Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast. Ep. 050
Hosts: Sam Roberts and Katie Linendoll
Guests: Dolph Ziggler and Seth Rollins
Release Date: October 7, 2015
DIRECT LINK TO LISTEN DOWNLOAD
Recap by Mike Booble
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
– Interview with Seth Rollins from Ringside Fest covering mostly the Summerslam match with Sting and the resulting injury.
– Interview with Dolph Ziggler covering him not being in the movie Trainwreck and having to “step on toes” to get ahead.
– Long discussion on New Day ending Raw standing tall over the top face talent in the company and what that means in the long run.
– Covered Total Divas, specifically Dolph’s involvement with Nikki Bella referenced in the interview.
– Divas Revolution and the regression back to “faction warfare.”
ORDER OF EVENTS
Introduction – 0.00
Seth Rollins Interview – 4.25
Dolph Ziggler Interview – 10.47
State of Wrestling with Katie Linendoll – 16.50
Divas discussion – 49.00
Video response from a ref regarding #RefGate – 1:04.36
Sign off – 1:07.50
DETAILED RECAP
– Roberts opened the podcast talking about the interview last week with Becky Lynch and about her untapped potential. Roberts feels she’s being overshadowed by Charlotte and Sasha, and maybe it would’ve been better to keep her in NXT where she would have an opportunity to build her following.
– Roberts talked about attending Ringside Fest as a fan the first few years but now thanks to the podcast he gets to go as credentialed media and get interviews with stars, instead of standing in line waiting for autographs. He said at the beginning it was basically just a legends convention with Sting, Ted Dibiase and Ultimate Warrior but that WWE provided a strong lineup this year with Kevin Owens, Paige, Lana, Ziggler, and Rollins.
– Transitioning to the Rollins interview he asked if he knew immediately during the match that Sting was hurt. Rollins said it was scary, but Sting gave no indication he was hurt at first and that it took a few seconds for everyone to realize something was wrong and for the doctors to check on him. He said despite that it was such an honor getting to wrestle someone he dressed up as multiple times for Halloween.
– After a brief interruption by Owens and Paige, Roberts wanted to know if he thinks about the Bucklebomb or does anything differently with the move. Rollins said no, that he’s taken the move a bunch and never had an issue, and although he’s still in really good shape, Sting is a 56-year old man and it was a freak accident.
– Roberts asked if he prefers going against the legends like Sting and Kane or his generation more. Rollins said he has no preference, and vets like Kane and Sting have a wealth of knowledge but that the younger guys can do a lot more in the ring at this point in their career.
– After a brief recap, Roberts began the Ziggler interview from the same event. Roberts asked why John Cena was in the movie Trainwreck since the character Cena played is loosely based on him. Ziggler said he didn’t know and that he hadn’t seen the movie yet, but that he was glad Cena finally got something and it was good to give the kid the rub.
– Roberts asked Ziggler about wrestling vets vs. wrestling new talent and Ziggler said it’s just different. During the Attitude Era, the focus wasn’t as much on the in-ring wrestling as it is right now, so it’s nice to wrestle people who are actually good at wrestling. It was a weird answer, kind of implying a lot of guys back then weren’t.
– Roberts asked what it’s like to have all his storylines on the various shows he’s involved with be centered around relationships. Ziggler said it’s kind of weird, but nice to have a focused storyline. He said he used to hear complaints about him having 30-minute, cold matches that tore the house down with no storyline implications, and now he has a focused storyline and all people want is 30-minute matches.
– Roberts asked about the locker room environment, as it relates to John Cena, and if the storyline on Total Divas has had any repercussions. Basically Ziggler told Nikki, who used to be his real life girlfriend, that he was husband material and could give her kids. Dolph basically said it’s storyline and that he has been told by numerous vets from the Attitude Era that he needs to step on some toes at times to get ahead.
– On the State of Wrestling, Roberts and Linendoll opened by discussing the low ratings from Raw the last two weeks. Roberts disagreed with the ratings and thought the shows were pretty good and that it’s pretty clear Triple H is hands on in some capacity, as evident by the young guys like Roman Reigns and Bray Wyatt getting to close Raw.
The two hosts found it interesting that after two weeks of poor performance, Vince didn’t fall back on his usual response which is to have a heavy Cena show. Instead the had the New Day, layout all the top stars to end the show. They did take exception to Stephanie McMahon putting them down. Evil Steph should be praising them in her heel role, but the week-to-week face/heel turn is a little confusing to the audience and isn’t giving them clear direction as to who to cheer for.
They talked about the how New Day is getting better each week and referenced an interview they did with Xavier Woods on Linendoll’s new podcast, where Woods talked about them just having fun now and that coming across on TV. Linendoll thinks the plan the whole time was for them to be this positive role model group but that organically the crowd turned them heel. Sam disagreed and thinks there was no plan. They were just three guys with nothing going on thrown together as a tag team, but through their hard work made a good situation better.
Linendoll said they had vignettes announcing their debut which proved WWE had a plan. Roberts said all it proved was that they had vignettes. The difference in the Wyatts’s videos was the defining of each character, something the New Day videos didn’t do. Roberts and Linendoll wondered if this was the beginning of a trend where performers are allowed to go out to the ring, and just try new things. Whether they fail or not.
Roberts said the build doesn’t compare to that of a Daniel Bryan because in that situation the company’s hand was forced.
They talked about how Big E. was huge in NXT before NXT was huge. He has proven he can be “the guy” for a show and maybe this is the build towards that. Sam recalled Kofi a few years ago being in a World title feud with Randy Orton and the crowd buying in. They both agree all three could be really big if given the opportunity.
– They had an interesting fantasy booking idea for Hell in The Cell, where Cena, would team with the Dudley’s to face New Day, with the winning team receiving all the belts.
Roberts talked about contradicting himself and being excited for the Kane-Rollins feud, where before he only wanted the young talent to face young talent. He said the difference is the storyline isn’t stale, Kane has never done the split personality thing before and it’s really entertaining.
Roberts did say if the company is wanting to go in the direction of younger talent just book a Ring of Honor show from five years ago since they have all the top talent from then. He said it was a good show then and they’re all hitting their peak now.
– They briefly talked about returning to enhancement matches to utilize guys like Zack Ryder, Adam Rose and the Lucha Dragons. Have one or two every hour instead of every match needing to be PPV quality.
– They switched topics and began talking about the Total Divas storyline with Ziggler, Cena and Nikki. Roberts said they should just turn Ziggler heel and use this on the main show and get rid of the Rusev storyline. He said all of Ziggler’s shirts say “steal your girlfriend” and he’s yet to see him do that on TV.
– They finished up talking about the Divas division. Linendoll said the crowd was chanting all night on Raw for Sasha Banks, even more so than John Cena. They said it feels like the division has slid backwards again, reverting to the faction warfare from a few weeks ago.
– Roberts said it feels a little misogynistic that all ten Divas in the division are part of one storyline and that you would never find that during on the male roster. They said the match quality isn’t the issue, but once again the lack of storyline.
They said they need to stop with with repeated six-person tags, and go to individual feuds. Roberts also said that the match at NXT:Takeover between Sasha and Bayley will be Match of The Year.
The show ended with two audio clips from videos, the first being Roberts appearance on the NXT Takeover: Brooklyn documentary on the WWE Network and the second is a response from an actual ref on #RefGate.
OVERALL SCORE RATING & REVIEWING
Overall 6.5. The two interviews were interesting but really short. Either guy would be a good interview in longer format. The conversation regarding New Day was interesting, they had a lot of points I agree with, but it was done not it a bullet point, pro vs. con way, but rather in the course of a long discussion. They focused again on the need to build the future of the company around younger guys and not part time stars and seem to be happy this appears the direction it’s going. They made a lot of the same points they’ve made before about the Divas division, but I’m not sure Vince sees the Divas in the same light. A few too many Nikki, Vince, Big E. impressions, that were a little distracting at times, but overall another fun listen.
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