Episode 499: Royal Rumble 2006

All right, folks, listen up. Last week, President Trump announced that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were going to buy more than $200 billion worth of mortgage bonds. And then I actually saw the next morning on CNBC, the head of the FHFA, well, he says it's actually $225 billion. Now, what does this mean? It means that there's going to be more demand. And what does that mean for you? It means cheaper rates. As I'm recording right now, rates are lower than they've been in more than three years. and it's free to find out how much money you can save right now. But if you've been on the fence waiting for better rates, this could be the second chance you've been looking for, especially if you bought a house or if you've got an interest rate in the fives. It's not a matter of if we can save you money, but a matter of how much. Find out right now for free at SaveWithConrad.com. And I'm especially talking to you if you've ran up credit card deaths. 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Let us run the numbers. See if it makes sense. If it doesn't, we'll part friends. But we're not the bank. We don't say no. We say not yet, but here's how. We've got to get a plan, and we want to be your mortgage advisor for life. If you've got a friend in the mortgage business, SaveWithConrad.com, NMLS number 2129, Equal Housing Lender, SaveWithConrad.com, or send me an email, conrad at SaveWithConrad.com. Welcome to Spending a Restaurant. Welcome to Ripper with Ritz Pridget. Bruce Pritchard. Well, enough. That's not a real. What a riff. No, you have a beat. There's no box of gimmicks. Worm or an innuendo. I don't feel in rumor and innuendo. And was he there? I was there. I don't give a shit. Well, just not take a rap away. Something to wrestle with. Something to wrestle with. Ding it. Bruce Pritchard. hey hey it's conrad the mortgage guy and you're listening to something to wrestle with bruce pritchard bruce what's going on man how are you i am cold i'm wonderful are you chilly here it's a little chilly here chilly cold like i'm like i got like all my old man sweaters and shit working all good i need to get you a coat from quince you know they've got all those wool coats that's what You should be rocking and saying, I know you're inside, but hey, we're excited, Bruce. You know, the rest of the wrestling world is excited. This weekend is the Royal Rumble. And listen, I got to tell you, in my fandom, I've always had people sort of come out of the woodwork to watch two pay-per-views a year with me. Hey, are you getting the pay-per-view? WrestleMania and Royal Rumble. In your mind, I mean, I think maybe from an outsider perspective, maybe they may say, well, SummerSlam is probably the second biggest. But at least in your mind, where is Royal Rumble as far as most anticipated show of the year? Well, where is Great Balls of Fire in that? Near the bottom, maybe. You know, see, I look at it, I would say Royal Rumbles, from my vantage point, just because of history, I always look at WrestleMania 1, SummerSlam 2, Survivor 3, Royal Rumble 4, because of the order. And nothing more. I think that as far as having stakes on everything and watching Royal Rumble is probably one of the most exciting fillies because it has instant ramifications to WrestleMania. And it gives you something to look forward to. And you're rooting. You're not just rooting for who to win the Rumble. You're rooting for who you want to see in the main event at WrestleMania. So that's what makes it all that much more fun. because it's like, oh, man, I want my guy, I want my girl, and I want them to win. And you're just starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together, and that's an exciting time. So I think from an excitement level and ramifications, yeah, Royal Rumble is definitely number two. It's just for me, I always did it in order because of how they fell and how they came to be pay-per-views. is that the best perhaps pivot in wrestling show format history? You know, the original show was just a Royal Rumble, and it was a television special on USA, and it was just a match, and you were winning bragging rights. That was fun for a bit. But when they added the wrinkle of, hey, the winner gets a title shot at WrestleMania, I mean, that's probably the biggest, most substantial pivot in WWE history, don't you think? You're welcome. okay well thanks for that Bruce it needed something it needed something because when you looked at the Royal Rumble on its own before it had stakes it was just another match and I think by adding the stakes to it made it must see and just gave it gravitas, if you will, to make it just mean that much more. So, yeah, it needed it. It really needed it because otherwise it was, and the Royal Rumble, the 2009 Royal Rumble winner is, okay, great. And the winner in Poughkeepsie in 1998, who the fuck cares? So this just gave it something to fight for. You're fighting for not only the title of Royal Rumble winner, but now you'll also share the title of and WrestleMania main event. When do you remember it becoming sort of passe for wrestling promotions to advertise, you know, the stakes as being a financial reward? Like they used to say, oh, it's a $10,000 battle royal. And it feels like seemingly overnight that just went away. and they don't really do that anymore. What do you think changed and why and when? Look, a lot of things changed in the culture just in general. In Houston, for example, we had a 22-man, two-ring battle royal for $22,000. Now, the reasoning behind that was you would tell the audience that you had to pay $1,000 to enter the two-ring battle royal. So everyone had stakes in it. You had to pay to have that opportunity to win that much money. A lot of other promoters just did, hey, it's a $10,000 or $5,000 battle royal, what have you. And after a while, especially as time went on, I think that the stakes and the money offered didn't really reflect the worth. You know what I mean? It's kind of like, oh, well, you know, a football player over here is making this much money, and these guys are beating the shit out of themselves for $5,000? It's a go back to the, I don't know if I've told this story before, but of the greatest ladder match of all time, Tracy Smothers and Chris Candida. and they have like a maybe a six foot ladder for the ladder match but the way that they attached the check was they had it on two ends opposite posts with a string and the check is hanging down and when the ring bowed the check started sagging down into the middle of the ring so much so that the guys were ducking underneath it to do crisscrosses when you could just go, okay, there you go. Even little Skippy could do that. Yeah, okay, here, okay, I'll just take this. Instead, they held it up. They held up the check with the six-foot ladder, which Tracy Smothers is every bit of, and then climbed like they were climbing for something when you could literally climb on the top level and grab this check. And I remember somebody bringing this in and showing it in the cafeteria is the greatest ladder match ever. Because look at the way they worked the ladder. It's horrible. It's just, why can't you just go boom? Now, at the time that we put Rob Van Dam in the bowels of the building, Kane was going to set him on fire, and he was tied up with his hands over his head. And Kane had the fire in front of him and was taking the flame right in front of him, and Rob just went, whoosh, and blew it out. sometimes that it's just irrational so when you're fighting for $2,500 on a ladder match beating the hell out of each other it doesn't equate instead of saying hey this is a $50,000 check I think it was for $2,500 or something like that no you nailed it man it's amazing how great your memory is November 17th 1994 Stanton Hall Philadelphia Pennsylvania it was a joint show between Smoky Mountain Wrestling and NWA New Jersey. I love that you remember the $2,500 amount all these years later. You said someone showed it in catering. I assume since this was a Smoky Mountain event that this was likely Jim Cornette bringing it in. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And the reasoning was, well, that no one would believe that it's really, you know, $50,000 or whatever. I said, yeah, but it's just... low rent doing it $2,500. Right. Now that you tell me it was in Philadelphia, even more so in the Northeast. Now I could understand in Pikeville, Kentucky. Hey, $50 check hanging over the ring. I'm going to fight for that. But yeah, it was insane. It just was so, everything about it was illogical. from the size of the ladder to the way that the check was suspended above the ring. And, you know, again, it just was absolutely insanity. So when you put stakes and you put dollar amounts on it, it has to be a dollar amount that is believable, but also greater than. If a guy sits there and says, hey, man, you know, I make $2,500 a week. I don't have to climb a ladder and do all this other crap for that. That's not much. If I'm going to do that, I want to be doing it for a whole hell of a lot more money. So it just gives more importance, I think, the dollar amount, but then you can get to where the dollar amounts. I don't know. Nowadays, I can absolutely see a million-dollar Battle Royale. Oh, of course, yeah. When it gets a million dollars. I don't think anybody would sneeze at it. we're talking about stakes and uh you mentioned when we think about just the hierarchy of wwe pay-per-views that perhaps you view survivor series differently than i as just a fan do i you know love the idea of these guys teaming up when i was a kid but as i've grown older it did feel like the stakes was that a challenge do you think that i'm wondering what separates royal rumble from being celebrated by fans so much compared to survivor series because i know you hold it in high regard but you see it from a different perspective you were there for all of it but the anticipation and the stakes i think that royal rumble adds a lot to it do you think that stakes are maybe the difference in in survivor series or is it something else big time absolutely because you're going somewhere with the royal rumble and in the survivor series again talking about things that don't hold up well over time when you look but we look back at it fondly oh so great five teams of five strive to survive put five guys together that have no no real reason to be together other than we needed teams of five that needed to strive to survive and it's it's it was fun at the time man felt that by god you needed that that works and that was great and it was great in the time. I think that it doesn't hold up and I don't think that you could replicate that today. No different than the Attitude Era. It was great in its time, but it doesn't hold up to where you go, okay, we can do that today. And I feel the same way about the Survivor Series, the way that it was done with the random teams being put together, and especially I hated the Survivor match at the end, which was absolutely illogical, but it was what it was. I do want to ask you, since we're talking about Royal Rumble formats, of course tomorrow is the Royal Rumble. Can't wait to watch it. We're going to have a whole crew together over in Atlanta taking a look at this one. It's fun to watch that show in a group, maybe more so than others. but when you think about the Rumble that pivot to hey the winner gets a title shot does that sort of pigeonhole you creatively because I do think one of the things I enjoyed as a kid was anyone can win because anyone can happen here in the World Wrestling Federation so a goof like my buddy Cassio he loved the Bushwhackers so there was a chance that maybe perhaps accidentally Bushwhacker Luke could back into winning the Royal Rumble, by God. There still is a chance. Okay. There's always a chance. I don't think anybody picked Rey Mysterio to win when Rey won. That's what we're about to talk about today. That is our topic, Royal Rumble 2006. We're going to be talking about Rey winning, but I do think that might be one of... I think some people would argue they would have guessed it, but at the time... I would have guessed that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. it just does I guess what I'm getting at is I'll ask again does it box you in creatively do you think if you know it's going to be okay no I think it gives you somewhere to go and I think that it allows you that extra time to promote to Wrestlemania in the latter years we've putzed with that you know you've added the elimination chamber as well for the other championship and it gives you things to play with and to you can still do things with it out of it. You know what I mean? Yeah. And there's that opportunity but I don't know. I think it gives you somewhere to go. Hey man, remember when we were all learning about money as kids? Not just the denominations but I even remember learning what an IOU was. I may have actually learned that watching Kiwi Herman as a kid. I just remember I had this sheet of paper and I can just write I owe you. That's pretty cool. Well, as an adult, you realize, boy, maybe I should have taken a little more time learning about that. 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Well, I'm just saying the big upset, you know, the nobody saw that coming. I mean, respectfully, if Brooklyn Brawler were in the Rumble tomorrow, I think most fans would know, well, he ain't going to win. You never know. Anything can happen. That's true. Anything can happen. We're excited about the Royal Rumble. I know you guys are too It's going down tomorrow Bruce this is the first I believe the first International Royal Rumble I know there was a Greatest Royal Rumble Before But as far as the Traditional Late January Royal Rumble The first International one Does this remind you In any way Of the first International Wrestlemania I know that was Canada Yeah it was Canada man Feels like a big deal To have an international Royal Rumble To me I think it feels It feels like a big deal whenever we get to do international PLEs this way. It's unique. I'm just not a fan of traveling internationally, but yeah, it is a big deal. It truly is. And it gives it the feeling of it's bigger than just here. You know what I mean? It's fun. It's a larger-than-life feeling when you have the ability to take it international and draw an international audience with a different perspective. I got to ask you. Go ahead. You said you don't like international travel. It does beg the question. What the fuck am I doing? How come every time you get a vacation, almost every time, you go somewhere international, are you just looking to go somewhere where there's terrible sales service? I do. that, terrible cell service and sun and a beach. As long as I can hear the water, see the water, touch the sand and have sun all the time then I'm happy. But that's, come on man, the islands aren't really international per se. So I need a passport. So they are. But hey. So some of them speak different languages. But hey. Let's talk a little bit about Royal Rumble Before we click record today You shared a picture with myself And our crack producer Dave Silva He's not on crack yet but we're hopeful this is the year Crack ass Dave I think it's Stupid ass Silva Crack ass Dave could go though I'll work on that CAD Hey chat me up tell me about this picture What do you want to set the record straight on here. Well, it's just this thing came up in my feed of this particular picture from actually the caption was NBC Saturday night's main event, a look behind the scenes. This picture was not from a Saturday night's main event. This picture was from the very first Royal Rumble Copse Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario. And Gorilla Monsoon is there at the Gorilla Position. I am also there kind of running the show because it was the very first live show I ever wrote and produced alone. J.J. Dillon is in the shot. There were some comments that, oh, well, this came, this picture was taken when J.J. Dillon was hired to assist Jerry Jarrett when Jerry Jarrett was booking the WWE. So, no, this was not a Saturday Night's Main Event. It was a Royal Rumble. J.J. Dillon started working there in 1987. Jerry Jarrett was never booking the WWE and was never ever ever ever ever going to book the WWE JJ was actually instrumental in bringing Jerry Jarrett in not the other way around Dick Ebersole is seen in the picture because Dick came on this show because he wanted to see the execution of the Royal Rumble match itself he was intrigued by the Royal Rumble match and thought was a big proponent of it where Vince did not see the Royal Roma match. He didn't get it, didn't like it. And Dick did and Dick convinced Vince to do this. It was Pat Patterson's idea. And this is where, sitting at this table during this, where Dick and I came up with Titan time. because I'm thinking, again, in this picture, I'm 24 years old, and I'm thinking that it's sport. We can go as long or as short as we want. It's sport. They've got to stay with us. But they're like, no, no, no, no, no. You guys have a three-hour block or whatever it is. That's it. And we had to start fudging time as it went on, and we couldn't do full two-minute things. It was like, send them in a minute. send them in 90 seconds you know what just send them you know to be able to get this show get everything on the air so it was a bit of a hodgepodge and Pat had forgotten to get his legend has it either Brett or Martell out I remember it being Martell Brett remembers it being himself but the question was in the middle of what they think they're going to win but behind me is referee Joey Morella, who is Gorilla Monsoon's son. To the right of him is a gentleman, I believe his name is Mark Toomey. And then the guy directly, the guy behind Joey to the left was identified in all these pictures is Dr. George Saharian. Now, if Saharian was ever that skinny, I would be amazed at that just in general. But no, that was one of the Marine crew guys. And you might recognize this gentleman because Brother Love healed his ass. And then we replayed that later on, many years later, because, see, Brother Love actually healed him so that he could see and walk. And then he became a doctor. And then he became a traveling doctor for us, and we were able to recreate that whole thing because he had been blind and couldn't see. But that is the same person to Joey Morella's left. I have no idea who the guy is in the middle between Mark and him. But that's everybody in that picture. And no Jerry Jarrett didn't work for the company. No Jerry Jarrett never booked the WWE. And no Jerry Jarrett didn't hire J.J. Dillon to assist him. This was not a Saturday night's main event. Dick Everson was there because Dick wanted to watch the Royal Rumble and try to help us fine-tune it and figure all that stuff out. Of course, Gorilla Monsoon is there because, by God, it's the gorilla position. So you talked about healing a fellow. Well, I'm sorry, not you, but Brother Love. Brother Love. Do you remember what town the healing went down? Absolutely. In the healing capital of the world, Huntsville, Alabama, it's Von Braun Civic Center. How about that? Yeah, it's the healing capital of the world. hands upon him and he'll let him be healed brothers and sisters with love because love heals all the very first Royal Rumble we've talked about this before 1988 Copse Coliseum as you mentioned it's a television special it's going to be running head to head on free TV against the NWA's pay per view Jim Crockett Promotions Bunkhouse Stampede you guys are knee deep in a wrestling war and clearly WWE is going to win but you know they say invention is the mother of necessity what a creation but it did evolve the next year in 89 it's a pay-per-view and it's not 20 guys it's 30 what was it about the first one that made you guys expand it to 30 and then to say you know what no more free TV let's do it on pay-per-view let's make it a big event it was a cool event it was different it was unique like again in the time the Survivor series was a unique event that only happened one time a year. And this was an opportunity to have a unique event as we kick off the road to WrestleMania with the Royal Rumble. And although we didn't say the winner of the Royal Rumble was going to main event at WrestleMania, it became a platform to further and to tease your WrestleMania main event at the Royal Rumble. So it was a nice attraction. It was a really good attraction. And during this time, you know, the pay-per-view company started wanting more. And I was like, okay, we'll do more. And I will never forget when, so we got WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble. What was number five? King of the Rings. King of the Ring. And when we did King of the Ring, because we did King of the Ring in June, it was a summer event. Did not, I don't think it ever did well. But I remember Vince saying, we will never do more than five pay-per-views by God. And that lasted until mid-90s when we started doing the damn in your house and then just monthly pay-per-views by God and that was a product of WCW started doing the live pay-per-views once every month and the cable companies they just wanted more, wanted more and we were of the opinion that more would hurt business and once we started to do it found out well it's not really hurting. You know, kind of averaged out a little bit. WrestleMania, the big four always performed well and did better than the rest of them. But yeah, I'll never get, my God, we'll never have more than five. Fast forward a few years and we had more than five. Before we get into today's topic, which is Royal Rumble 2006, I can't believe this was 20 years ago. We're going to talk about that, but there was another photo that was floating around that Sylva and I wanted to get you to chat us up about. Tell us what's going on in this photo, Bruce. What photo? Oh! This was a very innocent photo. Notice how black my hair is? So this was during the time I had colored my hair black. was there was an idea to have me do a character similar to the character Dan Aykroyd portrayed on Saturday Night Live for the Bass-O-Matic. Hey, you got a Bass-O-Matic? And all that kind of stuff. This was at a party at Dave Zahadi and Chris Chambers' house. And they had sent a car for Freddie to come so that Freddie could get out and everything. And this was a nice, you know, Freddie sat there and everybody came and paid their respects, but there weren't enough people that were there that really knew Freddie enough to and I felt so bad. So, man, I would always cherish any moment to sit down and speak to Freddie at length. And this is one of those moments where Freddie and I just kind of sat down at the end of the table and bullshitted for several hours, actually. And just had a great night. And then you fast forward this to Pat's retirement, then I'll dig up, see if I can find him. I have no idea where most of my stuff is anymore. But great stuff where when Pat retired the first time Not the second or the third or the fourth or the fifth or the sixth time. But the first time that Pat retired, we threw the big party at my house in Monroe, and a huge snow and ice storm hit. But everybody made it, even Freddie. And I've got some somewhere. I know they exist somewhere. But just some really great, great shots from that party in general. It was kind of a, not a huge party because the weather was absolutely horrible, but those that did attend, we had an unbelievable time. It was great. Some nice candid pictures from there as well. Well, thanks for sharing, man. Let's get into our topic today. Royal Rumble 2006. It's hard to believe this was 20 years ago. let's sort of set the stage for what's happening on the way to Royal Rumble you're laughing what do you got I'm laughing because I was I kind of look off and I'm looking over at a picture on my wall of me and Freddie Blassie and Steve Taylor at another party and I was going I could do a Gerald Brisco and I could get up and just walk away from the camera go over there take a picture of it with my phone and then send it to you you can put it up but i then i would then jerry would have something on me and i well here's what you could do you could tell us the story of the photo and then send it to silva and he'll put it in in post and no one will say hey and then no one will ever know that i was going to do a jerry briscoe i mean i'm dressed and all at least like when i walk away you're not going to see backside of my backside. So, great nice shot from a it was year 2000. And big party. And this is one of the pictures because it's two of my favorite people. And Steve Taylor, who was the photographer, longtime photographer for WWF. And Steve was a great guy. He went on to be a production manager, and we were just one of my best friends, and we had so much fun together and got a lot of trouble together and things like that. And then Freddie, and Freddie being Freddie, and just one of the greatest of all times. And so it's like Steve and Freddie and I, and I guarantee you it was my wife going, Oh, my God, just look over here and let me take a picture. because I it's funny as many pictures as I have I never I never really did that I never really did the hey let's take pictures I mean I did if there was like if Steve was there the early pictures I have is if Steve was there and said hey let's get a picture but I never did I never took pictures that's one regret and one bit of advice that I would give to everybody and no matter what profession you're in or where you are in your life take pictures take pictures preserve special moments and it's I so many of mine in the other room are posed but I really I really love the ones we got great stuff with with me and Snoop Dogg going over things And they were fascinated that there's Bruce in his gray suit and going over things with Snoop Dogg. And I guess I was kind of exaggerating. Snoop just sitting there with his hands in his pockets and sweats and just kind of nodding along with me. And just fabulous. So I love those kind of things where they can actually capture what we were. You have a picture, one of my favorite pictures, again, in the other office with Vince and I. You know what? You know what? I'm going to stop talking because that's a show, Conrad. Breaking down all the photos on your walls? Bruce's pics because there's a story behind every frigging one of them. Man, I think we should name that show Break the Walls Down. Why? Because you're going to break down the photos on your wall Yeah, but it would be I don't want to break the walls down Okay Sounds like you're about three quarters on that Pictures, there's pictures And I have a picture And I have a picture of the doctor in that picture I should probably Maybe pay more attention to what the hell I have up here Do you have any photos of you and Zahorian on the wall? Yeah when I healed him over there I guess Let's talk about I can't believe this was real But people say it was such authority Okay sorry I've been drinking I've been drinking Prime this morning Conrad Oh god Can you tell Yeah listen sometimes it's a good thing Sometimes it's a bad thing It's a coin flip with you and Prime Drink responsibly folks Let's talk about 2006 thinks batista has the injury bug he's going to have surgery on his right triceps january 12th he's in birmingham dr james andrews where everybody went back then after the surgery was completed the estimate was he'll be back in the ring sometime between may and july so he'll be back in the summer um batista's issues though with his triceps seems like it was almost bordering on chronic at different times from a creative perspective is this something you always had the back of your mind i mean i remember back then people throwing around the word injury prone and it would be used to describe guys who were getting a push on tv and it seems like there's a little bit of momentum and then they're injured and i don't think it's been it's been a long time since i've even heard that phrase injury prone do you remember feeling like batista was injury prone is injury prone even language that was used inside the wwe what can you tell us about batista's tricep here? I think for some folks, sure. People that would be injury prone that would always come up lame for things and it was a different world then too because we didn't have the medical standards that we have now and guys didn't get paid if they didn't work. So a lot of times they would hide injuries and they would do everything they could. They would do the rehab. They would tape it up. They would do whatever they could to make it so that they could perform. When someone got big injuries, like a torn tricep, you can't hide that. That's something that has to be surgically repaired. You need time off to rest and do that. It was a different world. It really and truly was until finally they got a whole medical staff that came in and can treat folks. The sound like Stu Hart there for a minute. But there were guys, man, every time they turn around, they would get hurt. I remember Dell Wilkes, you know, coming in and we found out that Dell had a whole litany of injuries before coming to us, which has made us institute, because of Dell in the day, a pre-screening as part of their hiring process so that you could find out whether or not someone had any previous injuries that either weren repaired or hey man this guy labrum is barely hanging on His rotator cuff man there just nothing there Or he tore his bicep, never had it reattached. It doesn't need to be, but just so you know. But, oh, there's a tricep over here that's getting ready to go any minute. And you can't tell those things by looking at somebody and you take them at their word. then they're just looking to get in and get a job. So there have been things put in place since then. But I think Dave, man, I don't think that Dave was really that injury prone. I think there was thought, you know, look, early on, man, Randy Orton got injured a lot. And it just, you have to chalk some of it up to bad luck. and just, you know, bad timing. So some people might have gotten that moniker of, oh, they're injury prone if it was a lot and kind of one right after another. But we did try to curtail that. A great example, Steve Austin. I think Steve could have lost a leg and would have tried to just tape it up himself and wear jeans with a stick because by God he was going to go out there. Steve, you had to drag to a hospital and to a doctor to get fixed. Steve would just, he was that way. and he would be injured and say hey let's go get this chair I'm fine and so different attitudes for different people but yeah I don't know if Batista was necessarily on this I don't remember what happened per se but I can tell you from experience when your tricep goes it goes and it is an extremely unpleasant experience. Yeah, I've heard from people who've had that surgery. It's one of the more painful surgeries they've ever gone through. And it does feel like it was an issue with Batista here. Do you think that was a function of just professional wrestling? You know, taking these bumps in that really hard ring and all the travel? Is it from all the extra muscle he's got packed on at the time? I know in more recent years he slimmed down quite a bit. Is it a combination of all that? It is a combination of all of that because throughout it all, he's training really hard to maintain the look that he had. And he's in the ring every night, you know, no nights off, and busting his ass in the ring as well. Injuries happen. So it was a combination of both, the grind on the road, the training, everything else. And after a while, you feel little things. But then, I mean, for example, when I, my rotator cuff was gone. And I just thought, man, my shoulders hurt me. They diagnosed me with everything from a frozen shoulder to just, you just have arthritis. and then one day I came back from TV and I'm taking my shirt off in the bathroom and my wife is in the bed and looks at me and says, oh, my God, what happened to you? I said, what? She goes, look at your arm, look at your chest. Oh, my God. and I look in the mirror and this whole arm and my peck over here and my arm was the most disgusting black and blue bruise you ever saw. But I felt great. All of a sudden, the pain in my shoulder went away. I go see the doctor the next day and says, oh, yeah, you, your biceps, it's gone. It just rolled right up. I'm thinking, well, shit. What do I do for that? He goes, eh, you don't need to do anything. It'll be fine. My shoulder pain went away. But what the pain I was feeling, the intense pain, kind of masked the damage in my shoulder. So when that intense pain went away and the bicep finally just popped, the shoulder was I didn't feel that anymore and then three weeks later the shoulder pain is beyond because I didn't have the health of the bicep and I went in oh yeah your rotator cuff, your labrum, there's absolutely nothing you've got bone on bone we finally did an MRI you know and um that's what it was so so i say that for a tricep tear and same thing with my tricep when i got this my other shoulder done my tricep tore after that but i hadn't felt it and that was just from unfortunate like putting my hand out to stop myself and catching myself when the dog knocked me over and i felt that rip off the bone and that was horrible folks don't get a tricep tear. It sucks. Let's talk about how weird the world was in January 2006. WWE had decided, hey, you know what? There's a lot of people out here making a go and making some money with these new wrestling websites. Maybe we should change our story. It's no longer just about advertising for our programming and our merch. But what if we started to handle the news ourself? I thought that was kind of an interesting idea. WWE was going to start breaking stories and they wanted to eliminate the competition because they could always be first and that makes sense according to the Observer Chris Chambers is a guy who we've all heard his name many many times but now he was put in charge of the website and I guess there were people who were split about the way this should be handled for instance I guess as the story goes according to the Observer when Eugene had some off-the-field issues, and that was leaked to the websites, not WWE.com, but other websites, but, hey, that's not good. We don't need that leaked. Maybe we should try to control the narrative. But then when other things happened, like there was a storyline injury on TV, but in real life we're reporting that they're fine and they're taking time off on the website, you're sort of taking fans out of it. and it's written in the Observer that Triple H was not a fan of this. And, of course, we know this is 20 years ago, and this was happening in real time. I know there's going to be a lot of people who hear the conversation we're having now, and they say, but what about the show on Netflix? I hear you, but that's done after the fact. This is in real time. When this decision was made, hey, we're going to start approaching wrestling news and treat it like it's real and share the inside baseball. on WWE.com. We're not going to let everybody else do it. It didn't last long. Were you an advocate for it? Did you think that was positive change or negative change? Hated it. Understood it. But I didn't like it. For all the reasons you just mentioned. Because if you're going to go there, you have to go there. Right. And you can't pick and choose. you want to control the narrative on the bad stuff and you want to be able to give more information but you can't always do that for legal reasons and that's where I had the issue it's okay she can't be half pregnant we're either going to go there and it's we own it but I wouldn't do it under our umbrella. I would have rather had a separate site. I would not have promoted it on our vehicle. And go ahead and do it. If you're going to do it, go do it. But don't do it half-assed, where you're doing an angle on television, but then over here you're saying, oh, it's all bullshit. do it outside of your programming do it outside of your vehicle and the issue became we were doing it inside of everything we did it was all part of everything we did so it was met with skepticism one but also you couldn't be transparent on all of it you just couldn't so that was my hang up my hang up was what makes the cut what doesn't and who decides that because if you're doing it where Chris is going to make that call or somebody else is going to make that call who are they checking with and where are they getting their information? Because even internally, people didn't have the whole real story. So it just becomes, you're in a quandary. You can't service both sides in the same house. Go buy another house. Do all you want. compete with the other ones but you can't compete from your vehicle talk to me a little bit about who else would have been an advocate for this i mean we know chambers is tasked at least briefly with running it and then he's obviously going to be reassigned i want to talk about chambers again in a minute but we know triple h was against it back then we know you were against it back then where did vince land on it and who was pushing for this do you recall like who thought this could work obviously it didn't we couldn't all get on the same page but who was on the other end saying well what if it works this was a big advocate of it because he again he felt that all right well let's just beat him to the punch we know before anybody knows the truth anyway and they're getting they're getting things from talent that is not always and the talent is just telling, look, the talent will call Dave Meltzer or somebody else will call Dave Meltzer and give them something. But they're going to make themselves look good. They're going to put all the blame on the company or somebody else other than themselves, and they're going to spin it their way. Who's taking our spin? Who's putting out, well, no, that didn't happen. This is what happened. and you get into a, it becomes a mud fight. That was always going to be the case. No matter what you did or how you took it, that was going to be the case because it's as long as Dave has the guy that bought the ticket that sat in the mezzanine and says there were only 300 people there because he never looked behind him or whatever. He's, well, my sources say. Well, who's your source? Eight-year-old kid whose dad brought him to the matches that night or the guy that lost in the main event felt he should have been going over? It's all subjective. It's all subjective. Hey, listen, man, if you're managing a crew, I'm talking construction, HVAC, landscapers, whatever. You already know, when your guys go to pay for gas and materials, buddy, it causes all types of issues. Cards get borrowed, trucks fuel up when they're parked in the yard, and your accountant is chasing you for receipts at the end of every month. Well, Coast Pay fixes all of that. Coast Pay is the modern fuel card and expense management tool built for fleets. This isn't software built by someone who's never run a crew. Fuel, maintenance, materials, they're now all on one card with real control and instant visibility. Set real-time spending limits for every driver or vehicle. Maybe fuel only? Fuel and materials? Certain days or certain hours? You decide and Coast enforces it. You see every transaction the very moment it happens. No end-of-the-month surprises. If someone tries to fill up at an odd time or buy something outside of their limit, you know instantly. Fraud protection actually works on Coast. There's no shared pins. There's no missing receipts. There's no guesswork. 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It's a name that we've heard for a long time in WWE, but I'm sure some of our listeners aren't familiar with him and what his role has been. What can you chat us up about Chambers and his WWE legacy? Sean Mooney. Sean Mooney had a birthday party, I believe. Sean and Chris were good friends. And I think it was a birthday party at Sean's house or apartment and met Chris. And Sean suggested Chris for a producer job. I think he had worked with Major League Baseball or something. I really don't remember. But Chris, absolutely wonderful human being, great producer, and one of those guys. Chris was a chameleon, man. He could fit into any environment and be very comfortable and make you very comfortable. So that was an art, and then the talent was limitless. He was a great talent and knew how to – had a good feel for what we did. He knew how to make stories come to life and make them bigger in some of the production that he did. But unbelievable talent and an even better human being. Let's talk a little bit about another great human being. Thea Vidal, who was playing Shelton's mama, was floated in Black Voices Entertainment about her time in WWE, saying, I'm having a good time. I'm just starting out, but I'm having a good time and hope to be around for a long time. She's a somewhat well-known actress and comedian. How does she get the role to be Shelton's mama in the first place over an unknown? Whose idea was this to bring in Thea? We, you know, trying to give Shelton some more personality. We brought her in for a one-off for Shelton's mama to show up. And she was so good that thought was, well, what if Shelton's mama came to the ring with him? What if Shelton's mama kind of helped manage him and was with him all the time? And he could be that mama's boy and she could be big mama. There was a woman in Houston. She carried a big foam hammer. And that's what they called her, was big mama. and she looked exactly like Shelton's mom. And so I used to, I always called her Big Mama. I showed her pictures of Big Mama in Houston, and she would laugh, but she was cool as shit. She fit in. She got it immediately, but she was a bit older, and she wasn't used to the traveling and the grind, and that kind of put an end to it. She just could not take the travel. And even just keeping her as a once-a-week television character was too much for her. Let's talk a little bit about Kurt Angle. This is a challenging time in his life. He's got some health complications. Obviously, he's got some more neck damage, and now his hands are going numb. He's continuing to work through it, but you're trying to protect him in matches. He's trying to be precautious, but he's going to do a tour of Mexico, and it's not going all that great. They're concerned that he's not going to make it. And by the time he gets back, he says, no, I'm okay. I don't even need to be checked out. They're still wanting to get him scheduled up. What's interesting here, though, is this is happening maybe at the worst time of year. We just mentioned Batista is down, and when he goes down, Kurt Angle is sort of tapped to be the replacement, but now he's injured too. As a guy who spent most of his life in and around creative, is that the most challenging thing for you? Like you have these great, well-thought-out ideas and plans, and you're ready to roll, and you can never predict an injury. Not to one of your top guys, but to two of your top guys. And it's not like when one of those guys goes down, everything else stays to play. stays the same, it really changes everything, doesn't it? Definitely. And imagine having five go down at once. Has five happened before? Oh, yeah. We've had just plenty of gone down. It's a domino effect. And I subscribe to the philosophy of one door closes, another door opens. If someone goes down, that's an opportunity for someone else to step up. And if they're good enough and they seize that opportunity, then they make it. It makes that much harder for the person who is injured to come back. So another reason why talent didn't want to be out with an injury, especially something that they felt they could overcome, that they felt that, man, I'm good. Don't worry about me. I'm good. You're not good. So sometimes you need rest, and sometimes you need to take that time off. And we just, by necessity, you have to bring someone else to fill that void. And in this case, you had two of your top guys go down. It's tough. Kurt was also one of those talents that would work through any and everything. You know, he went to the doctor in Pittsburgh. Oh, revolutionary new neck surgery. It goes in through the throat and repairs it that way. By the way, at the time, it was very innovative, and it worked. it worked for someone who wasn't going out and taking bumps and the kind of physical strain that this business puts on someone Sina did it and same thing Sina did the same surgery through the throat Sina then you know a little different animal than Kurt and how he dealt with his body and everything and didn't, you know, Cena was never one to have those demons. I don't think he ever took pain pills or anything like that. So you have guys that deal with it in different ways and mask it. And the more you mask it, the more opportunity that there is to do more damage, which is never good. You know, the last thing you want, you don't want to do any more damage. so Kurt would push himself to extremes and Kurt Angle injured and Kurt Angle at 60% was still better than the majority at 100% just he was an animal he was a cyborg he was wired differently Kurt wouldn't let himself be taken out because that's just the way that he was bred from day one. You don't become an Olympic gold medalist by every time something happens that I stubbed my nail, I got a hangnail, I can't perform, I need six weeks off. Okay? But a real injury, sometimes you do need six weeks off. And if you don't take it, you're only making that injury worse. so times have changed and we've learned as we've gone along this wasn't necessarily a case of learning this was just a case of the personalities involved and Kurt being the athlete that he was always looking to no I can work through it no I can work through it he would always tell you his injuries then no but I'm fine I've got a broken neck. I've got this. I've got this. I'm not feeling anything, but I'm fine. Heck yeah, they say it's normal. So Angle's giving Batista's spot as champion on SmackDown when Batista goes down with the torn triceps shortly after going down with the torn lat. Angle gets switched over full-time after the January 16th Raw. There's maybe a lack of depth on the SmackDown roster, so here he comes. and it's written in the Observer that he's going to be scheduled to headline or at least on the next three pay-per-view shows and then he maybe will take some time off. He's got some big decisions to make. And as a reminder, we're at the last calendar year of Kurt's original WWE run and here he is replacing the new SmackDown champ and then, damn it, immediately injuring his neck or re-injuring his neck. weeks earlier there had been rumors that Kurt's health was more broadly being talked about and maybe he had bigger issues than was being discussed and there were people online who were suggesting maybe they needed to keep an eye on him and we know later in the year he's going to be relieved of his duties and I guess he didn't want to go to rehab for his addiction to painkillers But in January of 2006, did you know that Kurt had a problem or had that not reared its ugly head just yet? It was coming out. It was starting to rear its ugly head. And Kurt was an enigma in that regard because Kurt would tell you he was fine, but also Kurt would tell you he had issues. so you want to treat the issues but he's fine so it was tough to do in that regard and you had to push him a lot the substance abuse got a lot worse and became much more noticeable it's one thing to go out and party hard and to self medicate when you're away from the arena and you're not out in public, if you do that at home or you do that in your hotel room and nobody else sees you and they're not experiencing that with you, then, well, no, he seemed fine to me. There's that plausible deniability or whatever the hell you want to call it. Kurt was having issues. Kurt was having issues. But he would tell you and he would pass drug test type thing. He would tell you, no, I'm fine. I don't need to do anything. I'm ready to go until it just got to the point, man. You can't. You can't do it anymore, Kurt. so it was I remember the Seattle WrestleMania and finding Kurt in the shower just standing in the shower shaking like a leaf and going in you okay man he just was standing there I don't know if he knew where he was or anything turning the shower off and getting him a towel and him just sitting there violently shaking, freezing, teeth chattering. I went out and got his wife and then I ran and got the doctor and he was just his neck was hurt and that's what he said was wrong. There were a lot of different times and a lot of different places where Kurt wasn't in the best shape. And it was sad because he would push himself so hard because he knew people were depending on him. He wanted to be, Kurt wants to be dependent on. That's who he is. That's his makeup, you know. He lived his life. I want to be the best in the world at what I do. And I won the Olympic gold medalist with a broken freaking neck because I'm that good. father time doesn't do any jobs Kurt Angle is also a story of perseverance and a great success story you know so many people who go through the the challenges that he had don't come out the other side but Kurt did and he's better than ever if you have an opportunity to meet Kurt at a meet and greet or a convention or something like that near you I encourage you to go out of your way What an incredible human being Not only what he did physically But to overcome all of this stuff That he had It's really a testament to who he is as a person Cody Rhodes Is going to be in the Observer I think one of the first times This is 20 years ago Here's the exact write-up I love that we're talking about this From 20 years ago Dave wrote Cody Runnels, the youngest son of Dusty Rhodes who was a two-time Georgia State high school wrestling champion and undefeated as a senior, met with John Laurinaitis and Dean Malenko and later with Jody Hamilton and Tommy Dreamer. They offered to bring him to Louisville for a week to see if he likes it. Reynolds decided against pursuing wrestling in college and moved with his sister to Hollywood to try and make it as an actor after graduating high school. At the time, he showed no interest in going into pro wrestling. He hasn't gone to OVW yet for an indoctrination. What do you think it was that swayed Cody into deciding to sign with WWE and go to OVW to get trained up? I think the love of the business, really and truly, but also at the same time, I'm not sure that Dusty necessarily really wanted Cody following his footsteps. He felt that Cody had a future as an actor. felt that he would rather have him do that, go be a star, and save your body. But I also think, man, Cody wrestled in high school. Cody was a stud, you know, and it's like, I do think that Cody wanted to do it. I really do. I believe that Cody wanted to do it. I also know for a fact that Dusty probably would have rather had him go to Hollywood and make it big. That doesn't happen overnight. And we talk about the story of Dusty selling his watch, his Rolex, so that Cody could go to California and take acting lessons. that's how much Dream really wanted Cody to follow that dream so I think Cody may have been conflicted and probably was just hedging his bets and saying I don't know if I want to do this or not you know I'm thinking about this thinking about that and but I don't think that there was ever a doubt that he wanted to be in the wrestling business we know that six months later Cody is going to be wrestling in OVW do you think the idea of starting in deep south and staying close to home and working with Jody Hamilton given his history with his dad may have helped I know ultimately he does wind up in OVW but it's interesting to think you know what if what if Cody didn't pursue wrestling and went in another direction. Do you think the Atlanta thing played any factor at all? Maybe being close to home, possibly. But at the same time, I'm glad that he ended up where he ended up and doing what he loves to do. So, to that regard, he would eventually, if he had started in OVW, I think he would have had the same love and had the same path regardless. I wanted to ask you about creative. It's suggested in the observer that, you know, members of creative sometimes would watch OVW, but not deep south. Or perhaps it was the inverse. I forget. But when you think back to 20 years ago, was it a part of your regular routine that everyone in creative watch tapes of both developmental territories? Like, did you watch the TV from deep south and OVW? Or did you have someone sort of assigned to do that? If something was good, they brought it to your attention. what was the protocol for that 20 years ago? Well, I did it. Okay. That was part of my job. I watched all the developmental stuff and I was much more involved in the development side of things as far as I did what I watched every single show. I want to say there was Florida Championship Wrestling in there too. But the rest of the team, you know, we're writing four hours of television a week and you've only got so much time. Not everybody else had that time. I'm in Houston. So I didn't have the long meetings with just the team. Being on a speakerphone doing those, it's just death. It's counterproductive and it's a waste of time for someone on the phone. It's just hard. You've got to be in the room. You have to be in the room. And so for that, I was able to do other things, and that allowed me to watch OVW and to watch Deep South. I watched everything. I watched whatever I could get my hands on. But those, and I did reports on those every single week, much to many people's chagrin. What does that mean, much to many people's chagrin? You don't think that? I didn't sugarcoat shit. You didn't have time to sugarcoat shit. And sugarcoating doesn't make people better. If you just feed them, have them go, oh, you're doing really good. You're going to be great. Oh, you're going to be the main event of WrestleMania one day. And oh, we love you. And everything is great. Bullshit. Yang-gandy, yang-gandy. You need to get this better. You need to do this better. You need to. You've got to work. Come to class. Work harder. These guys will stay after. Work harder. You got something. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here in the first place. But some people didn't like that. And some people felt, oh, well, you're discouraging them. And you're. Well, no, I'm not. I hope I'm. I'm trying to motivate them. I'm trying to motivate them to come back and tell me in 20 years, hey, you were wrong. love to be proven wrong in that way love it but you got to work to do that and if you're just going to if you're just going to go to your bedroom and cry because bruce said something mean to me then you're never going to make it so i i approach things and it's from my upbringing It goes from my karate, football, all the way down the line. I always had very tough coaches. You know, it was a time, I grew up in a time where you did two-a-days football and you did shorts and shoulder pads in the morning at 6 a.m. when it was only like 85 degrees outside or 90 degrees outside. And then he came back in the afternoon when it was 107 and put full pads off. And then coach gave you a handful of salt tablets in the air. Come on, don't be a bunch of pussy down. Get your ass across that line now. Don't put your goddamn lazy fucker. They did that to motivate you. And you fought not to get singled out. You fought and you tried harder and you worked harder. Paul Bosch, Bill Watts, Vince. It was all, everything I took out of every astronaut I got was, I learned something. If you learn something out of it, then it's not lost. If I just went to my room and cried, I wouldn't have lasted. So, in my developmental reports, when I would hear people say how great someone was, and I would watch it, yeah, they're not. They're not. They won't make it up here, and here's why. They didn't just say, hey, they suck. It's like, this is where they need work. You see that, great, they drew 300 people to the Danny Davis Arena. I don't care. Are they going to be able to do what we need them to do on the main roster? and it was another reason why I always loved different trainers in different areas because different audiences or different trainers are different and you get much more of an education that way. So I'm a big fan of multiple trainers from different, just different trainers, different techniques, different bodies of work. Somebody doesn't have to be the main event, be a top guy, main evented everywhere to be a great trainer. somebody in their time may not be a good trainer but somebody who was opening up the cards every night and having the best match on the card may be and also vice versa you also need that guy that was the main eventer top star to be able to give them the wisdom of what took him or her to the top so it's a combination so I'm a big believer and just having versatile and different type trainers for all of that. And I was brutally honest. I was brutally honest into how I viewed them coming from the place of when we first started developmental events, looking at me and saying, if you don't think that they can main event WrestleMania, don't waste your time or my money. okay so i had a harsh viewpoint i had a much harsher viewpoint than others but that was my job my job was to give to to cut through the the lovey-dovey bullshit they may be a great guy they may you know bring you food or whatever and all these other things i don't care. I don't care if they bring me food or whatever. I don't care. Can they perform in the ring? Is there something there? Is there a spark that is going to get them to the next level? I'm not always right by any stretch of the imagination. But I've got a pretty good track record as far as spotting talent developmental and going, hmm, they've got it. And it's a hard thing to describe. so to answer your question I did some you know look they were available for everybody Michael Hayes watched a lot of it and those that were just the mega fans they watched it as well but I don't know necessarily that everybody did didn't have time to you said that not everybody liked it are you talking about inside HQ or are you talking about at the developmental territories they took issue with your criticism? All the above. And that pissed me off too. Because my feedback was only supposed to go to Vince, Steph, Johnny And then Johnny was supposed to disperse it But then when Johnny was giving it to everybody and again when I say it pissed me off it pissed me off because they told me otherwise I wouldn't have said anything differently, by the way. And I embraced the confrontations and the discussions that they brought up and challenged them. prove me wrong please but when you have huh it's been 20 years ago do you remember one that you I mean you said you love to be wrong can you tell us one you love to be wrong about one that you thought hey for whatever reason this is not working that's not to say that that talent wouldn't make it obviously young talent needs the opportunity to get better and learn and evolve and all that but if you were to ask me I could have okay you ain't got to get hot about it off the top of my head, look, I'm, I'm sure there are. Yeah. There are, you go back to Sina. Nobody thought Sina would make it. And boy, the jury was out and he proved everybody wrong. When you had guys that I'll give you, I can give you examples of the other way. Okay. Rico Constantino, by God, he's your next big baby face. He's, he's, he's the guy going to be your top baby face and take, Take the company to the next millennium. Those were your words at the time. No, those were their words from developmental. When we're saying there, is that Cornette? That was from, that was everybody in OVW. Okay. Danny Davis too? Yeah. Everybody that was there. Okay. Because he was good there. Right. Because he was great for Louisville, Kentucky. They threw their 300 people. That's great. It was good for them. Why are you so negative about developmental? Negative? Well, I'm very confident about developmental people. I love developmental. What I'm saying is they were developing for them, not for them. They took it. The developmental was to get people ready for the main roster. That's what developmental is. Developmental isn't to build a territory in Louisville, Kentucky, or Atlanta, Georgia, or Tampa, Florida. It's to get them ready for the main roster. So when I say that, I don't give a fuck what they're doing in Louisville, Kentucky, drawing 300 people, because that's good for that. And I am the biggest proponent of development that you will find. I started the goddamn thing. so I just think that sometimes people go well we needed this for OVW I'm picking on OVW because OVW was the biggest OVW also produced some of the best stars that we've ever had without a doubt because their trainers and their system was great it was just saying that it was skewed and sometimes of who of, and again, I'm picking on Rico here, because Rico was an excellent talent. He wasn't, he was older, he wasn't going to make it, he was smaller, and he wasn't going to be that champion on the main roster. Could he be a great character? Yes, and he was. But in developmental, it's, oh, well, you know, goddamn, but teaches the shits. Nobody's got a look and he's got a charisma that you can't teach. Teach him the other shit. Teach him how to work. Teach him how to do that. And I don't care if he can't do like the report one time with the seven foot seven giant you send me. He can't run the ropes worth of shit and can't do all these drills. I said, that motherfucker ever crisscrosses in a match, I'm going to fire him. I'm going to fire whoever the hell is making him do it. Right. Because, again, it was a mentality of we've got to make our territory look good. That was never the intent. If that is a byproduct of what you're doing, that's a bonus. You know what I mean? Yeah. If you're training guys, you're getting ready for us, and they're helping draw there and do things, that's a bonus. But when you focus on the guys that you want to focus on, not the guys that we want you to focus on, that's where the issue comes up. When you're telling me every day that this guy, Simon Dean, it's like the guy's not going to be a main event guy not going to do it he was basically an enhancement talent in ECW but he wasn't going to be main event guy, could he be a character, maybe so when you're focused I felt the focus was off as far as, man, why are we working harder on Drew McIntyre? Why aren't we working harder on Wade Barrett? Why aren't we working harder on Batista, on Brock Lesnar? I see. So to give some context, I think you're suggesting that not that everybody who came through developmental needed to be or was expected to be a main eventer. However, we are looking for the next big thing. We should focus as much energy as we can on the main events or potential main events. Stars. Yes. Yeah. And you also need those people to get those stars over. That's right. I'm not saying that you don't need that. I'm just looking at when the focus, and you're going back to 2006 or 20 years ago. Right. When their focus is, oh, my God, we did 600 people in Georgia, wherever, or in Valcala, Florida, or some kind of bullshit. I don't know. And I'm going, okay. But you had all these other guys on top, and you're not giving the ring time to the guys we need to have ring time. so it's a fine balancing act and they took exception the developmental folks took exception to that and yeah it was viewed as negative it was all viewed as negative it wasn't the intent, the intent was the opposite the intent was let's use these guys that we want to see and we need to be dictating to it much more who we want to see. Put this guy on top. Do this with this guy. Give a shit if they're not ready. I know they're not ready. I get it. But you've got to try something at some point. You can't just say they're not ready, they're not ready, they're not ready. Well, put them in and find out. You have to reach that point. You have to get there. Sometimes it takes people longer. But again, my thing was was after my reports were given where people would come back and say, oh, well, Bruce just doesn't like this guy. I didn't know him. I am strictly critiquing off what I'm watching. And I'm not watching it for what can draw 100 more people to wherever they're going. That wasn't our intention. Right. our intention was when's this guy going to be ready want more improvement when can I move this guy to OVW from Atlanta or from Florida to Georgia we want to get them as much experience as we can and it's just you have to have that hard look because if everything is you know peaches and ice cream then what are we doing because it's not if you just want to put the guy that oh he's just wonderful and he's a really good guy and they like him and by god he really does good in a little town I hear what you're saying that doesn't always translate you guys goals weren't aligned as a fan We've never spent this much time talking about this I'm glad we are now I didn't know you had to watch all It was part of your job to watch all the different tapes From the development But I also wanted to because that was our future Sure as a fan Did you like one show better than the others Like if you got all three tapes Would you say okay I know this is going to be the best one So I'll watch it last or I'll watch it first Or whatever it may be But these other two Was there one that you preferred More than the other No Not really. Again, I thought they were, for me, they were a tool. So they all had different levels of talent that we were interested in and we wanted to gauge and we wanted to see their growth. So I'm not looking at their production. I am. And we help them however we could in that regard. But I'm looking at the talent involved. I'm looking at progression. I'm looking at who's getting better, who's staying the same. Where the hell is this guy? What are we doing with it? And so to me, they were all pretty much equal. So when you think back on that era, then again, this is 20 years ago. If you had to sort of craft your own dream developmental territory, what would that have looked like? Like, hey, give me this guy as a trainer. Give me this guy teaching promos. Give me this guy. Can we highlight some positive things that you really like? Maybe not necessarily from each individual territory, but just if you were to do your own developmental, hey, we're going to do it Bruce's way, what do you think that would look like 20 years ago? You know, look, they all had the positives. I think that OVW was by far the probably the best as far as developing talent. and in training. I think that they had a good curriculum. I think that they had a good setup in what they did and how they did it. But then you also look at Florida. And I think that Florida had a really good curriculum, too, and how they did everything. It was different. You know, it was different because of the instructors, whether you had Steve Kern or you had a Danny Davis. But I didn't think that Jody Hamilton was a good trainer by that time. I think that Jody had at one point in his career, people would argue that Jody was one of the best trainers, but I think in later years that Jody just let everybody else do their own thing and Jody was complacent. So by the time we got Jody to do that, I don't know that he was fully on board. And he wasn't training. It was Jody Hamilton. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I've seen what Jody Hamilton has produced, and he's regarded as one of the best trainers. So I don't know that we necessarily got that by that time. He was older and just a little more set in his ways. But I thought we had really, and again, let's not say Jody was a bad trainer because he was good. Steve was good. Danny was good. And those were the people that ran it. And they ran, if I was to rank them, I'd say that OVW1 and Florida 2 and Georgia 3. All right, well, here we are at the end of January. A lot of us made some New Year's resolutions at the start of the year, and, well, some of us have already moved on from those resolutions. But one thing I'm going to hang on to for the rest of 2026, Mando Whole Body Deodorant. It's whole body deodorant because it's safe to use anywhere on your body. Bruce uses it on his armpits. 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All of those products are baking soda-free and paraben-free and they come in for... Hey, hang tight. You're digitizing all of a sudden. Well, fuck you. How about that, you know? Have you thought about it? Have you thought about fucking yourself right up the ass? Has it even crossed your mind? Several times, actually. I was on multifactorial. Is it better when it's on stereo? Yes, keep it on stereo. Okay. It sounds like food. All of Mando's products are baking soda-free and paraben-free, and you get to choose from a variety of fresh scents, bourbon leather, Cloverwoods, Mount Fuji, Pro Sport. Just the other day, I saw Bruce do a little nut check right before we went live on the podcast, and he put his fingers under his nose, and he went, bourbon leather. Listen, Mando's been clinically proven to control odor better than just a shower with soap alone. And if you're ready to try America's number one whole body deodorant, well, buddy, you can find them at ShopMando.com. You see, some men mask their BO with scents, but Mando men get the job done right. So don't mask it, Mando it. Available in retailers near you or head on over to ShopMando.com because for a limited time, new customers get 20% off site wine with our exclusive code. Just use the code STW at shopmando.com for 20% off site-wide plus free shipping. That's S-H-O-P-M-A-N-D-O dot com. Please support our show. Tell them we sent you. Mando's got you covered with the aura plus sweat control. Say goodbye to sweat stains and say hello to long-lasting freshness. Urban leather. We could talk about this forever. We're talking about Royal Rumble 2006, so let's move on. Um, the observer wrote this 20 years ago. Triple H made the remark recently that, you know, has been getting booed is that angle doesn't know how to be a heel. That was funny since when they were in England, Cena worked singles with triple H and Cena was booed out of the place and Cena was being booed against everyone until he lost the title and kept saving flair. This is the era where this starts to become more of a thing. The pushback on John Cena, uh, from the, some of the fan base, not all of the fan base is 06 the time when you remember it becoming something you at least had to plan for or or did you just have to be a little hard to hear and or did you have to ignore that is what i'm trying to drive at you had to ignore it yeah you had to ignore it because that was not someplace that vince was willing to go and he saw john cena when you look at whether the loud male views and booze were drowning out everything else, the families and the merchandise sales and the kids and the money was saying otherwise. So it was not a really hard decision. It was one that people didn't understand for sure. That's what I wanted to ask you about because it feels like to me perhaps the two biggest examples. And at the time, boy, people are so critical of Vince and WWE. And the two names I'm going to mention here are John Cena and later Roman Reigns. But in the end, boy, they both worked out pretty damn well. So Vince had a vision that the majority of the fan base and those watching the product probably did not share. But he powered through. Is there another example out there besides John Cena and Roman Reigns that you can think of where everyone seemingly from the outside was saying, hey, this isn't it. We need to change. It's not going to work. And he said, you know, they don't know what they want sort of thing. And he was right in the end. Those are the two biggest examples. Those are the two examples I always use. Ian Conrad, go back to when we first started doing this. And we were looking at the product then. And I told you from day one, never wavered. Roman Reigns is the biggest car they have. and will be the biggest star. So, and that went back to seeing Roman Reigns' high school football picture before he went to college and telling Offa to tell Seika that, hey, when he's done playing football, we're ready for him. it was he had a look, he had just a personality that he was made for this business. He's a star. You look at him, you see a star. The same thing with Cena. He was a star. The audience felt one way because they felt they were being shoved down their throat. As soon as we stopped shoving Cena down their throat, they'd, oh, my God, you're not listening to the people. it's it's funny but yeah those are the two Randy, look Randy can fit in that too where people thought Randy wasn't going to make it that was just in general, what are you doing Randy Orton, oh my god I think Randy's got just one of the absolute greatest ever laced up a pair of boots he still laces up his boots and so there have been different guys at different times you know Steve Austin Vince didn't see that in the beginning but eventually saw it and I think the turn of Steve in 2001 was something that Vince also probably regretted because the audience was not going to accept Stone Cold Steve Austin as a heel. Now, the question could be an argument could be made. If you didn't turn Steve heel and continue with Steve as the strong baby face, would they have eventually turned on Steve? We don't know that answer because that's not what happened. So when they did turn Steve, the audience didn't want him to, and that didn't work. But Steve remained a heel for a long time in the heel role, put it that way. But he was an entertaining heel that everybody loved. So hindsight is not always 20-20. You know, you can say, oh, what if this happened? What if that happened? Well, it didn't. What happened is what happened. And that's how you have to judge whether something worked or not. It'll work or not. Later this year, we are going to be talking about WrestleMania 17. So we'll table that conversation and the Steve Austin turn for now. But do you think that's maybe one of the reasons why, you know, learning from that lesson in 2001, WrestleMania 17, with the decision to turn Steve Austin, is that truly the reason? I don't know. that Cena never turned, that Vince was not interested in that? May have been. You know, Hulk is another one Vince never wanted to turn. Right. I just feel, you know, in the business. Yeah. Never wanted to turn him because he wanted to have that. And in John, same thing. Vince wanted to have his Babe Ruth. And John is really the only one. You can throw Sean into that. But, you know, Sean worked for Vern for coming in here and did work other places. Undertaker worked in other places. But Cena's the only guy coming out of the gym in L.A., OVW, to here, and the only true blue WWE guy that never had worked anywhere. You know, throw Miz in there. Roman Reigns. The way developmental is now, you're going to have more of those. But in that time frame, especially at that time, Cena was somebody that was created here, that only came here and was only here. His career was all in one place. And for Vince to have his Babe Ruth, that never left, and there was that true blue man, hero, that kids love, parents love, and guys love to boo. Pretty good deal. Let's talk a little bit about creative here in 2006. Meltzer would say, the current makeup of the creative team is Stephanie overseeing things. Brian is the most powerful person on the staff right now, which also consists of Dave Lagana, Alex Greenfield, Dusty Rhodes, Ed Kosky, Krista Joseph, Casey, am I saying this right, Roche? Is that right? Michael Hayes, Ted DiBiase So he's rattling off some names Your name is of course Conspicuous by its absence You mentioned that you were in Houston I don't know that we've Fully ever revealed I know you kind of like keep things close to the vest Do you want to tell the audience why you were in Houston 20 years ago and not in Connecticut Yeah because my wife had cancer We were there for treatment at MD Anderson Hospital and Pretty much saved her life So we're glad that Stephanie's still with us. Roll title now. But when we were speaking about creative, did you have a role then? I know you just revealed that you were on both teams. And pretty much. So my role was I was on with both teams and all the creative calls with Vince and everything. And then after those calls, I would get the call from Vince, whether it was either. sometimes immediately after or the next day and go over creative with him. So I kind of oversee the backstage vignettes and all those backstages that we did. So I did both shows. Not everybody did both shows. I did and kind of oversaw it all and answered to both. But Steph was without a doubt. She was the head of the creative team, and I reported in to Seth. But it was, yeah, I was a part of all the creative meetings and what have you. Let's talk about some of the names here. When Meltzer writes Chris to Joseph, he says in parentheses, someone said to be moving up the ladder of power and said to be good at developing relationships with talent. Some of our listeners may remember him for a cameo he had on TV. Do you want to remind everybody that they've probably seen Krista Joseph, they just don't remember? Yeah, Big Dick. Well, you need to be a little more specific than that on this show. No, what was his name? He did a skit with Sandman and he jerked off a Singapore game. I don't remember that. I just remember the first one when he debuted with Vince. He was like a heavyset stripper. Yeah. Oiled up doing the Party Boy gimmick from Jackass. Yeah, the original was with Vince, where he sprayed oil all over Vince, and he wanted to kill me. I love it. But that was something that Triple H and I did that Joseph didn't want to go down to the G-string. They're like, you have to go down to the G-string, and you have to do the baby oil. And he goes, Vince will kill me. I said, no, he'll kill us. But you got to do it. and we just stayed on him all day long, and finally he did. And it was a thousand times better that way. I think in real life, you got along pretty well with Chris Josephs. A lot of the people, myself included, we don't know him, never met him. What was his experience like in WWE? He's not there now these days, is he? No. Oh, God, no. Chris, good kid. You know, he's very creative. had his issues with other demons, if you will. But Chris started out as an assistant and worked his way into Ryder and eventually worked his way into a lead Ryder position. So he was good. But during this time, it was also during the time where Michael and Chris were the leads for SmackDown. and unfortunately what would happen is you would have Raw on Monday night. You would go Tuesday to go do SmackDown. You would have a meeting in the morning. This is after their meetings the week before where their meetings took place on a Friday. Michael Hayes would leave and either not be in the meeting or do it by phone or whatever, and Vince would listen because it was a Friday night. Okay, yeah, no, it sounds good. and then I would get the call either Friday night or Saturday what the hell then you would have Raw Monday you would have Smackdown on Tuesday and the meeting would start at 8 o'clock in the morning we'd have breakfast we'd go over it go in and have the production meeting Michael would do the production meeting and everybody would go out and do their assignments and Vince said Bruce hang back and Vince and I would rewrite the entire show. This is while everybody is out doing their assignments for the night. And I would, every single time, I'll say, should I get Michael and DJ? No, they're the ones that got us in this problem. He would wait all that time until we would have a production meeting going over everything for that night. Here's your assignments. Go produce a show. Go do this stuff. Everybody would leave to go do it. And we would sit there and rewrite the show. And then I would have to go and I would have to get DJ and Michael together and dictate the show to them while Chris and Joseph would sit there and type that damn thing out. and Michael would come in and bitch and moan god damn why put the ass Michael his office was right there man go talk to him dude I why are you changing the show Michael he asked me to say go talk to him you know put me in a shitty position a lot of times but that was my job I do want to ask about some other names that are listed here names we haven't spent a lot of time talking about Dave Lagana how do you think he fared as a part of WWE creative I just didn't last long and went on worked with us a little bit at TNA and then I guess with whatever that NWA thing is not a lot I mean not couldn't tell you are you are you do you have heat with the Ghana I don't think so no there's just not a lot to say about him what about Alex Greenfield Alex Greenfield work with MLW now Alex Greenfield his claim to fame was when he would do the thing is get to the end of it and then we crash to break sick three nice guy but you know he was I would say I spent more time with Alex talking about horror movies and things of that nature which he's done he's written and produced some straight to video horror movies and things like that that genre. I think Alex is more of a screenwriter and I found his stuff pretty entertaining. How do you maybe I'm saying it wrong Casey Roche? What about Ted DiBiase? Meltzer would say I know you know who that is. Meltzer wrote who is often referred to as being behind the times and he has an 80s view on wrestling and really doesn't get the non-wrestling aspects and there is heat on him in some circles. Why don't you think DiBiase was long for creative? Ted DiBiase is the guy who could do any and everything in the ring and have a great match with a broomstick. But Teddy couldn't tell you how he did it. and Ted was not that creative admittedly so it wasn't for him man he from the first week he was there so this is not for me not good at this I don't like it it's not my bailiwick he's he was great in the ring man nobody could touch that son of a bitch working in the ring but he was not he was not good with the creator it had passed him by he didn't get it didn't enjoy it and it showed he was there and man it took his toe long gained a lot of weight he had a health scare with him there having breakfast with Dusty one day at the hotel eyes rolled back of his head and took him to hospital I've never told this story on here no oh my god Teddy's going to kill me for this I'm not going to do it anyway this is funny this is a funny shit Teddy had a health care man is like this is blood pressure they called the ambulance they took him to the hospital Dusty calls us and I boom head over to the hospital and it's Dusty in the emergency room next to Teddy's bed and they've only allowed two of us in there so it's being Dusty and Dusty's just being Dusty man and we're trying to keep Teddy hey man he's a little freaked out because it's scary and he like boom toppled over his chair took a big back bump and all this stuff and the nurse comes in and she says alright we're going to need to get a urine sample and she hands him the little cup and all this stuff she goes if you want to sit up you can sit up or whatever and the nurse is standing there and Dusty goes okay hang on we're going to help you out here darling because listen when Big Jumbo comes out you've got to be out the way because it's going to consume this entire, Teddy, keep that thing under wraps until you're ready. It was just shit like that old jumbo. Teddy, you keep an old jumbo under wraps these days? Yeah, keep that thing hitting on down in there and all that stuff. I'm going to be showing that to any ladies with little cups. I don't even think the baby is going to fill that up. and we got out and Teddy just had probably an anxiety attack or whatever but it was a scare but it was also because Ted wasn't taking care of himself and he was eating a lot and just not taking care of himself and I think the stress of the job was weighing on him as well and he knew it and he talked about it and I think that it was just one of those situations that didn't work. But if you could, if there was a way to harness Ted's brain while he was in the ring, that would be incredible. But Ted, he just couldn't tell you how he did it. Tell you what he did, but he couldn't tell you how to replicate that or what to do for you. One of the greatest technicians ever in the business. I watched a match with him and rock, Blade Runner rock, Jim Helwig. The only bad match I think I've ever seen two and a half. I remember it live that night and then I watched it on tape recently on that vault thing on WWE vault for new found Ultimate Warrior footage. Last name I want to hit you with on creative. What's that other name you said? K.C. Roche? R-O-C-H-E? I had absolutely no idea. Couldn't take him out of a lineup. What about Kurt Bauer? We know that these days he's running MLW. At that point, he had already tried MLW, folded up. Now he's in WWE, but now he, these days, is not working with WWE. He's running MLW, and WWE figures through the years have maybe tried to discredit Kurt Bauer and say that he was never on the creative team. He just booked their travel. I know you knew Kurt. You worked with Kurt a bit, MLW. This podcast actually started on the MLW network back in 2016. What was Kurt's role in WWE? me court was brought in to be a member of the creative team and he came to tv twice that i remember uh shadowed me and then uh it was decided that you know what he didn't have a lot to offer in the creative team so he began booking the travel and that was a disaster but that was like a buddy he got a lot of enemy that's where he got his enemies was booking the travel for everybody in creative. It's a heat position to book travel, isn't it? Oh, man. Yeah. But no, the only creative that I can remember for court is when we were bringing in the minis for the Paramount debut of SmackDown, and we were going to have the network executive role and we were going to have the friggin swashbuckler, the pirate come in on a rope in the middle of the interview and then he's surrounded by a bunch of minis in court insisting that Super Porky was a midget. And I'm like he's not. He's just a short man but he is absolutely not a midget. Yes he is, yes he is. And I'm like He's not. They brought him in as the mini, and then they just put him in there as like a super mini. But, man, I watched Super Porky in Mexico knock out guys 6'5", and just wasn't a tall man, but he was an extremely tough man and a wonderful human being to boot. But that was the one that everybody, when Vince got that, he's like, what the hell? Anyway. He's a little fat guy. What the hell? But we put him in there anyway because he ate the whole ham. Looked good doing it. His family still wrestles for AAA to this day. JCW Lunacy. New episodes every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. For over 25 years, JCW has delivered the very best in pro wrestling entertainment, bringing fans deep storytelling drama, gut-busting comedy, and unbelievable in-ring action. From wild characters to unforgettable rivalries, don't miss a single moment. Tune in every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. JCW Looney Street. Let's talk a little bit about... We don't like to see, man. There are a lot of porkies. and what a legacy, but Super Porky by far was my favorite and maybe the only one I really knew but he was just so kind to me took care of me in Mexico but he was a very nice gentleman By the way, the producer of our show not the long lost twin of Super Porky in fact, Dave Silva these days is a little less Porky, that's his Lucha name Let's talk about Lucha though. Whoventude makes the observer here He says Dave wrote he been telling people he wasn really fired he was claiming his visa expired and get this he wasn able to get it renewed because of the heightened terrorist situation and once it's renewed he'll be back this has even been reported like that in mexico but nobody's asking the simple question how are super crazy and psychosis still there when wwe got all of their working visas at the same time we haven't spent enough time talking about hooventude on this show through the years, Bruce? There's a good reason for that. Give us a good hoovie story. Come on, you got one. He was, man, he just thought he was the cat's meow, and he was the shit shit, and he had charisma, big time had charisma, but he had an attitude to go with it. Wasn't as good as he thought he was, but just had a really shitty attitude, and, um, wasn't getting in shape, wasn't doing anything. When you boil it all down, it wasn't that good. But he had the attitude of like, boy, you'd have thought that he was the biggest thing ever if you ask him. But didn't come to work on time, just a problem child and just horrible, horrible attitude. So, Bruce, let's get into it. The Rumble, not well received. Critically, just gutted and quartered and butchered in the Observer. But it is a big night for Shawn Michaels. Shawn Michaels is going to be starting a feud with Vince McMahon. We'll talk about that in just a minute. But Ray Mysterio is the name of the game. He and Triple H are going to start together, and they're going to go down to the very, very end. A lot of people on hand probably thought Randy Orton was going to be the winner. He comes out at number 30. We're going to run through some of that stuff and some of the matches, but I guess we should just jump right into the back story coming into this. As a reminder, I hate to be Debbie Downer because we've had a lot of fun talking, but a couple of months prior to this is when we lost Eddie Guerrero. And I think we all know you've made it pretty famous here on Something to Wrestle that in an alternate universe, Eddie was supposed to wrestle Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania. Is that the way you remember this? That was an idea, yeah. That was my dream idea. Right. So, obviously, when Eddie passes away, things change, pal. How far in advance did you know we're going to go with Shawn and Vince? Did you know I mean obviously you knew going into the Rumble But is that something you made Clearly after Eddie's passing right Yes Yes but There was so much discussion And debate getting here As far as Do we go with Ray Do we Not go with Ray and it was just a lot of debate it was I don't want to say anything was really firm firm which nothing's ever firm firm the only time it's firm firm is once it's been done and even then it's a little iffy but we obviously knew beforehand and not everyone knew I think there were a lot of people that thought Randy was the guy going into this and what have you. But there was a little bit of turmoil during this time. I want to say that Sean and Vince was kind of there and easy to do. So let's go there. Obviously, that's going to lend itself to more of a story than a match because we know that, well, It's not like Vince is going to be turning in any five-star classics, but if you're not going to go with Orton and you go with Ray, it feels like coming into the show, we had sort of hit people over the head with Ray's stuff. And one of the things that was kind of controversial coming into this show is there was a line where Randy Orton is doing a promo to Ray and he said, Eddie's in hell. and it feels like you and I haven't talked about this and if we have it's been a long time ago that every now and again we probably wish we had one back do you regret that one? is that one you wish you had a do-over on? or what do you think about with the benefit of hindsight Eddie's in hell that verbiage from Randy Orton I think Eddie would have fought for it really? yeah I didn't like it but I think that Vicky knew about it And there were no, there weren't the objections where you might ordinarily have gotten the objections from. So those of us that were close to Eddie, I think there was a bit of, ah, God, man, too soon. I don't know. TP, another one comes to mind. But I also, it's like Paul Bearer and CM Punk and Undertaker. Everybody, oh, too soon. Oh, my God, blasphemous, all this stuff. 100% Paul Bearer would have loved that. I think in the same regard here, I think that Eddie would have fought for that, and Eddie probably would have been the one bringing it to us if he were still around, you know, type thing. So no regrets? You don't think if you had that one to do over, you'd do it over? No, because I fought for it then. I fought for it not to be in the show and got overruled and also understood, you know, why it was overruled and agreed with both sides. But it's, you say, do you regret it? It happened. So it's a regret. It's just a regret. But I don't think that it would have changed. I don't think that there was enough sentiment. And I do agree with the sentiment that Eddie would have wanted that to be in. Here's what Meltzer wrote way back when. The rumble was bad, Raw was bad, Smackdown, where to get heat, Randy Orton said that Eddie Guerrero was in hell was worse. I was called by one person and emailed by two others who would be considered friends of his in the company regarding the Orton deal, and one said that many at the moment lost complete respect for management. The more detailed backstage description I was given was when Orton did the line, quote, I looked at Chavo and he put his head in his hands and shook his head. The whole place went silent. This was way, way over the line. So people are upset about it right away. I know you said that you guys had spoken with, you know, Eddie's wife, Vicki. But do you think Chavo was caught off guard with this? I don't know if he was or not. I really don't know. But I will say this, you know, that reaction backstage, good, bad, or indifferent, it was a reaction. It was a visceral reaction. probably my reaction you know hearing it and going god damn man this business lends itself to going in the gutter and in that regard in that moment that may have been going in the gutter could we have done it a year later sure but it was soon and for those of us that were really close to Eddie. I think kind of saw both sides. But just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it was heat. I just don't know if it was good heat. But, again, it's, you know, it's done. It's out there. So if I was making the call, I don't think we would have done it. If it was 100% on me, I would have said, you know what, I don't want to do that. The criticism at the time was it felt like you guys were using Eddie to sort of, I don't know, maybe you were exploiting his death. You were hitting us over the head with it. And there were other examples in the Observer of the way Eddie had paid tribute in ECW to Art Barr and the way, you know, Brett and Benoit had paid tribute to Owen on their WCW Nitro match and all that sort of thing. But either way, this is going to be a showcase for Rey Mysterio. And it's even suggested in The Observer that without Eddie's death, Rey may not have gotten this opportunity. Is that fair to say? At that time, at that point in time, probably. I mean, it wasn't going to happen at that WrestleMania. Right. well uh let's um let's talk about randy orton melzer would suggest there's no chance for the great wrestlemania moment if orton beats kurt angle on the other hand if mysterio wins you could have that moment although it'll be tainted many people's minds if they continue with this direction at the same time while everyone wants to see the moment we'll want to see him come out with the belt in the next week or so but i'm not sure how many people want to see him wearing that belt in the main event on a pay-per-view show that's a different hurdle that's something we haven't spent time talking about but i do want to ask i know that fans really like the underdog victory hey man i've all this guy's been here and he's one of my favorites and i'm so glad he got that opportunity but then once he gets the belt now that the quote-unquote chase is over, it does feel like it presents a new challenge. Can you talk to us about that? Like, hey, they were really excited to see him get the belt, and then as you like to say here on the program, and then what? Well, that was something that would kind of remain to be seen. And Ray had a following. Ray had a way of working with any and everybody and making it believable. Ray made you believe when he faced a seven-foot giant. The giant made you believe that Ray Mysterio could be a seven-foot giant. So Ray was a very unique talent in what he could do. So that was unproven. I don't know that you could go a year with Ray because I think he would run out of incredible opponents and finishes. In that regard, Ray is much better as the underdog. But I also think, man, he was that guy that basically tells everybody, man, live your dream. Fight for it. Go out and do. Don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it. And that was what has been special about Ray for all time. Because you look at him and you go, oh, my God. Then you see what he can do, and you go, oh, my God. So Ray is a special, very unique, incredible talent, and I think that he could have pulled it off, absolutely. Mysterio would say this. Mysterio winning the Rumble should have felt good, but in the end, an awful lot of people felt dirty, and it's only going to get worse. It almost seems like there's two things they think about their world as real. the 97 Survivor Series and that Eddie Guerrero died, and they're stuck with the ultimate frustration that they can't go back all the way with the former because one guy denies them the satisfaction, so they'll go all the way with the latter. But here's what I thought was interesting. The push of a guy who is 5'2 and 165 to the world title has its detractors. In the end, Guerrero or not, Mysterio is the heart and soul of SmackDown, and people care more about him than anyone else on the roster. Randy Orton is tall, good-looking, and a good wrestler to boot. He's exactly what they want in a wrestler, but he's also missing the most important ingredient and the difference between a guy who can work on top and a guy who can create magic. So that's what Meltzer wrote in 2006. Did you feel like Randy Orton could deliver that WrestleMania magic in 06, or is that something that every performer has to grow into? Randy still needed to grow into it. and that just comes with maturity and growth so Randy did need to grow into it during that time and yeah, you know, Ray Ray was that heart and soul but you talk about being on 5'2 and 165 like Eddie wasn't that much bigger and people I would argue that Eddie Guerrero could have held that title for as long as he wanted to Eddie I know I've told this story before but sitting there at the I think it was No Way Out or whatever the hell it was but Eddie's last pay-per-view working with Batista and I was sitting in the crowd and the guy behind me when they had Batista and Ray going face-to-face and the guy behind me goes, so wait a minute you mean to tell me that that little guy was a world heavyweight champion and the guy he's talking to you he goes hey that little guy in a real fight would kill that big guy and he had a believability about him and an aura that he made you believe and I think that Ray shared that same aura he could make you believe we're talking about the the whole eddy is in hell line i haven't yet asked you how did randy feel about saying that line um i i probably initially bristle but you know obviously he did it but i'm sure he bristled at first i i sit here and say i remember how Randy Orton felt that day. I have no idea. Was Vince the biggest advocate for using the line or was it someone else on Creative as best you can recall? I think it was one of those ideas that came up that then got banning about and kind of parlayed around the room and eventually a decision was made. Yeah, let's do it. Make sure that Vicky's good with it and then did it. You know, a lot of us get busy with the hustle and bustle of the holidays, and I can fall victim of that stress too. But I've got to tell you, on Christmas Eve, we were in my formal living room, and I was surrounded by all of my close family and my extended family. And I don't know, man, I was overcome with gratitude. You know, this life we've built together is pretty awesome. But I've got to be honest, my thought immediately wondered too, how am I going to take care of everybody if I'm not here? 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Meltzer Freestyles, but because of the stage, it's probably closer to 14-5. Either way, there's no more tickets on sale, so high fives all around. The match before the pay-per-view goes live is Fit Finley getting a win over Brian Kendrick in two minutes and seven seconds. We haven't spent a lot of time talking about Brian Kendrick on the show. Do you think that, you know, sometimes in wrestling, hell in life, timing is everything. if Kendrick would have came along 10 years later does his career look much different do you think? Sure I think in a time where the athletes were a little bit smaller stature I think that Brian Kendrick was a standout I also think Brian Kendrick was a standout when he came in I went to Shawn Michaels school in 99 maybe and saw there was Brian Kendrick, Spanky there was the big kid. Was it Leaf Cassidy? Or, goddammit, big one. Lance Cade. Lance Cade and Shooter somebody. And Spanky was the first one there. Did the beginner's class, did the advanced class and was the last one to leave. Still working out. I hired him on that alone. Work ethic. He could do everything. He did everything well. You know, obviously Lance had the look, but he was also a hell of a hand. And Shooter was a hard worker that, all right, we'll try it. But I think if you were to say in a different world, again, 15 years later, then, you know, Spanky could have been the one that was like, hey, this kid's going to be the Stark. Let's talk about the matches. Gregory Helms, he's the mystery guy from Raw who's going to win the Cruiserweight title. It's a six-way. Also in the match is Kid Cash, Funaki, Nunzio, Jamie Noble, and Paul London. If you want to talk about ahead of their time, that's kind of what this whole match was. It goes seven minutes and 40 seconds. I enjoyed the match. Meltzer gave it two and a half stars. I do want to ask, it doesn't feel like the Cruiserweight division in this era was priority. Is that a Vince McMahon edict or when and how did that ever change the positioning of guys this size? Did just the label? I think the world changed. Yeah, I didn't think the world changed more than anything. But, you know, this day, Sugar Shane Helms, who ended up winning this match, becoming a Cruiserweight champion, showed up to work in a suit. and Dean Malenko called him over and says what he says they already told you and he goes oh yeah I had a talk with Vince he goes god damn really and he says yeah he goes you know I showed up work last week and I was in sweats and Vince told me he goes you know you need to dress for the role because he was doing the Gregory Helms stuff in the suit and so he goes so yeah I wore the suit And Dean was thinking that he had already heard that he was going over. So he dressed up. And Shane was going, no, Ben's going to wear a suit because I wear the suit on TV and all that stuff. And he was totally confused. What's up with that? I love me some Hurricane Helms. If you get a chance to meet that guy at one of his rare Comic-Cons, go out of your way. He will walk away with a memory. Speaking of memories, we got one here. Maybe not a great one. And I like the opening match, but the next one, maybe we set them up to fail. Mickey James gets a win over Ashley. Trish Stratus is the special guest referee. This is the storyline where Mickey is obsessed with Trish. And when Trish counts three for Mickey after seven minutes and 44 seconds, after she's already professed her love, she thinks, oh, maybe she likes me. What no one liked, unfortunately, was this match. I don't think Ashley was ready for prime time here. Fair to say? I think that this match had been held in the Tokyo Dome. Oh, please. What? I mean, it's written here, when the crowd turned... When it was held in the Tokyo Dome, this would have got at least, like, nine half stars. Yeah, it's not good. It was rotten. Shits that drizzled. Otherwise known as the drizzling shits. I mean, what's interesting is Meltzer even wrote at the time because James isn't good. And it's like, what? Mickey James is good, but I just think Ashley Mazzaro was... Isn't Mickey James wasn't good? Yeah, that's crazy. I think he was great. Yes. Goddamn, Mickey was... No, please, stop. No, Mickey was great. Mickey was awesome. Ashley Mazzaro had no business being in the ring. Lots of backstage skits that Boy, we could have done without. Lots of silliness with Candice and Tori Wilson and Victoria and silliness. But we do get some guys picking their numbers for the Rumble. And you see Big Show and Rey Mysterio, and they're not beating the shoot out of each other, which I thought they would have because Big Show was just spitting on the low rider the month before. But whatever. The show almost feels like at this point it's Vince looking for himself. Like, I'm not going to be wrong. I like the first match. But the second one, eh, he's backstage kits. I don't know about those. And then Boogeyman beats JBL in a minute and 54 seconds. And at one point in the match, Boogey's going to have 50 seconds too long. It may be. Jillian Hall is, Boogeyman's going to get on top of her. She's going to open her mouth as wide as she can, and he's supposed to fit the worms in there. Well, that doesn't exactly happen. Lord bless JBL. Did he lose a bet? I mean, were you and Vince just rolling in the back at the idea that, hey, we're going to make our buddy go work with the boogeyman? Hey, go have fun with Worm Boy. I can totally see you saying that. Again, this mask for hell than the Tokyo Dome. Oh, please stop with that. It would be like at least, yeah, this would be 14 half stars. You know this was a pay-per-view. You were asking us to pay money to watch this, right? We weren't going to watch it. This was rotten. You know what? I take back what I said earlier. It's not a good thing. And I know the Royal Rumble match itself. Fuck you. I don't even know what the fuck he says about it. That was good. We'll get there. Everything else pretty much was not good. So listen, we've got all the different ladies here in Vince's office, whether it's Victoria or Candace or Tori or whatever. But now we've even got Mama Benjamin hitting on Vince. Like, now that, I can get behind. Anytime we got Thea on TV, I was for it. Was Vince a big fan of her performances? It feels like that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, I loved her. That goes 62 minutes and 16 seconds. He says, apparently this wasn't an easy job because they kept changing who would be in, causing them to have to rebook things. They announced 90-second intervals, but, of course, they adjust as time goes on. When we saw the backstage skit of Mysterio pulling his number, he said that Eddie had played a trick on him. So it's Eddie and Triple H who are going to start, and I'll run through some of the names that come out next. Simon Dean is number three. Psychosis, four. Flair, five. Big Show, six. Jonathan Coachman at seven. Bobby Lashley at eight. Kane at 9 Sylvain at 10 Carlito at 11 Chris Benoit comes out at 12 Booker T is in and out at 13 Joey Mercury is in there nearly a half hour at 14 And then Tataka This is kind of a fun surprise I don't think a lot of people I mean Meltzer even wrote When Tataka came in at first nobody knew who he was He started dancing and throwing hard chops to everyone, and the crowd started doing a seminal war cry. Tatanka looked like he beamed straight from the 90s as he looked exactly the same, except maybe bloated. But he was real big for 44 years old. What about Tatanka here in the Royal Rumble? Heee, heee, heee, heee, heee. Tatanka, by God. He looked, I thought he looked great. Especially at 44 years old. I've never seen this son of a bitch look bad. He's in great shape, and I think he always looks good. Who what? Does he call saying, hey, what about the Rumble? Does somebody call and say, hey, we need somebody? How does this happen? Yeah, probably just names from the past came up on the list and see if he's available. I love that. The match is pretty much built around Triple H, Heath the focal point, and Mysterio, who's seemingly escaping elimination every which way he can. When Van Damme comes in, he gets a big pop. He's running all over the place. Meltzer would say he was stiffing people, mistiming one move after another. I mean, so completely rusty. Is Dave full of shit? Is that a fair criticism of Rob? He was being Van Damme. I don't think anybody could ever accuse Rob of being not snug. and some might argue a little stiff but you knew what you got when you were in the ring with Rob and you could give it right back to him and he wouldn't flinch a bit so that was Rob Van Dam man that's what he did he's Rob let me get us back on track after Tataka at 15, Johnny Nitro is 16 Trevor Murdoch is 17, Eugene is 18 Road Warrior Animal is 19 Van Damme was 20 Orlando Jordan is 21 and then Chavo comes out and there's loud Eddie chants Triple H throws him out I think Chavo was in for like a minute maybe and Meltzer would say he probably never should have been in the match because he had to be eliminated or it would have screwed up the story but by having him in it only made it so heavy handed because it was obvious why he had to be gotten rid of I've never booked a match what the hell do I know but is this a fair point if you know that we're going with Ray is here on behalf of Eddie so to speak is it a bad call to have Chavo in there too? I don't think so it's the red herring and you know you get him out which takes it away from you immediately too and puts focus right back on Ray but I like it for the red herring aspect of it 22 is Matt Hardy or I'm sorry 23 is Matt Hardy 24 is super crazy 25 is Shawn Michaels Chris Masters at 26 Viscera at 27 Shelton Benjamin at 28 Goldust at 29 and Randy Orton at 30 and I think most people assume because he's got number 30 and well they've seen him feuding with Ray and feels like he's poised to be one of the top guys why not but that's not the way it goes before we talk about the finish I guess we should mention that Michaels is going to throw Nitro into Mercury. Mercury is going to fly out. Michaels eliminates Nitro. Super kicks Benjamin out. And Vince is not happy. So he comes down with the Vince walk and he's pissed off. And Sean notices him coming. With his back turned, Shane runs into the ring, throws Sean over the top. Sean's upset. Gets back in the ring. Super kicks Triple H. Now he's chasing the McMahons. As he gets near Vince, Vince tells him that Shane did it. RVD eliminates Carlito and now we're down to the final four it's Triple H, Randy Orton, Ray Mysterio and Rob Van Dam Triple H is going to throw Mysterio into Rob Van Dam who is on the top rope and that causes Van Dam to crash to the floor Orton and Triple H decide to work together to try to eliminate Mysterio but Mysterio is going to go wild hit a 619 on both Triple H hits Orton with a spine buster, Mysterio throws out Triple H at 60 minutes and 16 seconds Triple H recovers, throws Mysterio into the steps. Horton's working on him, but Mysterio does the headscissors flip over the top. Horton's eliminated, and it was a pretty fun match. Meltzer gave it three and a half stars, but Rey gets the win. If you think back to that moment, did it feel like the crowning moment you wanted for Rey? Did it feel like mission accomplished, or did it feel less than? No, it absolutely felt great. I think that I think that the You know there was two stories in there With Triple H and Ray Starting number one And two and going all the way to the end And for the Underdog to come out and Have that nice story with Ray winning the thing I thought it was good I thought it was very good I do want to ask you About the idea of having Randy Orton not Randy Orton but Triple H And Ray start and kind of finished the thing altogether. You mentioned that that was the other piece of the story. Do you think that that takes a bit away from Ray's underdog story? Or no? No. It lasted the whole damn thing. Why would it take it away? Well, I just mean because somebody else did it too. I know ultimately they didn't win it. Yeah, but it was a nice story within the rumble itself. You had two people that lasted the whole time and at that point it's like, oh my god, are they going to go Triple H, M and Scroom at the end. So I like that story. I thought it was very well done. I want to ask you a little bit about the Royal Rumble not being the main event, too, because I know that it's happened before, but usually the Royal Rumble is the last match. There has been a handful of exceptions. This is one of them. So after the Rumble, we're still going to get John Cena and Edge, and then we're going to get Mark Henry and Kurt Angle. I'm sorry, okay? the fuck you want from me I think that's the reason some fans look back at this one and say Bruce it feels less than like if the final thing we saw was Ray celebrating his win maybe it feels bigger but when it's third from the top maybe we had to wake people up then for the start of the fucking rumble hey people get up wake up now it's more rumble time God as a reminder the previous pay-per-view was New Year's Resolution. And I know you're probably thinking, or New Year's Revolution, rather. I know you're thinking, hey, why didn't y'all cover that? We will. We missed it, damn it. But this time next year, by God, we will be back with New Year's Revolution. But that's where we first saw the very first Money in the Bank cash in, where Edge was successful in cashing in after John Cena had somehow survived an Elimination Chamber. So that sets up the rematch. John Cena and Edge go 14 minutes and 22 seconds. Cena's the baby face, but she couldn't tell it from the crowd They're booing the shit out of him But Cena wins, 14 minutes and 2 seconds And whether you like him or hate him Meltzer would say he always gets a reaction But this time, the crowd was pretty dead In hindsight, if you had it to do over again Would you have changed the formatting of this show? Obviously, you probably changed some of the matches too But should the Rumble have gone last? Yes Yeah absolutely I mean again probably would have started with the Edge and Cena match I was doing it with 2026 goggles but yeah I think your highest point is going to be Ray winning hard to come back from that the finish would see John Cena send Edge into Lita who's going to take a bump off the apron Cena's going to hit the FU and then used the STFU for the tap out. And after the match, instead of Edge doing a promo trying to get his seat back, he disappeared, which left Jim Duggan to look at Lita and chant, Ho! So, yeah. The one-month reign with Edge. I know you needed a surprise with the money in the bank, but we're not done. We've still got no way out. Did it make sense to just immediately use that to get yourself a co-main event here at the Rumble? and do the rematch here? No, I think it's just for the overarching long story aspect of it. First of all, you wanted to have a big moment with the money in the bank, cash in, and it was a big moment. So that's why we did it. Sometimes you've got to do things in moments. I really wonder who was thinking about this moment I've heard the phrase sending him home happy I'm not sure this does it We don't finish with the feel good moment Didn't send me home happy by God We don't send him home happy With the big win from Rey Mysterio Cashing his ticket to Wrestlemania We don't send him home happy With John Cena winning back his title Instead We're going to send out what's left of Kurt Angle To wrestle Mark Henry for the world title. Kurt's going to retain in nine minutes and 29 seconds. Meltzer said the crowd was dead and leaving for this one. And at the end, he said, I think this was the worst match of Kurt Angle's career. And the post-match saw Undertaker come out and challenge for the title at No Way Out. His magical powers are going to see some lightning come to the ring, and then the ring collapses, and that's it for the show. Three-quarters of a star. So I get, hey Let's send them home happy with an Undertaker appearance Let's do some Yeah, yeah, or some Gaga Or whatever you want to call it With the magic and the lightning and all that But golly, dude, this Has probably got to be Unfortunately One of the worst Rumble pay-per-views of all time Don't you agree? That's not Yeah Stinky I mean, Kurt Angle, Mark Henry, did that even have a shot at being good at this point? I had a shot. But not, I mean, again, look at everything else you did, but I don't think you could have done anything to have made that any better than it was. It feels like this is probably just a show where we're all happy just to have it over. Well, I sure was. Yeah, no, man. It's, first of all, I can't win them all. Right. This was not one of the better Royal Rumbles by any stretch of anyone's imagination. And I did like the Royal Rumble match itself, even though it had its kind of just meh moments. and it was I don't see how you're going to spell that in your goddamn little things but yeah I thought it was good the overall show stunk well Bruce inquiring minds want to know is tomorrow night's Royal Rumble going to be better than the Royal Rumble 20 years ago oh my god absolutely are you kidding me yes if we're not in Saudi Arabia tomorrow for the show and we may not even have a ticket I think tickets are sold out but hypothetically how can we watch tomorrow night you can watch that on ESPN the ESPN app and you can watch it at a special start time of I believe check your ESPN app you sons of bitches check your ESPN app But I think it's either there's probably going to be a litany of a million things happening before that. But I want to say it's probably going to be a 11 a.m. or noon start Eastern. Yeah, I think, again, I don't know. But right now it looks like what's advertised online is 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific. There you go. Either way, the entire world is going to be watching the Royal Rumble tomorrow. We greatly appreciate you guys revisiting the Royal Rumble from 20 years ago. Bruce, next week we're talking about Billionaire Ted. Are you looking forward to that? Can't wait. Can't wait. Can't wait. Hit the subscribe button. And keep that picture of Freddie Blassie, by God, and for that Billionaire Ted thing. Okay? Okay. All right. We'll talk about Billionaire Ted next week here on the show. If you've got questions, let us know in the comments below. If you haven't already, hit the subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell, and we'll see you next week after Royal Rumble 2026 live from Saudi Arabia. That's it for us. See you next week right here on Something to Wrestle With. I'm Bruce Prichard. I got a flight to catch. Rock on.