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Chris and Derrick Come Full Circle At All Out
59 Plays3 years ago
Chris and Derrick were in the building for AEW's All Out 2022 and they're breaking it down for you! How was the crowd, were the pretzel's soft, what the hell was going on with Chris Jericho's pants? Questions will be answered!
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Transcript
Introduction and AEW All Out 2022 Anticipation
00:00:36
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Predetermined, a pro wrestling hangout. I'm your host for this week, Chris Moliaccio. With me, maybe not as always, but this week, is the sausage Lord Archduke of Chicago, Derek Halpern. I'm back. You guys have been holding down the fort for the last few weeks since we've made our return to the internet airwaves and I am stoked to be here with you. I am stoked to talk some professional wrestling. You and I just attended a wonderful
Impressions of AEW All Out 2022
00:01:06
Speaker
AEW Pro Wrestling Pay Per View All Out 2022. How was my Garrett impression at the top there? Was that comfortable? That was pretty good. The thing that makes it different though is I typically wasn't in the same room with Garrett when he would do the intro. So it was a little bit more intimidating having you face to face do a Garrett impersonation, but not bad at all.
00:01:29
Speaker
So yeah, we just finished all out. We just got back to my luxurious room here at the Main State Suites, not the Red Roof Inn. I did not say at the Red Roof. You didn't say at the Red Roof Inn at my behest, but we do have a pretty nice setup in here. Set the scene for us a little bit. Let them know that our room is directly across from both the laundry room and concessions room here. First floor.
00:01:54
Speaker
We've got a lot of space where we're at a table across from each other the one downside Derek you said the room smells like a teenager sweaty bedroom imagine
00:02:06
Speaker
a teenage boy in high school who hasn't quite figured out all of the important elements of proper hygiene. Not necessarily a gross person, but somebody who lets, you know, two and a half weeks, three weeks worth of laundry stay in the hyper. Yeah, absolutely. The room smells a little bit like that, but as you pointed out, it's starting to go away because I'm getting used to it. Which to me, again, if you're a young teenage boy with a nasty room, after a while, you don't notice it.
00:02:37
Speaker
You don't.
MJF's Surprise Return and Impact
00:02:39
Speaker
So I think, again, if you're listening to this, you probably know how All Out ended. And if you don't know how All Out ended, you probably should wait to listen to this podcast. We're going to break it down. This would be a good point to pause, go watch All Out, and then come back to us later. Unless you don't mind the spoilers and you want to get the scoop from us directly. So MJF is back. What?
00:03:05
Speaker
I want to, I want to sort of, it really hit me, like as we were, because the seats we were in tonight at All Out were basically the seats Fax and I were in at All In. If we were a couple of rows off, I couldn't find the exact seats, but we're basically in the same section. The quote unquote obstructed view that isn't truly an obstructed view unless it's super important for you to have a complete view of the stage.
00:03:29
Speaker
Yes, a real win in that if anyone's ever looking at obstructed view on the first level at these at the Sears Center slash now arena. But MJF, right, obviously giant reaction at the end when he's revealed as the Joker. Four years ago, MJF was on both of our podcasts at All In Weekend.
00:03:51
Speaker
Um, he interrupts the first conversation that we'd had together on your podcast. And then in my podcast, um, my facts is the best there ever was he spit in my mouth. Um, that's a thing he did. He opened the show that night. And now four years later, he. You know, came back to like a main event of the show, essentially to like a thunderous ovation. It's pretty crazy. Like how that.
00:04:22
Speaker
It is not an easy task to upstage CM Punk in Chicago and MJF managed to pull that off tonight.
AEW Event Analysis and Speculations
00:04:30
Speaker
I think a lot of people, there have been rumblings the last couple of weeks that he was on his way back and obviously you connect the dots, you're like, well this would be a show for him to do that at.
00:04:40
Speaker
Lots to say about him coming back, the timing, how it was done. There were three or four matches on this card that I was specifically looking forward to, one of which was the casino ladder match. When you look at the people who were involved in this match, I had very high expectations for how that match was going to go.
00:05:04
Speaker
and i was certainly not expecting it to end in the fashion it did with a clusterfuck of ninjas showing up and disrupting the match one of which being kaz xl or big kaz yeah um w marcy yeah i think this is like i just call him dime store sid that's basically what he's doing for sure like if sid were just slightly less good and over
00:05:27
Speaker
But still kind of, I mean it's still basically the Sid experience. Like if you're young and you weren't around for Sid being like what he was in the late 90s, this is, it's basically the same thing. You're getting the vibe. WCW Sid? I feel like it's more, it's ECW Sid, really, right? Where he's coming out and he's like just basically power bombing people and that's his whole thing. It's kind of WCW Sid too, at the best parts of it. Well, I just remember
00:05:53
Speaker
immediately thinking, well, whoever they're giving this poker chip to.
00:06:00
Speaker
It's probably MJF, but it was so disappointing, I guess, from my perspective, to see the match in that way because there were so many people involved in it that I wanted to see have bigger spots, a longer match. And it put a weird taste in my mouth where I thought, man, the payoff on this better be very, very good. Right. And quick, right? They punted on the match, right? They basically punt on the match with MJF's goons coming out and giving what we now know to be MJF the chip.
00:06:28
Speaker
Sure. So the Joker comes out to sympathy for the devil, Rolling Stones. So I have a little theory about this, right? So at the very end of the show, MJF says, you know, they use the punk clip of him saying the greatest thing the devil ever did was make people believe he doesn't exist. But it's even a more direct reference going back to their feud from months ago of him calling himself the devil himself to a bloodied Sam punk before their match.
00:06:58
Speaker
And, um, what pay-per-view was that? Uh, revolution. Was it revolution? Okay. But I have, I have a little theory here, which is that, um, so the first line of sympathy for the devil is please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste. Yes. And I think that's a line for MJF's character. I kind of think that's also given the last month or so and all the conversation, I think that's a line for Tony Khan himself.
00:07:27
Speaker
Because this is kind, I felt like all out was, especially this, was a little bit Tony Khan coming in and going, yeah, yeah, yeah, you guys think WWE's on the come up, you guys think Triple H is Mr. Whatever. I've got all the money, I've got all the guys, and we've been doing this and selling things out.
00:07:47
Speaker
I'm coming I'm still coming for you like don't underestimate me don't think like just because you've had a good month trips that you like you're ahead of me I
Tag Team Dynamics and Future Booking
00:07:56
Speaker
defeated NXT which is not your developmental and um you know I and so that's just saying like I feel like you think there's a parallel there I think he's put yeah I don't think I don't think it means Khan's gonna get involved in the angle or anything I just think there's a little bit of a parallel of like
00:08:13
Speaker
Like this is, it's a big deal. Right? I would argue that he's already involved in the angle. And has been involved in the angle. If in fact this was an angle from the get-go. Or it didn't start as one and then became one. Right. I guess on screen. I guess that's the thing that he hasn't done. And I guess I'm hoping he doesn't do. Unless they have a very narrow use for it. I don't want to see Tony Cott as a character.
00:08:40
Speaker
Obviously they had the, well tonight, they had the voicemail, right? So Tony was a vocal character in the show tonight. I think if you're looking at it as a smart mark, the last time we saw MJF on AEW television was him cutting the promo on Tony Khan. Right. And I remember thinking and saying this at the time, which was, you know,
00:09:06
Speaker
Everyone, I think for the most part, is aware of this, but for the people who... It's like the CM... It was MJF's pipe bomb. Right. It's supposed to be a parallel, right, in that regard. He gets cut off, all those things, yeah. But once again, like the pipe bomb itself, the most obvious question to anyone who's sitting there questioning about, you know, blurring the lines between reality and the show
00:09:32
Speaker
Tony Khan doesn't give MJF a microphone in a TV slot.
00:09:38
Speaker
not knowing what he's gonna say when he goes out there. So anyone who was thinking, ooh, MJF's shooting on Tony Khan and it wasn't planned, even if there was bad blood between them, Tony Khan wouldn't just be naive and say, no, you don't have to run any of this by me, just go out there and say whatever you want, no repercussions. So Tony Khan's been involved in this angle at least since that moment.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, no, and I think there's definitely look because the parallels that people drew at the time right where the Brian Pillman thing and Bischoff was very much sort of involved in that in a lot of ways. And I think there's a fair comparison. But again, I think unlike that angle, I do think they had the end game in mind and they had the sense of like,
00:10:25
Speaker
I don't know if they knew what was gonna happen here, necessarily. Although it's a pretty reasonable, you know, he leaves in June, the next big pay-per-view is three months away. That's kind of the perfect time to let this burn and simmer. It may, in fact, probably be one of the reasons why, if they were at all rushing Punk back, it was to get through the angle with Mox so that the end of this would be...
00:10:51
Speaker
Right. That. The other crazy thing I think about this, which is kind of amazing and one of the testament to how great AEW has been the last couple of weeks, is that, you know, we're talking about the end of the show.
00:11:04
Speaker
that happened after a main event that was spectacular and had an incredible angle to build it on
AEW's Tag Division and Unexpected Popularity
00:11:12
Speaker
Wednesday. And I think we all would have wished like, hey, if this could have burned a little bit more slowly, I don't know if it was because a punk didn't get back in time or whatever, it would have been great. But I mean, the angle, which
00:11:23
Speaker
I have pointed out to you about, listeners obviously haven't heard me say this, it was basically Rocky III, right, with Punk is Rocky and Jon Moxley is Clubber Lane. In fact, the Jon Moxley is hazardous to your health, wrestling Jon Moxley is hazardous to your health, is basically Mr. T saying, I predict pain.
00:11:47
Speaker
And it was, it's spectacular, right? Rocky III is incredible for a reason. And this angle worked really well for a reason. And then they went and had a match that backed it up. I mean, it's pretty awesome when you have like a main event that's set up that well and then delivered. I turned to you right before the match started and I said, you know, the most on-the-nose obvious thing you could say, which was big match feel. Right. And I think out of all of the AEW paper views and shows I've been to,
00:12:16
Speaker
the next one I can think of.
00:12:19
Speaker
that had that big match feel wasn't even an AEW pay-per-view. It was the dynamite where they did MJF versus Punk for the first time. I mean, people were standing for the entire match. I mean, we stood up at the entrances and then we did not sit down for the rest of the show and a large chunk of the crowd did not either. It didn't occur to me until way deep in the match that nobody had sat down. And there was a moment where I was like, oh my God, that doesn't happen for every main event.
00:12:48
Speaker
No, no. Even the ones where there was a very big match feel. I was at Danielson versus Omega last year.
00:12:56
Speaker
People
Trio Division and Character Dynamics
00:12:57
Speaker
sat, again, that was a longer match and a very different paced match. Or Hangman Danielson too had, again, great energy, but people were not standing for the entire match. I mean, this was a very, and again, they worked a different kind of match, right? It went 20 minutes, it was a bit more of a sprint, so there was no real resting moment. But again, even when they were working on the mat, people were standing, had attention.
00:13:20
Speaker
The crowd was amazing tonight. I want to talk about something because I don't want to forget about it and then let it fall into the history books of things I should have said while the mic was on. I would like to point out how overdone in professional wrestling the authority figure angle is done. And I do appreciate the fact that with Tony, at least for the time being, they're not doing a Vince McMahon or an Eric Bischoff.
00:13:49
Speaker
we're gonna see how this plays out, but they may possibly be approaching this from the perspective of Tony can be pushed around a little bit. He's an authority figure in over his head, and I'm kind of excited to see where they go with that. Especially, like, you know, we're talking about the match and the ending. The match was amazing and brutal, and it was exactly what it needed to be, and I think everyone...
00:14:18
Speaker
Moxley playing the role of the Defiant Champion and away territory. He played that
Women's Division and Bryan Danielson's Concerns
00:14:25
Speaker
role exceptionally well. Although he got a lot of chance. People were cheering for Moxley, including us. We had a little Moxley section with the rest of the arena. Moxley got a fair amount of cheer because of who he is and his star power.
00:14:41
Speaker
Punk, obviously, the hometown hero. I think everyone kind of had a good idea of how that match was going to end in terms of who was going to walk out champion. The question was, after the ladder match had ended, were they going to use the poker chip as a money in the bank type cash in, or was it still going to be something, a match that they built to? And obviously they chose the ladder.
00:15:06
Speaker
Which, to me, I think that's the right choice after having seen how the show ended. But no, go ahead. I mean, I think you could have used, because of the unique situation here, I think you could have said something like, MJF wrote it in that the chip could be, it doesn't have to be that the chip now becomes money in the bank, because I wouldn't want them to do that. But I also don't mind them saying, look, this is going to be a match that we're going to build to, and we're going to do it.
00:15:34
Speaker
either Grand Slam or Full Gear or some you know there's there's some some choices there they don't need to sprint to it i don't think they're gonna i don't as we both say i don't think they want to wait forever for that just a little bit of time no i i think that they they need to strike while the iron's hot a little bit it the one thing i will say about the decision to not have him cash in the chip
00:15:59
Speaker
you know, at the end of the show is now they have to get really creative to make me want to see this match again for the title and believe that MJF's taking it from him. Oh, see, I kind of think that he almost has to take it. I think this would be a weird spot for him to lose. No, I completely agree. But I guess that's what I'm saying is that like what's Punk just got the title back.
00:16:27
Speaker
like are they right but I'm not against hot potato and that's not what I'm saying I'm just right it would be a very jarring like oh we're gonna do this for a while I do think I turned to you at one point when we were watching the Jericho Danielson match and I said you know if MJF eventually holds the AEW Championship
00:16:48
Speaker
And I'm thinking of the list of people that I would like to see him have title matches against. Danielson is one that I think as far as size and Danielson can typically carry most people to a really good match. I'm not saying the MJF is a guy that needs to be carried, that's bullshit. But I'm just saying that I want to see how those two work together really bad now. Yeah, what I also want to see
00:17:16
Speaker
I think I'm really interested to see them have a heal champion again. They haven't really had one since Kenny, which is almost a year ago now. And Kenny's reign played out in a certain way because there was a very specific endpoint
Rivalries and Storyline Evolution
00:17:31
Speaker
with Paige. Whereas I think there's some interesting stuff with MJF. I think to me, I want to see MJF defend against
00:17:41
Speaker
other younger guys like I want to see him against Danielson but I also I want to see Darby get a title shot against him I want to see Ricky Starks get a title shot and those guys being in a spot where like because it's like you know that guy's not those guys aren't beating mocks but
00:17:57
Speaker
Could they beat MJF? Sure. You know, I also I'm sitting here. We have the the card for all out in front of us. And one of the things I wanted to bring up, we're probably going to have to jump around this rather than try to do this in any sort of nice order. But, you know, there's there's positive things on the show that I definitely want to talk about. There's some criticisms I have that really rubbed me the wrong way. But, you know, stepping back and looking at some things, you said
00:18:22
Speaker
you wanted to see Darby Allen possibly get a title shot. And that's a great point because one of the things I wanted to point out is that we are a year removed from CM Punk debuting.
00:18:34
Speaker
at all out having his debut match at all out against Darby Allen and one of the things i wanted to ask is what has Darby Allen done in the last year where has he really gone other than being handcuffed to sting and being thrown in these clusterfuck type matches he hasn't really gone up or anywhere since the punk match yeah
00:18:54
Speaker
I actually had the same thought when Darby came out. I was like, man, it's a year ago he wrestled Punk here. And he's in terms of like importance on the card and big matches or whatever, he seems like he's really like the last year is basically flown by with him being kind of
00:19:12
Speaker
Just static. In matches. In matches and being involved and not, again, he's over, he's having to get some big moments here and
Match Highlights and Booking Strategies
00:19:20
Speaker
there, but it doesn't feel like he's been elevated. Part of what I was thinking about with the title is that, you know, the title over the last year has really, the matches have belonged either to guys who've been coming in or, you know, guys who are already established, right? You think that, like,
00:19:40
Speaker
Even going back to last year at all-out, right? That's Christian Cage getting the shot at Omega. Which was supposed to be Hangman. That was supposed to be Hangman, and they do the Hangman and Kenny match, which they built too. But then you look at Hangman's reign, like who gets the title shots? Danielson twice.
00:19:56
Speaker
Cole twice, Punk, Archer got one TV slot, right? And then Punk immediately goes to Mox and Mox defends the big matches against Jericho and then back against Punk.
00:20:12
Speaker
haven't been a lot of slots for the ascending AEW stars outside of Hangman. And Hangman, again, I think Hangman's a little bit different because he was, he main evented the first All Out, right? He's not, I mean, he was already sort of ascended as AEW was beginning in a way that a lot of these other guys shared. Again, like, he was one of the featured guys on All In.
00:20:33
Speaker
MJF was doing an opener against Matt Croft. Sure. Right. You know, Paige knew, Paige was involved in stuff. MJF was out there. I just think back to that weekend, it was the beginning of 2018 actually, the first time I saw MJF with Stokely managing him at a Beyond show before the Rumble and Philly and thinking, that guy seems pretty good. And then all in weekend,
00:20:59
Speaker
he's the one guy because we did we did so for those who may not know right the the way the curtain jerks and the predetermined Derek and Garrett met was we did podcast row at all in um and did and and the idea was that we were basically like it was like uh radio row at the super bowl or something right but
00:21:18
Speaker
Did not work out exactly that way. We did not get many interviews yet to
AEW Tradition and Future Speculations
00:21:22
Speaker
hustle for them But you know who went down and got an interview with every single last fucking podcast with MJF, right? Well, Jacob Friedman He was like I'm gonna get my I'm basically gonna do character practice with all these podcasters all these fucking marks I'm my name is gonna get into all these stupid podcasts. Yeah, right and it's
00:21:42
Speaker
Any one of them was going to be worth nothing to him, but the overall experience he was just going to do and his name was out there. He was named was out there and it was just the hustle of it too, right? That he was not going to miss this opportunity. You know, Joey Janela was not out there hustling and doing every pop MDF was like, I'm going to get.
00:21:59
Speaker
all of them. I also think there's something to be said though about the way that, and most of that was just being run by Conrad, right? Right, right. I don't think they really let a lot of those guys get the time that I think even they wanted on some of the people. Because I remember we were interviewing Jeff Cobb and Blue Meanie and it just seemed like they gave us like two minutes with them and they're like, all right, you're done, get out of here. And it wasn't like they were like, do you want to go? It was like, no, you're done, get out. And I remember thinking like, well, if they want to stay,
00:22:29
Speaker
Like that's not kind of up to But no But to your point though MJF made a point to to really take time with everybody on that on Podcast Row and that I mean again from the moment I saw him perform at AAW I thought man he's gonna be somebody like he gets it. Yeah, and to see in four years
00:22:52
Speaker
Like I said at the start of this, you can't, there's not a long list of people who can walk into Chicago and upstage CM Punk's really big moment, and he's on that list. People were cheering very heavily for MJF, right? I mean, that's, again, Punk had just won the title. He's theoretically doing the heel move, interrupting his moment, and like, Chicago apparently also in on MJF.
00:23:19
Speaker
You know, and this past winter, you know, I attended the dynamite where, you know, MJF and punk had that first match where, you know, MJF's claim to fame was beating him twice, twice in one night. Yeah. And this place hated him. And to think, you know, just what, six months, eight months later. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:39
Speaker
Speaking of other people who got way over tonight, I would be remiss if we didn't make sure that we had some time to talk about the response the Acclaimed got in that tag title match. Which, again, they're coming out. I'm saying to you, man, you know, they really gotta fix this tag team booking. They got us like, babyface, babyface match. We gotta really figure out what's going on in this division. This was not a babyface match because the Acclaimed was so goddamn over.
00:24:04
Speaker
that Swerve and Keith Lee just played heel and it was like sort of an 80s style... Like it had to be. It had to be, because the 10,000 people were spontaneously chanting, starting to cinder me daddy ass chants.
00:24:20
Speaker
spontaneously, like through the match. They hijacked Keith Lee's chant and turned it into an acclaimed tune. Oh scissor me daddy. Oh, I don't, you know, we're in a hotel room right now. And I'm hoping that the people in the room next to us didn't hear that. I hope they did. If they did, I hope they don't knock on the door and ask if they can join. So this is where I'll start with this because to tie all this together, Garrett disagrees.
00:24:47
Speaker
With my take and I'm I think your take on the finish Oh doesn't think tonight was the night what I would say to Garrett is Garrett you weren't in the fucking building
00:24:59
Speaker
I don't think there was anybody in that building wanting the the acclaim to lose that match. No it was like the response like again I think I hope the bullshit chants were audible at the end but just be it like a friend my friend Paul texted me he's like you know if the claim loses we riot and I was like no I think we might riot.
00:25:19
Speaker
You're joking. Energy went very negative. And I knew it was coming. I didn't think there was going to be a riot, but I just remember thinking, man. Another thing I keep coming back to this. I turned to you at one point and I said, if the plan was for Swerve and Keith Lee to win tonight, they might need to call an audible. Right. It did feel like maybe they should just do this.
00:25:46
Speaker
the near fault, the responses on the near fault. We're insane. And another thing is like, you know, there was the Motor City Machine Guns and Jay Lethal against Wardlow and FTR, which was a fine wrestling match. I'm wearing an FTR shirt as we speak. And you can't say enough good things about FTR, you can't say enough good things about where Wardlow has put himself on the card.
00:26:10
Speaker
but this is like a prime example of getting yourself over with the crowd means whatever your limitations are on the ring don't fucking matter because I don't know if the if the acclaimed sort of in sort of in our glory match was a technical clinic it was not a great five-star wrestling match but it's it's it's kind of the way people talk about that Rock Hogan match at WrestleMania 18 where it's like if you if you just watched it with the sound off
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's a match but as soon as like that place was so rabid and I just This is what this would be like this core of my thesis on where they kind of screwed that up It's going to be hard for me to imagine there being a moment three weeks or a month or two months or six months from now where they are more over or Equally over than they are right now
00:27:07
Speaker
and sometimes with wrestling it's just timing and tonight really felt like what is what is the long-term game with swerve and keith lee they're not going to keep those guys together as a tag team forever
00:27:24
Speaker
Probably not even for very much longer and now it's we were talking about when they did the Thunder Rosa Britt Baker match at a revolution and Then they didn't have Thunder Rosa win But then they did have her win a couple weeks later on dynamite because it was in her hometown It just kind of fell flat if they try to do this again I just don't know if they'll be able to recapture the magic they had tonight. Yeah. No, I'm with you I don't I don't know if there's
00:27:52
Speaker
It was certainly, I know it was magical in there tonight. I don't know what the future holds, but I know tonight is fucking magic. And this is one of the things I love. People talk about like.
00:28:04
Speaker
My big thing with AEW and the criticism of AEW is I don't really care how well it's doing relative to WWE. I don't care if Tony Khan is making or losing money. I care about that. They want to keep doing it and it's making enough money to keep going because it's so much fun as much as I loved seeing, I watched a lot of
00:28:22
Speaker
GCW shows and other shows this weekend and like the grand, the totally fine sports place and a hotel ballroom. It's really fun when 10,000 people agree and start chanting something. Like it's so fun to watch arena wrestling. And it's visceral. Yeah. I'm so glad that like we get to do that with wrestling that's good and consistently enjoyable. Like for any criticisms we have at AEW at the end of the day, like
00:28:48
Speaker
Really fun times. I had a blast. I mean, I have criticisms. I have concerns. But again, nothing negative to say in terms of the experience I had in the arena tonight. And one of the things before we get off of this is the tag match. We'll see where this goes. I think they missed an opportunity tonight. And I think there's a potential like they're going to look back and kick themselves for not.
00:29:12
Speaker
Well, I guess we'll see what Tony Khan has in store for this whole thing with Swerve and Our Glory. I thought they were great as heels tonight. I have to give credit to them. I mean, they were great as the heels. Again, the old school tag team heels working over Bowens.
00:29:31
Speaker
Well, and credit to Bowens too for really working the whole injured, like sometimes it's almost like cliche, but then there's other times like we're in during that match because people were so rabid for it where it was just like any time he got any kind of baby face comeback offense and people were like, fuck yes, they're going to do it. And the false finishes were amazing. I mean, even with the, I think how they failed the finish, maybe the second best match on the card.
00:30:01
Speaker
okay maybe third behind the trios right i would i would have yeah it's an overall it's you know it's close though it's and it's surprisingly close right because the the trios match right is
00:30:13
Speaker
Going into that, you're like, well, it's Kenny Omega, it's the Young Bucks, it's Hangman Page. Those four guys, you were there, right, had the greatest tag team match probably of all time, two and a half years ago, in the same city. Revolution 2020, yeah. Sorry, in the same general area. This is not Chicago. In the Chicago land area. In the Chicago land area.
00:30:35
Speaker
Um, so like that you're expecting and again, I thought that was Excellent. I loved it. People were Big response. I mean, this is the house that the young bucks built for sure, right? It does. It still feels special to sound Cody here, too Well, yeah, then Cody as well. Um, but yeah, I mean that because that's that there's always I think gonna be something about that room in the bucks just because it's like
00:30:59
Speaker
fuck, we all made a pilgrimage to that, to see them do that. And so every time they come back, it's like, it's still special, you know? I do think it's gotta be exhausting, you know, having that reputation of, you know, the best bout machine and, you know,
00:31:14
Speaker
You expect every one of their matches, those high profile tag matches, to be amazing. And they usually are. And that's not an easy bar to clear. And I'm not saying that to take a shot at the Acclaimed and Swerve on our glory, but it's almost a compliment to be like, I had told you, I thought going into that match, that the crowd was gonna be hot for the Acclaimed. And you were like, I didn't expect it to be that hot. Yeah, again, I think people,
00:31:42
Speaker
I was very excited to scream scissor me daddy ass and I knew a lot of other people were going to be but I didn't know that like once the match started people were not just going to be like oh that was a fun thing to chant but it was like no we are very invested in them winning yeah that's a big difference and I'm it's it but I think it was interesting because I did feel like it proved something with the acclaim tonight um which I also get like at the trios match too talking about sort of those two together
00:32:09
Speaker
I feel like Silver and Reynolds also proved a lot tonight because going into that match, you're looking at those guys. That's a big spot for them. Yeah. Because, yeah, as you said, these four of the greats and they're in there with them and they kept up. Yeah. I thought they did a great job and I thought Silver was awesome. And they just had a big, again, the way they can build those matches and
00:32:32
Speaker
have them be sort of an emotional climax at the same time. That was a great story they told too with Hangman ultimately ending up being the reason they lost. Right. With Silver being so close to pinning Omega and then it's Hangman who like
00:32:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's I mean, that's a great setup for whatever's coming. And what it's also going to be because like, again, that's not there's a ton to say about it. But like, Wednesday, we saw the Bucks in Omega against Osprey and Ozzy open, which was also spectacular. Yeah, like, I mean,
00:33:06
Speaker
It's been a pretty good week for watching Trio's matches at the now arena. Are you enthusiastic going forward about the Trio's division? I had kind of expressed to you my opinion on this when we were leaving the show. Maybe it was at the show, but I had said...
00:33:24
Speaker
I'm not as excited as other people are for trios championships because to me what it's gonna do is it's gonna force people into stables just for the sake of having a division for those titles and now and now there's kind of a one we'll obviously talk about this more in depth but there may be a possibility that house of black
00:33:41
Speaker
is not gonna be a trio stable, or at least not with three dudes at the moment. Yeah. Well, I guess what I'll say about the trio thing before we move on to House of Blacking, we thought that was a really interesting moment, is that I'm very curious to see what happens once we get past the Bucks and Omega ring, right? Because the Bucks and Omega, having the titles, that's gonna be great. An excuse for those guys to have six-man matches, I'm in on.
00:34:10
Speaker
I think they already do have a lot of stables even before they introduce the Trio's title, so I do think there's something to the idea of, well, this kind of allows them to do that and just kind of keep moving that forward. And it gives, I think with the tag team division being so big, it allows them to sort of play both sides there. So we'll see. Again, could it be too many belts? There's a million belts in the promotion right now. So I'm not like, you know, but...
00:34:34
Speaker
I think I'm more concerned with you're correct that there are plenty of stables but that means they need to start hot potato in those damn trios titles immediately because some of these stables were already like I'm over Jericho appreciation society already right I'm over
00:34:51
Speaker
Like whatever whatever fucking QT Marshall's stables called, right? Well, they're just there to be jobbers basically But I'm just saying that like how many in a year how many of these stables are gonna be people? You're excited to see when the trios titles like especially the house of black isn't there You need to get like maybe these are titles that you can hot potato on a regular basis is But again, how much of that is a contribution to the show? I don't know
00:35:17
Speaker
We may as well hit the House of Black thing, because we've mentioned it a couple of times there. So House of Black works, Miro, Darby, and Sting, fun match. There have been rumors about Malachi Black for various things. Don't want to really get into him in the sense that I...
00:35:32
Speaker
I'm not, we don't know what's going on there. I don't know, because I have no idea. I've heard that he's just unhappy and wants out. I've heard that he's going through some stuff and wants time to himself. And so it doesn't matter. Whatever it is off air, off air tonight, not off air, but like after they cut to the video package.
00:35:51
Speaker
There was a hug with the House of Black members at the corner of the ring. There was some cheers for Malachi. He sort of gave a bow. It felt very much like this was... I'm going away for a while. Right. If it's not goodbye, it's goodbye for now. And in fact, if he took the pin, both tonight and in the six-man tournament, there's a sense that, yeah, this is maybe... which, again,
00:36:16
Speaker
You know, I hope he's okay, right? I would say to you, I think there's a little part of me that feels he's, again, not bad. I don't want to like take shots at him. I think, you know, a little bit overrated in the sense that sometimes I think there's an implied philosophy behind what he's doing that's not always clear.
00:36:36
Speaker
I mean, again, if it's Buddy and Brody King as a tag team for a few months, I'm in on that. I love Brody King and some tag teams. Him and TCO were my favorite tag teams the last few years. And if the original plan was to have House of Black be a trio's team that could win those titles, well, they can just pivot and turn Brody King and Buddy into a straight up two man tag team. Those titles are still out there too. Right.
00:37:03
Speaker
I'm in on them against, I'd be in on them against Swerve and Keith Lee. I'd be in on them against lots of teams. I'd be really in on them against FTR for the ROH titles. That'd be fun. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that. Tony Khan, make that happen. You're listening, right? He cares about the fans, man. So he better be listening to this podcast. I want to go back to the acclaimed match really quick because one of the things that we came out of that
00:37:32
Speaker
feeling was man that was so hot and maybe unexpectedly hot that we felt bad for the four women who had to go on after not because they couldn't keep up but because again it that ended up being a really high spot in the show that again there were only a couple other matches on that show that would have had a chance
00:37:52
Speaker
to follow that tag match. And I thought that the women's match was pretty good and unexpected. I was hoping for Tony Storm to win, but I really didn't think that that was the direction they were going to go with the interim championship. And I almost feel bad because I feel like people were so caught off guard with Tony winning that they didn't know how to react.
00:38:16
Speaker
There was definitely a mixed reaction in the crowd of people who were pissed off that it wasn't Jamie Hader. I was definitely on the Jamie Hader team. I'm a fan of the Hader.
00:38:31
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I get it. I think they were going towards Toni Storm anyway. That was the rumor with Bet Thunder Rosa. Maybe the reason why her back injury got worse is that she was about to lose the title, maybe lost her smile. Again, I'm not a backstage man. I hadn't heard that, so this is the first I'm hearing of it. But I think there's an interesting, again, I think Toni Storm being the champion
00:38:57
Speaker
if they're going to more stuff with Hader and Baker, I think works. I think the division in the space, I guess there's maybe, maybe it works with Tony defending against, I'm trying to think of who she would defend against other than those two that were already in the match with her. Could it be maybe like, maybe one of the Jericho Appreciation Society ladies, maybe Ty or MJ or,
00:39:27
Speaker
I don't know, it felt more interesting to me if one of the heels was the champion, preferably Hater, to open certain things up, it felt to me. I don't know, just my inner thoughts. Let me give you my 4D chess booking here. Is there a possibility that this decision was made knowing that when Thunder Rosa comes back, she's not necessarily gonna get a positive response from a lot of people?
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, she's probably going heal that regard, right? There's a chance. I mean, I think they'll do a wait and see with it. But the story got out there. And I think the worst thing, maybe Tony understands this better than anybody, is that you can't fight. It doesn't matter if the fans are being rational or not. Right. You can't fight that. It's just going to make it worse. And if she comes out and gets a heal response, it's best to just roll with that and use that to help somebody else.
00:40:27
Speaker
I thought the two women's matches were put in kind of a weird spot tonight. Obviously I think Athena deserves better than just getting kind of squashed by Jade Cargill. I understand what they're doing with her.
00:40:39
Speaker
I do wonder what the endgame is with Jade. We're starting to get to the point where we're like, well, who's it going to be? There's got to be a little bit of endgame here. I mean, my thought was maybe it was supposed to be Statlander and now she's hurt. And maybe they have to figure out what the new endgame is. But it does feel like we're getting to the point where
00:40:58
Speaker
we have to move on to the next thing with Jade and the undefeated streak is almost, it's always a problem I think with the undefeated streak is that when you let it go on too long, almost starts holding you back. It does, yeah. It doesn't, it makes the matches less dramatic. And interestingly, this was one where, again, Athena seemed like a plausible person to beat her. Well that's, yeah. And then she beat her in three minutes. Yeah. But here's the thing, it doesn't have to hold you back if Jade,
00:41:27
Speaker
has a match with somebody that you believe can beat it and it's given or beat her and it's given the time that it deserves.
00:41:36
Speaker
there can be a lot of drama and it is tonight, the night. I don't think they've given her that time. I don't know if she can do it with that time, which is again, another interesting point to bring up because it's like, well, now you've booked her into a corner and that the most appropriate way to end this would be with an epic long drawn out thing where somebody finally conquers you and takes the TBS championship from you. And if it's not going to be Athena,
00:42:05
Speaker
And you just rocket strapped Tony Storm into like the eight like like who's like who's it going to be? Right. Yeah, I'm struggling with that. And I'm maybe Tony is struggling with that, too. Maybe he was, you know, he's like, I'm not burning this unless it's the right person. And so I've got to figure out who that right person is to get this rub off of off of this victory.
00:42:31
Speaker
I will say, speaking of rubs, one of the things we were talking about was the Danielson Jericho match. I have so much to say about this. Brian Danielson loses to Chris Jericho because Chris Jericho definitely needed to win.
00:42:50
Speaker
Other than just being like down on the finish of the acclaimed match, I can at least go back and be like, man, what a fucking ride that was. Yeah. And then there's, you know, going back to Garrett's point of like, well, maybe tonight wasn't tonight. Well, I can at least be optimistic. Like the acclaimed is still super fucking over. Maybe they can get some extra mileage out of this and make me look forward to that moment again.
00:43:12
Speaker
I've got a bunch to say about this match because number one, Jericho was having some issues with his tights. The whole fucking match. It bothered me so much. It would not have bothered me as much. I would have just thought it was unfortunate if the tights didn't have a belt on them.
00:43:31
Speaker
Jericho spent more than half the match doing one move and then immediately having to pull by his tights back up And I and I gotta think they had time they had a seamstress or somebody who could have fixed that and brought those But he had the fucking belt attached. So so there's that element. The other thing is this was this was like, you know One of the top three matches I was looking forward to most on this card. I don't think it delivered
00:43:56
Speaker
And I just kept waiting for Danielson to take over and let the match hit a certain pace and to have Jericho keep up with it. And that never really happened. Yeah, they work. Someone, again, my buddy Paul, shout out to my buddy Paul from Backdoor Barbecue. Go check us out. Do a comedy show at some point.
00:44:14
Speaker
um but he was texting me he was like are people like not into this match i was like it's not that they're not into it i think people were into the match but they worked a pace where they weren't generating pops and they were kind of doing a little more slow pace but it was also at the same time it was a little bit like this isn't
00:44:34
Speaker
what I wanted of Chris Jericho at this point. I mean, it's maybe I'm fine watching Danielson trade hold and not really don't need to see Jericho do that. So it was kind of a strange.
00:44:46
Speaker
I was a bad match and I think people were into it, but it was kind of... It was disappointing. Yeah, it felt like... Well, honestly, I was a little concerned going in. Again, with the way Jericho's been over the last six months or so, there's kind of a weird... Feels like he's trying to do something, trying to recapture something maybe.
00:45:08
Speaker
can't quite tell if he's quite getting there. I don't know. I think he's trying to recapture something that he just physically can't do. Right. And to me, I turned to you at one point, again, that's been my thing. I turned to you at one point and I said, I think Jericho's done. And you said, I think he's at least done for the main event scene. And that might be at minimum, but might be the case. I don't want to sit here and dog Jericho. Yeah. Well, there's I think of it as sort of like the way that like
00:45:38
Speaker
Minoru Suzuki in New Japan now, right? He's not gonna win the title. He's not gonna be in the biggest matches. He can still be put in a spot and get someone over and do interesting things and be a valuable character, right? In the way that Ishii was tonight, right? So I think Ishii's probably kind of in the same role at this point in his career. His match with Eddie Kingston was a delight. People were super, I mean, again, of like terms of pops, right? And big responses.
00:46:07
Speaker
Main event, acclaimed, Elite versus Dark Order, and then really just below that was Eddie getting standing ovations and the chops and how people respond to that. And awesome to see him win that match because I feel like he's the guy who loses a lot of those types of matches. Nice to see him get the... He main evented the pre-show and he put on a hell of a performance.
00:46:33
Speaker
As far as the Jericho Danielson match goes, among the things that I was frustrated with, and I brought this up earlier to you, one of the things I will come right at Tony Khan on on this one is I feel he's gotten a little too comfortable jobbing out Bryan Danielson considering he's a top
00:46:53
Speaker
three or four star on his roster. Right. Danielson has been eating way too many pins. And it's one thing if he's eating a pin from a Kenny Omega or from somebody that you're trying to move up the car and establishes a star like Hangman. Garcia, right? I mean, Garcia, you know.
00:47:11
Speaker
Sure. I mean, you get it. You're like, oh, I understand what they're trying to do here. I don't understand. He had that really good match at Revolution with Moxley.
00:47:24
Speaker
which is what established the Blackpool Combat Club. But he technically lost that match. He tied with Kenny in the first match, and then lost. No, they didn't have a rematch. They just had to draw with Hangman and then lost the second match. Right, that's what I meant. Yes, he had to draw with Hangman and then lost there.
00:47:48
Speaker
I just, it's one of those things where, and it's like, am I too big of a mark for Brian Danielson? I don't know, man. I mean, a lot of people have marks for Brian. I mean, the one thing I will say about Brian Danielson tonight, what was that intro? Who was that? I don't know who the fuck that was, but you asked if it was Machine Gun Kelly and I couldn't necessarily deny it. If it wasn't Machine Gun Kelly, it was Machine Gun Kelly's little brother, Shotgun Kelly.
00:48:19
Speaker
It was just, it was, it was strange. The one thing I will point out here, we haven't really talked about dynamite very much and there's not a ton to say other than obviously the angle was great and the big match, the trios was great. So we got some tickets for dynamite from our friends Lola Matt. Hi Lola, hi Matt. Hi Lola, hi guys. Delightful, our delightful friends from Regina, Saskatchewan.
00:48:46
Speaker
So we were seated in their seats for the rest of the weekend for Dynamite, seated behind two guys who turned to us and we sat down and said, yeah, we're doing kind of a lazy cosplay. We're Otis and Tucker. Now, Derek and I did not have the heart to tell them that those are the wrong names. The one who thinks he's Tucker is Otis, and the one who thinks he's Otis is Jess.
00:49:12
Speaker
Did we not have the heart or was it we felt like it was going to be a long winded explanation with no payoff to trying to get them hoping that they would understand like you get it, right? Yeah. Well, that was the thing. Like we were going to have to break their hearts and then we like we could have gotten it back with a long explanation. But the the long and winding road back from their broken hearts, as you explained to a man, a person who's in front of you that he's cosplaying as someone that we refer to as Jim. You're right.
00:49:40
Speaker
I think that was the other thing subliminally I was not prepared for was to have a guy look at me and go, so I'm Jizz? And me have to go, yeah, you're Jizz. And you're Otis. And Otis and Jizz are technically the same person. I don't know who Tucker is. He's not on the show anymore. But yeah, we had somebody, we had a couple of guys cosplaying as Heavy Machinery in front of us at an AEW show. Everything comes full circle. Right, everything comes full circle. Comes full circle.
00:50:12
Speaker
He's coming, he's coming. The other thing I'll just point out from Dynamite is that you, Derek, you took exception when Garrett said that you pulled off your AEW shirt to reveal a WWE one. You said- He made you look like a putt. He made you look like a putt.
00:50:29
Speaker
And Derek, you're not a pud. I'm not a pud. You're not a pud. I may be a lot of things, but I am not a pud. But I will say this. What did I do? You did wear a WWE shirt to Dynamite. I did. And the idea of tearing off the shirt to reveal a WWE one, you were actually revealing a WWE t-shirt. It wasn't Kevin Owens. I understand Kevin's your guy, and obviously he's part of the greater AW-verse in a certain sense, but...
00:50:55
Speaker
Um, I just got that shirt in the mail the day before I had been waiting on that many weeks I I mean I didn't that's the newest wrestling shirt. I owned at the time No
00:51:08
Speaker
I'm not ripping off my AEW shirt and revealing a WWE shirt underneath. I will say there were points tonight during this show where I was like, fuck man. It felt a little bit like watching your favorite team have like a nice lead in a baseball game and then watch them.
00:51:26
Speaker
commit a whole bunch of errors to let the other team back in it. And there were points during the show where I was just like, man, there's some layup booking here that they could have done to just make this show perfect that I just feel like they missed on. But maybe it's more exciting when your team comes back and hits a grand slam in the bottom of the night. But it still feels like a stupid win.
00:51:49
Speaker
And tonight kind of feels that way. Not entirely. It was a win. This pay-per-view of the show was a win, but there were definitely moments throughout when I'm like, ah. I think that moment could have had some more oversight. Again, is somebody going to be like, no, Chris Jericho really needed this win over Bryan Danielson tonight? And this is where I said, well, pay attention to the show and see where the story is going. And I'm like, I can get on board with that, but I can just tell you this.
00:52:20
Speaker
Danielson So now if you include the ladder match The Danielson Jericho match and the main event Blackpool combat club went 0 for 3 and all out They don't have a title anymore. I guess they don't have the AWW title anymore They have two ROH titles. That's whatever those are worth. Whatever those mean bout as much as the FTW title and
00:52:46
Speaker
Right. Right. Although there are... I can hear somebody getting really mad right now listening. They're like, bullshit. I love the ROH. It's currently a dead promotion. Maybe they'll bring it back. I don't know. But if they ran an ROH pay-per-view in New York, I would go because it would be a good show. I think honoring those titles while not doing anything with the promotion is a little dumb.
00:53:12
Speaker
Again, I assume they're trying. I don't really, again, I just don't really know where they're going with that. We'll see if they actually get a TV show somewhere sometime. I want to get your thoughts on the Daniels and Jericho stuff before we get off it. We don't have to talk about it for a long time, but do you feel the same way and that it feels like they're just
00:53:35
Speaker
I feel like they're doing unnecessary damage to Danielson and I just don't know if there's any good payoff with the Jericho stuff. I agree in the sense that I would rather be using, if I'm jobbing Danielson, I would rather be using that on someone else that's not Jericho. And I would rather, frankly, be seeing Danielson wrestle someone who's not Jericho.
00:53:58
Speaker
There's just, Jericho's pretty low on the list. I'm not even sure, there's just not a lot of people I'd rather be seen Danielson work. I'm looking at the list of people that wrestled tonight. Obviously, I would love to see him work Omega again. They obviously love that. I'd be interested to see him wrestle Shane Strickland. I'd be interested to see him wrestle Keith Lee. I bet that would be fascinating. Has he ever had a long match with Christian? Even that would be kind of interesting.
00:54:29
Speaker
Claudio, I'm sure they must have worked a million times in WWE. But Penta and Phoenix, he hasn't worked really, right? And that would be fascinating. Roosh, that'd be super, again, there's just a ton of guys for Ishii, right? You could just throw him against Ishii.
00:54:49
Speaker
It does feel like I did not need to see him do a match with Jericho. I'd be less concerned with the result if it didn't feel like, yeah, this should be one that you use to build Danielson back up to go do something else. Right. You said you were surprised by the finish to Starks and Hobbs. Yeah.
00:55:14
Speaker
It felt like they were building up Starks there. I think they still are. I think they still are. I mean, Hobbs won clean as a sheet, shorter match. Again, they needed to have short matches. This was a long show. And that wasn't a match, especially if you were going with that finish. I'm not sure that match needed to be incredibly long or anything.
00:55:33
Speaker
I'm curious to see if they go back to that right away or not or if they kind of because there is sometimes sometimes that match of we've broken up the two partners and they're wrestling each other is actually not the best thing for either of them. It's kind of a dead end story because then it comes across as like you're picking one.
00:55:52
Speaker
Right. Who are you giving the push to and who are you casting aside? Right. I'd almost rather see Hobbs kind of go his own way and work, do his own thing, and then see Starks as a babyface.
00:56:05
Speaker
find someone else to, like maybe him against the Jericho Appreciation Society. Him against Sammy Guevara or something? Him against Sammy would work and, you know, and tie. Really the whole, I mean, because you've got, that's the thing with the Jericho Appreciation Society as it's set up, right? You've got some different paths to go within the same story. And eventually, you could get like, Starks against Jericho would be an interesting match. And that's a guy who could get some rub from a win, potentially.
00:56:33
Speaker
The other one, I think, the sort of big feud that didn't get blown off tonight, because I'm thinking Starks and Hobbs has at least one more match in it, would be Christian Kajigan's Jungle Boy, which definitely has one more match in it now, right? Because...
00:56:48
Speaker
Luchasaurus turns, destroys Jungle Boy, and they, that felt a little ruso-ey me, to me, the like, Jungle Boy turns, he turns back, and now, oh, it was just a ruse, I actually was with Christian all along. Oh, Luchasaurus, yes. Yeah, that felt a little, I mean, I think it was effective, and I think ultimately,
00:57:11
Speaker
I'm feeling pretty confident that they're going towards Jack beating the crap out of him and winning that match. And it was to me an interesting kind of giveaway because he came in the last couple of angles actually very much ahead on Christian. I was like, well, if he's winning the match, that's kind of strange if he's like destroying him already. On TV. Yeah. So it makes sense that maybe they're trying to build to one more match.
00:57:32
Speaker
Maybe that's a Grand Slam match so they're not dragging it out too long. I was disappointed that I didn't get to see the match. I mean they did a match but they didn't give them time and it was more of an angle segment than anything. I kind of saw this coming though because I thought that the disappearance of Luchasaurus with Christian Cage
00:57:54
Speaker
for the one week, and then immediately being by Jungle Boy's side, like almost right, I was like, that's not how that plays out. They wouldn't have planted that seed if there wasn't gonna be a payoff to him disappearing. So that kind of happened, but honestly, I was waiting for him to ditch the dinosaur gimmick. That's gonna be the ultimate, I've committed to this heel turn, I'm taking away the thing that you love about my character. I was waiting for him to take the mask off tonight.
00:58:23
Speaker
Yeah, and that might be how they're going. I mean, it's hard. I mean, we were talking actually really the other night about Rikishi, right? The Rikishi turn and how that kind of like ruined him because it didn't work as a heel turn. And then you're just like, hey, remember the character you loved? I'm just that again, which they did eventually do. We'll see how it goes for Lucisaurus. I mean, at the end of the day, maybe the answer is that, like,
00:58:50
Speaker
They just felt like they wanted to take a shot with this and it was more important to get, you know, obviously, you know,
00:58:58
Speaker
Austin and The Rock didn't need Rikishi to turn on them to become big. That was already well set in stone. But maybe they're saying, look, we're going to sacrifice Luchasaurus because this is what we need to get Jungle Boy to the next level. And if that's the case, that may be a worthwhile thing to say, hey, yeah, we're burning the goodwill of Luchasaurus to sort of turn him into a main adventure.
00:59:21
Speaker
But I also think they're burning the goodwill of what people expect Jungle Boy to be to get him to the next level. And I think Christian's playing a hand in that and they're trying to strip down the quote unquote fun goofy elements of their gimmick to get him to where he can be... serious. Jack Perry. Yeah.
00:59:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think they're definitely trying to figure that out, which is smart though. I mean, I do think sometimes there's an issue with a certain kind of character that struggles to go from the mid-card to the main event because it's not like the motivations aren't quite defined, right? I always think about like Dalton Castle with this, right? We're a huge Dalton fan, but there was a bit of an odd sort of hiccup going from
01:00:05
Speaker
upper mid-cardo to made a venter because the character was very, had a sort of very certain perspective and it didn't really open itself up to a blood feud or a big match. And he's done, and Dalton's done a lot of work on bringing out those pieces of the characters in the last few years, I would be clear. But I think they're trying to do that with Jungle Boy 2 where
01:00:29
Speaker
I want to, you know, he's got to be able to say things and I've got to be like, oh, I want to see that guy in this big match is violent view because he's someone right. MJF Jungle Boy feels like it could main event to pay-per-view.
01:00:43
Speaker
And maybe that, like, that feels like that would be, they're not that far from doing that. And I just, I hope they're willing to try that in the next year, you know? I think one of the things, I guess, and I'm just repeating myself at this point, I think they're using this Christian Cage Feud as a way to strip Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy down to being people, but not characters. Because the people you can use in angles,
01:01:12
Speaker
It's hard to do an injury angle with a dinosaur. It's hard to express how much danger a guy named Jungle Boy. You can't have Jim Ross say, oh my god, he's gonna break Jungle Boy's neck. And it doesn't come across as like, and this is where, you know, sometimes you'll hear criticism from like a Jim Cornette about stuff like this too. It's like, I get where you're coming from, but we're not at that point yet. We're starting to get to that point where
01:01:43
Speaker
The gimmick carried them as far as it needed to carry them. Some of the guys, they get attached to the experience of their entrance. Bobby Rood is the most prime example of that as a guy who wrote his entrance until there was nothing left. Jungle Boy's entrance music, fun, sway your hands, but that's not going to work when you're in a blood feud with somebody.
01:02:08
Speaker
Right. And I think tonight that's almost what makes that segment pretty perfect which was they got all that stuff in and then boom. Killed it. Like almost literally and metaphorically.
01:02:22
Speaker
Like he didn't get off of the ramp. Yeah. They killed him mid-entrance. Yeah. And that's an interesting point, right? That maybe he comes back with a different song. Maybe Jack Perry does not come out to Tarzan Boy. Maybe Jack Perry comes out to, I don't know, something else. Something darker. Not the Beverly Hills, 90210 theme song.
01:02:46
Speaker
We're looking at this card. I want to point out a couple things. You had mentioned what a great match Eddie Kingston had with Ishii. Fuck, that was so good. That was so good for, and this is one of the things where it's like if you're a WWE only person, you're gonna be like, they just slapped each other's chest for 15 minutes. Yeah, and it was fucking awesome. Yeah, and everyone cheered.
01:03:06
Speaker
Yeah, it got a standing ovation. Multiple times. Multiple times. I do want to compliment them on how they are booking hook. I said this to you at one point. It's like they're doing the gold. See, this is a perfect contrast.
01:03:23
Speaker
The Jade Cargill thing is getting a little played out, but like the sporadic appearances by Hook, and how they're making him appear, it's working. I'm not saying it's not working with Jade, I'm just saying that there's some subtleties with Hook, other than the weird stuff with Danhausen, which I don't know what the long-term plan was there.
01:03:42
Speaker
I think part of it is he's, Jade has sort of ascended up the card a little bit where, again, the stakes are a little bit higher, whereas Hook is right now staying in that lower card, I mean, he's on the pre-show, he's holding a title that's not actually a title. So it allows him to sort of do some of this stuff and let them figure it out a little bit slower pace, right? Jade right now, they've really gotta figure that out because it's time, you know, but.
01:04:09
Speaker
But I want to pay the compliment to Hook and say, I want to say that if people don't understand how over and people are, to some extent, frothing at the mouth for Hook to have more, I promise you, if this past Wednesday on Dynamite, if Moxley had left that contract in the ring and Hook's music had hit, that place would have gone apeshit. Oh, I want to see that match.
01:04:36
Speaker
Actually, speaking of, I want to see him against Danielson. Yeah, I mean, that's another one where it's like, there are so many options they could have gone... And again, I'm not saying tonight necessarily, but... No, no. But like, and again, this comes back, I don't want to like belabor it, but like the idea about keeping Danielson special, right? Like, you burn some of the specialness with, I think, a little bit. Again, I don't want to over make the point, but a little bit with a loss to Jericho, where
01:05:06
Speaker
Man, like, eventually Hook chokes out Juggernaut Brian Danielson. Great! That could, again, you can always rebuild him. Maybe that's the plan down the road, so I don't want to... And some people are going to be like, well, it was a dusty finish. He did a low blow and whatever. But still, like, that's, in my mind, Danielson is top tier. He kicks out of blow blows and finishers. He's that guy. He's the guy that, you know, nine years ago or whatever, eight years ago was
01:05:34
Speaker
main eventing and winning WrestleMania. The only actual Dusty finish I saw this weekend was at the Wrestling Showcase.
01:05:44
Speaker
So I think, I don't know if Conrad promoted this or not. So we talked a little bit about all-in weekend at the Hyatt Regency in Schaumburg. There was a show there this weekend that was part of, so Conrad does a weekend, I think, for the ad-free shows people. So there there was in a hotel ballroom a tournament
01:06:11
Speaker
Most excitingly, I saw Matt Cardona wrestle Tatanka, and Tatanka wasn't bad by like 60-year-old wrestler standards. Bleed Ric Flair out of the water? Better than Flair. Didn't nearly die. Better than the ECW wrestlers in Appalachian Championship Wrestling. Not like top tier, like I've seen better, you know, late-career wrestlers, not like Terry Funk or something, but
01:06:39
Speaker
very solid in that regard. And I always loved me some Matt Cardona, but they actually did the tie of Valkyrie defended the MLW title against Deanna Parrazzo and Chelsea Green. They did a bit where it looked like Chelsea had won. Karen Jarrett came out as the babyface
01:06:57
Speaker
host slash commissioner and was like we're restarting the match because it was very strange. A single event had a GM basically. Yes because she's like I'm the host I get to do this and it was like sure sure Karen uh there's a couple hundred people in this ballroom you can do whatever you want no one's anybody could have asserted anyone maybe I could have been the GM right I mean they let me walk in for free maybe I was supposed to be the GM maybe I didn't maybe I didn't understand I was supposed to go backstage and I had a role
01:07:26
Speaker
They were like, oh, we've been waiting for him. Um, but it was weird because of just being back at the higher Regency, I sent you guys a picture of the hallway where we did, where we all met and did the podcast row. There was a certain specialness to Chicago Labor Day weekend. Yeah. Miss miss you facts. Miss you Garrett.
01:07:43
Speaker
It is a tradition at this point, Labor Day weekend in the Chicagoland area. Miss Garrett, I was at one of the GCW shows and I saw that Sawyer Rec was there.
01:07:57
Speaker
Garrett did say that Sawyer Wreck was his deathmatch girlfriend. I did not tell her that, but I did say that there was a big fan that couldn't be here because he just became a dad. I didn't mention the why. I figured that would be weird too. I don't know what Garrett's going with the deathmatch girlfriend thing.
01:08:16
Speaker
um so i figured i'd leave that open it's a fantasy yeah she sent a very nice video she was very sweet about it actually that was interesting she wrestled uh charlie evans later and it struck me during the match while they were striking each other with light tubes that um
01:08:32
Speaker
That Charlie Evans is sort of like my deathmatch ex-girlfriend because she reminds me of someone I dated in my 20s. Sort of short, same kind of build. Very sweet but also kind of crazy. Like that girl's the only person who's ever gotten kicked out of a cab because she insisted the cab driver was taking us the wrong way and she was wrong.
01:08:55
Speaker
Definitely could have seen her like hitting people with light tubes or getting hit with lights. Like that's, it's possible. So I felt a connection there. But, but his, Garrett's deathmatch girlfriend, Victoria's there. I did, so I did go to art of war games, hung out with Lolan Matt, which was a delightful time. I heard that was pretty gruesome. It was pretty, like you should go see, I think it's on Matt's Instagram. He took a picture of the ring after deathmatch war games and it was,
01:09:25
Speaker
insane how much glass was on that range. See, I haven't seen anything from the show. It's hard for me to imagine there being more glass than there was at the end of last year's War Games match. I think it was more. I mean, she was an equal. I don't know. Your voice going up the extra octave has me convinced. That's all I needed. There were so many bumps with the... C. Clapey jumped off the cage with the light tubes with a splat. It was so...
01:09:55
Speaker
Just all, just hear the explosion in the cloud of mercury. That you've just accepted as a regular part of your- It's totally normal. It's totally normal. You're gonna get to 45, your doctor's gonna be like, well, you got a long list of problems that are not normal. And you're gonna be like, doc, you have no idea. How much mercury I've been breathing. You wanna see what I do on the weekends? Come with me. That makes me a little concerned for Mittens. He's always front row. He's gotta be taking a lot of mercury there.
01:10:26
Speaker
Saw Mittens today, he looked like he was having a good time. Yeah, he seemed like he was having a nice time. Mittens is always, he's around. We haven't had him on the show yet, Lowell, don't be too concerned. We're not, we don't love Mittens that much. We do need to bring up the fact that you and I both individually had a hot pretzel.
01:10:47
Speaker
in honor of Garrett not being able to join us this weekend. Apparently, I did not notice that Garrett loves the hot pretzel. It's a thing. He was a very, I will say, like, it wasn't the best thing I ever had, but it was a warm, delightful pretzel at the Naurina. Because I avoided the Naurina food, because it's not great. No. So I ate, you ate before you got there, I ate at the beer garden thing across the street, I had some nachos, I had some bratwurst, got myself ready physically, had a ton of IHOP pancakes this weekend.
01:11:16
Speaker
just to really prepare my body so that I wouldn't need to. Are you going to have more tomorrow morning? I've got to be up really early, although honestly, I've got to be up like probably like four hours from now. But on the other hand, IHOP is 24 hours. So if I can't sleep, maybe I just walk over to IHOP, throw down some pancakes, and then hop in a cab to the airport. Rookie's Pub and Grill, which I've been to one other time here in the area. Best wings I've ever had in my life. Wow.
01:11:44
Speaker
That's a strong one. And I've had a lot of wings. And I'm telling you now, they have a reputation for having great wings. I read that on the menu and thought, OK. And I tried them. And yeah. So if you're in the area next Labor Day for wrestling, check that out. Or if you live in the area. Or if you're passing through for business. There's a lot of excuses for you to be out here.
01:12:08
Speaker
Yeah, if you're if you're the type that you fly to Chicago for business, but instead of actually going to Chicago, your company just puts you up out here in Chumburg, Hoffman States, rookies. What do you think? We've alluded to this a couple of times, you know, four years ago, this kind of started as a Labor Day weekend tradition, you know, coming out here for all in. All out has only not been here one time, and that was because of the pandemic in 2020.
01:12:35
Speaker
They did it in Florida. We're assuming that we'll be back here next year. I hope so. You had pointed out that there's specific paper views that they like having attached to certain cities. I agree with that. You never know when they might decide to try something new. They like to do double or nothing in Vegas. They like to do all out here and then full gear and revolution. They've moved around. They've had revolution here.
01:13:02
Speaker
We'll see what they do, but this is something I look forward to every year. It is a tradition, it is something...
01:13:08
Speaker
I don't know, it's special. There's something about the community of wrestling fans kind of all. It's a pilgrimage. It's a pilgrimage, but also I think it's a bit about the different tribes, right? You see different people, some overlap, but different people at the big AW shows versus the GCW shows versus the Conrad show was a bit of a different crew. I'm sure there's different crews than the other indie shows. I don't know who showed up to Al Snow's thing.
01:13:38
Speaker
Only 90 minutes from Schomburg in Oregon. Only? Where's Oregon, Illinois? I don't know, man. I know that Garrett said that it was smaller than our tiny ass hometown. It's like 3,000 people. It was, there was a, at the Wrestling Showcase thing, there was a flyer for an Al Snow show that proudly announced that it was only 90 minutes from Schomburg.
01:14:00
Speaker
which 90 minutes, it's a long drive. There's gotta be more to get me to like drive an hour and a half. That's the last of the movies. Al Snow's comedy. Yeah, Al Snow's comedy wasn't worth a 90 minute drive to you. And presumably, presumably if you're here, you're probably coming back to that, that's three hours round trip of time that you could spend watching wrestling. I just have a hard time believing he couldn't get another venue book that was closer. This is pretty far from Rockford. This is South of Rockford. This is far away.
01:14:30
Speaker
No, that wasn't happening. So I doubt any, but that's the thing. How many people went to that? Maybe some people who were already living there. Yeah. I assume someone who lived in, of the 3000 people who live in Oregon, Illinois, I assume at least 20 of them showed up last night.
01:14:46
Speaker
Do you want to bullet point some things really quick, just like to review the card for this and then we'll try to put a bow on everything? Looking at the card, I think we picked the main show. Imagine that it was obviously the main event, right? Yeah, the main event was...
01:15:03
Speaker
I think pretty great. I think they did. They did such an amazing job of sort of building that up and then delivering sort of the energy and the violence that we were expecting out of that and the story really again like punk coming out fast.
01:15:18
Speaker
Moxley wearing him down, feeling at various points like, oh, he's got him. And then for Punk to win in a way that was clean, but also felt a little bit like, he got a little bit lucky, right? He kind of got in like a Rocky movie, right? He's coming down, he's down, he's getting beat up. He slips in the right shot and he's able to do it. You know, I thought it was a great story. I'd have that, I'd have, after that I'd probably have the six man match, the elite.
01:15:50
Speaker
Probably the tag match after that, which is surprising. That was probably like my seventh or eighth most excited match coming in and that was now number one coming out. I think I agree with you on the main event and then I think I just flipped the two tag matches around, which is a testament to both of those matches that it's really that close.
01:16:10
Speaker
Again, I think it's one of those things for me where it's like, you know, you expect anything with Hangman and Kenny and the Bucks. And I think there's something fun when there's an organic moment like that where the crowd just 100% gets behind something and they want to see something like that happen.
01:16:25
Speaker
So this was a fun show. I think that they do have some things they need to address. Before we get out of here, I don't want to forget saying this, because we brought this up early, early on in the show. We were talking about Darby Allen. Right. And I asked the question, what was Darby Allen doing a year ago at all out? Only his face
Challenges with Former WWE Talent Integration
01:16:44
Speaker
in CM Punk. What's he doing a year later? He's kind of still handcuffed to sting. And I'm not saying that's a death spot. It gets a nice reaction.
01:16:57
Speaker
Ruby Soho also debuted a year ago and she's now losing in the first match on the pre-show.
01:17:17
Speaker
AEW, I think, has specifically struggled a little bit bringing in some of the WWE women. And I'm not quite sure why. I don't know if it's a style thing or- Just the women? I think AEW has struggled to bring in a lot of ex-WWE talent, which I think has been- I think there's a, that's a broader, there's a bit of a broader conversation. I think particularly in the women's division, there's, because of sort of the limited slots especially, you know, both with,
01:17:46
Speaker
the way Ruby came in and Athena's come in, there's been this struggle where it's like they don't wanna push them too hard, but at the same time, then they just, they lose that big match and now they're kinda just sitting in the middle in a way that's not, I don't know, I'm just not sure. I think that's one of the things that has truly killed them and backed them into a corner as far as some of their booking, which is that the formula typically is, you know, somebody debuts,
01:18:14
Speaker
And they do what Punk did, or what Adam Cole did, or what a lot of these guys do, where they have a run. But the problem is when you debut so many people, you can't do that for all of them. And the formula usually is, you debut, you win your first match, and you go on a nice little run. Well, it's like a lot of these guys got cut off. It was like they debuted and then ended up not winning their first match. Well, then the luster wears off really quick. Right. They end up losing that title match. Ruby lost the match to Britt.
01:18:44
Speaker
whole loss to Hangman and you know again Athena's now lost to Jade and there's that question then of like okay well now they didn't win the title you can't just do a rematch but then again I think the struggle for the women is that there doesn't tend to be space for much in the way of secondary feuds so they then go from being in the title picture losing and then not having much to do for
Innovative Booking Ideas and Talent Positioning
01:19:08
Speaker
them
01:19:08
Speaker
Well, the funny thing is, is they actually do have space. They have a designated spot for secondary feuds. It's called the TBS Championship, but they've got a winning streak tied up in that angle right now. See, and again, that's where I do think there's a puzzle to sort of hopefully wrap up soon with Jade. Because again, agreed. Like, Athena versus Ruby Soho would be a perfectly fine TBS title match. I think there's a lot of people who could use the TBS title right now.
01:19:37
Speaker
and they need to figure out what they're doing with it with Jade. Again, because maybe part of it is Jade might be the answer as the top champion not that long from now, you know? Do you think they would do something as bold as having her carry that title?
01:19:52
Speaker
And when the women's title and have both mucked in the way Goldberg did with the US. It feels like it burned the TBS title since it's a new title. Because who's going to take it off of her individually from? Because you could have her just drop it and do a tournament, but it does feel like there'd be
01:20:09
Speaker
Again, maybe the end. Yeah Maybe they want to keep building her up and you just do you just have her drop the TBS title as a thing and you say well now she's you know What would be a really interesting angle for Jade? Mm-hmm would be for her to come out in a you know a month or whatever so and say, you know, I've Got this title. I've beaten Everybody that they've put in front of me. I've got this winning streak. I'm bored and if Tony come were to come out and say I'll tell you what I Will hand you
01:20:40
Speaker
an AEW Women's Championship match. If you hand me that title. Oh, it's the Impact option C, essentially. See, I wasn't an Impact or TNA guy, so that went right over my head. The Impact has done a thing where- I didn't realize you could just return your title to Walmart and just cash it in for a new- Impact is another thing with the X Division title, where you can cash in the X Division title for a world title shot.
01:21:08
Speaker
with the idea being, and I think the first time, I think Saban did it. I think Saban was the first guy who did it and won. Aries might have done it, but they've done it, but the idea being, yeah, that this is a chance to sort of move up.
01:21:23
Speaker
And then the other title is just vacant, right? Yeah. Well, it's another opportunity to do another tournament to crown that champion. Right. Or do a big match. You can do a ladder match kind of thing. Sure. Yeah. No, any number of things you can do. And that would actually probably be the way. I think I wouldn't do another tournament if I'm booking. I don't want to fancy book. I would do a big ladder match or something so that it's not just we're doing a second tournament, it's we're doing a ladder. But then what you've created in that is now you have a monster opponent for whoever holds the women's championship.
01:21:53
Speaker
Right. Because now not only did she willingly turn over her TBS championship, her streak's still intact. So now there's the drama of do they continue the streak and give her the title or do they end the streak and explore those waters. But I guess right now we were talking about how they booked themselves in our corner. Well, that's one way out.
01:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, again, I think that's a, again, it's not a tomorrow problem. It's the next six months problem, essentially. I would say by revolution, they've got to figure that out. We do have to address this. We exchange this through text messages. Bobby Fish.
01:22:28
Speaker
is
01:22:47
Speaker
Injuries happen right? I mean it seems like O'Reilly may have just had a neck fusion surgery Which would probably put him out like at least a year So maybe that was part of the calculus with fish was well the whole idea was to do Yeah, just like well if we're not doing red drag if he can't be in red dragon, maybe there's no point You know it does leave Adam Cole in a weird spot like like he wasn't at the show That's another guy. He debuted last year at all out You know he Daniel sin and Ruby Soho
01:23:17
Speaker
Are they in a better spot now than they were a year ago? Danielson, not Cole, I think is pretty, it's basically even in a positive way in the sense that he came in so high and he's sort of, I think still got that level. I think he's still basically like the very slightest below the top main eventers, which I think is a great level. I think that's his level personally.
MJF's Future and Tony Khan's Role
01:23:44
Speaker
Because we talked about this, I think Cole is, because he gets such weird reactions, he's the cool baby, he's the cool heel. And so it's hard I think with that character to sort of really drive home certain stories, certain title things, I think he's better off being
01:24:04
Speaker
just below the very top. But I think that, again, that's so many t-shirts and I'm excited to see him. I assume they're gonna do him against Omega, right? Who's gonna be in his corner though? Could it be Hangman? I was wondering about that. Or are they gonna bring everyone together?
01:24:19
Speaker
They could, right? Cause again, with Cole, like if Hangman hangs out with him, that's not, doesn't turn Hangman heel necessarily, right? I wouldn't mind seeing a Blackpool combat club elite. You know, Moxley suddenly got his calendar free. Oh, let's do that.
01:24:38
Speaker
That sounds fun. Yeah, that sounds fun. There's a lot. That's the thing. There's still a lot of joy. I'm excited to keep coming out to Chicago. I'll keep coming out to Chicago every Labor Day to see these ships. It's a joy to be around wrestling fans and watching shows and hanging out in Chicago. I've been in Chicago for like
01:24:58
Speaker
a week now. We went to a White Sox game. We did. We went to a baseball game together. Something I still haven't done with Garrett and I've been friends with him since I was a baby. But no, it's always a delight to have you out here. I always look forward to seeing you. I'm glad we're recording again, doing stuff together. How far away is Arthur Ashe Stadium? As far as like the Grand Slam? Two and a half weeks.
01:25:21
Speaker
because it's the Monday, September 5th, the show was the 21st. I imagine they'll probably end up doing Jungle Boy and Christian there. Again, it seems like there's some stuff, and I think the big question is how quick do they go to the MJF title match? I think they have to go to it quick, and I know that's what you said, too. Again, I think the latest would be full here, but that could be Grant. If that's Grant Slam, who boy am I excited for that?
01:25:48
Speaker
I mean, it would be totally an MJF's character to come out on Dynamite and be like, I can cash this in whenever I decide I'm ready to. Fuck you, I'm not doing it. Right.
01:26:00
Speaker
Or using that as leverage against Tony Khan to be like, I've got a title shot. You might want to sign me to an extension. There's a lot of different things they can do. It's exciting. There were some things. Again, the main event, especially the voicemail from Tony Khan was such a great intro to MJF coming back. I got goosebumps. And I turned to you. I had my hands on my head. And I said, it was a fucking work the whole time. They got everybody. They got so many people, yes.
01:26:29
Speaker
And again, I don't want Tony Khan to become Vince McMahon or Triple H where he's involved on television every week. But if there was an angle and a character to have him have interaction with, MJF is the guy. And especially it's interesting because of all the backstage shenanigans Punk has supposedly been involved in in the last month.
01:26:56
Speaker
Yeah. With his reputation of being a little bit of a handful and whatever the work stuff with MJF, that's just gonna be interesting. They're gonna milk another match out of these two and I'm excited to see it. And as long, I think the, here's what I hope for next year, right? A year from now, we show up to Chicago. MJF, world champion. And Tony Khan has gotten on the right train.
01:27:25
Speaker
He's main eventing against Beastman. Yes! Right? Yeah. That'll sell out this year. I just want to see that Beastman is all elite graphic that they have to post when that's made official.
Conclusion and Social Media Sign-off
01:27:41
Speaker
This has been fun, Chris. Yes. I think I have to say, hit our goddamn music. And follow us on social media, please.
01:27:53
Speaker
No, but I need to say that it's... I'm trying to do my best Garrett impression here. It's not really your music, Chris. It's the people's music. Hit the people's goddamn music.