Transcript of Previewing Noche De Los Grandes | Postgame Show New

Harper is not healthy, correct? This is breaking the way that the Knicks need this to break, by having these teams physically break before they get to the Knicks. After this particular season, when we've spent this much time talking about injuries, load management, guys being out, billions of dollars in salary, uh, being on the bench and not able to play, the Knicks are remarkably healthy. Remarkably healthy for this time of year, and Harper hasn't reached double digits since Game 2, and he's wildly important to that basketball team, obviously. Trista, how is your Spanish?

Ooh, it depends who's asking.

Noche de los Grandes. Do you want to try and translate that? Do you know what that means?

Noche de los Grandes. Grand, so big. Noche, is that night?

Yes, very good.

The big night.

Well, no, you botched it at the end. The night of the giants.

Oh, the night of, oh yes, de los, yeah, of the, yeah. There we go.

Yes, you lost confidence there while getting everything right. It's a strange thing to have happen, but Zaz, do you know what, do you know what Zaz and Mike are excited about when I say Noche de los Grandes? Do you have any idea?

Not at all.

What a night it's going to be.

Can't wait to teach everybody about this.

Oh, this is going to be a lot. Me and my son, we can't wait for AAA on Saturday night.

I haven't been this excited for a wrestling card ever, ever, ever. And I think part of the reason why I didn't like wrestling going into baseball was because if wrestling goes everywhere else, then it dilutes what wrestling is for me. Because when done right, Wrestling can be something so special.

This is so unique what's going on in Mexico, Dan, with, with this, uh, with this wrestler El Grande Americano.

Now there is a lot going on because, Dan, there are two Grande Americanos. Yep, an OG and El Grande Americano. So in America, these wrestlers are not even mid-carders in WWE. Yeah, they are curtain-jerkers. They do not register with the audience.

Doesn't get a ton of crowd reaction.

But the WWE recently purchased AAA, which is a huge promotion in Mexico.

That's where the luchadores wrestle.

All of this was born, and I'm gonna try to do this so you can all be bought in because this is airing this weekend, and when I'm telling you, you will never see a more passionate wrestling crowd than you are gonna see in Monterrey during La Noche de los Grandes.

Mexico does wrestling better than us, correct? Oh my God.

I mean, we do wrestling pretty well.

I'm not saying we don't, but Mexico does it better, doesn't it?

Oh, it's a major part of their culture. They all wear, or most of them, they wear masks, and the masks are a very, very big deal.

I want to say something racist right now.

Don't say taco.

The masks are a very big deal when it comes to their wrestlers. And, and the biggest match, Dan, that you could possibly have in Mexico is a mask versus mask match. And what happens is the loser gets his mask removed, which is the ultimate insult if you have to lose your mask.

I still remember seeing Rey Mysterio's face for the first time.

It's the ultimate insult. You lose the mask and you can never put it back on. It's almost like a death sentence for your career.

So the question has to be asked, who are Los Grandes? Well, neither of them is actually Mexican, but one of them is super Mexican. It's, it's— all right, so this all started when a wrestler by the name of Chad Gable, a former Olympian by the way, a decorated amateur wrestler, came up with this new gimmick to play both Chad Gable and, according to the rumors and innuendo and the body type and all all circumstantial evidence. He was also El Grande Americano.

He wanted to learn the secrets of lucha libre.

That's right. But he would keep kayfabe. Uh, he— they would often be seen in the same room together. He— the whole secret was Chad Gable can't be El Grande Americano. But as this angle was getting super over, Chad Gable sustained a serious injury, and it's— it seemed as though this was going to stop all the momentum of El Grande Americano.

No, you'd be wrong.

However, a new Grande Americano showed up.

Out of nowhere.

A week later, pretending to be the same Grande Americano, and we were like, "Oh, what's going on here?" Even though this El Grande Americano is like a foot taller.

And also—

Like when you lose your goldfish and they try to give you a new goldfish.

Yes, but only this goldfish is German, clearly. He's a German man who speaks a lot of languages including Spanish. And so he took this gimmick over to Mexico and was beloved.

When I tell you he's beloved, he's their Hulk Hogan.

Show the video of El Grande Americano, not, not the El Original Grande Americano. We'll get to him in a second. Look, a hero's welcome after his true persona allegedly got arrested a day before for beating up a dude in an elevator who said something to him while he was making out with his girlfriend. Now on the surface, that already seems pretty awesome. But as the rumor goes—

Listen to this.

—the person in the elevator that was telling him, "Hey, have some manners," was also threatening to call ICE on his Mexican girlfriend. So this guy seems like all sorts of badass and he's not actually receiving any penalty whatsoever by WWE. He showed up the very next day and if this guy could be an even bigger hero to the Mexican people, he just went to another stratosphere. However, he was super over in Mexico when this whole gimmick is supposed to kind of make fun of Mexicans, but he embraced the culture. He loves it. Speaks the language. He's the biggest dude there. However, Chad Gable returned from injury, and that meant so did his Grande Americano.

You can't have two El Grandes.

And he started attacking the new Grande Americano, started making comments disrespectfully at El Grande Americano's girlfriend. This is when the original Grande Americano walks the streets of Mexico. Listen to this, Dan.

That's a villain.

For the audio audience, his security was also wearing masks.

Two security guys also wearing masks.

This just makes me want to watch Nacho Libre. Am I a dick?

His security guys there are called— his security guys are called Julio and Bruto. No one here is Mexican.

In fact, El Grande has his own posse and they're British dudes. Like, and it all on the surface seems to play to stereotypes, but the Mexican people are eating it up. And this is— this is a culture war. The original Grande Americano cannot go over the new Grande Americano, who is the biggest sensation in the history of Mexican wrestling it would appear. No, that's— that was just Tris's regular voice.

That's not— Mil Máscaras is the biggest guy.

I'm telling you, yes, I know Mil Máscaras. I follow Lucha Libre. I'm telling you, in my lifetime, I have not seen the Mexican wrestling fan respond to this. And you would think that they would reject the WWE's ownership of AAA, but they are embracing this storyline. El Grande Americano has become a Mexican hero. It is actually heartwarming and touching to see the connection he has to these people.

Do you know who's in charge of AAA now since WWE? Like, who books it? Who's in charge of making the matches?

Undertaker. So all of this culminates with La Noche de los Grandes Saturday night, and it's Saturday night, and you will never see a more raucous wrestling atmosphere in your life. I promise you that. Someone's losing their mask. We are going to find out who one of these grandes are this Saturday, 7 PM.

That's Sábado.

Thank you, Zazz. Did you say— you said his security, their names were Julio and Bruto.

Bruto is dumb guy.

The translation is idiot.

That's right.

There is no reason that this should be super over with the Mexican people because it all started as a joke and kind of like an insult to get him heat. And especially in these times, to be proudly American, it was playing to all these tropes. But what nobody accounted for was a performer who assumed the identity of El Grande Americano becoming so beloved, becoming so over, learning the culture.

He's never been a popular wrestler in WWE. Never, ever.

And what's so weird is on the weekends you watch this, it's on YouTube. You watch these programs. These guys are red hot. It's like Hulk Hogan in the '80s.

It's, it's, it's like Hulk Hogan.

And then you'll tune in on Netflix on Raw and no reaction from the American crowd. They have no idea. Simultaneously, they're like one of the most lukewarm acts you could think of in America, but piping nuclear hot in Mexico.

Greg Cody, you have been silent this entire segment. Your opinion— breathing— on wrestling are well known, uh, negative. Uh, what are your thoughts about what you just heard and the immense enthusiasm that Zazz and Mike Ryan have for this?

Um, I want to get clear The loser is demasked and can never again wear a mask.

Never again. That's a rule. Like, that's right. And they somehow got this entire thing over despite everyone knowing exactly who these two performers are. Well, this is still meaning something.

When you mentioned the '80s, like, you're making me smile because one of my great childhood memories, okay, are Dusty Rhodes lost a loser-leave-town match, and I was crushed. He was my favorite wrestler.

I'm like, what do you mean loser leaves town? That means his career is over. But then a guy with the same lisp wearing a mask known as the Midnight Rider showed up, and it was clearly Dusty Rhodes. He had the same stretch marks, he had the same accent, and everyone spent the matches trying to take off his mask. So my favorite thing that happened to the Midnight Rider was he was defeated, someone did take off his mask, but he was wearing another mask, and then he won the match because no one was expecting him to have another mask beneath the original mask.

Who, uh, is Goldust? Who is this guy?

That's the other son. Yeah, that's the other son. You'll remember Ric Flair also tried this with the Black Scorpion, one of Sting's greatest rivals, where the Black Scorpion was actually played by someone that wasn't Ric Flair until it came time for the main match, and then was actually strutting and doing all the signature Ric Flair moves and was very clearly Ric Flair. And I think Tony Schiavone tells the story one time he was trying out the mask and invited— he's like, Tony, very drunk, hey, come upstairs, I want you to see the Black Scorpion thing that I got. Come here, come here, Tony. And Tony's like, I'm not going up there, you're going to show me your dick. And he's like, no, no, come up here, it's not going to be my dick, I want to show you. So he goes up to Ric Flair's room and Ric Flair is wearing a robe and the Black Scorpion mask and he's like, it's my dick.

Uh, Juju, uh, get us caught up on polls and do you have any top 5 lists for us here today.

Yes, sir. After a very egregious mistake by someone yesterday, I don't know who it was, it made me think of a top 5 most mispronounced names in sports list. All right, number 5. When he got drafted, he had the world in shambles. Tua Tagovailoa.

Tago.

I, uh, I, I did a public speaking engagement with him at the Super Bowl, was practicing his name on the way over there, and when I got there, I just kept calling him Tua.

Never, never even tried Tongivailoa. Number 4, when he got drafted, same situation, even now with Pat Riley, Victor Wembenyama. Wemba ya! Number 3, Giannis Antetokounmpo. Number 2, Coach K. Really? Still? And number 1, a soccer player named Hamas.

It's a bad mistake and a great mistake. Weird. Uh, let's get to the polls at Le Batard Show.

Is it Detroit or Detroit? 49% of the audience, not the winner, says Detroit. Very close.

I don't understand what you just did. I felt like you said them both. Isn't it Detroit or Detroit? Which one won? Detroit or the Detroit?

Detroit won, and full disclosure, I got a little nervy right there.

It's actually French in origin. It should be de toi.

Does weight add baritone to your voice? 81% of the audience says yes, it does. Wow. Does God know what time it is? Between the lines, 70% of the audience says yes, he does. Did you know that there were friendly mutton chops? 76% of the audience says yes, they did. Wow. Is the media treating Wimby like a 7-foot-6-inch Fabergé egg? 86% of the audience says yes. Do you feel clean when you get out of a pool? 72% of the audience says no. And last poll, are we still making Hispanic Abners? 64% of the audience says no. And those are your polls.

Thank you. Let's put the punctuation on the show. With Greg Cody's best moment today. I'm good now, Joker.