WWE Raw 1/27/25 Review | CM Punk CONFRONTS Cody Rhodes And JD McDonagh Horrible INJURY - Solomonster Sounds Off

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Saturday Night. We had Saturday Night's made event one week
before the Royal Rumble. We had Gunther retaining his World
Heavyweight Championship over jay Uso. We had Rio Ripley retaining
her World Heavyweight Championship over Naya Jacks. We had Brown
Breaker retaining the Intercontinental title over Seamus. So the question
now was would there be any big additions to the

(00:23):
Royal Rumble coming up this Saturday? Would there be any
big developments heading into Really what is one of the
top two biggest WWE shows of the entire year, and
for me personally, my favorite event every year is the
Royal Run. I always look forward to the Royal Rumble,
even in those years where they don't do a very
good job of hyping the event up. But I think

(00:46):
they've done a pretty good job, especially when it comes
to the men's Royal Rumble in particular this year, of
getting me hyped up for what should be a great
match this weekend. As far as Raw tonight, this was
not a great show. This was a very middle of
the road show. It was one of those nights where
if you missed it, you really didn't miss much. It's

(01:07):
not like you have to go back and oh there
was a big title change, or oh there was a
big turn, or oh there was a big development. It
wasn't anything like that. But it was the final raw
before the Royal Rumble. It was the go home Show,
the go home raw before we get to Indianapolis on Saturday.
And the goal of the Go Home Show should be

(01:29):
to leave you at least as excited, but preferably more
excited than you were coming into the show tonight by
the time it's over. And that's the question that you
really have to ask yourself. And so as I sit
here now asking myself, am I more excited about this
Royal Rumble now than I was three hours ago? The
answer is yes. And the only reason I say that

(01:51):
it has nothing to do with anything but the final
closing segment on Raw, which was Cody Rhodes and seem Punk.
And if you remember where we were a year ago,
we had a segment just like this and may have
been the go Home Show in fact, a year ago
on this very show, a face to face confrontation, a

(02:12):
promo involving Cody Rhodes and CM Punk heading into the
Royal Rumble, And here we were a year later, and
we're back in the same situation again. The stakes are
a little bit different this time though, because Cody now
is the WWE Champion. A year ago, he and Punk
were fighting for the same spot. Who's going to win
the Royal Rumble, Who's going to go to the main

(02:33):
event of WrestleMania. Cody Roads, so long as he retains
his title on Saturday, is all but guaranteed to be
in one of the two main events of WrestleMania this year.
If he goes in as the champion, right, he's already
got it made, So the dynamic is a little bit different.
But we got these two men in the ring tonight,
and I thought that closing promo was great stuff Cody.

(02:54):
It was weird because Cody, he almost sounded drunk. Cody,
he sounded I don't even sad or or what. But
I thought the banter back and forth between them was great.
And the thing that I love the most about this Rumble,
there are so many different stories or potential stories that

(03:14):
they have set up going into the match and coming
out of the match, and to me, that is what
makes for the best Royal Rumble matches. It's not just
about the match itself. It's about the stories that they
can tell during the match itself. It's one of the
things I loved about that twenty twenty match, the one
where brock Lesner entered as the WWE champion. Right. There

(03:36):
were different stories that they weaved into that match, and
a lot of very memorable moments, including Drew McIntyre eliminating
brock Lesnar. Of course, Edge came back in that Rumble,
but I really loved that Rumble match. And I think
back to ninety two Rick Flair winning in the story
with him, and then you had Macho Man and Jake
the Snake. Some of the best rumbles, right, Shawn Michaels

(03:58):
is another one, right, would have been too tenty ten.
I have to win the Royal Rumble if I want
to get a championship match, if I want to beat
the Undertaker. Right at WrestleMania, I remember he's holding onto
the rope and Batista knocks him out, right, those are
the best ones. And when you look at the lineup
for this year's men's Royal Rumble match, it's a loaded lineup.

(04:19):
I mean, you've got a lot of big names in there.
You've got John Cena, who is trying to win Championship
number seventeen. And how does he do that, Well, he
has to win the Royal Rumble. He wins the Royal Rumble,
his final WrestleMania could be a championship match. So you've
got the John Cena story here. In the midst of
his retirement tour, Roman Reigns has not been in a
Royal Rumble in five years. Usually he's the champion. This

(04:42):
time he is on the outside looking in, and if
he wants to get his belt back, he has to
win the Royal Rumble. Paul Hayman was on the show
tonight to talk about that. You know that Roman is
going to get his championship back. Seth Rollins talked about
being in the Rumble tonight, right, we know he's in there.
Cmp Unk declared many weeks ago, made it very clear

(05:03):
to Cody in the closing segment tonight, I'm gonna win
the Royal Rumble and I'm taking your title away from you.
Drew McIntyre is in there, Sammy z Ain is in there,
on and on and on. But like Sammy's Ain is
another example, Sammy's Ain has has three or four different
things going on right now. Accidentally kicked Cody Rhoades in

(05:25):
the face tonight. Cody doesn't know whether or not he
can trust this guy going into the ladder match on Saturday.
But Sammy's Ain wants to be the World heavyweight champion.
Kevin Owens wants Sammy z Ain to be the World
Heavyweight Champion, but he wants Sammy's Ain or he says
that anyway, but he wants Sammy to give him the
assist on Saturday and says, look, I want you to
win the Royal Rumble, but it can't be me and

(05:45):
you at WrestleMania unless I win the title. He's very
conflicted right now. Sammy's got issues with Drew McIntyre. He's
got issues with a bunch of different people. So I
love how they have set things up. And there are
at least two or three seriously consequential, you know, potential
winners in this match coming up this weekend. But what

(06:08):
they did tonight was make it very clear Cody Rhodes
and c Im Punk is very much on the table
for Las Vegas, and we could be looking at a
WWE Championship match between two baby faces. It could very
well be a WrestleMania main event. Between the two that
got away from Tony Kahan. Formally two of the biggest

(06:32):
stars in AEW history could very well be wrestling for
the WWE Championship in the main event of WrestleMania this year.
Or does The Rock return on Saturday and blow everything
the fuck up the way that he did last year.
And there's still that It seems minuscule at this point,
but there's always the possibility that The Rock could reappear

(06:52):
and he could very well win the Royal Rumbles. See
you have that hanging out there as well. That was
the highlight of the show tonight, where those final ten,
twelve minutes whatever it was. We did learn tonight that
the transfer window. I've been talking about this, this transfer
window business. They've been doing it now for like a
month and a half, no indication of when it closes, right,

(07:16):
this trade window has been opened for a while, and
finally they told us that it officially closes this weekend.
And so we learned tonight that Zelena Vega is out
of the LWO. Tonight was her final night on Raw.
She is being moved to SmackDown. I don't know if
that's going to end up being the final move in
this transfer window. I would guess we'll learn about more

(07:38):
on Friday, but just to recap here, and you guys
in the chat can let me know if I'm missing
any here. We have Zelena Vega moving to SmackDown. We
had now the announcers, I guess they moved first, right,
So we had we had Joe Tessitur and Wade Barrett
moving from Raw to SmackDown. Corey Graves moved to NXT,
Michael Cole and Pat McAfee moved back to So the

(08:01):
announcers had some of the biggest moves in this entire window. Well,
we have Zelena moving from Raw to SmackDown. We had
Bailey right moving from SmackDown to Raw. We had Austin
Theory and Grayson Waller being moved from SmackDown to Raw.
We had the mizz being moved from Raw to SmackDown,
and the Wyatt six being moved from Raw to SmackDown.

(08:23):
Is that about cover it? I think those are pretty
much all the key moves. There were really no significant
moves unless they make one or two this weekend. You know,
I thought Drew McIntyre, for example, would benefit from moving
from Raw to SmackDown. There's been no indication of him
switching brands, you know, American Maid. I mean, we've talked
about these potential moves before, and so we'll see what

(08:45):
happens at the end of the week. But finally, this
transfer window business is coming to an end. I mentioned
Roman Reigns before. We found out tonight that he is
the cover boy for WWE two K twenty five. So
that was the big reveal as far as the game
is concerned. And another entrant into the Men's Rumble revealed tonight,
Penta entering his first Royal Rumble match. Not only did

(09:08):
we get the announcement from Penta that he is declaring
for the Royal Rumble, we had a teas of a
potential future Intercontinental Championship match between bron Breaker and Penta.
First time we've seen these two face to face and
nothing was said. It was very quick, it was very simple,

(09:30):
but it was there for a reason and that may
well be a WrestleMania direction right there. So we're going
to talk about what happened on this go home episode
of Raw tonight, the final edition of Raw before the
Royal Rumble. This is your Raw on Netflix review for January.
Let me check my trust the watch here. It is
the twenty seventh. I don't know what day of the

(09:50):
week it is. It is January twenty seventh, twenty twenty five.
I am the Solemn Monster. Thank you guys for joining
me here on a Monday. Now, of course, Damian pries Okay,
I did miss one. That's why I told you, guys.
I said, let me know if I miss any, Damian Priesce,
you are correct. Well, you know what that would be.
I would say that would qualify as the biggest one.

(10:11):
Probably Damian Priest, though is no longer on Raw, he
is on SmackDown. We don't know what's going on with
Finn Balor because he hasn't been around for a few weeks. Yes,
Damian Price is now on Friday nights. Hit that like
button and hit that subscribe button. If we are not
already there, it is very likely that tonight we will pass.

(10:34):
I believe it's eighty three thousand, eight hundred. I believe
we were on the VERGEO, so we're getting very close
to eighty four thousand subscribers on the channel. So I
thank you for that. Superchats are open and you will
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If you have questions, comments and get them on in.

(10:56):
There's some brand new superchats, including a thirty dollars one
I've Moved I'm around. You can check the description down
below for all that. And so with that out of
the way, Oh it's a direction. You can fuck with
that out of the way. The rock has told me
where I can go. Thank you, Matt, Thank you for

(11:20):
the twenty two dollars super trip. Braun Stroman, Okay, braun Stroman,
he moved to Uh well, he moved to SmackDown, right, Okay, Well,
then who the fuck did Raw get outside of Bailey?
That's right, Stroman's on SmackDown. Priest is on SmackDown. We

(11:40):
have to get at least one more move by the
time this week is over. We have to get at
least one more move. It's it's gotta happen. Seems a
little imbalanced to me, right, especially because the shows are
the same length, and actually, you know what, if anything,
SmackDown is longer. Raw has not gone a full three
hours since the debut on Netflix. Even tonight, they were

(12:04):
pretty much in the same like two and a half
hour range that they've been doing, which again I think
is great and I have no issue with that. But
for at least another few months, SmackDown is technically going
to be a little bit longer than Raw, and then
sometime around June is when it's rumored to go back
to two hours on Friday nights. But again, I still
feel like we'll probably get at least one more big

(12:25):
move in this transfer window. Let's talk about Seth Rawlins.
Seth Rollins was out to the ring first to open
the show after the introductions from Michael Cole and Pat McAfee.
They were in Atlanta tonight. Rawlins talked about the royal
rumble of WrestleMania season, and he admitted that twenty twenty

(12:50):
five did not get off to a very good start
for him. He suffered the worst loss of his career
on the very first raw of the year. After that,
he wondered who he was and who he wanted to be,
But he knew who he was and when he was
the most focused version of himself, there was nobody on
the planet better than him. So he started his path

(13:12):
to redemption when he beat Drew McIntyre last week. It
would continue this Saturday at the Royal Rumble. He said
that of all the people that he would eliminate, he
ran off a whole bunch of names, John Cena all
the people that he was going to eliminate from the
Royal Rumble match, and he mentioned Roman Reigns and otc

(13:34):
Chance from the crowd because of course all the people
they love Roman Reigns, and Seth said, I'm especially tossing
Roman Reins out. So he said he hopes CM punk
is the last person in the ring with him so
that he could toss him over the top rope and
turn his WrestleMania dream to dust, kind of like CM
Punk tossing Hulk Cogan over the top rope and turning

(13:57):
him into dust. Rollins played up the question of which
championship he would challenge for if he wins. He says,
Gunther's World Heavyweight Championship is the obvious one, but then
there's the WWE Championship, and he added that it would
be poetic if he took the same title from Cody
Roads at WrestleMania this year that he helped him win

(14:17):
last year, Rollins pulled the crowd on whether he should
face Cody, and there were some cheers. Rollins was interrupted
before he could bring up Gunther by Gunther, who came
out to the ring. You know, if I were Seth Rawlins,
I'd be a little leery about challenging Cody Rhodes, considering
the fact that this man is zero for three against Cody,

(14:39):
including a one armed Cody. But hey, you do you so?
Guther comes to the ring and he asked Seth where
he's been for the last few months. He said he
defended his title against Jay Usso at Saturday night's main event,
and he referred to him as a clown. He said
that Rollins has been whining and complaining about all the

(14:59):
drama that he involved in and said that Rollins has
forgotten what matters in this company. Rolin should tune it
all out and just focus on the rumble. He wasn't
sure if Rolin still had it in him, and Seth
said that the belt that Gunther was wearing would not
exist without him. Gunther said it's twenty twenty five. Rollins
is no longer the best wrestler in the company, and

(15:21):
he claimed that he is the best wrestler, and he
asked Seth to please win the rumble and challenge him
for the title of WrestleMania. He said that Seth would
look up at the lights and realize that Gunther is
the only name that is synonymous or as he said,
I think he said. What did he say? He didn't
say synonymous, he's I think he said so sonymous, or

(15:45):
he didn't say sodomy whatever. Anyway, I know what he meant.
But his name is synonymous with the World Heavyweight Championship. Yeah,
this this promo just got very dark, and then both
men were interrupted. But the newest addition to the Monday
Night Raw Roster. I know he is your favorite wrestler
everybody in the chat right now, I know you are

(16:06):
just absolutely in love with Logan Paul. He is now
a member of the Raw Roster. And so he came out,
and you would think when he got in the ring
and he began to speak, you would think that this
was the New Day turning on Biggie for a second time,

(16:28):
like he was getting the kind of heat that New
Day got a month ago, and New Day is still
getting heat. But unfortunately, I mean, they've really cooled off
since that great angle they did last night. I don't
know what the fuck they're thinking with New Day. I mean,
they had something great in New Day, and I don't
even fully know if Triple H knows what he had
with these guys, just based on the way they've been

(16:50):
used over the last four or five weeks. But that's
the kind of heat that Logan Paul was getting here
in this segment. So Logan said that this company needs
a new face, one that is oozing with charisma with
Kuth and confidence Kuth. He said, oozing with Kuth. Look

(17:14):
it up. He says, these two nimrods don't have it.
They're both very good at wrestling, and they've hit their ceiling.
If there's anything they need to worry about, it's Logan Paul,
and he officially entered the Royal Rumble Match. He's not
gonna throw twenty nine other men over the top rope,
he goes, that's gruntwork. He'll works smarter, not harder. And
when he wins the Rumble Hill main event WrestleMania and

(17:37):
face either Cody or Gunther, Gunther then finally speaks up
and he says, you know what, on second thought, I
want Logan Paul to win the Royal Rumble Match so
I can embarrass him at WrestleMania and I could smack
that stupid smirk off his face. And Seth says, the
only person that will get embarrassed at WrestleMania is Gunther.

(17:58):
And they played Set's music and he danced a way,
so you could add two more names to the men's
Royal Rumble Match. That makes twelve now that we know of.
So Logan Paul has thrown his name in the hat here.
I do want to see Gunther at some point make

(18:19):
mincemeat out of Logan Paul. I'm not saying I don't
want to see that, or that it wouldn't be fun,
you know, to watch him chop the soul out of
Logan Paul. And it doesn't, by any means mean that.
I don't think these two wouldn't go out there and
have a great fucking match, because I think they would.
I don't want that to be the WrestleMania match Logan Paul.
I don't care what he says in his fancy little

(18:40):
vignettes about how I'm one hundred percent all in now,
I'm one hundred percent ww E. No, he's not. Okay,
he's not. But besides that, we saw him challenge Roman
Reigns for the WWE Championship and he lost. We've seen
him challenge Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship and he lost.

(19:00):
I don't want to see him challenge for the World
Heavyweight title unless they build it up and really make
it into whoever it is that he would be challenging
something special now out you know, him winning the Royal
Rumble and going to WrestleMania. Yeah, that would be special.
But to me, it's too soon. He just moved to
Monday Night Raw. I don't want to see him challenging
for the World Heavyweight title of WrestleMania. I don't give

(19:21):
a fuck how great the match is going to be.
Find somebody else. There will come a time and a
place where Logan Paul will not only challenge for the
world title, he probably is going to win it at
some point. But I just feel like they would be
rushing into this way too quickly. He just made his
debut on Raw tonight, debut since moving from SmackDown. This

(19:43):
was technically his Raw debut. It's too soon for that,
so I personally hope that's not the direction they're going
in for WrestleMania, but at some point, whether you like
it or not, this guy is gonna win that World
Heavyweight title because I think of the two titles, it
would be the World time not the WWE title. It's
just the way I feel. And he's a great athlete

(20:04):
and he's had some great matches in WWE, and I
want to see him in gunther I just don't really
want to see it at WrestleMania. Backstage, CM Punk was
interviewed by Kathy Kelly and she asked how Punk thinks
Logan Paul will fare in the Royal Rumble Match, and
Punk said that he's gonna fare the same as everybody

(20:24):
else not named CM Punk. He said that he would
toss Kathy's ass over the top rope if she was
in the Royal Rumble Match. Sammy's Ain walked up and
he wanted to talk to Punk. He took issue with
a comment that Punk made last week, and I told
you this, this has to come up because Punk took
a shot at him last week right before he dissedol Cogan.

(20:45):
He mentioned a bunch of names, John Cena, he can't
see me in the Royal Rumble match, and he mentioned
Sammy's ain. Don't even mention Samby's a he's not on
my level. So here's Sammy coming over to confront him.
And he pointed out that only one of them has
main evented WrestleMania and it's not cmpunk. So that was

(21:07):
his receipt After what he said about Sammy last week.
He said he would see him in the Rumble on Saturday,
and Zaye started to walk away and the camera followed
him and he ran into carrying Cross. Cross said that
Sammy should listen to seth rollins and start doing things
for himself. He said that this is the best chance
Sammy's had to win the Rumble and he should start

(21:29):
thinking with his head. Fross said that there's a world
of opportunity and then he walked away. Cody Rhodes then
showed up. He bumped into, didn't really bump into so
much as he approached Sammy, saying, and it's kind of
startled Sammy. He wasn't expecting it, and Cody told him
that it was good to see him, and Sammy said

(21:50):
the same before making a quick exit, and Cody looked
upset as if he was hoping to have a conversation
with Sammy about what we saw last week on the
show when Kevin Owens was buttering up Sammy's aine and
trying to basically recruit him to be his best friend
in case something went sideways in the ladder match this weekend.

(22:12):
But Sammy got away before Cody could talk to him
about that. There was an interview during the commercial break,
because again I'm watching this show using my Express VPN.
I am watching it via a Canadian server, so I
don't get any of the commercials. So I had the
cutaways and they would cut right back to the show,

(22:34):
so I got to see all of the stuff that
if you were watching with commercials, that you didn't get
to see. And so we had Austin Theory and Grayson
Waller being interviewed. They were in the crowd and they
just moved in the transfer window. They are now officially
a part of the raw roster. So they didn't really
have much of anything to say, nothing of any real

(22:57):
note to say. But holy shit, some of the stuff
that happened during these commercial break well we'll get into it,
but wait until I get to the Michael Cole stuff.
You'll be glad that you didn't see any of the
commercial break stuff, but after the break they showed a
bunch of celebrities in the crowd, including can you believe

(23:18):
that this may have been the biggest news in the night.
I think I buried the lead at the beginning of
the screen because in the crowd tonight in attendance for
Monday Night Raw Tony Khan. There he is, everybody, Tony Khan.
Not only was he in the crowd, but he was
shown on screen. What Noah, Noah send What what's his name?

(23:39):
Noah Centennio? Oh, all right, looks like Tony Khan to me,
I swear to God as soon as the initial shot
of this guy on screen, and I swear to you,
I thought it was Tony Khan. Yes, apparently though this
guy he's an actor from the Recruit on Netflix. I

(24:02):
guess season two is about to drop. I haven't seen
season one. I have no idea what it's about. Maybe
they're trying to recruit somebody new to the aw writing team.
I don't know, but so yes, anyway, Tony Kahn was
with us tonight here on this show. They also had
in the crowd. They showed rappers Little YACHTI two Chains

(24:24):
was there, and Quevo, my favorite, my favorite Jose was there,
plus Theory and Waller. Of course they showed them in
the crowd, and the Creed Brothers were also shown in
the crowd. So then we had the war Raiders defending
their world tag team titles against Dominic Mysterio and JD

(24:47):
McDonough of the Judgment Day. And this was the rematch
that the Judgment Day was getting. Dominic Mysterio took the
place of Finn bal who was not there tonight. And
there was a very scary spot early on in this
match where JD McDonough goes for a springboard moon salt

(25:10):
to Ivar who's standing outside the ring right in front
of the announced desk, And as he completed the arch,
as he was, you know, flipping over on the back
end of the moon salt, he continued to flip and
McDonough smacked the back of his head on the announced

(25:32):
desk hard, but he smacked the back of his head
on that lid they had that cover on top of
the announced desk. And he's very lucky, honestly that he landed.
That may have saved his fucking life. Okay, because think
about this, if he had flipped the way that he
did and smacked the back of his head on the
edge of the announced desk, that would have been bad news.

(25:55):
So I actually think the fact that he smacked the cover,
although I'm sure it didn't feel too good, really saved
his ass on that. But it was scary as fuck,
and Michael Cole freaked out, immediately freaked out on commentary.
You could hear it in his voice and he was
again in the headset. He was saying, like, no, legitimately,
we need somebody to, you know, check on this guy

(26:15):
and make sure he's okay. And they showed a replay
of it, because I didn't see the initial impact, but
they showed the replay and it looked brutal, just looked terrible.
So McDonough he got up, I mean, he looked woozy.
He may have just been selling, but he looked woozy
getting up. But he did get back up to his feet.
At least he was able to stand up. You could

(26:36):
tell even the fans realize that it was bad because
they actually cheered when he got up. They gave him
some light applause, right, And when was the last time
they did that for JD? McDonough, so even they knew
that something could have gone catastrophically wrong there. He got
back up to his feet, so they gave him some

(26:56):
polite applause for that. And during a break, the doctor
came over to check on McDonough and he just waved
her off. It wasn't like some thorough examination or anything
like that. He basically waved her away. Now, Eric and
Ivar they went for their finish, skipping ahead a little
bit here McDonough, who kept wrestling and looked okay. He
ducked it and he headbutted Eric. Ivar went to the top,

(27:18):
McDonough brought him down with a souplex. Cole said that
McDonough must be the toughest man in WWE the fact
that he's still going here. Dom tagged in Ivar hit
him with a spin kick. As McDonough distracted the referee,
Carlito showed up and he spat an apple in Ivar's face.
This allowed Dom to hit a six to one nine
and McDonough followed with a moon salt. Dom hit a

(27:42):
frog splash and got a good near fall. After Eric
shoved McDonough into Dom to break up the cover, Dominic
went for a six to one to nine. Again, Eric
tagged himself in and they hit Dom with their war
machine finish, and the war Raiders picked up the wind
to retain the tag team titles. They got good heat,
you know, for what turned into a pretty good match here,

(28:04):
a good first title defense for the war Raiders, because
they won the titles was at the beginning of December,
the very end of November, I think it was the
beginning of last month, and they have not defended the
title since. So this was their first championship match and
it was a good match. But to go back to McDonough,
I mean, if we're being perfectly honest here, he should
have been pulled from this match. I mean, there are

(28:26):
just certain moves. I mean it was plain as day.
I mean they showed it on the replay. You saw
how disgusting it was when he smacked the back of
his head in the way that he did. Now, I
don't care if he's telling the referee, I'm okay, I'm okay,
just instinctively, like, what do you think as a wrestler,
they're going to tell the referee, right, They're going to

(28:47):
tell the referee. I'm fine, And maybe they feel fine
maybe it's the adrenaline, what you know when you're dealing
with the head. Okay, And this is a day where
we found out earlier today Dakota Kai is back on
the injured list, you know, And I feel bad for
her because it feels to me like she spent more
time on injury reserve than she has as an active
member of the main roster. But remember that match last week.

(29:10):
It was damage control against the Pure Fusion Collective and
that springboard missile dropkick that Zoe Stark gave to Dakota
Kai that knocked her into the next fucking dimension. That
means the impact of that dropkick you could tell as
soon as it happened, and the way that she just
hit the mat. My first thought was she'd be lucky

(29:32):
if she's not concussed, but the match continued and we
found out earlier today she is indeed concussed, and until
she can be cleared by their concussion protocol, she's not
going to be back in action. So she may not
be in the Royal Rumble this week. And that just
happened last week on the show. This looked even worse

(29:55):
than that, so I would have just I don't care
what he sells a referee. I would have had him
pulled from the match at least long enough to really like, Okay,
let's pull this guy aside, and whatever tests they do,
let's really pull him aside. I don't give a shit
if it's for five fucking minutes, and just make absolutely sure,

(30:15):
or just to be on the safe side, just pull
him to the side, and he's out of the match,
you know. And I understand it's live TV. Dom's on
his own now, and it's not an ideal situation, but
you know, when it comes to concussions and head blows
and stuff like that, you don't want to fuck around now.
Sean ross Sap He did tweet earlier during the show.
He said that when we asked, we were told that

(30:37):
Triple H asked a number of times I assume in
the ear piece if he's okay, and he got checked
out by whoever it was at ringside, And he also
said Michael Hayes asked if the desk was okay, which
is kind of funny. So I mean, yes, they were
asking questions and all that, but again, I don't know.

(30:57):
I don't know about letting him continue the matter what
we saw there because with these things, you can never
really be completely safe. You know, it was scary. It
was a scary moment. Hopefully he's okay. I know there
were some people tweeting about how he collapsed. What they
were talking about is somebody took a picture in the
crowd of like when he was just almost in the

(31:19):
gorilla position but like not quite through the curtain yet,
and it looked like he was laying on the ground.
He may have just been selling. You know, I've seen
nothing to suggest that he got to the back and
he collapsed for real or anything like this. If you
see any reports like that, just take it with a
grain of salt, okay, because that's not anything that's been
reported by any reputable sources. But hopefully we'll get word

(31:41):
on his condition. Ludwig Kaiser in the back. He approached
Pete Dunn and it seemed like Kaiser wanted to form
an alliance. But before they could say much, they were
approached by the New Day and even the Heels wanted
nothing to do with Kofee and Woods, and they walked off.

(32:02):
Kathy Kelly approached The New Day for an interview, and
Kope Kingston said that Atlanta's favorite son was home, and
Kathy thought they meant bron Breaker and they said no,
and she said Austin Theory. They said no, Cody Rhoades
and they said no. Woods said that he was Atlanta

(32:24):
because he's from Atlanta. He said he was Atlanta's favorite son,
and he would beat the brakes off Raymysterio tonight in
front of his town and his mother and his father
and his sister. He said, his family's not there yet,
but he knew that they would show up because he
spent a lot of money on front row seats for them.
And so that led into Raymistereo out next for a

(32:46):
match against Xavier Woods. Now Mystereo made his entrance first,
and then they cut to a break and during the
commercial break, Michael Cole said that it was great to
be in Atlanta with so many great rappers, and he
said that he's won a number of rap contests in

(33:09):
his time, all the years that he has spent here
in WWE. So Pat McAfee said, let's hear one, and
we got a freestyle from Michael Cole. Would you like
to hear what this freestyle was? I'll recite it for you.
This really happened. Okay, this is Michael Cole. Now, my

(33:31):
name is Cole, and I'm the best. We're in Atlanta
on Netflix, suck. Maybe I shouldn't watch with the VPN
from now on. Maybe I should just watch the commercials

(33:53):
from now on. Maybe it's for the better. What do
you think? So The New Day comes out and Kofi
Kingston took a dig at Kirk Cousins. He said the
crowd should be happy because Xavier Woods was going to
bring them something that Kirk Cousins and the Atlanta Falcons
could not, and that's a win in their city. And

(34:16):
on commentary, Cole said they're really bad guys now because
they cut down the city. They cut down the local
sports team. He said, that's what you do when you're
a bad guy. And Pat McAfee said, healing baby before
they cut away. I presume they cut away to resume
the broadcast for everybody else breaking the fourth Wall on

(34:40):
Netflix and the Kfabe Crusaders are not going to be
happy about this. They are not going to be happy
about this. So they come back from break, they show
a row of empty seats in the front row. I
thought I was watching Collision. Now they showed a bunch
of empty seats in the front row reserve. They had

(35:03):
reserve signs on them for what's supposed to be Xavier
Woods's family, but they're not there yet. And they announced
that tonight would be Zelena Vega's final night on Raw
as she is being moved in the transfer window to SmackDown.
So I guess we know which brand Malachi Black is
going to be on once his AW deal is up
next month and he comes back to WWE, He'll be

(35:25):
on SmackDown. So take a look at the SmackDown roster
and start coming up with different potential programs for him,
because I could almost guarantee you that's where he's gonna
end up. Very interesting though, when I think about that,
that he will likely end up on the same brand
as the Wyatt six, that's interesting. So Woods wrestled in

(35:50):
black jeans, just like Kofi Kingston did in his recent
singles match. Woods cut off ray mysterios come back attempt
after a break ray though hit a sunset flip power
bomb off the ropes, followed by a code red for
a two count. Woods noticed that his parents and his
sister finally arrived and they were sitting in the front
row next to little Yachti. So Woods went over to

(36:11):
them and his parents. This is his family. These are
his parents. Hey, he came out of his mother's womb. Right,
they have that that close bond, right, doesn't get any
closer than that. And his parents and sister, they reveal
T shirts that they are wearing, like his father had
a jacket on it, and reveals they're all wearing New

(36:34):
Day Sucks T shirts underneath, and Little Yachti was wearing
one as well, and so Wood's sister tossed a shirt
at his face. Woods returned to the ring. Ray gave
him a six y one nine and a springboard splash
for the wind, and Woods's family cheered. First we had

(36:54):
Kofe's mom walking away from him, and now Xavier Woods'
parents and his entire family is cheering for the opponent.
They're cheering the fact that he lost here in this match.
So then Ray went outside to where his family was
and he put on the New Day Suck shirt and
posed with Xavier's family. So that is now two straight losses,

(37:18):
singles losses for the New Day. That has to change
very soon. That has to start changing. But they're still
getting good heat though it's not like they're not getting
any heat. They're getting good heat when they come out.
They just haven't done hardly anything with them since that
great segment that was one of the best segments on

(37:39):
Raw all year in twenty twenty four when they had
that segment, the anniversary celebration with Biggie and everything was
so fucking good, and I was like, man, I can't
wait to find out where this is going to go.
And it hasn't really gone anywhere since that segment, So
they're gonna have to change that very soon. Like these

(38:02):
guys should be like one of these most entertaining, if
not the most entertaining act on all of Monday Night
rol and right now they're just kind of in the background.
And I mean, that's fine if they're going to be,
you know, kind of in the background and not necessarily
attached to a major feud until maybe after we get

(38:22):
past the Royal Rumble, But just in terms of being
featured on the show, they've been barely featured. So I
hope that starts to change coming out of the Rumble
this week, and I really do. Backstage, Sammy z Ain
told seth Rawlins that that halluva kick he hit him
with last week at the end of the show, that
was a mistake, and Rollins accepted that it was a mistake,

(38:44):
and he said that others may say it wasn't. He said,
Sammy's relationship with Roman Reigns makes him uneasy and if
something like that happens again, he can't assume that it
would be a mistake. Sammy asked, are we good? And
they shook hands and they hugged, and Rolin said, we're good.
They showed Jay usso walking through the concourse. He was

(39:06):
slapping hands and shaking hands with all the fans as
he made his entrance through the crowd, and he was
accompanied by rapper Quavo. They were yeating as they made
their way down to the ring. Quavo had a replica
belt over his shoulder, so they got down to ringside
and they greeted Michael Cole and Pat McAfee and Jay

(39:28):
danced on top of the announced desk and he got
a microphone and he said that I needed that, like,
thank you guys. I needed that, And he acknowledged that
he lost at Saturday night's main event. Came this close
to beating Gunther and becoming world heavyweight champion, but fell
short on Saturday, and he said the ring general was
just that good. But he said, I know I can

(39:53):
beat him. I know it. I know that I can
beat that man. So need to win the Royal Rumble
to go to WrestleMania and main an event to win
the World Heavyweight Championship. Michael Cole said miracles happened at
the Royal Rumble, and I was a little puzzled by
that statement, because would it really be a miracle, Like,

(40:15):
think about how over jay Uso is right now. I
know he's not really in the conversation, and by the way,
he needs to be. He needs to be in the
conversation that people are having this week. As everybody predicts
who's going to win the Royal Rumble, and everyone's talking
about John Cenn, CM Punk and Roman Reigns and Drew
McIntyre or The Rock and all these different people, nobody

(40:35):
is talking about Jay Usso. And I'm not gonna sit
here and predict that I think he's gonna win. I'm
just saying Jay Usso should be in the conversation. He
should be in that top three or top five mix
because something is going on here. It's very clear. But
it was already clear honestly, before as hard as they
were pushing the fact that Jay just can't figure this

(40:57):
guy out. Right, he's already wrestled through a bunch of
times and he's lost, and he just lost again. But
especially after this promo here, they're gonna do something with
these two guys, and it's only a matter of when.
I'm not even saying Jay they're doing something where he's
gonna win the World Heavyweight Championship. They're gonna do something
where he beats Gunther to win the World Heavyweight Championship.

(41:20):
That's the message that I'm hearing in all this. And
if you don't think that there's not a possibility, a
decent possibility that Jay Usso could win the Royal Rumble
and go to WrestleMania to challenge Gunther, then you're not
really paying attention to what's going on here. Or he
could win the Chamber. But it sure seems to me
like they're building to something here between these two. Jay

(41:43):
is one of the most overacts they have in the
entire company. Him coming out and still talking about the
fact that I can beat this guy. I'm going to
beat this guy. I know I can beat this guy.
At some point he's gonna beat him, and I think
he's gonna beat him and win the World Heavyweight Championship.
Is it going to be a wrestle? Many of that.
I don't know, but you better include him in your

(42:06):
short list of people who could very well walk out
victorious on Saturday night because something is going on here.
They're clearly building to something now. During the commercial break,
Pat McAfee went over and he interviewed say, psych I know,
I know some people don't want to hear that. They

(42:27):
don't want to entertain the idea that Jay Usso might
win the Royal Rumble, but you better start thinking about it.
I'm not telling you that he would be my pick.
I'm just saying like, if you don't think that he's
not a realistic option, you're just not paying attention to
what's going on. That's all I'm saying, so Pat McAfee.

(42:48):
During the break, he went over to interview Xavier Woods's
family in the front row about their thoughts on Woods.
Woods' sister said that it sucks that he used to
be a good guy and now he's a bad guy. Man.
The Kfabe Crusaders are really not going to like this
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Speaker 1 (45:49):
Then McAfee spotted Little YACHTI sitting next to Woods's family
and he said, and I quote Lil YACHTI, holy shit.
And on commentary Michael Cole he chuckled and he said
to somebody in his ear, Yep, there you go. Maybe
they were taking bets for how long it would be

(46:09):
before McAfee cussed, because I think he said asshole Later
in the show that might have been on TV. Actually
it was doing the palestrator thing right where he was
talking about Michael Cole and his singlet a wrestle MANI
at twenty seven. I think he called him an asshole.
But anyway, all you need to know about this is
that little YACHTI is a real Ripley fan. He's got
a thing for Ria Ripley. Get in line. Did you

(46:31):
see that photo, by the way, from Saturday night? They
had a I think Naya Jacks actually quote tweeted it.
It was when Ria was trying. I didn't even notice it.
Ria was trying to put Naya in the prism lock
submission on Saturday and she ended up not doing it.
She was having a hell of a time trying. But
there's a photo Naya is looking up at Ria's ass

(46:56):
and she just she's got like a fistful of ass,
like she just grabbed the chunk of Rhea's ass. Of course,
you know you have all the people up, all the dolls,
Ziggler memes, as you would expect. It should have been me.
It should have been me. It was never going to
beat you, so say if Buddy Matthews. So they played

(47:18):
liv Morgan's music for the next match, and I guess
I just assumed that Jay was coming out to wrestle.
I didn't realize he was coming out to just stand
on the desk and say a few words. So that
was it for jay Uso for the night. But anyway,
they come back from break because Live's entrance happened during
the break. They come back from break and Jackie Redman

(47:39):
interviewed the Women's Intercontinental Champion, Lyra Valkyria in the back,
who said that she was ready to defend her title,
but she also was announcing that she would be in
the Women's Royal Rumble match this weekend. So American Maid interrupted.
Chad Gable told Lyra that Ivy Nile would be winning
that Intercontinental title for him, and then he corrected him

(48:00):
Selfie said for us or for them, whatever it was.
Valkyria said that this was as close as any of
them were going to get to that title, and Ivy
Nile got in her face and Valkyria kind of brushed
her off. I do wonder if the idea maybe was
to set up a rematch with Lyra and Dakota, and

(48:22):
with Dakota being hurt, because because Lyra hasn't really done
much since she won that championship a few weeks ago,
I wouldn't worry too much about that. I think they
may well set something up for her coming out of
the rumble. But I do wonder if maybe they were
going to run that back one more time and they
can't now, Yeah, because Dakota, at least for this week,

(48:42):
Dakota's out. I mean, hopefully it's nothing serious and she'll
clear concussion protocol and she'll be back quickly. But anyway,
no indication of there being an Intercontinental title match set
up for next week or anything like that, but they
were obviously teasing one here with Ivy Nile so American May.
They kind of walked away and then they bumped into
or they heard the voices of Maxine Dupree. You could

(49:05):
hear her, and the camera pans over and Maxine has
her smartphone taking I guess, shooting video with her smartphone
on a tripod of Tozawa and otis who. I don't
know what they're doing. They're doing some weird poses or
I don't know what they're doing, and Gable called them

(49:26):
pathetic for doing TikTok dances. I guess they're doing tech. Yes,
that's right. TikTok has been unbanned. I guess so, so
they were doing stuff for TikTok's been unbanned. Meanwhile, my
fucking iPhone keeps telling me that I have to update
my apps, and there's a TikTok update and I go
to update it and it won't let me. So is
it back or is it not back? I mean, I

(49:46):
don't use it anyway, but it's annoying because I got
that fucking bubble. Now, I got that bubble. It says one.
Actually it says two. I have not updated my Twitter
to reflect X Believe it or not, I still use Twitter.
So when I open the app, I have the blue

(50:07):
and there's the bird. I refuse to update. We have
Bianca bel Air and Naomi against liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez.
This was a non title match, so there women's tag
team titles were not on the line. Bianca made a
hot tag shortly after a break and ran wild on Live.

(50:30):
Raquel tagged in gave Bianca a spinebuster. She also power
bomb live onto Bianca for a two count. Naomi tagged
in hit an X factor. Rodriguez followed with a fallaway slam,
Live tagged in hit Bianca with a code breaker. Yeah see,
I'm not the only one power spying game, says I
still have Twitter on my phone. Yeah, I know. One

(50:51):
day I'm gonna when i'm updating the apps, I'm gonna
hit update by accident, and that's gonna be It's gonna
be gone forever. But I'm holding out as long as
I possibly can. Morgan went for oblivion. Bianca, though, caught
her and hit a kod, but Dominic distracted the referee
for making or from making a cover. Bianca then wiped

(51:13):
out Dominic with a slingshot dive out to the floor. Meanwhile,
Naomi hit Live with a split legged Moonsalt had the
match won, but Raquel pulled Naomi out of the ring
to break up the cover. Now, this happened right in
front of the referee, who did nothing in response. He
didn't admonish her, he didn't take action. He just played

(51:33):
dumb and checked on Live instead. So this allowed Raquel
to slam Naomi down on the apron with a Tehana bomb,
and in the ring, Morgan covered Naomi to win it
for the heels. Where the hell was Bianca? That's what
I want to know, Bianca belair. She took out Dominic
with a springboard dive or a slingshot dive. I mean

(51:55):
she couldn't make it over to save her partner. What
the hell was she doing? Anyway? The champions lose, and
there was a report earlier that WWE maybe giving a
nice push to Raquel and Live as a tag team. Honestly,
I could think of worse things to do. I mean,
Live lost her championship and she's not challenging for it,

(52:17):
she's not getting it back, and it doesn't look like
they're moving her to smack Down, So what else is
she going to do? Those tag team titles have to
come off of Bianca bel Air and Naomi sometime soon,
especially if I'm right, and Bionca bell Air because I
have her as my pick to win the Royal Rubble Match.
Now she's one half of the Tag Team champions'd be

(52:38):
very easy to get the belts off for her, right,
I can have her as one half of the Tag
Team Champions going into WrestleMania if she's challenging for the
World Championship. So that's easy enough to do. But put
the titles on Live and Raquel. It gives them something
to do because otherwise I don't know what they're going

(52:59):
to do with Live Morgan. You know, if they're gonna
keep her on Raw. She could go after the Intercontinental title.
I suppose you could set up something with Lyra and Live.
That's a possibility, I see. I still feel though, like
Becky Lynch will be back this weekend, I think in
the Royal Rumble, and I just feel like they're gonna
set something up for her at WrestleMania with Lyra for
the IC title. But if they don't, you could do

(53:21):
Live Morgan and Lyra Valkyria. You can absolutely set that up.
I think that would work. Kathy Kelly was backstage with
Rhea Ripley. She says she's a little banged up after Saturday,
but she reminded Naya Jacks why she's always on top.
And Ria doesn't care who wins the Royal Rumble match,

(53:42):
but here's Bailey who shows up. She reminds Ria that
she won the Royal Rumble last year and she was
successful at WrestleMania, so she'll see Ria at Mania this year,
and Rio wishes her luck, walks off. Eosky or Rea leaves.
Eo Sky show up and she is staring a hole

(54:04):
through Bailey, not saying a word, and then finally Eo says,
I'll see you on Saturday and she walks off. If
Bianca bell Air does not win the Royal Rumble, then
I hope it goes to the EO Sky. My dark
horse pick for the Royal Rumble on the women's side
Jordan Grace. So I'm not picking her to win, but

(54:24):
if I had to have a dark horse who I
think has a shot at winning and could very well
go to WrestleMania and challenge for the championship, I think
Jordan Grace is that dark horse and she would challenge
Real Ripley. Now we could get Rha and Jordan in
Las Vegas. Jordan Grace has signed a multi year contract
with WWE. This is my shocked face. It's saying that

(54:48):
for months. I think I think everybody figured after that
NXT run and the word being that her contract was
up at the beginning of twenty twenty five, that this
is the way it was going to go. So that
is a huge pick up for the women's division. Whatever
brand she ends up on very well could see her
win that Royal Rumble. Matt, if they want to shock people,

(55:10):
but not just for the sake of shocking them, try
to make a star really get her over. On her
first official night in and put over somebody who you
know can go to WrestleMania and have a kick ass
match with either of the champions, but that Rihea is
the one though. If Grace wins, I think it's got
to be Ria and Jordan Grace. So then and I

(55:33):
think this happened during the commercial they gave him an
entrance online streamer Kai Sinnat got a tron and he
came out and he got a full entrance during the break,
got a big pop in Atlanta. He came to ringside
and Pat McAfee interviewed him about being a longtime WWE fan.

(55:57):
Apparently tonight though, was the first time that he's ever
actually been to any of the shows, or as he said, tonight,
it's the first time I've been to the match. Sounds
like Bill after Now, I'll see you at the matches,
love Bill after. So then McAfee invited him to Indianapolis

(56:19):
this weekend to attend the Royal Rumble, and he was
shocked by this and he said that he would he
would see that. Sinnat said that he would see I
Show Speed. There they're teasing something between him and I
Show Speed because earlier in the week, Triple h posted
a video of a phone call he made inviting I
show speed to the Royal Rumbles, so he'll be there

(56:40):
as well. Welcome to the TKO era. This is You're
going to see more and more of this social media influencers,
online streamers. I'm still waiting for my invite. I have
not been invited to Indianapolis this weekend for the Royal
rum I feel very uh, I feel very left out.
Feelings are hurt. I'm not gonna lie, but then again,

(57:04):
I guess I don't have four million followers on Instagram
like this guy does. So anyway, I show speed in
case you don't know. He's made appearances before. Randy Orton
kicked Disaster WrestleMania one year. He's that little annoying guy. Anyway,
they'll both be there at the Rumble this weekend. We
got a Penta video package and he thanked the fans

(57:28):
for their reaction to his arrivals so far. But this
was only the beginning. He said he wanted to be
the best in the world, but the only way to
do that was to face the best, and he declared
that he was entering the Royal Rumble and that he
would be getting his WrestleMania moment. I hope he does.
It's been a long time coming. Speaking of WrestleMania moments,

(57:49):
I think we may have gotten a little hint of
what Penta's WrestleMania moment may be because later I'm skipping
ahead here, but there was a segment that aired, I
think during the commercial break later in the show. In
the back, Jackie Redman interviewed bron Breaker. He said, now
that he was done with Seamus, Seamus was in the
rear view, he was officially entering the Royal Rumble match.

(58:11):
He called half the Rumble entrance senior citizens, and they
would realize that they were no match for the Badass
because it wasn't twenty fourteen anymore. So he was interrupted
by Penta, who was wearing a suit. And see Penta,
Penta has already figured out here very quickly, the WWE

(58:32):
dress code. So he's got his mask on and his
makeup and his suit, and he walks up to bron
Breaker and they stare at each other. No words are exchanged,
and then Penta did his Seramiado gesture without saying anything,
and you could hear the fans in the arena chanting
get along with him what. He's been here three weeks

(58:52):
and already everybody knows it. They know the gesture. Look,
I am still holding out hope that they will tell
the story with Seamus at WrestleMania finally winning the Intercontinental Championship.
If they really are moving away from this though, and
we're not getting it, we're not getting it this year,
or we're not getting it in Mania, Penta and bron

(59:15):
Breakers sign me up. I'm down for that, And that
would be a great spot for Penta to be in
in his first WrestleMania, even if he doesn't win, although
I honestly I think he probably should if they do
that match. But even if he doesn't win, just to
be in that spot and have a singles match on
the card at WrestleMania as new as he is would

(59:38):
be a huge deal. I'm sure for him it would
be a huge deal. So if not the shamest story,
then I hope they go with that. But I don't
think they tease it unless they're going to do it.
As the announcers were speaking about something unrelated, Paul Hayman

(59:59):
was making his way to down to the ring to
a big reaction. He got into the ring and He
said that he is the one behind the one. I
didn't know where this was going. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
what's going on here? So Hayman said, he's also the
one who represents the WWE in the Island of Relevancy

(01:00:23):
on the cover of two K twenty five and a
banner featuring Roman Reigns on the cover of two K
twenty five dropped from the ceiling and unraveled or unfurled,
and down came the banner. Hayman said that Rains told
everybody that he would take back the Ulathala, and he did.
He said Rains is now telling everybody that he is

(01:00:44):
coming back for his championship, and Hayman said it all
starts at the Royal Rumble. He said Roman is the
biggest star on the planet and he will also be
the biggest star on Mars once Elon Musk colonizes it.
Hayman said there are twenty nine wanna be Roman rains
Is who want to be the tribal chief and want
to be the biggest star in the industry. He dropped

(01:01:05):
to his knees and said that they all pray to
God that they can be Roman Reigns. Hayman dropped the mic.
He was about to leave when Drew McIntyre's music stopped
him dead in his tracks and McIntyre, who was in
his gear, came down entered the ring. He approached Hayman.
McIntyre looked up at the two K twenty five cover.

(01:01:28):
He said, Hayman look kind of nervous. He put his
hand on Hayman's shoulder and told him to relax. He
said Sammy Zain is the only one who should be
nervous because they were wrestling up next. McIntyre said they
never get to talk, and that's all he wanted to
do with Paul. He just wanted to come out and talk.
So McIntyre assumed that Hayman doesn't like him very much.

(01:01:51):
He said Hayman should like him because he's responsible for
all the success that Hayman is having. He said it
pains him and it wasn't intentional, but I am the
daddy of the bloodline. I hate it, but I'm the
catalyst for it all. He said that he eliminated Roman
Reigns to win the Royal Rumble in twenty twenty. He
slayed the Beast at WrestleMania. That Beast was Hayman's client,

(01:02:16):
and he never mentioned brock Lesnar by name, but that
obviously that's who he's referring to. McIntyre said, Hayman likes
to claim that Roman saved him, but Hayman is smart.
McIntyre said, Hayman found reins at a low point and
got into his ear with evil, and McIntyre said all
he was looking for was a simple thank you, and
Haymon stammered for a little bit and thanked McIntyre, but

(01:02:39):
then he added, but you're crowding me right now. So
McIntyre laughed and said, oh, I'm sorry. I'll give you
your space. He backed up, and then he asked Hayman
to do him a favor. He told Hayman, tell your
boy that he's going to beat him within an inch
of his life, and then tossed him over the top

(01:03:00):
rope on Saturday, and Haymond smiled and gave McIntyre his
word that he would pass the message along to his
tribal chief. Hayman dropped the mic. He tried to leave.
McIntyre stopped him and he goes, I wasn't talking about Roman.
He goes, he knows I'm coming for him. I was

(01:03:21):
talking about your boy, CM Punk and McIntyre told Haman
to run. Hayman, of course, is no, He's no marathon man,
so he didn't run anything. He's not running anywhere these days.
But he exited the ring as McIntyre smiled and watched
Hayman head to the back. Haymon was snorting. Boy, That

(01:03:46):
sentence can go any number of places. No, he was
snorting in between his lines. He wasn't snorting lines. He
was snorting in between lines. So I don't know. It
almost sounded like maybe he had a cold for his
health and his sake. I'm hoping that's all it was,
because if not, he didn't sound very healthy here in

(01:04:08):
this segment. So yeah, I don't know what that was about.
I'm going to assume maybe he's just under the weather.
But it was very noticeable here. I like the segment.
I uh, obviously you think that he's talking about Roman reigns,
and then you get the little swerve there at the end.
I'm not talking about Roman. Roman knows I'm coming for him.
I'm talking about CM Punk. Just letting you know another

(01:04:31):
issue to watch for in the men's Royal rumble Mash.
This weekend. His Drew McIntyre and CM Punk they're going
to be in the Rumble mash together. It was their
interaction in last year's Rumble that led to CM Punk
tearing his tricep and missing all those months and missing WrestleMania.
So now you got to watch again for Punk and
McIntyre and the Rumble this weekend again. I like it.

(01:04:53):
It's one of the things I love about the Rumble
this year, McIntyre and Sammy's name, McIntyre and CM Punk,
Cmpunk and Cody Road, Roman Rains and Cmpunk, Roman Rains
and John Cena, so on and so forth. So many
different potential issues and stories can play itself out in
this match. But we had our main event. It was

(01:05:13):
Drew McIntyre one on one against Sammy's eight. It's our
main event. And I'm looking at the clock and it's
ten oh five pm and the main event is about
to begin, and I'm like, boy, are we even gonna
go two and a half hours? This week, Michael Cole
played up Sammy's winless record in singles matches against McIntyre.
Zaane hit an early Arabian press moon salt onto McIntyre

(01:05:36):
and then rolled him back into the ring. That's right, Orton,
I forgot. Well, well, if Randy Orton see the thing
about Orton, though, Orton could be in the Rumble, and
it would make sense for him to be in the Rumble.
But I could also see Orton returning and interjecting himself
in the Ladder match. And you know, depending on what

(01:05:59):
they do in the Ladder match, it's at least possible
the Ladder match could go on after the Rumble. So
I would think Orton's going to be in the Rumble match.
But only if the Ladder match went on last and
they wanted to save Randy's return as a surprise, then
he wouldn't be in the Rumble. Then I would say, okay,
that's they might just save him for the Ladder match.

(01:06:20):
But if Orton was in the Rumble, absolutely you could
tease something between John Cena and Randy Orton, right and
seen his last rumble, so whatever you want to do
with him in that match. Look, I would be surprised
if Joe Hendry is in the Rumble if they don't
do something with Joe Hendry and John Cena. Joe Hendry

(01:06:41):
called John Cena out, I'm busted open Radio last week.
He's shooting his shot. He's you know, he's like, I'm
the TNA World Heavyweight Champion now, and this is what
a champion is supposed to do. I'm calling out John Cena. Yeah,
probably gonna be a lot of people interacting with John
Cena in that match. Maybe we get Aj Styles back

(01:07:04):
as a surprise. We can get something with Aj and Sena, right,
they had that great feud all those years ago. We'll
see Zay encountered a move that McIntyre was trying into
a tilta world DDT and it was on this spot
and I think what happened here because I tried to
go back and watch it. I think McIntyre's arm may

(01:07:25):
have gone into Sammy's face because he came up he
was bleeding from the nose. I don't know. I don't
think he broke his nose, but it looked like he
had a cut or a gash on maybe the bridge
of his nose, and he was bleeding, and I think
that's what happened on that spot. Zayn ended up at ringside.
McIntyre followed. He went for a Claymore kick, but as

(01:07:46):
he charged the announced desk, which is where Sammy was
Sammy moved out of the way and McIntyre he flew
through the air and he landed on top of the
announced desk. Sammy was bleeding pretty good from that cut
on the bridge of his nose at this point. During
the commercial break, McIntyre flung Zane over the time keeper's
barricade and Zane eventually managed to crawl back into the

(01:08:10):
ring just in the nick of time before the ten count.
McIntyre hit a spinebuster and then a sit out power bomb,
both of which only netted him a two count. Zain
came back with a sunset flip power bomb out of
the corner and McIntyre supplexed him kicked up to his feet. Sammy,
though managed to hit a blue thunderbomb, only got two.

(01:08:31):
Zayne went to the top, McIntyre brought him down with
a sup plex. He tried for a claymore. Sammy countered
into a cradle for a two. McIntyre ran shoulder first
into the ring post and Sammy hit an exploder into
the turnbuckles. Zaye went for a halluva kick, McIntyre dodged
it covered Zane with his feet on the ropes, which

(01:08:52):
the referee did not see, and he got the cheap
wind over Sammy Zane death taxes and McIntyre beats Sammy's
ain every single time. That makes eleven straight losses that

(01:09:13):
Sammy's Ain has now sustained in the ring one on one,
which drew McIntyre. So Zayin is pleading with the referee
over what just happened. McIntyre attacks him. Cody Rhodes runs
out to make the save, but then Kevin Owens runs
out from out of nowhere, out of the crowd, I guess,
and he attacks Cody and Cody fights him off. McIntyre

(01:09:36):
then attacks Cody from behind. Zayne tries to make the save.
In doing so, he accidentally strikes Cody with a halluva
kick when McIntyre moves out of the way, and Owens
now is standing in the ring beside Sammy's Ain, who's
beside himself over what just happened. But now they're like
side by side, they look like they're they're best buds,

(01:09:57):
and Sammy looks over he sees Kevin standing next to him,
Kevin smiling, and he pats Sammy on the chest and
he leaves the ring. So I love what they did here.
Because obviously just the visual of it, it's great because
it just makes you wonder now heading into the ladder
match on Saturday, you know, was that intention Obviously it wasn't,
but like, was that intentional? Is Sammy Zay going to

(01:10:20):
back up Kevin Owens on Saturday and come out if
he needs his help? Right, that's what they want you
to think about going into the match. Builds a little
more intrigue in the ladder match. So I thought the
way they did this was was smart. Zaye was upset
as he walked to the back and he looked back
towards Cody in the ring and repeatedly you could see

(01:10:41):
him saying I'm sorry, and then he left, and I
honestly I thought the show was over. I'm like, does
that have a going to end? And instead they cut
back to the announcers, and this might have been during
the commercial break because it was just col and McAfee
and they were just meandering on for a while about
what it just happened, almost like they were just waiting

(01:11:02):
and like killing time. So that was not the end
of the show, which was good because the actual end
of the show was the best part of the entire show.
Cody Rhodes got to his feet and he addressed his
hometown fans here in Atlanta, and he looked up at
the two WWE championship belts that were hanging from that

(01:11:23):
hook above the ring. If you watch Saturday Nights made
event during the contract signing with Sean Michaels. They took
the titles from both of them, the Winged Eagle belt
and the logo belt, and they put them up above
the rings. He said he's learned that being the champion
was not about the physical belt, despite what Kevin Owens
convinced himself of. It's a mindset. It's about putting in

(01:11:44):
the work. He says. Nobody in WWE has worked more
matches than him. He shows up first, he leaves last.
He was looking forward to Saturday where he could finally
move beyond Kevin Owens cult of personality. It's here comes
cm Punk. He asks, Cody, are you all right? He goes,

(01:12:07):
I'm legit like I'm asking you as a friend and
somebody who's concerned for you. I'm asking if you're all right.
It looks to him like all of this is starting
to get to him just a little bit, and he
knows what that belt means and what that title can
do to him. Man he was champion for a historic
four hundred and thirty four days many years ago, and

(01:12:27):
somewhere around the three hundred day mark, he said, he
started to get burned out and it turned him into
somebody he didn't like being. He lost friends, and he
sees Cody losing friends left and right. He said, he
knows Cody wants to be Bruno, Sam Martino. He knows
Cody wants to be John Cena and do all of it.
He wants to do it all, but none of us

(01:12:47):
are Superman. Cody said he doesn't have a lot of friends,
but CM Punk, you're my friend. That's what he said. See,
I'm Punk, You're my friend, right, And Punk didn't answer
right away. Punk stared at him. He had to think

(01:13:08):
about it for about five or six seconds, and then
he goes, yes, Yes, I am your friend. And unlike
everyone else you've surrounded yourself with, I promise to always
be your friend, partly because of a promise that I
made to your father and because I love you. When
you're the WWE champion, you've got a target on your back,

(01:13:29):
Cody said a year ago before the Royal Rumble when
they were standing right here like they are now. Punk
had a prediction. He said that a prediction that had
a lot of truth to it. So, friend, tell me
what's next for me? And Punk said, in the short term,

(01:13:52):
you're in your hometown. You get to sleep in your
own bed tonight, but you're probably not going to sleep
at all because you probably have an early call time
to do media, or maybe you don't have an early
call time. Maybe you'll be able to spend some time
with your family, but it doesn't matter because you're not
going to be sleeping regardless. Instead of sleeping, you're going
to be thinking about that title up there. And if

(01:14:14):
Cody makes it past Kevin Owens, then there's the next show,
and then there's the next one and the next one.
More sacrifices and less time with your family because that
title means something to guys like you and me. Somebody
is going to win the Royal Rumble and challenge you
for that championship at WrestleMania and they're going to take
that title from you. That's the good news, Cody, and

(01:14:37):
Cody laughs and said, that's the good news, and please
tell me what the bad news. Is, and Punk said,
the bad news is that that person is going to
be me, and he's going to see him in the
main event of WrestleMania, and because he's the one true
friend that he has, I'm going to stab you in
the front. Cody said, he appreciates that he's gonna tell

(01:15:00):
CM Punk something. When he first started out, he met
Punk right the Chick Magnet. Back then, they were all
chasing Punk. Everybody was chasing cmpunk. Same when he went
to the main roster, they were still chasing CM Punk.
And even later on after Punk left, people were still
chanting his name. They were still chasing after CM Punk.

(01:15:23):
But now this relationship has completely changed. He's no longer
chasing him. Punk is now chasing Cody, and he hopes
that Punk wins the Royal Rumble because he wants him
to catch up. Cody went to go leave and Punk
grabbed him and he told him, I'm not finished. He
goes a lot of them have said that they wanted

(01:15:44):
to catch him, but they're a graveyard full of guys
like that that have made that comment. So Punk went
to go leave, Cody stopped him and he said he
wants Punk to win the Royal Rumble so that he
could see the look on his face when he realizes
the best than the world is not the best in
the world anymore. So for two years now, that was

(01:16:08):
the end of the show. But for two years now,
heading into the Royal Rumble, we have had tension teased
on this show, face to face between CM Punk and
Cody Rhodes. They did this last year. The dynamic was different.
They were both in the Royal Rumble match. It came
down to the two of them, and in the end,

(01:16:31):
we know Punk got hurt, but in the end it
didn't change the outcome. Cody was going to win all
along and Cody was going to go wrestle Roman Reigns
and get his belt at WrestleMania and finish his story
and that's what he did. But again, they teased it
last year. This year, Cody's the champion, Punk is chasing him.
Punk wants to win the Rumble to get the shot
at Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania. It's a huge match that

(01:16:54):
they just teased, and it would be kind of weird
for them to tease if they didn't have any plans
of doing it. Doesn't have to be at WrestleMania. But
sure feels like there's a better than decent chance that
maybe we get Cody Rhoads and Cmpunk for the WWE
Championship or WrestleMania. It could very well happen again. I

(01:17:17):
pitched on the sound Off this weekend, I did my
Royal Rumble predictions and I picked CM Punk to win
the Royal Rumble. Cm Punk could very well challenge Gunther
for the World Heavyweight title, or he could challenge for
the WWE Championship. I could see it going either way.
After what they did here in this segment, it actually
is more plausible that he would go after Cody Rhoads,

(01:17:39):
you know, especially if they're not going to do Cody
in the Rock. But again you have to understand something
that at least up until a few weeks ago, things
were still very fluid, and it was Mike Johnson, I
think on pw Insider who said it was being discussed
internally in a very serious way. The idea of doing
John Cena against Cody Rhads a wrestle maybe, but these

(01:18:02):
are all ideas. Nothing is etched in a stone tablet,
so it could be seen in Cody, it could be
Punk and Cody. It could be Rock and Cody. It
could be Randy Orton and Cody. It could be Randy Orton,
Kevin Owens and Cody in a triple threat. Any number
of possibilities here. Cody and Punk would be a huge match.
And yes, there's history there because these two men made Look,

(01:18:25):
they made Tony Kahn a lot of money. They had
great success in aw they used to work there. They
left under very suspect and unfortunate circumstances in both cases,
more so more so Punk. Okay, the controversy was there
for both of their exits, okay, And we may never

(01:18:46):
know the real truth as to why Cody left. Everybody's
got their theory about why and who it involved and
Brandy and all this other stuff, but they share that
in comic. But it would be a gigantic match. You
know what else would be a gigantic match, Roman Reigns
against CM Punk. So which match do you want to see?

(01:19:07):
Which match would you rather see at WrestleMania this year?
Would you rather see Roman Reigns in CM Punk or
would you rather see Cody Rhoads and Cmpunk? Because I
think Roman Reigns in CM Punk could be a Summer
Slam match. I you know, you got that Paul Hayman favor.
That's just kind of hanging out there. I don't think
that has to be a WrestleMania match, but it would

(01:19:27):
certainly be a WrestleMania match if they wanted to do
it this year. Hopefully Punk does not get hurt in
the rumble like he did last year, because it really
fucked up their plans. And now there's even more money
to be made with any of these matches. Whichever one
they go with is going to be a huge match.
But I just feel like Punk, you know, he lost

(01:19:50):
last year Final two. He got thrown out of the
ring and he got hurt, and he was gone for
five months. And now this is almost like his redemption arc. Now.
You know, he vanked Drew McIntyre and Helen a Cell
shut a lot of people up with the quality of
that match. That was a five star affair between those
two guys. And so now here we are a year later.
He's healthy and he doesn't want to be sitting on

(01:20:13):
the outside looking up at somebody else like he was
last year when he lost. I think he's the favorite
right now. Odds On odds On Favorite Top three Punk
Roman Sena. But Drew McIntyre is in this, Jay Usso
is in this the Rock who knows. Like I said before,

(01:20:34):
it's the thing that I really love the most about
the way that they have set up this Men's Royal
Rumble match this year. I think on that they've done
a great job. They've done a much better job with
the men's Rumble match in terms of building intrigue than
they have with the women's. The women's I mean, my god.
They had a segment on SmackDown last Friday which was
just like the rotating parade of women coming out and saying,
I declare, I declare, I declare. That's how they promoted

(01:20:58):
and hyped up the Women's Royal Rumble, right, not very deep. Right.
You could find maybe some little stories here and there,
but there really isn't a whole lot to it. So
it's the Men's Rumble that's really what it's all about.
I think they've done a good job of also promoting
the ladder match. They just added the two out of
three false tag team title match with the machine guns

(01:21:19):
and DIY that was just sort of thrown out there,
but I think that's a great match to have on
that card, and that's all we have right now at
the Rumble. You know, it's those two title matches and
the two Rumble matches, and it doesn't look like they're
going to be adding anything else, So the card is set.
I'm looking forward to it. I didn't think much of

(01:21:40):
the show overall tonight. I thought it was okay, but
that closing segment did what it needed to do. The
point of that segment was to get you hyped up
for the Royal Rumble match and hyped up to see
Cody against Punk at some point possibly WrestleMania. But I
find myself a little more excited now, you know, to

(01:22:03):
see the men's Rumble match than I was three and
a half hours ago or whatever it was four hours
ago before Row started. So to that end, it was
a successful show. That's all you can ask for on
these go home shows. Get me excited to see the
pay per view this weekend, you know, with these shows,
that's that's the main thing that I look for. You

(01:22:25):
got this huge show coming up on Saturday. I'm gonna
watch it, of course, I'm gonna watch it, but I'm
already excited for it. But really just kind of get
get me even more excited for it. Find a way
to get me where. It's like, Man, I can't wait
for the Royal Rumble this weekend, right, and they did that,
so I give it a thumbs up. What did you

(01:22:46):
think of Raw on Netflix? From Atlanta? Eighty seven point
four percent of you have given this show a thumbs up?
Is that for the show or is that for the
closing segment? We did have some some other good things
on the show. That tag team title match was pretty good.
I don't know if it was eighty seven percent good though,

(01:23:07):
twelve point six percent thumbs down. That's where we are
right now with the Raw on Netflix poll. I love
you solo, says Jacob Fattu. Look at this, Take your pick,
Jacob Fatu or bron breaker Man. Who's getting the monster
spot the Diesel spot in the Rumble this weekend? Right?

(01:23:30):
It's got to be one of those two. It has
to be. So who's it going to be? I say,
fat Tou? I think it's gonna be Jacob Fatu. All right,
let's go through your super chats here. Feel free to

(01:23:53):
drop a super chat with your predictions. Who do you
think is going to win the Royal rumble. I gave
you mine. I told you what I think. Now I
want to know what you think. Basce Bears, Hey, Yo,
thank you for the two bucks. Base Bears, Jerome Eugenio,
in your opinion, which wrestlers should have won a Royal Rumble?

(01:24:15):
But never did you know mister Perfect came so close.
Mister Perfect came so close in nineteen ninety and then Hogan,
who was the champion at the time and really didn't
need to be in it, threw him out over the
ring post, not even over the top rope. He threw
him over the post. I don't know. It would have

(01:24:37):
been nice to see mister Perfect maybe win one someone
who should have won a rumble. I'm surprised Jericho never
won a rumble. I'm surprised Kurt Angle never won a rumble.
That surprises me. King Nador, thank you for the super chat.

(01:25:04):
Joseph Is Triple H always confusing long rains with interesting
ones seems to me everyone is obsessed over the number
of days rather than the battles. I think that's more
of a common thing in wrestling today. In general. You
hear a lot of people talking about the number of days.

(01:25:25):
You know that somebody has been champion. I just think
that for so long we had the days of crash TV,
you know, back during the Attitude era and the Monday
Night War, and we had titles that were changing like
hot potatoes every other week. There had to be a correction,
and I think over the years there has been. But
I agree. I mean, we don't need everybody to have

(01:25:46):
a long six month, twelve month, eighteen month reign is
champion because it gets boring after a while. So yeah,
I think it probably happens a little more than it should.
It would make things a little more interesting if titles
changed hands a little a little more frequently. I'm not
saying they should change hands every couple of weeks, but

(01:26:07):
I think that's a fair point. The Sheriff of Patty's,
with the Beautiful Winged Eagle title being on TV a lot,
I have a simple question, which three wrestlers would you
associate this belt with the most? I associated with Bret Hart,
I associated with Hulk Hogan, and I associate it with

(01:26:29):
Shawn Michaels. Today's episode is sponsored by Betterhelp. We all
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(01:26:51):
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(01:28:15):
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(01:28:35):
slash solo monster today to get ten percent off your
first month. That's Better Help h e lp dot com
slash solo Monster. David Theiring just wanted to say thumbs
up on the Hog Show this past weekend Commissioner. I
mentioned this to JD, but I always find the banter
between you, him and the Good Doctor hilarious, especially when

(01:28:58):
dot dot org Yes, our esteem broadcast partner, Doctor Hillary P.
Wisdom got gored by Rhino. We were so excited to
call that too, so we didn't have to deal with
him for the rest of the night. It was so good,
It was so nice that I'd have to listen to
him for the rest of the show. Thank you, Rhino.

(01:29:21):
By the way, NWL, Matt, what is a point to
the New Day Heel? What is a point to New
Day Heel? The lose every week and can't say anything.
Are your fingers broken? Are you missing some keys on

(01:29:43):
your keyboard? Now? Look, I said the same thing. I mean,
they've really kind of dropped the ball with it. You know,
they didn't kill it, but like they've really dropped the
ball with the New Day Man. They should be featured
more often than they are. They should be doing more
than what they have them doing. It's like they don't
know what to do with them now. The final ball

(01:30:03):
and it doesn't help. By the way that the Tag
team division is in terrible shape right now. The final
Boss Punk versus Cody Feel's box Office. So many options.
They have a lot of options again, Roman and Punk
is box Office. Where does Paul Hayman's allegiance lie? Right

(01:30:27):
There's a huge story there to be told if you're
triple ah right now. Look, I mean, seriously, you have
got an embarrassment of riches as far as the matches
that you could go with for this show. David Theoring,
did you ever ask Haku and Kurt Angle, as you

(01:30:48):
mentioned on social media from the WWE Vault video, who
the biggest badass was in WWE history? I would laugh
if Hakku and Kurt actually agree on an answer. Now
I didn't. I didn't ask them that. I just said
they were both going to be in the house. Yeah,
so I got to keep him apart, you know. But
I did get to meet Haku. He was very nice,

(01:31:10):
and I got to sit in on a seminar that
Kurt Angle was giving. Mostly just taking Q and A,
but you know, give a whole session to the students
before doors open, just dropping knowledge, sharing stories, answering questions,
Sitting under the learning tree, the real learning tree, not

(01:31:35):
the other learning tree, Boots. I think Sammy kicked Cody
on purpose because Cody waited for his music before running
out to help Sammy Withdrew, Cody pulled a cope. Dev

(01:31:56):
to dust Is renewed channel membership for thirty five months.
Which company had a better three month period? WWE from
the Rumble to wrestle Mania seventeen or AEW Homecomings or
Revolution in twenty twenty, WWE from the Rumble to wrestle
Mania seventeen in two thousand and one. David says last

(01:32:20):
one for tonight curious, what are some of your own
personal favorite hog matches that you have called? And does
the Santana and Kent to match from Friday make the list?
I think it does. I mean that was a great
fucking match, and Santana was so happy to match He's
wanted for so long, and you can wipe the smile

(01:32:42):
from his face, like he was amped up to get
in the ring with Kent did like it meant. It
meant that much to him and they had a thirty
minute war. Man, it was great. I've got to call
a lot of really cool shit, you know, and a
lot of the matches honestly involved him. He had so
many great matches last year. God, that Charles Mason match

(01:33:06):
with Las Sombra a couple of years ago, and that
was that was great. Yeah, I mean there's just there's
been a whole bunch of them. But the Santana Amazing
Red match from June may have been the best I've
ever called. That was just fuck an awesome match that
was from June of last year. Rarely, even with a

(01:33:29):
five dollars super chet, honestly a pretty solid go home show.
I feel like nearly everything had meaning and they set
the table well for the Rumble that is royal. Yeah,
I mean, they did what they had to do. I agree.
I'd be willing to bet he says that Alistair Black
will be on SmackDown. That's why they send Zelena there.
That's exactly what I said. I said, we just found

(01:33:52):
out tonight where Alistair Black is going when he comes back.
Grant Hudson, twelve months of antle membership, Punk's infamously warned
Cody about Rock coming and taking his spot before the
Rumble last year. You predicted some things last year that

(01:34:13):
came true. It's too bad he couldn't predict where things
would be headed for him in ADW A lot of
that drama could have been avoided. He could have just
not come back. He'd just gone straight back to WWE
and avoided all of that Dark Effect with that one

(01:34:34):
hundred and fifty dollars bomb Dark effect. You crazy sumbitch.
We already we talked about this before, but just got
to acknowledge him again. I got to acknowledge the tribal
chief of the night right there, dark effect. Thank you.
Phil says, do you think Julia makes an appearance during

(01:34:56):
the rumble? You know it's possible. I'm thinking Roxanne for sure.
I think Roxanne eliminates Bailey, and I was thinking more
Stephanie than Julia. I think maybe we get a Stephanie
Vicaire cameo in the rumble. I think we get maybe
Amasha Slamovich right reigning a TNA knock ass champion. Jordan

(01:35:17):
Grace will be in there. I'm sure, so that's what
I'm thinking. Nikki Bella, I think I think we get
a Nicki Bella appearance in the rumble. We know Charlotte's
gonna be in there. She's already declared Becky. We'll see
if Becky comes back there. I mean you don't want
to give everything away necessarily in the Rumble match. You
might want to save some for TV, like a big return,

(01:35:39):
but we're gonna get some combination of of all those names.
Rarely even I feel like they're doing a good job
at keeping us guessing for the Rumble. Normally we have
a pretty good idea who's gonna win this year? We don't. Well,
I mean, I think I think people still have a
pretty good idea. It's just it's not just one person, right.
They've they've narrowed it down to like three Sina Roman

(01:36:03):
or Punk. But having jay Uso in there and having
DREWM MacIntyre in there, it makes things a little less predictable.
So it's always more fun that way. When it's not
as predictable as it tends to be, it just makes
them more Joseph Stiller buy er sell Royal Rumble ninety

(01:36:28):
eight or Royal Rumble ninety nine, Royal Rumble ninety eight boots.
Does demon Balor return at the Royal Rumble? I hope not.
Demon Balor is dead. It'll never be the same again
after he fell off the top rope Depth to Dusk.
Did you know there's a Spanish speaking and an Italian

(01:36:50):
speaking country in Africa. Equatorial Guinea spoke Spanish while Eritrea
spoke Italian. I actually did know that. No, I'm kidding.

(01:37:11):
I know of those places, but no, I did not
know that Joseph Stewart was Shawn Michaels versus Owen Hart
the original plan for Royal Rumble ninety eight. No, but
it should have been, and I still don't understand why
it wasn't, other than they wanted to shoot that angle
with the casket on fire with Undertaker and Kane, and

(01:37:33):
that was you know, They're like, well, let's run Sean
and Undertaker back for a third time, unnecessarily, just so
we could do that spot. At the very end, it
should have been Sean and Owen instead of blowing it
off on a raw match. It should have been the
Rumble match in ninety eight. There was no need to
go back to Sean and Undertaker for a third time.
None al And think about this, did they not have

(01:38:01):
done that casket match? Very likely that Shawn Michaels would
not have ended up with a back injury as bad
as he had. That could have changed everything. Who knows
what the attitude era would have looked like if Shawn
Michaels was still around. Who knows if Shawn Michaels would
still be here today had he not taken time away.

(01:38:23):
I think it worked out for the better for all involved,
but that one decision. Imagine like how different things might
have been if they would not have had a casket
match and it would have been Sean and Owen at
the Rumble instead. Alex's Cody sounded like he just finished
a sixty minute Ironman match against penta awesome promo. Though
much love brother solo, enjoy your weeknd, you two, Thank

(01:38:46):
you Alice. Although it's the beginning of the week, we're
not at the weekend. I mean, look, I know everybody
waits for the weekend here, but it's Monday. You're gonna
be with me on Wednesday and Friday. I hope, right.
The week's not over yet. Joseph says, do you think
Dominic Mysteria will have a career in Hollywood as an actor?
I don't know, but he's he's a funny fuck. He's

(01:39:09):
a funny guy, that Dominic. I could see him in
a comedy. The Final Boss says, if Rock is fully out,
I would rather punkin Cody than sina I would too,
Alex says, you see that Bill Burr and Billy Corgan

(01:39:35):
family reunion exchange on Howie Mandel Show. Corgan claims Burr
is his brother. Do you think I have no idea
what's going on? I have not. I'm not in the
loop on any of that. Is it real? Is a kfeb?
I have no idea. I haven't seen it, so I
don't know. This is the first I'm hearing about it,

(01:39:57):
between Hog the other day and the and then Raw
tonight and other work I've been doing. I've been stuck
in wrestling Hell Dark Effect with another fifteen nothing but
respect for the only man who accurately predicted the Tony
Storm storyline from the jump. And everybody was mad that

(01:40:19):
she was returning on collision. You preached sanity. The true prognosticator,
wasn't it Rampage. I think everybody was upset that she
was returning on rampage. Everybody was having a meltdown, and
I said, be calm, it's gonna be fine. It's gonna

(01:40:41):
be the performance of a lifetime. That's exactly what it was.
Leopoldo with the thirty dollars, the brand new thirty dollars
super chat cracked me up every time I see it.
Thank you for saying it. Hunkin Cody made raw. It's
easy to take for granted Punk's importance to wrestling. He

(01:41:03):
makes it look so easy. His ability to draw us
in is unparalleled. I would write a thesis on this,
but I'm out of money and letters. I don't know
about writing a thesis. But although didn't Takeshta do his

(01:41:25):
thesis on the German Suplex, I'm pretty sure he did.
Tongalo A super fan says, heard that you saw Tongaloa's dad.
I did. Did you ask him what number Tangaloa is

(01:41:47):
coming out at the Royal Rum? I didn't. I was
too afraid of what he might do to me, so
I didn't bring it up. JR. Vascher had fun at
the show tonight. Hopefully we were loudly. Only slow point

(01:42:10):
was the women's tag match. Now onto getting my heart
fixed on Wednesday morning. Wow, Well, I hope that goes well.
I don't know exactly what the procedure is, but anything
with the heart is serious, so keep me posted. Hopefully
everything goes well. And I'm thinking about your brother Nick
Grosso after tonight. I'm convinced at some point Sammy z

(01:42:33):
Aine is going to join Drew McIntyre, Kevin Owens, and
Seth Rollins to form a faction and feud with Punk Roman,
Cody and maybe Orton as well. They're gonna be the
new four Horsemen. Wow. I mean, there is the old adage,
if you can't beat him, join them, And Sammy has
lost eleven straight times now to Drew McIntyre. I'd probably

(01:42:54):
join him too. Jeremy Rose says, not surprised. However, Eventually,
I hope WWE stops making Raw look like the celebrity
GM era. These bootleg Netflix stars and B level rappers
need to go away. Are you calling two Chains a
B level rapper? If I see Fluffy again, I'm gonna snap. Yeah.

(01:43:19):
I think we're We've seen enough Fluffy for now. He
was on Saturday Nights Made event he was on the
first Raw Netflix show. I think that's enough. Jeremy says,
we need Vince back, so Cole stops acting like a
goof Well you lost me there and WrestleMania predictions Drew Roman,

(01:43:45):
Gunther and j Cody and Punk Sena and I thought
that's a scene En Hogan, Holy shit, Sena and Logan,
do you agree? I could see Gunther and j I
could see Cody and Punk after tonight, Drew and Roman. Yeah,
you know what, I could see all of those matches.

(01:44:05):
I could see every single one of those matches. Ambo
jewics this influencer crap has to go has go away?
Heat with me? Who the fuck are these people? Also
hoping the best for my favorite Judgment Day member, JD
McDonald Yes, we're all hoping that his head is okay.

(01:44:32):
That was very scary. Rico the official Sola Monster. There's
a photo showing JD McDonough collapsing to the ground before
heading back to the gorilla position. You can see his
feet somewhat on stage. Yes, I talked about this earlier.
Until we get some kind of report, I wouldn't read
anything into it. It could have just been him selling

(01:44:55):
if you could if it's on TV, or or if
you're in the arena and it's visible, it could just
be him selling and part of the show. If we
heard that he collapsed in the back, that's a different story.
But if you could see it, I wouldn't read too
much into it. A Wunu with the three Judgment Day

(01:45:24):
Dom Chad Ludwig, Dragon would make a great mid card roster,
but they lose so much it's hard to care. The
Raw tag belts feel lower than the women's. Yeah, I
mean the tag team division right now. I think tag
team wrestling in general right now it's just very low.
It's just very low on the priority list for these promoters.

(01:45:49):
It's too bad because I think when you have like
a fire division and you really put some effort into
it and you can come up with some great stories,
tag team wrestling is fucking awesome. And right now it's
not awesome. It's the opposite of awesome. And that's not
just a WWE problem. That's a WWE problem. That's an
aw problem. We're at a low point right now, hoping

(01:46:13):
as the year goes on they can turn that around.
One minute or so stories. I know. We are wondering
if they drop the addendum to the contract or not.
So what if on Friday we find out that the
loser gets transferred to Raw. That would put Kevin on
Raw away from Cody and Roman and put him with Sandy. Yeah,

(01:46:37):
but it would take him away from Randy. I don't
know if they want to do that. I still feel
like they may have just dropped the whole addendum shit.
It was never brought up a single time on Saturday Night.
We'll find out on Friday. It's Friday or Bust. So
if they're gonna mention it, they're going to mention it
on SmackDown. But yeah, very curious how after that one

(01:46:59):
episode to smack Down, the whole addendum thing was just
never mentioned again. Charles Carlos, Charles Carlos Galvan. Do we
see Sammy being the one to take the world championship
from Drew sometime next year? I think Drew McIntyre is

(01:47:19):
gonna be the world heavyweight champion again. Uh later this
year and Sammy Zaine finally winning a world title on
the main roster and it being Drew McIntyre that he
beats to do it would actually be very poetic. I
like that idea. MLK. Besides Joe Hendry, My TNA surprise

(01:47:47):
entrance and the men's rumble are Moose and Frankie Kazari. See,
I don't think anybody's gonna give a shit if Frankie
Kazarian is in there, honestly, Uh, if you're gonna have
more than one TNA guy. I would say Henry and
Nick nemet I would love to see I mean selfishly,
I would love to see Mike Santana get a Rumble cameo.

(01:48:11):
But I'll go Hendri and Nemeth one minute or so
stories on Raw since the transfer portal will be over.
That way they can face each other, even though they
don't really follow brand split rules, just the thought, well,
what hold on a seconds? Okay, so he's talking about

(01:48:35):
Kevin on Raw, moving him there away from Cody and
Roman and put him with Sammy on Raw since the
transfer portal will be over. Yeah, I mean again, like
I said before, it's possible, but you got we gotta
get Kevin Owens and Randy Ort. So do they call

(01:49:01):
him Nick Nemeth or do they call him Dolve Ziggler.
See I asked that same question, and I think you
have to call him Nick Nemoth. You have to respect
TNA and call him by the name he's going by.
Right now, you could say Nick Nemath formerly known in
WWE as Dolf Ziggler. But for him to be in
the rumble representing TNA and to call him Dolf Ziggler,

(01:49:21):
I think would be fucking insulting. You got to call
him Nick Nemath, you got to call him by the
name he's going by right now. But Juliett, weren't we
supposed to have Goldberg on Raw tonight? That was the report.
That was the report from weeks ago that p w Insider,
and then I think Meltzer backed it up, and so

(01:49:42):
obviously plans change because the idea was they were going
to be in Atlanta, which is Goldberg's hometown, you know.
But it was just weird to me because why would
he return on the Raw before the Rumble if he
wasn't going to be at the Rumble. So I was
a little worried that he was to be in the
Rumble match. Well not even worried. I wasn't expecting him

(01:50:03):
to win, but I thought, Okay, maybe he'll be Unraw
to declare for the Rumble and they'll set something up
in the Rumble match, somebody will eliminate him. That person
will be his final opponent at WrestleMania. But then there
was no mention from WWE about him being on the show.
Prince Bageta ninety five, the moment the Snowman lost both

(01:50:26):
Roads and punk aaw in its entirety was a doomed product.
It is fair to say that you either believe that
AW was never the same after Cody left, or that
AW was never the same after Punk left and Punk
had to leave because that was just an untenable situation.

(01:50:50):
Whoever's side you fall on, there like it was not
going to work. But in both circumstances, the company has
not been the same as it was before their departure.
Those were the two most significant departures in AW history.
But I honestly think, you know, I think that while

(01:51:13):
Punk may have been more important to business for Tony
Kahan and got him his first million dollar gate all
that stuff, it was the loss of Cody that I
don't want to say doomed the company, but losing Cody
Rhodes is something that they just never they never recovered.
And I know Cody wore a lot of hats behind

(01:51:33):
the scenes, had a lot of responsibilities, but things just
seemed to unravel a lot when he left. So I
think we'll look back on his departure as being a
real pivotal turning point for that company, and not in

(01:51:54):
a good way. Fire Panda, with twenty eight months of
Channel membership, says Hulk Hogan wins the rumble, Rick Cash
is in his Flair in the bank and beats Cody
for the title. Hogan versus Flair at Wrestlemani of forty

(01:52:16):
one for the WWE Championship. Very good. Are you on
Bath Salts tonight, Juan Sanchez? We need a tag team
royal Rumble, No, we don't. Manuel Massias, do you think
the future of the men's division will be fine? Like

(01:52:37):
the future of the women's I'm a bit worried since
most of the top stars are in their forties. I
think they'll be okay. Yeah, you got talent in NXT
right now, Oba Femi, and I don't think Trick Williams
is ready for a call up yet. But you got Trick,
you got Oba, You've got well. I mean, look, Praxium's
a tag team, but they're probably one of the best

(01:53:01):
tag teams in wrestling right now. I think they'll be fine.
Bron Breakers already on the main roster. It called up
Carmelo Hayes. They have a lot of older talent, but
I think I think they're gonna be okay. Nick Grosso

(01:53:25):
with the nine ninety nine says with them teasing big
matches with Cody Roads and Roman reigns for Punk. What
do they do with Seth Rollins at WrestleMania. I still
think they do Punk versus Rollin's part two because he
can't It can't be a one off. You could have
Punk win the Rumble and have Seth. You know what,

(01:53:50):
it could be that they tease Punk and Cody tonight.
Punk wins the Rumble in the end, he doesn't choose
Cody because Rollins beats Gunther maybe at the Eliminate Chamber
to win the World Heavyweight title, and Punk chooses Seth,
and we get Seth and Punk for the World Heavyweight title. Like,
there are ways that you can get to Punk and

(01:54:11):
Rollins part two and have the championship on the line,
And that's one way to do that. If he's not
challenging CM Punk, what do I see Seth Rollins doing.
I don't know. I don't know. He's already wrestled Logan, Paul,

(01:54:31):
you're not going to run that back again? I don't know.
I don't have a good answer for you. The Juliet
says JD McDonough per Brian Alvarez legit taken to the
hospital after the announced table spot. Well, of course, I
mean I'm not surprised by that. That's why I said

(01:54:52):
the mesh the match, not that the match should have
been stopped. He should have been pulled from the match.
At that point, he's waving the doctor off, He's saying
he's okay. Triple H is asking, you know, is he okay?
Is he okay? He's not going to be able to
tell you if he's okay, because he either doesn't want
to stop the match or he's not okay. And so

(01:55:14):
whatever answer he gives you, you can't just take his
word for it. And you can also in in fifteen
seconds pull him aside and be like you check your eyeballs, Yep,
you're okay, Like you know, you got to err on
the side of caution and say, look, you're out. That's it.
Either the match is over or we'll just quietly pull
you aside. And you know, these are professionals in the ring,

(01:55:37):
and they'll just have to call an audible and figure
it out, you know, and that's it. Some things are
more important than the fucking match. Uh kreflow Dollar Hey Solo,
great show tonight, which wrestler's fan base are the swifty

(01:56:00):
of wrestling. That is, if you give slight criticism, they
all swarm you. Aw w W f WWE fans are
not that much better, but aw Like I mean, Tony
Kahn calls him sicko. Let's not me calling that he
calls He calls them sickos. The sickos are are the

(01:56:22):
worst when it comes to that. They can't take any
criticism of the product whatsoever. None. Uh. And if you
and if you say, well, that's not true, like if
you're someone who accepts criticism, then you're you're not a sicko.
I'm not talking about you. I'm telling you that there

(01:56:42):
are people you cannot say anything bad about. Aw nothing nothing.
If you say, if I do a Dynamite review, and
it's just one of those weeks where everything I think
is just firing on all cylinders. Man, this segment was great.
I like this segment. That match was good. I like this,
I like that. And then I make a comment about
how the pacing from one segment to the next. Man,

(01:57:06):
they just they didn't really let it breathe. They just
went in from one segment to the next like they'll
they'll be at least that one person that will give
me that fucking dissertation about well, you know, six weeks
ago on RAW they did this similar thing. And funny,
I didn't hear Solo Monster talk about it for her
like it's it's bad, you know, it's bad, Like these

(01:57:31):
people are are real and it's just very bizarre behavior.
As far as individual wrestlers, though, there are wrestlers that
have very loyal followings, and I know it's very very

(01:57:51):
loyal when it comes to some of the female wrestlers,
so like Mercedes has some very loyal fans, and Alexa
Bliss has some very loyal fans. Trying to be nicer.
Rhea Ripley, Okay, like you see it you go on

(01:58:15):
social media, I know you see the same thing. The
Roman Empire says to Juliet. Yes, the Roman Empire rarely
even what do you think separates Penta from the other

(01:58:37):
next Mexican superstars That WWE hasn't brought in his marketability,
his his charisma and his marketability. He could be a
cash cow for them as far as merchandising action figures
and T shirts and masks and gloves. But he just
has a natural charisma about him. And plus I just

(01:58:59):
think He's got a great look with the mask and
the makeup and everything. He just you know, in terms
of his presentation, he's just he's cool. He's got that
cool factor to him. So I think he can go far.
I think he can go a lot farther than a
lot of other talent they've brought in where you've heard
them say, oh, this could be their next great you know,

(01:59:22):
Mexican star or Latin star or whatever, and then it
goes nowhere. Pent is different, but yeah, is Triple H
gonna capitalize on it? I hope. So so far, so good,
But it's only been three weeks. Talk to me in
six months, we'll see where we are. Rarely even says

(01:59:49):
I think that superstars that don't speak fluent English can
only go so far in WWE. That's why Ray became
as big as he did, because the audience could invest
in him and he could get his message across Yoko Zuna,
who of course can speak English, but didn't when they

(02:00:12):
brought him in because they tried to convince everybody that
he wasn't Samoan, and a lot of people bought into
it and believed it. But there you can find other
examples of like monster heels. But like Yoko Zuna came
in and within months he was WWF champion, didn't say
a word, had a manager. If it becomes an issue

(02:00:34):
with Penta and his English is not bad, but yes
he's not as fluent as you know maybe other people are.
If it becomes an issue, you put him with somebody,
You give him a manager. Problem solved. He doesn't even
have to speak. I don't buy that. I don't buy that.
You know, someone who isn't totally fluent in English will

(02:00:56):
never be a world champion or a major success in WWE.
I think I think that's bullshit. I don't buy it.
I think it's a cop out answer. I think if
you have somebody who has all the tools to be
a champion and be a representative of the company and
make money for the company, then you can go with them,

(02:01:16):
even if they're not completely fluent in English, and if
it really bothers you, then you simply get them a manager,
You get them a mouthpiece. There are people who can
fix that problem so that you don't have to worry
about it. I don't buy that as an excuse why
you wouldn't push them. I'm not saying that you're saying

(02:01:36):
you wouldn't push them necessarily, But like if Triple H
wasn't going to push him for that reason, I think
that's bullshit. I think that's fucking lazy. If I were
the booker, I would say, you know what, I want
to push this guy, but I need somebody who can
help on the promo end of things. Who do we
have or who can we bring in who could fill

(02:01:57):
that role? And that's where the value of real managers
in wrestling is sorely missed. We have Paul Hayman. Paul
Hayman is the last of a dying breed. The days
of Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart and Fred Blassi and
all these different people. It feels like days gone by.
There are managers today, but even still they're just not

(02:02:18):
as they're not utilized as well or as much as
they used to be. It's a lost art. It's one
of my favorite parts of wrestling when I was growing up.
You know, the managers was very entertaining to see the
heel manager get his come up and where the heel
manager leading the charge with his stable against the top babyface. Right,

(02:02:39):
we're gonna kill Hulkamenius or we're gonna throw all these
people at him, and you know, it was fun. We
need more of that wrestling, I'll tell you what. That's
one of the things I love about the Callus family
and don Kallison hitting the role that Don Kallis is
in right now in aw don Kallous and Paul Hayman like,
that's it right now, as as far as like and

(02:03:02):
more so Callous than Hayman these days. Frankly, you know,
Hyman's not even a manager so much anymore. He's an advocate.
You know, he doesn't really take bumps on a regular basis.
Callous can take bumps, but Callous is just an evil
piece of shit, heel figure, heel manager you know, that

(02:03:23):
has his own family, that has his own faction. It's
a throwback in many ways. It's one of the things
I like about it. We got King Nator channel member
for twenty two months. I love it. Carmelo jumped Cody

(02:03:43):
after Raw went off the air. Carmelo to Raw. I
don't know if that's official or not. It could just
be a dark segment. They fly Raw guys into SmackDown
and SmackDown guys into Raw all the time to do
dark matches in dark segments, So I wouldn't read too
much into that unless they unless they officially announced it.

(02:04:05):
What happened to Stokeley? That's right? What happened to Stokeley Halthaway?
You'd have to ask Tony Kahan. I don't know. He
kind of vanished, didn't he? Boots. When do we see
yo Yo Ma, josh Joshua Bell or other classical musicians
in the crowd? They can play Knockomora to the ring

(02:04:26):
at apl e. I will, I will make a proclamation
and a prediction to you right now, you will never
see yo Yo Ma on a WWE broadcast. Tonga loa
super fan, Do you still consider the WWE to be

(02:04:48):
the land of the Giants? No, not like it used
to be. It really, it hasn't been the Land of
the Giants in a very long time. Poppy with the
five Bucks, you mentioned Roman as the two K cover athlete,
but forgot Tongala is also now officially a two K
cover athlete. Now that's the deluxe edition. He'll be gracing

(02:05:13):
the cover of the deluxe dish. Boney has Triple Ah's
done a good job of making the WWE title and
heavyweight title feel equal. It feels like Gunther's been little
brothered by Cody on his own show. I don't think
he's done a great job of making them feel equal.
I don't. I think he could do better. Leopoldo Seth

(02:05:40):
can go Sean Taker WrestleMania route and force CM's hand. Well,
he'll have his chance in the rumble this weekend Seth
gets dumped. He could pull a Hogan on sid in
ninety two and try to get set and try to
get cmpunk eliminated. Kreflo Dollar. I fell down the Luca

(02:06:04):
Underground wormhole and saw a clip of Penta giving a
drop kick to EO Sky and she went flying plus
Reclusa's entrance just now, ah, yes, Reclusa Chelsea Green Uh
who does thunder Rosa play? Forgot the name of the
character thunder Rosa was on that show? Oh, the Mariposa.

(02:06:27):
I think she was the Mariposa. Yeah, you know that
episode of Luca Underground where Pena had to run the
gauntlet against EO I think it was Mayu e Witani
and Kyrie Saane and I think they beat him. That
was fucking great. That was the first time I saw
EO Sky said, well, who is this. I'm not familiar

(02:06:49):
with this person. Casey is Raw Channel member for thirty
five months. What's up, salamster? What's up Casey? Thank you
for being a member. I hope you're doing well. Happy
New Year. Rarely even says I meant that in the
nicest way possible. No disrespect to non English speaking wrestlers,

(02:07:13):
just an observation. Shinsky and seeing Kara come to mind
as well. Yeah, and look what they've done with Nakamura.
You know, I think the idea to do pretapes with
subtitles was genius, and now they just do them all
the time with him, But it's smart. The Final Boss

(02:07:36):
Punk Cody at Manium might give Tony Kahan a heart attack.
Well they should ask him. He was in the crowd tonight,
Leopaul though, we never understood what the Hell Warrior said
and he got over. Yeah, how about that Ultimate Warrior
just spoke gibberish in his promos and he was pretty

(02:07:56):
popular there for a while. Of course, he was also
all yoped up on anabolic steroids and looked like he
was about to burst, so that probably was part of
his appeal. He looked like a comic book character come
to life rarely. Even I think Jay's time is next year.
I think he takes next year's Rumble, and next year's

(02:08:18):
Mania is the year he takes the world. Time year
is a long time. A lot can happen between now
and then. I don't know the learning sicko doctor Bropio
Hena sucks in WWE. He was better in aw I joke.

(02:08:40):
Thank you, doctor Bropio, thank you, thank you for your insight.
So what are we thinking? Are we thinking yo Yo
Ma as a surprise in the Royal Rumble match this week?
Wouldn't that be something? I don't know what would be worse?
I think I think I would take Yo Yo Ma

(02:09:01):
over I show speed. All right, we are one like
shy of five hundred, and we just hit five hundred.
There you go. See, I didn't even I didn't even
have to finish my sentence. We hit five hundred likes.
Thank you guys for that. And right now let's go

(02:09:22):
ahead and be the booker. Ladies and gentlemen. It is
now time to be the booker. Just like that, It
is time to be the booker. All right. We got
one edition to be the booker tonight one round. We're

(02:09:45):
gonna try to make it a good one. This is
how we start the week, round and around and around
it goes. We begin with the Briscoes, Mark and Jay
brisco Den boys. I can already, I mean, actually, just
hit the bell right now. Do we even need to

(02:10:07):
pick an opponent. It's gonna be the Briscoes against the Briscoes,
and Mark and J brisco against Mark and J. Briscoe.
This is gonna be as Gorilla mon Soon used to say,

(02:10:28):
this is gonna be a pier six brawl, is what
this is gonna be. Holy shit, what a fucking street
fight this is gonna be. That's how you start being
the booker right there. The Briscoes are going to war
with the Briscoes. Don't get no better than that. Yep.

(02:10:55):
I think Steve's right. His money is on the Briscos.
I think you may be right. We begin with Julia
in Women's be the book or the reigning NXT Women's
champion again. I should just go ahead and hit the

(02:11:16):
bell right now, and we're off to a hot start here.
I like where this is going. It's gonna be Julia
against Trish Stratus. Yes, yes, one Hall of Famer against

(02:11:40):
a future Hall of Famer. Can we do it? We're
we're on such a roll here, can we do it?
Is this gonna be our night? We begin with the

(02:12:02):
Scottish Warrior, the Scottish Psychopath, Drew McIntyre in the main
event of Raw tonight and now in the main event
of be the booker. Look at that, a double main
event for Drew McIntyre. But he's not going to be
wrestling Sammy's Ain tonight, at least I don't think so.

(02:12:22):
Wouldn't that be something Drew McIntyre against Bobby Rude, a
match we never got to see, unfortunately, but a match
I think would have been excellent. Former two former TNA Well,

(02:12:48):
he was right. He was a TNA World champion, wasn't
wasn't McIntyre when he was there? Is Galloway? Did he
not win the Impact World title? I thought he did,
but I know Bobby Rude did. Was that in NXT match?

(02:13:10):
I don't remember? Okay, it happened in the next day.
I stand corrected. I guess I forgot about that. That's right,
That's right. I guess they did wrestle in n next day. Oh,
how about that? All right? I totally forgot about that.

(02:13:34):
But was Drew a TNA champion? I thought he was. Oh,
that's right, okay, Yes, that was the night that Adam
Cole debuted. Yeah, okay. That was in Brooklyn, wasn't it.
I think I was there. I think I might have

(02:13:55):
been there for that match, and I have no memory
of this. I remember Adam I'm Cold debuting. I remember that.
Oh my god, I think I was there. My god,
my brain is mush. Okay, So Drew was the TNA
champion back in twenty sixteen. I thought he was. Yeah,

(02:14:20):
so two former TNA World Heavyweight Champions. The main event
of be the booker e J. Slamp coming in with
a four ninety nine. There's an episode of Arthur that
Yoyom guest starred in, and there's a scene where he's

(02:14:42):
wrestling saxophonist Joshua Redman in a ring. Huh, So an
actual wrestling connection for Yoyoma. I would not have expected that.
He's still you're never gonna see him though on WWE television.

(02:15:04):
I could promise you that, I guarantee it. I should
try to get him into House of Glory. Maybe we
can get a performance. Yoyo ma comes to hog I
think that'll sell tickets. Was the crowd dead tonight or what? No?

(02:15:26):
I actually thought the crowd for the most part was
actually great. There were segments where they were quiet, but
I think for the most part, especially in that tag
team title match, I actually thought the crowd tonight was
really good. In wrestling, never say never, I'm saying never.

(02:15:46):
Never will you see yo Yo Ma on a WWE show. Okay,
so the podcast this weekend. If you didn't listen to it,
make sure you listen to it episode eight ninety eight,
over two hours up right now. If you're listening, pleasure
and I do appreciate you sharing it, streaming it, leaving

(02:16:07):
a comment on Spotify, five stars on Apple Podcast, all
that good stuff. I'm going to be back with you
on this channel Wednesday night after Dynamite Mercedes Monet defends
her TBS championship against Yuka Sakazaki. I know you're all
on the edge of your seat, can't wait for that.

(02:16:27):
And then Friday night is the official go home show
to the Royal Rumble. It is Friday Night's SmackDown, and
so I will be live after SmackDown. Of course, I'll
be live with JD on his channel tomorrow night for
a brand new episode of Tuesday Night Titans. So a
lot of content coming up this week. This weekend is
The Royal Rumble Live on YouTube. After the Rumble six

(02:16:50):
pm Eastern start time for the Rumble. Don't forget it's
going on earlier than usual. I don't know why, but
some people may forget. So six o'clock Eastern that's when
the Rumble starts. When the Rumble's over, you come here,
I got the post show for you. Ready to go?
The Winston slit says, would you like to see someone
with the Rumble from a number spot that hasn't won before?

(02:17:13):
I always picked number sixteen, and no one ever won
until Drew in twenty twenty. I honestly don't give a shit.
I could, I couldnot possibly care any less if the
winner comes from the number four spot or if they
come from the number twenty four spot. Just give me
an entertaining rumble, you know, just just just tell those stories.

(02:17:36):
Give me an exciting finish, an exciting final four. That's
all I asked for. What number the winner comes from?
I guess when I when we all get assigned our
numbers in the Royal Rumble pool in the Facebook group,
I'll be rooting for my number, but outside of that,
I don't give a shit. Doesn't doesn't bother me. Our

(02:17:58):
truth shows up an hour to the rumble. Well he
did show up in the Women's Rumble one year, didn't he. Anyway?
Be well, stay safe, check out all that other content,
and I will see you back here live Wednesday night
for the dynamic. Some of these streams end up more

(02:18:18):
entertaining than the television show, So come on back and
we'll talk aw on Wednesday and Holiday one ninety seven
caught you at the end. What are your thoughts on
Cmpunk's return so far outside of the injury. I mean
it's it's so far, so good, right, I mean, the
injury obviously fucked a lot of things up, but as

(02:18:41):
far as business and the different matches that they have,
so far, so good. Let's see if they can keep
it up through WrestleMania season. See you guys on Wednesday.
Take care

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