Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the Busted Open Podcast. This is Dave LaGreca. On today's episode, myself and Bully Ray dive into the releases, 23 of them, in the WWE. Our reaction right now on the Busted Open Podcast.
Chapter 2: What recent WWE talent releases are discussed in this episode?
This is the busted open podcast. Bo Dallas, Nikki Cross, Joe Gacy, Eric Rowan and Dexter Loomis. And it's funny, Bully. I remember coming off of Monday Night Raw on a Tuesday where you and I started off the show and talked about it. for pretty much more than half the show, and that was when the Wyatt Six first game to Monday Night Raw, and they laid everyone to waste.
Remember, we thought they killed Chad Gable in the gorilla position, and we were like, wow. But the follow-up, I don't even know if you could call the follow-up a follow-up. They had that great debut on Monday Night Raw, and then it just completely fell off from there to the point here we're talking about each member of the Wyatt Six now being released by the WWE. What happened?
Can you remember something so big and talked about? Day one completely falling off. Not on day 132, but day two, Bully. It just felt like they never knew how to follow up that great debut that they had on Monday Night Raw.
What were they supposed to do with them? You have a group, there were five or six people in the group, maniacs, that they tried to humanize a little bit through vignettes. It never really worked other than the surface shock and awe. Like we see the entrance, very, very, you know, it looks like something out of a horror movie in Hollywood.
Oh my God, this person, they laid out this person, they got rid of this person. Chad Gable looked like he had such blunt force trauma to the head that he should have never been back on TV. This amazing entrance, the... People obviously still feeling very sentimental about Bray Wyatt. We get this amazing thing. Great. Now what? There never was a now what?
Now, I'm not sure if there never was a now what because they didn't think past it, which I don't think they would have done. You can't put that much time, effort, and production into something with not having some kind of a follow-up in mind, right? It wouldn't make sense to have that big of a debut of a group not to have a follow-up, correct? Yes.
Could something have happened in between the very brief debut and planned follow-up that could have derailed their success?
I know there was that ill-fated picture of the entire group posing like I think it was that same night that they made their debut at Whataburger. Now, could that have been the catalyst? All I know is Bully, like you just said, you put all this time and effort, production, the roster laid out. It was the way Monday Night Raw ended with this big cliffhanger. Are these wrestlers still alive?
What did we just see? What if you were in charge of everything? And we know Hunter is very hands-on with every talent there. What if you're the guy that was extremely hands-on in each one of these characters? the production of how everything came together, the way the scenes were shot, the amount of blood, the way people were laid out, the lighting, the music.
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Chapter 3: What led to the downfall of the Wyatt Six in WWE?
There was a little bit more stuff here and there. And then towards the end, there was a feud with the MFT.
Yeah, that was the end. That was the last, I guess, like four or five months, right?
My concern with a group like that was, well, what do you do once the bell rings? To me, once the house lights go on, all the mystique is now gone. You basically have a bunch of men and women like in a gimmicky gimmick. And for Bray Wyatt to pull it off was one thing. One guy, Bray and Alexa, to me, worked.
It wasn't like the original Wyatt family, where we knew there were a bunch of men, a family of, I don't know, weirdos, oddities, whatever you want to call them, who had come together. And the original Wyatt family really, really worked. Yes. But even when he transitioned into the Fiend, it got a little shaky.
The red light during the matches, it was very heavy on, you know, the thing with Randy Orton, that pay-per-view match, was it Randy or Cena? No, it was Randy.
It was Randy at WrestleMania 33.
And then the Funhouse match would seem like it was always a little wonky. It never felt like once the bell rang, it lived up to what it was during the promos and vignettes, right?
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
And that was with Bray. How were things going to be different for the Wyatt Sixx?
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Chapter 4: What were the expectations for the Wyatt Six after their debut?
And when we say the bell has to ring and they have to wrestle, doesn't mean that I didn't think that they can't wrestle. Rowan, very good wrestler. Bo, very good wrestler. Dexter Loomis, very good wrestler. Nikki Cross, very good wrestler. Joe Gacy, very good wrestler. Sorry if I left one of them out. They're all good wrestlers. We get that. But it's how those personas would come across.
Are these maniacs supposed to sell? It's very hard for that to translate in the ring. So at the end of the day, am I shocked that the Wyatt Six are no longer here? No, I'm not shocked. However, I would have never gotten rid of Bo Dallas. Bo Dallas is the link to Bray. I would have kept Bo Dallas around. I would have kept Bo Dallas around and I would have kept the character doing something.
Even if Uncle Howdy, for the rest of his WWE career, was always trying to find a way to talk to Bray Wyatt, to The Fiend one more time. And that was his entire story and his entire quest. Because the last time we saw The Fiend was in a WWE ring or in the WWE ring, So Uncle Howdy was always searching the WWE for the door, for the Stargate to find the Fiend. And we always saw him.
And as we move along in his story, somebody's always trying to stop him or tell him he can't find him or whatever. I would have kept Bo Dallas around. This goes way beyond business. This goes beyond a bottom line in dollars and cents. To me, keeping Bo Dallas around would have been the right thing to do.
Yeah, and Bully, I always go, and we talk about this a million times on the show, real, just being real. It frustrated and angered me when Dusty Rhodes passed. And they kept that Stardust gimmick on Cody. Like, why not have Cody talk from the heart as the son of Dusty Rhodes? And that would have gotten us emotionally invested in Cody Rhodes.
Just strip that gimmick away from him and let him just be Cody Rhodes. And they didn't do that. And then eventually he had to leave the WWE. Same thing here with Bo. How about giving us the real Bo Dallas? Giving us the real brother and having those emotions shine through. Bray Wyatt was loved by the pro wrestling fans. And here's his brother. Let's be real.
They tried to redo the Fiend character, which I don't think worked in the first place. How about just giving us the real man himself who lost his brother and let that shine through? I don't get it.
And even if you kept him around for, let's say, another year or two, where the real Bo Dallas could have said, hey, I'm really, you know...
bray's brother you know like come you know come totally clean with the men behind the characters i miss my brother so much i know every fan misses him become real emotional about it and say you know my brother went on to become a champion the last thing my brother said to me is bo i hope you win another championship here in the wwe or whatever the words would have been
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Chapter 5: How did the follow-up to the Wyatt Six debut impact their storyline?
I should have been a little bit more clear. When was the last time that we have talked about a talent... When was the last time we spoke about a talent doing the job in their debut match? That... We haven't. We haven't. Do you remember the show after Zoey Stark debuted and she lost? I don't even remember who she lost to. All I remember was Zoey Stark looking as good as she did.
I was like, wow, this girl caught my eye. This girl impressed me. And when we did have Zoey on, she told us the story about how she caught somebody else's eye that night too. Do you remember who that was? No. Shawn Michaels. There you go. Zoey Stark from day one had my attention because of her athleticism, her ability, her fire, the look in her, whatever it was.
I'm going to make a comparison right now just so people understand how Zoey caught my eye. Zoey caught my eye the same way Kendall Gray did. And I didn't know who the hell Kendall Gray was. But when she pulled those straps down in the garden, I was like, wow. But she was in the garden, and she was pulling her straps down while she was firing up.
Zoe caught my eye in the piece, wherever they film NXT, at the NXT arena, doing the job. So we see this girl progress. She does a great job in NXT. At least I thought she did a great job in NXT. She gets to the main roster and then things don't, things, they're not going as well. And this is when Vince is still in charge, correct? Yes.
So, listen, we always say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe Vince didn't see it. Maybe there really was nothing there.
No, you know what? I'm sorry to interrupt, but I think that was definitely during the Triple H regime, if I think about it. I think she did come up. It's right around toe in that line, but it might have been during the Triple H. But, Bully, I think this is where you look at the injury. Where would Zoey Stark be right now if it wasn't for that injury?
I don't know because she wasn't doing very much before the injury. She was part of the mid-card. She was part of a group. They put them all in black. It's like they never really knew what they wanted to do with her. I knew she stood out in NXT just because of her wrestling ability and her athleticism. I really didn't see her stand out on the main roster.
Now, once you get to the main roster, you're not... There's a different set of rules and the way you have the match, and there's a different set of pressure. Regardless, you blow your knee out in the ring. Severe injury. ACL, PCL, DCL, your sister's ass DCL. Everything goes wrong, your knee explodes. And all you can think about when you have that injury is,
is coming back and how quickly you can come back. And I gotta come back quickly so they don't forget about me. And I gotta train hard every day. I gotta do my rehab as hard as I can every day. So they're giving good reports back to the office and saying, Zoe's coming along, Zoe's coming along. She's getting better. Her knee's gonna be even stronger when she comes back. And after a year,
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