Insight with Chris Van Vliet - AskCVV #126 - Cody Rhodes Is Champ Again, Brock Lesnar's Mystery WrestleMania Opponent, Danhausen Is Awesome!

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Welcome to AskCVV #126! On this episode, Chris Van Vliet answers questions about Cody Rhodes beating Drew McIntyre and becoming the WWE Champion for the third time, whether CM Punk might turn heel, who Brock Lesnar's WrestleMania opponent will be, what's next for Oba Femi, Mount Rushmore of WWE debuts, advice for a young wrestler and much more! Quote I'm thinking about: "While you're doubting your self worth, remember someone else is admiring your existence." Please support our sponsors: HELIX SLEEP: Flash sale! Go to https://helixsleep.com/cvv for 27% off sitewide! COZY EARTH: Go to https://cozyearth.com/CVV for up to 20% off! BEAM: Go to https://shopbeam.com/INSIGHT and use code INSIGHT for up to 40% off Beam’s Dream Powder DELETEME: Use the code INSIGHT to get 20% off your DeleteMe plan at https://joindeleteme.com/INSIGHT FACTOR: Get 50% off your first box, plus Free Breakfast for 1 Year with the code INSIGHT50OFF at https://factormeals.com/INSIGHT50OFF PURE PLANK: The future of core fitness! Use the code CVV to save 10% on Pure Plank designed by Adam Copeland & Christian: https://gopureplank.com/cvv SEAT GEEK: Use my code for 10% off your next SeatGeek order*: https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/CVV Sponsored by SeatGeek. *Restrictions apply. Max $20 discount NORDVPN: Exclusive deal! https://nordvpn.com/cvv Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! PRIZEPICKS: Download the PrizePicks app today and use code INSIGHT to get $50 bonus credit in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup! For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com If you have ever enjoyed any of these episodes, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast or Spotify? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chris. Oh, that intro from Downstate just gets me pumped up every single time. Welcome back, my friend, to another one here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet. So good to be hanging out with you on a Friday. Thank you for being here. And thank you for making Insight the number one wrestling podcast on the planet. Put your phone between your legs right now and hit a pile driver on that fall.

button so you don't miss out on anything that we have coming up. What a Friday. What a mega two episode Friday this is. Man, I'm assuming that you're listening to this right now after already listening to the interview with Cody Rhodes that just dropped an hour or so ago right before this AskCTVV episode. What a chat that was. An hour in 15-ish minutes with the new WWE champion. And we cover a lot of ground. We talk about his most recent title win. He's a three-time WWE champion now. It's so recent, in fact, that he still had Drew McIntyre's side plates on the title. We talk about how polarizing he's become. He hears the booze. And I asked him how he feels about that. Where do we go from here? Is there a possible heel turn?

We talk about getting slapped by Travis Scott. He hasn't talked about that. That was That was over a year ago, March 1st, 2025, Toronto Elimination Chamber. We also talk about the new addition to the family. Cody and Brannie just welcomed their second daughter, Lailani, in August. Talk about a little bit of dad stuff in there. Also talk about like, this is interesting. Cody's first job ever when he was 16. He worked at Einstein Brothers Bagel Shop and he got fired and we talked about why he got fired.

Oh, we also talk about the Cody Splash. You know the Cody Splash. A lot of people want to know why his splash looks like that. We finally have an answer. There's so much stuff that we get into here. I'm sure I already listened to the episodes. You know this. But the reason that it's coming out on a Friday and not the usual Thursday

is because we just filmed this episode on Wednesday in Atlanta. And this whole interview came together so quickly. I found out that this was happening on Monday. Or it was like, hey, would you be interested in doing this interview with Cody Rhodes on Wednesday in Atlanta? The answer is obviously, yes, absolutely. The thing is, I had already planned to go to Austin, Texas to shoot two interviews on Tuesday. So there's a lot that went into these last few days. On Monday, I find out that this Cody Rhodes interview is possible, plausible, I should say.

as I'm driving into the studio to interview Chris Masters, a fantastic conversation that you're going to hear on Tuesday. So I'm driving to the studio with this interview with Chris Masters coming up. We lock in for the interview. We start recording. Obviously, I'm not checking my phone or answering phone calls. We're just recording the interview. I get out of the interview and it's like, yes, the interview is happening on Wednesday,

like confirmed, here's a time, here's a location. And I'm like, well, what do I do about this? trip to Austin now. So like literally as I said goodbye to Chris Masters, I changed by flight to go to Austin on Monday instead of Tuesday, changed the interview to be Tuesday morning instead of Wednesday morning. It's with Candice Michelle. What a great conversation that is. You'll hear that one next Thursday. There was a second interview I was supposed to do there. I won't say who it is in case it doesn't come together, but I think it will in the next few weeks. A lot of few wrestlers live in Austin,

so it could be a handful of people. But I left the studio, and, like, depending on Los Angeles traffic, it could take an hour to get home. It could take two hours and ten minutes to get home, or maybe longer. I was lucky. It was like an hour 15.

Got home, packed a bag in about four minutes, kissed my wife, beautiful Rachel Van Vleet, kissed the babies, Logan and Cooper, and I went to the airport. So it was like, this all came together really quickly, flew to Austin, booked a hotel while I was on the plane. So got to Austin, did the interview the next morning, then left from the interview studio that I rented in Austin, went straight from there to the airport on a flight. I had also just booked that morning to go to Atlanta, figured out the hotel while I was at the airport.

While I was on the plane, I'm like, well, if I'm landing at like 5 p.m., and the interview's not until tomorrow at noon with Cody Rhodes, is there anybody else in Atlanta that I could do an interview with while I'm here? So while I was on the plane, I texted Mark Merrow. I've been trying to set up an interview with Mark Merrow for months. He has a fantastic, autobiography out now called bad to good. I guess just biography, right? Like written,

co-written, I guess, by him and Ben Veal. But a fantastic book called Bad to Good. And ever since I read it, I wanted to have him on the show. He responded right away and he's like, yeah, I'm free. Like, oh my gosh, this is great. So put that together. As soon as I landed, headed to DDP's studio, the DDP Performance Center. DDP was kind enough to let me record there with the wonderfully talented Steve Yu, who is kind of like DDP's right-hand man when it comes to like a lot of business things, production,

the man is a wizard when it comes to like storytelling and shooting, cameras, all that kind of stuff. Do the interview with Mark Merrill. Then I leave there, check into the hotel. get everything ready for the Cody Rhodes interview the next day. We did the interview. It was supposed to be at noon. Probably didn't start till closer to one.

Finish that at like 215-ish, packed up all the gear. My flight was at 4.30. I started to upload the files from my SD card onto the computer and just, like, made my way to the airport and made my flight with just a few minutes to spare. by the time I got home after a connection in Dallas, it was 9 p.m. And I still hadn't uploaded the files, which is another part of the process that takes longer than you would expect.

So that's why the episode couldn't be up on Thursday. The files weren't even uploaded in time by then. And we knew that this episode needed to be turned around pretty quickly because of just how timely a lot of the things are. Like, I think tonight on SmackDown, we may get a shift or a change here, and it may be different from the stuff we talked about just two days ago.

So that's why the episode is up on Friday. This hasn't happened. I think the last time that the schedule changed like this was the Dominic Mysterio episode, which was like two years ago. Other than that, as you know, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, without fail. But man, this all came together.

Also, I should add in, we recorded this at Cody's wrestling school, The Nightmare Factory, amazing facility that he has there. And, man, Cody is exactly who you think he is. Like, that's who he is on camera. That's who he is off camera. And it's funny because we, like, chatted a little bit about, like, is this a character? Is this you? And, like, he's like, I'm not really sure.

Like, got into that a little bit. But he's like, I have a gift for you to give me a box. of amazing cigars. It wasn't just me doing an interview. There was also complex recorded an interview before for the new wrestling podcast, Graps. And then my good friend, Brandon Davis, recorded in an interview after. That was actually the bonus episode recently, where I was a guest on the Brandon Davis show. He recorded that one after.

So great to see my buddy Brandon Davis there doing this great interview with Cody Rhodes. So he gifted all of us a box of cigars. So a wonderfully kind and thoughtful gesture from Cody Rhodes. But I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you did, please share it with a friend. Have your friend to share it with one of their friends. I think there was a lot of like super interesting stuff in there. Oh, by the way, we are real close to announcing the guest for Insight Live in Las Vegas.

Like I know who the guest is. They have given me their word. we're just waiting on one or two more things to like solidify this and put the graphic out. But I would say by next week, it will be officially announced. So if you haven't bought your tickets yet for Las Vegas, buy them now. I think the VIP tickets are going to sell out, especially when I tell you that my guest is going to be joining me for the VIP meet and greet. And the last handful of VIP meet and greets, everybody has gotten, actually, every meet and greet,

everybody who has bought a VIP ticket got an autographed 8 by 10. So at the last one with Mustafa Ali, you got a CVV 8 by 10. You also got an Ali 8 by 10. That'll be the same case for this guest, and they will be staying for the meet and greet so you can meet them, you can greet them,

you can get the free 8 by 10. You can also have them sign whatever it is that you might bring for them, but tickets are very, are available at CVVTix.com, not just for the Las Vegas show, but also for Tampa and New Orleans. And then there's one more that we'll be announcing here pretty soon as well, a big one, a big one that we'll be announcing. With all that said, welcome to Ask CVV number one, two, six-sided ring.

And welcome to Ask CVV. number one, two, six, one, nine. I had so much fun. Saying those with 116, I had to do it with 126. You got an idea for next week? Send in your questions, send in your suggestions for Ask CVV 1-2-Lucky number seven. You can send them in on Chris Vanfleet.com,

send them in on social media using that hashtag AskCV. Or you can shoot me an email. CVV at Chris VanVleet. or of course, if you're listening on Spotify, leave a comment on Spotify with your question or your suggestion for AskCTVV number 127. We'll kick this off with this one from T-Bone Sanchez on Facebook. Hey, Chris, real, real one here. If you'd come to Dallas, I could be a real, real, real one. Well, hopefully soon, my friend. Anyway, do you think that Cody's victory was a bad move?

I personally love Drew and wanted to see a good run. And I'm a huge punk fan. Always have been. What are your thoughts on him obviously turning heel? I'm really curious to hear the story behind Cody winning the championship here. And I have a theory, and I'll bounce this off of you. But I want to say that, like, it's been pretty cool seeing two WWE championships change hands on SmackDown. within the first two-ish months of the year.

Like, we hadn't seen a championship change hands on a televised show or a WWE or a World Championship changed hands on a televised show in a while. I guess the world title with Gunther, but the WWE title? I can tell the last time it happened on Smacktown was 2018. Daniel Bryan. It's only happened seven times, total.

I'll go through him. I'm here for you. These are all the WWE championships that have changed hands on Smackdown. And don't tell me, oh, what about this person? What about that person? You're probably thinking about World Heavyweight Champions. We're talking here about the WWE Championship. 1999, Vince McMahon. 2003, Brock Lesnar, 2017, A.J. Stiles. 2018, Daniel Bryan. Oh, you're right here. You're right. Brock Lesnar, 2019. and Brock Leszor did it twice. Then Drew McIntyre earlier this year,

Cody Rhodes last week. It feels significant. Like, this did not feel like it was possible. The WWE Championship changing hands on TV, certainly not when Roman Raines was in the middle of a 1,316-day run. Now it feels like you have to tune in to Smackdown. You have to tune into Raw.

The amount of titles that are changing hands, I love it. Like, it's so reminiscent to me of the attitude era. But I guess my biggest question here is, why did Cody have to lose it in the first place? Like, other than the shock of this happening on SmackDown to start the year,

what was the storyline purpose here? We may get some sort of answer tonight or maybe next Friday, especially with the fact that, like, Drew McIntyre had written this into the contract, if we're talking Kay Faye, we're talking storylines here, had written it into his conference,

contract that Cody Rhodes wouldn't get a rematch. So how did he get a rematch? And I know the storyline here is like Drew McIntyre just kept pushing Nick Aldous, kept pushing Nick Aldous. Nick Aldous had no choice but to create this match the last Friday on Smackdown and what happened is what happened. And I feel like I predicted it. Like I gave us four scenarios last week. I said one of these four things is going to happen. And one of those was Jacob thought to comes out and interferes or cause a distraction, Cody wins clean. And that's exactly what happened here.

Here's my theory. My theory is that Cody Rhodes was not the champion going into Elimination Chamber intentionally. And I think it was done for two reasons. One, I think it made Elimination Chamber that much more interesting. Because there were so many people going into elimination chamber going, oh, this is obvious.

Cody Rhodes is going to win? Ah, is he? Is he? It's not what happened. It came down to like, is it Cody or is it Randy? Like, there were some other like distant possibilities here, but it really came down to like, is it going to be Cody or is it going to be Randy and how is this going to shake out? Well, we saw exactly how it shook out.

So that's one reason. I think to make elimination chamber just a little bit more unpredictable, which it was. I think the other one was Cody Rhodes is going into the last PLE before WrestleMania and he's not the champion. It makes elimination chamber

that much more of a must-watch PLE, especially with Cody Rhodes being as popular as he is or perhaps as polarizing as he is. Cody Rhodes isn't part of elimination chamber. If he's not in the elimination chamber match, he's not on the card.

And if he's not on the card, there may be a section of fans who go, I'm not going to watch this. I'm a Cody guy. I want to see Cody in the PLA. So that's my theory here. My theory is that Drew McIntyre was the champion so that Cody Rhodes could be chasing the title going into elimination chamber. And now Cody Rhodes is the champion again, but I just feel like, I feel like this isn't over.

I feel like there's more to come here. like Drew McIntyre went from having a WWE title match defending his title at WrestleMania to as we sit here right now no match obviously that's going to change perhaps in the next handful of hours when Smackdown goes live tonight

but like a huge change for Drew McIntyre but if you think back like six-ish months when people were doing like way too early booking for WrestleMania 42. The one match that

kept coming up was Cody Rhodes versus Randy Orden. This has been teased for almost two years. And the story writes itself. Like this is mentor, mentee. We talked about during the interview with Cody. This was Cody Rhodes' first

televised WWE match 2007 with Randy Orton. Randy Orton tweeted in 2011, something along the lines of like Cody Rhodes has improved 10 times since the last time I was in the ring with him. He is for sure going to be a world champion one day. It's 2011. Randy Orton's saying this. They haven't wrestled each other. They haven't had a one-on-one match. Well, they had a match at Knight of Champions last year, but with really no buildup that was King of the Ring. But they haven't

had like a story since 2013. There's a lot here. There's a lot that's going into this. And it's funny because this has been one of those matches that everyone's been talking about for so long. And now that it's here, people are like, well, that's the match I wanted, but not like this. This isn't how I wanted it to come together. And to that, I just say, like, let's see how this plays out. We've still got over a month until WrestleMania, there's still a lot of time to see how this shakes out here. But the booze have certainly been getting louder for Cody.

and I think that now may be as good a time as ever to let Cody Rhodes lean into that a little bit because otherwise, I think when WrestleMania comes around, it's going to be really loud booze for Cody, even louder than last year. Because if you think about that match last year, John Cena was supposed to be a heel.

He's getting cheered. Cody Rhodes is supposed to be the biggest baby face, and he's getting booed in that match, the whole match too. I asked him, I said, at what point did you know that the crowd wasn't on your side? He's like, I think during the old school intros, like really felt it. But I think now would be as good a time as ever for Cody Rhodes to turn heel, which makes me think something's going to happen tonight. I think that something's going to make us go, huh, well, that's where we're going with this.

We'll have to see. We'll have to see how this comes together. You know, it's hard to believe that it's already been over a month. month since John Cena's final match. And I'm grateful to say that I was able to be there in person in D.C. with some amazing tickets from Seatkeek. And I want to give a huge shout out to Seekek for sponsoring this episode. With over 35 million downloads, SeatGeek is the number one rated ticketing app. There are more than 70,000 events listed on Seatgeek, including concerts, W.W.E, sports, festivals, and more. The NFL playoffs are here. The Super Bowl is right around the

corner, elimination chamber also around the corner. And the great thing about Seekek is they've got your back. Every ticket is rated on a scale of one to ten so you know you're getting a good deal. Look for the green dots. Green means good. Red means bad. Plus, every ticket is backed by their buyer guarantee. And of course, I have a code for you guys. You can use the code CVV for 10% off your next set of tickets at Seek. That's 10% off any tickets with the promo code, CVV, and make sure you to click the link in the show notes to download the app and have that code automatically apply to your account so you can use it later. Big shout out to Seekkeek for sponsoring this episode. The United States Soccer Federation present the U.S. Soccer Podcast.

My name is David Goss, and I'm joined by my co-host, Megan Klinemberg. And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. Time's ticking. I think you can feel the intensity. All the guys are wanting to really seek their claimant, and they want to be on that World Cup roster. There's no doubt about it. Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are.

The U.S. Soccer podcast, presented by Henko. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Jared King on Spotify says, at first, I hated the crate reveal, but I can confirm that after raw, I am a certified fanhousin. I love it. This is a perfect example of what I say all the time.

Just have a little bit of patience. just a little bit of patience. Because I'm with you. The crate reveal was not good. And it wasn't good because it wasn't like a good showcase of what Danhausen is and what Danhausen is all about.

What we've been seeing over the last few weeks on Ron Smackdown and especially his stuff on social media, that's who Danhausen is. That's what Danhausen is about. Mispronouncing names and calling things, other things, and being silly and goofy and putting curses on people. That's what Danhausen is all about.

And I'm sure that an elimination chamber with the crate revealed, they wanted to do something over the top. They wanted to make it feel big. But I get it for a fan who's unfamiliar with the character, who maybe you've heard of Dan hausen, but you've never seen any of his work. you've never seen any of his promos or any of his matches. I can understand how the crate reveal might have been really confusing. Like, is Danhausen some dancing guy? And did those dancing girls with the costumes?

Do they follow him around all the time? It just was unclear about what we could expect from him. But now we're seeing it. And I said this last week, but I think the perfect reveal would have been like they crack open the crate and he just walks out and like says a funny line or two in a backstage segment and walks away and it would have been like and people of course would have complained about that too but you can never please fans especially when there's such a buildup like there was for the crate reveal but that would have been more fitting for

what he's all about and now we're saying that dan hausen is a top merch selling machine like Don't be surprised when the numbers come out and he's the top seller for the month of March. And right now it's like just t-shirts. Just wait. I'm sure there's going to be Danhausen masks. There's going to be Danhausen like capes. I think there's going to be maybe there's a Danhausen jar of teeth. It's going to be a lot of Danhausen merch.

And I love it. I know Danhausen with face paint on and without and this. couldn't be happening to a more deserving guy. So I love it. Also, I can't wait for Dan hausen to meet Our Truth because that is going to be comedy gold when that ends up happening. Kenny sent this one in on Chrisfanfleet.com. Hey, Chris, real, real, real one here. Don't worry about mispronouncing my name, right? Kenny Calone. You said I won't worry about, so I won't worry about it. Here's my question for Ask CVV number one. What is your Mount Rushmore of WWE debuts?

In the spirit of the very nice, very evil Danhausen. Thanks for making my week better every single Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. It's a great question. And you know I love a good Mount Rushmore. So Mount Rushmore of WWE debuts. We're going to have to kick it off with the one that we're all thinking about right now. Y2J Chris Jericho

it may be about as close to a perfect WWE debut that you can get the countdown clock for months people not knowing who it is then this is 1999 so the internet's around but not around in the same way that it is now where like news spreads boom like that the way it does in

2026 but word was starting to spread that it might be Chris Jericho and then it was continuing to tick down, people finally did the math and realized what day it would be, so they knew he was going to debut on that raw. But they didn't know how or when,

like what segment it would be. The fact that the countdown interrupts the Rock's promo immediately makes Chris Jericho a top guy. Even if you weren't watching WCW at the time, he comes out, looks like a star, he's going to toe to top. toe with the rock on the mic, immediately in that main event scene. That's got to be number one.

Welcome to Ra is Jericho. So good. Number two, we're going to go with, that's going to be Kane, the iconic call from Vince McMahon. I know people think that's JR, but it's Vince McMahon that makes the call. Bad Blood in your house. One of the greatest visuals. in a debut ever.

He appears during the first ever, hell and a cell match, he rips the door off the cage, tombstones the undertaker, like everything. He nails him all. It's just perfect. And we've talked about this before,

but when you talk about a gimmick change that made someone's career, crazy to think that Isaac Yankham and Kane are the same person. like Isaac Yankham is not going anywhere with that character, certainly not a world champion or a Hall of Famer. Kane, like immediately he's put into the storyline with The Undertaker and Paul Bear and lives up to the hype.

Absolutely incredible. Then we're going to go with The Undertaker. I mean, this debut literally created one of the most iconic. characters in wrestling history. And while there have been a few different iterations of The Undertaker, like corporate ministry, American Badass, it's still The Undertaker.

And that started in 1990. So, like, for the... We already know about The Undertaker's longevity and legacy and all that, but, like, for that character to not really change that much and keep doing it for 30 years, amazing. Introduced by Ted DiBiase

destroys everyone in sight. Looks like a horror movie villain completely different from anything we had seen in that era and like continues to live up to this week after week after week after week after week instantly an iconic character

and like remained iconic. Then for the last spot here, always tough when you can only put four on here I thought a lot about this, but I remember this moment so specifically and remembering like, I remember how like big this felt. Like it was, there was just a lot of weight to this.

And it's when the radicals debuted on Raw in 2000. In one night, WWF at the time stole four top superstars from WCW. Eddie Guerrero, Chris Ben, DeMalancow, Perry Saturn. They jump ship from WCW in the heart of the Monday Night Wars.

And like to see those guys who just maybe were a little bit underutilized, maybe underappreciated in WCW come in as this faction, the radicals with a Z at the end. And then to be able to break off and become the characters that they were, that was big. And that was one of the last real nails in the

coffin for Rob beating Nitro. Like, I feel like by the time 2000 rolled around, there were a lot of things that WWE, WWF was doing right and WCW was doing wrong. But this was one of the last things that was like, oh, those guys are going to leave? Oh, man, you've got real issues. Like, you just lost Jericho and now you're losing those four. Oh, wow. And I'm sure that within the next year-ish, when WCOPH, when WCW,

WCW got bought out by WWE, we probably would have got all four of those, although there were like some dependent on everyone's contract, not everybody came over. You can think of a lot of examples of people who didn't come over when WCW got bought, but I would think that most of them would have come over, but they might have got lost in the shuffle. And that happened with a lot of WCW talent who came over after WCW was bought. But those are my four. Radicals, Undertaker, Kane, Chris Jericho.

Love to hear yours. Do you think I'm missing one if we're talking strictly WWE debuts? There's been a lot of good ones, but I feel like those are the four most impactful ones. At least in my opinion, this one's from Bo Ryan Rodifer on Facebook. O.G. Real, real, real one.

And new dad here. Hey, congratulations to you on the new edition of the family. Thoughts on the rumors that Lesnar is not wanting to lose until his last match. Does that rule him and Oba out at WrestleMania? I hope so because Oba losing would be a huge fumble. So this rumor here ties into the other rumor that Brock Lesnar is going to retire at SummerSlam in Minneapolis. And I've heard this.

And it makes sense that Brock Leser wouldn't lose until his last match, especially if here we are with WrestleMania a month away. SummerSlam a few months after that. What does he realistically have? Three more matches left? Maybe? WrestleMania? Is it going to have one in a backlash?

Is it going to have a random match on a Rar or a Smackdown? And then SummerSlam? There's a real possibility here that he only has two matches left. And here's the thing. Like, Brock Leslie doesn't lose often anyway. His last loss was SummerSlam. 2023 against Cody Rhodes. Before that,

SummerSlam 2020 against Roman Reins. So like Brock Lesnar not losing is not exactly like news. It's actually more of like a character trait. Brock Lesnar not losing. It's the beast. But I'm with you.

There's been a lot of rumors about Brock Lezzer's mystery opponent at WrestleMania being Obafemi, which I think a lot of people would love to see. see. It's like these two behemoths taking each other, like going head to head. But I'm with you. Like, it doesn't make sense to have this match, especially with all of the momentum that Obafemi has, to go into that and lose. Although, it's not like you're just losing to anybody. You're losing to Brock Lesnar. So, like, I could see it being just an all-out

battle and then losing, and I don't feel like it makes him look weak. Like in the same way that like, remember when Brombreaker made his main roster debut? And there was all this talk of like, oh, he's going to go on a streak. Bronbreaker's just going to win, win, win, win, win. And then if you remember it, he went into that intercontinental championship match against Sammy Zane, had money in the bank. This is 2024. And everyone's like, oh, my gosh, of course this streak's going to continue.

And it didn't. And I don't think it hurt Brombreaker at all. I understand that Brombraker and Obafemi are completely different. And especially what they're doing right now with Obafemi, just like running through people, like squash matches, like just absolutely building Obafemi up. If Brock Lezor does, in fact, only have two matches left, it really doesn't make sense to have one of those matches be against Obafemi,

for Obafemi to lose. Sure, it might be an honor to wrestle Brock Lesnar, especially if it's his last WrestleMania ever. But it wouldn't make sense for him to lose. But if that's the case, then, who could the opponent for Brock Lesnar be? Is it Braun Breaker?

If he's back in time and he's not doing whatever with the vision, not having this match with Seth Rollins that was rumored slash plan for a long time, is it Gunther? Because you could really say, something up there. They have a WrestleMania match. Billed as

Brock Leser's last WrestleMania match. It's against Gunther. Gunther has been retiring everybody. You already know the story. What if Brock Lesder wins? And then the rematch is SummerSlam. Brock Lesnar, Gunther. And Gunther puts him out

to pasture. There's a story there. But I'm with you. I don't think Obafemi needs a loss. And then if you keep building up Obafemi, it turns into one of those situations where it's like, well, who's going to beat him? Like, does he just keep beating everybody

until he gets to the point where he has a world title shot? Six months from now, a year from now, whatever the case may be, and then it's whoever the world champion is at that time, gives him his first loss in like just a all-out, knockdown, drag-out brawl? Maybe. Because otherwise, you can't just have him, like,

well, it could be like an intercontinental title match or U.S. title match, but, like, I don't think it's going to be just, he's not going to lose for no reason. So I'm with you. And I'm very interested to see who Brock Leznor's opponent will be. And also when that will be announced and how that story will build. David Tussabi on Instagram says, do you think this WrestleMania will top

the previous two, I think it's going to be real hard to top WrestleMania 40, perhaps ever. One of the greatest WrestleMania is certainly in recent memory, but like on the list, depending on how old you are, depending on how many WrestleMania is you've watched live, a lot of things factor into top three, top five, top 10 lists. But I would think WrestleMania 40 is for me, at top three

WrestleMania. Will it top WrestleMania 40? I don't think so. Will it top WrestleMania 41? I feel like that is much more possible. I think there were some

great matches at WrestleMania 41. The triple threat match. Oh my goodness. Amazing. The fatal four-way match for the Intercontinental Championship, I love that,

the main event on night one. Like there were some right spots. There were also some matches that were not so great. So topping last year, that has to be the goal. And I think that's the goal every year. I don't think it's just top last year. I think they go out to put on the best WrestleMania that's possible with what's in

front of them. I'm excited to see how this goes down, especially since I was there last year. I'm going to be there again this year. And I will see you, of course, the Thursday night. for Inside Live with special guest to be named soon. Oh, and I almost slipped there. I almost told you who it was.

But yeah, I think there's a real good chance that WrestleMania this year tops WrestleMania last year, but we may be waiting a long time for the top WrestleMania 40. That was like Avengers end game. That was so good. Chris underscore Deschen

underscore on Instagram says, Ask CVV, just want to say that I love your show and you are a real, real one. I'm a real, real one? No, Chris, you are a real, real one. And I've never met a Chris that I don't like. I'm about to start my professional wrestling journey and I start training tomorrow.

I have a good paying career. I have a house, a car, and I want to risk it all for something I'm truly passionate about. as someone who has talked to hundreds of wrestlers, do you have any advice on how to make professional wrestling into a career? Well, Chris, congrats to you on doing it. Congrats to you on putting one foot in front of the other

and making your dream a reality. So many people talk about training and never even step foot into a wrestling school. So the fact that not only are you stepping foot into a wrestling school, you're doing the dang thing. So you can already cross that one off the list. So congrats. I'm not a professional wrestler, although I have been to wrestling school.

I know how tough it's going to be. And if you listen to the interview I just recently did with Mustafa Ali, who has a fantastic wrestling school in Chicago, he talked about just like how difficult it is. He said he's had three classes. Each class has 18 people in it. So each class, I can't remember the exact length here,

but like a start to finish. I think it's like three months or whatever the case may be. He's at 18 students. So times three. So 18, 18, 18. And only four wrestlers have graduated from that. That's how tough it is.

So you already know that. You already know going into this, that it's difficult, that it's tough, and that's one of the reasons that you're doing it. And I love that. You're actually in a similar situation to one of my good friends from my hometown, Will White, who he was part of the backyard wrestling federation that I was part of.

His name was Danny Courageous. He's the guy that I talked about in the interview with Brandon Davis that broke his leg during one of our matches. I threw him off a bridge. Oh, 25 years later, that's a crazy sentence to say even still. But Will wanted a train to be a wrestler. And he had a great job as a police officer for the Durham Regional Police, like police officer in our hometown.

And he decided he was going to chase after this thing like on his off days. And it actually put him at an advantage because he had the money to travel to whatever show. Like he would drive two, three, four, five hours to be put on a show. Or someone might not have the gas money to be able to do that. He also had the money to buy merch, where a lot of people starting out don't have the money to buy their own merch or create their own merch. So, like, that put him in an advantage. And I remember him talking about that, like, that he was doing it strictly for the love, not for like the, oh, man, I'm going to drive three hours. In terms of advice, the biggest thing that any wrestler will tell you is go to a reputable school.

Go to a school with someone who is, the teacher there has been. to WWE, AWTNA, like they know how to get to the big leagues because they've been there before and they know what wrestling is like, what TV wrestling is like. I think that's number one,

like have a reputable trainer. Number two, like, go for it. And a lot of wrestling is what you do in the ring, but so much of it is not. So much of it is outside the ring. One of the biggest things,

get your cardio up. when you're not at wrestling school, when you're not in the ring, make sure you're lifting weights. I think so many people seem to forget that wrestling is like, it's a physical business. So it's not even just about like looking great in the ring. It's about like being strong enough

so that you don't get hurt. And more importantly, that the people you're wrestling against that you don't hurt them, that you're strong enough to lift them up or you're stable enough to hold them or work with them. I think that's like a, a super important part. The life of a wrestler is like,

it's gym and it's training and it's eating right and it's watching a ton of wrestling and it's character development too. Like Kevin Owens talks a lot about like he would be on long car drives, like long car rides. And he'd be cutting promos to himself. Just like getting the words out, like getting confident with the way that he spoke

because you can be an okay wrestler, but if you have a great, character, you're going to get over. And there's plenty of examples, as I'm saying that, that are popping into your mind. So I would say develop a character that you believe in, develop a character that you think could get over, and work on it from there. And then I think that any wrestler will tell you the basics matter, like bumping cleanly, good footwork, like all that stuff. But again, I've

never worked a match. Yeah, I've taken some bumps. I've ran the ropes. I did like a few months of wrestling training, but I've never done it. So I'm not the person who could give the best advice, but I would say listen to that interview with Must Folly. Listen to my recent interview with Sean Spears.

Because not only is Sean Spears, not only does he have flatbacks, the wrestling school with Tyler Breeze, but he also does a lot of work at the performance center, helping out the next generation of talent there. But man, if you're passionate about this, as much as you say you are, you're already more than halfway there.

Because like passion, I think, is such a huge driving force. When you're excited, when you jump out of bed excited to do the thing that you have on the calendar to do that day, man, that's passion. It makes it a whole lot easier to get out of bed to go to the gym or to go to wrestling trainer or whatever it might be.

But stick with it. I think it's the other thing, Chris, is like stick with it. It's going to be hard. You're going to have bruises. You're going to have bumps. You're going to wake up the next day with some pain. Stick with it. And it will pay off.

But again, congrats. You are doing the thing. Joe sent this one in on Chris Fanfleet.com. Hey, Chris, I find it interesting that after Elimination Chamber, nobody seems to be talking about Jay Uso. They ran that injury who'd done an angle last week, but since then, it's like everyone forgot about Jay. Is this indicative of the audience not caring about him as much?

I feel like this version of Jay Uso that we saw on Raw is like a different version of Jay Uso, like much edgier. Because it got personal the week before with CM Punk and Roman Raines and like Jay Uso kind of stepping in there, but like this wasn't like the let's run it back. Yeet, Yeeat, Jay Uso. This is a different version of him.

But I agree with you. The way he got kind of written out of Elimination Chamber and just kind of like disappeared and like we still don't know, still don't have like an exact answer here on what happened. But I really think that that one just comes down to Jay Uso wasn't supposed to win that elimination chamber qualifying match. I think it's pretty clear it was supposed to be Bronson Reed to win that match. Bronson Reed gets injured, tears his bicep, wishing him a speedy recovery. But I think Jay Uso, it's this, they call an audible.

Last minute change. Bronson Reed's injured. I know he's supposed to win the match. Well, he can't. So what do we do? J. Uso wins it. I think that after Jay Uso gets the one, two, three, they go, well,

how are we going to figure this out? What are we going to do? And that's why we had him taken out. And I think that people just kind of went, oh, well, that makes sense. He wasn't even, like, intended to be in this match. So, like, let's just keep this storyline moving forward here.

But what's going on with Jay Uso? Are the Uso's back together? Like, is J. Uso the singles wrestler, not a thing anymore? Are Jimmy and Jay back together here? Are we building for an Uso's tag team match at WrestleMania? And this one here is right along the same lines.

This one's from Christian Weigel. Sent this in on chris vanvlet.com. Send your questions in there by just scrolling down of the bottom of the homepage and you'll see the contact form there. You can just click contact and you can fill out the form and you can send in your questions for Ask CVV number one 27 on there. Hi, Chris, first off, love your show, never miss an episode.

I hope take in an insight live one day. I hope that you do as well, Christian. My question for Ask CVV, what did you make of this segment on Raw with CM Punk and the Uso? Seems like someone is headed down the heel road here, but not super clear on who it's going to be. Really curious to hear your thoughts. I have a hard time believing any of these guys would turn right now,

but I guess you never know, and that's what's so great about wrestling. Thanks and keep up the great work. Christian from Halifax, Nova Scotia from the east coast of Canada. I'm with you. There were some heel-ish things kind of being hinted at with CM Punk,

but I think that that's kind of like the wheelhouse that CM Punk kind of functions in. I think the CM Punk characters, even when he's a baby face, it's a little bit of an anti-hero. So I don't I don't know.

So we look at the main events of WrestleMania right now as it stands. We've got babyface versus baby face, and we've got baby face versus baby face. The WWE championship, the World Heavyweight Champion. Chip, baby face versus baby face all the way around here. And we have had Babyface versus Babyface WrestleMania matches before. Undertaker versus Batista, WrestleMania 23. we've had I guess

what would the other like really big one be it's John Cena versus rock could be another one right first time around WrestleMania 28 Undertaker Sean Michaels

WrestleMania 25 Undertaker Triple H WrestleMania 28 like it's not an uncommon thing but I don't know if we're going to have both main events supposed to be babyface

versus baby face, especially with that Cody Rhodes match. Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, I think even if there's been people talking about Randy Orton turning heel, I think even if Randy Orton turned heel here, he's still be getting some cheers. So I don't think Randy Orton turns heel. I also, I don't, I don't think Cody turns heel, but if Cody Rose has a promo segment tonight on SmackDown, it just seems. like there will be the kind of John Sina 2013 reaction.

Let's go Sina Sina sucks. And Cody's aware of that. So does he lean into that a little bit more? I don't know. But CM Punk turning heel, that could be a thing. And personally, I think that CM Punk's at his best when he's a heel. Those verbal barbs

they're just a little bit more aggressive. Actually, sometimes a lot more aggressive. And he has said some rather aggressive things. Like last week when he told Roman he was going to bury him next to his father, it's like, whoa, okay, I like it. We're going there with it. But I don't know. CM Punk, I think, could turn heel.

Roman Raines is getting the baby face reaction, although he never really had like an official face turn. He's certainly not a heel anymore, but he never had like the official like this is the moment. But yeah, Roman Raines is a baby face. C.M. Punk's a baby face. Randy Orton might be the biggest baby face right now.

Cody Rhodes, baby face. I don't know if that's going to be the case. In a month at WrestleMania. I don't know. Lachlan Smith sent this one in via email. Lockland said, hey, CVV, real, real one here. I'm coming to Vegas for mainly this year, all the way from Sydney, Australia. I got VIP tickets to your show for me and my fiance, which I'm super pumped for.

I'm super pumped for you guys. VIP meet and greet with me and special guest to be named later. My question slash hot take is, I think this is CM Punk's last world title reign. He's getting older. And with him having two world titles already. since returning and him having his last defense in Chicago the same night that his wife won the icy title just makes sense to me. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks so much, Lachlan. I tend to agree. And I'm really enjoying this World Heavyweight Championship run that he's

having right now. He's a fighting champion. I love the way that things came together at Elimination Chamber in his hometown. I loved the Bowles entrance. I loved all of that. I also loved the fact that Sam Punk didn't need to have that match against Finn Baller in storylines, but he had that match. He's the fighting champion that he is. He took that match on, did in his hometown. I think it was pretty clear that he was going to win. But it was so entertaining for him to do that at his hometown.

And it may be the last time that he ever has a world championship match in Chicago. I think the big question is, how many more years does Sienpunk do this? is it one, is it two? Is it five? He's 47 years old right now, turns 48 in October. And I think that after WrestleMania next month,

he's done the thing you always want to do. Yeah, he main evented last year, but he main evented night one. I know they haven't made this official yet, but it sure seems like Roman Raines v. C.M. Punk is the night. to WrestleMania main event. So then after that,

CM Punk's done everything. He's already had a Hall of Fame career. He was solidified into the Hall of Fame years ago. I think that this is a really solid world title run, but I'm with you. It feels like this might be the last one. And with all of the legends

that have been retiring recently, John Sina, AJ Stiles, rumors of Brock Lesnar. How many more years now does Randy Orton have? And now we're talking about the same thing with CM Punk. I think you might be on to something here, Lockland. It's also one of those things where I think we need to appreciate the people who are here while they're here. And that was kind of one of the really cool things about John Cena's farewell tour was

there were 36 dates to take it in. Like you knew exactly how much longer. All right, 36 dates, that feels like a lot. And then you got like halfway through the year and you're like, oh, man, there's 15 dates left. Oh, now there's 12 dates left. Now there's single digits left. Oh, my goodness.

Now there's only five left. How many more matches will he have? There's only four dates left. And we're like, we're counting it down. With someone like AJ Styles, we just saw it. It was like, wait a second. This could be his last match at the Royal Rumble. He's putting his career on the line.

Oh, wait. He lost the match. That's it. We didn't even, we didn't even have a chance to, didn't even have a chance to say goodbye. I feel like that might be the case as well with CM Punk. But while we are in it with CM Punk and this title run, I'm loving it.

Gold Yeshlin 06 on Instagram says, if you could pick one wrestler who hasn't main-evented WrestleMania, who would it be? I think it's Ria Ripley. Like, when you look at everybody who has main event or everybody's had great matches at WrestleMania, I'm shocked that Ria Rippley is not main evented at Ressalmania yet.

And I think it's just a matter of when that will happen. What a star. What a star Ria Ripley is. My goodness. You talk about mega baby faces. When her music hits at a live show, whatever it is, whether it's a PLE, a raw smackdown, a live event, it's one of the loudest pops of the night every single night.

I'm actually surprised that Ria Ripley has not made evented WrestleMania, but it's just a matter of when that happens, not if that happens. And then when you think about, like, legends, when you go down the list of like, I can't believe that person never made evented at WrestleMania, Roddy Piper, Booker T, those are like the two, like, big main event. Like, yeah, Mr. Perfect never did either, but Mr. Perfect didn't hold a world title.

Jake to Snake Roberts never main evented, but Jake to Snake Roberts never held a title in WWA. Booker T, though, like one of the all-time greats, but it just didn't shake out for him during that era. And then I think if we're looking ahead to young talent that I think will one day main event, WrestleMania other than Rea Ripley, Trick Williams.

That is just a matter of time as well. Trick Williams ticks every single box. And when we're talking about WrestleMania right now, I'm very interested to see what Trick Williams match is going to be at WrestleMania.

And that place is going to be loud for his entrance. And you know they're probably going to do something like really unique. It's not just going to be his usual entrance and whoop that trick. You know there's going to be something added on, all extra special WrestleMania entrance for Trick Williams. Tiffany Stratton, I think it's just a matter of time before she made events at WrestleMania and Bronbreaker.

And also Dominic Mysterio. I think that everybody I'm listing here, with the exception of Tiffany Stratton, who's already been a WWE champion, everybody else is a future world champion. Everybody else is a future role champion or WWE champion. So that's my list. And again, how is Ray Ripley? Not, how is she not done it? How is she not main evented? Fear Factor Figs on Instagram says,

yo, CVV, what's the biggest fish that you've ever caught? And where did you catch it? Much love from an original, real, real, real one from northwestern Indiana. Keep up the fantastic work. You guys know I love fish. so thank you for the question. Fear Factor Figs. Biggest fish I've ever caught was a Goliath grouper.

We actually did a TV segment where I caught this fish. We made a whole segment of catching it. 480 pound Goliath grouper. And you're probably thinking, man, that must have taken you hours to reel that thing in. It took like 30 seconds. And I'll tell you why. So I went out with the very talented Captain James Marco. We went out of Marco Island, Florida.

Actually, Boka Grand, Florida, and went out and filmed this TV segment, and like, we weren't, this is crazy, we weren't using a rod and reel. His technique was like using a rope with a giant hook attached, a piece of bait and dropped it down to the bottom. So when the fish,

hit and these fish are massive. If you don't know what I'm talking about, if you've never seen a Goliath Grouper, Google it. They're huge. Like, they're the size of, like, like your front door. No joke. Like, that's how big they are. Like, that's how wide they are, too.

They're just so, like, seven, eight, six, seven, eight feet long and wide. So the idea is, like, it's tug a war. Like, you're using a rope so the fish bites and, like, it's literally just like you're pulling him into the boat rather than like with a rod and reel like you're fighting it and the fish is trying you know you're trying to tire him out and it's going it's running you're trying to reel it back to

the boat and when i say running like that's that's a term of like the fish is going on a run swimming away from the boat really fast when this fish hit it was just like dead weight and both of us me and captain james marco grabbed the rope and we're like both like tug a war pulling this thing all the way to the surface made for a fantastic TV segment. And these are a protected species in Florida. So you can't even bring it in the boat. So if you want a picture with a fish, you jump in the water with it. So it's exactly what I did. I jumped in the water, went right next to it, snapped a few photos. You can Google it and you can see that. I think you can actually Google it. That TV segment from when I worked at WSVN, Channel 7 in Miami. I think

that segment's still online. But the photos are for sure. Fish is huge. And then we unhooked it and swam away. So that's the biggest fish in total. Massive. I don't know if I'll ever catch one anywhere close to that big. But I love bass fishing. Like bass fishing is like my major passion when it comes to fishing. Biggest large mouth is nine pounds. Lake Okeechobee, one of the one of the greatest largemouth bass fisheries in the world. I happened to live about an hour away from it when I lived in South Florida. Biggest small mouth, six pounds, seven ounces, Lake Erie, which is so funny. I lived right next to Lake Erie when I lived in Cleveland and was working for the CBS TV station there. Actually, you might have seen some of the very early interviews, early wrestling interviews I did there.

So those are like the Goliath group were untouchable, almost 500 pounds, like really, really. in the big show, crazy. And then those bass are, those are big. Still want a double-digit bass. Still want a double-digit large mouth. I think a double-digit small-mouth, it seems pretty unlikely. You'd be real close to the world record

if you caught a double-digit small-mouth. You would break the Canadian small-mouth bass record, which is 9.84 pounds. I have a lot of very random fishing facts. Love myself a good bass pro shop, by the way. anytime I do an interview and I'm in a town or a city that has a Bass Pro, I go there. Like when I interviewed Steve Blackman, there was one like 10 minutes from his house. Of course, I went to Bass Pro.

When I was recently in Nashville, it's like 10 minutes from the airport. You know I went to Bass Pro before I checked into the hotel. There's Bass Pro like 20 minutes from us from where we live. I love a good bass pro, and the kids love it too. They love looking at the aquarium. With all that said, that's what I said to start off this episode, and that's what I'll say to end it. With all that said, that's the last question on this.

Ask CVV, number one, two, six-sided ring, number one, two, six, one, six, one, nine. Send in your questions for next week. Ask CVV 127. Leave a comment on spot. Spotify, send it on social media using that hashtag AskCTVV or visit chris fanvly.com and send in your question like that. Hope you enjoyed the interview with Cody Rhodes.

Big Friday here. A two for a Friday. Mega Friday. Cody Rhodes interview. Ask CVV. If you haven't listened to Cody Rhodes yet, put it on. There's so much great stuff to sift through in that conversation. I hope you enjoy that chat.

as much as I did. I already told you who we have for next week. Chris Masters on Tuesday, Candice Michelle on Thursday. And I will leave you with this quote. I saw Lewis Howes share this on social media and I loved you. While you're doubting your worth, remember someone else is admiring your existence. Be great and be grateful, my friend. Have an amazing weekend and we will see you on the next one for some more inside. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock, but there was one band that had it all.

Hammer Alley. Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of them? To Rock Bottom.

Dude, I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing it. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.