I have been living in Stamford, Connecticut now for four years. My question for John is, do you have any insight about why WWE settled on Stamford to be their home base? Although it’s close to New York City, there are no arenas here and it’s also not particularly near any airports.
In Bill Hanstock’s recent unauthorized history of WWE he mentions the McMahons settled on Connecticut because the area would be the “last place on earth people would expect a wrestling company” but other than that I can’t find a lot of other information about it.
Apologies if this was asked before,
do you see Raw and Smackdown ending the brand split again in the future or will they stay separate shows?
For me I liked when stars showed up on both shows, plus I feel like them having more stars to play with would be a benefit and we wouldn’t have lack luster rematches that we have been seeing every week. They made it work back then when I believe raw was on TNN / Spike tv and smackdown was on UPN. Thoughts?
Just a quick Ryerson University question. I am going into my last year at Ryerson and with the recent news about possible name changes, I thought would ask your opinion about this. Would either of you be upset if Ryerson changed the schools name? And would you want a replacement degree, with the institutions new name? Thanks!
Zubin from North Van, BC:
Hey John and Wai!
Asking here instead of the MCU L8TR thread as I’d love to get John’s response as well.
For the mutants/X-Men introduction into the MCU, would you prefer to see the actors reprise their roles from the FOX films (assumably in a multi-verse scenario), or start from scratch? I’d had the thought of dedicating an entire phase building to the origin/formation of the the X-Men- the way that Marvel Studios had done with The Avengers- but realize I may be in the minority in wanting to see that.
On the positive side of lockdowns, they have afforded me the time to finally watch Breaking Bad and WOW! it really is the best long running TV show I have seen from start to finish, and what a finish it was!
I recall both of you giving the show high praise and was wondering if either of you had seen El Camino - The Breaking Bad Movie?
There are mixed feelings about the need for a movie after how perfect the finale of the show was.
Spoiler warning
I felt as though the series was the perfect arc of Walter Whites character, where as the film closed-off Jessie’s story which was left open ended, I don’t think this takes away from the TV show as this does not impact the prime characters arc in any way.
What are your thoughts?
(Bonus question if you have time)
Are there any other completed TV shows you want to see or think could benefit from a movie to close-off or add to their series story?
With the upcoming changes in NXT, Do you HHH leaving the WWE, voluntarily or involuntarily in the next few years? Will he get the blame for not developing main roster superstars or will he be upset how the brand he built is being changed?
Aside from Bart Gunn, if there was a wrestler you could pick to get trained in boxing in 6 months and beat one of the Paul brothers in an 8 round boxing match, who would it be?
My fiancé and I will be closing on our first home - a condo - on Friday. John, I know you just went through a hell of an ordeal with your hot water tank this month (sorry to remind you), so I was wondering if either of you have any tips for someone buying their first home - any things to watch out for or keep on top of?
Do you ever see AEW putting a show on going against Raw on Mondays? What better way to have RAW stop sucking so much, than to have some legitimate competition on Mondays?
What are your predictions for the Survivor Series matches this year? Do you think we’ll get our classic RAW vs. SmackDown matches in a battle for brand supremacy? At the 2019 Survivor Series NXT won the most amount of matches but due to COVID concerns they were kept off the 2020 card. With the rumored NXT changes do you think they will participate in Survivor Series again?
Did you guys enjoy it when WWE does storylines that are based from real-life personal dramas like the love triangle of Matt Hardy, Edge and Lita back in '05? Looking back, that was at times hard to watch but I definitely believe that angle really began to showcase Edge as a top vicious heel superstar for years to come. I only wish that they capitalized on Hardy’s popularity after this feud ended as he probably was the most over in his career probably other than his Broken gimmick.
My question is regarding the differentiating legacies for Kenta and Shibata. While both are contemporaries - I would consider pre WWE Kenta was heading towards a HOF career - since then he has had an at best mediocre NXT run and underwhelming main roster run. His return to Japan although more successful than his WWE run isnt at same level of his NOAH/ROH run.
In parallel - post his return to NJPW; Shibata has had a great run till his untimely retirement - however in my opinion he never reached the same heights as Kenta (2004-11).
While in most modern fans I feel Shibata is seen to have a greater career and in general legacy how do you think about the same.
Remember when the clip with the tupac hologram became huge?
Imagine if any wrestling company tried out to do a hologram wrestling match with any dream combination from the past or present to put on. Which “dream” match would be the first and be the one that could work?
And for Wai. If you could choose any wrestling setting in all time to have as a lego set, which would it be? A wrestlemania set up, tna big red cage or maybe an angle like when Stephanie was cruxified?
Recently on the Summerslam 2021 show some allegations regarding Brock Lesnar were discussed including rampant unapologetic uses of homophobia. This was news to me and the information led me to uncover a lot of troubling stuff he has said which has been swept under the rug due to Brock Lesnars star power and insistence on keeping private and not caring about celebrity.
Question:
While Brock Lesnar seemingly has job security for life, what would it take for this stuff to actually be an issue? This brings me to a larger question, WWE has no issue releasing the likes of Jack Gallagher due to allegations as he was not a big star but but how should a pro wrestling company in general react to a wrestlers troubling past? Obviously WWE only commits moral actions for the same of PR and publicity but I was wondering what would be the right way for them to follow up on certain allegations.
I recently found a Rewind-a-Wai library on YouTube and I’m interested if John still points with four fingers and has his VHS collection with glued on labels.
Hey guys, I absolutely loved getting Bellator coverage for 263, as it is the only MMA I follow regularly. Now my question is, is there any chance we get some more Bellator coverage from you guys at all? Or even better, get it covered on a regular basis?