WWE Raw 11/17/25 Review | John Cena's FINAL RAW MATCH And MAJOR NAMES RETURN!

of Raw. There was a lot going on. Honestly, one of the best raws all year, coming off one of the worst smackdowns all year last week, actually the week before last. So the difference between the two shows at the moment, it is quite striking, I must say. But John Cena was all about him tonight, the new Intercontinental Champion. He came out, What were they going to do with him here on the show tonight? What would he do

with Survivor series? Because so we're only a couple of weeks away, two and a half weeks away whatever it is from Survivor Series, And there really was a big question Marcus to what John Cena would be doing on that show. We know he's going to be in San Diego. He's always been advertised for that show. Would they just simply run back a rematch between him and Dominique Bisterio from last week? Would they have him maybe in his first ever War Games match that was also a very

distinct possibility. Well, now we have our answer as far as what John Cena is going to be doing on that show, and in fact, he will be wrestling Dominicq Bysterio in a rematch for the Intercontinental Championship, so his

match at that show is now set. Tonight was also about the Last Time is Now Tournament, who will wrestle John Cena December thirteenth in his final match on Saturday Night's main event, And we had two more matches in the tournament tonight Solo Soukoa was wrestling a mystery man and the other match is the one that I was. The one thing on the show tonight really more than anything else that I was most looking forward to was Gunther, who we have not seen since SummerSlam, taking on Javon Evans.

And now that we know there's no more mystery people in the tournament, we already know all the names in the Last Time is Now Tournament. Javon Evans was the only representative from NXT in this tournament, which I will say is quite disappointing. You know, now that we can see who's in the tournament and kind of get a sense of where things are going, I will say they could have done a better job with this tournament. But this was the match I was most looking forward to

in the entire thing. I was hoping we might get it later on at the tournament. Give Javon a few wins on his way to the match with Gunther, but they gave it to us tonight. It did not disappoint as far as Whosolo so CoA stepped into the ring with. We had a return tonight of a former WWI star, very much in the same vein of what we saw on SmackDown Friday Night where La Knight had a mystery opponent and out came Matt Cardona. Only he wasn't Matt Cardona.

He was Zach Rider because that's the last time people would have seen him on WWE television. He was Zach Ryder. Well, tonight it was Nick Nemath, only he didn't come out as Nick Nemath. He came out as Dolph Ziggler, because that is how the WWE audience would remember him. That's the last time we saw him. He was Dolf Zigler on TV, so he was the big surprise there. But you talk about surprises, they loaded up for Bear with the surprises on this show tonight, even though they weren't

all surprise. I mean, we kind of knew at least some of the names that were likely going to be on the show tonight. But they loaded this show up with a lot of big names, and the biggest among them Roman Reigns and Brock Lesner. There's only one reason they would be on the show tonight, and that is if they are going to be part of the War Games match, which in fact they are. That now rounds out the teams because it was four on four coming into tonight. Now we know what the field is going

to be. Now we know it's five on five. Roman Reigns on the baby face side, brought Lesner as a favorite of Paul Hayman. He is the fifth man on Team Vision. I guess we can call it Team Vision even though there's only two members technically of the Vision that are on this team. But they saved those two returns for the very end of the show. We had an Women's Intercontinental Championship match tonight and talk about women's war games. Becky Lynch was defending her title tonight against

Maxine Dupre. They've been feuding now for a few months. Maxine came into this show with two wins over Becky Lynch, none of which were by you know, submission or any sort of decisive win, but you know, wins nonetheless, and so tonight the championship was on the line. The question is what they have Maxine beat her for a third time? Would this be the night that aj Lee would make

her return? Would aj Lee factor into the finish of the match, which is what I've been talking about because we have not seen aj Lee since Wreussell Palooza, which was almost two months ago. And not only did we get the return of Aja Lee tonight, it directly led into the finish of the match, which was Maxine Dupre pinning Becky Lynch to become the new Women's Intercontinental Champion. Yes, Maxine Dupre won a singles title in this company before

Chad Gable did. I really don't know what to say to that, but here we are, this is the world we live in. But good for her, I mean She was as shocked as anybody. I think her parents were there. This was like a big moment for her, her first championship win and it comes in Madison Square Garden and it's going to directly now, i'd believe, feed into women's wargames and who fills out those last two spots because women's war Games at the moment is still four on four.

It will not be for much longer. We saw the backstage segment later in the show where Rio Ripley wanted to have a conversation with aj Lee. We're gonna get aj on one side, We're gonna get Becky Lynch on the other. That's going to be your women's wargames field five on five Team AJ team Becky. So now we know, right whatever questions we had that were still lingering as far as wargames coming into tonight, even though the women's stuff is not official yet, but now we know where

things are headed as far as that goes. The other thing also about women's wargames, I say that the fields are complete at five on five because Charlotte Flair was back on the show tonight, coming to the rescue really more so of her friend Alexa Blisz, not so much Rhea Ripley and EO. Sky, but they certainly left you with the impression that she was going to end up joining on the babyface side. Even after the angle they just did on Friday night. They've already negated the angle

that they did on SmackDown on Friday night. They rushed right into this Charlotte. She was right back on TV tonight. I don't even know what the point, frankly, of what we saw on Friday was, if they were just going to rush right into it. But again, it looks like we have our five on five field. And for all the problems that I've talked about in recent weeks when it comes to SmackDown, and there are a lot of them, and on top of that, the show's going to three hours,

as if that's gonna make it any better. SmackDown's got a lot of problems. But I will say, you know, you watch a show like the one that we got tonight, and part of the problem with SmackDown is you watch a loaded episode of Raw like this and you see what they gave us on tonight's show, and I get it was the Garden and it was a special night for Sena. But we got John Cena on the show tonight, right, He hasn't been on SmackDown. His last SmackDown was what

months ago, right two months ago? So we got John Cena on the show. We had the returns of Roman Reigns and brock Lesner and aj Lee, and even Dolf Ziggler made an appearance here on the show What is Left for Friday? Like What's Left for Friday? They get the scraps. That show could use all the help it can get. It didn't do smackdow this week any favors by loading up this raw show the way that they did. But I got to give a shout out to Brian

shout out to Brian Bird. I chuckled when he tweeted this to me, but when the show is over, he did send me this. He goes John Cena, brock Lesner, Roman Rains, cm Punk, aj Lee, raymus Stereo, Nikki Bella goes man. This raw from twenty thirteen was lit and I'm like, you know what, He's kind of got a point. It does feel in some way like we have fallen into a time warp and we've gone back by about twelve or thirteen years with all the names we saw on the show tonight, but it did make for a

fun show. We'll talk about the whole thing here. This is your raw on Netflix review. It is Monday night. It is November seventeenth, twenty twenty five, not twenty thirteen. Even though it might feel like it, I am the solemn monster. You know, it strikes me now that I say that date out loud. November seventeen? It was? Was

it thirty? No? Oh? Was twenty nine? Twenty nine years ago? Tonight, on this very day at Madison Square Garden, Psycho Sid beat Sewn Michaels at Madison Square Garden to win the WWF Championship in that very building that they ran tonight. How about that, Believe it or not, That's actually one of my favorite matches at Survivor series, best match of

Sid's career, Shawn Michaels and Sid at MSG. That was when the crowd turned on Shawn Michaels that night, and they were very happy to see Sid win the title for the first time. And that's right, Rock, That's right. Rock made his debut on the Survivor series that night as well. He was the sole survivor for his team, So there you go. That was like an afterthought that guy the Rock, Whatever happened to that Rocky my via guy? That's right. I was thinking, like, did anything else of

note happened on that show? I'm like, no, I don't think so. Yes, the fucking Rock debuted that night, So let's get into this. Here's right. Undertaker came down like Batman. One of the silliest Undertaker entrances honestly of his entire career. That was the tear drop Undertaker. He had the tear drop on his cheek. I'm pretty sure that had the symbolism there. I think a friend of his may have

passed away. I don't know who it was. I don't know what the circumstances were, because I always wondered about that, like what was it the fucking tear drop, because like, after a year it was gone, but it was just weird and there was never any explanation for it. But yes, he descended from the ceiling as Batman that night. Thankfully

he never did that again. Now, last week in Boston, they opened the show with Triple H in the ring because he knew it was all sold out, and he goes man, I got to make sure I'm a part of this. Maybe he was marking out he wanted to be a part of Johnson his last segment in Boston, No Triple H tonight to give us a whole speech before John Cena came out. They went on the air and John Sena was out to the ring to open

the show here in New York City. That was Boston, this was NYC got a massive reaction here his final entrance as an active performer here at MSG. So of course you had to expect that it was going to be a big reaction here. And even when he got to the ring and he called for the music to be stopped, they kept cheering and chanting his name, and then Alicia Taylor did her introduction for him. We got chance of thank you Sena. He told him the champ is here, said MSG has allowed him to perform here

for twenty three years. Tonight is the last time that they can talk together on Monday Night Raw. And you know when he said that, it really hit me that this was his last television appearance. I mean not just his last RAW appearance, but the last time that he will come to the ring like he did tonight. A segment on one of the weekly shows to talk to us and cut a promo because the only two dates left a Survivor series and then Saturday Night's main event.

That's it, you know. And I'm sure we'll see SNA back on TV at some point, but it'll just be like a high hi, how are you you know? Kind of thing. So, yeah, this was pretty historic in multiple ways tonight, but he goes it's bittersweet for some but an important moment for him, and he wants to take a second. Well, I mean, he could take all the time he needs because he didn't get any further in this promo before he was interrupted by Dominic Mysterio made

his way out to the ring. No cheers for domin New York. I don't care how popular he's been. These segments with Sena he has gotten. It's like old school Dominic Mysterio. Nothing but he he comes down to the ring, says last week, Sena was handed a title shot, just like he's been handed everything else. Meanwhile, he has fought for every he has, so he wants a rematch for his intercontinental title. Sina said he came to the right building. He's not backing down on his last Monday Night Raw.

Tonight it will be John Cena against Dominic Mysterio for the Intercontinental Championship, right here, right now, And Dom looked at him, and Dom smirked and said no, said they already did things seen his way. He had management on his side, he had his hometown on his side, so now they're gonna do it his way. And the fans greeted him with chance of shut the fuck up. He says, you want to fight now or not? And Tom said no, Survivor Series, San Diego, my hometown or my backyard, same shit.

Seina told him, no problem. I accept. Here's where he has a problem though. He says he told the world that he would have a match on his life Raw and he sees an opponent right in the middle of the ring. So for tonight, let's forget about this, said, let's forget about the championship. This will be for San Diego. But tonight it could be you and me, one on one here on Monday Night Raw. And he goes, do you feel lucky? Punk? And I thought that was going to be a cue. They were going to do a

tag team match with seeing him Punk his tag team partners. Now, after this the Judgment Days music hit and Finn Balor walks out with JD McDonough make their way to the ring. Sena took his shirt off and he was ready for a fight, but it was three on one and Dom told him, you're not gonna get your final match on Raw, but what you are going to get is your ass beat and they pounced on him. Three on one. Who's

gonna come out Seamus. Shamus runs down to the ring to make the save, but it was still three on two until Raymisterio came out to even things up and the Judgment they got dumped out of the ring. Sena said, We're gonna have a six man tag team match right here, right now. It's going to be the Judgment Day against Seamus, Raymys Stereo and John Cena. He's aid, get a referee out here, and they went to commercial. So a few things to unpack here. We are getting a rematch with

Sena and Dom, and I'm okay with that. You know, I was talking about this the other day and I'm like, man, I thought they were going to do an open challenge, right we didn't know what seen his final match was going to be. I said, I can see it being an open challenge. The other idea that I flowed in, and this was something I tweeted I think last week.

I said, if they're not going to go the way of the open Challenge or haven't put the belt on the line, watch for a tag team match, because I could see John Cena and raymus Stereo as tag team partners against Finn Balor and Dominic Masterio, which is what we got tonight, only they made it a six man tag so instead of Seena and Ray, he was seen

a Ray and Seamus. And I have no issue with them adding Seamus because that will very likely be the last time that we see John Cena and Shamus work together because I got news for you, Seamus ain't winning that tournament. So I'm totally fine with them getting Sena and shame Is back in the ring together, even if it's on the same side. That was very cool to see. And then you have JD McDonough and there basically is

the fall guy. I mean, let's be honest. So that was the match that they made Sena and dom and San Diego. I like it just because it's a way to get the championship off of him before they go to Saturday Night's main event. There is no need for him to defend that championship in his last match, especially if it's gonna be against the man that I think we all know who it's gonna be. Now that we know all the names in the tournament, you know you don't have an Obafemi in the tournament, and Jevon Evans

isn't winning the tournament. Someone like that would benefit from wrestling John Sena next month and actually taking the title and then getting a run with it on the main roster to like start them out. Now that we know it's not gonna be anybody like that, there's no fucking point to keeping that championship on him. He has to drop it at Survivor Series. That's it and simple, and he's gonna drop it back to Dom in San Diego. Now it could have been somebody else. Sure he beat

Dom last week. It didn't hurt Dom to be in the ring with John Cena, right, that's not a bad spot for him to be in. And now they're gonna have him pay it back and he's gonna do the honors for Dom at Survivor Series, and that's gonna be huge for Dominique Mysterio, And yes, he's probably not gonna win the belt back clean. I would be shocked frankly if he does. But he's gonna get his win back.

Very likely he's gonna get the title back, and we won't have to worry about the Intercontinental Championship having anything to do with John Cena's final match, because it should not be about that should be a bad John Cena and whoever his opponent is gonna be And adding a championship to the mix, frankly, only makes things more predictable because think about it, it could go either way. John Cena

could win. They might want him to get the triumphant heroic win in his final match, even though if it were up to him, he would probably, you know, lose or he might lose, and he probably should lose. But if you throw the championship in there, it just makes it that much more predictable. So for a lot of different reasons, it's good that they're doing this, whether or not you think it should be DOM. I mean, you can pick knits when it comes to that, but DOM

is the future. Like there are certain guys that you can look at right now on the WWE roster okay on the men's side, and it's less than five, but there are certain names, and there's three of them really that actually four, I think there's four of them that stand out. In particular. You've got Obafemi is going to be a massive deal unless Triple H just completely fucks him up. Obafemi is going to be a major star for them on the main roster in twenty twenty six.

So you've got Obafemi, You've got bron Breaker, right, You've got Jacob Fatu, and you've got Dominic Mysterio. Those four right there, and frankly, after what we've seen from him this year, you could throw Javon Evans in there too, but he's still I mean, look, he'll be on the main roster soon then it should be. But he's also twenty one years old, right, so when we talk about the future and the here and now, Javon Evans can be the hero and now in terms of elevating him

from NXT to the main roster. Javon Evans though, is not going to be in the main event NIX right now. That's where you know a bron Breaker or a dom who's got many more years on him on the main roster. Those guys will make it there before Javon does. But these four or five guys, this is the future of the company right here. And I haven't even mentioned any of the women. But this is the future. And Dom's going to be a massive babyface at some point, probably

next year. We're probably not going to have to wait that much longer. So if Sinea is going to put anybody over, it should be someone like Dominic Mysterio. But anyway, this match here, it started during the commercial break. Seb says, did La Knight do anything on the show? La Knight? He got a win over Zach Ryder on Friday, so he is technically still in this tournament. It's not gonna win, but he is in the tourney. Who's not on Raw tonight though, So this six man tag started during the

commercial break. What happened was the judgment day, they teased Bailing before they even got into the ring, so the baby Faces said fuck this. They left the ring, and they followed them into the aisleway and jumped them and brought them back to the ring and it was mostly Shamus beating up Dom until JD McDonough pulled the rope down,

Seamus went tumbling out to the floor. So when they came back, the Heels had control over Seamus here in this match, so they got heat on him for a long time before he got the hot tag to Ray. This was Ray's first match here on Raw in about seven months. It was that Friday right before WrestleMania when he got hurt. He had surgery, so this was it. This his first time back in the ring, and he

looked good. You know. Again, he didn't have to wrestle the whole match by himself because it was a six men, but the spots he did and everything. He was in there, taking bumps and flying around, so you know, he looked great. He got Baleri position for the six to one to nine. Dom though tripped him up when he hit the ropes. Balor slid Ray out of the ring under the bottom rope and he bounced off the floor outside hard and

that then we bounced into another commercial break. At that point, Dom did the Three Amigos into a brain buster on his father during the break before Baller tagged back in Baler and McDonough. They were trying for a double team move. It ended with McDonough getting crotched on the top rope. Ray got a hot tag to John Cena, We got the shoulder tackles to JD and we got the U can't seem into the five knuckle shuffle. Sina went for an attitude adjustment. McDonald landed on his feet kind of

took seeing it down with a head butt. Then the judgment day they all hit their finishes on Sena. We had Jad McDonough fly off the top rope with a moon salt, We had Finn Balor fly off the top rope with a kudigrass, and we had Dirty Dom fly off with a frog splash. Then they all dog piled on top of Sena for the pin. Seamus and Ray they got in and they broke up the pin at the last possible second. Ray got domin position for a six one nine Balor though and McDonough pulled him out

to safety. So at that point, the baby faces they all pulled the heels up onto the apron and we got a triple ten beats. We got thirty beats to the judgment day. Then in the ring they all got three the three heels down and they did a triple. You can't see me into what I guess would be a fifteen knuckle shuffle. I guess that's what it would be, right. So Ray hit a double six point nine to Dom and McDonough who were in the ropes. Seamus hit Balor

with a brogue kick. This is all rapid fire this finishing sequence, and Sena finished off McDonough with an attitude adjustment to win it fourteen. Sina, it was actually a hell of a finishing sequence. All action here, crowd ate it up and all the babyfaces celebrated together. Seamus had a big smile on his face. Sina looked happy Ray was in there. Fans were happy. They left the ring, and when they got to the stage, because they had the minimalists set up to fit more people into Madison

Square Guard, they had a legit sellout tonight. It was over eighteen thousand people and it was the stage where you can see over the stage and they have more fans behind, which I actually love. It was one of the things you know, back in the day when you had the giant Titan tron, like the raws War days, you had that whole section behind the giant screen where you just couldn't fit people. You had to have all

those empty seats. So like back then, imagine how many more tickets they could have sold if they actually had those seats open and available. And so now it's like, now we're going to sell as many of these seats as we possibly can, and we'll have just the set itself is an led screen. We don't need a giant Titan tron. So Seena is looking up at all the fans that are behind the set and he tells Seamus and Ray He's like, you can hear it, not hear him, but you could see him. You have read lips here.

And he's telling them like stay right, and then he's waiting and he's like, all right, turn around. So they all turn around together and pose for the fans, and Sina looks into the camera and he goes Monday night raw, that's all she wrote. He goes love you, thank you, and he left with Seamus's arm around his neck. Look like two brothers walking off into the sunset here. Hey, you know what Seamus is, he's not too far off either. He's been around for a while and he's pretty beat up.

So he hasn't said anything about retiring in the near future, you know, like aj Styles has said he's retiring next year, but Seamus is getting pretty close to the Big five. Ooh, and you know, in the next few years, who knows, we may be having a similar situation where Seamus is ready to hang it out and he could still go

at a high level. John Cena said he's getting out now because he doesn't want to be that guy who overstays as welcome and people look at him and go main, he's washed, you know, he just can't do it anymore. So as far as the match is concerned, I would have if I had a preference, I would have preferred that they did, even if just for one night. And he dropped it tonight, although these fans really didn't want

to see Scena lose. But like an Intercontinental title Open challenge, you know, in the spirit of the old US Title Open challenge that he did and seen has always coming out and talking about giving opportunities to people. As I was given an opportunity, I'm gonna give somebody else an opportunity and then have him in there with someone, maybe

someone that he's not wrestled before. Maybe maybe there's another you know, young member of that NXT roster or someone like that, like in a perfect world scenario, would have been an important singles match as his final raw match. They elected not to do that because they're saving the Dominic match for a Survivor series. So we got a six man tag and you know what, that's fine. It was a crowd pleasing match. It got Seena in the ring one last time with some big names like Ray

and Seamus. It was the feel good match, you know, and Scena beating the judgment day makes sense because he's going to lose that Survivor Series. Like for John Cena to go to Survivor Series and win again against Dominic Mysterio would be the antithesis of everything that John Sena talks about representing. You know, Like I had no issue with him winning last week. If he goes in there

and wins again at Survivor Series, that's very different. Like, if you're going to run this match back, it's for one reason and one reason only, because he's going to do the honors for dom and drop the belt back to him. Otherwise there is no point. There is no point in running that match back if Sina is going to win again. So he won tonight and when he goes to San Diego, he's gonna lose, So there was nothing wrong with what they did here. It was a

fun final few minutes here. And believe me, that win at Survivor Series will mean a lot more for DOM than a meaningless win and a six man tag would have been tonight, Yeah, Roderick says, Joe Henry would have gotten a massive pop. I thought that we were going to get Joe Hendry on this show. I thought we were going to get Joe Hendry in this tournament, and they went with they went with a different TNA star instead, although Joe Hendry is technically no longer a TNA star officially,

he's a WWE star now. If there was actually one surprise on the show, it was who he didn't see, which was Joe Hendry, who's in town by the way, because he's wrestling on NXT tomorrow night at the theater at Madison Square Garden, actually teaming with THEA Hale to take on Chelsea Green and even Page for the I believe the TRIPAA mixtag team titles. So he'll be there

tomorrow night, but he wasn't there tonight. We go to the back and we had the two general managers, Nick All this Adam Pearce and they're talking about all this is very unhappy about what happened at the end of SmackDown on Friday when Drew McIntyre came back. He just suspended this fucking guy and he came back. And the loophole was that Paul Hayman had the right, as part of Wargames to choose any star from any brand, and you know, look, he I guess technically could choose someone

who was suspended. That's how Drew McIntyre got into war Games. So they were talking about what happened. Paul Hayman enters the room and he said that if my Drew McIntyre pick pissed you off, wait until you see what I have in store for our final team member in Wargames. And he had the Wargames contract binder with him and he handed it to them and he walked off laughing.

So the GMS open it up and they look at the contractor we can't see who the name is, but they know who it is, and you can just read their faces. They were not very happy about it, and Adam Pierce says, well, this is going to be fun. I think we already knew who that name was going to be, but they milked it. They were saving it for the end of the show. During the break, Jackie Redmond was at ringside and she interviewed Andrew Schultz, who was a comedian in a podcast supposedly and a podcaster.

He's been there before. He got pretty well booed by the fans here in New York. Not like Dominic Mysterio Boode, but he got fucking booed. So he stands up and he's talking about how great it is to be here. He's like, let's have another round of applause here for John Cena and his last night, and they're like boo,

like this fucking guy. So then he starts calling Dom a nepo baby bitch, and we couldn't see the judgment day is still a ringside, so Dom saunters over and he says some stuff and the two of them end up shoving each other. Dom gives him a shove and he shoves him back. But that brought Cam Scataboo of the New York Giants, who was sitting right there in

the front row next to Andrew Schultz. Cam Scataboo stands up the New York Giants running back who just suffered a gruesome injury only a few weeks ago, the very end of October. And he's someone who, like, I'm not a big Giant fan, my brother is. I have some friends who are big Giants fans. Yeah, I can understand they're suffering. As a Mets fan, I can understand. If you're a Mets fan or a Jets fan or a Giants fan, you're kind of all in the same boat.

Giants are not doing very well these days, but there's a lot of optimism around Cam Scataboo. He's very likable and his future with the franchise, and so anyway, he suffers this gruesome injury. He dislocated his ankle, He ruptured some sort of ligament I think he had. I think he fractured his fibia, his fibula. I think it was like, really really like the ankle bent in a way it wasn't supposed to, and he had to undergo emergency surgery.

So JD. McDonagh gets up in Scataboo's face and Scataboo gave him a shove, and so a shoving match broke out between the judgment day and a bunch of New York Giants players because he wasn't the only one. A bunch of New York Giants players in the front row, including Skataboo who got shoved, And I'm like, I'm watching

this and I'm actually stunned. I'm stunned, like if I am New York Giants management and I'm watching this like I'm sweating bullets watching this right now, although I'm probably not sweating any more than I would any given Sunday the way that fucking team plays. But I was a little surprised that he got physical at all here in this segment, so they all had to be separated and

that was the end of that. So anyway, after this, when they came back, Jackie Redmond was in the ring to tell us that she is going to have a special interview momentarily with the Women's World Champion. But first let's go back to last week and they replay what happened when Nikki Bella turned heel on Stephanie Vequier and

attacked her and left her laying. So then Jackie introduces Stephanie out to the ring and the Women's World Champion did not make it beyond the stage because as soon as she came out, she gets ambushed from behind by Nicki Bella, who grabs her and throws her into the entrance set, into the led screen and then down goes Stephanie. And now we're gonna hear from Nicki. Nicki Bella is going to cut a promo here. She says she didn't come back to sheer from the sidelines and be Stephanie's

side p or side piece sidekick. Well, that would be an interesting storyline. She didn't come back to be Stephanie's sidekick. She came back to take what's hers, which is the entire division, and she thanks Mama Sita for reminding her who the hell she is. Stephanie will give her a title shot and will bow down. Everything about this was bad. Nicki's promo is very flat and honestly, they should have had her do something else or something more to Stephanie.

Like the worst part about this. He attack Stephanie from behind, nothing particularly vicious, and she just throws her like one throw into the screen and Stephanie, the Women's World Champion and Crown Jewel Champion is down on the ground and has to just lay there and listen to this promo and sell and sell, and I'm like, she's still down? How is she not back up? Fighting back here? Just made her look so weak because Nicki didn't really do much to her, but she's laying on the fucking ground.

It's like, what are we doing here? So I just thought it made Stephanie look silly. And then we found out later on the match is going to take place at Survivor Series. So Stephanie defends her Women's World Championship against Nicki Bella in San Diego. I know you're all very excited. What does that bring the total to? We have Sena and Dom, we have two War Games matches,

now we know Stephanie and Nikki. That's four. Are we to assume that we're gonna get the finals of the John Cena Tournament on the pl or are they gonna do it on Raw the following night, because I think

that should be a match at Survivor Series. For being honest, I think you do the match at Survivor Series, and after Sena's match, you have the winner of the tournament, Gunther come out and maybe we have even even if it's from a distance, but we have like a little face off between Sena and whoever's final opponent is going to be like a little teaser because we're not getting John Cena on television again between now and his last

match like tonight was it. So if we're gonna have any sort of stare down or face to face or confrontation with Sena and his opponent, it's going to have

to take place at Survivor Series. So I would think that you would do like maybe you open with women's war Games, then maybe you do the finals of the Sena tournament, and then after that you can do the you can do the women's match and then and you could do the scene a match, or you could do the scene match and then the women's matches to come down, and then you close with men's war games. I would

think that would be the way. That's how I would format the show, But I don't think they've specified where exactly the finals are taking place. Survivor Series, though, is where it should be, and that there's your five matches right there that gives you five triple Ah loves his five matches. Backstage, Bailey and Lyra Valkyrie, they were walking walking and talking and Bailey spotted someone off camera who he couldn't see she goes, hold on a second, and

she walks over and it's the Kabuki Warriors. See, these are like two K twenty five cut scenes in the back where not even a cut scene, like your character is in the back and people are just randomly standing around. That's what this was, because apparently Oscar and Kyrie were just standing there. I don't even know if they were talking to each other. They were waiting for somebody to come over and talk to them. So Bailey comes over and Oscar says, look, we need five people for wargames,

and Bailey can be on their team. She could forgive the past, Let's be partners. And Bailey can't believe that Oscar would have the audacity to even ask her to be partners, and she turns her down flat. Oscar storms off. Kyrie then does the you can't see me taunt to Bailey and then of course, you know you hear Osca in the background, and off goes com my goodness, off

goes Kyrie. And Lyra was very impressed with Osca or very impressed with Bailey turning Osca down, and Bailey just basically said she called her an idiot and said let's go and that was the end of that. So Bailey and Lyra they will not be a part of Women's War Games. I don't know what's next for them, but that was their only segment on the show here tonight. Next was our first of two matches and the John Cena Last Time is Now tournaments with Solo's Socoa on

his way to the ring with Talatonga. I know you're all very disappointed. There was no j. C. Matteo, there was no Tomatonga, there was no Great Tonga Loa on the show tonight. But we got Talatanga who just he stood there. He didn't get involved, he didn't really do anything. He just stood there and looked menacing. But it was

Solo Socoa against a mystery opponent. That mystery opponent was Dolf Ziggler, who got a big pop. You got a big reaction from the crowd here at Madison Square, guard I gotta tell you, though, maybe it was just a

scheduling thing. I don't know, but you would you would think, well, I don't know, I mean, you would think that if you were going to have Cardona and Nemath in this tournament, why not save Cardona for Madison Square Garden like I would that Survivor series in Madison Square Garden in twenty eleven, when the Zach Ryder stuff was really taking off and the Rock came back. That night, he wrestled his first

match that night in like eight years. He teamed with Sina against mis and Artrup and really the whole show. But even when the show was over and Rock was cutting a promo, he was being drowned out for a while there by a chance of we want Ryder and to the point where he had to stop his promo and acknowledge it. So this was like where the Rider's stuff was really starting to take off. And if I remember correctly, I think Writer funny enough. I think Writer,

and somebody will tell me if I'm wrong. I think he wrestled Dolf actually at the beginning of the show that night. But yeah, why not save Cardona for tonight and have Nemath on Friday against La Night that I don't really understand. But he got a big pop here and I'm just watching this going. Man, I just called a match with this guy forty eight hours ago at the House Glory Show, and now here he is on

Monday Night Raw. It's funny how those things work, except when I called the match on Saturday he was Nicknamath. Tonight he was not Nick Namath. He was Dov Ziggler, which I figured he would be after you know, Cardona got Zack Ryder on Friday. Why would they have Ziggler come out and be anything but Dolf Ziggler on this show. So Ziggler got off to a hot start, beautiful drop kick, but heading into the brake, Solo took control held it all the way through the break until they came back.

Ziggler did manage a famouser for a near fall. Sikoa came back with a huge spinning solo slam for a near fall of his own, and he brandished the taped up thumb. He was gonna go for the Samoan spike. Dolph ducked it and got a roll up for a close two, and then he hit the zigzag and what a fucking reaction for this. And he went for the cover and he hooked the leg and everybody thought maybe he would have it, and then Solo kicked out at the last second, and I had flashbacks there with the

reaction when he hit that zigzag. Here I had flashbacks of the reaction when he hit that when he cashed in on Alberto del dipshit and he hit that zigzag, and it was actually at the Aizid Center in New Jersey, so not too far from here, and he won the championship, you know, his sole world heavyweight championship. He won the championship with that move, but it was not to be here.

He followed up with a super kick. He tried for another zigzag, Solo shook him off and then spiked him right in the throat and he got the three count to advance. So both TNA guys in this tournament are ousted in the opening round. Thanks for coming. The funny thing is they never I don't think one time acknowledged that they are currently wrestling in TNA. I mean, this is just this is the way they operate. N XT

is a whole other beast. But on the main roster, not only do they get their old names back, you can't even acknowledge that they are a part of TNL. If they did on commentary, I didn't hear it. It's like, oh, look who's back. Zach Ryder is back. Oh my god, Dolf Ziggler is back. Everybody, I guess he's just been chilling for the last few years. They're just hanging out. Oh man, can't even tell people where they are, how you can find them what they've been up to. So, yeah,

you have dolv Ziggler here booked to lose. I mean, look, the more things change, the more they stay the same. What did you really expect? He was treated like a perennial mid carter for basically the entirety of his career in this company. At no point was dolv Ziggler treated truly treated as any sort of main event talent, even

though we had main event talent. He was a perennial mid carter, you know, or upper mid carter his entire time in the company, did whatever they asked of him, and and you know, always, you know, knocked it out of the park, super talented, super athletic, to the point where I think it actually worked to his disadvantage. That's why they wanted him to help make other people look good at his own expense. But that's how they used them,

you know. I mean, so you had to know that he wasn't beating Solo Socoa even though everybody else does. Finally they found somebody who solo could beat I mean, Solo's got the MFTs on SmackDown. We got to keep them looking strong. The MFTs have a Survivor Series elimination match coming up on SmackDown in two weeks. It's gonna be the MFTs against Samby's Aim Shins, Kay Nakamora, Ray Phoenix, the MotorCity Machine Guns. Dolf Ziggler is back for one

night only. I mean, did you honestly believe that he was going to beat Solo's Socoa. That's why I was. I was kind of hoping it would be Joe Hendry because Joe Hendry is now a fish, signed and sealed. He is a WWE superstar, even though he's going to be an NXT, so it's like he's their guy. He could beat Solo Socoa. But even that was probably not going to happen. So nothing about this was really much

of a surprise. It's too bad, though, I'll tell you, because had Ziggler advanced, it would have made for a better match in the next round against anybody, it doesn't even matter who you put him in the ring with. It would have been a better match, but it was not to be. So instead it's going to be Solo Socoa in the next round. They never put together any

kind of bracket for this. What they did show us though, is that Solo Sokoa will meet the winner of the match that is coming up on Friday on SmackDown between Finnbalor and Penta, which has to be Penta. I don't see them doing heel on heel in this situation, so and honestly, they protect Penta more than they protect Pinn Balor, who lost tonight as well in that six man tag So it should be Solo and pent it would be my guess in the next round. So after this, it

was all on Javon Evans. It's like, okay, the t and a guy lost the heel won. We need Javon to find a way to pull through tonight so we can get a babyface win here in this tournament, because if he doesn't do it, we get two heel wins here on the show. And actually gave us a quick video package for Javan, which I liked. I thought that

was smart for them to do that. Now, after this, Alexa Blists, one half of the now former WWE Women's Tag Team Champions, made her way out to the ring by herself They recapped the angle that they shot at the beginning to smack Down this past Friday, where we had Rhea Ripley and Eosky and Alexa Bliss and Charlotte Flair. They were all in the ring together and I don't know. Charlotte says, you know, Lexi, I can't do this. She looks at Ria. She goes, Ria, I don't like you,

I don't respect you. I think you're a snake. And so I can't be a part of this team. And she left. And so what are they doing. They're trying to create some internal drama on the baby face side heading into wargames. I said, all right, you let this go for a week, two weeks, and then at the last minute Charlotte. Of course, Charlotte's gonna come home and she'll be a part of the team. So that's what

led to this. And Alexa complained that Charlotte ignored all of her calls and text messages all weekend, and she knows that she's been around because she sees her posting photos of her frolicking around the city. So she called the cameraman over and she looked dead into the camera. She said, really, Charlotte said, after everything that we've been through, I get that you're upset about us losing the tag team titles, but we can always get those back. It's

harder to get back trust. Everyone warned me not to trust you, but I ignored them because I knew who you were on the inside. But maybe now Charlotte was proving her wrong. Bliss said that she got her ass beat simply because Charlotte didn't like Ria Ripley. Charlotte wasn't

there when Bliss needed her best friend. And I should point out that Alexa Bliss was getting what chance throughout the segment, and I thought she handled it well because she acknowledged them and she kind of incorporated them into the promo. She's like, yeah, really, guys, and they just kept going with it because you know, they get drunk and stupid, and that's what stupid people do. So she handled it as best she could, but she was interrupted

by Oscar Kyrie, sain Naya Jax, and Lash Legend. Naya, as Bliss's former friend, said that she understood exactly why Charlotte left her, and the Heels surrounded Bliss on the apron Rhea Ripley and Eosky. They ran out to the ring to join her. They were still out numbered though Ripley and EO they brawled with Oscar and Kyrie on the outside. That left Alexa alone in the ring with

Naya Jackson Lash legend. Charlotte finally runs out to honestly a pretty tepid reaction, like not a big pop or anything like that when they played her music, But she ran out to the ring with a kendo stick. She attacked Naya and Lash with the kendo stick over and over and over and over and over again, just lashed, no pun intended. She was lashing Lash over and over and over until finally they rolled out of the ring.

So Charlotte helps Bliss up to her feet, gives her a hug, and then on the opposite well really in the opposite corner are Rea, Ripley and Eosky and EO ses Charlotte hugging Alexa. So Eo, in like a very comedic way, grabs and gives her a big hug, and he's looking at Charlotte like, oh yeah, so that was kind of amusing, and Charlotte couldn't help but start cracking up laughing. She obviously could not contain herself that was honestly, the most amusing part of the entire segment were the

last five seconds. So I have a question for all of you, are you ready? Are you ready for Kendo Games coming up in a few weeks in San Diego, because that's what we're getting. Get ready for the Kendo sticks. You got a little preview of it here tonight on the show. It's war Games. But I just love how they rendered that whole angle they did. I mean, I guess they could still tease tension during the match between

Charlotte and Rhea, but I don't know. I kind of feel like they just rushed right through what should have been an angle that went at least another week. And then you bring Charlotte home, you know, maybe on the

Go Home Show or something. It's like, what was the point of even doing that angle on Friday where she walked out and says, I can't team with you, And then tonight she comes out to save Alexa, but she's in the ring and they're talking like, all right, well, we don't know what Charlotte's gonna do, but yeah, it kind of looks like she's gonna be on the team after all. It's like, Okay, way to render that angle kind of pointless from Friday, just rush right through it.

This wasn't much of a segment. This was the weak point of the show. Alexi's promo was fine, it was good, but the segment itself was really nothing special. After this, though, we had Becky Lynch defending the Women's Intercontinental Championship against Maxine Dupree. Jessica Carr was the referee yet again for Becky's match, and Becky hasn't complained before that this referee has constantly screwed her over in these matches, so of course she keeps getting assigned to these matches, and what

do they think, this is the NBA. So the crowd was mostly bored. Honestly for the first few minutes of this. You could tell because they broke out their phones and they just started doing the fireflies. They were more entertaining themselves than being entertained by this match. Becky was arguing with Jessica as she called for the bell to actually start the match. I should point that out. So they did a very quick near false spot at the very

beginning that nobody bought anyway. Later on, as this thing went on, Maxine hit a Fisherman's suplex. She dropped her straps and she hit really missed a leg drop for an ear fall. Becky booted her arm and then tried to target it, obviously setting it up for the disarm. Her Maxine, though, fought back again. Becky lifted her out of the corner and hit a power bomb. Becky tried

applying an armbar. Maxine bridged out of it, and she got an ankle lock applied, and then she ultimately grapevined the legs like Kurt angle in there, and she's got her in the center of the ring. And this is where the fans started to really get into it, because once she got the grapevine and she was kind of in the middle of the ring, the fans are like, oh, wait a minute, here, she might actually win with this move.

And Becky is teasing that she might tap out, and she's screaming in pain and she's flailing around and she's trying to find her way out of this. So she does ultimately manage to slip out of the hold and she kicked Dupre in the arm again. Becky hit a man handle slam, but when she did, she hit it right next to the ropes, so we got the predictable

rope brake. When Maxine put her foot on the bottom rope, Becky got in the referee's face again and she starts poking her in the chest and Jessica is not having any of this shit, so she's batting her hand down, telling her you need to pay attention to your opponent, focus on the match. Becky threw Maxine out of the ring, and as Jessica is checking on Maxine, Becky's in the corner and she's trying to untie the top turnbuckle pad. And as she's attempting to do this, all of a sudden,

we hear, let's light it up. And I'm not talking about Snoop Dogg. I'm talking about aj Lee. Aj Lee skips out. We haven't seen her since Wrestle Palooza, so she skips down the aisle right down to the ring. This distracts Becky and when Becky turns around, she gets caught by a flying crossbody. Maxine is flying through the air. She lands the crossbody, she hooks the leg, she gets the flash pin, and just like that, she wins the

Intercontinental Championship. So what this was if you remember and if you were watching at the time, you remember this. This is one of those Raw moments that we'll get talked about in you know, countdowns and best Raw Moments, Memorable Raw moments from two thousand and three. Before that last match between Austin and Rock, Rock had a match

on Raw against Hurricane Helms. And what happened right, Austin came out and distracted Rock and Hurricane got the pin and he quickly rolled out of the ring and he ran away. It was and they played Austin's music too, like he won the match, like he technically has a win over the Rock, but it was because stone Cold Steve Austin caused a distraction and they, as I recall,

they played Austin's music even after Hurricane won. It's like he won, but it's like, I don't know, like did he really That's what this kind of felt like to me, Like Maxine won, but did she really? Not really? So it made her look a little bit weak, but she won, and it got a great reaction at the finish, and I think fans were also just really happy to see They're just really happy to see aj you know. So

Maxine immediately rolls out of the ring. She had a look on her face like she couldn't believe it, and they handed the championship to her. She was in shock. She's you know, hugging and embracing Aj in the aisleway holds the championship up, and they shoot Piro off behind her, you know, on the by the stage. Becky was obviously just beside herself with anger. In the ring, she was all pissed off. The match itself was really nothing special what we saw of it. The match itself was nothing

special at all. But the thing is like Maxine Duprix. If you think about where Maxine Duprix was a year ago, and I actually think back to that house show. I don't remember when it was. Was it last year or the year before, I don't remember, but there was a house show that made news because there were there might be one fan who made some derogatory comment, like a very disrespectful comment at Maxim and everybody in the internet

was very bothered by this and upset about this. And I think she kind of, you know, took it in stride. But to go from from that where she just wasn't very good. She was someone who got thrown right into the fire. She did not spend hardly any time in NXT. They had this role for her as part of the Alpha Academy, and she's hot, so let's call her up to the main roster, even though she's really not ready

for that. And then they wanted her to wrestle, and she wasn't at the experience level that a lot of the other women were, so those rare occasions when she would be able to wrestle, she really didn't do much. She didn't know much. She had to learn on the job. And it's taken a while and she's still not great. You know, she still has a long way to go. It's not like she's out there having these ten twelve minute matches, fifteen minute matches and just you know, tearing

the house down. But she has made tremendous strides over the last couple of years, has made noticeable improvements. And it's not just like her in ring maneuvers and technique. It's like her personality and her facial expressions and the way she carries herself. And she'll drop the straps, she'll get all intense. She's putting the pieces together in a

way that they just were not put together before. And you could see like she's always training with Natty and TJ down at the Dungeon and trying to learn and trying to improve, like on her days off and stuff. So it's cool to see her progress to a point where she's doing something meaningful on this show and working with Becky Lynch. This was their third match together. Working with Becky Lynch is not a bad thing because the run that Becky had with that championship this year was

very good. She had a very good few with Lyra, she took the title. She's had the title since I think June, and she has helped elevate that Intercontinental Championship in a way the WWE never bothered to do with the US title on SmackDown, which is why the US title on SmackDown is so right now. I mean, the disparity between the two championships and the way they've been

booked and treated is just night and day. Now that Maxine Dupre has the championship, my fear is that we're going to get more of the same on Raw with that title as we saw with Julia and the US title on SmackDown, which would be terrible. I don't think that Maxine's gonna have that belt for very long. I

think they wanted her to get the moment. I think it was more about having AJ do something to screw over Becky Lynch that will be the catalyst to AJ being on the babyface side in wargames, which we kind of saw the tease for that later on, and then Becky is going to end up being the fifth woman on the heel side, so you'll have AJ here and Becky there and they can pick up with their feud

and continue their feud. I would not be shocked if Becky just wins the belt back, you know, as soon as December thirteenth, Saturday Night's main event, because I think what they want to do is get the belt back on Becky so that they can then build to Becky and AJ for the Intercontinental Championship early next year. So Maxine's not gonna have this belt for very long. She got her moment in Madison Square Garden. It served its purpose. I give it a few weeks a month maybe at

the most. That belt's gonna find its way right back around Becky's waist unless Becky dropped the belt because she's gonna, you know, disappear for a while and go help her husband convalesce at home. But I suspect that's where we're headed with this, but it made for a fun moment, and aj Lee being back was kind of predictable. I expected that she would probably end up on the baby face side of wargames and we're off to the races. She did sign a full time contract, so she was

going to be back sooner than later. Now from that title change, we turned to the next opening round match and the John Cena last time is now Ornament with the Ring General, the former World Heavyweight champion back for the first time since SummerSlam and his I don't know if it was a broken nose. He had some sort of nasal injury. I think he had that injury going into the match with Cempunk, but he had surgery for it. So he's been gone for a few months. But Gunther

Gunther is back on Monday Night Raw. And not only is he back on Monday Night Raw, he is back with his old NXT theme music, which they never should have changed to begin with. I don't know why, all of a sudden, I don't know what the catalyst for this was, but I was like, oh wait, a minute. I know that music. Sure enough, he got his old music back against Javon Evans. Actually, I should say that's

not Gunther's music, that's Walter's music. That's the music he was using from like the nxt UK days before they changed his name. I will say, of all the crap songs that Deaf Rebel has produced, I would not say that Gunther's WWE music was crap like it grew on me. It was not terrible, like would there have been some terrible like just god awful, god awful deaf Rebel slop. And I liked his WWE music, So it's not like, oh my god, I'm so happy the old music is

back because the current one sucked. But to me, this is still the better of the two. So I was happy to hear. I was completely unexpected. I was happy to hear that. And the fans actually chanted Walter at the beginning of this match. I thought they were chanting Goldberg at first, which would have made no sense whatsoever, But I'm pretty sure that they were chanting Walter. So

this was the match I was looking forward to. Javon Evans is out there and Gunther is dismissively patting him on the head like okay, little boy smacks him and he chops gun there. He countered a few spots until Gunther booted him to take over. Evans countered a power bomb into a hurricane rana, which might have made for a good near fall. The only thing is the referee refused to count because Gunther's shoulders were not fully down on the mat, so Evans followed with a somersault kick.

He tried a suicide dive. Gunther caught him though, out of mid air and just tossed him hard into the the led side of the ring, the ring apron. There was a chop. I have to point this out. It was I'm pretty sure it was during the second commercial break. There was a chop that Gunther gave to Javan Evans here in this match. I shit you not. This chop echoed. I wasn't even in the building. It echoed through that building. It was like a shotgun blast went off, and the

crowd reaction to it was awesome. My reaction was the same way. I was like, late, shit. I mean, he chops a lot in his matches. This one connected. This one connected in a major way. You could see he chopped the soul out of this young man. So anyway, they traded strikes until Evans tried to move where he was springing off the ropes and Gunther booted him. So Evans countered Gunther once again, this time into a cutter and he hit a dive out over the top rope.

Evans followed with a tremendous frog splash. Montese Ford would be proud. Only got a near fall. And the crowd is into this now, not that they weren't into it at the beginning. They really were into it throughout, but now it's like it's escalating right to that next level where they're really getting into it. Gunther hit an uppercut to the back of Evans's neck as he sprang off the top rope. He was going for a cutter, something cough and drop, but Gunther just fucking chopped him right

in the neck on the way down. Gunther followed with a suplex and then a power bomb. Evans though kicked out, and that got a reaction because he's won matches with that power bomb before and here Javon Evans kicked out,

so that got a rise out of the crowd. Gunther got the sleeper applied speaking of moves that he has won many matches with, and Evans he's trying to fight out of it, and it looks like he might actually fight out of it, and he's getting closer to the ropes and the crowd is with it, like come on, you know, they really want him to find his way out. But then ultimately Gunther cinches it in back in the center of the ring, and Evans he starts to kind of go and then just very gently starts like tapping,

and the referee calls for the bell. It's a little anti climactic as far as like the finishing moment there, and it sucked a life out of those eighteen thousand people because it was like, ah fuck, you know, like they were really hoping he would pull it out like that. Is a credit to him, because he's just so damn fun to watch and he's so damn good that even though he's never had a raw mam he's been on SmackDown a few times, I don't believe he's ever had

a Monday night raw match before tonight. And the people they knew, some knew who he was. And if you didn't know who he was, I don't see how you can watch him and not get behind him and not get into the match, because it's just he's exciting to watch. That's why I lump him in with guys like bron Breaker and Obafemi and Jacob Fatu and Dominic Masterio. He's younger than them, so he's you know, he's got more

time to really develop and get even better. But he's going to be one of those guys if he continues on the path that he is on and doesn't get into trouble or get injured or injury prone or anything like that, where he is going to be a future world champion. He's going to be a big fucking deal. He is the kind of guy that you can build an entire brand around. He's part of that nucleus of five. I lump him in there with those guys. So he went out there tonight. I knew they were going to

go out there and have a really good match. Like it's Javon Evans and Gunther. It would be very difficult even if there's like a few rough spots and they've not worked together before, like it would be impossible for these two to go in there and have anything but at least a good match. And they had a very good match. I enjoyed this greatly. This was easily easily

the best match of this tournament so far. Easily name me a better match that we've seen in this tournament we haven't, so not really much of a surprise there. But when it was over, you know, Gunther left the ring and you could hear the crowd. They were chanting

for Javon. They were giving him an ovation. As they cut to the back, we did find out that Gunther is going to He's going to get the winner of the match that's coming up on Friday between Carmelo Hayes and Bronson Reid and I talked about this on Friday and I said, you know, if there is going to be an upset in this tournament, it is a lot more likely to be Carmelo Hayes and not Javon Evans

because what is the last thing we saw. One of the last things we saw at the end of that SmackDown show on Friday night, we saw Bronson Reid give

a tsunami splash to Cody Roads. Carmelo Hayes is wrestling Bronson read on TV this week, why would Cody not come out and cause a distraction or cause Bronson Reid in some way, shape or form to end up on the losing end of the match so that he can go fuck you, you fuck with me, I fuck with you, and he gets bounced out of the tournament and Carmelo Hayes effectively backdoors his way into the next round, because that's the only way Carmelo Hayes is moving on in

the next round of this tournament. Either take your pick, Cody Rhodes or Roman Reigns, which one of them shows up on Friday to cost Read the win in this match, it would be It would be really lame if it was like a count out situation. But however it happens. After seeing that the winner of that is wrestling Gunther, It's gonna be Carmelo Hayes. Gotta be Carmel Gunther and Bronton read to me, doesn't even make sense as a match.

I don't see it happening. So I think Carmelo Hayes is going to be the upset of the tournament and we'll get gun there and Carmelo, which by the way, has the potential to be just as good as the match we saw tonight. They let Carmelo go out there and do what he is capable of doing and give those guys some time on the show next week. That'll be a banger match. So I think Carmelo Hayes is going to pick up that win on Friday. That'll be our quarterfinal match. Penta is in there. Penta is in

this tournament. He's wrestling Finn Balor on the show this upcoming Friday. And now that we know all the names in this tournament, Seamus is still in there. But let's be honest here, for being perfectly honest, there's nobody else. It will be gun the Gunther will be wrestling John Cena in his retirement match. There was no other name in this tournament that is realistically going to go on to the finals and win. It's not gonna be Shamous, it's not gonna be Bronson Reid, it's not gonna be

l A Knight. Yeah. No, it's gonna be gun there. And that was the rumor all along, and there was always maybe some people had the hope that I hope it's not gun there. It's gonna be gun the like. Now we know it's very very clear at this point. The only question is we don't know any kind of bracketing, So are we potentially in for a Gunther Shamus final at Survivor Series. I was kind of hoping Ilia Dragonov would end up in this tournament because man, what a

match that would have been. You do Gunther and dragon of in the finals at Survivor Series. How fucking great would that have been? But I'll take gun Through and Seamus. It's been long enough we haven't seen it. I think that would be a great final. We could be looking I mean, we could be looking at gun Through in La night. I'll tell you what I don't want to see, and this is what Triple H would absolutely do this.

What I don't want is Gunther and jay Uso in the main event, in the final match of this tournament. That is the last thing that I want to say. I've seen enough of that this year. We don't need to see that again. Give me literally any other match in this tournament except Guntherer and jay Usa Literally any other match. I don't care what it is. You know, years ago, before COVID fucked everything up, we were supposed to get Gunther and Finn Balor at a Takeover NXDUK

Takeover in Dublin and we never got it. I'll take that over. Gunther and jay Uso jay Usso against Solo's Socoa in the finals. Are you trying to intentionally sabotage this tournament? I feel like some of you now are booking scenarios to intentionally sabotage the remainder of this tournament. Can you imagine if Triple H books Solo's Socoa to win the tournament with the idea that at one time

Solo Socoa destroyed John Cena. Remember he hit John Cena with like a million Samoan spikes and just beat him and Sena never really got his revenge on Solo and Triple H is like, well, we tell stories. We tell long term stories. Here. We gotta let things cook and simmer for while. We're gonna have John Cena get his revenge on Solo Socoa in his final match. You want to find a way to ruin John Cena's retirement, There you go, I just booked it out for you. We

go backstage. Jackie is with aj Lee and the new Intercontinental champion, Maxine du Pree and congratulated Maxine on her big win. Maxine says that all the hard work is finally paid off. She says, I belong here outside of Gunther and Evans. I think they already sabotaged the tournament. Well, you know what, Well said, Brother Well said, they already have dropped the ball. This tournament could have been a lot stronger. I agree one hundred percent. Today's episode is

sponsored by Better Help. One thing I hate about the fall season is how it gets darker earlier. Makes me feel like I somehow have fewer hours in the day to get stuff done. And honestly, I just find it to be depressing when I look out the window of four o'clock in the afternoon and it's pitch black outside. But it really can have a negative effect on your

mental state. That's why all November long, Better Help is encouraging you to reach out, whether it be to reconnect with an old friend that you haven't spoken to in forever, or to check in on a family member, to remind the people in your life that you're there and they're not alone. And just like it takes courage to send that message or make that phone call, seeking out help in the form of therapy can feel intimidating also, but it's worth it. You'll be asking yourself, man, how come

I didn't do this sooner? Finding the right therapist can be life changing, and better Help makes that process simple. They do the initial matching work for you so that you can focus on your therapy goals. All you do is fill out a short questionnaire which helps identify your

needs and preferences. In their twelve plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate mean they usually get it right the first time, but if for any reason you're not happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time. And all Better Help therapists are fully licensed in the US, adhering to a strict code of conduct in all the work they do.

As the world's largest online therapy platform with over thirty thousand therapists, better Help has an average rating of four point nine out of five for a live session based on more than one point seven million client reviews. The numbers speak for themselves. This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, Better Help makes it easier to

take that first step. Solo Monster listeners get ten percent off their first month at betterhelp Dot com slash Solomonster. That's better help dot com slash solom Monster. So Maxine thanks AJ, and AJ says, don't thank me, it was all you boo. AJ said she hates bullies. Otis and Tozawa show up and they head off with Maxine for the after party. Jackie asked AJ if she's gonna stick around on this time, and AJ says, you know, at first, I only wanted to help my husband back and wrestle palooza.

But Becky, she makes me feel things. I'm sure she makes a lot of people feel things, but she says, we'll see. So Ria Ripley shows up. She makes people feel things. She makes Kathy Kelly feel things. You see the the online relationship between these two. They're always posting all these photos and videos, are always posting. Rhea Ripley makes Kathy Kelly feel some things. Ria asks AJ, hey, you have a second to chat. AJ says sure, and Ria puts her arm around her and off they go.

So there you go, AJ, Lee will be a part of her first war games. You'll end up with Becky Lynch on the opposing side, and there are your war games teams. It is settled. They close the show with a face to face with the men in Wargames, or at least the ones up to this point that we knew were actually in the Wargames match. Paul Hayman was out with bron Breaker, Bronson, Reed, Logan, Paul and Drew McIntyre.

Hayman said that he has walked the Samoan Swat team and the Free Birds to the ring for the Wargames. He has walked the Dangerous Alliance to the ring for the war Games. Yes he has. In fact, he walked the Dangerous Alliance to the ring for the best war games that has ever taken place against Sting's Squadron. He has walked the Bloodline to the ring for the war Games. This ride here, though, is the greatest assembly of talent ever put together for the war Games. And it's not.

But he has to say that seam Punk's music interrupts. Punk walks out with his hands all taped up. No World Heavyweight Championship. Then it was the Ussos out through the crowd, followed by Cody Rhodes who came down the aisle. Also no WWE Championship. And there was a funny moment here where Cody comes down to the ring and he stands right next to Punk in the aisleway there, side by side, and Cody wanted a fist bump from Punk. The only thing is Punk didn't see it. I legitimately

think he didn't see it. So he Cody's just like he's waiting for that fist bump and it's not coming, so he just kind of like forces a fist bump just so that he's not left hanging, even though he was left hanging, poor guy. And so the babyfaces hit the ring and the brawl began, and it was four on four. Drew fought with Cody outside the ring. Logan

was in the corner delivering body shots to Punk. Punk reversed him out into the opposing corner, hit that running lifting knee, the rising knee into the bulldog, and then he gave the signal for the gts. So it was going to be ninety nine here for Logan, Paul. When brock Lesner's music hits An out comes Cowboy. Brock takes the hat off, makes a b line for the ring. The Beast is here. I'm watching CM, Punk and brock

Lesner ready to square off. One of the best Summer slam matches of all time back in twenty thirteen, but now they're a lot older, a lot of time has gone by. Lesner didn't even like barely was able to even get into the ring before Punk attacked him, and he immediately got dumped on his head, like right on the back of his head, and then he got dumped again with a supplex. Out of the ring, goes Punk.

Now Cody is in to confront Lesner, and he sends Cody flying with honestly one of the highest release German supplexes that you will ever see. I mean, Cody went flying through the air and then he hit him with another one, and they flashed the closing credits on this. This is a triple h thing. He loves doing this. They flashed the closing credits on the screen like the show is over and that's it, that's all you're gonna get. And I'm like, they're not leaving us like this. This

is the perfect opportunity. We got to get that fifth man out here for the baby Face team. He could only be one person, but we have you know, Paul Lovek's name is on the screen, is the executive producer, and Brock's got a big smile on his face. He goes over Hayman's outside the ring and he reaches over. He's gonna slap hands with Hayman, and of course Roman Reigns arrives. This is a return number? What are we up to this year? Six? Is this the sixth, fifth

or six return for him this year? I've lost count at this point. Roman, he's late, by the way. Gotta pay attention to the call time for these shows. Roman is in no great rush to come down to the ring. Roman has new merch. See. My theory is this Roman wants as many returns as possible throughout the year, so that each time he shows up he has a brand new piece of merch. Brock was in the ring, he was smiling, he was ready for him, And I'm just thinking, man,

you fuckers lied. You lied to me. You told me three years ago at SummerSlam that that was it, that we would never again see Roman Reigns and brock Lesnar in the ring together. And I held you to that. They had their best match, probably was their last match, and now they're gonna be back in the ring together again in wargames. You lied to me. I don't like being lied to. Roman gets in the ring. They have

a stare down here, Brock hits the ropes. Roman ducked the clothes line and he took Brock down with a superman punch, and Brock bounced right out of the ring. Security finally arrived to keep Roman in the ring. They had other security geeks outside to crowd around Lesnar and keep him from going back to the ring. Bronson Reid then attacks Roman Reigns from behind, and he starts to bounce each one of the security geeks out of the

ring one by one. Up he goes for the tsunami, but Roman popped back up and caught him with a superman punch knocked them off the ropes. So then they said the NYPD is here, the New York City Police Department, not in those uniforms, but that's what they wanted you to believe. The NYPD is here now, and they're outside the ring. They're getting in between Roman and Logan Paul. Outside the ring. Roman, though, he goes around the cops.

Apparently they're so inept they couldn't prevent him from going around them because he spots Bronson Reid is over right in front of the Timekeeper's barricade, and he goes and he spears read and one of the rent A cops through the barricade because we haven't seen that spot before. I was starting to get the shakes here. You know, I'm starting to twitch out because it's been what has it been, It's only been about a week since we've seen a barricade spot. I was starting to tweak out here.

It's a good thing they gave us one tonight. You know what I would love is if they ever woke up and realized that what they should do is reinforce that barricade because it breaks on every show. You would think by now they would put some sort of like gigantic, not maybe metal, but like a concrete slab or something. And what he goes for a spear, he just knocks himself the fuck out. Like I would laugh. I would die laughing. It's like Brett Hart when he concealed the

plate and Goldberg speared him. They need to reinforce that barricade. That's what they need to do. But that's how they went off the air. And I think they went off the air early. I think it was like ten twenty four, ten twenty five. Yeah, Mark Kan says it was they DP. Yeah, maybe that's what it was. It wasn't the NYPD, I can tell you that. So the field of five is now complete on both sides. Brock Lesnier will be in his first War Games match, and they basically have an

all star team. On the baby Face side, you've got Roman, Reigns, Cody Rhodes, and Cmpunk. You know, we'll forget the other two, but I mean that's a pretty impressive lineup right there, just with those three guys alone, and of course you got Brock and Drew on the other side. Bron is like he's the future, and then Logan Paul, he dips in and out whenever they need him. So you know, they've got some star power there in that match. And at least most, if not all, of the guys in

this match have history with each other. Logan actually has history with Roman as well as Cody, and now he's been beefing with Punk lately. Punk has history with Drew, but also with Brock, Brock has history with basically, I mean, gosh, most of the people on the baby Face side, Cody, Punk, Roman, Him and Roman, especially Roman and Bronson Reed. They're still going at it. Right, the tribal thief. So there's a lot of history between most of the men that are

involved in this match. I don't know if they're just going to gloss over the whole Roman reigns Huso's thing where he told them I don't want to see y'all till Christmas. That's probably something that should be brought up on the show next week, if Roman is even on the show next week, because we know Brock won't be and John Cena won't be, it would be nice if Roman was on the show next week and they could

flesh that out a little bit. And they did mention that next week on the show, they're going to have the men advantage match, and I would assume they'll do one for the women on that show too. They did not say what form that's going to take. They did not say if it's going to be a singles match, if it's going to be like a multi men tag match of some kind. Again, Brock won't be part of it if it is, but we're going to get the man advantage match on the show next week. Overall, this

was a very strong show. There was some stuff on there I wasn't fond of. Again, I talked about the stuff they did in the Stephanie and Nikki Bellas segment, but seeing his final Raw appearance was a big deal. We had several major returns on this show, Roman Brock aj Lee, we have a new women's Intercontinental Champion. We had the Ziggler surprise in the tournament, and we had a great match, great battle between Gunther and Javon Evans. That's what I was looking forward to and it delivered.

So this was an excellent show. And I pray for SmackDown come Friday, and anybody who is going to be watching it live, I will not be one of them because I will not be here on Friday. I'm going to be in Chicago the Glory Show on Friday night. We are sold out at Logan Square Auditorium, so I will not be here for SmackDown, So I wish you well. I'll have to catch it on Saturday at some point. But anyways, so that was Raw for tonight. Let's take a look at the pole. What did you think of Raw?

From Madison Square Garden. Eighty eight percent have given this show a thumbs up, twelve point two percent thumbs down. I think you guys like Raw tonight. That's what I'm getting from these poll results. I think you were a fan of this Monday night raw show. I could be wrong, though, Hey Shark, thank you for the ten buck, lou this shark on a pole, Shark on a pole, bro thank you for the ten bucks. Appreciate it. JP says we're skipping SmackDown too good. Well I'll skip it. We'll send

them a message. You want to send a message, That's how you send a message. Yeah, this is not going to be a week where they've done any favors for SmackDown. After the way they blew their load with his raw Sha tonight. It's going to be impossible for SmackDown to live up to what they did tonight at the Garden. But that's on then to try. It's their job to try.

We'll start with a dark effect with a five dollars super chat kicking us off here on the Brett Hard scale, what would you rate Gunther zero through ten on looks, promo ability, ring work. In my opinion, Gunther is the best in the world today. He's certainly one of the best, that's for sure. I mean, I don't even know exactly I mean. For me, I would give Gunther He's at least a seven eight for sure. I probably go eight.

Drive Chicken says seven letters, one word tsunami. Bronson Reid approved this message the Real CS with the four ninety nine despite his booking. Do you think Pete Dunn has a future as Triple H's right hand man? I could definitely see him to Triple H as like a Pat Patterson was to Vince McMahon, or even like a William Regal is right now to Triple H. You know, Regal

is not going to be working there forever. I think Pete Dunk could end up in a role like that where he can almost be like a consigliere for Triple H. You know, he's doing agency work right now, I think for Triple A, I believe. I mean, he's doing the Grande Americanos stuff as well under the mask, but he's already in that role in a way behind the scenes. But supposedly, you know, he's someone that Triple H has great respect for, and so yeah, I could see him

ending up at a spot like that. We've got bland, dried Chicken and Turkey says. When it comes to the WWE creative team on SmackDown, it's like they cook the chicken or steak, but something is missing. They don't marinate or seasoned meat before they cook it. I saw a video going around on on X. It's probably on ig also or TikTok. Might have been a TikTok video actually

that got lifted and sent everywhere else. But it was this video where it's like, this is how we cook steak in Texas, and I want to hear from all my Texas people. Actually food Hive, I don't know if he's with us tonight, but food Hive is a Texas guy. He'd probably be appalled by this. So this guy took a steak and he boiled it. He put it in a pot and he boiled it and he literally and I don't think it was done as a joke, and

he's like putting the seasoning in the water. And then he took like a bread roll, like a dinner roll, and he put that in the pot in the water as well, and he takes the steak out, and it's like, you can't tell me that in Texas, this is how they cook steak. It looked he was cooking it medium well, but he boiled the meat and the bread so now you have soggy bread. Why would you want to consume this boiled meat and soggy bread. I feel like that's the sort of thing they would arrest you for in

Texas or to port you for. Either way, it was like I was appalled. I was absolutely appalled, says a solo. Pick your poison. Three hours of SmackDown more title belts in aw or grow a beard and a mullet. I will grow the beard in the mullet. May take me a while, but yes, it is blasphemy. I was offended just watching the video. But he throws it in a fucking boiling pot of water and boils the steak. I'm like, the hell are you doing? Yeah for starters, you ruined

the steak medium. Well, no, I'm Portuguese and we consider bread a utensil, but no steak stew. Talking about ruining a steak, Victor says, buy sell, rent on Doctor Doom, Magneto and Loki. I gotta buy on Mega, Magneto's my guy, and then I'll rent on Doctor Doom and sell on Loki. Buy Er, sell on the better dropkick AJ Styles or Randy Orton. Randy Orton has a beautiful dropkick. AJ's got a pretty wicked dropkick too, though at Okata. Can't leave

Okata out of the conversation. You know who had a really good dropkick one of the best hardcore Holly Dolf had a pretty good one tonight against Solo Soca. I'll go Randy Orton. Victor says, any thoughts on Sena's behavior on Total Divas, Yeah, he was a giant diva on the show. It's a reality show, which means most of what you see is fake. He was playing a character, not that I was really watching it week to week. Maybe you saw more of him on there than I did.

I did see the episode where he dressed up in what was going to be his heel gear many years ago before Vince got cold feet. It was that singlet and I know like he had like rules, didn't he did? He have like a contract that Nicki Bella had assigned if she was going to live in the same house

with him. He sounded like a total nightmare. I mean, some of that might be kind of truthful, but like I just automatically disbelieve anything I see on those reality shows because I think I just think it's all phony. Dry chickens says, I'm predicting TKO Slasher WWE will attempt to negotiate a deal with the White House to host a WWE show similar to the UFC. Well, hopefully not, but I don't really give a shit. The Boss moo Jackson says, what's up, Solo Monster stopping through to support

your channels. I'm looking forward to TNT tomorrow my favorite show of week, Boss moo Jackson. I appreciate the love, brother, I hope you're doing well and I will see you there TNT tomorrow night. Also, he says, Ziggler returns. I've always thought Dolph was a cross between Shawn Michaels and mister Perfect. I mean, stylistically, you could see where he

kind of borrowed from each of them. His bumping style was very similar to Kurt Hennig, and even like some of the gear he would wear and the way he tunes up the band, you could see where the Shawn Michaels influence comes from. So there's a reason why you feel that way, because there's an influence there from both. Victor says, thoughts on Oba versus Brock at WrestleMania of forty two feels a little too soon for them to just be going into that. I hope we get the

match at some point. I don't see it being at WrestleMania of forty two, though probably a better chance of Brock and Gunther than Brock and Oba at forty two. Robbie H five says, the youth quote unquote and the quote unquote cross brand promised in this tournament was highly exaggerated. Well, they gave it to you at least once so they can say, well, we didn't lie to you. But yeah, the way they were talking about it, it's like they got you excited for it and they're just there wasn't

enough of it. I wanted more of it in this tournament. We got a mix, but there's too many. There's just too many old faces in there and some faces that frankly, I don't give a shit about. You know, the fact that Javon was the only NXT talent was very disappointing. The Bossmo Jackson says, the one thing that you and I haven't is Brett Hart is our favorite wrestler. I was a Brett fanatic growing up. He's my number one of all time. Brett was that guy. Yes he was.

He absolutely was. I don't think I fully started to appreciate Brett until Hogan was really out of the pictures, and I grew up a Hogan guy at that age. You know, Hulkamedia was running wild brother Jack dude, and he was very charismatic, although you even even as a young fan though, like when he lost the championship to Andre in eighty eight and he was crying about it, like literally crying in the back, like what a bitch. And then to see what he did in the ninety

two rumble, I'm like, man, what a bitch. Then he started, then he disappeared, and then it all fell on Brett. You know, ninety two went into ninety three, ninety four. That's where I really became a big Brett Hart fan, and I've been ever since. Brett is that guy. Also, the segment with Charlotte and Bliss was hilarious. The segment with Charlotte and Bliss was horrendous. The worst thing on the show, Actually, no, I is the second worst thing

on the show. The worst thing on the show was the segment with Stephanie and Nicky Dry Chicken says, my glasses were blurry last Monday. I'm not sure if it was Triple H or former New York Giants head coach Brian day Ball on Raw, well, I would say Triple H is probably more of a winner in his career exploits than Brian day Ball is. So I didn't make that mistake. Hey, Eric, what's going on? Man? This says

a solemn monster. I will be. I will also be watching the House of Glory show in Chicago this coming Friday night since I know it will be on Triller TV. Plus that's right, it's a Triller TV, not Thriller TV, although that sounds cooler. I don't even know what a Triller is, but that's where we'll be. I will be on the call again, and if you are interested, this was not by accident. We got up the Nicknameth Amazing

Red match from the Saturday show during Raw tonight. Put the full match up the very beginning of the show, the first like twenty five minutes of the show. So if you want to hear me do commentary for what was a really good match, you can go over to the House of Glory YouTube channel after this and go check it out. Leave a comment and mention that the Solo Monster sent you so they know Tommy Koleela the twenty dollars super chant. I was thinking two more wrestling tropes.

Jeff Jarrett hitting somebody with a guitar, somebody over the hill with the guitar, and the referee painting with all the debris, and the Dudley Boys whassab where the referee would always act dumb. Yeah, that really should be a disqualification. Hey, guys, maven here with a five dollars super chant. Everybody loves Joe Hendry, but how many people love Ho Genry, Joe Hendry's lesser known cousin, Ho Genry. I hear he gets around. I hear he gets around the women's locker room. Unconfirmed,

though it's a very popular guy. Tommy says, I meant pinning, not painting. I was a little confused when I read. I was a little confused when I read that. I said, that's not a trope that I'm familiar with. Says he's using a Google voice. Mactub who had the higher peak in America? Jeff or Punk going Jeff Hardy. I assume that Jeff Jarrett, who we were just talking about the higher peak in America was Jeff Hardy. When Jeff Hardy was at his most popular, which was like around eight

It was Jeff Hardy. Also, I think Seth after his Babyface run was botched due to Triple AH in twenty sixteen, was never the same. Thoughts on how they went about that and his gimmick in recent years. Yeah, I wasn't terribly moved by that either, and his gimmick in recent year socks. I don't know what his gimmick is supposed to be. He comes out, he wears, he wears weird clothing and he cackles like a hyena. I don't know

what that's supposed to be. It's like he's trying to be a modern day version of Macho Man, but not nearly as cool, because Macho Man came out with all the colorful, over the top, silly, ridiculous outfits and stuff, but he was fucking cool. He was the Macho Man. So I don't know if that's what he's trying to be, but if he is, he's failing. I don't know what

this gimmick is supposed to be. And I thought maybe with the vision it would be different, and it was just the same Seth Rollins, but with a couple of people around him. Uh Duff's vid says John Cena wakes up in a hospital. John Cena says, where am I? The nurse says, I see you. John Cena says, no, you can't. Going with the you can't see me humor. Huh. DJ fifty five the four ninety nine says, solo, my ten year old son and I will be at war Games for my TNT shirt and signs. We'll be at

the entrance ramp repping you and JD in sunny San Diego. Wow. I'm gonna keep an eye out for that. That's very cool. I tell you guys all the time, if you go into the shows, and if you haven't been priced out of these shows and you're going to the shows, anytime you wrap the sound off man or Solemn Monster, big letters, big sign, get a screenshot of that shit, throw it up here on the stream. Give you a shout out. Man's that's what it's all about. I love seeing that.

Barry MK four hundred, is this the Krusty Crab? I don't have crab, but if I did, I would boil them with my steak, and I would have my steak medium, not even medium. Well, I think I might have my steak well done with ketchup. I hear that's how they do it in Texas. TikTok told me that Tictac TikTok never lies or Tiktac oh man. Alex says brother solo. What did Vince not seeing Ziggler throughout his twenty year career in WWE? For crying out loud? Gender won the

damn Championship, but Dolf couldn't. Overall, great show, and thank you for another great stream. Well you're very welcome. Yeah, I don't. Is that what the Krusty Krab is from? Like, I don't watch SpongeBob. I'm not five years old, So I may act like I'm five years old sometimes, but I'm not five years old. Why would do you think I sit around watching SpongeBob SquarePants all day? I don't. What did Vince not see in him? You have das Vince,

you have to as Vince. I always go back to that Survivor series in twenty fourteen when he was the sole survivor in the main event, Sting pulled him on top of seth rollins. That like around that period of time, that was I feel like the last real opportunity for them to truly try to elevate him to a level higher than what he was at, and they didn't do it because they just didn't see him at that level. I say they, Vince did not see him at that level.

You know, he had a really good feud for the IC title a couple of years after that, or maybe twenty seventeen with Miz But I don't know. I look back on that Survivor series as like, man, this is an opportunity for them to follow up on this, and they didn't do it. It So like he won the championship. Actually, I think he won the champion, the World Heavyweight Championship twice.

I said before he won it when he cashed in, I think he won it twice and both times like the first time he wanted in the cash in is one of the more memorable cashs they've ever done. But then he got hurt. He had no run, Like the run was completely forgettable and short and just nothing. There's just nothing to it. The second one, I'm trying to remember, or maybe maybe it was the first one, whichever one came first, the one with him and Vicky, I couldn't

even tell you what happened they were so forgettable. Squid word, What the fuck is squid word? What is that? It sounds like something you would do on the toilet after you had a boiled steak. Justin g says, I am the Sena tree. Thanks guys, thank you. Justin Lakers Pat says, with three hour Attitude era raws have worked, no, No, because you would have burned the audience out. I think a lot quicker Crash TV back then it worked, you know,

for a while, and that was at two hours. If you had an extra hour every single week, I don't think it would have worked. After a period of time, you would have burned the audience out. It was better to give them those those types of shows and leave them wanting more for the following week. There's no there's no weekly wrestling show, good or bad, that needs three

hours every single week. Always said that that includes the Attitude era, That includes the Golden era, the Ruthless Aggres era, any era you want to go back to, no need for three hours. On that note, Dynamite this week is three hours. Just figured i'd mentioned that's say a Dynamite Collision combo show. We got Bobby's World with a fifty fifty dollar super chat late to the party has always

but congrats on eighteen years. Brother, Thank you, sir, says as you know, loyal listener for ten plus, made my family fans and pretty sure I can safely say that we are around for the long haul. Here's the many more my friend hashtag gwo for life, gwoe life. Thank you, Bobby, appreciate all the love on all the streams. Thank you for eighteen great years. Wink the cosmic Grandma. Evans versus Gunther or Shelton versus Triple H. So we're already comparing

different matches. Here are we really doing this? If you were to say Shelton and Shawn, I would pick that. In this case, I'm gonna go with Evans and Gunther. Dude, Here's seventy three with a nineteen ninety two fun raw tonight, bittersweet watching scene his last in ring television match, but it was a fun match and cool seeing him tag with Seamus and Ray. Also, what the hell do they do to Gunther's theme? They reverted back to his old theme, which I like and if you don't, I think it'll

grow on you. Hey Solo who lived in a pineapple under the sea, that would be SpongeBob SquarePants. It's very absorbent and very porous. And if nautical nonsense be something you wish, then drop on the deck and flop like a fish. JDFVA Symphony nine, Allegro Cone Fuoco, not matter or no matter, No matter what fandom, we all have a good taste in music. Be Man the champ Hey Solo. If you could change any current title holders in WWE

right now, who would they be? Besides the obvious Drew McIntyre as WWE champion, I could change any of the title holders. I think I would change all of them except Ilia Dragono. I would just shake things up. Get it off, Cody, get it off, Punk, put it on Breaker, Let's go up and down the list. We got Duff's vis my friend Joe went on the Dolly parton diet. It made Jolene Jolene Jolene. Indeed, Derek j speaks with how underwhelming the tournament has been overall. I don't know

why they even bothered doing it. It would have been better off just having gun their challenge Sina well, because they wanted something to occupy television time with. It's a good TV gimmick. You can kill a whole bunch of segments on TV and build interest in the shows over a period of weeks. That's why they did it. Probably give them another match to do it. Survivor series, Barry MK four hundred. Stephanie really should have acted like she

was knocked out. She looked perfectly fine as NICKI talked to her, and did not even fight back. That's what I said. It looked completely ridiculous. This woman attacked you last week, your supposed friend, and then she attacked you again this week and didn't do anything particularly vicious, and you're just gonna lay there and let her cut her promo like it just made her look like a freakin' weakling. Tuffs VIDs. What do hot dogs use for protection condiments?

That's an old one. And also why did the blonde only wear one snow boot? You heard there's only a fifty percent chance of snow see now, I'm I'm offended by her. He defended me, Prince vegeta ninety five. I know everyone thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread and all, and he's good, but I'm not big on wwe wasting three out of his last four matches on Dom. Yeah, I wouldn't waste that many on one person either, regardless

of who it is. I'm just saying though, like Dom needs to get that belt back, so they get it off of Sina. I wish there was more variety in the opponents that he has had, or maybe I just wish he had more dates. It is what it is.

We're gonna look back on this run. There's some really cool things that they did, and there's a lot of just wasted time and wasted opportunities, and when all of a sudden done, we're going to look back on this tournament, not tournament, but this retirement tour, and we're going to look at it, I think as a disappointment compared to what it could have been. You know, they zigged instead

of zagged. Triple H wanted to make a moment at the elimination chamber and they did, and unfortunately that was sort of the peak, and they had no way to really follow up on that because there was no long term plan to what they did. And this is what happens when you don't have a long term plan to

what you're doing. Remember John Cena announced, I want to say in July of twenty twenty four, June or July of last year, I'm pretty sure is when he made the announcement that he was going to wrestle his last

match at the end of this year. They had a lot of time to work on what these plans were going to be for John Cena's retirement tour, right the greatest of all time, and I'm still floored that coming out of the biggest angle they have shot in years, they had no real solid plan on where to go and what to do with it, or if they did, it sucked. If there was one thing that like this is impossible to botch, it was this retirement tour, and for a good chunk of it, they found a way

that is now part of Triple H's legacy. Stuff's VIDs, What's Brown and sits on a piano chair, Beethoven's Last Movement, Prince Vegeta. Am I crazy for thinking that? Joe Hendry just gives me massive jobber vibes him hopping out of fridges and shit future meat for Sean stacyag I hope it's not boiled meat. Yeah, I mean, this is a guy who was a TNA World heavyweight champion and he's popping out of garbage cans in NXT and out of

refrigerators and it's a funny comedy gimmick. But funny comedy gimmicks don't win World Champion and chips, like, what do you want him to be? You wanted to be a com you wanted to be a comedy gimmick. He can be a comedy gimmick, but he's only going to go so far. But that's NXT. So apparently NXT is its own universe unto itself. When he comes to the main roster,

we'll see what they do with him. But you know, Joe Hendry is also not necessarily like in ring, at the level of a lot of the top guys that they have in WWE. So is he going to be able to hang with those guys? That's another question. What kind of matches are they going to have? Kind of in ring chemistry are they going to have together? Is he going to resonate with these crowds the same way that he did in TNA or that he does in NXT.

Bobby Means says, I'm happy for Maxine, but Women's Icy Champion, Oh my, I don't know if this is going to work out. Who do you see beating her? I think Becky just gets the belt back next month more, says tk on Ariel Helwani tomorrow morning. Okay, well, I guess we'll see what he talks about. I know they've had their issues before, so that should be an interesting interview. I'm sure Tony will be in a very jovial mood talking about all the wonderful things that aw is doing.

Shark says Solo, I'm going to have to disagree with Becky winning back the women's icee title. I feel like Becky against AJ doesn't need a title attached to it, and they can make it work without it. Yes, but who then do they have lined up for Maxine? You pray it's the same issue we had on SmackDown with the women's US title. You need to have other over or credit women for Maxine to work with or drop the belt to, if not Becky, so that belt doesn't just sink to the bottom. You don't want it to

sink to the bottom of the ocean. That's why Maxine's run is not going to be a terribly long one. So if it's not Becky who she drops the belt back to, then I don't know. Maybe it's Bailey. Maybe Bailey has her eyes set on the Intercontinental Championship. Maybe that eventually transitions into Bailey and Lyra in a feud for the IC title. Right, there can't be a team forever, Jeremy says, j La Knight, Gunther, Seamus semi finals, La Night,

Gunther final and Gunther wins. Yeah. I could see that horrible heel run, ridiculous WrestleMania ending, rushed face turn, bad final opponent, tournament, this scene, if Final Year was bundled at every turn, it's really a shame. De Quentin. I'm gonna call you DQ man every time I see the D in the Q. I think disqualification DQ is with us Romans should be in jail for assaulting a police. Yeah, but that wasn't the NYPD, that was the the NPYD. That was the New York Putts Department. That's a whole

different crew. That's a bunch of security geeks that go around and they just get their asses handed to them. It's all good. They're not even allowed to carry a weapon. They they're like the auxiliary police. Alex says, what are your thoughts on Kenna Anderson making a WWE cameo. Now that he's back with TNA, do you think there is still massive heat within WWE? Massive? No? I mean it's been has it been fifteen years? Assive? No, and him making a cameo. I don't see a reason for him to.

There's no reason for him to. There's no reason for them to bring him in. The Cobra says, if there's no Steve Austin and no nWo, do we still have the Monday Night wars? Yeah? Well, yes, Nitro would have still been on Monday Night, so technically there would have been a war between the two companies. Would wrestling have been as hot? No, it would not have been. But remember Bischoff told Ted Turner, who asked him, what do we need to do to compete with Vince? And his

response was give me primetime on Monday Nights. That was in ninety five, that was before Austin came over, that was before the nWo was even a thought. So yeah, there would have been competition on Mondays, but it would not have exploded as big as it did. I think it would have died out all sooner. And which side would have won? Which side would have won? Alexander says thoughts on Bob Caudle passing away. I talked about Bob Caudle at the beginning of the sound off episode yesterday,

so I have some thoughts on him there. But I was very sad. I was very sad to hear he passed away. But ninety five years old. Again, we should all be so lucky to live that long. We got why, I why understand Vince Shane. Shane wasn't acknowledged. Yes, Stephanie and Shane were both there. They acknowledged Stephanie on camera with her podcast co host, They did not acknowledge Shane. Jacob Gomez with the nine ninety nine says, I was at the show and it was great and had tons

of fun. I don't know how it sounded on TV, but it was super loud in the building. Dolph was one of my favorites growing up, so excited to be able to see him. It sounded very loud on TV, so definitely came across watching it on Netflix retro. Koh, I mean you sit and watch WWE with us, so checkmate, fair enough? Yeah, and it was very cool to be able to call. This was not the first Nemath match

that I've been able to call. We had him in House of Glory actually last year and he wrestled Vi Kingo, so you know, to be able to call his match the other night was very cool. Had a nice conversation with Killer Cross as well, and definitely brought up keV Castle make sure we talked about that, and had a good conversation with Chris van Vliet, and you know, I

was able to say hello to Sam Roberts. So were there are a bunch of people who were there at the Big Event and then into the House of Glory show later on in the in the evening, and I met many of you there as well. Hopefully we'll do it all over again. The Big Event is coming back in March March fourteenth of next year, so hopefully we'll do another one and Navy forty one eighty one. Since Dominic uses the six one nine, wouldn't it make sense

for Dominic to start using the Bronco Buster. That would be hilarious if he did it. To Ray him doing a move like the Bronco Buster to his dad would be a little weird. I'm sorry it it just would be weird. It would be weird to me. I'm sure it'd be weird for Ray too. Put some respect on SpongeBob. I don't have any ill will towards SpongeBob. It's that Patrick guy. I don't trust him. I don't trust him

at all. I have a feeling he's on the Epstein list. Anyway, thank you guys for helping me hit the goal, which we did hit the likes goal five hundred sixteen likes five hundred four hundred was the goal we exceeded five hundred and so on that note, we are going to go ahead and be the booker in a moment here. But Nick Grosso says, just wanted to pop in and say thoughts and prayers to Rebel, who was diagnosed with lung cancer. Yeah, she was diagnosed with a form of

I think it was lymphoma of the lungs. I know she's been very sick and dealing with an illness for a while and just could not get a diagnosis and only recently found out what it was. So she had it the whole time. It wasn't being treated because they didn't know what it was. But evidently if you were to get this, she got the best version of it. So hopefully she'll be able to kick its ass and make a full recovery. But yeah, no thoughts are with

her because I know she's been through the ringer. Let's be the booker, ladies or gentlemen, it is now time to be the booker. You guys ever, plan on going to Upstate New York with Hog. We got plans to go to a lot of places. Hog coming to the City of Angels for the first time in January, be in Chicago this coming Friday. Of course, we've been there a bunch of times. We were in Houston in July for the first time, Philadelphia for the second time back

in September. And there's some other places and plans coming up in the early part of next year that I cannot reveal yet, two of them in particular that are pretty exciting. So all I'll say is just stay tuned. All right, here we go. We got the faces of Fear kicking us off. We've got Meng and the Barbarian. Now we've landed on them a few times before, so let's see this time, who are we putting them in the ring with the faces of few See, I would not want to be on the opposite side of the

ring with Meng. That's the whole thing. Oh, look at this, the faces of fear against Rob van Dam and Saboo. Oh Man, Meng and Saboo in the ring together, m that would be a very interesting clash of styles. Hog takes Manhattan, Dude, We ran Terminal five a few years ago in manhatt Been there, done that? Who knows? Maybe Hammerstein one day. It's expensive though, it is very expensive. I will tell you that. All right, Women's be the booker. We have Natalia who has a brand new book out

by the way, and I have a link. I have an audible link where you can get that book for free. She tells some very interesting stories in there, including how she was treated by Vince McMahon after her husband almost died in the ring and suffered a catastrophic injury that doesn't paint him in the best light. That story is in the book as well. Run Pen Station, Oh like a shotguns Saturday night? Yeah, I know, Well you got

to remember something though. When they did that, that was pre nine to eleven, and the city and the world it was a very different place security wise. I don't even know if I doubt we would even be allowed to think about doing something like that. They basically shut that part of the terminal down just to do that show. Uh, Natty against ReHO see blood Sport. Natty against ReHO would be a very interesting battle. I don't know, I'm not feeling it all right, main event time. Maybe we could

split the bill here. Let's see what we can do. Man. We have the Mizz former WWE champion, the Mizz against Cactus Jack. Let's see the Miz taking some tack bumps in this match, the Miz landing in the thumbtacks. We're gonna buy on that. I give that the bell automatic buzz. If he's the champion, well, I gave it the bell. So we ended up with two bells and one buzz, which is not too bad. Could have been worse. It could have been worse. That'll be Cactus Jack for the

win right there. All right? So Wednesday night I mentioned Dynamite is a combined show. It is the go home show to Full Gear. It will be three hours long, so the Dynamite stream will be a little bit later than usual Tomorrow night. Before that, I'll be on JD's channel for Tuesday Night Titans as always, but no SmackDown review on Friday night, I will not be here. I will be in Chicago. Hopefully I will see some of

you in Chicago. We are sold out at Logan Square Auditorium, but if you've got your tickets, I will see you there. It's gonna be cold, though, isn't it. Yeah, Chicago this time of year is tough, but that's where I'll be. And then, if you missed episode nine thirty eight of the sound Off from yesterday, a lot of ground covered on that show, please go back and check out the podcast. We were number two in the world on Apple Podcasts for all wrestling podcasts, number two behind Jim Cornett. Actually

I was sandwiched in between. He has two shows, right, He's got the experience and he's got the drive through. I think the experience was number one. I was number two, and I think the drive through maybe was number three. In any event, I thank you for that. Be well, stay safe, have yourselves a great rest of your week. I will see you back here. I better see you you back here on Wednesday for the Dynamite stream and of course tomorrow for TNT. Until then, take care, guys,