Block 1:

Taz opens today’s show speaking about the release of Emma, Darren Young and Summer Rae from WWE. Throughout his lengthy wrestling career Taz encountered some people who weren’t fond of him, and there were other individuals who Taz wasn’t a fan of. In spite of all of that, he never enjoyed seeing those people get released and lose their jobs. It’s never a good day when someone loses their employment.

He assumes that these releases were made in an effort to cut costs as he has heard that WWE plans to cut even more costs as we head into 2018. In spite of what some might think WWE doesn’t have an endless budget, and these releases were probably necessary in order to maintain their talent budget.

He points out that Darren Young and Summer Rae have been off of WWE programming for several months now but Emma has been highlighted in major storylines and just wrestled Asuka on TLC. Emma’s release really surprised Taz because WWE has been semi-pushing Emma and even gave her plenty of offence in her loss to Asuka at TLC.

Block 2:

Taz discusses Lio Rush’s failed attempt at a joke, in which he poked fun at Emma’s release. Taz thinks Rush is a very talented individual but this was a terrible, immature decision by him. The outpouring of support for Emma within the wrestling community was incredible and several performers, past and present, tweeted back at Rush, expressing their anger towards his tweet.

Rush quickly realized he made a major mistake and tried to rectify the situation by putting out statement in which he apologized, but Taz thought Rush made another mistake in that statement. In the closing line of that statement Rush said “On behalf of me and WWE…”, and Taz points out that this 22 year-old kid can’t speak for WWE because he’s only been there for a few months.

He believes that everyone deserves a second chance, and these are the types of things that can happen in the day and age of social media. Taz is happy that there wasn’t any social media back when he and his peers were running wild in the 1990’s because he’s sure there would have been several performers who would have been in a lot of trouble because of it.

Taz goes on to say that he hopes WWE doesn’t hold this against Lio Rush. If they put him in a hole because of this right out of the gate it’ll be nearly impossible for him to recover. Taz hopes that Rush learns from this experience and can move on from it.

Blocks 3 & 4:

A listener calls into the show and points out that there has been rumours circulating that Finn Balor will be  challenging Brock Lesnar at Royal Rumble, and then Lesnar will go on to face Roman Reigns at WrestleMania. Taz says he’s not sure about the Balor/Lesnar matchup but he can definitely see the Lesnar/Reigns matchup taking place at ‘Mania.

The caller also asks Taz if he thinks Lio Rush is going to have to pay his dues within the NXT locker room now after tweeting that disrespectful joke yesterday. Taz is sure that Rush has made things harder on himself because he’s going to have to re-earn the trust of his peers within the locker room. He wishes Rush good luck with that because it’s not going to be easy.

A listener calls into the show and asks Taz what he thinks about Samoa Joe returning to join Team RAW at Survivor Series. Taz says he hadn’t really thought about that but he thinks that’d be a great idea.

Taz points out that getting released by WWE presents a uniquely difficult scenario for Superstars. Whenever someone loses their job it’s tough, but when a professional wrestler loses their job their simply aren’t many alternative places to make an income. Sure, the indie scene is an option but there’s no longevity there in Taz’s opinion.

That sums up today’s episode of The Taz Show. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya tomorrow for another recap!