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0:47

Welcome to another round of boardroom!

0:49

All mirror I bought today we

0:51

don't Retrospectives with agile coach Maria.

0:53

Let's go. First question: you spent

0:56

two hours in a team retro

0:58

but the only him for jihad

1:00

is Dave Sport Room or Mirabaud

1:02

Border. An Emirati Dave can't have this

1:04

face because everyone can add that's anonymously

1:07

online at the same time. Correct. Next,

1:09

You need that seem to act

1:11

on feedback fast so you turn

1:14

all those retro notes integer tasks

1:16

instantly. Miro all the way and

1:18

I can assign are tasked to teammates

1:20

your. Nailing Less Now you see

1:23

hundreds of sticky notes from the

1:25

Retro. A real mess, but you

1:27

organize them into five themes and

1:29

just second zero. I basically get back

1:32

and entire hour when I use it's a

1:34

I Tools for clustering. And she's done

1:36

it to in over sixty million

1:38

people running. Actually enjoyable and actionable.

1:41

Rancheros and Mira did your first

1:43

three boards free and nero.com that's

1:45

a my our own.com. When.

1:49

It's when it's been game, it's own

1:51

reminder which on a lake and waiting

1:53

me a dizzying them being says that

1:55

these means we see in the ring

1:57

every week on T V is. Hello

2:13

hello hello, Welcome everybody to

2:15

another edition or rewind or

2:17

all. This one hosted by

2:19

me waiting. John Hollings is

2:21

on a scheduled. Rare.

2:23

Day Off On! If you guys

2:26

heard Rwanda smackdown those of you

2:28

in the cafe you might have

2:30

noticed said he was a little

2:32

bit under the weather then hopefully

2:34

he's feeling a bit better but

2:36

he will return on Wednesday for

2:38

our a Double shot appalling with

2:40

public interest in also Rwanda dynamite

2:42

but in his place I am

2:44

so honored and so privileged to

2:46

welcome my man your Man Army

2:48

and Neil Flanagan to rewind or

2:50

ah while the introduction way psyche

2:53

so much Csl. And pulling a

2:55

late one to step in for Johnny

2:57

having a the having a very very

2:59

well earned. Night. Or. I

3:02

did wonder at first with our should pretend

3:04

to have kidnapped him or something like that.

3:06

You know because I did. I was listening

3:08

to Rewind to Smack Down and when he

3:10

after doing the recap. You don't

3:12

need told us that movie or non patrons

3:14

do. It's John. Sort of

3:16

have to show that stage because he really

3:18

was film rather sick and you said, outlast

3:20

us got rid of them. To

3:25

That's Mondays are when I feel like

3:27

I've really need. A

3:29

cold highlight here so on my i'm not

3:32

I'm sure he's not really that envious of

3:34

other or position tonight I'm But thank you

3:36

Neil for joining us and I'm very glad

3:38

for at least one particular segment that are

3:40

my of an Irishman or join me for

3:43

for Director of Right or Wrong to I'd

3:45

like to most famously I know what you're

3:47

talking about. Not

3:49

a problem are we are here? Of course

3:51

we're going to break down tonight's debate of

3:54

Iraq. but we also have some out or news

3:56

stories to get to and i'm a lot of

3:58

says might not be aware but you know So

4:00

outside of occasionally filling in for a while to

4:02

smack down with me on these shows, Neil

4:05

is one of the writers along with

4:07

Andrew Thompson, Jack Wanon, John Pollock of

4:09

course who writes news stories on our

4:11

website and with John taking a

4:13

bit of a day off, Neil was actually

4:15

contributing heavily into the news reporting tonight on

4:18

the show. So I thought for our new

4:20

segment we'd kind of maybe throw it over

4:22

to him at least for the first several

4:24

stories today, Neil. Thanks,

4:27

Will. Yeah, it's

4:29

a weird one for me to be sort of taking the

4:31

reins like this. And I did

4:33

start today thinking, well, this is all very

4:35

quiet stuff, a couple of injury updates and

4:37

then of course the bigger stories come

4:39

a little bit later in the day and I think the

4:42

major one to kick off with really is

4:45

the latest in the Janelle Grant lawsuit case.

4:49

And this is the latest move from

4:51

the Vince McMahon camp. Now,

4:53

of course, this case is getting a little bit complicated

4:56

at this point with the trading

4:58

of legal filings. So

5:00

for this story, I'll try to just

5:02

keep it to the Vince McMahon side

5:04

of things, even though,

5:07

of course, the original complaint on

5:09

January 25th from Janelle Grant is

5:11

against WWE, corporately,

5:15

Vince McMahon and John Lornitis

5:17

and there have been various

5:20

other developments for

5:23

the other defendants. But in this

5:25

story is really on the Vince

5:27

side of things and

5:29

attorneys acting for Vince McMahon filed

5:32

a legal memorandum today

5:35

with the US District Court and

5:38

it asks that. Apologies.

5:47

What it does is to

5:50

oppose Janelle Grant's

5:52

motion to

5:54

strike inflammatory statements in

5:57

Vince's request. quest

6:00

for arbitration. Now let me just rewind a bit and I'll

6:02

get my bearings here. I think it's best to go through

6:04

a timeline. After

6:07

Janelle Grant's original

6:10

complaint, it

6:12

took until April 23rd

6:14

for the McMahon camp to

6:18

give a formal response. There was a

6:20

fairly cursory denial. And we

6:23

had what looked like a kind

6:25

of planted story in the New York

6:27

Post about love letters and so on.

6:30

But on the legal side of things,

6:32

it took all the way up to

6:34

April 23rd when McMahon's team lodged a

6:36

29-page filing and

6:38

it requested that Grant's complaint

6:40

should not be heard in

6:42

court but should go

6:45

to arbitration and that that would be in

6:47

line with the original NDA agreement. Arbitration

6:50

would be a private matter behind closed

6:52

doors and I think obviously that would

6:55

suit Vince McMahon quite well. The

6:57

next day on April 24th,

7:01

Janelle Grant's representation filed

7:03

a motion asking the

7:05

court to strike not

7:07

all but a

7:09

huge amount of that 29-page

7:11

filing from McMahon because

7:14

a very large portion

7:17

of it is called a preliminary statement

7:19

in which McMahon said

7:21

his lawyers basically tried to debunk an

7:24

awful lot of what was in

7:26

the original complaint. So

7:29

Janelle Grant's representation was saying

7:31

that McMahon did not use

7:33

this motion in an appropriate manner to

7:36

argue legal arguments about why it

7:38

should go into arbitration. He

7:40

used this preliminary statement

7:44

as a platform to launch a lot of

7:48

incendiary remarks and put

7:51

Janelle Grant's moral character in question,

7:54

talk about her boyfriend, all this stuff

7:56

and they were saying that wasn't necessary

7:58

or reasonable and should be straightened. So

8:01

this latest, that gets us to today

8:04

and the latest in it is that

8:06

McMahon has lodged his

8:08

formal opposition to do the motion

8:10

to strike. And

8:14

really what it does is actually double

8:16

down on a

8:18

lot of the accusations

8:21

against grants, you know, with the talks about private

8:26

sexual text messages that

8:29

were in the original complaint and

8:31

that they didn't include any of the

8:33

plaintiffs' responses to those texts. But

8:37

also notes that Vince deleted all of

8:39

those texts so he doesn't have them,

8:42

but they're confident that this would come out in

8:44

discovery. And

8:47

it goes on

8:50

to list an awful

8:52

lot more of sort of allegations about

8:54

what was in responses of

8:57

texts or texts that

8:59

Janelle Grant had instigated with Vince

9:01

McMahon, that he was her best

9:03

friend, the love of her life, etc, etc, etc. A

9:07

lot of this stuff has been aired already

9:10

in the story that was in the New

9:12

York Post. So that's

9:15

the latest on that case. When

9:19

you get into the legal stuff, it's

9:21

basically citing legal arguments and case law

9:23

to say this motion

9:25

to strike our response

9:29

doesn't have proper legal

9:32

standing. And

9:34

that's where we stand. So we've had

9:36

the original complaint, McMahon's

9:38

response, a response asking

9:41

for a lot of that to be stricken, and

9:43

then today McMahon's

9:45

response to that. So

9:49

just the next inner line of volleys

9:51

of these two sides trying to

9:54

get this case into arbitration. Can we deduce it

9:56

as that, you know, Vince? of

10:00

course responded saying this should be done

10:02

with basically, you know, within the confines

10:04

of our own sort of setting. General

10:06

Green's side says, no,

10:09

it shouldn't. We want it to be, I

10:11

guess, communicated to a larger platform. And

10:14

this has been saying, well, this is

10:16

why. Like, but specifically to

10:18

at least new information. I mean, I

10:21

do think this

10:23

is maybe more interesting because

10:25

you have Vince's sides

10:28

alleging that the reason

10:31

for those text messages that we've

10:33

seen are the result of participation

10:37

from General Green and maybe even

10:39

prompting an initiation from General Green.

10:42

Now, this is all presumably from

10:45

Vince's own recollection because they've announced

10:47

that he's deleted all of these

10:49

texts. I

10:52

don't know enough about like, you know, the technology

10:54

behind these sort of text messages about whether or

10:56

not they'd be able to be retrieved, whether or

10:58

not General Grant herself has these

11:01

on file or she's only screen-shotted her

11:03

own or Vince's own

11:05

responses. But do you

11:07

have any thoughts just maybe about this kind of new,

11:09

you know, defense or element from

11:12

of this case? It's interesting

11:14

that Vince's side

11:16

was saying he doesn't have any

11:19

record of these texts and he

11:21

deleted them in their terms. Once

11:23

the relationship ended, that's his way

11:25

of phrasing it. Who

11:29

knows whether that's true or not,

11:31

or whether a court could even get to the bottom

11:33

of that. This isn't a police matter at this point.

11:35

It's a civil one. There may

11:38

be a federal criminal

11:40

track at some point, but I

11:43

think it's not unexpected,

11:45

I guess, that

11:48

he would come out and try to say, well,

11:50

look, these are only the text

11:53

messages from Vince

11:55

McMahon. As John has

11:57

said in the past, however, that aside,

12:00

And wherever this case goes in

12:02

the end, those text messages

12:04

are vile. And I think they,

12:07

in the public court of opinion at least, Endeavor

12:11

and TKO clearly don't want anything more

12:13

to do with Finns. I mean, on

12:15

their own, what he said

12:17

is bad enough. And

12:19

what they're alleging in response is really

12:22

a lot of, you know, that

12:24

he, she said she was in love

12:26

with him, something about, you can read all of

12:29

these. Let me read this portion of the actual

12:31

document here, okay? So now this is from the

12:33

filing that was made public

12:35

today. Defendants' communications show

12:37

not only that the relationship was consensual,

12:40

but also that

12:43

in many instances the plaintiff was the initiator.

12:46

Indeed, while defendant no longer is in possession of

12:48

the text messages between the parties as he deleted

12:50

them when he broke off the relationship, the discovery

12:52

in this case will show that plaintiff sent him

12:54

sexually explicit images of herself and texted him to

12:57

say, among other things that she was in love

12:59

with him and he was the love of her

13:01

life, that he was her best friend, that she

13:03

wanted to have sex with him and provide a

13:05

graphic detail, that she fantasized about being held down,

13:08

enjoyed being in pain and wanted rough sex, that

13:10

she wanted defendant to watch her have sex with

13:12

other people and know about her sex with others,

13:14

that she wanted defendant to give her thousands of

13:16

dollars for clothes, plastic surgery, and other gifts, that

13:19

she wanted to have a future with defendant even

13:21

after signing the agreement, and that she wanted defendant

13:23

to keep living in the same building so she

13:25

could continue to see him even

13:27

after signing the agreement. Plaintiff

13:30

sent messages like this to defendant through the entire duration

13:32

of their relationship, including through the time they signed the

13:34

agreement in January 2022. Plaintiff

13:37

presumably still has all of these text messages, but

13:39

she did not include them in her publicly filed

13:41

complaint because she wanted to paint

13:43

a distorted false picture. It is indeed

13:46

astonishing that after filing her highly salacious

13:48

complaint, which omitted the truth about her

13:50

own conduct, plaintiff now takes issue with

13:52

purported mud-slinging, malicious falsehoods attacking

13:55

one's moral character and defendants'

13:57

motion to compel arbitration. Plaintiff

14:00

cannot have it both ways and our motion should

14:02

be denied for these reasons and those set forth

14:04

herein. So, maybe

14:06

not a whole lot for us to be

14:09

able to actually assess here. This seems to

14:11

be a continued public battle between the two

14:13

sides and we'll

14:15

see how General Grant's side responds.

14:17

They've been very prompt in their

14:19

responses at least to

14:22

public messaging. So I'm sure we'll update

14:24

people on this. They have and I

14:26

think that if we don't

14:28

get a formal legal response, I imagine

14:31

that Ann Callis will not be

14:34

too behind the door in getting

14:37

something out rather soon about this.

14:40

But it is striking that they're using what

14:42

are supposed to be legal documents, making legal

14:44

arguments based on case law etc. to just

14:48

hurl these allegations around.

14:51

And as you said, if he doesn't

14:53

have the text messages, he has a very good memory

14:55

of what was in them it seems because

14:58

we have that list that you just read out. More

15:01

on this, I'm sure this one's there with Pollock and Thurston.

15:04

And that is the latest for now.

15:08

Yes, that brings us on

15:10

to the latest with the

15:12

cash wheeler road rage slash

15:14

assault with a

15:18

deadly weapon, which certainly

15:21

the more dramatic way of putting the case and

15:24

this has been running on since

15:27

last summer. It all

15:29

began with what

15:32

was even described by the initial judge

15:34

as a seeming road rage incident on

15:37

July 27th, 2023. So

15:41

Wheeler, his real name is Daniel Wheeler

15:43

appeared the next day. Actually

15:48

he was arrested in August for this. So

15:51

after the event, spent the

15:53

night in Orange County, Yale and then

15:56

appeared in sort of a prison uniform

15:59

for an incident. his first appearance before

16:01

the judge on

16:03

August 18th last summer and

16:06

at that hearing the offense was described as

16:08

a road rage type incident during which Wheeler

16:10

allegedly flashed a handgun

16:13

at another driver. At

16:16

that time the defense's

16:18

request for bond

16:21

was at two and a

16:23

half thousand dollars was accepted he didn't he

16:26

didn't he wasn't remanded in to custody or

16:28

anything like that after that and

16:30

indeed we saw him reasonably quickly

16:33

back on AW television.

16:37

He was later arraigned that

16:39

took until February of

16:41

this year for trial

16:44

with the date sent next week

16:47

May 20th and as

16:50

early as tomorrow afternoon at

16:52

2pm pre-trial motions were set

16:54

to be heard and

16:57

now I could not link in the

16:59

story to some of the direct documents

17:01

that came out today but

17:04

anyone who cares to you will find a

17:06

link to the Orange County Court's records

17:09

search page where

17:11

anyone any member of the public even from

17:14

outside the US can search for Daniel Wheeler

17:16

and you can see the latest

17:19

documentation it's actually a very brief

17:22

letter and it's called Nolle

17:24

Proseque which isn't a busy

17:27

wine it's a Latin term

17:29

that means we

17:34

decline to pursue and

17:36

in legalese it just means the prosecution

17:38

have decided to drop

17:41

the charges not to go ahead

17:43

that's it it's over this case is

17:45

finished with. And it's

17:48

interesting because the letter

17:50

itself simply gives that

17:52

notice of Nolle Proseque

17:55

and says that the relevant parties in

17:57

this case Daniel Wheeler. lawyers

18:01

and the alleged victims lawyers have been

18:04

advised of such and

18:06

that's that's all it says so

18:08

we don't know the reason why

18:11

the case has been dropped. I

18:15

did do a little bit of cursory

18:17

research not being a lawyer to

18:20

see some common reasons why

18:23

a Noly Prasekri

18:27

might be issued and it

18:29

can be a failure of a

18:31

key witness to cooperate the desire

18:33

of the defendant and

18:35

the desire of the

18:38

court to give the defendant a second

18:40

chance because they've completed perhaps some sort

18:42

of pre-trial program or

18:44

something like that new

18:46

evidence or just

18:49

a lack

18:52

of confidence on the on the prosecution's

18:55

case that it can bring that

18:58

it has enough evidence to bring the court case

19:00

to a conviction. We

19:03

have no idea what has happened here

19:05

and we may never know but in

19:08

the eyes of the law Cash

19:11

Wheeler has always maintained that

19:13

he's not guilty throughout all of this and

19:16

at this point the case is

19:18

over. As

19:21

much as we could say just as an

19:23

onlooker without knowing what evidence was there what

19:25

evidence wasn't there I'm sure

19:28

this is a huge sigh of relief

19:30

for both he and for

19:32

Dax and maybe for AEW at

19:34

large you know this is one of their

19:36

biggest properties and this man as to my

19:38

knowledge was at least like the highest penalty

19:41

was what five years jail jail

19:43

time so having something

19:45

like this I think you know hang around

19:47

him and the entire team and a member

19:49

of the like a value member of this roster at

19:52

this point I'm sure was weighing heavily on everybody involved

19:55

so Whatever the reality of his

19:57

situation was at this point. I Don't think

19:59

we'll really. Evernote but his

20:01

odds of for this guy you

20:03

know he he gets about he

20:05

gets to had this i guess

20:07

our stricken from Israel or at

20:09

least I'm this new cycle and

20:11

down hill gets the proceed as

20:13

as I think. We.

20:16

Are all at least happy to see

20:18

an I expect you'll say nothing he

20:20

has said, he's made no public comments

20:22

were to entirety of this. Aren't

20:25

Ah, Lastly, you want to talk

20:27

a bit about threatened ratings? yeah

20:29

Friday Smackdown ratings and he hit

20:32

the lowest mark of the year

20:34

and but against very stiff opposition

20:36

which was and. At the

20:38

N B A playoff game. Between.

20:41

The next and appears I have

20:43

to remind myself of this because

20:46

I'm not a massive basketball fan

20:48

and so courtesy reporting from Branded

20:50

Thurston A Vessel know Max and

20:52

smacked on Drew two million. One.

20:55

Hundred and twenty. It. Thousand. Viewers

20:57

which is it's lowest of the

20:59

year. it's lowest mark in total

21:01

viewership that is since December twenty

21:03

ninth of last year. But.

21:06

It's only during one percent on the

21:08

previous week and there's some better news

21:10

in the key. Eating to Forty nine

21:12

demo which was a zero point Six

21:14

two and I've seen an increase. Their.

21:17

On. The previous week. And.

21:20

By. Comparison: A D D N B

21:22

A Dm did a total of nearly

21:24

four and a half million viewers. Four

21:26

million. Four. Nine One Thousand. And

21:29

and a one point three seven in

21:31

the demo. So at this is not

21:34

unexpected and I did a little bit

21:36

of of more digging As a wrestle

21:38

know max and subscriber. And.

21:41

There's an unnecessarily recommended to to anyone

21:43

is interested in the that of deeper

21:45

dive into these things and I can

21:47

tell you that and. And.

21:49

Smackdown is still up year over

21:51

year on this time and. Last

21:54

year, for the average of May, it's up

21:56

to something like thirteen percent. So far. on

21:59

twenty Twenty three. After the

22:01

first quarter, a second quarter I should

22:03

say I think it's up. Something like

22:05

so far. And. He

22:07

present so. That. I don't have. You're

22:09

going to be unhappy with this and this seems to be par

22:11

for the course at this point in the N B A season.

22:14

So. Odd. I don't think they'll be overly worried.

22:16

The headline is courses the lowest mark. In.

22:18

Viewership for the year. Dot. Again, probably

22:21

to be expected and they're off a

22:23

pretty pretty big series of eyes in

22:25

after at the early part of this

22:27

year. Top or it and let's go.

22:29

Lastly, here to some New Japan Pro

22:32

Wrestling results from the past weekend. Of

22:34

course we had resurgence taken place on

22:36

Saturday and this saw a new champion

22:38

crown in Gabriel Kid defeating Eddie Kingston

22:40

in a know rope last and sending

22:42

match to become the new New Japan

22:45

Strong openly champion. Or the finish came

22:47

when kids who plex Kingston from the

22:49

inside of the. Ring through a table

22:51

trade between the apron and a guardrail.

22:53

This was a very very ugly looking

22:55

spot with Kingston crashing his leg into

22:57

the Car Braille at pretty high velocity.

22:59

I'm fight for notes that Kingston got

23:01

hurt to some extent on the table

23:04

spot though he was able to walk

23:06

to the backward bad led. The severity

23:08

of the injury is unknown at this

23:10

time. Other fights was report states that

23:12

Kingston was battling a legitimate injury even

23:14

before the match. Kingston has now lost

23:16

all three titles I formally comprise the

23:18

continental crown. Gabriel Kid becomes the sixth.

23:20

Holder of the Strong Openly championship and also

23:22

the youngest. After the match saw a big

23:24

angle where Jack Perry, who wrestled earlier on

23:26

the card showed up to cause a distraction

23:28

for the Young Bucks to attack Eddie Kingston.

23:30

This marked the Young Bucks first New Japan

23:32

appearance since the formation of a To Be

23:35

Back in Twenty nineteen. The Bucks interior scheduled

23:37

the face Eddie Kingston as part of Anarchy

23:39

in the Reunited Complicit aid of his double

23:41

or nothing a preview or made the Twenty

23:43

sixth. I expect we'll have some sort of

23:45

update, an acknowledgement of a whether or not

23:47

concerned will all be healthy enough to proceed

23:49

with that match. So. Let's find out on

23:51

Wednesday or in the main event of this

23:53

particular show. The

23:56

item you Gp Heavyweight championship

23:58

was deserted set successfully. Funded

24:00

by John actually against his former protege,

24:02

showed Omer know and thirty four minute

24:04

match. After the match they're both attacked

24:06

by House and Tortures Evil and read

24:08

Narita are Evil then named himself as

24:11

the next Challenge or for mostly title

24:13

before correcting himself and declaring him as

24:15

the real champion and Moxley as a

24:17

challenge or he then proceeded to spray

24:19

paint marks least championship with black spray

24:21

paint. The match was later made official

24:24

for new Depends Dominion card in Osaka

24:26

take place on June the ninth and

24:28

we have at least are some. Matches

24:30

that have been announced already for that

24:32

show and they are. John actually taken

24:34

on evil for the I'd Have You

24:36

Gp World Heavyweight Championship for the Never

24:38

Open Way Championship Single Tokaji defend against

24:40

an hour A Detail P W or

24:43

Twenty Twenty Four Debate Is it a

24:45

Belter trophy? Now I'm not even surface

24:47

think it's it's Ethics of Built These

24:49

Days is not put him. Was.

24:51

You know him or us, you yoweri. More

24:53

defense against the Great Khan The Tv Championship

24:55

sees just Cobb defending against i'm Here is

24:58

she eats and then a tornado tag match

25:00

for the other B D P and you

25:02

depends from taking cuddles we have a Hikuleo

25:04

and L P to it taken on cancer

25:06

and she's oh and sick and on T

25:08

and Dk Tic, an Abyss a month and

25:10

then of course the Best of the Super

25:12

Juniors finals. Or any any

25:14

allow caught your interest over the past we can from New

25:17

Japan. Well. I didn't see the

25:19

resurgence card. Andrew was on duty

25:21

for that and I have seen

25:23

the. The. Infamous at this

25:25

point and spot with Kingston and it looks

25:27

like you know it looks like he can

25:29

possibly not the injured by that the obviously

25:31

we're hoping for the best. For. Etti

25:34

and lot to be said for those huge

25:36

pot a bag barricades. It's into Toby. Toby

25:38

use Adam is just one less risk factor

25:40

but I guess in the smaller arenas and

25:43

you know it's it's not cost effective. Put

25:45

that just looked absolutely horrible. Man I don't

25:47

know if those barricades would have really made

25:49

that's fine any safer. and honestly it was.

25:52

I have a look pretty pretty rough so

25:54

we we hope for that of course for

25:56

any Kingston and look for updates on by

25:58

Wednesday you think. So

26:00

that is all the news posts wrestling.com where

26:03

Neil and to Thompson Jack when on hold

26:05

the down the fort Watch on Public is

26:07

away and before we get our review a

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27:17

Welcome. To another round of

27:19

drawing board or Miro bought today. We

27:21

don't brainstorm which do X design up

27:23

variety. Let's go. First question: You thought

27:26

you'd see everyone's idea that he brainstorm

27:28

and you got a grand total of

27:30

one drawing board. Amir I bought drawing

27:32

board right because and Miro the team

27:34

can out ideas now or later and

27:37

with privacy mode we can keep them

27:39

anonymous until they're good to share her.

27:42

Eating the best way to explain your idea at

27:45

all. You have a is of you sticky notes

27:47

during. Those honourable drawing board cause you

27:49

know and mira I can record video

27:52

that tax images, links and digital

27:54

sticky notes of course present my

27:56

thoughts the way I want Rise again.

27:58

Now you're looking for a possible?

28:00

The Zoc was just. oh you

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did. Oh there it is. Drawing board

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or miro. Arsonists an unfinished work lives

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and get away and start your tour

28:45

at to or Lake county.com. Would

28:49

you like about new? Awesome? How

28:52

old was a earlier when we were

28:54

looking at the newsroom diner? The soda

28:57

my distorting with readings are ending with

28:59

readings. I did have a notion of. What's

29:02

the? Deal. With of services number

29:04

one rooted for speed in the bottom.

29:07

And North Korea do with and of other

29:09

plenty of opportunity in the future I'm sure

29:11

the or you know our mouths I, I,

29:14

i i I think we should consider hire

29:16

you to do some of those reads. I

29:18

mean I think of all the hosts on

29:20

our network you might have. My. Favorite

29:22

voice. Of don't. Come

29:24

seriously seriously just as found them with they

29:26

come on come up enjoy those stones through

29:29

your speakers. Everybody on this week in the

29:31

post office and cafe a lot of over

29:33

a really pleasant homes The com here as

29:35

in the posts Wrestling Cafe John I'll be

29:37

back on Thursday far away his latest edition

29:40

of Ask Away which is or monthly mailbags

29:42

get your questions and right now it formed

29:44

up with a female com or memo.fm Slice

29:46

posts wrestling if you want to get your

29:48

voice heard on Ask Away that's free to

29:50

submit for anybody only would have to be

29:53

pushed her son, cafe patron or. but

29:55

also on thursday we have the

29:57

latest and final edition of mc

30:00

later covering X-Men 97. Rich fan,

30:02

W.H. Park, will be talking about

30:04

the season finale of X-Men 97.

30:06

Have you been keeping up, Neil,

30:08

at all? Yes, I have. It

30:11

took me about three weeks and then I just was

30:13

like, I binged the first three episodes, or sorry, four

30:16

episodes because the first two dropped at the same time

30:18

and then I was all in on this and I'm

30:21

even going through the original 92

30:23

series at this point. I'm

30:25

honestly so amazed at the amount of steam this

30:27

whole thing has kind of picked up for an

30:29

animated show. It's way more than

30:32

I think I've expected. Listen

30:34

to Rich and W.H. Park and maybe

30:36

some guests join them this week

30:38

on, I believe, Friday where they'll be talking

30:41

about it. John and I are back for

30:43

Rewind to Spank Down on Friday, a collision

30:45

course on Saturday and then on the free

30:47

feed tomorrow night we have up next John

30:49

returns Wednesday for Pollock and Thurston and Rewind

30:51

to Dynamite and then on Sunday we have

30:54

the main event, the NWA podcast returns

30:56

in. Boy, do those guys have a lot

30:58

to talk about. I feel like I said

31:00

that every week or every month, but this

31:02

month especially. Over under, five

31:05

and a half. Last month I

31:07

believe they are at about five, so they're

31:09

not into breaking records anymore. I think the

31:11

record at this point is six something. I'm

31:14

gonna say it'll be about five

31:16

and a half. Listen at 2x,

31:19

you know, or break it up

31:21

an hour a day throughout the

31:23

week. It's a lovely little chunk

31:25

that you just gotta chip off.

31:28

Absolutely. It's great and you've

31:30

got all months if

31:33

you really want to to make

31:35

it into separate episodes for yourself.

31:37

I'm expecting a deep breakdown of Kendrick and

31:41

Drake perhaps in the aftermath. Alright,

31:44

let's go to our review tonight

31:46

of WWE Raw. This one taking

31:48

place from Greenville, South

31:50

Carolina. Now this is not, I

31:52

mean, not the biggest city, But

31:54

also one that they haven't, they don't shy away from mentioning. You

31:57

know, I Don't know if in the past this would be would

31:59

have been one of those days. Would they be

32:01

to say car horns were in the

32:03

South Carolina? Everybody you know I'm just

32:05

like name of an the Me in

32:07

the closest major city but we're coming

32:10

from the Bends Corps Wellness arena where

32:12

I wrestled. tix reports as about two

32:14

hours or sorry are a few hours

32:16

ago I'd take a strict distributed war

32:18

Eight thousand, four hundred thirty five of

32:21

a said above eighty six hundred. So

32:23

at that point of tweeting I sorta

32:25

about one sixty five from a sellout

32:27

they did not claim at all. On

32:30

the tonight's Parker said it was a sellout

32:32

but nonetheless up from the last time they

32:34

were at this car arena at about eight

32:37

thousand. So we start things off here. will

32:39

festival the oil. Kind of want to get

32:41

a sense How much are you watching debate

32:43

of Iraq regularly? How often do you watch

32:46

live in? what did you think of that?

32:48

the experience of watching live tonight okay and

32:50

generally speaking I don't was wrong lies anymore.

32:52

I used to be a bit of a

32:55

die hard kind of i can be the

32:57

i can operate on for your sleep and

32:59

I would. Watch it live. It's

33:01

been years really since I've done that on

33:04

a regular basis, simply because it's a school

33:06

night and. You. From Adidas

33:08

new issued books are going to

33:10

the weekend can. Usually I'm bit

33:12

of a late in the next

33:14

day and so my usual consumption

33:16

role is on a Tuesday. And.

33:19

Earn.means Of course I can fast

33:21

forward through. Quite. A lot

33:23

the outbreaks. The. Longer entrances.

33:27

D. Because it's. The.

33:29

To. The have progressive much blow results yet

33:31

I think that's just to smack doing

33:33

things. but if they had do do

33:35

do the equivalent of it's an and

33:37

you can really condensed the so so

33:39

I was feeling it by are three

33:41

and tonight I will admit him in

33:43

do you do do the delay and

33:46

wants or do you have that capability

33:48

or do you actually watch live Truth

33:50

commercials? I have that capability and I

33:52

you know sometimes pause it just as

33:54

like go into the kitchen to grab

33:56

some blood or something like that and

33:58

it. But I do deliberately start. Liet,

34:02

I think you've got that down to a fine art,

34:04

haven't you, Wayne? Oh, very much so. I'm a pro

34:06

at this point. So I'll give you some advice if

34:09

you choose to do this again. We

34:11

start things off here with Drew McIntyre. He comes

34:13

out and it's also worth noting that they now

34:15

have the King and Queen of the Ring crowns

34:17

on display in these lovely display cases by the

34:19

entrance ramp here. The CM Punk

34:22

chants immediately start at Drew and Drew

34:24

shuts them down by saying, Punk

34:26

isn't showing up to Greenville,

34:30

South Carolina. He only makes the big towns.

34:32

And that was true. There's no

34:35

CM Punk on tonight's show. Drew brings up

34:37

Punk's infamous line saying the greatest trick the

34:39

devil ever pulled was convincing the world he

34:41

doesn't exist. But the greatest trick

34:44

CM Punk ever pulled, he says, was

34:46

looking like a drug addict without actually

34:48

taking drugs. And also his

34:50

ability to get you to trust him no

34:52

matter how many times he breaks your trust.

34:54

That includes the management. That includes the fans.

34:57

He says CM Punk fans are stupid for

34:59

buying his shit. Drew brings up, well he

35:01

didn't say shit, I added that. Drew

35:03

brings up Punk's trick over the past few

35:06

weeks. He accuses Pierce of helping Punk avoid

35:08

him in repeated instances starting from the press

35:10

box. And also last week when Drew pulled

35:12

out of the parking lot, just as CM

35:15

Punk came in. He says he's

35:17

not going to waste his time dealing with a guy who won't

35:19

be cleared for 20 years. And then he moves on to Jay

35:21

Uso who of course replaced him in the King of the Ring

35:23

tournament last week. He says

35:25

Jay took his spot, he'll deal with him

35:27

later, but now his focus is on the

35:30

championship. So rather than like focusing, wasting his

35:32

time with this King of the Ring, Drew is just like, just

35:35

skipping the line entirely. He's just going for the

35:37

title. He calls Damian Priest

35:39

a paper champ. And you know, before we

35:41

proceed, any thoughts on just Drew McIntyre's

35:43

portion of this particular segment? Terrific.

35:47

I'm one of Drew's biggest fans at the moment.

35:49

He's a real reason to tune in. And

35:51

when he kicked off the show, it sort of

35:53

kept my energy levels pretty high. I Just

35:56

love all the Punk stuff. Really

36:00

hold his own. It's quiet and I

36:02

will get to the the priest interaction

36:04

but. It feels

36:06

like he's really keeping an. A.

36:09

Lot of irons and the fire on doing a

36:11

great job with it because you know he says

36:13

he is. He still says he'll deal with gave

36:15

so at some point he didn't Kind of the

36:18

noticed blue that office as meaningless and. But.

36:20

You know his know I got is a Scottish

36:23

ice on to on punk. The Annex got his

36:25

eyes on the championship and. And.

36:27

Ten. So. Priest really

36:29

wasted no time and and as soon as

36:31

his name was mentioned Damien a priest comes

36:33

out and Drew says that Priests deserves his

36:36

success for all his years of hard part

36:38

He just doesn't deserve to be champion is

36:40

a Priest knows that he can't beat him

36:42

so that's why use the money in the

36:44

bank briefcase and priests com sec saying stop

36:47

making excuses He tells due to look in

36:49

the mirror and blame that asshole pre that

36:51

one night He did actually say Priest says

36:53

he wanted to cash in on Seth but

36:56

to start to multiple times So it's really

36:58

odd. Whose fault. Drew was so focused

37:00

by punk at Mania that he made

37:02

punk more important than leaving and celebrating

37:04

with his own wife. And he got

37:06

been by a one armed man priest

37:08

at this point just for and some

37:10

a title shot and says that whole

37:12

make to eat his words by calling

37:14

him out when he called him a

37:17

paper champion in his new catchphrase, at

37:19

least tonight seems to be y'all can

37:21

rise To that is that it would

37:23

you. Where are you All can rise

37:25

to that shirt? You absolutely not. not.

37:27

One hundred years. But Abs I'm sure

37:29

there are people who would soon as

37:31

I fully expected to be on w

37:33

to lose shop and we'll see if

37:35

it's the news beat your can rise

37:38

to that. I enjoy. A.

37:40

Country to restore he that term

37:42

he You know he respects a

37:44

priest's a story in which inspirational

37:47

that but his neighbor Daves has

37:49

an inspirational story that he doesn't

37:51

It does me. He should be.

37:53

Champions Roosters Terrific at the moments,

37:56

but. D. me priest a really good

37:58

job at not it does not an easy to

38:00

hold your own with early

38:04

2024 Drew McIntyre

38:06

and I think Priest did a pretty good

38:08

job. I agree. I thought,

38:10

I mean, we already know what

38:12

Drew's capable of at this point. For me,

38:14

this was a chance to see how Damien

38:16

Priest can rise to the occasion against a

38:18

top-level promo like Drew McIntyre. And I thought,

38:20

like, Priest showed some pretty good confidence here.

38:23

You know, this is him opposing maybe

38:25

the best promo guy in the company right now. And

38:27

I thought he held his own, delivered his lines while

38:30

all the presence was there, confidence was there. I

38:32

would say if this was a test, Priest did pretty well. I'm

38:35

a lot more interested in this program already

38:38

than the Damien Priest-J Uso one. I

38:40

think the heal babyface division is a bit

38:42

clearer here, even though, like, you know, technically

38:44

I think Priest is still in your tweener

38:47

space, but he's very much operating like a

38:49

babyface just in terms of morality, in terms

38:51

of just what he, the content of this

38:53

promo against Drew McIntyre, for instance. And

38:56

I already think this promises to be a feud with

38:58

a bit more depth in storytelling than the J Uso

39:01

feud because both guys have already engaged in quite a

39:03

bit of history. We know, first of all, that, you

39:05

know, they were, of course, embroiled

39:09

in some sort of tag team feud, and they

39:11

went out for drinks together.

39:14

Remember? That was brought up. And

39:16

then from that came all this other stuff, you know, of

39:18

course, the money and the bank cash in. And

39:21

I think just, you know, what we saw was

39:23

a pretty good concept at some promos that might

39:25

take place between the two. Yeah.

39:27

And I totally agree that in

39:30

this segment, at least, Damien Priest- Sorry,

39:32

I'm mistaken. He went out for drinks

39:34

with J. I'm

39:36

sure he went out for drinks at some point with Drew as

39:38

well. But they're going to have, yeah.

39:42

K.F.A. But I would

39:44

say that I

39:46

agree with you that this was a

39:48

very clear positioning. This segment, at least,

39:51

we got something a little different later

39:53

when Carlito gets sort of involved with

39:55

the Judgment Day. But Priest-possession

39:57

kind of firmly as a sort of-

40:00

Fart-ass, but babyface in this segment

40:03

and I thought okay, they're continuing to

40:05

inch him along that road We

40:08

get recap videos of the Queen of the

40:10

Ring up until you know in the preview

40:12

of every single quarterfinals match here And I

40:15

thought I thought these video packages were really well

40:17

done They have like a movie trailer voice guy

40:19

doing doing them and they include of course recaps

40:21

of the mattress I took place on the house

40:24

shows including Maxine Dupree who

40:26

replaced an injured Zalina Vega very

40:28

late into the week Losing

40:31

to Shayna Baszler in what looked to be

40:34

pretty quick fashion So we have up next

40:36

a quarterfinal match involving Shayna Baszler versus EO

40:38

Sky The match starts off

40:40

when Shayna sneak attacks EO mid entrance following

40:42

a pull apart in the parking lot earlier

40:44

in the day this is where

40:46

Michael Cole gets into his sort of a Cage

40:49

match mode and he spoke

40:52

about these two previously competing against one another

40:54

in stardom Of course also a bit of

40:56

a rivalry in NXT We

40:58

got our latest QR code here, and I

41:00

don't know if you ever looked into this Neil

41:03

or not but a little bit And I

41:05

didn't go down rather tall of trying to

41:08

work it out for myself and I just looked

41:10

on Twitter to see what it ultimately led to

41:12

and I saw

41:14

a photograph some photographs, and there's a

41:17

floppy an old-style floppy disk with the

41:19

word which written on

41:21

it and I

41:23

think Thursday's date and

41:26

a time of 4 p.m. so

41:29

That's interesting. You know some USB drives But

41:32

I mean I have no clue what it

41:35

what any of this means Or

41:37

what could be happening on Thursday at if

41:40

indeed that is Thursday this is it is At

41:44

4 p.m. And what I found also

41:46

interesting was they they acknowledged the QR code for

41:48

Possibly the first time or at least the first time

41:51

that I really noticed you know that the commentary team

41:53

were saying There was one

41:55

of those strange things again, and the pats

41:57

like yeah, this has been happening you know

42:00

Whereas the best of my knowledge, for the

42:02

most part at least, they've been ignoring these, you know,

42:04

they haven't acknowledged them. Yeah.

42:07

Yeah, I noticed that too. So I mean, the

42:10

fact that they are acknowledging it on commentary

42:12

and also the fact that they're not giving

42:14

us like a destination to actually, you know,

42:16

wait for something Thursday 4pm, I'm

42:19

assuming Eastern time tells

42:22

us that we're probably ramping pretty close to

42:24

maybe this reveal actually happening. I hope. I

42:27

kind of think it's about time. So

42:30

we'll see. We await the,

42:32

maybe it's some sort of like a

42:35

investor's report. Yeah,

42:38

we'll see. Shayna controls the match

42:40

here with EO,

42:42

dripping her arm over the top rope, focusing

42:44

her attack on EO's left arm and shoulder.

42:47

Shayna wraps EO's arm around the under frame of the

42:49

ring and kicks it. Shayna's knee

42:51

now gets trapped on the top rope and

42:53

allows EO to take control through a second

42:55

commercial break. The over the moonsault is blocked,

42:57

but EO very impressively executes a Lana Hystral

43:00

into a European clutch, but that's immediately countered

43:02

by Shayna into a Kura Futa clutch as

43:05

EO escapes into a cross face

43:07

with Shayna ending the sequence with the running

43:09

knee for two. Excellent work from these two. EO

43:11

dragging screws to target Shayna's knee. You're

43:14

right. You know

43:16

that with the, with the

43:18

D, especially post TKO takeover, anything

43:20

that they can do to advertise

43:22

anything they will. After

43:25

the match, EO cuts a big promo on

43:27

Japanese, presumably about wanting

43:29

to win the Queen of the Ring. This

43:32

was like a very international

43:35

edition of WWE Raw

43:38

where everybody kind of, you know, gave

43:40

us little promos in their own native

43:42

languages. We

43:44

have the Judgment Day backstage. Dom continues to try

43:46

to get Priest to accept Carlito into the group.

43:49

Carlito says, hey, why don't you let me in?

43:51

We all hate Rey Mysterio. Rhea's

43:53

gone. Dominic is injured. He's extra

43:55

muscle. Priest says that the rest of the

43:57

Judgment Day want to work with you, then cool. I'm

44:00

not cool with you. Carlito leaves

44:02

but says even the most stubborn minds

44:04

can change so easily the most. I've

44:07

heard Carlito speak since he's come back

44:09

to the Debbie to be. I find

44:11

it so much more interesting already interacting

44:13

with heels in the judgment days and

44:15

they're like sort of this like a

44:17

directionless role that he can. I had

44:20

you know until the end with the

44:22

out of out of you are. Absolutely.

44:25

I mean he got us

44:27

big Pop at your year

44:29

ago, at Backlash and in

44:31

Porto Rico and and it

44:34

was just treading water. Ever

44:36

since I think he noticed eating me

44:38

up on all of us with a

44:41

low at way, as you said and

44:43

and we discussed and previously the. The.

44:47

The to build up to the he'll

44:49

turn was. So. By

44:51

the numbers. So basic in the

44:53

end and at least we're here,

44:55

you know. And and I think

44:58

this is a far better spot

45:00

for creative. And he's interestingly shaved

45:02

off his moustache while dump it

45:04

has grown one so I'd I

45:06

don't know there's like a one

45:08

mustache per group a bomb rule

45:10

in the Judgment Day, but some.

45:13

Air interesting new facial hair look

45:15

for for Carlito and and especially

45:17

and Dominic sick again pieces of

45:19

apple dessert or or know that

45:21

guy it could be at give

45:23

or more on this. a bit

45:25

later we check up with the

45:27

Alpha Academy as Chad Cable chastises

45:29

poor vaccine for blown her opportunity

45:32

at the corner the Queen of

45:34

the Rings over the weekend. Cable

45:36

had some matches book tonight and

45:38

are they are oldest vs Sami

45:40

Zayn and he wants the serious

45:42

oh it is today. He does

45:44

not want the Caterpillar guy. Meanwhile he's

45:46

got has our take it on Bronson

45:48

read and Gable warns him to about

45:50

making sure not to dance tonight. so

45:53

i be now at this point shows up

45:55

and ask why maxine didn't asked her to

45:57

train massine says that she's not she's been

45:59

told that not allowed to train with

46:01

anybody outside of the academy anymore. As Gable

46:03

breaks them up, Gable

46:05

tells Nyle that she has too much potential

46:07

to waste with Taylor not

46:10

so swift. What

46:13

do you think of the Chad Gable heel character at this

46:15

point? I'm quite enjoying it. We all

46:17

know where this is headed and it's probably going

46:19

to be a slower burn than some

46:21

of us would like with

46:23

the Alpha Academy getting

46:27

their own back on him. But it

46:29

was okay. I

46:31

do like Gable. I think he's very good in

46:34

this role. A little slip at the beginning where

46:38

he got the match wrong. I think he

46:40

originally said Otis would be kicking on Bronson

46:42

Reed and then he said no. Almost

46:45

as though he handled it well. Almost as though

46:47

he changed his mind. You're

46:49

the stronger guy. You've got to soften

46:51

up Sami Zeyin for

46:53

me. So he saved

46:55

himself there. I'm

46:59

quite liking this dynamic too with

47:01

Ivy Nile and Maxine. And again,

47:05

they don't take too long to get to

47:07

the obvious end destination. When

47:12

Chad Gable was involved in all that

47:14

stuff with Sami Zeyin, especially when he

47:16

was a baby face about to coach,

47:19

he was coaching and then facing

47:21

Sami Zeyin, I loved that seriousness

47:23

of Chad Gable. I was

47:25

almost hoping that

47:27

even as a heel, he

47:29

would retain a lot of that seriousness. He's

47:32

more of a slapsticky villain, I

47:34

would say, attached to this

47:36

Alpha Academy. But I

47:38

don't mind it because I find it

47:40

fun. I find it very effective even

47:42

if it's not the Chad Gable tone that

47:45

I think I was hoping for. I'm

47:48

actually most impressed by how they managed

47:51

to through this heel Chad Gable put

47:53

a lot of good focus on people that

47:56

are surrounding him like an Otis, like a

47:58

Maxine, like an Ivy Nile. Even

48:00

who I think are all benefiting pretty well

48:02

in developing like pretty you know Good audience

48:04

reactions as a result of this heal chat

48:07

gable. So we'll

48:09

see how that goes we get

48:11

a recap of the men's king of the ring as we Check

48:14

in with the new day Of course Kofi beat Rey at

48:17

a house show over the weekend to advance as well Kofi

48:19

reiterates his wanting to win this king of

48:21

the ring for Xavier Woods who is injured

48:23

shows up with the crutch Woods

48:26

laments not being able to defend his king of

48:28

the ring because of Gunther says Kofi will do

48:30

it tonight a very special Little

48:33

kind of a moment here

48:35

with Samantha urban introducing Lily

48:37

and Garcia now I don't know if like she just happened

48:39

to be close, you know nearby

48:41

or something, but No

48:44

real rhyme or reason for this bit But

48:46

it was just a nice little moment of

48:48

Samantha urban introducing Lillian Garcia who introduces us

48:50

to our next match Lily and before she

48:52

does though put Samantha over Lily

48:54

and says Samantha is doing a good incredible job and

48:56

she's proud of her I found

48:59

this really heartwarming, you know We've seen how it Finkel kind

49:01

of get this treatment on like

49:03

Wrestle manias and like sort of big stages

49:05

But tonight seeing Lily and Garcia

49:07

kind of like port into that status And

49:10

I thought it was like a really nice little

49:12

almost like passing of the torch moment between these

49:14

two female announcers agreed It was really nice. Yeah,

49:16

and I had the same thought as you and

49:18

I mean this wasn't failed on social media or

49:20

anything like that Even so

49:22

I got the impression Lillian

49:26

may live nearby She may have just

49:28

happened to be in town and they

49:30

decided just perhaps even today to do

49:32

this. So yeah It

49:34

was nice. I was glad though that she wasn't

49:37

an announcing a

49:39

champion Yeah

49:43

That's a terrible impression of a woman

49:45

which I instantly regret but

49:47

yeah, is that one of her signatures? The

49:51

following matches for the whatever

49:54

insert name champions

50:00

I did not realize, all right. A

50:03

very, very good reproduction

50:05

there. Let's

50:08

go to the back here with Adam Pearce. He's with

50:10

the awesome truth in. Keanu

50:12

James at this point walks in making

50:14

her official WWE main roster debut. She

50:18

tells us that she'll be working under Adam

50:20

Pearce's tutelage here. She

50:22

leaves, but before she does, she says

50:25

she never hesitates. She

50:27

adjudicates, as

50:29

our truth mistakes, the word adjudicate

50:32

for a very dirty word that

50:34

he questions whether or not it's

50:36

PG worthy. What

50:38

do you think of this role for Keanu

50:41

James to kind of ease her way into

50:43

the main roster with? An

50:45

interesting one and not one that I expected. It's

50:48

the old Sonya Deville role, isn't it?

50:51

And she seems to be stepping into sort

50:53

of Adam's

50:56

co GM or something. So

50:59

I don't know if there's a

51:02

real reason for this, perhaps an

51:04

injury or anything like that or

51:06

whether it's simply a creative direction,

51:09

but it, I

51:11

suppose gives Keanu James some

51:13

meaningful screen time. And

51:16

we've seen some difficult call ups from

51:18

NXT. It

51:22

might be interesting. Whatever the case,

51:24

I think this is a great way to introduce

51:26

somebody from NXT. Unfortunately,

51:29

we've seen enough like Alba

51:31

fires and Tiffany

51:33

Stratton is an exception, but more often than not,

51:35

people get called up from NXT and they just

51:37

enter the pack and they

51:41

remain somewhat faceless. Having

51:44

a speaking role, a regular speaking role

51:46

and a regular character is

51:50

way more valuable to an upcoming

51:52

wrestler than just, you know, being a member of the

51:54

roster. Even if you do get to wrestle, it's

51:56

way more valuable for her to showcase her

51:59

personality know, let people remember

52:01

her for just being like

52:05

a character of some, you know, substance

52:07

rather than just another face. So I'm

52:10

excited to see how she performs in this role. Up

52:14

next, we have a men's qualifying match, quarterfinal

52:17

match, I should say, between Gunther

52:19

and Kofi Kingston. Kofi is full

52:21

of fire. Of course,

52:23

he's looking for revenge for Xavier

52:25

Woods. As Gunther enters the ring,

52:27

Kofi swarms with the big dive,

52:30

then targets Gunther's right knee early

52:32

on. The match hasn't even started

52:34

yet. When the ball finally rings,

52:37

I'm not sure how this refs a lot of this match to go

52:39

on. And why

52:41

he started it when he started it, instead

52:44

of checking whether Gunther could compete.

52:46

We've seen refs, you know, stop

52:48

matches and delay them for less.

52:50

Anyway, Gunther is on one leg

52:52

as Kofi hits a top rope

52:55

boom drop for a two. Another

52:57

top A is caught by Gunther on the

52:59

floor, and Gunther at this point just destroys

53:01

Kofi Kingston. Huge chop, drops him on the

53:03

barricade, drops him on the table, and then

53:06

delivers a Boston crab and a half crab

53:08

to Kofi as we go to break. Really

53:10

great start to this one. We come back,

53:12

Gunther slows the pace down after

53:14

the commercial break, continues the work on

53:16

Kofi's lower back. He delivers a tilt-a-whirl

53:18

backbreaker, but at this point, like Gunther

53:21

ends up subtly showing some pain on

53:23

his own knee as a result of

53:25

the impact. Gunther misses a diving elbow

53:27

drop, and this allows Kofi to continue

53:29

focusing on Gunther's knee. On the floor,

53:31

Kofi counters a power bomb and Rana's

53:33

Gunther into the post. We get a

53:35

great 10 count tease

53:37

on the floor with Gunther tripping it 8.5 as

53:40

he makes his way to the ring before actually

53:42

making it in at about 9.9. The

53:45

trouble in Paradise is countered with a

53:47

Gunther power bomb and a Boston crab,

53:49

and the cumulative work on Kofi's back

53:51

all matches enough to make Kofi tap.

53:55

What did you think about this match? I really enjoyed

53:57

it. So at this point, I'm like, this is a

53:59

hell of a these two

54:01

tournament matches have been terrific. I

54:03

still gave the edge ever so

54:06

slightly to the first one because

54:08

I felt that there was more

54:10

of a toss-up in like who's

54:12

gonna win. I was never particularly in

54:15

doubt that Gunther was

54:17

going to emerge victorious here

54:20

but they did a tremendous job with

54:23

the pre-match thing of the

54:25

limb damage, great selling,

54:27

these are two tremendous wrestlers. And

54:29

I was very impressed with Kofi.

54:32

I haven't seen Do a great

54:34

deal lately and so this was

54:39

Gunther's so good, he's good with everybody and

54:42

Kofi's a seasoned vet at this

54:44

stage. It was really

54:46

good TV match better than

54:48

I've seen lately. Yeah this was for

54:50

me my match of the night. I thought it was a great

54:52

match, one of the better tournament matches. As far as King of

54:54

the Rings

54:57

go, this has been a really strong one

54:59

in ring. I think

55:01

it's for me very safe to say that there's

55:03

really no one that Gunther doesn't have incredible chemistry

55:05

with. Maybe

55:08

we can also safely say the best in

55:10

ring performer in the company, Bill the Bell.

55:12

I mean maybe

55:15

Iliad Dragunov can compete, maybe some others

55:17

on that list but man at

55:19

least on Raw he's outstanding. They did

55:22

a great job telling those body parts

55:24

stories with both men. Gunther's

55:27

slowing the pace, it's a very

55:29

sort of WWE style thing

55:31

but he does it so well and I

55:33

think for me it's because the technique is

55:35

so clean and the moves are so thoughtfully

55:37

done especially when he's focused on a body part. Even

55:40

when he's working that slow heel pace I still

55:43

find it very captivating. I

55:45

also love the emphasis on Kofi's motivation

55:47

before this match. It wasn't just kind

55:49

of you know Kofi being dragged out

55:51

here to slaughter. They gave Kofi backstory

55:54

and some real motivation to win and

55:56

they presented it to make you think

55:58

that be somebody who actually

56:00

has a chance. Emphasizing

56:04

his goal to do this for Xavier Woods

56:06

just kind of

56:08

makes that loss that much more emotionally

56:11

weighted and tragic. So I really liked

56:13

all that. Yeah, even the sort

56:15

of post-match comment that we

56:17

know the crime won't be staying with the

56:20

new day. In

56:23

fact, of course, Vivicelina also

56:25

injured the both 2021 previous crime

56:28

holders are injured

56:30

and not competing. Wow, new

56:32

champions coming. We

56:35

got caught up in the back with Lyra

56:37

Valkyria and Valkyria says last week was the

56:39

perfect way to kickstart her raw stay. Says

56:42

anytime Becky needs some help, she's there.

56:44

Becky walks in, says thanks. Liv Morgan

56:46

then interrupts and welcomes Lyra. Says she's

56:48

going to have some fun on raw

56:51

but asks, has Becky always

56:53

been such a bitch? Becky,

56:56

she must have just been walking around in circles

56:59

because she shows up right behind Liv

57:01

Morgan and Becky

57:03

at this point decks Liv just like

57:05

she did Dominic and she's not afraid

57:08

to face, she's not afraid

57:10

of a face-to-face fight. Bitch.

57:13

So two bitches. Yeah, two bitches being used

57:16

here. How's like, you know, is this a

57:18

sign of the lack of the PG era

57:20

or have they been always

57:23

this sort of um, I'm not sure.

57:26

Um, the asshole got blanked earlier

57:28

on from Drew, but they allowed him to

57:30

say it. So it could

57:33

be and we've definitely lent

57:35

into injury. By

57:37

injury, I mean like flesh wounds,

57:40

blood basically, uh, much

57:42

more lately. We get a bit of that, you know,

57:44

it's a tiny bit, but we get it with JU

57:46

so later and they zoom

57:48

in. Whereas, you

57:51

know, I think the no-colour

57:53

edict before was so strict that actually, you know,

57:56

do you remember, I know I'm going off on

57:58

a tangent here, but do you remember? one

58:00

of the NXT takeovers, I think it was the one in

58:02

London, that they just stopped the

58:04

match between Balor and Joe. You

58:06

get some staples in there, yeah. Yeah,

58:09

all right, up next we've got Kofi

58:11

in the back. Kearing Cross taunts him

58:14

about the loss as there's always time

58:16

to turn things around. Woods and Kofi

58:18

look concerned about these villains talking to

58:20

them. So unfortunately it looks like the

58:22

new day are on a final

58:24

testament duty from this point on. So good

58:26

luck to them and try to make

58:28

that work. Bronson

58:31

Reed takes on Akira Tozawa here. Tozawa

58:33

starts this one off fast, he dies

58:35

off the top, gets quickly caught in

58:37

Death Valley Driver. Tsunami, Reed gets the

58:40

win. Afterwards Gable berates Tozawa in

58:42

what's not going to be a great night for

58:44

the Alpha Academy. Kathy Kelly

58:46

is in the back with Gunther and

58:49

Ludwig Kaiser. Kelly questions

58:51

the legitimacy of Gunther's wins with

58:53

Kaiser's cheating involved. Kaiser says that

58:55

Sheamus thinks he lost because of

58:57

him. Well, he's delusional. Sheamus should

58:59

be thanking Kaiser for saving him because

59:01

he'll never ever beat Gunther. Kaiser

59:03

basically then challenges Sheamus to a match. So it

59:05

looks like this is our follow-up to you for

59:07

Sheamus who did not make his

59:09

way onto the Tonight Show. No,

59:12

I thought this was going to be another turnaround in the

59:14

standing there moment. But

59:16

it was a good way to give Ludwig some base

59:18

time. We

59:23

go back with Gunther, but Gunther pretty much walks out of

59:25

shot straight away. And

59:27

Ludwig Kaiser, he's quite captivated.

59:31

He's such a fun, like he's an over

59:33

the top promo, but like in the best

59:35

way, like so much fun and fun for

59:38

Pete to hear. Like when he gets big

59:40

enough, everybody's going to have a Ludwig

59:42

Kaiser impersonation. The way, who

59:44

is it? Like who does it? Pat,

59:47

somebody's debuted on commentary recently. I'm

59:50

not sure. Maybe Corey? Corey,

59:54

I think so. Jackie is in the

59:56

back with Adam Pearce as New Catch Republic show

59:58

up. Bate, thanks Pearce for the- opportunity tonight

1:00:00

as Pierce announces the fatal four way

1:00:02

for a title shot at the tag

1:00:04

team champions. Jackie then asked why Bronson

1:00:07

Reed wasn't in the King of the

1:00:09

Ring tournament and Pierce... Prawnbreaker? Sorry, Prawnbreaker,

1:00:11

thank you. We've got Bronson Reed, Prawnbreaker

1:00:13

and Bronson Strowman on the very same

1:00:15

show so thank you for your help

1:00:17

there, Neil. Pierce says he didn't

1:00:20

put Bronson Reed into the tournament because he

1:00:23

didn't want

1:00:25

to put Prawnbreaker into the deep end upon

1:00:29

first entry so not

1:00:32

the excuse I expected you know when he

1:00:34

dragged Prawnbreaker into his room yet last

1:00:36

night I'd be curious to know how that

1:00:38

conversation went. Yeah, didn't seem like... I

1:00:41

got excited I thought like you know I thought he was gonna

1:00:43

say I didn't put you in this because I have this for

1:00:45

you and he did not. He

1:00:49

just wants Prawnbreaker hanging out in the back for

1:00:51

these first few weeks I guess because Prawnbreaker shows

1:00:53

up says the others would have been in the

1:00:55

deep end with him and not the other way

1:00:57

around and he says Pierce should

1:01:00

have put him in the tournament. Yeah, he

1:01:02

got very dark. He said they'd be in the

1:01:04

deep end with him and he would watch them

1:01:06

join and smile. Right.

1:01:08

Very dark. It's

1:01:11

pretty apparent to me that Bronson Reed has nothing

1:01:13

going on for the next pay-per-view at least. It's

1:01:15

that way. I think we got to wait till

1:01:17

after King of the Ring to see what he's

1:01:19

up to. King

1:01:22

of the Ring match time quarterfinals it's Lyra

1:01:24

Valkyria taken on Zoey Stark. Valkyria

1:01:26

dives off the apron and she jams her

1:01:28

knee which allows Zoey Stark to take control

1:01:30

it into the commercial break. A

1:01:33

bit more action here back and forth

1:01:35

and with a Z360 countered into the

1:01:37

night wing for the victory as Valkyria

1:01:40

advances into the semifinals against EOSCHI next

1:01:42

week. What did you think

1:01:44

about the match itself? I think by

1:01:46

comparison to the matches up

1:01:49

to this point it was lacking a

1:01:51

little. Some of that was crowd energy

1:01:53

although for as

1:01:55

we alluded to earlier on for an

1:01:57

NXT call-up. was

1:02:00

getting decent reaction from the

1:02:02

crowd. You know, they, they were doing

1:02:04

the woos during her entrance theme. Uh,

1:02:06

there was at least

1:02:09

a light sprinkling of, of, of chance

1:02:11

during the match. Um, but,

1:02:13

um, I didn't think it was great. Um,

1:02:16

compared to what we saw earlier on, um,

1:02:18

in either of the other two matches. Crowds

1:02:21

turned out pretty cool for this one, but they

1:02:23

did end up with like a pretty decent reaction

1:02:25

by the end here. Uh, Jackie speaks to Lyra

1:02:27

after the match and Lyra

1:02:29

says she's very confident because

1:02:32

as she

1:02:36

proceeds to speak a phrase in Gaelic, um,

1:02:39

any clue what she might've said? Okay.

1:02:41

For first, my only complaint is that Michael

1:02:45

Cole called this Gaelic and said

1:02:47

that it's from the Scottish islands,

1:02:49

which is not

1:02:51

correct, Michael. It's, um, that's,

1:02:54

that's what there is a language called

1:02:56

more usually pronounced Scott's

1:02:58

Gallic, but Irish,

1:03:00

um, is, is, is not the same

1:03:03

language. And I'm afraid is

1:03:05

that on the level of, of Shinto? Um,

1:03:09

um, well, there are some annoyed people on

1:03:11

Twitter. If you want to, if you

1:03:13

want to search Twitter for Lyra and the word Irish or

1:03:16

Gaelic, you'll get some people saying, Oh, dare you,

1:03:18

Michael Cole. Um, make

1:03:20

an example of him. Um, Adam

1:03:23

Pierce, the, the people who think

1:03:26

the general manager is a real thing. But, um,

1:03:30

anyway, um, this is all avoidance on

1:03:32

my part because I, my

1:03:34

Irish is absolutely abysmal and I don't know

1:03:36

what it was she said. And I did

1:03:38

search, I did a Twitter

1:03:40

search to see if anyone on this island,

1:03:43

apart from me was still awake, who does

1:03:45

have good Irish, who would be able to

1:03:47

translate it. All I heard

1:03:49

was, um, and Naharan or Aaron

1:03:51

at the very end of the sentence, which

1:03:53

is Ireland. So it's something like you'll never

1:03:55

beat the Irish or something like that. Um,

1:03:59

but she's very much. leaning into that

1:04:01

kind of fighting Irish

1:04:03

identity. Okay,

1:04:06

well maybe we'll find out definitively next week. And she

1:04:08

does in fact win. Do you have a pick? We've

1:04:10

got Io Sky taking on Lyra Valkyria next week. I

1:04:13

think they've given Lyra

1:04:16

a nice push to begin with to get her

1:04:18

onto the main roster. But

1:04:20

I still think Io wins the

1:04:23

day in the semi. I

1:04:26

think overall they've done a pretty good job

1:04:28

here with Lyra Valkyria in these two weeks

1:04:30

alone. Making the

1:04:32

connection to Becky Lynch and just

1:04:34

kind of giving us a bit of

1:04:36

an identity to her. For

1:04:39

at the very least we know her

1:04:41

as the sidekick or friend of Becky

1:04:43

Lynch. They have not at least

1:04:45

made such a big deal of her previously beating Becky

1:04:47

Lynch yet, although I'm sure as the

1:04:49

weeks progress, as they were that

1:04:51

feud might actually come into play,

1:04:54

they will ramp that point up.

1:04:58

Her strength is her in-ring. Her promo at this

1:05:00

point still feels a little bit like overly

1:05:03

smiley babyface as

1:05:05

she proceeds to speak a phrase in Gaelic. Any

1:05:09

clue what she might have said? Okay,

1:05:11

first my only complaint is that Michael

1:05:15

Cole called this Gaelic and said

1:05:17

that it's from the Scottish islands,

1:05:19

which is not correct

1:05:22

Michael. There

1:05:25

is a language called more usually

1:05:28

pronounced Scots Gallic, but

1:05:30

Irish is

1:05:32

not the same language. I'm

1:05:34

afraid... Is that on the level of Shinto?

1:05:40

Well, there are some annoyed people on Twitter.

1:05:43

If you want to search Twitter for Lyra in the

1:05:45

word Irish or Gaelic, you'll get some

1:05:47

people saying, how dare you Michael Cole? Take

1:05:51

an example of Adam

1:05:53

Pearce, the only people who think

1:05:56

the general manager is a real thing. Anyway,

1:06:00

this is all avoidance on my

1:06:02

part because my Irish is

1:06:05

absolutely abysmal and I don't know what it

1:06:07

was she said and I did search. I

1:06:10

did a Twitter search to see if anyone on

1:06:12

this island, apart from me, was still awake who

1:06:14

does have good Irish, who would be able to

1:06:17

translate it. All I heard was

1:06:20

Nahiran or Erin at the very end of

1:06:22

the sentence which is Ireland. So it's something

1:06:24

like you'll never beat the Irish or something

1:06:26

like that. But

1:06:29

she's very much leaning into that kind

1:06:31

of fighting Irish

1:06:33

identity. Okay,

1:06:36

well maybe we'll find out definitively next week. She

1:06:38

does in fact win. Do you have a pick?

1:06:40

We've got Io Sky taking on Lyra Valkiria next

1:06:42

week. I think they've given

1:06:46

Lyra a nice push to begin with to get

1:06:48

her onto the main roster. But

1:06:50

I still think Io wins the

1:06:52

day in the semi. I

1:06:56

think overall they've done a pretty good job here

1:06:58

with Lyra Valkiria in these two weeks alone. Making

1:07:02

the connection to Becky Lynch and just

1:07:04

kind of giving us a bit of an identity

1:07:06

to her. At

1:07:09

the very least we know her as

1:07:11

the sidekick or friend of Becky Lynch.

1:07:13

They have not at least made such

1:07:16

a big deal of her previously beating Becky Lynch yet. Although

1:07:18

I'm sure as the weeks progress, as they

1:07:21

were that few might actually come

1:07:23

into play, they will ramp

1:07:25

that point up. Her strength is her

1:07:28

in-ring. Her promo at this

1:07:30

point still feels a little bit like overly

1:07:33

smiley baby face. But

1:07:35

that's not the worst thing, especially if

1:07:37

you could wrestle, which she definitely can.

1:07:41

Who do you have

1:07:43

for the semi-final? I

1:07:45

think a lot of it depends. Well, I

1:07:48

think Jade goes all the way through on the other side.

1:07:52

Jade versus Lyra is a

1:07:54

possibility, but I think Jade

1:07:56

versus Io might be the

1:07:58

more likely match. because

1:08:01

I think Jade

1:08:03

beating EO is a

1:08:06

bigger deal. I

1:08:08

guess having Lyra claim that she made it to the

1:08:10

finals is also a big deal but I don't know.

1:08:12

I think Jade versus EO, I see a bit more.

1:08:15

You also have a veteran in there with Jade

1:08:18

instead. So

1:08:20

I see EO going all the way against

1:08:23

Jade. That's a good logic way. I

1:08:25

like your thinking and also of course they've got damage

1:08:28

control to a bit of interference so it doesn't take

1:08:30

too much away from Lyra. Jade,

1:08:33

Uso is in the back and he cuts a

1:08:35

big promo. I find he's getting more and more

1:08:37

confident with these sort of unique promos every single

1:08:40

week, finding his voice.

1:08:42

Then we got Sami Zane taking on Otis

1:08:44

here and throughout the match Otis has to fight the

1:08:46

urge to do the caterpillar. The

1:08:49

crowd is cheering for it, Gable warns

1:08:51

him not to and Otis finally gives

1:08:53

in. He takes the shirt off, he

1:08:55

does the damn move. Otis

1:08:57

then goes to Vader's splash but Sami Zane

1:09:00

moves out of the way and delivers a

1:09:02

hula-lula kick for a very quick win here.

1:09:04

A very simple match. I actually thought Otis

1:09:06

like fighting the urge to caterpillar was actually

1:09:08

very amusing here. It was

1:09:10

quite funny. I think he

1:09:12

got the nice pop when he took the shirt off

1:09:14

and reminded us of Otis in the days of being

1:09:17

a bit of a fan theater. He has been in

1:09:19

the background of Velfa Academy for a while which speaks

1:09:21

to what you said earlier on about this you

1:09:24

know pantomime villain of Chad

1:09:26

Gable. At least it's giving shine to

1:09:29

you know it's bringing Otis more to the

1:09:31

fore. I would say it's been pretty effective

1:09:33

so far because as Gable berates Otis, he

1:09:35

even shoves Otis' head at one point. It

1:09:38

prompts Sami to come back into the ring,

1:09:40

delivers an exploder to Gable in the corner

1:09:42

but Gable escapes the hula-lula kick. Afterwards

1:09:45

Gable again slaps Otis on the aisle and

1:09:47

the crowd was very loud for Otis so

1:09:49

they're really kind of building this desire

1:09:53

from the audience to want to see Otis

1:09:55

finally attack Gable or turn on him. Yeah

1:09:58

and I got the impression that I'm

1:10:02

fine. Lay it in Chad,

1:10:04

because that is a hell of a slob, or

1:10:07

at least it looked like it. In

1:10:09

contrast, I don't want to take us back to

1:10:11

the far, but I thought that Becky's punch was

1:10:13

almost comedic. You know, it's kind of like retractable

1:10:15

fists. Well,

1:10:18

the, the, the Dominic one looks so

1:10:20

good and probably like, like, felt

1:10:22

it. But yeah, this one, not as much. We

1:10:25

got Braun Strowman in the back. He's hanging out

1:10:28

with the Creed's and like, I don't know what

1:10:30

Strowman's doing here. Like now on raw, it just

1:10:32

seems like he's just like hanging out and being

1:10:34

like, Hey guys, welcome. Hey, like, like,

1:10:37

it's great to be here. You know, that seems to be

1:10:39

his role. He tells the Creed's and

1:10:41

Ivy that they have a great career ahead of

1:10:43

them. As if like Strowman is like, I guess

1:10:46

he's a veteran at this point, but he's just,

1:10:48

they're welcoming people. JD walks up

1:10:50

from behind him and gives him a

1:10:52

warning about getting involved in judgment day

1:10:54

business. And that's about as

1:10:57

much as we got from him. The

1:10:59

coded Kai versus Becky Lynch. This was just a

1:11:01

sort of like a non-title match that was announced

1:11:03

earlier in the day. Damage control caused a distraction

1:11:06

to allow Kai to take control. A

1:11:08

very noticeable blown few spots here between the

1:11:10

two with some miscommunication as Kai goes for

1:11:12

her running boot in the corner. Kai

1:11:15

takes a hold and they regroup and they redo the

1:11:17

spot as we go to commercial break. Becky

1:11:20

superplexes Kai into an arm bar.

1:11:22

They reverse pinfalls as Becky launches

1:11:26

into the Sarmer. EO and Kyrie

1:11:28

then attack to cause a DQ as Lyra comes

1:11:30

in to make the save and then Liv

1:11:32

Morgan comes in from behind to attack Becky

1:11:34

Lynch. What'd you think about the match? It

1:11:38

was okay. I will admit at this point that my

1:11:40

energy was beginning to flag a little bit. And

1:11:43

after such great matches to begin the show,

1:11:46

you know, that

1:11:49

expectation level was beginning to drop and

1:11:53

you know, the

1:11:55

interference finished, the bell, the match being

1:11:57

sold out. It's all just

1:11:59

really to. further this storyline so

1:12:01

of the

1:12:04

tournament line yeah yeah yeah

1:12:06

of all the matches on the show

1:12:09

definitely on the weaker side but I saw like

1:12:11

good response to this one as well online so

1:12:14

maybe your mileage may vary oh yeah Dragonob

1:12:16

is in the back he's here to make

1:12:18

an impact right night in

1:12:21

and night out he

1:12:23

wants to be the the czar of the

1:12:25

ring and he's gonna beat jey uso tonight to

1:12:27

face Gunther in the semifinals and this is where

1:12:29

they remind us or he reminds us that

1:12:31

he beat Gunther previously so very much um

1:12:34

I mean as they should but they're making

1:12:36

a big deal out of the prior history

1:12:38

between these two he says it's

1:12:40

not over between the two of them as Gunther

1:12:42

walks up and they have a stare down so

1:12:44

very much teasing this as a big match coming

1:12:47

coming up for us and

1:12:49

even out of the ring I'm loving Gunther because he just

1:12:51

you know stares

1:12:53

them out a little bit smirk sadam

1:12:56

walks off it's all it's all it

1:12:58

needed yeah they're like already kind of

1:13:00

promoting this as like a big future

1:13:02

match between the earlier dragon office in

1:13:04

Gunther and for Illya

1:13:06

dragon off what what

1:13:09

like the transition from NXT to the

1:13:11

main roster has already I think been

1:13:13

incredibly strong you know not

1:13:15

just the great ricochet match last week

1:13:17

but here tonight getting the main

1:13:19

event spot and also teeing up a future match

1:13:23

that that that already indicates like

1:13:25

a long story rivalry with Gunther

1:13:28

is huge for a guy just coming

1:13:30

off of NXT so they've done a great job

1:13:32

with him then we get our fatal four-way match

1:13:34

for a tag title shot here between the authors

1:13:37

of pain the new catch Republic Finn Balor and

1:13:39

JD McDonough and the creeds there's a lot of

1:13:41

focus I found here on Julius Creed he goes

1:13:43

on a big run and with a big jump

1:13:45

up superplex the balor for a two count everybody

1:13:48

at this point just kind of gets

1:13:50

into the action with their big spots

1:13:52

bait lifts up a come and delivers

1:13:54

his helicopter spin to some very loud

1:13:56

applause we get a double Tyler driver

1:13:58

from new catcher for a two

1:14:01

count. Carlito at this point comes out

1:14:03

here and attacks Pete Dunne. He delivers

1:14:05

a backstabber to Pete Dunne at the

1:14:07

table and ends up holding

1:14:09

his own back. Poor Carlito here. Kudegra

1:14:11

from Finn Balor to Bate gets the

1:14:13

win as a result of the Carlito

1:14:15

interaction. So what did you think about the

1:14:17

match? I enjoyed this

1:14:19

because I think it was the right spot

1:14:22

in the show to have really high paced,

1:14:25

chaotic match

1:14:27

like this. So yeah, it certainly grabbed my

1:14:29

attention and again, furthers

1:14:34

these storylines. I mean, it

1:14:36

was kind of maybe dumb

1:14:38

without AOP. Triples, that might

1:14:41

have been all right.

1:14:43

But some good power spots that Dacom

1:14:46

and Resorbo used for at least. They

1:14:49

have not made much of an impression on me, to be honest

1:14:51

with you. And they never have with

1:14:53

me, I've got to say. For guys that

1:14:55

I think fulfill a much needed role in

1:14:58

the tag team division, they're just like you're

1:15:00

too heavy. It's like your meat tag team.

1:15:02

They just seem awfully generic and I don't

1:15:04

know if that's just because they're part of

1:15:07

a very generic group. But

1:15:10

they just have not felt special to me

1:15:12

nor has Paul Ellerang really added anything to

1:15:14

their presentation. Yeah. Paul,

1:15:16

it doesn't really do your say anything.

1:15:18

He just sort of comes out wearing

1:15:21

that silly t-shirt. And it's not

1:15:24

going to labour the point why we're on

1:15:26

the same page as

1:15:29

regards. This fact seems to be like

1:15:31

a glimpse into the new state of

1:15:33

the tag division on Raw with some

1:15:35

continued spotlights on Julius Street here, a

1:15:38

bit from new catch for public. So Judgment

1:15:41

Day are number one contenders. They will be taking on the

1:15:43

awesome truth. I don't think they said when, did they? It

1:15:48

may be on Saturday

1:15:50

week in Saudi, but

1:15:52

I feel like if it was on Raw next week, they would

1:15:54

have announced it. Ricochet

1:15:57

shows up here to Wish Illy. I drag

1:15:59

it off good luck tonight and also says

1:16:01

it's not over between the two of them

1:16:06

Notable because of Bling

1:16:09

is Ricochet's fit

1:16:11

is it okay? I I can't yeah

1:16:13

his trip. I mean, you know, you

1:16:16

are Your fashion put yourself

1:16:18

neoplanic and I wanted to get your take Man,

1:16:22

I can't bring up a photo here. But anyway,

1:16:24

you saw it. What do you think of

1:16:26

his suit and glasses? WH would

1:16:29

be the man your man for that for

1:16:31

the breakdown of this. I guess it's not

1:16:33

ring gear But yeah, I mean for it

1:16:35

for a short backstage Speaking

1:16:40

part Ricochet went all right

1:16:42

here three-piece suits the waistcoat

1:16:46

the chain You

1:16:49

know bling glasses I'm

1:16:51

loving it. I'm loving it. You see this is like one

1:16:53

of those things where like I wonder if in the bits

1:16:55

of Can air this would have made air, you

1:16:58

know, like like maybe infamously like Pat

1:17:00

McAfee were in shorts was was of

1:17:02

some concern Not

1:17:04

from Vince but from Michael Cole for fear that

1:17:06

Vince didn't like it right now what would a

1:17:08

Vince McMahon have said about this ricochet outfit with

1:17:11

these glasses and this this necklace

1:17:13

I wonder and These mmm that this plaid suit

1:17:16

Too much. God damn it Well,

1:17:19

I love it. He's a wrestle like this in these classes

1:17:22

It's be great so I mean already

1:17:24

like so, you know this continued focus on

1:17:26

Illya Dragunov and building these characters around him

1:17:28

making Dragunov feel like a big deal. They

1:17:31

like again in two weeks. I've really been

1:17:33

very impressed with that Priest

1:17:35

and Dominic they're in the back priest acid

1:17:38

So very interestingly priest and Dominic having a

1:17:40

bit of an interaction and they priest asked.

1:17:42

Hey, are we good? and

1:17:44

before Dominic and really give an answer

1:17:47

Carlito comes out here celebrating with JD and

1:17:49

Finn Balor and Priest

1:17:51

at this point says Carlito what happened out there

1:17:54

was cool Priest tells him not

1:17:56

to let him down when he tries to take care of Ray. So

1:18:00

Carlito is slowly winning Damien Priest over

1:18:03

and they are introducing at least the

1:18:05

idea of some tension between Dominic and

1:18:07

Damien Priest. Yeah, and

1:18:09

I had to listen to

1:18:12

this again because I thought he originally

1:18:14

said, are things good with

1:18:16

you and Ria? And I

1:18:18

thought that can't be what

1:18:20

he's saying because they're obviously

1:18:22

going to keep Ria out of the picture at

1:18:24

the moment. So your version of what happened here

1:18:26

makes a lot more sense than my notes because

1:18:29

I was like, why are they invoking Ria's name

1:18:31

at this point? Well, you could be right. I

1:18:34

mean, I actually might have misheard,

1:18:36

but chat room, let us know

1:18:38

if maybe you heard differently. Of

1:18:41

course, they are introducing the Dominic and

1:18:43

Liv Bongan storyline in the background. This

1:18:46

could be an allusion to it, but it was almost like

1:18:48

so quick that it was very quick.

1:18:50

Now Matt in the chat room says he

1:18:52

heard Ria, so maybe you're more right. But

1:18:56

it did feel like it's almost a throwaway

1:18:58

line before they got to the meat of

1:19:00

this, which was, you know, Carlito. They've been

1:19:02

very subtle though with, you know, these Liv

1:19:04

Morgan, as subtle as like you would expect

1:19:06

at the WWE with these Liv Morgan and

1:19:08

Dominic interactions. So, hmm,

1:19:10

interesting. All right. Lastly,

1:19:13

we have the main event here.

1:19:15

Jay Uso taking on Ilya Dragunov

1:19:17

for the quarterfinals to face Gunther.

1:19:20

A big deal is made now, the Firefly is

1:19:22

being a part of Jay Uso's entrance. You

1:19:24

know, this has been mentioned in reports from

1:19:27

Fightful as well as just

1:19:30

online, you know, with Jay Uso acknowledging

1:19:32

that the Fireflies are now his. They

1:19:35

dim the lights to encourage them as they

1:19:37

did in Leon, and the announcers are calling

1:19:39

them the Yeet Lights. Yeet

1:19:42

Lights. Yeah. Yeah.

1:19:44

It's a great looking entrance and, you know, having these cell

1:19:46

phones just kind of add to that presentation. Dragunov

1:19:50

puts Jay onto a table. He goes to

1:19:52

H-bomb him from the barricade, but Jay gets

1:19:54

out of the way and tackles Dragunov back

1:19:56

onto the table as we go to or

1:19:59

back onto an- off the table as we go

1:20:01

to commercial. We come back with

1:20:03

the Yeet Boo as Dragunov

1:20:05

hits the Constantine Special for a 2-cam.

1:20:07

The camera at this point zooms into

1:20:10

Jay Uso's ear, showing

1:20:12

that his piercing is bleeding here

1:20:14

from some sort of impact. Dragunov

1:20:17

then delivers the H-bomb and Jay kicks out at

1:20:19

a 2. Jay gets up, hits

1:20:21

the Uso splash for the win. Your

1:20:24

thoughts on the match? I

1:20:26

have a very good main event and to

1:20:29

cap off a Raw that was quite wrestling

1:20:31

heavy and had some really

1:20:33

good wrestling matches. I don't

1:20:36

want to sign

1:20:39

off too early but I'm glad that this

1:20:42

was the additional Raw that I landed on

1:20:44

because I've seen a few of

1:20:47

late that weren't really

1:20:49

worth staying up for. I feel like this one was.

1:20:51

It was a very good main event.

1:20:53

I actually went into this match

1:20:56

feeling that they could hand the

1:20:58

win to Elia so it made it that bit more

1:21:00

intriguing to me. I think a

1:21:02

lot of people would probably be surprised at

1:21:04

that but it's like you said, they are

1:21:06

making a big deal of him. They are

1:21:09

pairing him with Gunther it looks like. I

1:21:14

just felt there was at least a chance

1:21:16

that he might have advanced in the tournament

1:21:18

so that made it more interesting too. The

1:21:21

fact that we could even feel that way

1:21:23

about somebody who just came up from NXT

1:21:25

I think is already a huge testament to

1:21:27

what they've done with Elia Dragunov. Even in

1:21:29

the end here as Gunther walks

1:21:31

and makes his way to the ring to

1:21:33

have a face off of Jay Uso, he

1:21:35

does share a glance with Elia Dragunov. They

1:21:38

are continuing to hold onto that and present

1:21:40

that as a match

1:21:42

that the audience should anticipate and wait

1:21:44

for in the future. Next week

1:21:47

we've got Jay Uso versus Gunther. It's a

1:21:49

rematch of course. They have a stare down

1:21:51

to close the show. Maybe just

1:21:53

my thoughts on Jay Uso versus

1:21:55

Elia Dragunov. pretty

1:22:00

critical on some of Jey Uso's matches.

1:22:04

But I thought tonight was a good

1:22:06

example of, I think, what somebody like

1:22:08

an Illya Dragunov can bring to the

1:22:12

crowd reaction that a Jey Uso has.

1:22:15

I thought Illya Dragunov

1:22:18

introduced what I thought was

1:22:21

a more hard-hitting sort of style, and that

1:22:23

kind of made me a bit more interested

1:22:25

in the Jey Uso. I don't think he...

1:22:27

I don't know if I

1:22:29

want to say he works a

1:22:32

bit jumpy and a

1:22:34

bit light, but I just

1:22:36

really at least thought the Illya

1:22:39

Dragunov kind of added a lot to what

1:22:41

I might usually criticize about a Jey Uso

1:22:43

match. Not near

1:22:46

the sort of caliber of the Ricochet match

1:22:48

from last week, but he's still a very

1:22:50

good main event. And overall, I'll say I

1:22:52

think they've done a good job of introducing

1:22:54

this King of the Ring tournament

1:22:56

as something that is different from prior

1:22:58

iterations where there's a lot more emphasis

1:23:00

on compelling matchups and

1:23:03

delivering pretty good matchups. Now, this is

1:23:05

not the G-1, everybody. It's not the content of the

1:23:07

classic even, but for WWE Raw,

1:23:09

they've given us anticipated matches to

1:23:12

look forward to. Good storylines, good

1:23:14

character build for all of them,

1:23:16

and I think pretty substantial wrestling for the

1:23:18

most part throughout the entirety here. Yeah.

1:23:22

And I think it's... I don't

1:23:24

mean to look too far ahead, but

1:23:26

if past is prologue, then I think

1:23:29

we know that the ultimate

1:23:31

winner of the King and Queen of

1:23:33

the Ring tournaments, it's

1:23:35

not the biggest deal in the world.

1:23:37

It's not quite down there with the

1:23:39

Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, but

1:23:44

it never is that meaningful once

1:23:47

the tournament's all said and done. It

1:23:49

depends though. Again, we're dealing with a bit of

1:23:52

a different regime this time around. It depends

1:23:54

what they do with it. Now, again, they

1:23:56

have not mentioned that the winner gets any

1:23:58

sort of title shot. Only

1:24:01

Gunther alluded to that like one time as far as

1:24:03

I remember and it's not been mentioned since that and

1:24:06

that kind of tells me that that might be as

1:24:08

much as it is. But

1:24:10

I think we'll

1:24:12

see. We'll see what they do. We

1:24:14

know now there are crowns awarded to

1:24:16

the victor, but what sort of added

1:24:18

prestige, what sort of added push, company

1:24:20

is that crown? I

1:24:23

guess we shall see. But looking at the

1:24:25

brackets here, again, we've got Gunther versus Jay

1:24:27

Uso next week. We've also got, sorry,

1:24:30

yeah, Gunther versus Jay Uso in the

1:24:32

semifinals and then on the smackdown

1:24:34

side of things, I

1:24:37

believe here, I'm going to just do this by memory, but

1:24:39

help me out here. We've got Randy Orton who defeated Deid

1:24:42

yourself. Yeah. Is that right? I

1:24:45

can get it. Yeah, please.

1:24:47

Sorry, I should have given a little bit more

1:24:50

prepared, but we've got Carmelo Hayes taken on, I

1:24:52

believe Randy Orton coming up on Friday. And

1:24:57

then we've got LA Knight versus

1:25:00

Tamatonga. I believe

1:25:03

that's true. I'm sorry. I haven't quite got in front

1:25:05

of me. I thought there'd be

1:25:08

an updated bracket for me to... Yeah. All

1:25:12

right. So anyway, so that's sort

1:25:14

of the update. And your

1:25:16

thoughts over on this edition of Raw? Again,

1:25:21

happy that I stayed up tonight to

1:25:23

watch this edition of Raw because I've

1:25:25

seen so many, including

1:25:31

last week, apart from the

1:25:35

Ricochet-Yilean match that I

1:25:39

probably would say weren't worth staying

1:25:41

up for. I

1:25:45

think it's one of the better Raw's we've seen in a

1:25:47

while. Yeah. In-ring

1:25:50

quality. Very, very good. Some

1:25:52

great matches. Some nothingy matches, as

1:25:54

usual, of course, but just there, you know, the

1:25:57

Alpha Academy stuff, but just to kind of... further

1:26:01

the storylines there and it's

1:26:03

one thing I'm appreciating about WWE at the

1:26:05

moment that I think we're

1:26:07

probably on the same page

1:26:09

here away. Weekly AEW

1:26:12

television I'm not saying it should

1:26:15

have be super angle heavy but

1:26:17

as they move to a more pattern or

1:26:19

a pattern of more like monthly

1:26:22

or almost monthly pay-per-views they

1:26:25

should be using their weekly television to

1:26:27

further bills and storylines a little more

1:26:30

and I think WWE are doing that very

1:26:35

well at the moment you know I'm

1:26:37

liking all these digging into the past

1:26:39

that you know Dragunov had beaten

1:26:43

Gunther and I dare say they'll get there

1:26:45

with Lyra as well and her history with

1:26:47

Becky at some point. I like

1:26:49

that they're digging back and it's not the old

1:26:52

adage of no one remembers what happened

1:26:54

last week. Who cares when

1:26:56

you're just talking about new people debuting

1:26:58

on a roster every year. So

1:27:02

I'm very much for this iteration of the

1:27:04

King and Queen of the Ring let's see

1:27:06

what the feedback says from the post wrestling

1:27:09

cafe. We open our feedback up to all

1:27:11

of our patrons at patreon.com/post wrestling or post

1:27:13

wrestling cafe.com after every one of our shows

1:27:16

and let's start here off with Benjamin who

1:27:18

says these matches were damn good. The King

1:27:20

and Queen of the Ring explainer video packages

1:27:22

were all really good and the pace of

1:27:25

the show only slowed after the Gable Zenota

1:27:27

segment. Though Lynch and Kai were also good

1:27:29

the production continuity and video packages made the

1:27:31

show really easy to watch and to stay

1:27:33

stay tuned into Drew McIntyre is

1:27:36

still the MVP though and Priest is feeling

1:27:38

more comfy in his promos too. All in

1:27:40

all Ra doesn't feel like time wasted or

1:27:42

lost anymore. I would love if the King

1:27:44

or Queen of the Ring would also lead

1:27:46

to a title shot at SummerSlam. Give it

1:27:48

even more stakes and purpose. As it stands

1:27:50

competitors wanting to win to level up their

1:27:52

career and because winning matters is enough already

1:27:54

too. I don't

1:27:57

disagree with that whatsoever. It would be nice

1:27:59

to have like... some reason why somebody would want

1:28:01

to win this tournament. Now at the same time if we

1:28:03

look at the king of the ring, the king

1:28:06

and queen of the ring, as a vehicle

1:28:08

to push a new talent like a Jade

1:28:10

Cargill, like a Lyra

1:28:12

Valkyria, you know, I

1:28:14

don't know if you necessarily want such

1:28:17

big stakes attached to it, you know,

1:28:19

because they'll inevitably have to lose, you

1:28:21

know, at least if they're just kind

1:28:23

of starting off their main roster careers,

1:28:26

if they're challenging for a world championship. Any thoughts on

1:28:28

that? Yeah, I think

1:28:30

it's very difficult to make

1:28:34

the eventual winner seem kind of like

1:28:36

really cool, you know, we've only had

1:28:38

one queen of the ring ever. And

1:28:41

that she was not that cool. That was all

1:28:43

that gimmick with the accent and everything. Back

1:28:47

in 2021, and

1:28:50

it's difficult to think of king

1:28:52

of the ring winners that really made the gimmick

1:28:55

work other than possibly comedically

1:28:57

for them. So

1:29:02

yeah, what is there for the eventual winner and

1:29:05

revisiting this again? I agree

1:29:08

that it would be good to give

1:29:10

them maybe, why not have

1:29:12

like a mid-year title shot of

1:29:14

your choice, you know, thing because

1:29:17

the winner will

1:29:19

come from either Raw or Smackdown, but

1:29:21

you know, they could perhaps open

1:29:23

that up to you know, you can challenge

1:29:26

any champion you like or something like that. That'd be

1:29:28

exciting. How about a

1:29:30

big cash prize? And

1:29:32

then like, they'll show us what the

1:29:34

winner buys. Like,

1:29:36

you know, like, I don't know, a fancy

1:29:38

car or like, like, I mean, just, I

1:29:41

don't know if we often use money enough as

1:29:44

a motivator for, you know, people wanting to win

1:29:46

these matches like, you know, maybe

1:29:49

Xavier Woods

1:29:51

wants to like, I don't

1:29:53

know, buy his friend a

1:29:56

house or something like that.

1:29:58

Whatever. Okay. Like, that's... sometimes

1:30:00

is enough than championships, you

1:30:03

know? Absolutely,

1:30:05

yeah. All right, let's go up

1:30:07

next to Manny from Pacoima, who

1:30:09

says, it's that man, Way Ting and Neil

1:30:11

Flanagan, whose favorite food is

1:30:13

lobster head. They're gonna review

1:30:16

Ron this Monday night. Too many lines, too

1:30:18

many lines. Thank you

1:30:20

for reading that, Way. He wanted me to

1:30:22

sing it, I think. I

1:30:24

did have lobster coincidentally today with

1:30:27

my mom for Belated Mother's Day,

1:30:30

lunch, so. How was it? Not

1:30:32

my favorite, honestly. So much work

1:30:35

for like, not that much. I find the

1:30:37

same with lobster and crab, and

1:30:39

I had a really fantastic seafood restaurant

1:30:41

once on a visit to Cape

1:30:44

Town in South Africa years ago, and

1:30:47

this was a world-renowned place, and I just like, had

1:30:50

this bib on, and hammers, and all sorts of things

1:30:52

to try and get through it. It's like, yeah, too

1:30:54

much work for me. There's a lot of like, I

1:30:56

guess, status attached to it, and you know, like as

1:30:58

a gift, I wanna like, treat my mom occasionally for

1:31:01

something like that, but it's not my first choice, or

1:31:05

if I had a last meal, I wouldn't

1:31:07

pick it. Loster head, do you eat? Loster

1:31:09

head. No, my

1:31:11

dad loves loster head.

1:31:14

So I wanna sing

1:31:16

that song. I wanna play that song next time I

1:31:18

eat lobster with him. Never have

1:31:20

I ever seen such a weak punch in the one

1:31:22

Becky gave to live. Even my cats have swung harder

1:31:24

on me. Lots of great matches tonight,

1:31:27

also prove that Hunter can book more than one women's

1:31:29

match on his three-hour show that doesn't last two minutes.

1:31:31

Speaking of the women, I think WWE might have spoiled

1:31:33

the Queen of the Ring finals and some of their

1:31:35

graphics. If it's true, it's still a match I'm looking

1:31:38

forward to. I didn't notice, did you? No, this

1:31:40

is used to me. Okay. Chat

1:31:44

room, chime in if you thought that as well. If

1:31:46

it's true, it's still a match I'm looking forward

1:31:48

to. Unfortunately, not even Ilya could get a good

1:31:50

match out of Jay. Oh, okay. Just pair him

1:31:53

up with Fatu. Jacob made Zilla look like a

1:31:55

million bucks. I'm sure he'd definitely do the same

1:31:57

for Jay. MLW delivered a

1:31:59

fantastic. show on Saturday with their Aztec Lucha

1:32:01

Card. Hope John feels better. Post wrestling, they not

1:32:03

like us, they don't like us. Neil, will you

1:32:06

be traveling through the portal that connects Ireland to

1:32:08

New York? I don't know

1:32:10

if you've seen this way. I have, yeah. The

1:32:13

portal, I think it's been closed down.

1:32:15

Now, I am reliably informed by Joyce,

1:32:18

our mutual friend. And by the way, I'd like

1:32:20

to just like on a personal note to send the

1:32:23

thoughts to the Joyce family. And they've

1:32:25

had a bereavement and I don't know that he

1:32:27

would thank me for bringing it up on this.

1:32:29

But thoughts are with you, Joyce.

1:32:31

He's a lovely man. He's a great

1:32:33

guy. But he was telling me that

1:32:36

they closed this down and that it was

1:32:38

situated in like one

1:32:41

of the worst possible places in one

1:32:43

of the worst streets in Dublin they

1:32:45

could possibly have put this portal. And

1:32:48

it's a bit of a mecca for needleheads

1:32:52

and heroin addicts

1:32:54

at night time. And if

1:32:56

you've been following this thing

1:32:58

online, there are some very

1:33:01

dark clips of

1:33:04

what one side has been showing the other on

1:33:06

sort of just holding up their phones to

1:33:09

the portal. At first,

1:33:12

this thing was opened with like

1:33:14

Irish dancers giving it a big

1:33:16

gala on one side and on

1:33:18

the other side in NYC. Terrific,

1:33:21

you know, break dancing and so on. As

1:33:24

the day wore on, as the days were on,

1:33:27

more and more, you know, nuisances were

1:33:29

just coming up to it with their

1:33:31

phone on porn or

1:33:34

pictures of the Twin Towers on fire or

1:33:38

you name it. It was just so yes, I

1:33:40

believe the whole thing has been shut down. I

1:33:42

don't know whether it's ahead of time, whether this

1:33:44

was ever meant to be more than

1:33:46

a few days of an art installation or what, but

1:33:50

it is no more. So I can't

1:33:52

go through the portal, unfortunately, Manny. Leave

1:33:55

it leave it to

1:33:57

the human race to turn a great. idea

1:34:00

into a perverse public

1:34:02

act. Well, there you go. No

1:34:05

more portals, at least for the time being here. All

1:34:07

right. Well, oh, sorry. He's got actual

1:34:09

feedback here. Oh,

1:34:12

sorry. We're up next to Jeremy in Texas

1:34:14

who says, we're always a good show, but

1:34:16

I can't get past having illegitimate media at

1:34:19

press conferences. It is a detriment to true

1:34:21

journalist credibility and legitimacy. WWE is

1:34:23

a bit different with it being entertainment, but it

1:34:25

does not help when an executive like Triple H

1:34:27

is combative when a serious question is asked. Then

1:34:30

there was the USC press conference from this past

1:34:32

weekend. One female reporter

1:34:34

asked Dana White if he could help arrange

1:34:36

Donald Cerrone to brand her. Another

1:34:39

media member asked for Dana White's autograph. It's

1:34:41

really gotten out of hand. How did those

1:34:43

types of reporters get credentialed? Should USC media

1:34:45

relations be stricter when vetting media to be

1:34:47

approved for credentials? Should WWE clarify

1:34:49

the purpose of its press conferences to be kayfabe

1:34:51

or legit? Maybe this is more of a public

1:34:54

question. Get well soon, John. Any

1:34:56

thoughts so far or from any of

1:34:59

that, Neil? I

1:35:01

would apologize to Jeremy that I will

1:35:03

not have the insight of

1:35:05

a full-time reporter like John

1:35:08

who attends press conferences when he can

1:35:11

in this regard. In

1:35:13

a previous life, though, and I'll not go on

1:35:16

about this too far, I

1:35:18

was a newspaper reporter that went to

1:35:20

old-fashioned press

1:35:22

availability generally with political

1:35:25

representatives. This is going

1:35:27

back into late 2000s, 2008, 2009, that kind of period

1:35:30

with my notebook and

1:35:37

shorthand. I

1:35:42

think the iPhone had just come out

1:35:44

at this point, but I didn't have

1:35:46

proper recorders and stuff. I

1:35:50

have the experience of

1:35:52

being at press conferences

1:35:54

where there's absolutely no

1:35:56

holds barred, particularly in

1:35:58

politics. So

1:36:02

this is a different beast. I know that it's a

1:36:04

blend of entertainment and

1:36:06

athleticism that we're seeing but

1:36:09

there's a real-life element to when people

1:36:11

are released and some of the more

1:36:13

serious matters come up that we talked

1:36:15

about at the beginning of the show

1:36:17

and Paul Leveque is a senior executive

1:36:20

in the company who should be

1:36:22

prepared to answer questions

1:36:24

on those and he could say

1:36:26

I'm the

1:36:28

chief creative officer of the company.

1:36:31

You're asking me about things that are

1:36:34

not really, you know, he

1:36:36

could at least address it in

1:36:38

a different way and get annoyed

1:36:41

at people when they don't sort of follow his

1:36:44

little let's

1:36:46

all have a rah-rah, you know, post-show

1:36:49

victory things sponsored generally

1:36:51

by somebody. You know,

1:36:55

if there are genuine members of the

1:36:57

press you want to ask, they should be able to

1:36:59

ask whatever they want and this

1:37:01

was very well, very, very well covered

1:37:04

by Brandon and John on last week's

1:37:07

Paul Gantherst. Yeah, like,

1:37:09

you know, I'll only comment on, so

1:37:12

I did not watch that USC press conference but

1:37:14

thank you Jeremy for that little recap of maybe some of the

1:37:16

highlights if you want to call it that but as far as

1:37:18

like how quote-unquote reporters might

1:37:20

get credential to some of these things, as

1:37:23

far as I'm aware, I don't know if any there's any

1:37:25

sort of like, I don't know, sort

1:37:27

of significant barometer other than the

1:37:30

size of your platform and whether

1:37:32

or not you are considered I

1:37:34

guess a big enough sort of bridge,

1:37:38

you know, between UFC

1:37:40

and a wide audience.

1:37:43

As far as I know that is

1:37:45

largely kind of what is taken into

1:37:48

consideration and I don't think that

1:37:50

really informs like the type of questioning that

1:37:53

certain members of the media might

1:37:55

ask. I think we should

1:37:58

also say like certain members of the media aren't

1:38:00

looking for hard-hitting journalistic questions. They might be

1:38:02

looking for something ridiculous like,

1:38:05

you know, can Dan Saroni brand

1:38:08

me for their particular

1:38:10

type of platform and their particular type

1:38:12

of content. And I don't think like

1:38:15

the WWE or TKO at this point,

1:38:18

I don't know if they'd have any concern

1:38:20

about policing any of that, you know, like why

1:38:22

wouldn't they want like something ridiculous and fun

1:38:24

to be asked of them instead of like a

1:38:27

hard-hitting question that might land them in some

1:38:29

sort of like trouble. I just don't think

1:38:31

that they hold those press conferences

1:38:34

to any sort of like journalistic standard. At

1:38:36

least I don't think it's in their interest

1:38:38

to. So,

1:38:41

all right, let's go up next to Muggin

1:38:43

who says it's good that WWE realizes that

1:38:45

certain matchups should be safe for later. Ilya

1:38:47

Gunther in this case is a drag and

1:38:49

I'm willing to chase till it happens. There's

1:38:51

no shame in Ilya losing to JU so

1:38:53

he's going to be fine. Priest and McIntyre

1:38:55

is all but locked for Glasgow. In the

1:38:57

meantime, Strowman is a fine choice for Priest

1:38:59

to defend the title against Inchetta. Kofi Gunther

1:39:01

was so well done. Did

1:39:03

you get it? I guess Strowman being attached to

1:39:06

the Judgment Day might lead you to that. We

1:39:08

did have the don't get into Judgment Day business

1:39:10

and interaction.

1:39:12

How would Braun

1:39:14

just jump to a title challenge like that though? I

1:39:17

guess it's the WWE. There's no rankings, right?

1:39:19

That's true. Like it seems like to me he's

1:39:21

more feuding with JD and not so much Jamie

1:39:24

but obviously you're right. Like that could work its

1:39:26

way out there. Becky

1:39:28

Dakota was strong up until the finish. The latter is

1:39:30

not letting the rub she got from Becky seven months

1:39:32

ago to waste and

1:39:34

Io Shana was a good test drive for

1:39:36

a babyface run for Sky much, much later.

1:39:38

Solid fun all around. It was also heartwarming

1:39:40

to see Samantha give Lillian her flowers with

1:39:43

that cameo. I guess it was. Jay

1:39:46

from Colorado, a lot of feedback

1:39:48

today as usual with the Neil Flanagan show. So,

1:39:50

as always, Neil, you're a draw here. Jay from

1:39:52

Colorado. I thought it was an excellent show, but

1:39:54

it bothers me More than it

1:39:56

should that Adam Pierce gave the whole speech, but not

1:39:58

about only wanting the best. The best to compete in

1:40:01

the king on the ring and doesn't want to throw

1:40:03

a broad breaker in the deep end up being completely

1:40:05

new to the main roster. but then the very next

1:40:07

matches Lyra, Valkyrie of Verses are we starting the Queen

1:40:09

of during tournaments may be used as a mother in

1:40:11

law or into the deep end or did I miss

1:40:13

something? Will you could just say like you were dragged

1:40:15

off You know why? Why's he thrown into the deep

1:40:18

end. Definitely is

1:40:20

right. As a disconnect they're drawn

1:40:22

from doesn't really. Excels

1:40:24

to be so easily. Maybe he's hiding something

1:40:27

else here had I'm petting Pierce. Lastly, let's

1:40:29

go to any who says another terrific episode.

1:40:31

Roth had a really good time with the

1:40:33

show. The king of the ring cycle has

1:40:35

been electric as as tournament and it's very

1:40:37

subplots have been buried and interesting. The unpredictability

1:40:39

of the results have been a result of

1:40:41

good book and I prefer dragon of losing

1:40:43

queen having a build himself back up instead

1:40:45

of losing be shenanigans. Jays going to serve

1:40:47