Lawler is joined on today’s show by his co-host Glenn Moore.

Moore informs that Jim Cornette will be the guest on next week’s show, and Lawler points out that Cornette appears to be the talk of the wrestling business again after getting into a verbal altercation with former WWE Superstar Santino last weekend.

Moore adds that Cornette apparently revealed himself to the studio audience at Bruce Prichard’s live show and Lawler has a hard time believing that. He says that until Cornette comes out and admits to doing that he’s going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Lawler jokes that Cornette has two languages: english and profanity.

Moore is upset at the fact that Lawler is not a playable character in the WWE 2K18 video game. Moore points out that Lawler has the most Championship wins in wrestling history and he should be in this game. Lawler says he hasn’t be contacted about having a character in the game and he thinks that could be due to the fact that WWE thinks of him solely as a colour commentator now.

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Russo is joined on today’s show by Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno) and his co-host Jeff Lane.

Russo begins today’s show by discussing a recent quote from Dave Meltzer. This past week Meltzer was quoted saying that wrestling storylines are at their best when they’re predictable. When your storylines aren’t predictable you’re often weakening your product in Meltzer’s opinion.

Gilbertti points out that Meltzer’s only concern is the matches, and he couldn’t care less about the storylines. He recalls Meltzer’s analysis of shows during the attitude era when he consistently complained about the fact that the matches were too short, and this was during a period when storytelling was far from predictable.

Russo comments about the fact that A.J. Styles hasn’t been wrestling on Smackdown Live lately. According to Meltzer, WWE has been saving Styles for the dark matches so the live audience stays for 205 Live. Gilbertti says it doesn’t matter anyways because there’s no one showing up to these shows anymore. Russo can’t comprehend placing priority on the live audience especially when ratings continue to decline.

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Lawler is joined on today’s show by his co-host Glenn Moore.

Lawler sends his best wishes to the residents of Houston, and all those affected by the terrible storm that has resulted in severe flooding.

He says he had a great time returning to the announce booth for Monday Night RAW last week, and it was quite an entertaining show to be a part of. Lawler laughs when he recalls introducing Pelvis Wesley from Southpaw Regional Wrestling, because it was pretty evident to him that very few people in Memphis knew who that was.

Lawler informs that through the entire 3-hour broadcast, he never heard from Vince McMahon in his headset once. He says that’s usually a sign that you’re doing a good job because if you say something stupid, he’ll be in your ear rather quickly.

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Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Lane mentions that rumours have circulated that Enzo Amore is deathly afraid of heights, and WWE made a joke of him by having him suspended above the ring in a shark cage during a SummerSlam match featuring Big Show and Big Cass. Russo says that if Amore is actually afraid of heights this was more of a rib than WWE trying to make a point.

Gilbertti says that if he was backstage he would have suggested that WWE officials not go ahead with that angle because if Amore ever gets angry and leaves the company, he could very well sue them for putting him in that position.

Gilbertti points out that he feels bad for Corbin after his failed cash-in attempt last Tuesday, but he admits that those final few minutes of Smackdown Live made for great television. He adds that WWE appears to be booking to bury people as of late because they’ve buried multiple talents like Bayley, Amore, and Corbin, while failing to get anyone over to a high degree.

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Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-h0st Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Russo opens today’s show by asking Gilbertti about the Japanese style of wrestling. Gilbertti says that even 20-30 years ago the Japanese style of wrestling was still ‘strong style’, and when all the great North American wrestlers worked over there they had to adapt to that style. However, when they returned to North America they never thought about bringing that Japanese style back with them.

Over the last few years wrestlers have become marks for reading about how good their own matches are, and when someone like Dave Meltzer continuously promotes the ‘strong style’, wrestlers began adapting that style. This is a huge mistake in Gilbertti’s opinion, but wrestlers continue to suck up to these dirt sheet writers in an attempt to impress the writers as well as their followers.

In Gilbertti’s opinion, another failed concept in today’s business is the thought process that every match on a card should be the best match on the show. If every match is laid out to be the best match on the show, only one match is going to achieve that status, and all the other matches will fail. The show needs to be laid out in a way that promotes big crowd reactions throughout each match, but not every match has to be a 30- minute spotfest.

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Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Lane asks Russo and Gilbertti for their opinions on the rumours that Paige was sitting ringside at Slammiversary last weekend wearing a mask in order to protect her identity. Gilbertti says that he can’t lower his IQ enough to discuss this on an intellectual level. Russo says that if that was Paige, it’s easy to tell that this was a desperate move by her in order to get out of her contract.

Paige clearly wants to be with her boyfriend Del Rio in Global Force Wrestling, so Russo doesn’t understand why both parties can’t get on the same page here and make that release happen. WWE has actually referenced Paige’s leaked sex tape on WWE the last couple of weeks, but then they removed those references from the replays.

Gilbertti doesn’t understand this because the average age of their fans is 54, yet they’re still acting like they have to market to a young demographic. Russo says that if this was the attitude era, Del Rio would have been signed after Paige’s tape was released, and the storyline would have consisted of Del Rio and Paige accusing Xavier Woods of releasing that tape. This would have been a great storyline and everyone would have been talking about it.

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Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane, Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno), and Konnan.

Russo opens today’s show by discussing the rise in viewership for Smackdown Live this past week. The blue brand’s viewership increased by 500,000 last week and he believes that was a direct result of the booking from Sunday’s Money in the Bank PPV, specifically the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match.

Konnan agrees and although he thinks the finish could have been done better, it accomplished its goal of drawing attention to the brand. Russo points out that when you tell stories and leave viewers wondering, they will tune into the next show to see what happens.

Gilbertti says that the fan backlash over that finish was silly to begin with. He says the problem with the wrestling industry right now is that there are too few experts, and the actual experts are criticized and ridiculed by people who consider themselves experts simply because they’ve watched a lot of wrestling.

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Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Russo opens today’s show speaking about the announced match between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather. Russo thinks that McGregor’s youth could play more of a factor in this bout than people think, but Gilbertti says that McGregor has no chance in this fight whatsoever. Mayweather might be 40 years old, but he’s still in terrific shape and his age will not be a factor in this fight.

Russo believes that since this fight is scheduled for August, the hype surrounding it will have a negative impact on WWE and their build towards this year’s SummerSlam. Gilbertti doesn’t believe WWE will be affected by that because they have their niche audience, and those people are going to watch the product anyways.

Even though WWE’s television ratings continue to decline, Gilbertti doesn’t think WWE really cares about the ratings at this point, as long as their WWE Network numbers are still strong. The Network is their new major revenue stream, and the television ratings have taken a back seat. Gilbertti mentions that it’ll be interesting to see what happens to WWE’s shrinking ratings once Brock Lesnar and John Cena retire, because they’re WWE’s two biggest stars right now.

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Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Russo comments on the growing speculation online, that WWE’s promotional image for the upcoming ‘Great Balls of Fire’ PPV resembles a penis and two testicles. Sasha Banks even tweeted this week that she actually agrees with the speculation and can see the resemblance. Russo doesn’t understand why WWE would blatantly do this given their ‘PG’ environment, and the fact that their target fanbase is mostly children.

Gilbertti points out that there was a recent study which concluded that the median age of WWE’s fanbase is 54. Russo is shocked by this news but it proves what he’s been saying for a long time now, that WWE isn’t making new fans. Gilbertti says that this number has nearly doubled from 28 in 2000, and today’s fans are mostly attitude era leftovers. He adds that WWE’s fans are literally dying off.

Russo says that wrestling isn’t ‘cool’ anymore, and teenagers aren’t watching today’s product. In turn, WWE is unable to generate and maintain new fans. Gilbertti says that WWE had the biggest increase of median fan age from 2000 to 2017 out of the 25 sports that were studied.

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Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Russo asks Gilbertti about the ongoing criticism towards Jinder Mahal by some wrestling fans, who accuse him of taking steroids. Gilbertti informs that he has tried steroids in the past and from his experience, it’s entirely possible to look the way Mahal does without taking steroids. With a lot of hard work in the gym and a good diet you can achieve a physique such as Mahal’s.

Lane informs that IMPACT Wrestling and Ed Nordholm are discussing bringing Billy Corgan back into the fold, to help mediate the discussions between the promotion and Matt Hardy. The thought is that Corgan can be of some value when it comes to bridging the gap between all the parties concerning the Broken Universe.

Russo says that Nordholm has far too many distractions right now, and his recent memo to wrestling media is a prime example of this. In this memo, Nordholm made public various private conversations between himself and Matt Hardy in an attempt to prove that he has been telling the truth. Russo says that Nordholm should be more focused on trying to revive IMPACT’s on-air product.

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