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Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, O'Reilly Auto Parts. Everybody, welcome to Beyond the Bell, I'm Andrew Zarian. Today was gonna be a solo show here on Fightful. You know, Pat McAfee no showed Raw, obviously out with a family emergency, he wasn't there. When Rich decided he wasn't going to come today, I wonder if he was also infiltrated by the Y at six. But I have someone so good. It's a special edition of the show. It's the Andrew and Joel show. We're back, baby. We're back, baby. I love it when we do the show. I love the Andrew and Joel show. Isn't it the best? It really is the best. I love, listen, I love Rich, but this is, this is different. I really like doing this with you. I have not been on your show. Actually, I've taken a hiatus. I've been missing from our other show in the weeds. I can't, I'm very upset about that. I dropped the link your way and every time I met with radio silence. And I don't know how to feel about that. I'm like, are you ducking me? And then all of a sudden you're like, Oh, you're being on my show today? I'm like, first I said no, because I was first, he did say no, no, no, no. That's real. He said, no way. I'm not coming. He's like, it's my day off. I am going to stay at home. I'm gonna relax. And then I'm coming back. I was running an errand. I take my kid to school on Tuesdays and then mommy way back ran the errands I needed to. And I'm like, all right, I could do the stupid show. Yeah, I, I apologize. You know, I mean, this is the reality. And Joel knows this in Jeremy to my work life has become insane again. I go through these flows really, like, and it's, and it's a very unpredictable. Sometimes it's like the summer's really easy. Other times it's like September, I've got a good other times of winter's really bad. It's all over the place. Right now it's like DEF CON 10 DEF CON one, right? Cause I, it's the lower number. That's the bad one. Not the higher number. And they're all bad. They're all bad. They're all bad. It's, it's been brutal with just work. So I'm going away on the ninth of July. I'm gone. I'm going to an island somewhere. I'm going up Jamaica. Jamaica, Queens. I'm going a couple blocks down. I'm going not too far here. Uh, no, I'm going away. I got it. And I need to reset. But this week I'm saturated pro wrestling because I got two amazing pro wrestling shows I'm going to. I'm going to the garden for SmackDown. And I'm going to Forbidden Door on Sunday. I don't like that. It's on a Sunday. What was that look? What was that face? Well, first of all, you know, I know how you feel about going to UBS arena. I know how you feel about going to Long Island. No, no, no. I don't mind. I don't mind. Oh, that's fair. You're right. It's Brooklyn. It's Brooklyn. Brooklyn is the devil. Yeah. Brooklyn is the worst. So you're going to be right at home and excited to be amongst the new Japan AW and CMLL stars. So, dude, I'm very blessed somewhere I live because I'm 12 minutes from UBS by car. If I drove, I just have to pop on the cross island and loop around. If I want to go to the garden, I'm 25 minutes straight with the train. Pops you off under the garden. I just walk right up the stairs. The security guard Phil, he knows me. Gregory knows me. I don't even, I don't even wait. I just walk in. I give him a little, little wink. I do one of these. Listen, this works when you do this, all right, right? I'm going to give you a trick. You want to enter any building? That's what you do. They let you ride in. Do you have to make it as obvious as you did that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then like a cat and then load it, the cash in your hand. All singles. Oh, in Canada, that doesn't work because our snails are loony, so just talking to millions of people. Just like, I'm in a central of coins to get me in. No, I'm looking forward to it. We'll talk about those shows, obviously, today, because for bin doors coming up and it's a big show for AEW in New Japan and CMLL Monday Night Raw last night. Big show, the big story before the show was that Raw signed a deal with, I guess, it's what is it, the Indianapolis, uh, sporting, whatever, whatever it's called. And they will be, they announced Royal Rumble 2025 to take place on February 1st in Indianapolis, also a future WrestleMania, two night WrestleMania, and a future two nights SummerSlam. The SummerSlam is going to two nights moving forward. This is interesting. You know, I, Indianapolis is an interesting place. And I listen, highest bidder, I get it, they were supposed to get it and, uh, I, I know that they were supposed to do something there. And then this is what it kind of turned into. I, the, my only concern with running, you know, all these shows there is that these are destination shows. A lot of global tourism, a lot of, uh, you know, just nationally, a lot of, a lot of people travel to these shows, and Indianapolis is not a big travel hub. Well, there's not a lot of can direct flights out of Indianapolis out of their international airport. That's fair. But at the same time, from everything I'm hearing, this is a, it's a big deal for the city. They have a major stadium. They have their, it's, it's drivable. In other words, if you're in the mid, whatever, the middle of the country, if you're in that area, you can get there fairly easily. You can stay in an outside town, drive in, or if you're from the surrounding areas you'll drive in. It's yeah, it seems like it's, it's a pretty sensical deal to have been made. You mentioned a two night summer slam. I don't know if that's, that's not in the, uh, the report that I'm reading. I'm reading the ww.com press release. So I'm, I'm under the impression that they, the moving forward, it's go, oop, that is the wrong camera. Moving forward. It's two nights. So it could be, I, I, again, I know that the Minneapolis summer slam that's doing two nights. That's in 2026. Uh, I'm not mistaken. Yeah. In 2026. And that was because of the make good for the WrestleMania, this app, Romania ended up in Las Vegas instead of, uh, in Minneapolis, the next year. So I don't know if that's, or you know what? Or maybe it's two nights after the Minneapolis one. Maybe that's where I'm confused. That's entirely possible. But I think that Minneapolis is going to be a test run for whether a two night summer slam is a viable solution. Do you think it is personally, I don't love it. I understand why they could do it. They can make a lot of money off of a two night summer slam, but at the same time, you got to, you got to make sure that your, your stories and your business is still as hot as it's been lately. And to do that around WrestleMania, that's easier because that's built in that excitement is already there. Yeah. Around summer slam. Sometimes they're competing factors. You know, we talk about, we'll talk about the AW ratings for dynamite and that, you know, it was what was an external factor. One of them that was mentioned was that the weather is beautiful. You're running on holidays. It's there are a lot of different factors that drove into it. But with summer slam, it's a beautiful time of the year, usually around late July, early August. So I don't know if a two night summer slam is going to be something that's viable every single year moving forward after next year. So, I mean, you brought up the AW rating and we were going to get that up, but let's talk about it now. Not good. Very low. But a lot of conversation around the reason why. There really wasn't a like fundamental show problem from the week prior that would that would cause, you know, a mass exodus of viewership. But you're right. The weather, it was a holiday. People don't, you know, a lot of people don't realize that it was a federal holiday. And when a holiday happens, a lot of people's viewing habits change. A lot of just everything changes for that day. So that could have played a part. You also had a massive concert on Amazon. Yes. And I'm not the biggest Kendrick Lamar or Drake guy. I'm a bigger Kendrick Lamar fan. But anyway, the point is Jeremy and I talked about this on In The Weeds and we covered the beef and I'm not a hip hop guy, I'm not a rap guy, but I watched that concert. You did. And like, I did. I absolutely did because I knew it was a moment in pop culture. I knew there was a moment in just music and again, I'm a music guy. So for me, I was like, no, this is a moment. This is this beef made mainstream news. This beef has been festering for so long with various people. Kendrick just happened to have made it a bigger deal. And like, he hasn't talked on it since it all, you know, came and went. And this was his moment. And this was a huge production. It was done at Inglewood at the key of form. They sold it at. It was a big deal. They had surprises. They had stars. They had people come up. It was a big event. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's the main reason why a rating for a wrestling television program was down, but it is a contributing factor. Yeah. But here's the truth. Okay. First of all, I, you know, this, that event was one of the first times that I felt that I was kind of becoming an out of it because I wasn't aware that this was even happening. And I'm pretty connected to pop culture and music. Like, I'm pretty like, I, I guess I'm not as much as I thought. Maybe this is what happens when you're in your 40s, or it could be all the chemicals that are sluishing around in my system. That could be a two. Yeah. Yeah. Jeremy and I, we talked about it on the weeds. And Jeremy was the one who kind of caught me up on what was going on. He's always been a fan of the, of the, very, very connected to that stuff. Yeah. Jeremy is very connected. Yeah. He's very much into rap and hip hop and like he was keeping up with it. And then I had known some of this stuff because we've talked about Drake on our show and like, I'm not the biggest Drake fan. And I've given my reasons why we have shorts on and on, on overbooked. If you really want to go watch it. But the point of all this is, you know, we kind of on the outside talked about it, but then we really got into it. I'm like the first hour of our show on Friday was talking about the pop out concert. Not anything wrestling related. So when the rating came out, I was like, not kind of get it. Like, yeah, it's not a good number, but there were so many things at hand. I listen. And, but here, here's, there's two sides to this, right? I'm going to give you the positive. It's not the end of the world. One rating, one rating for one show does not mean anything. If you see a six week trend of declining ratings, and I mean declining, I'm not meaning, you know, 1% here, 2% up, 3% down, nothing, nothing like that because that's, that's plus or minus a couple points here and there it happens. The show was solid. It was a, it was a great opener. I do know that certain people within A.W. were upset about that lead in because they did play a part. The lead in not being, you know, 900,000 viewers, they play part, but that, that lead in only matters for the first 30 minutes really. Uh, that's the reality of it. Um, the Kendrick, the Kendrick stuff, is it the key demo that dropped? That's the other thing you got to look at. There was an overall drop in that show. I, the, and here, here's the criticism of A.W. If you don't make it must see TV, this will happen. Kendrick Lamar doing a concert is not the only thing that you're facing as a negative, right? You have sports that happen. Fine. You have other programming that happens. And here's the other key thing that is taking away from key demo viewership. You know what it is? It's a stupid app called TikTok. Hi. Everyone shows should be one minute long, but you know what, it is, it is conditioning people because guess what I do now? I, and, and this is my viewing habit. Okay. I watched Dynamite. If I could catch it live, obviously, uh, not so much on Raw. This week, the last couple of weeks I've been watching Raw, you know what I do on a Monday night? My wife and I, we, we have a glass of wine and we go on TikTok. I swear to God, that's our, that's our, that's our pattern now. That's a new thing in our lives over the last couple of years. People's viewership habits change, but dammit, you got it. You're competing with everything. You don't just compete with wrestling. You're competing with everything and you have to make it captivating. Or else this happens every time there's a big thing like this that happens. You're going to see your ratings drop about 200,000 viewers. And again, I'm not, I'm not saying this is the end of the world. This is one show and I'm, and I'm willing to bet that they're going to be fine this week. Yeah. I completely agreed. Give yourself the full shot for a second. I'm going to close my window because there's a train going by and I thought you wanted me, I thought you wanted me to pose for you. Like I send you those photos and video that while I fix up the stuff. Yeah. Well, you fix it. I don't think people, I don't know if we've ever made this public. I genuinely send half naked pictures to Joel when I'm tanning outside. This is a real thing. I send him, I start posing. I start doing like all these poses. I start setting up pictures of my legs and right look how great my legs look today. Look how great my back is today. I taught them, he just has a marathon of shirtless Andrew photos. Every time I'm outside, you're probably going to get in about an hour when I'm laying out in the yard. Yeah. You're going to be putting on that, that oil and I'm going to be just stuck there looking at you and being like, oh, this, this bronze God, I'm going to mess it from your wife. Can you please stop, can you please stop sending these inappropriate photos to my husband? No, you'll never get that for my life. Keep sending them. You'll get, keep sending them and I promise it'll be okay and I'm going to have to sit there and be like, why are you going to troll me like this? Anyway, the point, I want to bring up the fact that so I listened to a lot of like audio from five years ago from different pundits and one of the people that I listened to, I've mentioned before, I listened to Wade Keller, PW Torch and when Dynamite was announced, the general feeling that went on was ratings wise. They'd be happy with settling in at 750,000 in their viewership per week. I will tell you, it was even lower than that internally. There you go. I know, I know people at WBD at that time, I knew, I knew some, I knew a lot more people than I do now because of the merger, but I remember early on the, the, there was a lot of questioning over what the rating could be and you're right, the 750 was the high end. It was, it was around 500. Like if they were doing in the 550 range, that was considered to be a very healthy number for them. But you know, obviously they started off really hot and it really took people by surprise on how they were able to garner such a viewership and they still, they still do and they still will. Listen, Forbidden Door, is this the best Forbidden Door they've had? Probably not, but it's still going to have almost 10,000 people in that building. There's no other promotion that even comes close to that right now out, you know, the WWE obviously, but outside of WWE, it's, it was an impossible task for 20 something years to bring in 10,000 people into a building. You know, a great number for Ring of Honor just six years ago prior to EEW was, you know, if they had 3,000 people at an eight at a, at a Ring of Honor show, people were losing their minds. That was a big deal. 3,500. Oh my God. Business is booming. You know, just perspective, things change, obviously in time change. Absolutely. And there will come a time when AEW finds its footing and gets hot again and there will be something that changes it. We don't know what it has a possibility of happening, but you know, they need to take the, they need to take the necessary precautions to make that a must see show again. And again, like you said, this week's rating is if it falls back to where it's normally sitting, then everything we just talked about is moot. And it was just a busy week, you know, they, they, part of their part of their, I guess planning or my brain is not working to the part of that planning was all those shots in the arm that they got with the debuts. You didn't know who was showing up. Obviously, you got to see Kenny Omega and the Bucks for the first time on a prime time national television show every week. That was a big selling point with the elite. It was a big selling point that this was something new and shiny. It was a big selling point that John Moxley showed up. Chris Jericho was their first world champion. Then you got Brian Danielson, then you got Adam Cole. You had all these injections happening of, of top talent entering there. And then you finally got CM Punk that brought them to a whole different level. And then little by little got chipped away. But that's, that's the, the thrusting business. I give me another company that has been able to have longevity outside of WWE to this extent. It does not exist. It's very difficult. And it's not a defense of Tony. This is not a defense of a w. I want to see them do tremendous competition is great. Options are great. Who wants one channel on TV? But you also have to kind of look at it in the perspective of, okay, listen, they have they're in a, a, a lull. What do they have to do to get out of it? I don't know. What do you think? What, what, what would Joel do? We're like, what do you think is missing? That's the, the, here's the thing. Once we go down this path, you're going to get a lot of people saying, well, no, then you're just trying to book like this company, you're trying to book like this company. I think that there's a lot of cohesiveness that needs to be pulled out with storylines. We talked about double or nothing, for example, having a lot of the similar finishes with a lot of people getting involved, a lot of, a lot of people, just, you know, it was, it was the same. Someone gets involved, someone, it's not a DQ, but someone gets someone interferes and so on and so forth. There needs to be a little bit more cohesiveness and conversation and just communication with the coaches and the wrestlers. And obviously then Tony, if he is the final say for the stuff, little things like that need to be tightened up. Again, if just coming in and attacking someone and saying, I want a title match is good enough, then that doesn't work. And then that's happening in WWE as well. No, that's not specific to AW, but we're seeing it there and it doesn't have to be there. It doesn't have to be anywhere. It shouldn't be. If Brian Cage comes in and attacks Will Osprey, why does he get a title shot? Because Osprey is hot and he's like, I'll just give you, here's your match, bro, and I'm going to give you a title shot. Well, that doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't devalue a title, but it certainly doesn't make it more prestigious. So there are little, it's little things like that. The Owen was another one. It's great. I understand completely, Jeff Jarrett is Owen Hart's final tag team partner, closest friend, everything fantastic. It's still for a world title shot at the biggest attended AEW show of the year all in in London. Why does Jeff Jarrett just get a buy when his last singles win was in October 2023? And you know what? And let me tell you this, and I am not, I- Sorry, I was sometimes- Go ahead. I'm sorry. Your chat kind of jumps on me. I understand that they played a fantastic video on collision outlining why Jeff is this great baby face and deserves it and everything. He still hasn't won a match for what is a tournament for a title shot. And there are certain people who have been omitted. Some of it makes sense, but like Samoa Joe and Chris Jericho, two former AEW World Champions aren't in this tournament, and they're now in a program that's going to have a match for bid and door, why didn't we put them in the tournament to kind of just accent and accelerate their feud? There are little things here and there that like could have been done with a little bit of foresight to make the Owen the men's bracket specifically a lot better. The women's bracket is a completely different story. That is very story driven. And that is something that's really, really a high point in AEW, which we've waited five years to be able to say the women's stories are the best stories going on in AEW right now. Yeah, absolutely. I will point this out, right? Again, I'm not, I wasn't for years. I thought that I did not want to see Jeff Jarrett as WCW World Champion. I didn't want to see his TNA run, but I do appreciate the effort. I've gotten more into Jeff Jarrett as the longevity has happened. And I think his story is fascinating, you know, and this is a man that obviously he has struggled with personal issues and he's overcome them. And you could see the pain that this man has. And I'm getting goosebumps from talking about it from from that promo about what, you know, that night with Owen, it is traumatic. He obviously is suffering from PTSD from that incident. How could you not? It's traumatizing. And you can see that this man has carried this for all these years. If this was not for a shot at the world title at their biggest show and it was just a shot at the world title at a future big event that they could have. They could have a blood and guts, they could have whatever. I believe people would be very behind Jeff Jarrett winning because it's a fun last chance story. This man is in the tournament for Owen. Owen's name has been erased from wrestling for decades. And now, you know, because of the relationship with Martha Hart and AEW, we have, we can honor him and Jeff Jarrett being his last partner honoring him in that tremendous problem. You told me he needs to win this tournament, okay? With that promo, you told me he needs to win this, but he can't, he can't, he's up against Jay White, isn't he? No, he's got the wild card, which makes this even more confusing. Oh, God. Okay. So I was wrong there. So we'll find out what the wild card is. I, I would love for something like that, you know, because AEW does great with their last run stories. Sting is a great example of any wrestler that wants a final run, you know, to have trust in this company. And I think Jeff Jarrett is a guy that you could do something interesting with. I'm not saying that, you know, forget about his goons. Forget about the, the, the, the dummy squad he has, right? Talk about Jeff Jarrett himself to come out there and just one last thing you could do that would sell me, but in this tournament, you're absolutely right, wrong person to be in it. I understand why he's in it, but who's, who wins this? You know, is there anyone in that tournament that you, you would think, okay, this is the guy. Listen, hangman page. He could win. He could be the guy. He's, he's not in it. There is a wild card spot. And if most people are speculating that the wild card is a hangman at him page. And if it is, guess what, you got a hang man, Danielson final and that's fine. That's totally fine. I would love that as a final match. To me, it's Danielson on one side wild card on the other. And if people are being listened to and, you know, all of a sudden they're like, maybe we do need to give Jeff Jarrett a run to make this an important thing for Owen. And Owen goes to the final and it's Owen, I'm sorry, not, I'm sorry, Jeff Jarrett versus Brian Danielson. Dude, I want that. That's what Brian Knight in the tournament just said, I'm, I'm into that. If you can make that, and again, you can make that and Danielson beat them and Danielson beat them. And then you know Danielson's going all in, but again, it comes down to the wild card. If hangman pages, the wild card feels like hangman page is going to go. And you know what, from a storytelling standpoint, that is there's multiple threads that get played into at that point. You have the elite, you have what's going on with Swerve, you have blood and guts on the horizon. You've got then all in with the title shot and who's going to be the champion and there is so much that could be told in that story. And that's why I'm like, when they announced the brackets, I looked at it and Jeremy and I broke it down on, on in the weeds, and we were like, this doesn't really look good. But then you, if it is page, then guess what? It's all going to make sense and everything's going to be fine. But also what could have been, if you had had an extra week and you had an extra set of brackets behind to fade out longer, that's kind of a, that's a foresight thing. That is a planning thing. And that's something that I wish there would be a little bit more of an AW because there was a time when everything storyline wise, at least at the top was like this intricately planned, you know, everything was, was there, every moment was there. We don't get as many of those right now. And I, I don't know why. And it's not a question that I think has been broached as, as efficiently as it could be, but there just could be a little bit more foresight and a little bit more planning ahead for the mid card and those, those little stories that you're trying to tell. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to get back, we're going to get back to AW, but I want to touch on raw, a tiny bit here. I don't smack down was tremendous. I know it's cold news now, but I just want to mention that. I thought they did a great job with that Joe and the ratings told a story, 2.2, 2.3 million viewers tuned in. The rating jumped up, I'm sure it's going to help today with the, when the ratings come out for Monday night raw, Drew McIntyre is fantastic. You know, in another universe, Joel, he did not resign. If CM Punk, if that injury, you know, if the program did not happen, punk did not get injured. And, and if things went a different trajectory, this would be a very different story to tell. You know what I wish they did? I really wish that the rock hadn't announced Drew's resigning. I know. At this point, the way that the story has been, I wish that they had just kept it under wraps, let it stay, let Drew be the will he won't heed, and just let it play out the way it's been now. Let the story stand as it is. But if we had that extra moment of like, is he still signed, is he a free, like, what's going on? That would have added so much more to what we're seeing right now. But yeah, you're right. And another world had Drew not signed. We would be looking at a completely different WWE and the way that things have played out. Yeah. Absolutely. So, no intro. No intro, no nothing. He just went into the ring. He cut a promo on punk. He pretty, he, he stole a friendship bracelet that someone had made for him and I had Larry his dog and AJ, his wife on the name and he said they're going to be in my corner. So he adds even more to this. Bronbreaker continues to look tremendous. He is just incredible. He is a crazy like version of his uncle though. It's remarkable. Even like the high pitched voice, you know, when he yells, fascinating. I hope they make him go bonkers. I hope it comes a Kuku Steiner soon. I just want to be his name. Kuku, Kuku Bron Kuku Steiner, Kuku Steiner. It's Coco Chanel's little brother, Coco Chanel's little brother, Coco, Coco, Coco, Kuku. See, now we're having problems with it. Too many bronze on Monday nights, but Kuku, that's just too far. I want you to be a Bronbreaker, a piece of paper with Steiner math promo written completely out and be like, can you just repeat this like word for word like you're doing it. Just have him cosplay it. And I know he did. He made reference to it on X-T. They're the full thing. Just one week, just just just for SMGs. Just do it. Yeah. Why? Why? Why can't he? Why can't he? I thought they would have done it for on NXT. That's a Halloween show. With the TNA stuff. I would love them to just bring Bron down for one week during that whole build and let them rattle off with Scott Steiner, TNA-famous promo. Fantastic. I want to do it better than him and TNA, I'm better. Just really just diner. The better Steiner. Yeah, the better Steiner. I wanted to ask your opinion on the Liv Morgan stuff. A lot of controversy on the internet about that storyline over the last couple of weeks. And not because I'm being insensitive here. I didn't, I don't see it the same way as many people. I understand why certain people see it that way, obviously. But I don't, I'm not as affected by there to be a racy, sexualized story between Liv Morgan and Dominic. I honestly didn't even put a two and two together until I started seeing the comments. Did you view it that way or did you see it once you started seeing the comments? I saw a couple of comments and I said, okay, yeah, I can see this is being flipped around on its head. Whereas, you know, with the story, basically the story is for those who don't know, you have Vince McMahon allegedly showing inappropriate text messages to coworkers. And what did we see last night on Raw, your Dominic stereo in the clubhouse showing what is supposed to be alluded to as an appropriate text messages photo, whatever, from Liv Morgan. And of course, Carlito, you know, who's doing the best comedy work of his life is just like, oh, that's cool. I understand how people are seeing the comparisons and I'm respectful of that. It doesn't hit me the same way. I don't feel as upset by it. But I do think that there is a reason to take a step back and be like, okay, hold on, before we go too far, we need to make sure we don't step too close to that line. Because WWE isn't always good at being sensitive to what's going on in real life with stories like this. They mean this is one time where I really hope that there's a writer in the back who's like, oh, hold on, we need to look at this. I'm willing to bet that after some of the criticism, they're maybe going to think that way. I don't think there was any intention on mocking what's happening or, you know, taking a jab at what's going on. It's a very, I mean, if this was a couple of years ago, I would say possibly, most likely, you know, when this stuff happened, Vince actually came on TV and he cut a Vince McMahon promo. And you know, we heard what he said. He went to the back and he's a eff them, you know, but I don't see this company today purposely doing that. Could it be? Could it be an oversight? Is it an oversight? I think it's more of an oversight of the sensitivity towards it than anything else. Well, it's not for God, Triple H never read the lawsuit anyway, so you know, I got to tell you also, these, these hand movements are getting, you know, I don't know what's happening. No, my, my, my hair is going to start turning orange soon. I don't know what's happening. It may be it's a Queens thing. I think so. I think I really used to say forget about it and things like that. You already do. One of these, sorry, audio listeners, you've got to tune in for this one. I thought that was good. What did the Y at six stuff continued S.I.C.K.S. they just all have chronic cough. That's what it is. That's the storyline here, guys. They're just, they, they're all spooky guys with chronic cough, cough, but they're sick. Look at all the smoke. A lot of smoke. Of course they're sick. That's why they're sick. Of course. I'm breathing it in. They need to get rid of the smoke and then they'll suddenly be healed. What do you make of it? I like it. I understand it. That's a good one. But I do. You know what? The having the Nikki Cross character come out and present the videotape is, yeah, it's a little cheesy. It's a little corny, but the video itself, the content that delivered, having Bo Dallas Taylor, pretend or whatever, whatever character name he's going to use, facing the version of himself that is not, I don't want to say evil because I don't think what they've been presented as good or evil. It's more just this other alter ego version of himself who's struggling with the loss of his brother and what that means to him, both professionally, personally. I really like the way that they're going with this and I know others have said it and I'm going to say it as well. I hope they do it with the other members of the gang too, because that's going to give you a lot more into the psyche of this group and what they're all about, which is something that you need. It shouldn't feel like you need to say, oh, this is supernatural stuff. So, give them zero reason to say the supernatural stuff. They leave them. The only excuse they have for quote unquote supernatural is when they blow the smoke into the ring. If that's the worst that they do, they used to do it with Finn Ballard too and he wasn't spooky dookie. Yeah, I hope it works. I hope it works for both. I mean, listen, what that family's gone through, obviously, you lose a brother devastating. You lose a husband. You lose a kid son, you know, terrible, especially he was a young man. I hope they do right by the story. I hope there's enough emphasis on this like they've done with the judgment day and they put emphasis on this like they've done with the bloodline. It only helps when you could when something like that gets over for everybody involved. So I hope and I hope they do a good job with it. I don't know. I don't know if the presentation is going to come off hokey because they've taken more of a serious tone with that company a lot of the hokey stuff is gone. It's more presented in a better adult way. Listen, I wish a bunch of very weird messages. Oh, no, they're coming after you coming after me now. Yeah. God. All right, fine. Get your weird messages out. Yeah, I'm sorry. I can't. I'll talk. Well, it's fine. I don't need to follow up on that message. That's okay. The stuff of the wide six. It's interesting. I was I'm interested as to how Pat McAfee was supposed to be involved with this because not only were they in indie and PW tortured reported that McAfee was was okay. He was off the show because of a family emergency. So he was unavailable. With that in mind, you know, while we hope he's okay, I do wonder what the original story was supposed to be because they've been crossing it over to the Pat McAfee show. So I want to see what that goes and if they're going to keep it up because it all depends on what's happening with Pat and again, hopefully he and his family are okay. Yeah, main event was we're all tag team titles on the line to judgment day defeated awesome truth to win the tag titles live attack truth. Truth thought that was Carmella, which was hysterical in the promo live attack truth allowing for Finn to get the win with a coup d'egra. Are you on the air? I can't hear you. Are you on the air? I am now. Now you are. What'd you say? She she said she was going to take everything from Maria. And she is. So here you go. That storyline is progressing. And it's they obviously had a obviously they had a point they were how they were going to start this program and they're following through with it, just taking time with it. You know, Sean only allows MG to speak once a show, you know that that's one too many. One too many. Yeah, that's what he said because you guys come on, but only he gets like 45 seconds. That's it. Save it for Matt, man. That's what he told. Yeah. No, that's good. I wonder if that's saving or just forcing it for forcing it. Also I want to talk about Smackdown really quickly. I thought it was a fantastic Smackdown. We got the debut with Jacob Fattu, the long way to debut. That guy is a menace. So freaking impressive. So impressive. I think people are going to he may be the star of that stable at this point. I think he's going to break out to be the star and also more coming. Piccolo allegedly allegedly and some other people. So we'll see what happens with this and hopefully Roman returns. And they continue to civil war and then the rock interferes and it's that'll be your survivor series. War games match, bloodline, bloodline rules, who's going to who's going to join the Roman reigns side of things, so so Jimmy Roman and he's another one, right? Yeah. They're going to bring in Zilla Fatu. Maybe Zilla Fatu. Maybe hicoleo. Hicoleo. I mean, it's it's a little strange and I kind of positive the idea. I don't know if you have doing Jacob Fatu actually joins up with Roman. But also the writing was a bit on the wall with Jacob Fatu being the werewolf, the crazy guy. The and that's who that's who Solisakoa is recruiting. He's recruiting the the in governables. It's the most include Monabla is the bloodline that is actually that's great. I loved it. I thought it was great. I thought it was really good. Paul Heyman was losing his mind, obviously this was really good stuff, but the Tongans were very confused by all of this. That was the that was the interesting part. Could there be a little bit of a problem already or was it just a look of look of confusion because they didn't know and they're fine with it. We'll find out. Yeah, feels like the latter for for now at least. But we'll see. They announced the match for money in the bank. It's a six man tag. They're going to do KO, Randy and Cody against three members of the bloodline. Who knows who that is? Obviously, so those one of them and who knows they they put Jacob Fatu and both Tongans on the on the on the placard was Triple H was on Pat McAfee show yesterday. I'm not taking a victory lap here, but it's happened. It's happened. He mentioned that there wasn't any commercial that at how there wasn't their sorry. He mentioned how there isn't commercials on Netflix. There isn't going to be any commercials and they will have the freedom of how long to do the show, which is fantastic. I like that. Maybe they could do a two and a half hour show. Maybe to do a three. Maybe they go an hour 45. Why does it matter? Why doesn't matter? It's a sports product. You set your set matches. You set your pro your thing and then you go on. I like that. I'm into it. They also said they don't have to worry about bleeping the holy shit chance. No, that's good. I feel like that's only been on Fox though. No, USA bleeps it. Yeah. USA bleeps it. All the time. I'm Canadian. Oh yeah. You don't get that. Yeah. Is that? Yeah. It's funny, right? How? That's not censored for you guys. Well, let me say this. Okay. Let's go back two years ago. Almost to the to the day. I mean, it actually might be to the day. It was in it was early July or late. MG, find when I tweeted that actually I think it's in the group chat. Find it in the group chat, please. I mean, I was literally sent the email like the screenshot from the chat saying that they will be moving to TV 14 July 16th or whatever it was 14th and I reported it and it blew up and within 45 minutes, I got sent another screenshot of another message saying we jumped the gun on this. He's never supposed to leave this, leave this conversation and it totally fell apart. So in that that point, I'm like, did I get bad information? This would have been a big one. Right? Like how bad was this? Other other people confirmed this. I think Sean was able to confirm it and Dave was able to confirm it. And then I had dinner with somebody at WWE. It was July 14th. It was set for. But when did I tweet it? Oh, I tweeted it at July 14th, it was set for the 17th, I think. So almost two years to the day. And they, they, the first question goes, how the hell did you know? Because it was like within the minute of the conversation happening. I posted it and then they got pissed and they pulled it. But it, it hadn't, it didn't really have to do at that point with blood and violence. It had more to do with censorship of, you know, certain words. And then remember they were doing the stuff in Matt Riddle and, and Seth Rollins and that was a little bit more adult and they felt that they don't want to bleep if it's meaningful. And that's really what it was. Listen, now we're here two years later. Was I right, Joel? I mean, eventually, yes, you were right. Or was it a push? I think this is a push. I, I don't know where it lands. I don't. Because also, you know, you also mentioned the idea of like, oh, you don't care how long it is. It's just like sports. Well, what are every sports trying to do right now? They're trying to cut down on the length of their events. They're trying to make it shorter and shorter because like we say with TikTok and see attention spans are gone. So raw being either two hours, two and a half hours, three and a half hours, five hours, that might be a problem. I am hoping that they keep to a certain format. If they're not going to run commercials or I don't, I don't know, man, once the presentation comes, that's what I'm going to see it. But just like when they do PLEs and they say for peacock premiums that people, this is what you're going to see. And it's a Chad Gable five minute promo. They might just run stuff like that. I hope they don't. But they got to fill in the gap somehow when it comes to advertising and just putting it on putting stuff around the ring can only go so far when you can literally make money on three hours of your programming, however you choose to do it. I'm very curious about how that show is going to be presented. More to talk about that later. A W forbidden door. You're not coming to this. I'm very upset. I'm sorry. I had a bad made for you. I had my blood mattress made for you. I had, I pumped it up and everything. I'm sorry. To me. Did you poke a little pin in it too, just so that it would eventually be at the bottom of every school night? That's that's later when once you once you sleep on it, I creep in the middle night just poke a little tiny hole in it. Thank you. Listen, this is a this is a fun card. I'm looking forward to being here to see the show. Uh, I've only been to UBS once and it was for the circus. And now you're going back. And now I'm going back for the circus Owen Hart cup tournament first round match. You got Brian Danielson, Shango Takagi. This is a fun match. Yep. Uh, and MJF hinge, peach and Sarah. I don't know how this is going to work. This is obviously a replacement. This was a replacement. Sarah. Yeah. Listen, MJF is going to get over. He's going to get a huge chant that'll be a display for MJF and he'll win. That's it. I don't think it mattered who he was rustling, to be honest. I think for that, for the crowd in the building, I think for everybody else that mattered, I think for the crowd in the building, they're going to lose their minds for him. Zach Sabre, Jr. Orange Cassidy, Tony Storm, Mina Mercedes, Stephanie Viqueur. You got the A.W. T.N.T. See, I don't know why this is on the show. The T.N.T. championship ladder match, you're breaking the whole concept here with this. Takeshita, Mark Brisco, Jack Perry, Leo Rush, Dante Martin and TBA. Maybe that's the forbidden door. So Rampage has been taped already. They have not announced that one of those matches that will air on Friday will be a T.N.T. Championship ladder match qualification match, but there's one that I'm looking at specifically and saying, if you're going to do it, it's this one. And the winner of that match makes sense to be the new Japan representative in this T.N.T. title match. I agree. It's very non forbidden door, but hey, that's just what happens on a card of 14 matches. Yeah. I mean, it is what it is. IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, John Moxley, Naito, you know what? That's a great match. And I think it's going to be fantastic. And A.W. World Championship on the line swerve Strickland will Osprey. Is it too soon for that match? No, it's not. Do it now. There is a chance to come around on it later. Osprey hasn't lost yet in A.W. You want to build swerve up as a more, even more important champion, especially with his storyline with the elites, he beats Will Osprey. Let the Ospreyans play a part. I wouldn't, I don't know. There's a part of me that says I wouldn't doubt it, but also, again, how strong do you want swerve to be going into what would be blood and guts coming up next, and then later on going into London and all in, there's more opportunity for swerve, in my opinion. And again, whether or not the Owen results play into that is another question. But I feel like Will's got other plans for London this year. Yeah. We'll see. I'm curious what it is. Guys, submit your questions, submit your questions in the chatroom. We will do our best to answer them. If you hit a super chat, we'll put you to the front of the line. So I'll give you guys a couple minutes to compile some questions. What match are you looking forward to the most on that card? For several reasons, the Tony Storm in a Chicago match sounds like it's gonna be a good time. There's a lot of story that's been built up there. Again, I've made reference to it earlier. The women's division has some great stories going. On top of that swerve and Osprey, for the idea who's gonna win, is it too early? What's this match looking like? What are the implications going into all in? And Naito and Moxley is just kind of a culmination of what started in Chicago with the Windry City Riot when Moxley captured that title from Naito. This is the possibility of Naito winning it back, going into the G1, crossing over Naito going into the G1 with the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship and starting that whole story again. Yeah. I like that this is kind of a non-canon show. But now they're making, I liked it that way. Now there's something happening here. I think Stephanie, the Stephanie of Acair stuff, I'm curious how this match is gonna go. Will Mercedes, does Mercedes take back the New Japan Strong title? Yeah, they've been telling you for weeks that the New Japan Strong Openweight Women's Championship was made for Mercedes Monet and the only reason she didn't get it was because she got injured in the championship match that she was supposed to win for the New Japan Strong Women's Championship. So I guess she takes that title. And she'll take it wherever she wants to, well, the New Japan Strong Women's Championship is supposed to be US only. So they'll find ways to have Mercedes go and work anywhere she wants. But yeah, this is just another cap in Mercedes Monet, you know, another title in the cap in Mercedes Monet. That's great. Yeah, sure. Maybe some surprises, too. Maybe we'll get some surprise appearances also. Yeah, we'd love it. Yeah. Looking forward to it. We have questions, MJ, our star-studded production team here. One second. Yep. There we go. Let's do some questions and then we're out of here. Who eventually return, whose eventual return do you think will provide the biggest shot in the arm for A.W., Kenny, Cole, or Hangman? You know, I think all three are very needed. I think it's probably Kenny because we really have not seen, and also Cole, too, we really haven't seen what they could do in that company. I mean, we got more Kenny than Adam Cole, but Adam Cole's been hurt multiple times. We've never really gotten a fair Adam Cole run at all, right? No, we haven't. He got concussed. Yeah. And then he-- That was perfect for me. Yeah. And then his foot. Yep. And it was something else. And then he was sick for a while. Yeah. And everything that happened with the foot that started Grand Slam last year, that was in the middle of a main event storyline with MJF. That was, you know, however you felt about it, it was still the top of the corner. For me, Kenny and Hangman are the two bigger names, at least with the way A.W. is positioning their stories right now. Kenny got taken out by the Elite, the Elite have a blood and gut story coming, Hangman swerve, the Elite, everything comes together at one point. That makes most sense to, you know, provide that big shot in the arm. So just realistically, Hangman's probably coming back first out of the three. Yeah. Dude, I will say, when that machine is well-oiled and everybody's healthy, it is really an impressive, just an impressive show to watch, dynamite and collision. When everybody's healthy there, you know, I don't know what's going on with collision at this point. I don't know what the plan moving forward for it is. I know what it was originally, and I know what it became when punk was there. Originally, it was just a replacement show for all the, you know, just, they needed to, they lost two hours of, you know, just content that they were putting on YouTube and Warner wanted all their stuff, all their wrestling on TV. So that's what they did. And they found a unique opportunity to make this, you know, like the Smackdown of, of to Raw and then everything fell apart. It is crazy. We never got to see Kenny Omega CM Punk. We never got to see that rematch with MJF. We never got to see half of those matches that we wanted to see. Once again, we did Nazi Danielson and Punk. And they're never done. Yeah, it's never going to happen. Over the limit, 2012, that's all you get over the limit, 2012 is what, yeah, it's crazy. You know, somebody, somebody from a UW said to me, went early on when punk was there, right? Cause like, I guess like it just little stuff started happening. Yeah, they, they wrote to me, they say, they said, they better get through all these like dream matches they wanted to do because I don't know how long this is last time. Thank God. They have a great mental health team there. Yeah. Yeah. And that has been set up over the last little while. Shout out to them. They're great. Yeah. What else do we have? One second. Just had it. There we are. All right. Also, wasn't the previous years Owen winner supposed to be in the tournament two? Where's Ricky? Oh, yeah. Well, that was a stipulation for the first year, right? For the second year, the previous winners are in it. Honestly, I can't remember because I'm thinking about the continental crown, the continental classic where the winner goes to defend that title every year, every year. So I don't know if we were supposed to have the winner of the own involved. I mean, we know the willows involved and she won last year. Yeah. Ricky has been MIA for quite a while. That's a good story on I'm curious what's going on with Ricky. Yeah. Maybe he's the wild card. I got to tell you, man, after that, after that CM Punk program, I don't know why it just something happened. And then he got totally destroyed by edge. As is tradition. As is tradition. He got edged. We're all legend today. We're all legend. I'm an edger. Are you an edger? You know, it depends on the day, it depends on what I'm feeling. I go. Yeah. Sometimes I like Christian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Sometimes I'm a kill switcher source kind of guy. Yeah. I'm a kill switcher source type of guy. That's his name, right? In it? What else do we have? Do fans want good optics more than storytelling in AEW? You know what? I think that's a great question, right? Is the product the problem or is it the optics? I just want my stories to make sense. I think I love the optics. People can give me bad faith arguments all day long. Good for them. I don't care. Do you want to know what my, do you want to know what my real assessment is of what happened to that company? Like I'm not talking about like internal. I'm talking about like viewership wise, right? Sure. Cody leaving was the first hit, okay? It came out of no. I don't think people expected it. I, when I got that phone call, I didn't believe it. When I spoke to Uncle Dave, when I found out what happened, I was like, I don't know. Is it? I thought maybe it's like a little bit of WWE misinformation. The propaganda ministry kind of put something out there and they wanted to float, you know? No, that was a, that was 1999. That was a 100 ticker. No, no, no. That was a 40,000 ticket sold. That's what it was. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was a 40,000 ticket sold. That was it. I, that was obviously a big hit. The punk stuff, I, I still have not recovered from that. It really hurt my viewing. I, I don't know why I'm not a, I'm not a huge CM punk fan whatsoever. I, I think he's tremendous, but it's not like he's my guy. I don't feel like that way about any of them. I, there's so many that I, Danielson. You know what? Danielson's my guy. Love Danielson. I, I just found the whole thing so off putting how it was, he's coming. He's not, he's hurt. He's not, it just overall, I was like, okay, I got tired of it. The internal stuff, I got tired of it. Even leaving, maybe it was a fresh idea. And then 2023, they went into more story driven stuff. And I don't think it was good storytelling. This year has been better way better. They got their act together, but they just need to get people's confidence back into tuning in every week. That's my assessment. I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with our TV show. I still think Dynamite is fantastic. I, I, I like it most weeks over, not liking it. I could probably count how many shows I have. I don't like. That's fair. I, I think that's for most people if you're, if you're viewing AEW weekly, you could probably, and fairly, right? You're viewing it fairly. You could probably count, maybe on two hands, you know, five years is a long time. Maybe on two hands. Maybe they've had 10 terrible shows, bad shows. How many rows can you name in the last five years that were terrible? Oh, come on. That's not fair. There was an entire, you know, 52, 104, like, come on. You've got years where you can say that there were, there were bad episodes. Okay. Let's, let's go. Okay. Let's do this. Let's do this. Let's go to the last two years. How many rows over the last two years, you know, the transition period are better or worse than others? I think they're, they're all mostly duds. And I watch it fairly. I'm not one of these guys that picks, I think, raw most weeks is just a show. Yeah. There's, there's a whole other conversation with how we consume and how we as, as, as hosts as commentary type of people and wrestling, how we're, how we do it. If you have to do live recaps, if you have to do, you know, post shows right afterwards, or if you have the benefit of, you know, turning it off, watching it in scripts and scrabs, like I do, like, I watched the main event this morning. I didn't stay out. I was like, missing our truth or in the main event, they're probably going to drop tag titles. Okay. How's it going to play out? Okay. I'll watch it tomorrow morning when I wake up after my shower when I'm waiting for my kid to wake up and then I'll go. I will say this, AEW has a very, very online fan base. For better or worse, that's the way it's been marketed, that's the way it is. However, good optics, sure that that'll get some people happy, but good storytelling will go so much further into getting those online people to say, Hey, you got to watch this. This dude just drank this guy's blood and they're fighting over the fact that he broke into his house and, you know, went and dropped the shirt on the baby and the baby could have choked on the shirt. There are stories here or you've got these two women fighting over their best friend slash maybe lover slash they have a history and they're fighting over a title. Like, they're giving me the stories that make me want to talk about watching your television program. Nobody said you got to watch Breaking Bad because Brian Cranston's putting on the best performance of his life. No, they're saying, watch Breaking Bad. They're finally going to figure out that the stories come together and they merge at the end and yadda, yadda, yadda, if you've seen Breaking Bad, you know, no one was calling you to say, look at the actors. They want you to watch the story. That's what I wish people would spend more time focusing on in and out of wrestling is the stories and whether they're good and how they could be better. And when they're good, you celebrate it. I couldn't have said about it, really. It really is a fair. If the story storyline is good and it's captivating programming, you're going to tune in. How many times are people, you know, I hate doing Monday night war stuff, but like, how many times did you hear the story? This is how you call your friend during the break. Hey, this is happening on Nitro. You should watch. This is amazing. The NWO are going after DDP. Yeah. Go to now and they'll be like, oh, I got to see this because DDPs is up and coming star or whatever it was. Meanwhile on Ross, like, oh, you'll never, you know, Austin just got attacked by the corporate ministry and their group down. What's the corporate ministry? And the corporation together, everybody's a cynic now. Everybody's a critic. Everybody's a cynic. You pick out the negatives. You don't pick out the positives that I that's it just weird Internet culture. I don't. I'll add to this. Sorry. I'm going to cut you off because I tweeted about this yesterday. There was someone and I'm not going to give this person air. Someone tweeted out a whole. Samantha Irvin's most cringe WWE videos and I'm like, why are people interacting with this? Stop getting angry and immediately reacting. Take a step back. Breathe. I have so much in my regular life to get angry about. Yes. Stop getting into the bullshit, because once you do that, you're just getting a rationally angry over something. Hey, you don't control and be this person's just trying to get more clout over their stupid take because it you know how that take ended, by the way, bring back Lillian Garcia, Lillian didn't. Do you know how I saw so many of that bring back Lillian Garcia? I'm like, why? These are people like because these are people who grew up watching Lillian. These are the same. Yeah. But I grew up watching Fink. That's and that's a thing. 10 years ago. People would have done the same thing. I never thought once, dude, I never thought once like obviously Finkle was great. I never thought once watching wrestling like, ah, this, you know, bring back the Fink. Tony Schimmel sucks. People are looking for something to get angry about so that they can be performative on the internet and let you react to it. Yeah. It's all about giving into its stopping attention to it. Please. It's it's very performative. I I just I honestly and I could do so much more in this wrestling space like I we've spoken about this. I could do so much more. I've had tremendous opportunities come my way and I'm so grateful of it and this is one of them. Right. I'm here on Fightful. This is one of the premier places. I'm on observer. One of the premier places for wrestling coverage. I don't get involved with the like the anti deep stuff, the anti Sean stuff. You know what I say? Go fuck yourself. You don't know these people. Okay. That that's my answer. If I know you as a person, I don't associate with, I mean, a lot of my friends are scumbags, but these two are not. Okay. These two are not. I don't associate with bad faith actors in any in anything like I'm very good on judging character on people. When I see people go after Sean, listen, I don't give a shit with someone's political views or I don't care what your wrestling take is. Are you a decent person? Are you are you doing something positive for the community? Are you are you purposely going out and harming people? That's how I judge you. I don't judge you on your wrestling take. There are so many things. The goal is, I mean, we're good friends. There's so much that we don't agree with. I don't have to agree with them. We have conversations. It's fun. That's what you're supposed to. This is supposed to be fun. I've gotten so turned off to a lot of this discourse. It really has turned me off. The Mercedes stuff was the icing on the freaking cake for me. I'm like, oh my God, these are I'm not I'm not in a normal space. This is a very bizarre world that I'm in. And again, listen, it's it's it's spill over from everything else happening in the world. You know, common sense is kind of out. You got to you got to be a little extreme to get that like and get the retweet. Nobody will retweet me when I say Monday Night Raw was okay. What are you trying to say? What are you trying to say? Do you love it? Whatever, he's going to think it's going to do 300 million. It's wild stuff. All right. What else do we have? Keep putting on the on the screen when I end to push me along here, MG. Should Braun beat Sammy in Canada? Well, you're the expert on this. I want a clean finish. I want Sammy to win. The only reason that Sammy doesn't win is because he loses and moves up to the world title. And I don't want that either because it's too early for me at least to be there. So, Braun Breaker is also on a huge stretch right now. I don't know and I like that I don't know. There's no clear cut answer. Last time I watched Sammy work in Canada was Montreal, was a elimination chamber in 2023. The hell of a match and he lost it. But he was the star of that week. He was the guy and, you know, not to say that he's not popular now, but, you know, he's in the match. He's got a big, he's got a marquee match with the Intercontinental Championship. Kevin Owens is going to be in a big six man tag. So like the Canadian telling are getting represented, but this is the champion that, you know, should be, I don't, I think he should keep it. I think he should retain the title in this match. I hate the look of the health. I hate the look of it. I know. It's the artist belt. Yeah. It is the artist. Yeah. I don't like the look. The art deco belt. It is an art deco belt. It's an art deco belt. Yeah. A says, I trust Bose Vision for the storyline. How long should the storyline be for? As long as it's hot. I mean, really, if that storyline is continuing and people are interested, then you continue it. You do something with it. I just, I would like to have Bo in a serious, like, he doesn't need to be Uncle Howdy. He could be something else. I thought the best version of the riots was the Cape Fear version of the riots. I, I'm not saying you got to go back to that, but less, less, you know, mysticism and more just the unknown helps. I hope they could continue it. I don't know. Is it a, is it a one-year story? Is it a six-month story? I, I, I can't even, it's so weird. Like I don't know how it'll, it'll work, but the bracelet continued on for years. Well, sometimes to a detriment, my hope here is the bloodline continued as well for and it continues to this, to this day. And there have been ups and downs in that series. That's a, that's not like, you know, a zombie girl in a, in a, in a, in a leather face. Oh, hold on. So this is why, this is why I talk about the alter egos being a thing and why this, the, they need to get rid of the spooky concepts as soon as possible so that we're not sitting here and saying, oh, they're trying to do spooky because of this. Sometimes a mask is an alter ego. And remember 1994 is the mask. We all wear a mask metaphorically speaking. That is almost what I'm seeing for a story like this where eventually all of these wrestlers that the mask comes off and they are themselves again, I hope that that's the resolution to the story. Yeah. But as to how long it should be, it should be as a long, I'm hoping that they, they came up with the end of the story and the beats come along the way, but I'm hoping that they planned for the finish and I'm hoping that they given the longevity needed to make it make sense and not have to find filler along the way. This version of WWB is the only one that I think that has thought of the, how to end it if they need to end it. Yeah. I have enough confidence to think that they know what they're doing with this. Hey, Andrew and Joel, there's a, there's talk, WWE is purposely trying to neutralize everything, everything different about a w with long matches, blood, language work, working with other feds thoughts. I don't, I don't think they're thinking that way. I just think this is they're going back to professional wrestling. I, I, it's triple H, he's a wrestling fan. He grew up in, in that era where you had, you know, uh, nutty matches and blood and language. They worked with ECW and listen, working with other feds, there's also a legal reason for this. Thank you for getting there. Cause I was okay. I, I, I want people to realize like, they're not doing this for the, for the goodness in their heart to make TNA better who TNA is the one gaining a lot from this. Obviously, not WWE, WWE working with TNA doesn't really do anything other than, I mean, obviously listen, for the fan base, it's really cool for Jordan and Grace to come in. It's really cool to see this. I'm all for it. I think it's tremendous that Jordan's getting that exposure and I hope to see more of it, especially with TNA, there's, there, there's so many great wrestlers there that I would love to see get so much more exposure. They're helping them, you know, you know, independent contract laws are changing in the United States. The way you define an independent contract of 1099 is changing for good and bad. By the way, I'm not, I know a little bit about 1099s. I, I don't, I don't love all the changes that are happening, but there is changes happening, especially on the WWE side. These people are employees. They're not independent contractors. They can't go and work somewhere else. They can't go and do whatever they want. They can't work on, you know, short term contracts. They don't get the benefits of an employee. This kind of alleviates some of that when, if there is a lawsuit, they're going to say, well, look, look how welcoming we are. AJ Styles is wrestling in Japan. This one is TNA. Look, we open our door. We let other people in. We're very friendly to independent contract and look how well we pay them when they show up. It's also with the antitrust stuff. It's also the, yeah, the antitrust. They didn't want to drop another $20 million to MLW just because of a TV deal. This is them saying, look, we worked with these guys and we worked with these guys. It kind of is a win-win. I mean, listen, I'm talking to corporate side, right? It's a win-win for the corporate side of stuff and it's a win-win for the talent and it's a win-win for the audience watching because it's always the unknown. You don't know who could show up. I like that. That's fine. I, but I don't think it's a, it's a direct attack at AW. I, I think maybe, you know, they probably think about this where they, they do know the match qualities have to change based on, again, optics, how people talk about AW matches versus WWE matches. But also now the talent has more control also and you don't have Kevin dumb producing it. You don't have Vince McMahon there. Uh, you're going to see wrestlers wrestle and I think that's tremendous. That's great. Yeah. Should be that way. Yeah. Can Mercedes get new feuds instead of rematches? I mean, she's in our new feud. Well, the rematch here is, yes, Stephanie Vacher and Mercedes Monet met in the first round of the New Japan Strong Women's Open Way Championship. Yeah. I mean, it was so long and nobody saw it either. You know? Yeah, fewer people saw, but also like we're, we're tying up loose ends. Mercedes just debuted. She's had two matches. I'm, I'm, I'm sitting on Mercedes. I, I, I want to see her do well there because I think it's a positive for the division. I think it's a positive for the company. The promos are a little blah. Yeah. If we're going to talk about what, what we want from Mercedes, I want a direction from her of, are you, are you a babyface or a heel? Can we not do the shades of gray stuff? Because your fans will ride with you. That's fine. But like in the ring, can we, can we get, can we settle somewhere? Yeah. That's what I want. Who will be the surprise opponent for Jeff Cobb? Who will be the surprise opponent for Jeff Cobb? Jeremy and I talked about this on the weeds and there's a general consensus that Jeff Cobb is trying to shoot himself into a work, brother. What dynamite is tonight's or sorry, dynamite is tomorrow night. Tomorrow night. It's not tonight. There's an, there's a possibility that they announce it because they do announce last-minute matches on these shows. Maybe Jeff Cobb shows up and someone answers the challenge. At that point, surprise opponent, man, I don't even know. The only person I would have wanted is that, is Eddie Kingston, but Eddie Kingston isn't going to be around a little while longer yet. Other than that, man, it just, it's, it's not a match that I necessarily need to see. I like Jeff Cobb. It's another new Japan title, you know, at stake on the program, other than that. I just felt like Jeff Cobb threw it out there and everyone ran with it. Yeah. Uh, Ninjas says, and Matt Riddle shows up, I'm out. I, I get it. Yeah. That's beyond the bell, what is WWE ID, WWE independent development? I don't know. What is that? Well, you see when Neil is flying around under a radar, I don't know what that is. When somebody goes to an intro, sorry, when someone goes to blood sport, like a Nick Conner, or William Regal and they go and they watch the matches and maybe someone from the, the show is on the match. It's like they're, um, looking at the development of independent talent. Is that what it is? WWE ID? That's exactly what it feels like there there's, it feels like this is their scouting indie wrestling talent. And this is going to be their official name for it could be wrong. That's what I read into it. They have the NIL program. That's their athletic. That's their athletes. They're outside of wrestling athletes program. Independent development seems very much like they're trying to find and target those who are already in the ring, already wrestling and finding and identifying, developing those people. Okay. Well, that explains it. What else do we have MJ? Can we expect Jamie Hader, Dr. brick breaker at all in Wembley? I mean, they're both soon. I mean, that's, that's what I've been told soon. I don't know what soon means. Don't know where they slot in. Yeah. I mean, Brett Baker, definitely, I, I think the big story for Brit is showing up with Mercedes and doing something that's a, that's a, that's a mega mega match for them. Yeah. You know, home grown star and AEW home grown star in that, in that first big crop out of NXT of, of top women's wrestlers. That's a tremendous match. Yeah. They can do a whole, there's a whole thing there. Yeah. Let's do two more. All right. Fun one here. Scenario. Extremely test and found out that you're part of the Anoa family tree. What would your bloodline name be? You know, we are all the rock's cousins. That is a bit that, that, that rich and I have done on Matt men for years that we are all the rock's cousins, especially, especially Joel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can, you can tell. I'm actually Lance on the YA in a suit. What would my, what would my bloodline name be? I don't know. The audience needs to make the name for me. I think the audience should come up with the, uh, the name for Joel and myself. Listen, for me, I already know it's going to be like solo secoastime, like I already know what the, the, the, the, do you, do you, do you like lean in to the gimmick? Do you wear like a big star they hit too? Yeah. Yes. I wear, it's not, I wear the olefala because I had my people. Yeah. One of it is a big Magadam, big two star of David. Yeah. That's what they do. And then, yeah, they call me the, they call me the, uh, instead of the ooze on the ooze. The ooze. Oooze. You know what? That was fantastic. Fantastic. All right. Let's do one more. Wait, wait, Andrew doesn't like zombie girl zombie girl. Seriously? I mean, who doesn't like a zombie? If they were vampires, you'd be having a, if they, if they, you know what? That's where they screwed up. Okay. That is where they screwed. They should have just been vampirous. What it worked. You know, I, you, you wouldn't want to see like the manage by like a vampire version of like a sergeant slaughter. I want to suck your blood maggots. I still stand by my booking a Bruno San Martino becoming a vampire and he had to leave the territory because nobody's blood, everybody's blood was tainted in that era in the late 80s. The blood is tainted. Oh, Joe man. Oh, go get black tattoo. That's the original tattoo. That's the original one. The original one. That's where that's where he came from guys. This was a blast catch Joel tomorrow in the weeds, 10 AM East and Fightful Overbooked. You would Jeremy do a tremendous job. I will try to tune in. I'll try to call in. I'll definitely tune in. I listen almost every week or every show, but coming on has been quite difficult. But I think things are settling now. So I'll be on more. Anything else you want to plug? No, those are the main things. I do the TNA post show over on, Hey, listen, I do enjoy TNA. I will be at money in the bank. I will be a GCW in Toronto. I will also be speaking of TNA at slam a verse a re in July. So, you know, you come and hang out of your talent and you happen to be watching and you want to do an interview with sit down chatty chat. Get at me. I'm at Joel Pearl on all social medias, J-O-E-L-P-E-A-R-L. Absolutely. And we'll see you next week on Beyond the Bell. Take care. Hey, your job. Do you ever have to deal with a nose roller? How about a snub bully? Well, if you're installing a new conveyor belt system, dealing with the different components can sound like you're speaking a foreign language. Luckily, you've got a team ready to help. Granger's technical product specialists are fluent in maintenance, repair and operations. So whenever you want to talk shop, just reach out. Call clickgranger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. You
