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1:27

there I was there Richard

1:52

hey hey it's Conrad Thompson and you're listening

1:54

to something to wrestle with Bruce

1:56

Pritchard Bruce what's going on man how are

1:58

you well you don't It's been a little

2:01

busy, a little crazy around here and what

2:03

have you. And I know that we haven't

2:05

been able to get into a good

2:08

routine as far as being

2:10

able to produce the podcast on

2:12

a timely basis and, and what

2:14

have you. And, and the

2:17

more that I have thought about it and

2:20

put everything into perspective and what

2:22

needs to be done, when and why, and

2:24

all that other good. So, uh, this work

2:27

we're going to do the best of and,

2:30

uh, next week, I

2:32

think, uh, I think it's time

2:34

to, um, address

2:37

our, our, our audience, our core

2:39

audience with a, with

2:41

an announcement that, uh,

2:43

will kind of change the change landscape here a

2:45

little bit. Well,

2:49

today we're going to be getting our way back machine

2:51

and we're going to go back five

2:55

years ago to 2019 to

2:57

an episode that Bruce and I recorded together,

2:59

we're going to be talking about the

3:01

rock stone cold Goldberg and Brock Lesnar.

3:04

And, uh, well, we'll be talking

3:07

about how they're all leaving

3:10

just around backlash So

3:13

sorry about the audible folks. Obviously

3:15

things are changing and,

3:17

uh, it feels like this was probably

3:19

inevitable. And, uh, Bruce will give

3:21

us the good, the

3:23

bad and the ugly next week, but at

3:26

least for today, let's talk about

3:28

backlash 2004, the

3:30

conversation that Bruce and I had in 2019,

3:32

and we'll see you guys hopefully

3:37

next week, right here, something

3:40

to wrestle.com. Hey,

3:43

Hey, it's Conrad Thompson. And you're listening to

3:45

something to Russell with Bruce

3:47

Pritchard. Who's coming to us

3:49

live from Stanford, Connecticut. What's

3:52

going on, Bruce? How are you? Actually?

3:54

I mean, as, as they say up in

3:57

Canada, I'm actually green,

3:59

which. Connecticut, or as the

4:01

locals call it, Greenwich. So

4:05

beautiful day here, as a matter of fact,

4:07

I'm, I'm looking out at the, uh, at

4:09

the air conditioning system here. It's wonderful. Well,

4:12

I'm excited that you're in Greenwich and

4:15

I know that you're up there with all your stobby

4:17

friends. I think those are, uh, the

4:19

main streets that Hunter Hearst Helmsley used to roam

4:21

back in the day. Did he know it? Oh,

4:25

hell yeah. Yeah. The main, they're, they

4:27

are probably the meanest damn streets anywhere

4:29

in the world. Well, hence

4:31

the name. Yeah. I mean, you know, you just can't

4:33

make that shit up. I mean, the main streets of

4:35

Connecticut are as mean as they get. Well,

4:38

we are, uh, we are lean and mean

4:40

this week here as we are covering a

4:42

backlash 2004, but before

4:44

we get there, we ought to circle back to last

4:47

week and, uh, recap a little bit of Austin 98,

4:49

99. I

4:51

think the most talked about thing on the show was my

4:53

beard. Uh, we, uh, we

4:55

tried taping these shows on the road a few

4:57

different ways. When I was in Japan at the

5:00

beginning of the year, I used my Apple AirPods

5:02

as a mic and you guys hated the

5:04

way that sounds. So I tried a wired

5:06

pair of headphones from great friend of the show,

5:08

Mr. Jeff Jones, and apparently

5:10

my beard wound up eating most

5:12

of the show. So, uh, we're

5:15

going to do our best to make this week

5:18

sound a little better. But again, Bruce is on

5:20

the road, but we, uh, we've heard your feedback.

5:23

It was loud and clear last week. You guys would

5:25

rather have great sound quality

5:27

consistently as opposed to new

5:29

content consistently. Uh, so we're

5:31

in the process of putting together some best of

5:33

shows. So the next time we have a travel

5:35

situation, what you are treated with will at

5:37

least be a quality sound

5:39

and it won't be as scratchy, but

5:42

today. You're still coming to us

5:44

from a hotel room and the main

5:46

streets of green witch, because it's our

5:48

only option. You're a busier than a

5:50

one arm paper hanger, man. A

5:53

little bit. Yes. Yes. We both are. So

5:55

we're, we're kind of all over the country,

5:57

but we're, you know what? We're still dedicated.

5:59

We're still. going to do whatever the hell

6:01

it takes to get something out and, um,

6:03

make it new and refreshing every week. And

6:06

sometimes our time is limited, you know, it's,

6:08

you have a window, I have a window

6:10

and we're doing the very best we can

6:12

folks. And I appreciate everybody hanging in and

6:14

bearing with us and not totally

6:16

hating us. Well, I didn't notice

6:18

your, I, when we were recording, I didn't even

6:20

notice your beer, beer gruffling. Even when I started

6:23

to get the feedback, I clicked around a few

6:25

spots and I didn't hear it either, but I

6:27

know it's there. So we posted a diagram and

6:29

an explanation, but we're still getting feedback. But, uh,

6:32

no, after, after five hours of this

6:34

for five years, I have not started

6:36

eating into the microphone and I'm fat,

6:38

but Jesus, uh, and I, and I was

6:40

not at a poker table, you didn't

6:42

hear anyone raise or lower or yell

6:45

cigarettes. I wanted to know what, where did

6:47

that come from? The quietest poker table

6:49

ever. Like no one's raising nothing.

6:51

Like, come on, let's, let's be

6:53

real. Uh, but either way, we're

6:55

here now. I'm back home in Huntsville, Alabama. I've been

6:57

in my own bed for like five nights in a

6:59

row. I don't know what to think. I'm so well

7:02

rested. That is not the case for you. I'm just

7:04

rubbing it in. I was bragging.

7:06

Yeah. I was just going to say now you're

7:08

just being mean. Yeah. It's nice to, uh, be

7:10

on my regular microphone too. I'm not over modulating

7:12

last week. Whenever I would raise my voice, it

7:15

would just blow out the settings in my laptop

7:17

and Adobe, so we're back to normal

7:19

this week. And we're covering the 15 year

7:22

anniversary of backlash 2004. And,

7:25

uh, just yesterday was the

7:27

15 year anniversary of this show. It went down

7:29

on April 18th at Rexall Place

7:31

in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada drew 13,000

7:35

fans, and this is the sixth backlash

7:37

pay-per-view and this is a raw brand

7:39

pay-per-view, uh, I think

7:41

this is one of the only times that

7:43

Edmonton ever got a pay-per-view, do you know,

7:45

uh, as our friend hurricane would say, what's

7:47

up with that? A

7:50

happy accident. And it was,

7:52

you know, not a lot of planning, but

7:54

the fact that it was

7:56

Chris Benoit's hometown worked out really,

7:59

really well. from everything that

8:01

we were doing creatively with Benoit

8:03

just getting the championship the world

8:05

championship so this is one

8:07

of those that you have to chalk up there

8:09

is a really good

8:12

happy accident a happy coincidence yeah

8:16

we are we're

8:18

excited whenever a pay-per-view comes to the south because

8:20

we don't get them a ton so I feel

8:22

your pain Edmonton we're coming

8:24

off WrestleMania 20 which we did this to

8:26

a couple of weeks ago it's available in

8:29

the archives now something to wrestle calm Chris

8:31

Benoit comes out of WrestleMania 20 as the

8:33

new heavyweight champion of course he defeated Triple

8:35

H and Shawn Michaels in a triple threat

8:37

match to win the title he

8:40

made Triple H tap out to

8:42

win that match and famously Benoit

8:44

is from Edmonton I guess

8:46

this begs the question when

8:49

you guys scheduled Edmonton for this pay-per-view did you

8:51

already know hey we're gonna put the title on

8:54

Benoit and we're gonna go there or with it

8:56

was the building book so far in advance and

8:58

it was just all a blessing

9:00

in disguise yeah the

9:02

booking was done way in advance

9:04

so it was

9:06

all a very very good

9:09

happy accident and one of

9:11

those situations where things everything

9:13

lined up but the

9:15

decision hadn't really clearly been made as

9:17

far as Benoit being the champion when

9:21

this thing was booked so no it wasn't done

9:23

to hey Chris Benoit is gonna be the champion

9:25

let's have something in his hometown it

9:27

was the moon and the

9:29

stars and everything aligning just

9:31

right that made sense well

9:35

I do want to talk a little bit about

9:37

that you know when you know that you've got

9:39

like the hometown hero coming in this champion what

9:42

do you guys line up from a PR

9:44

standpoint differently is that guy doubling down on

9:46

all the press stuff does he go in

9:48

a week early and hit all the local

9:50

radio and TV and newspapers it does feel

9:52

like he would try to line it up

9:54

you know a hero's welcome and get a

9:56

feel-good story locally as well right any

9:59

and everything thing that you possibly can. And

10:01

it helps from the

10:04

standpoint locally, they all want him. They

10:06

all want him. They all want to

10:08

talk about the hometown boy that made

10:10

good. So they're already requesting it and

10:12

we're getting it out there every way

10:14

that we can. So it was, it

10:17

was good. The fact that Chris and

10:19

I even believe that the Chris still

10:22

had a place there was, was going back and

10:25

forth. So it was to

10:27

that end that worked

10:29

out really well and people knew him. And

10:31

Chris wasn't one that always went

10:33

out and did a lot of that stuff. It

10:36

was good practice for him as well, because

10:38

Chris wasn't the best on the microphone. He wasn't

10:41

one of those guys that was over the top.

10:44

This was a chance for him to get out of

10:46

his comfort shell and for him to be able to

10:48

get out in front of audiences and tell his story

10:50

and let people get to know, you

10:53

know, that real guy.

10:57

How do you think he was, um, adjusting

10:59

to being the world champion? You know, we

11:01

hear not so much now, but

11:03

back in the day, we used to hear

11:05

that Vince always had or wanted to have

11:07

a special relationship with his champion. That they

11:09

would talk every day, that they would be

11:12

very close. And Vince still took that, that

11:14

honor of, of making someone champion very

11:16

seriously and felt like they were sort

11:19

of the face of the company. And

11:21

a lot of guys have talked about the stress

11:23

of, you know, carrying that, that

11:25

weight of the responsibility of the success,

11:28

the highs and lows as it were

11:30

of the WWE or WWF at the

11:32

time. And that could be a

11:34

bit of a grind. How was

11:37

Benoit in that role 30 days in

11:39

here? Still

11:41

learning. And I

11:44

don't know that that was ever anything that

11:46

Chris was ever completely comfortable with. It

11:48

was something that Vince did work a lot with

11:50

him on personally, but

11:53

Chris. He wrestled in

11:55

the ring. That's what he did best. And that

11:57

is what, you know, made his name for him.

12:00

That's what people loved him for. So

12:03

for him to go and verbalize that a

12:05

lot of times that was difficult. That was

12:07

difficult for him. And that was something that

12:09

Vince did, did work with him an

12:11

awful lot. And you know,

12:13

you get the very best that you can out of

12:15

it. And it was a slow process, but

12:18

the only way you're going to get better,

12:20

no better, I mean, no different than

12:23

how you get better in the ring is

12:25

repetition. The only way you're going to get

12:27

better at doing media interviews and speaking in

12:30

front of large audiences is actually doing it.

12:32

Go out there, flub up a few times

12:34

and do what you have to do, but

12:37

then you're going to be more comfortable. And

12:39

when you're comfortable, it's better. Let's

12:42

talk about, you know, the, the, the

12:44

mission to sort of make him, you know,

12:46

it does feel a little bit like

12:48

a paradigm shift for the company. And I'm putting

12:50

words in your mouth here. So I want you

12:52

to set the record straight. I wasn't there. You

12:54

were, but it feels like the company's

12:56

in a bit of a transition, you know, with

12:59

no competition with WCW and ECW going

13:01

under in 2001, it feels like Oh

13:04

two and Oh three very much became

13:07

transitional years where you're trying to find

13:09

sort of the new norm. You've got

13:11

a stacked and loaded roster. You're trying

13:13

new things with, you know, Steve

13:16

Austin or with Hulk Hogan. By

13:18

the time of four rolls around, it feels like

13:21

you've settled into something new. Business has certainly taken

13:23

a dip and you're trying to sort of find

13:25

your way. And it feels like

13:27

there's a bit of a paradigm shift from Vince

13:29

McMahon. So there is this raw brand split. And

13:32

now you've got, you know, raw on one side smack down

13:34

on the other and coming out of

13:36

WrestleMania 20, instead of going with two or

13:38

even one more traditional

13:41

heritage champion, you've

13:43

got really two projects, Eddie Guerrero

13:45

and smack down and

13:48

Chris Benoit on raw. You're trying to

13:50

new things, pushing two new, totally top

13:52

guys. Is that

13:54

a response from Vince thinking we need

13:56

to shake things up, pal. Let's try

13:58

something different. Or is it

14:00

just, am I reading too much into that?

14:03

No, it was time that we had to change

14:05

things up and we were going to try something

14:08

new. I go back to, you know,

14:10

1993 with Bret Hart and

14:12

Hulk was gone. It

14:15

was an opportunity where Vince

14:17

looked at it. We had gone

14:19

from, you know, Hogan to Savage

14:21

to Flair to Boyer,

14:23

all these different talent

14:27

that were very, very flamboyant

14:30

and very out

14:32

there. They were all proven

14:34

top stars to Bret Hart.

14:38

And the idea was, okay, we are

14:40

going to make Bret this top star.

14:42

So the mindset in the

14:44

company became everything that we did

14:47

with Bret was what would we do if

14:49

it was Hulk? That

14:52

was the mindset. Whatever you have to do, you

14:54

get him on the Tonight Show, you get him

14:56

on Good Morning America, whatever it is that you

14:58

have to do, that's what we want to do

15:01

with our new champion. Same thing here.

15:04

It was prior to this, it

15:06

was stone cold Steve Austin. It was the

15:08

rock. And those were

15:10

the big stars that had driven the company

15:13

probably 10 years before, well, not even

15:15

10 years before, but they

15:17

were the most recent that people related to

15:20

and that everyone compared everyone else to. This

15:23

was a, well, if it, if he was

15:25

Steve Austin, what would we do? And

15:28

you had to, you had to

15:30

look at it partially like that, but at

15:33

the same time, it's, we

15:35

don't want him to be Steve Austin. We don't

15:37

want him to be the rock. We want them to be, you know,

15:40

Eddie Guerrero. We want him to be Chris. And

15:42

it was a subtle,

15:46

you know, it was subtleties. It was, we

15:48

wanted all the same opportunities, but

15:50

to create different, a

15:53

little bit different persona, not that over

15:55

the top beer, drinking hell, raising stone

15:57

cold Steve Austin or the pie eating.

15:59

back down in rock, it was

16:02

now, all I cheat goal, uh,

16:05

with Eddie Guerrero and

16:07

a straightforward business, you

16:09

know, wrestler athlete in Chris

16:12

Benoit. Well,

16:15

it does feel like you guys are trying

16:17

to sort of establish him or reestablish him

16:19

or submit him as the top guy, whatever

16:21

it may be, because you're coming back here

16:24

with a rematch from WrestleMania 20, which is

16:26

a little rare, I guess, you

16:28

know, we're going to be back on top triple

16:31

H Sean Michaels, Chris Benoit,

16:34

why the decision to go back to the same match? A

16:37

couple of reasons. Now, one was to get

16:39

the, get the victory over the

16:42

other guy, that being Sean Michaels, and

16:45

it was a great match. The, the

16:47

story didn't end at

16:49

WrestleMania. It was just another chapter

16:51

at WrestleMania to crown the new

16:54

champion. And now

16:56

to solidify that champion, what

16:58

better way to solidify him than to

17:00

be. Both guys

17:03

that were in that triple threat and

17:05

really establish him as this is the

17:07

guy. Now he beat your two top

17:10

stars in, you know,

17:12

basically one match. It was two matches, but still, you

17:14

know what I mean? It was three, it was a

17:17

triple threat. You didn't beat the

17:19

weak guy. You beat the two strongest

17:21

guys. And that

17:23

solidified him as world champion. All

17:26

right. Let's take a time out right

17:28

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19:49

talk about some, some company news and

19:51

notes heading into this pay-per-view on March

19:53

20th, we see the WWE draft and

19:56

we're just coming off of the superstar

19:58

shakeup in current day. be,

20:02

uh, I know we're not going to talk about current stuff,

20:04

but I'm going to get a lot of heat if I

20:06

don't say, and you, I know you're going to pass. What

20:08

the fuck is the Viking experience? Who booked this shit? Uh,

20:11

anyway, why did they eliminate the

20:13

draft concept and start doing the

20:15

superstar shakeup? Uh, because

20:18

this is, um, you know,

20:20

the draft was fun and, but it

20:22

wasn't more traditional sports feel now

20:24

it's a little more randomized. Do you know

20:26

why Vince maybe changed his, his flavor on

20:29

that? Actually, I really don't.

20:31

I think it was just to do something

20:33

different and create, um, unpredictable

20:36

atmosphere. They

20:39

had done the draft and everything, and now it's,

20:41

it's a shakeup and it's the

20:43

same concept. The only thing is you're

20:45

not getting the draft picks and that

20:47

drama of someone and who are they going

20:50

to pick? Uh, it's still the

20:52

drama of where are people going to end up,

20:55

but different. Let's

20:57

talk about the draft back in the day. How

20:59

did you guys decide who was going where?

21:02

Is it all just sort of whatever

21:04

events is feel is do people campaign

21:06

one way or another, Hey, we think

21:08

this guy should be there and here's why. And

21:11

then they list potential feuds or issues or what's

21:13

that process look like? Painful.

21:16

Uh, well, you know, you

21:18

start with, you start with your talent rosters and

21:20

you take a look at who is who's

21:23

on what show who's identifiable with

21:25

what show there were,

21:28

there were some talent that you

21:31

just, for example, early on, Steve

21:33

Austin was all about Monday night

21:35

raw and rock was all about

21:37

smackdown. So the feeling was they

21:39

had to remain on those shows.

21:42

There were some talent

21:44

that just were identifiable with

21:46

the brand that they were on, you

21:49

would take a look at your, your

21:51

talent rosters and you say, okay, this

21:54

guy's been here a while. How

21:56

does he benefit with a move

21:58

over to the other brand? So let's say

22:00

if you're looking at SmackDown, how does XYZ

22:04

benefit by going over to the raw brand?

22:07

What new match-ups do we

22:09

have that we could create

22:12

on the raw brand and vice versa? So

22:15

you're constantly looking at what's

22:18

going to be new and does it work? Does

22:23

it gel more than anything? You

22:27

can switch people all day long, but then

22:29

if they don't gel and you can't have

22:31

good creative match-ups, then it's not

22:33

going to work. The other issue

22:35

was Raw was live and

22:38

SmackDown was taped. So there

22:40

was that element too. Who performs better live?

22:43

Who can

22:46

benefit from having a taped

22:49

show where they can go ahead and maybe screw up

22:52

and it can be edited, it can be fixed. So

22:55

all of that comes into play.

22:58

Then you take your writing teams, people

23:01

responsible for Raw, people responsible for

23:03

SmackDown, and we would

23:06

do a legitimate draft

23:10

and just say, hey, we want this guy.

23:13

And okay, what do you have for this? And kind of

23:15

go back and forth. You had

23:17

to work together. You had to work together, otherwise

23:19

it wouldn't work. We did shoot

23:21

drafts where we would

23:23

start and build each

23:26

team would build their dream

23:29

roster. This is who I want. He did

23:31

like a fantasy football draft for wrestling.

23:36

Right. And each group would do

23:38

their, this is my ideal.

23:40

This is the roster I want. Now

23:42

you got to go and negotiate. I'm

23:46

like, oh, that guy can't work with that guy.

23:50

Do you really think this match is going to work?

23:54

And then both sides kind of pitch

23:56

and you pitch events and Vince looks

23:58

at it and Vince is. feeling

24:01

who he wants on which brands and you

24:04

take it from there and then you it's like

24:06

putting a giant puzzle together

24:08

where the pieces never actually you still

24:10

gotta force some in and bend the

24:13

corner a little bit to make it

24:15

fit but it's

24:18

a gigantic puzzle that is not

24:22

the easiest thing in the world to do because

24:24

even after you get it all done there still

24:26

changes and it's

24:30

a it's a constant that's where he came up

24:32

with you know the draft and then The

24:34

draft will continue while trades and

24:37

other things happen Because

24:39

you still wanted the ability to be flexible

24:41

and kind of okay this you

24:43

know what this doesn't look as good now That I had

24:45

you know looked really good in the store, but now I

24:48

got it home, and I put it on It doesn't look

24:50

as good on me We

24:53

gave ourselves time to make those changes Let's

24:57

talk a little bit about how you communicate

24:59

with the different guys You know who's going

25:01

where because through the years It's

25:03

been said that some guys didn't know they were

25:05

being moved until it was announced on TV But

25:08

I'm sure that wasn't the case with some top guys How

25:11

do you decide one way or another like

25:14

does Vince say hey? Let's not tell JR He's going

25:16

to smack down, but hey before we do anything with

25:18

Steve Austin. We need to run it past him I

25:22

would say that 98%

25:24

did not know Vince

25:28

wanted to keep that so close to the vest that

25:32

he wanted it to be a 100%

25:36

surprise and honest reaction from the

25:38

talent as well as everyone else

25:40

that we held that thing so closely to

25:42

the vest that we would bring

25:44

everyone in and when

25:47

it would would be time to

25:49

make the announcement you have The

25:52

guy that's going to be drafted along

25:54

with six or seven other guys Standing

25:57

by hear your name go Is

26:00

there any consideration when you guys are having

26:03

these conversations about this person's moving here or

26:05

there as to,

26:07

I know you're going to almost laugh this

26:09

off, but I think it's a valid question. Who

26:12

people ride with and travel with? Like if

26:14

someone has been a riding buddy with this

26:17

guy for years and years and they're, they're

26:19

travel companions, they share cars, they share rooms,

26:21

the whole deal, and now you're going

26:23

to make a change. Is

26:25

that even considered? And if so, or if

26:27

not, either way, is it

26:29

still a surprise to them or, or do you

26:31

say, Hey, just so you know, next

26:34

week, maybe a little different because we're thinking about making

26:36

a change. Or is that too

26:38

a surprise and Vincent and I care if, you know,

26:40

they split up. And

26:42

some of these situations, there's couples. So it's

26:44

a man and a woman who are together

26:46

in real life and they travel on the

26:49

road together. And that obviously

26:51

is convenient. And then if one

26:53

gets moved to another show, now they're,

26:55

they're living totally separate lives. Yeah.

26:59

It is far if someone was married.

27:01

Yes. There was consideration given to that

27:03

other than, other than marriage. Um,

27:06

no, because you

27:08

can't look at that. If you,

27:11

if you look at that, then how, how

27:13

in the hell do you do that? Well, this

27:15

person rides with that guy. They really liked splitting

27:17

rooms or they, they, this guy is the best

27:19

wheel man. You, you can't.

27:22

And that's just

27:24

life. If you were in any other

27:26

job or somebody that you

27:28

hung out with and you went out with every night,

27:31

whatever, and all of a sudden you get

27:33

transferred, well, you

27:35

gotta make now it's time to make new friends and

27:37

you make new writing buddies and you change

27:40

up the way that you operate on

27:42

the road, that's, that's life. And that's

27:44

just business, uh, with the exception of

27:46

if someone was married, we

27:49

tried to keep them together. But

27:51

other than that, cause come on. I mean,

27:53

people are, if they're dating or seeing one

27:56

another, uh, they could be seeing

27:59

one another one. week and the next

28:01

week, BC and someone else. So that

28:03

did not come into it. Um, pretty

28:05

much only married was something that we

28:08

looked at and said, okay, we're

28:10

going to try and keep them together. And

28:13

sometimes, you know, it didn't

28:15

work, but for the most part, that was

28:17

the one consideration that we gave, but guys

28:19

riding together and hanging. No, um,

28:23

that did not enter into the equation.

28:27

Let's, uh, let's keep it moving here.

28:29

This draft show from 2004 does a

28:31

4.5 rating, which was the highest of

28:33

any of the other two draft shows

28:35

that happened before, uh, Paul

28:38

Haman is the GM of smackdown, Eric

28:40

Bischoff is running raw and they do

28:42

these randomized, uh, draws

28:44

where they're pulling these balls from a

28:46

machine with wrestlers names inside of them.

28:49

So it's old school Royal rumble style,

28:51

almost like a lottery. Uh,

28:53

what'd you think of, uh, whenever they would do

28:56

these randomized names? I mean, obviously it's,

28:58

you know, tongue in cheek, we know

29:01

the deal, but that's kind of fun, huh?

29:04

Yeah, it is because now you're adding

29:06

the element of the general manager doesn't

29:08

have as much control over who's going

29:10

to be drafted. You're at the luck

29:12

of the draw and it's now it's

29:14

a lottery versus an actual

29:16

draft. So that was fun because it

29:19

was, again, you throw in the

29:21

unpredictability of it and what the hell could

29:23

happen? Anything could happen at

29:25

any time. And Hey, we

29:27

did those exercises too. Like

29:32

I said before, where we've actually

29:34

just thrown one through

29:36

30 in a bin and had

29:39

guys pick for certain wrestlers to see where they

29:41

would end up in the Royal rumble. We did

29:43

the same thing with the lottery. What if, and

29:46

a lot of times that's mental masturbation because

29:48

it doesn't matter. But it's, it's fun to

29:50

do to break up the monotony a little

29:52

bit of what you, Hey, this

29:54

could actually happen. So let's play

29:56

this scenario out. What if they drew

29:59

this? So you

30:01

have to play all that shit out and, and

30:03

look at every single side of it and how

30:05

it affects business. Let's

30:09

talk a little bit about what

30:11

hacks, what actually happened that night. Renee

30:14

Dupree gets drafted to smack

30:17

down Shelton Benjamin drafted to raw.

30:20

Jim drag going to smack down Nydia

30:22

to raw. Excuse

30:25

me. Triple H to smack down. Rhino to

30:27

raw, Rob, Ben dam to smack

30:29

down to Jerry to raw. And

30:31

before the Triple H pick to smack down, we

30:34

saw people drafted who weren't necessarily main

30:36

eventers, but were big names at the

30:38

time. Did you guys try to set

30:41

that up just to get their names out there in

30:43

hopes it would help them somewhat, or, you know,

30:45

are you trying to elevate everybody in a draft

30:47

or because you are having people

30:49

like Teddy long going to smack down a

30:51

spike Dudley going to smack down, they're not

30:54

necessarily. You

30:56

know, major, uh, you

30:58

know, names necessarily on the show, but

31:01

then being featured in a spot like this is

31:03

a chance to, as you would say,

31:05

give them a fresh pane of coat. No,

31:08

it's totally random Conrad. It's just, we were drawing

31:11

balls and sorry. No,

31:14

it was the anticipation

31:16

of when you, you hear guys,

31:19

maybe not made eventers top guys,

31:21

but they're interesting and they're moving from their

31:24

norms. So you're thinking, okay, well, how are

31:26

they going to fit over there? You're

31:29

trying to play the audience here as well to

31:32

think, what's this guy going to do

31:34

in a new environment? Then you

31:36

hit them with a bigger name and they go,

31:38

Oh shit. That's a big one. And people are

31:40

going, all right, now this is getting interesting. Conrad,

31:44

how is the official

31:47

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31:50

Well, I'm the only one that can answer

31:53

that question, right? Because it is being my

31:56

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31:58

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32:00

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32:56

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32:58

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33:00

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33:02

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33:05

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33:07

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33:09

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33:11

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33:14

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33:18

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33:30

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33:46

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33:48

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33:50

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33:55

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34:03

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I did, you should, and you won't regret

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it. Let's

35:21

keep it moving here. I do want to

35:23

talk about an interesting pick Paul

35:25

Heyman, who is the SmackDown GM

35:28

is drafted to raw and then

35:30

he quits. What do you remember

35:32

about that? I

35:35

will not be on the red

35:37

brand. My brand is blue, which

35:39

is why I only wear blue

35:41

towels and I drip dry after

35:43

I shower, sometimes I

35:45

lather up with all temperature, um, storyline

35:50

and the idea behind it

35:52

was again, that shocking moment

35:54

of the SmackDown general manager.

35:56

Wait a minute. The fucking

35:59

general manager. are in this thing too. So

36:02

it made people talk. And then the

36:05

idea of, and I believe it was even

36:07

Paul's idea to say, well, what

36:10

if I just quit? What

36:12

if I didn't want to go to raw and

36:14

I just quit? And that was why we played that

36:16

out. And that was the storyline that, that

36:19

kind of resonated because you hear

36:21

guys all the time. Football

36:25

or whatever, if I get drafted to here or

36:27

if I get picked or traded to go

36:30

somewhere else, I'll just quit. Very

36:32

few ever do. You know, it's usually

36:34

just a bunch of talk and shit to get people

36:37

talking about things. But this was one, okay,

36:39

you know, Paul quit. I

36:42

will not do that, sir. And

36:45

that was the idea behind it. And just let

36:47

the storyline gradually go on until

36:49

Paul reappears somewhere else. Wade

36:52

Keller would report in the torch. After

36:55

a longer stint as Smackdown GM than originally

36:57

anticipated, Paul Heyman has been moved out of

36:59

that role in favor of Kurt Angle. Heyman

37:01

originally was slated to be replaced last fall

37:03

by Stephanie McMahon, who for now

37:05

will remain in an off air role

37:07

in the creative department. Heyman

37:10

has been acting very cocky on air as

37:12

part of his character, referring to Paul Heyman's

37:14

Smackdown so often that it almost gave away

37:16

that the show wouldn't be his much longer.

37:19

The plan for Heyman is for him to return

37:21

in several weeks after selling the quitting angle and

37:23

become a manager. Heyman has

37:25

been so strong with his mic work lately, especially

37:27

at house shows, that he may be a key

37:29

in getting over some young wrestlers with a lot

37:31

of potential but lacking main event mic skills. We've

37:34

done a Paul Heyman episode in the past.

37:37

It's filmed in the archives at something to

37:39

wrestle.com. But can it

37:41

be overstated how strong Paul Heyman was

37:43

and is on the mic? No,

37:46

I don't think you can. I think that Paul Heyman

37:49

is the best on the mic

37:52

right now and probably

37:55

he will be up there in the

37:58

Bobby Heenan category. the

38:00

greatest managers of all time. And

38:02

it may be Bobby Heena and Paul Heyman. Heyman

38:05

has just solidified. Paul

38:08

has a way of telling you a story

38:10

and bringing everything to where the littlest

38:16

of detail is the major

38:18

point and making everything mean

38:21

something. So

38:24

he had that skill then he has that skill

38:26

now. I dare say he's gotten

38:29

better over the years, but

38:31

Paul took a company like ECW and

38:33

was able to exploit very limited skills

38:38

with guys and make

38:41

it work. And, and, and he

38:43

made it work for a while. Uh, didn't make

38:45

any money, but still he, that's

38:47

one skill that is often

38:50

overlooked with Paul, that he is able

38:52

to get the most out of as

38:54

little as possible. Let's

38:59

talk about, uh, the next match on the

39:01

show. Triple H comes

39:03

down to the ring wearing a smackdown

39:05

shirt and he wrestles the WWE champion,

39:07

Eddie Guerrero for the title. It's

39:10

going to be their first and only match against

39:12

each other on TV. And

39:14

that in my research really stood out

39:17

to me. Was it ever talked

39:19

about them doing a program together? It's pretty crazy

39:21

to think that they didn't really have that much

39:23

interaction. They didn't have that many matches. That

39:25

could have been a really fun feud. God,

39:28

I think it would have been an

39:31

incredible issue. There

39:33

was so much there to work with. And unfortunately,

39:35

you know, we got one out of it and

39:37

that was it before Hunter went back to raw.

39:41

And at the same time, you know,

39:43

you kind of look at it, they were so strong,

39:46

both characters were so strong.

39:48

It would have been a little

39:50

tough too. But for me, I

39:54

thought that it brought out the very best in

39:56

Eddie and for

39:59

Hunter, it showed. Um,

40:01

that he could work with any and everybody. And it

40:03

was, unfortunately,

40:05

we just got one out of it. And I thought

40:07

that the one we got out of it was tremendous.

40:11

Let's keep it moving here. Um, Eddie

40:14

wins the match by the Q flair

40:16

and Batista interfere. And then several wrestlers get

40:18

involved. It's a big schmaz, a big brawl.

40:21

A hundred doesn't stay on smack down and

40:23

he never actually appears on it after the

40:25

draft because he is immediately traded back to

40:27

raw. Uh,

40:30

is this one of those that looked better in the store

40:32

or did Hunter campaign to go back to wrong? No,

40:35

it was one of those that looked better in

40:37

the store. And I think that once Vince got

40:40

a look at it, smack down

40:42

and raw, and he's thinking, hmm,

40:45

I think raw

40:47

needs triple

40:50

age. And he wanted

40:52

to make that and we're like, well, I thought

40:54

the idea was that we're building, you know,

40:56

we're going to build some of these guys

40:58

up. He says, yeah, but I need a,

41:00

and he's established talent to build them up.

41:03

We should understand that as well. So

41:05

the idea was, well, now we'll just put

41:07

it back on raw. Okay.

41:12

You know, you do what you have to do.

41:15

It was, it was a little bit

41:18

of once you saw it and

41:20

like say, once we got it there and everything, it's

41:22

like, now

41:24

that I'm looking at raw and

41:26

I'm looking at smack down, smack

41:28

downs loaded. Raw

41:31

needs, need something else.

41:34

He didn't want to take away from a traditional

41:36

smack down talent or he didn't want

41:38

to move Eddie or anything like that

41:40

because of the similarities with Benoit and

41:43

felt that Benoit had, had

41:46

been on smack down long enough. Didn't want to

41:48

make that change. So he put Hunter back on

41:50

raw. And just felt that was stronger.

41:54

You know, this, I

41:56

don't know why that surprises me, but it does sound

41:59

very. ready shoot aim. I

42:01

mean, isn't that a weird thing to do? Like you

42:03

lay all this groundwork down and you say, this

42:05

is what I'm going to do. And you make a

42:07

big to do about the draft. And then

42:10

once you do it, you immediately say, Oh, I

42:12

don't like that change my mind. I mean, is

42:16

that not a ready shoot aim approach? Sometimes,

42:19

but also that's the beauty of live television.

42:21

And that's the beauty of being able to

42:23

have a show every single week that you

42:26

can make those adjustments and, and

42:28

change. So it's a

42:31

lot of times you'll, you'll look at something that

42:33

looks great on paper. And

42:36

by God, you're explaining this whole thing and

42:38

you have this visual in your head

42:40

and we're going to do this and here's this new finish

42:42

that we're going to create for this guy

42:44

and he's going to pick him up and blah, blah, blah. And

42:47

then you see it and,

42:50

and it, and you go, okay, but you know

42:52

what? It'll be better when there's people

42:54

in the building and the excitement and then the

42:57

people get in the building, the excitement and you go, that

43:01

just doesn't work. And

43:03

that was, that's, that was the

43:06

feeling. And the, again,

43:08

that's the beautiful luxury of being live

43:10

and being able to change every single

43:12

week if you need to. I

43:16

mean, I get that, but at the same time,

43:18

doesn't it cheapen the excitement and take away from

43:20

some of the quote unquote stakes, as Eric Bischoff

43:22

would say of a draft, if you can just

43:24

immediately undo it, like why get all

43:27

that excited about a shakeup? If we're immediately

43:29

going to undo it. Well,

43:31

we did that. We only undid one guy. So

43:34

yeah. So let's mention he was drafted by Paul

43:36

Heyman to join smack down, then traded by Kurt

43:39

angle back to raw in exchange for Booker T

43:41

and the Dudley's, um, way

43:44

killer would write hunter switched to smack down was

43:46

treated on television as the biggest story coming out

43:48

of the draft lottery. Well ahead of any other

43:50

moves, only edge of switched

43:52

to raw was treated as a major happening otherwise,

43:56

and the smack down locker room was relieved to

43:58

hear that Hunter wasn't staying on their roster. as

44:00

Hunter as seen as being so politically

44:02

powerful, it changes the

44:04

dynamic of the roster, more

44:06

chummy atmosphere, um, among

44:09

the SmackDown wrestlers as compared to the

44:11

raw wrestlers chat me up. Did

44:14

you get

44:16

a vibe or sense that

44:19

SmackDown had a looser, more carefree locker

44:22

room than raw did? I

44:25

think in general they did because again, you

44:27

look at the show, the show being taped,

44:29

there wasn't that immediacy

44:33

to that. And there was a little bit

44:35

more relaxed from the standpoint of, uh, you

44:37

know, if we screw something up, we can fix it. So

44:41

the, the pressure wasn't

44:44

on as much in those days from

44:47

that standpoint on raw men, you, you, you had

44:49

to be on, it was live. You had to

44:51

fucking hit it. You had to nail it every

44:55

single week. And that pressure is there. For

44:57

some of the younger guys that have never felt

44:59

that that's a lot of fucking pressure. And then

45:02

when you're on SmackDown, you have, you've

45:05

got a net underneath you. So

45:08

as far as the, the mood and the

45:11

locker room and the different, different

45:13

feel, yeah, there was definitely a different feel. And when

45:15

you get to raw, man, it was

45:17

more intense because it was live. It was gotta

45:19

go, gotta go, gotta go. And you gotta hit

45:21

your, you gotta hit your times. If you go

45:23

over three minutes on raw, you fuck

45:25

up the whole show. Where

45:27

you go under you fuck up the show. If

45:29

that happens on SmackDown, it's like, okay, you're, I'm

45:31

pissed off, but at the same time we can

45:34

fix it. I can go back in post

45:36

and we can add something or we can take something out.

45:38

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46:41

I'm Amber Wallen, internet comedian and host

46:43

of your new favorite podcast, Fly on

46:46

the Wallen. Okay, that's pretty presumptuous to

46:48

assume that this is going to be

46:50

their favorite podcast, by the way. Anyway,

46:53

that wasp that you just heard interrupt me

46:55

is my husband. And co-host,

46:57

Benjamin Wallen. Listen in as we

46:59

discuss relationships and keeping our sweet

47:02

baby kid alive. Fly

47:04

on the Wallen, wherever you listen. Let's

47:11

talk a little bit about, you know,

47:13

what Wade Keller wrote here, because I'm curious your

47:15

opinion on this, because this is something that's been

47:17

stated as fact for a long time. Hunter

47:20

remaining on Raw did submit Raw's reputation

47:22

within WWE as being the number one

47:24

priority of Vince McMahon and

47:26

those in power, since Hunter is clearly

47:29

the top WWE wrestler, despite not holding

47:31

a world title. And it's

47:33

the last full-time active top tier player from

47:35

the Monday Night War era. I'm

47:38

not going to ask you to weigh in on whether or

47:40

not Hunter was the top wrestler at the time, but

47:44

did everybody always know and believe that

47:46

Raw was Vince McMahon's number one priority?

47:48

Because we've heard that forever. There

47:51

was even once upon a time where Vince

47:53

only went to Raw. He didn't go to

47:55

SmackDown. Raw was the important one. Raw was

47:57

the stress. Raw was the focus. what

48:00

SmackDown was live, raw was

48:02

the apple of Vince's eye. True or false?

48:06

False. I think that you have

48:08

to look at it in this vein, again, going

48:10

back to the live and tape Vince

48:13

had to focus on, on raw and raw

48:15

was first now, having

48:18

been on SmackDown back in

48:20

the day and being the lead writer of SmackDown,

48:22

what have you. You

48:24

always felt, and I would even

48:26

dare say there were times that raw felt like they

48:28

were the stepchild, but

48:31

when Vince was working on something else, it's like, well, why didn't

48:34

he give me time? Oh,

48:36

why aren't we talking about SmackDown? And

48:38

the answer to that is simple. Vince is looking at

48:41

what is in front of him and what's next. Next

48:44

was always raw. So

48:48

when you're, you're dealing throughout the week,

48:51

he, the next one he has

48:53

to tackle is going to be raw then right

48:56

after raw that's SmackDown. So

48:58

I think SmackDown kind of got the

49:01

feeling sometimes and me included that, Hey

49:04

man, we're, we're second-class citizens

49:06

and, and, uh, we're

49:09

not going to get any of his attention until

49:11

Ross through. That

49:14

was the case. I mean, that was just reality

49:16

in that he was dealing with what was next. Raw

49:19

was live. Raw was up next. That's

49:22

what he was focusing on the time. Now he's going to

49:24

look at SmackDown and he's going to give it just as

49:26

much attention and then he

49:28

doubles that double downs on Tuesday to

49:31

where it's like, okay,

49:33

it's peddled to the metal on SmackDown. What

49:35

are we doing guys? Let's let's make this

49:38

the best it can be. And

49:41

he doesn't give a shit about raw at that point, but

49:44

the perception of people, I

49:46

think throughout the years has always been, you

49:48

know, raw is the baby. Raw was first

49:51

raw. But

49:53

by virtue of raw being alive,

49:55

I think really

49:58

gave people the, the feeling. of,

50:00

Oh, it's number one. It's

50:02

the a show. It's the only one they care

50:04

about. You

50:08

know, we, uh, we talked a little bit

50:10

ago about when some of the boys found

50:12

out about the draft and

50:14

they would be moving shows and

50:16

you said that, you know, they, he wanted to

50:18

play it. He ving Vance pronouns, pal. Wanted to

50:20

play it close to the vest and really wanted

50:22

to keep it a secret. And, and two

50:25

years prior to this, when you guys first

50:27

did this shakeup or draft. You

50:30

told the wrestlers to go to the website to find

50:32

out if they'd been shipped to a new brand and

50:35

here they don't find out until they show up.

50:37

And a lot of the

50:39

raw wrestlers are communicating to the SmackDown wrestlers.

50:41

Oh, Hey, by the way, this just happened.

50:44

Um, and apparently, you know, I

50:47

guess we sometimes as fans don't think about this,

50:49

but, uh, someone told

50:51

way killer guys can even tell their wives

50:53

when they're going to be home next, said

50:55

one wrestler. Um, you

50:58

know, we're right off of WrestleMania. You

51:00

guys usually do a big European tour. So

51:02

that's obviously going to be affected. You've

51:04

got your travel books, but your travel is booked based

51:06

on whether you're on raw or SmackDown. So all of

51:09

a sudden, if that changes, uh, your

51:11

entire, you know, work life

51:13

could change on a whim. Would,

51:16

how would you, you know, categorize or

51:18

classify or describe the locker room? And,

51:20

and this, the draft, this

51:22

feels like the most unpopular thing that happens

51:25

in the locker room. Do I have that

51:27

wrong? Look, I

51:29

think that a lot of it becomes paranoia.

51:31

And here, here's what I say that guys

51:34

can't tell their wives when they're going to be home. Well,

51:37

you're on the same touring schedule. So

51:41

if you're going to SmackDown, it means

51:44

you're coming home on Wednesday, but

51:46

you're not leaving until Friday. If

51:48

you're on raw, then you're coming

51:50

home on Tuesday and you're

51:52

leaving on Thursday. Same time at

51:54

home, same, same schedule, same, everything,

51:57

international tours. simultaneous.

52:00

So how does that affect anything other than

52:02

what town you're going to go to and

52:04

perform in that night? I

52:07

think that the paranoia and

52:09

the angst came from just

52:11

not knowing and

52:14

not knowing where I'm going to be, what buddies

52:16

I'm going to be with, what I'm going to

52:18

be doing and things of that nature and how's

52:21

it going to affect my push, if

52:24

you will. So that's

52:26

where the angst came from and that's

52:28

where a lot of the confusion and

52:31

feeling came from

52:33

and emotion. But for

52:35

the most part, it

52:37

was not changing anything in their personal

52:40

lives per se. Some

52:42

of it was better, some was like okay hey I would

52:45

rather be home on Tuesday and some would say

52:47

well fuck I'm glad I don't have to leave

52:49

until Friday. Yeah man,

52:52

I get it. The train goes on

52:54

and yeah it

52:56

can be a little frustrating especially if you're in

52:58

a hurry or running late to find yourself at

53:01

a railway crossing waiting for a train and if

53:03

the signals are going and the trains not even

53:05

there yet you can feel a bit tempted to

53:07

try and sneak across the tracks. Well

53:09

don't ever. Trains

53:12

are often going faster than you expect them to

53:14

be and they can't stop. Even

53:16

if the engineer hits the brakes right away it

53:18

can take a train over a mile to stop.

53:20

By that time what used to

53:23

be your car could just be a crushed hunk

53:25

of metal and what used to be

53:27

you, well better

53:29

not to think about that. The point is you

53:31

can't know how quickly the train will arrive.

53:33

The train can't stop even if it sees

53:35

you and the result is

53:37

disaster. If the

53:39

signals are on the train is on its way

53:42

and you just need to remember one

53:44

thing. Stop. Trains

53:47

can't. Ron Simmons jumped off

53:49

the train and he was released from the

53:51

WWE around. the

54:00

biggest push of Brad Shaw's career

54:02

after the start of, what are your, uh, memories

54:07

of Ron's release and how it

54:09

was taken back stage? God,

54:14

Ron, you know, it was

54:17

probably one of the most beloved individuals

54:20

in the wrestling business,

54:22

um, legit bad-ass, one of the

54:24

greatest football players ever to put on a

54:27

pair of pads. Great

54:29

wrestler, a great guy. One of

54:31

my favorite human beings in the

54:33

world and

54:35

a good friend. It

54:38

was, unfortunately, it was

54:40

time to break up the APA. And

54:42

I don't think that Ron was

54:45

in a place where

54:47

he was going to really

54:50

excel as a single and I

54:52

don't know that Ron wanted to.

54:55

So it was unfortunately

54:58

time to part ways

55:00

with Ron and it actually gave JBL

55:02

the biggest opportunity of

55:05

his life to go out

55:07

and be a single and become

55:09

JBL versus, you know, John Layfield

55:12

or John Bradshaw from the APA.

55:15

Uh, it sucked. It was a hard

55:17

thing to do. It was, it was really, really

55:19

tough. I remember the

55:21

night it happened and there were

55:24

a lot of tears, but Ron also understood.

55:26

I mean, he's Ron

55:28

Simmons is a man's man and, um, he,

55:33

he took it like a man and

55:36

hugged everybody, thanked everybody and

55:38

went on. But it was just, it's

55:41

still sad because you hate to see somebody

55:43

like that go when you don't have anything.

55:45

And he knew, I mean, he knew. We'll

55:48

see, we'll see that interested or not the right

55:50

fit for like an agent type role, because we

55:52

see a lot of guys transition from out of

55:54

the ring into a backstage role, but Ron

55:56

never did that. Ron

55:59

wasn't interested in doing. And that, and I don't

56:01

think that I also think that Ron was looking for

56:03

a break from the road too. I

56:06

think he was looking for not to

56:08

be on the road, uh, with that

56:10

kind of schedule, grueling schedule anymore. And

56:13

I think he was, he was ready for a

56:15

change. Well,

56:18

somebody else who was ready for a change is

56:20

Goldberg. He did a radio show in Edmonton around

56:23

this time, and he referred to the company as

56:25

soap opera and said, working there was ridiculous and

56:27

it felt like being in a circus. And he

56:29

said he only had interest in wrestling in Japan.

56:32

Uh, when you guys see that after bringing

56:35

him in for a big contract and, you

56:37

know, trying to work with him and, you

56:40

know, been in the best way. What's

56:43

the feedback when you read that he says it

56:45

was a soap opera and ridiculous and felt like

56:47

being in circus and he'd rather just work Japan.

56:50

Well, first of all, there's a soap opera and,

56:53

uh, and that party's correct. But Bill was never

56:55

happy when he was there the first run at

56:57

all. And so

57:00

it was kind of expected. I think Bill

57:02

was saying things like that before he came

57:05

to work for the company. And

57:07

he was saying things like

57:09

that while he was in the company. So

57:11

it wasn't a big shock. It was just,

57:13

Oh, there's Goldberg again. So

57:16

let's talk about Brock Lesnar. And we talked

57:19

about Goldberg leaving and, and Brock Lesnar had

57:21

his last match at WrestleMania 20 as well.

57:24

You can hear about that in the archives, of course,

57:26

something to wrestle.com. Wait,

57:28

Keller would report that Brock did an interview

57:30

in Minnesota with Mike Morris on K fan

57:32

radio, and he said that his dream had

57:34

always been to play for the Minnesota Vikings

57:37

and he left the WWE because he didn't want to

57:40

be 40 years old, wondering what could have been. And

57:43

he left the door open saying, I'm not saying

57:45

I may never go back there, but I'm walking

57:47

away from the wrestling business for now. And

57:49

he advised that people could go online and

57:52

read why he had been unhappy. And

57:54

he confirmed the torch reports that

57:57

he told Vince McMahon of his unhappiness

57:59

with the schedule. demand six months prior

58:02

and that he planned to quit two

58:04

weeks prior to WrestleMania and then confirmed

58:06

that decision just one week later. And

58:09

he almost made it sound like he was closing that chapter

58:11

of his life, but he stressed how much he wanted to

58:13

spend time with his daughter and how

58:15

he had begun intense training to

58:18

try out for the Minnesota Vikings. When

58:21

you guys hear, you know, the news that,

58:23

Hey, he really is moving forward with this

58:25

football dream. Was

58:28

it met with a lot of skepticism in the office? I

58:31

don't know if this kept as skepticism.

58:34

It was okay. How

58:37

long, how long will that last? Right. When

58:40

you have a machine like that,

58:42

Brock Lesnar is still is,

58:45

you know, a very unique

58:47

animal and what he

58:49

did best was wrestle. That's

58:52

what he had never played

58:54

football. So it was

58:57

kind of shocking, but at

58:59

the same time, he's the

59:01

kind of athlete. He

59:03

puts his mind to it. He's going

59:05

to do everything that he has to do to make

59:07

it come to fruition. So there

59:10

were people that said, God, I wish you

59:12

would do what he does best Russell, but there

59:14

were also those that knew him. They

59:17

were like, he's putting his mind to it.

59:19

He's going to do every fucking thing he can to make

59:22

this thing a reality or get his ass kicked

59:24

doing it. And Brock

59:26

was bound and determined he was going to

59:28

make it work. And he was, he was

59:30

going to find out one way or another,

59:34

whether or not he could play football and that was a

59:36

dream he had. It was something he wanted to try and

59:39

he did it, you know, and he went out and

59:42

did it, but I think there were, there

59:44

were those of us that, and I'll say

59:46

for me included that I

59:49

wanted it back. I wanted him

59:52

on the roster. I

59:54

didn't want him playing football or doing something else. So,

59:58

um, I was skeptical

1:00:01

because he had never, he had never really

1:00:03

played football and the odds

1:00:05

of being able to walk on and make

1:00:07

that a reality are very slim, but he

1:00:10

was able to do it and prove everybody wrong. Steve

1:00:13

Austin also left the company at the end

1:00:16

of April. Uh, Wade Killer

1:00:18

would report Steve Austin as a free agent.

1:00:20

Five years ago, those words would have reverberated

1:00:22

across the wrestling industry worldwide and threatened to

1:00:24

shift the balance of power towards the highest

1:00:27

bidder. Today, it's barely

1:00:29

a headline story due to Austin's health

1:00:31

and his lack of options in wrestling

1:00:33

outside of WWE negotiations

1:00:35

reached a breakpoint last week, leading to

1:00:37

WWE posting a statement on their website,

1:00:40

WWE and Steve Austin part ways, it

1:00:42

was followed by a standard pithy statement saying they

1:00:44

were unable to come to terms on a new

1:00:47

agreement and mutually agreed to part ways. And

1:00:49

it was said both parties are open to negotiations

1:00:51

in the future. And then WWE wished him luck.

1:00:54

Sources say the negotiations came down

1:00:56

to a simple yet unresolvable difference.

1:00:59

Austin's desire to gain the use of

1:01:02

the stone cold moniker for non-WWE projects

1:01:04

and WWE's unwillingness to transfer

1:01:06

such rights. Austin had

1:01:09

become eager to test his marketability on

1:01:11

projects without being beholden to the WWE

1:01:13

schedule of weekly appearances on Raw. And

1:01:16

although there have been widespread reports of ill

1:01:18

will between Austin and Vince McMahon during the

1:01:20

negotiations, sources say that wasn't the case. Although

1:01:23

Austin hired a lawyer to negotiate for him.

1:01:26

And he ended up was a mutual decision between

1:01:28

both Austin and McMahon to part ways for now

1:01:30

on reasonably good terms, although not

1:01:32

without frustration on both sides. Austin

1:01:35

will be forced to try to make a go

1:01:37

of his post-WWE career without the use of the

1:01:40

stone cold moniker that his then

1:01:42

wife, Jeannie came up with in 1996. Check

1:01:46

me up here. What do you remember about Steve

1:01:48

Austin not coming to terms to come back? It

1:01:50

does feel like the end of an era. You

1:01:53

know, somebody who is arguably the biggest star in

1:01:55

the history of the company and

1:01:58

made the company the most money. And

1:02:00

now he wants to try

1:02:02

his hand somewhere else. And allegedly

1:02:04

the sticking point is this

1:02:06

stone cold moniker. What

1:02:08

do you remember about him leaving

1:02:10

here and this particular stone

1:02:13

cold piece of business? Well,

1:02:15

I wasn't involved in, in

1:02:18

the official negotiations and from

1:02:20

my recollection, for the most

1:02:22

part, it was, it's

1:02:24

time to renew. It's time to do

1:02:26

a new contract. And while Steve was

1:02:28

unable to be stone cold Steve Austin

1:02:31

from the attitude era, there

1:02:33

was still a place for stone cold

1:02:35

Steve Austin, uh, on the roster and

1:02:37

to be a part of WWE. And

1:02:39

I think that it's

1:02:42

tough when you're

1:02:46

putting a position that, Hey,

1:02:48

I can't be what I used to be, but

1:02:51

I still want to make the same money and

1:02:54

I still want to have the same things afforded

1:02:56

to me. And I want to do other things.

1:02:59

It's you want your cake and eat it too. So

1:03:02

I don't

1:03:04

know. That's just my feeling. I don't know

1:03:06

if that's the case because Vince really wanted

1:03:08

to keep Steve and Vince really wanted Steve

1:03:11

to stay with the company. And I think

1:03:13

Steve really wanted to stay with the company

1:03:15

too. And a

1:03:17

lot of times in situations like that,

1:03:20

guys will hire agents or they'll hire

1:03:22

lawyers, it removes them from the process.

1:03:25

So it doesn't become personal. And

1:03:28

that's a tough thing to do. Um,

1:03:31

in this case, that's what Steve did.

1:03:33

And they were unable to come to

1:03:35

an agreement. It's as simple as that,

1:03:37

that, you know, Vince want, he

1:03:39

wants his IP that he

1:03:42

made famous and that he, you know, put

1:03:44

on the map, um, Steve

1:03:49

wanted to do other things. Still wanted

1:03:51

to do stuff with the WWE, but

1:03:53

wanted to be able to freely go

1:03:55

out and do other stuff as well.

1:03:58

Um, and I think Vince. It's like,

1:04:00

okay, if I'm going to invest, then I need to

1:04:03

reap the rewards of that investment. And

1:04:06

guys forget that sometimes. Vince

1:04:10

made it happen. It's

1:04:14

his vehicle that brings them to the

1:04:16

spot. He wants to continue

1:04:18

to reap those rewards because he's on to put

1:04:21

in the initial investment. It

1:04:24

just boiled down to, can't

1:04:27

come to terms right now. And

1:04:30

if you want to go out and pursue other

1:04:32

interests and you want to pursue

1:04:34

movies, you want to pursue television shows, whatever

1:04:36

else you want to do, good

1:04:38

luck and we'll help you where we can. But

1:04:45

sometimes you just got to, you got to move on. And

1:04:48

that's where, it's kind of where it felt this

1:04:50

time that they just

1:04:52

couldn't agree on this

1:04:56

what we're going to do, this amount of money. And

1:04:59

here's a storyline going forward. Well

1:05:02

Vince didn't have a storyline going forward because he didn't

1:05:04

have a commitment to

1:05:06

say, yes, I'm going to stay in and do

1:05:08

this. And Steve

1:05:11

really wanted to try other things.

1:05:13

So sometimes that's best. It's best for

1:05:15

everybody for some talent to go away.

1:05:17

You realize how much you either needed

1:05:19

them, you know, wanted them,

1:05:21

or maybe you didn't. Maybe

1:05:24

you were getting along fine without them. And for

1:05:26

a talent, sometimes it's best to go out and

1:05:28

see that sometimes the real world isn't as

1:05:31

kind as it is when you're within the company. And

1:05:34

maybe sometimes there's a lot more opportunity out

1:05:36

there for you. So

1:05:39

it's, it's, there's a lot of different sides

1:05:41

to that coin. And with this one, it

1:05:43

just came down to, we can't make an

1:05:45

agreement right now. Best luck. We'll

1:05:47

see you down the road. It wasn't any animosity

1:05:50

here at all. All right, Bruce, I'm going to

1:05:52

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like a famous American philosopher

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mentals, your balls and your chickens.

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You know, we've talked a lot about how Austin

1:08:50

was so hands on with

1:08:52

his character when he was in ring and he

1:08:54

would get, you know, very particular about

1:08:56

the way his character was presented and

1:08:59

he would be very vocal, but he wasn't happy about

1:09:01

something. Here he had really just

1:09:03

been doing like raw

1:09:05

sheriff skits. You know, he's not

1:09:08

nearly as important of

1:09:10

a part of the program and

1:09:12

the creative, I could see

1:09:14

how he would say was not really his cup

1:09:16

of tea. How big of a, how

1:09:19

big of a part of this was him saying, you know

1:09:21

what? I'd rather people just remember

1:09:24

me being the bad-ass stone cold, stunning everybody

1:09:26

and drinking beer and raising hell instead of

1:09:28

doing some of this GM

1:09:30

raw sheriff stuff. I think

1:09:32

that that was played a part in it. Definitely.

1:09:36

Um, but Steve couldn't work. See his

1:09:38

health issues prevented him from being in the

1:09:40

ring every night, preventing him from working in

1:09:42

the raw sheriff stuff was that was Steve's

1:09:44

idea. So to

1:09:47

be able to, to continue to do

1:09:49

that stuff and make Steve the focal

1:09:51

point when you can't realize

1:09:53

a return on that investment and how

1:09:55

shows or pay-per-views or anything like that,

1:09:58

your biggest star is a guy. that can't

1:10:01

get in the ring and compete. That's

1:10:03

from a company standpoint, that's hard to

1:10:05

do now to have that character in

1:10:07

there, but, and

1:10:09

do that, that's great. But

1:10:13

what's that worth? So

1:10:17

that is again, that, that is the argument

1:10:19

there for Steve. If he wants to go

1:10:21

out on top and go out with people

1:10:23

remembering him, I did. I don't

1:10:26

regret that at all. I think that that's

1:10:28

the way that people should go out quite

1:10:30

frankly, is go out on top on your

1:10:32

terms and, and move

1:10:35

on. What's

1:10:37

the reaction in the locker room when

1:10:40

Steve Austin leaves? Next.

1:10:47

Let's keep it moving here. Yeah. Really? But I mean,

1:10:49

no, I mean, really it was, it was, it was

1:10:51

next more than anything. It's like, okay, Steve's gone. Who's

1:10:55

who is there for that

1:10:57

next spot? And there wasn't a whole lot of,

1:11:00

because he wasn't involved in any programs

1:11:02

or anything like that, it was, he

1:11:04

was a character and people

1:11:06

just looked at her just okay, more opportunity for me.

1:11:11

Let's talk a little bit about a major

1:11:13

shift backstage. Wade Keller would report

1:11:16

the long overworked Jim Ross has

1:11:18

been promoted to executive vice president

1:11:20

business strategies. According to

1:11:22

WWE, he will now work closely with

1:11:24

Vince McMahon as an advisor on WWE's

1:11:27

court business. John Laurenitis, AKA

1:11:29

Johnny Ace, formerly of the dynamic dudes

1:11:31

tag team in the United States with

1:11:33

Shane Douglas has assumed Ross's

1:11:36

duties as vice president of talent

1:11:38

relations. Laurenitis has been working

1:11:40

as Ross's assistant in that area for a

1:11:42

long time. And many suspected Laurenitis would take

1:11:44

over for Ross eventually in that position. Laurenitis

1:11:48

will now be the point man in

1:11:50

management when wrestlers need to ask for

1:11:52

a day off, update their injury status,

1:11:54

have travel concerns, or want to ask

1:11:56

about their latest paycheck. Perhaps more significantly,

1:11:58

he replaces raw. Ross rather

1:12:00

as the main person in charge of how

1:12:02

show lineups and match finishes areas

1:12:05

he had already been exerting influence

1:12:07

over. Ross of course remains

1:12:09

an announcer on raw and before the April

1:12:11

12th raw Vincent went announced the change to

1:12:13

the wrestlers. Jim Ross then gave

1:12:15

a heartfelt speech for about 10 minutes about

1:12:18

how much working with the wrestlers has meant to

1:12:20

him, how everyone has a family

1:12:22

like field to him and how he'll still be

1:12:24

around. And then he introduced Laurenitis

1:12:26

as his replacement, who also gave a

1:12:28

brief speech. Uh, where

1:12:31

most everyone was already quite familiar with him

1:12:33

already. And Laurenitis was originally

1:12:35

in charge of the former WCW wrestlers whose

1:12:37

contracts were acquired as part of the buyout

1:12:40

from Tom Warner. And the

1:12:42

idea was at the time for the brands to

1:12:44

be separate and for Laurenitis to be the main

1:12:46

person in charge of all those WCW brand talents

1:12:48

anyway. But of course, since that

1:12:50

phased out, he wound up working with talent. Uh,

1:12:53

but underneath Jim Ross, chat

1:12:56

me up. Uh, how did you

1:12:58

think that this would be handled? Was this handled

1:13:00

the right way? Were you in favor of this

1:13:03

switch? Uh, was it just time

1:13:05

for Jr to sort of get out of the

1:13:07

race car there? I mean, it does feel like

1:13:09

a pretty, uh, tireless job at times. Tell

1:13:13

relations is the absolute most

1:13:15

thankless job in the

1:13:18

business. Um, that

1:13:21

and creative, but it,

1:13:23

it just, you're, you're the bad

1:13:26

guy, giving all the bad news, very seldom do

1:13:28

you really get a give any good news, but

1:13:31

it's, it's constantly, it becomes

1:13:33

a managing of

1:13:35

issues and problems. Jim

1:13:38

Ross was probably one of the

1:13:40

best that ever sat in that

1:13:42

chair and Jim was excellent at

1:13:44

it. Did very well, but

1:13:46

I think Jim was, Jim was getting tired

1:13:49

too of dealing with all the day-to-day bullshit

1:13:52

that came with it. Uh,

1:13:54

Lauren, I just had come in and Lauren, I

1:13:56

just younger and. He

1:14:00

wanted it, you know, um, as

1:14:03

much as I like to make fun of

1:14:05

John and what have you, John did a

1:14:08

great job. Anybody that is in

1:14:10

that role and that can stay for longer

1:14:12

than two weeks hats

1:14:14

off to him because

1:14:16

it's thankless. It's

1:14:18

tireless. It never ends. You were

1:14:21

on call, uh, 48 hours a day.

1:14:24

That's right. Not 24 hours, 48 hours every day. Um,

1:14:29

cause you got twice as much shit on you. So

1:14:32

for Jr to get out of that and

1:14:34

be able to kind of oversee and do

1:14:37

some other things, I think was refreshing for

1:14:39

Jim to try and get his creative juices

1:14:41

going a little bit more on the business

1:14:43

side of things, which Jim

1:14:45

liked as well. Um,

1:14:47

put Lauren Ives there. I think

1:14:50

it was the only pick that

1:14:52

they had at the time. And it was a good one.

1:14:54

John stepped into it and did

1:14:57

the job. No matter who's in that

1:14:59

job, they are the most unpopular person

1:15:02

in the world in the locker room

1:15:04

with the talent. Doesn't matter. What

1:15:07

do you think his speech sounded like? I mean, how do

1:15:09

you remember it? JRs

1:15:12

or John's? Guys,

1:15:15

this is one. Thank you. And,

1:15:17

uh, can you get

1:15:19

notice, uh, this work buys today.

1:15:22

Good God. They're fucking huge. Uh,

1:15:26

my job to oil them. So

1:15:28

don't anybody get excited because I'm

1:15:30

already there. By the way,

1:15:32

boss, you're fucking vascular as hell.

1:15:36

Something like that. Uh,

1:15:39

let's get to backlash. Uh, Shelton Benjamin is

1:15:41

going to be in the opening match here

1:15:44

with the nature boy, Rick flair, and

1:15:46

they're going to go nine minutes and 31 seconds. Wade

1:15:49

would say it's a chop fest with flair, getting

1:15:51

a big dose of cheers from the crowd in

1:15:54

the end. As flair turned his back and pulled out

1:15:56

a foreign object, Benjamin splashed him from

1:15:58

behind and then clothesline. him and scored the

1:16:00

pin. Neither flares age,

1:16:03

nor Benjamin's inexperience left either

1:16:06

seeming out of place. Both

1:16:08

could be happy with their performances. Two

1:16:10

and a quarter stars. I thought

1:16:12

it was a good match. Great opening match for

1:16:14

the pay-per-view. Wade liked it too, but

1:16:16

he only gave it two and a quarter stars. You saw it

1:16:19

this week for the first time in 15 years. What'd you think?

1:16:22

Well, I just look at it and I'm

1:16:24

always amazed by how Rick Flair could go.

1:16:27

And Rick, uh, I

1:16:29

think people thought Rick was a hundred years

1:16:32

old, you know, 30 years ago, and he

1:16:35

moved like a cat and to see

1:16:38

Rick and Rick was hanging with, you know,

1:16:41

a young guy like Shelton Benjamin

1:16:43

from Minnesota, Rick's from Minnesota. I

1:16:46

think that Rick, that's where he excelled.

1:16:48

He loved working with Amateurs. People forget what

1:16:51

an incredible athlete Rick Flair was before he

1:16:53

even became a wrestler. He's

1:16:55

a football player. He was trained by Vern

1:16:57

Ganya. All this shit. And

1:17:00

yes, people think he's the greatest in

1:17:02

the world, but I think that they

1:17:04

take it for granted sometimes at

1:17:07

how good he was at making

1:17:09

other talent and really

1:17:11

making people special. And this is a

1:17:13

great case and great display with

1:17:16

Shelton Benjamin. Shelton's great. Shelton's awesome.

1:17:19

Um, but Rick Flair made him look

1:17:21

like he belonged in the ring with the top guys

1:17:23

in the world. Uh,

1:17:26

next up, or I guess we should mention a

1:17:28

few weeks prior to this Shelton had pinned triple

1:17:30

H clean on raw and here

1:17:33

he pins Rick flair. Of course, Rick is

1:17:35

at the time here, one half of the

1:17:37

tag team champions with Batista evolution is still

1:17:40

running roughshod. So you guys

1:17:42

are obviously feeling like you're going to, you

1:17:44

know, have some upside with Shelton Benjamin getting a

1:17:47

win over triple H now getting a win over

1:17:49

Rick Flair, but

1:17:51

he doesn't really wrestle a lot of singles

1:17:53

matches when he's on smackdown

1:17:55

and he's a part of the world's greatest

1:17:57

tag team with Charlie Hoss. And

1:18:00

you wind up not really strapping the rocket to

1:18:02

him, even after he beat triple H, even after

1:18:04

he beat Rick flair. What was

1:18:06

it that kept Shelton Benjamin from

1:18:09

really getting a full vote of confidence

1:18:11

from the company's creative? I

1:18:14

think more than anything, it was the

1:18:16

ability to connect with the audience verbally

1:18:18

and Shelton's one of those guys, one

1:18:20

of the most entertaining people in the

1:18:22

back, however, he tries

1:18:25

to become a character when

1:18:28

it's time to speak. In

1:18:30

the ring, very few guys that can

1:18:32

touch Shelton Benjamin with his in-ring work.

1:18:35

But there was just a

1:18:37

disconnect in my opinion with the audience that

1:18:40

it kept him from ever getting

1:18:43

over to the next level, um,

1:18:45

watch him work. I can watch him work

1:18:48

all day long. He's, he's amazing. And

1:18:50

one of the toughest sumbitches on the roster. People

1:18:54

forget that too. Um,

1:18:57

but there's just that yet that, that

1:18:59

connection factor to me was the

1:19:03

one thing that kind of just held him back

1:19:05

at that point you could, you could get so

1:19:07

far and then

1:19:09

it just kind of stalled out. Shelton

1:19:13

Benjamin, one of my, uh, low key favorites

1:19:15

from back in the day. And I

1:19:18

kind of hoped he would have, uh, had a bigger run

1:19:20

on top and maybe had a shot at the title, headline,

1:19:22

some paper views, but it wasn't to be, but he

1:19:25

had some pretty memorable moments on the show over the

1:19:27

years. You know, that super kick with Sean Michaels is

1:19:29

still something that they show on replay over now and

1:19:31

again, just a phenomenal underrated

1:19:33

performer. Maybe he doesn't get his just

1:19:35

do. Let's talk about

1:19:37

Todd Grisham, man. We haven't talked about Grisham

1:19:40

a ton here on the show, but we

1:19:42

see him here interviewing Randy Orton and Orton

1:19:44

says, you know, he's the longest reigning IC

1:19:46

champ in seven years, and he's going to

1:19:48

earn the respect to Foley tonight. But

1:19:50

he also says he's going to retire Foley because he's not

1:19:52

scared of him. And he's going to treat him like

1:19:55

the old sad toothless dog he is. And he's

1:19:57

going to put him out of his misery tonight.

1:20:00

And they're of course talking about a

1:20:02

hardcore match later in the show with

1:20:04

him and Foley, uh, for the intercontinental

1:20:06

title, pretty good program for

1:20:09

Randy Orton, one that certainly got my attention.

1:20:11

But before we talk about that, and it's

1:20:13

not time to talk about the match yet.

1:20:16

Let's talk about Todd Grisham and then we don't talk about

1:20:18

a ton here on the show. You

1:20:21

know, I don't even know where the hell

1:20:23

Grisham came from and he's, he's doing,

1:20:25

uh, soccer, he's doing a lot of

1:20:28

different things right now. He's with ESPN,

1:20:30

right? Yeah. No, wait, no, I

1:20:32

don't think he is anymore. I think he maybe has just left

1:20:34

there. I could be wrong. Yeah. I'm

1:20:36

going to, I thought that Todd Grisham

1:20:38

was when you're talking about people underrated,

1:20:40

like Shelton Benjamin, that Todd was another

1:20:42

one that was underrated and Todd was

1:20:45

a great play by play

1:20:47

guy and also

1:20:49

doing interviews. What have you, but

1:20:52

he was kind of nondescript, but

1:20:54

just very, which is good for

1:20:56

an interviewer, but

1:20:58

he had a tremendous wit

1:21:02

and was very, very good. He was a student

1:21:04

of the game, did his homework and always came

1:21:06

prepared and was ready to go on a moment's

1:21:08

notice. Was one of those

1:21:11

talent that you never had a problem

1:21:13

going live with that you had

1:21:15

confidence in. And I was

1:21:17

so happy for Todd. When Todd got, got

1:21:19

the gig, he, he loved soccer and to

1:21:22

be able to move on and expand

1:21:25

his career and every once in a while I

1:21:27

will speak to him on Twitter or what have

1:21:29

you and just kind of go back and forth,

1:21:32

but that's one of those success stories you

1:21:34

look at that has gone on

1:21:36

beyond the WWE and made a name for

1:21:38

himself and is a damn

1:21:40

good commentator. I

1:21:43

think these days he's doing stuff with glory

1:21:45

and UFC. He wrapped

1:21:47

it up with ESPN

1:21:49

in 2016, but yeah,

1:21:51

maybe one of the more, uh, I don't

1:21:54

know, underrated performers on the show. It

1:21:56

feels like, you know, Michael Cole's been

1:21:58

there forever, but the Todd of pet and

1:22:00

gold, type pet and gills and, uh, uh,

1:22:03

the Todd Grisham's, they've sort of come and gone,

1:22:05

but I always thought Todd did a pretty

1:22:07

good job here. What'd you think of this promo with

1:22:09

Randy Orton? I love the program with

1:22:11

Mick Foley. I felt like it added a

1:22:13

level of bad assery. That's not a word, but I just

1:22:15

made it up for a Randy Orton

1:22:18

and, uh, I dug it. What'd you think of

1:22:20

this promo in particular though? Well,

1:22:22

it's just how young Randy was. It's

1:22:25

like, holy shit. Um, and

1:22:28

you still, when you compare it to

1:22:30

today, you look at Randy

1:22:32

and go, Oh God, Dan, he was

1:22:35

still green, but he still had that

1:22:37

error of confidence and that error cockiness

1:22:40

that has made Randy's entire

1:22:42

career. And that is, it's a

1:22:45

self-assuredness that even

1:22:47

then he had, you can take

1:22:49

every strip him down, everything else. He

1:22:51

still had that error of confidence and, and

1:22:53

just, okay, I can go

1:22:56

with anybody. And he believes it because

1:22:58

he can. America starts

1:23:00

the day with America in the

1:23:02

morning. First of three pushes of

1:23:04

story. Hi, I'm John Trout, your

1:23:06

host for the latest news, politics,

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1:23:10

political overtones. Our staff of correspondence

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provide a fast paced look at

1:23:14

the world with specialized reports from

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1:23:20

So far, the central bank appears

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to be threading that concise, accurate,

1:23:24

and fresh each day. America in

1:23:26

the morning, the podcast available wherever

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you listen. Next

1:23:31

up, we've got an interesting matchup. I can't believe

1:23:33

this is real. Jonathan Coachman pins

1:23:35

to Jerry and six minutes and 22 seconds.

1:23:39

That's right. Coach fucking

1:23:41

commentator beat

1:23:43

to Jerry and active wrestler. Now he

1:23:45

did have some help from the outside.

1:23:47

Garrison Cade managed to knock

1:23:49

out to Jerry that allows coach to schoolboy.

1:23:52

But still coaching them in a match

1:23:54

on pay-per-view against the Jerry. Bruce,

1:23:57

who booked this shit? It

1:24:00

wasn't in the main event. My

1:24:02

God. Well, I mean, what's

1:24:04

next? We got super crazy and Michael Cole.

1:24:07

Yeah, actually. Um,

1:24:10

you know, coach was

1:24:12

never ever coach wasn't

1:24:14

a wrestler coach didn't want to wrestle,

1:24:18

but he kept getting himself into these

1:24:20

situations where it was like people wanted

1:24:22

to see coach get his ass kicked

1:24:25

and it came, it can go

1:24:27

all the way back to his interviews with

1:24:29

the rock and some of those different things

1:24:32

where coach was so good

1:24:34

and had just exudes

1:24:37

personality that when

1:24:40

he would sometimes say shit, people got fuck

1:24:42

him man. And he had heat coach

1:24:44

had heat, legitimate fucking

1:24:46

heat. That was hard to get on heels

1:24:49

back in that, that day and time, but

1:24:51

he was able to do it where people

1:24:53

really wanted to see him get his ass

1:24:56

kicked. He trained, he busted

1:24:58

his ass. He, he learned what he

1:25:00

could learn. He would get to the

1:25:02

buildings early and get in the

1:25:04

ring and learn what he could learn to get through

1:25:06

matches. Um, to

1:25:09

his credit, he was an athlete and he was

1:25:11

able to pull it off, but he

1:25:13

was a character, he was a character that

1:25:15

was on TV every week. People could relate

1:25:17

to him and they hated his guts. So,

1:25:22

um, Vince just kept putting him

1:25:24

in situations where you want to see him get

1:25:26

his ass kicked and then at the right time,

1:25:28

you know, let him get some heat, let him,

1:25:30

let him beat somebody where he shouldn't, he

1:25:33

shouldn't beat to Jerry. Shouldn't

1:25:35

be in the ring, but not only is he in

1:25:38

the ring, he actually comes out the Victor and that's

1:25:40

where the heat came from. And I,

1:25:42

I love coach, uh, especially heel

1:25:44

coach in this day and time

1:25:47

because no one would call it

1:25:49

and people were pissed off. You shouldn't do it,

1:25:51

but they would sit there and tune in to

1:25:53

watch him get his ass kicked. It's like the

1:25:55

guy that says, I don't watch wrestling anymore. I

1:25:57

stopped watching it 10 minutes ago, but my God,

1:25:59

the other. night when that Seth Rollins

1:26:01

is like, I thought you didn't

1:26:03

watch. Well, I saw that. That's

1:26:06

what coach brought out in people. He shouldn't be

1:26:08

on there. He shouldn't do that son of a

1:26:10

bitch. How

1:26:13

did to Jerry handle this was to Jerry?

1:26:16

Uh, all right. I mean, is this something

1:26:18

was he have a reputation for bucking creative

1:26:20

or was he cool? Modi to

1:26:24

Jerry son. Uh, Jesus

1:26:26

Christ. I don't think he ever heard

1:26:28

a crossword or a disagreement from to

1:26:30

Jerry ever to Jerry was happy to

1:26:32

do whatever, whenever. And

1:26:34

he's a pros pro and

1:26:36

love the opportunity. If he could go

1:26:38

out and perform, get somebody over, that's

1:26:41

what he did. He to Jerry does

1:26:44

not have an ego and

1:26:46

was happy to go out and do it. Just be a part

1:26:48

of the show and be involved in a storyline. Let's

1:26:51

talk a little bit about one of the

1:26:53

sad stories in wrestling. Uh, he's involved in

1:26:55

this and scarce and Kate. Uh,

1:26:58

he was born, um, I guess he

1:27:00

wrestled under landscape. He was born Lance

1:27:02

Curtis McNaughton. And he performed

1:27:05

under landscape or Garrison Katie, the one trained

1:27:07

by Sean Michaels. We lost him in 2010.

1:27:10

Uh, he had a run with you guys with,

1:27:12

with Trevor Murdoch and, and did, did okay there.

1:27:15

Uh, but he spent some time, you

1:27:17

know, in all the critical developmentals,

1:27:20

whether it was Ohio Valley or heartland

1:27:22

wrestling. And as I said, trained by

1:27:24

Sean. But then he winds

1:27:26

up getting released. And then unfortunately,

1:27:28

uh, at the age of 29,

1:27:31

he died in 2010 of an apparent heart failure. Uh,

1:27:36

his wife said he hadn't been looking well in

1:27:38

the week prior to his death. And he went

1:27:41

to the hospital on that

1:27:43

same, uh, a few days ahead of

1:27:45

time with difficulty breathing, but discharged himself

1:27:47

the next day and, um,

1:27:51

Two months after he passed away, a

1:27:54

staffer in San Antonio said

1:27:56

that he had accidentally died from

1:27:58

mixed drug intoxication, complicating cardiomyopathy.

1:28:03

So a fucking sad story, uh, but

1:28:05

one all too familiar to wrestling at times.

1:28:09

I always thought that this guy

1:28:11

had the right look. Like if you were

1:28:13

to sort of sketch out in

1:28:15

your sketchbook, you know, what a wrestler would

1:28:17

look like, you might come up with something

1:28:19

that looked like Garrison or Lance Kate. And

1:28:22

for whatever reason, he never really, um,

1:28:26

hit maybe the success that he hoped he

1:28:29

would, uh, what can

1:28:31

you tell us about Garrison? Kate, I don't know. And we'll talk about

1:28:33

him again. I think that

1:28:35

Garrison's issue was he was playing wrestler

1:28:37

and Garrison was trying to play a

1:28:39

part rather than be the part. So

1:28:42

I will never forget the first

1:28:44

time I laid eyes on it was in Sean Michael

1:28:46

school in San Antone. And we were

1:28:50

standing there watching him work out and

1:28:52

looked at Sean. He

1:28:54

says, I know who's the big guy. I

1:28:57

said, yeah. And he started telling me about Lance

1:28:59

and he says, well, the ones you need to

1:29:01

watch are spanky,

1:29:04

which is, um, Oh,

1:29:07

Brian Kendrick, Jesus. I went blank

1:29:09

for a minute. Uh, he

1:29:12

goes, you need to watch spanky. You

1:29:14

need to, uh, check out shooter. His

1:29:16

name was shooter Schultz. And

1:29:18

then, uh, he goes, man, goes Brian

1:29:21

Danielson. He goes, this kid, he goes,

1:29:23

he and spanky came here from Washington.

1:29:25

And he goes, those are the studs

1:29:29

of the whole class.

1:29:31

Um, he says, Brian or

1:29:33

spanking, he works out every single

1:29:35

class and Brian Danielson that they're

1:29:38

here for every class beginner advanced.

1:29:40

They do everything. He

1:29:42

said, I know you want Garrison or Lance. And

1:29:45

I said, yeah, I said, but you know, we'll look

1:29:47

at the other ones. I hired all four, uh, to

1:29:49

go into developmental way back when. And

1:29:52

I never, you know, for

1:29:55

Lance, it was a situation where

1:29:57

he was trying to play a part.

1:30:00

And I'll liken

1:30:02

it to Shelton in that he

1:30:04

never really connected with the audience

1:30:06

because he was never able to

1:30:08

get his genuine personality. He was

1:30:11

very quiet, very shy guy in

1:30:14

real life. So

1:30:16

he had to get into some

1:30:18

kind of a character to get anything out of

1:30:20

him. But then

1:30:22

he would overanalyze everything and try to

1:30:24

think of, it's like, for example, I

1:30:27

created something for him and tried to get him to do

1:30:29

it. And he was like, well, I don't know that I

1:30:31

would do that. I said, motherfucker,

1:30:34

you didn't need this. Isn't your

1:30:37

deal? Trust me. Yes. This character

1:30:39

would do this. Um,

1:30:42

he would overanalyze and, and second guess

1:30:44

a lot of things, but he's just

1:30:46

never really connected with the audience. Had

1:30:48

all the gifts. He was

1:30:50

great in the ring. He had the

1:30:52

look that looked like he should be

1:30:54

the champion. Great. Look. Um,

1:30:58

unfortunately the, the, the

1:31:00

head was just not

1:31:03

all there in that he just tried

1:31:05

to overanalyze and figure things

1:31:08

out that didn't need to be figured out. Instead

1:31:10

of just sometimes it's a feel always

1:31:13

best lesson I ever give people in when

1:31:16

they're coming through the ranks is

1:31:18

while I was thinking this, I

1:31:20

said, okay, great. Stop that. Stop

1:31:22

thinking and just feel. And

1:31:25

that will lead you in the right direction. If

1:31:27

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keep it moving here, and let's talk about

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Chris Jericho. He's going to get

1:35:41

a win over Christian and Trish. It's a handicap

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match. Of course, Jericho and

1:35:45

Christian do the majority of the match together.

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Trish gets knocked off of the apron pretty

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hard early on in the match. She

1:35:53

tags in when Jericho's down, but never for long. The

1:35:56

crowd is chanting, slut, loudly at

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one point, which... I don't think

1:36:00

you could do today. Uh, Jericho

1:36:02

put the walls of Jericho on Trish very briefly about

1:36:05

10 and a half minutes in, but Christian breaks it

1:36:07

up and then Jericho catapults Christian

1:36:09

into Trish then hits an insecurity and

1:36:11

nails the three count. Uh,

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Wade Keller would say solid action, which

1:36:16

fit the storyline. Nice match two and

1:36:18

three quarter stars. They go 11

1:36:20

minutes and 17 seconds here. And I guess we

1:36:22

should mention this is really a

1:36:24

continuation of the storyline. Uh,

1:36:26

that sort of culminated or had a major

1:36:29

twist at WrestleMania 20, uh, where Trish

1:36:32

would turn on Jericho at WrestleMania and instead

1:36:35

go with Christian. But the Christian and

1:36:37

Trish pairing doesn't last too long after

1:36:39

this. Uh, Patricia continue to

1:36:41

be the top heel in the company for,

1:36:43

I guess another year or so. What'd

1:36:46

you think of the match? And why didn't

1:36:48

we see more of Christian and Trish coming

1:36:50

out of this? Well,

1:36:52

I thought the match is great. It's two guys

1:36:54

that love to work with one another. So it

1:36:56

showed here and, uh, busted

1:36:59

their ass. Nice little story, but

1:37:01

Christian and Trish Christian wasn't into

1:37:04

it from the standpoint of the

1:37:06

relationship with Trish

1:37:08

and that kind of feel, um,

1:37:10

they did everything they could, but if

1:37:13

they, if their heart wasn't in it, it wasn't going to

1:37:15

work and wasn't going to get over to any extent. So

1:37:19

just kind of, you know, cut bait moved

1:37:21

on with, with Trish as a heal and,

1:37:23

and Christian in another direction. But this was

1:37:25

just a case of chemistry. And

1:37:29

if talent believes in something and they're ready, you

1:37:31

know, they're really into the gimmick and they're really

1:37:33

into the storyline, it's going to succeed. If they're

1:37:36

not, you've got to do something different and change. Let's

1:37:40

keep it moving here. Let's talk about

1:37:43

a skit. We see with Eugene walking

1:37:45

in on Gail Kim dressing, she's going

1:37:47

to scream and he screams back Molly

1:37:49

walks in and she screamed. Eugene screams

1:37:51

back, William Regal entered, and

1:37:53

then he gets distracted by Gail

1:37:56

Kim's breasts. This is pretty funny. I

1:37:58

love the segment. I know. that, uh, the

1:38:00

Eugene character or something we'll spend more time

1:38:02

on later. But whenever the ladies would

1:38:04

scream and he would scream back, man, that was

1:38:07

fucking funny stuff. That's

1:38:11

great stuff. Yeah.

1:38:13

Well, as we wanted regal to come in

1:38:15

and do the, do the scream too. But

1:38:17

I think that regal's reaction more than anything,

1:38:20

again, uh, another guy who

1:38:22

doesn't get enough credit for his

1:38:24

facials and his cell just

1:38:27

enough, not over the top, just enough

1:38:29

to where you get it and you

1:38:31

fucking pop. And this was a great

1:38:33

example of that. And everybody playing

1:38:36

along. It was some good shit. Next

1:38:39

up, and this is kind of weird. Uh, there

1:38:41

is a video package talking about how

1:38:43

today in Edmonton was Crispin Wadday and

1:38:46

this aired on heat. And they have

1:38:48

comments from his family and they show

1:38:50

him going back to his old

1:38:52

high school, they show the WrestleMania moment where

1:38:54

he's hugging his parents and his wife,

1:38:56

Nancy and his kids, and

1:38:58

they show the mayor announcing Crispin Wadday does

1:39:00

a speech and he's tearing up as he's

1:39:02

talking and the mayor of Edmonton

1:39:04

wishes him luck and Benoit says he's proud

1:39:06

to be from right here in Edmonton. And

1:39:09

then the show Benoit arriving earlier tonight

1:39:12

on heat, wearing a suit and the

1:39:14

belt on his shoulder, everyone around him

1:39:16

clapping and a ringside. They get a shot of his

1:39:18

wife and kids and parents and the rest of his family.

1:39:22

Uh, you know, it was a, it was a nice

1:39:24

story at the time, but in hindsight now, man,

1:39:27

this is fucking hard to watch. Is

1:39:29

it not brutal? Yeah, brutal. Just sad.

1:39:32

No other word to describe it. Just sad. Victoria

1:39:35

is going to pin Lita in seven and a

1:39:38

half minutes here to retain the WWE women's title,

1:39:40

uh, Keller would say what you'd expect

1:39:43

some mistimed moves, but a spirited effort

1:39:45

overall. Kim and Molly attacked Victoria and

1:39:47

Lita afterwards. I guess we

1:39:49

should mention that Lita got this match by winning

1:39:51

a battle royal to determine the number one contender

1:39:53

on the April 5th raw. Uh,

1:39:56

but I want to talk about Victoria. She's not somebody we've

1:39:58

spent a lot of time talking about here. on the show, uh,

1:40:01

she's, you know, come in several years prior to

1:40:03

this as one of Godfather's hose. And now she's

1:40:06

the woman's champion. Uh,

1:40:08

you talk about somebody overachieving here, uh, any

1:40:11

stories about her you'd like to share? Uh, I don't

1:40:13

know. We'll talk about her again. Well,

1:40:16

Lisa Morone came to us from, of

1:40:18

all people, Tori Wilson, Tori

1:40:21

had done modeling and Lisa

1:40:23

was a fitness model. I'm

1:40:26

California looking to looking to

1:40:28

do something else and do something different

1:40:30

and Tori thought that she would be great for

1:40:32

the wrestling business, gave me her information,

1:40:35

her card. And I called her said

1:40:37

that, uh, is this something you would be

1:40:39

interested in? Maybe we could train you. She

1:40:43

immediately went out and found

1:40:45

someone to train her. Uh, she

1:40:47

just started calling people. Well,

1:40:50

Hey, who do you know? And she went

1:40:52

to Rick Bassman's UPN out in

1:40:54

California and

1:40:56

we hired her. We, we sent her, we

1:40:58

had her stay there for a little while

1:41:00

and train because we were using her for

1:41:02

the hose stuff. And she was one of

1:41:04

those that trained on the go. So

1:41:07

is we brought her, we

1:41:09

centered to different developmental territories. But

1:41:12

you talk about somebody that had

1:41:14

drive and determination. Jesus Christ. Uh,

1:41:16

Lisa just did whatever she could

1:41:19

and went wherever she could to

1:41:21

learn. And every day she would

1:41:23

be in the ring early trying

1:41:25

to learn something new because she,

1:41:28

I don't think that the rest of

1:41:31

the female talent knew

1:41:33

how inexperienced she really was. And

1:41:36

she was able to go in there and hang

1:41:38

with them and she would get in and work

1:41:41

with Molly, for example, uh,

1:41:44

who was a great trainer and an

1:41:46

amazing technician. But Lisa

1:41:48

fucking fought her ass off, man. And she

1:41:50

got out there and became somebody and became

1:41:52

a name and became a champion. But that's

1:41:54

all due to her hard work. Well,

1:41:58

the hard work going into this next. match is

1:42:00

incredible. Uh, if you don't watch anything else

1:42:02

this week in wrestling, I'm going to encourage

1:42:05

you to stop what you're doing and

1:42:07

go fire up backlash 2004 and watch Randy

1:42:10

Orton and cactus Jack create some

1:42:12

magic for 23 minutes and five

1:42:14

seconds. One of the more underrated

1:42:16

matches of 2004. I absolutely

1:42:18

love this match. And we're

1:42:20

going to see Randy Orton get the pin over cactus. Uh,

1:42:23

he's going to retain the intercontinental title in the process.

1:42:26

Way killer would say fully use trash cans

1:42:28

and the bar bar baseball bat early against

1:42:30

Orton Orton fought back early and they brought

1:42:33

up the ramp fully laid the

1:42:35

bar bar baseball bat on Orton's crotch