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Episode 13: My Wrestlemania Weekend & Descent Into Madness Featuring: Progress, Evolve, Wrestlecon Supershow, Joey Janela's Spring Break & ROH Supercard of Honor
51 Plays8 years ago
Have you ever spent 15 consecutive hours in the same building watching live pro wrestling? This past mania weekend Garrett did and he's ready to discuss it with you and Derrick! Garrett tells stories from his recent Wrestlemania weekend trip to New Orleans where he attended the Wrestlecon Supershow, Progress, Evolve, WWN Supershow, Joey Janela's Spring Break 2 and ROH Supercard of Honor!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Predetermined, a pro wrestling hangout. I'm your host, Garrett Callender, and with me, as always, a man who some call the future of music. Derek Halpin.
00:00:11
Speaker
Man, I don't get that reference. You don't get that reference?
WrestleMania and The Future of Music
00:00:14
Speaker
You don't remember the beginning of WrestleMania, where Jojo said... Oh, fuck. Where Jojo said, and now singing America the Beautiful, a group who some people call, or who some people refer to as the future of music, Hailey and Chloe.
00:00:32
Speaker
That's an outrageous claim. That really was the same as Will Ferrell and Step Brothers saying, some people call me the songbird of my generation. Basically, it came across pretty arrogant. It was such an outrageous claim for two people nobody's heard of. And I need sources. I need sources cited. The future of music, they don't even play any instruments, they're just voices. What are they going to do that's so drastically different?
00:01:00
Speaker
They sang America the Beautiful pretty regular. I mean, they were good at it. They sounded great. Future of music? We'll see. I mean, that's a tough song, though. That's a tough song to see, you know, somebody's range of, am I going to enjoy this later? You know what I think the future of music is? Oh, no, no.
00:01:23
Speaker
I you know what it would not surprise me if you know two years from now people are dancing to that in a club somebody we have to have somebody talented enough to make a remix of that that noise into a song a techno remix of the shame it's gonna be the same guy who did the techno remix of the Christian Bale break like the breakdown
00:01:46
Speaker
Fun story about, you know, when Christian Bale had that breakdown, part of that was happening to a friend of mine named Brad, because that all happened on the Warner Brothers lot. And I don't know if any of you guys, I don't think I've mentioned this on the show before. I used to be a tour guide for Warner Brothers for two and a half years. But one of the guys I work with was driving a tram by and he goes, he's yelling at McG. And then he looks over and he's like, I got this fucking guy looking at me and points to my friend Brad.
WrestleMania Weekend Adventures
00:02:14
Speaker
Okay, everybody. I went to WrestleMania over the weekend. I hit up a lot of shows. So if you're into Progress Evolve, if you just want to hear about them, I'm getting ready to talk about them. Hit our goddamn music.
00:02:59
Speaker
And we're back.
Podcast Promotion
00:03:00
Speaker
Hey, top of the show. Just want to remind everyone that they need to check us out on all our different platforms that we're available on. We're on iTunes. We're on Spotify. We're on Stitcher, Google Play, and also to check us out on our social media. We're available on Facebook and Twitter at at Wrestle Hangout and predetermined podcast on Instagram.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yes. And if you could do us a huge favor, rate, review, subscribe, rate, review, subscribe. It's so easy. I know you're out there listening. And I also know you haven't been writing us a review. But I've had some nice things said to us. If you could put those on there, I would love you forever. Helps other people find our podcast. And it just, you know, warms my heart. It really is an official. It's an official endorsement if you write a review for us.
00:03:46
Speaker
And we will definitely shout you out on here.
Unexpected WrestleMania Mishap
00:03:50
Speaker
Speaking of shout outs, I want to give a quick shout out to a couple guys. My Australian friends, Khan and Vlad, they're in the United States right now. And our buddy Vlad, he had a rough go at it. He ended up, I didn't mention this on the show, on the review show the other day. He ended up, he's been in the United States for a couple weeks while they're on vacation. The day before NXT or the day of, he got food poisoning.
00:04:15
Speaker
ended up in the hospital in New Orleans, missed NXT and WrestleMania. Are you fucking kidding me? I am not kidding you. He was sitting in the hospital while we were all at WrestleMania. I felt so bad for the guy. Vlad, get well soon, brother. I am so sorry that happened. Let's go to Mania 35 together. Let's hang out. Let's party.
00:04:37
Speaker
That sucks so much, man. That's like the worst turn of luck. You're not just missing one day, you're missing a couple days of stuff that you traveled really, really far to see. That sucks, man. I'm so sorry to hear that. He didn't have the, I mean, that's pretty terrible, but I looked, they met Stone Cold, they met a lot of guys. So he did get some. The only wrestling event that he actually got to attend was the Hall of Fame. And that seems like just to add insult to injury. Like that's all he got.
00:05:06
Speaker
And I hope they're on their way to New York next. Have fun in New York, guys. And just get well soon, man. Yeah, that's a bummer. I guess it's cool that he got to experience a little bit, but man, where did he get fucking food poisoning from? Did he go to Jerry Lawler's restaurant? Oh, man. I didn't get it from Jerry's favorite tendies, but there is no chance that those battle royal nachos wouldn't fuck somebody up. Because you know what? They're made fresh and they're really good.
Post-WrestleMania Chaos
00:05:35
Speaker
So nobody else in the party got food poisoning? Just him? Just him. I met up with Khan. We ended up having a good chat with him after WrestleMania, which speaking of after WrestleMania, we wandered around and we were trying to find food. New Orleans is such a hard city to find food in after midnight on a Sunday because it's a religious town.
00:05:57
Speaker
and everything is fucking closed. We walked around like the French Quarter for like two hours trying to find this shit. Where we ended up finding, we ended up in a, in the casino, the Harrah's, there was a Fuddruckers still open.
00:06:14
Speaker
midnight after midnight it was a fast-food version of fud rucker so it wasn't sit-down restaurant like you ordered up there and when we walked in I mean there had to have been 50 to a hundred fucking people trying to order fud ruckers and you could tell fud ruckers did not know WrestleMania was in New Orleans everyone's like this is the easy shift this will be a smooth night and then holy shit dude who are all these people in these day one ish shirts coming in my way
00:06:43
Speaker
So yeah, half the people are in day one is shirts. The other half are in bullet club shirts looking like they belong to a fucking militia. And the guy behind the counter who had to call the numbers, he was hot, man. He was pissed that he had to work. All the workers were sweating. You could tell that shit was not going right. And when this guy called numbers, he didn't call it. He was fucking yelling at you.
00:07:09
Speaker
That number is your fault that it exists. His night sucks because of you. Go fuck yourself, you stupid piece of shit. That was the tone of him calling 522, which was my actual number. And I want to listen to his podcast and hear his side of the story. The Rutgers cast. Yeah, it's called Fudlife.
00:07:32
Speaker
We're walking around with Khan trying to find him some, you know, like a good place to eat in America because he said he hasn't had any good food in America yet because they've just been eating like, you know, Denny's and IHOP and stuff like that because they don't really know where to go. So we end up at Fuddruckers. And I'll tell you, as a as a foreigner, I feel like you're hearing Fuddruckers. You're like, this isn't going to be good.
00:07:53
Speaker
Especially when somebody in your party is down with food poisoning. Oh, man. Well, and I said to him, like, should we just... Because he had a hotel, and I was like, does your hotel have 24-hour room service? And he goes, they do, but that's where Vlad got food poisoning. Oh, shit. Fudruckers it is, brother. Let's fud it up.
00:08:13
Speaker
And so we order food from this Fuddruckers. I fuck, I ordered chicken tenders. They both, my buddy Jared and Khan both ordered chicken sandwiches. He waited over an hour as this man screamed at every single person. Come get your fucking tendies.
00:08:32
Speaker
I felt like he was just gonna toss him at my face and tell me to go eat my own ass. That was the tone of him handing me that food. But as we're standing there, I shit you not. We're waiting to hear our numbers, so we have a long time. A bunch of the impact roster happened to walk over. So as I'm standing there waiting, I'm talking to Trevor Lee while he's in line.
00:08:55
Speaker
So that was fun. Eli Drake was with him. And as Trevor Lee is in line and we're chatting, they flip all the signs around. They fucking ran out of food. Holy shit. So the impact roster left hungry. They didn't get any fudruckers, man. And then also while we're standing there, okay, I don't know if we've talked about these guys yet, but they blow my fucking mind.
00:09:18
Speaker
Those two guys that are in the front row of nearly every WWE pay-per-view, smiley face shirt guy, green smiley face shirt guy. Do you know who I'm talking about? I don't know. I know I have the people that I see regularly. Oh, this is this guy. He's in the front of everyone. He looks like a guy we went to
Jerry Lawler's Memorable Match
00:09:34
Speaker
high school with. He looks like Brandon Marker, but like a chubbier version of that guy.
00:09:38
Speaker
and then also like long hair goth guy that's always with his either mother or older girlfriend I don't these aren't the regulars that I know I know about Kerry here from Chicago and I know about where did we sign guy yeah sign guy yeah I ran into sign guy all over town man
00:09:55
Speaker
That guy is everywhere. But yeah, those guys were together. And I so badly wanted to say, like, what's your story? I gotta know. But I left them alone because, you know, it's like three in the morning in New Orleans. We're all just trying to get our Fuddruckers. And everyone's bummed that they're not getting their Fuddruckers. Oh yeah. So let's move on. I got to New Orleans on Thursday. I made the eight hour drive from Nashville. Had to get there in time for the WrestleCon Super Show.
00:10:22
Speaker
And that ended up being a pretty, pretty fun show. It's just a big mix of people, and there ended up being quite a few New Japan people on this show that we didn't expect. So that was a nice surprise show up. It was at this place called the Sugar Mill.
00:10:40
Speaker
When I got there, I was not anticipating the line that I got. I knew it was sold out, but I was very, very far away. And there was somebody working the line that had to walk up and down and say, if you bought tickets with the name Marty on them, they are fake. We've already gotten a bunch. So somebody printed out a bunch of the same ticket and sold it to a bunch of people.
00:11:02
Speaker
Oh, that sucks. So there were a lot of pissed off people that had a ticket with the name Marty on it. And for all we know, the villain did it. Marty Skurl out there, out there selling counterfeit tickets to a WrestleCon.
00:11:17
Speaker
It's possible you're listening to this show because you found us through a WrestleCon post. We had the 35th anniversary of Andy Kaufman getting the pile driver from Jerry the King Lawler. We had Joey Ryan come out as Andy Kaufman, cut the Memphis promo word for word.
00:11:38
Speaker
This is a bar of soap. This is how you use it. Ladies, this is a razor. This is how you shave your legs. You know, that whole thing. I was losing my mind. Love Andy Kaufman. Love Joey Ryan. So I'm getting... Was that planned? By the way, I meant to ask that. Did they know that it was... Like, did everyone know that it was the 35th anniversary?
00:11:56
Speaker
Oh, I had no idea. We didn't know until... So he calls out any woman in the back that wants to fight him. Jerry the King Lawler's music hits. The crowd goes absolutely fucking bananas. Including you? Oh, you better believe I was marking my little heart out. And I use the word mark right now, so you know it's serious.
00:12:20
Speaker
Dude, that was insane. He came out, they're cutting promos on each other. And so the Louisiana Boxing and Wrestling Commission put so many rules on all of these indie promotions all weekend. No blood, no Canadian destroyers, no pile drivers. They just really banned a bunch of shit. And Jerry Lawler is talking and he said, it is 35 years to the day that I gave Andy Kaufman that pile driver.
00:12:48
Speaker
And Joey Ryan says, well, because of the Louisiana State Boxing Commission, you can't give me a pile driver. It's illegal. And, you know, really being a piece of shit about it. People bringing up the Louisiana Boxing Commission was a theme of the weekend. It was hard to find a show where they did not get brought up at least once.
00:13:09
Speaker
There were even spots where somebody came out as somebody from the Louisiana Boxing Commission. And I promise you, there were shows where people did not obey that. Like, even Will Ospreay was selling shirts that said Will Ospreay versus the Louisiana State Boxing Commission. And the main reason he brought those shirts was to sell them all and pay the fines for him.
00:13:34
Speaker
Nice. Those shirts existed to cover the fines that he knew he was going to get from just kind of brilliant. Oh, it's amazing. And I think he sold out of them. I didn't see any by the end of the week. And he's somebody that I saw four or five times in a weekend, which fucking crazy. I don't know if you saw this. Did you hear about his injury?
00:13:53
Speaker
Uh, I something about outside didn't there was like a dive outside the ring. So, yeah, it was at the New Japan show Genesis. He was fighting Marty Skirrell and I'm trying to remember exactly the move. I don't think it was a Canadian destroyer, but it was some type of pile driver. His head went way too far down and he's lucky he's not paralyzed right now. Like it is one of the nastiest injuries. And one week later, he's cleared and wrestling multiple shows daily.
00:14:23
Speaker
All WrestleMania weekend and it was painful to watch that dude go through that man like knowing he was hurt And I mean he played the neck up every show I saw him in and I saw him in nearly actually I think I saw him in nearly every show the whole weekend So what did it what ended up happening with the Joey Ryan Jerry Lawler? Okay, so with that Joe Jerry Lawler goes to kick Joey Ryan in the dick Joey Ryan doesn't flinch because you know he has a penis of steel and
00:14:53
Speaker
So Jerry Lawler's foot hurts, Joey's cheering. Then Jerry starts aiming his crown and everybody's a little confused. The whole crowd is chanting so big, so strong about Joey Ryan's penis. And then a fireball shoots out of the crown, hitting Joey Ryan on the penis, sending him straight to the ground. Jerry the King Lawler's disqualified. Match over.
00:15:18
Speaker
The match was two minutes and eight seconds. Joey Ryan wins by DQ. But we did find out that his penis is hurt by fire. So. So here's what's cool about this. We will post stuff on our social media from time to time. You actually caught the video of this happening and tweeted it out from our Twitter and Joey Ryan retweeted it and it kind of blew up and we gained a whole bunch of new followers because of that clip.
Social Media Success After Retweet
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, there are about 40,000 views on that thing. No DQ posted our video and gave us credit. Shout out to No DQ. Shout out to Joey Ryan for giving us that retweet. Thank you so much. If you're listening because of it, love you so much. Thanks for coming. Appreciate it. We're just friends hanging out, man. That's what we're doing. Talking wrestling. You're a friend now.
00:16:02
Speaker
And this was just Thursday night. This is the first show I went to second match. And that happens. My phone was blowing up all night with the the retweets and everything that I I'm really dumb with technology. And I actually just had to hide my phone because it wouldn't stop buzzing from that.
00:16:19
Speaker
uh let's see what else we have uh great intergender match got to see uh tenille dashwood and tessa blanchard both awesome they fought trevor lee and some other guys ishi came out fought cob i didn't see a lot of lucha this weekend unfortunately the area i was in was mostly like british strong style stuff
00:16:38
Speaker
But getting to see Ray Phoenix and Ray Horace take on Bandito and Flamida, one of the highlights of the night. That was possibly match of the night. Next year, I want to hit up as much lucha as possible. Will Ospreay had an awesome match. Menorah Suzuki was in a match with Brian Cage, where they were taking on Tana Hashi, Juice Robinson, Sammy Callahan. But the main thing everybody went to this show for was the Golden Lovers versus Chuck Taylor and Trent.
00:17:06
Speaker
Trent was hurt, so he was gonna have a mystery guest. And they introduced the Golden Lovers first, Chuck Taylor comes out, he's really playing up who his partner's gonna be. He invited a swamp monster out at one point. And it was, a swamp monster came out, Kenny and Ibushi immediately kicked his ass, sent him back. And for whatever reason, this sold out huge crowd was expecting Okada.
00:17:32
Speaker
Because, you know, Okada is teamed with Chuck Taylor in New Japan quite a bit recently. Sure. Okada's not listed for any shows the entire weekend. There's no reason to believe Okada is going to be his partner. And it ends up being Flip Gordon. That place is met with just a chorus of boos.
00:17:51
Speaker
And it's like, we're still watching the Golden Lovers. Like you were getting ready to see Kenny Omega headline a show, this small show. And the crowd was just, I was a little pissed at the crowd for not just appreciating that. And spent more time booing Flip Gordon than being excited that you're still there for Kenny Omega.
00:18:12
Speaker
They had built up in their head that they were going to get to see Okada. Yeah, for no reason. No one had any reason to believe they were about to see Okada. But that's what that crowd thought they were about to get Okada. Didn't happen. So, man. So you arrive Thursday. You get this show in. Oh, I got back late from this one. This was this was an evening show. So, I mean, I got back.
00:18:33
Speaker
you know, probably one or two in the morning from this one, and I had to wake up the next day, which, okay, I thought this would be a funny bit for the show. I thought Friday was the shit show. Friday was a shit show. And a good, in a good way. But I thought it would be a funny bit if I spent the entire day watching wrestling, like in one room, never leaving.
00:18:55
Speaker
Like, you know, walking outside in between shows because they clear it out and let you go back in. But I spent I got to this venue around 11 a.m. And the final show ended at three thirty a.m. the next day.
00:19:09
Speaker
Friday into Saturday. Friday into Saturday. I stayed in the same building watching wrestling, and it was just gonna be like, this is a funny joke. I'm gonna do it, and we're gonna talk about it. By the end of that show, I was so mad. Like, people, by the time I get to talking about Joey, or the Joey Janela Spring Break 2, they are not gonna be pleased with me. That was a very well-received show by nearly everyone but me.
00:19:37
Speaker
And I think that it was because of how fucking tired I was and how I was no longer ready for nonsense. Like, it turns out spending 15 hours in a building watching violence, it affects you.
00:19:53
Speaker
Like, cause it's not like I'm watching like, I mean, the matches are fun, but we're most of these matches I saw throughout the day are British strong style. So it is people beating the shit out of each other. I mean, I'm watching Fight Club. It's like Fight Club. There was a match I watch where these guys were shoot punching each other and giving each other shoot head butts so hard that the thud of their heads, it wasn't like the slap of the file here. It was just heads colliding and it was making me sick. Like I felt like Alex in a clockwork or
00:20:23
Speaker
Like my eyes are pried open and I'm screaming about how much I love Beethoven. Like by the end of this show, I was going nuts, man. But the first show of that day was Progress. Progress chapter 66, Mardi Gras, was the name of the show.
00:20:43
Speaker
And this was my first experience with Progress. Where was this at, by the way? The first show was at Sugar Mill on Thursday. Okay. So that was in New Orleans proper. That was across the street from where Access was, is where all the WrestleCon stuff was happening. But where I went for all this stuff, which was WWN events,
00:21:05
Speaker
This wasn't even in fucking New Orleans, man. I was in Kenner, Louisiana for this. I had to drive to this place. It was just a convention center. There was a book sale going on next door. Didn't get a chance to hit that up. So we're in Kenner, Louisiana at the Pontchartrain Center.
00:21:24
Speaker
So how far away was this from your hotel? Nicole, thank you for the Airbnb. Very nice lady. Stayed in Nicole's house. She was a sweetheart. She was there with me. Never did that before where I stayed in somebody's house where they lived in it. It was probably like 20 minutes away, 25 minutes away.
00:21:42
Speaker
That's not bad. Yeah, it wasn't too bad. But this progress show, UK wrestling fans are incredible. This was one of the best vibe shows I've ever been to in my whole life.
00:21:59
Speaker
As we sit here, I'm wearing a progress shirt. I only bought two shirts this weekend and one was progress. I may have found one of my new favorite promotions. It has easily become a life goal now. Get over to the UK, watch progress with the UK fans. This shit was great.
Discovering Progress Wrestling
00:22:18
Speaker
They have a guy come out, introduce the show. He reads some tweets from fans. They get a really good vibe going. And then every fan, he's like, the only rule in progress is, and he holds the mic up, a sold out room just shouts, don't be a dick.
00:22:34
Speaker
That's the only rule of these shows. Saw some good shit. Mustache Mountain showed up. You know, Trent Seven and Tyler Bate that WWE fans would know from the UK tournaments. They pop up here and there. Watched Will Ospreay again. Take on Mark Haskins. Got to watch Walter a bunch. If you don't know Walter, this is just a big Austrian motherfucker with the hardest chops you'll ever see.
00:22:58
Speaker
Like, no joke, I probably saw Walter like five times this weekend. Jeff Cobb was there, got to see Tony Storm, Tony Storm rules, got a, if you, uh, on our Instagram, got a picture with her, saw Matt Riddle, who wrestled like five or six times that day. He was at all four shows I watched that day, but in between, he was driving to the Sugar Mill to do shows, and then driving back.
00:23:24
Speaker
Well, I mean, I guess if it was only like half an hour away. But I mean, for to do that many matches in a single day. That's that's that's a marathon. And he's a hard hitting dude. Like he's a very much a strong style. Like he's a former UFC fighter. And he took on Jimmy Havoc in this match. And I saw a spot that almost made me throw up. Jimmy Havoc's valet handed him an eight by 10 of himself. Matt Riddle is a shoeless wrestler.
00:23:52
Speaker
He got him in an ankle lock and paper cut him between all of his toes. Oh, fuck. I've never seen that spot. That's awesome. The crowd was going fucking bananas. Sat with a ton of friends that day. So shout out to Alex and Neil from Nashville.
00:24:09
Speaker
Shout out to Kayla and Aaron and Matt and Mike from LA. We had a really good group going. My new friend Alex from New York that I met through Kayla. Great crowd. UK fans got these amazing chants going. The main event, we got to see Pete Dunn take on Morgan Webster and Mark Andrews. Awesome match. I can't stress this enough. Seek out progress, guys. This is a good promotion to watch.
00:24:36
Speaker
After that, Evolve, the place cleared the fuck out. I watched Evolve at an empty arena. Really? How many people would you say were in there? I mean, it went from being, you know, a few thousand people for progress, a couple thousand for progress, maybe, I don't know, it's hard to gauge. But for Evolve, I mean, 100, 200 people?
00:24:59
Speaker
Like for as big of a room as it was in, that place cleared out. Because I guess there was a big Rev Pro show with a bunch of New Japan guys happening at the sugar mill. So people started disappearing, hurrying over there to catch that show.
00:25:12
Speaker
But in this show, you know, we got to see this is where I saw that shoot fight that was just between a guy named Jaka and a Japanese wrestler named Sawa. These guys just beat the absolute piss out of each other. This was a hard hitting match. Somebody got hurt in the first show. So Walter took on a little boy named Hot Sauce. It's a grown man, but compared to Walter, he's a little boy. This guy's chest can't stress enough. Check out Walter's chops.
00:25:39
Speaker
This show was good, fine. The shoot fight was probably the most memorable match of that. Eight o'clock, we move on to the WWN Super Show. The main thing we're on this show for is to see Matt Riddle take on Will Ospreay.
00:25:57
Speaker
They have it billed as a dream match main event. These are two of the biggest indie workers right now. You know, Will Ospreay from New Japan and Matt Riddle from just being a fucking awesome MMA fighter pothead guy. That's your description of him. Oh. The fighter pothead guy. Like he's never going to make it to WWE. Like he's just two stoned. He's just two stoned.
00:26:20
Speaker
like he is Rob Van Dam levels of stoned but uh between this show we're like well we got some time what should we do we went to the Hilton bar next door there was a Hilton uh no one thought to go to the Hilton and it turned out to be a good decision every fucking indie wrestler you could imagine sitting in the Hilton bar no actual patrons just the wrestlers
00:26:41
Speaker
Nice. So got to sit around and watch, you know, blue pants drink with A.R. Fox. Got to see Tony Storm outside. You know, just everybody doing that. So that was pretty, pretty cool just to see Walter walking around in flip flops dressed all casual Friday. He's a lot less scary when he's not wearing shorts that say Ring Conf on them.
00:27:00
Speaker
So like and nobody else thought to go over there and I mean you would think that would come to people that the wrestlers would be staying right there next to a venue. Yeah. No one went over there. Everybody just hung out at the the wrestling hall that we were at and it turned out that was a great decision to go over there and drink a beer and just watch the wrestlers.
00:27:19
Speaker
Just be excited as they came. That super show though, I mean, a lot of good matches. Got to see Zack Sabre Jr. fight Sawa, that was the shoot fighter from the other one. Got to see Dominic Garini a bunch of times this weekend who won the title at very endy. You wouldn't believe how many times as well I saw DJZ this weekend. And how did that go every time? Did you count the Airhorns? Oh my god, I wish I had. I thought about taking a shot every time I got Airhorned.
00:27:48
Speaker
And keep in mind, I actually forgot that on Thursday I didn't eat food. I just like was in too much of a hurry that I never got around to it. This place, I lived on chicken tendies. I go up. They say, hey, we don't have any fries. I say, that's fine. Just give me the tenders. And they go extra tenders for the regular price. I just get a like they gave me a fuck you amount of chicken tenders is how I'm going to describe this. It was just a pile of ten. Too many chicken tenders. That's not what you're supposed to live on. What were they good? Did you get any dips with them?
00:28:18
Speaker
I didn't see the dip, so I ate dry chicken tenders. Like, I'm in a city- What does it say about you? You're like, I didn't even think about it. I just wanted the fucking meat. I'm just there for the sweet grasps, man. I'm in a city with some of the best, you know, Cajun food in the world. I ate goddamn fried chicken tenders from the Pontchartrain Center.
00:28:38
Speaker
Let me ask you the important question. What was the bathroom situation like for you, my brother? Oh, big bathroom guy, like a good bathroom. People need to know this. Got a lot of stomach problems, need to know what's going on. They kept that bathroom spotless. And wrestling fans are filthy fucking people.
00:28:58
Speaker
I was gonna say, that's impressive. Like, oh, more than the bathroom situation there was fantastic. You could use that all day, it was clean as hell. But the smell of that room, man, when you're in one room all day with wrestling fans, we are a sweaty, smelly bunch. And add that with wrestlers and the smell of chicken tenders, and you make a stink that lives on you for days.
00:29:23
Speaker
Like, my clothes were ruined. I need to just throw those in the trash and light a match. Because for real, it was just BO and chicken tenders. That's exactly what I'm laughing at.
00:29:38
Speaker
I know the exact smell. The problem is I felt so bad for Nicole's room because when me and my buddy got back there that next morning we came back into the room and we're like oh my god this smells like the Pontchartrain Center in here because of our clothes. Didn't think to shower. Well we showered I didn't think to go put my shit in the washing machine so it wouldn't smell up her house.
00:30:04
Speaker
Next year you need to get like a travel bottle of Febreze. Oh my god. And just douse yourself. Absolutely. Like I'm Nicole I apologize. You have a very fine home and now your room smells like the Pontchartrain Center. Which to be clear is the combination of sweaty B.O. venue and chicken tenders.
00:30:25
Speaker
And Matt Riddle's pot. And Matt Riddle's pot. But I need, oh, in between this, just so you know, I have always heard the legend of this. We all have Virgil. Yeah. Virgil, you know, sad Virgil. Well, sad Virgil in Virgil's dick.
00:30:42
Speaker
Brother, sad Virgil was in attendance, my friend. He had a table set up. We got to see- Did people go? No, man. Nobody went. My buddy ran into him outside, got a picture with him. Guess what? Virgil didn't charge him. Huh. I just need everybody to know, there is at least a record of one time where Virgil was pretty cool. Picture didn't turn out good. He goes, no, let's go outside and take it. Let's get better light for this. Virgil made sure he got a good picture and he got it for free.
00:31:11
Speaker
Wow, I mean that has I mean that's a that's like seeing a leprechaun, I think Which you better believe in this single day. I did see fucking hornswoggle wrestle. Yeah, I did Saw that at Joey Janela's but before we get to Joey Janela this show ended like at this point I'm still good believe it or not this many hours in this that show lasted until about 11 o'clock and
00:31:34
Speaker
Matt Riddle versus Will Ospreay, it's not often when you get a dream match that it lives up to the exact expectation you want it to live up to. Especially with Ospreay being injured, those two fucking killed each other. I mean, in the first two minutes of that match, we saw a German suplex on the apron. Damn. And so this is like 11 PM on Friday. This is 11 PM on Friday. I'm on my third show of the day at this point.
00:32:00
Speaker
Damn. And it was, I mean, I'm skipping a lot of matches. You can look up the cards to all these online, but a lot of the same, since it was the same promotion putting on all these shows, it was a lot of the same wrestlers between all these shows. So I kind of got a really good idea of a lot of, you know, a lot of these wrestler styles, especially ones I didn't see. There's no better way to get a sense of somebody than watch them wrestle four times in one day.
00:32:23
Speaker
Great. But Riddle Ospreay, can't stress this enough, seek that match out online. That was easily one of the top matches I saw this entire weekend. It's a 14 minute match, hard hitting, awesome match. I guess I don't need to give you the finale to that. You should just go check that one out. That's really one worth checking out.
00:32:44
Speaker
So up next, Joey Janela's Spring Break. I'm still not feeling tired. Like, I mean, at this point, it's midnight. And the vibe of this room is bananas. This thing is 100% sold out, people everywhere, and people came to this thing to fucking party, man. Like, if you ended up at Joey Janela's Spring Break too at midnight, you were there because you fucking love pro wrestling or drinking.
00:33:12
Speaker
Because Matt Riddles got his pot. And Matt Riddles high out in the parking lot, man. And he's on this show, too. He fought James Ellsworth. Second match of the night. Match lasted like three minutes or whatever, because it was what it was. But I mean, people have inflatable rafts, inflatable alligators, tubes. People are dressed like they're at their beach. It felt like spring break in this room. And that crowd was ready for a show.
00:33:39
Speaker
Opening match was just a six-way, I got to see Teddy Hart, DJZ, Eli Everfly, Gringo Loco, Kyle the Beast, and Tony Deppin. Not familiar. Kyle the Beast. Kyle the Beast. At a certain point, all this shit runs together. Teddy Hart had maybe the weirdest clothes of the night. And I don't know if you know this. Teddy Hart brings his cat everywhere with him.
00:34:02
Speaker
And when I say everywhere, I don't mean to the ring, I mean to the venue. So I've seen this before. I saw him in Dallas carrying this fucking cat around at WrestleMania weekend. So after the show, he's just carrying this fucking white cat around, which is insane that the cat's being so calm in a room full of insane people.
00:34:23
Speaker
And this match, or this show, I had a guy sitting in front of me that I would like to call, well actually. He was listening to everybody's conversation, and he was an encyclopedia of obscure wrestling knowledge. And anytime somebody said something, the next sentence to come out was, well actually. And then let you know why, what you said is wrong.
00:34:44
Speaker
Is that annoying? Yeah, I mean, by this point, I've been in a building for over 12 hours. Everything's annoying. Everything is annoying and I'm really starting to lose my patience for nonsense. This show, like, I really took a turn for the worst. Like, I was not a good version of me at Joey Janela's Spring Break 2.
00:35:09
Speaker
The Walter or the Matt Riddle match, whatever. But the next match was easily my favorite of the night. It was PCO versus Walter. And when I say PCO, I mean, Pierre Carl Ule. You may know him as one of the Quebecers from fucking. Yeah, he's fucking 50 years old and took on goddamn Walter. You mean partner to Jacques Rougeau? Yes.
00:35:39
Speaker
Fuck. Yeah, was not expecting this. Even though I saw it on the card, I didn't process who that was. I mean, this guy has been wrestling forever and I'm going to find the picture and put it on Instagram so that you guys can see what I'm talking about. We'll throw it up on Twitter. By the end of this match, his chest was fucking purple.
00:36:00
Speaker
because Walter came in and he said he got a mic and was like I'm not gonna do this he's like you're a legend I respect what you've done you can I'm giving you the opportunity to leave like you don't do this match with me I hit you I hit too hard but he wouldn't back down and this 50 year old guy took the craziest amount of Walter chops
00:36:23
Speaker
Like I saw a lot of Walter, I saw him beat the shit out of everybody, but this guy got it worse than anyone I saw all weekend, and he's 50. His chest was literally, I'm not stressed, it was purple. I hope he got paid well. Oh, and this guy did a moonsault off the top rope to the floor, almost landed on his fucking head. Like the whole match was just like spots where I was cringing, like waiting to watch a 50 year old man kill himself.
00:36:51
Speaker
And he didn't. Like, for real, kudos to this guy. This was the top match for me of Joey Janela's Spring Break 2. Like, I could not get enough of that thing. That was crazy. And this is how you ended, like, the whole day at the same building?
00:37:08
Speaker
Oh, this is match three of the night, man. Oh, I thought this was the main event. No. Next up, Nick Gage versus Pentagon. Nick Gage, I don't know if you're familiar with this guy. I believe he was like CZW. No one seems more authentic than Nick Gage because he looks like a fucking skinhead and he was in prison for bank robbery.
00:37:30
Speaker
like he just got out a couple years ago for bank robbery he robbed a bank after a after a fucking wrestling show ended up in prison for five years and this guy comes out he's like you fucking pieces of shit I'm fucking gang related hop this fucking barricade I'll fucking kill you
00:37:48
Speaker
And he fought Pentagon in a death match. Uh, steel chair shots to the head? Still shocking, my friend. And Nick Gage, not afraid to take him. Give him all he wants. He loves it. And he won. He left with that title. So the Louisiana Boxing Commission didn't outlaw the steel chair shots to the head? I think Joey Janela's spring break didn't care, and I dare them to tell Nick Gage to not do that shit. Like,
00:38:14
Speaker
This guy, I would have never talked to him. Like this is a wrestler that I was like, shoot afraid of. Like I was like, if I run into him in the parking lot, I'm just going to hand him my wallet and walk away. Like just hope that it works. That's the best case scenario for you. And for me, the next match, this is where I lost it.
00:38:34
Speaker
And I feel so bad, it was David Starr versus Mike Quackenbush. Mike Quackenbush, big indie wrestler. He's kind of an indie wrestling legend. We find out that this match is one of his final matches. He's kind of on a farewell tour right now, and this was one of them. We were very lucky to see him. I wish, though, that I hadn't been so tired, because it was just another singles match. It was a very good singles match, but at this point I was dead.
00:39:00
Speaker
The next match though is the place that I lost my goddamn mind and I was furious. Joey Janela's Spring Break took a turn for me at this point where I'm like, this isn't fun anymore, I'm mad. It was a match called the Clusterfuck Battle Royale.
00:39:21
Speaker
It's supposed to be a comedy match where people are gradually, you know, like an over the top rope kind of thing or you can pin submit over the top rope, whatever. This match was supposed to be a comedy match. It lasted 40 fucking minutes. And at this point, this match would have started around 2 a.m.
00:39:43
Speaker
Like, actually, maybe later, it may have even been about 2.30. But this match, I thought, oh, this is gonna be a quick thing. It was 40 minutes. And when I say like, it was, let me see who, some notable people. I mean, there were spots with the Invisible Man.
00:39:59
Speaker
I believe the Invisible Man ended up winning the show. This had Hornswoggle. We got Mikey Whipwreck to show up from ECW. That was a surprise. Ethan Page was in it. Okay, gotta go back. Dan Severn was in this match.
00:40:16
Speaker
Fucking Dan Severn. When I walk into Joey Janela's Spring Break 2, I fucking shit you not. First thing I see, I look over, Dan Severn dressed like, dressed like everybody's stepdad. He's got that polo shirt on, he's got a fanny pack, standing there clipping his fucking fingernails.
00:40:35
Speaker
business as usual like when I walk in I say holy shit is that Dan Severn and my friend goes he's clipping his fingernails and like right as he says that I see this giant fingernail go just flying like that would have been the weirdest souvenir for somebody you get some get some Dan Severn DNA and when he came out you better believe that guy was sweating
00:40:59
Speaker
also somewhere in the middle of this right before the clusterfuck Virgil came out in the ring drunk as shit they actually had to get on the PA and say Virgil you're done get backstage Wow little sad clusterfuck exactly as advertised it was a clusterfuck
00:41:15
Speaker
Main match, though. But this broke you. Oh, I was broken. It was not funny. Nothing. There is not a spot they could have done in that match that would have even got a smile out of me at this point. And people, when I read about this, it seemed like nobody really liked this match, but overall, people loved the show. I think I killed myself too much throughout the day and maybe kind of ruined this match for me a little bit. You know, this whole event, the main event, though, Joey Janela versus a Japanese legend, the great Suzuki.
00:41:46
Speaker
I hope I'm not saying his name wrong, because you're like, you just said he's a legend and then you fucked his shit up. Hey, man, I was watching a wrestling match at 3 30 in the 3 o'clock in the morning. I'm pissed off. And this match, the only way I can describe the level of match this was is irresponsible.
00:42:03
Speaker
Joey Ryan, Joey Janela did spots that no one should ever do. He had a Suzuki down on the floor in a chair and he did a top rope like moonsault, Suzuki rolls out, he lands on the folding chair on his back on the ground.
00:42:21
Speaker
Keep in mind, the ground on this show, there are a lot of ground spots. Whole ground is concrete. There's no pads. There's no mats for any of the shows all day. That spot was like a career ending spot. And I could not believe he did it. This match was good. It should have been 15 minutes. It ended up being nearly a half hour.
00:42:41
Speaker
And at 3.30 when it was over, that crowd got up and left. And Joey Janela got on the mic and was bad mouthing everybody, calling us all pieces of shit. How dare we leave? And at that point, maybe he was just trying to get heat, but he had real heat for me where I'm like, you're my enemy now. Fuck you, Joey Janela. I need to go to bed.
00:43:01
Speaker
You're mad at him that you were at the same building all day. Oh, and it was not his fault He didn't tell me to do that. He didn't ask me to be at Joey Janela's spring break So I get home in bed like 5 a.m. Have to get up the next morning to get back to goddamn Kenner Louisiana to get in the Pontchartrain Center and
00:43:23
Speaker
for a 12 o'clock progress show. Ended up being another fun one. Will Ospreay kind of got in the ring, admitted that he was too injured to do what match was scheduled. So they did an intergender match. Super fun. There was a voodoo spot. Somebody had a voodoo doll that was controlling the wrestlers. Really fun little show. Actually the only spot of the weekend I saw where anyone referenced voodoo. That's interesting.
00:43:46
Speaker
And, you know, so that was like a unique thing. Good show. Can't stress enough progress all day. Gonna go see as many progress shows as I can.
Super Card of Honor Experience
00:43:54
Speaker
Let's get us over to the night, though. Big show. Maybe biggest show of the weekend other than WrestleMania, for me at least. Super Card of Honor. This was at the Lakefront Arena, which was on the University of New Orleans campus. Biggest Ring of Honor show in history. Biggest crowd they've ever had. And this was one fucking hell of a show, man.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yeah, this is like kind of the big thing other than WrestleMania. Like you said that everyone was in town for and Cody versus Kenny was obviously the big selling point. And yeah, Bullet Club throughout the card. So tell me about the show, man. We already on our last episode, our bonus episode talked about WrestleMania. So take your time breaking down this one. Well, this one, okay, just to kind of go ahead and say this, that crowd was there for the Bullet Club.
00:44:45
Speaker
Right. I mean, an hour before the show start that I mean, they had been there since noon. They had the Festival of Honor. But I went and did other stuff around town before real quick before this show went to eat with some friends at a local restaurant that was recommended to us by an Uber driver. We end up sitting next to Robert Gibson of the Rock and Roll Express.
00:45:05
Speaker
Nice. So he came over and we ended up talking to Robert Gibson, got to fist bump that Hall of Fame ring. That was pretty sweet. Nice. But now we're in this building. This show, everybody like put on a great match this night. This was a hell of a show. And you know, like just to skip ahead for a second, this I keep going back trying to think mania weekend. What was the best match I saw? It may have been Hangman Page versus Kota Ibushi.
00:45:35
Speaker
Really? I am Hangman Page, like Kota Ibushi, one of the best in the world. Hangman Page, I don't have a history of being kind to him on this show.
00:45:46
Speaker
God damn it. Like more recently we've been more kind to hang man. This dude stepped the fuck up and showed that he can hang with the best in the world. There was a moment when I think it was a bushy, they were standing on the guard rail. You know, they have like a normal guard rail, not like that thicker WWE guard rail. They stood on it balanced. He took a German suplex to the floor off the guard rail.
00:46:13
Speaker
Fuck. It was, I mean, it was a big match with big spots. A lot of, you know, just a lot of flying, hard hitting. Watch this pay-per-view, man. Every match is just, I believe in the music biz, they would call them bangers. It's a banger. These were bangers. I mean, we saw SoCal and Censored take on the Young Bucks and Flip Gordon for the six-man titles in a ladder match.
00:46:36
Speaker
Yeah, I heard it was one of the better ladder matches the Young Bucks have ever had. I mean, it's one of the better ladder matches I've ever seen. I mean, I know the NXT ladder match got a lot of praise and it was awesome. But this thing was just high spot, high spot, high spot. And I mean, these guys are architects with these ladders, like figuring out what they're gonna do with it. Crazy, crazy match. But the theme of this night was really weird, because like I said, that crowd was there for the Bullet Club.
00:47:05
Speaker
Spoiler alert, Bullet Club didn't get a single win the entire night. I want to talk to you about that when you finish the show. Oh, we can talk about it now because that's an important part to the show because this was a lot of people's first time getting to see the Bullet Club. This was the first time a lot of people getting to see Kenny. This was like people came excited for the Bullet Club.
00:47:28
Speaker
You had said to me that them not getting wins throughout the card. You thought it was an interesting decision because like you said so many people were there to see the Bullet Club and it was their first time. To me that's great storytelling because the story going on right now is that this is the destruction of the Bullet Club as orchestrated by Cody, right? Absolutely. And Cody is the only one that walked out with a win. Yes.
00:47:54
Speaker
brilliant booking I agree and I think as far as storytelling goes amazing storytelling great I think the destruction the crumbling of the Bullet Club that's the theme of the show right now it's amazing but a lot of people you know it's kind of what we were saying what Cody said about Kenny
00:48:14
Speaker
It's a guy who, he's the band that everybody likes him, but nobody can really name the songs. And there, I was definitely getting a vibe from people that they were there to see him, but they didn't really know the stories that were going on. I could hear around me, you know, people talking, asking questions to each other about different things, who people were. It was, it was a mania crowd. Like there were, I mean, don't get me wrong. There were hardcore ROH fans there, but I think there were a lot more casual ROH fans that aren't really following the stories.
00:48:44
Speaker
I'm sure that's true. And I mean like behind me I actually I had a guy who was with his buddies and he was embarrassing the shit out of him with his questions and he tried to get a rusev day chance started and that got shut down real fast. Really? But after the Young Bucks match this guy was on board and at the second the match ended I turned and said I hadn't spoken to the guy all night and turned said
00:49:06
Speaker
Still wanna start that Rusev Day chant. And I didn't mean that to be as sick of a burn as it was, but his friends, I got a pop from his friends for saying that to him. But this guy was pretty obnoxious the whole show. That match turned him.
00:49:22
Speaker
He like by the end of that was just like R.O.H. all the way baby. That's what I'm here for. So talk about the main event. Okay. Double main event which this is where maybe the booking could have been a little different. So the main event of the show to a lot of people is Cody Rhodes versus Kenny Omega.
00:49:42
Speaker
This is a long story on being the elite. This thing has gone between Ring of Honor, New Japan, and being the elite. This is a big story watching these two fight, and they did not disappoint, man. Like when I said, this is a dream match that lived up to dream match.
00:49:57
Speaker
This was a fun, fun match. It was mostly a match of Kenny Omega getting his ass kicked all over the place. Was that surprising to the people in the crowd? I mean, I think it worked for Cody because he's being a piece of shit the whole match. And he came out with Barry the Bear, who betrayed him last time because Kenny was in it. But this time, Barry came out. This was Barry the Business Bear.
00:50:21
Speaker
So he had a tie on and he kept adjusting his tie. And at the beginning, Barry came out and yanked Kenny's feet out from under him, under the ropes, like when he's getting ready to do one of his high spots. So Kenny drop kicks his head off and sends Barry back.
00:50:36
Speaker
I saw the gif of that online. It was it was incredible. Brandi is such a good valet. She was so good with him. There's so many good spots in this match. So this girl, Alex, that we met over the weekend, she ended up stub hubbing a front row ticket.
00:50:56
Speaker
and she was giving, she's a Kenny Omega fan. If anyone watching, it's the girl with green hair in the front row. You can't miss her because that entire arena could hear every word she said all night. And it was fucking killing me. I'm actually, I'm trying to go see this summer when I'm in New York for SummerSlam, I'm gonna try and go to NXT with her, because I want to yell at wrestlers with this lady.
00:51:21
Speaker
She was so fucking funny. Like, to me, she was one of the biggest baby faces of the night. Like, and at one point she was giving Cody so much shit. He walked over. You can watch this on the show. He grabs the guy next to her's beer, takes a drink, spits it in her face. Are you shitting me? I shit you not.
00:51:43
Speaker
Spits it right in her face. And how did she handle that? She had to take her glasses off. And she's still cheering Kenny. And throughout the match, she's like, Kenny, did you see what he did to me? He fucking spit beer in my face. Kill him. Kill him.
00:51:59
Speaker
Like she is a fucking all star. I should look up and tell you what her Instagram account is because she is hilarious. That fucking killed me. And she filmed the whole show. So you can actually get a POV shot of her on her Instagram.
00:52:15
Speaker
getting spit on let me i'm i'm gonna plug her instagram real quick uh just because it is 100 worth checking out that's she she made my weekend um she is underscore queen of the ring check out underscore queen of the ring on instagram underscore queen of the ring on instagram check out these videos she has a lot of pov shots and she was given so much shit it was so funny uh
00:52:42
Speaker
But yeah, Kenny Omega ends up losing, huge spot with the Bullet Club, or with the Young Bucks come out, they're pointing at Kenny, they're pointing at Cody, getting a boo, yay, yay, kick Cody in the head. So they're gonna do it, Cody stands up, immediately falls down right as they super kick, they kick Kenny, Kenny wins. Did you see Kenny's shirt, or Cody's shirt that he released?
00:53:06
Speaker
Yeah, he released a shirt that says they picked me. There is no better heel in the world right now than Cody Rhodes. That was killing me. But this is where the problem comes in. That crowd was there for Kenny Omega.
00:53:26
Speaker
This is the main event. That wasn't even the main event. I understand that, you know, ROH wanted to have their champion and ROH guy go on last with Dalton Castle. I also didn't want to have to watch Dalton Castle wrestle in an empty arena.
00:53:44
Speaker
And that's what you got. That's kind of what we got, especially because I think everyone thought Marty Skirrell was going over. Didn't happen. We got a great match. Dalton Castle is awesome. He ended up going over great spots, like great heel stuff from Marty Skirrell. But Dalton Castle celebrated a title win or, you know, a title retention and an empty arena.
00:54:07
Speaker
And it was just because they didn't want to put the Bolt Club stuff on last. See, I think so. Like, it makes sense to me that they want their title, you know, their guy to be the last thing to go on. It makes sense. But it makes it look bad if people turn their back on it. Especially on this big show, because everybody's just like, I just watched The Young Bucks lose. I watched Hangman Page lose. I watched Kenny Omega lose. I think it really, like, soured the mood of a lot of people. But for me, like, one, I love Dalton Castle and I loved all the stories that were going on. So
00:54:36
Speaker
You know big big night big night for Ring of Honor and that was how you kind of wrapped up your pre-wrestlemania
00:54:44
Speaker
Wrestling Weekend. Oh, yes. So. Oh, I wore my New Japan tracksuit to to that show. And afterwards, nothing was open. So we ended up in a not a great neighborhood at a gas station to find food. And let me tell you, not a great neighborhood, not my favorite place to wear a New Japan tracksuit, because you stand out. You really stand out.
00:55:11
Speaker
I think you stand out in that Newton, Japan tracksuit anywhere. Oh, also, but especially shout out to our friends from AAW that we met in line. Deanna was going to ask about them. Yeah. Ran into them at the end of the night as well as Johnny and Chris that we were in line with. So shout out to those guys as well. Hope everybody had a had a good good WrestleMania weekend. It seems like they did. Yes. Good. So like also Mike from San Francisco. He was a good guy, too.
00:55:39
Speaker
So a quick question. SummerSlam for WWE is in New York, right? Yes. Isn't WrestleMania as well? Yeah, they're getting both this year, or the next year coming up. I think that means they have to move SummerSlam, right? You can't give New York both in a year. Yeah, I think they're talking about moving SummerSlam somewhere else. Move it back to LA maybe? Maybe. I'd like to see them move it to the Midwest and try that at least for a year. You know, just give the Midwest a little love.
00:56:07
Speaker
Well, I'm just saying, I've actually been pushing strongly for them to try to do SummerSlam at an outdoor venue since they do it in August. And maybe do like a football, like they could totally do it here in Chicago if they really wanted to at Soldier Field. Because it would be just as big as WrestleMania here since they're probably not going to do WrestleMania here. Well, and you know what? I think you're right because they're already up in Royal Rumble, you know, to a baseball stadium.
00:56:34
Speaker
Why not do that with and I like that you picked your baseball stadium Well, no, I'm so I was thinking soldier field, isn't that which is right on the lakefront. That's for for the Bears. That's where they oh, okay Okay, I thought you were saying you're you're where your socks mean I would like that too No, that's I'd like that too, but I don't see that happening but I think you're right because at this point SummerSlam is the wrestling show
00:56:56
Speaker
WrestleMania is just like a big, you know, a big show, just a big party, it's an event. But SummerSlam is where you go for matches. And I could easily see them, if they're gonna do a baseball stadium for the Rumble, give it to SummerSlam too, man. Like, at this point, now that we have Daniel Bryan back, now that we have Ronda Rousey kicking ass, I mean, we just saw that. We just saw on SmackDown, you know, Daniel Bryan and fucking AJ Styles.
00:57:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So what would you say in summation based on your experience? Because you've done many of what, four years in a row now? Four years in a row. Four years in a row.
00:57:31
Speaker
how to sell somebody who's never been on doing this and like what a trip it is like i mean i mean obviously you can book yourself to where like it's exhausting you can be at a venue for 15 hours yeah but uh you can do that and i don't recommend doing that because i was so i only got four hours of sleep and so for ring of honor every time i screamed my head throbbed
00:57:55
Speaker
It was it was killing me like i was just running on nothing but it was the show is so good i still wanted to be screaming you know getting these big moments but i was miserable so i had to get a good night's sleep before that i suggest don't kill yourself i suggest don't stay in one building the whole time.
00:58:13
Speaker
Because if I could go back, I would go over to where the sugar mill was, catch out the WrestleCon side of things, not just WWN. Because when you're over there, you're getting the same guys all day long. I watched this, I mean, I didn't even mention Keith Lee. He had good matches too, Zack Sabre Jr. I didn't mention Zack Sabre Jr. and Walter.
00:58:32
Speaker
Top match of the weekend as well. First chop of the show. Hit Zack Sabre Jr. so hard that he was sent flying out of the ring. He got his ass kicked all over the place in that one. Big match. But no, spread it out a little bit. I recommend going to both. Catch some lucha stuff. You know, spread it out. Get some different styles in there. That's my biggest.
00:58:57
Speaker
If you can comment a little bit because this is what's what I think so fascinating how it's turned into so much more than just WrestleMania on Sunday in the Hall of Fame and even even just more than like NXT TakeOver. It's basically like a a wrestling festival that starts on Thursday and technically ends on Tuesday. And I mean it started on Wednesday even. Okay, there was stuff going on then.
00:59:20
Speaker
for a full week. Oh, which that being there was like a midnight show on that Wednesday at this play at this Kenner venue, the Pontchartrain Center. And so a lot of people didn't have cars. They ubered out there. Guess what? Three in the morning way outside of New Orleans. I found out some of those guys. I got this tip while I was at the super show. They're like, you got to drive. They said last night we waited there till five in the morning for an Uber and then had to pay two hundred dollars to get back to New Orleans.
00:59:49
Speaker
Oh, Jesus. So that be aware of where you're going to be. Like look at the proximity of things. Figure that out. Sorry, what was your question?
01:00:00
Speaker
I was gonna ask is it like this is the thing that I don't know I didn't really think of until it turned into a giant wrestling festival but the cool part about this is wherever WrestleMania flocks to every year this festival seems to follow it and you essentially over the years you do like a little tour of the United States and all these different places you've been basically down to San Jose San Francisco you've been to Dallas and
01:00:24
Speaker
You've been to I got to hit work. I got to hit both coasts and hit, you know, middle America. And then it sounds like, you know, now we're going to start heading heading up to the Northeast, which I've never been. I'll be there this summer. But, you know, getting to do that and get to be there for a few days in New York, that sounds fun. And you're going to meet. Everybody is so excited.
01:00:45
Speaker
This is like the WrestleMania weekend experience is an amazing vibe, man. Everybody's so excited because you're around people who are willing to schedule their vacation just to watch some wrestling. And it's only getting bigger. I think this is the biggest year so far. It seems like every year there's more and more and more. And I wouldn't be surprised if next year we get a giant New Japan show.
01:01:09
Speaker
That would make sense. Yeah, I do think this is maybe the biggest year they've had where just there's stuff for a full week. I mean, there's so much and you can see, I mean, I think I feel like I saw every wrestler except Okada. I mean, this was a huge, huge weekend of people everywhere. Okada was at WrestleMania. Yeah, him and Tanahashi were sitting together to watch Shinsuke. That's cool.
01:01:33
Speaker
I yeah it's a it's a great vibe like if you're a wrestling fan you need to put this at the top of your bucket list because even if WrestleMania doesn't you know end up working out the way you want it to. You have seen so much stuff that it's hard for me to like you know at this point it's hard for me to pick a match of the weekend I can narrow it down to a few.
01:01:53
Speaker
But I saw so many good shows that you aren't wasting your time going to this. And you don't even have to do all this wrestling stuff. You can still go see the city and just catch a show here and there. Recommend not killing yourself staying 15 hours in one building. But if you're a wrestling fan, this is a place you have to go.
01:02:13
Speaker
I mean I think it's yeah you get and like I said you get to have like a week-long wrestling vacation in a city and it's a new city every year and if you have the means you should absolutely go to this every year yeah you don't got to go crazy and you know in a lot of these smaller shows that I was going to I mean you can buy expensive front-row tickets but then you can get general admission for 25 bucks it's a small venue when you're in the general admission bleachers you're getting a better view than on the floor you're
01:02:41
Speaker
pretty much just as close, because you're in a small place, and you paid 25 bucks to see some of the best wrestlers from around the globe. You cannot beat that. I mean, for that one day of just sitting there through four shows, I mean, that was only 100 bucks for 15 hours of wrestling. Do you know how fucking crazy that is? I mean, I watch Zack Sabre Jr., I watch fucking Matt Riddle, Will Ospreay, I watch some fucking great wrestling for about 100 bucks for a single day. Are you a little sad you missed takeover?
01:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, I am. I did. But the morning of WrestleMania, me and my buddy woke up and made sure to sit there and watch that show beginning to end. You know, I would have. Ricochet was one of my guys at PWG. I got to see him do a lot of shit. It hurt to miss his debut. And that guy had a big coming out party.
01:03:30
Speaker
Like, I mean, he proved some shit. I think if no one had seen Ricochet before, there's no way that after that they're not interested to see him, you know, just keep doing it. That was a solid show. I mean, if you ended up at NXT instead of ROH, I mean, don't feel bad. You caught a good show. But if you were at one than the other, still recommend checking them out both because those were easily two of the best shows of the weekend. And it sucks that they punished wrestling fans by not being able to see both.
01:04:00
Speaker
Well, how do you feel? Man, I mean, my voice is coming back. That's good. It was a long weekend of just screaming at grown men.
01:04:11
Speaker
It was, I mean, you see everybody, you can meet everybody. It's a good weekend. And the best part about it is you get to hang out with people that, you know, you're going to run into people. If you start going year to year, I start seeing the same people every year. And so now I have like these yearly friends, people that I'm never going to talk to the rest of the year. But when we see each other, we're all drinking buddies. It's like family at Christmas. It really is. It's like a little family reunion. Plus every year you add more people on to your clique.
01:04:40
Speaker
Nice. So this year I've already met more people that I can't wait to see next year. It is such a positive vibe at WrestleMania. It's such a good thing. I want you to go with me next year. I'd like to go. I was just having this conversation with someone the other day saying I'd really like to get back to WrestleMania here in the next year or two. I think next year me and you are gonna be freezing our balls off in New Jersey.
01:05:08
Speaker
Because there's already rumors that next year it could be Rousey Charlotte headlining. Yeah. And there's no fucking way. I'm missing that, my friend.
01:05:16
Speaker
We doing a we doing a say something nice this week. Oh man, I said so many fuck. Well, I didn't even come prepared. It's been OK. It's been such a weekend. So new listeners, you know, we shoot the shit a lot. We occasionally as wrestling fans. We can be down on wrestling. We can give somebody a little too hard of a time. So at the end of every show, we like to finish out our day by saying something nice.
01:05:43
Speaker
And I'll go ahead and say something nice about Joey Janela. It seems like you need to. I need to because I think people are going to be pissed that I didn't have as much fun at that show as they did. I was tired. I'm sorry, Joey. I'm sorry I got up and left your show after you won. I know you wanted me to stay till the very, very end when there was, you know, when you had left. You wanted me to wait for you to leave before I left.
01:06:07
Speaker
been there for 15 hours man i felt uh you took that chair spot that i mean you must love this business if you're willing to do that thing that could have ended your fucking career uh good on you be safe out there man you put on a show that a lot of people love you put on a not just a wrestling show but a fucking midnight party that lasted
01:06:28
Speaker
Way too long in my opinion, I think way too long in a lot of opinions, but a party nonetheless. People fucking loved it. Good on you for doing that. You're doing some good work for indie wrestling, fans on a mania weekend.
01:06:41
Speaker
Oh, gosh. Like I said, I didn't come prepared, but I come in with this off the top of my head. I've never really been a big fan of Paige, the wrestler. And I didn't like that when she stepped away from WWE and she did her thing with Alberto El Patron or whatever his name is. Who got fired today?
01:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, they did a lot of shit talking and then she came back. I never would wish injury on anybody and she ended up making her announcement on Raw last night that she's going to have to officially retire and she won't be able to compete anymore.
01:07:19
Speaker
Maybe there's a hope that one day she'll have the Daniel Bryan miracle happen and she'll be able to come back. But I will say that sucks and I never wish that on her. But despite not being a fan, I do think her getting the job tonight of being the new SmackDown General Manager, good for her. That's a great role. She still gets to stay in the company, doesn't have to worry about injury. Good for you, Paige. I agree with you, man.
01:07:44
Speaker
I wasn't always the biggest fan, but you never want to see somebody get hurt. You never want to see somebody, especially somebody that young that had such a long career ahead of them. Somebody who cared about the business that that business just ran in the family. It was in her blood. You know, anyone that steps in the ring has my respect.
01:08:03
Speaker
Whether it's at a very endy show at a bar, whether it's in fucking WrestleMania, you got my respect for being in the ring. Paige, that was a fucking, any retirement speech is emotional. I was a fucking mess during that. When she thanked Daniel Bryan and said that he gave her hope, even talking about it now, that makes me choke up.
01:08:23
Speaker
because she really was like towards the start of this women's evolution revolution, whatever they're wanting, calling it. She was a big chunk, big part of that. And wasn't she like one of the first big NXT call ups? Yeah, she debuted in New Orleans after WrestleMania. So she came back to the venue that she won that title in and she had to retire. Seriously, best of luck. I hope down the road we find that she can wrestle again and be safe.
01:08:54
Speaker
So I'm sure there's people who went down to New Orleans this weekend who you talk to and you plug the podcast and there's a lot of people downloaded it and maybe now their fans are going to listen to it on the reg. So I just want to say thank you to the new listeners, the new followers on the social media. That's huge for us. Like we said at the top of the show, we'd love it if you could give us a rating or review and subscribe to the podcast. And if you have any stories, if you're enjoying it.
01:09:22
Speaker
Yes. Spread the word. We've got what we've got coming up soon. We've got some hats we're going to have made. Oh, yeah. Getting these awesome stickers. Yeah. We've got we've we're going to have stuff. We got this new logo. Thank you, Anthony Knessis, for making it. We debuted our new the new logo for our show that was made by my buddy Anthony Knessis.
01:09:41
Speaker
Huge thank you to him. I fucking love that. The couch and the wrestling ring with microphones. That's exactly what we're doing. We're hanging out, chatting wrestling. We love doing it. If we left out any shows from the weekend, if I didn't see something that you did that I need to know about,
01:09:57
Speaker
Please get on Facebook, get on Twitter, let us know what it was. I will- Share your stories. Yeah, tell us your stories. Is there something you need to be shared on this podcast? I'd love to tell it. I'd love to get on and watch the matches that you think I need to see. I wanna, real quick, also just say, check out Kenny King versus Silas Young off that ROH card. I think that was gonna be a bathroom break for a lot of people. Those two put on a fucking hell of a match. Kenny King really coming up in this world. That's just one I was gonna feel bad if I didn't bring up.
01:10:28
Speaker
Well man, you want to get us out of here? I don't even want to go yet, man. WrestleMania season's over. I know, it sucks. Hey, but good for you guys. Now we're not going to be talking about WrestleMania every week. Now we're going to start having some other shows where we discuss other things. For people who joined, we watch everything. We watch New Japan, Ring of Honor.
01:10:49
Speaker
What, indie wrestling, we're there for all of it. If there's something you think we need to be watching, let us know. Thank you for listening. Tune in again next week. We're out every Thursday. And you know what, Derek? As much as I'd wanna not stop talking about WrestleMania weekend, I think we gotta hit our goddamn music.