Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast
Release Date: January 3, 2018
Guest: Pete Gas
Recap By: Matthew Wilkinson
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Newsworthy Items
- Pete Gas believes Daniel Bryan will wrestle again.
- Pete thinks he had a concussion at WrestleMania 2000.
- Pete used to play Dominoes with Undertaker and Kane.
- Sam hopes The Miz becomes Intercontinental Champion again.
- Sam thinks Balor & Good Brothers worked hard to impress as a team.
- Sam thinks that Wrestle Kingdom 12 is the biggest talking point of the week.
Subjects Covered (With Timestamps)
00:00-Sponsor Ads
10:54-Interview With Pete Gas
12:10-New Day Being A Fan
14:00-Daniel Bryan Returning
16:50-Earning Respect
23:40-WrestleMania 2000
35:00-Playing Dominoes
55:30-Return From Hiatus
1:11:00-State Of Wrestling- Sami Pins AJ
1:20:00-Mixed Match Challenge
1:26:20-The Miz Returning
1:35:00-Finn Balor & The Good Brothers
1:39:40-Wrestle Kingdom 12
Interview With Pete Gas
Sam Roberts welcomed Pete Gas to this week’s episode and mentioned how their previous interview had gone down very well, with fans underestimating how many stories Pete has. Sam said he thinks their interview opened up some doors for him, with Pete getting interviews on other podcasts after and Gas agreed with that, saying they got a lot of positive feedback from it.
Pete added that he gets to see people like Edge and Christian at signings, so he enjoys doing their podcasts and admits he would probably do it for less money to just hang out again.
New Day Being A Fan
Sam spoke about how now when Pete goes backstage there are likely less faces he knows, but states they were all likely fans during the Attitude Era.
Pete told a story about when he was in Dallas to see Shane wrestle Undertaker and Xavier Woods popped when he saw him. He was hanging out with Jericho so Pete went to say hi to him and Woods was a massive fan.
Sam said they likely have been influenced by the Mean Street Posse and Pete said it’s pretty flattering to get comments from them as he is a fan as well.
Daniel Bryan Returning
Sam said that he firmly believes in 2018 that Shane and Bryan are going to have a match. They are making us so hungry he is like, there is no way they would be making me this hungry to not do that match, and asked if Pete thinks the match will happen.
Pete said as a well-educated fan he thinks we are going to see it. Pete has known Daniel since he was 19 years old. When we got sent to Memphis, four guys from Shawn Michaels school came in and they were taught by Shawn to be stiff, no matter how much your opponent moans to be stiff and he was adamant about it.
He remembers working Daniel and he was the American Dragon and said those guys were way advanced and they were watching Japanese wrestling whilst they would be out and they lived and breathed it.
Sam wondered when you are getting hit hard, did he just accept it to show respect, or was there a time when he needed to work stiff? Pete said if he got a potato then you have to give a receipt because if you don’t give one then you will get eaten up in the ring constantly and that something he learned.
Earning Respect
Sam mentioned how it was being a rookie and having JBL lay into him, does he think he is getting stiff shots or is that just his style?
Pete said he did a signing over the summer time and it was himself, Kevin Thorne and Bob Holly. They did the signing and go to leave, Bob grabs his wrist and he goes ‘You are one tough son of a bitch.
He said ‘ I don’t know if you know this, but we used to say would try and break you guys and who would make you moan, we hit you with everything we had and we get backstage and you’re laughing, I couldn’t break you and I got my balls busted by JBL.’ There was a whole crew of guys who used to try break us and he said to Pete that day he earned his respect.
Sam wondered what the difference is to taking punishment and earning respect or taking punishment and becoming a punching bag.
Gas said the difference is, he liked it. He said to Bob, it didn’t hurt, but he grew up with two older brothers and they used to beat the hell out of him and he learned that from a young age if you moan it will only happen more.
WrestleMania 2000
Pete revealed that they got their licks in at WrestleMania 2000, everyone was beating everybody and when we first went over the match he remembers JBL saying ‘lay it in.’
He guaranteed he had a concussion as Viscera hit him with a box fan. He hit Pete and he remembers going down and you can see a hand reach over and point at him and a guy on the front row said he was bleeding and he had a puddle of blood.
Pete tried pushing more blood out and kept going and the blood was in his eyes and he went into the back and was coming back out to beat Thrasher and he couldn’t see.
He said if you listen close as they go back he said ‘Is this it?’ Pete hit him over the head with it and go for the cover and reality hit, you are at WrestleMania and it hit him all at once, he had his moment.
Sam thinks those matches must have been more difficult, when he was a kid and started working it out, he would look at a big battle royal and would be dumbfounded at how they worked it out and as you explain there is a plan in action here.
Everyone has to remember their spots whilst being hit by box fans. He wondered if adrenaline takes over his body?
Pete said it always does, but then you get to the Triple H/Taker level. Taker would allow the feel of the crowd and would base it on what they were doing next, everything was feel from him.
With Triple H, he is someone Pete always wanted to work with. He has always heard some of the greatest compliments and people have no idea, he is the easiest person to work and it looks like a drag out brawl.
He and Maven got to talking a lot at a signing about the business and Triple H came up and he raved about him.
Dominoes
Sam asked how The Undertaker took to the Posse. Pete said he was good and is looked at as a god behind the scenes. Pete added, as far as Taker goes, he was always there and helpful. He played Dominoes against Taker and Kane.
He started off just watching and then they needed someone to fill in and he covered and was with Godfather and he still has the same set now.
Pete told a specific story about a game where every time Kane threw a domino in this specific game Pete would score points off him and Taker was getting on at him.
He was getting close and he looks at him and said “if you score on me again, I will chase you and beat your ass.” He puts it down and Taker knows so finally Pete slammed it and said ‘Domino Mother F-er’ and he chased him and he wouldn’t stop and he caught Pete and pounded him.
Sam asked what Rodney was doing whilst he was part of the Dominoes crew. Pete said that he was part of the video game group with Mark Henry and Stevie Richards.
Return From Hiatus
Pete said when they came back after the hiatus that is when they decided to give them one-year contracts and that’s when they had to pay their dues. Some guys didn’t care because they weren’t a threat and some didn’t feel that way.
Sam mentioned how they put on one of the highest rated segments, which is why they were given TV time. He wondered why they never had an action figure or a t-shirt.
Pete said that some ideas were thrown about but they were always shot down. Back then, not everybody got that and they were not given special treatment due to their relationship with Shane. He mentioned how someone did create a doll of him, using Vince McMahon’s head and he bought it from them on eBay for $50 for his mom, but then he found her dog eating it so he took it back.
State Of Wrestling- Sami Zayn Beating AJ Styles
The number five story this week is that Sami Zayn pinned the WWE Champion, A.J. Styles. This is something Sam spoke about last week. Sami is becoming a serious contender for the title and he isn’t just there in a support role for Kevin Owens. He is doing some of the best stuff since coming to the main roster. There are two reasons it’s a big story, one, it puts him on a different pedestal maybe since his injury.
When John Cena did his open challenge, it was Sami who had all the buzz around him and if he hadn’t been injured, maybe he would have been on the Kevin Owens path. His stock has not been as high as it was this week, pinning the champion.
The biggest part was what was happening around it, which is the Shane and Daniel Bryan story. He believes even more that he will wrestle at WrestleMania.
Starting in late October, Shane McMahon started doing some weird stuff, in the last month or so, there has been noted tension between them.
Coming out of Clash of Champions it was clear they don’t get along, the story was Bryan being a bad guy and siding with Sami and Owens. Up until this week nothing he did was unjustifiable, it was Shane that was acting from an emotional place. As the guy who was in charge of SmackDown, he wasn’t thinking about that, he wasn’t thinking about giving as much attention to other people, it was let’s make their lives miserable and then try fire them.
Daniel was right last week when he said Shane is becoming Mr. McMahon. This week was the first time they tried to double down and that Bryan might have more than Smackdown’s best interests at heart and Shane is not off the hook with him pushing Owens.
The boss of a company cannot put his hands on a superstar, technically he can’t fight back as it’s his boss. For Bryan to make a handicap match was totally not something that was done because that was the match the fans needed to see.T hat was done either because he is on the side of Sami or that he wants to do stuff that annoys Shane. We are still running a huge risk if the story is Bryan being on the side of Owens and Sami, that he is so loved you will never get him booed. The lesson of his entire career is that he is special and there is something that stops us from the norm and stops us from being able to turn him.
Sam is not saying he can’t be a bad guy ever again but he is so desired to be in a ring that you are never going to boo him. It makes it so we are not wasting any matches that we could see, we can move with the story as we go.
As much as he doesn’t think Bryan will ever get booed in a match against Shane McMahon, if he does have his match then he can come out of it and have one with Styles.
Sam does still think Bryan is wrestling again, his latest quote was that if he isn’t wrestling at ‘Mania then he is probably never wrestling in WWE ever again. If he isn’t coming back to a WWE ring then it is going to be a major disappointment.
Mixed Match Challenge
The number four story is breaking as they record this is that fans found out the first two tag teams for the Mixed Match Challenge and it is a 20-minute show that is happening after SmackDown on Facebook.
This week, Kurt Angle tweeted out that because Enzo had the flu then he is out, so that doesn’t make sense as he wouldn’t have to wrestle until way after his flu was over.
Charlotte and Bobby Roode are teaming up and Sam doesn’t know if it’s because they wear robes but to him they go together very well. He is assuming these matches will work as they normally do when women tag in they face the other woman.
On the Raw side Alexa Bliss and Braun Strowman are teaming up, it makes him look like a monster and he doesn’t think that was done by mistake. He thinks it’s the right move as on Raw what man and woman are grabbing more attention.
Sam saw Nia Jax on Twitter moaning in character about not being paired with Braun but she is as close to Braun then anyone on the roster and he doesn’t want to see them together, he likes the idea of opposites attract and Sam thought it was cool they introduced it.
The Miz Returning
The number three story are the vignettes we saw about The Miz returning to Raw next week, the story here is that Miz was just named Rolling Stone’s Wrestler of the Year.
They made the Rolling Stone award part of the package and it was this whole thing that made you feel like a big star was returning, which isn’t something they have done for him before and you have to wonder if he will go straight back to the Intercontinental Championship.
After Raw he watched the PhotoShoot program and what they are doing is an interview without an interviewer, so that’s where we are at right now.
That said, it was a great show and in the episode with Miz we learned some new insight on the Talking Smack episode where he told Bryan he should just quit.
The insight the show offered was that before that episode, the reality of the situation was Miz wasn’t on Smackdown that week and was told they had nothing for him. He was pissed about it and he goes over and does Talking Smack and it all pours out of him, and in Sam’s opinion, the way he is being treated is the number three story, not that he is returning, but the way he is being treated.
He would like to see him try to get his title back from Roman Reigns and here is what he would do, Sam would have him come back looking for a shot and have Kurt Angle push it to the Rumble or Raw 25.
At the Rumble you have the Universal Championship match, the WWE Championship handicap match, a women’s and men’s Royal Rumble, the US Title closer, and Sam would have him cheat to win and beat Reigns.
He needs to get rid of the intercontinental title as he has done nothing for it and it has done nothing for him.
The Miz can get right back where he was and go into WrestleMania as the champion, that said, if he comes out of ‘Mania with the Universal Championship then Roman can chase him for that
Finn Balor & The Good Brothers
The number two story of the week, also on Monday Night Raw, it’s the Good Brothers and Finn Balor on the same team at the same time and it was amazing.
It’s a great lesson, as on paper, Sam was happy about it, but in his head, he was going, knowing WWE there is no reason to believe that this match won’t be a one and done.
What Sam thinks happened is they got together, in the same way Elias took full advantage of his segment with John Cena. Finn Balor, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows decided to function as one performer.
It was very clear to Sam that they went out to make an impact as a team and Sam believes they left WWE no choice but to leave them together.
Any fan can see that Balor, Anderson, and Gallows are better when they are together. They are all better.
Balor is still the leader but Anderson and Gallows are brought to a new place, they functioned so well as a team, they made it seem like this is their act and what they do through their moves.
Sam believes that because of what they did, the audience would prefer to view them as a package deal and it is going to happen based on what they did. They were offered an opportunity and they seized on it so, Sam is excited to see what the future holds for this team.
Wrestle Kingdom 12
Speaking of Japan, the number one story is all Wrestle Kingdom, Alpha vs Omega, WrestleKingdom is happening and as this podcast is coming out it hasn’t happened just yet.
Sam would imagine that it is going to be an amazing show and he doesn’t remember a time when it wasn’t an amazing show.
Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho. Sam thinks Jericho is going to go on a run outside of WWE in the coming months, whether that is New Japan, he wouldn’t be surprised if he pops up at ROH, if he decided he will not have a better WWE run than his last, but when was the last time he had one outside of WWE?
He is always looking at the next thing and he doesn’t think this will be a one and done. It’s going to be a terrific match but Sam does think that Naito and Okada will steal the show.
He thinks both those guys have so much riding on this, they both know how much Kenny Omega’s career from the series of matches with Okada.
New Japan have done a really good job this year, releasing videos on YouTube explaining the story of these matches and Naito is a great story that he was like Roman Reigns.
He was given the world and the fans didn’t react to him but when they didn’t, New Japan did not do what WWE did and they acknowledged the fans and cast him away and that created what we know today.
You have Jay White vs Tanahashi, you have a hair vs. hair match with Goto vs. Suzuki, and a match that Sam thinks will attempt to steal the show in Ibushi vs. Cody Rhodes, and it is surprising, Rhodes sees himself in the middle of the card.
That’s what makes New Japan so great, everyone tries to steal the show,. By the time you listen to this it is probably just finishing, this podcast is released to the world at 3 am so you can listen to it whilst you watch Wrestle Kingdom.
Rating 8/10
This was an excellent episode to kickstart the year. As they mentioned at the start of the episode, the last interview with Pete Gas was a surprise and this was another. This proves you don’t always need a top WWE star to make a good podcast. The interview section was highly entertaining and went along well, whilst Sam’s new way of producing the State of Wrestling by discussing the top 5 news stories is great and makes the podcast fresh.
About the Writer
Matthew Wilkinson is from Bradford, England. He’s been a fan since the late 90’s with the Attitude Era and was then heavily invested again through the rise of CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. He can be found on Twitter at @MC_Wilkinson1
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