Episode 106| “The People’s Problem”

Now, I can't speak to everybody's beautiful Sunday. I can only speak to my beautiful Sunday. Brodija, how's your Sunday going so far? It's going lovely. Sun's out. Beautiful blue skies. Woke up this morning, had my coffee. Coffee tastes a little better than normal. Took my morning shower. The warm water felt a little bit better than normal. After the podcast, we'll get something to eat. I am sure my taste buds are going to be popping a little bit more than usual.

Eshaan, I don't know how the weather is and the food tastes and the water pressure is out in your neck of the woods. Why don't you tell us? How is your Sunday morning going, my good man? Oh, you know, it's actually 47 degrees here. It's raining all day. Oh, that's a little rough. I look outside like the little trees are swaying from side to side. OK, that's not bad. But it is Sunday. It is the Lord's Day. So it is. It is. I'll tell you who other day it is, too.

It's also the Ones' Day and everybody who has been clamoring for us to finish the proper story of Dwayne the Rock Johnson and Roman Reigns, it's all of our day. We have waited years and years and years for this and I'll be damned if we don't break this whole thing down. Only way the TFW Podcast can break it down on this beautiful Sunday. This is episode 106 of the TFW Podcast. I am your host, Matt, joined by Rhodesia, who is in a fantastic mood. Eshaan has said it's rainy all day.

We'll try to lift his spirits a little bit. Is there maybe a silver lining in this whole situation? Yeah, I guess we can talk about that, too. Maybe, maybe not. I do want to start by saying. I was always told when I was younger, like my mom used to always have this saying, God don't like ugly. She used to tell me that a lot. Right. Something happens. If you do something wrong or something, say something bad, right. They would like, she'd be like, God don't like ugly.

Basically meaning like, hey, you can get yours. Do you guys believe in like, like wrestling God, God, karma at all? Like, do you think like things like that can happen or do you think everything just happens the way it's supposed to be? I think karma just all around. So yeah, it would apply in wrestling as well. What do you think? It depends on the context and where you're going. Okay. So we know there's karma because Vince is getting his right now, but it was a faithful Friday evening.

It's past Friday evening. Faithful Friday evening. I hit the group chat and I tell you guys and tell Brandon like, hey, about to watch a movie. Like not going to watch Smackdown live. Of course, we always just say that just so we know. I have some major happens. We know it's a big deal. I think Brandon hits back and he's like, what y'all watching? Is everybody watching Barbie?

And then I preface that by saying, uh, everybody who could be a part of WrestleMania's main event is in the building at Smackdown. Everybody right? So the main event segment is going to be a doozy. So just watch out. He's okay. I haven't started yet. Ishan then replies, let me pull Ishan's reply up. What did he say? He said, not watching Smackdown live to watch Barbie? Question mark, question mark. Make you speak to that on the pod, pal. Shake my head.

He was disgusted at me that I decided to watch Barbie instead of watching Smackdown live. And I understand that. I get that. But we hadn't watched a movie. I think we watched Oppenheimer like a month ago and we've been waiting, trying to watch Barbie, which Barbie was a awesome, awesome movie, much better than what I thought it would be. Check it out. Um, sounds like, all right, cool. I was like, hell, you bring it up on the pod. I don't care. I'll bring it up on the pod. Like y'all know me.

Like it takes a lot. Like for me not to like feel like I could just tell you guys whatever's going on. So stay off the internet, watch Barbie. I go right into after Barbie. I go right into the main event segment. I'm like, I'll watch the main event segment first. Then I'll just rewind and watch the rest of the show. Stayed away from the internet. So I didn't know anything. I had a feeling what we got was what we were going to get. I don't know why I had that feeling. I just had that feeling.

We got what I thought we would get. And now remember I'm watching this like an hour and a half later than when it happened. So as soon as the segment's over, I hop on X and I hadn't seen that type of negative feedback since probably when Charlotte was added to the Triple Threat match at Mania. And then before that what had to have been the Daniel Bryan throwing out the rumble, not included in the main event, WrestleMania plans. He's a B plus player. That was a shoot thing behind the scenes.

And I'm of course, I'm ecstatic. I am like, this is what we've been waiting for. This is fantastic, but it is a ton. Fast forward now to Sunday. It ain't stopped. Twitter has been on fire the last couple of days with negativity with vitriol for Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I want to get into all that. I want to get into all that, but I say that to say E, this is really your fault. I don't like ugly. If you would have never sent that text message to that text thread, Rock would have never showed up.

Cody would have came out and said, I told you at the rumble, I wanted you Roman. That's what we're doing. They would have signed the contract. They would have went off the air. So on and so forth. So how do you feel being the mayor of Cody town, being the president of the Cody fan club on the TFW podcast that you in a way caused Cody to not finish his story at WrestleMania 40 in Philadelphia? This shows you all true of a heel. This man is, this is what abusers do, right?

Like they make bad things, the victims like, fuck you did this. Like, right? This is, this is, yeah, I feel like I need to file a lawsuit as well. All right. So let's talk about it, guys. Let's start with, let's start with the fan reaction. So I would like to start with the fan reaction. Then I want to kind of talk about what we saw. Then I want to talk about the promo that Roman cut on Seth.

Because I'm also a little confused on some of the reaction about that promo too, because everything was beautiful. Everything was great. When Seth said what he said on Monday, we all thought it was great. We talked about in the last pot, Seth killed it. But then when Roman responded on Friday, everybody's up in arms. He buried the title. He buried Seth. Like, I don't get that, but we'll talk about that too. Let's start with your guys' reaction. And E, I want to start with you.

You said a couple of weeks ago, you were fine with getting rockin' Roman. You actually wanted it. You would be okay with Cody not finishing the story against Roman at Mania. Because you felt like that wasn't the big thing here. It was, okay, Cody getting to the mountaintop, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now that we got to take this for face value, they are going to announce officially what's what this Thursday at the WrestleMania press conference, which they're selling premium tickets to.

It's a free event. And they're selling priority passes to this thing. I think they're like $2,000. You get like some meet and greets, et cetera, et cetera. So whatever, which is great for them. What was your thoughts when you saw it? How do you feel about it now? Give it to me. Well, you know, when I watched the show real time, I was right there for it the entire time. And it was almost surreal what was happening to me. And while it was happening, it just didn't feel right.

So as you said, and just full disclosure, I'm okay with Cody winning at Mania, as long as he wins at Mania. That's a conversation we can continue to have later on. I was okay with Rock and Roman, not necessarily for the championship. Because I just, in my mind, that automatically makes me think that Rock is winning the match. Because there's no way that the Rock, I mean, sorry, Roman's winning the match. There's no way that Rock's going to win the Undisputed Championship, right?

He's not going to be around. I mean, Roman's not around. He's only around every four to six months. I mean, what is Rock going to do, defend every year or something? So you already know that the winner of that match is ultimately going to be Roman. That kind of takes some suspense out of it. So I'm okay with that. But as I'm watching it, you know, Roman cut a nice promo. Actually, I didn't have a problem with the promo at all. I mean, he is a heel. He cut a heel promo.

You know, of course, his version of that promo was going to cut a little more teeth than Seth because that's the character. But you know, Cody comes out there. He's fired up, fires the crowd up. You know, say, hey, the story's changed. It's about Roman. But it kind of was like in a whimper. I'm just now going to finish it right now. He said it kind of, he said it like kind of quickly under his breath. And then the Rock's music hits. And I'm a big Rock fan. I think I don't remember.

I'm not going to look it up. I meant to look it up the other day. I didn't feel like it. I think I said a rock is my number two or three on my list of all time greats or something like that. He was too. Two. Yeah. Huge Rock fan. He's probably my favorite movie star. I love all his movies, but not a pop for me at all when he was coming out. And when he came out there, it was just for me, I just, you know, it was funny.

Yusuf sent that meme of Kerr Angle with that blank expression, that little smile. I think that's how I actually looked in the moment. I think that's how I looked. Because I didn't say anything. I just kind of just watched the screen and he came in there and they kind of shook hands and Cody didn't, you know, he didn't have that, you know, hey, I'm appreciative. You know, he had looked kind of like the wind was kind of knocked out of him a little bit. You know, Rock said something to him.

He smiled, you know, kind of, you know, nicely, you know, he pro and then he went back to looking like, you know, the wind was knocked out of him. And then he kind of walked back down, you know, through the apron and you know, Rock watched him and it kind of looked like a dog and it got kicked a little bit. And as I'm watching this, I'm like, man, this just doesn't feel right. And then he turns around and he looks at Roman and for me, it just wasn't what I wanted in that moment. It just wasn't.

It wasn't what I wanted in that moment. Cody built up a great story about how the story is now the Rock and it makes a lot of sense, especially considering how last year's Mania went. We want revenge. We're right there to get it. But just not right now. We got to pause this story or take a side quest, right? If you're a RPG guy like me, it's a side quest with the Rock and Roman in. I wasn't really there for it. I wasn't really there for it.

I wasn't up in arms for it because at the end of the day, Cody will main event, hopefully one night of Royal Rumble. I'm sorry, of WrestleMania, hopefully against Seth. Hopefully he wins the championship. I mean, honestly, he better win the championship. God damn it. If he don't win that Mania, it's going to be a problem. It's going to be a huge problem. We think Vince McMahon's issue is a problem. If Cody don't win their Mania, that's going to be another problem that we don't want.

I'm telling you all that right now. But yeah, I got a lot of things, man. I have so many things about what's going on right now that I have like a whole two page story of my own. I see this is what this is. My man, Cody said he doesn't like the finish the story thing, right? He doesn't like the host. But you know what? I have my own story right here that I have written down here. I wanted to make sure I was able to capture what was going on in my mind.

So I'll let you guys go ahead and take off for the rest of this one. I was ready for you to hear it. We'll get into it over time. I was actually prepared to come on here and just go off on E. But see, I love E's response. What I saw over these last couple days on the Twitter is like completely like straight toxicity. Like, y'all are ready to freaking riot WWE, completely cancel them because of what just happened here. Now, for the record, I'm so tired of hearing the story.

I told you about that before. The devil, the stories. I'm so tired of that. At the end of the day, the rockin' Roman is it. That is it. We didn't get it last year. That probably would have been more perfect. But we have it here. People have forgotten that Cody is still the Royal Rumble winner. He will still main event WrestleMania. And I believe he will win against us. I think people also forgot that CM Punk is hurt.

So whatever possible plans that was in the works for them, they had to call the audible. I'm happy as hell that they had a rock in the back pocket that they're able to insert him and make this a huge WrestleMania. But you asked for my reaction. So my reaction is I loved everything about how that segment was from Cody coming out there, him planting his foot down and saying, let me be perfectly clear. I'm still coming for you and everything. I'm tearing it all down. Just not at WrestleMania.

So you can interpret it however you want to interpret it. Like you said, this coming week at the press conference, they're gonna announce kind of the plans. We know probably what it is though. Rock comes out and for me, I'm like, how are we gonna do this? The last time Rock was there, he had mentioned maybe he'll have a seat at the head of the table and that was it. So I wondered how this was gonna play out. I thought it played out perfectly. He came out, Rock is big as hell.

Now we know being big as hell doesn't mean anything about you going in the ring, but he looks the part. He looks huge. He looks like a wise head of the table guy. And it goes off them staring at each other. No words needed to be said. To me, my actual reaction from that, I got all the goosebumps. I didn't feel like Cody was anything less than what he is today. Cody is still one of the faces of the company. He's on the 2K. We know he's going to be the face of this company.

So for all those people who was just so toxic and just like, oh, y'all forget WWE, Triple H, I can't believe you did this. Like, come on, first off, this is still all predetermined. This is like a soap opera. So for me, I like the excitement of people feeling either angry or happy. It's just a level to some of these people who are angry. It's like, whoa, like, and you, you had to do a reality check for me.

I remember when Brock broke the streak and I was freaking livid, but I still don't think I was livid to this level as some of these people are. I just wanted to get up and leave WrestleMania, but that was it. Some of these people are freaking lunatics. Well, some people are talking about not going to mania now. Then sell me your ticket at a discount so I can go.

Which is funny, but even that's funny to me because since when I've seen a lot of that over the last couple of days and we know there's nobody who's just not going to go to WrestleMania. If it is then hey, whatever you worked yourself way too much into a shoot. But since when did you buy those tickets last year? That's your fault. If you only bought the ticket to see Cody beat Roman Reigns when that wasn't even announced, Cody hadn't won a rumble yet.

Who knew if Roman was still going to hold the title. Yeah, we knew that was going to be the case, but you were only assuming that. So the, so to, to come out here and say, well, I spent my heart on money to get these WrestleMania tickets and this is what you do to me. That's part is whatever. I think there may be an age either. I think some of this is a age thing. I think some of it is a, how long you've been watching wrestling for thing.

And I also think some of this is a, if you're friends with Cody, all bets are off, right? There's some people who are really tied to the business that were really pushing the Cody's getting screwed narrative type thing. What are your friends with Cody? I get that. I get you looking out for your friend. Your friend has got in your words, probably screwed over and not getting his crowning achievement moment on night two of WrestleMania, which is the biggest show of the year. Got it.

Outside of that though, I thought the segment was done as well as it could be. A lot of the discourses you made Cody look stupid. You bury Seth's belt, which we'll get to that part here in a little bit. We know from a real, real standpoint, this didn't come down to pipe until a few days ago. So I hear, I saw a lot of the, why'd you have Cody win the rumble? Then why'd you have Cody win the rumble? Because the plan was at the time of the rumble, Cody verse Roman. That's why CM Punk versus Seth.

That's why the plan's changed. I thought this was best case scenario for Cody in regards to what he said. He came out and he said, I'm taking everything from you. I just don't want the title anymore. I'm coming for everything, just not at Mania. He just told you he is going to be the reason why Roman Empire's falls. So we got a problem with it because it's not night two of WrestleMania in Philadelphia.

He hands over to The Rock, which that moment was a real moment in the ring with them two together. I thought that made him look great. I thought that protected him in a much better way than if that didn't happen. And then it looks like you just got punked for your WrestleMania spot. Yeah. In a, in a shoot world.

Yeah, we can say he got punked for his WrestleMania spot, but in what they presented in storyline, Rock called me, gave me some advice or we talked about something and I am stepping to the side for him at WrestleMania. And here is the baton. You can't ask for anything more than that under the guise of what we know. Now yeah, if we knew two weeks ago, which we should have, I still go back to if there's a fault with this.

Yes, of course we went to Mania last year when I bought the Hollywood ticket, it was, Oh man, I'm buying these tickets because we're getting rock enrollment in Hollywood. Where else could it be? Etc, etc, etc. We didn't get it. It got a tremendous Cody and Roman match. But now you fast forward and there's such a big uprising on Cody's getting screwed. I would much rather have, and this is where I said the age piece, there are some people though, and this is what I told Rudez yesterday.

There are some people who probably have never even seen Rock wrestle live. When I say live, like in, in, in that timeline, right? There are some people who are the biggest Cody fans in the world that were not watching wrestling back in the nineties when the Rock was hot. So to them, I understand where they're like, you're putting this old guy in here for your top face. That's going to be the face of your promotion when he beats Roman.

I understand that now for the vast majority of wrestling fans that have rock, we just did our top 20 and out of the, I don't know how many, you know, lists we read on air, I think everybody had the rock in their top three. Yep. Everybody did. This is by far the biggest match you can do in wrestling period after Roman Rock. There are no more legit dream matches. This is it. This is all we got besides maybe punk and Austin.

That's probably the only last one that everybody who has a inkling of watching wrestling would tune into that. And you can maybe argue punk and Roman, maybe argue punk and Roman, but that would have to include Heyman and moving some pieces around maybe by that time Roman's face and punk is heel, et cetera, et cetera, whatever. I just think that some of these people are so super shortsighted on not wanting Roman and rock just to get to Cody and Roman.

And then the other part of this too, which is a kicker for me, last year at WrestleMania, all I heard from everybody who said Cody should have won against Roman at 39 was they missed a moment. They missed a moment. Nobody's going to care about Cody winning the championship when they do. Because this was the moment should have been in WrestleMania 39. It was a prime opportunity. They missed the moment. No one's going to care. Guess what guys, newsflash, WrestleMania 39 worked for the last time.

I don't want to hear anybody say that finish didn't work. You know why? That finish didn't work and nobody cared because we passed that point. What we got this weekend on social media and the uprising would not have happened because nobody cares. Right? If nobody cared, they should be happy and elated we're getting rock and Roman, the dream match, but that's not the case. The case is people are completely upset because they feel like Cody got screwed again. And you know what?

Whenever Cody gets his match with Roman and Cody wins his match against Roman, Cody wins that title, it's going to work. You guys are just proving what I said last year was that he wasn't ready in regards to the crowd being behind him. Because the other thing we got to look at, and I see a lot of conversation and we'll get to like what's next. I see a lot of conversation on they need to pivot. WB needs to pivot. They need to pivot. Okay, they pivot and say they give you Cody and Roman.

And just to be spiteful, they have Roman beat Cody again. Oh God. Would you rather let this play out the way they have it set now because Cody came out again and said, I'm taking everything from you. He's calling this shot. You rather have wait to whenever that may be, or do you want Roman to stack Cody again, pin him and now we're all sitting here pissed off because Cody was another sacrificial lamb. That's my thing with that.

Let's talk about before we finish with the Cody and Roman stuff, there's still a lot to digest. E, pull up Roman's promo. I want to play this one. It's got the ether background music to it, which I think is incredible. And if y'all were outside for ether when that came out. You know what that's about. Nas' diss against Jay-Z. As I said earlier, Seth cut his promo on Monday, which we thought all was incredible. Talked about how that's the part-time belt. Roman's the number one.

This is the workman's belt. This is the number one belt in the business, et cetera, et cetera. We all loved it. Thought it was great. Listen to this promo and I will say, and I'm sure you two agree, Seth's promo got under Roman's skin. There's a cadence to Roman when you can tell if he's legit irritated or has a legit emotion about it. He had that cadence in his promo. E, pull it up. My little brother, Seth Rollins. Exactly. No pop. He said he's got the title, the title.

So I had to think about it. I'm like, didn't I beat everybody competing for that title? Doesn't that make all them my number twos? Shouldn't we call that the loser bracket title? And then he had the audacity to say that he was the guy. You can't be running around here for two years in your wives clothes and say you're the guy. And then he wants to say he's a workhorse. But three months in, he broke his back trying to carry that show. Let me ask y'all this. Do workhorses walk like this?

Hell yeah. Hell no. And then he wants to attack my schedule? Oh, come on. This is simple. I work less than you. Yes. That's true. Actually, I work like 10 times less than you. And I still make 10 times more than you. So let me, I'll ask y'all. You want Seth Rollins money or tribal chief money? But see, Cody, he's an idiot. He's got values and all that crap. He don't really care about the money, I don't think. So I'm going to break it down to him very simple. This is simple math here.

Cody, I'm not going to beg you like the other guy. You can either be the very best number two in this industry, or you can take a crack at number one again. It's your choice. There it is. Talk about maximizing your minutes. He maximized those two minutes. Thoughts on that promo from Roman. When you heard that promo, did you feel like he buried Seth more than what the story is meant to be? Not in the slightest. The whole point of pro wrestling when you get on the mic is to go at each other.

You remember we talked about bringing us up, bringing people up. You got to meet that or try to surpass it. That was par for the course. I loved Seth. I thought Seth made probably the best point, debate in wrestling in a long time, just as how he broke it down. If Roman's calling himself God, God mode, he got to be able to meet that, match it or beat it. Completely par for the course. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was just a good heel promo. I don't think he did anything.

It's just that Roman's promo cut more. Seth is a good promo. Triple H, for instance, back in his day, I wasn't a fan of his promo style. He was a guy who would go out there sometimes for 20 and 30 minutes talking. Seth is one of those same guys. He can carry a segment. He's articulate. He can talk, but he ain't like a battle promo guy. Roman has turned into a battle promo guy. His promo had a little bit more edge and teeth to it because he can do that.

To be honest with you, earlier in the show, I mean, you guys may not have saw it. You guys were busy watching Barbie, but there was a video package with Seth talking about the titles. I saw it because he threw Sid in there for no reason. Since when was... I know Sid used to like to play softball, Seth, but I ain't like that. You can't go at one of my guys on my top 20 list in a negative way. He threw Sid under the bus? Yeah, I didn't appreciate that. He threw quite a few.

All right, the Hogan stuff, I get. I love that one. Do that. Let's be clear. He started sniping a couple other guys, a couple other legends for no reason, right, who aren't going to be part of this, have nothing to do with this. I didn't like that. I thought that promo was a bit much more so than what Roman was doing because Seth is cutting down legends.

That's not going to be a defend themselves who we don't have any negative feelings about, in order to make his championship seem more important or whatever. If there's a negative, I thought Seth's video package was more negative than what Roman was. Roman was par for the course. You know what was funny about the, without some of the stuff I was seeing too was, oh, Roman's promo completely made Seth's belt secondary. Since when do we ever think it was not secondary? Stop. Stop. Right? Right.

In the inaugural of it, if that's even the right word to use there, we knew it was a secondary belt because Roman wasn't defending his. At all. What I said on Monday, I said the reason why that promo that he cut with Cody was so genius was because one, and I said this, it leaves a chance. If we have to go Seth and Cody because rock enrollment happens, you got your package.

But then I said, even more so if we don't get that, he just made that belt more important than what it's been because he popped it up for anybody. If it was going to be Gunther, anybody that he would have fought Drew, he made it feel like this is the top prize in the WWE. That doesn't change because of what Roman said. Roman was just saying Satan facts the same way Seth was stating facts. Roman was stating facts.

So I think some of this is maybe just some we're over Roman and we're tired of Roman. Some of that is what I'm seeing. And then the other thing I saw too, I want to get your guys thoughts on is this story doesn't make sense. There is no story with rock enrollment. The story that has been put in place for the last two years is with Cody finishing the story and beating Roman Reigns to just that part.

Story doesn't, there is no story with rock enrollment and the story for the last two years have been set for Cody enrollment. What's your guys thoughts on that? I thought the story for Cody was to win a champion, a world championship. That's what I thought the story was. I thought even when I was asked, and I know he doesn't speak for all Cody fans, but I thought it was just as long as he wins the championship. The championship his dad didn't have, which is that's the belt that Roman is holding.

Well technically his dad didn't have Seth's belt either, we're going to get technical. So I get that part there as far as that there, the rock enrollment. Then again, you just been, I was about to say something rude. I just been living under a rock for the last, no pun intended, for the last however long. But this is the biggest story. This like transcends wrestling. This is a family. This is family wrestling. This is everything tied in one.

What do you mean that this rock enrollment hasn't been rock enrollment has been out longer than Cody Roman. So the story as far as rock enrollment has been there. The moment that Roman came into WWE under the shield and we knew that this was rocks little cousin and he climbed the ladder. We knew that this was a story that eventually somebody's going to have to be putting somebody in their place.

You know what our guy comrade, the mortgage guy, you know, we met him a couple of years ago, really nice guy, a lot taller than I thought it was going to be too. Really nice guy, but he said something on Twitter. He said, these types of decisions is also why the audience skews older and older. Like imagine how young kids were alienated that night. Cody was their hero and the rock was their dad. I mean, the rock was the guy that their dad watched, right?

Which kind of goes back to what Matt was saying about the audience and ages, things of that nature. Like, you know, Rock's last match was 10 years ago, right? So while, you know, the late 30 and 40 plus crowd, like this might be a dream match for us, right? We get to relive our childhood again and see, you know, rock come and, you know, conquer the world again. You know, for another part of the audience, like for my kids, you know, for Brandon and his son, this isn't a dream match for them.

Right, right? And so this is where I got to go into like the Cody stuff, right? Because you guys have been along for the ride, but you guys aren't really invested in the ride. And you can kind of tell by some of the language we use, right? Following Cody and his journey and his story to get to this point, this is what the fans want. They, the fans want Cody in this position.

You think about something right now, like Cody has organically gained fan by fan over the course of the two years he's been with the company. We haven't seen anyone kind of get this positive momentum behind them in an extremely long time, right? And at the end of the day, people are people and people want what they want. People like rock, right? I like the rock, just not right now. Rock and Roman made perfect sense a year ago, right?

For whatever happened, for every reason, it didn't happen, right? But that was the time for it. Right now doesn't seem like the right time for most people. They're invested in an entirely different story and they wanted to see an entirely different match and you can't fault those people for wanting what they want. Cause at the end of the day, that's what we got into this business is not to understand the business.

I didn't get into, I don't, I don't watch wrestling to understand the business, to get the long goal. I got into it because of characters and storylines and I'm invested in the specific character and his story, right? He got robbed last year. Right now I was happy just for him to get a championship. I want him to get a championship, but it seemed like the story was becoming bigger than that.

And so he told an awesome story about, hi, I need to get my dad's title, which is ultimately the title that Roman actually currently holds. So as a cancellation prize, I was okay, right? Cause I'm okay with him winning another championship. Cause I know the Rock and Roman is a match that I would like to see from a fan perspective. But again, just not right now and not for Cody's sake. Right before you go, go ahead and take a note. I know you got some things you want to say to think about.

So right now with the story, we got Rock who's being shoehorned into a main event title slot two months before Mania with not necessarily, the story was there a year ago, not necessarily the story is there now. He made a statement on a show that had nothing to do with WWE. He came back in a very bad promo of gender and made a comment. That's not enough to unite a story from a year ago in place of a story that's already in place now that people want to see for me. Right.

And a year ago we said that Cody didn't earn his shot, his position after years of hard work outside of the company, won multiple matches inside the company, won a WrestleMania, I'm sorry, won a Rumble to get to that position. He still hadn't earned it, but we're okay with Rock just walking in, taking somebody's spot and getting the Undisputed Championship match at Mania. But see, I'm okay with that too, because as I said, this is wrestling. Everybody gets title shots.

Jenner gets a title shot, Selena Vega, like a debut on wrestling, this is wrestling. People were getting shots without earning them for years because how do you earn anything in wrestling? How do you earn anything? People are, they're given opportunity. And what it's about is these wrestlers making the most of the opportunities that they're given. And in WrestleMania, the Rock and Roman better make the most of this opportunity.

Because if they continue, this could be one of those things to where they can kind of alienate the crowd, alienate their audience. Right. Because as I said earlier, the Rock ain't everybody's hero for a good portion of that audience. Cody is. So he better make sure that they take care of him, give him a nice spot and a nice win. Right. Rock and Roman have a great match, which I hope they do. Actually, I'm pretty confident that they will.

I think you have something to prove it if they have the match. Right. Because nothing's been concrete and set in stone yet, if they have the match. But what we don't want is to go back to Vince's WWE, where Vince was more concerned about what he thought was best for business than what his audience wanted to actually see. I mean, very well said. I mean, you said a lot there that we could just take the entire pod on.

But just to, so my thought about what you just said is you are accurate around Rock is being shoehorned. I just go back to what I said, well, this is the biggest match in wrestling history. If you got to shoehorn it to do it, you got to shoehorn it to do it. I completely understand people's irritation with, as much as I joke on social media, as much as I joke on the pod, I completely understand if Cody Rose was my, by far my number one favorite wrestler and this happened.

No, I would never get up in arms the way people are because it's not that serious. Because once again, he came out and said, I'm going to take everything from you. And if he didn't say that, and this is Vince's old WWE where it's like, okay, we don't even know if they're going to give him his shot at all. Completely understand. But we're talking about the Rock and we're talking about Roman.

And for people to say, because my question to you guys initially was, what's your thoughts about people saying this story doesn't make sense or there is no story. This is what this entire Roman Reigns Hill Run has been leading up to. Tribal chief, head of the table, Samoan dynasty. This entire run has been about who is the number one person in that family.

And you cannot definitively get to who the number one is until the Rock, who is the number one wrestler, entertainer, performer from that entire family history until we get this match. So if we got to shoehorn it, then we just got to shoehorn it. But for people to say that there is, that doesn't make sense and the story has been Roman and Cody.

I would argue if I had to argue, say we were in court and somebody said, Matt, you are tasked with arguing how Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes does not have a story. I would win that argument. Story was never about Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes. The story is about Cody Rhodes in the championship that Roman Reigns has. We had a match last year at WrestleMania where Solo screwed Cody and Cody lost. Like Solo and Jimmy and J.S. screwed everybody in the last two years when they fought Roman Reigns.

And then Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes don't touch, don't talk until they go face to face at a Smackdown a few months ago and then until Cody playing at Roman at the end of the Royal Rumble. So tell me how is that a story? It's not a story with Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes. I'm sure that's who we're going to get to over the next two months.

And WWE, what I will say, they have an incredible opportunity over these next two months to make some of the most entertaining, engaging TV they've maybe ever done. Because in order to flip these fans, and I don't care if it's the vocal minority, whoever, right? These are the fans that go to Mania. These are the fans that got tickets to the Raw after Mania, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

In order for them to get them engaged properly, they're going to have to come up with a great follow up for Cody of why Cody really wants to take Seth's title or have that match. Everybody's going to have to galvanize that fan base, albeit in real life, albeit on television. And then you have to tell the story that all of us that really care about the tribal chief, the head of the table storyline, you got to tell that in the next two months. You can't skip beats here.

Because when you get to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia is a hard sports town if you don't know, and we know people fly in from all parts of the country and the world to get to WrestleMania, but Philadelphia will boo their own sports teams when they are the number one seed in whatever sport they're in. If they are having a bad game, throw snowballs at Eagles Stadium. Heckle the hell out of the 76ers when they got in B, one of the most generational talents we've seen in a long time.

Philadelphia is a rough beast, but they don't go in with all bullets loaded. They can get nasty for that Roman and Rock match. It can, but I really truly believe with the head creative that is there, even if this wasn't Triple H's decision, right? It sounds like it came from the TKO board and the Rock, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. They can make this work, but they got to hit the ground running. The Rock was funny.

The latest in terms of numbers is that there are over 4 million views for this video that's on YouTube. I think it's got over 300,000 dislikes. It's the most disliked video in WWE history. The Rock put up, you know how the Rock gets down on social media, right? He does awesome quotes, like the mana, the passion, the electricity. I felt all of it. He did all that, right? That's what I went to bed to last night.

I wake up this morning to that same tweet and Instagram post, but at the bottom it was edited and he edited PS, tough skin, love the passion. They hear it. He hears it. Now, okay, get going. Figure out how to appease the fan base. And then you made a comment about Seth Betterwin against Seth. I saw some things on social media surrounding, well, now that Cody's not facing Roman, put one of the women's matches as the main event slot in one of the nights.

I'd never have a problem with women main eventing. But once again, is it we just want Cody to beat Roman? Or do we want Cody to have his moment, a moment at WrestleMania? You don't take Cody out of a main event slot because he's not going against Roman. To me that then devalues Cody even more. I think people are, I'm thinking people are blurring the lines, like you said, because I always thought that the story was Cody wins the world championship. That's what I thought it was.

But now it's more of, I guess Roman's holding it. So now it's that Roman is attached to the story. Like you said, if you didn't put Cody second to last, then you are now devaluing Cody even more like you just said. Yep. I agree. I got Billy Mays. Shout out to Billy Mays. I'm going to tell a quick story about Billy Mays. So I guess maybe even about a year ago, Billy Mays found us on Twitter and this Billy Mays the third.

Hopefully everybody knows who Billy Mays is, the awesome infomercial salesperson back in the day had the perfect beard, was selling like OxyClean, whatever. If you watch like late night television, you saw Billy Mays. So his son, Billy Mays the third hit us up in the DM and just said, Hey, I found you guys awesome podcast, which we love them for.

But it was so funny because what he could tell you, my biggest thing like years ago was if I hit the lottery, like my first purchase is like every infomercial. Yeah, if I see infomercial, I'm going to just buy it. And Billy Mays was of course the host of the majority of those infomercials. Shout out to Billy Mays, the dad and the son. But imagine, hold on, hold on. Imagine trying to have sexy time and your husband's watching infomercials and talking about let's buy this. That was me.

That was me. That was me. But he asked a real question for the pod. Is there any chance WWE is clever enough to do this on purpose? To try and inspire a yes movement type situation for Cody, which I thought was a great question. Because I was what I was going to ask you guys before Billy even sent that question in this morning was how does this compare to mania 30 with Brian Danielson? So what's your guys thoughts?

Is there any chance this is done on purpose to get Cody even more popular with the fan base? I have to say this is the yes because of what we have in them having a pivot when punk left. This was probably the best that they can do with what the cards they were dealt. So yes, but by default. I'm going to say yes to anything that keeps pushing Cody in a positive light. To be honest with you. Because as you said, this is a thing, I'm a super Rock fan. Been a supporter of his forever.

I love to see a Black man in the position that he's in. I think it's amazing. But I want to also make sure, because this is what we need to do as a community. I don't always do this in this pod, but as a Black community, especially the older Black community, we got to make sure we pull up the young Black people along with us. So Rock, make sure you pull that young Black man Cody Rose up with you. Okay? You know, Cody's our same age though, right? Cody's our same age.

No, I'm talking about Rock. I'm talking about the Rock. Yeah, the Rock's like 54, 53 or something like that. Make sure Rock, as you continue to evolve yourself, as you pull up these young Black men with you, make sure that you take care of Cody at Mania. Because we look at some articles that this change came from the Rock, right? And TKO. So you got the younger generation there saying, it's like, oh man, Rock pulling the power play. He put himself on at Mania in spite of our guy Cody.

So I will hope that Rocky, if he's making these kinds of decisions, he has a plan to help support the young Black community. And he's bringing him up with them, right? So if this is another yes movement, I'm all forward. Because I remember I was quite irritated back in the day with the treatment of Daniel Bryan. Myself. I mean, I actually almost started. I remember Matt though, remember, but I remember I was so irritated.

I was in text and Matt called me and Jada felt like, oh, you gotta see the bit. Almost like he's doing to us right now. You gotta see the bigger play. I've called E a Jada fan once and it was around an EW thing. Now every time there was something that happened in wrestling. I like the narrative though. Keep going with it. Bro, what did you say? You weren't in the cut. Like anytime he gets, anytime he legit gets hot at me, he throws it in the Jada.

I can't believe you're just Jada of a fan, E. Hopefully you saved all your text messages. Just go into the search. You can go into the search bar and type a name in. Just type in Jada. You'll see it one time, probably from like three years ago from an AEW show, which we can get to AEW after this. I promised on Sunday or yeah, Wednesday's pod that we were going to talk about AEW on this one. Probably not in the light that I kind of wanted to, but I got a couple things on AEW.

And see with that, we'll continue that and we'll see who really is the AEW hater. It ain't me. It ain't me. But yeah. I was like, man, look what they're doing to Danielson, man. It's the next big thing and I can't believe they're doing this. Oh E, you got to understand the big picture. Just like right now, we got to understand the big picture. The big picture is that the fans want who they want and we need to make sure we protect these people because we know how it was five years ago.

There was one guy. There was one guy at the very top, whoever that was, if that was Roman or that was Cena, then way down below there was somebody else and a whole bunch of other people who didn't mean anything. We finally got people because Roman is Roman. Roman is a generational talent. He's amazing. Anytime he pops on the screen, if it's once a year or two times, whatever he pops up on, it's a special, it's a nice moment.

But in between that time, when they're not on the show, when Roman's, they're not on the show, we got Cody holding on to fourth. So we got to make sure that these people are in positions, in important positions that people care about. What we don't want to do is go back to how we were feeling at that Royal Rumble and St. Louis when we didn't care about nobody that came out at that men's Royal Rumble match. We don't want to go back to that.

So we need to make sure that the people, the wrestlers that are going to be on our TVs week after week that we're going to see on PLEs are protected and that they're continuously in positions that keep us invested in them. I think we are. Right? So if you think about, just take Cody. Cody has been protected. Yeah, we're not getting that final piece. That is a big part to it. I get that. That is a massive part is getting that final win or end of the chapter or end of the book, end of the story.

That keeps getting pushed. But it's also not like he's being thrown to the side until we get to that point. So the difference with- And that's the difference. Yeah, Brian, right. It was because of that. Correct. They buried Brian. They're not marrying Cody. The difference was they never had plans for Brian to be anything legit. That B plus player thing was how he was looked at behind the scenes. That's the difference from the Brian Names and Yes movement and this.

And I remember, of course it's all fun and games and the whole Jada thing. That was the only time I had ever sent a- Actually, I think I sent an email to WWE. It was after Elimination Chamber. I don't know this story. It was after Elimination Chamber and he lost again. And they showed the crowd being dejected. It was like they were almost putting it in our face that you're not getting what you want. And they still at that point had no plans on adding Brian to the main event of Mania.

I just remember sending the email. I just remember I was like, look, I'm sure you guys got a ton of these, but you probably really need to watch how you're treating your talent to something like this because this could alienate your fans and some of them could leave. And I think some of them may have, but he got his moment after that. But that's the only time where I've been invested and I really wasn't- I wanted Brian, of course, but I was so invested in seeing what the fan base wanted.

And I'm like, how can you not see? Because if you guys remember that Mania events was hell been on Ordin against Batista as the main event and nobody wanted that. That's the difference I think with this in the rock. There are millions of people that are interested and want to see Rock and Roman. Now maybe those millions aren't invested in seeing Rock and Roman more than Cody and Roman, but there's millions of people that want to see Rock and Roman.

I'm going to speak for all the Cody fans right now. We want Rock and Roman, just not right now. Just not at Cody's expense. That's the difference. And so at the end of the day, which was a hell of a conversation we just had, we almost went an hour on this. No way. Yeah, but at the end of the day, I think Cody's going to be fine. I'm sorry, Cody will be fine. Cody will get stamped. Cody will be the guy. Now Cody's going to take everything from Roman.

Maybe that wasn't a plan in the first place, but WWE has a incredible opportunity starting on Monday of telling the story to try to repair why Cody won the Rumble, why he pointed to Roman, why he backtracking what he said on Smackdown. We got time to clean it up. Once again, we got two months and this may look like a blip in the radar in two months after we see everything that's presented in front of us. Lean in super heavy to this entire bloodline story for Rock and Roman.

You're going to get the people invested on that. That you're not going to have to worry about. Now you just got to worry about taking care of Cody. And I also thought, where do you place Cody at at main event? We don't have to have this conversation now. Yes, the big piece is you would want him to main event night one. But to the point of what I said earlier about people who bought tickets to WrestleMania and typically they're combos. You get some people that buy only one. I get that.

But say if I bought night two tickets, because night two was where I know Cody Rose is going to win the championship. Cody Rose is on night one for a championship title. Do you even play with doing something with Cody on night two to try to maybe quell any of the negativity of Rock Roman as a main event? Only if it makes sense. I don't think that they should try to put them there and then try to build backwards for it.

I think that it would have to be like, it would only make sense to have his presence on night two. Again, we're assuming Rock Roman is main eventing night two at this point. Like fans, we always figure it out. We always get to the things that we want when we want to get it. I think it'll be fine. I think the WWE needs to make sure that they take care of the fans. Make sure that they're creating moments that they're generally know that the fans are going to be invested into.

Whatever that's going to be, whatever that looks like. I think Cody plays a big part of that and they celebrate that. They should celebrate that they have a superstar that people are behind and continue to again, uplift those people. But hey, if Rock and Roman is to go, make that as special as it can be. I think it will be. Because Rock is always... I can't tell you, Matt Rhodesia, my favorite Rock match. I can't tell you that.

But I've always enjoyed The Rock and he's always been one of my favorite wrestlers. So whatever he does in that ring is always enough to keep me invested in him as a character. I know that. It's kind of in my mind. I kind of want to say that I believe that Rhodesia said that Roman is the worst main event wrestler in the history of the company. Something like that. I can't stand his matches. Remember I said I can't because he works slow. Remember, I don't like slow matches. He just works slow.

Yeah. I was so surprised by that. I think I kind of blocked the half out of my mind. But with that being said, I think the two of them can make magic in the ring. So hey, look, if that's what they think is best for business or whatever the case may be, cool. Have your best for business moment, but also make sure that you take care of them fans. 100%. Lastly on Cody, and I love Cody Ford. So Cody, don't change, but change. Cody's got to get a better poker face. He does.

I love he doesn't have a good poker face because it means that much to him. And it's different from I'm sure having a poker face in a worked environment, i.e. I'm about to drop the title tonight. I'm not winning the title tonight, opposed to what we've seen them have to go through over the last few weeks. I told you guys weeks ago when he came out and he cut that promo against Shinsuke when The Rock had just come back or said something, he dropped the head of the table.

I was like, man, he looks stressed and ain't got nothing to do with Shinsuke. Number one, poor guy, they shot to Cody walking to the ring before his main event segment. He tried to do his little smile. He looked like Pharaoh got lost backstage and they couldn't find him. He looked like he was so dejected. They showed him in the ring. He walked away to East Point and he just looked like, what is happening to me? You'll be all right, man. I promise you, you'll be all right.

But I like that about him. Like you said, keep it, but don't keep doing it. Change, but don't change. I mean, it's- Change, but don't change. Yeah. He's genuinely in himself. So he's a strong black brother. Hey, Cody, I'm taking your spot. Deal with it. I do wonder what, like I said, cause that moment was real with him and rocking the ring. I wonder, was it more of like your dad would be proud or was it more like your dad never got it done either? Get the fuck out my ring.

Okay. You know what I mean? Like I just kind of wonder- Wow. Just when we thought we would bring it all full circle. Kind of just wondered which way- He had to just go again. I'm just asking. I'm just asking. All right. Actually really quick too, before we move on to, we got to talk Bailey. E, ask you if you saw enough, cause you were complaining about where they were in the storyline. Billy also sent us his top 20 list. He actually sent that earlier in the week.

He said he knows he was a little bit late. I do want to go over his top 20 real quick. It's a really strong top 20. 20 is Razor Ramone. 19 is Bailey. 18 is Mr. Perfect. 17 is Becky Lynch. Then he has Orton, Biggie, Seth Rollins, Brian Danielson, Bam Bam Bigelow, which I popped forward. E, did you have Bam Bam on yours? I don't think so. He said he thought maybe you had yours. I was like, I don't think so. I was honestly, I was a Bam Bam Bigelow fan though.

I remember the first time I saw him in WWF at the time. All right, this big dude doing moon salts? I was a big fan of it. With the fire tattoo. Dude, like he was so above. He's somebody that was like way before his time. Like him and Too Cold Scorpio. Those are two, like if you could have maybe pushed them like a decade farther ahead, they would have been much bigger than what they were. He was a guy who I'd never, who never accomplished what I thought he would accomplish.

Especially when I first saw him. I'm like, oh, this dude is going to be big, right? But he never hit it big. Yep. So he had Bam Bam at 12. He has the rock at 11. So that's actually the lowest that he has. Ooh. You know what, Billy, you got to tell me how you feel about this. The whole rock and Cody of it all, because he has rock 11. He has Cody 8. Wow. So he actually has Cody higher on his list than the rock. So he has rock 11, AJ Styles 10, Rhea 9, which is fantastic.

You think about just how young Rhea is in the game. Cody 8, Roman 7, Kurt Angle 6, Randy Savage 5, Austin 4, Adi Guerrero 3, and then he has Rhea 0.3, Shawn Michaels 2, Bret Hart number 1. That's a hell of a list. And he said, I'll probably change my mind on a lot of these on evening of the week. We all do, brother. Don't feel bad. Don't feel bad. So Bailey, you have been really adamant on, the story's not where it needs to be. She's not sympathetic as she wouldn't be yet.

They could have easily gotten to the Rumble without having her win or the Mania match without having her win the Rumble. I thought they had a fantastic segment on SmackDown Friday to get to that point. I think in just like that, she's back to being a simple sympathetic baby face. What's your thoughts now on Bailey's character in the arc of where they are with the story? Yeah, absolutely.

But before I do that, I want to go back to the top 20 and I want to go, I want to recant back on my statement about Derrick's top 20. Was it Derrick? He's recanting? Oh, we were recanting. Okay. What did you say or what happened? Well, I remember Matt pulling his pants down on Deuce and Domino a little bit. I kind of joined in on it. I think Deuce's Domino was like number 20 or something like that. No, I didn't say that.

I just thought it was great that he had Deuce and Domino on his top 20 list. That's all. No, I think you pulled your pants down on me. I joined in a little bit, but you know, but during the course of the conversation, I'm like, ah, actually they had a hell of a finisher. Oh, it's two people? It was a tag team. No, it was a tag team. Right? Deuce and Domino. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Deuce was Jimmy Snooker's son, actually. It's like Tom and Nick. Okay, got it. And Domino was another guy.

They had this really cool finisher because Domino would kind of do a snap mirror and put the opponent in a seated position. And then Deuce would run, bounce off the rope, and do a hella boot to the face. I thought that would look so cool. And actually to this day, I have that as one of my signature moves in my 2K signature. That's cool. This all came to my mind as we were doing the conversation. I was just so tired and sick at the end of the conversation. I couldn't interject anymore.

But my bad, Derek, I kind of get it. I love the finisher as well. But back to Bailey. Yeah, Bailey, she did well for herself. It was a nice promo. Showed a lot of character, but I'm still not there with it. I'm still not there with her. Or I think that another big part, I haven't mentioned it, but I think that her championship reign has been underwhelming. I don't think that she has been the focus of the women's division on the SmackDown side.

She hasn't been the focus of interest in that group, actually. She's kind of blended in a little bit too much. I would say that she's had one of the weakest women's title reigns that I've seen in some time. And that's to a fault of hers. I don't think they put her in a position to make her reign seem important. So since Bailey has been such a comedy figure for most of her tenure the past year and a half, I'm still not ready to think that this is a main event WrestleMania caliber match yet.

I mean, they got a lot of work to do to make Io, to be quite honest, a credible champion. She's almost like a secondary champion at this point. I would say that Rhea has the world swimming championship and Io's title reign has kind of been like the United States championship. Not even the IC title that Guthur has right now. I would say the United States championship. That's how unimportant I think that her title reign has been. And that's not her fault. It's the way that she's been booked.

She's not the leader or the standout in that group. It's Bailey. Bailey, and Dakota talks for him. She kind of just melts into the middle of the other two girls. So time will tell. But yeah, I'm still not into it yet. Radeeja, give your thoughts. But just one statement on that. I think Io's reign has been better than Rhea's reign. Okay, so we talk about reigns, sure. I would say Io reign is better than Rhea's reign. What's better about it? Rhea is just- The matches and the storylines.

When she's had matches, the build is up to it. Rhea only has how many title matches? Not many. She's only had like three or four. Yeah, so she hasn't had many. And all those matches you just knew for a fact, she wasn't even going to lose to. Yeah. So the reign itself is just different. The character Rhea is just so beyond everything right now that we're seeing. So to compare those two, I see where you would say one was the heavyweight and one is the US belt.

Well, I say her reign is underwhelming. Maybe. Maybe. I would probably say it's a little bit underwhelming. I remember when she first won the title, how much I popped, how excited I was. Will I say that this is the best run Io could have had? Probably not, but I'm just all there for just Bailey and Io. I think that Bailey is going to get her just do what she is so far in that this match is going to just be incredible. Main event spot?

No, because we already talking about where Cody's going to land at. But if we could build to it and if it makes sense, like I know you mentioned Matt about what WWE has to do now starting Monday, they're charged with making sure that these main event stories, everyone is going to be engaged, whether you hate it or love it, but you're engaged. They're charged to make these things make sense.

But if we can get Bailey and Io to that level, which I hope they could, I wouldn't mind seeing them in the main event. On the Rhea side of things, do we have a front runner so far yet outside of the rumors of Becky? Becky! That's the match. Nothing's happened that I missed last week. No, no, no. I mean, because they still got to get through a chamber. Remember, she's still got to, I still have her, remember I have her fight Nia as the main event in her home country. That's right.

And then we get to Becky and her. You know, there's an outside chance of Bianca and Rhea. I just don't think you do that. I think the smart money this year is to tag Jade and Bianca. We can talk about that on the next pot on what you guys would really want to see Jade do at this year's Mania. I'm seeing a lot of Bianca versus Jade. I think that's way too soon. And not even just from her talent, Jade's like readiness. I think that could be an easy night to main event of Mania down the line.

You do not hot shot that match at all. You let that time breathe and imagine them taking on Kabuki Warriors, which match would be incredible between Bianca and Jade and the Kabuki Warriors. Have Asuka and what's her name? Kyrie. Kyrie just bump all over the place for them, put on a great match. And then you let them run with those titles for like, you know, nine, 10 months. And then if you want to have that as one of the main events next year, cool, do it. But that's just, it's too soon.

Too soon. But I loved it. I thought Bailey, her speaking in Japanese was great. Oh yeah. Like once again, I snapped my finger because we all can appreciate and connect to why you guys like this. I just wanted this and all you do is talk behind my back. Why are you like, why? Everybody can connect to that. So no matter what else is done, it was just that easy just to flip Bailey and we all love Bailey at the end of the day. The one thing I will say, the hate, the hate on that.

Them pipe shots, some of them just wasn't there. Come on Bailey. They could take it. Some of them, I'm like, come on. It looked like she was hitting them with a paper towel. You know, like the roll when it's over. It could have been. Spray painting. It could have been there just a little bit more. It could have been there a little bit more. But yeah, I loved it. I loved it. And I think too, I put a tweet out that that got lost.

Of course in the whole Rock, Roman, Cody thing, they'll make sure it's not with video packages and all that, but they're on their way. They are well on the way now with that story. Before we get to a AW Okada, which I guess maybe it could be connected to a W or WDB depending on who you believe. He is a free agent as a three days ago, I believe. And there is talks that it is like 50 50 right now. I don't believe that.

I believe he's going to a W. But there is confirmed conversations he's had with WWE. I know there are WWE wrestlers that have stated that Okada has reached out to them to ask him how work is there, the environment, etc, etc. We know the connection he already has an AW with the Bucks. He's already worked with Tony Khan, etc, etc. I think the three of us from a product perspective would like him to be in WWE. There's more mew in the bone.

If he goes to WWE, he's gonna be fine wherever he goes and make the most money he's ever made. He's gonna be more popular to the US fan base than he's ever been. What's the percentage you guys are giving him to actually land in WWE? I say 15%. I mean, I don't know. It's 50 50. I mean, but my personal taste, I would like to see him go to WWE. I think I don't think I don't know if he I don't think he would mean as much to AW right now as presently constructed. I will love in the best world for me.

I like to see him go WWE and them to get a personal English tutor so he can speak the language. They have him down in NXT. Yeah. Well, yeah, this somebody even when he gets to the main roster, somebody just keeps working with them. And then something like with the drudgy, right? Because the Johnny Johnny actually speaks English pretty well. His accent is just so thick, right?

And I don't know if he's tried it, but you know, there's coaches that can work on, you know, your enunciation and kind of listening to accent so he can make make you sound more clear. I don't know if he's doing that, but I would love this to have those people around the corner because if he can articulate himself on the microphone, he will be such a big deal. But he looks like a star. We talked about like, no, Jay looks like a star. Like, I'll kind of looks like a star. He's a good looking guy.

He's tall. He has the blonde hair. He can go in a ring. I mean, I would love to see matches with him and Cody and Seth and then no Roman. I mean, the list just goes on and on. I think he just would be a big deal if they get the right team behind them. And with that, that machine behind them. Wow. Yep. It would be fun. Like I got him going to AEW. Even AEW was going to be a good run for him. He's gonna have great matches. But man, could you imagine if the coin drop hits at Mania out of nowhere?

That would be like, wow, that would be fantastic. My only worry with him coming to WWE though is right now because this is again, great time to be alive, especially in WWE. There's so many people at the top. So just like how I feel, maybe he'll get lost in WWE unless they make him like a spectacle and you only see him so often. I just don't see how in today, right now, 2024, how he would be able to survive in WWE with so many heavy hitters up at the top. No, no, there's spots for him.

There's spots for him. But to the level where I would want Okada to be. So like for a normal contract, how long are these contracts? So like if he signed a TK, Tony Khan, how long would he be signed for? Five year deals, right? Yeah. Well, because WWE started doing five years when AEW signed their TV contract. That really started the five. But typically you get anywhere between three to five. It's kind of like the sixth five. So three?

Yeah. Okay. Okay. But we know Mercedes is coming, which I know I'm excited for in her and AEW. I know he is not. I brought up NXT earlier. Of course, NXT, PLE is tonight. We'll talk a little bit about that on Wednesday show. Congrats and shout out to Tiffany Stratton. Yay. She's officially on SmackDown. Yes. Shout out and congratulations to who else from NXT is now on SmackDown 2. I know Naomi, Naomi, Naomi is on SmackDown. They tease Brownbreaker. We'll see where he goes.

We'll be going somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. It's just so funny. I mean, after the rumble, how WWE officials were so impressed and blown away by people like Brownbreaker and Tiffany Stratton. Who are these people? Because like, do they not watch NXT? Like I understand like you're busy, right? But how did you see Tiffany Stratton at the rumble and not know who Tiffany Stratton was before that? Maybe she ain't done on NXT TV for the last year.

Maybe they hear the rumblings, but now they're actually seeing it. So you can hear somebody say, oh, this person has so much potential. They're coming up. But now you see how they actually carry themselves walking out to the ring, performing in the ring, how they are backstage. And then you're actually seeing what you're hearing. And then if they're living up to those expectations, it makes them feel even better about those people. So maybe that's what it is. It was the Rock. It was the Rock.

Rock's seen these guys now. He's calling shots now. He's changing rec, many main events. Let's go. He's calling people up now too. So wait, so if Roman is the one, then what do we call Rock? Or is that kind of what we kind of are fighting for right now? No, Rock is zero. No, no, Rock is zero. He's calling shots. He's calling shots. Roman ain't doing that. He's sitting at home clicking the test. So what you're telling me is Roman's the head of the table and the Rock is the head of the table.

Is that what you're saying? You put like capital T, capital H, capital E. Oh yeah. The story legit is there. Who's legit head of the table, right? It's the Rock. It's the Rock. I think so too. That's what we were fighting for. But the Rock is not going to win against Roman. Let's be very clear about that. Roman's going to win, but no, Rock is the head of the table. And I wouldn't be surprised if the Rock wins that match. We'll get off of that. We'll talk about it.

Okay. Yep. We'll talk about it in the next couple of episodes and I'll give you my reason why. So AEW, let's talk about that real quick. I want to bring up one, I'm happy that Raking's are back. The Raking's debuted after Dynamite, Tony Khan tweeted them out. I was a fan of the Raking's until I wasn't. And what I mean by that is the Raking's really worked in the beginning couple of years with AEW to make sure that Tony Khan had a vision.

He stuck to what he should have stuck to with the people that were getting hot. But what happened was the Raking's then became a crutch and, oh, we need to get Danny Garcia hot, throw him on dark three weeks in a row and say he's on a four win win streak. We put him one match on Dynamite and now he's number one contender for a belt. That started happening way too often. Now that there is no Dynamite or dark elevation, I'm hoping that this helps structure their product better.

What's your guys thoughts on the Raking's coming back? I'm not a super big fan of it to be honest with you. Like I say, I don't think it's just TK and his creative. I don't think any company has the proper, what I want to look for. I don't think they hold themselves to the standard that they set. I think they're going to conveniently use these rankings when they want to use them. They're not going to use it when they want to use it for storyline purposes. I mean, it's wrestling.

It's going to happen. As you said, I think you're going to see a lot of, hey, this guy won 20 matches in a row against jobbers. Now he's the number two wrestler for the AEW Heavyweight Championship. I mean, that's kind of what happened with Hook. He had that huge win-loss record, but most of it was against lower card talent. It wasn't anybody that what you would think will be high ranked that will push him up the ladder. So I'm not a fan of it.

I just don't think they're going to hold themselves to stick into it or their standard that they set themselves for. Y'all both hit the no on it. So rankings, I love the concept of having a ranking because not only if I'm not watching AEW every week, I can turn to it. I see this person is seven and one. So now you're also setting the stage for this person. The fine line is now where it becomes the crutch.

Hey, so like you said, to both of your points, in order to make this person more important, let's get a whole bunch of wins for this person, but against jobbers. Have those wins, have the wins and losses be meaningful. And I think those rankings will be incredibly important. Concept of rankings. I love it. I do, but I have seen with them, like y'all said, where you just made it as a crutch. And then that's where now the rankings, the integrity of the rankings is really nothing.

Man, to hell with a ranking though. Why don't you focus on trying to make these, all these titles mean something on their damn show? What's the ranking system for those championships and who goes after them and why make that important? And how do you bring these rankings? Well, so then, so have you seen the screenshot of it? Yeah, I've seen it. Okay. So like they are connected to the titles. So like they'll have like all the single men's championships, right? Champion, champion, champion.

And then I'll have the five people that's ranked on that. So I guess maybe that's kind of going to circumvent what you're kind of saying. So that should help. I think next door, this week's dynamite is going to be fantastic. Let me run down that card real quick.

Jericho verse Takeshita, trios match, the stars of CMLL versus Blackpool Combat Club, tag team championship match, Starks and Big Bill versus Sting and Darby Allen, main event swerve versus Hangman, winner gets a shot at Samoa Joe or at the pay-per-view revolution. That's got to end in some type of draw so we can get a triple third match.

And then Tony Khan with his huge announcement, which I think is going to be connected to Boston on March 13th and then he should finish of course with some type of, you can bank on it or some type of line that says that Mercedes is going to be making her debut there that week. So I think that's going to be great. I thought dynamite this past Wednesday was okay. I really found myself like in and out watching it and I figured it out.

I now know what my issue has been with AEW since I've had an issue with it, I guess over the last maybe couple months or so. At one point I'm like, maybe it's a production. They've done a great job with fixing the production. Then I'm like, maybe it's a storylines, but then they have some storylines. So maybe this isn't number one, this is maybe like one B. AEW has a color crisis. And what I mean by that is everything is gray. There's no black, there's no white. Everything is gray. Elaborate.

I'm going to give you last Wednesday's episode. First match was Jeff Hardy versus Jon Moxley. Who's the face and who's the hill in that match? That's what you mean by that. I don't know. No, I mean, tell me who's the face and who's the hill? I think Mox, just because I care more about Mox at this time in my life. Mox is the what? Huh? Mox is the what? Face. Okay. Because that's who I care about more. Not to you. Who's the face and who's the hill? I don't know. I don't know.

I'm only answering it because my answer is I don't know. So my answer would be Mox if I had an answer. So Mox is a tweener. That's why he's been booked forever, right? Jeff Hardy is the face. However, Jeff Hardy is also undergoing a personality change. It's what you're trying to tell the story through his matches and through the commentary. So but to answer your question, tweener Mox versus a soon to be a hill Hardy, right? But he might end up being a tweener.

Still a face, but we know he's going to hill. Kind of that type of thing, right? Tweener versus tweener. Okay. Doesn't work. Next match or situation. Hangman Page versus Tola Leona. Hangman's a face. We know that, right? Great. Hangman's a face. I love Hangman. Perfect. Let's keep it moving. Next thing was the Unbuck's with their new where the BEVP type gimmick. I'm cool with that. Okay. I like that gimmick. Yep. Next thing was Warlow versus Commander. What's Warlow? He's a hill, right?

You got it because he's part of the kingdom. He's a hill. Okay. He's a hill that's part of undisputed kingdom that has been horrendous since the reveal that Warlow's in. They've done nothing with this group and we've said how much, maybe Warlow don't have it, but we've said how much potential we thought Warlow had and how hot he was when he was feuding with MJF. Maybe it was all MJF. I don't know, but they have Warlow as a hill. He doesn't really do hill things.

All he does is do impressive spots in the ring as a big man. Okay. A little bit of indifference there. Then they did a sit down with Darby Allen Sting and Ricky Starks and Big Bill. Would you guys agree that Starks is probably one of the more popular AEW stars right now? Yes, but I think in the last month and a half, I don't want to say he's been buried because he's a champion right now, but- He's lost steam. He's lost steam. What do you say, E?

I think from a fan perspective, yeah, but he's definitely a hill in this scenario though. He's a hill in this scenario. I think he's lost steam and I think he's lost steam because he's in hill. We like Ricky Starks, but then we need to boo him, but he doesn't do anything really to get booed like that. He spilled the water, right? He spilled the water. There you go. That's the hill thing. No, no, the tag team isn't working. That's why he's losing steam. I don't think it has.

I think I know where you're going with it, but I don't think it's that. I think that his tag team, him, Big Bill, they're not a tag team. Obviously, Ricky, you guys suck together and there's no chemistry. Please drop the titles and go your separate ways. Yeah, things happen on Wednesday. I mean, that's the smart money. That's the smart money. The next match was Kyle Fletcher with Don Callis versus Chris Jericho.

I think we all like Kyle Fletcher, but he's in this bubble of just, I'm a hill because I'm with Don Callis. There's nothing to it. Okay, let me move on. Next thing was the six man, which I actually enjoyed because they didn't announce it beforehand. It was the promo segment. I know a lot of people didn't like it with the acclaim, daddy ass with Bullet Club Gold. I thought it was cool just because they didn't announce that that was happening, but Bullet Club Gold is in this.

We know they're going to eventually turn on the acclaim, but they're kind of faces now, but they've been hills and Jay White should be like this really, really big deal, but now he's like ROH trios. He's just kind of also like in this gray area. First off, hold on. It's cringy though. The gun scissoring, that's really cringy to me, but keep going. Then we have Taya Valkyrie versus Deanna Parrazo. I like that one. Okay, but who's the face? Deanna. It got to be Deanna.

But it can't be because when she comes out, she shushes the crowd and the cameraman away. You're right. But then you put her in a match against a hill with Toni Storm, who was a hill at commentary. No, Deanna is definitely a face though. Okay, then tell her she needs to stop doing her shoosh thing then because- Yeah, she should. I think she should be a face. Toni Storm and Swerve to me are the two best acts in AEW and they're both slotted ass hills.

Then the main event was Swerve Strickland versus RVD. We know they're presenting Swerve as a hill. Everybody likes Swerve. Going against a legend who nobody wants to boo, but they want to cheer. There is just a ton of what are we doing here in regards to personalities. I know the first thing people would say is, Matt, you are so old school thinking of everybody needs to be a face, everybody needs to be a hill. I get that.

I get if you watch UFC, a lot of the fights are just who was the best, who wants to be the best. But your biggest stars in UFC are either faces or their hills. We spent an hour talking about Seth Rollins, Cody Rhodes, Roman Reigns, all clearly defined faces or hills. The Rock is out for debate on the field of face or hill right now. The internet has him as a hill. But clearly defined personalities.

That is for me, because when I was watching, I'm like, why am I just not connecting to this episode? I'm looking and I'm like, oh, because maybe the people who I really like are put in a position to not be liked. And then, you know what I mean, that is what I think if they are going to get some momentum back, like when MJF was at the top of the game, he was their number one hill without question. CM Punk was without question a face. Kenny Omega is without question a face.

When you do all this tweener stuff, it's cool to say tweener, cheer for who you want to cheer for, boo who you want to boo. But when nobody's hot, that's why we continue to have issues with selling tickets in the majority of the markets we go to, because nobody's hot. You could argue that maybe Drew McIntyre is a little bit of a tweener, but everything he's done is acting like a hill. We just as people can say, oh, I can feel Drew, because I understand that, but he's a hill.

He's an absolute hill. I won't be as critical as you on that, what you just presented, but you're right. I think tweeners can work, but your whole show can't be about tweeners. Like you said, you still have to have a baseline of who I'm rooting for, who I'm booing. Every single match shouldn't be like, oh, I like both these guys, or I kind of don't like both these guys. You're right. Every match can be, your story thread can be of tweeners fighting each other.

You have one tweener match here, one tweener match there, but the whole show can't be like that. You got a very valid point, and that's probably why maybe I didn't quite connect to. My only thing that I will kind of gripe about AEW this week was the whole swerve and hangman picking the stipulation for those matches. That felt just a little bit flat to me. I don't know why, because I like the matches, but it didn't feel like I got to pick your match. Oh, I'm about to put you through hell, hell.

I guess that part to me kind of felt flat. Did it fall flat to either one of you? Okay. That was my only issue. Yep. Because you would think if I hate you, then these matches should be like, hardest core, whatever. It should be something to the fact that even if you win, you're not walking out of this match. That's kind of what I was thinking. And it wasn't like that. It's not like they're on some friendly competition of just trying to figure out who's the best.

And swerve's promo at the end with hangman, it had a hint of, oh, are they going to work like an iron man match? It was almost a hint of like, who's the better wrestler? But this is a blood feud. So that's what it should kind of stay in. But I said it needs to be a triple threat match because if hangman beats swerve and it's hangman versus Moa Jo at Revolution and swerve is on the outside looking in. They going to shit on that. I know I would just because we know where swerve is headed.

You know what? I kind of disagree with the color problem because I see where you're going. But when you watch the shows, the heels and the face, we kind of walk through it. It's clearly defined who the heel and the face is, what you're expressing to me is a character and story problem. Like with Deanna, for instance, right? She's obviously positioned as the baby face and she speaks like a baby face. However, her mannerisms are heelish. That's a character thing.

That's somebody that needs to talk to her about like, hey, because she plays this character that has been a heel for years on impact. That's somebody talking to her or maybe her understanding like, hey, let me tweak some of my nuances of my character to make it more appealing to the position I'm in. If I'm shushing people or shoot people away as a heel, maybe as a good guy I shouldn't do that. Well, Cal Fletcher, Cal, he's definitely, he doesn't do anything likable to me.

Now you may respect him as a wrestler and you may cheer for him and maybe the crowd does, but that's up to creative to put him in positions to make sure that it's very known that he's an unlikable character, right? Not put him in situations to he's showing his athleticism and he's winning over the crowd with his work ethic. Let's make sure we put him in position, we put little nuances in to make sure he's established himself as a heel.

These are all just character and story things that are issues with the company. These are always been things, right? Because to me, like TK, and this is actually a great thing. I think that he does a great job of actually letting people freely express themselves in the creative on the microphone and the ring, but there has to be some checks and balances to make sure that what they're saying and what they're doing is make sense for the storyline or for the characters.

So for me, it's more of a characterization issue with these characters more so than they're not firmly heels or faces. They just need to behave accordingly. And the shows themselves, I think if you like, it's a fine wrestling show. I think for quite some time, they're putting on some fine wrestling shows and some good matches. The issues that you're going to continue to have with the company, it doesn't matter who they sign there, it's going to be the issues we're talking about.

Characterization and story. They're not good at that because the person who is head of creative is great at making matches and putting together good cards and actually analyzing talent. That's what he's good at. We need somebody in there that can make sure that they're filling the blanks with these stories to make sure that all the entities are making sense from a character perspective. And that's not what's happened. And I don't think it'll continue to happen.

I think what we need to do is appreciate what the show is and what the company is. It's about the wrestling, it's about good matches and sadly it's about the moves. Yeah. But the problem with that is we get good wrestling everywhere now. It is not like back in the day, dating ourselves, old guy where you had T.O. Hopper against Phineas Godwin on Raw, but then you would turn to WCW and you got the Luchadores killing it. No, there's good wrestling everywhere.

You can find a good wrestling match on every show that you watch every day of the week. It's got to be more now than just good wrestling. And that's the problem. That's really what I'm seeing. So good break now, man. You're probably right on that. But we'll see. We'll see. I always like try to give them the bit of the doubt, but I am excited for Wednesday. So I think Wednesday's will be a really, really big show. And I think his announcement is connected to Mercedes.

Who knows if they do some type of double dick and it's Okada and Mercedes. We'll see. All right. We're an hour and a half. So I guess we probably should head on out now. I guess we should go head on out and enjoy this beautiful Sunday weather that we have here. It may be a little bit more sunnier now, E. It's been an hour and a half. I know you started it was, you know, rainy out there. It's still here. I'm looking out. The tree's still swaying. And it's still beautiful over here.

The Rock has come back to save us for WrestleMania. Put up the zeros. Oh put up the zeros. Hey, you know what? It makes sense that in Cody's home state of Georgia, the sky is crying. We're crying for you, Cody. We're crying for you. And on that note, we are outta here. Check us out on all the socials. Hit us up on YouTube. We've done a great job with trying to grow our YouTube. That's been like something that we really wouldn't spend a lot of time on.

You know, honestly, I think we've grown like 150 subscribers or something like that like the last like 45 days. So get the word out. Watch us on YouTube. That's freaking wrestling. Hit subscribe button notifications, all that kind of good stuff. You guys know where to find us on X. That's FNW. You know where to find us on the podcast, five stars, leave comments, et cetera, et cetera. All that kind of good stuff.

We'll be back on Wednesday to break down more craziness of this Rock saga that we're going to have. Who knows what else is going to come out over the next couple of days and see how they follow up on wrong. If they do anything with it, seeing now this is kind of like a Friday Smackdown storyline and see what Cody does with Seth because he didn't say he was going after Seth, but that is what we have to assume is going to happen for a mania. So break that down and more for you guys on a Wednesday.

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