163 | Bobby Ashley

You are now listening to the UK and the world's favourite wrestling podcast. Archie and wrestling with your host Andy and Emma. Started! And we're on!

It started on... We started. Yes. Still sharing a vape, not ideal, but you know...

Reunited with mine tomorrow at some point. Oh, that's alright. Oh, how are you? Yeah, I feel like...

Hey, you asked me first. Yeah, I'm asking you quick for you. Not that we don't know, cos you know we live together. Yes.

Am alright, I feel knackered. I feel like really tired today. Sucks. And it might be cos I stayed up for Dynamite last night.

It's definitely cos you stayed up for Dynamite last night. Yeah, I did fall asleep like halfway through it, though. So I feel a little bit shit about that. Cos I think there was a good 30 minutes that I've missed.

I think Chris, Chris, that London made a entrance. This is no con, Chris. That London. But then the next thing I remember is Jungle Wise music.

So whether or not that I've just missed one match, I don't know. I'll go back at some point, but there's too much. Absolutely. Too much.

I forgot about it. And then I went on to it this morning, I saw nothing. So I was like, OK, so it must have been fairly uneventful. I can't see them doing anything massive.

I know that you said the main event was really good, but I can't see them doing anything massive. On the last night before they go back to Wednesday, I think they're probably just waiting to go back to their slot. Yeah, I think you're right. Cos I thought that it was the Vicky Guerrero.

Nyla Rose, Britt Baker, Rebel, Match last night, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to stay up. Cos obviously she's not wrestling. If Vicky Guerrero is wrestling, then I'm wrong about it. Cos maybe they are doing that as an angle.

It's just going to be like a comedy skit. But on live TV, she's getting a replacement. It's going to be a debuting woman, I think. So that's why I stayed up.

But yeah, then that didn't happen. And I was like, oh, no, it's the 30th. Oh, OK. But the whole Saturday night Friday night, bollocks, it's completely thrown me off.

Me too. I mean, I watched last week, but I wasn't really asked about watching last night. I think it's because I know they're going back to Wednesday. So I'm like, I'll watch it then.

I'm not interested in this. These shows that are only getting like, you know, half of the audience that they should be getting. Yeah, yeah. You know, they're not going to be putting that much into it.

I know they will. But I just want it. I just, I'm ready to watch it on Wednesday. I'll watch it on Thursday.

Yeah, I'm what I'm really looking forward to is the touring for both for every company. Because there's been loads of announcements. I could, New Japan's done another announcement where they'd been like a strong taping, which is going to be in front of fans. And just an ROH, like the same paper views and stuff with fans there.

And obviously, WWE is going back to touring with the 12 Rock people roster that they've got. But yeah, I think I'm at that point now. And I think apart of what I said to you last night, why, why, why, why, because I like to see the fans there. And I had a little look at the tickets just probably about sort of 10 o'clock hour time.

So maybe three hours before the show started. Maybe an hour before the doors open for people and there was shit loads left. And there was only that bit where I was like, oh, there's loads left. That was the only area that was open as well.

Because it was like, but it looked like they'd mostly gone. But it wasn't like full up. It was just one, one part of the bottom tier around the ring and then that little box, the one that's on the hard come. So I was like, right, there isn't that many people actually.

So they, they've probably got a bit of a table the next week because I've not put as much effort into what's coming next as I normally do. They're doing, they're doing like a fun appreciation day because Wednesdays, the last time they're doing daily's place and tickets started from like $10. So then going back out on the road. Yeah.

So then the following Wednesdays Miami, then it's fight first. So it's road rager then. Looking forward to that. Yeah.

We do. And stuff because those shows when they were, you know, when they first started in the arenas were wild, like they were so good. And I think that the appreciation of it being in someone's town, it's going to make it so that, you know, at least for a while, the atmosphere is going to be fucking crazy. You know, those like the next sort of four or five months is going to be nuts.

I hope so. And I hope for wrestling across the board is because like Ted, Ted is legend. I think it's a different handle now. It was messaging us just saying that he's really, he's kind of fallen out with it a little bit, but he's going to the Miami show.

Right. And I was like, okay, well, there's nothing like a live show to kind of kick you back into it. But I've seen that quite a lot. Like through tweets, I've seen or tweets that we've had where people since the pandemic started and the, you know, the non-fans shows kind of started is that people are half putting down.

He's like, I'm going to wait until the fans come back. And for me, like, because I was first kind of a w sort of thing, we've gone back and watched the other since because of the fight up and it's dead easy just to fucking bring them up in the Nijapam world, get a grippy self. I'm out of this fucking fine old shows. But the first one that we saw was bubbling up in the last year, that was like, right, I'm going to give this chance.

Let's see. And it was great. And that was a fanless kind of show. And then we go back and watch the ones were like, fucking, I was just from the beginning rather than taking the piss out of it.

Oh, yeah, that's a big old wrestling fans for you. But like, we've never had really a continuity kind of moment where they've been fans there or watching it week to week and there's been fans there every week. Yeah. Because watching some of the old dynamites, it's like full arena, near and off.

Some of them are smaller venues, but that doesn't matter. Who cares, you know, if it's 8,000, it's 8,000, it's still fucking full arena. And the reactions and like Cassidy and, you know, because Cassidy was getting shared out of building then and now he's done all the shit with Jericho and the Omega thing and you know, sweetie and we still over. But he's seeing that crowd reaction does make a massive difference to your enjoyment of the show because I've started to peter off a little bit with AEW.

So starting to get to the point where I was, not, you know, this is massively over-eg in it. But like the point where I was with WWE when we were properly watching it, where I started to become over-critical of things that I don't like. So the wave for AEW for me is gone now. And what's left is just enjoyment of the show.

I'm picking out the nitpicky stuff. I'm a bit more in tune with, which again, I've got one nitpicky thing for later. But yeah, I think when they start touring again, every company, when they start touring again, I think everybody's just going to get a bump. They're going to get live-gates again, which is great.

They're going to get TV ratings bigger. They're going to get pay-per-view buys if you do pay-per-views higher. Because New Japan really is the only show that I've been watching that has consistent fans there. It probably shouldn't do Japan.

State of emergency. Probably shouldn't. But they are. So maybe that all they can do is clap so they don't really get her.

And the fact that they all adhere to it as well is just hilarious. But I think when the fans are back, that'll be when we're off to the race. And Vince has even said, like, I don't know if it was an interview or it was a leaked thing, that he's saving his good ideas, doing quotes, saving his good ideas for when crowds return. Cool, yeah.

I believe it when I say it. Well, I believe it when I hear about it because I'm not going to say it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Me too.

Anyway, let's start the show. I think his good idea is Brock Lesnar and Becky Lynch. I think those are his good ideas that he's bringing back when the crowds are back. John Cena as well, which again will- It's good ideas are just people.

Don't I? Yeah. It's an idea, Brock Lesnar. Boom.

My idea is Robert Raines gets pulled over by John Cena. That's my idea. There you go. There you go.

I'm going home. I'm going to go take a nap. Anyway, let's start the show. Hello, everyone.

Welcome once again. So I have to have some one, six, three. Oh, Blyme. Govna.

Hope you're all staying safe. Hope you're all enjoying your week. My name's Andy. If this is the first time you've listened to this.

Oh, I'm Gemma. And this is Gemma. Welcome. I know we have to do that anymore.

No, no. And there's so many times where I think to be self-hyped. Maybe people have listened to this for the first time. We're just waffling off.

We are about Gak Man. There you go. Stephanie Gak. It's all of them now.

I've kind of- Please Gak Man. I've got some cruise, triple H as well. Triple H is a Gak Man. Or if you don't know what we're talking about, you probably turned it off when I said we're going to finish this show last time.

Oh, go back and listen to that if you want to hear some of that. Oh my god, just listen to the last 20 minutes. It's not a point of showing. It's fucking went off.

It went off. It went off that shit. And seeing as today, we're doing this podcast, it's right now 10 to one in the afternoon. And we've not long been up.

It's going to be a bit more of a sedate there. I've got a green C for for the sake. I don't think it is. I think because we feel a bit tired.

I think it's going to be worse. Do you reckon? I just know I've got a clean flap. It's just bringing me down.

Well, no, we'll do it. We'll back some ghost on. Yeah. I'm just smashing it out on second hour or two.

Just on a side note. I was going to list all of the stuff on eBay today, but I forget that I can't send it to anybody because we're away next week. That's a good point. I need to put my shop on like hold.

Yeah, because you don't want to post anything. We're going on holiday, folks. Great British holiday. We're going on a great British vacation.

Here's a question for you. Are we going to do the podcast while we're going to take this with us? Well, I wasn't planning to take my laptop because of work because you know what I'm like. So I was going to ditch it, but it doesn't mean we've not got a podcast for a week.

We miss a week. I think we should miss a week just from my own sanity, your sanity. If you take that, then you're going to be checking shit. Of course.

Because what I was going to say, and again, you know, do I? I can't think of the words. It's completely unrelated to the show. Just do it on air.

Should I take mine just so we can watch it? Or should I just leave mine as well? I mean, you could take your laptop because you're not going to be able to sign into your work thing. Get your headset on, you just have to call.

I won't fucking do that anyway. So yeah, yours could come. Especially when we're at the back end of the house. Because we could take a USB, I could plug it into a tele or whatever that's there.

Because I've got loads of films on my laptop legally. Yeah, totally legal. Totally legal. But yes, but what I was going to say is that depending on what happens on a USB, just plug it into the show first night, this is a coming point.

Oh yeah. Because we go on Friday, don't we? Well, there's enough news. There's nothing there we go.

Like loads of people being released. It's not mad anymore, is it? No, it's not. It's just not on now.

We'll get to that later. Anyway, that's what we do for all day, folks. That's what we think of it though. So let's start with something we've seen.

Mick Foley, Broken School Sessions. Oh yeah, fun. That was fun, wasn't it? Yeah, so I've seen it twice now.

Once, just because I was up until after clock one night and second because I said we got to watch this. I don't think I've laughed that much during one of them ever. Yeah, it was funny. It was so funny.

Like some of the stories I'm going about like Diamond Dolla's page. Poor guy. He just cops for it, didn't he? So many times.

There's so much shit about people pranking him. Yeah, he must have been such an easy target. I can see why. I can see why because he is that person who texts himself very seriously and what he does very seriously.

I think that is just fucking easy in it. Yeah, he has a reputation for flipping his lid. But he seems like he's probably a super nice guy. That's why if you've not seen it, the story is long story short, the crumble cookies in his head.

After a day of completely needling him all day. So they put all cookies in his bed and he's in there. It ends up like shouting at him and then gets back in bed and goes, guys, tomorrow I'm getting my own room and then like a minute goes by and he goes, bang. That's so funny.

You wouldn't be sharing a room with Stone Cold though. Fuck that. There's no way. You're not going to get pranked because the guy sounded like a fucking nightmare.

Yeah, loads of people have said that. That he was a fucking nightmare to be around. But in a funny way. I guess it's so boring on the road as well.

If you're of that mind for like pranking is super funny to you, then that's the only entertainment you've got. No social media. No mobile phones at that point. That's just pranked DDP again.

Oh, Christ. That's fucking funny. The whole show was just hilarious and insightful because he was going on about the Helen the Salmat for ever he like resented it. And all the little recently he spoke to Taker and was like, Taker said, this is going to outlive the pair of us.

And that's when it dawned on him that he had loads of good moments. So he's like, you know, fucking years, you're talking what, 20, 25 years maybe since that Helen the Salmat's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. King of the ring that year, it was it. I think it was 98.

But like he'd been just holding resentment for that one match the whole time. So mad, isn't it? Yeah. I think with Foley that he doesn't, he, I think he fangs it in his head impossible to put himself with the greats.

I just don't think he, you know, because he talks about the greats and he's not in it. Yeah. You know, you've got Austin saying, and you too. And he was, you know, he was like one of the different reasons.

Absolutely. I think he sees himself as like, oh, that mid-car guy, you had that mad match and did stupid shit, you know, and hurt himself. But it's weird. It's really weird to see someone.

And it's not like someone like, you know, false modesty or being modest. It's like it just doesn't compute with him. No. That he's as famous as he is.

And he's like a massive part of wrestling. Yeah, yeah. I think maybe because he's just quite a normal bloke, isn't he? He's not got any of his own graces on him and never has.

So I guess, you know, he's never really bought into his own hype. Yeah. You know, don't seem to have bought into his own hype. You know, maybe it's a lot because he was, you know, he was, was married for so long.

He was always really grounded and took it with a pinch of salt, like everything happened. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know, who knows.

But it was really fun to watch actually. It was so fucking long. Yeah, it was like two hours long. It was crazy long.

I was like, wow, this is nuts. And I've not clicked into it, but I looked on like YouTube as a day. Like one of the suggested videos was like extra. Oh, God.

I was like, fucking hell extra. I love to know how many beers Stone Cold gets through during that. Oh, I'm so sorry. Easily sick.

How many times do you like? Because even though they'll still be next to him. Oh, yeah, they'll be in a cooler next to him. Well, he's only in his house.

Yeah, yeah. He's got that set up in his house. It's all about cool. It's what's up in your own house.

It's awesome. Oh, yeah. But no, it was great. And anybody who's not seen it, go and watch it.

I mean, there's ways of watching it without giving Gekman's Man's $9.99 every month. So do a do-partake in that instead. Right. Let's start off then with the news.

So point one. And interestingly enough, point one is something that I was saying about last week on the show. I was like, surely these TV networks are not happy with WWE with everything that's going on in the show. And sure enough, a news story literally two days after the fucking show aired.

Multiple sources are reporting that the USA network officials are not happy with Fox getting big hell in the cell match for the Universal title on Friday SmackDown, which did jack shit for the ratings, by the way. Friday night, saw Roman Reigns against Rey Mysterio, which should have been on the Hell in the Cell Pay-per-view, but they took it off. So Andrew's area in the Matt Mann podcast reported that the USA network went happy with the Hell in the Cell match taking place during SmackDown on Fox, which also led to Fox officials not being thrilled with the fact that they constantly promote Peacock on their network, which is seen as a rival streaming service. NBCU obviously has no issue with Peacock being pushed on Raw, because obviously it's their fucking channel, so of course they're not Dave Meltzer.

It's what? Honestly, more everyday that this motherfucker gets on my ass. Like I watched a video today about the Jungle Boy like main event. And you know how much I hate being interrupted.

It's just one of my bug betters. He interrupts Alvarez constantly. It's like shut the fuck up. I nearly tweeted.

He'd say shut the fuck up dude. He's pissing me off. I didn't. I just don't give him money instead.

I'm just giving it to Alvarez. But yeah, so like I fucking said this last week, all the week before I can't remember, but they can't be fucking happy with Peacock. If you pay WWE a billion dollars over five years and you say, right, okay, you're going to do all your pay per views, because it's not pay per views anymore. So it should stop calling pay per views.

It should call them sports entertainment events. So if you take your, so it's no secret to the top star is in WWE at the moment. Forget about the returning people who could potentially turn up Roman Reigns is your number one drawing is going to change that doesn't hurt. Who comes back?

No one's going to change Rome because he has been the top for the last feels like 10 years now. Yeah, but as far as like drawing capabilities, well, because WWE wins matter. Personally wins sells the most merch because that's what they condition their funds to think. So when you see somebody debut in and they get beat, they ain't got shit for them.

It's just the way it goes. It's not like other shows where people can lose five times in a row and it's a storyline that you get invested in. No, no, no, no. If they lose, they're going to cut them.

Or if they win, they're going to cut them. Who fucking knows anymore, but we'll get to that later. So I was like, there's no way Peacock is happy with giving them because they're paying them for a service now. Like we're paying you to provide us a service.

So they don't have that much control over anymore other than producing these pay per views. That's why they've got a little documentary division. That's why they've got rid of everything outside of that. That's all going to be Peacock doing that from now on.

So if I was the guy who handed the cash over to WWE, it was like here's your 250 or 200 million for this first year. And then I hear that they take Roman Reigns off a show that I've paid them for. And not even on Raw and a rival TV network. It's a rival network.

So you've talked the biggest star off the show and put on a rival network. Breach your contract. I'll be saying that's a fucking breach. You owe me now $100 million.

You're getting half the money this year because you've done that. And you've got a fucking like it. Obviously I don't think that's going to happen. But for me, the constant promotion of Peacock on Raw and SmackDown as well is going to be annoying to them.

So this is the problem when you take money from all sides is you're not going to be able to keep them happy. And again, like I've always said, the Vince McMahon changing the show at the last minute. I don't think it's because he is seen and he doesn't know what he's doing. I think they've got themselves into such a position where the networks run the show.

So if they do a Monday Night Raw or where they do an angle and NBC, you don't like it, it's going to get axed for next week. Literally I think because they're getting paid so much money. And if the viewing figures fluctuate, Vince will be on a call for an hour on Tuesday and an hour on Saturday. We're trying to talk him down off the ceiling.

So if they don't like something, they are going to make you change it. It's not a case where they're getting paid for call or they're just getting paid like a little bit of advertising revenue. These networks own those companies. Look at AW.

They do a stink debut and what did TNT say straight away? No more surprises. So now, because we know that, we know when we watch Dynamite, we ain't getting a surprise. Or a surprise that they think is a big deal like stink debuting.

No more surprises. So they're going to have to do their surprises on pay per views, which will make pay per views better. Well, that's how much power these networks have. They can just do what they want.

It doesn't matter how many fucking writers they've got. It doesn't matter how many wrestlers have got ideas. The network is the boss. Vince can say, we can all blame Vince as much as we like to.

And really, the book does stop with him. But if you're getting paid a billion dollars to do something and the person who's paying that money doesn't like it, you're going to change. That's why they don't give a fuck. I'll go into more detail about this later.

They don't give a fuck about a family action. They don't care who you like to and whether or not people thought it was a book to manage. The only people they care about is the one that's paying them the money. Because our money, our t-shirts sales or our live event attendance or our $9.99 a month outside of the US is a drop in the fucking ocean compared to what these things are going to do.

Oh, it's definitely 100%. It's all about the network money. One of the things I was thinking about is the Saudi deal. That was over a period of time.

Is it 10 years, five years? I think it's 10 years. 10 years. And they missed a year.

So they're going to have to make up those events that they agreed that they were going to do. So those Saudi events are going to have to occur a lot more frequently. And I felt like they were already occurring fairly frequently. So they're going to have to make up for the year and a half that they've missed with them.

So I know that I'm going off on a tangent. It's not to do with the networks. But there's quite a lot that the pressure is at all angles. Signing these big deals, the Saudi one is something that seems to be obviously been parked because it's not a lot they can do.

But there's that shit as well that they've got to respond to. And they've got to go, OK, well, the agreement over 10 years said we're going to do two events a year. We've missed a year and a half. We owe you two free events on top of the two events a year that we're going to have to pick up and resume.

So it's going to feel like I think that they're always going to Saudi. And then, you know, I know we're talking about it later, but it ties into getting rid of a load of people because then, you know, like they're having to be in lots of different places at once and please all these different people. But at the same time, probably not making much sense. At the same time, all of those people, they've got them agreements with all want the same stars there.

Oh, yeah. They won't just settle for, you know, Saudi ain't going to settle for mid-card as going over and doing that. They want Reigns. They want Lesnar.

They want like returning, you know, like legends who they never, you know, never got to see before there. So like, you've seen us back. It's like, well, we won't see her in Saudi. Like, he's coming back.

We want him in Saudi. Like, get him on the show. You've missed a fucking year and a half. We want John Cena now.

Oh, and by the way, we want the rock. So sort that out. It's a sort of rock out now because you know, it's just a fucking absolute mind-fork shit show fragmented business with all of these very important stakeholders who want to see the same show and they can't all get the same show because Roman Reigns can't be in all these different places at once doing everything. But they've made that product such as it is led by Roman Reigns.

So everybody wants Roman Reigns. Yeah, of course. They put all the eggs into that guys. What if he gets sick?

Well, what the fuck did they do when he was sick and when he stayed off because he was like, it's just fucking crazy. It's like, and then they're going to start, I think, the way they're going is they are just going to lean on the likes of Lesnar and Cena and, you know, pay them huge fees to make one off at Cena is a million dollars for Saudi. Why do you think there was a tag team match in Saudi Arabia of Shawn Michaels and Triple H against Undertaker and Kane? Because they wanted it and here's the money to do it.

Yeah, they wanted to do that match. So they paid those four people, probably a million dollars each because this isn't, this is not, you know, they make more money out of the Saudi deals than they do off WrestleMania per show. It gives them more money than WrestleMania. We won't see the Saudi shows again though, because I don't think Peacock won't want to put them on.

Well, they have to because that's a reason that that's part of their Saudi contract that they get network only specials. It's a pay per view. Well, then potentially they ain't going to pay them like a billion a show to go into a house show. They want it on the network and they want to show off Saudi Arabia and advertise it.

That's the whole point. The whole point of it is that they had their own WWE network and there was no, because the big problem before the WWE network started is pay per view companies wouldn't touch it. Not that it was, to my knowledge, it wasn't a thing then, but a pay per view companies. This is the problem you have as well.

So WWE, when they were doing pay per views for other TV networks, and this is another way that you should have people. It's one like, CNA had a pay per view or something like that. WWE would just put a pay per view on. That's why we got all these mad, like December to dismember, roadblock, whatever it is, pay per views that they do now, because they had their main ones and then other companies would do a pay per view and they'd put one on the same night.

So then all the pay per view providers would say, well, actually, no, we're going to go with the WWE one because we know that's going to sell more than yours. So that was another way they used to put companies over. So the whole, and whether or not a pay per view company would take a show from Saudi Arabia with all that advertising in it, probably not. They probably wouldn't say, well, we're not just going to put a Saudi Arabia propaganda video on there.

So when they got their own network, they can decide what they put on themselves. Now they can't decide what they put on themselves. So that's going to be really interesting to see if they allow. It depends whether Peacock had asked about what goes into the show, or it's just you're doing your WWE network on our platform.

But we've seen they've gone through and edited loads of stuff out of it. So there's loads of stuff that they've took off because it's not great to watch. So are they going to be the same? Are they as Peacock as NBCU?

Are they going to say, hang on, they're doing a Saudi Arabia pay per view with all this mad propaganda in it about women finally being allowed to drive? And all this kind of shit. Are they going to say, actually, our shareholders don't want us to show that. So we're going to edit that off the show.

And then Saudi will go, you're in a massive fucking breach contract. They're in the markets too many people. It's essentially, it is a mess because each agreement impacts the other agreements because it's the same company. It's wild.

It's absolutely fucking wild. God, that's mad at me. That might be really interesting to see what that Saudi show is like. Because that's not the whole reason why they wanted to do it.

Is that Princess Scott fucking defdomently, he likes wrestling. He wanted to show off the fact that he's a more progressive Prince. That was what Triple H said those words, that he's a more progressive Prince. That was the whole thing.

It was a propaganda show. I would be surprised if the billion dollar Peacock agreement gets them out of the Saudi one and covers the cost of paying to get out of it because that wasn't a billion dollars, Saudi. No, but it was like a hundred million a show. A hundred million per show.

Fucking hell. Yeah. A million per show, really. A hundred million.

Nice. It's what I'm only kicking about Saudi, isn't it? But that's why they paid fucking Undertaker Kay and Michaels and Triple H at that probably a shitload of money to do that. Well, the match is a so fucking random on it.

Like they're not a continuation of what's going on in the show. A hundred million a year it was. So 50 million a show. Sure, yes.

It's not really likely to take it out of the. I would be interested to see how that picks up and how it goes and what happens because it does seem at odds with the Peacock deal completely. It depends what they're asked about though. If Peacock above it, if they say, because WWE have had so much negative press about going to Saudi Arabia.

You know, John Oliver did a spot on it on his show. I've seen loads of articles about WWE should cancel this Saudi thing. You can't, this is the thing. You can't cancel shit once you've signed a contract.

And if they've signed a contract for 10 years to produce this show, they can't suddenly turn around and say, Oh, actually, we're getting a lot of fan backlash and we're getting a lot of corporate sponsors who want to pull out because they had a couple of corporate sponsors pull out. Snickers are fine. They don't give shit. They'll just do whatever.

But they had a few corporate sponsors like lower corporate sponsors pull out because they didn't agree with them going and doing a propaganda video. It's not about women being allowed to wrestle. It's not about that. It's not about going and giving the Saudi Arabian fans who pat that fucking place out.

It's probably worth doing a show there anyway. If you should allow to, if the Prince will allow you to do it, I don't know whether that comes into it. But it's not about that. They, they masked that with the, or you know, now women can wrestle and the one person in the crowd that shout, if this is hope and gak man's there with a fucking nose covered in snow.

Just like, yeah, the whole place was challenging it. Dint triple H shed a fucking photo. Oh, Jesus. But it's not about that guys.

It's not about that. It's about you getting paid like Alan Partridge to do a fucking promotional video. And you just happen to throw a few matches in there. Like that's basically what you're doing because I'm for the one that I watched at four times.

They showed a 10 minute promo video about Saudi essentially. It wasn't it, but right? The country was and how much it's changing and all that shit. It's just, it is just a cluster fork to me.

It's a cluster fork. And I do, I do think I still think it's getting sold. It's 100% getting sold. And do you know what, right?

I know that, I know we're going to talk about the releases later. This isn't about the releases, but it's connected to Nick Khan. Do you remember like last year when we were talking, when we first sort of said this, this and this, it's getting sold and you went, you're absolutely right. And I remember saying, I think at first I said, no way.

There's no way Vince is going to give up power. But here we are. Exactly. But I remember saying at that point, it was fucking ages ago, Vince isn't, and I don't think I was talking about Nick Khan, but maybe I was, but I've picked up all the other guy in recent months.

I said, oh, the reason why Vince isn't the one kind of seemingly making these decisions is because he wants to come out of it. It's the good guy. And that makes a lot of sense to push it to someone else. And I don't know what I was talking about or what I was talking about, but I don't think it was Nick Khan.

But perhaps it was, but the whole like Nick Khan publicity thing, again, him coming out and being the one who's quoted, him coming out and being his face in front of everything and the person behind all these new decisions, that is like the perfect, perfect story you tell to the fans to protect Vince McMahon when the sale goes through, because Vince McMahon hasn't, he's not the bad guy. Yeah, but anybody who thinks that Vince McMahon isn't the bad guy is off the rocks. But this is a business, this is like business people making that decision. But this is like a business thing of like, protect Mr McMahon and we position this person to get ready for that transition.

You should bring him on TV because he can be the new Vince, the new heel boss. Vince has a chat room saying, do you want to be on TV? Because everybody will fucking hate you. And they would do.

But obviously he's just a business guy who's doing that. But this is my last thing before we go on to the, because we'll probably get into the player on. I put a few like fluff stories in before that just to try and like, I'll weigh it. The end of the day, that company does not give a fuck about the fans, does not care at all about you guys.

I'm talking to you guys who still watch it. I don't watch anymore. I watch the odd bit of the odd match if somebody tells me it's a good match. But not on Raw and SmackDown, you can pay me to watch that.

And we don't get paid for this. So I ain't watching it. So I just got too much to do. They don't care.

They don't care. Like they go on all the time about talking about like, are the fans at the WWE Universe? They're in the pockets of too many people. And the fans are completely secondary because you guys, they're just bad.

A year where no fans could attend. They've had no live gates. The only fan money that they've seen from you is merchandise sales, which will be massively down because most of their merch gets sold at live shows. And WWE Network subscription now for outside of the US and the US was the biggest market.

So it was like 1.5 million people, so it was like 1.5 million people. Subscribed worldwide and there's about a million of them are in the US. So they don't give a fuck about you. Like they don't care because you're not giving them any money anymore.

They've just had the most profitable year they've ever had. Stone Cold, that run, the rock, Hulk Hogan, WrestleMania, 90,000 people allegedly. They've never been more profitable. They've never made more money.

And it isn't because of the fans. Like you could argue on a base level it is because if they weren't getting any ratings or anything like that won't get these big TV contracts. But their ratings have been slowly declining for the last 10 years. It's the point where the both shows now are averaging under 2 million, which was unheard of.

I remember like, because we've been doing this show for fucking years, like a couple of years ago when we were still watching going, oh, rose gone under 3 million. Oh, the wheels are coming off, rose gone under 3 million, rose now averaging out over the last 18 weeks at 1.9. So this is the best time to sell them. But the fans have gotten to that position, but they're not going to put a good show on for you.

They don't give a fuck. They don't give a fuck if they bring someone back to TV shooting angle and then sack them. They don't give a fuck about what you think. They couldn't care less.

In a year's time, you're all going to be chanting give Divas a chance again. Because that's the way it's going. I think in an ideal world, they'd love it if WWE was just a brand and they could just sell stuff off the back of it. That's what they're doing.

I just think that that's, you know, and then just there's no wrestling at all. Like no wrestling happens. And it's just like a bunch of people who were just there to sell. I know that's essentially what it is.

Yeah, but they would love it if the wrestling part of it was just completely dead. I think if they could make as much money by just doing like, I don't know, just toys and skits like a Saturday night fucking thing. I think Raw and SmackDown will turn into shows that I mean, they pretty much have done where there's minimal wrestling on them. Because again, it was weeks ago and it was just based on one show, but one storm did a thing on the FOWW video show where it got its time to stop watch out and time to the amount of wrestling on the show.

And for Raw, for a three hour show, there was like 45 minutes of wrestling. So it was like 33% of the show because with Adverts, it's like, you know, 43% of the show. I think two hours, 20 minutes of some show with AdWords. So it was like 33% wrestling on the show.

So there was as much wrestling as there was advertising essentially? Yes, absolutely. That's what he said. Whereas, AEW, 66% of the show is wrestling.

They're not a wrestling company anymore. Like, I fuck it. When people like, I see it or people tweet us going on about how WWE is a wrestling show, please think about what you're saying because it's not a wrestling show. It's a fucking soap opera that uses the wrestling as a device to get from storylines and storylines.

That's why I go through and I know Mel's was a fucking dickhead or go through his five star rated matches. When was the last five star WWE match? Michael's Razorbone was a match. He didn't even give five stars to the undertaker in Michael's at Mania, which is astounding to me because they're like 45 minute classics.

But, and that's, you know, you think what you want about him, but it's not a wrestling company. Like NXT and all that, that was them getting their wrestling side out, which is now disappearing. But anyway, speaking of fucking WWE doing shit stuff. Number two, we'll talk about a few.

Where's the thing? Oh, it's absolutely, yeah, there's a couple of fluffy ones and we're getting to the releases. Number two, hand-spotted under the ring during WWE having the salamain event. It's a very fucking day that day, I loved it.

Oh, it was great. The mysterious hand. So, WWE talks on heat from fans on social media. They don't care.

After a hand of a crew member, how do you know who's a crew member? We know how it's a crew member. The hiding under the ring was caught on camera during last night's Helen the salamain event, which saw Bobby Lashley, and this is me putting the news together last night, like it was last night. So Bobby Lashley would say no to the ring, McIntyre.

The crew member's hand could be seen coming out of the ring after Lashley chokes on McIntyre from the arm print through a table at ringside. Fans not in the company for having McIntyre take a bump on what appeared to be padding and for having a crew member push the table pieces back out around him. This is fucking hilarious. As soon as I saw this and he was putting the hand comes and pushes the table back, I was like, that fuckers pulled the crash my hand out.

Yeah, because I couldn't grasp what the fuck had happened. When I saw the video, I was like, why is someone under there like shoving shit out? I honestly didn't put two and two together at all. And as soon as you said that, he's like, I'm done with Crash Mount, there's someone underneath to pull it back.

And then obviously they need to push the props back out to make it look. I was like, of course that's what it is. How did I not figure that out? Because they're doing these stupid fucking spots in the Thunderdome where they would never do when there's a live crowd there.

No. But how many times have we seen somebody go from the apron through a table to the outside? Fucking sons. Like, McIntyre and Sheamus keep the shit out of each other.

Get the shit out of each other on Raw. You've got a hell of a hell of a main event, right? And he's going from the apron through a table onto a Crash Mount. It's like, there's protects in your wrestlers and then there's, I don't know, I don't really don't fucking know anymore of these two acts.

Like, do you think McIntyre was the one who made that decision? No fucking way. Absolutely no way. On a Raw, which really doesn't matter.

Because that's the thing I always hear from people. It's that these wrestlers kill themselves and bust their asses and then have the worst finishes in the history of wrestling. Like, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't mean I didn't watch any of the hell in the cell. But I heard that there was re-emripley against Charlotte, I think, and it was ended in a DQ.

Because whilst re-emripley was dragging shit off the table, off the announce table to put Charlotte through the announce table, which how many times have we seen in a non-DQ match? The table's just legal, apparently. But that's the way it's always been. And she like pulled a bit of the table off and like hit by accident.

And I've not seen it. So if this is wrong, you know, feel free to correct me. Well, like by accident, hit her with like the floppy, the top part of the table that has the logo on that looks like a piece of cardboard. You know, spun in a hit her with it and gets DQ'd at a fucking pay-per-view.

Like, please. And it was like a 20-minute match or some shit like, please get a fucking grip yourself. So there's no way McIntyre said it. I'm not doing that spot.

You need to put a crash map there. There's no way. Because we've seen him do stuff on a fucking roar of miles worse. And they've got the padding around the ring.

And most people say it still sucks, but the table cushions your fall. So that's the way they kind of say it. What was the crash map even for then? For him?

No, no, no. So we landed on a table, right? So the shot, I always saw a picture of this. So I haven't actually seen it apart from the theme of the hand coming out.

Think. That's what it's called in the Adam's family. Think. Yeah, think so.

So the camera is like looking like that up. So like looking up at Lashley. So it's from the floor looking up. And you can just see the top of the table.

So Lashley picks him up and chokes on him through it. So you see, you see, McIntyre land, I'm assuming, land on the table. But you don't see him hit the floor. Right, I see.

So then the camera... There would be something under the bean bag or something underneath the table. So there was something underneath the table to protect him. So then it cuts to Lashley and the ring.

And this is all I'm just guessing. And then cuts back to McIntyre too early. And McIntyre is like, you know, selling it. But usually when you get a shot of somebody who's gone through a table, they're in the middle of the table and they're just like, late late.

Yeah, yeah. But like McIntyre is like at the side of the table, like rolling around. Well, this guy's like, trying to push the fucking table back out. Ridiculous.

Yeah, this is... What a ridiculous thing. I mean, there's protects in your wrestlers and then there's... Completely screwing it up.

So we're always going to get a shift for that. Anyway, fight for E! Wednesday night on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. John Cena addressed his impending return to WWE.

When asked him out, he said, those rumours are true. I'll definitely be back in WWE. I just don't know when Cena said he hadn't had his last match and he can't wait to have his next one. Well, we know what his next one is.

And that's SummerSob against Roman Reigns. We know Cena. We know Cena. Unfortunately.

We don't even watch the show. You. So do you, Mark. Look it up, you Mark.

So the question really about that is... I'm trying to think of what... I had a good one. I didn't write down like an idiot.

It was something like... This over-reliance on people from outside of the company. Is it ever going to change? No.

Never. So he's played... play devil's advocate. They've done a few casting calls recently.

Because they're not wrestling tryouts. Doesn't matter how much they say they're wrestling trials. They're not on the casting calls. Because they don't want wrestlers.

And nor should they want wrestlers because they're not wrestling shows. No, no. I think they've gone away from that now. Aren't they?

Concluding up the indie scene. Yeah. They're not holding. They're like, oh, do you know what?