Sound Off 900 - WWE TALENT CUTS And Hulk Hogan's INSANE Answer For Why He Got Booed! - Solomonster Sounds Off

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's business time, baby you I'm listening to Solo Monster
Sounds Off. I love you, so, Mama Monster, concude find
a woman.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
You got grown ass wrestlers in the back going on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Come over here. I have the best move set. You
have legs. They've made Solo a monster.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
I was ninety nine percent positive it was just chessed up.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Now I want out of my contract if I don't
care what I want. Can you believe it? This is
episode nine hundred of the Solo Monster Sounds Off or
Super Bowl Sunday, February ninth, two thy and twenty five.
Solo Monster Sounded Off last week, that's for sure. But

(00:47):
yes it is I. It is not Jake the Snake Roberts.
It is not kurd Angle or Optimus Prime or an
AI bot or any of the other ridiculous things that
I saw people saying last week. I am feeling much better,
so thank you all for the messages. It was another
Black Friday for WWE. It's been a while since we
have had one of those Black Friday bled into Black Saturday.

(01:11):
And I've got the current list of names released by
the company, which has changed since the last time I
talked about it on Friday Night. AW fired one talent
as well, which they almost never do, so you know
it must have been bad because when it happens, it's
usually for disciplinary reasons, which was the case here, and
I'll let you know who it was and why. Fan

(01:32):
outrage over aw's Grand Slam Australia show, which is less
than a week away talk about that. The Undertaker and
seth Rollins speak on a hul Cogan getting booed at
the first Netflix Raw, and Hogan gives his explanation for
why he thinks he was booed on that show. This

(01:53):
is a doozy thoughts on Monday Night Raw, which I
did not get a chance to review live this week,
and for the Elimination Chamber, and then as I do
every year, you know, I wasn't going to get out
of here without giving my Super Bowl fifty nine prediction.
I have like a ninety eight percent accuracy rate when
it comes to these things. I mean, come on, they

(02:13):
should put me on ESPN. We also made the announcement
this week that Mercedes Monet, the current AWTBS champion, will
be making her House of Glory debut at the NYC
Arena on Saturday March fifteenth. It will be her first
indie appearance since twoenty twelve, right before she joined NXT,

(02:35):
so this is going to be big. Tickets are on
sale right now at hog Wrestling dot net and let's
get into things here. If you want to make a
PayPal donation, you may do so on thesolo monster dot com.
Ten dollars or moral will get your nickname and a
shout out. I want to say thank you to the
extraordinary one himself, Extraordinary Xavier Hacking, Thank you for the

(02:57):
kind words. It's good to hear from you. It's been
too long. The Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, Big b
Brian pisera Velvet Revolver, Robert Murray, The Diamond Dallas Dance Machine,
Harrison's Soep Killshot, Keith Hart, Thank you Keith for the
nine hundred love. Iowan Corn Farmer, Jesse Lambfeir, The Chicago Slayer,

(03:19):
Willie Aicherd Knight Stalker, I f Alsaphar, the Firebomber, Craig Foster,
Thank you, Craig. Best in the game, Trey Porter, Tough Guy,
Timjen Zephyr Max the Axe Volado who was just diagnosed
with gian beret syndrome, which you know when you say

(03:39):
it out loud, it has such a nice name, but
it's anything but a nice illness. And he says he
would not wish this disease on anyone, and because of that,
he's probably missing Dynamite in Oceanside, California and Revolution in
LA as well. So Max, I'm very sorry to hear
about your diagnosis. I know that's a nasty one. Hang
in there. There's probably a lot that you're learning in

(04:02):
a very short period of time to just try not
to overwhelm yourself because that's not going to do you
any good. D Train Desmond mccaide, who wants to shout
out his good friend Madie who lost her mother this week.
He is sending prayers to her family. I'm very sorry
to hear that. Guitar hero John Kiernan, who hosts the

(04:25):
Ropes and Riffs podcast, interviewing your favorite wrestlers and musicians
on how their theme songs came to be. He's got
a lot of great interviews up on his channel, a
recent one with PJ. Black, the former Justin Gabriel from WWE,
who shares his thoughts on his friendship that he had
with Bray Wyatt and a new interview with legendary guitarist

(04:46):
Marty Friedman, who is the lead guitarist for Megadeth for
ten years. It also played Hiroshi Tanahashi to the ring
at Wressell Kingdom eight for his match with Shinsky Nakamora.
That was the year where the fans voted the Intercontinental
Title match over the IWGP title match to headline the
Tokyo Dome, which ended up becoming a pretty big part
of Nitho's story. Right, one must fall first before there

(05:10):
can be a rebirth. Anyway, You can listen to Ropes
and Rips anywhere you listen to podcasts, including YouTube, visit
YouTube dot com, slash Ropes and Rips, and check out
Ropes and Rips on all of your favorite social media platforms.
To handle is at ropes, the letter N and the
word riffs. I also want to give a shout out

(05:33):
to two friends of the show. First, Kevin Castle of
the Dontoni and Kevin Castle Show, who has been going
through some health issues this week. I don't know the
nature of them, but I know he's been having a
rough go and I hope that he is on the
mend very soon. Sending positive vibes his way. I hope
you all will do so as well. And my friend

(05:55):
Greg you may know him better on YouTube as good
mic Work. He announced to his audience this week that
he was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, basically a
form of blood cancer that is more or less the
same thing that I was diagnosed with years ago. And
I told you all about here on the show. It's
like I told him, we're like blood brothers now. But

(06:18):
you're going to be just fine. I know, it's a
scary thing. And apparently he had not been to the
doctor since he was a kid, and he's older than me,
so not even for like a routine physical or anything,
because he's always been so healthy. Everyone's healthy until they're
not right. It's very easy to be healthy if you
don't go to the doctor to find out if something's wrong.

(06:38):
So for everyone listening, use that as a reminder, please
to get yourself a routine checkup and some blood work done,
because that's how it happens. It's always that one routine
blood test that just changes everything. That's how it was
for me. I had a virus, so I was sick.
I went to the doctor. They did a blood test
and they discovered that something was a little out of whack.

(07:01):
It wasn't what I went to the doctor for, but
I'm glad I did. As I have been reminded of
over the past week. When you don't have your health,
you don't have anything, so please take care of yourself.
That's why I say be well, stay safe at the
end of every show that I do. Over the years,
WWE has preferred to wait until Friday to announce their

(07:21):
latest mass wave of talent releases. It's the reason why
a lot of times you'll hear if there's bad news
that a company or the government, or if there's any
bad news to share, they wait until Friday, the Friday
news dump heading into the weekend less people paying attention.
It's no different with WWE. That's why we've seen so
many of these mass waves of talent releases. We usually

(07:43):
find out about them when it happens at the end
of the week, Hence Black Friday. They've also tended to
do some spring cleaning with the roster coming out of WrestleMania.
I don't think they've done it the last few years.
It was definitely more of a thing under Vince McMahon.
But just because Vince McMahon is gone does not mean
that you do not see maps and you will not
see mass waves of releases. Right, It's still a corporation.

(08:07):
There's still always going to be people that get cut,
and there's never really a good time for that to happen.
This year, they decided to do it before wrestle Media,
and it always sucks to see people lose their jobs.
But I can't sit here and tell you that any
of these names are shocking to me. In most cases,
the company just clearly was not going to do anything
with them. You know, they weren't involved in any ongoing storylines,

(08:31):
or at least none that were important. Here's the list
as it currently stands, and I am recording this on
Sunday morning. It's always possible more names could be added
in the coming days or later today. I mean, who knows.
And these names are in no particular order, but these
are all names that are no longer with WWE. Sonya Deville,

(08:55):
actually technically it's still they're all still technically with WWE. Okay,
because if you hear a better wrestler getting released early
from their contract, let's just clarify this and you see
them go on social media, as many of them did
this week, and they mentioned see you in ninety You
know where they have their their ninety days. That's their

(09:15):
ninety day non compete, right, it's not really so much
a non compete as it is a notice from the
company that they plan to get rid of you ninety
days from now. So you're still technically under contract to
them for that period. You're being paid, right, you're getting
your downside guarantee whatever that number is. But it's a

(09:36):
notice like, hey, in ninety days, you're going to be
out of here unless your deal expires. Now, if your
contract expires, then you could do whatever the hell you want.
I mean, your contract could expire on a Tuesday, and
if you wanted to and Tony wanted you, Tony Konkin
say hey, come on over to Dynamite, you could pop
up on their TV show the next day. So that's
the difference between these two things. But Sonya Deville is

(09:59):
going to to be exiting WWE later this month when
her deal expires, after having just hit her ten year
anniversary there. She joined the company in twenty fifteen, and
she was informed that they will not be renewing her deal,
and she was just on the news here in New York.
She was on Pixel eleven news the day before the

(10:20):
Royal Rumble talking about the women's division. But once her
deal is up, she would be free and clear to
wrestle anywhere she wants, because again, she would not be
bound by any ninety days. She came out of tough enough.
You know, even though she didn't win. She not only
does she not win, she wasn't like the runner up

(10:40):
or anything, but she came out of tough enough. They
signed her to a contract. She spent some time in NXT,
and then she formed a partnership with Mandy Rose, and
eventually they split. They wrestled each other at SummerSlam, which
is still the biggest match of her career. She lost
that match and went away for a while. I think
that was around the time she was dealing with that

(11:02):
crazed stalker, psychopath fan who tried to break into her
house and kidnap her, and god knows what else he
would have done to her. It's possible she wouldn't even
be here today. I mean, this guy was, he was
off his rocker, and I think he's locked away now
for the next fifteen years, it doesn't feel long enough.
So she had to go away for a while. But
she came back and played an authority figure role on

(11:25):
SmackDown as the assistant to Adam Pearce, and she was
pretty good in the role. She had a very short
run as one half of the Women's Tag Team Champions
with Chelsea Green before she tore her ACL and she
was out for almost a year and she came back,
and that's when Pure Fusion Collective was formed with Shana
Basler and Zoe Stark, which never took off. It was

(11:45):
a faction fail. I'm not going to sit here now
because this woman is gone and tell you, oh, Pure
Fusion Collective, what will we do without PFC. PFC was
no good, okay, as just as a faction, it didn't work.
Nobody can. They didn't get any reactions and so it
was a faction fail. That's why I call it a
faction fail. And I think what really did her in

(12:08):
was that bad match that she had on Raw last
summer with Eosky. I'm not gonna sit here and tell
he was the worst match I've ever seen, not even close.
But if you can't have a good match with EO Sky, right,
I'm just saying it's probably not EO's fault, and it's
pretty clear that it did her no favors because that

(12:31):
was the last time we saw her in the ring
in a singles match on Monday Night Raw. After that
it was all tags, so you can draw a straight line, okay,
from one to the other. You don't need to be
a fly on the wall in the back to know
that that match did not do her any favors. And
oddly enough, she was eliminated from the Women's Royal Rumble

(12:51):
last weekend by Eosky, which I'm sure was just the coincidence.
She just hasn't been the same since she came back.
Something was off in her matches. It was like it
was like she regressed and I don't know if it
had to do with the injury or what, but it
wasn't good. And I don't know what she wants to do.
I don't know if she wants to work indies or not.

(13:15):
But I'm not sure what else wwe could have done
with her outside of a managerial role. You know, we're
keeping her as maybe a manager for SHANEA. Basler and
Zoe Stark, who were together before PFC, you know, doing
a tag team, and I'm sure they'll just continue to
do what they were doing before. I mean, they should
be fine at least for now. But yeah, I'm not

(13:37):
sure what else wwe could have done with her because
it's not like that that role, that authority figure role
that she had that was several years ago. They have
two authority figures now. Actually every show has a GM
now and they're doing well in those roles, right Nick
all Dis and Adam Pierce. So honestly, I'm just not
sure what else they could have done with her. On

(13:58):
the other hand, there's Blair Davenport who was also released
the former and now soon to be once again. B
Priestley had a nice little run in NXT actually NXT
UK and then NXT before being drafted to SmackDown, and
she made her first appearance in June, and in the

(14:19):
time since then she has had a grand total of
five matches on TV. Now, it's hard for me to
sit here and say, well, you know, she wasn't really
adapting well to the main roster when you have such
a small sample size to go by five fucking matches.
I don't recall any of her matches being egregiously bad. Right,

(14:41):
They started that little story with her in Naomi, but
very quickly abandoned it, and that was it for her.
That was it as far as creative ideas, that was it.
She never had a real chance to show what she
could do. She never had a real chance to you know,
sink or swim on her own. And I just don't
understand the logic in calling someone up if you do

(15:04):
not have a plan on how to use them. Stop
calling people up without having a clear plan for what
you want to do with them. You can't say, well,
they had a need at the time to fill a
hole in the division because someone went down with an
injury and they didn't have enough women. Because if they

(15:24):
needed more people in the division, they would have used her, right,
we would have seen her more than fucking five times
in the last nine months, and they didn't. If they
called her up and she was having terrible matches and
cutting terrible promos and just not connecting with the audience,
I mean, that would be one thing, you know, like

(15:46):
a square peg in a round hole. But that wasn't
the case here. It's like die Jack when he got
called up, and it might have been in that same draft. Actually,
when he got called back up from NXT, he knew
right away. He said, I knew right away. I was fucked.
It's literally what he said, I'm fucked, and he was
because I think it was maybe a month month and

(16:06):
a half later his contract was expiring and it wasn't renewed,
so he was gone. Right. He had a good thing
going down there at NXT, and as soon as he
got drafted to RAW, that was the beginning of the end.
I just don't understand it. Why even bother drafting someone
if you're just going to let their contract expire six

(16:27):
weeks later. But per Fight Full Select, sources within WWE
Creative indicated that there were no substantial creative plans for
Davenport until mid January. She was pitched to join Chelsea
Green and Piper Nivens group, and there was movement on
that front, but it didn't happen. Now on Friday, now,

(16:48):
there were a bunch of different women who came up
to Chelsea in the back in a backstage segment and
they were teasing coming after her in her US title
right Meechen bfab Zelina Vega then walked up to her
and Chelsea turned to Piper and made the comment about, oh,
we need a bigger security detail. So it sounds like
they had or have some kind of plan to expand

(17:11):
that little group, but those plans no longer involved Blair Davenport,
who held multiple titles in stardom and spent quite a
few years in Japan. I'll be curious to see if
she heads back there or if she ends up getting
a look somewhere else. Isla Down is gone, one half

(17:31):
of the former women's tag team Champions with Alba Fire
literally only won the titles because of where the show
was being held that night. They gave her an Alba
nice little moment to remember in their home country, a
clash at the Castle last year in Scotland. It's the
only reason they won those titles. She posted on Instagram.
Here for a good time, not a long time, but

(17:54):
see you in ninety. I don't think that bodes well
for Alba Fire if she's on her own. Now, you
know what they could do. They could add her to
Chelsea's security team Chelsea, Piper and Alba and it was
only a matter of time before this happened. Giovanni Vinci,

(18:15):
someone brought him up in the live chat on Friday
night when I was talking about this stuff and he
was not part of the initial cuts, and yeah, I
made the comment they may not be done yet. It's
like JTG, he should probably keep his phone off. Giovanni
Vinci has been released by WWEE. This is the least

(18:36):
surprising of all of the cuts, and it is very
clear to me now that he was buried on purpose
and they never had any intention of using him. There
is no way that this was merely a case of well,
creative doesn't have anything for you, so sorry. Now. Now,
this one was personal, and I know there's been rumors

(18:56):
about him and something he may or may not have
done behind the scenes that got him heat with Imperium,
which is why he was pulled from the group. That's
always been just a rumor that's gone around on social media.
I have no idea if it happened or not, and
I'm not going to get into the details of it,
because again, that's all it is, is a rumor, But
there are enough people talking about it that Yeah, I

(19:18):
wanted to mention the fact that there is a potential reason,
but it would explain why they kept Gunther and Kaiser together.
And very unceremoniously booted him from the group after they
went through the trouble of reuniting them on the main roster,
because they had already broken up Imperium once before at NXT,
and that's what led to Vinshi being repackaged on his

(19:38):
own as the wealthy Italian Snob, which is the same
gimmick they gave him on the main roster when they
repackaged him there, but only after Triple H had reunited Imperium.
Right when he was initially called up to the main roster,
it was a part of Imperium. They were a trio again,
and then they just split him off on his own
again and they repackaged him. So something happened, whatever it was.

(20:03):
And let me just say, as much as I enjoyed
Imperium as a trio, you look at Ludwig Kaiser. Ludwig
Kaiser found a way to maximize his minutes. As they say, right,
his ring introductions for Gunther became a big part of
Gunther's presentation, his facial expressions, his mannerisms. Kaiser is very expressive. Vinshi,

(20:25):
on the other hand, was always just kind of there,
right he stood, He's like stood in the background. He
didn't stand out in any real way. He just stood
there with a stoic look on his face. Maybe he
was told to be that way, or maybe that was
his mistake and he should have taken a cue from
Kaiser and done more to make himself stand out. I mean,

(20:45):
I like the guy, but I think that's a fair criticism.
If you look back at his time with Imperium, he
didn't do anything to stand out. So it's like, Okay,
they split him off from them again. Months go by,
and they take the time right and the resources to
produce these series of very fancy vignettes for him. He's

(21:05):
driving sports cars and doing all these things building to
his return. And when he finally does return, what happens.
He gets pinned by Apollo Cruise, who never wins anything. Okay,
if Apollo Cruz played the lottery and there were only
ten numbers in the lottery and he played all ten numbers,
he would still lose. Okay, he got pinned by Apollo

(21:29):
Cruise in four seconds. That was their way of reintroducing
Giovanni Vinsci to the world by making him look like
a fucking geek in his first night in and then
Cruse beat him again. This time it took ninety seconds,
and that was the last time we saw him in
the ring on TV. All that hype, all that build

(21:51):
for two matches that he lost, and after that he
was relegated to dark match duty, where he lost every
single one of those matches too. And look at the
list of people they jobbed him out to, Baron Corbin, Apollo, Cruise,
Luke Gallows. You're gonna tell me they didn't bury this
guy on purpose, that it wasn't intentional, that he didn't

(22:15):
run a foul of somebody behind the scenes. He did something.
I'd love to know who he pissed off. But whatever
he did, his fate was sealed and there was no
coming back from it, which is really too bad because
he's a talented wrestler. I knew that the minute I
saw him the first time in the Cruiserweight Classic, I said,
who the fuck is this guy? He didn't even look

(22:37):
like a cruiserweight. I mean, he wasn't like a tall guy,
but there was just something about his build or whatever.
He didn't look like a cruiser weight. But he's flying
around the fucking ring. I go, holy shit. But he
was never going to be higher than middle of the
car at best, but he would have been a solid
addition to the US title picture on SmackDown. He could
have been built up as a credible mid card heel

(23:00):
the way that back in the day you had he
liked the model Rick Martel and people like that. He
could have been that on the SmackDown roster. And even
if they didn't have a spot for him on SmackDown,
you can't tell me that men's division right now in
NXT could not use someone like him. It could have
made him useful in any number of ways, but instead

(23:21):
politics gets in the way, and now he's gone. I
would love to know the real story one day of
what this fucking guy did to deserve what he got,
because it must have been a whopper. Another complete waste
of talent. Speaking of Luke Gallows, he and Carl Anderson

(23:43):
have joined the list and they too are gone once
again from WWA. The Good Brothers are no more. This
is the second time they've been dumped. It's like they
reconciled with their ex wife and she took him back,
and then she just dumped them again. Week that aj
Styles returned to TV No Less. What a kick in

(24:03):
the balls. They had not been on SmackDown since July.
They had been spending most of their time more recently
on NXT, but that was months ago. Anderson had surgery
for a torn rotator cuff and a partially torn labor
and that was back at the beginning of November, so
that's like a six to nine month layoff. So he's
actually out injured right now, and they fired him, which

(24:27):
is super shitty. Like it's bad enough they fired him
for the second time, like they did Samoa Joe, but
to fire the guy while he's out hurt and he
got hurt on your watch, He got hurt in your ring.
He's sitting at home and he finds out that he
lost his job, right, That's that's real scummy. There's no

(24:47):
defending WWE on that, And it's a weird one because
it's not something they really do anymore. I mean, I
don't want to say they haven't fired people before when
they were out hurt. They absolutely have, right, They fired
Tests many years ago when he was out recovering from
spinal fusion surgery. They fired don Marie famously while she
was pregnant, which is what led to her suing them.

(25:08):
For wrongful termination. So they've been scummy before about it,
but that was a long time ago. I was surprised
they even brought these two back, to be honest with you,
in the first place. That was a Triple H move
to bring them back. What was that in twenty twenty two.
I think that was right around the time Triple AH
first took over the book. But I had no real

(25:28):
expectations for their return, and you can see why they
hardly did anything after Vinci. You know, this is the
second least surprising of all the cuts to me, outside
of the timing of it on Carl Anderson, which is
really no excuse for Paul Ellering and the authors of
Paine are all gone, which spells the end of the

(25:49):
Final Testament. With Carrie and Cross and Scarlett now back
on their own, that spells the end of three tag teams, AOP,
the Good Brothers, and the Unholy Union, none of whom
were really being featured anyway. But that's three teams just
gone right there. This one was even weirder than Triple
H bringing back Anderson in Gallows. I never understood why

(26:11):
he brought back AOP and never got it. They added
nothing to the Tag Team Division. He never gave them
any real kind of monster push when he brought them
back or anything like that. He brought them back and
they were immediately relegated to the background. You know, ell
Ring has been around forever. He's a veteran that you

(26:34):
know that Triple H worked with in NXT, and I'm
sure he respects him and really just wanted to give
the guy a job, right, That's all that was. He
wanted to give him a job. And he's also kind
of tied at the hip with AOP. So when rumors
started circulating about a possible AOP return, I figured ella

(26:57):
Ring would probably come along for the ride, and he did.
But Ellering also, Ellering didn't do anything. He barely got
any time to speak. And I know he's older, but
surely you could use someone like him to help cut
promos for AOP or any number of people who might
be able to use it. But to do that, AOP
would need to be featured on TV on a regular basis,
and they weren't, which rendered Paul Ellering obsolete. Cedric Alexander

(27:26):
is gone. He made the announcement in a post on
social media Friday. He said thank you for the last
eight and a half years. Being a professional wrestler has
been a dream of mine since I could form memories,
and I will continue to do so until the Good
Lord says otherwise. Hashtag SeeU in ninety. There were reports
a few months ago that he had re signed with

(27:46):
the company sometime early last year. So unless he signed
a one year deal, which I seriously doubt it would
appear they released him early. It's like Anderson and Gallows
their first time with the company. They had just re signed.
They had signed new five year contracts, only for WWE

(28:08):
to turn around and cut them what was it a
few months later, I think, which just serves as a
reminder that it doesn't matter how long your deal is
that you signed. The company has all the power. Like
you're not really signing a five year contract. They're signing
you to keep you away from everybody else for five years,
but they could let you go whenever they damn will please.

(28:31):
They have all the power. It's all very one sided,
but that's how it's always been. Cedric's a talented guy.
He'll do well on the indies. Obviously a lot of
people are going to be thinking hurt syndicate in aw
and yes, that would be a natural fit, you know,
to get the original band back together, since all the
other members are already there, MVP, Bobby Lashley, Shelton Benjamin.

(28:54):
But there was a very public spat many years ago
with Tony Kahan and Big Swoll who was married Cedric
when she left. Aw things were said, and they were
well documented at the time. I talked a lot about it,
and I know that was many years ago, but I
don't know if time has healed those wounds yet. I

(29:14):
don't know that he is going to be so eager
to go sign there. I mean, maybe he will, right
If he's open to going there and Tony Kann is
open to having him, then the Hurt Syndicate makes all
the sense in the world. And this one actually happened
months ago, but we only learned about it this week.
Duke Hudson is gone from NXT. A real name, Brendan Vink.

(29:34):
He was actually up on RAW with that name when
the pandemic started. They were doing those shows at the
Empty Performance Center. It was where he and Shane Thorn
became MVP's newest associates, and that only lasted a few
weeks before they got sent down to NXT, and after
that he went through a few different gimmicks before settling

(29:55):
on the Chase University stuff. They broke up Chase You
several months ago, so it was probably not long thereafter
that they cut him. He finally found something with the
Chase U stuff that worked. I'm not even sure why
they ended Chase Hugh. I know I haven't been keeping
up week to week with all the NXT stories for
a while now. I haven't been following the careers of

(30:16):
all the Chase You members, but they were a popular
act on the show, and I don't think the members
have really done much of anything since then. Right. They
fed them to Ridge Holland after that to get Ridge
ready to challenge Trick Williams for the NXT Championship, and
that was that. I don't think the Chase U gimmick
had legs on the main roster any more than I
think that Tony DiAngelo gimmick does not for more than

(30:39):
a short period of time anyway, but it was perfect
for NXT. I think Hudson could have ended up in
a mid card role on the main roster if they
ever called him up, but I didn't see him going
any higher than that. And evidently neither did Triple H
because he never called him up right. He could have
called him up months ago, he didn't want to. I
saw the video he posted this week on social media

(30:59):
where he interviewing himself, but it was like two different
versions of himself. I don't know if it's going to
be part of a series of videos. I thought it
was well done. It's very well put together. He'll land
on his feet somewhere soon enough. So those are the
eleven names that we know of so far. One shy
of a dozen, and this man wasn't released, but he

(31:24):
is going to be gone for a while. And it
makes me wonder if the timing of his injury was
rather fortuitous, because if he was healthy, he may well
have ended up on that list with all the other
names I just mentioned. Apollo Cruise. He tore his peck
in that match that he had on SmackDown a few
weeks ago with Johnny Gargano and had surgery this week,

(31:47):
so that's at least six months out right there. I
didn't think anything of it at the time, but I
went back and I watched the match, and you can
clearly see, like midway through he starts grabbing at his
chest like he knows something is wrong, but he just
kept you know, he wrestled a few more minutes and
he won that match. He won that match also, so
a cruel twist of fade and that he never gets

(32:08):
to wrestle on TV and he finally does and he
wins a match, but he gets hurt and now he's
going to be gone for most of the year. That
torn peck may have just saved his job, Carl Anderson,
notwithstanding right the Apollo Cruise thing that just happened, Like
even I don't think they would fire the guy two
weeks after he got hurt. Two months maybe, but not

(32:32):
two weeks. But one thing to watch for. And I
got an email about this from Mick who was thinking
along the same lines. He asked about TNA being a
potential landing spot for some of the released talents and
would they want to go work for a company with
ties to WWE with the hope that it might help

(32:54):
in leading to a return there down the road might
make things a little bit easier, or would they avoid
TNA knowing of their affiliation with WWE and since WWE
didn't want them, maybe they're a little bitter about it
and they would rather go work somewhere else. And to that,
I say this, at the end of the day, these

(33:14):
people need to work. They need to make money. And
if AW was not interested in them, or they don't
want to go to AW because they just they don't
want to just be another body on the roster. And
that would include a Ring of Honor, because Tony con
owns Ring of Honors. So if that's not an option
for them, they're not going to say no to an
opportunity to work for TNA just because they do business

(33:36):
with WWE. Most of them, if WWE came calling, most
of the eleven people on that list, if WWE came
calling to give them a job again, would take the
job and go back. So you can go work for
TNA and make a living and be on TV. And
even if WWE doesn't want to bring you back, right,

(33:58):
it's not a bad place to be. Or best case scenario,
you go work for TNA, you up your value, right,
you stay on television, you're visible, you do well, and
WWE eventually does bring you back, maybe in a year
or two. I don't see any of these people avoiding
TNA though, just because of the WWE connection. WWE does

(34:21):
not own TNA, at least not yet. They don't have
control over the hiring decisions that TNA makes, so I
don't think the WWE connection to TNA hurts these people
in any way. It can only help now. I mentioned
earlier that I did not get a chance to go
live and do the RAW post show on YouTube because

(34:43):
I was very ill. But I did watch the show,
so this guy got to lay on the couch downstairs
and watch Raw on the big TV for a change.
It was pretty sweet. One thing that was very annoying,
and I hope, I really hope this is not an
issue this week is the glitches. And I don't know

(35:04):
if everybody had them, but I know a lot of
people did. I know I wasn't the only one. There
were glitches, not throughout the entire two and a half hours,
but it got really bad, especially at the very end
of the show, where the feed was just glitching out.
It's the best way I can describe it. And I
don't know if that was a Netflix issue. I don't
know if that was a WWE production issue. My guess
is it was a Netflix thing because I can't ever

(35:26):
remember WWE know their shows glitching out like this, you know,
when they were on USA or anywhere else. But the
very end of the show, the end of the main event,
the postmatch stuff, which was the biggest angle of the night,
virtually unwatchable for me, Like it was bad. So hopefully
that was just the one off. I don't know what

(35:48):
would have caused it. I don't know if there was
a weather issue in the area. I have no idea.
At first, the first glitch I saw, I was like,
wait a minute, the wy at six I thought was
on SmackDown. Then it became very clear this this had
nothing to do with the why at six. This was
not something that was being done intentionally, So that sucked.
But as far as the rest of the show, this
was the first we're all coming out of the Royal Rumble,

(36:10):
and they opened the show with Jayuso, who did his
big spectacular entrance. Five or six minutes for him to
get from the concourse down to the ring. Everybody's yeating
and everybody's cheering for him, and channing you deserve it.
The thing that struck me about this segment here is
just the real emotion and you saw the reaction, you

(36:31):
heard the reaction. You saw the emotion on his face,
you heard it in his voice. His voice was cracking,
he sounded nervous, He didn't know what to say. He
was very nervous. But that's genuine emotion and it went
both ways. It wasn't just that he was expressing it.
It was from the crowd as well. So again for
all the people who were still wondering, why the hell

(36:51):
would they have jay Uso win the Royal Rumble when
you had all these other big names in there, you
saw it right there, clear as day in the opening
segment on this show. You don't have to agree that
jay Uso, oh, he should be challenging for a championship
at WrestleMania. He's not a great wrestler. All he does
is super kick. I don't get what people see in him. Well,
you may not get what people see in him, and

(37:12):
he may have had some really bad matches with some
people before, including WrestleMania last year. Right, there's no denying
that the match with Jimmy was no good. And I
didn't even like the tribal combat match that he had
with Roman Reigns a few years ago at SummerSlam. So
he's had some stinkers, no doubt about it. And there
are wrestlers on even just the Raw roster, let alone

(37:35):
Raw and SmackDown who are much more dynamic in ring performers.
But all that being said, jay Uso is more over
than almost anybody else in that company right now, and
the fans just organically have gravitated towards him. They have
made a connection with him that most wrestlers would die for.
Like that's why they get into the wrestling business. Daniel

(37:58):
Bryan in the Yes Movement all those years ago, that
image of Brian in the ring with all the fans,
remember them, the fans, they brought them into the ring
and they're all chanting Yes. It's like it's images like that.
It's it's that type of fan connection that wrestlers would
just absolutely murder for. And he's got it and the
numbers reflect it. Right. What is WWE and TKO love

(38:21):
more than anything else. They love making money. It wouldn't
be pushing jay Uso as hard as they are if
they weren't making money off of him. They love that.
That's why he's in one of the championship matches at
WrestleMania this year. But he was very emotional, and it
took forever for him to get the words out. I

(38:44):
wasn't even sure he was going to be able to
cut the promo. I mean, that's how I mean. He
was almost trembling, and you could see the tears in
his eyes. He said, to be honest, I don't even
know what to say, which was very clear. Everyone yelled yeat,
and he said, man, besides that, and he said, he
got into the game fifteen years ago, and he and
his brother tried to make a good living and just

(39:06):
carry on their family legacy. And they did that, and
he went through the pandemic, you know, the whole pandemic
era and the bloodline, and they were cool chapters of
his career. But after that he was scared because he
didn't have the confidence to be a single star. But
after coming out here tonight, he realized I got it now.
He said, I worked really hard to get to this spot, man,

(39:28):
I worked hard to get to this position. He started
tearing up. He was struggling to get the words out.
Thanked the fans and said that he was the winner
of the twenty twenty five Royal Rumble and he was
going to the main event of WrestleMania, and that brought
out Gunther and he wanted to offer his congratulations, but really,
he said, I'm just disappointed. He goes the possibility of

(39:50):
me defending my title against you, it doesn't appeal to me.
You can't even lace my boots, and he refused. He
refused to do that again with him. So, beating you
at WrestleMania adds nothing to my legacy. Beating John Cena
would add to my legacy. Well, I mean, ask Austin
Theory about that. But beating John Cena, beating Roman Reigns

(40:14):
or even c I'm punk, that would add to my legacy.
He said, if you choose me every week, Jay, every
week is going to be hell, with WrestleMania being the
most horrible display of violence that this business has ever seen.
I'm going to hurt you. I'm going to put you
down like a diseased dog. And he said, Jay, You've

(40:35):
got options. You would be very wise to consider them.
So I loved everything about this segment, just the genuine emotion.
Gunther coming out his logic about how look, I'm already
the world champion, right he had that legendary Intercontinental title run.
Now he's got the World Heavyweight Championship. So for him,

(40:56):
he's reached the top of the mountain already, right, He's
not scratching and clawing to win the title. He's got
the title, So for him, it's just all about a
good challenge, which he feels like jay Uso presents no
challenge because he's already beaten him three times. He just
beat him on Saturday Night's main event again. But the

(41:16):
challenge for him also is adding to his legacy, and
he feels he doesn't get that from beating jay Uso
for a fourth time, Like that's exactly the sort of
thing you would expect someone like Gunther to come out
and say. But he warned him. He goes, I'm going
to make your life a living hell every single week
heading into WrestleMania if you choose me. That's what makes

(41:37):
the story work. Yes, we've seen the match a bunch
of times already, but jay has made it very clear
I know I can beat this guy, and he's got
the fans behind him believing the same thing. And now
you've got gun there threatening to make his life a
living hell every single week until we get to WrestleMania.
And when we get there and we get the payoff,
which will be Jay winning the title from him, Right,

(41:58):
That's what all of his fans are going to I
want to see. That's what all the fans are going
to go crazy about. Just like when Kofe beat Brian
at WrestleMania thirty five, nobody in the world ever would
have expected that Kofi Kingston would be challenging for the
WWE Championship at WrestleMania. How did it happen? How did
that even happen in the first place? Because the fans
organically got behind him. You think that Vince mcmahnon WWE

(42:21):
engineered a story months in advance. Hey, we got this
great idea. We're going to push Kofi Kingston to the
WWE title. Are you out of your fucking mind? That
happened because of the people, And I'll guarantee you that.
And I can guarantee you this because I was doing
this podcast and I saw it on social media. Even then,

(42:41):
you still had people just like you do now with
Jay Uso. They weren't saying that Kofee Kingston was a
bad wrestler. They were just saying that, man, Kofee Kingson's
a mid card guy, best I can't see him challenging
for a world title, let alone at WrestleMania. Like that's ridiculous.
And you know what, I'm not even saying that people
didn't have a right to feel that way because Kofe

(43:01):
was slotted at a certain level from many, many years.
It's like the Dov Ziggler thing. When you get slotted
at a certain level for so long, it's very hard
to break out of that. But the fans willed it
into existence and they told this great story. Kofe Mania
took over and it was a great moment, and he
had that championship for six months. You know, it's very

(43:23):
possible that jay Uso is going to win the world
heavyweight title and six months later at Summer Slam, you
know he's gonna get put down like a dog. And
you know what, that's okay because they will have already
told that story and from there other stories develop and
other people get opportunities to win the championship. Jay Uso
does not have to hold the title for a year

(43:43):
or two years or three years to have some sort
of validation. Right now. The focus right now is WrestleMania.
It doesn't matter what happens coming out of WrestleMania. You
could fucking beat him the next night on Raw, he
could drop the championship to somebody about telling that story
and getting that moment at WrestleMania. And the other Royal

(44:06):
Rumble winner was Charlotte Flair. She got a very different
reaction than Jay Uso did. And she's been gone for
a long time. She missed over a year, fourteen months
of her career. You would think that, well, you know,
absence makes the heart grow fonder. There'll be a honeymoon
period for Charlotte Flair when she comes back. And she

(44:26):
got cheered mostly at the Rumble when she won, right,
she didn't get booed out of the building like Roman
Reigns did ten years ago when he won the Rumble
in Philadelphia. But by Raw Monday night, it was pretty
much what you would have expected. She came out and
she got booed. You know, it was a mixed reaction,
but mostly boos. As soon as she started speaking, people

(44:47):
were booing, and she addressed it and said, you know
that booing would have bothered me a year ago, but
I missed you guys, right, I've been gone for over
a year, and I missed I missed you. I missed
you booing and cheering for me, and the people booed,
and she tried to really give this heartfelt promo where
she said, you know, the last year sucked. I thought

(45:10):
I was unbreakable, but last year broke me mentally and physically. Right,
she's talking about how mentally she was really in a
bad way last year, and how did the fans react
to this? They bowed. She said there was a point
where I didn't think my knee would get better, and
they bowed. She said that she would embrace the booing

(45:33):
because she loves the fans. Right, their reaction didn't change
the fact that she was the greatest superstar in the
history of this business, and of course that got booed.
She definitely seemed rattled. And I don't know that she
came out there and had expectations that everybody was going
to cheer for her. She had to know. They had
to know that the boos would be there. Maybe they

(45:55):
wouldn't be overwhelming, because they weren't overwhelming at the Rumble,
but they had to have some sense of self awareness that, Okay,
this woman is not going to come out here and
be cheered wildly. The way that Jay Usso was at
the beginning of the show, So I think it might
have been a little bit of both. I mean, she
sounded like she was legitimately a little bit rattled by
the reaction, especially when she was talking about her knee

(46:17):
injury and they bowed. But at the same time, I
would like to think that they had planned for her
to be a heel going into WrestleMania, because anything else
would be a fail. But she definitely seemed a little
rattled legitimately by the reaction. So Riha Ripley came out
and she said she respected Charlotte and hoped that she

(46:39):
picked her because the last time they fought at WrestleMania,
I beat you. Charlotte reminded her that she won the
first time they wrestled at WrestleMania, and Ripley said that
she was just a kid back then, and Charlotte said
that she had plenty of time to make her decisions.
She planned to attend NXT to see if Julia inspired her.
Then she planned to attend down to see if Tiffany

(47:01):
Stratton inspired her. She said Ria jumped the gun by
coming out here, which showed her that Ria was still
just a kid, and Ria got angry and said, you
don't respect me, and so pick me so I could
beat the respect into you. That was a good line.
I didn't think the segment overall, though, was very good. Again, Charlotte,

(47:22):
she just doesn't come across well in these promo segments,
And again I wasn't sure at the beginning of it
whether or not she was really trying to get sympathy
from the crowd or going out of her way to
get boot. You know, it was hard to tell exactly
what they were going for, although she was clearly you
know with that line about how I'm the greatest of
all time. I don't see how they could have expected

(47:44):
anything but a mixed reaction at best. But she doesn't
really play it off well. And the same on Friday,
I didn't think that that segment with Tiffany Stratton was
very good either. She's just not a compelling promo, whether
it's as a heel or a baby face. You know,
with jay Us so at the beginning. It's a great

(48:06):
contrast here because with jay Us at the beginning of
the show, I mentioned that's real emotion, right, There's just
a genuineness to it. It's the exact opposite when she
comes out and cuts these promos. There's nothing there's nothing
genuine about it, and the people know it, they can
feel it, they can sense it. It just doesn't work.

(48:27):
Live Morgan qualified for the Elimination Chamber and they did
this lame DQ finish to the match where Ria Ripley
had come out because it was Live against Eosky and
Rhea came out to take out Wherekel Rodriguez at ringside,
Live grab Rihea's hair, so Ripley turned around and punched
her and the referee calls for the DQ and that look,

(48:49):
it makes sense because Live puts her hands on Rhea.
Live is part of the match. Rhea is not. But
Rihea is not part of the match, and as soon
as she lays her hands on Live, then that's a qualification.
Like that aspect of it makes sense to me. It's
just a kind of a lame finish to what otherwise
I thought was a good match. But it served a
purpose because what happened when the match was over Ria

(49:12):
and Ea there was a tease there for a future match.
EO is not happy that Rhea Ripley not only cost
her a win, but cost her a spot in the
elimination Chamber, and it seems to me pretty clear that
the direction for WrestleMania looks to be Riha, Ripley and Eosky.
Now you might say, well, how's that going to happen?
Because Eosky was bounced out of the elimination Chamber. Sometimes

(49:36):
they do these last chance qualifiers, and that is what
I am expecting and hoping that they do. They have
a last chance qualifier, Eosky can still find a way
into that chamber match. If she does, there's your winner
right there. So before we jump all over this, there
is still a chance that Eosky could end up in
the elimination Chamber. We'll just have to see if they
do one of the last chance qualifiers. But that's what

(49:59):
I would expect. And ce im Punk in the main event,
qualified for the men's Elimination Chamber with a win over
Sammy's Zin their first match ever, I do believe, and
it was a very good match. And with John Cena
already declaring for the chamber, this now will make two
straight plees with John Cena and see I'm Punk in

(50:19):
the same match. Hopefully this time we get more of
an actual interaction between the two of them. When the
match was over, Kevin Owens appeared and he attacked Sammy's
ain from behind. It was smart how they did this,
because what they did was they had Owens. You know.
There was a handshake between Punk and Sammy and Punk
went to go leave. I thought for a minute there

(50:40):
Sammy was going to attack Punk. That's what it looked
like because Punk turned his back to him and went
to go leave. But Kevin Owens came out of nowhere
and attacked Sammy from behind, knocking Sammy into Punk, which
knocked Punk out of the ring. And that was smart
because that's how you explain why CM Punk did not
get back in the ring to help him. And from there,
Kevin Owen delivers a package pile Driver to his now

(51:02):
former best friend, and then Owen's tweets on Friday, if
you guys help support my daughters girl Scout Troop by
buying some cookies. I promised to keep wrestling for at
least four years, eleven months, and twenty two days more.
So that was his very clever way of announcing that
he has signed a new five year deal with WWE.

(51:23):
So he is not going any Why would he go anywhere? Else.
I mean, WWE, I think has largely done well by him.
Now there are people who are going to look at
that and go, that's bullshit because he should be champion
and they haven't put the title on him. They're never
going to put the title on him. I wouldn't say
they're never going to put the title on him, but
he doesn't have to be champion to be in a

(51:43):
pretty damn good position on the show. And the key
with him is that he has been prominently featured, and
I expect him to continue to be prominently featured, and
I think they've largely done well by him, and so
there was really no need for him to go anywhere else.
He could have negotiated elsewhere and tried to drive his
value up, but he seems pretty happy, you know, with

(52:06):
the way he's being featured right now. So I really
didn't expect that there was going to be some kind
of a bidding war or he was going to look
to go elsewhere, Because if you wanted to go elsewhere,
I really think it would have happened the last time,
because you know, aaw would have snatched him up in
a heartbeat. He's got friends there, right, He's good friends
with the Bucks, right. I'm sure they'd all love to

(52:26):
work together. But I really feel like if he genuinely
wanted to go over there and work for AW that
it would have happened last time that his contract came up.
So this doesn't surprise me. Now, Owen's cut a promo
that they aired on SmackDown. It was very brief, but
he was sitting in his car and this was the

(52:47):
explanation for why he did what he did, and he
blamed Sammy for not helping him at the Royal Rumble,
and he said, you know, Cody Rose tried to basically
murder him, and you just stood there and did nothing.
Because Sammy did come out during the match at the
Royal Rumble to check on Kevin after one of the
spots they did, but you didn't do anything. And then,
and it's exactly what I said in my review that night,

(53:09):
when I talked about the match, I said, this right there,
that's going to be the catalyst because when Cody Rhoades
was ascending that ladder and reaching up and pulling down
those championships, there's plenty of time for Sammy's ainy to
get in the ring and stop him from doing so,
and he didn't do it. Sammy was standing there, he
was looking up at Cody and he did nothing. And

(53:30):
I said that right there is going to be the catalyst.
That's more or less what he said here in this promo.
And he said, you're You're just a disgusting human being.
You're a terrible friend, and I'm gonna make you pay.
In the update on Sammy, they said that he suffered
spinal compression and some other injuries. Look, Cody Rhoads took

(53:52):
a package pile driver and got carted out in an ambulance.
He was back, I think, two weeks later. Couldn't even
wait until the beginning of the y. He was back
before December was over. So there is no reason to
think that Sammy's Ain is not going to be back
in time for a match at the Elimination Chaper. That's
what I'm expecting. I'm expecting Kevin Owens against Sammy's Ain
in Toronto at the Elimination Chamber, and not at WrestleMania.

(54:16):
I still think the match there is Owens and Randy Orton.
Now what that means for Sammy at WrestleMania, It could
mean a match with Carrion Cross, which seems like quite
a step down for Sammy's Ain because Carrion Cross has
not been featured prominently in any meaningful way Carrying Cross.
I can't remember the last time Carrying Cross had a
singles match on a ple It probably goes back to

(54:38):
the feud he had with Drew McIntyre. It had to
be right, it had to be one of those matches.
And how many years ago was that? Probably two years
ago at this point. So it feels like it would
feel like a huge step down for Sammy because it
would be It would be great for Cross, and I
can't think of a better opponent for him to have
a match with than someone like Sammy's Ain. He keeps

(54:59):
stir ring the pot backstage in these backstage segments with
Samby talking about, oh, you know, other people living out
your dreams. Right, he's playing mind games with him. They're
obviously going to have a match. It could just be
a random TV match, But it does make me wonder
if we're looking at Samby's ain't and carry and Cross
for WRESTLEMANI but I mentioned Randy Orton, what are the

(55:20):
options realistically? Okay, Randy Orton is still not back. What
are the options for Randy Orton if we assume that
he will be at wrestle maany the most likely path
I still say is that he returns either at or
immediately after the Elimination Chamber and we get Randy Orton
against Kevin Owens at WrestleMania. I think that is the direction.

(55:43):
Or he could be announced for an Elimination Chamber qualifier match,
win the Chamber that is, and then go on to
challenge Cody Roads for the WWE Championship of WRESTLEMANI that
seems the least likely of all of his potential pads.
Or he faces John CeNAT WrestleMania and in John Cena's

(56:05):
final WrestleMania match. It's Cena and Orton who never had
a singles match at WrestleMania. The closest they came they
were part of a triple threat in Orlando at twenty four.
Hard to believe that throughout their feud and all the
matches they had there are many, many, many many matches,
we never got a singles match of Wrestlemandia between John
Cena and Randy ort That also seems very unlikely. So

(56:29):
I still say that he comes back at or after
the Chamber and gets Ko and Sammy is is going
to have to just play with somebody else. As far
as the Netflix viewership, this was reported this week that
the viewership for the final raw before the Royal Rumble,
so the January twenty seventh episode, and they do it

(56:50):
by global views, down to two point nine million, which
was the last raw. As I said before the Rumble,
that's down the whole three million views from what the
Netflix premiere did in its very first week. So the
Netflix viewership continues to drop. You look at January sixth,
they did just shy of six million views. January thirteenth,

(57:15):
they were down to three point seven million, January twentieth
three million, and now two point nine million. Quite the drop,
but there is a big change coming because Raw is
moving to Netflix in India starting in April. I guess
they're done with Sony six. They're moving to Netflix. They

(57:37):
have a huge fan base over there. Who was that woman?
Oh my god, what was her name? Kvita de v Right?
She was? Was she in nxt Or? I think she
they brought her into the performance center, but she was
somewhat of Indian descent who they brought in and I
just remember I was looking up some of the most
viewed videos on WWE's YouTube, like in the history of

(57:59):
their YouTube. First of all, I think if it's not
like in the top five as far as one of
the most viewed videos, it's definitely like in the top
ten or fifteen most viewed videos on WWE's YouTube channel.
I think it's like a Battle Royal that the Great
Collie one to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Like the number,
like the millions of views that that had is just

(58:21):
alarmingly high. But then like Kavita d V had her
like debut match and also like tens of millions of views.
But it just goes to show you like they have
a huge fan base over there. So those numbers are
going to go up. We don't know by how much,
but I'm I'm sure that adding raw to Netflix in India,

(58:42):
since they go by global views, is going to jack
that number up. We just don't know by how much.
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Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
The update on Drew McIntyre coming out of the Royal
Rumble but before SmackDown last Friday was as follows. As
you know, he was eliminated by Damian Priest, and it
was awkward because it sort of came out of nowhere,
didn't get much of a reaction. It felt very anti
climactic for someone who has been such a big part
of TV heading into that show. And when he got

(01:01:52):
to the back he was said to be irate. He
was yelling and screaming about somebody being more interested in
getting themselves over than the match itself and getting their
shit in, and he stormed out of the building before
the Rumble was even over. Priest eliminating him was always
the plan. Let's just get that out of the way first.
It was not an accidental elimination. The plan was always

(01:02:14):
for Damian Priest to eliminate Drew McIntyre. I don't know
how you can watch the way they did it and
think anything else, but it was clearly planned that way.
Drew was going to throw Jay Usso out of the
ring and then Priests would swoop in and dump him out,
leading to a WrestleMania match between the two of them.
But the spot was planned to happen earlier than it
did herd pw Insider. It was to have taken place

(01:02:37):
before Logan Paul entered the match at number thirty, not after.
As far as what went wrong and who McIntyre was
angry with, Mike Johnson said several sequences involving La Knight,
including one with Roman Reigns, took far longer than planned,
and then once Logan's music hit, that further delayed the
spot with McIntyre and Priest, so the timing got thrown off,

(01:02:59):
and then there was that little moment where as it
was happening, they sort of bumped into Night, which made
things look a little clunky. And I'll say what I
said last week, as far as that spot goes, I
don't think that was a big deal. Now, if the
timing was off, you know, with other things he was
doing and he threw everything out of whack, I mean
that's a little bit different. But as far as like
them bumping into him, like, oh, he shouldn't have been

(01:03:21):
standing there. It's the Royal Rumble, like, for God's sakes,
I mean, you got a whole bunch of people in there.
It's incidental touching. Like, I didn't see that as being
a big deal. I think it would have been underwhelming
to see Drew go out of the way or out
of the ring rather the way he did, regardless especially
if it happened even earlier. They said it's supposed to
happen even earlier in the match. But it made McIntyre

(01:03:44):
very angry. I thought it was, you know, all blown
out of proportion and everything would be you know, worked out,
And that's exactly what happened. Not only was he back
on TV days later, McIntyre worked with La Knight in
an Elimination Chamber qualifying match on Friday Night. It also
included Jimmy Usso Big Jim, and it was made official

(01:04:05):
that McIntyre has moved from Raw to SmackDown as part
of the transfer window, which is now officially closed. So
basically what they did is they swapped AJ Styles and
Drew McIntyre because AJ Styles now is on Monday Night Raw,
and that's exactly the move that I proposed back in
October after Drew's Hell in a Cell match with Cmpunk.
Get him as far away from Punk as possible, get

(01:04:27):
him off Mondays, move him to Fridays, and the closest
one for one trade that they could do would be
AJ Styles for Drew McIntyre because it would also give
AJ new opponents to work with on Mondays. So I
was happy to see them do it. I was actually
kind of hoping they would move AJ to Raw and
then build to AJ and Gunther at WrestleMania, but obviously

(01:04:49):
they had other plans and Jay Usso is super over
right now, even more than AJ is, so it makes sense,
but AJ and goother at some point. It still could
be a great match. I think I just thought that
would be a potential WrestleMania match. McIntyre Pin Night to
qualify for the Chamber. That was one of three qualifying

(01:05:10):
matches that took place on Friday. The other two saw
Bianca Belair and Alexa Bliss all qualify for the women's Chamber,
which Live Morgan is already in this Friday, it's going
to be Naomi against Chelsea Green, which should be a
win for Naomi. And on the men's side, Damian Priest,
Braun Stroman and Jacob Fatu are going to be in
a men because the men's qualifiers some of them anyway,

(01:05:32):
are three ways. It's weird how they're doing it. Some
of them are singles matches, some of them are are
triple threat matches. But that should be a win for
Damian Priest, so that way they can shoot whatever angle
they're going to shoot in the chamber with Priest and
with McIntyre. As far as McIntyre working a match with
him at WrestleMania, and you know that is a wrestle

(01:05:52):
Media match. It'll be good, but it's not where I
wanted to see Drew McIntyre on the WrestleMania card. You know,
he was the odd man out when it came to
the top names. You know, based on what they did
at the Rumble, they seemed to be building to a
triple threat match with Roman Reigns, cm punk and Seth Rawlins,
McIntyre against Cody Rhodes that could have worked, but Cody

(01:06:12):
is occupied. McIntyre against John Cena that would have been
a great final WrestleMania match for Sena, but they probably
want him challenging for the championship. And McIntyre against Roman
Reigns obviously there's history there would have made sense, but
there's also lots of different matches that Roman Reigns could
have at wrestle Media that would make sense. And it's

(01:06:33):
not like Roman and Seth, they don't have history with
each other. But yeah, I got an email from Kenneth
in California. He pitched the idea of Drew being added
to the match with Rains, Punkin Rollins and making it
a four way because all of his enemies would be
in the ring at the same time, and he has
lost feuds to every single one of them, so this

(01:06:54):
would give him the chance to get a win over
all three of them. I don't really like the idea
of a four way at WrestleMania, especially when you have
two nights. I think you need to spread some of
those matches out, but it would be a better spot
for Drew McIntyre, that's for sure, And what I'm hoping

(01:07:15):
for is that he ends up as the world champion
later this year. And the idea that I've talked about
in the last few weeks is him defending against Sammy's
Aid at WrestleMania forty two. Yeah, you got the rumble
in Saudi Arabia. Sammy wins the Rumble, he goes to Mania.
McIntyre's the one guy he's never beaten. He can't beat

(01:07:35):
this guy. He's had like ten twelve matches with him,
something ridiculous, He's lost every single one of them. He
finally gets that win, and in doing so, he wins
his first world championship on the main roster. Like that
would be a great story to tell. And who knows,
like a year from now, where we're gonna be. Who
knows who's gonna get hot, who's gonna get cold, who's
gonna be hurt? Like, we don't know. But I'm just

(01:07:56):
saying as far as potential stories for WrestleMania next year,
for that World heavyweight title, that would be a great one.
But as long as they find a way to keep
McIntyre in the top mix. I mean, he was too
good last year to be sent back, you know, to
the back of the line this year. So I hope
it happens. You know, I could absolutely see him and
hope that we see him win that championship by summer.
Slim uh. Solo Sokoa is back. He came back at

(01:08:19):
the end of SmackDown. He was not in the Rumble,
but he came back. On Friday night. He laid out
Cody Rhodes with a Samoan spike. Stop me if you've
heard this before. Just the sight of it, just the
sight of SmackDown going off the air with fucking Solo
Sokoa laying out Cody Rhodes. I'm just like, why, now,

(01:08:41):
what is it going to lead to? I don't know
that it's going to lead to Cody against Solo better
not like the elimination chamber, Cody Roads defending against Solo Sokoa.
Fuck that More likely though, it would lead to a
tag team match. I could see Cody and Jay as
they as they did on Friday once again teaming up,
this time to take on Solo Socoa and Jacob Fatu,

(01:09:04):
maybe at the elimination chamber, and there you could shoot
the angle to set up a match, because I think
the WrestleMania match is Solo and Jacob, So you could
shoot the angle there. You can take your time with
the split within the blood line like that. That's a
story that I'm looking forward to seeing play out. And yes,
it's very possible they only did what they did at
the end of SmackDown to lead to something like that,

(01:09:24):
So in the end we may get what you know,
a lot of people want to see. But just just
the sight of it, you know what I mean, just
the site that this is how we ended SmackDown. When
we've ended smack that I feel like a million fucking
times like this, Like Cody Rose just can't quit the
blood Line no matter what. Every time he gets away
from them and feuds with somebody else, it's like this
magnetic pull and it's right back to the Bloodline and

(01:09:46):
right back to Solo. So now, if you are a brother,
a dude, or your name is Jack, you'll be happy
to know I come bearing another Hulk Hogan update this week.
This is becoming a great part of the entertainment value
of these shows. Hul Hogan appeared as a guest on

(01:10:07):
the Pat McAfee Show, and if you think wrestling fans
are sick of hearing from Hogan. You should check out
the comments on the video from all the non wrestling fans,
all the football fans who tuned into McAfee's show, especially
during Super Bowl Week, wanting to hear football talk, only
for McAfee to dedicate an hour of his show to

(01:10:28):
letting Hulk Hogan blather on about his beer. They didn't
sound too happy about it, but during the interview, McAfee
asked Hogan if he expected to be booed at the
raw on Netflix premiere, and his answer was exactly what
you would expect Hulk Hogan to say. He said, I did.
You've got to realize the last time I ran hard

(01:10:50):
in La, I was a bad guy. I was Hollywood Hogan.
I was riding dirty with the boys, you know, Nation Hall,
and were spray painting people and crotch chopping everybody. It
started out with the two sweet stuff. So the last
time I was there, I was a heel. But I
think the politics had a whole lot to do with it.

(01:11:12):
At the end of the day, we looked at it
the next day because I had eleven billion impressions and
some of the big stars that were on the card
that night only had three billion. I don't want to
name names. And then he cups his ear and he says,
give me some more. Number One, he's full of shit
when he says he expected to be boot He did

(01:11:33):
not expect to be booted. He certainly did not expect
to be boot as passionately as he was. Okay, just
for the man's ego alone, he would never willingly allow
himself to be put in a position to be embarrassed
the way that he was. Okay, so he's fucking lying.
Number two. The idea that the reason he was booed
in LA is because the last time he was there
he was a heel in the nWo twenty seven years

(01:11:57):
ago is one of the most batschick crazy things that
I have ever heard him say. And this is a
guy who claimed he was invited to play bass guitar
for Metallica. Okay, this is a guy who once said
he worked four hundred days in a year. So for
me to say that that says a lot. And number three,
I would love to know where he got the eleven

(01:12:17):
billion impressions stat from I called bullshit on that too.
He knows exactly why he was booed. But to him,
it's all about impressions. That's the only thing that matters
to him. Hey, I got people talking about me and
my beer brother. That's all that matters that. That's Hogan
in a nutshell. So when McAfee slipped in a mention

(01:12:38):
that some other stuff may have also contributed to the
reaction that he got, Hogan tried to play it off
and move on like I watched it like he was
trying to move on as quickly as possible. But he said, yes,
of course you do slip and fall a couple of times.
But again he could not change topics fast enough. Yes,
we know what other stuff he is referring to, and

(01:12:59):
so does It wasn't because of a wrestling faction in
a company that's been dead for twenty four years. I
say it all the time. If his lips are moving,
he's lying. But other people got in on the Hogan
fund this week, including the Undertaker, whose political leanings are

(01:13:20):
well known. I mean, hell, he interviewed forty seven on
his podcast right before the election, and yet when he
rode out to the ring on his motorcycle in LA
that night, he got a great reception didn't seem to
be an issue for him. On his six Feet Under
with Mark Callaway podcast, he had a guest done with
he and his co host, and I forget the guy's name.

(01:13:41):
I know he's a YouTuber, but the guy asked him
he's a big wrestling fan, and he asked him, Yo,
you were there that night. What happened? What was Hogan's
reaction when he came back through the curtain? And Undertaker said,
when I saw him, he was no selling the booze
and pushing his beer. I wasn't backstage right when he
came back through the curt but I saw him standing there,
I couldn't help but laugh. And when asked if he

(01:14:05):
felt bad for Hogan, he again he couldn't help but
laugh to himself and he said, I got feelings. I
got feelings for people, like sometimes in life things come
back and again, all through this he's just stifling his laughter.
It is very clear that he still has a great dislike.

(01:14:27):
I don't even want to say hate, hates a strong word.
He has a great dislike for Hulk Hogan. Hogan is
never going to be part of the Bone Streek crew. Okay,
He's never going to be part of BSk. He has
never liked Hogan. I'm sure he respects him, has him
on his Mount Rushmore and all that, and he's worked
with him before, but it really goes all the way

(01:14:48):
back to the first time they worked together. And again
that's a story that's well documented. It's a great story
with the tombstone where his head was fucking six inches
off the mat and Hogan goes to the back. He's
selling it like he heard it, like under Taker hurt him, legit,
laying on the ground, you know, get my family on
the phone, brother, like he's about to fucking pass on.

(01:15:09):
That type of shit could have killed the career dead
right there, the Undertaker and the screak and all that.
It almost went up and smoked because Hulk Cogan had
to be a dick that night. That was the Undertaker's when,
you know, he realized, And it wasn't until TV the
next day or later that week or whatever, and someone
showed him footage because he felt really bad about what happened.
Thought he really hurt on that tombstone. When he found

(01:15:32):
out and he confronted Hogan, and Hogan gave him some
bullshit answer like that was the beginning for the Undertaker.
That's when he knew what kind of person Hogan was.
And then when he worked with him in two thousand
and two and they had that terrible match of judgment,
Like he just he's never liked him. Okay, he's never
liked Hogan. There's no love for the Hulks do, no

(01:15:52):
matter what politics they may share. Later in the episode,
he talked about the idea that fans had become disillusioned
to Hogan because he wasn't the guy that he was
portrayed to be. He said, we grew up seeing Hogan
as an Americana kind of deal, and then he gets
caught up, or he gets caught rather on tape saying

(01:16:12):
some derogatory racist things. In this day and age where
all of that is such a hot button deal. I
don't know what you expect. I think you know that
they're going to react, and they're not going to react
in a positive way. No, no, they're not. And it's
not because he was in the nWo. But that wasn't

(01:16:34):
all seth Rawlins chimed in with his thoughts when he
appeared on the show Good Morning Football. He too was
asked about the reaction that Hogan got on the Netflix debut,
and he did not hesitate to give his response. He said,
I'm all for people getting what they deserve. That's how
I feel about Hulk Hogan getting booed. If you are
getting booed by the masses, there is a reason for it.

(01:16:58):
I don't know if Hulk fully understand the scope, but
people get what they deserve, so I'm happy to see it.
I love to see it. Look, I've said this before
about the Holkster. He's the guy that got me into
this industry as far as love for professional wrestling, so
I'll never take that away from him. What he's done
for our business, I'll never take that away from him.

(01:17:18):
But I do think there's some responsibility that he needs
to own up to that he hasn't yet. Maybe when
he finally figures that out, he might be able to
move forward with our fans. So we'll see. Who knew
that all it would take was hul Cogan to finally
bring CM Punk and seth Rollins together on the same page.
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full details and important safety information. Let's talk about AW Bare.

(01:20:13):
Boulder of the Iron Savages real name Thomas Wansaw, was
fired by AW this week after only just learning of
his arrest on domestic violence charges, specifically battery by strangulation,
on January thirteenth, in Winter Garden, Florida. As I am
recording this, he is still listed on the Ring of

(01:20:34):
Honor roster page as Boulder. According to the complaint filed
against him, deputies arrived at his residence having been called
by the alleged victim, identified as his fiancee. Deputy Javier
Ringcon described the victim as informing him that she was
physically battered by her fiance In the report, Ringcon wrote

(01:20:54):
that he observed and took photos of several injuries. According
to the victim, she was in a vert argument with
Thomas Wansaw that escalated into a physical altercation when he
pushed her to the ground. Wansaw then placed his foot
onto her throat, causing her to lose consciousness and blackout.
And think about that. Think about how hard you have

(01:21:15):
to be pushing down on someone's throat to cause them
to black out. She regained consciousness approximately five to ten
minutes later and was able to retreat outside to a
patio slash balcony area and call nine one one. She
stated that she believes Wansaw picked her up and placed
her on the couch, as that is where she was
when she regained consciousness. She stated this was not the

(01:21:38):
first time that he has been physically violent with her,
and it has happened approximately five to ten times over
the course of their relationship. She also stated that when
Wansaw is attending his anger management courses, he is a
completely different person. She was cooperative, but then during the investigation,
she stated that she did not want Wansaw to go
to jail as it will cause a great financial strain

(01:22:00):
on their relationship. She did begin to complete a written statement,
but decided not to finish it because she did not
want him to go to jail. She did make the
comment that if she recanted her story, would he not
go to jail, and she was advised that that would
not happen. At this point, I read Thomas Wayansaw his
miranda warning and he was very cooperative and agreed to

(01:22:21):
speak with me. Wansaw's account of what occurred was consistent
with her testimony. He stated that he knows what he
did was not right, but she made some negative comments
about his job and he became upset. Wan Saw did
state that he placed his foot on her neck and
it did appear she lost consciousness and that is why
he picked her up off the floor and placed her

(01:22:41):
on the couch. Wansaw did mention that she pulled a
knife on him earlier in the day during another argument,
but would not elaborate and did not want to pursue
the issue. I placed Thomas Wyansaw under arrest for battery
by strangulation, which is domestic violence, and transported him to
the Orange County Detention Facility for processing without incident. His

(01:23:02):
Tag team partner or former partner, Bear Bronson, posted a
long statement on his social media I'm going to reach
a part of it here, not the entire thing, but
this is what he said. Hey guys, this is one
of the hardest weeks of my life. I'm heartbroken at
the news about my former tag partner. To say that
I feel blindsided by the horrific details of the incident

(01:23:23):
is an understatement. This is someone I traveled the world
with as a team for eight years, full of matches
and memories I held close to me, someone I trusted
around my family. He was a groomsman at my wedding
this past October with his fiance. The arrest report provided
by the police has made me sick, depressed, and angry.

(01:23:44):
There is any confusion, I will clear it up right now.
My wrestling name is Bear Bronson. Because a lot of
people were confusing the two of them, and yeah, I
feel bad for the guy because there were so many comments,
at least on X I don't know about other social
media platforms, people were talking about this story, confusing the
two of them, confusing Bolder for Bronson and Bronson for Bolder,

(01:24:07):
and of all the things that you would be accused of,
especially you know, in a misunderstanding, this is not one
of them. So he's making it very clear here in
this statement. My name is Bear Bronson. I live in
New York and not Florida, and I do not condone
domestic violence under any circumstances whatsoever. Zero tolerance causing physical

(01:24:27):
harm to your partner is disgusting and vile. People who
love each other don't do that, plain and simple. Don't
let anyone make you believe there are shades of gray
or yeah, but exceptions to that garbage. It's not shades
of gray. It's very black and white. I don't care
how you spin it. That's not love her pw Insider.

(01:24:49):
Wansaw was assigned a public defender on January fourteenth, after
declaring that he makes thirty one hundred dollars every two
weeks and owns no property. That same day, Wansaw was
issued a no contact order for the victim, but after
a hearing on January twenty seventh, Wansaw's order was updated
modified with him being ordered to have no hostile or

(01:25:12):
violent contact with the victim, a request made by the
victim that the state had no objection against. Wansaw was
initially ordered to maintain a separate residence from the victim,
but that order has been lifted at the request of
the victim. Wansaw has also been ordered not to own
or possess any firearms, weapons, or ammunition. Currently, no new

(01:25:32):
court dates are listed. It may be the prosecution has
not yet made a determination as to whether or not
to move forward with the charges. Wansaw last wrestled for
AW on January eleventh, several days before his arrest. So no,
he said, she said here he admitted to it. AW

(01:25:53):
did the only thing they could do, which is get
rid of his punk ass. I would wish him well
at his future endeavors, but then I would be lying.
Moving on. AW is flying talent down to Australia later
this week for its Grand Slam show in Brisbane, which
is why they're taping Dynamite on Tuesday this week to

(01:26:14):
air on Wednesday. And the card looks good. Let me
run down the card here as it currently stands, and
I'll throw some predictions in. We have what they're calling
the dream team of Will Ospray and Kenny Omega taking
on Kyle Fletcher and Kenoski Takeshta, and I'm expecting a
win here for Ospray and Omega. John Moxley and Claudio

(01:26:36):
Castignoli wrestling Adam Copeland and Jay White in a Brisbane brawl,
which is better than having Moxley defend the AW title
against Jay White because Copeland already went and challenged Moxley
for Revolution, so what would even be the point of that,
I've got Copeland and Jay White going over in that one.

(01:26:58):
Briah May defends the AW Women's World Championship against Timeless
Tony Storm from the Gold Coast of Australia. Tony Storm
returns home. It's just too bad that she's not leaving
with that title. I say. Mariah May remains the AEW
Women's World Champion, and Kazuchka Okada puts the Continental title

(01:27:19):
on the line against Buddy Matthews, which will be a
win for Okada. And Mercedes Monet just added has finally
agreed to put her TBS title on the line against
Harley Cameron, and that'll be a win I do believe
for Mercedes Monet. So that's the card as it stands.
But there has been some outrage surrounding this show when

(01:27:41):
it comes to people who bought tickets for it back
when they first went on sale and they thought they
were getting a big stadium show and a pay per
view caliber card. They're not, and a lot of them
are not happy about it. Tony Kahan gave an interview
to Scott Fishman of TV Insider and had this to
save up show. Having this be a TV event has

(01:28:03):
always been the plan. That's something that the network wanted.
It's something the network brought to us recently as an
opportunity to follow NBA All Star Saturday. We saw it
as a huge opportunity. It was a great vote of
confidence for our partners at Warner Brothers Discovery. It will
be one of the biggest nights of the year on TNT.
It's a great opportunity given the lead in. Now, he says,

(01:28:25):
having this as a TV event has always been the plan.
I have my doubts about that. One thing he never did, though,
was formally announced that it would be a pay per view,
and that has been a main bone of contention that
a lot of people have had. Oh, you said it
would be a pay per view and then it got
downgraded to a glorified episode of collision. They never actually

(01:28:45):
advertised the show as a pay per view. It was
never a graphic, it was never a poster, It was
never any announcement of it being a pay per view.
But but having said that, you don't book a fifty
thousand seat stadium like they did for sun Corp Stadium,
right that's where the show was announced for. You don't
book a building that big and think of how expensive

(01:29:08):
it must be to fly their crew all the way
down there, right on the stage and the set and
all that for a glorified collision. They put tickets on
sale and they sold very poorly. Now I'm no expert
on Australian geography. What I have gathered from emails and
things that I've read from people who do live there,

(01:29:28):
they think that it was insane for them to even
run a show in Brisbane to begin with. They would
have been better off doing Melbourne or Sydney, but not Brisbane. Okay,
so that didn't help. They had a lot working against them. Plus,
the product just isn't hot right now. So by November,
when it was very clear tickets were not selling well,
they were forced to move the show to a much
smaller venue. And even then, during the full gear media

(01:29:52):
call that Tony did, he still would not come right
out and tell people whether or not it would be
a pay per view or not. He said it it
presents some challenges as far as presenting it as a
conventional pay per view domestically, but that's not the same
thing as saying no, it will not be a pay
per view. We are planning on it as a TV special.
We will have more details to come soon. How hard

(01:30:14):
would that have been? He didn't say that. He left
it very vague, And that's my biggest issue with the
way this whole thing has been handled from the start.
There's just not enough clarity. So you can't just turn
around and blame the fans for assuming. I mean yet,
you can certainly blame people for assuming. That's one aspect
to this. People assumed it was going to be a
pay per view and it was never announced as one.

(01:30:36):
But you can't just put this all on the fans
being upset because they were too stupid to realize that
it was never advertised as a pay per view. The
company bears responsibility here too, because there was not enough clarity.
Things were just vague enough. That's what led people to
assume things. You could cut that shit off very easily
by coming out in November on that media call and saying, well,

(01:30:58):
it presents logistical challenges for us, and so no, it's
not going to be a traditional pay per view. Here's
you know how it'll air. We don't have all the
details yet. We'll have that for you soon, but no,
it will not be a pay per view. They didn't
say that, so it's no wonder people thought that it
would be a pay per view. If I didn't know
any better, I would have assumed it was going to

(01:31:18):
be a pay per view. We didn't even know what
time it would air until a few weeks ago, and
we found out from an on screen graphic which ended
up being wrong and they had to change it. They
said it would air on TNT and it would stimulcast
on Max at eight pm Eastern. Now they're just saying
it's going to start whenever NBA All Star coverage is over.
That could be ten thirty at night. That could be

(01:31:40):
eleven o'clock, it could be midnight. We don't know. But
they're hoping to get a big lead in and I'm
sure they will. I'm sure that opening quarter hour is
going to be huge. But the planning and the rollout
of this event has been an unmitigated disaster. It went
from a stadium show that people thought would be a
four hour pay per view to a two hour collision

(01:32:02):
where they are now offering a special two for one
ticket price on select seats. If that's what I was expecting,
and I bought tickets for this show, especially at the
fucking prices those tickets were on sale for when they
first went on sale, and they pulled a stunt like this,
I'd be raising hell too. So there were all kinds
of posts on social media. There was a long Reddit

(01:32:22):
post that really kind of led the conversation going about
how upset people were. Other people chiming in, Oh, I
bought tickets too, I wanted a refund. They wouldn't give
me a refund, like tons of stories this week, because
that's what it appears. It appears they're not offering refunds
to people who want refunds. And that may be more
of an issue with a ticket vendor and not AAW,

(01:32:43):
but it reflects poorly on AW and they're the ones
that are going to be blamed for it, you know,
because the event was moved to a venue that I
guess still falls within the Brisbane region, and because the
tickets are supposed to be of comparable value, they're not
obligated to offer refunds to people. Now, I can't sit
here and say that no one has gotten a refund, right,

(01:33:05):
I can't pull every ticket buyer, but I have yet
to see one report from someone who bought tickets who
wanted a refund and said they actually got one. And
think about it, if you planned a vacation around this show,
if you went and bought tickets thinking that it was
going to be a big stadium show and you got
real good seats, you also had a book, airfare and hotel.

(01:33:28):
If you don't go to the show now eure rope,
Shit's creek. You have to go or else you're out
a whole lot of money. Now it's a huge downgrade
from what people originally thought they were getting. Why would
they book a stadium that big to begin with, Why
would they advertise the show for eight pm and then
change it. It's like every step of the way like
one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

(01:33:51):
And even trying to give them the benefit of the
doubt on not advertising this as a pay per view,
it doesn't help that last night on the official AE
Twitter account they advertised the show as a pay per view.
Literally they wrote, we are just seven days out from
AW Grand Slam Australia on PPV at the Brisbane Entertainment Center.

(01:34:16):
Don't miss out on Aw's first show in Australia. Immediately
following NBA All Star Saturday night Coast to Coast. That
was up for several minutes before they got called out
for it, and then they edited the tweet to remove
the pay per view mentioned. That's not going to help
their case when they argue that it was never scheduled
to be a pay per view, that they themselves on

(01:34:39):
their own social media just referred to it as a
pay per view, like you can't make this shit up.
This whole thing has been a complete fiasco. All that
being said, I enjoyed Dynamite this week. I thought it
was their best episode in a long time, and Collision
was just as good. Last night. Ricksh beat Swerve Strickland

(01:35:01):
in the main event in Atlanta on Dynamite off of
a questionable low blow as Swerve came off the top
rope for a Swerve stump and then Ricochet wiped him
out with the Spirit Gun and pinned him. He pinned
a former aw world champion. And then after the match
was over, he stole Prince Nana's embassy robe that Swerve
wore to the ring. He wears it out there for
all of his big matches, and Ricochet put it on

(01:35:23):
and he left with it. I thought it was a
good match. Clearly it was designed to be the first match,
and we are probably getting a gimmick match of some
kind of revolution. They shot an Angle at the DeFi
Wrestling show in Seattle on Friday night, with Ricochet making
an unannounced appearance. He entered to Swerve's theme music while
wearing the Embassy robe that he stole on Wednesday. Swerve

(01:35:47):
has been a staple in DeFi for many, many years.
Obviously he's from the Seattle area. But the lights went
out when they came back on. Swarf was standing in
the in the not in the middle of the ring,
but he was standing in the ring behind him, and
Rickety turned around and saw him. The two of them brawled,
Ricochet escaped. He shoved Prince Nana and to swear if
he ran away. I like it. I liked that they

(01:36:09):
found a way to stretch the Angle out across different promotions.
I think that's cool. They aired the footage on Collision
last night, so I love that kind of thing. On Wednesday,
they had Tony Storm out there dressed up cosplaying as
Mariah May Timeless Glamour, and it was it was freaky

(01:36:29):
watching it. But she was out there dressed up as
Mariah Mariah didn't like that very much. It's the same
thing we've seen Mariah do many many many months ago,
right last year, when she was dressed up as punk
rocker Tony Storm. Now she's giving Mariah a taste of
her own medicine. So that was a great angle I
thought that they did on Wednesday. And then last night

(01:36:50):
on Collision, Mariah had a match. It was very quick,
it was a quick squash and her opponent was dressed
up to look very much like time Tony Storm. And
when the match was over, she started, she put a
shirt on her to make her look like, you know,
timeless Tony, and she started, you know, drawing on her
face with the lipstick and everything. But we had the

(01:37:13):
return of Luther. Luther came out and he had something
on a plate and it was it was covered. We
couldn't see what it was. And he gets up on
the apron and he pulls the sheet off and it's
the white shoe, the bloody shoe that Mariah had used
on Tony last year on Dynamite when she turned on her.

(01:37:36):
So then Mariah grabbed the shoe and was going to
use tried to use it on Luther. He ducked out
of the way. She was going to turn around and
use it on her opponent, but Tony's Storm had slipped
into the ring in place of the opponent, which Mariah
then realized, and then they had a brawl. Mariah got away,
she got into the crowd. So two really good angles

(01:37:57):
on TV this week to build to one of the matches.
I am most looking forward to this weekend coming up,
big rematch between the two of them. Everything they've done
with these two I think has been great. On Dynamite Wednesday,
we had Powerhouse Hobbs back. Remember he was kept off
the show the week before he still wasn't medically cleared,
so he was back this week. I think basically what

(01:38:18):
they did probably on Wednesday would shoot the angle they
were going to the week before, but it was him,
and he came out to confront Big Bill and they
had a pull apart brawl. They each choked, slam different
security guys and then went back after each other, just
you know, two big dudes going at it and beating
the crap out of each other. And the more that

(01:38:38):
they feature Hobbes on the show, the more consistently that
they feature him on the show. The better Big Bill.
They've been teasing an upcoming split from the Learning Tree
with him and Chris Jericho. They're building to it slowly,
but when that day comes, same logic applies to Big Bill.
You can shoot a great angle and have him split
away from Chris Jericho and even beat Jericho in a match.

(01:39:00):
What matters is what follows that. Chris Jericho has done
jobs for people before, you did fucking jobs for Action
Andretti and Ricky Starks and people. It doesn't matter so
much is what happens after the fact. So if we
end up in a situation where Chris Jericho is still
being featured every week on TV and Big Bill is not,
there's a problem there. But so far they're doing the

(01:39:23):
right thing with Hobbes as far as getting him on
the show every week. They need to follow that same
battle plan for Big Bill when the time comes, because
you know, both guys very talented, and both guys I
think could be something. How high can they go? What
is their ceiling on the roster? I don't know. I
think it can be pretty high. But it's all about,
you know, the repetitions and getting them consistently on television

(01:39:45):
and making sure that people don't forget about them. There
was a great tag team match on Wednesday. They had
the Hounds of Hell, Buddy Matthews and Brody King taking
on the Kallus family Kyle Fletcher and Knelski Takeshta. You
knew they were going to win because they're the ones
rest Omega and Osprey this weekend in Australia. So Brody
King took the pin in that match. They threw everything

(01:40:06):
at this guy. It took everything to finally put him down.
You couldn't pin Buddy because Buddy's got a continental title
match coming up with Okada. But it was a great
match and the best part about Dynamite They kept the
death riders to a minimum. No Jeff Jarrett on the show,
and they kept the death riders to a minimum. It
was one segment at the beginning of the show that

(01:40:26):
was inoffensive and that was it. Now they did have
a match. It was going to be Will Osprey against
a mystery member of the Don Kallis family. Everybody was
wondering all week who's it going to be. Is it
a new member, is it the return of Trent Boretta.
It was Mark Davis and they tried to explain this
or have Callous explain this on commentary by saying that

(01:40:50):
when Davis was down with an injury, he gave power
of attorney to Kyle Fletcher to make all decisions for
their team, and that he he being Callous, is the
one who brought them into aw and basically had them
under contract, and so he owns Mark Davis. Of course,
it's ridiculous because it doesn't account for why Mark Davis

(01:41:10):
came back a few months ago and has been fighting
the Callus family almost every week ever since. Now all
of a sudden, Don Callous is forcing him to do
his bidding because he owns him. Right. The reason they
did this is because they only just came up with
this idea, so now they're trying to retrofit it, so
that explanation just didn't wash. It's it's ridiculous, but you

(01:41:34):
know that was what they came up with. MJF and Hangman.
We've seen them bump into each other a few times
over the last several weeks. They did again on Wednesday
because we had Hangman was chasing Max Caster all over
the building and MJF was in the ring when Caster
got into the ring. But it looked like he was flustered,
like he was running away from somebody, and he said, Hangman, Hangman.

(01:41:56):
So then Hangman came out after him, but of course
he ended up face to face with mats and no physicality,
and Hangman left the ring and went to chase Max
Caster off into the crowd. But it's just another indication
of what is yet to come between these two men.
And so while MJF is working the senior circuit and
doing stuff with Dustin Rhodes and Jeff Jarrett, Hangman and

(01:42:20):
MJF is what intrigues me. We have not gotten a
proper feud, a proper program between these two yet, two
AEW originals that have been there from day one, and
they can use this feud, you know. I think it'll
be a very important way to transition Hangman back to
the babyface role. We've seen signs of it already, right,
He's been showing signs or hints of remorse or regret

(01:42:43):
for some of the things that he's done. He's been
looking for swerve. Strickland popped into his locker room a
couple of weeks ago and Renee said, what are you doing.
He goes, oh, don't don't ask me, it's none of
your business. Or the look he had on his face
when Christopher Daniels said that, you know, because of the
Texas death mat that we had and what you did
to me, the doctors have advised me that I shouldn't

(01:43:04):
wrestle again, so my career is over, and he had
that look on his face for a few moments there,
like maybe he regretted what he had done. So there's
been hints of it. This feud, though, a feud with MJF,
is exactly I think what he needs to help transition
him fully back into the babyface role. And it would
do wonders for MJF, who hasn't done a whole hell

(01:43:24):
of a lot since coming back last year. Outside of
the program with will Osprey, they have those two great matches.
Outside of that, MJF has done virtually nothing. He is
floundering right now. This could be just what he needs.
I would go so far as to say that if
Tony Kah does this right, this can end up being
one of the most important programs I just say best.

(01:43:48):
I said important programs on aw television all year. He
cannot fuck this up. I mentioned Collision was also a
really good show. This week, they had the return of
Bandido on Collision. He had a match against the Bounty
Hunter Brian Keith, who's from Texas, and they were in Texas.

(01:44:09):
But the Texas crowd was hot all night. They were
just hot for this match, They were hot for the
entire show. I wish I think Meltzer said something along
these lines, and I agree. I wish they could bottle
this Texas crowd up and just take it with them
everywhere they go every week, whatever city they go to,
just take that Texas crowd and bring it to every Dynamite,
every Collision, every pay per view. Because they were great

(01:44:32):
last night, but they did this spot that got over
really well. I would love to know who came up
with the spot where they ended up back to back,
like they kind of bump backs late in the match,
and they stopped, and they got a great close up
camera shot is they both tilted their heads. They turned
their heads to kind of look back at the other,
and then they nodded in agreement, and then they started

(01:44:56):
to take ten paces towards the like a battle at
high noon in the Old West. And they each went
to a corner and they turned around and they came
charging in and they wiped each other out with big
boots and everybody in the building lost their minds. It's
a great spot, and Bendido picks up the wind with

(01:45:16):
the twenty one Plex his first match back. He's had
a rough go of it because he broke his wrist.
I guess it was last year he broke his wrist,
or was it last year? It might have been two
years ago. He was out for a long time. I
think he broke his wrist in twenty three and had
surgery and then didn't heal properly and needed a second surgery,

(01:45:37):
so that kept him out even longer. And then he
finally gets medically cleared and it was at one of
the uh maybe it was Final Battle. It was one
of the Hammerstein shows. He came back. He was about
to start a program with Chris Jericho, and his very
first move he did a springboard into the ring, fell
on his back and smacked the back of his head

(01:45:58):
so hard on the mat that he can himself. So
he was out for a few more weeks. So thankfully
he made it out unscathed and healthy last night. But
he's had a rough go of it with the injuries,
but you saw how hot the crowd was for him,
and he was getting reactions like that before he got
hurt the first time. So I'm glad to see that

(01:46:20):
despite all of the time that he missed, which could
be a career killer, it didn't take all that much
to get the people right back behind him. You know,
he's a special talent and if they put their weight
behind him, he could go far there. They had a
segment where Harley Cameron was in concert singing some songs,
playing the guitar. She's been trying to convince Mercedes Money

(01:46:42):
to give her a TBS title match, a Grand Slam.
She's from Australia, so it would be a big homecoming
for her. Harley, of course, had not up until I
think Collision last weekend, had not won a single match
her entire time in AAW and she's been there for
a few years now. Only on Collision a few weeks
ago did she finally notch her first win over Tye

(01:47:03):
of Valkyrie. Because Mercedes brought that up a couple weeks
ago and said, you've never won a match, why would
I give you a TBS title match? And you know what,
she made sense, but Thankfully they did away with their
fucking rankings a long time ago, because if they still
have the rankings, ain't no way that Harley Cameron would
be get a title shot. But the rankings were just

(01:47:24):
holding them back and not doing them any good. When
there is a story that calls for it, you give
somebody a title shot. And in this case, the fans
have taken a liking to Harley Cameron. She's very entertaining,
she's very outgoing, she could do it all. And Mercedes
came out interrupted her concert the head of back and forth,
and when it was over, Mercedes agreed to give her

(01:47:45):
a match and said, okay, you want to face me
for my title in Australia Grand Slam. You got it.
So I thought the segment it served its purpose. We
have the title match now that's official. I don't expect
Harley to win the championship. I do think there's a
longer term story there if they want to tell that
story though, where Harley could very well end up being
the person to beat Mercedes to win that title. But

(01:48:07):
that's so far down the road that that would happen.
I don't know about keeping the title on Mercedes for
that much longer, like, honestly, she's gonna be champion for
a year when we hit double or nothing, And that
sounds about right as far as getting that belt off
of her and onto somebody else. But there is a
longer term story with Harley Cameron that I think the
fans would get behind because they genuinely like her. Thunder

(01:48:29):
Rosa and Megan Bain appear to be starting a feud.
We had Megan Bain. She was not on Dynamite, but
she did appear on Collision and she shot an angle
where after thunder Rosa's match, she came to the ring
and laid her out with an F five. So they're
getting something going between the two of them. And then
Kyle Fletcher got the main events spot against Mark Briscoe.

(01:48:51):
This was a rematch from their first meeting in the
Continental Classic, which Briscoe won. Fletcher got his win back here.
But they had a great match. Did this crazy spot
too late in the match where Fletcher was outside the
ring there was a table and he wasn't I don't
think he was laid out on the table, but he
was like standing in front of the table and brisco
came off the top rope to the floor with a

(01:49:12):
froggy bow and as he's diving off the top like
Fletcher had a time it just right, but he jumped
up into the air to take the froggy bow and
then crash through the table, So it got over huge.
It was a great spot. But in the end, Fletcher
picks up the wind, trying to keep him strong going
into Grand Slam. Look, I mean, it wouldn't shock me

(01:49:34):
if they, you know, gave the heels of the win
and had him get a pin on Osprey and the
tag match. I'm still going with the baby Faces to win.
But that's huge for Kyle Fletcher, you know, to be
in a match like that. He's going to be back
home and you know it may end up being the
biggest match of his career. So it's gonna be a
big night for him. But he's another one. You know,
we see different people on this roster, Like the pieces

(01:49:57):
are all there. You just hope that Tony Khan can
and fit them in where they belong and push them
the right way. I mentioned Powerhouse Hobbs, I mentioned Big Bill.
You look at someone like Harley Cameron who's gotten over
organically the fans genuinely like her, and she's very talented.
They just signed Megan Bain, who looks like an absolute
rock star. I mean, I from the moment she came

(01:50:19):
into House of Glory and she won our championship. I
mean just her presence, you know, and her gear, and
she walks out there and she stands and she just
looks like a superstar. And so now they've got her
on TV. And you see someone like Kyle Fletcher who's
broken out on his own. He was in a tag team.
He's broken out on his own. He shaved his head.
He didn't want to look like will Ospray, didn't want

(01:50:39):
to look like anybody else. He wanted to kind of
forge his own path. And he had a great showing.
Even though he didn't win the Continental Classic, he had
a great showing in that tournament. And they're taking steps
with him to turn him into a real star, and
so far, so good. I think the fans are buying
into it. He certainly has all the talent in the

(01:51:01):
world in ring bell to bell to make it work. Somebody,
and I don't remember who it was, if it was
a tweet or an email, but somebody made a comment.
They made a comparison. They said, is he to Tony Kahn?
You know what Randy Orton? What WWE and Vince McMahon
made Randy Orton where he's kind of the young stud
that they get behind who just has this special talent

(01:51:25):
in the ring. Bell to bell maybe kind of a
similar look, but they made the Randy Orton comparison. I
don't like making that comparison because again, I don't look
at Kyle Fletcher and say, oh, he could be the
next Randy Orton. You know, Kyle Fletcher can be the
next Kyle Fletcher, and you're already, you know, kind of
putting him in a handicap. When you make a comparison

(01:51:45):
like that, it's like making a comparison to any other
big name in wrestling. Those are big boots to fill,
and I think it's kind of unfair. I get what
the person is saying, though, and I think it's a
huge compliment. He's not there yet, but he could end
up being someone like that, you know, for Tony Khan.
Again far down the road, but right now, it's about

(01:52:06):
trying to get these people over. They have to try
to make new stars to go along with the stars
they already have, and the people are there. The talent
is there. It's just about continuing to get them featured
on TV and booking them the right way. Easier said
than done. And we've seen what Tony Khan has done
with certain other people on the roster and it's not good.

(01:52:29):
But if he can take the right steps with some
of these people, six months from now or a year
from now, they can be in a position where people
look at them as true main event players. And that's
what he needs, that's what he needs to continue doing.
All right, let's take some questions here and get out
of here so that everybody can go get ready for
the big game too. Unless you live in Philadelphia or

(01:52:52):
Kansas City, I'm sure all of you could give two
shits about who wins this game, but I'm sure many
of you will still be watching. If you have questions,
you can email me the Solo Monster at gmail dot com.
Please Includejanama where you are from. There are still people
who don't. I ask you to please do so. Antonio

(01:53:12):
from Lisbon, Portugal wanted to talk about something that Michael
Cole said on Raw that nobody is talking about on Raw.
After airing John Cena's promo on the Rumble post show
that was where he declared for the elimination. Chamber Cole
made a quick, easy to miss remark that was very
uncharacteristic or that what Sina said, I guess was very

(01:53:34):
uncharacteristic of John Cena. Now it may be nothing, but
you know as well as I do, that they don't
do these things by accident. Because one thing is having
seen a cut what I thought was a healish promo.
Another is then having the commentary calling attention to it.
It's all but guaranteed that all roads are hodes lead

(01:53:57):
to Scena facing Cody at WrestleMania for the ww WE title.
So is this a tease for a potential heel turn
for John Cena, someone that has gotten so obsessed with
number seventeen because quote, it's what's best for business. His
words that he loses sight of everything that he stands for.
I know, merch and the fans have never been more

(01:54:19):
behind him and all that, but you can't deny that
the signs are there. Well, you're not wrong. It was
at times a little I wouldn't call it a heal promo.
It wasn't a heel promo because he talked about putting
in the work in twenty three years of service. I
wouldn't call it a heel promo, but him saying that
me winning number seventeen is what's best for business, that

(01:54:40):
did come across to me as being very self centered
and maybe a little heelish, like, Oh, me winning the
elimination Chamber and going to WrestleMania in the main event
to win number seventeen, that's what's best for business, right.
It's just it is uncharacteristic. It's something that you wouldn't
expect to hear John Cena saying, I can't sit here

(01:55:01):
and tell you that they won't lean into maybe the
more heelish side or helish tendencies that he may have.
I think it would make for a much more interesting
build to a match with Cody at WrestleMania. I don't
think we're gonna get healed John Cena so much as
what we might get is more of a I could

(01:55:23):
see a more desperate John Cena who knows that this
is it. This is his last year, this is his
last WrestleMania. He didn't win the Royal Rumble, and he
has to go and win number seventeen. He has to
beat Cody Rhoades. He has to win the WWE Championship,
and maybe he's willing to take a short cut or two,

(01:55:44):
you know, and the announcers can draw attention to that
and say, oh, that's uncharacteristic of John to do this
or do that. I could see that, but him full
bore turning heel, you know, even to the extent that
Shawn Michaels did for that brief period of time in
two thousand and five before the Summer Slam match with
hul Cogan, because he turned heel for all of four weeks,

(01:56:05):
I don't even see it being that. But I don't
think there's any issue with him maybe leaning into more
heelish tendencies and showing some desperation. Yeah, and maybe that
may be the closest we get to a heel John Cena,
but I'd love to see it. So yeah. I mean,
you make a good point, and I think him being
Michael Cole drawing attention to that was done on purpose. Absolutely,

(01:56:28):
that was done for a reason. I think it would
make the build to a WrestleMania match with him and
Cody much more interesting because there are a lot of
similarities between Babyface Never Give Up John Cena and Cody Rhodes,
who has been doing everything in his power to emulate
John Cena and be a modern day John Cena in
this run, And to me, the most boring thing in

(01:56:51):
the world would be to basically have two babyface John
Cena's wrestling at WrestleMania. That to me sounds just absolutely
fucking bored. As far as like the build up to
that match. Adding some shades of gray, I think would
be a great idea, and I think that's what they
should do. Near from Israel, John Cena is obviously aiming

(01:57:15):
to get number seventeen this year. In my opinion, he
should not win the elimination Chamber, But I have an idea.
Joe Hendry clearly wants to get Seena's attention. What if
after losing the chamber, John Cena appears on raw saying
he's sorry he failed everyone and he doesn't think he
has it in him anymore. But then lo and behold,
Joe Hendry comes out to confront John Cena, saying that

(01:57:36):
if he wants number seventeen, then, as he always says,
you want some, come get some. So we get Joe
Hendry against John Cena for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship
at WrestleMania, and I would go one further and let
Sina win. This will certainly help elevate TNA if Sena

(01:57:56):
would make some appearances as the TNA champion in WWA
and also appear on Impact. I don't think it's unrealistic
to think that we will see John Cena make it
appearance on a TNA show this year. You know again,
they have a big pay per view in New York
in July. I think that's I think that's Slammiversary. They're

(01:58:18):
going to be running the UBS Arena, which is a
much bigger building than TNA is accustomed to running. They
could use somebody like a John Cena on a show
like that. I could absolutely see that, And I could
even see him working with Joe Hendry, either against each
other or on the same side, maybe in a tag
team match. But their goal, and this is something that
I think some people don't understand. Their goal is not

(01:58:41):
to elevate TNA to that level. Right. They're certainly not
going to waste John Cena's final WRESTLEMANIAM match ever on
another promotions championship. That is not going to happen, Like
I cannot conceive of a universe or an alternate time
line where that would ever happen. Okay, if he wins

(01:59:02):
number seventeen, which I think he will, it's going to
be with a WWE title. He is not breaking their
record by winning the TNA World title. I'll be surprised
if there's any TNA representation on the WrestleMania card itself.
I don't see why there would be. They've had some
TNA people appear in the Royal Rumble for a cameo.

(01:59:23):
They had Joe Hendry in there for three and a
half minutes before he got dumped. But the relationship is
less with the main roster and more with NXT, NXT
and TNA World's Collide show. Absolutely, I think that will
happen at some point, but you're taking something here and
blowing it up into something that is much bigger than

(01:59:44):
WWE is going to be willing to do. There's just
there's no chance of that happening. Nathan from Scotland wanted
to get your thoughts on this booking idea. I would
have Drew MacIntyre beat Roman Reigns at WrestleMania, finally avenging
his loss from Clash at the Castle. I would then
have him win the title off jay Usso at SummerSlam,
in similar fashion to how brock Lesner beat John Cena

(02:00:05):
for the title, possibly building to Sammy taking the belt
off him the following WrestleMania. What say you? What I
say is that it was a good idea when we
talked about it on Tuesday Night Titans two weeks ago.
That's what I would say, all except the part about
Drew beating Roman at WrestleMania, just because that match was
just not going to happen. And it doesn't work because

(02:00:27):
Drew would have to be on SmackDown to face Roman,
but Jay is on Raw and would have the World
Heavyweight title, so I'm not sure how that would work.
Like he doesn't have to beat Roman. I mean, Drew
wins King of the Ring, that wins him the right
to challenge jay Uso for the title at SummerSlam where
he wins it or in this case Cody Rhodes, because
now Drew is on SmackDown and I don't believe that

(02:00:51):
the King of the Ring winner has the same rights
as the Rumble winner to choose the champion they face.
I don't believe. I think it's pretty much whatever brand
they were part of. So now it would be Cody
because Drew's on SmackDown. Now he wins King of the
Ring and he gets to challenge Cody at SummerSlam or
whoever the champion is, and it does not have to
be a complete squash the way that Brock and Sina was.

(02:01:11):
That was a special circumstance. You know, he had just
ended the Undertaker streak. He was a world beater. It
was going to be Dangle Brian in that spot. He
would have been squashed and oh my god, the anger
that would have been radiating from fans online if they
had brock Lesner destroy Dangle Brian the way that he

(02:01:32):
ended up destroying John Cena. But Brian got hurt. That's
why Sena got the belt. That's why he ended up
in that spot. Otherwise it was going to be Daniel
Bryan all the way. But brock Lesner, I mean, he
was just an absolute animal. I would not copy what
they did with that Summer Slim. Just have a competitive
match with Drew winning. You know what makes the Sami

(02:01:52):
part work so well is that Samy Zain has never
beaten Drew McIntyre ever, So you have Samy's Aye win
the Royal Rumble, which happens to be in Saudi Arabia
next year, so you know he's going to be one
of the sentimental favorites to win. And then he finally
beat Drew at WrestleMania to win his first world title
on the main roster. Like it just it works so well.

(02:02:13):
David from Chicago. By the time you read this email,
the Royal Rumble will be over, which I will be
attending live. My question to you is what do you
think about wrestlers announcing their spots in the Rumble instead
of having matches for it. I don't think it's reasonable
to have qualifying matches for all thirty spots, especially when
you have two rumbles. It's not like a tournament, so

(02:02:35):
people declaring is fine, and maybe have a match to
decide the number thirty entrant if you want to. But
even that, like that takes away from the surprise of
who's coming out, you know, at number thirty, so I
wouldn't make that a regular thing. He also says Swerve
Strickland is becoming one of my favorite wrestlers. What would
be some of your top Swerve Strickland or kill shot matches?

(02:02:58):
And would you want to see Swerve wrestle in New Japan. Sure, yeah,
there are people I'd love to see him mix it
up with on that New Japan roster. Give me a
Swerve and Shingo or a Swerve and Gabe Kid after
that match that he had with Omega. The best Swerve
matches you need to check out the Hell of War
match with Kilshot and Dante Fox from Lucha Underground Season three.

(02:03:22):
That match made the original ECW look like a fucking
Nickelodeon show. You won't be able to fully appreciate it, though,
without watching the full season and watching their story arc
play out, So you should probably just watch the whole
show because it's great. His match with Brian Danielson at
all In last year, his match with Will Osprey at

(02:03:42):
Forbidden Door last year, his Wrestle Dream match in twenty
twenty three with Hangman Page and their Texas Death Match
at Full Gear, and one more I would throw in there,
Swerve and Keith Lee against the Acclaimed at All Out
in twenty twenty two. Those are some pretty great ones.
Jason from Sacramento, California. I mentioned on your SmackDown Scream

(02:04:06):
that Jimmy Usso is winning the US Championship at WrestleMania.
You responded by asking, what will they do with La Knight?
I think it's a triple threat. Knight already mentioned that
he has no love loss for Jimmy, so you can
easily slide him in there to also give him a
moment at Mania this year with Jay. Jimmy is not
as over as Jay, but he is over, and I
think that they pulled the trigger at WrestleMania. You could

(02:04:28):
be right, because I don't know what the hell else
you do with La Night if he's not challenging for
that US title, And I could see that. I could
see a closing shot at WrestleMania of Jimmy and Jay
celebrating with each of their singles titles. Could definitely see that.
Jacob from McCallan, Texas, with so much time invested in
building up Solo Socoa, do you believe he is going

(02:04:49):
to end up being overshadowed by Jacob fought Jacob fo too.
Will it not be even harder for Solo to get over?
Is he going to be Brothers already been overshadowed by
Jacob Fatu. I was telling you he was going to
be overshadowed by Jacob fat two before Jacob Fatu even debuted,
So yes, the answer is yes. I think Solo has

(02:05:11):
made some strides over the past year. He definitely shows
a lot more of his personality now because his role
in the Bloodline before it was just to stand there
with no expression on his face. You know, he was
the enforcer. That was his role, and he's now allowed
to kind of come out of his shell a little bit,
be a little funnier at times. He's a lot more

(02:05:33):
comfortable in his own skin than he was even six
months ago. But will he be overshadowed by Jacob Fatu.
The answer is yes. The answer was always yes. That
was always going to be a concern. Sufi from Malaysia.
You mentioned there's a possibility that we might see Hiroshi
Tanahashi against John Cena this year before both of them retire. Well,

(02:05:56):
I want to see that match happen. I'm in the
I'll believe it when I see camp. With that said,
I do think that New Japan might be working with
WWE in some way for Tanahashi's retirement year, and we
likely see Tanahashi facing his fellow Three Musketeers member Shinski
Nakamura for the final time similar to Sbata. What do

(02:06:18):
you think he did work that exhibition with Shbata at
the Tokyo Dome. Sure if Tanahashi against Seen it doesn't happen,
then I think Knakamura is a possibility, especially since they
they've allowed Nakamura to work a match with Muda for
Pro Wrestling Noah as part of his retirement tour, So
if the request came, why would they not allow him

(02:06:40):
to work a match with Tanahashi. Kevin from Washington, DC
WWE's Vault channel recently uploaded the Three Stages of Hell
match between Stone Cold and Triple H at No Way
Out two thousand and one, and I got to ask,
did it make sense for Triple H to go over
in that match knowing that Austin was fighting for the
title at WrestleMania or was it that Austin just didn't

(02:07:02):
need the victory as much as Triple H.

Speaker 2 (02:07:06):
No.

Speaker 1 (02:07:06):
What I think it was is I think there was
a plan coming out of WrestleMania for Triple H to
go babyface, and I think to get him prepared because
they knew Austin was going to win the title, you
have him go over on Austin in three stages of hell,
and eventually it'll kind of come back around where, oh,
he's beaten Austin before, and because he's beaten Austin, he's

(02:07:27):
already a contender for the WWE Championship. I don't think
the whole two man power trip thing was the plan
from the beginning. I think that there was a plan
for Triple H not to team with Austin, which, boy,
did that benefit him? Right? Rub and shoulders with Stone
Cold worked out a lot better. Boy. You know, if
I'm Triple H and I have any pull in that company, right,

(02:07:47):
it was pretty well known he was sitting in on
production meetings and stuff back then. Obviously he was with Stephanie.
If I'm Triple H and I'm looking at the lay
of the land here and I'm thinking, Okay, they're going
to turn me babyface coming out of this WrestleMania, and
I'm gonna be lined up as potentially the first victim,
the first opponent for Stone Cold Steve Austin, who just

(02:08:08):
won the title and ain't losing it so quickly. Does
it really benefit me to go in there and lose
to Austin or would it not work out? Better for
me if I was on the same side with Austin.
He's the WWF champion, and I mean he's stone called
Steve Austin, So He'll be on television every single week

(02:08:29):
and I'll be right there next to him, and we
could do a heel thing for a while and then
eventually split it off and I can challenge him for
the title. I'm just saying, if I'm Triple H and
I have any influence and I have any pull, I'm
pushing for that idea because that sounds a lot more
appealing than just going in there as a babyface and
doing a job for Stone Cold. But that's why I

(02:08:52):
think they did what they did. Zaire from Brooklyn, New York.
I saw so many people online upset about John Cena
being eliminated in the Royal Rumble, and someone said, what
if Sina loses every match he's in throughout the entire year,
and when he has his final match in December, he
wins number seventeen, then he vacates the championship, and in

(02:09:17):
the twenty twenty six Royal Rumble, the WWE or World
Heavyweight Championship is up for grabs. This got me thinking,
what if cm punk does not get the opportunity to
main event WrestleMania this year, but he wins the World
Championship in that Rumble match next year and enters WrestleMania
with a good chance of finally main eventing WrestleMania. I

(02:09:41):
love this idea that cmpunk is gonna win a World championship,
but the bigger thing would be I gotta get that
wrestle Media main event, so asked backwards brother. There is
no guarantee that CM punk is even going to be
in the Royal Rumble next year, with the show being
held in Saudi Arabia. But even if he is, no,

(02:10:04):
I don't know who you saw online who said that,
but I think that is an awful idea. John Cena
should not just lose every single match that he's in
this year. Okay, he loses every match and then wins
number seventeen in his last match and disappears is terrible storytelling,
as would Sina winning the Elimination Chamber and then simply

(02:10:26):
just winning the title at WrestleMania. I think you're wasting
months of story just to do it, just to get
the payoff at WRESTLEMANI but he's got one more question,
How would you rank these three Royal Rumble matches nineteen
ninety two, two thousand and one, and twenty twenty five.

(02:10:46):
I'm asking because the twenty twenty five Royal Rumble Men's
Royal Rumble has to be the most memorable since I
went to the two thousand and eight rumble as a kid. Hey,
we may have been sitting next to each other at
that rumble. What I rank them? Honestly? Nineteen ninety two,
I know what a big surprise. Nineteen ninety two, twenty

(02:11:07):
twenty five, and then two thousand and one. I've actually
gained even more of a fondness for that rumble last weekend.
As the week has gone on and I've watched you know,
parts of it back and I liked it. I liked
it last weekend. It's not like, well, I didn't really
like it, but I've warmed up to it. No, I
liked it. I thought it was very good. But I

(02:11:28):
think it's even better than I was saying last weekend.
I think it edges out two thousand and one for me.
You had plenty of star power. All three of those,
I mean, all three of these rumbles did right. That
was star power wasn't really an issue in any of
these three. But I just love the way that they
weaved multiple stories into this match, and they gave us

(02:11:49):
the surprise finish that didn't just feel like a surprise
for the sake of doing one right. The story with
jay Uso was right there for anybody who was actually
paying attention, but it still felt unpredictable. That whole closing
sequence with the last i'd say five or six guys
felt unpredictable. You had a few surprises mixed in there.
You didn't need as many surprises as the women's match

(02:12:11):
because it was so loaded with big names. And I
got more pleasure out of watching I show speed taking
that spear from bron Breaker than I did watching Drew
Carey eliminate himself from the rumble instead of wrestling Kine right,
he took that spear like a champ. It was a
great rumble, so that's how I would rank it. Honestly,

(02:12:33):
the men's rumble last weekend is one of the best
rumbles they've ever done. So good stuff. Keep emailing me
the Solemn Monster at gmail dot com. I love hearing
from you, guys and gals. I did say that I
would have my Super Bowl prediction, and so here it
is Cheaps twenty seven, Eagles twenty four, and Mahomes makes

(02:13:00):
history tonight. I think it's going to be a close game,
but I think the Chiefs are going to pull it off.
So that is my But again, I don't have a
dog in this hunt. I don't really give a fuck
either way. But that's my prediction for super Bowl fifty nine.
Follow me on YouTube. The channel is Solemn Monster Sounds Off.
We just passed eighty four thousand subs. We are well

(02:13:22):
on our way now to eighty five. Eighty five k
is the next big goal. I can't get there without you,
so please go ahead and subscribe. You can become a
channel member as well if you would like to. I
will be live after Raw, Dynamite and SmackDown this week.
Now that I got my voice back, I got my
mojo back. I'm feeling human again. I'm feeling good, so

(02:13:42):
I should be there for all three post shows this week.
I hope you are there with me. Thank you for
being a part of the SoundOff family. This is nine
hundred episodes of this shit. Can you believe it? Next
week is nine oh one. It just keeps going. We
don't stop. But now, of course the countdown is on
to one thousand, and no, I have not thought that

(02:14:04):
far ahead. I don't know what, if anything, I'm going
to do for episode one thousand. I can remember when
Raw hit one thousand episodes. Remember Raw one thousand back
in twenty twelve, that's when the show went three hours.
I will make a promise to you right now. I
can guarantee you one thing. When we hit sound Off
one thousand, I ain't moving to three hours every single week.
You have my word on that. But sincerely, thank you.

(02:14:26):
It's been a hell of a ride. Here's to nine
hundred more and then some be well. Stay safe. If
you're watching the game, enjoy the super Bowl or the commercials.
It's really what I'll be watching for Maybe one of
these years, you know, we'll have enough money we can
pay for a SoundOff super Bowl commercial. Wouldn't that be
a surprise You're sitting there watching the game, all of
a sudden you see me on your screen. Of course

(02:14:49):
it would probably bankrupt me, but you never know. I
will see you guys back here next Sunday for more
sound Off on episode nine to oh one. Until then,
take care, guys.

Speaker 3 (02:15:01):
The Solo Monster sounds off.

Speaker 1 (02:15:03):
Why am I still watching Cody Rhodes and the Bloodline
closing out episodes of SmackDown every single week?

Speaker 4 (02:15:09):
We don't need to see it over and over and
over and over and over again. He was a loser
in War Games, he was a loser on Netflix in
the debut, and then he left.

Speaker 1 (02:15:21):
Ridiculous enough with this shit.

Speaker 2 (02:15:23):
The solom Monster sounds off bringing you the good, the bad,
and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram,
and X The Solo Monster.

Speaker 1 (02:15:37):
I love you so long.

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