Elite Heat

AEW put on another show full of great matches, talented wrestlers, and big moments, but are they actually telling a clear story?
In this episode of Elite Heat, we break down a Dynamite that felt simultaneously exciting and confusing, digging into what’s working, what’s muddy, and where AEW might be losing fans in the gaps.
We talk Kenny Omega’s presence, the increasingly crowded title picture, Andrade vs. Swerve, MJF’s continued reign, and why AEW’s biggest issue right now might be clarity.

If you love AEW but find yourself saying “I don’t know where this is going,” you’re not alone — and this episode is for you.
🔥 What we cover:
  • Kenny Omega opening Dynamite and why it always works
  • Andrade, Swerve, and the increasingly unclear title path
  • MJF’s role as champion and who actually feels “next”
  • The Don Callis Family, Okada, Takeshita, and storyline overlap
  • AEW’s women’s division: big potential, confusing execution
  • Why AEW sometimes overcomplicates simple storytelling
  • Can this all still pay off… or is patience wearing thin?
We’re not doom-and-gloom, but we are honest. AEW has the pieces — now it has to connect them.
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New episodes drop weekly. Let’s talk wrestling the way fans actually do.

Creators and Guests

DJ
Host
Doug Jean
TT
Host
Tim Taylor
Tim fell in love with wrestling during the Attitude Era, then fell out of love with it during the Invasion angle. He then fell back in love with wrestling thanks to The Elite. It's been a complicated relationship.

What is Elite Heat?

Tim and Doug dive deep into the world of All Elite Wrestling. Recaps, character analysis, storyline breakdowns, and more. Two guys who have been All Elite since day 1 talk AEW.

You know, we we goofed last week.

We goofed.

We hit a milestone and we didn't talk about it.

What? What did we do?

last Last week was our 10th episode. We hit double digits. And I did not realize it until I was uploading everything.

you

And I went, oh, that was number 10. I feel like I should have known that and said something. Hmm.

Tim, I'm so sorry. i missed our paperclip anniversary. Isn't that the 10th episode? Isn't that the paperclip?

I think it is. I think ah Clippy actually pops up and says, it looks like you're trying to do a podcast.

Okay.

Would you like to not suck?

Looks like you've done this nine times before.

Yeah. So anyway, look at us, double digits.

Look at that. 1-1, baby. Yeah.

Yep. ah And obviously there have been quite a few more dynamites than tin. So we will now talk about dynamite number

Yes.

I don't even know.

I don't know. This podcast goes to 11. Mm-hmm.

It does. It does now.

and Yeah.

But anyway, I wonder what number they are on. I mean, obviously, it was a big one, they'd be promoting it. So...

Yeah.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Let's get into this one. I think there's another bit of a theme that's going to develop here, at least for me, as we talk about this.

Okay.

I think you're going to pick it up as we go along. But we opened with Kenny Omega. I think they should open every Dynamite, at least with his entrance music, if nothing else, because that's a really good way to start.

Oh, my gosh. Loved it. Yep.

ah So Omega and Rocky Romero, which obviously I think we all knew how that one was going to go.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah.

All due respect to Rocky, but I think we all knew how that was going to go. Here's what I wrote down. Kenny is so good.

yeah

That's pretty much all I wrote down. ah

I can't argue with that. Kenny has been one of my favorite wrestlers for since I found him.

Yeah.

And i am so happy. And they're really harping on how in shape he is and how how his health is better. And he, like you said last week, he is looking like it in the ring. He is looking sharper than ever. And that match was just a highlight reel for him. Rocky Romero is a good good opponent for him. Rocky Romero is respectable.

But there was no way. you know Kenny was going going to win.

No.

And the one thing I wrote down, and then my my screen just went blank, so I'm going to have to dial it up here in a second.

Yeah.

But one of the things I, the the thing I wrote down was V-trigger into the camera, possible move of the night.

Delightful.

that i i seized on that too i was like that is an incredible angle to shoot that move from do it more i hope they do it more yeah that was really really good um i thought over i i mean i thought the match was good for what it was we all knew how it was gonna go

Oh, that was so good. Yeah. Yes. Much more. Please give us that. Give us that.

um

Yeah.

you know It wasn't your typical Omega match where you know he doesn't even, but a lot of the time when I watch him, I'm like, he doesn't even get warmed up until minute 10.

Right. Mm-hmm.

But it was good. i thought you know he looked great again. It's awesome to see that, especially for a dude who not that long ago, we weren't sure if he was ever going to be able to wrestle again.

Yeah.

Right, that was a big question mark.

it It legitimately was. i've i think he's looked great these last couple of weeks to the point where I don't i don't think he's going to beat MJF for the title.

I'm not even sure he's going to be the guy to challenge MJF for the title, but i kind of sort of want him to get one more world title run. Hello.

look who's Look who's wanting attention.

Yeah.

cat who hates to be held, but she wants intensive.

ah you but You can see it too. She's just like, I don't care for this, but I also do care for it.

Anastasia, you're funny.

I don't know.

You're funny. She tore my skin.

um But anyway, overall, i thought I thought that was a good match. um I'm with you on the camera angle on the V trigger. um How about that suit and tennis shoe combo from Tony Schiavone when he got in to talk to him?

What did Excalibur call them? High-vis?

Highly visible. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, that was, woo, baby. That was something.

Yeah, that was something.

Mm-hmm.

Also, this is kind of a things my wife said while watching wrestling.

Oh, okay.

ah My wife goes, because when a Hangman came out, my wife goes, oh i always get those two confused. i was like, who, Kenny and Hangman or Hangman and Tony Schiavone?

And she was like, no, Kenny and Hangman. And I was like, oh.

all right

Okay, so apparently she apparently she always gets Kenny Omega and Hangman confused. And on that note, I'll be leaving her. um I can't have that in this household.

No, that's that's it's understandable.

Yeah, I can't have that.

I get it. i get it.

I love both of them so much. So... Mm-hmm.

can i Can I ask a question about this post-match interview thing? What's going on with the title picture? When did Andrade get dropped in? Did I miss the announcement at the beginning? Because I heard them say Joe's hurt, and now Andrade is one of four guys wrestling to be in the title hunt, but last week Brody King couldn't be because he hadn't beaten anybody of value, but now Andrade's just in the picture. What are we doing? What are we doing?

What are we doing?

You, my friend, found a logical fallacy. Those never happen in professional wrestling. um No, so I didn't even hear the whole thing about Joe. I just heard Taz saying like, oh, I hope he gets better soon or whatever. Like, oh okay, I guess something happened Joe.

I don't think that necessarily precludes him unless it's a bad injury.

They haven't mentioned, they didn't mention him after that all night long.

Right, right. So I don't think that that necessarily would take him out of the running, right? Like I said, unless it's a bad one where he's going to miss a good chunk of time.

Right.

um

I believe the only thing Excalibur said was it was ah an out-of-ring injury, like an out-of-competition injury.

Okay, so like he hurt himself in the weight room or something.

Or, you know, once time off. i don't I don't know what it is, but they didn't.

Yeah. Or look, i I'll be honest with you. I'm at an age where i sneeze. I can hurt myself. And Joe and I are, I think, pretty close in age.

And have.

So.

And have. And I think the last time we were together, you sneezed and I got hurt.

Yeah, I mean, weird things happen.

Impressive. It was impressive.

But to your point, um yeah, I had a suspicion Andrade was going to find himself into the title picture anyway, though, because, man, you can just tell Tony is so happy to have him back.

Yep.

um

Yep. I'll talk more about him as we get closer to the main of event.

I will, too. I will, too.

But I will say Don Callis promo at the end.

um

Awesome.

Yep.

Loved it.

Yep.

And ah when I saw that promo, i wrote equals awesome in quotes, hope it pays off. And it, I think, well, for the night, because he's like, we're taking over.

I do too.

And I'm like, okay.

Yeah.

And I finally thought, Ooh, they're finally doing what Tim and I have been saying with Don Callis and the Don Callis family. And we will find out later that we were right.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's good momentum that started and I hope they keep it going.

Yep.

um What I wrote about the Don promo, I went, did Don's tooth fall out? I think it was gum.

But for a second, I was like, did that man just lose a tooth?

ah

What just happened there? Yeah,

did Yeah. Did someone ghost super kick him and we missed it and he lost a tooth? What's up?

I don't know. That was funny. But yeah, i you know his promos are always solid. It's to the point almost now where if Don Callis got on the mic, just assume I liked it. Unless I tell you otherwise.

Oh, one hundred per percent yes, he was in.

You know?

a And like I said, it's about time that he just finally said, We're taking over and you're going to find out we've run this show. And I'm like, finally, that's so good.

Yep. Yep. I agree. After that women's promo happened. um

Yep.

I didn't, I didn't have a problem with it. I liked that. They kept it pretty quick. They got everybody a little, you know, couple, couple, three lines there and we're moving on.

Yep.

I i had no problem with it.

I wrote promos keep getting better. They need to make sure these are prerecorded and edited well.

Yep. I agree.

I hate, I hate, I hate when there's a promo and they're done and they don't cut yet.

Yeah, and they just stare.

And so they're like, and we're going to whoop your ass.

And we're out. What? Just cut it.

Yeah.

Just cut it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I.

But this was well done. i I like this one a lot. you Like you said, short, sweet, to the point.

Yep.

Everyone got some shots in. Boom. Done. Out.

I agree. I also liked the wrinkle, if you will, of, hey, Sisters of Sin, as long as you stay away, you get a title shot. I thought that was kind of clever. I thought that was a good way to keep them out of it.

Mm-hmm.

I liked that.

Yep.

Marks and Ace Austin after that. What'd you think?

I was having some streaming issues with this. It kept jumping around.

Oh, okay.

i thought it was a solid match. I wrote down a little rough. There were definitely some timing issues.

Mm-hmm.

I think Ace Austin, I think, look is better than he appeared in this match tonight, um which is a shame because I think that was you know they've been doing a good job of trying to highlight their younger talent.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I really i like Ace Austin, and i just feel, I don't know what it was. Their chemistry didn't seem to quite be matching. but Ultimately, de i said, i think I just wrote decent match. Yeah, decent match.

And then the afterwards was what we were really, what will be, no it that match will be known for.

Yeah, I wrote down um pretty good match. I thought they made Austin look pretty good in ah in a big spot, right? You're in with Moxley. It's a big spot. But I agree with you of I think i think he has looked better.

Yeah.

i think he could have looked better. I don't know if it was just a timing thing. I don't know if it was nerves. I don't know. I don't know what happened there.

Um, cause I didn't come away from that going like, oh my God, they're putting the rocket on ACE Austin. Like that was a star turn.

Right.

Like we did, you know, in the continental classic with Kevin Knight and speedball, Mike Bailey.

Right.

Um, so I, I thought it was fine.

I... Yeah, like i said, solid match, decent. They they both have looked a better, but...

Yeah, I'll tell you, my my two big takeaways from this, the first two bullet points I wrote down were Jesus is all elite, apparently.

I have Jesus notes as well.

Okay, like I was like, Jesus is all elite. That's interesting. And then I wrote, speaking of, Jesus, that boot to the head looks stiff. that they That very opening shot, i was like, oh my God, he kicked him hard.

Yes,

it did. Yes, it did. There were a lot of stiff-looking shots, but there were a lot of stiff-looking shots throughout the night, I thought.

I mean, I'm guessing he didn't actually, but. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

Yeah. oof

Uh, and you mentioned it. What really mattered was what happened after, ah with Takeshita coming out, which I wrote down here. I think it's interesting that they were moving apparently anyway, at that point, it looked like they were moving to Mox and Takeshita given how much time they'd spent building up Takeshita and Okada, obviously watching in real time.

I didn't know what was coming. Um,

Right. Right.

I do still find it a little interesting that Takeshiro was the one to come out.

i I think it's because you you missed not this past collision, but the collision before. And that is when the incident between Don and Mox started and it was over Takeshita beating Mox.

And it kind of flared from there.

a Oh, right, great right, right.

And that's that's who Moxley was talking about last week when he said, tell your boy I'm not hard to find. He was talking about Takeshita.

Okay. Okay. Well, that makes a lot more sense then.

Yeah, that's why he came out. And then you had Davis and Doyle jump Mox at the end, give him one stiff shot.

Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Mox selling that was one of the funniest things i have ever seen. He looked like an insect dying from a can ah from a bug bomb in your house. He...

Yeah.

I know what they were doing. I get it.

Yes.

it it

I do, too.

And that's the problem I had with it. It's... Why is with the plethora of people in the Don Callis family, why send the two guys out that are going to be wrestling later tonight to mess with the death riders?

I think I know why. Yeah.

Exactly. And everyone knew why. And that's my problem with it. Send someone else out because you don't have to have them be the ones to have a retaliation later.

yeah you

Just.

well So it it was partially because of that, but I think it was also of we're going to send these guys out to try and make them the heavies, right? These are these we because one of the things spoiler alert, one of the things that I wrote down for the tag match was this would have benefited from more build and I'll get more into that.

Right.

Oh yeah. Mm-hmm.

But I think that this was part of it of we haven't built Doyle and Davis very well.

Mm-hmm.

Or Davis and Doyle. I don't know who gets top billing there. I don't care. um We haven't built them very well.

Right. they must know

So we're going to have them come out and wreck multi-time world champion Jon Moxley to try and remind you or show you these guys are killers. So FTR is in trouble.

right

I think that was a big part of it. I think it was like 50% that, 50% what we ended up seeing later.

Yeah.

But still, it it i don't I don't know. I just...

Oh, I'm not saying I like it.

One shot, like, I like them coming in, but if you're going wreck him, wreck him.

I'm just saying that's what I think it was.

Yep.

One shot, leave him lay, and he's paralyzed for eight minutes?

Again, I, yeah, again, I think that it was them going for, look how big and strong and scary these are these guys are. I just, I don't think it landed.

Mm-hmm.

I think that that was the intention.

No.

It just didn't, it didn't hit.

No, I, it, I, and like you, I understood what they were trying to do.

Mm-hmm.

It just fell flat for me. And that, you know, whatever it it did spoil the later part of the show a little bit for me because it's like, Oh, well I know what's going to happen there.

Oh, I agree.

Yeah. Yeah. um Then we got Briscoe and El Clone. And my big takeaway from this was if you have not seen El Clone yet, which I haven't seen a ton of him, I've seen some, but not a ton.

This was a real nice coming out party for him.

Yep.

I thought he looked really good.

I, this was match of the night potential for me. It was so good.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

i did not realize that L clone also wrestles under the name. Rez, A R E Z. And he doesn't wear the mask. He wears face paint. And he's been in TNA and a couple of MLW and a couple other places. So I've seen him wrestle, but just not as L clone. And I've seen that chest tattoo. And I was like, well, I know that from somewhere.

And so I like him better in this. gimmick I like him better under the mask, and he's just so good. That bend kick he does where he's arched and then kicks, that matrix, whatever it is, I don't know what it's called.

Yeah.

Whatever you want call it. Yeah.

So good. So good.

Yep. Yep. No, I agree. And I think... when it's too bad that they weren't able to really properly debut him before a hologram got hurt because that's the whole point is this is the feud and those guys if you don't know work together a bunch in mexico and i guess that he is el clone is holograms like favorite opponent ever like they love working together when hologram gets back

Right. Yep.

Yeah.

Yes.

I suspect we're going to see some shit, my friend.

I can't wait. I can't wait.

I can't either.

Because if Hologram is is healthy and on his game, those who are going to – I don't care where they're wrestling, they're going to steal match of the night more than likely.

I agree. They're going to tear it down. I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah.

And then, of course, afterwards, as soon as the lights went out.

Oh, wait. Yeah. before Before we get to that, I just wrote down a couple things.

Okay. Okay, go ahead.

Briscoe getting help from the fan at ringside. Loved it.

Yep.

Loved it.

Yep.

Elkhorn popping up from the J-Driller.

Yeah.

That was impressive.

Yes, it was.

That was impressive. And like I said, solid match. At that point, it was my match of the night. And we'll see if it ends up continuing to be so.

it it At that point for me, I was thinking this is i was like, right now it's it, but I don't think it's gonna hold on. And it did not hold on for me. But then of course, like I said, after that, as soon as the lights went out, I went c Champa.

You called it, dude. I didn't think he'd be here this this early.

Uh-huh.

I really didn't.

Uh-huh. Well, in and the reason, so I would have been a little bit more surprised that he came that quickly, but he already had merch up on pro wrestling tees.

Okay.

Which meant you're all the way clear, right?

Yep.

You're not under contract. They're not trying to hold you like they did with Andrade. He was all the way clear. And I went, he's, in and like I said, that post when he announced that his contract expired or was expiring or whatever, he never said a word about taking wrestling bookings.

It was all sorts of other bookings, but not wrestling.

Right. Right.

and I'm like, he's, he is all elite. He's on his way. So as soon as the lights went out, I was like Champa.

Yep.

And then I thought it was clever the way they did the heart that then turned kind of black for the black heart thing.

Yeah.

i was like, there it is. um My, my thoughts on that were number one, I think that's going to banger of a match. And number two, I feel like that collar on his coat had to be really uncomfortable.

Oh, yeah.

It looks so impractical and awkward and weird. And it's like, I'm sure it looked cool in the design phase.

Mm-hmm.

Come on, man. Get rid of that.

Mm-hmm.

I want to see that next week.

I agree.

When the lights went out and I wasn't sure who it was going to be, i thought for a minute it was going to be Bishop Dyer or the former, what the heck was he called?

Okay. Mm-hmm. Baron Corbin.

Aaron Corbin.

Yeah, because he did that dark match.

Apparently he was in a dark match last week. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So I thought, ooh, are they going to debut... Bishop Dyer? And it's like, nope, it's Jampa. But I thought that was so fire.

Yeah.

The crowd ate it up.

Mm-hmm.

Cannot wait to see those two go at it. And it's happening Saturday on collision. I think that's great.

Yeah, I think it's going to be awfully good.

Oh, good.

And don't count out Bishop Dyer potentially coming one of these days. If you don't know the story of the dark match, he talked about it of, he literally, he gave a big show, a ride to the show.

Oh, yeah.

Oh.

And he was just hanging out backstage saying hi to people. And they were like, I think it was Billy Gunn was like, hey, you want to, you want to get in this match? We can make it a tag match. You want to get in it? And

Oh, that's awesome.

ah he He was like, you got your gear? And he was like, of course I got my gear. And that's how it came together. That was not planned.

Nice.

That's just how it came together.

Nice. Nice.

But don't count it out.

This is... No, I'm not going to.

Don't count it out.

But it was this match that I wrote down Jesus in the crowd with MJF equals Judas sign.

I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that a lot. Yeah. um By the way, they I know they're not going to, but man, if they wanted a post to go viral, they should do the Jesus is all elite post.

This is all elite.

They should do it.

Yes.

They should so do it. They should so do it.

Yes. Yes.

Somebody's gonna. Somebody's gonna.

Oh, that would be the best. I would love it. So I want your take on the next bit with Okada and Kyle Fletcher, the interview with those two.

Yeah.

I wrote down exactly one thing and it was curious where this is going. Cause again, at this point we haven't seen stuff that was going to happen. I was like, I'm curious where this is going.

Yep.

I have more thoughts when we get to later in the show, but

the only thing The only thing I wrote down was weirdly grown up.

yeah, I thought it was very interesting how it was like, okay, we're just, you know, hey, man, like, i was trying to win, and I wanted you to win. i wasn't screwing you on purpose. I'm like, oh, okay.

Mm-hmm.

Interesting, especially because Okada has been such a, i don't want to full on say chicken shit heel, but I mean, he he hasn't been full on that, but he's been kind of that weaselly, you know, like it, it, would it surprised me a little bit on that, which is why all I could think was, well, let's see where this is going.

Yeah.

Yep. It was interesting. i know Okada's been trying to get on Kyle Fletcher's good side and get that tag team going, but Fletcher seems to be pairing up with Takeshita, which we'll address later.

Yep. Yeah. So more on that in in a minute. After that, MJF came out. ah Brody King would follow him very closely.

one

Yeah.

Before Brody King even came out, I wrote down MJF, that suit may be my move of the night.

Yeah.

Which i I gave a new name for if I'm going to call out something like that, a ridiculous thing like that, that can be our new Elite Heat Aliter Heater.

yeah

Because... That suit was fire. it's the I think it was mostly the shirt. I loved it. He came out i was like, that's a champ right there.

The shirt was great. Yeah.

I loved it.

That, that is a champ right there with very tight pants. I noticed when he was getting out of the ring, i was like, Oh, you're going to split those.

He likes the tight pants. He likes the tight pants.

He does. I was like, I was worried they were gonna split. I really was, but. But yes, aside from his suit, I wrote down ah really, really two things here. One of my first takeaways was, well, I did not see that line coming.

um

Would you like me to repeat that?

Please do.

I did not see that line coming.

I didn't either. I didn't either. And i didn't even make a note of it. I went to write a note and went, i' gonna pass. I'm going to pass on that one.

I just, I just went, I didn't see that coming. And, uh, I, I, I wrote that down. The other note I made was that I actually, i enjoyed this. I was like, look, this is a smart way to keep a Brody in the title picture.

It makes him feel important, which is good because he's, you know, he had been in limbo because buddy Matthews has apparently just destroyed his ankle.

Yep. That is, that he may not wrestle again.

Um, um, and it's It's starting to possibly look that way, which is a bummer because I like that dude.

That's how bad that's coming back.

Yeah. Yes, it is.

um you know The Bandito team seems to have, you know Brodito seems to not be a thing anymore.

Yep.

So I thought this was a good way to keep him on TV. He's obviously over. um I thought it was a good way to keep him in the title picture make him feel important.

Mm-hmm.

And I think it's a good way to stretch to revolution, right?

Yes.

ah Because now you can get the title match in Australia, which is obviously a big show for them. And then from there, now you can really start really, you know, heating up that build to revolution.

Yeah. And what I wrote down is finally an eliminator match that makes sense to me because the whole point MJF was beat someone worthy.

Well, i talked to Tony. Tony and I agree. The most worthy person I could beat to get a match with you is you. I'm like, yes, thank you. That to me, an eliminator match makes sense. i'm like, great. You want me to beat someone worth it? Let me beat you and then then we can go.

Loved it. Loved that whole bit.

Yep.

Loved that whole thing.

Yeah, I yup i thought that that whole, excuse me, that whole segment was was really good. Really enjoyed that.

Yep.

Then we got the Young Bucks video package. What'd you think about that?

I wrote down, finally we see the Bucs calling out the tag team division again. i kind of liked that.

I liked it too. I'll be honest with you, it didn't do a lot for me. Um, just from the standpoint of you, I mean, I understand you're rehashing things because you can't assume everybody sees every episode.

Yep.

but it it also felt to me like this is a, it almost felt too late. It almost felt like this is a package you should have been running a couple weeks ago.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you probably should have been doing multiple vignettes.

Yeah.

Cause I like a good vignette, but you should have been doing multiple vignettes to really reestablish. Like it's the bucks of old and they are coming for everyone.

So it fell a little flat with me.

yeah we could have they could very they very much could have put together a bunch of packages of them beating current tag teams in AEW and just like quick ones, you know, we're back.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Boom. but but but So yes, it did. You're right. It, while I enjoyed seeing them a on TV and, you know going, Hey, we're putting the entire tag team, uh, all of the tag teams on notice.

Yeah.

I liked that. You're right. We should have had more promos sooner running constantly since they went off TV.

Yeah, it just seemed a little a little late for that. um And I think that that is one of the things that AEW sometimes suffers from in general of, I get it that sometimes people have to go away to take time off or maybe they're nursing a somewhat minor injury and you've got big plans for them so you want them to rest it, you know, twisted ankle, something like that.

Yeah.

Do the vignettes.

yeah

Do the vignettes to keep them on our TV to keep that momentum going. And sometimes I feel like they feel like they can't do a vignette until it's like, okay, they're going to show up on collision or they're going to show up next week.

You don't have to do that. You can run a bunch of vignettes. It's not a bad thing.

I sometimes feel like they look at the calendar and go, oh the Bucks are wrestling Saturday. We should probably get a promo together.

Yeah, I agree. i think that there's some time management struggles there.

You know.

I'll put it that way. um After that women's championship match between Statlander and Thekla.

First thing I wrote down, Thekla has a great entrance.

She does. I agree.

It was awesome. Loved it.

Yep. I thought another good match. I really liked the back and forth. I really liked that both women were getting their offense in.

Mm-hmm.

um i thought it it really did a nice job of establishing Theklas for real.

Mm-hmm. To a certain extent. Because i wrote I did write down Thekla's boot to Stats head.

Yeah.

Holy cow. Possible, at that point, possible move of the night.

Yeah.

um Then I wrote down Bryce Rendsburg is awful.

Yep.

My biggest concern is you get a clean win from Stats. Now what do you do with Thekla?

I agree. And I thought...

I think it would have been better to have Thekla win, quite frankly.

I agree with you. I thought the whole finish of it all was a little odd. um I think it would have made sense to have Thekla go over and not beat her clean.

Yes, that's, yes, 100%.

Like she should have won in a heel way and we can set up the rematch for Australia.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

and

um Cause I agree with you. I don't know what's next for Thekla. I don't necessarily know what's next for Statlander. And

Well, they, I think, well, they tried to muddy the waters with, with having Megan Bain.

Yeah.

And I just wrote down, holy cow, Megan Bain.

Yep.

And I think, you know, why.

Yep. But i my thought on that was aside from Holy cow was I'm confused.

Hmm.

And here's why I'm confused. If you're going to have her and Penelope Ford come out ostensibly because you're having Megan Bain call her shot again, right?

m

then why do you have commentary saying that they're calling out the tag champions who aren't even there?

Oh, they were in the ring with her.

Oh, you're right. They were. You're right. They were.

They came to the ring.

My apologies. I forgot about that.

But even they were like, are they calling out? Who are they? Are they talking to the tag champs?

Yeah.

You know, so yes, they muddied the waters.

Yeah.

It was unclear. You didn't even get the camera audio of one of them saying something.

Yep. Yep.

So we don't know.

I, I,

And once again, we're stuck with a team is staring at three people. We don't know who they're really staring at. Maybe one, maybe all.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Yeah. And I also think it's weird that now the Sisters of Sin have the title shot. They didn't come out.

No.

Why don't you have them get involved?

Right. You should, I like Megan Bain Penelope Ford.

I don't...

Yep.

Not. Hart, Penelope, Penelope Hart, Michael Knight, Penelope Ford.

And L.P. Ford. No, you... you

Lita.

They come out. Sisters of Sin, why are you not wading through the crowd and then, you know, mean mugging on Statlander?

Yes.

Yes. Look, you.

should You should have been there immediately and taken them out. You didn't get involved in the match. It's not going to cost you your title shot.

Exactly. And your heel, you are established heels and you're the kind of heels that would jump them from behind.

What the ass on them? Yeah.

Why would you not do that? It didn't make any sense to me.

No. And guess what? As a heel, you don't have to keep your word.

Yeah. Yeah, i that didn't make any sense to me. I thought it got very confusing there at the end.

No.

So I love i'd like this match a lot until the ending because i feel like... We've now swept Thekla under the rug and we're moving on to, I think personally, we're clearly moving on to Megan Bain taking on Statlander, which I think I honestly think is smart.

Yeah.

I think so too.

Maybe not right now, because I think there, there still needs to be some more with Thekla being the challenger. I still don't think we've seen her enough.

So I, yeah no, I agree with you.

Does that make sense? Or am I, am I missing something here?

and And I think that right now the women's world championship is suffering from like the opposite of what the men are doing, right?

Like the whole storyline with the men is beat somebody, earn it, which I love.

Yeah. Yep.

We've talked about that these last couple weeks.

Mm-hmm.

I love it. I think it's great. Earn your title shot. We're doing the opposite with the women. You have, who has Megan Bain beaten?

Yeah.

Who did Thekla beat? And yet line up the title shots, right?

Yeah.

it It appears anyway. And so like, I would prefer to see them beat somebody and then get the shot.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes. I could go on and on about the women's division and how there's so much potential, I feel, not being utilized, but... To

Yeah. And I think they've got a couple different issues there that are, I'm going to say be beyond their control, right? Like, I think you've got some injury, you got some injury issues, right?

a certain extent, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Like they were trying to get queen Aminata heated up and then she got hurt.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Um, you know, i it it appears to me, Mercedes has taken some time off, which the woman has earned no issues there.

Yep. Yep.

But so now you don't have her ah for whatever the reason, Britt Baker is clearly done.

Great.

Yeah, I don't think we're going see her in an AEW ring again.

um

Mm-hmm.

I don't think so either. Like, she's obviously under contract, but they don't want to use her. So, take her out of it. Well, now you're kind of starting to run out of people unless you want to have them...

Yep.

Unless you want to have Tony Storm and Mina Shirakawa keep getting beat, but now you're hurting them a little bit, and I don't fully understand where we're what we're doing with them right now anyway, but... you know So it's it's like, yeah I don't know what, you have them go over Harley in singles, maybe? i just i don't It's a little bit tough, right? like You've kind of got yourself in a corner a little bit between injuries and somebody who's apparently fired but not fired. I don't know.

I did write down one thing about that match. which has almost nothing to do with it, but I wrote down Don Callis needs to get a woman on his team. And I was thinking specifically of Thekla.

Yeah, I know.

He has no women on his team.

I agree with you.

He has no women in the family.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think that would make a tremendous amount of sense. Yeah. um

ah six Especially with what comes next.

Yeah, i was gonna say, and then we got Don in the backstage. And so it was okay.

Mm-hmm.

So I'll hold my thought here because it ties back to the Okada stuff. um So I'll hold my thought for the moment. What did you think of it?

Finally, they're doing what we've wanted them to do with the Don Callis family. Whoops, sorry about that.

i would say was that you or me?

ohla That was me. ah But they're finally doing what we've asked them to do with the Don Callis family, which is calling their shots and assigning people to go get titles.

ma Loved it. Thought it was great. But what I found weird, Kyle looked unhappy the entire time in the background, and I'm not... it I didn't understand why in the moment, because what was happening wasn't being addressed. And then when Takeshita is like, hey, did you really apologize to Okada? He's like, yeah. And so now now they're fighting and they aren't having lunch together anymore. And now I'm worried about that relationship.

So it's funny that you say that because that actually dovetails really nicely into what I wrote down. I wrote down this feels like a love triangle to me. This feels like a like romance novel where well you know two incredible Japanese wrestlers are in love with one Australian man.

Only one of them can win his heart. That's what this feels like a little bit to me.

I legit wrote down, now Kyle and Takeshita are on a break.

Yeah. And, you know, i again, I'm sitting here going, okay, let's see where it goes.

Yep.

Um, cause I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit curious, but the other thing I'm going to say, like, like, I guess my asterisk to, I'm a little bit curious is I am also about at the point where if we're going to have Takeshita and Okada throw down, it needs to happen soon. Otherwise I'm going to lose interest.

Yep.

Like we're getting real close to the, okay, I don't care anymore.

I agree.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Make something happen or leave it alone.

Yep. I agree. i agree. Um, so then we went to, again, I'm not sure i would stack these this way. Then we went to the ricochet promo.

Now I was thinking about this when you were talking about edit them properly because they didn't, it started with it frozen on him.

Mm-hmm.

Like they didn't edit very well.

Right. Yeah.

Um, which I get it. Things happen, but, um, that wasn't my favorite.

I wrote down was the demand attack Jack Perry.

Yeah.

That's it. That's what I wrote down.

I wrote down, what were you thinking?

Doug, what were you thinking?

What was I thinking?

What were you thinking?

During that? Nothing.

What were you thinking?

Nothing.

What were you thinking? Ricochet said, what were you thinking? Approximately 10 times. That was his promo.

Yeah.

Was to repeatedly ask Jack Perry, what were you thinking as GOA is beating him up?

Yeah.

Okay.

Which seems like a bad time to ask somebody a question, by the way.

So here's the thing. That's you doing that. Didn't register with me at all that. That's what he kept saying because I i literally, my only involvement with that promo and I watched the whole thing was other beating up Jack Perry.

ahha

Yeah. Okay, they threw him through a thing. Okay. And that was it. and You know, i was so I wasn't paying real attention to what he was saying.

Yeah.

It didn't sink in that he kept asking that because clearly I wasn't paying attention.

Yeah.

And he just did his, aha, at the end and yeah went away.

Yeah. ah What I will say about it, the positive to me of it is at least they're going to do something with the national title because I kind of forgot about that.

Look, at least it keeps that title and that feud on TV.

But.

Was it the best segment?

Yeah.

No. Did it remind us that it's happening? Yes. So, mission accomplished.

Yeah.

Moving on to the meat match.

Yeah. it The meat match. That's a good one. Yes. Davis and Doyle versus FTR. lot of meat slapping in that one.

Yup. First thing I wrote down, quote from Big Stoke, I think you and Paul have glaucoma.

Yeah.

I love him. I love Stokely. He's so good.

Oh, that was so funny.

He's so good. Yeah, he's so good.

So funny. what What did you think of this match?

um Here's what I wrote down. Solid match. As I said before, would have benefited from more build because I'm going into it going, i don't, i'm I'm going to say the same thing.

Yep.

i'm going to be a broken record here because I try not to get my foot tangled in a cord and bring all my equipment down. um I'm going to be a broken record here. I don't know a lot about Davis and Doyle.

There've been no vignettes to introduce me to them. They've done very little ah because Doyle debuted, what, three weeks ago?

Yep.

So,

Debuted. Got credit for beating up someone.

yeah.

Then won the four-way match. And here we are.

Yep. And now here we are, and they're in a title match. You needed more build on this because I'll give them this that I, throughout the match, I was going, well, I could see Davis and Doyle winning um either from a swerve the crowd perspective or from a Don Callis family gets involved because, again, one of the themes is they're finally going after gold.

um and And I think they should be ruthless about it. you know So why not cheat to win?

Yeah, 100%.

It's certainly their MO. ah So I allowed for that possibility, but I generally thought FTR was probably going to retain.

Yes. Agreed.

And so, you know, solid match.

more build would have helped it. The only other thing I thought was, boy, Jake really likes to jump up and hit people with his crotch.

Seriously, he's like he's like, you know, Kenny Omega's over here smashing the V trigger. He's smashing the P trigger. He's like, crotch to the face, you know.

I would give Excalibur $7 cash money to say P-Trigger just once.

Blue Jew.

I think he should call it the blue choo trigger.

Ooh. All right. All right.

Boink. And make that noise.

um

Excalibur should go boink when he does it.

one And then look at the camera.

Yeah.

Bing! um I wrote down Deathrider interference was weak.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yep.

And, again... pulled off pretty poorly. the

Yep.

The timing was way bad.

Yep.

the The distraction is happening on the same side of the ring that the interference is happening. That is not how you run a distraction. Wheeler, Yuta?

Or no, was it Wheeler? Or was it Garcia?

I think it was Garcia.

Danny, you're better than that.

Yeah. Yeah, he is.

Don't do that.

Yeah.

i thought it was I thought it was weak. I saw it coming. Could have been so much better.

yeahp

Could have had so much more meaning behind it. And it just came off as, ahha we got to see the titles because you interfered, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I agree. i didn't love it. My thought on it was, is is Claudio not there? Because I think that would have been a better spot for him to be involved.

But he was there on Moxley's walkout. He put the strap on him.

You're right.

He put the strap on.

You're right. So where was he? That would have made a lot more sense to me. Have your big guy take out their their big guys, right? I mean, yeah.

Yeah. Just have him come in. Clean house. Go.

i So, i yeah, I agree. ah Poorly executed is the way to put it. i didn't I didn't love it. I think they could have done better there.

Jesus thinks FTR are the goats. He had a sign.

Well, then then clearly they are. Yeah.

FTR equals goats.

That's actually a bad thing if you read the Bible.

It is. Sheep good, goats bad. I don't know a lot about the Bible, but I know that.

I think that's on page two.

Sure.

Sheep's good, goat's bad.

Yeah. That's a thing. That is totally a thing.

It's totally a fact. That's our next t-shirt.

Yeah, there you go.

Sheep's good, goat's bad.

Anyway, I digress. So then we got our boy Wheeler Yuta as part of the Orange Cassidy backstage, which thanks Tony Storm for saving it.

I have so many questions, but go ahead, please.

Well, so my thing was, okay, look, I... i I never have a problem with Orange Cassidy talking. I know I'm never going to tell you he's the best promo, but if you talk about a guy who's going to give you a promo that is absolutely in character, it's him.

eating Oh, always.

And he's not going to deviate from that. Right.

Yep.

And I respect that. And they're usually pretty entertaining, especially when it's him and Renee.

Yep.

Yuda was eh. Um, You know, and then Tony Storm came in and kind of saved it. The Marina thing was,

i guess it's an excuse to do something with her.

Well, I mean, they they have a a tag match coming up, correct? They have a intergender tag match with Tony and Orange against...

I guess. I mean, it certainly seems that way

I think it was mentioned before, but here's my... Other than it, the the Tony Storm thing was fine. Loved it.

Yeah. Yeah.

My question is, why was there so much security that rushed in When no one was really doing anything.

I don't know.

Nothing happened.

The whole segment. Yeah.

And then there was, boom, security.

Yeah.

And, like, no one fought them.

and n

Right.

Like, Yuta and Marina Shafir, just, they back off.

It was.

Orange backs off. Tony backs off.

They're tangoing.

What is happening?

oh Orange Cassidy and Tony started tangoing in that broad security.

Right.

It didn't, it did not make sense to me.

Oh.

Nope. Nope.

Okay.

They may as well just put up a ah a graphic that said, these four are going to fight. That's all I needed.

Yeah, it it would have been better. It would have been better. And, and I also wrote down having, Yuta and Marina talk in the same segment as Tony storm and orange Cassidy may not be the best idea.

All I needed.

No. Here's an interesting thing about... i was What was i I started rewatching old GCW events. It was like one of the first or second ones that's on trailer TV.

Wheeler Yuta, clean shaven, young man, is out there with Big Stoke, right? Stokely had hired him as his bodyguard.

Oh.

And Wheeler is oozing personality.

Okay.

He's oozing confidence. And that was 2018? here

Yeah.

and here he is now It seems like he's taken a personality step back like two or three steps. ah I don't know what's going on with that guy.

So, well, I, I think that it's, I think there's a lot of different problems there.

ah really don't.

And, and a lot of it I think can be explained if we ever do get the breakup of the death riders, when we can go deep on that, maybe one of these days we should just do it as a bonus episode regardless.

But I think with Wheeler, you'd, uh, you're seeing a lot of the same issues that you and I were talking about a couple weeks ago with Chris Statlander.

Right.

What's the character?

Yeah.

I don't know. And I don't think he knows. I'm not sure there is a character.

Who are you, bro? We don't know.

Yeah. And I think that they need to do a lot of work on that and figure that out. And until they do that, don't have them talk.

Yeah. 100%. Nope.

There's just no point to it.

Why? Yeah.

So whatever, I guess they're trying to do something with him, but

why yeah Stay silent. i Stay silent. I'd respect you so much more if you never said a word.

I agree.

that That already is more character building than you've done.

I agree. um So then it was main event time. Swerve. And why am I blanking?

Andrade. Andrade.

Andrade. Jesus, why did I blank on that? You know why? I'm tired. um

Yep.

Swerve and Andrade, which hook it to my veins.

Yeah. I wrote down this may be the best version of Andrade I've ever seen because I got to be honest with you. I have not cared about Andrade until he made his reappearance in the suit and the mask

Yeah. Yeah.

And there's something about him. He's performing well. He looks incredible.

Yep. Yep.

He is oozing personality now. You can tell that there's someone there.

Yep.

Him playing around on the ground when Swerve was on the on the top rope and he did the tranquilo pose.

Tranquilo. Yeah.

Oh, so good. And then he's like, come on.

Yeah.

Come on, jump. Jump down. I got you. Jump down.

Yep.

o

So I wrote down that AEW is getting the best version of Andrade.

Great. Love

They are finally getting the, yes, they are, this time they are getting the best version of Andrade on AEW.

it's This time around, yes.

And I mean, look, I think there's a lot of reasons for that. When he showed up in AEW the first time, there there were a handful of guys at that time. that it was obvious you don't actually want to be there.

You got fired, as happens with WWE, wwe especially in that era.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

you know it was like It was like him, it was Miro, and it was Aleister Black were three guys that I was like, they don't actually want to be there.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

But Tony's probably paying them a whole bunch of money, so fine.

Yep.

And, you know, we heard all the stories about Andrade trying to get fired and all that stuff, right? So then he goes back and that didn't go well.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-mm.

His whole W... And I want to be clear, his whole WWE run was not good. The NXT stuff was pretty good.

No. Yes. Yes.

If you saw that, it was pretty good. The WWE wwe part of it was not good. And so now you've got a dude who, if I may borrow from the late great Iron Sheik, has been humbled...

Nope.

And he's got something to prove. And he's got a reason now to show everybody what he can do. I think he's way more motivated than he has been in a long time.

And I think it's awesome. I think that it's so cool that AEW is now getting like the best version of Andrade.

Yeah, I loved it.

This is the dude, you know, that made the noise to get signed by WWE. wwe

Yeah. I loved it. I thought it was seeing him in this match. This, this clearly was my match of the night after it was over.

Oh, me too. Me too.

Um,

Yeah.

I wrote down a bunch of stuff. First, Don Callis talking about um Prince Nana. Why is he out here?

Yep.

He should be banned from ringside for lack of use. to slight Don Callis is the best. um

Yep.

this The swerve Hurricanrana from the second rope to Andrade, who was on the other second rope.

e Yep.

Oh, dude. So good.

I thought the... I don't remember if they were on the top rope or the second rope, but the Poison Rana off the ropes.

Top rope. Yep.

Yeah, I thought it was top rope. I was like, good lord, how do you survive that?

Yeah, that I wrote that down too. Avalanche, Poison Rana.

Yep.

Andrade kicking out of the house call.

Yep.

That was good.

Yeah, it was. the The whole match was really, really good, and I will say that even though I know... Like I said earlier, they're obviously very happy. Tony is very happy to have Andrade back.

Yeah.

And especially this version of Andrade. I still didn't think he would win. So i win when when he won, i went, oh, wow.

I didn't either. Yeah.

You know, um just like that. I did not see that coming.

Mm-mm.

That surprised me.

Again, i'm I'm happy with this match. I loved it. I'm still wondering, what are we doing with this title picture? Because it's gone from, this is kind of cool.

Yeah. Now it gets real muddy. Yeah.

You've got a lot of guys chasing, and it could you know could fall in anybody's lap, too. Out of nowhere, that I don't think was announced before they said it out loud tonight.

Four guys are going to be wrestling to take on, and the winners are going to take each other on, and then they're going to wrestle for the title. What? And one of them's Andrade?

Yeah. They did not.

What?

Yeah. Yeah. So.

I mean, El Clones won more matches in AEW than Andrade has, but he's not in the hunt.

Go ahead.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. No, I, I agree. It got real muddy and real weird um from a kayfabe standpoint, right? Like if, if you, cause, cause I think you and i and anybody that watches wrestling knows really what's going on here is okay. So they had to remove Joe for whatever reason.

Right.

And,

You need someone to put in there. Yep.

You need someone to put in there. They want to push Andrade anyway. That much is obvious. ah You know, you're in Texas.

Mm-hmm.

He's from not far from there.

Yep.

lot of it makes sense, right?

Mm-hmm.

But from a kayfabe perspective, where the whole storyline is you got to earn it, so much so that I titled our last week's episode of our podcast, you got to earn it.

Yep. And you and I both stood up and applauded that and were like, finally.

That's where it doesn't make sense. Yeah, it doesn't make sense from that standpoint. um

Because it only it's only being applied to one guy.

Yep. Yep. And it's, it does make it very muddy and it feels to me like I want to do a tournament, but I'm not going to do a tournament because people make fun of me for doing too many tournaments. so we're going to do this and it's not a tournament, but it's a tournament.

Yeah. So, I mean, don't get me wrong. if you're going to give me great matches like that, I'll take it. But try to have it make a little bit of sense for me, please.

I agree.

i think what they could have done here. And, and I think what I would have preferred they do is I would have preferred that they had hangman, uh, swear, you know, you can still do swerve and Andrade.

You could have had hangman wrestle tonight. Omega still wrestle tonight. Um, I think you can have the Brody MJF thing off to the, kind of off to the side, kind of your side quest.

Cause like i said, I think it's a good way to help stretch.

Yep. Yep. Right. Mm-hmm.

um But I think you could have had all those guys wrestle and, you know, In that scenario, Omega and Hangman both have to win.

Okay, Andrade could still win, but I think Don Callis gets involved and it's not clean, right?

right

And then what I would have preferred is then at that point, what are we, is that is that four dudes? Yeah, four dudes. i Look, I know you can't keep doing fatal four-ways, but I would have preferred a fatal four-way for the number one contender at that point.

No.

And you can put that in Australia, right?

Yeah.

And have it be big and feel big and sell tickets to this big event. And I would have no problem with that. I would have no problem with that.

Yeah.

I think it would have made a lot more sense because now then we've got a clean, clear cut number one contender because if if it ends up being Andrade and I would not count that out, there's a legitimate complaint of who'd you beat?

Mm-hmm.

I would almost.

You beat Swerve, but prior to that, who did you beat?

Yep. And if you jump, and if you jump on draw day to the top of the list, then you've once again, take it hang man.

Uh-huh.

And I don't know about completely flushing his momentum, but you have put a giant stall into it.

Well, I think.

You're, you're, you're trying to, you know, spark Kenny Omega.

Yep.

Yeah. And if you put Andrade at the top of the the line again, you're kind of snuffing that. You have now removed Swerve from the immediate title picture.

that's That's what was going to say is you've definitely flushed Swerve's momentum just like that.

Yeah.

Just like that you flushed his momentum. I agree with you where now Hangman feels very on the outside of this and does not feel important to it. um

Mm-hmm.

And I would argue he already feels stalled, which I kind of felt like was going to happen with the trios thing.

yep Yep. Why not have Hangman lose to Andrade? Because at least he has the trios title. But the whole storyline of him taking everything away from Joe is now pointless because Joe's not there.

Right.

So that, you know, and that's if he's legit injured, that that that's on no one's, that's no one's fault.

Yeah.

You have to give it.

It happens. Yeah.

But what are you doing with one of your biggest draws and swerve Strickland?

Yeah.

Right. And that, that's where it doesn't make sense to me is as great as Andrade is. And as much fun as this version of him is, he's not going to draw more than swerve. He's just not, not in that company and not right now, maybe down the road, but not right now.

No.

Maybe in Texas, but that's it, you know.

And so. mete But even then I'm still not sure. You know, i mean, Swerve is one of their biggest draws.

True. Yeah.

Listen to that crowd when his music hits.

Mm-mm.

That dude is one of their biggest draws. So you've now flushed his momentum. I have no idea what you do with him.

Mm-mm.

You very much stalled again, your alleged main character and hang man.

Yep.

You know, it, this feels to me like it, well, I guess it is. It's going to be Omega and Andrade, right?

I 100% think that's what we're going with.

I mean, that's what it's going to be, right?

yeah

Like, I guess maybe that hasn't been decided officially yet, but that's who it's going to be.

Right. I mean, it's got it's Kenny and Hangman right next next week.

i think, yeah.

And then in Australia, it'll be Andrade against the winner of that.

Yeah, so it's going to be him and Omega. I think I'm pretty confident saying that.

I think so, yeah.

And so now what do you do? Yeah.

If that's the way you're going, you ah personally, Omega has to has to win.

I agree. Yep.

Andrade can survive it. Andrade's hot right now. He'll be fine.

Yep. Yep.

But if you're going to move Omega forward and pass over Hangman, Kenny has to win. I think the smarter move is to have Hangman beat Kenny, but then you're squat you know you you've put yourself over a barrel with having those two.

I agree.

They both have to win.

Yep.

And I don't think you want two of your baby faces that are huge draws for you in that position against each other in the same match. i i That paints us into an awkward corner.

And now you have to now you have to find something.

I agree.

And unless they've got these major plans that you know we aren't smart enough to figure out, which, again, I'm not very bright.

Yep.

Well, it's not even so much.

i'm i'm

It's not even that it's yeah, it's, it's look you, they may have something up their sleeve.

I'm just concerned.

That's going to save all this. They might. And I'm, I'm not counting that out, but I agree with you of, I think you're very painted into a corner because if it is Omega and Andrade, you're right that Omega's gotta go over. If Hangman wins, I think Hangman has to go over, although I would not be shocked if they had Andrade beat him.

No, I would not either. Nope.

But, you know, I think that if you, i think it would make more sense to have Hangman do it, but then now I almost feel like Hangman's gotta beat MJF then.

Because if not, we're gonna, you know,

Yep.

again, it's like, dude, this guy is supposed to be one of your top guys and you keep messing with him in terms of him being a world champion.

So if he doesn't beat MJF to get it back, you know, but I don't think you want to cut the MJF for run short just yet.

No, no, you don't.

So I, I, they're, they're in a tough spot here. They really are.

I mean, the smart money, if that's where we're going, where ultimately we think MJF needs to keep the title, and I personally think he needs to keep the title, then my wrestling logic brain says Andrade needs to face him, and Andrade can eat the loss.

Yeah.

I agree.

Yep. Yep.

Or Andrade cheats to win, and then they you know do the, no, no, no, I saw it, we got to do it again, and then MJF gets the quick roll-up, one, two, three, he retains.

Yeah.

Andrade, I think, has to be the guy to win this and then lose to MJF.

I agree. I think that makes the most sense. Yeah.

Because Kenny losing to him and Hangman losing to him again, if Hangman if a hangman goes against him and loses, now he's done.

Yep.

Bad look. It's a bad look.

like you Now you've got another year to rebuild Hangman in some way, shape, or form.

Yeah.

And what are you going to have him do?

Yep. Right. It's a bad look at that point. And... I agree with you. If MJ, yeah if the plan is MJF retains, then Andrade goes over. I think you can still do it where Omega is the guy. And because remember when they, the first time Max had the belt, they wrestled on collision and it was really good.

Yep. Correct.

And it was part of, you know, helping solidify that MJF is a legit champion, right? Like you went up against one of the best and you won in a really good match. So you give them time to stretch that out. And if he still wins, does it hurt Kenny Omega? No, he's Kenny Omega.

Right. But,

I just, it makes the most sense in my wrestling brain to borrow your phrase that if, if MJF retains, if that's the plan to have him beat Andrade, but I don't know, dude. And then after that, I don't know what you do because now you've taken your three top baby faces and you've put a fence between them and the title, you know?

the The other alternative that as we're talking and I'm thinking about it is if you have Kenny beat Hangman and go up against and then beat Andrade and go up against MJF for the title.

Yeah.

Then I think, really, if you're going to keep the belt on MJF, the way you could do that logically is have Hangman snap again. And now he's going full Hangman heel again because you've got these three major baby faces. And like we have said, you don't really have that dominant, destroying heel.

Hangman can be that.

yes he can

And he could then, you know, now you've got legitimate matches with Kenny and Hangman.

Yeah.

Swerve can come back and be like, dude, what are you doing? We, you know, you what the hell?

Yep. Yep.

but This is not who you are. And then they could go at it again. And then you can build up Andrade.

Yeah.

You can put Andrade in there because I have a feeling, even though Andrade supposed to be with the heel faction, he's kind of over right now.

Oh, he's so over. He's not a heel.

you know

He's not. Even if he acts like a heel, he's not a heel. Like he's super over.

Right. So even in the Don Callis family, he's the face of the of that heel faction.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you're not hurting for strong faces at the moment.

Nope.

You are hurting for that dominant, destructive heel.

Yep.

Yep.

They're trying to build Doyle and Davis into that, but we haven't seen enough of them.

but But I think that's in the tag team division. I don't think those guys are going to split out and and play a factor in this.

Right. And even so, we haven't built that with them yet. And we've seen Hangman be that dominant, and we know he can do it.

Yep.

Yep.

So I can see that being one of the possibilities, but I think we if Andrade goes, he can't he can't beat MJF.

Yep.

No, i agree. if if If he's the guy, he can't win. He cannot win the world title.

And I think my gut after seeing tonight and how much of a shine they put on him, it's hard for me to say he isn't going to be the guy going up against MJF because that's the feeling I get right now.

I agree. I agree. I agree. Right now, I would put slightly better odds on Kenny Omega. um Because from the start of this, I kind of thought it was going to be Kenny first.

I get that too.

Again, to help reestablish Max, right?

Yeah. Yep.

You beat Kenny flipping Omega and not not hurt broken down Omega. as we've been talking about, you know?

Yep.

So I, I think there's still a chance of that, but, but Andrade, Andrade, hi, Andrade makes a lot of sense as well. God, I caught whatever you have where I can't say names all of a sudden, but yeah, but I don't know.

welcome

Now you bring up an interesting point about potentially hangman turning because the last thing we saw after Max walks, his little gauntlet of challengers there, which I kind of liked.

By the way, thought that was great. Saw it coming.

I liked that.

Loved it, though. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I liked that. I thought that was good. The last thing we saw was hang man kind of making that face that reminded me a bit of heel hang man.

little bit. little bit.

And if there is a plan here where he's going to snap,

you have my attention.

Yeah.

You have my attention, but I, I,

I would watch that.

But you got to figure it out and and you got to figure it out pretty quick because he is in danger of becoming irrelevant. He and Swerve all of a sudden are in danger of becoming very irrelevant.

And that's not a position that this company wants to be in.

Mm-hmm.

No. And if Hangman is going to go, if he is going to flip and turn heel, there has to be a clean line of you can't have this heel persona that kind of gets along with some of the faces.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

No, he's got to all the way snap again.

No.

Like he did before he's got to snap.

Yep. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's just got to beat hell out of everybody and that will be done with it.

Yeah. He's. Yep. He's got to go back to what he was doing, which honestly, a I love hang man. The heel version was kind of more compelling than what we're getting right now.

Yes.

So, um, you know It worked. The face turn worked for what they needed it to do with him getting the belt off of Mox, but it might be time to go back.

right

I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what they do from here. but

Unfortunately for Hangman, he's a victim of other people's timing.

Yep.

And it sucks for him because Swerve was on fire.

I agree.

MJF comes back. You know, it's just what, and now Andrade's in the picture and it's like, he's super over right now because he's finally looking like the Andrade that everyone hoped he could be after years.

Yep.

Yep. Yep.

Omega gets healthy and is the Kenny of old.

Omega's looking freaking amazing. So yeah, love me some hangman.

Yeah. Yeah. It's tough.

Don't get me wrong.

Yeah. No, I agree. It's tough spot.

but it does feel like right now is not his time.

Yeah. Yep. I agree. um I agree with you. So we'll see what, what they do here as we get, you know, creep towards grand slam in Australia.

Cause that obviously is now the next big, ah I don't know, mile marker, I guess. Yeah.

Right.

But overall, i thought this was I thought this was a pretty good show. the the theme for me, if you really go back and and really listen to this and keep score, I thought the matches were all pretty good.

Mm-hmm.

i thought the promo segments were, by and large, eh.

Mm-hmm.

Yep.

lot of kind of eh promos and a lot of promos that made me go, I don't know what we're doing here.

Mm-hmm.

And I know that's by design, but I don't know what we're doing here.

Right.

And at some point you got to give me a promo that tells me what we're doing here. Cause you're asking me to spend money.

Right. Yep. The cleanest promo we got was from Don Callis laying out the the title shot plan.

Yeah.

That was the cleanest, most direct...

Yeah.

painting the picture, but then you muddy the waters with the weird Kyle Fletcher Takeshita thing Okada, that triangle of dance.

Yeah.

Love.

Love dance.

Love, love, love dance.

Yeah.

Love dance.

Love dance.

Luchu.

There you go.

Love dance.

Yep. So overall, i thought it was pretty good episode, but I'm, I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic that there's a plan in place.

Yep.

And if we just let it play itself out, that they're going to tell us a pretty good story here.

Yeah, same. Yep.

But the key word there is cautiously optimistic.

Mm-hmm.

There is, there, there is a lot of potential for this to go bad on them.

Yes. I thought after the Continental Classic, they were setting up a lot of options for some really good storytelling and some storylines, and I don't know if they've capitalized on that yet. And we'll just see.

I agree.

We'll just see how it goes.

Yep. That's, that's all we can do is sit back and go for the ride. So ah we are on to next week where hopefully things get a little less muddy.

Yep.

That would be nice.

I'm just cautious. I don't think that's going to happen, but we'll see. We'll find out. I'm still going enjoy it.

ah yeah Oh, I'm going to enjoy it. But again, keyword was hopefully.

Yeah, hopefully.

I'm not saying I think it's going to happen. I just hope it does.

Oh, no. Yeah, same. Same. 100%.

And with that, ah you know, subscribe to the show if you haven't yet on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

one hundred ruth

Follow us across all social medias at Elite Heat Pod. By the way, we had a TikTok go over a thousand views, which is pretty cool. That's the first time that happened. That was pretty awesome.

Thank you, TikTok.

Yeah, well, and then it broke, like right after that. So I'm going to go ahead and say we broke it

Suck that, TikTok.

yeah You're all welcome for that. Uh, but yeah, exactly.

Bluetooth.

Uh, we're on YouTube. We're on the the clock. We're on the blue sky and the Facebook and the Instagrams and the Jell-O pudding pops. So, uh, go ahead and give us, yeah you didn't see that one coming, did you?

I'll be honest with you. I didn't know that was going to come out of my mouth until about 30 seconds, before not even 30 seconds before it happened. Um,

We're on the fortune cookie fortunes also. So make sure you check those.

We are. You can find us there. You can find us on MySpace, AOL Instant Messenger.

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Friendster.

Yes, Friendster. Yeah. now Now we're into the space where if you're not a Gen X or an elder millennial, you have no idea what we're talking about.

Correct. Wow. We're on OnlyFans.

Not yet.

How are your feet?

Yet.

oh

My feet are terrible. You don't want that. My feet are nasty.

We're going so much money taking pictures of your feet.

You're nasty as hell. We'll put the dog paws up there.

Yes. Yes. Dude, do you know how many perverts would pay money to see that?

But...

that's true.

could You could be sitting on a gold mine right now.

Yeah. You could be. My nasty-ass feet? Yeah, we could be.

no I mean the dog's feet.

Oh, the dog feet? Yeah, that too.

Yes. You got eight feet to pick from. can make a fortune.

That's true. that's That's a good point. So anyway, give us a follow, give us a like, give us subscribe, ah subscribe all that stuff. Share if you would, please.

Yeah.

It really helps, ah which is, you know, as we're trying to grow this little thing into a medium thing.

on you

leave it Leave a five-star review on um on on your podcast because those five-star reviews really do help.

They really do.

and what you And if you aren't going to leave a five-star review, then don't leave one.

Yeah. If you're like, man um maybe not five, but like four, and fuck off.

We'll know.

How about that?

Yeah. Yeah, because we'll know. We'll get it.

Yeah. Yeah.

We'll get it

Yeah. um And with that, ah we're done here. So we'll see you next week. And I'm going to go ahead and say that next week we're going to be sitting here again going, I don't know what they're doing.

Yep.

I don't know what's going to happen next.

Why do they let you to talk?

That will be a question, too. Stop doing that.

Yes.