Speaker 1: Welcome to twenty twenty six. Tonight, WWE was in my backyard.
Speaker 1: They were in New York, New York, their home base.
Speaker 1: If you can't get over in New York, probably not
Speaker 1: gonna happen. But if you do get over in New York,
Speaker 1: especially with this audience, you'd done something right. WWE did
Speaker 1: not do hardly anything right tonight. Tonight, the big promotion
Speaker 1: was Stranger Things, because of course we have to have
Speaker 1: the Netflix tie in here to the new season, so
Speaker 1: it was a Stranger Things edition. Oh, it was a
Speaker 1: very strange episode of Raw. Yes, that is the case.
Speaker 1: It certainly was. This entire show felt like it was
Speaker 1: in the upside down, but that's what it was. It
Speaker 1: was the Stranger Things episode of Monday Night Raw here
Speaker 1: for the first Raw of the new year. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of these things where you're going to hear
Speaker 1: from a lot of people who are going to be
Speaker 1: very upset because they thought that Christian Jericho was going
Speaker 1: to be on the show tonight and he wasn't there,
Speaker 1: and damn it, it ruined the entire show for them.
Speaker 1: And to be fair, WWE has really nobody to blend
Speaker 1: with themselves when you have Adam Pierce posting on social
Speaker 1: media this weekend a video hyping up the show tonight
Speaker 1: where he says We're gonna break the walls down on
Speaker 1: Raw with three huge championship matches. Like, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I see what you're doing there. They're trolling us, They're
Speaker 1: trolling us. There was no Chris Jericho on the show tonight.
Speaker 1: Let's just get this out of the way. First, Jericho
Speaker 1: was not on Raw tonight. I told you on the
Speaker 1: podcast yesterday, Royal rumble. If you want Jericho, Royal rumble.
Speaker 1: I was not really expecting him to be on the
Speaker 1: show tonight. But how can I sit here, honestly, And
Speaker 1: I would say this anybody who's actually genuinely upset about this.
Speaker 1: I cannot sit here in twenty twenty and be upset
Speaker 1: that we did not have Chris Jericho on Monday Night Raw.
Speaker 1: If he's going to show up, he will show up
Speaker 1: at some point. I'm sure he will. But I am
Speaker 1: not upset that Chris Jericho was not on Raw here tonight.
Speaker 1: And if you are upset, and if you think it
Speaker 1: ruined the entire show for you because of it, you
Speaker 1: gotta get your priority straight, Okay, Chris Jericho is not
Speaker 1: going to make or break a show in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: If we learned anything last year. I think we learned that.
Speaker 1: But put him on the side here for a second.
Speaker 1: If people are big mad about that, you know you
Speaker 1: should be big mad about you should be big mad
Speaker 1: about how fucking boring this show was. This was the
Speaker 1: big Raw that they have been hyping up now for weeks,
Speaker 1: the big January fifth episode of Raw, the Big World
Speaker 1: Heavyweight Championship main event, and they have this title match
Speaker 1: and that title match. Remember a year ago, the first
Speaker 1: show on Netflix, how much they hide that show up
Speaker 1: and what a dud that mostly turned out to be
Speaker 1: at the Rock on the show that night, I wasn't
Speaker 1: even the Rock. It was Dwayne. He was putting over Cody.
Speaker 1: The last time we saw The Rock he was feuding
Speaker 1: with Cody. Now he's putting over Cody like a fucking
Speaker 1: board member and all this other stuff. Hogan being booed.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's one of the memorable Raw moments from
Speaker 1: last year. And see I'm Punk was in the main
Speaker 1: event of that show as well. It was him against
Speaker 1: seth Rawlins. Well, when you really you know, hype up
Speaker 1: a big show like that, it could be hard. You
Speaker 1: set expectations very high, it could be hard to meet
Speaker 1: those expectations. My issue with the show tonight, more than
Speaker 1: anything else, even more than any like one particular match,
Speaker 1: is how lifeless this show fell, and tonight it really
Speaker 1: hit me. And there are weeks where, more than others,
Speaker 1: it will really hit me sitting here watching this show.
Speaker 1: How many commercial breaks they take at the beginning of
Speaker 1: a match, or during the course of a match, or
Speaker 1: in between the matches where it just feels like, man,
Speaker 1: didn't we just have one and then they come back
Speaker 1: and then nothing really happens before they go into the
Speaker 1: next one. Tonight was one of those nights. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that happened on the show, but
Speaker 1: yet it felt like there wasn't a whole hell of
Speaker 1: a lot that really happened on this show outside of
Speaker 1: the championship matches that we got. We got some in
Speaker 1: ring segments, we got some promo segments. For the most part,
Speaker 1: it was all very boring and all very blah. It
Speaker 1: was all very meh. Now, we had in the main
Speaker 1: event tonight, a World Heavyweight Championship match between CM Punk
Speaker 1: and bron Breaker, and also, by the way, I should
Speaker 1: mention anybody who's going to put the blame on the
Speaker 1: crowd for this show, in defense of this crowd here
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, they didn't exactly have a whole hell of
Speaker 1: a lot to get loud for. Believe me, the fans
Speaker 1: in New York generally are plenty loud when you give
Speaker 1: them a reason to be, and wwe really didn't give
Speaker 1: them a reason to be tonight. But in the main event,
Speaker 1: we had CM punkin bron Breaker for the World Heavyweight Championship.
Speaker 1: Bron Breaker. You know, when Seth Rollins went down with
Speaker 1: his injury and they had to come up with a
Speaker 1: new match for Saturday Nights Man event back at the
Speaker 1: beginning of November. I know some people were hoping cmpunk
Speaker 1: in La Nights, but obviously that was not going to happen,
Speaker 1: but I was hoping. I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: bron Breaker, CM punk strap up bron Breaker. This is
Speaker 1: when I was naive enough to believe, given the angle
Speaker 1: they did, that they were going to push bron Breaker
Speaker 1: in a different kind of way, and then they really
Speaker 1: ended up going a totally different direction with it, where
Speaker 1: he was just another guy in the vision which is
Speaker 1: not how I would have done it, but okay, but
Speaker 1: I was like, man, you know what, you got to
Speaker 1: shake things up a little bit here. I would have
Speaker 1: put the fucking belt on him at the beginning of November,
Speaker 1: but they waited, and so we got here to the
Speaker 1: beginning of January, and it's like, what are they going
Speaker 1: to do? What are they going to do? Last week
Speaker 1: it really hit me they're not probably not putting the
Speaker 1: belt on him. It felt to me watching this show
Speaker 1: last week, We're probably not going to get a World
Speaker 1: heavyweight championship change here on this show. So I can't
Speaker 1: say that I was surprised or stunned that they, you know,
Speaker 1: didn't change the title here in the main event tonight.
Speaker 1: If anything, I was surprised by how clean it was.
Speaker 1: CM Punk not only retained the World Heavyweight Championship here
Speaker 1: on this show, but he did so clean in the
Speaker 1: middle of the ring. And it's like, well, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, it's nice to get a clean finish in
Speaker 1: a main event and not get fucked out of an
Speaker 1: actual winner. Look, that's good, but it was certainly a
Speaker 1: choice to put CM Punk over clean over bron Breaker
Speaker 1: in a match like this. What it does, though, I
Speaker 1: think is it puts Breaker in position to be one
Speaker 1: of the favorites to win the Royal Rumble match. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't say for sure that I have
Speaker 1: the utmost confidence that that's what's going to happen here,
Speaker 1: but that would certainly be one way for him to
Speaker 1: bounce back from this loss. If in losing it just
Speaker 1: sort of he snaps in a way and ends up
Speaker 1: going on to win the Royal Rumble to earn himself
Speaker 1: another championship match of wrestle media, that would certainly be
Speaker 1: one way to sort of remedy what we saw here tonight.
Speaker 1: He certainly is one of the favorites now. I don't
Speaker 1: think the loss is as damaging as some people are
Speaker 1: making it or probably will make it out to be. No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't bury him, It doesn't put him in the
Speaker 1: back of the line. It didn't make him look awful.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, yes, you have Cmpunk, forty eight year
Speaker 1: old Cmpunk, who's out there huffing and puffing, And you
Speaker 1: have bron Breaker, who's this young stallion right who can
Speaker 1: run the ropes at twenty three miles an hour and
Speaker 1: he's killing people with spears, and you know, Cmpunk beats
Speaker 1: them clean in the middle of the ring. How could
Speaker 1: they do such a thing? I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: But if you look at what they did in the
Speaker 1: match tonight, the first half of the match, basically it
Speaker 1: was actually pretty fucking dull. It was all bron Breaker.
Speaker 1: You know, he was dominating this guy at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the match. He was having his way with him,
Speaker 1: you know, going after the ribs and breaking him down
Speaker 1: piece by piece. And then in the second half of
Speaker 1: the match is really where things turned around, and bron
Speaker 1: Breaker almost died. During the main event. You know, we
Speaker 1: were all talking about the spot from World's End, right
Speaker 1: when Kyle Fletcher landed on his fucking head. Bron Breaker
Speaker 1: landed on his fucking head tonight. But he didn't mean to.
Speaker 1: I promise you that was not his intent, But that's
Speaker 1: what happened. He went for one of his Brekensteiners, as
Speaker 1: he calls it, and legitimately landed right on top of
Speaker 1: his head. And he's lucky that he trains his neck
Speaker 1: and that he didn't break it and was able to
Speaker 1: continue wrestling after that. He survived, but he lost. He
Speaker 1: went on to lose the match in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ring clean one two three. The key now coming
Speaker 1: out of this is to make sure that whatever plans
Speaker 1: they have for Raw next week or the week after that,
Speaker 1: he has to bounce back from this in a big way.
Speaker 1: That is going to be the key coming out of
Speaker 1: what we saw here tonight. There has to be consequences
Speaker 1: for what we saw. It cannot be a situation where
Speaker 1: he merely shows up on television next week week and
Speaker 1: falls in line and the Vision now just has to
Speaker 1: regroup as a team and figure out what's next. Bron
Speaker 1: Breakers should show up on Raw next week looking to
Speaker 1: rip people's heads off their bodies. He should be going
Speaker 1: around will He should want to go on to find
Speaker 1: Adam Pearce and rip his head off his body and
Speaker 1: shit down his neck. Okay, that's what bron Breakers should
Speaker 1: want to do. They need a whole army of security
Speaker 1: geeks next week to hold this guy back from killing Cmpunk.
Speaker 1: He should be incensed that maybe he was over confident
Speaker 1: and maybe he beat himself more than anything else. However
Speaker 1: they want to explain it, but there have to be
Speaker 1: consequences for There has to be some sort of fallout
Speaker 1: where we know that bron Breaker is on the warpath
Speaker 1: coming out of this. This cannot just be treated as
Speaker 1: another loss here because this match, this main event went
Speaker 1: almost thirty minutes tonight, and again the first half was
Speaker 1: pretty dull. It did pick up there in the final
Speaker 1: few minutes. There was a spot near the end of
Speaker 1: that main event tonight which was actually very spectacular. It
Speaker 1: reminded me of Logan Paul because we've seen Logan Paul
Speaker 1: do this and Big pl matches a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: times where he'll come flying off the top rope with
Speaker 1: like a diving splash through the announced desk. You know,
Speaker 1: he'll clear that distance and it's very impressive when he
Speaker 1: does it, and then usually they're laid out there for
Speaker 1: you know, a few minutes. But there was a similar
Speaker 1: spot here at the near the end of the main
Speaker 1: event where Punk was out there and bron Breaker went.
Speaker 1: He came flying off the top rod with a diving
Speaker 1: elbow and he cleared that distance and he put Punk
Speaker 1: through the table. They both go crashing through is this
Speaker 1: big spectacular bump, and they replayed it two or three
Speaker 1: times and he very quickly got Punk back in the ring.
Speaker 1: Now Punk again, he's out there and he's you know,
Speaker 1: a Punk's older. He's not moving around quite as fast
Speaker 1: as he used to. Part of it was selling also,
Speaker 1: he was selling the ribs. He immediately puts him back
Speaker 1: into the ring, and you would think, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's got to be it, right, I mean, that's got
Speaker 1: to be the beginning of the end. Right there actually
Speaker 1: led to the beginning of the end for bron Breaker.
Speaker 1: Punk came right back and beat him like nothing even happened.
Speaker 1: That was the other thing that blew my mind. How
Speaker 1: are you gonna do a spot like that and that
Speaker 1: doesn't play into the finish and Breaker's favor I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like they spent minutes outside selling it like,
Speaker 1: they went right back in the ring and Punk just
Speaker 1: beat him. Why even do a spot like that? Why
Speaker 1: even do a spot like that just to have bron
Speaker 1: Breaker put him back in the ring and then Punk
Speaker 1: beats him one two three? That I didn't understand. And
Speaker 1: there were some rough moments in the match, Like I said,
Speaker 1: when Breaker landed on his head, Punk even fell out
Speaker 1: of the ring. At one point he came flying out
Speaker 1: of the ring. He went splat right on the floor.
Speaker 1: That was kind of scary, but by the time the
Speaker 1: match was over, I thought that they ended up having
Speaker 1: a good match. It was not some great blowaway main
Speaker 1: event or anything like that, but they kind of redeemed
Speaker 1: it a little bit there at the end. It was
Speaker 1: not without its flaws. But see, I'm punk is still
Speaker 1: the World Heavyweight Champion, and even though that title did
Speaker 1: not change hands here on this show, we actually did
Speaker 1: have two title changes. We have new women's tag team
Speaker 1: champions and that was a good match to open the show.
Speaker 1: That was good, not great, but good. The Women's Intercontinental
Speaker 1: title changed hands tonight. That was not good. That was
Speaker 1: not a good match. The less said about that the better.
Speaker 1: But Becky Lynch is once again the Women's Intercontinental Champion.
Speaker 1: Just because we had a couple of title changes and
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of title matches on the show does
Speaker 1: not make this a good show. Like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: cut these excuses off before people start making excuses here.
Speaker 1: It's nice to have championship matches on the show. I
Speaker 1: wish they would do it a little more often. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be every week, but that in and
Speaker 1: of itself does not make this a must see memorable show. Again,
Speaker 1: the Women's ic match was very forgettable, certainly not even
Speaker 1: the best outing those two have had. Beyond that, though,
Speaker 1: we had Gunther That Gunther has been running around for weeks,
Speaker 1: ever since he tapped out John Cena, and he's been
Speaker 1: repeating the same line over and over again, because in WWE,
Speaker 1: that's what you do. You have your catchphrase, you have
Speaker 1: your slow can you go out there like a fucking robot,
Speaker 1: and every single week you have to repeat it. Never
Speaker 1: It's a new city every week, right. I I topped
Speaker 1: out John Sino loco bitch, right and he's laughing. We're
Speaker 1: at a point now a few weeks in where this
Speaker 1: all feels very forced, to be honest with you, But
Speaker 1: now that AJ Styles has lost the tag team titles,
Speaker 1: it has freed him off as I was hoping it would,
Speaker 1: to do more meaningful stuff in a singles role. And
Speaker 1: they've been teasing out this potential AJ Styles gun Through
Speaker 1: match for a few weeks, so it's not like this
Speaker 1: came out of nowhere. The surprising part is that they're
Speaker 1: doing the match next week. They're doing the I'm sure
Speaker 1: first match between the two of them on Raw next week,
Speaker 1: which is going to be in Germany, which means the
Speaker 1: show is airing at two o'clock in the afternoon next Monday,
Speaker 1: and that is when they are doing the first AJ
Speaker 1: Styles and Gunther match. So the best thing the thing
Speaker 1: I can say about that, I'm looking forward to the match.
Speaker 1: Shock they're doing it next week, but it's in Germany,
Speaker 1: so I think the crowd, with that crowd, it has
Speaker 1: the potential to be fun. I'm just happy that they're
Speaker 1: going to have Gunther doing something other than what he's
Speaker 1: been doing over the last few weeks because and I
Speaker 1: talked about this last week. He beat John Cena on
Speaker 1: December thirteenth, Okay, and now it's January fifth, and what
Speaker 1: is Gunther really done since he's beaten John Cena? Not
Speaker 1: a whole lot. We were heading into the holidays, there
Speaker 1: were some tape shows the new year. Okay, now it's
Speaker 1: the first row of the new year, and we got
Speaker 1: a confrontation with him and AJ Styles tonight. They need
Speaker 1: to make sure that whatever Gunther still has, and he
Speaker 1: does not have this nuclear heat that some people thought
Speaker 1: he would, right. I always had to tap out John Cena.
Speaker 1: I'm my god, it's going to be nuclear heat. It's
Speaker 1: not nuclear heat. He's got heat though, and to make
Speaker 1: sure that they don't squander whatever he's got left. This
Speaker 1: is something that was needed. If that means doing him
Speaker 1: in AJ next week one on one to kick things
Speaker 1: off between them of what will hopefully be an extended
Speaker 1: program that may lead into WrestleMania, so be it. It beats
Speaker 1: the hell out of what they've had this man doing
Speaker 1: over the last few weeks. Then he had that throwaway
Speaker 1: match with our Truth that nobody cared about. We have
Speaker 1: to get him going here and if that means putting
Speaker 1: him in the ring with AJ styles and kicking off whatever,
Speaker 1: this story is going to be great. But again, I
Speaker 1: just wasn't expecting the first match to be on TV
Speaker 1: at two o'clock in the afternoon next week, But that's
Speaker 1: what they're doing on Raw next week. And oh, by
Speaker 1: the way, I forgot to mention this as well, Javon Evans,
Speaker 1: And you guys know, I'm a big fan of Javon Evans.
Speaker 1: I am all in favor of him being called up.
Speaker 1: Javon Evans is officially now a member of the Monday
Speaker 1: Night Raw roster. But if you were watching this show
Speaker 1: on Netflix here in the United States without a VPN,
Speaker 1: you would never know because the segment that they did
Speaker 1: to announce that Javon Evans is officially on Monday Night
Speaker 1: Raw air during a commercial break. Think of all the
Speaker 1: shit that we actually had on the show tonight, this
Speaker 1: they couldn't find time for. This was during a commercial
Speaker 1: break where he signed the contract to become an official.
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't even think coming out of
Speaker 1: the commercial they even like showed a replay of it.
Speaker 1: I don't even know that the announcers mentioned it. Come
Speaker 1: to think of it, this is such a big deal.
Speaker 1: You would think so, but evidently not. But yes, Javon
Speaker 1: Evans is now officially on Monday Night Raw. This was
Speaker 1: not a good show. This was not a good show.
Speaker 1: At least they got rid of try Travis Scott. The
Speaker 1: Travis Scott song that has been playing on Raw for
Speaker 1: the past year is no more. They have gotten rid
Speaker 1: of Travis Scott. They have replaced him with an eminem song.
Speaker 1: They have now completely divorced themselves from Travis Scott. I
Speaker 1: don't believe they have any affiliation left whatsoever with Travis Scott. However,
Speaker 1: Travis Scott is now and forever immortalized in WWE history.
Speaker 1: By being part of the John Cena heel turn and
Speaker 1: by influencing the outcome arguably being a part of the
Speaker 1: outcome of the wrestle Mania main event where John Cena
Speaker 1: set the record with seventeen world championships. Those two moments
Speaker 1: in wrestling history will always have Travis Scott as a
Speaker 1: part of them. Yeah, let's talk about this show, shall we.
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to, but that's why you're here.
Speaker 1: This is your Raw on Netflix, your Stranger Things ron
Speaker 1: Netflix review. Here. It is Monday night, January fifth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six. We're gonna unwrap all of this, the good,
Speaker 1: the bad, and the fucking ugly. We'll talk about it all.
Speaker 1: Do me a favor, like and subscribe. We are getting
Speaker 1: very close to ninety thousand subscribers, and you may be
Speaker 1: the lucky one. I don't know. We'll see. Won't be tonight,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna get us that much closer. Super chats
Speaker 1: are open as well. I'll be reading your messages a
Speaker 1: little bit later on here in the stream. And we
Speaker 1: had a fun show this weekend on the SoundOff in
Speaker 1: case you missed it, including my predictions for the wrestling
Speaker 1: world here in twenty twenty six. I did leave off
Speaker 1: one prediction. I'm kind of kicking myself now. I should
Speaker 1: have predicted how fucking boring this show was going to
Speaker 1: be tonight, but it didn't pop up there in my
Speaker 1: crystal ball. But anyway, my predictions are up there and
Speaker 1: all the news of the week. That is, for episode
Speaker 1: nine to forty five of the SoundOff My Goodness. So
Speaker 1: Michael calling Corey Graves opened the show. They came out
Speaker 1: of a van down by the river. No, they came
Speaker 1: out of a van, so basically again the Stranger Things
Speaker 1: tie in. They had all of this apparatus and paraphernalia,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it. The staging was Stranger
Speaker 1: themes or Stranger Things themed, and it included the van
Speaker 1: if you watch the show, the radio station van, and
Speaker 1: it was parked on stage. And so they came out
Speaker 1: of the van and I love how Corey Graves he
Speaker 1: was wearing a hell Fire Club T shirt, so if
Speaker 1: you watch the show, you know the reference there. So
Speaker 1: the graphics all throughout the night were all Stranger themes
Speaker 1: or striking there I go again, Stranger Things theme, say
Speaker 1: that five times fast and the set and they played
Speaker 1: the Stranger Things theme song, which was cool because it's
Speaker 1: a great fucking song. They also had vines and the
Speaker 1: vines from Stranger Things and they were draped over the
Speaker 1: barricades around the ringside area. You know, they really and
Speaker 1: I'm sure Netflix had a lot to do with this
Speaker 1: as well, but they really put actual effort. I think
Speaker 1: they put more effort into the set tonight than they
Speaker 1: did the actual fucking show. They put a lot of
Speaker 1: effort into the staging and the vines and the set
Speaker 1: and the graphics and everything, and they really made it
Speaker 1: feel special in that regard, and it's the sort of
Speaker 1: thing that I wish, Like I'm looking at the stage
Speaker 1: and everything, and I'm like, why can't they do that
Speaker 1: for their ples, Like outside of WrestleMania, every other ple
Speaker 1: e looks exactly the same. We need to have some
Speaker 1: effort put in, a little more effort put in I
Speaker 1: think creativity, you know, when it comes to the sets
Speaker 1: for some of their own like major events, I think
Speaker 1: that would be nice. But anyway, they did a good
Speaker 1: job with that tonight if lately so they opened with
Speaker 1: the first of three championship matches here on this show
Speaker 1: for the women's tag team titles. It was Rio, Ripley
Speaker 1: and EO Sky teaming up to take on Oscar and
Speaker 1: Kyrie sing the Kabuki Warriors. Yes, all the offfman he
Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head, All the effort went
Speaker 1: into the decorations tonight. Imagine if they put as much
Speaker 1: effort into the booking of this show tonight and some
Speaker 1: of the stories as they did the set, this would
Speaker 1: have been an incredible show. The actors from Stranger Things
Speaker 1: could beat the vision oh Man. So for all of
Speaker 1: the Stranger Things stuff that they took the time for
Speaker 1: here at the beginning of this show, they went to
Speaker 1: and this is my point, they went to a commercial
Speaker 1: break thirty seconds into this match. This would be a
Speaker 1: recurring theme throughout the entire show. Corey Graves I got
Speaker 1: to give Corey Graves a shout out. He mentioned Hiroshi
Speaker 1: tana Hashi. We got a Hiroshi tana Hashi retirement mentioned
Speaker 1: on commentary tonight. When Eosky dropped Osca with a sling blade,
Speaker 1: that was nice. Ripley dropped Kyrie with a razor's edge.
Speaker 1: It never ceases to amaze me when she hits this
Speaker 1: woman with this move. She just folds her up with it.
Speaker 1: Every single time. It looks like she is murdering her
Speaker 1: every time she hits this razor's edge, and then it
Speaker 1: kills me that it's not the finish, but she hit
Speaker 1: a razor's edge and follow that up, EO did with
Speaker 1: a missile drop kick for a near fall. So a
Speaker 1: little while later, Ria hit Kyrie with a riptide EO
Speaker 1: went up for her Moonsalt. Oscar Shovedria into EO, which
Speaker 1: knocked her off the ropes. Oscar then hit Ria with
Speaker 1: a code breaker for a near fall. Intent hit her
Speaker 1: with the codebreaker for a near fall. So for the finish,
Speaker 1: Ripley put Osca down with a I mentioned that already,
Speaker 1: actually no, there was another one. Ripley put Oscar down
Speaker 1: with a riptide EO then followed with her over the
Speaker 1: moon salt and then she says, hey, Kyrie's out there,
Speaker 1: so she goes flying through the ropes with a suicide
Speaker 1: dive and takes out Kyrie on the floor. Ria has
Speaker 1: Oska covered one, two, three, and just like that we
Speaker 1: have new women's tag team champions. So there was reason
Speaker 1: to be optimistic here, right. We opened the show with
Speaker 1: what I thought was a good match and a title change.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, all right, that's one way to kick
Speaker 1: off the show, right, there's a reason to be hopeful here,
Speaker 1: and we got the crowd pleasing finish here. So we
Speaker 1: know that Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss they on Friday.
Speaker 1: In fact, they put Ria and Eo unnotice that if
Speaker 1: you win those titles, we got next. But of course
Speaker 1: you've got Naya Jackson Lash Legend, who all already pinned
Speaker 1: the Kabuki Warriors, and so they have laid their claim
Speaker 1: to the women's tag team titles as well them winning
Speaker 1: the titles. Then, I by the way, Ria and EO
Speaker 1: this opens them up now to be used on NXT,
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if that's something they want to do.
Speaker 1: I'm sure Sean Michaels would love to have them on NXT,
Speaker 1: but you know it is try branded these titles, so
Speaker 1: we could conceivably get Ria in EO one week defending
Speaker 1: those titles, maybe against sol Ruga and Zaria or you know,
Speaker 1: some other team from NXT. What I hate is how
Speaker 1: they jobbed out Oscar and Kyrie to ny In Lash
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. I mean, they just got beat
Speaker 1: clean in a non title match on SmackDown all to
Speaker 1: build to this match here on this show where they
Speaker 1: go in there and they get beat again. So they
Speaker 1: lost to Ny and Lash. Now they lost to Ria Ineo,
Speaker 1: and it's like, where do you go next with these two?
Speaker 1: I was hoping that we were gonna be building to
Speaker 1: a singles match between EO and Oscar, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like that's the direction they're going in at all.
Speaker 1: In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Oscar blames Kyrie
Speaker 1: for the loss, even though Oscar is the one who
Speaker 1: ate the pin. She may end up blaming Kyrie for
Speaker 1: the loss. But it'll be interesting to see how long
Speaker 1: they hold these titles for. Are they really going to
Speaker 1: keep the tag team titles on Rea Ripley an Eo
Speaker 1: Sky through WrestleMania or is this something that's just going
Speaker 1: to be for, you know, maybe a month or so
Speaker 1: and then they drop them and then they move on
Speaker 1: to whatever their media plans are going to be. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, if they want to look, if
Speaker 1: they want to give somebody else a chance to wrestle
Speaker 1: for the Women's World Championship, not name Ria Ripley, I mean,
Speaker 1: I would love it if it was Eo Sky again,
Speaker 1: but they want to give somebody else a chance. I
Speaker 1: can't hate on that, right, It's not a bad thing
Speaker 1: to get some new faces in the mix when it
Speaker 1: comes to the world title. But they better have something
Speaker 1: damn good planned. If you got Ria and Eo who
Speaker 1: are being relegated to tag team duty, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that means some kind of big women's tag team
Speaker 1: ladder Matt, I don't know. I don't know what that
Speaker 1: looks like. But it all depends on how long they
Speaker 1: hold the titles for. If it's going to be a
Speaker 1: long term thing or just a short term thing. I
Speaker 1: don't know now. In the back, Adam Pierce met up
Speaker 1: with Rhea and Eo and he congratulated them and he
Speaker 1: told them how proud he was of them. And they
Speaker 1: also had a Dema Gorgon that was right behind Adam
Speaker 1: Pierce and he looked at it. He was very confused
Speaker 1: by this. He goes, what the hell is this? So
Speaker 1: then he saw a Gunther who is very much not
Speaker 1: a Dema Gorgan, and he went over to him and
Speaker 1: he told him, you go out there and you speak
Speaker 1: from the heart, say what's on your mind, but mix
Speaker 1: in a little respect when you speak. So Gunther laughed
Speaker 1: him off. He started making his way towards the ring,
Speaker 1: and as soon as he got there, they went to
Speaker 1: a commercial break. Now the very next thing that we
Speaker 1: saw when they came back. If you watch Stranger Things
Speaker 1: the beginning of each episode, they have these chapter titles
Speaker 1: that then zoom in right, chapter two, chapter five. They
Speaker 1: were doing that for the various segments throughout the night.
Speaker 1: So again they put a lot of thought into how
Speaker 1: they were going to really, you know, structure this show
Speaker 1: when it came to the Stranger Thing stuff, which was
Speaker 1: kind of cool. So they had one here that said
Speaker 1: chapter two, he who remains, and that led into the
Speaker 1: Gunther segment. Here he said management told him to show respect,
Speaker 1: but what about respect for the man who made Johnson
Speaker 1: to tap out like a little And then he was
Speaker 1: interrupted by Aj Styles. He power walked to the ring.
Speaker 1: He did not look very happy. He told Aj, if
Speaker 1: you're here to talk to me about respect, you're punching
Speaker 1: above your weight. AJ went to go speak, and he
Speaker 1: cut him off and told him that AJ knows he's
Speaker 1: the greatest wrestler in this company right now and that
Speaker 1: includes you. So Styles again went to speak, and again
Speaker 1: Guntherer interrupted and reminded him that he's the man who
Speaker 1: tapped out Sina like a little you know what, he said.
Speaker 1: AJ went to speak, and Guntherer interrupted again to tell
Speaker 1: him like a little bitch, and again this all just
Speaker 1: feels very forced now, it's all just to sell a
Speaker 1: T shirt. In fact, I think he showed off the
Speaker 1: shirt again. Everything with them is just it's it's merchandising,
Speaker 1: that's all it is. It doesn't matter if if stuff
Speaker 1: comes off on TV sometimes is cringe or whatever. It's
Speaker 1: all about selling shirts, selling shit. That's all that I mean. Again,
Speaker 1: I've said it before. I mean they would tattoo their
Speaker 1: logo on their mother's ass if they knew that they
Speaker 1: could make money off of it. So he asked a
Speaker 1: little AJ what he's going to do about it, and
Speaker 1: AJ smacked the shit out of him, and Gunther was
Speaker 1: hot about it. They went forehead to forehead. AJ was
Speaker 1: not backing down, though, and he asked Gunther, what are
Speaker 1: you going to do about it? And guntherher didn't say anything,
Speaker 1: and AJ's like, that's what I thought, and he threw
Speaker 1: the microphone down and he backed out of the ring
Speaker 1: and that's it, and Gunther was just standing there stewing.
Speaker 1: So then in the back later on, Gunther went to
Speaker 1: Adam Pierce to complain about aj when Style showed up,
Speaker 1: and he called him a little bitch for going to
Speaker 1: the boss to complain. So guntherer told Pierce he want
Speaker 1: Styles next week, and Adam Pierce made it official that
Speaker 1: we were going to get our first match between the
Speaker 1: two of them on RAW next week. They're giving the
Speaker 1: first match away again RAW two o'clock in the afternoon
Speaker 1: from Dusseldorf, I said, Dusseldorf in Germany. They got this
Speaker 1: whole international tour. It's gonna be a lot of early
Speaker 1: shows over these next few weeks, which is good because
Speaker 1: that means there's going to be some early streams too.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that two o'clock. We're all
Speaker 1: going to be at two o'clock next week, probably looking
Speaker 1: at an eight pm stream. I can live with that.
Speaker 1: But look the fact that they're doing this match on
Speaker 1: TV next week. I'm not going to complain about it
Speaker 1: because it's better than what they have had Gunther doing.
Speaker 1: It's better than him just coming out and repeating the
Speaker 1: same promo over and over. And over again, week after week,
Speaker 1: or Wrestling Otis or Wrestling Our Truth. He's going to
Speaker 1: be in there with a credible opponent, somebody the fans
Speaker 1: care about, somebody the fans are invested in, and somebody
Speaker 1: who can give him a really good match. But it
Speaker 1: is only going to be the first match. I see this.
Speaker 1: Here's what I'm hoping for. I see this as the
Speaker 1: first of a multi match series, maybe three, that they
Speaker 1: can stretch out. They could stretch this out until WrestleMania.
Speaker 1: There is a way to do that. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's their plan or not. You got two more
Speaker 1: pls before we even get to WrestleMania, and at least
Speaker 1: one Saturday Knights main event. Actually the week before the Rumble,
Speaker 1: they're doing Saturday Nights made event. We know Gunther is
Speaker 1: not losing next week. Gunther just beat John Cena. He
Speaker 1: just tast John Cena. Gunther should not be losing for
Speaker 1: a very long time, right, at least many months, So
Speaker 1: we know he's not losing next week, which means we're
Speaker 1: either not getting a finish or gun Thro is just
Speaker 1: going to beat aj Styles, right, That's it. That's it.
Speaker 1: They don't do time limits in WWE. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those two, right, no finish or Gunther wins. It's
Speaker 1: it's very simple. If AJ is finishing up a wrestlemanium,
Speaker 1: and he has not clarified exactly how deep into twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six he is going to wrestle other than this
Speaker 1: is going to be his last year. But he never
Speaker 1: said that he's going to go the whole year like
Speaker 1: John Cena did. If AJ is going to finish up
Speaker 1: a wrestlemanium, this is what I said before. I think
Speaker 1: the play is AJ putting his career on the line.
Speaker 1: You don't tell people that this is his final match.
Speaker 1: You don't do that. You don't deal with him what
Speaker 1: you did with John Cena. And I think AJ, let's
Speaker 1: say he loses next week, and let's say there's a
Speaker 1: second match that he loses. In AJ, he gets desperate,
Speaker 1: almost almost like Undertaker and Sean Michaels when they headed
Speaker 1: into WrestleMania's twenty six and Sean had his retirement match.
Speaker 1: It was a situation where he was desperate to beat
Speaker 1: the Undertaker of WrestleMania. He came so close the year
Speaker 1: before and they won a Slammy Award, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: enough for him. It was just eating away at him.
Speaker 1: I know I can beat you. I know I can
Speaker 1: break the streak. I know I can do it. And
Speaker 1: he was willing to put his career on the line.
Speaker 1: He was so confident nothing else mattered. You tell a
Speaker 1: similar story with AJ and Gunther. If AJ is wrapping
Speaker 1: up in Vegas, that's how this should be played out.
Speaker 1: Whether it's AJ voluntarily saying, look, I'm gonna put my
Speaker 1: career on the line, or Gunther maybe forces him or
Speaker 1: coerces him into doing so, maybe both of them do.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a loser leaves WWE stipulation at WrestleMania. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe that makes it a little more predictable as far
Speaker 1: is what the outcome is going to be for some
Speaker 1: people who know that AJ is wrapping up. But you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm WWE, I'm shutting up. I'm not harping on
Speaker 1: the fact that AJ has said that he is retiring
Speaker 1: this year. They've already acknowledged it on TV. I don't
Speaker 1: dwell on it. I almost want to make people forget
Speaker 1: about it. And then if you do that match and
Speaker 1: you have that stipulation, especially if both of their careers
Speaker 1: are on the line. Imagine the drama now right in
Speaker 1: every near fall in that match. I think that's the
Speaker 1: way you play it, and then obviously in the end
Speaker 1: Gunther wins. But there's a way to do it that
Speaker 1: I think works a lot better than just if you
Speaker 1: go into it and everybody already knows how it's going
Speaker 1: to end, because then all you end up with is
Speaker 1: a situation like what we had with John Cena and
Speaker 1: Bill Goldberg, where we already knew going into those matches
Speaker 1: that they were retiring. Gunther didn't really technically retire anyone.
Speaker 1: They retired themselves. You want to put heat on the guy,
Speaker 1: he should be the one to do it. That's why
Speaker 1: it was so goofy when he was showing up on
Speaker 1: TV and everybody was so mad at him. Oh what
Speaker 1: an evil man you are for fucking doing your job. Like,
Speaker 1: when you really stop to think about it, it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. Yes, he was being disrespectful, but so
Speaker 1: what I mean they were looking at him like you
Speaker 1: put a bullet in the man's head. So if they're
Speaker 1: gonna if they're gonna stretch this out until Mania, I
Speaker 1: think they could absolutely do it. But that that's more
Speaker 1: along the lines of the kind of story I would
Speaker 1: like to see them tell. Now, after this, we had
Speaker 1: the Women's Intercontinental Championship Becky Lynch challenging Maxine Dupree. They
Speaker 1: got why two J fans in the crowd chanting for
Speaker 1: Y two J. So that tells you what you need
Speaker 1: to know about the beginning of this match. With the
Speaker 1: Y two J chance, Becky, she tried Yankee dupre off
Speaker 1: the apron. At one point, Maxine countered by doing a cartwheel.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I guess because she can,
Speaker 1: so she did a cartwheel. Later on, Maxine fired up.
Speaker 1: She applied an ankle lock. Becky got a rope brak.
Speaker 1: They traded some counters until Becky hit a superplex from
Speaker 1: the middle rope and then into a DDT for a
Speaker 1: two count. Maxine came back with a flying cross body
Speaker 1: of her own. Becky set up for a power bomb
Speaker 1: out of the corner and Maxine slipped out. She applied
Speaker 1: an ankle lock. This did not look good. Becky tried
Speaker 1: flipping out of it. Maxine held on while lying on
Speaker 1: the mat. So Maxine is laying flat on the mat okay,
Speaker 1: and she still has this move applied Becky then leans backwards,
Speaker 1: and as she's leaning backwards, she grabs the bottom rope
Speaker 1: for added leverage while Maxine's shoulders are down, and she
Speaker 1: pins Maxine with the aid of the rope to win
Speaker 1: back the Intercontinental Championship. Because the dumb referee didn't see it.
Speaker 1: All he had to do was look up. He didn't
Speaker 1: look up. He didn't see it, and so Becky wins
Speaker 1: the title back. That makes three title changes. I should
Speaker 1: point out three title changes on this show in two weeks.
Speaker 1: I just pointed out. And I'm not saying that's good
Speaker 1: or bad. I'm just saying, for those who really haven't
Speaker 1: stopped to think about it, we've had three championships change
Speaker 1: hands on this show in the last two episodes. This
Speaker 1: was not good. This was not good. For all of
Speaker 1: the progress that Maxine has made and she has you know,
Speaker 1: baby steps and like personality wise, promo wise, I think
Speaker 1: she's definitely, you know, taken some steps forward, but for
Speaker 1: all of that, she still has a long way to go.
Speaker 1: This was not a good match. I definitely noticed that
Speaker 1: Jessica was not the referee. So Becky happens to win
Speaker 1: this match by cheating, right, She takes the shortcut to
Speaker 1: win the title back, and it just so happens that
Speaker 1: Jessica Carr is not the referee for the match. So
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was done intentionally, and that is definitely
Speaker 1: going to have to play into things here. As far
Speaker 1: as why they did the title change, I mean, my
Speaker 1: thought was, yeah, they're gonna want to get the belt
Speaker 1: back on her, and then aj Lee's gonna come back
Speaker 1: and maybe we get Becky and aj for the title
Speaker 1: of WrestleMania. It could just as well be that Maxine
Speaker 1: just got married and she's going to go away on
Speaker 1: a honeymoon for a while. I mean, how long is
Speaker 1: this honeymoon going to be? But I don't know. There
Speaker 1: could be any number of reasons why they decided to
Speaker 1: do the title change here. If it comes down that,
Speaker 1: you know, Jessica Carr is going to officiate let's say
Speaker 1: another match between them. Who knows, maybe Maxine wins the
Speaker 1: belt back, you know, or maybe that's when aj shows up.
Speaker 1: But we've already done that, right, you can't really do
Speaker 1: that same finish again. So I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is the end of the Maxine as Champion experiment or not.
Speaker 1: She doesn't need a title on her to just allow
Speaker 1: her to go out there and just get better. The
Speaker 1: only way she's gonna get better is again going out
Speaker 1: there and having matches with people that know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: That's why her working with someone like Becky was a
Speaker 1: smart move. But Rome wasn't built in a day, so
Speaker 1: she's still very green, she's still very inexperienced, and I
Speaker 1: never really expected her title reign to be terribly long.
Speaker 1: Maybe this ended a little sooner than I thought, but
Speaker 1: the match itself was just no great shakes. The match
Speaker 1: itself was really nothing to celebrate. Now, after this, we
Speaker 1: got another Obafemi video package. I'm pretty sure it was
Speaker 1: the same one that they aired last week. But the
Speaker 1: Ruler is coming and not a day too soon. But
Speaker 1: he's not coming before. He challenges, not really challenges, defends
Speaker 1: his NXT Championship tomorrow night against Leon's Slack later. So
Speaker 1: he's got a big title match at New Year's Evil
Speaker 1: coming up tomorrow. But he is on the way. He
Speaker 1: is on the way. Then we got a shot, very
Speaker 1: troubling shot backstage of the Women's World Champion Stephanie Vaquier,
Speaker 1: and she was wearing a walking boot and I said,
Speaker 1: oh no, at least it's not a shoulder. At least
Speaker 1: she didn't have the boot on her shoulder. That's good,
Speaker 1: that's a plus. But yeah, that didn't look too good.
Speaker 1: So during the commercial break, this is what I mentioned
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the review. During the commercial break,
Speaker 1: Adam Pierce comes out on stage. He's got a contract binder,
Speaker 1: and with him is Javon Evans, the bounty boy from
Speaker 1: NXT who's been everywhere. He's been on Raw, he's been
Speaker 1: on Smacked, then he's been in NXT, Triple A, TNA.
Speaker 1: This guy's bouncing around all over the place. Where's he
Speaker 1: gonna land? It felt like he was gonna be on
Speaker 1: Raw and that's where he ended up. So Adam Pierce
Speaker 1: makes the announcement that he's officially now on the Monday
Speaker 1: Night Raw roster and he has him signed his contract. Great,
Speaker 1: I'm happy for him. Twenty one years old, he's already
Speaker 1: on the main roster. Good for him. I can't believe
Speaker 1: that they actually just decided to air this during the
Speaker 1: commercial break and not even really make a big deal
Speaker 1: about it, but that's what they did. They aired it
Speaker 1: during the commercial break, and I know he's on the
Speaker 1: main roster now, but even still do it. Don't be cowards,
Speaker 1: do it. Leon Slater is challenging Oba Femi tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: Put the NXT Championship on Leon's I know he's the
Speaker 1: TNAX Division champion. He might not even be signed to WWE.
Speaker 1: I don't give a shit. Put the title on Leon Slater.
Speaker 1: Get Obafemi up to the main roster. And even though
Speaker 1: Javon Evans is on Raw, it doesn't mean that he
Speaker 1: can't challenge that NXT Championship at Stand and Deliver. And
Speaker 1: you give us Javon Evans and Leon Slater, and you
Speaker 1: give us a fucking finish to that match that you
Speaker 1: deprived us of at Bound for Glory. That's the match
Speaker 1: that I want to see at Stand and Deliver. Do it,
Speaker 1: Do it, you cowards. Jimmy and Jay Usa were up next.
Speaker 1: Everyone's favorites here. The Ussos were out. Everyone's yeating in
Speaker 1: the crowd here in Brooklyn. So they come out through
Speaker 1: the crowd and they stop and in the crowd is
Speaker 1: where they stay. They're gonna cut their promo from the crowd.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, this is different, and this was
Speaker 1: very I mean, this was just I don't even know
Speaker 1: how to describe this, other than to say it was
Speaker 1: a promo. They're out there and they shout out aj
Speaker 1: Styles and Dragon Lee, who they beat to win the
Speaker 1: tag team titles last week. But they go that was
Speaker 1: last week. That was last year. Twenty twenty six was
Speaker 1: the year of the ussos, and this was a warning
Speaker 1: shot to every tag team in the game. Standing in
Speaker 1: front of you was the best tag team in the game,
Speaker 1: and they're going to be waiting right here for anyone
Speaker 1: who wanted to run up on them. That was it.
Speaker 1: Then they left. They had time for that, but not
Speaker 1: to announce that Javon Evans had just signed with the
Speaker 1: raw roster. It's very clear why they did this, because
Speaker 1: they wanted to give Brooklyn the Jay Usso entrance so
Speaker 1: that everybody could yeat four letters one word, uh huh.
Speaker 1: So they got their yeat entrance and then they left
Speaker 1: and we didn't hear from them again. At least it
Speaker 1: was short. Jackie Redman was in the ring to introduce
Speaker 1: Stephanie Vakier and I didn't know what to expect here.
Speaker 1: All I know is that this woman is walking down
Speaker 1: to the ring and she has a boot on her foot,
Speaker 1: and that is not a good sign. We've heard about
Speaker 1: a lot of injuries, a lot of shoulder injuries. But
Speaker 1: we've heard about a lot of injuries recently, just on
Speaker 1: this holiday tour. They don't even really do house shows anymore.
Speaker 1: They had some house shows last week, I think, like
Speaker 1: the post Christmas tour. Meechen was supposed to wrestle Jade
Speaker 1: Cargill on SmackDown Friday Night. The reason she didn't is
Speaker 1: because she got hurt on the tour. I don't know
Speaker 1: how seriously, but she got a shoulder injury. So I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I wonder if they're gonna like do the match but
Speaker 1: with b Fab instead, And then they didn't do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because b Fab got hurt on the same tour she
Speaker 1: got concussed. What's going on here? I know it's a
Speaker 1: dangerous business here, but Jesus Christ, what is going on here?
Speaker 1: Apparently she was okay enough though, to do what was
Speaker 1: like a watch party that she was at with Damian
Speaker 1: Priest somewhere. They were showing them on the show tonight.
Speaker 1: They were having like a Raw Slash Stranger Things watch
Speaker 1: party and it was Damian Priest and BFAB were there.
Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, they're both hurt. So now Stephanie is
Speaker 1: out there and she's hurt as well. How serious though,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm waiting to find out, right, So Michael
Speaker 1: Cole tells us that it was for an ankle injury
Speaker 1: that she suffered in her triple threat match for the
Speaker 1: Women's World Championship on the show last week against Nikki
Speaker 1: Bella and Raquel Rodriguez. Could this be a worked injury
Speaker 1: and not real? It's possible. I figure it's a real injury,
Speaker 1: it's just not, you know, that serious. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is a worked injury. I don't know. So
Speaker 1: Jackie asked her what now? That was her first question,
Speaker 1: by the way, her first question was not can you
Speaker 1: tell us more about this giant boot on your leg?
Speaker 1: Her question was, like, you successfully retained your championship on
Speaker 1: the show last week? What next? How about a trip
Speaker 1: to the orthopedic surgeon. Stephanie spoke and she thanked the
Speaker 1: WWE universe for believing in her, and then she spoke
Speaker 1: Spanish for a bit, and then she said, this being
Speaker 1: the boot, she's referring to the boot, this will not
Speaker 1: stop her. She wants everyone and she handed the mic
Speaker 1: back to Jackie, who told the fans give it up
Speaker 1: for the champion. I'm like, okay, shortened to the point,
Speaker 1: I guess not much of a segment. But then Raquel
Speaker 1: Rodriguez ambushes her from behind. She's very upset of losing
Speaker 1: last week. Now, remember she hit the tehanabaum on Nicki
Speaker 1: Bella and then Stephanie threw Raquel out of the ring,
Speaker 1: and that's how Stephanie retained the title, so technically she
Speaker 1: stole the win from Raquel. Raquel feels like she should
Speaker 1: be the women's champion right now. Losses have consequences, See,
Speaker 1: Raquel was upset. Raquel decides, I'm gonna take matters into
Speaker 1: my own hands. This should be bron breaker next week.
Speaker 1: So she attacks Stephanie and she's going after the injured ankle,
Speaker 1: and she's smashing the leg repeatedly, you know, into the canvas,
Speaker 1: and then she delivered a tehanabaum. So Raquel goes outside
Speaker 1: and she retrieves a steel chair. She brings it back
Speaker 1: inside and she's going to pilmanize the ankle. I love,
Speaker 1: by the way, how all these years later it was
Speaker 1: one angle on a taped episode of Superstars in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, and to this day was it thirty years later?
Speaker 1: We still everybody does it right, pilmanized. They're gonna pillmanize
Speaker 1: the leg. We're gonna pilmanize the ankle because no one's
Speaker 1: come up with a better name for it since then,
Speaker 1: other than, you know, place a chair over the ankle
Speaker 1: and stomp on it. It's pilmanized. It's it's what people
Speaker 1: call it. I love it. It just stuck. So she's
Speaker 1: gonna do it. She's gonna stomp on the ankle. And anyway,
Speaker 1: here come Adam Pierce and Shane Helms and Davari and
Speaker 1: all the referees to stop her and then find she leaves.
Speaker 1: But then after a commercial break in the back, we
Speaker 1: see the officials are helping Stephanie and Raquel attacks her
Speaker 1: again and knocks her down to the ground and she's
Speaker 1: going after the boot. Adam Pierce shows up again. He's
Speaker 1: yelling at her and he tells her, I'm going to
Speaker 1: find you. I'm going to find you to a point
Speaker 1: where you've got nothing left if you don't stop. So
Speaker 1: this felt to me like their way of writing her
Speaker 1: off television. Maybe for a few weeks. This did not
Speaker 1: feel to me. It's not going to be an extended layoff,
Speaker 1: I don't think, because I'm sure they would have just
Speaker 1: had her go ahead and just relinquish the title tonight
Speaker 1: if it was anything that she needed surgery for, if
Speaker 1: anything was broken. So I think it's encouraging that they
Speaker 1: didn't announce anything and that they allowed her to get
Speaker 1: as physical as they did. Believe me, if it was
Speaker 1: a serious injury, she would not have been cleared to do,
Speaker 1: you know, take a fucking tehanabaum and you know, all
Speaker 1: of that kind of stuff. So if we assume the
Speaker 1: injury is legit, it doesn't seem to be that serious. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe she's back in time for you know, the Royal rumble.
Speaker 1: It's not the end of the world. But remember they
Speaker 1: already have Dom out possibly until the rumble. His injury
Speaker 1: ended up not being too serious either, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: enough that he's not going to be back for a
Speaker 1: few more weeks. And he's also a champion. You know,
Speaker 1: she's the women's world champion, he's the intercontinental champion. So
Speaker 1: he's another one who's going to be out with an
Speaker 1: injury for a few weeks. The injury bug has just
Speaker 1: bitten a lot of people lately, and there's no good
Speaker 1: time for it to happen. But this time of year
Speaker 1: they can ill afford for anyone else to go down,
Speaker 1: and there's not a whole lot they can do about
Speaker 1: it other than just hope and pray. But yeah, this
Speaker 1: is not the time of year you want to be
Speaker 1: hearing about injuries. So backstage, Raymisterio was sitting with Dragonly
Speaker 1: and he gave Dragonly some words of encouragement and said
Speaker 1: that he would be the champion again. Dragonly appreciated the
Speaker 1: advice and he left to go talk to aj Styles.
Speaker 1: So then Penta showed up. He made his return on
Speaker 1: the show last week. Penta talked to Ray here for
Speaker 1: a little bit and he told him that he was
Speaker 1: happy to come back early to help him against the Vision.
Speaker 1: Ray thanked him for having his back, and he said
Speaker 1: Penta understood the tradition and the honor and the respect
Speaker 1: of Lucha libra, everything the Vision wanted to destroy. And
Speaker 1: Penta told Ray that he would always be here for him.
Speaker 1: What must the other Ray be thinking right now? You
Speaker 1: know there is there is somebody else on SmackDown. By
Speaker 1: the way, who's not doing a whole lot of Actually,
Speaker 1: he's going to be doing a job for Trick Williams
Speaker 1: this Friday. That's what he's going to be doing. Wouldn't
Speaker 1: it just make sense to I hope be building to
Speaker 1: a Luca Brothers reunion. I have proposed and usso's Lucha
Speaker 1: Brothers tag team title match for WrestleMania. I would love
Speaker 1: to see them build to that. Not that Raymisterio and
Speaker 1: Penta hanging out together isn't cool, but I'm just saying
Speaker 1: Penta is gonna be okay. Ray Phoenix is the one
Speaker 1: one who was just fucking dying on the vine on
Speaker 1: SmackDown right now. I'm sure in his mind he can't
Speaker 1: wait for a Lucha Brothers reunion. We got to Live
Speaker 1: Morgan with Raquel or not Raquel, rox San Perez her
Speaker 1: other friend Roxane Perez in her corner against Lyra Valkyria,
Speaker 1: who had Bailey in hers. This was Lib's first match
Speaker 1: in seven months since she got hurt, and we were
Speaker 1: told this is Lyra's first match ever in New York City,
Speaker 1: which I did not realize. So this went through a
Speaker 1: break and the crowd was very quiet until this crazy
Speaker 1: looking spot where Valkyria. She set up for nightwing, and
Speaker 1: Morgan countered into what I assume was supposed to be
Speaker 1: like a code breaker, but Lyra took the move almost
Speaker 1: like a DDT, so when she came down, she came
Speaker 1: straight down on her face. I guess the matt broke
Speaker 1: her fall. Her face broke the fall basically, and the
Speaker 1: referee went over immediately to check on her make sure
Speaker 1: that there was nothing broken, and she seemed to be okay.
Speaker 1: But wow, yeah, that looks scary, So Morgan distracted the referee.
Speaker 1: Prez then pulled down the rope so that when Lyra
Speaker 1: hit the rope, she fell out of the ring to
Speaker 1: the floor. Bailey went over then to go check Roxane Perez,
Speaker 1: and the referee saw this, so he stopped her. So
Speaker 1: Perez used that distraction to throw Bailey into the timekeeper's area.
Speaker 1: Then they had a shot of Bailey behind her rising up,
Speaker 1: and she had a look on her face like she
Speaker 1: had snapped like this is the other version of Bailey,
Speaker 1: So she grabbed a chair she chased Roxanne to the back.
Speaker 1: Lyra was not paying attention to her opponent the way
Speaker 1: she should have been, and so Morgan flew in and
Speaker 1: hit oblivion and picked up her first win in seven months.
Speaker 1: I will point out to you, you know we talked
Speaker 1: about the booking on this show. I will point out
Speaker 1: to you that Lyra Valkyrie was actually booked pretty strongly
Speaker 1: there for a while, and it was really when she
Speaker 1: was working with Becky Lynch and they were going back
Speaker 1: and forth with the IC title. Outside of that terrible
Speaker 1: match at SummerSlam, that was a huge net positive for
Speaker 1: Lyra and she did very well. I think it really
Speaker 1: it allowed her to, I think, show more of her personality,
Speaker 1: come out of her shell a little bit more, and
Speaker 1: she was having great matches and picking up a lot
Speaker 1: of wins. Lyra Valkyria has not won a match on
Speaker 1: TV since October. It is now January. It actually, I
Speaker 1: think when I reflect back on when this alliance or
Speaker 1: partnership started with Bailey, ever since the pairing with Bailey,
Speaker 1: her stock has actually fallen. Not blaming Bailey for that,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, ever since it started, she's gone down.
Speaker 1: Like if she was an actual stock, you know, she
Speaker 1: would have been hovering maybe above maybe let's say fifty
Speaker 1: bucks a share, you know, in June or July, and
Speaker 1: now her stock is down to about eighteen dollars a share,
Speaker 1: so yeah, there's some work to be done to get
Speaker 1: her back up to where she was before. Jackie Redman
Speaker 1: was backstage with CM Punk ahead of his World Heavyweight
Speaker 1: Championship match tonight, and she asks him how he's preparing
Speaker 1: for bron Breaker and everything that he comes with meeting
Speaker 1: the other members of the Vision. Punk dismissed the question,
Speaker 1: then tells people not to underestimate him, and he also
Speaker 1: threatened at one point to gts Jackie and the cameraman
Speaker 1: as well the person behind the camera, whoever it was.
Speaker 1: So I see the old CM Punk is still there,
Speaker 1: still threatening his coworkers. He's still buried in there. He'll
Speaker 1: show up every now and then. He showed up in
Speaker 1: the main event to beat up one of his coworkers.
Speaker 1: It was for the World Heavyweight CHAMPI and shit, he
Speaker 1: was CM Punk defending his title against bron Breaker. Punk
Speaker 1: entered wearing a Steiner Brothers esque Varsity jacket with CM
Speaker 1: on the front and then on the back it said Punk.
Speaker 1: So of course, Rick Steiner, Bron's father used to be
Speaker 1: part of a faction in WCW called the Varsity Club,
Speaker 1: so I like that little call back there. So Breaker
Speaker 1: just destroyed him for the first i'd say ten minutes
Speaker 1: eight to ten minutes of this match. The crowd just
Speaker 1: sat there quietly, just watching until Punk got him up
Speaker 1: in position for a GTS and then they got animated.
Speaker 1: Breaker though, slipped out and he delivered a gutbuster to
Speaker 1: shut that shit down. Punk ended up on the outside
Speaker 1: of the ring as a Breaker was stalking him. Right,
Speaker 1: We've seen him do this before. So Breaker he exited
Speaker 1: the ring. He took the long way, he took the
Speaker 1: scenic route as he was circling the ring, but Punk
Speaker 1: was waiting for him. He had him scouted and he
Speaker 1: caught him with a leaping clothesline, and then they went
Speaker 1: to another commercial break. I think this was the second
Speaker 1: commercial of the match. So when they came back, Punk
Speaker 1: was on the ropes, and this is where we had
Speaker 1: our scary moment. Punk's on the ropes, bron Breaker is
Speaker 1: setting up for the move where he charges towards the
Speaker 1: corner and he runs the ropes and he puts his
Speaker 1: arms out like that, right, and then as his body
Speaker 1: is falling backwards. I think he challenges himself each time
Speaker 1: to see how long he can wait before he does
Speaker 1: the jump up for the hurricanana. One of these days
Speaker 1: he's just gonna misstime it and just fall backwards and
Speaker 1: look like an idiot. But in this case, he jumps up,
Speaker 1: and he starts to fall backwards right and he leaps up.
Speaker 1: He waits until the last possible second, and he jumps
Speaker 1: up with the hurrican rana and instead of taking CM
Speaker 1: Punk over, CM Punk never left the ropes. He just
Speaker 1: stayed there. He didn't go flying anywhere. The only person
Speaker 1: who went flying was bron Breaker straight down on top
Speaker 1: of his fucking head. And I mean like right, not
Speaker 1: on his face, not even on his neck like the
Speaker 1: well he did land on his neck, but the back
Speaker 1: of his neck. He just came straight down and landed
Speaker 1: like right on top of his head. And he bade.
Speaker 1: The dude brained himself, that's what he did. He brained
Speaker 1: himself more or less on this move. So Punk stayed
Speaker 1: on the ropes, and after the referee he was done
Speaker 1: checking on him to make sure that he wasn't concussed
Speaker 1: or dead or whatever I would say, maybe like a
Speaker 1: minute later they tried it again. They redid the spot,
Speaker 1: and this time it went off okay, and he did
Speaker 1: the hr karana. He took Punk down only for a
Speaker 1: near fall, though all that only for a near fall,
Speaker 1: risking life and limb only for a near fall. Now again,
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot in the last week or two
Speaker 1: about neck injuries and stupid shit that people do during matches,
Speaker 1: things that they kind of know what they're doing and
Speaker 1: they plant it that way, and then you have situations
Speaker 1: like this. Funny enough, when we were talking about the
Speaker 1: William Regal tweet and a lot of the aw fans
Speaker 1: were very upset. You know that he of all people,
Speaker 1: you know the messenger, You're not the right person to
Speaker 1: be saying this, and why would you do it with
Speaker 1: the day after the pay per view, and they used
Speaker 1: the bron breaker spot from Wargames as an example when
Speaker 1: they were doing the doomsday device spot and he was
Speaker 1: on he was on Punk shoulders I think right, and
Speaker 1: Cody came off and breaker just the way he landed.
Speaker 1: He clearly did not intend to land that way, but
Speaker 1: he landed right on his fucking neck, right, and he
Speaker 1: could have killed himself. So they were citing that as
Speaker 1: an example, and it's like, it's not exactly apples for
Speaker 1: apples here. I mean like that was a botch, Like
Speaker 1: that was not how he was intended to land. We've
Speaker 1: seen the doomsday device spot hundreds of times over the years,
Speaker 1: and so here we are again in another spot where
Speaker 1: bron Breaker is involved and he lands on his frickin neck,
Speaker 1: clearly not intending to do so. So that was a
Speaker 1: scary moment there. So he had Breaker with the gorilla press.
Speaker 1: Punk though countered into a DDT and Punk got the
Speaker 1: running knee in the corner. He hit the short arm clothesline.
Speaker 1: Then he headed for the heavens and he came off
Speaker 1: with the diving elbow drop. And now he was ready
Speaker 1: for it. He is ready to go to sleep. As
Speaker 1: I'm sure many people were watching this episode of Monday
Speaker 1: Night Raught. Tonight, Punk was ready to hit the GTS here,
Speaker 1: so he is getting ready for this. Paul Hayman jumps
Speaker 1: up on the apron because he knows who knows Punk
Speaker 1: better than Paul Hayman? Does Hey, Vince, what's going on?
Speaker 1: So Paul Hayman jumps up on the apron. He's screaming,
Speaker 1: he's hollering, he's trying to distract Punk and divert his
Speaker 1: attention away. Punk walks over Hayman jumps down from the apron.
Speaker 1: Here comes the Vision. Here comes Bronson Reid and Logan
Speaker 1: Paul and Austin Theory and they're jumping like on the apron.
Speaker 1: They're trying to get involved. He they're risking disqualification for
Speaker 1: their man. This is incredibly stupid. Punk manages to fight
Speaker 1: them off and he punches all of them down, you know,
Speaker 1: off the apron. So then after he does this, bron
Speaker 1: Breaker knocks Punk into the referee, referee Chad Patten, who
Speaker 1: goes flying out of it. I believe he flew out
Speaker 1: of the ring, and Austin Theory gets into the ring
Speaker 1: and he delivers a curb stomp to CM Punk. So
Speaker 1: Breaker covers. I guess Chad Patten, he's you've recovered quickly,
Speaker 1: and so he's back in the ring and he goes
Speaker 1: to count the pin and Punk kicks out, so only
Speaker 1: he got two out of it. Here comes Dragon Lee
Speaker 1: and Penta and raymys Stereo. They show up, uh bron
Speaker 1: or Bronson Reid. Rather, he got Ray Mysterio up for
Speaker 1: a vertical suplex outside right in front of the announced desk,
Speaker 1: and before he could do anything. He ended up eating
Speaker 1: a double super kick from Ray, Mysterio and Dragonly and
Speaker 1: so then as Ray came down, he countered into a
Speaker 1: DDT to Bronson Reid on the floor outside, so the
Speaker 1: three baby faces they then brawled off with all the
Speaker 1: Vision members into the crowd. They fought off. We didn't
Speaker 1: see them again. So that left bron Breaker in the ring.
Speaker 1: He was getting ready for a spear, right, He's gonna
Speaker 1: cut this man down. He's gonna win the World Heavyweight Championship.
Speaker 1: Punk moves and Breaker posts himself first. He brained himself.
Speaker 1: Now he posts himself shoulder first in the corner. Punk
Speaker 1: gets him up and he hits the GTS. Punk covers him.
Speaker 1: Breaker kicks out at two and a half. So that
Speaker 1: was a nice dramatic near fall. Punk got break her
Speaker 1: up for a pile driver, and I really wish he didn't, because,
Speaker 1: first of all, I see him putting this man in
Speaker 1: position for a pile driver, and I'm thinking, probably not
Speaker 1: a good idea to do a pile driver to a
Speaker 1: guy that fell on his head like not even ten
Speaker 1: minutes earlier. Okay, so that's number before you even attempted
Speaker 1: the move. I'm thinking Okay, that might not be the
Speaker 1: spot to do. We don't know for sure. Broad Breaker
Speaker 1: is not concussed, but he goes for a pile driver,
Speaker 1: just like John Cena, right, the match with Punk and Sena,
Speaker 1: the famous pile driver match on Raw in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 1: What a great match, better than this one. And Punk
Speaker 1: was the one in that one who delivered the pile driver, right,
Speaker 1: So he's going to give him a pile driver. He
Speaker 1: gives him a terrible pile driver. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: if he just watched it or if he was just
Speaker 1: being over protective, which I could totally understand, right, you
Speaker 1: don't want to hurt the guy, and maybe he was
Speaker 1: thinking about that spot before and it was like, all right,
Speaker 1: we'll do the spot, like I have to really, you know,
Speaker 1: protect him on it. But if you're going to do
Speaker 1: the move like that, don't even bother doing it like
Speaker 1: it just dude, it looked horrible. It just looked terrible,
Speaker 1: And I think even the announcers were like, he didn't
Speaker 1: get all of it. It's like, yeah, no, shit, he
Speaker 1: didn't get any of it. Like his legs were basically
Speaker 1: closed and anyway, so that that did not come off
Speaker 1: the way. I'm sure that he wanted it to come off. Breaker,
Speaker 1: though he got punked down in a Fujiwara armbar. Punk
Speaker 1: rolled out of it. He transitioned into an Anacon device.
Speaker 1: Breaker sat up while in the hold, and he's just
Speaker 1: staring at Punk. So like remember when Undertaker and brock
Speaker 1: Lesner did that spot at SummerSlam. They sat up, stared
Speaker 1: at each other started laughing. Ah right, there was no
Speaker 1: laughing here. But they're like this and bron is just
Speaker 1: staring a hole in him. So they get back to
Speaker 1: their feet and he hoists Punk up for another gutbuster,
Speaker 1: and then he hits a clothes line or a Steiner line.
Speaker 1: He covers him, Punk kicks out, So now Bron Breaker
Speaker 1: says it's time for Punk to go to sleep. He
Speaker 1: gets him up with the GTS. On the way down, though,
Speaker 1: Punk picks the ankle. He gets the stf applied. He's
Speaker 1: taken a page out of John Cena's playbook. Breaker slowly,
Speaker 1: slowly inches his way towards the ropes. He gets the rope, Punk, though,
Speaker 1: drags him back to the center of the ring. But
Speaker 1: now Paul Haman is back up on the apron again
Speaker 1: and Punk is distracted. Some of that dumb babyface syndrome
Speaker 1: is creeping up. You know. You would think a veteran
Speaker 1: like Punk would know. Just let the guy yell and
Speaker 1: bloviate on the apron, right, you got a match to
Speaker 1: win here, But he allows himself to be distracted. So
Speaker 1: he goes over to Haym and and he punches him,
Speaker 1: grabs him, and he delivers a punch to Paul Hayman.
Speaker 1: Bron Breaker comes in for the spear though Punk doesn't
Speaker 1: see him coming, but he manages to avoid him, and
Speaker 1: Breaker goes flying through the ropes and out to the
Speaker 1: floor see him. Punk then flies out of the ring.
Speaker 1: I guess he was going for a suicide dive, and
Speaker 1: it was nearly a suicide dive because he took aheader.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't laugh. He took aheader, I mean into the floor.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how else to describe it. Like
Speaker 1: Breaker avoided him, or maybe he hit him, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe he cut him with the forearm or something. But
Speaker 1: like Punk just went straight down into the floor, and
Speaker 1: the referee went over to check on him to make
Speaker 1: sure that he was alive and that he was okay.
Speaker 1: So now Punk is using the announced desk to try
Speaker 1: to pick himself back up, and you drag himself back
Speaker 1: to his feet, but bron Breaker has now climbed to
Speaker 1: the top rope. He's all the way up top and
Speaker 1: there's a good distance from where he is to where
Speaker 1: Punk is. Punk's not really on the announced desk, he's
Speaker 1: sort of like leaned over, leaning on the announced desk,
Speaker 1: and Breaker comes flying off the top rope like a
Speaker 1: missile with this I guess really it's more like a
Speaker 1: diving kind of elbow kind of but it's like a
Speaker 1: super dive and he crashes into Punk and they both
Speaker 1: go crashing through the announced desk. It was just this
Speaker 1: spectacular bump that he took and the crowd reacted huge
Speaker 1: to it, and Breaker like almost immediately gets up and
Speaker 1: he gets Punk back inside the ring like he doesn't
Speaker 1: really waste any time, so he puts him back inside,
Speaker 1: and Paul Hayman is sitting on the outside by the
Speaker 1: way after being punched, and he's laughing. He's laughing at
Speaker 1: this because he knows that's it. It's over. So he
Speaker 1: puts Punk back in the ring and the straps come down.
Speaker 1: Here comes the spear comes off the ropes, Punk lifts
Speaker 1: a knee, catches him right in the head, right maybe
Speaker 1: the side of the head. Punk gets him up with
Speaker 1: the gts. He eats all of the gts and see
Speaker 1: I'm Punk pins bron Breaker clean as a sheet in
Speaker 1: the middle of the ring one two three to retain
Speaker 1: the World Heavyweight Championship. I just I can't believe they
Speaker 1: did that spot just for Punk to more or less
Speaker 1: no sell it and then just come right back and
Speaker 1: win clean. Like I I don't know, I just don't know, Nut,
Speaker 1: I'm not Look, I'm not shocked at Punk one. It's
Speaker 1: not that Punk one, But like, I very much question
Speaker 1: doing that the way they did at the very end.
Speaker 1: I just don't think that that. I think it took
Speaker 1: away from the spot, but also just it didn't really
Speaker 1: do bron Breaker any favors. There were some rough spots
Speaker 1: in this one. I mentioned what they were, especially the
Speaker 1: couple of times that each of them could have been
Speaker 1: seriously hurt. But I thought it picked up well enough
Speaker 1: there towards the end, and there were some dramatic near
Speaker 1: falls there in like the final few minutes of the match,
Speaker 1: So it ended up being good. You know. Again, it
Speaker 1: started off very dull, and it was long. I mean
Speaker 1: it went like twenty six twenty seven minutes. We had
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of commercial breaks in the middle of it, which, again,
Speaker 1: if you're watching with a VPN or you're watching internationally,
Speaker 1: maybe isn't a big deal. But if you're not, it does,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of kill the vibe, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're watching the match Breaker losing clean. I'll say it again,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's as damaging as some people might,
Speaker 1: you know, think it is, But it all depends on
Speaker 1: the follow up. Bron Breaker has to come out of
Speaker 1: this as just an absolute killer, like ready to just
Speaker 1: rip people's heads off, because he just cannot accept the
Speaker 1: fact that he lost to this man. He can't believe
Speaker 1: that he threw everything that he threw at him and
Speaker 1: he's still lost. He's embarrassed, and he's got to make
Speaker 1: up for it somehow. That's why I think this needs
Speaker 1: to vault him into the top like two favorites to
Speaker 1: win the Rumble, because I still think we're looking at
Speaker 1: Roman Rains as the winner of the Royal Rumble. In
Speaker 1: a perfect world, it would be somebody different. It would
Speaker 1: not be Roman Reigns. It might not be anybody who's
Speaker 1: won the Rumble before, not even Randy Orton. It would
Speaker 1: be somebody new, someone like a bron Breaker. Is that
Speaker 1: what WWE has in mind for him? If they want
Speaker 1: him in a World Championship match or WrestleMania, then yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say him winning the Rumble is the way
Speaker 1: to go. And if he wins the Rumble, then this
Speaker 1: is all forgotten about because in one night he can
Speaker 1: punch his ticket to the Night one main event of WrestleMania.
Speaker 1: And I think that if bron Breaker is going to
Speaker 1: win the World Heavyweight Chainampionship, it's a very good chance
Speaker 1: that in WWE's mind, he's like their chosen one. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're saving the world title win for like the big stage,
Speaker 1: and in their mind they envision that when it finally happens,
Speaker 1: it's going to happen there. It's going to happen at WrestleMania,
Speaker 1: you know, in front of fifty or sixty thousand people,
Speaker 1: And maybe that's what they have in their mind. If
Speaker 1: that happens again, we're not going to be talking about
Speaker 1: what happened on January fifth. This is not going to matter,
Speaker 1: This is going to be forgotten about. It all in
Speaker 1: the follow up. There were a lot of dramatic near falls.
Speaker 1: It was very competitive Breaker. I don't think Breaker came
Speaker 1: out of this looking terrible, but he also didn't come
Speaker 1: out of it looking as strong as I feel like
Speaker 1: he should have. That's going to be on them now
Speaker 1: to kind of get it right, you know, coming out
Speaker 1: of this. The one thing I will say, it would
Speaker 1: appear to me to make things a little more likely
Speaker 1: that Drew McIntyre might just pull it off on Friday
Speaker 1: in Germany when they're in Berlin three Stages of hell,
Speaker 1: because I never expected two title changes in the same week.
Speaker 1: With the world titles, I didn't necessarily expect one title change.
Speaker 1: The fact that they didn't do the one here makes
Speaker 1: it a little more likely that Drew might actually get
Speaker 1: the win on Friday. Fingers crossed because if either of
Speaker 1: these men, if you had to choose just one, Drew
Speaker 1: is the one who needs it more. This was bron
Speaker 1: Breaker's first ever World Championship match on the main roster.
Speaker 1: Drew McIntyre's had a lot more than that, and the
Speaker 1: last view he's had he's been a failure. So if
Speaker 1: anybody needs to come out with a w this week,
Speaker 1: it's McIntyre. Bron Breaker can do it at the Rumbull,
Speaker 1: he could do it in media. For Drew McIntyre, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's now or never. It's now or he
Speaker 1: just moves on beyond Cody to just something lower on
Speaker 1: the card. And then at that point, you know, going
Speaker 1: into WrestleMania, I don't know what is filming schedule is
Speaker 1: going to be. He's supposed to go off and film
Speaker 1: for the New Highlander movie, so I don't even know
Speaker 1: if he's going to be around for WrestleMania. But I
Speaker 1: feel like it's now, We're never come Friday. For Drew,
Speaker 1: this at least increases his chances. It's just a little bit,
Speaker 1: just a smidge. On the whole though, this was not
Speaker 1: a good show for a show that was hyped up
Speaker 1: for so many weeks as being a big deal, the
Speaker 1: big kickoff here to the New Year. You know you
Speaker 1: want to start off. I mean again, they had the
Speaker 1: title change at the beginning with the women in the
Speaker 1: Tag division, and that's fine, but you look at everything
Speaker 1: else that happened on the show. By and large, it
Speaker 1: was just like, I don't know, man, it's just there's
Speaker 1: no life to it. There's just no life to it.
Speaker 1: There's no excitement, there's no real fun. Where's the fun
Speaker 1: that's a Monday night rows should be, especially now we're
Speaker 1: heading into the rumble, We're heading into WrestleMania season. This
Speaker 1: is where things ought to ought to be feeling that way,
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't right now. And I thought that
Speaker 1: if it was going to you would certainly think it
Speaker 1: would start with this first show of the new year.
Speaker 1: They were in New York, right one year anniversary of
Speaker 1: the Netflix debut, and it was just a very half
Speaker 1: hearted effort with some you know, we had a couple
Speaker 1: of good matches that kind of bookended the show, but
Speaker 1: then a lot of shit in the middle that was
Speaker 1: just like, man, this is a slog to sit through
Speaker 1: and we're not even watching three hours of SmackDown. We
Speaker 1: have three hours of Smackedout on Friday. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let's take a look at the Twitter pole. Clearly I'm
Speaker 1: not the only one who is not enthused by this show.
Speaker 1: Look at this poll. This is not what you usually
Speaker 1: see here for a raw pole thumbs up, not even
Speaker 1: twenty percent. That is pathetic, absolutely pathetic. And again I
Speaker 1: understand some of that is going to be the people
Speaker 1: upset that Jericho wasn't there. I'm not upset that Jericho
Speaker 1: wasn't there. WWE they kind of trolled you with that
Speaker 1: Adam Pierce video over the weekend. Otherwise they didn't really
Speaker 1: say anything about it either, just people letting, you know,
Speaker 1: getting ahead of themselves thinking he was going to be there.
Speaker 1: Nobody ever said he was going to be there. But
Speaker 1: are we really getting upset in twenty twenty six that
Speaker 1: Chris Jericho didn't show up? Are we really doing this?
Speaker 1: Don't be one of those people. Thumbs in the middle
Speaker 1: got twenty eight percent roughly, And look at that thumbs
Speaker 1: down fifty two point six percent thumbs down for this
Speaker 1: show tonight. I think those people were happy with Monday
Speaker 1: Night ROW. I wonder if the people who paid for
Speaker 1: some of those ticket prices who went to the show
Speaker 1: were happy with Monday Night Row. That's why I didn't
Speaker 1: go to Monday Night Row. I got to watch the
Speaker 1: show for free. Now I get to be here with
Speaker 1: all of you. I got the better deal. Just take
Speaker 1: a look at your super chats and get them on in.
Speaker 1: I'll be reading them here and then we will be
Speaker 1: doing at least one round of be the booker. We've
Speaker 1: already hit the like school, which is great, very close
Speaker 1: to five hundred. Let's get five hundred. That should be easy.
Speaker 1: We're less than ten away. But thank you to the
Speaker 1: nearly eighteen hundred of you hanging out with me here
Speaker 1: on a Monday night. Is Monday Night football done? I
Speaker 1: don't think there was Monday night football tonight, right. I
Speaker 1: think Monday night football is over now, Hey, Joseph Stewart,
Speaker 1: Happy Monday, you too, my friend. I have not seen
Speaker 1: that documentary, and as far as Goodfellas is concerned, I
Speaker 1: gotta go with the uhh, I mean, I gotta go
Speaker 1: with the bar scene. I gotta go with the bar
Speaker 1: scene at your shinebox. The giver, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. I haven't seen that. He
Speaker 1: has a prediction, the wrestling prediction, predicting that Dominic will
Speaker 1: win money in the bank in twenty twenty six will
Speaker 1: be the year of Live Dom. All right, Well, I
Speaker 1: got I got Logan Paul winning money in the bank.
Speaker 1: But Dom is very sound choice. Also, what other Netflix
Speaker 1: shows can WWE? Can they force WWE to collaborate with
Speaker 1: them on for next year's Raw premiere let's all take
Speaker 1: guesses as to what other Netflix show that they can
Speaker 1: collaborate with. What are some other big Netflix shows? Edwood,
Speaker 1: I did see Edwarod. Yes, I believe Georgia Animal Steel
Speaker 1: has a role in that movie or a is it?
Speaker 1: I think it was Edwood, I believe so. I have
Speaker 1: not seen that Jeff Bridges movie. But if you haven't
Speaker 1: seen Tron, you should definitely check the original one out. Actually,
Speaker 1: I like the sequel to Cups, the movie Cups. Never
Speaker 1: seen that one. Pump up the volume. Nope, Uma Thurman's
Speaker 1: daughter was in Stranger Things. I did not know that.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the David Bowie sung Underground from the
Speaker 1: Lapporn movie? I like the Labyrinith movie, so I do
Speaker 1: actually know that. So did you know that who framed
Speaker 1: Roger Rabbit was the only time Mickey Mouse and Bugs
Speaker 1: Bunny appeared on screen together. Wow, that's like WWE and AW.
Speaker 1: They're not allowed to appear on screen together. It's like
Speaker 1: Shinsky Nakamoor is not allowed to be in the ring
Speaker 1: when Kenny Omega's out there. That's how they treat Mickey
Speaker 1: and Bugs. As you know, Disney was the original voice.
Speaker 1: Walt Disney was the original voice of Mickey Mouse when
Speaker 1: he created Mickey mout Well, he created Mickey Mouse, so yes,
Speaker 1: I kind of figured that was the case. Actually, want
Speaker 1: to know who probably one of the great voice artists
Speaker 1: of all time was when it comes to characters, Mel Blanc.
Speaker 1: He did them all, all those Loney Tunes voices, that
Speaker 1: was all him. Super talented. All right, so's see some
Speaker 1: of these squid Game Oh god, yes, let them collaborate.
Speaker 1: Can we have the Creative Team playing squid Game? I'd
Speaker 1: watch that? Fuck this WWE unreal bullshit? Can we get
Speaker 1: the WWE Creative Team forced into a game of squid Game?
Speaker 1: Would you guys watch that? I know I would. Let's
Speaker 1: have a WWE squid Game collaboration. Love Is Blind? Is
Speaker 1: that on Netflix? Was Diesel versus Sean always the plan
Speaker 1: for WrestleMania eleven? Yes? How different would the Attitude era
Speaker 1: have been if SID was part of the Attitude Era
Speaker 1: in ninety eight ninety nine? Not radically different? Man, It
Speaker 1: was a SID compilation they put together on the vault
Speaker 1: recently of all of his ECW appearances. Holy shit, how
Speaker 1: fucking over was he? Man? In ECW? Like the formula
Speaker 1: they had for him. It was very simple and it
Speaker 1: just worked. And he was over like I mean, he's
Speaker 1: been over. He was over everywhere he worked. But in
Speaker 1: ECW he would come out there, they would treat him
Speaker 1: like a god. They just wanted to see him power
Speaker 1: bomb people. That's it. As you know, Hogan versus Brett
Speaker 1: was supposed to be the main event at Stark ninety
Speaker 1: nine instead of Brett versus Goldberg. Yeah, and Brett would
Speaker 1: have had possibly many more years of his career had
Speaker 1: it gone down that way. Do you think DDP against
Speaker 1: Goldberg should have been the main event of Stark ninety
Speaker 1: eight instead of Nash against Goldberg? I do. I think
Speaker 1: DDP should have been the one to and the streak
Speaker 1: and win the title. I would have done it in
Speaker 1: Halloween Havoc, but you could have rematched them at starkad
Speaker 1: do you remember the TV show Sledgehammer vaguely? How would
Speaker 1: you have booked Brett's WCW run? I have answered this
Speaker 1: before on the podcast. I actually rebooked his entire first
Speaker 1: year in WCW, so I would advise you to go
Speaker 1: find that segment. I don't remember the episode number offhand.
Speaker 1: I actually just covered it recently, not too long ago,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a video up on the YouTube
Speaker 1: channel somewhere, so go check that out. Why do you
Speaker 1: think there are some that think Brett should have beaten
Speaker 1: goldberg streak? Are there people who think that? I've never
Speaker 1: heard of there being some great movement for Brett to
Speaker 1: be the one to beat it. I've never heard that.
Speaker 1: If the Patriot was part of the Attitude or do
Speaker 1: you think he would have gotten a stone Cold versus
Speaker 1: Patriot feud? No, we would not have gotten stone Cold
Speaker 1: against the Patriot. Were there other feud? Stone Cold was
Speaker 1: supposed to have in the Attitude era in ninety eight
Speaker 1: and ninety nine. He was supposed to work with Jeff
Speaker 1: Jarrett and he said, no, I ain't working with that Jabron.
Speaker 1: He did not like Jeff Jarrett. How different would stone
Speaker 1: Coold's career be if the Rock did not get over
Speaker 1: like he did. I don't think it would have affected
Speaker 1: Austin's career too radically. It was great that he had
Speaker 1: someone like like A one A and A one B,
Speaker 1: you know, to play off each other. But I think
Speaker 1: he still would have been white hot as a character
Speaker 1: on the show. You know, that anti authority guy. They
Speaker 1: would have just, you know, found a different foil for
Speaker 1: Maybe it would have been triple h. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the TV show WKRP in Cincinnati. I'm singing the theme
Speaker 1: song in my head as we speak. How different would
Speaker 1: Ahmed Johnson's career have been if he was part of
Speaker 1: the Attitude era? It would not have been any different
Speaker 1: at all. He would have continued to injure himself and
Speaker 1: injure other people, and he would have been fired because
Speaker 1: he wasn't that good. Do you remember the Harris Brothers? Unfortunately, yes,
Speaker 1: I do, and they did nothing for me. Do you
Speaker 1: know why they did the NWA stuff on WWETV in
Speaker 1: early to mid ninety eight, you know, off Hitt, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know why Vince went for that. I'm sure
Speaker 1: Cornett loved it, but it was just it was fucking
Speaker 1: lame on WWF television and the Attitude ere it didn't fit.
Speaker 1: He was never gonna work. Do you know whatever happened
Speaker 1: to Kergan from the Truth Commission? Yeah, he became an actor.
Speaker 1: He was actually in a film with Robert Downey Junior.
Speaker 1: I think it might have been Oh what movie was that?
Speaker 1: I forgot? But he was in a movie with him
Speaker 1: and he punched him in the face for real, and
Speaker 1: I know he was very upset about that. I remember
Speaker 1: Downey saying he was more upset about it than I
Speaker 1: was when he punched me in the face. I think
Speaker 1: it might have been Sherlock Holmes, that's what it was.
Speaker 1: I think it was Sherlock Holmes. But yeah, he's been
Speaker 1: in a few movies. Ludavishawn definitely underrated. Yes, uh, and
Speaker 1: that's it for Joseph. Thank you, Joseph. Some good wrestling
Speaker 1: questions there. I appreciate the wrestling questions very much. We
Speaker 1: got dried ribs and chicken without flavor. I called it
Speaker 1: raw and stranger things. Collaboration happened also, well, that's certainly
Speaker 1: your opinion. If Jade Cargill was on Raw tonight, her
Speaker 1: entrance would be fired, fired or fire bringing back the
Speaker 1: lightning entrance, but with red coloring and the mind Flare's shadow,
Speaker 1: now that would have been fire. I agree. I'm predicting
Speaker 1: AW will do another collaboration with HBO Max streaming show,
Speaker 1: but this time it would be it Welcome to Derry
Speaker 1: oh Man dried Ribs. I will do that, thank you.
Speaker 1: If we're always TVMA tonight, Keel Rodriguez would either use
Speaker 1: a cinderblock or a car to cross Stephanie vi Kier's
Speaker 1: walking boot, and that leg would be showed. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: leg would be shattered, and so would her title rate.
Speaker 1: I don't think they want her out for more than
Speaker 1: a few weeks. You're you're putting her out for a
Speaker 1: year with that Tonight's Raw, with the collaboration of stranger things,
Speaker 1: I give it a C the marketing department on the hand.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I give it a B plus
Speaker 1: for effort Alex with ten. If anyone defends this hot
Speaker 1: garbage of a show, you are the problem. This was
Speaker 1: atrocious twenty twenty six. WWE is going to be twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five all over again. Well, I mean, why would
Speaker 1: you think it would be any different. It's the same
Speaker 1: people writing the show. You Know. What irked me was
Speaker 1: airing the unreal season two trailer during the show, like
Speaker 1: I get it, like the show itself fine, airing the
Speaker 1: entire trailer during Raw where they're just openly talking about
Speaker 1: like scripting the fake injury with seth rollins and scripting
Speaker 1: this and faking that, and it's like, do we really
Speaker 1: need to watch this shit during the actual show bugs
Speaker 1: the shit out of me, super Pony. First time I've
Speaker 1: watched Raw in full in months. I was reminded tonight
Speaker 1: why that was. Why that was the case. The shows
Speaker 1: feel lifeless nowadays. It makes me sad. It's because they are.
Speaker 1: It's very corporate. It's very corporate. Unfortunately, that's not gonna change.
Speaker 1: It's only gonna get worse. You know, they'll have weeks
Speaker 1: where they'll hit a home run, but by and large,
Speaker 1: the formula for these shows it is, it is very formulaic,
Speaker 1: but it's just very corporate. You know, it's about getting
Speaker 1: the stars on the show so they could do their entrance,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's just I don't know, personal issues
Speaker 1: between people like what we had in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: you know at Punk and Drew. Stuff like that is
Speaker 1: very rare. I mean, I could use examples from twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty years ago. You guys know all those stories
Speaker 1: I would probably use, right, whether it was Breton Stone
Speaker 1: Cold or you know, Michael's and bred Austin and Rock.
Speaker 1: You know, we just we don't have enough of that anymore.
Speaker 1: Everything just feels so phony. Everything feels very phony on
Speaker 1: these shows can't really invest in these stories in the
Speaker 1: way that you used to, and I think that sucks
Speaker 1: Aaron for the nine ninety nine. It feels like the
Speaker 1: creative team has no passion or fun. Fans love to
Speaker 1: fantasy book. These people get to do it for a living,
Speaker 1: and it seems like it's a chore to them. Are
Speaker 1: they entertained by this? Do they care? I don't know
Speaker 1: if they necessarily do beyond you know, they get their paycheck,
Speaker 1: they go to work, they have a formula that works,
Speaker 1: and there's always issues to deal with with people getting
Speaker 1: injured and stuff. It's not an easy job. I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody's saying it's easy. But you also can't force
Speaker 1: people to think that it's fun because it's not Solo's
Speaker 1: favorite sicko lol at all the hypocrites that suddenly give
Speaker 1: a damn about Chris Jericho, Womp womp. Maybe next week
Speaker 1: Jericho is not going to be in Dusseldorf next week.
Speaker 1: If he wasn't there tonight, you're waiting until the rumble,
Speaker 1: He'll be in Saudi. He will not be in Dusseldorf. Ah,
Speaker 1: we got Maven. I will have to start watching SmackDown exclusively.
Speaker 1: Then if SmackDown starts sucking too, I'll just watch aw cringe.
Speaker 1: Becky gets the belt again. Fuck that dried ribs and chicken.
Speaker 1: I bet if the Rock was there in Brooklyn, the
Speaker 1: Duffer Brothers and some of the cast members of Stranger
Speaker 1: Things would have come to the show. Yeah, they didn't
Speaker 1: want to have anything to do with this. They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: our job is done, the season's over, leave us alone.
Speaker 1: At least we didn't get terrible comedy tonight. I was
Speaker 1: a little worried they were gonna have, like, at least
Speaker 1: that one backstage segment where if Vince was still there,
Speaker 1: we would totally get some awful, fucking like comedy skit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, it could have been worse. Shawnee
Speaker 1: says by rent Sell. Potential Undertaker opponents that were rumored
Speaker 1: to have happened, Abyss hayde Vanson an Amish road kill,
Speaker 1: Amish road kill? When was he rumored? Who the hell
Speaker 1: wanted to see Amish roadkill against the Undertaker? Abyss has
Speaker 1: to be number one. That was rumored to be a
Speaker 1: WrestleMania match was going to kick off with the Royal Rumble.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a Wrestlemandia match, I want to say
Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, so that would have been
Speaker 1: WrestleMania twenty two, I believe. And he got cold feet
Speaker 1: and he just wanted to stay in TNA and kind
Speaker 1: of helped TNA grow, so it didn't happen. Hayde Vanson.
Speaker 1: I remember hearing about hayde Vance. I don't remember who
Speaker 1: played hayde Vanson. Yeah, I mean that didn't excite me
Speaker 1: at all. It's basically the only one from that list
Speaker 1: that I gave a shit about was Abyss Faberge Egg,
Speaker 1: perhaps Willie Billy. It's a pretty subtle thing, so most
Speaker 1: won't pick up on it. But Becky is really starting
Speaker 1: to lean into the Becky Hogan thing, yellow and red everywhere.
Speaker 1: If you read some of her messages, you can kind
Speaker 1: of pick up on it. But I did not notice
Speaker 1: the yellow and red stuff. So Shawnee says by Rent
Speaker 1: Cell guys who were rumored to beat the Streak, Angle, Edge,
Speaker 1: Mark Henry. I don't think any of them should have
Speaker 1: beaten the streak, But of those three, if someone was
Speaker 1: going to beat the Streak, Angle, Kurt Angle, he's the man.
Speaker 1: Phil says Adam Pierce is an idiot. That's his entire message.
Speaker 1: Poor Adam Pierce. Hey, look us authority figures, we have
Speaker 1: to look out for each other. I'm just saying it
Speaker 1: could be a very stressful job. He's doing the best
Speaker 1: he can. May even says Punk versus Breaker had no
Speaker 1: right to be this boring. Yeah, I mean the first
Speaker 1: half of it certainly was. Again, I thought that there
Speaker 1: were some good near falls near the end. It wasn't
Speaker 1: a total loss, but it was not some great, memorable
Speaker 1: championship match, you know. It was just he was a
Speaker 1: match and Punk beat him clean. I sure hope they
Speaker 1: have a good follow up to it. Barry says Netflix
Speaker 1: just added Raw Talk. Did they the missing Raw episodes? Nope, No,
Speaker 1: and they won't. It's not a priority for them. They
Speaker 1: don't give a shit. They've had the Raw vault up
Speaker 1: for a year. There are I think they literally go
Speaker 1: from two thousand and one to like, is it two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven or twenty twenty or it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: the whole years that are missing. I don't even care
Speaker 1: about those later years, but like the earlier ones, like
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, there's like four episodes for the year
Speaker 1: like they don't give a shit, they don't care. It's
Speaker 1: it's just not going to be updated. You gotta pirate
Speaker 1: that shit. That's it. I'm sorry, that's what you gotta do.
Speaker 1: They leave us no choice. Solo's favorite Siko. People who
Speaker 1: are disenchanted with WWE, I hope you don't give up
Speaker 1: on wrestling altogether. There's plenty out there. Doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be AW or TNA. That is very true. In fact,
Speaker 1: we just had a huge tokyo dumb show this past weekend.
Speaker 1: That was, of what I saw of it, pretty damn good.
Speaker 1: Phil says tuned into Raw only to see the ussos
Speaker 1: run their entrance twice and watch Stephanie Vicer talk in
Speaker 1: Spanish and get beaten up. What a half What a
Speaker 1: half hour wasted? That was my biggest issue with this show, dude.
Speaker 1: It was so much like in the middle of the show,
Speaker 1: you bounce from one segment to the other of just nothing,
Speaker 1: just absolute nothing, Just like if you missed it, you
Speaker 1: didn't miss a damn thing. Maven says, twenty five drunk always,
Speaker 1: twenty six drunk once a week. Edward Brooks the last
Speaker 1: month of WWE television could have been an email It's okay, guys,
Speaker 1: this is what they do. That's Triple H's favorite phrase.
Speaker 1: What we do, what we do, what we do, This
Speaker 1: is what we do. What is it that you do? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Super pony Punk beat Gunther Clean at SummerSlam. Why are
Speaker 1: people acting like they can't buy him beating bron Clean
Speaker 1: when we all agree Gunther is better than Yeah, but dude,
Speaker 1: Gunph also tapped like a bitch to Jay Uso and
Speaker 1: now he's the this destroyer. There's a there's a big
Speaker 1: disconnect in terms of how certain people are booked. You
Speaker 1: really have to turn your brain off when it comes
Speaker 1: to some of this shit. Uh, Steven says, what, in
Speaker 1: your opinion is nuclear heat Hogan heel turn type shit?
Speaker 1: I mean Hogan Hogan And that six would be a
Speaker 1: good example of it because he was the red and
Speaker 1: yellow babyface all for the kids right for so many
Speaker 1: years and then he just betrayed everybody. So that's one example.
Speaker 1: Another example would be like if you have this beloved
Speaker 1: legend or babyface and you just murder them right, like
Speaker 1: a serious injury angle. Depending on who it is that
Speaker 1: you're beating up or putting on the shelf, you would
Speaker 1: get nuclear heat for that. You know, somebody who maybe
Speaker 1: interferes in a big match where people are hoping for
Speaker 1: a finish and then somebody runs out and screws it
Speaker 1: all up, right, like, you can get nuclear heat for that.
Speaker 1: I mean it depends. It depends. I mean if Gunther
Speaker 1: had beaten John Cena and refused to release the hold
Speaker 1: and kept it on for like ten minutes and had
Speaker 1: to be pried off, or you know, after he beat
Speaker 1: John Cena, he ran back out while seen his salt
Speaker 1: in the isleway, and you know, he runs back out
Speaker 1: and attacks him with brutal beat down with a chair
Speaker 1: and bloodis him and everything like, he probably would have
Speaker 1: gotten nuclear heat for a while after that. Then people
Speaker 1: would have a reason to be really upset with the
Speaker 1: guy toyassistance bron Lass. What are the chances of a
Speaker 1: Drew win on Friday? I mean they went up like
Speaker 1: five percent tonight. I still don't think he has a
Speaker 1: very good chance, but his chances did go up a
Speaker 1: little bit tonight. Super Pony, you predicted in your twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six predictions that Kevin Owens would return at the
Speaker 1: end of the year. Do you think the Orton feud
Speaker 1: ever gets resolved. No, he'll be gone for so long
Speaker 1: at that point, they don't even know what Randy Orton
Speaker 1: will be doing when he comes back. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he'll be a babyface or a heel. I would
Speaker 1: imagine at first he'll be a babyface. It's going to
Speaker 1: be forgotten about. I don't see there being a resolution.
Speaker 1: Randy Bobandi, speaking of Randy Howdy Solo, if you had
Speaker 1: to pick a top five WCWWWE cruiserweight champion, who would
Speaker 1: you put Billy Kidman? Or would you put Billy Kidman
Speaker 1: on that list considering he's a seven time champion? If not,
Speaker 1: who is your top five? I don't really have a
Speaker 1: top five. Raymysteria would be in that. In that group obviously,
Speaker 1: are we talking champions, because then Eddie has to be
Speaker 1: on that list. You gotta have Eddie Guerrero on that list.
Speaker 1: Whop and two Guerrera wasn't Jericho cruiserweight champion. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it really depends on what time period you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Enzo who said that throw you out of here, fucking Enzo.
Speaker 1: But Billy Kidman, No, I don't really look at him
Speaker 1: as a top five cruiser whit Brolly Becky's last singles
Speaker 1: match that wasn't Maxine was Nicki Bella back in August.
Speaker 1: Also Live is Great. Can't believe Triple Ah gave her
Speaker 1: a terrible title run the Shoulder Demon. I was listening
Speaker 1: to episode nine forty five of the sound off, and
Speaker 1: you told me to take a month off for WrestleMania.
Speaker 1: I never take a month off. I'm no days off,
Speaker 1: Shoulder Demon. Now I will break shoulders? Uh oh, who's next?
Speaker 1: Who's the next victim? V que? Do you see Jericho
Speaker 1: returning at the rumble? Yes? I do, he said. I
Speaker 1: could see the clock getting down to five seconds and
Speaker 1: switching to Y two Jay's countdown and getting a big pop.
Speaker 1: I hope they let him use Judas as well. I
Speaker 1: feel like even if he uses Judas during his run,
Speaker 1: I think so their fans would recognize it. They would
Speaker 1: probably go with break the walls down. At least at
Speaker 1: the beginning. Mark Kwan says, hey, Solo, I'm turning fifty tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to hear that. I kid, I kid. You
Speaker 1: know if you turn the clock back, you won't just
Speaker 1: keep turning the clock back by an hour. You'll never
Speaker 1: turn fifty but happy birthday, brother, it's a big milestone.
Speaker 1: You're half a century old. I hope it's a good birthday.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that you couldn't get a better Monday Night
Speaker 1: Raw for your birthday. Leopoldo says, Jericho Countdown at the
Speaker 1: Royal Rumble would be timely. Yes, it Would's actually not
Speaker 1: a bad idea unless you kind of ruin the pop though,
Speaker 1: like if you want to wait until the music hits.
Speaker 1: Alexander says, this episode of Row felt like Capitol Combat ninety. Dude,
Speaker 1: I would have rather been watching Capitol Combat ninety. Leopoldo says,
Speaker 1: Pelmanizer sounds like a bad Bill Cosby nickname. At least
Speaker 1: Punk was safe and used protection with Braun trying to
Speaker 1: be sidri are you there can only be one more
Speaker 1: chance for Drew to win the belt? This is it.
Speaker 1: It's Berlin or Bust for Drew McIntyre. Prince Vegeta says,
Speaker 1: watching raws like I'm constantly running up that road, running
Speaker 1: up that hill. Fabian Garcia, look wrestle a book, Wrestleman book,
Speaker 1: WrestleMania fifty main event too far in advance, WrestleMania fifty
Speaker 1: Hmmm wrestle Mania fifty Cody Rhoads against Javon Evans. Here
Speaker 1: you go, Devin from New Jersey. I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Wrestlers look down on us as being marks and fanboys,
Speaker 1: But when we do criticize the product, Triple H tells
Speaker 1: us to shut up and be fans. What do they
Speaker 1: want from us? They want your money. They want you
Speaker 1: to buy the various subscriptions, they want you to buy tickets,
Speaker 1: they want you to buy merch, and they want you
Speaker 1: to keep your fucking mouth shut. That's what they want.
Speaker 1: HBKC eighty three. How useful would the defending a title
Speaker 1: in thirty days rule be in today's world of I
Speaker 1: think would be very useful. I never would have gotten
Speaker 1: rid of it. Paul Carpenter any word on old school
Speaker 1: wrestling like WSWA and ECW on Netflix. So far they
Speaker 1: have every WWF. I hope they get us what we
Speaker 1: want NXT. Also, they haven't announced shit they have really,
Speaker 1: I think you know, when it comes to communications on
Speaker 1: this stuff, they have demonstrated that they truly do not care.
Speaker 1: The way it's been handled has been awful, absolutely awful
Speaker 1: for the people who care about this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: They are getting no guidance. They're getting nothing. They're getting nothing.
Speaker 1: That's how little they think of you. You want WCW stuff,
Speaker 1: you got to go to the WCW YouTube channel. They
Speaker 1: actually just updated a whole full full show. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to remember which one it was, but they just uploaded another.
Speaker 1: They have a bunch of full shows there. That's going
Speaker 1: to be your best bet. I just bookmarked it actually,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, or they uploaded earlier. Jay Williams, it's
Speaker 1: time we talk about seeing his greatest promo of all time.
Speaker 1: Brock to get a concussion, you need a brain chill.
Speaker 1: I'm quite partial to the night that Sina just completely
Speaker 1: eviscerated Roman Reigns on the microphone. More not kidding. Wreussell
Speaker 1: Kingdom twenty o Kata tana Hashi is better than Wressell
Speaker 1: Kingdom ten oh Kata tana Hashi. I can see where
Speaker 1: some people would feel that way because it was just
Speaker 1: a different It was a different story this time. You know,
Speaker 1: it was just like the aging veteran against his greatest nemesis,
Speaker 1: trying to hang in there for one last win. And
Speaker 1: you have the story. I just went through this whole thing.
Speaker 1: I did a bonus podcast this afternoon, so I'll just
Speaker 1: direct you to that. I just think what they did
Speaker 1: was fantastic, you know, and the stuff with Okada kind
Speaker 1: of starting out as aw Okada and then towards the
Speaker 1: end he had to really dig down deep for the
Speaker 1: old Rainmaker to get the job done. And the storytelling
Speaker 1: was much better in this one. As a match. It's
Speaker 1: been a while since I've seen the Russell Kingdom ten match.
Speaker 1: I would think as a match that one was better.
Speaker 1: But the story here in this one and the history
Speaker 1: between them just sets this one apart. Navy says Matt
Speaker 1: Hardy v one had the best Titan tron and fun facts.
Speaker 1: It was pretty cool. It was pretty awesome, very creative,
Speaker 1: something WWE is not much of these days. Alex says.
Speaker 1: Apparently Jericho was in LA and was never slated to
Speaker 1: appear on Raw Tonight. Also, weren't La Knight and Chad
Speaker 1: Gables supposed to make their return No, I mean Gable's
Speaker 1: on his way back soon. He was never really confirmed
Speaker 1: for this show. LA Night, though, was someone who he
Speaker 1: was rumored. I actually completely forgot about him, though. I'm
Speaker 1: actually more surprised that we didn't get him than I
Speaker 1: am that we didn't get Jericho JDFVA. I think LA
Speaker 1: would work as intercontinental champion. What are your thoughts why
Speaker 1: he won the US title? If he wins the intercontinental title,
Speaker 1: I certainly hope his run his book better than it
Speaker 1: was as the US champion, because that was a dog
Speaker 1: shit run. Jeremy Rose reaturning on EO is going to
Speaker 1: be nuclear, right if it happens, Yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: a good example. I would think of some nuclear I mean,
Speaker 1: look as nuclear as heat can be, and today's very
Speaker 1: homogenized WWE. But people really like EO as much as
Speaker 1: they love Rhea. I think if she did something really
Speaker 1: evil evil to EO, that that would definitely get a
Speaker 1: ton of heat. RDS Harry, Hey brother, I just turned
Speaker 1: twenty nine today. I just wanted to say how much
Speaker 1: I appreciate everything that you do. The number one podcast
Speaker 1: are in the world. That's right. See this guy knows
Speaker 1: what's up. Happy birthday, Harry Baby and Garcia. Main event
Speaker 1: jay USO or a main event Hardcore Holly. Main event
Speaker 1: hardcore Holly, because hardcore Holly didn't come out and have
Speaker 1: eight minute entrances. He was no nonsense. He just came
Speaker 1: out to the ring to beat people up. You didn't
Speaker 1: come out and yeat for fucking fourteen minutes. Alex is
Speaker 1: off topic here. Do you know why WWE did not
Speaker 1: continue its SmackDown after the April nineteen ninety nine pilot episode.
Speaker 1: It waited until August. That's not how it works. April
Speaker 1: was you said it yourself, dude. April was the pilot,
Speaker 1: and so it never goes directly. You got to get
Speaker 1: the show picked up first. They had to see how
Speaker 1: the pilot would do. And once UPN decided they wanted
Speaker 1: to pick up the show, then they had to slot
Speaker 1: it in and then it started in August. It's not
Speaker 1: an immediate thing. That's not how TV works. There was
Speaker 1: always going to be a gap. Leopaul does says, break
Speaker 1: the walls down. We'll be cut the tree down at
Speaker 1: the Royal rumble. Oh my gud. Can you imagine if
Speaker 1: like the countdown is down to like five four, three
Speaker 1: two one, and then we just hear I, oh god,
Speaker 1: I have the learning Tree. And then Sola Monster, who
Speaker 1: is not even live on YouTube, he's watching he's watching it.
Speaker 1: He's watching the show like everybody else, hits the button
Speaker 1: just on instinct super Pony twenty eighteen to twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two WWE or this TKO era which is worse still't
Speaker 1: go twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two. You know why,
Speaker 1: it's a double whammy because it included Vince who was
Speaker 1: at you know, far beyond his years and creative as
Speaker 1: a creative mind. But also the COVID era in front
Speaker 1: of no fans, which I have no interest in going
Speaker 1: back and watching. We were kind of double fucked in
Speaker 1: that era, maybe, says Raw tonight. At least Summer Slam
Speaker 1: two thousand and two is better. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of shows that are better. And Leopouldo, can you see
Speaker 1: Hardy's New Day, USO's Triple Thread at Media Now? We
Speaker 1: got to get USO's and Luca Brothers. That's the match.
Speaker 1: I know that's what Matt Hardy wants, but that's not
Speaker 1: what I want. I want what I want. I don't
Speaker 1: want what Matt Hardy wants. Jay Williams imagine deaf Rebel
Speaker 1: does Jericho's theme song. I don't want to imagine. I
Speaker 1: would think that as someone who is a music head
Speaker 1: the way that he is, Jericho would just refuse to
Speaker 1: return to the company outright. If he knew that Deaf
Speaker 1: Rebel was going to make his new music, he would
Speaker 1: just you just go back to Tony kNN and go, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll resign. What do you want? Two years? Three years?
Speaker 1: Can you even imagine? What would that music even sound like?
Speaker 1: What would the opening sound bite be? Right, Chris Jericho,
Speaker 1: deaf Rebel theme? As you ponder that question, be the booker,
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. It is now time to be the booker.
Speaker 1: Questions for you to ponder down yonder. Hi, guys, all right,
Speaker 1: we got one round. We gotta make a count. We
Speaker 1: gotta make it a good one. We get no double tonight,
Speaker 1: we get one shot at this triple h may let
Speaker 1: you down. But my job here is make sure that
Speaker 1: I give the people what they want. And I'm giving
Speaker 1: the people Caine and the big show. I have failed you.
Speaker 1: I have failed you. Boy. This is a this is
Speaker 1: a this is meat madness. Here is what. This is
Speaker 1: a big boys. We've got canaan big show against the
Speaker 1: natural disasters. You know what I I John Tenton man,
Speaker 1: he was he was the man. John Tenton was the man.
Speaker 1: Now you got Uncle Fred over here, you got the
Speaker 1: shock Master. Look how happy he is. I gotta give
Speaker 1: it the bell. I gotta give it the bell. We've
Speaker 1: got a hoss battle here. Come on, women's be the hooker.
Speaker 1: We have Alisha Fox. We have the great Alisha Fawx.
Speaker 1: We're those great Alicia Fox matches Man Man, all those
Speaker 1: classic matches, Alisha Fox against Sorea goodbye. I mean it
Speaker 1: was over from Alicha Fox. But I just was curious
Speaker 1: to see who the opponent would be. I how to
Speaker 1: at least see who it was going to be. You
Speaker 1: get no clean sweep tonight. Hey there's Firepan. Everybody wish
Speaker 1: Firepanda a very happy new year. Fire Panda, I hope
Speaker 1: you are having a happy new year. So far, five
Speaker 1: days in main event time we have the mighty yoko
Speaker 1: Zuna is in the main event. Two time WWF champion,
Speaker 1: or is a mister Fuji used to call him my
Speaker 1: yoko Zuma, My yoko Zuma, so how we used to
Speaker 1: say it, Oh my god, Yokozuna against Logan Paul. Oh,
Speaker 1: he's got he's taking a Bonzai splash. He's taken a
Speaker 1: Bonzi splash. He's going to squash Logan Paul like a pancake.
Speaker 1: And why that made me laugh. Yokozuna against Logan Paul,
Speaker 1: Those like I love that, like the generational clash. Here
Speaker 1: should we add a stipula? I'm like so curious to
Speaker 1: add a stipulation to this. I already gave it a bell.
Speaker 1: I don't want to fuck fucking why not, let's just
Speaker 1: do it. We gotta give this a STIPI I need
Speaker 1: to know what the stipulation is gonna be. Yoko Zuna. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, this is probably not good for Yoko Zuna.
Speaker 1: Yoko Zuna against Logan Paul in a brawl for all match.
Speaker 1: Logan Paul does box, so I actually think he's got
Speaker 1: the edge in this one. But then again, I mean
Speaker 1: Yoko Zunaman, he's so big he could just smother him.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think that's allowed though, in a
Speaker 1: in a brawl for all match, I think you'd be disqualified.
Speaker 1: How's that for a match? Yoko Zuna and Logan Paul
Speaker 1: in a brawl for all match? I ruined it. No,
Speaker 1: I think I enhanced it. I think I made it better.
Speaker 1: And Alex says, do you know when the rumors and
Speaker 1: conspiracies started regarding Glenn Jacobs never being the original Kine.
Speaker 1: I mean as soon as he went to the half mask,
Speaker 1: I think is when it really started. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had the same conspiracy theories with the Ultimate Warrior. People
Speaker 1: thought he died in a car accident. That was the
Speaker 1: rumor for many years because he came back to WrestleMania
Speaker 1: eight and he was completely deflated. Right he was still
Speaker 1: I mean, he was still ripped, but like not nearly
Speaker 1: as ripped as he was a year earlier. It's like
Speaker 1: someone's like a fucking pin in him. People didn't think
Speaker 1: it was him. I oh, the real Ultimate Warrior, he
Speaker 1: died in the car wreck. Anyway. The Wrestle Kingdom twenty
Speaker 1: review is now up. I did not see the entire
Speaker 1: show as far as the undercard. I saw the four
Speaker 1: match as I wanted to see, which was the women's match,
Speaker 1: the Aaron Wolf debut, and the double main event. So
Speaker 1: I did a twenty minute extra just going over my
Speaker 1: thoughts on that. That went up this afternoon. I pushed
Speaker 1: the audio out on YouTube as well. Please go ahead
Speaker 1: and support like the video, leave comments. That way we'll
Speaker 1: get into the algorithm more people will see it. But
Speaker 1: leave a comment there let me know what you thought
Speaker 1: I thought it was great. I thought it was great.
Speaker 1: And if you missed the rest of the podcast, episode
Speaker 1: nine forty five that went up this weekend with my predictions,
Speaker 1: thoughts on the Vince McMahon stuff that came out last week,
Speaker 1: the William Regals stuff, a bunch of other things in
Speaker 1: a gigantic mailbag, tons of your questions, just like we
Speaker 1: answered here tonight, and we'll do it again on Wednesday
Speaker 1: as well. I'm gonna be here live with you for
Speaker 1: the aw Dynamite review that'll be Wednesday night. Of course,
Speaker 1: before that, Tomorrow night, I'll be Live with JD for
Speaker 1: Tuesday Night Titans, our first episode of the new year.
Speaker 1: We fucking killed it in twenty twenty five, so we
Speaker 1: got to do the same thing in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: so then we got Dynamite and then Friday. So here's
Speaker 1: the plan for Friday. Friday is a not taped, but
Speaker 1: they're doing smack then in Berlin, Germany. I'm almost positive
Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to watch it earlier on
Speaker 1: my VPN shout Out Express VPN. So assuming that's the case,
Speaker 1: I'm not waiting for it to go on USA at
Speaker 1: eight o'clock. I may go live at eight o'clock or
Speaker 1: sometime around like eight eight thirty, So follow me on
Speaker 1: X that's Sola Monster. I'll keep you guys posted on that.
Speaker 1: But that's my plan. As long as I can watch
Speaker 1: it in the end afternoon, I'd much rather do that
Speaker 1: and then we'll talk about three stages of hell. Who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll have a new WWE champion to talk about,
Speaker 1: So that'll be on Friday. Ace Ataliano Blake. Monroe looks
Speaker 1: to be getting called to the main roster. Likely raw
Speaker 1: she should be. She should already be there. You know.
Speaker 1: It was her choice to start in NXT. It's very
Speaker 1: noble of her, but she was ready for the main
Speaker 1: roster many months ago. So that's music to my ears.
Speaker 1: If that's the case, debut her in the Royal Rumble,
Speaker 1: let's get her up. She'll just have to have her
Speaker 1: body suit fitted for the Saudi Rumble, as all of
Speaker 1: the women will look. I said this last year when
Speaker 1: they made the announcement. Genuinely, I wonder how that's going
Speaker 1: to work because obviously they all have to wear they
Speaker 1: have to be covered, and you're gonna have thirty women
Speaker 1: coming out. Are they going to be able to distinguish
Speaker 1: themselves enough, or are they all gonna more or less
Speaker 1: look the same. I don't know. I don't know how
Speaker 1: that's gonna work. We'll all find out together. I guess
Speaker 1: what time will smack Down beyond Netflix? I mean, it
Speaker 1: depends on It depends on what warzone, war zone, It
Speaker 1: depends up, depends on what time zone. It depends on
Speaker 1: what time zone you live in or war zone. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think here on the East Coast. If
Speaker 1: I I don't know, man, if I log in, what
Speaker 1: server am I gonna log into? I don't even know?
Speaker 1: Let me you know what, let me see something here
Speaker 1: while I'm on the air. Maybe I can get some
Speaker 1: clarity on this. Right now, I got my Express VPN
Speaker 1: on my phone, so I'm gonna pick a Canadian server.
Speaker 1: Shout out to all the Canucks out there, So let's
Speaker 1: go into Netflix and see what it says. M is
Speaker 1: SmackDown even on Netflix, and oh it is okay, live
Speaker 1: event Friday at two pm Eastern, So there you go.
Speaker 1: SmackDown will be on at least this is on Canadian
Speaker 1: Netflix two o'clock Eastern time. So that's what I'll be doing.
Speaker 1: That's perfect. That leads into dinner and then we can
Speaker 1: go live probably I don't know, eight eight fifteen sometime
Speaker 1: around then. Perfect. Let me just run through h the do.
Speaker 2: Do Do Do Do Do do doo. Okay, I think
Speaker 2: we're good, Paul, I don't see the milestone here. Let
Speaker 2: me check over here real quick. Make sure I didn't
Speaker 2: miss anything on this column.
Speaker 1: No, I don't see it. I may end up seeing
Speaker 1: it after. Honestly, I hate the way YouTube has all
Speaker 1: these like a member milestones are segregated from the super chats.
Speaker 1: It's like a different area. It's such a pain in
Speaker 1: the ass. In any event, thank you guys for all
Speaker 1: the love. I appreciate it very much, even though I
Speaker 1: am still under the weather. Can't shake this man, I
Speaker 1: just can't shake it. But the work goes on. I'll
Speaker 1: see you tomorrow for Tuesday Night Titans, and back here
Speaker 1: Wednesday for the aw Dynamite stream. So until then, be well,
Speaker 1: stay safe, have yourselves a good night, and come on back.
Speaker 1: We're getting close, ninety k. I'll see you guys Wednesday.