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Wrestlemania Review plus AEW Follies
5 Plays9 months ago
We discuss AEW’s Footage Poke Of Doom moment from Dynamite before reviewing the “biggest Wrestlemania in history”, plus listener mail!
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Transcript
Introduction and WrestleMania Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Chick Foley Show.
00:00:23
Speaker
What is up, Foley fan? We have officially wrapped up the sixth WrestleMania and Chick Foley show history, and we're here to wrap it up and talk about all of the news coming out. The biggest show of the year and really one of the top seven or eight biggest shows of all time. Before we get into that, though, we'll introduce the stars of the show. Sheena, how
Impact of Wrestling Tragedies and Documentaries
00:00:40
Speaker
you doing?
00:00:40
Speaker
I am high on wrestling right now. I just feel so invigorated after that awesome weekend of wrestling. WrestleMania alone was awesome, night two specifically, but we had Stand and Deliver and the ROH show. It was just super cart of honor. Yeah, everything was just so awesome and the fallout from it's been great.
00:01:00
Speaker
had a good episode of Raw and a pretty damn good episode of Dynamite tonight too that we're going to talk about. I will boldly say this is the sixth WrestleMania for the Chick Foley show, but I think it may be the best WrestleMania for the Chick Foley show. I'm super pumped to get in and talk about it.
00:01:15
Speaker
All right, Jordan, man, how was your WrestleMania experience? It was good. It was a really good weekend. Um, we started it off and I'm going to make a little statement here. We started off Thursday night with a Bray Wyatt documentary and it kind of hit me at the end of it that.
00:01:32
Speaker
I think the reason I've been so bitter and kind of negative about wrestling over the past like six to eight months is I think I finally needed some closure on the whole Bray thing it just I don't know when your favorite wrestler dies at 37 years old like it's just it's
00:01:49
Speaker
I mean, that wasn't enough time for him, obviously. And the documentary said as much. So I texted that Seth over the weekend. I was like, dude, I think my negativity stemmed from that. I just I don't know, man, I just never got over him dying. I probably never will. Honestly, like he had so much ahead of him and so much. It was tough, man. I think it's the worst.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's probably the worst, um, wrestling tragedy that I've like experienced since I've been back in wrestling, you know, like, I mean, the Jay Briscoe thing happened shortly before. It was like a few months before that. Right. And then that was, well, Jay Briscoe was back in last January and Ray was in August. Terry Funk passed away the same week, but yeah, but yeah, I mean, they were still, I mean, we were still, we were still like recovering from Jay Briscoe passing away, which was horrible and tragic. And then all of a sudden, you know,
00:02:34
Speaker
Plus two guys in the prime like that. Yeah, just taken down like, you know, seemingly out of nowhere in the documentary. If you guys haven't watched it, it's on Peacock.
00:02:42
Speaker
Um, it's, it's spectacular and also just like so heartbreaking. Cause you get to hear from his family and Jojo and they're going to excruciating detail on the final day. Yeah, the fine. Yeah. Oh, it's, it's, it's, you know, I was a blubbering mess and, um, you know, it's, it's heartbreaking, Dave, but, uh, like you said, I think it does offer closure and it does, you know, provide shines a light on his legacy. And it was just a really well-made piece of, uh, piece of work.
00:03:10
Speaker
Definitely. And then you also checked out the Roman Reigns biography, man. That got the thumbs up. Jordan's a, he is not an acknowledged dude, but he was, I told him, I said, you need to watch it. It's really, really good, man. It was, um, did you watch it before mania? Yeah. I watched it Saturday morning. Um, I woke up for some reason, I was up really early Saturday morning and I happened to text Seth.
00:03:31
Speaker
It was shortly after seven because you guys were getting ready for soccer. Um, and he's like, dude, watch the documentary before tonight. So I, uh, I threw it on right after I texted him and yeah, just outstanding. Um, listening to his brother talk about him was again, absolutely fucking brutal.
00:03:49
Speaker
When I thought, when I thought for a moment that we were going to see like straight up tears from the tribal chief on video, I was like, I was bracing for shock because I was like, Oh dude, if Roman loses it, I'm going to, I mean, I was already crying obviously, but like if Roman loses it, I'm going to be a freaking mess. The one thing that I said to Seth too, after I watched that is like, it kind of made me realize.
00:04:09
Speaker
everybody that was associated with him went to a different level because of him. Yeah. And the one thing that I texted Seth is like, the one thing he really hasn't done on this run. And I'm not saying it as a negative. I'm just saying it in general. He hasn't like taken someone outside of the bloodline to another level. And we'll get into it later. But it's just
00:04:30
Speaker
I don't know it just kind of wrapped up the whole 1316 day reign and it just put a great bow on it and just kind of gave me a different view of Roman because like dude I know the dude I see on TV is completely different than who he is in person like I get that like not an idiot but
00:04:48
Speaker
It just, I don't know. Cause Ari is always like, God, he's so cocky. I'm like, you have to be cocky to be on top of anything. Like, yeah. I mean, listen to always people gunning for you, man. Like there's always people like that's that you have that feeling where like, you know, somebody, if something happens to you or you just start like, you know, on a downward spiral, they're going to kick you out. You know what I mean? So.
00:05:07
Speaker
Well, not to mention, too, like when you're in a combat sport, I mean, you get hurt. I mean, your career is over that day. So like, there's no like, no do overs or anything in wrestling. I mean, that's, that's just the thing about
Behind-the-Scenes WWE Access
00:05:20
Speaker
it. Like, we just talked about Bray, like, there's no do. I was gonna say, ties it into Bray. Yeah.
00:05:24
Speaker
I mean, they sent him home and they show in the in the documentary like they he went home and he's like, dude, we got to do something like creative just sent me home. There's nothing for me, dude. And Bray was, I mean, as top of the card as you can get, you know what I mean? And they eventually he just started spiraling out and they were like, OK, you know, go home, figure it out and come back later.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, both documentaries absolutely outstanding. I think that was probably the best biography that Annie's done. Honestly, I've liked the other ones they've done. I just I thought this one was like the perfect mix of over the top and then like the perfect mix of like pulling back the curtain of who he actually is like
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it was perfectly timed too. I think it being right before WrestleMania really made it feel like, you know, this is the culmination of his career. And it really highlighted like the evolution of Roman Reigns. Like we literally saw Suffer and Suckatash on the documentary, which just shows you like how far this guy has risen.
00:06:19
Speaker
Yeah, it was super compelling because like you said, it was kind of part is like maybe 50% in kayfabe, you know, and, and it's just the first time they've done one on a current guy. So I hope they start sprinkling those in. You know, you could do one on, on Seth or, uh, you know, Cody, something like that. I think it'd be great, but I really loved that scene after WrestleMania 31. Obviously we know that it's an event that's near, very near and dear to all our hearts. And it was just crazy seeing Roman being like so vulnerable after that match. And, you know, uh, you know,
00:06:46
Speaker
Paul consoling him, telling him like, no, like nobody carried you that match. Like you were excellent and all this stuff. Like that was just, it was really neat seeing that peak behind the curtain of their real life relationship. Yeah. It's definitely, if you haven't had a chance to check it out, check it out. It's crazy to just like hearing Paul Heyman talk about him and just like how much he admired Roman's work and stuff even before, like long before they ever got together. It's just, it's just cool to see that kind of stuff. I love that.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah. Paul Heyman said he would, he would have signed Roman when he was like six years old or something like that. He came on, he was doing some interview and he was like, yeah, he was always backstage, you know, and he just had the charisma and the personality and the it factor. Even as a young child, he said, if I could have, I would have signed Roman reigns at six years old. You know, one thing about WWE is like, so when we were kids, we never got access to like the backstage stuff. Like we never got to see rustlers go through gorilla, anything like that. When we were kids, like,
00:07:41
Speaker
I just I feel like they got past like 25 years and they just realized like you got to evolve and give people more and just seeing scenes like that and stuff is just I don't know. It kind of just like pulls back the the human aspect of it all because I mean in the end like we're just watching this for entertainment but like sometimes it's easy to forget like these guys are human and stuff like that and
00:08:04
Speaker
Um, just like all the stuff we've seen since I feel like it's been since about like WrestleMania 28, we've seen a lot more stuff after wrestlers get back to gorilla and stuff. And it's just, I don't know. It's, it's cool to see that stuff. Yeah, it's, it really is neat when you get those little peaks behind the curtain, especially like post-match when everybody's like, you know, congratulating and, you know, hugging each other and kind of just like being like, Oh wow. You know, that was an awesome match. Love that.
Farm Life Updates
00:08:30
Speaker
Sheena, tell us what's new on the forum. We had some sad news and some good news this week. Yeah, we lost one of our OG chickens. Yeah, one of our most treasured chickens. I've been nursing her for weeks. Not actually nursing her, just taking care of her.
00:08:48
Speaker
I mean, I was, I was feeding her with a little, you know, like a syringe. So I guess I, you know, somewhat nursing her, but, um, you know, she just, she was felt like she was doing better. And then all of a sudden she just kind of took a turn for the worse and just, you know, suddenly, suddenly pass. She was a little,
00:09:02
Speaker
blonde silky, which are like the cutest chickens you've ever seen in your whole life. So stuffed animal. Yeah, exactly. Just like a little puff ball. So we were super bummed. Um, and so yeah, we, we set our farewell for farewells to Blondie. Um, but you know, shortly after, you know, just as, as life ends, we have new life coming on the farm. We have, uh, our goat is expected to give birth next week. So this will be a first time for me being a, uh, a goat tender with, uh,
00:09:28
Speaker
You know a goat that's gonna kid so I'm equally parts nervous and excited So I will keep you guys posted on how that goes. But um, I was talking about totally reappearing for the good news Oh, oh, yeah. So yeah, so today I can't remember if you guys you probably don't remember but if you do like we've had this mystery turtle that just like showed up in our backyard Home like last found it on the road. Yeah found it on the road brought it home for the kids And then we just kind of like let it roam in the backyard, right? So we saw it for a few days when Seth first brought it home
00:09:58
Speaker
And then it just like disappeared we were like all that he must have dug under the fence I got out like we were all kind of bummed because we like the idea that we had this little turtle just like crawling around the backyard right I mean what better backyard for a turtle than ours and we have so much greenery and vegetation and like you know bugs and all the things that a turtle a turtle could want.
00:10:17
Speaker
And so then he mysteriously shows up again in September. One night only. Yeah, one night only. I was just like, holy shit. I said, Tully, he's over here by the fence, dude. Tully's still here. And he's got some distinct unique patterns on his shell that we were able to match up in photos to confirm. Oh, you can, yeah.
00:10:35
Speaker
When Sheena first sent me the pictures today, I was like, it's probably not the same one. But then we started to line it up and we're like, yeah, it is the same. Yeah. So we saw him last September. And then there was that one time we saw him, let him go to bed that night, woke up the next day, searched the yard. I mean, we were pacing back and forth in the yard. We got to find this turtle, right?
00:10:55
Speaker
And then, you know, haven't seen him since and we're like, yeah, he must he must have got out, you know, dug out and went through the whole winter. So there's no vegetation, nowhere to hide, no greenery. We had a five day freeze, five day freeze. Right. And then today I'm moving that chicken coop that Jordan helped us move last year across the yard. I moved it back across the yard by myself.
00:11:17
Speaker
today. And when I went to move the chicken coop, he was behind there. And I mean, I was just like, like, startled, like, oh my freaking God. I was like, so first I was like, it's just another turtle. And then when I started looking, I was like, holy shit, I think this is Tully, dude. And I was texting pictures to Seth. Sure enough, Tully is still back there roaming the freaking yard. Six months, he was gone, dude. This was like when the ultimate warrior came back at WrestleMania 12.
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah. And it's wild because we've actively looked for this thing. It wasn't like we just like, Oh, you know, whatever he's gone. Like I would still every couple of days, like walk the fence line. Cause he likes to hang her out like right along the fence. Yeah. Maybe like a little, the little brush and everything. And, uh, yeah. So anyway, Tully's back. We're going to make sure, you know, we're going to go look for him tomorrow. I'll see. I built him a little like shelter with like some water and some logs and stuff. So I put him in there today and fed him some grubs that I dug up. So I'm like, maybe if I just feed him here, he'll know that like, this is like his little home. So, um, yeah.
00:12:11
Speaker
The turtle is back, man. We have a ninja turtle in our backyard. All I gathered from that whole update is thank God I didn't come down for WrestleMania so I didn't get blamed for another chicken. He would have got blamed again. You would have got blamed again. Yeah, we lost the chicken WrestleMania weekend last year too. Yeah, we lost our rooster last year. So yeah, that's, we actually talked about that. I was like, yeah, you know, we lost our rooster last year. Thank God Jordan wouldn't hear you take the blame for it.
00:12:35
Speaker
All right, Sheena, remind the listeners where they can find you on social media.
WrestleMania Weekend and Sponsorships
00:12:40
Speaker
You can find me on Instagram, at Chick Foley, Marco running the Twitter machine over at Chick Foley show. You can join us over on Facebook and our exclusive group by going to chickfolly.com. $2 a month, get in there. Our live thread for WrestleMania weekend was absolutely lit. I think over the course of two days, it was like 700 plus comments. As far as our little ecosphere goes, it was definitely the biggest WrestleMania in history.
00:13:03
Speaker
Yeah, for sure, for sure. So lots of fun going on over there. We'll be wrapping up our picks league and stuff like that and starting a new one. So join us over there. Best group, best wrestling group on Facebook. No drama, all cool, all killer, no filler. And a lot of help, honey. These Monday night wars figures, they're starting to hit and they are not going to be easy to find. So you get the communal fig hunting also. I want to remind you guys, this show is brought to you by Ringside Collectibles. Use code CHICKFOLY to save 10%.
00:13:30
Speaker
on all your purchases there. They get the new ultimate additions in along with the, uh, the top picks wave. Um, so if you can't tell I'm slightly below the, uh, the weather, me and Jordan recorded goal line last night and that kind of tapped out my, uh, my normally velvety smooth voice for the week. So we're going to, we're going to switch it up, man. We're bringing Sheena in off the bench at a point guard. She's moving from power forward to point guard to, uh, to start this week. And she's going to kind of kind of dish it out and just, you know, direct the, uh, traffic discussing all night, one and night two for us Romania. So Jordan, you're ready to get into it.
00:14:04
Speaker
All right. So, um, we're going to kick it off. So we're going to get into all things WrestleMania, of course, but we cannot start the show off.
AEW Controversies and CM Punk
00:14:12
Speaker
It is Wednesday as we're recording this. We just saw that, you know, the bucks had been saying, and you know, Tony Khan has been saying for the past week that they're going to air.
00:14:20
Speaker
the footage, the behind the scenes footage from Brawl out when AEW was in London and, you know, we got to see it tonight. So I want to get your guys thoughts, you know, CM Punk, everybody's like, Oh yeah, it's going to really, you know, show, show a side of CM Punk, you know, show everybody that he's a bitch and you know, a liar and all of this kind of stuff.
00:14:39
Speaker
AW never said that. That was just a speculation from the fans. They delivered. They literally said they were going to roll the foot. I'll give them props. It was no bait and switch. Yes. Because I was expecting this to be a troll job, but we were going to get something like 1998 when DX dressed up as the nation of domination and did like a parody skit. I was expecting to see the bucks dressed up like that, but I think
00:15:01
Speaker
I mean, we're that we're some of the biggest CM Punk, you know, we collect dislikers on the internet, right? So like, I feel like we were prepared for like, what's this gonna be, right? It validated everything he said. Like, there's a I have to say, I have to watch, you know, we'll share the link in our Facebook group and stuff. It's some really quick wrestling fan went ahead and stitched together the video.
00:15:22
Speaker
along with CM Punk's accounting of that story on the Chris Van Vliet interview. Obviously, we don't have the audio for context, but in my mind, it pretty much validated everything that CM Punk said. I'm glad they showed it. We can finally just close that curiosity, put it behind us. I'm not really sure what this does for AEW though, because like I said, if anything,
00:15:45
Speaker
I think it makes punk look good. I was expecting a lot more. The bucks did say they kind of preface before they rolled the footage. It kind of just looks like a high school scrap. And that's exactly what it looked like. I thought seeing punk got Jack Perry down and choked the fuck out of him. You know what I mean? And beat him up. It was like a quick scrap. Samoa Joe jumped in, pulled Jungle Boy off. Hook was just over in the corner as chill as a cucumber. That was the funny part to me. I was like, Hook is just sitting there.
00:16:12
Speaker
Damn, boys. To me, it does make them look dysfunctional because it doesn't seem like something that should have led to a guy getting fired and a guy getting sent to Japan for six months. I've seen scraps like that in pickup basketball games and guys dap it up 30 seconds later and you just move on. Exactly. That's one thing about dudes for the most part. Dudes can have a scrap like that and then 10 minutes later, they're like, dude, sorry, let's just go on about our way.
00:16:38
Speaker
My biggest qualm is that Tony Khan sitting right fucking there, right behind that computer screen. You can't see him on camera, but he's sitting right there. I don't know what he was doing. Obviously, he's running a show at that time, the biggest show that they have.
00:16:54
Speaker
Like if you saw CM Punk and this thing like heating up, wouldn't you like tell him to like, you know, calm the fuck down, take a step back? Wave Samoa Joe over. Wave Samoa Joe over. Yeah, tell somebody to like handle this, right? So it doesn't escalate to the point where like CM Punk's like shoving Jungle Boy. But it gets, you know...
00:17:13
Speaker
He doesn't step in until the contact has been made, right? And he doesn't even step in, he reaches over his freaking monitor, you know? So I think, you know, that would have never flown. I'm not even gonna talk about, you know, we're not talking about anything that Vince McMahon's done, right? We all know that Vince McMahon is a...
00:17:29
Speaker
POS, but Vince McMahon would never have let that fly, dude. If that shit was popping off in a Vince McMahon gorilla position, like that, I think that would have been triple H gorilla position or even triple H. Yeah, exactly. It just would have never, it would just never popped off like that with at WWE. So, you know, I don't know. What are your thoughts, Jordan? I'm interested to hear what you got to say. Um, I think that everybody's focusing on obviously the footage that was released tonight. Um,
00:17:56
Speaker
I still think there's still a lot to be said about, not just the footage tonight, but everything that kind of just led to this. I mean, this didn't just happen overnight or in five minutes when Jack Perry slapped the glass on the car. Like there was a lead into this. I mean, punk was involved in brawl out.
00:18:16
Speaker
I don't think that we should just be placing 100% of the blame on any one person in this. Like Tony Khan bringing him back after the original, after the original brawl out, I just, I feel like that was the first move that kind of triggered this whole thing. I just, I feel like Tony Khan needed to be way more in charge than he was from the beginning. And me and Seth actually talked about this the other night. I just,
00:18:43
Speaker
I feel like Tony Khan is too much of a nice guy and he needs to answer to someone. Like I'm not saying he needs to answer to someone as opposed to making company decisions. But as far as like on screen things and bringing in talent and stuff, I feel like he needs someone to tell him, Hey, maybe this isn't such a good idea. Maybe we shouldn't have brought this guy back because there's obviously still heat with them for what happened during brawl out. So.
00:19:09
Speaker
Um, I don't, I don't know. Like this footage did nothing for AWW at all. And I feel like he, I feel like he, um, he needs a henchman where he can like, you know, cause Tony Khan is, I think he is genuinely a nice guy. I think he like cares about the wrestlers. I think he cares about wrestling.
00:19:26
Speaker
Um, he is a fan, right? I think he, you know, he needs somebody that he can like point in the direction to be like, you know, handle this, like, you know, you get to be the bad guy. Like, you know what I mean? Like he needs somebody that's like that middleman because, um, clearly he doesn't know how to handle conflict very well. Right? Like he's not, um,
00:19:45
Speaker
he's not the best person when it comes to conflict resolution so he needs somebody out there that's like better at it and like it's gonna squash it before it even gets started or even be able to just like identify it before it even gets off the ground. I feel like he set a really bad standard too um just going back to the the whole punk thing like it seemed like there was nothing that cm punk could do to get him like on tony count's bad side i mean the whole brawl out thing happened and
00:20:11
Speaker
um Cole Cabana ended up getting canned because of everything because CM Punk didn't like him and I just I don't know man I just I feel like he set a dangerous precedent by just basically saying I wanted CM Punk I wanted this um debut to happen in AEW which granted it set off a huge ratings boost and everything like that but I feel like he just set such a precedent about CM Punk that
00:20:36
Speaker
And I get it. This was not like a huge scrap or anything. But at some point and then CM Punk did say, fuck you, I quit whatever. But I just I feel like there was nowhere else he could go with this other than to fire him. Because if he didn't, I mean, dude, if you just keep letting the same dude do the same things over and over at some point, it's going to be like, OK, so what does he have to do to get fired?
00:21:00
Speaker
Yeah, he had to fire him, dude. There's no two ways about it. It would have dissolved into chaos if he didn't fire Punk after that. It feels like he created a monster by giving Punk so much leeway and just letting him basically do whatever he wanted and then eventually Punk just turned on him. Punk is going to Punk, dude. At the end of the day, Punk is going to Punk. If you think anything different, you're delusional.
00:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, I love how everybody's like, Oh man, he's changed now. I'm like, dude, dude is mid 40s. Dude is mid 40s. This dude ain't changed. He's like, he's all soft now because he got welcomed back into WWE. Like if you don't think that he's going to do something again, eventually that's going to end up costing him his job in WWE. You're a fucking moron. I'm sorry.
00:21:47
Speaker
He was soft when he got back with AEW. He was like, you know, Mr. Hometown, Mr. Like, you know, I'm home. Yeah, passing out ice cream bars and shit like. Wrestling with all of his boys. Wait till he's got to put, put Braun Breaker over at WrestleMania next year. Exactly. Yeah.
00:22:02
Speaker
Yeah. Cause the newness is going to wear off eventually. Like eventually CM Punk is not going to be the new thing in WWE. And when that happens, that's usually when he takes his proverbial ball and goes home. Like it's just who he is. Exactly. And you know, he may not even get what he came back for. You know what I mean? Like that's the thing he's, I mean, he's gotten injured. I called it when we were making our, you know, 2024 predictions.
00:22:25
Speaker
I said, I don't think CM Punk will be with WWE by the end of 2024, dude. And I was like, whether it's injuries, like, you know, just making him have to call it quits or whether he does something to just like, you know, just have a punk moment and does punks out, then, um, you know, he's not going to be there. And sure enough, dude, gets freaking hurt.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. To me, the health is a bigger issue than the personality stuff anyways, because you can always get past the personality stuff, dude. I mean, we know it ended with a screw job, but they were able to get Sean and Brett in the ring at the end of 97. You can always work past that stuff. I mean, they couldn't get past it 12, 13 years ago when he was in WWE, so I don't know, man. True. He's still a dick. By all accounts, he's still a complete dick, but you're right. He's going to just keep getting hurt because his body's frail.
00:23:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Fragile mind. What's it? Fragile mind. Fragile ego. Yeah. We've body experience. I've repeated it so much that it all just runs together now. But that was the realest thing Mox has ever said in his career. He nailed it. I got so much. He nailed it, man.
00:23:27
Speaker
I posted that the night that punk got hurt and I mean I was absolutely my comments were absolutely on fire. He moves the needle dude. That's one thing I would definitely admit now still not a CM Punk fan by any means but it's pretty much undeniable dude. I think he's even above Roman. You know, I think Roman still garners more, you know mainstream attention. I think he's still the biggest star in wrestling. Yeah, Roman and Cody, but as far as the hard cores go, there is nobody that is bigger than CM Punk dude.
00:23:52
Speaker
You can just see it anytime Sheena post something about CM Punk, it gets way more comments, way more attention than anything, dude. He is the main antagonist in the world wrestling right now. Yeah, because his loyal followers, they're literally a cult, dude. They're literally the cult of personality, dude. Cult of personality. Yeah, it's a fact.
00:24:10
Speaker
They are a cult and the people who don't like punk, they still tune in and watch just because punk is so unhinged. Yeah, you hate watch. Yeah, you hate watch. You're waiting for the self-destruction to happen. Exactly. Everybody's watching whether you love him or whether you hate him. Props to him for that again. I think that's the whole point why anybody would bring him back. He sells merch. He gets eyes on the product. The people who love him absolutely freaking love him. Yep. He's a lightening rod.
00:24:38
Speaker
He's a lightning rod. Any other thoughts on AEW before we move on to WrestleMania 40? No. I feel bad for Tony Schiavone, dude. If you look at him right after that clip aired, he had the thousand yard stare into the dirt. He looked like he was having flashbacks to 99WCW. He wanted to be anywhere else. He knew, like I said,
00:25:00
Speaker
I will give him props dude. FTR cut a hell of a promo afterwards, man. It's an interesting way to generate some hype in the bucks FTR for, but I feel like at best this is coming off as like a net neutral move for AEW and that's what the absolute rosiest AEW colored glasses are. Yeah, it'll pop a rating this week, but next week it'll be back to what it was. It's just like Tony Khan is so good for that to bring something in to just get that one week boost and then it's same old, same old.
00:25:29
Speaker
I mean, I, you know, I love a w dude. I, you know, we, we, we criticize him, but I love a w with all my heart. And I just, I really hope that they, I hope they can kind of, I don't know. I mean, they're still doing okay on TV. The empty crowds are like a thing. I just hope they can kind of just stop the bleeding and start building back some momentum. Cause they do put on that. I've never seen like a bad AW show. There's been bad moments, but I don't know. Have either one of you guys ever sat and watched the episode of AWTV or AW pay-per-view and been like, man, that sucked. No.
00:25:57
Speaker
I don't think I'd be there. And there's plenty of times I've watched WWE and been like, man, that was. Oh yeah. There was a whole, there was a whole year, two year span of 2018 and 2019 were rough. There were some, the bright spots were there, but it was a chore. It was a chore to watch.
00:26:14
Speaker
I feel like that's one thing for AEW is like, even if their whole show as a whole is not great, I feel like there's enough parts in it where at least half of it are good every week that keeps you interested. But that was the problem with WWE. They just kept running the same shit back every week for 2018 and 19. And it was bad when they were just in a hole.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah, like a swirling hole like Groundhog Day, dude, we wake up every day and it was just shaming man, Baron Corbin. Oh, my God. But yeah, there's never a week. Food actually. Yeah, there's never a week where I'm just like sitting there watching AWR. I'm like, God, this is the worst fucking thing ever. Why am I watching it? There's weeks where I'm like, there's weeks where I'm like, Can we like get back to what made this so great? But
00:27:01
Speaker
And they just they have so much talent. I think that's why, you know, we just keep hanging on, because like the level of talent that they have on their roster is just absolutely fire. I will say they are getting smarter, though, because look at the last three guys they brought in. Okada is on TV almost every week on Dynamite. Bruv is on TV every week at the very least talking. And then Mercedes is on TV every week, at least talking like
00:27:26
Speaker
He's learning he's evolving where it's not hey debut this week And then we'll see you in three weeks like he's at least learning like hey when you bring in a splash You better make sure they're in front of everybody every week for at least the next month
00:27:41
Speaker
All right. So that wraps up our AW segment for this show. And now let's get to the main event.
WrestleMania 40 Highlights
00:27:47
Speaker
WrestleMania 40. So dude, I love, I'll just kick off the show and say, um, even though I was like, you know, my heart was breaking, my, my one finger was coming down slowly. Uh, when, uh, when Cody, when Cody pinned Roman, but, uh, Samantha Irvin's emotional call at the end of night two and when Cody one was, was.
00:28:09
Speaker
So good, dude. Samantha's goat status, dude. Anybody who says a crossword about Samantha Urban, if you don't like Samantha Urban, you don't like wrestling, dude. I think she passed the fink, dude. I feel like if anybody takes the nostalgia goggles off, she's better than the fink. Fink was awesome, dude. Fink was just... Two different flavors. The best sound. It was just so clean. Samantha Urban, I love the passion, dude. Like you said, it's just...
00:28:30
Speaker
And she's my all-time favorite. And none of us will ever forget that moment where she couldn't even announce that Cody Rhodes had won, because, dude, that's how much she loves the business she's in. Like, she loves watching it. Oh, yeah. I got cold chills just now, just thinking about it. Yeah, it was fucking incredible. Like, that honestly was one of the coolest moments of WrestleMania weekend to me, was her having to choke to get out that Cody had just won the title. Like, it was incredible. Yeah, I mean, because we saw it. It made that moment 10 times bigger.
00:28:59
Speaker
Oh, 100%. Now we've seen the video. There was a video of her actually making the call, but during that time, the camera's on Cody and you just hear Samantha in the background getting totally emotional. It just made the whole moment, like you said, just seem so much bigger and so much more validating.
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah. Shouts to Samantha Irvin, dude. Yeah. That'll be part of that highlight when they show for the next 15 years, man. That, and I thought, not to jump too far ahead, we'll circle back to it. But Michael Cole nailed the call on that with the ref hits of Matt, one, finish, two, the three story, dude. That was perfect how they timed that out for the last call as it ended.
00:29:39
Speaker
Awesome. Well, yeah, we'll get to that. But overall, what were your, uh, what were your thoughts on WrestleMania XL, the stage, the look, you know, it was at the, at the link open air night one was, was mighty cold. So, uh, it was, uh, I'm skeptical if we see a outdoor mania in the Northeast again for the next few years, you know, unless they're going to maybe move it closer towards the end of April or something. But
00:30:02
Speaker
I like the stage design. It was clean. It was nothing over the top. I think they were definitely trying to maximize the seats. They didn't want to cut down on any tickets that could be sold, but it was clean. It's not going down in my top 10 favorite mania sets ever, dude. It's pretty easily forgotten, but it was cool. I like that the Eagles color scheme looked nice.
00:30:19
Speaker
I'll jump ahead really quickly because I peeked at the listener mail since we're just kind of on that subject. Matt Russick from The Extra Cooler Show, he asked, he said, do you think we will see any more outdoor, you know, cold outdoor Wrestlemanias? You know, so what do you think, Jordan? Do you think, you know, any northern states, any potential where it's going to be nice and chilly for WrestleMania weekend? Do you think they're going to get any more love from the Wrestlemanias?
00:30:44
Speaker
I mean, it took them 11 years to go back to the Northeast for an outdoor show for WrestleMania. So I think this time they're gonna learn their lesson and probably not do it again for at least a while. I mean, it sounds like they've got quite a few cities lined up and none of them are in the Northeast.
00:31:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, the stadium itself looked really cool. Like I enjoyed it. But you could tell those people were freezing. Like, dude, people are in winter coats in the front row. The crowd was absolutely like dead on night one, which was, you know, which is surprising for a mania, especially a mania like night one, you know, it gets it gets it gets overlooked. You know, I think, you know, night two definitely took all the shine. But night one was still an excellent night of wrestling. And the fans were just dead, which I think added to it being feeling a little like meh.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're out there though for like four or five hours. You're out there for a long time but also like what it so but why do you think an NFL crowd can get out there and like freaking fucking snow in their face all that, you know, and like, you know, the players are still playing they can you know, they do that every season.
00:31:46
Speaker
So one, you got to remember most of the time at an NFL game, the entire 80,000 people are rooting for one team. So that helps, right? Just a little bit more passionate than, you know, going match to match. And two, throwing the other for three hours. Lastly, NFL tickets are so much cheaper. You got way more money for booze and, you know, tailgating is not really a thing at wrestling shows. It probably should be, but a lot of NFL fans have been out getting liquored up for, you know, four hours before that warm job.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah, Philadelphia is bad too because it's like their stadium is like right in the middle of freaking nowhere. There's no like downtown kind of situation area where you can like go have drinks. No. Yeah. All their sports stadiums are off in its own little part of town. The, um, which was the, and yeah, you saw it night too, man. Even just being about 10 degrees warmer made all the difference in the world. The crowd was the whole time, but you just, you're rolling your dice, man, with one of those, those East coast shows like that.
00:32:35
Speaker
Yeah, because it could, I mean, it was like, what was it, like 50 degrees? It could, I mean, if it gets down to like 40 or 30, dude, it's going to be a bad night. Night one, by the end of the night, it was down, I think Windchill was down like 40 or like high 30s, whereas night two, it was around 50, even at the coldest. Yeah, that's what I heard. The people that were in the top of the stadium were like, you know, that wind was just whipping up, dude. You're WCW Glacier by the end of night one, dude.
00:32:59
Speaker
Oh, man. So we kicked off the night with the women's match, which was awesome. We got Rhea versus Becky on night one. What were your thoughts? You know, Seth, you're our resident Becky lover. What'd you think about Becky's entrance?
00:33:13
Speaker
It was, I liked the concept of it. I feel like there was probably a better way to execute. I felt like it was like a touch too cute. Cause like we didn't even really realize until she's like halfway down the ramp. Like, Oh, she's got like her, her pages on her thing. You know, I just, I didn't really love the look. I liked the thought of it. I didn't like the look of it. You know, it came off looking like a sort of like Dalmatian deal or something like that. Yeah. Well, I made a comment to Seth. I was like, you know, the, the red and black part of her, of her gear looks really great. The white like fur kind of.
00:33:39
Speaker
you know, threw me off a little bit. Like you said, I looked a little too cutesy. I did like the, once I realized what it was and like her whole like train situation was hurt the pages of her book. And I liked the how, you know, she was reading the excerpts from her book and kind of telling, telling Becky story before the match, you know, how she's the underdog and how nobody, you know, thought she would be where she is now. I thought that was pretty cool. Um, but yeah, the overall look just didn't hit a hundred percent for me. What about you, Jordan? What were your, what were your thoughts?
00:34:07
Speaker
I just okay so one thing I was hoping was going to be gone when Kevin Dunn left was the CGI shit. I do that stuff. Dude, the the door opening on the book being CGI was absolutely atrocious like
00:34:24
Speaker
Dude, if you're gonna do all that work, why couldn't they have just got like a pillar of the book and then put a door on it? Like, it's just so lazy when they- The New Day cereal box back at 32. Exactly, yeah. It's just so- The cereal box. It's just so lazy to me. Like, I hated the entrance. Like, her look was fine. The look didn't bother me at all. I just, I hate the CGI stuff so much. It just, I don't know, man. It just, for some reason, well, also the crowd in person is not seeing that at all.
00:34:53
Speaker
to them that was just a normal entrance like she just walked out and walked to the ring that's all they saw but I mean I honestly wish that's what I would have saw because the book thing it was cool her reading the pages and stuff but the whole her walking through the door of the book was absolutely atrocious
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, it didn't hit, but in contrast, we had mommy come out looking like an absolute specimen, dude. Just got the long hair, came out, whatever that, you know, band's name is, you know, moon child or whatever the heck their name is. I can't remember. Anyway, like she was just so into it, which I don't know. Motionless and white.
00:35:37
Speaker
Yeah, that. I knew it started with an M, I just went with it whenever my gut was telling me. See if tonight, I was way off. Yeah, I got the solar eclipse in my brain, so moonchild it is. But yeah, she just looked awesome. The entrance was incredible. She just commands your presence. She's just a stunner dude, straight up knockout dude. She just looks badass, man. Everything about her entrance is just badass. I want an ultimate edition of that, of Rhea from WrestleMania ASAP.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, looked, looked awesome. I love, loved the long hair. It was a little striking at first. I was like, what the heck? Um, but yeah, it grew on me. I loved it. Um, what do we think of the match? I thought the match, oh, the match hit dude. It was good. I mean, you know, Becky's definitely lost a step in ring. I think it was about as good as you could expect from a Becky Lynch match in 2024. And I think it served his purpose is just solidifying Ria as the top female in the company, at least until Charlotte comes back.
00:36:32
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't as good as, as Rhea versus Charlotte, but, um, but, uh, yeah, it's still, I mean, you know, for, for Becky to have been as outmatched as she was against Rhea, I think, I think she held her own and I thought it was, I thought it was great. Jordan. Yeah. I thought shoot looked a step slow. And then once they told us that she had a 103 degree free, uh, fever and strep throat, it kind of made a lot more sense. Um, yeah.
00:36:55
Speaker
Dude, I, I, anybody that's still hating on Ria and talking about her look and that she's ugly and stuff. I just, I don't know. Who says that? I mean, somebody posted in the Facebook group. It happened. Like it happened before. I just, there's people in the Facebook group that don't.
00:37:10
Speaker
I did not see that. I would have roasted that comment. It wasn't that night. This was a while ago. Nah, there were some people making comments that night in the last minute. Fully fam. I think she's one of the hottest women in the history. Fully fam, show yourself, dude. I need to know. I'm going to go back in the freaking live thread. God, I'm going to go through 300 plus comments to find this comment about Rhea.
00:37:28
Speaker
Dude, Bria is stunning, dude. Her makeup and her goth look may not be for you, but let me just... I saw her live and in person. She did the dark match at SmackDown. Didn't have on a... Maybe some foundation. Didn't have on her straight up costume paint, right? She was more beautiful. She was... Oh my God, she's beautiful, dude. And she's built a brick shit house. What more could you want?
00:37:50
Speaker
Go look at Rhea from like the first Mae Young class. From the Mae Young, yeah, blonde hair. She's like, you know, Charlotte is Jace. Yeah. There was a picture of her from the Hall of Fame ceremony and she had her long hair. And I had to like contain myself from posting it in the Foley group and saying what I really wanted to say because I just there. I don't know. Rhea is she's a special woman.
00:38:15
Speaker
There's a reason that the Rhea stink face freaking burned the internet down that weekend that it happened, dude. Rhea is freaking straight fire, dude. I think if they would charge for that experience at WrestleMania at WWE World, man, how much money do you make? I'm telling you right now, I don't care what you guys call me, I'm first in line with whatever it costs to make it happen.
00:38:37
Speaker
taking out a second mortgage on the house. I thought maybe we would see it at Mania because Becky was talking shit about it, saying like, I worked hard to kind of fight against this narrative that you have to be like sexy and gimmicky to go viral and stuff like that. So I thought maybe just out of spite, Rhea would get the idea. No way Becky's taking that. She's passed that. Hey, I can find three people that ain't passed it and they're all right here.
00:39:05
Speaker
Real talk, I would too. I would take the real staying face. Then what about the, this was a little bit of a disappointment on night one. Actually it was a lot of bit of a disappointment. We already kind of complained about the build for Jimmy and Jay, you know, Uso versus Uso.
00:39:22
Speaker
The package, the video package made it seem like it was about to be an absolute banger, dude. And then it just fell absolutely flat. It just turned into straight super kick fest, and that was about it, dude. What do you think went wrong, Seth?
00:39:39
Speaker
we thought that we were going to get Brett versus Owen at WrestleMania 10. Instead, what we got was Steve Austin versus Scott Hall at WrestleMania 18. It wasn't a brother versus brother blood feud. It was a main event superstar going against one of the mid-level goons from the top heel faction. That's what it was. And honestly, that's what the build was too, man. Maybe they come back to it later on down the road.
00:40:04
Speaker
But we talked about it on our preview show that this didn't feel like it was leading to, we thought this was going to be some sort of like, you know, maybe Jimmy gets a cheap win. It was going to kick off a series of magic. It needed to do something. But it was a glorified squash man. Jay didn't really have that much trouble with Jimmy.
00:40:19
Speaker
You know, to be fair, it matched the build, man. I heard people in the live thread saying, you know, hey, the match lined up with what the build was and it was. So maybe we just had, I think we all had false expectations on it just because how much they both talked about this being their dream match over the years, but it just was not in the cards from a creative perspective. And honestly, like,
00:40:38
Speaker
I would have rather I still rather seen that match right that just all-time banger between them but it would seem a little out of place because Jimmy is just not been presented like that you know Jimmy's awesome awesome comedy mid-card guy right now where is Jay's legit like you know he's actually is legitimately the world title contender I know yeah he is and honestly I mean
00:40:59
Speaker
A lot of the crowd, the crowd was completely dead for that match too, which made it even feel, feel even more flat. I mean, typically when Jay comes out and he starts doing the eight mile, like, you know, the, the hands up and down, I mean, every single person in the arena is, is doing it along with him. And like, nobody was doing it at WrestleMania. So it kind of just felt like from the very beginning that this match was, uh, was not hitting. And.
00:41:21
Speaker
The sun was down. I think the cold was starting to set in. And at that point I think, I mean, I can imagine if I'm there too, dude, like you're probably starting to, you're probably starting to look at the watch and think like, okay, how much more time till the main event, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I just, I felt like, I don't know. I even kind of texted Seth as like, Jimmy has never seen more mid than he did in that match. Like he literally just looked like, like you just had a complete mid Carter and Jay was presented like a million dollars and
00:41:50
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. This was a major disappointment. I get it that the build was bad, but dude, we might not ever get this again. Definitely not at WrestleMania, but I mean, just period. And to have that be the blow off of everything that's happened in the last four years with bloodline. I just, I thought it was disrespectful to those two guys.
00:42:09
Speaker
It's just such a stark contrast because you know the main event last year like was an absolute freakin banger. The tag team match was awesome. You know and you would think like these two I mean they've literally were in utero together like they would have some chemistry in the ring against one another. They do. There's no doubt they got a better match in them.
00:42:27
Speaker
It's just, I straight up think, I think that was a WWE production decision. This is the match you guys are going to give us. You're not going to give us this epic, man. They're 30 second skirmish they had during the main event on 19 was better than anything that happened in the match. I thought that exact same thing. I was going to say, when he speared him off the freaking ramp, that was something. At least there was some passion there and some electricity, whereas
00:42:54
Speaker
yeah this match was like popcorn match man which is super disappointing because we freaking love the usos dude so by far biggest disappointment of me also i don't ever want to hear anybody say anything about a young bucks match again because dude wwe was all in on the fucking super kicks over the weekend like we saw i think we saw a thousand super kicks in two nights
00:43:15
Speaker
We had the, for our Foley picks league, one of the bonus picks was the number of super kicks in that match. And we had one person that put a hundred in just as a joke. Nobody else would hit it. Yeah. Everybody else was like five or six below. I stopped counting after like 13. I think 13 was the highest, uh, the highest guess man. But yeah, they passed that in like the first freaking four or five minutes of the match. It was a, it was a, that was definitely the, one of the biggest like puzzling moments from the weekend, like exactly.
00:43:43
Speaker
how that's what they came up with for Jimmy and Jay. Yeah, it really put a stain on night one of WrestleMania. Something that did not put a stain on night one was the debut of Jay Cargill. Again, looking like an absolute specimen. She went with a different hairdo, had a really short, sassy cut, dude. Sassy.
00:44:04
Speaker
Yeah, sassy. Her and Naomi and Bianca just like rising, you know, with just the shadow with like the Destiny's Childs type, like concert entrance dude. It was awesome. Going against, you know, damage control that are all great in their own right. What'd you guys think of this match? It was cool. It was, I mean, to me, it was just a showcase for Jade, but I thought Jade looked amazing as always.
00:44:29
Speaker
I didn't, it wasn't like a squash though. I mean, that's the thing. It wasn't like they just let Jay get in there and squash damage control, like held their own for a while. And I felt like it wasn't, they were just like, not like, I mean, Jay wasn't even in at the like first part of the match. Like, you know, so I, um, I feel like we need to talk about the bigger travesty in this match that I didn't even know was a thing until Sunday or Saturday night. Oscar has never won a WrestleMania match. Jesus Christ. What are we doing? Wow. What a statistic dude.
00:44:56
Speaker
We were, she lost to Charlotte. I don't think she had a match 35. Did she wrestle at 36 the pandemic one? I can't remember. I don't remember, but they said, yeah, when, you know, if you can't remember that's when Michael 37, she lost to Ria. She had never won a WrestleMania match. Then obviously they were going to lose that one. I'm like, dude, what are we doing? That chick didn't lose for two years and didn't have a, doesn't have a WrestleMania win. Like she got the reverse street.
00:45:24
Speaker
Yeah. What do we think in, uh, you know, Jade after coming off of her impressive mania debut, what are we thinking? You know, for mania 41, I'm calling, I think Bianca is in the cards for her. I think her Bianca. And honestly, I think that's a big enough match that you can make it a, you know, one of your Marquis without you having the belt involved. I mean, if it's a, I could see Bianca getting the belt back between now and then and it'd be in Jade's County moment, but I think it'd be cool. They just went at it straight up one-on-one, no titles involved.
00:45:49
Speaker
Yeah. Cause they're all buddy buddy right now. You know what I mean? Like they're all, they're on a high, like, you know, look, we're doing this thing together. You know, they're like post-match interview. They were all giddy and you know, hyping each other up. And yeah, eventually Jade is going to, it's common. Jade's going to turn on Bianca dude. It's, it's in the car. The number one thing though is.
00:46:06
Speaker
they need to keep her with Bianca and Naomi as long as they can. Cause I mean, there's no denying she still has work to do in the ring. Like she needs, she needs to be around those two ladies to help her along. I'm with Seth. I think she will wrestle Bianca, but I don't think there'll be a title attached to it just cause I still think maybe a year, maybe summer slam of 2025 is Jade's crowning moment. I just, I don't think we're there yet. I really don't. I just, I don't think we're at that point yet.
00:46:35
Speaker
No, we're definitely not there yet. But I mean, the fact that she came out on the grandest stage of the mall and held her own and looked like a million bucks and didn't, I mean, didn't botch anything, you know, I mean, which is, which is a huge, I mean, I can't imagine getting out there in front of that many people and, you know, how she couldn't have been nervous. So yeah, I thought, I thought she did excellent, dude. And I think, I think things are looking up for Jade.
00:46:56
Speaker
Um, next we got Sammy versus Gunther for the intercontinental championship. Okay. Can I, I want to start with this one? Cause yeah, this is one of, it's an awesome moment. Don't get me wrong. Sammy winning is an incredible moment, but this was my problem with WWE this weekend in general. Um,
00:47:17
Speaker
Finishers no longer have any pizzazz at all. Like none of them are. I know, but it's worse now. Like I, I just felt like the way that match flowed and stuff, like you could see what was coming. Like obviously they were going to do something stupid at the end of this match. I mean, he literally got beat down for 15, 20 minutes. And then we have a three minute run from Sammy's and he just wins. Like,
00:47:41
Speaker
I don't think it weakened anything that Gunther did but I don't know like when you're making something seem that insignificant like him hitting that many finishers I mean he did two top rope splashes like
00:47:54
Speaker
I mean, that's not Sami. Sami's got the grit, dude. He had the best trainer in the game. He had Chad Gable freaking training and, and he got the doubt from KO on the way out and gave him that super power, dude, his wife in the front row. Yeah. He had his haggard, haggard wife that Alex Eubanks is in love with. It's, it cracks me up how much Alex despises Sammy's, Sammy's wife for no good reason, but it's so, it's funny. That's the biggest feud in wrestling.
00:48:19
Speaker
I love the presentation, like the, the entrance and stuff going into it, man, showing especially the part where Kevin Owens right at the end. Like that was awesome. But I agree, man, that match was just, it, it breaks your like suspension of disbelief to where like, you're no longer watching a wrestling match. You're just watching a story play out in the ring, dude. Cause there's just no way Sammy should have took, could have took all that. It's at some point it's like, all right, so Gunther's just going to have to like pull out a gun and shoot him to pin him.
00:48:45
Speaker
Well, I agree with you guys on that. I agreed that there were too many finishers that got kicked out of and like if Gunther was really hitting those finishers, there's no way that Sammy would have kicked out. I think that the match though, everybody's like, you know, is it too unbelievable? You got to suspend your disbelief that Sammy
00:49:01
Speaker
Zane of all people is going to take out this immovable object, the Gunther, right? But it wasn't that he got outmatched. He was outsmarted, right? Gunther got too cocky. He was freaking taunting his wife. He should have just taken, because there was plenty of points where he could have taken Sammy out, but he kept pulling him back up, dude. You know what I mean?
00:49:20
Speaker
It's like it's like the horror movies. You gotta get the headshot. You know what I mean? Like you can't be messing around you should have just pinned him but instead he wanted to fuck around and find out and You know, then he got he got out Matt. He got out smarted by Sammy I think he did kind of get brutalized by Sammy though, dude He took the brain buster off the top rope. He to halova kicks like
00:49:40
Speaker
I typically don't like to get this far in the weeds on critiquing like the, the move by move of the matches, but I feel like it would have been a lot better if we see Sammy Steele one from Gunther a la like Brett and diesel at survivor series 95 catch him in a, in a surprise pinning combination or something like that, you know, or like a hell of a kick out of nowhere that this somehow gets the pin. I just, I mean, to me, that was a,
00:50:04
Speaker
I mean, he took an ass whooping, but then at the end of the match, he freaking dominated Gunther, dude. Yeah. Like he dominated him and beat him. Like there was no doubt about it, who the better wrestler was. Whereas in the last two years, like Gunther's been so far ahead of Sami Zayn that it just, it just kind of broke. Like for me, it broke my suspension of disbelief watching that match. And I hate it when that happens, dude. So yeah, this one is, it was entertaining to take for what it was. But if I'm watching it like with my wrestling critic hat on, this one was a thumbs down for me.
00:50:30
Speaker
So Jordan, where do you think, so where does Gunther go from here? Getting beat by Sammy, obviously, you know, longest intercontinental championship reign, coming off the longest intercontinental championship reign. Like what's next for Gunther? I mean, he has to go after one of the world titles, which one it is. I don't care, but he has to go after one of them. Like there's, there's no way that he takes any step besides that. Cause anything else to me is a disappointment. Like they have to put him going for one of the two main titles.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah. I think he's got a good shot at taking that belt from Cody. Let me look up real quick what day the bash at Berlin is, because I don't see Cody having a super long run, dude. Well, yeah, that's one of the things in the listener mail too, so we'll go ahead and address that. How long? I'm with you, Seth. I think that Cody is going to take
00:51:20
Speaker
Take an L sooner rather than later, dude And it's gonna just be a battle like for Cody to keep getting the belt back just August 31st So we're gonna be four weeks after summer slam so you could have Cody keep it through summer slam get a big defense against the rock or somebody else a summer slam and Then drop it cuz yeah, I feel like that would be a real moment But I just I don't see I see Cody having like, you know It's not gonna be like a flash in the pan But I see Cody having it around, you know six months give or take is for this run
00:51:47
Speaker
Dude, you're wrong on the day to Clash of the Castle. That's June 15th. No, I'm talking about the Bash in Berlin, dude, not the Clash of the Castle. Well, dude, I think that's where... A lot of alliteration there. I think that's where he's going to lose it, dude. He's not making it to SummerSlam as the champion. He's losing it before. He may be right. Yeah. I thought that's who you were talking about the whole time. You think Cody's not going to make it to SummerSlam?
00:52:06
Speaker
No, I don't think he's making this summer. I could see. I could see. I think he's making it to summer. I don't know. I could see like I could totally see Cody's first like big, big defense. The rocks music hitting for a distraction. The rocks not there, but I could see the music hitting Cody's looking away, turn around, getting waylaid by a couple of finishers. They didn't get that, but I just don't. And it's not a knock on Cody. That's anybody. I felt like whoever is going to follow Rome was going to follow this four year run. It's just not going to have a long reign. It's just it's kind of just the nature and the battle rhythm of wrestling. Plus,
00:52:36
Speaker
You know, baby faces typically don't do this, but that's a heel move had the long title run like that. Yeah. And also the chase wasn't in him having the belt for four years. The chase was him just winning it like he doesn't need to have a long title ring. It's already successful to me. Like no matter what, it's already been a success. He finished the story. Cody's a made man for life again. We'll get to it here in a little bit. But yeah, Cody, he's made no matter what happens from here on out.
00:52:59
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, speaking of Cody, we have, uh, you know, our main event for night one, the bloodline versus the freaking nightmares. It was rock and code or rock and Roman versus Seth and Cody for, uh, you know, the decision on whether it was going to be bloodline rules for the main event of night two.
00:53:16
Speaker
Did this tag match deliver, Seth? I thought it did. It was larger than life, man. It was a spectacle. If I had to point some quibbles with it, I would have knocked maybe 12 to 15 minutes off, especially at the end of a long
00:53:34
Speaker
cold night. But I thought it was cool, man. I thought it was about what I was expecting. And if I had to give an MVP, man, I thought the rock looked really, really good. Obviously, he's, you know, nobody was mistaken him for Will Osprey out there. But I completely forgot that the rock was, you know, 50 plus. And this was his first match in eight years. He looked good. Cardio was was good enough and everything like, you know, he put some stank on that people's elbow at the end, man. So
00:53:57
Speaker
I thought Rock looked good. Roman looked like a million bucks, dude. People have been complaining saying Roman was just taking the build off and stuff. No, dude, he was in the freaking body shop working. We've only seen him in hoodies for the last couple of months while the Rock's out there looking like the Incredible Hulk, dude. But yeah, Roman looked better than he's had his whole career coming out for Mania, dude. I thought all four guys delivered in a big way.
00:54:19
Speaker
I think so too. And we got some seeds planted. Roman, there was a point where he was trying to spear both Cody and Seth. And then they moved out of the way and Cody speared the rock, which was just like, holy shit, dude, what's about to happen here? Cool thing is, man, all four guys got stories with everybody, dude. Roman could still go back. He's got to revisit with Seth at some point, go back Cody, go with the rock. Same thing with the rock. Him and Seth would be a money match. Him and Cody's a money match.
00:54:46
Speaker
Him and Roman's still probably the biggest match that they could put on. Seth, I think Seth has still got some beef with Cody, man. Seth sacrificed basically everything for Cody to have this moment. And Cody shook his hand, dude, but I didn't hear Cody giving it. Cody thanked Roman on Monday Night Raw. Cody didn't thank Seth. That kind of stuck out to me, dude. So I think Seth's got a pretty compelling story when and if he decides to pull that trigger to reignite that feud with Cody.
00:55:09
Speaker
Yeah. And, um, I think Seth is due for a gimmick change, dude. I feel like this, all of this that happened mania weekend, I mean, he took a triple loss at, uh, at mania, dude. So I think, you know, it's this, this could be like the turning point. We need more serious Seth when he comes back, dude. He needs, I don't think he needs to go back heal necessarily, but he needs to, you know, turn a couple of shades darker on the character when he comes back, man. Even though I did think set that awesome weekend.
00:55:33
Speaker
He had, dude, he had awesome. Dude, his whole, we'll save it for night two, but his whole presence in night two's main event was like the pinnacle of everything. You know what I mean? Like he was like the freaking like keystone for Roman's defeat. Which is crazy because think about that like press conference. It was like, you know, even us is like the biggest Seth fans there are. We were like, why is he here? He just felt like the little brother hanging out, you know? Don't pick on Cody.
00:55:58
Speaker
Yeah, it was this seat here. I think it was a come up for all four guys involved, man. But yeah, that's especially dude. He, I think he, his, his legacy grew with this run. Yeah, absolutely. I don't have a contact to it cause I, it was just a fun match. Um, I'm going to say that they could have shaved 10 to 12 minutes off of it and nobody would have noticed the first 20 minutes of the match was plotting, which is, which is typical for Roman matches, but still like it was funny.
00:56:23
Speaker
And you needed the rock to get his feet to like, I was fine with that. Like at the beginning of it was fine. Um, the other negative is did the rock raid Elvis Presley's like, uh, secrets, like what the fuck was he wearing this entire weekend? He's do bell bottoms, I guess are a thing now, dude. Like, but yeah, I noticed that immediately. I was like the rock and bell bottoms. It's the Saturday night final boss.
00:56:46
Speaker
Not just that, the Saturday night fever vest and the new Brahma bull on the back of it. I'm like, what am I watching right now? He was definitely channeling John Travolta. That wasn't great. I know Seth is about to call the end of night one, but Sheena, we are not moving past night one without talking about the world tag match. You just completely skipped over the tag match. Did I? She literally did. It's in her format right here. I thought she was just doing it for time.
00:57:15
Speaker
yeah you skipped over the the whole uh our truth the ladder match oh my god i didn't quite you know again as we mentioned you know she knows she's not the starting point guard she's usually a power forward you know flushing down the hot takes with with with me dishing it out a lot chris paul but she is filling in a point guard this week with me a little bit under the weather and yeah she just
00:57:36
Speaker
I thought she was just calling a hot route. I didn't, she was, she has been doing an outstanding job. She even did a great job as the, you know, quote unquote host of the show. And I kind of look, I looked down and we were kind of the 40 minute mark and I was like, well, maybe she cut it for time, dude. But no, we talked about every other match.
00:57:51
Speaker
No, my bad, dude. Yeah, absolutely. The ladder match was so much fun. There were so many killer ladder spots and table spots, and our truth got his WrestleMania moment. That was well deserved. Which was well deserved, and I mean, there's nothing. If you leave night one with nothing, no other feel-good feels, dude, our truth getting a WrestleMania moment was a feel-good moment for all wrestling fans. When he went for the pin five minutes into the match, I was fucking dying.
00:58:19
Speaker
Dude, it was the most archery thing ever. The hot tag and then the pin. I was fucking dying. I'm like, man, this dude is a national treasure.
00:58:27
Speaker
Yes, he is awesome. So we had A-town, what's her name? A-town down under, right? A-town down under. Yeah, A-town down under got the belts and then Awesome Truth got the other set of belts. Okay, so clearly we're keeping these raw and SmackDown tag belts. I know Seth has thoughts on this, so I want to pass it to him. I thought we were getting new belts, man. I knew it that they were going to kick off this match and to elevate it at another level, we were going to get some brand new belts.
00:58:53
Speaker
But nah man, freaking same old, the nickels. Before this whole thing got announced, I thought we would unify the belts, which would have been even better. I thought it was going to be like one set of belts for everyone. But now it was whoever got the raw tag belts and whoever got the SmackDown tag belts, which is unfortunate because I feel like
00:59:14
Speaker
Excuse me, we have a much stronger tag division if we just had one. Yeah. I gotta imagine we're getting new belts sometime soon, but who knows, man. That's the problem too is splitting these belts up. Like what do we just have three tag teams on Ron, three tag teams on Smackdown? I just, that's the way it's always been, dude. And that's why the tag division has always sucked because it's always the same three tag teams. And then they're going to like, eventually they'll throw in like some, you know, just bringing a matchup that are going to be together for a few weeks. And,
00:59:40
Speaker
Yeah, they really need to solidify the tag division and allow, you know, teams to really get some steam under them. And I don't know, it's just, I mean, two years in a row, we've had, I mean, granted, they all had history. So don't don't take this as I'm saying they just threw two tag teams together, or three tag teams together, a town down under. I mean, yeah, they're a tag team. But like, are they really like an actual tag team? Like, I think the them apart is better than the whole
01:00:10
Speaker
awesome truth I'm completely fine with like miss has nothing left to accomplish and the truth is just missing truth together. It's phenomenal. And then last year you got Sammy and KO like that's who dethrones that actual tag team but it's just I don't know that this has always been my problem with WWE's tag division since the attitude area just it never seems like they fully want to commit to it.
01:00:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. One of these days, maybe they'll learn. I think they should at least just try it on. You know what I mean? Just have- See how it looks. One set of tag belts. See how it looks. See how it feels. And it would make those belts so important because there's only one, right? I feel like everything kind of gets lost in the mix when there's two sets of tag belts and like- Two world titles, two women's titles. Yeah, it's just too much. It's too muddy. Yeah, and then you got two mid-card titles, dude.
01:00:59
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, sorry about skipping over that match, you guys. I totally like jumped straight to the Usos match and, uh, you know, didn't mean to, no, no disrespect to the tag team division. Cause I love tag team wrestling. She didn't even want to talk about tag team. Exactly. I'm talking about people disrespecting all about it. You guys want to take the beverage break before we get into night two. Yeah.
01:01:36
Speaker
All right, the beverage break is where we tell you guys what we're sipping on as we potch. You can go first. Jordan will be happy to know I have a boozy beverage this evening. I'm drinking a Simply Lime. Nothing too crazy, nothing too off the chain, but yeah, it's a lime flavored Simply Lime made, so good stuff. I got a passion fruit when waiting for me in the cooler. I dig it. I'm keeping it basic as it gets with a Miller Lite.
01:02:00
Speaker
I am drinking. Bring it home,
Beer Talk and WrestleMania Matches
01:02:02
Speaker
Jordan. I got us. I'm drinking a broken skull 316 IPA. I still got four more left. I drank two on mania night. Did you try yours yet, Seth? I have not. I've not tried it yet, man.
01:02:16
Speaker
I was going to ask you, I didn't see you. What the hell happened, dude? It was mainly a weekend. I just, I didn't, I got busy with the kids and I was just grabbing stuff out of the beer fridge, man. So yeah, it was, it just kind of slipped by. I was sticking with the lights mostly. We got to come up with another special occasion to try these beers. It's good. I think it tastes a lot like the original IPA, which is kind of expected. I mean, you're not getting a ton of difference unless you're getting like a grapefruit IPA. Like the IPAs, if it's just a normal IPA,
01:02:46
Speaker
kind of all run together a little bit. What would Sasha Banks say? Just what I wanted. Speaking of just what we wanted, let's move on to night two of WrestleMania. We kicked it off.
01:03:03
Speaker
with Seth Freakin' Rollins versus Drew Freakin' McIntyre. This was a banger, dude. I thought it was so much fun. Drew is doing the best work of his career right now, man. Undoubtedly the best work of his career. What did you guys think of this match? Great match. Definitely felt like they were playing SmackDown, Here Comes the Pain on PlayStation 2, and they each set their finishers to five at the start of the match, dude.
01:03:28
Speaker
A lot of finisher spam, but I think it was still pretty well done, man. And it made Seth look like an absolute freaking warrior that he took that much of a beating before he got pinned. And I love Seth's interest too. I thought that was... That's the last big Seth interest we see for a while. I thought he went out on a high day. He looked awesome. Just straight up like wizard and he had like the Adam Rose. What was it? The Rosebud? It was like the full Rosebud treatment, coming down to the ring with him.
01:03:53
Speaker
Which was, you know, again, a stark contrast to Drew, who's just like straight up, you know, all business. Yeah. Braveheart coming down to the ring, dude. So, uh, yeah, Drew, like I said, doing the best work of his career, the fact that he like went ringside and took his wife's phone and tweeted from it, like, good heel move. Just legend, dude. Just straight up legend.
01:04:15
Speaker
LOL border work. He got a little too cocky. He did defeat Seth Rollins, got a little bit too cocky, really was trying to rub it in CM Punk's face. CM Punk was on commentary, went over to the commentary table, did a seductive tiger crawl over to CM Punk and started rubbing the title in his face. CM Punk
01:04:36
Speaker
He did what punk does and he lost his shit and started beating the hell out of Drew McIntyre, beat him down to a bloody pulp, and then what do we hear? Freaking Damien Priest. Damien freaking Priest, send your money in the bank, runs his ass down to the ring, cashes in, steals Drew's moment, and creates even more of a boiling blood feud between CM Punk and Drew McIntyre. I thought,
01:05:02
Speaker
It was spectacular, dude. As much as I was like, when Damien Priest's music hit, because I was thinking like, damn it, just go, dude. Why are we dragging out this CM Punk segment? And then when Damien Priest's music hit, I was like, oh my freaking God, dude. I was audibly going like, no, no, no. And yeah, he took the title from Drew and he is your new world heavyweight champion.
01:05:25
Speaker
I'm with you. I'm really not all in on Damian Priest being world champ, but this was just excellently executed because they still gave Drew his moment. Drew got the big celebration. It wasn't like a cash-in where the music hits right afterwards. He got the big celebration with the crowd going nuts, got the moment with his wife, and then they did the cash-in. Just an expert layout all the way around.
01:05:49
Speaker
And I love the Judgment Day celebration at the top of the ramp. Yes, that was awesome. That really added to it. Jordan, what did you think?
01:05:56
Speaker
Yeah, I thought the match itself was really cool. Like you said, the entrances were great. I thought the moment where Seth was basically in tears telling Drew he fucking deserves this and everything like that was good. I was like, dude, once he once he sexually crawled on the table in front of CM Punk and like she said, was rubbing in his face is just I'm like, dude, why do we need to do this?
01:06:22
Speaker
I mean, I know why like they wanted to get CM Punk like in front of the crowd and in front of the camera. Like I get it. The other thing I did not fucking like about that match was Punk on commentary. And I'm saying, well, Seth Rollins is just a younger version of you. I'm like, shut the fuck up. Are you on drugs? Like, where are you guys getting this from? No, he's not. Like, dude, not even Rollins is like miles a better wrestler than CM Punk has ever been in his life. Like, why are we talking about this?
01:06:52
Speaker
I've never heard any backstage beef with Seth Rollins, like, you know, like from WWE. I mean, there was a one point where he was having some little, you know, qualms with when he almost killed staying in the ring. That was a little bit of a problem. I mean, that's not backstage. That's that's just generally well liked it.
01:07:12
Speaker
Exactly. I mean, he was shooting some tweets at Will Ospreay at one point that was causing some drama. But other than that, I feel like Seth is pretty well-liked in the locker room.
WWE Streaming Rumors and Match Critiques
01:07:23
Speaker
Okay. So we talked about how long Cody's run last. Do you guys actually think Damian Priest gets anything longer than a couple of months with the title? No. I think he gets past Jay Uso, right? He's going to have Jay Uso a backlash. I think he gets past Jay Uso. Maybe we see Jimmy come in and try to reignite that feud.
01:07:40
Speaker
I don't see it lasting long. I mean, that's kind of been par for the course with the money in the bank winners, you know, here in the past few years. Austin Theory failed, Big E's run in last night. I really want Jay to win, dude. I think he's, even if it's not long, I feel like Jay has owed that for everything that he did over the past four years.
01:07:59
Speaker
I don't know. I know we're throwing around people are owed something and deserve things all the time now, but dude, I really, his work the last four years. I mean, I always liked the usos, but like Jay has evolved to another level at this point. Like he just, when they were calling him main main event, Jay and the right hand man, like he literally evolved into that person. I mean,
01:08:21
Speaker
Jay kicked off this version of Roman Reigns. Yeah. Jay was the crux. Yeah. He was the crux of like this whole turn that Roman Reigns took that just like, you know, elevated the entire freaking bloodline. Andy had Roman the closest he had been to losing in a really long time at SummerSlam last year. So yeah, it's just, uh, I would love to see Jay get it. I'm with you, Seth. I don't think he does, but he's, he's not going to hold that title very long.
01:08:48
Speaker
I know. Well, I'm hoping it just doesn't start getting like hot potato cause Seth did a, Seth, you know, did an incredible job making it not just the consolation prize title, like that we thought it was going to be once it was announced after Roman retained at 39. But I feel like, um,
01:09:04
Speaker
Like Drew having it and then, you know, I could see Drew getting it back, you know, like pretty soon. I feel like that would be a better, a better story. Yeah. A better story than like just passing it off to Jay and then the next person, then the next person, right? Like I would rather Drew have it, um, for a long time. We don't have, we don't have another, um,
01:09:23
Speaker
WU pay-per-view on US soil until summer slam on August 3rd. Everything else is out of the country. That's nuts, dude. Yeah, because they're going to France for backlash, then the king and queen of the ring is in Saudi, and then you get class to the castle in Scotland, and then money in the bank is in Toronto. Toronto.
01:09:44
Speaker
This is a little, this is a little off topic, but what do you get with like, what, if the, the pay-per-views leave, um, Peacock in 2025 and go to Netflix, what are your guys' thoughts on having the, the PLEs on Netflix? Cause Triple H, I guess like this week said something about, you know, Netflix possibly absorbing, you know, SmackDown and freaking the PLEs.
01:10:04
Speaker
I mean, I'm I know the the the paper views or the PLE is wherever you want to call them I'm not all the way in on calling them PLE Yeah, but they they're gonna be where they're gonna be. I'm more worried about the back catalog and all the extra stuff That's the stuff. I really like I'm assuming if the if the paper views go over to Netflix like the whole catalogs. Yeah
01:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, but look what happened when they went from the network to Peacock. Look how much they neutered. I've actually gotten to where I don't mind Peacock. Peacock's actually come around and it's evolved. It's pretty close to the network experience. Yeah, to be better, dude. I'm just not looking forward to going backwards, only to have to evolve back into it again, dude. My hope is that Peacock comes through with just like,
01:10:44
Speaker
an absolute ball. I mean, this was, that was the most WrestleMania was the most streamed event on Peacock. Like, dude, I mean, that's nuts. Yeah. They're going to break those records every year. Like I just, I feel like the more they evolve with Triple H, the more they're just going to keep breaking records every year and every show is going to get bigger and the stages will get smaller for every event.
01:11:07
Speaker
They're just gonna, they're gonna literally, I mean, seriously, it is. I mean, they tried to, they tried to pack so many people into raw that they brought, they brought Cody out a substitute teacher cart with the little TV so he could watch his promo package instead of having the Tron. If they do that, though, I'm really going to miss like having the Tron and stuff. If they decide they want to go to the, they gotta have the Tron. Yeah, I just, I feel like it's just going to ruin it. But I mean, I get it. Like if there's money to be made, you got to make it so.
01:11:38
Speaker
So moving on, what are your thoughts on AJ Styles versus LA Knight? Seth, you got any? It was there. LA Knight earned a place on the card. I do think going back to the finisher spam, the big damage you do is in a match like this where LA Knight hits his finisher once on AJ Styles and he gets pinned. It just makes AJ Styles look like a little bitch, dude.
01:12:01
Speaker
And we know that's not the case for AJ. AJ is one that's still one of the best wrestlers in the world. And I just, yeah, the problem when you see, you know, Seth Rollins, a beaten down Seth Rollins kick out of like four claymores over in the night. Why is AJ getting pinned from one finisher from LA, from LA Knight?
01:12:16
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I couldn't agree more. Like AJ is still on that top level for as far as like pure wrestler goes. So I did not love that part. I know what they were trying to do. Like they're trying to make LA Knight get over as much as possible. And he's, I mean, and he's over it. I feel like he submitted himself as like somebody that's going to be at the top of the card. And now that Roman and Seth don't have the belts, like
01:12:38
Speaker
I mean, there might be a legit shot. He wins an actual belt now that neither one of them are holding it. I mean, Damien Priest just won a fucking title. Like, dude, all bets are off now. Exactly. Just think back to like two or three years ago when I was like, dude, Damien Priest, he's never going to make it in WWE with those jeans. Celebrating in the hot tub.
01:12:56
Speaker
Yeah, man. Damien Priest was his gimmick, the archer of infamy. I don't know if he's still going by that or not. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Back in the archer of infamy days when he was wearing the jinkos and the bedazzled jinkos and the horrible hair.
01:13:14
Speaker
an absolute shit show and now he's the fucking heavyweight champion, which is fine. With him in the judgment day, I'm not saying he doesn't deserve it now. It's definitely not surprising that he's the heavyweight champ, but he's come a long way, baby. Logan Paul versus KO versus Randy Orton is the next match on the card. Are we thinking that Logan's going to carry this thing to SummerSlam?
01:13:40
Speaker
I feel like he's got to. It's in Cleveland. I'm just very interested to see if he gets booed or cheered if that's the case, man. I know we talked about it last week. I think we're thinking he probably ends up, I think he'll get cheered on the entrance and then probably booed once the match starts. But yeah, to be honest, I missed out on most of this match. This was the time where I knew we were getting down to nut cutting time with the last two matches. So we went ahead, because we had the air fryer and all kinds of food and everything out on the back porch. So I kind of did clean up during this one and just caught the very end of it. So I don't got a whole lot of notes on this one.
01:14:08
Speaker
I will say I'm going to give Kevin Owens a shout out because he did save us like 20 minutes on this pay-per-view by picking up Randy Orton at the top of the ramp and riding him down on the golf cart. I was like, thank you God. Like I wanted to get like, you know, a thank you KO chant for picking, you know, Randy walks so damn slow. I've been like the undertaker getting to the freaking ring.
01:14:26
Speaker
Randy telling KO to slow down in the golf cart was the best part of that whole match. Oh, I was cracking up. That would have been bad if he fell off. Yeah, it was, but it made the entire thing that much better. Like him having to tell him to slow down. It felt so real, dude. Yeah. And then at the end, you could see Randy was just like, you know, wobbling around. Oh yeah. Good match. Logan Paul ultimately retained, but, uh, dude, what about Randy Orton? I don't know what the guy's name is. The dude in Logan Paul's, uh,
01:14:56
Speaker
crew like what about him kicking that dude across the outside of the ring like he was kicking a stuffed animal that was bad and then when he tossed him onto the table I was like oh shit he's really pissed like you could see in his face he was actually pissed he's barking in his face and does the RKO and that dude landed hard on that table like did you know who that was I felt like so old I feel like such a boomer in that moment because it was like apparently he's some you know famous social media star on your YouTube or whatever
01:15:26
Speaker
And his whole gimmick is that like, he like barks at people. And like, I did not, I mean, when he was barking at Randy Orton, I was like, what the fuck is happening? What are we, what is, what is going on? You know, I thought maybe it was just like, you know, this guy went into business for himself. And I was like, what's happening? And then he gets, you know, punted across the arena, which was nice. I don't think I'm with you. I'm not really familiar with anybody in the Logan Paul.
01:15:47
Speaker
I don't think you need to feel like a boomer, Sheena. The problem is, is you're on Instagram looking at goats fucking and chickens laying eggs and stuff all the time. Like, I don't think you have time for Logan Paul's entourage in your daily basis. No. And I mean, even if I did have the time, like just listening to some, you know, Gen Z or bark at me, like, no, absolutely. Like my overstimulation would go into hyperdrive and I would like stroke out. Like I could not, I could not.
01:16:13
Speaker
So yeah, thank God. I don't, I don't know who that was. Um, moving on. Uh, we got, uh, Oh, did we talk about Bailey? No, we haven't talked about the main event. Um, we got Bailey versus EO for the women's, for the women's title. So, um, Bailey got, got her moment. Got a WrestleMania moment. Freaking. I thought this was a great match, dude. I thought it was awesome. Um, but.
01:16:38
Speaker
curious if we think Bailey as a baby face is going to get over and stay over for the foreseeable future. I do think it's got a lot better chance, man. I still don't really understand exactly what happened with her baby face for the first time because she was huge in NXT and it just did not translate at all when she came to the main roster. She's getting booed out of the building basically. It's hard to be a baby face on the main roster.
01:17:01
Speaker
Yeah, but I thought it was good. I was surprised looking at some of the stats that I didn't realize EO had only had like two televised defenses of that belt, you know, because she won it back at SummerSlam. But yeah, she kind of had a nothing burger of a rain. It lasted a long time, but there really wasn't much to it, man, which was surprising. Because in my mind, like I've always loved EO. I've been a big fan of hers, man. I didn't realize that she'd only had just that couple matches.
01:17:23
Speaker
She's wrestled because she's been in that. She was in the, uh, what's the war games, you know, six man tags and stuff, but as far as straight up, like one-on-one title defenses, they've been pretty rare for her. That's probably, I mean, we've seen EO, but yeah, she's always been with damage controlled. So it's, yeah, it's never been one-on-one. Um, but Jordan, as our resident women's wrestling expert, what was your thoughts on this match before we get into the main event?
01:17:46
Speaker
You know what, for them getting the death spot right before the main event, I thought they did an excellent job. The crowd was into it. Um, I, I did not understand Bailey's entrance at all. Like I was just puzzled what was happening at that point. I'm like, I feel like she always just must have like a little girl dream to be like Queen Nefertiti or something. Like, you know what I mean?
01:18:10
Speaker
I just I didn't know like we're watching her come out and I was like am I like missing the meaning behind this or something like is there yeah like everybody else's entrance made sense to me like I I understood why Rollins was dressed like a wizard like I just I did not understand why Rollins had a bedazzle labia on his shoulder on Saturday night but that's beside the point uh but like I just I don't know I didn't get the entrance but I'm with you guys I
01:18:36
Speaker
I just don't know if it's going to hit with her as a baby face. I feel like they have to change her music if she's going to stay as a baby face. Cause to me, that's, that's heal Bailey is that music. Like I just, that's, that's just kind of what I recognize her as, as a heal with that music. And, um, I think she's going to do good though. Like I just, she's a great wrestler and people like her, but it always turns into that part is when do they start booing her? Like, like you guys were saying, like, how long does it take before the booze start coming in?
Main Event Analysis and Season Finale Feel
01:19:07
Speaker
rewinding really quickly. What did we think of AJ's new music? Speaking of new music. I absolutely fucking hate it. I will never get over that one. Ain't nobody breaking this redneck was iconic. Yeah, I'll never get over that. I'll never get over that. Dude, AJ's music.
01:19:23
Speaker
Also, it was just so good. I did not know this was an actual fucking thing either, but it came up in the fully group. People thought CFO's tracks were garbage. Like I thought that was some of the best music in the WWE era. Who said that? If the same person was in there and they said CFO's music is garbage, they might get the boot. I'm telling you, it was, oh no, they said this was one of the only tracks from CFO that I actually liked. I don't remember who said it, but I was like, wait a minute.
01:19:52
Speaker
Are we just ignoring like glorious, all these songs? The music has been absolute garbage, absolute dog shit since freaking CFO lost the freaking license dude. Like the music has just been just a bunch of meh. Like you don't know one person from the other. You have to like literally wait for the Tron to come on with the person's name and their graphics before you even know who's coming to the ring.
01:20:17
Speaker
dude CFO like you knew from the first beat who the fuck was coming out dude like I mean the undisputed era music was yeah it was like dude I loved everything about the CFO era I couldn't believe that somebody actually said that I was like wait am I missing something here
01:20:33
Speaker
I'm tracking these people down and I'm going to offer them some therapy or something. The music now is just straight up generic. Yeah, it is absolutely generic. It's totally forgettable. Yeah. It's like ringtone number four. It's when you created your entrance on WWE No Mercy. You only had five tracks to choose from. Yeah, the generic themes, dude. It's like generic video game menu music. Yeah. Oh, man. CFO, shout out to those guys, too. They made some of those. That was awesome. The best music in the biz. All right.
01:21:03
Speaker
for the main event. We got Cody versus Roman one-on-one for the undisputed heavyweight championship.
01:21:14
Speaker
Epic match, dude. It was bananas. I saw somebody tweeted it was the season finale of wrestling and that's really what it was, dude. It was just overbooked, over the top, but I thought the work between Roman and Cody was really, really good. I thought there's a case to be made that it's Roman's best match he had during this reign and it just absolutely made Cody.
01:21:37
Speaker
You know, for what it was, it was great. I said last week I would rather just seen an epic one-on-one match to end the reign, but this was a ton of fun, man. I think everybody was marked out by the time it was over. Yeah, this was so memorable, I think. And what was really cool to me is that, like, I thought the bloodline rule situation was going to kick off a lot earlier, dude. I thought from, like, from the moment the bell rang, it was going to be straight shenanigans. But freaking Cody and Roman had a full-ass match.
01:22:02
Speaker
before the Bloodline Rules stuff even came into play, dude. So I was like, dang, are we even gonna get Bloodline Rules? And then obviously the stuff started kicking off. And what was so cool, you know, I saw some people say that it was overbooked or whatever, but everything made sense, dude. Solo came in, which, you know, ties back to last year when Solo cost Cody the match, right? And then freaking John Cena comes in. Last time we saw John Cena, he was getting his ass kicked by Solo. So he comes in, takes Solo out, dude. Then we see freaking The Rock.
01:22:30
Speaker
The Rock and John Cena have storied history together, dude. The Rock takes John Cena out, tells him to get the fuck out of his ring. Then we have Seth Rollins come down with the freaking shield, dude. And we're just like, what the hell is going on, man? So Seth Rollins gets down there. Then The Undertaker.
01:22:47
Speaker
like we're like we're waiting for freaking you know i i was like oh my god the glass is gonna break it's gonna be steve austin then when the gong hit i was just like what is happening here and the undertaker freaking drags uh he gives him freaking uh choke slam then drags the rock down to hell man and then
01:23:05
Speaker
Seth Rollins is stumbling up. And it makes sense because dude, the Rock and Roman beat Undertaker at WrestleMania 33, man. So they got beef, right? So obviously he's going to help out Cody. I took it more as, I mean, he's got history with Roman. I took him more as like, Rock's been saying he's the final boss for decades, Undertakers.
01:23:27
Speaker
Well, I think it's multi-layered. I think it's multi-faceted, which is what's so cool about this whole situation. And then Seth climbing up against the ropes, dude, and got his shield gear on. Been telling us the whole time that he knows Roman better than anybody, dude. That he knows what his freaking trigger points are. He knows how to get in his head. And he's the shield for Cody Rhodes at the very freaking end.
01:23:50
Speaker
and takes the chair shot costing Roman the match. It was just poetic. It was beautiful. I fucking hated seeing Roman lose. But if it was going to go down, I'm glad it went down in this just absolutely glorious fashion. And I have no qualms with the way that it with the way that it played out. It was it was beautiful.
01:24:08
Speaker
Yeah, it was a, that was a, that's an all-timer of a main event. Like you're no matter what, if you're happy or mad about it, you're never going to forget it. There's, there's no way that's going to be a forgettable main event. It just, and everybody's like, well, the run-ins are what added to it. I'm like, dude, I think you could have kicked all the run-ins out and I still think that match was memorable. Like Cody and Roman were having, like you just said, a great match until that started. And I felt like even the moments when they were still just wrestling while all that shenanigans was going on was still
01:24:39
Speaker
Yeah. And dude, Roman's awesome. Dude, Roman was doing some of his best acting. He hit the freaking crossroads and then looked right at Paul Heyman and said, see, I told you that move sucked. You know what I mean? Because Cody kicked out of it, dude. He had no business being that good with the crossroads. It was beautiful. That crossroads was freaking perfect, dude. I do have a theory on why they ultimately decided to do Undertaker instead of Austin.
01:25:04
Speaker
Austin is always known as he's going to get the loudest pop no matter who else is on the card that night. Like the taker pop was incredible because none of us expected it. Like I think everybody was just more shocked than anything. But I feel like everybody was just waiting for Austin to come out and everybody was just waiting for that pop. And I feel like it might've taken away from the end of that match. Cause I mean, the end of that match happened two minutes after taker was out there. Like the,
01:25:32
Speaker
The two, the three crossroads took like 60 seconds. The set thing took like 30 seconds. I mean, I just, I feel like the crowd would have still been riding way too much of a high at that point to end that match. So I loved it. I thought it was beautifully booked. Um, as we talked about earlier, the Samantha Irvin thing was beautiful. The way Cole called the one, two, three was awesome.
01:25:52
Speaker
Yeah, the WrestleMania 10, all the baby faces coming out to the to the ring to lift Cody up and congratulate him. And that's the same way all the baby faces lifted his dad up when he won the NWA title. So and then, dude, the after the match thing, I was like, God, this is where it's going to go cringe. And it didn't. It was just it was really good.
01:26:12
Speaker
The Michael Cole thing with Cody Rhodes was incredible, dude. Like Michael Cole crying and just telling him how much he deserved it and everything was absolutely top notch. They just, they nailed it. Like if you're going to end a four year reign, you better absolutely nail how you do it. And I just, I don't know how they could have done it better, honestly.
01:26:33
Speaker
I knew once we saw Brandy that it was over, dude. I was like, fuck, dude. And let me just, let me just like tell you guys, let you guys know insider information. I had a perfect two night card. I let my hubris get all in the way. I had, I had my honor fully picks league. I had both nights of mania, perfect card. And I was like, I picked Roman to win the match, dude. So I, you know what? Say what you will. I think it sucked. Cause I didn't get like the massive amount of bonus points that I would have got for getting two.
01:27:01
Speaker
perfect cards, but I can never say that I, I've stuck with my motto, dude. Never bet against the bloodline, dude. It didn't pay off this time, but I stayed true to myself. Um, and, uh, yeah, dude, if Gunther, if Gunther would have won, I would have been super perfect. I even picked the two tag teams exactly right on what titles they would have won. I know we ditched that concept, but like I had every winter exactly right outside of Gunther. I mean, Gunther was the only one you missed for the weekend.
01:27:32
Speaker
Oh, that sucks, dude. Fucking brutal. Yeah, I know. And I knew, you know, I knew I needed to pick Cody, dude, but I was like, dude, if on the off chance that Roman wins, I will fucking be livid with myself, dude, like that I didn't allow myself to, you know, go with my gut. But I don't know. I just thought we were, I thought we were going for the Hogan thing, dude. I got my, I let myself get all hyped up. I watched that documentary and then, you know, just got on, got on the Roman train and.
01:28:00
Speaker
documentary made me feel even kind of more sure that Cody was going to winning. They put a bow on the whole run and it just humanized Roman so much more. It's like, I mean, dude, there's no way we're continuing this.
01:28:18
Speaker
Well, Roman's already tweeted out, dude. He's letting people know. He didn't just disappear, dude. He's out there freaking training hard, doing the damn thing. He said, you know, yesterday I mourned, today is day one again. So Roman will be back better and bigger than ever, dude. Ready to fight the rocket, WrestleMania 41, so.
01:28:38
Speaker
Yeah. Hell of a run, man. Like something, something hadn't been seen since the, you know, the mid eighties, man. So Roman pulled it off. You know, there were some, some points here there where it kind of felt like it was running out of steam, but they always seem to get the momentum back and it definitely had a fitting conclusion. Yeah.
01:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, so overall thoughts on mania 40 as a whole. I thought it was really really good man night two was tremendously better than the night one if for nothing else just the energy and the building and the crowd helped a lot. And I think the in ring product and the stories were a little bit better night to excuse me, I think it's
01:29:13
Speaker
Probably it's in the upper half of Wrestle manias. I don't know if it's in my top 10 man. I'd probably put it What if it was just night two as a as a solo like it'd be a little bit higher But you know you you can't judge it like that dude It's one one none of the other manias had the benefit of getting spread over two nights So we got to judge it as it is I probably put it in like somewhere around like that between like 12 and 15 range I think
01:29:36
Speaker
Um, so I feel like the one thing that's going to hurt this WrestleMania is everything after the tag match on night one, after the ladder match until the main event just kind of felt like it was just kind of there. Honestly, to me, it wasn't really anything that like stuck out to me. I know Sammy won, but I don't know, man, I'm not going to remember that in four years. Like I just, maybe even a year, like it just, I don't know, nothing really stuck out. So I feel like that's hurting it. Um, and
01:30:06
Speaker
the main event bumps it up a lot though like that the main event of night one and night two were both so well done and just it just felt so right um i mean i'm definitely giving this a double thumbs up like the the over overall i came into this weekend with moderate feelings about what i thought this weekend was going to be and it absolutely blew those feelings away like i just i felt like wbe
01:30:32
Speaker
They just, they absolutely delivered and, um, it showed even the next night on raw, like they just kept it going outside of that awkward, uh, rock and Cody, no idea what that was. But, um, yeah, it just feel like WWE really delivered this weekend and they put on a great show and we didn't even talk about standing in the liver. That was fantastic too.
01:30:52
Speaker
Yeah, it was. I just think it's really says something about the state of where WWE is right now because they put a bow on a storyline that started developing like 10 years ago. And there's been so many times over the course of the last three years that we've been like, damn, the bloodline will come to an absolute crescendo. And we're like, damn, where do they go from here, dude? And somehow they kept it moving and they kept it interesting and they kept it like, holy shit.
01:31:21
Speaker
I just feel like there were so many ways that WWE could have effed this up and they, I feel like they nailed it, man. I feel like they didn't, especially considering just a few months ago, like the muddy, the muddiness of like what this WrestleMania was even going to look like. And they somehow like pivoted. I don't know. Again, that word's been used a lot to describe this, but they somehow pivoted and gave us exactly what
01:31:47
Speaker
we wanted, you know? So shouts to WWE, shouts to Triple H and the entire creative team there. Shouts to Roman Reigns and The Rock for just making wrestling fucking phenomenal. Yeah, overall, two enthusiastic thumbs up for me for WrestleMania 40. I was highly, highly sports entertained, so.
01:32:07
Speaker
We'll close it by going ahead and doing a little booking, a little fantasy booking. What's our prediction for the main event for Mania 41? I think Rockin' Roman. I think we get back to Rockin' Roman somehow. Cody's got to be in the mix, man. I don't know. Maybe we get Cody, Punk, Rollins.
01:32:26
Speaker
you know, night one. No, fuck that dude. I don't even want to see him punk there, dude. I'll say Cody and Seth, night one main event for a belt and Rock and Roman, night two, you know, maybe it's for a belt, maybe it's not for a belt. Yeah, I'll go Cody and Seth, night one, Roman, Rock, night two. I think that's the beautiful thing about leading to Rock, Roman is like, you don't need to have a belt, right? So it doesn't even have to tie up the universal title. It can just, it can literally just be the Rock and Roman, you know, bloodline feud, right?
01:32:52
Speaker
Because Cody and The Rock are definitely wrestling sometime in the next year. If I had to put money out, I'd say they wrestle at Royal Rumble. Yeah. I just, I think SummerSlam's too soon. A little bit too soon, but you never know, dude. I mean, they said he's going to film a long project right now. And that's only four months away. Like that, that seems pretty soon. And I highly doubt they're going to be like, Oh yeah, go wrestle while we're in the middle of shooting this. Like, I just,
01:33:18
Speaker
I don't see that happening. So I'll say, I think Roman and rock definitely needs to main event next year. Cause he did look great. But again, how many times do they wait too long on doing this? And then something bad happens and pull the trigger on this needs to happen next year at mania. And I think it will absolutely deliver.
01:33:38
Speaker
I'm with you, man. I think more rumbles, probably realistic for, for rock and Cody. I think we see some drop-ins here and there from the rock, you know, maybe one night only is coming in for a raw or smack down, whatever show Cody ends up on. Uh, but yeah, cause he's filming, I think it's called something like the smashing machine or something like that. And then he's doing the live action version of Moana right after. So he's got two movies lined up back to back. So I highly doubt we see him wrestling at, at summer slim. Yeah.
01:34:03
Speaker
All right, that wraps up WrestleMania. We've been on the road to WrestleMania for a few months now, and we finally put it in park, and we are back to your regularly scheduled programming. So, two enthusiastic thumbs up for WrestleMania, and we're going to get into some- I'm about out of preemptive click on this. It's all right. Let's get into some listener mail though.
01:34:30
Speaker
You ever have that like sometimes on your laptop, if it's got the touch pad, sometimes if you just hover with your finger on it or something, sometimes it'll just be like, okay, you want me to click this and just go, that's what happened there. Yeah, absolutely. First male in the listener bag is a listener bag. Oh, my maids are kicking in.
01:34:50
Speaker
Yeah, you guys see the fan theories on what the rock-handed Cody theory out there says it was a lighter, meaning that he's the one that lit Cody's bus on fire. No, that's some attitude era booking. Oh, man. I don't know. What do you guys think? I really don't have a finger on the pulse of what this was that he gave.
01:35:09
Speaker
Cody. I got two theories, man. One, I think he may have given him one of the beads from Roman Zulafala, the necklace, the tribal chief necklace. I think he may have had one of those. Or it's been reported enough now that it's basically kayfabe that Cody got custom Rolexes for himself, Seth, Roman, and Rock. Roman was wearing his during the Paul Heyman Hall of Fame induction. I think Rock may have smashed that thing and handed it back to him.
01:35:38
Speaker
He maybe handed it back to him intact. Maybe he like crushed it and handed it back to him. I think that's my two number one theories. How about you guys? It makes sense. Yeah, it was definitely the watch, but the thing that struck me is he said, don't break my heart again.
01:35:56
Speaker
Yeah, what did that mean? That's the one thing I don't understand about this whole thing is like, what the hell does that mean? Like, what did he do to break his heart? I thought giving him the main event pass and taking it back. That's what I thought he was talking about.
01:36:11
Speaker
But I mean, ultimately if The Rock would have wanted to, like, I feel like The Rock has proven that he's like the man in charge. He's the final boss. He's the, you know, he's got all this border director cred. Like he could have done whatever he wanted, right? He allowed Cody to choose Roman, right? Like, so it wasn't like, you know, I don't think it was that. I don't think that's what it was. I just, I guess we're just going to be left in limbo until he comes back.
01:36:37
Speaker
Johnny J.B., do you guys see more attitude getting inserted into WWE storylines now that The Rock is on board and Triple H is in charge? Definitely, dude. They're dropping some curses. We saw blood on television. Yeah. I feel like they only did that for this feud though. I don't think that's going to be a continued thing. I feel like this feud needed that because it needed to be like
01:37:01
Speaker
Hey, this is an actual blood feud. Like these guys hate each other. I don't feel like that needs to make a full time comeback. I think it's gonna be spicy, dude. I think going to Netflix, I think they're gonna they're gonna spice it up a little bit. I think it's not gonna be so PG anymore. I do think there's a shift in a turn happening with adding. I don't think it needs to be full out like Val Venus on our TVs and stuff, you know, but I feel like there's gonna be some more, you know, edge to the product for sure.
01:37:29
Speaker
Yeah, especially with Netflix, there's just no restrictions. We don't know what that's going to look like. Now, I wouldn't get your hopes up too much that we're going to see it become Shotgun Saturday night back in the day, because Mattel's still a huge sponsorship. A lot of their sponsors are still family-friendly brands, even though they are starting to partner up with the Boost companies and everything a little bit more. But yeah, I think it's going to be more edgier than the John Cena years. That's for damn sure.
01:37:58
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, in the end, their start, their target is still kids like they're, they're still targeting the younger market. So I don't think we're going to get completely out of the realm of what we've been seeing.
01:38:12
Speaker
Brett Sharrow, we already kind of touched on this. He talked about when we think Rock is going to circle back to Cody and Roman and all of that. He kind of predicted that they would do Cody Rock next year for Mania and then Rock and Roman. I think they're going to do Rock and Roman. They got to get that off the court. Rock is getting old, you know what I mean? And there's too many things that can happen. And that match has to happen. Cody Rock does not have to happen.
01:38:38
Speaker
It feels like it has to happen, but Rock and Roman is the ultimate goal. We have to see that. We have to see that match. The Rock is getting older and Roman is still taking leukemia medicine every day. Dude, you don't wait another two years for this. You got to do it now. We got to.
01:38:53
Speaker
Yeah, pull the trigger on that thing. Sam Rosenthal, who do you see as Cody's first challenger? Do we just get a long break from Roman, Jimmy? Or do we just get a long break from Roman, Jimmy and Solo? Easy for you to say. My bad, guys. Words are hard. I think we see. Maybe not his first. Maybe we get him somebody a little bit easier before that, but I think Guenther's going to be the first serious threat.
01:39:14
Speaker
So we're not going to see anything until the draft happens, though, because like they haven't even announced what show he's on. And he's only making two SmackDown appearances this whole month as of right now. So is it wins the draft? The end of this month, this coming week? No, the end of the end of the month. Yeah. As of right now, Romans first hit Romans next booking right now, as far as we know, is the SmackDown right before SummerSlam. That's the next show that he's advertised for as of right now. Well,
01:39:43
Speaker
And I'm not convinced that's when he's going to show up, honestly. Yeah. Card subject change. Yeah. Sam also says, without the rock and Roman, can the momentum keep up? I think so. Yeah. There's plenty of talent and with Triple H at the helm, I think he's really into long-term storytelling and I think he
01:40:02
Speaker
He's going to keep creative. And Roman and Rock can still be there without being there. They can still have. Think about how much of a presence Brock Lesnar was all those years, even when he wasn't on the show. You know what I mean? You can have them doing promos from home, like I said, doing the distraction thing where their music hits, but they don't come out. Even having people just bringing them up in promos keeps them alive and keeps the interest there. Yeah. We know the Rock loves to get on a social media.
01:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. That's a 25 minute Instagram. Exactly. We're still going to fill the rocks presence. Yeah. Just the thought of them lurking to come back is enough to keep them around. Also, we are not going to bury this. We're going to let this get away because Seth last week told me
01:40:44
Speaker
The reason Raw was doing all these numbers because Roman was champion. Well, got news for you. I got broke this week by Cody as champion. And Cody also sold a million dollars in merchandise over a WrestleMania weekend, which is that's the first time that's ever happened. That's a lot of Cody. Cody's doing Austin in 98 numbers right now. Dude, a million dollars over WrestleMania weekend is absurd.
01:41:10
Speaker
That is they saw, I don't know how much you guys paid attention to this, but they had, I think it was 80, um, WrestleMania Cody, uh, weight belts that were autographed by him. Somebody said they were gone in like an hour and five minutes and they were like 600 bucks.
01:41:28
Speaker
Dude, that is insane. The levels he's reaching on merch sales and they were out of his... I believe it. They were sold out of stuff at SmackDown when we were there. When we had to SmackDown in Memphis and Seth went up to get some merch for the kids and all the Cody stuff was gone. Yeah. Those Team American Nightmare Coats, the green ones that they had for Mania sold out the first day. Dude, that dude is going to move some merch for a while. Granted, I don't think it's going to last forever, but it's going to last for a little while.
01:41:59
Speaker
Yeah. Was it you, Jordan? Somebody this weekend was saying that they should have just pulled the trigger. It feels forced. Oh no, it was Chad. It was one of the two bad Chads. Chad Smith was saying it felt forced. I was like, dude, Cody is more over than he has ever been. Not winning last year, strapped a freaking rocket.
01:42:19
Speaker
to him even more so. I mean, he came in with a freaking rocket strap, dude, but not winning to Roman last year or against Roman last year, just set him on fire to set his whole career and persona on a path that was like unprecedented. So yeah, I think it felt better this year because it didn't feel like it was for us. I feel like it felt forced last year, whereas this year it felt like he earned it. He fought for it. He deserved it. It was his moment. So
01:42:46
Speaker
I mean, it really was Rocky, Rocky one, Rocky two, man. It's like brought to life, dude. That's what we got. It's fantastic. And I was one of the biggest proponents of there's no way he can be as big as he was last year, next year. Oh, I thought, yes. He was way bigger this year than he was last year. Like when, when they walked to the ring, even like I noticed it on the entrances, like dude, Cody felt like a
01:43:08
Speaker
big deal when he was walking to the ring. He got basically like the Triple H entrance with the helmet and stuff. And then like you said, Brandy came out. That gave me some Triple H and Steph vibes when he was walking to the ring. Like WrestleMania 32. He felt like a really big deal walking to the ring.
01:43:26
Speaker
That pop for brandy to big pop for brand brand. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we kind of need like, you know, I'm still figure collecting above all do. We definitely need Cody Ultimate Edition with the mask. Everything. I feel like we need like a basic brandy to go along with them, dude. Like I know she's not technically a member of like WWE right now, but give us brandy with the little the one piece, you know, nightmare bathing suit to go with them. Now, fuck that. Give us a two pack ultimate to pack with those two in it, dude. I'm completely fine with that. I buy it.
01:43:55
Speaker
You know what? They were really missing, dude. I was waiting to see Pharaoh, dude. There was Cody. Too much pyro, dude. To me, Cody has never been a bigger babyface than at the original All In back in 2018 when he came out to fight Nick Alders for the NWU Championship with Pharaoh, dude.
01:44:10
Speaker
I feel like that just would have been, I mean, it was already over the top, like just, you know, part of my friends just like a, you know, just an orgasm of like babyface, right? Like it was a freaking explosion of like a babyface doing the most babyface shit ever with the crowd right behind it, right? Like no mixed reaction, nobody booing him. Everybody was bought in on Cody. And I feel like bringing Pharaoh out just would have set it off even more, dude.
01:44:32
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I'm totally here for bringing Pharaoh out. It's just, it's such a, um, it's such a risky move because I mean, animals are going to animal dude. And it's, I mean, when you have an animal in that setting, they're liable to just like lose their mind. Yeah. Even a person just seeing that like perspective would be crazy to like 70,000 people. Absolutely. So yeah. So then you're going to lose points. They'll be like, you know, why did he put this dog in that
01:44:53
Speaker
position, you know, all the animal rights, you know, coming out at you. Yeah, the animal rights people come on. Yeah, don't you remember the last time they had dogs at ringside? Seth, we have the kennel from hell and they were humping at ringside and shitting everywhere. Don't need a repeat of that.
01:45:11
Speaker
Yeah. But Pharoah is such a mate. I mean, he's like an all, he's a freaking wolf. You know what I mean? Like he just, he's a baby face dog. He is the all American dog. Yes. He's the all American, like baby face dog. One thing that was missing that they've gotten to where it's a thing on NXT, but they haven't really been doing on the main roster is doing the old attitude era style, like the heartbeat music playing while you show them backstage. They could have had Cody walking Pharoah, like hand him off to somebody at Gorilla. See, that would have been awesome.
01:45:38
Speaker
Yeah, he shouldn't. He's playing. And gave Ferrell one last little like scruff on the head, you know, and like before he went out. Oh, dude. Absolutely. We needed Ferrell, man. But still, it was, you know, it was his white meat baby faces it gets. And then I loved it. Like I mean, I was thoroughly sports entertained, even being the biggest. I'm not a fan of Cody, really, that his onscreen character anyways. I'm not a fan of Cody and absolutely love Roman. And I still had a smile on my face as the ref counted three at the end of that.
01:46:08
Speaker
Yeah, I like Cody. I like Cody a lot more. I like WWE Cody a lot more than I liked AEW Cody. It's the same though. But it's different. It's not though. It's the exact same look, the same character, the same presentation. No, it ain't the same presentation. It's more mage, dude.
01:46:23
Speaker
It just hits different. Whatever he was doing at AEW just did not work, dude. I don't know if it was the booking, and I don't know if it was the fact that literally the moment he got in there, he fought for the championship, and if he didn't win, he was never going to be able to go. So we're all like, oh, well, Cody's never going to get to fight for the championship. Cody was kind of messed up from the start, and then he did that stupid promo. Were he into racism? No, not because he ended...
01:46:49
Speaker
Jesus no where it was just like so like cringe, you know, like it was just he ended racism, dude You're sitting there dude. You're watching him. You don't know where he's working or shooting and all of a sudden you look up and he ended racism Thank God, thank God for Cody for that but Malcolm X Martin Luther King Cody Rhodes That's the three pillars of the civil rights movement. You know what you may be on don't forget a
01:47:13
Speaker
Yeah. So anyway, again, I think it's different. I feel like Cody just hits totally different and I can stomach him so much more than I could in AEW. I agree. I think it's so fascinating though, because I know you're saying it's not, it's the exact same look, same music, same entrance. So let me counter you though. I feel like he was trying to have a WWE presentation in an AEW setting
01:47:38
Speaker
Right? So it didn't fit. It was kind of like obscure. You were like, well, no, dude, you're trying to do too much. You're, you're, you're over the top. Whereas like in WWE, you have to be like that, dude, where it's like, it fits better. Whereas in AEW at daily's place, when you're coming up to Cody Vader and you got the smoke and the whole, the whole gimmick, and you're just trying to be Mr. America, it doesn't fit. I mean, you may be right on that part of it, but I'm just trying to make the point that it is the exact same character with everything. I mean, what, what, what's your take on it, Jordan?
01:48:06
Speaker
The character has not changed at all. The entrance is the exact same as it was. So I lean a little bit more towards agreeing with Seth on this. I do think
01:48:16
Speaker
I think she does hit different. I do. She does. She does definitely right. They try to do a WWE entrance and character and everything like that in AWW. And that's why it didn't work. But then you bring it over to AWW and it seems 10 times or to WWE and it seems 10 times bigger because it was always meant for that. Like that was always meant for that. Exactly. I'm not saying he's a different gimmick, but it's just it fits well into the WWE universe, whereas like it always felt a jace in the AWW world. Yeah.
01:48:47
Speaker
Because AEW was a little bit more gritty, right? It was gritty, it was, you know, edgy. And then you got like, you know, Mr. America baby face, you know, like Cody. And it was just, it always felt like cheesy and kind of corny and a bit cringy, right? And then he would bleed and cry. And you're like, I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about this. You know, like it was just, it was doing the most on AEW, but.
01:49:09
Speaker
I like, I like Cody and WWE. Brett Sharrow, favorite figure reveals from the weekend. His are the pipe bomb punk and the ultimate mooda. The ultimate mysterious from mania last year also dope. What are your guys, you showed them to me now I'm like trying to wreck my mood is definitely the highlight. Like mood is that that's, you know, it's a surprise. It's going to be an ultimate edition. Um, getting the boy getting the ultimate. The fact that we are still getting that, uh, the Mountain Dew pitch black break.
01:49:36
Speaker
I don't want to, you know, not to cut off the question. I don't want to go too deep on this because I believe that me and Jordan and we're probably going to get the OG fig kid to jump in with the only fans. King Tom Montalto joined him and do a special pod foundation episode next week.
01:49:52
Speaker
Recapping all the rest of Manny reveals and kind of just taking the temperature on the state of the wrestling figure game for the rest of 2024. So that's a little tease for ya. So tune in next week. We're going to do a whole episode going going deep. Tom's going to reveal the the figure reveals from the only fans reveal as well. How much did he pay to meet Manny Rose at WrestleCon? Oh, I guaranteed a ton. And then probably asked if he could sniffer. Yeah.
01:50:21
Speaker
Sam Rosenthal asked about the AEW footage. We already talked about that, but he also asked, do we ever see the distribution issues getting fixed at Walmart? No. No.
01:50:31
Speaker
Action Figure Attack is a good dude. Supposedly, they've got it worked out. Action Figure Attack, his company line has been wait until Series 2 and these Ultimate Editions start hitting and you guys will see improvement. I will say the MyaVIA pack, the MyaVIA Legacy pack got shipped out. They actually, they took the pre-order and they kept the pre-order on that one.
01:50:55
Speaker
I'm still skeptical though, dude. The thing about it is, man, you can't really be that mad at Walmart. It's frustrating for us collectors, dude, but Walmart is a conglomerate. It's not even scratching the tip of the iceberg for how big they are. And wrestling figures, it's not a drop in the bucket, dude. It's like a freaking... It's like a grain of dust on the ass cheek of...
01:51:17
Speaker
You know, Walmart, dude, it's nothing to them. So if you think anybody that has any kind of clout at Walmart is like walking into the office and like, guys, we got to do something for these fucking wrestling collectors. They're frustrated with us. They're complaining loudly on social media, dude. Like, no. They're sending our associates to the back. Because the thing about it is, yes, frustration is we still gobble the shit up, dude, the moment it hits the pegs, dude. So yeah, I just...
01:51:43
Speaker
I don't know. I trust action figure attack. So I'm hopeful that we are going to see some improvements with whatever inroads they've made there, but I wouldn't be expecting too much, man. It's Walmart. Be thankful that Target's got their shit straight and Target's just been like on point for the last couple of years with their distribution and the ease of like going to the store and getting the figures you want, man. Because Walmart, it's just a train wreck, dude.
01:52:05
Speaker
Everybody always jokes that like people are just waiting for me to get there to put the figures out. The funniest story ever is the Walmart. That's literally a block from my house. There's an old guy in charge of the toy department. One time I asked him, I said, it was like a week after something came out and I said, uh, Hey, I called earlier and they said that, um, these were in stock. And he goes, they're probably in a pallet and back and I'm too fucking old to go digging through that pallet.
01:52:32
Speaker
I've always wanted to just ask him like, dude, can you just like take me back there? I'm like, I'll do all the digging and the looking and the lifting if you'll just like, let me go, dude. Like, especially at Target, because you know, with Walmart, there's still really, there's not a reliable way to know what's there. You're kind of just rolling the dice. Target, you can, between Pop Finder and the actual Target app, you can pretty damn well know when they have the figure that you want in stock. It's just a matter of if it's on the shelf yet and if it's not, can you find an employee that's motivated enough to go back and find it for you?
01:53:02
Speaker
Target also because I know the manager at the target by my house really well. And he said like they actually stage everything that comes in in the back. So like the toys are just in one section, but they're broken down into what aisles they go into. Walmart, dude, all the toys are on four pallets and they're not in any order at all. Like Walmart is just a fucking clusterfuck and targets all in order. So I will give Target their credit because they have gotten way better.
01:53:28
Speaker
We need to have Brian Baker send us some behind the scenes footage from Walmart. What their toy warehouse in the back looks like. They're shelving and stuff. Brian Baker can start the Walmart only fans. Yes. To me, there's pros and cons for both because Target is a much more organized, predictable process getting store exclusives at Target. But Target will, like you said Jordan, they'll stage some shit in the back and they'll respect some street names. They will not.
01:53:57
Speaker
You can't bring that shit up. Until a certain day to bring everything out, man. Whereas Walmart, dude, they'll go a month without having a single figure on the pegs, and if they happen to get five cases of shit in, it's all getting dumped out there in the aisle. They're stacking it up on the tops. They're going to find a way, dude. Walmart, you got to check the top of the aisle, the bottom. The end caps. Go over to the catch-all bargain aisle and stuff. You never know what you're going to find at Walmart. The pros and cons to both, but yeah, Target's definitely the superior store for right now.
01:54:27
Speaker
Sam Rosenthal also says, what is the next evolution or major change to figures? You know what I want, dude? I want real skin. I want no joints, dude. I want there to be a thin layer of like latex or something like wrapped around the whole figure. So you don't see any of this. Seth likes little rubber guys. Yeah, you see, but, but articulation, dude.
01:54:48
Speaker
Yeah, I want it to- It puts the latex on the skin. I know it's tricky because with that soft rubber that they've used for that Undertaker or Mr. Perfect singlet that you can pull down, that shit deteriorates pretty quick, dude. I don't know how it would work, but I feel like that would be so cool if you had a fully articulated figure that you couldn't see the joints on. That's really breaking down the science of this whole latex skin.
01:55:13
Speaker
I mean, where else could they go, dude? They've gotten so good on the figs, dude, to the point where like, you know, I'm on, I like ultimate, I like elites better than ultimate additions. Honestly, like with the new articulation, I kind of like the basics better than the elites, dude. The only reason the elites and ultimates are better to me is because you get the additional accessories and a little bit better like deco. But as far as the actual form of the figure, dude, if I'm just displaying them, if I'm not playing with them, I love how clean like a basic looks.
01:55:38
Speaker
Yeah, the chest, the torso crunch and stuff on the ultimates and the elites and stuff really. Yeah, you got the torso crunch on the elites, then with the ultimate, you got the butterfly shoulders, the feet. It's a lot, dude. I really like them to be like a- Looks like a puzzle. Yeah, and I like them to be almost like a little sculpture.
01:55:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's I don't know. I think the real skin thing would work. I don't know. I don't think we're anywhere close to having that at a price point. That's realistic. I see that being something maybe like hot toys or a company like that could do, but I don't really know besides that, dude, because they, I mean, these figures were getting nowadays from Mattel and even the ones from jazzwares are just incredible.
01:56:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know how you're going to one up that Jordan, but any thoughts on what you want to see? I got nothing. Let's just let Buffalo Bill have his moment. I'm telling you, real skin technology, dude. That's what it's going to be, dude. You've had real skin before, now we're getting real skin. Yeah, because they're just nailing the FX technology right now. LA Knight's latest face scan really tells you how much they're nailing the FX lately.
01:56:38
Speaker
Yeah, I hate the yeah the the I feel like the face scans back in the early days of Mattel were better I'm not a fan of the fit like the way they do the printing now dude the same thing with my I got my I got my vault Alistair black This week and like when they nail it it's cool But when they it only takes a little bit to miss it and like one of my heads for the Alistair black the eyes Are so far off on the print that it looks inbred dude like I think I think everybody's had that head on everybody's looks like that and
01:57:06
Speaker
Okay, yours came out like that, too. Yeah, it looks like that, too. Like the eyes are like... Luckily, it was like the... It was like the lamest one. It was like the worst head in there, if that's a way to say it. So I wasn't too disappointed, but yeah, okay. They're like super tiny and off to the side, right? Yeah, that Aleister Black head scan is looking at both sides of the box at the same time.
01:57:31
Speaker
Nobody's sneak attack in that Alistair dude. In your fig fed, there's absolutely no way to blindside him. He's really getting a full review of the box. You can see the fucking sunrise and sunset at the same time, dude. Oh, man. Oh, moving on. Johnny JB, how do you like your cheese steak? He said, definitely cheese whiz, but light onions for him.
01:57:59
Speaker
So I don't think I like a true Philly cheese because I'm not a fan of cheese whiz. I'm not a fan of the cheese was on there. And I really don't like the onions and peppers either, dude. I think what I make my own cheesesteaks. Yeah, I think I'm more of a chopped cheese sandwich. Like I think that's kind of the specific one that I like, dude. But I like real cheese. And what I like to do is to basically liquefy the cheese in the skillet, right? Like get the meat going and then the end toss the cheese in to where
01:58:24
Speaker
cover over it. Yeah. To where the cheese is basically just it's one with the meat. There's no, you don't know where the meat ends and where the cheese begins. And I'll tell you a variation that's really, really good. We've done before. This is called the haystack Philly cheesesteak. It's where you put some crispy hash browns on top of it also, dude. So that's, yeah, I, but yeah, I'm not a, I don't like the true Philly cheese experience.
01:58:46
Speaker
Yeah, I like it like how Seth said with the cheese and meat all getting to know each other, but I like all the stinkers on there. So you put the onions, the peppers, all that shit. Pickled jalapenos. Yeah, whatever you got, just throw it on the top. I'm here for that and lots of mayonnaise. So yeah. What about you, Jordan? A big cheesesteak guy? Oh, yeah. I do like both ways. I like the cheese whiz and the just normal cheese on it, but I'm onions, peppers, jalapenos, everything like that on mine.
01:59:15
Speaker
All right. Uh, I've talked about, you know, Matt Russick from the extra cooler show talking about, uh, open air stadiums again. I think, yeah, I think it'll be a long time. I think they're going to see cool. Yeah. And you know, like I said, it's just different than football too. It's like if rain rain could really F up.
01:59:31
Speaker
you know, WrestleMania. Football's shorter, and like I said, football's much more of the shared experience, dude, because you're there with, for the most part, it's all your own. Yeah. Everybody's rooting for one thing. Matt was there on night one, so he got to freeze his, you know, his honies off. And there's a constant sense of urgency in football, too, whereas, you know, especially with these WWE shows nowadays, you can go 25 minutes between matches. Zach Hertzler, what match exceeded your expectations?
01:59:58
Speaker
Exceeded I'll go the tag match on night one the the main event tag match on night one because I just didn't know what the rock would do I'll agree. Yeah, and specifically the rocks performance. So I'll agree with that I think everything else kind of either met or was you know, I think everything else pretty much I was whelmed I wasn't ever overwhelmed by anything. I wasn't underwhelmed I was I was properly whelmed by pretty much everything I think the main for me the main event on night to exceeded my expectations I was really curious as to how they were gonna tie it all together and if Roman lost how they were gonna make it feel like
02:00:27
Speaker
You know, like I said, just kind of put a, put a nice little bow on everything. And I, like I talked about before, I think they did an absolutely perfect job of that. Um, so yeah, I'll say the main event for night two, Tony Barker, will the footage of brawl out, do anything to help your perception of AEW regarding seeing punkers a little too late? We kind of already touched on that. Uh, Tony Barker, where did the night two main event of WrestleMania rank on your all time?
02:00:50
Speaker
All time main events. This is high. Yeah, it's high, dude. I think it's outside the top five just because there were so much shenanigans and it wasn't just that beautiful expression of pro wrestling, right? Two guys went at it for the belt, but it's definitely top 10, man. I think it's probably... I really got to sketch it out. That's not a lot because there's 40. Yeah, just spitballing it, man. I'd say it's probably something like number seven, number eight, something like that.
02:01:14
Speaker
Jordan and we are so simpatico because I was about to say the exact same thing. I'll go like seven or eight for it as well. I mean, yeah, me and Seth just did a podwares about the best made events of my time. Dude, this would get cracking those, but it's up. It would get close though. Like this would get honorable mention for sure because I did enjoy it a lot with everything that went down.
02:01:34
Speaker
We got to see how it ages too, man. That's the thing because there's been some main events that there's been some that I've seen and I'm like, that was awesome. And then you watch it six months or a couple of years later and you're like, eh, you know, maybe it wasn't as good as it was in the moment. And then there's definitely some that you watched a couple of years later and you're like, did you know what? That was actually way better than I remembered it, man. So we got to give it some time to digest. How many times have we watched WrestleMania 31? Exactly. A million. And initially, yeah, initially I'm putting it like, yeah, six, seven, eight, something like that.
02:02:02
Speaker
Tony Barker, what was your impressions of Paul Heyman leading off the Hall of Fame ceremony this year? He should have gone last like his headlining or should he have gone last like his headlining predecessors? I think they made the decision to put the headline around first because it's a late show. It's a huge long weekend of wrestling. You had a ring of honor paper be going on. You already finished SmackDown. I think the move was put the headliner first. People are going to be
02:02:23
Speaker
People want to go home. I mean, it sucks to the people that are presenting last, but I agree. Because the whole fame is already a little bit draggy and a little bit like kind of a- It's for the folks getting inducted. It's not really for the fans. Exactly. So I think kicking it off with a bang is the way to go. I think the move is putting the headliner first and whoever, like the number two guy, put them last, dude. You don't want to have Thunderbolt Patterson going last because nobody left to even watch, dude. But whoever your number two guy is, they should go last.
02:02:50
Speaker
Final question of the night, Zach Hertzer says, what was the favorite entrance at WrestleMania? I gotta go tie between The Rock and Seth Rollins, dude. The Rock night one, Seth Rollins' night two, I think were the two best entrances. Roman was pretty damn epic, dude, but I think Rock and Seth edged him out just a little bit, man.
02:03:07
Speaker
The Rock with like, yeah, like the video game type final boss situation. I think, yeah, that was pretty, that was pretty epic. Roman though, with the whole damn orchestra, like, you know, playing him all the way to the ring. Roman and Cody were both pretty, I don't know. Maybe it was Roman and Cody. Maybe, maybe I got to take out both my two and just give it to Roman and Cody because that was what it should look like.
02:03:26
Speaker
Yeah. What about you, Jordan? I would have went Cody. I just, I thought Cody's entrance was just like the, the start of something special for him. I just, I loved everything about that entrance on night too, that jacket. Yeah. And the graphics. Yeah. The graphics had the, uh, you know, the burning, you know, Cody flags and everything. And he's like rising up and, you know, continuing to march on.
02:03:46
Speaker
To go back to Jordan's point about the CGI being so shitty, how cool would it have been if we actually had real life burning flags at the top of the stage? That would have been cool. I don't know how they could have safely executed that, but that would have been fucking awesome, dude. It was cool. That's a wrap for listener mail. Sheena is about to piss all over the floor right now. She's been doing the PP dance for the last 10 minutes of the show. I want to give her cred for the listeners, dude, like, hey, she's dedicated. We didn't cut anything short.
02:04:13
Speaker
Yeah, this is one take. Yeah, she's been doing like this. She's been doing the Sami Zane like floppy fish like comeback for the last 10 minutes here on the floor. I legitimately thought you were adding a segment when you said, all right, Sheena is about to piss on the floor now. I was like, charge for that. You got to be the top tier patron to get that content. So we'll skip the usual sign offs. Sheena hit us with some closing thoughts and we will get out of here. Despite losing
02:04:41
Speaker
this weekend, I feel like we should all still acknowledge our tribal chief.