Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Kurt Angle Controversy, Billy Gunn Criticism, Was Shawn Michaels A Draw? More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.

Russo says he usually gives WrestleZone and WrestlingInc. a pass when he rips apart dirt sheet opinions, but this past week both of these sites published stories that they simply shouldn’t have. Nearly a decade ago Kurt Angle was involved in a very troublesome relationship, and he has spent the years since getting over that time in his life.

This past week Angle’s ex went on a Twitter rampage, bringing up things that have been buried for years, and for some reason these wrestling sites thought it was a good idea to publish stories on this. Russo thinks this was an embarrassing thing to do, and he’d love to get an explanation as to why either of these sites chose to publish those stories. By publishing these stories they’ve given this women attention, and have jeopardized Angle’s position in WWE.

Lane plays a clip of Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez from this past week, when they were discussing who Alvarez would be able to have a good match with in NJPW. Meltzer says that Tanahashi would be a good choice because he can have a good match with anyone, except for Billy Gunn evidently.

Russo says that Billy Gunn is a legend in this business, and at 53 years of age he looks better than ever. Russo says he’d love for Meltzer to run into Gunn in the street someday, because he’d run away like a scared little girl. Russo adds that Alvarez is an independent wrestler because he’s not good enough to have great matches with anybody.

The Taz Show Recap – RAW Analysis, Angle & Jordan Storyline Feels Strange, Tweaking Cass As A Heel, More!

Block 1:

Taz opens today’s show speaking about last night’s episode of RAW.

Taz thinks the progression of this Kurt Angle/Jason Jordan storyline is getting a little strange. The storyline as a whole doesn’t bother him, but he way Angle and Jordan are performing is really weird right now. Taz thinks there’s another part of this story that hasn’t been revealed yet, and a part of him thought Jordan was actually going to turn heel during his debut RAW match last night.

Taz also thinks that WWE should change up Jordan’s ring gear. He doesn’t think Jordan should be using the red, white and blue colours for his entrance or for his ring gear. Instead, he should use gold as his primary colour, so there’ll still be a connection to Angle while he establishes his own brand as well.

A listener calls into the show and asks Taz how he’d fantasy book a Shield reunion. Taz says he wouldn’t book a Shield reunion at all, and he wishes WWE would stop teasing it. He wouldn’t have even had Ambrose and Rollins team up last night, because he doesn’t see a reason to reunite those three men. They’ve all gone out on their own and have become singles stars, so there’s no reason to reunite them right now.

Another listener calls into the show and talks about how good Roman Reigns is at selling, especially for a big man. Taz agrees entirely and says that selling is just another thing that Reigns does not get enough credit for.

X-Pac 1, 2, 360 Recap w/ Alex Riley – WWE Release, Pursuing A Career in Acting, Will He Wrestle Again? More!

X-Pac opens today’s show speaking about Shane McMahon’s forced helicopter landing from last week. He says that it didn’t surprise him for a second that Shane came out of that incident uninjured, and it was amazing to see how calm Shane was when he was being interviewed after the fact.

Speaking about last Monday night’s revelation that Jason Jordan is Kurt Angle’s son, X-Pac says for a minute he thought the whole thing might have been a shoot. He says that Angle is known to have had relationships with African American women in the past, and the age gap definitely works out.

X-Pac welcomes Kevin Kiley Jr. (Alex Riley) to the show.

Riley says that he was always a big fan of X-Pac from his time in WWE during the attitude era, and X-Pac always came off as a very real character who had a natural confidence in himself. X-Pac thanks him and says that he was never one to cut a masterful promo, but he was able to make his character work in different ways.

Riley informs that after he parted ways with WWE he immediately wanted to pursue acting. He says that his short stint at broadcasting in NXT was fun, but at the end of the day he wanted to venture out on his own. He was lucky to garner some interest in Hollywood right away and he soon landed a role in the Netflix series GLOW.

Brock Lesnar’s Status for Tonight’s RAW Episode

Brock Lesnar is not scheduled to make an appearance on tonight’s episode of RAW.

Kurt Angle is expected to announce plans for Lesnar defending the WWE Universal Title at WWE SummerSlam tonight. It’s being rumored that he will be announcing a Fatal 4-Way for the Championship.

Here is the current list of WWE dates Lesnar is confirmed for:

SmackDown Live Event: July 29th (Detroit, MI)
RAW: July 31st (Pittsburgh, PA)
SmackDown Live Event: August 12th (Tampa, FL)
RAW: August 14th (Boston, MA)
SummerSlam: August 20th (Brooklyn, NY)
RAW: August 28th (Memphis, TN)
WWE No Mercy: September 24th (Los Angeles, CA)
RAW Live Event: September 30th (Winnipeg, MB)

Steve Austin Reacts to Jason Jordan Being Kurt Angle’s Son

Steve Austin made the following remarks on the latest installment of his podcast about the big angle storyline involving Kurt Angle with Jason Jordan being revealed as Angle’s son:

“I like the fact that they are shooting a hell of a big angle. They got a lot of negative responses but hey man, it was a big-time response seemingly from everybody. Big time angle, lot of rub for the kid. He’s a good-looking guy, read about him when I was coming over here to talk to you on the podcast. Outstanding credentials as an amateur, could possibly have a bright future ahead of him and if it is done off the back of this angle, more power to the kid, good luck to him. Is this leading to a betrayal of Kurt’s trust or somebody trying to set him up to oust him from his position? And will it result in Kurt Angle returning to the ring to wrestle at a big-time Pay-Per-View?”

You can listen to the full podcast at this link.

The Revival Want a Shot at The Gold

After their victory over The Hardy Boyz Monday night, The Revival want a shot at the Tag Team Championship titles from Cesaro & Sheamus. Dash Wilder posted the following today on Twitter, telling Jason Jordan to ask his “daddy” Kurt Angle when they will get their shot:

Speaking of the Revival, WWE.com caught up with them after their victory Monday night and they talked about being the top guys. You can check out their remarks in the video embedded below:

WWE Has Long Term Plans for Kurt Angle & Jason Jordan

It looks like the American Alpha team is done for good after Jason Jordan was revealed to be Kurt Angle child on Monday’s episode of RAW.

Pro Wrestling Sheet reports that Jason Jordan will receive a solid midcard level push on the RAW brand and will not be returning to the SmackDown Live brand. His former American Alpha partner Chad Gable will not be making the switch to RAW anytime in the near future either, so the team is basically done at this point.

In regards to the on-air relationship between Kurt and Jason, it’s being said that the two are expected to have lengthy storyline over the next few months as the Olympic athlete tries to be a father figure for Jason.