Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Owens & Zayn Sent Home, Omega/Jericho, Alberto El Patron’s Heat, More!

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

Russo & Gilbertti comment on the news that Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens were both sent home from WWE’s UK tour this past week for ‘conduct detrimental to WWE’. Apparently Owens and Zayn were hard to get along with backstage, and the final nail in the coffin occurred during their match with New Day on last week’s episode of Smackdown Live, when they failed to execute the plan as was scripted.

Gilbertti says that if they failed to do what was asked of them then they deserved to be sent home. However, he points out that if legitimate top guys (like Scott Hall & Kevin Nash, for example) did something like this they probably wouldn’t be sent home. He also assumes that Owens and Zayn were defiant backstage after their mistake because if they were apologetic, this would have blown over.

Russo says he has to give Owens and Zayn a break here, because he can’t imagine a scenario where they’d openly defy Vince McMahon. Both of those guys have been around for a lot of years but they’ve never worked for someone like McMahon, who changes his plans several times a day, right up until the last minute. Russo assumes that this was simply a case of miscommunication.

Gilbertti has no idea why WWE flipped the Title from Jinder Mahal to A.J. Styles last week. He says that Mahal’s story still had several layers to pull back and he was dissapointed to see the Title change hands. Both Russo and Gilbertti shoot down rumours that Mahal failed a drug test, because if he failed a test he’d be suspended by now. They both trust Mahal when he says that he’s not on steroids.

Gilbertti says he was surprised to hear that the Chris Jericho/Kenny Omega Twitter feud was a work all along. Jericho worked everyone, including his personal friends such as Gilbertti but Gilbertti didn’t have an issue with it at all. He says that Jericho is doing NJPW a huge favour here because he’s drawing a lot of North American eyes to NJPW’s product.

Russo says that people are talking about this match as if Jericho is still in the prime of his career. Jericho is still in tremendous shape but he’s 47 years old, and that’s going to limit this match’s potential. Gilbertti says it doesn’t matter how good the match is because they’re going to have people’s money before the event even starts. Jericho can sell this show in the United States unlike any other NJPW talent.

Lane points out that Impact Wrestling appears to be closing shop in Nashville and are moving their production to Toronto, Canada. Russo says he worked in those offices for some time, and he’s currently thinking about some of those full time employees who were stationed in Nashville, who now need to decide whether to follow the company to Canada.

Lane mentions that ‘Million Dollar Man’ Ted DiBiase spoke last week, calling wrestling Titles ‘props’. He said he never needed that ‘prop’ in order to get over, and Gilbertti agrees with that entirely. Russo also agrees and says that fast-forwarding to today’s product, A.J. Styles doesn’t need that ‘prop’ either.

Gilbertti thought Jinder Mahal/Brock Lesnar match was a much more captivating match at Survivor series than Styles/Lesnar. Russo points out that contrary to Paul Heyman’s usual promos where he puts over Lesnar’s opponents, Heyman absolutely buried Mahal on RAW recently. Russo wonders whether someone got into McMahon’s ear backstage, urging him to get Mahal out of the Title picture.

Lane informs that Alberto El Patron has heat with the Impact locker room once again due to him having his own trailer backstage at Impact tapings. Russo says that Patron always looked like a star to him, and in the end this is business. If you’re a big star and you can demand these kind of perks, then more power to you.

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