[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back everyone to the gentlemen's wrestling podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host is always Jesse Collins here on a Sunday evening flying solo.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason I am doing this show is because I am going to review both A.W.

[SPEAKER_01]: All-in and ring of honors, super card of honor.

[SPEAKER_01]: The reason I'm deciding to do this is A.

I have a lot to say about both shows but B also with our friends at the flagship busy on their vacations.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a void [SPEAKER_01]: of A-W all in content review, I think.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I am going to step up and provide some of that post show content.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know this is obviously coming on Sunday evening.

[SPEAKER_01]: I listen to the good, the bad, and the hungi, and they had their review, which I recommend checking out for anyone who hasn't listened to that already, but I figured I would also provide a review because [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're like me, today I was at the gym and I had already listened to the good The Bad The Hungry.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's review and I was just like there's such a limited amount of what I feel like is high quality reviews for a show like all in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just because that becomes so jaded with so many people's analysis of AEW in particular.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think there are people like me that are out there that are like, man, I loved that show.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much to talk about, but who's talking about it?

[SPEAKER_01]: And who's talking about it?

[SPEAKER_01]: And who's talking about it that I listened to?

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's just not that many people right now for me that are really doing an earnest job.

[SPEAKER_01]: doing that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I figured I would try and put together something for people if you're like me and you're listening to this like on a Monday and you'll you want your start for some analysis or start for someone else's perspective on the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully I can provide that.

[SPEAKER_01]: The reason I'm doing this on Sunday at evening is because I did not watch this show live.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was busy on Saturday, and so I knew I wasn't going to be able to watch all of them live.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I had to do my absolute best to avoid spoilers.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're like me, like when I take out my phone, [SPEAKER_01]: Like a bunch of the apps I'm going to use are going to.

[SPEAKER_01]: If I open one of them, it's probably going to tell me something about the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: Open a social media app that I go on.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm probably going to inadvertently see some AEW news.

[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, it was very hard to [SPEAKER_01]: of void spoilers to avoid seeing just that one little thing like, oh, a thumbnail with, you know, Kazushko Karan, he's got, he's still got the title or he's holding the new universe unified title.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, no, no, I know, Karan won.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's tough to avoid that kind of stuff like that, but I actually managed to make it all the way to Sunday morning without having any spoilers.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I watch this show spoiler free on Sunday morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I did not know the result of the main event.

[SPEAKER_01]: I, as I discussed with Trevor Dame and my kind of preview episode of all in that we recorded last week, I felt pretty good about Hangman page winning.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is exactly what happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the new AEW World Champion.

[SPEAKER_01]: He defeats John Moxley in the Texas death match in the main event.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this was a hundred percent the right idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: As I discussed with Trevor, [SPEAKER_01]: I think if you went with the option of moxie retaining, I just think there was so much of it, there was a lot of downside that could happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the fans really wanted to see hangman win.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were some fans who were going to be very frustrated if you didn't win.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the builds to hangman's eventual triumph was done really well.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's not a lot to be gained by delaying that coordination and [SPEAKER_01]: butting moxley hold the title for a few more months or maybe shifting the title on to Darby Allen or someone else like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that now was clearly the time to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that was reflected in the match and the kind of reaction to the finish of the match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought the match was excellent.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was exactly what I thought the match was going to be, which was we've seen enough of these Texas death matches to kind of know how they work.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be really bloody.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be barbed wire.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be these big spots.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be these dramatic counts to ten.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was all of that kind of stuff that we've seen and we've become used to seeing in these Texas death matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: It also had kind of like a cavalcade of people running in, which is something that I thought was also very likely to happen because the way the build to this match had been, it had involved so many different parties, either aligning themselves with the death riders or hangman page.

[SPEAKER_01]: I knew that the deaf writers were going to get involved and do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Osprey was going to come out and then he knew that swirv was going to come out and knew that the young books were going to come out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, the two surprises were Brian Danielson and Darby Allen coming out towards the very end of the match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that obviously made a lot of sense because of how those guys were kind of written off of the company.

[SPEAKER_01]: Derby was assaulted by the deaf fighters and lost his title shot, which ultimately ended up being the title shot that Moxley used to defeat Brian Danelson, ending his career.

[SPEAKER_01]: So those guys obviously coming back into the picture made sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was this big sweeping epic of a match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I saw, I think it was one of the guys from Pro Wrestling Torch described it as the Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns.

[SPEAKER_01]: Russell made a main event if it had been directed by Clinton Tarantino because obviously it was very bloody and gory.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I do think that that is kind of a good assessment of the match just because it was this huge culminating epic match with all of these different characters that we've seen run and out.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean a lot more sense than the Cody Rhodes versus Roman Reigns match and also was an infinitely better wrestled wrestling match.

[SPEAKER_01]: These were two guys that put in a huge effort to deliver a big performance and [SPEAKER_01]: It was the perfect main event for the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was the perfect way to go off the air for what was a huge triumph from a show, from a business perspective, from a booking perspective, and then finally from a storyline perspective, seeing hangman page.

[SPEAKER_01]: When recapture the world title, get the big pop, everyone celebrating the ring, fans are going crazy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a show that made you feel good about being a wrestling fan and made you feel like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: spending so much of your free time watching this product and talking about this product and thinking about the product.

[SPEAKER_01]: And feeling like it's all worth it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not just because if you're a hang-in page fan, you saw the guy that you wanted to win win.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you saw it in such a way that felt rewarding and earned in triumphant.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is what Pro Wrestling is about.

[SPEAKER_01]: I said on my podcast with Trevor Dame last week, [SPEAKER_01]: or wrestling is about heroes.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is about getting people that have a strong emotional connection with the audience and people feel invested in and making those people feel like larger than life figures.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's ultimately what the cornerstone of professional wrestling and really any from our inventor payment is really about.

[SPEAKER_01]: Any story driven entertainment is about characters you believe in and invest your time in and ultimately seeing them triumph in some way.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that was how this match played out.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a hangman page overcoming the odds, getting help from his friends, burying the hatchet with Swerve on screen and accommodating him winning the world title.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is one of the main reasons I think AWS has been so successful lately.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is because they have done a great job creating heroes, creating baby faces.

[SPEAKER_01]: And whether or not you are the biggest hangman, page fan in the world, or you wanted somebody else to maybe get the world title shot off of boxing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you wanted to swear to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you wanted Darby Allen to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you wanted Will.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was afraid to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are a bunch of different ways you could go about this, but I think it's hard to deny that nobody in a W has the kind of special connection with the audience that Hangman Page does.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the person that has that kind of special connection that only the very top baby faces have.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then kind of the ironic thing about this is go back in time to Hangman Page, or losing the whole title the first time, which he lost a CM Punk.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there actually are a lot of similarities between Sampunk and Hangman page in regards to their connections with their audience.

[SPEAKER_01]: is this impression that like CM Punk did a great job blending what felt like his real life persona into his character as obviously the work shoot promo that he did on raw was the pipe bond promo was obviously a huge part of that but part of the reason fans felt so connected to CM Punk in the way that they never really felt that connected to John Cena was because they felt like they connected with [SPEAKER_01]: see him pump the person and what he stood for and the way he vocalized his opinions and it resonated with people and created this really important bond between this on-screen wrestler and the fans that are watching the show and paying tickets to see it live and I do think [SPEAKER_01]: fans feel that way about hangman page.

[SPEAKER_01]: They feel like they know Adam page, you know, Stevenals, the person, not just the wrestling character.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they feel like they really want to live and die with what this guy's character does.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if that is his winning matches, he's losing matches, he's winning the world title, he's getting screwed out of the world title.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of that stuff resonates just a little bit more because he has that connection and people feel like they have a personal stake in this guy's success.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's very rare to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's kind of ironic that punk and hangments kind of share those similarities.

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously those are very different people.

[SPEAKER_01]: And part of the issue with punk and especially over the last few weeks with punk and Saudi Arabia and punk really doing the apology tour, the press conference in Saudi Arabia was feeling like punk really [SPEAKER_01]: betrayed his own fans because he was just exposed as a phony that he wouldn't really stand up and do what we considered to be the right thing just to just for a little bit of extra money and it would you know we said it was it's a it's a high fall off such a high horse and that was kind of what happened upon can hopefully there's never a reckoning like that between hangman page because that would not be good for the wrestling industry to be for page to be undermined like that but [SPEAKER_01]: It is just that kind of special connection.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the baby face.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is number one.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is the face of a W Tony concert in the press conference last night.

[SPEAKER_01]: He said, hangman page is the face of all the wrestling and [SPEAKER_01]: It'll be interesting to see where he goes next.

[SPEAKER_01]: What challenges are out there?

[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, MJF won the casino gauntlet.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he looks like he will be a major opponent for page going forward and they've obviously been planting the seeds between them for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: They obviously already had a match and revolution.

[SPEAKER_01]: and they've kind of sniping at each other backstage ever since.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's someone who's going to get involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: Probably pretty soon you expect that to be a paper-view main event maybe for all out in Toronto and September.

[SPEAKER_01]: You also have, of course, for Ben Dore coming up, it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably going to be on New Japan pro wrestler.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it makes the most sense for it to be Gabe, just based on kids' role as a mentor of the deaf writers.

[SPEAKER_01]: It seemed to be an logical extension if you wanted a new Japan pro wrestler that had kind of a built-in storyline already with Hemingman page.

[SPEAKER_01]: Show is also going to be in the United Kingdom, which is where Gabe Kittus from.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there makes some sense there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know [SPEAKER_01]: I floated that idea to some New Japan fans, they said, well, you know, Gabe Kidd, he just want to tie the white belt in New Japan for wrestling and why would they have their champion loose to another guy?

[SPEAKER_01]: I personally don't think that Gabe Kidd losing to Hangman Patriot really be that significant in terms of a deterrence to Gabe Kidd's momentum.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think him working at main events in England that will probably have a really hot crowd and pushing perhaps the most over [SPEAKER_01]: Ressler in the world, like it's Mistiko, is probably the most over-essler in the world, but behind him, probably someone like hang of page losing to him in a major match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't see as any form of burial, but people get prickly about that kind of stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe it's not gay, kid, maybe it's someone else in New Japan.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's obviously something to keep in mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think from, I guess, like from like, we're talking about like other Texas death matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard for me to say if I like this one more, then I really hold the one with Swift Strickland in high regard and I actually went back and watched both that match and the John Moxley, the first John Moxley, Texas death match with Hangman Page before this show.

[SPEAKER_01]: I watched them a couple of weeks ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: And those ones were maybe a little bit more personal and violence in a way that this one because there were so many other characters involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: This one felt more epic, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The title was on the line.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was super long.

[SPEAKER_01]: It had all these people running in.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think the traditionalist in me probably likes the other two matches more as just like wrestling matches, but this is a more important, more epic match.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you probably can't go wrong deciding which one is your favorite.

[SPEAKER_01]: I probably still go the first moxley in Hangman match, but this one definitely has its strengths.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little bit different than the other two.

[SPEAKER_01]: But obviously, a very, very good match match that I expect to place pretty highly in a lot of match the year discussions and in votes.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it definitely delivered in it that I thought that John Montzley was absolutely tremendous in this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that John Montzley [SPEAKER_01]: had in some ways like a career defining performance in this match because I have not been the biggest fan of the death writers angle.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had a whole episode of my podcast with Sarah from the Trisha and Sarah wrestling podcast that was just title the death to the death writers and me [SPEAKER_01]: did not put over the their angle at all very well.

[SPEAKER_01]: We buried a lot of them and we talked about the performance of Moxley and Moxley has had some stinkers in a way that you would not expect a main event or a slurney w to have.

[SPEAKER_01]: His whole feud with Copeland that was very extended did not go well, which is right when we recorded that podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was annoying to see all the interference in all these matches and it just felt like a tired boring angle that a w kind of need to get away with when you had these stars like hangin page like Will Osprey likes were just waiting to get another opportunity with the world title.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I think, really since like March, once we kind of moved beyond the Copeland feud, the bedfriars have been way more efficient, effective and better.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it really started with their match against when they kind of started feuding with the Ops, and they lost the trio's titles, so Mojo and Powerhouse Hops in Chibada, and you kind of saw the vision, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The fans really wanted to see [SPEAKER_01]: Moxley lose and then Joe choked him out right on dynamite and it was like okay I see the vision now because these guys the ox got way over beating these guys so you could see if that's just if that was I was in the crowd that night and I was like okay this is the pop and this is the atmosphere for them losing the trio's title There's a lot of potential for what happens when moxley loses the world title [SPEAKER_01]: And that was very clear on the show and in the build to the show, right, which was that even if there were some really bumpy parts of this death writer's storyline, we ultimately got to a spot where when people could sense the end, when people could feel, okay, Moxley's gonna drop the title and he's gonna drop it to this guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was a huge success.

[SPEAKER_01]: He obviously from a business perspective, this was a hugely successful show.

[SPEAKER_01]: They drew, I think, around twenty nine thousand fans.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the number that's being tossed around.

[SPEAKER_01]: Huge gate for for a W.

I don't know the paper of your numbers yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tony said they were tracking as the highest ever, which would be enormously impressive if they could top the two hundred and fifteen thousand estimated buys.

[SPEAKER_01]: that all ended, I think that's in twenty-one when a CMP on a competitive return match and that kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: If they talk that with a show, that's a huge feather in everyone's capped, but specifically Hagman Page and John Knoxley, because being able to draw that much for a W.

[SPEAKER_01]: and doing it without CM Punk, doing it without any really big deep viewing stars, no WWE legends, none of that really extra stuff just doing it with your full-time regular roster.

[SPEAKER_01]: If they are able to top that paper view by his number, that would be a huge accomplishment.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it already is a huge accomplishment, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Twenty-nine thousand fans, multi-million dollar gates, hugely successful show from a quality perspective.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's already a huge accomplishment.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they had this whole build up to this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then in the match, Moxley was tremendous.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just being the bully heel, the monster in the movie that you can't quite kill did a great job just putting it on hangman page, making building up sympathy for page, making it feel like, oh man, maybe page isn't going to come out of this on top.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the monster is going to win.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then just [SPEAKER_01]: his selling at the end so they did the same finishes the first Texas death match they had right hangman throws them over the top row and starts choking them with the chain first the tease it right you throw them over the top row when you think they're going to do it again but moxley has it scouted this time right he holds on to pages here he throws them will carry them over the top row and it kind of avoids it happening but a few minutes later he's not so fortunate they do it again now the first time and in the first Texas death match moxley taps out kind of immediately [SPEAKER_01]: Which I always thought was kind of interesting because the whole point was that, you know, moxley was willing to go further than hangman and moxley was tougher than hangman and then of course once moxley is really faced with what feels like a life and death situation, he immediately tapped out.

[SPEAKER_01]: They go back to that for this to finish to this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: But instead of immediately tapping out, Moxley hangs on and he's just he's he's he's bled so much in this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: He bled so early from from the forks spot at the beginning of the match, which is one of the best visuals.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have ever seen an AW and I know the guys in the good, the bad, the hunky review pointed this up first.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like the whole camera angle of the triangle choke and then just seeing Moxley's head where you see Moxley's, you know, balled head, no marks on it at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you just see page, stab him with the fork and just how much blood came out of his head.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, you know, this wasn't a guy belating and then pretending, oh, this thing slipped me open.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was a guy just getting the top of his head just carved to shit with a fork.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: The boxley had been bleeding for like forty minutes profusely and he's hanging by that chain and he's flopping around like a fish, you know fighting for his last breath and it just felt so [SPEAKER_01]: momentous and felt so dramatic.

[SPEAKER_01]: Every single person in the arena could feel, oh my god, I'm getting excited, just thinking about it again.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just everyone in that arena being able to feel [SPEAKER_01]: that Moxley's title, whose reign was ending in Hangman, was actually legitimately going to win this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when he tapped and he got the big crowd, pop, it was special.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was delivered exactly the way you wanted to see it delivered.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that stuff goes a long way.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think when we're talking about AWS business, we're talking about investment both financially and emotionally, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Fans were emotionally invested in this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: They feel rewarded.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't always have to reward the fans a hundred percent of the time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Part of the dance is disappointing them with certain results to set up a bigger result down the line.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you have a show like this and you feel the momentum, reach this kind of point where the fans are just absolutely demanding it.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you deliver, that goes along with, as fans feel like their emotions are being warranted and that they're in the booker and the key decision makers behind the scenes respect the feelings of the fans.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then from a business perspective, you're asking people to lay down sixty dollars for these paper views shows, these paper views are wrong.

[SPEAKER_01]: You want them to finish the show feeling like, wow, that was totally worth my money.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad I spent the money in the time watching that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really important too.

[SPEAKER_01]: With some of the other, like we mean Trevor Dame, we're talking about a, W Revolution show on my last podcast.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was like revolution was a really good show.

[SPEAKER_01]: It had some amazing matches on it, but the main event between Mopsie and Copeland with Christian Cage kind of getting involved was really disappointing.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that show went off the air and people were like, damn, that was, that was a real bummer of a finish.

[SPEAKER_01]: The show was still great, but the big takeaway at the end was something's not right with a, W, this was their main event.

[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't deliver, this, this, something's got to change.

[SPEAKER_01]: You get this finished for this show in front of that audience.

[SPEAKER_01]: Whoa, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a company that has its finger on the pulse of exactly what the fans wanted and they delivered.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a huge triumph for every single person involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: And moxley, [SPEAKER_01]: To me, this is like, like I said, he's already obviously been a hugely successful wrestler.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's probably the most important wrestler in a W history just from a durability and consistent perspective.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even when this death writer's stuff felt tiresome and it just felt like, oh man, Moxley's really getting along with the tooth.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he's over exposed and they owe you.

[SPEAKER_01]: He delivers this kind of performance and the kind of performance he's delivered over the last month or so.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, okay, this is a guy who is an all-time great.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no other way to talk about him, I think, then has a all-time great look at what he delivered from a emotional perspective and from a business perspective over the last few months with really strong ratings, growing attendance figures, and then obviously this show being a successful as it was.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like this is what we would call like an all-time run.

[SPEAKER_01]: If this was the territory days, I know it's not the territory days anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if it's like, we were talking about an event like, like, like, in the mid-South and then early in the eighties, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And like, oh, JYD, he was chasing, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: the free birds for so long.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they did this, they did thirty thousand fans of the super dome.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is basically the equivalent of that, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Hang on page was chasing John Moxley and they did thirty thousand fans at the gold-dly field.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it's called.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really wanted to call it the ballpark in Arlington, which is the old Texas Ranger Stadium, which this one new one replaced, but it's called the gold-dly field.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll add that from a stadium perspective, like I know it's a baseball stadium, it's not a football stadium, so it's not nearly as big as, you know, some of the arena's we see like WrestleMania in or like Wembley Stadium.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's much smaller than those buildings, but from a visual perspective from right when the show started and they kind of showed the huge mass of people, it felt like there was so many thousand people there.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what it looked like.

[SPEAKER_01]: They did a great job.

[SPEAKER_01]: shooting the crowd and making it feel like this is not just an arena show, this is not just us running an NBA arena for people.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is our biggest audience we've ever had in the United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is our version of WrestleMania.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what all in should be.

[SPEAKER_01]: It should be their version of WrestleMania.

[SPEAKER_01]: Having that big annual signature event, [SPEAKER_01]: something that every wrestling company in the world wants to have.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's WrestleMania.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's wrestling kingdom, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: There's there's also like the G-One climax final on this.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Royal Rumble and there's other ones that take place during the year.

[SPEAKER_01]: If CMLL has their anniversary show, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Even indie promotions like Rift Pro has high stakes, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, WXW in Europe has a sixteen carrot tournament, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Every company wants to have these big annual events.

[SPEAKER_01]: That means something to the fans.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they've done a great job with all of them, both of the two Wembley shows and how this show is well kind of blessing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, like the Wembley stadium show, like the first Wembley stadium show, obviously massively successful, like maybe the biggest paid attendance for wrestling show of all time.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's also like, oh, it's a W, the company is still kind of new and exciting.

[SPEAKER_01]: They view in England, they view in Europe, novelty of running a show at Wembley Stadium for the first time since SummerSlime, ninety two.

[SPEAKER_01]: All of that stuff kind of culminated in and what feels like a number that's hard to repeat, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: We saw that the following year.

[SPEAKER_01]: whether even though, you know, the company was doing relatively the same wasn't like business had been cut in half.

[SPEAKER_01]: They did, you know, about half the attendance, which was still hugely successful.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it's just, it's hard to envision them doing eighty thousand people again.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when I think about this show, okay, all in Texas, I guess there's a novelty of the first US stadium show.

[SPEAKER_01]: that a lot of people were interested, but what was really what this show was was a really well-built paper view.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were, they've been hyping it for months, even before we knew it was on the card, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: When they were pushing other paper views, they were always reminding us, all in Texas, coming up this July, all in Texas, tickets on sale next month, all in Texas, tickets on sale next week, all in sale now, you can still get tickets.

[SPEAKER_01]: They've been building and pushing this thing for like probably over six months, probably since towards the end of last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so you get the sense that this was a major show, and it was built by, you know, main events and big programs.

[SPEAKER_01]: Can I make a versus, because you're still caught in Mercedes-Benz versus Tony Storm.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hangman page versus John Boxley.

[SPEAKER_01]: All regular featured acts on AWS.

[SPEAKER_01]: No special attractions.

[SPEAKER_01]: No part-time wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, like, oh, this is the first match that, like, CM Punk is gonna have in ten years, like, which is what, you know, did that drove that huge all-in, or that one?

[SPEAKER_01]: huge all-out paperfew number, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: This was just built on good old fashion.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here are the guys in a roster.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's build some storylines.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's hype up with a paperview.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's draw big audience.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's draw big house.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that feels repeatable, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You could run.

[SPEAKER_01]: I know I, Tony mentioned they're going to Wembley again next year.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think maybe that's all in again in Wembley.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it's a different event.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you could take this show all in and show like this and you could run it in a different ball baseball stadium next year draw similar audience as long as you have another big match similar to Moxley and hang that page.

[SPEAKER_01]: to made event.

[SPEAKER_01]: It feels repeatable and feels sustainable in a way that maybe some of AW's early successes didn't because you felt like there was a sense of novelty there that would eventually wear off.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like all new things happens with all new things.

[SPEAKER_01]: This felt much more like a repeatable sustainable thing that AW could do every year.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to talk about, I guess, to rest of this card.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I, so it's kind of interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't watch the show live, like I said, I watched it this morning and woke up this morning and I was like, all right, let's watch this all in and I saw the file and I was like, fuck this in six hours a month.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a long show.

[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think the way I watched it, which was not live, it's actually like the, like a worse way to watch it from a time perspective, because I was like, all right, I guess this is gonna take up like my whole morning into the early afternoon, if I wanna get this done.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I felt like, because I didn't watch it live, because I was like, all right, let me try to knock this thing out this morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, all right, this is, this is feeling pretty lengthy, this is feeling like a long show.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do I wish that the show was shorter?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I do.

[SPEAKER_01]: That being said, I think that this is your signature events.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the show you've been hyping for six months.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just like I said, this has got all these matches over stuff that bad boy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Make it feel like you're giving your fans your money's worth.

[SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of the day, [SPEAKER_01]: your takeaway should not be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Man, that show was really long.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you were thinking that like the four hour mark, you know, like, can we, can we speed this up?

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the show doesn't need to be so long.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when you get that made event and you didn't lose the crowd, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The crowd was hyped for that made event.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were hyped for it throughout.

[SPEAKER_01]: They got a huge pop, hangman page goes out with giant pop, looking like a million bucks.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're not like, okay, the show was too long.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't too long.

[SPEAKER_01]: It could be shorter.

[SPEAKER_01]: It would be more convenient if it was shorter.

[SPEAKER_01]: Most things would be, but [SPEAKER_01]: This is what you want to have when you're delivering a show like all it.

[SPEAKER_01]: If the show was bad or had some matches that just were really dragged and you were just kind of waiting for the main event to kick around, then the show was also too long.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that wasn't the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: The show had mostly very good matches on it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And between the crowd kept them into it for pretty much the entire time.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were a few rolls here and there.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get to that in a few minutes.

[SPEAKER_01]: But for the most part, this was a stained, strong show for its entire six hour duration.

[SPEAKER_01]: I did not watch a zero hour, so I could watch it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess it was technically an hour longer or two hours longer, but I didn't watch that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, but just the main card six hours in, look, this is how you watch all in, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't do what I did, which was watch it next morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: You say, all in, it's gonna be Saturday.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be in the afternoon, which is great for a long show because it means you're not asking people to stay up to twelve or one a.m.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you say Saturday, [SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna start at three.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me have some friends over.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me order a pizza or maybe make some wings or something like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we're gonna watch the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna be like the event of the day.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you have to approach it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what's gonna be really long.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know what's gonna be epic?

[SPEAKER_01]: You gotta [SPEAKER_01]: Just make it your event of the day.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do not do it like me and be like, oh, maybe I can watch this, you know, kind of before I do some other stuff on Sunday.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's not how you show us your show.

[SPEAKER_01]: You should definitely make it your whole day.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's great.

[SPEAKER_01]: You should have a whole having a whole day where you get people to celebrate progress and get excited about progress, link to build their day around progress link.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's something if you consistently deliver year after year.

[SPEAKER_01]: You're on your way to making this your premium signature events every year for a W.

[SPEAKER_01]: the rest of the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I'll do like a little reverse order here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, God versus Kenny Omega.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this was, you know, interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: This could be, this could have been a main event on a pay-per-view.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this, it was kind of build as a main event on the show, but I think most people would say, okay, Page of Mox, it was obviously the main event.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they give you this match, you know, on pay-per-view.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the main takeaway most people have is this was not as good as their other matches, which isn't that surprising, because the other matches were part of this very important, longstanding story.

[SPEAKER_01]: You got the rest looking to match, and then you have the draw, then you have Kenny winning the G-One, and eventually Kenny winning the two out of three falls match.

[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I can't even win the G-One.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think maybe because of a cop.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, God, I won the G-One match.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, my brain is kind of fried.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, he's he had those four matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're all part of this, you know, big huge four match series in New Japan.

[SPEAKER_01]: Another lifetime ago right for these guys, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're having the match to that's twenty five.

[SPEAKER_01]: Both guys are older.

[SPEAKER_01]: Both guys are probably not at their peaks in terms of in-ring ability.

[SPEAKER_01]: All those, they're both still very good.

[SPEAKER_01]: They go out and they have what I thought was absolutely fabulous, per wrestling match.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't like, oh my god, this is the greatest match I've ever seen, which is kind of my takeaway from some of those previous matches that they had.

[SPEAKER_01]: But [SPEAKER_01]: at the end of the day, you're looking at a absolutely tremendous wrestling match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And while I was watching it, I thought that, you know what, this is such a great match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it is so great in like, just a different way than your typical grade A, W matches are.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sus, you know, obviously we saw the Texas death match afterwards, but those [SPEAKER_01]: Texas Death Matches are very particular type of match and a particular style of match.

[SPEAKER_01]: We've also seen matches like previously on the show, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: We saw Swerv and Offspray versus the Unbox and these other really great Offspray and Swerv matches that we've seen throughout AEW's history.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are wrestled at a certain pace with a certain style.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's different than these Okada Omega matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: These Okada Omega matches are actually [SPEAKER_01]: way more traditional and very much like kind of like peak New Japan structure from the length of them, from how they start to the builds, to the finishes, to the, you know, those classic Ocada, you know, final stretches of matches that he's really the best wrestler of all time and delivering those stretches.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's almost like indisputable.

[SPEAKER_01]: uh that's like his superpower in terms of being an all-time guard wrestler is his psychology and his ability to just come up with these these really creative final few minutes that uh you know make him who he is make him you know this legendary all-time great wrestler and we did that and like [SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, didn't quite hit the emotional heights that the previous ones did, but that's like an impossible bar to clear or even for these guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what it was is like, you know what, this was a great match and it was great in just a different way than I think a lot of the other great matches we see in AW.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't as focused on high spots.

[SPEAKER_01]: It definitely wasn't focused on blood or table spots or things that like of that nature like we saw in the main event and there's nothing wrong with matches, great matches being focused on that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just like the variety of scenes something a little bit different.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I'm making a lot of really work this match like a peaking YouTube and match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it delivered on that end.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it made me, again, feel good about seeing this match in AWS and seeing the kind of variety that the show brought together.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of like, I think this is going to end up being like, [SPEAKER_01]: hidden great match of all time, which sounds kind of preposterous, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So Omega versus Okada.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is, you know, a part of this legendary feud, and I was actually thinking this, right, when they got the bell pops, bell rings, and they get the big bell pop.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they guys look at each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember thinking like, you know what, there's a case to be made that if it wasn't for Omega Varsal Cata A, W doesn't exist.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because that was such an important match that put Kenny Omega and to a different degree like New Japan for wrestling in Ocada on the map in the United States.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just people hearing about, oh my god, there was this match in Japan.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the greatest match anyone's ever seen.

[SPEAKER_01]: And New Japan had already been building a lot of momentum in the United States before, and had been growing internationally for a few years before that match took place.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that kind of takes it to another level and helps create, I think, this appetite for major high quality, non WWE per wrestling.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you flash forward a couple more years, and then you have, of course, [SPEAKER_01]: My creation of the UW, Kenny Omega's a key member of that, and let's see, get to Ocada, coming to UW, and then we get this match again.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a hugely important match, but I think, look on this show, people when people think about this show, they're gonna think about hanging on page versus moxley.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they may be, they think of Ocada, and because it is not going to be remembered as part of this epic series of matches, like the four that they wrestled to New Japan Barrestling was, [SPEAKER_01]: Um, it'll be kind of like, you know, this is going to be a really bad comparison because some people might really dislike this movie.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel like this is like the godfather part three.

[SPEAKER_01]: where, you know, Godfather part one and two are two like unassailable all times in a classics, a lot of people consider either the first or second one to be the greatest movie they've ever seen, just like a lot of people feel like one of the, you know, Omega Akata matches is the greatest match they've ever seen.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then years and years go by and they create the Godfather part three.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when it comes out, a lot of people are like, this is kind of weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's clearly not as good as the Godfather one part two.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's also coming years later and these actors are older and it just feels kind of unnecessary that exists.

[SPEAKER_01]: And honestly, looking back on it now, you can watch the Godfather part one in part two and you never need to watch the Godfather part three.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not important at all to understanding like the Godfather.

[SPEAKER_01]: And nobody even really thinks of the Godfather as a trilogy.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's really just the Godfather part one and part two.

[SPEAKER_01]: And part three is like this auxiliary extra kind of movie that you don't really need to watch.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Godfather, my brother is actually like a pretty good movie.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not at nearly a level of Godfather part one and Godfather part two, but if you were actually to watch it today, he'd be like, man, that was pretty good.

[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoy that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of feel like this Omega Okada match might end up being like that, where it's not essential viewing to understanding the Omega Okada feud.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's gonna be all the YouTube hand matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is not going to be viewed on the same level as those matches at all.

[SPEAKER_01]: that does not mean that this was not a great match because it was.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely a better match relative to match quality than the godfather part three was relative to movie quality.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I get the ideas like in like ten fifteen years will be looking at like [SPEAKER_01]: These matches and they'll be like, oh, yeah, they'll make a lot of fute and people like, you know what?

[SPEAKER_01]: No one's going to be talking about the match they had at all in necessarily, but that was a damn good match and everyone should go back and watch it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of could see that match.

[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of being it's like a see it's it's it's it's it's it's we know they were in a tough spot.

[SPEAKER_01]: We know that's so hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: to deliver a match when the expectations are that high.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even though we've seen Ocada, I don't remember my good time and time again, rise those expectations.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was just going to be very, very difficult, but this was a really well wrestled match.

[SPEAKER_01]: Ocada gets to win, which I did not expect I thought this was going to be Kenny Omega, Pete Socada, this is kind of his home turf and a W.

Ocada hasn't really taken a loss in a W yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the perfect time to do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nope, Ocada goes over.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don call us interfered and they kind of played up the idea that you know, call us as interference or responsible for Kenny losing, but I thought this was kind of mostly clean in a lot of ways.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, Ocada gets the better omega and I'm really interested, like, what is next for Kenny?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because he's a big star.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's been really great this year in a W.

He's not doing the same kind of volume that you would expect.

[SPEAKER_01]: You maybe he had done in previous years, but he's been surely still at the absolute top of this game.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I wonder, you know, what's going to be next for him?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because he's not going to be this champion, like he was.

[SPEAKER_01]: So who is he going to work with next?

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's probably going to be a major feud in an onocados end.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, now he's got this unified championship.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who's next for him?

[SPEAKER_01]: Who is he going to wrestle?

[SPEAKER_01]: Is it like he's still, you know, we still got to figure out what's going on with Swerve.

[SPEAKER_01]: Osprey, it looks like he's written up television for a while.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what that would fight to me.

[SPEAKER_01]: because he obviously goes out in the neck brace and gets stretched out with the main event, when he gets involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it'll be interesting to see what happens with him, but interesting to see what happens there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our third of what we considered the signature hatches on the show, Tony Storm versus Mercedes Monet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, really important match in the sense of, again, this was a really, just like Moxley versus Paige, really well-built match that, [SPEAKER_01]: really dates back months ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: You had been there protecting Monet since she debuted in the company.

[SPEAKER_01]: She had never lost in any W.

She'd been collecting all these titles.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have Tony Storm, who is unlike Hangman's not chasing the title, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Tony Storm is the indolible woman's champion, who is clearly the most popular woman's wrestler in the company.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you, this is why you go out and you sign Mercedes Monet and you protect her and you give her this big push because the idea is like we're going to build her builder builder up and then when she loses, it's going to really mean something and it did because this was a signature match for a W and I think a W's had.

[SPEAKER_01]: Great women's wrestling.

[SPEAKER_01]: Did have some great women's wrestling matches during its first few years of existence, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And we saw like things like the brick baker and Thunder Rosa, hardcore match, and then we, they had there, of course, their cage matching.

[SPEAKER_01]: There were some great moments, but there were almost like surprising great moments.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I can't believe the women did this.

[SPEAKER_01]: That actually ended up being sick, like, and it kind of felt like a kind of copy off guard.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's good when stuff like that happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's that's problematic parisling is that sometimes I'm actually don't expect to be amazing as of being amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what's better for a W.

[SPEAKER_01]: is that everyone predicted that this match was going to be really exciting, this match was going to be really good, this was a really well-hiked bout, and then it delivers.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, okay, we're no longer way past the point where the woman's wrestling, the woman's division can sometimes really exceed expectations.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're now at the point where the expectations are high, and then the woman go out and don't deliver.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's hugely important.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this was that kind of match, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Expectations really high, really high, long-built, people really invested in the personalities.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tony Storm goes over, which I was kind of surprised by.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought Mercedes was going to win just because it seemed like from a story perspective.

[SPEAKER_01]: You could have Mercedes like steal a win like with a roll-up or something.

[SPEAKER_01]: And win both titles and then Tony is gonna chase after Mercedes for the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that would be an excellent storyline.

[SPEAKER_01]: You could get more juice out of this feud between, you know, your two most popular women's wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_01]: That does end up happening.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tony goes over.

[SPEAKER_01]: Clean.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now she has, um, [SPEAKER_01]: you know, she defense, she retains her title and it'll be interesting to see again what happens next because the AWS woman's division is looking really stacked at the moment in terms of just death to me and Trevor Dame talked about this, but even just this weekend, what did we see?

[SPEAKER_01]: We saw two things that really adds to the vision.

[SPEAKER_01]: Three things that you want to count out, so Windsor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but we saw a fan get way more involved in a W, uh, you know, obviously she's been protecting the murder of honor and she's done some stuff with a W on the main roster.

[SPEAKER_01]: She was, you know, had a feud with Mercedes Monet earlier this year, but [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you know, she won the woman's casino college.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's got this upcoming title shot.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, obviously now is the time that I think a lot of people have been waiting for, which is putting a female back on eight.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be television and now people buy her as a badass.

[SPEAKER_01]: People buy her as a major threat.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it wouldn't surprise me at all if she beats Tony strong for the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: We also saw [SPEAKER_01]: Sherry debut.

[SPEAKER_01]: She also kind of popped up at the Ring of Honor show to challenge Athena.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of interesting, but she showed up obviously in the women's casino.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's a highly accomplished wrestler that I think they're going to try to protect and push right away.

[SPEAKER_01]: That kind of made that clear on commentary that she's here.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's here to go for gold and I think they're going to take that pretty seriously.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you just have other people that you could go to if necessary.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have Megan Bane, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You have me to share Kyle who they have done such a good job with me to share Kyle since she came over full time.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that is somebody who [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think the audience was kind of into when she would, you know, stop by and work some ashes in a W that's something they are already with her.

[SPEAKER_01]: But since she's come over full time, I think she's done a really, really great job getting over with the audience and feels like a character that the fans are going to be invested in and she's held up her end of the bargain having some pretty strong matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought her match against Mercedes.

[SPEAKER_01]: a few weeks ago was excellent and I think she's someone to watch the woman's division.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I'm kind of turning this into a review of the woman's casino gone on match, but I swear it's not, I'll get to that later.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, this was a really good match.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't, I don't think it's a match in the year contender.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think it's going to be, I think that like the Hollywood ending was a better match.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this was a really good match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it delivered on expectations, which, as I said earlier, were really high.

[SPEAKER_01]: The finish was sick, the strong zero off of the top or middle row by guess was really cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, she beat Mercedes one, two, three.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nice and clean.

[SPEAKER_01]: So really good batch, really exciting finish, totally delivered.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it just overall, again, talked about the positive vibes with Penguin Page winning and what does that mean for the men's world title?

[SPEAKER_01]: Took this match really, really positive vibes for the woman's division.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, have been trending upwards for a while now, especially as Tony Storm character has caught fire and Mercedes has found her footing in AW.

[SPEAKER_01]: And now coming off of now you're seeing some of the depth of the division get built up, you still have Mercedes and Tony around as their respective champions.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great time for the division.

[SPEAKER_01]: Easily the best it's ever been and in a real opportunity here, I think to even cement things further.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, jump back to the, oh, the beginning of the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of got the big three matches kind of out of the way.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I kind of speed these through a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, nobody match, uh, trio's title, the ops beat, the death writers, uh, the start of kind of what would be seen as like, okay, it's going to be a bad night for the death writers, um, with Shabbat Hobbs and Joe retaining over the death writers team of Claudio and Wheeler Utah with Gabe Kid who's [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, he's a mercenary.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is not a member of the death writers, but he is basically also a member of the death writers.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good match, I mean, again, it feels like Gabe is going to do something major at forbidden door.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's what was this match kind of about.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, okay, let's show Gabe as his representative in Japan for wrestling and he's clearly going to be a figure on a W television moving forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that seems like something that's going to happen.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I mean, this was a good opener match when you think about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it wasn't the best match in the show by any means.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it was, you know, a fast-paced trio's match title on the line.

[SPEAKER_01]: Guys got into an out crowd, get into it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they love all three.

[SPEAKER_01]: They love Samoa Joe, they love Shabbat and they love Hobbs.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they kind of each dude, they're respective things, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Hobbs doesn't do a lot of selling.

[SPEAKER_01]: He kind of comes in, gets the hot deck, the people like the meat stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Shabbat is actually the guy that takes a beating and does all the selling, which is funny when you consider his physical status and how only a little while ago he wasn't taking any head bumps or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in this match, he's like, you know, bump machine cats you already Shabbat because, you know, he's got to be good guy taking the bumps, so you can come in and tag hops and some of it, Joe.

[SPEAKER_01]: really good stuff, you know, Claudio as always is actually as I was excellent.

[SPEAKER_01]: We were Utah, like, does he, I don't know if Utah gets enough credit for really leaning into his role as just this [SPEAKER_01]: You know, a little shit that the crowd just has open hostility towards and kinda has like, go away heat in a way, but not all the way where it's like, okay, really you're to, is on my TV screen, I don't wanna see it click, which is I feel like sometimes the way people talk about them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he does a great job, just people just feel like he's this completely disrespectful prick and they just wanna see someone like Samojo or Hobbs or Shabbat beat the shit out of him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's really effective in that role.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think like this is also like I got this is kind of like the same kind of I keep that thing like Sam and Govara and Jack Perry get, which is when they have a young guy that maybe has struggled to get over in a certain role.

[SPEAKER_01]: AW fans sometimes get worried that Tony is going to push this guy [SPEAKER_01]: way harder than he deserves to be pushed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's like this extra level of resentment.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like not only do I dislike wheeler Utah, but I'm also really mad because it seems like the company is going to give him a big push that he doesn't deserve.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that leads to this like extra like kind of go away heat that you get from the audience.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't really think that's fair because I think Tony has deserved the benefit of the doubt where Tony will not put go all the way with somebody who is not getting over, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: We've seen him for like a better turn, give up with people like Sammy Gophara and Wardlow and Jack Perry to a degree.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not totally the invested eight themselves from AW, but [SPEAKER_01]: understand like these guys probably are not going to be the world champion day.

[SPEAKER_01]: But they're still a role for them to have in the company.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like Wheeler Utah is in that role right now where I think some people are like, oh man, this guy's really sucks.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think everyone, even the people, I'll say that know that Wheeler doesn't actually suck.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's actually in a perfect role for his skill set right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: Great job with the shaggy hair and beard too.

[SPEAKER_01]: He just looked in like an asshole too.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's it's a key part of healing.

[SPEAKER_01]: The men's casino got a match.

[SPEAKER_01]: My heart take is, I think these casino gauntlet matches can be a lot of fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like them better as a TV match and like a TV gimmick.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought this one went really long and I was kind of like, man, this is a launch.

[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I knew this was going to be a long show.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, yeah, I like it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot, I kind of dragged in certain portions.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a great gimmick, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically the world rumble where music hits, guy comes down, new guy gets a pop, runs wild, gets cut off, new, no other guy comes in, does this, and eventually something gets a pinfall.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like the gimmick where the timing intervals are just random, which is a great explanation for how, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: someone can come down always write it the right moment when you know one guy's in the ring alone or or two guys are beaten up on one guy and then the baby facing come down and even the odds and I just like that they're like you know we're not gonna do every thirty seconds and I can do every minute we're not gonna do every two minutes or whatever we're just gonna do it whenever we damn well feel like it and the gimmick will be the timing is random and I just like that and obviously I like seeing you know off these guys but kind of [SPEAKER_01]: reactions that get from the audience and things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, you know, it's a long, long match, thirty-five-minute match with a, and it also is a great way to get a lot of people on the show and you have, you know, this is your big show of the year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you kind of want to have this kind of gimmick match where you can just get a bunch of guys who you want to reward by being on the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's all well and good.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, MJF wins.

[SPEAKER_01]: He steals the pinfall at the very end, which kind of makes sense from where they were going and you kind of had the MJF mark brisco feud kind of as a tipping point for this and then you also had Mystico getting involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: Very interesting to start to see.

[SPEAKER_01]: how over Mystico will get with the AW audience.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that his music hit and people were like, oh, yeah, Mystico is out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get excited for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that this education for the audience, that I think if you're a hardcore CML fan, you're like, fuck yeah, Mystico's here.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a lot of people like that in the audience.

[SPEAKER_01]: As Mystico gets more and more TV time on AW and he gets treated like a big deal, which they always do.

[SPEAKER_01]: that will be something to see that with his eventually the charisma that has made him such a big star in CMLL and such a big star in Mexico will that really translate to the W audience I think are starting to see that they had them come out with that you know special music that not a lot of people knew the words to I mean everyone who watched the arena Mexico show will know like oh yeah like the you know Tony got his music amount the fans all sang it because it's not that arena Mexico crowd [SPEAKER_01]: not a lot of fans in the globalite field knew his son.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in the future, to keep doing it, more and more people will.

[SPEAKER_01]: And people will sing along.

[SPEAKER_01]: What was one thing we know about American wrestling fans?

[SPEAKER_01]: There was more of the fuckers love to sing along to action song.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this is right up there, Ali, is Mystico having the fans sing along to the chorus of his entrance music.

[SPEAKER_01]: So if they keep doing that, he is eventually going to get over in a big way.

[SPEAKER_01]: the TNT title match obviously so this is a really interesting part of the show I guess in the sense of [SPEAKER_01]: Adam Cole comes out and that's his vacating the title and it gives us very sad speech where he talks about his injury, unspecified at the time, but it seems like it's almost definitely a concussion.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's got a vacating the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: We all know Adam Cole has had a lot of trouble with concussions.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he even said, you know, if this is goodbye forever in his promo and it just [SPEAKER_01]: bummed the crowd out as one would expect such a promo to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was kind of understandable that following that whole, and since you have this kind of four way, that's, again, it's also slapped together than I before, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You're supposed to be Kyle Fletcher versus Adam Cole.

[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, like, we're just new four way, Dustin Rhodes, Dana Garcia, Kyle Fletcher and Samuel Govara.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the crowd is really dead for this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: In the match itself wasn't really that good.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that's all understandable.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, it's okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because you want to know what happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: Duster Rhodes won the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone was like, oh, wow, Duster Rhodes won the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy that Duster Rhodes won this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they had, you know, his family came out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the funerals came out.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was going to mop.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they even did, you know, they did a little ankle.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're Sammy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a little like, man, you beat that title for me.

[SPEAKER_01]: You took the title in the match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was also in.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is kind of like a little beef they might have.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this covers extra storyline wrinkle there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I actually really liked during the match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think of Sammy goes for a cover in Dustin breaks it up.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Sammy looks at it and says like, man, like, what the hell?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why'd you break up?

[SPEAKER_01]: I was going for the title in Dustin just goes, this might be my last shot.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that was like really cool because it's like dust around.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, we might be tagging partners.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting real old.

[SPEAKER_01]: This might be my last chance to ever win a major single title.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he took advantage of that and he wins the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: And look, Cloud Fletcher is the one in this match, who's on Superstar trajectory.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what's going to happen, Cloud Fletcher is going to beat the crap out of old Dustin Rhodes in like a couple of weeks and win the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's fine, because you did this, you know, the crowd already is kind of like, [SPEAKER_01]: bummed out from the out-and-call announcements.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you kind of picked them back up, pretty dark dust in one of the title, oh, well, you know, bummed about that out-and-call, but man isn't a great scene dust in one of the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: Kyle Fletcher's gonna be fine.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tony didn't just be like, oh, you know what, Kyle Fletcher, you know, we're actually, he's actually gonna be buried way underneath and he's gonna be like an opening card guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not the case.

[SPEAKER_01]: We all know Kyle Fletcher's going right to the top and he's probably gonna get even more heat [SPEAKER_01]: beating, uh, beloved veteran Dustin Rhodes, then he was going to beat Adam Cole, who is kind of a cold champion, because I don't think Dustin Rhodes is going to be a cold champion, uh, at least for the next few weeks.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe if he had all the title for six months, he would.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's going to be a momentum and excitement about Dustin holding the title and flexures going to be a dick heel when he beats him for it.

[SPEAKER_01]: So all of that will work out in the end, said, match really not that good.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's, uh, I think easily the worst match on the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I, but I understand the book indecision and it was kind of cool seeing a customer in the title again.

[SPEAKER_01]: Next up was, and we're getting to more of the meat of the show, tag team match.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is Swirgon.

[SPEAKER_01]: We lost Ray versus the young books.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that the young books were going to win this match because I thought the stipulation Swirgon and Will Osprey could not challenge for the World Title for the next year.

[SPEAKER_01]: If they lost, was going, I think that was just, I said this with Trevor Dame.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was a great stipulation.

[SPEAKER_01]: because it really made me like the the smart fan at home.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to lose because, you know, that sets up an obvious storyline.

[SPEAKER_01]: Keep swarve and will away from hanging on page and they're going to be really mad at one another for causing themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a year's potential worth of a title challenge and that when we get back to all in next year both those are going to be a whole storyline or both guys are going to be fighting for the fighting for their chance to get a title shot like they would be like the main event of of the Owen Hart classic because [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you know, who we winner gets title shot all in and be their first chance to get title shot in a year.

[SPEAKER_01]: They end up going in that route.

[SPEAKER_01]: They actually just beat the young bucks and y'all bucks are no longer EVPs, which kind of wraps up that storyline.

[SPEAKER_01]: My impression was that Swerve and Will were not going to be EVPs when they won.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think Swerve even said like we're not going to do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's no way Will could be an EVP.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to give it back to the fans, which I guess it just means that there's going to be no like [SPEAKER_01]: on screen EVP, which would be fine by me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I noticed on the website, I saw this going on social media that that's where we'll have EVP on their title and their roster page.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what's going on with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully they're not actually EVPs and hopefully we can put this kind of storyline to bed.

[SPEAKER_01]: The match was particularly great.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought the Unbox entrance was amazing, Unbox come out like on like a, like a mock address like, you know, revolutionary war figures on this like mock, bow, uh, great, great like, uh, [SPEAKER_01]: This boat, this wooden ship that's supposed to be like Washington crossing the Delaware.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just like on this like cart.

[SPEAKER_01]: It reminds me of like the ring cart from WrestleMania III, like during the China Bobby Heenan wrote it on.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like this weird platform to boat.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it actually like stops and goes up higher at one point.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's on a scissor lift.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why, it's great.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's like, if I was like, like, like, had Tony cons level money and like, I would want, like, weird wrestling memorabilia, like the boat, the boat cart that the young bucks came in to all in Texas on would be something that I would want in.

[SPEAKER_01]: They had, like, this declaration of power that they just gave to Justin Roberts and he rolled out of, like, his actual scroll of parchment paper, like, it was just hundreds.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was just fun aesthetics.

[SPEAKER_01]: The, the, the, [SPEAKER_01]: uh...

entrances across entrances across the board were pretty cool [SPEAKER_01]: that insanely elaborate, but all of them are just kind of cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hang on page at this woman who I can only describe as a professional whistler, who just like whistled his entrance theme with an acoustic guitar comping, accompanying it, which was very strange, but pretty cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mercedes Monet, I thought, had a great entrance without the, she had like there's a comically large tail on her jacket that had like all the names of the people that she's speaking on it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Kenny Omega had like a live rendition of his entrance music played.

[SPEAKER_01]: Tony Storm had her a little of any yet beforehand.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was all good stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I want to add, this is totally random, and there's nothing to do with attacking match, but like, Turby Allen, his Mount Everest video, which was pretty funny, it was very odd because they play this video where it's Darby Allen on the summit of Mount Everest, and he's like, top of the world, I'm on top of Mount Everest, but John Moxie, I'm coming for you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the announcers are like, whoa, who was that?

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, who else?

[SPEAKER_01]: in AEW would be on some of them on Everest, cutting a promo on John Moxley.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's also a video, and I know he's wearing like, you know, like his, you know, all his mountain gear, and he also grew up here.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it doesn't really look like Darby Allen, but it's very clearly Darby Allen, though you know, that's his, of course, the dumbest people in the world, like, oh, who could that be?

[SPEAKER_01]: And then for whatever reason Brian Danielson wearing a blue Panther mask actually runs out, like immediately.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like, was my game.

[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the person in the video on Everest.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was just kind of really strange, but it all got pops in, of course, Darby repels down from the globe-like fields, roof, and it beats up the depth writer.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it all worked out, but I just thought that was kind of just really funny.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just the whole, the video was really cool with the Mount Everest stuff, and then I was just being dumbfounded by who that could possibly be.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, of course, Brian Danielson wearing a blue panther mask of all people, because he's such a nerd, of course, he's gonna be wearing a blue panther mask.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, back to this text, I don't match great stuff by the end books.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, like, we'll all spray and swear for great wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_01]: They really need to be coached through a great match, obviously not, but there's no denying for like young bucks being as could have attacked him as they are or the kind of the brains behind putting together matches like this.

[SPEAKER_01]: This felt like [SPEAKER_01]: frenetic, incredible dragon gate match at times just with the pacing and the fast moves and the liberal use of tags and just all of that kind of stuff like it just felt like one of those great classic dragon gate matches which is really unsurprising because that's where the young bucks roots are and the young bucks have really helped poppy the rise that style around the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, coming from their experience working in Dragon Gate, working in Wichita Lee-Bray, and obviously Will Lossbray and Swarve are well accustomed to working at style as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: But just the pacing, the kickouts, like, you know, they did that whole thing where [SPEAKER_01]: They just were all hitting big moves and kicking each other and like your in books hit stereo, Canadian destroyers, then we'll all spray and just we're struggling to try fighting spear and both hit, you know, house call and hidden blades and then they all collapsed and that's the kind of spot where you know some people will be like.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they learned them didn't sell the Canadian destroyer and that's a bad for wrestling and this is why no one draws.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, twenty nine thousand people got to their feet started screaming because of how good that spot was because it was awesome.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like just one of those things that like the dumbest people among us will complain about something like not being dumb and not being able to get over me while thirty thousand people are who are stamped how many feet in appreciation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just great stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, these are, you know, Will and Swerve are two with the five best wrestlers in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: The unboxers are still, I think, lately, the best tag team in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this was, you know, their work, you know, there's was their contribution to the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: In a lot of ways, like Swerve and Will Osprey are kind of [SPEAKER_01]: over qualified to be in a midcard tag team match on the show, but the way was built up in a obviously young bucks' credibility and the high quality of the deliverance on this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it doesn't feel like they were missing from anything bigger.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then had the woman's casino got that match.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was [SPEAKER_01]: just kind of a mess.

[SPEAKER_01]: It definitely didn't drag as long as the men's one, which I'll give them credit.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't quite as on, but it was still twenty-seven minutes, so that's not like that was short.

[SPEAKER_01]: And there's some good stuff in it, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought the finish with Athena hitting the O-face on Mena Shirokawa kind of out of nowhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's such an impressive move and made Athena look like a complete killer, which is really important.

[SPEAKER_01]: and you can see the crowd buying into her as a major threat to Tony Storm.

[SPEAKER_01]: So all that was good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you had, you know, this was mostly filled with the people that have been filling up, you know, women's television time, right, Chris Stattlander, Megan Bane, Queen Almanada, Theclo, obviously Willow, Thunder Rosa.

[SPEAKER_01]: So you get all these people kind of popping and, um, [SPEAKER_01]: uh, doing a fair kind of, you know, big moves and then some very similar layouts of the men's match.

[SPEAKER_01]: This one also did have like a lot of interference and like [SPEAKER_01]: Other women getting involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's already such a chaotic match.

[SPEAKER_01]: You already have all these women kind of just breaking up pinfalls and double-teaming people when all this stuff and it's like you throw on top and it's like oh a sky blue was in here, you know, interfering on behalf of Julia Hart and it's like why can't sky blue just be in the match?

[SPEAKER_01]: She's not actually in the match, but she functionally basically is because she's just coming in and breaking up pinfalls and helping Julia Hart double-team people and [SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know, you had in a Jake involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: You saw hardly camera getting involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like in a dish.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is already a super chaotic match with a bunch of people running as they're hanging out.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have other people that aren't even in the match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like kind of hard to remember.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, do you guys look in this match?

[SPEAKER_01]: Did she get an entrance?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, she just came out with Julia Hart.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, like, it's just, it's just kind of was kind of confusing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we saw, you know, Shari and Alex Windsor debut, uh, kind of adventure like, like I mentioned, like, [SPEAKER_01]: So Osprey in some oligopol victimized by the pulmonization of their necks, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: And they've structured both of them out on the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: It seemed like they're both going to be [SPEAKER_01]: missing some time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some are still a trio champion, of course, but the op-star trio champions and hook could become a vaccine, substitute hook for some other Joe kind of makes sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: Osprey, I don't really know what they're going to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like is he going to not be on screens, very interesting that outs, Windsor kind of makes her debut, who's I think he's a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think she's Will Osprey's wife at the very least.

[SPEAKER_01]: his, his very serious girlfriend.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's kind of she kind of makes her full A, W, W and now we'll also be able to be off TV.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of interesting, but we'll see what happens.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, but, um, that was the woman's casino got the match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then lastly, we have the tag team match.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hertzson to kit.

[SPEAKER_01]: They retain their titles.

[SPEAKER_01]: They be jet speed and the picture archie.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, [SPEAKER_01]: I was at your table of the match, it wasn't a stinker.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was an amazing kind of interesting, I thought.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like, it was definitely a match built around making the hearts and to get look awesome, which seems to be how most of the hearts and to get matches have gone.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was really more about FTR getting involved with the hearts and to get and then the post match angle with Nick Wayne turning on Christian Cage.

[SPEAKER_01]: which is, you know, FTR is on ringside, they kind of get involved in the match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like the finish of this match is like Bobby went, Lashley, I think he pushes Dax and then both Dax and Cash Wheeler are like, what the hell man?

[SPEAKER_01]: They get up on the apron and then Lashley just like uses, you know, tosses, I forget who was one of the opponents at them, knocks them off the apron, then just pins whoever [SPEAKER_01]: The opponent is just like Bible Ashley just get the shit out like this entire tag division, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: He fought off FTR and then he pinned his opponent like so he just like Bobby that actually looked like a god That was kind of like the focus of this match, you know jet speed those guys worked really hard Mike Bailey.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god Mike Bailey took like so many bumps.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like Mike Bailey took ninety percent of the bumps in this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually had six people in it [SPEAKER_01]: Like Mike Bailey worked his ass off in this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll give him that credit.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought Shelton looked really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: Shelton's amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like honestly, like Shelton is like fifty years old and he looks like the way he does and he moves like the way he does.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's having probably the best round of his entire career.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, they're that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like when he was like in a criminal champion in two thousand five, like it's pretty remarkable.

[SPEAKER_01]: This chapter has happened for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: But clearly, this is all about building.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now we have the Hertz indicate versus FTR, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the big tag team match that they've kind of built in towards.

[SPEAKER_01]: What's interesting is FTR for clearly heels, this point.

[SPEAKER_01]: The Hertz indicate are also definitely heels.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that is kind of interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: You also have FTR kind of getting involved in this, this Nickwing Christian cage thing where they were in the ring and they were kind of like, [SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, we're glad Nick Wayne turned by Christian Cage.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, obviously, I'm Copeland's came back and it's going to be Adam Copeland versus Christian Cage.

[SPEAKER_01]: Our Adam Copeland and Christian Cage, they get a Russell and he's going to, like, FTR and Nick Wayne.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, so FDR seems kind of like involved in two feuds, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: They're clearly going to be feuding with their hearts and they get, but it also seems like they're probably going to feud with Christian Cage and Ft and [SPEAKER_01]: Adam Copeland too, so that's kind of confusing.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll probably see how that shakes on television.

[SPEAKER_01]: Adam Copeland, like, like, thing that just like annoyed me and probably a lot of people's like, [SPEAKER_01]: Christian Cage is about to be, uh, suffer the concherto, like his head's lying on that chair.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nick Williams, like, got the chair pulled back.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's totally gonna do it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Adam Copeland's music hit hits.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is Adam Copeland running right to the ring and immediately take out Nick Wayne because there's not a second to waste because Nick Wayne's about to, you know, cripple his friend.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nope.

[SPEAKER_01]: He like, had you just had to, like, [SPEAKER_01]: go to the ramp up the crown he's running around the entrance ramp and he's like hyping up the crowd and it's like do shut the fuck up your friend is about to die the whole point you're coming back is to prevent Christian Cage from being killed by Nick Wayne and there really shouldn't be a second to waste and you're out here grandstanding and doing your whole won't full blown entrance and it just made him look really stupid um but he's out of Copeland and he did what I'm Copeland did which is he gets gigantic pop from the audience this people level [SPEAKER_01]: And there are obviously going to be doing something with Copeland and Christian Cage as a tag team going forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see with that, and that is that will conclude my all in Texas review, but I did want to toss in a review of the Ring of Honor show from Friday, which I thought was fantastic.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not as epic as all in, but this was a really, really good show.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll run through it really quick.

[SPEAKER_01]: A breed audience, you know, they had, they were at eSports Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where they had the residency last year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Really good crowd, obviously, probably like a lot of fly-ins for all-ins.

[SPEAKER_01]: They got that really heavily invested hardcore crowd coming in for the show, so you know you're going to get a strong crowd.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Caprice and Ian Rekebani are fantastic on commentary.

[SPEAKER_01]: Caprice is great as a color guy who just gets excited about the product and wants you to also be excited about the product and it really comes through earnestly on [SPEAKER_01]: on screen when you're watching him.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a really underrated, I think, in terms of a color guide.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because he's not playing a character, he's not a heal, he's not trying to heal it up, like so many other guys.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a guy that his job is to hype up and get over the action that's happening on screen and the characters and him and Ian just do an amazing job and they have for a really long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm glad with Tony's purchase of our OH.

[SPEAKER_01]: that he's kept them intact as the unquestioned duo.

[SPEAKER_01]: And honestly, I would be happy to see, like, Ian, we see, you know, a decent amount of time on a W and obviously it was a great job there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to see Chris doing a throw-a-mom-a-third chair on collision or something like that, put him out there with Tony and in the item again as I think he does a great job every time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, opening that Chetish-Cero defeats Michael Ogu, I felt the match was great.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, [SPEAKER_01]: had to say, obviously, he's, you know, he's Brussels that, you know, very unique submission based style.

[SPEAKER_01]: The crowd is into him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They really like him.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's seen as, you know, as threat.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this industry is a great audience for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Michael Oku.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oku is such an interesting guy because [SPEAKER_01]: Like, Oku gets over in the UK Indies.

[SPEAKER_01]: He obviously has the high profile feud with Will Osprey where he has these great matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: And, okay, yeah, he has these great matches with Will Osprey.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, a lot of people can have great matches with Will Osprey.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I think Oku, who gets a lot of criticism for his wrestling style, which I disagree with, I think he's fantastic because he does so many little things that so many wrestlers don't do.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a great [SPEAKER_01]: Babyface, he's great at getting sympathy from the audience.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's great at doing little things to fire them up.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's doing he's so good at getting the crowd.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's around him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe he's a small room wrestler.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's where he's best.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this wouldn't work in a stadium setting.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this wouldn't work if he was in a NBA arena.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when he's working like you're a call or he's working a smaller venue like Ring of Honor, it comes across really well.

[SPEAKER_01]: But he's just able to [SPEAKER_01]: have that connection, and I think with Amira, who I think is his wife, does like a really great job tying the whole package together, and you're just flying to yourself, rooting for this guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's obviously got it, you know, sympathetic look because he's so skinny.

[SPEAKER_01]: He does any, he has a signature moves that he does really well, and when he gets over with the audience, it really works.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's on his way to doing that in right of honor.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I like the way that they've kind of introduced him to the Tony Converse, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I think if you brought Michael Oku in.

[SPEAKER_01]: and you gave him the same kind of push you gave like Mike Bailey or Kevin Knight, which is like we signed this guy, look at him, he's on A, W, television each week, he's wrestling his matches, he's an attacking whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think he would really succeed because you have to get to know Michael, you have to get to see him wrestle several times.

[SPEAKER_01]: You have to get that kind of slow burning investment in him to really see where his potential is as a star.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think starting off at a ring of honor, half of them work in open and match, having them lose to Hichisero in the way he did.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think it really starting off very slow, but I think it's the right course of action.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know what a ceiling is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do I ever see him being a huge star need to be probably not?

[SPEAKER_01]: But he has a special something, that connection with the audience through his work, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not necessarily through promours or anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's because he's a very sympathetic baby face.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he's, you know, he's had a lot of experience working small rooms working in England building up that reputation.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's someone to keep an eye on, I think, because I think his ceiling is pretty high.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it might never reach it, but it's, it's the ceiling itself is pretty high.

[SPEAKER_01]: I got to see him down the road potentially being a major player.

[SPEAKER_01]: uh next match fifty thousand dollar four way match air fox wins air fox wins all these matches when there's money on the line um it's just kind of funny like uh Tony's done this is like a booking thing is like it doesn't really mean anything because we know all the stuff is fake like but for whatever reason when Tony just wants to put together a fun you know trios match or fun four way match or fun six fun six way matches like oh let's just make money online right that's something that everyone can understand [SPEAKER_01]: It's like almost a way to satisfy the people who are always crying about where a story is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Match can't just be cool, it has to have stakes.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you can't build that, if you don't tie it on the line or you don't want to have a lot of story lines to build up, you can just say, you know what, the all these guys are going to fight for money.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's something I've literally everywhere understands.

[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of a fun, hodgepodge of people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Airfucks at Empress Atlanta, Jr.

[SPEAKER_01]: and Lee Johnson.

[SPEAKER_01]: Opportunity here for Adam priest who's kind of carved out of repetitions being one of the best independent wrestlers and one of the best unsigned wrestlers in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, they obviously gave them a lot of time to shine.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably going to see him more wrestling more in ring of honor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Let me just check.

[SPEAKER_01]: Has he wrestled in ring of honor for?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he's okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's actually bound to be a little bit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, every lot I co-promoted the dot-collar match from the Dean show, but it looks like you beat Adam.

[SPEAKER_01]: He beat Aaron Solo, and he's also recently Christian, and it would be more toast at some of them on our tapings earlier this year.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's kind of been in the next but I expect to see more of him just because he's a guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: I will say, [SPEAKER_01]: he was in the ring with air fox Atlanta junior in Lee Johnson who aren't exactly like, you know, the brothers of destruction and other road warriors out there.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's really short.

[SPEAKER_01]: He is not a tall man.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think in a W that's not a dead sentence the way it would be in a W and W w or other Western promotions, but it was noticeable.

[SPEAKER_01]: I never knew he was that short, but I was like, okay, like Lee Johnson looks like, you know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lee Johnson looks like France archer next to Adam Priest.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's not a big guy, but that's okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fun finish, airfucks that this like weird rope assisted Canadian destroyer I've never seen before.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fun match airfucks gets a I guess televised win, but of course it was a ring of water on AWS television, but good for him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Pure title match Leo Morayardy versus booth Panther.

[SPEAKER_01]: I guess like Sting had that those matches with, you know, Sting had some really fun matches in A, W, and obviously his last match was tremendous against the Xbox.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I was gonna say like this is probably the best match you'll ever see, this is the five year old wrestler have in Blue Panther.

[SPEAKER_01]: A little bit be sixty-five.

[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like an August, there's a temper.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he's sixty-four.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just a really good fun match.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a pure title match, so there's not a ton of, [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's Matt work.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a mission wrestling.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's all that kind of stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But Blue Panther.

[SPEAKER_01]: Man's got his working boots on.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he took a superplex.

[SPEAKER_01]: At the top, he did a Top A Suicita.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was working and this was a lot of fun.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a lot of it was because it was the novelty of seeing Blue Panther work.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm actually like this and then how well it was worked.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this was a fun match.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's worth your time if you like seeing that particular style of wrestling.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you like to see somebody have a good wrestling match despite having very, very limited athleticism these days.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a fun match for that kind of scientific perspective.

[SPEAKER_01]: World title tag team, my title match, just a road to semi-Govard defeat, Crony Bravo and Sean Dean.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was okay, it wasn't great.

[SPEAKER_01]: The infantry are just kind of, they have a good energy about them, but they're not really a great tag team.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was seen more just about Dustin Rhodes and Sammy, and then getting the bonnet arcs out there at the end.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a skippable match, you don't need to watch it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nick Wayne and Teton, this was really good.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you've seen Teton wrestle, as I assume most of these people have, [SPEAKER_01]: It was, you know, he's obviously a really good wrestler in Nick Lane.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can just see I really have enjoyed seeing Nick Lane and ring a boner and seeing him just wrestle more frequently in these singles matches where he is kind of like the favorite.

[SPEAKER_01]: We see him on a double television.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's, you know, he's mostly working tag matches or he's kind of being like the underdog or or like [SPEAKER_01]: You know, he's he's the underdog in this matches, whether he's a baby face or a heel.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and the RH matches, he works much more like a confident heel competitor.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you see that translate in better work, because he's not being pigeonholed into like the, oh, he's this guy.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's so young.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's full of potential, but he's still really young.

[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like the least significant person in this group.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here, you're seeing him just work like he is a confident champion, which is what he is in Ring of Honor as the TV title.

[SPEAKER_01]: And here, he just wrestled a really good match against T-Town, so that's worth your time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, it's her and woman's world television title.

[SPEAKER_01]: I really wish that Tony would just get rid of the interim title.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just make this for the world TV title.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then if, you know, it's a red velvet's injured, but she was there.

[SPEAKER_01]: But like if the whole point is a red velvet is injured, so she can't defend her title.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just strip her of the title.

[SPEAKER_01]: Have a miniature cow who wants to win this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: when the title, and then you can go do, you know, mean a share count versus red velvet, which is what you're gonna do anyway.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you want red velvet to still be the champion, have her win.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now you want mean a share count to still be the champion, just have her win.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's something we need to include in-term titles, it's very strange.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't seem to really any standard for it, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Why wasn't why aren't you doing, you know, why wasn't, why is Adam Cole vacating his TV title because he's injured?

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, obviously, it seems like his injury is in the last so much longer that he can't really have someone be the interim title, but why does Adam Cole have to vacate his title while writing up like he can keep it and you had create an interim championship?

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's kind of dumb and it's just logical gap, and I think I'm preaching to the choir there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's your car, though, in this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: Very good.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's, again, I think they've done a great job getting our over.

[SPEAKER_01]: This was kind of an international kind of style match, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: You bring in Neil Yamashita, Tokyo Joshi Pro, who was in town because they did a big show on Sunday, kind of piggybacking off of all of them.

[SPEAKER_01]: Texas, I haven't seen that show, but I heard it was very good and I also heard it to twenty-five hundred fans, which is huge audience for that promotion in really any promotion in the United States, like outside of AEW and WWE doing twenty-five hundred fans, like TNA would kill for twenty-five hundred fans for one of their shows.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the fact that Tokyo Yoshi Pro was able to do that is awesome accomplishment for them.

[SPEAKER_01]: But she was in town, so it was Persephone from CMLL.

[SPEAKER_01]: And Yuka Sakazaki was back.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fun match.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like the world's greatest match or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it was fun all action.

[SPEAKER_01]: They did a good job building.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think Persephone, they really focused on our role as a power junior kind of power junior power woman's wrestler.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, kind of tossing around the smaller women that was kind of cool.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of focus on, you know, me, I'm a sheet of honor striking.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but she is interesting because, you know, she wrestled some matches in a W.

I saw her live against under Rosa.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just, I didn't feel like she connected at that time with a live audience, but I think if she were to get some more time and get some more, I think people, she comes across like, I believe we'll ask, kick, kiss her, kick her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think if she gets more time, she could do that.

[SPEAKER_01]: on television.

[SPEAKER_01]: It just didn't really work the first time, but see in the future.

[SPEAKER_01]: But great job by Mina, great job by the woman here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fun match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Athena versus Funder Rosa, Funder Rosa, a nineteen minute match.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Funder Rosa, she kind of reminds me of Becky Lynch, where just the athleticism is just totally zapped.

[SPEAKER_01]: and they just, she just doesn't move around the ring the way that she used to and it just feels like she's wrestling and tremendous pain.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's where I can think of when I think of Thunder Rose.

[SPEAKER_01]: That being said, this was a pretty entertaining match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, Athena just has this, this is funny, this Athena runs started because [SPEAKER_01]: episode of AW Dark that they taped in, I think, Toronto.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like it was a baby face and she just kind of worked stiff with an enhancement talent and that kind of made some rounds on social media where it looked like, oh, Athena was laying it in and working stiff and taking liberties with an enhancement talent.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like a dumb conversation for a day and that kind of like, [SPEAKER_01]: something clicked with that in Athena just like I'm gonna be that person I'm gonna that person that people think I am that's what I'm going to be all the time and she has ever since just been this asshole woman that forms people right in the face and it's [SPEAKER_01]: totally changed the trajectory of her career.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's given her this whole other look that she has never had before.

[SPEAKER_01]: And obviously she just had the super long ring of honor women's will title run and that we're seeing so I've seen that translate into more time on a WWE television.

[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like she's headed towards a major program with Tony Storm.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this was another strong match by her and it's Thunder Rose's best match in forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, again, you should definitely check this one out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then the main event, Bandido versus Konosuke Takeshita.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the best matches of the year.

[SPEAKER_01]: Strong candidate for Best Match a little weekend.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think most people would point towards either this match or the main event of all in.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the difference between the two matches is actually a huge difference because they're totally different matches.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is much more traditional match, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: This is World Championship match.

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't count this gets involved like a little bit, [SPEAKER_01]: It's just straight up one V-one match.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's on no DQ matches, not a ton of blood or any kind of like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: It is just two guys going at it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two wrestlers at the absolute peak of their game.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think everyone knows that the cash is one of the best wrestlers in the world.

[SPEAKER_01]: Bandito is having an amazing year.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is the kind of match that you want to see and ring of honor, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like ring of honor struggles to get buzz, struggles to get momentum.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this is a match that takes place and everyone's gonna be like, [SPEAKER_01]: I don't care if you have a watchman or go find Super Cardabona.

[SPEAKER_01]: Go watch this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you are a serious wrestling fan, you seriously want to have match the year list or anything, you have to watch this match.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was super, super exciting.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just really well built, just like a thirty minute classic.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's been a fantastic year for Bandito combined, you know, he's working among the monitors, working CM oil, he's working a W.

He's having a great year, it's great to see him kind of bounce back in, it kind of lost your due to injuries and things like that, but he's just getting over more and more with with the larger audience in a W.

And this was an amazing match.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people expected to catch the win, just because it just felt like it makes more sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's a bigger star of the Bandito, or this feels like he's a bigger star of the Bandito.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's definitely been protected more on a W television that Bandito has.

[SPEAKER_01]: Gets just also going right into the G-One next week, so it also would kind of make sense for him to not be the RH World Champion during the G-One, so that also is kind of something that maybe I kind of didn't think about that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you asked me before, the show would have been like, that's Gets just probably gonna win.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I think about the G one, it makes sense for vendida or retain.

[SPEAKER_01]: This had one of my favorite finishes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen it a long time.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just this, you know, we're versatile.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it goes with twenty oneplex to cash to blocks it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then to cash to goes for raging fire.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then vendida just rolls them up inside cradle.

[SPEAKER_01]: One, two, three kind of flash pin.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just love the kind of finish.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's great to get the vice of decisive finishes.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's great when a guy hits finisher and it gets the wind clean.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that nice, [SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you know, inside cradle to just squeak out a win in a thirty minute match against an opponent.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought that was fantastic, uh, way to to finish the match.

[SPEAKER_01]: And just a great show.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a great show.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think anyone that likes professional wrestling should go out of their way to watch super card a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: Watch the whole thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's not really a bad match on the show.

[SPEAKER_01]: The tag team match, tag team title match a little week.

[SPEAKER_01]: But on that, this is super fun time.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's gonna wrap things up.

[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate everyone listening.

[SPEAKER_01]: I hope this may be scratch-in-itch people had about coming out of all in weekend.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure flagship boys are gonna do an amazing job when they find my review this and hopefully some other people has some excellent reviews out there as well.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm Jesse Collins and I will see you again next time.