Steve Carrier on December 19, 2017
Ross welcomes PWTorch’s Wade Keller to the show to discuss Sunday’s Clash of Champion’s PPV.
Keller thought Clash of Champions was a fine show, but there weren’t any defining or memorable moments that would have made a great show. The main event match between A.J. Styles and Jinder Mahal was okay, but not great, and the Daniel Bryan/Shane McMahon storyline failed to give viewers a big payoff.
Ross calls Charlotte the greatest women’s wrestler he’s ever seen, and he refers to her as the female version of 1980’s Hulk Hogan in the sense that she’s bigger, tanner and more impressive looking then all of her competition. Keller agrees and mentions that he expected Smackdown Live to be A.J. Styles & Charlotte’s brand when WWE conducted their Superstar shakeup months ago. Hopefully now that she’s holding the Women’s Title she can claim her rightful position as a major part of the show.
Ross asks Keller what he thinks about the ongoing Twitter dispute between Jim Cornette and several indie wrestlers, including The Young Bucks. Keller says that his views on how the business should be presented are more in line with Cornette’s, but he differs with Cornette in the sense that he wouldn’t want to ridicule someone for enjoying a different style of wrestling.
Keller thinks that sometimes The Young Bucks become a parody of professional wrestling and that’s not really his cup of tea. However, he realizes that everything doesn’t revolve around his tastes, and he’s been around long enough to know that several incarnations of professional wrestling can exist comfortably at the same time.
Keller says he loved how Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega have promoted their upcoming match at WrestleKingdom 12, and he thinks they’ve both done a great job in re-framing how fans expect a Kenny Omega match to unfold. They’ve framed this as a physical grudge match, and this should result in a different style of match compared to a lot of Omega’s recent 5-star matches.
Ross asks Keller about Vince McMahon’s new venture, Alpha Entertainment. Given McMahon’s personality, Keller thinks the failure of the XFL still affects him and this is a final attempt for him to right his wrong. The announcement also tells Keller that McMahon has developed a tremendous amount of trust in Triple H to run WWE.
This venture will certainly take up a lot of McMahon’s time, and he will have to lean on Triple H heavily to take care of WWE’s day-to-day business. Keller has full faith in Triple H that he’ll be able to take the successful NXT model and transfer it over to the main roster when the time is right.
Keller has heard that McMahon’s attention weighed heavily towards the XFL and away from WWE during that league’s existence, and some talents were upset that WWE money was being utilized to finance McMahon’s passion project. Ross corrects Keller in the sense that WWE talents did not lose out on any money to finance the XFL. Ross paid talents at that time, and he and McMahon used the same formula to divide payments as they did before the XFL’s existence.
Ross welcomes Konnan to the show.
Konnan informs that he’s heavily involved in a new lucha wrestling promotion called “Aro Lucha”. He’s currently booking the talent and putting together the shows along with the help of former WWE and WCW writer, Vince Russo.
Konnan mentions that there’s a lot of arguing within the online wrestling community regarding which type of wrestling is superior. He points out that you can’t tell young workers to slow down, regardless of if you think they’re ruining the business by working too fast. Konnan recalls people calling him the ‘Mexican Jumping Bean’ when he first came to North America.
Konnan mentions that he has the ‘Paul Heyman gig’ in Impact right now, in the sense that he can show up, cut a promo and that’s it. He adds that he has a lot of creative freedom regarding his promos and he thinks it has to be that way because he doubts the writers would be able to write for his character effectively.
Konnan mentions that there’s a problem with ‘cool heels’ in the business today. He points out that WWE’s Jinder Mahal has real heat and that’s a hard thing to find in wrestling’s current landscape. He goes on to say that Elias is his favourite character in all of WWE right now because he has incredible delivery and timing.
Konnan is down on WWE’s current product right now and he thinks it’s a sin given how much talent WWE has on their roster. He points out that using the 3-hour runtime as an excuse doesn’t work because if Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad were 3-hours long, those writers would still put together a great show. In the end, everything in WWE basically boils down to Vince McMahon’s opinion, and Konnan fears that the 72-year old billionaire may be out of touch with his fanbase at this point.
That sums up today’s episode of The Ross Report. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
December 19, 2017 10:36 pm
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