The Taz Show Recap – James Ellsworth’s Release, Ranallo’s Big Error, War Games & Survivor Series Preview, More!
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Ryback opens today’s show by revealing whether he misses being on the road with WWE full time. He says that sometimes he misses the live events and the guys who he developed relationships with, but he doesn’t miss television tapings and all the ‘shit’ that comes along with being on the road 300 days a year.
He says that last week’s show made some headlines due to his recollection of a backstage scenario featuring Tyler Breeze. Some people questioned the legitimacy of Ryback’s claims, but he says that he was there in person when Vince McMahon witnessed Breeze leaving an arena early, and Breeze’s stock within WWE immediately plummeted after that.
Nonetheless, he likes what WWE is doing with Breezango right now as they continue to produce entertaining segments every week. He’s still confused by the fact that Tyler Breeze is wearing a dress every week now, but he assumes that someone backstage at WWE gets their kicks from seeing Breeze in a dress.
Ryback says he loved the Rap Battle on Smackdown Live last week between The Usos and The New Day. He says that these types of segments are what have been missing from WWE programming lately, and the ‘R rating’ line in particular proves that anything can happen on WWE programming, similar to how fans felt about the product during the attitude era.
While appearing on Hot 104.1 last week in his hometown of St. Louis, Randy Orton explained why he made his tweets about “dives” on Twitter that got everyone talking. Here is a transcript of what was said:
“I’m putting over AJ [Styles] strong, right? AJ, he has dives. A lot of guys that I work with do dives. I’ve been dived on a lot. I don’t have a problem with dives out of the ring, but when a lot of these guys, who don’t have anything to fall back on, and they’re not making any money doing it, they’re going around town wrestling on these independent shows — which is awesome, by the way. A lot of our guys, like AJ, Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins wouldn’t be here without the indie scene. But they’re smart. A lot of these guys are going to go out there and they’re going to break their neck at 23 years old, doing stuff they shouldn’t be doing.
“It’s a display of athleticism, no doubt, but … I’m not going to watch gymnastics. I want to go watch a story, a fight between a good guy and a bad guy. How many flips they do each, I’m not keeping a tally … But do you know who had my back on it? Guys like AJ. Guys that do dives and know what they’re doing … Kurt Angle texted me after that. He didn’t do dives. If he did, he would put it where it should have went … he wouldn’t have done it just to do it …
“If that’s where our business is going, to where it’s just a preconceived, choreographed match with a bunch of acrobatics — back flips, front flips, gainers off the top rope, shooting star presses, moonsaults to the floor — then I don’t want to be a part of it. But I’ll tell you what: I don’t think that’s where it’s going.”
Here is footage of Orton’s appearance on the show:
Uproxx recently interviewed the Ayatollah of Rock n’ Rolla, Chris Jericho himself. Jericho talked about a number of things, including how he balances his music career with his wrestling schedule.
When the interviewer, Brandan Stroud, asked Y2J if he would ever wrestle as a part-timer in the WWE, the self-proclaimed “G.O.A.T” had a great response and I quote: (quote credits to iwnerd.com)
“No, I won’t do it because that’s not the way it should be. When you’re there, you should go on the road. That’s how you help guys to learn. That’s how I got better. This whole year I got way better because of working with the younger guys, who then were learning from me as well. They need that. And it was a great year with just an awesome locker room, great people, lots of fun. I had as much fun out of the ring as I did in the ring. And in 2015, all I did was live events. I didn’t do TV at all. It’s like the anti-type Brock Lesnar. I wouldn’t have a problem doing that either. Maybe I’ll never go back on TV again. Maybe I’ll just do live events”
This response alone proves why Jericho is so widely respected by the wrestlers, bookers and fans alike. A legitimate legend indeed.