Episode 66| Enter The Parallax Effect!

Welcome to a special edition of the TFW Podcast. That's freaking wrestling. I am Matt and normally at this point, I introduce the fam, Rodija and Eshaan, but not today. I talked about us being guests on the Parallax Effect Podcast. Shout out to Ryan, who was the host over at that show. And he dropped that pie this past Thursday on his feed. The conversation was great.

We talked about a ton of topics from how we got into wrestling, our first live shows we all attended, the CM Punk drama, Cody Rhodes and what he'll finish his story, if ever at this point, if you watch Smackdown and much, much more. So I thought you guys would really enjoy hearing that conversation if you hadn't checked it out already. So we're going to play it right here.

If you do have only one way to consume that podcast, though, go watch it on YouTube as Ryan did a great job with the production, with adding some photos from us in the video. He just did a really, really good job. I think you guys will enjoy it. So search and subscribe to the Parallax Effect Podcast on YouTube. That's P A R A L L A X and follow Ryan on X at RyanLavelle27. But do not worry, do not fret. We will be back on Wednesday. And boy, do we have a ton of topics to discuss.

The Rock did return to Smackdown this past Friday. Not his word about WrestleMania 20. We'll get into or WrestleMania 40. Excuse me. We'll get into that. Jay's finishing up with A.W. and looks to be heading to WWE. Roman's next title defense is now set to be in Saudi on November 4th. We'll talk about that. The P W Y top 500 list drops, so we will absolutely give our thoughts on at the very least the top 10. Spoiler alert. How you don't have Will Ospreay in the top 10 is a travesty.

But I'll give my deep dive thoughts on that on Wednesday. And CM Punk said on MMA commentary Friday that who has some time on his hands for the next two months. Put two and two together. Looks like he may be talking about a potential return to Allstate Arena, which will be in Chicago for Survivor Series. So we'll get into all that. And as wrestling happens, who knows what else drops between now and on Wednesday. So enjoy this episode and we will talk to you then. Let that drink touch that kid.

I if I had a bad, I probably would have swung it and hit him. If I if he poured a drink on my baby or spilled a drink on my kid. It's over. Period. It's over. Parallax, you were not tuned into the parallax effect. It's not the message, it's the messenger. What up, Ryan? It's time. Parallax, oatmeal is better than oatmeal. Guess who's back to make mountains out of molehills? If this don't move you, I bet my folks will. This beats smooth, but trust me, there ain't no chill.

Ask Ryan, if I'm lying, I'm flying. It's the sculpture of all aspects of the culture. Parallax, the people's podcast is back. Laying it down flat for you wherever you at. Your job and your car and your job and your flight. Loads of archives with no ending in sight. Hitting on any topic. Long as it ain't no nonsense. You can see the others for the drama and the gossip. Word to Brett, best I ever was. Recognize it, never secondary. My eyes stay on the pocket. Parallax.

And if you're feeling the vibes, give us five stars. Oh, and follow and subscribe. Parallax. Sit back and recline, relax and enjoy the ride. Because it's that parallax. And you've just passed the test. This is the parallax effect. Come on. Parallax. Sit back and recline, relax and enjoy the ride. Because it's that parallax. And you're here. That's my respect. Welcome to the parallax effect. Yeah. We are back.

This is the Parallax Effect podcast where we continue to navigate through the shifting tides of perspectives. I am your host, Ryan Lavelle. Great to have you back on this week's episode as we have an action packed sports entertainment themed show for you today. Let me quickly remind you, as always, that you can find us on Instagram at Parallax Effect Media, on Facebook at the Parallax Effect podcast, on Twitter at Parallax Effects.

Once again, that's Parallax Effects with an S and also on TikTok at Riloken27 or search the Parallax Effect Media. And also please subscribe to our YouTube channel. The link is in the show description as well as on the bottom right hand corner of the screen. All right. As always, we get right to it. We waste no time.

I am super excited for today's guests as they are largely responsible for giving me the courage to finally execute this very show, which hopefully you enjoy pretty much weekly and which had remained an idea and a dream of mine for a long while until I met them. So my guests are the hosts of that freaking wrestling podcast, which is one of the premier podcasts in wrestling.

If you are a wrestling fan and you are not listening to this podcast, something has to change because this is the place to be for all the latest wrestling news, the best topics of debate, the latest and greatest of everything going on in the wonderful world of wrestling that we all love. So without further ado, please let me introduce. I got Matt, I got Radeeja and I got E right here on the Parallax Effect podcast. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you. Incredible, Teal. Amazing, Teal. Thank you.

I tell you what, we now have the crossover Parallax and TFW podcast coming together. That was a fantastic intro, but I got to put you over, Ryan. I got to put you over. We met WrestleMania weekend and you were talking about thinking about doing the podcast and I'm like, man, just go out and do it. And you have hit the ground running and have started it in what, you know, two, three months after, you know, we had that conversation, man. So shout out to you.

So many people who have dreams and aspirations to do things and they keep saying they want to do it and keep saying they want to do it. They never take that step forward to do it and you've done it, man. So shout out to you for that. And thank you for having us on your platform. We appreciate it. Oh, much appreciated. Yes. That conversation was one of the most meaningful conversations regarding obviously starting the podcast that I ever had.

We met at the event, the kickback, the super kickback hosted by Andreas Hale. Big shout out to him. Shout out. We saw you at the bar. We just started chatting it up. I didn't know drinks were free, so I offered to buy you one. I wasn't aware. I didn't get that memo. But yeah, we struck up a very good conversation and I was just kind of laying it on you like, man, I got this and I got this ready, but I need to do that.

And then you just, you know, after a while, you're like, all right, dude, look, I'm just going to tell you what you don't want to hear. Start the show, record an episode. And I was like, man, why hasn't anybody told me that before? But they probably have. But as we say in the show intro, it's the message. It's the messenger, not the message. And you delivered the perfect message at the perfect time. And here we are today. So thank you to each of you for for helping me out with that.

It really means a lot. I always equate it to like having kids, you know, you never think you're ready and you're like, no, let me push it back. You know, we need a bigger house. No, let me push it back. We need more money. No, let me push it back. It's not the right time. It's never the right time until it's the right time. So it is the right time for you, my good man. Much appreciated. E, how we doing, man, it's great to meet you as well, too.

I want to know, you know, so I don't know too much about your backstories, each of you, where you're from. I mean, I know Detroit, I think, is where you call home. I see it on your especially Matt. Yes, sir. Well, too. So tell me a little bit about, you know, upbringing growing up over there and how you fell in love with wrestling. It's nice to meet you as well, Ryan. That's an amazing story. I really wanted to meet, go to that a bit. And I'm really sad I didn't get to go to that.

I'm really sad I didn't get to go. So I didn't get the experience along with you guys. But for me, I've been a fan of wrestling ever since I was probably six years old. I remember my first memory of wrestling, right? I'm going way back. It was my brother. So he's a butthole, right? And he didn't let me hang out with them. So I had to, I had to kind of like, I had to kind of sneak and hang out with them. Right. So one day it's a Saturday.

He's watching superstars, WWF superstars, whatever time it came on. He's watching it. And I'm a big karate guy, kung fu guy. And he's watching wrestling. I see this guy with a red, you know, bandana on and white pants, white boots, doing karate chops, doing kind of like a karate thing. I think he came out in a white dojo, Ricky the Dragon steamboat. And so I'm like, oh, this is a, this is a ninja. This is a karate guy. And so I watched the whole entire episode.

And then from there, I just was immediately hooked, Ryan. I mean, I was hooked on it. I remember going to the CVS, the drug stores, getting all the magazines. It just was a, been an amazing part of my, of my journey. And I'll tell you this and I'll pass over to Matt and Rhodesia. I was, I was a solo fan, right? Cause I grew up in Detroit and wrestling wasn't cool. A lot of the nerdy things I liked, you know, wasn't cool. So I kind of really kept that passion to myself.

I didn't have any wrestling fans, friends growing up. I didn't really get wrestling friends until I became family with Matt and Rhodesia much later in my life. And in some ways I started becoming one of those fans that was kind of, you know, I, I stopped watching wrestling as much, but spending time with Matt and Rhodesia and their awesome seven foot eight son, you know, just being around these guys, just really kindled my passion and my love for them. And my love for wrestling.

Um, so I don't think I would still be watching wrestling and still be as passionate if their passion didn't re-engage my. That's the sweetest thing Eshaan has ever said to me. You know, I could die happy. The intro that we got from Ryan. I think he needs to come on this podcast every week. Like seriously. So Eshaan can continue to give us the positivity he just did. Typically it's like, I ain't going to tell you what he usually says about us. We're on our best behavior. You talk about that.

And I think like for me, my first memory of wrestling that I can remember. Is Hogan and Andre on the brother love show when Hogan, you know, took off the the necklace, the chain and ripped it. Hogan's bleeding on his chest. I remember sitting there watching with my mom and I just remember. Like, this is like crazy. Like what am I watching right now? Like what, what is really happening? Because I was big into sports. So I knew about boxing back in the day.

I was ever since I can remember, I liked football and basketball, but it felt like I was immediately hooked at that moment. And of course, back then there was no pay-per-view. So WrestleMania three was what they were promoting. So that was what we used to call back in the day, closed circuit television. You actually had to go somewhere like a movie theater to watch it. There was no pay-per-view or you call the 900 hotline. And at the time, my aunt and my grandma lived across the street.

And I remember we get a phone call and she just is like screaming, Hulk Hogan, body slammed Andre the giant. And I remember running up the steps telling my sister, I think she was in the bathroom. I didn't care. Like Hulk Hogan just body slammed Andre the giant. And at that point I was already like massively hooked. You couldn't tell me anything about wrestling. It was like every single week, you know, superstars every four times a year, Saturday night's main event challenge on Sundays.

I I've been hooked for my, for the most part of my entire life. It went a couple of years where we kind of got out of watching, particularly around the Sina era when he first started, they came out of the attitude era. And then we got into the rule is aggression era. And I'm like, all right, this kind of isn't for me. When you kind of couple that with, we had our son. So it just wasn't a lot of time, extra time to watch. And then we ended up getting really back into it when the rock came back.

When he, um, was the guest host of WrestleMania 27, 28, I believe it was in Atlanta. And we ended up going to that WrestleMania. And then we went to like 12 in a row. But yeah, but it's been in my DNA, the same way music is in my DNA, the way sports is in my DNA. It's just something I could not imagine. Not watching. Listening to y'all to definition and your first memories of what brought you into wrestling, I feel so bad. Mine was literally a phone call for my girl, Terry T wheat.

Shout out to T wheat. Hey, turn on, turn on, turn on channel 50 UPN United plantation network, turning up in and we see one time the rock in his Versace shirt on with his sideburns and it was purely just, oh my God, this guy is a specimen. He is fine. Ever since then fell in love with wrestling in my high school. I probably like was kind of weird for a girl to watch wrestling, but again, that was my absolute favorite thing to watch. All I got to see was smack down.

So I didn't know anything about raw. And then sure enough later, about a year and a half later, I met somebody, the love of my life, who was even crazier about wrestling than I was. And from that moment, I was like, who was that? You. How beautiful is that? And ever since then, I'm like, yep, this, this is it. So mine was purely off of the rock and how fine and gorgeous he was. And it probably is why I'm so effectuated about Roman now. Is this something about that Samoan look?

Whew. It's funny that it's funny you say that though, because if you think about it, look how many beautiful women are in wrestling now, I'm sure a lot of guys probably off of first look, we're like, Oh man, look at her, man, look at her. And that may be how they got into it. And then they started getting into it for the actual, you know, everything that comes with wrestling, but looks are a big thing in wrestling.

We actually talked about that a few months ago, one of our shows, huge And I mean, it's not, it's not a big deal. It's a huge thing. ugly looking women or men in wrestling. They all pretty much fit that build up. You want to look at them, but that is actually a Vince McMahon's a preference to for man, male or female, uh, wrestler, superstar is the look, you know, that whether that's the great body or whatever, but yeah, Roman is someone who keeps, you know, my fiance, Jasmine engaged.

So she's all about the bloodline only because of Roman. So everything that we discuss and we talk about when we watch has a little bit of him inside, you know, in the conversation or whatnot. But my first experience takes me back to around 91, 92. I was, I guess, a fringe fan of wrestling at that time. So I wasn't a weekly watcher or anything like that. And so on the fringe, you just really know the folks that they're pushing the most. So we knew Macho Man and Slim Jims.

We knew Ultimate Warrior. We obviously knew Hulk Hogan. But when I really wanted to start getting into wrestling, I wanted someone different. I didn't want to follow Hulk Hogan. You know, he was just the vitamins, prayers thing. I mean, it's a great message for kids, but I just wanted something different. And then emerges Bret the Hitman Hart. And I'm like, OK, this dude, like he doesn't smile a lot. Like he goes, he takes care of business. He takes things seriously.

And back then, we weren't really sure. You know, is it real? Is it not real? How much of it is, you know, what do we know? We're super young back then. So fast forward to SummerSlam 92 British Bulldog. Like that match pulled me in. And I think it was the following year where the rivalry with Jerry Lawler came to kiss my foot match and all that kind of stuff. And then right after that ring, I think, right. King of the ring. Yeah. Yeah. Right after that, I was I was in. I was hooked.

So that was my way in. And there was a lot of people that were there, everybody's, you know, entry story, so to speak, into this wonderful world of wrestling that we all enjoy. Those of you watching or listening, you can tell this is going to be a full wrestling show. This is the episode I've been waiting to do. So I'm super excited about it. So we're going to go straight from there. What was your first live event? Was it a house show? Was it a pay per view? Was it a Monday Night Raw Smackdown?

I went with you. Yeah, your first was. Actually, I think your first may have been a house show. It was if I'm if I'm remembering correctly, it was Brock hadn't debuted on TV yet. So they had him on the house show loops destroying Spike Dully. And that was the match that we had Jericho and Rock was on top. So that was the main event. I think that was your first show. And then we went to Smackdown or Raw after that. Binds was Saturday Night main event. And this is probably 80, 85, 86.

It was a battle royal. And I remember we got we had floor seats. If anybody has ever been to a wrestling show, of course, I'm tall enough now. But if you are short or you're a kid, if you can't get the first two roles, don't even bother. Go first level, go second level, go third level because you can't see that for me now. Me too. And we weren't first or second row, but we were on the floor and I couldn't see anything. And good luck trying to get people to sit down.

So my dad was a police officer at the time. So he talked to one of the security guys and they moved us so we could start seeing. But by that time, the battle royal was over. And that was all I cared about. I was a huge Hawkamania, Hawkamania fan. They threw him over the top. He didn't win the battle royal. I was ready to go at that point. But that was my first ever show that we've ever gone to. You know what? I didn't go to shows really, until I became an adult.

I did go to a raw with a couple buddies on the weren't super passionate about wrestling as I am. And but we were like in the upper levels, like way in the back kind of, you know, we just want to get in the building type C. And I honestly, so it was funny story. I was I kind of remember falling asleep. I don't like the pre matches. And that's the only thing memorable about that. I remember. So for me, I kind of want to remember like my first memorable show that I went to.

And that was my first WrestleMania. And that was with these guys. It was in Dallas, Texas. And man, that just was an awesome experience. I never had been to a WrestleMania. Never been to a show that big before the entire. You know, you guys just went to no man in California. Just the entire weekend just was so awesome to be around fans, the fan assets, the being the building to be at the show, the lights.

It just was just amazing experience for me to be able to share a moment with my best friends. My wife was there. And that's another story, too. You know, when I met my wife, she used to watch all the shows with me, man. Let me tell you, Ryan, when we were dating, you know, oh, man, I love this girl. She's actually watching all the shows and she's like in tits. She's like watching it, man. Her eyes is she's in it. Right. We get married. We get married. I can't get this woman to watch wrestling.

Like wrestling comes on. She goes in the other room. Right. Like any time it comes on, she's just out of there. Right. And so I got to drag her to the show because she has to be involved. She likes to experience, she says, but she really tricked me. But yeah, it was just amazing. WrestleMania experience for me. Excellent. Excellent. And I can't as I asked that question, I was thinking of my own answer and I know how shows were my first experience.

And I don't remember, obviously, each one because, you know, they're kind of a blur, especially this late in the game, whatever. But one thing I do remember is the first time seeing Yokozuna live. Wow. Yokozuna live was like he was, you know, that's what they say. They're, you know, certain they're big on TV. They are bigger in person. I couldn't believe that was one person.

I'm like, this is how does this even work in, you know, my mind started going airplanes, cars, you know, so I couldn't even imagine seeing something like Andre the Giant live. But the first premium event was WrestleMania 12. Right. That was the Iron Man match. Right. Yeah. In Anaheim, you know, at the at the what then was the Anaheim Pond is now the Honda Center where the Ducks play. So I knew I had to go. So my best friend, my brother, I think my dad bought us tickets.

And like you said, he was way up top, you know, helping change light bulbs on the top of the ceiling. You know, you know how that goes. But yeah, that was my first event. And I, you know, kind of not embarrassed to say, I think I shed a tear at the end of that match when Brett lost. I didn't, you know, like we said, we didn't really know. We didn't have a feel for what was scripted, what was it and how it was going to be scripted.

I don't I didn't have that savvy at that time to kind of know, like, all right, this might be the way it's going to go. So I was disappointed and I left there disappointed that day. So Ryan, two quick questions for you. Do you remember when you realized it was predetermined? It was definitely somewhere around that time. Maybe maybe it was definitely before WrestleMania 10. So but I just didn't really have a feel for like how the match was going to go based on the shows leading up to the match.

You know, you kind of get an idea of who's being pushed and who is whatever, you know, whatever is happening. And I didn't really, I was just along for the ride at that point. And then my second question is, have you gone back to watch that match and have you realized that is one of the most overrated matches in WWE history? Part A to that question is yes. Part B to that question, it is one of the quintessential matches in WWE history.

They've tried to duplicate it several times with several top talents, never have been able to quite do it. The only one I think was who was who was the women's Ironman match with Sasha? I think Sasha and Bailey. Yeah, 30 minutes. That was good. But none of the other ones could hold a candle to Brett and Sean. That's how I think right. Sean is one of the most overrated matches in the history of the business. I haven't watched in probably in over a decade. Maybe I need to go back and watch it.

But I remember watching it the first time and I'm like, this isn't good. And I think a lot of people just act like they thought it was good because it's 60 minutes. First time we've seen it in the United States. No, I was you're not convinced. So we need to watch it together and cast. Yeah, you and I would do a cast and watch it together and do commentary. We'll turn it. We'll turn off Jim Ross. No, no disrespect to him. I love the guy. But and we'll we'll do it ourselves. How's that?

And then about 29 minutes in when you're like, damn, this really is overrated. We can turn on like MJF and Brian Danielson's Ironman match that kills that one or even like Triple H and Rock was better than Rock was not better than Brett and Sean. This had pageantry. This had emotion. You can see it in there. I mean, and I give Sean a lot. You know what?

Let's stick to that rivalry for a second, because I think because of how early the rivalry ended because it got obviously too real, it doesn't get enough credit for what it did for wrestling and how good it actually was, especially coming down to Survivor Series 97. We obviously all know what happened there. But I went back and watched that match. But let me say this first. When that match ended, I quit WWF at the time myself. Wow. Brett's out. I'm out. Not doing this.

This is this is not this is not the way it's supposed to be. So some of you explained the gaps you might have taken in wrestling at certain times. That was my gap in wrestling and probably till about 2005, 2006 when they brought him back for the Hall of Fame. So but anyway, that match was really good. Obviously before the ending. Do you have any of you have any feelings on that? Or the rivalry in general? Well, when I love that match, I thought the intensity was off the charts.

That that is a perfect. Hello CM Punk. Hello, Young Bucks. Hello, Kenny Omega. That is a perfect tape to pop in if you have real life issues, but then you keep it professional, but you stay snug. That is the carbon copy of what anything should look like going forward. Hell, we saw Matt Hardy and Edge and we knew how deep that was. Same thing with that. Worked really snug, but still super professional. But it's funny you bring up like Bretton and Sean. Either you're one or the other.

Either you're a Brett guy or you're a Sean guy. I've never met anybody who's like, I could take care of leave either one of them. Nope. Everybody besides Rhodesia, she doesn't count. She wouldn't watch a wrestling match. Like like like you are a Sean guy. He is a Sean guy. Like through and through. Super Sean guy. Speak on that. But I will say this, though, to be honest. There you go. I hate it. I was running. I let you know, right? We talked about how many times I'll say it beyond some podcast.

I mean, we got to be my. This is my thing. That's my phrase. OK, I appreciate Brett. Even even back in during that time frame. Now, I think now that I'm a little older, I go back and see some mismatches. I appreciate them a little more. Because Brett had a series of great matches with Kevin Nash, all people. He had a great match with Undertaker. He has some really nice matches. Now, he had kind of a predictable cadence to his matches.

You know, he had like the elbow off the top, went into his knees, the, you know, the swinging backbreaker. Yeah, like a cadence, but it always looked pretty good. But to match point, Shawn Michaels is my favorite wrestler of all time. And I really appreciated their matches. I appreciated their fumes. But I will say, as a fan of Shawn Michaels, Iron Man match, I remember watching it was kind of bored. During the match. So we got we got we got two against one here for that one.

Yeah. But, you know, I'm definitely down again. So I haven't I haven't seen that match in probably 15 years or so. Yeah. I would love to maybe now I'm a little bit of a mature man and fan. Maybe I can appreciate the slower pace of that match. Right. Same thing about Brett. I like I was never against Brett. I would never say I was anti Brett guy. I think I actually thought he looked cool. I like the pink and black. I like the glasses.

I like his whole little setup is that Shawn Michaels was my man. But I appreciate his matches more now as an older fan. Maybe if I go back and watch that Iron Man match, I might appreciate a little bit more. I think Brett to Ryan, go ahead about Brett. To your point with with you being such a bread guy. Brett was the first main wrestler. If you take away the pink and black. He was just a damn good wrestler. He's a wrestler. He wasn't a gimmick. He wasn't you know what I mean?

It wasn't a he's crazy or he's a dead man or he's a you know at the time 12 time champion. No, he's Brett Hart and he had a level of realism to his promos to his matches. Like one of the things about Brett that I love so much was his strikes, his working punch and his kicks. He comes full force and he's never given somebody a black guy. He's never heard anybody in the ring. Like and that that should speak for something. And I think that's why we all kind of gravitate to Brett.

Even if he's not your favorite, everybody has a special place in their heart for Brett because he was the first guy I think on TV, especially when he got away from the tag team to Heart Foundation. You're like, oh no, like he's real though. Like, yeah, I know like whatever may be going on, but he's he's real.

Right. That's a cool guy. And to be and let me let me go back to Sean real quick because I think that the kind of second half of his career really, really helped build back his his persona, his character that we all know how he was in the 90s, how he was difficult to deal with. So I think that redemption story was very great for him. But for Brett being the guy to come out of the Hogan era, first of all, was very tough.

And when you look at him and his and his physique and his buildup, he was kind of built as a smaller guy. But to your point, he had a lot of power moves. He was a he was a powerful, technical wrestler. You give Sean definitely the nod on the aerial skills and different things like that, which definitely deserves a ton of credit.

But I give Brett a lot of credit in that way, becoming from the land of the Giants to take it to the former mid-carders to say, hey, we need to be on the top of the card. So I think he did a lot for the future of wrestling in that way. And plus, the rivalries that he had with Sean, especially the one that gave way to Stone Cold. And he comes back and says, I want to work with Austin. And Austin's not really established at that point, Steve Austin.

And soon as he works with Brett, that just puts him right over the top. So it's those things that I also attribute that that make his run that much more meaningful. He was an excellence of execution. You know what you think about Brett as a wrestler, his style can be any generation. Brett Hart can transport from the 90s into today and have five star matches with anybody in any of the promotions.

A lot of those older wrestlers that we might say was great back in the day, their style may not transcend, but his definitely does. He definitely was underappreciated and maybe a little ahead of his time. I can see the being ahead of his time. What I will say is I'm excited to do this live broadcast next time for us to all watch it. I've never watched the Iron Man match.

I've seen the very end of it, but the full 60 minutes, I'm assuming the 60 minutes, I never actually watched it from the beginning. So I think I'll be the tiebreaker here to see if it's really overrated or if it's not overrated. But we're going to send you the build up and everything that led up to it first so you can have that type of anticipation that I felt before I went down there to WrestleMania 12.

But yeah, so we mentioned the parallels to some of the current real rivalries going on in wrestling right now. That being CM Punk, especially is that I think the hottest story behind in the gorilla position or in the locker room as well to how we feel and about that was the right decision by Tony. Are you back in Tony and AW? Are you back in CM Punk? Where do you stand on this? We'll start with you, Rhodesia.

Uh oh. Exactly. So I said this before that we CM Punk should have never came back to AW. After the scrum, the all out scrum, the total disrespect that he had for this man that was sitting next to him, he acted like a straight up ass. He showed completely showed us the bad side of him. He's too, I don't want to say old, that's not fair. He's too mature and too much of a veteran to even do what he did at all. I was grown that already set the tone for me.

So he already came with baggage already being polarized coming from from WWE. I get how that ended. And I understand now that he was not in the right mental capacity. His body was hurting. He was breaking down all of that. I get that. But just overall, I never cared for punks run back when he came to AW. Initially, I did again, everybody that he was gone with seven years. We were there not at the when he first came back, but we were there for all out double or nothing, whatever he came back at.

But point is, I was happy for that because anybody who was a pro wrestling fan would be happy for that. But then he showed his ass over and over and over again. Then he comes back. He gets collision, debuted collision, completely acts as on collision as well. Throwing people under the bus from that moment on. I'm like, no, I'm over it completely through with him, completely done with him. I am a CM Punk hater. They'll probably tell you that. So for me, Tony did a great job.

I think not only one that he put his foot down and put on his big boy pants. He also set a tone for his locker room that, listen, we're not going to keep doing this. All in was their biggest show, pro wrestling, biggest show. Somebody can argue it has this black cloud over it because of what happened. Good riddance. She had over there. That's what you call a promo right there. Yeah, yeah, definitely. For me, Ryan, I think that it was right decision to let him go.

Once all the information came out, if Tony felt like his life was in danger and safety was in danger and the crew was endangered, all these different things. And punk was a common denominator in a lot of the negativity surrounding AEW. I think it's unfortunate. And in a lot of ways, I think it's something that possibly could have been avoided if things were handled the correct way from the very beginning.

Especially when some of these riffs started happening backstage with the Hangman and the Bucks and the different places. I think that because this is what I do know. I don't think this would have happened in WWE in any way. And you can call it the structure, discipline, leadership, whatever it may have been. This wouldn't have happened in WWE. This wouldn't happen in any really professional setting.

So the fact that it happened in AEW, and this really isn't, you know, we're looking at punk, but this isn't the first time these things have crept up in AEW. So I think that's part of the problem that there's an infrastructure that allows this kind of behavior to kind of like fester and grow out of control.

And because that structure isn't as sound as it is, I think somebody like a CM Punk who probably needed it to be kind of insulated, who needed firm leadership, was able to kind of, you know, flutter out of control. But ultimately, yes, I think it was the right decision, I think is a regrettable decision. I told the guys the other day that I feel bad for AEW, I feel bad for the fans because Collision was a really good show.

I think that CM Punk was definitely a star for that company that needed stars in that company. So the fact that it didn't work out, I think it's regrettable. Yeah, Tony didn't have a choice at this particular spot. There was no option. If whatever happened, happened where, you know, his life, he felt like his life was in danger. That could be some lawyer speak for sure.

But my assumption is it was much more than what we've heard surrounding just a little bit of tussle between Jack Perry and CM Punk. It's more to that. CM Punk hollers to Tony Khan, I hate this place. Nobody else in the world can probably tell their boss, I hate this place and then come back to work like nothing's happened in front of your entire roster. On your biggest show in history, after you've already had these other issues.

I am a Punk apologist. I love CM Punk in terms of what he brings to wrestling. I think he's one of the most smart wrestlers that know how to use what they have, probably in the history of the business. You look at CM Punk, if you saw him walking down the street, you would never take a second look at CM Punk. You see CM Punk on television with a microphone in his hand, you can't take your eyes off of him. That's fair.

It's pretty incredible when you think about that. But Tony had to do what he had to do. If you were to take CM Punk's name off and just say, hey, this wrestler is going to trash your EVPs after a match in a shoot style promo, throw them under the bus, then gets into a fight with those EVPs after that. Then we give this person their own show for the most part on Saturday, so they don't have to mingle with those said EVPs on Wednesday show.

He gets into it with a couple of wrestlers backstage in the first few weeks of this show. He tells Talent Relations, the head of Talent Relations, you can be here. You would say, hey, should we keep this person? Oh yeah. And then gets into a fight with someone who was on the pre-show at the biggest show in history of our company in Wembley.

Should this person still be here? Everybody would say, gotta get rid of him. And then when you say, oh, but that person is CM Punk, you kind of take a pause a little bit. The only person that you can compare it to in WWE will be Roman. And say, okay, if Roman did those exact same things, do they pull the trigger on Roman? And I don't think they would pull the trigger on Roman. But CM Punk's not Roman. So that's basically what it is.

Yeah. And here for me is the real case of we saw live and in vivo that CM Punk has never healed from what happened in WWE. He's just never healed. And you see some folks who are wrong. And let's just put this out there because like you mentioned, Matt, CM Punk was wrong in WWE. You're champion for 400 some days, you don't headline WrestleMania. I get it. You had Rock and Cena two years in a row around that time or whatever.

But that is your dream to headline WrestleMania. They did not give that to you. You were the champion. I see. I get it. But at the same time, you know, that that kind of belittles or that kind of lessens that championship reign. Right. So that falls apart. We obviously know what happened after that, but we saw that he never healed from that. And now in this situation, and I'm not trying to throw any shots at Tony Khan or AEW or anybody, but Tony Khan is not an experienced promoter.

That Vince McMahon is Vince McMahon. Let's see him punk air out his grievances with the pipe bond promo. There was reality in that promo. Vince McMahon let Paul Heyman air out his grievances in that promo that he had in the early to mid 2000s. And Paul Heyman tells a story. Vince said, just go say whatever. Make me money. I don't care. So they don't have that kind of situation here in MW to handle.

And punk is used to that. As you mentioned, E, that style of treatment in the WWE where this wouldn't have happened. But you don't have that protection in AEW and everything went awry. It went awry. And to your point with Vince, Vince would always look at what's best for business in a different way than Tony Khan. Tony Khan looked at punk as he's best for business. That's why he's here.

Vince would say, okay, you guys have an issue. Come to my office. Let's talk this out. And now we're going to make money with it. Right. We spoke about earlier, Edge and Matt Hardy talked about Bret and Sean. It's countless over the years in WWE. There is no way though that, and punk knows this, and we talked about it on our pod this past week. I think punk's going to WWE. I think you absolutely, if you're triple H, you make that phone call.

You run it by a couple of really, really top, top, top wrestlers to say, hey, what's your thoughts about us bringing this guy into the locker room? Because we don't get this punk in WWE. Punk would never go into business for himself out on live TV. He would never cut his shoot promo sitting next to Triple H at WrestleMania's press conference after the PLE is over. It's a completely different person. I personally think, and I don't think I even said this yet.

I think he got fired on purpose. I think he wanted to get fired. If you go back to before he came back, remember he showed up when WWE was in Chicago. Yeah. Allstate Arena. He shows up. What are you showing up for? I personally think he showed up, yes, to make amends, but then also to ask Triple H, hey, if this falls through, is there a home for me here? And Triple H made it to say, hey, we'll talk. And that's it.

But I really believe he hated AEW that much to where he's like, if I can get out of my contract, I think I can go back to WWE. Because he's lost out on millions. If you look at the way they spoke in that statement that Tony Khan released, he's not getting paid out the rest of his contract. I don't even think there's a non-compete. So I don't even think he's getting paid for the next 90 days.

I think this was completely termination because he said with cause. So I think that he is completely lost out on millions of dollars. And not to say who knows how his financial situation is, but everybody misses millions of dollars. And I think now the only place I can pay him that is WWE. So the next question definitely was, should WWE take him back? And some of the additional sub questions I have for that as well, too, is where does he fit in the card?

You've got very strong pushes for several wrestlers. Obviously, we have Roman on the top, but Cody is getting a great push. Seth Rollins is as over as he's ever, ever been. You have a lot going on there already. Where does he belong on that card? How about you, E? You know, when I think about SmackDown right now, it was very top heavy. Might be working. You know, you take Roman off the show right now, right? He's gone for, I don't know, what, four or five months, something like that.

Matt, you mentioned he wasn't on these covers for some of these POEs. He has not been announced for any PLE that is on sale right now. So they've gone all the way up to November. No Roman. So that's at least three months, allegedly. He's not going to be on any of these PLEs. And who's the top guy right now on SmackDown? Is it LA Knight?

You know, I actually don't know who the actual top guy is. So there's definitely a spot for him there, especially if Roman is, you know, he's only going to wrestle maybe every couple of months. He's going to, you know, he's only going to defend the championship every, you know, six months. So there's definitely somebody there's a position there that he can feel.

But also you think about Raw. Raw's a three hour show. This is one thing I appreciate watching Raw under the Triple H era is that he's trying to utilize more of the roster to fill time instead of have spreading out the same 10 people across three hours television. You're really stretching out promos, stretching out matches. He's trying to fill that card up.

So there's definitely a lot of real estate available to him because I think about, you know, the top guys, you got Roman, right? Who's a part timer. You got Brock, who's a part timer. Next, you got, you know, Cody Big Tom. That's my man, Cody. If you don't know Ryan, I love me some Cody. We got Seth, who I think is a much further down the pole than a Cody, a Brock and a Roman. Then after him, you got everybody else.

CM Punk can go right on top of Seth. He can be right in that metric for a short period of time. Maybe just to get some of those other guys over because Punk is 44 years old, right? The timer is ticking for him. He's looking like Papa Punk in AEW, right? So there's definitely opportunity for him.

So I'm gonna have to, I said I don't want on the other show, I don't want him coming to WWE just for purposes. I'm gonna entertain this conversation here. If Punk does come back to WWE, you can actually put him with anybody. The beauty of CM Punk, so now I'm about to kind of eat my words here. He is a smart, veteran, seasoned wrestler. He knows how to put a match together.

He knows how to engage the crowd. Like Matt said before, he's just a smart person. He knows how to do this. You can pair him up with anybody. Say Top Heavy, you can pair him up with Roman. You can bring him all the way down to somebody like a Seth. And I actually think Seth is actually a top tier guy, but I'm just saying, you could throw him in there with Ju. He is so versatile that CM Punk could work with anybody and make any storyline better and can make that actual campaign or program better.

So that might be kind of a cheap answer, but Punk is just that good in the ring that you could pair him with anybody. And the thing too, Ryan, if you think about the way WWE typically does business, when they have big stars, Roman, Goldberg, Brock, Cody, when they come in, there is a...I say Roman now, not when he was with the Shield, but when they come in, there is a distinct role for them.

They just don't sign Top Talent and say, we'll figure it out when you get here. No, it's typically, you're going to come in and here's your program because they're really into telling stories. If you look at Punk, it is so many ready-made stories. Did we forget? He's basically the one that put the Shield together. Oh my God, is there not a story there with Roman and Heyman? You can run that for six months.

Okay, so now we just took care of if he shows up in November at the end of Survivor Series, that takes you to WrestleMania if you want to do that. Think about the stories that they have that they could use with Cody and Punk. Oh my God. The place you left, I had to come save. There is just so much they can use with that. That can run you four to five months.

Seth and Punk, the bar was back and forth in interviews where Seth said he's a cancer. There is so much they can bring in there too. So you're talking, if they were to bring him in there, you're talking two years of ready-made stories right off the bat. But then you're, I guess the next question would be, do they need them? Do they need Punk? They don't need Punk. I think they needed Cody. Cody was completely different.

Cody wanted to come home too, right? Correct. But you look at you say, all right, we need you, Cody. I don't know. I don't think they need Punk. But boy, would that be a blow to AEW? And would that sell a ton of merch and ticket sales if he's back in WWE?

I think that there's definitely money to be made. I agree with you, Matt. And I agree with you too, Rodizio. They don't need him. And I don't really think, you know, he's had his, his goal, right? You had an opportunity here. You had an opportunity there. They brought you back. What happens when, when CM Punk doesn't get what he wants in WWE, you know, is, is, is, you know, and I'm confident that Triple H has the, you know, the wherewithal to manage him. But do you even just want to deal with that? Man, CM Punk's outside. All right, let him in. What does he want?

Do you want to deal with that? But as we transition, because you did bring bring up Cody, and I wanted to promise you because we are going to talk some Cody on this show, because I'm high on Cody to, I want to know a couple things.

Leaving AEW, the place that arguably he, you know, along with the Young Bucks created to come back and chase the WWE Championship, he finds himself in a position where that's probably not, and we'll talk about later what we think is going to happen. Probably not a direct possibility, but we had the main event at WrestleMania, which, you know, I didn't think he was going to win that match, but WWE did a very great job of making you think as hard as they could.

That he possibly could finish the story. Good job, Ryan. I am glad, Ryan, that you understood. And you didn't fall for it. You didn't fall for the banana tell pipe, and you knew it was not Cody's time yet. He had to go through some more bumps to get to that top of the mountain. This guy here tried to tell us every single week. Cody's went in there at WrestleMania, and this man was so depressed, probably up until like, June or July. He wasn't the same Ishan on our show.

He kind of got out his funk a little bit. He kind of got out his funk a little bit, but I personally thought that the end of WrestleMania night two was the end of the best ending in the history of any match in WWE history. No, it was it was the beginning of the end of the bloodline. That's why you're crapping on bloodline now is because you have one crappy finish at WrestleMania. And now it was the end of bloodline. I think it started with it started with Cody. So Cody did achieve something.

He just didn't win the championship. You know what? Oh my God. This is why Cody and I are on the same page because he told Roman what was going to happen. He said he said like, hey, they gonna start leaving you and what you gonna do. And look, we got man event Jey Uso on on Raw. I guess I guess I guess Jimmy went back to him. I don't I don't know what's going on, but it's some fractures. It ain't right. So Cody, he's a he's ahead of his time.

Claire, Boyant, Cody, I call him the pyromaniac because he has at least two sets of pyro when he comes out there. But I really want to give Cody his flowers because he took his own and I don't know who else has done this better than Cody. He took his own career and turned it around to his benefit. Right. He knew. And did you watch the Becoming Nightmare? Oh, my gosh. So well put together. Yep. Becoming Cody Rose.

Such a great. So well put together such a great story. He knew, you know, he was he was at his at his ceiling. His first run there went, found himself, found and created his own gimmick. And it was so good. Now, now, Vince Pan doesn't like bring in gimmicks he doesn't come up with or whoever was in charge of bringing them back.

So comes in, brings his own gimmick back with him and is just I mean that that night when he appeared out of the little elevator coming up onto the stage against Seth was, you know, we we we tend to know what things are going to happen. But that still gave me a little bit of chills seeing that moment. And it was crazy to Ryan when he talked about he thought he may get booed.

And it's so crazy to hear all these just professional athletes if they get injured or they leave to come back home to the team they were with before. And they kind of say the same thing. What if I'm not the same? What if they don't remember me? What if I get booed? It's like Cody, dude, you're coming home, man. Like there is no way you're going to get booed in front of that WrestleMania crowd. To me, that's that's just fascinating that they have that thought a lot of times.

Now being booed at WrestleMania for sure. I don't think anybody would have booed him. But I'm not going to act like when I first saw him back on Raw that I was actually happy. I don't think we were recording pods at that time. I would. But Matt knew I was absolutely pissed off at him. I think the only other time I was more pissed off was when Undertaker lost Brock in WrestleMania.

The streak was broken. I was livid, Ryan. I was so pissed. And of course, Matt being the sound mind and a reasonable mind. Hey, listen, this is a story here. He has to go back. He has to win this. But no, you practically tore that company down. He didn't tear it. But to go build a new one. You built your new company on the foundation of FWWE.

And then all of a sudden, I'm for you. I'm rocking AEW now, too, because yeah, FWWE. Next thing I know, I look up. You don't want back to your ex boyfriend. Rudy's a work this open to a shoot. That's what that was. I was living probably what? Maybe a good couple months until I had to relax. I was I was angry, of course, not going back to watching becoming Cody Rhodes or becoming the nightmare, whatever it's called.

But it was so beautifully done. Like I think of like the 30 for 30s that they have. It almost felt like that. It was such a beautiful piece of work and it brought it full circle and no one who probably felt like I felt the beginning should not feel that same way after watching that. Because I saw me in him, not an actual wrestler. But yeah, you left home. You thought you wanted to go create your own future.

But in the end of the day, it's OK to still want to be home. It's still OK to do that and not to forget what your roots are. You're even bigger and better. And what you said as far as him going out, proven to himself, he even wrote down all the matches he wanted to have and all his independence and all this and independent wrestling scene.

I commend him. You go from making WWE money to 200 people, 50 people in an arena that has to do something to you or even your cycle like you're in your psyche. And for him to actually go and do that and want to do that, he had a point to prove to himself. And I am happy that he was able to do that. You know, a strange thing, it's right. I share this with Matt and Rhodesia. I was a big fan of Cody as I am. I haven't seen a documentary yet. It's really strange. We trashed him for that, too.

You got to watch it. Maybe you already know everything that's already in it, but just the way that it's put together, man, you'll you'll appreciate it a thousand times more. I'm not really a big documentary guy, even though I love like the dark side of rain stuff for some reason. But you're right. The thing is, I knew Cody's story. One thing I share with you, I mentioned like my first major experience at a wrestling show was WrestleMania in Dallas.

I actually met Cody Rose for the first time at that fan access and he was Stardust. I think he would play Stardust at the at Mania. Yeah, we were there, too. He came to the show. Oh, you were OK. Yeah, he was Cody Rose. And you know, you go to a WrestleMania, it's kind of like a rat race, right? It's kind of like it's just like Matt, like rats in a maze. But in his line, it was like no one in his line.

So I don't know if people didn't know he was there or if people didn't know who he was because he was playing Stardust at the time. But I was so excited. Right. And I was quietly excited, too. I don't think my wife even knew how excited I was. I was so excited. I was kind of doing like this little quiet, determined walk to hurry up and get into his line. I thought maybe people wouldn't see that Cody was over here and they start rushing over there.

So I got to meet him and I couldn't really talk to him. So somehow I managed to stumble out. Hey, when are you going to come back as a as Cody? And he kind of looked at me. He's like, you, Mark. He kind of looked at me strangely. He's he's what he's what he signs his autograph. And he kind of stopped and looked at me. And then he looked down in the sign autographs. He's like, hey, man, it's not for lack of trying.

And then a couple of months later, you know, he quits the W.E.O. gets his release and, you know, the whole Cody Rose, the nightmare start begins. And as a fan of his to know that he bet on himself, right, he didn't want to settle for, you know, Stardust or being in the midi car. He wanted more for himself. Right. And I think that's a great story for anyone. Like, hey, bet on yourself. Don't settle for what you think people are giving you or what they think your selling is. Right. Right.

Right. And for him, he had no selling. He saw himself in a certain way. And he wanted to get there by hook or crook somewhere else. And so for him to be put himself in a position to where the owner of a company comes to your house to sign you, that's big because Vince isn't going to Kevin Owens house to sign him to an NXT deal or Nakamura. Or he's not going to ease guys houses to convince them to come back or to work for his company. But he went to Cody's house. Got on the jet.

Vince may be in Chicago right now. We don't know. He might be. He may be in Chicago. Or he's still later from that back surgery. Yeah. Right. We're talking about the jets. Any allegedly. That's exactly right. He's he's the final final. Yeah. He's investigating them spinal. Yeah. A little bit more sleeping pills, man. Go ahead. Take another nap. I got this.

He might have hit him up on the page here. Right. He might have pulled out the page or hit him up on that. But yeah, just for me, I'm just to see this know his story to be proud of him. Bet on himself to get the position that he is because I'm really surprised in a lot of ways that Cody is as as over as he is in WWE playing that type of character, man.

He is that 1980s white meat vanilla baby face. Right. True and true. He is the Dudley do good character and this over like Rover. So I love it. Every single bit of it. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing but the for Cody. Obviously, maybe he'll finish the story, you know, a little bit later on a lot of it later on. I don't know. We'll talk about that. But let me ask you. Let me ask you about Cody.

Do you think he would be as popular right now if he would have beat Roman at WrestleMania? Yes, I do. I think that obviously there's a ceiling. But when you eclipse your moment at WrestleMania and you and it depends on what they had planned, what they would have had planned for him as a champion. Right. You got to make sure your champion stays not over.

But he would have had the ability to do that. I mean, that momentum that was that was the strongest momentum pushing someone who was not going to get the title that I can really remember, to be honest. Mm hmm. But that's it. Yeah. Maybe. See, I really thought Drew was going to win. I really thought in Cardiff. I thought he was going to win. And when he did, I said, OK, got it.

That would be like a close second or third because a lot of people on Twitter was in arms. Yeah. Drew didn't win that. Yeah. You may have to go back, Ryan, to like the early roles. I mean, you and I may have to go back like 20, 30 years for someone where you say like, yep, this is their moment and they didn't get it and they haven't gotten it yet.

Even Rock, the one year at WrestleMania where everybody just knew he was winning the title, they pulled back from it and then they had him winning that backlash a month later. At least he got it a month later. Right. This one, you know, he hasn't gotten it yet, but I'm actually the opposite. I think that he wouldn't be as over right now with the fans. There would have been starting some fatigue or some booze. I don't think it would be like 60, 40 or 50, 50 or anything like that.

But right now he's not getting a boo in any arena he's in. And I think that looks a little different if he would have came in the way he did beat Roman and now he's off to the races. I think it just looks a little different. Well, I'm glad you brought up Dusty because that is the story. Right. We have to think back and the last person we can think of is Dusty. And you know the the picture that Cody has on the frame because he thought it happened and it really didn't.

So that really fuels him and pushes him and I think that gets the you know the fans behind him and it's really hard to follow a star like Dusty as you know the the son or daughter of you know Charlotte's done a great job obviously following Rick Flair. But that's not very easy. Right. Not at all. And he is he is maximizing that opportunity. You know you may be right maybe he might have flamed out you know they wouldn't he wouldn't have flamed out of pyro though he would have had a ton of pyro.

But you know that remains to be seen that remains to be seen for sure. But we pivot to the prediction that Cody made about the dissension the breakup the fallout of the bloodline. We're seeing it and kind of every new story we're introduced to every week I always think about seeing Jay Uso and Jimmy and Solo were there at Wale Mania at WrestleMania and Jay pretty much promised there's a lot more story here to be told. So stay tuned.

Sometimes I'm not exactly sure where we're going which might be I guess a good thing to keep me on my toes a little bit. But what how how are we feeling about where the bloodline is headed lately. We'll start with my my my how this kind of start with Rhodesia. No no no no Matt you go but I'm just saying my my my how this conversation was sound a month ago versus today.

If we would have had this conversation a week before SummerSlam it would have been skittles and rainbows. Everything is beautiful they can't miss and they have arguably missed every week since SummerSlam. I think Jay going to Raw is fantastic. I think this is also their way of keeping Jay and Jimmy separate until Mania so we are going to get brother versus brother in Philly this year because it doesn't make sense to not do that now. But they've sputtered on the SmackDown side.

And you would say okay like well how did you sputter if you plan this because they everything that we've heard was Cody was never going to win at WrestleMania and the Brock few was set in stone weeks before WrestleMania. So that means you had that lockdown already okay we have Cody's plans going to take him to another level and this goes through SummerSlam fantastic.

It feels like right now they are going by a week to week on SmackDown. Jimmy is the one that started this with the kick to Roman now he's okay with not being kicked out of the bloodline. This is the first time that they've done things that just doesn't make sense in this story. And the good thing about wrestling is they can always erase it and do something this week and we're like oh okay they of course correct it.

But this is the first time that I can ever remember from the bloodline story where I'm like you know what this this isn't the best right now and knowing that now Jay is away from Jimmy. Okay so they are running this until WrestleMania. Okay so y'all got six months or whatever it is of TV with the champion that's not on television with Cody we'll see if he's traded to SmackDown maybe that's why Jay's on Raw but even if that's the case and you still wait to do Roman and Cody at Mania.

How does the next six months look on SmackDown TV and that's kind of scary to think about. Isn't Philly known as the city of brotherly love. The city of brotherly love. Yep wow that's a great point. There you go that guy Jimmy and Jay built right there I can see it already. Scratching my head. Again I don't really understand what's happening with the bloodline. Up until this point up until SummerSlam.

They didn't fail me they haven't failed me so I'm still going to give them the luxury of trying to keep me engaged but I am completely like what the f. I'm not understanding what's happening now. But again all great things doesn't last forever. So you just take it and try it and again like Matt just said this is wrestling you could just write again or keep writing so. But if you asked me this a week a month ago.

Oh Ryan I'll be up here tell you my five favorite wrestlers is Dylon, Dylon, Dylon, Dylon, Roman, Roman, Roman, Roman, Roman, Roman, Roman. Now it's like okay Roman doesn't even exist right now. Yeah I like with I like Jay on Raw. Man I was telling Matt and Rhodesia the other day on our pod that he came out there like a superstar he had that place rocking you know he he brought that crowd alive like an old school hip hop concert man he had them doing the wave and the music was hitting.

It was powerful and then Matt was making fun of him because he was running out of oxygen. Hit the promo right he was gassed. Yeah. But I like that I like that that's that's real right because he was hit with emotion and you feel the emotion through the television screen when he came out there I love that. Now you talk about on the SmackDown side I don't know what's going on with Jimmy and Solo, Roman's not there. The bloodline seems to be kind of discombobulated right now to say the least.

And when you go backwards and listen to Roman saying, you know, this is steak dinner. The same fast food whatever the comment he made after mania. I don't know what kind of steak dinner this is right now. I'm vegetarian. It ain't it ain't good right. Hey pass me some some a one or something because it ain't working spice man some Himalayan salt for sure.

Yeah, I think they brought Jay back too early. Number one, I get the setting though you know I see that premium live event you got Cody Rhodes passing it along, I could do a little bit without the Grayson Waller effect. You do a little bit more with parallax effect. I love that. I like that. I think there was too a little too early because even though you knew the little wrestling rumors and outside the wrestling world had no weight.

It you still got to let the people sit like Jay quit. What's he gonna do. Where's he gonna go. I mean we all know you know what's building what's coming back but you got to let that fester in the fans a little bit longer than two weeks or whatever it was. That's my humble opinion. And as far as Jimmy is concerned now crossing over coming back.

I guess they do have a little saving grace on what solo told him about you're not out until we say you're out or whatever the whatever he said, they may have a little bit there. I am unfortunately confused because the the whole story and I was even sending you know YouTube synopsis to people who don't even watch wrestling like I bet you're interested. Check out the bloodline. Right. Goodness they deserve any. It's, it's something I hope that they can rekindle somehow.

You will, you will you have a man. Is there any chance Roman beats Hogan's record. I hope is there is there is there a world where they have Roman hold on to the title until next September to clear Hogan off of the top. Now Roman is the top. And then Cody gets the belt after that. Wrestling gods, if you're listening, please free my mind of the immortal one.

Free my mind of the Bret Hart career tried to be stopper free my mind of the one they call Hulk. I said it iron sheets not understand anymore. I said it. Free my mind of this guy. Hey Hulk Hogan what a Booker T say Roman is coming coming for you. And I think this is probably the only opportunity in our in our time in modern era that we will ever get nobody's going to hold the title again for like four plus years, not any anytime soon.

I really think that they may be having some discussions on this. You know what nobody's ever going to get this close. Do we want to have that top person be Hulk Hogan. Well I guess it should be Bruno take Bruno out. It will do with that top person be Hogan do we want to be Roman rain. You know that we're putting up billion dollars a year in money with him being on top.

What do you think I didn't even think about that if you tell me you're ready if we're conceding that Roman would drop at the earliest mania then what is another six months five months. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Whoa, something about about. He doesn't have to defend it right he can just sit home for another six months or whatever it is and beat the and beat the street. You know it's a sad thing, right.

People were off for culture and it will Hogan did the video and then the fact that the half apologies afterwards. It kind of hurt me as a young he because I was a huge Hogan guy back in the day so we talk about getting rid of Hogan I remember, you know, Ricky I said Ricky steamboat was the first one, but the next one was hot. The hawker maniac I remember watching on this 13 inch TV. It was hot Hogan versus I believe it was Bob Orton Jr.

It was Bob Orton Jr. and Bob Orton Jr. was beaten Hawk down through the whole match, man, I was crying I'm like, come on, Hawk. I'm trying to wheel Hawk through the match. And then we got down to like the end we talking up and he's going through the paces I'm like right there with them I'm like, get him I'm jumping up and down. I think that's the moment I remember actually being that excited and being that energized for wrestling matches

in that moment I was right there with them and then when he hit that leg drop, and he got that 123. I mean you would think there was like 1000 kids in that room that I was elated right. And so I have so many fond memories of Hawk from my childhood, and then he just just ruined it, you know just ruined it for me. And I haven't been able to look at Hogan since then. And in a lot of ways, it kind of for me. It just destroyed like his legacy for me.

Right. So in some ways I feel hurt as a fan like man like you know we got to erase this awesome legacy because Hawk really did help put the WWF, and I think even wrestling on the map. Oh yeah, there's no doubt about that back then. Right.

The majority of people that watch now is due to Hogan. And it may not be for them but it could be because their parents watched them, or their cousin watched them and now they're into it. And it sucks man it really sucks when all you had to do was give a proper apology.

Right. And that's not saying that it would have went away. No, but like he the first time I ever shed tears for wrestling was when it was the, the hep nurse, where Teddy Biasi paid them off and it was the bat you know Saturday night's main event. I boo boo cry. So was that the first time that you found out that they were twins or brothers. Never knew.

And the story told was like it was plastic surgery they weren't twins like that's how much money, million dollar man had but think about that and I actually met Hogan as an adult. He's super cool it seemed like, and I'm saying he's not right, but because him and Hogan I think are still cooler cordial, but it's like you had an opportunity to do something.

And when you got somebody like Kofi, who Kofi loves everybody. I've never heard Kofi have an issue with anyone. Kofi's kind of like I'm good on you. He is like, and your Booker speaks his mind but we've also never heard anybody say like, oh, Booker super hard on people or Booker doesn't, you know what I mean like it's none of that.

You just like okay well now I know where, where we are with it. And every time they tried him back out, and we I hear that music I'm just like dude go home, leave, like, I don't know why you're still here. He gets a mixture of booze every time he's on the on the screen. Yeah, and those aren't like affectionate booze those aren't Kurt Angle booze those aren't John Cena booze. Those are like, bro, we don't need you introducing any more live events. We've had it.

Who, who takes the title off of Roman. Cody. I can say who else but Cody. It's just a matter of when. And so for me I know Matt mentioned, he could possibly get drafted to a smackdown like I don't know what the financial means are for USA and for Fox but if I'm if I'm USA I'm not getting. I'm not. I love hey I love Jay but I'm not trading. Jay for Cody. Right now, Cody you, you, you right here baby.

Hey Jay, welcome. Welcome, but Cody you you right here next to the hip you're not going nowhere. And I just don't know how you keep Cody and Roman apart for that long. If they're on the same brand. Right. How long can Roman deal with the bloodline, while also ducking like Cody. It's a lot easier to not own two different brands and they can bring them together at some point.

You got a fashion where you got elimination chambers is as an opportunity for a championship run he can rent wind of rumble again. There's a lot of different ways for Cody to get into the title picture, but it's sound it'll be a little bit more far fetch that there is there. Allow them not to touch for like whatever six months or whatever it is on the same brand. I'm sitting here trying to figure out the answer to that question to try to outsmart the thinking of what booking really is.

It got to be Cody. It just has to be Cody, it has to take it off of Roman. I can I can dream book and say that the rock will come back and take the head of the table and the championship. What does that do for wrestling. Nothing. You know as far as being that champion that's not going to do anything now yeah it was the head of the table that's something different because that's a family thing. But it has to be Cody.

What about Cody story in his Cody story winning the championship his dad never won or is Cody story, beating Roman for the championship that his dad never won. I think it's the first I don't think he, he doesn't he's not attached to Romans hip, he doesn't have to beat Roman for that title for us to feel like, man. He finished the story awesome.

But he's probably that's the smart money to do that. Now if you want to if I want to take an outside. If I was betting, and I'll say okay this is probably, you know, the second person at plus 500 odds. I would go solo to beat them. And then the next person that if it's like plus thousand odds. I would probably go through. I got a 2000 plus sides. Who's that. I'm punk and it's going to be called a real undisputed. Punk has made his way back to the main event picture. Wow.

We are in the twilight zone. I like Gunther. Yep. Give me that. Gunther. Gunther. I love the way Samantha Irvin announces him to it really puts him way over the top to. I wasn't I wasn't sold on Gunther early on but I am now for sure. You and me both brother. You and me both man. I always say like when they changed his name for one I was all about fat water.

I was all about fat water. I'm like this guy when he finally goes in against Brock and Keith Lee at the time and Roman I'm like man this is going to be great because that's all I knew was fat water. He started dropping that weight and they changed his name. I was like oh I don't like fit Gunther. I know I don't like this guy. And I guess Vince didn't either and he was almost out of here last night but he made a believer out of all of us. He is he is on a run.

And I love his matches so much because he doesn't have a finish. He just beats you until he wins. And whatever that may be. If that's a powerbomb. If that is a clothesline. Whatever it takes. If that is a super stiff body slam. So like you so he doesn't have a cadence to you can you can tell when the finish is coming because he'll string along some moves. But he doesn't have that typical pattern to the end of his matches and it's fantastic.

Right. It kind of keeps you on your toes a little bit and I kind of like the multiple ways to finish the match and not having a true finisher because you know we all know that's that one thing you can kick out of versus all the other times you got dumped on your head and hit with exactly all the kitchen tools and appliances and all that stuff. So I like that a lot. You going with Cody to the throne. I mean I guess I shouldn't have to reiterate or ask I think that should be a given right.

Cody all day. Got to be. Got to be. I mean Cody's definitely the obvious answer. I love the gunta prediction as well too. But I think lost in the shuffle here has been Seth Rollins even though he has a title. We saw at WrestleMania and every event I mean at SummerSlam probably saw the same thing. They won't stop chanting says theme until they get cut off. Like it will just keep going all night and I felt that at WrestleMania because I was the one of the ones doing it as well too.

So I think you know I understand that you know he again he has a title they found a way to make him happy I guess but I think he's getting a little bit lost in the shuffle here. When you say he's lost in the shuffle are you saying you want to see another program with them two with both of them being champions with just Roman being a champion. What in your perfect world with that. What would that look like. I like his interactions with Roman a lot.

I like the story that they told was it at the Royal Rumble over a year ago. I think you put Seth and first of all he puts in good matches. I like that they you know put him back with Finn Balor and kind of continue that story that got cut off a while ago as well too.

But I think just when we talk about the top of the top you know we talk a lot of Cody we talk a lot of Roman we talk a lot of Brock out of respect even though he's mainly putting and I like that about Brock right now that he's putting folks over. He's doing jobs something that people you know that don't really know him said he would never do. So I like that but I just think Seth should be mentioned a little bit more I guess. Okay, that's fair.

I would say with Seth and this is just kind of like oh, I don't want to call it a weird time in wrestling but when the what is it called the under the heavyweight championship. When it first came out, I really did want them to win it. But it was almost Seth's championship to have anyways because again, he has busted his ass over the last two to three years. Being that workhorse there.

I always felt Seth was a top tier, but then you get people who are Roman, and you get Cody that came in, and these are just two and I mentioned it on our pod last week that these are too larger than life's like, we remember when Vince would say, no one is bigger than the WWE.

And now we finally got to people that maybe they're not bigger than WWE, but they damn near close to being bigger than WWE enrollment and Cody, so you get someone like Seth who will probably never be bigger than WWE, and he just seems like he's so far away from the top. But I think Seth is his top tier. I absolutely love Seth. Besides Orange Cassidy, I had said for years that Seth should have been the MVP. He has been the workhorse of the wrestling.

You know Seth Rollins is like the modern day martial man Randy Savage. Yep. Right. He's not quite Hawk Hogan. He wasn't able to be the ultimate warrior, right. But he's always in the title picture. He's always a credible threat to any World Championship match. He's somebody you can plug in and out of any situation. He's going to excel. He's going to give you a great match. People care about him. But for some reason, he's just not thought of in that same regards as other big names.

I take that as a compliment though. Yeah, don't call me Hawk Hogan. Don't call me ultimate warrior. I'll take the macho man over those two. But you know, I'm curious Ryan because you know Matt and Rhodesia asked a question sometime back. He said is Seth Rollins over or is his song over? Seth Rollins is over. Yeah, most definitely. And I think coming out of the shield, you had three great performers in their own right.

And Seth was the one who kind of got the head start, you know, right away. There was having a little bit of trouble. And I don't think this was Roman's fault. I think this was a booking thing because they were really trying to, you know, make him John Cena 2.0 and the fans just didn't want that. They will not take it. But Seth really showed himself early. And I will say this, I wasn't that big on Seth beforehand because I thought he was a little bit reckless in the ring.

And Seth told a story about how he had met Bret Hart. I have to throw Bret in these conversations. I don't know why. And how he had addressed how Bret had said some things like you're not too safe in the ring.

And that really hurt Seth because Seth had really looked up to Bret. But they were able to come together and kind of talk about it. But I felt the same way early on. And then he continued to like, like Rhodesia said, just be a very hard worker and prove to me that, you know, he deserves to be right there with the Cody's and the Romans.

You know, you just, you really have one title. You got two titles. But you mean you have one where you ask pretty much anybody and that's the one that they want. So it's really, really hard to revolve several names and keep them all at a very heightened state all at the same time, especially when you got someone with the momentum like Cody Rhodes.

And, you know, I think with Seth, Seth is so good in the ring. There's been times where they just haven't given him a great story or even a defined character. For years he was known as he would come out and say before they actually changed his name to Seth freaking Rollins.

They would say he would say I'm Seth freaking Rollins. What does that mean? Right. And that was like his gimmick. Burn it down. Yeah. Okay. I remember from the one feud of burning down. But it's not in your song. What does that mean? The people in wrestling that are most over are people that have clearly defined stories and characters. If you were asking me right now, what is Roman? We all know what Roman is. We all know what Cody's whole thing is right now.

You know, if you go to A.W. who MJF is, you know who Kenny Omega is. You look at Seth and you say, okay, you dress crazy. You laugh. And now people see that's not enough to eclipse Cody story or Roman story or even Hill right now. That's not enough to eclipse LA Knight story.

So I don't think it has anything to do with him. We know he can go in and have a five star match with anybody five times out of the week and twice on Sunday. But it's it's it's they've missed with him at times of telling me who is this guy and why should I care about him? I think that's why we maybe don't look at him like all he really needed to say when they asked him about the Seth freaking Rollins question is, hey, I got it from that's freaking wrestling podcast. Boom.

He's over. You know, my man, shout out to you, sir. But yeah, I mean, Seth, moving forward, you know, we'll see who challenges him and who works with him. But what about you mentioned LA Knight, right? Another great story as well to not well thought of the thinking about making them a manager and whatnot. And, you know, he gets the chance to just go out and speak to the fans. What do we how we feel about LA Knight?

How does guy in the company by far and that excludes nobody. He's hotter than Cody. He's hotter than Roman. Roman's not around, but he's hotter than everybody. I think I wouldn't have said this, and this is why they get paid the big bucks. They know better than we do. We've been clamoring for LA Knight since January. He was done with Bray recipes to break in January, February, and then he was in a state of just like in pause.

Didn't have a match at WrestleMania. And then we kept hearing, okay, it's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. And it was like, no, it's never happening. And then we finally got it right around survivor or summer slam. And now we're on that trajectory and not that Miz exposed him, but Miz proved that he's got a little more ways to go to carry a few than the way we see him at as of right now on the microphone.

Miz got him in those two head to head microphone battles. Miz got him. He talks about it a lot of he's not the strongest in the ring. He'll get you a decent match, but I don't think we were ever going to probably walk away to say, man, you know who had the match that night?

LA Knight. That was a four and a half star five, five star classic match. I don't know if he's that guy, but you don't have to be that guy. We know that. Right. But I think now we are. I'm starting to see. Okay. Yep. Slow and steady wins the race with LA Knight. But I would, if I was cashing my chips in. Yep. I think he can be the top guy on Smackdown. And I think that business will stay through the roof with him being your top guy.

So for me, LA Knight, I was not a LA Knight fan, but my reason was because I was tired of getting my feelings broken and my feelings hurt because for ever since what you said January, I'm like, yep, here's LA Knight. Yeah. Ra Ra. Cheer cheer. How you gonna have a WrestleMania in LA without LA Knight? Nope. You didn't get nothing. You didn't see him at all. Ghost. Yeah, that was wrong. And then again, time after time. Okay. Now this is the push. This is the push. This is the push. This is the push. Nope.

And then finally he had something with BFab and I knew he liked the ladies, the chocolate ladies. And that's when I became a fan. LA Knight because he liked the sisters. Every time you tell that story. LA Knight came home and yeah, he could turn. He could turn the hot dogs over on the grill at the barbecue. That's it. No, he can't cook it. He can just like turn the hot dogs over. Yeah, that's enough to get him in though. That's enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, he might have got some some seasoning pack.

That's in that fanny pack that he be wearing, man. You never know. Right. So now I'm a, I'm a big LA Knight fan. And he actually grew on me because I've been aware of him for quite some time. I've seen stuff in Impact and NWA and the Infinite NXT. It's just that his work on the microphone and I think his in ring has gotten much, it's been much improved. I think he was very slow in product.

Like probably in NXT, like his matches were, they weren't even just there. They were kind of snoozefests for me. I just think he's continued to improve. And that was the time he's not a young whippersnapper either. I think he's in his early forties. He's finally getting his big break. He deserves it because how many people can say they can, they're over with the crowd. Right. Like when he opens his mouth and he talks to them, I mean, the crowd is with every catchphrase. They're right with them in every single moment he is in them.

And so I expect big things from him. And that was a great time for me. You think about in hindsight, it might've been a nice time for him to start now his ascension because right. We don't have Roman. Right now, LA Knight has a lot of real estate to kind of operate and do his thing. Now has.

Miz outperformed him on the microphone. Maybe, but Miz, I think is just really underappreciated by the entire wrestling community. He is solid. He is great on the mic. He's not just okay. He is great on the microphone. I remember the first time I really, really appreciated Miz on the mic was when he was feuding with Brian Danielson on Smack talks, you know, years ago in the house.

He had that after Smack. He cut this amazing promo on Danielson that night and there's so much fire, so much piss and vinegar. So Miz has it. Yeah. I think it's a lot of shoot ins promo. Yeah. He was, he was Danielson egging him on a little bit though. I mean, I don't blame him. Yeah. Kadenci was shooting on him. Right. He shoot on him. But yeah, LA Knight, he's, he definitely has it. I wonder what his ceiling is though. Like, can you really see him as a world champion Ryan?

You know, the jury is still out there. I think he's a really fantastic, like you said, on the mic and storytelling outside of the ring. I'm waiting for him to tell me that story inside the ring. Yeah. It hasn't quite happened yet. I think the money in the bank would have been a good moment for him. But, you know, the powers would be decided that he wasn't ready yet. Maybe they're maybe they're right.

By the way, I do like that. What the Judgment Day is doing with all the with all the hardware they're collecting and all that kind of stuff too. So I'll be remiss to not, you know, mention that. But yeah, I don't know yet. The jury is still out for me and I don't want to be kind of fouling that pitch off E. But I think he has the following to be a champion. Just tell me that story in the ring and I'm sold.

Before we leave this topic, it just came up in my head how y'all said Miz, which I'm saying into Miz ate him alive. I'm going to say that much. I mean, he really gave it to him. But the last time I felt that way of almost that uncomfortable feeling was when it was John Cena and Roman and John Cena ate into Roman. And what happened out of that? It just made Roman a better person, a better character.

So I think with someone like LA Knight who been in a ring, who've been in a mic feud back and forth with one of the greatest to do it in the Miz. I think this is only going to make LA Knight better. Agreed. Agreed. So we move on from LA Knight. We mentioned the Judgment Day, so I want to touch on them because they've been putting in, I mean, Dominic Mysterio, man. Dominic Mysterio for me. Oh my. We got some booze happening. That means he is doing his job. What are we thinking about?

Have we ever seen in a period of a year, 12 months, because remember he turned in Cardiff a year ago on Edge and Ray. Have we ever seen a wrestler in a year go from what Dom was then to what he is right now? I thought about it a few days ago. I can't think of anyone that was so treading water. He needs to go down to NXT to figure out his character. He can't work the best in the ring. Man, it's been years. What are they doing with him?

To him being one of the MVPs of the entire promotion. I can't think of anybody else. I can't think of anybody there. But when he talks and the whole crowd booze him, it's so to another level, even more than what MJF gets before he became a good guy. As soon as he's done with the mic and passed it on to the next Judgment Day person who's also a bad person, it stops. Instantly. It instantly stops. He eats so much, what you call it, missile heat. Heat. Red hot heat. Yeah. Like for real.

Dominic used to trip me out early on in Judgment Day. He would start winning promos. I wish Mommy was here. If Mommy was here. He's like this smitten kid. But I love Judgment Day. I talk about them all the time. I think this is the best Finn has ever been in his entire career right now as a character.

Not just talking about wrestling and entering. I'm talking about as an actual character. This is the best character work he's ever done. I think Rhea has really flourished in her role. And she's kind of becoming the pseudo leader. Now they say they don't have one, but she definitely is the reason in the group.

Senior Money in the Bank. Damien is getting a lot of shine in this. He's coming across very strong. And of course, Dominic is probably arguably the best heel in the actual business from a heat perspective. Like a true real heat perspective.

We talked about who's the better heel, MJF or Dominic. And I said Dominic because he's a real heel. People don't like him. People still like MJF. They want to like him. They want to like him. They love to boo him. But people don't love to boo Dominic. They want to boo Dominic because they think he's an asshole.

I think the group is amazing. I love that they have all the gold. I don't know what's next for them because I wish in some ways that we can possibly get the original bloodline back together versus Judgment Day in WarGames. That would be a treat. I don't know who we'll be facing, who will be heel in that scenario, but I'd love to see it.

Yeah, agreed. And I think the moment for me that really told me that Dominic was over as a heel was when he was able to carry on all that heat without his dad. Right. He told the story with your dad. It's over with. Now, will anybody care? Oh, they care even more. They still hate you. And the story's over.

Right and left to a whole other smackdown to get away from you. And you still get hate from him. Right. And it was just, you know, I just like to see, especially for the reasons that you gave Matt about who was going to give up on him, what we were supposed to do. And it just completely turned around for him. And I agree. I can't really think of someone who made that such a drastic turn. Speaking of MJF, has he gone too far or was he going too far during his zenith as a heel?

When he don't get that drink, don't get both of the kids out. If I had a bad, I probably would have swung it and hit him. If I if he poured a drink on my baby or spilled a drink on my kid. It's over. Over. Period. It's over. Was that was that was the kid placed there? Was he was he? That was not a plan. That was not a plan. No, no. And double down on right in front of Tony Khan. Say again and double down on it right in front of Tony Khan. Oh, the kid was thirsty.

Yeah, he sure did. He sure did. Which I mean, you forgot about that. Right. Yeah. Like you have to. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't I don't think it was racially motivated. People try to make it a racial thing. I don't think I had anything to do with it at all. But you can't probably do that. You know what I mean? Right. You can't do that. No, you do not do that.

He did it and he got away. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when it happened, I was in a group that I hated it. And I think I mentioned to somebody, I'm not sure what the context storyline was, but, you know, I mentioned like, yeah, I didn't like it. It was a black kid, too.

And, you know, it immediately triggered Max. I guess not racially motivated. I'm not saying it was. I'm saying it because it was a black kid. It triggered me because I saw my child in that child. Like, right. For some reason, I visioned my 10 year old and I just immediately got hot about it.

Like, because if that happened to my son in front of me, I will be on one. Like, I like I don't I'm not the kind of guy who likes to fight people like I don't I don't do that anymore. Maybe back in my day, I thought for some reason, I thought I was the guy. I thought I was the guy. But if you don't know, if you don't know, right. He's like five foot four, 102 pounds. I'll say this. This is disrespectful. I'm definitely I've always been heavyweight number one. All right.

And if I was a wrestler, I'm five, nine. If I was a wrestler, I would be five, eleven. Right. So it's fine. But but yeah, I will. I wanted to fight. And I wasn't mad at MJF the character. I was mad at MJF the man because I felt he should have known better. I thought he went way too far. Right. Right. Trying to draw what some kind of heat so he could get some kind of a boo. He can do that without, you know, putting water onto. I just believe that you should protect children at all costs.

Right. At all costs. And I feel like he just crossed the line in that moment. I'm still kind of not happy with the man behind the character. Yes. Yeah. Like that that moment really kind of took some some fandom for me. Yeah. I think they pushed the lines a little too far. And there was some instances where some of the things he was saying in the ring that was kind of like I could do without.

You know, and a lot of like always, oh, W.W.E. is going to come and give me money. And come on, man. We were in 2024. Yeah. We I'm past that. Yeah. Because to your point, it was cool the first couple of times. But when you keep doing it and now with maybe Tony not having the best managerial slash leadership skills, MJF is still saying his contract is up in January.

The chickens have the chance to run the coop over there. I'm sorry, Tony Khan. Don't mean it as any personal disrespect, but you need a couple of special enforcers to go around and make sure everything stays in line over there. CM Punk gone. Like we said, MJF can be out of control and doesn't seem like there's any kind of reprimand for it. You know, I'm all about getting, you know, because that's the WWF playbook from the attitude era. Right.

But even Stone Cold knew where his boundaries were, you know. Hey, Tony, can I tell them I'm willing to come out of retirement? Because no, back in the day with the crew, I was the enforcer of the crew. Right. I was the guy. I was like the heavy guy. I was the guy. They call, you know, go get them. I believe you know. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to do that for him.

But hey, I got a question for you, Ryan. So do you think so if if MJF's contract is up, let's say, you know, next year, as he's saying, if you're MJF, would you go to talk about the money? I think the money is probably going to be right no matter where he goes. I would I would imagine. Right. Would you go to AEW? Would you go to WWE?

I don't see a reason to leave AEW at this point. They they've definitely handled your career the right way. They held on to you until you were ready to be released into the main stage. You took full advantage of the situation. You've had a pretty decent title run, a long title run. I don't I don't feel the need to come over. My sense. I agree. Yeah, I agree because because he can't be who he is now in WWE. And that's not even just saying, OK, I can't cuss.

No, you would have to completely probably not completely, but before Roman and Roman is a different type of heel because for the majority of this run, Roman has gotten more cheers than booze. Not now, of course, but if you look at his run, they they they haven't used heels to their maximum capability. MJF is a face right now, but I think them running shows like Wimly and will continue to run Wimly. That's their WrestleMania.

And yes, it doesn't have the WrestleMania name in front of it, but I'm working in front of 70,000 people that used to only be a WWE thing. OK, so now we're checking that off. MJF is going to probably keep the king the keys to the castle in AEW. He's already helping with storylines over there and things that he just wouldn't do in WWE to his point, the money is going to be the same. That won't be an issue. It would just be, hey, do you think that you can become bigger?

Now, he absolutely can be bigger in WWE because they have more eyeballs. So say if his thing is, man, I really want to get to Hollywood and maybe going to WWE for three or four years, maybe the way to get the maximum amount of eyeballs on you. But for him liking what he's doing, I think that I think he's saying AEW. And I think he can't leave. Tony cannot. Tony would have to do. Anything and everything possible, MJF leaving would be a bigger blow. Then Cody and Punk combined.

Wow, because I think Cody was a huge blow to AEW. I think Cody leaving, especially as a back as I think he was one of those locker room leaders that they're solely missing. Yeah, right now, I think in the locker room. Yeah, that was definitely a huge loss. But on in the ring, Cody had pretty much wrote himself out of the title picture. So where were you really going? That was that was part of problem, too, is that that early on, he kind of wrote himself out of that, which I mean, it's wrestling.

He could have done done that, which true. But for me, thinking about MJF, so he's 27 now. Right. So he'll be 28, 29, kind of somewhat going to the prime of his career. And whose prime is in 30s? Typically, your prime is in your 40s in wrestling. Oh, shit. I mean, look at LA Knight right now. But if you think about if you're MJF, if he were to go to WWE.

Right. I don't think by any means you get lost in shuffle, because if you want to talk about wrestler, a wrestler that he personally knows that was able to go and be themself. And flourish, he can look no further than Cody Rose. Cody Rose is everybody the same Cody Rose that he was in AEW. In some ways, he's the better version of Cody Rose in the WWE with the machine behind him. Just imagine, take the cusp to Kirsten out. Right. Just imagine MJF in the machine with that pyro.

Right. With the pyro. If he signed like a four year deal with WWE, just being in that machine, having that worldwide appeal. Because here's what we we don't talk about wrestling, but we do. But we don't acknowledge it. There's WWE here and then way over here. You got a WWE. I mean, they awesome at the Wembley Arena. They did 80,000, whatever it is. But WWE is a worldwide brand. With years of experience.

With years of experience. Just imagine him going to WWE like the type of brand that he will be building there. Right. He can always come back to AEW and be an even bigger star, because guess what? He's been a bigger global entity going on WWE. And I think also, I think that's one of his dreams. Like everybody else, he started as a WWF or WWE fan. So that's something he would want to do. I just think it might be a great career move for him.

He can get that that star power from being in that machine. Good point. Very good point. Whatever he decides, we shall see what happens. I mean, I think there'll be big plans for him either way. He will definitely have to adjust his approach. Coming to the WWE in this PG era, he's about 30 years too late. Twenty five, thirty years too late for that. But man, that's freaking wrestling. That is freaking wrestling and that is freaking wrestling talk.

But before we close up, though, we do a little thing here. We call it light speed. It's kind of a play on rapid fire, even though it doesn't go too rapid, because I end up slowing it down anyway. So I just downplayed my own segment. But that's all right. My heart rate high over here. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah. We need to simmer that down a little bit there. We were having that conversation in the chat. But would you guys like to participate in light speed? Absolutely. Let's go. Let's do it.

All right. We got speed here with that's freaking wrestling. Matt Rhodesia and he thug, he enforcer. Oh, Lord. He already has told us as well. Come on. The first I got to play it up, man. I got we all got to get got to be so proud of himself over there. Like, you know, he blessed it right now. You know, we don't live together. Why are we living? First question here on light speed. Top five wrestlers. Anyone could start of all time. Roman Roman Roman Roman. We gave her. There you go.

That's that's rapid fire. You want to go next or you want me to go? Shawn Michaels, Cody Rhodes. Roman Reigns. Mr. Perfect. Steve Austin. Stone Cold rounding off the top. What we got, Matt. Give me flair. Give me Austin. Give me Rock. Give me. I got to put Hogan in there, unfortunately, because like, I wouldn't be watching wrestling if it wasn't for Hogan. Hogan and then let's have some fun with the fifth one. Let's do like a. Cody Rhodes. Let's do Shawn Michaels. Shawn Michaels.

My top kind of sort of reflects your top. Just take out Hogan at heart. Obviously, I think that's not a surprise to anybody. But we got some honorable mentions, obviously, Undertaker. Well, how do you in a top 10? Right. We're not going to do a top 10, but in the top 10, it is John Cena in there for you all. He's the goat. Absolutely. So what are we basing this question off of?

So this this list that that I hypothetically always make up and talk about has to do with a lot of things in ring capability, longevity, fan appreciation, promo ability. And I had a metric on there and I don't remember what it was. You said longevity. Cena was on top for like a decade. Yeah. So, yep. How about you, E? You know, I'm not a I respect John Cena. Oh, he's not. He's not my. He's not on my list. He doesn't crack the top 10. He doesn't crack the numbers with what Ryan just gave you.

He doesn't still crack the top 10 promo ability, longevity. But you said also said fandom, right? So for me as a fan, I don't like seeing John Cena. Hmm. Not even now. He's he's a little better now. Hmm. Yeah, I get it. You can't see him. You can't. That's why that's the whole. Did you did you guys watch raw? No one could. How good was that? That was very good. Props to the props to the miss for laying that out. We said very underappreciated top five tag teams of all time. Oh, I'll be fair.

I'll be honest on this one. So we're going to go Uso's Young Bucks, FTR, the New Day. And Lutre Brothers. Give me FTR, Uso's. Heart Foundation. Legion of Doom. Legion of Doom. That's what we're warriors. And then Young Bucks. Young Bucks. I'm going to go. Uso's. Midnight Express. I'm going to go on and tell me. I'm going to go demolition. Hmm. And then I'm going to go to World Wars. The Road Warriors. All very fantastic choices.

I like the the ode to some of the teams of the past that led to the teams of the future. But a couple of your answers that led me to my next question. Young Bucks or FTR? For me is Young Bucks and quick. I mentioned quick honorable mention on the tag team. The Ascension continues. Oh, God. I almost can't continue this podcast. I'm so disgusted right now. I said this. She raised the roof with the Ascension, man. Oh, man. I'll tell you another story about the Ascension another day, right?

When she threw me out, what were we talking about? FTR or Bucks? FTR or Young Bucks? FTR. Man, that's such a hard question because Young Bucks revolutionize a lot. If we're talking only in ring FTR, if we're talking about the entire kid and Kaboodle Young Bucks. So as a physical therapist, man, even the bumps that Young Bucks and Omega take, they really make me cringe a little bit. Like you have to be very, very skilled and trained to take some of the bumps that they take all for our enjoyment.

I thought I was going FTR, but I think I'm a slide to the Young Bucks. Surprisingly, because the FTR wrestled my more my style of wrestling, you know, more technical, more get you on the mat and grind you down a little bit. But I'll take any Young Bucks here. Next question, Brian Danielson or Kenny Omega? Come on. Why would you do that? I thought we were cool. That's a good one. He's at rapid fire. Hurry up. Pretty sure like Panic. I'm panicking. Brian Danielson. American Dragon, baby.

The best bomb machine. Kenny Omega, Kenny Omega. I asked these questions because I have trouble with them, you know, so I seek some help. I've been saying Kenny Omega is the best wrestler in the world for several years now, but there's nobody I respect more than Brian Danielson and what he's done to, you know, to rise up the ranks early in his career and stay on, especially after injury. Yeah, but I got to lean to Kenny. Sorry, Brian. There you go. I'm going to lean to Kenny, man.

There is there are no wrong answers here because these questions are set up. These questions are set up for us to like look like a buffoon if we say the other name. So it's all good. There's a lot of thought going into these questions and I give a lot to Kenny too because everything he's done has been outside the WWE push and that's very hard. What happened to I guess isn't really a rapid fire question, but our lightspeed question. What happened to Sami Zayn and KO?

Momentum after WrestleMania, did they live it up to it for you? No, what happened to them was they were not in a story that we cared about afterwards. And then KO got hurt, right? One of them got hurt. I mean, he was only on TV for a couple of weeks. Yeah, no, it was no story. You had the incredible build up with the Usos. They take the title and then they were stuck in this Judgment Day and Imperium main eventing every week with nothing on the line on Raw.

That's not good enough when you're coming off the hottest. I mean, there were some people who said that their story at WrestleMania was hotter than Cody and Roman's story. So you're coming off of either your top story or your second biggest story, your biggest show of the year, and you don't have a follow up plan with the titles. That's what happened is that they didn't have anything for them.

You know, we've seen this story many times when the face, you know, it kind of goes to Matt's hard work thinking about Cody winning the championship, right? Like a lot of times once that baby face finishes the story, it kind of goes downhill because like a lot of times it's all the sizzle was in the chase. And then once they get that goal, it kind of fizzles. We've seen it a couple of times. I remember I was a big Steam fan back in the WCW days.

And every time he won the championship, it was always very lackluster reigns. And I think that's what Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were a victim of, right? There's a lot of intrigue on them chasing the titles and once they got there and they got to the top of the mountain, it was only one way to go. And it was down. They didn't have any proper feuds. They didn't have any meaningful things to do after winning the championship because now the Usos were kind of in a story with Roman, right?

And Roman immediately afterwards was like, hey, you guys don't win. This is going to happen. So now really it's not about Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn. It's really about the Usos and Roman Reigns at that moment. So I think you're just a victim of, you know, I'm trying to I don't know if this is a PG show or not. So I'm trying to say what you mean with your chest, man. You know, it's once you get the girl and you have your good time and now the thrill is gone. Okay. Yeah, we'll just leave it there.

I was going to say something else there, but okay. Yeah. So, you know, I think moving on to to to to job to the Judgment Day was the right move because we didn't really see much. No offense to Sami and Kale like them both. I think Sami has great creative control when he's allowed to have, you know, control of his matches and kind of help dictate the pace and stuff like that. So I think that they would have given him something to roll with. He definitely would have been able to roll with it.

And real quick to Ryan, they have an incredible opportunity to tell a arguably just as good of a story with now Sami and Jay on Raw. Yeah. I mean, trying to be peacemaker with everybody. The bloodline screwed over. Hey, give him a chance. Yes. First thing. You know what I mean? And then, of course, Kale's be like, look, dude, I'm over it. I've had this conversation with you. We should have left them in the past.

So now we're going to be able to see when they have a story to sink their teeth into. They'll get right back to where they were before. Very good point. Very good point. I'm looking forward to seeing the outcome of that for sure. Best wrestling theme song. We can only pick one. Oh my God. In history? In history. I'm going to go NWO. Oh, that's a good one. That's a good one. Only because I botched my first lightning speed fast question speed round, whatever you call this.

My favorite wrestler of all time is The Undertaker. So the dong could be my favorite. Because that is just, you hear it, you know it, you know it. It may be Austin with Probably One Second. Yeah, I'm not a ticker guy either, Ryan. That's a darn good question. I wasn't ready for it because there are a lot of iconic songs. I think NWO is one of them. When you hear it, you automatically know what's going on. I might say, Asra DeJesus ended with Stone Cold.

When that glass break, you know what it is. And it was such a defining moment for his career too because that glass breaking meant so many different things for him as a character. He finally broke through that glass ceiling and he never had arrived. I never thought about it like that. That's a fantastic point. That's a fantastic point. And the song still hits.

But there's one song, and maybe you can think of it, because I know I can't think of what it is, but there's a song that when I hear it today, it still hits hard, but I can't think what that song is. For me, that song is Batista, I Walk Alone. That's another classic. That's the only one that I'll tell Alexa to play outside of any wrestling show and I'll just sit and simmer in it like. He's talking to me right now. What's going on?

How much of the pyro in him shooting it has to do with your love for the song? Oh, a lot of it too. But I mean, a lot of it too. Because he combined well with the pyro for sure like that. And it did a lot for him and his entrance for sure. It was fantastic, man. I miss that guy, but he's doing great movies. Oh, and that's my next question. One guy for movies, Cena, Rock, Batista. Batista clears all of them. I was going to say that and I love Rock and Cena more, but yeah, Batista is the man.

This is the last one that he was in where it was about to be the end of the world. Oh yeah, that was a good one. His range is incredible. Like, yeah, it is. Rock plays the rock, right? Every movie is the rock for the most part. Cena is starting to diversify pretty well, but Batista, I mean, hell, Guardians. I mean, he's doing what the Blade Runner. He's just he's all over the spectrum. He's fantastic.

Yes, those are, I would say, the cream of the crop when you think about wrestlers going to Hollywood. Batista especially. I watched Guardian Galaxy recently. He was hilarious in that movie. And I actually prefer John Cena, the actor over the wrestler. I like a lot of his stuff. He's excellent. He's great. He has a very awesome comedic timing. He was in a movie. I can't think of the name with as a brother and vacation friends. Yeah, hilarious. Yeah, that was about to shit.

Just just you know, is a great actor, too. But I got to go with the rock band. He has so many great movies. Man, I wish I wish Blackadder would have panned out for him. Yeah. But yeah, I like the movies. It's a rock. Me, too. Yeah. And I think I have to look at the numbers. It was did similar numbers to The Flash, didn't it? I think they kind of gave up on that a little prematurely. I'm with Batista because of the yeah, I'm with Batista because of the variability that we talked about.

But you can't deny that the rock helped break that ceiling that we just talked about, like with Stone Cold of wrestlers being marginal to bad actors. I mean, well, even just your question, not that you say that it has to be the rock. I mean, for me is Batista personally, because the rock wasn't he the highest paid actor in Hollywood? He was. Yeah, he was. Speaks to some. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure.

I mean, well, he's what they call him the most recognizable movie star or somebody that I mean, if you're looking at just dollars. Yes. But he's a better actor. I'm looking at who's the best actor and it's Batista is the best actor. All three have done great things pushing, you know, pushing wrestling. I like that a lot because it's making wrestling more popular with those guys. So putting it further on the mainstream.

The final one here is your favorite wrestling title and favorite iteration of that title because the looks always change or maybe there was a certain wrestler that had its own that had his own or her own title that you may appreciate. I don't want to be here forever. So I'm just gonna say that I see championship right now with Gunza. I would say maybe the the white IC bill, but it's funny because I don't own it.

I have the WWE Championship is behind Rhodesia. I have the big gold, but I don't have the Intercontinental. So is it really my favorite? But that's the one I'm gonna go with. That was iconic. When with the white leather. You know, I only have one championship of ball in this right there, which I don't know why. So I have it in the case. That's the big goal. I love the big go. I love the look of it. I love the end up you a back in the day. That was this it just amazing TV.

Like when I first discovered in the way and I was actually it was very wind up. I was I don't know how I think was on Channel 50 or something like that back in the day. Y'all like channel or maybe jump 56. It was on a weird channel. I discovered in the way and I like that I had to get the rabbit ears to kind of adjust. It was kind of it was kind of was it back in the day static staticky.

Yeah. You have to flip the knob. It was like what was it like UHF and like something else to like 7 on the regular ones. And if you want to get 20 50 56 60 to 38, you had to like yeah, like that's old. Yeah, it was like going our age. We really should I guess about 40 years. We showed it. Sorry Ryan. No, I was right there with y'all man. I was right there with you. I used to call me in there. Oh, there you go. How about this? Not only that I go turn it.

I had a standby because the electromagnetic system in me. I just made a board there. Don't help. Don't. Yeah. Yeah. Like that. I can tell. I had it running. Yeah, I remember seeing Barry Windham on one of the WWF tapes back in the day. And I saw him like on his in that way. It's like, oh, what's this? And I started watching and then I got in the red flare and he had that gold that big gold beautiful championship, which is why I actually love the World Heavyweight Championship so much.

I think it's a homage to that. So that's my favorite. Excellent. Yep. I only own one title myself. It's the winged eagle back there that is also still in the case as well, too. So I probably have to take that one out as well. So that would be my favorite. I know the million dollar championship isn't a real winnable title, but that that was always an excellent title. Really? Yeah, another one, too. Yeah. Yeah.

So those two and I like I like the white intercontinental to that was also a very stylish. But I think it was it was Macho Man who put the teal on the winged eagle, wasn't it? Was it him that the ultimate warrior was an ultimate warrior? Yeah, it was war. I think I think a warrior had a yellow one, too. He had a bunch. He had like a different color for a while. He came out with different color belts.

Yeah. Yeah. That that teal one, my revisionist history is now saying it's Macho Man for selfish reasons. But that's OK is another title that I like. But the wing wing eagle is the one that that for sure is that's my that's a good one. And that's the one Cody's bringing back. If he wins the title, when he wins the title, he has said the winged eagle is coming back. You know, I would love a revised version of that coming back. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the of the undisputed title.

Yeah, it's a little well, anybody who watched wrestling back in the day, we were talking Hogan, Brett, Sean. The wing eagle was the epitome of what we all looked at as the top prize. So no doubt that's a really good one. That's a really good one. And as far as I go ahead, it looks like it was ultimate warrior. Is that possible? They had the blue. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Very, very possible. Yeah, very possible. That's what pulled up. I think he even had an orange one, too.

Yeah, like you said, he had all the colors to match all them tassels he was running around with as well, too. But as far as the the the wrestler specific Stone Colds championship belt is his head and shoulders above any of the the the wrestler specific belts for me. Yes, and it's not even close. I agree. Yes, indeed. So I told you light speed doesn't go that quick. We can all catch up to it, but it is a good theme either way. That's freaking wrestling.

We like I said, we had Matt Rhodesia enforcer E in the building came in, shut it down. What did we learn today? Red Day, you're just an awesome guy, Ryan. I just wanted to say this in the beginning, but Matt was still a little bit of my thunder there. When we first met you, you had such a beautiful light about yourself. And I remember when we left, I'm like, man, Ryan's just a good guy. Like, and I wish him all the best of luck and everything that you do in your future.

And we were blessed to even just meet you ourselves. So thank you for being a light. Keep on shining. Very much appreciated. The blessings go two ways, because like I mentioned earlier, it wasn't for the work that you all have done and the inspiration and the words that you gave. There is no parallax effect podcast. It still remains a dream or an idea that I wake up and go to sleep with and wonder why I hadn't tried it yet. You know, so a million thanks to each of you.

Ian, Matt, what did what did we learn? I learned you gave me four more gimmicks on this two hour podcast. I already had to deal with this one gimmick. Now you just gave him three more. So now he's going to rotate. So I was going to say, hey, man, now you got to come on our pod. But maybe not now, you know, I do two more gimmicks for him. He's going to do two more. And then now, like, he just comes with a different gimmick every single week and we can't have that.

So that's what I learned. But no, overall, man, fantastic conversations with you. You know, last time we actually had a chance to talk for this long was actually face to face mania weekend. So, you know, we DM back and forth a little bit, but great connection. And Maritzy kind of just said everything, just I'm happy that you have this platform. I am super excited to see how you grow. And just don't forget us. The little girl. Make sure make sure you bring us back.

Make sure you shout us out and it's all good all day, every day. For sure. You already know that. Welcome. Anytime we still have to schedule our revision, our rewatching, our re commentating of the Iron Man match. One of the quintessential most influential matches in the history of wrestling, Matt, the history. And we're all going to witness it together. What did you learn? I'm I'm there with you, man. I just learned how great of a guy you are, man.

I love the story. And that's that's what our community is for. Right. To connect with each other, to help each other grow, to inspire and encourage. And it goes both ways. I love that. And we can continue to tell those stories and do that for our culture in this community. I think it's a beautiful thing. And I think that you learned what I already know is that Matt and Rhodesia are heels. They're heels. You see how they try to turn on you just for being a good person and being genuine.

This is quickly turning on you. Snap of the finger. Right. But hey, I'm here for you, man. Right. Right. And now I know I know I got another brother, man, that I can call on. Right. I can hear the music. I can get it. I can get it running. Right. Hey, Ryan, save me, man. The heels are trying to beat me down. I can get Ryan on the DM to come running for your boy and save him. Thank you. Right here, man. I stay in gorilla position, man.

I am ready to hit the curtain, cue the pyro because I need to stop and do my little Jeff Hardy on the way down before I come help you out. But yeah, I'll be there for you, man. All the way. This has been another episode of the Parallax Effect podcast. We got that's freaking wrestling. Where can the people find you if they haven't found you already? Yes, we are on all the socials for the most part. We're on Twitter or X at that's FNW. Also on Instagram.

That's FNW. YouTube is that's freaking wrestling. And we are on every single podcast platform that you would be listening to us on right now. Type in that's freaking wrestling. Hit that follow button and you get us twice a week every week, twice a week. Do yourselves a favor. That's freaking wrestling, especially if you are a wrestling fan or even if you're looking to get into wrestling, a lot of knowledge to pick up and learn on their show.

A fantastic show. Thank you all so much for joining us today here on the Parallax Effect podcast. Let me remind you all you can find us on Instagram at Parallax Effect Media. You can find us on Facebook at the Parallax Effect podcast on Twitter at Parallax Effects. Once again, that's Parallax Effects with an S and search Rilo Ken 27 on TikTok or Parallax Effect Media because we are there. We so much. Thank you so much. Please give us a rating.

Hopefully it's five stars. If not, let me know what I can do better because so we can grow. We can provide entertainment and we can reach more people out with our show. Thank you for joining the Parallax Effect podcast where every angle reveals a new depth of understanding.