Royal Rumble 2025 Wrap-Up & Review

Bab right, So Babyfaces podcast on iHeartRadio, the official pro wrestling podcast of iHeartRadio Louisville, powered by ninety seven to five WAMZ Kentucky, Anda's number one four Country and Sports Talk seven ninety am. Of course we're here in the local area. You can listen to me and Nick Coffee with Coffee and Company every single weekday from three to six pm. We talked about whole bunch of things going on in the sporting world. Pretty sure later on today

we're gonna be talking about this experience. Of course, we're all rumble. Twenty twenty five, This came and went. It was up in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium this past Saturday, and it was a pretty fun time. Of course, we got to go up there as media credentials from iHeartRadio

and have been able to cover the event. It's our third pl that we've actually been able to do, as we got to do WrestleMania and once we found out that we can actually get these credentials, and then it continued on with Summer Slam that was up in Cleveland, about a six hour drive. I made that trip solo, just like I made this one solo, and Indianapolis wasn't too bad. You know, it's already like maybe an hour forty five minute drive, nothing too bad. But it's a

pretty fun time, pretty chilly day in Indianapolis. Rather unpredictable when it comes to the biggest event at the end of the night, of course, which was the main event, And I'm sure we'll get into that as we kind of lay out and talk about everything. Hope. My name is Austin Montgomery. Of course, I am your co host.

I just thought i'd get on here and kind of just talk about the Rumble and my experiences and covering it from the press box for a lot of people that don't really know how all that stuff works, what it's like up there. Now that I've done three of them, I feel like such a big expert on it. But pretty still young in the baby Faces days to go

out and do all that. So I certainly think WWE and all the people up there in the media and communications area that kind of help us get these opportunities, so really really cool that we're able to do that and cover the event when all I'm really doing is just kind of enjoying the show for free and posting on the baby Faces app, one of the baby Faces social media of course, you can follow us on x, Instagram, Facebook,

right here, on YouTube and TikTok. It's all relatively simple at Babyface's pot And speaking of social media, it's a huge weekend for Babyfaces social media. Really really cool because as I was up in the press box, we had a video that went viral. Of course, I show Speed gets into the Royal Rumble as a surprise entrance because somebody knocked a care it's his owl out. I'm pretty sure it was Carmelo Hayes and they that went to the gorilla position and guess who happened to be there.

I show Speed one of the most popular social media streamers out right now of course here on YouTube, but he absolutely got obliterated by bron Breaker with the spear he had his spot where he did the Ronaldo Sui and then he did a backflip and then it was rest in peace after that because bron Breaker tore his freaking head off, and I took that video and it's gotten over eleven million views right now on Instagram, which

is pretty crazy. Billy and I used to talk about how much big of a deal whenever we got like one hundred thousand views on something, even our Cody Rhodes interview, which you could listen to on YouTube and you can also listen to on the iHeartRadio app or Apple podcasts where you'd like the Listener podcast. Even clips of that where he told a story about the Undertaker sliding into a ring and giving him the week at WrestleMania when

he helped them finish his story. That got about like maybe five hundred thousand views, and we thought we were hot shit then, but it looks like we kind of struck gold with this last one. Of course, thank you I show Speed for taking that bump and being a champ and kind of helping us clout reach right there. But you know, it's only one video. It's really really cool. We've gained over like three thousand followers from it, and so I really appreciate everybody that's new here listening. Thank

you so much. It is a really fun podcast. Me and Billy get to sit and talk about what's going on in the world of pro wrestling, and we kind of give our thoughts, previews, predictions for storylines and stuff like that. Of course, now that the NFL is winding down, and that's me and Billy's favorite sport besides wrestling, it's when we usually start to kind of hunk down on wrestling content because sometimes it's hard to keep up with wrestling.

As you know, we're sports betters, we fantasy football players, and we just kind of like keeping tabs with the NFL and Monday Night Football is always on, so I'll still always bounce back and forth from Monday Night Raw to NFL Action, but sometimes you can get lost in the sauce of what's going on. Billy, of course, has been doing coaching this last year up at Cooper High School, and he has a kid on the way, So you talk about a guy that's already busy, Billy is definitely

going to be a busy, busy man this year. But whenever we're able to get him on the podcast and give you guys more superstar interviews and all that fun stuff, and he can tag along. He certainly loves to do it. Billy loves being a part of this platform and loves being one half of the baby Faces. And we always have a good time whenever we get on here and talk. All right, so let's talk about it this Saturday. This past Saturday, twenty twenty five, Royal Rumble from Indianapolis and

Lucas Oil Stadium. If you guys never been to Lucas Oil stadium'm pretty sure all the people that are following me, especially after the last Saturday, were probably in attendance a lot of them. It's huge. I mean, if you're driving through Indianapolis, it's definitely one of the things that stick out to you. But it's absolutely huge. It's a home of the Colts, where the Colts play, and it's honestly

quite shocking. I'm pretty sure I did all my research, but I'm pretty sure that this is the first time the WWE's held a event at Lucas Oil Stadium, which is pretty crazy because it was built over ten years ago, probably about probably about fifteen years ago, sometime in the early twenty tens. Sorry if I don't have that information for you right now, but I mean it's played host too. I mean it's the host of the NFL Combine every

single year. I'm pretty sure that they've had the NFL Draft up there before, obviously, have hosted national championship games and college football playoff games. Of course you've had other big stuff up there just as well. I'm just trying to think a Final fours. College basketball has been up there,

Super Bowls have been played up there. So it's been host to about almost every major sporting event that you can think of, but WW has always stayed away from it, and hopefully this last weekend, over sixty five thousand people. It was almost like a WrestleMania, guys, but it was the biggest Royal rumble in history. So that was really cool to see the crowd snid of like they showed out.

Everybody there was just happy, especially when you're in this mecca of the area around the Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Nashville sort of area that conglomerate of states used to be ran by the old territories back in the day. Of course, so a really huge wrestling following in these surrounding states here, so they were very happy to have it once again. I was happy to be up there. Made the trip

left at probably around ten o'clock. Our media check in was at four point thirty, and it's only about an hour and a half hour forty five minute drive from my home here in Louisville. Made that trip up there pretty cold day. Parking was absolutely insane to try to pay for something, so I ended up parking at like some sort of tavern, probably about a couple of blocks down, probably about ten minute walk, and still had to pay

thirty bucks. Was better than paying sixty for Lucas Oil and the surrounding areas, which were like fifty dollars, So if I could save twenty bucks, that was fine. Got up to the media booth that I like to get there relatively early because whenever we go do these press boxes and stuff like that. And I've learned my experience from our WrestleMania trip. Once again, not taking anything away from that, because it's obviously a fun time and we get to go to these shows for free, and you know,

it's really bucket lists type things. But when you get up to the media box press box, if no one's been into the media box before. It's usually at the top of the stadium about nine eight nine times out of ten, a press box at a stadium is usually at the very tip top and it's covered by windows. So and there's different rows to the press box too. Of course, we probably have your first row and then your second row. Some of them have like third rows, but they're like stacked up on top of each other.

I prefer myself to be in the very front row, so you're like right next to the window. Our experience in Philadelphia was pretty cool because Lincoln Financial Field is a beautiful stadium. But the cool thing about their press boxes it opens. The windows do open, and they were able to, uh, what the thing is is. It was freaking freezing when we were there last April, up in

the northeast, up in Philadelphia. So night one, there were a couple people that had their windows open, but everybody else had them shut because it was it was pretty cold. But when you're up there in the press box and you're blocked by the windows, you're hardly engaged with the fans, and you can hardly hear the music and everything going on. You can hear the py row and you can kind of hear the remblants of like the base playing, especially when you get up there and they have like the

DJs playing pre show. You can hear like the bass and some semblance of the music, but it's not as clear cut as you would hear when you're in the audience. You can kind of hear the the underlining roar of the crowd, but everything just it's it's a little bit different. You're blocked by the glass. So a lot of people were wanting that genuine experience in Philadelphia, but it was so cold they didn't decide to open up those windows that first day. The second day, however, was really really

really cool. We get up there and it felt a little bit better, probably about ten fifteen degrees warmer. It was still pretty chilly, but everyone was able to kind of open up the press box doors, and we didn't need the audio feed that they usually feed through us at the press box and up at you know, Philadelphia, since the you can hardly hear anything since the doors are shut. What they ended up doing was piping in the audio and playing it on the TVs from the

Peacock stream. I'm pretty sure in Philadelphi there's probably like a good three to four second delay from what was we were actually watching live in the ring and then what we'd hear from the system up in the press box. We got to Cleveland a couple months ago this past summer for Summer Slam, and we got up to those press boxes. They didn't have retractable windows. It was just all solid shut which I guess is somewhat understandable. You're

up in Cleveland, they're playing games. You know, I know that they don't go to the playoffs, but you're playing games in October, November, December. You can get pretty cold, and that's a place that you don't want to open it. But at the same time, it's a little bit chillier up there in Philadelphia. But I don't know. We won't worry about that. But in terms of watching it and viewing it, obviously, of course couldn't hear too much through

the press box windows. But when they piped in the audio for the peacock feed throughout the press box, that just so happened to be very live and to the point,

so we were hearing things as it happened. As it happened, excuse me, and it felt a little bit more like like you were there in the crowd this time when we get to when we get to Indianapolis up at Lucasoil Stadium, like I said, I wanted to get there first in line because I don't want to drive all that way and uh, you know, not have a good seat because there's uh, you know, there's a lot of

other media in those box. And I say, I use the term media very loosely because everybody up there is just now more or less content creators, YouTube streamers or TikTok streamers, stuff like that that happened to be big wrestling fan with big wrestling followings. Not knocking anybody, but you know, there's there's hardly little bit of media and actual media outlets up there. We ran into a couple of guys that did some Indy five hundred media and

had their own NASCAR podcasts. Of course, it's kind of locally there in Indianapolis, big sports city and underrated NASCAR city just as well another competitive racing series. So there's a couple of cbs is up there, local CB yes, local affiliates, but for the most part, it's a bunch of all your your Sean Ross SAPs, your Adrian Hernandez, your muscleman Malcolm, Chris van Vliet, who we actually got

to sit next to. I'll talk a little bit about that, all those kind of big popular wrestling influencers that you'll see online. But I got there early. Actually, my buddy Josha Markovitz sees from iHeartRadio DC. He he likes to get there relatively early. So I kind of hitched my wagon to him this past time because I know that he gets a good seat and I wanted to get up there and have a good seat just as well. And we did the same thing for Cleveland when we

went up there to Summer Slam. Just ended up sitting next to each other. But yeah, he held it down and we got to get in the media line. We were the first ones, the first ones in the media line, and that was pretty cool. Media didn't check into like four point thirty, and my man Josh was there at one o'clock. I told him to save me a spot there. It's not a lot of things that I want to

do up in Indianapolis. I didn't get to make the media junket or SmackDown, so I wasn't gonna have the full weekend up there, and I had no interest in really buying merch or anything like that. I just want to make sure I had something good to eat. My phone was charged, and then I wouldn't mind sitting waiting for a good spot. So we sat there. Ended up talking to some people from the Covalent TV. You guys can follow them on our Instagram and Twitter. They're out

of They're out of Chicago. They were really cool. They ended up coming and joining us as we waited, But we waited for three hours. Got signed in and this time they usually give us like some sort of badge. I'm not wearing a lanyard right now, but they usually give us some sort of lanyard With the badge it says the event that we're doing in press credentials and everything like that. But this time it was a wristband and we got taken up to the very top of

Lucas Oil Stadium. While I'm telling you, the press box is on the top of the stadium, it is at the gd top of this stadium. Like I'm looking up from our seats in the press box and I literally see the ceiling probably not even three four feet if I can reach my hand out the window, then I would have been able to touch the ceiling. But first thing I noticed once we got into a press box,

we were the first people up the elevator. We went, got our first row kind of like dead middle where the ring was at, and the first thing that you'll notice, it's almost like nosebleeds, like the ring is a postage stamp. I'm pretty sure it's pretty decent seats whenever there's like

an Indianapolis Colts game or football game. Of course, because football field is one hundred yards, so you know, you obviously get that depth perception, but the ring a little bit tinier, so it's almost like you're watching a postage stamp.

But also another thing that we noticed that these this press box at Lucas Oil Stadium also did not have retractable windows, so we were going to be almost held inside and kind of not with the audience like we kind of got for Lincoln Financial Field up in Philadelphia. But the people at WWE and the people Luke Soil Stadium maybe a little bit right because they piped in the audio again and the feed through Peacock. It wasn't

too bad. It was probably like a second maybe half second delay that you heard, so you'd watch something in the ring and then like a second later you heard that's what was going on. So no, pretty unfortunate, especially when we're talking about the Royal Rumble and everything. So based off of hearing that the first second of the music live and I'm not saying that we didn't get that, because you know obviously it did. Half a second isn't

really anything. But if I'm gonna nitpick and split hairs, which I love to do because sometimes I like to act ungrateful and I really am. That was just one thing that we were hoping to look forward to Lucas Oil. Was that the that the the door, that the press box windows retrack and we were able to kind of be a part of the fan and feel the electricity of the crowd. But that wasn't the case this time.

Would still able to enjoy the show once again. Sixty five thousand over sixty five thousand people, It's almost like WrestleMania numbers. Guys. It's the biggest Royal Rumble in history and well worth the draw because there was a lot of names and a lot of fun rumors to be announced for the two Royal Rumble matches. So we go

ahead and get into that. Now. We start everything off with the Women's Royal Rumble, and that seemed to be kind of met at times, kind of once you got your stars in there is when things really picked up, and then I felt you had a little bit more surprises and returns in the women's than we did later on in the men's Royal Rumble. So, of course eo Sky comes out number one, and fans seem to love that. That was Billy's pick to be one of the Iron Women of the matches, and she ended up turning out

to do it. Eosky is someone that they believe in to be pretty hefty and pretty good for the women's division going forward. She'll definitely have another shot at that title sometime soon. I don't know if that's going to be WrestleMania or not. But number two came in. They started off with NXT Surprise early it was Rox sam Perez. Of course, she held the NXT women's title for the better part of the last year before she lost it to Julia about a couple months ago. I'm sorry, I

haven't kept up too much with NXT to tell you. You know, these whichever pay per views of ples or events that each champion had lost it at. But rox sanm Perez, who I think is star in the making. She seems like she was taken under Shawn Michael's wing down there at the Performance Center, and she's really been honing her craft.

She's definitely someone that I think NXT and the WWECS is a big deal in the next couple of years, and they showed that here with trusting her to come in number two, kind of face off against Oscar and hold her own for the rest of the rumble. Big surprise that you ended up getting also was Alexa Bliss returning. Now, I tell you what. I was definitely thrown off and shocked by that. I've always liked Alexa Bliss probably got

one of the biggest pops of the night. When we talked about stars that either crossed over or returned, it was definitely her. And she had the nice Bray Wyatt tribute on the back of her jacket, the fiend Forever, but had a little R in there to make it be friend forever but really really cool. I don't think the camera crew picked that up, but they showed it an extended view throughout the big screens at Lucas Old Stadium if you were there in attendance, and she's been away.

I think it was a little bit over two years now. Her last appearance was in twenty twenty three. I know that she just had a kid. She's ran into a couple loose injuries here and there, So it just sort of seemed like to me and maybe a lot of other people fans out there, that I think wrestling might have passed her by, and she seems like the person that's fine with it. She had her family. Now, she's

just married to nineties pop star Ryan Cabrera. He's still kind of doing his thing, getting bookings and gigs, and

they seem like to have a pretty happy family. And maybe you know that perspective of having a kid as a wrestler, I guess can go one or two ways, like you want to do everything you can to feed that kid and do everything you can for your family, or in Alexa Bliss's case, she's a mother and just kind of wants to be there for her kid and not have to be on the road all the time and face the challenges of kind of being on call as a WWE superstar whenever you have to, but I

know things under Triple H haven't been as heavy as a schedule for people, so maybe she is able to work that out a little bit. But yeah, Alexa Bliss, it was great seeing her return, and then of course she got Friend of the Show Jordan Grace finally makes her well. She entered the Royald Rumble last year as a TNA Knockouts champion, but of course probably maybe hasn't

done one or two things with WWE since. I think she made an appearance on NXT sometime this summer, but as official of about a couple of weeks ago, she has been signed to WWE, so she makes her true WWE debut as a superstar of the company at the World Rumble. Also got huge pop and I thought that

she looked really, really good when she came in. She did her finish a move on Piper which had her hoisted over her shoulders really showed a lot of her strength, and a really fun moment with Naomi in the in the middle of the ring where they hugged it out. Of course, Naomi, after leaving ww for a while, went to TNA and kind of honed her craft a little bit there, got herself more over before making her return,

so I'm pretty sure got really close with Jordan. That's a very tight locker room, and they seem to have a pretty fun moment in the World Rumble. Of course, she had a couple NXT people come out. Lash Legend was there, Jada Parker was there, and they actually gave

lash Legend a good spot. She came in and kind of cleared out the ring, and then they gave her the shot of standing in the middle of the ring pointing at the WrestleMania sign after she just kind of cleared house and took everybody that was in there off. Another fun thing that they that WW production did this year with the Royal Rumble was they had a stat counter at the bottom of the screen, so it would tell you who who was all in. I would give

you kind of like row Rumble history. It would tell you how many people were eliminated, how many people are left to go. It would show longest time in the ring right now with all the superstars, almost like a ticker. And kudos to whoever came up with that, because that's a fantastic idea. Sometimes you'll get caught up and who's still in or has that been and you'll just look up at the stat board and you'll see it at the bottom of the screen, like I said, like a

ticker of some sort. So that was really really cool. Also another one, I know this probably hurt a lot of people, Nikki Bella making her much anticipated debut, say much anticipated, because it seemed like every body or every outlet that I saw was contemplating rumoring her to possibly return back to w w EE. Because they did show her on the January sixth edition of Monday Night Raw. Whenever they made that, whenever that was whenever they debut on Netflix, they showed her in the crowd and she

got a big reaction. And for what it's worked, it seemed like the Bellas have always been over. It's when they were kind of shoved down your throat and forced as like actual real competitors. Not a lot of people tend to like that, especially when we're in the days of aj Lee kind of making her come up and the NXT women who actually you know, went through the actual the five Star match school pal down there in Florida. It seemed like a lot of people were resenting the Bellas.

Nicky made her appearance as the number thirty entrant got a huge pop. Good for her, but it I know she had a couple spots in the ring where people were kind of booing and pushing away. But I want to talk about everyone seemed let down, at least with the returns in the Women's World Rumble, just because they were looking for a Becky Lynch or a j Lee. I anticipated a Becky Lynch to return. It seemed like there was a lot of quietness on her front that she was bound to return sometime and kind of in

the same situation as Alexa. I know her and Seth just had a kid not too long ago. She's been a workhorse in the last year before WrestleMania anyways, so it was probably good for her time off to go spend time with her family, go spend time with their kid and everything like that. And of course Seth kind of returning back to full time a couple months ago, you know, kind of them trading positions at home. But

Becky Lynch didn't show up. Me Billy, and I'm pretty sure Deck's had her in our final four for the women's match. Nothing from her now. About the aj Lee thing, I think you guys got to give that up. I don't think aj Lee is gonna be returning anytime soon. I just don't see the reason for her too. I don't think that she has loved the sport of wrestling

as much as Sam Punk does. And I know Sam Punk had a couple of years where he was just kind of drilling the WWE and kind of drills like the schedule and just kind of the toughness of what it takes. But at the end of the day, it's a Cmpunk has done since he was a teenager. He loves wrestling, he loves pro wrestling, and he loves the juncture of everything that goes on and it happens brings

so he'll always find his way back. I'm not saying never say never, of course in this building, but it never entered my mind that aj Lee could possibly show up. And I know me and Billy were texting after the show he mentioned, dude, we never mentioned the possibility of aj Lee returning, And I guess he's right. But there's kind of something in the back of my mind that just knew that that possibly was gonna happen, because what's

her spot if she comes in? The women's world rumble has nothing to do I think whenever she returns, it's probably gonna be a CM Punk sort of storyline, and it might be for like a match or two where she teams up with Punk or do something. But I think that she's already ingrained in the reality that she is with CM Punk, and I think that's what they're gonna feature when she comes back, not just for a

pop at the Royal Rumble. But I could I could be wrong, but I don't see her just just coming back for a couple of minutes in the World Rumble or a couple minutes in WWE, unless it's to do something with Punk after that. Unfortunately, it was a good match, and of course Charlotte Flair. I'm sitting here talking about the Women's ro a Rumble on all the surprises, but Charlotte Flair ended up winning the whole Women's Royal Rumble.

She eliminated Rock sand Prez with once again one heck of a showing from the first two all the way until the final two. Now we're going to see if this is rox Sanne transition to the WWE main roster, if she has some unfinished left on NX team. My prediction is she just goes on ahead and makes the jump to the main roster. It seems like they probably want to give her a Mania spot somewhere, which would be cool and much dessert in the world needs to

see what Rock sand Prez is all about. Now, Charlotte kind of skipped my mind for a second because I thought, Charlotte, you know, even before she came out this past Monday night last week and said that she was entering in the Rumble, I knew that was going to be a thing anyways, And I'm pretty sure me, Decks and Billy said that Charlotte was gonna win the World Rumble, and she did, and she came out to an amazing pop. You talk about getting the star treatment and the Royal Rumble,

and when you're the greatest women's women's wrestler of all time, you had the lineage that Charlotte Flair has, the aura that Charlotte Flair brings. She got the slow entrance, she got the big gowns, she got pyro So that should tell you something of how they feel about Charlotte Flair. She is and for will ever be at the top of the food chain in women's world wrestling, no matter where she goes. But she came out, had a great showing.

The crowd was really hot for. And what a difference a couple of year makes, right, because it seems like everybody was always on Charlotte's case. They're tired of Charlotte Hogan. Charlotte's always winning this. Why are they featuring hers so much? You know, there's just something different about Charlotte. Her aura, the way that she looked, the way that she walks to the ring, the way that she presents herself that checks every box at wwe could want in their superstars.

So that's that's basically where we got with that. So Charlotte Flair went in the Royal Rumble Eliminade in roxam Perez. She's stamped her way out into WrestleMania forty one in Vegas, presumably to go against Tiffany Stratton. Like Billy said, we had Tiffany Stratton on late last year and she was talked about some dream matches that she would like and Charlotte Flair was one of them. And I know that she's not the only person in that locker room that wants to see that, or one of the only fans

in the world. By that means who wants to see that match. So I think that that will be a fun match. You got two absolute stud athletes like those two, I think they can mix up for a good WrestleMania match. And that's what we're predicting right now. Was Charlotte's gonna

go against Tiffany Stratton. That one has money written all over it, and that's a better way for you to make like your next Charlotte Flair in Tiffany Stratton is having her made event one of the nights of WrestleMania with a Charlotte Flair or at least get a big spot open up the show with Charlotte Flair. So that should be a pretty good one. I'm checking some texts right here, no, because I am at work right now.

I'm supposed to be doing some work, but I just finished a couple things so had some time to hop on here. I'm not gonna talk too much about the next match after that, because unfortunately that was a restroom break MotorCity machine Guns and dy and a two out of three falls fat match. I took this time to hit the catering line they had. Let me tell you some if you guys have ever been at Lucas Old Stadium where if anybody there is listening, that was in

the press box. That ice cream that they had there, that self serve soft serve that you ended up making, was absolutely phenomenal. One of the best ice creams I've ever had. It's some sort of this ice cream comes in a can and then you put it in this contraption that freezes it and freezes it and squeezes it. Baby yeah pal, and it comes out in the little cup.

Takes a couple of minutes process, but it was really really good as far as the food up there in the press box, and once again I think WWE for inviting us and making us a part of that, and all the crew at the Lucas Oil Stadium everything that they did to accommodate us really cool. They only have burgers and Tyson chicken fingers, which is fine because I

can die with that and still be happy. But they had French fries and salads, and they had like a coke sprites water in the little fridge right next to it. I did, however, Sorry, guys, I took the last burger. As I was waiting in line. There was one more burger there and I was sitting there talking to my guy, our guy Graham, friend of the show from Bleacher Report, shout out Graham. Actually let them cut a couple of people in line that was right behind us. But no

worries when you're with the baby faces. This is this is all the this is all the amenities that you get, man, you get the hop in line at catering at the Royal Rumble. But one of the caterers had came out and said, sorry, guys, there's no more burgers. And I'm just kind of sitting there with my burger like kind of watching the rest of the line, and I'm like, oh, well,

but I don't know. There must have been some miscommunication with the with the caterers, and I think she said that they only ordered burgers for thirty people, but they had endless chicken tenders for almost like the next hour. So that was pretty fire. So anyways, basically nothing too much in that DIY and Motor City Machine Guns match. Of course, DIY ended up winning, and then you got the swerve at the end. I guess the swerve, which is the street profits coming out and basically ruining it

for the Motor City Machine Guns. And then they ended up attacking Gargano and Shampa anyways, with with Angelo Dawkins crutches, and that seems to be the heel turn for the Street Profits. But we've seen them turn quote unquote heel before when they were under Bobby Lashley. But they still kind of came out and did like the hype energy dancing and still just a little bit goofy like the

Street Profits their friend of the show. Of course, Angelo Dawkins and montes Ford got to hang out with them at the Kentucky State Fair a couple of years ago, got to play some carnival games with them, shoot the basketball hoops and then let a little rubber ducky with the with the water that you squeeze out and shoot the little target. And a couple years ago I forgot

about that. Angelo Dawkins was at the Royal Rumble at the hotel that me and Billy were at up in Saint Louis, so we got to hang out and talk with him for a little while because he was just going around mainland with fans. But I hope that this is like a more dark turn for the Street Profits, at least a more like serious business. We want to tell them to go as serious heels. It doesn't feel like anyone was ready to boo them when they originally

turned heel last summer with Bobby Lashley. I know that they've kind of bound back and forth, got a new theme, then ended up coming back to that theme. So we'll see where this goes good for them. I've always thought that they were a great tag team. I always thought that montez Ford was a star. You could tell by his facial expressions, the way that he sells, and his pure athleticism that he could probably be a big star one of these days on the on the main roster

by himself. Next you had the uh, the the Undisputed Winged Eagle Championship. I guess it wasn't a unification belt. It was just the Winged Eagle belt that all the marks was just ready to come back to the WWE for, and Kevin Owens ended up taking that belt from Cody Roads a couple of months ago or back in December

at Saturday Night's Main Events. Cody Rhodes you know, won the match, but it was the attack after the show where Owen's just ended up claiming that the Winged Eagle Belt for himself and is kind of in doing the storyline where he flaunts around with that and it got pretty personal, and it got it got it got really physical leading up to this match, so it was gonna be a ladder match with those two belts hanging from

the ceiling, and Cody Rhodes ends up winning that. A lot of brutal, a lot of brutal bumps in that match were taken a lot of things on the ladder. At one point, Ko gets back dropped, back dropped into the top of the ladder with his very back hitting it. That looked gross. Uh. He threw Cody Rhodes off the top rope and his neck he did his little his little uh souplex driver Cody Rhodes's neck hit that hit

that ladder. That was pretty gross. Both guys kind of beat the hell out of each other here and they took some serious bumps, and then of course she had Cody Rhodes ultimately retaining at the end with the Alabama Slam from the table through the ladder that was set up across the the ring apron and on the announcers table, and Rhodes is able to get in there and climb the ladder and retrieve both titles. Another thing in that match,

which kind of it makes sense. Of course, they're they're finding a way where Sammy's Ain kind of fits into this. Maybe this is part of Sammy Zin's heel turn or something that they're wanting to do. But Sammy's Ain came out basically halfway through the match and support of Kevin Owens. He didn't get involved whatsoever, but he was just there

kind of as support. I don't know if his whole thing is is trying to calm Kevin Owens down or whatnot, but he was definitely there and escorting Kevin Owens out because Ko had to have medical attention before he get in before he ended up getting a walked out, and Sammy's Ain was with them the whole time and looked concerned once he once he took the bump through the ladder. So we'll see where the whole Sammy's Ain Kevin Owens

thing goes. After that, we had the big one. It's the it's the men's Royal Rumble and uh, this this one probably it could be one of the most star studded Royal rumbles that they've had in a long time. With Hall of Famers past champions of course John Cena's retirement tour coming up. You had Roman Reigns entering the Rumble in pursuit of the championship, his first time entering the Royal Rumble since twenty twenty, the one right before COVID,

and he was a completely different gimmick back then. He was still rocking the big dog, the vest and the shield everything. Of course, he's been running the WWE the last couple of years, he hasn't had the need to be in the Rumble. But of course Seth Rollins cm punk I know he did it last year but ended injuring himself and taking himself out. So everything, there's stories everywhere, And of course you had the who's gonna show up? Is there gonna be any NXT crossovers, any big returns

anything like that? Nothing too big in the returns department. Well, let's just go ahead, start off number one in two, kind of like we did for the women's match. He had ray Masterio come out number one and penta Ount number two, and that's who Billy called to be possibly uh, the iron man of the whole event. He came out number two, and that's a great spot, awesome awesome moment getting to see both Pena and Raymonds stereo in the

ring at the same time. They helped kick off the Royal Rumble because you knew that they could probably have a good time, have some fun, do some do some fun ooh ah moves. Of course, it wasn't anything too extravagant. Uh, but you know, this was real lucha wrestling, and they obviously have a big plans for Pensa. The way that they've debuted him and made him seem like a star uh to the general audience and has been absolutely amazing.

It's someone that you should do for a guy like him. Uh, So big spot for Penta gets go up against a legend, former champion, current WWE Hall of Famer and then kind of bland for the first couple of minutes. I know, Billy was texting me back and forth that this is kind of meh uh. He was telling me that crowds seemed dead, but I couldn't really tell too much. Of course,

we're up there in the press box. You could see them pop for some people that came out, but there wasn't any really surprise turns, nothing extravagant that happened, But you had the ice show Speed ended up coming out. Well, what happened was a kira At Tizawa had came out from American Alpha and then as Carmelo Hayes was walking out because he just got eliminated by bron Breaker, I'm pretty sure it was, he was pretty pissed off, and he ends up attacking Tazawa and then they do the

spot where everyone runs out. I think is Adam Pierce and a couple other trainers had ran out on the entrance ramp and taking Tazawa back to Gorilla and Triple H's back there scrambling and who happened to be back there? I show Speed. He was actually on stream and he had Stephanie McMann on there, and he Speed get in there and ends up tossing Speed out. He came out to a great reaction, honestly, And you know when it just shows me how popular these YouTube streamers are, I

mean an idea of who they are. I mean, I'm obviously on TikTok, I'm obviously on Instagram reels and stuff, so you see their content everywhere. But it's not like I'm a little follower of him or anything. But of course his younger audience and every you know, younger audience

is very well aware of him. So he came out to a great pop. He ended up helping a bron Breaker throw otis over the top rope and got his elimination, and as Speed sitting there kind of getting his shit in on the camera, he does the Ronaldo Suiy thing and then he ends up doing a backflip, which kid is really athletic, by the way. I don't know if you guys have seen, He's made videos of him jumping

over cars and like doing backflips and shit everywhere. The kid is athletic and I don't even think he's twenty one yet. That's a crazy thing. But he does the backflip and you can kind of see Braun over there kind of clapping. But as soon as soon as bro hits the back flip, you see bron Breaker in the shot and it's perfect. You see him hit those ropes and you can even hear in our video if you check it out on at babyfaces on Instagram and on

Facebook and YouTube and Twitter. You didn't hear me see once bron starts running and I go, oh shit, and you know he is about to get a spear and when I tell you that he almost took his head off, I was concerned for Speed after that bump because his neck snapped the back. I think when I watch it, you know, when I try to watch it, it looks like bron tries to do a good job of like protecting how like his whole body falls. But this is just

a case of Speed didn't turn the correct way. He turned to his right rather to the left and wasn't able to get his body centered. So when he turned the other way, you just have this force, you know, this this animal hits you at twenty three miles an hour. I think they say he runs the ropes and it was more or less kind of sideways. So Speed's head ended up kind of snapping back like that. My god, it just looked brutal. It caused for a great video

once again, go check that out. Then he ends up picking them up, tossing them out, Otis catches them on the outside and then back drops him into the table, and it looked like look like Speed kind of got a little bit nicked up, ended up hurting his foot, but did it all in the easy crocs though, So a lot of clout points for that. I appreciate that. And I think the next big surprise after that was Joe Hendry. What a fun What a fun moment. When I say that, you really couldn't hear much from the

press box. Initially you can kind of hear mufflings of the crowd. Once you saw his JH come up on the screen, you felt the building shake. I'm sorry, And going back and watching it on Peacock, it was just more of the same. They were loud and good for him. Joe Hendry Friend of the show, by the way, he can go check out that podcast on iHeartRadio in the archives and Apple podcasts. Joe Hendry encapsulating a great twelve months for him, of course, him really getting himself over

into the into the stratosphere with the wrestling audience. He made a NXT debut a couple months ago earlier on this summer when he answered the entered the Battle Royal. But everyone knew it. Everyone had that feeling, is Joe Hendri gonna be hearing it? Because how could you not have sixty thousand people, and when you're talking about returns, and especially with the new TNAWWE deal and Joe Hendry literally just winning the TNA World Heavyweight Championship from Nick

Neemuth a couple of weeks ago. That's something that the WWE wants is to have their another Promotions champion on there showing I'm pretty sure TNA won and the same thing, but got a huge reaction. Came in kind of start kicking everybody's ass to start off, and got some good spots. He did his finisher on the mizuh but it was just a really fun moment, and then of course Roman

Reigns comes out. Roman Reigns Clear's house. I'm also got to talk about it before that, Jacob Fatu, who both me and Declan said would probably be the workhorse of this match and ended up doing this. WWE has a Jacob Fatu problem. I think he's more over than than Solo is. I love Solo Sakoe. He's not my tribal chief, but I've always loved him and I've always liked his potential. Jacob Fatu comes in and he gets Mike time, and he gets ring time, and it just makes you absolutely

forget about Solo. I'm sorry to say that, but it's probably why I haven't seen Solo on TV in quite some time. He gets completely overshadowed. And I remember reading reports about how the wwe could be possibly scared of what Jacob Fatu can do because he may overshadow Solo and we might be seeing that because that guy is legit. I mean, you look at him. He looks like a freak.

He was an ex freaking con, so like, already in your head, you should be scared of this guy, even though when it looks like in behind the scenes is one of the nicest, more humblest, more humble guys that you can ever see or get in front of a camera. But he plays his role so well man as a Samoan werewolf, as this enforcer of the blood line, he looks like someone that you don't want to fuck with.

And I know he's been doing this thing down there in California with MLW over the last couple of years, making a name in LA and now he's finally got his big break on the main rosters, so they're going to be pushing him to the moon man, And of course you had Roman Reigns come in a few entries after that. After havoc is caused by Jacob Fatu, Roman Reigns ends up having a fun stare down with Joe Hendry.

That got the crowd to kind of rise up out of their seats, but he ended up getting He ended up spearing the life out of him and tossing Joe Hendry out of the arena. But it was pretty cool, in a great move by WWE to do that, because you obviously don't want like a guy that the crowd hates. Throwing out a fan favorite like that, It's Roman Reigns makes a little bit more sense. And if you're Joe Hendry,

can you even ask really for more? If you know that you're only going to get a few minutes and the rumble come in, get your shit in, then one of the greatest superstars in the last twenty years is going to come out and throw you over the top and eliminate you. So you talk about getting a rub. That one was good right there from with the Joe Hendry Roman Reigns experience, and then you have the staredown of Roman Reigns in Jacob fa Tou and I know

that they've done this a couple of times. I know that they were part of a tag team match a few about a few months ago, But that Jacob Roman Fatu that Jacob Fai Tou. I'm sorry, Jacob Fatu and Roman matches. It's gonna feed families, man. I mean when you're talking about and it seems like with all due p, with all doe intent like that the bloodline story right now, there is nothing really going on at least involved in Roman. He got a Zulu follow back, but that's not saying

that can't always be picked up. I understand you kind of want to give fans a break from it. People have had bloodline fatigue. You can kind of lay it here for right now, let everybody kind of go do their own thing. Then you can revisit it somewhere down the road. And I think whenever they do that, you have a sure fire WrestleMania match and Roman reigns versus Jacob Fatu, and that's gonna be something that I'm seated for,

of course. And then you had an awesome moment where John Cena comes out, comes out of number twenty three with of course how fitting Michael Jordan's number the goat right it's his retirement tour, his very last WWEE Royal rumble probably got I want to say the biggest pop of the night. Yeah, I say, I'd say Sena probably got the biggest pop of the night. And that's once again for me up there in the press box and after watching it back on Peacocks, So Sena made a

really good impression. He came out and he was he was facing off with Roman rains. Well after that, immediately Punk comes out and you talk about a moment. Excuse me, you talk about a moment with these these three future Hall of Famers, ex World champions, just generations of ww of course Sena ruthless aggression and then you had see him Punk kind of leading the midway through the PG era, the twenty eleven era, and then he had Roman Reigns of course leading everything the last five years, all in

one ring, making for an awesome moment. That's what these rumbles are about. Even though a lot of the times they don't follow up with stuff going forward, they do a good job at teasing you of like what if and look what we got? And that was a great moment, and of course seth Rollins ends up coming out after that makes a fun moment and then all hell breaks Lucy attacks seeing Punk all that, and I always thought

it was funny. The very next one after see after seth rollins, after they have that that that fun tease in the ring, Dominic Mysterio comes out and you talk about a perfect buzzkill. I mean, that's that's just his character, right, So I got a lot of people pissed off and Dom embraces it. Man, I would not have been mad seeing him in the Final four, seeing him like get a couple of sneaky eliminations in this match, because you know,

I think that they'll have big plans for him. It's not like I'm actively rooting for him to win the title, but I always love a little swerve story. So if something happens and you know, Dom slips on a banana peel into his way into getting a world title shot and kind of nasty heels it up, I think that that would be pretty fun. The fan would love to hate it, and that's what WW loves nowadays. It's just fan reaction and stuff like that. Nothing too big on

returns or surprises. After this, you had a couple yet Drew McIntyre come out, Damian Priest come out, and at number thirty who everyone was either waiting for to be the big one I myself possibly the rock end up showing up. Who knows, but it was Logan pol and I knew what I told Josh right as we get to thirty, I'm like, this is gonna be Logan Paul right here. Everyone's gonna hate it. And everyone seemed like

they did hate it. But I don't know if it's just more like because they hate Logan Paul or if it's just like a fun storyline thing to do. Either way, I guess that works hand in hand. You're gonna get reaction, and that's what WWWE wants is he actually has real heat. A lot of people don't like him, but Logan Paul backs it up because I think he actually is a really good worker. He's very athletic and he understands the business.

He's not just like a guy that happens to be athletic and is thrown in there and just doing all this stuff. He knows how to sell with facial expressions, he knows how to look good, he knows how to present himself in the wrestling world. And I want to talk about the I guess one of the bigger spots is Seth and Roman kind of cleared the ring and they had the cinematic shot right in front of Seth and then Roman in the back. He looks like a lion, right.

He's got that big, beautiful tribal chief Maine and this stare in his eyes. He hasn't got to really lock in with Seth since that WrestleMania where Seth came in dressed as a shield and tried to screw Roman Reigns. Roman Reigns ended up taking his frustration out on Seth with the chair instead of doing it with Cody, causing him to lose track what he was doing. And then the rest is history, with Roman losing the title that night. So that was the first real true stare down that

those two have had since that moment. I popped for it. It was a great cinematic shot, and then they ended up tussling, kind of throwing each other over the apron

and kind of hanging off. And that's when Punk comes in and ends up tossing him out of the arena or of the of the ring, both of them, both Rollins and Roman, And as he's kind of sitting there celebrating, who else but Logan Paul comes out and dump see him Punk over and there's a fun little brawl between Punk Rollins and Roman after that, And that's gonna speculate what those guys plans are going into WrestleMania forty, especially because those three, along with John Cena, who was still

remaining in the ring, were probably who ever one of those three were, probably who one of everyone thought was going to win the Royal Rumble in the first place. Now you don't have that, and I can understand. And I even said this at first, So I said, so what our final three is Logan, Jay Usso and John Cena. So I just thought for a second, yet, this is Sena's guaranteed to win. I don't have a problem with

John Cena winning. I'm all about him getting his seventeenth title and on this retirement tour because at the core heart of it, I always grew up a John Cena fan. Always wanted to be John Cena. He was my hero after Stone Cold Steve Austin had left, I didn't have a wrestling hero after that. It was John Cena who kind of helped me pick back up my wrestling fandom. And I wasn't the biggest fan of him winning just because I thought that, you know, let someone else have it.

John Cena is gonna find his way somehow winto the title pitcher within the next year, and it just almost felt too predictable, and like Decks came in on said Deckling Golf from scoring Arth in Purple Daily Podcast said that would have been kind of too Vincey like to have the old time or part timer come in and win the World Rumble. But John Cena ends up dumping Logan Paul over it. So now we got the final two. Jay Ouso, who would have thought, I'll tell you what

I didn't. I didn't have jay Usa on my final too. Obviously, can go back and look at our boards. I did not have that. You know. I thought, you know, Jayson big enough wild card where I think he could probably find his way getting a title shot somewhere on raw or having a big moment during a pay per view.

He's a wild card enough, he can get that. But they had a not really an epics showdown, just your kind of basic final two in the match between him and Sena, and they struggled on the apron with each other. Sena tried to pick him up and fy him off the apron. Jay slides back into the ring, pushes him out, seen his feet touch the floor and your winner of the twenty twenty five Men's Worl Rumble Jay oohso yeat and let me tell you something. At first, I was like,

I was more or less shocked. The betting favorite just lost and the fan favorite just lost. It's Jay Uso. And then you had that realization, Holy shit, Jay Uso just won the Royal Rumble. He's actually going to Maine event wrestle Mania. The crowd went wild. It seemed like the press box went wild. If I can remember exactly what happened is I wasn't filming it at the time. I was deeply locked in and viewing the match as a fan. But everyone just seemed really really happy for him,

And of course they had that whole stadium geting. It was going crazy. Jay had his moment, did the WrestleMania points sign. The fireworks went off, and we're on the road to WrestleMania. Jay whosso man After just losing to Gunther a couple of weeks ago at Saturday Night's main event and basically getting brutalized, I'm pretty sure he's lost a gun there a couple of times. He just came out on Monday night Raw in Atlanta last week with rapper Quavo from The Migos, and he cut the promo

he said I could beat him. I'm gonna beat him, and I guess that should have been our tel right there is that jay Uso was gonna win it. But for all the fans and marks that are mad at this decision, like you can't be mad than an upcoming superstar, especially someone as popular as jay Uso is. He reaches every branch that there is. He comes out on the raw debut with Travis Scott, he comes out with Quavo. He has the most interactive entrances that you can do.

With the whole yeating thing. It gets the crowd wild and he's just a good time. I know there's probably some questions about his match quality and everything like that, but honestly, in WWE that always has seemed to kind of come last. If you could get fan interaction, fan engagement, merch sellers, and just the buzz of general crossover, which is what he did coming out with Travis Scott and Quevo,

then that's all that they want to see. They're gonna have fun and entertain the match, and presumably it's him going after Gunther. I think they're gonna do I said this in my video yesterday, but I'm pretty sure exactly what they did with Gunther and Sammy's Ain last year without like all the Rocky shit for the IC title. He's built up as this big, bad, unstoppable laughs at the thought of Sammy's Ain challenging him, and laughs at the thought of that person that's gonna stop his icy

title ran gonna be Sammy. I think it's gonna be the same thing for jay Uso right here, but on a bigger scale with the World Heavyweight Championship. It should be fun. And once again I mentioned the wild card in jay Usso, but the way his wrestling style is, he's the kind of guy that can dethrone Gunther because there's not a lot of people that are just gonna

go on the Matt move or move with Gunther. It's got to be someone that could pull something right out of his ass and beat Gunther at the very last second. I think that person is jay Uso. So a really good moment for him. I know his kid came in the ring and celebrated with him. He had a really cool moment backstage with his brother, So I'm pretty sure for that family, it's it's really awesome for him to see right now and you have a new star made. I know for a lot of people, Jay Uso might

have been on that precipice of main event material. But whenever you win the World Rumble, that's it for you, Like that's you've made it. You're now a made man. So going forward, you're gonna have that as an accolade. You're gonna have that as something that someone remembers, and people are gonna take you a lot more seriously, especially the general public. Well let's say that they don't even that they stop watching WWE after the World Rumble for

a couple months. They know they're going to come back and pick right back up and say, oh, that was a guy that won the World Rumble, so they'll take him a little bit more seriously. So our prediction is that we are getting Jay and Gunther at Mania. So now what does everybody else do? Right? Cody seems to need an opponent. We got the elimination Chamber coming up. Roman Seth Punk are free for that. It's going to

be fun to see how they factor in. You know, me and Billy have kind of been talking about it at nauseum in the last couple of days. What do you do with Drew, What do you do with Priest? What do you do with Sena? Does Logan Paul factor in? And I guess this is a fun time in wrestling, folks. We are on the way to WrestleMania in Las Vegas

this year, WrestleMania forty one. It seems that my prediction at the top of my head, I think that they're going to do Cody Sena at WrestleMania, and I think that they're given I think that somehow they might find a way for Punk to wind up in that a triple threat match. I think for sure they're doing Roman versus Seth stand alone. They kind of need to go

back to that. Seth never got his rematch from a couple of years ago at that Royal Rumble when they opened the show and he came out in the in the shield garb and came out through the through the entrance because that if you remember, uh, that also ended in just disqualification and Roman Reigns ended up pertaining the title because he held the choke hold on for too long. So you have to go back probably do that match again. The fans seem to love that the They probably seem

to love that reception. The fans seem to be open to that idea, So I'm definitely saying that we we see them go at it on Night one or Night two, probably the pre main event to one of the title matches. It's gonna be weird seeing Roman not in an actual title match at WrestleMania for the first time, and my god, five six years, but sometimes you got to let everybody

else get the shot and run. One's probably gonna be back there one day and probably gonna go after his championship, and we're gonna get that Cody Roman match one more time, I would assume, or one of these days I've already given up on the idea, but maybe one of these days Rock comes back and we finally get that coveted Rock versus Roman match, So we'll hope to see one of them. I think Drew McIntyre is gonna end up

going into a program with Damian Priest. Priests is the one that eliminated Drew, and Drew is doing this whole downward spiral mind going out of control type of things, so I can see him attacking the Judgment Day. Aren't not attacking the Judgment day because Damien Priese is an in Judgment Day. But I can see him attacking. I can see him attacking you know, Damian Price. That should be a fun one. Other than that, dude, it was

a fun time at the Royal Rumble. It was a really good time being up there to meet up with all of our buddies of course, Graham Matthews from Bleacher Report, our guy, Josh Markovitz from our iHeart affiliate out in and a part of the Battleground podcast. We got to hang out with Chris van Vliet. I know, I said I'd talked about that, but he ended up sitting right next to us. So if you guys know Chris van Vliet does all the wrestling interviews and superstar interviews. Didn't

talk too much. It's kind of like mentioned things like throughout the day, like kind of reactions. It's not like we're buddy and humming it up. But he was pretty decent and seeing everybody out there, man, it was really really cool. Hope to keep doing it more. Of course, Indianapolis a beautiful place. It's a very nice stadium. So can't wait till WWE comes back there and they obviously had that deal where they're going to be doing the

Big Four. The Big Four pls up there in Indianapolis, so it should be fun to see what they do they're going forward. Of course, WWE raught is tonight on Netflix. They're gonna do a lot of catching up. If you guys you know are have been looking forward to it, I know I have. This is where we hit the road to WrestleMania and things are gonna get planted tonight, so it should be a really fun time on Netflix to see where they go. This is like the best time in wrestling right now. Is a get in from

the world rumble all the way to WrestleMania. I know the last couple weeks of ww on Netflix have been pretty underwhelming, but I'm pretty sure now that they know, Now that they know Mania is coming up, this is where the programming gets a little bit fun. There's no more football to compete with, so it should be a really good time in WWE. And like I said, we were on the road to wrestle Mania. I appreciate everybody

that's listening to this podcast right now. Of course, you can follow us on all of our social media platforms at Babyfaces Pod, interact with us, let us know what you guys think, if you guys like to have seen any returns, who you guys thought would have win. Let us know your WrestleMania plans and we'll start talking about

that too. But for now, that's our journey from the press box at Indianapolis for the Royal Rumble, our preview of the I'm Sorry, our review of this past year's Royal Rumble, and we appreciate, appreciate everyone listening until next time. This is a Babyfaces podcast on iHeartRadio. I'll talk to you so and