What's up, everyone? I'm Nora Princiati. And I'm Nathan Hubbard. And we're coming in like a wrecking ball to announce a brand new series. That's right. It's every single album, Miley Cyrus. Deep dive with us into the career of one of our most creative and confounding pop stars. We're starting, of course, with the best of Hannah Montana.
And ending with her brand new album, Something Beautiful, in June. And don't forget about Miley Cyrus and her dead pets. We certainly will not be doing that. So listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. question of the week, Kaz. What's up, shoes? Scale of one to ten. How you feeling? How I'm feeling? Jeez. One being crappy. Ten feeling great. I'm at a five. Physically, I'm at a five. Wrestling, satisfactory-wise, I'm at an eight.
Well, that's good because it's WrestleMania. We just got done with WrestleMania. Two nights of WrestleMania and NXT and SmackDown and indie shows galore. It was a lot of wrestling this week. A lot of wrestling. A lot of movement. My voice is kind of shot. Legs are a little tired. Eyes are still kind of heavy. God damn it. We got a podcast. We are here to ruin professional wrestling. Let's start the Masked Man Show.
Cal's on a flight home. Oh, okay. So jealous. Shout out Cal. That's the thing. I think I would be, I think to answer my own question, I'm in like physically like a seven. Yeah. Enjoyment wise, like a eight, nine, but like. anxiety wise i think mostly because i have a flight in like five hours oh god i'm like a few you know a few notches down i just I think I'm plugging it out the longest. I'm on the red eye right after Raw. Nah, same for Raw too. Same for Raw? Yeah, same. I'm out at nine.
Well, you guys have fun. I'll be tucking my kids into bed by the time you guys are getting on the airplane. Lucky man you are. It's been a wild. Wrestlemania weekend. Yeah, you can say that again. We just watched Killer Cross's post-show promo. Karrion Kross. No, he called himself Killer Cross again. Oh, he did? Yeah.
Yeah, he sits to shoot. He used his real name, Killer. We're going to talk about that in just a minute. His given name. Mama named him Killer. I'm going to call him Killer. But let's start at the top. Which is to say, let's start with John Cena winning his record-setting 17th World Championship by defeating Cody Rhodes.
I would say maybe not the ideal way to end the show in terms of... how i felt when i was walking out of the stadium right but it was it was a beautiful piece of business it was and could and i think the anxiety is about where it's going to go but before we get to that Now, Kaz, I know you love to relish in the displeasure of fans. Absolutely. Especially after WrestleMania. But in general.
What do you think rocked the fans more? I'm not seeing it winning, but this match in general or Cody losing at 39? Oh, that's a great question. I still think Mania 39, there was a lot more shock at the loss and legitimate anger. I think everybody... Nobody in that building wanted John Cena to lose last night. There were probably some people, but they weren't surprised that he won. They weren't surprised, and it was like...
It was just so different, right? Like Roman's win felt like, you know, the Patriots won again. You know what I mean? This one felt more. unique because it was so anti-John Cena. Like, we didn't get a special entrance. we ain't got no special graphics it was just his name on black and white he didn't acknowledge the crowd he had his back to the crowd he put the towel up like everything about it was And everything about this rivalry, really, since Elimination Chamber.
Part of my French was John Cena giving a big fuck you to fans. The beef wasn't even really totally with Cody. Everything was like, I'm going to do everything I possibly can. to make these people hate me. Yeah. Okay, listen, I thought it over. I think you're right. Yeah. I think your read is right. I spent, I was down on the floor. for this match. And we just stood there. I was with agent, the greatest agent in the world, Brian Dipperstein, and we were... What up, Dip?
for about 15 minutes after the match ended, waiting for The Rock's music to hit. I think we all do. Here's a minor, here's just a tiny fantasy booking suggestion. If The Rock's not there, or if you decided we're going to go against The Rock.
I think that was people's biggest gripe, I think. I didn't mind the Travis Scott thing. It was great to see Cody get his little... his lick bag and yeah and but i feel like they could have done that at some other point can you say get looked back one more time is that a bad thing to say no it's actually the correct use of the term i'm tired there might be a little southern to me coming out right now but the but um
If it had been up to me, I would have gone all in. I would have had The Rock's music hit and have seen it just... Say no. Schoolboy. No, no, no. Just have Cena go to the announce team or go to the whatever. The ring mode people say, just tell him to cut it. I don't want the rock out here. And then let everybody boo him for that. You know? Oh, that would have been crazy. The full entrance in the middle of a match was crazy. With Pyro. Oh, my God. I had...
My only old man wrestling take, my biggest old man wrestling take of the weekend was... I can't believe Cena's not just punching Cody while he's coming. Just work him a little bit. He was just sitting there with a grin on his face. Or that Cody wouldn't pop up. There's fire everywhere. Yeah, it's like, you know what I mean? You don't know what's happening? No. Listen. Can't wake up? It was a, I haven't rewatched it. In the building, I thought it was a better match than you did, Kaz. But.
Yeah, I mean, it was just a bunch of just punching and kicking and let's see how long we can drag this thing out. Yeah, it felt like... It was shorter than I expected. But there wasn't, they didn't have a lot to do. Nah, they didn't. Like, I think that what I loved about it, you know, was John Cena kind of like delivered on everything he said for the past several weeks, like in promos.
He wasn't trying to out-wrestle Cody. He went on Friday Night Smackdown and said, dude, I don't need to out-wrestle you to win the championship. of what the eye pokes and the punching and the kicking and the complete stops of momentum anytime Cody wanted to do anything resembling a quote-unquote great wrestling match. It was like textbook. You get no fan service in this match. I've given you 20 plus years.
of fan service and getting you guys to love me. And, you know, you gotta remember, this is our first time watching John Cena work heel in a main event spot. Yeah. And everything he did was... deliberate in order to stop any sort of positive momentum in the match and specifically with Cody so Even the Travis Scott long ass entrance with the pyro.
And, like, you could totally tell, like, they're putting out this, like, Netflix doc with the, you know, Triple H, like, behind the scenes and stuff. You could totally tell, like, Triple H, like, went up to Travis Scott and was like, hey, when you get out there, just slow it down. You think you're not going slow enough? Go even slower. You know what I mean? You can tell everyone's just like, yo, why doesn't he hurry up? Oh, wait, guys. Pope Francis.
has died i just want to get that out oh okay you waited till after mania the other thing with um i was working the sheets that whole francis the other thing too that Cal brought this up on the Uber home last night, which I thought was an interesting point. The amount that they did, there wasn't a lot, but they still went the longest of all the matches last night. 21 minutes, 40 seconds. Wow.
Do you think part of that, this was Cal's question, was that they were really just actually milking for time? Because the show itself was actually low-key short. When the match started... It wasn't even 7 o'clock yet when that match... is scheduled to go based on what time it was i was expecting a 45 minute match right that's what andrea said last night so but it but that 45 i mean listen i don't know how you book a match i'm not a wrestler but like
that calculation was based on a lot of gaga we got like bare minimum gaga with travis scott coming out i thought i was getting ready man if you listen to people getting hyped up wrestlemania weekend and this is one of the problems with wrestlemania weekend in general but like People were fantasy booking Austin in there. We talked about that. Ric Flair, because it was his record, like have him come out and low blow Cena. Austin was there.
Yeah. And he sure was. Yeah. The first time I saw a car accident and Ben drinking afterwards. I don't think that's the way it's supposed to go. Oh, my God. That's so bad. But you're right. Yeah, so I thought he could go 45 with all that stuff. And I kind of, I guess I got it in my head that Cody's...
like championship reign at WrestleMania reign was going to be defined like it was last year by just Gaga galore. Like every match is just like, who can we get to run out of the back? And all of a sudden it's just like, The dude in Dusty Rhodes cosplay is out there with a chair, you know, like every single match with like big entrances for everybody, whatever. But, but yeah, they went, they, they did, they took that about as long as they could and it could have been shorter.
I mean, if you look at the way that they booked the two nights, we talked about this some. night two was just stacked yeah night two had night two had an irrational amount of content going in i was looking at it on sunday night and i was like this is bigger than some regular one day wrestlemania's in the past you know yeah and you can imagine the justification for that being the main event is going to be going to be light.
You know, the main event is not going to, and certainly not going to necessarily send people home happy. Now, as Kai points out, the fans are pretty excited to see John Cena win. That was a huge pop. Of course. When he won that title. My biggest anxiety though is not about the match. It's about where we go from here. Do you think... We're going to get enough John Cena.
moving forward to justify putting the belt on him? Are we going to get John Cena on a semi-regular basis now? No. And how long do you think he'll hold the title? I don't think we'll get him on a regular basis at all. I think that's sort of the point. It's been a while since we had... an absentee champion you know what i mean and you know you could you could count roman but Cody, for everything he's done this past year, is probably the most active WWE Champion we've had since, gosh.
Like Bretta Hitman Hart. Yeah. It was a long time. Like Roman was champion for a long time. Maybe that first year he won the title back, he was pretty active. Right.
but you know, slowly and surely throughout the years. Well, I mean, Roman was active in a weird way. Roman was on the house show loop, but he wasn't necessarily doing TV all the time. You know, they were like holding him out sometimes. I mean, I guess at the beginning, he was there a lot. No, I mean like the first, that first year, like the, you know, the pandemic.
era you know that first year when the crowds came back like he was pretty active but before then i can't really think of a wwe champion maybe seth probably like oh yeah probably the last time like the title you knew was going to be on tv every week So now, you know, with the John Cena of it all, like he's told us like.
I'm here to ruin everything about professional wrestling. Like I'm going to make sure that, you know, for the past 20 plus years, you guys have been awful to me. You've done nothing but like, you know. We've seen all the promos he said about the fans. This entire road to WrestleMania. But is he going to pretend like the fans hate him after they cheered him at WrestleMania over Cody Rhodes and at SmackDown? Yeah, but he's so good at what he's done.
point out the hypocrisy and them cheering him like he's called it out like he knows why you're cheering him it's because like he knows fans don't know what they want and that's been his whole thing like they're just idiots basically so i don't mind that Cena's probably going to be used very sparingly over the next year. I'm sure we'll see it at Backlash. I'd love to see Cena Orton for the title in St. Louis. And I just love...
If he's going to hold the title hostage and Cody saying, you know, before the match, you know, this stays with us. Who's going to be the guy to break the title? Defeat the Death Riders, I think. It might be Death Riders and Jason. We might not see the title. Also, on the flip side of that, too, is now that Jay is champion. He's going to be on TV.
Right, I wanted to get to that. So Jay is now your top champion. Well, before we get to that, quick question. Cody Rhodes, do you think we're going to get a title rematch at Backlash, or is Cody going to take a little... I've always family vacation. Yeah. Like I've always thought like this.
They were working Cody like a guy who was getting ready to take a break. You know what I mean? They were working that way, to be fair, before he won the title last year. He was the uncrowned champ that one year. Even though he wasn't around, they used him and promoted him like he was. was the top guy and he was and he's been going at an insane pace since his return from the the pec yeah injury so like we could use a little break from Cody and not for nothing I think that was a little bit of
What plays into him getting booed last night, too, right? We're tired of it? No, we're tired of it, but it's human nature. Right, to not appreciate what you got. Appreciate somebody a little bit more. It's funny, John Cena, I wrote about this when I wrote about Cody, but at 39, he said he called John Cena after he lost. And I think he said this on Ariel's show.
And he said, he talked to John C. He said, this is a phone call. It would have been with my dad, but my dad wasn't. I didn't have that option. And Cena told him to be the champion without the belt. He said, you know.
Look at ticket sales, look at merch sales, that'll keep you honest, but like go out there and be the top guy, be the champion without the belt. The funny thing is that now that John Cena's won, we've got a belt without a champion. If John Cena's not around and Cody Rhodes might be gone too. Well, let's go to what Ben said.
But that's the only difference, though. The only difference in the absentee reign of Roman and Brock and all these guys is that there was no other world champion. And I think the J thing kind of worked. Well, there was for Roman for the latter years. I mean, that was Seth's whole point, right? Oh, yeah. They made it during the rape. Because he wasn't there. So, right. So, you're right. So, Jey Uso. Mm-hmm. I'll say this. Night two was a more stacked card. Night one was...
just a beautifully composed piece of art. I don't think there was any surprises. Were there any surprises? No, I think we... Well, there were no literal surprises of people popping out and stuff. I think we, in terms of our predictions, I think we went... a hundred percent yeah on night everything everything except charlotte i think we were all split on that yeah everything else was pretty close yeah yeah i mean
I definitely thought Night 2 was better than Night 1. But Night 1's purpose, I thought, was very much a... warm up tonight too. You know what I'm saying? Well, listen, I mean, this is the kind of justification of the Triple H philosophy, right? It's like we spent so much time saying, well, if they just go chalk. Are people going to be excited or whatever, you know? If they go to chalk, if every ending is what we expect.
is that going to lower the excitement level? But the answer is no. I mean, when it's done as well as they did it on night one, match after match, that main event we'll get to in a sec. It's a beautiful thing. They know exactly. I said it a million times. I feel like you're watching like a kid, right? It's just like they suck you in during the match or during the intros and you're just like...
If you just hit every note exactly right, it doesn't matter if it's what you expect. It doesn't matter if you had the script in your hand ahead of time. You know, it's beautiful. Jay beating Gunther. In Gunther fashion. Tapping him out. Not just the tap out, but the multiple splashes right before that whole sequence leading up to it. I was like, dude, this feels like a Gunther finish. Like, this is how he would be power slamming people like five times when he can't, you know.
When he can't get the pin he wants, then he just gets rough. It's just over and over. And then he did the sleeper hold. He channeled the champ. and it was a huge moment yeah i mean it was jay winning was fantastic now It wouldn't shock me if Jay held the title for...
You know, till SummerSlam. But it certainly wouldn't shock me if Jay lost the title at Backlash or before. Everybody's kind of like, everybody's playing that up, right? Everyone's kind of thinking like, well, you know, with this Seth and Heyman.
situation. People wouldn't be shocked if Jay and Seth had a world title match tonight. Let's get to it. We can go right there. Is there anything you want to say about Gunther and Jay before we walk away? My only gripe was I thought Gunther tapped out too. It was immediate. Not a ton of struggle there. Yeah. To Schuze's point about him potentially doing... It was basically the Gunther spot. Right, right, right. If Gunther passed out...
I was going to say that. That's where I would have been. No, you know. And that may have been two on the nose. Yeah. I think they went almost too far to the other side where he, Jay locked it in. And my guy, Gunther tapped out almost immediately. I don't disagree with you in principle. I think in. In practice, there is a, Gunther has a really weird ability to lose and have it not affect him. And I don't mean like he's just one of these monsters, whatever. It's not just that it doesn't.
like we would say it about somebody else there's something about gunther the whole ring comp thing his vibe in real life like the way that we all have kind of followed him over the years It's like you carry yourself with a certain level of respectability and like belief in the product. And it's like, we all admire him as champion, but there's something very specific about Gunther where if he loses,
I never feel like I should say, oh, that hurts him, you know, in his standing. Oh, that like, oh, that buries him. Like all the stuff that we always say about losses. With Gunther, it's like if he followed the script. appropriately and he gave us a good match then nothing can hurt him you know it's like almost like like doing what your boss is losing it maybe it'd be a different thing if it was like like a wacky person that we really didn't like winning. Okay.
but it's like if he follows if if he is true to the storyline then gunther is impervious because that's pro he is pro wrestling yeah i don't know how to put it into better words than that it's so strange there's no loss I felt the same way last year. There's no way that he can lose. Exactly what you're saying. When he lost to Sammy last year, I felt like...
okay, it's cool because he can either go right back at Sammy or he can just go to the next level up. So I thought, you know, I would have liked to have seen a pass out personally, but I get to tap out.
and everything but i i'm excited to see what he do and his chase back to that well i'll say this i didn't mind him tapping out so quickly because it was satisfying fan service right yeah gunther was a guy who's talking wild shit about Jay this entire run and just basically has tried to minute like he's he took him lightly like he's not done nothing but take him lightly and honestly a lot of fans have taken him lightly too like he
Beat him three times already. Beat him at Saturday night's main event. All that stuff was... was done well in my opinion because i feel like if he passed out passing out during a submission is like a valiant defeat, right? Yes. A little bit of him tapping out quickly is like, oh, this guy's like... what he's like he's deep down inside he's a coward right like when when when he gets you know like sometimes
When the bully finally gets stepped up to. It's punched in the mouth. Yeah. And they go out with their tail between their legs. It's like, that's probably. That's it. You spent the past year. building up yourself as a championship level yeah like heel yeah and some and that's how i hit some heels got to go out weak sometimes fast you know what i mean like it's like And the reason why he doesn't lose it is because he doesn't lose a lot, period, right? So when he loses.
It's gotta be done in different ways. It's gotta be done in unique ways that make you remember it, right? Like, Gunther lost to Sami Zayn with like... a top rope brain buster that you never see in wwe right like it's true gunther lost to dragon off by that was the first time he tapped him out you know what i mean way back when And tapping out at WrestleMania quickly after, you know what I mean, getting several.
Finisher's done to you. It's basically saying like, I got this guy beat. I could pin him right now. But like, I want to go send a message. And when you lose three in a row to somebody. there's a way to that is the quickest way to get them credibility back like it's almost like it counts as two victories you know like even though i'm one and four against you I beat you at WrestleMania and I made you tap quickly. So Jay immediately gets his credibility up off of that victory.
So now he's our last champion standing. Well, that's if we are to assume that Cena's going to be out of here once this time. For the sake of argument, let's say that whether or not he's out of here, that that title is not going to be defended. Well, I guess it probably by a schedule, it probably defended as much as any world title normally is, but it's not going to be the focus of every broadcast for the next several months.
The main event on Saturday night, probably my favorite match of the weekend, Punk versus Rollins versus Reigns. was in the buildup to it. I mean, there were some mentions that this was, I mean, they said it, and I think fans sort of feel it, that this was sort of de facto number one contenders match. Okay. Jay is the champion on Monday Night Raw, assuming we're sticking to our alignment here.
Heal Seth Rollins is there. CM Punk is there. Gunther is still there. Who do we think is going to step up as Jay's first competition? Logan Paul. You think we're going to get just like a blow-off sort of thing for Backlash? Yeah, I think probably Logan Paul could probably be in there. I think Seth... I hope I'm wrong.
But I think Seth going right after Jay for the World Heavyweight Championship might be a mistake. Yeah. Well, they still have a month of explaining to do. So I don't know if it can come that quickly. Well, there's also the... So there's a possibility that the champions could switch. Okay. Oh, good point.
the whole world of possibilities on that side. And then on the Raw side, if the title's not going to be around as much, Seth can just, he can be almost in that Cody, like the de facto champion of that show when you build it around him. So just as a nugget,
of another thing to think about as we kind of move forward. That's looming. Not to jump from championship match to championship match, but I just can't stop thinking about everything that was said leading up to these matches, right? And that triple threat match. Seth kept saying, this match is for the soul of the future of the industry or something like that. Oh, shoot. Soul of professional wrestling. And if that's the case...
Jay shouldn't be your target. Cena should be your target. Those three guys all represent different ways of getting the job done as far as being a top guy between Roman Punk and Rollins. And now that Rollins has Paul Heyman by his side, I'm sure there'll be a little bit more of, you know... I think Punk, Roman, and Seth are going to find themselves in the same orbit for a while, for at least the next few weeks. I'm sure we won't see Roman for a while.
Willing to guess we won't see him until SummerSlam, right? But with Rollins, the story, I think, is all going to revolve around John Cena and what happens there. Like, Seth... Said something to Cody. Was it last year? Or it might have been on this road here this year. He's basically like, don't make my sacrifice go in vain. Yep. Right. Like, and.
In a way, like while Punk, Roman, and Rollins were all bickering amongst themselves, the soul, quote unquote, soul of the industry, the WWE Championship is off with Cena and possibly. away for good so in my mind i would think everyone would be fighting to be that person to bring that right i don't okay what you just said was beautiful i like every bit of it except
Seth has just established himself as the biggest heel in the business. Was it heelish? Yeah. I think Heyman was the heel there. No, no, no. Seth, well... I don't know that Seth's actions were necessarily that objectionable to hardened fans like us, but he did. you know accept the chair he did hit roman reigns who he was trying to make him trying to make peace with even through midway through the match right all three of them technically accepted the chair yes but you don't you don't
You don't walk out with Paul Heyman leering over your shoulder and not consider that a heel turn. It was also the way that it was called by Cole and McAfee. All right, talk about it. I still haven't watched that one back on TV yet.
the way that they called it seemed like the worst thing in the world the old-fashioned jr like what have you done what have you done yeah exactly okay i can see that um but so i'm just saying if seth if i mean seth turned heel Cena, despite the response that he's getting, is not going to get beat. not going to walk in as a baby face on Raw or SmackDown, wherever he turns up next.
I think he's going to be on Raw tonight. He said he's going to come to ruin wrestling. Yeah. Raw should be really interesting tonight. Cena should walk out with a fucking beach ball. That's how he can ruin wrestling. The Raw to WrestleMania. I think it's just going to be him bringing back the Spinner. Yeah, that's it. Man, that's going to be interesting, man, because, you know, we're off the mania as always.
unique in its own right, but this is the first Raw After Mania on Netflix. It's arguably their biggest Raw since the debut. That being said, it's like... I watched some of the clips. They're leaning into the fact that like WrestleMania is the quote unquote like season finale of wrestling. And now there's a whole new year long story that's about to start. I hope that that's true. Rawls after WrestleMania have been. notably bad the past several years. Yes, they have.
Now, this might be the Triple H era has finally gotten its footing and that'll change. Maybe Netflix will demand something better. I was saying... To somebody this week, I feel like the SmackDown before WrestleMania has become the new Raw after WrestleMania. Obviously, you can't have a bunch of surprises, but in terms of fans, the fans hijacked that show. Historically, you've not been hijacking that SmackDown. But I feel like...
these wrestlemania fans now are like they've been doing this we've been doing this long enough to know we're all going to be exhausted on monday yes let's just let's just get it out right now on smackdown there's like there was so much fan hype that night but the but it will be interesting i mean it's going to be a big big show violating everybody's however many days in Las Vegas rule. I got to get out of here. Can't wait to get out of here.
You know, a wise man once said, nobody wants to be in Vegas on a Sunday night. Well, we got a Sunday and now we got a Monday too, but it'll be, it'll be wild to see what happens. We know, listen. Before we get off of this match, I just want to say that Saturday night's main event. Well, not the show. The main event on WrestleMania night one was just a thing of beauty. Like I said before, we had predicted Seth. We had said, Seth's the one that really needs to win. Seth needed it the most.
Storyline-wise, it makes perfect sense. But there was nothing. You could have, you could have showed, you could have, I could have listened to the audio of that match ahead of time and I still would have enjoyed watching it. I mean, I was a kid watching that. What was your favorite spot? There were so many. Of the weekend? Of that match? I mean, I think it's got to be the GTS into the spear, into the curb stomp. I mean, that was such a beautifully done thing.
But the best, I mean, honestly, the one moment of that match that will live forever in my mind was Seth extending his arm to the chair without ever turning around. That was the freaking Dark Lord of the Sith moment.
cool yeah um also low-key after he after he gave seth the chair haemon went down in the corner like on his smiling and he was sitting like vince after he blew out his quads just like the full sit down and like on your butt in the then came because he just didn't want to block anybody's view i mean this is just the kind of the subtle genius of hayman and then he popped back up for the celebration or whatever but um
But yeah, it's got to be that turn moment or the lack of turn moment by Seth. It was such a good match and I'm so happy. I mean, really, Seth and Paul Heyman have more in common than... Then maybe you'd notice on face value because they both are. I mean, when Seth was talking about wrestling for the, for the soul of, or sorry, the mattress for the soul of pro wrestling, there was a,
I don't think it was an accident that he was standing right next to Paul Heyman, who is considered by many to be the soul of pro wrestling. That's what the stakes were. And the winner didn't get a belt, didn't even get a bracelet or a necklace. It's a winner against Paul Heyman. You know, it really ended up being a Paul Heyman custody match. Kaz and I have, you know, we talk to a lot of people and without giving too much away, I think it's fair to say that they...
There were moments where there were a lot of different endings for this match and discussion. Yes. Yes, there was. Literally every fantasy booking version you can come up with. Not just who won, but like the two of them end up in cahoots at the end. Like there's a lot of stuff. As late as Saturday morning, apparently those. those finishes were up in the air. As late as Saturday? Is that what you heard? Yeah, but eventually it was.
But this was the original ending. This was where we started and everybody got back to it and it was the right move. I mean, dude, even from like a... This is, I mean, Punk's been working a healthy schedule. Don't get me wrong. But even from like a Craven Paul Heyman perspective, he's just like. Guys, I get paid by appearance. I'm going to go with the guy who's there every night. It's such a perfect pairing.
And I can't wait to see, I can't wait to, I mean, I assume they'll be talking on Raw tonight. Yeah. But literally they could talk about, this could be. talking about why they got together and how this thing played out and he can also talk in detail about his different low blows oh yeah he just the way he felt bad about how he still felt bad about the punk and then the way he just dug in on roman he went side to side going from up
left to right? I'm like, no. Do you see him clenching his teeth as he was doing it? Yeah, that was kind of crazy. Well, you want to talk about it? I mean, like the famous Now You Owe Me a Favor segment between Seth and Heyman. The favor was not that he didn't curb stop him. The favor was, we talked about at the time, the favor was proving to him who really had his back, who really loved him of those two guys.
clearly roman doesn't give a shit about him because he didn't come out to make the save that's what seth helped establish and i think i mean if i had to guess I don't know that it matters that much, but if I had to guess, I would say that the complaint against Punk by Heyman will be, why did you put me in this position, Punk? By demanding that I come out with you, you ruined my life.
And so I'm not going to be with you either. Okay. I can see that. I think there was, the way I looked at it was, Heyman had paid his debt back to punk. It was like, yo. You wanted a favor. He's like, bro. Oh, yeah. Maybe you didn't want a long-term relationship. Yeah. He's like, bro, you owed me a favor from Wargame. I got you the main event at WrestleMania. I walked you down to the ring. Literally, he could make the argument that as soon as Colts of Personality stops playing.
Heyman's debt to punk was fulfilled. Well, yeah, he certainly fulfilled his debt. And then now, you know. The low blow still, you can still see the anguish he had in doing it to punk. And I still think there's a way that like, you know, punk.
kind of understands why Heyman did what he did. And you can kind of see, you know. Well, that's what I wrote about CM Punk too. It's like, what does he want more than anything else? He got to make this call. He got to pick his, call in his favor. It's, he wants.
This is a little bit meta, but punk wants to be hated. You know, punk wants somebody that he can like run out and punch in the face every single night and now he's got that and again in Seth Rollins yeah yeah and their their rivalry which obviously started as soon as punk returned back to wwe that was supposed to be his match last year yeah he said to us was i mean of course that we all knew but was was
punk versus rollins and that got hijacked by punk's injury and then subsequently hijacked by the drew mcintyre feud that ended up eating up the entire calendar year um and And now, you know, we got back there this year. They had two different cage matches on TV. But we're back to, I mean, this is the... probably the biggest rivalry in the company right now if they go right back into it right yeah it's gotta be i mean it's it's gonna be really interesting to see how it all plays out because
You said it, right? The championship is going to matter, but more importantly than that, who the guys are that step up in the post-WrestleMania era. the post-wrestlemania like come down is always like extremely important right like so I don't know. It's going to be really interesting to see. I really liked...
that Seth went over because I think of all the three guys there, he's the guy that could have done the most with that victory. He's a made man. He's already a made man, but I think more than that, the conversations with punk like you can make the argument that like maybe Heyman was still pretty undecided until Seth convinced him.
that like, you know, these guys really don't care about you. They, you know, Roman, watch you get your ass beat. What if the match had just ended with Heyman being like, I need another day or two to think about it. No, no, but the whole thing was obviously Seth is already a made man. I don't mean it, but he's now like, and he was in the match with these two guys, but we said this a million times. He was always kind of one notch below them.
on the hierarchy now you can make the case and especially with whatever he does over the next month six months year that he's like going to be just as big a deal as them yeah um you make the same He's the only guy that Paul Heyman is going to be in the position of having to make also since Curtis Axel. Like Paul Heyman has something to do. Damn, Seth Rollins is Curtis Axel. No, no, no. Seth Rollins is the only, like Roman Reigns.
Well, the moment he turned heel, Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar were not. like they were already as big as they eventually got i guess roman reigns got bigger and paul human can take some credit for that but um but no i mean i can't wait to watch it but every mat every match almost every match at wrestlemania was a star building exercise i think that's the highest because that's going from you know one a a minus to a plus or a to a plus whatever
um we can run through some of the rest of the guard can i just say one more thing man there's a lot of conversations leading up to the wrestlemania about the multi-man and multi-woman matches and I thought it was just hilarious that literally The three best matches of the entire weekend were all triple threat. I always love triple threat matches on big shows. I was like, where are all these people? Like, you know, I guess maybe I could.
be victim of thinking that, like, the people online is, like, the high majority of what people are thinking about. It's like...
How did you not think putting three awesome people or four awesome folks in a match with a prize isn't going to rule? It's weird because it was an old Vince fixation. Vince was always big on... one-on-one matches on Wrestlemania those face-offs is what and then of course he was intimately involved in like a fatal four-way or whatever but like that was always a Vince thing And for some reason, Vince is gone, but the fans have latched onto it. Now I get it, you know, I mean, it's this.
Probably conditioning, too. Yeah, exactly. This is the real sports era of pro wrestling, you know, with all the Lee fitting isms and whatever that we see on TV. They make it feel more like a real UFC. And UFC doesn't have three-way matches, although... I mean, who's saying no to that? They should. Some guys that have some broken bones. I mean, it would be messy. A UFC triple third match would be...
Must see TV. It would be so crazy. I mean, it would probably... Actually, in reality, it would probably... A triple threat UFC match would probably end in about 15 seconds because whoever actually went in, it's like the guy. One guy's just going to get jumped eventually. Somebody gets jumped, but it's whoever does the jumping. You're going after somebody. The third guy is going to choke you out.
that's it just rear naked choke if you're like if you turn your back and it's over um but it would be fun to watch it would be if they just if it was just haymakers it would be amazing but all that's to say Those triple threat matches were fantastic. Let's go back to the star making checklist. Let me run through the whole show.
Or I'll just ask you, who was the biggest star? Who was made the biggest star this weekend? Not who was the biggest star. Who made, okay, who had the biggest from where they were to where they are today? like percentage jump, probably Joe Hendry. Okay. Randy Orton's surprise opponent. He lost the match, but he got all of his stuff in, and there are a billion people.
who had never heard of Joe Hendry, who now have seen a football stadium go wild when he appeared. Yes, yes. I was surprised. I was not surprised that people loved... You might know more about this than me, Kaz. I mean, my read on that was... they considered all of the other names that we talked about. Obviously, Miro slash Rusev and Aleister Black are back with WWE, but basically it was... How can we rock the boat the least and still have a moment? Also Randy Orton. Like whoever fought Randy.
If it was one of the other guys, they'd have to beat Randy Orton. So the smoothest path forward is to have somebody like Joe Hendry who can get the moment and also lose to Randy Orton. Yeah, and it's got a tinge of credibility in it, too, because it's not just Joe Hendry. It's TNA world champion.
Joe Hendry, the TNA title gets showcased on WrestleMania. Like, you get to sing the song. We get the camera angle. We get to do the turn. You know what the biggest letdown, though? I mean, in terms of just totally worthless opponent, not worthless, but... but just comedy opponents. How much would you have popped for Kevin Nash to come out as Vinny Vegas? Does anybody remember Vinny Vig? That might have been too meta for me. Yeah, no, it was a bit. So he probably got the biggest one.
In terms of people who just like, well. Oh, I'd say it was Dirty Dom. That's where I was going to get to. Dirty Dom was the, I mean, left is the biggest baby face in the company. Yeah. And it wasn't even on purpose. You know what I mean? I've been saying this for weeks on end. It's like, bro, people don't hate Dom. People love to hate Dom. It's a difference, right? He garners a reaction.
that not many people in the company get, but it was really brilliant, not brilliant, but like, you know, there was a time I think late last year, early this year where they know what they had in him and they purposefully kept him.
really away from live crowds like all this stuff was like backstage videttes to the judgment day uh locker room you know being coming out with live to no music not really giving them the mic to a live crowd anymore it's like sometime between the end of last year they figured out like this dude's ready you know what I mean and he's got that Eddie Guerrero with him where it's like yo he's been such a jerk for so long especially in pro wrestling pro wrestling fans are eventually
going to love you it's like if you get put that much energy into booing somebody that's not because we don't like you it's because we respect your work as a heel so much we are willing to play into the part it's true an even bigger heel It's true. Because Eddie never changed. Eddie never changed. And Dom never really changed either. So like that moment, man, like that. If there's genres of shit that I love about pro wrestling, it is when a young guy...
at the perfect time. Yes. It was his first championship at the perfect time, right? I think Jey Uso winning the IC title was like the close last time I really felt like that. But this was so different because, you know, Jey's, as great as that moment was, Jey's been around for a while. He's had much success as a tag team competitor. But this is like, you know, every year we come to one of these events, WrestleMania, SummerSlam. And we talk with Dom. That's actually literally it.
Every single year we have seen this. When was his first WrestleMania? 38 38 so I interviewed him one on one at 38 him and him and his his deadbeat and like some access like private access panel but every year Every single year we talk to him. Every year he's come back as a bigger deal. With a bigger mustache, a bigger mullet. He's about to be positioned now. He's about to get Randy Orton evolution. From Judgment Day.
He pinned his stablemate. His girlfriend doesn't have the titles anymore. And now he's the only one in the group with the titles. Now he's the guy. It makes more sense for him to... Yeah, exactly. It makes more sense for him to keep Evolution... I mean, sorry, Evolution. Judgment Day. Judgment Day is sort of his... his backing band and and
we can kind of put the Judgment Day drama to rest for a while, right? I mean, Finn may go his own, goes a separate way. Someone's got to go. There's just been too much tension. It's getting uncomfortable. I would say, am I crazy? I said this to Kaz after the show.
Am I crazy to think that if WWE had known the reaction he was going to get, then maybe they would have gone with Finn just to give Finn the heat of... had to eat so much in that match because he was the last heel standing after the fans decided to start booing and start cheering for dom finn was and it's not even much of a heel but he was the only person left to boo in the match so he got it hard yeah yeah i mean listen
Well, first of all, Finn Balor's going to be okay. Yeah, he told us. He told us. He didn't tell us he was going to be okay. But more than that, you know... That match was so fun because we're used to having, like, the one babyface champion overcoming the odds, right? Like, this match, it was like... More or less three guys we all really like in Finn, who was sort of the ring general.
I don't know, man. Like, I felt that match was, you know, coming into WrestleMania, I said that was probably going to be my match of the weekend. That was going to be the show stealer just because of the competitors in there. Like, when Finn Balor is like... the least most like heated up dude out of everybody. You're in pretty good shape, right? But what I think it all means for Dom is that like that dude.
To circle it back to the John Cena of it all, he's at the top of my list of guys who could be John Cena's last match at this point, right? I think everybody coming out of WrestleMania. Before next year's WrestleMania, the next WrestleMania-like moment is the John Cena last match. And who's going to get that? And if we're talking about star making moments and people, you know, when people are saying like, hey, I want to shake the guy, the hands of the guy. Yeah.
Dom probably has pole position now as far as having the youth by his side. I mean, listen, I think the abiding lesson from... the undertaker streak ending is that it doesn't have to be bray wyatt sometimes it can just be something that could be brock lesnar you just die well no sometimes that you give it to somebody who you feel like is already there and it
takes them up a level too and it's still worth it that's true okay Undertaker I mean as mad as people were when the streak ended for that very reason you can't tell me that the Undertaker losing to Brock Lesnar didn't help the company oh of course not of course not
And that's sort of what everybody's looking at. But you're right. I mean, Dom really is in that position. We have some intel, by the way, about John Cena's last match. I'm going to... We do. We'll do a little bit more talking to people before we come out about it. But it's... It's a little bit later than I was expecting it to be. It looks like.
There's some negotiations going on, some literal negotiations. But yeah, Dom was incredible. But there we go. The biggest star of the weekend. Also, right. The biggest percentage growth. I mean, I still think Joe Hendry went from...
relatively zero to you know a high number so percentage wise he might be ahead but but dom was the biggest winner i'll throw io sky i was gonna say just the same case that you make for seth rollins sort of you make for io sky at a different i mean she was put in that match and her rule was
get yourself on the level of these other two. Let's convince everybody that you're as good as them and she is. She's a better wrestler than either of the people she was in the ring with. She emerged a huge star. Her family was there to celebrate. It was a great, great moment.
let's talk briefly about somebody who doesn't who didn't need any fame any any any making becky lynch surprise tag team partner for lyra valkyria uh on night two that was a huge moment i mean it was one that a lot of people were predicting i was i may or may not have been sitting in the rollins lynch family box when that was happening at some point i looked around i was just like
All the agents and representatives here are kind of working as a spoiler for me. You know, it's just there's way too many important people for there not to be a Becky Lynch appearance. But yes, that was huge. The business with Bailey getting hurt and them announcing it on the pre-show on Saturday. And there's a lot of people online saying, I can't believe this is like... Like, big shot Becks in a bad way, like taking the match from her. I mean, listen, guys. Becky Lynch.
and Bailey are legitimate best friends outside of the rig. I don't think any, I don't know what the plan was. I don't know how this went down according to plan. I guarantee that the idea was not that Becky Lynch was stealing a spot from her friend in a backstage political move.
I think if we keep watching, it'll start to make sense. I think on Observer, they posted this morning or last night, that Becky was going to replace her for a while. Yeah, that's been in the books for a minute. So again, it's not a last minute thing.
Becky's in her book she talked about this too where when did she beat Bianca in like 30 seconds at SummerSlam and I remember when they they gave her that book as whatever that the narrative has come out within the last 24 hours that are kind of like being big time and this like her stealing this from her friend it's just not I don't know maybe it's not her character it's not true I don't think anybody involved in the story
I think there was some cryptic tweets from Bailey that people were resurfacing. They didn't have anything to do with this. Of course, Mercedes got in on it and was tweeting at Bailey, whatever. And that's, of course, anybody would do that in her position probably. But... But no, that's what I... Definitely the impression I got was the reaction surprised people and...
Yes, it's sad for Bailey. Nobody wanted to go down this way, but keep watching. I don't think this is done. You can also tell it's going to be Becky based on how geek... Lyra look when she was coming to the ring. She just had the big... Lyra looked like a million bucks with that white outfit and the wings. The wings was incredible. But what she got down there, you could just... you could see on her face that my hero is going to come down here why isn't bailey your hero
We did talk to her, talk a lot about, you know, Irish born superstars when we were sitting with her. So it's funny when you look back at the wrestlers that we interviewed. they all kind of gave us a little something they all get not only did they all give us something but there was all but like a lot of there's a lot of people here like why am i talking to this person yeah my life here is the first women's you know icy champion
Not to take anything away from her. She's a champ champ now. But she's a champ champ. So you should get all the belts. Right? That's crazy. That should be the new big-time Bex thing. She's a beast, though, man. My protege is going to get every belt at the same time. Demand that one. No, but sometimes you have an interview and you're just like...
Like, are you even going to be on the main car? And then you realize they're bound for something greater, right? The only big surprise is that Ludwig Kaiser didn't. Make an appearance in the women's championship match. Ludwig Kaiser, the champ, the far and away... World champion of day one interviews. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He was such a dude. Such a dude. Shocked about. But it was it was interesting they had him out there.
Because he should have been or could have been in the IC title four way. I mean, I think there's a world in which he has Finn's spot. There's also a world in which they put five people in that match. Like, why not? That match was a lot of fun. And, man, he did say that he was going to be watching the winner of the Intercontinental Championship very, very closely. So, I mean...
If you want to talk about people that could be heat magnets for Dom, now that we all fucking love that guy, like, Ludwig could step right in there. And, you know, we've all kind of seen what he can do, like, ring-wise, as far as character-wise, but... You know, when people love somebody that much.
The prime spot is to be the guy who's taking the opposite of that. And I think they're, you know, just putting the tea leaves together like we usually do on this show. Like, you can see Ludwig Kaiser being that new dom where that just draws massive heat.
you know what i mean um from you know from being across somebody that's as popular as he is so uh so speaking of the women's championship match charlotte and tiffany was war i'm gonna say i'll say i think i've said this to all of you in real life i'll say it on the podcast too i talked to some people that were well i'll just say i i talked to a lot of different people
here's the book on charlotte is weird as much of a legend and and a pro a vet as she is she doesn't usually call her matches she doesn't usually call her big matches at least you know like it's usually her dance partner who's like who's calling it that's not a knock on her there's a lot of vets that that you know that's they prefer to play you know take the second chair or whatever um
But she has been in the position of calling or maybe having to call a lot of these big matches. I think that's what we saw in her match with B-Fab on SmackDown that sort of... just got my attention right you could see her calling the match but you could also kind of feel the roughness of it and i don't know if it's a miscommunication thing or just the way charlotte's going to work when she's going to call her match and we saw that again on saturday night
She was obviously in pole position. She was obviously making the calls. and you could see her calling the match, and it felt rough. Like, it felt like there were some moments of miscommunication, but even the moments where there weren't were just sort of, it felt kind of old school in a way, you know? It felt like...
Like, whatever, like, like, Terry Taylor's in the ring against somebody who's never wrestled before. Like, that's just like, let's, let's see how this goes, you know? I think there's a small part of me that, you know, knows Charlotte Styles and Tiffany Styles. I expected this.
super clean super athletic super yeah you know what i mean like well it's sort of the nxt version of it right like if they were both in the match and it was like what it was like planned out move for move ahead of time right but but what ended up happening was like Yeah, there was a little bit of real grit in between this match. It was rough and it was not as smooth. I think it helped advance the story even more because Tiffany did win.
But she didn't look like a winner at the end of the match. She had a chip tooth. She had a chip tooth. No, she did not have a chip tooth, it turned out. Was it not? She posted her teeth. I think she just had blood on her tooth or something. Chipped tooth or not. I think someone said she put in a replacement. Okay, sorry. Fake news, guys. I apologize. Chipped tooth or not. Charlotte got her shit in on Tiffany. And at the end of the day, you know,
Charlotte doing what she was supposed to do. And she kind of elevated Tiffany Stratton into this thing. So I thought it was... a gritty match. Like I wasn't, I was expecting the opposite. Like I was expecting a, you know, especially the way those two wrestle something a little bit more. athletic. You know what I mean? But this is just like, a lot of it was just a fight. Well, in terms of star making, I mean, Tiffany's star was made in that match. She was made already, you know?
I mean, shout out to anybody who is sitting above the 100 section because... Can I talk about that? Yeah, but go for it. Brian, so I'm sitting next to Brian in the press box and... Their gear was so similar. The color scheme was so similar to the point where
Again, I was watching going between the screen and the ring. There were points in the match where I could not tell who. They weren't wearing the same thing in this match. Charlotte had some blue in her outfit. But it was like a pink-blue scheme. from far away. As someone, I've mentioned this so many times, I talked to somebody at WWE about that.
Because I was just like, if you can tell me that Tiffany went off script in their promo battle in SmackDown, she 100% did. No one knew until she was going in there. You can tell me that all the Charlotte... stuff was as real as it looked it was according to everybody that knows but i was just like then somebody has to explain to me why the two times they met on SmackDown, the promo battle and the brawl through the crowd, they were wearing the same outfit. Not the same both times.
They just were, on the bra they were both wearing, not... pink ring gear that matched more than the Wrestlemania ring gear just straight up pink gear and then in the promo battle they're both wearing the same casual cloak like black with black lace like outfits And the person I talked to was like, I know, isn't that wild? And I was like, I mean, but wild, but on purpose. And he was like, no, that's what they showed up wearing. Nobody changed their clothes.
It was crazy. And he was just like, I can't believe they're 15 years apart in age and they wear the same outfit. It's just very bizarre. It's so strange, but they did look exactly the same. I mean, I can imagine from the top, from the upper deck. again i just had to switch to watching the screen at some point because yeah also it was like whose moonsault is that obviously you could tell the double is tiffany but after that like
The prettiest moonsault ever that ended the match I thought was maybe her best one because you could feel how tired she was and she still pulled it off. There was like an extra weight to it. It was a good moment for Tiffany. It was a good match. I'm surprised. I ended up picking Charlotte in the end. Go ahead, Brian. No, I enjoyed it because of the war it was. Just sitting there listening to Charlotte.
I'm going to bring it. She better match me. Yeah. The whole time. And, you know, we talked to Tiffany last year, me, Ben and shout stack out Greg. You know, Tiffany always says like she always wanted to be in a baby face role and she was ready for that. And I thought.
from like watching her through this run i think she's delivering so you know overall i enjoyed the match a lot yeah i thought it was a good match i think the mission was accomplished right like you bring in charlotte flair for this young star to make them and you know if It means dragging them through the glass floor and really making them burn, being that next chick.
that's what you're supposed to do, you know what I mean, if you're Charlotte Flair. So, you know, Charlotte's in a unique position where the same position as Gunther where a loss doesn't really hurt her at all. And, you know, I think everything... given as far as the road to that map. You were expecting it to be rough. You were expecting it to be gritty, especially, you know, after talking with Charlotte and, you know, as much as much as.
I'll tell you, just to be a little bit inside baseball, I'm trying to like... getting to Charlotte's head and be like, all right, well, clearly some of this, you had to know what was coming. Like you put it on Sherry Shepard and from Charlotte's response to us, it was like, nah, like that was really some. Off-script stuff that wasn't supposed to happen. It's less crazy that it was off-script. It's more crazy that you've given the opportunity to pretend it was on-script. Right.
And she didn't take it. And she didn't take it. You've teed it up for her. Oh, she's really going to get some of that lick back, like my man Shoemaker says. Yeah. She got it. she didn't win but you know she i think she got what she came for um let's see we mentioned Eosky for night two. Eosky, Dom, Joe Hendry, who was the loser in his match against Randy Orton. I feel like I need to insist. Lyra and Becky Lynch, your new tag team champions.
You want to talk about Logan Paul versus AJ Styles at all? Is there anything there worth mentioning? Well, I guess we should talk about carrying crosses.
promo on uh on the on the post game podcast what's the podcast uh wrestlemania wrap up a recap yeah the raw recap with sam and megan moran love sam and megan great folks awesome folks um that was a i noticed if you go back and watch the clip there are a couple of times where they go to that wide shot where you can see them and but they take all they cut off it really quick it's almost as if
I can imagine Sam is like trying to look at the producers to figure out if they should be letting him go or to like just go to commercial or something. Yeah. Because Karrion Kross went off on. It was so crazy. Sam almost threw the commercial on the podcast. Like, we're going to take him. Yeah. No, he would. Well.
It was all, so just in case you haven't seen it, I mean, go watch it now. It's just like two minutes long, three minutes long. But it's everywhere. Karrion Kross goes on and he's just like. It's partly about how AJ Styles let him down by not beating Logan Paul, by choosing to assault Karrion Kross instead of letting Karrion Kross help him win.
But in a bigger sense, it's about guys like Logan Paul coming and stealing the spotlight from people who were there night in and night out. Yeah. The old, it's funny. In front of the podcast, CM Punk is no longer on the part-time reserve. the worst part of the business, uh, train, but Karrion Kross is taking it away from him. And he also took a page out of CM Punk's book, got there and cut a workshop promo to get everybody's attention. I mean, listen,
He ends by saying the guy in the back or in the suit and the truck can, what'd he say? Go F yourself or whatever it was. F yourself, yeah. That was the most canned line of the whole bit. And the way that Scarlett... tried to cut him off at the end, and then he bopped the mic away like an old school manager. That was the telltale sign that this whole thing was deliberate. Everything was deliberate about it, man. You got to give it to Karen Cross because there wasn't really, you know.
Honestly speaking, the AJ Styles Logan Paul match was the... Part of the night where I was like, all right, I'm going to refill my drinks right now. Drinks? How many drinks do you have? You got like the camelback on, you're just like filling up water. I was double fisting at some point. I had a Corona, I had some gin and tonics. I was going for it that night.
That being said, Karrion Kross is doing the heavy lifting on this feud. And everything of these promos about getting AJ in the right state of mind to beat Logan Paul and everything he stands for, and even if you watch the promo package. leading up to it. They told a great story about the traveling warrior that AJ Styles is and this guy, Logan Paul, who has accomplished a lot in such a short time.
Karen Cross has been saying how it is important as far as like the sanctity of pro wrestling and even this promo that he had with Sam and Megan, he said. Before he tells the suits to go F himself, he said, for all the true lovers of professional wrestling. Yeah. There's a sizable part of that audience of the WWE audience that he was talking to. And that part of that audience knows that WrestleMania doesn't always necessarily reflect...
current state of professional wrestling. For years, we used to always call SummerSlam the Wrestlemania for nerds. Wrestlemania is its own thing. Wrestlemania for everything it is, for as great as it is. It is very much a show for the casuals, right? It is a show to get the people who may not be tapped in every single week. I may not be listening to the podcast every single week.
may not be subscribed to a newsletter to know what's going on backstage. It is not for those guys. And somebody had to talk to those people. And Cross being that guy, you know what I mean? to AJ, especially what AJ Styles represents. Like if you look up and down that card outside of CM Punk and Seth Rollins.
AJ Styles is sort of that old guard. There was no Kevin Owens on the card. There was no Sami Zayn on the card. Drew was there, but him and Priest had their thing going on. AJ Styles represents... the wrestler's wrestler you know what i mean and going up against logan paul he is what represents the glossy glamour glitzy version of what wrestlemania is to wwe so i really dug that you know Cross got in there, got his shit. And I thought no matter what happened in the AJ Logan mat,
It was going to be about carrying across afterwards. That's great. You're right. They effectively pulled that off. The match itself. I mean, it wasn't particularly enthralling. I was kind of surprised there wasn't more heat on Logan Paul, at least from where I was sitting. Aaron Vegas. They're in Vegas. No cheers or booze. It was just sort of like, yeah, it's Logan Paul. Like you said, it was your popcorn match. It was definitely my popcorn match. No disrespect.
Let's keep trucking through because we got a lot of matches. Drew McIntyre versus Damian Priest is the... I was a humper. It was really good. Having to follow that triple threat, the women's triple threat, I thought they might be in a bad spot. What did you say when we were watching that we were at NXT and when Darkstate came out
Tell me if this is off the record. Darkstate came out and hopped up in the ring and you saw Saquon Sugar's outfit and you're like, that outfit's sassy. It was too sassy for what they were pulling off. It was a lot of glimmer and glitter. It was a really high-waisted one-strapper. Damien Priest's outfit was borderline sassy. Well, Damien Priest is, you know, he'll give you a little sass here and there. Yeah, that's true.
They call him the bisexual undertaker for a reason. You know what I mean? That is that he has the tightest. the tightest spandex yeah like I don't even know if it's spandex like rubber or whatever but like that's his when he pulls his straps down it looks like it's painful. He's moving his shoulder way up. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that match was really good, man. I enjoyed every bit of it. And it's funny, you can see...
you know, we're surrounded by people in the business. Last time when they had... when they had Priest versus, what was the SummerSlam match? Oh, Priest versus Gunther. Mm-hmm. You could tell all the old time wrestlers in the box next to us came down and got in the front row and they were like, that's the match they sat down for, you know, because they were like, oh, this is our kind of thing.
This match had that role of this one too. I mean, everybody's just like, now we're going to get some wrestling, some wrestling. But it was a really, really good match. I really enjoyed everything they did. Drew got his selfie in. That was great. Yeah. That was posted in record time, by the way. That match was still going. It was already up. Yeah. It was amazing. And he got...
I wonder if that's real. Is that shoot? Do you think that he has a social media person in the back? It was definitely a social media guy because the guy had a Drew McIntyre jersey. No, no, I mean like... Do you take the picture there or could it have been a pre-taken picture that they just had teed up? Oh, that was definitely live. Yeah, for sure. But anyway, they... Yeah, it was a really, really good match.
i mean the only person this wasn't really a star making thing although it it you know damian priest I think at the end of the day is elevated by continuing to be in relatively big time feuds and looking and coming out looking good. I mean, looking like having matches that people appreciate. This one was more about keeping McIntyre at the top of the card, though. This is the one that wasn't really a star maker. Drew's getting to that point, though, where...
We're going to need him to elevate again. You know what I mean? Well, he's done everything he can. He's in that position. He's on SmackDown, though, now. And that's why that just is another reason why I think they're going to move Jay over to SmackDown. There's possibilities over there on SmackDown. You can only hold Drew back for so long. Maybe you're right. Jacob Fatu, another made star in this weekend, is your new U.S. title.
I mean, I'm not sure that any show can be comfortably without a champion. without a world champion based on the mid-card title holders. Because as much as we love Dom, he's not a world champ like that. This isn't like when John Cena had the U.S. title and was like holding down the fort. But yeah, you're right. I mean, it would make a lot of sense.
for jay to go to smackdown i think that could be you know like that could be a smart move for everybody um Jacob Fatu, I mentioned El Grande Americano, one of our favorite young wrestlers, young old wrestlers at a star making performance. So my wife, my six-year-old, and my wife was there with her cousin and his wife. three adults, one child, none of them are diehard wrestling fans. And they were, I wasn't with them. So during this match, I like called up and I was just like,
I just wanted to make sure you guys realize that El Grande Americana was a white guy. They're like, no, we figured it out. Just making sure they appreciated it as much as they could. They loved it. I mean, they loved the whole presentation, the Gulf of America thing. It was just really good work. Really good work by everybody.
El Grande, I don't know if we're not breaking Kayfabe here, but Grande looked great. Yeah, yeah. It was a very, very good match. Obviously, Ray Phoenix was called in at the last minute because Ray Mysterio. Kind of a happy accident. I love Ray. Ray's still amazing at what he does, but Ray Phoenix. Ray Finn. Like, Ray Finn. Getting a WrestleMania moment, too? Oh, my God. You kidding me?
Well, his brother got a big one last night. That IC title match was big, but you're right. I mean, it was just very fortuitous, I think, for Ray Phoenix that he got that chance. Dragon Lee might have been the more obvious bet, but I guess they'd already had that match. But that was El Grande Americano. A lot of people were surprised that they didn't sort of have him unmasked.
But I think they have, I think this is a much longer term plan, this whole Grande Americano thing. Especially the announcement of Worlds Collide, you know? Oh, we didn't even talk about that yet. Geez Louise, WAB's acquired, bought AAA. Yeah.
A lot of people who understand the Lucha scene a lot better than me are not happy with it, but that's sort of the way these things go. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I mean, listen, I'll say this. For all of the... there's a wwe's had a lot of acquisitions historically that didn't necessarily go as well as fans might have hoped all the way to ecw wcw yep um you can even talk about their
move into the UK scene when they launched NXT UK and the way they kind of treated the existing scene over there and the negatives that came out of it. I'll just say this. go in a dramatically different way, but this is a different level of acquisition. WWE is a much bigger, more professionalized company. AAA is a much bigger institution than anything else they've brought on. and is distinct enough that this isn't just like, oh, our...
HR department can cover for yours. We're just going to fire everybody and use our own exec.
management structure in at triple a like it's going to be it's going to i think just functionally have to operate as a completely separate company at least for a while so hopefully it won't be as the same situation as the ones we've seen before where they bought wcw and well that was a very unique situation but like very deliberately didn't buy any of their infrastructure right it was that that that's a that was a turner thing ecw didn't have any infrastructure except for
you know, Tommy dreamers, personal credit card that he was putting, you know, the ring rentals and stuff on. Um, so yeah, it's, but, but it's a, it's huge. It's a huge deal. And to see the King goes standing back there with all the other dudes. The LWO dudes and Pinta. And I mean, it's a big, it's a great look for them. And it'll be interesting to see.
i'm sure netflix is very excited about this even though they're not that that was my thing i'm not i'm not gonna i mean i'm aware of triple a but i'm not gonna pretend like i'm super tapped in and like watching every pay-per-view like i mean you know triple mania obviously you'll catch that when it happens but I think the Netflix part of it all is dope because they broadcast worldwide.
I've watched an irrational amount of Spanish language content on Netflix mostly because I'll just be like oh yeah this crime miniseries looks great and then it's just like oh that guy's spanish like literally like you know and then i realize that because i have like the english not subtitles english like dub on They have a huge worldwide audience, and this I'm sure will suit them.
You know, they'll be very excited about it. It's going to be in Los Angeles, I'm assuming. I think it's the same weekend as Money in the Bank. Yeah, I thought it was replacing Money in the Bank when they announced it, but I guess not. Yeah, I think it's going to be really dope, man. I mean, especially just... Do you think El Grande Americano will be there? One million percent. He has to be. He might be in the main event. What about Chelsea Verde?
That was Chelsea Verde. Chelsea Verde, Chelsea Green. Chelsea Green's alter ego. Alter ego for sure. No, I think that's going to be, I think it's going to be an excellent, like I don't know too much about AAA to see whether it's good or bad.
that they've been acquired by wwe but i just always love I love to compare it to when Marvel... uh was building out the mcu and you know when they when they acquired sony it was like oh finally we get x-men yeah spider-man and all this type of and like that's the way i look at it it's like oh we'll get these new dope characters
in this, you know, Lucha Libre space that they're obviously throwing a lot of investment in when you see what they've done with Penta and Ray Phoenix. And even though Grande Americano, you know what I mean? Like all that is clearly going to lead to something. Stephanie Vaqueira, obviously, like everyone.
you know. Oh yeah, she was out there too, which is why, which is, you know, it was notable that they put NXT in the graphics along with AAA and WWE, but that's, I mean, I think Stephanie Vaqueira has a lot to do with that. Yeah. And, you know, she's well, she's no longer the champ champ. We might have to save some of our NXT talk for next time. We got to run through the rest of this card, but that's a big deal.
We talked a little bit about the triple threat women's championship match. I just got to say that match was really, really good. And EOS guy winning was 100% the right call. There was a lot of like... planned spots in that match but they all looked i mean that's not necessarily a negative they all looked really good yeah you know like old school wrestling
like greco-roman wrestling though like the one guy gets on all fours and the other guy gets like to start the match and the other guy like and the other guy like puts his arm and sort of the it's sort of the real world version of the lockup yeah if you if you poke me in the eyes
this is going to not go well for me, but I'm going to, there's got to be like a trust to start it. Right. They should do the tower spot as like the trust opener to every triple threat women's match at this point. Right. Just like everybody. Get in your position in the corner. We're going to go three high, and then that's when the bell rings.
And just like, they'll let it open with that. Cause that Matt, that's always such a good moment. Yeah. Um, night one, who do we not, we mentioned Jacob Fatu. Was that the right call? Ben? Yeah, I mean, especially the... He was basically working babyface toward the end of that.
right like everyone wanted him to win do you think he was a big baby face it also kind of i also kind of really got into solo sekoa enjoying the baby face reaction and like even during his intro solo was gassing him up yeah right But, I mean, you want to talk about a star making show. Jacob just kind of solidified that. By the way, that moonsault into the BFT was insane. And again, I think...
Jacob's going to hold on to this thing, I think, for a while. I don't really know what a Jacob Fatu championship defense is. Is he a monster? Is he only going to be fighting a monster? I don't know. It's interesting. That match against...
la night mania was was booked perfectly because they were like believably like on the same level but i still am kind of interested just to understand what jacob fatu is in terms of wwe wrestler like how how undefeatable is he sort of you know um i'd like to see shinsuke try to get in his head does shinsky still work for the company he was in the andre yeah i don't know i know he does work for the company but there was there was rumors a while back that like he was
His contract was up and there wasn't as much interest in re-signing him as you might think. Maybe. Maybe. That would be great. I mean, I love Shinsuke and that would be a really fun matchup. But yeah, it'll, I mean, obviously Jacob Batu will hold on to it for a bit. You got to establish this thing. Jade Gargill. guest of the pod, Jade Cargill, defeated guest of the pod, Naomi, in their singles match. Yeah. It was a good match.
It felt very much like this is going to, we're going to get this one again at backlash and there'll probably be, you know, it'll be no holds barred like this one should have been. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think it was a lot. Naomi did a great job, man. I think the character change to pursue a caution, all that stuff is going to really catch on really quick. I think it's already caught on.
And even though, you know. Her promo at Wally Mania was one of the greatest pieces of business she's done. One of the highlights of the weekend. Her promo that she cut there, man. So I thought it was a great show between the both of them. And, you know. one of those matches that we could probably feel like is the beginning of something and not really the end. I could never see Naomi.
Bianca, Jade, still sort of continue to tell the story between those three people because, you know, I was kind of shocked that, you know, Naomi or Jade didn't factor into the women's triple third match, especially given what happened on SmackDown. But that's what.
The rest of the week is for it. That's what the other shows are for. So I think we'll get there eventually. It's funny you said this is the beginning of a new season, but it does feel like there's a lot of things, a lot of balls left to drop from last season. I guess that's how you do TV, right? For sure. Pull the curtain back a little bit.
The New Day are your new tag team champions. I guess that's not making a new start, but that was a long time coming. Love it. Kaz, by the way, are you their new manager? I saw you wearing their titles. What were you wearing? He's wearing their tag titles. Oh, really? He got that picture up. What a mark. Listen, I was on my way out. I was heading to the Netflix shuttle back to the stadium. Back to the hotel from the stadium.
and saw them out there and, you know, just... you know, showed love as always and wanted to take a picture of Nate. They put the belt on me, which I thought was just like the coolest fucking thing. You know, I love those guys. Everybody who knows. 24-7 rules. That means you're the champion. Oh, man. It was really fun and really cool. And, you know, those guys, I love them for everything. So I'm glad that the champs again.
You know, it's the new days of tag team champions. You can't go wrong with that. Like, those guys have defined the tag team division. Them and the Usos are like random. It felt like that match. This match had a lot to do with the sponsorship. The Clash of Clans. Oh, yeah. You see video game sponsorship. I'm like, clearly Woods is winning. It wasn't too surprising, but I love the Roar Raiders, but I'm glad that the New Day are back with some gold. Yeah, me too.
I think that's, I think we touched on all the matches on the, on the main show. Yeah. Quick question. Go up and, or actually end of the show question of the week. If you were in Lyra and Valkyria's. position and you had to pick your favorite wrestler to be your tag team partner at wrestlemania who would you pick everybody Of all time or current? Good question. Of all time. Let's say current. Let's say current. Including current legends. You can pick The Rock. Okay.
I'll probably pick Ron Brinker. Ron Brinker would be my guy. Where does Ron go from here? You think he's in the world title picture?
Him and Jay. If they move Jay or... I'm trying to think. I mean, the logistics are a little bit weird. I was imagining that... that adam pierce would just start should just start a number one contenders tournament on raw and going through with protest and be like no no you get your title shot at whatever but in the meantime i'm determining a number one contender and you can be in the tournament if you want or whatever but you could have seth and braun breaker and um
I mean, there's actually a lot of dudes on that, but you can put Dom in that tournament for whatever. But, you know, just have a little four-eight-man bracket to just kind of establish the new level. But, yeah, I think Bron could be right up there. I think it's tough to imagine him as being... jay's opponent in the near future um
But who knows? Who knows? Just because it's a weird, they're both so over, you know, they're both kind of similar style baby faces, even though Braun is not technically, I don't know. Brian Waters, who's your tag team partner? Don Mysterio. You just want that heat. Or no, you want those cheers. He's my guy, man. So yeah, he'd be my tag partner. Ben? I'm going with Seth Rollins. The way that he just reminded everyone the type of dude that he is.
And that he can be a top guy, like the top guy. Plus, I just want to be part of the options for being fitted out by King Troy. You can't go wrong with that. I met King Troy finally yesterday. He's a wonderful dude. Got a lot of intel from him, most notably that the glasses that Seth wore on night one were not part of the original design.
there was a whole feathery second layer aspect that didn't make it to the show time but it was but there was he said he went with 100 confidence it was there was never meant to be any references to jesus in this outfit although You know, there were a lot of CrossFit Jesus jokes for about Easter on the timeline. Yeah, I mean, he stood and all those lights hit him, and I felt very Jesus-like, very Messiah-ish.
Well, I was going to say The Rock because I just want to make the most money possible if I'm going to have a, you know, be in that position. But The Rock would require me to probably take a lot of bumps. I'm trying to think maybe Cody, you know, he, he could work. He works most of the match. I just got to come in and get the hot tag.
It's tough. Becky Lynch is not a bad one. I might just pick Becky Lynch and just go enter gender tag. There you go. I mean, listen, it's funny. We come out of these big... with a lot of different feelings but there's definitely you always come out with like appreciating different wrestlers more than i did going in you know
you kind of you're in a tunnel watching at home yeah you watch right here live you see the fans react to different people different ways you meet people that know them that work with them that's what jay told us man it was like hey Just get outside, bro. Just get outside. Get outside from the laptop. Get off the phone. Watch a show in person. It gives you a deeper appreciation of all that. We get a deeper appreciation for it because...
More than just a lot of experience we you know for the most part know these people as people and the people that they care about and the people that they surround themselves with so like we got a unique perspective and I think that's why a lot of people listen to the show we get like a unique perspective into like what who did you hate the most this week that you met what wrestling personality did you hate
God, there was so many, Dave. What a way to close the show. There was so many people. I was like, these guys are effing jerks. We saw a lot of folks this weekend. I didn't even hang out that much, but I got to talk to Big Omos for a while. Yeah, yeah. I heard a lot. lot of stories from his Japanese excursion nice nice um Oh, I don't even know. I did. Hey, listen, I can, Sammy Zane was up there in Seth and Becky's box. I did hear from some people in WWE that there was some creative forum that.
There were a couple of creatives for him that fell through. Ah, I see. I think he might have been involved in the KO Orton match if it had happened. I figure that's what happened once KO got hurt. It's crazy, though. He is seriously one of the... I mean, is he one of the six biggest stars in the company? I mean, he's way up there. Apparently, he killed it at the roast last night. Oh, really? Yeah. Apparently, him and Paul Heyman, like, burnt the place down. Oh, I can see that.
I don't think we'll ever. We'll never see it. We went to Sammy's show last year in Cleveland. Sammy's a funny guy. I really enjoyed it. He's definitely got the comedic timing down, Pat. He's awesome. But yeah, pro wrestlers are nice people. For the most part, yeah. They're all great. We saw Jay and Naomi were great at Wally Mania. Oh, for sure.
samantha ervin was great oh yeah big small ricochet shout out to big small uh carmelo hayes pulled up you know can i also just say the biggest question i got this entire week and the biggest week of this weekend was is this really the last well It was, you know, a lot of, is Cena really going to win? Number two bullet was, is this really the last Wally Mania?
Just because they know my proximity to cats. So I just want that to be right here. We're going to wait for the official announcement. Every single talent I ran into asked me the same exact question. And I'm going to leave off with a wise man once saying, The only thing that's for sure about Wally Mania...
There's nothings for sure. There you go. So we'll see. That's fantastic. We'll see. All right. Well, just like WrestleMania, we never know what's going to happen. Monday Night Raw tonight. You guys enjoy it. Enjoy your trips home. I'm about to go to this Netflix brunch, man. Get some bags and bacon. You guys rolling? You want to roll? Yes. Netflix brunch?
There's a brunch at the MGM Grand we're going to have. Fancy you. I'm going to go home. People got to hear this, so I'll chop it up and then I'll. All right, y'all. Go ahead. I'll see y'all at Ross. Guys. brunch. What is it? The Tiger King there? Hey, they cut us a nice check for Wally Mania, so I want to make sure those guys are happy. I've met a lot of wonderful Netflix people this weekend. It was great. It was great to me. Yeah, yeah. We met a lot of suits this weekend.
So WrestleMania is about. It's the yearly wrestling convention. Actually, this might be the lowest number of literal suits. in Wrestlemania history in terms of like the people that we sometimes read photos with. That's true. That's true. Dressed casually. Yeah. I did talk to these two at that world, which was a unique conversation. He wasn't trying to hear. I wasn't.
looking for spoilers. He still gave a spoiler for the set. Yeah, I was like, yeah, I gotta get out of here. Who's giving any spoilers? Big, big H. Oh. Yeah. That's for another episode. Then we'll talk about that later. Let's wrap this up. Oh yeah, I saw former WrestleMania superstar Stephen Amell on both nights. He's a friend of the show. He's a great dude. Bring back heels.
Former Masked Man show regular Steve Kazee was hanging out back there. Israel Adesanya was back there. He was wrestling. Friend of Kaz, Israel Adesanya, which is incredible. We'll call him a friend of the show. He's a friend of the show. I'm trying to get him to wrestle, man. It's like, yo, go eat.
No, this is your future. You can do this. Kill this. Oh, God. He would be the best. He's much more stout than you think. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He's got the personality for it, too. I think he'd be great. Anyway, thank you guys for listening. Thank you. three sitting in front of me, Brian, Kaz, Ben.
being my tag team partners thanks to Cal too as always enjoy your plane flight Cal of course thank you all for listening guys we heard it from the horse's mouth Finn Balor is going to be okay Finn Balor is going to be okay and shout out to everybody we ran into this weekend everyone that showed so much
Love in person at the meet and greet as well. Everybody that showed up. Oh, yeah. Thank you to everybody that showed up. We ran into half those guys again, like walking into WrestleMania. It was so fun. Yeah, yeah. So we appreciate the support as always, man. And, you know, doing this thing is so fun. And it's nothing more.
Nothing more fun than these weekends where we can get out, see some wrestling in person, and see you guys in person. So keep supporting. And thanks to everybody who pulled up on the shows this weekend. There's a million interviews, but man, it was so much fun.