Chaos In Canada - Canadian Stampede 1997

 In this inaugural episode Aaron & Brad Discuss 1997's epic Canadian Stampede, Ricky Starks & Jordynne Grace appearing in WWE's NXT, the glory days of Bret Hart, and early glimpses of Steve Austin & The Attitude Era.

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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.

Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

Transcript

00:00:01.13
Aaron
Hey, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, give us follow, leave a review, cut a promo on us, anything goes. It'll go a long way in helping us to be discovered by more wrestling fans like you.

00:00:13.24
Aaron
All right, let's cue the music.

00:00:15.39
Bradley Palermo
Hello and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the iconic pay-per-views that have shaped wrestling history. I'm Bradley Palermo, along with Aaron Fink. Today, we will be getting into WWE's In Your House 16 Canadian Stampede from back in 1997. Call us and leave us a message on our machines anytime, day or night at 626-657-SLAM

00:00:45.38
Bradley Palermo
or email us at grapplecitypod at gmail.com across social media at grapplecitypod Aaron, I really want to talk about the pay-per-view that we just watched for this first inaugural episode.

00:00:56.77
Aaron
Yeah.

00:00:58.87
Bradley Palermo
But before we get into the old shit, let's talk about the current shit. Have you watched any good wrestling this week? Any current wrestling this week? Maybe some NXT?

00:01:09.43
Bradley Palermo
Maybe some Ricky Starks? What you got?

00:01:11.97
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, well, I watch pretty much everything on a weekly basis. I think highlight for me was probably Ricky Stark showing up on NXT. Let me do again.

00:01:21.39
Aaron
I think the highlight for me was Ricky Starks showing up on NXT on Tuesday night. Didn't have any idea he was going to be there. I think it was a great surprise and I'm hoping that he finally gets to work and get some screen time. I'm assuming that's why he's there.

00:01:37.10
Aaron
I'm assuming that's why he joined. So very excited to see what happens next for Ricky.

00:01:42.31
Bradley Palermo
Do you think it's, does it surprise you at all? Like when a top guy from the other company, from AEW, comes over to WWE and you see him first on NXT?

00:01:53.14
Bradley Palermo
Or is that just like something we've kind of come to expect? I mean, Ricky Starks, I think, was in the running for the world title over there at AEW versus MJF at one point, right?

00:02:05.18
Bradley Palermo
So...

00:02:05.72
Aaron
Yeah, it was a short-lived feud. He was... He was main event adjacent. First, let me say, I love Ricky Starks. Anything I'm about to say is not disparaging against him.

00:02:17.02
Bradley Palermo
For sure.

00:02:17.09
Aaron
think the way he was positioned in AEW, he was on the rise... as has happened with a lot of AEW wrestlers. They're on the rise, there's some momentum going, and then things kind of peter out and they never really catch that momentum again. That was what happened with Ricky.

00:02:32.89
Aaron
He had a great, I think it was 2022 or 2023. He was in a lot of good feuds. He was winning titles in AEW. So yeah, he was certainly in the main event scene. He's not at the top of the main event scene in AEW.

00:02:49.50
Aaron
Now that he's in NXT, I think it makes sense for him. I mean, he's done stuff on the Indies. He was in NWA. He has plenty of experience, but WWE is its own thing, right? And most people, when they come to WWE, if they haven't been there before or don't know anything about the way that you wrestle a WWE style match, they probably tend to go to NXT. And I, for one, think that's fine.

00:03:17.43
Aaron
I don't anticipate that he's going to be in NXT for any longer than a year. That's just my guess.

00:03:23.08
Bradley Palermo
Agreed.

00:03:23.50
Aaron
But I think it's the right thing. I mean, sure, everybody in the NXT crowd knew who he was, but if he just showed up on a Monday Night Raw, you don't know that the whole crowd is going to know who he is. And you want to capitalize on goodwill that you create for him so that when he does go to the main roster,

00:03:42.77
Aaron
there's a big reaction he's a big deal and there's something for him to do he doesn't even have a storyline yet he just showed up so let's just wait and see i say yeah

00:03:48.100
Bradley Palermo
Right. It's not so bad. Yeah. I mean, NXT has a lot of stock and people from other companies. they have like Ethan Page now. Oh, the chick from Jordan Grace from TNA.

00:04:04.27
Aaron
mm-hmm

00:04:06.59
Bradley Palermo
They have a lot of stars that other people made, which is kind

00:04:07.99
Aaron
Julia, Stephanie Vaker, Brian Pillman Jr., Sean Spears. These are all people that came from other companies who are at a pretty high level in those companies and are now at NXT. So I think for the most part, it's probably pretty widely accepted that unless you are a main event person where you came from, you're going to spend some time at NXT. And like I said, I think that's okay because...

00:04:33.99
Aaron
When you put a, I guess we didn't preface this by saying that neither of us have been in the ring. We're not in the business.

00:04:39.81
Bradley Palermo
Nope, not at all.

00:04:41.26
Aaron
Our opinions are our own and they, and my opinions come from the things that I've read and the things that I've heard and observed. Based off of what I've learned, a WWE style match is put together differently than an independent style match, than an AEW style match, than a TNA match.

00:04:54.63
Bradley Palermo
Hmm.

00:04:56.48
Aaron
So, It's almost like when you are a jujitsu student and you're like a brown belt in one dojo and you move dojos, the sensei is going to be like, okay, what were you before? Well, I'm going to bump you down to a white belt again because I don't know how they trained you. I don't know what mistakes are in your mind now. So we need to start from square one. And I think that that's what happens with professional wrestling as well.

00:05:23.92
Bradley Palermo
Right, like even a Jade Cargill or someone who, yeah, they're a big name and they look amazing, but we'd see them first walking into the Performance Center, so that...

00:05:33.57
Aaron
Yeah, and you know what? Actually, Jade is kind of exception to that rule because even though we saw her in the Performance Center and we saw her in places getting ready in training, she did have her debut on the main roster.

00:05:46.97
Aaron
So there are always exceptions, but I think for Ricky, it's the right move.

00:05:47.04
Bradley Palermo
She did.

00:05:52.69
Aaron
And if he exceeds expectations and he fits in really well and rises really fast, they'll bump him up. That's just how works.

00:06:00.17
Bradley Palermo
And it's just so, so cool to see him again, because it's been so long, you know, companies do so well at like keeping people off TV until.

00:06:03.11
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:06:07.83
Aaron
Yeah, if nothing else, I'm just, I'm happy for him. He deserves to work and to have an opportunity to get better and to get himself over.

00:06:17.56
Bradley Palermo
As far as I know, I want to get into the chaos in Calgary, so to speak soon. But did you see anything on TakeOver this weekend or on, I know AEW went to Australia and did like a collision there that wasn't quite a pay-per-view, but kind of felt like it.

00:06:34.37
Bradley Palermo
Did you see anything that you wanted to mention before we move on to going retro here?

00:06:40.87
Aaron
so I take it back when I said that I watched everything this week, I didn't watch Grand Slam in Australia. That's the one thing that I missed. but I did watch some of NXT TakeOver and I liked what I saw. you know, the, the main event was a very hotly contested, fatal four way for the women's, uh, championship and,

00:07:02.11
Aaron
And Julia managed to retain, so that was really good. And of course, the surprise at the end of the show, after we get the executive producer and the copyright logo, Jordan Grace, is in NXT.

00:07:16.90
Aaron
We kind already knew that because she showed up at the Rumble and Michael Cole was like, she's in WWE now, but...

00:07:18.02
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:07:22.82
Aaron
Still exciting.

00:07:22.92
Bradley Palermo
but you got it still got a moment

00:07:24.17
Aaron
Yeah, she can give her as many returns or surprises as she wants, honestly. So yeah, it was a good show. It was a hot crowd. I think that NXT pay-per-views, generally speaking, don't fail to impress. And it reminds me of, you know, the heyday, the black and gold days when I started really getting back into wrestling again. So I'm excited.

00:07:47.76
Aaron
It was good.

00:07:48.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I feel like it only had a weird neon splatter moment with Vince kind of taking it over where it sort of sucked. But everything else has been good.

00:07:58.84
Bradley Palermo
And I think Shawn Michaels is doing a great job with it.

00:07:59.72
Aaron
Yeah.

00:08:02.38
Bradley Palermo
I did watch some of the AEW. It was late. It was like a Saturday night after the All-Star game for NBA.

00:08:08.74
Aaron
Yeah.

00:08:09.11
Bradley Palermo
But I saw some of the AEW show. last night and the crowd seemed hype hyped it didn't seem like totally a pay-per-view but it seemed better than a collision didn't see the whole thing you know we're watching this not that far after that aired but but it did seem cool to have in

00:08:20.19
Aaron
Yeah.

00:08:28.79
Bradley Palermo
Australia, but I want to go ahead and get into in your house Canadian Stampede 1997. It was July 6 at the Saddle Dome in Calvary, Canada.

00:08:41.79
Aaron
Rodeos?

00:08:41.88
Bradley Palermo
with cal calgary alberta canada home of bret hart we have the commentary team of vincent man jerry the king lawler jim ross uh the event coincided with the calgary stampede festival a massive animal abuse celebration that i didn't know canada had i didn't know they were so into you know

00:09:01.29
Aaron
Yeah.

00:09:07.96
Bradley Palermo
Wrapping the balls of the bull with a rope and just strangling them until the bull bucks them off.

00:09:12.59
Aaron
Oh dear. Is that what it is?

00:09:14.35
Bradley Palermo
That's what, that's what a rodeo is. Yeah. Animal abuse. No. How do you think the bull bucks like that?

00:09:21.06
Aaron
Yeah, I guess I never thought about it.

00:09:22.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:09:22.14
Aaron
I thought they were just mad that they were being kept in little boxes and shit.

00:09:22.32
Bradley Palermo
No, no, no.

00:09:26.45
Bradley Palermo
They're mad that somebody is stomping on their balls, but they're celebrating this because Canadians love weird, fucked up shit. I'm just kidding. Americans do too. It's...

00:09:36.80
Aaron
Oh my God.

00:09:36.89
Bradley Palermo
Let's do it.

00:09:37.13
Aaron
Did you see the, do you see the hockey game? Did you see the, the fights?

00:09:41.59
Aaron
Oh my God. Okay. I know this has nothing to do with wrestling, but we're going to go into it. So USA and Canada had a, had a exhibition hockey, uh, comp or match.

00:09:51.13
Aaron
Is it a hockey match? Yeah. USA and Canada had a hockey match in Canada. And not only did the entire Canadian crowd boo during the Star Spangled Banner, but as soon as the whistle blew to start the hockey match, two guys threw their gloves down. They started fighting.

00:10:10.47
Aaron
And so then they got broken up. And then a second set started fighting once they whistled again. There were three fights and nine seconds of playtime, Brad.

00:10:19.19
Bradley Palermo
This just happened.

00:10:19.83
Aaron
Three fights. Yeah, it happened yesterday.

00:10:21.96
Bradley Palermo
I like how you called it the hockey match, you know.

00:10:24.74
Aaron
I don't know.

00:10:25.33
Bradley Palermo
But no, it's perfect.

00:10:25.46
Aaron
What the fuck do you call a hockey? It's a hockey game, right?

00:10:27.64
Bradley Palermo
Well, that was a fucking match, though. That was, yeah.

00:10:29.98
Aaron
It wasn't. Yeah, they threw fisticuffs, dude.

00:10:32.58
Bradley Palermo
And this was all you know, fucking, well, I mean, over nationalism, right?

00:10:33.01
Aaron
It was.

00:10:35.48
Aaron
Oliver social. Yeah.

00:10:39.100
Aaron
Oh, yeah, I assume so. I assume it's just because we're at odds right now. And it's being the fact that we're at odds is silly, but let's stay away from politics that, you know, this pay-per-view Canadian Stampede was so interesting to me, not not only because of like where it is and how the crowd reacted, which we'll get into, but more specifically, its point in time in wrestling history. I don't know if you noticed, but.

00:11:09.59
Aaron
Degeneration X, they get together a month after this, like literally five weeks after this pay-per-view is when Degeneration X forms.

00:11:18.20
Bradley Palermo
Crazy.

00:11:18.34
Aaron
And then three months after that is the Montreal Screwjob. And then Vince becomes an on-air character. and he's off the commentary table.

00:11:28.26
Aaron
And, like, everything about WWF at the time changes, like, right after this pay-per-view.

00:11:34.69
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:11:34.86
Aaron
So it was crazy to watch and just see, like, yeah, like... Felt like a nugget of the past that felt so far back, like way, way before 97 because Undertaker was still the world champion.

00:11:50.09
Aaron
There was no Degeneration X. Austin was just getting going. I don't even think The Rock was there yet. So it was a really fascinating time. And to watch it through that lens, knowing what is to come just a few months later, made it all the more enjoyable to me.

00:12:05.89
Bradley Palermo
And Brian Pillman is in the last three years of his life. I'm sorry. Brian Pillman is in the last three months of his life.

00:12:14.08
Aaron
Yeah.

00:12:15.18
Bradley Palermo
Bret Hart is in the last few months of his time at WWE, like you just mentioned with the screw drop.

00:12:22.12
Bradley Palermo
And I don't know. Yeah. It's, it feels, it's not the attitude era yet, which I know is kind of where you like sort of got into, you know, wrestling heavy, right.

00:12:34.28
Bradley Palermo
Heavily.

00:12:35.10
Bradley Palermo
And it's, it's not, it's kind of after my era, like my, like sort of 1990 to like 1995, pre-attitude era, but it has characters from both. It has like, you know, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Bret Hart still there.

00:12:50.36
Bradley Palermo
So here we are, know, at the Saddle Dome, at the, at the big, you know, Bret Hart homecoming. The first match is Triple H. He's not yet called Triple H. He's Hunter Hearst Helmsley.

00:13:07.98
Aaron
do you want to you want to actually before we get to the first match

00:13:08.16
Bradley Palermo
He's...

00:13:21.88
Bradley Palermo
Sure. Mm-hmm.

00:13:24.28
Aaron
For those who aren't aware of where this is in wrestling history, this was just a couple months after the very famous submission match between Bret Hart and Stone Cold Steve Austin with Ken Shamrock as the special guest referee.

00:13:39.42
Aaron
And this is the one, in case that didn't ring a bell for everybody, this is the match where Stone Cold is in the sharpshooter, there's blood pouring down his face, and he refuses to give up, and then passes out, and Shamrock calls the match for Bret Hart.

00:13:53.42
Aaron
So they gave us a little package, they showed us that moment, and basically setting up the fact that Stone Cold got a team together, Bret Hart re-

00:14:00.26
Bradley Palermo
Thank you.

00:14:03.78
Aaron
reunited the heart foundation but as heels this time and so now with all that in mind the show opens and we get our first match

00:14:13.26
Bradley Palermo
Yes. So we start with Hunter Hearst Helmsley with China versus Mankind. He's not yet with Stephanie McMahon. He's still with China. She's his bodyguard.

00:14:25.31
Bradley Palermo
He's not called Triple H just quite yet, which he will be in a couple months. He's Hunter Hearst Helmsley, which is funny. I talk to people from the Attitude Era. They're like, what are talking about? He was this fake...

00:14:39.25
Aaron
Yeah, he was a Greenwich Blue Blood.

00:14:42.54
Aaron
That's what they called him.

00:14:43.25
Bradley Palermo
Blue Blood.

00:14:43.34
Aaron
Yeah, he was a high society Vermont guy.

00:14:47.24
Bradley Palermo
And he did a lot of bowing and he had like sort of this transatlantic like mock accent that doesn't really belong anywhere.

00:14:50.25
Aaron
It was terrible.

00:14:54.71
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:14:55.44
Aaron
If you think about it, it's actually a perfect role for him, like a perfect shitty heel role for somebody just like, oh, I'm so much better than you is blonde, long hair and his ponytail like it worked.

00:14:55.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:15:08.05
Aaron
It was just like you think about it now and you're like, this the stupidest gimmick ever for like today.

00:15:13.80
Bradley Palermo
I think they even said, like, Jerry Lawler asked Vince McMahon, has he tried to buy WWE? And Vince is like, I don't know.

00:15:21.44
Aaron
don't know.

00:15:21.34
Bradley Palermo
Like, you know, I mean, he was going to get my job in about 30 years or whatever.

00:15:22.78
Aaron
Probably could if he wanted to.

00:15:28.58
Bradley Palermo
But, yeah, he's the blue blood aristocrat. He's smug. He's Silver Spoon. And then we have Mankind, who's, you know,

00:15:38.56
Aaron
A weirdo.

00:15:39.74
Bradley Palermo
A weirdo, but he's like our weirdo, right?

00:15:42.42
Aaron
Yeah, he's a misunderstood psycho. You know, this is the interesting thing. I was too young to really follow it at the level that I follow it now. So I'm curious, at what point does mankind start becoming sympathetic? Because I remember...

00:15:59.47
Aaron
the 1998 Royal Rumble, I think, where we got the three faces of Foley. He came out in the Rumble as all three of his characters.

00:16:08.12
Bradley Palermo
I remember,

00:16:08.63
Aaron
And I feel like that is around the time where you start like you know, enjoying Mick Foley and his various characters and rooting for him more.

00:16:19.23
Aaron
This is like right on the cusp of that too. Obviously the crowd hates Hunter Hearst Helmsley. So they're all in favor of mankind. But, you know, when, when he started becoming like, like a supreme baby face, you know, that was when I, I was really into it. So it was fun to see little hints of that.

00:16:37.100
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think it's fun to watch. I mean, I do feel like Mick Foley is one of the best and he just throws himself around like a cannonball. And obviously it takes crazier bumps than what we saw in this, but he is, yeah, he is kind of like the wrestling fan in the ring, you know, like the best possible version. Like, I'm like, you guys, I'm going to go fucking nuts. And, uh,

00:17:08.01
Bradley Palermo
I guess what they say, he's like, what did they say he was? He's like the master of hardcore?

00:17:11.94
Aaron
I don't remember.

00:17:14.49
Bradley Palermo
He's

00:17:15.46
Aaron
I don't, I didn't, I didn't catch it, but something like that, you know,

00:17:18.89
Bradley Palermo
like, the master of hardcore, whatever that means, they said. they were like, okay, cool, dude. But like, I thought the things that were funny about this match was Jim Ross mentioned the figure four.

00:17:29.95
Bradley Palermo
It puts pressure on seven points of the human humanity. seven points of the human anatomy and if anyone's ever like you know done the figure four to their friend and in like you know the playground it doesn't put pressure on any points not certainly not seven but

00:17:41.58
Aaron
You're like, oh, this doesn't hurt at all.

00:17:46.45
Aaron
Yeah, well. I know, but he's trying to sell the realism, Brad. It's okay.

00:17:51.74
Bradley Palermo
no no it's fine but but the figure four was one of my favorite to put on people when i was a kid because it didn't actually hurt anybody and The only thing I can say about this match is like, okay, Chyna looks great.

00:18:04.70
Bradley Palermo
She's 200 pounds. She's like fighting men at this era. There aren't really women that are like, like she's like Rhea Ripley in 1997. If there aren't any other women that are her speed.

00:18:16.43
Aaron
Yeah.

00:18:17.13
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:18:18.02
Aaron
Pre-plastic surgery, pre-boob job, like she's looking the way she looked before she started messing with her looks and her appearance and stuff.

00:18:25.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. She seems like she'll be around for a while, which I guess her time in WWE was pretty short lived.

00:18:27.34
Aaron
Yeah.

00:18:33.03
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, she looks like a badass and she does a lot of interference. And...

00:18:37.52
Aaron
Yep.

00:18:37.89
Aaron
Pretty typical, not only to matches with China on the outside, but Pretty typical of WWE. That was something I noticed too. was like a ton of interference and once she interferes, it turns the tide of the match in Hunter's favor.

00:18:54.62
Bradley Palermo
right you gotta like let the baby face sort of have an out right

00:19:00.21
Aaron
but at the same time, even though it felt sort of standard, I guess you could say, the crowd was behind it. I mean, holy crap, they were so loud for this match.

00:19:11.56
Aaron
Even... Even with the referee turning a blind eye to several things that I thought were especially egregious, that is something that really bugs me now because it's like, okay, we're in the modern era of wrestling.

00:19:27.07
Aaron
So if you... We know what peripheral vision is, right?

00:19:31.67
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:19:32.31
Aaron
If something happens right over here, you're going to fucking see it.

00:19:35.35
Bradley Palermo
I mean, in that era, the referee just couldn't see shit. I mean, this guy has serious eye problems.

00:19:40.49
Aaron
He needed his glasses.

00:19:42.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, but it's glaucoma in his ass.

00:19:43.46
Aaron
glaucoma in both eyes it just it just made him understand i understand why you do it i'm not saying that it shouldn't be done it just happened maybe three times in the match and every time the referee didn't do a really good job of positioning himself so that it looked like there was no way he could see it because there was there was like a chair shot that was like right over here like dude you're gonna you're gonna see that you know

00:20:08.22
Bradley Palermo
Right. They were just zooming in real close to the actual performers. And then they're like, you know, I don't know. It's like, okay, I guess that wasn't seen.

00:20:20.26
Bradley Palermo
Or is it GCW where they just fucking do it? You know, like, like in that sort of realm with it, where the ref, you know, in the Indies and the global chain, uh, game changer wrestling that I go to and stuff, it's like,

00:20:23.70
Aaron
Yeah.

00:20:33.68
Bradley Palermo
frustrating but it's like okay i get it like every match is a death match that's not really how you know vincent man sort of like bills it when he's on the mic that it's so but i mean it was a cool match it's it's the opening match they've

00:20:44.09
Aaron
No.

00:20:49.10
Aaron
It was fun. Yeah, I did enjoy one particular moment.

00:20:53.27
Bradley Palermo
yeah

00:20:54.82
Aaron
I mean, the crowd was just like popping for everything. Anytime mankind would successfully get a hit on Triple the crowd would go wild. think one of the funnier things was Triple H is on the ground.

00:21:07.18
Aaron
And I think he hits mankind maybe with a boot as mankind's trying to do something off the middle rope. and mankind just falls face first and his head lands right on Triple nuts and got a huge pop.

00:21:17.58
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, saw.

00:21:19.40
Aaron
I thought that was great. You know, like it works.

00:21:21.83
Bradley Palermo
I love that.

00:21:23.44
Aaron
I mean, why? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

00:21:26.35
Bradley Palermo
It's like a bowling ball falling on your dick, you know? It's just like perfectly round and heavy. It's like, you know, hilarious.

00:21:31.76
Aaron
Yeah. Or like, it's just like, it's like that episode of The Simpsons with Sideshow Bob where he keeps walking into the rakes and just like hitting himself in the face over it.

00:21:38.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah.

00:21:41.50
Aaron
You can't help but laugh every time. It's always going to be funny.

00:21:44.94
Bradley Palermo
And then, of course, the match ends in a double countout. And they just continue to fight. Which was kind of, at the moment, disappointing.

00:21:52.14
Aaron
They fought in the penalty box. They fought in the penalty box of the arena.

00:21:54.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Because they're in Canada.

00:21:56.86
Aaron
They're in the Stampeders arena.

00:21:57.05
Bradley Palermo
They're in some fucking...

00:21:59.12
Aaron
Yeah.

00:21:59.87
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. So they have to fight in the penalty box. And then... They're fighting off. Let's go to the next match, you know? So...

00:22:15.63
Aaron
Not the whole night, but it does come back a couple of times.

00:22:08.33
Bradley Palermo
We think that's all. It's not all. This match lasts the entire... The entire fucking night, you know, we keep seeing a little bit more.

00:22:20.32
Bradley Palermo
don't know. I think it probably should have just stopped there. But hold on one second. Give me a break real quick. I got to pee real quick.

00:22:25.69
Aaron
Yeah, no worries.

00:22:26.53
Bradley Palermo
I won't put that in the podcast.

00:22:29.44
Bradley Palermo
What up?

00:22:30.46
Aaron
right. Get back to where I was.

00:22:34.68
Bradley Palermo
Okay, Aaron. So match to Taka Mishinoku.

00:22:40.48
Aaron
Cool. Before we do match two, wanted to comment on some stuff we saw in between match one and two.

00:22:41.58
Bradley Palermo
I'm sorry.

00:22:48.23
Bradley Palermo
Oh, you like the in-between shit. Okay.

00:22:50.44
Aaron
I don't know. I think it's kind of interesting to talk.

00:22:52.16
Bradley Palermo
No, it's cool.

00:22:53.37
Aaron
I think it's interesting to talk about the in-between shit. I'll explain it.

00:22:56.77
Bradley Palermo
Okay, go

00:22:58.15
Aaron
So after this match, there was another little break. We got to see some behind-the-scenes footage showing events that happened in Calgary leading up to the show. The Bret Hart line was over a mile long.

00:23:11.24
Aaron
I thought it was really interesting to see that because it's very similar to modern day, right?

00:23:12.56
Bradley Palermo
ahead.

00:23:14.76
Aaron
Showing the ways in which the company interacts with the fans in the days prior. And it was kind of cool to see that that stuff is always going to be the same, right? It's important to show...

00:23:23.07
Bradley Palermo
Mm hmm.

00:23:25.24
Aaron
the connection with the fans. And it was a very short, you know, interstitial kind of thing. And then we got into our second match, Takama Shinoku versus the Great Sasuke. What did you think about this one?

00:23:38.07
Bradley Palermo
So before this match begins, I must mention Mankind, after the package, and Triple H, Hunter Hearst Hemsley, are still brawling as this match begins.

00:23:45.13
Aaron
Yep.

00:23:50.73
Bradley Palermo
So we get to see a little bit of that.

00:23:51.39
Aaron
Yep, they come back out.

00:23:53.14
Bradley Palermo
Then I think one thing I texted you about when I watched it was it was completely apropos that somebody runs across right before they ring the bell with work rate.

00:24:04.33
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:05.70
Bradley Palermo
You know, work rate sign across the ring. Ding, ding, ding. So, you know, you have like this wrestling observer.

00:24:15.92
Bradley Palermo
You know, I think that's who started it really was Meltzer. It was the whole like work rate thing. How much you actually do in the ring while you're doing And that's really what this match was. It was like high-level mat wrestling, crisp kicks, you know, lot of striking, lot of like grappling on the ground, springboard moves.

00:24:35.85
Bradley Palermo
Like, it was really great wrestling. And I love American style, 1990s, you know, just like ground and pound. But this was Japanese, like...

00:24:46.53
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:24:50.13
Bradley Palermo
style that we see lot especially like in aw and stuff like the predecessor like this was holy this was happening in the 90s i i just missed it you know like

00:25:00.54
Aaron
Yeah, it was really interesting, actually, because it's like you said, you know, this is the type of style that has become very popular on the independent circuit.

00:25:11.13
Aaron
It happens more often in all elite wrestling as opposed to WWE. But what I think is so interesting about this match is, sure, it's the same work rate match Japanese style match as Bully Ray might say, a spot fest match, but it also kind of isn't right.

00:25:26.78
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

00:25:28.32
Aaron
Like it was more modern style match, but the pace was still a bit slower than modern day. I really felt like after these big moves, both of them took the opportunity to sell and to just lay there and for the crowd to get invested because in the beginning of the match, the crowd was like,

00:25:49.09
Aaron
kind of into it but it took a few minutes but they got into it i had never seen a michinoku match before so it was really exciting for me to see because i know who he is i know his finisher people do it all the time now so i really enjoyed it i thought the finish was a little lackluster i think it was like a uh german suplex into a pin not my favorite it kind of ended and then it was over

00:26:15.59
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:26:15.99
Aaron
And I was like, oh, okay, it's done. But I enjoyed it. It was sort of like what WCW did around the same time with cruiserweight matches, right?

00:26:23.19
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:26:24.18
Aaron
Usually, I think WCW would start their shows with a cruiserweight match and not have it be second. But same kind of idea. I thought it was a good match. It was short. I think it was like 10 minutes or something like that. So, yeah, no complaints. I wish they would have done more of this stuff in the past because I don't think it happened very often.

00:26:43.70
Bradley Palermo
I did like just having Jerry Lawler on commentary, professional wrestling then, now, and way before then, who has never done anything, any spots ever.

00:26:55.67
Bradley Palermo
I mean, you see him on like a ladder match with The Miz in 2010. He gets to the top and The Miz just like touches his shorts and he climbs back down.

00:27:05.30
Bradley Palermo
Like this guy like doesn't take bumps.

00:27:05.95
Aaron
Yeah.

00:27:07.75
Bradley Palermo
This guy like... doesn't, I mean, he doesn't fall more than few inches at a time. He just does his punches. And he was like, he's, but he's watching and he goes, kings don't fly.

00:27:17.67
Aaron
He's old, man.

00:27:21.89
Bradley Palermo
It's like, you're right. Kings don't fly. Cause these guys are like on the ropes on that. And I'm like,

00:27:28.36
Aaron
Yeah.

00:27:28.92
Bradley Palermo
You know, I love Jerry Lawler, but and I think he's like he's like one of the best, but he's never had to do like fucking anything in the ring.

00:27:31.05
Aaron
I do, too.

00:27:37.88
Bradley Palermo
And these guys do so much, you know, these guys do so much.

00:27:38.04
Aaron
Well, why would he, though? mean, you know, yeah, but...

00:27:41.80
Bradley Palermo
And it's both cool, but it's just kind of like when I have a guy.

00:27:43.77
Aaron
Yeah, it's just different styles. I mean, you know, when you're...

00:27:46.40
Bradley Palermo
ahead.

00:27:48.22
Aaron
When you're trained a certain way and then something new, you know, presents itself in front of you, you have two options, right? You can either say, hey, I'm going to integrate some of this stuff into what I do because I see value in it.

00:27:55.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:28:00.31
Aaron
Or you're like, eh, what I'm doing is great. I don't need to change. You know, that's just life.

00:28:03.45
Bradley Palermo
yeah and

00:28:05.39
Aaron
That's what he chose. He made his choice. He was certainly very successful for doing what he did. That dude... Got so much heat in the 80s. Man, I'm sure you've seen the shows and heard the stories.

00:28:16.47
Aaron
They used to slash his tires.

00:28:16.58
Bradley Palermo
oh yeah yeah of course and he's still wrestling to this day and he still doesn't have to do i mean you know

00:28:17.99
Aaron
They used to throw bricks at his windshield. He did a good job for what he needed to do.

00:28:27.89
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, we all saw Ric Flair's final match. He didn't do anything, and it sucked. But Jerry Lawler can still not do anything, and it's good. It's antics. It's running around.

00:28:39.11
Bradley Palermo
It's very like dink and doink.

00:28:38.87
Aaron
Making that voice that I can't. Yeah.

00:28:45.58
Bradley Palermo
You know, and then I, you know, take a little bump, yell at the crowd, like whatever. He's, he's really good at like not having to hurt himself.

00:28:49.39
Aaron
Yeah.

00:28:52.26
Bradley Palermo
You know, maybe someone like MJF in the future, you know, he, he can do all the high flying stuff and maybe he won't hurt himself so much that he can't like in the future be like a Jerry Lawler.

00:29:01.43
Aaron
Yeah.

00:29:03.72
Bradley Palermo
But, but yeah, this match was over quick.

00:29:07.74
Aaron
It was, but there were some pretty exciting spots. I mean, there was one thing that Michinoku did that I don't see very often or I may have not even seen ever. He... Excuse me.

00:29:19.76
Aaron
Michinoku had Sasuke outside the ring and he ran from across the ring and jumped from the apron onto the top rope and then springboarded off.

00:29:28.66
Bradley Palermo
Oh shit, yeah.

00:29:31.07
Aaron
I don't think I've ever seen somebody just like flat jump from the mat to the third rope in a long time. That was crazy.

00:29:39.54
Bradley Palermo
Yes, I can't believe I left that out of my notes. Like that was fucking nuts. That was like the best spot of the whole thing and they still don't fucking do it.

00:29:47.21
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:29:48.06
Bradley Palermo
And the, you know, the Mikinoku, did I say that right?

00:29:53.46
Aaron
I think I think.

00:29:53.63
Bradley Palermo
Michinoku Driver was pretty sweet. It was kind of like the Tiger Driver predecessor a little bit.

00:30:00.11
Aaron
little bit. I mean, what I found interesting about his version of his move is just the way that it looked. And maybe it was also probably how Sasuke took it as well, but it was so smooth and it had such great rhythm and he just dropped him and it looked like he dropped him right on his head, but Sasuke just tucked it exactly the right moment.

00:30:18.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, that's good.

00:30:18.89
Aaron
was great.

00:30:20.38
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:30:20.57
Aaron
Yeah, it was a very technically sound match. And, you know, those guys didn't have a lot of time on TV to get themselves over. It was a special match.

00:30:32.15
Aaron
They made it work. The crowd was excited. What more can you ask for?

00:30:36.11
Bradley Palermo
So Sasuke wins, like we mentioned, with a clean bridging pin the middle of the ring, but Triple H and Mankind are still fighting, but now they're bleeding.

00:30:46.73
Aaron
We're back again.

00:30:49.20
Bradley Palermo
Both of them are bleeding. and I think...

00:30:52.26
Aaron
Is this the part where they were outside at this point, or is that the fourth time we see that?

00:30:57.31
Bradley Palermo
Dude, I think... No, this is it. Because it's the middle of the fucking day.

00:30:59.65
Aaron
Okay.

00:31:02.37
Aaron
Yeah.

00:31:05.33
Bradley Palermo
It looks like it's high fucking noon.

00:31:05.52
Aaron
Well, it's in Calgary. Where is Calgary? don't even know.

00:31:09.27
Bradley Palermo
I don't know what side of that goddamn...

00:31:11.18
Aaron
I think it's on the east side of Canada, but I could be very wrong about this.

00:31:15.59
Bradley Palermo
All right. Well, if it's on the east side, then it should have definitely... I think... They were trying to cover it. Oh, it's still. And Vince McMahon's like, it's still daylight here in Alberta.

00:31:26.78
Bradley Palermo
Is it?

00:31:27.11
Aaron
Oh, you know what? No, Calgary is like, Calgary is like Montana, like parallel with Montana.

00:31:27.90
Bradley Palermo
Or did you film it?

00:31:31.89
Bradley Palermo
Okay. So they started at like three or whatever. So they could get the East coast feed.

00:31:35.04
Aaron
Yeah.

00:31:35.95
Bradley Palermo
I get it. It probably was still daylight. It looked like it was like fucking noon. And then they look like they were still beating the shit out of each other and they weren't pulled apart at all. But then it's like, you know, you have Vince like controlling things and it's, it's while like now we know he owns it, but back then he was just a commentator that we still knew owned it.

00:31:53.23
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:31:54.81
Bradley Palermo
But he was like, what did he say? Yeah. But he was just trying to control the narrative. It's still the day here in Calgary. And I think they're broken up now, which they weren't broken up whatsoever.

00:32:10.28
Bradley Palermo
It was just, I think it's broken up now.

00:32:10.34
Aaron
Right, he's just trying to like, let's move it along.

00:32:12.31
Bradley Palermo
He's like telling you, like, you're not going to see them anymore. Now on to the main events. And was like, all right, well, we thought there was more to this whole thing. I guess we can see it later. Now we're going on match three, which was The Undertaker versus Vader with Paul Bearer.

00:32:29.05
Bradley Palermo
Weird.

00:32:30.64
Aaron
Little weird.

00:32:30.61
Bradley Palermo
This match was originally supposed to be Ahmed Johnson versus The Undertaker. That's what it was billed as. Ahmed Johnson has said interviews since he believes...

00:32:44.78
Bradley Palermo
He wasn't in the match because of his injury, but he believes if he weren't to have been injured, he was going to be...

00:32:55.66
Bradley Palermo
He was going to strip the title from The Undertaker at In Your House and become the WWF's first black champion. I don't think that's true.

00:33:07.11
Aaron
Is that true? He said that?

00:33:08.36
Bradley Palermo
He said that. He said that. I was reading interviews.

00:33:10.79
Bradley Palermo
He believes this was the moment where he was supposed to become the WWE's, the WWF's first black champion.

00:33:12.91
Aaron
He believes, yeah.

00:33:19.81
Bradley Palermo
think if you were going to have your first, I mean, obviously, believe The Rock went on to become the first black champion from... from his faction right the the nation of domination so maybe he's kind of looking back like when could have like stolen the rock spot i think if you're going to have your first black champion it probably wouldn't be on in your house 16.

00:33:30.84
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:33:40.36
Bradley Palermo
you know it was a great show but probably not

00:33:41.70
Aaron
Yeah, that's... It was a great show. I don't know if I believe that, but that's okay.

00:33:47.12
Bradley Palermo
yeah but

00:33:47.50
Aaron
He can believe it if he wants to.

00:33:49.26
Bradley Palermo
Ahmed was not on the bill. It was Vader with Paul Bearer. And I think, you know, the first thing I got to say... I don't know what the deal is with Vader, like his copyrights and WCW, Big Van Vader, but Vince won't call him Vader.

00:34:07.99
Bradley Palermo
It's always the man they call Vader. And it's like in the middle of the match, like, and the man they call Vader, and the man they call Vader is on the ropes, and the man they call Vader is down by the side, and the man they call Vader is back in the ring.

00:34:22.03
Bradley Palermo
Like, what the fuck is that? Like, he's Vader. And Jim Ross and everybody else is like, and Vader, this, and Vader, that. Like, why is he?

00:34:28.87
Aaron
I don't know.

00:34:29.95
Bradley Palermo
It's like a Vince-ism, right? And the man they call Vader at the medical facility, they're all the man call Vader.

00:34:31.96
Aaron
Yeah. Yep. Hey, look at him go now on the outside.

00:34:40.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:34:40.81
Aaron
That's Vince's announcing voice.

00:34:42.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:34:43.46
Aaron
of, what a maneuver. That's my favorite one.

00:34:45.38
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. What a maneuver. Yeah.

00:34:47.20
Aaron
Yeah.

00:34:49.21
Bradley Palermo
I think that's a podcast too. What a maneuver, but,

00:34:51.94
Aaron
That's a good name for a podcast. This was a good match, though.

00:34:53.93
Bradley Palermo
but I, oh yeah.

00:34:55.16
Aaron
I mean, you know, again, typical crowd, very much behind Undertaker. They're quiet when Vader's in control. They're really loud when Undertaker's in control. It's incredibly slow-paced, much slower in the beginning than a modern-style match.

00:35:10.66
Bradley Palermo
And is there anything in the world as cool in wrestling as a 1990s Undertaker entrance?

00:35:10.85
Aaron
But...

00:35:20.88
Bradley Palermo
Like, it is just so fucking sick.

00:35:22.77
Aaron
Pretty good.

00:35:23.57
Bradley Palermo
The boom, the lights go out.

00:35:23.70
Aaron
Yeah, it's pretty good.

00:35:25.81
Bradley Palermo
He looks like a fucking badass. I mean, it got lame later with the American badass shit, but at this point, he's still got that just fucking crazy goth shit on.

00:35:36.88
Bradley Palermo
It's sick. It gives chills. It sends chills through my spine every fucking time. The Undertaker is so badass that when he comes in, he can almost do anything in the ring. He still does good ring work, but he could do anything and you're just like maybe six minutes, seven minutes.

00:35:55.60
Bradley Palermo
You just do anything and you're the fucking sickest motherfucker. It's a lot of Hogan shit, leg drop and

00:36:02.30
Aaron
Yeah.

00:36:02.74
Bradley Palermo
you know punches and stuff but it's but it's it works man you know

00:36:03.42
Aaron
But it doesn't need to be more. That's well. And so this is, and you know, the reason why is, well, what I think the reason is I don't, I don't think that those guys had a plan walking out there.

00:36:19.61
Aaron
I don't think that they wrote their match down on a piece of paper. They reacted with the crowd, you know? So like they got a feel for how it was going to go.

00:36:27.92
Aaron
Like I was mentioning earlier, every time, Vader was in control. Crowd goes quiet. Every time Taker gets a successful punch does a big move, crowd explodes.

00:36:37.26
Bradley Palermo
Boom.

00:36:37.75
Aaron
And it was insane. There, uh, There was a time where Vader had Undertaker in a submission. And I think it was like he was pinching his neck or something from behind. Right.

00:36:50.100
Aaron
And he's in Undertaker's down. He's on one knee crowds getting their, their claps go in there, getting him revved up. And he starts, you know, revving up, standing up. The crowd got so loud.

00:37:06.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:37:08.07
Aaron
I've never seen that before what I saw in Leon last year.

00:37:08.06
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:37:11.63
Aaron
I didn't know that that was like a common occurrence. So man, yeah, this crowd was so hot and so into the undertaker. was a, it was, you know, not like a spectacular match per se you know, it's no undertaker versus John Michaels at WrestleMania 25 or whatever, but, but it was still really good because the crowd was like on the edge of their seat the whole time.

00:37:29.73
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:37:36.72
Bradley Palermo
But fucking Paul Bearer is on the side of Vader. The man they call Vader, at least.

00:37:44.12
Aaron
Yes. With his blonde hair, by the way, did you notice that?

00:37:47.50
Bradley Palermo
Fucking like bad orangey blonde hair, no mustache, no white face paint.

00:37:48.43
Aaron
No mustache, no black hair.

00:37:55.11
Bradley Palermo
And he's...

00:37:56.81
Aaron
It's crazy how much shit is about to happen.

00:37:58.78
Bradley Palermo
It's a turning point.

00:37:59.01
Aaron
Kane's about to show up. And yeah, Paul Bearer goes with Kane. We're about to have the first Hell in a Cell, I think, in less than a year with Michaels and Undertaker.

00:38:07.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:38:08.97
Aaron
It all just... This is like a little snowball at the top of a hill and somebody just pushes it and everything just keeps rolling from here.

00:38:16.64
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

00:38:19.16
Bradley Palermo
Shit's about to get real.

00:38:20.92
Aaron
Yeah.

00:38:20.93
Bradley Palermo
And there is a storyline at this point, which is, I don't know. I mean, it's kind of like, who cares? At this point, he's the fucking dark lord. It's Satan.

00:38:32.21
Bradley Palermo
But it's like, he's killed his family.

00:38:32.73
Aaron
Yeah.

00:38:35.54
Bradley Palermo
He's killed his whole family. He's a murderer. And there's people in the crowd that have murder signs. And it's like, who gives a fuck dude like this guy is like i don't know if he was like a family annihilator like that just makes him in the storyline like more badass but it's like murder murder it's like okay he's also dead that's awesome

00:38:53.64
Aaron
Well, they're trying to drop, you ratchet up the drama. Yeah. I it's an interesting storyline. It's it's I don't know if it worked in retrospect. It certainly worked then because we didn't know anything about The Undertaker at all.

00:39:08.98
Aaron
I mean, all we knew.

00:39:09.06
Bradley Palermo
he didn't say shit

00:39:10.64
Aaron
I barely said anything. Paul was Paul Bearer was the only one who ever really spoke for him. So to get this kind of these kinds of nuggets of information back then, I just remember like, oh, my God. he murdered his whole family that's crazy he's still alive yeah

00:39:21.71
Bradley Palermo
He killed his parents and he killed Kane, but Kane's still here. don't know. But it was kind of, I mean, Paul Bear is one of like, don't know, my third favorite wrestling manager, maybe after Heyman and Cornette.

00:39:35.98
Bradley Palermo
And I mean, he's, he was fucking awesome.

00:39:36.51
Aaron
hall of famer dude i mean that he knew what he was doing

00:39:42.32
Bradley Palermo
It's fucking funny to see him all fucked up and not Paul Bear without the Undertaker. But,

00:39:48.59
Aaron
Yeah, he doesn't have the makeup on. You can see all the crags in his skin.

00:39:52.11
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I mean, he's like...

00:39:53.81
Aaron
He's got that blonde hair.

00:39:56.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he's like a... He's like a gay farm boy.

00:40:02.61
Bradley Palermo
He's like a... I don't know. I grew up in Missouri. I feel like he's just the gay farmer feed store's son who's just like, I'm here for mama or whatever.

00:40:13.66
Bradley Palermo
I don't know. Kind of like an Ed Gein sort of type.

00:40:18.03
Aaron
Yeah, maybe this was a, yeah, go ahead.

00:40:19.72
Bradley Palermo
Maybe we can cut that out, but...

00:40:21.58
Aaron
Yeah. Okay. I got something. This was another match where the ref turned a blind eye to a blatant shot right in the nuts from Vader to undertaker.

00:40:34.99
Aaron
And I was just like, come on. But like two minutes later, undertaker got it back and the ref was looking right at it. He was like, yeah, right. We're good. So I guess it evened out square.

00:40:45.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, the ref kind of sucked in all these matches.

00:40:46.44
Aaron
well,

00:40:49.98
Aaron
refs were a little all over the place in this one, but overall, great match.

00:40:51.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:54.00
Aaron
Exciting match. Hot crowd. Highlights for me, there was a part where Vader was going to do his Vader bomb. He was on the second rope, and Undertaker...

00:41:04.58
Aaron
got up quickly and had his hand around Vader's neck, got him right by the guzzle and gave him a chokeslam from the middle rope, which was pretty cool. And Vader was up there high in the air. So I liked that move. I hadn't seen that before.

00:41:19.71
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Vader kicked out of two low blows, two choke slams. Undertaker hits the tombstone pile driver. Nobody kicks out of that, right? Nobody.

00:41:31.09
Aaron
Not yet.

00:41:31.13
Bradley Palermo
Somebody.

00:41:32.21
Aaron
Not yet. Not yet. Yeah, fun, fun match. Like you said, it was good to see old school Undertaker. You know, as you said, he hasn't come out in that attire to that music in, gosh, it's probably like four or five years now he retired that character.

00:41:52.91
Aaron
And, you know, was fun to see again. I know WrestleMania 40, we had that surprise moment with the gong, but he was just in like regular people clothes. So it's not the same for me.

00:42:02.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's a lot of... These days, think he sticks to his true vibe, you know?

00:42:07.05
Aaron
the American badass slash Mark Calloway?

00:42:09.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, no one really... mean, I've seen him as American Badass a few times, you know, for guest spots, and I've seen him maybe...

00:42:12.12
Aaron
don't know.

00:42:18.57
Aaron
Doesn't do anything for me, but I appreciate that he's still around and that he's doing things. he was on busted open after dark with bully Ray on Tuesday this week and last week. And those are great interviews. So, uh, Oh, also the, he's one of the, uh, team captains of legends and future greats on A and which actually premieres tonight, the 16th of February.

00:42:43.85
Bradley Palermo
But not the night you're listening to this, just the night we're recording.

00:42:46.92
Aaron
Yeah, that's why I said the 16th of February.

00:42:49.55
Bradley Palermo
No, you didn't.

00:42:50.79
Aaron
I did. said the 16th of February is when it premieres.

00:42:52.57
Bradley Palermo
I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Don't hit me.

00:42:58.09
Aaron
Yeah, this was another match where I really felt the difference in pacing. I don't think it's... a revelatory statement to say that modern matches are a lot faster than the matches that we watched in this pay-per-view.

00:43:14.65
Aaron
But it's one thing to know that, and it's another thing to see it and experience it. And it's kind of crazy. Most matches in current day are not like the matches that we watched during this pay-per-view.

00:43:27.77
Bradley Palermo
No.

00:43:27.87
Aaron
I would say the only ones that usually have a good chance of being that way are like punk matches because he just, you know, that's how he wants matches to be.

00:43:37.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:43:40.09
Aaron
He wants them to be slow.

00:43:40.54
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

00:43:41.21
Aaron
He wants them to have a build. But yeah, you know, that, that was something that stood out. Not a lot of chants going on, not a lot of crowd participation, just like cheering and booing.

00:43:51.75
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah.

00:43:55.43
Aaron
But you know, the crowd, like when they were behind somebody, they were behind somebody. I mean, They were reacting to literally every single move that the Undertaker gave Vader during that match.

00:44:08.62
Aaron
And that doesn't really happen today. Like, there's always sort of a high and a low thing. But here it's like, this is the baseline. Oh, oh, oh.

00:44:18.07
Bradley Palermo
yeah i do remember

00:44:20.82
Aaron
And then they're just like, oh.

00:44:24.16
Bradley Palermo
do remember like when i when i was younger because you know i i guess i stopped going to matches around this time and then came back to wrestling later but There was no, this is awesome.

00:44:38.98
Bradley Palermo
Or he deserves it.

00:44:40.59
Aaron
You fucked up.

00:44:40.57
Bradley Palermo
There was none of that.

00:44:41.67
Aaron
Yeah, there's none of those.

00:44:43.00
Bradley Palermo
It was just like, yay, boo.

00:44:44.11
Aaron
Just like screaming and yeah, and noise.

00:44:45.98
Bradley Palermo
Screaming. And I think both are cool. But it's nice to watch this little sliver in time between the two. It's pretty fucking dope.

00:44:55.83
Aaron
Yeah, it was very interesting because, man, how old was I? I was probably eight when this actually aired. I definitely didn't watch it when it aired. But I was watching on and off around this time.

00:45:08.97
Aaron
So this was right around the time that I got in.

00:45:09.18
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:45:12.09
Aaron
So, okay, take a break for a sec.

00:45:12.20
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:45:16.28
Bradley Palermo
Oh, no, you're good.

00:45:20.19
Bradley Palermo
Keep going. Or you want to take a moment? We can take five if you want to get to the main event.

00:45:23.37
Aaron
Just a second.

00:45:26.55
Bradley Palermo
Take five.

00:45:27.00
Aaron
Yeah.

00:45:27.52
Bradley Palermo
All right. See you in a minute.

00:45:30.44
Aaron
Okay, I'll just sit here.

00:45:38.11
Bradley Palermo
Sorry, I don't mean to fuck around too much there.

00:45:40.72
Aaron
Oh, no, you're good. You're good, man.

00:45:42.14
Bradley Palermo
All

00:45:43.45
Aaron
It's good. Good to get up every once in a while.

00:45:47.34
Bradley Palermo
right, so now we're getting into our main event, which is, this right? Team USA versus Team Canada?

00:45:56.69
Aaron
I mean, guess you could look at it that way. The main event is 10-man tag. It is the Hart Foundation, Brian Pillman, Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Jim the Anvil, Neidhart, and the British Bulldog versus Stone Cold Steve Austin, Road Warrior Hawk and Animal, Goldust, and Ken Shamrock.

00:46:17.65
Bradley Palermo
Usually, do not like matches with this many people. It's hard to follow the storylines.

00:46:23.82
Aaron
Yeah.

00:46:26.20
Bradley Palermo
But we do have... a lot of legends in the ring together. We have a weird situation where Bret Hart at this time is a heel.

00:46:39.32
Bradley Palermo
And in America, he's a heel.

00:46:39.68
Aaron
Yeah.

00:46:41.73
Bradley Palermo
But in Canada, is the fuck, he's more over than fucking anyone's ever been over in the history of professional wrestling in Canada.

00:46:52.38
Bradley Palermo
So...

00:46:52.55
Aaron
It's like the Twilight Zone. This match is like the fucking Twilight Zone, dude. It was insane. Like nothing but boos and mixed reactions for everyone on Team Austin.

00:47:03.97
Aaron
And then one by one, the Hart Foundation, massive pops. And then obviously the loudest pop for Owen and Brett. And think it's so funny that like, I mean, it's exactly what you said.

00:47:21.77
Aaron
They were all heels in the United States that the Hart Foundation was a heel group. They were getting booed constantly. And it's really funny because Bret Hart was even mad about the fact that he had to be in a heel group at that time.

00:47:34.69
Bradley Palermo
Right.

00:47:34.78
Aaron
And just I'm sure him and everyone there is over the moon like, yeah, like we're the faces here. This is great.

00:47:42.24
Bradley Palermo
And even the video packages at the beginning are like tonight. In your house 16. like, good guys become bad guys, and bad guys become good.

00:47:53.84
Aaron
Yeah.

00:47:53.93
Bradley Palermo
you're like, alright, you're trying to work it in there, but yeah, I mean, they did this match perfectly.

00:47:53.98
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

00:48:00.10
Bradley Palermo
It seemed like Shamrock Goldust, Legion Doom, Stone Cold, they seemed perfectly heelish, and... And Brett Owen and Neidhart and Bulldog and whoever the fuck else was in there. Brian Pillman at the end of his life.

00:48:14.00
Bradley Palermo
They really did seem like baby faces. It was kind of like hard to imagine it any other way. I mean, I guess in Canada.

00:48:19.04
Aaron
Yeah. Well, when the crowd is, yeah. I mean, when the crowd is like that, there's, there's really not much up for debate, right? Like again, talk going back a few minutes and we were talking about like how undertaker invader probably didn't,

00:48:33.31
Aaron
come into that match with a super rigid plan. was probably the same thing for the 10-man tag. They were like, okay, they're probably going to cheer the Hart Foundation, but let's just see what happens. And then they got out there and they're like, holy shit, okay, so we can do whatever we want and they're going to cheer us. It was really fun. One thing couldn't help but notice that did make me really sad Everyone on the Heart Foundation team, except for Brett, no longer with us.

00:48:57.34
Aaron
Like, holy crap.

00:48:58.45
Bradley Palermo
Oh, damn.

00:48:58.62
Aaron
You know, when you see them all right there, you're wow, everyone on that team is gone.

00:48:59.70
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:49:03.46
Aaron
And Hawk and Animal, too.

00:49:05.67
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:49:05.78
Aaron
Like lot of people in that match are not here anymore. So it was really sad for a second to remember that, but it was also really fun to see everybody work hard and with a crowd that really, really wanted to see them.

00:49:21.14
Aaron
I still can't get over how insanely loud that crowd was. There was more of the camera bouncing throughout this match. It was nuts.

00:49:28.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that I like. I don't like what's happened to the wrestlers as far as the tragic ends, but watching the dark side of the ring or watching the A&E biographies,

00:49:44.63
Bradley Palermo
it's seeing like what these guys really sacrificed, what they put themselves through, what they did on the road, the lifestyle, like all that sort of naive parts, all those sort of naive parts of my childhood, seeing like what was really happening behind the scenes.

00:49:52.86
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:50:03.53
Bradley Palermo
And it was like, you know, a lot of these performers shorten their lives for our entertainment, you know? And so, yeah, that is, it's like a part of the,

00:50:15.17
Bradley Palermo
allure like maybe the darker side of it but but i did think it was funny gold dust is built in this match and i guess for a while in wwe as uh you know being from hollywood california which you know they show him with his like heavy tix his accent before he goes on doing this whole thing and it's just like you ain't from cal you ain't from hollywood california man like your dad's dusty roads you know like

00:50:32.24
Aaron
Yep.

00:50:44.91
Aaron
They also, right, they mentioned that his dad was dusty, which I thought was kind of interesting. I didn't remember them doing that very much when he was gold dust, but...

00:50:52.84
Bradley Palermo
Me either. Yeah. But I was like, this hit again from Hollywood. But I mean, back then I didn't know anything about Hollywood. But like, you certainly like, yeah, Austin would have worked. The Canadian national anthem, I just got to say, I'm not like, you know, a big national anthem guy.

00:51:12.29
Bradley Palermo
I'm not a patriot of America all. Like, I'm no border sort of dude.

00:51:16.83
Aaron
To the crowd crowd went bananas for Canada.

00:51:18.32
Bradley Palermo
Whatever. Yeah, they had like some Spice Girl ripoff looking motherfuckers come out.

00:51:23.97
Aaron
Farmer's Daughter was the band's name.

00:51:25.64
Bradley Palermo
Farmer's Daughter, which is also the name of an adult film that we have a poster of in our bathroom of our barbershop.

00:51:27.05
Aaron
Yeah.

00:51:33.22
Bradley Palermo
But...

00:51:34.32
Aaron
Go ahead, plug barbershop.

00:51:35.30
Bradley Palermo
Not kidding. Not saying the name of the barbershop, but we have Farmer's Daughter. It's a very big adult film. Haven't seen it. But there is.

00:51:45.51
Aaron
Liar.

00:51:48.39
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, the Canadian national anthem kind of sucks. Like, oh, Undertaker. Oh, Canada. Just saying.

00:51:59.34
Bradley Palermo
It's not that good.

00:51:59.83
Aaron
Man, you disparaging the Canadians?

00:52:00.02
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:52:01.83
Aaron
The Canucks are going to come after you, bro. You don't want the Canuck heat.

00:52:07.17
Bradley Palermo
I was talking this guy the other day from Canada and we were talking about Canadians being good fighters. And I was like, you know, Canadians, they don't seem like people that would fight. They seem so nice. You know, I've gone up there and played music and stuff. And I'm like, they don't seem like fighters. He's like, no, man, like.

00:52:23.61
Aaron
Haven't you watched Letterkenny?

00:52:24.99
Bradley Palermo
He's like, we fuck people up.

00:52:25.52
Aaron
That's all that guy does.

00:52:26.57
Bradley Palermo
Like we're re really good at fighting.

00:52:26.66
Aaron
Yeah, they fight all the time.

00:52:29.85
Bradley Palermo
And I was like, why do you think that is?

00:52:30.67
Aaron
like a thing. All the hicks, they got nothing else to do.

00:52:31.86
Bradley Palermo
he was, he was like, you know, the reason fight is because It's like a packet, like this fucking, like four feet thick to fill out. And it's a test to get gun. You can't just get a gun in Canada. You don't have a gun in your car in Canada.

00:52:53.20
Bradley Palermo
Here in the United States, like, dude, I could shoot you right now. know, it's got to pull this drawer open and do the little, no, I'm just kidding.

00:53:00.26
Aaron
through Zencaster.

00:53:02.95
Bradley Palermo
But, but no, like Americans have guns and, and so we can't like fight. Right. Because some asshole is going to shoot you. And like, he was like in Canada, like, you know, if you pull someone out, it's this versus fist, you know, like, we're just gonna, and I was like, all right, that's cool.

00:53:15.58
Aaron
Oh, yeah.

00:53:18.16
Bradley Palermo
Let's go to Canada. But not at this age, let's fight.

00:53:20.37
Aaron
Have some fistfights. Yeah, I'm too old for fistfights.

00:53:22.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:53:24.60
Aaron
I was I was too old for fistfights when I was like seven,

00:53:27.05
Bradley Palermo
But I thought maybe that is why. Maybe they have good... I think they have good UFC and everything. You can fight. You can learn how to fight on the streets. Maybe. I don't know. But I digress. We're talking about what? USA versus Canada. The Hart Foundation versus Stone Cold and all those guys. Yeah, it was...

00:53:45.40
Bradley Palermo
Hard to pin down the spots of the match. It was mostly about building a feud between Stone Cold Steve Austin and Bret the Hitman Hart, which I assume had a culmination at some later point not too far after this.

00:54:00.30
Aaron
No, you know, actually, I think this was the culmination because I think I could be wrong because I didn't do a ton of research about what happens after this, but I thought he started feuding with Owen after this because Brett was going to start feuding with Sean because Sean's going to take the belt from Taker pretty soon and we're going to get to the Montreal Screwjob.

00:54:20.95
Bradley Palermo
Right, and Brett was out of the company so fast after this, and Owen...

00:54:21.16
Aaron
So,

00:54:25.42
Aaron
Yeah, I think he was gone like December of the same year.

00:54:28.68
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

00:54:31.25
Aaron
Yeah, overall, fun match. It was like 25 minutes. Definitely a match for the crowd. It wasn't like incredible in-ring action or anything. It was a fight. It was a five-on-five fight.

00:54:43.08
Aaron
They had some fun moments with the Hart family in the front row. Stu, his wife, some of the other brothers or sons of the Hart family.

00:54:53.58
Aaron
you know, getting mocked and then eventually throw in some punches. So it was a fun match. It was something that it was a match made for its place and its time.

00:55:05.91
Aaron
And I think the end of the match was Owen sneaking pin, grabbing onto Austin's tights. And that was the end of the match. But It was a weird end because the match was over and then it's just like, oh, and then it got even crazier.

00:55:16.00
Bradley Palermo
That's

00:55:19.98
Aaron
And then people are coming over the railing and then everyone's fighting.

00:55:20.02
Bradley Palermo
right.

00:55:22.67
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:55:23.28
Aaron
The Mounties show up and they start, you know, pulling everybody apart. And then, of course, the end is Stone Cold getting handcuffed and walked out of the arena and the crowd losing their minds with happiness because the Heart Foundation are the baby faces in this weird Twilight Zone world.

00:55:41.48
Aaron
And Austin is a heel.

00:55:43.84
Bradley Palermo
I feel like the Legion of Doom, while they weren't a big part of this, they were one of the coolest fucking tag teams of all time and definitely of the 80s.

00:55:55.15
Bradley Palermo
I don't know how they fit into the late 90s, but it was cool to see them

00:55:59.34
Aaron
A little less so.

00:56:00.52
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, less. They weren't really the main thing, but it was cool to see them again. feel like the chairs and the ref not looking because there's 10 guys around worked, you know, but it was still like, man, like there's a lot of like chair shots in this match.

00:56:12.36
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

00:56:17.97
Bradley Palermo
There were moments where it's four on five. It's four on four because Owen's injured Austin is injured.

00:56:28.60
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

00:56:29.39
Bradley Palermo
But none of that really came into play because they all came back and, you know, had their moment later. I feel like it was just fun for me. Like, I don't remember Pillman too much when I was a kid watching these things, but it was good to watch him like at the end of his career which is probably like the peak of his career you know it was it was cool to see that was cool to see like the canadian pride of like the biggest fucking rock star that's ever entered into wrestling like i don't know if you still believe or if you ever did that bret hart is the best there is the best there was and the best there ever will be but like i'm of that camp like

00:57:01.08
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

00:57:09.94
Bradley Palermo
Bret Hart is the fucking shit. And, you know, nothing happened in WCW. So this is like the end of Bret Hart's like glory.

00:57:19.28
Bradley Palermo
And he meant so much to me as like kid. And, um, It's cool to see him before it all goes to shit with Montreal and all that stuff.

00:57:29.14
Bradley Palermo
I have to mention that Brian Pillman's ass did play role in this match. His full ass came out in this match.

00:57:34.22
Aaron
It did.

00:57:37.24
Bradley Palermo
That's all I have to say about that. I don't see that all the time, but it's always funny.

00:57:41.73
Aaron
Happened a lot more.

00:57:41.91
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

00:57:43.18
Aaron
Happened a lot more in the past. Vince really likes potty humor. Look at his behind.

00:57:50.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and also...

00:57:50.96
Aaron
Danielson.

00:57:53.06
Bradley Palermo
and also the fire extinguisher which i kind of liked when uh mjf and i think i think uh danielson yeah had a fighter extinguisher incident but you had that that match i mean no it was

00:58:05.11
Aaron
Oh, wait, no. Am I wrong about that? No, it was the oxygen canister with Danielson and MJF, yeah.

00:58:10.86
Bradley Palermo
well oxygen yeah but that kind of thing is cool can kind of see where things have come from and

00:58:14.61
Aaron
Yeah.

00:58:18.79
Bradley Palermo
Man, that Danielson-MJF match is one of my favorites of the last few years.

00:58:23.78
Aaron
Yeah, the Iron Man match. Mm-hmm.

00:58:25.33
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and the Danielson-Osprey match was also another my favorites. But talking about this, the final image of this match was, like you mentioned, all the generations, the children, kids.

00:58:40.40
Bradley Palermo
Huge hometown victory. entire Hart family. Everyone's out there. the brothers, all the parents. They're celebrating the heels. They were not heels tonight.

00:58:47.39
Aaron
The cousins, the children, the grandchildren, are like 50 people in that ring.

00:58:49.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, dude. Yeah, the energy of Calgary was unrivaled. I mean, I know when WWE today goes to other countries, it's also really intense compared to here where we see these matches live and in person much.

00:59:00.06
Aaron
Mm hmm.

00:59:05.43
Bradley Palermo
Maybe we're not as rowdy as we could be, but this was one of those kind of quote-unquote foreign crowds that was just fucking nuts for this shit.

00:59:11.34
Aaron
Mm hmm.

00:59:13.81
Bradley Palermo
And yeah...

00:59:14.01
Aaron
Only 12,000 people too. Like not a, not a, I mean a big crowd obviously, but not like a 15, 16, 17,000 person crowd that see nowadays can get comparably loud but like the other thing i noticed this is like a different kind of noise too and of course part of it's just like modern technology the way that we are able to capture the audio of the crowd has improved quite a bit but like you can really feel the noise in these older pay-per-views in a way that you almost don't because

00:59:48.43
Aaron
Nowadays, everybody, you know, you've got live mixers and they're like messing with how much of stuff you hear. So like, oh, the crowd's starting to chant. Let's turn it up. Right.

00:59:56.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

00:59:57.40
Aaron
But here they don't really do that as much. You just kind of feel it boil over and you feel it come down. Like you feel the ups and the downs of the crowd a little less artificially than you do now. Because like an example would be I like Cody Rhodes. I'm a big Cody fan.

01:00:13.72
Aaron
Every time Cody comes out. I feel like I hear the same canned, yeah, like crowd thing.

01:00:19.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:00:21.01
Aaron
And I don't know if that's true or not, if I'm just imagining it, if they're blending this audience reaction with the live audience reaction, but they didn't really do that back then.

01:00:31.35
Aaron
Or if they did, they were a lot better at hiding it. Nowadays, I feel like I notice it. So that was something that was kind of refreshing to go back in time and hear what a hot crowd that hasn't been manipulated by any live mixing sounds like.

01:00:46.67
Bradley Palermo
yeah i feel like audio side too like the video and the lighting in the room like the production is just 1997 naturally it's going to be rougher darker less polished than modern wwe where they have us like all the perfect colors and

01:01:01.51
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

01:01:06.82
Aaron
8K cameras and yeah.

01:01:08.43
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and there's like a grittiness to it where, especially when they're in the crowd and like Mankind and Triple H are fighting all night and stuff. It's like, you know, they're like ground and pound, but like it's dark, it's shadowy. There's people in front of the cameras. You can't see everything. There's chaos. You know, you mentioned that the camera's bouncing, but there's something about it where...

01:01:30.81
Bradley Palermo
none of this shit really looks fake. Really. I mean, there's a grittiness that kind of like masks that.

01:01:35.26
Aaron
Yeah.

01:01:37.73
Bradley Palermo
And.

01:01:38.19
Aaron
It's funny too, because even back then, it was still more polished than anything else. Right? Like when I think about what WCW was like in 1997, if we, if we're calling Canadian stampede, gritty WCW was like, like a fucking dive bar, like the dive bar professional wrestling.

01:01:45.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:01:55.26
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah.

01:01:58.22
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah.

01:01:59.51
Aaron
And, but, but I agree. The realness helps for me to make it more engaging. Something else I'm sure you noticed not a ton of Kevin Dunn camera cuts, right?

01:02:14.56
Aaron
Like not a million fucking cuts in five seconds.

01:02:17.10
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:02:18.42
Aaron
It was like they let stuff breathe, which is great.

01:02:18.60
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah.

01:02:20.78
Aaron
And that's what they do more of now. And, I, yeah, I really appreciate, I think like just the whole thing, the look, the feel, the way I, the way I felt watching it, even though, you know, there are matches that happened almost 20 something years ago. Like I still enjoyed it. I still thought it was fun.

01:02:39.18
Aaron
It brought me back. And I guess that's the whole point of watching these, right? Is to look back fondly on the past. I'm sure we're going to find some stinkers, but we're also going to find some cool little nuggets and things that we didn't remember from when I was an eight year old kid, you know?

01:02:53.55
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think that, you know, people have always known that wrestling is a work, but I feel like Vince kind of exposed it around the 80s. Like, we're still within 10 years of still there's like an argument, right? If I'm a kid on the playground at that time, you know, you still have to like,

01:03:16.36
Bradley Palermo
pitch it to me as if it's a shoot the entire time. And I feel like they still had some awareness of where the camera was and what their angle was. They didn't need like shake it up and do all that shit. So I don't know. It was refreshing to see. I can't wait to see what we watch next. I feel like the further back you go and the more the business was protected, the more like realism there is.

01:03:40.78
Bradley Palermo
But also you get more spots and more like high flying.

01:03:44.73
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:03:45.09
Bradley Palermo
The more that the business has been exposed, the more that we're like in on it and smartened up. So don't know. think it was, you know, definitely started off with a bang with one of the best pay-per-views WWF or E has had.

01:04:04.94
Bradley Palermo
admittedly from their own websites of all time. I think they've, they put it in the top, you know, 10 or whatever, several times in lists. So, you know, we can't always hit it off with a bang, but if you want to watch this pay-per-view, we can't always, you know, hit a home run, but if you want to watch this pay-per-view yourself, it's really cool. Now, obviously when I was a kid, you had to beg your parents to fucking pay for it.

01:04:30.42
Bradley Palermo
Now,

01:04:30.98
Aaron
Go to Blockbuster, get the tape six months after...

01:04:33.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was hard to see it. And like now, and lot of the time was into it, but I couldn't see it. But now we can go to Peacock. I think we watched this one. Like, what was it? Like season in your house, season three episode.

01:04:46.15
Aaron
Yeah, I think it's episode five or six, but it's pretty easy to find if you just look for WWF in your house and go to season three, you'll see it titled Canadian Stampede.

01:04:48.64
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:04:58.58
Aaron
And yeah, hope you all enjoy it. Something that you reminded me of, Brad, when you were talking about kayfabe and how things are about to change in this particular point in time.

01:05:09.65
Aaron
The curtain call at Madison Square Garden was in 1996. So it was really not that far in the past from this, probably less than a year before this event happened.

01:05:22.64
Bradley Palermo
oh yeah

01:05:23.06
Aaron
And that was when it all started to crumble, right? When we saw Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and Triple H all hug at the end of a house show.

01:05:33.01
Bradley Palermo
we did so yeah this is this is a turning point for wrestling history for sure i hope it's kind of nuts

01:05:38.72
Aaron
Yeah, it's kind of crazy, actually. Just reading about everything before and after this pay-per-view. So much shit. This is pretty close to the time where if they haven't already, I think WWF might be losing to WCW in the ratings at this point.

01:05:56.09
Aaron
This might be the start of the 83 weeks.

01:05:58.84
Bradley Palermo
shortly thereafter yeah

01:06:01.04
Aaron
Yeah, let me see. When was this?

01:06:03.96
Aaron
June 1996 until April 1998. So this was during those 83 weeks.

01:06:10.34
Bradley Palermo
oh shit yeah but this still made the list as the best pay-per-view of the year according to Meltzer which is

01:06:12.06
Aaron
Yeah. Interesting.

01:06:22.04
Bradley Palermo
you know, a reputable source in 1997, you know?

01:06:23.60
Aaron
We'll take it with a grain of salt.

01:06:26.27
Bradley Palermo
What'd you say?

01:06:26.74
Aaron
How many other sources were there in 1997? The one and only guy.

01:06:28.85
Bradley Palermo
Right, he was the guy.

01:06:33.32
Aaron
Yeah. You know, looking back on it, crowd was huge and loud for an attendance of, you know, 12,151 people, insane crowd. haven't, I mean, if, if the American crowds nowadays were like 50% as loud as this crowd was, I think everyone is a wrestling fan just sitting at home and watching on TV would be thrilled.

01:06:56.11
Bradley Palermo
Indeed.

01:06:57.61
Aaron
It was a great show, great first pay-per-view for us to watch. I'm sure that starting on this high note, we'll inevitably have to take a decline to watch something, but there's a lot of good stuff out there.

01:07:06.12
Bradley Palermo
Hmm. But I have a good one. You chose this one and I got to give you all the credit. This is all Aaron, the thinking man thinks creation to watch this one. But I've got one my sleeve for the next for the next episode. We'll talk about that later.

01:07:27.73
Aaron
Oh boy.

01:07:29.01
Bradley Palermo
couple of my favorite managers don't want to say too much. Want to make sure it's on for real. If you want to call and leave us a message, I'm not going to pick up. It's just a Google Voice message. Don't be worried.

01:07:43.18
Bradley Palermo
It's 626-657-SLAM. You can cut a promo on us, tell us what we're wrong about, or you can tell us what we need to watch, your favorite pay-per-views of the and 90s.

01:07:55.91
Bradley Palermo
You can also email us grapple city pod at gmail.com across social media. We're at grapple city pod. We are very fucking stoked to have our first episode now in the books and we'll be back in a couple of weeks. Any last thoughts, Aaron?

01:08:14.69
Aaron
Oh, I don't know. Yeah, I'm excited to be on this journey. I really do hope that you all reach out to us in whatever way that you want to. The only way to get better at this is to get feedback. And I am no stranger to constructive criticism. I don't mind it. You could tell me I'm shit.

01:08:33.58
Aaron
You could tell me I have a terrible voice. Maybe I'll try to fix those things. Maybe I won't. But it always helps to hear from you guys. Leave us a message. Send us an email, retweet, like, whatever you want to do.

01:08:46.48
Aaron
Whatever the young kids are doing these days. I don't remember. I'm too old. But hey, let's say bye-bye for now, and we will see you guys next time.

01:08:56.0
Bradley Palermo
I had a lot of fun. Thanks man. Cue the music.