BONUS The Friday Show - Aubrey Edwards at the Revolution
Guest:For ballet, your whole thing is like, if you watch The Nutcracker, you see this whole group of snowflakes standing behind, you know, someone else dancing in the front, and that person in the front was on the poster selling the tickets, but you're there to make them look good, and that is literally my job.
Guest:I'm there to make the wrestlers look good and help them tell a story.
Guest:So the difference is I just traded tights for pants.
Marc:So is wrestling big in the ballet community?
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:No?
No.
Guest:So one thing, Chris, that I learned from being a producer is that, you know, I go back and I listen to things and I can find out what works and what doesn't work.
Guest:And last week when I listened to the beginning of the show, I was like, don't do that wrestling voice again to open the show.
Guest:Like, I did it the very first time, and it was funny.
Guest:Like, I thought it was cute, and then I did it again, and then it's like, don't ever do that again.
Guest:And, you know, I'm glad that I've progressed in such a way in my life that I know don't do things that don't work.
Guest:And, you know, don't try to force it.
Guest:Don't tell people, no, no, it's good.
Guest:Trust me.
Guest:I'm not going to do that wrestling voice at the beginning of this anymore.
Guest:I don't like it.
Guest:I thought it was great, to be honest.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Overruled.
Guest:So this is The Friday Show.
Guest:I'm Brennan, and that's Chris.
Guest:Hello.
Guest:And we are here to wrap up your week with some talk.
Guest:And our first guest, our first guest that's not Mark, first guest from the outside world, the wrestling world, and we'll tell you about that in a second.
Guest:But first, Chris, I wanted to find out how your week was because I know you were in Cape Cod.
Guest:I was in Cape Cod.
Marc:How was that?
Marc:It was snowing.
Marc:Yeah, not a great time to go to Cape Cod.
Marc:Not a great time.
Marc:I did go to a nice brewery called Treehouse, which you would hate.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:You would hate their beers.
Marc:I would?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You don't like the IPAs, the hazy IPAs that I like.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:do not yeah but wait but they but any place like that has a an ale or a pilsner or something i could have like they have a stout you like a good stout of course yeah so less so than i used to i found that my my beer journey has gone like 360 degrees like i'm back to drinking what i drank in college like i'll give me a good like miller light you know bud light i'm fine totally fine right and that's what i'll bring over to your house on sunday uh for revolution i'm not gonna
Marc:Oh, very nice.
Marc:Yeah, because I'm pretty sure you still have some of my other half beers that you're like, I tried this once and I wanted to just throw up.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, I might have contemplated putting them down the toilet.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I did leave them in the fridge for whenever you would next come over.
Guest:Excellent.
Guest:No thanks on those.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But a Amstel light, a Bud light, anything like that, we're good to go.
Guest:You know, one kind of bright spot this week was there was a little bit of snow.
Guest:Not a lot, which I'm grateful for.
Guest:I'm grateful there wasn't a lot of snow because I don't like shoveling.
Guest:But I do like some snow because I was talking about this with my wife, Dawn, that like I have like seasonal depression.
Guest:Like I don't say it's like, oh, yeah, it's gloomy outside.
Guest:That makes me feel gloomy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I would say that like even a little bit of snow can sometimes like lift me out of that.
Guest:And for most of this winter, it has just been it's been I might as well be in Seattle.
Guest:It's just gloomy and rainy and damp and gray.
Guest:Like, no, thanks.
Guest:Like, get me a little like white landscaping every once in a while.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Well, how much was it snowing up in Cape Cod?
Marc:Not too much, like two inches and it rained afterwards.
Marc:So it kind of washed it all away, which was good because I had a rental car.
Marc:I went up to Cape Cod for work and I had a rental car and I realized, oh no, I don't have one of those little things to wipe my windshield.
Marc:Like a scraper?
Marc:Yeah, I don't have a scraper or anything.
Marc:So I went out with like a towel from the hotel to wipe my car off.
Marc:Uh, but yeah, only two inches, but around here where we live, we got a few inches and my neighbor was nice enough to clear the walkway.
Marc:So my wife did not have to shovel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What do you, what do you normally do?
Guest:Do you have a snowblower or do you just go out there with a shovel?
Guest:Nah, we have a small house.
Marc:I can just go out there with a shovel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I always was like pro shovel and then like I started to get old and now things hurt.
Guest:Can I get a snowblower?
Guest:And it would be so pathetic if I was outside in front of my house, which is literally like three slabs of concrete.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was snowblowing that, but like I kind of want to do it.
Guest:I'm like really done with shoveling.
Marc:Well, look, here's the thing.
Marc:If you do get a snowblower, you are now, I mean, in my opinion, you should just do the whole block or at least- Oh, I would be Mr. Plow.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Please be Mr. Plow.
Marc:Don't- Okay.
Marc:$5, please.
Marc:I hate seeing the people who have snowblowers and they only do their walkway.
Marc:I'm like, what are you doing?
Marc:This isn't hurting you at all.
Marc:Just do the rest of the walkway, dum-dum.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, there's a guy up the street that did that in the fall for us with his leaf blower.
Guest:All of a sudden, I'd be like, there's no leaves out in front of my house.
Guest:What are these trees dying?
Guest:And then I found out, no, the guy up the street, he's coming down and leaf blowing everyone's sidewalk.
Marc:That's awesome.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:But right now we're all good.
Guest:All the snow that we did have is melted.
Guest:And so there's nothing there then.
Guest:And you will be over here this weekend for the AEW pay-per-view revolution.
Guest:Pay-per-views for me, it's a tradition that goes back to when I was, I think the first one I ever bought was in 1993.
Guest:uh prior to that i would only ever see the pay-per-views on uh video like you go to blockbuster or something get the pay-per-views rent them i did not have pay-per-view capabilities on the cable uh that we had uh so i would go over to a friend's house and watch pay-per-view so it's very um in keeping with that tradition to have you over here yes on sunday night we will watch this probably four hour long wrestling show
Guest:And I thought a good way for us to get into this weekend would be to talk to somebody who is involved with the pay-per-view.
Guest:And, you know, it was funny.
Guest:Like, I contacted my person at AEW, Danny, and I said, would somebody come on and talk to us about the pay-per-view?
Guest:And he said, sure.
Guest:Who do you want?
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Literally, like, was like, have anybody that you want.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought about it, I was like, you know, I could ask for any of the talent, you know, the wrestlers, but like they're involved in like their one thing, right?
Guest:And, you know, maybe they come on and talk about the match they have or a match they've had at other pay-per-views.
Guest:And I was like, I'd like to actually have somebody who's been there through all these pay-per-views, you know, and has a role that regardless of what's on the card, this person's gonna be there.
Guest:They're there for the lead up to it.
Guest:And they can maybe talk to us and our audience about what it's like to do the pay-per-views.
Guest:So I told them, I would like us to talk
Guest:to Aubrey Edwards.
Guest:Excellent.
Guest:And Aubrey is one of the senior officials, referees on the AEW show.
Guest:She has some other jobs there, which she can tell us about.
Guest:And so this is the morning after AEW Dynamite that was being held out in San Francisco.
Guest:She was kind enough to jump on Zoom with us and talk to me and Chris about AEW Revolution, but also about what it's like to be a referee.
Guest:And in particular, coming from her background, where she trained as a ballet dancer.
Guest:So this is me and Chris talking to AEW referee Aubrey Edwards from her hotel room in San Francisco.
Guest:You've been doing this with AEW pay-per-views since their second one?
Guest:Am I right about that?
Guest:I've been here since the very beginning, the very first Double or Nothing.
Guest:Oh, you were at Double or Nothing?
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So you started with the company full-time at like around All Out, but you did the Double or Nothing show?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I originally came on with just like a one show contract to do Double or Nothing.
Guest:And from there, I got contracts, a contract to do their next three shows, Fight for the Fallen, Fyter Fest and All Out.
Guest:And in between those shows, somewhere in there, I was offered a full time contract.
Guest:So officially, like September 1st of 2019, I was like, if you look at the finance books, that's when I was full time.
Guest:But yeah, I've been with AEW since the beginning.
Guest:And so you've seen it from the get-go with these weeks.
Guest:Now, how would you say these weeks run?
Guest:Like, what are these weeks run like for you and for any of the talent and really the whole company on the week of a pay-per-view?
Guest:Like, how's this different than a normal week where you're running Dynamite on a Wednesday?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh boy.
Guest:So we have our usual fly in on Tuesday to wherever town we're going to be.
Guest:And then Tuesday night tends to be a little like things will start to ramp up.
Guest:Like some of us will have media.
Guest:I typically am recording a podcast with Tony because I host our company's podcast because we're trying to like hype up the pay-per-view, right?
Guest:Wednesday is your normal dynamite.
Guest:Long day on your feet for 13 hours.
Guest:Thursday tends to be a little bit more of a mix.
Guest:It's like, do we have fan event?
Guest:Do we have media?
Guest:Do we have whatever?
Guest:Is it a day off?
Guest:Like typically I always never...
Guest:I never have a day off.
Guest:I'm a workaholic.
Guest:I'm always doing stuff when I'm not on TV.
Guest:Friday, we have a live rampage.
Guest:So again, another long filming day.
Guest:Saturday, typically we'll have some sort of fan event going on.
Guest:We've got a couple of things.
Guest:We've got like a big charity bowling event on Saturday.
Guest:And then I work with a group called AEW Heels, which is a female fan club for wrestling fans.
Guest:So we have a big event Saturday night.
Guest:And then Sunday is the big day.
Guest:And then Monday morning, I fly home.
Guest:I'm home for about 32 hours.
Guest:And then I fly to wherever we're going next.
Guest:Heels is such a great name for a female-centered wrestling fan group.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But now you said something, though.
Guest:You said you're a workaholic and that.
Guest:So what are you doing on weeks when it's not a pay-per-view?
Guest:And you're usually only on TV one night a week.
Guest:But I assume, you know, we talked to Bryce Remsberg when we were at the forum.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I listened to that one.
Guest:And he's, you know, his role is to basically get everybody where they need to go.
Guest:So do you have other jobs within the company?
Guest:You mentioned hosting the podcast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there's there's a number of us that we have what we call office contracts where we're doing stuff outside of our onscreen roles.
Guest:So mine encompasses a number of things.
Guest:As I mentioned, I run AEW Heels.
Guest:I host AEW Unrestricted.
Guest:I also before I got into wrestling, I was a video game developer and I did that for about 10 years professionally.
Guest:So I have that background, and I work with AEW Games, our video game division, working on a couple unannounced titles.
Guest:So it's weird that my old life and my new life kind of merged in some way, but essentially Tuesday through Thursday is TV, and then Friday through Monday is a bunch of meetings, a bunch of emails.
Guest:It almost feels like a 9 to 5, even though it's not.
Guest:So I've constantly got some work to do.
Guest:There's a bunch of emails I ignored yesterday that were coming in on show day that I'm like, I'll get to them today.
Guest:Well, and also you're, I'm guessing, so Seattle is your home base, right?
Guest:Do you try to get home as well?
Guest:I try to.
Guest:Typically, like if we're doing a pay-per-view event on the East Coast and like Dynamite is also on the East Coast, I'll try and stay out there just because it's like flying back six hours to fly six hours again somewhere else seems a little like not cost viable, but also like just hell.
Guest:A drag, yeah.
Guest:Chris and I-
Guest:We're baseball fans.
Guest:And, you know, it's like one of the things we always note is like if a guy goes to the Mariners, we're like, oh, never see that guy again.
Guest:Like that's the end of him as a person we liked watching on like East Coast teams.
Guest:Like that's it.
Guest:No, no more.
Guest:No more of that guy.
Guest:No more of that guy.
Guest:And I mean, on top of that, like, oh, it's it was very happy the drought ended over here and we got to make the playoffs.
Guest:We didn't make it very far, but oh, man, it was best time to be a Mariners.
Guest:No, hey, that was exciting.
Guest:And the great thing is when you're a fan of a team that has had a drought, it's like that taste is awesome.
Guest:Over here, we've got Yankee fans living here in New York, and they're so spoiled.
Guest:Oh, my husband grew up in New York, and he's a big Yankees fan.
Guest:So I've been around it for a number of years, like him, his father, his whole family.
Guest:So I get it.
Guest:My condolences.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:I deal with it.
Guest:I deal with it.
Marc:So AW must have been like, Oh yeah, I'm sorry.
Marc:You, you develop a video games jackpot when they, they got you right.
Guest:It was kind of like random.
Guest:I think it was all out.
Guest:We were, someone was printing like all access badges for the employees and they ran into some technical difficulties with the printer.
Guest:And they're like, does anyone like, is anyone a technical person here?
Guest:I'm like,
Guest:Uh, I have a computer science degree.
Guest:I could maybe look at it and like got it working or whatever.
Guest:And someone's like, well, what did you do?
Guest:And I'm like, I can give you my resume.
Guest:Cause of course I have it updated and ready to go because that's the person I am.
Guest:Uh, I sent it in and then they realized like, oh, we have a person here who like knows what they're doing.
Guest:We should probably bring them on.
Guest:I'm
Guest:Like, yeah, I'd like to keep doing this because I figured I was just leaving games forever.
Guest:And it's like, OK, well, that was a cool life.
Guest:But being able to be still a part of it is very exciting.
Guest:I'm obviously doing a little bit different than what I did when I was doing it full time because just the time commitment and whatnot.
Guest:But I still get to see a game made from beginning to end, which was such a huge part of my being for so long.
Guest:Well, that kind of answers something that I was wondering is that if you are hired as a ref, do you have to have some other kind of qualification that would fill into parts of the company?
Guest:But it sounds like this was a happy accident, that this was a skill that you had and something that you could do while you're with the company as well.
Guest:And I guess my follow up to that is, do other refs, does it happen the same way that if you're just able to do something within the company, you can start doing it?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And I mean, it happens to really anybody.
Guest:There's a number of people with onscreen roles that do stuff behind the scenes.
Guest:Excalibur, who's our play-by-play commentator, is basically our brand manager.
Guest:So he does a lot of work behind the scenes.
Guest:Tony Schiavone helps with a lot of creative and talent relations stuff.
Guest:Christopher Daniels is our head of talent relations.
Guest:So it's almost like we run as a startup in a little bit of a way.
Guest:A lot of our talent that has experience
Guest:In outside ventures, we're just utilizing that talent that they have.
Guest:So as you mentioned, like Bryce Remsberg is our travel manager.
Guest:Paul Turner, who is our senior ref on TV, also books travel.
Guest:So it's interesting because I'll be at work and then I go through like kayak and look up all my flights, take screenshots, send them to Paul, and then he books all my travel.
Guest:So it's this weird relationship where you...
Guest:work with people you'll take off one hat and then put on another hat and just start having a conversation with someone else about something like I was having a legal conversation with someone in our legal department yesterday about some like tattoo licensing kind of stuff in video games and it was just like oh yeah I know this is my life you're just immediately switching brainwaves that's a crazy idea that I've never thought about for one second that you'd have to like approve art of tattoos or something if somebody's yeah that's crazy I never even thought of that yeah
Guest:Yeah, and Malachi Black and Brody King have a lot of tattoos.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I bet.
Guest:And I'm guessing they don't have the same artist for their entire bodies.
Guest:Probably not.
Guest:I mean, I've got a number of tattoos, and I sure as hell don't.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You know, it's interesting, though.
Guest:You're doing all this stuff, and other people within the company pick up roles.
Guest:But it sounds like, you know, and it's one of the benefits of AEW starting out with a good TV deal right from the get-go.
Guest:Obviously, Tony is funding this thing very well.
Guest:And
Guest:What I keep hearing, though, is in my head it reverberates this idea of the ECW days where you'd have to have Bubba Ray Dudley selling t-shirts or Stevie Richards was the guy who would take your ticket orders when you'd call and you'd have to use a different name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even though it's a well capitalized company, AEW, I assume, though, the fact that there's a lot of people doing a lot of different roles kind of lends to the, hey, we're all in this together mindset around this.
Guest:It's not just, you know, I come in, I show up, I punch my card and I go home.
Guest:You're all kind of responsible for making sure the company grows and keeps running.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Like 100 percent.
Guest:A lot of my video game career was run in startups.
Guest:I think the biggest company I ever worked for was like 80 people.
Guest:So you really have to want something because there's so much work and you don't have enough people to get it all done.
Guest:And then on top of that, you're running a television show that has to be on the air at eight o'clock Eastern every Wednesday, regardless if you're ready or not.
Guest:So it's one of those if you believe in the product, it's super easy to just say, OK, whatever's needed.
Guest:Like you say jump.
Guest:I say how high.
Guest:Let's make it happen.
Guest:How can I help?
Guest:How can I make this great?
Guest:Because this is just a really cool job.
Guest:Like who can say they yell at dudes who play fight in their underwear for a living?
Guest:Like it's dope.
Guest:I kind of want to do this a long time.
Guest:And if I can do things to help the company be successful in other ventures, then hell yeah, let's do it.
Guest:So a week like this, do you know ahead of time, you know, going into the pay-per-view on Sunday, what you're going to be doing?
Guest:I know I'll be doing Chris Jericho versus Ricky Starks because I do all of Chris Jericho's matches.
Guest:How'd that happen?
Guest:I mean, obviously I've noticed it to the point where now he calls attention to it, like when he's on commentary.
Guest:I think he hugged me yesterday.
Guest:He was trying to run away from Peter and he just comes up.
Guest:He's like, no, like, dude, what the hell?
Guest:Is that a choice that was made, you know, at one point or just became habitual?
Guest:It was consciously made by Chris.
Guest:So early on, and the timeline of it is crazy because, as I mentioned, I wasn't technically a full-time employee at the very first All Out, but I ended up doing the title match between Chris Jericho and Hangman Page.
Guest:And I had found out a couple weeks prior that I was doing the match.
Guest:I'm like, there's no way they're going to have me do this.
Guest:I'm the least experienced ref here.
Guest:I'm a nobody.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Bryce and Paul and Knox had been on the indies forever.
Guest:You have Earl Hebner kind of working with the company a little bit at that point.
Guest:Like, why would you have me, who's two years in, doing this?
Guest:This doesn't make any sense.
Guest:And turns out it was because Chris Jericho and Hangman were like, no, we want her.
Guest:Because the sort of character I play on TV is more of a no-nonsense, very strict, authoritative figure.
Guest:And they wanted this big fight feel.
Guest:So early on, Chris was working with all of our refs just because he didn't know any of us.
Guest:And I think we just sort of clicked because what he needed as a heel worked against what I was presenting as a referee.
Guest:And now it's just sort of known that when he says, I want to do A, I know how to fill in B, C, D, E, F.
Guest:Because I know what Chris wants and I know how he tells stories.
Guest:And it's been really great because he's freaking Chris Jericho.
Guest:He's one of the greatest to ever do it.
Guest:So I get to learn from this guy every time he wrestles.
Guest:And I get to go on his cruise every year.
Guest:It's dope.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:And I also imagine it's like not just learning, but you also see like somebody who –
Guest:It's probably stuff you already know and you're trained as a referee.
Guest:You're also someone who's watched wrestling.
Guest:But to see – I notice if I'm paying extra attention to somebody like Chris Jericho, I start noticing all these little things that he's doing.
Guest:And you're like, oh, that's the benefit of decades in this is that he knows –
Guest:This will be funny, even if it's just for, you know, 10 people that notice it.
Guest:I will do this and it'll be funny and it'll give you a kind of subconscious feeling that this match is going well because there's entertainment happening at every corner of it.
Guest:One of the things I really love about wrestling as a performance media is just the symbiotic relationship that it has with the audience, right?
Guest:That you can plan out a whole match, but you have the opportunity to sort of improv what it is you're doing and change these moments based on how the audience reacts.
Guest:And Chris is just so good at that, that if the crowd is biting on something, he then says, okay, well, let's do this.
Guest:And you're just, okay, cool, let's do it.
Guest:And it gives you that audience engagement.
Guest:And I think those are the parts where the audience feels like they're a part of the action because we're all sort of working together whether or not they subconsciously know that.
Guest:Did you feel like you were getting that, you know, in the first times you started refereeing at AEW?
Guest:Like, did you, you know, you were saying you feel like, oh, I'm the least experienced person here as a referee, but did you already feel like you had the ability to do this on a national level?
Guest:I did, to a sense.
Guest:In addition to everything else I did in my previous life, I've also studied classical ballet for 22 years.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:You studied it for 22 years?
Guest:You were actually doing ballet?
Guest:I was actually dancing.
Guest:I never went pro.
Guest:But at one point I was like running a local nonprofit that was teaching dance to underprivileged youth.
Guest:I was doing performances like twice a year.
Guest:So it was something that I just continued to do into adulthood because I love performing.
Guest:So when I quit dance and went into refereeing, it just kind of clicked because performance has always been a part of my life.
Guest:And for ballet, your whole thing is like, if you watch the Nutcracker, you see this whole group of snowflakes standing behind
Guest:you know, someone else dancing in the front and that person in the front was on the poster selling the tickets, but you're there to make them look good.
Guest:And that is literally my job.
Guest:I'm there to make the wrestlers look good and help them tell a story.
Guest:So the difference is I just traded tights for pants.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So is, is wrestling big in the ballet community?
Marc:Not at all.
Marc:No.
Guest:Like they say the same ballet and they're absolutely correct.
Yeah.
Guest:So obviously you had to start at a young age doing that.
Guest:And I think most people who are in ballet have been doing it from youth.
Guest:Was there a point where you thought that was going to be your life?
Guest:You were going to do it professionally?
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:Like growing up, I always kind of knew it was something that I could do.
Guest:But ballet is still a very...
Guest:classic art form in the way that people need to look a certain way and fit certain specifics in order to make it.
Guest:And I'm 5'7", so I average height for a referee.
Guest:I'm pretty tall, all things considered.
Guest:But as a dancer, I'm too tall and I'm too curvy.
Guest:And part of the problem is because you have classical choreography where the woman and the man are dancing together and
Guest:If you're wearing pointe shoes, you're immediately like four inches taller than you were.
Guest:You can't be taller than the dude you're dancing with because then you can't do the choreography.
Guest:It just doesn't work.
Guest:So the number of parts I could get was immediately limited just by what...
Guest:just by the fact that I was just too tall.
Guest:So it was more or less once I was like, you know, when you're trying to approach that, like, okay, well, what am I going to do?
Guest:Like, what am I going to major in college?
Guest:All that kind of stuff.
Guest:It's like, well, I could do this dance thing, but ultimately it's, it's not going to be as easy.
Guest:Uh, I'm going to be constantly working to try and find jobs.
Guest:So there's that.
Guest:Um, I'm not going to have career longevity because my body's already feeling destroyed and I'm 18 years old.
Right.
Guest:Most dancers retire by the time they're 30, 35, if they're not at that highest level.
Guest:So it's one of those.
Guest:I ended up actually retiring around the time I was 30, like 30, 31, just because it was so difficult on my body.
Guest:Like my feet are fucked for the rest of my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, Mark just interviewed Michelle Yeoh and, you know, she started training at like four years old as a ballet dancer.
Guest:And she had an injury at age 19.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:Like they basically were like, oh, don't worry about it.
Guest:You're just finished.
Guest:That's all.
Guest:Like it was no question about it.
Guest:You're just done at that point.
Guest:And it's just interesting that she, you know, transitioned into something where she could use the physicality and the skills that she trained with as a dancer in the martial arts.
Guest:But so in that sense, did you think you were going to do physical wrestling at some point or was refereeing always the deal?
No.
Guest:Uh, I never wanted to wrestle.
Guest:Uh, I didn't really find any sort of benefit to being punched in the face, whether it was fake or real.
Guest:Um, actually at the time when I got into reffing, my husband had been wrestling on the indies a little bit for about a year and a half.
Guest:So I was more than fine, like being supportive wife, going to his shows, watching, cause I was a fan of everything.
Guest:And then me having my ballet thing and doing that.
Guest:But right around the time I was looking to sort of leave dance and retire, uh,
Guest:I was friends with a lot of the people at the promotions that he was working at.
Guest:And they said, well, would you consider reffing?
Guest:I'm like, why would I do that?
Guest:That seems really silly.
Guest:So I never had the intention to do this.
Guest:It was never something that even crossed my mind.
Guest:It was just something that I consumed as content and really enjoyed as a fan.
Guest:But then once you try the reffing, and I realized the commonalities between that and ballet, I'm like,
Guest:oh, okay, no, this is just performing.
Guest:It's really cool.
Guest:There's a different construct to it.
Guest:And I tell people, it's like, I'm not a referee.
Guest:I'm an actress playing the part of a referee because it's more than just yelling rules at people.
Guest:I'm acting as a production assistant, giving people time cues.
Guest:I'm working as a medical assistant.
Guest:If someone gets hurt, I have to help out with whatever may be happening in the moment.
Guest:There's a lot of different things you're balancing and a lot of different hats you're wearing.
Guest:So I got that
Guest:like sort of itch scratched from both performance aspect, but also from like the project manager perspective that I had been doing professionally in my full time job.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Have you ever reffed a match that your, your husband was wrestling in?
Guest:Oh yeah, no, definitely.
Guest:It was one of those.
Guest:I never expected to do it.
Guest:I was like, Oh, I don't think we'll ever work together.
Guest:And then I definitely ended up like working with him a couple of times on the Indies.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:So that was always fun.
Guest:There was a number of people, like we kept it kayfabe.
Guest:Um,
Guest:so no one knew that like i was married to him like we didn't make it a storyline thing it's actually funny he's he's back in wrestling now and there was someone i think the guy who does commentary at his show which is like wait you guys are married and i'm like yeah it's like i just thought you liked coming to our shows i'm like dude tacoma is like an hour and a half from seattle you think i just drive down here every month because i like the show
Guest:That's great.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:The carny spirit stays alive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're pulling over on even the person doing the commentary.
Guest:There you go.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Do you guys ever have any, you know, altercations like, you know, oh, you fast counted him.
Marc:Like, you know, that was three.
Marc:Any of those?
Marc:No.
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:I think part of it is like whether he's heel or a baby face character, it's sort of just like, you know, you do whatever is necessary for the storytelling moment.
Guest:There's not something like we're trying to make spots about it.
Guest:I think he's he's not at a professional level.
Guest:So it's one of those like you're just trying to tell a good story in like the eight minutes you have in a bar show.
Guest:Gotcha.
Guest:Stemming from that, how much do you get in terms of training and just what you absorb as a referee learning to do this from emulating what you've seen versus being actually taught, no, no, no, this is how to do it.
Guest:Basically, could someone become a ref just by watching a lot of matches and focusing just on the ref versus having a certain amount of formal training where you actually learn knowledge that does not exist on the surface?
Guest:So funny story, the guy that trained me literally learned how to ref because he was just watching TV and wanted to learn how to ref.
Guest:And he would watch the referees on WWE and try and figure out, like, okay, this is kind of what they're doing.
Guest:They're standing behind people.
Guest:And then doing your various amounts of research and figuring things out, like, okay, well, the ref always stands behind people.
Guest:We have this thing called the horseshoe, which is essentially, like, that back half of the ring where you're trying to stay because you don't want to stand in front of the talent when you're working a hard camera.
Guest:Okay, now you have a hard camera.
Guest:You have roaming cameras.
Guest:How does this sort of thing all work?
Guest:And as you're piecing it together and you start making those connections in wrestling –
Guest:And filling in those blanks of like, well, why do refs do this?
Guest:Why do refs do this?
Guest:So he had kind of picked it up on his own.
Guest:And then once I had started reffing, he has this whole background.
Guest:I think he had been on the Indies for about three or four years at that point.
Guest:So he's got the actual experience of in-ring work.
Guest:And a lot of it just comes down to you're teaching people what you learn and what you know.
Guest:And there's a particular style to reffing.
Guest:Like if you watch, I think like Bryce Remsberg is one of my absolute favorite people even before we worked together at AEW.
Guest:But he has a very particular style that's very different from someone like Paul Turner or myself or Rick Knox.
Guest:So there's a lot of finesse to the role, even though we're all sort of doing the same thing.
Guest:That's wild.
Guest:Like the idea that you can, you know, pick it, like you said, your trainer, you can pick it up just from watching.
Guest:That's shocking to me because I watch and I think there must be Houdini stuff going on here that I'm not aware of because I would be.
Guest:Oh, there definitely is.
Guest:It's like I would be all over that ring.
Guest:I would not be able to consciously, you know, I guess with training you could, but like to consciously keep yourself from being involved in the action when you are integral to the action is a mental,
Guest:act like you have to figure that out I mean the biggest thing that I learned when like I first stepped in the ring for training is as as someone who is a fan of the product and watching it you're watching facial reactions you're watching the front of wrestlers the referees are watching the backs so a lot of the cues you would generally get for what moves are coming next are suddenly gone and you now have to learn what things look like from a completely different perspective so you know where to move and you don't end up getting in the way when a guy does something
Guest:Do you ever have something happen where you were totally shocked that it happened and it was hard to actually handle it in the moment?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, like, I think injuries are probably the best example of that.
Guest:Like, you never expect it.
Guest:Obviously, like, we're all trying to work together and we're all trying to stay safe, but freak accidents happen and it's one of those, okay, well, the thing we were going to do isn't happening now.
Guest:Now we have to address this.
Guest:Oh, we're on live TV, so let's, you know, be cautious and make sure we're
Guest:Handling this appropriately because these are your friends on top of your coworkers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Trying to make sure that like is a marathon, not a sprint.
Guest:Like we're trying to be smarter about how we handle injuries, knowing that people want to be able to do this long term.
Guest:You don't want to make stupid decisions like, oh, my arm's falling out, but I'm going to keep finishing this match.
Guest:Like, no.
Guest:Not necessarily the smart thing.
Guest:Let's just figure out a way to end this quick and get you out of here.
Guest:I mean, the Hangman Moxley match from Dynamite last year was very scary to watch on television.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But watching it in a replay and seeing how Paul Turner handled that.
Guest:Oh, 100%.
Guest:Amazingly impressive and made me, it's like, there's a lot of times with watching AEW where I say, this is what makes me feel good about supporting this and watching this as a week-to-week product.
Guest:Because that was like, you know, somebody grew up watching like WWE and the Attitude Era and that and like...
Guest:I'm not like getting on them for this, but like there was a lot of dangerous stuff that was not treated with any regard for the long term health of those performers.
Guest:And, you know, I get a different time and different everything.
Guest:But, oh, my gosh, like the idea that, you know, Steve Austin could break his neck and then they just wander around the match and let him.
Guest:pin a guy with a possible broken neck.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:And the quickness with which Paul Turner stopped that match and figured out everything that was going on was super impressive.
Guest:We were all extremely impressed and proud of Paul.
Guest:And Paul is our senior official.
Guest:And we all immediately went to the back.
Guest:We're all standing there waiting for him.
Guest:And we're checking on him because it's...
Guest:Sure, in the moment, you're worried about your coworker, but that has a mental and emotional toll on you as well in that moment.
Guest:And one of the hardest jobs as a ref is maintaining a sense of calmness in that moment.
Guest:Because you have to think about, like, Hangman's clearly having an issue, but now you have to think about Moxley.
Guest:Because Moxley's like, oh, God, what's happening?
Guest:And he wants answers because he's worried about Hangman, right?
Guest:So you have to sort of manage the situation of, like, guys, it's okay.
Guest:We'll get through this.
Guest:It's cool.
Guest:Doc's coming in.
Guest:We'll handle it appropriately.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And even then, like I did the street fight with the girls recently and Ruby is just gushing blood from her face.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she's like, hey, am I OK?
Guest:I'm like, yeah, dude, you look freaking great right now.
Guest:And just telling her like, you look awesome.
Guest:Don't worry about this.
Guest:Like, yeah, there's a lot of blood.
Guest:OK, whatever.
Guest:But it's not like a concerning amount.
Guest:It's not enough where I need to like get medical involved.
Guest:But she can't actually see what she looks like.
Guest:She just sees blood dripping from her face.
Guest:And that can be, as a human, you're kind of freaking out.
Guest:Instinctually scary.
Guest:Our brain is designed to run away from that on purpose so we don't die.
Guest:It is the fight or flight response.
Guest:Correct.
Guest:So your job, not only as like...
Guest:a referee a production assistant a medical assistant but you're also sort of being like a coach in the moment like no it's okay we got this you guys are doing great it's awesome remember to breathe you're killing it they're loving this oh my god you're doing awesome and I try and like hype up guys when I'm in the ring in those moments because you're just so in the zone trying to tell this story that sometimes you forget everything that's happening you don't get to appreciate it so I'm trying to do what I can to help these guys be awesome performers
Guest:Well, and I know that you're probably, you know, as a ref, you think about the fact that the ref's job is in the background, not the foreground, right?
Guest:But I would hope that people listening to this can maybe spend a little bit of time the next time they're watching wrestling paying attention to the ref and kind of giving you guys the mental kudos because it clearly to me, even before talking to you, I was aware that it's a hard job, but listening to you explain it, it seems very difficult and challenging and you guys have a lot of skill in doing it.
Guest:I do.
Guest:Before we go, I wanted us to kind of give you some kind of rapid fire questions about refereeing, like all the stuff I've kind of had bubbling in my head for most of my life.
Guest:So do you guys get arm injuries?
Guest:Like you're slapping that mat over and over again.
Guest:So many times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So a lot of that is the way I do it to sort of prevent any sort of joint damage is I hit from the tip of my middle finger all the way to my elbow.
Guest:So I'm distributing the impact a little bit and I'm not taking the impact at any one point.
Guest:When you're starting out, it does hurt, but you start to develop that callus over time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would say the big one is probably knees just because we're going from a completely standing stationary position to immediately down counting something to right back up.
Guest:I liken it to like just doing burpees constantly for 10 minutes because that's what your match is.
Guest:I was very close to tearing a bicep, I think, at the end of 2020.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:It wasn't actually on my counting arm.
Guest:It was on my stationary arm.
Guest:because a lot of it is like you're just trying to really make sure that that shoulder joint is stable and if i'm doing like a chest press in the gym it sort of works it in the wrong way for what my body needs so i've had to actually change how i work out in the gym to provide my body that longevity so i can keep doing that so anytime i do a chest press i have to do it in like a hammer position because i don't want to hurt that joint yeah
Guest:So it's, it's, it's thinking about, and I think a lot of that comes from dance too.
Guest:It's thinking about how I'm particularly destroying my body in this way.
Guest:How do I mitigate that?
Guest:How do I keep this going as long as possible?
Guest:Man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause like you think about even just somebody like Hulk Hogan who did like a leg drop over and over and everybody said what a light move that was and probably smart, but no, it's, it's gotta have a hip replacement for it because of it, you know?
Guest:Uh, that's crazy.
Guest:So the other thing that I thought specifically from last night watching dynamite was in a match like a ladder match where the refs are, are, are actually helping keep these people from dying on falling off these ladders.
Guest:How much of that ahead of time do you know, or are you just watching for cues?
Guest:Like somebody's going up on a ladder.
Guest:I need to hold the bottom of that.
Yeah.
Guest:So we get a little bit of like, oh, okay, this, like Sammy's going to do this stupid thing off of a ladder.
Guest:So knowing how physics works, it's one of those, in order for him to properly and safely execute this move, it would be good if at least two people are holding the ladder here.
Guest:And the way I was sort of trained is that if a guy is three rungs up a ladder, someone should probably be holding it.
Guest:Because at the end of the day, there's that balance between
Guest:like telling a story and the suspension of disbelief, but also making sure my coworkers don't break their neck.
Guest:And I think wrestling fans kind of have a better understanding today that like it is predetermined.
Guest:It is talked about ahead of time, but the things we're doing are still dangerous.
Guest:Right.
So,
Guest:Like at the very end of the match, Hobbs is climbing this ladder that is clearly broken because we are over time and we need to get this match done and over with.
Guest:He does not have the time to go get another ladder.
Guest:So the quickest thing to do is let's just get a bunch of refs in there and help him out.
Guest:So that idea was made in the moment.
Guest:And he also had a ladder that was short.
Guest:So he literally had to stand on the tippy top of the ladder, a giant man.
Guest:Like he's bigger than three of me put together.
Guest:He's bigger than our entire ref team that was holding the ladder, which is a testament to Hobbs' strength, right?
Guest:Because it takes a lot of strength and stability in your entire body in order to stand up there, actively pull a ring off of a clip that is like hanging from the ceiling and then stand there and look like a badass without falling.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Great job by him.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Before you go, Brendan and I recently watched an episode of the main event from WWF in the 80s.
Marc:The match was Hogan versus Andre.
Marc:It was a controversial three count to secure the win for Andre the Giant and the Million Dollar Man.
Marc:And as they leave the ring, you see there are two Earl Hebners in the ring.
Marc:Million Dollar Man paid someone to look like Earl Hebner.
Marc:and throw the match for Andre.
Marc:And so I would love for you at some point to homage this moment.
Marc:Do you have a friend or sister who looks like you and you can reenact this moment?
Marc:Because I think that would be really fun.
Guest:My sister's a redhead, so I don't think we can pull off like an Earl and Dave scenario.
Guest:So it might be a little tricky.
Guest:There are wigs, but like, dude, the girls who wrestle in wigs, like, I don't know how they keep those things on their head.
Guest:That is, that is difficult.
Guest:I'm just going to put that out there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That feels like a trade secret that I like, you know, there's certain levels of kayfabe that even for me, I don't want to break.
Guest:Oh, I can't talk about that.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That is so deep.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like, I got a lot of fake hair, man.
Guest:I'm not telling you how we keep it.
Guest:But but it's it's particularly difficult because it's not just physically looking like somebody.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's the actual mannerisms.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You could have someone that looks like an Aubrey Edwards in the ring and you call her like, I don't know, like.
Guest:like Audrey Edwards or whatever but does she move the same way as I move because my body moves in a very particular way so that could be one of those like is this actually who we think it is I don't know it's gonna work out anytime it's not an actual twin it's gonna wind up being like fake undertaker like remember when there was fake undertaker and it was like well okay that guy's three inches shorter than the undertaker right he's not really doesn't he's clearly aping the moves right and then once they were face to face you're like well no that's not the undertaker one guy
Guest:looking up at the other exactly but twins twins are the twins are the key or if you're a hulk hogan it was plastic surgery that that caused that to happen yeah so i'm just gonna exclusive content right here i do not have a twin so i think if we did that it would be really hard
Guest:well good luck to you on sunday uh this this is uh revolution pay-per-view people can uh watch it on bleacher report or uh it at the movie theater i'm going to the movie theater watch wrestling is awesome i would recommend that if anybody's got a movie theater around you uh that's showing uh aw revolution but uh you will see aubrey as she mentioned in the uh chris jericho ricky starks match and i guess you'll probably be somewhere else on the card do you not know that yet
Guest:I'll find out Sunday.
Guest:Just the card is very stacked.
Guest:So it's like I would be happy with any of the matches on this card.
Guest:Like that's one of the things about working at this company is I legitimately get excited about the shows as a fan.
Guest:When we were recording the podcast with Tony, it's like going back and remembering all the different matches we had at Revolution, like the amazing tag match between the Bucks, Kenny Omega and Hangman.
Guest:Oh,
Guest:We had Jon Moxley won the title from Chris Jericho at Revolution.
Guest:We've just had so many wonderful moments happening during the show that it's like, I'm down with whatever, man.
Guest:Let's just have a good show.
Guest:I assume you're not.
Guest:You would already know, though, if you were going to 60 minutes, right?
Guest:You would know if you're on that match.
Guest:I would have appreciated knowing in advance so I could work on my cardio.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:No, there's someone else has that match.
Guest:I don't got that one.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:Oh, I just remembered something.
Guest:When I was at the forum with Mark for Dynamite, you came up to Mark and introduced yourself and said hello, and he was very appreciative.
Guest:He always likes when people recognize who he is.
Guest:He still doesn't understand that he's famous.
Guest:Dude, I loved Glow.
Guest:That's what I was wondering.
Guest:I was going to be like, I wonder how she knows him.
Guest:Is it from GLOW?
Guest:Is it as a podcast?
Guest:And it was specifically from GLOW?
Guest:It was specifically from GLOW.
Guest:I always told people when they were trying to understand why wrestling was awesome, I'm like, watch the first season of GLOW, and when you get to that season finale, you will understand why wrestling is awesome.
Guest:Because the way that it was just captured in that show, I think, properly communicated the essence of what it is we do and the excitement that we feel and the twists and turns and the storytelling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think I know Mark doesn't necessarily have like a full background of wrestling.
Guest:I listen to the podcast occasionally, but hearing the one when he talked with our coworkers and seeing him like go to a show for the first time and experience and whatnot, like that's super interesting as a fan.
Guest:I was like, you were in a show about wrestling that was dope.
Guest:Yeah, this is kind of cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and his whole thing was like, I got to, you know, kind of keep myself distant from wrestling for the character.
Guest:Like he's a guy, he's an outsider.
Guest:He doesn't care about this.
Guest:He wants to kind of be, you know, a film director, not directing this thing.
Guest:So, yeah, this has been a fun experiment, you know, kind of getting him in from the ground floor and seeing how it grows.
Guest:Yeah, it's been, I think it's really good because you're clearly a fan and it's always great if you're trying to get into it and you have someone else that can sit there and explain like, oh yeah, these guys have a history because of this and this and this.
Guest:It's like, okay, cool.
Guest:I don't have to watch three years of wrestling to understand like why this is a big deal.
Guest:And you can immediately jump in and enjoy it.
Guest:And I've always thought that wrestling is better enjoyed with friends.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:It's pretty great that you're giving him that experience.
Guest:you know we've worked together almost 20 years now so if I feel like if I could burn my capital on anything it would be wrestling oh yeah no you've got it you've got it you've earned this awesome well Aubrey thank you so much for joining us and doing this with us and I know it's a busy weekend and you were up late last night so very much appreciated have fun at the show and we will be watching thank you I appreciate you guys having me on and it's going to be a fun week I think you guys are going to enjoy the show on Sunday music music music music
Guest:That was great.
Guest:And that was a fun talk and a very nice person.
Guest:And I will say this, Chris, every time now that we have talked to someone from AEW, it makes me feel very good about supporting that company.
Guest:They're all really nice and they have their heads in the right place and they want to put on a show, but they don't want to do it in a scummy way.
Guest:They want to take care of each other as people.
Marc:And it really makes me feel good.
Marc:Yeah, it feels like wrestling has evolved and they've taken that evolution with it.
Guest:Yeah, you know, it's like we go to the shows and they do a little thing that comes up on the screen before the show.
Guest:And I believe it's Excalibur, you know, the play-by-play guy who's announcing it.
Guest:But the words are there on the screen for you to see.
Guest:And it's like this statement of ideals.
Guest:And they say, you know, an AEW show, you know, we have respect for everyone.
Guest:We will not tolerate, you know, discrimination against people.
Guest:And basically it's saying, like, we expect you to come and behave like they're not going to tolerate, like, you know, homophobic slurs being taunted at the wrestlers or anything like that.
Guest:Like, it makes me feel good.
Guest:I'm happy to support it.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Guest:And part of that support will come when I spend $50 to watch the AEW pay-per-view.
Guest:And believe me, that is well worth its weight.
Guest:I have no problem dropping that money.
Guest:When I consider what entertainment options are out there, and here's a thing where you're going to come over and we're going to spend four to five hours just watching this, and then I get to keep it forever, like it's on the account that I bought it with.
Guest:That is a great use of my time and money.
Guest:And this looks like a particularly fun show.
Guest:The AEW pay-per-views, if you have not purchased one, are always intended to deliver.
Guest:They're very specific in how they structure these things around matches that you've been wanting to see for a while.
Guest:And then they finally pay off.
Guest:And this main event is going to be MJF versus Bryan Danielson for 60 Minutes.
Guest:The wrestler who wins the most falls during that 60 minutes is the champion.
Guest:That's called an Ironman match.
Guest:And I'm excited because we haven't seen one in a very long time.
Guest:And it takes a lot to make these good.
Guest:This is going to be a real test for those two wrestlers.
Guest:Like, can you keep this going for an hour and keep it interesting?
Marc:I'm excited to see it.
Marc:And I hope they have fun with it.
Marc:Like, I really do think I hope there's like hijinks.
Marc:where, you know, MJF disqualifies himself and gets a, you know, gets a knock and then just, you know, ends up pinning an unconscious Bryan Danielson like three times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because that's why not?
Guest:It's worth it.
Guest:If you get disqualified for one share shot, but that can get you three pins, then do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A good cheating bad guy will make for an excellent Ironman match.
Guest:Like that's...
Guest:That's what I'm looking forward to.
Guest:Like, just do things that are bad.
Guest:And so then the good guy has to fight from underneath and win, like, by not cheating.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What are you looking forward to the most from this pay-per-view, Chris?
Marc:The trios match.
Marc:The Elite and the House of Black.
Marc:And I just love the Elite and the way they wrestle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I like House of Black and how they wrestle.
Marc:Also, the House of Black hasn't really been on the show.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And I bet you they surprise a lot of people.
Marc:And I'm predicting that they're going to win over the Elite.
Marc:Oh, that would be interesting.
Guest:Because, I mean, here's the thing.
Guest:They learned this with the Elite and the Lucha Brothers.
Guest:Like, just have seven matches.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Just keep doing it.
Guest:It's always going to be good.
Guest:So if you have a good match with the House of Black, why not have the House of Black win and then go fight them again and win it back from them?
Guest:Just keep it going.
Guest:Run that back.
Guest:I agree with you that that is going to be probably a show stealer.
Guest:The trios matches kind of set themselves up to be a good party match.
Guest:You can let them go 20, 25 minutes and they'll be entertaining.
Guest:So I agree that that's going to be good.
Guest:What I'm looking forward to the most, though,
Guest:was not revealed until the end of Dynamite this past Wednesday, but we now have four teams in the four-way title match, and I am shockingly, I am personally shocked that the match I am looking forward to the most has Jeff Jarrett in it, has The Guns in it,
Guest:But Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal, along with the guns, are facing the Acclaimed, who are awesome, and now Orange Cassidy and Dan Hasen.
Guest:And I really think this match is going to rule.
Guest:Like, these are four teams.
Guest:Like, the guns, who are the champions, are like the ones who are going to have to keep up.
Guest:They're going to have to keep
Guest:up with the other three teams and those other three teams are all going to be able to bring it and i don't mean just bring it like the way they do in those trios matches these three teams are going to have fun and they're going to do funny shit they're going to make the match entertaining they just had that eight man tag match and it was we both talked about how it was our favorite thing on the show that week when
Guest:they had it.
Guest:So I'm very much, I feel like that's going to be one of those matches that everyone undersells and then when it's happening, you're like, oh my god, this was awesome.
Guest:It's like those Sting matches, like when Sting is on a pay-per-view and you're just like, wow, Sting's still amazing.
Guest:I kind of feel that coming from this.
Guest:But
Guest:I'm also very happy to just be surprised by the whole thing.
Guest:You know, there's going to be a Jungle Boy Christian match that seems like it'll have some gimmick in it that we don't really fully know yet.
Guest:I'm sure that'll be fun.
Guest:I'm sure the Texas Deathmatch with Mox and Hangman is going to be fun.
Guest:So, as usual, they do these things.
Guest:They don't come every month.
Guest:They're once every three months.
Guest:They have one pay-per-view a quarter, and it's become, you know, you know you're going to get what you pay for with these pay-per-views.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There are no duds.
Marc:There are no duds for pay-per-views in AEW.
Marc:And what's also great is one pay-per-view, that's the culmination.
Marc:There isn't a road to another pay-per-view, which I personally really like.
Marc:And it makes it feel special.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, you don't have to feel like you bought the secondary pay-per-view to get the next one next month.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:What was the best thing you saw this week in the world of wrestling?
Guest:uh it's the ladder match the face i mean come on we might as well just say right away we both think the same thing because it was awesome this uh was a was supposed to be an eight-man ladder match but they got eddie kingston and ortiz out of there right away they went broad to the back which is fine like
Guest:six guys is plenty right uh and then those six guys did insane things you heard us talking with aubrey about some of it uh and the fact that they had to hold this ladder down so the guy who won powerhouse hobbs did not fall from the tippy top of the ladder which is where he was and he looked so good up there but man i was nervous for him like yes i wanted him to get down immediately
Guest:But like there was a jib camera shot that like swung around while he was standing on the ladder holding the brass ring.
Guest:And I was like, oh, well, that's worth it.
Guest:Like to be terrified at the top of that ladder to have that shot, like totally worth it.
Guest:That's the money shot.
Guest:There was a guy, a luchador from one of the Mexican promotions named Commander, who was in this match.
Guest:It was his first time wrestling in AEW, and he brought the goods.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He did a rope walk with no assists.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like just like a guy walking on a trapeze line and ran the length of the rope and then did a flip off of that, like with like major hang time, like hung up in the air, like a like a person flying and came down on the guys outside.
Guest:It was fantastic.
Marc:It was it was magical.
Guest:really like how like this was live like i can't believe this person did it in front of a huge packed auditorium and on live television i would have been i've flat on my ass if i tried so you know the heat this is a thing he's done in mexico that guy and uh my hope and i think it was probably true by the way that he reacted my hope was that they didn't um smarten up tony shivani on any of these moves
Guest:Because the way Tony reacted to that guy doing it seemed so genuine.
Guest:And like Tony is like the voice of like a child there.
Guest:Like I don't mean he's childlike.
Guest:I just mean his awe and wonder when he sees things is perfect.
Guest:That translates to the viewer as well.
Guest:And so when he saw this guy do the tightrope walk and turn it into a flip, he came out of his seat.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, good.
Guest:I hope that was literally the first time he's ever seen the guy do that.
Marc:I'm going to re-watch that just to listen back to Tony.
Guest:Yeah, also, I want to re-watch it just as a match.
Guest:It was so good, I am going to watch it again.
Marc:Also, that was for free on television.
Marc:That's bonkers to me.
Marc:That was given out for free.
Guest:It was the same as that Elite Lucha match that was a ladder match that I saw at the forum, but that was also on TV.
Guest:And I had the similar thought watching this one on Dynamite.
Guest:I think sometimes putting those ladder matches on TV makes them better because these guys know they have to sprint, right?
Guest:They can't take the time to do the slow climbing.
Guest:They can't do the time.
Guest:Like, it's just, no, no, no.
Guest:You've got 15 minutes action, action, action, action.
Guest:And it works.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, that was great.
Guest:We're in agreement again for the second week in a row on the best thing that we saw.
Guest:What about anything else you've been doing or watching?
Guest:Got any recommendations for people before the weekend?
Marc:I've been watching, besides the shrinking, which is still great, Poker Face is phenomenal.
Guest:Poker Face on Peacock.
Guest:This is the Rian Johnson detective show with Natasha Lyonne.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And every week is a new episode, new case, new style.
Marc:And it's just an enjoyable hang.
Marc:It's just a really fun hang.
Guest:So this thing is a big hit.
Guest:And I think what you just said is the reason why.
Guest:Every week is a new case.
Guest:Every week is like a thing that you figure out over the course of the hour.
Guest:And you can play detective yourself or you can just go along for the ride.
Guest:But either way, it is a one-hour commitment.
Guest:And it begins and ends.
Guest:And that's it.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And I think people are loving that.
Guest:They love the episodic nature of this.
Guest:You could just dip in, dip out, and there's no pressure.
Guest:You don't have to familiarize yourself with all this lore and mythology, and you just get to turn on the show and have a good time.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:How about you...
Guest:I watched The Menu, which is on HBO Max, and I really liked it.
Guest:I had heard mixed things about it, so my expectations were low.
Guest:But I found it to be really entertaining.
Guest:And I don't know, maybe it's because it was sold as a horror movie.
Guest:It's like zero horror.
Guest:It's not a horror movie in the slightest.
Guest:It's like a meaner, more...
Guest:kind of allegorically gruesome version of something like Succession or The White Lotus.
Guest:But it's rooted in the same misanthropy and a kind of cynicism about the world and about rich people and about, in general, class structures.
Guest:And I thought it was really fun.
Guest:I thought Ralph Fiennes was fantastic.
Guest:And the direction lent itself to a movie and not just...
Guest:I've heard people saying it seemed like a play because it was only in like the one setting and that.
Guest:And it's like, no, you know, it looked like those chef's table shows.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:They really got the look down to make the satire land.
Guest:And I don't think that would have landed on a stage play.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so I saw that with my wife in a packed movie theater, which was surprising because it was like the third week it was out in the theater.
Marc:And my wife and I, we've celebrated some milestones the past year.
Marc:So we've been to some bougie restaurants that are so similar to the restaurant that was being portrayed in this movie that, I mean, we were chuckling about just
Marc:Other stuff that other people were not chuckling about, but other people were laughing about other things.
Marc:It was a great experience to see this movie in a crowded theater.
Marc:It was really fun.
Guest:I bet you had some moments at these fine dining places that you went to that were similar to the breadless bread plate.
Marc:Yes, without question.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, there was that, and there was the one where he was getting scallops that were on rocks, that the rock was enormous, these like rocks, and they were like, oh, this is all from the ocean outside.
Guest:It was like a plate of mostly rocks.
Marc:Rocks, right.
Marc:Yeah, a lot of the time it's, oh man, they must be bringing the rest of my plate at some other point, because I missed it.
Marc:They're missing something.
Marc:This is just a snack, right?
Guest:Excellent.
Guest:I'm glad you like that.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, yeah, if anybody has any other things that they want us to watch or recommendations for us, you can contact us in the form that's in the episode description there.
Guest:And we've gotten a lot of feedback on that form, feedback on what we're doing here on the show, recommendations for us.
Guest:Some of it's very thoughtful.
Guest:And I kind of want us to go through some of these things, but we'll do it next week.
Guest:This week, I wanted to spend some time with our guest, Aubrey Edwards, and thank her again for coming on.
Guest:But next week, we'll spend some time with stuff you guys are sending us.
Guest:I think there's some provocative things in there that we can actually dive into and wrestle with, so to speak.
Guest:Some of it having to do with the ethics of even talking about this stuff and ignoring some of the more troublesome and problematic things about the nature of this industry.
Guest:That'd be great.
Guest:But that'll be for another time.
Guest:And right now, we're just kind of going to head into the weekend.
Guest:And hopefully, we enjoy this pay-per-view.
Guest:I guess, so we'll just, I'll see you Sunday, Chris.
Guest:You're coming over with a six-pack?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Six-pack, Miller Lite.
Guest:You got it.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Cool, man.
Guest:Peace.