WWE Raw 1/5/26 Review | TWO TITLE CHANGES On A LIFELESS Stranger Things Episode

very strange episode of Raw. Yes, that is the case. It certainly was. This entire show felt like it was in the upside down, but that's what it was. It was the Stranger Things episode of Monday Night Raw here

for the first Raw of the new year. And you know, it's one of these things where you're going to hear from a lot of people who are going to be very upset because they thought that Christian Jericho was going to be on the show tonight and he wasn't there, and damn it, it ruined the entire show for them.

And to be fair, WWE has really nobody to blend with themselves when you have Adam Pierce posting on social media this weekend a video hyping up the show tonight where he says We're gonna break the walls down on Raw with three huge championship matches. Like, yeah, I don't know. I see what you're doing there. They're trolling us, They're trolling us. There was no Chris Jericho on the show tonight. Let's just get this out of the way. First, Jericho was not on Raw tonight. I told you on the

podcast yesterday, Royal rumble. If you want Jericho, Royal rumble. I was not really expecting him to be on the show tonight. But how can I sit here, honestly, And I would say this anybody who's actually genuinely upset about this. I cannot sit here in twenty twenty and be upset that we did not have Chris Jericho on Monday Night Raw. If he's going to show up, he will show up at some point. I'm sure he will. But I am not upset that Chris Jericho was not on Raw here tonight.

And if you are upset, and if you think it ruined the entire show for you because of it, you gotta get your priority straight, Okay, Chris Jericho is not going to make or break a show in twenty twenty six. If we learned anything last year. I think we learned that. But put him on the side here for a second. If people are big mad about that, you know you should be big mad about you should be big mad

about how fucking boring this show was. This was the big Raw that they have been hyping up now for weeks, the big January fifth episode of Raw, the Big World Heavyweight Championship main event, and they have this title match and that title match. Remember a year ago, the first show on Netflix, how much they hide that show up and what a dud that mostly turned out to be at the Rock on the show that night, I wasn't even the Rock. It was Dwayne. He was putting over Cody.

The last time we saw The Rock he was feuding with Cody. Now he's putting over Cody like a fucking board member and all this other stuff. Hogan being booed. Of course, that's one of the memorable Raw moments from last year. And see I'm Punk was in the main event of that show as well. It was him against seth Rawlins. Well, when you really you know, hype up a big show like that, it could be hard. You set expectations very high, it could be hard to meet

those expectations. My issue with the show tonight, more than anything else, even more than any like one particular match, is how lifeless this show fell, and tonight it really hit me. And there are weeks where, more than others, it will really hit me sitting here watching this show.

How many commercial breaks they take at the beginning of a match, or during the course of a match, or in between the matches where it just feels like, man, didn't we just have one and then they come back and then nothing really happens before they go into the next one. Tonight was one of those nights. There was a lot of stuff that happened on the show, but yet it felt like there wasn't a whole hell of a lot that really happened on this show outside of

the championship matches that we got. We got some in ring segments, we got some promo segments. For the most part, it was all very boring and all very blah. It was all very meh. Now, we had in the main event tonight, a World Heavyweight Championship match between CM Punk and bron Breaker, and also, by the way, I should mention anybody who's going to put the blame on the crowd for this show, in defense of this crowd here in Brooklyn, they didn't exactly have a whole hell of

a lot to get loud for. Believe me, the fans in New York generally are plenty loud when you give them a reason to be, and wwe really didn't give them a reason to be tonight. But in the main event, we had CM punkin bron Breaker for the World Heavyweight Championship. Bron Breaker. You know, when Seth Rollins went down with his injury and they had to come up with a new match for Saturday Nights Man event back at the

beginning of November. I know some people were hoping cmpunk in La Nights, but obviously that was not going to happen, but I was hoping. I was like, you know what,

bron Breaker, CM punk strap up bron Breaker. This is when I was naive enough to believe, given the angle they did, that they were going to push bron Breaker in a different kind of way, and then they really ended up going a totally different direction with it, where he was just another guy in the vision which is not how I would have done it, but okay, but I was like, man, you know what, you got to

shake things up a little bit here. I would have put the fucking belt on him at the beginning of November, but they waited, and so we got here to the beginning of January, and it's like, what are they going to do? What are they going to do? Last week it really hit me they're not probably not putting the belt on him. It felt to me watching this show last week, We're probably not going to get a World

heavyweight championship change here on this show. So I can't say that I was surprised or stunned that they, you know, didn't change the title here in the main event tonight. If anything, I was surprised by how clean it was. CM Punk not only retained the World Heavyweight Championship here on this show, but he did so clean in the middle of the ring. And it's like, well, on the one hand, it's nice to get a clean finish in a main event and not get fucked out of an

actual winner. Look, that's good, but it was certainly a choice to put CM Punk over clean over bron Breaker in a match like this. What it does, though, I think is it puts Breaker in position to be one of the favorites to win the Royal Rumble match. Now, I mean, I can't say for sure that I have the utmost confidence that that's what's going to happen here, but that would certainly be one way for him to

bounce back from this loss. If in losing it just sort of he snaps in a way and ends up going on to win the Royal Rumble to earn himself another championship match of wrestle media, that would certainly be one way to sort of remedy what we saw here tonight. He certainly is one of the favorites now. I don't think the loss is as damaging as some people are making it or probably will make it out to be. No, it doesn't bury him, It doesn't put him in the

back of the line. It didn't make him look awful. I mean, look, yes, you have Cmpunk, forty eight year old Cmpunk, who's out there huffing and puffing, And you have bron Breaker, who's this young stallion right who can run the ropes at twenty three miles an hour and he's killing people with spears, and you know, Cmpunk beats them clean in the middle of the ring. How could they do such a thing? I get it, I get it.

But if you look at what they did in the match tonight, the first half of the match, basically it was actually pretty fucking dull. It was all bron Breaker. You know, he was dominating this guy at the beginning of the match. He was having his way with him, you know, going after the ribs and breaking him down piece by piece. And then in the second half of the match is really where things turned around, and bron

Breaker almost died. During the main event. You know, we were all talking about the spot from World's End, right when Kyle Fletcher landed on his fucking head. Bron Breaker landed on his fucking head tonight. But he didn't mean to. I promise you that was not his intent, But that's what happened. He went for one of his Brekensteiners, as he calls it, and legitimately landed right on top of his head. And he's lucky that he trains his neck and that he didn't break it and was able to

continue wrestling after that. He survived, but he lost. He went on to lose the match in the middle of the ring clean one two three. The key now coming out of this is to make sure that whatever plans they have for Raw next week or the week after that, he has to bounce back from this in a big way. That is going to be the key coming out of what we saw here tonight. There has to be consequences

for what we saw. It cannot be a situation where he merely shows up on television next week week and falls in line and the Vision now just has to regroup as a team and figure out what's next. Bron Breakers should show up on Raw next week looking to rip people's heads off their bodies. He should be going around will He should want to go on to find Adam Pearce and rip his head off his body and shit down his neck. Okay, that's what bron Breakers should

want to do. They need a whole army of security geeks next week to hold this guy back from killing Cmpunk. He should be incensed that maybe he was over confident and maybe he beat himself more than anything else. However they want to explain it, but there have to be consequences for There has to be some sort of fallout where we know that bron Breaker is on the warpath

coming out of this. This cannot just be treated as another loss here because this match, this main event went almost thirty minutes tonight, and again the first half was pretty dull. It did pick up there in the final few minutes. There was a spot near the end of that main event tonight which was actually very spectacular. It reminded me of Logan Paul because we've seen Logan Paul do this and Big pl matches a whole bunch of times where he'll come flying off the top rope with

like a diving splash through the announced desk. You know, he'll clear that distance and it's very impressive when he does it, and then usually they're laid out there for you know, a few minutes. But there was a similar spot here at the near the end of the main event where Punk was out there and bron Breaker went. He came flying off the top rod with a diving elbow and he cleared that distance and he put Punk

through the table. They both go crashing through is this big spectacular bump, and they replayed it two or three times and he very quickly got Punk back in the ring. Now Punk again, he's out there and he's you know, a Punk's older. He's not moving around quite as fast as he used to. Part of it was selling also, he was selling the ribs. He immediately puts him back into the ring, and you would think, well, I mean, that's got to be it, right, I mean, that's got

to be the beginning of the end. Right there actually led to the beginning of the end for bron Breaker. Punk came right back and beat him like nothing even happened. That was the other thing that blew my mind. How are you gonna do a spot like that and that doesn't play into the finish and Breaker's favor I mean, it's not like they spent minutes outside selling it like, they went right back in the ring and Punk just

beat him. Why even do a spot like that? Why even do a spot like that just to have bron Breaker put him back in the ring and then Punk beats him one two three? That I didn't understand. And there were some rough moments in the match, Like I said, when Breaker landed on his head, Punk even fell out of the ring. At one point he came flying out of the ring. He went splat right on the floor. That was kind of scary, but by the time the match was over, I thought that they ended up having

a good match. It was not some great blowaway main event or anything like that, but they kind of redeemed it a little bit there at the end. It was not without its flaws. But see, I'm punk is still the World Heavyweight Champion, and even though that title did not change hands here on this show, we actually did have two title changes. We have new women's tag team champions and that was a good match to open the show. That was good, not great, but good. The Women's Intercontinental

title changed hands tonight. That was not good. That was not a good match. The less said about that the better. But Becky Lynch is once again the Women's Intercontinental Champion. Just because we had a couple of title changes and a whole bunch of title matches on the show does not make this a good show. Like I'm trying to cut these excuses off before people start making excuses here. It's nice to have championship matches on the show. I

wish they would do it a little more often. It doesn't have to be every week, but that in and of itself does not make this a must see memorable show. Again, the Women's ic match was very forgettable, certainly not even the best outing those two have had. Beyond that, though, we had Gunther That Gunther has been running around for weeks, ever since he tapped out John Cena, and he's been repeating the same line over and over again, because in WWE,

that's what you do. You have your catchphrase, you have your slow can you go out there like a fucking robot, and every single week you have to repeat it. Never It's a new city every week, right. I I topped out John Sino loco bitch, right and he's laughing. We're at a point now a few weeks in where this all feels very forced, to be honest with you, But now that AJ Styles has lost the tag team titles, it has freed him off as I was hoping it would,

to do more meaningful stuff in a singles role. And they've been teasing out this potential AJ Styles gun Through match for a few weeks, so it's not like this came out of nowhere. The surprising part is that they're doing the match next week. They're doing the I'm sure first match between the two of them on Raw next week, which is going to be in Germany, which means the show is airing at two o'clock in the afternoon next Monday, and that is when they are doing the first AJ

Styles and Gunther match. So the best thing the thing I can say about that, I'm looking forward to the match. Shock they're doing it next week, but it's in Germany, so I think the crowd, with that crowd, it has the potential to be fun. I'm just happy that they're going to have Gunther doing something other than what he's been doing over the last few weeks because and I talked about this last week. He beat John Cena on December thirteenth, Okay, and now it's January fifth, and what

is Gunther really done since he's beaten John Cena? Not a whole lot. We were heading into the holidays, there were some tape shows the new year. Okay, now it's the first row of the new year, and we got a confrontation with him and AJ Styles tonight. They need to make sure that whatever Gunther still has, and he does not have this nuclear heat that some people thought he would, right. I always had to tap out John Cena. I'm my god, it's going to be nuclear heat. It's

not nuclear heat. He's got heat though, and to make sure that they don't squander whatever he's got left. This is something that was needed. If that means doing him in AJ next week one on one to kick things off between them of what will hopefully be an extended program that may lead into WrestleMania, so be it. It beats the hell out of what they've had this man doing over the last few weeks. Then he had that throwaway

match with our Truth that nobody cared about. We have to get him going here and if that means putting him in the ring with AJ styles and kicking off whatever, this story is going to be great. But again, I just wasn't expecting the first match to be on TV at two o'clock in the afternoon next week, But that's what they're doing on Raw next week. And oh, by the way, I forgot to mention this as well, Javon Evans, And you guys know, I'm a big fan of Javon Evans.

I am all in favor of him being called up. Javon Evans is officially now a member of the Monday Night Raw roster. But if you were watching this show on Netflix here in the United States without a VPN, you would never know because the segment that they did to announce that Javon Evans is officially on Monday Night Raw air during a commercial break. Think of all the shit that we actually had on the show tonight, this

they couldn't find time for. This was during a commercial break where he signed the contract to become an official. I don't even I don't even think coming out of the commercial they even like showed a replay of it. I don't even know that the announcers mentioned it. Come to think of it, this is such a big deal. You would think so, but evidently not. But yes, Javon Evans is now officially on Monday Night Raw. This was not a good show. This was not a good show.

At least they got rid of try Travis Scott. The Travis Scott song that has been playing on Raw for the past year is no more. They have gotten rid of Travis Scott. They have replaced him with an eminem song. They have now completely divorced themselves from Travis Scott. I don't believe they have any affiliation left whatsoever with Travis Scott. However, Travis Scott is now and forever immortalized in WWE history.

By being part of the John Cena heel turn and by influencing the outcome arguably being a part of the outcome of the wrestle Mania main event where John Cena set the record with seventeen world championships. Those two moments in wrestling history will always have Travis Scott as a part of them. Yeah, let's talk about this show, shall we. I know you don't want to, but that's why you're here. This is your Raw on Netflix, your Stranger Things ron

Netflix review. Here. It is Monday night, January fifth, twenty twenty six. We're gonna unwrap all of this, the good, the bad, and the fucking ugly. We'll talk about it all. Do me a favor, like and subscribe. We are getting very close to ninety thousand subscribers, and you may be the lucky one. I don't know. We'll see. Won't be tonight, but it's gonna get us that much closer. Super chats are open as well. I'll be reading your messages a

little bit later on here in the stream. And we had a fun show this weekend on the SoundOff in case you missed it, including my predictions for the wrestling world here in twenty twenty six. I did leave off one prediction. I'm kind of kicking myself now. I should have predicted how fucking boring this show was going to be tonight, but it didn't pop up there in my crystal ball. But anyway, my predictions are up there and all the news of the week. That is, for episode

nine to forty five of the SoundOff My Goodness. So Michael calling Corey Graves opened the show. They came out of a van down by the river. No, they came out of a van, so basically again the Stranger Things tie in. They had all of this apparatus and paraphernalia, whatever you want to call it. The staging was Stranger themes or Stranger Things themed, and it included the van if you watch the show, the radio station van, and

it was parked on stage. And so they came out of the van and I love how Corey Graves he was wearing a hell Fire Club T shirt, so if you watch the show, you know the reference there. So the graphics all throughout the night were all Stranger themes or striking there I go again, Stranger Things theme, say that five times fast and the set and they played the Stranger Things theme song, which was cool because it's

a great fucking song. They also had vines and the vines from Stranger Things and they were draped over the barricades around the ringside area. You know, they really and I'm sure Netflix had a lot to do with this as well, but they really put actual effort. I think they put more effort into the set tonight than they

did the actual fucking show. They put a lot of effort into the staging and the vines and the set and the graphics and everything, and they really made it feel special in that regard, and it's the sort of thing that I wish, Like I'm looking at the stage and everything, and I'm like, why can't they do that for their ples, Like outside of WrestleMania, every other ple

e looks exactly the same. We need to have some effort put in, a little more effort put in I think creativity, you know, when it comes to the sets for some of their own like major events, I think that would be nice. But anyway, they did a good job with that tonight if lately so they opened with the first of three championship matches here on this show for the women's tag team titles. It was Rio, Ripley and EO Sky teaming up to take on Oscar and

Kyrie sing the Kabuki Warriors. Yes, all the offfman he hit the nail on the head, All the effort went into the decorations tonight. Imagine if they put as much effort into the booking of this show tonight and some of the stories as they did the set, this would have been an incredible show. The actors from Stranger Things

could beat the vision oh Man. So for all of the Stranger Things stuff that they took the time for here at the beginning of this show, they went to and this is my point, they went to a commercial break thirty seconds into this match. This would be a recurring theme throughout the entire show. Corey Graves I got to give Corey Graves a shout out. He mentioned Hiroshi tana Hashi. We got a Hiroshi tana Hashi retirement mentioned on commentary tonight. When Eosky dropped Osca with a sling blade,

that was nice. Ripley dropped Kyrie with a razor's edge. It never ceases to amaze me when she hits this woman with this move. She just folds her up with it. Every single time. It looks like she is murdering her every time she hits this razor's edge, and then it kills me that it's not the finish, but she hit a razor's edge and follow that up, EO did with a missile drop kick for a near fall. So a little while later, Ria hit Kyrie with a riptide EO

went up for her Moonsalt. Oscar Shovedria into EO, which knocked her off the ropes. Oscar then hit Ria with a code breaker for a near fall. Intent hit her with the codebreaker for a near fall. So for the finish, Ripley put Osca down with a I mentioned that already, actually no, there was another one. Ripley put Oscar down with a riptide EO then followed with her over the moon salt and then she says, hey, Kyrie's out there, so she goes flying through the ropes with a suicide

dive and takes out Kyrie on the floor. Ria has Oska covered one, two, three, and just like that we have new women's tag team champions. So there was reason to be optimistic here, right. We opened the show with what I thought was a good match and a title change. It's like, okay, all right, that's one way to kick off the show, right, there's a reason to be hopeful here, and we got the crowd pleasing finish here. So we know that Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss they on Friday.

In fact, they put Ria and Eo unnotice that if you win those titles, we got next. But of course you've got Naya Jackson Lash Legend, who all already pinned the Kabuki Warriors, and so they have laid their claim to the women's tag team titles as well them winning the titles. Then, I by the way, Ria and EO this opens them up now to be used on NXT, So I'm not sure if that's something they want to do.

I'm sure Sean Michaels would love to have them on NXT, but you know it is try branded these titles, so we could conceivably get Ria in EO one week defending those titles, maybe against sol Ruga and Zaria or you know, some other team from NXT. What I hate is how they jobbed out Oscar and Kyrie to ny In Lash a few weeks ago. I mean, they just got beat clean in a non title match on SmackDown all to build to this match here on this show where they go in there and they get beat again. So they

lost to Ny and Lash. Now they lost to Ria Ineo, and it's like, where do you go next with these two? I was hoping that we were gonna be building to a singles match between EO and Oscar, and it doesn't feel like that's the direction they're going in at all. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Oscar blames Kyrie for the loss, even though Oscar is the one who ate the pin. She may end up blaming Kyrie for the loss. But it'll be interesting to see how long

they hold these titles for. Are they really going to keep the tag team titles on Rea Ripley an Eo Sky through WrestleMania or is this something that's just going to be for, you know, maybe a month or so and then they drop them and then they move on to whatever their media plans are going to be. I don't know. I mean, if they want to look, if they want to give somebody else a chance to wrestle for the Women's World Championship, not name Ria Ripley, I mean, I would love it if it was Eo Sky again,

but they want to give somebody else a chance. I can't hate on that, right, It's not a bad thing to get some new faces in the mix when it comes to the world title. But they better have something damn good planned. If you got Ria and Eo who are being relegated to tag team duty, I don't know if that means some kind of big women's tag team ladder Matt, I don't know. I don't know what that looks like. But it all depends on how long they hold the titles for. If it's going to be a

long term thing or just a short term thing. I don't know now. In the back, Adam Pierce met up with Rhea and Eo and he congratulated them and he told them how proud he was of them. And they also had a Dema Gorgon that was right behind Adam Pierce and he looked at it. He was very confused

by this. He goes, what the hell is this? So then he saw a Gunther who is very much not a Dema Gorgan, and he went over to him and he told him, you go out there and you speak from the heart, say what's on your mind, but mix in a little respect when you speak. So Gunther laughed him off. He started making his way towards the ring, and as soon as he got there, they went to a commercial break. Now the very next thing that we

saw when they came back. If you watch Stranger Things the beginning of each episode, they have these chapter titles that then zoom in right, chapter two, chapter five. They were doing that for the various segments throughout the night. So again they put a lot of thought into how they were going to really, you know, structure this show when it came to the Stranger Thing stuff, which was kind of cool. So they had one here that said chapter two, he who remains, and that led into the

Gunther segment. Here he said management told him to show respect, but what about respect for the man who made Johnson to tap out like a little And then he was interrupted by Aj Styles. He power walked to the ring. He did not look very happy. He told Aj, if you're here to talk to me about respect, you're punching above your weight. AJ went to go speak, and he cut him off and told him that AJ knows he's the greatest wrestler in this company right now and that

includes you. So Styles again went to speak, and again Guntherer interrupted and reminded him that he's the man who tapped out Sina like a little you know what, he said. AJ went to speak, and Guntherer interrupted again to tell him like a little bitch, and again this all just feels very forced now, it's all just to sell a T shirt. In fact, I think he showed off the shirt again. Everything with them is just it's it's merchandising, that's all it is. It doesn't matter if if stuff

comes off on TV sometimes is cringe or whatever. It's all about selling shirts, selling shit. That's all that I mean. Again, I've said it before. I mean they would tattoo their logo on their mother's ass if they knew that they could make money off of it. So he asked a little AJ what he's going to do about it, and AJ smacked the shit out of him, and Gunther was hot about it. They went forehead to forehead. AJ was not backing down, though, and he asked Gunther, what are

you going to do about it? And guntherher didn't say anything, and AJ's like, that's what I thought, and he threw the microphone down and he backed out of the ring and that's it, and Gunther was just standing there stewing. So then in the back later on, Gunther went to Adam Pierce to complain about aj when Style showed up, and he called him a little bitch for going to

the boss to complain. So guntherer told Pierce he want Styles next week, and Adam Pierce made it official that we were going to get our first match between the two of them on RAW next week. They're giving the first match away again RAW two o'clock in the afternoon from Dusseldorf, I said, Dusseldorf in Germany. They got this whole international tour. It's gonna be a lot of early shows over these next few weeks, which is good because that means there's going to be some early streams too.

I like that. I like that two o'clock. We're all going to be at two o'clock next week, probably looking at an eight pm stream. I can live with that. But look the fact that they're doing this match on TV next week. I'm not going to complain about it because it's better than what they have had Gunther doing. It's better than him just coming out and repeating the same promo over and over. And over again, week after week,

or Wrestling Otis or Wrestling Our Truth. He's going to be in there with a credible opponent, somebody the fans care about, somebody the fans are invested in, and somebody who can give him a really good match. But it is only going to be the first match. I see this. Here's what I'm hoping for. I see this as the first of a multi match series, maybe three, that they can stretch out. They could stretch this out until WrestleMania. There is a way to do that. I don't know

if that's their plan or not. You got two more pls before we even get to WrestleMania, and at least one Saturday Knights main event. Actually the week before the Rumble, they're doing Saturday Nights made event. We know Gunther is not losing next week. Gunther just beat John Cena. He just tast John Cena. Gunther should not be losing for a very long time, right, at least many months, So we know he's not losing next week, which means we're either not getting a finish or gun Thro is just

going to beat aj Styles, right, That's it. That's it. They don't do time limits in WWE. So it's one of those two, right, no finish or Gunther wins. It's it's very simple. If AJ is finishing up a wrestlemanium, and he has not clarified exactly how deep into twenty twenty six he is going to wrestle other than this is going to be his last year. But he never said that he's going to go the whole year like John Cena did. If AJ is going to finish up

a wrestlemanium, this is what I said before. I think the play is AJ putting his career on the line. You don't tell people that this is his final match. You don't do that. You don't deal with him what you did with John Cena. And I think AJ, let's say he loses next week, and let's say there's a second match that he loses. In AJ, he gets desperate, almost almost like Undertaker and Sean Michaels when they headed into WrestleMania's twenty six and Sean had his retirement match.

It was a situation where he was desperate to beat the Undertaker of WrestleMania. He came so close the year before and they won a Slammy Award, but it wasn't enough for him. It was just eating away at him. I know I can beat you. I know I can break the streak. I know I can do it. And he was willing to put his career on the line. He was so confident nothing else mattered. You tell a similar story with AJ and Gunther. If AJ is wrapping up in Vegas, that's how this should be played out.

Whether it's AJ voluntarily saying, look, I'm gonna put my career on the line, or Gunther maybe forces him or coerces him into doing so, maybe both of them do. Maybe it's a loser leaves WWE stipulation at WrestleMania. Now, maybe that makes it a little more predictable as far is what the outcome is going to be for some people who know that AJ is wrapping up. But you know, if I'm WWE, I'm shutting up. I'm not harping on the fact that AJ has said that he is retiring

this year. They've already acknowledged it on TV. I don't dwell on it. I almost want to make people forget about it. And then if you do that match and you have that stipulation, especially if both of their careers are on the line. Imagine the drama now right in every near fall in that match. I think that's the way you play it, and then obviously in the end

Gunther wins. But there's a way to do it that I think works a lot better than just if you go into it and everybody already knows how it's going to end, because then all you end up with is a situation like what we had with John Cena and Bill Goldberg, where we already knew going into those matches that they were retiring. Gunther didn't really technically retire anyone. They retired themselves. You want to put heat on the guy,

he should be the one to do it. That's why it was so goofy when he was showing up on TV and everybody was so mad at him. Oh what an evil man you are for fucking doing your job. Like, when you really stop to think about it, it doesn't make any sense. Yes, he was being disrespectful, but so what I mean they were looking at him like you put a bullet in the man's head. So if they're gonna if they're gonna stretch this out until Mania, I

think they could absolutely do it. But that that's more along the lines of the kind of story I would like to see them tell. Now, after this, we had the Women's Intercontinental Championship Becky Lynch challenging Maxine Dupree. They got why two J fans in the crowd chanting for Y two J. So that tells you what you need to know about the beginning of this match. With the Y two J chance, Becky, she tried Yankee dupre off the apron. At one point, Maxine countered by doing a cartwheel.

I don't know why, but I guess because she can, so she did a cartwheel. Later on, Maxine fired up. She applied an ankle lock. Becky got a rope brak. They traded some counters until Becky hit a superplex from the middle rope and then into a DDT for a two count. Maxine came back with a flying cross body of her own. Becky set up for a power bomb out of the corner and Maxine slipped out. She applied an ankle lock. This did not look good. Becky tried flipping out of it. Maxine held on while lying on

the mat. So Maxine is laying flat on the mat okay, and she still has this move applied Becky then leans backwards, and as she's leaning backwards, she grabs the bottom rope for added leverage while Maxine's shoulders are down, and she pins Maxine with the aid of the rope to win back the Intercontinental Championship. Because the dumb referee didn't see it. All he had to do was look up. He didn't look up. He didn't see it, and so Becky wins

the title back. That makes three title changes. I should point out three title changes on this show in two weeks. I just pointed out. And I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying, for those who really haven't stopped to think about it, we've had three championships change hands on this show in the last two episodes. This

was not good. This was not good. For all of the progress that Maxine has made and she has you know, baby steps and like personality wise, promo wise, I think she's definitely, you know, taken some steps forward, but for all of that, she still has a long way to go. This was not a good match. I definitely noticed that Jessica was not the referee. So Becky happens to win this match by cheating, right, She takes the shortcut to win the title back, and it just so happens that

Jessica Carr is not the referee for the match. So I'm sure that was done intentionally, and that is definitely going to have to play into things here. As far as why they did the title change, I mean, my thought was, yeah, they're gonna want to get the belt back on her, and then aj Lee's gonna come back and maybe we get Becky and aj for the title of WrestleMania. It could just as well be that Maxine just got married and she's going to go away on a honeymoon for a while. I mean, how long is

this honeymoon going to be? But I don't know. There could be any number of reasons why they decided to do the title change here. If it comes down that, you know, Jessica Carr is going to officiate let's say another match between them. Who knows, maybe Maxine wins the belt back, you know, or maybe that's when aj shows up. But we've already done that, right, you can't really do that same finish again. So I don't know if this is the end of the Maxine as Champion experiment or not.

She doesn't need a title on her to just allow her to go out there and just get better. The only way she's gonna get better is again going out there and having matches with people that know what they're doing. That's why her working with someone like Becky was a smart move. But Rome wasn't built in a day, so she's still very green, she's still very inexperienced, and I never really expected her title reign to be terribly long. Maybe this ended a little sooner than I thought, but

the match itself was just no great shakes. The match itself was really nothing to celebrate. Now, after this, we got another Obafemi video package. I'm pretty sure it was the same one that they aired last week. But the Ruler is coming and not a day too soon. But he's not coming before. He challenges, not really challenges, defends his NXT Championship tomorrow night against Leon's Slack later. So he's got a big title match at New Year's Evil coming up tomorrow. But he is on the way. He

is on the way. Then we got a shot, very troubling shot backstage of the Women's World Champion Stephanie Vaquier, and she was wearing a walking boot and I said, oh no, at least it's not a shoulder. At least she didn't have the boot on her shoulder. That's good, that's a plus. But yeah, that didn't look too good. So during the commercial break, this is what I mentioned at the beginning of the review. During the commercial break,

Adam Pierce comes out on stage. He's got a contract binder, and with him is Javon Evans, the bounty boy from NXT who's been everywhere. He's been on Raw, he's been on Smacked, then he's been in NXT, Triple A, TNA. This guy's bouncing around all over the place. Where's he gonna land? It felt like he was gonna be on Raw and that's where he ended up. So Adam Pierce makes the announcement that he's officially now on the Monday Night Raw roster and he has him signed his contract. Great,

I'm happy for him. Twenty one years old, he's already on the main roster. Good for him. I can't believe that they actually just decided to air this during the commercial break and not even really make a big deal about it, but that's what they did. They aired it during the commercial break, and I know he's on the main roster now, but even still do it. Don't be cowards, do it. Leon Slater is challenging Oba Femi tomorrow night. Put the NXT Championship on Leon's I know he's the

TNAX Division champion. He might not even be signed to WWE. I don't give a shit. Put the title on Leon Slater. Get Obafemi up to the main roster. And even though Javon Evans is on Raw, it doesn't mean that he can't challenge that NXT Championship at Stand and Deliver. And you give us Javon Evans and Leon Slater, and you give us a fucking finish to that match that you deprived us of at Bound for Glory. That's the match that I want to see at Stand and Deliver. Do it,

Do it, you cowards. Jimmy and Jay Usa were up next. Everyone's favorites here. The Ussos were out. Everyone's yeating in the crowd here in Brooklyn. So they come out through the crowd and they stop and in the crowd is where they stay. They're gonna cut their promo from the crowd. So I'm like, okay, this is different, and this was very I mean, this was just I don't even know how to describe this, other than to say it was

a promo. They're out there and they shout out aj Styles and Dragon Lee, who they beat to win the tag team titles last week. But they go that was last week. That was last year. Twenty twenty six was the year of the ussos, and this was a warning shot to every tag team in the game. Standing in front of you was the best tag team in the game, and they're going to be waiting right here for anyone who wanted to run up on them. That was it.

Then they left. They had time for that, but not to announce that Javon Evans had just signed with the raw roster. It's very clear why they did this, because they wanted to give Brooklyn the Jay Usso entrance so that everybody could yeat four letters one word, uh huh. So they got their yeat entrance and then they left and we didn't hear from them again. At least it was short. Jackie Redman was in the ring to introduce Stephanie Vakier and I didn't know what to expect here.

All I know is that this woman is walking down to the ring and she has a boot on her foot, and that is not a good sign. We've heard about a lot of injuries, a lot of shoulder injuries. But we've heard about a lot of injuries recently, just on this holiday tour. They don't even really do house shows anymore. They had some house shows last week, I think, like the post Christmas tour. Meechen was supposed to wrestle Jade Cargill on SmackDown Friday Night. The reason she didn't is

because she got hurt on the tour. I don't know how seriously, but she got a shoulder injury. So I'm like, Okay, I wonder if they're gonna like do the match but with b Fab instead, And then they didn't do it. Yeah, because b Fab got hurt on the same tour she got concussed. What's going on here? I know it's a dangerous business here, but Jesus Christ, what is going on here? Apparently she was okay enough though, to do what was like a watch party that she was at with Damian

Priest somewhere. They were showing them on the show tonight. They were having like a Raw Slash Stranger Things watch party and it was Damian Priest and BFAB were there. So anyway, yeah, they're both hurt. So now Stephanie is out there and she's hurt as well. How serious though, That's what I'm waiting to find out, right, So Michael Cole tells us that it was for an ankle injury that she suffered in her triple threat match for the Women's World Championship on the show last week against Nikki

Bella and Raquel Rodriguez. Could this be a worked injury and not real? It's possible. I figure it's a real injury, it's just not, you know, that serious. But I don't know. Maybe it is a worked injury. I don't know. So Jackie asked her what now? That was her first question, by the way, her first question was not can you tell us more about this giant boot on your leg? Her question was, like, you successfully retained your championship on the show last week? What next? How about a trip

to the orthopedic surgeon. Stephanie spoke and she thanked the WWE universe for believing in her, and then she spoke Spanish for a bit, and then she said, this being the boot, she's referring to the boot, this will not stop her. She wants everyone and she handed the mic back to Jackie, who told the fans give it up for the champion. I'm like, okay, shortened to the point, I guess not much of a segment. But then Raquel Rodriguez ambushes her from behind. She's very upset of losing

last week. Now, remember she hit the tehanabaum on Nicki Bella and then Stephanie threw Raquel out of the ring, and that's how Stephanie retained the title, so technically she stole the win from Raquel. Raquel feels like she should be the women's champion right now. Losses have consequences, See, Raquel was upset. Raquel decides, I'm gonna take matters into my own hands. This should be bron breaker next week.

So she attacks Stephanie and she's going after the injured ankle, and she's smashing the leg repeatedly, you know, into the canvas, and then she delivered a tehanabaum. So Raquel goes outside and she retrieves a steel chair. She brings it back inside and she's going to pilmanize the ankle. I love, by the way, how all these years later it was one angle on a taped episode of Superstars in nineteen ninety six, and to this day was it thirty years later?

We still everybody does it right, pilmanized. They're gonna pillmanize the leg. We're gonna pilmanize the ankle because no one's come up with a better name for it since then, other than, you know, place a chair over the ankle and stomp on it. It's pilmanized. It's it's what people call it. I love it. It just stuck. So she's gonna do it. She's gonna stomp on the ankle. And anyway, here come Adam Pierce and Shane Helms and Davari and all the referees to stop her and then find she leaves.

But then after a commercial break in the back, we see the officials are helping Stephanie and Raquel attacks her again and knocks her down to the ground and she's going after the boot. Adam Pierce shows up again. He's yelling at her and he tells her, I'm going to find you. I'm going to find you to a point where you've got nothing left if you don't stop. So this felt to me like their way of writing her off television. Maybe for a few weeks. This did not

feel to me. It's not going to be an extended layoff, I don't think, because I'm sure they would have just had her go ahead and just relinquish the title tonight if it was anything that she needed surgery for, if anything was broken. So I think it's encouraging that they didn't announce anything and that they allowed her to get as physical as they did. Believe me, if it was a serious injury, she would not have been cleared to do, you know, take a fucking tehanabaum and you know, all

of that kind of stuff. So if we assume the injury is legit, it doesn't seem to be that serious. Uh, maybe she's back in time for you know, the Royal rumble. It's not the end of the world. But remember they already have Dom out possibly until the rumble. His injury ended up not being too serious either, but it's you know, enough that he's not going to be back for a few more weeks. And he's also a champion. You know,

she's the women's world champion, he's the intercontinental champion. So he's another one who's going to be out with an injury for a few weeks. The injury bug has just bitten a lot of people lately, and there's no good time for it to happen. But this time of year they can ill afford for anyone else to go down, and there's not a whole lot they can do about it other than just hope and pray. But yeah, this is not the time of year you want to be

hearing about injuries. So backstage, Raymisterio was sitting with Dragonly and he gave Dragonly some words of encouragement and said that he would be the champion again. Dragonly appreciated the advice and he left to go talk to aj Styles. So then Penta showed up. He made his return on the show last week. Penta talked to Ray here for a little bit and he told him that he was happy to come back early to help him against the Vision.

Ray thanked him for having his back, and he said Penta understood the tradition and the honor and the respect of Lucha libra, everything the Vision wanted to destroy. And Penta told Ray that he would always be here for him. What must the other Ray be thinking right now? You know there is there is somebody else on SmackDown. By the way, who's not doing a whole lot of Actually, he's going to be doing a job for Trick Williams

this Friday. That's what he's going to be doing. Wouldn't it just make sense to I hope be building to a Luca Brothers reunion. I have proposed and usso's Lucha Brothers tag team title match for WrestleMania. I would love to see them build to that. Not that Raymisterio and Penta hanging out together isn't cool, but I'm just saying Penta is gonna be okay. Ray Phoenix is the one one who was just fucking dying on the vine on SmackDown right now. I'm sure in his mind he can't

wait for a Lucha Brothers reunion. We got to Live Morgan with Raquel or not Raquel, rox San Perez her other friend Roxane Perez in her corner against Lyra Valkyria, who had Bailey in hers. This was Lib's first match in seven months since she got hurt, and we were told this is Lyra's first match ever in New York City, which I did not realize. So this went through a break and the crowd was very quiet until this crazy

looking spot where Valkyria. She set up for nightwing, and Morgan countered into what I assume was supposed to be like a code breaker, but Lyra took the move almost like a DDT, so when she came down, she came straight down on her face. I guess the matt broke her fall. Her face broke the fall basically, and the referee went over immediately to check on her make sure that there was nothing broken, and she seemed to be okay. But wow, yeah, that looks scary, So Morgan distracted the referee.

Prez then pulled down the rope so that when Lyra hit the rope, she fell out of the ring to the floor. Bailey went over then to go check Roxane Perez, and the referee saw this, so he stopped her. So Perez used that distraction to throw Bailey into the timekeeper's area. Then they had a shot of Bailey behind her rising up, and she had a look on her face like she had snapped like this is the other version of Bailey, So she grabbed a chair she chased Roxanne to the back.

Lyra was not paying attention to her opponent the way she should have been, and so Morgan flew in and hit oblivion and picked up her first win in seven months. I will point out to you, you know we talked about the booking on this show. I will point out to you that Lyra Valkyrie was actually booked pretty strongly there for a while, and it was really when she was working with Becky Lynch and they were going back

and forth with the IC title. Outside of that terrible match at SummerSlam, that was a huge net positive for Lyra and she did very well. I think it really it allowed her to, I think, show more of her personality, come out of her shell a little bit more, and she was having great matches and picking up a lot of wins. Lyra Valkyria has not won a match on

TV since October. It is now January. It actually, I think when I reflect back on when this alliance or partnership started with Bailey, ever since the pairing with Bailey, her stock has actually fallen. Not blaming Bailey for that, I'm just saying, ever since it started, she's gone down.

Like if she was an actual stock, you know, she would have been hovering maybe above maybe let's say fifty bucks a share, you know, in June or July, and now her stock is down to about eighteen dollars a share, so yeah, there's some work to be done to get her back up to where she was before. Jackie Redman was backstage with CM Punk ahead of his World Heavyweight Championship match tonight, and she asks him how he's preparing for bron Breaker and everything that he comes with meeting

the other members of the Vision. Punk dismissed the question, then tells people not to underestimate him, and he also threatened at one point to gts Jackie and the cameraman as well the person behind the camera, whoever it was. So I see the old CM Punk is still there, still threatening his coworkers. He's still buried in there. He'll show up every now and then. He showed up in the main event to beat up one of his coworkers. It was for the World Heavyweight CHAMPI and shit, he

was CM Punk defending his title against bron Breaker. Punk entered wearing a Steiner Brothers esque Varsity jacket with CM on the front and then on the back it said Punk. So of course, Rick Steiner, Bron's father used to be part of a faction in WCW called the Varsity Club, so I like that little call back there. So Breaker just destroyed him for the first i'd say ten minutes

eight to ten minutes of this match. The crowd just sat there quietly, just watching until Punk got him up in position for a GTS and then they got animated. Breaker though, slipped out and he delivered a gutbuster to shut that shit down. Punk ended up on the outside of the ring as a Breaker was stalking him. Right, We've seen him do this before. So Breaker he exited the ring. He took the long way, he took the scenic route as he was circling the ring, but Punk

was waiting for him. He had him scouted and he caught him with a leaping clothesline, and then they went to another commercial break. I think this was the second commercial of the match. So when they came back, Punk was on the ropes, and this is where we had our scary moment. Punk's on the ropes, bron Breaker is setting up for the move where he charges towards the corner and he runs the ropes and he puts his arms out like that, right, and then as his body

is falling backwards. I think he challenges himself each time to see how long he can wait before he does the jump up for the hurricanana. One of these days he's just gonna misstime it and just fall backwards and look like an idiot. But in this case, he jumps up, and he starts to fall backwards right and he leaps up. He waits until the last possible second, and he jumps up with the hurrican rana and instead of taking CM Punk over, CM Punk never left the ropes. He just

stayed there. He didn't go flying anywhere. The only person who went flying was bron Breaker straight down on top of his fucking head. And I mean like right, not on his face, not even on his neck like the well he did land on his neck, but the back of his neck. He just came straight down and landed like right on top of his head. And he bade. The dude brained himself, that's what he did. He brained

himself more or less on this move. So Punk stayed on the ropes, and after the referee he was done checking on him to make sure that he wasn't concussed or dead or whatever I would say, maybe like a minute later they tried it again. They redid the spot, and this time it went off okay, and he did the hr karana. He took Punk down only for a near fall, though all that only for a near fall,

risking life and limb only for a near fall. Now again, we've talked a lot in the last week or two about neck injuries and stupid shit that people do during matches, things that they kind of know what they're doing and they plant it that way, and then you have situations like this. Funny enough, when we were talking about the William Regal tweet and a lot of the aw fans

were very upset. You know that he of all people, you know the messenger, You're not the right person to be saying this, and why would you do it with the day after the pay per view, and they used the bron breaker spot from Wargames as an example when they were doing the doomsday device spot and he was on he was on Punk shoulders I think right, and Cody came off and breaker just the way he landed. He clearly did not intend to land that way, but he landed right on his fucking neck, right, and he

could have killed himself. So they were citing that as an example, and it's like, it's not exactly apples for apples here. I mean like that was a botch, Like that was not how he was intended to land. We've seen the doomsday device spot hundreds of times over the years, and so here we are again in another spot where bron Breaker is involved and he lands on his frickin neck, clearly not intending to do so. So that was a scary moment there. So he had Breaker with the gorilla press.

Punk though countered into a DDT and Punk got the running knee in the corner. He hit the short arm clothesline. Then he headed for the heavens and he came off with the diving elbow drop. And now he was ready for it. He is ready to go to sleep. As I'm sure many people were watching this episode of Monday Night Raught. Tonight, Punk was ready to hit the GTS here, so he is getting ready for this. Paul Hayman jumps up on the apron because he knows who knows Punk

better than Paul Hayman? Does Hey, Vince, what's going on? So Paul Hayman jumps up on the apron. He's screaming, he's hollering, he's trying to distract Punk and divert his attention away. Punk walks over Hayman jumps down from the apron. Here comes the Vision. Here comes Bronson Reid and Logan Paul and Austin Theory and they're jumping like on the apron. They're trying to get involved. He they're risking disqualification for

their man. This is incredibly stupid. Punk manages to fight them off and he punches all of them down, you know, off the apron. So then after he does this, bron Breaker knocks Punk into the referee, referee Chad Patten, who goes flying out of it. I believe he flew out of the ring, and Austin Theory gets into the ring and he delivers a curb stomp to CM Punk. So

Breaker covers. I guess Chad Patten, he's you've recovered quickly, and so he's back in the ring and he goes to count the pin and Punk kicks out, so only he got two out of it. Here comes Dragon Lee and Penta and raymys Stereo. They show up, uh bron or Bronson Reid. Rather, he got Ray Mysterio up for a vertical suplex outside right in front of the announced desk,

and before he could do anything. He ended up eating a double super kick from Ray, Mysterio and Dragonly and so then as Ray came down, he countered into a DDT to Bronson Reid on the floor outside, so the three baby faces they then brawled off with all the Vision members into the crowd. They fought off. We didn't see them again. So that left bron Breaker in the ring. He was getting ready for a spear, right, He's gonna cut this man down. He's gonna win the World Heavyweight Championship.

Punk moves and Breaker posts himself first. He brained himself. Now he posts himself shoulder first in the corner. Punk gets him up and he hits the GTS. Punk covers him. Breaker kicks out at two and a half. So that

was a nice dramatic near fall. Punk got break her up for a pile driver, and I really wish he didn't, because, first of all, I see him putting this man in position for a pile driver, and I'm thinking, probably not a good idea to do a pile driver to a guy that fell on his head like not even ten minutes earlier. Okay, so that's number before you even attempted the move. I'm thinking Okay, that might not be the

spot to do. We don't know for sure. Broad Breaker is not concussed, but he goes for a pile driver, just like John Cena, right, the match with Punk and Sena, the famous pile driver match on Raw in twenty thirteen. What a great match, better than this one. And Punk was the one in that one who delivered the pile driver, right, So he's going to give him a pile driver. He

gives him a terrible pile driver. Now, I don't know if he just watched it or if he was just being over protective, which I could totally understand, right, you don't want to hurt the guy, and maybe he was thinking about that spot before and it was like, all right, we'll do the spot, like I have to really, you know, protect him on it. But if you're going to do the move like that, don't even bother doing it like

it just dude, it looked horrible. It just looked terrible, And I think even the announcers were like, he didn't get all of it. It's like, yeah, no, shit, he didn't get any of it. Like his legs were basically closed and anyway, so that that did not come off the way. I'm sure that he wanted it to come off. Breaker, though he got punked down in a Fujiwara armbar. Punk rolled out of it. He transitioned into an Anacon device. Breaker sat up while in the hold, and he's just

staring at Punk. So like remember when Undertaker and brock Lesner did that spot at SummerSlam. They sat up, stared at each other started laughing. Ah right, there was no laughing here. But they're like this and bron is just staring a hole in him. So they get back to their feet and he hoists Punk up for another gutbuster, and then he hits a clothes line or a Steiner line. He covers him, Punk kicks out, So now Bron Breaker says it's time for Punk to go to sleep. He

gets him up with the GTS. On the way down, though, Punk picks the ankle. He gets the stf applied. He's taken a page out of John Cena's playbook. Breaker slowly, slowly inches his way towards the ropes. He gets the rope, Punk, though, drags him back to the center of the ring. But now Paul Haman is back up on the apron again and Punk is distracted. Some of that dumb babyface syndrome is creeping up. You know. You would think a veteran

like Punk would know. Just let the guy yell and bloviate on the apron, right, you got a match to win here, But he allows himself to be distracted. So he goes over to Haym and and he punches him, grabs him, and he delivers a punch to Paul Hayman. Bron Breaker comes in for the spear though Punk doesn't see him coming, but he manages to avoid him, and Breaker goes flying through the ropes and out to the floor see him. Punk then flies out of the ring.

I guess he was going for a suicide dive, and it was nearly a suicide dive because he took aheader. I shouldn't laugh. He took aheader, I mean into the floor. I don't even know how else to describe it. Like Breaker avoided him, or maybe he hit him, I don't know, maybe he cut him with the forearm or something. But like Punk just went straight down into the floor, and the referee went over to check on him to make sure that he was alive and that he was okay.

So now Punk is using the announced desk to try to pick himself back up, and you drag himself back to his feet, but bron Breaker has now climbed to the top rope. He's all the way up top and there's a good distance from where he is to where

Punk is. Punk's not really on the announced desk, he's sort of like leaned over, leaning on the announced desk, and Breaker comes flying off the top rope like a missile with this I guess really it's more like a diving kind of elbow kind of but it's like a super dive and he crashes into Punk and they both

go crashing through the announced desk. It was just this spectacular bump that he took and the crowd reacted huge to it, and Breaker like almost immediately gets up and he gets Punk back inside the ring like he doesn't really waste any time, so he puts him back inside, and Paul Hayman is sitting on the outside by the way after being punched, and he's laughing. He's laughing at this because he knows that's it. It's over. So he puts Punk back in the ring and the straps come down.

Here comes the spear comes off the ropes, Punk lifts a knee, catches him right in the head, right maybe the side of the head. Punk gets him up with the gts. He eats all of the gts and see I'm Punk pins bron Breaker clean as a sheet in the middle of the ring one two three to retain the World Heavyweight Championship. I just I can't believe they did that spot just for Punk to more or less no sell it and then just come right back and win clean. Like I I don't know, I just don't know, Nut,

I'm not Look, I'm not shocked at Punk one. It's not that Punk one, But like, I very much question doing that the way they did at the very end. I just don't think that that. I think it took away from the spot, but also just it didn't really do bron Breaker any favors. There were some rough spots in this one. I mentioned what they were, especially the couple of times that each of them could have been

seriously hurt. But I thought it picked up well enough there towards the end, and there were some dramatic near falls there in like the final few minutes of the match, So it ended up being good. You know. Again, it started off very dull, and it was long. I mean it went like twenty six twenty seven minutes. We had a whole bunch of commercial breaks in the middle of it, which, again, if you're watching with a VPN or you're watching internationally,

maybe isn't a big deal. But if you're not, it does, you know, kind of kill the vibe, you know, when you're watching the match Breaker losing clean. I'll say it again, I don't think it's as damaging as some people might, you know, think it is, But it all depends on the follow up. Bron Breaker has to come out of this as just an absolute killer, like ready to just rip people's heads off, because he just cannot accept the

fact that he lost to this man. He can't believe that he threw everything that he threw at him and he's still lost. He's embarrassed, and he's got to make up for it somehow. That's why I think this needs to vault him into the top like two favorites to win the Rumble, because I still think we're looking at Roman Rains as the winner of the Royal Rumble. In a perfect world, it would be somebody different. It would not be Roman Reigns. It might not be anybody who's

won the Rumble before, not even Randy Orton. It would be somebody new, someone like a bron Breaker. Is that what WWE has in mind for him? If they want him in a World Championship match or WrestleMania, then yeah, I would say him winning the Rumble is the way to go. And if he wins the Rumble, then this is all forgotten about because in one night he can punch his ticket to the Night one main event of WrestleMania.

And I think that if bron Breaker is going to win the World Heavyweight Chainampionship, it's a very good chance that in WWE's mind, he's like their chosen one. Maybe they're saving the world title win for like the big stage, and in their mind they envision that when it finally happens, it's going to happen there. It's going to happen at WrestleMania, you know, in front of fifty or sixty thousand people,

And maybe that's what they have in their mind. If that happens again, we're not going to be talking about what happened on January fifth. This is not going to matter, This is going to be forgotten about. It all in the follow up. There were a lot of dramatic near falls. It was very competitive Breaker. I don't think Breaker came out of this looking terrible, but he also didn't come out of it looking as strong as I feel like

he should have. That's going to be on them now to kind of get it right, you know, coming out of this. The one thing I will say, it would appear to me to make things a little more likely that Drew McIntyre might just pull it off on Friday in Germany when they're in Berlin three Stages of hell, because I never expected two title changes in the same week. With the world titles, I didn't necessarily expect one title change.

The fact that they didn't do the one here makes it a little more likely that Drew might actually get the win on Friday. Fingers crossed because if either of these men, if you had to choose just one, Drew is the one who needs it more. This was bron Breaker's first ever World Championship match on the main roster. Drew McIntyre's had a lot more than that, and the last view he's had he's been a failure. So if anybody needs to come out with a w this week,

it's McIntyre. Bron Breaker can do it at the Rumbull, he could do it in media. For Drew McIntyre, I feel like it's now or never. It's now or he just moves on beyond Cody to just something lower on the card. And then at that point, you know, going into WrestleMania, I don't know what is filming schedule is going to be. He's supposed to go off and film for the New Highlander movie, so I don't even know if he's going to be around for WrestleMania. But I

feel like it's now, We're never come Friday. For Drew, this at least increases his chances. It's just a little bit, just a smidge. On the whole though, this was not a good show for a show that was hyped up for so many weeks as being a big deal, the big kickoff here to the New Year. You know you want to start off. I mean again, they had the title change at the beginning with the women in the Tag division, and that's fine, but you look at everything

else that happened on the show. By and large, it was just like, I don't know, man, it's just there's no life to it. There's just no life to it. There's no excitement, there's no real fun. Where's the fun that's a Monday night rows should be, especially now we're heading into the rumble, We're heading into WrestleMania season. This is where things ought to ought to be feeling that way,

and it just doesn't right now. And I thought that if it was going to you would certainly think it would start with this first show of the new year. They were in New York, right one year anniversary of the Netflix debut, and it was just a very half hearted effort with some you know, we had a couple of good matches that kind of bookended the show, but then a lot of shit in the middle that was just like, man, this is a slog to sit through and we're not even watching three hours of SmackDown. We

have three hours of Smackedout on Friday. I don't know. Let's take a look at the Twitter pole. Clearly I'm not the only one who is not enthused by this show. Look at this poll. This is not what you usually see here for a raw pole thumbs up, not even twenty percent. That is pathetic, absolutely pathetic. And again I understand some of that is going to be the people upset that Jericho wasn't there. I'm not upset that Jericho wasn't there. WWE they kind of trolled you with that

Adam Pierce video over the weekend. Otherwise they didn't really say anything about it either, just people letting, you know, getting ahead of themselves thinking he was going to be there. Nobody ever said he was going to be there. But are we really getting upset in twenty twenty six that Chris Jericho didn't show up? Are we really doing this?

Don't be one of those people. Thumbs in the middle got twenty eight percent roughly, And look at that thumbs down fifty two point six percent thumbs down for this show tonight. I think those people were happy with Monday Night ROW. I wonder if the people who paid for some of those ticket prices who went to the show were happy with Monday Night Row. That's why I didn't go to Monday Night Row. I got to watch the show for free. Now I get to be here with

all of you. I got the better deal. Just take a look at your super chats and get them on in. I'll be reading them here and then we will be doing at least one round of be the booker. We've already hit the like school, which is great, very close to five hundred. Let's get five hundred. That should be easy. We're less than ten away. But thank you to the nearly eighteen hundred of you hanging out with me here on a Monday night. Is Monday Night football done? I

don't think there was Monday night football tonight, right. I think Monday night football is over now, Hey, Joseph Stewart, Happy Monday, you too, my friend. I have not seen that documentary, and as far as Goodfellas is concerned, I gotta go with the uhh, I mean, I gotta go with the bar scene. I gotta go with the bar scene at your shinebox. The giver, I don't know. I

don't know what that is. I haven't seen that. He has a prediction, the wrestling prediction, predicting that Dominic will win money in the bank in twenty twenty six will be the year of Live Dom. All right, Well, I got I got Logan Paul winning money in the bank. But Dom is very sound choice. Also, what other Netflix shows can WWE? Can they force WWE to collaborate with them on for next year's Raw premiere let's all take guesses as to what other Netflix show that they can

collaborate with. What are some other big Netflix shows? Edwood, I did see Edwarod. Yes, I believe Georgia Animal Steel has a role in that movie or a is it? I think it was Edwood, I believe so. I have not seen that Jeff Bridges movie. But if you haven't seen Tron, you should definitely check the original one out. Actually, I like the sequel to Cups, the movie Cups. Never seen that one. Pump up the volume. Nope, Uma Thurman's daughter was in Stranger Things. I did not know that.

Do you remember the David Bowie sung Underground from the Lapporn movie? I like the Labyrinith movie, so I do actually know that. So did you know that who framed Roger Rabbit was the only time Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny appeared on screen together. Wow, that's like WWE and AW. They're not allowed to appear on screen together. It's like Shinsky Nakamoor is not allowed to be in the ring when Kenny Omega's out there. That's how they treat Mickey

and Bugs. As you know, Disney was the original voice. Walt Disney was the original voice of Mickey Mouse when he created Mickey mout Well, he created Mickey Mouse, so yes, I kind of figured that was the case. Actually, want to know who probably one of the great voice artists of all time was when it comes to characters, Mel Blanc. He did them all, all those Loney Tunes voices, that was all him. Super talented. All right, so's see some of these squid Game Oh god, yes, let them collaborate.

Can we have the Creative Team playing squid Game? I'd watch that? Fuck this WWE unreal bullshit? Can we get the WWE Creative Team forced into a game of squid Game? Would you guys watch that? I know I would. Let's have a WWE squid Game collaboration. Love Is Blind? Is that on Netflix? Was Diesel versus Sean always the plan for WrestleMania eleven? Yes? How different would the Attitude era have been if SID was part of the Attitude Era

in ninety eight ninety nine? Not radically different? Man, It was a SID compilation they put together on the vault recently of all of his ECW appearances. Holy shit, how fucking over was he? Man? In ECW? Like the formula they had for him. It was very simple and it just worked. And he was over like I mean, he's been over. He was over everywhere he worked. But in ECW he would come out there, they would treat him like a god. They just wanted to see him power

bomb people. That's it. As you know, Hogan versus Brett was supposed to be the main event at Stark ninety nine instead of Brett versus Goldberg. Yeah, and Brett would have had possibly many more years of his career had it gone down that way. Do you think DDP against Goldberg should have been the main event of Stark ninety eight instead of Nash against Goldberg? I do. I think DDP should have been the one to and the streak

and win the title. I would have done it in Halloween Havoc, but you could have rematched them at starkad do you remember the TV show Sledgehammer vaguely? How would you have booked Brett's WCW run? I have answered this before on the podcast. I actually rebooked his entire first year in WCW, so I would advise you to go find that segment. I don't remember the episode number offhand. I actually just covered it recently, not too long ago, but I think it's a video up on the YouTube

channel somewhere, so go check that out. Why do you think there are some that think Brett should have beaten goldberg streak? Are there people who think that? I've never heard of there being some great movement for Brett to be the one to beat it. I've never heard that. If the Patriot was part of the Attitude or do you think he would have gotten a stone Cold versus Patriot feud? No, we would not have gotten stone Cold

against the Patriot. Were there other feud? Stone Cold was supposed to have in the Attitude era in ninety eight and ninety nine. He was supposed to work with Jeff Jarrett and he said, no, I ain't working with that Jabron. He did not like Jeff Jarrett. How different would stone Coold's career be if the Rock did not get over like he did. I don't think it would have affected Austin's career too radically. It was great that he had someone like like A one A and A one B,

you know, to play off each other. But I think he still would have been white hot as a character on the show. You know, that anti authority guy. They would have just, you know, found a different foil for Maybe it would have been triple h. Do you remember the TV show WKRP in Cincinnati. I'm singing the theme song in my head as we speak. How different would Ahmed Johnson's career have been if he was part of the Attitude era? It would not have been any different

at all. He would have continued to injure himself and injure other people, and he would have been fired because he wasn't that good. Do you remember the Harris Brothers? Unfortunately, yes, I do, and they did nothing for me. Do you know why they did the NWA stuff on WWETV in early to mid ninety eight, you know, off Hitt, I don't. I don't know why Vince went for that. I'm sure Cornett loved it, but it was just it was fucking lame on WWF television and the Attitude ere it didn't fit.

He was never gonna work. Do you know whatever happened to Kergan from the Truth Commission? Yeah, he became an actor. He was actually in a film with Robert Downey Junior. I think it might have been Oh what movie was that? I forgot? But he was in a movie with him and he punched him in the face for real, and I know he was very upset about that. I remember Downey saying he was more upset about it than I

was when he punched me in the face. I think it might have been Sherlock Holmes, that's what it was. I think it was Sherlock Holmes. But yeah, he's been in a few movies. Ludavishawn definitely underrated. Yes, uh, and that's it for Joseph. Thank you, Joseph. Some good wrestling questions there. I appreciate the wrestling questions very much. We got dried ribs and chicken without flavor. I called it raw and stranger things. Collaboration happened also, well, that's certainly

your opinion. If Jade Cargill was on Raw tonight, her entrance would be fired, fired or fire bringing back the lightning entrance, but with red coloring and the mind Flare's shadow, now that would have been fire. I agree. I'm predicting AW will do another collaboration with HBO Max streaming show, but this time it would be it Welcome to Derry oh Man dried Ribs. I will do that, thank you.

If we're always TVMA tonight, Keel Rodriguez would either use a cinderblock or a car to cross Stephanie vi Kier's walking boot, and that leg would be showed. Yeah, that leg would be shattered, and so would her title rate. I don't think they want her out for more than a few weeks. You're you're putting her out for a year with that Tonight's Raw, with the collaboration of stranger things, I give it a C the marketing department on the hand. On the other hand, I give it a B plus

for effort Alex with ten. If anyone defends this hot garbage of a show, you are the problem. This was atrocious twenty twenty six. WWE is going to be twenty twenty five all over again. Well, I mean, why would you think it would be any different. It's the same

people writing the show. You Know. What irked me was airing the unreal season two trailer during the show, like I get it, like the show itself fine, airing the entire trailer during Raw where they're just openly talking about like scripting the fake injury with seth rollins and scripting this and faking that, and it's like, do we really need to watch this shit during the actual show bugs the shit out of me, super Pony. First time I've watched Raw in full in months. I was reminded tonight

why that was. Why that was the case. The shows feel lifeless nowadays. It makes me sad. It's because they are. It's very corporate. It's very corporate. Unfortunately, that's not gonna change. It's only gonna get worse. You know, they'll have weeks where they'll hit a home run, but by and large, the formula for these shows it is, it is very formulaic,

but it's just very corporate. You know, it's about getting the stars on the show so they could do their entrance, and you know, it's just I don't know, personal issues between people like what we had in twenty twenty four, you know at Punk and Drew. Stuff like that is very rare. I mean, I could use examples from twenty to thirty years ago. You guys know all those stories I would probably use, right, whether it was Breton Stone Cold or you know, Michael's and bred Austin and Rock.

You know, we just we don't have enough of that anymore. Everything just feels so phony. Everything feels very phony on these shows can't really invest in these stories in the way that you used to, and I think that sucks Aaron for the nine ninety nine. It feels like the creative team has no passion or fun. Fans love to fantasy book. These people get to do it for a living, and it seems like it's a chore to them. Are

they entertained by this? Do they care? I don't know if they necessarily do beyond you know, they get their paycheck, they go to work, they have a formula that works, and there's always issues to deal with with people getting injured and stuff. It's not an easy job. I don't think anybody's saying it's easy. But you also can't force people to think that it's fun because it's not Solo's favorite sicko lol at all the hypocrites that suddenly give

a damn about Chris Jericho, Womp womp. Maybe next week Jericho is not going to be in Dusseldorf next week. If he wasn't there tonight, you're waiting until the rumble, He'll be in Saudi. He will not be in Dusseldorf. Ah, we got Maven. I will have to start watching SmackDown exclusively. Then if SmackDown starts sucking too, I'll just watch aw cringe. Becky gets the belt again. Fuck that dried ribs and chicken.

I bet if the Rock was there in Brooklyn, the Duffer Brothers and some of the cast members of Stranger Things would have come to the show. Yeah, they didn't want to have anything to do with this. They're like, yeah, our job is done, the season's over, leave us alone. At least we didn't get terrible comedy tonight. I was a little worried they were gonna have, like, at least that one backstage segment where if Vince was still there, we would totally get some awful, fucking like comedy skit. Yeah,

believe it or not, it could have been worse. Shawnee says by rent Sell. Potential Undertaker opponents that were rumored to have happened, Abyss hayde Vanson an Amish road kill, Amish road kill? When was he rumored? Who the hell wanted to see Amish roadkill against the Undertaker? Abyss has to be number one. That was rumored to be a WrestleMania match was going to kick off with the Royal Rumble. It's gonna be a Wrestlemandia match, I want to say in two thousand and six, so that would have been

WrestleMania twenty two, I believe. And he got cold feet and he just wanted to stay in TNA and kind of helped TNA grow, so it didn't happen. Hayde Vanson. I remember hearing about hayde Vance. I don't remember who played hayde Vanson. Yeah, I mean that didn't excite me at all. It's basically the only one from that list that I gave a shit about was Abyss Faberge Egg, perhaps Willie Billy. It's a pretty subtle thing, so most

won't pick up on it. But Becky is really starting to lean into the Becky Hogan thing, yellow and red everywhere. If you read some of her messages, you can kind of pick up on it. But I did not notice the yellow and red stuff. So Shawnee says by Rent Cell guys who were rumored to beat the Streak, Angle, Edge, Mark Henry. I don't think any of them should have beaten the streak, But of those three, if someone was going to beat the Streak, Angle, Kurt Angle, he's the man.

Phil says Adam Pierce is an idiot. That's his entire message. Poor Adam Pierce. Hey, look us authority figures, we have to look out for each other. I'm just saying it could be a very stressful job. He's doing the best he can. May even says Punk versus Breaker had no right to be this boring. Yeah, I mean the first half of it certainly was. Again, I thought that there were some good near falls near the end. It wasn't a total loss, but it was not some great, memorable

championship match, you know. It was just he was a match and Punk beat him clean. I sure hope they have a good follow up to it. Barry says Netflix just added Raw Talk. Did they the missing Raw episodes? Nope, No, and they won't. It's not a priority for them. They don't give a shit. They've had the Raw vault up for a year. There are I think they literally go from two thousand and one to like, is it two thousand and seven or twenty twenty or it's like, dude,

the whole years that are missing. I don't even care about those later years, but like the earlier ones, like nineteen ninety four, there's like four episodes for the year like they don't give a shit, they don't care. It's it's just not going to be updated. You gotta pirate that shit. That's it. I'm sorry, that's what you gotta do. They leave us no choice. Solo's favorite Siko. People who are disenchanted with WWE, I hope you don't give up

on wrestling altogether. There's plenty out there. Doesn't have to be AW or TNA. That is very true. In fact, we just had a huge tokyo dumb show this past weekend. That was, of what I saw of it, pretty damn good. Phil says tuned into Raw only to see the ussos run their entrance twice and watch Stephanie Vicer talk in Spanish and get beaten up. What a half What a half hour wasted? That was my biggest issue with this show, dude.

It was so much like in the middle of the show, you bounce from one segment to the other of just nothing, just absolute nothing, Just like if you missed it, you didn't miss a damn thing. Maven says, twenty five drunk always, twenty six drunk once a week. Edward Brooks the last month of WWE television could have been an email It's okay, guys, this is what they do. That's Triple H's favorite phrase. What we do, what we do, what we do, This is what we do. What is it that you do? Exactly?

Super pony Punk beat Gunther Clean at SummerSlam. Why are people acting like they can't buy him beating bron Clean when we all agree Gunther is better than Yeah, but dude, Gunph also tapped like a bitch to Jay Uso and now he's the this destroyer. There's a there's a big disconnect in terms of how certain people are booked. You really have to turn your brain off when it comes to some of this shit. Uh, Steven says, what, in your opinion is nuclear heat Hogan heel turn type shit?

I mean Hogan Hogan And that six would be a good example of it because he was the red and yellow babyface all for the kids right for so many years and then he just betrayed everybody. So that's one example. Another example would be like if you have this beloved legend or babyface and you just murder them right, like a serious injury angle. Depending on who it is that you're beating up or putting on the shelf, you would

get nuclear heat for that. You know, somebody who maybe interferes in a big match where people are hoping for a finish and then somebody runs out and screws it all up, right, like, you can get nuclear heat for that.

I mean it depends. It depends. I mean if Gunther had beaten John Cena and refused to release the hold and kept it on for like ten minutes and had to be pried off, or you know, after he beat John Cena, he ran back out while seen his salt in the isleway, and you know, he runs back out and attacks him with brutal beat down with a chair and bloodis him and everything like, he probably would have gotten nuclear heat for a while after that. Then people would have a reason to be really upset with the

guy toyassistance bron Lass. What are the chances of a Drew win on Friday? I mean they went up like five percent tonight. I still don't think he has a very good chance, but his chances did go up a little bit tonight. Super Pony, you predicted in your twenty twenty six predictions that Kevin Owens would return at the end of the year. Do you think the Orton feud ever gets resolved. No, he'll be gone for so long at that point, they don't even know what Randy Orton

will be doing when he comes back. I don't know if he'll be a babyface or a heel. I would imagine at first he'll be a babyface. It's going to be forgotten about. I don't see there being a resolution. Randy Bobandi, speaking of Randy Howdy Solo, if you had to pick a top five WCWWWE cruiserweight champion, who would you put Billy Kidman? Or would you put Billy Kidman on that list considering he's a seven time champion? If not, who is your top five? I don't really have a

top five. Raymysteria would be in that. In that group obviously, are we talking champions, because then Eddie has to be on that list. You gotta have Eddie Guerrero on that list. Whop and two Guerrera wasn't Jericho cruiserweight champion. Yeah, I mean it really depends on what time period you're talking about. Enzo who said that throw you out of here, fucking Enzo.

But Billy Kidman, No, I don't really look at him as a top five cruiser whit Brolly Becky's last singles match that wasn't Maxine was Nicki Bella back in August. Also Live is Great. Can't believe Triple Ah gave her a terrible title run the Shoulder Demon. I was listening to episode nine forty five of the sound off, and you told me to take a month off for WrestleMania. I never take a month off. I'm no days off, Shoulder Demon. Now I will break shoulders? Uh oh, who's next?

Who's the next victim? V que? Do you see Jericho returning at the rumble? Yes? I do, he said. I could see the clock getting down to five seconds and switching to Y two Jay's countdown and getting a big pop. I hope they let him use Judas as well. I feel like even if he uses Judas during his run, I think so their fans would recognize it. They would probably go with break the walls down. At least at the beginning. Mark Kwan says, hey, Solo, I'm turning fifty tomorrow.

I'm sorry to hear that. I kid, I kid. You know if you turn the clock back, you won't just keep turning the clock back by an hour. You'll never turn fifty but happy birthday, brother, it's a big milestone. You're half a century old. I hope it's a good birthday. I'm sorry that you couldn't get a better Monday Night Raw for your birthday. Leopoldo says, Jericho Countdown at the

Royal Rumble would be timely. Yes, it Would's actually not a bad idea unless you kind of ruin the pop though, like if you want to wait until the music hits. Alexander says, this episode of Row felt like Capitol Combat ninety. Dude, I would have rather been watching Capitol Combat ninety. Leopoldo says, Pelmanizer sounds like a bad Bill Cosby nickname. At least Punk was safe and used protection with Braun trying to be sidri are you there can only be one more

chance for Drew to win the belt? This is it. It's Berlin or Bust for Drew McIntyre. Prince Vegeta says, watching raws like I'm constantly running up that road, running up that hill. Fabian Garcia, look wrestle a book, Wrestleman book, WrestleMania fifty main event too far in advance, WrestleMania fifty Hmmm wrestle Mania fifty Cody Rhoads against Javon Evans. Here you go, Devin from New Jersey. I don't get it.

Wrestlers look down on us as being marks and fanboys, But when we do criticize the product, Triple H tells us to shut up and be fans. What do they want from us? They want your money. They want you to buy the various subscriptions, they want you to buy tickets, they want you to buy merch, and they want you to keep your fucking mouth shut. That's what they want. HBKC eighty three. How useful would the defending a title in thirty days rule be in today's world of I

think would be very useful. I never would have gotten rid of it. Paul Carpenter any word on old school wrestling like WSWA and ECW on Netflix. So far they have every WWF. I hope they get us what we want NXT. Also, they haven't announced shit they have really, I think you know, when it comes to communications on this stuff, they have demonstrated that they truly do not care. The way it's been handled has been awful, absolutely awful for the people who care about this kind of stuff.

They are getting no guidance. They're getting nothing. They're getting nothing. That's how little they think of you. You want WCW stuff, you got to go to the WCW YouTube channel. They actually just updated a whole full full show. I'm trying to remember which one it was, but they just uploaded another. They have a bunch of full shows there. That's going to be your best bet. I just bookmarked it actually,

whatever it was, or they uploaded earlier. Jay Williams, it's time we talk about seeing his greatest promo of all time. Brock to get a concussion, you need a brain chill. I'm quite partial to the night that Sina just completely eviscerated Roman Reigns on the microphone. More not kidding. Wreussell Kingdom twenty o Kata tana Hashi is better than Wressell Kingdom ten oh Kata tana Hashi. I can see where some people would feel that way because it was just

a different It was a different story this time. You know, it was just like the aging veteran against his greatest nemesis, trying to hang in there for one last win. And you have the story. I just went through this whole thing. I did a bonus podcast this afternoon, so I'll just direct you to that. I just think what they did was fantastic, you know, and the stuff with Okada kind of starting out as aw Okada and then towards the end he had to really dig down deep for the

old Rainmaker to get the job done. And the storytelling was much better in this one. As a match. It's been a while since I've seen the Russell Kingdom ten match. I would think as a match that one was better. But the story here in this one and the history between them just sets this one apart. Navy says Matt Hardy v one had the best Titan tron and fun facts. It was pretty cool. It was pretty awesome, very creative, something WWE is not much of these days. Alex says.

Apparently Jericho was in LA and was never slated to appear on Raw Tonight. Also, weren't La Knight and Chad Gables supposed to make their return No, I mean Gable's on his way back soon. He was never really confirmed for this show. LA Night, though, was someone who he was rumored. I actually completely forgot about him, though. I'm actually more surprised that we didn't get him than I am that we didn't get Jericho JDFVA. I think LA

would work as intercontinental champion. What are your thoughts why he won the US title? If he wins the intercontinental title, I certainly hope his run his book better than it was as the US champion, because that was a dog shit run. Jeremy Rose reaturning on EO is going to be nuclear, right if it happens, Yeah, that would be a good example. I would think of some nuclear I mean, look as nuclear as heat can be, and today's very homogenized WWE. But people really like EO as much as

they love Rhea. I think if she did something really evil evil to EO, that that would definitely get a ton of heat. RDS Harry, Hey brother, I just turned twenty nine today. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate everything that you do. The number one podcast are in the world. That's right. See this guy knows what's up. Happy birthday, Harry Baby and Garcia. Main event jay USO or a main event Hardcore Holly. Main event hardcore Holly, because hardcore Holly didn't come out and have

eight minute entrances. He was no nonsense. He just came out to the ring to beat people up. You didn't come out and yeat for fucking fourteen minutes. Alex is off topic here. Do you know why WWE did not continue its SmackDown after the April nineteen ninety nine pilot episode. It waited until August. That's not how it works. April was you said it yourself, dude. April was the pilot, and so it never goes directly. You got to get the show picked up first. They had to see how

the pilot would do. And once UPN decided they wanted to pick up the show, then they had to slot it in and then it started in August. It's not an immediate thing. That's not how TV works. There was always going to be a gap. Leopaul does says, break the walls down. We'll be cut the tree down at the Royal rumble. Oh my gud. Can you imagine if like the countdown is down to like five four, three two one, and then we just hear I, oh god,

I have the learning Tree. And then Sola Monster, who is not even live on YouTube, he's watching he's watching it. He's watching the show like everybody else, hits the button just on instinct super Pony twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two WWE or this TKO era which is worse still't go twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two. You know why, it's a double whammy because it included Vince who was at you know, far beyond his years and creative as

a creative mind. But also the COVID era in front of no fans, which I have no interest in going back and watching. We were kind of double fucked in that era, maybe, says Raw tonight. At least Summer Slam two thousand and two is better. Yeah, there's a lot of shows that are better. And Leopouldo, can you see Hardy's New Day, USO's Triple Thread at Media Now? We got to get USO's and Luca Brothers. That's the match. I know that's what Matt Hardy wants, but that's not

what I want. I want what I want. I don't want what Matt Hardy wants. Jay Williams imagine deaf Rebel does Jericho's theme song. I don't want to imagine. I would think that as someone who is a music head the way that he is, Jericho would just refuse to return to the company outright. If he knew that Deaf Rebel was going to make his new music, he would just you just go back to Tony kNN and go, okay, I'll resign. What do you want? Two years? Three years?

Can you even imagine? What would that music even sound like? What would the opening sound bite be? Right, Chris Jericho, deaf Rebel theme? As you ponder that question, be the booker, ladies and gentlemen. It is now time to be the booker. Questions for you to ponder down yonder. Hi, guys, all right, we got one round. We gotta make a count. We gotta make it a good one. We get no double tonight, we get one shot at this triple h may let you down. But my job here is make sure that

I give the people what they want. And I'm giving the people Caine and the big show. I have failed you. I have failed you. Boy. This is a this is a this is meat madness. Here is what. This is a big boys. We've got canaan big show against the natural disasters. You know what I I John Tenton man, he was he was the man. John Tenton was the man. Now you got Uncle Fred over here, you got the shock Master. Look how happy he is. I gotta give it the bell. I gotta give it the bell. We've

got a hoss battle here. Come on, women's be the hooker. We have Alisha Fox. We have the great Alisha Fawx. We're those great Alicia Fox matches Man Man, all those classic matches, Alisha Fox against Sorea goodbye. I mean it was over from Alicha Fox. But I just was curious to see who the opponent would be. I how to at least see who it was going to be. You get no clean sweep tonight. Hey there's Firepan. Everybody wish Firepanda a very happy new year. Fire Panda, I hope

you are having a happy new year. So far, five days in main event time we have the mighty yoko Zuna is in the main event. Two time WWF champion, or is a mister Fuji used to call him my yoko Zuma, My yoko Zuma, so how we used to say it, Oh my god, Yokozuna against Logan Paul. Oh, he's got he's taking a Bonzai splash. He's taken a Bonzi splash. He's going to squash Logan Paul like a pancake. And why that made me laugh. Yokozuna against Logan Paul,

Those like I love that, like the generational clash. Here should we add a stipula? I'm like so curious to add a stipulation to this. I already gave it a bell. I don't want to fuck fucking why not, let's just do it. We gotta give this a STIPI I need to know what the stipulation is gonna be. Yoko Zuna. Actually, you know what, this is probably not good for Yoko Zuna. Yoko Zuna against Logan Paul in a brawl for all match. Logan Paul does box, so I actually think he's got

the edge in this one. But then again, I mean Yoko Zunaman, he's so big he could just smother him. You know, I don't think that's allowed though, in a in a brawl for all match, I think you'd be disqualified. How's that for a match? Yoko Zuna and Logan Paul in a brawl for all match? I ruined it. No, I think I enhanced it. I think I made it better. And Alex says, do you know when the rumors and conspiracies started regarding Glenn Jacobs never being the original Kine.

I mean as soon as he went to the half mask, I think is when it really started. I mean, we had the same conspiracy theories with the Ultimate Warrior. People thought he died in a car accident. That was the rumor for many years because he came back to WrestleMania eight and he was completely deflated. Right he was still I mean, he was still ripped, but like not nearly as ripped as he was a year earlier. It's like someone's like a fucking pin in him. People didn't think

it was him. I oh, the real Ultimate Warrior, he died in the car wreck. Anyway. The Wrestle Kingdom twenty review is now up. I did not see the entire show as far as the undercard. I saw the four match as I wanted to see, which was the women's match, the Aaron Wolf debut, and the double main event. So I did a twenty minute extra just going over my thoughts on that. That went up this afternoon. I pushed the audio out on YouTube as well. Please go ahead

and support like the video, leave comments. That way we'll get into the algorithm more people will see it. But leave a comment there let me know what you thought I thought it was great. I thought it was great.

And if you missed the rest of the podcast, episode nine forty five that went up this weekend with my predictions, thoughts on the Vince McMahon stuff that came out last week, the William Regals stuff, a bunch of other things in a gigantic mailbag, tons of your questions, just like we answered here tonight, and we'll do it again on Wednesday as well. I'm gonna be here live with you for

the aw Dynamite review that'll be Wednesday night. Of course, before that, Tomorrow night, I'll be Live with JD for Tuesday Night Titans, our first episode of the new year. We fucking killed it in twenty twenty five, so we got to do the same thing in twenty twenty six, so then we got Dynamite and then Friday. So here's the plan for Friday. Friday is a not taped, but they're doing smack then in Berlin, Germany. I'm almost positive I'm going to be able to watch it earlier on

my VPN shout Out Express VPN. So assuming that's the case, I'm not waiting for it to go on USA at eight o'clock. I may go live at eight o'clock or sometime around like eight eight thirty, So follow me on X that's Sola Monster. I'll keep you guys posted on that. But that's my plan. As long as I can watch it in the end afternoon, I'd much rather do that and then we'll talk about three stages of hell. Who knows, maybe we'll have a new WWE champion to talk about,

So that'll be on Friday. Ace Ataliano Blake. Monroe looks to be getting called to the main roster. Likely raw she should be. She should already be there. You know. It was her choice to start in NXT. It's very noble of her, but she was ready for the main roster many months ago. So that's music to my ears. If that's the case, debut her in the Royal Rumble, let's get her up. She'll just have to have her body suit fitted for the Saudi Rumble, as all of the women will look. I said this last year when

they made the announcement. Genuinely, I wonder how that's going to work because obviously they all have to wear they have to be covered, and you're gonna have thirty women coming out. Are they going to be able to distinguish themselves enough, or are they all gonna more or less look the same. I don't know. I don't know how that's gonna work. We'll all find out together. I guess what time will smack Down beyond Netflix? I mean, it depends on It depends on what warzone, war zone, It

depends up, depends on what time zone. It depends on what time zone you live in or war zone. I don't know. I think here on the East Coast. If I I don't know, man, if I log in, what server am I gonna log into? I don't even know? Let me you know what, let me see something here while I'm on the air. Maybe I can get some clarity on this. Right now, I got my Express VPN on my phone, so I'm gonna pick a Canadian server. Shout out to all the Canucks out there, So let's

go into Netflix and see what it says. M is SmackDown even on Netflix, and oh it is okay, live event Friday at two pm Eastern, So there you go. SmackDown will be on at least this is on Canadian Netflix two o'clock Eastern time. So that's what I'll be doing. That's perfect. That leads into dinner and then we can go live probably I don't know, eight eight fifteen sometime around then. Perfect. Let me just run through h the do.

Wednesday for the aw Dynamite stream. So until then, be well, stay safe, have yourselves a good night, and come on back. We're getting close, ninety k. I'll see you guys Wednesday.