The whole WhatCulture Wrestling gang are back to talk about the things we hate about our favourite wrestlers!
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00:00We all have flaws, Michael Cedric, even your favourites have problems and I'm not afraid
00:09to say that my favourite wrestler ever, the reason I got into wrestling, Dwayne The Rock
00:14Johnson has flaws and that, Dwayne, I have to tell you face to face, you're too bloody
00:19good.
00:20That's the problem.
00:21Too good.
00:22Better than all your favourites because whenever he comes back, he's too popular and he ruins
00:29everything that's going on and the figures do kind of support that he's so popular you
00:34have to do something with him at WrestleMania.
00:36He's done it before.
00:37If he is going to show up and do something, you kind of just scrap all the plans whether
00:42you've built them for two weeks or two years, basically.
00:46He's never made a bad film.
00:49He's just a generational talent and yeah, he's too popular and he ruins all the plans
00:55that they've actually built.
00:57Good luck, Cody.
00:58The one thing I hate about my favourite wrestler is nothing to do with my favourite wrestler,
01:02Jeff Jarrett.
01:03It's to do with the decision makers within AEW that don't give him enough singles matches.
01:07Hearing Jeff Jarrett's, hearing Jeff Jarrett's is a bit like hearing the sting at the start
01:11of Natalya's music.
01:12You think somebody else is coming.
01:14In her case, it's Bret Hart.
01:15In his case, it's him with Jay Lethal.
01:18I don't want any more tag matches.
01:20That genre of Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal tag match was perfected at Double or Nothing which
01:24I was privileged to be there live as Karen Jarrett thrashed Aubrey Edwards with the
01:28acoustic equaliser.
01:29Done.
01:30Finito.
01:31Give that man the television time he deserves and ideally a title to play with as well.
01:35He has proven all of his doubters wrong in this AEW wrong.
01:39Everybody remembers Triple J in TNA.
01:41Everybody thinks he's like a political succubus and nightmare.
01:43He has played up to that reputation with fabulous effect in AEW.
01:47He makes so much more sense than half the wrestlers that Tony Khan insists on signing because
01:52we've got enough elite wrestlers.
01:54We need some absolute bastards from a different era that can be the contrast to the best of
01:59the great wrestlers.
02:00The proper elite wrestlers and somebody that kind of has nothing to do with the very nature
02:04of the word.
02:05I love what Jeff Jarrett can bring and I genuinely believe it might be conspiratorially that
02:11there have been some dark forces at work that have seen how over he got on television in
02:15a pretty tepid year for the product and took him out of it.
02:20I don't understand why when all he kind of offered on TV was value on the undercard.
02:25I'm not campaigning for him to win the world title or anything, although he'd give Joe
02:28a great match.
02:29I've seen them.
02:30I'm not campaigning for him to win the world title.
02:32I'm just saying that he could absolutely figure as a singles act in 2024 and beyond doing
02:37jobs for people, losing to people, getting hit with his own guitar, having fun hitting
02:40others with a guitar and instead we're trapped in this vortex of tag matches.
02:45Justice for Jeff.
02:47I'm going to cheat for this one.
02:48I'm going to pick a stable of wrestlers because I love me some Brian Danielson.
02:52I love me some Claudio Castagnoli.
02:54I love me some John Moxley.
02:56I don't love me some Blackpool Combat Club.
02:57I don't understand it and I don't really know what they're doing together as a unit anymore.
03:02They've been together about two years now at the time of recording, which is a decent
03:07amount of time and I like when stables actually run for multiple years.
03:11It's better than just randomly binning it off in most cases, but when Regal left, the
03:16name didn't make any sense and their aim just, what already existed was already kind
03:23of like, I don't really get this.
03:25They're just a bunch of guys that like to beat up wrestlers and make them feel pain.
03:29Congratulations.
03:30That's most motivation for most wrestling stars most of the time.
03:35It's a bunch of technical wrestling guys and then John Moxley is like this goon who's attached
03:40to it because he just loves beating people up in deathmatch style ways.
03:47It never really clicked for me.
03:49It doesn't make a lot of sense.
03:51I don't really understand what they're doing together as a group and you know, they've
03:54done some, I'm not going to say they've wasted these guys in the last two years.
03:57Absolutely not.
03:58They've done some wonderful things as a group and as solo stars while being part of the
04:02BCC.
04:03But at this point, I just have to wonder what else could they be doing with these guys?
04:08What other feuds and friendships could they be a part of?
04:10If they weren't part of this kind of arbitrary grumpy guy stable.
04:17Bryan Danielson and his absolute lack of ambition.
04:20Like you just imagine like the wrestling world behind the scenes.
04:24All it talks about is like the politics behind it and the kind of people sort of muscling
04:29about for position on card to like get to the top and grab that like brass ring that
04:33Vince McMahon always loved people to grab.
04:35And Bryan Danielson, to his credit in a way, just kind of went along with whatever and
04:41it did what he wanted to do, did his own little style and it got him to the top eventually.
04:45But if you imagine Bryan Danielson with the kind of drive and ambition of like a Stone
04:49Cold or a Cena or like any one of the sort of top stars of the last 50 years that have
04:55actually like fought tooth and nail clawed for their position on the card.
04:59Imagine the amount of incredible storylines, incredible like championship runs, incredible
05:04matches like at the top of all cards we could have had from him.
05:08Like he could have like muscled his way into like probably WWE working with New Japan if
05:13he actually fought his position on the card.
05:17Like it's just, it could have been so much more than what it is.
05:22And to his credit, it's been amazing and it almost maybe wouldn't be Bryan Danielson if
05:25he wasn't the guy that was willing to like be like second on a card and sort of help
05:30lift up some lower card guys.
05:33But it's, you just, you just wonder what could have been if he actually had that drive behind
05:37him and the sort of, yeah, the magic that that could have brought.
05:40So something that I hate about a wrestler that's one of my favourites.
05:44Well one of my favourites just so happens to be the head of the table, the tribal chief
05:48himself, Roman Reigns.
05:50And although the character itself is still super enjoyable, every time he pops up on
05:55TV on Smackdown or PLE, whatever it is, he just exudes charisma and he just has an aura
06:00around him.
06:01And it's incredible really to see where that character has like gone in the last couple
06:05of years.
06:06It's sensational stuff and Roman deserves all the props, the smug, entitled, a little
06:11bit crazy when he's worried about his belt perhaps like going away from him.
06:14He goes mad.
06:15Like this whole character is pretty cool, pretty awesome.
06:19But we got to talk about the matches, man, because the matches have got stale.
06:24They've become uninspired.
06:26It's just the same thing over and over and over again.
06:29It is shenanigans, ref bumps, somebody like at the last minute putting Roman's leg on
06:34a rope or knocking out the ref and giving him a steel chair and then he hits somebody
06:38with it or whatever.
06:39There's just screwy finishes that have completely undermined I'd probably say the last year
06:43or so of Roman's reign in particular because he's not really been shown or depicted as
06:48somebody that can do it himself at all.
06:51Like fair enough every now and again the heel does need to kind of resort to these tactics,
06:55these underhanded tactics to just get the job done and establish them as a villain within
06:59this universe.
07:00I get that.
07:01But when you're kind of talking about being the real top dog in all of WWE and this megastar,
07:06this superstar, this person that has just held this title for so long nobody can get
07:10their hands on it, not being able to get the job done really on your own at all currently
07:14in the last couple of months or the last couple of defenses in particular like LA Knight,
07:18Cody Rhodes, Sami Zayn, like all these kind of big high profile defense.
07:23Jey Uso is a big one as well, I just had to check my notes there for a second.
07:26Jey Uso, the big one at SummerSlam, the tribal combat thing where there wasn't even meant
07:30to be any interference, there was still interference and shenanigans because bloodline drama.
07:34Like it's just baffling to me that they've stuck to this formula so much and just kind
07:39of thought oh we'll get away with it because it's cinema, that's what we do.
07:43But no, I've got to the point now where I'm a bit tired of it.
07:46This has been recorded before the Royal Rumble so I'm hoping that the Fatal 4-Way Madness
07:50can just kind of maybe just dilute that and that doesn't happen this time, you don't
07:55get loads of shenanigans.
07:56Jimmy Uso and Solo don't get involved and don't cost like everyone else in the match
07:59and Roman walks out like via those methods, maybe The Rock comes back and just beats those
08:03guys up and something else happens, like I hope that happens instead and not the same
08:08just tired and boring shenanigans that have just got Roman all the wins recently and I'm
08:13fed up of it.
08:14I want to grab Kenny Omega by the scruff of the neck and tell him to be a star on North
08:18American TV and the thing that annoys me right is that in this video you will hear
08:24Phil Chambers say about Bryan Danielson, would he be the same like incredibly likeable irreverent
08:30funny guy Danielson if he was like a bit of a prick and out for himself backstage?
08:36Probably not.
08:37In another video, another chatty face, Andy Murray's made the point that I wouldn't see
08:40him punk, be seen punk if he didn't have that drive, that absolute refusal to be told what
08:45to do or how to conduct himself.
08:48What annoys me is that that's not true of Kenny Omega.
08:50I've seen him be a star, like I know he can do it, I know he can do it, in 2021 he did
08:58it in AEW as the AEW World Champion but he kind of did it as like this caricature of
09:04a heel and I think maybe that's where he reconciled how to be like that present and that up for
09:10it on television.
09:13We in the office routinely play the promo that aired on the Road to All Out on the YouTube
09:19series pre-Dynamite AEW when Jon Moxley had the Mercer infection in his elbow and couldn't
09:25do it.
09:26You've got a boo-boo on your elbow.
09:27For four minutes, Kenny Omega is the biggest prick in the world, he's like a complete tosser,
09:35so arrogant and he's just going to say, you know what, he's just patronised Jon Moxley,
09:42he was a complete arsehole to Jon Moxley and he basically put himself over as the guy
09:46who had to save everything, the fulcrum of All Elite Wrestling, the guy on which everyone's
09:52hopes were pinned for a dream match.
09:54What happened to him?
09:55Why does he not cut a fired up, vengeful babyface promo against Don Callis?
10:02Why is he happy to just fight whichever pawn Don Callis puts at him without the personal
10:08issue drawing money?
10:09How can such a genius as Kenny Omega is, his matches are so dense, not just on the
10:13physical side but on the mental side, I've seen Kenny Omega dabbling in subtext in wrestling
10:17matches and he's one of the frauds who can do that, he can.
10:21Why can't he just, maybe he considers it like luring himself to it, I don't know.
10:28Why can't he just say, Don Callis you've pissed me off and I'm going to rip your face off.
10:32Just something basic to get people to believe in this character because I think too often
10:36he appears like aloof, like he doesn't seem interested, maybe he thinks like North American
10:41TV and the trappings are like beneath him, they're not, they're not above any wrestler
10:46if they want to be in America and be, he's done it, fucking do it again.
10:50So something I hate about my favourite wrestler, who right now at this moment, it changes every
10:54day, is our truth, is that I don't believe he's on television enough, like he doesn't
10:58really pop up on Smackdown, we don't see him on NXT, he could be on Main Event, you could
11:02put him on that new WWE speed show that was teased, he could be on The Bump, keep doing
11:06this all day long, I just think we need more R-Truth on television.
11:10Being more serious though, I think I will jump across to Miro slash Rusev, whatever
11:14you want to call him, who has been one of my favourite wrestlers for a while, and it's
11:17just that mostly over the last, what, 12 to 18 months, he hasn't featured on TV enough.
11:21Now I'm not going to point the finger or blame anybody, because I don't know what the ins
11:25and outs of it are, maybe there's a real reason, maybe there's not a real reason, maybe there's
11:28stuff that's going to come out in the future that will give us more insight into this,
11:31but you know, even when he first came into AEW, I don't think that video game character
11:35was necessarily the best representation, or best usage of him, but we came to the
11:40Redeemer and we figured it out, and he cut all those cool promos, and even when I try
11:44and think about it, he had that really short run as TNT Champion, which was great, I enjoyed
11:48the mini-feud, if you can call it that, with Andrade, I liked everything with Powerhouse
11:51Will Hobbs, I thought we could do a round two with that, and it kind of teased, but
11:55you really start to struggle to think of anything else he's done in All Elite Wrestling, and
11:59again I don't want to rag on it too much, because there may be a very justifiable reason,
12:03but even with his absence, if we can call it that, he's still one of my favourite wrestlers,
12:07which kind of sums up how much I obviously do enjoy him, and obviously do like him, but
12:12I really do hope in 2014, as we are recording this in January, that we can just figure out
12:18a way to utilise him more, and I suppose maybe that's just how Tony Khan sees him, he's like
12:24Andre the Giant back in the days, a special attraction, but I think you probably need
12:29a bit of a better balance, and at the moment, yeah, we just don't see him, and he hasn't
12:33really had his defining AEW run, and even if his plan is to go back to WWE, which is
12:37totally fine, you know, he's a human being, he's allowed to make these choices, I would
12:40like it if we just sort of had six months going on a tear, or just facing a bunch of
12:44people that I'd love to see him face, for example, Miro vs Kenny Omega, I don't think
12:48we've ever seen like Miro vs Hangman Adam Page, although I may be wrong about that one,
12:51but again, the fact that I have to kind of go into my brain, and just leap out and go
12:56this has happened, I think is a little bit of a shame. So, let's hope that R-Truth gets
13:00featured more on television, and ironically, let's hope that Miro also gets featured more
13:05on television, but for vastly different reasons, and of course if Miro does go back to WWE,
13:10we can do him, I guess he'd be called Rusev again, vs R-Truth, and then I'll never have
13:14to worry about anything ever again, as long as I live, and I'll probably lay down, and
13:18just live out the rest of my days that way, because I will have peaked.
13:22CM Punk will not stop fighting mother effers. I kind of go back and forth on this, right,
13:27if you asked me next week, I'd actually love that he fights everyone in the world, but
13:31you know, this week I've decided that I don't. CM Punk's wonderful, he's brilliant, we've
13:36just done the absolute best wrestlers in the world list, where Phil and Michael Hanflet
13:41have articulated wonderfully what makes CM Punk so special, I echo every single part
13:45of that, I actually love that we get so many controversial stupid news stories that we
13:49get to cover, I think that if you stripped the confrontational element of CM Punk away,
13:55CM Punk would not be CM Punk, he'd be just some 7 out of 10 wrestler who's a little bit
13:59sloppy, and you know, he cuts a nice promo here and there, but he's not the lightning
14:04rod that he is today that has made him so successful. But the problem with all of what
14:10comes with CM Punk is that he's going to get himself fired from every single company he
14:14works for because he has no problem solving, he has no issue solving problems with his
14:19fist to his detriment. CM Punk has always struck me as the kind of guy who, if he likes
14:25you, if he loves you, he will die for you. But if you slight him, even in the slightest
14:30way, if you order him the wrong flavour of cupcake from Mindy's Bakery, he is going to
14:36do all he can to cut you out of his life and ruin your existence. So, I'm really enjoying
14:41the CM Punk WWE run, I think he cuts through the glossy veneer like nobody else in that
14:45company, but I'm dubious as to whether or not he's going to last 2024, because someone's
14:49going to annoy him, and he's probably going to punch them.
14:52Clearly, Bryan Danielson is one of the very best wrestlers on the planet, if not the absolute
14:57best. And the slight moan I've got here, and it's something that's also commendable,
15:02so it's a strange argument to have, is that I just wish sometimes there's an unwillingness
15:05there with Bryan to just chill out and calm down. It's okay, you don't have to be Mr.
15:09Everything for everybody. For instance, Bryan Danielson came back injured, came back hurt
15:13when CM Punk left the company, because there was a void there for somebody to do something
15:17with Ricky Starks. And Bryan and Ricky Starks had one of the best matches of 2023, but you're
15:23looking at it and it's like, he's come back early from injury, there's the broken arm
15:26injuries recovering from, there's the orbital bone injury that is just shattered and mashed
15:30throughout the rest of the year when that happened. And you're thinking, on the horizon
15:33there is Wrestle Kingdom 18 against Kazuchika Okada, a match that did happen, and again,
15:38it was great. But how do you prepare him for that? How do you make sure that that match
15:41happens? How do you keep Ryan healthy, let him fully recover? No, you stick him in the
15:46Continental Classic against people like Brodie King, Eddie Kingston, Claudio Castagnoli,
15:50Andrade, El Idolo, and even Daniel Garcia. All matches that were great, were brilliant.
15:55I love that tournament, I love the Danielson matches. And then you stick him at ROH Final
16:00Battle, let's throw him on there, and AEW World's End, let's throw him on there.
16:04It all kind of, it all came together, it all worked. But there's just always that
16:07fear of like, are we going to get that match? Nigel McGuinness always jokingly says a brittle
16:12Bryan on commentary. And I mean, maybe that's part of it, because I'm crossing everything
16:17that we get, Bryan Danielson versus Nigel McGuinness at All In 2024. A match we were
16:22supposed to have at last year's All In, but it didn't happen because Bryan Danielson
16:26was injured. And it's just this, I don't know, it's just, I feel like sometimes with
16:31Bryan, it's okay. I know he's in the last year of his full-time career, and there's
16:34a lot he wants to do, but it's just, it's okay to calm down now and again. But again,
16:40but that's really commendable that he is out there busting his ass, doing all these things.
16:44I don't know. It's a point I'm making, but not making, and I'm talking myself round.
16:48So I will just stop there. But yes, just be careful, Bryan. That's all I'm asking. Just
16:52be careful.