Hello everyone and welcome once again to RTM Wrestling. I'm not gonna call this an episode, it's probably gonna have a number, but I can't be asking for that now. But this is the retrospective positive, or as positive as it can possibly be, when I'm talking into a microphone, RIP NXT. So I hope you're all well, I hope you're all staying safe, my name's Andy.
I'm Gemma. And we're RTM Wrestling. If I was on Twitter, at RTM Wrestling and all your podcast networks, which obviously you know, because you're listening to us right now. So let's get into this then.
So the whole reason why we're doing this is they're changing our NXT. Now I've not watched NXT properly for about six months. I'd say you've not watched it in the same amount of time. No, definitely not.
I think I've watched less than you have. Yeah, I think that the time when I properly dropped out is even before we started watching AW, because we got into that probably like a year into their run. I stopped watching it when they put it on Telly and it wasn't on the network, because the booking changed. The people didn't change obviously, but it went to the same style as Raw and SmackDown, which were already driving up the wall.
Was that the time when it went to two hours as well? Had it always been an hour before? Yeah, so it'd been an hour on the network. It might get better because they're doing this sort of thing now, whether it's a team like a month in a row and then going on from there.
But yeah, the quick and size hour was great, they changed it. And now they're changing it again. So whether it will be awful or not, it will be here and there. But I've seen the graphic, you know, that they've changed the one that looks like Nickelodeon's throw up, there's no indie guys and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm making a conscious decision, like we've said, they should do, for the last two years, of getting away from that. So NXT was a massive part of the enjoyment of wrestling for a long time. And probably the reason why this podcast was still going. Absolutely, yeah.
It was our kind of exciting, the way that we are a little bit available, the way you are in Japan. And it was our sort of like version of that, we're a bit tired of what was going on in the main show. And then NXT was just a breath of fresh air. It felt like, and it's not like, that's not, you know, it didn't feel like it was a breath of fresh air.
It was totally different. Yeah, different people, new faces. You know, some people, like names you heard of, you've never seen their face before, but you knew they were kind of big in indie wrestling and you finally get to see them because we did branch out at that point and actually look at any indie shows. So it was this like really exciting show that hooked us in.
And probably is the reason why we still watch wrestling and why we were open to things like AW and you were up to New Japan and we can both sit and watch ROH and we're not like, oh, this is WWE. It's our first thought about the door. Yeah, it's probably not a great thing for them. No, but it's been great for us.
Yeah, definitely. I think as a fan, you know, at the time when the triple H took over it and was like, right, this is going to be, because I think, you know, we kind of sort of modeled that shame at man wanted to use for ECW when that came back, where he wanted it to be a web only show and they could put whatever they wanted into it and they could let the people who, the talent that were in there do whatever they want, not do whatever they want, but, you know, do what they're known for and not have to change to this, you know, plotting or exciting, in my opinion, not in anybody else, anybody who watches it obviously, but exciting for me, style of plotting around a ring and, you know, finish with an act of smash, joking, it's never like that. Yeah, so today we were going to do it, like, every day this weekend, we were going to do it on Saturday, then some day, and by calling anyone, this seems like the best. We had the best intentions for this weekend and it's completely gone out the way.
We've not got anything done, no, we're supposed to get them. I don't know about any of you guys, but we know it's a really interesting psychological shift in ourselves today. We've got a lot of shit that needs doing in the living room and it's not like DIY, it's a bit DIY, but like, you know, for exciting reasons, you just need to shift stuff around. Well, because we're so kind of like, it's quite overwhelming, we just found ourselves going getting in bed in the middle of the day, and we're like, oh, why are we so old?
Let's just get in bed for an hour, a little sleep, and then we realised that we literally avoided it. We're trying to escape the living room. We live in a one bedroom flat, so it is the only room we can go to catch, like, hang out in the garden or go see it. Yeah, the light doesn't work in the toilets, that's another place where we don't like hanging out.
The list is growing, the list of things to do is growing dramatically. But before we get into that, Gem, how are you doing? Yeah, I've got my glass of wine ready to sort of toast to NXT. As I say, it's been a really unproductive weekend, but I'm trying not to be hard on myself about that.
No, it's what everyone else does in a van quality. Not normally, you know, wrestling fans can probably join in with this. Normally, like, Van Colady weekends, I know it's like Labor Day, like, next weekend, for people in the States, so that's why all the shit is going down next weekend. But normally, there's something going on.
Van Colady weekend for us, whether that's, you know, what's going away, or there's like loads of wrestling to watch or what kind of stuff. Like wrestling has actually been a big deal, because it feels like it's a massive, kind of adrenaline sort of dump for want of a better word, after CM Punk, you know, on Rampage debuting and then him on Dynamite. We know that we've got a pay-per-view for Real Fade, all you wise, and you know, is New Japan still in a bit of State of Fox at the moment? Yeah, but it's the Wrestle Grand Slam shows next weekend.
So Saturday and Sunday has got the MetLife Dome shows, which the cards are amazing. I'm going to say now, I'm not going into any of the news. We probably all know this. Daniel Bryan's debuting, that's kind of been confirmed for next weekend.
You know, there's loads of news, but I'm not going through it, because it'll just take too much time. And then by the time the next show rolls around, maybe Thursday to preview, because I don't want to do like a Saturday under Sunday or a Saturday in a Monday, because you guys know how long these can go sometimes. You know, I don't want to throw two, four-hour podcasts at you, just for just for, you know, to talk through news that you already know about. So maybe like a Thursday to review Dynamite, and then, because I can't see too much changing for Rampage, but maybe if it does, we can do.
But we'll see how it goes. It can be a bit flexible next week, but I do want to, because there's so many awesome shows next week. There's the NWA shows that I've been on, which I was going to watch for like the first time. I've never actually watched an NWA show, but we had the Empower event and the big title match, which I know there's a lot of, unfortunately.
So I was going to watch that. I've watched tons of New Japan this week, because a load of English commentary ones went up, and it's just a summer struggle type thing. So there's not, you know, it wasn't moving anything forward too dramatically. They were just fun shows, but I really enjoyed that.
But yeah, not what's strong for a good couple of weeks. We need to get back on that. But yeah, we just thought today, you know, because everything is changing. And like we said, you know, WWE are changing, and I think it's the correct move, because why we try to lie about it, they lie about an off shit.
You know, they don't want indie guys or they will do though, because if somebody gets big enough and they say this like once every five years, like, oh, we're going to go back to what we know. Well, they should go back to what we know. I think it's an easy show for them to have, because I think they're in a process of having a fresh start by changing their tactics on getting like, focusing on getting like younger, building younger talent, getting big dudes. And you know, I don't know what on the women's side, but that's their focus.
But it's really hard to change. You can't really wipe the slate clean on Raw and smack down. No, but you can on NXT, because it's still like that third show, and it's still known as a bit developmental. So it's like, if you're ever going to change, or one of them, you really want to have this new era, whatever era you might call it, the Nick Khan era, I don't know.
But if it was ever a show for them to like really go to town on, and go out and change and change tactics, that one. Yeah, and especially because of all the people that are there still, so you've still got your Kyle O'Reilly's, you know, what the fuck must he be thinking? You know, he's coming off like made an interview. And now they're saying, oh, no more indie guys in these leg, well, what does that mean for me?
So it's going to be an interesting time, but you know, we've pulled back massively on covering WWE on the show, because we don't watch it. And the only opinions that I'm getting, you know, secondhand from people who have watched it. And it's not fair. Like, and it's not enjoyable either.
Like just constantly ragging on something. You know, if things come up in the news and the funny, you know, then we'll talk about it. There'll still be a WWE space. If WrestleMania looks good, I might give that a go again.
But I didn't even, you know, the last takeover event was supposedly fantastic. Not watched it, because I don't have any interest in it. It doesn't matter how good, dragging off a vultura. It's not, you know, you're telling me not to watch it.
So I'm not going to, so that's the way it is. But yeah, so retrospective, resting piece to NXT, as we know it. So I put a tweet out, got loads, loads of responses. So the way we're going to kind of do this is go through your responses first.
Anything that you guys bring up, that's on our list of things that we were going to talk about. We'll kind of park there for a second until we get to it. Anything that we haven't, because I'll be completely honest, I've not looked at any of this. All I've done is like copied and pasted.
I've seen like the odd thing, obviously, while I'm copy pasted, copy pasted it into a Word document, because I wanted it to be like the first time I'm reading some of these things out. So then go through that, talk about some of the things, if we've not got our list, then we can go into matches and moments. So stuff that we can remember. And it's not going to be comprehensive, because obviously, you know, there's loads of stuff that we'd be here all night, if we were talking about how fantastic it was.
We'll just specific moments, get it to just a few. And then if any more kind of organically come up, we'll do it that way. And then live shows. So obviously there's like four main live shows, well five, but I've not put the fifth one on the Orlando WrestleMania 1 second drink.
But the UK based NXT shows that we've been to talk about them in a bit of detail and kind of go from there. Does that sound good? Sounds great. Does that sound good to you guys?
I hope so. I'll just tell you that. That was all Alison is in Dublin, according to SoundCloud. Oh, does it change it around?
No, we've still got a lot of North Burgen slash Virgin, but overtaking North Virgin is Dublin. Nice. Dublin apparently. Well, Dublin's a sharp place.
It is a sharp place, I fucking love that thing. Yeah, it's amazing. All that country. Speaking of Dublin, second way, not done that for a bit.
Hey, hey, hey. First guy Alex Morrison. So Alex Underscore, M197, going forward in Twitter. But hey, we're looking forward to the show.
So many great NXT moments. First one that comes to mind is Gagado within the NXT Championship. It was a culmination of a long story, and it was so authentic. And also when Champa returned at the end to Hug him, it was so wholesome.
Nakamura's first take-out. You know, that's going to be in there with me. Nakamura's first take-out, Renchins is up there. And the debut of the Demon entrance as well.
That was really special. DIY beating the Revival in the two out three falls match to finally get the championship. It was great. One of my favorite things there wasn't a moment.
It was Asuka's undefeated streak. One of the best things on WWE TV for years. They built her so well. She had a fantastic match after a fantastic match.
And even had a good one with Nia. Yeah, that was pretty lazy Nia that though. That was when she used to jump for a leg drop. She wasn't doing any action anymore.
That was also a gateway into Yoshi wrestling. Like Stardom and that kind of shit. So yeah, Asuka's reign is probably my favorite thing to come out of NXT. Got loads to kind of impact there.
So the whole like, because I've not got this on the list, the Gagano. I've got Gagano against Champa just in general. So all those crazy matches that they had. But the big one for me was like the turn.
So the original turn. So was it like when they lost the NXT titles or something like that? And they're like still together on the ramp and he just champer just fucking goes for him. And that crowd went like, you know, it's like a collective.
Like, please, sorry, he said something really heartbreaking. Do you like grab onto it? I think so. Well, that might have been like, like, I can't remember.
Maybe it was. Yeah, it was because that was the end of DIY. And I love DIY. I just thought it was fantastic.
I mean, weirdly enough, it's one of those decisions that I was so against, but it turned out actually really well, splitting up with acting. You know, it's one of the few examples you can actually give of someone being better off, actually, outside of a tag team that's fantastic. Yeah. We're splitting those guys up because I never thought in a million years that they would go on and have like such amazing and amazing rivalry.
And to be able to continue it and repeat it and no one get bored, it just keeps getting better and better and better and more and more brutal for NXT standards. It was crazy. It was mad. But I was heartbroken though.
Oh, yeah, definitely. I was heartbroken when I chapped it turned on it. Johnny does a really good job of being that face, you know, the underdog, you know, because they had to, and I'm sure some other people have got into this as well. And if we kind of tread over all ground, I apologize, but we'll kind of do it as we kind of winging it here.
The whole, you know, champer coming back, then having those matches with like no music. So like, so champer would come out and like no entrance music whatsoever, just let the crowd boo him to fuck, which was just great. And then the main spot I can remember from like, you know, all those, and they say again, we've not gone back and watched anything. This is just purely, you know, pulling our brains was the power bomb from the apron onto the exposed floor.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's the one I'm thinking of. Yeah.
And just a slap of his like back on concrete was just disgusting, absolutely horrible. They were great. Because I remember we used to talk about like DIY was like, well, DIY going to go up as a tag team, they're going to win the tag team titles, they're going to be this great face tag team on the main roster. And obviously they didn't do that.
But again, it's one of those things where their mismanagement, in this case, helps us massively, because we had those singles matches afterwards. And you know, they were both the NXT champion at some stage. It was just fucking amazing. Amazing.
Absolutely amazing. And just a little bit on the revival, which I'm sure a few other people will say. And I've said this many times on the show as well. But when we used to talk about the revival, that fucking ate the revival, like just two like Southern guys, it's a really stock like character, it's dead bland.
They're just, you know, no flips, just fist is a great line. But they're just like, I was the last person to get on that bandwagon. You thought they were great. Yeah, in ring.
Yeah, in ring. But only to a certain degree. So like every time, you know, they would come across like a, you know, the face team, whether it was Enzo and Big Cass or DIY or, you know, whatever it was, Jordan Gable, you're like, these guys have got to be fucking losing these belts naturally. And then when I was like, when we were kind of looking back over the last like couple of years at the time, which this is good three or four years ago, I was like, oh, yeah, do you remember that awesome match with, I think it was DIY in it.
Well, yeah, we went against the revival. Yeah. So okay. Yeah, take over London.
Yeah. I remember Enzo and Big Cass, I wanted to do so much. It was against the revival. And then we put that as well.
Ah, that's why all these matches were great because of the fucking revival. So they were the, and not saying that, you know, obviously, Giganna and Champa can have a great match with the broom. So to Nick, that old damage. But Gagano and sorry, the revival had a fantastic match with Enzo.
Like that's just, and that's no disrespect to Enzo. But you know, Enzo's too busy knocking himself out. He did it the other week again, where he knocked himself out. I think he's, I think he's, I think he's timing just a bit off because he does that.
He does that spot where I think he gets like, you know, whips off the ropes and he slides under the bottom rope. But like to be throat, he looks like he's been thrown out. I think he keeps getting his head caught on the bottom rope and it's slamming. And that's what's knocking him out.
Because he's done it twice on WWE TV and then again, at the couple weeks ago. It's trying to hook him up for that one, but which is like, I like your career. Yeah. He was out cold.
He was completely like fucking out cold from that one. That was what I think was on like a Raw or something. I've been in a pay-per-view. So I don't even think we were watching Raw at that point.
When his head bounced off the canvas and he was completely out. Oh, really bad. Really bad. But yeah, the revival was just, and the whole like debut of the revival on the main roster where they came out to the challenge the new day.
It kicked over the ice cube truck. And that was completely like, you know, I've lived on. Like, yeah, these guys are fucking the best. They were great.
They were great. It took me a while to onto him, but I did spend most of WrestleMania week when we went over in there. Most of our photographs are me and the no flips just this top. Yeah.
And then when we went to access on the media, I went up. So I was like fully marked out over both those tag teams. I absolutely loved them both at that point. Well, NXT was our show.
It was so good. We were watching like, because it's the things like, because when we took, and I know we take the show very seriously to a degree. But when we took it at that time, we took it very seriously. So we were reviewing Raw, SmackDown, Paper Views.
And it was just like, if you go back, you can go back and listen to some of them shows. It's just fucking venomous. This is shit. I don't know why we're bothering.
They don't care about us, blah, blah, blah. But NXT was like, there's shows. So that was, you know, if we were doing what we were doing now, it'd be an NXT on the podcast. And we did start up next and all that kind of stuff where we just wanted to talk about NXT.
But then we got kind of fed up with that, because all we were doing is, this is great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, up next. We did our show. Yeah, definitely.
And it was, that's the thing you have to have a few things that you don't like to give it the the conflict. Otherwise it's just fucking marking out for two hours a week. Well, yeah, at that time it was fucking six hours a week. Oh, we did our last week.
Yeah, Asuka's undefeated streak. That was such a great, because from my point of view, my kind of, you know, rest of the journey sounds a bit, a bit out there. Yeah, a bit crap. Yeah, X Factor.
You know, I was watching, I kind of watched WWE up till a point and then fell out with it about a year before me and you got together. I kind of started watching it again, because like people I see in punk and that kind of stuff. I started watching NXT because it's like, okay, this is like the next big stars. Like, you know, see, so sort of like the Seth Rollins wins and all that kind of stuff.
Bo Dallas doing his boa. Was he doing Bo-lee-be at that point? Where he was just getting the fuck booed out of him. I think he was.
I'm pretty sure he was. Maybe, maybe not though. Maybe what I think might have just been, I think what happened with Bo Dallas when we first started where he was at was he was the champ, but I think he was like trying to be a natural face. Yeah, that was it.
Just wasn't getting over and then he turned into Bo-le-lee to become like a good- Super-super-heel there. Yeah, because he just wasn't getting over at all as a face. It wasn't connected. Because he just was so fucking annoying.
Like he just naturally got that vibe that's just really fucking annoying. So like, they capitalized on it and it was in the Bo-lee stuff was great. Oh yeah, really good. Really good.
I mean, I can say that in hindsight. I remember not, I remember feeling like at the time, and I know we're going to do this throughout this podcast. We're going to be like flying off on tangents and all that stuff. So it excues us.
But like, with the whole Bo-lee thing, I kind of started to, I came into NXT thinking, oh, he's the scene I got that they pushed down our throat. Yeah, yeah. So I immediately took against him. And when he was doing the Bo-lee thing, I thought he was great.
But I was thinking, yeah, he's still the guy you desperate for us all to. Jim, he's going to get cold off. He's probably going to be the fucking champion up there. Obviously none of that happened.
I think because I was projecting for one of a bit of phrase, like I mean, therapy. I was kind of projecting the main roster onto NXT. So I saw Bo champion getting booed when he wasn't supposed to be. And I was like, oh, just doing it again.
They just decided on this guy and no one likes him. Here we go again. Yeah. But I do.
I'm glad they changed the tach though. Because if he kept it the same, well, and that's main roster for you all over. But I won't drag us down that fucking fiery pit. Because it's supposed to be positive this.
I'm not talking about the main roster. Unless we talk about NXT people on the main roster. But yeah, it was just the whole kind of time for me was just WWE. Because that's what WWE do.
They tell you that there's nobody else. Or if they do mention somebody else, they do it in such a disparaging way that anybody who hasn't seen it will just instantly think, you know, fuck them then. Because I heard an interesting thing due to the day on the Alres stuff. We're saying a lot of people, the reason why they keep taking shots at AW is because a lot of people in that company think AW sucks.
I think it's shit and can't understand what it is that people are connecting with, which is scary. But I think you can say that though. About any wrestling show you don't watch. Yeah.
You know, linking it back to NXT for example, it took you so long to persuade me to watch it. Because I started watching wrestling again, watch that CM Punk documentary really likes CM Punk. You know, kind of oddly enough got into some of even the Divas shit with like total Divas. And I didn't, you know, I wasn't fan of any of it.
But I was kind of oddly hooked on that shit. And I remember you saying, you know, you should watch NXT. It's great. It's actually really, really good quality.
And I remember saying to you, you're already bought into people over here. I feel like I'm not going to buy your brain capacity to buy into anybody else. Yeah, because that's the main point is you have to buy into what you're watching. So for me, like the whole keep coming off the tangent, but the main point I'm trying to make here, which is what Alex has mentioned, is that he got him into all the things.
And this might be a recurring kind of comment throughout this. It did, like, you know, like the Nakamura's entrance, which we'll talk about in more detail later, it did make me think, where the fuck is that guy from? Oh, yeah. Why do I not know who this person is?
Like the entire crowd are chanting Nakamura. Why do I not know who he is? Finn Balor or Prince Devic coming out. And I'm like, oh, I've kind of heard the name Prince Devic because around that time we were kind of flirting a bit with ICW.
And Balor was on, or Devic was on ICW in a couple of videos that we were watching. And so I was like, oh, yeah, I've heard of him. Like, but who actually is he? So like now, for me personally, because I'm massively into New Japan, imagine not knowing who JY is.
Like that's literally the same situation. You're the leader of the political, but the original leader of the political. No fucking idea who he is. Kenza comes in as Hideo Tami and Gaz, who's actually up next on the old tweets of Game Band to Gaz.
Who does a awesome attitude? It's a few in five between at the moment, but he does a great video game podcast. If you want to go and listen to that. I like to use it.
The music one was great. The music one was so easy. He's just got in general though. But the whole, I remember like Kenza coming in and thinking, oh, yeah, the guy looks, you know, he's a smaller guy, but he looks tough and you know, where does this guy come from?
And remember Gaz sending was a video and going, this is where he's come from. And it was just a video of him kicking a fuck out of somebody. And I think he round out and kicked somebody in the face in like Pro Wrestling Nowhere. And at the time I was like, holy shit.
What? Because he was just properly fucking kicking a dude. Like in the face, he just runs and boots this guy in the fucking face. I was like, holy shit.
This guy. Remember, remember I mentioned the video with you. Yeah. I think one of the things as well that because NXT, the people who were behind it were so passionate about, you know, like when I say indie, you know, obviously, you know, some of these things like, aren't indie wrestling.
You know, it's, you're not talking about some like that. What wrestling companies these people come from. But if you're a WWE fan, they might as well be. Because I tell you watch.
But I thought one of the things that NXT was really good at was when they did debut with Deo Itami, Anaska and Balor. Yeah. They made you feel like it was a big deal. Yeah.
They didn't try and squash any of the shit they've done in the past. They didn't particularly show you anything. No. But they came in with this sort of like, regal quality.
And it was one of their words. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was done in a way where you got told this person's a massive deal for us to have.
It's a huge sign for NXT. So remember it didn't, it's army, sign, it's contract in Japan with Hogan. Oh shit. I don't remember.
I'm sure it would. I might have been somebody else. But I'm vaguely, I think WWE did a live event in Japan. Right.
And they got a time to sign a contract and Hogan was there. Yeah. Yeah. And they made it so that, you know, when someone came onto NXT, it was like that.
You know, they didn't just sort of like, come on and do a run out and get squashed off, and a quick win, and then fuck off and they're like, you know, it was like, establishing them. Yeah. Which is what I imagine is probably going to happen in the new era. They're going to all come in on an equal footing.
Yeah. And have to establish themselves. And they're not going to come in with this pomp of, you know, that they're coming at the top. Yeah.
Because what you're going to see, and this will be my only comment on the main roster. Yeah. Only comment on the main roster. So a degree on the show, but you never get away with it.
Is I think you're going to see more people debuting on Raw and SmackDown. So if for example, MJF's contract comes up in like what five years or whatever it is, it's somewhat astronomical if signing him up for it. If he fancies jumping over to WWE, he's debuting on Raw and SmackDown. He ain't going to NXT.
So that's what will happen. Because this thing of like the no-indi stars and all that kind of stuff is bollocks. You know, it's just something that they want to put out there and say, we're going to leave the indie wrestlers to AWW. That's an actual line.
And that's when Tony Khan starts fucking saying, you know, I'll take KT off you. Whatever, you know, just this is great for us. But they ain't going to do that. Anybody who's got a big enough name, like if somebody gets like a massive name, they're going to try and sign them before AWU signs them.
So that's just the way it is. You can have a lot more people debuting on Raw and SmackDown now rather than going into that NXT system. But yeah, like, you know, the whole baller debut, so like, you know, against the Ascension. So it's a timey, a timey get comes out and he kind of announces himself to the world.
The Ascension comes out and attacks him, Baller makes a save. And then the takeover, I can't remember if it was the first takeover when they kind of had that, but it was the match of the timey and Baller against the Ascension. And it was Ascension just before they went up. So they were riding a high NXT?
Yeah, before they got Ascension, which is now the term. But like, I remember it's army coming out and then the best fucking thing, and I can't remember which one, which I think there's Victor and Connor wanted the Ascension. But it was not the smaller guy, it was the bigger guy. And Baller comes out and does this demon entrance with that music.
I was like, holy shit, who the fuck's this guy again? Like, look at this fucking guy, he looks amazing. And the camera just cuts like the dude in the Ascension. And he wasn't like burying it, but he was like, looking at his if he thought to say, what the fuck is going on here?
They just that look on his face of like, like partly frightened, partly boombus by what was going on. But like, you know, this is the thing, like what Alex is kind of saying, we got him into different types of wrestling. It would be like now, I mean, not knowing who JY is and JY turning up on A.W. I'm like, who the fuck's this guy?
Like the leader of the fucking Bullet Club currently. So that's the thing. And that's unfortunately, you know, if you want to take yourself back and go, I wish I knew because like I've gone back and watched all those moments. I've seen, you know, dev its entrance to the Tokyo Dome where he comes out of a coffin.
And he just looks like Venom. And it's awesome. And that real rock and roller music was great. Like that used for the ICW moment, which was, that was a ridiculous moment when the announcements be in the special enforcer instead of Foley, because Foley couldn't get there.
And he was using the real rock and roller music and then it morphed into ballads. He does get you into other things. And I think that's, that was the start of it. That was the start of him planting seeds.
But they never said, you know, this guy's from New Japan Pro Wrestling in Nakamura's case, go and watch New Japan. It's this guy's Japanese wrestler, which then got me googling who he was. And he's like, and then you find the match, you know, just going on YouTube. You find the match with Styles and you find the match with Tana Hashi.
And it's just like, holy fuck. And then at that time I was like, okay, but he's in the best place now. So I'll keep watching that place. So that's the, the sad part of it.
Yeah, some great comments there Alex, just by my mate. Moving on to Gaz, I gave him on to Gaz with a match that I completely forgot about. Not even thought about this match. Probably six months after I saw it.
So yeah, I gave him on to the confall limit and he's just put Sami Zayn at versus Cesaro two out of three falls. Was fucking amazing. He said this match got me back into wrestling. At the moment at the end where Cesaro managed to power Sami back up after a tornado DDT attempt and then fucking chucks him up with like, he's a toddler.
That shit blew my mind. And he actually put a link in there to the match. And I remember they had a couple and Cesaro kind of come down and we were saying, always, Cesaro like, do they not want to do anything with him anymore? And all this kind of stuff.
Yeah, it was the first time I think I saw like a really good code red in a match. So like the flipping power bomb, I was like, shit. And I remember at that time, we knew like Nick, Christine is Nick. And he was kind of working on that move at that time.
And I was like, oh my God, you guys can do the code red. That's the thing. When you watch, when you get somebody who only, you can say, oh, you want that, Janice's reactions to Rampage this week were all a bit scripted, but were they? You know, if he's just watched WWE and then gets thrown into a Jurassic Express lucha bros event, get the defibrillator ready because he ain't gonna fucking handle it.
He ain't gonna be able to know it. You don't know. He can't see, it's hot hockey. Like you watch, I sucky.
If you watch, I sucky for the first time, you can't see where the fucking book is. If you watch it a little bit, you can then based on the movements of the players, you can tell kind of where the book is. And that's the best kind of thing I can say is like, once these indie guys started coming through NXT, I was like, what the fuck are they doing? Like, what?
I've never seen any of these moves before. You know, Zayn's diving, you know, the thing that really impressed me, but then if you think about it now, psychologically, it makes no sense whatsoever. But where does that running like dive through the ropes from the outside, through the ropes and tornado DDT somebody makes no sense. Boy, it looks fucking incredible.
Yeah. Oh, so good. So fucking good. But yeah, Cesaro and Zayn are just waddling.
No. Cheers like us. At Lee Price, 1989. Thanks so much for sending us a DM, Lee.
But absolutely loved NXT back when the long, we'll go into NXT, we'll have a little bit more detail later. Watching NXT with my mum every week is a great personal highlight. She used to be a wrestling fumble, then lost interest. NXT brought her back.
Now she watches AEW every week. Oh, wow. That's great. That's great to clear that.
Yeah, so one of these fucking shows Lee. Oh, well, go on. Oh, Christ, that's going to be super fun. Go get Chris.
Go get Chris watching AEW if he doesn't already. Chris, he's a sort of fucking shiver. Well, he's not pumped, didn't he? Yeah, so, you know, we'll have to go on that Craven Cottage.
That Craven Cottage show, Chris. The other one that we called a couple of weeks ago, and now told you he's talking about doing a show at Craven Cottage. Chris likes football. There you go, two of them on stone.
If he's an upshot, he'll be in his background. I'm sure he'll go again. It's fine. Yeah, we'll go on.
We'll text him, pictures outside. So, Nakamura vs AEW, incredible every time. Pete Dunversy's Tyler Beit. Two of the best wrestlers that this country has ever produced, fighting out on the top American country and stealing the show.
That fucking match was the best. Was it take over Chicago? Got a feeling it was Chicago. These Chicago fans, you don't know how lucky you've got it.
But there's a reason why. It's because they're great. So, they've got to be the best in the States. Because that's why they have these such big moments.
Chicago is like a wrestling fucking town, like 60, obviously. Yeah. I don't know if it's Roar Orsmack, though. I don't know which one.
But like WrestleTix posted like the ticket sales for like one of the ones coming up. And it's like 4,000. And it's like next week's Roar Orsmack, though. I was like, oh my god.
And then he put up like, I think it's no, it's not the WrestleTix in front of the person, different people. But they put up like an average, like they do it for AEW as well. So, the few shows that I dropped off. But like the Chicago show for like Roar was like 12,500.
And then, but the average is like 7,000 for like a Roar or a SmackDown. It's just like fucking El Chicago. Like they're just, they're just fucking placed away. And I'm sure that I'm sure Chicago's got some fucking crazy indie shows.
But again, you know, you don't know. But they had the Wario Wrestling events there last weekend. They were all really well attended. Chicago's showing up fucking every time.
But yeah, so Pete Dunne and Tyler Bay, if it was, I'm sure it was take over Chicago. No, it was Brooklyn. It was the second Brooklyn one, I think. Okay.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. I don't know. It's just gonna be all coming soon. But that match was unbelievable.
Absolutely unbelievable. More from, let me get this up because for some reason it's gone off for you. Like there we go. It was just the emotion of the crowd every week though.
Seen top wrestling every week before they got caught up to the main shows and stopped being allowed to be good. Yeah. Do you remember feeling, I remember feeling palpably jealous of everyone. You got to go to the NXT tape in full sale.
Yeah. Because it was the same face as every week. We were really into it. Big face.
Yeah. Big face. It was there every song. And it's like, I just was so jealous of him.
It's like, why is it this in my fucking neighborhood? So pissed me off. It's like, I want to go. I want to go.
We were like trying to look at how like, can we go like, we could watch ourselves and imagine going watching a tape in and it's like three shows or four shows or something. God, it was, we've never been insanely jealous. Well, the many times we like priced up various like trips. It was like, oh, we could go to like Orlando for a week and go around the parks.
And then we could do one of those taping and, you know, and all that kind of shit. And I've forever done that. Like, you know, thought about going watching wrestling in the States and all that kind of stuff. Whatever, whatever, whatever was into it.
But yeah, we did price it up. But then it wasn't a guarantee you could get a ticket because obviously most of the people that get tickets to those shows were full sale kind of staff and, you know. Well, they're like big tickets for, again, everyone take a drink. The main year we went to where you could get a tour round full sale.
Yeah, one of the packages was you could get like a tour. And then I think they didn't sell as many of those as they thought they were going to. And they went on like general sale and it was like two thousand pounds. What money?
But you got like a full day. And then when we watched the highlights a bit back of the people who actually did it, they had loads of like, surprises and all that kind of stuff. So it was all quite good. I remember to be like, like, like a fan, like something happened with a fan.
Like, which that was really good. Like a surprise or something like that. Yeah, I can't. By one of the people, but I can't quite remember what it was.
I feel like someone got engaged. Oh, yeah, yeah. That always happens, doesn't it? Firsty guns now.
Yeah. Good moments when I opened up in book Christ. I would die. The embarrassment.
Yeah. Me too. I remember the progress one that they did. I remember thinking that's a really great moment for you guys.
Like, I would just shit like all over that ring. It just, you know, yeah, it was, it was all we got a funny once to take a picture. It was done really well. That's like Sterling who's now like the head of NXT UK.
Or one of the head of NXT UK. He was, if you don't know, was a compare of progress before he moved on. He counted all of the fans a fan wants to get in the ring and have a picture. And like, him and his missus, this guy, him and his missus getting the ring.
And then go to like, take it, she's like taking the picture. And just as she's taking the picture, he just drops to one knee and the fucking place goes nuts. So do you know what one of the things is, and I hate this, I hate being a person to say this. I feel like I should always keep it to myself.
Okay. But the woman always knows. They know what to do. Drucken.
Always. I see, I think in that situation, maybe because, you know, you're not, you're not pretends to be a sprach. A woman always knows when a man is going to propose. You would.
Yeah, because you could have that. And anything out of the ordinary, you're like, what the fuck's going on here? I remember, you know, it was really funny. Like, just as a side note, Andy White, I think we're, you know, my tickets to a show.
Yeah, drop me a teller, don't you tell it. Yeah, go tell it. I can't remember what show it was. So, they're around.
Oh, yes, my face. So, and this might not, I might not come across well in this. But like, you know, we lived near the Lowry Theatre for a good number of years. At the old RTM towers, if you remember us talking about that.
And I saw that, you know, Darren Brown was on, we were kind of talking about going and, and, and, and, and, and all that kind of stuff. And for some reason didn't do it. And I worked around that area at the time. So I was kind of, I don't know why, but I was kind of like walking past it or something.
I think I was going for like a walk on me lunch and I just used to walk around the keys and go back and I nipped in and just said, like, oh, you've got any tickets for Darren Brown, like, because I think he was doing like two nights or something. And he said, oh, we've got, we've got tickets for tonight, actually, like, you know, it's decent seats. But it was like one of the, I think it was about 20 tickets left or something like that. So I was like, oh, fuck it.
You know, I'm going to buy him. So boom. All I did, right? All I did was text you and said, oh, should we, should we go and get some food tonight?
Should we go out for a meal? She was onto it like a shot. Why? Why?
What's going on? What are you doing? I don't like this. Like, I know, honestly, let me, let me just burst the bubble of any bloke who's planning anything.
Even if you woman says, I have no idea, you know, she fucking knew. And the thing is you can pick up vibes and because you just can, you always know. But, but things a lot of women really want to be proposed to. So they're never going to say, oh, I'm onto you because you don't want to really.
So we'll let it go. Well, that girl, anyone who's been proposed to win a ring publicly, will absolutely 100% know what's coming. They'll only go 100% out. Like because men just cattle their own pits.
Show that. Cattle their own pits at all. And plus you're a really, you're a home bird. So you're like, you don't much like going for meals and stuff.
So if you'd say, shall we go for a meal? Yeah, she usually you got instagated. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
But just, she got from me like, why? Why? What's going on? I was like, I was like, Jesus Christ.
Like, just what? She's just going to get some food. Because I tried to keep it as casual as I could. It's like, are we going to get some food tonight?
She goes like, wagamamas or something. Why? Straight away. Because not normally.
What you up to? Not like, is in my head. That's normally what we ended up doing. We were like in the flag.
We kind of suggested it. It's so weird. Or like, I think if I suggested it to you, I think that was the mistake. Was suggesting it to you over text.
If I had a common moment, I'd be like, oh, she would just go to wagamamas. I think I would have got away with that. Yeah. But the fact that I text you, say, oh, she would go to wagamamas tonight or something.
That's what probably in hindsight, if I just said, I should just go and get some food. I can't be asked making this cup of noodles or whatever. That would have been like, absolutely. Yeah.
That was the first thing I was going to suggest. Because I can't be asked either. That's the thing. It's so difficult to keep a secret anyway.
And I think like to be really gentle. Sorry, I'm going off the tension here guys. We'll get back on anything. Just as a general note, I think on the whole, women enjoy surprising people.
And I think men find it terrifying. Just in case what you've got planned. They don't like. Yeah.
So it's like, because you don't want to, you don't want to, I don't want to do that. Women kind of don't really give a fuck. They go, well, I'm doing all this effort. So you're going to fucking like it.
And this is a nice surprise. I post because I don't know. I just think like- I think it's the way I did it. Like I would, you know, not that I've never suggested anything.
Because that's ridiculous. But I think after I bought the tickets, I was so excited. I can't fucking hold it in. You know, I ended up fucking telling you about your birthday surprise.
But in a good way. Can I give you this present? I really want to tell you. I've got all these presents and you're like, when wrapping it in, it's like a wicked book and a lion king, some of some of our lion kings.
This is a week before we go. I've got to go. I've boxed it today. You like, I can't fucking hold it.
I don't mind that though. I don't mind that. I don't mind that. I want you to get excited for it as well.
Because I was like super excited. That's the thing. Exactly. Do you know what?
That was what? Again, we'll get facts wrestling in it. That's what my mum always says. Because when I was trying, because I couldn't hold me on piss about, I was potentially going away last Christmas.
You did for fucking months though. I did. I have no idea. I did.
But when I was asking me mum about it, she said, wouldn't you want him to get excited with you rather than tell him? Just to start off. You've got to get in the car and go straight away. Yeah.
So anyway, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.