Tag: podcasts

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA WWE

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Mayweather vs. McGregor, Where’s Finn Balor’s Demon? Who Gave The Big Show His Name? More!

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.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA WWE

The Taz Show Recap – Smackdown Analysis, Defending Roman Reigns, Lana Readying for A Title Run, More!

Blocks 1 & 2:

Taz says that he didn’t think last night’s episode of Smackdown Live was very good for a ‘go-home’ show. It was an average show at best, but it should have been more given that it was the last show before Money in the Bank this coming Sunday.

Taz says that he liked the ladder match tease which ended the show, where Nakamura reached up and grabbed the briefcase. He thought this did a good job of promoting the ladder match and driving people to the PPV this Sunday, but this was the only part of the show to do so.

He didn’t like that during Jinder Mahal’s promo, The Singh Brothers were also standing on the area rug along with Mahal. He believes that mat should be solely for Mahal, and if he was the only person who was allowed to stand on it, it would seem far more important. He liked Randy Orton’s RKO out of nowhere, and he thought that spot was very well executed by the talent and captured perfectly by the cameraman.

Taz thought the 8-man tag team match between The Usos/Colons & Breezango/New Day was pretty entertaining. He adds that WWE is giving their viewers a lot of Breezango lately with in-ring matches as well as the Fashion File segments, and he urges them to be careful as to not over-expose the emerging team.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA WWE

Conversation with the Big Guy Recap – Ryback’s New Gimmicks, Worst Match of his Career, What Does Ryback Miss About WWE? More!

Ryback is joined on today’s show by his co-host Pat Buck.

Ryback mentions that Buck takes care of all of his bookings for him. He says that when he left WWE, he called Buck the same day and asked him to be his booking agent for a 10% fee of all money earned. He says that he could probably handle all of his bookings himself but it is very time consuming, and he’d rather be putting his time and effort into other things.

Buck informs that it’s not easy to just start making connections and establishing relationships with promoters right out of the blue. He enjoys handling Ryback’s bookings but he admits that it can be frustrating at times. Some promoters are very rude and he takes the brunt of their abuse from time to time. Ryback requires a deposit after confirming a booking before his image and name can be used for promotional purposes, and sometimes that causes issues.

Ryback informs that he has had successful stem cell surgery on his shoulder where his shoulder is now basically repairing itself with the help of the stem cells. His goal is to fix his shoulder once and for all after dealing with these issues for years, and he believes he’s close to accomplishing that. He admits that it’s frustrating not being able to train as hard as he would like, or wrestle as much as he’d like.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA UFC WWE

Ryback Criticizes Nia Jax’s Tweet About WWE Creative

On a recent episode of his podcast, Conversation with the Big Guy, Ryback let out his thoughts on Nia Jax’s controversial tweet about the WWE Creative. Jax had tweeted criticizing the red brand’s creative team by pointing out how RAW doesn’t use all it’s women wrestlers while its rival brand, SmackDown LIVE does.

The tweet was then quickly taken down by Jax herself as it was garnering a lot of attention and possibly made the creative look really bad.

Here are Ryback’s comments on the said issue : (quotes credit ewrestlingnews.com)

“Everybody is frustrated there, from top to bottom. She’s been handed a lot early on, in my opinion. It’s very early on to make a comment like that and when I saw that I totally understand it, like, if you are not on TV a couple of weeks is frustrating. With her character on TV, it’s not like they can just throw her in random. It could be a good TV that you’re not on TV every week. If you’re being booked for live events, who the f**k cares? You’re making money until they find something good for you, but when you go and make comments like that, there’s no good that comes out of that because it’s not like real sports where you control the outcome. It’s writers and Vince, they control your character and they can write her and job her out every week. She has to either go do it or not do it and get released, so she put herself in a real bad position by making comments like that on social media. It reminded me of that guy with Lord Tensai, Sakamoto. I remember there was Japanese heat for another Japanese guy coming on the roster, Yoshi had gone on social media and made a comment. If we were in UFC it’d be cool, you may have gotten yourself booked for a big fight and a big payday, but in pro-wrestling you can’t go on there and say that. A week later he got Jobbed out on RAW. That is what it reminded me of because no good ever comes out of it, but she’s young, so it is what it is.”

You can check out all our other podcast recaps from Jim Ross, Taz, Ryback and many more at this link.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA WWE

X-Pac 1, 2, 360 Recap w/ Road Dogg – Writing for Smackdown Live, Women’s MITB Details, Picking on The Rock, More!

X-Pac opens today’s show congratulating Samoa Joe on his big win at last Sunday’s Extreme Rules PPV. He says that he’s known Joe for a while, and he knew it was only a matter of time before Joe made his way to WWE. Even when Joe was doubting his own ability to get there, X-Pac knew his talent and abilities would eventually land him in WWE.

He thought it was strange that WWE implemented a submission stipulation in the cruiserweight match between Austin Aries and Neville. He says that submission matches often limit the talents’ ability to provide exciting false finishes and in the case of the cruiserweights, it hindered some of the high flying abilities of those two men. Nonetheless, he thought Aries and Neville pulled it off and had a good match.

X-Pac comments on WWE’s recent signing of Thea Trinidad. Trinidad recently played the role of A.J. Lee in the upcoming Paige biopic, and X-Pac thought she was marvellous in that role. He says he wasn’t surprised by this signing at all, and he thinks she’ll start in NXT before making her jump to the main roster.

Featured NEWS ROH TNA WWE

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Smackdown Analysis, Burying Jinder Mahal, Lesnar Turning on Heyman? More!

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

He opens today’s show by saying that Smackdown Live simply isn’t for him. He has tried to review that show for three straight weeks now and it has been nothing more than six hours of wasted time. Next week Russo is going to switch back to watching and reviewing RAW because Smackdown Live just isn’t entertaining him.

Russo says that Smackdown Live is a ‘cookie cutter’ show. Every week it’s the exact same thing, and viewers are never given fresh looks or different programming. He points out that the opening segment with all the women in the ring was the exact same segment we saw with the men only two weeks ago.

He says that WWE has been hyping and promoting Lana’s debut for weeks, and when she finally came out the entire announce team no-sold it. He adds that they totally buried Lana by not selling her entrance, and it’s almost like they did it on purpose because it was that bad. He says that Tom Phillips is horrible because if he doesn’t sell something, the audience at home will never look at it as important.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA WWE

The Taz Show Recap – Bringing Back War Games, Special Guest Jim Ross, Where’s Rusev? More!

Block 1:

A listener calls into the show and points out that the promo graphic for Great Balls of Fire somewhat resembles a penis and two testicles. Taz says that this has been brought up online already and it’s hard to deny the resemblance. He says that WWE has a graphic design team that does all the work for PPV graphics, but Vince McMahon has to approve everything.

Taz says that he just chooses to look at that logo and see a literal ball of fire, but some people might choose to see other things. Either way, it’s an interesting piece of graphic design work without a doubt.

Another listener calls into the show and says that WWE should change the Cruiserweight division to a Light Heavyweight division. Taz says that if they did that they’d still have all the same issues that the Cruiserweight division has, because more than the name needs to change. Taz says that the specific Cruiserweight branding with purple ropes and aprons simply isn’t working.

In addition, filming 205 Live after Smackdown Live isn’t working either. Taz says that WWE needs to change their approach to the Cruiserweights and start filming 205 Live at Full Sail University. He also doesn’t mind the idea of WWE merging the Cruiserweights into the main roster, where they can also challenge for WWE Titles such as the United States Title and Intercontinental Title.

Featured NEWS ROH TNA WWE

Bischoff on Wrestling Recap – Bischoff’s Time in WWE, Kissing Linda McMahon, Hogan Returning to WWE? More!

Bischoff opens today’s show speaking about Bruce Prichard’s recent episode of ‘Something to Wrestle With’, which focused on Bischoff’s time in WWE.

Bischoff says that he thinks about his initial WWE interview quite often, when Vince McMahon asked him to interview a broom. He didn’t know that Bruce Prichard was there that day; in fact he couldn’t even see McMahon, he only heard his voice. Looking back now, he thinks this was a genius move by McMahon because by putting people in uncomfortable positions, you’re able to test their confidence and see their ability to improvise.

When Hogan arrived in WCW, Bischoff says that he and Hogan spoke often about his departure from WWE. From Bischoff’s perspective it was easy to see that there was a strong personal relationship between Hogan and McMahon. Although they had their differences, Hogan seemed to regret the way everything played out, and Bischoff didn’t sense any distain or hatred from Hogan when he was talking about McMahon. It was easy to see that there was still some affection there.

During his show, Prichard said that he believes McMahon would have done a lot of the same things Bischoff did during the Monday Night Wars if the roles were reversed, such as giving away the finishes of taped matches.

Featured NEWS Other ROH TNA WWE

The Taz Show Recap – RAW Analysis, Heyman & Joe Steal the Show, Mae Young Classic Info, More!

Block 1:

Taz opens today’s show by saying RAW was really good last night on the whole. He says the Paul Heyman and Samoa Joe segment was fantastic and he loved a lot of the subtleties from Heyman and Joe in that promo.

When Heyman makes his way to the ring he does it nice and slowly, and he always asks the performer in the ring if he can step through the ropes before doing so because he respects the ring and the performers who stand in it. Heyman’s promos are always tremendous, but an underrated part of Heyman’s delivery is his facial expressions.

Taz says that he didn’t anticipate Joe attacking Heyman but once Heyman turned his back to Joe, Taz could see the writing on the wall. He actually anticipated Joe choking Heyman from behind because that would have been a real heel, scumbag thing to do. However, he liked what WWE chose to do by having Joe corner Heyman and threaten him while the handheld mics picked it up.

Taz thought this was very well done, and he has been asking WWE to do this type of thing for a while now. The focus should never be on the live audience, because the millions of viewers at home are the priority. For this reason, it was very cool to see Joe cut this promo right to Heyman’s face which made it more realistic, and only the fans at home knew what he was saying.

Featured NEWS ROH TNA WWE

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Returning to WWE, Meltzer Argues with Stephanie, Bischoff & Cornette Scared? More!

Russo opens today’s show by saying that some people within the wrestling business have reached out to him and said that he really needs to start sucking up to Vince McMahon because WWE needs Russo more than Russo needs WWE. Russo refuses to kiss McMahon’s ass in order to get re-hired by WWE so that he can help them. If McMahon wants his help fine, if not that’s fine too.

The scary situation is that for five weeks now WWE has drawn less than three million viewers. There are no more excuses for McMahon and WWE, and they need to do something to combat their plummeting viewership. For a while they’ve been saying that their viewership drops are as a result of new ways to watch programming (social media, DVR), but these things have been around for years, not just the last few weeks.

Russo says that he will never suck up to WWE like Jim Cornette and Eric Bischoff did recently. Speaking of those two men, he says that both of them need to man up and have a face-to-face conversation with him because he’s sick of both of them talking behind his back. He assumes that they’re both afraid to have a discussion with him because he will expose all of their lies.