Live at the Table 64: December 2022 - The Road to PALISADE: My Way

Transcriber: anachilles#0191

0:00:01.0

Austin:        Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical world-building, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. I am your host, Austin Walker. And joining me today, Andrew Lee Swan.

Dre:        Hey, you can find me on Twitter, uh, slapping meat with big meaty men —

Austin:        Ah.

Dre:        At @swandre3000.

Austin:        Yes, absolutely.

Dre:        Shoutout to Ko for referencing that. [laughs]

Austin:        Uh, in the chat, yes, immediately. Uh, and, uh, Arthur Martinez-Tebbel.

Art:        Hey, uh, you can find me on Twitter at @atebbel, and I know the last time we were live, I promised that this week I would use co-host for the first time. I haven't done it yet. The week's not over.

Austin:        Week's not over!

Art:        Uh, but I'm Amtebbel on co-host.

Austin:        There you go.

Art:        Just, just, get ready. It's coming.

Austin:        Yeah, it's coming. Oh, it's coming. Uh, how's it going, y'all?

Dre:        Good, I'm ready —

Art:        Yeah!

Dre:        To, to clone 3 Goldbergs.

Austin:        [laughing] Oh my god.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Dre —

Art:        I, is that what this game —? I didn't see that in the rules.

Dre:        No.

Austin:        No, it's not, unfortunately, it's mostly, mostly being sad about stuff. Uh, Dre, do you recall what you listed when Crunchyroll asked us, what you said —

Dre:        I'm pretty sure...

Austin:        Your dream game thing was going to be.

Dre:        It was a sports anime about mecha-sumo.

Austin:        Yes, you said, let me pull it up here. Crunchyroll, Friends at the Table...

Dre:        .com.

Austin:        .com, yeah. We own it now, we bought it. We're going to fix all the issues.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Don't worry. Uh...

Dre:        Yep.

Austin:        You said a sports anime about another pilot who entered the mech-sumo contest at the Kingdom game. You may recall we did space Olympics, at the middle of our —

Art:        Mm-hm. It was great.

Austin:        Uh, it was great, and one of the events was mech-sumo. Uh, and I think, you know, mech wrestling is just a thing we need to get into, generally-speaking, in the Principality. We need to see what the state of it is, we need to understand what the, the current, you know, angles are.

Art:        Absolutely. And it's not too late to throw out everything you have planned for Palisade and just do this instead —

Austin:        Just do this, right.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        Use this as a jumping-off point.

Austin:        Well, let's see how it, as it goes. I will say, I have some lore hooks, which is a very funny thing to say.

Dre:        [laughs] Uh-huh.

Austin:        Like, not big ones, but like, if certain things pop up here, I, uh, I have some ideas for, for how to tie it to Palisade itself. We'll, we'll see how it goes. We are playing My Way, a game by Maria Fanning, which you can find on itch.io for 3 dollars, uh, and you can find that at, I was just on it. It's thatacegirl dot — sorry, it's thatacegal.

Art:        Gal.

Austin:        Gal, dot itch dot io. Thatacegirl.itch.io/myway. Uh, this is also a, uh, it is Wretched and Alone, which means that it's based on the Chris Bissett and Loot the Room, uh, Wretched and Alone system, I believe, and then also has a credit for, uh, a system in the game to @speakthesky on Twitter, which we'll get to. Uh, so lots of credits up top. Uh, if you're wondering, “Hey, is this name of this game My Way a reference to the Frank Sinatra song?” No, it is not. The answer is no. It's a reference to the Limp Bizkit song. [chuckling]

Dre:        The better song.

Austin:        Uh-huh. Uh, someone want to read —

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        The, the introductory, uh, uh, lyrics, uh, here on page 3, to really set the stage?

Art:        Uh, sure, yeah. I can do that. Wow, I was further in this PDF than I thought.

Dre:        [laughs]

Art:        Uh, just one more fight and I'll be history.

Austin:        Mmm. Mmm.

Art:        Yes, I will straight-up leave your shit.

Austin:        Mmm.

Art:        And you'll be the one who's left missing me.

Austin:        Damn.

Dre:        Yeah!

Austin:        Wow, that's like a shockingly good...

Art:        Wow!

Austin:        Fred Durst — so that, that wasn't a Fred Durst —

Art:        Seven years sitting on this Fred Durst impression.

Dre:        I can only say yeah, that's it.

Austin:        That's a good one, though.

Art:        That's most of it!

Austin:        That's an important — [laughs] yeah. Let me tell you —

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        That's all Fred Durst could do, too. Uh... unbelievable. Uh, so yeah, this is, I'll just keep reading who. Actually, Dre, do you want to read page 4 of —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        My Way.

Dre:        Who. Your career is on its last legs. It's likely not long before you either decide to throw in the towel, or your medically not allowed to compete in pro wrestling anymore. But you're going to make a statement before you do. You're going to take the World Title of your promotion it that has been eluding you. It's only a matter of if your body breaks before your will does.

Austin:        Incredible. What. One more match — which I think is probably what this game was originally called before it was renamed the, the even stronger, “My Way,” a Limp Bizkit reference. One more match is a game about burnout. It's a game about how much you're willing to put on the line before you realize, enough is enough. It's about what you're willing to do to get the grandest prize there is in your business. Most of all, it's about pro wrestling. The highs, the lows, the moments in front of crowds and the moments of quiet with your fellow performers. While it may oftentimes be cynical, the game was written by someone who loves entertainment intensely. One more match was inspired heavily by independent wrestling promotions such as Beyond Pro Wrestling, Over The Top Pro Wrestling, and Chikara, among many others that have earned my love. It's also inspired by the song, “My Way,” by Limp Bizkit. [chuckles] Incredible. Perfect. To play, you'll need a standard deck of cards with no jokers. We got one. We got one right here. I'll shuffle it again for all to see. Uh... a multiple digital D6 roller, we got that. That's called roll20. Uh, and 10 tokens of some kind. Is there a token we should use? What's our token for this? Someone tell me a time —

Dre:        It's October, so it's got to be spooky.

Austin:        Some sort of pumpkin? Or do you want —

Art:        But like, you have like a spooky wrestling? Do you have, do you have —

Dre:        Do you have off-brand The Undertaker?

Art:        Or like a, a, do you have like a Pentagon Junior mask in there with —

Austin:        I don't have a Pentagon Junior mask. No, I have game icons dot net, and I don't think they're just going to —

Dre:        Oh, okay, well —

Austin:        Just have — here, I'll — there's a hyphen, there's a hyphen after E, before I, in, in game icons.

Dre:        Oh.

Austin:        We're going to get, uh, I wonder if we can, we can do a luchador mask.

Dre:        That's perfect.

Austin:        And we can make it, we can make it, I can make it like, uh, orange and black.

Dre and Art:         There you go.

Austin:        You know? Uh... let's see, let's see here. Let's get a nice orange going. Well that makes that orange —

Dre:        That looks nice [unintelligible]

Austin:        That's not really what I — yeah, this, this is, it's so good, isn't it? Uh, uh, I just really want, I don't want, actually. I just want that. And then I want... foreground to be... ooh, can I make it... let's see, let's see. Let's see what we can do.

Dre:        [laughing] I just typed, uh, wrestling into the search bar.

Austin:        Yeah.

Dre:        And the top three results are wrestling vampire, uh, female legs —

Austin:        Right, female legs.

Dre:        And necklace.

Austin:        Necklace. Yeah, uh-huh. What's wrong?

Art:        Yeah, those are the things.

Austin:        Those are — that's it.

Dre:        Those are the three things, yeah.

Austin:        Those are the things. Uh...

Dre:        It's that new season of Lucha Underground.

Austin:        Finally. Uh... how do I — oh, boy, this looks terrible. I've made this bad.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        I'm trying so hard, but it's hard to make something black and orange — all right, I'm going to change the background to not be that, you know? And then, the foreground, what if it's like a radial — that looks terrible. This, okay, you know what? It's just going to be orange, okay? I'm sorry. It's going to be orange on black as our tokens, and that's the best I can do.

Dre:        That's okay. Hey, that's great.

Austin:        Okay. And then I'm going to... ooh, uh, uh... I'll download this as a PNG, and I'll just drop these over here. It's gigantic. It's gigantic, everybody. I don't remember what the tokens are for, but I'm going to make 10 of them. Boop boop boop, boop boop boop, boop boop, boop. Boop. Is that 11? One two three four five, six seven eight, nine — yeah, that's... one too many.

Art:        We're still on the other screen.

Austin:        Oh, are we? On... where?

Art:        I'm on the map.

Austin:        You're on the map. Oh, oh, oh, on roll20 you're on the map.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Here we go. Boop. My Way.

Art:        There we go. Now, now I see the [unintelligible]

Austin:        Now you see the huge, important screen of one index card, 10 boops, uh, and then, uh, a deck of cards. That's kind of it. [chuckles] Dre, this is very good. I'm going to —

Dre:        [chuckles] Thank you.

Austin:        I'm going to add this one here to the... let's just drop an extra — oh, come on, just let me just drop an extra one in here, please? Yeah, there we go. Yeah. Yeah!

Dre:        Yeah, you gotta —

Austin:        Now see, mine falls into Jigga. Mine falls into Jay, because that's where I naturally want to be.

Dre:        Yeah, sure.

Austin:        You know?

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Dre:        Two Americas.

Austin:        That's — that's right.

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        [laughs]

Austin:        That's right. That's what that's about.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Uh... all right, I'm going to continue reading. We have our 10 tokens of some kind. While whatever you can think of will work for this, any wrestling memorabilia — DVDs, rolled-up tee shirts, autographs, pins, et cetera would work very well for reminding you of the themes and stories of the game being played. I think we've done that. I think we've done our best — [chuckles] our best work [unintelligible]

Art:        Yeah, but —

Dre:        [laughs]

Art:        Shoutout to the people who are playing this game with DVDs.

Austin:        I love that, that's the best.

Dre:        Yeah, that's awesome.

Austin:        Mmm. Art, I've been thinking a lot about the Samoa Joe, CM Punk matches that we watched in college which like, opened by eyes to Ring of Honor and everything else from there.

Art:        Well, it was Joe versus Kenta Kobashi.

Austin:        Oh, was the Kobashi, was the one that we were watching? Was that that one?

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Mmm, okay.

Art:        Where Joe just gets his chest destroyed.

Austin:        Yeah, it's like, it's just — I didn't know you could do that in a wrestling ring, with just your arms, you know? I've seen ECW stuff, but that's not what was happening here. Anyway. There are two ways to win — I'm sorry, actually, I skipped a paragraph. The game should be recorded as an audio log in the imagined form of a podcast where you recount your career. Which we can have a lot of fun with. Uh, it also can be used in the form of a written or typed-out journal. There is no wrong way to play. That's good for us, because we would have — we will find one that is weird. Uh... there are two ways to win this game. One, pushing your body beyond its limits and going forward to gain the prestigious title. Two, the other option is to help the new talent with the hopes that they will vouch for your chance to be the top of the card. But, the body can only be pushed so far. Uh... Art, do you want to read setup on page 10?

0:11:25.6        

Art:        Every time you ask me to read something, I've skipped ahead. You begin playing with 100 D6s, digital. Or, you know —

Dre:        [laughs]

Art:        Go get 100 D6s.

Austin:        Yeah.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        Every time the game asks you to roll, do so. When you do, remove all 1s from the pool. When asked to roll again, repeat the process, once again removing 1s. If you run out of dice, you are no longer medically clear to wrestle, and the game ends. This system originates from @speakthesky on Twitter. Shuffle the deck, having removed the Jokers, and place them facedown within ease of reach. If you wish for a shorter game — which we never have —

Austin:        [laughing]

Dre:         Never.

Art:        Place the Ace of Clubs on top of the deck.

Dre:        So put that shit on the bottom.

Austin:        I have not done that. I will shuffle it again. And if we get it, if we pull the Ace of Clubs, I'm getting rid of it. I'm cheating and throwing it away. Uh, so, it feels to me like we have some other setup we need to do besides our character name and mech name, and... we should think about what this, this organization that we're part of is. Uh, we should think about how we want to do this. Because, uh, Dre, can you read page 12, the cast?

Dre:        Sure. The day is divided into two phases. The show, and the 'cast. And that is apostrophe cast. So I assume that means short for podcast.

Art:        I just got this. I read this whole book before, and I was like — yep, the show, and the people who make the show.

Austin:        Uh-uh.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        And I make podcasts for a living.

Austin:        You do, you do. And we did a podcast about podcasts this week already.

Dre:        Yeah, but we never call them 'casts.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        So —

Art:        Go check that out if you're here, yeah.

Austin:        It's in the feed now, the audio feed.

Dre:        Oh, I need to go listen to that. [laughing]

Austin:        Oh my god. We were on it. Let me tell you. Anyway.

Dre:        Yeah. Phase one, the show. Roll 1D6, draw that many cards from the deck. Turn over your first card and consult the worksheet, follow the instructions of the props. Once all cards are finished, you end this segment and discard every card unless instructed otherwise. Phase two, the 'cast. Take a moment of consider the events of the show, replaying them in-depth-ly in your mind, and coming up with how they affect you and those around you.

Austin:        Mmm.

Dre:        Record your podcast.

Austin:        Then, there is the work sheet. Consult. The work sheet whenever you draw a card. Many times, it will involve you rolling the 100 D6s. Sometimes, it will require rolling the 100 D6s.

Dre:        [wheezes laughing]

Austin:        Sometimes, it will require simply considering. Sometimes, it will ask something completely different. Hearts, uh, tend to represent the body of your performer, and how they are slowly beginning to feel the tool and wear of wrestling. Every prompt and question requested by it highlights how your wrestler is aware of the coming end to their career, and how they feel about it. Clubs represent your own relationship with fellow wrestlers and people in the industry, and how they feel about you, it's about the evolution of you and, and each other's interactions, and how they can both help and hinder your journey. Spades represent your relationship with those outside the wrestling circle, your loved ones, friends and family, and how they impact this increasingly dangerous and fraught endeavor you are taking upon, and Diamonds represent the moments are your career before this moment, the memories that led up to it and how they make you feel, that claiming the World's End title is what will make it all worth it. Uh, and then what follows are work sheet prompts that I've only skimmed, uh, to ensure that nothing is like, truly terrible on here. Uh, but I have not done deep, deep reads, because I would like to also be surprised, like Dre and Art. There are, you know, four decks of Ace to King, uh, on each of them. They each have narrative prompts that we answer, uh, and, and can play with, and, you foe, go with. Uh, uh, and then at the end, there's a debrief, which we can talk about, uh, when we hit the debrief, when we're, when we either get a win, question mark question mark question mark, or run out of these hundred dice, which I've marked at the top of our index card here. Uh...

Art:        Seems that we should — either we're all —

Austin:        Yes, this is the question.

Art:        We, we're all doing one wrestler collectively? It's — or we're —

Austin:        I don't know.

Art:        Doing our own, with our own pool of 100 dice?

Austin:        What do you think?

Dre:        Mmm.

Austin:        We could go either way. I have no idea how long this is going to take.

Art:        Yeah, uh, I mean, to roll 100 1s feels like it's going to take a while.

Austin:        Yes.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        Uh...

Austin:        I'm fine with doing one wrestler.

Art:        But I'm having a wonderful time.

Austin:        Right, I could go either way on this. I'd be happy to do one wrestler, where the other of us are, are like, where we're all controlling that wrestler. And then, one of us is voicing that wrestler in the podcast, and the other two are playing other people on that podcast?

Dre:        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        That's kind of fun. Uh, uh, but I'd also go the other way, and I think if we go the other way, we maybe do want to use the shorter rules, the, the whatever it is. The Ace of Clubs, is that what it was?

Dre:        Mmm.

Art:        Yeah.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Which, uh, what's the Ace —

Art:        It starts a clock. It —

Austin:        Is that what it does? Okay.

Art:        Uh, uh, that's the only card I looked up. The Ace of Clubs, like, you, there's like, it, it sets like a thing, when you draw X number other cards the game ends.

Austin:        Gotcha gotcha gotcha.

Dre:        Oh, okay.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Cool.

Dre:        Uh... I think I would prefer to have us be playing one character for a longer time.

Austin:        I think that that, that is more in line with your initial pitch, right?

Art:        Yeah, I like that too.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Of, we're picking up with someone else who competed at the Olympics, the space Olympics at Partizan, during the Kingdom game. Uh, uh, who then we're following their career in professional mech wrestling, as the war continues. Which is very fun —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        As backdrop, and dark, and, you know. We've watched pro wrestling during wartime. We know, we know how those things intersect often. Uh, so that, that should be interesting. Okay. So who the hell are we playing? Who are they, what's their mech's name, what's the, what's the federation's name? Is there one? Do we bounce from place to place? Is there [unintelligible]

Art:        [unintelligible] territory system is coming back in the —

Austin:        That's, that's, yeah.

Art:        That's funny. Hey, do we know that roll20 can handle 100 D6s?

Austin:        Yeah.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        Okay.

Dre:        I have done it before as a, as a joke.

Austin:        We, we — I have listened to something recently from us, where someone rolled 10,000 D100s, or something.

Art:        Oh, I remember that. It was with the — it didn't roll that high.

Austin:        It was, was a very low, given the amount of — I think this was a COUNTER/Weight thing, and it was very low, given that it was that many dice.

Dre:        Was this Keith rolling for robots?

Art:        [laughs]

Austin:        It was not Keith rolling for —

Art:        I think it was Keith.

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        It was either — I think Keith did it first, and then Jack did it and rolled very poorly.

Dre:        [laughing] That seems appropriate for reasons I can't fully explain.

Austin:        Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        I do like the idea of us having multiple territories, because it gives us this like, freedom to sort of come back to this idea, even though —

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        I know, deep down, that we're not. Uh...

Dre:        Oh, you're meaning territories as in like, OBW and, and, like other stuff like that.

Art:        Yeah, yeah —

Dre:        Yeah, okay.

Art:        Like, you know, when the, the NWA was the collection of loose —

Austin:        Right. For people who don't know anything about table — god, tabletop roleplaying games, I was going to say — about professional wrestling. Uh, there was an era. I mean, there still are territories, in a sense, right? There are still, still indie leagues and federations and smaller things. But there is really a time in, the, I guess the 60s to the 80s, right? Where America was carved up. And you had bits of, uh, the South, and bits of the Midwest, that were covered by different federations. And wrestlers would be a territory wrestler, be in that territory, working with the, the group there. Maybe they'd bounce around to different territories, et cetera. There wasn't the like, the... the thing that, that the WWE did in the 80s with the rise of, of Hulk Hogan and all that was kind of become a big, universalized, nationwide federation, uh, that challenged the territory system, right?

Art:        Right. Killed the territory system.

Austin:        And — uh, yeah. Exactly. Like, a lot — some of those territories ended up, like NWA, kind — and like the talent cohered into WCW. And we know what happened there, right? So —

Art:        Yeah. And most of the NWA ended up becoming —

Austin:        Right.

Art:        WCW. And the, the real fun thing about the territory era was like, and you sort of get this watching wrestling, is there's some characters that can't stick around.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        That there are characters that like, once they sort of do their thing, they're, they're done. Uh, you see this a lot with like, you know, Hulk Hogan would beat whoever, you know. Earthquake, Typhoon, whatever. And then, there's no second act for Earthquake.

Austin:        Right.

Art:        Uh, and, but in the territory days, that person could just go to the next town. If they were in Memphis, they could go... Texas. They could, you know, they could go to Dallas. And then they could just sort of do it again. There was this like, way to refresh yourself that no longer exists.

Austin:        In many ways... [chuckling] like a carnival, where like —

Art:        Yeah, uh-huh.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        A carnival doesn't really — like, no one's going to the carnival in the same town, week in, week out. You got to move the carnival around. The gimmicks get old, you know? Everybody's, you know, gone on the tilt a whirl. Everybody's gone in and seen the act. And so now, you've got to go somewhere else. And that is how that territory system worked, where they were like, you know, you did the Carolinas, now you're going to go to the Dakotas, then you're going to come down to, you know, West Texas, you know? Whatever. Uh, uh, and so, yeah. Very interesting. So, yes. I think we are probably in the moment that we're at the rise of the [chuckling] wrestling territories, in the Principality. After this happens, right? Like, literally, we're playing someone who starts — and maybe this first turn should be the Kingdom game, should be those Olympics. Does anybody remember exactly how that — we won it, right? Millennium Break won, presumably.

0:21:43.9        

Art:        Yeah.

Dre:        I was trying to remember, were the Olympics like, like inter-Stel? Or were they —

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dre:        Okay, okay.

Austin:        Because this is before there is any internal civil war.

Dre:        Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        Right? This was, this was pre-Millennium Break taking over Cruciat, this is, uh, this is like, Millennium Break appearing in the intergalactic stage for the first time, really. Uh...

Dre:        Okay.

Austin:        Uh, I'm doing a search here for sumo. Uh, who wins? Uh... let's see.

Art:        I think one thing about the Partizan episode names, they are a little hard to figure out —

Austin:        Oh, no, I know exactly what one this is.

Art:        Oh.

Austin:        This is, “She said, to win, we must play.”

Art:        Oh, I was so close.

Austin:        Mm-hm. The next one is Storm Over Cruciat, which is the Cruciat stuff.

Art:        I was like, Courage in the Shadow of Opportunity, right? That's... that's sports.

Austin:        Uh...

Dre:        I mean, that, yeah, that does sound like sports.

Austin:        That does sound like sports. Uh, all right, here we go. Uh, da da...

Art:        Oh, don't, don't, don't tell me if the Mets are losing. Don't, if you're in the chat, don't, don't tell me.

Dre:        Hell yeah, don't do that!

Austin:        Come on.

Dre:        Come on.

Art:        I know they're going to lose. Don't —

Dre:        You don't know that.

Art:        They're... they've had a really bad month slash 6 weeks last second half of the season.

Dre:        Oh, okay.

Art:        The worst hundred-win team I've ever seen.

Austin:        Uh... there's some discussion about, what if Leap was wrestling instead. But it looks like Millie wrestled.

Art:         Chat says Thisbe wins —

Austin:        Oh, does Thisb- that would make sense.

Dre:        Yeah. Thisbe big.

Austin:        Yeah, Thisbe – Mo, Mo big.

Dre:        Mo big. Yeah. Well, Thisbe big as well, but Mo bigger, yeah.

Austin:        Yes. Okay. Mech sumo, Thisbe/Mo, tell me what this looks like. Yes, I found it. Janine says, you can't spell sumo without Mo. If you spell Mo wrong.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Because I've been spelling Mow with a W. But in this moment [laughing] it's just spelled Mo. Ugh. Yeah.

Dre:        Listen, you can't, you can't keep your name when you go from one, one territory to the other, you know? They got the, they copyright your gimmick, and —

Austin:        Also, we should say really quick. Sumo is, uh, uh, a sport with an incredible history, and an incredible current fandom, and —

Art:        Uh-huh.

Austin:        Currently having a moment. And we know that sumo wrestling and professional wrestling sports entertainment are not the same thing. Uh, and I think we want to have fun with the pro wrestling thing. So we're kind of like, blurring that line a little bit. I imagine, we should say this — do we think the fights are real? Is, is, is kayfabe — are we like the WWE comics? Where, yes there's backroom drama, wheeling and dealing about who gets booked, what matches, uh, and some things are unfair, but fundamentally the fights are real?

Art:        Uh, I think no — I think no. I think it's sort of like, in, in real life, when they tried to make wrestling a sport, and realized, this isn't very interesting. And that's why, that's where kayfabe comes from is to make it watchable.

Austin:        Right right right.

0:25:15.0        

Art:        I think it's, I think we would sort of have the same process here.

Austin:        So, it is still a show. You're an actor.

Art:        It's a show, yeah.

Austin:        But, our character, like a Kurt Angle, has a history in real, competitive mech wrestling.

Art:        Right, yeah. I mean, if, if Janine were here, that's what I would want to be doing.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Because, wait — why would Janine have to be here for that?

Art:        Well, 'cause, 'cause, that would make Thisbe the Kurt Angle of the sport.

Austin:        Right. Oh, sorry, but we're not playing as Thisbe, to be clear.

Art:        Right, because Janine's not here.

Dre:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        Right right right. Well, also because that's not what Thisbe wanted — Thisbe didn't go on to be a pro wrestler after this.

Art:        Well...

Dre:        Can't wait to yell, “you suck” until Thisbe comes onscreen next time.

Austin:        We know what Thisbe went on to do, and it was something else. It was, continue to be in Millennium Break, and then eventually go to a farm, and et cetera. We're playing someone else who was there —

Art:        Well, and, you can always leave a farm.

Austin:        This is true. This is true. It's very funny to think about, but...

Art:        It's honestly a very similar character, I would say.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Assuming you could get Thisbe to play heel, the like — sort of like, big, dumb heel of Kurt Angle maps onto Thisbe pretty well.

Austin:        Ah, but Kurt Angle, Kurt Angle plays like, you know, what's his vibe sometimes? Sometimes, he has... he's not, he's not about playing smart, but he's, he often played against, like, Stone Cold, and so had to play, like, wholesome and smarter than redneck, right? That's a thing that he kind of —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Positioned himself as, right?

Art:        Yeah, but then he's always like, then he's in the interview where —

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        I think it's like, Edge and Christian have the like insults on the cards they're holding up, like Kurt Angle thinks he's smart, but is always being outsmarted. It's, you know —

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        To use, you know, Kurt Angle is the schlemazel, to use the...

Dre:        The schlemiel?

Austin:        Right. Not the schlemiel.

Art:        Right.

Austin:        I... I've learned something today.

Dre:        I. So have I. You go first.

Austin:        Yeah, I didn't — it's about schlemiel and schlemazel, which are words I knew —

Dre:        Yeah, I thought those were just —

Austin:        But I didn't know —

Dre:        I thought that was just in the Laverne and Shirley opening. Are those like — do those have meaning?

Austin:        Well, no, they're Yiddish.

Art:        Yeah, they're, they're, they're Yiddish terms for, for, for joke characters. For —

Austin:        For like stock characters, is that the vibe?

Art:        I might have them backwards.

Dre:        Holy shit, the Laverne and Shirley intro songs is way more meta than a realized, huh?

Art:        Yeah, uh, uh, you get to Hollywood, it's Jews all the way down. Uh...

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        So it's an unlucky person, and a clumsy person.

Art:        Yeah. And I would say that, outside of the ring, Kurt Angle is the clumsy person.

Austin:        I see. Right. I gotcha. Uh...

Art:        But we're not doing Thisbe as Kurt Angle —

Austin:        We're not.

Art:        Uh...

Austin:        We're doing —

Art:        Uh, because that's not the world we get to live in.

Austin:        No, we instead are doing, who?

Dre:        Hm...

Austin:        What do we got? What's our vibe? What's our, what — talk to me about who this person is.

Art:        Do we want to start with the person or with the persona? Because both are sort of like —

Austin:        Right, I guess we also need the performer name, right? And this game is kind of about both.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        I mean, let's start with the persona. In-the-ring name.

Art:        Uh...

Dre:        Hm.

Austin:        And we also have a mech name, which is a third thing.

Art:        What —

Austin:        Okay, let's start — okay, here we go. How do they fight? Is this a technical wrestler? Are we, are we hitting submission maneuvers? Are we a powerhouse? Are we, uh, a high-flier? Are we...

Art:        I think the most fun wrestler to be at the end of your career —

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        Is either like a technical wrestler, or a brawler.

Dre:        Yeah, I was going to say like —

Art:        Because those are people who are like.

Dre:        Like, brawler.

Art:        Yeah, where, where like, they don't need to have everything. In, in, in a way, both of those are people who win by, by outsmarting their...

Austin:        Mm-hm. So, thing that I like about brawler is, we've now found a different angle, than Kurt Angle. Uh... we found, like, what if you, what if Kurt Angle became Jon Moxley, right? What if Kurt Angle went to the Olympics, and then when he got to the WWE, was like, “That's, I'm — because I didn't win in the Olympics, fuck pro wrestling — or, fuck professional, fuck Olympic wrestling.”

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        I'm a, I'm this new thing.

Austin:        I'm a street fighter, yeah. I'm a, I... I, I win fights.

Art:        I'm a [unintelligible] revolution.

Austin:        Yeah. What if this — ooh! What if this person got disqualified from the Kingdom Olympics for doing something that they thought should be allowed, but was considered dirty?

Dre:        Sure. Yeah, we, we could say that we tried to do things... My Way.

Austin:        My Way. Right.

Dre:        And then we got, then we got in trouble.

Austin:        We got in trouble for doing it My Way. I love this. This is fun. Greasy, like the mech is Greasy, but also their hair is kind of greasy.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Art:        Is it like, uh, is there like a greaser look to it? Is this like — does this person wear like a, a white shirt and a, and a black leather jacket in that cockpit?

Austin:        Yes.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        Or in the promos? I don't know what you actually wear in a cockpit.

Dre:        I do really like the idea of like a beat-up old jacket.

Austin:        Mm-hm. And a mech that's sort of like a hot rod.

Art:        Yeah, but like a hot rod that's been around, right?

Austin:        That's what I — yeah, yeah. Not a, not a pristine one, but like American muscle, you know what I mean?

Art:        Yeah.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Art:        An old Charger.

Dre:        Oh, yeah.

Austin:        Yeah. Yeah.

Dre:        Are we just going to — are we playing Dominic Toretto?

Austin:        Dominic Toretto is too —

Art:        No, I think we're playing Fonzie meets Dominic Toretto.

Austin:        [laughing]

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        God. Meets, uh...

Dre:        Punch the jukebox and [Dunskaduru] comes on. [laughing]

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Dre:        I'm mispronouncing and misremembering the name of that song, but...

Austin:        What's, what's, uh... god, what are the names of the what's the fucking... Grease guy's name?

Art:        Danny Zuko.

Austin:        Danny Zuko, thank you.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        A little Danny Zuko in there. But older. I mean... I guess, Travolta's kind of not a young kid when he's playing Danny Zuko, huh?

Art:        No, I bet you'd be shocked at how old Travolta was [chuckling] in Grease.

Austin:        Uh... that was '78. All right, he was 24. [chuckling]

Art:        Oh, okay, that's younger than I thought. He looked...

Austin:        That's younger than I thought.

Art:        Terrible.

Austin:        He looks old.

Art:        For 24.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        It's a different era, you know?

Dre:        Yeah. Uh, as far as mech goes, I'm very much picturing, like, panels missing, with like, mechanics exposed. Like, I'm thinking, like, if we're thinking of hot rod, where it's got like, the...

Austin:        Yeah.

Dre:        Where it's got like the, the part of the engine like, poking out —

Art:        With the, with the engine stick out of it.

Dre:        Through the hood.

Art:        Yeah...

Austin        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Art:        So now we got a little American graffiti in our [unintelligible] now.

Austin:        Yeah. This is what I'm saying. Love it. All right. So we need, so we have our persona. We're a brawler. We are... a brawler, uh, uh, muscle car slash hot rod themed, brawler.

Art:        Of course, you can't say hot rod in a professional wrestling context without evoking —

Austin and Art:         Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Austin:        Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art:        Which I guess maybe we should shy away from, because I don't know that any of us can, can do a —

Austin:        No. Nope!

Art:        A Roddy Piper caliber promo, extemporaneously.

Austin:         No. Mmm.

Art:        Just when they think they have the answers, I change the questions, is an all-timer.

Austin:        It's great.

Dre:        Mmm.

Austin:        Uh... yeah, there's a little Megas XLR in this. I think there's a little Megas XLR, which, which was a... a American super-robot show from the mid-2000s. Uh, but I think it's darker, I don't think it's — that thing had like a more of a... you know, van with flames on the side of it, vibe.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        You know? Uh, uh, there's a game on Steam called Wolf Stride, uh, which has some, some of these vibes in it a little bit. Uh, uh, very... it's like, these vibes but a little more Cowboy Bebop. Uh, really really gorgeous black-and-white mech fighting game, uh, that, that I keep meaning to play and haven't got around to yet. Uh, all right, so we still need a name for both — we still need three names. We need our real name, our in-ring persona name, and our mech name.

0:34:26.7        Let me look at... okay, here we go. Second follow up question. Where are we from? What Stel were we raised in?

Dre:        So, at this point, what are, what are states are the Stels, I'm trying to [unintelligible]

Austin:        We, uh, the point at which we're starting is, again — we would have spent our entire life living in the Principality while it's at war with the Golden — with the, with the Branched. But there's no internal war. The beginning of this, it is just the five Stels as they are. Kesh, Nideo, Columnar, Orion, Apostolos. And they're just, the way that they are, default, you know? Uh, I guess there are two... there are, at this point, two claimants to the Princept throne. Uh, and there is like, that's a problem, you know? But there is not open conflict between the Curtain and the Pact, which, after last episode, we know at some point becomes the Bilateral Intercession and the Pact of Free States, instead of the Pact of Necessary Venture. Uh, but, but at this point, the Curtain exists as a behind-the-scenes secretive spy organization. The Pact of Necessary Venture exists as a independent group of people who are working towards becoming the thing that they would become. But everything else is just... a little, a little, uh-oh. But not bad. No outright conflict or war between these Stels, right? Yeah. Big O is a great touchstone, Dre. Especially because this —

Dre:        Yeah, I really —

Austin:        This edition, with like... do you want to explain?

Dre:        I also just like the idea of us being a, a Brawler mech with like, piston action arms.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah. Agreed, agreed. Uh...

Art:        Oh, I expected to come in here and see, uh, the Hugh Jackman robot.

Austin:        From, uh...

Dre:        From Real Steel?

Austin:         Real Steel?

Art:         Real Steel. Which I believe has piston arms.

Austin:        Mmm.

Dre:        Oh, does it?

Austin:        Probably. I, I never saw Real Steel, believe it or not.

Art:        No one has seen Real Steel.

Dre:        I don't know if the robot he is has piston arms, but I feel like one of the other bad guy boxer robots does.

Austin:        Mm-hm. That makes sense. Uh... so, Apostolos, militant, you know. Uh... motion is there, still. Uh... and is, that's still like the heart of what it is, led by Dahlia, uh, uh, you know? They're Apostolos. Uh, very, the interesting, uh, tension between self determination and autonomy, and the imperial military project, intense nationalism. Uh, uh, fun, fun, uh, pronoun stuff. Uh, and tied to self-expression and self, self-determination. Uh, Columnar. Uh, kind of removed from military action, focusing on science and research and art and culture. Uh, but in a sort of forward-looking way. They are the you future. But also they're just like, a kind of mid-tier neoliberal state, that, uh, can't actually imagine a, a future different than just more Principality, let alone build one. Uh, uh, Kesh. Looking backwards in time. Past, tradition, uh, very... frankly, very British in many ways, right? We're playing with ideas of nobility and lineage, and history coming to bite you in the ass. Uh, and, uh, et cetera. Also very humanist, very driven by the idea that humans are the center of the galaxy, even though we do, of course, have and believe in the power of Divines, they're not quite, you know — Divines reflect human virtues. Nideo. Divines are above us, Divines connect us to something bigger than us. Nideo is, is culture, is popular culture, is the church, the school, the, the top 40 radio, is, is the show that comes on at primetime that everybody laughs to. Uh, uh...

0:38:34.5        

Art:        That sounds right.

Austin:        I mean, is... uh, we will have wrestlers from all over these places, right? Uh, but those are the —

Art:        Right, but just as, just as Stone Cold Steve Austin has to come from Texas, this character might have to come from that.

Austin:        Mmm. From the religious. And then last is Orion.

Art:        And the pop culture, yeah.

Austin:        Which is commerce, and, and distance, and space, and variety that comes with reflecting such huge, open swaths of the galaxy. Uh, uh, transport, connection, uh, uh, money, et cetera. Uh, so yeah, Nideo might be fun. You're right, the idea that like — do you want to say more about why Stone Cold has to come from be Texas?

Art:        Because that, anti-authority character fits this like, you know — Stone Cold Steve Austin is one with like, the cowboy mythos, I think, you know.

Austin:        I see. Right.

Art:        Not, and not like, characters who are literally cowboys, but just like — I hate my boss, I'm going to kick him in the stomach and then give him a stunner. Like, that's —

Austin:        Right, the —

Art:        That, you know, and, of course, it's all, it's all fake. But, you know, but, but, that feels, it feels right that he is a Texan. In the way that America has —

Austin:        America produces —

Art:        In the way that America has, has constructed Texas.

Austin:        America produces Stone Cold Steve Austin, the guy who can kick his boss in the stomach and give him a stunner, because it needs you not to do that. It needs to like, let that — there, there needs to be space, and, and this isn't a, there aren't people twirling their mustaches doing this, but this is one way in which capitalism functions, is that there is a sublimation of, of desire. There, there is a, you want this thing and you can't have it. So there is the cultural production that would allow you to briefly touch that fantasy, rises in, uh, uh, you know, popularity. Uh, it speaks to something bubbling underneath the surface. So, yeah, the idea that like, churchy Nidean culture produces the guy who just wants to get, get in there and get dirty and like, do the damn thing instead of jumping through hoops, instead of filing the right paperwork, instead of saying your prayers in the morning, right?

Art:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Where did Hulk Hogan — Hulk Hogan came from America? Like, is that — when, when Hulk Hogan was introduced, where was he —

Art:        Venice Beach, California.

Austin:        Venice Beach, California. So, yeah. Surfer. Right, sure. Uh.... All right. So, we know, from Nideo, from Stel Nideo. Uh... so we do have — so, so are we, are we, are we a wrestler who has their in-ring name being just a variation on their real name?

Art:        I think that's probably right, because this is like a public, this is a person that people know. So we can't like —

Austin:        Right. Right, right right right.

Art:        This can't be, like, you know, Kurt Angle is Kurt Angle's name, but if Kurt Angle was going to change his name, he couldn't be something, you know, just out of left field. He couldn't be like the [unintelligible] —

Austin:        He couldn't be, as Taroid says in chat, Johnny Paycheck.

Art:        Right, yeah.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        He could be Kurt Paycheck. He could be Kurt “Paycheck” Angle. But he couldn't be Johnny Paycheck.

Art:        Yeah, you have to give your audience some credit when dealing with famous people.

Austin:        Yeah. Or, again, right, uh, uh... uh, Jon Moxley's real name is not Moxley, but Jonathan is his real name, right?

Art:        Right, yeah.

Austin:        And so you can kind of like, play that. People call him Jon, his name is Jon. It's so funny that they called him Dean Ambrose.

Art:        [laughing]

Austin:        Like, you look back at that name, and it couldn't be more of a bad fit, for that character.

Art:        Just looking back at almost anything they did with Dean Ambrose, they didn't... they didn't have their arms around what they had. And they like, they knew they had something good, and they did stuff.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        Uh, it's, it's tricky. Because, uh, WWE is, seems to be getting a lot better, now that, uh...

Austin:        Now that Vince is —

Art:        Vince is gone.

Austin:        Yeah, uh-huh. The thing that everyone said would happen, for decades. Uh... so, what's our, like, all right, let me look at my, let me look at my season eight name list and see if there's anything we haven't used yet, that I would —

Dre:        I'm also trying to [unintelligible] is there any sort of naming convention for Stel Nideo?

Austin:        Not espe- I think they're descendants of the Twilight Mirage, right? So they have some loose breadth in that way? Right, of like, uh... they, their names go more out there than most other names, even, in, in the... the Principality. Uh, I, I, but, but that's, it's kind of everywhere. Nowhere near like — I do have a system for Columnar, right? But most places, no. Uh... I'm trying to think of there's other important NPCs that were, that you would be like, oh yeah, this is... this is Nideo. Uh, but nothing like Apostolos, where there's a whole system, you know.

Dre:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        I want to say Alise Breka might be? No, she — no, she was Kesh. Mourningbride was from, was from Nideo, but that's a, that's a, uh, an Elect name, so that doesn't work. Uh, God, how many — we didn't really have that many important... uh, you know, Sovereign Immunity, but Sovereign Immunity is... Sovereign Immunity, you know. That's not... not actually his name. Uh... yeah, I don't know that we had any primary characters, did we? That were, besides Sovereign Immunity, that were Nideo. Or, or the other ones who I can think of are like, characters who were, uh, also had epithets like The Blossom from Lambic House, you know? Uh... let's see. I'm looking at the list of, of characters. Let's see if anything else pops up. I bet Midnite Matinee was from, from Nideo. I bet... uh, let's see... I bet Sombre Sky, uh, was from Nideo.

0:45:15.9        You know, again, there's a, there's like a Twilight Mirage-y-ness to some of it, right? Uh, for, for either Kesh or Nideo, because they both have that overlap. Uh, but, but... think about in that respect, I guess, as this, really the closest — but again, you're not playing — I guess again, right, I guess we said, right, we, we are, we do want someone whose, whose wrestling, whose in-ring name is similar to their real name. So it does actually matter what their real name is.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Uh... Lost to the chat. There it is.

Art:        I'm just taking all my effort not to address the... knowing nothing about wrestling, I'm getting the vibe that Stone Cold is wrestling's answer to Chuck Norris, because like, that's a real yes-but-no on the [unintelligible]

Austin:        Yeah, it's a real yes-but-no.

Art:        [wheezes]

Austin:        All right, keep — you keep talking while I continue to think of names.

Art:        Uh, the thing, the thought that I had is I, I, I want a name that has like a time component.

Austin:        Mmm, mm-hm.

Art:        Uh, but Chuck Norris — Walker, Texas Ranger was, was what I think of when I think of Chuck Norris, and that has like, this inherent authority to it. A Texas Ranger has —

Austin:        Right, yeah.

Art:        The, the, the law is behind the Texas Ranger. And, and Steve Austin is, is an, is an outsider to the authority uh, you know, is often being fought by the, the authorities.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        Vince McMahon brings the cops to take Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Austin:        Right.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Yeah. Again, it's pulling on some of the cowboy-ness, but...

Art:        I, yeah, the, there's definitely elements there. Especially like, at the height of his, of his in-ring career, he was as indestructible as the Chuck Norris character is, you know.

Austin:        Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

Art:        Sylvi says, someone should be named The Fiend, but that's not their ring name, that's their real name.

Dre:        [laughs]

Austin:        [chuckles] That's very fun.

Dre:        Uh, okay, what —

Austin:        Amber Haze was one of the, was one of the, was a Nideo person. Someone in chat mentioned, uh, again, I have to find chat again. Taroid In the chat again said, the Empyrean Hallow pilot, that was Amber Haze from episode 15, Divine Attention. Uh... Fiend is very funny. Yeah, Pique, Pique Nideo, obviously is a Nidean, is like from the Nideo family. Uh, Pique was very funny, P-I-Q-U-E. Uh, yeah, I can't think of any others. Uh, all right. Now I'm actually going to look at my names that I have prewritten but not used yet.

Dre:        What if their name includes, maybe like their last name is like, Mettle, like M-E-T-T-L-E?

Austin:        Ooh, yeah.

Dre:        And it's a good; like, play on word with metal.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        That's good, that's good. Uh....

Austin:        And then their first name is like — it has to be something punchy, right? Like... Shiv.

Art:        I mean, the thing that comes to mind is like, Temper.

Austin:        Oh, okay. We went different directions.

Art:        Yeah, we did.

Dre:        [laughing] What, what did you say, Art?

Art:        Temper.

Austin:        Like, to temper metal.

Dre:        Mmm.

Art:        But also, like, they have a bad temper.

Austin:        Right, right, exactly.

Art:        There's two things.

Austin:        Whereas I like, you know, Shiv, or Jab, or Crunch, or... [chuckles] you know, names.

Art:        Yeah.

Dre:        Hook.

Austin:        Book... did you say book?

Dre:        No, I said Hook, but I guess Book works too?

Austin:        Hook or Book.

Art:        Hook is being used right now.

Dre:        Book 'em, Zuko!

Austin:        [chuckling] Uh-huh. Is that what happens to the character from Grease? He grows up to be a cop?

Dre:        Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah.

Austin:        Rip.

Art:        Well, they die at the end of Grease.

Dre:        Wait, what?

Art:        Yeah! Danny and Sandy —

Austin:        No...

Art:        They drive to heaven in that car. They, they're dead.

Austin:        They don't... [chuckling] they don't die!

Dre:        [cracking up]

Austin:        What?!

Art:        Oh, they're — oh, then they just ascend as saints to the lord? I mean, what do you —

Austin:        Yes! Yes.

Art:        What are you saying, Austin?

Austin:        The ascent, they didn't die! They ascended fully — it's like you didn't even go to Catholic school. Unbelievable.

Dre:        [laughs]

Art:        Uh...

Austin:        It's an assumption, that's what it's called in, in, in the, the... in the Catholic dogma, Mary did not ascend. She was, she, she assumpted. Heaven assumed her, because she —

Art:        And that's who it's for. It's for Mary... and Danny and Sandy.

Austin:        That's right, that's the — yeah, uh-huh. Uh...

Dre:        Hm. I guess, do we just like —

Austin:        Do we have a gender for this character?

Dre:        Oh, I don't know.

Austin:        Okay.

Dre:        You said dogma, and I thought of like, Dogmatic Mettle, but I guess that's like, the opposite of this character that we finished so far.

0:50:31.9        

Austin:        Yeah, but it isn't, if we call them Dog.

Dre:        Oh, Dog Mettle is pretty good.

Art:        [laughing]

Austin:        [laughing] Dog Mettle... [laughing] I... someone type it out, I'm, I'm going to see it. I'm going to look at it here. Dogmatic Mettle, M-E-T-T-L-E is what you're saying, right? Like mettle?

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        And then... Dog Mettle. Dog Mettle? Dog Mettle.

Art:        Where are you typing this, what's —

Austin:        This is on the chat, or on the, in the — sorry, on the roll20.

Dre:        I, very much, the name is, is Dog, Dogmatic Mettle, and it's like M-E-T-T-L-E, and then their in-ring name is Dog Metal, M-E-T-A-L.

Austin:        Like, like metal.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Ooh, Art, you make a good point. Dawg Metal.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Or... Metal Dog. Or, that's the, that's the — if you were a boss in Metal Gear Solid, version of it.

Dre:        Sure.

Austin:        Dogmatic Mettle just sounds so good. I think — what if they're just Dogmatic Mettle, but like, people call them Mettle or call them Dog, you know?

Dre:        Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Austin:        They didn't choose their names.

Art:        Well, we gotta make sure we're not doing, we're not making, we're not exactly making Dog the Bounty Hunter, that's a —

Austin:        We're not. We're not. Ready?

Dre:        We're not.

Austin:        We're not. Dog the Bounty Hunter didn't go to the fucking Olympics, right?

Dre:        No.

Art:        I don't know, maybe went to the Olympics.

Austin:        [laughing] Ugh...

Art:        Bought a ticket.

Dre:        Is he still alive?

Austin:        No, I think he... might be in prison? I don't know, or is he, or is he out of prison? I don't know. He was a piece of shit, right? Like he was already —

Art:        Yeah, yeah, prison.

Austin:        He was always a piece of shit, and then he became, it was revealed that he was still one, right?

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, okay.

Dre:        [outburst of laughter] Sorry, uh, I'm, I'm looking at Dog the Bounty Hunter's Wikipedia page.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Dre:        Uh, and Bobby Brown sued Dog the Bounty Hunter, claiming he was promised to be a full cast member. [laughing]

Austin:        God. Wow.

Dre:        Oh, Christ. Okay. All right.

Austin:        Bobby Brown, Bobby Brown? Like, Bobby Brown.

Dre:        I, I assume it has to be Dobby Brown. Let me, let me find the link here to this.

Austin:        Uh, I believe this is not —

Dre:        No, okay. Yeah, no —

Austin:        A different Bobby Brown.

Dre:        Yeah, no, it's a [unintelligible] yeah, okay. That makes a lot more sense.

Art:        It was Millie Bobby Brown. You're —

Austin:        Okay, yeah. Okay.

Dre:        Yeah, sure sure sure.

Austin:        Uh-huh. They were, they were first in line to be part of the new season. Uh...

Art:        They just had to take a chance on a stranger thing.

Austin:        Uh-huh. And, we have a new jack swing intro song, so...

Dre:        Sure.

Austin:        Okay, good. I'm just going to get rid of in-ring, because, because we now just know that... what's our mech names? Now — here's the thing. A mech, we can do all the metal puns we want.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        Uh-huh.

Dre:        Uh, okay... Iron Sharpens Iron. Uh...

Austin:        Big Iron on my Hip. Uh... Silver Bullets. Uh...

Art:         Tungsten Cube.

Austin:        Uh-huh. We're all going to just, let's just name metal things.

Dre:        Unobtanium, uh...

Austin:        Uh, here we go. I got a list of 483 things that are made of metal. Chain, fence, knife, fork, spoon, blade, razor.

Dre:        Okay, what about —

Austin:        Pot, trumpet —

Art:        Trumpet!

Dre:        What about, instead of Steam and Smolder, Steam and Solder [Sol-Der] Sold — solder [sau-der]? Solder. That's how that word works.

Austin:        What's Steam and Smolder?

Dre:        Isn't that, isn't that a thing?

Austin:        You just invented a phrase, Dre. [chuckles]

Art:        Yeah, no. That's great, but I think you coined it.

Austin:        No, apparently it — no, yeah, you, you coined it. That's a new thing.

Dre:        Great. Perfect. TM, TM, TM, TM, TM.

Art:        It's when you want to hit on someone at the spa. You... steam and [chuckling] smolder.

Dre:        [laughing] Yeah. I'm mad... but also, you're hot, so....

Austin:        Yeah, yeah.

Art:        Well, because they have a — they have a steam room.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Dre:        Yeah. Yeah.

Austin:        Uh, this should be something that feel likes, you know, a punch in the solar plexus.

Art:        How close do you want this to be to like a finishing move name, you know? The like —

Austin:        We need a finishing move too, right? So, that's what I'm saying is it can't — I mean, it could be The Sharpshooter, but I don't think it could be, like... the... what's another finishing move?

Dre:        Uh, the Rock Bottom.

Austin:        I don't think it could be the Rock Bottom.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        That feels different to me, somehow. I'm going to look at a list of wrestling moves that I know. It couldn't be... yeah, it couldn't be the People's Elbow, right? It couldn't be the Choke Slam. It could be the Pedigree. It couldn't be Sweet Chin Music, I don't think.

Art:        The Pedigree sort of goes back to the dog thing.

Austin:        That's true, but we can't just take the Pedigree. [chuckling] It's already a thing.

Dre:        [chuckling]

Austin:        It could be the Tombstone. It couldn't be the Choke Slam. You know?

Art:         The Impurity. The...

Austin:        Ooh... Microwave. Nails.

Art:        What's the opposite of lustre?

Dre:        Oh, wow. There's a, there's a wrestling move generator. All right.

Austin:        Now we're talking. Roofing. Sink.

Art:        Uh...

Austin:        Stapler. Chainsaw. It could be the chainsaw. It could be... it could be the crowbar. Wrench. Anchor. We already have an anchor, in the road. We can't go back to anchor.

Dre:        Uh, gut-buster.

Austin:        [chuckles] Sounds like my stomach hurts.

Dre:        Well, yeah, if you punch people in the stomach a lot!

Art:        Sounds like it could also be the name for a hamburger.

Austin:        [laughing] Yeah. Grille, like, but with an E. I'm still looking at the list of all things made of metal. Wheelbarrow. Uh, gas cylinder. Axe. Pressure Cooker. [laughing] The pressure — gun. Blowtorch.

Dre:        [laughing] Yeah, that's my, that's my wrestling, uh, that's my new character. I just bring a gun to the ring. [laughing]

Austin:        Gun. Uh... printing press. Sword.

Art:        Someone, someone told Dogmatic Metal that their name should be something scary [chuckling] so it's just, Gun.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        It's Gun. Cannon. Rocket Launcher. Swiss army knife. I feel like knife has that covered. Bayonet. Hatchet. Hatchet's not bad. There's already a —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        There's a Battletech Mech Warrior name called the Hatchet Man, right? But just Hatchet's kind of good.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Something Hatchet? Sharp Hatchet? Steel Hatchet? The...

Dre:        Do we want to, to we want it to be like, like a positive adjective? Or like, like a rusty or old, or...

Austin:        We want it to be a tough adjective.

Dre:        Yeah, okay.

Austin:        We want to feel like a tractor, or a shovel, you know what I mean?

Dre:        All right. So the, the Tractor Hatchet.

Austin:        The trac- oh, it could just be the Tractor. Or it could be the — it could just be the Tractor [laughing] “This is my mech, Tractor.”

Dre:        The Tractor. [laughing]

Art:        Uh...

Austin:        Chains, you know what I mean? Like, rusty isn't wrong, but like...

Dre:        Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah..

Austin:        Not rusty because it was in a shed for a decade.

Art:        Like, the Harvester.

Austin:        Right. The Harvester! Dogmatic Mettle grew up on a farm, you know?

Dre:        Sure.

Austin:        The Harvester's kind of fun.

Dre:        All — only good things happen to people with farm-related names in —

Austin:         The Combiner. The Combiner.

Dre:        [chuckle

Austin:        Uh... types of tractors. Types of agricultural...

Dre:        Big farm machines.

Austin:        Yeah, big farm machines. That's what we want. Harrow. Uh...Cultipacker. Land imprinter. Plow. [chuckling] Hydroponics.

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        It can't be either of those two. [laughing]

Dre:        Listen, Dog Mettle's got the dro, and that’s who you go to. [laughing]

Austin:        That's right. Yep. Milking machine.

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        Nope!

Austin:        No? You sure?

Dre:        Are you sure? That sounds like a good finishing move.

Austin:        Ugh... Hog oiler.

Dre:        [chuckling]

Austin:        Here's a thing — the hog oiler Wikipedia page begins like this — a hog oiler was a mechanical device employed on farms, to be used by hogs, to provide relief from insects and other skin protection. Is it gone? Did we get rid of the hog oiler? It was this?

Dre:        You should, you should Google hog oiler and see what the fuck this thing looks like.

Austin:        This is an antique watermelon type hog oiler. Weird. Weird [unintelligible]

Dre:        [unintelligible] no idea.

Art:        My least favorite Pokemon type is watermelon type.

Austin:        [chuckles]

Dre:        No idea how this would help a... help a pig. I guess they just rub against it?

Austin:        They rub against it, get all oily. I guess, I, I think Harvester is still where I'm at.

Dre:        Okay.

Austin:         Iron Harvester.

Dre:        Keen Harvester.

Austin:        Keene Forrest Harvester. Uh... Black Harvester. Silver Harvester. Grape Harvester. Grain Harvester. [chuckles]

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:         The Divine, Harvester.

Austin:        [laughing] But it's not a divine!

Art:        It's not like a divine, but it just harvests Divines.

Austin:        Ugh... I mean, if we want to go like, anti-authority, someone who straight-up is... like, a little anti-Divine from Nideo is very funny. Taroid says, The Hammer. One of Art's first characters in a game I run was called The Hammer.

Art:        Mm-hm. It was a jazz musician, if you ever thought we had a chance at a normal life... we did not.

Austin:        [laughing]

Dre:        Hm.

Austin:        Uh, you're right. It was, it was a jazz musician. And he fought the Illuminati, basically.

Dre:        Okay.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Sort of.

Dre:        Uh... Unfailing. Harvester. Is this anything?

Austin:         Unfailing is too wordy.

Dre:        It's too wordy.

Art:        The Ceaseless Harvester.

Austin:        Too wordy.

Art:        Uh...

Dre:         Ceaseless is good.

Austin:         Ceaseless is good. But, it's too wordy. It's, I, we got, it's, you know, there's nothing wrong with just having the Harvester Mark 1. It's nothing wrong with having the, The Harvester. You're allowed to be —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        The Harvester.

Dre:        The, the Constant Harvester.

Austin:        That's a book, right?

Dre:        No, the Constant Gardener's a book.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was joking.

Dre:        Oh, okay.

Austin:        Uh, let's go with the —

Dre:        Listen —

Austin:        Let's go with, just with The Harvester. That way we can get to playing this game an hour and a half in.

Dre:        Sure. Jesus.

Austin:        Uh-huh! Us, baby.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        All right. So, we're Dogmatic Mettle. Our mech name is The Harvester, not just The Harvest. We're a brawler, we're a greaser, muscle car, hot rod themed hollow. Though, actually, it's that, but also it seems like farming equipment? From Stel Nideo. I feel —

Art:        I guess we didn't even think of like, fast car words.

Austin:        No, we didn't even at all. Even at all.

Art:        Like, the Afterburner.

Austin:        Oh, the Afterburner.

Art:        The Turbocharger.

Austin:        Mmm. Uh...

Dre:        The Charging Harvester. No.

Austin:        The — the...

Dre:        We can do that for finishing moves.

Austin:        You're right. You're right. You're right. Uh... it'll come up when it comes up.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Okay. I feel good about this. I think it's time that we do something in the game. What do you think?

Dre:        Yeah, sure.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        All right. So... go back to, how. All right. Shuffle the deck. We did that. All right. Phase one, the show.

1:03:53.9        And somebody roll, one — oh, who is playing Dogmatic Mettle during this podcast? And who's playing the co-hosts of that podcast?

Dre:        Hm.

Art:        Hm.

Dre:        I feel like Art and Austin are much more, like, wrestling embedded brains than I have. Like, I've watched wrestling, but like —

Austin:        Right.

Dre:        You know, when you all were talking about like, watching NWA tapes in college, I'm like —

Austin:        But —

Dre:        I [unintelligible]

Austin:        We were watching Ring of Honor tapes in college.

Dre:        Okay, my bad.

Austin:        But, but, but —

Dre:        Point made.

Austin:        What I will say is, we might be better as color commentator co-hosts —

Dre:        Oh, that's true.

Austin:        And you can zero in on, here's the character going on a journey.

Dre:        Sure, the hero —

Art:        But [unintelligible] have to.

Austin:        If Art — [chuckling] Right, right. Exactly. I will give — I was trying to find a random wrestler name generator, and it just... [chuckles] I found generators that just list actual wrestlers. It's not a — here's Arn Anderson. Here's Bam Bam Bigelow. Like, no, I need... new ones! Anyway. [unintelligible]

Art:        No, I'm going to be the co-host of this show, Arn Anderson.

Austin:        Arn Anderson, yeah.

Art:        [laughing]

Dre:        Oh god. Are you going to... threaten to shoot me in the head? [chuckling]

Austin:        God. Uh, I forgot about that. That's a great bit.

Dre:        [laughing] God.

Austin:        Uh... all right. So, Dre, are you ready to step into the ring as Dogmatic Mettle? We do need... Dogmatic Mettle pronouns.

Art:        And we'll all need to do a little bit of Dogmatic Mettle.

Austin:        Right. Well, we're, we're working through it, yeah. Yeah.

Dre:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        In the, it the writer's room version of it.

Dre:        Sure, yeah, sure.

Austin:        What, uh, pronouns for Dogmatic Mettle?

Dre:        [sighs]

Austin:        Truly, whatever we want.

Dre:        Yeah, it feels, I mean, feels like he/him, but I mean, I'm... I'm open.

Austin:        We can go with he/him. Uh... all right. Dre. Roll me a D6.

Dre:        Just one?

Austin:        A 1D6.

Dre:        But there's so many.

Austin:        I know, I know. [dice boop] Oh, fuck. I don't think —

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        That this removes anything. I think it's only when you roll — no, it does. It says, when, when — every time the game asks you to roll, do so. When you do, remove all ones from the pool. All right. So we immediately go from 100 down to 99. [chuckling]

Art:        All right!

Dre:        Let's go, baby.

Austin:        We just got to do that 100 more times.

Art:        Game is 1 percent over.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Uh, when you roll, draw that many cards from the deck. There's one. Turn over your first card and consult the work sheet. Follow the instructions on the prompts. The eight of Hearts.

Art:        Eight of Hearts.

Austin:        Oof. Ooh... Art, do you want to read this one?

Art:        Someone suggested work stiff to a match. You spend the time afterwards massaging your jaw and icing your chest.

Austin:        I think one way we can, we can interpret this is, it isn't someone suggested this. You were for real. This was, this was —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        The Kingdom game space Olympics, you know, was, was real.

Art:        Real, yeah.

Austin:        You know, that's, that's... uh, and it hurts, you know? You got in the mech. Talk to me, talk — what, what do we think, how do we think Dogmatic Mettle did in the Olympics, in mech, in mech sumo?

Dre:        Uh, like third, or fourth.

Austin:        Let's — you know what we should do? Is roll the dice.

Dre:        Oh yeah.

Austin:        I want to roll these 99 dice. Roll 99D6. Here's the fun part. Time to count the ones.

Dre:        Oh god.

Austin:        One, two, three four five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Yikes.

Art:        What?

Austin:        Yeah. I counted 17 ones.

Art:        Oh yeah. Wow.

Austin:        So that was rough. What happened? This line of ones to the left-hand side here that's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Dre:         Yeah, that's —

Austin:        And then at the bottom, the final four were ones. Nasty.

Dre:        Uh... okay. It might — are we just brainstorming this, or am I talking about this in character?

Austin:        I think right now let's brainstorm it, and then we'll go into the stage two, which is the podcast.

Dre:        Yeah. Uh, I think that, that Dog Mettle... both Mettle and the Harvester like, suffered an injury in an early round, and that's like those —

Austin:        Ooh.

Dre:        Those, those ones, ones, ones, ones on the left column.

Austin:        Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

Dre:        And then the last group of ones are like, you know, if, if you sprained your ACL, those four ones in a row is when he tore it.

Austin:        Ugh. All right, let's, uh... read the phase two, the 'cast. Take a moment to think through the events of the show, replaying them in-depth-ly in your mind and coming up with how they affect you and those around you. Record your podcast. Well, what do we think this podcast is? Is this a podcast that Dogmatic Mettle was always on?

1:09:26.8        Is this a podcast between Dogmatic Mettle and other wrestlers? Is this, like, a fan podcast that Dogmatic Mettle, or an insider podcast that Dogmatic Mettle comes on sometimes?

Dre:        Mmm. Is, is this Dogmatic Mettle on The Last Dance?

Austin:        Oh, that's very funny. It's, it's... I would love it for us to be able to do a conversation, and so I don't think it's Michael Jordan looking down at the iPad —

Dre:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        You know?

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        So that's my only —

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        I want it to be able to, I want to open this by being like — so what happened, what happened this week, Dog? You know.

Dre:        Sure.

Austin:        Which, I'll just do it.

Dre:        This could also be, it could also be like an ongoing — because like, I think, the way I'm, I'm thinking about this in my mind is that like, you know, at, at the mech sumo, when Dogmatic Mettle got hurt —

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Dre:        That was like, the end of his career as like —

Austin:        Right.

Dre:        Like you said, real mech sumo.

Austin:        Right.

Dre:        But now, being able to be in mech pro wrestling, like, he is spinning this as like, you know, the other league gave up on me, but I'm forever grateful to — whatever name of our federation is.

Austin:        Right.

Dre:        For seeing I still had something left.

Austin:         Principality Wrestling Association right now, the PWA is the wig one.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        But it hasn't — it's about to splinter. We know it's about to splinter. Dog doesn't, you know? Uh, uh...

Art:        Have, have either of you heard the, the CM Punk Colt Cabana podcast? Which I believe is like—

Austin:        I did not. I mean, I've heard lots of other wrestling podcasts, generally. But, what — is there something specific in that particular thing?

Art:        Well, Colt Cabana, Colt Cabana's podcast was like, the art of wrestling. And it was him as like, Colt Cabana's this like, to, to people, to the audience who might not know, and if [unintelligible] was this like journeyman indie wrestler of the 21st century. Like, the guy who proved that you can make a career outside of WWE.

Austin:        Mmm, mm-hm.

Art:        You know, in all of the ways like a, a precursor to the young bucks, who would turn into —

Dre:        Isn't he also kind of like universally loved and respected?

Art:        Yeah, everyone likes Colt, Colt Cabana. Because he, he was, you know, he was countercultural in like a real way, that he like, he actually bucked the system. In a, in a real way instead of a fake way.

Austin:        Mmm, mm-hm.

Art:        Uh, and he would have this, like — it would be like a road diaries kind of —

Austin:        Right. Okay, actually, I have heard some of this, yes.

Art:        [unintelligible] And like, you know, the, the most famous episode is the one where CM Punk comes on and talks about getting fired by WWE. But, you know, everyone did this show. And it's, it's, yeah. It's a little more like... it's, it's a lot of like, shop talk, in that way.

Austin:        Yeah. That feels like what I would like this to be. And I think that it's like... so maybe, maybe it's... Dog, what if Dog had friends in the professional mech wrestling industry who had him on the podcast, you know, to be like — well, you're joining us up? What do you think? What's the, what's the situation? How do you feel about it? How did things go? Are you, are you, how's your training going, et cetera. I'm taking — what, it was Steam and Smolder is what you said was the saying you invented earlier, Dre?

Dre:        Uh, yes. Although, I said it as Steam and Solder.

Austin:        We're going with Steam and Smolder, because I want the —

Dre:        Okay, perfect.

Austin:        The confidence that you had that it was real.

Dre:        Uh-huh.

Austin:        And I think the, the, the other hosts are, are — like Jimmy Steam, and, you know —

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Jessica Smolder, or something.

Dre:        I, I love that, you know, in the Friends at the Table pantheon of famous sayings, you know, we've got — up next to each other in the stars — we made them, we could have made them look like anything, but we made them look like us. And, —

Dre and Austin:        Steam and Smolder.

Austin:        Yeah, Steam and Smolder.

Dre:        Uh-huh.

Austin:        A podcast about professional mech wrestling. Uh... it's Steam — it's, it's — Jimmy Steam, Jimmy Steam Steamanski.

Dre:        [laughing] Yes, perfect.

Austin:        And Smoldering Sara — what's a last name here? I need a good last name.

Dre:        Uh...McKenzie.

Austin:        Okay. McKenzie. There we go. All right. I'm going to be Smoldering Sara McKenzie. Art, can you be Jimmy Steam Steamanski?

Art:        Yeah, uh... yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Dog, thanks for coming by.

Dre (as Dog):        Hey, you know, I'm, I'm always happy to make time for my guys.

Austin (as Smolder):        So are you, uh, are you ready, to step into the ring?

Dre (as Dog):        You know, I, I think... if, if I was talking to anyone else but you two, you know, I'd say that I've, I've been ready since, since that day that I last stepped out of the ring. But I, you know, now I'm with my people, I can be honest. I think for a long time I wasn't ready. Even as I was rehabbing, even as I was fixing up The Harvester, I think it, it took longer than it needed to, because I, I needed to get, I needed to get my mind ready.

Art (as Steam):        [intense voice] Tell me about that moment. Tell me about knowing the Harvester couldn't go anymore. Knowing —

Austin:        [laughing]

Art (as Steam):        That that was over for you. Tell me how that felt. Tell me if I can do this voice the whole time.

Austin:        Yep, yep, yep! You can.

Dre:        No, you have to.

Austin:        You're going to have to!

Art:        All right!

Dre:        You're contractually obligated.

Austin:        Wow.

Art (Steam voice):        We got a full glass of water here for me.

Dre and Austin:        [laughing]

Austin:        Ugh... No one cuts a promo like, like Steam.

Dre:        Oh, man. I feel like on the, on the YouTube version of this podcast, because we're definitely like an audio podcast, but then we —

Austin:         Yes.

Dre:        Also tell people to subscribe on YouTube.

Austin:        Oh yeah.

Dre:        Uh, this is like, as I'm, as Dog is narrating this, it's like, it's got like the, the footage of the, the fight that has happened.

Austin:        Ooh, yeah. Yeah.

Dre:        Uh, and so Dog is saying like —

Dre (as Dog):        Okay, not a lot of people know this. They know at the end, where, where the pipe burst, the actuator in the right knee, right?

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Dre (as Dog):        Everybody remembers that part. But, you know, the real fans know, that if you look two matches earlier, uh, you can actually see the plating over the hydraulic manifold start to warp.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's it.

Dre (as Dog):        And honestly —

Austin (as Smolder):        Once the manifold goes, that's it.

Dre (as Dog):        That's it. Yeah. And so that, honestly, that's, that's when I knew, right? That's when I knew it was done. But I wasn't ready to be done.

Austin (as Dog):        And that's why you're getting back in.

Austin:        All right.

Dre:        Yeah, I mean, it —

Austin:        Oh, okay, go ahead. I don't — we don't need to belabor it, let's —

Dre:        No, you're good. No, no, no. Yeah.

Austin:        Let's roll some more dice. Give me another D6.

Dre:         Art — do you want me to go, or — Art, you haven't rolled yet.

Art:        All right, I'll roll the, the D6 to —

Austin:         Roll the D6 [dice boop] see how many cards — two!

Art:        Two.

Austin:        Okay.

Art:        All right, it's better than one.

Austin:        It's better than one.

Dre:        It's, yeah.

Austin:        Let's discard it, let's just put it down there. All right. There's two cards out. All right, here's the first one. The King of Clubs. That was not the one that hurries things up, right?

Art:        No.

Austin:        Okay, good.

Dre:        No.

Art and Austin:        Oh.

Dre:        Okay.

Austin:        Someone read it. Go for it. Oh, boy.

Dre:        Yeah. Uh, a spot goes wrong. Not in your match. You're part of the crew sent out to make sure everyone gets out of it okay. But they won't. Neither of these wrestlers will have another match. Roll the dice and do not discard this card. Uh, once you have drawn a fourth king, and this was your first, you retire. You need to set an example to make sure no one does something like this again.

Austin:        That's fascinating.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        I love that. Okay, so, I'm going to put this on your sheet. Uh, who wants to roll 82D6?

Art:        Ah, sounds like fun.

Austin:        Let's do it.

Dre:        What do we do with the second card?

Austin:        We'll get there.

Dre:        Is that after we roll this? Okay.

Austin:        We do both of these before we do the podcast.

Dre:        Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        Yeah.

Dre:        Okay. [dice boop]

Austin:        Oh, boy. Okay, let's count 'em. One, two, three, four, five six seven eight nine.

Art:        It's 17 again.

Austin:        Nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 — I counted 18. I'll double-check. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. I counted 18.

Art:        Yeah, 18, all right.

Austin:        Jesus Christ. 64 dice left. Do we want to define what happened here? Or do we want to save it for the podcast?

Art:        We should save it, right? Do you want to —

Dre:        Let's — yeah, let's save it.

Austin:        Okay, let's save it. And we can, we can talk at length. The six of Diamonds. Diamonds, again, is about memories.

Dre:        Memories.

Austin:        That time —

Art:        The first time you saw someone take a bad injury —

Austin:        God, wow, it's perfect.

Dre:        Wow.

Art:        In the business. Wow.

Austin:        Roll the dice. Roll 64 dice. Dre.

Dre:        Yeah. Slash roll...

Austin:        The time you first saw someone take a bad injury from the business. [dice boop] All right, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. I'm counting nine. Which drops us down to what, 55?

Art:        53. Or, 55.

Dre:        No, 55. Yeah.

Art:        I'm doing the 9 wrong.

Austin:        All right. Uh, let me get this other thing open, one second, where'd it go? Here we go.

Dre:        I have an important question for how we're like, framing this podcast.

Austin:        Yes.

Dre:        Because I know in some wrestling podcasts, like, they talk about the business and —

Austin:        Right, right, right.

Dre:        They acknowledge that like, it's, it's not real.

Austin:        It's kayfabe, and not — yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dre:        Right? And so, like, the, the way I picture this is that, like, you know, this is, this is Dog talking about like, how, you know, Steam and Sarah and a couple other people have been trying to get him to join the PWA for a while, but he always looked down on it. Uh, but then he has this moment where he sees like, people giving up their body for something that's —

Austin:        Interesting.

Dre:        Quote/unquote fake, and gaining much more respect.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Dre:        But, that doesn't work if this is like, a, we're treating this as like, real sport kind of podcast.

Austin:        So I think —

Art:        No, I think, I think once we're dealing with injuries we have to be sort of peeling —

Austin:        Yes.

Art:        Kayfabe at least a little.

Austin:        But you can still protect the business, right? So you would never —

Dre:        Right.

Austin:        You might not say... you, you wouldn't go out of your way to say, well, I was written to lose this match. Right? Uh, you would say — a spot went wrong, right?

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Uh, you would say... someone took a bump they weren't supposed to. You would say, you might even say, I didn't like the booking. I didn't like the way they were using me. To which you're eupmemistically saying, I didn't like how they were writing me.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Or, they were giving me bad material, right? But I don't know that you'd go out of your way — unless you're truly pissed off, at which point you might say, you know... again, it's always kind of euphemism. They were pushing this other guy. They were, they were trying to make this other guy the face of the business. And so, da-da-da-da-da da da, right?

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        I'm going to say, the person who we — I'm going to, I have a, a random wrestler generator in front of us here. Uh, we got... this is Caden The Sensation Davis, is who got hurt.

Dre:        Okay.

Art:        In the first one, for the 8?

Austin:        Oh, I was assuming it was the same thing.

Art:        Oh, [unintelligible]

Austin:        Are we saying it's two different events?

Art:        Are these the same incident?

Austin:        Do you think it happened twice?

Dre:        Because this is the King of Clubs and the six of Diamonds.

Austin:        Right.

Dre:        And they're both about like an injury. So yeah, I think —

Austin:        Yeah, I was rolling them up, but —

Dre:        I think it makes, yeah, it makes, I think it makes sense to like, to tie these two together.

Art:         I thought they were like — I thought we were tying them together in a, in a —

Austin:        Thematic way.

Art:        In like a metanarrative sense, like these are the two, this is the first — I guess because they're both you witnessing something —

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Art:        It's sort of same-samey to separate them, huh?

Austin:        And the six says the, the time you first saw, saw someone take a bad injury. Meaning, okay —

Art:        Sure.

Austin:        I guess what it means is like... it didn't actually have to happen in — yeah.

Art:        But like, the thing is like, a traumatic, this is like — you're going to retire because this injury was so bad.

Austin:        Well, that's why I'm saying the six should be the same thing.

Art:        It haunts you.

Austin:        Unless we do the six first.

Dre:        Right, yeah.

Austin:        Because the six says, the time you first saw someone take a bad injury.

Art:        Right. I think we can, we can fudge the order. We can also tie them together, if we wanted. We can make them...

Austin:        Yeah, yeah.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Well, let's find out what happened, what went wrong, with the name I just said. Caden... Caden The Sensation Davis. I need another, I need another index card for NPCs here. Let me grab another one here. Here we go.

Dre:        Did we, did we come to a call on like, if we want this, what we want the tone of this to be, and how we're talking about the business?

Austin:        Openly, without, but, but, with the thing of like...

1:23:17.9        

Art:        Yeah, openly but with like a light veil.

Austin:        Right.

Dre:        Okay.

Art:        And we can get less veil as we go on, if we wanted to, you know?

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, definitely.

Dre:        Okay.

Austin:        Uh, so again, this is the person who was hurt, was Caden The Sensation Davis. Why did this do it twice? No one knows. No one knows why anything happens on roll20. Uh, and Caden was up against... I'm going to hit roll again, give me a number from one to five.

Dre:        Uh, three.

Austin:        Okay. I'm just going to paste this one in.

Dre:        Great, good, perfect.

Austin:        Go to text, and then go here, and then — okay, why? There it is. Uh-huh. Can someone give me a read on that one?

Art:        That would be Vlad Bonedaddy Rivera.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        So that's, that's who, that's what the match was.

Art:        Uh, I've got to find a —

Austin (as Smolder):        Dog... the situation last week. If you wanted to talk about it. I feel like, we got to talk about it.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Ooh, you're not giving us a lot of time, having it be last week.

Austin (as Smolder):        Two weeks ago —

Dre:        [laughing]

Art (as Smolder):        We need a little more — spacing here, Smolder.

Austin:        Space last —

Dre:        No, I like this as last week. I have, I have an idea of how to frame this.

Austin:        Okay.

Art:        All right.

Austin (as Smolder):        We have people on suspension. We have people in the hospital.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, I was, I was almost on suspension.

Austin (as Smolder):        They almost suspended you?

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. So, I remember the first day I came into this locker room, I got a lot of mixed reactions. You know, some people didn't... it didn't sit right with them that I was coming in this, this big name.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mm-hm.

Dre (as Dog):        They felt like I was skipping the line. And I, I can respect that. I understand that.

Austin (as Smolder):        We heard it, we heard it too, didn't we, Steam?

Art (as Steam):        Oh, definitely.

Dre (as Dog):        But, you know, Caden Davis was, was probably the kindest man I met that day.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm.

Art (as Steam):        I love Sensation.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, he was —

Art (as Steam):        That Sensation. I also love sensation, but it's not was I talking about about.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        You just generally love the feeling of sensation.

Dre (as Dog):        Yep, who doesn't?

Art (as Steam):        I love it when I have sensations. Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Uh, you know, just a great kid, really wanted to show me the ropes. I — [chuckling] I, I, I couldn't find the bathroom, and Caden actually, [laughing] actually bailed me out on that one.

Austin (as Smolder):        Happens to all of us.

Art (as Steam):        Seeing, he's so green you got to show him the actual ropes, you know? Like —

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Here's a rope, here's another rope. They're on the sides.

Dre (as Dog):        It's, it's, it's, you know, you wouldn't think that anybody would put a bathroom behind a rope ladder, but, you know —

Austin (as Smolder):        And what's wild is, you know, Caden, Caden in my mind, maybe, you know, I'm an old veteran these days, but he's just a little boy, you know? He just started here in my mind yesterday.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, but, but you know, he's got his daddy and his cousin, you Know, they've been around his —

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, yeah, the Davis family.

Dre (as Dog):        They've, they've been around this for a while. Uh, so, yeah, I was, I was at — I was, I was booked for that show. That was supposed to be my debut, right? But it, it wasn't supposed to happen the way it it went down. Uh, you know, I was supposed to come out at the end, you know, kind of be the —

Austin (as Smolder):        Right, right.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, at, at this point, you know the sheets already knew—

Austin (as Smolder):         The whole house was going to go wild, you were — yeah, yeah, exactly.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, the sheets already knew, everybody but knew. But, you know, we were, we were going to do the thing, right? But... [sighs] what, when I saw... uh, when I saw — I don't even want to say his name.

Austin (as Smolder):        Bonedaddy.

Dre (as Dog):        I saw Vlad.

Austin (as Smolder):        When you saw Vlad, yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        [sighs] You know, he wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't working it right. And when I saw him try to push it too far —

Austin (as Smolder):        Right. We don't need to speculate about, about motivation. We saw, we all saw, what happened in the ring.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what I saw. I saw red. And I didn't want to wait until the end of the show. I went out there and I was going to help that kid.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Felt real personal to you, didn't it?

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, I, he — that was my first friend that I made here.

Austin (as Smolder):        And you've seen injuries before, back when you were working sumo.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, and I... you know, we've talked about this for a long time, right? Like that, off-air, anyway. But, you know, there's been a lot of rumors, about, about me coming over to the PWA throughout the years. And, you know, I'll admit it. There was, there was a part of me that, that looked down on this. That, that looked on it as, as, you know, as just, just a clown show, right?

Austin (as Smolder):        Mm-hm.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, but it wasn't until I, I got here, and I, I started seeing the work that goes in that, that — you know, your body it just as on the line here in the PWA as it is any sumo match.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right.

Art (as Steam):        I knew you'd see it that way. That's why I kept starting those rumors.

Austin:        [laughing]

Dre (as Dog):        That was you?

Austin (as Smolder):        That was Steam.

Art (as Steam):        That was me all the time. Maybe, not every time, but a lot of the time.

Dre (as Dog):        Ah, I should have known, Steam. You're always blowing smoke.

Art (as Steam):        Where there's steam, there's fire.

Dre and Austin:        [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        [still laughing] That's what they say! Steam was right into the dirt sheets. Steam was, Steam was sending little video messages right to all the rumor-mongers. Talking about, Dogmatic Mettle's going to join up.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, I got, I gotta watch what I say here, huh?

Austin (as Smolder):        It's all in good fun.

Art (as Steam):        Well, it's all being recorded right now.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, not the debut you thought you were going to get, and probably not the debut you wanted. PWURBT what was it like when... uh, I'm not trying to take away from the tragedy of the situation. We all hope that The Sensation is back on his feet soon, back in a safe place. Uh... but I do, I do have to know, Dog, what did it feel like for you when you stepped out into that ring, when people saw you, when they saw The Harvester, here for the first time... could you even, given the crisis, could you even feel — could you even connect to the people?

1:29:30.8        

Dre (as Dog):        No, I mean, in that moment — I don't remember in that moment.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

Dre (as Dog):        I've had to, I've had to watch it back to see what happened. And, you know, in, in watching it, I, I really was humbled by the reaction.

Austin (as Smolder):        It's hard, because, you know, people... all have mixed feelings about people from sumo coming over, but I think seeing you take a stand was an important moment of solidarity. People understand, everybody's putting their lives on the line out there to entertain people. And, uh... we can be together in that moment, at least.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, I... I hope... and it, and it seems like the crowd there understood, but I hope everyone can see that, you know, this isn't just a, a publicity stunt for me. This isn't, this isn't my, uh, retirement circuit job. This is —

Austin (as Smolder):        This is real.

Dre (as Dog):        This is my work. Yeah. Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        I think eastern appreciates that about you, Dog.

1:30:36.3        

Austin (as Smolder):        So... you know, next week, we're, uh, we're, we're leaving the kind of center, we're going to start heading out into Nideo space. That's, that's home turf for you, Dog. You got any feelings about going home?

Dre (as Dog):        [sighs] You know, it's, it's mixed, it really is. Uh... you know, for a long time, I, I represented my home.

Austin:        Mmm.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, In, in a lot of interstellar competitions. But, uh, you know, I also never felt like I really got the support that, that I deserved, frankly. Uh... so, uh, but, you know, that's, that's, that's — when I say support, that's from the up-top, right? I, I always had the support of the people. And so I, I'm looking forward to that part.

Austin:        Uh, I've decided in this moment — I was like, wasn't sure because I was trying to figure out what it, what's it like to talk about going home, and I was like, wait a second. I don't know where Smoldering Sarah Mackenzie. And then I, I decided in my mind, Smoldering Sarah Mackenzie is from Columnar, and is a robot lady.

Dre:        Yes. [chuckling] Uh-huh. Yeah. No, this is perfect.

Austin:        Is like a, uh, uh, you know, huge, wavy-hair, uh, like a, almost like a, uh, you know, like a, a golden-era Playboy spread style, you know, beauty. That style of — but completely robotic, completely, you know. What are the, in Star Wars, there are those ridiculous robot ladies that show up in the background in Clone Wars and in the prequels, sometimes? They're called Betty bots, I think? Because, Star Wars is bad, actually. Uh... uh, that's the vibe, right? A kind of, uh, uh, uh, what is the, what is the... like a Betty Page, you know, adjacent. That sort of vibe. So maybe even, we need to go further and say that there is a, uh, oh my god, what is the music genre called? Uh... I'm dying out here. Uh... what is the music genre I'm thinking of called? It's a rock —

Art:        What is it like?

Austin:        It is, it is — rockabilly is what I am thinking about.

Art:        Okay.

Austin:        I think I have kind of a rockabilly persona, Smoldering Sarah Mackenzie, but I'm a robot.

Dre:        Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Austin:        Rockabilly robot lady, you know? So —

Art:        Robotabilly.

Austin:        Robotabilly! Yeah. Anyway, my point my being —

Dre:        Somewhere, just a million fan artists' heads just all turned at once.

Austin:        [laughing]

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, the first time the PWA went back to Columnar space after I joined up, there was nothing like it. Seeing the faces, the eyes, the, the people who I came from. I went back there, showing them my stuff. You know, there are people who said I could never make it out here. And they weren't coming to the show. But I could imagine they were, right? And I could kind of... prove myself. Steam, what was your first go-home show like?

1:33:53.8        

Art (as Steam):        Oh, you know, it was so long ago, I... barely even... remember what it was like. I think I was —

Austin (as Smolder):        That's not what a go-home show is. I just realized I said the wrong thing, but that's fine.

Art (as Steam):        That's all right. You meant homecoming show.

Dre (as Dog):        Coming home show.

Austin (as Smolder):        I meant homecoming show, yeah, I did.

Art (as Steam):        I'd given out — I had reserved so many comps, you know? Family, friends, training partners, people I went to, to middle school with. Everyone, everyone, everyone.

Austin (as Smolder):        And you only graduated from middle school, right?

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, I'm a, I'm a middle school graduate.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right.

Art (as Steam):        A proud middle school graduate. And, uh, you step through the curtain, and you put aside so many tickets. And none of them show up.

Austin (as Smolder):        Ugh. What happened to your family?

Art (as Steam):        My, my — a couple of my reserved — my fam, my — my dad and his cousin.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        A friend of theirs.

Austin (as Smolder):        Sal, yeah. Uh-huh.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, you, you know Sal. I mean, Sal's a good —

Austin (as Smolder):        Sal's a good guy. Sal's a good guy.

Art (as Steam):        [unintelligible] a good, good guy. Comes to a lot of shows. Shoutout to Sal.

Austin (as Smolder):        Shoutouts to Sal.

Art (as Steam):        But, uh, you, you I, I, I made the hall empty for me. That's what I told myself. [clears throat] That I would, uh, I would never count on that again, that I, I couldn't count on people I knew. I had to count on the people that I would inspire.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm. Well, thanks for, for joining us again, Dog. We, uh, we — I look forward to seeing you, after the next — the next time you can make it on.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, absolutely.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, really quick, before we let you go, we do want you to, uh, uh, help us out with a thing here. Could you, uh, uh, just read this, uh, promo footage, for, promo text here, for this brand of mirrors? Uh, uh, that is, uh, that we have a sponsorship for? It's called, uh, let's see here... it's called [chuckling]

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        Prisma.

Dre:        I'm waiting to see if you're going to like drop a wall of text —

Austin:        No, I don't have a wall of text. You can just, you cut me a, you cut me a podcast promo. This is my new favorite mini-game I, I invented at the last show.

Dre:        Yeah, no, I love this.

Austin:        Uh, so, uh, let me grab — why does it not let me paste this? Let me paste this? Please. Name of our first sponsor, Prisma. And what they make is mirrors. I keep just posting Dogmatic Mettle, which is not what I have saved, coped. Uh, I guess what I did last time was not, there was no role20 involved, which is why this is now struggling. Uh... come on. This was as opposed to go smoothly. You can feel free to improvise your ad while I get this logo onscreen.

Dre:        Sure, you could —

Austin:        I'll just set it, I'll set it here.

Dre:        Prisma?

Austin:        I, I, yeah, here we go. Here's the logo. I figured out how to get it onscreen, easy.

Dre:        Oh, this is good.

Austin:        Yeah?, uh-huh.

Dre:        Okay.

Dre (as Dog):        [sighs] So here's the thing, Jess. I mean, I don't, I don't need to read this ad. Let me tell you a story. So, one of the first things I did when working on Harvester was, upgrading and replacing the old refractor mirrors for the heads-up display.

Austin (as Smolder):        Super important. You gotta see things, right? You gotta know what you're looking at.

Dre (as Dog):        Oh yeah, no. Crystal clear. And, and, not even a question, I knew I was going with Prisma. Just the most high quality mirrors. You know, I've also got, uh, what — that's what we use backstage. All Prisma mirrors.

Austin (as Smolder):        All Prisma, yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. You know, when, whenever I need to know, 100 percent, that...

Dre:        Oh god, what can I call my hair?

Austin:        Your hair? Your 'do, your, your —

Dre:        Uh, no, I'm like, I'm like, like calling it like, the Dog-something. Like the Dog-hawk. You know. [laughing]

Austin:        [chuckling] Right, the Dog-hawk. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        Whenever I need to know the Dog-hawk is on-point?

Austin (as Smolder):        Yes.

Dre (as Dog):        I really only trust a Prisma mirror. Uh, you know, they got that new model, where actually, if will rotate around you, and then holographically project. So you can have it behind your head, and then it'll holographically project in front of you so you can see the back of your head. Crystal clear definition. Oh, this — this is incredible. You didn't, you didn't tell me that we had a promo code.

Austin (as Smolder):        We got a promo code.

Dre (as Dog):        Prisma never does promo codes.This is —

Austin (as Smolder):        We got a special deal, because we use them ourselves.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Go ahead and read the promo code out.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. So, uh, just visit Prisma, and use promo code... uh... Steam and Smolder.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right.

Dre:        I was trying to think of a —

Austin (as Smolder):        It's a lot of spaces at the top. It's just —

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, it's 14 spaces, and then capital S.

Austin (as Smolder):        Only capital S. One capital, that's it.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. All right.

Dre (as Dog):        For, uh, 10 percent off, wow.

Austin (as Smolder):        10 percent, yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, that's a great deal.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. And it, it goes up to 15 percent off if you get 10 or more mirrors.

Austin:        All right.

Art (as Steam):        You're going to use 10 mirrors.

Austin:        You're going to. All right. I'm going to roll the 1D6. [chuckles] That's another one.

Art:        Another one!

Dre:        Hell yeah.

Austin:        Rolling like, low today. All right, so that drops us to 54. Uh-huh. And then, uh, one card. Flipped a card. The six of Clubs. Uh... whoever gets to it first.

Art:        In a brief amount of spare time you have while traveling for a show —

Austin:        [gasps]

Dre:        [laughing] Oh god.

Art:        You and a few select — select friends spend time exploring the local life.

Austin:        Uh, roll the dice. What do we got? We have 54 dice?

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        Probably would have been a little bit of a better podcast segment with, uh... a couple more cards?

Austin:        No. Nope. Uh-uh.

Dre:        No, this is — we're doing the live show from, uh, Dog's favorite bar.

Austin:        Oh my god. One, two, three, four, five, six —

Art:        Nine, I think, again.

Austin:        Seven, eight nine ten. You keep being off by one, but fastly — but very fast, which is impressive to me.

Art:        [laughing]

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        [chuckles] So we're down to 44 dice. Oh my god. What's the name of Dog's favorite bar?

Dre:        Uh, uh... god. Uh... it's, it's definitely got to be like a dive bar. Uh...

Austin:        Oh, well at that point it can be a wrestling maneuver with the word dive in it, right?

Dre:        Oh god, yeah. Uh...

Austin:        I know that's not what a dive bar is, but, you know.

Dre:        Right, right, right. Yeah.

Austin:        But I think it's funny.

Art:        It's called like, Tope Conhelo, and it's like a —

Austin:        [laughing] Uh, it could just be, it could be Tope, but we would, but people just call it taupe, because they don't pronounce the —

Dre:        [laughing] Ko also suggests The Deep Dish Steakhouse.

Austin:        Okay. It could also be the Deep Dish Steakhouse, with... [chuckling] we could go back to the Deep Dish Steakhouse. It is — you know what? It's an established brand, and...

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Steakhouses have an important role in wrestling culture.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        So...

Art (as Steam):         So, uh, uh, —

Dre:        Do they?

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        We'll talk after.

Dre:        Okay. [chuckling] Okay.

Art (as Steam):        So, Dog, tell me, tell me about the Deep Dish Steakhouse.

Dre (as Dog):        Ugh, I mean —

Austin (as Smolder):        I mean, we're here. Shoutouts to everybody here live —

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, we're here live.

Austin (as Smolder):        Who's come out.

Art (as Fans):        Whoo! [clapping] We love you!

Dre (as Dog):        Love you too!

Austin (as Smolder):        Now that's a homecoming.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. You know that, I was worried, you know, because like I said, back, back in my previous career, I always knew I had the support of the people, but I wasn't sure it'd still be true, and, and it's just, it's just incredible. You know, this is what you do it for.

Austin (as Fans):        Whoo! What you do it for!

Dre (as Dog):        And make, make sure you get some of those buffalo parmesan sticks.

Austin (as Fans):        [laughing] Whoo! Buffalo parmesan sticks! And the dipping sauce!

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, Jess, or — what are you all eating Jess and Steam?

Art:        It's... Sarah.

Austin:        Sarah. [laughing] Did you call them Jess? Ugh.

Art (as Steam):        Ah, I got the four-cheese steak, where they put the steak in the, in the pizza pan, and they... put the —

Dre:        [laughing]

Art (as Steam):        Blend on top of it, and they bring it right out.

Dre:        I'm, I'm glad that you just said the Deep Dish Steakhouse has fucking... Papa bowls [laughing] that they serve.

Art (as Steam):         Well, it's... it's not quite like that, it's all steak. You know, Steam's gotta go low-carb these days — [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        And I just had them fill up the deep dish with, uh, my favorite oils to, consume.

Dre (as Dog):        Nice.

Austin (as Smolder):        High in, energy, protons and whatnot.

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, yeah, they got the good shit on tap.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right. So... a couple shows, but... nothing too big has happened yet for you. I'm not saying you're in a holding pattern, but there's... you're in a build. How's that feel?

Dre (as Dog):        [sighs] It's, uh... you know, it's — for part of me it's frustrating. You know, I, I want to compete, you know? I, I know that I can compete with the best in this business.

Austin (as Smolder):         Highest level.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Uh, but, you know, I understand, you, you gotta earn it. So, I'm just trying to be patient, take it one day at a time.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mm-hm.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, and like you said, I'm trying to enjoy the build.

Austin (as Smolder):         Plus, you know, uh, when — there are benefits to being in the mid-card. It means, you know, you're not doing as much as, you know off, off-camera promo work. You're doing, get a little bit more free time. Uh, Steam, Dog —

Dre (as Dog):         Let's, let's — I'm sorry. Let's get one thing straight. It doesn't matter who I'm wrestling, uh, Dog Mettle's not in the mid-card.

Art (as Steam):        Oh, ho ho.

Austin (as Smolder):        Ooh, spicy! Just like [chuckling] the buffalo parmesan sticks! Uh, I didn't mean to insinuate anything. I was just saying that —

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, no, I know.

Austin (as Smolder):        I was just saying, you get to take in the local color, you get to see things a little bit. I was curious, you know, if either of y'all got to see anything here on, on, uh, the planet, uh... uh...

Austin:        Looking around my room like that scene in the Untouchables.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Uh, the planet — looking at fruit in my kitchen —

Dre:        Uh-huh.

Austin:        The Planet Apple

Art:        Kobayashi, uh...

Austin:        [laughing] Yeah, exactly. Oh, I'm finding no good words today, it's really bad. We're going to, we're going to — we're — I have to stop looking at bottles of juice. This isn't, this isn't working for me. Anybody have a planet name?

Dre:        You have, you have a well-stocked kitchen?

Austin:        Yeah, I just moved into a place, I was like, I got to get a bunch of stuff.

Dre:        Yeah, fair.

Austin:        Uh... on the planet, period. My brain just isn't here today.

Dre:        Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Did you take in any local color? Did you see anything interesting? Go to any... parks, museums, shows?

Dre (as Dog):        [sighs] Not a lot of people know this about, about The Dog, but, uh, I love zoos. So, any time I'm in a, in a new port of call that's got a zoo that's, that's stop number one.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm. What's your favorite animal?

Dre (as Dog):        Ugh. You know... people think I'm kidding, but, uh... fan of big cats.

Austin (as Smolder):        Big cats. Steam, how about you? Favorite animal.

Art (as Steam):        Oh, I'd have to say, uh, the penguins. I like going to the penguin house. Watch 'em running all around in there.

Austin (as Smolder):        I like, uh, gallopers. Anything that can gallop.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure.

Art (as Steam):        You don't see a lot of them in the zoo.

Austin (as Smolder):        Not enough space, you know?

Art (as Steam):        That's what they say. This is getting a little bit like a Chicago accent —

Austin:        [laughing]

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        Gotta bring it back.

Austin:        Bring it back.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, Jimmy, I bit, you probably feel right at home in the penguin house, because, you know, you smell like a penguin house.

Austin (as Smolder):        Ooh!

Art (as Steam):        I don't — that doesn't mean anything to me. I think, uh, —

Austin:        [laughing]

Art (as Steam):         When I think of that, I think it just smells like the coolant.

Austin (as Smolder):        It smells — yeah, yeah. It smells cold, it smells icy.

Dre:        [doing Steam voice] Just smells like anti-freeze in there. [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        How about you, Steam? You seeing anything interesting here? Besides the, the penguin house?

Art (as Steam):        Here in the... Deep Dish Steakhouse?

Austin:        [chuckles]

Art (as Steam):        I mean, this is, I think, the finest Deep Dish Steakhouse they have in the whole system.

Austin (as Fans):        Whoo! Whoo!

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, and the... people here are some of the best steakhouse patrons I've ever seen!

Austin (as Fans):        Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!

Austin:        Very easy crowd. Uh... [chuckling]

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, uh, we'll see what the next leg of the tour has for us. PWA has a few more stops to make here in Nideo space before we, we move on somewhere else. We'll have to see where that is. Kesh, Columnar, who could say? I'm sure that —

Art (as Steam):        They all better be ready.

Austin:        I'm sure there's a schedule, actually, now that I think about it.

Austin (as Smolder):        You can find all of our showings, uh, in — online, on the website.

Austin:        All right, six, easy. Get it out of here. Boom. All right. Uh, we back on to Dre for the D6?

Dre:        Sure. This is, this is just one, right?

Austin:        Yeah, just 1D6. [dice roll]

Dre:        Four.

Austin:        All right. Now, this is a real roll.

Dre:        This is pod racing.

Austin:        Now this is pod racing. Yeah. All right. Flipping card number one... the Queen of Clubs.

Art:         Queen of Clubs.

Austin:        Clubs again, relationships.

Art:        A fellow performer is given a gimmick —

Austin:        Ugh.

Art:        You know will kill their career stone-dead. Going against the brass is never fun, but you did it for them anyway. Roll the dice —

Austin:        Ooh.

Art:        And generate a random wrestler name, so we know what this bad gimmick is.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Uh-huh. I'll work on that. Someone roll 44 dice. Or — yeah, 44 dice.

Art:        Go for it.

Austin:        Uh, where did I put that thing? Uh... [dice boop]

Dre:        One, two...

Austin:        Wow, a lot of sixes in this one.

Dre:        Seven, eight, nine, 10. Well, yeah, the people love it.

Art:        10 again, right?

Dre:        Yeah, I counted 10.

Austin:        Yeah, I also counted 10. So down to 34. [dice boop] Boom. Uh... all right. Uh... her name is Jade The Dentist Suzuki.

Dre:        Oh.

Art:        Yeah, that's — [chuckles]

Dre:        What could go wrong with a wrestler whose gimmick is, they're a dentist?

Austin:        Uh-huh.

Art:        Well, it's, it's gone 50 percent in the real world.

Austin:        Right, we've had — we've had multiple dentist wrestlers over the years. In fact, a very popular wrestler right now, right? Is —

Art:        Yeah, is Britt Baker.

Austin:         Britt Baker, DD — is it Britt Baker, DD —

Art:        DMD.

Austin:        DMD, DMD.

Dre:        DMD. Yeah, yeah.

Art:        Do you know that you put — [unintelligible] on this card again?

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, I just copied and pasted, to get a new text box really quick? See, it'll change.

Dre:        Mmm.

Art:        Oh, got it.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh... all right. Is that — is that, is the dentist the previous gimmick [laughing] or the new gimmick?

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        I don't know, can you just roll a new nickname?

Austin:        Yeah. Uh... there's a bunch of them here. Uh... there's Ember Creme Brulee Brown. We could have gone with —

Art:        [laughing]

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Which one was —

Art:        That's a worse gimmick —

Austin:        That's a worse gimmick. [chuckling]

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Oh, all right. Next card. A four of Diamonds.

Art:        The time you discovered exactly what being worked stiff meant.

Austin:        Oof.

Art:        Roll the dice.

Austin:        Roll the dice. Roll, uh, 34 dice.

Dre:        I got it.

Austin:        This is going to be a rough one. [dice boop]

Dre:        One, two...

Art:        That's only six.

Austin:        Okay, only six.

Dre:        Yep.

Austin:        I think. Okay. The eight of Clubs. You —

Art:        Someone else want to do one?

Austin:        You — yeah, I'll — oh, that's Spades.

Dre:        Sure.

Austin:        I was looking at the wrong one, so I'm glad I didn't. Uh... at the gym, you see someone struggling, someone new to the business. You know they have what it takes. They could just use some mentoring. Roll the dice.

Art:        Oof. Is that going to be a new person, we want a new —

Austin:        Yeah, I'll keep roll — I'll keep generating people all day. Uh... [chuckles]

Dre:        Sure. We gotta, we gotta build Dog's stable.

Austin:        Exactly. And that, of course is, uh, let me get the, the real one in here. Uh... that is, Brian The Thousand Dollar Man [chuckling] Johnson.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        This is namegeneratorfun.com, by the way.

Dre:        Ol' B Johnson.

Austin:        Mm-hm. BJ, the Thousand Dollar Man. And —

Art:        Uh, now we have to roll 28?

Austin:        Uh, did we already — we didn't do that one already?

Art:        No. Mmm...

Austin:        Mmm... let's see. Shit. We had 30 — we had 34 coming into it, right? Or did we have 40-something coming into it?

Art:        Yeah, it was —

Austin:        We had 30 — we had, on Jade we had 34 left. So we had 44, 34...

Dre:        Yeah, so I think we're rolling 28 —

Austin:        This was six.

Dre:        For the —

Art:        You're going to have to roll —

Austin:        For the last — no, no, no, no. No. Because look, we're —

Art:        No, because we rolled the four, for how many cards, and we've rolled twice since — this is the third [unintelligible]

Dre:        Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        Oh, right. You're right. You're right. All right. Roll a 28.

Dre:        Because there was one of those we didn't have to roll for, right?

Austin:        Oh, was there?

Art:        No, they're all rolled.

Austin:        Oh, ever? There was one once, I think maybe, right?

Dre:        Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Art:        Aces are —

Austin:        Aces. Okay.

Art:        Oh, no, the Aces do seem to be.

Austin:        Mmm. Anyway, we'll — I'll roll this 28. One, two, three, four, five. Down to 23. Uh-huh. And then finally, on this set. The five of hearts. Hearts is body. Ooh.

Dre:        Oh, this is fun. Uh... jogging, you're out passed by someone who you used to run laps by. You spend far too much proving them wrong.

Austin:        Roll the dice. Roll 28, no roll 20 — sorry, roll 23.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        I'll roll it — oh, I guess it's Dre's turn. Go ahead, Dre. Four.

Austin:        Not too bad, four. I'm, I'm sure all of this is like, about average. But...

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        You know, the numbers are getting smaller because the numbers are getting smaller.

Art:        Yeah, the last die we could roll for a long time, theoretically.

Austin:        Yeah, that's true. Uh... all right. So, as a reminder, what we got were... most recently, you were jogging, and you tried to — you were trying to show somebody you still had — more than them. Then, before that, we had... it was the eight of Clubs? We saw someone are struggling, We saw Brian, the Thousand Dollar Man, struggling, so you did some mentorship. And before that, we had, uh, Working Stiff. You felt what it took to work stiff. Uh, and then queen was, Jade The Dentist Suzuki becoming Creme Brulee Suzuki, and you stopping that in its tracks.

Dre:        Okay, so I'm stopping her from becoming Creme Brulee.

Austin:        It, it explicitly says —

Dre:        Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Austin:        That you inter, interfere on her behalf, right?

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Successfully. Yeah. You win against the brass. Okay.

Austin (as Smolder):        So you got in a little hot water, recently. We don't like to... you know, name names, necessarily, for something like this, Dog, but... my understanding is —

Art (as Steam):        But it was you.

Austin (as Smolder):        It was you. Uh, we heard some rumors that things were going to go differently, uh, recently. Uh, someone was getting some new gear, some new ring gear.

Dre (as Dog):        Mmm.

Austin (as Smolder):        And rumors were... it wasn't the best. And then it didn't come out that way.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, I mean, you know, it's like I always say — if you're going to bake a potato, you've got to boil 'em first.

Austin (as Smolder):        Bake a potato — yeah, mm-hm.

Art (as Steam):        Is that right?

Dre (as Dog):        That's right.

Art (as Steam):        I was wrong with my baked potatoes?

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, I mean, that's how they make 'em at the Deep Dish Steakhouse.

Austin (as Fans):        Whoo! Deep Dish Steakhouse!

Dre:        [laughing]

Art (as Steam):        Are we... are we still here?

Austin (as Fans):        N-no. I came — I followed you!

Dre:        [laughing]

Art (as Steam):        Oh, I don't like that.

Austin and Dre:        [laughing]

Dre (as Fans):        I'm in your closet! Whoo!

Art (as Steam):        Ooh, I'm going to get security when this is over.

Austin and Dre:        [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        Can you talk to us about what happened? Or is it... a little too private?

Dre (as Dog):        You know, I don't, I don't want to give the full details. But, you know, uh, Jade Suzuki, great —

Austin (as Smolder):        Great performer.

Dre (as Dog):        Great, great performer.

Art (as Steam):         Dentist Suzuki, I, I think we all appreciate the —

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        She's, uh, she's become a really great friend of mine, a great confidant, uh... [chuckles] helped me fill a cavity, the other day. You know, people, people think it's a gimmick, but it's real.

Austin (as Smolder):        Oh yeah. She's a dentist.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. Uh-huh.

Dre (as Dog):        And, and, you know, I, I think she felt like she was in a rut. Well, actually I should say, I think, I think some other people thought she was in a rut, I don't want to name them.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right.

Art (as Steam):        It's a, it's a, it's a brave gimmick, you know.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Beating the — beating their way into the mech to do work on the teeth of the person inside, with your giant mech hands.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, it's, uh, —

Art (as Steam):        It was a terrifying gimmick.

Dre (as Dog):        It's, it's raw —

Austin (as Smolder):        But no one's ever been hurt.

Dre (as Dog):        Unlike anything else.

Austin (as Smolder):        Everybody comes out with a better smile.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Everyone feels good about themselves when the process is over.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. You know, she took an oath. And that oath is, to do good things to teeth.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, it's the, uh, the Hippocratic Tooth Oath.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Hippocratic Tooth Oath.

Art:        Do dentists take the... hippocratic oath? I don't, I don't know.

Austin:        Probably.

Dre:        Probably. That's what the MD's for. Uh...

Art (as Steam):        Mmm.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, so they, they wanted, they wanted to shake up, shake up Jade's image. Uh, you know, they wanted, they wanted to, to turn her into... let's, let's say something sweet. And, uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        Which is, which seems like a mistake that me —

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, no, I agree.

Austin (as Smolder):        Because if she's The Dentist —

Art (as Steam):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Shouldn't that be the opposite — is this like a, kind of change in attitudes a little bit, to start wanting to give people cavities and whatnot, right?

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, you know —

Art (as Steam):        Well, no, you might — you might not know this, because of what you eat, but there's a lot of good artificial sweeteners out there.

Austin (as Smolder):        Are there?

Art (as Steam):        And I think — don't quote me on this. That artificial sweeteners do not cause cavities.

Dre:        Uh... on that note, can we, can we generate a, a fake space soda ad?

Austin:        Oh, oh yeah. Of course we can. Soda, here we come. Uh, hi. Randomization. You just go ahead and look on the stream, Dre. Uh, I'll send you this image. You can pick, you can pick one of these. You tell me, you tell me which of these.

Dre:        Okay. Okay. Let me, let me hit resume on the stream and click live.

Austin:        Oh, I just linked it in, in live shows. Which isn't where we should be putting stuff, but I've done that now. So... uh...

Dre:        Oh, Zeo.

Austin:        Zeo.

Dre:        Zeo is very much an artificial sweetener.

Austin:        Oh, 100 percent. Yeah.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        It's so zero that we put — we got rid of the R.

Dre:        Yeah. Yeah.

Art:        All right, well, let's not forget Spicy Seltzer.

Austin:        [laughing]

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        [laughing]

Dre:        Also, Soda Science is [chuckling] pretty good.

Austin:        Soda Science. Soda Science, they own. So this is a thing we discovered. This, this top row are ones that they already, that this website already bought, and will sell you, pre-branded, for thousands of dollars. Where Zeo —

Dre:        God, [unintelligible] is also very good.

Austin:        You can just go get Zeo or EZO. Oh, for 19,000 dollars a year. What is happening? I hate it on here.

Dre:        Are these brand NFTs? What's — I don't want to know.

Austin:        No, no. No, no, no. No, no, no, they're not.

Dre:        Okay.

Austin:        I hope not. I don't think they are.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Uh, anyway. So,. EZO is our, is our automatic, is our sweetener. Or is it our soda? Zeo.

Dre:        I think it's our soda.

Austin:        Okay.

Austin (as Smolder):        Can you pass me a new, another Zeo?

Dre (as Dog):        Man, you, you know it's good when even Sarah cracks a Zeo.

Austin (as Smolder):        It's Columnar-approved! That's the thing that —

Art (as Steam):        That's their slogan.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right! Columnar —

Art (as Steam):        Zeo — It's Columnar-approved.

Austin (as Smolder):        It's the only drink that, that any average Columnar, no modifications, no secondary parts, can drink, that is also just as good, for any Apostolosean, any human, anybody else in the galaxy.

Art (as Steam):        Whoever you are, you can share a Zeo. That's not the slogan, but I'm just saying that. I think it —

Austin (as Smolder):        It should be. It's pretty damn good. It's pretty damn good. Anyway, the stuff with Jade isn't the only thing that kind of came up, on your neck of this trip. Uh... I saw that match she worked with, uh, with Bonedaddy, who, and it was a couple months ago now, obviously. But, Bonedaddy, uh, has a penchant for working a little stiff. And, uh, I see that you kind of had to face that one yourself.

Dre (as Dog):        You know I, I knew as soon as this match was booked, I knew, uh, that he was going to bring it.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, after, uh, after, uh, frankly, after I embarrassed him at my debut. Uh... hey, you know, let's, let's call a spade a spade.

Austin (as Smolder):        Call a spade a spade, yeah, uh-huh.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, and I knew, I knew he was gunning for me. Uh, so, you know. Was, was it my first time experiencing that? Yeah. But, uh, you know, I wasn't surprised, and — you know, I've got, I've got decades of... of, uh, decades of experience.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right.

Art (as Steam):        Did you, did, did it make you feel like you were, uh, standing up for Sensation when you did that?

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, you know, it's... I don't know if that's something that I really want to talk about, Jimmy.

Art (as Steam):        All right, all right, all right.

Dre (as Dog):        No, I, I — I appreciate it, but it's —

Austin (as Smolder):        No, [unintelligible] yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        It's, it's just hard. It's just hard.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. [sighs] You know, speaking of, uh, maybe this is, this is a direction we can can go. The first time you came on the podcast after you, after you joined up, at least, uh, you, uh, it was clear that you cared about the young talent.

2:02:35.7        And, I'm curious if you've been able to build on any of those relationships —

Dre (as Dog):        Sure.

Austin (as Smolder):        In the last few months.

Dre (as Dog):        [sighs] What do, what do y'all know about a young man named Brian Johnson?

Austin (as Smolder):         Brian Johnson.

Art (as Steam):        [unintelligible] I don't think I know him.

Dre (as Dog):         Yeah, see?

Austin (as Smolder):        I don't know, Brian, or BJ? Yeah, I don't know about him.

Dre (as Dog):        You all are the most plugged-in people into this business, I know. And it, it says a lot, uh, that even you all aren't aware of Brian Johnson, but —

Austin (as Smolder):        [unintelligible] develop the kids.

Art (as Steam):        Sarah literally spends hours a day plugged into this business.

Austin (as Smolder):        I, [chuckles] I do. I'm all the way — literally, plugged-in right now. Looking him up. Oh, okay! Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, this, this kid's something special. And you know — you got, I gotta admit, his nickname is a little unique. Uh, it kind of... I didn't get it at first. I thought it was a little wordy. And I said, “Okay, why The Thousand Dollar Man?”

Austin (as Smolder):        Right.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, and he, he said to me, “Dog, I don't know how you grew up, but, uh, it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy for me.”

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, “And, so, you know, yeah, there's, there's other people in this business who, you know, have it, have already struck it rich. But, you know, for me, just a kid growing up, my parents working hard, the first time I made my own thousand dollars, I felt like a million bucks.”

Austin (as Smolder):        Huh. Hard to communicate that to an audience.

Art (as Steam):        It's a little wordy.

Austin (as Smolder):        It's still a little wordy.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, so, yeah. The kid's rough around the edges. But he's, you know, there's a spark there. Uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        You think you'd ever get in any tag-team action? With Brian?

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, I — it'd be an honor.

Austin (as Smolder):        I'm sure he'd love to hear that.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin:        There's another thing that happens I don't remember. [chuckles]

Dre:        [laughing] Yeah, what are — [unintelligible] these other cards?

Austin:        Working stiff...

Art:        New guy.

Austin:        New guy, uh-huh.

Dre:        Uh, the passed at jogging. I'm — 46

Austin:        Jogging, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        How's, uh, how's training going, for both of you? You still finding time out here? I know for me, you know, it can be, it can be easy to slack off, you know? You're in the ring —

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        You're in the ring every night, you're doing these house shows, and it can be easy to say, we'll work out here and there. You keeping up?

Dre (as Dog):        No, uh... this is a, this is — this was a funny story. Uh... you know, ol' Steam and I were actually, were getting some work in. And, uh, I think, I think Steam kind of was, was reaching back for those glory days.

Art (as Steam):        I was running on fumes.

Austin (as Smolder):        Wait, isn't that bad? That means you're going bad.

Art (as Steam):         Well, the steam is fumes. It's a steam, steam thing.

Austin (as Smolder):        Steam fumes? I guess steam's fumes. Steam is water fumes.

Dre (as Dog):        Don't you, don't you — hey, hold on, hold on, hold on. You're supposed to be the, the historian here. Don't you remember Jimmy's famous “I'm running on fumes” promo?

Austin (as Smolder):        Right, the “I'm running on fumes” — you know, I've been so forward-focused, I haven't been thinking about... can we get a little taste of the — people, I'm sure, would love it on the pod, would love just a little taste of the old, “I'm running on fumes” promo, Steam.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, can you, uh, remind me of the name of my opponent in that feud? I took a couple [unintelligible] on the noggin over the years.

Austin:        [laughing]

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        Yikes! Yeah, of course, of course, of course. You were — [laughing] you were up against —

Austin:        This is not, you're not, it's not this person. It's not Roddy FBI Kim.

Dre and Art:        [laughing]

Austin:        Uh, [unintelligible] very funny to me. Uh... you are up against —

Dre:         The Big Boss Man 2.

Austin (as Smolder):        You were up against Liam The Beast Petite.

Art (as Steam):        How could I forget? It's, uh, I think he liked going by Petite [Pet-it] —

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, I'm pretty sure it was Petite [Pet-eet].

Austin:        I'm the one looking at the name.

Art (as Steam):        Uh...

Dre:        [laughing] [in Steam voice] Hey, come on, it's yes-and, Austin. [laughing]

Austin:        [chuckles]

Art (as Steam):         To set the stage for you, this was of course at the, one of the biggest houses I've ever worked.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm.

Art (as Steam):        Uh, thousands of screaming people. And I said to Liam, I said, “You know, I've been a, I've been a champion before, and I've lost every title I've ever won. I'm coming for you this time. And I know you might have heard that I'm running on fumes. I don't know if you can hear that, but that was me stamping my feet on the ground, just like I did in that ring —“

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, yeah.

Art (as Steam):        And I said, “But don't you know, steam, is the fumes are water. It's hot water fumes. I've been fumes my whole career, and it's enough to take you out.” And then, I sucker-punched Liam.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right. Right in the middle ring.

Art (as Steam):        Right in the — Right in the jaw.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right.

Art (as Steam):        He went down like a house of cards.

Austin (as Smolder):        Who won that match?

Art (as Steam):        And four days later — I beat him for the title, and I was stripped the next day, by the commissioner, for, uh, you know, not following the rules of the match.

Dre (as Dog):        Yep.

Austin (as Smolder):        Wait, what rule did you break?

Art (as Steam):        I, uh... I'm not proud of this anymore, but I used a, uh, small electromagnetic pulse to fry the controls in his, uh, his mech, and then I, uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        Hm, you don't use those in, in no disqualification matches, Steam.

2:08:19.3        

Art (as Steam):        Well, I didn't think I'd get caught.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's how it goes sometimes.

Art (as Steam):        The referee had previously been knocked unconscious —

Austin (as Smolder):        Mm-hm.

Art (as Steam):        I thought I could sneak one in. But they had just gotten back to their feet, and saw the whole thing.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, anyway, what was your, what were we talking about? We're talking about training.

Art (as Steam):         Training.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Yeah. Uh...

Austin (as Smolder):         Steam was running on fumes, but in a good way.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, like, like passing me, I could, I, I was stuck behind him—

Austin (as Smolder):        You could smell his fumes.

Dre (as Dog):        I was smelling those fumes. Yeah. Smelling those penguin house fumes.

Art (as Steam):        Luckily, they were steam fumes, so they're...

Austin (as Smolder):        [laughing] Inoffensive.

Art (as Steam):        They don't smell like anything at all.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, so you know, I was, I, you know, I... you know, Steam was putting me in my place, so I had, I had to, I had to remind him of who the, you know, who the current talent is.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mm-hm.

Dre (as Dog):        I got to admit, a little sore today.

Austin (as Smolder):        But you did it.

Art (as Steam):        I appreciate the honesty.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, before we, uh, before we go to our, uh, break, we got to hit a quick word from our sponsor. Steam, I believe you have this one, uh, uh, this read.

Art (as Steam):        That's good, I was hoping to talk a lot more right now.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, I thought so. I could tell in your voice, here, for this beautiful, Bottle of Honey brand.

Art (as Steam):        Honey like a, like a bee has.

Austin (as Smolder):        Honey like a bee has that puts a little bottle —

Austin:        One of, one of these is Elmer's Honey, and I won't do that. [laughing] I won't be eating any Elmer's honey, they make glue.

Art (as Steam):        All right. Well, you know... I know, if you're anything like me, you love honey. Who wouldn't love honey? It's a delicious, sweet — sweet thing. But what you're probably saying is, Steam, I never an opportunity to eat honey. Uh, I don't have anything to put it on.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm.

Art (as Steam):        Uh, and I hear you. It's a, it's a real problem. That's why I'm here today, for Sips — the honey you drink. They've taken all natural bee honey —

Austin (as Smolder):        Right, of course.

Art (as Steam):        And they've spun it in a centrifuge, until it's a thin liquid.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mm-hm.

Art (as Steam):        You can sip from a cup.

Austin (as Smolder):        I, I understand that Sips does all sorts of things, not just honey.

Art (as Steam):        Oh yeah. Anything that you would think is too thick, Sips will make into a drink. They make, uh, a lovely hummus.

Austin (as Smolder):        A hummus sip.

Art (as Steam):        Sips hummus.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yep. Mm-hm.

Art (as Steam):        Uh... they've got a peanut butter.

Austin (as Smolder):        Peanut butter, right.

Art (as Steam):        Uh, and this is a little controversial, I actually like mixing this with the peanut butter, but they do a marshmallow fluff, and —

Austin (as Smolder):        Sips!

Art (as Steam):        You make yourself a little, uh, Sips fluffer-nutter.

Austin (as Smolder):        I love — I like their, uh, I really like their black bean sips, I really like their —

Art (as Steam):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Their, their...

Austin:        I'm looking around my room again. It's happening. I like their tin can Sips. [chuckling] Tin can is getting a real push [unintelligible]

Art (as Steam):        Having a moment right now, yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, my brain is just... consumed.

Art (as Steam):        I don't like keeping anything in my tin cans. That's why they're empty.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        That's why they're empty. Yeah. Ugh. All right.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, you can go to Sips.com clash — what was the promo code again?

Art (as Steam):        Uh... sipping on steam.

Austin (as Smolder):        Sipping on steam, to get your free trial sippy cup of honey. Sips cup. Sips sippy cup of honey.

Art (as Steam):        A Sippsy cup, if you will.

Austin (as Smolder):        A Sippsy cup, because that's what they call it, right? Yeah, Sippsy cup.

Austin:        Great. Uh... I've got to move this over without moving this over. Oh, this isn't going to work. It's fine. All right. Give me a D6, as we move on forward.

Art:        I feel so bad for you, you're going to have to find a way to get ad reads into all the rest of the Road games.

Austin:        I think this is the last one that's actually just a, a podcast. Uh, who's rolling this D6?

Art:        I got it.

Dre:        I'll do it — oh, okay, Art's got it.

Austin:        Three, this time. We're in, we're in shooting distance. Shouting distance.

Dre:        Yeah. Working distance.

Austin:        That's right. The eight of Diamonds.

Dre:        Eight of Diamonds.

Art:        Handling a backstage dispute, you learn the difference between what you did and a real fight. That's going to be a little tricky on this one, but yeah.

Austin:        Huh. Interesting. Uh... roll the dice. D19, or sorry, 19D6.

Dre:        Boop!

Austin:        Oop.

Art:        Oop. Take Dre's.

Austin:        Take Dre's? Okay.

Art:        Dre was first.

Austin:        Okay. Dre is six.

Dre:        Four, five, six. Okay.

Austin:        That's going to bring us down to 13.

Dre:        So 13.

Austin:        Then... flip this card. Five of Diamonds. [gasps]

Dre:        Oh, heck yeah.

Austin:        Big yes. Let's go!

Dre:        Well, you finally won a title in the company. May not have been the world title, but it was yours. Roll the dice.

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Dre:        God yeah, what's our mid-card belt called?

Austin:        We got to figure it out. Uh-huh. I mean you'd never, you'd never be part of the mid-card, so you'll have to... we'll have to talk about that. Uh...

Dre:        Sure.

Austin:        Uh, uh, yeah, we'll, let's think about what it is. It could be the interstellar belt?

Art:        Ring of Honor has the Pure Championship.

Austin:        Ooh.

Art:        We could sort of like go in that direction.

Austin:        That's fun.

Art:        It was for like —

Dre:        Oh yeah, so, I'm, I'm pushing for the unite the belts, kind of thing.

Austin:        Well, what —

Art:        The Pure Title was like, you only had a certain number of rope breaks, and you could lose by disqualification under certain circumstances.

Austin:        Right, right.

Dre:        Oh.

Austin:        Which is a fun one for you to win with the gimmick of being a kind of brawler. You know? Uh... oh, what if there is a, what if it's a, what if it is... [clears throat]what if it is a title that is like, ruled over by a Divine? Who like, referees all of the matches? And it's like, the Divine, like not Honor, or [chuckles] it's not Integrity. But like, we know where Integrity is. With the Divine Virtue, the Divine Fairness, the Divine Fairness, the Divine...

Art:        Chairshots.

Austin:        Something.

Art:        The Divine...

Austin:        [chuckles] Well, no, because this is the, this is the honorable... this is the Pure Championship equivalent, right?

Art:        Right, so the Divine Chairshots would know that there are no chair shots —

Austin:        Right [laughing]

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Do we have a — where's that Divine list? Here it is. Divines at the table dot JU dot MP. Do we not have an Honor? We do have an Honor. We do have an Honor. We do have an Honor, but I don't think Honor's ever actually been... Honor showed up in the Road to Partizan briefly, apparently. Where? Let's see. And then Honor also apparently showed up briefly in, probably in Twilight Mirage. Let's see.

2:15:59.2        No. Just... this is the... so, yeah, let's call it Honor. This is the — [chuckling] well, this is just the Ring of Honor belt. It's just the, the Honorable Championship? Something like that. Uh, let's flip this third card — oh, did you do this roll? You did not do this roll?

Dre:        Oh, no I did not do this roll.

Austin:        Do — roll 13.

Dre:        Uh... 13D6...

Austin:        Yoooooo!

Dre:        None.

Austin:        Riding high! I love it. And... the Queen of Spades.

Dre:        Oh, man.

Austin:        Oh, damn...

Dre:        You attend a funeral of a person outside the business who inspired you to lace your boots. How was it?

Austin:        Oof.

Dre:        Now, hey — Art, how is your throat? And do we need to kill Jimmy Steam Stemanski to [laughing] save your throat?

Art:        [hoarse] Nah. I'm doing great.

Austin and Dre:        [laughing]

Art (as Steam):        Also, it says outside the business, and, uh, I'm very in the business.

Dre:        Oh, that's fair.

Austin:        Only one — wait —

Dre:        To kill Jimmy you need the queen of —

Austin:        Wait, wait. I, I did this backwards. I did this backwards. [laughing] I rolled 6D13 instead of 13D6. All right, still only two. That's not too bad. Okay. So, it drops us down to 11. Boom. Uh... okay. Yeah, we need to know who this person is.

Dre:        Mmm...

Austin:        Oh, man. Where to start here, also?

Dre:        What was the eight, again? Eight of Diamonds? Backstage dispute.

Austin:        Backstage dispute, yeah.

Dre:        What does that mean? Between what you did and a real fight.

Austin:        I... think this is, the war bleeding in. I think —

Dre:        Hm.

Austin:        I think we see... this is, this is going to be a big podcast. I think that we see the split of the, of the PWA, is that what we said it was? The PWA, the Principality Wrestling Association? We see Pact Wrestlers leave. And not all of them, but some people who are like, sick of... Curtain bullshit, sick of Nideans and Kesh people and their fucking high horses, tradition, meh.

2:18:33.3        Uh, it bleeds over, and it's just like, you know. It's a political conversation that shouldn't be happening, right? I mean, it should be happening, but... it — these people, it's going to come down to blows. Uh, and it's, it's probably less about the politics, and more about, like... the politics is the ignition, and then it, it breaks down in terms of like, who's on whose side, in a way that's like, telling. Uh, and then... six people leave the company, you know? They walk.

Art:        Including Bonedaddy Rivera.

Austin:         Including Bonedaddy Rivera.

Art:        The villain of this piece.

Austin:        The villain of this piece, and including, uh... uh, these are all terrible. Uh, we're running out of the good ones, I got to tell you. We're running out of them. [laughs] I got one. We're good now. We also, also leaving was... Dash City Slicker, uh, — I hit paste before I read it — Dubrovnik, who was the Belt of Honor champion, which put the belt up for, up for a tournament. In, uh, what's it called when the belt gets — Not abdicated.

Dre:        Vacated?

Austin:        Vacated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The belt was, the championship was vacated. Uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        Guys, this is a... This is going to be a hard episode. And I'm going to, I'm going to say that what we should do is, I guess I'll ask you. Do we want to start with the good news, or do we want to start with the heavier stuff?

Art (as Steam):         She was, uh, talking to you, champ.

Dre (as Dog):        [sighs] You know, I'm just, I'm just, I'm, I'm just upset.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, you know, I didn't, I didn't see... I didn't see it happening like this. It, uh... you know, being... being the Honor Champion, just, it, it feels a little hollow. I can't lie.

Austin (as Smolder):        You won it fair and square. I don't think anybody should try to take that from you. I know it's not how you... dreamt it would happen.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, you know, I, I'm just really, uh, you know, I, I think that this is... this is a sport where people come to, you know, to... to get away from their, their troubles. And, and to get away from the mundanity of our day to day lives. And I'm just really disappointed that, you know, some members of the PWA, uh, you know, forgot who we do this for. And, uh, and made some selfish decisions.

Austin (as Smolder):        For people who don't know, there was a, uh, disagreement in the backstage, uh, last Monday. And... it came to blows. Things escalated. People got involved with... weapons. Improvised and Hallow-scale. Uh, thankfully, no one's life was lost, but there were some injuries.

Austin:        Uh, actually, wait, is that true that no one's life was lost? Did the — did your person that you know die — no, they were outside the industry. So, no.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        Uh —

Austin (as Smolder):        And, we are still, frankly, working through how we fit into all of this. You know, Steam and I aren't as active in-ring anymore, but we're still very much part of this family and a part of this business and a part of this culture. And, this isn't how we... this isn't how we're supposed to do things. I guess I'd be lying, Steam, if I said this isn't how things go. Well, I thought we'd moved past this sort of, uh, this sort of hands-on airing of grievances, in this industry.

2:23:46.8        

Art (as Steam):        It's, uh, not how we did things in my day.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, uh, we don't know, I guess I'll say, what the future of this ongoing war will mean. Uh, the PWA is an Orion organization. We're not... as a group, part of any side of any ongoing conflict. We are a sports entertainment company. We're a wrestling company. Uh...

Art (as Steam):        The conflict I'm involved in is between me and my landlord everything month about getting the rent in.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, you know, I just — I just want to wrestle.

Austin (as Smolder):        So, we'll see. Uh... as far as we know, right now, we will be allowed to continue wrestling. We will be allowed to continue touring. We will be allowed to continue to bring joy to people across the Principality. Uh, that's all we want to do. And I hope, uh, that we get to see you, our listeners, soon. And we hope you understand that that's what we want to do. We're not... I don't want to say we're not role models. I know people look up to, to you these days, especially, Dog. Uh, so we are role models. Uh, and that's why we didn't kick things off, like Vlad and Dash did last week. And I'll say their names here. They're gone. What am I — you know? They're gone.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Screw 'em. Uh, I guess the good news in this is, and you heard, you heard Steam say it earlier, uh, you are a champion. You earned that championship. You are the Honor Champion of the PWA. Uh... you know, you, you went up against your friend, Jade The Dentist Suzuki, in the final round of the tournament. Do you have any thoughts about that, about that match, about how that shook out?

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, I mean, it's, it's, it's maybe the toughest fight I've ever been in, in my career, you know?

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, when you're, when you're fighting with somebody that you train with, you know, I, I know her and she knows me, you know?

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        So...

Art (as Steam):        How's the [unintelligible] feeling today?

Dre:        What was that?

Art (as Steam):        How are those teeth feeling today?

Dre (as Dog):        Uh... you know, after, after the match, she, she gave me a real, uh, real dressing down, because she said my, my gums were getting really bloody. And that obviously, that was a sign that I wasn't flossing enough. And, you know — she's right. Uh... she's right. Uh... you know. So, uh, definitely, definitely —

Austin (as Smolder):        Are any of us flossing as much as we should be, though, really?

Dre (as Dog):        Well, you, you know, it's, it's easy when you, uh, when you get Zeo-coated floss paste, though.

Austin:        [chuckles]

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm. Mm-hm. Mm-hm.

Dre (as Dog):        So... but yeah. Uh... I, I didn't think I was going to pull it out. But, you know, I'm, I'm happy I did, and I hope that this is, you know — I know this is the first step, and I, I hope that this has been enough to, to pull over people who were still, still doubting the Dog.

Austin (as Smolder):        Never doubt the Dog. That's what the tee shirt says. That's one of my favorite tee shirts. What's your — what —

Art (as Steam):        I, uh, happy to buy one, yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Steam, what's your favorite Dogmatic tee shirt?

Art (as Steam):        Oh, uh, probably, uh, It's Harvesting Time, woof woof woof woof woof.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        I love the way that The Harvester's dog-like features are really brought out in that graphic.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, I think —

Dre:        Oh god. Okay, we got to come up with a finishing move.

Austin:        Yep.

Dre:        Because obviously, whenever I do the finishing move, the crowd chants, “Woof woof woof woof woof.”

Austin:        Yeah. Uh... is that the... is there some sort of bite? Is there some sort of...

Dre:        I think it is, uh, it is, it's some kind of like, uh, I don't know the technical names for these things. But I'm thinking of like... you know, on the — is it the attitude adjustment where like, John Cena holds him, like, above his shoulders?

Art:        Yeah, like a fireman's carry?

Austin:        Mm-hm.

Dre:        Yeah, and so, I think it's something like that, where I'm, where I'm holding them, and then before, like, the throw or the slam, uh, as people chant, “Woof! Woof! Woof!” I'm like flexing up and down. Like I'm doing like squats with the —

Austin:        [chuckles]

Dre:        While, while my mech is [laughing] holding the other mech above their shoulders.

Austin:        Yes. Good.

Dre:        No, it's not yes. It's woof.

Austin:        I'm sorry — woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Uh... sorry, someone in the chat gave context, said as part of Dahlia's speech to the people, uh, they gave, they gave their Title to the Elect of Honor. Ker’asilia was the Elect of Honor. I have no — I'm like, trying to find that in the background right now, and I am not finding it anywhere in my materials. So I'm, I'm — if people can follow up on what episode that would have been, please let me know, uh, because I cannot find that anywhere. Uh... but, whatever, it's fine. This is what, this is what they're doing now. This is a little, little extra promo that they do.

Dre:        Uh, the Atomic Dog — The Atomic Dog Drop.

Austin:        The Atomic Dog Drop! I love it. Woof woof woof woof woof woof.

Dre:        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        I will always remember that, you know, when I, when I hit that last Dog Drop, and the crowd was just, was just woofing.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mm-hm.

Dre (as Dog):        I could feel it. It shook my cockpit.

Austin:        Mm-hm. Ah, here we go. It was the intro to The Road, to the Microscope game, in the Road to Season Six, I think. That makes sense, and that kind of makes sense to why it wasn't showing up in the search at the table, is because that is... I bet that that doesn't have, I bet those transcripts might not have the, uh, the intros, let's see, maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Uh... sorry, I know this is distracting. And it's... not really important.

Dre:        Uh-uh.

Austin:        But, my lore brain...

Dre:        [chuckles]

Austin:        Well, no, it can't be that, because the final — the, the Microscope game intros are Cymbidium. So it can't be that. Ah, it's the summary. It's the final, final, final, final one. Uh... oh, no, this is not, I don't... wait. Uh... yeah, this is not the Elect of, of Honor. Uh, “I will that Dahlia's victory at Torru be inherited by Ker’asilia, as it was ker skill and fortitude that won that day.” That is not, uh... ker is not the Elect of anything, I don't think. Because they would have an Elect name, if they were. So. We're good. There is no... [chuckles] as far as we can see, there is no explicit Elect of Honor, anywhere. So, we're safe. Anyway. Continuing. To the hardest part of this podcast.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, I don't even know if you want to get into this, literally at all, Dog.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        But I know there was some personal stuff happening during all this, too. Which like, if it's not one thing, it's another. When it rains, it pours. Right?

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Dre:        So, uh, out of character, have we established any other, like — team sports?

Austin:        Basketball's important on [laughing] Palisade. Uh, but you wouldn't know about that.

Dre:        Okay.

Austin:        You wouldn't know about Palisade. Uh, the other, the other sumo, or the other Olympic sports, right? Uh... uh... which were... as you, as you may have — does anybody recall, uh, sharpshooting, and, what was the biath- was the biathlon the one that was sharpshooting and retail, or something like that?

2:33:06.0        

Dre:        That's — okay.

Austin:        We had a bunch of very goofy sports in the —

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        Let's see. Uh... do we really not have a whole... synchronized sharpshooting. [chuckles] Uh... that's truly fucked-up that at the end of this event, we didn't just say, here the six events, you know?

Dre:        Yeah. I, I can use synchronized sharpshooting.

Art:        Oh, the [unintelligible] longhand sports.

Austin:        Right, true. Mech football.

Art:        Mech baseball.

Austin:        Mech baseball.

Art:        And mech golf.

Austin:        Oh, and mech golf.

Dre:        Oh, okay. All right.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        [unintelligible] is not a team sport.

Austin:        No.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Bartering. Yeah, swimming, [chuckles] swimming and bartering.

Dre:        God.

Dre (as Dog):        So, uh, actually, you know, right after that match, uh, I got a, I got a phone call, uh, and a found out that my, uh, my old high school mech football coach, you know, she... she, she passed away right after the match ended.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm.

Art (as Steam):        Oh, no.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, and it, it's just like coach that she hung on — right until that moment.

Austin (as Smolder):        Until the bell was rung.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm. Yeah, I mean, you know, when I was, when I was a kid, I really thought I was going to go, go pro as a, as a football pilot. You know, who didn't, right?

Austin (as Smolder):        Everybody has it as a dream.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, and I, you know, coach, you know, she, she was one of the first people to be really honest with me and say that, you know, that she did see a future for me, but it wasn't in mech football. Uh, and that hurt. That hurt, at first, a lot. But... you know, I eventually realized that that was coming from a, a place of love.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right.

Dre (as Dog):        A place of care, uh, and you know, I, you know — from that point on, I always respected, you know, someone who could be honest with me.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, and, uh, —

Art (as Steam):        You got to have people in your circle who can be honest with you.

Austin (as Smolder):        And she stayed in your life, we've talked about this before, how even though you weren't going to the football practices anymore, you know, she would show up to the wrestling meets whenever she could.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        I know she was important to you.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, I, I never missed a game. Uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):         You know, when I, when I was rehabbing, uh, actually got some of my sessions in back at the the high school gym, so...

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, we are both obviously, uh, here for you. People listening, you know, it's a reminder — love the people you got, you know? They, uh, let 'em know. Let 'em know. Everything can change so quick. I truly hate to do this in this moment, but we do have, uh, we do have commitments.

Dre (as Dog):        No, you know what? It's, it's, it's what coach would have wanted.

2:36:17.5        

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, so, I'm going to have to —

Art (as Steam):        Loved advertisements at that school.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, do you ever not know what to eat?

Dre (as Dog):        All the time.

Art (as Steam):        No. Never wondered that in my life.

Dre (as Dog):        That must be nice.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, you must have a subscription to Tasty Magazine.

Art (as Steam):        I do!

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, a magazine about food and what you do to it, before you eat it.

Dre (as Dog):        Oh!

Art (as Steam):        Cut it!

Austin (as Smolder):        Cut it — there's a whole, every month, there are five —

Dre (as Dog):        Mash it!

Austin (as Smolder):        There's the cut it section, there's the mash it section, there's the chop it section. Different than cutting. Uh, there is the fire it up center fold.

Dre (as Dog):        That's my favorite. That is my favorite.

Austin (as Smolder):        Which, which has a, it's how do you cook a thing. How do you add heat, to make it go somewhere else, you know? Change —

Art (as Steam):        That's, uh, That's, uh, that section is of course a tribute to the founder of the magazine, uh, 20th century rapper, Busta Rhymes.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right. Uh...

Dre:        [chuckles]

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, I mean, who, as a kid, you know, you know, when you, when you were 16, didn't, didn't have some, some tasty center folds put up on your walls, you know?

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right. Yeah, we all had [chuckles] we all had some Tasty Magazine — even for me as a Columnar, you know? Uh, you would think, mostly —

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, that's universal appeal.

Austin (as Smolder):        And then finally the fifth one, desserts. So it is, again, uh, cut — the cut section, the mash section, the chop section, the fire it up center fold, tasteful. And then desserts. And, uh, we have a great, 13-month subscription to tasty magazine available, completely free. Now, it is a five-year contract. Uh, so you do have to, uh, uh, receiving all 5 years of the magazine. And if you don't receive all of them, there is a fee. Uh, but if you see them, you read them to completion, you know, it has the eye scanner to make sure that you've read all the words. You manage to do that, there's no cost. And that's using promo code, uh, Steam Sarah and the Dog.

2:38:31.3        

Art (as Steam):        I, uh, one of my favorite times every month is when I'm tasting, taking the Tasty Magazine quiz.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right.

Art (as Steam):        To make sure that I properly absorb the material.

Austin (as Smolder):         Right, yeah. There's a reading comprehension quiz.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, it's, it's, I think it's fun. Some people don't. But I think it's actual fun to do.

Dre (as Dog):        Well, you know, some people don't like to work for it. So...

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, we will see you in a couple of weeks when we're back with the next episode. Until then, uh, our catch phrase. Say it. Say our catchphrase.

Art (as Steam):        Uh, uh, keep, keep boiling with us.

Austin (as Smolder):        Keep boiling with us.

Dre:        [chuckling]

Austin:        All right, give me a D6.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        Sorry, give me a — yeah, give me a D6, that's right, that's how this game works.

Dre:        Am I doing this, or is Art?

Austin:        Either/or.

Dre:        All right, I'm typing.

Art:        All right. [dice boop]

Dre:        Dos.

Austin:        All right. Number one, let's see. The nine of Spades.

Dre:        Okay.

Austin:        Low life. Ooh.

Dre:        Uh, you spend the night at the movies with friend who have nothing to do with the business. How was it? Roll the dice.

Austin:        Huh. Roll those dice. Roll those, uh, what do we have left? 11. 11 dice.

Dre:        Uh, okay. 11D6.

Austin:        Only one!

Art:        Only one.

Austin:        Wow.

Art:        We're going to live forever.

Austin:        We're going to live forever. And then... seven of Spades.

Art:        Someone who has never supported wrestling creator life finally comes around. What convinced them?

Austin:         Ooh.

Art:        I got the roll. [dice boop] Two.

Austin:        Two. Bring us down to an eight. [sighs] Should I say the, uh, — go ahead. You go, you go ahead. You got to draw.

Art (as Steam):        It's, uh... good to hear, I know that we've, uh, had a, had some canceled shows this week, because of the, the troubles. But, uh, have you had a chance to have any fun outside the ring, Dog?

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, yeah. You know, me and a couple of pals, uh, headed over to the theater. Uh, you know.

Austin (as Smolder):        What did you you see?

Dre:        Oh, man. Uh... God. What kind of — WWE does like, co-branding with like movies, right?

Austin:        Oh my god, it does. I mean, it does. WWE studios is a thing.

Dre:        Well, yeah, but.

Art:        When The Rock had that movie, or... that movie on Netflix, where they had like the egg, or something? That ended up being like a plot point in wrestling, this like, valuable egg.

Austin:        Oh, the one with — yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, when you say the egg, you mean like a Faberge egg, right?

Art:        Something like that, or like a jewel, or something? I don't know.

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Well, yeah. Yes, this does happen, Dre.

Dre:        Okay. Uh...

Dre (as Dog):        You know, actually, uh, you know, the Dog loves to give back to the community. And, so, uh, I took a whole school system, uh, on a field trip to go see, uh, the new animated feature, uh... uh, [laughing]

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, Trixie The Triceratops Dragon.

Dre (as Dog):        Yes, there we go.

Dre:        The Triceratops what?

Austin:        Dragon. Triceratops dragon?

Art (as Steam):        Right, yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, my little, uh, nieces love it.

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, you know what? I didn't expect it to have, you know, as many jokes for adults as it did.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right. You know, that's how they make 'em these days. They try to cast a wide net —

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Shockingly mature, that movie.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        There's that whole, there's that whole middle section on tax policy, which — that would have gone over my head as a little kid.

Dre (as Dog):        But you know, I think it also, it also teaches, teaches kids the right lessons.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right, right. Which is that taxes exist.

Dre (as Dog):        Absolutely.

Austin (as Smolder):        And, there they are.

Dre (as Dog):        And you gotta pay 'em. You gotta pay 'em

Austin (as Smolder):        Gotta pay 'em. Listen — [chuckles] let me tell you, I've known some folks who have tried to not pay 'em, in this business. And they'll make you pay 'em one way or the other.

Dre (as Dog):        They'll get to you.

Art (as Steam):        They'll getcha.

Austin (as Smolder):        They'll get ya. Pour one [chuckles] pour one out for Smitty, you know?

Dre (as Dog):        Oof. Oof.

Austin (as Smolder):        Anyway, I'm glad you could take in some local culture. Uh, I mean, not local. I'm glad you could take in some culture, comma, locally.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. You know, I gotta do it for the kids.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right. Uh, but I also know, uh, that, that there were some pictures going around with you and, uh, someone in the, in the audience after your last match. It looked like someone, you know — I like to think we're close, but I don't know everybody in your life. I was like, is that... who is that? Is that a cousin, is that a... an old, an old school pal? I didn't know, who it was. But you seemed like there was —

Dre (as Dog):        Uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        A little bit of a conversation with somebody there after the match.

Art (as Steam):        Someone asked me, and I didn't know. And I said it was your barber. So if you ever run into, uh... run into Liam, you, you tell him that's your barber.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        Liam listens to the podcast, Steam.

Art (as Steam):        Liam... turn off the podcast.

Austin (as Smolder):        [laughing] Ah, Liam's going to be —

Art (as Steam):        When you're editing this, put that before what I said before.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Uh, you know, I... [sighs] I don't, I don't want to give too many details here, because I — you know, this is, this is a part of my life that I, I do want to keep private. But, uh, you know, I... I was, I was seeing somebody for a while, and, uh, you know, he... didn't initially really believe in this, you know. Uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        Even after the championship?

Dre (as Dog):        Well, I think that's what finally brought him around. uh... and, so, you know, after the championship, and, and after coach passed, uh, you know, he reached out, and we started talking again, and... you know, I don't, I don't think think either of us knows where it's going yet, but, uh... I'm, I'm just glad to have him back in my life, back in my corner.

Austin (as Smolder):        Is he going to be able to come to future events? Or is he just kind of local?

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, you know, that's something that we are, we figuring out, as, as we go. You know, I'd, I'd love to have him here, out on, out on the road with me, but —

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. It's hard. Families, you know. Families, lovers.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        I've had my fair share of problems with, you know, you say you want to date someone, but, they have to stay where they are. You want to keep moving. Uh, but also, I've had relationships on the road, and it's a different sort of pressure, you know? You never get that sense of... finding that stability that things slow down, you know? Uh... it's, it's, uh...

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, it's, it can be difficult when everything's always moving forward.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right. And that's what we're doing here. We're always moving forward. Always moving to the next... the next event, the next day. Again, troubled times, but tomorrow's always coming, folks. And you never know who's going to be there, who's going to, uh, it's a lesson I'm learning, Dog, from, from what you said. There are people who are against you today, they might be for you tomorrow. You never who you're going to prove wrong.

2:46:37.3        

Dre (as Dog):        That's, that's the hope. That's — you know what, no. That's the promise.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's the promise! That's right. All right. We will be back. A couple more event here in Columnar space. And we're going to be swinging back down, to, to, to where you first, you first came onboard. Partizan. Uh, you know, things are different there these days. Uh, it's amazing. You think back just a couple years, to where we all started here. And, you came on after the Olympics. After the, the Games, after the championships. And, uh, you're moving out of the sumo, and back into, you know, into what we do here. And, uh, any, any thoughts about doing a show back on Partizan?

Dre (as Dog):        I'm, uh... looking forward to it.

Austin (as Smolder):        I bet the fans are, too.

Art (as Steam):        And if you're a fan of us, and you're going to be in Partizan for the show, you — you can get tickets to our live show at the Deep Dish Steakhouse —

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right, in Oxbridge, yeah.

Art (as Steam):        In just six days' time.

Austin (as Smolder):        Order ahead.

Art (as Steam):        From when we're recording this, so probably five days' time from release.

Austin:        Yes, the Summer Passage of Arms. That's, of course — not the space Olympics. Sometimes you do a podcast two and a half years ago, and it's, it's hard to hold it all in your head when those two and a half years are, the years they've been.

Art (as Steam):        You've got to be careful, because the interstellar Olympic committee will sue the crap out of you.

Austin:        You know, we got to tell you, there are no rings at all, involved in the, the Passage are Arms.

Art (as Steam):        And if there were, they would not be touching each other.

Austin:        They would be separated and different colors than the ones at the Olympics have. They have their own thing going on, that's fine.

Art (as Steam):        A turquoise ring, a fuchsia ring —

Austin:        Yep, mauve.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, magenta, that color that's not real.

Austin:        Magenta's a real color. What?

Art:        Well it's not like, it's not in the spectrum. The color spectrum. It's like, past the spectrum. It's like a fake color.

Austin:        It's past the — what?

Art:        I don't know, read some, some color —

Dre:        Read a book, Austin. [laughing]

Austin:        Did you — did you learn color theory in middle school, Steam?

Art (as Steam):        I did, yeah. Uh, uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        Incredible.

Art (as Steam):        That was, that was the class that made me decide that school wasn't for me.

Austin:        [laughs]

Art (as Steam):        They started saying, this color's real, this color's not. And I'm like... I can see them right now. They're on the computer screen that is the blackboard.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right, right. Funny we still call them blackboards.

Art (as Steam):        I don't know why we do. Uh, it must've been invented by a guy, uh, John blackboard.

Austin (as Smolder):        John Blackboard, yeah, yeah, the trademark there.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure. Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Of course. All right. We'll be back soon, folks.

Austin:        Let's get another D6. I feel like we're due a King. Something bad gamblers say, you know?

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin:        But, I'll roll a D6. Four. All right.

Art:        All right

Austin:        I don't even know how many cards are left in here.

Dre:        Does it not show you?

Austin:        I... haven't looked, because I'm afraid it'll show me what the next cards are. Not that matters, but like —

Dre:        Mmm, yeah.

Austin:        You know?

Dre:        Yeah, I get it.

Austin:        It's fine. I wish it would say it over here — no, it won't. Uh... all right. Card number one. I've got to find the thing that says flip. There it is. Nine of Diamonds.

Art:        Nine of diamonds. Booking your first show, the silk tie around your neck as you went to official meetings felt odd.

Austin:        So this is, this is a memory? Is it a memory? Is that what it is?

Art:        It's a memory, but it sort of seems like a memory of the future. Or I guess —

Austin:        Booking...

Art:        Or I guess —

Austin:        Mmm. No, I guess it could be now, right? You could, well — it, it, well, let — maybe something will develop here. I was thinking, as the PWA ended. As, have we entered the territory era? And are we starting —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Our own, our own... you know, federation. Our own company. Where you're... you know, you're an executive, what is it, and EVP, is that what these are, they're called at the, uh, the [unintelligible]

Dre:        Sure, yeah.

Art:        Yeah. Mm-hm.

Austin:        All right, roll the dice, right? Roll eight dice.

Art:        No, it's — oh, we do the dice? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Austin:        Yeah, you still roll the dice. Yeah. I'll do it.

Art:        Eight?

Austin:        You got it?

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Oh my god. Four ones.

Art:        Oh my god.

Dre:        Woah!

Austin:        Cuts your eight in half! That's like if you rolled 50 ones on the first one. [chuckling]

Art:        Yeah [chuckling] I know what half is.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        That's like if you rolled a thousand dice, and 500 of them were ones!

Art:        I can cut any number in half, Austin.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        [laughing] It's like if you had a million dice — and 500,000 —

Art:        And a rolled 500,000 ones.

Austin:        Yeah. Uh-huh.

Dre:        Art The Thousand Dice Man Martinez-Tebbel.

Austin:        [laughing] All right, the three of Spades.

Dre:        Oh, a spectator to the show tries to rush out —

Austin:        Oh my god.

Dre:        And interfere. How do you deescalate the situation?

Austin:        Roll the dice. 4D6. You got it, Dre?

Dre:        Yeah, I finished my ice cream —

Austin:        Oh my god.

Dre:        Well! Cut it in half again!

Austin:        If you had rolled —

Art:        That's like if you rolled a billion dice — you rolled —

Austin:        [laughing]

Art:        500 million ones!

Austin:        Oh my god. All right. The two of Spades. Uh...

Dre:        Uh, you spend the day doing autograph duty for the show. What fan stood out to you? Roll the dice.

Austin:        This is a dangerous situation. This is getting increasingly spooky and scary to me.

Dre:        Yeah. Seriously.

Art:        Do you want to do it?

Austin:        I'll, I'll do it. Yeah, roll 2D6. Whew!

Dre:        Whew! All right.

Art:        That's like if you rolled a million dice and rolled zero ones.

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        And, the three of Hearts. [chuckling] Uh... hearts is body.

2:52:51.2        

Art:        Three of hearts. Someone — one of the performers who's used to death matches and the like, tries to convince you into a match you know could be your end. You talk them down into a lackluster but safe match.

Austin:        Someone roll 2D6 and see if that's actually true. Oh my god!

Art:        It is!

Austin:        Oh my god — no, it's not true.

Art:        Oh, right.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        Which means a lackluster but safe... and it ends your career?

Austin:        [laughing] And it ends your career! Zero. Out of 100. You snake-eyesed it,

Art:        . I sure did. I did not think that would happen.

Austin:        That's like if you — [laughing]

Dre:        That's like if you rolled eleventy billion dice, and all eleventy billion [laughing] were ones.

Austin:        I really thought we were going to get down to one, and then be stuck there, for —

Dre:        Oh yeah.

Austin:        Ever. Which is why, when you were like, “We should take a break,” I was like, “I could say we're almost done, but also, it could be three hours from now.”

Dre:        Yeah. [unintelligible]

Austin:        And I'd feel like an asshole, you know what I means?

Art:        Yeah, and so we managed to roll eight ones in four —

Austin:        [chuckling] In four roles. Uh... I'm just going to make sure there's no like, immediately, da-da-da-da-da.

Dre:        Oh yeah.

Austin:        You know? Let's see. Uh... shuffle the deck... uh, if you run out of dice, you're no longer medically cleared to wrestle, and the game ends. So. What the fuck happened?

Art:        Well, maybe it's something to do with these weird fans.

Austin:        These weird fans —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Plus a death match.

Art:        How many cards did we get through?

Austin:        Now I can actually just check, probably. Let's see. Uh... where's that bit at?

Art:        I think it's, so we got through 17 cards.

Austin:        So not even half.

Art:        Not even half.

Austin:        Oh. Oh yeah. I can hit recall, is that what it is? Yeah, 17 on table, 35 in deck unplayed. Uh...

Art:        I don't know how we did in terms of like, how many you would expect to get?

Austin:        No, me either. Yeah, someone should do that math. But —

Art:        Someone in the chat, just tell us the math.

Austin:        Uh... yeah, you just have it on hand, right? Okay. So, again from the top... you booked your first match. I think that that is, the PWA implodes, uh, we have to book a territory. Uh, we, we, we — or we have to recreate our own organization, and the territory system comes back, or rises. Uh, we only do shows, we only do shows in Nideo space now. So, it's where we were, and it's like, too dangerous to get out of Nideo space. Apostolos has invaded Nideo space across the dark of the galaxy, and is targeting Palisade, which isn't that far from us, but like, we can't cross the Apostolosian blockade, and the other direction ain't easier. So we start our own thing, and you begin booking matches, and, uh, become a decision maker, in the back room. Three was, what? Weird fan interferes?

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        Uh... just want to reread that exactly. A spectator to the show tries to rush out and interfere. In a mech wrestling show!

Art:        Well, maybe the fan has a mech.

Austin:        Or a missile launcher, right?

Art:        Sure.

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        Yeah. Or a mech, yeah. Uh, or is in a — you know what? It doesn't say fan, it says spectator. Uh, but then, uh, you spend the day doing autograph duty for the show. What fan stood out to you? And then finally, the death match. Someone, someone tries to talk you into doing a dangerous death match, or a dangerous style of match, someone who's used to death matches, and you talk them down into a lackluster but safe match, is what it says.

Art:        But then your career is over.

Austin:        But then your career is over.

Art:        Maybe it's because of that, right?

Austin:        Yeah, yeah.

Art:        You're like, I can't do that.

Austin:        I know what the —

Dre:        Yeah.

Austin:        I do know what the thing they try to convince you to do is. Uh, we should — we can — don't want to answer that bit in the podcast. I'll, I'll throw to you, to tell you what this is.

Dre:        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        Champ. Uh... you have, uh, an announcement to make, it says here. On the, at the top of the run of show. Uh, I'll leave it to you to kick things off, and we can dig in.

Dre (as Dog):        It's, uh, it's, it's certainly been... you know, a, a roller coaster of a month.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, I really felt like it was, it was my time, and the PWA, you know, that it was time, uh, that everybody in the Doghouse was finally going to get what they had been hounding for. But... you know, it wasn't meant to be. [sighs]

Austin (as Smolder):        You know, first we saw the dis, the, the dissolution of the PWA, and I think... that was scary. And, uh, where he thought we could take things into our own hands. This is why Steam, and you and I, and, you know, Jade, and BJ, a couple other folks, former PWA talent, got together, found some backing. Uh, tried to put together a new organization. Uh, which of course, was called the, uh, Wrestlers — W —

Austin:        Hm, nope.

Dre (as Dog):        Wrestlers, Wresters First Alliance.

Austin (as Smolder):        The WFA, that's right. Yeah. Wresters First Alliance. Uh, how did that feel for you, day one. You come in backstage. It was very funny, I'd never seen you in a suit before, Dog. And maybe — and I want to tell you. If you were still in the ring, I wouldn't have even said that out loud. Because I, I don't want to give people the message, I don't want to put that image in people's heads if you were still working, you were still working The Harvester, you know, the Dog Mettle gimmick. But uh,, you know, I think it's a funny imagine. People should know, you came in, you had the suit on. I thought it was funny.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm. You know, I —

Austin (as Smolder):        Dressed to the nines.

Dre (as Dog):        I still didn't know how to tie a tie.

Austin (as Smolder):        How old are you?

Art (as Steam):        It was obvious, yeah.

Austin:        [chuckles]

Dre (as Dog):        Well, okay, that's — that's kind of rude. Could have, could have said something.

Art (as Steam):        Well, I'm just saying, it looks like a triangle when you do it right.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yours looked more like a sail from a sailboat, you know? Triangular, but I wouldn't say it's a triangle.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure.

Art (as Steam):        I thought you were working up on a new gimmick, champ. I thought you were, uh, you were going to be the boater, the boat, the boat man. The boatsman.

Austin (as Smolder):        The Boatsman. Yeah, yeah.

Dre (as Dog):         Yeah, The Boatsman.

Austin (as Smolder):        The Coxswain. The — what are, what are — boat people. First mate.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure, yeah. The Captain.

Art (as Steam):        Arr, Matey.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There it is. Pirate. You're going to do a pirate gimmick.

Art (as Steam):        Yo ho ho, and a, and a waist full of title belts.

Austin:        [wheezes] That's right.

Dre (as Dog):        Yo ho ho, and a bottle of Zeo.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's, that's right. Anyway... what, uh, how did you — let's go through this, let's go through this beat by beat, you know? Day one, WFO — WFA. What was it like, for you to step into that room? The room where the magic happened, where big decision get made?

3:01:19.2        

Dre (as Dog):        You know, it was, it was a little disappointing.

Austin (as Smolder):        Really?

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Huh.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, it's, it's — I think I was, I was still trying to let go of that dream I had.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mm-hm.

Dre (as Dog):        And, uh, I wasn't yet ready fully, fully embrace the new dream that was in front of me. Uh...

Austin (as Smolder)::        You wanted to still be the superstar in the ring.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure.

Austin (as Smolder):        You didn't want to — and, to be clear, the deal was, you would still get to perform, you still held the, the inaugural championship for the WFA. You, you came out strong in that opening tournament.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, but you —

Art (as Steam):        But four matches in one night? It was amazing.

Austin (as Smolder):        No one's done it before. I think only the Harvester could do it. The Harvester is built for damage, you know?

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah. Built to take and distribute damage.

Dre (as Dog):        I think, the, I think that's a record I'm really proud of, that I think that will, will stand the test of time in the WFA.

Austin (as Smolder):        When you hit your third consecutive Atomic Dog Drop, on, uh, uh, Dana Lightning Lopez, I was like, “Ugh, it's over.” But it wasn't.

Art (as Steam):        I didn't think I'd ever stop hearing the woofs in my ears.

Austin (as Smolder):        I'm still hearing 'em. In any case.

Dre (as Dog):        Probably should, you need to get that checked.

. Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah, I gotta — it's, it's hard to get, uh, it's hard to get a good Columna doctor here in Nideo space, because of the war, so... uh, doing my best. Uh, anyway, the, uh, the matches were great. I, for what it's worth, I think you were doing a good job in the back office, you know. Steam and I were making the big decisions as much as we can, but the input, every piece of input you had was, was on, on the mark. And we're still excited to have you, uh, in that role. Which, which I hope you'll continue going forward.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, you know. It just got, you know, it got to a point to where I felt like I was living two lives, and I'm just one man.

Austin (as Smolder):        You know, it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense. Uh... and, you know, for what it's worth, I think things could have gone a little smoother coming out the gate. Not in terms of the matches, the matches were great, but, uh, you — the PWA had a certain type of fan. I like to think about how — you know, I wrestled for the PWA for years before what happened, happened there. But I wrestled a few other places. I, I think that, a, an association produces the type of fan that shows up, you know? Or, it has a different culture. Different, different organizations have different cultures and fans. And ours is new association. Ours is a new group.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        And we haven't quite worked out, uh,, the lines haven't been drawn firmly yet. And that's on us, that's on security. But what happened at the arena, I think, is, uh, unforgivable. Uh...

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Absolutely, there's no place for that.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. You know, I, I really... you know, I, I, I stand by our slogan, of, of, our association, your association.

Austin (as Smolder):        Our association, your association. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        But, you know. Uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        It's not an invitation, though, is it?

Dre (as Dog):        No, yeah, uh, you know?

Austin (as Smolder):        There are, there's insurance, there's medical, you know, clearance.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure. We're an association of professionals.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's why it's wrestlers first.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. Uh...

Dre (as Dog):        And, you know, when... when that fan, uh, came out, in their, in their homemade suit, uh...

Austin (as Smolder):        You know, and, I think it speaks a lot to the local problems. You know. I know you're from Nideo. I'm not trying to... I'm not trying to toss you in with this. Uh... but, it's a lot like, and you know I don't like to get too political here, but, uh, there are people in the galaxy right now that have weapons who shouldn't have weapons. Who... that stuff floats out, you know what I mean? Uh, it's not, it doesn't just — you get one group of people. You have a group of terrorists, let's say. If terrorists can get those weapons, so can regular people. Uh, and it's —

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, it's happening. And, the fact that, that the homemade, uh, suit — you know, you take a look at that, some of those are military grade parts.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        And they could have hurt someone in the ring. We're already taking risks out here.

Dre (as Dog):        They, uh, they tried to.

Austin (as Smolder):        They did.

Art (as Steam):        Or out of the ring.

Austin (as Smolder):        Or out of the ring. Another fan.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Uh... and you know, you know what — I haven't, I haven't really, I haven't told this part. Uh... but, you know, I met that fan before the show.

Austin (as Smolder):        Scoffs.

Art (as Steam):        Shut up.

Dre (as Dog):        No. They, they asked me to —

Austin (as Smolder):        No way.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, they bought, uh, the first run we did of the, the PWA hallow cards.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        They asked me to design 'em.

Austin (as Smolder):        [exhales] And then, three hours later... rocket launcher.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Yeah. No.

Austin (as Smolder):        Are you fucking kidding me?

Dre (as Dog):        Probably trying to turn a quick buck.

Art (as Steam):        Must've had the rocket launcher at the time.

Dre (as Dog):        Well I... I don't — I would've seen it.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, abstractly. In the, in the truck, maybe. Or back home.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure, yeah. [sighs]

Austin (as Smolder):        Not a, you know, not a, uh, auspicious start, for sure.

Dre (as Dog):        No, so I, you know, that's — that really is what, what made me realize that, you know, it, it was time for me to put my focus outside the ring.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, you know, there was, uh, if I — we, we can talk openly here, right?

Dre (as Dog):        Hey.

Austin (as Smolder):        The three of us —

Dre (as Dog):        Who's going to tell us know?

Austin (as Smolder):        Hey, you're right. We're the bosses now, right?

Art (as Steam):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, you know I —

Art (as Steam):        No bosses but us and the sponsors.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right. Our federation, your federation. Your association, et cetera. [chuckles] Uh... the... again, I, I — it's hard not to sound like you're getting political these days, and I want to be clear, I'm not weighing in. I'm just explaining the world as a see it. Uh, talking about things that are happening in front of me. It is simply true that Stel Nideo and Stel Kesh made landfall over on Palisade recently, a planet near, uh, it's called the, the Twilight Mirage, is that right? Like, I always get these names wrong. Uh...

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, that sounds right.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, and there were some folks there, uh, who were putting together their own league, uh, and, and — you know, I think it's a complement, in, in a way, that they would come and try to poach you like this. Uh, uh, I just want to make sure. I, you know, we've talked about it, I've done my own research, I've looked into it. Uh, uh, there is a group, uh, there, uh, that is... what we do is for entertainment, right?

Dre (as Dog):        Absolutely.

Austin (as Smolder):        But there is a group there that takes what we do, uh, puts on the show, but then boils it down, uh, into... something else. Data, right? They're, they're doing all the analysis, they're checking out all the moves, they're, you know, building a portfolio of... I don't know, you know. Kinesthetic motion. And then they feed that into, you know, real automated weapons. They're called the, the Anecdatists. Uh, they have a league — the Anecdatist Wrestling Association or whatever, I don't know their particular name. I know that they're a bunch of creeps. Uh, I know that they're try to turn entertainment into, into combat. Uh, uh, the fights there are not, uh, you know, I don't like to use the sort of fan terminology that, that, that they use. I think it gets people a little too... it makes people who don't know much think they know more than they know. But, uh, but, uh, people work not just stiff, but there's, there's suit fights, there's —

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        You know, people are doing stuff in the ring there, using the sorts of weapons we don't allow, uh, uh, pushing things harder. And I know you had a fellow from one of these places come and try to bring you in. Uh, if I'm being honest with you, Dog, I thought you were going to go. Because, you have a reputation as a brawler. You have a history, uh, in the ring as someone who does what needs to get done to ring. Uh, I thought you were going to go.

3:10:41.4        

Dre (as Dog):        Man. That, uh... that hurts a little.

Austin (as Smolder):        It was, it was fear I'll — it was coming from a place of fear. PWA had just shut down, we were only in the first few months of this new thing. And the fan stuff had me shook. I thought maybe you thought, hey, why not — why not go somewhere else, make some extra cash? Uh... you know, for what it's worth, I'm happy that you kept the business relationship open. Uh, you didn't do that match, maybe, but you know you, we do need, you know, we are building, we're a building business. And so I get it, but —

Dre (as Dog):        Sure.

Austin (as Smolder):        I did think maybe you were going to go. So, apologies for thinking that. But I'm glad you didn't.

Dre (as Dog):        No. And, and hey. You know what? With the Apostolosean blockade, I'm not going anywhere, that's for sure, am I right?

Austin (as Smolder):        [chuckles] Yeah, we're all here until, uh, things... change up.

Art (as Steam):        That's how it goes.

Dre (as Dog):        But, no, I mean, I... you know, even if I had the choice, I, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Austin (as Smolder):        You think you're, you'll miss the ring?

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, I mean — every day.

Art (as Steam):        Every day.

Dre (as Dog):        But, uh, you know. Every, uh, every dog goes to heaven.

Austin (as Smolder):        You're not, you're not dead, Dog.

Dre (as Dog):        Well, no, but — you know, the... the, the, —

Austin (as Smolder):        The heaven in the Deep Dish Pizza in the sky, I gotcha.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, uh, the, the WFA is, is my own personal heaven.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm. Every dog goes to heaven — we should get it on a tee shirt.

Art (as Steam):        Every dog goes to heaven.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        And then maybe a 20-woof absolute. 21-woof salute. How many salutes is the guns?

Austin (as Smolder):        They put 21 in there. I'm pretty sure they put, uh, 21 in there. Make them go woof.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah. Yeah. Just, uh, yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Na na, na na.

Art (as Steam):        Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof – I don't know. A lot of woofs.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        [laughing]

Austin:        Sorry, I now do want the Make 'em Say Woof, Master P shirt, also.

Dre:        Yeah, Make 'em Say Woof. Yeah.

Austin:        Yeah.

Art:        Yeah.

3:13:07.3

Art (as Steam):        Well, you got a lot of time to think about tee shirts now.

Dre (as Dog):        Sure.

Austin (as Smolder):        Well, we got this new event coming up. Uh, you know, we are on your local, uh, Palace Recordings every Thursday night. Uh, we have, uh, some incredible, incredible matches, uh, we're doing our best to be transparent in this moment. Lots of stuff is changing everywhere. We're doing our best to keep, uh, keep everybody excited about the action in the ring. Uh... anyone have any upcoming matches they're excited for the folks to see?

Dre (as Dog):        Uh, you know, I'm really excited. Uh, hey, you know what? This, exclusive announcement here.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        This is breaking news.

Art (as Steam):        Breaking news —

Austin (as Smolder):        Doo doot doot doot, doo doo doot doot doot —

Dre (as Dog):        Just this morning, uh, we signed a contract, uh, Brian The Thousand Dollar Man Johnson.

Austin (as Smolder):        Incredible.

Dre (as Dog):        Uh... we'll be, uh, fighting for, uh, the WFA title.

Austin (as Smolder):        It's exciting news. BJ's been working a long time. You know that — you brought BJ to our attention.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        Come a long way.

Dre (as Dog):        And I, you know, I want to make it clear, you know, people are going to accuse me of favoritism, but, uh, you know, I, I think BJ's record speaks for itself.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah. Steam, how about you? Any, any exciting matches on the cards coming up? Get people hyped for?

Art (as Steam):        Uh, to be honest with you... we, uh, we talk about this a lot.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        But I think Dentist Suzuki is going to have a great run coming up. I hear she's got Sensation in a return match.

Austin (as Smolder):        It makes the hair on the back of my head stand up, honestly.

Dre (as Dog):        You know, I never thought we'd see the day.

Austin (as Smolder):        Wait, I don't have hair, I'm Columnar. But, you know, hypothetically.

Dre (as Dog):        If you did.

Austin (as Smolder):        If I did, it would be standing up right now.

Art (as Steam):        You're getting that phantom hair feeling they talk about.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's what they talk about.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, you know, as for me, uh, I'm just excited to see what this next generation of folks, uh, does. You know, there's so many wrestlers who have joined up this the last, the last, you know, month since we first started. People coming to tryouts, people, people showing up. Uh, Gina Gargantua Wong, uh, you know, Sofia Bighands Moreau. Uh, uh, we got that, uh, uh, that guy, a lot of people who I think biting your style, Dog. Steve The Dog Sato, and Buddy Top Dog Wong tried to come in, and we said, listen. There's only room for one Dog in this pound. And that's you.

Art (as Steam):        Well, maybe it's going to take two dogs to replace the... the Dog here.

Austin (as Smolder):        You know, that's a good point. We might need some extra dogs.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah. Hey, you know, when it comes down to it, I, I think of the whole WFA as my kennel.

Austin (as Smolder):        Mmm. Speaking of kennels, by the way, we do have a new sponsor, we can all probably talk about this one. Uh, that is... [chuckling]

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah? [laughing] Yeah, what is it?

Austin (as Smolder):        Pawpaw. It's Pawpaw your... number one animal health and kenneling service. Uh, Pawpaw, P-A-W-P-A-W. Pawpaw. Uh... they have franchises all across Nideo space.

3:16:50.0        Uh, they're great for getting your animal groomed, for getting your animal less dirty. Uh, they do basic veterinarian services. They take care of animals who are sad. They talk them through it, a little bit, you know?

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm.

Art (as Steam):        A real one-stop shop.

Austin (as Smolder):        It's a real one-stop shop for all of your pet needs. Uh, anything you could ever need, uh, you can get from the Pawpaw near you. We don't have —

Art (as Steam):        I hear it's, uh, it's like leaving your pet with their grandfather.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yep. Your Pawpaw.

Art (as Steam):        Your Pawpaw.

Austin (as Smolder):        But, but not a grand — but like, you know, only in the way of like, oh, they care for them. It's not like, they're not actually animals. They're people, who can —

Art (as Steam):        Sure, and they're not like unreasonably old, either.

Austin (as Smolder):        Right. They're just, all sorts of ages.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, all sorts of ages. People who are who are — sound and capable of taking care of your pet.

Austin (as Smolder):        And, uh, we have a couple more before we're done here. Of course, the incense company, uh, uh, which one of you, which one of you does the incense? The incense.

Art (as Steam):        Love the incense.

Austin (as Smolder):        Ah, that's a, that's a steam one, huh? All right well, can you [chuckling], can you tell us about, uh, Aeromatic Fame?

Art (as Steam):        Yeah. Uh, people ask me about incense, and I say, you gotta keep it simple.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Just go for the company that describes what incense is.

Austin (as Smolder):        Aeromatic Flame.

Art (as Steam):        Aeromatic Flame. That's what it is, that's what it does. That's what it can do for you. If you're sitting around thinking, “I got all this air in my house, and it just smells like air.” Not anymore.

Art:        I'm getting a little Mitch Hedberg in here now.

Austin:        [chuckling] A little bit.

Dre:        [laughing]

Art:        Uh, yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        Uh, and finally, our last, our last, uh, sponsor of the evening, uh, uh, this one's great because they do all of the, all the ring gear, uh, any of the, you know, you see us enter on top of the, the shoulder. Uh, you know, we always have great ring gear. And that, of course, is provided by Fiberly. Which is not a food company. There's been come confusion, but —

Dre (as Dog):        No, don't — yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah, it's the — don't eat it.

Dre (as Dog):        You don't want to eat the gear. Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        You don't want that. And, you, what do you think? You know, you're the one who's been in the ring most recent. What do you think about Fiberly's gear, Dog?

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, it's, it is, it is top of the line, state of the art. You know, it is... I've never had gear that was so lightweight, but so durable, you know?

Austin (as Smolder):        Right.

Dre (as Dog):        If, you know, who knows? If I had this back in my day, in the, in the sumo league, I don't, who, who knows if I even would have had that injury.

Austin (as Smolder):        Yeah.

Dre (as Dog):        And, you know, that's, that's our commitment to, to the wrestlers here, is that, you know, we want to give you the best gear, uh, you know, to make sure everybody has the career that maybe we didn't get to have.

3:19:48.5        

Austin (as Smolder):        And speaking of that, uh, I do have one last thing to give you here, Dog. Uh, you can bring it on out, here you go. Could you, could you stand up, Dog, and face the other way?

Dre (as Dog):        Oh, okay, okay, what's this all about?

Austin (as Smolder):        Here we go. Stick out your arms, stick out your arms?

Dre (as Dog):        Okay, all right.

Austin (as Smolder):        There we go. And I'm going to put this jacket on you, you can't — I mean, let me show it to you first. Here we go. It says, it's a, it's a nice leather jacket, like the one you used to wear in the ring gear. And you can see it has the, the Steam and Smolder logo, but now it actually, you can see, it says Steam, Smolder, and Bark. Because that's the new name of the podcast. We're inviting you on full-time. We thought about Steam, Smolder, and Howl. But that was more of a wolf thing and a Dog thing.

Dre (as Dog):        Mm-hm. Yeah.

Art (as Steam):        Yeah.

Austin (as Smolder):        So, we got new art made up for it.

Art (as Steam):        I hope you say yes, because we've put a lot of effort into this branding.

Austin (as Smolder):        That's right.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah, no, I — hey, how, how could I say no? And, you know, even if I was going to, uh, you know, this, this Fiberly jacket definitely would change my mind. So, uh, you know? I'm, I'm ready. I'm ready to, to officially become part of this pack.

Austin (as smolder):        Phew. Thank you so much. It means a lot. I think —

Dre (as Dog):        You know what? Thank, thank both of you for, for being along for this ride.

Art (as Steam):        Been an absolute honor and a pleasure.

Austin (as Smolder):        A joy. That's going to do it for us. As always, what we say here on the podcast, our famous catchphrase. Thanks — thanks for listening!

Art (as Steam):        Thanks for listening.

Austin (as Smolder):        Our federation, and yours. Also yours.

Art (as Steam):        What?

Austin (as Smolder):        [howls][hisses] Steam!

Art (as Steam):        Steam.

Austin (as Smolder):        Smolder.And Bark.

Dre (as Dog):        Bark bark bark!

Austin (as Smolder):        That's our outro music.

Art (as Steam):        You'll get it.

Austin (as Smolder):        You'll get it. Yeah, it's fine.

Dre (as Dog):        Yeah.

Austin:        All right.

Dre:         Jack, if you could just program your, your keyboard to have dog noises that would be —

Austin:        Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be great. That would be useful. Uh, the final page here, I feel like we've kind of done this —

Dre:        [laughing]

Austin:        It says, take a moment and breathe. Did you do it? Did you win the title? Did you finally climb to the top of the mountain? Winning the world title, stairing down at all those who fell before you? Or did you fail? Did your body simply fall away to the test of time, and you discovered there's a limit to how much you can push the human body? You spend months on months working with a new talent, giving them tips to not fall into the same pitfalls you did, advising them on their match ethic, warning them off the bad gimmicks, even going to bat against management for them. But it didn't work. It didn't give you the shot you wanted. And that's okay. When you look back on your career, what would you rather? The bitter recollection of everyone you stepped on the back of along the way, leaving only sourness and hardship for those you worked with and trusted and who trusted you? Or, would you prefer to be someone they speak of in stories with smiles on their faces?

3:22:44.3        The person no one denies buying a round for when they come to watch a show. A wrestler who they will all say, always had time for me. Because that title, uh, you'll be booked to lose it at some point. But seeing the generation of wrestlers come after you and knowing you made this business just a little less demanding for them, have a feeling that'll last longer. My Way.

3:23:12.7        Sorry, I have to, just really quick, uh, get us muted. Just jumping ahead for a second. We just need a little bit of it —

[Limp Bizkit's My Way plays]

Austin:        Right?

Dre:        Oh yeah.

Art:        Yeah.

Austin:        There it is. He has the red, he has the whole red situation going on. I'm not showing it. Because it that would definitely trigger it. We just need a little bit of the hook? Right? Okay, this is... kind of far away. I should have been playing this while we were talking. Thanks for listening, everybody. We should do our outro over this.

Dre:        Yeah, totally.

Austin:        Where can people find you on the internet, Art?

Art:        Oh, sorry, I was listening to this song on the stream. You can find me on —

Dre:        Yeah, [chuckling] me too.

Art:        Twitter at @atebbel and on co-host at AMTebbel, uh, allegedly.

Austin:        Allegedly. I'm @austin_walker on Twitter. I am on co-host. I'm on co-host at just Austin. I just got Austin, over there.

Dre:        Oh.

Art:        Oh, not justAustin. Like you're — just Austin.

Austin:        Just, just Austin. Only, only Austin. @Austin on co-host. How about you, Dre?

Dre:        Oh, only — OnlyAustins is a different —

Austin:        [chuckles] That's a different website. Yeah. That's an Alt. That's my Alt.

Dre:        Uh, you can, you can find me on Twitter at @swandre3000.

Austin:        And you can find all, everything we do, friendsatthetable.cash,@friends_table on Twitter, friendsatthetable not on co-host yes, and I feel like we don't even update our, our Twitter enough, which — to then —

Dre:        No. [laughing]

Austin:        Commit to being on co-host at this point.

Art:        Well, we're having some talks about [unintelligible]

Austin:        We're having some talks, yeah.

Art:        In that area.

Dre:        Yeah.

Art:        And, uh, go to notquitereal.bandcamp.com, where I'm sure you can hear Jack's cover of My Way by Limp Bizkit.

Austin:        [chuckles]

Art:        Available now.

Dre:        God, I hope.

Austin:        [laughing] I wish. I truly wish.

Dre:        What a dream.

Austin:        Ugh. Thank you all for joining us. Uh, as always, you can support us, friendsatthetable.cash. Thank you, have a great remainder of your weekend. Bye bye bye.

Dre:        [Fred Durst voice] Yeah!

Austin:        [chuckling]