The Top Guys
A pop culture podcast. Devon Sanders, Chris James Scott, and Omar K. Mills discuss what is best in life.
The Top Guys
Maybe It Was Always Trash? (Part 2)
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In this episode of The Top Guys Podcast, Devon kicks things off by revisiting Friends and realizing the laugh track may have been doing a whole lot of community service. From there, he somehow pitches the gritty Phoebe prequel nobody asked for—but honestly, we kind of need now.
Chris then commits podcast crimes by questioning Eddie Murphy's "Boomerang." We don't know him.
Then Omar takes the conversation into wrestling, arguing that the TKO era of WWE may have revealed something ugly: the joy is being squeezed out of a family-friendly wrestling tradition in favor of corporate extraction, higher prices, and a product that feels less accessible than it used to.
It’s nostalgia, accountability, bad endings, corporate nonsense, and three friends asking whether some of the things we loved were actually good… or if we were just younger.
Maybe it was always trash?
Can we give a shout out to that soundtrack?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Yeah, I it Tony Braxton loves it. It might be the greatest soundtrack hot specs. I'm still mad that that track does not appear in the movie.
SPEAKER_02There you go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, let me know. Into the road.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Little Rashawn Sunshine in that movie.
SPEAKER_02Man. Shoot, maybe that's another episode. Quintessential black films. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02We need to do that one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That would be in that.
SPEAKER_00100%.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And that ain't a movie that you can watch if you're under a certain age. I don't think. I don't think I would have been able to understand what was going on that movie in 1992 at all. Like I wouldn't have been able to bang with that. Like, what the hell's going on? There are no demons. There's no cop chases. Boo. Boo. Boo.
SPEAKER_02No one's pulling out their boobies. Boo.
SPEAKER_00The ending of boomerang was always trash. Yeah. And I can't disagree. 90s me was just too busy thinking about Anel sitting next to me in the coat. I didn't have deep thoughts about the film.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wait. Deep deep thoughts. There you go. Oh ho. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Damn, that's such a good song. Let's go.
SPEAKER_00High sack should have been on in the film in the film. That's my only beef with the soundtrack, is that that was it's on the soundtrack, but not in the movie.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But that was Tribe at their at the peak of their power.
SPEAKER_02I think they just dropped the second album. Why am I blanking on it?
SPEAKER_00Fun fact it came out after Boomerang. Oh. It came out Tribe's third album. Because their first album was People's Instinctive Travel that had Left My Wallet and El Sagundo. One of the greatest albums ever made was Low End Theory. That is Yeah, Low End Theory is their second album. It is a classic. It is, there are no notes. So this came out between what? Low End Theory. Came out between Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders because Midnight Marauders dropped the same day. Fun fact, dropped the same day as 36 Chambers, Wu Tang's first album. Yes. Those two albums came out the exact same day, and it is a the greatest days of ever in the history of anything.
SPEAKER_02And actually, I I have another one for you. These three albums dropped on the same day. Tribe Call Quest, The Low End Theory, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magic, and Nirvana's Nevermind.
SPEAKER_00All dropped on the same Wow. Did not know that. Yeah. I knew they came out the same. We were just, we didn't know how good we had it, man. We really didn't know.
SPEAKER_02We really didn't.
SPEAKER_00Low End Theory was the soundtrack of my life during because I was at Maryland. I think I'm a sophomore at Maryland at the time. And that is, I listened to that and I listened to Black Sheep's album on loop. That was all I listened to. Native tongues. Like, and this was while Nirvana's and Red Eye Chili Peppers is out, and I just I'm so into tribe and black sheep that I'm not even I don't have the space to appreciate anything else at that at that time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The things I think I was bypassing to get to the things I liked, or better yet, new, just makes me shudder.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's like there was sound guarding out there in that world.
SPEAKER_00There was hell man, Radiohead, which I didn't discover till I was a grown, grown man. Right. Like I discovered Radiohead. What was it? The I can't even remember the first. Like, if they were on the at the end of their run, this would have been when did the last album come out, Devon? You didn't know this.
SPEAKER_0210 years. Ten years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so about 2014. I forget the name.
SPEAKER_01I don't even remember the name of the album, but Tom Brook Publicist, Devon Sanders.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That was the first time. Now, mind you, when I say this, I had heard Radiohead, but I didn't know. I was listening to Radiohead. You can't live during their era and not have heard their music in the same way that people look at me and they go, You don't know any YouTube songs? And I'm like, not really. You know, and then they'll sing them and I'll go, Oh, I know that. And they go, Yeah, fool, you know YouTube. Yeah, shut up. You know, it's kind of where. So Radiohead for me was that, but I'm discovering and appreciating it now because it's licensed everywhere. You can't turn on an episode of Invincible and not hear a Radiohead song or anything that Disney Plus is doing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Daredevil Born Again.
SPEAKER_00Daredevil just had it on. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02With one of the most heartwracking radiohead songs of all time, Pyramid Song. Where it's like, if you're playing that song, call somebody.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02Like call somebody.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, that's when they played that on that final episode. I was like, oh, you know what's hit the fan. It's not going to get any better from here, y'all.
SPEAKER_00I got one.
SPEAKER_02All right, what you got, Omar? Let's go.
SPEAKER_00All right. So, in the same way, I'm a I'm a body surf off of what Chris just did in terms of the ending. I don't want to say that the totality of this thing was always trash. But the things that are trash like are starting to surface. And I think it'll make sense as I set it up, and it'll make sense as I get into it. I'm going to go ahead and say that the TKO era of WWE may have always been trash.
SPEAKER_02It is trash.
SPEAKER_00And I'm going to say that because if you now what's fueling this, if you Christophon, if I if I say to you, I want to have an agreement that we're going to do X, Y, and Z, and I'm going to pay you X amount of dollars to keep this agreement. And we will sign this agreement for five years. And then a year later, I say, hey, you know what? I know we we have about four years left on this deal. But yeah, I'm not going to do that now. I want to renegotiate that deal for like five bucks. What do y'all think? And y'all say, nah, man, we negotiated millions of dollars. We can't do this for five dollars. And I go, I know, but I need a a sweeter deal for me so that I can get these bonuses. Right. You know, and so what y'all think? And y'all are like, all right, well, we're going to bounce. And to me, if you can do that with people that have been working for your company for, I don't know, 16 years and made you all kinds of money, you might be trash to me.
SPEAKER_01See, that's the thing. Yeah. It's not their company. They're the new, they're the new assholes here.
SPEAKER_00Hmm. I did not think I would miss Vince McMahon.
SPEAKER_03Oh.
SPEAKER_00I really didn't. And I hate myself for saying that.
SPEAKER_02But you know what? I know what you're saying. I get I get it. Yeah. Yeah. Like where he wanted families to be able to walk in and be able to afford to be there, buy the t-shirts, and walk out and watch the show and rent and repeat. TKO is this, it is a private equity company in charge of something that people are are still remembering as an entertainment company, a thing that puts on a show. And we were Omar and I were talking about something, and we were talking about something where it it used to be about walking in with joy, and now it is about dividends. That is exactly what TKO is now. It is a company that is it cares nothing about the actual product. It just cares about what they can pull out of it now. Like there's absolutely no joy in anything. None.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it kills me because you have there are bright spots. They're mushroom belts, as there were. You know, right? It's like it's yeah, you got Oba Femi. It's like, wow, man, that's that's a heck of a mushroom belt right there. I I'm I I'd wear that belt. Right. I like that. Oba Femi's amazing. Yeah. You get those kind of stories coming out of it. You got that Bianca just came back, but we ain't gonna have her for a minute because again, you know, obviously the pregnancy.
SPEAKER_01The true villain Montez Ford.
SPEAKER_00Yes. I'm looking at Yeah, he's the true villain. You're absolutely right.
SPEAKER_02Him and Jimmy Uso Jimmy Uso, yeah. Yeah, Jim, him and Jimmy Uso.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I look at where at the opportunities that people of color are getting, and I get I get distracted by that. And what brings what snaps me back to life is the fact that the new day had to dip, that you would do the dirty like that. Like it's a I can't unsee that.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00It's a when I look at that, and it's funny, I was thinking about that. Netflix just released a Hulk Hogan documentary. Yeah. And it is I remain to this day angry at Hulk Hogan for the foolishness that makes me not be able to love him the way I did as a kid. That's that's really my beef with him. It's it's like, dude, man, your actions rob me of a hero of my my childhood. It would be like if I, you know, saw He-Man smoking crack. Like it's it's literally that. Like, He-Man, come on, man. You know Crack is whack.
SPEAKER_02I was talking to a coworker. He said it perfectly. He said, It hurt because I found out Hulk Hogan was Terry Boleya.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02I was like, damn, that's exactly it.
SPEAKER_00That's 100%. That's it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00He's not Hulk Hogan. He's Terry Boleya.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it's just like Terry.
SPEAKER_00And I can't separate the two. I can't.
SPEAKER_02And it's like, yeah, you know, it's like, it's you feel 100% grateful for the time where it was like, I really wanted to like say my prayers, and I was taking my vitamins. And, you know, you had me believing that I could be a real American, and you know, no matter what hit me, I could like hulk up and come and overcome it.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And then you find out that the guy behind it was a trash human. Yeah. Yeah. Like whatever, like union busting.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02Like racist.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_02Just, you know, always like Undertaker had a great story where he was talking about where they wrestled a match. And for those who don't know, the Undertaker's signature move is a tombstone pile driver. It's this move where he basically flips a man upside down, puts him between his knees, and the Undertaker's almost seven feet tall. So he can position it properly so that he cannot hurt you. He'll basically take the impact of the thing on his own knees. Hulk Hogan is wrestling the Undertaker. Hogan at this point is like a 10-year veteran or something. Undertaker is new to the WWE and is an up-and-coming talent. Undertaker puts him in a signature move. The the tombstone pile driver hits Hogan with it. And Hogan is on the ground, and he could have put this man over cleanly. But he says to him, I think you broke my neck, brother. And the Undertaker is freaking out in the ring, but can't show it because his gimmick is undead zombie. Because he's like, I think I've just killed like the WWE's golden goose, the greatest man in wrestling currently. And so there's a whole thing where Hogan is like, Yeah, you know, he's leaning on like people as they're taking him out. And he's portraying himself as the big hero. And then he just stands up in the locker room and is like, Yeah, I think you broke my neck. Oh no, actually, he really didn't. I feel great, brother. And it's like you find out that this is who he is. Like that's who Hogan was. He was Terry Belair. Always trash.
SPEAKER_00Always trash. Yeah, always trash.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, it's just I think that we're starting to, at least with WWF and E, excuse me, and so many things. We're just really starting to see that everything is just one big glamour, man. That's all it is. It's wow. It really is. It's like, you know, it's hard to believe that there was a time not that long ago where we were propping up people like Jeff Bezos. We were propping up people like Elon Musk. Oh, they're gonna take us to the moon. Billionaires are gonna save us. And now we're in a place where it's like the billionaires are trying to kill us. Like they don't care about us. Like they'll move a data center into your thing, jack up your electrical rates, build on things that they should not be building, jacking up rents into places that, you know, cutting costs on their coworkers, firing them outright, using AI in places so that they can save more money. And it's like, look, you're a billionaire.
SPEAKER_00You how much like you got all the money? How much money do you need?
SPEAKER_02How many more people do you need to exploit? Like, I don't necessarily have a problem with capitalism. Okay, let me take that back. I have a problem with capitalist. Let me finish. Let me finish. I have a problem with capitalism. I don't have a problem with commerce. Where it's like if you have a product and you set a rate where it is accessible to the people who want it and the people who need it, I have no problem with that. But the problem that I have is when you begin to exploit others so that you can just get a little bit more than the next man, that's where I have a problem. Like they ethic ethically, billionaires are they should not exist. No. And we're just kind of letting them just run things the way that they are. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Dude, if you have a billion dollars, you've missed the point.
SPEAKER_02Right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00That that's really if it's a again, I don't know to your point, just to underscore it, the I think about that sometimes, and it's like I don't know if I've ever shared this with you all, but I I have a fear of winning the lottery. I don't know if I've ever talked to you about that. Yeah. It's a I have two weird things relative to the lottery. I've only played it a handful of times, and it's fear that keeps me from doing it. I have a fear, a recurring nightmare that I win the lottery and it destroys my family. That was one. Two, I also have a weird sense that every time I play it, I'm thinking I genuinely believe I'm gonna win it. Like Powerball, I'm gonna win this. You know, and I start thinking about what I'm gonna do with the billions. And man, it it's a if I have like 300 extra dollars, I walk different. If you got $300 burning a hole in your pocket, you you walk into rooms like this. Can you imagine with like three billion?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's a it's there's a great line in the movie that you both hate, BVS, where Alfred says, or Ben Affleck's like, 20 years fighting crime in Gotham, how many good guys are left, how many stayed that way? You know, it's kind of in that same zone of you give me that much money, you give any person, you know, that much money, it it's a I think it's the best of us would would falter. You know, it's I I'm terrified of what that would look like. And to your point, like if I if I have access to wealth, I'm looking for opportunities to give it away because it terrifies me to have it. You know, it's so to my to that end, if you're a billionaire, you've missed a point of life. Right. Because you should be giving that away because there's it's not like the need doesn't exist. Right. Look around. Right. There should be the fact that there are billionaires and we have hunger, don't make it make sense. Right. Right. So sorry, man. That that's my that's very much the hill I will die on.
SPEAKER_02But to bring it back to your your point about TKO and WWE, these athletes, they have a finite window where they can earn the most money that they possibly can with their bodies. With their bodies. They are giving their bodies to this thing that they grew up loving because they want to continue the legacies of the Stone Colds, the Booker T's, the Kurt Angles, the Bruno San Martin's. And they're giving their bodies to do this thing. And these private equity firms who come in and they're looking at like stockholder like numbers, and they're trying to appease stockholders and telling uh their employees that yes, we thank you for doing this, but would you mind taking a 50% pay cut so that this man who really doesn't do anything other than like buy up stock can make more money.
SPEAKER_00It sucks. Wait, is that what the cut was that they proposed to the remote? 50% are you kidding? I know it was that bad.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I think it was it was Mark Henry or somebody like that on one of those things that you posted on Instagram, Omar.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Where he was like, You a year ago, you told these men that they were worth this, and you were saying, We're willing to honor this for the next five years. And then when you realized that you can make more money, you went to them and said, We're not gonna honor the thing that we said we were gonna honor, and now we want you to take a 50% pay cut in order just to keep your job. And at the end of the day, this stuff is a job. Imagine any job that would ask you to take a 50% pay cut, imagine that, and they expect you to stick around. I don't think I love anything that much.
SPEAKER_01No, there's only been one job in my life where the people that were above me started fucking with my money, and it was one day, and then I told them exactly what the score was, and it never happened again. Now, Devon, you know what I'm talking about. You know who I'm talking about. Right. We don't need to talk about it on the on the on the feed. Omar, you will get this in the group chat.
SPEAKER_00Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_01But grown men. Sometimes forget their consequences in the world for not being grown men. And they need to be reminded of it in a not gentle fashion. And that is what occurred. Now, when you extrapolate this to the upper echelons of millions and millions of dollars and stuff, my answer to this would not be valid because these are also people with private security firms at their back and call who can shoot my black ass. Real, real bad.
SPEAKER_02TKO is extracting the joy out of anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, man.
SPEAKER_02What kills me is that you I don't even consider thinking about a live show anymore.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, I can't, man. It kills me because there are elements, like I said, there are a lot of mushroom belts. Yeah. There are a lot of things that I look at and I go, oh, that's amazing. But then it's hard to keep turning a blind eye to like all the ads in the ring and all the slim gym things on the table. Right.
SPEAKER_01The slim gym ads on the table is egregious.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's now mind you, if you what's wild to me is how many passes we gave them. Because let's keep it a buck, man. When we saw it, we knew some of the lot of that stuff you knew was cruddy. You know, prime logo in the middle of the ring. I'm like, wow, they got a lot of ass. Now, mind you, it's a some of that you kind of give a pass to because you go, well, boxing, they do it. But it's a, this was to your point, like it's this the WWE is the circus. Right. Exactly. And it's a different animal, man, than it is, than boxing is. Boxing is boxing. Yeah. So you go in with an expectation. It's not like boxing's on TV every Monday and Friday, and that you're you got live boxing events every month with backlash and WrestleMania and so forth. You would see Muhammad Ali maybe three times a year, you know, and big major prize fights at in Vegas or wherever it is in Manila, wherever it is he was fighting. The you know, there were events, you know, to that end. Yeah, exactly. Like it's that. This is the circus, and we know it's entertainment. Right. And so it's for families. Exactly. And so what you're essentially saying is F these families. You know, and that that's like that's what you're telling them. Right. So the fact that, man, my boy, we were supposed to go. And I couldn't go, you know, but we were planning on when I finished grad school, I was gonna celebrate. We were going out to, we wanted to go to WrestleMania. And I ended up not being able to do it, but he went. And we knew like the tickets, we were like, all right, we ain't gonna be able to get tickets, but we should be out in Vegas and maybe we can be just around and because they have events all week. Right. So I'm doing this thinking, all right, I finished grad school in March. I'm gonna go out, you know, in April. Yeah, this year. Literally, like we were gonna go. My boy went, I was gonna go, ended up not being able to go. And he was sending me stuff like, hey, I'm doing this, like, and he he had said to me right before I told him, like, hey man, I'm not gonna be able to make it. He was floating, like, he said, Hey man, you can still get tickets. And I'm like, it's not sold out. And he was like, Yeah, man, it's not sold out. You know, and he's like, Man, maybe we get nosebleed. Maybe we can be we can be in the building. This Negro got seats on the floor. Wow. That's how available tickets were. He sent me pictures the day of the event, night two, from the floor.
SPEAKER_01How much did he drop?
SPEAKER_00That's what I need to ask him. Like, hey man, how much did you pay for those? But the fact that he could buy it through Stubhub or whatever it is that he got it from, very telling. I mean, I'm talking like day of. Yeah, let me get let me get a ticket.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Just decided to go.
SPEAKER_01My man got the cash to spend, apparently.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, apparently. Because like on the floor, he was like people can do that anymore.
SPEAKER_02As you know, we should probably wrap up soon. But just the the essence, you you hit the nail right on the head, Omar, with this is a family thing. This was a thing like I'll have a quick story. I'll never forget the day that I went to a WWE house show at at the then MCI Arena. And I was there with a couple of friends, and I looked over to my right about maybe a few rows over, and I see this like little hand waving at me, and I'm like, who is that? And it turns out two of my brothers were there with my stepfather, and we didn't know it. But I know that they my they did not have a lot of money, neither did I. But my stepfather, he was able to take two of his sons to that show. We were all sitting in the nosebleeds, but the fact of the matter was that we could walk through the door. And that was what WWE was before TKO. Where it was a thing of a father who worked a job that probably paid a little bit more than minimum wage, I would assume it did, could look at his two of his sons and go, All right, you know what? I'm gonna surprise you. I'm gonna I'm gonna take you to WWE tonight. And I was like, that's great. I because at the point, at that point, I was living in DC and my family had moved to Maryland. So it was like a little mini family reunion inside of MC High Arena.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Now that cannot happen because TKO is trying to apply the UFC fight model where a bunch of grown men with their own money are walking into a place by themselves, buying drinks, and making a weekend of being in wherever the show is, and you cannot apply that model to a weekly television show like WWE Raw or SmackDown. It just does not work. And I think that in the long run, I don't know if TKO, if this does not work for them, they don't hold on to WWE, and I think we're gonna be in trouble in a few years if TKO keeps doing things the way that they have been doing. But I'll I'll try and wrap this up quickly. Like just two years ago, we were operating under subscription model with Peacock, where I think we were paying like four or five dollars to watch WWE. Before that, we were under a subscription model with the WWE network where it was ten dollars for everything. Everything, everything, the archives, the pay-per-views, everything. And it was a beautiful setup. And now we're under a system where it's like you can only watch these pay-per-views, which are called PLEs now, if you pony up $30 a month. How do you go for a system? Right, where you're asking people to pay four to six times what they were paying before for a product that is not as good as it was even like three years ago. Just does not make any sense.
SPEAKER_01Still free. I mean, I pay $20 for my antenna so that I can watch it, but yeah. That's it. That's what I watch, that's what I care about. Yeah, and I this other stuff, I keep keep up with it on YouTube by the clips because I'm not no.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and to give the devil their due, I did hear that TKO slash WWE, the NXC PLEs, they initially were on Peacock. They moved over to YouTube for free. Yeah. But now they're actually going to be broadcast on CW for free.
SPEAKER_03Oh, good.
SPEAKER_02What I understand. Good. So yeah, so that's one good thing they're doing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But, you know, it's like saying uh all the other stuff. Right, right.
SPEAKER_00We'll see how long that lasts. Yeah, like at this at this point, man, it's it's a I I don't know if I trust it. Right. So it's like if you're doing like it's it's sad, man, when you if you do something good and I go, yeah, but why are you what you set me up for?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You only doing that good thing to get me later. And it it's a I hate feeling that way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's kind of like when people say, well, the serial killer was always nice to me. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00Man. Yeah. Bruh. That. Chris, do you wanna you always bring us home? Would you like to bring us home?
SPEAKER_01All right. Everybody, bow their heads. Bow their head. We were brought together today to this wonderful house of worship for love and caring and remembering. And we leave with our stomachs empty because we are hungry. And we will now go and make our microwave TV dinner at one o'clock in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_00Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_01Everyone say I'm in.
SPEAKER_00Amen.
SPEAKER_01And as we're recording this, again, happy Mother's Day. You take care. Tell your mama you love her or send her an Instagram. I don't know your relationship with your parents, and that's none of anyone else's business. God bless you. Pay your taxes. Well, actually, don't pay. I don't, hey, work that out with yourself. I don't know. Hey, it's it's weird right now. It's weird. It's weird. I won't pay my tax. I I can't be messed around with that. I'm not there though. But like you, if you can afford to make a state, you do it. You do it. You stand on business.
SPEAKER_00Oh, God. All right, I'ma stop right there.
