January 22, 2025 • 69 mins
Welcome to Punks Talk Wrestling!
On this episode we talk about our top 12 award categories and who we each picked for our winners!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Paul Heyman and as your wise man I'm here to
(00:05):
bestow upon you the wisdom that you're listening to Punk's Talk Wrestling.
Welcome to Punk's Talk Wrestling! On this episode we wrap up and tie a bow on 2024 as we bring to you our
(00:28):
picks for your Punk's Talk Wrestling 2024 Universal Top 12 Award Category Awards!
I am R.W. Hellborn, the P.A. Rock Prince, hailing quote-unquote from Philly!
And I am one half of the crown, which is one half of your Punk's Talk Wrestling Inter-Universal Tag Team
(00:58):
Podcast Champion of the world! Now, then, and forever by my side, 3500 miles away in London, England!
He is my tag team podcast partner, he is the other half of the crown, which is the other half of your Punk's Talk Wrestling
(01:26):
Inter-Universal Tag Team Podcast Champion of the world!
Mr. Digino, Sir King of Reels, the proper prick, CJ Newman!
(01:57):
As you know, the WWE Raw is moving to Netflix! Of course you knew that, everyone knows that, because you can't escape it. Even if you're not a wrestling fan, it's just fucking everywhere.
But obviously, Raw has been on our TV sets now, what, for 32 years, some shit like that? It's been a long time.
(02:19):
I want you to tell me the five superstars that have had the most matches on Raw of all time. You have one minute, starting now.
Oh shit! Shawn Michaels. No. Undertaker. No. Stone Cold Steve Austin. No. Wow. Triple H. Yep, Triple H is one. That's one of them.
(02:56):
Kane? Yep, that's two. Okay, that's two of the five. Yep. Kurt Angle? Nope, you've got 30 seconds left.
Jesus, man. Natalya? No. Gotta be quick. No, no I don't. I have no way. Fuck, man. Chris Jericho? Yep, that's three. Okay. Two more.
(03:32):
Five seconds. The Rock? No. Mankind? No. And your minute. That's it, your minute's up. So you had Kane, Chris Jericho, and Triple H. Those are your three.
Those are second, third, and fourth place. So you missed out on first and fifth. Okay. Well there we go, right in the middle.
We'll start with number five. So John Cena has had 382 matches on Raw. Why did I not think of John Cena? Yeah, that's a good one. Probably because I can't see him.
(04:00):
Exactly. Triple H is fourth with 384 matches on Raw. Okay. Chris Jericho has had 425 matches on Raw. Kane has had 442 matches on Raw.
And Randy Orton is on top with 457 matches on Raw. Randy Orton. I'm ashamed of myself that I didn't think of that. Which of those five has the most wins?
(04:30):
Oh, the most wins? John Cena. Yeah, you're right. And which of those five? And obviously the most wins of all time on Raw. And which of those has had the most losses?
Actually, the superstar with the most losses is not in the top five. Who's had the most losses? I'll give you five guesses. Another, did you know? Go.
(04:56):
Oh shit. Oh fuck. The most losses on Monday Night Raw? On Raw. And it wasn't those people in the top five. It was neither and none of those people. Who were the ones that I said that weren't correct?
Randy Orton, Kane, Chris Jericho, Triple H, John Cena. He's actually the sixth. He's actually sixth in the line for most matches, but he's also got the most losses.
(05:18):
Kurt Angle? No. Edge? Nope. I've got three more guesses.
CM Punk? The most losses? Big Show? No. He's had 339 appearances, matches though. Just so you know.
(05:55):
I'm not good at these. Not good at this. Not starting off the year. Not starting off the year. You're good.
It will make total sense when you hear the name. Mick Foley? Mankind? Nope. Nope. One more guess.
(06:20):
I don't know. At the most losses. Daniel Bryan? No. It is The Miz. Oh man.
He's had 378 matches on Raw, which is a lot. As I said, not the sixth place, but he's had 221 losses.
(06:42):
There you go. Miz is good at losing. You know what's crazy? You said Mick Foley twice there. Mick Foley has only had 120 matches on Raw.
His in-ring career was not really as long as in the WWE. Yeah, than we imagine it being. Because so many things that he did were so memorable.
(07:14):
He's kind of synonymous with Raw for sure. It did, yeah. Literally, like 96 to 2000. That's his time on Raw really.
Yeah. Wow. Well there you go. Two did you knows that I didn't know. And now you do. And now I do. And how's about? How's about we talk about the Punks Talk Wrestling 2024 Universal Top 12 Award Category Awards.
(07:54):
Today's episode, getting right the fuck into it. We did this last year and we did our top picks for the year. We've got all the same categories as last year.
I've ordered them a bit better this year in finishing with the bigger ones because I think last year was a bit more sporadic.
And let me just make sure that I actually have the same list still. Right? We have superstar of the year. We've got in the order. Let's go by your order.
(08:25):
So my order is going to be attire of the year, commentator of the year, faction of the year, tag team of the year, entrance of the year, promo of the year, rivalry of the year, moment of the year, match of the year, breakout superstar of the year, female superstar of the year, male superstar of the year.
And there's 12 obviously because it's Punks Talk Wrestling.
(08:48):
Oh, OK. I don't know how I wound up with a slightly different list. I have a male, female category for each of these.
Superstar, tag, superstar, tag team, faction, breakout star, commentator. I guess there's not a lot of female commentators. So that would make sense.
(09:09):
All right. Well, anyway, with all of these, I think if you break out superstar of the year is female, obviously they can be that. Right. Right. You know, if your tag team of the year is female, then they could be female.
So anyway, attire. Now, I've got all my answers for these, but you have no actually. So this would be interesting.
(09:31):
Yeah, I have not. I have not done my homework at all on this one. We're going to I'm going to go with when you ask the question, I'm going to just go with what pops into my head.
Cool. Well, you've got all of the categories and obviously you can now think about all 12 at the same time, which I know is going to be a mess in your brain.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's that thinking about 12 different things at once is usually how it goes.
(09:57):
Right now in your brain, Cody Rhodes is dressed as Bianca Belair in the main event of Fully Loaded 2001.
That's about right. I mean, that. Yeah.
Make that will make that happen in 2K 24 attire of the year.
(10:19):
I'll give you time to think you want me to go first every time to give you a chance to think about it.
No, you want to take it? No, I think I think we'll go. I think we'll just go. We'll just go with turn. We'll just go to.
All right. Cool. Well, I'll go first this round then.
Cody Rhodes, WrestleMania 40. I thought about this one for a while.
Wait, what? What? Which one is it? Attire of the year. Oh, okay.
(10:42):
Interesting. Yeah. But I was looking back on this past year and I was like, I don't really know.
Not to say everyone's attire is fucking great these days, right? Even for an episode of Raw.
But as it goes for entrance gear, like no one had like even at WrestleMania, like there was a great entrance gear.
(11:04):
But I think Cody Rhodes completely stole the show. He had the crazy skull mask thing.
His his his robe is always amazing, but the one at WrestleMania was particularly amazing with the wings.
And it was just it was fucking incredible, incredible piece of gear.
So that that's my not much to say about tires. They are what they are.
But this was a really, really nice one. What about you? I would.
(11:27):
I would have popped into my head. But yeah, go ahead. I I'm.
I don't have it. I don't have a particular one instance, but but just Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill's tag team coordination of their gear.
I think I think, oh, no, it was the Deadpool. Yeah.
Bianca and Jade's Deadpool gear. I think if we're going to pull if we're going to pull one of the specific ones, I think that one, that one was was was great.
(11:56):
I I'm still a fan. Like. I like when they use it sparingly and I like when they use it inspired by and not like, hey, I'm dressing up like like there was the one time when I love Rey Mysterio and I loved a lot of his superhero gear.
But like there was the one year where it was just I'm dressed up as Daredevil. Like he just looked like Daredevil. Right. Yeah.
Now you're just now you're just wearing a Daredevil, you know, outfit. Yeah.
(12:22):
But the the the definitely inspired by is is where my line is, where like I like to be in that.
Like I can tell I can tell that that's once someone said, oh, yeah, that's like that. It's like a Deadpool inspired, but not like there's the Deadpool logo right there.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
(12:44):
Because in general. Oh, sorry. No, my other I guess I thought of another one when I when I get it passed over to you.
But it was Bianca, Jade and Naomi from WrestleMania. Oh, yeah. Trio's entrance. That was overall.
Overall, I love tag teams that have matching gear. Yeah. Yeah.
(13:06):
Shout out to probably the worst gear.
Well, I don't even know if you could call it gear, but it was whatever the hell Grayson Waller was wearing the purple camo thing that he was what overalls that he had on.
(13:27):
Oh, on roll on SmackDown the other day. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
The worst. Yeah. What the fuck was that about? I mean, I guess he wasn't wrestling, but it's still oh, you know, what else choice?
Shout out. Shout out to shout out to.
Fuck. I'm having I'm having a I'm having brain farts. It's been a long day already.
(13:51):
Why can't I? Why can I never think? El Idolo.
Oh, Andrade. Andrade. Yeah. Fucking hell.
Andrade. Andrade's masks. Oh, yeah. That great. That great. That's true.
All right. Next one. Commentator of the year. You go first.
(14:12):
I'm I'm giving I'm giving commentary a year to Joe Tessitore.
Wow. Okay.
You know, and because and mainly because of how how quickly he rose to the challenge of of being in that being in that spot being judged very, very critically at the beginning.
(14:36):
And then there have been a couple of really, really slick lines that he came up with, like he fit right. He fits so well right now. And I love I love him and Barrett together.
It's but but man, I mean, Corey Graves has also been fucking phenomenal this year.
(14:59):
Yeah. Yeah. And even I mean, good, even even NXT, even Booker T and and what's the other guy?
The other guy that's with him on NXT. Well, I can't. His name is I always forget his name. Yeah. And I can't think of it.
So carry on. Anyway, no, I'm going with Joe. Joe T. Joe T. Big Joe. Cool.
(15:22):
Yeah, I'm going to go with Michael Cole. I just he's still the benchmark. And well, I mean, honestly, this year, like the commentary has been great.
I love the fact that it's been two man booths like that hasn't changed. I'm always a fan of a two man booth more than the three man booth.
(15:45):
You don't need you. You leave the third. The third person is the person that needs the most help from the other two. Yeah, exactly.
So leave it for Michael Cole. I think I chose my. Yeah, it's just Michael Cole. He's the benchmark.
He's still up there. And like it looks like going into the new year, into 2025, it looks like we're going to have Michael Cole and Pat McAfee on Raw, which I'm totally here for.
(16:11):
I love it. And it's so I know, man, it's so hard. Like you said, everybody's been doing such a. Yeah, there is really a bad choice at the moment.
It's way. Barrett is killing it. Yeah, it's been great. Booker T's been great.
They've all they're all great. And obviously, they're a good such a good point with commentary.
Now you can put anyone with anyone and you kind of got a great commentary team.
(16:33):
So I'm speaking up, speaking of commentary teams, and I want to I want to put the first first induction into the 2025 Punks Talk Wrestling Hall of Fame is when is when heel and face commentators both hate the same guy.
Oh, yeah, it's good. And yeah. So Michael Cole and Corey Graves, both vehemently hating Johnny Gargano is just it's one of my favorite.
(17:01):
It's just one of my favorite things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Especially when it's not like it makes sense when the heel has done something really heinous where like even the heel commentators got a like, I can't agree with this.
But when it's something so simple like Johnny Gargano, because he's just a bit of a twat.
Yeah, they're both just like, yeah, I hate it. I hate it because I hate it. Yeah.
(17:23):
But the fact that I also love the fact that Corey Graves is more and more he's interjecting things that reference him as a previous wrestler.
Yeah. And I definitely feel like there's been a number of times when that's come up.
That's true. I do.
I do like under Vince McMahon's reign. I feel like when he was in NXT, he would bring it up all the time when he came to the main roster. He kind of stopped talking about I feel that maybe that might be in a bit of a Vince thing where he was like, when he was.
(17:57):
I think people I think the way maybe it was a vision is like well no one knew you are a wrestler because no one saw you rest on the main rest.
So don't don't mention you were a wrestler, but just wasn't relevant. Yeah, it wasn't relevant. But I guess like fuck it.
Adam Pierce used to be a wrestler. I've never seen him wrestle, but I know he used to be. So you can bring it up.
(18:18):
All right, cool.
Next up, faction of the year.
I have gone for the Judgment Day because honestly, even you look at the Judgment Day as a team before they made they kind of they haven't even split up. They're still around.
I mean, you got to look at them for the one they're like Jebby, even if there's loads of different members, they're still here. They're still here years and years later, which is amazing for any faction in the modern era, to be honest with you.
(18:49):
The fact that they're still kind of like in the kind of main event scene as a faction and also they're still even though they've broken up and lost a lot of members, they're still they're still feuding with former faction members and the fact that it's just like.
(19:10):
They've still got that spark to them and it's hard to do that with a faction this far in. Well, especially considering my pick as faction, of course, is the bloodline.
But more specific, but more specifically, that's what that's what I was getting to. I'm I'm actually going.
I'm going with the new bloodline as my faction of the year because because they did they did exactly what I.
(19:36):
Wanted they they gave me what I want and that was to believe that they were believe that they were credible. Right. And throughout the year they were able to continually do it.
And and as we're as I think you and I are both well as of this recording coming out, it will already have passed. So we'll see if we're right. I 100 percent believe that that Solos is beating Roman Reigns for the for the Ula Fala with the help of the rock.
(20:08):
Maybe maybe with the help with the help of poor Haman. Maybe I don't know.
I don't know about that. Maybe you never know.
Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen, but I really feel like I really feel like Solos is going over.
I think the culmination of all this is he has to because rock hasn't rock has not really suffered the ultimate defeat.
(20:37):
How about this? How about Roman Reigns?
He has not suffered the ultimate defeat. He lost the championship. Yes.
What about Solo does defeat Roman Reigns with the help of the rock and then Solo gives the Ula Fala to the rock?
That is would be interesting.
(20:58):
Sort of like when Andre the Giant handed handed over the title to Million Dollar Man after WrestleMania 4.
And then you could finally then have the rock versus Roman Reigns for head of the table.
Ula Fala. Roman finally defeats the rock, takes the Ula Fala and the world is restored back to peace and harmony.
(21:22):
I don't know, though, because because rock has the people's championship.
That too. You can you can do that too.
Which again, which again, go back to I guess we talked about this on the previous episode.
I don't even know if these episodes are going to air in this order.
We might be talking about this on the next episode.
But the title of the people's champion is a title granted to the person Dwayne Johnson, the rock.
(21:51):
Yeah. The the people's championship belt represents the title of the people's champion.
And that's why it is a very real it is a very real title and it's a very real championship.
Right. Yeah. It's true.
Anyway, it's true. It's true.
Next because I believe it.
Anyway, next category is tag team of the year.
(22:16):
He got. Oh, you know what?
This is going to be the first NXT entrant into my best of the year.
I got to go. I got to go with Fraxiom.
And NXT have been.
Yeah. Nathan Frazier and Axiom.
We we we don't we don't get to talk about NXT enough.
We really we that's one of the things I want to do in 2025 is make more time for NXT talk.
(22:40):
Yeah, that's fair.
They were they were an unlikely duo put together because we didn't know they didn't know exactly what to do with either one of them.
Yeah.
And once they like everybody just everybody just got behind them so much and they've just so phenomenal.
(23:01):
They both are.
You've got the you've got a great combination of a of a fast technical wrestler and a high flyer like Luchador.
And they've just been they've been both dominating.
But but believably believably dominating in a tag division in NXT, which is which is mostly full of bigger guys.
(23:23):
Yeah. You know, because mostly full of big because they're they're some of the smallest comparatively to everybody.
But even when they even when they're going one on one, they both had they both had singles matches against freaking Oba Femi towards the end of the year.
And it was they were great. Yeah.
But they just they they've just been putting on some exceptional matches.
(23:48):
Their promo skills are phenomenal.
They went through they did they went they did a really good work on the possible heel turn, maybe a breakup.
But resolution angle, you know, while while these other while these concurrent angles are going on the main roster,
NXT, a lot of times we see they do they do similar angles either right before they're going to do the angle, the storyline on the main roster or concurrently.
(24:17):
And yeah, this was there was a tag team.
You know, we had the New Day potentially splitting up.
You know, we were thinking they were he was Xavier was going to turn heel and instead Kovac.
We didn't even talk about that in the last. Yeah, geez.
That's a whole other catfish right there. Yeah.
Why don't we don't even have a turn of we don't we don't have a 13th.
(24:38):
Maybe we need a 13th category of turn of the year. Yeah, that's true.
We'll get to that anyway. Yeah, that's my pick tag team.
Fraxi and NXT. Mine is DIY. Nice.
The only tag team of any raw Smackdown or NXT to hold the tag team championships twice this year.
Yes. And the only tag team that we interviewed that we interviewed both members of.
(25:04):
Yeah, we did. We did. We interviewed. That's right.
So obviously they beat a town down under in July on Smackdown and then lost to the bloodline.
Right. So you interview interview us at WrestleMania and you'll become champions as many times as we interviewed you.
Just like just like the real way we only we only got to interview Ivar and we only we only had one to interview because the other one was injured.
(25:30):
And they have one championship this year. There you go.
And yeah, and they won again recently.
And it and it's good to see because like I feel like as faces they were falling on flat ears and I feel like people weren't really getting into them.
They weren't getting much of a fan reaction. Yeah. And then because everyone was waiting.
Everyone was waiting for the again. They were the ones we teased, which is another funny thing.
(25:56):
They did the exact same thing on Raw and Smackdown. They teased Tommaso Ciampa heel turning on Gargano because of Friends.
And then instead they both turned heel like once again, Punk's Talk Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee comes up once again.
You do you do the thing and then you do it again. Do it again. That's right.
(26:18):
That should be that should have been in the Hall of Fame ages ago. I know.
We had a year. That's true. Yeah.
Next up, entrance of the year.
And yeah, I guess I'm first.
It has to be Jey Uso. It has to be Jey Uso at Backlash. It just has to be like, I mean, yeah, other entrances, maybe at WrestleMania had like, you know, a big more elaborate and everything.
(26:46):
Yeah, but this one, the level of eruption above and beyond what was expected.
The crowd just made this entrance. It was it.
It should have just been another Jey Uso entrance. But holy shit.
Like, right. Everyone in the crowd was yeeting. Everyone had their phones out with the lights on. It was perfect.
And and he out of everyone benefited the most from from that from that backlash. Right. Yeah. Totally.
(27:18):
Yeah, that that just that just set it up. That's that set the bar so high for crowd participation.
Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Love it.
Yeah. Cool. Well, I guess first one we were agreeing on is. Yeah.
Promo of the year.
(27:39):
Oh, man.
There were a couple. There were a couple really, really good ones there.
I mean, most most recently, the the Seth Rollins CM Punk promo.
That was excellent. We're going to find out that we're going to find out what happens tonight.
Real quick. What do you think? So we have our predictions recorded to see if we're right.
(28:01):
Right. Are surprised.
I'm going for I'm going to Seth Rollins, actually.
I'm going for Seth Rollins as well, because I think I mean, we we mentioned it.
We talked about Drew McIntyre's involvement. I don't know.
Maybe he's not done with CM Punk yet. I think he's I think he's still got I think he's still going to somehow screw CM Punk.
(28:26):
I don't know. It's hard to tell. I just I feel like no one will get involved.
No, I feel like it would. No, I just feel like it would be a straight up match between the two.
I feel like we need that as well. All right.
Well, but either way, we both we both think that Seth Rollins is going to win.
Yeah, Seth's going to win. We're only we're only going to one of us will be surprised as to how.
Yeah. But that yeah, that promo was was great.
(28:50):
You want to know you want to know what else was what underrated was over the year was that was the work that Bailey did with the heat, with the turn, with her face turn and split from damage control.
Yeah, it's kind of been forgotten about it. Yeah.
That's like sitting in the back there. I really I really want I really hope that she gets a little bit of I have a feeling I have a feeling we're good.
(29:15):
We might even see Bailey show up.
Fuck. What if we get Becky Lynch and Charlotte and Bailey?
That'd be cool. Yeah.
Charlotte's definitely a shout. I definitely think I think I think yeah, I think I think a lot of people are looking looking at Charlotte like either way.
(29:37):
All of those Becky and Charlotte are definitely backed by the Royal Rumble. Yeah, and I think I think Bailey if she moves to raw during all the you know with all the whatever the open the transfer window.
Yeah, I love it. I love that they found a new name for it to make it to make it more nebulous and basically the make it makes they didn't even tell you when the transfer window was they just said the transfer windows currently still open.
(30:01):
I love it. It's just completely like we don't have to we don't have to put a date on it. We just tell you whether it is or isn't it's it's it's literally just like the NBCDNBA that we have going on with the anonymous podcast critic.
It's still ongoing.
And it can be forever if you want it to be. Yeah, and it's and the initials change as frequently as our moods to our schedules.
(30:28):
Do you have a promo the other. Do I have a promo of the year.
You know,
it's a tough one. It really is. There's so many there's so many freaking good ones. There's you know Sammy Zane cut some good promotional promos with his IC title run.
(31:04):
I think I think the set or no, I think the Drew McIntyre CM Punk promo the feud that they're the promo with that feud when it got real personal you know CM Punk is CM Punk is it's CM Punk CM Punk's got the best promo but I can't but I can't pick between
(31:29):
CM Punk versus Seth Rollins or CM Punk versus Drew.
Yeah, man, I tell it's hard. What do you got? What do you got? Maybe mine is actually the rock and it was the the mama roads promo when he was beating down Cody Rhodes outside his bus.
(31:52):
Yeah, that was I mean I actually watched it back the other day that WWE put up a really good playlist on their YouTube page which is which was unexpected endings to raw. Yeah, and this this was this was one of them and they're whoever's whoever's in charge of that channel is doing all the right things.
Oh, it's great. Great. Oh yeah, I found myself again. This is because this is all I've ever wanted with the WWE Network was they are just live streaming a bunch of random stuff of like, the one I was watching last night was just the they were live airing a bunch of main events from Monday Night Raw.
(32:30):
Yeah, it's just, you know, and I watched John Cena versus Shawn Michaels.
From like from like to the what was it like 2005 or something like it was just, it was fucking great.
Yeah, I love it when they just yeah when they just put a right live stream like I can just put it on and not have to think about it. That's what I've always wanted.
(32:51):
Yeah, that's great.
You know, yeah, watching wrestling is great for writing music to as well. Yeah.
So anyway, but yeah, that's mine. I think the it just I watched it the other day as I said and it's fucking it was just fucking brilliant. Yeah, it's intense.
And it's, it sets up a lot for WrestleMania as well with the whole Mama Rhoads thing.
(33:13):
Yeah, I'm gonna go like blood on the belt. Geez. I mean, 20 me me 2024 RW Hellborn compared to 2023 RW Hellborn who just hated CM Punk and didn't want to see him anywhere is now just like, I think it's just like,
I think it's just CM Punk's promos are my favorite one of the best.
There's no denying it. He really just is one of the best.
(33:34):
Every every time. Every time I heard him speak.
I knew that he believed every word he said. Yeah, you know, that's you want to you want to listen to every word he has made and there were times, and there were very much times I've talked about I mean I've mentioned this before like, there were times where he's
(33:56):
the only one who I have watched him cut a promo and felt like he was talking to me.
You know, like, holy shit man you you were you're staring a hole into my soul and making me think about the choices I make in my life.
(34:20):
Because of the yeah yeah yeah you know so yeah that's one of the he's one of the best ever to do it. Yeah, yeah, and he has been for a long time and that's and I and I get it that's why he makes he is.
And you know what you know what's funny because it's not just some people would think.
You know what I got over the over the holidays I was talking to my family and one of my, my niece is like, not really getting into punk rock but is interested in punk rock, like right from from a from a knowledge and interest in like human behaviors
(34:55):
and things she you know she's in college and she's just learning about the both the, the fashion of it the movement of it, political movement ish and the music and so we were having discussions about all that stuff.
And one of those things that like came up was like the idea of punk was supposed to be like anti establishment anti this, and it was more than just like.
(35:22):
It wasn't just about discourse or being disruptive, as it was making making people who have making people who never felt discomfort is uncomfortable.
You know, like, yeah, that's true. And there's a real there's a real much, there's a there's a different perspective about it when you look at it like that and that's how CM Punk has really really opened me back up again was he made you uncomfortable.
(35:55):
One way or another, because he made you think about things in a way that you weren't prepared to think about it with CM Punk like he's like I kind of forget about the, his name hit the fact he has punk in the name.
And like, his character is works out great for us in search engines though. That's that's right. But his name is his name is sorry his, his character is punk rock he is a disruptor he does make you think he does question authority he does.
(36:26):
He just questions everything, but not in the simp and that's why and that's why it, but that's why it kind of failed. It didn't work as well. The other other time around was because it was too much about he was anti establishment it was making him anti WWE.
Yeah. It wasn't that it was it. It was something that people just didn't people didn't not everybody really got it people were attracted to it and people loved it.
(36:53):
But so many people still misunderstood it. And yet once and then when things happen that didn't really align with what they thought CM Punk was supposed to be about.
It gets really discomfort you know it gets it gets really uncomfortable. That's another reason why a him and a W just didn't work.
(37:15):
Yeah, he does not work.
He doesn't work when you give when you give someone when you give someone who thrives off of pushing back.
When you give them completely free control.
There's nothing to push back against even even but even by nature, like, the nature is, give me a box so that I can break it.
(37:43):
No, you have everything there's nothing there. There is no comp. It's it's it's just as bad CM Punk without without someone to go against some in some way.
It is like it's like WWE without comp without actual competition that gets stale it gets boring it gets you don't want to hear it anymore like.
(38:06):
Yeah, anyway.
Where the fuck did I went that went off the rails where it's the beginning of a new year but it's the but but just like last year, we're going to go off the rails.
Yeah. What's next.
Next up is moment. No, no, it's not sorry next up is rivalry of the rivalry of the year.
(38:29):
Who.
There's a couple I guess no it's me first this time actually.
Yeah.
I went to see him progress to Drew McIntyre, it was either going to be kind of Cody Rhodes versus the bloodline in general or CM Punk versus Drew but CM Punk versus Drew has been.
(38:50):
We got to see like, you know, at least that chapter of it from beginning to end three different matches. We had a, you know, a normal match for a special referee, the, the strap match, and we've had the hell in the cell match and so many amazing promos between the two of them on
the floor. So many fucking like three amazing excellent matches, which ended in one of the best matches of the year.
(39:20):
I just, it doesn't get much better than that.
I think it's got recency bias I think if it'd been more close to WrestleMania I probably would have said that.
But look, the storyline with Cody and the rock and Roman was one of the best stories told in professional wrestling.
(39:46):
The CM Punk Drew McIntyre one, you know that was encapsulated within this one year, the other story I guess you could say was a longer one from coming over from the year before so I think for 2024, that was pretty the best the rivalry of the year for sure.
Yeah, what about you.
(40:08):
Yeah, that's, I mean it's, it's, that one was that's good.
There are, there are so many good, there are so many good ones. And yeah recent there's.
There was.
I don't know if it was a ride I don't know the Bailey verse Bailey verse yo with the turn wasn't really a rivalry that was that was sort of her versus damage control for a face turn.
(40:36):
Yeah, so that wasn't so much a rivalry.
That wasn't so much a rivalry in the year what else.
One of the NXT one of the best NXT rivalries of the year now, though, which was a contender for me was trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes.
Oh yeah, that rivalry after after his heel turn was was was really really good. Yeah, I do what I do want to make mention of that.
(41:04):
Geez, is, I mean can we, I know it I know again it's recently bias but can we consider it can we can consider Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes a rivalry now.
Oh yeah, I mean, this point I would totally yeah it's still continuing.
It was going on for quite, it's been going on since bad blood so yeah been a while.
(41:28):
And is there is there anything better than that one is the question, you know, live and live in Rhea is probably the biggest women's rivalry for sure.
Oh, yeah, is that right. Yeah. Is that rivalry bigger.
I don't know. Probably, I mean, I mean, by the by the numbers sure you know no.
(41:51):
Yeah.
Yeah, man, it's hard it's hard because because the other ones haven't because all the other ones haven't completely paid off yet. Yeah, yeah I got I got I got a priest and Ballard is still is still ongoing.
Yep. The bloodline stuff is still ongoing I think as far as yes especially as far as rivalries that that basically started and ended a complete rivalry of the year that that does it.
(42:18):
Yeah, I'm kind of encapsulates it. Yeah, I think I think I'm going with you on that one too. Yeah.
All right, cool.
Moment of the year.
Undertaker Undertaker showing up at the end of the main event, I think is is got to be up there I mean that that whole that whole finish of the main event of WrestleMania.
(42:46):
Yeah, my my my moment is Cody finishes the story. I don't think when it comes to moments singular moments in professional wrestling this year. Yeah, there's that one.
I mean that moment's going to be up there with so so you know, sure Mike was winning his first title. Yeah, I think I think that I think that I think that garners because because that was the moment that they they have been working towards for the entire time.
(43:13):
That's a given it was it was a chance for for the WWE to take a bow. Yeah, be like, but if we had to pick if we had to pick one another one besides that because because that one because that one's the given.
What would you get what would you go as the honorary honorary moment honorary secondary moment.
(43:35):
That makes it difficult the world because that's the that's the WWE undisputed moment.
Oh, I would then probably say Roman Reigns returns that survive at SummerSlam. Okay. All right. I mean it wasn't.
We knew that we obviously knew it was coming in to some degree but it was.
(43:59):
I mean it, it's fucking Roman Reigns returning.
Yeah, pretty big moment.
Yeah.
Or the press conference the press conference on the run up to WrestleMania 40.
That was that's a moment. That's a moment in itself. That was a whole separate. Yeah, see that's that it's outside. Yeah, because it's not necessarily an in match moment.
(44:21):
Yeah, but it's a it's a definitely I think dude I think you're right. I think the slap. I think the slap and the slap at the press conference right press conference where where everything that that slap is what is what literally slapped the line blurry.
Between that that that that should like it little it slapped the line blurry, you know, you can use that you can you can use that moment you can use that term, you know, because slap that setting is always the big bang that started the current era of professional wrestling.
(44:57):
We said last episode about how that rivalry kind of spurred on everything that's going on right now. Yeah, and that slap style. Yep. Yep. Yeah.
That if it wasn't for that slap. There's a lot of things that are happening right now that wouldn't be happening. So, man. Yeah, that's a pretty good one. That is a pretty damn good one. That's pretty damn good. Yeah.
(45:23):
Match of the year.
I guess I'm going first here now I've got something written down but I just
Okay, I had CM Punk versus Drew McIntyre had in the cell written down. Now, it's a great fucking match and undoubtedly one of the best matches of the year. I just don't know if anything really beats the main event of WrestleMania for you. Yeah, I mean, because
(45:54):
It just had everything. It right. So what can it's almost like that WrestleMania, it has to be this it has to be because it was just it has to be out of the running because it's too it's too all timer to be contender for a year it's too that the end of the
WrestleMania should be it's a should be the rest of the end of WrestleMania 40 should be in a like the greatest matches and moments of all time, not just for a year it's it's almost unfair. In which case, then I would go over CM Punk versus Drew McIntyre.
(46:28):
I guess that was the other thing I was going to think if we're talking about match of the year let's qualify it with with specifically the professional wrestling within the mat the just yeah match the match itself from bell to bell. Yeah, I would also say that the Seth and Cody versus the rock and Roman from the night before was definitely a contender for match a year that was a great match.
(46:53):
There's been so many fucking damn good. I mean, there's there are there are there were amazing just amazing matches. I mean, Cody Rhodes versus a G styles backlash made about to say that one. Yeah, Cody Rhodes versus Kevin Owens Gunther versus shameless. Yeah, yeah.
This is a saying I mean fucking phenomenal match. Yeah, there's I mean, Sammy, Sammy and Drew or yeah, Drew and punk the Drew and punk Helen O'Sull might.
(47:24):
What about Damien Priest and Drew McIntyre that there's so many the in the car I mean, yeah, yeah, Gunther versus Randy Orton at Bash in Berlin fucking insane.
Insanely like over half an hour long match. I mean, even recently with the shameless Kaiser and Brom Breaker and a triple threat for the Intercontinental Championship. That was a that's such a small throw away match.
(47:49):
Talk about triple threat. You want a great fucking match the NXT the oba Femi Josh Briggs and die Jack. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And stand and deliver again. This is why we need we need to talk about NXT more in 2025. Yeah, but there are so fucking many good men. But what's the best match?
I think I think I think I think we're I think we're on the same page again, man. I think it's I think it's McIntyre, punk at bad blood and Helen O'Sull.
(48:12):
I think that's it. It was something else. It's got to be it. You know, it yeah, it it gave something that we haven't seen in a very long time.
And we're not neither of us are like bloodthirsty people know that rivalry. You know what? And you know what? Because it because because we're so and because we are because we don't see it all the time and we're not conditioned for it.
(48:33):
It was uncomfortable when it when it happened. I was like, holy shit. That's a lot of fucking blood. Like, yeah. Holy fucking shit.
That's a lot of blood. Like I am I'm genuinely concerned for the well-being of them both for losing like it.
It made it. It made it so much more impactful. Yeah. Like we said that we don't see it all the time. Yeah.
(49:00):
Yeah. All right. Breakout superstar of the year.
I think I think that's going to be hard. That's going to be a hard to toss up.
Oh, but family in NXT is on that list. Yeah. Dude has just been nothing but dominating.
(49:25):
I if he is not a if he is not a surprise entrant, if he's not an entrant in the Royal Rumble this year, I will be I'll be super disappointed.
True. Yeah. Because he should be having him come out to see what the reception is, is what is really the reason to have him like that.
(49:49):
Dude, he is a he is a fucking superstar. Him or Trick Williams in the main. Oh, dude. Trick Williams has to be.
Yeah. Williams has to be especially if you get Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes in the Royal Rumble. Oh, yeah.
Perfect. Absolutely. Yeah. Because Carmelo is already there. You've got I mean, that's an easy, easy way to make to super, super, super spot for him shows up, eliminates Carmelo from the Royal Rumble.
(50:18):
Genius. I mean, dude, even better would be to start the fucking Royal Rumble, start the Royal Rumble number somehow. Carmelo Hayes has been causing fucking problems. Yeah. So as something as punishment, have him have him be forced to be entrant number one in the Royal Rumble.
(50:39):
But he's going to run his mouth because of because because of whatever. And he's going to get himself the number one spot in the Royal Rumble. And then number two is going to be Trick Williams.
Triple H and Shawn Michaels.
I still find it hilarious that all of the booking in the WWE is completely up to DX at this point. Yeah, hilarious.
(51:11):
For me, I'm going for Brom Breaker. He was he was second on my list. Yeah. I mean, let's face it. He fucking won the Intercontinental Championship twice this year.
He's been stellar in every fucking match. He went from being, you know, people were kind of into him to like people really fucking being really into him.
(51:32):
Now he's become a bit of a fan favorite in this coming up to the main roster. Another rep mentioned was going to be Bronson Reed as well for me because he's made waves as well.
When it when it came to rivalry, one of my one of my other options for biggest rival was going to be Bronson Reed versus everything backstage.
(51:57):
Yeah, you know, you know, that dude, that dude, I mean, no pun intended or I mean, pun intended made a fucking splash.
He showed up and just he made his he made his mark in his own way. He doesn't have to win every match by being big and he just has to cause havoc and destruction.
(52:20):
Yeah, yeah. You know, and and and he is perfect at it. And I can't he's going to get that icy title this year.
I believe for sure. I totally believe it. And I think and I think I don't know who he's going to take it from, but it's going to be great, man.
He's he's he's up there. Man, there's there's a lot of other stars that breakout stars in NXT Honorable Mentions to like there's so many good people down there.
(52:50):
Cora Jade is amazing. Roxanne Perez, NXT Women's Champion, amazing. Who, you know, had an amazing year because we interviewed her at WrestleMania as well.
I think she was the only she was the only champion, right? She was champion at the time. Yeah. And she retained her championship. Yeah.
(53:13):
So, you know, shout out to us again for recognizing champions. Yeah, no.
There's just I mean, man, the our our breakout superstar of 2025 is going to be insane because there's so many possibilities. Yeah.
I just say, you know, I just found out all our picks from last year. So once you finished, I'm going to quickly go through what our picks were for last. OK, good. I didn't write down. I didn't write down what you said or what I said.
(53:44):
Female superstar of the year, Liv Morgan. Yeah. Just who else was it? She is literally been on top of the fucking world this year. Yeah. In my opinion, she's won the world championship.
She won the Crown Jewel Championship inaugural. I mean, that there are I would say Tiffy is probably up there, too. But Liv Morgan has had a fucking all star year this year.
(54:11):
Now, it's you're not wrong. And she's and she's definitely a very valid contender for that.
Tiffany Stratton was going to was going to be my is one of the contenders for me, too. And we can't unfortunately, I don't know if we're talking about 2024.
Can we take into account the smackdown that happened on January 3rd or not? No, we can't.
(54:37):
Twenty five. No, we can't. We can't. So so does it. But but the lead up to it. Yeah, we she's had a phenomenal year. Yeah.
But it's hard. It's also hard. It's hard not to justify Rhea Ripley being in that spot because she's been a part of the storyline with the championship for the entire year.
(55:06):
Right. She's either been she's either been champion or been facing the champion. Yeah, exactly.
This entire year, it's hard to say anyone else, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to I'm going to go with Rhea Ripley for the sole fact that that the fans are behind her so much.
She's she's had a phenomenal year, even with her, even with her time away for injury. She's had such a phenomenal.
(55:32):
I mean, yeah, I mean, you can't say no to that either.
Either one, either one of them. Neither one of us are right for every. You know, it's not you know, we're just we're just giving our opinions. Yeah. We think.
Yeah. And last one of these male superstar of the year.
(55:57):
That's that's tough.
It's so tough.
I mean, what do we base this on? What do we even what do we even base it?
It's just I don't know. All the overall impact they've made the the for me.
I'm going to go. I'll tell you who mine is straight up. I guess. Yeah. Tell me. And what are your qualifications?
(56:23):
My qualifications are.
That's a good question. But I think it's just like. Right. Mine is J.U.
So yeah, I'm a massive fucking fan of J.U. So we get it.
But in this year, he's really like if you look back at J.U.
(56:44):
So last year, he literally was wearing the Usos attire and had a T-shirt that said Ye on it.
Now he's got the haircut. He's got the glasses. He's got shit tons of merch. He's one of the highest merch sellers in the company.
He's wearing crop top, you know, crop tops.
You know, he's got he he has refined his his image and definitively made it his own.
(57:07):
Yeah, he's made it his own. He is a tag team guy who won his first singles championship this year.
The crowd are so behind J.U. So it's it's insane how much the crowd love him.
He has become the new the ye is the new yes. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah.
And like and need I say more than this, the other day above L.A., Netflix and WWE did a drone light show
(57:39):
and they did logos for loads of wrestlers. They did Seth. They did Roman Reigns.
See, they did Stone Cold. They did John Cena. They did fucking J.U. So they had ye glasses.
That's how popular that guy is right now. Yeah.
And like that all happened within the in the year of twenty twenty four.
(58:01):
And I just think for me on a personal level, I just think he has had one hell of a fucking year.
He's he's been one contender for the Worldweight Championship.
He's been he was well involved with the storyline with Cody and Roman going into WrestleMania.
He was you know, he's been involved in in the in the bloodline civil war.
(58:24):
Obviously won the the Incarnate Championship with Bram Breaker. He's just been it's just been such a fucking excellent year for him.
So and he was the winner of the main event of the post war after WrestleMania.
So that's another that's another big moment to give him as well.
(58:45):
Like he has just had one hell of a fucking year. So that's my pick.
I am I'm going I'm going a different direction because of different because of different metrics.
That's fine. I'm picking Gunther Gunther. Yeah.
He started the year off as Intercontinental Champion and he ended the and he ended the year as World Heavyweight Champion.
(59:10):
He's he's spent he's spent over 80 percent.
We've mentioned this metric, but the longer he holds a title, the more that this that this percentage goes up.
Yeah, exactly. He has spent over 80 percent of his time in WWE as a champ.
(59:31):
That's insane. Right. NXT UK champion, NXT Heavyweight Champion, Intercontinental Champion, World Heavyweight Champion.
They this this is literally strange to see him without a championship.
Yeah. And and and that is I mean, that is a that's a record in and of itself that they're not that they're barely even mentioning.
(59:55):
They've I've only ever heard of mention it once, maybe twice.
And we've been talking about it for we've been talking about for a while.
So, of course, you know, of course, they finally picked up on it.
But he is he's consistently been he's someone that they know.
Put this man in the ring and it will be a phenomenal match.
(01:00:17):
And like. Because he is an integral part of a piece of what WWE is.
And some of it is some of it is exceptional in ring, technical, mat wrestling and like a traditional style.
He is one he is an extremely important piece. And I'm so glad that he is that the standard bearer of that.
(01:00:42):
Yeah. You know, it's it's it is phenomenal.
And and they're doing so much with him. Like, I love the little bit of just that just that tiny crack in his armor after night of after after Crown Jewel,
because his only loss, his only loss has been to Cody Rhodes.
That's it in the whole Canada year. Yeah.
(01:01:03):
Which is phenomenal because he's the number he is the number two guy.
Supposedly, if we if we have to always treat the undisputed heavyweight championship as the number one title.
And if you want us to believe that the World Heavyweight Championship is a contender as a as a as a world champion,
(01:01:24):
it means it's the number two title in WWE. Yeah.
And it has to be continually treated like that.
And it's treated like that by someone who's also distinctly making it its own title.
Yeah. You know, love it. I love it.
Well, get this. I've got the results here. I think the results, the our picks for 2023.
(01:01:49):
Yep. Last year, your superstar of the year was Gunther, my superstar of my superstar of the year is Jey Uso.
No shit. What? Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Two time.
Hey, man, both of them are now two time back to back.
Punk's talk wrestling superstar of the year award.
(01:02:12):
Award. I'll quickly run through these breakout stars of the year.
Mine was Dominic Mysterio. Yours was L.A. Knight.
And what was this year? That was 2023. No, I know.
But let's recap them all. Oh, we can't.
OK, break us out. My name is Brom Breaker.
And who did you go for in the end? Oh, I thought you were writing this down.
(01:02:33):
I wasn't writing it down. I'm sorry. Fuck.
Who did I say? Wow.
Did you? Yeah, you said a lot of people. I know.
I think. Did you say Oberfemme in the end? Oh, yeah, that's right.
Oberfemme. I picked Oberfemme. All right. Cool. Yep.
(01:02:55):
Break female superstar of the year.
I think we both said Liv Morgan. No, no, I said Rhea Ripley.
Yeah, I went with Rhea Ripley. Last year, 2023, we both said Rhea Ripley.
So Rhea Ripley is a two time RW Hellborn. Yeah.
Pumpstuck Wrestling.
Championship match of the year.
(01:03:17):
This year, we both went with CM Punk versus Drew McIntyre.
Last year, we went with Trish trying to find it.
Oh, I. Oh, you know what?
Last year, we didn't actually do match of the year. We didn't.
We didn't do that this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(01:03:38):
So there's that moment of the year.
I went for.
Well, I think we kind of both ended up agreeing on the snap at the press conference, really, didn't we?
Yeah, yeah. In the end, we kind of worked our ways into that.
Last year, we shot our way into that work.
Yeah. The 2023 moment of the year for me was when Sammy Zane hit Roman Reigns in the back of the with the chair of the Royal Rumble.
(01:04:06):
Right.
And yours was Gunther and Brock Lesnar face to face in the Royal Rumble match.
Yeah.
That was your moment of the year.
How things quickly changed after the Royal Rumble.
Rivalry of the year, we both had CM Punk.
(01:04:28):
Is that the last time we that's the last time we saw Brock Lesnar was the 2024 Royal Rumble?
No, that that just then was the 2023 Royal Rumble.
Last time we saw Brock was. Oh, right.
Summer last year, maybe SummerSlam last year.
Yeah. Holy shit.
Rivalry of the year, CM Punk vs Drew McIntyre 2024, 2023, you said Brock Lesnar versus Cody Rhodes.
(01:04:57):
Yeah. Oh, God.
That's a great match.
And I said, Rivalry of the year, Cody and Roman.
Right.
Promo of the year.
I said the rock Cody beat down and you said you kind of everything that's I never really I was very undecided.
(01:05:20):
I just pretty much went with CM Punk.
We have a CM Punk promos.
Last year, you went with a promo between the Roman and Cody where Roman laid down the title belt in front of Cody.
And I went with the Cody and Paul Heyman segment where they spoke about Dusty and everything like that.
(01:05:42):
That was cool.
Entrance of the year.
Now, this is this is this shows you how much can change in a year.
We both said Jey Uso at Backlash last year.
Your pick was Bad Bunny at Backlash.
Yeah.
And mine was Edge at WrestleMania 39.
Oh, my God. Yeah. Edge was still in the WWE.
(01:06:03):
Yeah. Again, how things can change.
DIY is my tag team of the year this year.
Yours was Faxion.
Last year, 2023, both of our tag team of the year was the fucking Creed Brothers.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
Wow. I know.
(01:06:24):
Yeah.
What happened there?
Faction of the year.
This year, I said Judgment Day, you said the bloodline and last year we both said the Judgment Day.
Judgment Day, Judgment Day, one and a half time.
But this time last year, they were literally they held every single championship.
It was a different it was a different Judgment Day.
(01:06:45):
Different Judgment Day.
Commentator of the year.
Last year, I said Michael Cole and I said Michael Cole.
But this year as well.
And last year, last year, you said,
come little Corey Graves.
And this year, you said Jota Tessitura, who wasn't even around this time last year.
Right. I almost said Corey Graves was my next was my second.
(01:07:09):
All right. Sorry. Sorry, Corey.
You almost made two time punk stock wrestling commentator of the year.
Attire of the year.
I said Cody Rhodes and you said Bianca and Bianca Jade.
But we didn't have an attire of the year last year.
Basically, I added to this year so we could make it to 12.
(01:07:31):
Oh, so we make the top 12.
Yeah. Last year, last year, we hadn't we hadn't officially created.
We hadn't even done a top 12 by that point.
Right. This time this time last year, we didn't even have top 12.
We only had top 10.
We were like everybody else.
Yeah. No, no more.
Uh huh. Uh huh.
Uh huh.
(01:07:53):
And that's it.
That is another year.
That's our top.
That's our top 12.
Top 12 of 2024.
You know, our official punk stock wrestling universal top 12 awards of 2024.
Yeah. Play some dramatic like trumpet music here.
We'll just play it. I'll just play one of our other demo tracks.
(01:08:16):
Oh, that that's fine.
Which went something like all the fame.
Yeah.
Oh, maybe we'll come up.
We'll come up with a new theme for next year's 2020 to 2025 top 12.
Yeah. Awards of the year awards.
Awards of the year awards.
(01:08:39):
Awards of the year awards.
Yeah.
I mean, that tracks that tracks for us.
I think we're done.
We're done.
(01:09:16):
Yeah.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Paul Heyman and as your wise man I'm here to
(00:05):
bestow upon you the wisdom that you're listening to Punk's Talk Wrestling.
Welcome to Punk's Talk Wrestling! On this episode we wrap up and tie a bow on 2024 as we bring to you our
(00:28):
picks for your Punk's Talk Wrestling 2024 Universal Top 12 Award Category Awards!
I am R.W. Hellborn, the P.A. Rock Prince, hailing quote-unquote from Philly!
And I am one half of the crown, which is one half of your Punk's Talk Wrestling Inter-Universal Tag Team
(00:58):
Podcast Champion of the world! Now, then, and forever by my side, 3500 miles away in London, England!
He is my tag team podcast partner, he is the other half of the crown, which is the other half of your Punk's Talk Wrestling
(01:26):
Inter-Universal Tag Team Podcast Champion of the world!
Mr. Digino, Sir King of Reels, the proper prick, CJ Newman!
(01:57):
As you know, the WWE Raw is moving to Netflix! Of course you knew that, everyone knows that, because you can't escape it. Even if you're not a wrestling fan, it's just fucking everywhere.
But obviously, Raw has been on our TV sets now, what, for 32 years, some shit like that? It's been a long time.
(02:19):
I want you to tell me the five superstars that have had the most matches on Raw of all time. You have one minute, starting now.
Oh shit! Shawn Michaels. No. Undertaker. No. Stone Cold Steve Austin. No. Wow. Triple H. Yep, Triple H is one. That's one of them.
(02:56):
Kane? Yep, that's two. Okay, that's two of the five. Yep. Kurt Angle? Nope, you've got 30 seconds left.
Jesus, man. Natalya? No. Gotta be quick. No, no I don't. I have no way. Fuck, man. Chris Jericho? Yep, that's three. Okay. Two more.
(03:32):
Five seconds. The Rock? No. Mankind? No. And your minute. That's it, your minute's up. So you had Kane, Chris Jericho, and Triple H. Those are your three.
Those are second, third, and fourth place. So you missed out on first and fifth. Okay. Well there we go, right in the middle.
We'll start with number five. So John Cena has had 382 matches on Raw. Why did I not think of John Cena? Yeah, that's a good one. Probably because I can't see him.
(04:00):
Exactly. Triple H is fourth with 384 matches on Raw. Okay. Chris Jericho has had 425 matches on Raw. Kane has had 442 matches on Raw.
And Randy Orton is on top with 457 matches on Raw. Randy Orton. I'm ashamed of myself that I didn't think of that. Which of those five has the most wins?
(04:30):
Oh, the most wins? John Cena. Yeah, you're right. And which of those five? And obviously the most wins of all time on Raw. And which of those has had the most losses?
Actually, the superstar with the most losses is not in the top five. Who's had the most losses? I'll give you five guesses. Another, did you know? Go.
(04:56):
Oh shit. Oh fuck. The most losses on Monday Night Raw? On Raw. And it wasn't those people in the top five. It was neither and none of those people. Who were the ones that I said that weren't correct?
Randy Orton, Kane, Chris Jericho, Triple H, John Cena. He's actually the sixth. He's actually sixth in the line for most matches, but he's also got the most losses.
(05:18):
Kurt Angle? No. Edge? Nope. I've got three more guesses.
CM Punk? The most losses? Big Show? No. He's had 339 appearances, matches though. Just so you know.
(05:55):
I'm not good at these. Not good at this. Not starting off the year. Not starting off the year. You're good.
It will make total sense when you hear the name. Mick Foley? Mankind? Nope. Nope. One more guess.
(06:20):
I don't know. At the most losses. Daniel Bryan? No. It is The Miz. Oh man.
He's had 378 matches on Raw, which is a lot. As I said, not the sixth place, but he's had 221 losses.
(06:42):
There you go. Miz is good at losing. You know what's crazy? You said Mick Foley twice there. Mick Foley has only had 120 matches on Raw.
His in-ring career was not really as long as in the WWE. Yeah, than we imagine it being. Because so many things that he did were so memorable.
(07:14):
He's kind of synonymous with Raw for sure. It did, yeah. Literally, like 96 to 2000. That's his time on Raw really.
Yeah. Wow. Well there you go. Two did you knows that I didn't know. And now you do. And now I do. And how's about? How's about we talk about the Punks Talk Wrestling 2024 Universal Top 12 Award Category Awards.
(07:54):
Today's episode, getting right the fuck into it. We did this last year and we did our top picks for the year. We've got all the same categories as last year.
I've ordered them a bit better this year in finishing with the bigger ones because I think last year was a bit more sporadic.
And let me just make sure that I actually have the same list still. Right? We have superstar of the year. We've got in the order. Let's go by your order.
(08:25):
So my order is going to be attire of the year, commentator of the year, faction of the year, tag team of the year, entrance of the year, promo of the year, rivalry of the year, moment of the year, match of the year, breakout superstar of the year, female superstar of the year, male superstar of the year.
And there's 12 obviously because it's Punks Talk Wrestling.
(08:48):
Oh, OK. I don't know how I wound up with a slightly different list. I have a male, female category for each of these.
Superstar, tag, superstar, tag team, faction, breakout star, commentator. I guess there's not a lot of female commentators. So that would make sense.
(09:09):
All right. Well, anyway, with all of these, I think if you break out superstar of the year is female, obviously they can be that. Right. Right. You know, if your tag team of the year is female, then they could be female.
So anyway, attire. Now, I've got all my answers for these, but you have no actually. So this would be interesting.
(09:31):
Yeah, I have not. I have not done my homework at all on this one. We're going to I'm going to go with when you ask the question, I'm going to just go with what pops into my head.
Cool. Well, you've got all of the categories and obviously you can now think about all 12 at the same time, which I know is going to be a mess in your brain.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's that thinking about 12 different things at once is usually how it goes.
(09:57):
Right now in your brain, Cody Rhodes is dressed as Bianca Belair in the main event of Fully Loaded 2001.
That's about right. I mean, that. Yeah.
Make that will make that happen in 2K 24 attire of the year.
(10:19):
I'll give you time to think you want me to go first every time to give you a chance to think about it.
No, you want to take it? No, I think I think we'll go. I think we'll just go. We'll just go with turn. We'll just go to.
All right. Cool. Well, I'll go first this round then.
Cody Rhodes, WrestleMania 40. I thought about this one for a while.
Wait, what? What? Which one is it? Attire of the year. Oh, okay.
(10:42):
Interesting. Yeah. But I was looking back on this past year and I was like, I don't really know.
Not to say everyone's attire is fucking great these days, right? Even for an episode of Raw.
But as it goes for entrance gear, like no one had like even at WrestleMania, like there was a great entrance gear.
(11:04):
But I think Cody Rhodes completely stole the show. He had the crazy skull mask thing.
His his his robe is always amazing, but the one at WrestleMania was particularly amazing with the wings.
And it was just it was fucking incredible, incredible piece of gear.
So that that's my not much to say about tires. They are what they are.
But this was a really, really nice one. What about you? I would.
(11:27):
I would have popped into my head. But yeah, go ahead. I I'm.
I don't have it. I don't have a particular one instance, but but just Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill's tag team coordination of their gear.
I think I think, oh, no, it was the Deadpool. Yeah.
Bianca and Jade's Deadpool gear. I think if we're going to pull if we're going to pull one of the specific ones, I think that one, that one was was was great.
(11:56):
I I'm still a fan. Like. I like when they use it sparingly and I like when they use it inspired by and not like, hey, I'm dressing up like like there was the one time when I love Rey Mysterio and I loved a lot of his superhero gear.
But like there was the one year where it was just I'm dressed up as Daredevil. Like he just looked like Daredevil. Right. Yeah.
Now you're just now you're just wearing a Daredevil, you know, outfit. Yeah.
(12:22):
But the the the definitely inspired by is is where my line is, where like I like to be in that.
Like I can tell I can tell that that's once someone said, oh, yeah, that's like that. It's like a Deadpool inspired, but not like there's the Deadpool logo right there.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
(12:44):
Because in general. Oh, sorry. No, my other I guess I thought of another one when I when I get it passed over to you.
But it was Bianca, Jade and Naomi from WrestleMania. Oh, yeah. Trio's entrance. That was overall.
Overall, I love tag teams that have matching gear. Yeah. Yeah.
(13:06):
Shout out to probably the worst gear.
Well, I don't even know if you could call it gear, but it was whatever the hell Grayson Waller was wearing the purple camo thing that he was what overalls that he had on.
(13:27):
Oh, on roll on SmackDown the other day. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
The worst. Yeah. What the fuck was that about? I mean, I guess he wasn't wrestling, but it's still oh, you know, what else choice?
Shout out. Shout out to shout out to.
Fuck. I'm having I'm having a I'm having brain farts. It's been a long day already.
(13:51):
Why can't I? Why can I never think? El Idolo.
Oh, Andrade. Andrade. Yeah. Fucking hell.
Andrade. Andrade's masks. Oh, yeah. That great. That great. That's true.
All right. Next one. Commentator of the year. You go first.
(14:12):
I'm I'm giving I'm giving commentary a year to Joe Tessitore.
Wow. Okay.
You know, and because and mainly because of how how quickly he rose to the challenge of of being in that being in that spot being judged very, very critically at the beginning.
(14:36):
And then there have been a couple of really, really slick lines that he came up with, like he fit right. He fits so well right now. And I love I love him and Barrett together.
It's but but man, I mean, Corey Graves has also been fucking phenomenal this year.
(14:59):
Yeah. Yeah. And even I mean, good, even even NXT, even Booker T and and what's the other guy?
The other guy that's with him on NXT. Well, I can't. His name is I always forget his name. Yeah. And I can't think of it.
So carry on. Anyway, no, I'm going with Joe. Joe T. Joe T. Big Joe. Cool.
(15:22):
Yeah, I'm going to go with Michael Cole. I just he's still the benchmark. And well, I mean, honestly, this year, like the commentary has been great.
I love the fact that it's been two man booths like that hasn't changed. I'm always a fan of a two man booth more than the three man booth.
(15:45):
You don't need you. You leave the third. The third person is the person that needs the most help from the other two. Yeah, exactly.
So leave it for Michael Cole. I think I chose my. Yeah, it's just Michael Cole. He's the benchmark.
He's still up there. And like it looks like going into the new year, into 2025, it looks like we're going to have Michael Cole and Pat McAfee on Raw, which I'm totally here for.
(16:11):
I love it. And it's so I know, man, it's so hard. Like you said, everybody's been doing such a. Yeah, there is really a bad choice at the moment.
It's way. Barrett is killing it. Yeah, it's been great. Booker T's been great.
They've all they're all great. And obviously, they're a good such a good point with commentary.
Now you can put anyone with anyone and you kind of got a great commentary team.
(16:33):
So I'm speaking up, speaking of commentary teams, and I want to I want to put the first first induction into the 2025 Punks Talk Wrestling Hall of Fame is when is when heel and face commentators both hate the same guy.
Oh, yeah, it's good. And yeah. So Michael Cole and Corey Graves, both vehemently hating Johnny Gargano is just it's one of my favorite.
(17:01):
It's just one of my favorite things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Especially when it's not like it makes sense when the heel has done something really heinous where like even the heel commentators got a like, I can't agree with this.
But when it's something so simple like Johnny Gargano, because he's just a bit of a twat.
Yeah, they're both just like, yeah, I hate it. I hate it because I hate it. Yeah.
(17:23):
But the fact that I also love the fact that Corey Graves is more and more he's interjecting things that reference him as a previous wrestler.
Yeah. And I definitely feel like there's been a number of times when that's come up.
That's true. I do.
I do like under Vince McMahon's reign. I feel like when he was in NXT, he would bring it up all the time when he came to the main roster. He kind of stopped talking about I feel that maybe that might be in a bit of a Vince thing where he was like, when he was.
(17:57):
I think people I think the way maybe it was a vision is like well no one knew you are a wrestler because no one saw you rest on the main rest.
So don't don't mention you were a wrestler, but just wasn't relevant. Yeah, it wasn't relevant. But I guess like fuck it.
Adam Pierce used to be a wrestler. I've never seen him wrestle, but I know he used to be. So you can bring it up.
(18:18):
All right, cool.
Next up, faction of the year.
I have gone for the Judgment Day because honestly, even you look at the Judgment Day as a team before they made they kind of they haven't even split up. They're still around.
I mean, you got to look at them for the one they're like Jebby, even if there's loads of different members, they're still here. They're still here years and years later, which is amazing for any faction in the modern era, to be honest with you.
(18:49):
The fact that they're still kind of like in the kind of main event scene as a faction and also they're still even though they've broken up and lost a lot of members, they're still they're still feuding with former faction members and the fact that it's just like.
(19:10):
They've still got that spark to them and it's hard to do that with a faction this far in. Well, especially considering my pick as faction, of course, is the bloodline.
But more specific, but more specifically, that's what that's what I was getting to. I'm I'm actually going.
I'm going with the new bloodline as my faction of the year because because they did they did exactly what I.
(19:36):
Wanted they they gave me what I want and that was to believe that they were believe that they were credible. Right. And throughout the year they were able to continually do it.
And and as we're as I think you and I are both well as of this recording coming out, it will already have passed. So we'll see if we're right. I 100 percent believe that that Solos is beating Roman Reigns for the for the Ula Fala with the help of the rock.
(20:08):
Maybe maybe with the help with the help of poor Haman. Maybe I don't know.
I don't know about that. Maybe you never know.
Yeah, I don't know what's going to happen, but I really feel like I really feel like Solos is going over.
I think the culmination of all this is he has to because rock hasn't rock has not really suffered the ultimate defeat.
(20:37):
How about this? How about Roman Reigns?
He has not suffered the ultimate defeat. He lost the championship. Yes.
What about Solo does defeat Roman Reigns with the help of the rock and then Solo gives the Ula Fala to the rock?
That is would be interesting.
(20:58):
Sort of like when Andre the Giant handed handed over the title to Million Dollar Man after WrestleMania 4.
And then you could finally then have the rock versus Roman Reigns for head of the table.
Ula Fala. Roman finally defeats the rock, takes the Ula Fala and the world is restored back to peace and harmony.
(21:22):
I don't know, though, because because rock has the people's championship.
That too. You can you can do that too.
Which again, which again, go back to I guess we talked about this on the previous episode.
I don't even know if these episodes are going to air in this order.
We might be talking about this on the next episode.
But the title of the people's champion is a title granted to the person Dwayne Johnson, the rock.
(21:51):
Yeah. The the people's championship belt represents the title of the people's champion.
And that's why it is a very real it is a very real title and it's a very real championship.
Right. Yeah. It's true.
Anyway, it's true. It's true.
Next because I believe it.
Anyway, next category is tag team of the year.
(22:16):
He got. Oh, you know what?
This is going to be the first NXT entrant into my best of the year.
I got to go. I got to go with Fraxiom.
And NXT have been.
Yeah. Nathan Frazier and Axiom.
We we we don't we don't get to talk about NXT enough.
We really we that's one of the things I want to do in 2025 is make more time for NXT talk.
(22:40):
Yeah, that's fair.
They were they were an unlikely duo put together because we didn't know they didn't know exactly what to do with either one of them.
Yeah.
And once they like everybody just everybody just got behind them so much and they've just so phenomenal.
(23:01):
They both are.
You've got the you've got a great combination of a of a fast technical wrestler and a high flyer like Luchador.
And they've just been they've been both dominating.
But but believably believably dominating in a tag division in NXT, which is which is mostly full of bigger guys.
(23:23):
Yeah. You know, because mostly full of big because they're they're some of the smallest comparatively to everybody.
But even when they even when they're going one on one, they both had they both had singles matches against freaking Oba Femi towards the end of the year.
And it was they were great. Yeah.
But they just they they've just been putting on some exceptional matches.
(23:48):
Their promo skills are phenomenal.
They went through they did they went they did a really good work on the possible heel turn, maybe a breakup.
But resolution angle, you know, while while these other while these concurrent angles are going on the main roster,
NXT, a lot of times we see they do they do similar angles either right before they're going to do the angle, the storyline on the main roster or concurrently.
(24:17):
And yeah, this was there was a tag team.
You know, we had the New Day potentially splitting up.
You know, we were thinking they were he was Xavier was going to turn heel and instead Kovac.
We didn't even talk about that in the last. Yeah, geez.
That's a whole other catfish right there. Yeah.
Why don't we don't even have a turn of we don't we don't have a 13th.
(24:38):
Maybe we need a 13th category of turn of the year. Yeah, that's true.
We'll get to that anyway. Yeah, that's my pick tag team.
Fraxi and NXT. Mine is DIY. Nice.
The only tag team of any raw Smackdown or NXT to hold the tag team championships twice this year.
Yes. And the only tag team that we interviewed that we interviewed both members of.
(25:04):
Yeah, we did. We did. We interviewed. That's right.
So obviously they beat a town down under in July on Smackdown and then lost to the bloodline.
Right. So you interview interview us at WrestleMania and you'll become champions as many times as we interviewed you.
Just like just like the real way we only we only got to interview Ivar and we only we only had one to interview because the other one was injured.
(25:30):
And they have one championship this year. There you go.
And yeah, and they won again recently.
And it and it's good to see because like I feel like as faces they were falling on flat ears and I feel like people weren't really getting into them.
They weren't getting much of a fan reaction. Yeah. And then because everyone was waiting.
Everyone was waiting for the again. They were the ones we teased, which is another funny thing.
(25:56):
They did the exact same thing on Raw and Smackdown. They teased Tommaso Ciampa heel turning on Gargano because of Friends.
And then instead they both turned heel like once again, Punk's Talk Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee comes up once again.
You do you do the thing and then you do it again. Do it again. That's right.
(26:18):
That should be that should have been in the Hall of Fame ages ago. I know.
We had a year. That's true. Yeah.
Next up, entrance of the year.
And yeah, I guess I'm first.
It has to be Jey Uso. It has to be Jey Uso at Backlash. It just has to be like, I mean, yeah, other entrances, maybe at WrestleMania had like, you know, a big more elaborate and everything.
(26:46):
Yeah, but this one, the level of eruption above and beyond what was expected.
The crowd just made this entrance. It was it.
It should have just been another Jey Uso entrance. But holy shit.
Like, right. Everyone in the crowd was yeeting. Everyone had their phones out with the lights on. It was perfect.
And and he out of everyone benefited the most from from that from that backlash. Right. Yeah. Totally.
(27:18):
Yeah, that that just that just set it up. That's that set the bar so high for crowd participation.
Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Love it.
Yeah. Cool. Well, I guess first one we were agreeing on is. Yeah.
Promo of the year.
(27:39):
Oh, man.
There were a couple. There were a couple really, really good ones there.
I mean, most most recently, the the Seth Rollins CM Punk promo.
That was excellent. We're going to find out that we're going to find out what happens tonight.
Real quick. What do you think? So we have our predictions recorded to see if we're right.
(28:01):
Right. Are surprised.
I'm going for I'm going to Seth Rollins, actually.
I'm going for Seth Rollins as well, because I think I mean, we we mentioned it.
We talked about Drew McIntyre's involvement. I don't know.
Maybe he's not done with CM Punk yet. I think he's I think he's still got I think he's still going to somehow screw CM Punk.
(28:26):
I don't know. It's hard to tell. I just I feel like no one will get involved.
No, I feel like it would. No, I just feel like it would be a straight up match between the two.
I feel like we need that as well. All right.
Well, but either way, we both we both think that Seth Rollins is going to win.
Yeah, Seth's going to win. We're only we're only going to one of us will be surprised as to how.
Yeah. But that yeah, that promo was was great.
(28:50):
You want to know you want to know what else was what underrated was over the year was that was the work that Bailey did with the heat, with the turn, with her face turn and split from damage control.
Yeah, it's kind of been forgotten about it. Yeah.
That's like sitting in the back there. I really I really want I really hope that she gets a little bit of I have a feeling I have a feeling we're good.
(29:15):
We might even see Bailey show up.
Fuck. What if we get Becky Lynch and Charlotte and Bailey?
That'd be cool. Yeah.
Charlotte's definitely a shout. I definitely think I think I think yeah, I think I think a lot of people are looking looking at Charlotte like either way.
(29:37):
All of those Becky and Charlotte are definitely backed by the Royal Rumble. Yeah, and I think I think Bailey if she moves to raw during all the you know with all the whatever the open the transfer window.
Yeah, I love it. I love that they found a new name for it to make it to make it more nebulous and basically the make it makes they didn't even tell you when the transfer window was they just said the transfer windows currently still open.
(30:01):
I love it. It's just completely like we don't have to we don't have to put a date on it. We just tell you whether it is or isn't it's it's it's literally just like the NBCDNBA that we have going on with the anonymous podcast critic.
It's still ongoing.
And it can be forever if you want it to be. Yeah, and it's and the initials change as frequently as our moods to our schedules.
(30:28):
Do you have a promo the other. Do I have a promo of the year.
You know,
it's a tough one. It really is. There's so many there's so many freaking good ones. There's you know Sammy Zane cut some good promotional promos with his IC title run.
(31:04):
I think I think the set or no, I think the Drew McIntyre CM Punk promo the feud that they're the promo with that feud when it got real personal you know CM Punk is CM Punk is it's CM Punk CM Punk's got the best promo but I can't but I can't pick between
(31:29):
CM Punk versus Seth Rollins or CM Punk versus Drew.
Yeah, man, I tell it's hard. What do you got? What do you got? Maybe mine is actually the rock and it was the the mama roads promo when he was beating down Cody Rhodes outside his bus.
(31:52):
Yeah, that was I mean I actually watched it back the other day that WWE put up a really good playlist on their YouTube page which is which was unexpected endings to raw. Yeah, and this this was this was one of them and they're whoever's whoever's in charge of that channel is doing all the right things.
Oh, it's great. Great. Oh yeah, I found myself again. This is because this is all I've ever wanted with the WWE Network was they are just live streaming a bunch of random stuff of like, the one I was watching last night was just the they were live airing a bunch of main events from Monday Night Raw.
(32:30):
Yeah, it's just, you know, and I watched John Cena versus Shawn Michaels.
From like from like to the what was it like 2005 or something like it was just, it was fucking great.
Yeah, I love it when they just yeah when they just put a right live stream like I can just put it on and not have to think about it. That's what I've always wanted.
(32:51):
Yeah, that's great.
You know, yeah, watching wrestling is great for writing music to as well. Yeah.
So anyway, but yeah, that's mine. I think the it just I watched it the other day as I said and it's fucking it was just fucking brilliant. Yeah, it's intense.
And it's, it sets up a lot for WrestleMania as well with the whole Mama Rhoads thing.
(33:13):
Yeah, I'm gonna go like blood on the belt. Geez. I mean, 20 me me 2024 RW Hellborn compared to 2023 RW Hellborn who just hated CM Punk and didn't want to see him anywhere is now just like, I think it's just like,
I think it's just CM Punk's promos are my favorite one of the best.
There's no denying it. He really just is one of the best.
(33:34):
Every every time. Every time I heard him speak.
I knew that he believed every word he said. Yeah, you know, that's you want to you want to listen to every word he has made and there were times, and there were very much times I've talked about I mean I've mentioned this before like, there were times where he's
(33:56):
the only one who I have watched him cut a promo and felt like he was talking to me.
You know, like, holy shit man you you were you're staring a hole into my soul and making me think about the choices I make in my life.
(34:20):
Because of the yeah yeah yeah you know so yeah that's one of the he's one of the best ever to do it. Yeah, yeah, and he has been for a long time and that's and I and I get it that's why he makes he is.
And you know what you know what's funny because it's not just some people would think.
You know what I got over the over the holidays I was talking to my family and one of my, my niece is like, not really getting into punk rock but is interested in punk rock, like right from from a from a knowledge and interest in like human behaviors
(34:55):
and things she you know she's in college and she's just learning about the both the, the fashion of it the movement of it, political movement ish and the music and so we were having discussions about all that stuff.
And one of those things that like came up was like the idea of punk was supposed to be like anti establishment anti this, and it was more than just like.
(35:22):
It wasn't just about discourse or being disruptive, as it was making making people who have making people who never felt discomfort is uncomfortable.
You know, like, yeah, that's true. And there's a real there's a real much, there's a there's a different perspective about it when you look at it like that and that's how CM Punk has really really opened me back up again was he made you uncomfortable.
(35:55):
One way or another, because he made you think about things in a way that you weren't prepared to think about it with CM Punk like he's like I kind of forget about the, his name hit the fact he has punk in the name.
And like, his character is works out great for us in search engines though. That's that's right. But his name is his name is sorry his, his character is punk rock he is a disruptor he does make you think he does question authority he does.
(36:26):
He just questions everything, but not in the simp and that's why and that's why it, but that's why it kind of failed. It didn't work as well. The other other time around was because it was too much about he was anti establishment it was making him anti WWE.
Yeah. It wasn't that it was it. It was something that people just didn't people didn't not everybody really got it people were attracted to it and people loved it.
(36:53):
But so many people still misunderstood it. And yet once and then when things happen that didn't really align with what they thought CM Punk was supposed to be about.
It gets really discomfort you know it gets it gets really uncomfortable. That's another reason why a him and a W just didn't work.
(37:15):
Yeah, he does not work.
He doesn't work when you give when you give someone when you give someone who thrives off of pushing back.
When you give them completely free control.
There's nothing to push back against even even but even by nature, like, the nature is, give me a box so that I can break it.
(37:43):
No, you have everything there's nothing there. There is no comp. It's it's it's just as bad CM Punk without without someone to go against some in some way.
It is like it's like WWE without comp without actual competition that gets stale it gets boring it gets you don't want to hear it anymore like.
(38:06):
Yeah, anyway.
Where the fuck did I went that went off the rails where it's the beginning of a new year but it's the but but just like last year, we're going to go off the rails.
Yeah. What's next.
Next up is moment. No, no, it's not sorry next up is rivalry of the rivalry of the year.
(38:29):
Who.
There's a couple I guess no it's me first this time actually.
Yeah.
I went to see him progress to Drew McIntyre, it was either going to be kind of Cody Rhodes versus the bloodline in general or CM Punk versus Drew but CM Punk versus Drew has been.
(38:50):
We got to see like, you know, at least that chapter of it from beginning to end three different matches. We had a, you know, a normal match for a special referee, the, the strap match, and we've had the hell in the cell match and so many amazing promos between the two of them on
the floor. So many fucking like three amazing excellent matches, which ended in one of the best matches of the year.
(39:20):
I just, it doesn't get much better than that.
I think it's got recency bias I think if it'd been more close to WrestleMania I probably would have said that.
But look, the storyline with Cody and the rock and Roman was one of the best stories told in professional wrestling.
(39:46):
The CM Punk Drew McIntyre one, you know that was encapsulated within this one year, the other story I guess you could say was a longer one from coming over from the year before so I think for 2024, that was pretty the best the rivalry of the year for sure.
Yeah, what about you.
(40:08):
Yeah, that's, I mean it's, it's, that one was that's good.
There are, there are so many good, there are so many good ones. And yeah recent there's.
There was.
I don't know if it was a ride I don't know the Bailey verse Bailey verse yo with the turn wasn't really a rivalry that was that was sort of her versus damage control for a face turn.
(40:36):
Yeah, so that wasn't so much a rivalry.
That wasn't so much a rivalry in the year what else.
One of the NXT one of the best NXT rivalries of the year now, though, which was a contender for me was trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes.
Oh yeah, that rivalry after after his heel turn was was was really really good. Yeah, I do what I do want to make mention of that.
(41:04):
Geez, is, I mean can we, I know it I know again it's recently bias but can we consider it can we can consider Kevin Owens and Cody Rhodes a rivalry now.
Oh yeah, I mean, this point I would totally yeah it's still continuing.
It was going on for quite, it's been going on since bad blood so yeah been a while.
(41:28):
And is there is there anything better than that one is the question, you know, live and live in Rhea is probably the biggest women's rivalry for sure.
Oh, yeah, is that right. Yeah. Is that rivalry bigger.
I don't know. Probably, I mean, I mean, by the by the numbers sure you know no.
(41:51):
Yeah.
Yeah, man, it's hard it's hard because because the other ones haven't because all the other ones haven't completely paid off yet. Yeah, yeah I got I got I got a priest and Ballard is still is still ongoing.
Yep. The bloodline stuff is still ongoing I think as far as yes especially as far as rivalries that that basically started and ended a complete rivalry of the year that that does it.
(42:18):
Yeah, I'm kind of encapsulates it. Yeah, I think I think I'm going with you on that one too. Yeah.
All right, cool.
Moment of the year.
Undertaker Undertaker showing up at the end of the main event, I think is is got to be up there I mean that that whole that whole finish of the main event of WrestleMania.
(42:46):
Yeah, my my my moment is Cody finishes the story. I don't think when it comes to moments singular moments in professional wrestling this year. Yeah, there's that one.
I mean that moment's going to be up there with so so you know, sure Mike was winning his first title. Yeah, I think I think that I think that I think that garners because because that was the moment that they they have been working towards for the entire time.
(43:13):
That's a given it was it was a chance for for the WWE to take a bow. Yeah, be like, but if we had to pick if we had to pick one another one besides that because because that one because that one's the given.
What would you get what would you go as the honorary honorary moment honorary secondary moment.
(43:35):
That makes it difficult the world because that's the that's the WWE undisputed moment.
Oh, I would then probably say Roman Reigns returns that survive at SummerSlam. Okay. All right. I mean it wasn't.
We knew that we obviously knew it was coming in to some degree but it was.
(43:59):
I mean it, it's fucking Roman Reigns returning.
Yeah, pretty big moment.
Yeah.
Or the press conference the press conference on the run up to WrestleMania 40.
That was that's a moment. That's a moment in itself. That was a whole separate. Yeah, see that's that it's outside. Yeah, because it's not necessarily an in match moment.
(44:21):
Yeah, but it's a it's a definitely I think dude I think you're right. I think the slap. I think the slap and the slap at the press conference right press conference where where everything that that slap is what is what literally slapped the line blurry.
Between that that that that should like it little it slapped the line blurry, you know, you can use that you can you can use that moment you can use that term, you know, because slap that setting is always the big bang that started the current era of professional wrestling.
(44:57):
We said last episode about how that rivalry kind of spurred on everything that's going on right now. Yeah, and that slap style. Yep. Yep. Yeah.
That if it wasn't for that slap. There's a lot of things that are happening right now that wouldn't be happening. So, man. Yeah, that's a pretty good one. That is a pretty damn good one. That's pretty damn good. Yeah.
(45:23):
Match of the year.
I guess I'm going first here now I've got something written down but I just
Okay, I had CM Punk versus Drew McIntyre had in the cell written down. Now, it's a great fucking match and undoubtedly one of the best matches of the year. I just don't know if anything really beats the main event of WrestleMania for you. Yeah, I mean, because
(45:54):
It just had everything. It right. So what can it's almost like that WrestleMania, it has to be this it has to be because it was just it has to be out of the running because it's too it's too all timer to be contender for a year it's too that the end of the
WrestleMania should be it's a should be the rest of the end of WrestleMania 40 should be in a like the greatest matches and moments of all time, not just for a year it's it's almost unfair. In which case, then I would go over CM Punk versus Drew McIntyre.
(46:28):
I guess that was the other thing I was going to think if we're talking about match of the year let's qualify it with with specifically the professional wrestling within the mat the just yeah match the match itself from bell to bell. Yeah, I would also say that the Seth and Cody versus the rock and Roman from the night before was definitely a contender for match a year that was a great match.
(46:53):
There's been so many fucking damn good. I mean, there's there are there are there were amazing just amazing matches. I mean, Cody Rhodes versus a G styles backlash made about to say that one. Yeah, Cody Rhodes versus Kevin Owens Gunther versus shameless. Yeah, yeah.
This is a saying I mean fucking phenomenal match. Yeah, there's I mean, Sammy, Sammy and Drew or yeah, Drew and punk the Drew and punk Helen O'Sull might.
(47:24):
What about Damien Priest and Drew McIntyre that there's so many the in the car I mean, yeah, yeah, Gunther versus Randy Orton at Bash in Berlin fucking insane.
Insanely like over half an hour long match. I mean, even recently with the shameless Kaiser and Brom Breaker and a triple threat for the Intercontinental Championship. That was a that's such a small throw away match.
(47:49):
Talk about triple threat. You want a great fucking match the NXT the oba Femi Josh Briggs and die Jack. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And stand and deliver again. This is why we need we need to talk about NXT more in 2025. Yeah, but there are so fucking many good men. But what's the best match?
I think I think I think I think we're I think we're on the same page again, man. I think it's I think it's McIntyre, punk at bad blood and Helen O'Sull.
(48:12):
I think that's it. It was something else. It's got to be it. You know, it yeah, it it gave something that we haven't seen in a very long time.
And we're not neither of us are like bloodthirsty people know that rivalry. You know what? And you know what? Because it because because we're so and because we are because we don't see it all the time and we're not conditioned for it.
(48:33):
It was uncomfortable when it when it happened. I was like, holy shit. That's a lot of fucking blood. Like, yeah. Holy fucking shit.
That's a lot of blood. Like I am I'm genuinely concerned for the well-being of them both for losing like it.
It made it. It made it so much more impactful. Yeah. Like we said that we don't see it all the time. Yeah.
(49:00):
Yeah. All right. Breakout superstar of the year.
I think I think that's going to be hard. That's going to be a hard to toss up.
Oh, but family in NXT is on that list. Yeah. Dude has just been nothing but dominating.
(49:25):
I if he is not a if he is not a surprise entrant, if he's not an entrant in the Royal Rumble this year, I will be I'll be super disappointed.
True. Yeah. Because he should be having him come out to see what the reception is, is what is really the reason to have him like that.
(49:49):
Dude, he is a he is a fucking superstar. Him or Trick Williams in the main. Oh, dude. Trick Williams has to be.
Yeah. Williams has to be especially if you get Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes in the Royal Rumble. Oh, yeah.
Perfect. Absolutely. Yeah. Because Carmelo is already there. You've got I mean, that's an easy, easy way to make to super, super, super spot for him shows up, eliminates Carmelo from the Royal Rumble.
(50:18):
Genius. I mean, dude, even better would be to start the fucking Royal Rumble, start the Royal Rumble number somehow. Carmelo Hayes has been causing fucking problems. Yeah. So as something as punishment, have him have him be forced to be entrant number one in the Royal Rumble.
(50:39):
But he's going to run his mouth because of because because of whatever. And he's going to get himself the number one spot in the Royal Rumble. And then number two is going to be Trick Williams.
Triple H and Shawn Michaels.
I still find it hilarious that all of the booking in the WWE is completely up to DX at this point. Yeah, hilarious.
(51:11):
For me, I'm going for Brom Breaker. He was he was second on my list. Yeah. I mean, let's face it. He fucking won the Intercontinental Championship twice this year.
He's been stellar in every fucking match. He went from being, you know, people were kind of into him to like people really fucking being really into him.
(51:32):
Now he's become a bit of a fan favorite in this coming up to the main roster. Another rep mentioned was going to be Bronson Reed as well for me because he's made waves as well.
When it when it came to rivalry, one of my one of my other options for biggest rival was going to be Bronson Reed versus everything backstage.
(51:57):
Yeah, you know, you know, that dude, that dude, I mean, no pun intended or I mean, pun intended made a fucking splash.
He showed up and just he made his he made his mark in his own way. He doesn't have to win every match by being big and he just has to cause havoc and destruction.
(52:20):
Yeah, yeah. You know, and and and he is perfect at it. And I can't he's going to get that icy title this year.
I believe for sure. I totally believe it. And I think and I think I don't know who he's going to take it from, but it's going to be great, man.
He's he's he's up there. Man, there's there's a lot of other stars that breakout stars in NXT Honorable Mentions to like there's so many good people down there.
(52:50):
Cora Jade is amazing. Roxanne Perez, NXT Women's Champion, amazing. Who, you know, had an amazing year because we interviewed her at WrestleMania as well.
I think she was the only she was the only champion, right? She was champion at the time. Yeah. And she retained her championship. Yeah.
(53:13):
So, you know, shout out to us again for recognizing champions. Yeah, no.
There's just I mean, man, the our our breakout superstar of 2025 is going to be insane because there's so many possibilities. Yeah.
I just say, you know, I just found out all our picks from last year. So once you finished, I'm going to quickly go through what our picks were for last. OK, good. I didn't write down. I didn't write down what you said or what I said.
(53:44):
Female superstar of the year, Liv Morgan. Yeah. Just who else was it? She is literally been on top of the fucking world this year. Yeah. In my opinion, she's won the world championship.
She won the Crown Jewel Championship inaugural. I mean, that there are I would say Tiffy is probably up there, too. But Liv Morgan has had a fucking all star year this year.
(54:11):
Now, it's you're not wrong. And she's and she's definitely a very valid contender for that.
Tiffany Stratton was going to was going to be my is one of the contenders for me, too. And we can't unfortunately, I don't know if we're talking about 2024.
Can we take into account the smackdown that happened on January 3rd or not? No, we can't.
(54:37):
Twenty five. No, we can't. We can't. So so does it. But but the lead up to it. Yeah, we she's had a phenomenal year. Yeah.
But it's hard. It's also hard. It's hard not to justify Rhea Ripley being in that spot because she's been a part of the storyline with the championship for the entire year.
(55:06):
Right. She's either been she's either been champion or been facing the champion. Yeah, exactly.
This entire year, it's hard to say anyone else, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to I'm going to go with Rhea Ripley for the sole fact that that the fans are behind her so much.
She's she's had a phenomenal year, even with her, even with her time away for injury. She's had such a phenomenal.
(55:32):
I mean, yeah, I mean, you can't say no to that either.
Either one, either one of them. Neither one of us are right for every. You know, it's not you know, we're just we're just giving our opinions. Yeah. We think.
Yeah. And last one of these male superstar of the year.
(55:57):
That's that's tough.
It's so tough.
I mean, what do we base this on? What do we even what do we even base it?
It's just I don't know. All the overall impact they've made the the for me.
I'm going to go. I'll tell you who mine is straight up. I guess. Yeah. Tell me. And what are your qualifications?
(56:23):
My qualifications are.
That's a good question. But I think it's just like. Right. Mine is J.U.
So yeah, I'm a massive fucking fan of J.U. So we get it.
But in this year, he's really like if you look back at J.U.
(56:44):
So last year, he literally was wearing the Usos attire and had a T-shirt that said Ye on it.
Now he's got the haircut. He's got the glasses. He's got shit tons of merch. He's one of the highest merch sellers in the company.
He's wearing crop top, you know, crop tops.
You know, he's got he he has refined his his image and definitively made it his own.
(57:07):
Yeah, he's made it his own. He is a tag team guy who won his first singles championship this year.
The crowd are so behind J.U. So it's it's insane how much the crowd love him.
He has become the new the ye is the new yes. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah.
And like and need I say more than this, the other day above L.A., Netflix and WWE did a drone light show
(57:39):
and they did logos for loads of wrestlers. They did Seth. They did Roman Reigns.
See, they did Stone Cold. They did John Cena. They did fucking J.U. So they had ye glasses.
That's how popular that guy is right now. Yeah.
And like that all happened within the in the year of twenty twenty four.
(58:01):
And I just think for me on a personal level, I just think he has had one hell of a fucking year.
He's he's been one contender for the Worldweight Championship.
He's been he was well involved with the storyline with Cody and Roman going into WrestleMania.
He was you know, he's been involved in in the in the bloodline civil war.
(58:24):
Obviously won the the Incarnate Championship with Bram Breaker. He's just been it's just been such a fucking excellent year for him.
So and he was the winner of the main event of the post war after WrestleMania.
So that's another that's another big moment to give him as well.
(58:45):
Like he has just had one hell of a fucking year. So that's my pick.
I am I'm going I'm going a different direction because of different because of different metrics.
That's fine. I'm picking Gunther Gunther. Yeah.
He started the year off as Intercontinental Champion and he ended the and he ended the year as World Heavyweight Champion.
(59:10):
He's he's spent he's spent over 80 percent.
We've mentioned this metric, but the longer he holds a title, the more that this that this percentage goes up.
Yeah, exactly. He has spent over 80 percent of his time in WWE as a champ.
(59:31):
That's insane. Right. NXT UK champion, NXT Heavyweight Champion, Intercontinental Champion, World Heavyweight Champion.
They this this is literally strange to see him without a championship.
Yeah. And and and that is I mean, that is a that's a record in and of itself that they're not that they're barely even mentioning.
(59:55):
They've I've only ever heard of mention it once, maybe twice.
And we've been talking about it for we've been talking about for a while.
So, of course, you know, of course, they finally picked up on it.
But he is he's consistently been he's someone that they know.
Put this man in the ring and it will be a phenomenal match.
(01:00:17):
And like. Because he is an integral part of a piece of what WWE is.
And some of it is some of it is exceptional in ring, technical, mat wrestling and like a traditional style.
He is one he is an extremely important piece. And I'm so glad that he is that the standard bearer of that.
(01:00:42):
Yeah. You know, it's it's it is phenomenal.
And and they're doing so much with him. Like, I love the little bit of just that just that tiny crack in his armor after night of after after Crown Jewel,
because his only loss, his only loss has been to Cody Rhodes.
That's it in the whole Canada year. Yeah.
(01:01:03):
Which is phenomenal because he's the number he is the number two guy.
Supposedly, if we if we have to always treat the undisputed heavyweight championship as the number one title.
And if you want us to believe that the World Heavyweight Championship is a contender as a as a as a world champion,
(01:01:24):
it means it's the number two title in WWE. Yeah.
And it has to be continually treated like that.
And it's treated like that by someone who's also distinctly making it its own title.
Yeah. You know, love it. I love it.
Well, get this. I've got the results here. I think the results, the our picks for 2023.
(01:01:49):
Yep. Last year, your superstar of the year was Gunther, my superstar of my superstar of the year is Jey Uso.
No shit. What? Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. Two time.
Hey, man, both of them are now two time back to back.
Punk's talk wrestling superstar of the year award.
(01:02:12):
Award. I'll quickly run through these breakout stars of the year.
Mine was Dominic Mysterio. Yours was L.A. Knight.
And what was this year? That was 2023. No, I know.
But let's recap them all. Oh, we can't.
OK, break us out. My name is Brom Breaker.
And who did you go for in the end? Oh, I thought you were writing this down.
(01:02:33):
I wasn't writing it down. I'm sorry. Fuck.
Who did I say? Wow.
Did you? Yeah, you said a lot of people. I know.
I think. Did you say Oberfemme in the end? Oh, yeah, that's right.
Oberfemme. I picked Oberfemme. All right. Cool. Yep.
(01:02:55):
Break female superstar of the year.
I think we both said Liv Morgan. No, no, I said Rhea Ripley.
Yeah, I went with Rhea Ripley. Last year, 2023, we both said Rhea Ripley.
So Rhea Ripley is a two time RW Hellborn. Yeah.
Pumpstuck Wrestling.
Championship match of the year.
(01:03:17):
This year, we both went with CM Punk versus Drew McIntyre.
Last year, we went with Trish trying to find it.
Oh, I. Oh, you know what?
Last year, we didn't actually do match of the year. We didn't.
We didn't do that this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(01:03:38):
So there's that moment of the year.
I went for.
Well, I think we kind of both ended up agreeing on the snap at the press conference, really, didn't we?
Yeah, yeah. In the end, we kind of worked our ways into that.
Last year, we shot our way into that work.
Yeah. The 2023 moment of the year for me was when Sammy Zane hit Roman Reigns in the back of the with the chair of the Royal Rumble.
(01:04:06):
Right.
And yours was Gunther and Brock Lesnar face to face in the Royal Rumble match.
Yeah.
That was your moment of the year.
How things quickly changed after the Royal Rumble.
Rivalry of the year, we both had CM Punk.
(01:04:28):
Is that the last time we that's the last time we saw Brock Lesnar was the 2024 Royal Rumble?
No, that that just then was the 2023 Royal Rumble.
Last time we saw Brock was. Oh, right.
Summer last year, maybe SummerSlam last year.
Yeah. Holy shit.
Rivalry of the year, CM Punk vs Drew McIntyre 2024, 2023, you said Brock Lesnar versus Cody Rhodes.
(01:04:57):
Yeah. Oh, God.
That's a great match.
And I said, Rivalry of the year, Cody and Roman.
Right.
Promo of the year.
I said the rock Cody beat down and you said you kind of everything that's I never really I was very undecided.
(01:05:20):
I just pretty much went with CM Punk.
We have a CM Punk promos.
Last year, you went with a promo between the Roman and Cody where Roman laid down the title belt in front of Cody.
And I went with the Cody and Paul Heyman segment where they spoke about Dusty and everything like that.
(01:05:42):
That was cool.
Entrance of the year.
Now, this is this is this shows you how much can change in a year.
We both said Jey Uso at Backlash last year.
Your pick was Bad Bunny at Backlash.
Yeah.
And mine was Edge at WrestleMania 39.
Oh, my God. Yeah. Edge was still in the WWE.
(01:06:03):
Yeah. Again, how things can change.
DIY is my tag team of the year this year.
Yours was Faxion.
Last year, 2023, both of our tag team of the year was the fucking Creed Brothers.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
Wow. I know.
(01:06:24):
Yeah.
What happened there?
Faction of the year.
This year, I said Judgment Day, you said the bloodline and last year we both said the Judgment Day.
Judgment Day, Judgment Day, one and a half time.
But this time last year, they were literally they held every single championship.
It was a different it was a different Judgment Day.
(01:06:45):
Different Judgment Day.
Commentator of the year.
Last year, I said Michael Cole and I said Michael Cole.
But this year as well.
And last year, last year, you said,
come little Corey Graves.
And this year, you said Jota Tessitura, who wasn't even around this time last year.
Right. I almost said Corey Graves was my next was my second.
(01:07:09):
All right. Sorry. Sorry, Corey.
You almost made two time punk stock wrestling commentator of the year.
Attire of the year.
I said Cody Rhodes and you said Bianca and Bianca Jade.
But we didn't have an attire of the year last year.
Basically, I added to this year so we could make it to 12.
(01:07:31):
Oh, so we make the top 12.
Yeah. Last year, last year, we hadn't we hadn't officially created.
We hadn't even done a top 12 by that point.
Right. This time this time last year, we didn't even have top 12.
We only had top 10.
We were like everybody else.
Yeah. No, no more.
Uh huh. Uh huh.
Uh huh.
(01:07:53):
And that's it.
That is another year.
That's our top.
That's our top 12.
Top 12 of 2024.
You know, our official punk stock wrestling universal top 12 awards of 2024.
Yeah. Play some dramatic like trumpet music here.
We'll just play it. I'll just play one of our other demo tracks.
(01:08:16):
Oh, that that's fine.
Which went something like all the fame.
Yeah.
Oh, maybe we'll come up.
We'll come up with a new theme for next year's 2020 to 2025 top 12.
Yeah. Awards of the year awards.
Awards of the year awards.
(01:08:39):
Awards of the year awards.
Yeah.
I mean, that tracks that tracks for us.
I think we're done.
We're done.
(01:09:16):
Yeah.
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