now built out of the same material as those biodegradable straws. By the time he's done hitting somebody with it, it looks like the tube of a wrapping paper roll is just fucking done.
Speaker: And that's, that's what we've got this year for, I, I, again, I, I really do. I, as much as we, as much as he's probably blocked us on Instagram. I love you beast man. Thank you for, for being the exciting fun thing that we've had to look forward to as like the wrestling world just sort of like fucking collapses around us. No matter what CM punk does, we'll always have beast man. Um, yeah. So just to do a quick rundown, Nick Gage, sad, John Moxley.
Speaker: Rich, Tony Khan, asshole, Beastman, love ya. Sandman? We'll see. I don't know. This has been a weird show, Chris. I feel like usually we come on, we're in a good mood. This one I just, I came here for violence, but like real violence, not like what we saw Jon Moxley and Nick Gage do.
Speaker: If TK comes into your dressing room right now to try to talk it out and explain things. He's getting bit, getting bit buddy. Ozzy's going to jail for biting Tony. My cats are pinning him down. Who's here to try and, I don't know man. Ozzy's first words, he was trying to cross face daddy.
Speaker: Man, I feel like we should probably wrap it up here in a second. I do want to mention, I don't want to give GCW all the hell. I want to name something good that did happen. Night three of Japan finally aired. And partway through the show, there is an incredible comedy match between Effie and Kikutaru. Which have you ever had the pleasure of seeing Kikutaru live? Never live, actually, I don't think.
Speaker: unless he was a Joey Ryan's penis party, but I've blacked out most of that for variety of reasons. So I had the pleasure of seeing him a couple of times. He did show up to PWG every now and then.
Speaker: And one I remember being fantastic, it was Kigataro versus Chuck Taylor. And Kigataro comes in as music's playing, Chuck Taylor comes in. Like Kigataro's like talking shit. Chuck Taylor immediately rolls him up and pins him. Like the match is over in five seconds. Kigataro's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm so sorry, give me one more chance, give me one more chance. And then immediately it happens again. He gets pinned twice in a row. And then they have a real match after that.
Speaker: Did you, are you still there? Chris? Fuck.
Speaker: All right, everybody. Well, it looks like we lost our video and audio. We were saying nice things about key guitar, and if you check that out, sorry, this was such an angry week. I don't intend for this to be an angry show. We come here to goof around, but man, it was a disappointing end to such like a cool build. But you know what, guys? Love you. Follow us on Instagram. He's at Chris Miggs. I'm at Gartet. We're at Predetermined Podcast on Instagram. Love you.
Speaker: Hit our goddamn music. Have a good week. We'll be back. We're gonna probably start having some guests here soon. So please tune into that. I'm no Bill Burr. I can't sit here and talk to myself. This was fun. This was fun. I'm soaked. You can't see this. Maybe you can see it on the video. I don't know what we're doing with the video. I was really slamming spinny. I ate four muffins. I feel like I'm gonna be sick. Have a good week and we will see you next time.
