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INDUCTING ECW ORIGINALS INTO WWE HALL OF FAME, SIGNING MONSTER FACTORY CAST MEMBERS, THE FINAL COUNTDOWN AND MORE

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Tony Khan was able to license well known songs from Kansas, Jefferson Starship, Living Colour, Baltimora, Rancid, and Action Bronson indefinitely. What makes The Final Countdown so bizarrely expensive compared to those other songs?

Tony Khan doesn't set the price.  Those who own the rights to the song do.  If I have a piece of art and won't sell it for under $10 billion, it doesn't matter if you paid $1 million for the other pieces in your connection.  

Considering that Wrestlemania 40 will be in Philly, and considering the rumors of an induction for Paul Heyman, wouldn’t it be appropriate to have most or all of the HOF inductees be ECW originals? I can only imagine how raucous the ceremony would be.

In haven't heard of Paul Heyman going in, but he's beyond deserving.  I don't like the idea of the entire night being ECW Originals, because who are you putting in?  The Dudleys are in.   Terry Funk is in.  Taz works for AEW.  Tommy Dreamer works for Impact Wrestling.   So again, who are we inducting?  The person who SHOULD go in if we are honoring ECW is Joey Styles, since he was the voice of the promotion and was part of every iteration and was also a WWE announcer.  I really like the idea of Raven or The Sandman but don't see WWE rushing to honor each.  The BWO going in as an act works as well but beyond that I unfortunately don't see them giving Tod Gordon, 2 Cold Scorpio, Sabu, Shane Douglas, Beulah McGuillicuty or Francine inductions either, nor do I suspect they'd want to point out talents who have passed away.  Perhaps they just induct ECW as an entire promotion, which would be "groundbreaking" as it's never been done before.

Recently I watched Monster Factory. I have seen you love the show. Do you think it's a good idea for a promotion like MLW, Impact, AEW or even WWE to sign some of the protagonists? Gabbi, Bobby Buffet, Goldy or Twitch, taking adventage of the popularity of the show. 

I wish we could say the show was popular as Apple TV+ has canceled it due to lack of viewership, which really sucks as the show was off the charts excellent and deserves every single person reading this to go sign up for an Apple trial membership to go watch it.  As far as signing those talents, I think MLW would have been well served to have done so out of the last you mentioned.  These talents are all young and still learning and will only get better so I'd love to see them ALL get a chance on TV, but signed based on their own accord, not just because of the passing fancy of the series.

I know you are always down on Twitter on your audio shows.  What's the most frustrating thing?

There's a lot of stupidy on all forms of social media (just as there were on message boards, which is why we pulled the plug on ours so many years ago), but to me, the idea of our stuff being miscontrued with the context changed, followed by people who read that incorrect version and take it as fact and then assume we were the ones wrong is beyond annoying.  I also hate the idea that people who don't realize that when we are reporting things in real time, stories change and evolve, but then they assume things were incorrect later.  We are talking about an industry where things get changed or pulled from TV in the moment (especially under a Vince McMahon) or injuries change things in real time (like Sasha Banks vs. Willow Nightingale recent showed).  A good example was this past weekend, the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating contest was canceled by NYPD.  In the moment, we reported that since indy wrestler Ronnie Hartman was competing.  About an hour later, the weather had shifted and everyone rushed to get the contest in, which we reported as the contest was underway.  I saw some on Twitter accusing us of making the story up, as if I'm going to take time out of my holiday to go lie and potentially hurt the business that employs me.  It's always those with zero understanding of reading comprehension or who don't care enough to actually read what we are saying here and instead go by what someone else thinks we said, who then go and blame us when they are inevitably let down by the false version they read.  So yeah, that's pretty frustrating but I also realize that's the world we deal with, so I tend to ignore it to the best of my ability as I'd rather focus on something worthwhile in the real world.

I've been a subscriber forever and what really got me hooked on the site was the rhetorical questions after events.  They were a quick read, and you could always count on there being a few funny ones.  Why was this discontinued and would you ever consider bringing it back?

We used to have that column back in the day when Raw was a different show every week.  Dave stopped doing it when Raw went into the current era.  He noticed that he was asking the same questions over and over every week so he pulled the plug on the column.

When was the last time you just went to a show as a fan just to go and enjoy it?

Well, it's not that I don't enjoy my job, but based on the parameters of your question, the last time I went just as a fan for myself would have been the first ECW One Night Stand show.  I totally loved the throwback nature of that show and went and sat with my best friends in the world and just wanted to enjoy the ride of where that show took the audience, and I still do cherish that memory, to the point that like a lot of the old ECW stuff, I try not to go back and watch it, because what it mean to me in the moment in my late teens and early 20s certainly won't hold up to much older eyes.

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