Wrestling Has Lost Its Mind: WWE Backlash, Danhausen & TKO Complaints

WWE Backlash Predictions & TKO Creative Complaints: Danhausen’s Partner, Gingerbread Man Funeral, Rollins vs Breakker, Roman vs Jacob Fatu

Twisted and Desario host Wrestling Crossroads while Brother Pyro is away, discussing WWE Backlash as a once post-WrestleMania fallout show that now feels “off,” criticizing frequent commercials, lack of hype packages, and rumored AI-written creative. They preview and predict Danhausen and a mystery partner vs The Miz and Kit Wilson (speculating names like CM Punk, Jelly Roll, Joe Hendry, and Elton Prince), largely picking Trick Williams to beat Sami Zayn while blasting the ongoing “Gingerbread Man” angle, and debating IYO SKY vs Asuka after Kairi Sane’s release disrupted the story. They also discuss Seth Rollins vs Bron Breakker and a World Heavyweight Title main event of Roman Reigns vs Jacob Fatu, touching on Bloodline dynamics, Roman’s schedule, and recent WWE releases including Tonga Loa, JC Mateo, and Wyatt Sicks.

Transcript

0:00

Then can you dig it? Woo! Acknowledge me. The king of kings. Best in the world. Forever. What is up, guys? Welcome back to Wrestling Crossroads. As always, I am one half of dynamic duo Twisted, alongside DeSario. Hello, hello. Thanks for having me along for this one. Of course. So Brother Pyro is not here today because he is actually celebrating his one-year anniversary with his lovely Sunflower. So congratulations to him. And fun little fact, this was the first pay-per-view that Flash and I ever watched as a couple. Aw, that's sweet. All nine years ago. Oh. And it was actually, like, a week after we had started dating. That is awesome. So- That's very cool we are talking WWE Backlash. Yes, Backlash. So tr- uh, traditionally a pay-per-view that dealt with a lot of the unresolved issues from WrestleMania. Um, last couple years you really haven't had too much of that, so it's just become basically a pay-per-view name at this point in time. Yeah. But, you know, we got a couple of good banger matches, but, um, as we were kind of discussing at the top here, something just kinda feels off about this whole card. Oh, it does about everything that's going on with TKO, WWE. Normally at a point where fans should be at an all-time high, we're kinda left scrambling what the heck is going on, and actually actively getting upset with the company. I wholeheartedly agree. It- The, the way that they're going about this is so ridiculous. Mm. Honestly. Uh, having the commercials every, like, three to five minutes there We discussed it during WrestleMania. There was no video package, no reason to hype up for the, uh, any of the matches. The matches were barely anything on the card, and I know Brother Pyro had said it, but on night one 35% of the entire th- what, three-hour show- Mm-hmm was wrestling. Like, are you kidding me? Yeah. It, it's I understand that they have their partnerships, they have to have their timing and everything like that. Yeah. But there's a better way to kinda go about this. There is. I mean, you already got all the advertisements in the ring anyways. Do we really need another three-minute commercial for Ram trucks when you're already splattered on the side of the ring? Right. And I mean, even when we get into this, some storylines that are going on that you've mentioned are really, really bad, and- Yeah, we'll get into that.

Danhausen Tag predictions

2:34

Um, so starting us off- we have Danhausen, Brother Pyro thinks that the Funni's gonna open up the show, so, and his to-be-determined partner taking on The Miz and Kit Wilson. Uh, this pretty much culminated because Danhausen had asked The Miz to be his mentor. Miz said no, doesn't really like Danhausen. Danhausen cursed, not The Miz because he backed away, uh, ended up getting Kit Wilson. They've surprisingly done matches with him. Mm-hmm. Uh, which it's just, no. Um, I believe, did he end up cursing The Miz, yes? He did curse The Miz a little bit. Um, he also broke into Miz's house and- Yep stole his daughter's bike. Yep, I remember- seeing that, and, um, The Miz's former Slammy, uh, award. Yep, and broke, and broke that too. Yep. Uh, now we have culminated to this tag team match where- Unanimously, everybody is going Danhausen for the win. Um, I did ask prediction-wise who we think his tag partner's going to be. Brother Pyro thinks it's gonna be Topanga Hausen, uh, as she is a fan, but I wanna know how that's supposed to work when she's a female and it's a male match. Uh, put her in a body suit. Yeah, that would work. Um, Tank thinks it's gonna be Cena Hausen, but would love Sabrina Carpenter. Flash thinks it's gonna be Joe Hendry. Hmm. Interesting call. I d- that, that could happen. I just see with Hendry being over on SmackDown right now, uh, well Raw right now, that they're not gonna intermingle them right there. All right. And, uh, your prediction for his partner. I've got two mi- two names in mind. Okay. Uh, the first name, which would be absolutely hilarious, CM Punk. They got a lotta history going back to AEW. They're best friends. I mean, it's widely reported that Punk helped get him into the company to begin with. And now they're newly on the same brand. And they are newly on the same brand. Uh, but I, the one I have a bad feeling about, and because it's TKO- Yeah Jelly Roll. Hmm. And storyline-wise, it does make sense, but this is WWE lately where storyline making sense doesn't really make that much sense anymore. No. So who knows? Maybe I'll, maybe it'll be a completely different name. Maybe Obafemi will come out. You know what? I honestly think that WWE and TKO are kind of sipping the same juice that Tony Khan used to- Mm back when we first started covering AEW. That's, that's- And we were like, "Hey, this was a storyline. Uh, when did it get dropped?" Yeah. So, some, uh, what... It's amazing. A lotta people complained about Road Dogg with creative. Ever since he's left, the creative has gotten worse. Yeah. No. Uh, can we bring him back, please? I know. Um, I personally think it's going to be, um, Elton Prince, who is Kit Wilson's former tag team partner. I feel like he's gonna come back, uh, from injury and just kinda be like, "Hey, look, dude, I'm, I'm here. What did you do?" Mm-hmm. Like, who, where is Pretty Deadly? 'Cause I get it, that I was injured, but what are you now? Yeah. Toxic? Really? Or he's just gonna be like, "You know what? I pick up on it. Let's, let's all form a trio and then Miz can teach us this, and we can be under his, you know, pristine umbrella." Ooh, the new Learning Tree. No, not the Learning Tree. But, but you love The Miz. Tell me you wouldn't love that. I would love to see The Miz like that. I would love to sit there and see The Miz get more, uh- Featured prominently because he, whether people wanna admit it or not, he's a legend. He is. The man sit there and deserves more flowers than what he's getting right now compared to some of the other people with his status and some of the accolades they have. Yeah. And this would just be a perfect opportunity for him. I wholeheartedly agree. All right, take us into the next

Trick vs Sami rematch

6:08

one. Okay, so next match up, we actually do get a rematch from WrestleMania. We get Trick Williams, your United States champion, taking on Sami Zayn. Um, now this match really didn't need to be had too much selling points to it. It didn't need a big elaborate story. You have the young up-and-comer challenging the cagey vet, cagey vet getting turned on by the fans, and that's just all the motion that you need. But you know what takes it to the next level? The Gingerbread Man. Oh, my lord. You were talking about how much you despised this. I hate this storyline so badly. It is... This is cringe. This is cringe on the level of Roman Reigns and dog food cringe. Yep. Yes. That- that's what this is right now. I mean, okay, it was kind of funny at first when he called Sami the Gingerbread Man. Yeah. It was kind of funny when they brought out an actual gingerbread man that turned out to be Sami Zayn beating up on Trick Williams. Mm-hmm. But then they just kept going with it to the point where Sami now is tearing apart a gingerbread man that was basically stationary in the ring, and then they decide, "Oh, no. The Gingerbread Man didn't make it after that violent attack." And the announcer sounded like, you know, the second coming of what happened to Owen Hart just happened in the ring. I hate to go to that- Yeah. Yeah extreme, but it's kind of what they were trying to be somber and mo- mode-like for. I just, I don't get it. I don't like it. This is not... I appreciate a little silliness in wrestling, hence Danhausen. Yeah. I got no problem with it. But this is... What are we doing here, folks? Yeah, no. What are we doing? At, at this point, it's like, let's cut it. And you even said tonight on SmackDown, they're having a funeral for this thing. Mm-hmm, yep, an in memoriam for the Gingerbread Man. Like, come on. Why are we wasting more valuable time with this? Um, because it's TKO. Yeah. And if the rumors are true that they're using AI to write storylines, this might be a prime example of what's going on with it. I wholeheartedly agree with that. Well- Right? Predictions go- going into predictions, it is unanimous, we do not see the hype train slowing down with Tricky Williams right here. He gonna get in that ring and whoop that Trick. Yes. Yeah. Um, I did ask Brother Pyro for his reasoning. Mm-hmm. Uh, I think you'll agree with him. Don't kill Trick's momentum right after the biggest win of his career, and the fans don't want Sami. No, they don't. What they're actually looking forward to is Carmelo coming back and having that match going on right there. Oh, yeah. That's what we are looking for. Summerslam. That would be beautiful. I would love to see... Honestly, two-day tickets, take my money if that's gonna be headlining. Right. Hon- honest to God. Um, I just, Sami's stale at this point. He- he's, he- he's about as stale as the Gingerbread Man. Oh, yep. 'Cause clearly you could break the Gingerbread Man just fine. Absolutely. You know, they did miss an opportunity with the Gingerbread Man if they were gonna tear limbs off of him They should have tore off his legs and then have him kind of do crying like from Shrek. Not the gumdrop buttons. They, they could have done something like that- and made it a little bit more hilarious. Th- then people would've paid more attention instead of, "Oh, it's vac or break. All right." Yeah, pretty much. I'm just gonna walk away at this point. All

IYO vs Asuka fallout

9:06

right. Jumping into our next match, we have IYO SKY versus Asuka. Uh, this has been a long time coming. When they were formerly in Damage CTRL, you got to see the cracks. They then kind of kicked out IYO for her relationship with Rhea. We got to see them as a tag team. Now Rhea is champion. They finally started to slowly pull the trigger a bit more on IYO and Asuka, but you dumped a crucial part of this. Mm-hmm. You dumped Kairi Sane. You needed, honestly, you needed Kairi to turn on Asuka and to hide behind IYO. Yeah. That would've been the best part of this, because now they're turning on their senpai, the person that's paved the way for them to be in this world. Mm-hmm. And they stand against her, with Kairi at ringside because she's kind of still under that umbrella of Asuka. That would've been perfect. Absolutely it would've been perfect. It was, again, the perfect story that they had been building for the better part of a year right now. Yep, and then you released her. Not even two weeks before the match happens. Yep, and now y- you're left with this, and it's like do we continue or do we just pump the entire brakes on it? Because in all honesty, you could've done either at this point. Mm-hmm. Nobody would've really paid attention if you had just chosen to drop the storyline altogether. You dropped Kairi. The storyline didn't need to progress the way that it did, but here we are. Yeah. Um, going into our predictions, all of us but Cauldren, usually you're the odd man out- Normally have picked IYO. He has picked Asuka. Hmm. And your reasoning for this, what are, what, what are you thinking? I'm thinking that, you know, this obviously has to be the blowoff of this feud. We can't keep going with it, especially with Kairi there, not there anymore. Mm-hmm. And IYO is the, at this point, the bigger star in the company. Asuka is great. She is a certified legend. She is. Not gonna take anything away from her. Mm-hmm. But we need to get these two away from each other and doing other things, like IYO's match versus Becky, that was a really good match. Oh. And I can easily see IYO working her way into that Intercontinental title picture scene. Mm-hmm. And as for Asuka, maybe something happens where she gets sent over to SmackDown, maybe goes after the, uh, US title that's over there, maybe gets in a tag team with- I hate to say it, Julia, because Julia's getting Salem. She needs somebody to learn under, and that would be a perfect background going right there. But then what do you do with Kiana James in that situation? Kiana's already broken a- already shown herself as being the bigger star of the two right now. Mm. She can handle herself on her own and go after different things. Okay. So you see kind of them splitting and Asuka going over to t- team with Julia. Mm-hmm. But then what happens if they're both floundering at that point? Then do they, you just cut them? Unfortunately, the way TKO is doing things, probably. I hate to say it, but yes. I'm kind of surprised with all the releases that have come that Grayson Waller wasn't on the chopping block. That is very surprising that Grayson wasn't on the chopping block. I would've thought he would've been there r- right there with them guys. And also, as much as I'm a fan, Johnny. Yeah. Johnny and Candice. Mm. Because they're just kind of left floundering at this point, but maybe they have some storylines coming up. Maybe Johnny moves back down to NXT. Maybe. If Johnny moves down, back down to NXT, that might be the best thing for him at this point in time. Absolutely. Um, 'cause they actually were building a good storyline with Johnny and the Motor City Machine Guns, and then we just cut the Motor City Machine Guns. Like, what are we doing, guys? Yeah. You start something, and then it's like, you know what? It, it's like when a little kid draws a picture- Mm-hmm and you get that one nice line, and then you mess up, and you're like, "All right. Garbage." Yep, pretty much. Yep. So, all right. Uh, next match, please.

Rollins vs Breakker preview

12:41

All right. Getting into the next one. It is going to be a battle between an ex-mentor and an ex-mentee. We have the Visionary, Seth freakin' Rollins, versus the certifiable badass, Bron Breakker. Now, way we got into this, we're not gonna go through the whole backstory. We're gonna go a little bit more recent history here. I wanna say snippets. Yeah. Snippets. We're gonna go more recent history. WrestleMania, Seth Rollins going up against Gunther. Seth looks like he's got the match a little bit in hand, not 100%, but getting there. Mm-hmm. When out of nowhere, boom, Bron, spear. Bron is now back from injury. And not only does he spear him once, he makes it a point to run all the way down the WrestleMania ramp again to spear him a second time, costing Seth the match.

Old school feud set up

13:22

Mm-hmm. And so now we have that whole, "Seth, I want revenge, but you're not ready for the big time yet, Bron. You can't handle the spotlight, and I'm gonna show you that you can't handle the spotlight." Old-school storytelling, folks. Who would've thought that that would make some compelling TV? Right? I know. No, you would have thought 'Cause gee, it didn't work back in the day, did it? No, not at all. It's, I've heard, uh, I've heard Bully Ray say one thing. He's like, "Sometimes you just go back to the past, use it today. What was once old is now new, and what is now new is fresh." Mm-hmm. That's what you gotta do sometimes. Yeah. Don't reinvent the wheel, guys. I digress, though. Mm. Otherwise, you're gonna turn into a 10-minute pyro rant. Pretty much. Pretty much. And I've already kinda gone off a little bit on TKO quite a bit. I'm getting, as we can all tell, cranky with the dang company right now. Yeah, unfortunately. All right. So moving into predictions, um, we have two people on the side of Mr. Seth Freakin' Rollins, and that would be Brother Pyro and Tank. Oh, sorry, we got three, and then we also got Twisted on that side as well. While the rest of us- And Flash. Oh, Flash. Flash. I missed that. Yes. I'm sorry about that. Anyways, the rest of us are going with Mr. Bron Breakker and Twisted. What do we got going for you? I'm honestly undecided. I, it's, it's so hard for me to be pulled in both directions. I can't give a clear answer here because on one hand, I wanna say Seth does it. Seth is the veteran here. Seth knows what it takes to be in the spotlight, knows what it takes to win the big matches, and knows what it takes to overcome people like that. I mean, he's, you know, taken over Roman at points. He's taken over Bron at, or Break... Yeah. It's Bron. Bron. I'm, I'm losing my mind here. It's okay. Sometimes with the names like Bron, Brock, Bron, you know. Yeah. You, you kinda get lost there. It was bad when they had the Bron Bros. Oh, my lord. Is it bad that, that I'm kind of happy that one's on- like, the shelf just for right now? Because otherwise I lose my damn mind. But, you know, he took out Bron. He's been that guy. He's been that guy on numerous occasions. Whereas you do have- The certifiable badass in Bron Breakker, and he is the future. There is this whole gold lighting for him, and he can go. Mm-hmm. He can take it. I know that, you know, being with Paul Heyman, being under Seth for the time that he was, he can make it to the big time, but can that be now coming off of this injury? I know. I agree. And then also, don't discount the fa- his lineage. He is a Steiner. Oh, yeah. I... That, that promo battle- him calling him Baby Steiner was beautiful. Yes. Oh, my goodness. I just hope we get another Steiner math promo eventually. I know we got it a little bit in NXT, but we need to get a full one in, you know, in the main roster eventually. Oh, he was... I don't know if you saw it, but, um, on socials, he was talking crap about Seth Rollins saying that, um, asking if he even went to the gym, if he had a gym membership, or if he did Pilates or some shit like that. It was great. It was great. Oh, that's awesome. But I don't see you neutering his momentum right now for Br- uh, for Breakker. Okay. I think you need to sit there and continue to build it up. Yes, Seth just lost at 'Mania, and this might hinder him a little bit, but Seth is popular enough and charismatic enough to be able to bounce back from almost any loss and still keep real good c- credibility going forward. I think you need to make Breakker look strong because if you're gonna keep The Vision together, which reluctantly it looks like they're doing, you need to have somebody strong as the center of that group. And I'm sorry, Logan Paul and Austin Theory just ain't it. No. Could you see Breakker also winning this via Logan Paul and Austin Theory getting involved? I do. I can see that. I can easily see that. It might make Breakker look a little weak at first but, depending on the finish, it could... he could easily recapture

Can it last till SummerSlam?

17:03

that heat. Okay, 'cause I... You know, another thing that I was thinking is does this go to Summer Slam? I think- Do you see that feud going to Summer Slam? I see it, it has enough legs 'cause Seth can sit there and carry a promo and carry a program that long. Look what he did with CM Punk last year. Yeah. So, I mean, Seth knows how to work a long-term angle, long-term promo. Mm-hmm. And this could be the perfect learning opportunity for Breakker to sit there and get involved in that type of storytelling. Okay. And you don't think it would get stale going to Summer Slam? No, not at all, especially with the re- revolving components of The Vision going on. And who knows if, uh, Bronson Reed comes back any time soon, maybe interject him with that as well. Okay. Okay. Um, just taking a look over here at Brother Pyro's reasoning. He said Seth is going over further proves his point of Breakker not being ready for the big spotlight yet. Plus, Seth needs a bounce-back after the Gunther loss. Do you agree with kind of what he's saying? I agree where he's going with that sentiment right there because- Especially as a face. Miz actually said this recently in an interview with Chris Van Vliet. Okay. As a face, you need to be booked to win. You can't be taking loss after loss and still keep your credibility with the fans. Mm-hmm. Because the fans that love you wanna see you win, and if you take too many Ls, it could hurt your momentum and it could hurt your brand. Okay. So I see where he's going with that, but Seth's brand is so popular and so big, he can eat a few Ls and not have it hurt him. Okay. All right. All right.

Roman vs Jacob Fatu Build

18:24

Main event, we have the World Heavyweight Championship, Roman Reigns takes on his cousin. Mm-hmm. Yep. Jacob Fatu. Now, this came after Roman Reigns, newly crowned the World Heavyweight Champion from WrestleMania, beating CM Punk in what was honestly a beautiful match. Oh, it was a great match. Best match at WrestleMania. Yeah. I, me and Brother Pyro did say that towards the end with their, you know, um- Conditioning adrenaline- Oh, yeah kinda working its way down, it did get kinda sloppy, and it was a little slow, but we got there, and eventually the match concluded. Mm-hmm. Um, the next night on Monday Night Raw, Roman is to, set to make an appearance. He asked Jimmy and Jey to come out with him. He says that he was gonna talk about all these different things as to what's going forward, but he wants to talk about family now, says that The Bloodline needs to come back together. He misses them not working for him, but working with him. Brings out a classic line from The Shield, saying that, "We are a part. We are five fingers separated. We need to be one fist." Mm-hmm. The Shield imploded after he said that, so I don't know how well we're gonna go with this. I've got a thought. We'll hear that thought. Mm-hmm. Definitely. Um, Jacob then comes out and goes, "I want everything you have because I need it. It's not because I want it. I don't want the strap. I need everything that comes with you holding that." Mm-hmm. "Because I need to do that for my family." Roman then said, "I'm gonna give you some time, little cousin, to think about this, to see if you can really hold this, see if you really want this." The next week, he then, uh, hit him with the- Tonga Death Grip Tonga Death Grip, which is something in Samoan culture that you only use in extreme circumstances. Um, Roman was completely thrown off by the fact that he decided to use this, said it wasn't to that escalation, and at the contract signing, was used yet again. Mm-hmm. So. On more than one occasion, including with a choke slam on it, top of it. Yes. So your thoughts before we get into predictions for this. I love the way that the storytelling kind of went about with these two. Mm-hmm Only a few weeks to sit there and build a program, and Jacob has been getting booked to look like that next big breakout star. Mm-hmm. So what better way to sit there and sh- uh, showcase him, especially on the ESPN audience, the whole world, than against Roman, the biggest star in the company right now? Yeah. So you're gonna be able to showcase and show what he can do everywhere. I love the fact that he's saying, "No, I don't want this, I need this." That's a different level of, you know, commitment than we've seen people challenging titles for right now. Mm-hmm. And especially going back to his promo from, like, right before, uh, Solo, where he's like, "Hey, I'm going from EBT to WWE." You know his whole story going out there. Yeah. So this is just, this is him on a platter right there, being personable. And when you interject that little bit of realism, you get something special in the wrestling business. Okay. Um, looking into our predictions, a majority of us are going Jacob, whereas Brother Pyro and Hex are choosing Roman Reigns for this. Brother Pyro's reasoning being Roman's safe from the pay cut, it'll advance a poten- potential Bloodline story with Jacob, plus why have him lose after just winning? And if you paid attention, I see Roman and his wrestling soulmate going at it down the line, that being Seth Rollins. I can definitely see that, and I've also heard the rumors, or actually now the rumors where Se- Roman's like, "I'm gonna be here all summer, y'all." But nobody's really quietly noticed that Roman's been de-booked from every single appearance in June. Yes. And so I don't know what's going on there. I'm not sure what's, if it's TKO shenanigans or Roman's got a movie coming up. Who knows? We're gonna let the man be in peace with that whole thing. Mm-hmm.

Title prestige and brand swap

22:08

But if the belt's gonna be gone for a month, and this title was supposed to be created as the working class belt- Yep you can't have it not be on TV for an entire month at this point. I, I agree, 'cause I, and I was doing this, you know, while I was writing down everything, I'm looking at, you know, the different titles. And back when I first started watching WWE, the WWE Championship was on the A brand, so it was always on Raw. Whereas the B belt, which is the World Heavyweight, was always on SmackDown. Now it seems that it's more switched. Any reasoning to your knowledge, being that you know a lot more, in the world of pro wrestling than I do, as to why it would've switched? So the WWE Championship, especially when they merged it with that whole unification match with Brock and Roman, Roman was gonna stay on SmackDown because that was the schedule that worked best for him and with a lot of his travel, so that made sense to keep the belt right there. Mm-hmm. And then that, there was no other title, hence why they created that other one to go over. But it's starting to feel like the World Heavyweight title is starting to mean a little bit more than the WWE Championship right now. Mm-hmm. Because Cody is, well, for lack of a better term, stale. Yep. He, he is- About as stale as the Gingerbread Man. Yep. And so, man, that Gingerbread Man keeps making his way onto this podcast. Maybe I should put a little memorial at the very end. Oh, my gosh. Anyways, um, Cody's getting stale. The World Heavyweight title, you know, Punk carried that belt through the Once Upon a Time, made it really, really re- relevant. Seth sit there, did a great job with the world title. Mm-hmm. Um, and even Gunther didn't do that bad of a job with it. No. Damian Priest also had it. Mm-hmm. And even the s- short moments that Drew McIntyre had it, he made it mean something. Mm-hmm. Even, uh, even with the WWE championship for the short time he had it, you, you make it mean something. Yep. And especially with Raw being on Netflix, that's getting a little bit more of a prominence right there. Mm-hmm. So I, I know in a kind of roundabout way, what I'm basically saying is that basically because the schedules, the WWE championship stayed on SmackDown, and it was the A show for the longest time, but not anymore. No. Raw's now the main show because SmackDown can be a chore to watch nowadays. Yeah. 'Cause I, again, when I started, Raw was the A show, SmackDown was the B show. After a while, it really started to flip, especially with The Bloodline being on SmackDown. You really had people watching SmackDown a lot more than tuning into Raw. That became the A show. Raw moved to the B show, and now it's flipped because of the presence of Netflix. And the other reason, too, SmackDown was on Fox, national television right there, so you're gonna have your biggest belt on a more bigger platform. Okay. All right. Anything you'd like to say before we cut this?

Usos twist and Bloodline Future

24:45

With Roman's fist promo- Yes I would love to see, because there's two people we haven't talked about in this match. Hmm. We haven't talked about The Usos. That i- that is true. They have been kind of not really picking a side in this whole thing, right, whatsoever. Mm-hmm. They're not really on Roman's... They're telling Roman what to do or what not to do, and they're telling Jacob what to do or what not to do. Jacob's not gonna listen to them. I- We all know that. But at the same time, who's to say that after Roman made that, you know, fist thing with The Shield, he got hit in the chair with the back, maybe The Usos turn on Roman and back up their cousin, who is their fa- no, their father, Rikishi. Mm-hmm. His twin brother, that's Jacob's kid. Oh, okay. So there's a little bit more closeness with those f- with those three right there. Yeah. And I can see that being kind of a new Bloodline 2.0 or 3.0. It'd be 3.0 because you had Solo's group for a little

Roster cuts and Wyatt Sicks

25:35

while. Which, speaking of Solo's group, there were two that were just released for that as well- Mm-hmm 'cause we were talking releases. Yep. Um, what was it? Tonga Loa- Mm-hmm was released, and JC Mateo, which had only been in the company for a year, just about a year. Yep. How do you feel about that? They didn't give him a chance. Um, apparently, he was set for a big singles push, but s- that didn't come to ba- bear. It's kind of like Aleister Black. Aleister back, back for only one year, and they released him as well. Along with his wife. Yes. Uh, makes no sense on why they're doing these budget cuts. But with SmackDown going down to two hours, the r- rumor they're saying is release the SmackDown guys because you don't have the TV time for all those people. I know another thing that they were pointing out is that TKO had said in an interview, um- That he doesn't prefer, like, they don't prefer the spookier-esque people Mm-hmm And that's why all of Wyatt Sicks got released too. I'm really mad about that. Yeah Because you, you'd spent this whole time beautifully building this up. You had Bo coming in, making memoriam for his brother, having that split personality between him and Uncle Howdy, and then once, uh, they got pulled for a little bit because of injury, you brought them back, they were still supposed to be on the same momentum slide, and you just dropped them. Mm-hmm. And that sucks. It sucks hardcore 'cause they ha- they could've done something really special with the Wyatt Sicks. Mm-hmm. I mean, and Bo Dallas in particular, I thought he would've been a guy who would've had a job for life- Right at WWE. And also to bring back Erick Rowan just to unceremoniously release him after everything as well, it's like, come on, dude, what are we doing here? Yeah. The guy went over to AEW for a little bit, wrestled under, um, Erick Redbeard- Mm-hmm and then came back to his home to WWE to honor his brothers that passed, and now it's just, "Oh, yeah, you're done." Yeah. Yeah, no. Ridiculous. All right, with that being said, that is WWE Backlash. Thank you, Desiree-o, for being here while Brother Pyre was away, and we hope you guys enjoy the show. Later.