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Okada is All Elite
73 Plays1 year ago
Garrett and Chris are talking Okada in AEW, Kevin Kelly conspiracy theories and more!
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Transcript
Sting's Retirement and Career Lore
00:00:36
Speaker
What's happening in there? Oh, there are noises about that. Can you hear that? Yeah, it's just pipes and shit. I'll try to pick myself when I'm not talking. No, no, it's OK. It's just it sounded like Sting had a baseball bat and was like stalking you through the house, just like. Garrett, that's exactly what's happening. Sting has been very bored since he retired and now
00:01:00
Speaker
He's found his way to my house. He just tip taps and he just, he, he stalks me, he stalks me. And it's, it's honestly a delight though. He's a legend, so. So welcome to Predetermined, a pro wrestling hangout. Garrett and Chris here. You can hear the sounds of Chris hanging out in Mick Foley's boiler room. Uh.
00:01:29
Speaker
That's a match that, well, you know, the match happened. Obviously Sting and Mick Foley wrestled a bunch of times and it was great. But Sting, like mid 90s Sting versus Mankind would have been pretty entertaining. That's one that on paper really should have happened.
00:01:47
Speaker
And I mean, it sounded like Sting also really, really wanted to wrestle Undertaker, which is why I feel like we've been hearing like bits and pieces of some Sting lore since last week, like things that he is now saying about his career.
Introduction to the Podcast and Wrestling Nostalgia
00:02:02
Speaker
For some reason, he's like, I didn't base my makeup off the crow. And I'm like, get the fuck out.
00:02:06
Speaker
Shut up. That's the crow. He's like, I based it off Rocky Horror Picture Show. And what else did he said? Another movie, but not the movie that has a guy painted exactly like him. I thought the lore was always that Scott Hall like made that suggestion to him.
00:02:29
Speaker
Maybe that scene, maybe Scott Hall suggested the crow and he looked at that and was like, that's kind of interesting. And then he watched Rocky Horror and he was like, that's perfect. I was like, I knew the crow existed, but. Oh, fuck. So just so you guys know where, when we're recording this, it is the night before the Oscars. Alexander Payne has just gotten accused of plagiarism for the Holdovers.
00:02:59
Speaker
just hours, you know, like what, 24 hours before he is going to have to go stand on a stage and potentially win an award for pretending to write it. Um, so I, we don't know what happened on dynamite this week, but we do know what happened on dynamite last week. Oh, yes. Dynamite last week was incredible. Um, I was at a concert and you guys were, uh, texting me non-spoiler, just deep excitement.
00:03:28
Speaker
just like exclamation points and happiness. And then Garrett, you sent a text to me that said, Chris, we've got to record soon.
00:03:40
Speaker
we couldn't just go a week without talking to each other about this in
Excitement Over Recent Wrestling Events
00:03:45
Speaker
person. It's such a big moment that we've kind of always hoped might happen someday. And I mean, we're, we're living it. And I feel like the presentation of what happened was so much better than anything I had in my head of how it would have gone. Yeah. I feel like I've been manifesting this for five years and I'm really starting to wonder if I need to manifest other things, if that's, if this works.
00:04:11
Speaker
then I should think about other things that are not about professional wrestling. But yeah. We could have had universal health care, folks. But Chris. Instead, we got caught on the young bucks together.
00:04:26
Speaker
It's pretty great though. I mean, universal health care is good, but this, I mean, the Bucks are the greatest six-man wrestlers ever. Okada is one of the great wrestlers of all time.
Kevin Kelly's Commentary and Controversies
00:04:36
Speaker
They've been besties for like 15 years, almost, going back to TNA. We get Okada and Will Osprey on our television every week. It's an amazing time to just throw on dynamite and...
00:04:51
Speaker
I'm going to watch Collision tonight very excitedly because Okada and the Young Bucks wrestled together for the first time. That's a thrilling moment. It's all very exciting. It's all good times. I did see on Collision they made official for Dynasty.
00:05:12
Speaker
Daniel Bryan versus Osprey is officially a dynasty, which I honestly, I assumed it was at the end of the paper or at the end of dynamite when it ended with the two of them face to face with the dynasty logo between. I mean, but you know, you leave you leave this surprise out for a couple of days just to really drive it home. You got a lot of time to fill on collision and they've got one less announcer now. So, you know, OK.
00:05:40
Speaker
So we'll get into the stuff on dynamite. I have not read much. I saw that Kevin Kelly was let go because of some comments he made online. I didn't see any of the comments. What happened? So Kevin Kelly said that Ian Riccobani was slandering him. What I'm pretty sure at most Ian just made it clear that
00:06:08
Speaker
A, he and Kevin were best friends and that Kevin's a little crazy. Um, and, uh, so he went off on Ian Riccobani on Twitter or X, uh, which is even sadder now. I feel like going off on someone on X is even sadder than going off on someone on Twitter.
00:06:26
Speaker
And that combined with the fact that he's been very bad in the nine months that he's worked in AEW seem to have combined to give him the boot. Remember when Kevin Kelly was good? Like he was really, like he was, he and Don Callis were fantastic in 2017, 2018 New Japan. Something we are, we're going to talk about a lot probably tonight about 2017, 2018 New Japan.
00:06:53
Speaker
He somewhere along the way and some people that I was talking to seem to think that it may have happened during the pandemic like he just sort of lost the plot maybe with life, maybe he got a little bit too into conspiracy theories and just got too weird to exist. I don't know. Um, but yeah, he's been he's been bad and he's don't.
00:07:15
Speaker
Don't look at Kevin Kelly's follows guys. Don't like, don't dig into that. It's actually, I had heard something about this and then I looked at Kevin Kelly's like follows on Twitter. This is like a year or two ago. And through that, I found out that someone I went to high school with is now a Republican right-wing radio host. His name is Buck Sexton. That's a real name.
00:07:41
Speaker
and he's apparently insane, and Kevin Kelly is a fan. That's incredible. Yeah. I love, wait, so, okay, Kevin Kelly throughout his time in New Japan, did he live over there? No, he was just going there a lot. Okay, so just a lot of travel, and then pandemic, I assume everything he did was just remote, like him after the fact doing commentary on it.
00:08:09
Speaker
for a while, although I know for the first Wrestle Kingdom, this was a big bone of contention for a lot of the non-Japanese talent. You had to quarantine for two weeks to get to Japan. So they were like, hey, you should come over for Wrestle Kingdom. And so Kevin Kelly missed Christmas. A lot of guys.
00:08:32
Speaker
I mean, Osprey, Jay White, that was a big, just general thing with New Japan was that a lot of the non-Japanese guys were just really...
00:08:42
Speaker
because New Japan was like, come on over. And they're like, we have to sit in the hotel room for two weeks to work these shows. And it seemed to drive a lot of guys kind of batty. Again, not quite the Kevin Kelly form of batty, but it did seem to sort of fracture the relationship with New Japan and like Jay White and Juice Robinson and Osprey and, you know,
00:09:07
Speaker
So during his two weeks, he was sitting like fetal position at a corner, like just rocking like an egg, just saying like, must put Christ back at Christmas, must put Christ back at Christmas. Yes.
AEW and New Japan Wrestling Dynamics
00:09:21
Speaker
Yes. That is what I envisioned.
00:09:22
Speaker
That's fucking awesome. I mean, we've all had somebody that we're co-workers with, like you get seen with them a lot and somebody assumes like, you guys are good pals. And he was like, he's fucking nutty. But I'm cordial because we're together every day.
00:09:42
Speaker
And so that Ian Riccobani just had to hold a smile while in between things, like Kevin Kelly's putting his hand over the mic and just being like, you know. The COVID vaccine was made to help abduct children. That's what Drake Wurtz told me. I don't know how it works does that, but it does. He tried to rename Destino the Plan-demic.
00:10:11
Speaker
Um, and Ian Riccobani just seems like the sweetest man. So he's one of those people that like if, um, if anyone is arguing with Ian Riccobani, I'm just like, that's a bad person. I just, I just have to assume.
00:10:24
Speaker
All of my interactions with Ian have been nothing but very, very nice. He's been very pleasant anytime I've seen him. And now, God, if we had only had Kevin Kelly for just a little bit longer, fucking Kyle O'Reilly pops up. He's like, look, kids, this is what happens when you get vaccinated. Look at him before. Look at how healthy he was.
00:10:54
Speaker
You're like, that is a photo of Christian Bale on the red carpet. That is not Kyle. His old partner, Bobby Fish, he never got vaccinated. And do you see him looking terrible? No. Now, is that because he's no longer on this TV show? Yes. Does he look good? No, I actually, but that's for different reasons.
00:11:18
Speaker
That's for different reasons. That's because me and Drake Younger and him have been fighting the good fight. And that's why he looks so tired.
00:11:30
Speaker
I need to pull up before we go on. My friend John sent several, he's been on the show a few times, and he sent me a few Kyle O'Reilly one-liners that I feel like he would appreciate if they were red, because he basically, as he was listening to us do them, kind of got jealous and started writing some of his own. He sent me
00:11:55
Speaker
Kyle O'Reilly now looks like Casey Affleck should play him in a hard-hitting drama about working-class Boston. What else did he send? He said, Kyle O'Reilly looks like a guy the New York Times would interview about how he doesn't like Donald Trump personally, but the man with this inflation, he might have to vote again.
00:12:25
Speaker
I think there were some more, but well, man, Kevin Kelly, it's just, I always just think back about, Derek always seemed really delighted when Kevin Kelly like just would call a finisher so well.
00:12:41
Speaker
And like, Destino! Like, him holding things out. Like, that was... He was the voice of New Japan. Like, he made a match. So enjoyable. And, um... It's just... It's funny that, like, whatever he had going on the side... I mean, honestly, maybe it was the fucking evil time that drove him nuts. Just watching evil, he was just like, I actually... There is some weird conspiracy happening in the world.
00:13:11
Speaker
Like this was the proof to him. He's like, this can't be good. Something's happened to ghetto. Can we link up ghettos declined in booking with when ghetto got the COVID vaccine?
00:13:35
Speaker
Is that an after effect we haven't been taking into account? Like, health-wise, everyone's fine. But, Ghetto just can't book anymore. If Kevin Kelly were over there now and saw what was going on with Jungle Boy and his faction, the next day you would have seen Kevin Kelly climbs Clock Tower with a salt rifle. I mean, sweet, ugh.
00:14:02
Speaker
I really can't believe that's what they came up with. They're like, hey, we've got this new guy from AW. He's young and he's hot and these people love him. He's Luke Perry's kid. What are we going to do with him? Well, he's going to hang out with evil and Dick Togo. That sucks. Yeah, it just does. It does. I mean, nothing lasts forever and New Japan had a hell of a run.
00:14:30
Speaker
Okay, now I think this is where we're gonna kinda go back and talk about how everything we love is kinda over there. I mean, the remnants of the current New Japan, you were saying like, really all that's left is Naito, and he is a broken toy. Mm-hmm. It is rough. What I was saying, cause like 2018 New Japan, right? We've always talked about how like,
00:14:55
Speaker
AEW was this beautiful new thing, but it was also like the death of something,
Will Osprey and Okada's Wrestling Styles
00:15:00
Speaker
right? And it was that era of YouTube and with being the elite New Japan ring of honor, that sort of wonderful 2017, 2018 that I think is going to be special for a lot of us, right? And now you look at like what things made 2018 New Japan good.
00:15:22
Speaker
AEW has, again, it's all of them except like Naito. It's Naito, it's pretty much Naito, and Naito is broken down. I mean, I grew to love, it was that year that I kind of grew to start loving like Zack Sabre and Tai Chi. They're still in New Japan. Since then, we've all kind of fallen for Desperado, but really, we don't really love New Japan Desperado. We love deathmatch Despies. That's kind of a different thing anyway too. Suzuki's a freelancer.
00:15:53
Speaker
Like it's all gone, like everything that was good about New Japan is gone. And most of what's good about it is now in AEW. And it really like brought it home with like Okada and Osprey. I was like sitting there watching Dynamite this week. And I was just like, oh yeah, this is all the things I want now. Cause they're gonna, it's gonna be an event with an Osprey match and it's gonna be incredible.
00:16:19
Speaker
I watched that match with Maddie cause she's of course, Kyle O'Reilly, she's not Kyle O'Reilly's biggest fan. I'd be very concerned. She's Kyle Fletcher's biggest fan. It was actually funny. She's like, she's like, you know, I don't know if you know daddy. I think I like him the best of the team. And I'm like, I figured that out cause you draw the team every, like half the time you just draw Kyle Fletcher.
00:16:42
Speaker
Is he tallest as well when she draws? Tallest and hands. He's tallest. He's handsome. He's there's just hearts around him. But we were just sitting there like awestruck and like she's a five year old. She hasn't seen these. I'm gasping at some of the shit they're doing with each other, Osprey and Fletcher. She's like, Daddy, what was that? And I'm like, well, you see your guy, he just landed right on his head. But he seems OK.
00:17:11
Speaker
And then she was like, who's that? Who's the bald man? And I'm like, that's Don Callis. That's their manager. And she's like, what does he do? And like, I don't really know. Like, why is he there? And it's like, they're going somewhere with this, but it's really hard to tell, honestly, Matt. I mean, other than it's hard to tell what's going on here. But even Don Callis, even fucking Don Callis is the AW, right, of the 20 things we liked about 2018 New Japan.
00:17:38
Speaker
As far as Osprey, that match was I just watched it today. That's fucking awesome. Like as far as just amazing. I mean, that could have been a pay-per-view match. That could have been a mid-card pay-per-view match and people would have loved it. But we got it for free on TV.
00:17:57
Speaker
I think it was Derek in our text thread was kind of asking, like, how much will Osprey do this week to week? And I feel like he did pretty regularly have that type of match in New Japan.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think especially if he's only doing it for 15 minutes at a time instead of like 40, I actually think he kind of can. I mean, look, there's a certain point where it'll catch up to him. But he seems just thinking about Osprey, I think over the last year is I don't think anyone's been as consistent as him, right? He's just really good every time out. And he works a style that's very flexible in terms of who he's working with. And he can kind of work with anyone.
00:18:44
Speaker
at this point. So even if Osprey is not like your favorite guy, and I think both of us really like, let's be clear, this is not a shade towards him or anything, but even if he's not your number one guy, it's always fun that Osprey's in a match, right? And to just have him on TV every week where it's just like, oh yeah, it's just Osprey against whoever is a delight, I think.
00:19:09
Speaker
I think it was either maybe facts said this last week that at this point, like he's basically got the move set of Kenny Omega or, you know, he's got honestly, maybe even better than Omega and, but he doesn't have, you know, the road miles on him yet. Uh, the, the possibilities with him are endless and it really makes the future exciting with what he can do. But it does like.
00:19:35
Speaker
I don't know, like if he is gonna go that hard every week, that is going to be a fairly short career. I mean, look what happened to Omega, right? I mean, like, eventually the wheels came off and the wheels just all came off at once, basically, at the end of 2021. And he's really never quite been this, I'm gonna look, obviously he's been, again, Omega's been great since he came back from the injuries. But that's only a year and a half and now, like, he was back for like barely a year and he's,
00:20:05
Speaker
gone again, you know, with the diverticulitis. Which is another thing that's very exciting about this is like, you forget that like, oh, by the way, eventually Kenny Omega is gonna be back. And they've just set up Omega Okada again. That was the first thing they teased. Thanks guys.
00:20:26
Speaker
Well, that's what, yeah, going back to what happened when, I mean, we all pop when we hear the coin drop. That's exciting as hell. We're just happy he's there. And then you're like, oh man, he's gonna help Eddie. We love Eddie.
00:20:39
Speaker
The heel turn, I don't know if I saw it coming in the moment, but I had goosebumps when he, you know, when he chose to go with the Bucks. But my first thought, the second the three of them were together was, oh my God, we are going to get a six man of Okada and the Young Bucks versus Hangman, Kenny Omega and Koda Obushi.
00:21:06
Speaker
that is an incredible six man. Like, I mean, and they could, if they add any sort of gimmick match to that, like if they both have to just get one other person each and do it as a blood and guts, do it as a stadium stampede, you could do that shit for a year. And I would be so excited to see what those guys come up with. Yeah. And look, I mean, when you talk about the interaction of like, again, what was great about 2018 New Japan,
00:21:34
Speaker
Okada, Omega, the Bucks, all those guys together with a bushi top. Those are the memorable moments, right? Like the things that you'll never forget are things like that. It's like Golden Lovers against Okada and Ishii. And that's beyond just Golden Lovers against the Bucks, Kenny against Okada, the very obvious stuff. But even just the subtle stuff where you're just like, anytime they touched, it's incredible kind of thing.
AEW's Roster Speculations and Fan Favorites
00:22:04
Speaker
something I hadn't even thought about until now, because right now, like the match possibilities, because we've just, Okada's been stuck for so long wrestling like the same nine guys. And it's like, hey, you're still seeing Okada, you're seeing like one of the best ever do it. But he's stuck in this hole, like he's just like stuck on a tar pit going against the same people. And every few months he had to wrestle evil.
00:22:32
Speaker
They got it to run it back. There was no other options because of COVID or something. I don't know. But we might see Okada wrestle a Jon Moxley style death match or something. Mm-hmm. Okada, I mean, Okada, Mox, it's interesting because Mox has done the most New Japan, but in certain ways,
00:22:57
Speaker
you know, they've protected some of those interactions very well, like Okada and, no Okada, Mox and Osprey have interacted, even been in a three-way together, they've never had a singles match. Mox and Okada have interacted in six-mans and stuff, but have never had a singles match. So, yeah. And again, look, Danielson and Osprey is insane, very super excited for that, that's great.
00:23:28
Speaker
And yeah, whereas like Osprey and Okada before it was like, like Osprey in the last New Japan UK show in the fall, he wrestled Zack Sabre again. And it was tremendous, right? It's really, really good. I actually tonight just watched the San Jose match, the Okada Osprey match, which was great. But that was like the ninth match they'd had against each other. And we've got all these guys now where it's like,
00:23:53
Speaker
I mean, she wants to see what an Osprey against Darby Allen is like. Because I do. Oh, man. You know, MJF is going to come back. Okada is going to wrestle MJF. Oh, my God. Just keep saying things because pretty soon I'm going to climax. Keep going. All right. All right. It's Osprey against Chucky T. As soon as he's gone.
00:24:23
Speaker
I did, that was one of my favorite things about Dynamite this week. It's Chucky T just being like, no, I'm still not cleared yet. And, uh, these two guys should team together. My face is better though. Good for Chuck. His face is better. Don't know what happened, but his face looks better. His ankles apparently still screwed up, but his face is better. When did he, I don't even remember when he got hurt. Yeah. It's.
00:24:49
Speaker
It just feels like, again, like they've got, and this is where I didn't, you know, look, I'm a big believer that other than, unless you're spouting QAnon conspiracy theories and libeling your people on Twitter, Tony Khan doesn't fire people, which is great. But there's part of me that's like, I don't know if we need some of these guys anymore. Like- I mean, it feels mean to do like a who would you cut, but like, who'd you do?
00:25:19
Speaker
Well, I, to me, it's like, I feel like there are guys who don't seem like they want to be there that badly and who like maybe want to go hang out with, you know, their buddies in WWE or whatever, whatever. And if those guys want to do that, like, I don't know, Aleister Black or Buddy Matthews, right? Seem like they're like,
00:25:39
Speaker
It'd really be fun to hang out with our wives. And you're like, okay, if you guys want to do that, that's fine. Like, peace. It's cool. I don't need you guys. Just leave me Brody as he had out. Yeah. Just leave me Brody, please. Um, he seems very, it seems like Brody and, and, and Punk are friends here. Here's what I'll say. Even if Brody were like, and I really love Brody King. He's great. If Brody was like, I don't really want to be here anymore. I'd be like, sweet. Um, we'll just fill another 15 minutes with an Okada match this week. Okay.
00:26:10
Speaker
Go for it. Yeah, Brody would be another one, kind of like a Walter, where if he did find his way onto the other show, I would still kind of keep tabs on what he's up to. I don't follow everything that's going on over there, but I do see what Logan Paul and Walter are up to. I also, I have this thing, and again, this is very unfounded speculation, but I tend to think like any of the guys who are like,
00:26:39
Speaker
really close with punk and especially seem to be close with Cody to, you know, like Ricky Starks, uh, Will Hobbs. Like you get the sense of like, you know, again, some of those guys are going to stay, but also again, if they go, I'd be like, okay, that's fine. They've got Okada now. So.
00:27:03
Speaker
It's cool. I mean, there are, is Aleister Black really that unhappy? I guess like I thought he had mental health stuff and like just kind of wanted to do tag matches, but maybe that's just me projecting what I want from him. I don't, it's hard to tell. And again, this is all just like rumors and speculation. I guess I do. Again, I just mean that like at a high level, like if I'm Tony and like there's anyone that I'm paying that doesn't want to be here and make it, maybe you don't release them. You let up the contract right now or whatever, but like,
00:27:32
Speaker
Man, there's enough firepower and there's enough new guys coming up that I just don't see the need to worry about some of these people. Like your Miro's. Miro's another good one. Oh, fuck. Just thinking about the other WWE guys, this struck me.
Darby Allin's Risky Promotions and Legacy
00:27:51
Speaker
We could get Osprey against Christian. How does Osprey feel about his dad? I don't know.
00:28:00
Speaker
I don't know, but I'm sure Christian can explore that. We could get edge against Okada. Think about that. That's crazy. I want to see edge against Okada. We just missed Sting versus Okada. Yeah, that's unfortunate. Maybe we can get Sting back for one match.
00:28:21
Speaker
Maybe he can manage Darby. Okada against Darby and Sting's just going to jump out of a balcony onto the Young Bucks at some point. Have we had Darby versus Osprey before? I almost feel like I may have seen that in progress or something. Yeah, that's one that I wonder if it happened five years ago.
00:28:45
Speaker
Because I'm trying to think, I feel like when I was in New Orleans for that mania, and I went to Progress and stayed in the Pontchartrain Center all day, I know I watched Darby get hurt wrestling British guys. And he was out the rest of the weekend after that. Because I was supposed to see Darby versus Walter, and it got canceled because of that. But I feel like that match probably has happened, but those two would do insane.
00:29:15
Speaker
Like, it did make me wonder, like, No, okay. Oh no, wait, maybe I have the dates wrong. Hold on, let's try this.
00:29:23
Speaker
It did have me wondering like what, I mean, if Darby survives climbing Mount Everest, where his path goes, but I think it's still, he's still an interesting guy to keep in the mix. Like, you know, he, he really does feel like AEW is like Rey Mysterio. Like he's like the littlest guy that feasibly can fight the biggest guy.
00:29:47
Speaker
Can we talk about the Darby promo briefly? Because his promo on Dynamite where he was like, look, guys, I love you. Thank you for the support. I might die in Mount Everest. And it was like delivered, though, like the fired up babyface promo where you're like, no, you're not going to. Well, actually, no, actually, there's a real chance you're going to die. This is a really serious thing you're doing here. OK, you go. I hope you don't die, Darby. Let's I was like, I really got a little choked up. I'm like, wow, this is
00:30:17
Speaker
That's way more serious than you're laying it out there. You were really not lying about the like, even the support. I hope somebody pulls him aside and lets him know that like, leggings and jean shorts are not appropriate Everest attire. He's going to have the jean shorts. He's going to have a very large pair of jean shorts on top of
00:30:42
Speaker
very like warm gear. That's what I assume. It's just that there's just jean shorts on top of like thermal, all sorts of stuff. He's just stuck upside down like a popsicle, only the legs are poking out. The rescue team's like, well we, it seems like a pretty yoga lady got stuck out in the snow here. Who's he going with?
00:31:07
Speaker
Apparently the people who lead people up there. So he's not going by himself or anything. I can't think of a thing I would like to do less. I don't want to go on a hike. I think the only thing that would interest me less than climbing Everest is maybe space travel. See, I'll do a hike if it's to a nice place. My buddy Alex and I hiked down to the Grand Canyon
00:31:37
Speaker
a ways a few years ago. And that was really delightful and very beautiful. And I'm not really a hype guy, but I was like, yeah, that was worth doing. Everest seems like one of those things where like, if you just drop me on top of Everest, you'd go, that's pretty cool. Like if you drop me near the top and I could walk like half a mile or something, I don't know. That seems fair. Scaling the thing seems way too insane. I just, it just seems like not worth the effort.
00:32:03
Speaker
It's just a real juice isn't worth the squeeze moment for me. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But you know, we got other things going on and I don't know what Darby, he doesn't have Sting anymore.
Sting's Legacy and Future of Wrestling Commentary
00:32:17
Speaker
Presumably still has his phone number though. We could still see him, but I don't think that's enough for a Darby Allen. Maybe he's going to team up with Sting's kids. Yeah. I mean, he's the top guy in that situation.
00:32:32
Speaker
Oh yeah. Oh, they're definitely doing jobs for him. Yes. Why aren't stings kids in NWA yet? Um, I don't know. Uh, they haven't done enough weird stuff on Fox news to really interest Billy Corgan yet.
00:32:53
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, I did see that Billy just, uh, resigned Carrie Morton. Um, so, you know, you could bring back the, the Borden kids. Uh, I'm sure there's some, the Von Eric's like, it seems like those guys want to wrestle. I don't know where they wrestled. Seems like NWA would be a great place for them. Sure. Sure. With, uh, Kevin Kelly and Drake younger on the call.
00:33:23
Speaker
What does Kevin Kelly end up being a commentator for? Well, I mean, if he can't, I mean, Mauro Ranallo, you know, just kept doing boxing, which I really do kind of miss that guy too. But he got, who was he getting bullied by? JBL. Well, that sucks.
00:33:44
Speaker
Like, yeah, I will say I'm not a huge morrow guy. I mean, I wish him the best. I was mental helpless. Okay. But I've never been a huge, you should still, I find him a little over the top and he just doesn't like hit me. Um,
00:33:59
Speaker
I like that somebody's like, who do we put out there with JBL? JBL, you know, he's a kind of a sensitive guy, right? Could he handle doing commentary with a guy with autism? No, that didn't work out. Ooh, maybe JBL and Kevin Kelly are the team in New Japan.
00:34:27
Speaker
I honestly knew Japan might want him back. It's true. The new guy is, he's fine. I have no opinions about him, which is not good. He's been doing this for six months now. I'm like, he's a person who says words. They neither offend me nor excite me. Does it make you kind of angry that they didn't ask you to do the job?
00:34:53
Speaker
You know, we could have done more. I feel like we could have done more to put ourselves out there for that job. But I do feel like we, I think facts you and I, we could be the new Japan commenters. With just a Chris Charlton in the corner to spew facts about things that happened in the 80s.
00:35:13
Speaker
It's like, Chris Charlton, just tap me when you want to go on a five-minute run about historical things that happened in Cork and Hall in 1985. And I'm it. Go for it. Have fun. Again, it's an evil match. I don't need to talk. You just... Just during a lull in conversation, you just tap him on the shoulder and he just goes straight into it, and then you tap him when you're done. He's your bathroom break man. Just like, boop.
00:35:41
Speaker
Exactly. Again, I think you and I need to take this opportunity when Heater goes to Japan to try to become the big Japan color commentary team. I think they need English commentary. I think if we're willing to work for free, they have the money for us.
00:36:04
Speaker
This is going to be like an unpaid internship. Maybe it goes well. Maybe we can bring some more eyes to the product with our beautiful words and describing their violence. I think that's what I'm saying. This is definitely unpaid. It's definitely an unpaid internship. We are doing we might have to literally do the editing. We send them the files and we're like, you have English commentary now and then they could just put them up on their website or not.
00:36:32
Speaker
That's a pretty good audition tape. And then who knows, maybe you and I are calling dark someday. See, we get to work with like daddy magic. That's exactly, that's perfect.
00:36:46
Speaker
Daddy Magic is still wonderful. Him and his little guy, Angela, or what, no, what's it? What's the? Angela. Yeah. That was the best thing to come out of Control Your Narrative, was those two being Statler and Waldorf. And I can't believe, like anytime he's on commentary, even if it's just for a bit, it's just, it's magic. I mean, it's in his name, but you know, he's,
00:37:14
Speaker
I need more of that. I will say though, you didn't get to the end of Control Your Narrative and something does happen that is, it's truly amazing. It's close, it's the Statler and Waldorf act and it's the end. I think are the two. Wait a minute. So have you just been holding out on the end of Control Your Narrative? I've been waiting for you Garrett.
00:37:39
Speaker
What happened? I mean, he's never sending me the comic book. You control your narratives over. What happened? Oh, the guy who he does all that terrible stuff to in the beginning of the one, he kills him. The guy who he's like talking to his wife?
Independent Wrestling Promotions and Challenges
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah. That guy kills EC3. Yeah. Shut up. No.
00:38:10
Speaker
Something like that. It's been a long time. I think there's probably more details to it than that, but I just was watching it mouth a gate going like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. And is it still like the commentator like the the voiceover guy being like, I mean, I can't even pretend to do what that guy did, but I can't remember if the voiceover guy is like narrating the murder, narrating the man. I can't. I don't think I don't.
00:38:40
Speaker
I don't think he does. I think he only narrates the wrestling. But he might, I don't know. I'll rewatch it with you, buddy, if you want. Yeah, no, I need that, because I'm like, what did he do? It's like, well, first he fucked his protein powder in front of him. And then does he shoot him? Like, does he stab him? Does he kill him in a match? It's definitely not a match.
00:39:10
Speaker
Uh, I'm trying to, Oh, controlling that. See, I was trying to, I was trying to see if I controlling, uh, control your narrative. Now they were trying to make a Google one to take me to something about succession. I'm like, Oh no, this is, this is much better.
00:39:32
Speaker
Control your narrative. Like I know before we started recording, we were both kind of talking about like, I don't really buy other than vinyl, uh, much physical media anymore. Like, as far as like wrestling DVDs and stuff, I bought a lot of PWG ones cause that was the only way to rewatch a lot of that stuff. If they made a box set.
00:39:54
Speaker
I don't even think they need to make a box that they could just fit them all on one disc. Probably. I would buy the entire series of control your narrative. Also, are those fucking shorts on sale yet? Like, can I just have those control your narrative shorts? Do those cost money? Honestly, I'd be afraid to give him money for those. He'd fucking pocket that. You'd never see your booty shorts. Let's see if the merch is still my Shopify. It still seems like there.
00:40:24
Speaker
catalog the shorts are still not on sale they're still $25 I mean that's not that much all things considered and I would smile every time I saw them but
00:40:40
Speaker
I just, I can't, I can't pay full price for this shit. Like I need, I need them to feel a little defeated and then see that like I bought one of everything. Yeah. Yeah. You would spend, you would spend a hundred dollars if they put everything on sale. Yeah. And that's, it has to be better than like the space it's taking up in EC3's garage. I'm with you.
00:41:08
Speaker
Does he have a significant other that's like, can you get rid of that shit? We need to get in touch with her. That's what we need. He has several significant others. It's all the ladies that he's, his guys are married to. If you don't know what that means, just go watch the, control your narrative.
00:41:40
Speaker
It was very strange. It was really, truly one of the strangest. I don't know if, yeah. I'm wondering, is it even online anymore? Is the Premiere streaming network still a thing? I have no idea. Was it the Premiere? No, it wasn't that. It was the other one. I don't even remember what it was on. Oh, just thinking of this.
00:42:07
Speaker
We were gonna, I feel so bad that we waited this far into the episode to do this, and that like gave Control Your Narrative this much time. We both watched Hardway Heater's barbed wire match. Yes, in which he attempted to do to Otis Kogar what the cuckolded character does to get to three. That is actually his wrestler name was, he was just the cuck.
00:42:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, I enjoyed the promos. I enjoyed the... I enjoyed the indiness of it. It was fun.
00:42:47
Speaker
It definitely had like that. I watched a couple other matches from a couple other shows like Slack versus Doctor Redacted and some other stuff. It definitely has like that old GCW dirty ND feel before they got a little too polished for their death matches. There was some gross shit in Heater's barbed wire match, though they didn't really,
00:43:14
Speaker
I don't think either of them ever got thrown into the barbed wire. If so, very briefly, they did not spend a lot of time in the barbed wire, which I thought was interesting.
00:43:26
Speaker
That might be the only, no rope barbed wire match where I didn't at least one time. And I wonder if it was them getting there and shaking that and being like, if either of us get thrown into this, it's tearing down to the floor. And I don't want to, this is like, he's a big guy. And I mean, heater's not a small guy either. He's a, he's a big guy. There was some gross shit though. There was a moment.
00:43:54
Speaker
where Heater wrapped Otis' hands around two barbs and was squeezing his hands into the barbs, which I don't think I'd ever seen that before, and that was a level of vacu- I mean, the match ended, Otis couldn't get a barb out of his finger. He had to cut the barb wire and his hand was raised with a piece of barb wire so deep in his finger, he couldn't get it out in the moment while they were there and had to take it to the back.
00:44:23
Speaker
Maybe they need another match. Cause, cause heater keeps fucking up Otis for real. Yeah. God, when he like the match, don't let him hit you with a chair heater. That's our instruction. Don't let him do that. Shit. Shit hurts. Shit hurts. And you've got a fuse neck. The match does end with heater getting choked out with a piece of barbed wire and the way Otis releases it. I was concerned for my friend.
00:44:54
Speaker
Like that sharp around the throat and the way he just like threw it out. I was like, you, you could have heard him. You son of a bitch. And then it'd have to be me and you versus the Kogar brothers. And that sucks for us. No, that's not going to work. We're going to need to make friends in big Japan to represent us in that match.
00:45:14
Speaker
I guess we do need to probably pull up a big Japan roster and look at some of their guys. I mean, I'm sure we've seen some of them at some point, but I don't know how much of their roster I actually know. Look, if we're gonna actually be their color commentators, we are probably gonna need to do some development of our knowledge here. Have I seen Yuya Aoki? Probably not.
00:45:46
Speaker
Abdulla Kobayashi though, we've seen him. He's actually, he's wrestling, actually I think as of this record, aren't they wrestling right now? This guy I believe is wrestling currently in GCW. Oh yeah. Like I think he has a match, like maybe even Gage has a match against one of these guys.
00:46:11
Speaker
Gollum. Sekimoto. We've seen him. Sekimoto. Black Angel. Have not seen him. I don't know. I think we have to learn. Part of the fun of this is that people are going to get to see us evolve our understanding. Oh, it's Takeda. It's actually Takeda. We've seen him, obviously.
00:46:35
Speaker
And then it says that June Kasai has wrestled with them recently. It's showing some of their famous alumni, Abdullah, the butchers on there. Yeah, I look, I think we're just going to need to look, we're going to put the time in. We understand that we were going to need to get up to speed. And again, if they wanted, look, we could get up to speed faster, but then they'd have to pay us.
00:47:00
Speaker
Yeah, there is like a certain amount of work this is going to involve that. Let's face it, like the unpaid interns do fuck off quite a bit around the office. Yeah. Like we're eating sugar packets for lunch, you know, because you're not paying us. So. Well, and this is research. We both have young kids and this is research we can't do while they're around. So.
00:47:24
Speaker
That's true, like Ozzy isn't even allowed to watch this stuff. Oh my God, I see that a guy's name on here that the last time we saw him, his whole head was on fire and I haven't seen him since. And that's Masada, has anyone checked on him? I think he's wrestling again, I heard he's wrestling again. By the way, it appears that the streaming service that had control of your narrative is no longer a thing anymore.
00:47:53
Speaker
the ProWrestling.tv thing. So we're gonna have to go on the dark web to find this so you can see the finale.
00:48:02
Speaker
That's fine. I am legally allowed to steal $7 worth of merchandise. Because that is how much I am owed. You know what? If I found EC3, we hold him hostage in my garage, and we're like, you don't even have to produce a physical comic. I just need you to describe what was inside. Tell me what happened. Tell me what happened.
00:48:31
Speaker
It's Fax. Fax is in Boonton and that's why he's not recording with us. Right. Is he playing games? I think he's
Upcoming Wrestling Events and AEW's Influence
00:48:40
Speaker
playing games. I think he was playing games and the games went longer than expected. And so here he is. He missed the recording tonight. Just like he missed Beastman back in the day.
00:48:57
Speaker
What game do you think he was playing that was more important than talking about Okada with us? Bax tends to play things that are complicated and in depth. So I'm thinking shoots and ladders.
00:49:21
Speaker
Uh, did you see where, so I guess the new two K two K 24 or whatever came out the new WWE game. And I guess there's a bunch of actual footage of, you know, things from wrestling and not like computer generated. Uh, and there's a bunch of Vince McMahon footage and they straight up just blurred his face out. That's weird.
00:49:45
Speaker
but not every time. They said only like, it seemed like some of the clips are like, if it's him interacting with a woman, but I, they said there are multiple clips where his face isn't blurred, but a bunch of it, they like, they leave the clip in, but just blur him out. Like it was a person who didn't sign an NDA here, you know, sign a release form. That's an interesting, so.
00:50:14
Speaker
I guess maybe it was too late to cut it out completely. It must be, that must be the issue, right? I mean, otherwise you'd think that they would just be like, okay, if this is too creepy, we'll just cut it out. Cause at this point, like they could just release a patch for it that would cut it out now. You know, once everybody has it, like they were like, download this new patch for the game. And it's just suddenly these clips of Vince McMahon are gone, which I don't know why you would leave in anyway, unless he was,
00:50:44
Speaker
in it as part of the storyline. I mean, that might be it. Maybe it's like a historical story thing where it is kind of weird to cut the thing completely. So we just blur him like it. I don't know. It's honestly, he put so many people in a bad situation and this is the least of anyone's worries. But it is a weird thing that happened this week.
00:51:05
Speaker
I think the answer is clearly deep fakes, right? And you just take any of those clips and you drop someone in there in the place of Vince once you have time to do that. You know, you got the obvious options, right? You could toss Shane in there. You could toss Triple H in. You could toss Linda. That's probably weird, some of these. But I think you can get weirder with it.
00:51:35
Speaker
Have we considered signing Billy Corgan to be the representative of those things? I hear Kevin Kelly's very available. We just put Kevin Kelly in there. He redoes the voices. And I think everyone, I don't think anyone would notice the difference.
00:51:55
Speaker
No. Yeah. I feel like just not enough time has passed in my brain to like, I'm trying to pull more wrestling information, but it's like, we just recorded a few days ago. We did. We did have a, we had turnaround cause we did want to make sure we've got crazy schedules to speak. We wanted to make sure we could talk about Okada and the Young Bucks and really share our excitement and our happiness for that. Um, I mean, the one thing that was teased, I mean, they definitely teased Okada against Eddie and
00:52:26
Speaker
I don't know when that's going to happen, but they could do that at WrestleMania weekend at supercard of honor. That would be, wouldn't be implausible. Eddie's got to wrestle someone as the ring of honor champion. So.
00:52:40
Speaker
just saying that if it isn't, I do think that that is completely plausible. And I don't think we talked about this. Is it entirely possible that they would want? Okada is like the strong champion right now. And he still does. You know, the. The United States, New Japan Joes, which at this point would probably be more interesting than what's going on overseas.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, look, if they really wanted to build up the continental crown there as a valuable thing, right? Not Okada as the triple crown champion sort of makes sense if you're trying to build that up. So I don't see why not. It doesn't seem unreasonable. I can see why you might not do it, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
00:53:27
Speaker
Um, certainly I'll feel, feel much better about, um, our, our purchase of good tickets for that. Um, if, uh, if we get to see Okada, what do you think happens with, um, like forbidden door? Do you think that ends up being a pay-per-view they, well, I guess they said it's going to be in New York, didn't they?
00:53:49
Speaker
They haven't said it, but the reporting is that it's going to be in New York. Two things, one, CMLL might be more prominent this year, right? Yeah. That helps at least. I don't know if they've got any guys that could be a headliner in the same way some of the top New Japan guys can headline a show like that. But certainly the depth of the card, you could do some things underneath with the
00:54:17
Speaker
Um, the CMLL guys, because we haven't seen by Kingo versus Ocada. Uh, by Kingo is triple A though, which would be, I think, I think by Kingo hurt himself recently. Yeah. I'm in for making go against Ocada. Let's do that. Or actually more so if I can go against Osprey.
00:54:38
Speaker
Yeah. When, when you said like that guy hurt himself, it's like that guy was going 110 miles an hour for like eight months. Like I'm surprised he didn't get hurt in the first two months of his just like endless tour of the world, doing the craziest shit you've ever seen. Like that is, that is a guy who must've needed to make so much money fast. And he knew that like,
00:55:08
Speaker
I don't know, what happened? I don't know why anyone would do what he did everywhere he was doing it. He'd made some bad investments and it was time. He just needed to. Look, that's number one, right? You get the lucha guys in there. Number two is,
00:55:36
Speaker
The obvious answer that's been staring us in the face here. And it's, uh, So Caught Against Evil. That's, um, that's your main event. They're just like, well, we can't, we don't want to bring evil. What can we do? What about that clown guy that broke his ass at King of the Deathmatch? What was he, CMLL?
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there's a couple of guys, the one thing I'll say for forbidden door, there's a couple of guys that haven't come over that maybe they finally coax over like, uh, like Tai Chi. Like, can we get some, can we get some Tai Chi in my ever been door? That'd be fun. Uh, Zach Sabers clearly going to get a good match.
00:56:22
Speaker
show and yo return to be their ring of honor personalities that they were for. I don't think there was, there was like a two year run where I'd never, like I saw show and yo on every ring of honor show. And there was like black trunk, like no personality little guys. Yeah. And now, uh, show is the IWGP junior champion because, uh, another guy who's underused choked out the other dude with a Garrett.
00:56:52
Speaker
and he won by countdown. That's a real thing. It's a real thing that happens. Honestly, I maybe need to just pull up the New Japan roster, because I bet there's guys that I've just straight up forgot about. I don't know if you have. I'm sure there are some guys you have, but I mean, that's the thing. New Japan's depth at the top right now was so thin to the point where
00:57:20
Speaker
It's just really shocking. And they just like like I've been following the results in the New Japan Cup. I haven't really watched anything yet.
New Japan's Roster Changes and Future Directions
00:57:32
Speaker
But like Chase Owens beat Ishii. Which means they're going to do more Chase Owens matches. I am looking at their current champions, sir. And Dolph Ziggler holds the title.
00:57:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. He beat, um, he beat a Finley. And Matt Riddle holds the title. Matt Riddle beat Tana Hashi for the TV title. That's right. Kenton Chase Owens to the tag team champions. That's the thing. Clark Connors and Drilla Maloney. Yeah, they're fine. They're solid. They're solid junior tag champs there. Okay. So, and then we have, what's his name going over to join the bloodline probably, right?
00:58:17
Speaker
Otamatanga, Otamatanga left too. He's going to WWE. Apparently this is the reporting. Wait. And so the, the, oh, never open weight six man tag. So I assume these, they have to figure something out here. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And instead of having them job, the titles on the way out, Okada, they won the last defense and then Okada was like, I hereby give up the titles.
00:58:45
Speaker
and Ishii's like, I would have liked to have hung onto mine. Bye, friend. I forget bad dude Tito's over there. I forget Alex Zane. Although he hasn't been onto the tour since World Tag League. I hope they get more, I hope we get more Alex Zane this year. Wait, is, so Bateman is on there. Does he ever actually wrestle in Japan or is he like just basically the West Coast shows? I think just the West Coast, he hasn't been on,
00:59:14
Speaker
any of the uh japan shows actually john that i read some of his things uh earlier he filmed a movie recently he's uh touring a short film a short horror movie that he shot and is like going to to film festivals and uh it stars baitman is the villain all right he's uh he's good pals with baitman yeah it's it's a dark time in new japan it's really
00:59:41
Speaker
It's really dark when you really just sort of take a look at that roster and just think about what's left. I'll ask you this, Garrett, because you're going to Dynasty, right? Do they need to announce anything else before the show? They've announced Osprey against Danielson. I think it would be good. I don't know if that
01:00:05
Speaker
is enough to sell most people. I think that's enough to sell. This is for you. This is for you. For me. Do they need to announce anything else?
01:00:14
Speaker
I'm a little worried for Danielson. I'm still in that point where he still feels fragile, even though he's willing to do a lot. And it just seems like it's a bad idea. I think if Brie saw the match that Osprey just had, she'd be like, you can't do that stuff with him. You know that, right?
01:00:39
Speaker
That guy that landed on his head, he's like 24. Okay. He's got, he, I don't care about his future. He doesn't have kids yet. You know, don't you love your kids? My kids. I also like getting dropped on my head. It makes me feel alive. Okay.
01:01:02
Speaker
You can't do that anymore, Dan, anymore, Brian. Do you wanna have to be shitting in your outside toilet like you like for the rest of your life? Or do you wanna be shitting in your diaper for the rest of your life? I was really worried when you started getting the shit there. It was like, do you wanna be shitting like your father-in-law?
01:01:40
Speaker
All right, everybody. We can't end it on that. We can't end it on that. There's gotta be one more thing. We can't be like, all right, everybody. Sorry about Laurenitis. No, no, no, no, no, no. What's our sign off? What's our, what's going to be our sign off for our big Japan commentary?
01:01:58
Speaker
It's going to be something in Japanese. Konichiwa Sayonara. That was too hard to put me on the spot for because that's something that I'll think about for weeks. Be nervous that I picked the wrong thing. Try it. Feel uncomfortable and then get ridiculed on Reddit.
01:02:26
Speaker
I think that's, I think that's what's going to happen there. Um, I'm curious about something. Um, I think the answer here, Garrett, is, is very simple. Um, and it's watashi-tachi no angaku ohito sasete kudasai. Do you know what that means? Is that a really long way of saying it or goddamn music? Yes. Is it really? Yeah.
01:02:56
Speaker
God damn, that was good. I wish I hadn't fucked that up. And just... Here's how we redeem ourselves, Garrett. Just...
01:03:14
Speaker
I can't remember even the beginning part of that. Here, you sign us out this week. I think by the time this comes out, Sasha Banks will be a member of the roster, and we might have Derek back in the near future, rejoining the roster for AEW, for predetermined. So, hey.