After starting at the WHO declaration of the pandemic in mid-March of last year, STARDOM has actually leapt to being searched worldwide on Google slightly more than ROH for fifth promotion overall, has showed lasting growth year-over-year, and is the second-most searched foreign-owned wrestling company in America over the pandemic behind New Japan (though that’s a wide chasm).
While I know Google Trends is not the be all/end all, with the current international positive buzz and the backing of BushiRoad, do you think now is the time for STARDOM to get aggressive with international expansion? Possibly running big cards in America over major wrestling weekends like All Out, the Rumble, and Mania? Maybe even try to get an English highlight show on something like an AXS? Or, considering everyone from the major leagues to the indies will be running aggressively from now until probably forever to make up for lost time, is this upcoming year simply too soon for STARDOM in America?
A couple likely/unlikely for you, from WWE/AEW/MCU. Will any of these events take place by December 2022?
Tony Khan is attacked during an in-ring segment?
Chris Jericho wins the AEW Title as a babyface(his first babyface world title win)?
Karrion Kross wins the WWE Title or Universal Title?
Professor X, Magneto, or Wolverine appear in an MCU film or Disney+ series?(It could be an end credit scene)
If I haven’t said it before, thank you for everything you guys do.
With all the old movie reviews you have been doing with movies like the Rocky series, would you ever consider doing other 80’s/90’s fighting movies like Bloodsport, Mortal Kombat, Streetfighter etc? Or even classic non fighting movies like Goonies, Back to the Future, Gremlins etc.?
I apologize if you reviewed any of these and I missed it.
John, last month when you were reviewing the Bret Hart A&E doc, you mentioned that Stampede Wrestling used to be on the WWE Network. Thank you for this because I thought I watched some Stampede when the Network was first launched but wasn’t sure if it was just a fever dream. What’s the story here? Did the WWE somehow think they owned the rights but they don’t? Does Bret own the rights to Stampede? Was there a lawsuit?
Also, on the same podcast you mentioned that Vince reneged on his initial deal to buy Stampede Wrestling in the '80s. Could you please elaborate on this? Thanks!
How do you think Matt Hardy is tracking in AEW? He seems to have finally found himself as Big Money Matt but HFO might be AEWs weakest faction. If you noticed (or maybe even know the original plan) Matt was calling himself “iconic Matt” just before Stings debut. I suspect Stings debut was kept very secret? and therefore Matt had to adjust his character due to Sting being “the icon”.
His role seems to be a mentor while occasionally taking up TV time to establish credibility. He primarily is there to help get the younger talent over, AEW seems to do this better than main roster WWE, where most older talent is either overly dominate (aka Goldberg/Lesner treatment) or constantly being booked to loose, so beating them doesn’t mean anything.
WWE has a problem. After listening back to old Post reviews it’s pretty glaring. What is Vince’s problem with burying talent that it gets over organically with the crowd or away entirely from the promotion? It pretty much indicates that he is disconnected from what his fan base wants and has been that way for years.
As a fellow Ontarian, it seems like there is finally light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the pandemic.
I know you have both received your first and second doses and I was lucky enough to get a second dose last week myself, but I was wondering how you both felt on the eventual easing of restrictions in Ontario. I know you’ve mentioned going to a movie in a month or two, but are you both at all nervous about seeing a return to normalcy or are you both excited to put this behind us? Will you be hesitant to leave the mask at home when it’s deemed safe to do so?
John, I wanted to ask if you have finished The Wire and if so, what you thought of season 5 with the focus on media? I’m sure there were things you could relate to more so than the rest of us as you are in media. Also what did you think of the series overall? I think it was one of the greatest shows ever. If you enjoyed it then you should give Homicide: Life on the Street a watch as well.
Wrestling Question:
If you guys could book who Roman would eventually drop the title too, who would it be and what would be the timeline?
Any plans on traveling soon? What are the current border regulations? Maybe the new york shows? Maybe the 3 shows in Chicago? I was just in Chicago last weekend. I wish I could be there in Sept. You guys were wondering about the ability to sell 3 shows. I think they can. They seem to be just opening up the city. There were zero shows last weekend. Thx fellas.
With crowds making a comeback here in July I want to pick your brains on looking back at the past year with this question…
What storylines do you think would be totally different if it wasn’t for the empty arena setting and the ability to control the .mp3 crowds.
I wholeheartedly believe that Jey Uso would of gotten Kofimania type pops during the initial Roman storyline. The promos and storytelling were on another level. He likely wouldn’t have beat Roman for the title because of it but I personally believe his present day position on the card would be much higher en route to challenging again.
Hey guys, with the return of live crowds on the horizon for the WWE, we are all going to see how people truly feel about some of these characters we see every week. What is one character you think is going to be a lot more over to the crowd than some might expect. And who is someone you think the crowd will turn on or just be apathetic to?
For me I think Matt Riddle has really latched onto something with this RKBro angle and is going to be super over with live audiences. On the flip side, with the recent losses to Lashley and coupled with this stupid storytime gimmick I think Drew McIntyre has lost a lot of steam and we may start to see audiences turn on him.
What do you think?
Keep up the great work!
How deep are you two in regarding password managers and authentication tools? Past year I’ve been working on changing my habits to meet a basic level - all my passwords generated by a manager (Bitwarden) and utilizing a “soft token” for sites that offer it. I’m thinking about getting a physical token like a Yubikey as I carry a similar product for my work for the past number of years. It feels like the every week there’s a new site apologizing to its users that they were compromised, and it’s easy to change my passwords now without fear of needing to change countless others.
I recently rewatched some ppvs involving Muhammad Hassan, and ended up listening to some related podcasts. The consensus seemed to be that, even before the 7/7 angle with Undertaker, this angle was hampered by the booking changing/hot-shotting the original tweener nature of the character, the strain of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. post 9/11 not having abated, but also the inherent difficulty of booking a nuanced character like Hassan in a business so often as black & white as pro wrestling.
Do you see any way that this angle could have worked then, and if not, would you trust any company to book a similar angle today?