X-Pac 1, 2, 360 Recap – Daniel Bryan’s Return, McMahon’s XFL Gets New Competition, Thoughts on Ultimate Deletion, More!

X-Pac welcomes WrestleZone’s Nick Hausman to the show to discuss this past week’s wrestling news.

X-Pac comments on the news that WWE has cleared Daniel Bryan to return to in-ring action. Hausman mentions that after WWE put out that news on Tuesday, that’s all WrestleZone wrote about for the next several hours as plenty of reactions poured in from other people in the business. X-Pac says he’s really happy for Bryan, and he’s particularly happy that things worked out this way for Bryan so he wouldn’t have to leave WWE in order to do what makes him happy.

Hausman asks X-Pac if he knows what Triple H was thinking about Bryan’s situation over the last couple of years. X-Pac says he doesn’t really dig for information like that, even though he and Triple H are close friends. Nonetheless, he’s just thrilled for Bryan right now.

X-Pac points out that he had a great conversation with Shane McMahon when he was backstage at Smackdown a couple of weeks ago, and he notes that McMahon was in great shape. He’s sure that McMahon is gearing up for a WrestleMania match, and now it looks like we might be headed for a tag team match with McMahon and Bryan challenging Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.

Hausman asks X-Pac if he felt any concern for Bryan’s health when he was bouncing around the ring at the end of Smackdown this past week. X-Pac says he wasn’t really concerned about Bryan’s health because he knows that WWE didn’t rush Bryan back. This has been an ongoing thing for multiple years, and WWE made sure that that Bryan was healthy before clearing him for a return to the ring.

Hausman mentions that at the end of Total Divas last Season Tyson Kidd got back into the ring to help train people. Hausman wonders if we might ever see Kidd get cleared to return to the ring. X-Pac says he loves Kidd but Kidd’s situation is totally different than Bryan’s, and he doesn’t think we’ll see Kidd get cleared anytime soon.

X-Pac says he was very happy to hear that Mark Henry will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year. However, he wishes that WWE would have given Henry a better send off creatively. X-Pac adds that he purposely refrained from congratulating Henry on Twitter because he knew people would bring up the “black face” segment from the attitude era, when he portrayed Henry in a DX skit.

Hausman asks X-Pac how Henry felt about that segment back in the day. X-Pac informs that Henry didn’t mind at all and even in a recent Table for 3, Henry, The Godfather and Ron Simmons laughed about it, noting that there was nothing bad meant by it. Regardless, X-Pac isn’t really comfortable looking back on it.

Hausman mentions that Vince McMahon’s old XFL partner, Dick Ebersol is on the Board of Directors of a newly announced Football league which will debut one year ahead of McMahon’s XFL. Dick’s son, Charlie is starting the league, and X-Pac notes that he’d be furious if he was McMahon, especially given the relationship history between McMahon and Ebersol.

X-Pac says he was watching Undertaker’s match with Roman Reigns’ at WrestleMania last year, and knew right then that it wouldn’t be Undertaker’s last match. He’s sure that WWE is just teasing us all with these John Cena promos right now, and it’s only a matter of time before Undertaker returns and accepts Cena’s challenge. The real question is whether Undertaker will return as the Deadman or as the American Badass.

X-Pac thought last week’s Ultimate Deletion was “excellent”. He thought it was very different than most WWE programming and he was very entertained by it. He’s sure that some fans might have hated it, but he thought it was very well done. Hausman thought it was smart of WWE to not give everything away in this first match, because there’s still so much more that Hardy and WWE can do with the Broken Universe.

Hausman notes that Vince McMahon thought this was going to bomb, but it actually held over 3 Million viewers into hour 3 which was a success for WWE. Because of this, McMahon has reportedly softened to the idea of pursuing more of this in the future.

X-Pac says he didn’t really have any issue with Jeff Hardy making an appearance in the Ultimate Deletion. He’s sure WWE is waiting to get more details on Hardy’s alleged DUI, and in the meantime they’ll just keep quiet about it. He notes that Hardy has done a great job of getting his life in order after really struggling with substance abuse for years so this news really bummed him out. He wishes Hardy the best.

X-Pac says the new 205 Live, which is ran by Triple H, is much better than the prior version of the show. He’s had his hesitations about that show since it’s debut, but now he believes in it. He points out that Mustafa Ali and Drew Gulak had a great match this past week, and he notes that Ali is a terrific talent. Hausman says he has so much respect and admiration for Ali, and he’d put every Title on him if he could.

That sums up this week’s episode of X-Pac 1, 2, 360. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!