REWIND: WWE WrestleMania 29 Deep Dive

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Shower deep dive into WrestleMania twenty nine.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Why don't we?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Oh right? WrestleMania twenty nine took place April seventh, twenty thirteen,
emanated from MetLife Stadium in East Northern New Jersey, which
is in Northern Jersey and the shadows of New York City,
as you like to say, according to not just Wikipedia
for press releases, because WW does press releases for this

(00:44):
type of stuff, and they announced it on the show itself.
There were eighty thousand, six hundred and seventy six people
in attendance, which was at that time a MetLife Stadium record.
Twenty nineteen broke that. The twenty nineteen WrestleMania actually broke
that record eighty two thousand and two sixty five. Wow.
But they're both the third and fourth highest attended the
WrestleManias in history, of course, behind WrestleMania three, which had

(01:07):
one hundred and three thousand something like that, and WrestleMania
thirty two in Dallas that one year had over one
hundred thousand. But they were also Wrestlemenia twenty nine and
twenty thirteen was at that point the highest grossing event
in WW history, bringing in twelve point three million, twelve

(01:28):
point three million. WrestleMania thirty five at MetLife Top that
was sixteen point nine But the highest grossing event ever
by w W still to this day is WrestleMania thirty
two was seventeen point three million. A little known about
MetLife Stadium. The stadium opened in twenty ten at DAC,
home of course, to the New York Football Giants and

(01:49):
the New York Jets. So if you're a Eagles fan
and you go to road games, you're more familiar with
metlighte Stadium. But it's only it's not even was a
little over. It's just say, ten years old, but it's
already hosted to WrestleManias and a super Bowl. How about that?
People got in fast. It's probably on the whole stadia
at some point.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
I liked the when you get it's it reminds me
of veteran stadium the inside at least, where you're enclosed
and there's no openings, like no gaps or gotcha, gotcha.
That's what I mean by that.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I don't mean like rats running around there straight.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
And even the outside like I think it's a cool,
sleek design. Met Life Stadium has on the outside driving
to this show was actually it was the night before
where I was on my way and it was late
at night, and I think I was arriving to a hotel,
you know, near the stadium while they were doing their

(02:45):
I guess uh pre show with the lights and everything,
and they were like testing them out, they did a
test run or whatever. And I didn't realize they did
that back then. And I was driving and I was
coming up over the horizon of the highway and I
saw like all these lasers and I thing and these
lights and spotlights, and I was like, that is the
coolest thing ever because it was like straight ahead of me,

(03:07):
you know, the whole stadium, the horizon, like the highway
I was on. It was just the way the road
was going of how I came over that hill and
I saw that. It was just like incredible. I will
never forget that image. This is awesome.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Well, real quick about this particular day, It was fifty
five degrees that day, according to Michael Cole, which is
a little chili for a wrestlming, especially if you're wrestling
in your underwear. So WW actually built a heating system
into the ring before the ring posts would blow hot
air into the ring. So I don't know if they
ever used that beforehand, but it's the first time they

(03:41):
used it. Yeah, so yeah about Wrestleman.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
But there was actually like flurries by the way, like
so I don't recall, Wait, you said it was in
the fifties. Maybe the wearing flurries. Maybe I was thinking rain.
Maybe I'm all over the place. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
It's an April, after all, it should have been some rain,
hopefully not snow. But let's be wind back to twenty thirteen, because,
like I said earlier in that intro, this was the
very first WrestleMania in person for myself and Nick Pecone.
And I don't care how jaded of a wrestling fan
you are. You could be the biggest aew mark, the

(04:18):
biggest New Japan mark or whatever. You could be a
lapse fan. If you're a wrestling fan, you want to
go to WrestleMania. That's a dream. That is a dream.
And I don't care how like I said, how jaded
you are or what you want to be at at
least one WrestleMania in your lifetime. And I recommend it
if you're a fan, if you haven't gone yet and

(04:39):
you're you're a diehard fan. You're listening to this podcast
right now. Yeah, ww isn't great. They probably don't even
deserve your money sometimes, honestly, but I think you owe
it to yourself as a wrestling fan to be able
to say, yeah, I went to one and experience that
massive event that WrestleMania is that pomp and circumstance because
it's a big party for wrestling fans. That's that's the

(05:01):
only time of year you're going to be surrounded by
Daniel one hundred thousand other Marks like yourself, So enjoy it.
You don't have to even enjoy the show that much.
Just hang out with wrestling fans for maybe a day
or two, you know, because you can make a whole
trip out of it and have a good time one
of the marks and talk about old wrestling and watch
old wrestling, and then watch the WrestleMania, the biggest show
of the year, and have it make it a whole

(05:21):
weekend getting.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Out of it.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
But I recommend if anyone who hasn't gone yet, Like
I said, you owe it to yourself to go. But Nick,
let's talk about twenty thirteen. Where were you in life
in twenty thirteen, and how did your trip to WrestleMania
come about?

Speaker 2 (05:38):
So whenever they announced they were going to that life,
I don't remember if they did it the year prior,
if you know, they would announce it a wrestling year
if they did it before WrestleMania, because you know, sometimes.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
They did it. They did it around wrestlming at twenty eight, right.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
I didn't know if it was at the event or
if they did it, you know, like a week or
two in advance, like they did you know some other time.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
I believe they had a press conference for it, like
for the show, like before Wrestlmingia. I think they had
a press conference, like I think they've do they like
what they do now where they have a press conference saying, hey,
we're gonna be here, be there, like so they did.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Right, So whenever that happened, I was lucky enough to
have like a group of friends that would always like
at least one person would get a group of tickets
and then kind of figure out who wants to go,
and if somebody couldn't go, then they would try and
sell it to somebody else that was a wrestling fan
obviously that you know, will go with the group and

(06:30):
right away, and me and my one friend were like
because my other friend was kind of like a casual
fan and we had watched you know, twenty ten, twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, Like we had watched stuff occasionally together. You know,
he would miss some shows here and there, but you know,
he was like the only other guy I would rotch
wrestling with at that time, uh weekly, and or at

(06:52):
least talk about it. So me and him were in, like,
we told him, yes, we're in. I think it was
a group of ten or twelve, I don't remember. So
so the one guy bought the tickets and I wound
up paying only ninety two dollars for my seat, which
was all the way you know, up towards the top
in the second level. But hell, you're in the building exactly.

(07:14):
And that's why I love at Life Stadium, because I
didn't feel like I was that far away. I posted
a picture on Twitter which probably shows that I was
far away, but like when I was there in person,
that did not look that far away from it.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
It doesn't matter though, Like you're in the billing at Wrestlem.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Out of the you know, I was my angle. I
saw the stage I saw the ring that was perfect,
you know, it was so my angle was so great.
So yeah, this was like a year and change in
advance where I was just like, yes, you know, I'm in,
and you know I paid them, and we just kind
of waited, you know. I think if they if they
came to Philly in twenty twelve or early twenty thirteen,

(07:53):
I don't remember when. I think they were in Philly,
but probably for them.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
And then lead up, probably in an lead up wrestled. Maybe.
I don't remember twenty twelve because I didn't go to
any shows in twenty twelve, but uh, you.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Know, we went to a few of those shows, you know,
a couple of house shows if they came, but this
was the big one, so I don't they went up early,
like the other part of the group went up, like
a Thursday or Friday. I don't remember exactly, and I
don't I think I had baseball, and you know, I
had just started my first year at education, but I

(08:25):
was still it was my second year of coaching, you know,
high school varsity baseball. So our season starts the first
week of March, you know, tryouts and then cuts and
then preseason and boom, the first week of April we
started the season, so we were around that time period,
and you know, I was I think I had a
you know game that Saturday, which is why I didn't

(08:46):
go up early. So I wound up going up Saturday night,
you know, driving up there, beat all the traffic, you know,
it was great. Slept over, and then Sunday we went
to breakfast at the hotel, you know, kind of hung out,
went to Met Life, kind of hung out in the
park a lot. As the doors opened, we got inside,
you know, maybe an hour or two before the pre
show started. And yeah, it was just like really just

(09:09):
really cool experience being part of a WrestleMania like weekend
type thing where I was just like, man like I
had kind of drifted away a little bit, but it
was WrestleMania. So in that time period, maybe right after
the rumble, I was like, I'm all in. So yeah,
I was. I was excited, no matter if I felt

(09:31):
like a big fan or becoming a lapse fan or what,
but I was all in.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
I mean, you you grew up taping every show pretty much, man,
every single one, right, so this is I should have
taped them, aren't they up? On? Like w w Network
there like Superstars.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Well I'm talking like Maynia, I'm a live wire, but
like Shack is in the ring right now. On aw.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
But like I said, you grew up a big fan.
You grew up, like said, taping all the shows. This
is like a childhood dream. So yeah, like, yeah, it's dope,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
So, and you know I was with the were my
best friends. I mean I was with a group of
friends and that we all enjoyed it, even though we
might have hated the product at the time. Like together,
they're all marks. Yeah, if they all felt the same way, like, hell,
let's WrestleMania, let's go.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
I think most people feel that way, especially if they can.
If you can make it happen, you're going to go
to WrestleMania's like oh yeah, let's just oh one hundred
bucks for a ticket. Yeah yeah, was sit way up top.
But like it's still a WrestleMania and it is even
more dope if you can enjoy some of the festivities
around it. Two, you know, if you can, But if
you can't, you still went to WrestleMania for a hundred bucks?

(10:45):
Why not? Uh so for me? Twenty thirteen, I would
have been twenty four, and well most we wanted back
actually to twenty twelve, because that's when, like you, I
first heard of WRESTLEMANI it was going to be at
Medlife Stadium the next year. I vividly remember I was
still in college. I was still at iup at that point,

(11:07):
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the Harvard of Western Pennsylvania, just
so y'all know. But I remember telling my girl at
the time, like, yo, we gotta go to WrestleMania next year.
It's right up the street in East Rutherford, like where
the Giants and the Jets play. We gotta go. And
she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, ludle that. I know
that I said we, but it wouldn't be we because

(11:30):
we would break up a couple months later. So ah,
it's all right, it's perfectly fine. It's Gabby's mom, so
you know, obviously we're still in contact, but it's it's
it's it's good now. But in my mind, I'm like,
we're gonna last forever, so see you next year at
wrestlemaniasid She wasn't there, but I remember watching Wrestlming in

(11:52):
twenty eight in my homies apartment that I went to
school with, and we were talking. I was like, yo, man,
it's up in East Rutherford, New Jersey's not that far
at least from where I'm from in Philly. It's a
little far from Western PA. Uh and out you know, Indiana, Pennsylvania.
But I was like, yo, I'm trying to go y'all
want to go there? Like yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody loves
It's always great when somebody do like a group trip

(12:14):
and people people know what I'm talking about when you
do like a group vacation and when you mentioned the idea,
everybody's on board, and the closer and closer you get
to it, everybody drops off. This trip starts out as
like a twelve person trip. By the end, it's like
three people on this trip because for whatever reason, some
everybody can't do it. That's just how it be, right.

(12:35):
So that's pretty much what happened here, But not really
because they just dropped out. It's just because they're in
Western PA. I'm in Eastern PA. They weren't gonna spend
I guess they weren't. They were big, they were wrestling fans,
but I guess they didn't want to point it up
the money to because we just all graduated from college too.
We're not like we're out here rolling in the dough.
You get it. You're gonna drive the eight hours from

(12:56):
uh Western PA wherever to New Jersey? No, you know, fan,
or are you gonna catch a flight?

Speaker 2 (13:05):
No?

Speaker 1 (13:06):
I mean it'd be dope if they did, but they didn't.
So fast forward to twenty later. In twenty twelve, I'm
working at Philly dot Com and I'm like, I gotta
go to WrestleMania next year. I don't know what I'm
gonna do. I asked my dad if he wanted to go,
and he was like, nah, not really, like he he
grew up watching wrestling.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
I'm good, I mean not, but he was down, but
like at.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
A certain point he's just like, oh, I don't want
really have the money right now, like all right, you
know whatever. And he grew up watching wrestling too, so
I figured he would be dope if he went, but he,
you know, he's like, I never mind. But I was like,
all right, Like I don't know, I don't want to
just go by myself, but you know, how am I gonna?
What am I gonna do? And then one of my
coworkers is like, why don't you just cover it? I'm like, what,

(13:53):
It didn't even dawn on me that I could just
do that because I work for a major media outlet.
In the inquiry, like, you know what, that's that's that's
a good point. I could just do that, huh. Like,
And it's not really like I'm trying to get to
Wrestumania for free or just like I can go to
WrestleMania and do work at the same time. Well, how
about it, Let's do it. That's pretty much how desperate

(14:14):
I was to go to WrestleMania. I guess I don't
know how about it. So I went through the process,
yeah you know, and I went through the process of
getting into credentials. It's my first like real foray with
w W and their PR people, and I actually got
interviews leading up to the show. I interview Paul Hammond
before the show, which is wild, like like in the

(14:34):
week's leading up because he was managing seeing Punk and
brock Lesno that night, which is pretty wild. They both
lost spoiler. But so yeah, this is kind of really
how I really got into reporting wrestling, even though I
had written about wrestling at bleacher Report and That's how
I knew that wrestling stories do tremendous traffic, because you know,

(14:57):
you bleacher repor at least back then, you can see
how many views, how many clicks or whatever a story got,
and all the wrestling stuff I wrote will always do
the best traffic, and the other stuff I wrote would not.
So I'm talking to my editors like, look, yeah, we
should cover WrestleMania. If one is right up the street,
it's kind of local. It looks stupid if we didn't
cover it. Because a year later, fast forward a year later,

(15:19):
when the super Bowl was up there in East Brutherford,
we set like eight people up there and cover the
super Bowl because it was local all of a sudden,
so I talked them into let me go because it
didn't make sense from an editorial standpoint. And I was like, maybe,
you know, there's like, well, maybe you don't write, like, say,
a story. How about we do a live chat? Right
this is when live chats was still big thing. I said,

(15:40):
they still are, but especially so back then because we
would do it like every week or multiple every week
live chats at Philly dot com. And I was like,
all right, cool, yeah, I'll do the live chat. I'll
talk to people, tell people, and we'll put in the
headline like WrestleMania or results. Because you got to remember,
this is also pre WW network. This is the last

(16:00):
WrestleMania before the WW network. This is strictly pay per view,
so not everybody could watch the show. It's not as
accessible as it is today, which is wild to think
about that a WW show wouldn't be easily accessible through
your smartphone, your tablet or your computer or your smart
TV or your firestick or whatever. Back then only pay
per view. So the live chat did tremendous numbers, and

(16:25):
that's how they was like, all right, well, now do
this more often. I was like, all right, And that's
how the square Circle block got started on Philly dot Com.
From there, I'm pretty sure I did. I'm not gonna
say for certain that I did, but I believe I did.
The square Circle I like it, thank you, thank you.

(16:46):
I'm pretty sure I did name that myself. But that's
how I started. But as far as getting to WrestleMania,
like the day itself, because I didn't get to go
to like the Hall of Fame ceremony and like because
there was no NXT the night before, I'm thinking like,
what was it n XT No, there wasn't. It was
only only the Hall of Fame ceremony. So and years
after this, I would go up there, like to the

(17:09):
to the city and stay a couple of days, go
to the Hall of Fame and do other stuff. But
this night they didn't want to pay for my hotel
for some reason, so I had to go the day
of just like that's kind of whack. And the years
and then the following years they realized, hey, we probably
should do this because it's further away, and you know
who wants to just go the day of? Right, So
on this day, I vividly remember not getting any sleep

(17:34):
the night before because I was just excited. Right, I'm like, again,
I'm twenty four by this point, I might as well
have been seven. Again, I might as well have been seven, eight, nine,
ten years old. Again that excited, And I had to
wake up really earlier because WW was like, all right,
if you want to get interviews. That's another thing I
was doing too. I was also getting interviews at fan

(17:56):
Access that will put I would do video interviews and
put them on a site on Philly dot com. So
it's like, all right, if you want to get these interviews.
Be here at the first session of access at nine
o'clock because for those who don't know, they had the
fan Access every day, including the day of WrestleMania, but
the Sunday one it's like the last session obviously, because

(18:18):
the day of the show probably the worst day to
go because all the big stars come out in the
days leading up Sunday rolls around. It's like nobody's really
trying to do an autograph signing before the main event.
They have a main event match at WrestleMania, so it's
a little scarce. It's a little rough. But I didn't
learn that until I got there. So I get there, well,
I had to get there a nine o'clock, so I

(18:39):
had to wake up here in Philly at five, all right,
because I'm like Nick here, I don't drive. I don't
have a car, so I had to get the Third
Street station in Philly. Then I had to catch a
sept the Regional rail train to Trenton, New Jersey. It

(19:00):
so from Philly to Trenton. And then when once I
got the Trenton or trent Trenton, right, that's how you
say it, right, I had to catch a New Jersey
transit train to Secaucas Right now. Once I got to secaucas,
WW had set up these shuttle buses to take fans
from Sircaucas to the Izod Center. Now I know, people like,

(19:25):
what the hell is the Izot Center. That is the
building formerly known as the Meatlands Arena, and that's where
the New Jersey Nets would play. Seaton Hall played there.
I think The Devil's played there too for a while.
So that was before the Eye, before the Barclay Center.
The ISID Center was like the second building in that

(19:46):
metropolitan area. MSGU was number one metal Lands Arena. It
was like the second one. But then Barclays came about,
and then the other building in the New Jersey Prudential
Center came up to a Newark and the ISI Center
got faced out out. But before it got totally phased out,
it was still up and operational and that's why they
had access, which access is usually at a convention center,

(20:10):
but this year, I guess there wasn't a convention center
nearby that they could get that was that would fit
everything they want to throw into. You know, access, and
it's a lot. I've been to multiple accesses. Like I say,
it's a lot when you know, the convention Center is
the route to go. The arena was the second option

(20:30):
that they really didn't want to do, but they had
to do so. But that's what Fan Access was. I
had to get there at nine o'clock. And I get
there and I'm like looking up and I see all
the signage on the buildings and it's not evenly like
a pretty like picturesque scene. It's like, you know, Nigga's

(20:50):
New Jersey's North Jersey, so it's like highway and it's
like it was like kind of a cloudy day and
it wasn't it was kind of like I said, nippy,
it's like fifty degrees that day, So it wasn't like
it was sunshine and palm trees and beautiful. It was
like a concrete jungle around us with a highway behind us.
But because we're Marx, we're like, I'm like, damn, this
is Wrestlemannia. Bro, I'm here. I'm not even at Met

(21:11):
Life yet, I'm at the at Center, you know, but
it's like, oh man, I'm here, Bro, this is dope.
This is amazing. But I was just blown away by it.
But so I go in to Access and this is
again it is my first one, so I'm not used
to the convention center types of access. I just walk

(21:32):
into the arena and they had like all the memorabilia
and all the exhibits, I guess, and the concourse as
opposed to like on the floor of a convention center
where they usually would have it. And I'm walking around
like a kid in the Kinges. I'm looking at Oh,
there's triple ahs thrown, or there's this this DDP it's
take the bace, and I'm getting interviews. I remember interviewing

(21:52):
Daniel Bryan Our Truth, I think Ziggler and Damian Sandou
who stayed in care character throughout blasts in the past,
like Damian Sandow, but he stayed in character throughout his
interviews and his autograph signings. And he would sign his
autographs with like a marker with a pink feather on it,

(22:13):
and I was like, well, what's what's what's the deal
with the feather? He was like, this is a family
heirloom that was passed down because it was used to
sign the Declaration of Independence and invisible ink. I'm like, okay,
he was funny, man. I love that he was really
funny bro. So all of that was happening in the

(22:35):
concourse and they were pretty much have like the guy
through autograph signings in like I guess a suite or
a box. You know. The people would come into like
a club suite and they would line up in there
and the rest will be sitting on the back or whatever,
and he signed autographs instead of just at like a
table on the floor somewhere. And I remember in the
actual arena itself was they were having like NXT matches,

(22:57):
like just random matches happening while at everybody else everybody's
doing all this other stuff and they would just have matches.
I'm like Percy Watson and Page and stuff like that.
This is this is way before NXT became cool, right,
still had a ways to go, but they did that. Yeah,
so yeah, that.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Was because they were still a weekly show. But I
mean they were relegated to Florida. You know, they weren't
national or anything. They were still no like I don't
small brand.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
I don't think they're even on TV. If they were,
they weren't like specific places, but they weren't like widely
available yet.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
It was like syndicated in like Florida or something. Yeah,
if anything.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, so So I got there, I did all my interviews,
and I'm done with that session, so I leave out.
It's like eleven o'clock now eleven am. While I'm leaving,
the next session is maybe an hour away from starting.
Let's say it starts at noon. I walk out of
the Eyes Out Center, and there's already a line of

(23:56):
people surrounded the building right waiting for the next section. Like,
holy hell, I've never seen this many wrestling fans in
one place at one time, like outside of like maybe
going to a show, but even still, to seeing a
line of people like that was kind of like I
was kind of taken aback by that. So then I
go to the skywalk they have because the Metlight Stadium

(24:19):
is across literally a highway, like a six lane highway.
You don't want to walk across this, you die.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
So that might have been what I was driving on.
I don't remember this specific road I was on when
I the previous night when I saw like the light show,
but it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah, I'm sure it was the same highway I took.
I took a picture of the stadium while we were
driving up on the shuttle buses. You can see you
kind of peek over the horizon at some point and
it's like Met Life you know, at big letters at
the top of the stadium. So I'm sure it's the
same highway, but that just like crosswalk, the skywalk type
of thing. Its long tunnel that will take you from

(24:55):
the Eyes I Center to Met Life Stadium across the highway.
So I walk away frosts and it's just dozens and
dozens of wrestling fans in this thing. So I get
over there and that's when I go to the superstore.
You know, if you're not familiar WrestleMania or WW should say,
every year a WrestleMania they have a superstore. It's like
a merchandise store, this big, blown out merchandise store. Some

(25:18):
years it can be just in the convention center, like
a big space in the convention center where they have everything.
I mean, they can have everybody's going to the Hall
of Fame. They have T shirts for all of them,
they have hats, they have toothbrushes, they got everything everything
you want. Well, this year it was at I guess
MetLife Stadium's gift shop or like NFL pro Shop where

(25:39):
they sell I guess giants and jet stuff on game days. Well,
that's what they had the superstore. I mean, this place
is decked out. It's like a it's like a like
a Macy's in there, like they were all kinds of merchant.
But before it even got in, they had us waiting
in line. So it's like two people go in, only
when two people came out. And while we're waiting in line,
the playing music over these speakers, and the song they

(26:03):
were playing was Fandango see music on a loop, over
and over and over, and I'm sure there were thousands
of wrestling fans that stood in that same line. I
heard that same damn song, and that's why they were
all the next night going dude right, because that's all

(26:28):
I heard the store. Oh my god, you should never.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
My alarm from when I woke up.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
It was like, wow, my girl tried to talk me
into making the Bobby Roode theme song our line.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
That is the as my alarm for a while too.
And it's funny because the lead up wakes me up,
and then you know, once I come to it's like Marius.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
Perfect timing. So we get I get to the superstore
and they're playing that damn song on a loop. But
while I'm waiting. I also see an entire family of
people I'm talking to, wife, husband, son, daughter, all walk
out with the authentic top level belts from this They

(27:19):
just bought these, mind you. Yeah, I'm dead like a
perfect nuclear family. It all had. The dad was a
world chant, the mom was like a Intercontinental chap. I
think the kids had tag titles or something like that.
Like it was wild, right, dead serious, And if we
know anything about the belts and merchan stuff like that,

(27:40):
you know those top level belts are like four hundred,
five hundred dollars apiece. Yeah, they spent like thirteen hundred
dollars like on belts that day, wild stuff, and they
all had one. It was wild. I've never seen anything
like it. So I go to the superstore. I think
I bought myself a couple of T shirts, and I

(28:00):
think I bought my dad's shirt. I bought Gabby a
onesieuse she was only three years old at this point.
She's still wearing Onesies' is a onesie that says like
I had like the Rocks logo, like the Brahma bull
logo on the front and on the back on the
butt part it said do you smell what I'm cooking, like, oh,
it's the cutest thing. After I gotta get it. Oh

(28:22):
my god. It was like fifteen dollars for the damn onesie.
That's an expensive onesie, all right, you can get five
or six onesies. Is fifteen dollars. But she said it
for my baby. Well, maybe she's way too big for now.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
I mean, like, you know, I used to I had
a shirt that was made when I was what four
or five? Uh my face saw Rambo's body, and I
had that for I just kept it. I mean, I
didn't wear it, so I don't know, you know, she's still.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Kept Possibly, I don't know. I gotta look. I don't
think I have it anywhere. If it is, it's probably
at my mom's house or something. I don't know, but
got maybe I have at Gabby's mom's house. I don't know,
but I doubt she still has.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Definitely that have me on Rampo's body. That was awesome,
My first favorite shirt.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
So that's you all have to start with one, right, yep.
But yeah, I bought that for her, and uh so
I went a little little, a little crazy at the store,
you know, drop some money, gave ww some of my money,
when I didn't have to. I was reporting on the show.
This is how much of a mark I was. I
was reporting from the show and over here buying merch
Mind you, I never did that again, Okay. I looked

(29:33):
at myself. I was like, wow, I am such a
mark right now. I should never do But I didn't
know if I was ever going to go back, you know,
like this might be it. The next year.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Piece of merchandise I bought around that era was seam
punk shirt and that this was alter he won the
title in twenty third or twenty eleven. So yeah, I
hadn't bought anything merchandise wise around that era.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
I bought a knees to face a shirt to see
them punk shirt, you remembers, because the rock had boots
to asses, so it needs to faces.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
You get that.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
I don't know why I got that.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Like with the lightning bowl at the fists or whatever.
That's the one I got, and that's dope.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
But I don't know why I got that shirt.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
I just I was just again, you got to wear
it to work one day.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
I'm not wearing that shirt, bro, I haven't. I'm pretty
sure I just threw that shirt out when I was
moving because I've had it for a long time and
I was like, nobody's want to wear this shit. I
mean maybe I donated it, I don't remember, but I
don't have it with me now. No. And it had
like the Captain C on it because seem that's like

(30:41):
a thing that he wanted to do on his shirts
because you know, see him punk or whatever. But it
looked like the Captain CE, like when you see like
NFL jerseys. No, you're not doing that. I also bought
the Damien Sandou shirt that had like the theory of
evolution but with instead of a man at the ends,
him at the end. I thought that shirt was kind
of cool, so yeah, I had I guess I forget

(31:02):
that one. I thought that was a dope shirt.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Bro it sounds funny though.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
I thought that was a dope shirt, but yeah, it's like,
you know, it starts out as a monkey or whatever
primate and goes up to the man at the end.
It's him with the bathroom and the microphone and it's
arms out like hey, Like, I thought that was a
funny shit, but that's what I did there. But then
I still had a couple of hours before the show,
so I went back across the skywalk because now I'm hungry,

(31:29):
I gotta go to get something neat. So there was
a subway nearby, and I actually got went to the
subway and got something to eat. But then I met
these two guys from I think they said they were
from Quebec. They're from Montreal. They had their French Canadian
accents and they were talking to me and they wanted
to know what I was doing and where I was from.
And then they were just so happy to be there.
They took a picture with me, Like I don't know,

(31:49):
I'm not a celebrity. They took a picture with me,
and they had their belt the w W TI US
they hold it up and they held up.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
You're probably with them. On so media somewhere they posted
that and they're like we met an American or something
they did.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
I actually got that picture from him. It's on my
Facebook somewhere. They actually tagged me in that photo and
that picture somewhere on my Facebook. I gotta look it up.
But right, but yeah, they took a picture with me
for some reason, and uh, yeah, that that was fun.
And then after that I think it was time. Oh well,

(32:25):
I actually took that back. After that that little endeavor there,
I went back to the stadium because now it's time
to finally get into the building for the show, right,
So I get there. They let us in, but they're like,
all right, one are the pr people is like all right,
follow me. I'm like, okay, runner, something like we're gonna

(32:50):
follow you to the press box. I guess, all right, dope.
You know, I don't know my way around the building,
so great, thanks for showing us. No. Instead, they had
us walking through the concourse like pretty much like chasing
this guy like you never see like Home Alone two
where they were like running through the airport in the beginning.
That's what it felt like. It felt like I was
running after uh, what's his name, Peter McAllister through the

(33:10):
airport in the Home Alone two and Lost in New York,
chasing after this PI guy through the concourse of MetLife Stadium,
big ass concourse and they had already let fans in,
so there's thousands of people walking by. I could have
easily have lost this dude, somehow did not. It was
like a gang of us too. It was like thirty
of us to just running through the concourse of MetLife Stadium. Uh,

(33:31):
trying to keep up with this guy. But he finally
led us to I guess it's Metline stadiums like press
conference room, I guess, and we're all seated in there
and it had his They had pre show press conferences
at WrestleMania, which was like at the time, I was like, oh, okay,
this is this is cool, but like in hiasights, like

(33:53):
why the hell did they do that? This this don't
make any sense because this is literally like two hours
before the show. What the hell? Oh they gonna say
right then and there, that's gonna be a story worthy
like John Cena said he's gonna win tonight, Like so.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Okay, I think they.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
Saw that as like throwing the media a bone a
little bit, like a press conference type of setting, because
we honestly w W still doesn't do that type of
stuff and they definitely didn't do it back then. So
I was like, hey, media, thanks for covering us. Here's
you get to have a press conference with the wrestlers.
That means nothing like maybe after the show, but they're
not gonna want to do this after the show, Like

(34:31):
so what's the point of this. But we were sitting
in this room and we have to talk to some
big names. John Cena, biggest name, see him Punk, which
he what annoyed me about his press conference That some
guy from some small publication somewhere in New York. I
think ken't calling him Phil. It's like, bro, we get it,
you know his real name. Congratulations, he needs Wikipedia today. Congrats.

(34:56):
I think, yeah, good for him. I think Seamus was there, uh,
but that that guy kept calling seeing Punk. Phil actually
was like sitting next to me in the press box
and left like during the show because he had to
catch a train home to back home. I'm like, bro,
you came all the way out here just to leave,
like during see him Punk. I think he left at

(35:16):
to see him Punk Undertaker.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
That's a loser energy, man.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
That's straight.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
When you cover of the event, straight up loser energy.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Say to the end, I remember me, and it's funny.
I don't know if you heard of Ring Werest radio
popular wrestling podcast out there. Oh yeah, that's right, of course,
you see so long ago. Oh yeah we did the
live show. Yeah, they rumble man, Danny Donald Wood down

(35:49):
the Wood, you know.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
A w B.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
But that's my guy down shout up down the wood,
my guy. We still text here and there. Uh, he's
a good due. He's a good dude. Can't wait to
hang out again at the ECW Arena for a wrestling
show or something.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
Ray Barr, the Rain Barr. That's where you guys had that.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
Show twenty eighteen, early twenty eighteen. We did that before
Big Sunday Day of the word Mumble. Yeah, they of
the word mumble. So yeah, shout out to Donald Wood.
But I also met that day at WrestleMania. I met
my Kyari okay, and I remember him, me and him
laughing about that after the fact, like this dude just
left during the show. What is he doing? And it
kept calling the homeboy Phil like that's not like all right,

(36:30):
that's his name, but like relax, buddy, relax. But so yeah,
shout out to Ring West Radio and those guys over
there they do. But oh damn, I already forgot about
that live show we did in twenty eighteen. It seems
like ages ago.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
I know, so long ago, because I think we had
a JR Show that day too, because I know we
had one in twenty fifteen, but I'm pretty sure that
they had one that I think maybe I'm thinking of
something to wrestle the Price pitser light before maybe it
was definitely a crazy two days.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
We did do something to wrestle the night before the
Rumble at twenty three hundred. Right after that's yeah, because yeah,
because that was the day. We went to Brian Eisley
comedy show, and then I left to go to the
NXT and then we went to Bruce Pritchard and Conrad Thompson.
Crazy times we're living in back then we actually be
able to move about the city exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
I watched that XT on my phone in like our
aged cheese steak from Tony Lukes while waiting for a
next city to get over so we could drive over
to the east w re.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Yeah, what a time, what a time, What a great
time that was.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
But we're about to win the super Bowl not long after,
so gee yeah the.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Next week, the next week, what a time, like I said,
And then a couple of days later we had a
parade and stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Wow, then he got your your ring June and yeah
twenty three d Arena, Like damn.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Look what a time, what a crazy time it was,
so keep saying it, what a time, bro, what a time.
But it was also a time back in two thirteen
at WrestleMania in twenty nine when I finally got to
that damn press box, and from what I remember, it
was massive. I had a bunch of rooms in there,
but they had like a like a I think there

(38:15):
was two rooms where you can get food, like catered food.
I'm pretty sure there's one for the media and one
for the wrestlers. And I'm pretty sure I walked into
the wrong one because I walked into this room and
I see like Rick Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Ted DIBIASI and
I'm like, whoa, wait a second, I don't belong here.
But I stayed in that line though, because I was
hungry and I was in line behind he Slater, who's

(38:37):
taller than he looks. But yeah, I'm pretty sure I
was in the wrong room at that point. But the
thing that struck me about that show was that, in hindsight,
even there were so many current roster guys in that
room watching the show. Because they didn't have a onto
the Giant Battle Royal back then to get everybody on

(38:59):
the show. They didn't think to put up a big
kickoff show together like they do now with three or
four got three or four matches on it and get
all the people on the show as possible. This was
still this is the year, this is the year before
the Onto the Giant Memorial Battle Royal. So people just
get left off. And eventually, on this particular show, a
whole match got knocked off the show, which was whack.

(39:20):
And that match was it would have been Funk of
Dactyls or not the Funk of Dactyls right and yeah,
Brotus Clay and Sweet Tea Tensie against the Bella Twins
Kody Rhoads and Damian Sandal And that match is supposed
to happen and it did not. And we'll see why
when we go through this show. Because WW wasted a

(39:42):
lot of time on this show could have been dedicated
to that.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
I think this is one of the first pay per
views that had an hour long pre show and they
had one match on there. They could have had they
could have put that on the pre show. They could
have had two matches, but they didn't do that. I
just didn't understand it.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
And that one match was for the Anti cont Mental Championship.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Wow. Man, I remember.

Speaker 1 (40:05):
Feel the Babyface miss, which was a bad idea beating
raid Bar but also let's not forget that the United
States Champion also wasn't on this show and any capacity
Czarrow was a US champion nowhere to be found. He
was still Antonio Cesarrow at that point. Wow, nowhere to

(40:27):
be found?

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Could see you? Because I don't even think about that.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
How about the how about the Divas Champion? Who was
she at this point? Jeez, I don't know what'sn't on
this show? Leaving the whole champions off the show w
W even though they've made the shows longer by having
getting as many people on the show as possible, especially
via the Battle Royals, because they got the men's and
the women's one. Now, it's still good for morale for

(40:52):
the wrestlers. I think that they get a chance to
be on the WrestleMania instead of sitting in the press
box with me, you know, busting the grub like i'd rather.
It's better for them, so I'll be I'm okay with it,
even though I don't want to be up to twelve
thirty in the morning watching wrestling.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
But me neither, right.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
But that's neither here nor there, right, So anything else
about the trip there before we kind of get into
the show itself.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
I don't think. I think I went right home afterwards.
I drove home, and I took off the next day,
took off of work, so I had a personal day
in obviously my first year at education. It was one
of the first, maybe my first or second personal day
I took of the year of the school year. And
that was also the first not I don't think it

(41:40):
was the season opener, but about even like the second
or third game of this season for baseball where we fade.
We were facing a school that we hadn't beat them
in eight years, so and we played it. We played
each other twice a year, so in the same division,
you know, home and away each year, so that it
was a huge game for me. I was like pumped

(42:01):
up for the weekend and pump up for that Monday,
and then I went home just so I could be
a part of that. And even though I had off,
you know, I was able to sleep in and I
went to you know, the game, and we wound up losing,
you know, and it was it was sad, but I
think I stayed after a little bit to take pictures
you know, the set. I took pictures when I got

(42:23):
there the set, and then you know, during the sea
on Punk Entrance and a few other entrances, and then
you know, I went around a little bit and I
took at different angles using my phone at the time,
because I didn't bring my camera, not exactly sure why.
I don't even know if I had a camera at
that point, because I did have I did have a
digital like those digital cameras throughout the years. I just

(42:45):
don't remember if I brought it with me. Maybe I
forgot it or something, because I brought like a little
Duffel bag with me just change the clothes basically for Sunday,
and then I was I was home. So I think
I got home around one o'clock, two o'clock, and it
was a good time, Like I love. There's nothing I
love more than just taking a drive late at night,
windows down, listening to music because there's like no traffic.

(43:09):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Well, I had a long wait for a train ride home.
It was like an hour or something like that to
wait for this train ride, but eventually made it home
in one piece. But yeah, it was it was a
great time. It was a great time. Obviously.

Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yeah, had I known have we known each other, then
I would offer to give you a ride home.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
I mean, yeah, but it was hectic as all hell.
I wouldn't have blamed you if you said, nah, I'm
good getting out of this parking lot. You know. Yeah,
get about it here real quick.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
You know.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
But let's dig in to the show proper, right, Because
we get in. We start off the show with an
inspirational video package about Superstorm Sandy, because remember that yeah, yeah,
devastated the Jersey Shore back in twenty twelve.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, I had, you know, I started working at you know,
the school in October and this literally happened that same month.
So I was caught like later, you know, at the
end of October, I was like, whoa, Like this is
not school had to actually shut down for this.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:24):
So yeah, and we know we weren't the only ones.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
It affected the entire state of New Jersey and in
New York as well. But yeah, it was a very
it's a very bad time for the state for both states,
that whole area, I mean, Philly, we we were spared
with just a lot of a lot of heavy rain.
It was really bad. Yeah, it was so bad to
work from home. They told us, like, you know, stay

(44:49):
home to make sure that everything's good there. Don't work
from downtown with the offices at eight on one Market
Street in Philly.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
So it was it was rough. It was really rough
that at that point in time, and really, like you said,
only a couple months before WrestleMania. But I noticed that
Chris Christy was doing a voiceover of this because he
was a governor of New Jersey at that time. M hmm,
goofy ass, Chris Christie.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
You know it's funny is I didn't realize it was
him until the end when he announced himself, because god,
he hadn't announce himself.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
I knew it was him right away.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
That's crazy. I just it was funny. I'm like, I'm
trying to picture. I was like, oh, that's John Cena,
and I'm like kept listening, and I kept listening, and
I'm like, oh, that's not John Cena. And then finally
like at the end, you know, he was like, this
is Chris Christy. I'm like, oh, I guess I Through
the years, I haven't, you know, I've just I've ignored

(45:47):
his voice plenty of times where it got me this
time and I wasn't. I wound up putting on the
close caption because it didn't. There was no delay, so
it actually showed up like as they were saying it,
and so that helped me to get like, not understand,
but hear some things that I probably would have missed otherwise. So,

(46:11):
you know, if I had the capsules on it this time,
I'm sure it would have said, like Chris Christy was
narrating it, but that and knows him. Until he announced himself,
I was like, ah, John Cena, smart choice.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
He's a real American, right, John Cena. So then we
get to Michael Cole, you know, introduces everybody to WrestleMania
with Diddy song I'm Coming Home in the background, which
is actually a good song. I actually liked that song.

Speaker 2 (46:36):
I do too. I'm not like tired of it all.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
Right, It's a good song. And w W can run
some songs into the ground, but that one, I was like, this,
actually I kind of liked this song. I don't I
don't mind if they keep playing this one. So and
they did, and they did. It was like every single
highlight package, right and didn't. They introduced the new Jersey
National Guard first time, the last time we'd see the

(47:01):
national Guard or reference to the national Guard on the show.
But one thing I noticed that they didn't have like
a big Pyro like introduction for this show, just like
that's always a dope part of WrestleMania, which they brought
back the next year and they used plenty of Pyro
throughout the show, but for whatever reason, they didn't do
it at the beginning. I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
I didn't notice.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
So, oh my god, let me ask you this question.
Once you got to your seat, though, and you kind
of gotta this is it. This is good to look
at the stadium and look at the scene. What kind
of ran through your head at that point?

Speaker 2 (47:39):
I'm here, I just I soaked it all in. Man,
that was I wasn't thrilled, you know, with the build
to it, I was, you know, I didn't want to
see scene a rock again, But hell, it was WrestleMania,
and I'm gonna enjoy it. I'm gonna like make myself
enjoy it because it is WrestleMania, and I had, you know,

(48:00):
one of the times in my life, you know, while
I was there, and you know, I sat down and
it might have been raining a little bit drizzling, but
you know, I wore layers. You know, I don't I
don't like jackets. So I think I wore like a
hoodie and some layers and because I didn't want to
you know, carry stuff around with me anyway. I hate
doing that. But you know, I just sat down. I

(48:22):
wasn't going to move. You know, I was like, please,
I'm not gonna eat. I'm not gonna go get food.
I'm not going to go get drinks because I don't
want to have to go to the bathroom. I don't
want to leave this seat. So you know, obviously, like
pre show, I probably did go to the bathroom. But
you know, once it started, you know, the real event started.
No drinks, no food, nothing for me. I was zoned

(48:42):
in because I didn't want to miss anything regardless of me,
you know, getting the dvd you know late, because I
don't think I even ordered this on pay per view
in order to tape it. I think I was at
that point where I was just going to wait for
the DVD to come out, so you know, I just
wanted to take it all in at once. So I

(49:04):
had nothing to eat, no drinks. If it was quite
a time, quite a time, I was just soaking everything in.
I was like and like I said, I loved the
way MetLife Stadium looks even without like the w W
stage there, but with everything there, it was just like, man,
I'm here and this is awesome.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
Yeah. I remember sitting in the press box and I
wish I could could have had a chance to like
kind of take it in a little bit, but I
had to set up the live chat that we had
to run, so it's kind of like I felt like
I was running late or something like that. I don't
know why. I just I just remember rushing kind of
getting like situated very quickly so I can get the
live chat going and all this and that. But but

(49:43):
eventually I'm pretty sure I sat in like looked around
and just like whoa Like. But here's the thing, though,
It's like when you're in a stadium like that in MetLife,
an outdoor stadium, you're in an enclosed press box, So
as much as you're there, you're kind of still kind
of slightly disconnected. Because we got they got the monitors

(50:04):
on in there, we got sound pumped in, We've got
the actual like Michael Cole's and call coming in through
the speakers, and you can hear the reaction happen in
front of you. Then you hear kind of on the
monitors and the screens. And it's the same way at
football games, honestly, where I met an Eagles game and
in an enclosed press box, Uh, there's you got the
you can watch the game on the monitors there, but

(50:26):
you don't have the sound. You got the monitors. You
can look at the monitors mainly for replays of what's happening.
But at least at our game, we have a guy
on the microphone saying, you know, quarterbacks throwing the past
two so and so twelve yard game, first down or whatever.
So it's a little different, but it's still kind of
the same where you can still feel the crowd and

(50:46):
hear it too, especially something loud enough happens like that
Patrick Robinson Pitts six and and it's a championship. You
heard that crowd and that, you know what I'm saying,
that you can feel and hear the crowd in the
stadium shook when that happened. But the resuman is a
little different. But because now everybody's cheering for the same thing,
you know what I'm saying, it's a little different. I
liked when it was New Orleans next year they didn't

(51:06):
have an enclosed press box. It's open air because you're indoors,
what's the point. And it was loud and there so,
but you know, I got a chance to take it
all in and it's just it's mesmerizing. Honestly, it's just wow.
This is this is it, this is Wrestlemannia. This is
checked this off the bucket list because I'm here.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah. So I thought the you know, the statue of
Liberty thing on top was lame at first, but it's
grown on me. You know. It's what they do now.
They build that thing around the ring and put up
on top of it.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
I thought that was dope because they hadn't done that yet.
They had they had the can upy type of thing,
but they hadn't put anything on top of it. That
was the first time they did that. But it was
weird though, because they're in New Jersey. Why do y'all
have the statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge as
the stage? Brooklyn Bridge the stage.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
And I was like, that statue Liberty looks lame because
it doesn't look like the I don't know what made
me think that. I mean, it probably did look like
the real one to other people, but I don't know.
I felt like they were doing trying too much. Like
for me, it was more like as simple as more
thing that I liked at the time. But I mean
I realized why they do it and realized why they
did it, and clearly like I made a note. It's

(52:20):
almost like the first time I saw that mentioned New
Jersey was just in that WrestleMania logo. It's like n
Y NJ. And that like that was it. You know,
I'm not even sure they mentioned New Jersey when WrestleMania
was in Atlantic City. I was I didn't. I didn't
watch those live. Who the hell knows if they mentioned
Atlantic City in those so or a New Jersey I
should say. So it was like New Jersey was almost
like taboo, so we can't do anything New Jersey related.

(52:42):
But then again, like what what do you what Jersey related?
Are you get to put like a landmark at the
entrance or.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
You know, I guess said the swamp the swamp, I guess,
I don't know. Or if you they're in North Jersey,
I was gonna say, like, if you South Jersey, you
could do the beach, Like I don't know, there's there's
beachesn't all throughout Jersey, but I think South Jersey is
more known for the Beach. I don't know either way.
Maybe just do big buildings.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
I don't know. I don't know, maybe the skyline. Who knows, Yes, Trenton, Oh.

Speaker 1 (53:16):
You don't want to do that, but or they could
put Trenton makes the world takes as in in something
I don't know, like the slogan for Trenton. Right, all right,
back to the show. We got Michael Cole, Jerry Bratch,
John Bratchall, Layfield, and morphed into one not so great

(53:42):
announcer John Bratchaw Layfield and Jerry the King Lawler on
the call. An opening match for Wrestlmania twenty nine is
three random baby faces against the Shield. That's what this was.
Seamous Randy Jordan and Big Show, not Paul White, right,

(54:04):
Paul White you might know him as Paul White, but
in a former life he was known as Big Show.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Just so you know.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
They were the babyface team that was sacrificed to lose
the Shield at WrestleMania. And I wrote down the first
thing I wrote down was like, what a stupid team
this was?

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Well, they built it, you know where they would get
attacked and they finally came together. All it was almost
like the way the American team was built against Team
Canada Canadian Stampede in your House, where Coltusts was just like, hey,
we all have a similar issue with these guys, so
let's band together. That's what the Seamus, Randy Orghip pic

(54:45):
show was.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right. But
it was just weird. Man, they walked down the big
show's music.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
It's just bizarre, and he was a picture was hyped,
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
He's cussing out people, well stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
He's looking at you your mother like, whoa.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Take it easy, Take it easy, Paul White. But one
thing I noticed about these three guys in particular was
that they haven't changed a whole lot over the last
seven years. Seamus has tweaked his look a little bit
because he's at it the mohawk. Now he's got the
peaky blinders look. Randy Orton hasn't changed not one thing

(55:26):
about his look since twenty thirteen. I don't think that's
a good thing neither. I know Randy Orton is still
like a good looking guy and people he still works,
you know whatever. But everybody tweaks it a little bit,
you know, and it Taka tweaked his look over the years,
Jericho sweaked his look. Hell, even Steve Austin wore like
white knee braces at one point, like a gold knee

(55:47):
braces or something. You do something different, you know, different
types of gear, different colors. I know he has more
different colors over the years here and there. But for
the most part, what you saw wrestling the thirteen is
exactly the Randy Orton you're gonna get today. Meanwhile, you
look at the other three guys in the Shield, they
all changed dramatically while they were still in WWE seth

(56:10):
Rollins got new gear, got new music. When he left
the Shield, Dean Ambrose the same thing. Romerains didn't. He
didn't change until honestly until last year. Really, he had
the same music, pretty much the same gear. He tweaked
it a little bit, but pretty much the same gear,
you know. Uh, he even came through Remember he's still

(56:31):
coming through the crowd until like twenty sixteen. Yeah, yeah,
something like that, because I wrestle AIA thirty one. He
was coming through the crowd still. So it's just like,
all right, but we gotta do something with changing people,
like they got to tweak different hair or something like.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
It's just like I feel like every like three or
four years because like you go around and he traveled
and you hit the same place multiple times a year.
So by you know, like it's cyclical issue, Like three
or four years, I think that crowd's kind of had
enough of whatever type of character this person is. So
change is good.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Change is good. Change is very good. By the way,
for the Shield, this is all of their WrestleMania debuts.
You remember they only debuted like in November of twenty twelve. Yep,
here we are, like five months later. They hare the
WrestleMania in the opening match against three all three or
four world champions by that point, and here they are
in the first WrestleMania match. The one thing I noticed

(57:29):
right off the top how much ww's changed from their
how they shoot the shows because they had so few
camera cuts back then.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
It was like refreshing. It's like, oh, they actually let
shots linger. They actually zoomed in sometimes on a guy
when he's just standing there or something. Just it was
so great to watch the show where it just didn't
cut twenty times per second.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
I did have it was better. It absolutely was better,
but I did I made a note later in the broadcast.
I forget exactly where, but I had like an issue
with Kevin Done. So it wasn't all and cream.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
No, and it never has been. But I just noticed that,
like when did they start doing the rapid cuts, Like
it's annoying, it's terrible. I'm just watching that. We talked
about this on Twitter. Just watch KOFE Kingston win the
ww Championship from Daniel Bryan and it's like thirty cuts
right after he wins the match, like he gets the
one two three, he sits up and goes he doesn't
he reacts. They instantly cut away from his reaction. They

(58:31):
show people backstage.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Then they shoot him, then they shoot the fans, then
they shoot him, then they shoot some more fans. He's like, bro,
shoot him, let it linger, shoot the fans. You can
show the locker room later. We don't have to see
the locker room right away. That's what replays are Ford like,
it's fine, Like you watch any sporting event, they show
the reactions of other Like let's say if Jeffrey Laurie

(58:54):
is sayting in a press box when we won the
Super Bowl. They didn't show it his reaction right after
we won the game. They probably showed that later on, like.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
Yeah, like they don't won the World Series, they didn't
show they showed the individual player reactions, you know, ten
minutes later. It was great if they focused on the
celebration and they showed the dugout reaction Charlie Manuel, you
know minutes later. You know, they didn't cut right to

(59:22):
him right away.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
So you show what's actually happening in real time right there,
because that's what people want to see when they, like
you said, when brad Leedge first through that through that
last strikeout and he drops to his knees and puts
his arms in the air, and then Chooche comes up
and tackles him and everybody dog piles on the pitching mound.
Fox's cameras were fixated on that. They might have cut
to a different angle here and there, but that's all

(59:44):
they showed. And then, like you said, later on, they
would show like on loop, like here's Jimmy Rollins reaction,
here's Chase Uller's reaction. Here's Ryan Howard's reaction. It's the same,
Like you hear the ball going into the mit and
then yeah, you hear the street rag and the fans
react and it's the same sound, but you just see
the different reactions in the guys on the gloves and
they're running from the outfield or whatever. That's how you

(01:00:04):
do it. Can you imagine if they cut to Ryan
Howard and Jimmy Rollins while everybody celebrating as it's happening
in real time.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Like right as Lydge kicks to pitch, and then they
cut right right wait, it's like, what the hell?

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
Well, right after the ball hits the mitt to strike
three and it's like Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins,
Shane Victorino, Jason work.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Right, fan number two, it's section right, random fans.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
What bad television? WW? And I don't know where y'all
got off the rails, but y'all did it right on
this night back in twenty thirteen. I don't know where
they went wrong, but uh, this match was. It's pretty simple.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
Yeah. I did have a favorite moment of this match, though. Well,
we talked last week when Paul White you know, was
signed with AW how WW did not make him feel
special at all. Dude, the shield we're beating him up.
During this match, he was getting his ass beat. I

(01:01:12):
was like, man, this just highlights the fact that he's
not special. You know, he's not an attraction. He's just
another guy that the Shield can beat up. And then
you know, he rips off Dean Ambrose's vest and for
his chop and then Ambrose tags Rains and Rains is
in there beating up Big Show and Ambrose has taken
off like his vest because the Big Show ripped it.

(01:01:35):
So he's taken off his vest and Rains goes for
a tag while Ambrose is trying to do that and
like he completely misses it. So Rain's almost like panics.
He's He's like, oh my god, like what do I do?
And he's like, I'm gonna hit Big Show again. And
then he finally goes for the tag like Seth Rolins
is like, dude, you gotta tag him. Like I noticed
that for and it was funny. I laughed. That was

(01:01:56):
my favorite moment of the match.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Well, like again, this match was a decent match. This
is a regular six man tag that probably could have
happened in Raw or any other pay per view, but
here we are WrestleMania. It's happening pretty much. The good
guys couldn't get along. Big Show was Matt that Orton
tagged himself in and he stood there while Orton got
the hell beat out of him by the Shield and lost.
So not before Randy Alordy hit a RKO on seth

(01:02:21):
Rollins when he spring boarded off off the ropes. But
that was about it. But they came through the crowd
for the for the match, they won and went right
back through the crowd. Meanwhile, Big shows back in the ring.
He knocks everybody out and I counted this as his
one hundred and forty seventh turn off his career, so

(01:02:42):
he had many more to go, but this is one
of the turns. He was a good guy and left
as a bad guy. That counts as a turn. So
there you go.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
And speaking of Paul White, he is currently on aw
right now. They just introduced him. He's wearing his No
More PS shirt.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
WHOA.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
I'm just so.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Speaking of BS, how about the pacing of this show.
It's kind of weird because right after this match, we
get one of like three video packages for John Cena
and The Rock, which okay, look it's it's the main event,
so you're gonna do a video package. Usually that's reserved

(01:03:28):
for right before the match, right, Okay, maybe you do
one more because this is a big main event, this
is the Rock and John Cena. But they did like
three or four throughout the night, yeah, which was like,
this was not necessary, y'all, that all that time y'all
put in this. These packages could have been that eight
person tag that had scheduled between uh Cody and Sandow

(01:03:52):
and No Bella's uh Sweet Tea Brotus and Funk of
Dactyls like that could have been that match. Instead, we
had to have multiple video packages telling us, Hey, did
you know the main event is The Rock versus John Cena?
Did you know? Yeah, goofball. That's why we're here, bro,
like twice in a lifetime, that's why we're here. We

(01:04:12):
know you don't have to promote the main event on
the show. We're here, and WW just did it, and
I think it messed up the pacing of the show. No,
literally no women on the show because of that. Aj
Lee is literally the only woman and I can remember
being on this show and she didn't even wasn't even
in the match. She was just hanging out with Dog

(01:04:36):
Zilgam and Big Eie, which was an odd pairing, if
I might add, But y'all messed that up. Ww Did
you need all these video packages for this one match
that you've probably done video packages in the week's leading
up already.

Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Well, I mean, at least they showed me. I showed her.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
I forgot she's the other woman on the show. My bad.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
Yeah, so that's how that's how they got around the
no woman thing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
That's true. But as far as this video package, I
usually don't fast forward through stuff. When we do the
deep dives, I fast forward through the video package. I
just didn't have time for it. I don't it's already
a four hour show. You had to sit showed me
another video package for this bro, Like, I know when
it's happening. I know it's happening tonight. You don't need
to hype me up anymore. It's cool, Like y'all got

(01:05:22):
other stuff to do. It's not like a boxing car
where you got pretty much all night and you know
they might do a video package or two for the
main event because that's literally the only reason why you're here.
But most boxing cards is see that one fight. But
I want to see the other stuff too at WrestleMania,
Like I don't, all right, we get it, they're here, okay, cool?

(01:05:43):
Moving on to another match that Pop should have been
at WrestleMania. In hindsight, I should have Pop should have
been at WrestleMania. Mark Henry versus ride Back.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
I liked it at WrestleMania. I thought it had potential.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Here you say, my boy man, but look, you were
there at WrestleMania this year.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Yes, I was there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Rye Back was over. He was at this point in time. Now.
They did kind of screw him up with the hell
in a self finish, right with Brad Maddox and all that,
But he didn't lose that much team because by wasn't
he the last guy eliminated from the rumble too?

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Yeah? I totally forgot about that. But they did another
and there was other video packages that they showed. Uh,
you know, they had seen it eliminating him to win
the rumbles. So yeah, I totally forgot about that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
Right, So they they obviously had they had a feeling that, okay,
he could be somebody and there was working because I again,
I was at WrestleMania. There was a lot of Rye
Back shirts and there's a lot of feed me more chance.
They had something, and this.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Was pretty good. I totally forgot about his entrance where
he would do like that thing with his hands and
then he would go more like in tune with the music.
Like I forgot that about that. It wasn't bad, you know,
I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:04):
So they had something. Was he a tremendous talent?

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
But was he over? Yeah, if he wasn't watching the show.
If you didn't think right back was over uh at
this point in time, and even when he came back
when he was injured, he's off for a while, and
he came back and he was doing to feed me
more chance again. People was into that, like people like that,
to feed me more stuff. But they promptly dropped the
ball on this night and the next night when they

(01:07:31):
turned the mule, right, it was the ball. I'm pretty
sure it's the next night when it turned the mule.

Speaker 2 (01:07:37):
Yeah, totally forget. But I thought the hill term was
well done, by the way, because you remember, like the
next week they had him pretty much explain why he
did what he did, and like the vignettes, I thought
that was kind of cool. But I think they just
ill didn't do anything with it, you know, Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
It was a quick little thing. He got a couple
of main events out of it, and he was done.
But I will say that the fans did kind of
turn on right back during this match. Okay, they were
cheering for Mark Henry, maybe because mar Henry has built
up a lot of equity over the years and out
of respect, they just cheered for Mark Henry and that's fair.
Maybe they heard this in this particular match, because I

(01:08:18):
don't remember hearing this at the time I was in
the press box. You couldn't hear every little detail from
the fans, and it hadn't really gone back and watched
the show in detail, at least not this match. And
since that night, I don't remember people turning on right
back at least during this match. Not I don't remember
that happening leading up neither. But maybe WW was like, hmm,
maybe you should turn them the fans that wrestlemated and't like,

(01:08:39):
I'm not realizing those are the biggest marks in the world.
You can't really base it just solely off of what
they are feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Star Classics. Man, he was coming in destroying people. The
shell shock what wasn't a high impact move, and you
know that was it. Man, he was lame.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
He wasn't lame.

Speaker 2 (01:08:58):
Was being facetious with myself.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
I got you, I got you, I got you. But
this finish was lame because right Back got Mark Henry
up with a shell shock and had him up and
then just dropped him. And in the midst of dropping him,
Mark Henry fell on his head and that's how rye
Back lost. This is his first WrestleMania match and he
lost because somebody fell on him. And it's like, and

(01:09:22):
then after the match, right Back got him up anyway
and hate it with a shot shock anyway. It's like,
that should have been the finish. Why did you do that?

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
I do not understand that. I guess a favor to
Henry is the only thing I can think of.

Speaker 1 (01:09:34):
Man, I'm like, I'm not trying to hate on Mike
Henry because eventually he did do I'm not trying to
hate on him. I'm just saying he didn't need the favor.
He eventually wore the Salmon Jacket that year, which was incredible,
right The Salmon Jacket promo still the best promo of
his career easily, Yes, And one of the best promos

(01:09:55):
in the last like twenty years. Honestly, the salmon Jacket promo.
I believe that hook on a sinker and he was
fly as hell and as salmon jacket he was, and
then he did to turn on Senor was like, oh
he had me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
I was hooked. He could have lost, right, and then
he had lost the.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
Scene it which is like a misopportunity again, but to
my point, back to my original point, Mark Kenry was
already a made guy in w W. He was world champ.
You know before this it was in the It's gonna
be in a top position regardless of whether he won
lost this match. The reason why he got the match
with John Cena at Money in the Bank was because
he beat Rye back in WrestleMania.

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
It's because he had he wore the salmon jacket and
he came in with the sam and jackets like miscent man.
He was like, yo, you so fly. I gotta give
you a title match. You ain't gonna win, though, but
I gotta at least give you a title match.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
We're going to do this. We're going to do this
angle and it's gonna be the hottest angle that we've
done in years.

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
Hey, that was still an incredible promo from mar Kennedy.
But yeah, this with the righte back was come on,
he had all that momentum. You just squashed it. Yeah,
and then you turned them heel.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
I don't understand that they have him lose and then
just to do the chall stock after that. It made
no sense to me.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
But no sense at all.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Did you notice how Michael Cole mentioned they both shattered
the NFL combined record on SmackDown.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
I heard him say that it's like were they went.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
Fans were like, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
I don't because, like, it's not the same exact thing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
So I agree. And it's funny because so many other
people probably have broken it, you know, random randomly without
even you know, knowing about it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
Mark Henry should break the record. He's the strongest man.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
In the world. But the funny thing is the record,
the official records apparently forty nine reps Steven Paya and
twenty eleven. These guys did it fifty three times. Mark
Henry and rye Back. They both did it fifty three
times on SmackDown, So not exactly shattering the record by
were they.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
Actually were they actually looked in two twenty was this
twenty five?

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
Yes, I don't think right, Yeah, I don't know, but we.

Speaker 1 (01:12:03):
Don't know if they were actually lifting two twenty five.
You don't want to risk one of the rest of
these guys getting hurt, right, justin twenty five?

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
Justin Ernest in nineteen ninety nine did fifty one. But
it's apparently not recognizing as an official Combine record. So
it's from Eastern Kentucky defensive tackle. I thought you were
like that. I did a little research from my football
I do like it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
I do like I just know that it's not yet.
Mark Henry, who's the strongest man in the world, and Ryeback,
who pretty much looks like he works out for living.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Combine. It broke the Combine record.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
Their their competition is a linebacker and a defensive lineman
or an officeive lineman who does not do twenty thirty
bench presses all the time. Like, that's not what they do.
Mark Henry and rye Back should shadow that record, by
the way, that's exactly what should have happened. I'm not
going to compare them to NFL football players.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
I did like that angle once back down, I thought
it was cool when what did you watch the highlight?
It was like Mark that Ryeback was about to beat
Mark Henry instructor that he held it right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
And I forgot that Booker t was a general manager.
Spack at what you forgot about that? I completely forgot
about that. So but no, I didn't care. Like I said,
you're talking about NFL football players, which the bench press
it doesn't even really mean that much to the combine.
They didn't compare it to like strong men because they

(01:13:24):
probably I don't know what the numbers are, probably wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
Have been like one hundred and fifty at least or something, right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
Maybe I don't know, that's the thing. But comparing it
to like I said, D lineman, O linemen and maybe
a linebacker who are probably the strongest guys who would
do it like twenty thirty times, they're not. But they're
not doing the bench press every day all day. They're
not lifting for just strength like Mirk Henry and Ryeback does.
They're also trying to be athletic too, like bench press

(01:13:51):
is not their specialty. So they should beat those guys.
Just that wasn't that impressive to me, Like, I'm sorry,
I don't know if they if they had more passing
yards than Tom Brady, that'd be impressive, but due the
breaks press more than I don't know, like you said,

(01:14:11):
the two guys you mentioned, I don't even know who
those guys are.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Yeah, like one was in ninety nine and then the
other in twenty eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
So don't even know bro about that. Couldn't even tell you.
But we followed that up with the announcers playing with
a couple of action figures.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
The power slammers. I have no recollection of this. This
was this was cracking me up because.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
Why did they need to do this at WrestleMania? This
and you set aside two minutes with this, come on, man,
come on man.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
Flawler was like punching them and then JBL is just
hammerin Raves stereo cracking me up.

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
But I hope he loses Michael. I don't like Rama
stereo and because Mexican know, because he beat me at WrestleMania.

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
Just what.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
Let everybody know Ze Coach is a racist, not.

Speaker 2 (01:15:07):
Meat Definitely see that later.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
We're gonna talk about it. Oh my god, how did
that happen? And how do we let that happen?

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
In wrestling JBL you know, and he even said stuff too.
It's just like, oh my goodness, Like I feel like
we're living in bizarro world. That's like not even ten
years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
It was just seven eight years ago, eight years ago.
So but then they brought out uh Special Olympians, which
is a worthy cause, you know, to to recognize, but
it always felt like WW is kind of patting themselves
in the back of stuff like this, like because they
were joining, they were doing their partnership with Special Olympics,
and this is their way of announcing it, which is nice,

(01:15:49):
Like I'm not going to see him knock anything regarding
Special Olympics anything like that. It's a worthy cause, but
also if you want the risk of patting yourself in
the back two which is always a risk any runs
when they talk about their philanthropic efforts, right, But we
know because Stefan McMahon said to herself, the philanthropy is
good marketing, it's good branding, you know. So that's the

(01:16:11):
philosophy they have. And they bring out the Special Olympians
and so it's a cool moment for them to bring
up these officials and dignitarians and they stand on stage
and whatnot. And it's a nice moment, but also you
had to cut a whole match from the show because
of this, Like, right, you could have did this on
Raw and it would have been fine. You had three
hours of wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:16:30):
I mean the show didn't even go four hours. He
could have stretched it out.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
You know that too.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
That too that you could have had that match for
five minutes and it wouldn't have gone over four hours.
I think the total running on the network is like
three forty something. I know they probably had to get
some stuff out, but I don't think it went for
four or full hours.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
The interests could have took two three minutes, The match
could have been another five. You've done it. You're out
of it in ten minutes, and it's perfectly fine. But
but you know, got out to all the special Olympians
out there, because.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
Yeah, David Dennin and Ashley Webber. I tried to see
if they won in those games, but I couldn't find
any information.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
So it's like, damn, regardless of whether they want a
medal or anything like that, congratulations to them too, and
all the special Olympians out there who you know, go
out there and show what they got. Oh there but
moving on to the WWE Tag Team Championship, and it

(01:17:29):
maybe remember that damn ww's taxing division was a big
trash in twenty thirteen.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
Because you're putting that lightly all right.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
Team hell No wasn't established taxing by this point, even
though they were kind of still of a hodge Podge team.
But they were champs for like six months. So here
we are and they were hella entertaining. I'll give them
that much credit to But their wrestle Mania opponents again,
they're defeating the tag titles at wressell Mania, the biggest

(01:17:58):
show of the year. Let me let me remind you
also on the roster at this point, the usso's you know,
pretty good tag team. They've gotten better over the years.
But their tag team no, their opponent is Dolph Ziggler
and Big E Langston.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
What wait, who, Biggie, I'm sorry, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
He lost his last name. I know he talks about
it on the New Day podcast all the time, how
he's lost his last name and it's very traumatizing for him.
I understand, Biggie, I'm sorry. So you know he said
he had his last name. You know, people saluted him
and they showed him honor and dignity and now it's
just just big Eie and it's like, damn, but that's great,

(01:18:42):
But what a weird combo for a WrestleMania title match,
Like what.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Yeah, yeah, I totally even for doubt. How no, it
was a thing at this point, and like, were they
you said, you know, they were champions for six months,
but were they like just starting out as a team,
Like I completely forget now.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
They started as a team on twenty twelve at some point,
but I would say about twenty thirteen, the tag team.
By this point, the tack Team probably be winding down.
I think by the summer they were done because Daniel
Brian went off and tried to win a WW championship,
right And of course by the next year. By the
next year, they were feuding against each other in a
horror movie. So when Daniel Brian won the.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Title, damn it came.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
Yeah, it was trash, It was big trash. But the
funny thing is about we talked about Biggie Langston, a
big ee. This was his first match on the main
roster was at russell Mania, and he wasn't the only
person in that predicament because Fandango was also in that predicament.

(01:19:51):
What were they doing? What was going on here?

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
I loved it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
No Bill to either one of these guys as far
as like winning matches here they are.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
Uh Fandango was all like every week though, and doing.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Something he was I can that's far winning matches. He
didn't have that type of Bill. We didn't know what
moves he would do, nothing like that, what his finish was,
but he was on TV every week. So Jerry lown
on JBO pretty much sluts shamed aj Lee before the match.
I don't know if you notice that I'm saying she
absolutely did. She dated everyone in the match.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
She spent on more man hunts than the FBI boy
lawlor Man always count on him for that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):
Crap with the terrible one liners.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
I love when Daniel Bryan and Kane came out the
priorro date, O'Brien stands behind came, I would do the same,
I do the same damn thing. I hate that.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
Play covers his ears. They were really funny. I think
people forget how funny Team hell No was together and
the little things today would do to play off each other,
Just like I said, Daniel Brian standing in the ring
covering his ears. Well, Kaine does the pyro and then Kane,
who was always a super serious character, also bringing out

(01:21:12):
his humor inside to make this thing working. They would
do the hugs in the ring and stuff like that.
Teamholl know was pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Yeah, I did enjoy them.

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
Yeah, but that was pretty much it from this match.
I mean, well, I will say Daniel Brian was clearly over,
like it was obvious, like people were into Daniel Brian
and it was really just a matter of time before
he broke away from the tag team and started doing
his own thing. It took him a while, but there

(01:21:46):
was a point though with Daniel Brian. You can see
it in this match where he was running around the
ring like nobody's business. He was having the best match
every single week on Raw and SmackDown. Like his comeback
was he thinged to watch in wrestling. That's part of
the reason why people got behind him so much, because
his comeback was tremendous. Uh, you can see it here

(01:22:07):
and the people I said that people were with him
all the way through. You almost got the Kane was there.
It's just dal O'Brien coming out with Kane's music.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
For some reason, you know, did you notice in the
beginning of the match they kind of did a little throwback,
a little uh not foreshadowing. What's the flashback there? You go, Wow,
look at me to the previous year when Seamus beat
Daniel Brian in like eighteen seconds. They had dolphs They
literally get a kiss from Aj and then Brian kicked

(01:22:38):
him and they did like a near fall and everything.
It was kind of like a throwback to that previous year.

Speaker 1 (01:22:44):
I dug that I couldn't I couldn't miss it because
Michael Cole it was like.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
That was what happened last year. I thought that was
sudden that I thought that was subtle.

Speaker 1 (01:22:54):
Did you see that? That's same thing when happened last
and they're taunting him. Now, okay, we get.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
It, we get it. It's funny because I didn't realize
it was in eighteen seconds. I thought it was like
a nine seconds, so that they actually they're under cutting
Daniel Bryan a little bit when they talk about that match.
Oh no, eighteen seconds. Man.

Speaker 1 (01:23:15):
I talked about earlier how much a lot of guys
WW haven't changed since twenty thirteen. We can add Dolph
Ziggler to that list. God nothing has changed about Dolph
Ziggler since I do not get twenty eleven. He does
the same entrance, he has the same music. He pretty

(01:23:38):
much kind of wears the same type of gear or
he wears long pants now such as trunks. He has
the same type of hair, he does a lot of
the same moves, and he's still pretty much in the
same spot except well, I will say he was money
in the bank, missed the money in the bank at
this point, and he won the world title the next night,
which didn't last too long because he had a concussion.
They had to drop it. But what has changed about

(01:24:02):
Dov Ziggeler in the last eight years is.

Speaker 2 (01:24:06):
Uh, I mean the way he wears his hair. Sometimes
he'll have it down, sometimes he'll have it up sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
So there you go, there it is, there, it is.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
You see his brother, His brother is an a w
right Ryan. He looked. They look so alike, by the way,
it's crazy. Sometimes I literally think I'm watching Don Zigler
with a haircut, when I like, that's funny, like look
at aw but interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
The funny thing is that his taxing partner this night
has had a very drastic transformation since twenty thirteen. When
he was a very very serious and stoic big man
who they treated like a very big strong man when
he first came in. Oh my god, it took K's
hand from around the thrower. I've never seen a man
this strong before.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
Three rip breakers, crazy right brow a.

Speaker 1 (01:25:06):
Big strong man obviously, But he went from nat to
like being like a largely forgotten person a roster to
New Day where he just let all the silliness out,
all the personality that he has out for everybody to see,
and he's become way better for it. And now he's
anti Continental champion again. But he's still the same person

(01:25:26):
he pretty much was a new day. Not much has
changed about him or how he his entrance or his gear.
It's pretty much the same guy still and that's just
what he's going to be like himself, which is dope.
But again he's changed his gear, music and stuff like that.
Zigga nothing like. I don't know if I w W

(01:25:49):
should have to force these guys to change something or
if that's a doltstigular thing. Maybe he's wanted to change
something they didn't let him. Most guys they tweak or
something like, even like the mis who looks virtually the same,
but he changed his hand a little bit, he got
different attire. I remember he was wearing like the Hoods
for a while with like Damian Sandal. Now he's wearing
different types of gear over the years or whatever. It's

(01:26:11):
just tweak it. Yeah, change something, man. It's been eight years,
and I really don't notice any difference between Dolph Ziggling
twenty thirteen and dol Ziggler in twenty twenty one. But
to me, that's a problem. To me, that's a problem.
Some looks stand the test of times and a lot
of others don't. So even Hulk Hogan changed slightly, tweaked

(01:26:33):
his look. He was wearing yellow and red, then he
wear red and yellow and long pants and wo something anything.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
I often wonder if it's his own doing or if
you know, they're just not interested in changing anything about it.
It's you know, they change other people though, So that's
why I don't understand it. Like I I wouldn't be
surprised if they've approached him about changing something. He's just
like nah, I'm good, Like he's content with where he

(01:27:00):
is and he just doesn't want to do anything like
I don't know, I could be completely wrong, and I
probably ant, but you go that long without like a tweak,
and I feel like it's more than just you know,
w W not letting him, because then we wouldn't be there,
in my opinion, But it is what it is.

Speaker 1 (01:27:24):
It is what it is. That's pretty much his match.
It was a decent match, nothing special, good guys won.
It is what it is. Moving on two, said Vanno

(01:27:44):
in his very first match in WW at least asked
his character if don Go's first match great entrance and
also his WrestleMania debut. Of course, like you said, you
got a great entrance, But I wrote here, what a
stupid match for WrestleMania.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
They built it up well. I liked it. Make it
out here.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
This was on WrestleMania.

Speaker 2 (01:28:07):
Yeah, it was Fan Diango's big debut. It's christ.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
This is a no mercy match.

Speaker 2 (01:28:16):
Nah had a hell of a light drop off the
top rope. You have to feature him. I'm surprised it
wasn't the main event.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
All right, now, I know you're joking, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
I wasn't about that, but I enjoyed. I enjoyed this
because I like to build up and it was one
of the different WrestleMania match. But it was like a
grudge between Jericho and Fandango, as you know grudge.

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
It was a grudge because Jericho purposely butchered Fandango's name,
which Fandango took offense to for some reason. It's not fun, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:28:48):
Fun, fun dung hole. That was my fun dung hole.
But seriously, like it was great. I enjoyed it. It
was it was. It was great because it was something
as little as mispronouncing the name to piss him off
that much, to like attack him.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
I was like, hell, yeah, man, no, I'm not buying it.
Bro not by no no, no, no, no, no, no, nothing again.
Nothing against Fandango. Great stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
Joel b just had a three to force overtime against Utah.
That is pretty nice. Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
You have been rolling. You been rolling too. You can
bet Utah. Let's do it. But Fandango's dot some great
stuff over the years. He's a great worker, and he's done,
like I said, him and Tyler Breeze great pairing. They've
done some great stuff and NXT and SmackDown all that stuff.
I'm all for that. But a one on one match
with Chris jug Or WrestleMania without any like. I know

(01:29:45):
you said they had they had a build up, but
there wasn't that much of a build up.

Speaker 2 (01:29:48):
I liked it. It was different from me.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
No, in hindsight, Fandango got a one on one match
with Chris Jack or wrestling.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
I gotta look, I gotta look at those raws leading
up to this, No, before I make a decision on
whether it was nope, warranted as a wrestlemanta matter, don't.

Speaker 1 (01:30:05):
It's not warranted, Bro, it can't tell me it was.
There's nothing you could say to convince me otherwise or
how ww At this point.

Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
We watched it happen on WrestleMania, so it's as.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
Yeah, technically it was, but it wasn't worthy. I'm sorry
that it was great.

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
You can't just call him fan dunk hole and get
away with it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
Could have got away with it at backlash.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
Did they even have backlash back then?

Speaker 1 (01:30:34):
They didn't, so it could have been like over the limit.
I don't know, or uh, well, it was another one
break not breakdown talking about I don't know what the
twenty thirteen pay per views were, Yeah, don't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
That's why they introduced payback. I believe twenty thirteen, So
but have been payback.

Speaker 1 (01:30:55):
Payback for messing up my name. Whoa, you got it?
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
Payback's a great paper view name. By the way. Ah,
it's not as good as Backlash, but it's good. No,
that's what it should be. The September pay per view
for SummerSlam Payback. Come on, yeah, Backlash after radio, then
you have Payback after Summer Slam Payback.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
Whatever. But the funny thing is about this match is
that it wasn't even what Jericho wanted. Because apparently Jericho
wanted to face right Back at WrestleMania, and I think
Vince even told him like, yeah, you're gonna do rde Back.
I don't know if that was actually what happened, but
I don't know. Jericho wanted to face rde Back, which
would have been a much bigger match because right Back
was on a roll, Jeredo was a big star. Right

(01:31:38):
Back could to beat Jericho and off he went, and
Jeredo loses nothing from it. Instead, Vince gave him fan
Dango right and Jericho had to get him over in
like a month without any matches. Then apparently Jericho got
mad again because he didn't know that even though he's

(01:31:58):
facing him. He didn't know, like I got to lose
to him too. They're like, yep, you gotta lose. And
you know, even though Jericho wasn't happy about none of this,
apparently he got paid a lot of money to do it.
So it's like, all right, well, you know, it's not
too bad, I guess, but it got me to thinking.
I know, we've said a lot about Jericho over the
last couple months or whatever about how much of a

(01:32:20):
goofball he was or he has become, I should say,
but his most recent run in WWE, I guess if
you go from twenty twelve till when he left in
what twenty seventeen, it was WWE dropped the ball multiple
times to Jericho. Oh well multiple times? No, no, I

(01:32:41):
mean that's a fair statement. Oh well, but come on,
at the time, we didn't know anything about Chris Jericho.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
I'm not going to disagree with you, but well, I.

Speaker 1 (01:32:54):
Understand we didn't know anything about this. All this about
Chris Jericho. In hindsight, yeah, it's like, oh well, but
at the time, it's like Christian jo as a six
time world champ, future Hall of Famer, he's a big star,
He's coming back and then they put him in with
see him punk that match fell show the expectations. Right
then they had him do the Fandango stuff that went nowhere.

(01:33:15):
Right then they try to do the bray White stuff
that went nowhere. He just took himself off TV. He's like,
I'm just gonna do house show matches from now on,
like I'm done with the He did that for like
a year. He was just doing the house show matches
just for fun. Right, I don't even want to do TV.
I don't want to get the handed, the terrible creative
of having to face fan Dango or WrestleMania anymore. I

(01:33:35):
don't want to do this. You're just squandering me at
this point. I'm a bigger star than this. I don't
blame him and feeling that way, Okay, I will say
they got stuff right with him and aj Styles and
him and Kevin Owens was easily some of the best
stuff he's done in WW when they would partnered up.
And then he turned and then the list of Jericho

(01:33:57):
came out. The list of Jericho was over, big over.
You just made the list and he write it down
and all that. It was stupid. It was really funny, right,
the clipboard, he'd walk out with it with the pen.
You just made them list and write it down real
fast for that and it was really funny, Like I
thought it was really funny. The scarves he'd wear, the
scarves and stuff like that. The scars are ridiculous, The

(01:34:20):
light up jackets were ridiculous. And of course the Festival
of Friendship was one of the best segments in Raw
in like years like classic classic segment. But again everything
else that happened was pretty much a waste. And the
den Ambrose stuff, remember that when it had the house
the Saying Asylum match and they had the he the

(01:34:41):
potted plant. Mitch was like a person on the show essentially,
Like it was just I just could they could have
done so much more with him At that point, he
was still in this prime. We're not done on this prime,
but he was still able to go out there and
work with at a top level. And you're still a

(01:35:02):
you know, a relatively new face that people had, not
only new face, but the face that people hadn't seen
too often come back with the WW like that new
nostalgia was still there where now we see him every
week on a W and it's clearly not in its
prime anymore. He's pasted it now, which everybody gets to
that point, so it's not likely a knock. It's just
it's just not there anymore. We're in twenty twelve to

(01:35:22):
twenty seventeen. He was still in that prime area and
they just squandered it left and right.

Speaker 2 (01:35:29):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that whole thing with Kevin Owens
could have easily been a title program.

Speaker 1 (01:35:37):
It was supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
Well, I mean, I understand why they went with the
way they did.

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
I mean, it was supposed to be Kevin Owens, Jackoar
I Wrestlemated for the universal title, and instead it became
Goldberg and brock Lesna for the universal title.

Speaker 2 (01:35:49):
Which is great.

Speaker 1 (01:35:50):
You know, that was great, It was fine. It was
fine that that doesn't need a title though. That's the
thing they put the big Max, Thegether. They don't need titles.

Speaker 2 (01:35:58):
I don't think either of them did. Like you could
say that about Golberg Lesner, and I agree with you,
but I don't mind that it was for the title.
But you can also say the same thing about Owens
in Jericho. I thought that story was so great that
it didn't even need the title. I know, it would
have meant more, I guess because Kevin. Everyone loved Kevin Owens.
But I don't know. I just I love.

Speaker 1 (01:36:22):
They gave it a title too. They gave it a
US title. They had the US title Wrestlemingia, so clearly
they thought they needed the title. Yeah, that's the title match.

Speaker 2 (01:36:30):
I did not remember that at all.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:36:39):
So he beat someone after he lost to Goldberg.

Speaker 1 (01:36:42):
From what I remember, that's what happened. I can look
at US quick, but I'm pretty sure that was a
US title match.

Speaker 2 (01:36:46):
Brow Well, then that might change my recollection of everything
and my opinion, because to me, I was like, okay,
they took the title off.

Speaker 1 (01:36:57):
Chris Jericho was a champion. I don't know who Chris
Jericho would be for the title.

Speaker 2 (01:37:01):
Was he the champion? He got attacked? Was he still
or did he win in that call? Wow, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:37:08):
Chris Jericho was definitely the US champion going into that show.

Speaker 2 (01:37:13):
Maybe will be like Sena together or something and he
got maybe he got the pen or something. Maybe yeah,
maybe something. This is how bad their creative has been.

Speaker 1 (01:37:25):
Yeah, yeah, was seen a US champion that point? No,
it was Roman Rains.

Speaker 2 (01:37:30):
Maybe Roman it might have been Rains.

Speaker 1 (01:37:32):
Yeah, I thinks Roman Rains is champion US champion right something.

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
It was like a handicap match.

Speaker 1 (01:37:38):
That's how bad it was at that point. So bottom line,
they dropped the ball Chris Jericho. Yes, that was the
US title match Wrestleman in twenty seventeen, so again they
gave it the title but not the title. But uh,
the only know that I had about this match was
that Fandango, that character never had legs. It was cool

(01:38:00):
for a little bit, but always going to have a
shlf at least not have legs as like on its
own as a top guy, which is what I guess
they had the plans for. Because he beat Chris Jericho
at WrestleMania.

Speaker 2 (01:38:12):
He has never had a nice light drop off the
top rope like he he did. That did look good,
look smooth. I thought, you know, because of that, you know,
like maybe hey, he was safe. He made it look
good that they had, you know, high hopes for him.
But yeah, I ultimately fizzled out on the main roster.
But I didn't. I didn't. This is one of the

(01:38:35):
things that actually lights in this era. You know, I'm
I guess I'm against the majority, but I did enjoy
friend Von Done.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
I got right back. You got fon Dono.

Speaker 2 (01:38:47):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:38:48):
We all have our things. We move on today short
to recap.

Speaker 2 (01:38:53):
Like I said earlier, I imagine fans made at the
Wells Fargo Center right now by the way. They just Sixers,
just beat the Utah Jazz and over time open look man, epic.

Speaker 1 (01:39:02):
Sixers are good team. Yeah, a good team. This year.

Speaker 4 (01:39:13):
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(01:39:38):
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Speaker 1 (01:40:02):
Move on to the Miz and the recap of the
mis Beating Wade Beard and the pre show for the
Intercontinental Championship. Again Babyface miss.

Speaker 2 (01:40:10):
With the figure four like with the figure really forgot.

Speaker 1 (01:40:12):
About that he was using the figure for as a
finish for a while. What a time this was. Then
we get another Rock and seenea video package. I fast
forward through this too.

Speaker 2 (01:40:25):
Wow. Well this one was mainly I am one of
the millions of Rocks fans, and it was a lot
of people doing Rocks catchphrases. You know, a lot of
fans around the world doing the Rocks catchphrases. So it
was kind of entertaining.

Speaker 1 (01:40:41):
But no time. Sorry, I got something to do. W W.
I don't need to be reminded about this.

Speaker 2 (01:40:50):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:40:52):
Playing this on raw Bro does don't have to be
on WrestleMania.

Speaker 2 (01:40:55):
Well, hey, they had the performance they did which again
also yes, that's also a time consuming thing, right with
Diddy performing all the hits, right yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
And I know some people may not be fans of
rap music or hip hop or whatever. They're like whatever,
But me, as a fan of hip hop rap, I
like those damn songs.

Speaker 2 (01:41:22):
I don't care. I do too, And I liked this performance.
I don't remember exactly being there, like or when I
was there live, like I was just kind of sitting there, right,
I didn't even move for this, so, I mean, I
just enjoying it. I liked I'm Coming Home. That was
my favorite song out of all the ones he you know,
sang it was like it was like a medley. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:41:43):
Yeah, that was a favorite song out of the Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
I mean, I know, listen, listen, Nick, listen.

Speaker 1 (01:41:49):
Don't do this, Nick. He played all about the Benjamin's.
Every time I say what we're gonna do, my girlfriend
says wanna be Baller's shot callers, like every time, but
she does it every time. He did, p pa, more money,

(01:42:09):
more problems. I think at the name of the.

Speaker 2 (01:42:10):
Song, Oh, p pet it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:13):
Yeah, did you don't? Don't don't Nick, don't put you
the lyrics like that. Bro, don't do that. You think
if you think people are gonna comfort dog, don't dog
heards you, Bro, don't do it. Don't do it? He did? Uh?
Did he do victory too? He did victory?

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
Come on, bro? He did? Bro? What he did?

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
Victory?

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
All right? I got.

Speaker 1 (01:42:39):
She looked good as well, Yes, she looked good, but uh,
I know the music. Wait wait wait wait wait, I
know the musical performances do take up time, but show
like a WrestleMania. To me, that's I give W W.
Moore leeway for something like that than a million video packages.

(01:43:00):
Like I just there's no excuse for the video packages.
The musical performance. It does take away time. I get it,
but it's part of the pompert circumstances.

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):
They clicked on the video packages during the pre show
if they needed that many during the pay per view
where people have already ordered, Yeah, I don't. I don't
understand that.

Speaker 1 (01:43:17):
Right, Like, it's not necessary the musical performance again, that's
just part of the halftime show at the super Bowl.
You don't necessarily need it, but it's part of the
package now, Like if it happens at WrestleMania, I'm not
mad at it. It's a nice little intermission and anything.
It breaks up the monotony of the show, because sometimes
the shows can be really long.

Speaker 2 (01:43:37):
Intermissions. On their old pay per views, they would actually
put up a and I remember because I taped it.
They would put up a like the SummerSlam logo or
something be like intermission, We'll be back in five minutes
or something like that, and then they had a countdown
clock and then they will come back to like promos,
backstage and whatnot. So if you're not in, they don't
do that anymore. They have like a performance like this.

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
If you're not into Diddy, if you're not into hip
hop or rapper or anything like that, this is a
good time for you to go, get something to eat,
go to the bathroom. I think it's if anything is
good to break up that the time say, it's like
an intermission. So that's just my opinion. But now we
move on man.

Speaker 3 (01:44:16):
Or Man World to the World Heavyweight Championship Alberta del
Rio defending against Jack Swagger.

Speaker 1 (01:44:27):
And I was watching wrestling at this time. Now I'm
only twenty four, so I'm not mature enough. You had
to know what the hell was going on. Apparently I wasn't.

Speaker 2 (01:44:37):
Well, I wasn't either, and I'm, you know what, three
four years older than you.

Speaker 1 (01:44:42):
So yeah, I think it's just a different time in
our country where we just apathetic to politics, yeah, and
now we're not. And I don't think that just goes
for people our age is. I think a lot of
other people are the same way, even younger than us.
And I think people just more aware of certain things
because I I completely forgot just how racist and xenophobic

(01:45:06):
ZEP Culture and Jack Swagger were on TV back in
twenty thirteen, just eight years ago. Holy hell, it hit
it because this is also around time with the Tea Party.
I don't know if you recall that. I do remember

(01:45:26):
that back in like twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, after Obama
got reelected and the Tea Party rose up a little
bit and people called them crazy. But I guess Vince
saw that it's like that can make some money on
TV because it's so wild and ridiculous that no one
would actually believe these are real people. They just boom
them and they're villains, but not you know, but there

(01:45:47):
are people, well he didn't realize that there are people
who actually align with that line of thinking of them
and being essentially a white national racist. Like that's what
they were cutting promoms with don't tread on me flag
behind them, which is also a sign of like I know,
some people say it as like they don't want they
want less government, but those same people also aligned with

(01:46:10):
racist typically like not all of them don't tread on
me people are racist, but a lot of racist or
don't chad on me it's like, it's just how that
kind of goes, Like basically, it just what happens. Are
also racist and they call themselves real Americans. That sounds
familiar because our former president used to call people patriots,
like oh, the Patriots and all that, and then you

(01:46:32):
have Jack Swagger's in co lock it's called the Patriot
Lock and all this stuff, and it's just like, damn,
you talk about Mexicans, they take and come here and
take our jobs.

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):
And it's just like he insulted me by saying Italian
and not Italian. It's called Italian.

Speaker 1 (01:46:49):
So they were also racists against Italians. And it's like,
was you Arian brotherhood? Like what is this? You're part
of the master race.

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
Yeah. I was watching this and I totally didn't even
like I don't know if I zoned out while I
was there alive just listen to this, but I did
do not remember him saying Italian. So when I was
watching it, you know, I was like, wait, Italian man,
get out of here.

Speaker 1 (01:47:15):
It's just it's just wild.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
It is. And there's no doubt in my mind. Trump
believed that this man was killed in a limo explosion, right,
He probably believed things that Culter was saying here because
he was there that culture spawned.

Speaker 1 (01:47:33):
He went into Hall of Fame.

Speaker 2 (01:47:36):
I totally forgot about that.

Speaker 1 (01:47:39):
Listen, this line of thinking. At the time, we're seen
as like a small subsect of the population. Those are
the crazies. We're not like them. Yeah, we might align
in some ways, but for the most part, those people
are crazy. They live in backwards and they are part

(01:47:59):
of malitias, and they're crazy. They'll never be a threat
to society because they're crazy. Not realizing that those people
out there and those numbers grew over the years of
these types of people, and they were all at the
Capitol January sixth. Yeah you know what I'm saying. They
were all at the Capitol January six All the people

(01:48:22):
who think don't tread on me, which means don't you
know less government, They were all at the Capitol. But
it's funny, those same people are the ones who also go.

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
Back of the blue.

Speaker 1 (01:48:37):
It's like, what what do you mean? And then they
get mad, and they got mad when the cops is like, hey,
you're destroying property. You got to go to arrest it. Now,
Hey you're breaking curfew. Time to go to jail and
They're like screaming at the rest.

Speaker 2 (01:48:52):
Of the cops.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
Pay you, We're on your side. It's like, yeah, well,
what did you do to you know, Black Lives Matter?

Speaker 2 (01:48:58):
Destroying businesses?

Speaker 1 (01:48:59):
They did?

Speaker 2 (01:49:00):
Oh my god, they did?

Speaker 1 (01:49:02):
They wild? This was on TV. This could never fly.
This was bad back in twenty thirteen. Is one hundred
times worse today because everything that's happened, obviously, everything that's transpired,
I mean, and it's crazy to think that they were
on TV during Obama's administration. We had a black man
in office and to talk about them and the Mexicans

(01:49:25):
and Italians and all that stuff and taking jobs away
from real Americans. And I understand that WW didn't make
them bad guys, right, but the same people there are
people out there who agree.

Speaker 2 (01:49:41):
With how many people and could you hear in the
crowd when he goes we the people?

Speaker 1 (01:49:45):
There were a lot of them, And that was a
catchy catchphrase back then. People said that pretty much throughout
Jacks Wagger's time in WW after this, especially when him
and Cizara was at Tag Team and they were the
real Americans, which is wild to think about now, is like,
oh my god, I like that team.

Speaker 2 (01:50:00):
They were a good team.

Speaker 1 (01:50:02):
They were actually a really dope team together outside of
the gimmick, they were a dope team together, and they
were getting the ring and go we the people and
everybody would cheer and all that, and it's like, what
the hell, why did we do this? What was wrong
with us? But at least Jack Swagger again was a villain.
But again, there are many people who vote along the

(01:50:22):
same lines as veismith Mann who agree with everything that
that culture was saying. And WW knew they were messing
up because they would put disclaimers in front of every
one of the coach's promos they show. They knew they
were messing it up, right, They knew that this was
this was bad, This was real bad. They had to

(01:50:43):
put a disclaimer in front of the promos say this
is the only the views of step culture and Jack Swagger,
not of WWE. They knew it was bad.

Speaker 2 (01:50:53):
It just wasn't people. It wasn't just a pro wrestling
angle anymore at this point.

Speaker 1 (01:50:58):
No, no, And again when it was a wrestling angle
back then, it was just like, oh, these are just
the crazies. But those crazies became normalized by Donald Trump,
and the numbers grew and then thinking about as we
recorded us on March third, they worried about March fourth
being another day where they might do something at the Capitol.
They got extra National Guard people down there right now

(01:51:19):
as we record this, just hoping that something else doesn't happen,
waiting for something to pop off and you'll stop it.
It's just it's really bad. It's really bad in hindsight, Like,
I'm surprised it's still on the WW network.

Speaker 2 (01:51:34):
Bad, like.

Speaker 1 (01:51:38):
Considering what we have gone through and the last I
mean since twenty sixteen, honestly, so we're talking five years, yeah,
and still going on to this day. It's real, real,
real bad. Whoa god, damn, it was bad.

Speaker 2 (01:51:56):
I'm not I'm actually surprised Trump wasn't out there with them,
might as what had been right. You know, listen, I'm
watching this, I'm like, wow, this is bad. This obviously
reminds me of Trump or whatever. And I'm not, you know,
I didn't go to Wikipedia for anty of this or
this time for any results or whatever. I'm just watching
it to watch it. And once they introduced the Hall
of Fame class, I'm like, holy fn, you know what

(01:52:20):
I was like, I did not realize I just completely
forgot that Trump was elected to the Hall of Fame
this same year. So I can't can't can't script it.
You just can't. I mean you can obviously it's ww
but and life, you can't script that. It's just incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:52:43):
Yeah, what man, it's so wild, bro, It's really crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:52:48):
Like I was uncomfortable watching it knowing it happened eight
years ago, knowing that it's just part of a rest,
like a pro wrestling angle whatever, But holy crap.

Speaker 1 (01:52:58):
It was funny. I was watching it next to my girl,
and I'm like, you want to see something wild that
was on ww TV like eight years ago? And I
showed it to It's like, oh my god, it's just
outwardly racist. I'm like, yeah, like that's what they were doing.
I mean it was that bad, bro. Like, if you
if you want to see some race stuff on w
w TV, go back and watch these promos from ZEP culture.
It's trash and it's and I've always been out the

(01:53:20):
thing of the mindset, Like there's there's a lot of
ways you can get heat from in a story or
from a character, but there's some lines you don't cross,
and they crossed it. With this race racism. I don't
think you should do those that hits nerves with specifically
black people, but other But.

Speaker 2 (01:53:40):
The story is the Mexican winning. You still don't do
it at this point, Like it's not a good story.
It's not a feel good story that the Mexican overcomes racism.

Speaker 1 (01:53:52):
Like right, the racism still exists and the racism doesn't
end because Berts de Rio beats Jackson Waite. The racism
continues in real life exactly, and it's not like people
are going to learn the lesson of oh the Mexicans
are cool too and they could do whatever they they
can have the same freedoms as white people. It's like, no,
the racism will continue, that's the problem. Just leave this
stuff alone. W W. They haven't really touched it too

(01:54:13):
much in over the years, but this was overt and
they would And then their goal was to get a
lot of heat. And I get it, you want to
get heat because it's hard to get heat nowadays. Heat
can draw you money. But there's some things you don't
have to do. Don't touch racism. And it was wild
because Jacks Wagger was probably want to win the belt

(01:54:34):
this night until he got hit with the DUI do
you remember that now?

Speaker 2 (01:54:39):
I vaguely remember that, and I do remember thinking that
he was going to win the title. So when did
that happen? How long before it.

Speaker 1 (01:54:48):
Happened before Wrestleming. It happened in February, and.

Speaker 2 (01:54:53):
I do vaguely remember this now. Now, this was after
like the Brandic session ended, by the way, So I'm
I'm trying to remember, like, okay, which show is, which
like SmackDown was just an extension of Raw at this point,
so whatever, Like I'm trying to remember certain things, like
I totally forgot that Mark Henry ryback thing happened on SmackDown.
That wait, that bench press thing. So yeah, with this,

(01:55:16):
you know, I totally forgot Jack Swyder was arrested before this. Yeah,
and that I remember actually being at work. I was
at work and I think I got an alert or something.
I was like, oh man, like because I like Jack
Swyger at that point, think like knowing it was just
a character he was playing right, not so fast, but

(01:55:37):
you know at that point, you know that I was
just like you what you said, like not muchure enough
to really understand the real life politics of the situation,
even though it's entertainment. So yeah, I was like, oh man, Jackson,
I wanted Jack Swyger to win like he would Ben.
I'm a good heel champion.

Speaker 1 (01:55:55):
But and it's not just us, it's how this is reported.
Like you look at moving a story from NBC Bay
Area about Jack Swagger and his arrest, and they talked
about his career like always started out as his cocky
heel but then after a six month hiatus, Swagger returned
in early January with longer hair and a beard, under
the guise of a man whose goal main goal is
to keep immigrants out of the United States, which is

(01:56:17):
ridiculously racist already xenophobic. As part of his character repackage,
he also renamed his signature leg his signature ankle lock
was we named the Patriot Locke. It's like they didn't
even mentioned the fact that it was like overtly racist.
It might take a nerve, it's just like, yep, that's
just his character and this is how we felt back now,
It's just how it was. We just didn't even really

(01:56:37):
dig into it today. Tottally different, right, totally different today.
But this match is not really worth going over because
you know, del Rio one and I put it couldn't
happened to a nicer guy. Oh wait, because we talked
about a couple of weeks ago. How I think it
was during the Extreme Rules show we did and twenty eleven.

(01:57:00):
I believe it was that show, the deep dive on
just all the stuff that Alberta del Rio has gotten
stuff into over the years, and how he's going to
jail probably for a long time. Yeah. Uh so if
you want to hear that rap sheet that's a mile long,
go back and listen to that episode is in the archives.
But uh yeah, this match, wow, between Jack Swaggers and

(01:57:24):
Zep Coach's racist ass gimmick and the real life monster
that Alberti del Rio is. This is another one that
WW might want to strike from the tea. Yeah, strike
from the record books. Even even this is bad.

Speaker 2 (01:57:42):
You know JBL's line in the beginning where h Jerry
Lawler said Zep Culter is an equal opportunity offender? Is
there anybody he didn't offend? And JBL or Lawlor even
goes to JBL, You're not the they that they say,
are you? You know? Did you notice that I did?

Speaker 1 (01:58:02):
I did notice JBL say that. Oh just using freedom
of speech.

Speaker 2 (01:58:06):
Yeah, he has right to say. We have freedom of
speech in this country and everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:58:11):
Yes, that's not that's not what you what it means. Bro.
You can Yeah, you have the right to say it,
and you don't have the right to be ridiculed with
judged because of it.

Speaker 2 (01:58:19):
And companies can do whatever they wish. You know, that's right.

Speaker 1 (01:58:22):
All you want. You don't get arrested for saying it.

Speaker 2 (01:58:25):
That's not the case.

Speaker 1 (01:58:26):
You don't get arrested for it. It's not against the
law to say it. But you can lose a job exactly.
And I can say something. I can respond and say
you're a piece of trash for saying it. But you
can say it's not illegal to say it. You don't
go to jail for being a racist who calls somebody
else you know, the N word or whatever. But you're

(01:58:48):
gonna lose a job over it, thought, lose your paycheck.
You're you're fired, and many people have lost their paychecks
over that.

Speaker 2 (01:58:57):
During this little back and forth with Lawler and JBL
and Michael, he completely changes the subject. There's fireworks coming
off in the background when Alberto del Rio entering. Michael
Cole's like it looks like the fourth of July over
the East River and now we gotta yeah America's independence
like what what They weren't even red, white and blue

(01:59:19):
fireworks like what Cole talking.

Speaker 1 (01:59:21):
I know they wanted del Rio to be the Mexican superstar,
but you can get him over in a different way. Besides,
you know, what's crazy making him go up against a
guy who hates immigrants. They did the same thing with
Davl and Eddie Guerrero chase immigrants from back across the border.

Speaker 2 (01:59:40):
Yeah, and he did the Nazi salute in Germany like
he was Yeah, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:59:48):
I did not know that in Germany too, I know,
I know, and Germany you can get arrested for stuff
like that.

Speaker 2 (01:59:54):
Yep, there was a big, big issue with that back then.
I think it was a tag match. He was on
the apron and he was doing it. Yeah. No recollection
of this, Yeah, I mean there was like grainy footage
of it. I don't remember where I saw it, if
it was on YouTube or something, but yeah, it was
some house show in Germany when they were touring and

(02:00:15):
not great. And obviously I don't think he knew at
that point, like how he was just you know, in
it for the wrestling heat and yeah, not great, not
great jbl M.

Speaker 1 (02:00:28):
Oh my god, this happened in two thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (02:00:30):
Oh wow, well he did that? No, eight, I thought
it was doing the videos.

Speaker 1 (02:00:36):
I'm putting all the videos I'm looking at here he
did this not to salute thing in Germany in two
thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (02:00:43):
Well he wasn't.

Speaker 1 (02:00:44):
Oh and he did the march. Oh my god, I
never knew this man.

Speaker 2 (02:00:54):
What just for some wrestling heat.

Speaker 1 (02:00:58):
Oh my god, Yeah this is that's come on, like
that's just stupid. No, wait a minute, I think this
had this might have actually happened in two thousand and four.
I think the videos were posting eight. Okay, I can't
tell either way.

Speaker 2 (02:01:14):
Yeah, not good.

Speaker 1 (02:01:18):
Oh god, And it's real bad at Germany.

Speaker 2 (02:01:21):
The crazy thing for me is here there wasn't very
many people cheering for del Rio, like he was supposed
to be the good guy, but he didn't get like
a huge pop, And there wasn't that much heat for Swagger,
you know. It was like, yeah, some booze here here
and some cheers, but like compared to what we've heard,
i'lsewhere in this card not not as loud for either
of them.

Speaker 1 (02:01:41):
There's probably some people in the crowds who agreed with
the culture, yep. And I'm sure they were, and I'm
sure there wasn't much depth to Delrio's character. He's just
Mexican pretty much his character, Yeah, because when he was
a heel, he had depth. He was rich, and he
was cocky and all this and that, and then he
was just I'm Mexican and I'm living the American dream.

(02:02:02):
Cheer for me, Okay. Then half of the match we
get a look at Michael Strahan, who's I was eventually guesst.
Michael Strahan is more famous for being on TV than
he has ever been as a football player.

Speaker 2 (02:02:17):
I would agree with that.

Speaker 1 (02:02:19):
Like he's been retired in like seven and eight and
on TV ever since.

Speaker 2 (02:02:26):
Did he win the Super Bowl with the Giants?

Speaker 1 (02:02:29):
Yeah, that was his last game, I believe.

Speaker 2 (02:02:32):
So what a way to go out.

Speaker 1 (02:02:34):
What a way to go out. Michael Straighthan not a
not a favorite of the Eagles at all.

Speaker 2 (02:02:40):
No, not a favorite Pracon either.

Speaker 1 (02:02:44):
No, no, no, well I should say right right, But
I salute the work he's done off the field as
far as getting himself out there and being on TV
and all that, so then done well for himself in retirement.
Not easy to do for a lot of guys. But
after we get more National Guard commercials, it is now
time for the streak See Him Punk versus The Undertaker.

(02:03:08):
I had a lot of notes here Nick about this match,
but then I saw your tweets earlier. What you was
just out here choosing violence up how bad seem Punk
was in this match. Now I got notes, but I
need to hear your full fledged thoughts about well, all right, wait, wait, wait,

(02:03:32):
because I want to go from like I want to
set it up and kind of go to like didn't
get to the match. I don't want to just skip
over the fact that this happened after Paul bar passed away.

Speaker 2 (02:03:43):
Well, let's go over that living color playing Undertaker's entrance everything.
I want to talk about that.

Speaker 1 (02:03:49):
Right, So, Paul Bhar passed away in early twenty thirteen
or late twenty twelve. I believe it's somewhere around the time.
I can't remember the exact timeframe. I think it's early
twenty thirteen because I remember they put the graphic up
that he died in twenty thirteen. So the story is
that See Him Punk steals the Urn, which of course
was synonymous with Paul Bear, and straight up disrespected it

(02:04:10):
at every turn. He would toss it in the air,
he would drop it, he would toss it to Paul
Haym and Paul Haymen like, oh my god, no, and
he would catch it. I remember one time see him
Punk like fumbled it and then Paul Hamen like scooped
it up and ran off, running into the end zone,
took it to the house hands he did. He scooped
it up right off like scoop and score. Bro That's

(02:04:30):
not easy to do. Paul Hammer did it with ease,
like I was. I was actually impressed h Paul Hayman
to see him. Punk was a hell of a parent too,
by the way.

Speaker 2 (02:04:39):
Yeah, I enjoyed them in this era together more than
I did Hayman and Brock.

Speaker 1 (02:04:45):
I agree. I think they played off each other very
very well. But so that's pretty much a story. Seehumunk
disrespected the Undertaker and Paul Bear. Uh, and off we go.
So we get to the show. Both of these entrances
fantastic right, Living Color All Black Rock Band killed it

(02:05:09):
on Seampunk steam Music. That's the song he used. Culture
personalities by Living Color. Tremendous, tremendous, and then you got
undertake a entrance, which is probably one of his best ever.
He comes up from the depths of hell and there's
people reaching out to him as he's coming up from hell.

(02:05:31):
I thought that was dope. That was a dope as visual,
at least.

Speaker 2 (02:05:34):
I from where I was sitting. I literally thought there
were fans reaching for him. I mean I was like,
what are they doing? Like are they reaching for him? Like?
What the hell is going on? I didn't know the
that was like part of the entrance until I watched
it after that, So how funny is that?

Speaker 1 (02:05:55):
Yeah? I benefit, Why are they reaching for him?

Speaker 2 (02:05:57):
That's so weird.

Speaker 1 (02:05:58):
I had the benefit of having a monitor in front
of me while also looking down at the same time,
so I can see, Oh, they're like itching out for him.
All that's dope.

Speaker 2 (02:06:06):
So do you know who those people were they were
reaching out for him?

Speaker 1 (02:06:09):
I think I heard Xavier Woz talk about he was
one of those guys. I'm sure a bunch of NXT.

Speaker 2 (02:06:13):
People all from n XT you had and I have
the list, oh Byron Sackston Victor from The Ascension, Cassie
Jake Carter, who is oh Xavier Woods, Sammy's ing, oh
Russev he was there, it was short hair.

Speaker 1 (02:06:37):
It's like an all star crew roster or.

Speaker 2 (02:06:40):
Yeah yeah, Connor of the Ascension, Adam Rose, Eric Rowan
is in the picture, by the way, because this was
a picture posted by the way before the event, posted
by I think Connor posted it on Instagram back then.
And last but not least, how about this Harper was

(02:07:01):
one of those hands reaching for the undertaker. Absolutely awesome cast.

Speaker 1 (02:07:10):
A crew exactly what a crew, right, damnely. And it's
the same thing that the next year when they had
uhh entrance and had the women who was like taking
off his crown, its robe and stuff. You got three
of the best women on the roster right now taking
Sasha Banks, Charlotte and Alexa Bliss.

Speaker 2 (02:07:30):
Now I would have never known this was a bunch
of NXC guys because I just wanted to make sure,
like I was watching the entrance and obviously I didn't
know like what the whole like is he coming up
from hell? Or is like what's going on here? And
I think I googled like Undertakers wrestleming a twenty nine
entrants just to see if anything was written about it.

(02:07:52):
And then I found out that the people part of
that that were part of that entrance were from NXC.
And then there was a link to Instagram and that
a photo of all those guys posing before the event.
So absolutely like they were wearing like you know, the
the costumes or whatever they were wearing to make sure
that nothing stood out, that the lighting was good on

(02:08:15):
whatever they were wearing for the visuals. So it was awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:08:20):
That was It was a dope. I don't know whose
idea that was, but whoever it was, that was a
dope entrance. And I think, like I said, from a
visual standpoint, probably among the best undertakers ever had in
my opinion, and he's obviously it has some dope entrance
over the years with the Druids and all that stuff.
The one year came out of wrestlemanting were on the

(02:08:41):
chariot or something like that with the Raven over his shoulder.
That was pretty cool WrestleMania nine. But that one that
was dope. I was super dope in my being, like
I don't know that is how I felt. All Right,
got to the entrances, Now get to the match, Nick,

(02:09:01):
we can out here.

Speaker 2 (02:09:02):
You can skip that.

Speaker 1 (02:09:05):
No, no, no, we're gonna talk about it. You gotta talk
about it out here. Trying to stoke some flames choosing violence,
as I said on Twitter, saying that cm punk botched
his way through this match, which, mind you, is considered
why they consider the best match on this show. I
agree with that sentiment that it was the best match

(02:09:27):
on the show, easily the best matching the show.

Speaker 2 (02:09:31):
Okay, but how much is that really saying.

Speaker 1 (02:09:34):
It's not saying a ton because this match wasn't the
show wasn't great, but it's saying something. Please explain your
position on this, and why are you bashing Sampunk everyone,
everybody's favorite wrestler who hasn't wrestled in seven years.

Speaker 2 (02:09:48):
We're going to cancel me. Yep, they're going to cancel me.
So my first issue was when cmpunk went for an
old school and he made it look completely terrible, and
it just kind of like he's holding him with his

(02:10:10):
right arm, completely defeating the purpose of old school, which
is supposed to use your left arm because you can
jump in with your right arm, you have more leverage
and all this and the way you jump, so it
just makes sense and the way he did it. I

(02:10:30):
was like, Wow, that was really bad. That looked really bad.

Speaker 1 (02:10:34):
He didn't quite hit it where he was supposed to.

Speaker 2 (02:10:36):
Yes, oh okay, so there you go.

Speaker 1 (02:10:38):
So he watched it, but it didn't ruin the match.

Speaker 2 (02:10:42):
I'm not done yet. It reminded me of this time.
One of the members of the group I was there
with had told me before that he wasn't a huge
cmpunk fan. This was like two or three years before this,
and he wasn't a huge seampunk fan because he was

(02:11:04):
out of a show. It might have been Ring of
Honor or he saw him on OVW. I don't exactly remember.
Maybe it was a house show of an indie company.
I don't think Punk have a wrestled for CZW. Did he?
I don't know that off the top of my head,
but it might have been an indie that Seampunk didn't

(02:11:25):
know how to put a figure for leg Lock on
his opponent, and I guess the crowd started building him
because he didn't know how to put the figure for
Lock on. Now I wasn't there. I wasn't in the crowd.
It's you know, hearsay, secondhand account. I don't know why
my friend would lie about that, but at the same time,

(02:11:47):
I also didn't want to be involved with the you know,
I didn't want him to. He kind of came across
to be as somebody that didn't like a lot of
the things other people liked, just because he wanted to
be against, you know, the cool thing. So I didn't
exactly like take his word for it just because of that.
He just kind of like came across to me as

(02:12:07):
somebody that would just not like something because so many
other people liked it. So I didn't hold that against
Sandpunk at all. I actually liked Sandpunk a lot back then,
but that you know, that old school I was just
kind of like, oh, that was bad. We fast forward,
Punk goes for Punk goes for old school again, and

(02:12:31):
he's doing it right this time, holding with his left arm,
and then he just stands on the rope. Undertaker doesn't
do anything, He doesn't move or anything, and Punk just
crouches himself on the top rope like it looks so stupid.
I was like, what, and that's not necessarily Punk's fault,
Like Undertaker probably should have moved or did something to
make that happen, or maybe he was ready to, and

(02:12:54):
Punk just fell. But that was a very bad, very
bad look, and I didn't like that, and so that
was that was the second thing I believe, So fast forward.
Did you know that Undertaker was the best pure striker
in w W?

Speaker 1 (02:13:11):
By the way, how many how many times in Michael
Cole say during this match, because I'm sure he said
it at least twice.

Speaker 2 (02:13:18):
At least twice. So I just wanted to, you know,
I put the history of w W. I was exaggerating
up but like he said, at least five times, but hey,
it might have been. Who knows. Punk loved Randy Savage, right,
so he decided to pay homage to Randy Savage by

(02:13:41):
doing the elbow drop off the top and his matches
and they always look like crap every single time. And
Randy Savage is he not? Is he not my best friend?
My best friend? Is Randy Savage not my best friend?
What I meant I meant to say is Randy Savage

(02:14:04):
is not? Is Reddy Savage not my favorite wrestler ever?
And the fact that I saw Sam Bunk with that
elbow drop, oh my god, it looks so bad and
it just I I can't even like we lud Sasha
Banks for like her frog splash, Chavo Guerrero for his

(02:14:29):
flop frog splash that don't look anything like Eddie's, but hell,
they're doing it to pay homage to them. I'm I'm
not doing that with this elbow drop, which looks terrible.

Speaker 1 (02:14:39):
Anybody that lag Sasha Banks a frog splash, I don't
does it well, I don't know, does it look good?
I don't for all intents and purposes, I just threw
that in there. I mean, I don't think it looks terrible,
but it's not like Eddie, you know what I mean? Like,
and no one could probably do it like Eddie, like
Chavo I know has done it, Radisterio has done it.
They don't look any thing like Eddies, but they're paying

(02:15:01):
homage to him. But this, like, I guess there's a
certain aesthetic you have when you see a vacco man
flying elbow drop, Like nobody can do it the way
he does, and I know other people have paid homas
to him by doing it. But Seampunk's flying.

Speaker 2 (02:15:20):
Elbow drop was pure trash and it looked it looked terrible.
And let let's not forget that he also did that
when the Undertaker was on the announced table and completely
missed and almost ended Undertaker's.

Speaker 1 (02:15:36):
Career completely miss. He came up short. He hurt himself
more than you heard Undertaker, because he hurt his knee.
I'm pretty sure he actually legit hurt his knee on that.

Speaker 2 (02:15:45):
Okay, it's still trash. He's still I round it, and
I was like trying to look for it. I was like,
did he slip on the top rope, because I mean
that was a long Yes, it was a long jump.
But oh my god, that was bad too, Like you know,
like he literally literally just like it was a line drive.

Speaker 1 (02:16:06):
I think it would have I think it would have
worked better at the table actually broke. The problem was
at the table didn't break.

Speaker 2 (02:16:12):
Because of his trajectory. That's why I didn't break. He
didn't get enough height. He went right into like the
side of the table like that was but that was
his fault. It wasn't going to break the way at
the angle that he made contact, it was not going
to break. He had to.

Speaker 1 (02:16:28):
Lands on top of the Undertaker, and he's not supposed
to do that. When I elbow drop. Maybe he should
have a splash or something.

Speaker 2 (02:16:34):
You know. Then he was then he was scared scared
little baby. How about that? Oh my god, I'm kidding Sampod.
I'm just god forbid, you know, like we critique him,
but he just didn't have it this night. I just
don't think he had it this night. He's gone on
record saying that he never was mad that he had

(02:16:55):
to face the Undertaker, but this moment and this year
was proof to him that he would never get that
last match at Mania. So there's there's something there that
you know, he wasn't fully like into it one hundred percent,
like maybe he was ninety eight percent into it, but
that two percent definitely showed itself to me in this match.

Speaker 1 (02:17:19):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:17:20):
Wow, And there's more there's I have, let's see.

Speaker 1 (02:17:26):
So well, while you look for that, I will say
that this was the last year of the streak. This
is the last win in the streak.

Speaker 2 (02:17:38):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (02:17:39):
And you look back at these matches, particularly this, particularly
this one, and you forget how much of a draw
the streak was, how important it was. Before the bellue
of the ring, the fans were stirring, they were going crazy,
and they were going crazy at multiple points throughout the
match because the streak was on the line, like it

(02:18:02):
was such an important. It was just as important as
any other match in the show, on any show, the
streak was that important, like it had so much meaning,
and you knew because it was the streak was on
the line, you knew something historicals want to happen, either
a streak was going to continue or some by some

(02:18:22):
wild chance, it was going to end. And I think
when the streak ended the next year, I think it
hurt undertaker strong power a little bit because if the
streak probably extended his strong power, I mean a couple
of years at least the past where the past where

(02:18:43):
it would have gone if it wasn't for the streak.
But without the streak, after the Undertaker, when an intake
would show up, you know, people would pop, but it wasn't.
A specialist was kind of lost after that, Like nobody
was yearning to see the Undertaker wrestle, at least I
wasn't after the streak was gone. But then he kept

(02:19:03):
doing it, and I think that's when you started to
see the law of diminishing returns when he kept coming back,
kept coming back, and it's like okay, And at a
certain point people were just like all right, just go
away already, like just retire bro Like. He should have
retired in twenty seventeen, he didn't. He kept coming back
and he finally see he in twenty twenty. He finally
seemingly retired for real this time. But I think over

(02:19:24):
the years without the streak, it hurt his strong power.
When you had to streak at WrestleMania, that was the
main event pretty much, that was it, and Undertake was
still capable of putting on great matches too. You know,
I think they made a mistake and in the streak
in hindsight. It's easy to say in hindsight, but I
think they made a mistake in the streak. Either you

(02:19:44):
never ended or if you do end, it it's somebody
like I see him Punk who needed that rub and
not our brock Lesnar didn't need the rub.

Speaker 2 (02:19:54):
But he went on that monster terror. So I could
definitely if Undertaker retire, yes that's true, or that, then
I could obviously see it. Because brock Like was unstoppable.
They finally booked him two years later after he returned
into like that unstoppable force, So I think that that
could have been okay the Undertaker was done after that, that

(02:20:15):
would have made more sense. But then he came back
and beat bray Wyatt you know, WrestleMania, Like what what
come on? Like is that necessary? Like no, so, yeah,
I'm with you. I wouldn't have been mad if Sampunk
beat him here.

Speaker 1 (02:20:30):
No, I don't think.

Speaker 2 (02:20:30):
I didn't. I didn't think you know, that was gonna
happen obviously, But you know that's just I just I
don't think. I think this was like a good Undertaker match,
not a good Sampunk match, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (02:20:48):
I got you, I got you. You think Sampunk is capable
of more?

Speaker 2 (02:20:52):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Like so people even like some
of the people that agreed with me online on Twitter,
we're saying like, uh yeah, he's a terrible in ring wrestler,
and I was like, I don't. I would not ever
go that far. Whoa yeah yeah, like.

Speaker 1 (02:21:09):
Take it easy.

Speaker 2 (02:21:10):
Yeah, that's what I'm like. He's pudgy, you know, he
doesn't look like a wrestler. It's like that's where he
loves me. That's where he lose me, because who looks
like a wrestler?

Speaker 1 (02:21:18):
Like what do you try to tell you're the same
person wearing a knee to face a shirt twenty thirteen
like me?

Speaker 2 (02:21:25):
So you know, I did write another thing, by the way,
like when the Undertaker got Hell's Gate onto Punk and
he was trying to counter it into a pin and
he completely watched that too. So that's why I think
it's like not a good match by Sampunk. There were
a lot of badget botches on his part that weren't
necessarily where you could point out the Undertaker and be like, okay,
like yeah, he's the blame, which people love doing that now.

(02:21:47):
You know, they love because you know, he got older
and slower in the ring, and they love getting on
Taker because of his botches and whatnot. Now, but back then,
you know he he wasn't the cause of these botches
in this match. It was just one person. So definitely
could have been a lot better. I do expect more

(02:22:07):
from Sampunk. Dude. Twenty eleven was like my favorite, one
of my favorite years just because of him and you know,
running in the bank and then the summer and then
they threw it all away, the whole triple h thing.
But oh that's the Punk I love, and no, I
I think they just lost me with this whole Undertaker thing.

(02:22:29):
I knew as soon as they were gonna go with
the Seampunk Undertaker that you know he was gonna lose,
and that than what I was just kind of looking
to after like okay, after WrestleMania, what was popping thanks.

Speaker 1 (02:22:40):
I think Seampunk was looking for the same thing. It's like,
what do I do now I lost you a title?

Speaker 2 (02:22:45):
He shouldn't be doing that. I should be doing that,
not him, I know.

Speaker 1 (02:22:47):
I think I think he was right to do it
because it's like, you don't want to get stuck in
that rut where you're you're like kind of in the
main event, but you're not really the main event guy,
like you're not. He wanted to be where seen was.

Speaker 2 (02:22:58):
He would have faced triple H Rustlemania and who knows,
who knows what happened, who knows what would have happened
the year after. Like that's why, Yeah, he only got
to his limit, which I completely understand.

Speaker 1 (02:23:08):
I have no problems. That's a whole two years of
your career.

Speaker 2 (02:23:12):
Now, it's just you're it's you're still there. You still
get to that moment, that yearning for that. That's true.
There is no guarantee, but if you if you're that
like souls on your ability, you know that you're gonna
get there like you don't.

Speaker 1 (02:23:28):
I don't think like he was to wait anymore he was.
I don't blame him for being like yo, Like, I'm
one of the best guys you got. You put the
title on me. You never put me in main events
though when I was a champion, and now that I'm
not champion, I'm not gonna be a man events now neither,
So what the hell? What do you want? Like, I
know what I want to do. I think I'm the

(02:23:49):
best you got, and yet you're gonna keep rolling with
the same stuff and I'm never going to get to
that plateau where I think I deserve to be I
should be. You don't deserve you dont titled or anything.
But I think he felt like he was worthy of
being in that spot. So whatever. It opened the door
up for other guys like Daniel Bryan.

Speaker 2 (02:24:06):
So like, hey, history is history, but that.

Speaker 1 (02:24:11):
Master Triple H wouldn't have done nothing of inpunk nothing.
He had the Undertaker already, he beat John Cena, Like
what the hell is gonna do?

Speaker 2 (02:24:20):
But that really hell? Daniel Brian beat Triple H that
same night.

Speaker 1 (02:24:29):
But there was a hell of a story of building
up to that.

Speaker 2 (02:24:31):
They could have made they didn't have time to make
a story. They started the story, they started the story,
but they had two months that could have made it great.

Speaker 1 (02:24:39):
And yeah, right, Daniel Bryan's match meant something because he
had like six months of the story, you know what
I'm saying. And then he also went on to win
the title that night.

Speaker 2 (02:24:49):
I don't disagree that it was better the way it happened,
but I'm saying I'm not convinced that Sampunk would not
have been in the main event the next year. I'm
just not convinced because he was so good, all right,
you know, Okay, well maybe Ings isn't Tabbs is the
guy at that point.

Speaker 1 (02:25:10):
Maybe, but I.

Speaker 2 (02:25:11):
Don't see how you have Sampunk be brock Lester though.
Maybe that we see what happened with Brock, and maybe
Seampunk leaving was like, Okay, we're just gonna make Brock
a monster and give him the title that anyway, I
know that. I don't think we know that.

Speaker 1 (02:25:27):
I think that was in the cards anyway. I just
know could have been Triple H. That Triple AH match
would have done nothing.

Speaker 2 (02:25:33):
To Paul Hayman. Guys explode.

Speaker 1 (02:25:36):
They did that at SummerSlam, though twenty thirteen, he beat
the hell out of Seampon. It's right, but that's another
indication that Seampunk was just not going to be at
that level that he wanted to be at. But I
will say this, that match of Triple Ace would have
done nothing. It would have done nothing for it. Like
I said, he had Undertaker already, he had Sena. He
went against Chris Jericho or WrestleMania, what the hell trip

(02:26:00):
he was going to do?

Speaker 2 (02:26:00):
He faced at the Knight of Champions or whatever.

Speaker 1 (02:26:03):
Yeah, and he lost. Yeah, So now he probably would
have beat Triple A in twenty fourteen. Great, So did
Seth Rollins in twenty seventeen? Did that make Seth Rollins
a bigger star?

Speaker 2 (02:26:14):
Yeah, he has a thing. Like I said, I don't
that made Becky Lynch fall in love with him?

Speaker 1 (02:26:23):
I'm sure, I'm sure that's the case. But did Seth
Rollins beating Triple H in twenty seventeen at WrestleMania do?
What did that do for Seth Ross?

Speaker 2 (02:26:33):
Remember that it is twenty seventeen. I don't even remember exactly,
That's my point though, it didn't know I don't remember
that that was the year like what it was that
a new Orleans.

Speaker 1 (02:26:47):
No, that was in Orlando.

Speaker 2 (02:26:48):
Oh my god, that's right, throw right.

Speaker 1 (02:26:53):
And that's when Seth Ronald had was coming off the
knee injury and they were like that was like an
unsanctioned match or whatever. Remember that, you know, they had
a referee, they had a winner.

Speaker 2 (02:27:01):
And that's that's the rustle of the Hardy's return, right, yep. Look,
this is how bad the last few years have been.

Speaker 1 (02:27:12):
Really, that's what I'm saying. Like, but that goes back
to my point. That match did nothing for South of
Donald's even though it is a big win for South
O Dolald's great, but what did that really do for him
in the long one? Was he not going to still
be a Universal champion in the future or was he?
You know, did it make him a bigger start? I
don't think so, and that's.

Speaker 2 (02:27:27):
We'll turn him. Well what wait, so twenty seventeen, did
he have another injury when he came back.

Speaker 1 (02:27:36):
I don't think he did. I just know I remember
wrestling in twenty eighteen. He's wrestling for the Interconninal Championship
with Finn Balor and I think the mi is right.

Speaker 2 (02:27:45):
So im ctripleates just beating him up with a crutch, right,
did he have another injury after he came back?

Speaker 1 (02:27:52):
I think no. I think they played it up.

Speaker 2 (02:27:54):
Okay, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (02:27:55):
I think I don't remember that being actu.

Speaker 2 (02:27:57):
Quote unquote reinjured his name. But they were just answer
the story. I think so because I remember him coming
back and beating Roman and then Dean beat him because
he catched him.

Speaker 1 (02:28:08):
Right now, was in twenty sixteen. Yeah, remember when thet
not the festival friendship. When Kevin Owens won the title,
he pedigreed Seth Rollins and handed him the title. So
that started the Seth Rollins story.

Speaker 2 (02:28:20):
That's right. That was after wrestle, after a SummerSlam. Yeah,
that's right, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 1 (02:28:25):
So but Seth Rollins that that matches nothing for Seth
Rollins and that Seal Punk was in a better position
than Seth Rollins was and the Triple AH match would
have done nothing for him. So, speaking of triple as
matches doing nothing for somebody, what about our next match,
Triple H versus brock Lesnar.

Speaker 2 (02:28:46):
You talk about Triple H right about a waste of time?

Speaker 1 (02:28:51):
Really was because Triple H is one of the greatest
of all time. Honestly, like I can't say enough about
his talent. His Hero run in two thousand and ninety nine.
You throw that in there too, great stuff to peak
of his career, in my opinion. And he's done wonders
with NXT right, developing that talent, only for physic Man
to squander most of it. Not your Relati's fault, uh,

(02:29:13):
But he's done great things with XT and at Performance Center.
But for whatever reason he they had, I don't know
if it's his doing or Vince's doing. Maybe it's a
combination of both, but there was a stretch and it's
still pretty much he went to twenty nineteen what they
had to shoehorn him into WrestleMania, and then when he
gets shoehorned into a match, it has to be more

(02:29:34):
than twenty minutes, and it's like, Noah, doesn't. You're not
gonna put on the classic match. You think you're gonna
put on every your triples. As good as you are,
you're great, but you're not putting on these twenty five
minute classes anymore. Bro, It's not what you're doing now.
No he tried to do it with Seth Rollins. That
match was kind of boring, and I hate to say it,

(02:29:55):
but it was It's like, oh okay, he tried to
do it with Batista at twenty nineteen with just like
this twenty five minute epic matches, like this match does
not have to be this.

Speaker 2 (02:30:05):
Job, Dude. I was so hyped for that too. I
was like, this is gonna be great.

Speaker 1 (02:30:08):
Why I knew it was gonna come. I knew it
was gonna happen. This match's gonna be third like damn
near thirty minutes too much. It's gonna suck the life
out of the audience. It's gonna suck the life out
of the audience and no one's gonna care and Triple
A's gonna win.

Speaker 2 (02:30:22):
That what's gonna happen because you don't need the so
much story in his matches that they give you. Because dude,
that Lesnard Goldberg match a few years ago for the
title it was like not even fifteen minutes. It was
like eleven or twelve, thirteen minutes, and it was high
impact like the whole time and then boom like winter.

(02:30:43):
That's where Triple A's matches could be. You don't need
like a long playout story, right.

Speaker 1 (02:30:47):
He loves being in there for twenty thirty minutes, like
that Batista match a couple of years ago. That was
the longest match of the night.

Speaker 2 (02:30:52):
Yeah, that's that was ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (02:30:54):
Twenty four minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:30:55):
I don't even remember how that ended. I know he won, but.

Speaker 1 (02:31:00):
That match was longer than Kofe.

Speaker 2 (02:31:01):
I don't remember most of that show.

Speaker 1 (02:31:04):
That match was longer than Kofe versus Daniel Brian, which
is twenty three forty five, and longer than the main event,
which is twenty one minutes thirty seconds. That's a triple threat.

Speaker 2 (02:31:11):
Oh that's when they didn't even pen Rondo, right, I
remember that Koffee's win Triple A Chapatista. I rarely have
any recollection of.

Speaker 1 (02:31:23):
It's just they had this thing where they had to
even the tag team match they had with Ronda Rousey
and Kurt Angle twenty minutes. What doesn't need to be
twenty minutes? Bro Seth Rollins and Triple A's WrestleMania twenty
seventeen twenty five minutes, the longest match in the show.
That's not even counting his entrance. It's also like another

(02:31:46):
five minutes. It should just be dope, but not necessarily.
Roman Raine and Triple A's twenty seven minutes too long.
Triple A Aion sting the longest match on the show
at wrestle Mania thirty one, eighteen minutes thirty six seconds.

Speaker 2 (02:32:06):
That was the longest match on the wrest of the.

Speaker 1 (02:32:08):
Longest match on the show. The only one that was
closed was Big Show was the Under the Giants Royal
Battle Royal on the pre showy Paul White. The Under
the Giant Royal Battle Royal on the pre show was
eighteen minutes and seven seconds as a Battle Royal. And
of course the match with the main event was sixteen
minutes and forty three seconds.

Speaker 2 (02:32:30):
Wow, that was with me break. That's with the cash
in my gosh, give.

Speaker 1 (02:32:36):
Me a break, bro. And of course the Brian match
was twenty five minutes, also the longest match on the
show at WrestleMania thirty But that one was a good
match because it was it was it was over like
people were into it. These other matches, though the story
didn't necessitate a twenty five minute match. That seth Ronalds match.
They had a good build, didn't need twenty five minutes

(02:32:58):
or whatever.

Speaker 3 (02:32:58):
It was.

Speaker 1 (02:32:59):
Same thing with Patista. Here we are again at WrestleMania
in two twenty thirteen where he's doing these long, drawn
out matches. He came off the one the undertake a
hell on the cell in the hell of Set WrestleMania.
Everybody loved that. I think he's like, oh, I got it.
I could still do it with these great classic five
star epics. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no,
no no no, hold it right there. We don't need

(02:33:20):
twenty three minutes if you and brock Lesna, we don't.
And I like Triple H. Man, I'm not gonna hate
on Triple Ah. It's just they just felt the need
to give him the longest match and most times so
he could build up the slow, methodical pace and people
fall asleep on that nowaday, especially on a show like
WrestleMania in twenty nineteen with just like five hours. Broh, no,
I'm good. No no, no, no, no, it's not even the
main event. Bro come morning. No no no no, no no no,

(02:33:43):
I'm good. And then you got on top of that,
you got Triple H being the babyface fighting underneath, which
is always a tough sell for me because he's been
such a dastardly heel and he's been such a strong
presence on the show. It's hard for me to buy in.
I feel sympathy for him and.

Speaker 2 (02:34:01):
Always call him the cerebral assassin. They always call him that,
whether he's a face or a heel. It's like that
has a heel connotation to me, So why don't you
just keep that for heel And like Michael Cole sitting here,
that's why he's the cerebral assassin, like relax.

Speaker 1 (02:34:20):
Another thing I noticed, Sean Michaels got a whole entrance
on this show just to be Triplet's homeboy.

Speaker 2 (02:34:25):
I wrote that too. I was like, oh, okay, just
got to hear that.

Speaker 1 (02:34:29):
And he dressed up music right, and he dresed up
with the occasion with his tank top and his hunting
boots and his dirty dungarees out there and looking like
I said, sit up in a deer stand. You're at WrestleMania.
What hell can dressed up a little bit? Put his
shirt on. You got a tank top one, and put
some shoes these what are those? What are those boots?

Speaker 2 (02:34:52):
There?

Speaker 1 (02:34:52):
They belong in a swamp, sir, not at WrestleMania. If
I was Paul Hammond, I would have not taken a
superkick from Sean Michaels in those boots, what are those?

Speaker 2 (02:35:02):
He's He had a funny ass cell to that too,
he did.

Speaker 1 (02:35:06):
He's like on his feet for a little while, waving
his arms and then falling speaking of triple h. His entrances,
which are always again because he's you know, coo whatever,
he is super elaborate, right. Uh, They've gotten more elaborate

(02:35:27):
sometimes over the years, although I will say his Wrestlemen
Your thirty entrance was dope. The one we mentioned with
Sasha Banks, Alexa Bliss and Charlotte that was cool. All
the other ones that I could do without. He's riding
a motorcycle to the ring with Stephanie. The one he's
like the terminator for staying. What was the one where
it had like the people Stephanie Man, it's like giving

(02:35:48):
this big old authoritative speech, like eututlitarian speech, something like
that thirty two with the gods with the skulls on
their heads. Do without that. I don't need that. I
don't remember that did a twenty at twenty eighteen WrestleMania,
probably the motorcycle thing again, and in twenty nineteen I
don't remember that neither, because it just gets old. After

(02:36:08):
a while. Yeah, we get it, bro, he gets the coolest.

Speaker 2 (02:36:10):
This was his best entrance in twenty nine, simple just
to walk got something, you know, even smoke on him.

Speaker 1 (02:36:19):
Even that was a botch. You didn't notice that he
had the stuff on his body.

Speaker 2 (02:36:22):
That he's off off by the all the sweat, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:36:28):
But that was dry ice that burned him.

Speaker 2 (02:36:33):
Wait, so okay, that was the entrance then I know
he had one. I thought it was another entrance, another
Mania entrance that.

Speaker 1 (02:36:40):
This year was because that had like the tunnel but
it was hilarious hit a tunnel that you smoke, but
it turned into dry ice all over his body and
he's like looking at it like what the hell is
on me? And he's like trying to rub it off,
but probably hurt, like the reason why he was burning him.
He said he had second degree burns from.

Speaker 2 (02:36:58):
It, but I couldn't tell after it was off like
his I mean like burn.

Speaker 1 (02:37:05):
He said. I watched the video when they were talking
about him. They was that WRESTLEMANI in twenty nineteen and
the like that gets a twenty four special they do
sometimes at WrestleMania, and they caught up to him. He's
like you remember your entrance the last time he was here,
because that was a met Life stadium as well, and
he's like, oh yeah, I forgot about it until you
brought it up. And he said that stuff got on
him and he said he could feel himself like sizzling,

(02:37:26):
like he said his body was on fire. He's like,
what the hell, Like, what's going on? He's rubbing it
off and dumping water on him. So, yeah, they didn't
do that again. The thing, I guess. I think they
had it at twenty eight too, that little tunnel thing,
and they didn't do it the next year. But yeah,
like Triple As always has to have his elaborate entrance

(02:37:47):
in his twenty five minute match. I don't know if
that's his request or not. Probably is his request, but
it doesn't do it for me. I don't have to
have a Triple H match of WrestleMania. I like Triple H.
He's I could never see your place wrestle again, and
I'll be fine. The same goes for the Undertaker and
that at that knock. I've seen him wrestle plenty over

(02:38:08):
the years. I'll be fine.

Speaker 2 (02:38:11):
Yeah, I don't need, you know, the long emotional build
to the end where it's probably not gonna matter at all.

Speaker 1 (02:38:18):
Right, just not gonna matter. Then we got Brock lessner Jack.
WWE was well on their way to making Brock just
another guy on the roster.

Speaker 2 (02:38:33):
Oh my god, they dude, if he was another he
was gonna be a big show version two pretty.

Speaker 1 (02:38:40):
Much people forget how they were fumbling him at every turn.
In twenty twelve and twenty thirteen, his first match back
in WWE, he lost to John Cena.

Speaker 2 (02:38:50):
Dude, so this is his third match. He's gonna be
one in two in his first three matches. Back to
what he gets.

Speaker 1 (02:38:57):
If this is UFC, he gets cut for you.

Speaker 2 (02:39:00):
See, it was like, all right, you're good.

Speaker 1 (02:39:04):
Right, get out, you're not good right. So you got
the one win over Triple H which almost made Triple
Ah retire but didn't hold Trump I got this redemption story.
Cut his hair right, the haircut, finally, finally let it go.
Good for him for letting it go long hair. He
looked better with the short hair, like it's time, it's

(02:39:25):
time the long say it on the show every week.
The long hair look man's that was even in the
twenty thirteen kind of pass a bro like it was
done it was over with. It was it was a
it was a rap on that so it was a dub.
But uh, you know, he got his comeback in this match.
But it's just brock was treated as a monster, but
a monster that could lose. And it's funny. It's weird

(02:39:48):
to look back at his matches from this time and
then look back after he beat the other taker, and
I actually like his matches post streak. Then I do
these matches. Even though these matches are more competitive, but
they're just back and forth contest that I don't believe
that they should be that competitive, Maybe because I've watched
seven years of brock Lesner beating the ever living hell

(02:40:12):
out of people before they ever get any any offense
in on them, and so I've been conditioned to think
that brock Lesner is pretty much, you know, unstoppable, So
watching these is like, I don't like him as much.
And it really wasn't much of a story. It's just
like they thought, and brock Lester's tossing them around a
little bit. He had this big scream, but yeah, scream

(02:40:33):
that that you see in gifts all the time. But
I actually prefer him just being the monster that suplexes
people all the time, and then when they finally gives
up on him, he sells like a like a beast,
like he sells like a champ because he's one of
the best selling big men I've ever seen. And it's
even though it's a it's a it's kind of tired

(02:40:55):
formula now because we've seen it time and time again,
and you know, it's gotten old, right ilamit. We were
kind of done with it. But it works. That's the
thing about that formula. When Brock starts to sell, people
just go.

Speaker 2 (02:41:10):
Crazy and they buy in. They're like, oh my god,
they're gonna beat them.

Speaker 1 (02:41:14):
And it works. It works with Roman Reigns, it works
with John Cena, it works with Daniel Bryan, it works
with AJ styles. It doesn't matter. It works. And it's
like that formula. Yeah, it's kind of foremen, and we've
seen it in a million times. I think it's much
better than what we saw wrestling in twenty nine, which
is just a regular triple as match Atlanta twenty minutes.

(02:41:34):
It's pretty much you watch this and you watch the
Batista match in twenty nineteen, not that much different. Shouldn't
be the case. So that's how I thought about this match.
Triple AH wins by the way, because stupid, stupid.

Speaker 2 (02:41:54):
This would be the last loss for Brock until September
twenty fourteen, which was a DQ lost again Sena after
he won the title. So they were luckily after this WrestleMania,
they really strapped the rocket to him. You know, I
was kind of like over this Brock run at this point,

(02:42:17):
but I got back in right.

Speaker 1 (02:42:20):
That's the thing they were well, Like when he came
to fight Undertake a WRESTLM in a thirty, Brock wasn't
really popping like that.

Speaker 2 (02:42:28):
I was like, that match, Okay, he's gonna lose the Undertaker,
Like I don't think anyone thought he was gonna beat him.
And I was like, all right, well, what are they
gonna do now with him? You know, he's gonna lose
to the Undertaker. Another loss.

Speaker 1 (02:42:41):
That's it, ye, and Brock moves on from that. It
was like but then they you know, he beat the
Streak and it's like, okay, now Bronc is kind of
reinvigorated and you wont the title after he killed Sena
and off he went. But at this point he was
just another guy, Like that's that's not how brock Less
should be treated at any point in time. Anything else

(02:43:04):
about this match. I mean, it was just long match.
At one point, Lawler said there was a hush over
eighty thousand people because the way John, the way trip
Late's getting beat up. I was like, no, they're just bored.
They're just bored, bro They're not like the stunned silence.

Speaker 2 (02:43:19):
So this is the match where I am gonna call
out Kevin Dunn. You know, you say this was a
little better. Yeah it was. But when Paul Hayman gets
to the ring to get the steel chair and you
see Shawn Michael's coming to the ring on the hard can,
but Kevin Dones like camera cut, so there's another camera

(02:43:42):
just focused on Hayman. So you're not supposed to realize
Seawan's in the ring. God forbid, you realize that Sean's
in the ring. He's about to kick Paul Hayman. And
it's just a little like a little thing like that
that It's a small example of the way they shoot
TV now, and it sucks like they telegraph everything every

(02:44:04):
single camera angle, you know, when they want to hide something,
so then boom, someone surprises somebody and then the viewer
is supposed to be surprised at home watching it on TV.
They do it every single time when somebody attacks somebody
or you know, some tag match or you know, you

(02:44:26):
don't want to see somebody pull someone from the aprons,
so they have that angle where you're not supposed to
see that until the very last second. I hate that.
I don't know, like it's no, it's it's wrestling live
capture that there's nothing wrong with us seeing something happening
that's going to happen before it happens. Don't as long

(02:44:48):
as it's like that angle, No, we don't want to
see it as it has, like we can anticipate it
happen and be like, oh, they're gonna get them, They're
gonna get them, and then it happens within five seconds,
Like that's fine. I don't know what got in their
head to shoot it the way they do now, with
trying to cover up all angles so you don't see
something off camera. It's but you can't anticipate it. You

(02:45:12):
know something's gonna happen based on the angle they use,
So I think it defeats the whole purpose of what
they do. Hate that worse than good pump. Apparently I
also hate the next thing with the stupid Hall of
Fame crap.

Speaker 1 (02:45:32):
Yeah, the WW Hall of Fame says stupid.

Speaker 2 (02:45:35):
You have fully Stratus Backlan book See that's all.

Speaker 1 (02:45:37):
Good, right, WW class Hall of Fame Class of twenty thirteen,
Like you said, trist Stratus Booker, t Mick Foley, Bruno
s Martino, Bob Backland. Pretty dope class when you think
about it, I mean those are all.

Speaker 2 (02:45:51):
Introducing that.

Speaker 1 (02:45:51):
That was cool, right, that was cool, and then Donald
Trump not worthy, not worthy.

Speaker 2 (02:46:01):
At all, not worthy of not imagine that, not worthy
of the w W Hall of Fame.

Speaker 1 (02:46:06):
And of course Vince and Ducks says my friend Donald Trump. Uh,
people were like standing up and cheering for him and
stuff like this because Donald Trump was seeming like a
harmless guy, just a TV show host who was kind
of a dick, but you know, he was whatever, Like.

Speaker 2 (02:46:22):
He was pretty good when they introduced him. Well, there
you go, that's what I heard. Are you talking about
at the Hall of Fame ceremony or Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:46:32):
I don't remember them being booed at the Hall of
Fame ceremony, but maybe.

Speaker 2 (02:46:35):
Uber watching it when they when Howard introduced him. You know,
he waved to the people everyone else, you know, they're
cheering for and then all of a sudden here but.

Speaker 1 (02:46:47):
Yeah, but even still he wasn't what he's seen as
today and much he would be much different today, but
you know, it is what it is. Uh. Then they
get an ad for wrestling, which is what we'll cover
also at some point this month on our march to
WRESTLEMANIAU WrestleMania thirty of Courses in New Orleans. It was

(02:47:09):
the city's first WrestleMania, so we'll talk all about that
in the coming weeks. And then he announced the attendance record,
like I said earlier earlier, eighty thousand plus at medlad Stadium.
Shoot off a bunch of fireworks, and then we'll go
right to the main event. Well just just music. And
I was, I was sitting in the stadium, I'm like,

(02:47:30):
isn't it supposed to be another match? Like it's actually
happening right now, Okay, And it's like, ww, They've got
that right. They haven't made this mistake over, you know,
in recent years since this show. But it was like
Jack varn all those video packages and then just abruptly
started Johnson's music for the beginning of this match. It's

(02:47:52):
just just do the one video package before this match, Hey,
ladies and gentlemen, ww Championship, and then Johnson this music
start instead of people just sitting around waiting for the
next matchive start and then it's John Cena. Here we
are the main event. Okay, here we go? All right?
Is John Cena like that like that gift for that video?

(02:48:14):
So what you know that that that like the like
the rick roll type of video when people like it's
like a prank where people call somebody and it's like
hello and it's like it's John Cena and the music.

Speaker 2 (02:48:27):
Plays and all that.

Speaker 1 (02:48:28):
You never heard of that?

Speaker 2 (02:48:30):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (02:48:30):
Bro, where have you been? I thought that was that's
been years too. That's a year's old thing.

Speaker 2 (02:48:36):
That's probably why.

Speaker 1 (02:48:37):
It's been a years old. That's an old thing too.
It's not even like something that's new on the internet,
on these internet streets. It's been out here the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (02:48:46):
Usually I'm up on my Internet game.

Speaker 1 (02:48:49):
You gotta get up on that. The John Cena prank
or troll thing, it's pretty it's pretty funny. But here
we are the rock John Cena for the w W Championship.

Speaker 2 (02:49:00):
In a lifetime.

Speaker 1 (02:49:03):
It's on the biggest main event that ww's ever done
to this point. That's the way they treated it. Yeah,
with all the video packages they did for out comes
the Rock with a very short lived WW Championship design
he first debuted he is the first person to hold

(02:49:23):
that title. Yeah, when he after he beats seeing Punk
at the Order Rumbold, I think the next night or whatever,
he got rid of the Spinner belt, uh, and then
brought out the one he brought out a Wrestling in
twenty nine. This only lasted until the next summer when
John Cena lost to Brock And because at that point
they still had the two titles they's at the w

(02:49:44):
W Championship in the World Heavyweight Championship as like the
unified World WW World Heavyweight Title. But once they created
one belt, they also had the new WW logo. Summer
twenty fourteen, they got the logo they have now, the
more refined logo that the Scratch logo. So that brought
about a new belt. And if you notice in this one,

(02:50:06):
you see like the Scratch logo and right below it
is that big gold like bar that says champion that's
gone down the belt it's just the WW logo and
then like a little strip underneath this as World Heavyweight Champion,
which is I like. I actually like the current.

Speaker 2 (02:50:23):
Six point five.

Speaker 1 (02:50:27):
Pretty much. It's very small, but I actually prefer the
current title over the one that The Rock had. I
thought the one the Rock had was nice, it was
cool when the first de viewed. It looked better than
the Spinner Belt, looked more like mature and adult. But
like this, I think also it was too It's oddly
too busy, like the Scratch logo and the big gold

(02:50:49):
thing that's just champion, real big.

Speaker 2 (02:50:51):
It's weird, look.

Speaker 1 (02:50:52):
Kind of weird and gaudy. But I like this one.
It looks more refined in my opinion, and less busy,
more like. It's a cleaner design, I should say, than
the one the Rock had. But I just I found
that interesting. But you know, I thought still an upgrade

(02:51:13):
over the Spinner Belt at least, which I didn't hate
that belt. People generally hate the Spinner belt that seeing
Punk and John Cena had and everybody else before. I
don't hate that belt.

Speaker 2 (02:51:24):
But you think it was time start a thread on
Twitter with that? You could be the I mean, they
can cancel you.

Speaker 1 (02:51:32):
I guess, but it lasted a long ass time.

Speaker 2 (02:51:36):
In five, it lasted way longer than it should have.
Like seeing Punk having it his whole rain is ridiculous, like.

Speaker 1 (02:51:44):
He see him seeing it brought that out in five,
that belt went away in twenty thirteen. That's eight years, bro. That,
like I said, the one that the Rock brought out
didn't even last, lasted little more than a year, mainly
because of the logo change. But they didn't even keep
the design changed design up now. They took away the
big gold bard I said, champion on it, So even

(02:52:05):
the design was only lasted the bout a year and changed.
But that's been a belt had a hell of a
sholf life, bro. I don't know why now the current
design is going on. I guess you'd say year seven
because they've kept and they've pretty much homogenized all the
designs of the belts for the most part, at least
the singles titles with the women's titles looking the same way.

(02:52:26):
But we're in seven years.

Speaker 2 (02:52:28):
By the I actually like that. I think we talked
about it before. It's kind of reminds me of the
UFC where they had like every title looks the same
but it also means that, you know, no title looks
more important than the other, like all the world champions
and world champions like they're I agree with that, So.

Speaker 1 (02:52:48):
I agree with the top titles looking kind of the same, Like, yeah,
the men's titles look exactly like the women's titles. They're
both top championships. I do like I would like though,
if the and they've kept it this way, the Intercontinental
and the US titles look different, and they've done that.
They've I think they upgraded the US title. That looks
great now. I think Intercontinental title. I still always prefer

(02:53:11):
the classic design. Yeah, this current one isn't bad, It's
just not the classic design, which is one of the best.

Speaker 2 (02:53:18):
I never got used to the purple Intercontinental title belt,
and they had that for a long long time and
I never got used to it. So you know, like,
I'm never gonna get used to this one. You can't
move from that classic design into anything else.

Speaker 1 (02:53:36):
That classic design is where it's at. But the tag
titles got changed.

Speaker 2 (02:53:41):
Leather change the leather, change the color up. Like that's fine, but.

Speaker 1 (02:53:47):
Yeah, yeah, I would have been doped. They went from
a white to a black or maybe to it like
a purple like you said, or yellow maybe like depending
on who has it. But the tag titles got to go.
I've said it millions of times. I hate those tag belts.
I hate them so much. I don't like them. They're
the worst. They're the worst, like we've had in this
particular design. Even though this it's going from bronze to silver.

(02:54:10):
This design, this goes back to like twenty eleven and
something like that. Yeah, something like that's been.

Speaker 2 (02:54:17):
Danvid Bryan and Kane had that design, and I know
I've been there for a while.

Speaker 1 (02:54:22):
So right, so we're like ten years on the two
helmet thing. On the tag titles, it's been awful step
of the way, whether it was bronze or when they
turned them silver for the brand extension, terrible every step
of the way.

Speaker 2 (02:54:39):
I hate them.

Speaker 1 (02:54:39):
I hate them so much. But back to the Man
event in WrestleMania, and I thought about the announcers. They
were actually calling this like a match in the beginning.
They weren't talking about the stories. They're calling the different moves,
different things that was happening. And I was like, hey,
that's that's a different change. That's a change of pace
for them typically, but speaking of the announcers. I don't

(02:55:05):
know if you noticed this, but they sound as spent,
Like Michael Cole sounded like he was spent at this point.

Speaker 2 (02:55:11):
And we're not even at the top, Like what about
three and a half hours now, I guess with the
pre show it was like four and a half, but yeah,
at this point, they're not used to that, so it
was probably the longest night for all of them at
this point.

Speaker 1 (02:55:30):
And they try to keep the energy up. I can't
blame them for being a little spent. But you have
to think though, like these shows only have gotten longer
and longer over the years, but at least they've had
a brand extension to where you have all announcers and
smack gun announcers. Yeah, back in this day, only the
one announced team and they called it throughout. That's not

(02:55:51):
easy to do it with the course of three and
a half almost four hours, and you're getting excited for
the big moments and you're you know, in every match,
you're doing this. That's not easy. I can't blame like
a call for kind of being a little spent and
maybe his voice a little cracking a little bit by
the main event because you've been calling a whole show
with the undertakacy and punk match, which I know you

(02:56:13):
had your thoughts, but it was an exciting match, and
even Chip plays and Batista, even though it wasn't that exciting,
he starts to make it sound exciting, like he has
to sell it as an exciting match. So uh nowadays,
and I think it's probably easier on the guys because
they had to call it straight through and do everything

(02:56:33):
all the ad reads everything. That's a that's a tough thing, man.
That's That's something that I don't think people really think
about when they when these guys are calling these shows.
How how much of a task it is to call
it over the course of three four hours and you're
bringing that energy the entire time. This match was, this
match was okay, this match is good.

Speaker 2 (02:56:54):
Yeah, it is a solid event. Chad Patton getting a
nod as referee about that. I noticed that Mike Kyoto
was the referee the year before, and it was funny.
I actually looked this up as to why, like if
there was any like story behind that, and Mike Kyoto,
who now does Monday Mailbag on Atfree shows dot Com

(02:57:18):
with our friend Conrad Thompson, said he was approached by
the Rock that year at Mania, and he was asking
him if he was reughing or if Chad Patten was,
so I guess Chad Patten was like a hie at
this point. And Mike had asked the Rock if he
was going over jobbing? You going over or jobbing? So

(02:57:40):
you know, the Rock said he was seeing it was
gonna win, and Kyota told him to let Chad have
the match. So that's true. That's interesting. He's like, I
don't want a joby out, so have Chad do it.

Speaker 1 (02:57:51):
That's funny, that's funny.

Speaker 2 (02:57:53):
But I did. I looked at the ref I always
I try subconsciously. Sometimes I pay attention to the refs.
I couldn't tell you who was the referees for the
other matches on the card because I didn't pay attention.
But here I paid attention, and that's what I That's
what I got. But yeah, not not a terrible match
that too many counters, but you know, it's what WW

(02:58:14):
matches were at that point, you know, so many counters.
I have a whole paragraph of counters because I was
just trying to I wasn't doing it. I wasn't writing
it down for any reasons because I thought we were
getting to the end of the match and it just
kept going.

Speaker 1 (02:58:28):
Yeah, it's definitely a lot of a lot of counters
at the end, almost too many counters. It was a
little counter heavy at the end. But the thing, the
thing that take away from this match the most was
that the Rock got seriously injured during this match. And
I don't think people notice at the time, but apparently
he tore his a domino and is an abductive tendons

(02:58:49):
off his pelvis.

Speaker 2 (02:58:50):
Wait, that was this match or I thought it was
this match.

Speaker 1 (02:58:53):
No, that was this match. I thought that happened this match. No,
it happened during this match. And he's somehow made like
didn't look injured because he was supposed he was supposed
to face Bronck next year at wrest thirty because they
were going to run the This was a planet the
whole time was to have Sena and Rock go back
to back. That was the whole planet the whole time. Uh,

(02:59:17):
they booked that out when Rock first came back in
twenty eleven. Rocket is the.

Speaker 2 (02:59:21):
Wind't know that, Like, what the hell? Maybe he's lying
the bastard.

Speaker 1 (02:59:27):
Well, I mean maybe, but they knew this the whole time.
But he was supposed to have the match against Brock
and Rocket said this apparently on Twitter and stuff like
that in the past, supposed to face Black and WRESTLEMENA thirty,
which would have saved us from the streak. I guess
can you imagine if we had gotten the Rock in
Brock at Wrestmen thirty, that probably would have been the
main event. Daniel Bryan would not have gotten the main event.

(02:59:48):
But we also probably in my mind, I would have
taken Sena versus The Undertaker and made that a streak match, wow,
which was something we've never gotten. We got seen versus
the Undertaker at twenty eighteen thirty four. Nothing you cared
about that. But if you had Sena versus The Undertaker
for the streak, whoa, the heat in that building would

(03:00:11):
have burnt the whole arena down. My god, people would
have lost their minds over that match because any near
for all with Sina, it's just he's gonna win and
the streak is over. People would have went.

Speaker 2 (03:00:22):
Crazy nuclear heat for him.

Speaker 3 (03:00:24):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:00:25):
He probably wouldn't have been able to leave that leave
the house after day.

Speaker 2 (03:00:27):
He wasn't. He wasn't in the good graces of the
wrestling community at that point. It would have been sometime
in twenty fifteen.

Speaker 1 (03:00:36):
I think that happened, but and would have got far
worse if he beat the Undertaker for the streak.

Speaker 2 (03:00:41):
Oh yeah, whoa. That's why I almost about January sixth
was bad.

Speaker 1 (03:00:47):
Oh my god. But that heat, that heat would have
been just incredible. But but again back to the Rock.
The Rock supposed to have Brock WrestleMania thirty but his
injury and his schedule prevented it. Wow, so he said

(03:01:07):
at the time, Oh, maybe would have happened at wrestle
Mamena thirty one. It didn't. The Rock did not wrestle
that night. Brock faced Roman Range, which is another member
of the Anahi family, so.

Speaker 2 (03:01:18):
Close and technically he faced the Rock, but not.

Speaker 1 (03:01:23):
Not quite, not quite. But The Rock did appear at
that WrestleMania. Remember he did the second with Ronda Rousey
where she put the ar bar on Steph and stuff
like that Stephan McMahon, which was a big It was
a big deal at the time. That was a big deal.
But Wrestlming in thirty two, the Rock was there, didn't

(03:01:45):
face Brock at that show. Neither but The Rock made
its appearance and then actually had a six second match.
Do you remember that had a what he had a
six second match at Wrestlemenia thirty.

Speaker 2 (03:01:59):
Two Ray Wyatt right, Eric Rowan.

Speaker 1 (03:02:09):
Not by Wyatt, Eric Rowan, wow, yep?

Speaker 3 (03:02:17):
To date?

Speaker 1 (03:02:18):
To date, that is The Rock's last match. Unless I'm
missing it, I'm pretty sure that match with Eric Rowner
wrestle Man thirty two is his last match to date,
because I'm pretty sure that is. We would have known
if you had other matches, right, that's the Rock. I'm

(03:02:39):
crying out loud.

Speaker 2 (03:02:39):
I mean, yeah, you think we would know?

Speaker 1 (03:02:45):
Last match?

Speaker 2 (03:02:46):
Did you go to Ring of Honor at some point? No?

Speaker 1 (03:02:48):
Cagematch dot net. We got The Rock versus Eric defeats
Eric Rowan six seconds.

Speaker 2 (03:02:59):
Well, congratulates since Eric Rowland for his WrestleMania moment.

Speaker 1 (03:03:02):
He's had them. He had the rocks last match. He
could always say that unless the Rock wrestles again.

Speaker 2 (03:03:07):
He's probably always say he's probably begging him not to
wrestle again.

Speaker 1 (03:03:10):
Right, because he could always say I had his last match,
You know that, Because that's the thing like old time
wrestlers would do. Were like with more famous guys like
I had his first match, Oh, Chris Jericho, I had
his first match, Steve rossonll you know I had his
first match, right. Eric Rowland could always say I had
the Rocks last match, his retirement match in WrestleMania at

(03:03:33):
WrestleMania bro So yeah, the Rock on this night, though,
suffered a big injury, fought through it, did the did
the job, did the job. Did the honors to John
Cena at the bunch of Counters, like we said at
the end, and John Cena is your.

Speaker 2 (03:03:53):
New here's another champion. Here's another flashback to you know,
the first match of uh, you know when Dolf Ziegler
kissed AJ and then Daniel Bryant or Daniel Bryant then
in seamous hit him or whatever. They did that kind
of from the previous year's WrestleMania. They did the same
thing during this match, snaw yeah Scena, you know, very

(03:04:15):
nonchalant going for the people's elbow and then you know,
pointing USA. I'd be like, I'm a thinker, you know, like,
but no, there were more counters and more counters and
more counters. But I thought that was kind of cool,
you know, because you know the commentary was going to
let you know about it. But I still think it
was pretty cool to do those callbacks that you know,

(03:04:36):
he just don't see a lot of anymore, and uh,
you know, I like that. And so became an eleven
time champion. This was this eleventh time that he won
the title.

Speaker 1 (03:04:49):
Look at that, and he's the man of this generation.

Speaker 2 (03:04:53):
He achieved redemption according to Michael Cole, because reemption was
the word of the day.

Speaker 1 (03:04:59):
Because he after he lost that match, his life spired
out of control. He had a real life divorce, I think,
and in the real life at twenty twelve.

Speaker 2 (03:05:06):
I don't even remember that, but I'm pretty sure that
was something in one of the video packages seeing him
blames the rock. He's like, you're the reason of my
downward spiral or something like that.

Speaker 1 (03:05:17):
It was something like that.

Speaker 2 (03:05:18):
I think hewelve, they did a nice storyline that they
never capitalized on. I thought it was terrible storytelling. But
they could have easily said, like this is seen his
worst year of his career, but they didn't really like
push it that way, like it you know, he lost
to John Laurenidis right, like he got pinned by him
or something. At some point, you know, they said that

(03:05:38):
the worst. Like, I just don't think they did enough
with that story of how literally that WrestleMania lost to
the Rock the year before ruined his life. You know,
they kind of hinted at it and they said some things,
but they didn't like make that a focal point.

Speaker 1 (03:05:53):
It wasn't like seeing it went on a big losing streak.
Like he's still in the main event of every pay
per view without even being champion. He was still the
most featured guy in the ROSTA. And yes, he did
have a divorce in twenty twelve, so that was they
I think remember him playing at as part of like
the start of Oh even had a divorce, But hey, look,
Cena's been to remarried. He got married in late twenty twenty,

(03:06:14):
so how about that He finally he never wanted to
marry Nikki Bello, but he got married in.

Speaker 2 (03:06:18):
Twenty twenty, so.

Speaker 1 (03:06:21):
He finally did it. The old boy finally settled down again,
I guess. But yes, Johnson's time, I guess. The Rock
held his arms up, gave him the you know, the old.

Speaker 2 (03:06:32):
Talk to each other, and in the middle of the ring,
do you know what the Rock told Cina. I have
no idea he said, look out for Vall Johnson, Nick Plcomb.
They're starting a podcast, so as he is. Yeah, but
uh no, I actually looked this up because I wanted
to I hurt you. If you can lip read, The
Rock said, like Cina says something to him, and then

(03:06:54):
the Rock says, I don't know what to tell you.
I came back for this very moment right now, and
I tried to search for anything about Sina commenting on
this back and forth with The Rock, and he said
in the Salt Lake Comic Con September sixteenth, twenty sixteen,
he said, after the three camp, we had a moment

(03:07:16):
where we embraced it. I said something to him. I
told him, I'm just gonna kind of go okay, so
they didn't need I have a bunch of filler in here.
I don't want to say any of that. I actually
told him that he had taken a picture with me
when I was an employee at golds Gym back in

(03:07:38):
the year two thousand, when The Rock was like meteoric
and he didn't need to pay any attention to anyone
but people who could possibly do things for him. Here's
this low level employee at golds Gym, wowed by the
unbelievable personality of Dwayne the Rock Johnson. I went up
to him and said, Rock, is it okay if we
get a picture together, and he gave me the picture,
He gave me some advice on how to further my career,

(03:07:59):
and he didn't have to do any of that. And
now being in the return seat, I understand truly how
valuable his time was and how much that meant to
me as a person. And I held him close and
I said, you're never gonna remember this, but you took
a picture of me in two thousand. It helped me
stand here today. And if it weren't for you, I
wouldn't be here today. It's probably paraphrased a little bit,
not word for word, but that's what John Cen had

(03:08:22):
told the Rock. At the end, I kind of wondered
how that, you know, happened. And by the way, that
was also written, written and transcribed by the Great Larry
Zanka for one one manius the rest in peace.

Speaker 1 (03:08:36):
To rest in peace, and Larry Zanka bro that's where
I got that from. Yeah, rest of peace, Lardizonka on that.
But uh, for all to some purposes, for all we
know about the Rock, and he's will be the most
famous person in the world. Usually those people who are
like that level of fame aren't always known to be
nice people. Right, there's always something about him, yeah, right.

(03:08:58):
They always say never meets your heroes because you know,
you know, you never know what you're gonna get out
of him, right, right, But for all intents and purposes,
at least as for from what I've heard, the Rock
seems like a genuinely good person. Like he's just dope person.
You never heard it by anybody having a bad experience
with him or mistreating them, or like he owed me money,

(03:09:22):
like it hasn't paid me, stuff like that. Like you
hear about all this different stuff that he's super demand,
Like some people, even if they're not like terrible people,
but like in a professional setting, they could be very demanding, right,
like Michael Jordan. Right, you heard about him in practice
he would get on his teammates a lot or something
like that. But you know it's all for the the
just the goal of winning at the end of the day.

(03:09:42):
It wasn't really being a jerk. It's just trying to
push him to their limit. I guess right, you never
heard anything about that anything of that nature about the
Rock right to when he's in wrestling, he was always
a good guy apparently, right. No one has a bad
way to say about him in wrestling, and Hollywood is
all the same thing. You never hear about her having

(03:10:02):
bat interactions with fans. Uh, everybody's got good things to
say about him. And I don't know if it's people
just like being nice to him because he has stroke
in Hollywood now, or if it's just all true, Like
like I said, everybody you.

Speaker 2 (03:10:20):
Hear, you gotta think, like there's always somebody out there
that is looking to tear down other people. And the
fact that no one's really doing that to him, like
maybe they got nothing on him, right, and there's maybe there's
nothing to get Maybe this is who he is. And
you know, we know a lot about his upbringing, and

(03:10:43):
you know, maybe that has something to do with it.

Speaker 1 (03:10:45):
I mean, obviously maybe that helps them helps him stay grounded. Yeah, maybe,
you know, you never know. I mean a lot of
people grow up poor, get rich and it changed, right,
That's just what happens. You know, they change up on you,
they switch up on and that sometimes it's expected almost
you know, but hey, man, is I think it's pretty
dope that the guy that everybody's shared for, uh you

(03:11:11):
know when we were all kids. It's still pretty much
like a decent guy. Because you hear about you know,
like like a Chris Jericho. We all love Chris Jericho.
And then you hear about you see him tweeting about COVID,
and you hear about his wife being at the Capitol
in January sixth, It's like, god, damn, you know so
many people that I was.

Speaker 2 (03:11:30):
A fan of just listen, Like why is it so
hard to just listen?

Speaker 1 (03:11:36):
Like you unfollow so many people last year?

Speaker 2 (03:11:38):
Man, come on?

Speaker 1 (03:11:40):
You know, the sexual assault stuff and all this stuff
was like come on, man, really, but the Rock so far,
even like Undertaker, even the Undertaker with the with the
the Blue Lives Matter stuff and all the stuff that
he's been into and and and all the stuff that
we know about his politics and all that stuff like
that makes you look at Undertaken differently, like, oh, really
on to take it really? Bro, Like is it like that? Really?

(03:12:04):
But the Rock endorsed Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, It's like, Okay,
that don't mean he's always a nice person. Oh he is,
apparently oh, okay, so far, so good. Hopefully keeps over,
keeps going because you just never know, obviously.

Speaker 2 (03:12:21):
But you don't. But yeah, it's good, it's refreshing.

Speaker 1 (03:12:28):
Yeah. Yeah, Well that is Russellmania twenty nine. Nick final
thoughts before we wrap it up here.

Speaker 2 (03:12:37):
I will never forget my first WrestleMania, hopefully my first
one and not my only one. But such a fun
time going there, just hanging out there watching the show
and being a part of it. You know, maybe you
know some camera angles maybe I was on TV. I
don't know, I'll have to go back them up. But

(03:13:00):
because some of the camerangles I used with it was
like my view, I was like, oh my god, was
there a camera behind me or something like that. But uh,
a lot of fun reliving it, and uh yeah, I'm
excited to do it again next week.

Speaker 1 (03:13:15):
Yeah for WrestleMania thirty. I believe we're gonna do next
week or another one.

Speaker 2 (03:13:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:13:19):
We'll figure it.

Speaker 2 (03:13:20):
Out, but yeah, we'll figure it out, no matter.

Speaker 1 (03:13:22):
We'll figure it out either way. Like, yeah, like you,
Even though the show wasn't that great and I honestly
haven't really watched it since too many times, it's still
a memory in my mind that I would never hope
to never forget as long as I live, you know,
hopefully old age my memory, even in old age, my

(03:13:43):
memory stays with me. And I can remember what it
was like to be in East Weather for New Jersey
that day. You know, that was a a seminal moment
in my life, honestly, you know, first Wrestlemanian all of them, honestly,
all of them are just great memories. The three of
them that I was fortunate enough to attend is up
there with being at a super Bowl, you know, in

(03:14:03):
twenty eighteen. It's like, all three of those, all four
of those evenings are bucketless nights, you know, And I
hope that other people will be as fortune as I
have been to be able to check off a couple
items on that bucket list, so to speak, whether it's
a WrestleMania or super Bowl, whatever the case may be.

(03:14:24):
You know, but Wrestling twenty nine on this night in
twenty thirteen was one of those nights that they say
the boyhood dream has come true. That's really what it was,
you know, that's honestly what it was. You know, I
grew up watching it. I had my action figures out.
When I was a kid, I would play with my
wrestling action figures and pretending I was doing a WrestleMania

(03:14:44):
in my room or something like that. I did the
same thing for the Super Bowl. You know, we all
did it right, And there we were at Mattlefe Stadium
in twenty thirteen watching WrestleMania. Yeah, the show wasn't fantastic,
but that ain't the point. Ate the point, you know.
I'm glad. I'm honestly really glad it wasn't Wrestlemaning eleven

(03:15:05):
because that's like, oh, yeah, I was at a WrestleMania,
but it was.

Speaker 2 (03:15:13):
That's one memory of that, right, at least this one.

Speaker 1 (03:15:16):
I can say. It was at a big stadium, and
it was all the popper circumstances, and there's a couple
of good mats on the show, and I have to
see the rock wrestling person like I'm never that's the
only time that's never happened. Yeah, I've never seen a
rock wrestling person other than that night, really, you know,
so his overall is a dope night and a dope
memory that I hopefully never forget.

Speaker 2 (03:15:38):
You could follow me at Underscore pecone on Twitter You
can follow us at Shooters Radio on Twitter also known
as X and also on Facebook, Facebook dot com slash
Shooters Radio. If you could catch us at shooterspod dot
com lists everywhere we're available. Also check me out Philly
Influencer dot com. You can check this pod cast out

(03:16:00):
at FOXPHR Gambler dot com.

Speaker 1 (03:16:04):
There you go. You can check me out at Vaughan M.
Johnson on X. You can check us out on Patreon
Patreon dot com slash Shooters Shooters Radio still there, right
there we go, so check us out there. If you
want to request a future deep dive, feel free to
do it. Go over to Patreon, put it in request

(03:16:25):
we will fulfill it in. You can make a cameo
on the show again Patreon dot com slash Shooters Radio.
But until next time for Nick Macone, I am Vaughn Johnson.
Thanks for listening and we'll catch you all again next week.
Hey Grave, wake up the show on Oh Yeah, jicky

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