Final Thoughts and Show Wrap Up

Hello and welcome to the WrestleTalk podcast here every Tuesday and Thursday , but also today on a Monday on YouTube Spotify Apple podcasts. I'm Luke and D A.D I'm joined by the professor Dan Layton, the truth Dan Leighton, as we are here to review Bob x T. Great American Park. I have not seen Great American . I'm sorry, Nick, you've got bumped. Like there's no time. I would say you didn't need to put the show on. You didn't need to put it on. Didn't need to put it on, particularly 'cause it went against TNA Slimiers, who's supposed to be a partner promotion of yours. Lot to stop counterprogramming the other one by accidentally counterprogramming the company you do work with. What they saw was FIFA went, yeah, let's do more World Cup and they went, sure, let's do the same for everything. Yeah, too much. Who doesn't need more wrestling in their lives? No, we're here to review AEW and New Japan and Sort of CML Sort of Stardoms, Forbidden Door, and WWE's Knight of Champions But which one should we do first? You might say do in night order. Yeah, did it? Saturday Sunday . However, I'm worried that people will take against us for bias. Yeah. Well, I mean it's going to happen anyway, either way. Absolutely. So have more fun. We'll introduce introduce, what's the word? Mechanics? Mechanics, mechanics. Yeah, yeah. I've got a D twenty here. I use this exact same D twenty on the news as well. So we can't even say it was because it was a different D ifferent D twenty. I've been using the exact same one. Great. So I'd say maybe I should have picked the other one then . Even numbers is WWE. Okay, odd numbers, AW. Yes. Fine. To fourteen. To fourteen. fourteen and older four on the news. It's a good steak. So we're going to start with WWE. That works out nicely for me. We are because that's Saturday into Sunday . So remembered that this show was on. I was so focused on Ollie's wedding. Oh yeah, yeah. So focused on Ollie's wedding. That's why I'm here by the way. Ollie's married now. Yeah, Ollie is now on his honeymoon. So you're here the for next two weeks Yeah, you're doing this show today . And then you're here for another week or you because I'm then going on holiday slackers . Three weeks at least someone's got a sense of duty. I know, right? Three weeks you got to do on like on the bounce. Yeah, show dude, after show . So I was so focused on his wedding that I forgot this paper view was happening until like I was I had to get a bus back from Hackney Downs to get back to my brother's house. And like the bus was late and it was taking ages and despite what some places will tell you London is completely safe. So I didn't feel like I would need to be worried about anything . So I was just looking at my phone and it just happened to come up being like Sami Saying won the WWE Championship. Yeah, and I won. So what's my version of that is that as I was leaving the wedding, I left a bit earlier because I've had to work all weekends, so I didn't know when I was going to be able to watch the show and England were playing Panama and it was it was like all over the pubs and everything like that. I was listening to the radio and I foolishly opened my phone and Instagram was already open and it did that thing where it auto refreshes . And then right at the top came WWE UK with this big like and there's a big picture of it and I was like, well, I guess that's that then Thanks self. Yeah , it's absolutely spawned for myself. Yeah, like it was the auto refresh, but egg on my face for just automatically pressing an app. Yeah. You went on to social media. That was your the deadly game that you played. And I'd been bullying my friend because she'd had another thing spoiled. So I was like, well, that's on you . You know, you learn this business and then I didn't. Yeah, so I then woke up on the Sunday morning being like, Did I imagine that? You know , I had a couple of drinks. Only a couple by the time I'd arrived. Yeah, I only had a handful of drinks. And then I had one of those frozen margaritas. Oh, they were lethal. So strong. They were very strong. It was like eighty percent alcohol in a little basis and like and also twelve pounds. Get in a bit twelve pounds. That's a perfectly normal cost for a cocktail. Yeah, of that size. Oh, I had a massive one. It was a thimble. Mine was a big swimming pool. I had this like thimble size thing. Thumbelina might have been like, Whoa, this is a lot of arguments for Marguerite. I'm gonna be like, Where's the rest of it for my twelve quid? I should have just had the free beers . I thought the marks were free. But anyway, so I'd had a couple of drinks. So I woke up on the Sunday thinking like, could I imagine that? Did Samuzain really win the WW Championship? So yeah enough, I went on to onto the internet and there it was and I watched the clip and I was like , Oh, they did it . They actually did it. Yeah, he said on the production show he thought they were going to do it. He was going to put the title on him . But there was part of me that was like, it's punk and cody at SummerSlam. Right. I think that's the direction we're going to be heading in. Surely punk's coming back for something big. They literally set up punk versus Cody on the night after Wrestle Day . So we must be heading in this direction. No, Sammy Zane is your new WWE champion . Yeah . I feel like the striking while the iron is hot is a good thing. I saw someone say on the social media that it was like, I think there was more money to be made by like having this be the end of a longer run. And like, and I was just like, yeah, but you can't just always save things for best. Elsewhere on this particular show , I'm like, this is a there's other stuff that I think is utterly pointless. And instead they should have done the other thing they're that saving for best. One time I got a Moe, like a bottle of champagne, had it in the fridge. I was like, well, I'll have that when I move in. Didn't? I was like saving it for a special occasion. Move in no girlfriend moved in with me, no, got into Mount View, no , new job, no. In the end, it was just a sunny day. And my friends were, I was like, we have that. And then it turned a sunny day into something very special. Sometimes you just do it and then it's something to talk about. And at the moment, everything has felt quite stale post WrestleMania. Even WrestleMania itself felt dull as dishwater . Like, okay, do something, give us a little shakeup. How many times have we talked about like just get there? Just do something. A bit of unpredictability. A bit of unpredictability. I think back to the Attitude era and title changes in the name of story , in the name of fresh. Yeah. It gives you a reason to tune in. Yeah. Now that they've done this, it's like, see you missed it if you didn't tune in. Right exactly. Like it's now egg on my face. Yeah, I wasn't watching that show because like otherwise I'd have just you know, wait until the morning and watched it. But it's actually nice if you'd watched this live, you'd have seen this really cool awesome moment. Yeah . I thought it was really, really good. I think it's a smart choice. Yeah , but we'll get into the sort of the hows and why's of it shortly in a moment, I guess. But yeah, I mean broad strokes thrilled by this big fan because you know you said like WWE feels a bit stale at the moment. SmackDown in particular woof . Yeah, feels like the Best of Be Shows . Well, they're going back to two hours, aren't they? Yeah. So like this is a great opportunity for them to jolt something back into it. I mean, I was there on Tuesday when they filmed Frid ay's episode and like the energy it was a really fascinating couple of days because Raw was a much bigger crowd and obviously Tuesday night it was actually the afternoon so it was a really interesting sort of experience . But Sammy was quite over in the room as a character. People were into the characters. People were into all the dynamics of all three of them. The main event segment was real hot in the building . So going down to two hour s, which is a far more sort of like palatable show. Yeah, digestible show with something interesting and all the different permutations of what could come next as a result of this is setting yourself up for like a nice little run into summer. Yeah. And also it is how you leave them. Yeah, leave how you leave them folks. The end of the show, like I was so thrilled by the Sammy's Aim Thing. I didn't actually mind that the Trick Williams match was incredibly pedestrian , but I didn't like the cage match much with Seth and Bron . But I didn't mind the end of it. The end also I could think of was like Oba's King of the Ring. It's ESKY Versus Liv Morgan at SummerSlam and Sam Zane is your WWE Champion . And I'm really quite excited about all of that. Looking at the patreon feedback that we've had , it's kind of fascinating. Everyone's super happy. Yeah, but there's this little bit of like how long? Like, you know, what is what's the next phase of this? Because there's a lot of speculation about what this means for SummerSlam . And how long in terms of how long will he be champion? Yeah, so I don't care. Well, that's kind of where I'm at Darby Allen but that's it. The Darby Allen short title run. That's what people say. Like, I said this one, I did my reaction video on the Sunday for the Russ Talk News We either looking at Samuel Zen is now the guy and he's going to be the face of the brand and he's going to be defending Champion walking into WrestleMania in Saudi Arabia next year won the title in Saudi Arabia, he's going to defend that title in Saudi Arabia or is it a Darby Allen flash in the pan? He's champion for a month. Yeah. I think the way people's trepidation is coming from is that it might not even be a month because the sort of the rumor and speculation is he's going to lose it at the Madison Square Garden Show on july eighteenth to Brock Lesnar because and then it's going to be Brock Versus Ober for the Championship. The problem with that on is so that stems from apparently the plan is to do Roman versus Seth for the World Titans. That's why Seth won the cage match and that's the match they wanted to do for WrestleMania, then they're going to do that match at Sam's League instead for me you've kind of established Oberon Raw do you get to move them over to SmackDown? Does that mean you're also moving Brock over to SmackDown as well? I guess that would be quite good for SmackDown this need, but I kind of think you need over and Raw as well. Like you need some other main eventors there . I will also say that this was why Jayuso was going to become King of the Ring is that Brock was going to get involved and spoil it for Ober and then that was going to set up Ober and Brock finally it's on the slam and then not only did that not happen not hide no hair of that happened. So like sort of a little bit see what happens. You know what I mean? You might be right. And especially the past few months, they WWE have not covered themselves in glory. They have not earned the sense of like grace have let it play out because how many times have I gone over the past year or so . I'll see how this plays out and then it's played out very unsatisfactory. Yeah, I think that's where I'm at as well. Yeah , I'm I'm not like, you know, hedging my bets on what I think is going to happen until Raw tonight because we might get to raw tonight and Oba just comes and down challenges Roman fans and that's it. So it's Roman versus Ober. We don't need to then be like, oh, okay, that's the worry semit. But I really do feel like fans are just worried at the moment. And I think that makes sense. And this happened with Ober m. When Oberface Brocker wrest leMania, we were like we were sat in this room talking about it. The overwhelming fear of wrestling fans was they're going to get this wrong. Yeah. And then when they did the rematch at Clash in Italy , the overwhelming sense of fans was they're going to get this wrong . Now that Samuel Saint has won the title, the overwhelming fear is they're going to get this wrong. And if you flash back to like twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four is that you can't do it. You can't do wrong. You could not do wrong. Like they were they were so hot. They could do nothing wrong. So that's absolutely. So as much as I want to sit there and be like, yeah, just chill out a little bit because there are far more worrying and important things in the world. The reason people are worried about that is because of how that they have done things elsewhere completely. So like this is not, you know, you got you guys, you guys know it's not on the fan. This is on WWE for not delivering on potential. Yeah. So many times there's stuff where you're like, oh, that could be interesting. That could be interesting. That could being shin sowowinging se seeds, seds, sowing seeds, and then the seeds never germinate. Yeah, exactly. Never fruit. I think this was a great choice I mean some people expect that Ollie predicted it on our when we did our pionredict show. He thought the Sami would win the title. It was the most interesting answer for me. Yeah, and that's because he'd kind of taken himself into this darkest timeline that was going to be Sami versus Jay at SummerSlam and the big gest judge didn't buy into it. I was like, No, no, Ober is winning King of the Rhines. Like I don't care what anyone says I don't know that there's going to be any Brock Lesner interference. They know this is an Obra win. Obra is winning king of the ring. They are strapping the rocket to him. I think he's going to win a title at SummerSlam . So I was pretty picked on to that, but yeah Ollie was like, I think Sam is going to win. I didn't see it coming. So when it did happen , even when I watched it back on Saturday, Sunday evening after the wife of Dr Bed I stayed up extra late so I could watch so I didn't have to watch two shows this morning for today's work . I had the biggest smile on my face. Yeah, the biggest smile on my face. I knew sorry my mind. I knew the finish . I knew the results and I still it was like the El Grande Americano thing. Like I knew I knew what the finish of that match was. I knew like all the emotion that came up but watching the match, I just had this bigger smile on my face and I was like, this is great. Yeah. I loved the match as well I mean, it was really great that they started off with him as like an irritant . And I think that has kind of been the whole thing because this has been Gunther Cody. Gunther tries to take out Cody, Gunther quite rightly is cross about the foot under the rope thing . And then Sammy gets involved in the special referee stuff. That was a really great story. Sammy has been an irritant to me. He's not supposed to be here. He's not supposed to be here . You're not on a world championship caliber'tre but both we world champions, current and former. Like you're not on our level. Back off, you're a special referee but you're still getting involved. You were sent to the back, you're still getting involved. Like you are a fly. You're an ointment. So I liked that element of it. I liked the everyone felt present in the match. It didn't feel like one of those typical sort of like one guy goes to the outside. Exactly. Or if they went to the outside, it was for a reason. Yeah , I didn't love the end. Oh the roll finish. No perfectly legitimate wrestling finish don't go you know, but I think I think you could have done I think because of the way it was building I was expecting slash hoping that they would follow through on the like Sammy is the flying ointment thing where perhaps it was, you know, I've choked the life out of Cody and I'm now going to push Gunther out the ring or like I'm going to huvicate Cody out of the ring after a crossroads and steal the win. For me, that would have been more like in keeping dramatic. Yeah, and yet I guess leaning into situational babyface, ultimate underdog, all it takes is three seconds is effective. And also because it felt like it came out of nowhere . I said this in my review. It came out of nowhere, but in the best possible way to eat for me. Like I genuinely loved the finish because no one was expecting it. Right. Every single person that was in that crowd , I would say, including Michael Cole and Cory Graves , did not expect that to be the finish. Yeah. Michael Cole's not even like hyping up the pin. No. It's just a pinfall happens. And he's like, what? Yeah, right . And it is that just takes three seconds. And the crowd weren't counting along with that nearfull. They were counting along with other nearfulls, but not that you're so used to seeing it. No one expected it to be the finger. Yeah. So the fact that it then was the finge, you' kindve of got it like almost retrain an audience to expect that these things could be I really that in a way that's the same thing with him winning the bell at all because you have to train the audience to think that actually these B show tile matches for the world title can end in the tile changing hands. It's something that you have said a lot. Yeah, you can't just save the big things for the big shows. You do have to do things on the shows in between. Yeah, otherwise the shows in between may as well not be there. Yeah. You may as well just do the big five payer views a year and not bother with the rest of them. Yeah . So I really, really like this . Yeah , sure . There's every chance the box it'll be fat and this is just someone actually compared this to Miz winning the title in twenty twenty one. It was just done so that someone could win the title and not pin Drew. Right. I think it might be Bobby Lash. I can't remember who was now, but it was Bobby. It was just so Bobby could win the title and not beat a star. Yeah. So we don't want Brock to be Cody. So we'll just put the belt on the Samuy so that Brock could be Sammy and then Sati can you know face over and like you know maybe that is going to happen maybe that will be the case maybe Sammy will just lose it straight back to Cody . Maybe some of you will walk into Summer Slam as champion. At this point, I don't know , but that's good because I feel like I have been on this predictable treadmill for the majority of twenty twenty six. And if it's not a predictable treadmill, it's been a boring treadmill. Fully. So this is like this little injection of excitement that I'm really in for. And then what are your different angles can you code down? Let's just say that our worst fears don't come true. Let's just say that Brock is nowhere near any of this and it's separate and there's a whole other thing going on. If Sammy holds the belt for a little while, I mean Cody was pinned clean. It was not like it wasn't a stolen victory. Like that in a argument against mine, Cody can't even be like, I had that and I wasn't involved in the finish, you owe me a rematch. I wasn't the one pinned. Exactly. Cody was legitimately pinned in that match one, twenty three . So arguably, back of a line, Cody, Gunther could make an argument and say, alright, you didn't pin me. And then you've got a rematch of WrestleMania where it's like, I've done it before and I'm the champion now. So like la, la . Going forward , if they were to do crown jewel again, let's say Roman still got the belt, you've got Roman versus Sami, you've got bloodline drama, but with a whole new angle to it because I've got the belt that you said I would never win. And you beat me for in Montreal. And now we're we're like very specifically . Like and that's a bloodline wrinkle in this in this never ending bloodline story that I 'm a little bit like about, like , there's something new. They're just signing a new one as well. So Lafatou is signing to WWE. Another new member to add into that into that group. So many but like it's a there's a new extra little something there if you want to that is completely different from what we've seen before and that is situational and you can only do because you do that crown jewel thing. Maybe punk comes back and gets the belt off Sammy at some point into WrestleMania and Punk Cody, you know, maybe like who's to say there's so many different angles that you can go down . And that's where you then go. If the job of a wrestling show is to be like that was that June and tomorrow for the next bit. Like students tomorrow for the start of a new world. Yep. This is as much of an incentive as anything to go, okay, what are you going to do next? I want to see it. Because if Cody had left this show still as champion and we would just be in punk . I'm like, I'm not that asked about watching SmackDown. I probably would have skipped it. And it's nothing against Cody because I like Cody. Perfectly fine. It's just that I have been kind of like tired of this title run, I suppose in a way. I've gotten a little bit tired. I have seen it. Yeah . So maybe there's a little bit of like we just gonna win the title back or someone's like maybe they're trying to w uprap title wins for him. But all I can tell you is I'm super stoked for SmackDowns for the year. I'm intrigued. It's made me stoked to see Raw. Yeah , with the decision that they made earlier in the show. I think SmackDown needed this. So I'm into it and I'm excited to see where we go next with this The rest of the show, I enjoyed the two King of the Ring matches. The King of the Ring and the Queen of the Ring match. Everything else could I was pretty not so into. I thought it was a perfectly good show but was it anything where I'm like seek this out No Yeah, I will say when I looked at the comments that on yesterday's video when I did my reaction video to Sam my Winning . There was not a lot of positive comment about the show itself. No, because I said in the video, I've not seen Night of Champions yet. I'm not here to review night of Champions. I'm here to talk about this moment and sort of like open up the comment floor so we can all have a chat about it. And I've not seen the show. A lot of people are like, oh, you know, you not miss much. It's not it's this and the other. I came out of it actually with pretty positive feelings. I liked half of actes yeah, you know, that's a pretty good go and actually really liked half of them . It was perfectly fine. Like I had no I had no qualms with it. It did it light the world on fire? No, was it going to you? No. Like, you know, I mean it could, and arguably you should aim for that in everything you do. Yeah. It opened with J Uso taking on Oberfemi in the finals of the King of the Ring , Jay is over like Rover in Saudi Arabia. They loved them some eating. Look, eating is fun . I don't know what to tell ya . Like I hate to acknowledge that this is a true fact , but I was there two nights in a row and he comes out and you get up and you yeet . And it's fun . And it's like you can't help it. There's a whole sea of arms going up and down and the music's kind of catchy and you're doing it and you're like, look at me being a part of this. Then he runs it back and I'm like, yeah, all right, we've done this now. So I was actually quite bad on SmackDown that the running it back got cut off. Yeah . But then what is you almost forget, you're like, Oh my God, this is so fun. This is why. Like I know I saw in Ali's review of the Raw in London that he was when he was talking about Jay winning , he talked about all the dislikes and all the over the various things . There was a reason that Jay won the Royal Rumble, right? There was a reason that Jay won the Royal Title, over like Rover. And ultimately, this is a business where if you are over, you gotta chase that . And I'd never will in a million years ever criticise anyone for going with us for seeing a potential for a big star and trying to push someone new into that main event agenda. Explained . The thing was once the promo started on Monday, it was gas ping Ferrer . This match, he was Gasping Ferrer and that's a conditioning thing. Conditioning , which he has been told about multiple times. And that's where like, you know, I hate to criticize performers because it's a hard gig when you're doing , you know, especially when you're doing what they're doing in the public eye , like all over the world. But if the thing you know is I've got to be I've got to be conditioned to be able to do that and then that and we're going to add the run it back element to it . You it's on you to step up. Yeah, we are two years . I say that as a deeply out of shape man. We're two years into this yeat phase of Jay Uso and it still feels like he gets gassed every time that he does it , which and I guess that's where some of the fan frustration comes from that the report is that LA Night won't get pushed because he doesn't sell as many t shirts as Jay Uso does. So they trust JUSO more than they do LA night, but LA f Nansight are like, yeah, but where's Jay's already had his chances? We'd never give LA Night that chance, which is true . And the frustration they come from is like, well, I feel like he cares. Like if Jay Jay's two years into this and he's still getting guessed that says to me doesn't care about this that much because if he really did care he'd want to get in shape for it. Yeah, and there's a world where I sit there and I try and have a bit of empathy and I'm like, you know , it's yes, I see what you're saying. And yet at the same time, I'm like, sometimes it's really hard to like battle those inner demons or like, you know the pressure that comes with it. And that's why you go, well, if you can't handle the pressure then maybe, you know, and that's why I'm really, I do like the Jacob J ynamic because my favorite work from Jay, which I think pushed him into the stratosphere was when he was that sort of like right hand man and you're wondering what's going to do next the business with Sammy? Like he's a really good like character performer. I think what he has is valuable in storytelling, what he has as a performer, his abilities . I just don't know whether or not he's the right choice to get the best out of Ober Femi in this context. Yeah, this wasn't a squash match for Femi, but like I saw some people say it wasn't. It's the final of the King of the Rings. I completely agree. So it wasn't a squash match. I've seen some people thought it was too competitive. I don't think it was because Oben never looked like he was in trouble at all. No. Jay also hit him with a splash and Oba kicked out before the wand counts. Not only kicked out, he turned it into a choke into a choke. It was yeah. Jay hit two splashes consecutively after a spear and Obi still kicked out. Like this was Ober never looked like he was in trouble in this match . So it wasn't a squash match, but it also wasn't a highly competitive match. I actually felt they kind of pitched it just right , which is Ober one in eight minutes. I think this is exactly what it needed to be. And it's completely the right call. They didn't light me on fire at any point. That's my problem. And I think with Ober , you almost want it to be like, you know, competitive is good, I think , especially in the final of a King of the Ring Tournament, but I want to get the sense that I'm like he makes me want to go ah , but in this moment I didn't get that and I think because I was watching you, know a, super kick that isn't the most vicious looking superkick or a splash . I don't know, I wasn't getting crackling. Yeah, I think my like of this comes with matter over one.. Right Yeah, it's a good correct choice the right choice done for me personally. This is the right choice, the right guy to go with. He got a very good promo afterwards though. He was not gased whatsoever for his promo. The question is now who will he face ? So I think I wonder if we're going to find out tonight on Rawl. Well, he called out Roman pretty openly several times, like straight after WrestleMania , the other week on Raw. Like he even like on Monday he was saying, do you want to like go for Code? Should I go for the WWE Championship or should I go for Roman? And the way it was delivered was it's very leaving I've said for the last like four weeks on this show Obes retiring Brock on night one he's beating Roman on night two, which would be a nice I think that would be a good shot. If we are strapping the rocket to this dude, that's I feel in my gut that is still the direction that they're going to be heading in, but we'll probably get a clearer picture tonight. And like it was some of Samlm thead Brock won title the first time in his debut year there's a lot of they're muddling a lot of this on it. I mean I think that Heyman's fingers are very much involved in a lot of what's going on here. Of course the other side of that could be is that Obam will come out for a probe and it says , I'll make my decision maybe on SmackDown. Yeah, and then we'll stretch it out for another few days. five weeks on week. Yeah. And then it gets to smack then it is like, I will announce my decision on Raw. Yeah. In a couple of weeks. We'll just we'll just stretch this out a little bit because you're right. We've got five weeks . Byro , then we had Danhausen come out really just say I'm here. Yeah, which is lovely. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot of fun . And then Liv Morgan came out to say you owe the Judgment Day money. So he cursed her. Yeah . Is that why she then loses? So a lot of issues with this is I have so many issues with this match. This match makes me angry. Really Morgan should not be in this position. Well, no, that is the larger picture of all of this is that you wanted to have her versus Stephanie Vacer in a rematch and then Stephanie got hurt. So then you just stopped trying . You truly chose the most stupid like avenue. Yeah. Like there are so many other options that you could have done. At this point, we could be finishing an arc with Roxan Perez, there's elevated Roxan Perez. Wait , there has elevated Roxanne Perez and pushed into a storyline with Raquel Rodriguez and Liv you could you could stretch out as long as you want because that's clearly where we're going for the three way . But we should have got there sooner ages ago. We could be we could be at the very completion of it. Like I don't know there's so many other or you know, you could have her facing I don't know they pick, pick a person Yeah. Like well actually you can't because the division isn't as fleshed out as it wants to elevate someone that's what I'm saying and that's why I pick Rocks Ann because it's like, okay, well if we need to elevate someone to that position, will we have that story that maybe we want to save for a rainy day save for the best? No, do it now because you need to because Stephanie's out of the picture for a minute. And instead, you could have elevated like you could have you could have put Raquel in this in this match and Iosiel gets the win and the whole point would have been on this night where you finally vanquish this that traitorous Roxan Perez get her out of the picture and then I'll be the queen of the ring and I'll go for the other one and then and then they will put her down a bit and then it's like hang on, you're always putting it down and you're always saying it'll be my turn soon. This was my turn. Why didn't you help me win the match? Like whatever. You could have told the story. You could have done stuff with it. You could have elevated numerous people at once. And instead, you chose an angle where your women's world champion now looks like a loser and then the Queen of the Ring said, I'm going to do that, but that again. Yeah, we're doing that doing that summer slam now. And she was cursed and so I knew she was going to lose it. Yeah, I didn't What was the point of any of them? Well, I felt like it makes me cross. I felt like they did the cursing to protect Liv, but they never made enough of the cursing, right? Like it's not like she slipped on a banana peel. It's not like it's been other Dan House and curses where you know the firework has gone off or something. She just lost the match. She just lost a competitive match. A competitive match. To one of the finest women's wrestlers in the world. So it just felt like ESG was the better woman on the night. I just wanted to just highlight that you use the phrase the curse was there to protect live because that for me is like when we sat in the creator's room it's like we got to protect live I don't use the curse the current it was a real thing. Like, you know, and I get this that makes sense, but also like it's WWE and I love the curse. I love Dana Hausen. Like I'm a big fan of I think I think it's all great. I'm a huge fan of it all. She shouldn't need protecting because she shouldn't be in this position . She should not be in this tournament . But this is just like it's a big systematic problem once you have an idea that they want to do something, if one of those elements goes like falls to the wayside , St andephanie Baker gets injured. I was like, well, we're out of ideas. What was a moment where it was going to be injured anyway? Yeah, so let's just pause and we'll just pick this back up. Basically, what we're doing now is just waiting for Stephanie Vacher to get back again so they can finish up that storyline. I really do feel like that triple threat is at WrestleMania and we are and that stage is sorry. So I think that's there's no other reason for you to tell take this long to tell this very simple story other than we want to save that for WrestleMania. That should be a WrestleMania match. And you could have like just thinking like in that case Roxanne goes off and do some international international intercontinental stuff. You could transfer over to the United States stuff. I don't know . Like it's it's just why wait all the time and you're never building stars and that's why things feel stale. Yeah. If I'm tuning in to watch Monday Night Raw this week and I get a little bit more of rocks and drama that was starting in, I don't know November . Yes. It is a long time ago because they have stuff in them rumble. It's so much. Do you remember when Raquel got eliminated by Liv Morgan in the Royal Rumble? So many times I just hear we 've never talked about it since and it frustrates me because I think that like I think it's what frustrates me specifically and why I get so wingy for which I apologize but also, why I criticize . And I normally I try and do fair criticism and not just, you know, I don't want to do things bad ever because I know it's a hard gig, all of it, whether it's in the ring, creative, whatever, you've got all the tools. You've got all the tools, it's right there for you. You've got the potential, you've got people who really want to do it and you choose not to , I think that's a problem. It's the We've got time attitude, which is something that Ollie and I talk about a lot. And I guess you cross because okay, here's the problem is sometimes you don't. So Big E did an interview with Chris Van Bleek recently where he talked about Oh yeah, he said oh there was going to be an idea that I was going r touin Kofi's rumble moment shortly after the heel turn Yeah. So Kofi and Woods turn heel in November then in January the Royal Rumble, which is weird as France were speculating to be like, well, there's going to be a big payoff to this angle that they did with the heel turn with Biggie either at the rumble or at WrestleMania. And we got nothing out of it, but Biggie said I was going to ruin Kofi's rumble spot in January, but then I was told we' getll to that later You know, we've effectively we've got time. We'll do that down the road. Well, guess what? Now they're gone. But also we've got no payoff to it. Because you had this, we've got a time lot of at you. It's why we never got CMP versus Kenny Amega in AEW . They thought they had time. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you don't. So yeah, sure. You want to tell the, you know, tell these stories over a long period of time. You don't want to take it over too long of a period of time though. And in the meantime, do sweet FA M because one of the other persons is injured. If that person gets down, it's like, okay, maybe we need to pull some of these plans forward. And it's seizing opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's why I . That's why I get frustrated with this. However , look , I don't mind that Yoski beat the women's world champion to get herself a world title match. Sure. Like it's completely fine. It's not the worst idea in the world . just It sucks like I just hate it more because that was the only idea you had. It's not the worst idea in the world. It was your only idea . And that to me is a much bigger issue in all of this. I enjoyed the match. Oh, the match was good. That was not the problem. EO tweaked her knee at one point, but didn't play into the finish, which makes me think that's going to be a part of the rem atch. She just like launched over and she landed but they did a whole the whole half crab thing. Yes. That's only but it didn't play actually into the finish of the finish . Oh, I see what you mean. So she did that, then you had the Boston Crab. Yeah, but then afterwards she was like just up and doing moonsault right, you know, Spanish flies off the top rope. So it didn't actually play in. So it makes me think that's actually going to be a much bigger part of the status. She's now going in as well like with the, you know, the hurt wing and they can sort of target that. Yeah, Liv Morgan has now added the Boston Crab to her reputation. The half crab, not the Boston Crab. They're different moves, Luke. Oh, it's a half crab. Well, she's got half crap. I thought they were calling it Boston Crab on Commentary. They said half crab a few times. So I was like, there's only the one leg like Mike Loki. So she's got that and she's got the codebreaker and she's got terrible music. She really is becoming Chris Jericho. Well, they did lie, they did say it was like a lion tamer version of the half crab at one point. So I can see where you're getting confused there. Byron interviewed after ESG and challenged Liv to a title match at Samuslam. Have you seen the graphic? No. It says SummerSlam minibota it doesn't. It does. It doesn't. They didn't put that on television. Yeah, on this show, it says SummerSlam minibota in the Summer Slam logo. I see I see two avenues of thought . Yeah. Number one , cuts in WWS so severe now that they can't have a spell checker and they didn't notice the red squeeze line. Option number two, probably the more likely one. They put the logo into AI to recreate the logo and it just got it ever so slightly wrong Amateur Hour I'm sorry but between now that you've said that I'm even more crossed because the rest of the show with Michael Cole's awful microphone the first thing you tell anyone who says you got' anyve advice for me I want, to be a YouTube. I want to be an influence, I want to be a creator, whatever. Get good sound. Because if it's bad sound people turn away. I didn't want to listen to this show because it was so bad. You are the biggest company in this industry. You are a titan of entertainment TKO . Stop it Amateur hour . And like I would appreciate as well. There are times on this podcast where we have had some audio issues. Yeah, because like it's OBS, it might be something to do with Premier Pro. I'm con slcighterlyned to sing 'cause I'm looking at there's a bouncing there. I'm not entirely certain what it is, but I don't think it's interfering with anything . So I appreciate the win. Also, we're not a billion dollar company. No, this is what I mean. We are not the biggest company in the world putting our podcasts, but I do always want to make sure we put out the best sounding podcast that we possibly can do with our limited skill set that we have. And I'm telling this right at the top, and it is not just TKO, by the way, it is every other company that's trying to get rid of people and trying to cut costs left around and center for shareholders. I saw the podcast the other day like it's not about us as consumers, it's all about shareholders . Yeah, amateur hour Anyway, the main show then kicked off because we moved over to the ESPN plus app and Seth Rollins took on bronze breaker in a steel cage match. I think Seth had a cool visual for the start of this match. We're going to take some steel chairs in. And then we're going to turn our steel chairs like round we're a substitute geography teacher trying to look cool amongst the other kids. How do you do fellow kids and we're going to stare at each other? And then we're going to go to war and actually it was quite lame . I'm pretty cringye, probably sounded really cool in their heads. In practice, looked lame as F. There's also I did think when he started he puts his weapons in and then he goes to get his other weapons. I was like, let's just grab that weapon and it's up twin in one. Yeah, like just get on with it. I thought the match was fine. Yeah, I think the action was okay. Portion of the crowd chanted, this is awesome. I disagreed. The Super Blacks to the table was a cool spot. Yeah, Bron got basted open after the back of that . But my frustration I had with this match, again, is larger picture stuff is the absolute continuing chumpetization of Bronbreaker. Yeah . So Bron hits his super spear and like this is the first big thing he's done in this match. He hits the super spear and Seth kicks out and Bron goes dir, what do I do now? now . And you know, this is just a WWE problem really large. He's then going to go escape the cage. So well now you just look like a coward. Now I don't want to sound like Jesse Ventura on that Saturday night's main event. Why is this coward leaving the ring? You should try and finish this match in the middle of the ring. McMahon. But I was like, but it makes him look like he literally was like, I don't know what to do. Man got Paul Hayman here and tell me what to do. I don't know what to do now. And they even said on Comment, looks like he doesn't know what to do. Yeah. And the final line that they have around him is like Seth has been asking the question all in the lead up to this match. Is Brombreaker ready for this moment? I'm like, why are we building? He's not a rookie. Yeah. He took out Seth Rollins L late last year. He had his wild title feud with CM Punk. Why are we still acting like he is a child that needs someone holding his hand right from the get go when he first did the turn on Seth and Paul Hayman's backstage being like, you got a lot to learn. Why is this Brombreaker's character? He's not some unstoppable badass that you keep trying to tell me he is. No he looks like a chump at every opportunity you make him look like a chump and it's not helped by the the fact that vision is a bunch of losers. It's not, it's not great, is it? Yeah, it's cursed. Like it's so tricky because he had such potential when he was called up. And I think that first year, I think there was some real great stuff . And then ironically, by association with Seth, which was meant to elevate him to the next level , everything has stumbled . And I don't hold Seth massively responsible for that. No, I don't it's all in creative. Yeah, I the creative for the Vision was bad like that was a dreadful group that, you know, effectively got cut short because Seth got hurt . Look at them actually like moving plans forward because it was good someone got hurt and we pivoted . This is all on creative. I think they've done a bad job with vision. I a think they've done a bad job with Bron Bre aker. And you know, some people might say, well, the follow up line that Michael Cole said like is Bron Breaker ready for this moment? I think that he is. My point is why is that his character? Why are we still talking about is he ready for this moment? We're not doing that with anyone else that gets called up. We're not doing that with Ethan Page. We're not doing that with Ober Femi. Why are we trying to act like Bron Breaker is this rookie upstar? Also Bronze the heel. Oh, it was part of that. So why are we giving him this? But he's a former NXT champion. Yeah, like, you know, like multiple times. He's a former intercontinental champion. Like he's won big matches. He's had his big moments. So why are we still acting like he's just come up for the main roster he's just not ready for these sorts of things yet, but we act like he is. Because then it feels like that's that's what you're telling us, that's the perception that we get. That's, you know, and it's an ecosystem that it feeds itself. It feels like and I'm not saying that this is what it is , but it feels like, do you remember when Jim Ross was head of talent relations and he used to just get his talent relations out on commentary Big Show to us like a motivated big show is with us '.s looking He much more motivated these days . That is talent relations JR being like, I've been trying to get this guy to be motivated and lose some weight. Lost a lot of weight or actually more like he's pretty good with losing some weight as big show. I think he needs to work on his cardio Bowling shoe ugly when he would describe a match and stuff. And it's like, this is Talent Relations, Jim giving his own feedback. When you have your lead commentator being like, Is he ready for these big moments? It feels like backstage. It's creative being like , we need to let this guy know we don't think he's ready yet. Yeah . And it feels like they don't think he is because they won't give him that big that next push. So the question is, what do you do? What's next? And I' alsom not someone who believes that losing a match is inherently like win and losses matter, I feel, but losing doesn't inherently mean you're just off the cliff and nobody cares about you anymore. No good. I mean, I think Seth was always going to win this view. The story kind of necessitates Seth to win this feud in a way. He's the baby face. He was kicked out of his own group. Like yeah, the storyline kind of feeds itself to me. It would have been a real nice surprise if Bron had won and actually that would have like you know showed some elevation of Bron but B lroson ing doesn't make him like this undercard job guy but the character they've given him does make him feel like an under card job guy. I really do feel we just need to move on from the vision. it Like just like it's one of those things where I respect you for trying and I respect you for committing through several injuries and several twists and turns that were unforeseen and the plan didn't go to plan . But sometimes you just gotta go, yeah, it didn't work let's move on and try other things or let's find a way to move on from it and use that in the storyline like Ricky Saints took on Trick Williams for the United States Championship. I thought it was a very smart choice for them to start hot because they're just falling on from the cage mat so you know out of the gate . But the crowd were noticeably less into this than they were, anything else that was on the show until this point. Saint Little Yuddy was out with Trick and he had a Kendo stick. So Ricky grabbed the Kendo stick and he hit the steel steps with it and the referee thinking that human heads sound like steel steps were like you hit this man with a Kendo stick to the back with you. What an easy pay day for that man. Yeah, well . Yeah, what a great what a cush to you he's having the time of his life and I love it for him then they had a very pedestrian match . It was just Ricky working over trick pretty slowly , pretty uninspiring. Trick made its comeback. The longer this match went, the longer they lost , the more they lost the crowd and needed a trick shot and got the win . Yeah, yeah, this was fine. This was fine. Ricky tried to could have been on the smackdown, like he's one of those. Ricky tried with hectrick afterwards, but Little Yodi came back out, so they beat up Saint and Little Yodie hit the people's elbow. Which is a shame . It was better than Snoop Dogs. Oh, yeah, yeah, but as Snoop Doggs gets points because he did it on the fly. That's true. So like again, the crowd not reading into too much into Tiffany Stratton, Jade Cargill either. Jade Domin ates and like the more she dominated the more the less the crowd got into it. They picked up a little bit when the interference came at the end. B, Fab and Mechan ran in for distraction interference. Chelsea Green appeared from under the ring to cut that off and then as Jade was going for the title belt, Charlotte Flair appeared from nowhere and she took the title belt from her and Tiffany hit the prettiest woman's sort ever to get the win. It's really interesting Charlotte and Jade is a poster I would very much like to look at and a stare down that I'm very keen to see. And I don't really know what happens next. I mean, I trust like I trust Charlotte, of course, very much . I do think Jade is someone who can be at the moment. I thought her match with Rhea Russiana is really good. She gets a matches . A lot of people say she just can't and I don't think that's true at all. Um Tiffany , I don't understand what's going on . She is going backwards , but I don't know why. Neither do I because it's different to Jade I agree with you . I don't think that it's Jade Can't. No, I just think that it's Jade has never progressed. She is the same level quality wrestler that she was when she first debuted in AEW and that's fine, you know, like that's just the status she is. I just think it is kind of amazing how you have never picked up anything new or you are at the exact same level of wrestler that you thought you were six years ago or fight yeah, six years ago with Tiff , it does feel like she's just it feels like she's regressing ever so slightly and it's like I think she's good but ever since that world title win where she kind of where she did nothing that is all on creative. It's also I think there's a lack of character. I think it's that you can hide a multitude of sins when you are over. Like I don't so just plucking a name as an example, Eddie Kingston is not one of one of my least favorite wrestlers personally. Yeah. However, I was at RevPro recently. Kingston was there. He had a match and the room was on fire for the guy. The guy did some forearms and some chops . All anyone was excited about that night. Like it was a quick show, but like that was the moment. People were so excited to see Eddie. It was huge. The whole room on their feet, cheer, cheer, cheer, he did all in that match, but people were so into it . So because he's got that character, because he's got that connection with the audience about Eddie Kingston. And he's got that ability to hold you in the moment and make it so that the three mo ves he's gonna do are the stuff that you like pay to see, you know what I mean? Tiffany hasn't got that character connection at the moment. She did in spades, certainly towards the end of NXT , and then in that early run on the main roster . I'm curious about the Chelsea Green Tandem because that was over in the building on SmackDown It's 'cause Chelsea's grave. Everyone loves Chelsea I. w Andonder whether or not they can have a little sort of give it a Chelsea rub and that builds up a little bit of the connection back with the crowd and then at some point maybe she can turn heel. I think she's a great heel . And I don't think it's Tiffy time . I don't think it works as a baby face for one reason or another. Yeah. The character is indifferent. That would rather it's not there. I think I haven't seen what it's all about, but I believe did Pipe and Nivin say something about Jade's black hole slammed. Yeah, I only just saw this . So she basically Jade Jade reposted a clip of it, give of it, whatever it. And Piper went in. Piper said it was five out of ten . You 're going or like it didn't feel in character. She said something along the lines of sloppiness and not protecting her head. That's why she reverberate it on the mat . Oh, like she really went in and it was a big chunk of text critiquing it and then at the end of it said but who cares as long as you look good, right? And it's one of those things where it feels like girls let's not air our day laundry. We don't need to be doing this. Yeah. And I don't know. But in a way I'm also an old school wrestling fan. I like it when the air. Yeah, and I get that. And I understand other people do. It's just one of those things where I'm like don't the reason I don't is because people are specifically the people who remain on Twitter , they love to jump on a thing and I just don't think we need to be the causing that to anybody like regardless of who you are. Yeah. Yeah . I mean the reason I saw is because Sean posted up something on Fightful I think like in his review of his fellow piper shoots and I saw in the comments it was left to the Black Hole Slam. So yeah, I mean thought I theack Bl Off slam was not the worst one. I thought it looked fine. Yeah, it's not the worst one I've ever seen. Yeah. And then the main event was Sami saying Kelly Rose and Gundan for the WWE Championship, which we have already covered, but I really liked them . Yeah, it was good. Looking at your Patreon feedback, Kevin here says, Hey guys, Kevin here. Like you said in the news episode, I'm so happy for Sammy. The match was great and the title win was so heartwarming, this probably won't last long, but I'll enjoy every second of it. It's also just nice for him. Do you see Kevin Owens' little post? No, not. She just basically was like, here are some pictures of this guy. And this injury sucks and one of the things that it sucks the most for is that I wasn't there at that moment. it does like you think of your best mates and it's like and it was pictures of them as like traveling around or like wand was Sammy putting his socks on because he injured his back. And so he was like, you're supposed to help me now . The undies taker. Sami got the W . Although the pessimist in me just sees him as a transitional champion for Brock to set up Ober versus Brock at SummerSam, but effort I can enjoy the ride without thinking too much about the destination yet. But also like transitional champions are valuable . You need them Oysin, a surprisingly refres hing show from WWE. I was very impressed for both Queen and King of the Ring matches to end cleanly. The cage match with was Seth's best work in a long time, and I must admit, I can't recall the last time I was as invested in a WWE product as I was that trip of threat match, decent all round and I see WWE actually follow through on creative opportunities they should avail of for once. I think that 's it. Like I feel like I've ragged on them a lot this episode already . And it comes from a place of frustration because of how good I think they could be and a respect for how hard the creative process is, but also I'm holding you to your standard. I will only ever hold you to the standard that you have set for me. Absolutely. So when they then do something like the end of the show and it's like, that's what happens when you take advantage of an opportunity. Yeah, good. Because I wouldn't even see that elsewhere. I didn't mention this earlier in the review. The match the match was so good and the drama was so good. It felt like Michael Cole was getting like because he's been on, you know, on coast mode. Yeah, for like the last year or so. I think he misses his mate . Honestly, I think he misses Pat McConafe. But like this almost felt like WrestleMania forty Michael Cole who was like like he just loved what he was seeing. Great, you know, I kind of liked the chaos with the microphone. The mic because like the microphone issues they had earlier in the show were like absolutely awful . But like with the chaos video where his headset broke but that's fine. But he was desperate to comment for it. So he like he took Corey Graves' headset . I thought all of that stuff was like actually really added to the drama of the match. I really even like urgency. Even Michael Cole felt great. Yeah. Real one Georgie Tuffs. Poor old Brun only can see him being a face now as they have no direction for him, which won't matter as WWE still seems as the number two to Femi. All the promise at the start of the year he'll be lucky to have a mid card belt by the end he's been ruined. I think that's the last bit there's a slight stress to say that he's been ruined , but I think we need to be doing better with him. Yeah . Mark , there's nothing quite like wrestling. Very few wrestlers have made me feel the way that Sami Zane can. Show itself had a feeling of maybe because the crowd kind of sucked, I disagree with that. But seeing Sami win brought an actual tear to my eye . James, I love Sammy Zane. I want to say that here, but I don't like this. Him winning as a healed, though not in Saudi is clearly just a fob so there isn't any pressure for him to win at Saudi Mania. In my view it's like the miz in twenty twenty one just a way for Ober to win the title but not pin a main eventor like Roman or Cody I kind of get the idea of it in your hills. It's not my favorite character. Oh, I think this work is great. I also think that I understand that because the NXT win was so great and we love Sam Zane and the Montreal win would have been that's the Samuzane we all fell in love with yeah I think that's what I mean like I like the work. It's not my favorite Samuzane character feel like this to then finally be the title win but honestly, when you watched this match, it did not feel like that was the Samuel Zain character ready also because he just worked the match babyface. But also, he's going to be like this one's for the real fans. And I think that's part of the character. And I think that's why Samuy Zane's genius lies is because he's able to take this direction and this very specific connection he has with with fans and use it whether he's a face or heel. Brett, I feel like Trick is falling behind because he's so entertaining that they actually aren't giving him any interesting matches. Jaffin was in the King of the Rings semifinals, Obra is facing the tribal chief, Sami's in at Samuslam. Somehow the US champ seems to be a step below those two. I'm sorry Ricky Saints has been in WWE for a cup of coffee. I have no feelings about him. Why should I care about him versus trick? I've got so much time for Ricky Saints because I think I'm very fond of him because of collision and I think he was he was one of the real standouts in early collision that was hampered by all the drama . So I'm always going to be team team Ricky . But there it's a similar thing that he has , that Soul Rooka has, that Jordan Grace has , which is here you are . Yeah . Great, what did these others do with you? Like you haven't really built the connection yet. You'll get there because Rookie Saints is that good . You can't just debut a person. You have to build the character, you have to build a connection. Tiffy , the connection issues is an example. And lastly, Denny Dorco, imagine how proud El Jericho must be after a hard week of working with the orphans , seeing his great student Sami Zane win the undisputed championship. Nothing. I bet he's so pretty . Yeah Let's move on to AEW now and we'll do the Forbidden Door Show, which opened with the Young Bucks versus Shinka Taki and Titan vs. L Sky Team . Hot crowd for this show right here . My first few notes are this is just excellent pro wrestling. It's so much fun. There's too many things to make notes of. Yeah, this is where like the whole conversation around forbidden door this whole time has been like, who is this for? Like is it really forbidden door whatever? And the way to answer that question is be like , this is what Forbidden Door is. This is what it's supposed to be. This exhibition triple threat tag team match with AW's best and you know, New Japan's best C,ML's best, go. Yeah, and just gonna have a very fun. So good. I loved this match. It was so much fun . It's like a perfect opener. Yeah, because there's no story to the match really. It's just a bunch of stars went out, did a bunch of fun stuff and worked together like crisply and cleanly together. But not you know, like seventeen minutes or whatever it was. And then one of the teams won. Crucially, the right team won because they're the ones who are going to be going for the AW Tag titles down the line, so give them some momentum and give them some wins. But also even within that, like it's I also hear the whole conversation about like some people talk about forbidden door as a sort of parallel universe where all of your stories go on pause and then you go off and do from middle and then you come back to them. And I don't think it has to be that necessarily because this is a prime example of it. If they're going for tacting titles and they want to make a point of well we did that. Like you could almost build these matches as like we're going to have a , I don't know triple threat we're having a fatal four match and I need someone in that match so then I'm going to put myself forward because I want to prove that I am able for this down the line or I need to get a win back or whatever. Like I want to represent the EW brand and it be bad bragging rights like you can use these as story devices and even if they're exhibition and they don't have to be specifically about those feuds. It's just we have the show coming up when I want to represent Adobe for it. Can I? And I think that's a really effective use of this kind of show. Well , one of my favorite forbidden door matches of all time is on the first one when they just had, I think it was like an eight man tag or might be a six man tag was six man tag actually. And it was just Sting Darby Allen and another guy versus the young bucks in El Fantasmo. Right. It's just we're just having this man. Yeah. And it's just like it's, mad to seeing the St ring in with El fantasbo and I loved that. It did me think when he came out later for the show, I was like, oh, I think you did miss a trick with one of these not doing Sting versus Tanahashi. Right. It's one of your matches. I know that Sting wasn't doing a lot of, I don't think any singles matches in AEW but then do as a tag match do like Sting in Derby versus Tanahashi and ANOTHER Yeah , I think that would have been that maybe that was that's what you use it for. And that's why matches. That's why people love forbidden. Also the next match you got on this show. Like that is like this is dreamed territory I kind of love forbidden or for that. I do think over the years it has lost some of that because I've moved away from it being all company versus company exhibition matches. And now it is an AEW show that has some of those exhibitions. This was a show of two halves for sure. Yeah, and it has some of those exhibition matches , which you then also get at Wrestle Dream later in the year as well because that also has like people from New Japan and CML . But that's why if you're gonna also the idea of Hibida is it was so unique at the time. It was something we've been crying out for , especially a certain rabid corner of the fanbase who are the AW naturals. Like they want this and they care very deeply about it . Over time , well, we see it every year. So like that diminishes in a very loose way . So use that as I don't know as a story device to further other things and you know it's always gonna be a special little show . So yeah, and this is a prime example of why this first match. Yeah, I really enjoyed this. I thought it was so fun. Every combination worked because no matter which like two guys or four guys were in the ring, it just like it all worked together so well. Bucks got the win really enjoyed like crowd like legit on their feet for this. Yeah it was really, really good. Commentary Tune was really good as well, isn't this? Yeah, I would say if I could put a little criticism on the match is I think they went slightly too long. Okay , I think they had the crowd at a peak and then they went like two minutes more and they sort of they should have had them at the peak. Yeah . Granted I would win like Mister had Lemistica in but because they're not winning so we can't end the match there. I But feel like that was when you had the crowd really at their their apex . But speaking of a crowd being into something , they were super in for Kenny Mega vs. Zach Abridge Jr. And that was me too because I was at home loving . So excited . I hate all of this talk that Kenny might be wrapping it up . Why do you hate it? Because you don't want to be true. I don't want it to be true. I am not this is my AJ styles all over again. Like I'm not ready for this to be the case. I'm not ready to live in a reality where Kenny Megan might not be wrestling anymore because he came out and he's just got this or I'm like, I'm not ready. I'm not ready to let go just yet . And just he's so cool. He's definitely on this path because we're hammering this home a lot. He's going for the AAW title in his promo he's been talking about redemption. The name of the next paper view is Redemption. I think he's going to be MJF for the world title at Redemption and it's going to be Will versus Kenny out all in . And I and I'm so in for that. Particularly as well because when you look at what happened later on in the main event, Will won with a Tiger Driver ninety seven . And the reason why that became such a cursed move is because he did it to Kenny Omega and it looked gnarly as old get out. So it feels like they're now building this like Will's even going to these depths where he's using this movie again and now he's going to be going up against the guy who he really like effed up completely using it. Yeah, you want to build your stories in tandem to arrive at Exactly at the same place and that's what is absolutely happening here. Yeah. I feel like that's where we're heading. You're a dickhead chance. Yeah, which I absolutely adored . Which is also it's very in keeping with how the people on the World Cup love to say what I learned from Ronor'ans M SmackDown, Americans love to say wanker. Did you see the World Cup where like they call James Cordon a full kit wanker? And like Tierra Ni's like, I think you're allowed to say that on TV . They love to say the British swears. I just call 'em a Wanker in general. Yeah, well yeah an unlikeable one. Kenny did his little gun finger point. Don't do that to a British wrestler because they see a finger is like joint manipulation . It's like blood in the water for a shark . He worked over the diverticulitis. Kenny kick out the Zack driver, such a good match. Eventually Kenny, on his third attempt hit the one winged angel got the win. It loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I loved all of the like history that they were includ ing and moving through on the commentary, all of like, you know, how many times they've had rather they've not had that many matches before but when they have Zack's been so much younger and the upstart wh oratever and Kenny was at his peak and now Kenny's on the way down and Zack's arriving at his peak, world champion like where are we gonna go? I thought they really sold what this exhibition dream match was like and it delivered. I thought it was delivered in space probably going to mean the conversation match of the year . That and the main lot of matches in the civil life. That's Match of the eighth can tender chat. Really really great stuff. John Moxley defended the Continental Championship against Ban Dido. Bandido came out all dressed in white and I was like someone's getting busted open . And sure enough, Moxley hit a pile driver on the steps and he busted him open . I enjoyed Excalibur's commentary in this talking about how that affects you in a mask specific. In a mask specifically, like it's almost worse to be busted open when you're wearing a mask because he just gets like caught under the mask. It's more likely to then get caught within your arms . Moxwas even try to like rip the mask off of him at one point. I find the Moxie characters so fascinating. I kind of go back and forth people who listen to the Thursday show . I was kind of frustrated a little bit with that because he was more heelish Moxley and I'm kind of enjoying this babyface rise. But kind of again, I think it's because I'm missing what they're showing on camera is often what times I'm missing. I'm almost putting too much of a basic brain onto it. And actually what he is is just like Moxley is just always looking for what's the best way for me to win. Yeah. What is the I just need to win this match and he lost him in Claudio, lost to Bandido and Brody King on TV. So now he's just got this mindset of I just need to make sure that I win. Yeah. And whatever it takes if that includes ripping off a mask, I know that's not a cool thing to do, but it is what I'm going to do because I'm John Moxley and the continental champion. It also it's like he exists in his own sphere like it's not babyface, it's not Heal. It doesn't it's John Moxley. Like it just is and he's willing to like to go there, you know, he's not afraid of a certain type of violence. And I much prefer this John Moxley run than things I've seen for quite a while now actually. Easily so. I think he's been the most compelling character in AWTV since he lost the title. Yeah, for sure. Because he was boring as all the get out when he was World Champion, but since losing that title he's been so interesting. And the way that it like that kind of win at all costs, again, this is where it's really lovely plotting, really lovely planning of your show that that win at all costs attitude comes back into playing the main event in a big way. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. does It. This will death riders thing is so, so good he went for the twenty one plex , but like Bandito overshot he overshot it slightly and Mox got him into a choke and like dragged him back to the ring. Bandido tried to shift his weight and roll it through, but unfortunately, in the process of doing that, sunk himself deeper into the chokehold and passed out. Thought it was a great match. They shook hands afterwards. Big thumbs up for me. I really enjoyed this. Shodooma took on Pack for the Global Title. This is one of the few matches we had that had a story going into it . It's a good point. I mean, I say a story like between two promotions in the first half of the show. Yes. Because Gabe Kid had attacked Umo, he'd been sent by the Death Riders, which means I guess he's no longer with the dogs. He's now just with the death riders to let him know, you're not part of this group. You never were a part of this group. This is John Moxley sending his other students and meetings to take out one of his former students in Shodo Umino . We going back a few years now . When No Fans Monday were we did during the pandemic . That was originally supposed to be a different show . We actually had that venue booked for a wrestling show and we were going to do a wrestling show there, partnered with a couple of promotions from around the country and do like a couple of podcasts stuff there meant to make it sort of like this sort of like, you know, events . Yeah, like really, really cool. Like we were really excited for it . I still get ribbed about it episode slightly because we got merchandise printed up for it and I made it very clear if we're going to do this, we need to have the match card on the t shirt and you need to have like the date and stuff. It needs to feel like an I was there t shirt, not just we'll put the logo on there. And they were like, well that means we can only ever sell it at that event. And I was like, that's what makes it special. It just means now we can never sell it because that event never happened ever happened. Absolutely never happened. What a waste of money and it's my fault. Shotoume was going to be it's it's the fault of a global pandemic. Like let's like, you know , that's the smart thing you did . Unfortunately , natural things happened. Yes. Shodi Uno was going to be on that show and he was going to win the WrestleGate. I think it was WrestleGame. He was going to win like the WrestleGate title on that show because we wanted to do like a title change on that show . And the guy who's moment was like , I think this is the right call . Moxy swears by him. Right. It's like he just swears by me thinks he's a beef absolute bees kneesneys, he's a future style of making. I think we should go with this. So it's quite nice you to be sat here six years later and being like, oh look, he's on forbidden during the global title against Pack. What a lovely little thing this is. I was just thinking about that while I was watching him getting tossed over the top rope with an awesome bomb through a table. Yeah , Josh Which I believe you took some issue with. Oh, are you gonna throw me under the bus here? Yeah, I'm throwing under the bus. Yeah . Look , 'cause I mean, you're sort of right. I am right and it wouldn't be it wouldn't be a Dan Layton review if I didn't, you know, fairly criticize something that would then be taken as a nitpick. But I don't I love for this match. I thought this was great. Really good because the crowd went into it at the start, but they really got into it by the end. Yeah Pack looks like a jacked up version of a guy I don't really like much so like from my real life. So I'm like cool this new sort of era of pack is a fascinating thing that I haven't quite landed on yet . And then he shows you what he's about and he's like, oh yeah. The gear for me. The gear I love. But I love it 's all part of the character and it's all part of the hair and the beer doesn't vibe. It's too familiar. I feel like I'm watching this person say we don't love that. But no, that's that to be clear is not what I'm about to criticize. Match, I thought was really great. And it's just he gets thrown over the rope and onto a table and I'm under the impression that that's not allowed. So that should be a DQ because then seconds later there's a rope break. And if there's a rope break, what's if you put them through a table why are you obeying a rope break? What are the rules? What are the rules? And I just feel like that's something where it's like there is a world where you just go, Ed doesn't matter to me and that's perfectly fine. If that's how you want to watch a show, you even called it the ECW. It's an ECW thing. I would say because I agree with you because that is a weird thing to do. At the same time, I'm like, Wow, an ounces tables get broken and those aren't DQ's either. And I thought about this in the main event when like he's doing it on the like he's exposed exposed the term bookie. You can't do that. I'm going to put that down and there's a referee discretion path and there's a suspension of disbelief path. And like at these stairs around the rings like there's even John Moxley when he hit the Par driver on Bandido. They actually said on commentary it's like, well, that's not a Dec art of the ring it's almost like he's just using like the accessories of the ring and I advantage and I'm like, does this well are tables are the announcement tables specifically? I think it's something because a table like if you put if you put a person if you put your opponent through the announced table during a tables match, I don't think that counts. That's not a table break. So it's not a table, then, is it? It's a part of the rings . Whereas a table that looks like a table and splinters like a table and Christ almighty this was a bump. Like , that should not be allowed. I don't know. It was weird. It's like it took me out of it. I completely agree. The only reason it didn't take me out of it is because I was like, he hit an awesome bomb outside. I was like , you know, they jangled the keys and again and I clapped my hands and I went yeah they did . Was it enough to spoil this match? No. It just was one of those things where I went, did I miss something I know. The only thing I could possibly say in AWS defense and I don't even think it's that good of a defense. They've always done this. Yeah, what are the rules? It's the rules they sort of established in day one that like a table from the outside is not a do I appreciate referee's discretion. Like I do appreciate the hey well I'm doing a countout but now you're brawling and you bone into the crowd so I'm going to follow you and stop counting and try and reason with you get back because it happened I don.'t want this to end an account. I don't want this to end in an EQ. That's what referees should do. They do it in real sports as well. It was just a weird weird. But it's an AWP and if you love it, you love it. We got the Northern Lives Bomb for the win and retention. I really enjoyed this match. It was like the crowd at the start was like a little bit tired here. There was no match on the show that I didn't think was great but no. Oh yeah, which I think is that's kind of unique for AAW this year where all the matches on there, I'm like, that belonged on the card. Yeah, that belonged like there have been somewhere like probably could have done without that match. Like I would have team. My argument with Double Nothing was that some of the matches felt like catch your breath lubes breesak and I thought the matches were better than that and so they deserved a better showcase rather than not being on the show. Yeah , yeah but like that didn't say anything about the quality of the show and that continues into this. So really there was nothing in this where I did think that's Lubrayman. That's what I mean. I think that's why this show is probably going to be the sleeper hit of the year because there wasn't that much excitement going into it. Whereas there was for revolution and double or nothing where they' likere so st oked for the show that that probably is going to get a lot of votes when you come to ending the awards. Yeah. This one might be the one that people sort of sleep on a little bit because there wasn't the hype around it getting into the show . But yeah, these the work that these two guys did was so good that people got into it by the end. Moxy came down to the ring afterwards and sort of like stared at his former student and then Hiroshi Tanahashi waddled out to bless his little . He's retired now. Yeah , bless his non little knees that has. They're not there anymore. Hey, he put the belt round him. Absolutely looked like someone who was like, I don't know, running a corporate stand backstage like years now. He's running a company. Yeah, he's president of the company. And he looks the part. Yeah. And because he's now a businessman, he's cut all his hair off. Cut his hair off, wearing a nice little sports jacket. Starlight kid took on Tekla for the AEW Women's World Championship. We had Tara Wakado, the Stardom President out there as well in some absolute faces. He was. He was selling this. We got some good nearfalls off the stretch muffler, like near tap outs and stuff . The Starlight Kid hit a moonsault that was all knees all knees all the time . And again, much like the Shadow Umuno Match, not hugely into it at the start , but by the end really got into the drama in the near falls. And Tekler got the win with two stumps. I really enjoyed this match because it was really good . Yeah, me too. Techla is legit. Like I know that this is not breaking news at this point, but if you look at her and you're tuning into the show 'Ca youruse mate's got it on and you've gone over for a drink or whatever and you don't know who they are. She looks like a star . The hair, the tan, even the swagger, the outfit, like every inch a star . So I can see why Tony's putting her in the pillars like she was great. I thought she was really an asset. I thought Starlight Kids came across this really well. They're going to continue the Stardom storyline as well because she ripped her Starlight's mask off and then shoved it in a card of space for a trophy. Yes, exactly. So we'll continue this. And I'm glad as well because I think this is a really good story for Tekla. Yeah , there's since she won the world title, I think they've been slightly probably more missed than hit with her because she's been doing things like cheating to win. I'm like yeah that's not a great character for her but this like I was fired from Japan so now I'm going to get my chip on my shoulder Yeah, a chip on my shoulder. I think it's really cool. Like it'll like it will come to an end you know relatively soon because well she's probably gonna lose the title to Mercedes we're all in. I think that's that's a match and then she can like you know go off that maybe she can continue the Stardom Storyline after that . And that concludes the Forbidden Door portion of this forbidden door show because every other match after this was AEW versus AEW and a little bit more worried even like the other announced table just goes home. Yeah. Yeah, Walker went home. Yeah. That's me. Thank you everyone. Tony Shivani, ladies. Yeah, here we go Cage and Cope took on the dogs for the AEW World Titles that've written here. It's sort of forbiddenore because Cluxen and Finley were in New Jerrow at the start of the year. Hey, and who would ever have thought that Cobaca get back together so in a way that's a forbidden door in of itself? Maybe. So it's as forbidden or as you can possibly get, I guess with in this . They had a good match. This was probably like the match I was least into like action wise , but I loved the finish where Cage Cope had the match one he hit the spear and it was the super spear like this Cope did that cage did. And then Connors ran in and shoved Christian Cage into the referee to break the count and also do a refump. Yes. So that was really good. David Finley then gets the chile , the lights cut out, on the stage, the bang bang gang appear and then in the ring, J White makes his return and he attacks David Finny with a blade runner like Adam like whips him into that blade runner spear by coat and Jay throws the referee back in and they retain Yeah really enjoyed the finish Yeah of this there was a very cool moment excellent see J White back. Yeah, it's it's again, it's it's another early collision thing where the Bang Bang circle makes me go I go there they are. Cope was very happy to see J White was back. You know , like hugged him and he handed the top over Christian cage getting absolutely not engaging with this guy whatsoever . How long has he been out now? It's been over a year over a year at this point. Yeah. I love the cage and Cope dynamic. Yeah, because one of the worries we had when they were teasing the reunion was like I really like this Christian Cage character. I don't want to lose it. Yeah. So they haven't. Because also Christian character, like, you know, not to sound like Vince McMahon, but Christian was always the secondary one of the team. Well, but like treated and wonderful. So the idea of having him be on his absolute like steamer of a run, like one of his best of his whole career and then have to go back into that sort of place. So I'm glad that he's maintained everything about who he is while still getting the benefit of this nostalgia run. He is and always has been the best part of Eden Christian . And we got our Owen Heart final between Mercedes Monet and Maya World. Maya World obviously not supposed to be here today. She was a late replacement within this tournament Wimbledon a wild car maybe a wild card . And this Cinderella story that they've told because of that I really do think there's been a little bit of magic within the women's brackets. Because when the women's brackets came up, we actually still got them. We still haven't actually So it's a very different thing. Willow Knight, you know, Mercedes wasn't in it and neither was Maya World and they're the final. Oh wow. Yeah, look at that. Because Willow gets hurt. Yeah, so it gets replaced with Mercedes. Yeah. And then Sari gets hurt, and it gets replaced with my . So when we were looking at this, I sort of reviewed this and broke it down. The point that we made was like 's m,iss iting drama and some star paranorm a little bit. Like, yeah, it'll probably be like Willows as a good choice there. I thought it might be Alex Windsor and then Windsor wins the title off of Techlar and Will wins the men's title and that's the end of the show is the husband and wife Jerro with their world titles . But actually the unfortunate happenstance of injuries has made this tournament have a real spark to it. Completely. And a lot of that is down to my world. Yeah . And again , not to put your final point on it and certainly not to turn it into one of those versus them or whatever, but take an opportunity and turn it into something. Like, oh no, we were injured so let's do something with that. Like, you know, and they've taken advantage of a terri ble real world thing that happened to Maya World, but she's made that part of her story and her sort of motivation to win this tournament. And that's me and a few people have been saying in the comments like I can't believe you don't think that Mayawa's not going to win this tournament. She's so clearly going to win. And I'm being like, it's Wembley and they're tracking low on ticket sales and telling you Mercedes Monet is winning this tournament and it's her versus Techla . Then there's not going to do Mayor World versus Techler and expect to sell another ten thousand dollars. They're just not. They're going to put the biggest dollars possible. Mercedes at winning this tournament . But even with that attitude that I had, I got so swept up in the Cinderella Good she did and I was on the edge of my seat for the nearfolds that Myawld had in this. Like the work was great, sloppy in places . Like it was not smooth by any stretch of the imagination, which is fair enough because like MyWorld's probably isn't like like as polished as a Mercedes Monet or a Willow Nightingale or an Athena or Athena , but the story they told in the match was so great and credits to Mercedes Monet . There's a moment when she had the statement maker locked in and she is her eyes are glued on the ropes and her you can see on her face she's judging how close Myerwold is and how close she's getting to it and the panic setting in of like she's getting closer. I need her to tap out sooner because I've thrown a lot of things and nothing's working. It's the opposite of that prombreaker spot. And I think there's, you know, like which I saw the night previous where he hit one move and it was like, oh now what do I do? Right. Mercedes Mane had already thrown the stage. He was in that mode of panic because she'd already escaped a lot of things. She was like, I need to end this quicker. She was much cocker at the start. The longer this match w,in the more it favored Mayer World, the more panic set in for Mercedes. I thought they told this great story throughout. Yeah. And I think there was this is what I think is fun. Like for okay, to go back to the World Court they've expanded it to forty eight teams or whatever. And a lot of people are that's too much for balls. Too many teams. It diminishes or whatever. But as a result of that, we have stories like Kate Verde, who have made it with all the way through and they've done it, they've been proactive and they've managed to hold big teams to draws. They've scored two against Uruguay, whatever. And it's wonderful to see and it's great to see for the fans and you get to see that in the next knockout phase . In the future, it would be great if something if especially if it's going to be around the time of Forbidden Door, whack a stardom person in there. Whack someone from CML in there into the Owen. Yeah. Yeah, so they weren' metant to because Persephone was there and Sere ma Right. They were imports within there. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but like a boring example. And so to utilize that as like putting putting world in there is that kind of example of the little upstart that could and it only takes three seconds like every single and it should and you should believe as a result we can believe and other wrestlers will be able to say I'm pointing to that one. She went all the way to the final. I'm going to go one better even if they don't make it out of the first round. You want to believe that that could happen for someone. So yes, you were swept up in it because it's a fantastic, very , very simple , tremendously effective story. Yes, it turned into a bit of a botch fest towards the end. Credit to Mercedes Monet bumping her ass off like for all of the Mercedes Hogan that like she gets criticized for or has you, know, come under fire for with the with the ultima Mona extravaganza for I think obviously unfairly she was so willing to create that That Cinderella story, that idea that she could be you being swept up even though you know it's going to be Mercedes and Wembley is only effective on you because of the work she's doing that. Exactly. You know , so really outstanding effort from both of them a. great And platform now for I think there was the Athena promo after the match wasn't there or do something in ROH may be like and I genuinely was my only bit of frustration with this because I thought Mayawald, sloppy though she was in some places came out this crowd wanted to see her win because they also got swept up into the Cinderella riddle. So they wanted to see something win. So at the end of it, I was like, you've got a star in your hands or at least the potential. Like you can now just like push this into the next thing and you've now got another person you could put on TV and people will get super into it and tell some really good stories with . And then Athena cut a promo on her and I was like it's back to Ring of Honor with you. And that's that's a I think that's a bit of a shame. It's still a good push because she's going to like maybe she'll be the person who dethrones the forever champion in Athena and that's a big accolade in and of itself. I mean Athena should be doing stuff in AWE anyways not just, wasting a time down a ring of honor. But at the same time, I was like, that's it is a big push, but it's also a superficial big push. Yeah, whereas I think I kind of want to keep our stay in it. I want to yes I want to keep momentum. There are such things as momentum because if you take her off eight , if you take her off Dynamite for six months to go do stuff in Ring of Honor, you will have lost all that momentum because I don't I don't have to say this tony kind. Not everyone watching Dynamite is watching Ring of Honor. Right. I would say it's probably a small percentage of sort following along with that. So that's where I think it's a bit of a shame to not try and like capitalize on this momentum. This accidental momentum that you found yourself in. Yeah , but a great match nonetheless . Then ginormous circle cave oh my god came down from the ceiling. It was delightful. Yeah it's a beautiful structure so cool Yeah for our twelve man tag team match. It was Mark Brisco, Oanger Cassie, Robert Strong, Darby and Knosskitch, Carl Rolly taking on MGFJ Doyle at Dradi Lie Lo Kevin Like Kugo Carter and Kyle Fletcher. Bless you. This was so much fun . I loved this. Oh, I also think bringing like wrestling's a visual medium , creating a big circle cage and having it cover the whole ring and having a twelve man match in there where there's an absolute spot fest. And your accompanying the Dulzanaki in the arena and Stadium Stampede, you just continue to really make your mark on these things. Like, this is great. This is what a great visual, what a great sense of like identity that creates. It's great. Loved this. It told lots of different interconnecting stories throughout the match while also just allowing for a little bit of fun and silliness within there. Boom and breathing in a way. Kyler Riley got out a Nintendo Entertainment System. Yeah, he got out a NES to use as a weapon. He and I think I can't remember who he was now, used the cord of the NES pad to close line Kyle Fletcher. Yeah, it's like, I've already enjoyed this. Who is then wrapped up in it for a while and then he got another cartridge out of his bag , blew into it big pot. Put it into the NES because it now makes it heavier. Yeah, use it as a weapon. I was like, this is so good. And then because all of them had their own backpacks with like items in it. Yeah, that was fun. So then Mark Bris getkers his backpack and it's thumb t . Mark goes into the thumb tacks. Darby Allen went into these thumb tacks because Mark into onto the back. Darby gets backdropped but it's like flips another rotation so goes into it pretty much face first . Like you want to talk about like risking it going right in your eye. Oh yeah, I was almost certain there was one in there. I really thought I was like 'cause he sold that I was going there I was like it's the first time I've ever seen Darby Allen have regrets. Like, yes . And then what was the next bit? I were looking at and MJS started sweeping the tax , which I was like, No, you're making it worse. Put it to a small pile in the corner. Now they're all on the floor. Yeah . OC Orange Cassidy got a gift from Willow out of his bag which was orange slices that they could all have a hydration break in the middle. Obsessed with that. That was a great gag. But then because Carl Fletcher was busted open, they started squeezing the citrus into the open wound. You know, I've said this before like in a very different context, but like, you know, the syringe through the mouth spot, which personally gives me too much of an ache, but we know what that feels like because we've all had an injection or something in our lives. This is one of those things where it's like, I don't know what it's like to land into something . I don't know what it's like to land on the table. I know what it's like when like I've cooked myself open and I've got a squeeze of lemon 'cause I'm cooking. And imagine that down there. Imagine that all over your forehead, vicious. And then Takeshi gets his bag and he's reaching into it. And Akada's begging off me like, no, don't get it out It's a little finger. Oh, so much fun. Kyle there gets in there too, and it's Kyle Acada and Takesha. And I'm like, Oh, I see the streetway match. I'm doubting it. Then you get Knight and Darby continue on their story . then from And underneath the ring, Leo Rush comes out. Not just underneath the ring. And this place went out of a hockey bag. This place went ballistic for Leo Rush. Absolutely ballistic this thing he's doing is like so it's like really connected with the AW audience in a way that I would not have expected and it's a lot based down to his a weird physicality commitment and his commitment to the bit . And then like Golem, MJF was able to lead him with the Dynamite Diamond Ring and Acada hit him with the Rainmaker. They put him back into the body bag and sort of like chain it all up so he couldn't get out. And within all this a blue thunderbomb off the apron throw at Able Casidy took a bullet for Mark Briscoe, but then Knight accidentally splashed MJF when Darby moved . And then Knight had this moment where he comes off onto the top rope and he leaped to get up onto the top of the cage . Hell of a jump. Yeah. Also, he kind of whiffed it and still managed to pull himself up Mad impressed . Darby was like, I'm just going to climb. I'm just gonna go the normal way. I can go the normal way. This, I think it was a slightly too goofy but it was stupid Get in a lump bit of way because night then Darby's chasing him. So Night starts running away from him, but he grabs a bag that he thinks is a weapon , but he wily coyotes himself and sort of explodes and we see Dan Hausen Mist live and it fired all the way around the globe . That's how this is the curse because then they're like, Oh Darby set a trap for him. Yeah. And I'm like, what was he Kevin McCallus? You know what I mean? I mean, like he's my little brother's favorite wrestler from two thousand three. I mean, anytime I see him with a skateboard, I'm like, Oh Christ who might be wearing offspring T shirt. But like, yeah, like in a way he is put ting micro machines down next to it. But also , I didn't think you this was an AF and it was stupid. But in the context of this match , perfectly normal. Yeah, perfectly reasonable because he's really created. She falls through a bunch of tables. Darby then's like, well now I can't get him. We 're like Coffin drops onto a bunch of lads. So it comes down to Mark and MJ The whole thing this match is built around if team Mark can get the win that Mark gets his shot at the AW Championship. He hits the J driller. MJF's never kicked out of the J driller. Doyle breaks it up, Jake Doyle breaks it up. And then MJF is barking orders. And he's like, Doyle's holding up Mark Brisket, hit the diamond. He's like, No, I want Andrade to do it. Doylehouse down. And rade , I don't want to do this holds him up and Dyni's got the Dynamite ring ready and he goes ahead him and Andrade throws Mark down and hits that back elbow thing that he did look. It was good. Then starts arguing with Doyle, beats up MJ some more and he rips on CG. They're all wearing the t shirts than the Don DC MJ. What a great little red herring setup that Don Callus did on Dynight be like, We've got these t shirts. It looked like it was just for a NAFJoke. No, it's all they're all wearing it and it's done so you can do this reveal later on. He takes the t shirt off and it's got FD F Don FMJ F with the actual words . And the crowd went ballistic for this. They absolutely loved it. And Mark gets the JDriller on Doyle and team Mark gets the win. Yeah . Loved this. Yeah , it was one of the things AW does so well is find the balance between hashtag real graps with a z absolute Absolute balls to the wall, bells and whistles , fun nonsense . And this was firmly in the latter camp and seek it out. It was just so fun. Yeah. It's an ice cream shop with so many different flavors of ice cream truly. And you might not like all of the flavors, but you do want to try them. And I'd rather that than going into and every one of them is vanilla, but one of them might be dairy free vanilla. And also it mattered. And it did matter. There wasn't to it. Yeah, there were there were constant are there going to be con sequences. Like, you know, we're talking about something the Dun Dynamite podcast, but like what I loved about this is that there's for MJF, he's made this deal with Don Cowers because he doesn't want Mark to win . But also if his team wins, Kevin Knight's getting a shot of the title Andread is going to get a shot at the title, Kyle Fletcher wants to get shot the title. So like no matter where he's going, he's now in the Derby position of constantly having to defend his title, which he's going to be doing on Wednesday against Mark Rosso because up to the match where at the end of it, this guy was like apologies for the mic issues there, but what I think he said was what I think is going to happen is it's going to be a title match on Wednesday . Bless them. Backishes all over the world, doesn't they? I know. We got also got a comeback video for Willow Nightingale in all of this, which was very nice. And it brought us to our main event. And again, you want to talk about sort of like difference of ice cream flavors. This is completely different tonally because it was a battle of DC as Bane took on Lobo as Swerve Strickland took on Will Osprey in the Owen Hart Cup finals . This was a fantastic match so so great from the very start up until the very end I loved this Yeah love truly deeply loved this match. Yeah I, think the highest praise I can give it, I'm someone who doesn't love blood in my wrestling and sometimes I can see it and be like this is this necessary and especially when I get that much from both of them and then you realize no this, match , it needs it. It's integral to the story you're telling in this match. Yeah. And that's how you use blood in a show that I've seen plenty in the match previous in Bandido . It all ties together. As I said in the when we reviewing Moxie Bandido, like it all comes back around. This was not just a great wrestling match. This was not just a great wrestling match that told individual stories. It was so cohesive and so brilliantly thought out. It's why wrestling as a storytelling medium is unique . And the understand ing from everyone involved in putting this together of how to utilize the art form of professional wrestling to tell a story , this is pristine. This will be on my match of the year at the end of the year because just a pure distilled sense of that's why wrestling works. I have said on the show multiple times before. If you're going to do a huge amounts of blood in the main event, don't do a big blood spot earlier in the show. Like save that for your main event so it feels more impactful. This here, as you mentioned earlier, it's because it's the story and the character. Yeah. Moxley busts open bandido. So when the Well Osprey does it later on to as well because he's very intentional in busting swerve open . That's because it's the teachings. Yeah, this is what he's learning from the Death Riders. This is what is changing Will Osprey. And the story going into this match, a lot of it was like, I'm the most dangerous man in AEW. You're just a guy with a fragile neck. All of a sudden Will comes in here and there's a flick of a switch at one point and he becomes this vicious wrestler and you can see the death rider's influence on his in ring style coming through. And that's all told through his physicality and the way that he attacks. When he was on the floor doing the ground impound and the referee had to pull him off, I thought was like, I think he's the most dangerous man in AEW this one like Swerves dead piercing blood . He hit an absolute gusher and it was just pouring everywhere and that made it even more like visceral it added even more to the drama and story and the character of it all . Like because up until that point, Will was like flagging a little bit. There's a point where he hit the hidden blade and it had no effect whatsoever. Yeah , didn't he get anything behind? Nothing behind it because he kind of like swerve busted him open. He still had nothing on it and he just absorbed it. You know, like he did with Brian Danielson and the Basico Niet All In a couple of years back . But then the Death Rider's influence takes over and will became this vicious wrestler that was able to fight back from underneath . And then all of a sudden swerves the one who was really in danger . And when he man, when he hear that styles clash into the corner of the table . Oh, it was like just so much so much good in this . Both men you know stand up in this square off for their one final time dance doing this hidden blade st,ormbreaker kick, out, referee near referee bump, low blow, Verde Breaker, kick out, swerve hits a hidden blade, hits the Maiden Japan, will kicks out again. Then the death throws come out to ringside and oh boy did I love the camp drama that we then got So the Death Riders were at ringside it's moxy, it's cloudy, it's gussy or it's packed it's wheelie to a marina and swerve hits the house call and in doing so it pushes Will's head and it pushes him towards the death rider. So he then looks dead into the eyes of John Moxley and they have their little moment and it fires the, camp ness of it all, I thought was so delightful . Will hits a buckshot Lariat. Beautiful. It's the guy that beat him in the finals of the ON last year, learning from the people that you've worked with. And then he hits two death riders learning from John Moxley, you know , the moves and that sort of stuff and then he goes and hits the cursed Tiger Driver ninety seven to get the win . I thought it was so so good. This was like flawless , flawless professional wrestling. I even kick out to one, which I don't generally love because I think they can be overused not for the most correct reasons here , excuse me, they felt like they were both just so full of adrenaline and so desperate to get this win that it was like, no, I got to be able to kick out one, even though you just hit me with your move and you just hit me with your movie like it was all so driven and connected and thought out and to the point where when Will ultimately gets the win and then gets up to celebrate but just falls back down . Everything felt like you have literally left it all there . We always we joked and some people don't understand that it's a joke because Irony is dead with Osprey's by natural necessism . I've always thought he was amazing, obviously because that's not a hot take . I was saying around Double and Nothing that I'm so here for this. When you when you have a big injury like he's had and you have to go through recovery and you have to get better, sometimes you gotta without your style. It happens when you grow older. Addia Shiles is a prime example of it maintained a high level of quality through his entire career, just had to stop doing certain moves or maybe only busting them out once in a while. So you got've to adapt your style to stay relevant and or at least to stay at the top of your game. Osprey has started adding even more viciousness and tenacity to all of this through the connection with the Death Riders as well, which puts me in mind of like wrestling machine Kurt Angle. And that's one of my favorite wrestlers of all time Kurt Angle. So for new era of Will Osprey to be delivering quality like this on the way to Wembley with the perfect Kenny story on the way at the same time , it's this is what it's like when you love wrestling, right ? This is what it's for. Yeah. This is why we do it. This is why people sacrifice their lives normality to go around the world and achieve greatness because you put on moments like this that have us with a studio set up to discuss and several podcasts all over and everyone is smart and everyone knows that well the plan is going to be this and this is going to be this and this makes sense and I understand how wrestling works, blah blah blah and in the moment like this you suspend your disbelief and you just go with it. Get in the moment. This is what it's for. Yeah, he's incredible. Swerve swerve was perfect in every single way in this match. It's top quality. Yeah, this is what it's all about. This is top tier. This is like genuinely absolutely brilliant. Your point about the no sell and the one count stuff, I completely agree with you because I think there are some wrestlers who have kind of misunderstood the won count in the weather but, it's also the same thing as NAC face. Yeah, yeah, exactly yeah. And in the same way that I think that some fans of misunderstood the no cell or the kick out at one, the idea is that the cell comes shortly thereafter. So like yeah , they both got hit with big moves, kicked out of one, but then they did like that the double closed line, then they did the double dance down. That's where the selling then exactly . So they are selling it. It's just in that moment there's this huge spike of adrenaline that just gets them right back up, but it's not like they're getting back up and then are fine. When they get back up, do their thing, then they sell. Yeah, again they will miss it with Hiroshi with Tommy Hiroshius and the other type. I think they got it right here, but that is not to say that some wrestlers get it right now because some people do get it wrong. And NXT face is another one. You do need to sell a kickout spot. Yeah. And if I've never seen you win with that move, then why are you surprised that it hasn't worked this time? This is this should this is one of those tapes that they should study because it's so well considered. Everything makes sense. Everything is like even down to like that's the reason I bring up the blood and it might if you're inclined to think this is the kind of person I am when I do reviews, you might think that I'm already I'm looking for nitpicks. No, I just don't I just the reason I brought the blood is because my brain goes, oh a thing I don't like and then it proved why it was necessary and why I was wrong to be skeptical initially. Like it's such a brilliantly conceived and executed match. Yeah . I thought this was an awesome match to end off an awesome show. I loved it . I think unlike some of the AW S, they were long. Yes, it was a six hour show with the buy in. It didn't feel the main show didn't feel it. That's that was gonna be my point. This one didn't feel like it was. Double nothing sort of did feel it was, but this one didn't. It actually really did fly by and I thought it was a superb yeah, super wrestling show. Seepit show Brendy here says sure the build is weird and visa issues can mess things up but I like Forbidden Door, it's the place where dream matches become real . Andre Magic says this might be the first time I've seen Dubby ever regret a spot Look of oh shot his face was hilarious hurricane Brody So does Tekla drop the title at Redemption or a special dynamite episode? Love her and maybe she should turn the corner from awesome heel to badass baby face, especially considering who won the Owen because otherwise we've got two months of work towards a heel vs heel match. Interesting. Well, that's very discreet. Bercas is a face now. She wasn't in that match. I think that's the story of the of the May world thing, but like since she came back to the tournament, she's been a babyface. Her theme's taking because she's now there's like the baby face and her theme. So we are building babyface versus heel, there's not a heel versus heel dynamic. I'll reassess by rewatching when she returned the Owen, but I'm tired of Mercedes Monet. Go away heat for me personally I think she's super missed. I think she went away. Yeah, honestly, and I think that time away did her all the good. I think sometimes you just don't click with wrestlers and that's fine. Yeah, everyone's got one. Darn, great pay per view, a bit long, but the only matches I could see shaving time with the opening tag should have ended with Lemistica and Pack Umino. I really thought Bandida was going to win with how they're building mocks disrespect him during the first half of the match. Evan, Will Ospreate is the most interesting character in Wrestling today. One year ago he was surrounded by the death riders and they'd just broken his neck. Now they're hoisting him up high as friends, top to bottom really good show and Jay White is back . It's very true. Actually, I didn't pick up on that put in my review, but yeah, the ending of Forbidden Doll last year was Will Osprey being stretched out because the death rows have broken his neck. And I did think it was interesting that you know, they go off and they've gone like yeah yeah they leave and let him have the sort of moments. So it's almost like he's with them but not like he's not part of their group. He's just training with them. Yeah, it's nice nice detail. Yeah, yeah. Because it's going to make it very interesting then when he does win the world title and it's going to be him versus Mark is I want that now, thank you . Oak Slaney. I think this is the best paper view in terms of match quality I've ever watched live. Every single match at least an eight out of ten, and the incredible main event is my new match of the year. The storytelling in action was incredible. The other two main events, as they were calling them, were very good too, and despite the weird on and off start due to Maya's gear, her match with Mercedes was far better than expected and the cage match was a lot of fun. Yeah, EW have really slipped into this three main events nonsense . People love a little corporate speak, don't they? I think we need to pack that in Nova after that swell Osprey match, it's the it's only left to say show of the year. Nearly perfect top to bottom in my opinion and what a way to start out for my world. It's impossible not to root for her. I really start to believe the near falls, what a fantastic match. It's in rushing, banger after banger after banger. Switchblade legit had me jumping out of my chair, Osprey eating a housecool and staring at Moxer rings I gave me goosebumps. And man, Will is gonna bring it home. Oh, and Andrea has the best shirt that will probably never be sold, but absolutely will sell out immediately . And Jonibo Coming out of the show, I had three contenders for Match of the Night. After much deliberation, over the last few hours, I now have four contenders for Match of the Nights. What a show . Yeah, it really was one of those nights because you had Kenny Ves ac, the cage match , Meyer and Mercedes , and the main event. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of good stuff to talk about from this show. It was great. And what a great show we've had. We've had a lovely time. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you for being here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for watching. I don't think we've gone. We did talk about maybe we'd go three hours, but I don't think we have I reigned myself very far in.. You've done very well Thank you. I'm proud of you . And we just reviewed eight hours of resting. I'm proud of me too. Yeah. Yeah, I said on the show yesterday I did a little reaction video. I was like, wasn't three hours, but we'll see. It won't. Put the cat on. No, I mean, we've gotten like an hour in the second record that we've done here so but that's because there were so we did two pay per views, one of which was five hours long . Hey, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm saying it's a good thing. Because people have been very upset that our raw episodes have been going under an hour as of late, but I would say we're need to have more things happen then otherwise what's going to talk about? Obviously Cutter Promo. I did that last week. Or you and I need to have some more interesting dinners over the next couple of weeks so that we can talk about those. I did try and get some food. No no . This sounds like a tangent, look. Oh yeah, you're absolutely right. I still apologize. We're not allowed to do those People want them. Thank you so much for joining us. We will be back tomorrow with the Raw Review podcast and we'll be back here again on Thursday with the AEW Dynamite Review . Please do subscribe where you're watching this from, whether that's on Apple Podcast, on YouTube, or on Spotify, leave a comment on YouTube, leave a comment on Spotify. Can't do Apple podcast, but I guarantee you at some point they'll have the latest innovation for Apple podcasts comments . And then they'll brag about that. It's like at the conference I was at recently where they were like, We're going to break new grounds, video podcasts at the forefront of innovation, our Apple podcasts. Thank you all so much. We'll see you back tomorrow. I've been Lake C ons, been L Danason. Jam that jam. Welcome Wrestle