Sound Off 902 - Why That Rock Segment Was BAD But What Comes From It Could Be GREAT

descend from Rock Mountain. He has come down to grace us with his presence yet again here on the road to wrestle Media. We got a lot to get into this week, not just with the Rock, about a lot of other things as well. If you would like to support via PayPal, as you well know, you can always do so Ontosolomonster dot com ten dollars or more, we'll

get you a nickname. In a shout out, I want to say thank you to Big Bee Brian Pisera, The Diamond Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison's Soep, Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, the Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, the Man Himself, The Chicago Slayer, Willie Eicherd, Knight Stalker, and if Alsaphar Killshot, Keith Hart, Robert Loverboy Lopez. It has been a while. Thank you, man, Carlos, Man of Steel, Manuel Big Homie, Jonathan Burton, Thank you for the note, Jonathan, I appreciate it.

Peacemaker Steve Cliff, who is recovering from his second knee surgery on the same knee, but he is enjoying the sound off as he convalesces. Steve. Get well soon and shout out to Nathan from Wressell Addict Radio, Brace for Impact and The Game Changer podcast. His colleagues are celebrating four hundred episodes. They are The Kings of the Ring podcast hosted by King Ricky Rose, Queen B. K. Murphy. I hope it's k I was gonna say, Kai. I

hope it's k IF not I apology. I apologize to the Queen, but we have we have the Queen and we have Willie t So Congrats to the crew. You could check out their four hundredth episode this Tuesday. Again. That is the Kings of the Ring podcast. It's WrestleMania season, which means that it is time for The Rock to show up two months before the show to take things in a completely different direction, for better or worse. This is now the second year in a row that this

has happened. Last year, it all worked out in the end. It gave us some much more exciting WrestleMania. I'm hoping for the same this year, especially since I mean I was be honest. I know we still have eight weeks, but the road to Mania has been pretty dull so far. But that segment I'm Friday with The Rock and Cody Rhodes was honestly one of the weirdest segments that I have ever seen in all my years of watching wrestling. Like I've seen great promos, a lot of them from

The Rock, I've seen bad promos. This was just fucking bizarre. And it wasn't the first time that Rock and Cody have shared the ring and it evolved into something very awkward. This was actually the second time that this has happened, but it was the only real interesting thing that happened on SmackDown. I thought the main event was solid, and there was a Kevin Owens video that was good. It was brief, but it was good. But outside of that, this was one of the worst Smackdowns that I have

seen in years. Even with Rock on the show, SmackDown has been awful. And so it was with great curiosity and excitement that I saw on Thursday the breaking news that The Rock would be appearing on Friday's episode from New Orleans. And when I realized where the show was taking place, I thought, well, this is probably tied into the announcement of next year's WrestleMania, because the chatter has been that media was coming back to the Big Easy.

You know, there were rumors of there being another kickoff event very similar to the one they did in Las Vegas last year, and then that never happened. Rock said, originally they were going to make the announcement at the Super Bowl, but there were a few hiccups and it ended up not happening. He didn't say what those hiccups were. Yeah, the NFL said, you're not taking the shine away from our end. You could take that wrestling shit somewhere else.

That's what happened, so it only made sense that they would announce that, and they did. Rock said the WrestleMania forty two in twenty twenty six will be returning to the Superdome in New Orleans, the same Superdome where brock Lesner ended the Undertaker streak, the same Superdome where Charlotte Flair ended Osca's undefeated streak, and the same Superdome where braun Stroman won the tag team titles with a nine old Boy. A lot of history in that building. Now,

I love New Orleans. I love that they're coming back there. I hope to be back there myself. Saturday April eleventh, Sunday April twelfth, those are the dates. At least next year it won't fall on Easter Sunday like it does this year. But that wasn't the only reason that the Rock was there. Now, I said that this was not the first time that Rock and Cody shared the ring for a very weird segment, Let's go back to the night after WrestleMania last year. Cody finished his story, the

Rock joins him in the ring on raw. He's got his Brahma Bull belt over his shoulder, and Rock asked Cody, can I hold your title? I would like to hold your title, the WWE title, And Cody is weirded out by this and says, basically, I'll let you hold mine if you let me hold yours. And people think there's something wrong with me that I said the other night that there were sexual undertones to that segment on Friday, and so they swap belts, and the crowd that night

breaks that into a chant of this is awkward. Yes, yes it was awkward. But Rock told Cody, your story with Roman Reigns is over, but our story has just begun. And everybody cheered because they assumed that we would be getting a match between them, probably at this year's WrestleMania and Cody that night he told him, you're my boss, right, you're on the board of TKO, You're my literal boss.

But just remember I'm the champion, which means I'm your champion, which is very interesting given what Rock said on Friday about wanting Cody to be his champion. They already established last year that Cody is Rocks champion. Rock said, you are my champion, and there's one more thing, and he pulled out a Rolex watch that Cody had gifted him before their WrestleMania match, and he handed it back to Cody and he said, don't you ever break my heart again.

That was the last time that the these two men shared a ring together. Okay, fast forward six months. The Rock returns. After Cody and Romans match against the Bloodline at Bad Blood, he stands on stage, he flashes the one two three, he does the throat slash, and that's it. No follow up, no nothing, completely pointless outside of getting people talking, which I guess was the point, but it led to nothing. He wasn't seen again until New Year's Day Raw debuts on Netflix. We get the Rock, but

we get corporate Rock. We got Dwayne the board member who's breaking the fourth wall, and he's talking about how great business is and what a great relationship they have with Netflix and Cody my god looks over at Cody in the front row. Cody's standing in the front row like he's a fucking fan, and he looks over at him, and he's talking about what a great champion he is and what a great friendship the two of them have been able to forge. He's given the man his flowers.

He even shared some Tereremana with him in the back. People flipped out over that because it felt like they were killing dead any potential match between the two of them. Fast forward to SmackDown, Rock invites Cody Rhodes out to the ring. Rock gives him a hug, and he gives him a kiss, and again he lavishes praise on this man. He talks about what a great champion he's been and how they've become great friends over the past year. Even our mothers have become friends. Right, It's just one big

love fest. But then he reminds Cody that he's a director on the board of TKO. TKO happens to own WWE, and that makes him the most powerful man in WWE, which of course is not true, but that's the story they're telling. And he says Cody is a great champion, but he wants him to be more than a great champion. He wants him to be his champion, which Rock already acknowledged last year on that Postmania Raw that Cody was his champion. So I'm not sure what changed from then

to now. A Rock said he was talking about something bigger than just the WWEE title, and then he started comparing Cody's Instagram followers to the number of followers that he has. You know, you've got all these many millions of followers, but I've got half a billion. And that's what I want for you. And if Cody agrees to be his champion, he can make all of Cody's dreams come true. Even though Cody's dream already came true last year he finished his story, he won the title that

was taken away from Dusty. But Rock said he needs Cody to be his champion. He doesn't offer any good reason why he needs Cody to be his champion when he already established last year that Cody is in fact his champion, and he acknowledges how great of a job he's done, like he checks all the boxes, talks about WWE's business has been booming under cody five billion dollar Netflix deal, right, they got fucking new Gate records being set every month, sellout crowds. But for some reason, he

desperately needs this man to be his champion. He said Cody could be the one thing that Rock never had, his brother, and that last year it was supposed to be Rock and Roman for the title, and Cody fucked it all. Up and then he ended up slapping the Rock on that road to WrestleMania. And so for all those reasons he needs Cody to be his champion. None of that really makes any sense, but that's how he tried to explain it as far as why he needs

him to be his champion. And he gave Cody until the elimination Chamber in Toronto next weekend to give him his answer. Go home, talk it over with your wife, and you give me your answer. Like they're running for office together, and he wants Cody to be his vice president. He wants him to be his running mate. You know what's scary about it, though, honestly, one day I could see that when Cody is done in the ring. I mean, I could easily see Cody getting into politics. Rock of course,

has said I don't want to run for president. I got too many skeletons in my closet. But you know, people still talk about Rock, but one day he might run for president. It's scary, but I can envision a ticket one day of the Rock and Cody Roads legitimately running for off. That's what this felt like here. It felt like he was making the pitch to Cody. To do just that, Go home, talk it over with your wife. Yes,

because it's such a big life change from Cody. You know what he's already been doing on the road every single week, wrestling and doing media and make a wish and meet and greets and everything else that this guy does. Rock says, the thing that he wants more than anything else in this world is that. And he's pointing at the WWE title over Cody's shoulder, and Cody's like, is that what this is all about? He goes, no, no, no, no, it's not about that. That's not what I want, Cody.

I want your soul. There was a lot of mixed opinion online about this segment. Some people thought it sucked. Other people were throwing around the usual words like cook and cinema. That segment was cinema because you know, of all the things that it could potentially lead to, which I'll get into and it could end up going in a very interesting direction. But no, this segment did not cook. And anyone who thinks that this was cinema has never

seen a fucking movie in their entire life. If you took this scene in context or not, and you put this in a movie, it would be battlefield Earth level bad. Okay, the wrestling bubble is real, folks, Okay, it is a very real thing. I'm in it too because I have to be, but I still try to keep my head outside of it a little bit so I can still get some you know, oxygen to my brain. Rock was trying to manipulate this man here in this segment, right.

He reminded him about the power that he has. He's the board, and he's on the board, he's the director, all to try to get him to be, you know, his champion, whatever the hell that means, to attain a level of fame and fortune that one would think Cody already has. Right, Yes, he's not you know what Rock is in Holly would but he is the top guy in the company. He's the WWE Champion. I guess that's not enough because you know, it's the Rock, and so the Rock. Nothing is bigger than the Rock, as we

all know. The segment itself was not good, Okay, it was It was meandering. Rock was out there repeating himself over and over again, which is a thing that he does in all of his promos now, and the crowd in New Orleans did not react all that much to any of this. Once he got the Superdome announcement out of the way, they were very excited for that. When Cody came out, they were loud. They liked Cody, They obviously like Rock and you know, him being back on

the show. But they sounded after a while, they sounded bored and confused by a lot of this the longer it went. You know, one thing that it did do is it added a big hook to the elimination chamber by letting you know that Rock is going to be on that show and Cody is going to be on that show. Adding Rock to the show is smart, right, It'll drum up even more interest in it. It should sell more tickets. Right now, they've got around twenty seven

thousand tickets out in the Rogers Center. Okay, that's the old skydough. That building fits a hell of a lot more than twenty seven thousand, So this should help goose ticket sales a little bit. Where I think the story is going is Rock wanting Cody to be his corporate champion. I talked a little bit about this on Friday night in the review. Rock wants Cody to be his you know, quote unquote corporate champion. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

It really doesn't. They did this story years ago with Rock himself becoming the corporate Champion, but that made sense because you know, Vince McMahon hated Stone Cold Steve Austin. Austin was the antithesis of what he wanted in his champion, right, Southern redneck, drinking beer, cussing, thumbing his nose at authority. He wanted that title off of him and onto somebody who would better reflect what he was looking for in his champion. The Authority right didn't want Daniel Bryan as

their champion. He was a B plus player. He looked like a goat. He wasn't what they saw as championship material. So he won the title anyway. But a few months later, seth Rollins joins the authority. He was more in line with what they were looking for. They groomed him for that spot. Cody carries himself already like the quintessential corporate champion. He looks the part, he sounds the part. He's the first one to the buildings, the last one to leave.

He does all the media, all the charity stuff. He is that guy. So I'm gonna need a little more explanation coming out, and now this was only the first segment. Yes, but I'm gonna need a little more explanation as to why he wants Cody, of all people, to be his champion after already acknowledging previously that yes, you are my champion, if he still had heat with Cody, if he didn't want Cody to be the champion. You stole my match with Roman Reigns, you blew up the biggest WrestleMania match

of all time. Then you beat my cousin, and you took the title away from my family. And he enlisted someone else to be his champion or his corporate stooge. That would make more sense to me, And that may be where things end up going when Cody ultimately gives his answer and says no, I won't be your champion, it may be somebody else in that spot. And that's

where I think this story could get very interesting. So I'm not saying this can't wind up being a really fun story, but this being you know, chapter one, let's call it, or maybe chapter two if you consider last year chapter one. Right now, I could only judge it by what we saw and what we saw on Friday was not the home run that some people said it was, but it can be eventually. It can be that now.

They actually held a post show press conference on Friday after SmackDown, the way they do for their plees, and it was Rock sipping his tequila and killing k fab as he answered questions about the storyline, saying that it doesn't even necessarily need to lead to a match between him and Cody. He said, in the world of pro wrestling, as we all know, everything will culminate in a match.

Whatever happens, it'll end up being in the ring. What I really love about this rare air space that we have gotten to with this character of the Final Boss. It's like this white whale unicorn in that with the Final Boss and Cody Rhodes, it's not about the WWE title, it's not about having a match. It never has to culminate in a match. That's a really special place to be.

I think creatively, and just think character wise and how much fun you can have to be able to have a storyline and two characters who are very popular to never have to get into the ring for a match, but yet still hold this really unique, compelling off putting kind of weird. He wants his soul. What does that mean? I love it? And then he said that he and Cody had a few tequilas after their segment. That's nice. He got to plug his tequila and his movie during

that segment. By the way, on Friday, you can't rule out Rock against Cody down the right, Yes, he said, it doesn't have to culminate in a match. That doesn't mean Rock and Cody is not gonna happen. At some point. It could very well still happen, but it's not happening this year. I don't think it is happening this year. It's not happening because we have an elimination Chamber match coming up this Saturday, which was kind of lost in all the noise of this. John Cena is trying to

get to WrestleMania to win his seventeenth World Championship. Seeampunk is trying to get his very first WrestleMania main event. Drew McIntyre is in it, seth Rollins is in it, Damian Priest is in it. Logan Paul is there. One of those six men will be challenging Cody for the title of WrestleMania so let's take this one by one. Okay, is Cody Rhoades going to take the rock up on his offer? I don't see it. I know people are infatuated with this idea that Cody is gonna turn heel

and we're gonna get heal. Cody, Cody is the man right now. It would be foolish to turn him heal. This isn't a John Cena situation where he's getting mixed reactions and they're sick of him being on top and being babyfaced for so many years. Right, you got to turn heel? Right The fans have stuck with Cody, you know, and he's only been back for two years. The fans have stuck with this guy. They have not soured on him. They believe in him, they like him. There's no need

to turn Cody roadse heel right now. And frankly, there are more compelling stories that you could tell with some of the names in the chamber ending up his rocks again. I'll call him corporate champion however they want to describe it. But there's a lot more compelling names. John Cena. Now, I dismissed the idea in my review on Friday, but as I went back and forth with people later on

in the stream that night. Somebody pointed out that promo that he cut after the Royal Rumble where he declared for the Elimination Chamber because he didn't have to qualify. He said, I'd like to think, with all my equity and you know, me being who I am, I could just declare for the match. And I thought it was very odd how Sena argued in that speech that he gave, like what's best for business is for him to go

to WrestleMania. It'll win his seventeenth world title. Sounded very self serving, which is out of character for the John Cena persona that we see on TV. But I've also pointed out to you how long this losing streak is that Sena has been on. The man has not won a singles match in like seven years. He went to the Royal Rumble and he lost. He sees the chance

to win number seventeen slipping away. If he's feeling desperate enough, maybe we get Heal Sena siding with his old rival for one last run before dropping the title back to Cody at SummerSlam. I still think it's unlikely that we get Heal Sena during his retirement tour. But you can at least try to make sense out of it. It's basically the Steve Austin He'll turn at WrestleMania seventeen, which didn't turn out too well for the company. Even Austin

admits it was a mistake. But you wouldn't have that problem now really, because Sena is not the guy anymore. Right, Austin was the guy he was It was him and Rock, But Austin was the guy back then, right, full time, most popular babyface on the roster. John Cena, this is it, This is it. This is a retirement tour. I can't

even call him part time. He's less than part time, right, I mean, soon he may be part time, But so far, I mean, how many times you can count on fucking one hand in the last three years how many times you've actually seen him. So you can pretty much do anything you want with him. It's not like it's going to have a major impact on the roster or a major impact on business. If anything, you know, business would

probably boom for a short John Cena, he'll turn. He's no longer their lone top babyface like he used to be, or everything Vince McMahon built everything around this guy, many many times at the expense of others who could have gotten over and potentially ended up in a spot like that. It was all about John Cena. They actually turned, by the way they turned Steve Austin at the same time that Rock was leaving to go film a movie, which left them with the Undertaker and Cane as their top babyfaces.

I don't think there was a lot of forethought put into that, Like, there's a lot of reasons why that was a bad idea. But again with Sena, that's not going to be an issue. They have other baby faces they can plug in there to fight him, Cody Roman, Punk, Orton aj Styles, right, they have lots of options there. Then there's cm Punk And this is another one that

I dismissed the other night. But you talk about blowing things up, this would blow a whole wide open into things, and it wouldn't really fit for Punk to cozy up to the Rock of all people, or for Punk to go corporate. But if he's desperate enough to get that Wrestlemanium main event, and if he's desperate enough to win that championship, and he sees that window closing. You know, it can make people do crazy things, or it would just prove that Seth Rollins was right in what he

said about this guy all along. Andrew McIntyre was right and what he said Punk said it when when he first came back, he's here to make money, not friends. That last promo he did with Cody that was great TV. That was right before the rumble. I would love to see Punk against Cody at WrestleMania more than I would Sena against Cody. This would add a wrinkle to things that nobody would see coming. Punk would just have to explain the why because remember he still got that favor

from Paul Hayman that he hasn't cashed in yet. But the idea of Punk winning the title and going heal, it's not like he wouldn't have, you know, he wouldn't have enough people to work with. Yeah, it's funny. Years ago. I pitched the idea of having Sena go corporate in like early twenty twelve, after the whole summer of Punk,

flip the entire dynamic and have Babyface anti authority. See I'm Punk trying to take the title from Heel corporate Sena, and here we are talking about just the opposite possibly happening. But I'm intrigued. You know, if they focus on the whole I'm here to make money, not friends. I'm here to do business. To me, that's really the only way you can make this work without completely betraying everything about the CM Punk character that we've come to know over

the years. And then you can build to a John Cena CM Punk match one last time. Maybe Punk is the one that's seen a beats to win number seventeen. Maybe it's not Cody just getting his belt back. Or SummerSlam is where you do Punk against Roman Reigns with Paul Hayman caught in the middle, right, You've got a couple of different options there. The only thing is if Punk doesn't cash in that favor with Hayman to headline WrestleMania and win the title, I don't know what else

the favor could even be. Like once he does that, what's left that he would even want? But I look at the makeup of this elimination Chamber match, it is easier to envision some of the other names in the chamber ending up in the spot of Rocks Corporate Champion Drew McIntyre would actually make a lot of sense, even though he hates the bloodline. It was Rock who announced that Drew had signed his new contract. Remember he gifted him that sword all those years ago, right, anointed as

the chosen one. Now he truly would be the chosen one. I just don't think it packs the same punch if you do it with an existing heel. Right, If they want that shock factor, it has to be a babyface seth Rollins could work, obviously, we know the history with him and Cody, but John Cena is winning number seventeen this year. I don't think it needs to happen at WrestleMania. If he's going heel, then it almost has to so that he can drop it in time to turn back

and then get a proper send off. With Punk, you don't have those issues, right. Either one of them would make for some compelling TV so long as they're actually on TV. Right, that's not going to be an issue with Punk as much as it might be for Sina. Cody going heel though you know to do it right now, I think that would be a big mistake, and it takes us into this weekend elimination Chamber at the Rogers Center in Toronto, where things will become a lot clearer

as WrestleMania directions go. We already know Jay Usso is challenging Gunther and Charlotte Flair is challenging Tiffety Stratton at WrestleMania. But after this, all of the key championship matches will be set. So let's run through the card and give some predictions. It's a four match card, plus Cody Rhodes gives his answer to The Rock. Will he surrender his soul? Will he sell his soul to the final Boss? I'm gonna say no, and The Rock will find himself a

different corporate champion by WrestleMania. I don't know that they would shoot the angle on this show where let's say, by the end of the Chamber match, somebody goes heel and Rock has his guy and it's not Cody. I almost feel like they would want to say that as like a shocking moment in the main event at WrestleMania. So I don't know exactly what else is going to happen in this segment other than Cody saying yes or no, you know, yay or nay, But I do think his

answer will be known. We have the women's elimination Chamber match, with the winner challenging Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania for the Women's World Championship, with liv Morgan, who is very familiar with Rhea Ripley, Alexa Bliss, Bailey, Bianca, Bela Air, Naomi, and Roxanne Perez competing in her very first chamber. This is a tough one because I think it's Live or Bianca, and I've gone back and forth here and Bianca is

more my personal pick. I would love to see Aria Bianca match of WrestleMania, but so much of this comes down to what happens in that tag team title match on Monday Night when Bianca and Naomi defend their titles against Live and Raquel. Naomi is not winning this, okay, neither is Roxanne, who I think is I think might be wrestling Bailey at WrestleMania, so if so, they would cancel each other out. Alexa was just moved to SmackDown, so her challenging for a Raw championship doesn't really even

makes sense. So that leaves Bianca, bell Air and Live Morgan. I'm gonna go at Live Morgan to win the chamber, but with a little Star next to it, depending on what happens tomorrow night. If Livi and Raquel win the tag team titles, then I think Bianca wins. Otherwise I'm going with Live Morgan. I think the title match between Ria Ripley and Eosky on next week's Raw ends without a winner, and maybe Living Raquel get involved. We end

up with a triple threat match of WrestleMania. It's gonna be Rea Ripley defending her title against liv Morgan and Eosky. We have Tiffany Stratton and Trish Stratis taking on Naya Jackson Candace Lay and I don't see this as anything other than Trish and Tiffany getting the win in Toronto. Trish gets the fall on Candace as a way to protect Naya because she's gonna have one more title match

on TV with Tiffany. We still got time between now in WrestleMania, and Naya is still talking like I'm going to take that title from you, so we're gonna get another championship match on TV at some point soon between them. I don't see Naya, even if her team loses, taking the losing fall her match with Tiffany last week for the title ended on a DQ But I think the baby Faces go over here. I think Trish in Toronto getting the win makes sense. Sammy Zain takes on Kevin

Owens in an unsanctioned match. A lot of history between these two. You don't need me to tell you that this taking place in Canada. It feels very appropriate. The only question is is this unsanctioned because we're gonna have a proper match between them at WrestleMania, or is this happening now to pave the way for the return of Randy Orton. Owens and Orton go off and do their thing. Sammy z Ain ends up, you know, working with Carrion Cross because Carrion Cross is still cutting promos on him

and calling them out. They're gonna have a match at some point. I just don't know if that's gonna be a television match or if that's gonna be a WrestleMania match as a way to try try to heat up carrying Cross. So we'll find out what they do here.

I think because I'm looking at this and thinking this is the perfect place in the time for Randy Orton return, and it's unsanctioned, so anything goes and if Randy Orton wants to drop Kevin Owens with an RKO, if he wants to punk kick him into oblivion, if he wants to hit a pile driver on him the way that Owens did to Randy, he can do it and it's all legal because it's unsanctioned. I'm going with Sammy Zain to get the win with an assist from a returning

Randy Orton. I think it might even be a case where Orton. I don't think that if Orton gets involved and attacks Kevin Owens, it's going to get him heat just because they're in Canada and people are gonna love Kevin Owens. But I think you know one way to

try to avoid anything like that happening. Because I said that back in November, because Cody and Ko were not at Survivor Series, and Survivor Series was in Canada, and I'm like, I wonder if they are not doing the match on that show because they may be worried that in a match in Canada between Cody and Ko, Owens might get more cheers or Cody might get some booze. Right. I wonder if that was the logic behind holding off On like a proper match until Saturday Night's main event.

But if you want to avoid any risk of that, not that I think there is much, but you have him save Sammy from a package pile driver. Owens is about to murder Sammy's a He's about to drop him on his head, maybe on the announced desk or something with a package pile driver. Here comes Randy Orton to save the day. Big Pop gets his revenge or a

measure of revenge. Sammy wins Orton and Ko. They go off to continue their story and they have a match at WrestleMania and in the men's Elimination Chamber match for a shot at Cody Rhodes and his Soul and the WWE Championship. At WrestleMania, we have John Cena, CM Punk, Drew McIntyre, seth Rolls, Damian Priest, and Logan Paul. Like the women's match, I'm torn between two names. I'm torn between John Cena and c I'm Punk, Damian Priest and Drew McIntyre. They are likely gonna end up having that

match a WrestleMania. I don't know that they're gonna deviate from that plan. There's history between them going back to last year's WrestleMania priest eliminated McIntyre. Priest is still insulting MacIntyre and some of his promos, like calling him a cry baby and stuff like that's gonna come back around on him. So I think that those two were going to Mania, so they'll kind of cancel each other out here.

You know, I was thinking when I was going back and forth, like if it's not Sena who wins, right, you have Logan Paul eliminate John Cena after Sena eliminated him at the Rumble, and we get that over exaggerated expression on John Cena's face of shock and dismay and oh my god, what am I gonna do? That's it Number seventeen down down the toilet, And I could envision a final two of CM Punk, who was actually dumped out of the Rumble by Logan, and this time it's

Punk who puts Logan down. That's kind of what I was starting to think before, But I keep coming back to this damn favor. It's like I said before, if Punk has that favor from Paul Hayman, I don't know what else it would be if not him using it to get a main event spot. At WrestleMania or get a shot at the championship at some point. And if he wins the chamber and he gets that on his own, I feel like it basically negates the need for the favor.

So Sena could win. Punk could get Hayman to use whatever influence he has with the Rock, him being so close to the family at all, to get Rock to add CM Punk to the match at WrestleMania to make it a three way. That's how he gets in. He doesn't win the chamber to get in, but Punk Cash is in that favor. He gets added to the mat. And if Punk is going heel you do the turn there and you keep the fans guessing who's going to the dark side right by the time that match is over.

Is it John Cena, Is it CM Punk Or maybe it's Cody and then boom, it's CM Punk and it's wrestle Maybe he is seventeen all over again. It's fun to think about and play out all the different scenarios. I'm going with John Cena. He was my original pick after he lost the Royal Rumble. I'm gonna stick with that. I think John Cena wins the elimination chamber, and then I think Punk uses the favor from Hayman to work his way into things. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

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Just go to HelloFresh dot com slash HelloFresh Podcast, HelloFresh America's number one meal kit. There was some news this week on mounting frustration in the WWE women's locker room, at least with some talents, maybe not all of them, but certainly some of them. Speaking on Fightful's YouTube channel on Wednesday, Sean ross Sapp stated that he has spoken with many women in WWE who were frustrated with how

the women's division was being booked. He said, somebody asked me about women's booking, and I said, yes, I have spoken with plenty of women in WWE who were frustrated with how the women's division is booked. This isn't a new issue, but it's nowhere near the level of frustrations seen around the Royal Rumble in twenty twenty two. Royal Rumble twenty twenty two was so bad that I developed sources because of how bad it was booked. This is

nowhere near that now. The twenty twenty two Rumble, for those of you who may have forgotten, is the one where Sasha Banks came out at number one, dressed the Sailor Moon. She had been gone for like a month, so this was like her return, and then she was eliminated ten minutes into the match by Zelena Vega. Tamina lasted longer than Sasha Banks did. It was fucking ridiculous. So Sean said that one of the Vince McMahon pitches for that Royal Rumble was to have Ronda Rousey come

back and eliminate the entire field all by herself. Thankfully that did not happen. She did win the Rumble that year, but she entered at number twenty eight. I don't need any convincing, but because some people do, it's nice to be reminded every now and then why that company is

better off not having Vince McMahon running creative anymore. When we hear about shit like this, can you imagine Ronda Rousey coming back and eliminating twenty nine other women to win the Royal Rumble as awful as that second run was when she came back, That's how it kicks off. The fact that it was even pitched in the first place should have gotten him barred from the building at Titan Tower. They should have revoked his key card for that.

Sap continued, though, he said there was a situation where one Women's WWE performer reached out to me and said, dude, can you find out if I'm listed internally as a heel or a babyface? And I was like, damn, okay. I also that's what I was wondering on Monday when Roxanne wrestled Riquel, I wouldn't be surprised if it was her.

I was like, wait a minute, rox Emperez is a heel in NXT, and yet in that match with Raquel, you know, especially the way they were talking about her on commentary, you would think that she was a babyface. He says. I also know that there have been wrestledmany of pitches that were rejected because some talents don't want to be just in a token tag match. They want things put on a more even plane. In the women's division, contracts are going up, viewership is adjusted accordingly for when

women are on screen. You're adding more titles, add more matches, all that stuff. There's not that element of where a lot of the men not only have one thing going on, they have a lot of different things going on. And that's just not the way it's been for the women. And I don't know if that's a triple H thing or what says. There's a lot of people that have been parked. For example, I'm not going to say Natalia is frustrated, but they signed Natalia, they wanted to keep Natalia.

They had creative plans for Natalia. What has Natalia done since, hasn't been on NXT, hasn't been doing anything. Now, whether or not you're a n Italia fan, you can understand why she or anyone else would be frustrated, right, It's not hard to see why if she is. You know, he's not outing her as a source, he's just using her as an example. Here. They threw a lot of money at her to resign her. She obviously wants to

keep wrestling. I can see her being a very important part of training future female stars, maybe ending up with a coaching role at the performance Center or with NXT at some point. But she wants to wrestle. And so if they resigned you with the understanding that you would still be wrestling, and you're not wrestling, then yes, that

would be pretty frustrating as an example. And by the way, you know, when Sean says, I don't know if that's a Triple H thing or what, I can't imagine that there was some edict from Ari Emanuel and the people above Triple H and Nick con that said, hey, we want less women's wrestling on the show, or you can feature it, but don't feature it as as cohesively as

you do the man like. No, when we're talking about creative issues like this, you could say it it's okay to say it's a triple H thing now or whether or not there's a method to the madness or not, I don't see what it is. But when you're the head of creative and you're the chief content officer, I'm sorry for all the people, myself included, who would lay all the shit at Vince McMahon's feet when he was in charge of creative right, and he was in charge

of everything right. It was his company and he had his hands in everything, good, bad or indifferent. It starts and stops with whoever is in charge of creative in that case, for many, many, many years it was Vince McMahon. There would be good stuff and it's like, okay, even if he didn't come up with it himself, he green lit it, he allowed it on TV, so you can

give him credit for that. But for the bad shit that we saw, whether he came up with it himself or he okayed the idea from somebody who thought that he would like it, that's his responsibility. That's on him. You want to blame Vince, go ahead. It's no different with Triple H. I don't know why some people, you know, and I'm not saying Sean is doing but I definitely

see people who will treat him with kid glove. People accuse me of doing that and I just laugh, like, I can't take you seriously if if you say something like that, because numerous times I've called Triple H out for things I don't like or things that I do like. Right, there are things he does that I do like and

I think are great. But there are people out there and it goes back to the tribalism where if you say anything bad or anything negative about the company, about Triple H, about Tony Kahn, about aaw they can't handle it. They can't and they leap into defense mode. But it's okay to say that Triple H. He's not infallible. There are things he does that are not good or that the women's division or the tag division. There are certain aspects of the show and of the roster where improvements

can absolutely be made. He is the head of creative, He is the chief content officer. If you have issues with that, then you lay it at his feet. So, yes, it is his responsibility. Now, Fightful Select had additional details about this Kashawn. Initially he brought this up. It was during a show that he was doing. It might have been a super chat or something that came in. So now they had a formal report about this whole thing, and he said, we were asked to expand on some

of the frustrations of the women's division. It's important to note that it does not reflect the entirety of the division, but was echoed by numerous talent. Several women on the WWE roster spoke with Fightful and noted the lack of focus on developing contenders the tag team division and screen time for women outside of the top of the division.

This was said to be specifically in comparison to NXT, where main roster women's talent have noticed how much screen time and focused those talents get and how emotional investment then follows. It was also a point of redundant storylines, with the same talent not only being featured at the top of the card, but even in the mid card title scene. Those that we spoke to were happy for those who get that screen time and said that it shouldn't be a they're getting too much time conversation. It

should be give other people more time. In addition to them, conversation, those that Fightful spoke with pointed to Sonya Deville effectively being cut while negotiating a new deal is something that didn't instill confidence when they are not being used by the company. We're told that Deville had been told as recently as four days prior to her release that the company was looking to keep her. Several who have inquired about their creative plans were told that their time would

be coming, and they were asked to be patient. I understand not all of the women can be featured in prominent roles at the same time. Some of them are going to have to wait. And if they have ideas for them and they're just waiting for one story to end and then theirs begins, I totally understand that. So is it a case or triple h or whoever you Are they being honest when they say that, or are they just trying to get them off their backs? I

don't know. There are only so many segments on one show, and you're sharing time with the men as well, and the men's ross are on Raw, the men's roster on SmackDown. It's bigger than the women's but this is not a new problem. This has been an ongoing problem now for

a while. The lack of focus on the tag team division since they insist on keeping those titles, the lack of attention to stories outside of the top handful of women in the division, Rhea Ripley, Live, Morgan Nya, Jack's Charlotte Flair now that she's back, Tiffty Stratton, Right, they get all the attention. I'm not saying they shouldn't, but you know, or at least in most cases, but they

get all the attention. But now you have mid card titles, two of them that you just introduced, and nobody cares. Nobody cares. Triple H has done a terrible job of this. Look at fucking Ivy Nile. Ivy Nile has been talking about challenging Lyra Valkyria for the Intercontinental title, then has a match on Monday with Dakota Kai to determine a number one contender. You would think that Tomaso Champa snuck out there and asked for a moment of silence. It

was so quiet in that building. Nobody cared. Why should they to number one contenders match for a title that nobody gives a shit? About because they haven't been given a reason to care. And this is not a problem unique to the women, by the way, It's the same reason the men's I see and the men's US titles were in the doldrums for so long. You know, Gunther's run in the way that they protected him, that really elevated that Intercontinental title to a place that it had

not been in many years. I would argue it hadn't been there since Miz had that run back in twenty seventeen, and before that. I couldn't even fucking tell you the last time the Intercomminental Championship meant a damn thing. Shinsky Nakamora. He won the US title from La Night. He spends most of his time now stalking people backstage like Japanese Jason Vorhees right, I mean Lyra beat Dakota to win

the title on January thirteenth. It took them an entire month to get her a match, and when they did, what happened. She lost non title. It was a qualifying match, but she lost in the same week that their other champion, Chelsea Green, also lost. Yet Ivy Nile is talking about challenging Lyra for her title and then she goes out there and loses to Dakota on Monday, So Dakota is

challenging for the title tomorrow night. But forget that. What have they done with Ivy Nile on TV to warrant her getting a championship match or to get people to really invest in her? When Ivy is out there, people are silent because they haven't taken the time to let people know who she is or care about her interviews, backstage segment, I mean the backstage segment that she's in.

They're useless. Backstage segments, interviews, video packages, matches, whatever. You can't just give her a token segment here and there and expect people to care. So she's going to continue to wrestle to crickets and then she'll be cast aside for the next challenger and they won't do anything with her because, oh, she's not over. Gee, I wonder why that is. I understand the talent. They have to get themselves over, Yes, that is true, but they need to

be put in a position to succeed. In order for that to happen, they need the support. And if they fall flat on their face, then they fall flat on their face and you move on to the next but they're not being given anything in a lot of cases. Zelina Vegas, she got a video package on Friday Night on SmackDown. Good. That's a step in the right direction. But what else are they going to do to get people to care about her challenging Chelsea for the US

title when that day comes? They point to the ladies on NXT and how they're being used as a point of frustration. Why they're not doing something like that with them on the main roster. The NXT women's division right now is stacked with talent, right you hear that word thrown around a lot man. Look how stacked the division is, right, guess what so is the main roster. People don't talk about that so much, but look at the main roster.

I know people love to rave about Julia and Stephanie Vicaire and Jordan Grace now is there and oh my god, soul Ruka, she's such an athlete, She's going to be such a big star. Zaria is great. Yes, so are Eo Sky and Rhea Ripley and Tiffany Stratton and Bianca bell Air and on and on and on. They've got plenty of great talent too. But look at what Sean Michaels is doing with them on NXT, and look at what Triple H is doing. Yeah, I went because I watched the show this week, and I went back and

I counted it out. This week's episode of NXT featured thirteen different women in matches on a two hour show. You're lucky to get half that on Raw or smack Down any given week. NXT is the closest thing, honestly to an all women show that WWE has ever had. The first two matches this week were women's matches, and they shot an angle with Julia, Stephanie, and Jordan making the save for Carmen Petrovic and fighting off fatal influence that set up the six women tag that we had

in the main event of the show. And evidently the ratings for the women's segments generally do well on Tuesdays. I'm not saying that it has to be even Stephen do on the main roster exactly what they're doing in NXT, but they can learn from what NXT is doing. Right. They do a better job of fleshing out their characters. It's not always good. I'll tune in sometimes and I'll see these backstage segments that belong on fucking public access TV,

not the CW network. But they take the time to develop their characters, not just at the top level, up and down the show. Some of the stories I just can't get into, but at least they're taking that's what developmental should be for. They're taking the time to develop them. There are lessons to be learned from what Shawn Michaels

is doing down there. But if these anonymous women are worried about a lack of equity when it comes to TV time, or if they're worried about the company focusing on the same ones over and over and over again, boy, it ain't going to get any better for them. Once Becky comes back, and when Julia eventually gets called up and Stephanie gets called up and Jordan gets called up.

I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be great to see those women mixing it up with all the big names on Ron's backdown, But I don't see it getting any better for the women underneath. Now. Speaking of NXT, I did catch the episode this week. I'm not going to do a full review, but I wanted to especially see the contracts signing with Ricky Stocks who came into this show with no name this week, but he was signing his contract. But there were a

lot of things that happened on this show. They had Oba Feme coming off of his win over Waller in Theory at Vengeance Day, the NXT champion. He comes out for a promo and he said, those four fools who attacked him after his match, that was the new Retribution group whatever they're going to be calling themselves. I hope it works out a lot better for them than that did. But he said, those four fools who attacked him after his match made one very big mistake. They didn't finish

the job. And he told them, get your ass out to the ring and finish what you started. And the lights went out, and who should show up? It wasn't you know Retribution two point zero. It was Moose from TNA, and the place went nuts once they recognize who it was. This was his debut and they circle each other in the ring. That had a big stare down and Moose said that he just burst Oba's bubble because he was

the one man that Oba could not rule over. And Oba said that that place where you're the man that's your bubble here. I'm inevitable and Moose said that this had to happen Oba Femi against Moose, and Oba said, don't worry it will. I love the idea, by the way, that like that place where you're the man completely ignoring

who the raining TAA World Heavyweight Champion is. I understand that Moose, I guess, you know, ex division champion, but it's you would watch this segment and really think that Moose was the like, he's their world champion, He's their top guy. Oba's enxt's top guy. Poor Joe Hendry. I mean, he's just relegated to concerts on Thursday and he's not part. He's not part of what's going on here. He's still busy challenging John Cena to a match that may or

may not happen. So this was interesting. This was a nice surprise. The fans reacted well to it. Later in the show, we found out there was a backstage segment. It was actually the way it was done was kind of very underwhelming, but they had the no quarter catch crew backstage and in the middle of this promo segment, they turned to the camera because they have a challenge. They want to issue and it's Miles Bourne and Tavian Heights and they issue a challenge to Matt and Jeff Hardy,

who are currently the TNA World Tag Team Champions. So then later in the show we have a promo that was inserted into the show because we have a response from Matt and Jeff and they accepted their challenge. And on Matt's pot cast, he said that video that aired on NXT that was a last minute thing. It was not even made until like an hour or so before it was posted. So now we got the hearties are on NXT. But also on this show, we had the contract signing and Ava was in the ring for Ricky

Starks still not identified the man with no name. She said that she was in the ring with the hottest free agent in wrestling. Ricky said that there were some things he wanted to get off his chest. He wanted to main event every NXT pl e and become the

NXT champion. I'm the man here. He said he was going to do what he always did, which would show up and show out because the revolution was beginning, and he was interrupted by Ethan Page and so Ethan was basically, you know, cutting a heel promo here and let me guess you're in here to sign your new deal. And in that d it says that your first match you're going to be challenging for a championship. And he says,

you're a genius. You're following the Ethan Page playbook to a t. But I want to tell you as a friend, there's only one Ethan Page. And Ricky told him you're wearing your insecurity as tight as you have that jacket on right now. And you should know that I walked the walk and I talked to talk and I'm here to take this place to a different level. And Page said that you'll never reach the bar that I set. And Ricky said, let's not do this right now. Let's celebrate.

I'm signing with NXT. You just beat Javon Evans a vengeance day. But remember people like Javon, they always come back around to whip that ass. And wouldn't you know, Javon Evans suddenly hit the ring, he brawled with Ethan into the crowd. Ricky was finally about to sign the contract and then he was interrupted by Wesley Now in the back. There was a segment earlier where Wesley was being interviewed, and when the interviewer spotted Ricky walking by,

she basically said, Okay, I'm done with you. I want to go talk to Ricky. So I guess this offended Wesley. He says, look, I know who you are, but you're new around here, and there are rules, and the number one rule is you don't disrespect Wesley Ava If he signs that contract, I want to show him the ropes and I want to be the one to welcome him to NXT. And Ricky said, why is everybody so angry all the time? Said next week, you and I in the ring. No problem. So he goes to sign the contract.

West tried to take a shot at him. Ricky clotheslined him out of the ring. He finally signs the contract, he strikes a pose and the cameraman then zooms in on the on the contract which is sitting on the table, and the name and giant letters on the contract it ain't Ricky Starks, It's Ricky Saints, And finally the announcers acknowledged Ricky Saint says, come to NXT now. Ricky went on Busted Open Radio after the show went off the air, and he talked to the new name. This is what

he said. He said, it's as close as you're going to get to Starks. I like the name. I know a lot of people are going to be, Oh, it's going to take time for them to get used to it. I respect that they care so deeply about me that they rebel against any name change. But at the same time, I am a product of New Orleans first and foremost, and I want to pay respect to that as well. I think this is the best of both worlds, and

that means a lot to me. Obviously. I think it's cool to have a piece of home with me and the person doesn't change. I'm still that guy, and so it is what it is. And I thought that last it is what it is line was maybe the most telling of the entire thing, because there is some people, I think, who just assumed that this whole thing was his idea, Like they were going to let him keep the name, or he could have kept the name, but he was like, you know what, I want to change

my name. I don't think that's what's going on here. You know, bron Breaker opted to change his name because he wanted to blaze his own path without the Steiner name Brian Pillman Junior. He went with Lexus King to do the same thing and get away from his dad's name. I don't think Ricky Stark sat at home for a year waiting to come to WWE, thinking, first thing I'm gonna do, I'm going to change my name when I get there. So I don't know what the reason is.

I assume he just didn't want to surrender the rights to his name because he's one of the very few that had to change it. There's been so many people that have come in from other places, including aw and they're they're using the same name that they were using before. So he chose to come up with a name that sounded similar as similar as possible to Ricky Starks, same initials, but just incorporate a little piece of himself into it. What do I think of the name. It's fine, It's

not a bad name. I mean again, I've seen some of these fucking names they've been trademarking left and right recently. Some of them are not that terrible. Some of them are fucking awful. It could have been a lot worse, especially if they came to him and said, hey, we have a name, we want you to use. At least he had input into it. It's not dramatically different from the name he was using before. Ricky, you know, thank god. I mean it could have been worse. He could have

been born in Tampa Bay. Okay, Ricky Buccaneers doesn't have quite the same ring to it. So Ricky Saints is fine. Bully ray On busted up and then gave him the floor to talk a little bit about his departure from AAW So he talked about that. He said, I don't know the specifics of what it was. Some people you asked the internet it was because you were at the Royal Rumble. Screw you. The footage got leaked from me being at the Rumble. I wasn't backstage. I left after

the first match. Some could say, well, you were at WrestleMania last year in a suite and you got on camera you were cheering. Screw you. You're an idiot with no friends and no passion in life. If you think the damnedest thing that I've done is cheering somebody on in another company. My boss was okay with it. I can't tell you exactly what the moment was. You could say it was punk leaving and things kind of fell apart. Absolutely,

I probably agree with you on that, all right. Or you could say that Ricky didn't play the politics well enough, all right, for sure. There's so many things you can say. What I can say for myself is that when I got hurt in March, that was it. I never came back, and even then I wasn't hurt. It was a precautionary thing where I got scared because I had a stinger. Then I was fine after that, no dice, no communication, no nothing. And that's okay because I ended up here

and it's fine. Everything worked out. I don't know explicitly where it went wrong. I can't point to one thing. I can say. It was a storm of things. Probably did I do something that may have, you know, tipped them off, Sure, asking for my release whenever, this past whatever, that could have been it. But never once was I not willing to do something. Never once was I sabotaging anything.

And Bully asked him if he felt that it was a personal or a professional reason for the release, and Start said that it was probably personal, because if it was professional, his departure would would not have happened. This way, he says, I'll say this. There are some people who stuck their nose in my creative business that should not have happened veterans, and that's it. I'll leave it at that. And if they got a problem with me, they got

my number, they could text me about it. I think what it was is that if it didn't work for their creative then someone had to get the boot. That's how I see it. But I'm not trying to be negative in my thought process. If you want to step on me to get ahead in your illustrious career, everyone has an illustrious career. Everyone should have an illustrious career. That's perfectly fine. But at the same time, I'm not wet behind my ears. So that was a lot to

say that. At the end of the day, he doesn't know exactly what it was. As far as why Tony Khan wouldn't bring him back and wouldn't have him back on TV working, It could be as simple as Tony Khan really did just think he's going to WWE and it doesn't matter what we do with him, so fuck him. I don't want him on my television show. Could have been as simple as that could have been backstage politics. We don't know because we were in backstage with politicking,

So who knows. I know a lot of people have been floating the segment from Collision. I think it was not long after Adam Copeland joined the company and there was a promo segment and Ricky got some shots in and then clearly he rattled Copeland, and honestly, in that segment, Copeland did not come off well at all. Some people are like, oh, Ricky got cooked. No he didn't. Adam Copeland looked very insecure and very kind of knocked off his game. In that segment. He went to the old

vanilla midget thing, which is fucking low hanging fruit. It's like, really, dude, that's the best you can come up with. So he clearly was not happy with Ricky. Did he say something backstage to Tony Kahn? Did he say something that would have negatively impacted Ricky's push? Yeah, because Ricky was still on TV after that for a few more months. I don't know. I don't know. People are throwing names around Ricky or not Ricky, you know, Copeland and Jericho, who knows?

Who knows? All that matters is that he's gone. He wanted out of there. He got out of there and now he's where he has always wanted to be, and hopefully he will have a great run down there that isn't too long, and then eventually he'll end up on Raw or SmackDown, and you know, as popular as he is right now, I see Ricky really shining when he has a good heel run. I think when the heel run comes, that's where he'll really shine. But we have coming up on NXT this week. They announced a bunch

of matches. Stephanie Vequier will defend her Women's North American championship against Carmen Petrovic. Moose, the TNA X Division champion, we'll defend his title against Lexus King. The Hardys are going to defend Actually I don't think they are defending. I don't think they said it's a title match, but they are the TNA Tag Team champions. They're going to

be facing the note Quoder Catch Crew. Ricky Say will have his first match tagging with Javon Evans against Wesley and Ethan Page, and they're gonna be in Cincinnati on Tuesday. They're gonna beat the same music venue where AW did a show last month. That was the night that John Moxley defended the aw title against Powerhouse Hobbs. I love the look of that place, so I'm assuming it'll be set up more or less the same way. I think that's gonna be a great venue for that show. TNA.

They had back to back shows this week from Full Sale University. They actually had a live show there on Thursday and then tapings on Friday, and Obafemi, the NXT Champion, made a surprise appearance on Thursday's Live Impact alongside Matt and Jeff Hardy came to the aid of Leon Slater from a beatdown at the hands of Moose and his faction the System, Brian Myers and Eddie Edwards, and they

made a six man tag team match. It's gonna be Oba, Femi and the Hardy's taking on Moose, Myers and Edwards on Impact this coming Thursday, which has already been taped, so there's spoilers that are out on that already. Just be aware of that. Also, the date and place of the match with Oba and Moose has been set, so for any Impact watchers who don't want to know, I'm not going to mention it. It's not hard to find

if you want to look it up. But they all but said that they're going to have a match, right. They said that on Tuesday, So that's not really a surprise, but as far as the win and where that is floating around out there, to just be aware. Speaking of TNA, one quick note here. TNA star Jake Something launched a GoFundMe this week to help with his medical expenses after undergoing surgery recently for a torn biceps, and he said,

being uninsured, the medical bills are crippling. Add to that, his dog Leah had to get surgery the same day that he did, so he's got bills from that as well. And I know recently he had to vacate a couple of independent titles that he held, and he specifically thanked I think it was Deadlock Pro for their help when he first made the announcement. He really put them over. So I'm not sure if he got hurt in their

ring or not. His last three matches were all in a TNA ring, his last match coming against Joe Hendry on the January twenty fourth episode of Impact. It's possible he wrestled those matches he was already hurt. Maybe he wrapped it up. He did the matches and then he went off to have surgery. If he was hurt on TNA's watch in their ring, then I don't understand why they're not covering his medical expenses. I know they've taken good care of Chris Bay after he got hurt in

their ring. They should be taking care of Jake two. Unless he got hurt in someone else's ring, then I can understand it. Still shitty, but I can understand it. Hey, it's Chris van Fleet.

She had her first child with Corey Graves later that year, but she ended up suffering from drop foot, which is a nerve condition that could be caused by childbirth, basically nerve damage. It can paralyze the foot or part of the foot, which can make it hard to lift the front part of the foot. Scott Steiners had drop foot for over twenty years. You know, he can barely stand watching any of his WWE stuff back when he came back to the company in two thousand and two because

of it, because he had some really bad matches. The only reason he was able to work with it is because he would tape it up. It was almost like a cast, and he would just hope that he didn't fall or get hurt. He was unbusted open just recently and said that he stumbles at least twice a day, you know, like he won't fall, but like he'll trip

because his foot doesn't come all the way up. But she said she wrestled for eleven years and outside of some concussions, she never had a major injury until she delivered her son, and then she had her first major injury. And it wasn't a case where she got hurt in the ring and they released her like they did Carl Anderson, but they just let her contract expire. They did the same thing with Sonya Deville. Her deal runs out at the end of the month. I don't know if she's

ever going to wrestle again. It sounds like she wants to, so I hope she can somewhere. But if she never works another match for WWE again, she had a respectable run. I would say, SmackDown Women's Champion, tag Team Champion, first ever Women's Money in the Bank winner. You know she'll be getting that Hall of Fame induction one day. It looks like Goulberg, will not be haunting wrestle Mania this year.

On his weekly car Cast podcast, Bill Goldberg said that he expects to be back in the ring for his retirement match sometime this summer. Says, I don't know exactly when it is, but I know it's coming up, and I know, at fifty eight years old, I have to be in my underwear in front of everybody, and I hold a very high standard for myself. I do too, by the way. You know, I'll look at myself in the mirror in my own to where sometimes and my

standards are very low. But he says, I need to get to work yesterday, But the long term benefit and the benefit for me in the ring will be much more if I just calmed my ass down. So this all came up as part of a discussion about stem cell therapy injections, which he recently received in Columbia, where a lot of wrestlers have gone to get similar treatment. Kevin Nash is always talking about that bio accelerator. He

swears by them. He goes down there maybe a couple of times a year, because they only last for so long and you have to constantly go back, not every month, but you have to go back and get more injections. But he swears by it, you know, raymisterio, He's gotten

it for his knees especially. It's probably added years to his career if you look at it, Ray fifty years old and wondering how the fuck is this guy still flying around the ring and doing what he does when I mean, my god, like legitimately, like twelve or thirteen years ago, I thought he was washed. I thought he was done. Yeah, it was like every other month we were hearing about n injuries with him, and so he had all of this time basically that he added onto

his career. And I'm sure the stem cell therapy is a big part of why. So Goldberg apparently is going the same route. So a summertime match could be Summer Slam, not necessarily Summer Slam, although they've added the extra night, so it's gonna be a big one this year. They're gonna be back to back nights in MetLife Stadium, so they're gonna have some tickets to sell for that one.

That would be an attraction. I guess that they could add to that, but it could just as easily be their next Saudi Arabia show, which is said to be taking place sometime in June, so long as he doesn't headbut his locker again and knock himself silly. And Michael Cole appeared on Logan Paul's Impulsive Podcasts for an hour long interview. I watched the entire thing. I thought it was very good. You could tell he's having a lot more fun with his job now that he did in

his first twenty five years there. I know that he re signed with the company last year, but he revealed that his new contract will take him to retirement age. He's fifty eight now, and later in the interview he clarified that he's got eight years left on his deal. He said, the company really made me feel for the first time like I was really important to this place. So, you know, from contemplating retirement to signing a new contract for ten years. I assume it was around ten years

when he signed it. If he's got eight left, it would be weird to sign a fucking nine year deal. But yes, he was thinking about quitting when Vince was still in charge. To go from that to like, yeah, I'll sign a new freaking decade long contract. Sure, So he was asked what about the deal made him feel that way, and he said, the paycheck is part of it, but the new regime had a lot to do with it.

When I went to sign the new deal, I sat down with my wife and I'm fifty eight years old now, and I'm like, they want to get me to retirement age. And this is because we had talked about me getting off this out of this for a long time now because of the travel and everything else. Yeah, I think it's the everything else that's the key here. And she was like, you gotta do it. This is your legacy. Like you're going to be miserable if you don't finish this up the way that you want to finish it up.

And she was great about it. So she was one hundred percent on board with it, and so I'm here for a while. He was asked about the Corey Grave situation and had this to say about it. I still don't understand all the dynamics of it. I know that he sent something out on social media that was pretty critical of the company. He tried to explain to everyone that he was trying to generate some interest in maybe a type of storyline. I don't think the company saw

it that way. I think he and the company are working that out. I love Corey to death. He's an unbelievable commentator. Besides McAfee, he's probably the best partner I've ever had. Oh. I think there was some very real frustration behind that tweet that he deleted, and I think it's very telling that they did not call on Corey to fill in for Joe testeditour a couple of weeks ago when he missed SmackDown. They called on Vic Joseph, as they did last week when Jackie Redman missed Row

for the NHL Nations game. They had Vic Joseph doing interviews with the wrestlers up on the concourse throughout the entire show. It may have just been during the ad breaks, but Vic filling in for Joe and not Corey, I think was very telling. He also spoke about Vince McMahon and how things in the company have been since his departure, and he also admitted that he was a puppet for Vince for many years and that's how the fans looked at him. But he said, listen, I will never ever

disparage Vince McMahon. He's got his personal issues and what not. From a professional standpoint, I will never disparage the man. I would not be where I am today without Vince. He gave me everything. I'll never disparage the man. But Vince was very heavy handed. It was his company, his sandbox, whatever he wanted, so I was never really able to break out and be myself, with the exception of a little bit of a heel run that I had over

a decade ago. But when Vince left and Paul came in and was in charge Triple H, he really changed things. Then we brought in Lee Fitting, who came from ESPN. Lee coming from ESPN where the talent is the announcer, he came here and said, I don't understand why our guys at the desk are not bigger and have bigger personas and are as respected as the people in the ring. What Lee and Paul have allowed us to do is bring our personalities out, and you're seeing the real Michael

Cole now. Professionally, sure, Vince did a lot for him, so I'm not surprised by his answer, but he went out of his way to make sure that he said professionally, I will never disparage Vince McMahon and here's why, and this is why things are different now. You know, his way of saying that Vince micro managed everything was saying that he was very heavy handed, which we already knew, right. People have said that, people that have done commentary have

said that. I mean, there's videos. I don't know where they are now, but like over the years, I'm going back to like small down in two thousand and three, for example, and you would get these satellite videos that would pop up from the satellite feed didn't err on TV, and you would hear you couldn't hear Vince, you couldn't hear who was in his ear, but you would hear Cole on commentary. And I can't remember what the circumstances were.

There was one video Vince was lacing into him about something and JBL has been filling in for Bruce Pritchard on his podcast now for several months, and there was a clip going around recently where he was talking about Cole and how Vince McMahon went off on him one like there's so many stories about that, and it's amazing he lasted as long as he did, either because he didn't get run off or that Vince didn't get tired

of him. I mean, the turnover with so many people in this company, announcers, writers, is astronomical over the years. How Michael Cole survived in that spot for so long is a credit to him. Obviously, Vince saw something in him that he didn't with other people, and he survived a hell of a lot longer than people I think thought he would when he first came into the company. But he also talked about the evolution of WWE and he said something that and I take issue with this,

and this just made me shake my head. He's not wrong in a lot of what he's saying here, but there's one part in particular that really got on my nerves. He said, we're a storytelling entity. First, we're not professional wrestling anymore, we haven't been for many years. We are an entertainment product, and we need stories so our fans

can emotionally invest in our characters. They also said, you know, Jim Ross came to WWE already a wrestling guy, and I think me, being new and fresh and not a wrestling guy, Vince was able to mold me how he wanted me to be an announcer. I think people are beginning to understand now that, yeah, you know what, you don't have to call every single move in a wrestling match. You make sure you call the big spots, the big moments. But it's more important for me to explain to our

audience who you guys are first. Let me just say a lot of what he said there is one hundred percent true. They are a storytelling entity, and you absolutely need to tell those stories to get people to emotionally invest in your characters. Oka story is so important, and you don't have to call the name of every single move. Jim Ross said at once, like it's not radio, it's TV. People can see what's going on. It's a little bit different if you're a radio announcer, right, you have to

give these details. People can't see what's going on on television. It's different. You don't have to go all in on that. But Michael Cole is clearly still Vince pilled Vince McMahon. For as much as he grew up around the wrestling business, and he will go down as the most successful pro wrestling promoter of all time. It has to aggravate the shit out of him that people would still call him

that a professional wrestling promoter. Right. I'm sure he just must hate that because he has spent his entire adult life outside of trying to fuck anything in his s art, he has spent his entire adult life trying to differentiate his product from everyone else's because he didn't think pro wrestling would sell tickets to the masses, right, and pay per views and sell merchandise. It's like wrestling became a dirty word to him, even though it was in the

name of the company. Still they shied away from it so much. And I'm not even saying he's totally wrong, Like, if you wanted to bring wrestling more into the mainstream, right, you focus more on some stuff, you focus less on other stuff. Play stuff up, play stuff down. Where I take issue with this is that pro wrestling we don't do pro wrestling anymore. We're not a pro wrestling company anymore. Pro wrestling has always been about the personalities and the stories.

You could take it all the way back to the advent of TV and Gorgeous George right, that man was ahead of his time. Go to the seventies, Dusty Rhodes and Superstar Billy Graham, other territories into the eighties outside of his own, the Road Warriors, the Four Horsemen staying, the evil Russians right, the stories they were doing in Mid South, Jyd being blinded and not being able to see his baby girl, you know, the Freebirds and the von Eerics. Like, I hate this idea that we're not

professional wrestling anymore. We're a storytelling company, as if they were never a storytelling company, as if they weren't telling stories on their shows twenty five years ago, thirty years ago. Like this is some kind of new era that they ushered in with the Bloodline. I mean, they may be more cinematic in the way they present things, but they are, and always have been, and always will be, first and

foremost above all else, a professional wrestling company. But Vince was so worried about the stigma around that word that he managed to convince these people that everyone looks at wrestling the same way, and so you know, what we're going to do was something innovative and completely different from what is anyone else is doing. It's not it's really not like it's not that deep. You're a pro wrestling company, dude, Like no father is telling their son, hey, let's go

to the entertaining show. Tonight, Hey Winston, they're telling stories tonight at the Barclay Center. Want to go? You don't want to do matches just for the sake of doing matches with no story? I agree with that, right, unless there's squash matches, right, you're just trying to get somebody new over, that's fine. But this idea that like we tell stories and other companies don't like it's something trademarked and patented by WWE. It's just so fucking laughable to me.

Pro wrestling is storytelling. It has been for a lot longer than Michael Cole has been around. It's the story of good versus evil, right with larger than life personalities. That's what pro wrestling is. That's what WWE is. You are a pro wrestling company. Over on the aew C per pw Insider Max will be adding AW pay per views from twenty twenty, twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, and twenty four to their streaming service on March first.

They already have all the big events from twenty nineteen. Once those are added, Max would have every pay per view and special event in AW history available for their subscribers, so just be aware of that. According to Programming Insider, this week's edition of NXT drew six hundred and eighty nine thousand viewers, which is a big drop from the eight hundred and one thousand that it did the week before.

The eighteen to forty nine demo also dropped from point one eight to point one seven, and that's coming out of Vengeance Day and they had a Ricky Starks contract signing. Meanwhile, per Wressel, namiks Aw Dynamite drew five hundred and sixty three thousand viewers on TBS, which is a decrease from last week's five hundred and seventy nine thousand, but eighteen to forty one nine improved slightly. It was up a little bit from point one six to point one seven,

tying what NXT did this week. And this doesn't account for whatever audience now watches the show on Max. I happen to be one of those people, and no, I don't think it's anywhere near the number they do on TV. I see people online they're like sometimes they're like, they could have a million more viewers watching on Max. You don't know, Like, yeah, sure they could, they could. And if my aunt had balls, should be my uncle that's possible too. As far as I know, my aunt doesn't

have any balls. That would be news to all of us if that was the case. I don't think that's the case, but one can't ever really fully be sure. I guess, but I don't even get into the ratings discourse anymore really on these shows, because especially once they started simulcasting on Max, because without having access to those numbers,

it's all kind of pointless. But the usual bad faith merchants on social media, they were tripping over themselves this week to point out that Dynamite dropped coming out of Grand Slam. Oh, look at the drop. You know they dropped for Hangman at MJF. That's their big storyline. So I thought it was only fair to point out that NXT also dropped, even though they had more viewers and

even steeper drop coming out of Vengeance Day. So it wasn't really a good week for either show in that regard, and to twist it any other way really exposes you. So don't be one of those people. While speaking on the Coach and Bro Show, which is typically hosted by Jonathan Coachman and Vince Russo, Bro the Bro was out this week, I saw that JD was co hosting the

show with Coach on Thursday. But Coachman mentioned how people started talking when that picture was floating around last year of Shane McMahon and Tony Kahan meeting at the airport in Arlington. They had rumors about Shane possibly joining AW and then all of that talk, all of a sudden stopped and there's been no indication that any progress was

made between the two sides. And if you remember, Shane even put a statement out in the days after the meeting that the statement said Tony and I were connected through a mutual friend and we had a great meeting. We talked about many things, but mostly about our shared love for the business and the rewards and challenges of working with family. I congratulated him on the five year anniversary of AAW and I look forward to how he evolved the business going forward. And that was that well.

According to coach Shane asked for a significant deal, including equity in the company and control over the entire show. Tony Kahan ultimately ghosted Shane, not the other way around. This is what Coach said. I remember the picture that surface with Shane and Tony in their meeting and there was all this speculation that he wanted to come into AAW. Then all of a sudden that talk disappeared. Well, I have it on good authority that Shane McMahon asked for

the world. He wanted equity in the company. He wanted to come in and run the entire show. And honestly, it was probably the first time that I said to myself, I actually agree with Tony Kahn ghosting it. Because Tony ghosted Shane. It wasn't the other way around. So fightful Select followed up on this and reported that a source close to Shane confirmed that Tony Khan made no effort to continue discussions after their private meeting near Arlington Airport.

While rumors swirled that McMahon had asked for equity in the company, the source could not confirm that, but did acknowledge that Shane wanted to run things. It seemed like KHN almost thought Shane was joking when he mentioned the possibility of running everything, the source said. Despite AAW's lack of respond Shane apparently didn't take it personally and understood that nothing was going to come from the talks from

AAW side. Sources stated that Tony Kahan never talked much about the meeting, only mentioning that the two sides had met and that nothing was in the works. Those we've spoken to and AAW say that Tony hadn't spoken about it extensively outside of noting that the two met and

are not working together. The source close to McMahon that we talked to claimed that they would not rule out a cameo appearance, but did not think that they would extensively do business together at this stage, to which I say, yeah, no shit. I would have done the same thing that Tony did. Somebody walked in and said, I want everything. I want to run everything, I want equity, I want this, I want that. I would have said, you know what, it's nice meeting you. We'll talk soon. And I would

have ghosted him too. I don't blame Tony for that. Why would Tony Kahan surrender basically control of his company to a McMahon. That sounds like a very bad idea. You know, at least when Paul Hayman met with Dixie Carter and told her what it would take to bring him into TNA. Hayman, you know, he had a track record creatively where you could say We could really use a guy like this, right, we could use his brain. Maybe I handle the business end of things, but we'll

let him run wild with Creative. Right, this could be exactly what we need to turn this company around with Shane. This is what I said when this story first came out. Where is the track record? There is no track record. You're bringing a McMahon into your company and giving him full control to do what he wants with it. Why what warrants that outside of the name, Why would you

do that? If somebody said to me, you know, when Scott Demore got fired from TNA last year, and obviously he was under a non compete and so he couldn't do anything. Now he's running his own company. But let's say none of that existed, right, they like WWE is doing now. They let his contract lapse. Right now, Scott

de Moore is a free agent. If you would have said to me, Scott de moorehead a meeting with Tony kan and said, look, if you want to bring me in like as far as working together, or bring me in in some kind of a role, I want full control over Creative. I want you to let me. You know, you let me run this the way that I want to run this. I don't want meddling or anything like that.

I don't want to be co writer with anybody. Even then, I can understand Tony being hesitant, but at least with Scott de Moore, like, Okay, you could point to his record and say it's it's a great record or it's spotty record. He has success doing this or maybe you know, not doing that. You have a record to draw from, And frankly, I think Scott Demore would have actually brought a lot to the table in that company. What Shane McMahon you don't have that? People were so in love

with the idea. Oh my god, Shane. He's like the one McMahon that I like, yeah, or he's like the one McMahon that didn't get on my nerves or was overexposed. Right, let's bring in sh Shane seems like a nice guy. He's got a good head on his shoulders. We heard stories about him helping out behind the scenes. I'm sure he could do this stuff. Yeah, let's just give Shane control of the show. That would be fucking dumb bringing a McMahon into your company and giving him full control

to do what he wants with it. I don't blame Tony for being reluctant to do that. And I was reminded as I was talking about, like Paul Hayman and the stuff from all those years ago. I want to say it was two thousand and ten, twenty eleven. I don't remember what year that would have been. Maybe oh nine, maybe it was like oh nine, twenty ten it was. It was probably before Hogan came in. But that was

a real thing that happened. But I was reminded that Billy Corgan, he did an interview on Kurt Angle's podcast back in twenty twenty three. So I went to go find the exact quote. This is what he said about that whole situation because he I think he had equity in the company. This is before he had his whole big falling out with Dixie. And this is what he said about that whole situation because he tried, he tried to convince her give it to him whatever Hayman wants,

give it to him. He said, I'm sitting at a table and she says, if you were me, would you hire Paul Hayman? And I said, give him whatever he wants. She told me what he wanted. He was a big pile of money, and he wanted absolute total control. He gave one interview Hayman did where he later said after the whole thing didn't happen and he was back with WWE. He said what he would have done, and he said that he would have cleaned everybody at every veteran out

except for one that being Kurt Angle. He would have kept Kurt. He would have gone younger, and he would have went more Mma shooter style. He says, it was very interesting. I said, please give him whatever he wants. Well, he wants this, and he wants that. He wants total control of my company. And I said, please give it to him. Number one, your ratings will double overnight. Number two, you'll get all the smart marks off your back instantly. Number three, they'll hail you as a genius for bringing

in Hayman. Number four, the company will be on fire within six months. I guarantee it. Just do it. And she said, well, what about giving up control? I said, I don't care. Just give it to him. I begged her. Imagine what that company would have been with that roster or whoever he would have brought in. It would have

been hot fire. I think she was very reluctant to give up control, he says this, but also in the interview, he then admits, he concedes that as somebody who now runs the NWA, he would have to think long and hard if he was faced with a similar proposition. And that's really the key, right, Unless you're in that position, it's easy to sit here and say, oh my god, just give of course, Paul Hayman creative genius, right, just

give it all to him, whatever he wants. Just give it to him, give him a blank check and give him a contract, and that's it. Let him have at it. But if you're Dixie Carter, or if you're Tony Kahn, or if you're Billy Corgan and you're running the show, it's your baby, it's your company, right, you're the head

han show, right, you control everything. It's a lot easier for somebody on the outside to say give all that up, but not if you are that person in that position at that moment, the idea that I'm going to give all of this up. Why this is my company, And if you think you're doing a good job, you're certainly not gonna want to give it up. I can remember that period though TNA definitely could have used somebody like Hayman. It's one of those what if things. How would things

have turned out? Who the hell knows. I think it would have been a big help to them. Years later there was a similar story. So actually the Hayman thing probably was like nine because I think it was like twenty thirteen. Jeff Jarrett was going to buy the company.

I think it was going to be Jeff Jarrett and Toby Keith, and they had plans to buy the company away from Dixie, and it all came down to Bob Carter, Dixie's father, I guess, the head guy Panda Energy, insisted that his daughter would maintain either a role or even just like an executive title, you know that she would still have that I guess to save face. And Toby Keith said no, like he wouldn't agree to it, and that caused the entire deal to collapse. That was like

the one deciding factor in this. He's like, fuck this, I'm not going to like. This is either mine or it's not, and so he walked away from the entire deal. So there have been multiple instances where t Anda could have ended up looking very different than it did, had Dixie just you know, surrendered control or had they sold the company. But yeah, I can understand, like, when you're in that situation, you don't want to give that up.

It's that power. This notion that people are Tony Khan sucks and he should just give the company up to somebody else, let them run it, like that will never ever happen. I don't know why there are some people who still talk like that, like it will never happen. Vince McMahon, he would still be in the same position he was in if all that stuff didn't happen. He would still be there because it's all he's ever known and it's his baby, it's his company. He built it

to what it's become. Right, He took it from his father. He didn't really build it from the ground up, but he took it from his father and built it into what it is today. And so Dixie, I'm sure had some of that. And Tony Khan feels that way too. He built this from the ground up, he bankrolled it, he's still bankrolling it. This is his company. Why would

he give that up? So I would have done the same thing, honestly, if I were him, I don't care what your opinion is about Tony and his creative abilities. And yeah, I know they're on a bit of a hot streak recently with some of their shows. Whatever you think about that is irrelevant. Like if I'm in his position, yeah, I'm not giving everything up. Like why the hell would he do that? Doesn't make any sense? And maybe Shane

didn't really think he would accept the offer. Maybe Shane is like, you know what, I'm just gonna shoot my shot. He'll probably say no, but fuck it, maybe he'll say yes. Maybe he didn't really expect an answer out of him. I don't know, but I would have done the exact same thing if I were Tony for being honest. And this notion about him bringing Shane in in some kind of creative role. Who knows, maybe one day Shane does end up in that company in some kind of role.

But again, even just like giving him creative I don't know where people were getting this from or what they're basing that decision on, Like why would he do that? What is the track record? I would love to see what his track record is that people think Shane McMahon could have been the creative force to turn things around. A AAW in a way that Tony Khan couldn't. It was all just so ridiculous to me. The card for

AW Revolution is stacking up pretty nicely. John Moxley, of course, is going to defend the AW World Championship against Adam Copeland. We have MJF against Hangman. Adam Page is Official or Revolution. They had a face to face segment on Dynamite Wednesday night that I thought was excellent and I loved how they tied it back to the start of the company in their match from twenty nineteen, the only match they

ever had. Yeah, you got two men here who have gone on to become world champion, but they took very different paths to get there. And I look at Revolution as step one or chapter one of their story because there's still a lot of time between now and all in when they go to that stadium in Texas, which I think is where Hangmen. You know, if I had the pen where Hangman would win the AW World Championship,

But there's plenty of time before we get there. You can have MJF win the first match of Revolution, you get a second match out of it. And I said this on Wednesday, and it could even pay it off with a third match in the finals of the Owen Hart Tournament, which I assume is going to happen in June this year since All Out We're All In rather is in July. But that would make a lot of sense, all right, the rubber matches in the finals of the Owen you get another great match between those two with

real stakes on the line. I like that idea. We have Kenoski Takeshta defending the aw International Championship against either Kenny Omega or Orange Cassidy. We'll have to wait and see. Because Orange Cassidy beat Roderick Strong on Wednesday, he is now going to challenge Takesha for the title this Wednesday on Dynamite. The winner of that match, whoever the champion is,

will then defend against Kenny Omega. This entire thing is completely asked backwards because we had Kenny Omega in Australia last weekend cut a promo and you know, challenge Takeshta to an international title match. But it wasn't just about the championship. It was about the fact that Takeshta holds two wins over Kenny that were never avenged because Kenny got hurt and was out for a very long time. But there was a six man tag team win where

he pinned Omega, and there was a singles match. It all out a couple of years ago, and so Kenny was like, I dare you to do it for a third time. So it's not even just about the international title. It's about the history between these two men. And so then they go ahead and they announce this basically number one contenders match that could completely turn everything upside down.

Now it won't. We're still going to get Omega into Keshti, I'm sure, but the idea that it's like these two were fighting for the right to wrestle Kenny Omega, that's basically what this is. At this point. The whole thing is is just completely ass backwards. But the match is going to be great. So we'll find out this week that it will be Takeshta defending against Kenny Omega. We have Tony Storm putting her brand new AW Women's World Championship on the line against the former champion, Mariah May.

They did an angle on Collision last night where Mariah ambushed Tony in the back as they were showing people arriving at the building. They were showing Harley Cameron arriving, and then there's Mariah made an ambush. Tony dragged her out by her hair out on stage the top of the ramp, demanded that there'd be a spotlight shown on the two of them, and she's cradling Tony's head in her arms and she's crying and issuing a challenge for Revolution,

which was made official later on. But she said, you know, let's have a Hollywood ending, very appropriate with them being in Los Angeles for that pay per view, and so they didn't announce a proper stipulation. Even in the match graphic it says the Hollywood ending, So we don't know what that means. But I'll tell you what you know.

I wouldn't mind a cinematic Hollywood backlock brawl type of match between these two, you know, similar similar to the one that Piper and gold Dust had at WrestleMania, but you know, cinematic and they can make it their own

and they can go all over the place. Since we're talking about Hollywood and cinematic and Hollywood endings and everything, because I was thinking, yay, they could do a last woman standing, or they could do a first Blood or lights Out, but I would dig a stipulation like that, honestly. Will Osprey against Kyle Fletcher is now official. Are going to have a steel cage match. Mercedes Monet not confirmed yet but very likely defending her TBS title against Momo

Watanabe on that show. And Big Boom Aj of the Costco guys is coming back. AW hasn't said a word about it, but last month they told I say, ay, I don't know if it was Aj or his son, Big Justice, but they told cult to Halick that Aj would be recovered from his broken foot by then. They were in conversations with AW and it sounded like he was going to have another match of Revolution. So zero hour would be my guess. That's their pre show. Say

what she wants to about the Costco crap. But he had a fun match with q T Marshall on the pre show last time. You know. I was going to say he could answer Max Caster's open challenge, but that open challenge gimmicks should be building to Anthony Bowen's accepting the challenge, not Big Boom Aj. So I'll hold off until we get a little bit closer to do predictions. I'm sure the card will be fleshed out a little bit more, but it's looking like a very strong card

so far. And finally here. While speaking on TBS's Meal and a Match, which is on YouTube. It's co hosted by Renee Piquette and RJ City, Mercedes, Monet talked about what she loves about Japanese wrestling, saying that it's not just about fighting or strength, but entertaining, and she mentioned a conversation that she had recently with Rocky Romero about doing something fun outside the ring, and she revealed her interest in having a match throughout the entire city of

Tokyo and not just limited to a wrestling ring. She said, I think that's the greatest thing about Japanese wrestling. It's not just about fighting or the strength. They're so entertaining and funny. Yeah. I was just talking to Rocky Romero the other day about doing something fun outside the ring, and I think having a match throughout the entire city of Tokyo would be fun. Doesn't even have to be

in a wrestling ring. Just get me in a real street fight on a train, then get me off of it into a taxi and then let's just go all around Tokyo. I endorse this idea. I think that would be a lot of fun if we can see Minora Suzuki wrestling on bullet trains and we can have Mercedes having a match all over the city of Tokyo. Let's take some mailbag questions, shall we? You can email me to Solo Monster at gmail dot com. Please include your name of where you are from when you write in.

Stefan from Washington who is celebrating a birthday today, Happy birthday, dude. The Rock made it seem like there may not be a match with him in and it was more about the story. It feels like we could be seeing someone else take the deal and become the corporate champ. What if it's Punk. In their last promo together, Punk asked Cody if he was all right that all of this looked like it was starting to take its toll on him.

He mentioned how it was about this time in his title run that he gave into the pressure and he became a bad person. Cody is now faced with a deal with the Devil, much like Punk with Hayman, and it is likely Cody will turn that deal down and show that he is better than that. Punk and then take the deal, stab Cody in the front like he said he would, and sell his soul to the devil

to achieve his dream. Once Seena's best rival becomes the new scene is Foil feels like great story potential and naturally sets up matches for Punk against Roman as well as Sina later this year. What say you, Yeah, I mean I could get behind it. That's what I talked about earlier. I think going back and forth between whether or not Sena or Punk would be best in that role. I think both of them could be very entertaining and they both intrigue me, but I would go at Punk.

Give me that choice. I think Punk just make between the two of them. I think you can make more sense of Punk in that role, and I think Punk would take it, and I think he would knock it out of the park because I think it would be right up his alley if he can play the heel role again and just a matter of telling the right story and getting there. So yes, I think that that

could work. Chris from Phoenix, Arizona. In recent podcasts and streams, you've politely turned down fantasy bookings from people for the Death Riders because they are lame finishes to the story, But isn't that what this story really deserves? Just pull the plug. At Revolution we get another lame interference finish. Moxley wins big scrum, Christian cash is in the team implodes because who cares. Then we get Edge against Christian in a singles feud that runs the AW Championship through

Dynasty and onto MJF or Hangman, et cetera. Heading into all in see you mentioned MJF said that right there that intrigues me. Edge against Christian. I mean, yes, you could do Edge and Christian on a short term basis, Edge versus Christian being your top Like AW Championship feud is not the answer, but as a means to get the title onto the person that it should be on, and if it means the death of the Death Riders, I'm on board. But you mentioned MJF. You mentioned Dynasty.

Dynasty is their next pay per view after Revolution, So Dynasty, I think is on April sixth. I want to say, and the idea that MJF beats Hangman to the punch and that MJF would win the title because it still fits with what I just talked about as far as Hangman really should be the one to go to Texas in July and win the championship. So if you're going to do this first match with MJF and Hangman, I

said MJF should win the first match. What if MJF wins that match ends up winning the aw world title of Dynasty the following month, holds onto it until we get to all In and we get the rematch. So maybe they don't do three of them, but they do the rematch, it all in circle back around to MJF and Hangman. That's where Hangman gets to win. I like that.

I'd be on board with that, especially if it kills off the death Riders Like you got my attention as soon as I saw that, But now that I'm thinking about how this might play out, I actually like that. Kevin from Chicago, I wanted to get your opinion on if you think it's possible the Jade car Gills attacker could potentially be NXT's Lash Legend and Shakara Jackson at the behest of Naomi, which would lead to them forming

a stable between the three women. The reason I think it could be the case is because they've been building Jade to be this monster. So I can't imagine one person being responsible for taking her out for months and combined, well, I mean, it doesn't take a whole hell of a lot. I mean you could take freakin' Raymistereo and have him shove Jade off of I mean, if she got shoved off a platform of a certain height, fell through a car windshield, I mean, it could have been a fucking

cat that scared her and she fell off. You're falling off someplace through a car windshield. I don't know that it really matters if it's one person or three, but anyway, I can't imagine one person being responsible for taking her out for months, and combined with the fact that they're already trying to sell us on a tag team being responsible, So I think you could easily swap out them for two more women who have a similar stature to make

it work. Naomi could also justify her actions by claiming she did it for Bianca, believing Jade was holding her back, and this could all be setting up a potential six women tag match of Lash, Jakara, and Naomi against Jade and Bianca, with bel Air having to go recruit the woman that she doesn't trust. Bailey to even the odds at WrestleMania. Yeah, I mean that could work. I mean they already did the war Games match though, where Bailey

and Bianca they had to coexist. I know Bianca wasn't happy about being her partner, but it all worked out and they even started working together in that match. So to now go back to Bianca like, oh, I don't trust this woman, I mean, you could do it. You could do it. I think them already being partners kind of softened it a little bit. But yeah, I mean you can make it work. I just I kind of don't want to see Beyonca relegated to a six woman

tag match at WrestleMania. But I haven't really been able to figure out what to do with Bailey if she's not going to be wrestling Roxanne. I mean, there are some people who think she'll win the Chamber and she'll Wrestleria, which I really I don't see the appeal in that match personally. I mean nothing against Bailey, but there's just more interesting opponents for me that I would like to see in the ring with wherea Ripley at WrestleMania, She's

not one of them. So outside of a match with Roxanne. I don't know what else you would do with Bailey, so maybe some variation of this is what ends up happening. I don't know. Alvin Fromteville, North Carolina. I was recently watching some old WCW matches with Alex Wright. I thought this guy had a good look. He say worker had well, he was a worker. You didn't say he was a good worker. He just said he was a worker. He certainly was. He was in the ring. Eddie had charisma.

When WWE brought he means bought WCW, I was surprised they did not bring over Alex Wright. Do you know the backstory to why he never came over to WWE. He still had a few years left on his contract with Turner after w CW close, and I remember him saying he didn't like the offer that WWE gave him. I guess to buy him out. There were a lot of guys who are like, now I'm just gonna sit

at home and collect my guaranteed money. You know, it really was only Booker, T and DDP who gave up free money to take a deal for less money with WWE, figuring, oh well, I'll come out well on the other end, I'll be a bigger star for Booker. It worked out well for DDP, not so much as far as him being a big deal in WWE. I think Ddp's doing stuff now that's far more important than he would have done in WWE. So yeah, he was like I guess they just in his mind, low balled him on an offer,

and he just didn't want to take the offer. But he also said that he was just very burned out. I see interviews with him that pop up on my YouTube timeline every now and then. He's talked about how with WCW sometimes he would wrestle up to seven matches a day, which I know that sounds hogan esque, but you got to remember, like those tapings they did at Universal for their syndicated shows, like you would have guys

coming out multiple times in his single taping. I don't know about seven times, but it's at least conceivable that he did. So he was burned out in the backstage politics. I know he didn't like that, so he retired and he opened a wrestling school, which I believe he still runs to this day. It's crazy to me how he never ended up being bigger than he was he was only twenty five years old when WCW shut down. I never understood when they had him shave his head and

he did the Berlin gimmick, unless that was his idea. Yeah, he did have a look to him and then he shaved his head, and it's like, I don't know what these fucking people are doing. But he was still only twenty five when WCW got sold to WWE, Like he could have been a much bigger star for sure, but it just sounded like he was sick of it all. Aaron from Tulsa, Oklahoma. This year marks fifteen years since

NXT's debut. Well, kind, I mean he puts it in quotes, I assume because you realize NXT as a show started in twenty ten, but that was a very different NXT than what we ended up getting on the network when it debuted. There. What, in your opinion is NXT's best matches moments and who were the biggest success stories coming out of NXT to the main roster? Oh, I mean when you say that Charlotte Flair, Bianca Belair, I think

you can put Alexa Bliss on that list. Ria Ripley to an extent, But I mean not really, because she wrestled on the indie scene in Australia before coming to the States, but she started to really find herself in NXT. You know. That's the thing. You know, lots of names were a part of NXT, but they just kind of passed through, you know, guys like Kevin Owens and sammy's Ain and Finn balor Seth Rollins. Roman Reigns was more

a product of FCW, which was under Steve Kern. So I don't think it's fair to really call Rome and It like as big of a star as he became later like the greatest NXT export or a success story of all time. Like he doesn't really have a genuine connection to the brand, unlike Seth Rollins, who was the

first ever NXT champion. Like you could definitely make more of a case I think for Rollins as the greatest NXT success story over Roman Reigns, even though Rains is, you know, Rains is definitely the bigger star of the two. Bray Wyatt started in FCW also, but when they rebranded as NXT, that's when we got bray Wyatt, like the bray Wyatt character, but like more recent names, I think could end up being their greatest success story. Bron Breaker,

Tiffany Stratton, Oba Femei. Right, it's still too early to know, but I'm looking at those names like five years from now, we're going to be talking about, if not all of them, some of them I think as the great success story in NXT. The best matches, There's too many to name, but Sasha Banks against Bailey and Brooklyn that's one of the most important matches in NXT history, especially for the women. Sammy Zane's underdog rise to the NXT Championship. That was

a great story. Kevin Owens turning on him that same night that he debuted, That's a pretty memorable moment. Shinsky Nakamora's debut for the brand coming Over is this huge star from New Japan and he ends up in NXT. That was a big deal. Oscar's run. Oscar's run is the NXT Women's champion. That undefeated run that she went on, you know, that was a legendary run. Nathan from Wisconsin. I'm getting into the year twenty ten of TNA and the outrage fans had going from a six sided ring

to a four sided one. Yes, it does make them traditional but it also does take away the original feel that TNA had because no other company used that ring. Well, I don't think that's true. Triple A uses this excited ring. I don't know if they use it all the time, but I know Triple A was and I think still does use this excited ring. Add to the fact that they brought in Sean Morley, I thought that said Sean Mooney. I was like, what did I miss? They brought in

Sean Morley who beat Daniels and then basically left. Despite the CMLL fallout, the Nasty Boys who brought nothing, and Bubba the Love Sponge, TNA definitely started losing momentum because of bad ideas like this. Other than moving to Mondays for that brief period, what do you think was the worst decision TNA made that really hurt them as a company. Well, especially if we're talking about that period, I got two names for you, hul Cogan and Eric Bischoff. There you go.

I'd say that hurt them pretty good. They made a lot of dumb decisions over the years. We'll be here all day if I talk about all the stupid shit that TNA did over the years. But since you brought up that period specifically, and people like the Nasty Boys and Morley coming in and the switch from the six sided ring. That was all Hogan and Bischoff. Hogan got his buddy some jobs. Hogan had his ideas for how

things should go. That was definitely something that when you look at where TNA was before he came in, and then where they were at the tail end of it, and when he literally on television walked out on Dixie Carter and she was hanging on to his leg like a little child, I don't see how you can look at that and say that TNA was in a much better position at the end than they were at the beginning. And Christopher from East London says, I am binging all of the in your house pay per views on Netflix.

All of this is before my time. And I found Sewn Michael's celebration after defeating Diesel very interesting. He kind of mocked Hulk Hogan there hitting his pose and whatnot. Was this the case? Was he trying to say that he was the number one wrestler in the world or was it deeper than that. No, I don't think it was any deeper than Hogan was the top star in the other promotion. You know, Diesel was on his way out to that same company and he was mocking the

old guy in that other place. You know, Sean had just won the title at WrestleMania the month before. I don't know if Hogan was champion in April of ninety six. It was it was either Hogan or Savage or Flair. I'm sure it was one of those three. Maybe the Giant. I don't know. The Giant won the title around that time too, But you know, Hogan was the guy over there. He used to be their guy, but now he was

w CW's guy. Shawn had just won the title. I'm sure there were some people in his mind who you know, didn't see him in that role, and that was just him taking some shots, you know, with the other guy in the other promotion. So no, I don't think he needs to look at it any deeper than that. They were not fully getting their asses kicked yet by w CW because the nWo angle hadn't started up for another

few months. But that's really all it was. Wait, wait until you get to nineteen ninety seven, like you're going through all the in your house shows, Wait until you get to ninety seven. You should really do a watch through of that entire year, at least in WWE, just because ninety seven ninety seven is when they had their backs against the wall and it ended up being one of their best years creatively. But he says, also, who would you deem as mister in your House? Ugh? Uh, dude,

that's a tough one. That's a tough one. It's really between two people though, either Brett Hart or Shawn Michaels. It's one of those two. But that's tough, you know, with Brett. The in your House matches that stand out to me with Brett are the Hakushi match, which was from the very first one. Later that year, I know, he had a match with Pierre when he was doing

the Pirate Gimmick. They had a very good match. The Hershey, Pennsylvania match with the British Bulldog was a great match that was better than their Summer Slim match at Wembley a lot bloodier too. The final four match for the vacant title, which literally just I just watched this on their Vault channel yesterday. They posted it several days ago.

I watched it yesterday. They talked about bloody poor Vader he gets his eye busted open five minutes into a thirty minute match off a chair shot by the Undertaker, and he's got the mask on and like all throughout the match he's like repositioning it and stuff. I'm like, dude, take it off. And then finally, it was like two minutes before he gets eliminated from the match, he finally takes the fucking mask off. I'm like, why'd you wait

so long? He looked like he could barely see. But that was a great match, and the ten man tag a Canadian stampede. It's a legendary match, one of the greatest matches in the history of that company. With Sean, first thing I think of is him beating Jeff Jarrett in Nashville for the Intercontinental title. He had a really good match with Owen Hart. I forget which show. That was the match with Diesel that you just mentioned. Good friends,

Better enemies. That's the best match that Kevin Nash ever had. Mind Games against Mankind is an excellent match, even with the shitty finish, and the Undertaker matches their ground zero match and their Helen is Cell match the following month. It's pretty incredible. You know, three of the best matches in WWE history all took place in the same year.

Brett Hart and Steve Austin, Wrestlemani at thirteen Canadian Stampede, ten Mantag, and the first Helen of Cell. And really it's between Wrestlemanti at thirteen and Helena Cell. If you made the argument that either of those two matches were the greatest match in company history, I wouldn't argue with you. But all of that happened in nineteen ninety seven. See that's why I say, make sure you go through all the ninety seven stuff. So honestly, it's pretty even between

the two. I have to go Seawan Michaels, though I think Sean Michaels is mister in your house. The mind Games match and the Hell in a Cell match, that's really what puts it over the top for me. But good stuff. Keep emailing me the solom Monster at gmail dot com. Make sure you follow me on x That's where I'm most active when I am active at solo Monster on there. But if you go to the solo monster dot com, all of the socials are there. I have links to a whole bunch of different the pro

wrestling tea store. I put a link up to Hardy the Horse, my mother's children's books. Sometimes people ask me about that. I got the Amazon link up there on the bottom of the page as well, so you can get all that information there. I will be live on YouTube this week coming up as I am every week, Live on Monday for the Raw Post Show, live on Wednesday after Dynamite, and live on Friday after SmackDown, and of course Tuesday night will be another episode of Tuesday

Night Titans with JD. We've been crushing it with the shows, so you could find me over on his channel on Tuesday. A lot of good stuff coming up, and of course next Sunday that will be episode nine three of this very show. Solom Monster sounds off. So thank you for all the support, thank you for the questions. Leave a comment on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever they accept comments and reviews, and I will see you back here for a brand new podcast next weekend. Until then, take care, guys.

The Solom Monster sounds off. Not only did Powerhouse Hogs not win the aw World Championship tonight, which is no surprise, but they actually destroyed his leg and right after they stomped on the fucking share you think you know me? And here comes Adam Copeland and FTR who were standing there that't the go position, just waiting for their cue, watching, I'm sure on a monitor as this man was maimed by the death go out there without my music. I'll

leave my music right now. Come on, as soon as they hit the music out they can see now if I'm Powerhouse Hobbs when I come back from this in, I'm going after Cope and Bald and Hair for not coming out and saving me here in this spot, for being a couple of selfish, spineless asshole where's the fucking music. You can't go anywhere until the music hits, So let's let this poor fucker get his leg destroyed first and then we'll run out. Please, for the love of fucking God,

put the music on. That's who Hobbs ought to go after, very very stupid. The Solo Monsters Sounds off bringing you the good, the bad, and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram, and Ax The Solon Monster. I love you so young,