FiredUp Network
Friday, June 28: Wrestling Spotlight Weekly Champions
welcome into weekly champions we're here on wrestling spotlight and the fired up network covering the news of the week in professional wrestling this week I'm joined by Sonny the man Eagle Kane and Mark Madison the editor publisher in chief of pro wrestling post you get some great wrestling content there and I wanted to start off with the story that you know unfortunately just broke just a little bit before we went to air Roman Reigns father one of the all-time greats in professional wrestling the wild Samoan Afa passed away so we'll acknowledge him as a true head of the table a true tribal chief yep passed away he had been ill for quite a while but I wanted to ask you guys because you're a longtime professional wrestling observers how important were the wild Samoans to the wrestling we're seeing today because I mean the bloodline is real you look at all the stems all the all the branches that came off from the high chief Peter Myavia and Afa and Seica I mean it's so influential and one of the bigger stories of the week was Jacob Fatu the Samoan werewolf appearing on WWE Mark what what do you what do you say in just recalling recollecting the impact of Afa on pro wrestling today I think Afa as much as Seica their relevance is going to go on generations and generations there's when you talk about Cody Rhodes says that there's more than one wrestling family that has royalty I mean there's it's undeniable of what the the Anaway Fatu family has done for Jay and will continue to do I think to see what they created in the 70s how they were as menacing with not speaking it's funny just recently heard people sharing their opinions how they create characters that were so menacing so frightening without saying a word and then when they did it would almost catch you off-guard and you wouldn't dissipate it and then how the savage character how they moved towards it and how they push towards well this is where our start is and then how you see how Yokozuna had become so impactful and got away from the stereotypical wild savage character that so I to the Islanders right sure you can't understate what they've done and what they will it'll all go it'll always go back to them regardless as to where the dynasty continues to go everything has the beginning and their place is undeniable yeah and just the the way they they caught your attention to because it was a little bit different right and they needed a manager to communicate and kind of rain them in and that was Captain Lou he was the only person who could kind of control up Sonny I mean you you've seen I don't know if you ever were in the same card with the Samoans but the impact of that kind of character that still felt today I was the same card with the Samoans but I saw them in person and they had such a believable routine that and made you hesitant to sit in the front row so you never do what they were going to pull or be up to and like I said the door in the ring of us to make it where I live and they played the door in the ring during the ring of several times I just learned that they that he was Roman Reigns his dad I wanted to wear it but I thought there was a kinship but I didn't know that they were that close and they set the stage for that type of thing and they made it believable and enjoyable to watch by frustration with wrestling has been over the years when you got a guy my height 5'10" against the guy's 6'5" that's not as believable as when you got guys paired up the same eye to me putting out the work and the Samoans did that it didn't matter if the guys were told to them they still performed and left chills down my spine many a night watching them yeah no absolutely and now let's we'll say go over from that because I mean one of the most significant tag teams of all time and one of the most memorable wrestlers ever I mean because you always reference back to them the wild Samoans I mean it's hard to look at the bloodline and not go back to them and that was hammered home with the long-awaited debut of the former MLW champion of the world Jacob Fatou the Samoan werewolf a guy who is the the total package I think in the ring of the Samoan legacy because the guy can fly which you saw with him doing the splash through the table with Cody outside of the ring he's got the impact moves and he's got that kind of savagery in his repertoire that I think people were saying solo sakoa lacks so the big question I think coming out of Jacob Fatou's debut did they show up the now self-appointed head of the table solo sakoa with the debut of Jacob Fatou I think I think so what do you guys think I don't actually I don't okay I think they've positioned solo primarily as where I mean if something changes six months to a year down the road we know the potential of Jacob but I think to come in and automatically usurped solo I just don't see that I think they've invested enough time to believing they want to make him this heavy and we don't know if there's going to be layers to the solo character right now it's what we see Jacob it gives a great promo effect if we've ever heard any of his stuff in MLW we know what he can do he's a lot leaner too he looks as strong and thick and agile as he ever has but then he got a great say his body frame really is like wow there's your real commitment there are some legalities around Jacob that will probably limit him from doing the things that will allow solo to do so if if legal implications prevent you from traveling abroad why would you give that position to another person when you have somebody try to ensure that you developing not something to bring in so there are some drawbacks unfortunately hopefully those things will get cleared up in the future and again what six months in a year from now does is anyone's guess but look how long it took for them to finally have Jay break away from a team sure from the bloodline itself right but right now I think they're pretty committed to solo and for a lot of reasons for a lot of reasons yeah and he is he is doing good character work the interchange with Paul Heyman is really good and solo can solo is a good wrestler he's in the future star of wrestling Hall of Fame in Las Vegas he can do more than he's more than he's shown he has more to his repertoire than just the Simone Spike how did you feel about adding another member to the bloodline Sonny I think it was a good move it was predicted a couple different outcomes on Twitter they were going to have somebody or they weren't people weren't sure what the move was going to be but I felt that they were actually going to bring in another player and that's apparently what's been done I think there's room for all the groups and families in wrestling to grow and that's what what appears to be going on now yeah and they're not done they're not done yet because I was reporting at WrestleMania WrestleMania Sunday I was telling people going into Lincoln financial field and reported on fired up network that Jacob Fattu had signed a contract with WWE and he was in the building he was he wasn't here I mean I saw him but I was starting to doubt it when his debut was coming because you know it's been a little while so now that he's debuted there's one more member of the extended bloodline the bloodline by association Haku's other son Hikaleo he's not on forbidden door this week on AEW because he was done with new Japan and the belief is he is going to be joining his brothers the gorillas of destiny Tama and Taga in the WWE the only question is is he going to be on their team or will he be with the inevitable opposite side of the bloodline with Jimmy J and Roman going up against Solo the gorillas and Jacob what do you think mark that makes it four four yeah it does I mean I think we're moving towards a war game survivor series type um mm-hmm a true bloodline civil war right when we look at that um it's interesting somebody once pointed out to me outside of Jacob joining now um everybody that was that brought in or tied to the bloodline was not ones by tied to the anaway or fortu family but they were ones rather that were tied um by Polynesian like blood brothers right so they were all pongons um Hikaleo being one of the being one of them in the event that that was to happen and he was to come out um the belief could have been so you know how you talked about you suggestible you know could Jacob be the one that takes in the event that solo gets pushed out and is forced to join and then what he's created is almost something that he could lead but then um the inmates run the asylum and they push him out sure that's possible so all the fears that that paul habit ends up having are legitimized by like I don't trust these tongans I don't trust them and look what they've done although you know and then Jacob can give that convincing problem and then you have paul tied back to roman so I mean if you're all for looking at a fantasy world with booking but um I would see the the haku's kids more tied together rather than divide it yeah no that that makes sense because then you'd have tomatanga and Hikaleo and Jacob is a late edition so there's four and then you go up against roman jimmy j and solo and then that's not even getting interested the women because you could add uh nayomi and uh naya um if we if we really want to tie in going to the weeds of all this um years and years ago haku and tomah were the islanders back in the 90s uh in the dead well tomah's fau- tomah is the tong kid oh like a kid yeah think of fau two solo's um sorry cool uh all the other tongans the tongans father's is haku yeah more of a tie in there because of their father's relationship right whereas yeah um solo like rikishi being more tied to i think his he's uh he and the tong kid i think actually him and sam fought two their twins so interesting yeah yeah i mean it's it's uh a huge web that you can uh you can weave now with all the different royal families and wrestling it's safe to say none have as many layers as the bloodline i mean you could do a whole uh game of thrones house of dragons with them there's so many layers it's it's a little bit different than dusty, cody and dustin, rick and charlotte, nandrade i mean you got lots of levels so it's it's definitely open the other angle that i think is pretty interesting going on in wwe right now cm punk not surprisingly opened up smack down from his hometown of chicago uh fellow black hawks fan with you mark and drew mac and tyer didn't really quit he was there to beat down cm punk or are we all thinking that cm punk's going to be clear to come back in summer slam and we're setting up that inevitable matchup no sir yeah i mean at some point right and i think they'd be crazy to have cm punk wrestle at all before that because hey i mean just reality the person that's most likely to get injured is the person who's been injured and he's had a run of injuries in matches doing fairly routine moves so now hopefully he's now had both bicep tendons tear so usually you tear tendons and pears so he should be okay now then i hope for cm punk's sake because i like him i'd like to see him have that one last high-level main event run in the wwe it's just injuries have injuries and honestly probably the the management of the wwe at the time just prevented it but hopefully he gets this opportunity because they're they're doing a great job building a story up without having hardly any physicality it almost it almost feels like with him they want to move him towards in the direction of being more like an attraction yeah not unlike a Brock Lesnar right so you value him yes he's not going to compete regularly but when he competes it's got to make sense it's got a half purpose and they probably know this if he's not young necessarily anymore and you're more susceptible to getting hurt well how do you protect your investment because he is without saying that he's a commodity right he's somebody of value he's automatically will generate a reaction from the crowd polarizing to some but why use him just for any show at any point now they need to be really strategic i think is the plan so i'm sure and after this i probably have the few that he never had was with Seth Rollins right that was probably going to be something on the table too eventually yeah i mean you have to be you have to be smart with how you use him because he can't just go he's not going to be Cody's not going to have a match every week and that would be insane because here precedent tells you the he just can't he just can't physically do it right now he has to take time and you know if you only wrestle on occasions every match is going to mean more it's just like you know the heavyweight champion that's a newer innovation i think sunny too the fact that we have weekly like pay per view level shows on now that the heavyweight champion is expected to be a workhorse and is expected to be there and on tv all the time rick flayer didn't have matches every week on wcw saturday night i mean he he just did it nik bokwinkle didn't wrestle every week on a w a it was a special occasion when the heavyweight champion comes out it was a special deal and there weren't that many heavyweight championship matches he would have a match you know once a month now rick flayer worked house shows like crazy and he would go 60 minutes because he was now he was the 60 minute man and people had a ride space mountain but on tv it was a special occasion if you saw rick flayer on saturday night on the superstation and i think that's kind of what they need to do at cm punk it has to be a totally agree mark it has to be very limited because the reality is the the mind may be able but the body's not gonna be able to hold up and he could definitely talk we've talked about this before and i think they're gonna have to pay some out they're gonna have to give him a chance to recover from his matches after he's had them and it's insane to me that the current world heavyweight champion has to wrestle every week and every time there's a camera rolling but i think that's the new air that we're in i think that's what people are demanding to see and um i feel bad for the guys because i think there's more injuries and fatigue and all that um at least that's what i experienced when i'd be out there joining all weekend and all and and having a drive home so um yeah you've you've got to give the horse a break sending out a question for you guys and sending in particular because you can speak to us because so you lived you lived it too when guys like Bruno um would compete in defense and defend and defend and defend so in a month they have that 30-day rule where you have to compete once and yet it felt like he was defending his title maybe as many as four times a week in those countless house shows why do you think that that they've gotten away from that in this generation like why isn't it why isn't that title defended because if it's of such a value you should be showing it off and showing that i am this fighting champion and i think that's where some of the criticism that roman faced is that you're wonderful one thousand three hundred and sixteen days get 50 title defenses now he's younger than cmpunk his body holds up better i'm not sure if the leukemia that he's had weakened him a little bit but i'm just trying to look to some of the older school guys when it came to to a bob back like and they're or page row or Bruno and why they defend it is regularly and why the move has come away from that what do you think sony that's that's a good question i think it's just a sign of the times i think uh people are um into violence and uh more so now than than they were some years back back when i was doing it um they want to see how far people can go and uh my favorite was saying punk is he's gonna be pushed over the edge and we're not going to see his his total uh capabilities because of how hard he's gonna be pushed once he's there and like you said mr benton he's done a company rose and um you know i i don't understand the change in the in the venue either uh as to why things are being done the way they are but uh it's going to be interesting to me to see what what uh triple h can do in the head chair now that he has total reign of the ww uh hopefully some things will continue to improve yeah now a long time ago cm punk would wrestle everywhere and do every match it's a religious reality and you know the ww acknowledge that because when Seth Rollins became the wwe champion they made a point of saying hey i'm the workhorse champion i'm gonna be here i'm gonna be on every week i'm not doing what roman's doing and cody rodes had the second i believe the second most matches wrestled in the wwe last year if we want to get into the analytics which is kind of a new thing you actually have analytics and pro wrestling now he was second only to surprisingly dirty dom mysterious had the most matches last year but you know it's it's just different and i i'm okay with it because they're trying to make it more like boxing more like mma where that big championship it is an event when this thing's on the line you need to pay it's going to be in a big venue and it's an event it's not in every week that's where the intercontinental champion comes in that's where i think the criticism of logan paul be in the u.s champion comes in because he's not out there defending that thing every week and if he loses to l_a_ knight yeah at summer slam i think he will yeah so it is hard i agree i don't know if it's logan hometown i mean that's a tough one i don't shares it with me and it is but uh l_a_ l_a_ knight at some point needs to win something because he's had lots of big opportunities and one thing that i think is is a risk with the wwe and i get i don't know i may be overstating this because obviously history shows that you can have long title reigns but people knew with this last run of the tribal chief as the champion okay well let's see he's got a four-way with randy orton aj styles and l_a_ knight okay they're not waiting they he just knew it and as good as the matches were you know the the interest just wasn't there it wasn't that special because you knew he was going to win whereas then we'll get to talking about it here the car they have up behind me the forbidden door i i think it's anybody's ball game in the main event of that card between swerve and will osprey and that wasn't the case in most of the wwe events for the last year and hasn't been the case in the most recent ones with cody roads i mean i i don't think anybody had any believe that aj styles had a chance in the world of eating cody yeah i mean so so i i think that's a little bit of a risk if you you place the champion on such a huge podium that everybody knows okay there's no way in the world they're losing and it was a great match the match with uh the i quit match between cody and aj styles it was excellent mm-hmm but and their match prior to that at backlash yeah that that french crowd super hot i'm not sure if they were that might have been the key to the match is just how much your fans were elevated it so much hey let me ask some because this is something i've been noticing how much have you seen that style of wwe matches especially in pla's change and get closer to what cody was doing at ew since his arrival you're seeing more wrestling more moves and it's just a different style the whole wwe style is really kind of taking a change because seth is wrestling a harder style than he was on drade al-idalo came over and brought his style move for move from a ew cody is doing everything he was doing at a w including the bleeding which was a change to wwe you've seen aj do stuff that he hasn't done since his time and impact or tna and i i think they're consciously making a choice that hey we're going to wrestle more and it's getting closer to a w have you guys noticed that i have um i think um cody is the flagship of that um in in changing the style over and um now that we have more players on the card more workers i think we can expect to see more of the aw style um the matches are more entertaining to me than they were say six months ago before yeah um occurred and um i find myself listening to the clips longer and longer now to see what's going to happen so um you know that's that's what was needed and needed an uptick for sure and uh it's going to be interesting to see the improvements that cody continues to make as he continues to be the champion and do you think part of the reason that they're they're going harder now is because they're using more of the roster triple h is willing to use more people whereas during the end of the Vince McMahon era the top of the card got out there and everybody else if they got on the show they were an afterthought at best the stories didn't connect the matches really meant nothing and they had the matches so dumbed down it was getting closer to old like 1970s wrestling where there's two three moves and that's it uh Bobby Lashley was resorted down to using the spear and the hurt lock and people were questioning hey why is he out there man the guy can't wrestle and that is the furthest thing from the truth because outside of Chad Gable Bobby Lashley may well be the most decorated amateur wrestler in the WWE right now maybe Cody but Bobby Lashley Cody and Chad Gable are probably your best technical wrestlers going and people were openly questioning this guy can't do anything besides a spear and a hurt lock he was the US military amateur wrestling champion I add combat sports athlete in as a whole yeah probably even more successful than Brock and his his shirt wasn't UFC but it's not to say that his win lost record and the championships he won competing I mean carefully but where is he right now and I don't know if he's injured but yeah I think the markets were a little injury yeah so maybe that's why we haven't seen him but he's somebody that should be back and featured prominently right because of his skill set and what he knows and what he can do so yeah and and now he's getting the opportunity they'll have the opportunity to show that well and why let's go back to him a guy who came back from the dead after being attacked savagely by the Wyatt 6 Chad Gable survives a triple threat to advance to money in the bank so Chad did get his win survived over Braun Strowman and Bronson Reed what do you think about Chad Gable is he the next Mr. Money in the Bank or will the Wyatt 6 who for some reason are targeting him divert him from hitting that goal I think it's his day and I think we're going to see it all out of yeah I think he kind of mark I think he kind of falls into that same category as I was putting LA night in at some point you can't be featured in premium live events in WrestleMania roles and not win I mean at some point you got to win yeah the Intercontinental Championship has always been the felt to be dropped in the WWE quicker and faster than any of the other titles in the years gone by so that's never already been a dog held title and I think we're going to see that so go ahead Mark sorry sir no no worries I think what we might have even seen is the teasing of a new alpha academy yeah you know he tried to give he it felt like he was quite sincere in his apology but to break free of those who's to not say he has support I don't think the wide six are as much of going to be a threat to focus on him alone I think there's lots of focuses that they'll have I think more in the recent weeks we'll get more character development but right now he might be haunted by them but I still I'm I'm with yourself in sunny if the belief is anything their commitment their investment in him yeah we're looking at mr money in the back the next one for sure yeah and I I do like the association with the creep or others and ivy nyle more because man I mean they they fit they just you got you got four legitimate wrestling machines who can can just go do all the moves and you look at them and say okay oh yeah but they're wrestlers I mean they look like elite amateur wrestlers and yeah I think that's a great pairing let's talk about the championship opportunity that happened at monday night raw to end with new world tag team champions fin baller and jd mcdonna they were able to talk the weak link of our truth into defending the championship and awesome truth no longer your tag team champions the judgment day has another title now how do you feel about fin and jd being the tag champions i like i like the idea of what was once mentor and students to now be aligned not unlike a father and son winning and yes you know fin is the one that trained jd when he was younger and so here they are now as a team together it's from that perspective it's nice to see because of where they've both been and where they both are I think it's a nice moment as heels how they won yeah you know heels lie heels cheat is part of what they do but the story behind that I like I like that like that well and I think you got you got the run and you got the pop at Wrestlemania the people were loving seeing our truth when the title the Miz gets another championship but I think it's I think it's good to move on because yeah really you didn't even have a fighting tag team champion with the waller effect with austin theory and grace and waller over on the other side and then the awesome truth you didn't have a legitimate fighting tag team championship in the company and fin and jd well they're they're gonna go and they can have good matches I think it's uh that's a title that's good to change and like you were saying sonny there's certain titles that you can hot shot and switch fairly quick and the tag titles are one of them especially in wwa and I mean I think it's a good team too and now you can get some new challengers because they do have a good depth of tag team I thought the new catch republic we're gonna win it at Wrestlemania and I think that's a team that you can easily see get him back into heavy rotation and maybe even maybe even the uh the guys from pretty deadly my daughter's a big pretty deadly fan so anytime they pop up she's like I need to see them I need to see them the beat but there's history with with new catch republic and and jd mcdonald oh absolutely there I believe there is some within baller as well I'm not sure if they had crossed paths earlier on but that would make for a nice story and fans of diy on the other side potentially being the bigger threat to um a town down under right so um because there's a tension in that those ranks lots lots of really exciting guys that can work and really show that there's tag team wrestling that you really can get behind from really really talented guys and girls and I'm hoping that that's the direction I'd like to get back to the the wrestling of the nwa days in the 80s which um and even the WWF days right and the late 80s those were probably my favorite period of time for tag team wrestling yeah everybody was a threat and nobody um was left out and everybody was at one point potentially a champion so well I think they are getting back to that because you're seeing that in both major companies now that they're building up the roster like like I was referencing earlier during the end of the events era there was you could turn on wwe raw any monday and as long as you watched it a week or two before the premium live event you know what was going on because it was just the same thing over and over and over to uh paraphrase the tribally broken brain yeah there wasn't any variety it was only three or four people and you knew who was important you knew who was going to win because there was no emphasis on anybody in that roster and they both companies have huge rosters so it's uh definitely a different a different feel now because you're getting back closer to that attitude era where everybody was important or even the old wwe era like you were talking about marketing I remember iron mike sharp iron mike sharp had a chance of winning it wasn't a guarantee that iron mike sharp was gonna lose you know he had a chance he could go out there and win a match tony griya could win a match you know it wasn't you didn't know exactly who was going to win every match so that that was good now let's uh yeah yeah there's a reason to watch right you want to watch the whole thing because everything matters well hey uh aEW they are getting ready for one of their big events and it's it's a little bit of a unusual event because they're trying to it's the forbidden door and they're incorporating in new japan and cml so you don't have that automatic understanding of everybody that's in the ring because you got the different cards coming in and new japan i mean here just to be fair new japan's in a rebuilding stage right now because if you look at all the major stars that were headlining new japan shows a couple years ago well they're in a w especially will osprey and jay white and then some are over in wm a cody rose the elite they were huge impacts for new japan and you guys feel about the cross-promotional show i like it um it gives opportunity to the workers to uh come over and be seen and um it gives fans a chance to see more who's out there uh that that's always important to me is to pan getting their money's worth how did this go um and what the crossover happening now uh that's going to be a huge impact that thinking of what we see see coming the next few months um new japan has always been the proven grounds too if you ever had stuff you wanted you wanted to work on go go to japan and work on it over there and then bring it back to the states so that's always been an outlet for the guys to to improve and get better yeah i mean that that's absolutely true and i'm sure there's people in new japan today that are going to be impact players in america in the next five ten years i know here i mean two just off the top my head that are members of the new japan dojo in los angeles mad fandegriff the aerial chemist and viva van the hellbed vixen they were stars in future stars of wrestling in las vegas they're regulars in new japan strong and at some point you're going to see them and they'll be the star coming over from new japan that nobody thought hey who are they but if you actually here if you're watching wrestling spotlight you know who they are um but that's that's the key right because i mean we talked about aj styles aj styles the original founder of the bullet club that's why he's group and wwe is called the oc the original club fin baller took over for aj styles as the head of the bullet club cody roads i mean you know we did the show about uh did i flip them but you know when it didn't know it was first yeah okay as uh prince uh prince devat right uh yeah prince devat yeah yeah but i mean they they were new japan and look at the elite well the elite they had time and ring of honor but they were made in new japan so it is definitely i think worthwhile and you know at w has got a million dollar box office already so i think it's doing okay at the ubs arena there they've already hit a million dollars in box office revenue and now they're going to be able to build up to all in coming up in london which i got uh oh let's see i got my passport just for the simple fact that uh i'm ready to go to all in so we'll be uh we'll be heading out to uh london just for that which will be neat and it's going to be here it is there we go got that specifically to go to wembley stadium and they're already starting to build up to all in as mj f offered daniel garcia a match at wembley after saying thank you and taking thanks which is very on mj f what what do you think about uh mjf kind of turning over a new leaf well you guys okay with uh how mjf is coming across i am yeah my i am as well um a lot more directed more um focused um could always do without some of the slight antics but i mean yeah he's a little focused that's uh better mjf well and uh as we kind of wind it down here the story that i think is going to be the most entertaining aspect of the forbidden door tony storm against mina with mariah may in the middle so you got the all tag team partner the new sensei the new master with tony storm and uh mariah may is in the middle i don't think tony storm's losing but it's definitely been an entertaining story and i i think the breakout star of this forbidden door is mina i could see her becoming a regular on a ew television she's a very entertaining character and and a good wrestler and there's plenty of uh work for the joe she wrestlers especially in a ew with uh the impact that rios had the impact that he caroshida's had and i think uh we're going to see a lot of mina and uh maybe everybody will want mina that's i mean anyone else jumping out at you in the for bid and door lineup this year she's the standout to me she's not the tony storm's moment and i think she's going to uh show us that at the upcoming pay pay per view uh she's been out there she's proven and uh i think i think we're going to see the whole package so and then just one last topic because uh there's so much news i mean we can we'd have to go another hour but i think this is the story that's breaking and it is interesting because it's kind of tying in pro wrestling to the other sports that we talk about on the fired up network diejack who was just drafted to raw and have rebuilt himself and nxt after the unfortunate uh experience and retribution as t bar diejack is a free agent he is contract runs out friday and he's he's done he can go is that a bad sign or is that a good sign because in regular sports a wide receivers contract runs out he goes and signs somewhere else it's not a big deal you know nobody in kansas city is broken up that marquez valedess gambling is going to play for the buffalo bills and i don't think anybody in arizona is all that concern that hollywood brown is playing for the chase but in pro wrestling it's all the talk on social media oh my god ricochet is leaving oh diejack's leaving oh oh what's going on or ricky starks may be leaving a w well yeah his mentor and his good friend cody rodes is the champion of wwe yeah i think ricky starks may leave when his contract is up but if you trade ricky starks for diejack and ricochet i would do that and it's okay i don't i don't think it's an indictment on either company i don't uh we talked about this a little bit a little bit before coming on there i don't think it's an end-all deal today like it was in my day um today you have so many different places you can't go and work uh i talk about this from time to time my heart is going back to t_n_a_ and tearing up t_n_a_ um after he got released so um you know a release is not always a bad thing it gives it gives you a chance to go out and grow some more and uh develop continue to develop your character and uh hold up one hand and count the number of leagues out there that we have today where what these workers can go and perform their craft i think it's fantastic and mark um much like funny said right opportunities out there um he's going to be in demand he's created a value towards himself uh and we're getting to see even the letter that he penned right it's it's unfortunate because i can't quite understand how you could go through all these steps just to have your contract run out um being drafted being a part of what looks like you're going to be part of the brand and then all of a sudden it just doesn't pan out now um why wouldn't those why would you go to those lengths as a company if financially things aren't secured and he doesn't have some sort of something you know around ourselves just like it's forgotten um they really dropped the ball there too but if anything i really could see him thriving in a tna i really there's a lot of guys that could do really well there too um and he's uh really really important at least on the east coast i know what he did with limitless wrestling and and what he did um along that that's why they're in new england so i'm sure easily he's going to have demand in if he goes back and and carves that knee shouting in for himself on the indency yeah and he could even follow the role that nick nimuth's taken and he's working in tna working in triple a and working in new japan so i mean there's definitely places you can go and mrafa alli doing the same thing who's a you know terrific work for great personality he's doing great work with the x division title and tna so yeah there's there's plenty of opportunity and we haven't even mentioned the nwa who's been making news by resigning some of their pillars two long-term contracts erin stevens just resigned brian idol resigned natalia marcova resigned and they just announced colby korino resigned and colby korino is a terrific junior heavyweight he would be a great fit in the aew roster or the tna roster he chose to resign with the nwa so you know like you're saying sonny there's there's plenty of opportunity and plenty of places so uh i think it's good i think it's showing it's becoming more like a normal sport where you're going to have free agents available and you're going to have roster moves and in a way it's kind of getting back to the old dusty rob is watching a documentary on dusty roads and he talked about how you had to leave territories every so often to get refreshed because if you just stayed there people got used to you and you had to leave and be missed and then you could always come back and be more popular which i'm sure maybe it was in the back of kody's mind when he decides to do what he did but and the whole way they draft now how about putting on the air and making it an event uh imagine the ww elf approached you like they did me and pulled you to the side when rinky seemed but was the road agent and he still the road agent today and said uh hey do you want to come and work for us it's just a whole different world now yeah yeah now then you know hey the more talk you create to the more excitement i mean my god the NFL and the NBA have shown that you can make roster moves a prime time program so it's definitely available let's go with the wrestling spotlight champion of the week we got the belt here uh mark who's your champion of the week let's go with um the new champion so let's give kudos to the new ww f tag team champions give it off to ten baller and jd mcdonough okay good the judgment day sonny i'm going with kody robs he's uh still got the title he's proven itself and in the ww e that he's not a fly by night champion and i think we're gonna be having them in a lot more out of them as the year progresses and had had a good segment with uh cm punk in the baseball bats so that was uh that was a fun appearance shows you can you can make the impact even without having a match and then obviously you get the uh end with the bloodline so definitely uh definitely worked out the hard way and i'm gonna go with uh here we were talking about reality i'm gonna go with ria rippley and buddy because they did get married and i know it's going to be shocking to some viewers watching this but no she did not get married to dirty dumb misterio and actually dominic's been married for quite a while so you know there there is a there is still a break there is still fiction and then there's reality so you do want to suspend your disbelief but congratulations to ria rippley and buddy matthews from everybody here at wrestling spotlight for mark mattison for pro wrestling post and you can find all sorts of great content there a lot of historical articles a lot of great references between what you're seeing today and how it ties into what happened in the past and sunny the man eagle cane on his march to the junior heavy weight uh weight class you're you're getting close now sunny according to your latest update you're only 31 pounds away from the junior heavy weight class and so yeah that's it easy it's easy and then if colby korino recaptures the nwa junior heavy weight title from joe alonzo you can challenge him absolutely stay tuned to wrestling spotlight and the fired up network for even more pro wrestling action and sports doc and the best place to get both channels is that true tv plus app you can download it on amazon roku the google play store the apple app store even on chrome cast it's available everywhere the true tv plus app for mark mattison for sunny the man eagle cane i'm giro betley thanks for watching weekly champions