Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] The rocking review podcast hosted by j rock rude.
[00:00:29] Hello everybody and welcome back to another exciting episode of the Rocking Review Podcast. Hello, I'm J. Rock Rude and this is episode 25 for the first time in a while, back to back weeks of the Rock and Review Podcast. And I had to because, well, a lot of stuff happened over the weekend and over the last week.
[00:00:56] We had blood and guts on aew.
[00:01:01] We had the final Monday night Raw of John Cena and happened at Madison Square Garden along with some other interesting things that ended up happening.
[00:01:17] And we also got some wrestling news breaking, including Tony Khan went on the Ariel Awani show on Tuesday afternoon and we got his perspective on everything that ended up happening between now and his last interview with Ariel Helani since 2020.
[00:01:48] So I'll be very interested in going over that, but I wanted to go over a lot of events that have happened so far and go over some previews of the ple pay per views. Full Gear will be happening this weekend on the 22nd in Newark, New Jersey at the Prudential Center.
[00:02:17] Full gear. And then Survivor Series. We got some more matches to come including a full 10 man tag team match for the War Games. For the, for the men and for the the women.
[00:02:40] We still don't know what's going on with them.
[00:02:43] So we will now go straight into the results.
[00:02:48] We'll start with Monday Night Raw which happened, as I mentioned, at a sold out Madison Square Garden.
[00:02:56] It started off with John Cena promo, but then it was cut off by Dominic Mysterio, which by the way has done amazingly well on the mic in the last two weeks, especially going up against John Cena and he had demanded that. He was screwed by the management. He was screwed by Triple H. It was in Cena's hometown, or I should say in Boston, home turf.
[00:03:23] His hometown, Westbury, New Newberry, Massachusetts.
[00:03:28] So basically they said, hey, you know what, I want a rematch. And that's what we got. So. So that'll be one of the matches at Survivor Series.
[00:03:39] It'll be John Cena as the Intercontinental Champion in his last of his two matches against Dominic Mysterio.
[00:03:49] Probably I think Dominic will win the title back. I do not think that they're gonna have the last match of John Cena's career be for the Intercontinental Championship.
[00:04:01] I just would rather it be a regular singles title.
[00:04:05] Then we also got the return of Dolph Ziggler.
[00:04:10] This was after last Friday night on smackdown we got the return of Zack Ryder or Matt Cardona.
[00:04:21] Matt Cardona came back, he came to put over LA Knight in the Last Times now tournament and La Knight advanced in the finals.
[00:04:33] And another person who advanced into the finals was Jay uso. Jay got a very nice match out of the Miz, which everybody was super pumped up for.
[00:04:48] So Jay advanced, La Knight advanced.
[00:04:53] Then we got Solo soa.
[00:04:57] He beat Dolph Ziggler and probably his best main rap main roster match. Yes, better than John Cena or anything he's gotten with Roman Reigns.
[00:05:08] And then in another surprise return, AJ Lee came back to screw over Becky lynch and Maxine Dupree won the Women's Intercontinental Championship. She's only the third person to hold it.
[00:05:25] And again everything was held pretty together because of the different segments that were going on. One of the segments which had happened in the beginning of the event on Monday Night Raw was John Cena and Rey Mysterio and Sheamus beat the Judgment Day. Dominic Mysterio, Finn Balor and J.D. mcDonough.
[00:05:50] That went 14 minutes 42 seconds.
[00:05:53] One of the main things that happened that got a lot of critics going was current New York Giants running back Cam Scatterboo who suffered an injury earlier this year.
[00:06:17] He had suffered the injury in a game where he had been playing the Philadelphia Eagles and basically he was criticized over not rehabilitating his injury properly.
[00:06:42] People got super on him that he had barely, you know, didn't even look like he was nursing his injury.
[00:06:53] He took to X pretty much that very same night.
[00:06:59] And again, remember he's 23 years old.
[00:07:03] He's 23 years old.
[00:07:05] He has been nothing supportive for the Giants, have been nothing supportive for cam.
[00:07:11] He had 410 yards, five rushing touchdowns along with two receiving touchdowns and 207 receiving yards. So he had over 500 yards within his first couple starts and then unfortunately he went out with injury.
[00:07:27] But, but he took to X and he, he said that honestly, if you don't like that I'm having a good time while I'm dealing with a tough time, then go ahead and unfollow and casually move on. I'm not able to play football and have fun I've been having my whole life and so I'm doing things outside the box. Try to find stuff to keep me happy. Enjoy the rest of yalls week and just don't talk to me if you ain't got nothing nice to say. So again, super young. I do not understand why people are so on him.
[00:08:03] Interim head coach of the New York Giants, Mike Cafa said that it was a rookie event.
[00:08:16] We have some team events that our support staff put together for rookies to kind of get out. So I thought it'd be a cool thing.
[00:08:25] I know it's a little stage brawl there.
[00:08:27] It's great to see Scott in the pregame on sideline. His juices energy, you could feel it. I can feel through the tv, through my phone while watching the clips. So it's a cool event for those guys to kind of get out and be out in the community, which is the entire purpose of if you're not going to be on the field, you at least want to have fun and go out and do stuff. And he's been at Knicks games and he's been repping a lot of the New York sports community.
[00:08:58] So for him to get chastised because he's not dealing with an an injury like rehabilitating being in the gym. I'm sorry, he's also young, he's not 40 something years old like a LeBron James who's got to rehabilitate the injury and do whatever he can as far as like physical therapy and whatnot.
[00:09:17] So he's fine. He can immediately get back, but he just can't get back this season.
[00:09:23] And then what was not the main event but the last thing on the card for Monday Night Raw in the Meta. Gunther returned with his old theme music back from NXT UK. He beat Javon Evans 15 minutes and 4 seconds.
[00:09:40] Javon Evans.
[00:09:42] He got his second main roster, or I should say maybe his third, if I remember correctly, his third main roster appearance.
[00:09:52] It was a very good crowd.
[00:09:56] The main event segment that took place basically solidified the men's War Games match because basically CM Punk, Cody Rhodes and the Usos came out to confront Drew McIntyre, which by the way found a clause in a loophole in his suspension that allowed him to join the Vision of Bron Draker Bronson Reed. And it has been confirmed that Logan Paul is now part of the Vision.
[00:10:25] So I don't know if it's just that he's a part of the Vision until War Games and then he's out for another three months until the Rumble or he's going to be there full time, but who exactly knows?
[00:10:40] But then of course, just as it looked like the Faces were getting up on the heels, Brock Lesnar shows up.
[00:10:48] His first appearance, says Russell Palooza in September, and he comes out, lays waste to Punk and Rhodes and then Roman Reigns comes out wearing a half long sleeve half T shirt look, and NYPD got involved and he eventually speared Bron Breaker or no Bronson Reed in a NYPD police officer through the barricade.
[00:11:23] So that was fun, but that was the, that was the main thing that ended up going on heading into this week's Friday Night Smackdown, which will be a double booking by the way.
[00:11:44] It will be a double tape show.
[00:11:50] So personally I don't mind the double tape show right now.
[00:11:57] For Friday Night Smackdown we got Bronson Reed versus Carmelo Hayes, Finn Balor versus Penta, and DIY versus Fraxiom.
[00:12:08] And then as far as what will be next week, there is no real conclusion of what will next week's show be.
[00:12:21] But of course that show will be the precursor heading into Survivor Series, which will be the next day.
[00:12:32] So whatever happens on this show will likely set up next week's show. So I'm guessing we'll probably see the winners of this of these two matches face off against La Knight and J uso or they have Gunther face off against La Knight and Jay face off against Solo against and then the winners of these matches face off against Seamus and Rusev.
[00:13:16] So I wouldn't mind seeing that.
[00:13:18] But of course they've laid out no brackets so you wouldn't be able to really tell what to really expect.
[00:13:28] We also had NXT Gold Rush happened this past week at the theater at Madison Square Garden.
[00:13:38] This was a double booked show so there was two different things that happened.
[00:13:48] And the first, Gold Rush, which took place live, Chelsea Green and Ethan Page beat Joe Hendry and Theo hall for the AAA World Mix Tag Team title match. By the way, no AAA people on this card, not even for next week or next week's taping. I should say so personally it made zero sense.
[00:14:23] We also had Blake Monroe beat Sol Ruka, she retained her NXT Women's North American Championship, Dark State beat Javon Evans and Leon Slater and then in the one title change after only having the title for a total of 24 days, it is her only championship to date.
[00:14:52] And mind you that she has been with WWE for three years, her only championship to date ends in 24 days against JC Jane who beat her after Izzy Dame and the Culling basically turn on Tatum Paxley.
[00:15:21] That was unfortunate for Tatum Paxley. I do like her character I don't focus in but it was made clear by Brian Alvarez on Wrestling observer that in a rare occurrence all the heels won which is something you don't normally see.
[00:15:43] And then for spoilers in the taping that happen after see Jackson Drake beat Sean Legacy to retain his Evolve title.
[00:15:58] Exactly.
[00:16:00] I don't even know what Evolve is doing on here. I mean it got them some excitement, but nobody really cares.
[00:16:08] Kendall Gray beat Laney Reed to retain her Evolve women's championship.
[00:16:16] And then this is surprising. I'll be interested to see how this goes. Miles Bourne beat Trick Williams in an Iron Survivor Challenge qualifying match.
[00:16:28] So honestly that means that Trick probably, maybe he'll get a last chance and he'll show up in the match.
[00:16:39] But, but so far it does look like tricky time is over in nxt and I believe his main roster call up will be very, very soon.
[00:16:53] And in the two title changes, Li Ying Lee or Lei Ying Lee, the former Xia Lee won the Knockouts championship from Kalani Jordan and Jordan Grayson Triple Threat.
[00:17:15] And then in a vacant tournament final, apparently this is the main event. Fallon Henley beat Zarya for the Women's Speed title.
[00:17:32] So now two people in Fatal Influence have title belts except for Laney Reed who lost her match.
[00:17:47] So don't know what that means for the tandem tag team of Zarya and Soul Ruka. I believe probably Soul Ruka will probably turn on Zarya even though I think it should be opposite. Zarya is much more talented and much more of the heel Persona than Sol Ruka, but that was all of nxt. And then of course there was a big promo between Ricky Saints and Obafemi so they will have their rematch NXT deadline at the Boeing Center San Antonio on December 6th.
[00:18:34] So that'll be interesting because if Saints wins then most likely Oba will be in the Royal Rumble which will be great.
[00:18:46] So that was all of nxt, that was all of wwe.
[00:18:52] As far as more WWE stuff, we also got Stephanie Vacuure.
[00:19:00] As you know, last week Nikki Bella turned heel on Stephanie so she immediately is going to get a world title shot at Survivor Series.
[00:19:13] And then on smackdown.
[00:19:16] As far as we know Charlotte Flair opted out because she does not trust Rhea Ripley.
[00:19:25] So currently is Alexa Bliss, EO sky and Rhea Ripley with two other members. Although Charlotte did come to make the save for only Alexa on Monday night with a kendo stick.
[00:19:41] Says here apparently they still have one more person which that could be filled by I believe either Maxine Dupree or another Heel Superstar, I don't know who personally I think it is going to be Becky lynch and then they're going to bring in Maxine Dupree and Charlotte Flair.
[00:20:09] So it'll be maxineprix, Charlotte Flair, Alexa Bliss, Iyo sky and Rhea Ripley against the Kabuki Warriors, Becky lynch, last legend, Anaya Jax.
[00:20:19] So of course you know how that's gonna go.
[00:20:23] Moving on to aew.
[00:20:29] AEW had a three hour show. It had Dynamite and Collision.
[00:20:39] One of the main things from Collision and from Dynamite last night is that they announced that the Continental Classic would be starting on the Thanksgiving eve episode of Dynamite after Full Gear.
[00:21:14] So that was one of the main things.
[00:21:18] We also got some matches that were announced.
[00:21:21] But first of all, let's go over the matches that happened on Dynamite. Bobby Lashley beat Ricochet in a squash match for the number one spot in the Casino Gauntlet for the national title.
[00:21:35] Then Josh Alexander and the Young Bucks beat Skyflight of Dante Martin, Darius Martin and Scorpio sky in a little bit of a longer match, Shelton Benjamin beat Mike Bailey to claim the number two spot. So at the start of the Casino gauntlet it will be the Hearst Syndicate members of Lashley and Benjamin.
[00:21:59] Then we had a tag match. The Death Riders of Claudio and Jon Moxley beat Orange Cassidy and Roderick Strong.
[00:22:08] And then.
[00:22:09] And oh my God, who could have, who could have believed this Timeless Toni Storm and Mina Shirakawa who have been titled as the timeless Love Bombs because they're lovers. Don't you know, I should mention that.
[00:22:29] Full, full gear. Not full gear.
[00:22:34] Blood and Guts.
[00:22:38] I have a lot of feelings on Blood and Guts, a lot of feelings on how Blood and Guts went.
[00:22:51] I felt like it was an insane match. I mean three matches on a two hour card with a massive overrun.
[00:23:05] But a lot of people love it because when you get a special weekly show it means something. But the problem is is when you get that show every other week, what's the difference other than you added a structure, two rings instead of one ring and a bunch of blood and gore.
[00:23:27] In the opening match we saw the heels of Mina Shafir or Marina Shafir. Megan Bain, Mercedes Monet, Julia Hart, Sky Blue and Tekla beats Harley Cameron, Willow Nightingale, Jamie Hayter, Chris Statlander, Mina Shirakawa and Toni storm in a 12 woman tag match that went 46 minutes and nine seconds with a four and a half star rating on the Observer.
[00:24:03] I do not know why people were so intrigued by this. Yes, it's the first ever Blood and Guts women's match but all the stuff looked very sloppy. Didn't look like it was put together. At one point I out of all the things, Jew Sky Blue was bleeding buckets within the first three minutes.
[00:24:28] Megan Bane threw a chair right at Jamie Hater which apparently chipped some of her teeth. So she lost a couple of teeth and the ending didn't even see Mercedes Monet get involved at all. She just handed a belt each of her 12 belts to the heels and they began whipping Mina Shirakawa and which in point Toni Storm to save her tag partner or her lover surrendered. So the heels won which only meant that the baby faces had to win the men's. But in between that we got a another non title match.
[00:25:12] This is two weeks back to back nine title. This one was Hangman Adam Page versus Powerhouse Hobbs where the match ended with Powerhouse going through an electrical table and being pinned outside on the floor.
[00:25:33] And then in the main event in a absolute cluster of a match, Kyle O'Reilly made Jon Moxley submit again along with Darby Allen, Roderick Strong, Mark Briscoe and Orange Cassidy.
[00:25:53] And they took on Claudio, Daniel Garcia, Jon Moxley Pack and Wheeler Yuta. Gabe Kidd made an appearance and basically help Claudio overhead press slam Darby Allen off of the top of the stage on the entrance through a flaming table about 10ft below where Darby was on fire for a good 10 seconds.
[00:26:30] That got five stars according to the Observer.
[00:26:36] Why? I still don't know.
[00:26:39] I do not know why people are consistently still okay with seeing this every other week.
[00:26:48] But meanwhile continuing on with this Pack's week which by the way took place in Boston which they just had had the the TD Garden sold out for John Cena's last match where he won the Intercontinental Championship.
[00:27:05] They had to go a couple of streets down to the Aganis arena where it wasn't even sold out.
[00:27:19] In a non title match, Hangman Adam Page in the main event beat Kachiori Shibata and from Blood and Guts between between Blood and Guts and Dynamite. We got a couple of matches announced but I'll also go over the collision that took place after because it was a three hour show.
[00:27:44] So for the third hour they did collision and we saw a double jeopardy match which included.
[00:27:56] Kazuchiko Okada beating Mascara Dorada to get a chance at the CMLL World Trios title which are currently held by Mystico Neon and Dorada.
[00:28:16] Again couldn't tell you a single thing about them but but now on the tailgate which we'll get into, they have a they have a match where it'll be Hitchicero Okada and Takeshna who are already having struggles as it is, who are going to face for the CMLL World Trios title.
[00:28:46] Also on this collision we had Marina Shafir and Megan Bane beat TJ to advance in the Women's Tag team title tournament semifinals.
[00:29:03] So next week after full gear they are going to have A Thanksgiving eve show which currently has no matches currently played out.
[00:29:22] And then in the main event, Mercedes Monet finally beat Red Velvet to win her 13th championship because she is now the undisputed ROH Women's World Television Championship Champion.
[00:29:40] So that's great.
[00:29:43] So moving on. Finally we'll talk about Full Gear.
[00:29:49] Spent a whole 30 minutes talking about different match cards just to go over the results for the Saturday night tailgate brawl at Full Gear. This will happen before the show on tnt.
[00:30:08] Eddie Kingston and Hook of course because they have nothing else to do. They'll pair them together in a tag match against who knows in another money match for 20 for 200 and $200,000.
[00:30:24] Big Bill Brian Keith vs Anthony Bones and Max Caster vs the Outrunners vs the Bang Bang Gang of Austin Gunn and Juice Robinson.
[00:30:36] Then like I mentioned the CMLL World Treas title match. And then of course Hungy Vice versus Big Boom AJ and QT Marcel.
[00:30:48] And then for Full Gear, what has been announced so far is there will be a fatal four way tag team match.
[00:31:01] Will this be for the women's tag team titles? It has not been announced but we have Marina Shafir and Megan Bain versus Julia Hart, Sky Blue, Mina Shirakawa and Toni Storm and Harley Cameron and Willow Nightingale.
[00:31:16] Geez, I wonder out of these eight women who could be the tag team champions? It's going to be Mina and it's going to be Tony.
[00:31:28] We also got Pack versus Darby announced.
[00:31:34] We also got Adam Page and Samoa Joe. For the AW World championship now happening in a steel cage.
[00:31:44] We got a no hold board match between Jon Moxley and Kyle O'Reilly.
[00:31:55] And then like I mentioned we have the casino gauntlet match which only currently five people are in. And it's insane how there were two matches that included four of the people but Kevin Knight was completely left out of the the chance to earn a spot in the match.
[00:32:16] So that's interesting.
[00:32:18] So yeah, the total amount of matches for the main card. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
[00:32:27] So there is a total of nine matches on the main pay per view card and then on the pre show four matches. So 13 matches total.
[00:32:44] My God, it's gotta stop man.
[00:32:48] It's gotta stop. At this point there has got to be somebody who can just tell everybody like hey you gotta stop, you gotta stop having these cards. With over 11 matches on a single pay per view nobody can be able to focus.
[00:33:11] But that was all of the main news.
[00:33:18] And as far as the events coming out about.
[00:33:25] These next couple of weeks, that was pretty much all of the events that will be happening.
[00:33:37] So let's talk about tna because TNA had some shaky waters over the weekend.
[00:33:55] On the November.
[00:34:00] I want to get this right. On the November 12th taping, it might have been the November 13th taping of TNA Impact, which was the first taping since Bound for Glory, which happened over a month ago.
[00:34:22] Mike Santana was in an impromptu match with Ryan Nemeth, the little brother of Nick Nemeth AKA Dolph Ziggler, who returned this past Monday.
[00:34:37] He was in a match when all of a sudden a bunch of mid car TNA guys hit the ring calling a no contest. Guys like Charlie Dempsey, Lexus, King Channing, Chaining Stacks Lorenzo, all of them were in the ring and they basically attacked Mike Santana, which then proceeded with Frankie Kazarian, who was the co owner of the call your shot trophy from Bound For Glory, basically cashed it in to win the TNA World Championship and conclude Santana's reign only 34 days with no defenses.
[00:35:29] So as you can probably feel, Santana was probably upset about this, but apparently they turned this into a work because rumors had spiraled out earlier in the day. This was as of that Friday when they were supposed to have their turning point pay per view. That night, PWInsider reported that Mike Santana had not arrived to the event. He did not appear for a scheduled meet and greet later after the taping before.
[00:36:08] And the word is making around that Santana is not returning the company's calls or texts.
[00:36:16] So TNA basically played into a no show aspect of the rumors and he was booked for tag team action in the main event, but was nowhere to be found.
[00:36:28] The main event arrived and Santana wasn't there. Steve Macklin had wrestled solo against Kazarian and Nick Nemeth, but the climax ended up being when Santana halfway through the match came in and basically Santana pulled through the injured arm that cost him the match the night before to hit spin the block on Cass for the win.
[00:37:09] So I do not know what on earth their goal is going to be, but I pretty much assume that they're gonna have probably a rematch at the next upcoming event.
[00:37:32] But that was one of the main stories that broke out that Friday night before all of the Zack Ryder news came out.
[00:37:46] But one of the biggest stories that I I want to talk about was the interview which happened with Tony Khan and Ariel Hawani.
[00:38:03] Of course, back in 2020, Ariel Helwani had interviewed Tony Khan and basically he first said that he didn't answer anything and basically he didn't want to answer anything. That Ariel Hawani was talking about. And Ariel Hawani is not a very biased journalist, but you know, his interviews are taken very lightly.
[00:38:43] So they finally got him into this New York studio to get an interview with Tony Khan. And here was some of the notes that were reported on the Ariel Hawani show on November 18.
[00:39:01] It does state based off caveside seats, I'm reading lists.
[00:39:07] TK's answers will be dissected and debated and some weren't great. Nor was the lack of pointed follow up questions from Hawani and some of those. But overall it wasn't as embarrassing for either party and contain a lot of interesting terms and items and exchanges across the interview on the hour plus duration.
[00:39:38] So here are some of the discussions that were talked about.
[00:39:44] Early discussion of the AEW product was brought up of Darby Allin and the promotion of blood and high risk spots.
[00:39:53] Khan praised Allen, but offered that his fall from the latter through the plane the plate glass during Sting's final match Revolution last year was one that he said he went a bit too far. Other than that quote, TK said he'll use or okay Danger or Gore when it serves the story and feels it almost always as in A and roh basically saying that he'll let them do if they want to if the story complies with that.
[00:40:26] After going through the car to full gear this Saturday, which he constantly spread about and some of the things lined up for that night's dynamite, ARIEL asked about AW's partnership with Warner Brothers Discovery. Specifically, he wondered if Khan is worried because WBD is up for sale.
[00:40:46] TK hyped up their quote unquote great relationship and pointed the ongoing DC partnership, which featured a tie in to this summer's successful Superman film and currently involves a comic and book series and pay per View sponsorship as proof of quote AEW is clearly a very strongly figured in to WBD's plans. Anyone who buys Warners will inherit the media rights deal with AEW but may not be gung ho about promoting it. But Hawani did not push on that, likely because Khan can't know since no one knows what will happen to wbd. That is correct. Nobody does know. There's been rumors in the last couple of days whether Netflix is going to get it, whether the Saudis are going to get it. They have constantly been turning down Paramount trying to get it. So very interesting.
[00:41:41] It was then asked about moving all of his shows to a streaming service the way WWE has done and UFC is doing, Khan said he isn't sure if AEW will ever move away from the pay per view model for events, he plans to keep delivering value for pay per view, something all but his most vicious critics concede. AEW and ROH usually do.
[00:42:04] TK again plugged in their HBO Max offering and their WBD deal overall, which again we know about the Max offering.
[00:42:18] It started with Russell Palooza. Basically you can get it $10 less than you would if you got it from another platform.
[00:42:29] So sure. Is that great?
[00:42:34] Yes. But honestly it's their biggest moneymaker that they have.
[00:42:40] And mind you that the deal currently is been reported in the past at worth $555 million over three years, which is an average of about 185 million per year.
[00:42:58] So the fact that WBD and this was again back in October of last year, so you can understand that they gave big big money for aw. Continue on the come up Hawani pointed out that AW is the only combat sports organization that he knows of that has no ties to Saudi Arabia. Rather than use this as a differentiator between his company and wwe, Khan just said, quote, he had never thought of it that way and moved on. It's clearly that it wasn't an I'll never work with the Saudis or even I don't currently work with the Saudis by choice.
[00:43:40] It's basically saying that himself and the Saudis are not even talking without really saying they're not even talking, but who knows exactly where he's getting extra funds from.
[00:43:58] And then this was one of the key things.
[00:44:04] I mean TK had they said this was not the version of TK that compared Vince McMahon to the Harvey Weinstein or said to be under awesome is to be under attack.
[00:44:18] When Hawani brought up industry veterans who regularly criticize and ridicule him in aew, one podcast con response was their programming gives quote unquote pundits a lot to talk about and the fact that they keep talking about it means that it does good numbers for them. He praised Eric Bischoff's run on top WCW and indicated that he's spoken to Eric and sometimes online sparring partner more recently, Fed folks might think.
[00:44:53] He also said that he still talks to the UFC boss Dana White at some times.
[00:44:59] On the subject of WWE's counter programming efforts, Khan brought up that the history of them doing with that with competitors.
[00:45:09] Because of that he said he expected it. He also said WWE's counter programming never cost us anything and always worked out.
[00:45:18] Here's the only question I have with that. If it always worked out, then why on earth did you have to move your pay per View from 8pm to 3pm to an afternoon slot before they were supposed to have their ESPN debut because you knew that more people were probably going to watch the ESPN debut rather than your six hour fun fest with about 1500 different matches.
[00:45:47] It was a similar answer when Hawani brought up WWE now partnering with companies like tna, as Khan pointed out their history of doing that when dealing with a challenger brand EG ECW during the Monday Night War.
[00:46:00] When Ariel and said Matt Hardy had told the only reason WWE was working with TNA was to hurt aew, TK replied I think it's probably true. The fact that Matt said it, that's really cool. I don't know what's cool about the guy who you had, who you had a chance to continue after WWE dropped the ball after he rejuvenated his character in TNA Impact Wrestling, finally got the call along with his brother to come back to wwe.
[00:46:36] Then he left and meanwhile Jeff stayed and Jeff got paid and then finally Jeff left and then they both went to AEW and then they did nothing other than one Texas Chainsaw Massacre match with Jeff Jarrett.
[00:46:51] I don't know what's cool that you're getting recognition by the people that you once had employed by aw.
[00:47:02] And then of course the Punk situation came up.
[00:47:07] These are all notes, these are all quotes, these are all direct things that came from the interview.
[00:47:13] CM Punk's name came up and Todd again made the point to praise a critic. He spoke highly of both Punk's time in AEW and indirectly his WWE run by saying that he thought everyone involved in backstage drama of 2022 and 2023 is in a better place now.
[00:47:31] That's what everybody said. Darby has said that. Darby has said that they've cut the cancer out.
[00:47:38] Whether or not you see that that means CM Punk, who knows.
[00:47:44] But again, Punk's first opponent coming back into wrestling after almost how many years? Nine years, maybe more.
[00:47:58] Sorry, seven years.
[00:48:02] Regarding the critique of Khan's passive management style, Punk leveled on Hawani's show last year. If you remember last year at WrestleMania time when punk had finally come back, they sat down with Ariel Hawani and he discussed the all in incident.
[00:48:24] TK said that he doesn't agree with that feedback, but everybody is entitled to their opinion. He also didn't agree with Punk's account of the events that led to his firing, but Khan chose to focus on his efforts to keep Punk in the fold with the Collision launch.
[00:48:45] Again, I don't know why that is your main Thing because he talked about it. He talked about how he hated that they were gonna try to go to the other brand to try and separate things because he had problems with people on the other show.
[00:49:08] He denied airing the security camera footage from all in 2023 on dynamite in Respons Punk's interview with Helani but defended it as something that quote performed in the ratings.
[00:49:24] Which by the way, the rating on that, by the way, this was in 2024 of April of last year by Russell Nomics. It netted at 819,000 and did a 0.30 rating of the 18 and 49 year old demographic.
[00:49:47] And it was a decent step after the 747,000 and the 0.23 rating that they had had the week before.
[00:49:58] And mind you that the demo rating was almost higher than what dynamite drew one year ago at the time, which was a 0.28 at that point. That was 2023.
[00:50:10] So it did great numbers. But have you looked at the numbers currently right now?
[00:50:16] I mean we could definitely go ahead and.
[00:50:22] We could talk about it because I know that some certain people like to talk about it.
[00:50:31] I believe your show is now bringing in what, maybe a fraction of that. They cut about how much?
[00:50:43] 200 people.
[00:50:46] So it is said that Wednesday's Dynamite on the 12th did 600 viewers in a 0.15.
[00:50:56] And meanwhile aw collision which happened this past Sat. Last Saturday did 219,000 in a.03.
[00:51:08] The week before it did a point 06.
[00:51:14] Week before another point 03.
[00:51:20] Dynamite actually was a point 09.
[00:51:27] Take that what you will.
[00:51:30] They have not released it. It's Thursday.
[00:51:33] I believe they will release it at some point today, but so far nothing.
[00:51:39] Khan also said it was something that's quote in the eye of the beholder. So basically he said you can think of it what you want. What it did for me is it made me money.
[00:51:50] That is what Tony Khan basically that's what his thought process ends because he showed a footage of a guy who he tried to push almost seven months later as this top guy.
[00:52:07] And it didn't matter because we had finally heard from Punk about who Jack Perry really was.
[00:52:13] So it didn't matter.
[00:52:18] Asked later, he was asked about the post Saturn night's main event which happened a few weeks ago. We talked about it last week of the four former contractors draped in WWE Gold.
[00:52:34] Punk, Cody, Ricky Saints and Jade Cargill.
[00:52:39] And for some strange reason Khan made him. It made him smile. And he said it reminded of a picture that Rhodes and Moxley took in the early AW existence at the first double or nothing. First of all, no, that is not the right answer of oh, it reminds me of Cody because I still like Cody. But as far as Saints goes and Car Guild goes and Punk goes, I hate them. So I'm not going to talk about them. I'll talk about Cody.
[00:53:10] Cody was the only one who left on good terms.
[00:53:13] Everybody else saw that the grass was starting to get greener on the other side, decided to go over there and they left Tony so Tony is angry Ariel pressed a bit on AW's HBO Max numbers when Khan was touting the ratings for Dynamite last Wednesday again, saying it did a absolute amazing ratings is okay.
[00:53:49] When you do a 0.15, that's great, but how about averaging that?
[00:53:57] That'd be great.
[00:54:03] Tony said that he doesn't get and hasn't seen those ratings in a long time.
[00:54:15] He said that not even NFL gets streaming numbers all the time. TK did say that Blood and Guts a week ago was quote, possibly or probably our most watched show in months of streaming.
[00:54:29] Probably because you started it in in January and you've had no great TV shows sense other than a few leading up to your big events like all in or Forbidden Door or anything like that. When you're not dealing with injuries back and back and back.
[00:54:48] The Shockwave trademark came up and Khan didn't realize.
[00:54:53] He said he didn't realize that NWA or Pride fc, which is a soccer team, had even used that name and told W NWA owner Billy Corgan he wouldn't use it early. Ariel didn't bring up Fox rumors, reports or speculation. Corrigan and TK also sorted out the national title issue with AWS starting no history and a fresh lineage.
[00:55:29] Only problem with that is it shouldn't even be a lineage in the first place because it's the exact same title.
[00:55:46] They shouldn't even care about the lineage because it's the exact same title that they had beforehand with the inner national title and the Continental title.
[00:55:59] So I don't know.
[00:56:05] They also said that WWE never reached out about Adam Copeland being a part of the retirement tour for John Cena and it won't happen unless Cena unretires because COPE is under contract in this big part of AW's future. Expect that a lot of here. He continuously said that they are a great acquisition to AW in their top of AEW's priority, but definitely nothing more past that. Yes, Am I yawning in this? Of course I am.
[00:56:43] We then got a bunch of similar answers.
[00:56:49] Two multiple Talents those in aw, those possibly not in aw.
[00:56:57] We'll start off with Killer Cross.
[00:57:01] Hawani thought signing Cross would be the slam dunk addition for aew, but TK said that he haven't spoken since he left wwe. Khan didn't say that he would reach out either and just said that Alan had a, quote, great experience working with Cross and that the idea of bringing him in would be interesting. So bring them in.
[00:57:25] If you're gonna bring him in, just say you're bringing them in. Okay, you could just say it.
[00:57:30] It's like, it's like he's so worried about revealing all the cards.
[00:57:35] You wanna know why he's worried about revealing all the cause? Because he doesn't have it.
[00:57:39] He books week two to week, you know, in better light. He probably books maybe every two weeks. He says, okay, here's the first two weeks because we got dynamite and collision. Boom, boom, boom. This week is going to be a three hour. This one's going to be two and a half hour. This is how he breaks everything down.
[00:57:56] I like he is not thinking long term when he's deciding these decisions.
[00:58:05] Adam Cole. Khan wouldn't say that Cole had will never wrestle again, but said he currently can't even travel and that any future matches would have to be, quote, the right situation.
[00:58:19] You mean the right situation which Sting came up to you and said that he wanted to do his matches. And during the beginning of this interview, by the way, when he was building up and they were talking about Darby Allen because Darby had been on the the show and, and so had Ricochet.
[00:58:38] One of the things or two things that Tony Khan had said is like, oh, when you're in your show with Alan and Ricochet, you made them look great with your lighting. Like, like, are you like that? That makes you feel that Tony Khan only did this because he's not trying to bury the hatchet, but he's trying to make himself look better during this time when they're in a creative downfall.
[00:59:03] TK mentioned Cole's history of head injuries given the impression that the former Ring of Honor and NXT champion Steel is dealing with some post concussion syndrome of one kind or another.
[00:59:16] Andrade. We basically got a confirmation on Andrade's WB non compete clause without Khan directly confirming it. Aerial probe to see if TK thought Andrade misled him about his contract status prior to his belief his brief AW returned. But Khan would only say that he loved working with Andrade in the past and would work with him again in the future. So is he contracted not contracted. I have no idea.
[00:59:47] Rusev Another indirect confirmation that Khan and Rusev didn't agree on how he should be booked, which TK chalked it up to different visions of things. He clearly was excited to go back and he did go back. I wish him the best. That must make sense for him and why he wanted to do it.
[01:00:10] Are you sure about that?
[01:00:12] Are you, Are you sure that a guy who you brought in during the pandemic and you made a amazing star as the best man, as the Redeemer, you gave him something that he hadn't had for a long time. You made him not a Perry and then you completely had him sit at home along with Keith Lee and do nothing.
[01:00:41] Britt Baker these next two are very, very big because whether or not they end up going to WWE is the real question. But it is what it is.
[01:00:52] To hear Tony tell it, everything is quote unquote groovy.
[01:00:58] He loves Brit in and out of the ring, has great talks with her recently and is just waiting for the right creative idea or spot to bring her in.
[01:01:07] Oh, I don't know, maybe you bring her in for the fact that it's been two years pretty much since she has done anything significant for the company and you got a woman who is about to win her 14th title so Brit can come back and win that and that's your way of keeping Brit in AEW instead of having her, I don't know, go and face somebody like Charlotte. You're telling me Charlotte and Britt Baker is not a big money match.
[01:01:45] You're saying Charlotte, you're saying Britt Baker and Becky lynch is not a big money match.
[01:01:54] I'd love to see it because Britt has the in ring style. But the problem is he's only been doing it for about what, not even seven years, maybe even less, maybe more.
[01:02:07] As far as everything like, I cannot tell you a single thing I other than the matches with Thunder Rosa I remember of Brit Baker, that is it then. This is the biggest one. Chris Jericho Quote from Tony Khan I love Chris, both personally and professionally. I recently reached out to wish him a happy birthday. As you should. It's a birthday I am very excited about everything he's done in AW and he continues to be a part of us. And is he going to be back? I can't speak to that. But I love having Chris in AEW and the door is always open for him, basically saying goodbye Learning Tree, goodbye Ocho, goodbye Nevi, whatever, goodbye.
[01:02:55] So Chris Jericho is out the door and is back in wwe and then finally Will Ospreay.
[01:03:06] So this was odd. He said that he wanted Osprey to potentially be back in the first half of next year in January.
[01:03:27] That is the rumor.
[01:03:29] The rumor is, is that after he underwent neck surgery earlier in September, this was after Forbidden Door after the lights out still Cage Max. He's basically saying, oh yeah, he's probably going to be here by early 2026.
[01:03:49] Is that what they're looking for?
[01:03:52] Because again, if you Remember, currently for AEW, AEW is still looking to do Grand Slam Australia on February 14th at the Kudos bank arena in Sydney, Australia, which is super huge.
[01:04:23] They have not really gone into.
[01:04:28] Says that the capacity is over 21,000, which that's honestly average.
[01:04:35] It's right next to a core stadium.
[01:04:39] So it's a little bit of a. It's a. It's a cool looking building.
[01:04:43] I will say I'm looking at a concert layout, I believe it is with a, a backdrop and a curtain. It looks kind of cool.
[01:04:53] It also looks like possibly something you could see for a.
[01:04:56] A typical dynamite taping as well.
[01:05:02] But I'm sure it would be really, really cool to have.
[01:05:06] I'm sure it'd be. It would be really, really nice.
[01:05:09] I could see that happening.
[01:05:11] So that's good.
[01:05:13] So if that's possible.
[01:05:16] And they end up doing that and that's where like his first big matches there and they're. They're trying to promote that happening.
[01:05:26] I could see that happening. So I can see that that's his first big ple or pay per view that he'd end up having.
[01:05:34] They also revealed on the podcast that along with their international tour. So that's the other thing.
[01:05:43] Believe he's going to make a return when they hit the international tour in December, which I think that's the big thing because they are. They are going to Manchester and Cardiff for Collision in dynamite for December 13th and 17th.
[01:06:08] So those should be really big shows.
[01:06:11] And they also reveal that they will be having a dynamite on 34th street, which its broadcast date is supposedly going to be on the 24th. They're going to have this on the 20th, so they're going to tape it and they're gonna host also Christmas Collision. They're gonna use the Hammerstein Ballroom.
[01:06:41] So they use the Hammerstein Ballroom late last year leading up to the Continental Classic where they also hosted a lot of Ring of Honor stuff.
[01:06:59] And it was also the host of the very last Rampage, believe it or not.
[01:07:05] So very interesting.
[01:07:09] So those two shows will happen in December and Then on New Year's Eve, because it will fall on a Wednesday at New Year's smash 2025, it will be at the Liberty First Credit Union arena, which already took place.
[01:07:33] This year, where for the main match we saw Mercedes Monet beat Billy Starks and Jon Moxley beat Cope in a street fight.
[01:07:49] And those did okay ratings and did only about 22,183 people in Nebraska. It's gonna be where they're gonna have this New Year Smash thing. So that's gonna be really interesting. I, I'll be very interested in how they do that. But those were all of the comments made by Tony Khan in his interview with Ariel Helwani.
[01:08:14] Again, you know, you could say what you want about Tony Khan, but it looks like he definitely came prepared when it came to this interview. And I think it was really burying a hatchet, clearing out the water, but also just something to make Tony Khan look a little bit better. Personally, I don't think it really did much. I think it basically just, you kind of just prove some points of like, Tony Khan is gonna backtrack and Tony Khan is not gonna go fully into a question. He's going to talk about something else that is beneficial to AEW and himself.
[01:08:52] There was at one point where he's like, I think we've been really, really good in this interview because I've been asking all your questions because that was the one complaint that Ariel had said back in 2020, that she had said that it was the most frustrating and infuriating interview he's ever conducted. But again, that was over zoom during the pandemic. So, you know, take that with what you will, but those are all the major things that happened in this past week in pro wrestling. I want to thank you guys for listening.
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