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We Stand, We Deliver
28 Plays5 years ago
Chick Foley, The Heel Husband, and Marco the MVP discuss the breakup of The Hurt Business, the current state of WWE creative, and make their predictions for NXT Takeover: Stand and Deliver! We also cover the week in wrestling figure news, debut the new How Many Chicks segment, and give you guys some Keeping It Tranquilo recommendations, Plus, Listener Q&A!
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Transcript
Welcome to Episode 122
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Chick Foley Show.
00:00:23
Speaker
What is up Foley fam? We are back with episode 122 of the Chick Foley Show. We have a action-packed episode for you guys this week.
Episode Preview: NXT TakeOver and More
00:00:32
Speaker
We're gonna be talking about all the latest news in and outside of the Squirt circle and give you guys an in-depth preview and the latest round of the Chick Foley Show Prediction Championship for NXT TakeOver Stand and Deliver. But before you go any further, let me introduce the two stars of the show. Sheena, how you doing?
00:00:47
Speaker
I am doing good. I am. Well, I'll save what I'm drinking for the beverage break, but I am sipping on an ice cold beer, chewing on an energy bar. I hope you guys can't hear me chewing because it's been a long day, but I am ready to talk pro wrestling with you guys. Yeah, same here. I actually was wrapping up a long
00:01:03
Speaker
week of work. I'm off for Good Friday tomorrow and we got I'm off all week next week also and the parents are coming out so we're gonna have a little bit of break with the with the baby face and the future women's champion so definitely looking forward to kicking this vacation off with some wrestling talk. Marco, how's life up in Massachusetts?
00:01:22
Speaker
I'm just standing and delivering over here. Just can't wait to deliver this. The Celine Dion comeback album, man. That's all I can think when I hear stand and deliver. I'm picturing Celine Dion making one more album for all her fans out there. Yeah, that would be so appropriate because like we talked about, if you guys have missed it in the past, Marco is the president of the Celine Dion fan club. That is true. I always get like a Bruce Springsteen vibe when I hear stand and deliver too. Yeah, it's totally Bruce Springsteen song for sure.
00:01:52
Speaker
Sheena, tell them where they can find you guys on social media.
Join the Foley Family and Social Media
00:01:54
Speaker
You can find me on Instagram at Chick Foley. Marco running the Twitter machine over at Chick Foley show. And you can join our Foley fam on Facebook. Go to chick Foley show.com. We have new episodes of Unboxed Mania on the way and we're about to watch Royal Rumble 1990 for our Royal Rumble watch along series. So that's always fun. We're joined by our good buddy.
00:02:16
Speaker
the fig hunting God, Jordan Wells and the four of us kind of just like, you know, talk it up, drink some brews and watch these old rumbles. And it's a lot of fun. Yeah, it's a blast. Hit it up. Chick Foley show.com. The Facebook group continues to be as lit as ever. Guys are posting up some crazy stuff that they got in the mail today. We'll talk a little bit about it once we get into to go figure I'm going to live vicariously through them when we get to the weekly purchases segment. But yeah, I was seeing some stuff pop up that I didn't even know was out yet today. So
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's just a ton of fun. It's worth the price of admission, if nothing else, being in that Facebook group. We also want to give a shout out to our buddies in the Pod Foundation.
Collaborations and Promotions
00:02:54
Speaker
The Pod Foundation is a network of independent wrestling podcasts like ourselves. We teamed up with our good friends, The Extra Cooler Show, Pyramid Wrestling, and The Two Bad Chads at Turnbuckle Tavern. So we've already been doing a lot of collaborations. Pyramid Wrestling appeared on Turnbuckle Tavern.
00:03:11
Speaker
this past week on their debate episode, which drops every Monday. And then Marco is going to be on there next Monday. And he'll tell you a little bit more about that later on in the episode. But check those guys out. You can follow Pod Foundation on Instagram to stay up on all the latest on all four of our shows across all platforms. Sheena, tell us a little bit about what Foot Action's got coming up for WrestleMania week.
Celebrating Black Champions
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah. So Foot Action has done a super fire collaboration with Wall-A-Mania and put out this capsule collection just in time for WrestleMania. It's going to come out on April 7th, but it's a celebration of black champions. They they've come out with a capsule of t-shirts and hoodies and like there's, I think there's like a tote bag too. Don't, don't quote me on that, but I actually think I saw a tote bag too, but it's Mark Henry, Sasha Banks, the new day. So it's like, you know, you know, Kofi's championship.
00:04:00
Speaker
when Booker T and Ron Simmons, the shirts and the hoodie and everything just look amazing. They're like these outline designs. They look great. The championship belts look great. We just got ours in today and I got to see them in person and they're beautiful. So stay tuned to all of our social media.
00:04:18
Speaker
And we'll let you guys know all of the release details for that.
Discounts and Deals
00:04:22
Speaker
But yeah, we'll be posting pictures up of those tomorrow. So as you're listening to this, you'll be able to go to our our social media feeds and see all the, you know, the sneak peek shots of everything. So good luck on April 7. We'll be posting up that link as soon as the questions go live to help you guys get them. You guys got to be competing with me to get that new day video. It looks so good.
00:04:42
Speaker
And before we get into the news of the week, I want to remind you guys to use code CHICKFOLY for all
WWE Creative Critique
00:04:47
Speaker
your purchases at Ringside Collectibles to save 10%. They are the world's number one retailer of wrestling figures. You guys ready to get into it? Oh yeah. All right, let's hit it.
00:04:57
Speaker
So first up, we are going to round out the the hurt businesses demise. You know, it's there. Why are we starting the show like this, man? You know, we're going to start on a down note and then we're going to bring them back up. So the hurt business appears to be no more, at least in its as we know and love it. There could have been some hints over the last couple of weeks. Obviously, Bobby fully ascended to main event level. And this past week, he kicked he kicked Cedric and Shelton to the curb.
00:05:26
Speaker
Marco, I'm gonna let you kick it off. What are your overall thoughts on the run that the hurt businesses had from early last summer till now?
00:05:33
Speaker
No, they definitely had a huge influence, not just on Rob, but I think if you want to say sports entertainment, they're pretty much the go-to or what you wanted to watch every Monday night. I know I was looking forward to seeing what the hurt business was doing as it slowly built up from last year all the way into this year. But MVP actually did come out and say that the hurt business was originally him and Bobby Lashley.
00:06:01
Speaker
So, the hurt business is still kicking. Business is still booming. I don't remember it like that. I don't remember the hurt business coming out until it was the fourth. I don't know if it's the Mandela Effect or what's happening here, but I do not recall it just being the hurt business. I felt like when Shelton came on, that's when they switched, they made it the hurt business. Am I mistaken on that? Yeah, they weren't called. Well, they weren't called. So, the faction was named the hurt business.
00:06:26
Speaker
before Sheldon and Cedric came along, MVP would call Bobby Lashley the hurt business. That was his nickname because basically they would just beat people up and hurt them. But he said basically they just downsized and they're always looking for new recruits or new employees. They'll probably add two more people hopefully.
00:06:49
Speaker
It's like they've already added one, which we'll talk about in a minute. He did come out and say, Varen Corwin is not, I repeat, not a part of the herd business. No. Just to make sure everyone's, I believe MVP. So really, we just did this for nothing because- Pretty much, yeah.
00:07:07
Speaker
The her business carried raw during the Thunderdome era in the weirdest time in wrestling history. And they literally took Lashley from his repug storyline plucked him out of his repug storyline with Lana and Rusev and catapulted him into the title picture, which resulted in him becoming the WWE champion.
00:07:28
Speaker
So that would not have happened. If you've been listening, we're 122 episodes into the Chick Foley show. And I don't think I've ever said more than five positive words about Bobby Lashley since we started this show. He's never
00:07:43
Speaker
peeled to me in any sort of way, like he just had no charisma. Again, to take from our buddies over at the Extra Cooler show, he has the charisma of a rotten apple until he got with the hurt business. When he got with the hurt business, I was like, okay, this is something, you know, and not just him and not just him and MVP, when it was him and Cedric
00:08:03
Speaker
and Shelton and MVP, that appealed to me. I love the faction. They were badass. Shelton and Cedric had been being booked horribly too, and it brought them into the forefront and they became the tag champs. They had something that felt really organic and legitimate and badass. Without those guys around him, Lashley is inevitably just going to be back to being one of the freaking channel changers for me.
00:08:31
Speaker
And I I just hate it. I don't know why you would do this two weeks before WrestleMania it let's get into it. Let's let's break a favor a little bit. Why do you guys think they need to break these guys up? I mean again, like Sheena said they really carried raw last year when I think of wrestling in the pandemic, I think of Sasha and Bailey I think I hurt business and then a little bit later on I think of Roman, you know, obviously Roman came back at summer so I'm a really think of retribution and
00:08:58
Speaker
No, I don't as little as possible. I try to think of retribution. So I'll kick it over to you first, you know, like what behind, you know, put yourself in the the mind of WWE creative if you can. And again, we're going to do this a little bit later on also. Why why the need to break up the hurt business, you know, a couple of weeks before WrestleMania?
00:09:17
Speaker
Honestly, I think a couple of reasons. Again, none of this is based in fact. This is all based on my opinion. A couple of reasons. I think the hurt business was so over that they knew that now with fans in the audience, there's going to be a little less control, which I don't understand. I mean, they can still control and pipe in crowd noise to the people viewing it at home on Peacock or whatever. But I think the hurt business is so over that they knew they would get cheered against
00:09:45
Speaker
Drew you know i think this is the way to kind of cool bobby lash a little bit make him seem a little bit less bad ass you're right not really elevated with those guys yeah not just him they knew exactly what to do when they hitch baron corbin baron corbin has go home heat he anybody he attaches himself to he is like a
00:10:05
Speaker
Go home heat magnet and they they were like, oh my god, we we have to put this is not again When I say these things about people wrestlers, I'm not speaking about them personally I've heard really interviews with Baron Corbin. He seems like a really swell guy seems like a small guy. Yeah. Loves to barbecue
00:10:23
Speaker
He loves to barbecue and cookies. He knows his way around a piece of meat. Cook his meats, yeah. He seems like
NXT Takeover Speculations
00:10:28
Speaker
a really good guy. And he's a freaking workhorse for WWE. He does show up and he's been there consistently through the bad and the ugly and all of it. So you think this is all just a way to ensure that Drew gets cheered at WrestleMania? Yes. I have not even thought about that, man. She is over here playing 3D chess with the WWE booking. I just think I... Great point. I believe it now.
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, I just think that that's really where they're headed because they want Drew, which I don't know why. I mean, again, we had talked about getting Drew that moment at WrestleMania, but it's not gonna be the same as if he had had it last year. It's never gonna be his first time winning the title. It's never gonna be that first time where he was fighting and scrapping to get to the title picture again. It's just going to just feel second rate, especially now.
00:11:17
Speaker
It's leftovers the night after. You already had the meal at the restaurant, it was really good and it'll still be okay the next night, but it's never going to be the same as when you sit down to eat it that first time. Exactly. I'm with you. We're thinking this bodes very poorly for Ashley's chances of retaining the belt at WrestleMania.
00:11:33
Speaker
I mean, I think so, dude. I think, I mean, so there's this, you know, getting back into kayfabe. I think there's a Mark fantasy booking angle that says it's really just a loophole to allow Cedric and Benjamin to interfere since they had the stipulation where the hurt business had to be banned from ringside. If they're not officially part of the hurt business, they can come in and interfere, which also makes me- Didn't last see, he fought one of them on Monday night, right? Was that Cedric or Shelton that he fought on Monday night? I can't remember.
00:12:02
Speaker
I don't know. Raw was so terrible. Was it Shelton? Yeah, he beat the shit out of Shelton. I was kind of with Yuxin. I was thinking that same thing, like this is all a big swerve, bro, to bring the hurt business back somehow. But I mean, he really beat down Shelton. Obviously, we've had greater stretches of logic in WWE, so it would be the craziest thing for them to still come back.
00:12:24
Speaker
Well, maybe that's why MVP was so adamant that Baron Corbin is not a member of the hurt business too. You know what I mean? Like maybe Baron Corbin really is part of the hurt business, but you know, MVP is technically saying he's not a part of it. I think that was MVP just kind of taking the reins. And being like hell no. Yeah, this has been his baby. You know, he kind of had something similar to this back in T&A and I think it was so successful and he could just see it burning down like people just taking a giant shit on it. The hurt business.
00:12:53
Speaker
sold more merch than anybody last year, like over the summer. Yeah, that shirt was awesome. And I can't wait to get some figures with those shirts. Yeah, the shirt was crazy. It was like one of the number one selling t-shirts. And so yeah, you can see MVP is probably seeing those merch checks just fly out the window. He's like, oh, hell no. I was planning on getting this like Hurt Business WrestleMania shirts.
00:13:12
Speaker
All right, so Marco, let's stay backstage. You brought it up about the tweet from MVP, but do you think that what we saw at the end of Raw Monday night, was that originally supposed to be Baron Corbin officially becoming a member of the Hurt Business? No, it was by the way- See, there's a standard run-in.
00:13:33
Speaker
No, Bobby will actually put a bounty on Drew McIntyre. Anybody from the locker room, it didn't have to be raw. He didn't say raw specifically. Clearly. Basically, anyone can come and
00:13:48
Speaker
Take care of, uh, Drew McIntyre before WrestleMania. Um, and obviously Baron Corbin, that being a, a trio at one point totally forgot about that. They were kind of like, uh, Drew and the channel changers. Yeah, that's true in the channel changers from, yeah, we, we have blocked that out of my, uh, wrestling memory. Yeah. So like, so yeah, I mean, just basically like a callback, like.
00:14:10
Speaker
Hey, we used to be together. Now we're, you know, I'm just kicking the shit out of you. Now I'm with one of you and beating the other one of you up. Yeah. I honestly don't think he's a part of the hurt business. He doesn't fit the bold for the hurt business. It's not organic in the sense where like, you know, everyone had like these like really bad, like you mentioned before, really bad like angles. And they were like kind of like floundering. And then like MVP took these guys out of
00:14:39
Speaker
obscurity and made them a powerhouse of a faction. This is all Seth's fault. I'm going to blame this one on Seth because I recall a few months ago, Seth saying that we wanted this faction to grow and to become even more badass and
00:14:55
Speaker
They just needed that token white guy like Owen in The Nation of Domination. Yeah, I said Dolph. Big difference between Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin. True, but yeah, but you put this out into the universe and the WWE universe twisted it into something absolutely terrible.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, I really don't get it. We've heard for years that Vince doesn't like factions or whatever. So I get totally, you know, I could totally imagine a conversation where it's like, okay, the hurt businesses served its purpose. They got Bobby lastly to be in a credible, accepted world champ. And now it's time for them to go back to doing whatever they were doing before, which as you mentioned, Marco and Sheena, you said this also that it really wasn't a lot.
00:15:36
Speaker
Can you imagine though if they did that to the undisputed era early on? How incredible were the undisputed era just freaking run and rough shot through NXT? I didn't think of how meaningful it was once they originally broke up. You know what I mean? But now it's that these guys had this awesome eight, nine month run and then it just... A wet far. It just kind of goes away. Yeah. There's no blow off. It's a wet part of the week. You know what I mean?
00:15:58
Speaker
You could have had Bobby taking on, you know, Shelton and say, once MVP is healthy, you could have had Bobby and MVP taking on Shelton and said, you're going to tag team match. That would be incredible. You know, could you imagine those guys would tear the house down? But, you know, it is what it is.
00:16:12
Speaker
I don't know. We'll tune in every week to see where it goes, because that's what we do, but I think we're all on a grant that it's a bummer that the Hurt Business is officially gone. I refuse to refer to just MVP about it actually as the Hurt Business. The Hurt Business is the four of those guys walking out together. I'll never forget that week before SummerSlam when they came out and beat the shit out of Retribution. That was freaking awesome. Yes. I don't know. RIP to the Hurt Business. We hope you guys can somehow get it back together sometime down the road.
00:16:41
Speaker
Let's move on to some Hall of Fame talk. It's probably the last guy. There may be one or two more people to get announced, but it looks like the last big name for the Hall of Fame this year is going to be none other than Mr. Monday Night himself, Rob Van Dam. Sheena, give us some of your general thoughts on Rob Van Dam.
00:16:59
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Well, general thoughts. Um, I guess this is just recency bias is when, uh, we saw him, he's an out there dude. Um, I don't know a lot about him and I never met him in like, you know, in person. I've been really close to him several times at like, uh, wrestle con San Jose. We were just happened to be like walking like literally five feet away from him right behind him.
00:17:18
Speaker
So we were, we were walking behind him there, but, um, it wasn't, it wasn't San Jose where it was, uh, Orlando, Orlando was when he happened to be up on the stage doing that interview. And he just completely went off on a tangent, put the entire wrestle con to sleep. So they asked him, um, you know, they, so at wrestle con, they have all the tables with the vendors and where you can do the meet and greets with the wrestlers. And then they also have like a main stage. So where they, they keep cool stuff going throughout the day, they'll have different wrestlers up and do like interview panels with them, stuff like that. And they had Robin dam up.
00:17:48
Speaker
And the guy was questioning him and he just was trying to just make some small talk and talk about stuff outside of the ring. He mentioned how he knew that Rob Van Damme was a film enthusiast. Like he was really into like old cinema from like, you know, the 20s, 30s and 40s.
RVD's Cinema Interests
00:18:03
Speaker
And you're thinking RVD is going to talk for, you know, 45 to 90 seconds about, you know, why he's into it. This dude goes on like a no lie. This dude talks for like nine, 10 minutes.
00:18:13
Speaker
Going in-depth on the history of like the Marx Brothers all kinds of stuff and like how different movie theaters were created and shit like People were looking around in the audience. We're looking around making like eye contact with total strangers Like what the fuck is this guy talking about? You know, I mean like he was just going on and on and on and the poor interviewer I don't know if he
00:18:33
Speaker
was intimidated and didn't want to cut off rvd or he just didn't really wasn't picking up the queue like yo let's get this thing back on track somehow let me interject in the conversation somewhere he let it go it got to the point where me and she just got up and walked off and rv was still talking so i don't even know how long it went for but
00:18:48
Speaker
But yeah, RVD, don't ask him about some old movies unless you're ready to invest some time in that conversation. He seems like that kind of guy that if you do ask him a question, he's just going to keep talking. He cannot read the social signals. Can't read the room. You know what I mean? He's just going to keep on keeping on.
00:19:04
Speaker
In his defense, he could have been living the gimmick. He could have been stoned out of his mind when that conversation started. He was definitely living the gimmick that day. But yeah, definitely deserving. He's like one of two wrestlers that had WWE, ECW, and a TNA World Championships. Speaking of our guy Bobby Lashley. Wrestle facts. Yeah, wrestle facts. So yeah, definitely deserving. What are you guys? Any favorite memories of RVD?
00:19:32
Speaker
So for me, I talked before about Russell Palooza in 1996. That was a VHS that I got from my Uncle Josh when I was about 12 years old. I had heard about ECW a little bit. I'd heard about it on the internet. I'd heard little murmurs in the different pro wrestling illustrated and those magazines like that about this new wrestling organization on the East Coast that was basically just bucking the system and breaking all the rules.
00:19:58
Speaker
And my uncle got his hands on a recorded VHS of Wrestlepalooza 96. And I took it to my friend RC's house. He was like my wrestling buddy as a kid. And I remember popping that in and just being blown away at this action I'm seeing. You know, honestly, it really wasn't even the violence. The violence stuff was cool. That's really kind of what ECW was known for. But just the in-ring work was incredible. I was seeing moves and action that I'd never seen before. It really kind of
00:20:23
Speaker
They laid the basis for the WCW Cruiserweight division that was so influential in the late 90s. And one of the people that just jumped off the screen was RVD. He had this dude. He was just cool as hell. You know, he looked like John Claude Van Dam. That's where he got the name Rob Van Dam from. Awesome moveset. He's wearing this tie-dye singlet that's got like yin yangs and dragons and shit on it. So 12-year-old me thought this dude was just incredible.
00:20:49
Speaker
That's kind of my thing. I just remember him being one of like the first people I really latched on to in ECW. How about you Marco? What's your favorite RVD memory?
00:20:56
Speaker
Yeah, probably the match in 2006 with him and John Cena at the one night screen. Yeah, that was obviously the infamous John Cena getting his shirt thrown back at him like numerous times and he was trying to throw it into the... That whole event was insane anyway, but like... It was. That was one of the first... I think that was the second ever Money in the Bank cash in also.
00:21:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's just like, just like that whole event and then like culminating with that, that main event match. And then, uh, you know, Robin and Dan actually winning a WWE, um, title in the middle of the ballroom. They have a sign ballroom where like legendary moment, legendary, just see ECW, just all ECW fans. There are literally no WWE fans there. Um, if you watch the event, you'll definitely see, I'm not sure if, uh,
00:21:47
Speaker
if that event will actually make it to Peacock or... Because of stuff that crowd was chanting. Yeah, download it now if you have the opportunity. Yeah, the crowd was chanting some pretty profane stuff, so... Yeah, awesome event. How about this? Let me run this by you guys for a figure idea. Imagine now that he's back in the fold, Ultimate Edition RVD from that night and that black and red tie-dye singlet and come with the ECW and the WWE spinner belt. How cool would that be as an Ultimate Edition? That'd be so awesome. Ooh, yes.
00:22:15
Speaker
Oh man, they would have to do like a fold out type of thing. They'd have to be ringside exclusive and they'd have a fold out thing of the of the ballroom. Yeah, that would be neat. We definitely we've only had the one RVD Elite. We definitely need some more. He has so many iconic attires. He was always rocking some really, really sweet ring gear.
00:22:33
Speaker
All right. So yeah, RVD going in the hall of fame. Congrats to him. And I'm sure he's going to have a very interesting acceptance speech. Oh my gosh. I didn't even think, I had not even thought about that as we were talking about his yammering on about the films. Yeah. Yeah. Get your stopwatch out. He may be able to break a hillbilly gym and Mr. T's record for the longest speech ever.
00:22:54
Speaker
All right, so we're going to go from the Hall of Fame to the Hall of Shame. At Wrestle Kingdom this year, Koda Ibushi effectively unified the IWG. It's kind of confusing because the titles are called IWGP, but they're really the titles for New Japan. So for those that aren't into the Japanese wrestling scene, apologies to our buddy Hipster Norm. There is the Koda Ibushi unified the IWGP World Heavyweight Intercontinental Championship.
00:23:20
Speaker
and he debuted the new belt this week. And to say, I think the kindest way we could put it is that there was a collective mixed reaction from the internet wrestling community. Sheena, give me your thoughts on this new belt design.
00:23:32
Speaker
So, okay. First of all, I will say the actual belt design, if it was just like a new belt anywhere else would not be terrible. It wouldn't be like the worst belt you've ever seen. Right. Um, but the fact that they had this gorgeous, like classic looking title that was like probably the most beautiful title in wrestling today. It was in the mix. Nobody would bat an eye if you said it was the best belt in wrestling.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah, it was just gorgeous, right? And then they brought out this, which is like this, it looks like a mixture of the old WWE Divas title. And I heard a lot of fans saying that it looked like Cody's neck tattoo and they are not wrong. Yeah, it's like the Divas belt, Cody's neck tattoo hooked up and had a baby and then they dipped it in gold and caught it a day.
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's the shape of it. It's it's just a weird shape. It's kind of like at this like trophy look to it. I just I don't like it at all. I hate to like, you know, I kind of I kind of shit on the universal title when it came out before and it's kind of was more lazy than bad. That's true. That's true. Yeah, it was literally just lazy. Yeah, they just like you can never say the universal title was like a bad looking belt. It was just kind of lazy. Just
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, it seems like they put a lot of effort into this belt to make it look bad. It did. That's the thing. With WWE, they were just like, all right, pal, let's put a red strap on it. You know what I mean? I feel like in WWE, all the creative design folks probably spent weeks cooking up something wild that was never going to see the light of day. And then Vince walked in and was like,
00:25:07
Speaker
What the hell? Just make the strap red. Yeah. He's probably got like a little, he's got a little like wheel, a little rainbow wheel behind his desk and he just like flicks it, you know, um, and just sees where it lands. But yeah. Um, Marco, what are your, what are your thoughts on it? I may, maybe I'm being too harsh. I'm curious to hear how you feel about it.
00:25:24
Speaker
I think it's just more of like a shocking design than anything. It's like nothing we've ever seen before, sort of. Maybe that's what it is. It's almost like futuristic looking in a sense, but it is a combination of the- Is the strap silver?
00:25:43
Speaker
No, I think that was just the lighting. I think the picture that was circulated the most, the one that you actually posted on the feed, the light, it was slightly blown out. So the plates looked like actually a little bit shinier than they are and the strap a little bit lighter. I saw some other photos with a little bit better lighting and it looks slightly better, but it's still a mess to me. Yeah. It's a black strap though.
00:26:05
Speaker
I mean, the way they did it was obviously, you know, Ibushi had both the intercontinental and the heavyweight title that he won recently. So they basically combined it into one belt, which is kind of weird that they got rid of their intercontinental title.
00:26:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's such a historic belt. That was something that Jushin Thunder Liger was really known for, for being the intercontinental champ for them. Yeah. Just reading a lot of the articles and stuff on the title itself. It was a controversial decision for New Japan to actually do this. I just said getting rid of the intercontinental title and the actually heavyweight title itself. Sheena said it's probably one of the most beautiful titles in wrestling.
00:26:48
Speaker
They just didn't want Kenny coming over there being able to take multiple belts, you know what I mean? That's true. They were just like, you know what, we got to streamline this thing because we can't say that he's got like, you know, two of our titles, right? And they're just going to... To me,
00:27:03
Speaker
The IWGP belt was just like, again, you guys said it was so beautiful and New Japan's kind of prided themselves on always being presented as much more like an actual sporting competition than American style wrestling. And I think it fit because that belt looked like it would have looked right at his home as like a boxing or MMA championship. You know, it just, it looked traditional. It just looked prestigious. It was prestigious and just classic. Like that, that design, that title design, it could, that it just withstands the test of time. You know what I mean? Like that's going to be a beautiful title.
00:27:32
Speaker
20 years ago and 20 years in the future, that's going to be a useful title. Yeah. And I guarantee you, you know, I'm sure they're going to try to see it through with this belt because I know that you can tell they put a lot of effort into it like Marco said, but I guarantee you this belt, you know, mark my words. It's April 1st, 2021. As we record this, I don't think that design is going to last five years and we're going to see him go back to something
00:27:51
Speaker
A little bit more traditional to me that belt, it looks like, um, like an individual belt for like one specific wrestler. You know, I mean, I could see like a heel winning the title and he's changed the design to that for the duration. He's got the belt, similar to like the Daniel Bryan, um, you know, eco champion or whatever. I'm talking about the eco belt, dude. That was a Greek belt. That was an example of, um, you know, what that looks like when things go right as far as belt design.
00:28:16
Speaker
Speaking of which, so let's keep the conversation going. Shane, what's your least favorite belt ever?
00:28:23
Speaker
My least favorite belt ever. It's probably the spinner belt. I know some people, like some people, it's kind of like, you know, some people like that belt. I just, I think that belt was just repugged. It's, it's definitely a time capsule for that, that era in time. You know what I mean? Like it, it definitely captures that moment. Um, but the spinner title just never ever did it for me. I just, no, not a fan. Marco, are you a big fan of the spinner?
00:28:49
Speaker
Not really. That was actually without the spinning part of it. It was actually a really beautiful belt if it wasn't for the spinning aspect of it. I think it was cool for Cena when he was a Dr. Thuganomics. It was a cool belt design for him to debut, but I don't know why they stuck with it for eight or nine years, whatever it is.
00:29:09
Speaker
And I think another thing that takes away from that is the scratch title. I don't really love the, you know, the scratch logo. Yeah. The scratch logo. Sorry. Yeah. It was compared to the block logo and then the logo that they have now with the David David network, the scratch logo, just it looks so, it looks so dated now, you know, it looks, it looks so like 2000s design, which just was not the greatest attitude era logo was cool for like the first year that it was out. And then it was just like, uh, this thing's ugly. Yeah. Marco, how about you? What's your least favorite belt ever?
00:29:39
Speaker
Oh my God. Probably about, I'm not sure if I'm going to get hate for this or not, but I really don't care. The Intercontinental title, the purple strap. Oh yeah. I'm not a fan either. I was pissed when they went away from the, you know, the, the, the IC title that Brett and Ricky Steamboat and Shawn Michaels said. Seth and I were both holding our breath after you said Intercontinental title. We were like, okay, what's he about to say? We were about to cut your feet. I was actually, I had the,
00:30:03
Speaker
I had the mouse cursor over. I was about to cut Marco's mic out. If he was going to slander the classic title because I love that belt. No way. Whether black, blue, white or gold strap, the classic I see. Come on. Yeah. Awesome. I mean, yeah, no, that, that, no, definitely that's like probably one of my favorite titles. No, that, that attitude, our intercontinental title, which didn't last long really. Cause they ended up going back to the original design title either. Yeah. Again, scratch, scratch logo.
00:30:32
Speaker
Yeah, Scratch logo was always repug. For me, I think you guys have good choices. I don't think there's really any competition for the worst championship belt ever. I think it's the Divas Championship. I had that as my second choice, yeah. You always have more than one option. I had that as my second choice. Thank you for not stepping on my toes on that one. You're welcome.
00:30:51
Speaker
When we came back to wrestling in 2014, when we got back into the product, that was the women's title. And I was just blown away, honestly. And don't get me wrong. I'm not part of the woke police. I'm not any kind of social justice war. I kind of just live my life and keep to myself. But I thought that belt was so insulting to the women's wrestlers. You know what I mean? Because these guys, they're athletes. And they're going out and competing in the ring and putting on combat sports the same way the men are. But their belt is this pink and silver butterfly.
00:31:21
Speaker
And I just, I don't know who would be proud of that. And especially now that I have a little girl on my own, like I would, that's not something I would want her striving to have. It just seems so patronizing. That was the belt, you know, going back to the belt that Alundra Blaze threw in the trash on Nitro. That was a beautiful title. The women's title from the attitude era that Trish Stratus and Lita were, were feuding over. That was an awesome design. So I just don't know how we got to
00:31:44
Speaker
The Divas Championship. The name of it is bad enough, but I get it. Divas is what the female wrestlers are known as. I can live with that. But the belt design was just horrible. It looked like something out of a Hello Kitty store or something. I mean, the fact that it was shaped like a butterfly. I mean, how much more childlike and insulting could that be? And you had women... And I know there was a time that was really, really horrible in women's wrestling. We literally just watched a pudding match the other day. Yeah, that was on...
00:32:13
Speaker
East, uh, the one night stand 2007, I think. Yeah. So, you know, I know there was a time when, you know, women's wrestling was not at the top of its game, but you had women like AJ Lee and Paige fighting over this divas title, you know, and they kept, they kind of ushered in that new era of, you know, just women not having to be bikini models and that sort of thing. But yeah, it never, Nikki, Nikki was the longest, Nikki Bell is the longest training divas champion ever. And even though
00:32:40
Speaker
you know, the Bella twins were kind of responsible for like the Divas movement a little bit. You know, Nikki grew into being a badass wrestler. And I'll stand by that. She was like that last year or so that she was wrestling. She was awesome. Hey, listen, if you want if you want to hear me defend the Bellas tooth and nail, go to our buddies on turnbuckle Tavern, go back in their Monday debate episodes. We talked about if the Bellas should be Hall of Famers. And, you know, I was all about team Bella. So if you want to hear
00:33:07
Speaker
If you want to hear more about that, definitely check that out. But yeah, I agree that that belt was just absolutely ridiculous.
00:33:13
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I mean, Nikki was a badass in the ring and very, very easy on the eyes. And Bree was responsible for some of the funniest unintentional comedy that we've had in the last decade of wrestling. Sasha brought it up on her broken skull session. She was talking about how, you know, it never sat right with her either. And she's like, would you have carried that title? And Stone Cold straight up said like, no, you know, I wouldn't have. So if that tells you anything, it's just like they just weren't on equal playing grounds, you know?
00:33:43
Speaker
So we're all big belt nerds over here. We love the championship belt design, past and present. Marco, what's a belt that you would like to see brought back? So you could either bring back a whole championship that's been discontinued or just bring back a belt design for some title that's still currently going. What would you bring back? Oh, man.
00:34:03
Speaker
I think I've always wanted to bring back the European title or the European championship. Beautiful belt. Yeah. I mean, not change the design at all. Keep it as is. But now that they have like UK, they have all these, not just the NXT UK, but they actually have different nationalities wrestling over the NXT UK as well as NXT. Definitely bring that back for that brand.
00:34:28
Speaker
If anything, not just have the UK championship and have that European championship. Yeah, that could be cool to be like a secondary championship for them, you know, even though he has backwards because Europe is bigger than the UK. Yeah. You know, we could deal with that. You know, we could start the UK title, be the big one. But yeah, I agree. The European title would be perfect as the secondary championship for for NXT UK. And I think that would get a huge response from the fans as well. Yeah. Sheena, how about you? What belt would you like to see brought back?
00:34:53
Speaker
Well, you already know, I'm going to say the classic black winged eagle. Just an iconic belt. That is a belt made for a champion. We had Hogan and Brett and Yoko and just some of the best guys in the biz carried that belt. And I just think it's just iconic. It's beautiful.
00:35:11
Speaker
And I can't imagine how I just imagine
Sasha Banks and Beverages
00:35:14
Speaker
like Roman or Seth or like Keith Lee or someone with that belt over their shoulder and it's just it it just elevates them like you know 10 pegs in my opinion. Yeah, I agree. It's been almost 23 years since that belt has been retired and it's still if I hear championship belt it's the first one that pops in my mind.
00:35:32
Speaker
I think it'd be incredible if they went back and, you know, you could keep the current logo design. Let that be the championship belt because the current belt does look great. Anybody that says the new belt doesn't look good is just they're just kind of being a curmudgeon. You know, the new belt does look good. But instead of having the world and the WWF and universal titles being identical with just a separate colored strap, let's let the WWF championship or WWE championship. Let's add some heritage to it. Let's bring the winged eagle back. You know, you can throw the new logo on the top of it. So it's got a little bit of a different flair.
00:36:01
Speaker
But that would be awesome. Imagine if Drew wins the belt back on Mania and the next night on Raw, he's coming out with the winged eagle as the new title. That would be awesome. Oh yeah, it would look awesome on Drew too. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
00:36:29
Speaker
There's a jazz flute everybody knows and loves. It's time for the weekly beverage break. Sheena, tell us what you're sipping on. Oh baby, I'm here and I'm finally sipping on El Segundo's finest broken skull IPA. Super stoked to find this. We found it at a total wine in Chesapeake, Virginia. So it's making its way here finally.
00:36:54
Speaker
I got the Iggy that Broken Skull IPA was starting to hit total wines here in the Tidewater area of Virginia. I called over at Chesapeake. They said that they had 16 of them. Me and Brett, the baby face, we rushed over there. We got there just in time because somebody had already bought the one four pack, but I grabbed the other three, so we brought 12 of them home. How's it hitting? Is it as good as you remember, Shane?
00:37:16
Speaker
Oh, baby. Yeah, it's good. It's good. It's so damn good. I'm drinking it better than Sasha Banks did, so, you know. Do you get personalization of Sasha trying to prove it's go I.P.A.? She cracks it open and she takes like the tiniest sip. Like, I don't even know if the beer actually even hit her, hit her lips. And she goes,
00:37:40
Speaker
It's just like nobody, people that that fucking love IPAs don't drink IPA like that. That's just not how you drink. That's how you drink a margarita. You know what I mean? I can't really put into words like how like what kind of sensation is drinking IPA because it's just it's a different kind of vibe, but you'd never drink an IPA like, oh, God, that was excellent. You know, it's just like, I think it's kind of something you chill on, you know what I mean?
00:38:07
Speaker
She was like, oh, I think she's like, oh, this is all I was wanting. She said, oh, I've been wanting this. I'm like, have you though? Yeah, so I'll go next. So like I said, they told us that they had 16 of them. So, you know, I've planned on getting four things of beer. Obviously I couldn't, you know, I had to fill that empty quota. I saw this on the shelf, looked pretty good. This is Juice Bomb IPA from Sloop Brewing. These guys are up out of New England.
00:38:35
Speaker
Excellent. It's the description is an IPA with all the juicy citrusy flavor of American hops. And yeah, this thing is definitely, definitely juicy. It's at a hop Hopewell Junction, New York. Not sure where that's at. I'm assuming I feel like that's somewhere upstate but
00:38:50
Speaker
This thing is very, very citrusy smelling and tasting it. It's almost like grapefruit juice. That's kind of like how citrusy this thing is, but it's good. We love a nice juicy IPA over here. So if you get a chance to try anything from Sloop Brewing, definitely hit it up. This thing's unfiltered also, which I'm starting to grow a little bit of a taste for the unfiltered. I used to kind of be against it. I thought it was just a gimmick that the craft brewers were going through, but these things are pretty good if you're looking for that almost orange juice type texture to your beers. Marco, what are you drinking?
00:39:19
Speaker
I am sipping on your sought after beer that you've been going after forever. We have hit the fourth month of 2021 and I've yet to try this thing, but you tell me you got some on the way. I believe it when I see it, but you tell me they're on the way.
00:39:34
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah dream team double IPA 8% alcohol it is the It's a crossover of the five champions of hops I'm not gonna run down what I think it's like Citra mosaic galaxy Amarillo and Simcoe I believe so it's all the starting five of hops
00:39:55
Speaker
All in one can, it is definitely delicious. You do have some coming on the way, baby. Oh, yeah. I'm not sure if I can say that on the airwaves, but I'm going to take care of it. The local Postmaster General is about to kick down your door right now. Like, what the hell do you think you're doing? Sorry to any of our fellow people that work at the postal service.
00:40:13
Speaker
There are beer aficionados out there. If you go hit up Beer Advocate and look up the reviews for the Stream Team IPA, these things are freaking poetic. You know what I mean? It's like a freaking Robert Frost prose. Read some of these Beer Advocate reviews on this thing. They're always bringing it on Beer Advocate. I get a kick out of reading these things, man. Some of these guys, like I said, it's so beautiful the way they write these reviews. And I'm like, I don't taste any of this shit you guys are talking about on here.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah, they're like, yeah, they're like, you know, I'm getting hints of, you know, fresh, fresh cut grass on the nose mixed with citrusy sawdust on the finish. And I'm just like, what are you guys talking about? What does that mean? It just tastes like beer with like, you know, you hear me, I'm like, oh, yeah, it's like, you know, it tastes like grapefruit juice. It's got hops. All right, let's
00:41:01
Speaker
Let's keep it moving there. Sheena's big love and impersonation for the week. I was not expecting to hear a super bad reference on this episode. You guys go. Anytime I can bring a super bad reference.
00:41:12
Speaker
So we kicked off the show saying RIP to something that we've loved and we're going to come out of beverage break offering another condolences. The Wednesday Night Wars 2019 to 2021. It's been rumored for a month or so. We kind of held off on reporting until it was official.
Wednesday Night Wars Impact
00:41:27
Speaker
But it looks like starting after WrestleMania NXT is going to be on Tuesday nights now. So the Wednesday Night Wars are over. I'll offer it up to you on first, Marco. Does this mean that AEW won the Wednesday Night Wars?
00:41:39
Speaker
I mean, personally, I didn't think it was any type of war going on between the two brands. I'll just let that cat out of the bag now. I'm not sure if I expressed that at all. You can't redo what happened 30 years ago, whatever.
00:41:59
Speaker
There weren't there were no wars. They weren't going back and forth. They weren't giving away, you know finishes It's it's it could not be more convenient to watch both shows at your leisure, you know exactly you have to flip channels I could literally you know
00:42:14
Speaker
Next day going youtube and there's no there's no urgency. Yeah, so you can have dual screen set up Also, you they're like again You can replay anything you want to replay or follow along on social media Monday night wars you're either flipping back and forth like a maniac or You're dealing with trying to set up a VCR to tape a channel that you're not watching at the same time Which anyway that was around in the late 90s? No, that was basically like in quantum physics. Oh
00:42:37
Speaker
That's how I gauge it too. Obviously, we're far from the school, from the scholastics, but I'd be hard pressed to believe that kids are running in the next, on Thursday morning, talking about what happened on AEW Dynamite and NXT. Will you scoop an ice up there, bartender?
00:42:56
Speaker
Sorry. The Monday Night Wars had kids that didn't watch wrestling, watch wrestling. They were not wrestling fans, but they just had to be in on what was happening with Stone Cold. Yeah, because you showed up the next day at school and that's all anybody was talking about, so you wanted to be in on what was going on.
00:43:15
Speaker
They said it'd be hard pressed to find that kids are running it the next day on a Thursday morning talking about, oh my God, did you see AEW die to my last night? Oh, did you see NXT? No, that wasn't happening. They weren't wars. You got to think, this isn't even a war because this is essentially WWE's third brand and this is AEW's flagship show. You know what I mean?
00:43:39
Speaker
You're comparing apples and oranges, even though we know and love NXT, it's my favorite thing that WWE does. It's still not Raw and SmackDown as far as notoriety and things like that, just to the casual wrestling fan or the casual viewer. I mean, there's all kinds of ways you can compare it. Again, I'm with you, Marco. I don't think there was any sort of war. I don't think, I mean, AEW was kicking butt in the ratings. It was just the way it was.
00:44:06
Speaker
If it was a war, WWE would have put SmackDown on Wednesday and put NXT on Friday nights. Exactly. I mean, or AEW would just move to Monday or move to Friday. True. It really tested the waters in that sense, if they really wanted to have a war, essentially.
00:44:21
Speaker
I will miss it. I definitely miss just the kind of energy from Wednesday nights of having both shows on at once and following along and keeping up with the conversation on social media was a lot of fun. So I'm a little bit bummed on that. Marco, what's your thoughts on NXT moving to Tuesday? Are you happy with it or you wish it stayed on Wednesday? What do you think?
00:44:40
Speaker
Um, no, I'm kind of happy it's moving into Tuesday. Just, just, I mean, obviously it's more nights of wrestling to watch, but for us anyway, cause we do a show which, which kind of sings, but it actually, I found myself like watching one show more than the other one.
00:44:55
Speaker
Yes, I did that too. I wanted to watch both because I love both shows and I felt like I was doing a disservice to myself. You're always going to miss something when you're watching both at the same time. There's going to be one shows on mute at all times, so you're going to be missing something. I feel the same way. I'm like you said, in a way that the convenience of having both shows on one night and just not having any wrestling at all on Tuesday for right now.
00:45:25
Speaker
I think it was nice but having a dedicated night where it's just like okay well I can watch NXT tonight and not have to worry about what's going on on AEW that will be nice just having like you know those those shows dedicated on their own separate days but I'm a little bit bummed because you know obviously we're gonna get to it on our next topic but we know that Raw and SmackDown have both kind of been creatively bankrupt over the last couple months yeah
00:45:49
Speaker
I had really fallen into my wrestling watching habits was the the paper views and the big events because they still tend to deliver more times than not and then Wednesday nights Wednesday night was my night to like sit down and I'm gonna watch wrestling I'm gonna I'm gonna evaluate both cards which everyone's looking better on papers going on the TV the other one's going up on the laptop and I'm watching both at the same time and
00:46:08
Speaker
just keeping up with them. So I am going to miss having them both at the same time. It was a lot of fun every Wednesday night, but it will definitely make it more convenient to keep up what's going on throughout the week now that we got a little bit of separation. All right, so.
00:46:26
Speaker
Buckle up. I think what's about to get bumpy. We're going to discuss the WrestleMania build so far. You guys know we try to keep it positive on here. We do. We are fans at heart. That's what we try to be. At the very essence, like our philosophy on the show is we are a couple or a few wrestling fans that are getting together to talk about our love of wrestling and to just share it with whoever wants to listen to us from week to week. But there does come a point where
00:46:54
Speaker
you kind of kind of criticize what you're seeing each week. And this WrestleMania build is horrendous. Monday night, we saw game night, you know, we saw AJ Styles, one of the probably, you know, at worst, he AJ Styles is probably one of the top five or six wrestlers in the world. You know, I mean, you can make a case he's up higher than that. But I think there's probably only four or five people you can make a case is being better than AJ Styles.
WWE Creative Missed Opportunities
00:47:20
Speaker
And he was playing charades on Monday night.
00:47:24
Speaker
One of the best talents in the world and we can't come up with anything better than him playing charades two weeks two weeks before WrestleMania This isn't like this isn't like in the middle of the freaking year where there's nothing going on like
00:47:36
Speaker
We got that. We got Braun Strowman who, you know, less within the last three years, Braun Strowman was one of the true forces of nature in the wrestling industry, man. He was as over as it gets. He's pulling down the freaking stage at Raw, doing all kinds of crazy shit. He's got choo-choo train sounds. As you're wondering, I'm sure my son Brett would love it. You know, if we let him get a clip of that, he'd probably be loving it.
00:48:00
Speaker
I think for the most part, WWE's trying, it's older fans who are spending their money on the product. And I don't think, I haven't seen anybody who's been like, yeah, that's awesome that we got train sounds now with Braun. It's just been horrible. We're on Raw and SmackDown. We're also seeing a completely recycled storyline. The storyline that we just had on SmackDown with Sasha and Bianca feuding with Nia and Shayna, and now we're seeing it going on in Raw with Asuka,
00:48:28
Speaker
and Rhea Ripley as if we didn't see the same thing on SmackDown two weeks ago. I can keep going on and on. I'm going to toss it to you guys. Sheena, you go first. Is this the worst build to WrestleMania ever?
00:48:40
Speaker
I think so, man. I mean, there was a few, there was a few Wrestle manias in my dark period that I missed the build. So I can't really speak, you know, definitively, but as since I've been back in the product, um, this is definitely the worst build to Wrestle mania. I mean, again, we're two weeks out from Wrestle mania and Wrestle mania, the return of live fans, the first time we've had live fans is shown over a year. Yeah.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yeah, it couldn't be any worse as far and and it's the first WrestleMania that's going to be a part of like the peacock network You know what I mean? So there's there's so much there's so much on the line here and We have Shane McMahon a grown-ass man
00:49:19
Speaker
reading Braun Strowman's fifth grade report card through through the graphics up on the Titan Tron and then was saying Braun to you like I mean oh my gosh it was absolutely terrible
00:49:37
Speaker
I was like, Marco, what? No, it was horrible. And then like you said, you had AJ Styles playing Jenga and charades and all this stuff. And then Matt Riddle literally just forgetting his lines backstage. No, no, no. Uncle Dave came out. That was the script. That wasn't an accident. That was the script. He was supposed to do that.
00:49:57
Speaker
What? Okay. For what? He didn't say for guys lines. He just said, I forgot what I was going to say. That makes it even worse. I would have respected because you know me, I have anxiety about speaking in front of people. The fact that I do a podcast is a freaking miracle.
00:50:16
Speaker
To if you would have told me oh, he just forgot what he's gonna say about you know what that sucks that happens You know, it's it's a we're alive pal moment because Oscar looked legitimately shocked and you know Matt Riddle just kind of like walked away backstage looking at all this stuff we're pointing out this like egregious stuff is in addition to Kind of the stuff we talked about earlier with them breaking up the hurt business, you know, yeah reason
00:50:37
Speaker
Yeah, we've already talked about that, so we're not even gonna touch on that. But yeah, they also broke up the freakin' hurt business. Oh, also, we had like 10 minutes of TV time allotted to the Miz and Morrison's new music video called, Hey, Hey, Pop Pop. So I think that could have been funny. I'm gonna give that one a pass. Even though it was a pug, I think that was supposed to be a pug. It was supposed to be a pug, but when you put that amongst all, when you surround that with all of the other
00:51:03
Speaker
ridiculous crap, it really really brings that down. I mean that could have been a moment of levity and a moment of you know like just comedy in the show but everything else was so shitty that it like it just felt like is this really what we're supposed to be seeing right now? I actually think I'm glad you brought that up because the Miz stuff is actually kind of a symptom of an even bigger problem we've seen
00:51:25
Speaker
and WWE creative really kind of since i came back to watching the product in 2014 is that nothing matters so think about it like you said the ms put on this comedy like worldwide prestige style music video the ms was world champion less than a month ago you know and he lost a belt but it's like it doesn't even matter to him he was cool to just go and move into this feud with freaking bad bunny of all people
00:51:48
Speaker
If you're a professional wrestler, your absolute goal should be to be the world champion or the universal champion, depending on which brand you're on.
00:52:03
Speaker
If you get that belt and then you lose it, that should hurt. That should change you, you know what I mean? Feeling pain like that, losing that title should change you. You shouldn't be showing up a couple weeks later as the exact same character. But that's why I said Kofi's reign, as cool as Kofi mania was at that moment at Mania 35 when he won the belt, I see it as a huge failure because Kofi was immediately back to just being a mid-carter tag. He was slinging pancakes like the next week.
00:52:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I love Kofi. We love Kofi. We were seeing Kofi's craziness for years before he went for that. We had been saying Kofi should be a main eventer before that, but it's just, you know, these guys, nothing matters, you know? So why should we get him mostly invested in these groups? It's not their fault. Yeah, we're not blaming the...
00:52:41
Speaker
wrestlers. It's definitely creative. We're blaming the creative that that's the worst thing. And I mean, we see every single week, there are people out there, marks out there, fantasy booking, amazing storylines that could like, you know, create just epic TV.
00:52:58
Speaker
And the least they could do is steal some of those ideas. If they can't come up with anything on their own, at least just go to Twitter and just see what people are saying because there's some pretty, as much crap as there is on Twitter. Some people are doing some seriously awesome fantasy booking on Twitter.
00:53:13
Speaker
We know that they're capable because look at NXT, you know what I mean? I mean, NXT is not perfect by any means, but they don't use the same creatives though. Yeah, they have long-term compelling storylines, but it's still WWE, you know what I mean? So reach down to NXT, talk to those guys, figure out what they're doing, what's working there.
00:53:28
Speaker
Yeah, but you know, hunters can freakin' jerk a knot in their ass if they're like, if they're doing the same stuff that's going on at SmackDown and Raw. You know what I mean? Like, it's two different management. You know what I mean? Like, it's just totally... Yeah, but it's still pro wrestling. You could... I'm not saying take every single thing they're doing. I'm saying you could take some of the concepts that they're using, some of their overall philosophy that they have towards booking and apply it to the main roster and you would see more people get over and when they get over, they would stay over. It wouldn't be these things where
00:53:55
Speaker
You go over for a couple months and you go back to doing whatever you were doing. Well, you heard, I mean, for like, you know, it was, I mean, it had to be for like six weeks straight. Uh, last year we heard every time they would come in, Vince would just like rip up the script and just write some, write something else like on the fly, you know? And I was like, why are we doing that? Like, why are we freaking playing this game where we're writing everything on the fly, you know? Marco, what's your take, man? What do you think of WWE creative right now?
00:54:23
Speaker
Well, I think that's where you guys are kind of, well, not forgetting, but like missing the fact that like, obviously, WWE and NXT are two different entities. They have two different creative teams and two different everything. So they're not gonna, I mean, Vince McMahon is not gonna take cues from NXT. I don't care what anyone says. He's not gonna send his writing team down there and figure out what they're doing. He's gonna do everything on his own. He's been doing it for the past,
00:54:51
Speaker
freaking almost over 50 years doing all this stuff. Yeah, it's clear you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Yeah, so the main roster's not going to change until there's a different management. I'm not saying it's not all bad, it's not all good. I think Eric Bischoff said it best where professional wrestling or sports entertainment is like a buffet.
00:55:15
Speaker
There's something for everybody. There are people that might like that, that, hey, hey hip hop hop or whatever that was. There might be an audience for that. There might be an audience for the charades. But you have to have a balance though. There has to be a balance. We barely saw any wrestling on Monday. It was all backstage segments and just in-ring promos. Yeah.
00:55:38
Speaker
To me, and I love a storyline, I love a good promo, that's what I'm here for. The technical aspects like the in-ring wrestling, I love that too. But for me, it's all about the storytelling and having those storylines pay off and how you get there and WWE is just.
00:55:56
Speaker
recently, it's been really good. Yeah. I think what's happening too is these shows are going on and they're leading up to WrestleMania, but they're not. It's almost like one of those things like, oh my God, we forgot to get this past Monday. Like you said, it was mostly promos and in-ring stuff. It was just like, oh my God, we forgot to do that on that last Monday show because there was so much wrestling.
00:56:18
Speaker
And then we get to fill it this week with all the provos and catch everyone up and all that stuff. And the actual WrestleMania event will probably be really good. I mean, that's the thing. Yeah, I was about to say, the card looks amazing right now. I'm hyped for the card. The card looks really, really good. So I have little to no doubts that it's going to deliver.
00:56:33
Speaker
it'd just be a lot more fun if we were emotionally invested leading up to it. If we could anticipate it. If we didn't have to say like, yeah, the cards would be good, but the build has sucked. Because we were talking a little bit before we came on the air. The last time a build was kind of this universally reviled was at WrestleMania 31. That was the big matches for that show where
00:56:54
Speaker
were Seth and Randy Orton. Roman and Brock was the main event. You had Undertaker and Bray Wyatt and Sting and Triple H. The Intercontinental Letter Match. Yeah, same thing. The build was all over the place. There were a lot of just really, really lame segments, like the type of segments you'd be embarrassed if you were a wrestling fan and somebody who was a non-fan saw you watching them. But then the show delivered. The show was a classic. I think WrestleMania 31 is in the top three or four best WrestleManias ever. There wasn't a bad match on the show. Everything over-delivered.
00:57:24
Speaker
I'm hoping that we get a replay right now because at the end of the day, people are going to remember mania. They're not really going to remember the build, but yeah, it's been bad and it's hard to look up. You know, Smackdown has been decent most weeks. It hasn't been great by any means, but Smackdown has been decent, but raw has just been horrible for the last like seven or eight weeks. Like it's not that it's not that it was great before that, but it was the least watchable. You get to pick out some stuff that you liked, but it, but the last few weeks, it has really gone off a cliff to the point where
00:57:51
Speaker
you know in our facebook group which is some of the hardest of the hardcore fans the people that are always going to try to find something to love they're saying like how are we supposed to watch this shit right now yeah it is it is definitely tough tough to watch as a as a wrestling fan but uh
00:58:06
Speaker
And you would be embarrassed if you had non-wrestling fans. If I was like, hey, I think you'd like this wrestling thing and had them sit down with me on Monday and watch that show, I would have been mortified that people think that that's what I watch and spend my time doing and have a podcast about.
00:58:24
Speaker
Well, yeah, that happened on Monday. I was watching it, and the charade scene comes on, and my wife is like, what the hell are they doing? Yeah. And I'm like, oh, this is what I'm watching. Nothing to see here. Yeah, just go to sleep. Yeah, move it along. Just go to bed. But yeah, I kind of allude to it on the Turbuckle Tavern debate show, which airs on Monday, all this upcoming Monday. I kind of allude to it where, you know,
00:58:54
Speaker
the paper views man in between in between Royal Rumble and media you have so basically you have all these feuds where you're trying to do like blow-offs and stuff the blow-off should be at Wrestle media it shouldn't be anywhere in between Wrestle media
00:59:09
Speaker
No, yeah, you shouldn't be doing blow offs. Get rid of the elimination chamber. Nobody likes premature blow offs. Yeah, nobody likes premature blow offs. You have all these feuds, you build all these feuds from Royal Rumble and then you do the blow offs at elimination chamber. Yeah, you should be using. We've hit our quota for blow offs.
00:59:30
Speaker
Yeah, so that's what it is. You're trying to build storylines all the way up into media. Yeah, you should be using those additional pay-per-views to build a car. Not even pay-per-views. I think we should totally get rid of them. All that stuff should be TV time. Yeah, we talked about that last week. Why do we have so many pay-per-views between Royal Rumble and WrestleMania?
00:59:50
Speaker
You want to make raw better. The reason why AEW is doing great is because they're far between their pay-per-views. But what they do is they utilize their TV time to give you those storylines and give you pay-per-view caliber matches that they need to. And WWE used to do that stuff. Exactly. How AEW will have a branded episode of Dynamite back in the day. This is even prior to the In Your House days. I remember they would have
01:00:18
Speaker
Raw Survivor Series showdown and it would kind of be like that was like your lead up show for Survivor Series, you know, so you had it was a little bit hyped up. You had a couple big matches on there, you know, that would get you up instead of having to have another pay-per-view where you got to have, you know, six or seven matches on there. It's just you start to run out of stuff to do, you know. Yeah. All right, so let's end on a high note for Inside the Squared Circle this week. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get ready to rumble.
01:00:51
Speaker
It is time for the latest showdown in the chick Foley show prediction championship. 2021 has been coming up. Sheena all the way. She has been dominating Marco. He did. He did hold the title for a brief stint. Yeah. That was coming out of, uh, that was coming out of what was TLC. What was our last show of 2020? Was it, uh,
01:01:13
Speaker
It was TLC, right? Yeah, it was TLC, right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, TLC was our last show 2020 and Marco's been dominating since then. Sheena. Yeah, she's been dominating since then. Excuse me. I moved on from the juice bomb to a broken skull IPA. So we may go off the rails here on the second half of the show.
01:01:32
Speaker
We're going to kick it off. We're going to go in order. She is going to kiss off. Let's start with night one. Pete Dunn versus Kushida. This is kind of the few to establish she was the best technical wrestler in the world. Sheena, what's your prediction?
01:01:44
Speaker
So, um, I love the bruiser way. I think, I don't know, nothing, nothing against Kashida, but I just don't think he's going to be the person to get over on Pete Dunne. Um, I think Pete Dunne is just a bad-ass and he is the ultimate technical wrestler. So I'm going to my man Pete Dunne. All right, Marco.
01:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. Definitely Pete Dunne on this one. Before, I want to say Kashida, because he was kind of on a roll, beating everyone last year and then coming into this year too. But he's stepping in front of one of the, like she said, one of the most badass dudes, not just in NXT, but in wrestling, in fact. So yeah, definitely Pete Dunne.
01:02:28
Speaker
The great thing about NXT, this is something they've been doing for years, you know, really, since we've been watching it is when it comes to takeover, you don't know who's going to win. Yes, like a lot of times on WWE, sometimes they'll swerve us. But there's always an obvious answer for who is going to win the match nine times out of 10 on the main roster pay-per-views. This one can go either way. Both these guys are desperate for a victory at the last takeover, Kushida,
01:02:52
Speaker
lost to Johnny Gargano and Pete Dunne lost to Finn Balor. So whoever loses this one is taking a tumble down the card. Pete Dunne is obviously, he's in the main event tier on NXT because she does a really strong mid-carter. One of these guys is going to take a tumble off of this. So both these guys got to be desperate for a win. I could see it going either way. I think Pete Dunne is going to win just because Pete Dunne's got the legacy of coming up big on big matches.
01:03:17
Speaker
We've kind of seen Kashida fail or not once they fail, but come up short time and time again. And it's made into a heel turn, you know, because there's only so many times you could take a loss without something changing. And so I agree with you guys. I think Pete Dunn is going to take it. But this should be an excellent match. And I'd love to see this. You know, I put it first just kind of because that's how I wrote the matches down. I'd love I think this would be a perfect opener to kick off our four big nights of wrestling on Mania Week because the match is definitely going to deliver. It's going to stand and deliver. See what I did there?
01:03:49
Speaker
Alright, up next we got the triple threat match to crown the vacant NXT tag team champions. We got MSK going up against Legado Del Fantasma and Grizzled Young Veterans. Marco, you're up first. MSK, that's it. There's no other explanation. Keep the momentum going. Yeah, they're definitely winning. They're the tag team of NXT. I don't see them losing this match at all. Alright, Sheena.
01:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going with MSK too, but I can totally see, like you said, it could go anyway. Any one of these three tag teams are worthy champions, but I can totally see it going to one of the heal teams and then MSK having to fight their way back to the titles. But yeah, I'm going with MSK retain.
01:04:36
Speaker
I actually disagree with you guys. I think Grizzled Young Veterans are going to win this one. Even though they came up short against MSK in the Dusty Cup, they had a hell of a showing. And they're kind of similar to Koshida. They've been coming up short for a while now. And I think it's their time to shine. The Gallaudet Phantasm is there. I could see a situation where maybe MSK is ready to win.
01:04:56
Speaker
but grizzled young veterans steal the pin somehow and then we see MSK chase grizzled young veterans for the first few months of the kind of new year of wrestling once we wrap up mania weekend. So I'm picking grizzled young veterans on that one even though my prediction does not count. Who did you pick in the first one? We'll just have you I'm gonna I'm gonna write down your picks as honorary you know. I said Pete Dunn I think Pete Dunn's gonna win yeah I think Pete Dunn's gonna win we see we see some sort of change in kashida going forward.
01:05:22
Speaker
Alright, so up next, this is our first big money match of Mania weekend. And again, just to let you guys know, we kind of went back and forth on how we were going to cover the week of, you know, the next week and a half of wrestling because it's about to be jam packed next week. Just on WWE action is going to be slammed, not even taking into account AEW, NWA and MLW, which we occasionally touch on as well. The
01:05:46
Speaker
We're going to record next Thursday night as well. So both weeks it's going to be Friday at six o'clock Eastern is when the episode's going to drop. So next Thursday night, right after takeover ends, we're going to come on and give you guys some lightning fresh reactions and review from takeover. And then we're going to do our mania predictions next week. If anyone's wondering how we were going to cover that. So.
01:06:07
Speaker
We'll talk, we'll run down the mania card next week. But let's move on to our first big money match of the night. Walter, the almost two year reigning, defending, undisputed UK champ. I think by the time the show comes around, he will have been, he will have held it for two years. He's defending the UK championship against Tommaso Ciampa. Sheena, you're up first.
01:06:29
Speaker
I am so hyped for this
NXT Match Predictions
01:06:31
Speaker
match. I think it could definitely be match of the night. Match of the week. Yeah, match of the event of stand and deliver. I think... I love Tommaso Ciampa, you guys know. I love Daddy. I just got to go with Walter, man. I can't see anybody taking the title from him. Again, he's the longest reigning.
01:06:57
Speaker
also breaking kayfabe a little bit. I don't see Tommaso flying over across the pond to defend that thing, but yeah, going with Walter.
01:07:06
Speaker
All right, Marco. Yeah, same here. Walter. There's no stopping him. I'm not sure who's going to stop him, but it's not going to be for a very long time. I don't know who's going to stop him either. It's really like, I'm just thinking, I'm like, who is it going to be to finally... He's going to have to relinquish it. He's going to have to be like, Oscar, just give up. This is the second straight match. You guys are zigging. I'm zagging. I think Tommaso Ciampa, he's a lion in winter right now. You guys were clowning on his...
01:07:35
Speaker
Hit his appearance last week. I think he's a desperate animal backed into a corner right now And you never want to fight him. I think somehow some way he's gonna get a win now I don't think he's gonna go out and hit the the fairy tale ending or put on the you know the Gargano stretch and get this guy to To tap out somehow some way though. He's gonna find a way to steal this match You know with some sort of you know pinning combination out of nowhere some way Champa is gonna win and he's gonna end the streak of Walter now
01:08:04
Speaker
I would love to see it. I mean, I love Walter and I mean, I'm cool if he wins too. But I mean, I would I would pop hard if Tommaso Ciampa. Don't get me wrong. I think he's going to catch the ass open of a lifetime in the rematch and drop that strap right back. But I think we are going to see Ciampa holding that NXT UK title and ending the strain of Walter. He cut a wicked promo on Wednesday. Did you see? Did you see? Oh, yeah. He's back to being main event Ciampa.
01:08:29
Speaker
Yeah, they ripped his necklace off. And then he kind of told the story of what that necklace meant to him. And he just freaking snapped, dude. So, yeah. I mean, well, hopefully with the money that he gets after he loses, he could buy another one. He's not winning. I think Chompa is going to be holding that belt up. You know, again, I don't think it's going to be for a long time, but I think he will. I won't be mad if the Silver Fox is standing tall at the end of the night. All right. We're going to move on to the main event of night one.
01:08:58
Speaker
Another long-term champ, Io Shirai, she's closing in on a year as NXT Women's Champion. She is going to be defending against Raquel Gonzalez. Marco Europe first.
01:09:08
Speaker
Oh man, I think I said this a couple weeks back. I think we said if Io Shirai was on a big stage defending this title that she would probably lose it. And I think that might happen. I think I'm going Raquel. That's the only title change I see on night one is Raquel Gonzalez winning the women's title there.
01:09:31
Speaker
Breaking kayfabe that NXT is behind her. She's She's it. I mean, there's a reason why they had a momentum. Yeah Yeah, I think there's a reason why they didn't hold the NXT women's tag team titles That one I mean in one night they lost it. I think they have big plans for her as a solo Superstar, so yeah with Raquel on this one
01:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's kind of ridiculous to pick against EO because she's proven us wrong time and time again. I mean, she's overcome some pretty freaking stiff competition. Last time I said she was going to get beat by Toni Storm. I thought Toni Storm was going to
01:10:11
Speaker
take the title from EO and sure enough, you know, she proved me wrong. But I feel, it feels a little bit different right now. I feel like, you know, the winds of change are coming and I'm going to go with Raquel too. Man, you should have told me you were going to drop that line. I would have had the winds of change by the scorpions queued up ready to go. Get the whistle going. Oh, man. Yeah, I think it's going to be Raquel. I think she's going to take EO out.
01:10:35
Speaker
I agree. I've been on record as saying that I think Io Shirai is the best women's wrestler in the world. I stand by that. But championship fatigue is a thing. She's had, she's been a fighting champion and had a lot of really, really hard fought title defenses over the past year. Raquel Gans also got a ton of momentum and I think it's her time. I think she's going to rise up and take that women's championship on night one.
01:10:57
Speaker
We still have one more match to go for night one, even though it's not the main event. I want to save it for last because it's tied into a match on night two and we're going to do these two matches back to back. So Sheena, you're going to be up first. This is the gauntlet match to determine who's fighting Johnny Gargano on night two for the North American championship. We got Leon Ruff, Isaiah Swerve Scott, Bronson Reed, Cameron GameStop Grimes, Dexter Loomis and LA Knight. Sheena, who's your pick to win the gauntlet match?
01:11:26
Speaker
This one's tough, because I feel like, you know, there's a few good contenders here. I mean, Cameron Grimes has like crazy hype right now and crazy momentum.
01:11:37
Speaker
Just tough because you could tell a one-night story with a gauntlet match We talked about that before had there be to be really excels at booking gauntlet matches and any of these guys You can make them a super credible challenger for Johnny Gargano in one night regardless of what they've been doing up to now So yeah, this I this is a tough one for you guys I mean, yeah where you guys go and then you know, you got Bronson Reed who's just a freakin behemoth who could literally just take out any of these guys, you know And I feel like him versus Johnny Gargano would be a crazy good match
01:12:07
Speaker
And then you get this freaking crazy eyes Dexter Lumis, who I feel like is the other big, big contender here. Okay. I am going to go with, I think I'm going to go with Bronson Reed. I think Bronson Reed is going to win this. I kind of made a last minute gut check change. I had somebody else in mind, but I think I'm going to talk myself into Bronson. He's definitely one of the favorites. Marco, who's your pick?
01:12:38
Speaker
Huh. Um, just to keep with the storyline that's been going on, um, just cause we make for like a pretty good match, just kind of like a, uh, like a culmination of this storyline. I'm going to go with Dexter Lumis as the next pick. Yeah, he was, he was my, uh, my, uh, my original pick. Um, but then I kind of talked to myself into Bronson as I was going through it in my head.
01:13:05
Speaker
Bronson is definitely a like a credible pick because he's been destroying everybody. I see Bronson kind of I could see I'm gonna break kayfabe here. I see Bronson having a really strong showing and coming up short because I think they're ready to push him to the main event level. I think that's going to be his you know his path for the rest of 2021 and 2022. I think they want to elevate him to that main event NXT championship level and I think he may end up just kind of bypassing the the North American Championship picture.
01:13:35
Speaker
Yeah. All right. So who's your pick, Marco? Dexter. What about you, sir? Yeah, I agree. I think Dexter is the most motivated to get to Johnny Gargano and get his hands on him. So I agree with you. I think Dexter is going to win it. You know, making me feel like I should have regretted my change of heart now. All right. Marco, you're going to kick off night two. So who do you think is going to win out of Dexter and Johnny Gargano? Oh, man. See, this is...
01:14:01
Speaker
This is a tough one, so I did pick Dexter Loomis to win. Does he win two nights in a row? That's the other thing. Does Dexter Loomis... This is for the North American Championship, right? Yep. Oh, man.
01:14:18
Speaker
This Dexter that here's the thing is always it's always does does this person need a title? Does it does it is a title gonna make that person? Yeah, yeah, see that's that's that's where I always have played back and forth with it Can Dexter Lewis pull off two wins in a row if he does win the the gauntlet match I
01:14:43
Speaker
Man, I'm going to go, I'll go with, I'll go with Dexter. I'm going to go with Dexter as a two time winner. Let's, let's, let's, let's throw some dice on this one. Dexter Loomis to take away the North American championship. All right. Sheena Bronson Reed versus Johnny Gargano. I'm going with Bronson dude. I think if they're going to push him to that level, I think if he's going to get over the, the gauntlet hump, he's going to, uh, he's going to go all the way on the, uh, going to Keith Lee route, throwing the North American championship on him. Yep. Yep.
01:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think Johnny Gargano is going to find a way to keep that belt. He's Mr. NXT. He had his run with the NXT Championship. I think he settled in to kind of be in the gatekeeper between the mid-card and the main event level. You still got Austin Theory, who's going to be out there. Obviously, he's fiercely loyal to Johnny, and I think he's going to find a way to play into the match, whether it's Bronson Reed, Dexter Loomis, or whoever. I think Austin Theory is going to come in with the assist, and Johnny Gargano is going to retain that North American Championship.
01:15:40
Speaker
All right, let's move on to the NXT women's tag team belts. We got Ember and Shotzi going up against the way, keeping up with the Garganos. Sheena, you're up first. Who do you think is going to win this one? I'm going with, what are we calling them? Black Moon? So there's Black Moon, there's Moonshots, it's whatever you want.
01:16:01
Speaker
I'm going with Black Moon. I think, uh, I'm going with them. Uh, it just won their bad-ass. I love Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart. Um, I just feel like they can't keep bouncing these women's titles around. Like they got to defend them. They got to give them some clout. And I think Ember and Shotzi are the ones to do that. All right, Marco.
01:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I gotta go with my girl Shotzi and Ember Moon. Yeah, they're definitely retaining the titles. I was gonna pick the way at first, but...
01:16:33
Speaker
Yeah. The way could totally win this, you know, there's, there's definitely, they're definitely not out of the picture, but in my mind. They destroyed Shotzi's tank and they got a little bit of payback for that, but I still don't think they got their fool. Um, you know, I know this term is kind of bad in wrestling now, but they never got their full retribution before they did to her tank. I think they're going to get it. I think they're going to get their asses kicked.
01:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think Johnny will retain that his title but but I don't see that you know the way leaving with the with three belts Yeah on at a takeover stand and deliver. So yeah, I'm in agrees with you guys moon shots will retain Up next we get the unsanctioned match, you know shock the system the fall of the undisputed era Adam Cole versus Kyle O'Reilly Marco Europe first
01:17:19
Speaker
Man this one. This is this is this is one that could definitely go either way but I'm gonna go with the person that has the most to gain off of this and one has the most The revenge written in their blood and that's KLR Combat Kyle O'Reilly. I'm picking him new out To kind of destroy Adam Cole Wow. All right, Sheena
01:17:47
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going with Kyle O'Reilly too. Kyle O'Reilly has had some incredible matches since they've started to push him a little bit. And I think him and Adam Cole are just gonna be an incredible matchup. They know each other so well. I think it's just gonna be bananas. And yeah, Kyle O'Reilly's going over. And I think this is gonna be Adam Cole's farewell to NXT.
01:18:15
Speaker
Do you guys think this might get the cinematic treatment or is this definitely going to be just a regular match inside the Capitol Wrestling Center? I think it's going to be a regular match. These guys can definitely hang and put on just a five-star classic. Yeah, I agree. I just thought the way it was presented so far on TV, I thought they at least left the door open that this could be somewhat of a different style presentation. That's possible. But yeah, definitely seems like we're probably moving away from
01:18:38
Speaker
from cinematic. I actually, this is another one, man. I'm kind of on different page with you guys on this take over a bit. I think Adam Cole is going to get his ass kicked. I think he, you know, we may see some a little bit of blood. I think he's going to Marco. You're right. I think he's going to get destroyed. But somehow, some way, I think he is going to win this match, man. I think maybe Roderick Strong comes back into play. He seems like he's a little bit of a lost soul with undisputed era kind of falling apart. We saw that on Wednesday night.
01:19:05
Speaker
I think maybe he's thinking that he needs to latch on to something and it might be Adam Cole and we see Robert Shawn come back and help Adam retain over Kyle O'Reilly, you know, and then we still got Bobby Fish coming back from injury pretty soon. Maybe even, you know, imagine a tag team match with Adam Cole and Roddy against, you know, the original red dragon Kyle O'Reilly.
01:19:24
Speaker
And Bobby Fish, could you imagine how insane that match would be? Oh, yeah. So I think Roger Strong may actually come in and play a factor in this one way or another. But I think Adam Cole, even though he's getting his ass kicked, I think he is going to win this match. How do you know that Kyle O'Reilly doesn't have an ace in the name of Pat McAfee? He might show up. You never know. Oh, my gosh. That would be a serious, serious word. That would be, yeah. Yeah.
01:19:54
Speaker
Let's go on. This is another match along with Walter and Champa. I think he has the potential to kind of steal the show for the whole week of wrestling. This is the ladder match to unify the cruiserweight championships. I love the presentation to set this up when HBK came out to kind of announce it. Jordan Devlin and Santos Escobar ladder match to crown the undisputed cruiserweight champion. Sheena, you're up.
01:20:19
Speaker
So I am going to go with Santos Escobar. One, just because I like him better than Jordan Devlin straight up. So I'm pulling for him. But yeah. Jordan Devlin's like diet Finn Balor to me.
01:20:34
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. I couldn't kind of put my finger on it. I was just like, you know, what, what is it about him? Besides, besides the fact that I think he had some like, you know, questionable actions. Didn't he back in the, all the, uh, nothing that really stuck, but yeah, his name, his name was thrown around in the dirt a little bit. He kind of, he kind of got drugged through the mud a little bit, but, uh, yeah, I'm going with Santos Escobar for this, but yeah, I agree with you. It's going to be an insane match. Uh, could be match of the weekend for sure. Marco.
01:21:02
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. Definitely Santos Escobar is my pick. He's definitely proved himself over the past, over the past year actually. He's kind of grown on me when he first came with the mask on and stuff like that and then revealed himself.
01:21:17
Speaker
You know, yeah, I was no hate to Angel Garza, but with Andrade gone, I think sometimes Escobar is the best luchador in the entire WWE system right now. You know, yeah, yeah. Yeah, without it. It's awesome. He can cut a promo. He's a freaking superstar in the ring. He looks the part.
01:21:33
Speaker
And I see big big things for this guy. Yeah in some ways I feel like the Cruiserweight title may be holding them back because I think this guy's ready to again He'd be it be right in the mix in the NXT main event scene But yeah, we just want the Cruiserweight title, you know here here on the mainland, you know what I mean? Not that we love NXT UK but sometimes it just doesn't make it on the the wrestling agenda for the week It's hard to find time for it's hard to find time and you know It's been you know, pretty much canceled for the better part of a year. So
01:22:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So Santos definitely gets my win over a Finn Balor light. I agree. All right. It's time. Speaking of Finn Balor light, this is our main event of takeover stand and deliver. It's been a big match. People have been talking about it for a long time and it's finally here. Finn Balor defending the NXT. It's a match 25 years in the making.
01:22:29
Speaker
I wouldn't go that far, but it's a big one. 30 years. 100 years. Finn Balor, the Finn the NXT Championship against Karrion Kross, Marco Europe first. Oh, man. A lot has changed since this match has taken place. Man, I want to go with Finn Balor on this one, but... Oh, boy. Oh, God, here comes the book.
01:22:58
Speaker
Are you sure? Yeah, I'm sure. I think I'm going with Karrion. I think Karrion's winning the title. Take back the title he never lost. I'm just missing the fact that he's not going to the main roster just yet. I think since the move to Tuesday, the move to Tuesday changed my perspective a lot because I could see Finn Balor easily losing and showing back up on the main roster.
01:23:23
Speaker
Okay. Because where they kind of don't need him in the quote unquote Wednesday night wars. And they desperately need him on Raw and SmackDown or SmackDown. Yes, exactly. So, I mean, yeah, I'm going to carry it.
01:23:40
Speaker
He's on a roll. He's like, he destroys everyone. I don't see him just losing to Finn Balor either. That's the other thing. Not that Finn Balor is just like some guy that you could beat easily. It's just, it's carrying cross that you've seen what he's done for the past months, just destroying everybody. Just coming back from his injury. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going with carrying. Shana, your pick.
01:24:03
Speaker
I cannot disagree, I'm gonna go with Karian. Finn Balor has been a strong NXT champion since coming back to NXT. He's the man and to go over Finn Balor, Karian has a lot to gain by getting this win. And I think it's really gonna help just solidify him as a legitimate champion and really kind of re
01:24:28
Speaker
Integrate him into that title picture and just make people remember why we were so hyped for him to come to NXT in the first place. And I'm going with Carrie in on this.
01:24:40
Speaker
Wow. I am just really on a different page from you guys on this event. I think Finn is going to retain and I'm pretty, I'm very, very confident in that pick. Um, one, I just felt like Finn's got the momentum and just kind of breaking kayfabe. I feel like Finn's going to win and this is going to be carrying across his swans on for NXT. Cause he already won the belt. He had his moment, you know, at the, I forget what that, he didn't, he didn't even get to have his moment. He had to relinquish the following week.
01:25:07
Speaker
Right, but nobody, but I'm saying he had his moment where he won the belt, you know, he beat Keith Lee clean as a sheet for the belt. And you get to be a reigning defending champion, though. So it's like that moment was taken away from him. Right. But we saw that with Drew, you know, Drew won the belt and then he lost it. He got injured and lost it in his first defense. And the next time we saw him was on the main roster. I think that this I think this last little stint on NXT for Karrion Kross has kind of just been like a rehab thing, like you see in baseball sometimes when guys are gone,
01:25:37
Speaker
with an injury for a long time. They'll come back and do a couple of weeks in the minor leagues before they come back to the MLB. I think it's the same thing for Karen Cross. I think this is a little pit stop and I could see him debuting on the first draw or smack down after WrestleMania. I think he's ready to go for the main roster, but more importantly, I just feel like Finn has established himself as the man in NXT. That's his thing. And quite frankly, I think Finn is one of the best wrestlers in the world right now. You know, I think he's probably a top two or three pro wrestler in the entire world.
01:26:07
Speaker
He is, which is why it's going to be so mage whenever Karrion goes over. Exactly, yeah. I don't think Karrion's going to go over because I think Finn is better than Karrion. Hey, you guys heard it here first. I'm doubling down. I think Finn Balor is going to win this match at TakeOver. We'll see who's right. Maybe we need to start making this prediction championship a triple threat. Maybe that's what needs to happen. I'm not scared. Bring it.
01:26:31
Speaker
Yeah, I'm definitely on a different page with you guys on this event for on a few of these matches But but yeah, I think Finn's gonna win. So we'll see what happens and I'll definitely be ready to eat crow I got all your I got all your picks down here brother. So You know, the great thing is
01:26:48
Speaker
The great thing is that we are going to be going live next week's episode literally like right as the bell rings after this match. Marco and Sheena can throw the alley-oop and dunk on me if I'm wrong on this one. Let's do a quick recap. Which matches did you guys differ on, Sheena? What's going to be the deciding matches on sand and deliver?
01:27:04
Speaker
So the deciding matches, it's going to be the gauntlet and the North American title because he chose Dexter Lumis for both. Both of you guys picked Gargano to lose though, right? We both picked Gargano to lose, but I think... So we got the gauntlet match then, so that one's going to count, and then that was it, right? Yeah, I picked... Well, he picked Dexter to win and I picked Bronson. Yeah, but that will cancel out. That's true. Yeah, that's true.
01:27:31
Speaker
And then let me see if there was a match is that the only one you guys different on let me do a quick run down yeah that's it. Marco and I we're pretty synced up to mark yeah you guys are both cut from the same cloth on your your wrestling fandom.
01:27:46
Speaker
So yeah, that gauntlet match is going to be the big one to determine if she never and remember guys, if it's a tie, she retains the belt. So she may be able to hold it through mania. We just have some kind of wildcard winner in that gauntlet match. You guys ready for go figure? Let's go.
01:28:03
Speaker
Drop by and visit the Turnbuckle Tavern, where every Thursday, we give you the most in-depth analysis of all things AEW, as well as dive into impact wrestling, NWA, and all things NDA. If you like heated debates, compelling interviews, and a shot of nostalgia, you'll love the Turnbuckle Tavern, available on Apple and Spotify. Drink it in. It always goes down smooth.
01:28:39
Speaker
go figures where we cover the latest and greatest in the world of wrestling figures and talk about what we've each added to our own personal collections reminder this segment is brought to you by our good friends at ringside collectibles the number one worldwide retailer in wrestling figures use code chick Foley to save 10% on all your orders at ringside and here we go
01:29:03
Speaker
All right, Marco, take us away with figure news. All right, let's start it off with a little ringside news. We have a little bit of the bubbly Chris Jericho ringside exclusive back in stock. So obviously, if you order it, use a cold chick fully for 10% off your order.
Wrestling Figures and Collectibles
01:29:21
Speaker
So I haven't seen anybody that's gotten it off of the restock. Do we know if the if the skin tones were updated? I know that good for the show. I'm gonna steal your line, Marco.
01:29:31
Speaker
Jeremy Padour said that there was a reissue overseas when the Series 1 AEW figures came out. They had updated the skin tones. That was the big criticism with Series 1 AEW was that the skin tones were just kind of pasty and, you know, kind of dead for lack of a better term. Have you seen, is the skin tone updated on that bubbly Chris Jericho figure?
01:29:52
Speaker
I haven't seen it yet because I haven't either. I think it's the same promotion, the exact same photos. It may not be the same figure, but I think the listing is still the same. Jericho's not a super tan dude anyway. I was just wondering if it was any differences because it's been damn near a year since that figure came out. I think it was July last year when we got
01:30:17
Speaker
that figure. And so yeah, we're almost, you know, it's about eight months since then. So I was wondering if there were any differences. This is for the people out there who are buying these things as investments. I do think this Jericho figure could be a good one to get and keep MOC because it really is the original AEW figure. It came out a month before series one hit anywhere. So this is the first AEW figure. And I think that line is well on its way to being one of the best ever in wrestling history.
01:30:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think so too. I definitely agree with that. I actually might pick up another one just in case. I'm thinking about it, man. You guys know, if anybody's heard us, me and Sheena are hardcore, anti-MOC. But yeah, I am actually thinking about it just because it does have the status as being the OG, AEW figure. So I can see this one maybe 10 or 15 years from now being worth some big bucks.
01:31:08
Speaker
The packaging too, it's display worthy too as well. Yeah, even though we unboxed ours, we definitely kept the packaging because it's just so unique, you know? Yeah. Also, the Mr. T Vardy Piper Elite 2 pack is also back in stock as well. So if you didn't get to get that the first time around, it's back there. Awesome.
01:31:29
Speaker
Awesome Elite two-pack. Great set, man. I didn't add that set to my collection just because I'm not a fan of that match and I already have an awesome Roddy Piper and I have the San Diego Comic Con Mr. T. But if you're a fan of WrestleMania 2 or you just like having unique figures, they nailed it on this collection with the robes and the boxing gloves. Boxing gloves are a cool accessory. Yeah, just a really, really cool set.
01:31:50
Speaker
Yeah, just seeing like WWE League figures with boxing glove hands, which is pretty cool. But yeah, hopefully they do some other type of stuff. Maybe do like a... What was it? Why am I forgetting the tournament that they did? The bra for all. The bra for all. Yeah, give us a... Yeah, give us a heart gun and butter bean. Two pack, there we go.
01:32:16
Speaker
Speaking of two-packs, the Triple H and Jeff Hardy Elite two-pack is also in stock. Yeah, me and Sheena, we unboxed that on IG Live on Monday night. Sheena, what do you think of that two-pack? During that Repug episode of Raw. This is AJ's playing charades and pictures. Yeah, I was like, we got to do something to pick up the marks, dude. I know they're not trying to watch this shit. No, it looks awesome, dude.
01:32:38
Speaker
They always nail Jeff Hardy. I think his figures always look amazing. But yeah, it's definitely worth a pickup for the two pack.
01:32:47
Speaker
Yeah. Um, no, it's a, I mean, they'll eat two packs. I think that kind of like at the beginning stages, it was just like, I thought it was going to be like a one, like a one time deal when they had the AJ styles and fit Valerwood. But, uh, now obviously it's became like, it's become like a staple. Yeah. It's a running line. I look forward to them. They said the next line, the next ones are going to be, um, modern day superstars. So I'm really excited to see who they do.
01:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, because the original one, they broke up up. It was supposed to be an Italian night hearted anvil. Oh yeah, an anvil in the two-packs. Yeah, they first announced the two-packs. Remember they did the Ringside exclusive two-pack, just the Hardy Boys. It was like that epic moments.
01:33:27
Speaker
Uh, yeah, said, or what was it? Epic moments was, that was part of the Epic moment sign. The Hardy boys were the brood figures. Yeah. Zook style shirts and stuff. Oh yeah. That was a ringside exclusive. And then we announced, yeah, the elite two pack as I kind of like a line. They actually had that night hearted AJ and we had AJ and Finn, then we had some Mojo and Ray Mysterio. Yes. Well, after that, it was supposed to be the, there's China and triple H, right?
01:33:56
Speaker
Yeah, China Triple H, but they split. They ended up making an Anvila Collectors edition, and then Nattie was in one of the Everyone series. We had Bretton Goldberg. That was another cool set. Yeah. Great moment at WCW. They do well because they've been selling out, and then the secondary market, the value has been going up on these things after they sell out.
01:34:18
Speaker
on ringside and Amazon. So hopefully these keep going for a while. Cause anytime you get, you know, two figures instead of school and Mattel's done a great job of making the packaging unique for all of these, you know, Bretton Goldberg had the nitro style packaging. Triple H and Jeff Hardy had the old school Smackdown look. So yeah, I'm a big fan of this line and I hope it keeps going for a while.
01:34:36
Speaker
Yeah. Do you get the, uh, with the, uh, Mr. T and Roddy Piper, you get the WrestleMania backdrop as well, which is pretty cool. WrestleMania two. Yep. Um, so we'll move on to these. I'm not sure if you have, yeah, it's familiar with these, uh, Fogo, uh, limited. Yeah, this Daniel Bryan one is freaking awesome. Yeah.
01:34:55
Speaker
Yeah, so they're limited to 144 pieces. They cost about 50 bucks, but this one in particular from Daniel Bryan, it depicts his WrestleMania 30 win. These are the most elaborate bobbleheads I've ever seen. Yeah, they're pretty awesome. They look pretty big, man. These would definitely be a very striking display piece in the collection. I feel like if you had
01:35:18
Speaker
Like an individualized collection like if you have like a big Daniel Bryan collection, you would have to have this piece. Yeah, it looks incredible man Yeah, I mean I would get it just cuz I attended that the WrestleMania 30 where he did with that So I think that'd be like a little like a pretty cool piece. Yeah 50 bucks isn't bad for as nice as this thing is, you know, that's a no price point There's some serious some serious TLC. Yeah, and it's got like a little ring base and everything. I
01:35:43
Speaker
You know, yeah, it is a both titles and he's holding him up kind of like that the picture the iconic picture Everything looks really good on these. Yeah So the second one I just see this one this one is insane. Yeah, this was a $90 one and it's a edge Sparing Jeff Hardy off of the ladder ladder From their TLC match, which is pretty cool. Same thing living to 144 pieces $90 it's funny. Well these it's basically like two figures though. I
01:36:13
Speaker
You get Edge and Jeff Hardy. It's a double bobblehead. Yeah, it's a double bobblehead. It's funny that you can even consider these because when I think of bobbleheads, I literally just think of the little single stands, little baseball players. These are little statues that just happen to have bobbly heads.
01:36:35
Speaker
You know, they're pretty, I was actually, the Jeff Hardy edge one is pretty cool. They kind of like smiling. I don't think, uh, neither one of them were smiling with that smile. They were smiling in the bobbleheads. The ladder wasn't there either. Why is the ladder right there? Cause the ladder was in the corner, you know, edge dived off the ladder.
01:36:53
Speaker
I don't really get that either, but either way. I think it's just to commemorate there was a ladder. Right. There was a ladder. Yeah. There was a ladder in play. Yeah, those are pretty cool. They're not in my wheelhouse for figure collecting, but definitely if you're into the statues and that type of stuff. Yeah, if you need a little Dwight Shrew bobblehead action on your desk. Yeah, exactly. This is the perfect way to go. No, exactly.
01:37:23
Speaker
Next up, they have an Entertainment Earth exclusive WWE Rock Funko Pop. I think he's holding the Scratch title we actually just talked about earlier. That was the Big Eagle, as it's known, I think. Yeah. That ship's in June, so if you're looking for that exclusive Rock Funko Pop, definitely go on there and order it. Yeah, he's wearing the Bring It shirt.
01:37:47
Speaker
Yep. So that was around the time when he was, uh, he, he, he beat, uh, what do you call it? CM punk, right? And then that, they, they, yeah, this wasn't the big ego. I was thinking of the other Walmart exclusive rock pop this out right now. These pops are hard to keep up with. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. This is the scratch load. This was the, the WWE belt that predates the one we have right now. So yeah, this is right after, uh, we're, we're with 2013. Yeah. So he's got the eyebrow and got the little bring it hand going on. And then the scratch title.
01:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, it looks pretty cool. I mean, I've been kind of like slowing down on the pop stuff, but yeah, this one's actually pretty... So yeah, so this is... So we'll deep dive right here. Yeah, the pops. This is what I was talking about in our Facebook group. People are getting the...
01:38:31
Speaker
Funko WWE ring that's out with that Austin and rock set I didn't know that was even available for purchase yet and somehow people are already getting that in the mail and Then I saw people getting the rock and mankind Walmart exclusives, which again I need to hit up our buddy Scott and Natoski got that in the mail today I don't know how cuz I've been trying to I've been searched for that on Walmart. It has not even showed up yet So that's the one the rocks in the he's in like his his like track pants and that black shirt that he was wrestling in and
01:38:59
Speaker
in early 99 and he's holding up the big Eagle belt with the first ever mankind pop. So we got to add that set to the collection. We got to have that mankind pop. I mean, I've been wanting a mankind pop for like five years now. This was on Sheena's 30th birthday cake. Her friend had that. My friend sculpted me one out of gum paste and made it for the topper of my 30th birthday cake. So yeah.
01:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, and then our buddy Dougie Nunya, the guy that's always bringing the R rating to the Chick Foley show group. He's got the Funko Ring with the Rockin' Austin 2-pack. So again, I didn't even know this shit was hitting right now. I thought all this stuff was like months away, but we got people in the Foley family group who got it coming in and it looks very, very cool. So definitely need to get that ring and we got to get that mankind pop. So I'm on the hunt. I'm hoping I don't got to pay that eBay tax, but
01:39:48
Speaker
But yeah, I'm starting to put my feelers out to try to acquire this stuff and I'm ready man because the Funkos they are addicting there. I don't know what it is I don't know if it's just the cuteness of them or what but when they start hitting I feel like I got to have them all you know we talked about the 7-eleven stone cold pop last week now I see that there's another rise so
01:40:07
Speaker
We got the one that didn't have the 7-Eleven exclusive sticker on it. I guess the second wave of those pops that are hitting actually has that 7-Eleven logo sticker on it and that's adding like an extra 40 bucks to the value on it. Just to show you the insanity of the Funko market. We open all ours up anyways.
01:40:23
Speaker
But yeah, if you find them with that 7-Eleven sticker on there, kudos. And historically, those 7-Eleven exclusive pops, they skyrocket in value. Clearly, I don't know what the value is going to be on this one, but the Ray Mysterio, the 7-Eleven Ray Mysterio. Yeah, that's like the most valuable WWE one. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
01:40:41
Speaker
I've seen the thing go for like 390 bucks before. Yeah. How do we get three new rock pops? That's what I want to know. Like of all the people that we need, like we got three new rock pops, like, you know, no shade, no shade to the rock. I mean, Jesus, he's the rock, but come on now.
01:40:57
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. There might be something happening. I don't know. He has a lot of WWE merch popping up. Who knows? That's true. Yeah. Maybe making an appearance at some time in the near future. But they're going to have to sell 100,000 seats for many next year. Rock and Roman, make it happen. No, I mean, I'll be in attendance, definitely. Can you imagine if Roman retains? And we have Roman Reigns coming in with a year and a half long WWE or Universal Championship reign, depending on his cousin.
01:41:26
Speaker
the rock, that would be incredible. It would be incredible, but the fact that you think it would be incredible and the fact that we all would be like, yes, that would be awesome. It clearly means it's not going to come to fruition. Yeah. All right, so we'll move on to the Walmart exclusive, WWE Garbage Pill Kids. They're actually up for pre-order right now, along with some plushies.
01:41:52
Speaker
There's two plushies that they have. It's Stone Cold, Steve Austin, and the Wreck-It Robin as well. So you can actually get some stuffed plushies out of those two. But the Garbage Pail Kids are Ultimate Warrior, Randy Savage, Andre the Giant, and Stone Cold Steve Austin.
01:42:12
Speaker
Um, what do you guys, what do you guys take? They're cool, man. I love garbage pail kids as a kid. Um, these are very neat. They definitely capture it. So we got seeding Steve, uh, what's the warrior's name on here? Uh, it's unraveled warrior.
01:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, unraveled Andre Savage Randy. Yeah, these are neat man. Not for my collection. I don't have any need to add them but but they're pretty cool anyways, you know, I definitely they're gonna look awesome on the shelf or as a desk display or something if you're looking for something at work to kind of just show off.
01:42:47
Speaker
Yeah, I love I love obscure merch like this and like obscure pieces and like collaborations like this is like right in my wheelhouse But yeah, just for you know space and stuff like that I just you know I won't be adding them to the collection But I can't wait to see what they look like in person when people actually get them all four are still available They're showing July 1st for the delivery date right now, so they're not flying off the shelf sometimes these Walmart pre-orders just sell out like instantly But now these are definitely pretty cool
01:43:14
Speaker
Yeah, I've noticed a lot of statues and a lot of displays and stuff like that of wrestling figures coming out. Seems like there's a market for that type of stuff, too. Are the issues of collectibles? Everybody's trying to get in on it. They've been popping so much since the pandemic that I think people think now is the time to cash in. They know a lot of people are going to buy this stuff just on speculation that they can get it, and it's going to skyrocket in value over the next couple of years.
01:43:43
Speaker
Yeah, wait till, I think, was it on our Facebook group? Someone was talking about the Ultimate Edition. Yeah, why they're selling so much. Yeah, Ultimate Edition is high right now, you know? Those early Ultimate Editions, if you stack those, yeah, you're doing good right now.
01:43:59
Speaker
Oh, man, yeah, you're gonna you're gonna cake up as I like to say. But anyway, so we'll move on to. So this was after I think we recorded we recorded a little bit earlier last week. So we missed this one here. It's the AW series six. They are a friend of the show. January Padour actually released some digital sculpts of every single figure in the line. Did you guys get a chance to take a look at these?
01:44:26
Speaker
I did, man. And even though we love everything AEWs do it, and I'm sure there's going to be some cool figures coming out of this set, I think it's safe to say that this was by far the most underwhelming figure reveals that AEWs done so far. That really seemed to be the consensus across the board. Just not a lot to get excited for. You know, I think, what is it, the... Cheetah.
01:44:47
Speaker
Yeah, Jake Hager. I'm glad to get Jake Hager because that's one figure that Mattel never really nailed. Their Jack Swagger's were always, I feel like they were always way too thin. Jack Swagger's a pretty thick dude, big dude season, and they were always really skinny.
01:45:05
Speaker
So I'm looking forward to to getting a Jake Hager figure. I, you know, I've seen a posted on her account that we're hoping the chase for that set is his Jake from State Farm look from when he debuted on the first episode of Dynamite with the bad genes and this freakin history. Yeah.
01:45:21
Speaker
That'd be awesome for a for a chase. But yeah, this was again, we're still excited because I'm sure there's gonna be some gyms out of this set but This it's not the most hypes that we've ever had. This one's a little bit more low-key, especially compared to AW unwrapper five We're getting Lucious Orson. Well, I think yeah, I think just the sense of urgency is not gonna be there you know I mean because when there's only like one or two first time in lines it just kind of like kills a
01:45:45
Speaker
The excitement for the set you know because you're not like if you already have a Chris Jericho sure you might want to add duplicates to your to your collection, you know, but it's it's Definitely kills a little bit of the momentum for they were gonna be seeing this one going to like pre-order set four and five like we've seen some of the lessons on ringside collectibles I think you're gonna have a plenty of time to get this set pre-ordered if that's what you want to do
01:46:07
Speaker
Oh yeah, definitely. Yeah, I thought they were pretty cool. I mean, I've always known for some type of reveals of the figures to get an idea of what they're going to look like and stuff like that. But obviously, the best way to see them is the actual prototypes and stuff like that.
01:46:25
Speaker
Can't wait to see what they look like in person and actually see what the chase figures are going to be in that set. So move on to the SDCC is returning, mainly returning in a smaller capacity as they say. So obviously you have Russell Maynard right now, they're going to have fans in attendance. So SDCC is looking to return with some people in attendance, stuff like that.
01:46:53
Speaker
I'm gonna kinda miss it. I kinda liked it last year where they had that virtual one and they were just dropping bombs left and right all day long. You're just like, oh my god, oh my god. All these crazy reveals and stuff like that. Obviously, we're gonna get the same type of effect if they do have it live and in person, but I'm gonna kinda miss that whole virtual
01:47:13
Speaker
Cause you felt like you were a part of the, of the, of SCC at that last year. So I'm going to kind of miss that. But what do you guys think of it kind of returning to like a smaller capacity? That's good. Any, any return to, you know, the normal stuff we were doing pre pre pandemic is always good.
01:47:29
Speaker
And San Diego Comic Con is definitely something that's on the bucket list for me and Sheena to go to. We love San Diego. That's an awesome city to hang out in for a long weekend or a vacation. So looking forward to attending some year. But yeah, hopefully this year is just kind of a stepping stone and next year we can get back to the full-on San Diego Comic Con that we know and love.
01:47:50
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I agree. Moving on, I know a lot of people have been waiting for this. WWE Elite Fan Takeover Series 2 started a ship from Amazon. I haven't checked my email yet to see if I have received any notifications of anything, but a lot of people are getting stuff for Randy Orton.
01:48:10
Speaker
That looks like it's the first one to be shipping out, so I didn't put that in the notes, but that's what I've read a majority of the people that have pre-ordered it. It looks like Randy Orton's been the main person that they've been getting the- Yeah, I've seen a couple Johnny Garganos that have hit already also. Yeah, I don't know.
01:48:30
Speaker
I'm not sure what the rhyme or reason is on how people have been getting their figures already because we ordered these basically like within 20 minutes of those things going live, all four of our we ordered the whole set because the pictures were messed up and we didn't want to risk missing out on any. And all of ours are still showing arriving Tuesday, April 13. So one thing I think is maybe because we ordered them at the same time, Amazon's grouping them.
01:48:52
Speaker
and whatever figures coming in last as ones we're getting but yeah you're right I've seen a bunch of Randy Orton's and I've seen like one or two Johnny Gargano's hitting somebody in our group actually I think it was Adrian Gonzalez actually got Johnny Gargano today the figure looks amazing I think it's the best Johnny Gargano so far I have not seen any Christians or Xbox hitting yet though.
01:49:11
Speaker
But yeah, cool set, and I'm really looking forward to these. Like I said, I'm normally pretty patient on my Amazon stuff, but I've been checking every single day. Just wait. I'm hoping that every single day I'm going to see that ship notification. Shane, which figure are you most excited for out of this set?
01:49:25
Speaker
X-Pac. He's too scared to show up over here with the Jake Foley crew. That's why he's holding up the whole Amazon. He's like, no, no, guys, we can't go. We can't go. They're killing legends over there.
01:49:43
Speaker
Yeah, shout out. Was that busted open that he talked about Marco correcting him? Marco went over strong on the hall figure. They were like, oh, that's a nice t-shirt. He's like, yeah, it's by homage. Have you ever heard of those guys? He said, yeah. He said, I went off on some guy on Twitter because I thought he was stealing.
01:50:03
Speaker
He's like, you know, there's so much bootleg stuff and I was like some guy that was the MVP Marco didn't But yeah, that was that was pretty funny actually I can't wait for that's my favorite figure out of the whole set I told you you're gonna have to start you're gonna have to start a collection Yes, just just an MVP collection of legends that you've taken down
01:50:25
Speaker
You need to dip into the twins college fund go grab Hasbro 123 kid You need to have every Sean Waltman figure that's ever been produced man
01:50:34
Speaker
And then, uh, just unbox everything too. Yeah. Yeah. Just buy it, bid on card. Uh, yeah. Yeah. And just then box it. Agree back one, two, three, and then just open it live and watch everyone just like, oh, it'll be bad. We'll start, we'll have a new unboxing series on the YouTube called, you know, the, the homage. Uh, it'll be like the, you know, I can't, we'll, we'll, we call it like the homage imitation or wherever you just. Yeah. The homage.
01:51:02
Speaker
All right, so this is this actually I've actually popped for this because I don't know why but it was I'm a super I want to say super fan, but I love and so dude I mean, I'm not gonna lie you could hate me all you want, but I think you got a bad rap I'm right. I think the inzo hate that he was receiving in
01:51:22
Speaker
you know, in kind of 2017, 2018. I think it's aged poorly. And yeah, I think we need to start. I would not be sad to see him pop back up within WWE or AEW. The guy, you know, the whole stuff that happened with his criminal charges or criminal accusations. Obviously, that kind of was proven to be bullshit. He got a bad rap because I think he probably could handle a little bit better.
01:51:46
Speaker
But at the end of the day, the guy was innocent. And I'm with you, man. The guys, the cruiserweight belt in WWE was never hotter than when Enzo had it. I still remember that segment where every other cruiserweight was surrounding the ring and Enzo went around just straight up fucking roasting. Oh, roasting. That was amazing. Yes. How you doing? How you doing? How you doing? Yeah. Yeah. How you doing? Used to be a household phrase around the Phelps House, but how you doing?
01:52:13
Speaker
Yeah. And even though they had started to wear out their welcome a little bit, I think the fans are ready to embrace them. I think, you know, assuming that we start getting live audiences back for the most part shortly after Mania, I think it would be a huge pop to hear Enzo and Cass' music hit and come out and do the whole shtick, you know, and see them. I think that'd be a good way to electrify the tag team scene in WWE to see those guys come back.
01:52:36
Speaker
be so good, but yeah, so since we're talking about it so much, so Zombie Sailor is actually doing a retro style Enzo, so Enzo, not E-N-Z-O. Real one. Yeah, the real one coming out later this year, which I'm super excited for. We're finally getting the lost Enzo retro. Yeah. In the Hasbro days, we had Rhythm and Blues, Greg Valentine. For the retros, it was Enzo Amore and we're getting it released.
01:53:02
Speaker
This one's probably going to be the one that everyone's going to go for, I think, out of all these, just because it was so sought after on the retro line. Do we have a price point for these yet?
01:53:14
Speaker
No, but we do have yeah, we do have we do have a little bit of details from from zst friend of the show Yeah, so he said so basically five figures will be coming out all at once So they're not coming out one by one So all the figures that they've announced they're coming out all at once for our vintage style wrestling figure line Not one or two five figures
01:53:38
Speaker
dropping out once and shipping all at the same time. Take my money. Yeah. Yeah. No, exactly. He hasn't come out and put a hard price point on it, but from just the hints they've been given, I think they're probably going to be about 25 or 30 bucks shipped, which are the small bats. These figures are looking at the TLC they're putting into them. I think it's going to be well worth it. You know, obviously it's a little bit high for a Hasbro style figure. Just compared to you, you're going to be paying the same price for these.
01:54:04
Speaker
that you could almost get an Ultimate Edition for, but they're produced in small batch and you're not going to have any other way of getting some of these characters. So I'm telling the figure collectors out there, I think you guys are going to regret it if you pass on these figures. What's your take so far from seeing the sketches and stuff? Oh, the sketches look amazing. And then the prototypes that we've seen and stuff look
01:54:25
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, it can't be overstated. They got Ron Rudad on board, the original designer of the Hasbro line. Yeah. It's going to be the closest thing we've ever get into the Hasbro thing. How much were Retro's retailing for?
01:54:36
Speaker
Like 10 bucks. Oh, really? They were that cheap. I don't know why I thought they were more than that. Well, you're probably mixing up with how much they are now. True, yeah. A lot more than 10 bucks. Just think of the line that they have so far already. Some of the major bros are part of the first line, or they are part of... We don't know for sure. We were assuming that, but he hasn't announced the series lineup so far.
01:55:01
Speaker
Yeah. So you have the major bros so far, the head that they have announced. Enzo is probably going to be like series three. So Enzo. Yep. You have Enzo. You have the rock and roll express too as a part of it, I believe. I'm hoping that he's got Enzo. Maybe we can get zombie sailors to do rhythm and blues. Greg Valentine. How awesome would that be?
01:55:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. You know, I don't know what the trademarks are in that I don't know if they'll be owns the trademark to rhythm and blues Greg Valentine But yeah, that would be incredible to finally call something else. Yeah So we had a scene has dropped in a super bad and a Brooks and Dunn reference of chick-fil-a's. Yeah That's episode ever. Yeah, that's pretty much it for for figure news. I
01:55:47
Speaker
Marco, what'd you have for weekly purchases this week?
01:55:50
Speaker
Oh man, the most epic of things came in today. Something I forgot I even ordered. I messaged you guys earlier today. It's so funny. I had asked Marco if he took his meds. Yeah, man. Tell the story, Marco. Totally forgot. I get two packages in, so I get a box. Actually, I get three. One of them came later in the day, but two of them in the afternoon. I get one a box, and I get one a bag from pro wrestling teams.
01:56:20
Speaker
What the hell? What the hell is this from? So I'm like, pro wrestling teams? I'm like, did I order a shirt? It must've been like, I don't remember when I ordered it or whatever. I thought, obviously, I thought Sheed and Seth ordered it for me. So I opened it up. It's a Chick-Fully show, WrestleMania logo. Which is a made shirt, by the way.
01:56:39
Speaker
Yeah, which is awesome. Yeah. Definitely going to rock that Russell media weekend. But like, I'm like, today, or I was like, I messaged up. I'm like, Hey, did you guys get this for me? And then obviously goes, did you, did you take care of it? And I was like, Hey, did you buy Mark? Did you buy Marco a t-shirt? And Seth was like, he's like, I don't think so. I got, cause we get an email anytime somebody buys a shirt and yeah, it was like March 16th, the, you know, Marco didn't brought a shirt. So.
01:57:07
Speaker
Oh man, my brain's totally gone. That was so funny. But yeah, I'm not sure if we can say that anymore, so I'll skip saying it. So we'll go to my next package. It was the, oh, I couldn't wait for this, Boss Fight Studios.
01:57:24
Speaker
Oh, nice. They feed us in Penta figures along with the the the accessory set. So what do you think? Oh, my God. Didn't get to open up yet. But judging from like the Jesse, I was just looking at the hand scopes of Ray of Ray Phoenix, like the detail of the like the the wrinkles and the lines and stuff. Did you guys look did you guys like? Oh, yeah. It's like we got up close and personal.
01:57:48
Speaker
It's yeah, these figures are really incredible like they're stunning man. They're I don't know I mean They're they're up there. They might be I mean figures of the year. They're up there up at those. Oh, yeah Lenderships, they definitely still go back to that Pentagon the torn mask head sculpt is one of the best heads. Oh my god figure
01:58:05
Speaker
Yes, I was just looking at everything even like when you like so if you I kind of like tipped the package back and look like up at like I know the mask it kind of looks like you can almost take the mask off. That's all like 3d detail you can't but like just like the detail of that it looks like you kind of like peel it off if you wanted to but obviously you can't the tattoos
01:58:25
Speaker
The Deco, the paint on it on the tights of Ray Phoenix, the glossy type of paint on it. Yeah, the Batali. You can't say enough about it. The figures are amazing. I was definitely stoked to get those in.
01:58:43
Speaker
And then the third package I got later in the day was the Booker T T-shirt from Foot Action. So yeah, that's pretty awesome. The shirt's really awesome. It's him holding both the United States and the big gold title on both shoulders. Yeah, it looks awesome. With his silhouette and everything. So yeah, it's pretty sick. So shout out to Foot Action. You have to have a bad bunny sign that for you at the next Access. Oh yeah, definitely.
01:59:11
Speaker
That is true, actually. I didn't even think of that. For the first time ever over here, we were totally dry this week, man. We did not buy anything. Oh, no.
01:59:20
Speaker
All week. I'm actively on the hunt for the Wobble Rumblers. I really want to get those for Brett the Babyface, but the prices on eBay right now are still setting about 30 bucks a piece, which, you know, I think they're retailing on target for like 12 or 15. So I'm not pulling the trigger on those. That's really the only thing I'm actively hunting, but it's kind of... If anybody sees them, let us know because they're at target. They're with the like inflatables. They're not with action figures or anything. So you'll see there's like the generic Wobble Rumblers, like they have like, you know, just regular like little fighting guys.
01:59:47
Speaker
and then yeah and then they have like the WWE licensed ones so if anybody sees them while you're out and about at Target um definitely hit us up you know we're PayPal ready to get those things shipped out because I know Brett would love those so and we have a lot of fun but but yeah it's been a little bit of a dry spell I do got some stuff on the way but I'll save it for when I actually have it in hand including weekly purchases but yeah so again mark it down this isn't some sort of April Fool's joke we did not add anything to the figure collection
02:00:14
Speaker
It's a historical day. We didn't add anything to the figure collection, but we did get our foot action Wall-A-Mania shirts in. We did. Those things are incredible. Stay tuned. Again, be ready April 7 to get that stuff at 10 a.m. Eastern because it's going to go fast and you're definitely going to want some of these pieces. If you're in our Facebook group, we'll be giving you some tips and tricks. Seth and I are pretty good at these quick, fast launches that go off
02:00:39
Speaker
and like sell out in minutes. So we'll give you our best practices in the Facebook group to try to help you guys snag these things. All right, you guys ready for how many chicks? Let's roll. Let's do it.
02:00:50
Speaker
check out the Pyramid Wrestling Podcast. Each week, we dive deep into all things Wrestling Action Figures. From AEW Unrivaled, WWE Mattel Elite, our childhood WWF, WCW, ECW Collections and more, you can also find Pyramid Wrestling on YouTube. That's Pyramid Wrestling, available everywhere you listen to podcasts.
02:01:24
Speaker
It's time for How Many Chicks. How Many Chicks is a segment where I, the heel husband, pick out one of our 1000 plus wrestling figures from our collection and present it to Sheena live on the air for an instant rating and review. How Many Chicks is brought to you by our friends at Omage. Omage specializes in bringing vintage inspired designs on the absolute softest tease in the biz because with Omage, comfort is always part of the game plan.
02:01:49
Speaker
You can visit Omage's online shop at omage.com and find all their latest designs on social media at Omage. That's H-O-M-A-G-E.
02:02:01
Speaker
Alright, so again, this is the we've done how many chicks before just when we've done live reviews on series. This is the first time we're debuting it is an actual segment. So to give you guys the setup, I have the casket that has has come in and out of stock periodically on ringside collectibles. It's a casket playset and there is a figure from one of our 1000 plus that is in there. Sheena doesn't know what it is. She's about to be surprised by it and she's gonna she's gonna have to give us a live review.
02:02:31
Speaker
on the air. I hate surprises. For those of you who don't know me, I hate surprises, by the way. We're about to hit the drum roll. You ready to pop that thingy open, Sheen? Let's do it. Let me open the coffin door. What is it, Sheen? Oh, man. So I don't know why I was expecting an elite to be in here. This is a Hasbro Kamala figure. Kamala. Yeah.
02:03:12
Speaker
That is a little sample of Kamala's theme music from David. It'd be probably in the top 10 or 15 most offensive themes they've ever had. We're not here to judge the past. Hasbro Kamala is our figure for this week. We'll let Peacock be the judge of what's offensive. Yeah, we'll see if that survives. Sheena, give us your... They'll give us how many chicks yet. We'll save that for the end, but give me your initial thoughts on the figure as you're holding your hand there.
02:03:39
Speaker
I mean, I love this figure. I think, you know, um, again, Kamala is a questionable, a questionable gimmick as far as like it's, it's lineage and whatnot. But, uh, this figure with the little like textured loin cloth, um, you know, it's got the skull beads. Clearly we don't, we don't have a- He's in the jumper pose. Yeah. I got the jumper, you know, there's a Kamala crush action. We don't have a, uh, moon belly, uh, or else, you know, he, he wouldn't be with us. He would be with someone else and we would be, you know, just swimming in money. But, uh,
02:04:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great looking figure.
02:04:12
Speaker
So Kamala was released in late 1992, early 1993 on the real cards is when he was coming out. Cool looking figure. Kamala has always been Toyetic. He's got an awesome LJN, the Mattel Elite that they released in the Legends line and then on the Lost Legends series back around the Elite 47 Elite 48 timeframe. Really, really cool figure. But the Hasbro was awesome. Like you said, he's got the sculpted loincloth on their jumper pose.
02:04:43
Speaker
He's got some historical significance because supposedly there were a couple dozen Kamala moonbelly figures that were came out. It's just an extremely rare variant. There's also a lot of bootlegs of those so it's kind of it's never really been fully established exactly how many moonbelly Kamala's there are and nowadays the you know people the customizers and the
02:05:03
Speaker
I guess counterfeiters, for lack of better terms, are so good that they can make some very, very convincing fakes on cards. So be careful. Be very, very careful if you guys are bidding and throwing in some real money to get a Moonbelly Kamala because there are a lot of fakes out there. But that Hasbro figure is awesome. That one that Sheena is holding right now, I picked up at Yestertoys757. That's a local vintage toy store. I picked it up back in December.
02:05:28
Speaker
But I still remember originally getting Kamala at KB's back in the three for 10 days of Hasbro's. I think I grabbed like him, giant Gonzales, and I want to say Razor Ramon with the black vest and red trunks. I think I got those on one trip to KB's back in the 90s. And again, if I could go back in time, I would tell my younger self, just clear the fucking pegs, dude. Tell mom.
02:05:49
Speaker
Don't tell mom to give you an advance. I will mow all the lawns. Tell her to give you a year's advance in your allowance and just clear empty out those pegs, man. Grab a couple baskets, grab every WCW glue and every WWF Hasbro that they have there and put them in a storage center and just wait. But no, I had them. I remember being super excited getting as a kid. Kamala
02:06:10
Speaker
Even though he did have some main event runs with Hulk Hogan on the house show circuit back in the 80s, my history of watching him, he was always kind of just like a comedy act for the most part. He had a, you know, he fought Undertaker in the casket match at SummerSlam 92, which was cool, but for the most part, the dude was a comedy act, but he was always super toyetic. So he's always been over like Rover in all my figure Feds. And that goes all the way back to this Hasbro figure. Marco, do you have any memories or what's your thoughts on the Hasbro Kamala figure?
02:06:40
Speaker
Yeah, definitely an iconic figure. I do love the fact that he has the necklace on as well, which is pretty cool. The face paint is always a plus. I was a huge face paint kid when I was young. I'm saying, I'm always a mark for face paint, man. Road Warriors, all that stuff. Yeah, even the ascension, man. Those figures are awesome.
02:07:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah, definitely. But yeah, the only other thing I really remember is like my dad, you said kind of like he was kind of like built kind of like a Kamala. So he sometimes he would do like the Kamala thing where you like slap his belly. Dude, that's crazy. So my dad does the same thing. My dad works. My dad worked at Kamala gimmick also, man. Yeah, it's just like a day. I think that's like an 80s dad type thing, man. I think they just knew, you know, because Kamala was so big in Southern wrestling back then.
02:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, exactly. So I mean, obviously, he, he, I mean, he watched him before he was, you know, in the WWF. So, but yeah, it was one of the, one of the things I remember is him doing the, the come all the shirt off and just do with the do the belly thing, which is kind of funny.
02:07:48
Speaker
So as we're recording this, it's April 1st for our listeners in the States. You guys know April 4th is the drop dead date for WWE network, uh, pre-cock as we're calling it, you know, um, before, before peacock to Sarah, shout out to Sam Roberts. He kind of patented that, that term. Yeah. So the pre-cock there's a piece that work is going dead in about three days.
02:08:11
Speaker
go back i can't remember it's it's either the second or third episode of the wccw world class championship wrestling in the vault in the territory segment you can see the actual like debut video vignette for kamala like when they actually debuted that character it's on wwe network
02:08:29
Speaker
Eventually, it'll be on peacock, but it's gonna take a while We know their goal is for summer slam to have the whole archives transferred over So as you guys are hearing that if you guys want to see like Kamala's actual like debut on the wrestling scene Go back and watch one of those first couple episodes of WCCW because it's on there and it's pretty cool Just to see this guy because obviously, you know, he's up in the big squirt circle in the sky right now Yeah, he was a casualty of 2020
02:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, even though he even though he was never, you know at all time champion stuff I think he's still one of the most memorable characters ever. Yeah So it's time for the moment of truth. So Sheena you got anywhere from 0.0 up to 5.0 We're going on the you know, the the 10th point scale 0 to 5 How many chicks do you give Hasbro Kamala? I'm gonna give it a 4.5. I think again great figure
02:09:20
Speaker
It loses half a point for things that wouldn't get over in 2021. Ouch. But yeah, I definitely, I love this figure. Again, Kamala is extremely toyetic. I love all the detail, the necklace, the face paint, the loincloth, all of the body paint. I like this jumping action. I don't think most people... Jumping action isn't very popular amongst the
02:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, the jumpers was definitely the least popular. The only thing worse than the jumpers was the Marty Gennady rocker style figure. It's like, I don't know, it was almost like a hunchback type thing. It was like a jumper, a jade. They were like a jumper, but they didn't have the tab in the back. That was the only one worse than the jumpers.
02:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, I don't mind. I don't mind the jumpers. I like to jump around. So Kamala 4.5 chicks start off. So for the Foley fam out there and the listeners, let us know what you guys think of this new segment. Give us some feedback. Let us know how you like it and we'll tweak as necessary. And I want to know what your rating is, how many chicks you give the Kamala Hasbro figure.
02:10:33
Speaker
Yes, there is. It's doing that with your buddies while cracking jokes and enjoying some ice cold beverages. If that sounds like fun to you, then be sure to check out my new podcast, The Extra Cooler Show, where each episode, my Survivor Series team and I review an old school match chosen by you, the listeners.
Wrestling History Podcasts
02:10:49
Speaker
The Extra Cooler Show is available wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and follow us for new episodes every other Thursday morning.
02:10:50
Speaker
Hell yeah. Alright, I'm closing the casket.
02:11:11
Speaker
Keeping a Tranquilo is where we give you some entertainment recommendations for something outside of the ring and sometimes completely outside of the world of professional wrestling. This segment is brought to you by Verb Energy because sometimes keeping a Tranquilo can be exhausting. Verb is your delicious 90-calorie snack bar to help you get through your favorite binge-watching sesh. Hit the link in our show notes to save some money and get your Verb Starter Pack for only $12. Now, let's get Tranquilo. Man, they're just tugging on the heartstrings hearing that music now.
02:11:40
Speaker
All right, all I can think is it all I can think is what a pop it's gonna be though once we Once we hear that come back because I feel like with as long as Charlotte's there there's always a chance that That he's gonna he's gonna come back and I just imagine hitting that el eat a low and hearing the crowd go nuts Yeah
02:12:00
Speaker
Um, so we'll break kayfabe again. So, uh, again, we're recording on Thursday night. It's about midnight on Eastern time right now. I had to work all night last night at my job. And then I was there till about five o'clock this afternoon. So Sheena was going nonstop with the baby face and the futures women's champ. So she was kind of dragging a little bit before we started the show. Sheena, tell them what flavor verb, uh, bar you hit to, to get going for this episode.
02:12:23
Speaker
Dude, I had the banana. It's like a brand new one. It just came out and I actually just got it in the mail yesterday. It's chocolate chip banana bread and it was banging. But yeah, I got to keep the energy drinks at bay. Sometimes if I... I make a... These burger bars are like all natural too, right? Yeah. It's organic ingredients, clean ingredients. We're not food snobs. We love a good energy drink over here.
02:12:47
Speaker
You're gonna you need like an advanced chemistry degree to be able to decipher the you know the ingredients list on most your energy drinks so you can you can support the show and you're gonna feel better about yourself and you pregnant more energy than you get from these energy drinks anyways cuz it's all the kind of fancy stuff they give you on there like vitamins and herbs and minerals combos at the end of the day they're gassing you up with sugar really.
02:13:10
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like, you know, and it's all like synthetic caffeine, which again, you know, I'm not going to turn my nose up at a rebel because they've saved me many times in my life. But the caffeine in the burr bars is from green tea. So it's a much more subtle, like not jittery, you know, because I already like, you know, I tend to get a little bit of anxiety. So if I like pump myself up on coffee and energy drinks all day, my heart starts racing and you know, I get a little cray cray.
Energy Bars and Benefits
02:13:34
Speaker
So burr bars keep me, keep me tranquilo.
02:13:38
Speaker
All right, Marco, you go first. Tell us about the Drink Champs podcast. All right, yeah, so I'm not sure if I brought this up before, like on past episodes, but if I did, excuse me, but if not, definitely check this podcast out. I don't remember you mentioning it, so if you did mention it, it's been a while, so give us a refresher. Yeah, so Drink Champs is a show by Nori, or Noriega, if you're familiar with him. Oh, yeah. Conan Noriega.
02:14:05
Speaker
Yep. And DJ Effin. So basically, they co-host a show where they basically interview A-list celebrities, so literally anyone, be from Mike Tyson to Pharrell to literally everyone that you can think of. But the idea behind the show is it's obviously the title, Drink Champs. So it's a lot of alcohol,
02:14:27
Speaker
Um, so they actually drink during the whole, like the whole podcast. So they, I mean, they do run a little long. They are from like two to three hours long. I have some of them, but the interviews are great. If you want to hear some like crazy behind the scenes, uh, things. So like one of the stories that, uh, Noriega actually talked about when Pharrell was on there was, uh, you know, uh, the song super thug, the what, what, what, what, what, what that, you know, that song, right? Pretty famous.
02:14:55
Speaker
So that wasn't supposed to be in the song, that what, what, what, what, what part. He would, I guess Sanorio said he would count. He would say what, what, what in between his bars or between like the like the music to like count when he has to come back in and do like a verse. Nice.
Creative Accidents in Music
02:15:12
Speaker
So I guess like Pharrell heard that.
02:15:14
Speaker
and thought that was a part of the song and actually made that the chorus of the Super Thug song. So that's how you got the what, what, what, what, what. So it wasn't supposed to be in there. So you find out stuff like that. There's obviously this way more crazy stuff. He does one with Mike Tyson, which is pretty insane too. So definitely, yeah. If you have some time, they are long.
02:15:35
Speaker
pre-curse app, I say they are long podcasts. They do, like I said, two, two and a half hours or three hours long because it says pretty much a conversation, not even an interview. You know, but yeah, definitely, definitely check it out. I'll get this. Yeah, I just pulled it up on iTunes. I'll get the I'll get the Apple podcast link. It'll be in your show notes this week, guys. And remember, all the partners that you've heard us mention on the show so far, you can access all those by just going to your show notes when you listen to our podcast this week.
Nostalgic Reflections on Childhood Freedom
02:16:03
Speaker
Sheena, tell us about Class Action Park.
02:16:05
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, class action park, we would just watched it. I don't know. Tuesday night. It was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. We stayed up way too late. Um, we just kind of like, you know, we were like, let's, we don't get to spend much time together. You know, there's like the kids and you know, they don't, by the time the kids go to bed, it's just like knock out, you know? Um, so we were like, we're going to stay up and watch this documentary. And we watched it and it like, it brought back all the nostalgia fields and all of kind of like the reckless courage that you have when you're a,
02:16:32
Speaker
a kid that you think back now, like when you're in, you know, a lot of you guys are like us, you're in your mid, mid thirties, late thirties. Kids of the eighties and nineties, man. Kids of the eighties and nineties. We were just like reckless fools and our parents allowed us to be reckless fools. You know, as a parent now, I'm thinking to myself like, man, I can't believe all the things that our parents let us do back then. Yeah. I remember it. So like as a kid, I used to get mad at my, or not mad, but I would say with my mom,
02:16:58
Speaker
Like you're so why are you why do you worry about us so much? You know, you're so much more cautious than the other parents and now as a parent I look back at the stuff I did and I'm like, there's no way in hell I would ever let my kids do this stuff that my mom. Yeah, let me do without thinking twice like we'd be playing touch football on a little like grassy patch like right next to a freaking highway, you know, like where cars are going like my grand where my grandma lived at her front yard and
02:17:22
Speaker
She lives off of a highway. So if our ball rolls out in the street, cars are going like fucking 55 miles per hour on the road. And there's no way I would even let my kid. And we would be out there playing for hours with no adult supervision whatsoever.
02:17:39
Speaker
And I just, I can't even imagine letting my kid out the door without me, you know, I don't even know how to let him out there without holding his hand, much less let him just go play for hours and hours. So yeah, it's pretty crazy. This harken back to that. Tell them about some of these rides we saw on the, on the documentary. Okay. So the documentary in essence is just, so this guy, he has the idea, you know, he wants to create a theme park. So he creates this theme park. He has absolutely no engineering experience whatsoever. And he,
02:18:08
Speaker
he creates these rides, right? And then the rides are just dangerous. I mean, they're like freaking epic, you know, in your mind. There was a water slide that did an upside down loop-de-loop. A loop-de-loop, yeah. And then there was this like luge thing that was literally made out of concrete and, you know, surrounded by like rocks, like they literally just dug it out of the side of a hill. So you're like going down this hill, you know, freaking 50 miles an hour on this little like, you know, scooter in a concrete luge and, you know, surrounded by rocks. So anyway, uh,
02:18:37
Speaker
It just again, these kids are just like basically going here and going to this like amusement park all summer. Very, very few parental supervision around. There's actually kids running the park. I mean, there was like 14 year olds, you know, that were supervising rides and things like that. So this guy was like in violation of all kinds of
02:18:54
Speaker
labor laws and he had created his own insurance to cover the park and all this. There were no roller coasters or anything. It was all like water slides. It was a water park. There was a street luge course. There were go-karts. His big thing was
02:19:11
Speaker
People at the park control the action and it was just insane. Yeah, you can be as brave as you want to be You know what? I mean? Like there was something for everybody like there was this water slide that literally like shot you out like 20 feet above the water and they're like the water was like freezing cold It was like natural spring water said people would go in shock when they hit the water when they hit the water, you know
02:19:30
Speaker
I'm not sure where all it's available at. This was definitely on HBO Max, though, you can find it pretty easy. Class Action Park. Yeah, Class Action Park. But yeah, again, the thing, besides all the crazy stuff that happened, and I won't spoil all the stuff that happens, but it just brings you back if you are a kid of the 80s and early 90s.
02:19:48
Speaker
just that sense of freedom and that sense of just complete and utter invincibility that you have. The things that I remember doing as a kid, I would never, ever, ever do now. You're so brave and you just do these
02:20:05
Speaker
I don't know just i don't wanna say reckless because you're not really being reckless you're just like you don't think about the consequences you know my little brother friends we used to ride our bike for miles away from our house and we will go all the way across town so yeah.
02:20:20
Speaker
go to Dairy Queen and get a Blizzard and a chicken tender basket and stuff. I'm talking like we're crossing multiple highways. Yes. If someone would have snatched us up, there would have been literally no way of us getting in touch with any adults or getting help. It's just insane. And again, the thing I got to stress is that my mom was like, I used to call
02:20:42
Speaker
Yeah, I used to call her the ultimate warrior, you know, as a play on the ultimate warrior. She was the ultimate warrior. Like she, as a kid, I felt like she really was like babying us and stuff. But looking back, I'm like, she gave us a ton of leash to go out and do pretty much whatever the hell we wanted, you know. So it really is crazy the way times have changed since then.
02:21:01
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. And thinking about the amusement park, I mean, when we would go to an amusement park with our friend's family or our family would take us, we would just separate and then be like, hey, at two o'clock, you need to meet over here by the clock tower. You know what I mean? And you would just meet up at this designated spot. And it's crazy to think that we were just going around as 10
02:21:23
Speaker
11 year old kids just like walking around and getting in line and buying our own food and you know Anything could have happened to us, you know, and it's wild just how like times have changed because you know, I'm an optimist I think the best of people I feel like you could still probably cut your kids loose and they would be just trying to do stuff like that but it's so
02:21:42
Speaker
socially unacceptable you know if I saw some kids like if I saw some kids like crossing the main highway on their bikes right now I would just be like where the hell are these kids parents that you know what are they doing like these poor kids you know when me and my brother used to do that nothing twice you know so it's it is pretty wild to think about we're definitely going away off topic now yeah
02:22:02
Speaker
Yeah, sorry, guys. If you have HBO Max, check out Class Action Park and still click Google search because it may be streaming at some other locations.
Controversial WWE Content and Censorship
02:22:10
Speaker
It's definitely worth a watch, especially if you're of a certain age like us and can really relate to that childhood experience. Shane, are we ready for some listener mail? We're ready. All right, what we got, Shane?
02:22:29
Speaker
All right, from our buddy TNT, Tyson Neil Trevino, he says, with Peacock removing certain content from the WWE network that doesn't meet their standards, what are your thoughts on this? And he says, it's Friday. You know what that means. That's what Tyson always puts when he listens to our episode. He always tags us. So what do you guys think about Peacock removing or like censoring certain content on?
02:22:52
Speaker
I'll take this one first. First off, I want to thank Tyson. He's one of our most loyal supporters. We definitely appreciate you guys kind of. We definitely appreciate you, Tyson, boosting our signal every single week when we drop the show. And thanks for your loyal support to get to the censorship.
02:23:09
Speaker
I'm against it. There's some cases where it's just so over the line that I think it's appropriate. The stuff that they've censored so far is the Roddy Piper match where he painted himself half black and Vince McMahon segment where he definitely uttered an appropriate word.
02:23:30
Speaker
Nobody's missing that stuff, you know, obviously, there's a lot of people that get outraged by it. I can't I could not see myself like seeking out that stuff to watch at any point. So I'm not too heartbroken about it. But I will say that I think you're going down a dangerous path when you start judging the past through modern day lenses, you know, I think it'd be fine to drop there's some stuff on Disney Plus with some of the old
02:23:53
Speaker
Disney animated features where they just throw up a warning signal, you know, I can't remember exactly what the caption says, but it's basically the effect of, you know, this feature was produced in, you know, 1954, whatever, obviously social, what's socially acceptable has changed in that timeframe. I think you probably do something like that in some cases for for peacock and you'd be just fine.
02:24:15
Speaker
Most of the stuff that we really love and remember, though, I think is going to be just fine. There's the stuff that I think will end up getting edited. It'll be stuff that you're going to hear people complain about it. But honestly, it's shit that we probably wouldn't have even ever like sought out to watch anyway. You don't think I agree. The things that have been, you know, axed so far, I think, you know, yeah, there's, you know, it's OK for that stuff to go. But at what point, you know, do
02:24:42
Speaker
Where do you cut it off? Where's the line? Because there's a lot of stuff even still within like the last five, 10 years that's pretty.
02:24:50
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. If you want to go full social justice warrior, I mean, Yoko Zuna, that was a some an American Samoan guy who was like pretending to be Japanese. You know what I mean? So yeah, I agree with you. It could get really dicey, depending on where they draw the line at. But I'll go back to my original sentiment when NBC acquired all this stuff. They didn't spend a billion bucks to go back and censor out half the shit that they just bought. So I think for the most part, we're going to be OK.
02:25:16
Speaker
And that's just me being optimistic. So I think it's only really gonna be kind of like the most the worst of the worst that actually gets cut But we'll see, you know, I'm definitely keep an eye on the situation Marco. What's your thoughts so far?
02:25:28
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think it's going to be too crazy. Anything that anyone's cutting, you weren't, like you said, people weren't going back to look for it anyway. Who was going to go back to look at Roddy Piper? Yeah, that match was repug anyways. That was already dicey. Jax actually did a figure of that Roddy Piper. I'd seen a couple of cool Mattel Elite customs for actually decent prices. Even I was like, why would I even want this figure in my collection? That was really tasteless.
02:25:57
Speaker
Well, I was listening to Mass Man Today and I think we all just remember that. We remember the paint and like, oh my God, like that's extremely inappropriate. But he was talking about how he had kind of just kind of forgotten about exactly like when Roddy's cutting the promo where he's, you know, talking as himself and then, you know, turning and talking as a black man on the other side. It's like, oh,
02:26:18
Speaker
This is like extremely like, you know, the most racist thing I've ever seen. So I think I think you just kind of forget, you know, because we were thinking like, oh, yeah, the paint was offensive. But when you actually go back and watch it, you're like, do I really want to watch this? Like, this isn't really anything that I want to see, you know, I think we're all against, you know, the quote unquote cancel culture here. Yeah, I'm not a cancel. There is some stuff that is better off left on the cutting room floor.
02:26:42
Speaker
For sure. Well, you got to think, too. It's Peacock. They put out a, oh, I think WWE put out a statement saying Peacock is going to go through and find what's aligned with their standards and practices. Whatever they have set up for their shows and what their content and what their entertainment is, they're going to align our content with that.
02:27:06
Speaker
It's technically out of WW's hands right now. They sold it. They produced the office and the office has some of the most uncomfortable moments in television. If they let the office go, I don't think they're going to be too stringent on what they remove. I think that's the hardest of the hardcore stuff you probably won't see on
02:27:28
Speaker
Which, like I said, people aren't going back to look for it. I'm not going back to look for like the DX dressed as nation. I mean, that was only brought up because someone brought it up that it got removed. Who was going out to look for it? Yeah, I totally forgot about that segment even happening.
02:27:43
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Moving on. We will take this question from Chris Lesito. He says, anything special on the menu for mania
Wrestlemania Weekend Plans
02:27:52
Speaker
weekend? I'll start with you, Marco. You and the wifey miss MVP. Y'all got anything special you cooking up for mania weekend?
02:27:59
Speaker
No, not, not really. No, usually on, since it's on a weekend, I usually do, uh, some type of takeout, uh, food. So probably go that road. Nothing like prepping a, like a Wrestle media weekend type of meal. Uh, what's your favorite, what's your favorite like thing to take out whenever you go, whenever you get takeout.
02:28:19
Speaker
Uh, probably, I mean, we're, we're, we're big sushi people. So definitely, definitely like, uh, definitely like a bowl of sushi or something like that, or some type of Asian cuisine. We usually, we usually go. It's funny that, uh, you bring up sushi because we are making, uh, we're having poke mania over here. So we're going to make, uh, we're going to make spicy poke and, uh, have like, you know, just like a poke bar. So that's, that's going to be our favorite thing to eat in Hawaii. And.
02:28:47
Speaker
There's a couple like, you know, mainland poke place that we tried that we're, they were decent to kind of scratch the itch a little bit but nothing really satisfied that Hawaii poke craving but it was we're a rumble weekend that let's do it ourselves and we found some some some sashimi grade ahi and salmon.
02:29:05
Speaker
and Sheena threw it down, you know, she made it and I was immediately transported back to Aiea Heights in Hawaii. And yeah, it was delicious. So we're going all out. We did it. We kind of dipped a toe in the water, didn't wear a rumble, but we're going to be going all out with like multiple types of fish. We're going to do some crab. It's going to be on point and we're very excited for it.
02:29:25
Speaker
All right, and last question. We'll end this show on a sweet note, on a high note. This comes from Jason Koenig. He says, what is the sweetest thing your kids have ever said to
Heartwarming Family Moments
02:29:37
Speaker
you? He said, our almost six-year-old son just said to his mom, I'm happy to see you happy after she told him she was happy to see him reading.
02:29:45
Speaker
So kids do say some really, really sweet things. I'll start this off. Brett actually just said to me yesterday, he ran over my foot or he didn't run over, he like pushed his chair into my foot and I was like, ow. And he said, oh, I sorry. I kiss it. I make it feel better. And then he kissed my foot and said, oh, it feel better, mama. And I just was like, you're the sweetest thing. So yeah.
02:30:07
Speaker
My favorite thing Brett does is like, so we play fight a lot around here. We do it like, you know, Brett, obviously we've introduced pro wrestling to Brett. He understands it. He knows how to sell. You know, he'll fake it. Like you can actually, you punch him and he'll like fall down and sell it. He did a perfect pin on his sister today. Like I mean, leg back and everything. Yeah.
02:30:26
Speaker
So he knows about all that stuff, but sometimes I feel like I'm going to play fight with his little sister, Stella. In fact, like I'm, you know, going to like put her in a body slam or like, you know, hit her with something like a super kick. He will immediately run up and attack me and protect her. And he's like, you know, no, you leave her alone. You leave her alone.
02:30:43
Speaker
Yeah, it always just hits me right in the field spot how he's ready to defend his sister at a moment's notice because the funny thing about it is he's a rough house with it. You know, he'll run up to her and he'll push her down. He'll tackle her. He'll put her in a headlock. But if anybody else tries to mess with his sister, he's ready to start throwing blows. Yes. So yeah, that's what always kind of gets me. How about you, Marko?
02:31:05
Speaker
I'll probably say like the, we're trying to instill like the politeness thing. So like, you know, thank you, please thank you, that type of thing. So I always find it's funny, because obviously they have little voices. So like my daughters, if they asked for like a snack or something like that, and I gave it to them.
02:31:23
Speaker
And they're just like, Tiki Tiki, like the whole just like that type of thing is like, it's pretty sweet. And then, you know, I mean, they're always with the I love yous and stuff like that. And, you know, do you love daddy? Yeah. Any, any I love you is going to get you right. Yeah. It never gets old. Yeah. Yeah. And then just my, uh, my, my son obviously started five this year. Jeez. Wow. He's really into the, uh, there's a cars three game that came out on the PS4 and X-Box.
02:31:52
Speaker
So he's like really into that. So just like him just just having conversations with him on like trying to like he's like really picking it up really well, which I'm kind of kind of scared off because he's really good at it, which is which is strange. But there's like little eyes and ears seeing here everything. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's way like how fast they like pick up like like a controller. His hands can barely hold the controller, but he's able to like do like drifting and
02:32:16
Speaker
Yeah, you could you could I drive backwards on the game and all that stuff and do all types of crazy stuff and he's able to do it So it just like those like just like that moment having those like father-son moments is there's always a Sweet to me. Anyway, yeah, it's definitely the best That's gonna be a wrap for episode 122. We're it plus two and a half hours I think this may be the longest episode of the chick Foley show ever. So we told next week. Yeah, we're making history here She never remind the folks where they can find you guys on social media
02:32:47
Speaker
All right. You can find me always at Chick Foley on Instagram, Marco running the Twitter machine over at Chick Foley show and join our fully fam be a part of our Facebook group. Um, it's amazing at chick Foley show.com. Support our pod foundation members turn bubble tavern, extra cooler.
02:33:04
Speaker
Pyramid wrestling these guys are pumping out the best of the best independent wrestling podcasts every single week Make sure you guys are also subscribing and reviewing to the podcast that definitely helps us out and help support the show Use our code chick Foley at ringside collectibles any any orders you guys place to save 10% and Sheena as the reigning and defending chick Foley show prediction champion you get the final word of the week R.I.P hurt business