Welcome to the “Brock Lesnar fell” edition of The Wrestling List. That was quite the viral moment last night! He went to do his pose for his pyro and down he went. I’ve watched it so many times and I can’t quit laughing. It’s fun to watch the reactions around him. Heyman just stood stoic but did start laughing as Brock got up laughing too. He then put the cowboy hat on to Bron Breaker to which I’m wondering if Bron was trying not to break. I don’t know if many saw it happen live as the heel team seemed to mostly have their back to him. It was quite the moment last night. Between this and him ripping his pants on the R Truth F5 months ago, Brock is having quite the return. LOL
Let’s start with Smackdown last week as it had things happen to set up the women’s War Games cage match. The show closed with Rhea Ripley, Iyo Sky, Alexa Bliss, and Charlotte Flair in the ring with Rhea announcing their fifth team member which is AJ Lee. As AJ makes her appearance on the ramp, the heels attack from behind in the ring. AJ runs down to help out and she gets blindsided in the aisle by Becky Lynch. The heels beat down the baby faces and we have our fifth members on each team now with AJ and Becky. Carmelo Hayes defeated Bronson Reed to move on in the John Cena tournament. Penta defeated Finn Balor to also move on in the tournament. Really loved the segment with Chelsea Green hurrying into her locker room to escape Kiana and letting Alba handle the door for her. Chelsea walks back out when things are clear saying she’s holding off the championship celebration for tonight saying fans deserve the best for the best champion. Jade Cargill overhears this stepping in saying what is that about the best champion. Chelsea stops and gets panicked walking off saying she has to go take care of a thing. LOL. Chelsea just really is a MVP. She knocks anything she’s given out of the park.
This week’s Raw kept the build going for Survivor Series with mostly brawls between the War Games match opponents. The men trash talked of who the leader of the team is between Punk, Cody, and Roman. The Usos avoided it basically saying while you all battle that out, we’re going to go win the match tonight for the advantage in War Games. It would be the Usos against Logan Paul and Drew McIntyre to determine that. Logan pulls out the win for the team meaning they will have the advantage for Survivor Series. This is when everyone got involved at the end including Brock falling with his appearance. The women also had a segment where Becky talked trash including really on her own team and then the baby face team came out with AJ doing the talking for them. Rhea then got the brawl started with a microphone punch. The women all brawl to finish their segment. The John Cena tournament matches had Gunther defeating Carmelo Hayes. Penta was hurt in his match against Solo. Penta did a rana off the barricade on to Solo on the floor injuring his shoulder. The match was stopped with Solo getting the victory.
Other notes from Raw. I laughed at the spot where Rhea went to talk and then just threw a microphone punch. I’ll always pop for a good live mic punch sound. LOL. Since they’ve been adding an extra War Games match to Survivor Series having men and women, it has made the advantage thing matter again. I say that because remember that there was a time back in the early old school days of War Games that the face team NEVER won the coin toss at ringside. It’s hard to build a story where the baby face team has the one up advantage throughout. The heels need an advantage and give the baby faces something to overcome. Now, you can’t just have the magic of the heels always are one up so you have to then find a way to be creative with it where the babyface team does go up but have a compelling story.
Surprise podcast this week popping up with AJ Lee being the guest on the newest Stephanie McMahon podcast. I have watched about half of it and am about to get to the rest of it. Really good podcast. They started the podcast off with the elephant in the room with their Twitter moment back in 2015. Stephanie said that AJ had agreed to do the podcast but with the terms of talking about that topic. Back in 2015, Stephanie had posted a Patricia Arquette quote from an awards show where Patricia was talking about how there should be equal pay with men and women. AJ Lee saw that and responded back to it and here was the Twitter exchange.
On the podcast, they discussed the topic with AJ saying “the first thing I thought was people are gonna think that we’re gonna glaze past it or not address it… It’s an elephant in the room, but it’s something I feel like, in a weird way, we’re both kind of proud of, like, how far we’ve come. And so long time ago, the women’s division was in a different spot. And it felt like an uphill battle a lot of the time. And I was one of the first people really fighting for it quite vocally. And I think when you are sort of the first to do something, you get hurt storming the gates. It’s a little rougher, but I think it’s worth it cause it opens the path for people that come behind you. I think a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, I have no filter, so it’s an excuse for being rude.’ But I think you can be direct, but very practical. And so I felt like it was coming from a practical place, very direct, but I also… was a bit like, I ain’t got nothing to lose right now.” Stephanie appreciated this saying back “the courage that it took to fight for what you believed in. And, you know, the fact that you really were a different character than any type of stereotype, like, you came out of nowhere, and the audience loved you from the start. I mean, they really did. They just connected with you in such a special and unique way. So, and I appreciate your directness. I’m a direct person as well. I’m sure some people think I’m rude but I don’t mean to be, like, to your point. I just, I hate all the BS. Like, let’s just have the conversation. But I was actually happy that you posted that. I wasn’t happy that it was directed at me because it wasn’t anything I had direct control over. But I was really happy that you did, because that movement, the whole women’s evolution in WWE, it didn’t happen because of executives, or it didn’t happen because maybe along the way, you know, people voicing their opinions, but it really happened because of the women who paved the way all the way back to the beginning of all of these incredible women who have been inside the squared circle no matter what promotion they were in. But then for our audience, when they started the hashtag Give Divas A Chance at that time, that’s what couldn’t be ignored. And the audience would never have gotten behind the movement if it weren’t for people like you.” AJ and Stephanie had such a great discussion talking about topics from wrestling to AJ’s life growing up and to mental health. AJ is of course a huge mental health advocate which she speaks across the country about mental health and the importance of it. She talks about this in her book which is an awesome read if you’ve never read it. Crazy Is My Superpower which is highly recommended by me. AJ talked to Stephanie about the struggles of poverty that she grew up with as she had very young parents who were doing what they could and they often lived in their car. At one point, they lived next to a Dunkin Donuts who knew that they were living out there. At the end of the night instead of throwing food in the dumpster, they’d give any leftover food to them. Sometimes all she had to eat all day was a muffin that she got at the end of the day from Dunkin Donuts and she was so thankful for that muffin. She worked as a janitor at 14 to help pay bills for the family as it was a full family effort with all of them to combine forces to try and help pay bills. She said that she knew it was going to be on her to be successful to take care of the whole family. She did very well in school and was super focused on that. She talked of how she didn’t have a notebook so she would go to the library and tear out the first page of the dictionaries because it was blank. She would then staple all the blank pages together and that would be her notebook so she could use it for school. Wrestling, comic books, and video games were her escape. She loved all of them cause she could go into that universe and get away from her every day struggles. She talks of meeting Lita and they showed the famous video of young AJ sobbing meeting Lita at a meet and greet. She said Lita was so nice to her that day and it meant the world to her and it could have been a crossroads of sorts for her. She said what if Lita had been mean and then it made her hate wrestling and she doesn’t end up liking wrestling anymore. Instead it fueled her. She mentioned watching herself that that girl probably hadn’t eaten that day. Her and Steph both say this is why you go with the “you never know what someone is going through” way of life. AJ said she takes this into her own meet and greets saying that these people travel from all over just to meet her and talk to her for two minutes. She wants that two minutes to be the best two minutes she can give fans. She talked about her early days of FCW and the NXT competition show. She mentioned Beth Phoenix and Layla helping her including Layla helping her dress better as she didn’t really know how. Maria training with her in FCW and then when she saw Maria later, Maria said hey, I know her, I trained with her! AJ said that meant so much that she actually remembered her. Lots of great discussion here on this podcast including so much on her mental health journey which is such an important thing to listen to for anyone else that might be struggling as well. You can watch the interview here which I highly recommend. https://youtu.be/xGjKoYIzKdc?si=zvWzHWvocMyTzxrW
WWE sent out an email today saying that individual event WrestleMania tickets go on sale on Black Friday and that they were giving away a complimentary limited edition WrestleMania shirt to people buying. They need to give away a complimentary house with those ticket prices. LOL
Closing out this week to definitely mention the passing of an all time legendary announcer, Bob Caudle. He passed away at the age of 95 last week. My first memories of Bob Caudle are as a kid watching WCW for the first time in the late 80’s. He is the voice of so many of my early kid memories of WCW and also my favorite WCW year ever which is 1989. I loved the pairing of him and Jim Ross on commentary. Over the years, I’ve gone back and watched a lot of older content seeing him on Mid Atlantic wrestling doing commentary and interviews. Just so great in his role. Roddy Piper was also a fun pairing with him there in Mid Atlantic. NWA footage with Dusty and so many great moments in the NWA have his voice on it. In a time where people love ranking anything and everything, I always like when I see Bob Caudle mentioned in announcer lists cause he deserves it. There are times where I don’t feel like he gets mentioned enough for being one of the all time greats and he absolutely is in that category.
Hope everyone has a very happy Thanksgiving!!
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