Hello and welcome to our lightning talk titled Sowing Seeds for Sustainability – How a Small Grant Helped a Library Let OER Initiative Grow. My name is Sarah Tabay and along with Kirk Snyder and Tim Ballenta today, we will talk about a grant we received from the Network of the National Library of Medicine that we used to boost our OER initiative with. We will share our experience in creating the Faculty Fellowship Program, train the Trainer Library Workshop and the OER Committee. We will talk about our successes and challenges during the grant period, hoping to share valuable lessons for those of you who are interested to take a similar route towards sustainability and growth of your OER projects. I will start and then Kirk and Tim will follow. Open Tour is our Library's OER initiative that we started in 2018 at one of the tourist campuses in Manhattan. Right from the start we had some success with the number of our undergraduate departments, including psychology, speech and communication, business and a few others. We started our OER project without any kind of financial support and as such we couldn't offer our interest at faculty any incentives. Still, as of Spring 2020 we saved our students over $103,000. This is before we got the grant. So with the grant we were hoping to build momentum and like every other OER initiative we wanted to expand our project but more importantly we were concerned about the sustainability of it. This we tried to achieve through educating our Health Sciences faculty and training our Library staff across tour campuses. Health Sciences programs have grown at tour in recent years. At the same time we all know that Open Educational Resources are not abundant when it comes to the Health Sciences disciplines. By getting a grant we were also hoping to be able to provide an incentive for the Health Sciences faculty to create or adapt or adopt OER. Now historically Tourer College encourages service to the under-resourced communities. So aiming to support our under-represented students by helping to reduce money they spend on course materials and route to a career in Health Sciences which have become popular fills it remain expensive was a no-brainer. Obviously the pandemic was the biggest challenge we had to deal with. Many faculty members were overwhelmed with preparing and transitioning to remote teaching. Recruiting therefore became the biggest challenge. We had to do targeted outreach, extend the deadline for applications and even expand our pool of applicants and reach out to a wider range of disciplines. For example it was only in the second round of announcing the Faculty Fellowship that reached out to the MBA in healthcare management program. In other words we needed to become a bit creative. Another challenge was that none of us on the team had any grant experiences. Grants in general complex and involved reporting and manoeuvring financial systems that we didn't have much understanding of. If possible add an experienced grant person to your team. Knowledge of the culture of an institution and access to senior management are important and were in fact essential in moving our project forward. Budget for time, lots of it. Documenting every step and every conversation throughout the grant process is essential. In our case it helped to mitigate the effects of losing a key team member in the middle of our grant project. If we apply for a grant again we will allocate a more generous stipend for faculty. And finally though we had the courage, optimism and support to apply for a grant we also had to learn quite a lot on this bumpy road. All of which makes us feel that we are ready for another grant and this time we will have a much smoother ride. Kirk will continue now with more details. Thank you Sarah. I'm Kirk Snyder OER and Instruction Librarian. Through the grant we created the OER Health Sciences and Allied Health Faculty Fellowship. The fellowship supported the work of five faculty members in the health sciences to adopt, adapt or create OER for use in their courses. Over six months the library trained the fellows on the basics of OER through monthly Zoom meetings where we presented on topics like OER platforms, repositories, creative commons licenses and accessibility and interactivity. Between meetings we worked with fellows one on one as needed sharing resources and guiding them through the process of selecting, adapting and creating OER. Now a few words about and from the fellows. The work of our fellows has increased access to education and the health sciences across our institution and particularly for the underserved. Their projects are diverse. Some are designed for high enrollment courses which is great for student savings. Some were motivated by equity and serving the underserved. Some were focused on not only the education of their students but impacting the surrounding community outside our institution. The projects include adopting textbooks, courseware and modules from a variety of sources and some original OER creation. The fellowship has given a big boost and a lot of traction to our OER initiative. Our fellows saved Turo students more than $100,000 so far in just the one year period of the fellowship. This has nearly doubled the impact of our entire OER program. When the fellowship period began our students had saved a little over $100,000 on textbooks since we began promoting OER in 2018. And today total savings at our institution are up to nearly $240,000. The fellowship has aided the sustainability of our OER initiative having the effect of scaling up our entire OER program. The increased impact that the fellows bring will keep the growth of our program on its upward trajectory into the future. One aspect that will help with sustainability and growth is that faculty potentially have more influence over each other than we as librarians do in advocating for OER. As a part of the fellowship we created OER ambassador plaques for our fellows to aid in outreach and promotion. Having faculty as OER ambassadors makes librarians no longer the gatekeepers of OER. And in cooperation with the Office of the Provost our fellows have the opportunity this fall to present a webinar on their OER fellowship project. We expect our work with the fellows to continue well beyond the fellowship period and that it will prove to be a great thing for the sustainability of our OER initiative at Turo. And now my colleague Tim Valente will talk about our OER library committee and workshop. Thanks Kirk. I'm Tim Valente talking today about the OER committee established as an ongoing supporting component of our grant. The institution wide OER committee was conceptualized in our grant proposal as a vehicle to engage in conversations related to OER across our institution but especially among our library colleagues at different locations serving different communities. Charged with advocating for OER at Turo and planning and executing system wide educational and outreach OER events the committee is chaired by our OER librarian. This was the direct grant funded support for the committee but other members and their activities represented an in kind donation of time. Eight members all library staff served one year terms meeting monthly or bi-monthly on zoom across time zones. Our immediate goal was planning the train the trainer workshop for our library colleagues to help increase their knowledge and comfort when supporting faculty using OER in the Allied Health and Health Sciences fields but longer term the committee is charged with embedding OER advocacy at our institution and is a bedrock for the sustainability of OER activities at the system wide scale. This workshop involved significant time and energy. We developed a logistics time checklist timetables and agreed on responsibilities. We sent promotional save the day emails and invited a highly qualified external speaker Lily Todoronova who graciously and promptly agreed to contribute a keynote address. Such work went into the committee members developing sessions for our colleagues practicing these sessions and proving them based on feedback. Of course the devil was in the details including proper settings on our zoom meeting, IT support, contingency plans and recording for reuse. Ultimately we convened a successful workshop titled building bridges tools for open educational resources advocacy and collaboration at T.C.U.S. libraries on April 13th, 2021. The key theme of the workshop also underscored in Lily's keynote was that the capacities to support and advocate for OER was already largely built into library staff's day to day interactions and need not be thought of as a separate activity. Discussing this empowering theme either directly or indirectly, sessions covered OER 101 copy rate creative commons, finding and evaluating OER and teaching with and publishing OER. Based on pre and post survey of our audience of close to 50 participants, you can see that confidence increased in explaining creative commons licenses and OER generally. But another clear outcome was the community building this workshop spurred. Our library colleagues recognized their capacity to support OER and felt connected and empowered. Our committee certainly felt more connected despite remote work and geographical distance. We plan to expand the committee, revolving faculty and updating our charge in October. Already we have plans to focus on a new event, present at events across the system and incorporate OER into other aspects of our library services, including collection, development and information literacy. Thank you for listening to our talk today. Please use the QR code to access resources links. And do reach out to us if we can be of any help to you.


Hello and welcome to New Slick. I'm Paranjai Govathakurtha. Today I'm honored and privileged to have with me all the way from Mumbai, Mr. Julio F. Ribeiro. Well, he really needs no introduction, but nevertheless, I should mention that he was the former commissioner of police of Mumbai. He headed the police force in Punjab, in Gujarat, and he was also India's ambassador to Romania. He's had two assassination attempts on him, and he's only 91 years young. Thank you so much, Mr. Ribeiro, for giving the viewers of New Slick your time. Let me start by asking you, what prompted you to write this letter to the police head, the commissioner of police Delhi, Mr. Essentri Vastava, who's a member of the Indian Police Service, and you have mentioned that the police investigation into the communal riots that took place in northeast Delhi in late February, that this investigation was being done in an absolutely shoddy manner. You said, I write to you with a heavy heart that true patriots are being entangled in criminal cases, and those who are responsible for provocative, communal, hate-filled, incendiary speeches, including leaders of the Bhartey Jantapati, they've been allowed to get away scot-free, and you urged the police force to ensure that there was a fair investigation, and there was no bias and hate against those belonging to a minority community, not a leader. What prompted you, sir, to write this open letter to the commissioner of police Delhi? See, I write every week for the Tribune of Chandigarh, and there one of the readers, he wrote back, I mean he sent me a letter saying that you write every week, but you have never ever mentioned that the Delhi police are sort of becoming the laughing stock by doing things, stop-seating, making black into white, and they mentioned these same things that you have mentioned about the investigation that they have let off the culprits, so I did reply to him, one gentleman called Mr. Malik, I think, and I said that look, I too feel like that because from what I read and what I saw on the television, ever since the JNU and the Islam Milia, Jamia Milia, ever since that, I've got a feeling that they have been one-sided. For example, in the JNU I saw, couldn't men going into the campus, they probably were leftists, and they were prosecuted, but they later on a much bigger, couldn't group, much bigger, they were allowed by the police to come in, that was for revenge, obviously, and they belong to the right-wing group, but nothing was done against them and they were in fact allowed to come in and come out, go out very freely, so I was wondering what is this type of policing, it is our job, and we have been taught that whoever commits an offense has to be charged, has to be taken to task, otherwise the rule of law is never established, and in case the political parties, because many of these culprits have political affiliations, they try to influence you or interfere in the investigation, you must be able to say no, I'm sorry, this is the evidence on record, and in this case it was all seen on the television, so I really wonder how the police can get, can absolve one group and take only the other, I think the other also needs, that was done, but not this main group, yeah, so then I, yes. Please continue, please continue, I have some questions. No, I am part of a group of old IAS and IPS officers, including other central services, including the foreign service also, and these are officers of integrity, and they are persons who do not take these kind of sites, who have been true to their oath that they do not get influenced by politics or by religion and things, they are not supposed to get influenced, you are policemen and you are supposed to establish the troop, and these officers were always also debating this matter, finally they approached me, they said that look, I said yes, I know about it, I've read about it, and they suggested that I, this would be a very good way to tackle this, because the police commissioner must take heed, and they said if you write, it would probably attract his attention, which I did. Mr. Rubey, that is why I wrote, yeah. Okay, you know after you wrote the letter, number of other senior officers of the central services, including senior officers of the Indian police force, the police services have endorsed your views and added to that, let's look at some of the facts, there were Hindu Muslim riots, there were communal riots in northeastern Delhi, and between the 23rd of February and the 26th of February, at least 53 people died, there was one police officer, but out of the remaining 52, 40 were Muslims, now we saw a lot of property, especially property belonging to Muslims were destroyed, subsequently the police have lodged over 750 first information reports, over a hundred charge sheets have been filed, and over 1400 people were arrested or detained, but significantly, Mr. Kapil Mishra, who made a very, very provocative speech standing next to a senior police officer, he was a deputy commissioner of police, his name was Veeth Prakash Suryam, Anurag Thakur, who happens to be a minister of state in the finance ministry, Parvesh Verma, another important BJP leader, they made very, very provocative, eight filled, inflammatory speeches, but the police have chosen to completely ignore their provocative speeches, what does this say sir, so when you talk about police, political interference in the police force, and we know that the Delhi police comes directly under the ministry of home affairs, under the union home minister Mr. Amit Shah, what does this mean? I have written about it, that was part of my letter, which is so blatant that these gentlemen could speak, I have heard it on television myself, these gentlemen talking in the most provocative manner, and I think that if they had any sense of fairness or justice, Delhi police should have first taken up these gentlemen, and said look, and if the political masters had said that look, you can't do this and do that, they said, they will have to show the proof that is on the television, how are you going to explain that, and then you have to take action when people like this actually provoke the riots, it leading up to the riots, it are these statements that have caused the people to get heated up, so I really am surprised that they were let off in this manner. In the letter that was written by a number of senior retired officers who endorsed your letter, they pointed out how a special commissioner of police, they haven't named him but I'm naming him Praveer Ranjan, he in an official letter had said there were Hindus who were resentful of investigation, who were resentful of the way the investigation into the riots went on, now tell me, should a police officer put down these kinds of statements on the record, and the Delhi police justifies it and says this is, I mean there's nothing wrong with what he said, I mean they do look very very clever language, but should a police officer be mentioning, they should be making such statements? I think he was carried away probably by the fact that he had to be on the right side of the people in charge who are masters of his own destiny, I think that is what must have provoked him to do that because it is rather funny that an officer should show his true feathers, anyway so but you know the evidence that is going to be put up in court, you said some charges have already been laid in the courts, so what is the evidence against these people? That has to be seen because once the trial starts, the evidence will all come out whether the same enthusiasm has been shown when prosecuting one group of people has been shown while prosecuting the others, that we would like to see and what is the evidence against those you are going to charge for conspiracy, I mean that is another point that also people are very eager to see because if they have evidence as they say they have then they should show it, they should not prolong the inquiries anymore, why was Umar Khalid for example not arrested much earlier here because if you think he have got evidence against him please prosecute him and show us what evidence you have but to arrest people at that just before the three month time you know there is a timeline fixed for laying the charge sheet and if you just before that if you arrest people then you get another three months that's another unfortunate part of the whole thing so this is the loophole that they exploit in order to keep people in custody without trial that is another thing that I find being commonly used by the police which is absolutely unfair yeah every sir on this issue of the law I'm going to ask you some more questions but do you think in today's day and age we still need a log and sedition which was enacted during the colonial era do we still need a law which many people consider draconian which gives the police huge powers and it's and is to be misused like the UAPA the unlawful activities prevention act do you think it's about time these laws were removed from our statute books as far as sedition law is concerned I think the general consensus is that it should go because it is being most more often than not misused and the balance of convenience if you is to totally abolish this law and you can always have other sections of law if you think that people are provoking others to really go against the state because most of these people have not gone against the state or they have not shown signs that they wanted to be riot or something the people who actually provoke those only should be could have been charged with sedition but nothing of that sort is done and then you know it is selectively used these laws are selectively used and I think it is time they go sir if you look at the people who have been arrested young people young students uh Devangana Kalitha Natasha Narwal both students of Jawaharlal Nehru University part of the Pinchratul movement Gul Fishta Fathima of Jamia Milia Islamia when you look at you mentioned Omar Khaled when you look at the people who have been picked up and put behind bars Safura Zargar she was pregnant when she was put behind bars and they are the ones against whom the police are proceeding and not only that they haven't been charged but they have been they have been questioned they have been named in the various uh uh the documents that are doing the rounds people like Harsh Mandar Professor Apurva Nand filmmakers Rahul Roy Sabha Devan they've been questioned uh economics professor Jayati Ghosh and not only that you you have the lawyers Mahut Pracha who's been representing some of the the people who are uh who have been affected and then you have political leaders like Sitaram Yachuri like Yogendra Yadav I mean is there a a a method in the manner in which individuals young students have been selected and put behind bars and now escalating into academics to political leaders because of their opposition to the present regime and their opposition to laws like the CAA the Citizenship Amendment Act you know in this I see a very clear political hand because uh I don't think I mean with my experience of 36 years of course I'm 30 years behind now and perhaps things that are happening today are much worse than in my time but uh political leaders would would have a hand in trying to uh to decide who should be prosecuted and who should not be in such circumstances so I'm I'm quite sure that uh the police would not normally have arrested uh political leaders and all without consulting their political masters this is almost certain so so in other words uh you are pretty sure that the police will not act against the likes of Kabir Mishra and Anurag Thakur and Parvej Varma no no against them they won't against them they won't you know they've been a large number of other uh important political leaders of the BJP who have been named by some of the victims in their in in their depositions including Satyapal Singh he's a member of parliament but we have Nant Kishore Gujar he's a MLA from Loni Mohan Singh Pish he's an MLA from Delhi Jagdish Pradhan former MLA all of them belong to the BJP and and and various complaints have been made against them you think they want to get away I think they will because it all depends on who is in power the law is not enforced against those who support those in power right that is the unfortunate part of our rule of law rule of law means those who commit crimes should be arranged before a court of law but that doesn't happen in our polity sir we've seen communal riots it used to happen but now things are changed sir we've seen terrible communal riots in this country in Delhi in November 1984 around six thousand Sikhs were selected and they were brutally massacred it was like the genocide of gov wrong uh many many congress leaders were allegedly behind it now in Gujarat in 2002 you you headed the police department in Gujarat you've been in the head of the police department in Gujarat in Gujarat at least 700 Muslims were killed in 2002 what we are seeing I mean although the scale was less I mean so far there've been as we mentioned earlier as I mentioned to you earlier in northeastern Delhi 53 people died between February 23rd and 26th including one policeman of the remaining 52 41 Muslims uh are we going to see the same story getting repeated over and over again whenever we come to these kinds of communal conflicts communal riots in fact I have a apprehension that it might be a little worse now at least the hate levels today in the slums of Mumbai for instance is has increased exponentially and I got a friend of mine young gentleman called Sanjay Nar and he talks to me often from Pune I've known him for many years and he was uh he had set up an NGO to look after the orphans of the people in JNK you know he says that the the level of hate that has now been generated is something that he has never seen before and so do the the people in the Mohalla committee movement in Mumbai they also tell me that it is something that you have never imagined so if this is the way that we are going to go about I mean that all that sub-case art sub-case because sub-case visuals all that is just wool over our eyes and it is going to react and rebound on us very very badly in case there is a god forbid uh hostilities with our powerful neighbor on the east this kind of divisions in our society are not going to help a bit on the contrary it will be exploited by the enemy so I think that there is a very very dangerous kind of movement that is now in order to capture votes I presume and for that we are going to sacrifice the future of our country I'm really I really grieve for my country sir in your letter where you write to the Delhi police commissioner with a heavy heart urging a fair probe into the uh investigation fair investigation you have said these police officers they've they've taken a note they're sworn to uphold the constitution of this country I mean they are supposed to take action on the merits on the merits of individual cases irrespective of the religious faith the political affiliation any affiliation of the people who are suspected or accused but are we today seeing even the communalization of the police force and I give you one example and I ask you to comment on it the recently retired uh former acting director of the central bureau of investigation cbi uh mr nageshwar Rao he put out a heat filled tweet after the demise of swami agnibash now no we were shocked people were shocked later he put it down but to expect a former IPS officer I mean you may have disagreements with swami agnibash the person has passed away he's dying was it necessary to even make a statement like you know I wish the god of death uh uh yum yum raj had taken him away earlier I mean I mean how do you react to a former police officer making these kinds of public statements I don't know I never heard of this gentleman till he made till he became the director cbi and that time also he was showing signs that he is aligned to a certain party that is not a good thing you can't be aligned even if you feel you can give a vote to to that party there there is it's your choice but not uh show openly that you are aligned with the party because you are supposed to be quite distant from political uh you know the politics of the day you are supposed to enforce the law and and enforce it fairly so he's obviously not a person who is true to his oath and uh as regards the this that he has made that I read I read that and uh I was surprised because whole old Hindu culture does not permit somebody to make remarks about someone who was already died so obviously Hinduism is not what he follows uh the type of Hinduism he follows is something else I don't know what you call it you know I was on a I was on a television channel which is particularly supportive of the ruling regime and they were discussing this Omar Khalid's case and his alleged affiliation with a sort of a Muslim extremist group on the base of a of a of a conversation as soon as I mentioned the name Julio Ribeiro the anchor and some of the panelists they got into a wild fit he said what does Mr. Ribeiro know you know I mean yeah he's not been around for a long time you yourself says it's been 30 years since you stopped being a police officer you retired as a police officer and then he says he has passed on fake information about it and attacks on churches and attacks on victims they're trying to crash you it seems your name still you know provokes some of our you know right wing I should say pro-government television so-called anchors and their panelists I would love to have your reaction no I want to state very clearly that I have nothing against any political party not the neither the party in power now I mean I've got great friends and I've got great respect for some of the BJP leaders I met in Hita Bilashi for instance who was the head of the who was the president of the BJP in Punjab when I was there I is one of the finest men I have ever met and I have great respect for him and I've written about it in my book great respect for Mr. Vajpayee also and he chose me to be the governor of JNK which I turned down for reasons that I mentioned to him I mean particularly the work I was doing in Mumbai because I was more interested in that work and then so I have nothing against the BJP as such and when they do good work for example this government had that very good practice of sending money directly to the bank accounts of the of the of the beneficiaries which I thought was a very very good idea of theirs or a very good thing that they did and I praise it there's no question of my being of being in any way but people who are totally engrossed and don't paper over all the wrong things that somebody can do I mean when for example the congress government in in power in Mumbai when when they were cash for transfers I've personally written about it about cash for transfers and I said that this is a ridiculous way of of of running a government and Mr. Sharath Pawar himself came and spoke to me about it and said he's going to stop it so I can tell you that I write against anyone who who does something wrong and which is unjust to the people of this country no there is no question of taking signs during the time you were the commissioner of police in Mumbai between 1982 and 1986 you talked about how some of your subordinate officers were asked to release a high profile gangster because he was going to provide money to the the party of the chief minister during the elections so it's clear at that time the congress party was in power I don't know which chief minister you're talking about but you are you yourself have said from fighting terrorism in Punjabi or now fighting corruption well you know no this was this corruption was before I went to Punjab it was the home minister who later became the chief minister and he said I'm the home minister of Maharashtra minus Mumbai city so I said sir why why minus Mumbai city he said you never listen to me so I said sir there's no need for you to ask me anything if it is fair and just and according to law but if it is not according to law please don't ask me I'm not going to do it so the person you said that he wanted released not only money but also muscle the man had a lot of muscle and then so they wanted that for their election and I said it is not my job to to help you in elections that was not the reason why I joined the police force not to help people in their election that is the job of the politician you do your job I'll do mine and he didn't like it incidentally I must mention this very important later on when he became the chief minister and the poor man is dead now but at that time the the then police commissioner invited all the retired commissioners for a big celebration of 150 years or something of the commissioner and this chief minister presided and he mentioned this in his talk to the policeman he mentioned this and he said now I understand the importance of what he did this is what would you like to name him yes there's no problem he is Mr. Deshmukh Velasrao Deshmukh okay the late Velasrao Deshmukh Mr. Ribero I'm going back to a point I raised earlier what the police force was that during the time you were a senior police officer and what it is today you think the big change that has happened is that it is now in certain parts of the country divided a long religious slice they've been communally polarized would you go along with what I say you see this communal feeling is something that is dormant among a lot of people it's coming out now because it is being encouraged but in the police force also they come from the from the public so they have this people have that that little bit of a of a feeling against some other religion or community even cast wise so then but if the man at the top that is the police commissioner or the dgp of the state he is a person who's straightforward and it's very clear that these things are not on they do the policemen are trained to follow their leader if you have a good leader who does not get involved in such considerations I think they follow the leader the leader gives them an order they will follow it and they will it will ensure that it is done for example during the communal riots in 1984 in Mumbai when I was the commissioner I told the chief minister I'm going to pick up all the the couples all the the you know the cutting edge leaders of the shift in a all in one night and I called all my officers and told them you will if you let off one you will be in trouble they brought them all and the whole thing stopped the next morning everything was you see this is the way you should deal with communal riots put the actual people who are instigating behind bars immediately I did it in Gujarat when there was the five months the army was there army was and the only thing they know is to apply the curfew order and the people were without jobs and then suddenly they sent me there and I dealt with it like I would in Mumbai arrest all the people who are behind the the provocation on the on the all these communal types who who actually uh foments all the trouble they are the ones who have to be put inside so you are saying and I'm going back to where I started the reasons why the Delhi police has not taken action against those who provoked the riots is because of the political pressure and political affiliation of these individuals I have no doubt about that that is I have no doubt about it whether it be Kapil Misha or Anurag Thakur or Parvesh and I can go on and on yes you are right all right my last question to you sir uh you know there have been two assassination attempts on your life once in Jalandhar in October 1986 and then when you were India's ambassador to Romania in Bucharest in August 1991 on both occasions these were sick militants who are unhappy with your actions as the head of the as the director general of police in India when you look back on your career and and you said that you you're writing public letters with a heavy heart you say you grieve for a country which has where there's so much hatred and so much dangerous hatred that has been spread around large sections of the people including poor people what is the way forward what do you have to tell young people there are large numbers of people young old middle age who look up to a person like you they look up to you as an officer of integrity who had no form of dealing with the likes of Dao Debrahima for that matter as you yourself mentioned a little while back Shiv Sena leaders what is the message that you'd like to give to individuals and who are today at the receiving end of a regime which is not just intolerant but arguably vengeful I can only tell you what I am trying to do here and with along with a number of old IPS and IAS officers and the people from the general you know from society who feel like me doctors and others that we have formed a trust Mr. BG Deshmukh who was a former cabinet secretary he was one of the co-founders and he was the person we we looked up to he gave us very sound advice and we ensured that the young people in this colleges that they were told about the two great problems that this country faces one is of course corruption and the other is communalism and if these two are not checked we will never be able to take our place at the main table in the committee of nations we have been impressing upon them that they should shun these two evils and and work together as young people as future leaders of this country and we do that almost every day and I think this is a great extent to the people with whom we have interacted we have been successful the ones with whom we interact some of them have come back to us wanting to be more useful in actual work every daily attempts to talk to other students so we are trying to do that and I think if more people in different parts of the country set up such NGOs you may call it or even groups or whatever whichever way they want to structure it but that should be our attempt people like us who feel that this is not on that human beings are human beings and whether they follow one religion or the other what does it matter there was no religion when men first came in the world it came much later when when homo sapiens started thinking about how he came there at all that was the time before that there was no religion and religion is this explanations for the unknown so unless they understand that and say that how different gods can make different people that's not possible even if you believe in the theory of creation yeah thank you thank you so much Mr. Debedo thank you very much for giving us your time and your messages and I hope those who heard you and watched you would be inspired by what you've said thank you once again and keep watching Newsweek


This is SerbStarFriend. The kombucha category grew from $1 million in sales in 2014 to $1.8 billion in 2019. Between being positioned as a better for use soda alternative and the large marketing spend, it's no wonder how kombucha quickly skyrocketed in popularity. But the problem with kombucha is that the flavor is polarizing. For example, Mark Cuban is simply not a fan. To fill this gap, other probiotic drinks fought to capture market share. When today's guest Rosa Lee, founder of Wild Wonder, appeared on Shark Tank, the big fruit flavors combined with the pre and probiotics packed into a can was a hit. Kombucha skeptic Mark Cuban gulped down his entire can. Wild Wonder is the world's first sparkling prebiotic and probiotic beverage for gut health. It tastes more like a fresh juice than a fermented drink. Today we chat with Rosa about why she left her prestigious finance job to start a consumer packaged good company, the importance of diversifying everything, and how her Shark Tank appearance couldn't have worked out more perfectly. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to the founder of Wild Wonder. Rosa, thanks for coming on the pod. Thanks for having me, Diego. For you who don't know, what is Wild Wonder? Well, Wild Wonder is a sparkling drink that combines herbal wisdom with whimsical flavors. We're the first drink to combine both prebiotics and probiotics. And we're here today, you're launching a new product and you've given it to us today. And so Pineapple Paradise, where are you launching it? Give us a little window. Definitely. So Pineapple Paradise, our newest flavor, we just launched online D2C on our website as well as Amazon. It's currently in retail exclusively at Sprouts for the three months. For people listening, so for me, so I'm from Peru, and it reminds me of this drink called Inca Cola, which is like a pineapple soda that they used to have. It was like the best drink ever in Peru. And then Coca-Cola would go on to acquire them, but it's like the drink of Peru. And so if you're happy to be proving or know this drink, this will give you a, this is a much healthier version. That's great. I will say that. That's what we strive to do is healthier version of something nostalgic. Yes. The nostalgia. That's what I was. Yeah, it brings me back. So let's go to the beginning. What made you want to start this company? My grandparents raised me for the first 12 years of my life in China while my parents immigrated to the States. Grandma brewed these healing tonics with a symphony of wild herbs and botanicals that were really good for my health. So she really taught me the philosophy of food as medicine from an early age. And I started my career in finance, so investment banking, and then went on to Prev Equity and Venture Investing. What did you learn? Let's go back. Everybody that I know that seems to be successful at some point. Investment banking breaks them or something. Something happens. What things did you learn during your investment banking, private equity days that really sort of resonate today? Yeah, yeah. I was staying in the office until like two or three a.m. Yeah, you're working here. Yeah. Constantly. And you know, both days on the weekends, I, you know, evenings and just non-stop. And I would travel a lot. So at one point I actually went to my doctor during my annual checkup and he said to me, wow, you're the first girl who over reported her weight by 15 pounds. And that really shocked me. And I was like, well, I didn't realize I was losing weight and I wasn't sleeping well. So started really reading more about gut health. I definitely had some health issues that stemmed in my gut and actually learned more about gut health and just overall wellness and got my microbiome tested. Really became a true believer in gut health. And I also went back to grandma's herbal tonics and this whole Eastern herbal philosophy. And after business school, I decided to just do something I'm personally passionate about and that's really turning herbal wisdom and heritage inspired and gut health ingredients to something that's very delicious and accessible. Was there something during the business school days, like for me, when I went to business school at every class at some point, you have to do some presentation, some thing, right? So I was like, analyze this company or do this thing. And so what I would do is when I was in business school, I was like, I'm done with the days of let's take a hypothetical company or a company, let's take Disney from the nineties and let's analyze them and then let's pretend to tell them what to do. Like I was done with it. And so what I would do is that I was in Boston.  We have to do an analysis. Can we do it on your firm in real time? Same exact concept, but then present it to you. And luckily I got my team to agree. And so we always made like real world presentations. It was never some fake thing because that's how I operate. Like it bothers me to do all this energy for this hypothetical situation that doesn't exist with a known solution that bothered me. That's not why I'm going to business school. And so when you were in business school, did you ever think like, okay, like did this company come about through some things in business school? Good question. So I actually didn't start this business in business school. During business school, I was very focused on learning about startups because so when I was doing investing, I started in pre-equities as late stage and then like, like BC stage. So I started, I mean, my portfolio companies range from the pre-revenue stage all the way to Fortune 500. So when I was in New York, I started my career at Warbrook Pincas and focused on very late stage businesses, definitely post revenue. And then when came out here to San Francisco and focused on early stage pre-revenue companies, so it was fascinated by growth stage and it was fascinated by startups, but I didn't have any operating experience. I was overseeing portfolio companies as an investor and it was very well versed on the investing side. So in business school, I was very focused on learning about startups and actually doing something more hands-on. So I literally volunteered at all these startups during school and basically help them with whatever they want. They need help with. So I kind of just worked my way. I worked part-time essentially all for free labor and learn a ton about e-commerce startups and worked in marketing. And after business wash, I helped a friend launch a business in Asia. So basically got my hands dirty with consumer product startups and then decided that I personally want to do something I'm passionate about. What were you seeing with these companies? Like what was the thing that most of these companies kept messing up? Well, you know, I'm very data driven and, you know, especially coming from finance, what I realize is a lot of startups because everything is so busy is running at such fast pace. Most people aren't looking at the data. So what my value add was really analyzing everything at a higher level and turning data into strategy. People simply just didn't have the time to look at data. And now I'm running my own startup and I can see how important data is. And a lot of people still aren't looking at data because, you know, we can get weekly, monthly retail data and figure out, OK, are we doing the right thing in retail? Do we have the right promo strategy, pricing strategy, you know, executions? Yeah, I think the thing I see a lot is I think talent blinds you. And so you can be a really talented founder who has found market product fit and is seemingly doing some things right, but they don't know why and they don't care to know why. And no one on their team is like digging into the data. Yeah, it's the one thing that can it's great for a little while, but you have to get really sophisticated at some point in order to get to that to ascend. Otherwise, that talent will run out. Yeah, and then especially if you're doing well, you actually don't see a lot of problems because you're doing well and you're not really analyzing every aspect of your business. That's why I love these downturns in the economy. That's right. It makes things simple. All right, so so you launched this company what year? We actually launched while wonder literally the first year of covid. So 2020 great timing on my part. Well, in some ways it was like everyone's worried about their health and everyone's in the grocery store. Well, maybe at the beginning, they weren't. So, you know, if you think about the beverage, it's grab and go. So this moves the fastest when you're out and about. And so when people are at a cafe, when people are at a restaurant, when they're in a park and they grab a can 2020, the entire world shut down. So no one was going out. So the beverage category actually dropped significantly because people weren't shopping. They weren't out and about. So it was actually very hard. And on top of that, my my launch and distribution strategy was food service. So the health conscious offices cafes. So I had large PO's going out to these offices that got completely wiped out. I think you mentioned that on a chart tank, right?  And then that got shut down. Yeah. And we were we had relationships with a lot of these offices that large PO's. I was super excited to launch because that's a great channel for brand awareness, for product trial and all of a sudden the entire business. I mean, that was a hundred percent of my strategy and that got wiped out. So it felt like I had a really restart and we did.  I actually didn't want to do online because it's a beverage who wants to ship liquid across the US. It's very heavy. But I would say COVID actually impacted us in a way. It means it was really hard short term. But in the long run, it was very good because it really accelerated the growth of our channel strategy. Yeah. How long did it take you to figure out that pivot? Was it almost immediate? Because everything shut down anyway. And so there's yeah, I had to figure out cash flow. So yeah. And you had caused an existing inventory. You're sitting on all this inventory. Yeah, you got to move it. Definitely. It was this have to be refrigerated or is it or can it be at room temperature? Yeah. So it's a refrigerator product. And here's why we were the first can and product to put both prebiotic and probiotic in the same can. So I don't know if you know much about gut health, prebiotics. The world. Yeah. Prebiotics is a food for probiotics to thrive. So without prebiotics, all the healthy gut bacteria actually don't function as effectively. So a lot of people have been, you know, looking into fermented foods, kombucha, drinking vinegar, all the probiotics, they're great for you. You know, don't stop taking them. But just like humans, we function better when there's food in their system. So prebiotics nourish the probiotics. So they actually interact and we need to keep everything, you know, the functional benefits more sustained and keep everything stable in the same can. Okay. Going back to the business. So what was the first step once you realized this retail, I guess you had, you had to change. So what happened? Yeah, we had to pivot really fast. There's kind of like a bomb ticking. And I immediately started building our Shopify site. So the idea is look at all these relationships that we had in food service. So how do I turn that into revenue? It's very much focused on cash flow. So I basically built our Shopify site within three months and started taking care of our office, food service customers in the comfort of their homes. So we would turn those revenues, ship products directly to people. And but I was still contract with the companies and say, Hey, let me ship these care packages through you. Yeah. To, to your employees. Really smart. Well done. I like that pivot a lot. Yeah. So first year was a lot of online revenue and all organic too, because we didn't do any pain marketing. And, and I know a lot of people's sales just skyrocketed when they had Shopify, but I didn't have Shopify prepared at the time, but we were able to build it within three months and started generating revenue within three months. At the same time, I was going out into the field and literally visiting every single grocery store possible. That's around the San Francisco Bay area. So while everyone's quarantine at home, I was driving in my car and knocking on doors and helping the grocery store managers stock their shelves while I was introducing our products. So by the end of sort of like real boots on the ground, you're really going into probably wearing a hazmat suit. I was wearing double masks and it was definitely high risk, but I had to survive. So I visited something like over 200 stores within the first three months and all the independence. And by the end of year one, so that was 2020, we were in over a hundred stores, including our local Whole Foods. Wow. Molly stones, Molly stones, Lunarities, all the independence Northern California is blessed with a lot of independence similar to, you know, so Cal. So, you know, all the corner stores had our products. And are you still trying to figure out at this time? So you're getting into the stores, but is your mind going? Obviously, the D to C is way higher in terms of valuation. So is a part of your brain going, if I go direct to are you still pursuing the direct to consumer route or are you just now going pure CPG? So, yeah, good question. So if I learn anything about from COVID, it's diversify. So diversify everything from our suppliers to our co-packers to our distribution channel. So we actually have a very diversified channel strategy since the beginning, since COVID. So, you know, a part of our business and food service and that continues to be a big part and a part of our business is in retail and a part of it is online. Online is divided between Amazon and D to C. So everything is intentional. It just didn't just happen this way. We're very intentional about investing in these multiple channels and have that omnichannel strategy. The idea is really to touch the same customer throughout their day from when, you know, you're shopping online, you're browsing on Facebook, Instagram to when you're shopping in the grocery store to when you're working in an office, having lunch in the cafe. So more impressions, more brand awareness, more product trial. Hard to do, but really smart. And I see how COVID did that. It's intelligent. At what point do you start thinking, maybe I go on Shark Tank, did they approach you? How did that happen? Yeah. So they reached out to me. They actually reached out to me at the beginning of COVID. I believe it was 2021, maybe. I can't remember exactly when, but at the time, I was literally just in survival mode. And I was like, we weren't ready for this.  So we were out of inventory for a few months because we couldn't produce.  I didn't think that we would be able to afford a national TV exposure. Got it, because you know what it would mean if it did air, yeah. Yeah. And I kind of knew, but I didn't quite know until I aired and I was like, wow, this is so impactful. But fast forward, 2022, I can't even keep track of everything now. It's like a blur to think about the last three years. Yeah. But basically, last year, we were in the kind of the right stage for more exposure. We hadn't invested that much in marketing. We started building up infrastructure to scale. And then I also had multiple co-packers that can scale us. And then we've iterated the product so much that the velocity started to prove itself in retail. So I said, okay, great repeat purchase, great product, great shelf presence from the packaging, and really good velocity. So you felt ready, mentally, right? Like you had a good product, something investable. I felt ready. I felt like this is the right time to step on a gas pedal and put some marketing behind it. So then I responded back to the very initial email that they sent me and I said, I know this is like a whole year late, but you know, we're interested. Let me know what to do. And then we started to go through the entire application process, which I'm sure you've heard multiple times from brands that you talked to. And we had Mindy on, who I'm sure you've met from casting. She told us the whole process. But yeah, okay, so then. So we taped last September and we aired initially in January and we had a recent re-air as well. So that was massive impact. Before you get on the show, you personally, are you doing your due diligence on like which one of them has invested in CPG? Are you targeting a certain shark? Who did you ultimately want to get a deal with? Obviously we'll talk about the rest of it, but before the show, like who were you really trying to get? Yeah, so I didn't find out about my shark panel until I want to say it's one or two weeks before taping. So they wouldn't tell you anything on the end. You knew Tony was gonna be on it. I did not know until like a week before. So obviously, you know, like Shark Tank, they tried to match you with the best fit. And they said, okay, there's gonna be a judge, I think be perfect for you. He's in food tech, not food. And actually, when they said this, I was like, oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if it's something like DoorDash? Because then I could be on DoorDash. But that was such a random thought. I just kind of thought to myself, you know, that'll be so funny.   Who else is on that list? Tony's the only one on list. Tony's the only one. I definitely went after him. I actually didn't want anyone else. I mean, I fully respect all the Sharks. I just thought Tony would actually bring in such good value for us from a distribution perspective. What I love about this conversation that we have on the podcast is the more companies that we talk to that have been on the show, the more I realized like, it's actually kind of the entrepreneur that has the upper hand. And I don't think they know that. Like all the entrepreneurs I've spoken to that have sat in your chair, what's cool about it is they've all done the research and they all have a Shark that they want, which means they have five or four Sharks they don't want. And it's a really interesting thing to think about. Cause I think most people from the outside when you're watching the shows of viewer, you're thinking like, wow, this entrepreneur is, they just want to take any deal, you know? But that's not true. Like you guys are sophisticated enough to know like the power dynamic, it's kind of the reverse of what most people think. That's something that I love about these conversations, which is pretty cool. All right, so you get on, they try it. They immediately start bashing you because of CPG. They're all scarred from CPG. Sounds like you watched the episode. You gotta watch it. For people who haven't, please go. You can YouTube it. It's on your website, I think too. It's not on our website, but if you YouTube it, there's plenty of people who have shared it. Yeah. Like what I liked about it is I invest in CPG. So obviously there's a part of me that understands the tremendous amount of efforts that you guys are about to go through and the amount of capital required to make the successful for me as an investor and for you as a founder and some luck along the way. And so they're all like sort of scarred from this, like Mr. Wonderful. Oh, I knew going in that they were not going to like beverage. There's a specific thing everyone talks about. The minute you bring a beverage on the show, everyone hates on beverage distribution. That was expected.  So that's why I was really going for Tony because he could actually bring additional distribution for us. My goal for the show was not to get a deal from everyone. My goal was to have everyone like the product. So that was really... Which seemed like that happened, by the way. It seemed like that. And Mark Cuban chucked an entire can of strawberry and he said, I just drank this whole thing. I really like it. I'm going to order it. I hate kombucha and this tastes so much better and everyone loved the drinks, loved the taste, which is, that's my first priority. My second priority was to, okay, actually locking a deal with Tony. Yeah.  You were trying to get 500,000 for 5%? Yeah. Something like that. It's been so long. Yeah. And so then I think you guys end up at 500 for nine, but three of it's like advisor shares. Yeah, I negotiate something. I didn't want the valuation to really affect our internal valuation because we had also other deals with other investors. There's only so much I can do there. So I essentially offered something that would give him what he wanted, but also doesn't hurt our valuation so much. What year was that? Or what day? Do you remember the day that was happening? This was September last year. Of 2022. Yeah. And so still a weird time in terms of investment, still a weird time in terms of the economy, a lot of uncertainty. And so in some way this is like perfect timing for you, for a company in your position. Yeah, I mean, I think it was more importantly was perfect timing because we're in the process of scaling. So this was great marketing, great brand awareness. Obviously the cash helps, but I would say we weren't desperate for cash. We had, we had cash flow from business, we also have outside investors. So I didn't care as much about the money, but I cared more about the value they could bring. So you and Tony on there, you make a deal and then does the deal go through? Did you guys end up completing it? Yeah, so he actually is truly an investor and an advisor to the business. That's amazing. Yeah, we're very excited. What happened, did anything unique happen as it relates to DoorDash specifically? Yeah, so we're actually in talks with DoorDash the goal is for us to be on DoorDash's platform. So they're helping us to gain more distribution and imagine you order your lunch from a restaurant on DoorDash and you pull up the menu. There's very limited beverages. There's water, there's a Coke and then there's really nothing else. So there's over a million restaurants on DoorDash platform and think about Wild Wonder being the only non Coke water beverage out there and that's hugely impactful and that's what we're working towards. And obviously I'm not gonna do a million restaurants all of a sudden and we can't do that but we'll start region by region and there's a lot of other platforms within the DoorDash platform that will be really helpful for us as well. And that's something that Tony actually pitched to us on TV. You didn't see this part because that's edited out but when we're talking, I was in there for over an hour and I was actually asking him, okay, what kind of value can DoorDash bring to Wild Wonder and there's so many. So you're interviewing him. Well, if I'm giving him equity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to know what I'm getting into. So good. That's awesome. Yeah, so he shared a lot about what they can do and connecting me with different people at DoorDash as well. What are the other sharks? Are they saying anything? Are they trying to keep the conversation to them? What's happening on the other sharks? I think at that point I was really just, I mean, you can tell I was really going after Tony and they were all listening to how DoorDash can help Wild Wonder grow. And give people a window into, so then you air, you said January? January, earlier this year. Okay, so earlier this year, Q1, and then what happens to the company? What do you see? How do the velocities go?  So, I mean, we have such huge sales over the weekend. I can't remember the exact numbers, but it's, we had 150,000 visits to our website all of a sudden. And I know that people were looking for the products. We have a store locator, so I know people were looking for products in stores near them. So, they were like typing their zip code, you know, address to see if it's their Sprouse, is their Whole Foods. There's 30 to 50,000 searches on our store locator. And I know that's a big range, but we had some like really large numbers and then I remember thinking at the time, this is so impactful. We were out of inventory on Amazon within a few hours. So, when East Coast aired, that was, you know, 5 p.m. Pacific time. We immediately went out of inventory, so then we had this huge influx of people coming to our website and huge boosts for our online sales. And I think we made a whole year's worth of online sales in one month. It's very impactful, but what's really impactful is really the long-term growth, right? So, Shark Tank, the way I think about it is really catapulted us to a different level. We've iterated our product so much that now it's really ready to scale and it didn't just, you know, our sales didn't just peak and then come down. It really elevated our baseline. So, we've quadrupled our monthly sales at the beginning of the year and every month it just continues to increase. So, it didn't actually come down. That's amazing. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. In relation to like, did you raise capital after it aired? Were you in the process of raising? I didn't raise, we weren't worried about money at the time. The main thing was inventory, actually scaling up inventory because if you have that much sales, we like scaled up our production capacity, like 4X, like immediately and that's not easy to do. So, we were just very much focused on, let's make sure we have products, let's make sure we don't go out of stock, let's service every single customer and make sure everyone has product. So, it's all about distribution at that time. Yeah, and how's that going? Have you figured it out? It's going, well, do you have a new area, a new location where you're canning and doing all this? Well, we have a very good partner, our co-packer, like I mentioned earlier, we're very diversified in everything. We have multiple co-packers that we work with. We have multiple suppliers. Even still. For every ingredient. You're hedging, you're always hedging. Always hedging. My investor hat on is like, you always want to mitigate risk. Even when you don't think there's risk, preempt every problem. So, we continue to diversify everything. It's the job of an entrepreneur. That's the whole thing, risk mitigation. Yeah, yeah. So, we're good on the, we're very happy that we actually didn't go out of inventory, didn't go out of stock, we have inventory and we continue to grow our inventory and grow our operations. I want to get people a window into your talk about, so there was a, we had, I forget what company came on here, but basically they make like a gluten-free product and they're working with one farm and something happened where the wind blew the wrong way and all of a sudden this product was no longer gluten-free and because they were only sourcing from this one farm, they had to effectively discontinue all of their products for a small amount of time. Obviously, this is a huge issue to a business and so you're pointing around diversification, case in point, right? That's why I may be working with a company. You never know. Like one coal power can catch fire, you never know. Yeah, that's true. So, what's next for the company? What are you working on now? Obviously, you've mentioned this flavor before, but is there any growth plans? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I would say it's product innovation. We're constantly innovating and we just launched this pineapple paradise flavor. We're already working on a new flavor for next year and most of the excitement comes from distribution expansion. So, when I first started, we've always had this strategy to go deep, not wide, to really penetrate every region we're in. So, when I first started back in 2020, I was only focused on North Cal. We launched Southern California at the beginning of 2022. And now it's our largest region. We're now stocked at Whole Foods, Sprouts here, or Sprouts nationally, but also Target, a lot of these really awesome retailers that like Irwan, Bristol Farms, everything that you can probably think of around here. Now we are ready to scale more, I would say, to the East Coast and the Midwest. So, from a distribution perspective, we have some massive expansions coming up in the summertime that we're really excited about. We're also launching in different regions. So, one of the things we learned from Shark Tank was the Midwest is actually a really great geography to expand to. My parents live in the Midwest. Where specifically? They live in Indiana.  How do you get to Indiana? That's the whole goal of the start-up. I've been asked... How do you get to Indiana? If you get to Indiana, you win. I know. I mean, it's funny because a lot of innovation starts from the coastal regions, right? So, I say this, people think I'm joking, but it's like I'm being serious. Like, if you figure out Indiana, I think you've done it. Well, so last year, at the end of the year, very end of the year, I launched at Fresh Time, which is an awesome natural retailer in the Midwest. And all of a sudden, my parents realized I was doing something with my life. Yeah. They're finally proud of you? Well, they didn't know.  And I think this really brought it home. Once they see something on store shelves that they can actually shop at, then it becomes more tangible. And obviously, they were super excited to see me on TV when we aired on Shark Tank. Sure. Once we expand more to the Midwest, and I think that really proves the thesis that we had in the beginning, because we're here to expand the market for kombucha with no fermented taste, right? It's gut health beverage. Most of those have an acquired taste. You think about the kombucha as drinking minigas of the world. And we actually offer the same benefits with very approachable taste profiles. So, we're here to really serve the more average consumer who's not necessarily shopping at a health food store. Sure. What's the price point for people listening? 3.49. So, it's competitive to, you know, kombuchas and other functional beverages. Yeah. And I have to ask, how's grandma? Grandma's great. She's in China. Is she on the board of advisors? Well, she is an inspiration for the brand and... Does she have a favorite? Does she have a favorite here? You know, she hasn't tasted everything, but she did say my drinks taste way better than the herbal tonics that she used to brew. So, mission accomplished. I love it. Thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing your story. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. I'm glad grandma's happy. And thank you. Good luck. Thank you. If you made it this far, I bet you loved the episode. So, you should join our YouTube channel membership for only $2.99 a month. This gets you access to one, the whole unabridged conversation. Two, you get the episodes on Monday, one day earlier. Three, you get two additional entries to our giveaways. Check out our Instagram to see what we've given away. And four, you get access to seasons one through three. That's over 100 episodes of wisdom and life-changing advice. What are you waiting for?


What's good Josh your boy Ross back again with another video. So just finished up watching WrestleMania night two man And I have to say I definitely enjoyed night two better than night one not gonna lie to you It's my personal preference here night one was okay for me And I know a lot of you guys were you know, really loving night one and some of y'all couldn't understand why I Didn't have the same feelings and sentiment as y'all But for me personally night one just had a lot of filler matches that I just wasn't really Invested in or did I wanted to see or care about but for night two the lot of matches on this night Excuse me a lot of matches on this night I was definitely more invested in and I was just you know more excited to see you know the outcomes of these matches You know there were some matches. I didn't care about but ultimately I enjoyed night two more than night one We're gonna we got to talk about the main event One of the best main events I've seen in a while We're gonna get to that at the end of the review gonna go in order from the notes I took but yeah man that main event definitely was what I wanted and more so we're gonna get to that But I appreciate all the love and support man. WrestleMania is done And I'm looking forward to seeing what happens on Monday night raw and the rest of the wrestling week This upcoming week, so let's get right into it I wouldn't really able to watch this match at home Like I was kind of watching it while I shouldn't be doing this while driving But I kind of had a plan on my iPad and my iPad with me So I was watching it through my iPad so I couldn't really get down and invest it into this match But I will say the fiend versus Randy Orton being the first match. I was okay with The fiends entrance were pretty cool I figured they were gonna do something interesting for his entrance it was really cool for him to come out of the jack-in-the-box and You know Alexa Bliss is rotating the jack-in-the-box and he pops out and you know, it was a cool imagery Randy Orton entrance was cool as always. It was just good to see the crowd there You know I'm saying and then the fiend attacking Randy off the top of the jack-in-the-box I thought that was interesting too. Of course, you know with the fiend He does a lot of no-selling Randy Orton hit him with a backdrop on the table on ounce table He just popped right back up and applied the mandible car. So more or less what we expect from the fiend That's pretty much how the match was going. It was looking like the fiend was gonna win He was gonna hit sister Abigail and all of a sudden Alexa Bliss pops out on top of the jack-in-the-box Like dark blood is oozing or dark goose oozing from her face So she's just looking at the fiend the fiend's looking at her and he gets distracted He ends up getting hit with RKO one two three and the matches over the fiend loses and I'm confused I know you guys were confused.  I was like wait. He just lost like what? All right, why what did what happened to Alexa Bliss?  What the I don't I don't know His character is cool His character is cool, but I think just Stuff like this doesn't what I don't I don't know what the hell is going on here. I Don't want to see the fiend and Randy Orton feud anymore. So I don't know what's about to happen next I don't know who he fused with next. Honestly. I'm just like I I guess whatever But like I said, it was cool for what it was. It's just that ending. It was kind of weird to me. So All right, Shayna versus Naya Not Shayna Shayna and Naya versus Natalia Natalia and Tamina for the women's tag team title I put in my notes you man. I like this. I still don't care for this match And I didn't care for the match was it did I watch it a little bit? I was watching a little bit but it was just like I Didn't really care cuz I don't I feel like the women's tag team division is really it's as shallow as one It doesn't really lack any depth and I feel like I'm like I can't really get invested in it only because I think the hand fewer wrestlers like these teams They seem so put together and you know, they don't really seem for me personally believable that they can be champs I mean the way it looks Naya Jackson And Shayna Baszler may be holding those championships hostage for a while Cuz I don't see another legitimate team beating them unless they drop it to somebody in NXT But the NXT has women's tag team title. So I don't know. I just didn't really care because I Just didn't really care. Amen. That's just my personal opinion. This is I tried to give it a chance I was watching a little bit of it. I was just I'm bored. You know, so I just I Didn't really pay too much attention, but I took a little bit of notes May just my personal thoughts. I said Shayna should really be going for one of the women championships Like she should Shayna should have been a Lisa a multi-time women's champion on Raw or SmackDown I'm just be honest with you She like she can actually go and she's believable and she looks like she would kill you like she wasn't in NXT Why we're both Natalia and Tamina just looking at Naya from the second rope waiting for her to jump off That was mega cringe to me because it just looked like Naya's trying her best to climb up to the second rope and they're just looking at her like What she's about to do No, I was like, all right, man, I don't care and Naya and Shayna retain the titles. Okay, cool. I still don't care Amen, like I said, some of y'all really get emotional and feel some type of way when I said I don't care about certain matches Because I don't watch them regularly on Monday or Friday. Hey, guess what? I don't watch the NXT regularly and I find myself enjoying NXT and their takeovers a Lot more easier than the main roster stuff Because at the end of the day, I like the in-ring wrestling. I did not I don't really care too much about Natalia and Tamina even though I know Natalia can go in ring wise I just don't care too much about that teaming and I feel like I feel like Shayna Baszler should be doing her own thing Me personally, I think she needs to be at some point soon Hopefully this year an actual singles champion because she's Shayna Baszler. She can legitimately hurt a lot of those women in them In that division like legitimately not even don't know kayfabe stuff like actually hurt them physically, but hey To each his own I just didn't care for this match. It is what it is I understand it has to be on the car because all titles are being defended on at WrestleMania I just didn't care for it. So next Sami Zayn versus Kevin Owens. I like this match I enjoyed this match the story is kind of the storyline kind of build up Sami basically saying, you know There's a conspiracy against him in WWE and it's cool But I just always like their feud their views have always been pretty well And it's good to see Kevin on the face side of things and Sami Zayn on the heel side of things Love the promo package for this match.  I thought that was funny KO was definitely a crowd favorite when he came out there. Everyone was hype that suplex to KO on the apron Was pretty brutal Seeing KO take that he looks like he dies every time anytime anyone does a suplex on the apron It's just nasty nasty nasty looking um, I Like the fact that the comrade commentary team made fun of Michael Cole mess up from last night He basically called a certain move the blue Thunderbomb I believe but it wasn't that and He was corrected on that and it was funny because they were making fun of him Like yeah, you kind of messed up last night too So I thought that was cool They was able to poke fun him because he definitely didn't mess up last night Um The nice exploder suplex to KO in the corner he had multiple ones actually that was pretty brutal Um at this point I was saying they were putting on a good match because I was enjoying it Sammy Zane was hitting a flurry of high impact offenses Um And at this point of the night, this was my favorite match of the night at this point I was enjoying this the fisherman suplex from a second rope to sammy was very beautiful And KO wins the match with the patented stunner Which I felt KO was going to win and at the end You know, uh, logan paul's getting into it with sammy zane Sammy zane pushes logan logan pushes sammy zane And then the crowd was asking for you knew it was coming Logan's trying to celebrate with kevin and kevin He's logan paul with a stunner And I think all of everyone that does not like logan paul on youtube We are just rejoiced. I'm sure he's probably a good guy A lot of people don't like jake, but it was just it was just good to see if paul gets stunned So hey, man, if you enjoyed that, I know I did as well. I thought that was pretty cool uh, there was a little backstage segment with, um, uh, rvd the great collie and uh, matt riddle And it was cool to see rvd, man. It was it was always good to see rvd rvd is a unsung legend in wwe I don't know how many people know the rvd chant like it's it's when you see someone do it You just instantly just feel like somebody's about to get hit with a uh, uh, uh frog splash, man, um sammy's versus matt riddle for the united states championship match was next Uh, I first I really wasn't interested in this match. I'm not gonna lie to you, but I was willing to watch it because I felt like they were going to put on a good match and they put on a good match I enjoyed this match. I really really Surprisingly enjoyed this match more than I did see you guys When this matches like this where I may not even care about the feud But if they put on a good show inside the ring, I'm willing to watch it That's all I'm saying guys. So, um It was very stiff throughout the match. They they worked stiff shameless and matt riddle They're very stiff in the ring. The crowd was kind of quiet Towards the beginning of this match. They were kind of dead at this point They were you know, ooh and all on certain high impact moves, but it wasn't consistent energy Not like the main event that was consistent energy. Um They started to come alive towards the middle and the end of the match Uh riddle springboard off the second rope to take out shamans outside the ring was nice um, they botched a top rope white noise like Shameless was trying to get a top rope white noise, but he wasn't able to do it So he ended up dropping down glad that he didn't hurt himself and he just ended up doing a white noise Just you know on the mat. So it was you know, it was a nose to botched But they they recovered it the best they could Now here is the this was nice this this whole This whole sequence right here was brutal in a nice way to end off the match Unexpected the bro kicked to matt riddle Off the second rope while he was doing like a springboard off the second rope He catches him midair upside down Right in the face right to the lip bro and busted them open Like legit busting them open to win the match. I thought that was fantastic You see blood just dripping down his face. I was like hold. Okay. I like that Honestly, I would just map riddle with you know be, you know, he take like his character would be more serious You know what I'm saying? Like it's cool. You know, he's likes the days ago. He's a bro So he's riding around on the scooter and stuff But you know, I would like for him to take things more serious and that look he had like he was like piss I want to see more in fact, you know what I'm saying because I know he legit can go in the ring like legitimately Um, but it's cool. Shameless as the united states champion. I'm okay with that I'm okay with that and shameless is really an unsung hero I forgot he was like a four-time World champion like a multi-time united states champion a tag team champion. I believe he's an intercontinental champion I'm not sure correct me if I'm wrong, but the dude is really done at all He's won the money in the bank. He's won royal rumbles Like the dude is legitimately well decorated in wwe and doesn't I get the praise he deserves? So shout out to shameless winning once again the united states championship And he should have a decent range, man a decent range. So I'm looking forward to that. Um Big e versus a polo cruise in a nigerian drum fight I didn't know what that was, but I felt like there was going to be a lot of weapons involved Now, unfortunately about this match I saw some of it But and I was actually interested in this match But I was one of my homies called me. He was talking about some stuff. We're trying to plan In a couple weeks. So I literally got distracted. So that kind of sucked I'm probably going to go back and watch it again But I did enjoy the parts that I did see and that's probably one of the matches I will go back and watch again. Well the parts I did see I definitely did enjoy it was hard hitting Um, I didn't I know big e was from Tampa. So hometown kid trying to uh, you know retain his intercontinental championship Uh, they were at the beginning of the match. It was just hammering each other with the kendo sticks Biggie hitting a urinagi to a polo and the steel steps Brutal as hell Apollo going in with the kendo sticks once again while big e was on the ground in the in the middle ring He was just hammering on him And then this is where the match was pretty much over right here Like I thought big e was going to get the win and obviously he would have got the win But apolo sets big e on the on the table.  And then I He let his face look familiar.  If you guys remember raw underground. He was some tall dude and That's the guy that they you know saying aligned with uh, apolo crews And you know what apolo wins because of the because of the assist of whoever this monster is human being is And i'm okay with that because if apolo would have lost His heal run would have been pretty much done No one would have cared because it's like damn you lost again and here's this new found heal character You gotta get some heal. He he has to get some momentum going off Off of him to having this character change So i'm okay with apolo winning and i'm looking forward to seeing what feuds he has I think this big e feud is not over with so it'll be interesting to see where things go But apolo definitely needed this win. Are they started doing at this point they started doing the uh, The uh, you know announcing the other half of the 2021 um Holo fame class and it was cool to see uh, kane being inducted and coming out there and everyone, you know showing him love and i was thinking I wish kane had his old theme music. Y'all know what theme music i'm talking about that That's the white side of me coming out That's one of my favorite theme songs from wwe of all time Just hearing that like bro Then bro this oh man, i'm getting i'm probably gonna play this vomit and then i'm gonna play that song While i'm at it in the video because it just gets you get you amped up I want to say hold on. Let me find that the name of that song I I know you guys are gonna tell me in the conversation, but I actually want to find it just for my personal So uh, I gotta do just live. Let's do this kane theme Song it was like around 2003 slow chemical. Yeah Uh, I think that's what it was called slow chemical Yeah, uh, who is it by though? I'm doing this live. I'm doing this live I'm probably not gonna be able to play it long enough because wwe all probably get copyright and video get blocked I think this is it. I'm yep This is his best theme music Yep, this is our slow chemical man. Oh man Yeah, this this this this brings back memories man. I need to find out who is by again. I forgot Yeah, okay slow chemicals by finger 11 make sure Yep finger 11 bro. Yeah, that's that's awesome and it sucks on the original video on the slow chemical original video They turned the comments off or whatnot because I'm sure a lot of people was talking about oh kane kane Yeah, kane use this used to be kane's theme music. You know what I'm saying? I would have kept the comments on I had to take time to talk about that because That's one of his best themes and one of the best themes for a wrestler and an all of wwe It would have been cool that he would have been able to come out, but I'm sure Finger 11 they would have been you know trying to get some money off that copyright reason So yeah, but that was his best theme hands down. So I had to mention that So next match rhea Ripley versus oska for the women's raw championship Very enjoyable match. I enjoyed this match and was looking forward to it It was something fresh and new and I was looking forward to it oska taunting rhea in her name in her native language Uh, I thought that was pretty cool oska. You know oska don't give no goddamn. She she She's oska. You know I'm saying Her crowd was split between oska and rhea, which is good. You know people were invested in this match Um, I wanted to ask y'all a question. Do y'all consider rhea as a heal in this match because She was kind of doing heal like stuff like slapping oska talking trash I mean granny oska was talking trash, too. So I don't know if I would consider her a heal Or maybe a tweener. I'm not sure. I didn't really consider anyone a heal in this match It's just two competitors trying to compete Um, they you know, I just wanted to in my notes. I put they're putting on a good match oska delivering a ddt to rhea from the ring apron all the way to the mat down the floor pretty brutal um At this point oska is trying to make rhea submission She's putting in multiple different submission holds and she's trying to make rhea submit. Um But ultimately rhea is you know, they they're focusing on her strength and power She was able to overpower oska and hit her with the riptide for the one two three and I was surprised at the finish Because I I wasn't I was expecting maybe oska to retain but no They gave the belt to rhea rippling. I put in my notes notes both Both newcomers from nxt newcomers in the in the women division from nxt They win they respect those championship matches. So we have new women champions and oska I mean not oska and rhea rippley for raw and a bioncabella for smackdown. I think that's dope You know what I'm saying? I think that is awesome It's cool to see some of these nxt women talent get the proper, you know, someone of the proper, uh, you know You know spot like they deserve you feel me? So hey rhea rippley raw women's champion. I'm all for it man I'll be interested to see whenever bicky lynch come back how things will play out because you know Bicky is trying to regain her top spot as the man in wwe. So I'm looking forward to that Oh, I also forgot to mention um The next segment is uh Titus and hulk hogan coming back out at the beginning of the night Um, hulk hogan and titus came out to you know, you know introduce resummonia again And you know, there's a host or whatever and they were dressed up as pirates and every time hulk hogan spoke He got booed. They were just booing him just booing him to oblivion Every time he smoked and it was kind of the same thing here. They was booing them every time hulk hogan smoke I don't know why hulk hogan is the host I just don't know that's just me personally But it was cool.  Yo bailey is actually kind of thick She was looking kind of thick out there man.  I'm like, okay I never knew bailey was thicker than a snicker. Didn't I know that man? So Uh, and then the bellows come out and I like bailey. She said something She's like, you know, john she said one to one of the twins Uh, obviously the one that was dealing with john senior. She's like, you know, john's not out here, right? That was actually pretty funny I thought that was a good line and then they they jump Uh bailey and they got booze.  No one still likes the bellows and the bellows. What did they They're part of what? WWE needs to get rid of get away from the divas They are part of the divas era All pretty no substance in the ring. That's really what they were No one can sit up and say oh, I've seen a five star bellows match Where where no one can say that they are part of the divas era So and we are trying to get away from the divas era and get into the actual women wrestling putting on great matches That's the era I'm trying to get to and I know a lot of you guys are trying to be a part of as well so Now we get to the best part of the night This is the part of the night that I was just Truly excited I took notes, but I didn't take many notes and I made note of saying I'm probably not gonna take many notes because This is the main event and I I just want to be able to watch this and enjoy I'm going to go back and watch this match because this match was so great Let's let's first start off with the promo package alone promo package alone Fantastic, I did get to see all three of them spit promos on Friday night Smackdown And they they all killed it especially edge edge calling Roman Reigns Uh, the Samoan edge or something like that edge is you know, yeah, he's the Samoan edge I thought that was nice man. They all cut fantastic promos That promo package was amazing That to me is a WrestleMania caliber Promo package if it doesn't get you hyped. I don't know what will Um, oh, let's see. It was cool to see the yes chance at WrestleMania once again, but interesting enough Daniel Bryan wasn't the crowd favorite This was the first time I've seen in a very long time a face Daniel Bryan not being the crowd favorite He was actually getting booze The person that got the most cheers was actually edge Crazy edge got a beautiful reception when he came out there on this day I see clearly Like he got a beautiful reception when he came to the ring and Daniel Bryan got some booze He got some yes chance. He got a lot. He got him some more. No chance I remember how Daniel Bryan crowd reception was when he came to WrestleMania. It was nothing, but yes There was no nose. There was not one single. No, it was just straight. Yes When they chanted when they called his name was straight number. Yes. Now it was It was 5050 for Daniel. I was very surprised by that and of course Roman coming out All stoic all cool not really worried Straight heel booze and this is what makes this great because For the longest Roman has been getting booze as a face He was getting booze because we didn't want to see him We didn't want to see him on on televisions Because we knew he was going to probably win the match This is a different type of boo. This is this is a different type of heel heat. He's getting actual legit heel heat not Go away heat He was getting actual legit heel heat because people wanted to see him lose People paid money to see Roman Reigns lose and I love it, bro. Oh my god. So great. So goddamn great. So Uh, let's see what what do I have in my notes, man? Oh, I also said I don't know who wins this match and I don't give a damn because this match is great So whoever was going to win I was all for it didn't really matter crowd reception for edge was great The first time we see a heel Roman get the right heel heat in front of a crowd was beautiful Roman is that guy now. He is That guy I love it. He's the reason why Smackdown is is the way it is Roman went straight for Daniel Bryan as the bell along just blasting it when the forearm And then Roman and Hedge start going at it Then of course Uso was outside at the ring with Paul Hammond So Uso gets involved when outside of ring super kicks Daniel Bryan Then he's super kicks edge as edge falls out to the outside of the ring and then uh Jay Uso he's causing havoc.  They card out Uso card them out You know, he's gonna get back involved in the ring In the match, honestly, if I'm Daniel Bryan and I'm edge I legitimately I take out Roman have him laid out and then I do my best to destroy Jay Uso If I mean I mean put him in the in the yes lock Do something like hitting with a chateau to the steel steel step something to get him out of the ring For you know, he won't be coming back for the rest of the night. So That's what I would have did. Um, let's see Uh edge and Bryan start teeing off in the ring. That was a nice standoff moment. They start throwing blows Roman catches Brian outside the ring in suplex Daniel to the floor Um to the mat floor below They both went for spears in the middle ring edge and Roman and they both hit each other It was a nice little spot crowd loving it crowd chanting. This is awesome. Uh, I'm I'm making notes in my notes. This is a WrestleMania match. You could not have this match anywhere else other than the main event a WrestleMania The offensive flurry by Daniel Bryan. I was loving it. He was he was going in on everyone It didn't matter. I was loving that part when he was getting some offense in Roman going in with the elbows to Daniel Bryan was pretty brutal You know I'm saying that was that was a nice, you know, he's just throwing them elbows at Daniel Bryan Roman power bombs Daniel from the steps to the announce table On the outside ring they had the steps set up Roman and at this point Daniel Bryan has tried to tap out Romans or Romans again pissed throws them out outside the ring And he power bombs went through the table a nice little spot and what made this great the camera The camera work was perfect. He's just focused on roaming. He's talking his trash and then you see out of nowhere It spears him off the off the steel steps to the map below to the floor below And it was beautiful Roman selling it. I'm like, yo, this is a great fantastic match, man Uh, let's see. What's next then Yeah, uh, I want to say so, uh, I'm trying to I'm trying to keep up in my notes because like I said at this Well, I'm just I'm like, I'm excited. I'm joined the match as much as possible So I'm trying to keep those as best as I can but I'm not really doing a Fantastic job at it. Um Edge using the piece of the chair to make Roman tap now this segment was so So so great so great.  Then this is my favorite part of the match.  This was such. Oh my god at this point I was I was enjoying this for whatever it was the crowd was hyped. I was hyped Daniel brian comes off screen And applies his submission to roman reigns other spare arm So both of roman reigns arms is locked up He's in the submission with edge and he's in a submission with daniel brian and there's nothing he can do He's literally screwed at this point. They're both looking at each other and then they both start headbutting each other Why they have roman in the submission? I'm like, yo this match Easily one of the best matches out of both nights. I don't care what nobody says This was great. Oh my god.  So goddamn good, bro Definitely getting this is awesome chance. Ah, man. This was this was great. So edge Almost wins this match edges literally about to win this match, man Uh, I said edge getting a steel chair is bad for everyone. He picks up the chair. He starts destroying roman and Daniel bro just laying them out with chairs, bro And this is when it gets brutal the raided arms starts coming out He's setting them up for both concertos. He hits daniel brian clean with the concerto daniel brian's out daniel brian's out of the match Like honestly, he should have went for the pin on him because that would have been it the match would have been over So daniel brian gets hit with the concerto.   He hit a double pin. He didn't just pin one. He pinned them both Of course with the assistant of jay uso, but it was great and I loved it I loved it I loved it. This was fantastic. Sign me up Sign me up I I don't know what to say other than this match for me For me I know some other people made me disagree This was a five star match for me the storytelling the build up the build up Which it made this match even more special The fact that these guys went out there and busted their eyes they stole the show from me. This was entertaining as hell and Legitimately all three all all of them could have you know walked out as as champion all three could have You didn't know who was gonna win this but ultimately i'm okay with this decision Roman Reigns retaining and showing the world why he is the best in the head at the table, man Fantastic. Love this match. This is a five five star match for me Like I said, it's a five out of five for me. I love this match. I'm going to watch this match again That's what makes matches five stars for me. If I can go back and watch them again I'm actually going to do that probably either tonight or tomorrow I'm going to go back and watch this match again. That's how great it was. So And night two ends with roman reigns retaining his championship. I enjoyed night two definitely um, honestly WrestleMania this year I can rock with they definitely need to go with the two night format. They cannot they can't do this all in one night they can't Because they have too many titles the show is too big. They need to do a two night format They need to stick with that Next year it needs to be a two night format They have to because no one wants to sit in a show for eight hours You'll get tired and burnt out. So I hope they do a two night format I think that would be pretty cool But we'll see if they continue that but other than that, man This show was enjoyable night two was fantastic overall WrestleMania for me night one and two was very enjoyable Very very enjoyable. It was good to see the crowd again And I'm just looking forward to seeing where these storylines, you know play up because backlash is next month So we'll see how these storylines play out. But I want to know comment down below. Let me know What was your favorite match of the night? For me, obviously the main event was the fave my favorite match of the night daniel brian versus roman versus edge Best match of the night for me And I also want to know do y'all think they'll have another rematch Do y'all think they'll have uh another rematch at backlash? They can say, hey J usso got involved if j usso wouldn't have gotten involved. This would be a different match So maybe they have like a a triple threat hell in a sale match or not They'll say that for a in a sale pay-per-view, but they'll do something to keep j usso out. I don't know I do want I'm not gonna lie to you I want them to continue this storyline at least for one more pay-per-view at least for backlash I want them to continue this storyline because this was great You know I'm saying so I'll I'll I'll be interested to see how they played this out. I'm really looking forward to Uh smackdown this week. See how they played things out, but I appreciate all the love and support man Bro to 40k. I appreciate y'all kicking it with me and I'll see y'all on the next one. Peace