Hey now, some difficult news to start today's show, which will eventually be our ultimate preview for WWE payback.

Just moments before we hit the air tonight, we learned that legendary, especially at this point, actor, Chadwick Boseman, was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer four years ago and died

tonight at the young, way too young age of 43. And yes, this is a professional wrestling podcast

and, you know, we do talk entertainment in the cross section of sports as well. But Chris and

Chris Vanini is joining me on today's show.

This just struck us exceptionally hard, I think, because of Chadwick's relevance in pop culture,

the immediacy that this came right after the end of Smackdown.

We were really on a massive high, very, very excited to do the show.

We've delayed taping for an extended period of time for us to emotionally feel good to tape this.

And when you think about this guy, Chadwick Boseman, who was, as I just said, diagnosed with stage three colon

cancer. Four years ago, he has spent the last four years of his life making basically

10 major motion pictures, including four Marvel movies. And one more and another film is taped

and on its way out. He helped tell black stories as American stories. There's a

generation of children growing up who will think of his face when re-watching him portray

these legends, maybe even when thinking about them for the first time, you know,

there's only so many times you see Thurgood Marshall or Jackie Robinson or James Brown. So

when you think of them, oftentimes you think of people who have portrayed them. And that person

is Chadwick Boseman. And the way, of course, that Black Panther is a superhero movie, yes,

but it transcended culture and told a lot of black children and black people across America and

across the world that, you know, being a superhero isn't about the color of your skin. It's

really not to paraphrase Martin Luther King. I'm not trying to do that, but it's about the color of your skin. It's really not to paraphrase Martin Luther King,

I'm not trying to do that, but it's about the content of your character. Anyone can be super.

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