Speaker 1: Hey, this is Brian Alvarez and this is today's edition
Speaker 1: of the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network.
Speaker 2: Bye from San Francisco. I'm a sports byline broadcasting network.
Speaker 2: You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with your hosts
Speaker 2: Brian Alvarez and Mike sempervv Right, you ready, You're ready,
Speaker 2: Let's get it on now.
Speaker 1: How's it going everybody? Brian Alvarez here on or Wrestling
Speaker 1: Observer Live. We are here every day Monday through Friday,
Speaker 1: New Pacific three Eastern Sundays, three Pacific six Eastern Saturday
Speaker 1: Mornings with Jim Valley, Today Pacific one Eastern Sundays with
Speaker 1: andrews Arian. And it is Tuesday here on the show.
Speaker 1: And you know what that means. Well, we got a
Speaker 1: lot to talk about. I don't want to be joined
Speaker 1: today by Lancestorm. Lance watched Raw last night. It's on
Speaker 1: Netflix now and so we're gonna talk about Raw on
Speaker 1: Netflix as well as NXT tonight, which will feature an
Speaker 1: appearance from the Rock. You heard that right, The Rock.
Speaker 1: The Rock is on NXT in a building set up
Speaker 1: for let me see what I got here. It's like
Speaker 1: I can't even believe this. Really, It's not even like
Speaker 1: they're running a thirteen thousand seat building that's all sold out.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know a few thousand people there,
Speaker 1: but The Rock is gonna be there. So anyway, I'll
Speaker 1: find that here later, somebody texted me. But the point
Speaker 1: is the Rock is on NXC. He may as well
Speaker 1: be somewhere because I don't want to say it's as
Speaker 1: bad as when Eric Bischoff signed with WWE and the
Speaker 1: first thing he did was come out and hug Vince McMahon. Man,
Speaker 1: let me tell you, when Rock showed up on that show,
Speaker 1: it was like, this is the easiest, this is the
Speaker 1: easiest storyline. With the Rock in the Ulafalla and solo,
Speaker 1: his brother shows up and hugs his two rivals. There's
Speaker 1: like two matches. There's two matches for the Rock at
Speaker 1: Wrestle Media. There's Roman Reigns and there's Cody Rhodes. He
Speaker 1: has been feuding with both, and he came out and
Speaker 1: he hugged them. I don't know, man, I could talk
Speaker 1: about this for weeks, but anyway, we'll get Lansan got
Speaker 1: a lot to get into. Back in the moment, it
Speaker 1: was over life.
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Speaker 2: You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez
Speaker 2: and Mike simperviv on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
Speaker 1: Are the show, Bryan Alvarez here, Wrestling Observer Live, Lancestorm
Speaker 1: joining us here today. First off, Lance, are you doing
Speaker 1: I'm doing all right, all right, because I'm gonna need
Speaker 1: a moment here, all right. First hop since seems to
Speaker 1: be confused, I'll say this again. I mentioned this like
Speaker 1: fifty times on this actual show yesterday. The prediction show
Speaker 1: is tomorrow Wednesday, Okay. The Prediction show is Wednesday, So
Speaker 1: get your prediction ready and be ready to call tomorrow,
Speaker 1: not today, Wednesday, okay, And also on Wednesday, Max, please
Speaker 1: also Wednesday. A couple of hours afterwards to Pacific five eastern.
Speaker 1: We will be debuting after Dark Radio on Sports Byeline.
Speaker 1: That will kick off Wednesday at two Pacific five eastern.
Speaker 1: So a very very big day on Byline. We got
Speaker 1: the one of the biggest shows we do all year,
Speaker 1: the Prediction show that'll be at noon Pacific three Eastern
Speaker 1: and after Dark Radio will be at two Pacific five Eastern.
Speaker 1: And also, yes, for the fifty fifth time, as I
Speaker 1: mentioned this countless times yesterday, after Dark Radio will be
Speaker 1: just like this show twitch you Tube. It'll be on
Speaker 1: whatever tune in radio all at all? Right, yes, Byeline,
Speaker 1: it's on Byeline. Okay, gotta talk about the Rock, sure, okay, listen.
Speaker 1: So and the Rock was like a bad guy last year, right,
Speaker 1: a horrible person and great at it. He was an
Speaker 1: incredible heel feuding with Cody and Roman. And after WrestleMania
Speaker 1: he had that big confrontation with Cody teasing that they're
Speaker 1: going to have this match where he gave him a gift,
Speaker 1: a mystery gift. He put it in his hand, whispered
Speaker 1: something in his ear and left the final boss The Rock. Well,
Speaker 1: they debuted on Netflix. They booked Roman Reigns versus Solo
Speaker 1: Socoa for the beads and I guess they're not beads.
Speaker 1: They look like beads, but they're flowers, the ulafaulla. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not just mad because like I had
Speaker 1: an idea they didn't do. But like this is idiot proof.
Speaker 1: You do a match for the ulafaulla. Roman wins, but
Speaker 1: like before he can put on the ulafaula, Rock attacks him,
Speaker 1: takes the ulafaula and then we got Roman reigns in
Speaker 1: the Rock all set up and it's like so easy,
Speaker 1: and then it actually gets worse. Did you guys know
Speaker 1: that the Rock did a social media post like the
Speaker 1: day before or the day of raw? Are you guys
Speaker 1: aware of this? He said that he had been named
Speaker 1: a Samoan Heitch Chief twenty years ago. He said, after
Speaker 1: twenty years of proudly carrying our culture with me around
Speaker 1: the world, I can't wait to soon return back home
Speaker 1: to Samoa. I already have chills thinking about it. Until then,
Speaker 1: I'll come back home to WWE tomorrow night as we
Speaker 1: make history on Netflix and begin a new and exciting era.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow Night is dedicated to my grandfather, the High Chief
Speaker 1: Peter Myvia, my grandmother Leah MYV and my dad Rocky
Speaker 1: Soulman Johnson, and my ancestors who have all paid the way.
Speaker 1: I read that and I was like, dude, like, there's
Speaker 1: a match for the ulafalla to determine who will be
Speaker 1: the tribal chief. Rock has just done a video about
Speaker 1: his ancestry. Hello, So then this dude shows up and
Speaker 1: the first thing he does is he puts over Cody
Speaker 1: and he makes some jokes and Cody laughs. Then he
Speaker 1: hugs him and he goes through the crowd again. Then
Speaker 1: they do the match for the Ulafalla. Roman wins and
Speaker 1: as he's celebrating before the beads get put around his neck,
Speaker 1: here comes the Rock. I'm like, okay, obviously, well the
Speaker 1: Rock gets this ulafalla and he looks at Roman Reigns
Speaker 1: and you can hear the crowd like this is the thing.
Speaker 1: You can hear the crowd buzzing. The crowd knew this
Speaker 1: as well. And then he puts the ulafalla around Roman
Speaker 1: Reign's neck. Do you realize that Dave has been talking
Speaker 1: about how important this ulafalla is to the storyline for
Speaker 1: like a year now and how it's this giant thing
Speaker 1: and this big match and everybody cares about it. Well, dude,
Speaker 1: he put the beads around this guy's neck and the
Speaker 1: crowd didn't even pop like you could hear, and they
Speaker 1: went what And then he hugged him and yes, I'm
Speaker 1: sure at some point, the Rock probably is going to
Speaker 1: turn on Roman Reigns. But dude, what was this raw?
Speaker 1: This was like a raw to get all of these
Speaker 1: fans that allegedly are like lapsed, the alleged lapsed fans,
Speaker 1: the casual fans who are flipping like, so what's on Netflix? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's raw. The idea here is to get these people
Speaker 1: invested in WWE. So like, I don't care if he
Speaker 1: attacks him tonight. I don't care if he attacks him
Speaker 1: at the end of the month. I don't care when
Speaker 1: the dude attacks him. Like, this was the show to
Speaker 1: shoot the Angle, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month.
Speaker 1: It's like that was the night. And so all of
Speaker 1: these imaginary lapsed fans or you know, we've never watched
Speaker 1: wrestling in since the eighties or whatever, see what's going on?
Speaker 1: What did they see? Well, they saw that The Rock
Speaker 1: is the best friend of Roman Reigns and Cody, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm baffled. It's a classic example of there was an
Speaker 1: easy way to do this, and let's think of a
Speaker 1: more complicated way. Let's swerve the people first, and then
Speaker 1: we'll shoot the Angle down the road. When like all
Speaker 1: those people that tuned in for this show, they ain't
Speaker 1: gonna be there. Do you guys remember SmackDown's debut on Fox?
Speaker 1: Does anyone remember when SmackDown debut on Fox? The first night?
Speaker 1: How many viewers they had? Do you remember? Lance?
Speaker 6: It was three plus million.
Speaker 1: Four million viewers for the debut? Four million? Do you
Speaker 1: know how many people watched Week two two and a
Speaker 1: half It was like two point two million? Okay, half
Speaker 1: the people that tuned in that first show didn't watch
Speaker 1: the second show. Do you guys remember what Dynamite did
Speaker 1: on their debut? It was like one point four one
Speaker 1: point five million. The next week it was like eight. Okay,
Speaker 1: whenever you have a debut, you're gonna lose half the
Speaker 1: viewers every time. It happens. It happened with aw it
Speaker 1: happened with SmackDown on Fox, and whatever they did on Netflix.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have half of that next week. So you
Speaker 1: can tell me all you want.
Speaker 6: You're a mark.
Speaker 1: Obviously he's gonna attack the guy. Why are you listen?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're probably right, but this was the show
Speaker 1: to do it, not week two. So anyway, I don't care.
Speaker 1: They're still gonna do well at WrestleMania. But like That
Speaker 1: was your Eric Bischoff, Huggs Vince McMahon moment when he
Speaker 1: first signs with WW It's like, why would you ever
Speaker 1: do that? Why? I don't get it.
Speaker 6: My take wasn't that they're just gonna do it later.
Speaker 6: My take was Rock always wanted to be a babyface
Speaker 6: and he's trying again, or that.
Speaker 1: There's not gonna be a match. That was other people's takeaway,
Speaker 1: like he's not doing mania, So like whatever they're doing,
Speaker 1: that's the message people got out of it. Either he
Speaker 1: blew off the two feuds or he's not doing mania.
Speaker 1: Is that the message you want to send to the
Speaker 1: biggest possible audience you're gonna get on Netflix? Not to me?
Speaker 6: Nope, that's what they did.
Speaker 1: Well, what do you think about this show?
Speaker 6: Production wise? It was very very impressive, Like I haven't
Speaker 6: watched Raw in ages, and I thought the show open
Speaker 6: video package on the you know, the screen hung around
Speaker 6: the ring was really great. The building looked impressive. But
Speaker 6: I found the show really slow and really long, and
Speaker 6: as someone who hasn't watched in a long time, there
Speaker 6: was no angle, nothing really compelling to insist I watch
Speaker 6: next week, Like I watched for three hours there was
Speaker 6: four matches and yes, don't believe any angles.
Speaker 1: Yes, well you know I I talked about this on
Speaker 1: the show last night and my good friend Paul Fontaine.
Speaker 1: I like Paul a lot, but you know, Paul said,
Speaker 1: I'll actually find it right here. He goes, he goes,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? They didn't promote anything for
Speaker 1: next week? And he had like a list of matches
Speaker 1: that they went over for next week. And the list
Speaker 1: of matches was I mean, it was like a bunch
Speaker 1: of matches that they'd been building up for a while,
Speaker 1: and like nobody involved in the matches from for next
Speaker 1: week were even on the show. It's like, how is
Speaker 1: that going to get new people who tuned in excited
Speaker 1: to watch the show next week when you've advertised a
Speaker 1: bunch of matches of people that weren't even on the show,
Speaker 1: Like you should have had things on the show to
Speaker 1: shoot a goals so people tune in for the next
Speaker 1: week's show, not a standalone show anyway. Whatever. Back in
Speaker 1: the moment, Observer Live.
Speaker 2: You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez
Speaker 2: and Mike simper Vivi on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
Speaker 1: I have more to say, so listen. So does Max apparently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so here's here's a thing. I'll meet you for sequal.
Speaker 1: You take care, old Max.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: So the thing to me is this, okay, like, what
Speaker 1: what's what's the point of the raw debut on Netflix.
Speaker 1: I watched the show. I didn't mind the show. I
Speaker 1: mean it was it felt very long. But I didn't
Speaker 1: watch it and go this show is is terrible. But
Speaker 1: I did look at it as are we gonna hook
Speaker 1: any new viewers with this show? Because if you look
Speaker 1: at the success of WWE, and you can see it
Speaker 1: watching the show. I mean these fans, I mean seventeen
Speaker 1: thousand people. It was the highest and this is true,
Speaker 1: it was the highest gate ever for an arena show
Speaker 1: in the history of WWE. I mean they sold seventeen
Speaker 1: thousand tickets at sky high prices for this show and
Speaker 1: sold the place out. And you know, these fans, they're fans.
Speaker 1: Whatever you personally, listener think of the show. Their fans
Speaker 1: are eating this up, okay, And they have regained a
Speaker 1: lot of fans that they lost in you know, the
Speaker 1: twenty tens, and you know, up through twenty nineteen and
Speaker 1: early twenty twenties, and how have they done that. They
Speaker 1: didn't bring those fans back front with like one off
Speaker 1: shows featuring old people. They got those fans back because
Speaker 1: the weekly episodic storytelling is a thousand times better than
Speaker 1: it was five years ago. Okay, So to me, if
Speaker 1: you have a show like this where the idea is
Speaker 1: we are gonna have a ton of new eyeballs on tonight,
Speaker 1: to me, it's like, well, highlight what you've been doing well,
Speaker 1: which is episodic storytelling and shooting angles. So Paul here
Speaker 1: says there's no hook for next week. They did a
Speaker 1: whole three minute segment running down the card for next week,
Speaker 1: the finals of the Women's Intercontinental title tournament, Seamus versus Kaiser,
Speaker 1: Gable versus e lucid Or who's probably Penta, and Damien
Speaker 1: Priest versus Finn Valor in a street fight, and he
Speaker 1: is correct, they did run all of that down. However,
Speaker 1: those matches mean something to you if you are a
Speaker 1: regular raw viewer watching the show every week. Okay, but
Speaker 1: the idea here is we've got new people tuning in
Speaker 1: or lapsed fans giving us another shot. Okay, So of
Speaker 1: the lineup next week, the finals of the intercontinal women's
Speaker 1: title tournament. We saw neither of the women on this show.
Speaker 1: They may no appearances Seamous versus Kaiser, We saw neither
Speaker 1: of these men on the show. They made no appearance.
Speaker 1: Gable and a Luchador. We saw Gable on the show,
Speaker 1: but all he said was I want a lucchador, and
Speaker 1: they didn't tell you who the luchador was. Now we know.
Speaker 1: But if you're a lapse viewer, a new viewer, et cetera,
Speaker 1: you have absolutely no idea who this person is going
Speaker 1: to be. You may not even know them when they
Speaker 1: show up. And Damien Price versus Finnbller Street Fight, we
Speaker 1: saw neither of these people on the show. They made
Speaker 1: no appearances whatsoever. So if you're a new viewer, what
Speaker 1: does any of that mean to you? Absolutely nothing. Instead,
Speaker 1: you saw a show where Rock Blue off his feud
Speaker 1: with Cody, they're friends, Rock Blue off his feud with Roman,
Speaker 1: they're friends. All of the other matches had clean finishes.
Speaker 1: They blew off all of those matches. It's like, what
Speaker 1: is the incentive for a non fan or a new
Speaker 1: fan or a lapsed fan to tune in next week?
Speaker 1: Because of drone shots? Or great production. That is not
Speaker 1: what brought people back. Even when WWE was at its worst,
Speaker 1: they still had great production except for all the camera cuts.
Speaker 1: So that was my issue with the show. They shot
Speaker 1: this like a one off tune in one time and
Speaker 1: then go back to whatever you're doing, as opposed to, hey,
Speaker 1: you should start watching this. We got some good stuff
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 6: And I would also state too that announcing all of
Speaker 6: those matches, I believe we're done. At times where I
Speaker 6: was like forwarding through, like I'm hitting that ten second
Speaker 6: ahead thing because it's like they'll show celebrities in the crowd.
Speaker 6: I'm like, I don't care, and then they'll show oh,
Speaker 6: it's Kofey and Xavier standing in the crowd talking, but
Speaker 6: it's like whatever, it's just more talking.
Speaker 7: I was.
Speaker 6: Skipping the vast majority of that because it was like
Speaker 6: I just couldn't wait that long between matches. I was
Speaker 6: just getting bored with just seeing people stand there.
Speaker 1: Oh there was a lot of standing, and yes they
Speaker 1: did show some of these people standing in the crowd,
Speaker 1: but that is not shooting an angle or getting over
Speaker 1: the characters, or getting over the rivalry or doing whatever
Speaker 1: to make sure that you want to watch next week,
Speaker 1: so very quickly, he can give some thoughts on this
Speaker 1: as we go through the show, Lance. So it opened
Speaker 1: up with, you know, Hunter did a promo, and then
Speaker 1: Rock came out and Rock did a big promo being
Speaker 1: a total babyface, and then he put over Cody Rhodes,
Speaker 1: and then he put over Roman Reigns, and then he
Speaker 1: hugged Cody in the crowd, and then he said he
Speaker 1: would be watching the next match. This took about twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: although ironically, of all the shows, the show where they
Speaker 1: have no time constraints, they could have gone nine hours
Speaker 1: if they wanted. This may have been the first time
Speaker 1: in history Rock actually hit his timeque so that was ironic.
Speaker 1: Then we had Roman and solo tribal rules. I said
Speaker 1: to Dave that this was like a WrestleMania main event.
Speaker 1: He said it was not. But let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: Everybody go back and watch the Rock and Cody Rhoades
Speaker 1: at WrestleMania in the main event. It was literally the
Speaker 1: exact same match. It was slow early and then eighty
Speaker 1: five million people ran in and then they went to
Speaker 1: the finish. This match was exactly like the WrestleMania main
Speaker 1: event with Cody and Roman reigns. But it was with
Speaker 1: Solo Soca and it wasn't a bad match. It was
Speaker 1: boring early, but like the people did get in all
Speaker 1: the run ins, they did get into the near falls,
Speaker 1: they did chant this is awesome. They chanted for Cody
Speaker 1: to come out. Then they hit his music and he
Speaker 1: went crazy. All of the baby faces did big dives,
Speaker 1: and then Roman ends up spearing Solo and pinning him
Speaker 1: clean in the middle of the ring. And then Yes,
Speaker 1: the Rock came out. He put the ula far around
Speaker 1: the neck of the of Roman Reigns. He hugged him
Speaker 1: and that was that. Glad that feud's all blown off.
Speaker 6: Well, the thing is like, I haven't been watching and
Speaker 6: I didn't watch Mania last year, so I really wasn't
Speaker 6: aware of the previous angle, and this just felt like
Speaker 6: the return much like Taker and Hogan. It's just like
Speaker 6: a guy from the past came down endorsed the guy
Speaker 6: from the future. Yay, great seeing you again. Nostalgia at Rock, Like,
Speaker 6: that's more what it felt like to me as someone
Speaker 6: who wasn't aware of all of the story of the
Speaker 6: Roman bloodline with Rock, it just felt like Rock returned,
Speaker 6: did a celebrity cameo appearance and endorsed the current guy
Speaker 6: and left. That's what it felt like to me, not
Speaker 6: being aware of the previous angle.
Speaker 1: And that's what it felt like to everybody watching this
Speaker 1: show for the first time or coming back. Wow, he
Speaker 1: likes that guy. Hey, at least this time when the
Speaker 1: Rock acknowledged Roman reigns, fans didn't boom out of the
Speaker 1: building like they did about six years ago. We had
Speaker 1: all the celebs in the crowd. Then John Cena comes out.
Speaker 1: This guy does a nine hour promo and the gist
Speaker 1: of it is he's beginning his final run. He has
Speaker 1: not won a match, he claimed in two thousand, four
Speaker 1: hundred and forty six days, which is true, but also
Speaker 1: not true. It's all semantics. He actually has not won
Speaker 1: a televised singles match in twy four hundred and forty
Speaker 1: six days. The last time he won a televised singles
Speaker 1: match was Triple H at the Greatest Royal Rumble, which
Speaker 1: was like twenty eighteen. However, he has won many televised
Speaker 1: matches in multi person matches, and he's won many singles
Speaker 1: matches on the road. But he's pretending he can't win.
Speaker 1: Therefore he could never win that seventeenth title. But then
Speaker 1: he remembers, well, golly, there's a Royal Rumble coming up,
Speaker 1: maybe I should enter. So he is in the Royal
Speaker 1: Rumble and he will never give up and that's that.
Speaker 6: But he said the Royal Rumble's basically a lottery. Like
Speaker 6: to me, it's like, oh, it just it tells the narrative,
Speaker 6: which I've complained about before, Like fans love the Royal Rumble,
Speaker 6: but it's like you're saying that the most important match
Speaker 6: of the year is just a lottery crapshoot that this
Speaker 6: guy that hasn't won a match in six years could earn.
Speaker 6: Like it just seems like a really weird story.
Speaker 1: And then we had a Logan Paul promo where this
Speaker 1: this fella actually said, I am dedicating myself one hundred
Speaker 1: percent to WWE. No more outside projects, no more side hustle,
Speaker 1: one hundred percent WWE.
Speaker 6: It's a work, brother, It's more than work.
Speaker 1: So just just a lie, flat out. Why live Morgan
Speaker 1: Rhea Ripley for the WE title? Originally they announced this
Speaker 1: was the last woman Standing match, and uh, I had
Speaker 1: some people on the internet going, well, you know, they
Speaker 1: took the stipulation away because it would be too close
Speaker 1: to tribal combat. And it's like they just figured that out.
Speaker 1: They advertised both of these matches for weeks and weeks.
Speaker 1: They didn't just figure that out. For whatever reason, they
Speaker 1: just had a straight match. Ria beat her with the
Speaker 1: uh riptide. Two of them, pinder them tried to make
Speaker 1: up with her. Rhea kicked him in the Jimmy hit
Speaker 1: him with the riptide, and then rode around the ring.
Speaker 1: Actually she didn't. Undertaker came out in his motorcycle and
Speaker 1: they posed together and then he left without her a
Speaker 1: true gentleman. Adam Pierce.
Speaker 6: Yes, I just thought it was interesting that the match,
Speaker 6: like Match one in match two were so similar, like
Speaker 6: regardless of that they changed the steps so it wasn't identical.
Speaker 6: It's like they both had outside interference. They both had
Speaker 6: finishers kicked out of and then the babyface won by
Speaker 6: hitting their finish twice and winning. It was very similar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then we had Adam Pearce meets with American Maid,
Speaker 1: and this week Chad's story is there are rumors I
Speaker 1: have trouble with luchadors. Get me the best luchador on
Speaker 1: the planet next week, Pierce said, I have the perfect
Speaker 1: luchador for you. So Hunter's pretty much said, it's who
Speaker 1: you think it is. So unless you think it's someone
Speaker 1: other than Penta, well that's who it is. Then we
Speaker 1: had clips of the rock.
Speaker 6: Leaving, drinking, then driving.
Speaker 1: He did swig from a bottle of tequila and then
Speaker 1: jump into his car.
Speaker 6: How does how does how does someone not realize that's
Speaker 6: a bad idea?
Speaker 1: Well that's a great question, all right, we'll talk more
Speaker 1: about this after the break Observer Live.
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Speaker 2: You were listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez
Speaker 2: and Mike semper VV on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
Speaker 1: In the show Brian Alvarez here Wrestling Observer Alive like
Speaker 1: simper VV also for US actually is not here. Lance
Speaker 1: is here anyway, Jay Whu's and Drew McIntyre. I was
Speaker 1: told yesterday that Jay's entrance was going to be incredible,
Speaker 1: and it was. He actually probably has the most over
Speaker 1: entrance in all of WWE right now. I mean, people
Speaker 1: go nuts for this entrance, including Michael Cole, Pat McAfee.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they didn't help, but dude looked like a gigantic
Speaker 6: star with that entrance. That was impressive.
Speaker 1: I thought Cole was gonna need a to fibrillator. God,
Speaker 1: they're trying to dance on the table and Cole sounds
Speaker 1: like he's about to die, and at McAfee goes be
Speaker 1: an athlete, brother, He was not an athlete anyway. Jay
Speaker 1: beat him, spared him. Actually no, he did a crucifix
Speaker 1: after there was a Claymore attempt. It was a cool finish,
Speaker 1: not a lot of heat. And he was basically getting
Speaker 1: Jay a win back because he was the guy that
Speaker 1: got pinned by Solo to try to get Solo over
Speaker 1: better late than never for that match with Roman on
Speaker 1: this show.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he keeked him off like a giant star. That
Speaker 6: entrance was pretty darn impressive.
Speaker 1: We had a bunch of other stuff, including Paul saying
Speaker 1: there would be a worldwide acknowledgment celebration for Roman. Apparently
Speaker 1: that will be January twenty seventh, which is Monday Night Raw.
Speaker 1: Roman is going to be a regular on Raw through WrestleMania,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure by then, you know, we'll be down
Speaker 1: to a normal Raw audience for rock showing up to
Speaker 1: beat this guy up. Then we had everyone's main man,
Speaker 1: Hulkgan coming out.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 1: He came out his music. It's a big pop. Then
Speaker 1: they turn the music off and everyone starts booing, and
Speaker 1: then he goes, I've been in the business forty years.
Speaker 1: Best part of my life being in WWE. They boo
Speaker 1: had a lot of tag partners, but you, fans, you're
Speaker 1: the best tag partners because you stuck with me through thicket.
Speaker 1: Then they start booing. Louder I have some new beer.
Speaker 1: He says. They bowed the beer, but you know they
Speaker 1: like beers, so wasn't that bad? Name drops Randy Savage.
Speaker 1: He got booed, Andre, he got booed and then he
Speaker 1: goes and the best tag team partner Netflix, and man,
Speaker 1: they booed the hell out of Netflix with all of
Speaker 1: the Netflix execs there. So Hogan tears off his shirt.
Speaker 1: He's got a Netflix shirt underneath, SLINKs to the back.
Speaker 6: This was a disaster.
Speaker 1: You don't say.
Speaker 6: Everything that they were trying to promote. He managed to
Speaker 6: get booed. And if you get beer booed at a
Speaker 6: wrestling show, you're really doing something. But yeah, I think
Speaker 6: they need to really rethink their use of Hulk Hogan
Speaker 6: because that was not good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen a lot of people talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: Hogan and Trump, And let me tell you something. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people or there's a lot of reasons
Speaker 1: people don't like Hulk Hogan. And they did not boo
Speaker 1: him on this show because of Trump. And I can
Speaker 1: tell you that for a fact, because the Undertaker showed
Speaker 1: up in his motorcycle and that guy didn't get booed
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 6: Well, the thing is, Hogan didn't get booed with his
Speaker 6: music playing Taker had the noisy motorcycle and his music
Speaker 6: and he never spoke. They never gave anyone a chance.
Speaker 6: Like I agree, I don't think Taker would have been
Speaker 6: viewed as as Hogan was, but they were in a
Speaker 6: much safer position with Taker because the crowd would never
Speaker 6: get give them the chance to have silence to boo him.
Speaker 1: That is true. But I also did hear from a
Speaker 1: lot of people who were in the building and they said, like,
Speaker 1: nobody bowed the Undertaker. Everyone did boo Hogan. But I
Speaker 1: did have people say it wasn't quite as bad as
Speaker 1: it appeared on television because there were actually a lot
Speaker 1: of people that were cheering him, but the people that
Speaker 1: were booing him really didn't like him, and the booze
Speaker 1: like drowned out all the people cheering.
Speaker 6: You could see people in the crowd giving him the
Speaker 6: thumbs down and everything.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they did not like Hulkogan.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, there's lots of reasons why people don't.
Speaker 1: Then the main event was Punk and seth Rawlins, and man,
Speaker 1: I'll give him this. I mean, they worked really hard
Speaker 1: to the point that Punk looked like he was gonna
Speaker 1: die by the end, just like they're just you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things. It's much harder to work
Speaker 1: a fight, not like a fake like a Steve Austin
Speaker 1: brawling in the crowd or whatever. But like when you're
Speaker 1: kind of laying it in a little more and you're
Speaker 1: giving a little more, try to make it a little
Speaker 1: more real, so to speak, which they weren't like doing
Speaker 1: it like it was a shoot. But you know they
Speaker 1: do kicks of the face. We're like a little little tighter,
Speaker 1: and you know they got I mean, Punk got tired Seth.
Speaker 1: Seth didn't really get tired, but the fans were into it,
Speaker 1: dueling chance and at the end, like the story was,
Speaker 1: they kept hitting each other with each other's finishes, like
Speaker 1: Seth kept hitting him with the GTS and then finally
Speaker 1: he goes for this superplex in the falcon arrow. Punk
Speaker 1: turns it into a GTS and then collapses to his knees.
Speaker 1: I can't even believe this finish. Seth falls onto his
Speaker 1: shoulders as he stumbles off the ropes, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this guy's gonna be able to
Speaker 1: get up, And he actually did it the first time,
Speaker 1: but he managed to get him up the second time
Speaker 1: he hit that GTS and then he died. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: he's on his way to I presume some sort of
Speaker 1: title match on Night one or to a Mania left
Speaker 1: to see which one. But it was a good main event.
Speaker 1: It was a solid main event.
Speaker 6: Punk takes the Greatest Go to sleeps his own move.
Speaker 6: He was giving a clinic on how to take his
Speaker 6: finish because he would tuck his chin and lead with
Speaker 6: his forehead and take that right in the head. It
Speaker 6: looked awesome. And the one thing that I like, because
Speaker 6: I'm a big proponent of this, it's like, whether he
Speaker 6: was legit that tired or selling some It's like, if
Speaker 6: you want a match to feel big and a win
Speaker 6: to feel significant, you should look like you were in
Speaker 6: a war at the end of it. Well, of course,
Speaker 6: and these guys really did that, So I'm I'm a
Speaker 6: fan of that, whether it was you know, one percent
Speaker 6: selling and ninety nine percent legit or the other way around.
Speaker 6: I don't think people should look fresh at the end
Speaker 6: of a long battle, So kudos.
Speaker 1: Well, we got NXT New Year's Evil tonight with Trick
Speaker 1: Williams against Oba Femi and Eddie Thorpe and way Roxane
Speaker 1: Perez and Julia for the NXT Women's title, which I
Speaker 1: would say is like ninety nine percent a title change.
Speaker 1: Lexus King Charlie Dempsey in a non Heritage Cup match
Speaker 1: for the Heritage Cup because Ava is completely incompetent. We've
Speaker 1: got Stephanie Vekir Kolonie, Jordan Kora, Jayden loloveis in a
Speaker 1: Number one contenders match for the NXT North American title.
Speaker 1: We have Fallon JC and Jasmine against Shatzi, Gigi and Tatum.
Speaker 1: And yes, yes, The Rock is going to appear at
Speaker 1: NXT tonight. Can you believe it?
Speaker 6: It'd be really interesting to see how many tickets they
Speaker 6: move off of this. It will be maybe he'll show
Speaker 6: up and give Avas some logistic pointers on making better decisions.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here's the here's the update I got. The
Speaker 1: NXT show is at the Expo Hall, not the Shrine.
Speaker 1: They had seventeen hundred seats set up and they sold
Speaker 1: those out. Oh so, but like the Rock is showing
Speaker 1: up at an NXT show in front of one thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred people, Okay.
Speaker 7: Go for it.
Speaker 6: Brother operating on the c dub.
Speaker 1: Oh he's going to p operating all right. So I
Speaker 1: don't think they'll sell any more tickets though, because I
Speaker 1: don't think there are anymore.
Speaker 6: Are you gonna revamp your prediction of the massive female
Speaker 6: call up now that SmackDown's going back to two hours.
Speaker 1: Brett, I don't know, dude. I mean, they have to
Speaker 1: call up some women because they don't have enough women
Speaker 1: for two titles. But I don't know how many they'll
Speaker 1: call up. I don't know what's going on, dude. I
Speaker 1: can't answer this question for you. I'm flabbergasted.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and they have to call them up because they've
Speaker 6: got so many women in nxt.
Speaker 1: Roxane should be up immediately after losing to Julia. I mean,
Speaker 1: debut you are and the Women's Royal Rumble, have a
Speaker 1: win for all I care and h and let's go.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I would prefer a slower start. I like watching
Speaker 6: people climb the ladder and not jump to the top
Speaker 6: of it. But I agree she should be called up.
Speaker 6: She's been there long enough.
Speaker 1: The three hour SmackDown debuted at one point five million viewers,
Speaker 1: second on the primetime cable rankings point four five eighteen
Speaker 1: to forty nine and uh yeah, good number. Can't wait
Speaker 1: till it goes back to two hours. It's weird though,
Speaker 1: because I mean, like the way it's actually amazing. It's
Speaker 1: just amazing watching wrestling. I watch a lot of wrestling
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I think I watch more
Speaker 1: than most because I think most people that like WWE
Speaker 1: don't watch AW, and most of do watch AW don't
Speaker 1: watch WWE, and most of what Anyway, the point of
Speaker 1: this is, pacing is so important in these shows. That
Speaker 1: SmackDown was a It was like a regular SmackDown show.
Speaker 1: They did matches, they did interviews, they did angles, they
Speaker 1: did video packages, and the fact is, like I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it, it flew by because it didn't like the
Speaker 1: main event. I really thought the main event dragged on
Speaker 1: that show, and it had all the biggest stars, but
Speaker 1: it was it was easy to get through. I got
Speaker 1: through that show in ninety minutes, just and I only
Speaker 1: skipped commercials, and I only skipped like if they did
Speaker 1: a recap of something I already saw on the show.
Speaker 1: Ninety minutes. I got through a three hour SmackDown and
Speaker 1: it was just like, Okay, you know, I can I
Speaker 1: can handle that. This raw show, golly I had. I
Speaker 1: watched it in two parts. I watched. I watched like
Speaker 1: an hour or so, and then like I put the
Speaker 1: kids to bed and I watched another two hours or whatever.
Speaker 1: And even though there was like a break in the middle,
Speaker 1: I was like, God, I've been watching this show for
Speaker 1: like seven hours. Is this show ever gonna end? And
Speaker 1: part of it was just like God, there's so much
Speaker 1: nothing happening that just causes time to like slow down.
Speaker 1: Like I wanted to watch Jay's entrance, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to watch like, you know, Roman's entrance and see the
Speaker 1: production and everything, but there's just so nothing happening. And
Speaker 1: it just went on for hours and hours and hours.
Speaker 6: And it was longer for me because we didn't get commercials.
Speaker 6: We just got action the whole time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and those of you that didn't get commercials, you
Speaker 1: also saw things we didn't see, Like there's a segment
Speaker 1: where the New Day came out and got booed. We
Speaker 1: never saw that. Really, No, it wasn't on the show
Speaker 1: at all. And actually I can find because somebody actually
Speaker 1: sent me a list. They go, you didn't talk about
Speaker 1: this and this and this, and I was like what,
Speaker 1: And then they explained all this stuff.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because oh here it is.
Speaker 1: Here it is, so this guy goes I was listening
Speaker 1: to you on Observer Radio this morning in your raw recap.
Speaker 1: You missed so much stuff. I'm wondering if the US
Speaker 1: version was different than the Canadian version. The Canadian one
Speaker 1: had no commercials. It was three hours street non shop. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's very different. We had tons of commercials in the US.
Speaker 1: So what we missed was the New Day segment bashing
Speaker 1: the crowd explaining why the tag match with Ray was off.
Speaker 1: No idea cross and miss segment. Never saw it. Rhea
Speaker 1: and Damon had a title celebration where Priest challenged Bellor
Speaker 1: to a street fight next week. Never saw it, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, just never saw it. Wasn't on the show.
Speaker 6: Yeah, those were all like interview segments with like Jackie
Speaker 6: Redman from Like a Box. I fast forward a lot
Speaker 6: of them, but I saw them, and yeah, we would
Speaker 6: get what felt like a pitch to commercial break and
Speaker 6: the screen to go black for half a second and
Speaker 6: then it'd come back and we just continue watching the show.
Speaker 6: So we had if there was a commercial during a match,
Speaker 6: we saw the whole match, and we saw all of
Speaker 6: these other segments.
Speaker 1: This guy goes, you need ad free Netflix. I have
Speaker 1: ad free. That doesn't mean commercial free. In the US.
Speaker 1: When you're watching raw, they're gonna air commercials. It's like
Speaker 1: a normal raw show. I am on Premium four K.
Speaker 1: I'm in the US, and we get commercials during the show,
Speaker 1: and everyone's like, you need a VPN. I don't want
Speaker 1: to watch the whole show. I'm happy with commercials. God,
Speaker 1: how much time do you think I have here? Jimminy Christmas? Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's go to a break. You know what I like
Speaker 1: breaks back in a moment. It's ever Live.
Speaker 2: You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez
Speaker 2: and Mike semperviv on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
Speaker 1: All right, two things. First off, NXC sold out oney
Speaker 1: seven and ninety three tickets for the Rock tonight, so
Speaker 1: there's that. And yeah, I'm trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: is going on with Netflix because like several people here said,
Speaker 1: they got no ads the entire show.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 1: Like, I'm on the highest tier, I'm on Premium four K,
Speaker 1: no ads, I got commercials all night. They've got commercials
Speaker 1: all night.
Speaker 6: Will there be commercials if you click on it today
Speaker 6: and watch it on delay?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because I watched it on delay, which is fine.
Speaker 1: I don't care, but I probably should see all the segments.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Man, weird all this technology. I could
Speaker 1: barely even like I'll say one thing, like I got
Speaker 1: on and apparently this wasn't a very widespread problem, but
Speaker 1: I did google it, and there are many people that
Speaker 1: do have this problem, like this Netflix, like they're password
Speaker 1: sharing gimmick now. They it would not let me watch
Speaker 1: on my phone or my iPad. It said this device
Speaker 1: is not part of your household, and I was like, what,
Speaker 1: I'm in my house. It's like, make sure you're on
Speaker 1: the same wireless network. It's like, I am, well, not
Speaker 1: let me watch it. The only thing it would allow
Speaker 1: me to watch on was one TV on the on
Speaker 1: the highest tier. And so the only way I could
Speaker 1: figure out how to get around this is I had
Speaker 1: to log out of everything. I had to try to
Speaker 1: log in on the TV, use my iPad to take
Speaker 1: a picture of the QR code to log into the TV,
Speaker 1: and that allowed me to use my iPad for that moment.
Speaker 1: But like, I don't know if that's gonna work next week,
Speaker 1: and so I google it. It's like yeah, people with Apple,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's like and then the most annoying
Speaker 1: thing is all of the things on the internet telling
Speaker 1: you how to do it. They go go to Netflix
Speaker 1: on the TV and go onto the left hand menu,
Speaker 1: and they'll have this like thing there, which of course
Speaker 1: wasn't there on my Apple TV. And then there's a
Speaker 1: little thing that goes If that doesn't work, you're gonna
Speaker 1: need to find another device. It's like what what? So anyway,
Speaker 1: good luck everybody. Thanks Lance. I'll talk to y'all next time.
Speaker 1: Prediction show tomorrow. Wrestling Observer Live. You have been listening
Speaker 1: to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side
Speaker 1: Network