What you gonna do, brother, when Jeff Townsend Media runs wild on you. All right, all right, I love that entrance. I love saying I'm gonna cut you off. I love it. I love it. And the thing about it is, if you are listening on the podcast version after the fact, or even the YouTube after the fact, you don't get experience what Bill's talking about. He's talking about this amazing countdown video that we have for the live which allows us to prepare, allows me to send out some tweets and then and then stuff like that saying hey, we're about to go live. So yeah, that's what Bill is talking about. But yeah, thanks for joining to Bill. I mott experience. Of course, I'm that's a disapperience. I'm experience. It's been a long day, like you said, Bill. Anyways, I'm Jeff, He's Bill. We are here gathered here today with my special shirt on. I was gonna say, what's with the shirt? Well, Bill, what's what the shirt is? Because we're going to talk about what everybody in the whole world of professional wrestling and across other areas of entertainment's talking about. That is the big cmpunk return to do A to B the happened at Survivor series on Saturday night. We're recording a Monday night, and of course he's expected on rall, which we'll be jumping on when we're done here. But nevertheless, Bill, that's what we're talking about tonight, man. Yeah, it's it's you know, so you and I have talked about this in the past one I've been looking forward to it for two days because I know you're a big cmpunk fan, and that's all well and good, but we've been talking about, well, what if is that maybe you should go here? What if it was in fact you know, all these things? And then lo and behold at the very end of this pay per view, what is it? What was it? It's not pay per view anymore. I am premium Live Event, Live Event mil with one of the best returns of all time and a better than way better than average pay per view in my opinion, good one. They needed it too. It all gets taken away in three minutes. You say taken away. I say, maybe the focus shifted slightly, but I don't know, so slightly, okay, So hey, before if everybody can see my slightly, so before we do that, Okay, So I do want to do something before, because I know I here saying let's start out here by giving let me pull it up here. You always say, I get what is a r Henry says, give you flowers? Two flowers. Yep, So I want to go ahead and give flowers to the first thing before we get into this. Okay, it's got a bunch of old stuff here. I'll let you talk about let's give Randy Orton's flowers. Let you talk about it for a minute that I'll try to get this work in here. You know it was I think it was done right. I was very interested in how they kept teasing if Randy was or wasn't there. I like the the during during the show they kept going to Sammy, Sammy going to Seth, going to to Cody, and everybody's saying, you know, is he coming? Is he coming? I like the thread throughout the show. I like the the the idea of him not being in the cage. I absolutely loved the idea of Ripley coming to cashking the money in the bank and then perfect time to hit that music. And it was just I think that's what the people we're waiting for, and I think that's to me that's what w we needed that big shot in the arm from not and this this is where it's gonna sound wrong, but right, I can only say the way Bill's not a new face, a face that we know, a face that that's been there, you know what I mean, someone we've missed. You know, you know aj style is going to be coming back. You know, we did it when Raymonsterior came back. They did it when Edge came back. But Randy coming back after that year and a half was really special. This is what we Okay, so this is what I got here, Okay started off. Let's show Randy Orton's return race. That's got a conce war games jeez, so w double ways hi lo the gez Spaka, that's just under work. Where do you almost imposes said, we saw fantastic stuff that I mean, that was the That was it. That was the Maniam moment. Yeah, that was a fear of not a copyright your fringe and the doe to the folks extent. I didn't share all the moments, but I did like when they did the vintage Orton DDT on the legs rope spot all them at once, all of the once, right, everybody paying homage to to the Viper, great stuff. I did find it very very interesting at the end, And and why I find it interesting is because you know, as I watched these, like that's my son's first war games, so he was really intrigued by it, and he couldn't believe that the match didn't start till all of them were in right right, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really cool to see his, uh, his take on it and how he watched it. And then so here's what he said to me. Did with that, Randy Orton's on fire, but he gave the win to Cody. Yes, I listen, listen to how I said it again. This is how he said it to me. Randy Orton's on fire, but he gave the win to Cody. Great observation by little Billy. So uh. And then one Mississippi one and a half minutes two Misissippi music hits all gone yep, And I don't mean that, and I don't mean all gone. It's worthless, it's all forgotten about because boom, here comes your guy. So we'll get to that here in a second. You want it, you would like to see it set in for a whole other night, are you understanding the significance of it being Chicago. I here's and you and I have talked about this. Here's why I am completely by Eve to it. I'm completely I have no I don't understand the low hanging fruit in Chicago. Pogky is gonna get upon. That pay per view was over like Gangbusters. It didn't need the pop and dare I say the wrestling fans didn't need the extra attraction. They were already there. That pay per view was gonna sell well, I don't know what the by rates are. I don't know, but the everything, the numbers have to be good on it. I would have saved Punk for the Royal Rumble, or I would have saved Randy for the Royal Rumble. But giving the people punk in Chicago, it's too easy. We'll get into that. We'll get into that. In my thoughts on that, let's let's show the punk. Let's show punk. So yeah, so what's what's what's set it up? Here? The show is going off the air. Actually, Cody Rhodes music is playing at this point in time. Triple H actually makes the call to throw the logo up on the screen, which I don't know about you, but I'm thinking it's off the air, so logos up on the screen. It's seconds away from what would always be a DO to V show pay per view premium line of at whatever ending. And this is what happens Toto. That's an attitude or pop there. It's unbelievable. And you and and that's why I say I'm not taking anything away for it. Let me ask you this, would he get that pop tonight in Nashville on raw? And I don't know, but there would definitely be a significant pop. We both know that. But do you so my and I'm going to ask you because you're the up of the tube wus you are definitely the senior punk fan and not that I not, You're I know Europe, Yeah called over twenty years, Yeah that they could have brought punk anywhere and got that respons or did have to be Chicago. It probably would have ad to be in Chicago. But I'll explain to you why it's significant throughout the rest of this episode as well. I think that. Okay, what's just before we get to that completely, Let's talk about some of the things that went on before this. There was a lot of talking. You and I've been talking about this for months. Everybody's been talking about this for months. And uh, a lot of our good friends, I say good friends, they to me blocked sheets. They had deemed this was not happening. This was not gonna happen. There was no discussion, there was no deal. It was a hard no. It was a no. It was a hard no for to be not worth the risk. Then I think Dave Meltzer through in the side note that this was but I mean, anything's possible, right like he said, but it was a hard no stopping the sand. That was not going to happen, and obviously it did. Let me ask you this before we get into that, because I have a have it laid out here, we're going to cover everything like that. Let's just say that a W was going to bring him in their pay per view. Would this have leaked? What did it have leaked? We would have we would have known a week before. Yeah, and we probably would have. We probably would have seen the merchandise. We probably would have seen the whole everything given up way before what ever happened. People would people would have been in the crowd that night with new punk merchandise on before before it happened. I mean and don't forget you. We've talked about this, and I gave you my behind the behind the curtains, uh knowledge of the fact that I've told you that the company will let the dirt Sheets have certain information. You protect me, I protect you. So everybody was saying it's not gonna happen, right. I don't call that a coincidence. I call that one of those Hey give us this, and you know we're gonna we'll make sure we drop some bombs on your son. In fact, our good friends of the rest of Observer had to they discussed this didn't necessarily discuss. A lot of people were pretty hard on a lot of these journalists online. So I hear Sam Punk is back. Is that right? He's back in wuem Punk signed a multi year contract. Yes, wow, he's back back with we. The deal came together about ten days ago, obviously kept a complete secret from almost everyone. Paul Levick said that the TKO people found out watching the TV, which I thought was ridiculous until I asked around and I was told the exact same thing. The TKO people. No matter what you know, we're talking about Mark Shapiro on Area Manual and I wouldn't be surprised if they if some of them knew. But I was told basically that it's not their gig, you know what I mean. They're there to do business deals and make money and the creative is in the hands of WWE. And you know, it would be the same way with the UFC, you know, I mean, if like, let's say, let's say there was a big falling out with Dana White and Connor McGregor, which I guess could be, but if there was, you know, it would be like Dana's you know, I mean, it wouldn't be like they would go in there and go, you've got to sign him. It's like that would be Dana's gig. So it was a Nick con call. You know, in the end, it was Nick Coon who made the call. Vince had nothing to do with it. Paulovec had obviously a lot to do with it, and those were the two guys that were the point guys. And you know, aside from that, it made sense to do it on this show from what I understood. You know, it was one of those things where it was a no except if they felt that the public demand was there. And I actually wrote that in this week's issue, you know, in the sense that if they believed that the demand was there, they're not going to be an organization that fights the fans. And that's pretty much it. You know, would Vince have done it in the same situation, perhaps, yes, perhaps no. I mean I always expected that someday he would be back, and probably sooner than later. And the other thing, too, is is there's other you know, a lot of other things. I mean, number one, there is a wrestling war going on. The demand was always there, Bill, Yeah, he's not saying anything that he's not shining a light on anything that hasn't been uh discuss. Here's the thing that bothers me about what one of the first he said, Yeah, he signed a multi year deal and all, why is he the one telling us that information? These are the things that irk me to know end And I know I'm going off side, but it's just the thing of listening to it going. Why weren't the fans told by Triple H or by w W. Why did they have to come out? Why is it necessary? I know why it's necessary. It helps, It keeps that hat up on the ego, I know, it keeps the you know, the the money flowing for him and Key. But you know those days that side, there's there was no doubt that Punk was coming back somewhere somewhere. Yeah, we didn't know where he was coming back somewhere. And I think a lot of people, and I think a lot of people, in my opinion, probably got worked over in this deal. A lot of people will probably promised or told hey, I'm very interested. Maybe TNA got bamboozo a little bit out of this, and yeah, apparently from reports that was actually a lot closer than you'd think. Yeah, and then have more money than they really could even and yeah happened. And and then you know, uh, later on the week before the weekend, they was talking about, oh it's maybe it's new Japan, and you know, when they start throwing other things out there, it's, uh, somebody knows something. But the thing that even listening to to to those guys, and I don't mean that in a bad way, but even listening to them, a lot of people didn't know. And I think that when I see a lot of people, I'm not talking about executives. I'm talking about people who are going to share a locker room. M hm. So they to me, now I'm interested in, and this is this is what happens. I think this is what brings the fans into wanted to know more behind the scene stuff. Is all these things that go on? I mean, and I know I'm probably jumping it, but you know, we us Seth Rollins have a hissy fit. We saw Drew McIntyre storm out, and we saw all these things happening, but it was all surrounded one DIY And so did we did we just drop every other major storyline? And by we, I mean did w W? Did they just stop every other major storyline? Are we starting over? Going into wrestlemedia? Seeson? I've kind of lost pain. And here's the thing, I'm not even intrigued. I'm just I'm just curious as to where Okay, now, where's where's Tody stand with the bloodline? Now where's Randy stand? Where's where's this stand? And now Punk's in the picture? Is he go with Seth? I'll come? Is that why we don't see uh Nakamura? You know all these things start? The other things I start thinking about, is this why Seth and Knackamora stop because this is already the works? Is there? Is there truly up on Rollin's animosity. I mean, so everything to me stop and it starts over tonight. I you know, I think storylines are dead in the water now and I've got what you're talking about. We'll show that here in a minute. With the seth Rowlinds Drew McIntyre saying we're are friends with the dirt sheets worked or just not included. I think they were less included than normal, and then that's why they feel now now they got the okay, now they got the OKA, so now they're gonna tell everything they do know so they don't feel left out. But I think they were left out creatively, which all by design by dote w. Yeah, amazing. This just so fascinating because it was just shot down to the fullest extent. We will get back to our friends at the Wrestling Observer also because they have all the scoop on what we're about to talk about here, and we're going to get back to the impact on the seampunk part before we end the episode. I do want to make sure we talk about that. So you mentioned seth Rawlins. So the focus on the cmpunk return itself lasted a good thirty minutes to one hour on social media. I mean, first of all, it never stopped on social media. Let's not lie. Well, we'll get to that also later. But then immediately we start seeing these clips come in of seth rawlins pissed off. Shortly after, we see a clip of Drew McIntyre storming out before Sampok's music hits. He seems to be pissed off. And we'll go ahead and share that real quick here. And also at the backside of this, I did also include Bill just to let you know they're reactions last night, So twenty four hours after at a live show where it appears to be they've smoothed things over and not quite as emotional said I'm not taking bread and somebody us congress something. It's tears amount of time. Re Confuse mom, I'm talking about the people who who's been taking down watching the show. You know why, you know when the world tale my recently war Games last night a stupid team lost the match farming. You've heard things probably on the internet, not in a great place. But there's one thing that could turn this front upside down, that can change things for me me and it's getting that world tale. And I can't think of anywhere better than for the Big d to fail and reads his first World table from a life fast. They're during it all, so that's so it shows the incident in hand at the moment. Then it segues to the live event they did last night. Obviously McIntyre had a match, yes Brawlins, which is typical of a live event of title match. So it seems as if all this anger really, in my opinion, looked like it was maybe a little bit blown out of proportion, or was it so red hot that they were asked to tone it down so they could put that out. Because the last thing you want, and this is just I'm just saying it, plain and simple, the last thing anybody wants, especially the WWE, is animosity amongst their superstars. Real, not real. They cannot follow that storyline and what happened in the AEW because of it. If it ever comes to that again, someone's gonna have an egg on their face because they I think they told them, however, you wanted to turn it down, turn it down. But if I was Drew McIntyre, I'd be pissed because Drew McIntyre just went down about four more rocks. Well, Bill, you're speaking as if you know all the answers, and I'm not sure you or I do, but we know that our friends at the rest of Observer, they know all the answers on what's going on with this and they will explain it to us on a brief It's about a minute longer. But yeah, it was, Uh, the guys in the man knew, you know, as far as like it wasn't like he came out and nobody knew. The guys in the match new and they didn't. I think some would have been very very upset if they didn't know, because it would be like the company swerving them, and I think they don't want to be you know, they don't want to do that to their talent, you know, they you know what I mean. So I so that much was going on as far as the Seth thing goes, that was all in angle. And you know, people have asked me about Druso the deal with Well, the two things that we're talking about here is after the show went off the air, there was deal where Seth was very very upset and they had the wrestlers and I think who else was out there with them. Corey Graves was out there and he's flipping off and he's all angry and everything like that. That was Angle because because playing off the fact that months ago when somebody asked seth rawlins, you know, it's like he's a cancer, we don't want him. Which later, by the way, he said, you know what I mean, if it's you know, if the company wants him, you know, and it's the right thing. You know, he doesn't have a problem with it. But because he made that statement, they figured they could do like a shoot angle with it, and it makes sense. So yeah, and then drew. As soon as the match ended, and before Punk came out he left the ring. He was holding his eye and he just stormed the back and apparently he got his stuff on and left. He was very upset. As the night went on, he was less upset. And as far as the reason he left. I don't want to give any wrong information, I probably will know. I mean, I will say that within the company, people in the company who told me thought it had to do with Punk. I cannot confirm that, only that that's what people in the company thought. But he was legitimate, but he was legitimately upset about something, you know, whatever it was. I don't know, and Mike Johnson actually had a thing the other day about you know, he has not signed a new contract, and you know, obviously he is, you know of all those name eames. When I talk about you know that that they want to lock up, I would think that, you know, his deals up, because his deal's up and a round roughly around April. It was actually it was actually up at the end of this year, but because of the time he took off because of the injury, they tacked it on at the end, so it goes right through. Basically, I think he's he's under his deal. We'll end at at Mania and put it this way, it's twenty twenty four is probably a great year to be Drew McIntyre. There's nothing left to discuss, Bill, I mean, it's all we got. We got, Thank you so much. They didn't know about the Punk return, but they can now confirm that the seth Rawlins was one hundred percent in angle. McIntyre's upset about something we don't know what may or may not be seeing Punk nothing to talk about. Well, then that's it. That's what I thought when I when I when I put this together, I got I got to share this, Yeah, so they know it all. They're right back to knowing it again. I have a problem with, well, you know the people I talked to. Let's let's face it, dude, say who you talk to or stop saying the people I talked to, because that half the people he'd like us to think. In my opinion, he'd like us to think they're executives. But we all know it's somebody a long yeah has that he has a relationship with. So instead of hearing, well, the people I've talked to, just name them, you name everything else, you've got all the other information, name them, and and you know what I don't know. Let's say, Seth Rawlins is really that mad. He's also smart to realize there's money to be made too, though, right, yeah, absolutely absolutely Seth knows there's money to be made there. But if it that only benefits Seth, which comes back to your point about Drew. Yeah, and and if if and that's if Seth can put up with if all these things you know are true and come to fruition here like they did in a w are they going to do business that way? And all all these other things. But now the bigger thing is, Okay, you got the low hanging fruit. You got punk in Chicago. The people went crazy. There's no doubt about it. He's a wanted man, There's no doubt about it. What about all the cats that had been built up before this? Nakamura back down the ladder, MacIntyre back down the ladder? Forget he's not even in the conversation. But Gable's been knocked back down the ladder after going with Gunther doing great stuff. But now once and maybe it's just me because today I was busy, but I wasn't busy yesterday. I was with family and stuff. But social media nothing, I don't want to say, nothing, to be fair, very little about the pay per view as a whole, very little about the matches, very little about the storyline, very little about all these things. And everything was punk. That to me is a problem, and the problem I think lives within the organization itself, because how do you make this? How do you make this right? And then, according to Uncle Dave, this multi year contract that focus signed you, how do you make it right with him? And now are you telling me that it's Roman Reigns and punkin WrestleMania. It's not Cody Rhodes. I mean, I'm just gonna keep throwing things out there now as long as I can, because I think it throws a wrench at everything that happens. It's not a bad problem to have. I think it's a bad problem to have in the back right, and that's where you step in, that's where your air of expertise is. Obviously, I'm going to say it's not a bad problem to have, and I will go ahead and I'll just show you this. This is just a picture. Let's see if I can find it here. It's not letting me actually show the picture, but I think I have it on my phone. I can read it to you. It's pretty fascinating, Bill, Okay, it's just the information behind this. So this is something put together by Wrestle wressel ops. They've got some They've put together a lot of the data that you hear across a lot of the podcasts, especially like the hour by hour breakdown of the shows, a lot of the viewing. Yeah, so this is a fact for you. And why I think is this over will overshadow all this ultimately from a business standpoint, eighty seven million seeing Punk's return to WAW A Survivor series twenty twenty three has surpassed and estimated eighty seven million views across official WW social media platforms clips uploaded in under twenty four hours. So of all this stuff WW itself has put up, it is over eighty seven million views. That's not including anything I put up, that's not anybody else put up. So what WB is put up? Going over eighty seven million views? Bill, I think at the end of the day, that's going to be the story. And I think that's what you have with a scene and punk. Yeah, we don't have that with many other people that could come out of this particular moment and do that. And I think that was you significant. There's no telling how many views you would have got from Randy or anybody else. But I'm not disagreeing that's a huge number that dare I say, let me do a little foreshadowing. Would you call those logan pall numbers? I don't know if logan Paul even got that would use the logan Paul might want to be around those numbers. Yeah, I think anybody would build This was huge. You had professional teams tweeting about this, You had the Chicago Cubs tweeting about this. At ESPN tweeted, Yeah, it was. It was more than we usually even talk about because we always talk about this with just excellent strategy on social media. I think, yeah, that the worth of the company that has to be in there some where, like ye, people say, how's it worth nine billion dollars? Think about what I just told you. Oh, forget it. They had the ability to make moves and do things like this, which is freaking absolutely huge, you know what I mean, that's what'd you say? You know who made out on this more than anybody else who's at sling Jim Ruffles, Yeah, the other sponsor. They gotta be going crazy, Yes, unsorship money that's gonna becoming is gonna be crazy. And that's what Punk brings to the table. Yeah, And I'm not I'll never tink Tom and I don't if it's come across the way, I don't mean to be. I'm not saying Punk is ruined everything. I'm saying Punk has put such a wrench in it. Not the bad way, Palk Street Turn has put such a wrench into the things that we're going WWE storyline wise, I think right now, and I'll be the first admit if hey, no, it didn't affect anything. But I feel like there's a few guys that are gonna be going down the ladder. I will say this stratigue. People say that WW doesn't need to worry about what ADW did, But I got news for you. Ed's going to ae W was the cool thing, right, big news. It was cool, it was big news. It was wow. Ed men pulk coming back here. There's nothing AW can do. Let's talk about that. Tony Kahn had a quote. Tony Cohn was asked about this. This was an interview with BBC West Midlands. He said, can't talk about that, nor do I think it's the time to talk or place. But I appreciate you asking, and I'm really excited about AW all in at Wembley Stadium. Not to dodge or duck your question, it's just not something I can legally talk about. Did they just let um? You know, Punk was the reason for some of their views in their viewership, you know, he was the reason definitely leading their merch. This just shows you, if done right, what an individual like cmpunk can do for your brand. Yeah, and that just walked out the door. The boys poked the bear until they got him fired, which I have no doubt that's what they wanted all along. Yeah, I say they I think young bucks. I don't know. They just give off that vibe when their pants around the ring doing victory laps. I get it. But you can't help but believe a lot of people around there wanted this all along. That just goes to show you some bad business practices. Yeah, yeah, I think it's it's one of those social media training answers. Tony Kahan gave, right, Yeah, we can't talk about that right now, but let's talk about what we're doing, because nothing Tony could say, I don't think could justify the move. And quick little tidbit as we're talking about a w part of this. I understand QT Marshall just left. Q T Marshall just resigned, but Bill will Ospray joined and I had people I was in arguments on Reddit that is way bigger than the cm pug thing. I don't did you just see that? They just see the data that I just shared to you. I no offense a little astray. He's an amazing professional wrestler. He will I don't know if he'll ever be able to compare to anything like that. No, he'll never He'll never draw up that kind of attention. Edge can't even draw that kind of attention. And that's not taken away from Edge now that Edge isn't this personality. And he has extended outside of wrestling. He's done some stuff on television. He's done a great job. But the following the CM Pugs is built in general is incredible. Yeah. He's a he's a no pun intended. He's a cult figure. Yeah. And he keeps himself like the guy's a genius. He stays relevant. He's the rounds. What in the past couple of weeks before this Premium Live event, he was making the rounds, he was showing up years in a hockey game. He was here, he was there. People are talking about him. The guys no dummy, And here's the thing, He's no dummy. And he had the WWE machine behind him while he was doing it, so they were making sure that he was seen. Triple H talked about that. Here a lot of things to talk about in the show. Let's talk about the big return. Our truth back right, Our truth is back baby, Yeah, eating chips, just going to town. Our Truth is the man. Yeah, and you know I never saw it coming you know what I mean, and how we were able to keep that quiet mind blowing. But our truth is back. I expect that to be headlines everywhere for all of you. This was one of those sort of lightning in a bottle moments that came together very quickly. But we are incredibly excited about it. You know, it's been a long time and in some way has been a long time coming. You know, you could say this about Siampunk, love him, hate him, positive, negative, whatever you want to say. People talk about him all the time. He is a magnet for that. He's a conversation starter and it's tough to look past that. And for me, if if our fans want it, if the ww universe is excited to have it, then let's go and we'll figure out the rest of it from there. This came together super quick, which I'm sure is why it stayed very tight. You know, there's a lot of speculation at that point. It was nothing but speculation for most of the time. It was speculation. It didn't really start to come to fruition until everybody stopped thinking it was going to happen, and then all of a sudden it was happening. But extremely excited. You know, a lot of time has gone by almost ten years, right, and if you are the same person you were ten years ago, ten years later, you've messed up. Everybody grows, everybody changes, and I'm a different person. He's a different person. This is a different company, and we're all we're all on a on the same even starting ground. So what's next for cmpunk? Now, that'll be interesting, wasn't it. That's always been the the mindset of the company. You heard it for for me, I heard it before as part of the company, and you know, you saw all these controversial firings and all these things, But it was he said, if you can make money with that person, Vince was gonna use you. And I know that's the same ideology that Hunter has with it as well, and he says it. And I'm living proof of if you can change from the person you were, right, That's how I got my opportunities to come back to other different times, Right, the evolution of the person and the business and the company and where it stands and things like that. So everything Paul was saying was one hundred percent legitimate. And I think what he did say without putting too much epensis on. If the fans want it and the ww universe wants it, they're gonna do it and the rest will figure out as we go. And that's really how this thing is supposed to work, which segs away back to my point that I was going to make, and that's what overshadows everything. But to your point, backstage, it's a different dynamic. But what I'm seeing as a fan is everything we discussed. Yeah, but I think that's the same thing. And here's the thing about uh uh Hunter Paul Triple H whatever we're gonna call him, he has no problem sitting down the whole talent pell go listen, this is what it is and jump on. Let's see where we're all gonna go. If there's an issue, let me know and we'll deal with it. And I don't think it's I don't think it's a lot of mayhem in the back. I think for the people that weren't in the know because the Court and Uncle Dave, at least the guys in the in the Wargames match New But let's say that the mid card guys, the you know, the lower you know, the guys and gals and people that were people that have been there for a lot of years, like Seth said, and his promo and things that have been there and didn't hear about it. I'm sure there's a little animosity about being left out of that, but at the end of the day, that's not their job. Their job is there to entertain performance. Just because your buddies with people doesn't mean you need to know everything. I that's my opinion of what's gonna happen in the bast you know what I mean. I think there's gonna be a lot of hurt feelings a lot of a lot of people. And here's that walking on eggshell's mentality. Everything that happened that the pay per view was positive, right, would you agree? Yeah? But there are some that look at that as oh, now I'm in trouble. Now I'm looking over my show and now I'm doing Now I'm second guests. So that's why I say that behind the scenes is going to be a little bit more hectic than what the fans and everybody else sees. But as far as business, when you hear when you hear trible H's talk like that, you've got to take him at face value because that's exactly what he means. He said it. He's grown, and it means it's common knowledgement, bumped and see eye to eye. But here's the thing. We don't have to see eye to eye to do business, draw big money and and do things together. We don't have to break bread and you know, have a glass of wine at a restaurant together or anything like that. Would have to be best buddies. They don't have to be text message buddies or anything like that. Let's just show up and do work and if they come to that agreement, come on, dude, it's a win. My whole thing. But when I started my die tribe about the whole night was lost was because it's a fact. It's a fact and one of the best pay per views I had seen it in a while. Like I was like, Wow, this is really freaking good. The girl slipped me from the jump and it kept going. It had its lulls where it should have had lulls, and it came back. So that's what I was saying. It's like, wow, it's amazing that that. Like I said, I would have wondered if I would have kept Randy for the rumble or Pump for the rumble. That would have been and that's being an armchair quarterback. No idea what's going on, no idea what the plans are or anything else like that, Like I'm playing armchair quarterback. But I thought it was a great moment. I was like, I could not believe it. Man. When the music hit, I was almost hoping that they forgot to go off the air and they were just screwing with the people, and they did that last time you quit Nemever Paul Ammitt came out. Yeah, I almost was wishing that was the thing where you keep watching going you gotta be kidding me, for your sake, you're thinking where you thinking? I wonder what Je's thinking right now? Well, hold, no, I knew what you were thinking. You were doing jumping jacks and burpies and all kinds, and you were doing laps around the house. One of my daughters is still away, She's like, what, what what's going on? He was strategically never went past those cages. Everything about it was brilliant. And then that's when my mind went to wow, coming off that that high of watching that crowd and feeling that energy, like through the boom too, you felt that energy. And then afterwards I'm going well, nothing else mattered tonight. That's where my mind went, not that you know, it didn't matage, just like wow, everything else was negated. And that's a tough spot to be here for Pomp. It's a tough spot to be in for Punk. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because yeah, I mean, he comes in and he's got to get into the equation. But I will say the work Games match and we'll talk. We could talk more on Thursday, but it's was kind of designed for that was the ending. Now you can branch off and have storylines, but there's not much else you can do with that match itself. The spectacle was great, the match was great. The match itself is done yet, but after that, it's what you have to go Elsewhere are the storylines from there? I mean, you just help that you could help. You just hope that you could help advance those storylines and maybe it'll pivot to other directions. But yeah, for the match itself though, that's it for it. Yeah, yeah, I mean the only thing I got out of that match was Jay whoso has a storyline with everybody in there? Yeah, so Jay set that. I know, Jay Who's so set for the next six months. He's got storylines after that. I have no idea what they're gonna do. Yeah, And I know we'll talk more about the actual pay per view itself on Yeah on on Thursday. But I do want to share one more thing here, Yeah, just to give credit to the how successful this pay per view was though. Amazing night, I think across the board for everybody. I'll start off by saying thank you all for being here. As I made my way up here through this crowd, it was hard not to feel the excitement and the energy that is here in Chicago. This has always been an amazing market for us, This All State Arena. This has been in my career, probably my favorite building to perform in. It's just deafeningly loud in here, the way the acoustics are set up, the wood roof. People in Chicago are just loud and excited to be here, and you could just always count on it being an incredible night, and tonight was no different. The last two nights were no different too, sold out back to Beck shows here over just short of thirty four thousand tickets sold here for two nights. Incredibly successful. I want to thank Slim Jim for making this press conference happen, and I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving leading into tonight. But let's talk a little bit about business. Tonight was the highest grossing Survivor Series in history, and matter of fact, the highest grossing event here with the exception of WrestleMania when it was here, and it was neck and neck with WrestleMania. For me, that's a positive on both sides. When I was in the main event of that WrestleMania, so it doesn't bother me that much. But that's pretty that's something pretty special right here. Thirty seven years of Survivor Series to be the biggest one ever sponsorship, up about twenty five percent from last year, so across that, and then the viewership just spectacular tonight. We opened up the show with the Women's War Game match and right out of the gate by far largest viewership of all time, and it just grew throughout the evening. So we don't have all the final numbers and yet, but we will, and this one was a whopper, so very very exciting. That's that's the bottom line. Everything is up. If everything is up, guys like me, and that's I put myself in that team you can't get worked up about the things like and that's so you and I talk about this and that. I try to make this a staple to every conversation. We're not criticizing it, right we That's why I use the term armchair quarterback. I'd never second guess anything they do because they've been there. I understand the method to the maps. What I try to say to our fans and the ww universe and wrestling fans is you've got to let things simmer and set in, and you've got to trust the process instead of automatically going with the negatives. My thing is not a negative in my opinion, It's not a negative. I'm saying everything results because this was spectacular. All the pressure now is on CM punk, the not the pressure you had of coming back to AEW again and not working out. That was a different kind of shenanigates this pressure that pop those numbers. Punk has to be on and Punk has to be able and willing to play with the playbook ww as now not the playbook they had ten years ago. That's the difference for me in a W and WWE do it. You won't playbook do your thing. You think you're good. It's a little bit more parameters. I was asking, do you think you can do it? And I'll say the difference between I think he almost really wanted to be take on a complete leadership role for all things a W and when. And he's not the only one that's frustrated by the mindset, the mindset going on there. He's just the only one publicly talking about I think he can do it. I think if he signed the multi year deal, and knowing what I do know about the company, they think he can do it too. Now, barring you know, barring, you know, heaven forbid that knock wood, everybody that's me knocking wood, Heaven forbid, no injuries and things like that. I think I think the Punk will be set up for success. I think he's going to set himself up for success. I believe that Punk's the guy who will take other people with him as he builds momentum. And to me, they feel like that's why he wanted to do at a W. Yes, But yeah, but it was a different They all weren't vying for that same momentum. They were vying for the me me me momentum, and they weren't vying for the the vibe of the whole thing, like this thing. If this thing goes, there's gonna be another resurgence in wrestling, and it's all gonna be one sided. Dave Meltzer said, there was a war. We had a wrestling war in our hands. I don't feel like it built. I don't know. I don't think they're And that's why I said, I don't think we had a wrestling war prior to Punk because and and and it's no disrespect, but Edge going and then Rick Flair signing those that's not war material. You know, Jade Car gild coming over, that's not war material. That's just people making decisions what's best for that. The war was the Tuesday night wars or whatever it is. And now people say, well there's a Friday night war. Well, if there is, that war's over, the war's been won. I don't see. And if I were aw I'd make sure we don't use that term where war with anybody, because the numbers, that's it, right. Somebody always said math doesn't lie, right, numbers don't lie. But I think he can do it. I really hope to see this, this unbelievable momentum. Now there's no telling it because listen, the only guy we haven't talked about in this thing is Roman Rates. Now now as you as we go at the Thursday and every episode past, we've got more topics than we've ever had, and it's interesting. Here's what I love about this business. It's gonna change every week. And that's what gets me excited. We're not We're no longer in the say like, oh this is a you know And I say what about Nothimore? Because I was really excited to knock themore and Rollins had something going. I felt like it just was cut off and that was it. Move on Gable other side of Knackamara had something appear Gable Gunther. I thought that was gonna be a thing leading into it. By the way, I thought missed the amazing job of the Night Boom, but that was taken away from us. So I'm really interested to see where they're going now because there's enough there's enough main event players men and women in that company that we're talking about tonight that can take it to a whole different level. And and here's here's the big difference, going back to what I think the difference is. I think that the WWE mindset, the talent mindset knows the different between business and personal where I think, aw, they I feel this way, this is the way it's gonna be. And I'm gonna fight. I'm gonna live in die on that hill, you know what I mean. So I think I think he can do it. I hope he does it. I hope everybody benefits from it. And like, how do you not get excited about it? I mean, you have to be excited about what that pop alone. If you're a fan, you get excited about it. But if you've ever been around that, it brought chills. It's like, oh my gosh, here we go again. Like I'll like now, I'm I'm so intersted now in every show again. So then that means it worked. Like, hey, you do have a good point, though, And before we close up shop for the evening, WW still has to be careful and I have no doubt they're more capable of be fine, but you still have to develop new main event guys. Yes, and this is not the first time they've like you said, this is a good problem to have the star power. That's not the first time Dabby's had this our power, right, I mean, but to your point, you do have to be able to continue to develop new Maine event guys for when this is over. And I think with the contract status that we see of less dates on a lot of these guys, like Roman Reigns, there's no way that was Seampunk's biggest problem, right was how hurt he was and how right, you know, burnout he was. I guess the simple terms, so I will I will say in one way it's been a strange element to the business, but another it's been beneficial for a lot of these other guys having to step up, so they'll continue to have to navigate those waters. Yeah. And if we were back pre COVID the talent pool, they have enough talent and made a vet players and people that are so recognized they could be running two Cruise again. That's how strong they are right now. I think, I know two cruis. What are you talking about, Bill, I it'll never happen again. But you know we used to run East Coast West, but you know, yeah, and and I know that's it's the business has changed. But I believe they have that many players. They can run three crews and I'm an even counting NXT to where you know, all these things happen, so it's it'll be very It's so what is it that was the world to WrestleMania. It's gonna be exciting from here on out. Yeah, we have another we have elimination Chamber, and then the build up to the Royal Rumble. I mean that's gonna be huge. And you to your point, how is this all gonna play together? We don't really know. That's the exciting part about it. It's it's gonna be amazing. I guess I'm curious to see how many how many days you're gonna wear that shirt? That's my biggest question. Well, I'm gonna say it for every time we record. Just so, I'm gonna get you a sampunk bobbleheaded for Christmas. It really lights up this studio too. In the studio, should I say how wide it is compared to the light, Like the lighting on and everything right now really makes this shirt looks condition you guys, man, dude, Bill, we've been I know this is a little bit shorter episode, and I was terribly prepared. I apologize. I stumbled across the dog gate. I love it. I made you wait fifteen extra minutes because I didn't send them invite somehow well worth the wait, well worked the way and we got a little bit of the CM punk thing out of our system. So we'll hijack the whole entire show and we record later this week. But man, this this was such a huge thing. Don't and the thing is, WW didn't need it. You're right, But when we talk about going back to what we said earlier, all the things it turble H just talked about were positive. But you had eighty seven million eyes eighty seven million in twenty four hours fromwe social media official, like I said, not including anything else Withwe's laid eyes on this and the world was talking about it. That's what it's always been about. And I think if the world's talking about it, they can't be wrong. Any frustrations backstage like you talked about, I'm sure that is a consideration too. Triple Ah always used to say, and he brought up a good point about how he's grown over the last ten years, seeing pokes grown over the last ten years, but about ten years ago, and I'll show you a clip later this week. This best for business phrase was brought up quite often with the authority figures in charge, and I think that is just really true to what's going on right now, just trying to make decisions that are best for business. So the pay per view overshadowed some Yeah, completely what you're saying. But man, talk about a big business move and the media and press that came from it. We won't see anything like it for a while. I don't think we're going to get Rock in a match. Even Austin Imprompt two match just because it was Impromp two didn't get quite this. It's gonna be hard to top this, and I think it realis an eggs thrown on Aw's face. I think yeah, I like I said, I hope they stay away from that war thing. And here's let me throw this out before we say goodbye. Punk had a lot of if the words loyal friends in AW, and don't think that other people won't be thinking the same thing. I'm just gonna throw that out there. I don't know for sure. I'm not stirring the pod. I'm just saying, let's follow suit. Yeah, a lot of people believed in Phil hated to see him go, but knew there were reasons. Now they see what could happen and hearing how the company's changed and grown and people have changed their grown that maybe the idea of coming back has changed and grown. So it'll be interesting going forward to see see what else happens. If you're aw though, you can't get caught up in this. You gotta steer the ship that you gotta steer the ship in a better more focused on what you're doing, and be more strategic with the moves that they're doing. So there isn't a war, let's be honest. But that doesn't mean the aw is bad. That doesn't mean that impact had but it did just the bars I don't want to say the bar, but the space on how close they were is further now is further After this, We'll say this totally. Tom did the right thing by not addressing it. Yeah sokuos, kudos to him, and kudos to everybody who kind of maybe buzzed him about it, grot about it. He answered it the right way and he stayed away from it. So there's a promise for everybody. All yeah, man, promising an episode, little impromptu episode. We put it. This log come together quickly. We wanted to make sure you guys had content this week since we were off Thanksgiving week, so we put it a little extra time to make this one happen. Bill, love it, man, I'm glad we did. I know. We'll be doing on a lot more as things come up. I like when we stay on top of things like this. It's really cool and uh yeah, just another opportunity to get on here and talk about what we enjoy the most. Very cool? Is there reminder join us every Thursday night at nine pm Eastern Live. Trying to really get onto some of these other social media platforms, but dude, TikTok and Instagram are just have blocked my ability to get They only let you go live on mobile. So I have tried to get the stream key and stream key and things like that. It's possible, but that feature is not available to me. So I am trying, as I have built up a better brand on on This Day and Office Day and pro wrestling history on those platforms. Obviously my followers are wrestling fans right, try to utilize off that, but smith they're making it hard. So for now can find us of course on Twitter, Facebook, than the YouTube's actually getting the edited content up. The thought behind the social media is we want to hear. You want to hear what you're saying in the moment, we want to get you in here in the moment. We want to see what you're thinking in the moment. So that's why we're doing what we're doing. Yes, BD Live every Thursday night at nine pm Bill, And of course we have a great website. You can check out all the other content we've created. We are We'll be it two. Were less than two months away from a year You and I doing this, crazy, isn't it. Yeah, it was about a year ago when we first started talking about what we were going to do. We said, we're going to lay this all out after the holidays. So yeah, it's crazy to think about. You and I started talking about this a year ago. Time flies, man, But I could think of a better person to enjoy it with. So yeah, me too, Bro. This is a great partnership. I appreciate you so much. Yep. And I again apologize for the out of control unpreparedness of this live stream, but we will get past it and I'll be better on the next one. Man, Thank you, and that's all anybody can do, So keep being you and keep being great. Say Sack, don't take a lot of hands on the rack. What j don't let my mother your man slag sack the best SA. Don't you finish your shack room model days, Jeff Townsend. Media saves you good night. And the question is do I stay here? Will you be back? Are you gonna come back? Will you be back? Are you coming back?
