The Future of SRTU Revealed | The Still Real to Us Show | Episode #744 – 5/16/24

0:00 It's still welcome everybody. Welcome to this week's edition the Still Realda shows number seven and forty four from May sixteenth, twenty twenty four. Welcome to this week's edition of ass R Team you a historic edition of SRG elon Tap. I am one out of the show. I am Jeff Beck joined every single week on my post only Doctor Gray Franklin, Doctor Trey. I was surgery, my friend. Uh, surgery was fun. I don't know how people asked today, like how was surgery? I'm like, I slept through it all. I really don't remember much about it. Like I remember laying in the bed they started willing being back. I was already tired because they wanted us there like or forty five in the morning, so I didn't sleep really it all the night before. So by the time they were willing me back, they they probably I don't know if they actually used the anesthesia on me, Jeff, because I was already asleep as they were willing me back in.

1:11 So the fun part of the fun part about all this is the fact that base I can't walk for the next few weeks. So I got the crutches and the knee scooter and all that stuff. So just just good old times right now here. Now. If there was ever a time for you to sell a heel manager injury, this is it. Yeah, except the fact that I wouldn't be selling it. It would be legit. And that's that's the downside. It's funny because last year, when I originally broke the foot, they had me in the walking boots, so I did. I worked a couple of Rocket City shows in the boots. I was doing my regular job where I'm convincing people to check out these gutter filters to keep leaves and to free your gutters. So you have to climb ladder, and that's I had more leads written from that because if you were web in your foot, I'm like, oh, it's climbing a ladder, clean out my gutters.

2:07 He's your pride, check out this stuff. So it worked out really well. I am bummed though, because I think I'm probably gonna have to miss Wrestling Con this year because I just don't know if I can actually make it up there for this year's show. But all good things come to an end, so my streak of Wrestling cons is coming to an end this year, probably so. But outside of that. The fun part is watching Sammy Franklin kind of stare at it, stare at the foot with all his bandages and all his glory, and just kind of like figure out he's supposed to touch it or not, or come near me or not, or how he's supposed to act when dad's got a big giant boo boo. Not there you go. I mean, at least he's he's carefully considering you right now, doctor Trey Slash. Maybe a little bit of frighten about what the hell's going on with his dad? Yeah, yeah, that and he crawled up into bed with me. Uh so we got surgery was Tuesday morning. We got home Tuesday night. Right away he crawled up in bed. He avoided the foot, but somehow managed to elbow me in the groin. So I may have to have another searcher for that, penosky. But yeah, he's he's been good. His wife's been home. She took the entire week off to make sure I didn't follow my face or it incapacitated. So yeah, it's been a We both said today that we're going stir crazy just being in the house. That's not our normal. Usually we're out running around doing stuff, and the last forty eight hours being confined to the house has not been that great. Yeah. No, it's like reminiscent of COVID right like four years ago, where you couldn't leave and it was strange to do that because I

3:42 don't know's that's not what we're supposed to do as humans. It's like, oh, I feel like going outside. I'm going to go outside. I'm going to go for a walk. I'm gonna go to the store. I can do that. I'm gonna go drive my car the side. If I had percosets during COVID, I I've been a lot happier during that time. So yeah, the painkillers have been helpful because you get these weird fantom shooting pains like it's every now and then. It feels like an electrical shock into my big toe just because of how it's all bandaged up and prays like all the pressure runs to the big toe because it's the one thing sticking out from from this bandage, from this rap and I'm like, just I forgot how ugly toes are and just makes me want to just cut that one off too while I'm at it. All, Right, there you go, doctor, Tray not a toe guy of all things. Remember share your favorite like shows, Ben shows for Doctor Trey to watch. Now that he's like laid up here for the next couple of weeks, so hit him up at Doctor Trey, the Doctor Trey on Twitter or x whatever you want to call it.

4:42 And I'm glad to hear you're doing well because I know when you originally told me off air about doing this, there was a possibility that you may not be joining us because of how you felt, not like you were gonna, you know, die from the surgery. It was more like, I don't know, man, I may still be kind of fed up from it. I'm a little iffed up. I mean, the pain killers have kicked in, But you sound good. We might end up talking about rhinos and hippos and unicorns and stuff like that. At some point during the show. Remember when Rick Flair went down that rainbow. Uh no, Yeah, it was crazy like Sting was chasing him and he was like throwing stuff at him. That was my favorite time during the Magnificent seven run of WCW. What are you talking about? Magnificent seven? And wasn't there the Millionaires Club? Yeah?

5:29 Yeah, there was the Millionaire's Club, which made me feel bad for the other guys because like, oh, you guys are broke, okay, so that's why Kidman only has one shirt new Blood the new Blood. And then Hogan was wearing an f UNB jacket for a long time, which every time tied all in here. Every time I see Trick Williams now and that whooped, that trick black cut off like gene vest that he's wearing and he has the white letter around the back, I immediately think of Hogan from WCW when he feuded with Billy Kidman for a period of time, were said, fu n B on the back. Oh good, Who have ever thought that in this world Jeff Peck could relate to Whole Coca and Trick Williams. I'm impressed by that. That's good. It is that weird knowledge of professional wrestling that I have going on up here, and it's been something that we've been doing here for nearly fourteen and a half years. On the Story Realta show, We Tease It at the end of last week's edition of the podcast, We Tease It online Earlier this week, big announcement regarding the future of SRTU so to completely pull back the curtains. So obviously you got one part of this is doctor Trey being laid up with surgery. We're getting a little bit older. I myself have surgery planned for later in the summer that is going to affect the way that I talk. It's going to be a jaw surgery that I'm supposed to be getting and may put me out of commission for a little bit. And then there's talk of maybe a second surgery in a couple

7:00 months of that later that would completely put me out of talking. And then you know, those are the medical side of things of two older guys that are getting older. And then the second thing, which doctor Trey obviously knows about. We have not shared this on the podcast whatsoever, but late next month I am becoming a father. My wife is pregnant with a boy, and we'll be having a kid in late June. It's like basically timed up right now, right around forbidden door, and there's a lot of all these life things that are going on right now. And I always like to try to personally take a look at every like WrestleMania season, like coming out of WrestleMania and go like, you know, do we have the gumption, desire, the length of wanting to move the podcast forward basically for another year.

7:56 And every year it's been like, you know, this is nope, I want to keep it going and we'll continue forward. This was one of the first years that I felt like coming out of WrestleMania that given the personal stuff, like stuff that's going on my life, stuff that's going on Doctor Trey's life, like we are hair on fire most of the time coming down here, sitting down on the podcast. Doctor Trey's had a long day at work. I've had a long day at work, and we're sitting here and we're, you know, brains are a little bit mushed trying to figure out what's going on the world professional wrestling. It's not like how it used to be when life was a little bit more simpler when we started back in twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve. A lot of things have changed, marriages, children, jobs, and here we are, you know, years later, and I thought this was like the year. I was like, wow, this this could be it. So Doctor Trey and I had a discussion a couple of weeks ago following a podcast and you know, basically said like, hey, you know, do you want to keep this thing going?

8:56 I know there's a lot of changes going on in your life, my life. What happened, And we came to the agreement that yeah, we do. We do want to continue forward here for heading into the fifteenth year, heading into rest of many forty one. So that is like the big announcement there of And it may be not too dramatic as we were pumping it up, but hey, this is show business, so we're continuing the podcast forward. I got admit, like the pandemic for me, doctor Trey, I felt like save the podcast. I thought that you and I heading into the pandemic of professional wrestling at that point, was a little bit kind of fed up with professional wrestling. W wasn't that good. AW had just started up, and again we were getting older, and time constraints and you know, flexibility what have you was was certainly on the plate. And then when we had the pandemic, it kind of revitalized at least me personally. And then the product lately, especially with WA, has really revitalized me. I wish I could say the same about AAW, which we'll get to here momentarily, but yeah, I mean we've we've been doing this a long time and when we first started, it was two hours of raw, two hours of SmackDown, one hour of NXT that we covered. We did not really cover TNA.

10:13 We would cover it on the on the offset of it. Actually, Doctor Trey when he first started the podcast, it was like, hey, you're the TNA guy, give us like an update of what was going on. And that's what Doctor Trey was kind of responsible for in those first early days of SRTU. Since then, three hours of raw, two hours of NXT, two hours of SmackDown, and a whole other brand that we've been covering. Two hours of Dynamite, two hours of Collision, one hour of Rampage. I mean, it's a lot more than recovering. It's it's doubled what it was. And again, we don't make money off this. We do this as as a hobby, as a joy, as a passion, as a love for professional wrestling, as wrestling fans, and we try to give everybody an alternative list I mean viewership, listenership to professional wrestling and then what you're accustomed to. Try to be not as negative all the time towards the product and just be too, fans and friends that are like just randomly talking about professional wrestling how we feel about it at the period of time.

11:16 And then you know, that kind of weighed on me a lot. I mean, it's a lot of wrestling that we cover in a week, but you know, we're going to try it here, continuing for another year. But I think I guess we would be lying to ourselves a little bit, Doctor Trey if thinking out loud that covering a wrestling podcast isn't as easy I guess as it used to be. Yeah, I mean there's a lot of content that we have to take in, digest and then you know, regurgitate back out to the audience. And you know, when you know, being married like you and I both are now, you having a kid on the way and me having a couple of kids in the house and little mini farm, and we both have very demanding jobs, it does get you know, a little bit of delirium setting in, so to speak. But you know, I think, you know, we talked about it Coo weeks ago that this is kind of still our escape from reality. We can go hide from everything else in the world for an hour and just sit down talk about wrestling and that that part of it's still enjoyable to me. And I will say, you know, with us, we are always tweaking the times we do the show and moving things around and see what works best. This this new time slod that we're recording, it is working out really well. Plus I think it's just kind of a kind of an fu to the jobs that we can go, Hey, you know, let's take an hour and just talk about wrestling. And you know, it's kind of like a still being rebellious in nature. But you know, fourteen and a half years of doing the

12:48 show, it's like I never thought we'd hit seven. I didn't think we'd hit ten. And at this point it's almost like, you know, not that I would ever think about dropping show, but at some point you go, man, like I can't believe we were still doing this, But it's still fun. And the pandemic time did help out a lot in the sense of, hey, it helped us cope with what was going on in the world around us. You know, you being you know, volunteer fireman, you were on calls all time, you know, running out, having to help people out like that. This was still our break from reality. And you know, with Sammy frank Sammy Franklin is going to enroll in kindergarten next week. That's that's crazy to me, you know. And you have the little peck coming on coming along here. It's just it's still that little bit of break from reality that we enjoy so much. And yeah, I'm just fired up now for this year as I was for year one and two.

13:45 Yeah, it's definitely revitalized there. You know, I'm not going to sit here and lie that. It's a little bit obviously a scary world about becoming father and then trying to balance everything else that we do in our personal lives and trying to keep up on professional wrestling is a definite concern of mine. But a lot of people I have talked to have said, like, no, this is actually like the time where you're got to be watching a lot more than you probably ever figured it. And I watch a ton right now, So maybe like at two am, when it's like feeding time, it is time where I get caught up on professional wrestling. And like doctor Trey said, I mean we are, we're doing a new recording time that has been a lot more convenient for the both of us. We're not as I mean personally speaking, like not as tired from a long day heading into trying to do a wrestling podcast and like shaking my mind of like all right, what happened that day? And Doctor Trey's not coming out of work like hair on fire doing the recording. So I think that this new recording time has definitely helped things out for us, and I hope that continues forward with the podcast moving forward. I've always felt that if there was ever I mean, obviously all things come to an end, so at some point, at some point, SRTU will come to an end. Sadly, it's just the way life is. Everything comes to an end. But I always figured it would go from like a full time to like a part time because one of the things that I even talked to Doctor Trey about off air was what if we

15:18 just did like a like a WrestleMania season podcast, like where we took off the summer months or whatever and came back in October November time and covered w WE every week heading into WrestleMania. You know, maybe that is an option at some point, Maybe there's an option where Doctor Trey and I are going guns are blazing for a period of time and then come like maybe May, June, July, August, what have you. Like, we're doing it maybe two shows every couple of weeks out of that month rather than every single week, but you know, we're not at that point right now. Still enjoying it. Professional wrestling has a ton of fun, really enjoying covering it.

16:00 It's it's an escape. We've been doing this show, you know, seven hundred and forty four straight weeks, fourteen nearly fourteen and a half years. It is. It's literally also two from a personal standpoint, it's like the last chapter left in a period of time for both Doctor Trey and I. Like it's funny because I was looking at something yesterday. And for those who don't know the story, Doctor Trey and I started out as friends on a platform, an online gaming platform called EA Game Show. So EA Sports, who makes all these you know, Madden, NFLS or bringing Back the College Football Game had a online game show platform, which I still think was ahead of its time, with live host prizes, the whole nine yards.

16:48 Doctor Trey was a player on there. I was a player on there, and over time just kind of became, you know, friends, like I think we had spawned off into doing at the time a message board, and then I got hooked up with one of the hosts of via game show, Bauer, and started doing a podcast. And then a year later he encouraged me to do a wrestling podcast, and then they say the rest is history, and Doctor Trey and I have been doing this podcast ever since. He's been filling in for Eric Rjuloh headed into as a full time role since resume twenty eight, so it's it's been a long time, and there were a lot of things that were tied to that. It was the podcast I was on at the time, the Wheelhouse, the radio show I was on at one time, the Bowers Show that was in Hartford, Connecticut. I was at ESPN Radio at the Mothership in Bristol, Connecticut. Doctor Trey was working various different jobs at that point, traveling the country. So we start off the show, as you know, where in the world is doctor Trey Franklin this week, kids being born, marriage is happening. All that stuff kind of all dwindled away. Wrestle Chatnett was a dot net, was an actual website at one time, and now that has phased away, and it's like the last thing left of that period of time, THEA Game Show, Real Guy Radio Network, Wheelhouse Podcast, Bower Show Podcast, Russell Chat dot Net has been the still RELTA show where the one thing left that's going and it's the last thing left of that chapter in my life. I left professional radio

18:19 almost ten years ago. Now we're walking out of Bristol, Connecticut and ESPN Radio Headquarters, Global Headquarters, and knowing that this was the end of the line as I started a new career path and just went in a straight podcasting and you know, it's kind of shocking and I'm still doing it. It will be sixteen years of podcasting next March, fifteen years of the STORELTA Show this upcoming February twenty twenty five. So there's a little bit of sentimental feeling there for me, doctor Trey that like still holding on to that chapter of my life, our lives. The last remaining relic of that time period is this very podcast. Yeah, it's it's funny like I'll be gone all I'll be on Facebook and come across some of the other guys from EA Game Show and see what they're doing now, and it is there's a little bit of nostalgia to it because those were some good times. I mean, honestly, we start on game show. I didn't like Jeff Peck because we were always the top two guys. When it came to like wrestling trivia, when he would beat me, I would get mad, and then vice versa, and there was just like this mutual admiration and respect. Society kind of built out of it to you know, what's gone now, but you know he's been with my one of my good friends now for you know, almost a decade and a half. If nothing else came from that, I got a lifelong friend out of this. So it's it is weird, kind of like looking back fourteen years ago my life was at then versus where it's at now.

19:48 I would have never thought I'd end up living in Alabama with a five year old and a new wife. Like, these are all things that just kind of came out of it. And this has kind of been like my my safety net in a sense that when everything else is you know, any other bad day or anything crazy is going on, I can sit down talk with my buddy about wrestling for an hour and with with all the listeners that tune in. So yeah, still hanging on to it and it's but it's never been. There have been times, and I know Jeff's all the way too, with the wrestling and product being bad. It is like we need to shut this thing down because what we're watching is just got awful. And you know, like you said earlier, like coming out of the pandemic into the Triple H era of professional wrestling, it's so good right now, I'd be it'd be ridiculous that stop talking about it now when everything's good. It's like, we put up with years of crap to get to this point. There's no sense in walking away from it now. Yeah, it would be, Uh, it would be an interesting move for us to do that and be more of a selfish one because we would be you know, obviously doing it for our families and to vote a little bit more time to everything that's going on. But we're still wrestling fans at hard. We enjoy this, so, you know, continuing the podcast forward here, you know, I think I always mentally take it like year by year at this point and just try to see like where we're both at and where things are, especially with the podcast. If obviously things are going great with the podcast, there's not much more to think about it. It was more of a of a personal decision

21:19 or discussion that we needed to have because of a lot of the things that were going on in our lives that's taking place, and the jobs and all that, And like Doctor Trey mentioned earlier, we kind of came up with a new recording time that's been more convenient and more accessible and made us happier to do the show. Not like we were unhappy, but I just think at the end of the day, it was like kind of draining at that point to sit up there and it's like eight o'clock East Coast time and Doctor Trace just coming off at work seven pm his time, and like we're talking what we're talking wrestling? What the fuck happened today? Tell me what happened or I missed aw or whatever the night before, whatever it may be. So, and what the crazy thing is is the concert the butterfly Butterfly effect.

22:03 Right. At some point there was a decision that Doctor Trey made to go play this game EA game show, following Bauer, who was on Maxim Radio on Serious XM at that point. It is a long time listener to that program, and so he made that way, and then I made the random decision. Somehow found EA game show clicked it started playing it, and that led to this very podcast happening. It led to personally a career for me for a period of time in radio, where I had the opportunity to interview CM Punk, Dean Ambrose, Dolph Siegler, Claudio Casignoli, Chris Hero, Carrie Silken, the old ROH owner like Terry Funk. Had the opportunity to do all that and have a great friend in Doctor Trey and continue talking about professional wrestling, and this podcast led to Doctor Trey jumping his feet into the world of professional wrestling as a wrestler, as a manager, get involved with a promotion where he lives, and like it's just just wild where it all kind of started with that decision of like yeah, I'll go play this platform, Doctor Trey. Yeah. Yeah, And especially like you know, the Bower Show was was a big part of my life, you know, when you and I met, because I'm Max with Sirius Sally Radio and I was traveling so much, like I was always calling in the Bauers Show and stuff like that, so to see where that was at then, and I was wearing a giant I got did you still get did you ever get the giant chicken shirt? By the way, No, I never did. I got I had one for years. But you know, to be on this

23:36 little game show and winning prizes and you know, forming a somewhat friendship with Bauer, just you know, doing stuff for the show on air, like is what led me down this path. And when I moved to Alabama, I was like, you know, people knew that I was doing a podcast and that's how the whole wrestling thing happened. They're like, well, if you're doing a podcast, because that's back in the days when nobody had a podcast. Well, if you're doing a podcast, you must be able to talk. Well, if you can talk, hey, we need an announcer, we need to ring, we need to re announcer. Hey, well you can talk, Maybe you can be a manager, Maybe you can do this. And it's just crazy to see that of the evolution that you laid out and how a random chance happened meeting has led to all of this.

24:17 So and watching you know, I got I think almost ten years on you, but to watch you grow from this this kid on this game show to being on radio to the career path and you know, meeting your lovely wife all those years ago at the Tampa Bay Rays games and knowing that you had a family coming around. Like, I'm very, very proud of you, man. So I mean, that's it's it's watching the evolution of one of my friends as well. So I've told you before, like when you tell me the show's overs, when the show's over, like, I'm with you, I'm right or die until the end. Man, No, I appreciate that. And likewise, I mean I remember doctor Trey, you know, being a very hard worker in the country, working his tail off, and now he has a really great job. He's home, he's got a family, he doesn't have it to travel as much, and we're enjoying life as best we can. So that was the big announcement the future of SRTU.

25:14 We're not going to lie to you guys and say that we didn't have a discussion about where we want to take this show moving forward. As always, I think it's something that probably Doctor Trey and I will we'll look at as the time moves forward and seeing how everything goes and whether we want to do it every single week or multiple times a week, or what have you, or you know, once a month we'll or end it all together. We'll have that discussion and try to be as transparent as possible with everybody. But I always tend to look at like Rustlemania a season and go, all right, do we have another one in the chamber, Because fourteen years of doing a podcast is a really long time. Not missing a new episode for seven hundred and forty four straight weeks is very difficult to do. We've gone through hurricanes, all different types of hours of the day and night in early morning, like the period of time I've talked about, like Doctor Trey and I, the best time we could do it was I was doing an overnight shift at ESPN Radio. I'd get home at four thirty. He was just beginning his shift at like five thirty, and that was like the window where we recorded the podcast legitimately and it kept the streak going. So and there was a very time that this podcast when I was doing with Eric car Juli, we were going to do it for a couple months and then take the summer off, and we actually ended up not doing it. I was trying to figure out why did I not do that? And it's because wwe ran the Nexus angle and we were so damn excited about it when they like took out, Cena, ripped up the ring, Danielson choked out Justin Roberts that we were like, all right, we got to hold onto this. We can't

26:45 go off now. I mean, this is one of the hottest angles in professional wrestling history. And I know it didn't end great, but I still say that nexus angle is one of the best angles to end raw in the history of the entire show. So here we are. That's the big news. The last part about this that I'll say and then we'll get into some wrestling talk is all of our listeners that are tuning in. All we ask you guys to do is provide us some feedback, right, what do you like, what do you don't like? Hit us up on Facebook, Facebook dot com. Slash Till wrote this show. Hit us up on Twitter, slash x add us our to you podcast. Tell us what you want to hear more of, less of what you like about the show, what you don't like about the show. We need your support right now. And more importantly, if you're someone who has subscribed to this show and you haven't done this yet, please give us a rate and review. On iTunes. That really really helps us out. I cannot stress that enough. More importantly, if you're listening to this podcast and you haven't subscribed yet on any various channels, whether it be Apple, Spotify, whatever, please do all that subscribe, rate and review. That's all we ask. We want to see some new ones out there. It's been some time since we had some ratings, some reviews. That legitimately gives us some energy to be like, all right, the people are behind us, they're listening to the show, that they enjoy what we're doing, and we appreciate that support. So a little bit of homework there. Let us know your feedback on the podcast, what you like, you don't like, You could dm us, if you follow us on Twitter, whatever you got to do, Facebook message us and we'll take

28:18 it from there. So a little bit of homework there, Doctor Trey for everybody. Oh yeah, and you know it's not only we haven't asked this before. I mean, we didn't the show the way, but it does help us out a lot. I mean, when you're doing a podcast that's downloadable and we're not doing it live and we're not seeing the people jump in the chat rooms the message boards and things like that. It does kind of feel like at times like is anybody out there? You know, it's like we see the numbers, receive you the download, but it's like, you know, the feedback. The feedback is great. We love feedback. We love you know, people messaging us. We I mean I remember back in the day, like I was getting messages on Instagram from people like overseas and things like that. I got all that stuff is great. That's what kind of helps motivate us even more to keep pushing on. And I hate saying pushing on like it's like it's a burden. It's not, but it does kind of, you know, revitalize you a little bit when you go, hey, thank Eric. Darcy guy is a pretty good guy, and he does subscribe to the show and he listens to us, and you know, just just that little bit of energy can help us out on a day when you know, life happens and we're both feeling crappy, or Jeff's in his allergy season like he is right now. Like those things really help us out and keep us motivated even more. Yeah, we don't want to be just talking into a black hole to nobody. So the listeners really are the energy of the podcast. So if you're a listener, you're a diehard listener, give us some give us some notes out there. It really really helps us out and lets us know, all right, this decision that we're making is not for not because Doctor try and I love wrestling, and we could certainly

29:49 text with one another, call each other and have our own little podcast that nobody listens to. But you know, we save that for an actual show, and we hope that everybody's out there supporting us. So a little bit of homework for everybody, and I hope we get to see some of that here in the weeks moving forward. So big announcement out of the way. And what's funny, what's kind of tied it all into this a little bit, Doctor Trey is I'm at a little bit of a viewership crossroads. And I'm not necessarily sure you're at this space yet, because i know we've talked about this a little bit on air off air, but I'm legitimately there and I'm like, man, maybe this is maybe this is it. I'm at an AW viewership crossroads. Simply put, I am a fan of AAW.

30:34 I want to see AW succeed but I'm tired of watching some of their shows rampage and collision for collision to a degree that I don't want it to feel like I'm wasting my time as a viewer. It's like, why the hell did I do that? I could just watch YouTube clips of this show afterwards there on the aw page. I'm at a little bit of a crossroads. It reminds me of and it was pre SRTU. I was an original fan of NWATNA. I used to watch the weekly wrestling shows that they had on Wednesdays on pay per view before it hit onto Fox Sports. And as time went on, I drifted away from TNA Impact Wrestling so much so that like the first time I got back into impact wrestling was legitimately during the pandemic when I kind of fell in love with it. I loved Impact Wrestling. I thought it was a great show. Unfortunately, as the pandemic, well, fortunately as the pandemic widened down at that point, I didn't really watch it anymore because it was way too much wrestling at that point on my on my platter, and I had to cut TNA had to cut Impact Wrestling. I do see some of the clips from time to time, and I'm kind of at that spot right now with AW. They're booking is not great. Their creative for the most part, is not well done. There's a lot of start stops. You know, where is Ricky Starks right now? What happened

32:07 to Wardlow? First time I've seen Wardlow back on AW television was last night on Diimite when he played a background player. And about eight weeks ago he was the number one contender for the World Championship. Why is Christian Cage the number one contender for the AWA World Havyweight Championship despite dropping the T and T Championship and they brought the ranking system back? Is he the number one contender? Because the young bucks are in charge and they punted the ranking system and they're like, this isn't working. I mean, they legitimately just bought the ranking system back. You know, Tendance is down, viewership is down. AW will still be a monster because we'll talk about their rumored talks with Warner Brothers Discovery. But it's like it would my life be better as a wrestling fan if I stopped watching. I mean, they're coming up on five years as a business at double or nothing in a couple of weeks and then Dynamite will be five years old in early October. But I hate to say this because I've never given up on WE. And people are gonna say that, well, you're a w homer, and you're absolutely right, because it's been an institution in my life for thirty plus years. I've never given up on WE. It's like, why would I stop watching the NFL, the NBA MLB, right, I mean, I've They've been an institution in my life.

33:20 AW is fairly new, and I compare it more to my viewership for NWATNA later known to CNA Wrestling than anything. So that's kind of where I'm at. I still watch every show and I hope for it to get better. There are we love the pay per views. There are some of my favorite wrestlers in the world on that show, like Will Osprey, Swerve Strickling right now, those are some of my favorite stars to watch. But it's like, you know, I could go and I could watch the Will Ostpray match and not necessarily be invested in the whole show. So I'm at a viewership crossroads. Doctor trep. I don't know how you feel about AAW. Maybe you're there too. Maybe you've already been there, maybe you've cut the cord on them, or maybe you're enjoying what your thoughts on aw and this viewership crossroads I'm in. Yeah, no, I've I've already passed that mark.

34:07 Like I don't watch Dynamite every single week if it's it. It's one of those shows now where it's like, oh, if I'm home and it's on and you know it's not going to inconvenience anybody else in the house, I'll sit and watch it or watch it as much as I can, because there's been times I've started got about forty five minutes into it was just like, man, this show's awful, and turn it off. And you're absolutely right. Like as you were saying it, I was thinking of, like, what kind of comparison could I have? Like the n Ring matches are phenomenal, Like those guys Bell to Bell in the Ring are great. It's all the stuff outside of it, the booking, the creative I mean hell to a degree that production at times as well is just not good. And it's like okay, if I have a restaurant with a food is fantastic, but the buildings falling down to the wait staff is horrible? Am I gonna keep eating there regardless of how good the food is? And that's kind of how I feel to aw Like. I'm like, yeah, like I can watch We'll Ospray and Bryan Danielson go tear it Up, or Copeland and Malachi Black or whoever's going on right now. I can watch those matches and just ignore everything else. I'm like and be entertained by the wrestling matches, But dear God, everything else around it right now is just not good. And I'm trying to say it as nicely as I can, but you know, I was. I use it. I relate that wrestling to the soap opers

35:38 because that's what my grandmother got me into wrestling, But she's also who got me into Days of Our Lives. I can flip on Days of Our Lives. I haven't watched it Days of our Lives in probably seven years. I can flip it on and still kind of figure out what's going on with the show. The characters are pretty stable for the most part. You know, you kind of know who the good guys are, who the bad guys are. Kind of watch it from afar and still get the gist. Of the story, where right now with AW you missed two weeks of it and not see anything about it. You flip back on you're like, wait, what happened here? It's like everything's different, and it's all over the place, and there's no consistency to anything going on outside of the ring. And I know there's a lot of younger wrestling fans out there that like, I just want Bell to Bell. I just want the great wrestling. But the great wrestling has to have a story to it to make it to make you a lifelong fan, you know, go back to the Attitude era or days like that. It's like, yeah, like the wrestling was fun back then, but it was all the craziness that was going on around it, which is what hooks people like you know, like Jeff and me to stick around for the next thirty years, or pro wrestling. It was all the other stuff.

36:50 It was Austin the beer trock or the d X Express exploding or all these different little things that happened where you're like, oh my god, I never thought i'd see that on TV. It is what made you tune in the next week. If I I've always said, like, if it came down to just wrestling, you know, wrestling action for a product that I know is scripted for lack of a better term, I can just watch UFC and watch two girl men actually fight and beat the hell of each other. Wrestling is simulated combat, but you need the story too. I always tell people it's soap operas with stuntmen, and right now it is so all over the place and just bad at times. Like the only thing that makes that show any better now than what WCW was in two thousand and one is the entering action. Everything else going on around it is really reminiscent of how bad WCW got it again. Yeah, it's and this hasn't been something that came out of nowhere. I think is As a fan of AW, I was like really trying to think about when I would be like the most excited and in tune to everything that was going on AW. And I would say when it launched in twenty nineteen till about September twenty twenty one, coming out of all in, excuse me, all out, I always get those two mixed up. All Out twenty twenty one when Punk made his return and we were like, I think that's one of the best shows we ever recovered. It is. It's one of the best shows top to bottom we ever covered,

38:20 Like Adam Cole debuted, Danielson debuted, and it was a historic show. I think it's one of, if not their best pay per view they've ever done. And then it just slowly went downhill from there. Now it's not all just bad creative. They have had some really bad luck. The Adam Cole MJS stuff went to hell in a handbasket very fast, And it's to the point now where it is such a long time ago now that even if MJF came back tomorrow, I don't know if I would give a shit about this entire storyline, because they took him out in late December. Cole had Adam Cole had that freak injury that has sidelined him this entire time. I know he's walking now, but he hasn't been on television for a little bit.

39:13 MJF reportedly ended up having to get surgery. I think he was in like a comic con recently, in a sling, So he may be off for another let's say, three to six months, And at that point are people got to really care about what happened in December twenty twenty three, and that was the biggest storyline they were pushing. You know, they're pushing Kenny Omega and Chris Jericho as a tag team, and you know, Kenny Omega gets diveticulitis and nearly dies from it, and it's like terrible timing and he may not be back anytime soon. He's due to get some surgery. Obviously, there's a lot of kfabe and a lot of the news reporting and whatever, and it's like, okay, this is a little bit, you know, could it could it could? Or could it not happened? Because I thought Darby Allen was gonna be out for a while, and he came out at the end of Dynamite on Wednesday night and he'll be in the anarchy in the Arena match. And of course the Eddie Kingston injury is another piece of bad luck Powerhouse Ops another piece of bad luck in their sense. So they've been snake binn. But there's some other things. It's Tony Kahan as an owner, I mean him coming out and calling WWE the god. Who's that disgraced movie director whose name is escaping me right now? Doctor Treystein Harvey Weinstein, a professional wrestling like Tony Kahan can knock out out of his own way.

40:34 He went from like this lovable owner who helped revitalize professional wrestling to this person who and this is not going to ever win me a job in aw now frankly may or may not be because we don't know the inner workings of All Eite Wrestling. Should not be in the position that he is as head of creative because it is lacking consistency, it's lacking organization, it's lacking focus, and it's not making me interested in the matches. Because if they're not going to put out good TV products, then just run as a pay per view company once a month like the old school indies used to do, like roh and hype it up from show to show in between on the YouTube channels or whatever. So you know, I don't think he should be in that space, and I think he's went from likable to not so likable. I think the honeymoon phase of All Wrestling has finally completely whittled away, and I think all the good collateral that they had as launching as a company putting out good programming has eroded away as well. Doctor Trey I don't think that there's anything left in that anymore like it used to be. It's Dynamite is an okay show. It's a show that you can watch all the others. It's like interchangeable. I mean, they had a Brian Keith Drake match, and I find those guys to be great workers, but it was like a very quick match on Collision and not that great. Meanwhile, it's like, I

42:07 don't want to miss Collision because then I'll miss Dax's hard Word versus Dynamite Kid Tommy Billington, which was a great match. You know. It's it's like I I continue to hope that I'm going to get the best out of ELID Wrestling, and it's reaching the point where when we had this discussion about continuing forward the show, and I'm like, man, one way, that would, you know, leave a lot of tension off my shoulders if I removed six hours of aw from my viewership each week and we just kind of focused on and when necessary and or as need be, and I kind of gave up as a diehard fan. I don't want to get there, Doctor Trey, but I think I would be doing disservice to myself as a wrestling fan if I didn't at least consider it. Yeah, there are times watching this, I mean I compared to w C everybody really reminds me more of what was it two thousand eleven twenty ten WWE when everybody was out injured the show.

43:05 I mean we were focusing on like Luther Rains and Nathan Jones and those guys. It was like, man, this show has got awful, Like and you and I always sit there and go, do we need to get doing the podcast because right now I'm not enjoying it And right now the saving grace is that the other companies doing fantastic, so it keeps you around as a wrestling fan. But yeah, I mean they AW from top to bottom has more talent than WWE. But in the constant changing of storylines or the non continuation or the start stops or things like that, like it drives me nuts, like not to mention, like you know, we get this Swarves Trickman Christian case for you. There are two of my favorite performers in the world, and yet you know we haven't seen some moo Joseph he lost the belt that seldom happens in WWE. Maybe a Roman reigns, Roman loses the wrestle, and we haven't seen him since. He's still is his name is still a factor though in the programming. You know, it's just like, oh he lost the belt, you know, just forget about that. I pay no attention to to someone behind the curtain, so to speak. It's just that. And then you got the stuff with with Jericho, where one week is the baby face, he's a heel, he's bad. Like this constant switching back and forth. It's like the entire show is big show.

44:24 The entire show is basically guys are switching back and forth for the sake of switching back and forth. The only thing, I mean that really has kept me around has been how entertaining Swerve is. But then again, I liked him better as a heel. And a little bit of the Nick Jackson Mad Jackson stuff with the EVP stuff, because I'm just like, it's so corny, it's bad, but it's entertaining at the same time. So but really everything else, like you just you can't, you can't hold on to any one thing. It's you know, even w c W. The bad days you had the you know, you had the the Loocha division. You know, like, okay, well the top of the car is horrible. At least we get psychosis and Dean Malenko this week. You know, it's just everything else that you really want to sink your teeth into. Every time you get ready to take a good bite, they ink that plate away and give you something else, and you're like, it's not what I want to guys.

45:15 It's just it's just too all over the place right now for me to really just embrace fully again. Yeah, it's it's lack of consistency. It's Ward Low's a focal point number one contender, then he disappears. It's like, how did we get here? But just basically put him on the shelf again. Ricky Starks was one of the most red heart hot stars of the company last summer, and he's completely off TV. He says he's not injured. He doesn't know why he's off TV. That could be a little bit of k fape for all we know. But yeah, I mean it's just all around confusing time and time again and the lack of consistency. And I think one of the things too, is there major storyline this whole Young Bucks Okada Jungle Boy stuff is. I'm having a real tough time getting behind it.

46:01 And I was the one a couple of weeks ago that was so optimistic because the angle that they executed in Jacksonville had a lot of promise, and I felt like the last couple of weeks it's kind of been lacking a little bit, and I think part of the reason is is and this was before all this, but I had a really tough time Doctor DREI taking Jungle Boy seriously, even now working as the heel him pouring the drake Antoni Shavanni's head the other night, Like he comes off as a prick, as a dicks, like someone you want to beat up, But like I legitimately think that if I got in a tussle with him and he may still win at the end of the day, that I would have a fighting chance against him. I really believe that footage from all in them airing it did not put Jungle Boy Jack Perry in a good light. He looked like a punk, He got punked out. Why would I ever think that that is someone who is a viable and suitable heel position, somebody that can like take it to the baby faces and be a fighter I just don't see it. And I'm not one of those guys that likes to talk about size and strength and whatever.

47:13 But you've got the young bucks who are not the most biggest guys in the world, but they do a really good job of playing off of this EVP like dick attitude, as does Jack Perry do a degree, and Okata even doesn't like really intimidate me. And they're the top faction, and I almost want to see them throw their power around a little bit more on television rather than like their physicality, because that is where it's going to be, is like throw the power around a little bit more. That angle they ran with the Christopher Daniels far in him was pretty good, but I wish that that built up a lot more than the last four or five days from Collision to Dynamite, like really kind of start playing those seeds of Christopher Daniels is cutting you know, their cutting packages. Weeks before that, he really needed this job. He was at a crossroads his family. He did know if you needed to retire from wrestling, and then aaw came along, offered in this position and has revitalized his career. His love of rest and all that stuff, and then weeks later that's where this Angle plays out and they fire him pull on the emotional strings. Why is WWE so good right now? They're pulling on the emotional strings. They're having good matches, but everything between the emotions there in just AAW. It's just like really good matches, no other emotion, And I think that's very much showcasing. And if they don't start turning the corridor a little bit, it's just gonna be nothing but a niche product, and it's gonna be wcwesque Doctor Trey. It is very similar crossroads as I was in in the late nineties early two thousands when I stopped watching

48:45 WCW, and it's it's TNA ish in a way as well. TNA and some of the best matches in professional wrestling from two thousand to twenty fifteen, but nobody gave a shit because they weren't watching the show. Do you got to be like a die hard to go watch Kurt Angle and Samo Joe tear it up in two thousand and six A pound for LORI like you needed to do that stuff, and AW could be setting themselves up that way, with the only exception being that they have a national television contract, so interesting times ahead to hear. I'm gonna hold out a little bit more, Doctor Trey and hope for the best. But I mean, I'm in the crossroads of my viewership and it and like you said earlier on, I think you're already there. Yeah, this I'll I'll put it this way. This is preparing you for fatherhood, Jeff, because when the baby comes, there's gonna be a lot of shit you have to deal with. And so by you sticking to this, you're going to deal a lot of shit from aw well said.

49:45 I think that is a well said way of putting it all together, Doctor Trey speaking of television deals. So despite the viewership, despite the attendance. According to fight Ful Select, this comes to us via wrestling purists on Twitter quote. The announcement of a new AW slash WBD Warner Brothers Discovery deal is expected to be kept very close to the vest and summer fall could be a more likely announcement point. The excluvity window between AW Warner Brothers Discovery continues into the summer, though affirm date on when that ends is not known. WBD sources spoken to had indicated that WBD had interest in adding AW pay per views to the Max slate for quite some time, thank god. They also note that the two sides have been in talks for quite some time about what a deal would look like, with some proposals being made as far back as last year. So TNT, TBS, they may be losing the NBA Doctor Trey, but it looks like for everybody who is hating on AW or worried about them, that AW staying on TNT and TBS is something that will continue on for a little bit of time. Still. Well, I mean, you have all these platforms out there, the first three, whether it's the Max deal or you know, Discovery Plus or Netflix, who they're all of you for content and if you can provide enough content and original content, your your commodity, so as bad as the product may be. And and you

51:17 know, in all honestly, most of those people at Warner Broad Discovery don't watch wrestling. Uh. They just see a bunch of content that's available for them to put on their platforms and hopefully increase you know, viewership on those platforms. I mean, I have we have MAX here at the house. It's because we got it through at and T. When we sign of an AT and T, it gave us Max for free. So it's like, sure, if there's something on Max that I'll watch, and I watch an occasionly because there's a lot of the DC cartoons are on there, which is nice to watch when you're laid up in bed. You know, you get a reason to tune it in. So, uh, content is king, as somebody once said, and they have a bunch of content. Because if they're aready doing six hours of programming now, and they've talked about doing some more reality style shows, they'd be a commodity for any of these streaming platforms.

52:09 And you know, ww's already kind of leveraged, you know, Warner Brothers last year, which is what kind of stopped the talks because they were trying to leverage that into their TV deal. So it makes a lot of sense if your Warner Bros. To move a commodity that has six to eight hours of live programming every week to your streaming platform to get more to get more viewers to come to that direction. So there you go. Some news there that looks like AW will be staying on Warner Brothers Discovery barring any changes. We'll obviously keep an eye on that throughout the summer. But yeah, I'm excited if they go to Max because I would buy If it's similar to the way that they're distributing wepl's on Peacock, where you buy Peacock and you watch the pay per views, I'm in. If it's like you got to buy Max and then buy the pay per views on your own for like another price, It's like, is it really worth worth of doing that? It's got to be one stop shop for me. I mean, you've got to be competitive with what WWE is doing. I mean, the PA perview distribution is not what it used to be. So we'll keep an eye on on where things go for all lad Wrestling heading into the summer months with Warren Brothers Discovery is something that will be keeping a close eye on. Despite everything I said earlier, I obviously want aw to continue to succeed and keeping them on war Brother's Discovery does add some much needed in the professional wrestling market. So I also don't want to lose the fact that despite all everything that we're saying, as we've learned with WE that you really, you know, it doesn't

53:40 take much to revitalize the product, so AW certainly has the opportunity to do that last thing I want to talk about here, Doctor Trey on this week's sedition of the podcast, because we had a little bit of time from downtime. Next week will preview predict King and Queen of the Ring plus double or nothing. Who right now, when you look at w W and you look at AW, tell me who you consider the core of the companies to be. It doesn't have to be any amount of number. You don't have to be like, I think it's these four guys and girls. It's this five guys and girls. When you look at both companies right now, who in your eyes is the core for each? Oh that's going for w W.

54:22 Let's see, I probably go Cody Seth, Drew, Damian Priest as the top four core guys. The girls are probably it's probably Becky Rhea, Charlotte Bailey, and they're building off of that. That's probably my WWE core. AW. That's tricky because probably a swerve obviously he's the Champ, Danielson, Copeland, and I guess the bucks we're probably in my core a W guys girls, I'm still I'm still searching on that one. I have no I mean the people I was able with Corey. He was you know, we was seeing Britt Baker and almost a year now, so but that's probably who I think I would think my core is for those two shows. I think the only changes I would made make to your list. I thought the women was spot on. I think I would maybe add Bianca to that group as well, because I think you said Bria, Becky, Charlotte Bailey, right, yeah, that's of course. If I was wasn't gonna have a numbers, I was just like, yeah, there's four, there makes five out.

55:39 That's not just core I think of pillars. I would think of four, that's why. And I think I may swap Damian Priest out with Roman still, even though Roman's not a round. Yeah that was I was gonna say Roman, but you know, we don't know how long he's going to be away for, so that's kind of where Roman, if he's an obviously takes Damien's spots, but with him not being around right now, it's kind of what I had Damien in that spot. And then on the a W side, I would add Moxley. Yeah, he's he is the workhorse of that show. So I think cause the hell he's the what he wrestles in, Like, he wrestles everywhere all the time. So yeah, Moxley's definitely in that conversation. And then the only one that I would say, and this is kind of like Damian Priest for w A, is would you consider Ospray in that spot right now too? On the on the core of AW?

56:34 Not yet. I think he's getting closer, but that's like saying, you know, to me, Osprey and o'cata in the same spot. You know, it's like there, you know, we already know their history, but what have they really done so far in AW? Like Ospra had a great match and then they threw into that other weird match and then now he's got the match with Roderick Strawn coming up. It's like, it's give give me a reason. So you see that he's once again featured as the top guy. Like everybody else I mentioned has been featured as a top guy. He hasn't been featured as a top guy yet in the AW women's division. I could not agree more. I mean, that is such a crap shoot and that's sad. Yeah, because right now, like as I'm sitting here on Tony Stars the Women's champion and blows the TBS champion. Yeah, that correct, Okay, and the TBS titles getting been featured almost more than the women's title because Mercedes Monet's and like in that thing, and like, it's just kind of a train wreck in the women's division right now. And that's been one of the issues with AW in general. Yeah, I mean, and that was a company that when they launched Doctor Trey, I really thought that the especially the tag team division and the women's division would be competitive, if not better than WA, and they are lacking in both when compared to w A. Yeah, it's it's crazy when you look at all the tag

58:04 teams that are available in AW and shit, I'm trying to think of who the tag team champions are right now. A young Bucks. Oh yeah, okay, so the Bucks thing gets right, I forgot, but yeah, but realistically, I mean, you and I were this when AW longs. We're like, man, you got the Bucks, you got the Lucha Bros, you got FTR, you all these tag teams are available, and you know, it's like and not to mention like some of the young tag teams, like how hot the Guns were at one point. Yeah, how hot these teams were. I mean the Acclaimed was the most overact in pro wrestling for about three months and then just disappeared basically. I mean, I know they're around, but they're not nearly the level they were at last year.

58:45 So that just you think if you want to be an alternative, focus on the areas that the other show's not focusing on, and you can make headways, yeah, it's it's now, So there you go. Free to chime in on Twitter at sr to You podcast or on Facebook, Facebook dot com slash the Storrealtest Show. With that said, let's close up shop on episode umber seven hundred and forty four for May sixteen, twenty twenty four. With a couple plugs and sponsors. You can down on the show every Thursday or Friday at Real Guy Radio dot com, wrestle chatnett on X, and the Stero Realtest Show iTunes feed, don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to a US climb the charts on iTunes. You can follow us individually on X for myself at SRTU Jeff and for Doctor Trey Franklin d Doctor Trey and of course don't forget to follow a show on x at SRTU podcast. With that being said, what's going on the one ful world of Dot Tray Franklin this week? Well, like Jeff said, you can follow me on x at the Doctor Trey. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram Doctor Tray Franklin, Well you're on Facebook. Don't forget to check out Rock and City Championship Wrestling as Wrestling Con seven is coming up this Saturday, highlighted by Super Crazy against Chase Owens is one of our headline matches. I'm really excited to see that match. But also check us parton Championship Wrestling, the other show I work with here in Alabama. But more importantly, go ahead check out your local independent wrestling show so you can find those guys at AW will end up bearing in the bomb with the roster at some point in the near future.

1:00:13 So there you go. Support all the right things that support the st real do this show and thank you for downloading again. Thank you so much for making us part of your week. If you can, please, if you haven't done it ever, please give us a rate review, subscribe wherever you download this show. If you are a longtime listener, first time listener, listener for the last couple of months. Hit us up on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash to rail the show, or on Twitter at Sarto Podcast dm us dm US message us, let us know what you like about the show, what you don't like about the show, the feedback in general, so that we can make this show better. And we appreciate the support. So it's a lot of crazy times ahead for us, both prefer personally and professionally. And you know, we want to keep the show going. We want to keep talking professional wrestling with all of you each and every week and with one another because we enjoy doing it. So thank you for supporting us.

1:01:07 Go out there and please continue to do that, spread the word about SRTU and until next week when we preview and predict King and Queen of the Ring and double or nothing for Doctor Trey Franklin. I'm Jeff Pack. This is this surreal of this show.