April 3, 2024 • 23 mins
Nick Piccone joins Jon Jansen to recap the go-home episode of Monday Night Raw as #WrestleMania weekend really starts Friday with #WWESmackDown and the Hall of Fame ceremony, expectations coming out of WrestleMania, and more!
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(00:00):
Once again. That's top Doug lawdot com. The free iHeart Radio app
has over one hundred commercial free stationswaiting for you to explore right now,
like all two k Do you wantto be an American? A commercial free
look back to alternative from the twothousands, the Food Fighters, Weezer,
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Just open the free iHeartRadio app searchall two K. Listen now iHeart Radio
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Wrestler Thanks again to damn good buddy. I haven't spoken to him. I
saw the messages and the dms.I haven't spoken to him in a few
years. So it's great to talkwith Kevin Kellum again now with sports Key
to to Wrestling, formerly with meover at wrestle Zone with wrestle Zone Radio.
The good days of my wrestling notreporting, but my wrestling coverage,
(01:11):
I guess you could say, butjoining me right now. You know his
voice and you also know his Twitteraccount at Underscore pecone he has all the
great Phillies videos with the broadcasters,but also the Great Shooters radio podcast what
it's called The Straight Shooters I calledShooters Radio, Nick, what should I
call it? Sean? And Idebated that today what do we call it?
(01:36):
Okay for a sticking because even itfelt like you didn't know I had
a I meat my mic, soI had to find on me. I
think you're hesitating, Like what doI call it now? So? Uh
yeah? I like it was funnybecause we tried to almost rebrand it a
little bit to the Shooters Pod becauseit's more of a podcast now. It
wasn't it used to be live radio, but it wasn't, you know,
technically radio anymore. But Shooters dothis is all an illusion what we're doing
(02:02):
here. I like it. It'sso straight. Shooters is fine, but
Shooters Radio I like it. Likethat's yeah, it's funny because every time
I hear saw him do it,he's like ba man. It just makes
me think of that and Cactus Jack, and like, okay, I like
it. Shooters Radio at Shooters Radiois where you can follow the pod at
Underscore pecone and Nick pecon what Iwant you to do here on the line
(02:24):
change with me. We had thefinal Monday Night raw before Wrestlemingium. Now
SmackDown feels too much like a Maniathing that feels like part of the media
weekend. So I smacked down,SmackDown, Yeah, exactly. So this
was like the last show before allthe WrestleMania things kick off. So I
(02:45):
do want to ask the first questionbecause rock I was saying it was that
the greatest Monday Night raw of alltime? No, okay, no it
wasn't. I mean, it's beenentertaining lately, but I heard Jason say
and Sean mentioned it during your interviewwith Jason Salomon. It is kind of
prisoner of the moment ish, itdoes feel like because we've waited so long
(03:06):
for w to have good and compellingcontent. So I think that's a big
part of what this weekend is iscertainly feeling like, yeah, so they're
back right right, So one ofthe best raws, like the best Role
of all time already happened, youknow, like and in this moment,
and it's possible we'll see the bestRole of all time in the future.
(03:30):
But it was good, but itwasn't the best Role of all time.
Okay, maybe it wasn't the bestraw of all time, but it was
very good. Now, the firstthing I want to start off with because
it's it's basically a Rocky flair.It's a very wrestling Philly thing that they're
doing here. Sammy's a and ChadGable was absolutely phenomenal. They basically played
(03:53):
the hits of every Rocky film thatis that has been made. They did
the Rocky three things like I YearGunther the same way that Rocky feared Mister
T in Rocky Number three? Whatdid you make? Because it was it
was really well done video. Theyhad a couple of these video packages where
they basically recorded a segment and that'swhat they put out there and it was
(04:13):
very good. But are you feelingthe whole Sammy's Ain Rocky thing? Is
it working for you? No?No, But you know it's hard.
It's hard to get him back tothe point where he was with me like
last year. And I think alot of people that you know, this
is a fun story, you feellike they're like nailing it on the head
too much, not nailing it onthat, but it's a too much of
(04:35):
a obviously we know what this isand what you're going for the whole Rocky
thing. It's just and also feltlike it came together rather quickly, like
a month ago. I didn't reallyget that sentiment that it was a rocky
type story for Sammy's ain not untilmaybe two weeks ago. So it does
feel kind of almost a story that'slike, what could we do to Philly
(05:00):
Eyes. It's you know, lackof a better word, right, Philly
eyes it and let's break the rockystory and Sammy could do that with goother
And so that's almost kind of whatit feels like to me. So it
hasn't really gravitated towards me in termsof like me, well, I know
Jason have mentioned that's the match islooking forward to the most this weekend.
(05:21):
That's the I'm looking at you rightnow. I mean, like, not
the match I'm looking forward to themost, Like it'll be a good match,
it's all. I mean, Idon't think what you're looking for this
is going to be the best matchof the weekend. And listen, like
they have every opportunity to do that. I mean, those two talents can
(05:42):
absolutely do that. But going intoit right now Tuesday night, I don't
think that's kind of like what's goingto happen. But I've been wrong before,
you know, I could be wrongagain. But I also don't think
there's going to lose, and thatkind of takes some of the luster away
for me personally. I don't thinkI don't see him losing, So this
(06:04):
whole story with Sammy is possibly whyit's not resonating with me. Yeah,
I don't. To me, therewere some parts of it I really liked.
I just think Sammy's sing's great,so I think anything he does there
there's a certain level of like,I think this guy's just top quality when
it comes to whether promos or thesevideo packages or wrestling. It was all
(06:26):
great and he had a good matchwith Bronson read last night. I know
it ended in no contest, butit was it was it was fine.
Like everything Sammy does, I thinkthere is always a level of quality to
it that I appreciate. The wholeRocky thing kind of nailed it on the
head too much. It felt itfelt a little corn It felt parody,
which I kind of didn't like,because you're right, I mean, he's
always had this underdscerd samy Z tome has been the best underdog wrestler since
(06:47):
he was an NXT, all theway up to now. And like you
just said, last year, withthe whole bloodline thing. He was doing.
Everything to me that Sammy Zen hasdone has always been He's the greatest
underdog in wrestling, But I knowDaniel Bryan could be. You could say,
I don't think anybody has been theunderdog as long has been able to
hit that note as much and aswell as Sammy's ain has. But now
it's just okay, you're hitting thehead now on the head way too clearly
(07:11):
with the whole Rocky thing. Now, Yeah, and a lot of people
kind of bought into the the storyChad Gable was trying to tell a little
bit like this means more to me, Like it just means more, and
he got his shot and then helost, but maybe like he comes back
and people kind of put the Rockystory together with d It's like, because
(07:31):
Rocky lost, right even though hehung with he lost it first, and
that's kind of like it almost makesmore sense for that to be Chad's story
and then finally beating Gunther. Somaybe they're going to go that way in
the future. But that's kind ofwhat people kind of wanted to see it
WrestleMania, and that's almost why Ifeel like there's a not a backlash to
(07:55):
Sammy Sammy because people love him andfor good reason, like he eates with
the fans, but they wanted tosee Chad Gable in that spot a majority,
I think, so it could bea possibility why it's not not the
hottest story heading into WrestleMania weekend.Let's get to the start of the show,
(08:16):
and really, I think this ismostly what I'm going to talk about
with moneynt Raw was everything with theBloodline. But they kick it off and
it's the Rock and he's doing theRock and it's amazing, crowd loves it,
crowds into it, and then RomanRain comes out and it's fine.
Roman Rains has been doing the samething he's been before and previous since he's
had the title, and it's good. And I asked Jason Salomon this,
and I want to ask you aswell, because I thought last night was
(08:39):
to me, finally the first timeit really clicked of Maybe it's not a
good thing. The Rock is overshadowingRoman Reigns so much. Do you feel
like that's happening? And has itbecome a detriment to the match itself.
In the main event of Night two, which is going to be Cody and
Roman reigns for the title. Ithink for the most part, it's been
fine. You know, it's beenable to build the match. But now
(09:01):
I want this match to be thebiggest thing, and it feels like the
biggest thing right now isn't the match, it's actually the Rock. The Rock
is making himself like overshadowing this wholething. I do wonder if that's all
by design. You know, alot of people thought Cody stepping down to
give Rock that you know, spotthe week after the Rumble all by design.
(09:24):
Just wait, just wait, andthen it kind of it still doesn't
make a whole ton of sense.I never really explained why Cody did that
in the first place. So butnow we're here, we're weak out WrestleMania.
I guess we can't harp on that, right. So I do think
it's probably part of the story,the Rock doing this because and Roman,
(09:48):
I mean, he acknowledged Romans,So I don't know, maybe that's all
Roman wanted, and this is allin the like story I'm trying to make
sense of a little bit it,like, is that all Roman wanted is
the Rock to acknowledge him, andnow he just take a back seat like
he doesn't need to work as hardto go against Seth and Cody because you
(10:11):
know, he's got his family doingit for him, doing it for him.
But again, you're right, becauseit kind of lost it's luster a
little bit. Roman's entrance even likethem, But it feels like the Rocks
doing every single thing Roman did andis doing it Rocks way and better.
You know, I think the thingthat's that is good is it's still helping
(10:35):
Cody. Cody is massive, moremassive than he's ever been, even that
the pop last night he had.I mean, everything's huge with Cody Roan.
We knew it was coming too,and he still gets that pop.
Yeah, it's an incredible, incrediblepop. So it's not him that is
also taking the kind of that it'snot a detriment to him. He's still
huge, crowd loves him. Theyeven still love him over the Rock even
(10:58):
though the Rock was get a lotof cheers earlier they were he was getting
booed and it's a lot of itbecause of Cody. But Roman Reigns feels
like he's the one who's kind ofgetting the brunt of of all of this,
that he's that that he's not shiningas much as he should. So
that's the kind of it came tomy head last night. But we do
have the match at the end weit was seth thro All in Solazakoa and
(11:18):
then the whole beatdown. They've they'vetaken quite the beating. Cody Rhoades has
taken quite the beating. What doesthat mean for those two? What does
that mean? I guess for thethe two main event matches that we're going
to have in night and one andtwo? How is this? Was this
playing? I was just setting up. I think before yesterday I was kind
of like ify on it because I'mlike, what are they really doing?
(11:39):
Like, well, do they wantto make Cody look weak or strong heading
into Mania? Because you know,usually the person that stands sold on the
go home show is the one thatloses. So you weren't exactly sure they
were, Like you thought maybe Codywould come out on raw beat up and
the bloodline the rock and Roman andthen they would do the stare down.
(12:00):
That's not what happened, you know. They they gave you that moment of
hope, like if you're a Codycry baby, and they took it away,
you know, and That's that Ibelieve is all by design because we
saw and I know Jason said it, and this is the sentiment I've seen
a lot today. That's what BloodlineRules is going to look like. Right,
(12:20):
So if Rock and Roman win nightone, it's in your mind already
what's going to happen night two orat least the high Jains. Yeah,
how it's going to go down?Right? You start to play, start
to play the same notes from nightone over again in night two, but
again the roles reversed and then maybehelp comes. And this is also the
first year they're kind of doing it. Whatever happens night one has an effect
(12:41):
on night two, and I dothink people are interested in that, whether
Cody and Seth win or lose.So the blood Line Rules is, I
think, a way to make peoplefeel even less like confident that Cody is
going to win, because again,it could have easily been okay, if
(13:03):
Rock and Roman beat you, thenyou don't get a title match all night
too, and they didn't go thatroute for a reason. They did the
Bloodline Rules. So I do thinkI mean, prediction wise, you know,
I haven't really sent out predictions yet, but judging how the way Raw
ended, I can assume that Roomand a Rock are gonna win, but
(13:24):
it's somehow going to not be whatthey expected night too, Like it's going
to backfire in some way. AndI'm not saying these people are going to
show up, you know, I'mnot saying these two legends are going up.
John Cena is showing up for CodyRhodes. So, uh, you
know, I do think that that'san interesting wrinkle that we haven't seen since
(13:46):
WrestleMania has been two nights. SoI'm interested to see how that plays out.
And I do think it's kind ofgiving you that that vibe that Cody's
gonna do this. Cody's going todo it, and I He's gonna put
it. If he doesn't, wegot problems, that's for Cody. Roads
is absolutely gonna do it. Sois this is this coming into Mania?
(14:07):
You know, this is the finalRaw and again to me, it's being
called WrestleMania SmackDown. They're gonna havethe I think the Andre the Giant battle
Roy. That's basically WrestleMania week tome. So heading into WrestleMania weekend,
is this bloodline storyline? How bigdo you think it's gotten is it?
Is it now white hot to you? And how significant is this storyline?
(14:28):
But to me it certainly is.It really ramped up when the Rock ended
up beating down Cody Roads. Ithink that was on was on SmackDown Raw
last week? Whatever that was like, yeah, Raw last week, that
to me started and kickstarted again thatthis is now we're we're getting down the
home stretch. This is for real, this is happening. How massive it
is with the Rock being involved,all of it felt big. So it
(14:50):
started for me last week and itcarried over into this week in Raw and
now carrying into WrestleMania. How areyou feeling about this whole setup for the
main event as we were heading intoWrestleMania weekend? It definitely brought back some
of the you know thing that wasmissing in the Bloodline story for the last
few months. Definitely cooled off sinceSummerSlam, and again it got pretty hot
(15:16):
in the what was it called theWrestleMania kickoff show. It was the one
that they did in Vegas during superBowl week that got real hot and that
I mean that was the headlines everywhere. It was headlines like crazy because they
called the Audible essentially and made CodyRhodes back into the main event instead of
just Rock and Roman, and sothat kicked things off. But ever since
then, it took a while tokind of build back up to a cohesive
(15:39):
story I guess, like a storythat was worth investing in because they essentially
had to change it all on thespot there. Yeah, and they don't.
You know, we heard it's goingto be Rock and Roman at some
point. You know, it didn'thappen last year, but we were told,
like that's the match that they're goingto have eventually, it's going to
be Rock and Roman, and theytease it, but we never really thought
about what if they're like together firstas like a unit, cohesive unit,
(16:04):
and then split that way. AndI remember saying, you know, a
few months ago on the Straight Shooters, I don't I never really thought that
they could do a story in threemonths. So you have the Rock come
back January first, right, say, you know, plant that seed?
Do I sit at the bar thetable or do I sit at the bar
(16:26):
the booth or the head of thetable that's the seed plant? And I'm
like, I don't know, fora WrestleMania main event, can you really
build something for three months. Ididn't buy it. I was like,
no, like that's got to bea longer story. But I think the
Rock he's been showing up, andI think like maybe that was their plan,
Like they definitely could build a threemonth story between them. That seed
(16:49):
was one thing, and it wasa small seed. But then it just
felt like when they first initially CodyRhodes won the Rumble and said I got
another surprise for you, it feltforce like if they were really heavy handed
with okay, Rock wants to challengeRoman, then fine, but it was
it felt forced. It felt reallyforced that you just plant the small seed.
(17:10):
Cody Rhads wins Rumble and everybody wantsCody because that's what rumble is.
You win the Rumble, you gomain event, and Cody Roads still has
this ongoing thing story with Roman reignsdo it and then it was like,
oh, now we're going to forcefeed you Roman and Rock actually instead.
So that's the problem I had withit. It was very, very forced,
and there were people say, oh, Cody could go after sets title.
It's like, no, that's notthe story here, that's not the
(17:34):
title he wants. And he's mentionedbefore, you know, that's Cody went
in that title, would it beeven worse for him? And I did
say he was like a dead characterafter last year's WrestleMania, And I'm eating
Crow for that because arguably he's betterthan he was a year ago, in
a better spot. But that's becausehe has to finish a story now.
(17:55):
He can't wait another year to dothat. He can't even wait later this
year to do that, like summeror something. It's got to be this
weekend. So you know, havingthat, and like people cheered just because
it's the Rock, right, youknow, he hadn't been on TV.
You know, now he's on SmackDown, and I mean he's he's made some
appearances sporadically the last few months.Even before that. You know, when
(18:18):
they were in Denver, he justrandomly shows up because he's in the Denver
area. So I get that,But it's more when you're you're teasing that
WrestleMania main event and it's him andRoman face to face, Roman looking surprised
and stuff, and you're like,Okay, like maybe I do want this,
And that's kind of I think whatthey were playing with because they're like
(18:38):
it was almost like a Vince McMahan. It's like thought process of no,
no, no, you don't wantwhat you want, you want what I
want, and what I want youyou'll see, you'll see it exactly,
like you want this more than youknow. And it's like, well,
you know, not really because peoplewere way behind Cody at that point.
If it was anyone else might nothave reacted as strongly. Man, I
(19:03):
feel great if you're a Cody,this whole thing changing because you were that
good. You were that good,You are so over this point. You're
that over at this point that theRock came back and everybody said, hell,
no, we don't want that guyin the main event, Are you
kidding me? Like the rock cameback and we all said, nah,
we don't really want that right now, do that another time exactly. And
(19:26):
so that's why I think it was. Uh, their pivot was about as
good as it can get, honestly, if they really decide that, it
could have been better. But knowingwhat has been where it is now,
it's as best as it could havegotten with the short amount of time in
the again exactly, and it's stillOh so I wanted to move on because
(19:47):
we got to go soon. ButI wanted to because we got Night one
and Night two cards and I askedthis to Jason. I want to ask
it to you because I think thisis, uh, this is a tight
one. And I thought last yearNight one was definitely better than Night too
easily. Is looking at the cardsnow Night one and Night two, which
card do you think is better?Because I got big, I did not
see the card. How did younot see the card? They showed it
(20:11):
on Monday night? Were all lastnight? They got to know I almost
have paid attention and you're, yeah, yeah, I'll get to that later.
I'll just so look, the matchI want to see is Rock and
Rolling versus Cody Seth. That's likeI'm going chalk. I guess you could,
you could say, right, becausethat's gonna affect the Night two.
Uh, you know any other match, Like they don't have a bad match,
(20:34):
but for me personally, like that'sthe one that it's got the entrances,
you know, like it's all anevent surrounding the match you got.
I don't think you're gonna have Rockand Roman come out together, so you're
gonna have like two separate entrances forthat. Cody and Seth obviously they're great
entrances, and the crowd's gonna gonuts up. They might do this stare,
(20:57):
stare down and then stare at thecrew out thing like we've seen that.
So I mean, like that hasall the grandeur of a WrestleMania main
event on Night one, And sothat's where you know, only two of
those people are going to be involvedin the main event and night well,
I guess you know it's Cody versusRoman. They're all going to be involved,
(21:17):
I'm sure, And that's but that'slike the genesis of how like two
can go. So you know,that's that's kind of where I'm at mentally
why I'm looking forward to that matchmore than any other. Yeah, they
the undercard for Night one seems waymore loaded than the Night two. But
(21:40):
the two matches that are going tobasically main event this that are going to
be the last two or at leastthe two biggest matches Seth Rollins and Drew
McIntyre, Roman Rains Cody Rhodes.That is I know it's top heavy,
but damn that's pretty good. Andeven you know Sky Bailey on that as
well, Like I love that.I don't care about Logan Paul anything Logan,
Paul, I'm out. I can't. I can't stand it. Don't
give me that. I the icytitle between Gunther and Sammy's Aine is going
(22:03):
to be better than that. Butyeah, I think it's certainly Night one,
I think is a fuller card.Night two is top heavy, but
I want to go Night too becauseI think those two top heavy matches are
the ones A lot I think is. You know, that's definitely still the
show, so I don't feel likewe're talking about that enough as a show.
(22:26):
I haven't thought about the blood line. That's the blood line is involved
in that. So we'll probably seesolo, you know, and maybe somebody
else will get introduced, because Iknow there's a swirling about adding to the
blood lines. So you know itshould be interesting. Yeah, it'll be
very interesting. Always interesting when Iget to talk to you, Nick pecone
add to underscore pecone at Shooters Radio, the Straight Shooters podcast is going to
(22:51):
be on all week, not today, but it'll be on tomorrow, Thursday,
I think even Friday. We havea bunch of Shooters Radio episodes that
we have. We played the partone of the time forty matches in WrestleMania
History. We're going to be playingpart two very soon as well. Also
Nick part of the round table.Don't know if the schedules are going to
work with Nick on the round tablefor uh this week. We'll try.
(23:12):
We're gonna try and do everything wecan, but at least we got a
raw recap from Nick pecon Nick,thank you, and maybe enjoy the night
off from doing highlight videos for thePhillies because I don't think that's gonna be
happening today or at least broadcast.I would have loved to do it last
night. I would have loved todo a Flyers one last night, but
they let me down. So yeah, I'll in the corner. Wait maybe
(23:33):
well, you know what won't letyou down. Wrestleman won't. But Nick,
thank you so much. I appreciateyou for coming on the show today.
Thanks man, Thanks for having thatis. Nick Pconon adds Underscore pecone
coming up next. It is goingto be Roy Burton and guests as he
gets you, as he gets youready for WrestleMania forty. That's coming up
next. Here on the game,when perfect is in the air, you
(23:53):
can feel it presenting the ultimate comfortsystem
Once again. That's top Doug lawdot com. The free iHeart Radio app
has over one hundred commercial free stationswaiting for you to explore right now,
like all two k Do you wantto be an American? A commercial free
look back to alternative from the twothousands, the Food Fighters, Weezer,
Lincoln Park, Green Day, theRed Hot Chili Peppers, and more.
(00:24):
Just open the free iHeartRadio app searchall two K. Listen now iHeart Radio
free never sounded so good. iHeartRadio line changes rolling on here on the
(00:49):
Wrestler Thanks again to damn good buddy. I haven't spoken to him. I
saw the messages and the dms.I haven't spoken to him in a few
years. So it's great to talkwith Kevin Kellum again now with sports Key
to to Wrestling, formerly with meover at wrestle Zone with wrestle Zone Radio.
The good days of my wrestling notreporting, but my wrestling coverage,
(01:11):
I guess you could say, butjoining me right now. You know his
voice and you also know his Twitteraccount at Underscore pecone he has all the
great Phillies videos with the broadcasters,but also the Great Shooters radio podcast what
it's called The Straight Shooters I calledShooters Radio, Nick, what should I
call it? Sean? And Idebated that today what do we call it?
(01:36):
Okay for a sticking because even itfelt like you didn't know I had
a I meat my mic, soI had to find on me. I
think you're hesitating, Like what doI call it now? So? Uh
yeah? I like it was funnybecause we tried to almost rebrand it a
little bit to the Shooters Pod becauseit's more of a podcast now. It
wasn't it used to be live radio, but it wasn't, you know,
technically radio anymore. But Shooters dothis is all an illusion what we're doing
(02:02):
here. I like it. It'sso straight. Shooters is fine, but
Shooters Radio I like it. Likethat's yeah, it's funny because every time
I hear saw him do it,he's like ba man. It just makes
me think of that and Cactus Jack, and like, okay, I like
it. Shooters Radio at Shooters Radiois where you can follow the pod at
Underscore pecone and Nick pecon what Iwant you to do here on the line
(02:24):
change with me. We had thefinal Monday Night raw before Wrestlemingium. Now
SmackDown feels too much like a Maniathing that feels like part of the media
weekend. So I smacked down,SmackDown, Yeah, exactly. So this
was like the last show before allthe WrestleMania things kick off. So I
(02:45):
do want to ask the first questionbecause rock I was saying it was that
the greatest Monday Night raw of alltime? No, okay, no it
wasn't. I mean, it's beenentertaining lately, but I heard Jason say
and Sean mentioned it during your interviewwith Jason Salomon. It is kind of
prisoner of the moment ish, itdoes feel like because we've waited so long
(03:06):
for w to have good and compellingcontent. So I think that's a big
part of what this weekend is iscertainly feeling like, yeah, so they're
back right right, So one ofthe best raws, like the best Role
of all time already happened, youknow, like and in this moment,
and it's possible we'll see the bestRole of all time in the future.
(03:30):
But it was good, but itwasn't the best Role of all time.
Okay, maybe it wasn't the bestraw of all time, but it was
very good. Now, the firstthing I want to start off with because
it's it's basically a Rocky flair.It's a very wrestling Philly thing that they're
doing here. Sammy's a and ChadGable was absolutely phenomenal. They basically played
(03:53):
the hits of every Rocky film thatis that has been made. They did
the Rocky three things like I YearGunther the same way that Rocky feared Mister
T in Rocky Number three? Whatdid you make? Because it was it
was really well done video. Theyhad a couple of these video packages where
they basically recorded a segment and that'swhat they put out there and it was
(04:13):
very good. But are you feelingthe whole Sammy's Ain Rocky thing? Is
it working for you? No?No, But you know it's hard.
It's hard to get him back tothe point where he was with me like
last year. And I think alot of people that you know, this
is a fun story, you feellike they're like nailing it on the head
too much, not nailing it onthat, but it's a too much of
(04:35):
a obviously we know what this isand what you're going for the whole Rocky
thing. It's just and also feltlike it came together rather quickly, like
a month ago. I didn't reallyget that sentiment that it was a rocky
type story for Sammy's ain not untilmaybe two weeks ago. So it does
feel kind of almost a story that'slike, what could we do to Philly
(05:00):
Eyes. It's you know, lackof a better word, right, Philly
eyes it and let's break the rockystory and Sammy could do that with goother
And so that's almost kind of whatit feels like to me. So it
hasn't really gravitated towards me in termsof like me, well, I know
Jason have mentioned that's the match islooking forward to the most this weekend.
(05:21):
That's the I'm looking at you rightnow. I mean, like, not
the match I'm looking forward to themost, Like it'll be a good match,
it's all. I mean, Idon't think what you're looking for this
is going to be the best matchof the weekend. And listen, like
they have every opportunity to do that. I mean, those two talents can
(05:42):
absolutely do that. But going intoit right now Tuesday night, I don't
think that's kind of like what's goingto happen. But I've been wrong before,
you know, I could be wrongagain. But I also don't think
there's going to lose, and thatkind of takes some of the luster away
for me personally. I don't thinkI don't see him losing, So this
(06:04):
whole story with Sammy is possibly whyit's not resonating with me. Yeah,
I don't. To me, therewere some parts of it I really liked.
I just think Sammy's sing's great,so I think anything he does there
there's a certain level of like,I think this guy's just top quality when
it comes to whether promos or thesevideo packages or wrestling. It was all
(06:26):
great and he had a good matchwith Bronson read last night. I know
it ended in no contest, butit was it was it was fine.
Like everything Sammy does, I thinkthere is always a level of quality to
it that I appreciate. The wholeRocky thing kind of nailed it on the
head too much. It felt itfelt a little corn It felt parody,
which I kind of didn't like,because you're right, I mean, he's
always had this underdscerd samy Z tome has been the best underdog wrestler since
(06:47):
he was an NXT, all theway up to now. And like you
just said, last year, withthe whole bloodline thing. He was doing.
Everything to me that Sammy Zen hasdone has always been He's the greatest
underdog in wrestling, But I knowDaniel Bryan could be. You could say,
I don't think anybody has been theunderdog as long has been able to
hit that note as much and aswell as Sammy's ain has. But now
it's just okay, you're hitting thehead now on the head way too clearly
(07:11):
with the whole Rocky thing. Now, Yeah, and a lot of people
kind of bought into the the storyChad Gable was trying to tell a little
bit like this means more to me, Like it just means more, and
he got his shot and then helost, but maybe like he comes back
and people kind of put the Rockystory together with d It's like, because
(07:31):
Rocky lost, right even though hehung with he lost it first, and
that's kind of like it almost makesmore sense for that to be Chad's story
and then finally beating Gunther. Somaybe they're going to go that way in
the future. But that's kind ofwhat people kind of wanted to see it
WrestleMania, and that's almost why Ifeel like there's a not a backlash to
(07:55):
Sammy Sammy because people love him andfor good reason, like he eates with
the fans, but they wanted tosee Chad Gable in that spot a majority,
I think, so it could bea possibility why it's not not the
hottest story heading into WrestleMania weekend.Let's get to the start of the show,
(08:16):
and really, I think this ismostly what I'm going to talk about
with moneynt Raw was everything with theBloodline. But they kick it off and
it's the Rock and he's doing theRock and it's amazing, crowd loves it,
crowds into it, and then RomanRain comes out and it's fine.
Roman Rains has been doing the samething he's been before and previous since he's
had the title, and it's good. And I asked Jason Salomon this,
and I want to ask you aswell, because I thought last night was
(08:39):
to me, finally the first timeit really clicked of Maybe it's not a
good thing. The Rock is overshadowingRoman Reigns so much. Do you feel
like that's happening? And has itbecome a detriment to the match itself.
In the main event of Night two, which is going to be Cody and
Roman reigns for the title. Ithink for the most part, it's been
fine. You know, it's beenable to build the match. But now
(09:01):
I want this match to be thebiggest thing, and it feels like the
biggest thing right now isn't the match, it's actually the Rock. The Rock
is making himself like overshadowing this wholething. I do wonder if that's all
by design. You know, alot of people thought Cody stepping down to
give Rock that you know, spotthe week after the Rumble all by design.
(09:24):
Just wait, just wait, andthen it kind of it still doesn't
make a whole ton of sense.I never really explained why Cody did that
in the first place. So butnow we're here, we're weak out WrestleMania.
I guess we can't harp on that, right. So I do think
it's probably part of the story,the Rock doing this because and Roman,
(09:48):
I mean, he acknowledged Romans,So I don't know, maybe that's all
Roman wanted, and this is allin the like story I'm trying to make
sense of a little bit it,like, is that all Roman wanted is
the Rock to acknowledge him, andnow he just take a back seat like
he doesn't need to work as hardto go against Seth and Cody because you
(10:11):
know, he's got his family doingit for him, doing it for him.
But again, you're right, becauseit kind of lost it's luster a
little bit. Roman's entrance even likethem, But it feels like the Rocks
doing every single thing Roman did andis doing it Rocks way and better.
You know, I think the thingthat's that is good is it's still helping
(10:35):
Cody. Cody is massive, moremassive than he's ever been, even that
the pop last night he had.I mean, everything's huge with Cody Roan.
We knew it was coming too,and he still gets that pop.
Yeah, it's an incredible, incrediblepop. So it's not him that is
also taking the kind of that it'snot a detriment to him. He's still
huge, crowd loves him. Theyeven still love him over the Rock even
(10:58):
though the Rock was get a lotof cheers earlier they were he was getting
booed and it's a lot of itbecause of Cody. But Roman Reigns feels
like he's the one who's kind ofgetting the brunt of of all of this,
that he's that that he's not shiningas much as he should. So
that's the kind of it came tomy head last night. But we do
have the match at the end weit was seth thro All in Solazakoa and
(11:18):
then the whole beatdown. They've they'vetaken quite the beating. Cody Rhoades has
taken quite the beating. What doesthat mean for those two? What does
that mean? I guess for thethe two main event matches that we're going
to have in night and one andtwo? How is this? Was this
playing? I was just setting up. I think before yesterday I was kind
of like ify on it because I'mlike, what are they really doing?
(11:39):
Like, well, do they wantto make Cody look weak or strong heading
into Mania? Because you know,usually the person that stands sold on the
go home show is the one thatloses. So you weren't exactly sure they
were, Like you thought maybe Codywould come out on raw beat up and
the bloodline the rock and Roman andthen they would do the stare down.
(12:00):
That's not what happened, you know. They they gave you that moment of
hope, like if you're a Codycry baby, and they took it away,
you know, and That's that Ibelieve is all by design because we
saw and I know Jason said it, and this is the sentiment I've seen
a lot today. That's what BloodlineRules is going to look like. Right,
(12:20):
So if Rock and Roman win nightone, it's in your mind already
what's going to happen night two orat least the high Jains. Yeah,
how it's going to go down?Right? You start to play, start
to play the same notes from nightone over again in night two, but
again the roles reversed and then maybehelp comes. And this is also the
first year they're kind of doing it. Whatever happens night one has an effect
(12:41):
on night two, and I dothink people are interested in that, whether
Cody and Seth win or lose.So the blood Line Rules is, I
think, a way to make peoplefeel even less like confident that Cody is
going to win, because again,it could have easily been okay, if
(13:03):
Rock and Roman beat you, thenyou don't get a title match all night
too, and they didn't go thatroute for a reason. They did the
Bloodline Rules. So I do thinkI mean, prediction wise, you know,
I haven't really sent out predictions yet, but judging how the way Raw
ended, I can assume that Roomand a Rock are gonna win, but
(13:24):
it's somehow going to not be whatthey expected night too, Like it's going
to backfire in some way. AndI'm not saying these people are going to
show up, you know, I'mnot saying these two legends are going up.
John Cena is showing up for CodyRhodes. So, uh, you
know, I do think that that'san interesting wrinkle that we haven't seen since
(13:46):
WrestleMania has been two nights. SoI'm interested to see how that plays out.
And I do think it's kind ofgiving you that that vibe that Cody's
gonna do this. Cody's going todo it, and I He's gonna put
it. If he doesn't, wegot problems, that's for Cody. Roads
is absolutely gonna do it. Sois this is this coming into Mania?
(14:07):
You know, this is the finalRaw and again to me, it's being
called WrestleMania SmackDown. They're gonna havethe I think the Andre the Giant battle
Roy. That's basically WrestleMania week tome. So heading into WrestleMania weekend,
is this bloodline storyline? How bigdo you think it's gotten is it?
Is it now white hot to you? And how significant is this storyline?
(14:28):
But to me it certainly is.It really ramped up when the Rock ended
up beating down Cody Roads. Ithink that was on was on SmackDown Raw
last week? Whatever that was like, yeah, Raw last week, that
to me started and kickstarted again thatthis is now we're we're getting down the
home stretch. This is for real, this is happening. How massive it
is with the Rock being involved,all of it felt big. So it
(14:50):
started for me last week and itcarried over into this week in Raw and
now carrying into WrestleMania. How areyou feeling about this whole setup for the
main event as we were heading intoWrestleMania weekend? It definitely brought back some
of the you know thing that wasmissing in the Bloodline story for the last
few months. Definitely cooled off sinceSummerSlam, and again it got pretty hot
(15:16):
in the what was it called theWrestleMania kickoff show. It was the one
that they did in Vegas during superBowl week that got real hot and that
I mean that was the headlines everywhere. It was headlines like crazy because they
called the Audible essentially and made CodyRhodes back into the main event instead of
just Rock and Roman, and sothat kicked things off. But ever since
then, it took a while tokind of build back up to a cohesive
(15:39):
story I guess, like a storythat was worth investing in because they essentially
had to change it all on thespot there. Yeah, and they don't.
You know, we heard it's goingto be Rock and Roman at some
point. You know, it didn'thappen last year, but we were told,
like that's the match that they're goingto have eventually, it's going to
be Rock and Roman, and theytease it, but we never really thought
about what if they're like together firstas like a unit, cohesive unit,
(16:04):
and then split that way. AndI remember saying, you know, a
few months ago on the Straight Shooters, I don't I never really thought that
they could do a story in threemonths. So you have the Rock come
back January first, right, say, you know, plant that seed?
Do I sit at the bar thetable or do I sit at the bar
(16:26):
the booth or the head of thetable that's the seed plant? And I'm
like, I don't know, fora WrestleMania main event, can you really
build something for three months. Ididn't buy it. I was like,
no, like that's got to bea longer story. But I think the
Rock he's been showing up, andI think like maybe that was their plan,
Like they definitely could build a threemonth story between them. That seed
(16:49):
was one thing, and it wasa small seed. But then it just
felt like when they first initially CodyRhodes won the Rumble and said I got
another surprise for you, it feltforce like if they were really heavy handed
with okay, Rock wants to challengeRoman, then fine, but it was
it felt forced. It felt reallyforced that you just plant the small seed.
(17:10):
Cody Rhads wins Rumble and everybody wantsCody because that's what rumble is.
You win the Rumble, you gomain event, and Cody Roads still has
this ongoing thing story with Roman reignsdo it and then it was like,
oh, now we're going to forcefeed you Roman and Rock actually instead.
So that's the problem I had withit. It was very, very forced,
and there were people say, oh, Cody could go after sets title.
It's like, no, that's notthe story here, that's not the
(17:34):
title he wants. And he's mentionedbefore, you know, that's Cody went
in that title, would it beeven worse for him? And I did
say he was like a dead characterafter last year's WrestleMania, And I'm eating
Crow for that because arguably he's betterthan he was a year ago, in
a better spot. But that's becausehe has to finish a story now.
(17:55):
He can't wait another year to dothat. He can't even wait later this
year to do that, like summeror something. It's got to be this
weekend. So you know, havingthat, and like people cheered just because
it's the Rock, right, youknow, he hadn't been on TV.
You know, now he's on SmackDown, and I mean he's he's made some
appearances sporadically the last few months.Even before that. You know, when
(18:18):
they were in Denver, he justrandomly shows up because he's in the Denver
area. So I get that,But it's more when you're you're teasing that
WrestleMania main event and it's him andRoman face to face, Roman looking surprised
and stuff, and you're like,Okay, like maybe I do want this,
And that's kind of I think whatthey were playing with because they're like
(18:38):
it was almost like a Vince McMahan. It's like thought process of no,
no, no, you don't wantwhat you want, you want what I
want, and what I want youyou'll see, you'll see it exactly,
like you want this more than youknow. And it's like, well,
you know, not really because peoplewere way behind Cody at that point.
If it was anyone else might nothave reacted as strongly. Man, I
(19:03):
feel great if you're a Cody,this whole thing changing because you were that
good. You were that good,You are so over this point. You're
that over at this point that theRock came back and everybody said, hell,
no, we don't want that guyin the main event, Are you
kidding me? Like the rock cameback and we all said, nah,
we don't really want that right now, do that another time exactly. And
(19:26):
so that's why I think it was. Uh, their pivot was about as
good as it can get, honestly, if they really decide that, it
could have been better. But knowingwhat has been where it is now,
it's as best as it could havegotten with the short amount of time in
the again exactly, and it's stillOh so I wanted to move on because
(19:47):
we got to go soon. ButI wanted to because we got Night one
and Night two cards and I askedthis to Jason. I want to ask
it to you because I think thisis, uh, this is a tight
one. And I thought last yearNight one was definitely better than Night too
easily. Is looking at the cardsnow Night one and Night two, which
card do you think is better?Because I got big, I did not
see the card. How did younot see the card? They showed it
(20:11):
on Monday night? Were all lastnight? They got to know I almost
have paid attention and you're, yeah, yeah, I'll get to that later.
I'll just so look, the matchI want to see is Rock and
Rolling versus Cody Seth. That's likeI'm going chalk. I guess you could,
you could say, right, becausethat's gonna affect the Night two.
Uh, you know any other match, Like they don't have a bad match,
(20:34):
but for me personally, like that'sthe one that it's got the entrances,
you know, like it's all anevent surrounding the match you got.
I don't think you're gonna have Rockand Roman come out together, so you're
gonna have like two separate entrances forthat. Cody and Seth obviously they're great
entrances, and the crowd's gonna gonuts up. They might do this stare,
(20:57):
stare down and then stare at thecrew out thing like we've seen that.
So I mean, like that hasall the grandeur of a WrestleMania main
event on Night one, And sothat's where you know, only two of
those people are going to be involvedin the main event and night well,
I guess you know it's Cody versusRoman. They're all going to be involved,
(21:17):
I'm sure, And that's but that'slike the genesis of how like two
can go. So you know,that's that's kind of where I'm at mentally
why I'm looking forward to that matchmore than any other. Yeah, they
the undercard for Night one seems waymore loaded than the Night two. But
(21:40):
the two matches that are going tobasically main event this that are going to
be the last two or at leastthe two biggest matches Seth Rollins and Drew
McIntyre, Roman Rains Cody Rhodes.That is I know it's top heavy,
but damn that's pretty good. Andeven you know Sky Bailey on that as
well, Like I love that.I don't care about Logan Paul anything Logan,
Paul, I'm out. I can't. I can't stand it. Don't
give me that. I the icytitle between Gunther and Sammy's Aine is going
(22:03):
to be better than that. Butyeah, I think it's certainly Night one,
I think is a fuller card.Night two is top heavy, but
I want to go Night too becauseI think those two top heavy matches are
the ones A lot I think is. You know, that's definitely still the
show, so I don't feel likewe're talking about that enough as a show.
(22:26):
I haven't thought about the blood line. That's the blood line is involved
in that. So we'll probably seesolo, you know, and maybe somebody
else will get introduced, because Iknow there's a swirling about adding to the
blood lines. So you know itshould be interesting. Yeah, it'll be
very interesting. Always interesting when Iget to talk to you, Nick pecone
add to underscore pecone at Shooters Radio, the Straight Shooters podcast is going to
(22:51):
be on all week, not today, but it'll be on tomorrow, Thursday,
I think even Friday. We havea bunch of Shooters Radio episodes that
we have. We played the partone of the time forty matches in WrestleMania
History. We're going to be playingpart two very soon as well. Also
Nick part of the round table.Don't know if the schedules are going to
work with Nick on the round tablefor uh this week. We'll try.
(23:12):
We're gonna try and do everything wecan, but at least we got a
raw recap from Nick pecon Nick,thank you, and maybe enjoy the night
off from doing highlight videos for thePhillies because I don't think that's gonna be
happening today or at least broadcast.I would have loved to do it last
night. I would have loved todo a Flyers one last night, but
they let me down. So yeah, I'll in the corner. Wait maybe
(23:33):
well, you know what won't letyou down. Wrestleman won't. But Nick,
thank you so much. I appreciateyou for coming on the show today.
Thanks man, Thanks for having thatis. Nick Pconon adds Underscore pecone
coming up next. It is goingto be Roy Burton and guests as he
gets you, as he gets youready for WrestleMania forty. That's coming up
next. Here on the game,when perfect is in the air, you
(23:53):
can feel it presenting the ultimate comfortsystem
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