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

Russo addresses a tweet sent out by Kevin Gill this past week. Gill implied in the tweet that Russo attracts sexist and racist followers. Russo says that anytime someone says things like this it becomes a personal matter.

Russo’s been married to the same woman for 34 years so he has no idea how he can he be sexist. He says it’s fine to critique his work in the wrestling business, but don’t throw allegations like this around, especially when you don’t know the person you’re talking about. Russo says he hasn’t done a racist or sexist thing in his life.

Lane plays a clip of Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer from this past week, when Meltzer said that nobody goes as far back with the UFC as him and former referee John McCarthy. In the same sentence, Meltzer admitted that he doesn’t work for UFC. Russo laughs hysterically, pointing out that this is classic Meltzer, trying to take credit for things that he has nothing to do with.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Defending The Miz, Crying Over Professional Wrestling, Is Reigns’ Vest to Blame for Fan Resentment? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Garcia welcomes Trish Stratus to the show.

Stratus opens the show by talking about her illustrious WWE career. She says that her main goal during the early 2000s was to lay the groundwork which would lead to women being looked at differently in terms of what they can accomplish in the ring. She can remember saying multiple times back then, “I just want to do what the men do”.

Stratus informs that she got a call from WWE on December 26th, inviting her to take part in the inaugural Women’s Royal Rumble match. She couldn’t believe it when she got the call, and while she was honoured to be asked, she was also hesitant to accept the invitation because she hadn’t wrestled in years.

She decided to set up a ring in her friend’s gym, so she could get back in the ring and test herself. After getting in there and working out for a while, she realized wrestling was like riding a bike. She was able to execute all the old moves that fans love, and she felt very comfortable. She then confidently called WWE back and accepted the invitation.

Stratus notes that she had to make sure that she could still perform in the ring, because she didn’t want to return and be a shell of her former self. She wanted to be able to perform like she did 15 years ago, so she had make sure she still had that ability by getting back in the ring before accepting WWE’s invitation.

The post Lillian Garcia’s Chasing Glory Recap w/ Trish Stratus – RAW 25 Appearance, Preparing for Rumble Return, Favourite Women on Current Roster, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Christian opens today’s show by speaking about his experience at RAW25 last Monday. He informs that he hadn’t been backstage at RAW in a long time, but after arriving there and talking with everyone he felt like he never left. It was nice to get out in front of the crowd and get some closure on that side of his career.

He really enjoyed his segment, even though he knew going in that it was going to be short. He loves that Jason Jordan is developing a character, and the audience is eating it up right now. Edge informs that he wasn’t sure about the Jordan/Seth Rollins tag team initially, but they’ve been proving him wrong over the last couple of weeks.

Edge and Christian welcome Corey Graves to the show.

Edge asks Graves how he deals with his hefty WWE schedule. Graves says he doesn’t mind the busy schedule because he’s always preferred to be busy his entire life. Even nowadays when he’s home for 3 or 4 days on an odd week he nearly goes crazy. Edge points out that when you’re gone your family has a way of doing things, so when you get home you become a huge “fleshy wrench” that’s been thrown into their plans.

Graves informs that he had an awesome experience calling RAW 25 last Monday. He admits that he became a kid again during the Steve Austin/Vince McMahon segment. Graves was sitting ringside when Austin’s music hit, and he says that was probably the loudest he’s ever heard an arena.

The post E&C’s Pod of Awesomeness Recap w/ Corey Graves – Transitioning into Commentary, Working with Booker T, Difference Between Working RAW and Smackdown, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

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

Russo begins today’s show by speaking about Vince McMahon’s newly re-launched XFL. He says there’s no doubt in his mind that Donal Trump is a part of this. He points out that the McMahon family are very close with Trump, and Trump has had a long-standing rivalry with Roger Goodell and the NFL. In addition, Trump likely won’t be President when the league kicks off in 2020.

Gilbertti doesn’t disagree with that point, but he also mentions that it’s going to be tough for McMahon to find quality football players. All the great players are going to go to the NFL for bigger money, and the XFL will always be left with the scraps. He’s just not sure how this is going to work, because everything that’s ever competed with the NFL in the past has failed.

Russo mentions that there were a lot of upset fans who attended RAW25 at The Manhattan Center this past Monday. Apparently there were only 25 minutes of live action at The Manhattan Center, and this made a lot of fans feel like they didn’t get their money’s worth, especially since a lot of them paid upwards of $800 to attend that event.

Gilberti points out that it’s stupid to pay $800 to watch professional wrestling in any era, and those fans shouldn’t be upset that the show sucked, because the shows have sucked for the last several years.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Trump Involved in McMahon’s Re-launched XFL? Enzo Amore Released, Thoughts on RAW 25, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

X-Pac opens today’s show speaking about his experience at RAW25. He says he had a great time but he’s still tired from all the flying. He was so excited and riding a high after appearing on RAW and he flew out of New York at 7 AM the next morning, so he didn’t really sleep at all prior to catching his flight.

He gives WWE credit for trying to broadcast live from two different buildings, but there’s no denying that this was was going to be a difficult feat from the beginning. There was also so much hype and promotion for this show that it was going to be hard for it to live up to the expectations. He thought WWE delivered in terms of nostalgia.

X-Pac informs that The Miz and Ric Flair were not originally booked to appear at The Manhattan Center.  They were last minute additions in order to give the fans at Manhattan Center more bang for their buck.

X-Pac has heard some criticism of the show, specifically WWE’s inability to take advantage of the additional viewers in order to hype the current product and the Royal Rumble. He can understand these frustrations, but he points out that it’s tough to fit all of the legends on the same show in which you’re trying to hype a major PPV.

The post X-Pac 1, 2, 360 Recap – Enzo Amore Controversy, RAW25 Analysis, What Things Were Improvised/Cut? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

On today’s episode of The Taz Show, Taz will discuss the classic match between Nakamura and Ibushi from Wrestle Kingdom 9.

Taz mentions that NJPW’s production is unbelievable, and they’re basically the only company in the world that can compete with WWE production-wise. They pull out all the stops here for Wrestle Kingdom, with pyro and multiple video walls to ensure a jam-packed arena full of people are satisfied. Taz points out that this is Japan’s WrestleMania.

Taz says he’s a big fan of Nakamura’s work, and he doesn’t mean to disrespect him today because he’s never met him, but this is when Nakamura was booked “Cool”. He urges his fans to check out the video of this entrance from Wrestle Kingdom 9, because this is when Nakamura truly was a “rockstar”.

He points out that we’ve seen this plenty of times before, and Taz has actually been through this himself. As a Superstar in the business you feel like your career is going great and then you finally make it to WWE and things change drastically. For whatever reason, WWE seems to struggle with capitalizing on momentum that incoming performers have.

Taz likes that Nakamura and Ibushi are wearing opposite colour ring gear during this match. He informs that this is an unwritten rule in the business, and in some cases it actually is written in the Gorilla Position in WWE. Ibushi wore white and Nakamura wore black for this bout.

The post The Taz Show Recap – Nakamura VS. Ibushi: Wrestle Kingdom 9, Nakamura’s Struggles in WWE, Comparing Wrestling to Sex, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Russo is absent from today’s show, so Jeff Lane and former WWE Superstars, Bin Hamin and Stevie Richards will handle the RAW25 and Smackdown review show without him.

Beginning with their thoughts on Smackdown, Hamin points out that he has no idea who’s writing the promos on Smackdown Live recently, because they’ve been absolutely brutal. He feels that the creative team has taken great performers such as Kevin Owens and A.J. Styles and turned them into ‘D’ players with some of the content they’ve provided them.

Hamin also wonders what Sami Zayn is supposed to be right now. They’re trying to make him a main-event talent by pairing him with Owens and having him jump up and down during his entrance, but it’s just not working. He says that Zayn is just an annoying heel right now, and not in a good way.

Richards points out that WWE continues to book Nakamura in strange positions. They had him cut another uncomfortable backstage promo during this show, and he wasn’t able to understand a word that Nakamura said. He also didn’t understand Randy Orton attacking Nakamura during his match with Baron Corbin because it was only a couple of weeks ago that those two guys were tagging together.

Moving over to RAW, Hamin thought The Manhattan Center looked great and he had high hopes for the event until roughly 10 minutes into the show. He thought WWE really paid respect to old school programming with how much effort they put into the decoration of The Manhattan Center but after the Austin segment the show took a nose dive rather quickly.

The post Vince Russo’s the Brand Recap – RAW25 & Smackdown Analysis, WWE Already Ruining “Woken” Hardy, Reigns Set to Win Rumble? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Russo opens today’s show by informing that he’s going to be a Grandfather for the first time. He’s very excited about this news and he thanks all of his fans for sending him so many kind messages on social media. He points out that news like this really helps you put life in perspective.

Russo mentions that a lot of his fans accused him of “working” them over the last couple of weeks as he refused to speak about RAW25. These fans assumed that Russo was invited to attend the event all along and he was refusing to speak about it in order to keep it a secret. That way, when he arrived at RAW25 it would be a huge surprise.

He says that this was never the case, and there were never any conversations between him and WWE about returning to the company for the one-night-only event. He points out that he hates to leave his house to travel these days, but a part of him really hoped that WWE would do the right thing in this case by extending an invitation to him and Ferrara.

Russo says that whether you like it or not, there would have been no attitude era without him and Ed Ferrara. He knows that Superstars such as Steve Austin and The Rock played a huge part in WWE’s success at that time as well, but the fact that he and Ferrara were the ones writing the lines for those stars made them an invaluable part of the company at that time in his opinion.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Real Feelings About Being Shunned From RAW25, Forgiving & Forgetting, No Attitude Era Without Russo, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Taz is joined on today’s show by his co-host, Seth.

Taz opens today’s show by speaking about last night’s 25th Anniversary episode of RAW. He points out that The Manhattan Center crowd had to deal with long breaks between in-ring action, and this resulted in the live audience getting very agitated. Most fans paid hundreds of dollars to be live at The Manhattan Center, and he thinks WWE failed to book this event properly.

Seth says that the Undertaker promo was very open-ended and it didn’t really impress him. He would have preferred seeing Undertaker get physical with a full-time talent. Taz points out that WWE prostitutes their younger talent to the aging veterans enough as it is, so Undertaker cutting a promo was not a bad idea in his mind. He also adds that Undertaker may not have been physically able to have an in-ring confrontation.

Taz believes that Randy Orton definitely should have been on this show and Orton’s wife obviously agreed, since she sent out a social media post yesterday saying so. Taz informs that he wasn’t invited back for this show, and he adds that he’s too critical of WWE’s current product to be invited back for this type of show.

He informs that he was present backstage at a recent commemorative episode of Smackdown, and they didn’t even use him on camera then when he was live in the building. He adds that he’s almost happy that he wasn’t invited to this show because they would have had him walking backstage with a towel over his head or playing poker with the APA. He wouldn’t have been interested in anything like that, especially if they weren’t going to pay him.

The post The Taz Show Recap – RAW25 Analysis, Manhattan Center Crowd Not Happy, Why is Taz Happy He Wasn’t Invited? More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

Garcia welcomes Becky Lynch to the show.

Lynch informs that she predicted there’d be a Women’s Royal Rumble match within the next two years several months ago. She feels that a Women’s Rumble is a natural progression for the women who’ve already made history in several different ways over the last year. For this reason, the announcement wasn’t a big surprise to her.

She informs that she’s kept a journal her entire life, and after hearing that there was going to be a Women’s Rumble match she immediately wrote in her journal that winning the Rumble was her main goal for 2018.  She informs that another goal of her’s is to main event WrestleMania someday, and whether she does or not, she thinks it’s only a matter of time before women main event ‘Mania.

Garcia informs that she recalls a time backstage when everyone would get up to get a drink or use the washroom when the women’s match came on. She remembers seeing the frustration on the face of the women at that time because they didn’t know what they had to do in order to change things. She’s very happy that the women on the roster today don’t have to deal with those frustrations.

The post Lillan Garcia’s Chasing Glory Recap w/ Becky Lynch & More – Carmella’s Relationship with Big Cass, Lynch Not Surprised by Rumble Announcement, Natalya Wants More Gold, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.