WWE

The Taz Show Recap – Bringing Actors into WWE, Lesnar Returning to RAW Tonight, Losing is Bray Wyatt’s Job, More!

Blocks 1 & 2:

A listener calls into the show and informs that he recently watched an episode of Lucha Underground and was fascinated by Dario Cueto’s performance. Taz agrees and points out that the actor who portray’s Cueto on Lucha Underground never worked in the wrestling business before, rather he’s an actor who was brought in to play that role.

The caller also asks Taz if he thinks WWE would ever go down the same road, by bringing in actors to play authority figures or managers on WWE programming. Taz doesn’t think WWE would do this because the wrestling business is somewhat of a fraternity, and they like to stick to their own. It would also be a lot of work to train actors into the wrestling business, in terms of how the business works backstage and in front of a live audience.

Taz’s Producer Dennis Jones attended a CZW show this past weekend and although this overly violent brand of wrestling normally isn’t his cup of tea, he had a good time at this show. Taz says that CZW has been around for a long time and while it certainly isn’t for everyone, WWE Superstars such as Dean Ambrose and Luke Harper got their start in CZW.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Russo as WCW Champion, Changing Landscape of the Wrestling Business, Undertaker Returning? More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Russo comments on the growing speculation online, that WWE’s promotional image for the upcoming ‘Great Balls of Fire’ PPV resembles a penis and two testicles. Sasha Banks even tweeted this week that she actually agrees with the speculation and can see the resemblance. Russo doesn’t understand why WWE would blatantly do this given their ‘PG’ environment, and the fact that their target fanbase is mostly children.

Gilbertti points out that there was a recent study which concluded that the median age of WWE’s fanbase is 54. Russo is shocked by this news but it proves what he’s been saying for a long time now, that WWE isn’t making new fans. Gilbertti says that this number has nearly doubled from 28 in 2000, and today’s fans are mostly attitude era leftovers. He adds that WWE’s fans are literally dying off.

Russo says that wrestling isn’t ‘cool’ anymore, and teenagers aren’t watching today’s product. In turn, WWE is unable to generate and maintain new fans. Gilbertti says that WWE had the biggest increase of median fan age from 2000 to 2017 out of the 25 sports that were studied.

Ryback Criticizes Nia Jax’s Tweet About WWE Creative

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

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

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

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

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

Bruce Prichard Reveals the Reason Behind Big Show’s Inclusion In WWE’s Version of the nWo

On the latest edition of his podcast, Something to Wrestle With, Bruce Prichard revealed the real reason behind Big Show’s inclusion in the abomination that was the WWE’s nWo.

According to Prichard, the decision was made because Nash was injured and the company needed someone to work matches.
Prichard said: (quotes credit 411mania)

“It was so bad, [WWE thought], ‘Hey. We lost one seven-foot [giant], let’s put another seven-foot [giant] in there. And you replace one with another. And people won’t notice.’ You’re just trying to save something, and you’re trying to complete that vision. Sometimes, it just doesn’t work.”

Prichard also admitted that the idea wasn’t executed well and had “scotch tape booking” where in everything changed drastically in five months of that stable’s existence.

Possible Return for Tonight’s RAW Episode

We noted over the weekend that Emma returned to action at the WWE Live Event in Jackson, Mississippi Friday night. Emma teamed up with Alexa Bliss and Nia Jax to take on Mickie James, Sasha Banks and Dana Brooke. The match concluded with Emma submitting to the Bank Statement.

There is speculation that Emma may be returning to television very soon, as early as tonight’s episode of RAW. She is expected to be injected back into her storyline with Mickie James and Dana Brooke.

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

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

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

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