Wednesday PWTorch Livecast with Pat McNeill
Special Guests: Former WWE star Nick Dinsmore (“Eugene”)
Aired Live: January 20, 2016
DIRECT LINK TO LISTEN/DOWNLOAD
Recap by Dominic DeAngelo
SUBJECTS COVERED
– Nick Dinsmore & Midwest All-Pro Wrestling
– The Eugene Character
– Royal Rumble Speculation
TIME STAMPS OF MATCH COVERAGE
(2:40) Pat McNeill intro
(9:45) Nick Dinsmore intro
(13:30) Any WWE plans for Eugene to turn heel?
(15:25) Any funny “out of the ring” Eugene stories?
(16:05) Has Nick ever been in a movie?
(17:15) Does it make sense for Finn Balor to turn heel?
(19:10) Did “Eugene” ever help promote the Special Olympics?
(20:05) Working with William Regal
(20:50) Wrestling Shane & Vince
(23:00) Working for WCW
(24:40) Training & running his own wrestling promotion
(27:00) Most surprising part of running a promotion?
(30:00) Was his match against Benoit his best match?
(33:45) Who wins the Rumble?
(34:00) Thoughts on how WWE treats today’s “character” wrestlers?
(37:38) Pat McNeill with new special guest Boris from Chicago
(44:00) Pat’s Rumble prediction
(45:15) Who told Eugene he was doing that gimmick?
(45:55) Would a “smart Eugene” world title heel turn worked?
(47:00) A.J. Styles’ chances of appearing in the Rumble?
(49:10) Any last minute changes for the Rumble?
(54:00) Triple H wins Rumble to face both Lesnar & Reigns at WrestleMania?
(56:13) Stay away from Hogan?
(57:20) Livecast Poll: Who wins the Rumble?
(58:40) Boris rained on Nick’s party? / Rousey still at WrestleMania
(48:45) Working with Bro-Mans
(49:50) Training with Abel Adams
(51:20) Being in the Iraq War
(52:55) A.J. Styles, Jeff Jarrett & Samoa Joe
(55:40) Who else would Gunner like to work with?
(56:40) What’s with all the injuries in WWE?
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
– Dinsmore’s promotion, Midwest All-Pro Wrestling, has a show taking place Friday night in Sioux Falls, S.D. He’ll be special referee between Heather Patera and Shayla Baylor. Carlito will also be there. Visit midwestallpro.com for ticket information.
– Did WWE have plans for Eugene to turn heel? They attempted it when they had Eugene turn on Jim Duggan, but it just didn’t work. The duo also pitched to be tag team champs going into WrestleMania, but that also never panned out.
– Any funny moments when Nick played the Eugene character in public? One time he was walking into a building and a woman was in front of him. He was with William Regal at the time and Regal asks him “What does a man do for a woman at the door, Eugene?” In character he picks up a potted plant and holds the door for her. Regal got a kick out of that.
– Emailer asks does it make sense for Finn Balor to turn heel, especially since he’s on such a hot babyface run? Doesn’t making him feud with his old faction, The Bullet Club, make more sense? Pat says that could be part of their plan, they might not even put him on the main roster yet. Nick says WWE can make anything they want to happen, and if Balor is that hot as a babyface he’ll be that hot as a heel.
– Pat brings up Nick’s NXT training resume. He did it for over a year-and-a-half. He says Triple H patterned the Performance Center after the New York Giants’s training facility. Nick himself learned so much from the experience, both as a wrestler and as a businessman.
– Pat mentions the Eugene-William Regal storyline: how important was Regal in making that successful? He was the whole part, Nick says. If it wasn’t for him the story never would have worked and it was beautifully done. He never would have gotten as over as big if it wasn’t for Regal.
– How was it wrestling Shane and Vince? His main goal wasn’t to hurt the boss, but that was a great storyline, too. Eugene was tormented throughout that whole episode of Raw, but he ends up winning in the end.
– What ere Nick’s memories of working for WCW? He remembers just standing there taking in the atmosphere. Any matches more memorable than the others? He wrestled Scott Steiner on Nitro, Juventud Guerrera, Norman Smiley (who was also a trainer with him in NXT), and Wrath to name a few – none really stand out more than the others, though.
– Training and running a promotion in South Dakota was Nick’s goal. His wife is a former Miss South Dakota and she’s running for Miss America this year. How many classes has he run? They just finished up a semester.
– What was the most surprising part of running a promotion? Self-marketing and connecting with the community is a huge part – a portion of Midwest All Pro’s ticket sales will go to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Sioux Falls.
– Was his match against Chris Benoit his best match? Who’s to say what a best match is? He’s had favorite matches and a lot that were important to his career. Pat asks what his favorite matches were? Many with Rob Conway, because they had good chemistry, his matches with Doug Basham, and wrestling with Triple H and Kurt Angle. All of them were his favorite.
– PWTorch Poll asks who wins the Royal Rumble? Nick says South Dakota’s own, Brock Lesnar. He’d love to see Seth Rollins get back in time to reignite their feud at WrestleMania. Pat says that would be a possibility if Rollins is able to walk under his own power.
– Boris from Chicago asks Nick his thoughts on how WWE treats today’s “character” wrestlers. Nick says it all depends on the performer. He says a lot of guys can’t handle it. Guys like Cena and Reigns can, but not everybody can lead the main event.
– Boris’s fantasy booking to win the Royal Rumble is Kevin Owens. His WrestleMania title match would be Owens against Lesnar. Nick thinks he’s crazy and Pat says that’s a whole different story.
– Nick suddenly drops off to do the 5 o’clock news in Sioux Falls. He plugs his Friday show one more time and then he’s gone.
– It’s just Pat & Boris now. Boris goes the New Japan route. He thinks New Japan is handling the departures beautifully by pushing Kenny Omega and the gang. How would Pat handle the changes? He hasn’t been on the pulse of it, but they have options – NOAH to rely on and using the Mexico guys as well. Pat’s not seeing anything he’s super excited with, but him and Boris agree that they’re making changes.
– What about WWE with Damien Sandow? He’s someone the fans are behind and Boris thinks that he’d get more cheers than Roman. Pat says they haven’t even seen him on Superstars so he assumes they’re not planning to push him. Boris asks if they are perhaps holding people down to protect Reigns? Pat says there are guys like Owens and Ambrose getting cheers, plus the potential of Orton and Daniel Bryan returning, but the question is will fans be excited to see someone like Orton long-term or will they only be excited just for those couple minutes? Pat heard a horrible idea of having Damien Bryan-dow which kills Boris.
– What’s Pat’s prediction for Royal Rumble? If it was Pat he’d have Reigns win it or have Lesnar win it outright, but either way have Lesnar vs. Reigns at Mania. Vegas has Triple H, which sounds very WWE.
– Pat begins fielding questions that were directed towards Nick since he dropped off so suddenly. First question was who told Eugene he was doing that gimmick? Pat says it was actually Nick & Rip Rogers’s idea. Rogers based it of an autistic person he knew so Nick went in with that gimmick and WWE ran with it.
– Brian from Hamilton sends in an email saying that WWE botched a great opportunity with Eugene – they should have had him drop the facade and have him go on an intelligent heel run as Bichoff’s champion. What does Nick (a/k/a Pat McNeill) think? He thinks WWE would be very uncomfortable with doing that because he did the gimmick for two years and it could have been a touchy subject, especially with today’s PG environment. It maybe could have worked and with WWE’s mentality, Pat’s surprised they didn’t try it.
– Mike from Brooklyn asks what are A.J. Styles’s chances of appearing in the Rumble? Pat has a hunch that this is going to be a last-minute decision. He knows the original plan was to have the Bullet Club and be an NXT thing, but the roster is so short-stocked that they need guys like Styles and Nakamura pretty quickly. His guess is they hold off on Styles maybe wrestling in the Rumble, but he makes an appearance, and they have him debut on Raw in Miami. Or they could be bringing him down for NXT. We’ll probably know more by Saturday morning.
– Mike’s curious if there will be any last-minute changes to the show. Pat says WWE keeps tabs of what the Vegas odds are and perhaps if they see that odds heavily favor Triple H, they could change it, but Reigns has only held the title for a month so making those changes may not be beneficial. Mike asks what if Reigns wins the Rumble, but then they have him wrestle in a match right after that? His final question is what are Pat’s top five potential matches for WrestleMania? He’d do Reigns vs. Lesnar, Undertaker vs. Sheamus, Bray Wyatt vs. Orton, Ambrose vs. Jericho, and Mike says A.J. vs. Bryan. Pat says he honestly thinks that if Bryan comes back then it will be him vs. Owens, but Styles and Bryan would also work. Something that would also work would be if they’re serious about Triple H vs. Reigns, then WWE has enough time to promote Lesnar vs. Nakamura.
– Mike also asks about the Dudleys – did they just bring them back to job them out? Pat thinks they are done with whatever idea they had for them.
– What if Triple H wins the Rumble to face both Lesnar & Reigns in a triple threat match at WrestleMania? Pat hasn’t thought about that, but the main problem would it be it being a triple threat match. Will all respect to Triple Lesnar vs. Reigns would be the best match for WrestleMania.
– John from New York thinks WWE should stay away from Hogan, because he’ll take credit for the attendance record, among other things.
– Caller Fred thinks Boris from Chicago soured Nick with his “lower-mid-card” discussion and that’s why he suddenly dropped off. Not cool, Boris.
– Will Rousey still make an appearance at WrestleMania? Pat thinks something where she gets the best of Stephanie could still happen, but no actual match. And that’s a wrap for the show.
SCORE & REVIEW
7.5: Unexpected occurrences can be detrimental or beneficial depending on how things are handled and the suddenness of Nick Dinsmore dropping off was the latter, not because he was a bad guest (I actually thought he was very entertaining with his “promoter plugs” and insight), but because it mixed things up. Pat just riffing with Boris was a fun turn of events and then going improv by fielding Eugene questions is a testament to Pat’s hosting ability. Obviously this was a show with a heavy Royal Rumble focus, but initially we heard Dinsmore’s thoughts on promotion, training and wrestling. His answers were sometimes vague and short, but other times they were informative. He sounded happy to be on the show and if I had to venture a guess – him dropping off was not due to Boris’s question, but that he actually had to do the 5 o’clock news. I’d say tune in even if you’re not a Eugene fan – this has plenty of content to appease those who are ready to Rumble (pun so intended).
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